#41 Kyle Morgan - Delta Force Operator

Kyle Morgan brings us on his journey from his childhood to the world's most elite and secretive special operations unit known as "Delta Force". On 20 November 2015, Islamist militants took 170 hostages killing 20 of them in a mass shooting at the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako, the capital city of Mali. Kyle was one of the sole responders and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his actions that day. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://www.mudwtr.com/shawn (USE CODE SHAWN) https://www.bubsnaturals.com (USE CODE SHAWN) https://prepwithshawn.com/ https://meetfabric.com/shawn https://www.patreon.com/VigilanceElite Kyle Morgan Links: https://www.instagram.com/kylemorganactual/ https://blubearingsolutions.com/ Vigilance Elite/Shawn Ryan Links: Website - https://www.shawnryanshow.com Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/VigilanceElite TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@shawnryanshow Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/shawnryan762 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:53Shawn Ryan?

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• 1:30Shawn Ryan?

  It's that time of year, everybody. It is that time of year to get with your families, with your in-laws, and have that wonderful dinner. Thanksgiving dinner. No politics, no religion, no arguing, ever. Right? Just kidding. I just want to wish you all a happy Thanksgiving. And we brought a very special episode to you this year for Thanksgiving. Kyle Morgan, he's a former Delta Boy, Delta Force Operator. Kyle has done one of the most heroic acts that I have ever had the pleasure, not the pleasure, the honor, to listen to on The Sean Ryan Show.

• 2:15Shawn Ryan?

  He saved...

• 2:18Shawn Ryan?

  A lot of people by entering a hotel by himself who's being shot up by bad guys. Ladies and gentlemen, this show started out showing you the tough transitions that warfighters do going from fighting wars into the civilian population. And Kyle, at the time of recording this, had only been out for 44 days. You're gonna see exactly what it looks like when a warfighter comes home from war and tries to reintegrate into civilian life. You're gonna see that he can't hold a single thought, he can't wrap his head around a

• 2:58Shawn Ryan?

  single subject, and you're gonna see him relive events. It's gonna be all over his face, especially when we get to the hotel, the trauma that that caused. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Kyle Morgan to the Sean Ryan Show. Kyle Morgan, welcome to the show, man. Yeah, Sean, thanks for having me. My pleasure. We've been going back and forth for, what, like, six months now? Yeah. And finally got you in here. Yeah.

• 3:39Shawn Ryan?

  Had a couple of good conversations, but, so, brief introduction, 20 years in Army, most of which is special operations work, almost all combat time. Your service is incredible. Some of your awards: Distinguished Service Cross for extraordinary heroism, five Bronze Star medals, one with valor, U.S. Department of State Bureau of Diplomatic Security Certificate of Heroism, Military Free Fall with Bronze Star Combat, three Presidential Unit citations, two Meritorious Unit citations, Defense Meritorious Service Medal, Meritorious Service Medal,

• 4:23Shawn Ryan?

  six Army Good Contact medals, and the list goes on. That's a hell of a career, man. But, um, so, we're gonna cover your whole life story, starting with childhood, but first, we always start with a gift.

• 4:46Shawn Ryan?

  Any guesses?

• 4:47Speaker 04

  What's in the box, man? Uh, I hope it's donuts.

• 4:51Shawn Ryan?

  Donuts? Damn.

• 4:54Speaker 04

  They're better, I hope there better be donuts in your show.

• 4:56Shawn Ryan?

  Close.

• 4:57Speaker 04

  Um, no, thank you very much. The guess would be, yeah, donuts and maybe, um,

• 5:05Speaker 04

  I don't know, some gummy bears or, I don't know.

• 5:08Shawn Ryan?

  Finally, somebody watches the show that's on here.

• 5:11Speaker 04

  No, I'm just kidding. It's like...

• 5:12Shawn Ryan?

  Nobody ever guesses that.

• 5:16Speaker 04

  I'm not really good at the opening.

• 5:18Shawn Ryan?

  Just rip it open.

• 5:20Speaker 04

  Hell, yeah.

• 5:21Shawn Ryan?

  There you go.

• 5:22Speaker 04

  Dude, better than donuts, man.

• 5:25Shawn Ryan?

  Made right here in the USA.

• 5:28Speaker 04

  No, thank you very much.

• 5:31Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, you're welcome.

• 5:32Speaker 04

  No, I appreciate it.

• 5:33Shawn Ryan?

  Well, thank you for the flag.

• 5:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 5:35Shawn Ryan?

  That's gonna look good, framed up.

• 5:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, thanks for, um, letting me, uh, like, give it to you and, uh, and sign it, and it means a lot to me. So that flag is the, it's the, Blue Bearing Solutions is the company I started and, you know, being proactive with my retirement and transition and,

• 5:55Speaker 04

  that flag is, uh,

• 5:59Speaker 04

  I jumped it, um, for the first time. I haven't jumped in two years since I had my neck fused and, you know, I'm gonna retire it here with you. Um, so I jumped it, signed it, and, um, now it's yours.

• 6:11Shawn Ryan?

  Well, it'll be framed up, hanging in the studio proudly. But, um, man, I'm just, I'm real excited for this interview. You know, you, so you have started your training company, Blue Bearing Solutions. You're 44 days out of the military. I believe that makes you the most relevant man in the training space, whether you'd like to hear that or not. You're the most current. And, um, I know you're really,

• 6:43Shawn Ryan?

  you have a heart of gold and you wanna help with this active shooter shit that's been going on. And, um, we just had another one last night in Memphis, all over the city. And so, let's start off talking about that. You know, you think there's a solution to this, and it's, it is happening more and more and more. Some people wanna take the guns away, they think that's the solution. Some people think armed teachers is a solution. What do you, what's Kyle's solution?

• 7:14Speaker 04

  I think empowering people and not just to bear arms. Like, a gun is a tool. And it can be used for good, to defend and to protect. And it can also be used for these atrocities that have been happening since Columbine, since 1999, where our children are being taken from us. And they are, by definition, innocent, in a sense. They cannot protect themselves, nor should they have to in that sense. We need to create an environment that we, as an American society, have had.

• 7:57Speaker 04

  And the fact is, it's a societal change that needs to happen. Yeah. Taking ownership of the fact that it isn't how it used to be. And thank God, this isn't an organized terrorist group that's been conducting these attacks, because we wouldn't be ready for it as a society. Like, we're not even ready for it. And the biggest thing that we can do, it's not a solution. It's a societal change. It's impacting our youth and then developing and protecting them to become contributing members of our society, and then their kids.

• 8:38Speaker 04

  Like, what we can do right now is, and what I can do and what I'm doing, is showing people that you can make a difference. One person can make all the difference in taking action, absorbing one fraction of that attacker's bandwidth, to focusing on you. And the sooner that you can do that, and then never... The pursuit of that, and then once that happens, you hold on to it like imagine and put yourself into the the children's feet and eyes. Like you take that from them. Yeah.

• 9:18Speaker 04

  If you are a protector, because a lot of people think that they're protectors and they're just providers. To truly protect is is to do both, like provide and to protect and and to use overwhelming force if you need to, and I don't want to create and look for fights. And that's not the life I'm living anymore. But I also know that I will step and take that from any anyone's child. And I will put that burden on to me. And I know that I will continue to pursue in never letting go of that because all it takes is is now they're focusing

• 10:02Speaker 04

  a fraction of their bandwidth on you. Uh huh. And oh shit, where where did where are they at? Where'd they come from? What are they doing? Are they gonna, what are they gonna do? For one, they may, they may just off themselves right away. And the statistics are there, like if you look at like the the incidences that have happened and then as the the results of them and through who who intervened and then how long it had, was it going? Reducing the amount of time for them to go un unadulterated. Like they have the upper hand, but with building your confidence in that you can do something.

• 10:45Speaker 04

  And if that something is just getting between good and evil, like you'll be able to rest at night. And if you're, and if the tomorrow problem is that you're in jail for acting, well, then that's a, that's a bigger societal issue we have, isn't it? But. I'll be in jail or dead in heaven, you know, and those are tomorrow problems.

• 11:06Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 11:06Speaker 04

  But right then, it's just empathy, it's compassion.

• 11:11Shawn Ryan?

  So you think it's

• 11:12Speaker 04

  For others.

• 11:12Shawn Ryan?

  You think that the, the solution to this is, is basically a cultural change?

• 11:18Speaker 04

  It's a massive cultural change.

• 11:19Shawn Ryan?

  Everybody needs to adopt this mindset.

• 11:21Speaker 04

  Taking ownership of it, the fact that we can't just ignore this, ignorance is not bliss. And how many more of these have to happen before we, because we are powerful. We as a collective can make, and we have, you look at our society, like we have done some amazing things as a, as the American culture and, and like it's, I'm, I'm so proud to be an American and it's not, it's not that it's gone, it just, it needs to be stoked.

• 11:53Shawn Ryan?

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• 13:11Shawn Ryan?

  Policy issued by Southern Life Assurance Company, not available in certain states. Prices subject to underwriting and health questions. All right, let's get back to it. One of the things that I see in today's culture is everybody, everybody's just looking for somebody to blame. They, they, nobody actually wants to take responsibility and nobody actually, from the school boards to the parents, to the politicians, to the people.

• 13:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 13:41Shawn Ryan?

  You know, what I see a lot of answers are, is instead of the parents actually learning, maybe some things that they could adopt to improve their, you know, kids' chances of survival, if that was to happen, like I, I did a video that was like five things that you could do, you know, if there was an active shooter. And, but what I see the parents doing is they wanna, they wanna hire a security guard. They want, they are legitimately willing to bet their kid's life on somebody that they're gonna pay thirteen dollars an hour for.

• 14:19Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:20Shawn Ryan?

  And that's their solution. They think that somebody that's being paid thirteen dollars an hour is gonna jump in front of the bullet that's heading right for their kid's face. And that's not gonna happen.

• 14:32Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 14:32Shawn Ryan?

  You know, because, and, and I, I think that the people are just too busy, or they, they think that their priorities aren't there, that's, it's, well, this is somebody else's job to teach my kid this stuff. This is somebody else's job to protect, that's your fucking job.

• 14:47Speaker 04

  No, it's.

• 14:47Shawn Ryan?

  That's your fucking kid.

• 14:48Speaker 04

  Your safety and your security and, and of what you care about and who you care about is, is on you.

• 14:55Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 14:55Speaker 04

  And like, there's all kinds of, like, people wanna throw tools or resources or a bill, a policy, uh, like, they'll take the guns, give them guns, uh. Like, to me, it's like, let's strip all of that away and just focus on the fact that, like, get back to center of, of what it is to be a protector. Like truly in your household and then if you if you think about how powerful that is as it to make a change like an impact change it's like a ripple effect like if you do that in your house and then that spreads you know over time in your spheres of influence and then

• 15:37Speaker 04

  I'm doing it and then we're building a league of protectors right and then we're changing the way that we think is a cultural shift like it's not necessarily it's it's not saying because what I can't do Kyle Morgan and Blue Bearing is I'm not trying to lobby in politics to do this or that or the other like I'm just focusing on what what I can do is is show people what right looks like in this space of active shooter and expose them to environments that I've been in and and and with that it's it's about exposure

• 16:19Speaker 04

  and there's no one situation that's going to look the same and you apply the same tactic every time it's it's not it's here it's mindset it's and that's why I do protector mindset training.

• 16:34Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I mean, you're the perfect guy for the job, especially with your career and what happened to Molly, you know, you've been you've been through it.

• 16:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 16:44Shawn Ryan?

  The exact scenario.

• 16:46Speaker 04

  And that's why like my company I started my company it's spelled B L U for a reason as a as a direct correlation with Radisson Blue Hotel spelled the same way and it's also my favorite color and it's also a direct correlation with as a color with depression and sadness and then bearing like Atlas bearing the weight of the world or bearing it all like no human should but we do and I damn sure did for a long time and and that's not for us it's for God and I can say that from this seat here because I could never see that for what it was and and. And then how you carry yourself, your military bearing, you know, and then a compass bearing.

• 17:31Speaker 04

  So if you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there. And I was doing that my whole life. And now I've been in the light and on this path with a bearing I've been shown by God. And now it's on me to stay on that, on that bearing.

• 17:48Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 17:50Speaker 04

  But to start the company, it was active shooter, active killer, active threat. Like the Radisson Blue Hotel that was attacked November 20th, 2015. Like I was deployed in that country, but working out of the embassy and I had been.

• 18:08Shawn Ryan?

  Don't get into that yet.

• 18:09Speaker 04

  Okay, sorry.

• 18:09Shawn Ryan?

  Let's, we'll get there, we'll get there. I know you're dying to tell that, we'll get there. But let's, let's start, let's go ahead and start with the interview. But let's start a little earlier than 2015. Let's start back in 1984 when you were born. Where, where, where'd you grow up?

• 18:25Speaker 04

  All right, so I was born in central Florida, a little, little town, Eustis, Florida. Probably lived there for, I don't know, four or five years. And then we moved to upstate New York. So my dad's family's from all, from upstate New York and then all my mom's family's from Florida.

• 18:47Speaker 04

  But as a young adolescent, I mean, we moved, I don't know, 10, 15, 10 to 15 times. By the time I left for, you know, by the time I turned 18.

• 18:59Shawn Ryan?

  What kind of stuff were you into growing up?

• 19:02Speaker 04

  So I couldn't sit, I never could sit still. I was always like climbing on the window seals from the way that my mother used to explain it.

• 19:12Speaker 04

  Yeah, imagine that. But it was a very.

• 19:19Speaker 04

  I did a lot of organized sports that was my like football, baseball, basketball, like from five, from soon as I could, so from five years old. So I enjoyed like the team aspects of those and like, but then the stability piece just wasn't there as far as moving around. So I can never really plant my feet and like figure out who I was and who I wanted to be. And yeah, so as a young adolescent, I just, you know, when I was younger and then when things got a little harder with academia and I was just like struggling, you know, so I started acting out and, you know, looking

• 20:01Speaker 04

  for attention and it was easier because we'd go from one school to another and I'd be the new guy or whatever and I could just start over, you know, and but that played into a lot about, you know, by the 10th grade in high school, I think I got kicked off football team because of my GPA got too low, below like a 2.0 and I was just like, okay, uh, Roger that. So I just started like, all right, I guess football's not gonna happen. I mean, that was my passion. And so then I just started, you know, focusing on all the things that were instant like gratification and, you know, oh, you like me, don't you?

• 20:44Speaker 04

  Yeah, I'm cool. That was my sense of self. Like I had been nurtured in an environment where like no one showed me. I wasn't developed like by a positive male role model or female. It was very chaotic and How? Like you never, well, the stability piece like creates chaos in itself. And then, you know, that with like just the normalization of, of, of behaviors. And, you know, I just

• 21:23Speaker 04

  watched and was either a part of my, my mother abused my father and my father just verbally, physically would drink himself into

• 21:37Speaker 04

  Just to isolate himself in the garage or whatever. And it was just like, to me, I just saw that as, he just doesn't want to be here, you know. And the one thing I will say is he never, he never left, you know. He put up with all of that. And it was just so, just raged and,

• 21:55Speaker 04

  like, just jealousy and codependency and all these things that I just, now, mind you, this is me. I've been, thirty eight years later, I'm looking back with the lens I've been shown and are put on. And, you know, it's in hindsight. I mean, it's not for a child to have to make sense of that shit, you know. And it's unfair, but it also is just a part of my story. And it's, um, but I will say, I lived my life even as a young father. Um, well, no, you guys don't have it this bad. You don't have it that bad. You don't know what bad is.

• 22:32Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 22:32Speaker 04

  And that's just not a way to parent, you know. And I feel like I held my head for,

• 22:39Speaker 04

  you know, minimizing my own behavior in front of them, you know. And, um, that's the part where I'm really, like, I really want to change that, you know, that narrative, that break those generational, like, norms in my legacy. And I can, and I am.

• 22:59Shawn Ryan?

  Were you into hunting or?

• 23:01Speaker 04

  What, girls? That was about it. Yeah, that was like my-

• 23:05Shawn Ryan?

  Girls and booze?

• 23:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, that was it, man. And I say that loosely because, or not loosely, but I guess, like,

• 23:14Speaker 04

  it was, my sense of self was, oh, you think I'm good looking? Or, uh, I, look how good I did, you know, because I was physically fit. And, um, those were like the, those were the escapes, you know, for me to say, well- Like, you know, I'm just this scared little boy inside, afraid of his own shadow.

• 23:36Shawn Ryan?

  You know, there's a lot of people growing up in the world like that, you know, with dysfunctional family, moving around a lot. And there's gonna be a lot more now that Roe versus Wade has been overturned. You know, it's gonna be a lot of kids in poverty. So, looking back, you know, if it yourself, do you have any advice for kids that are growing up in a situation that's similar or worse than yours?

• 24:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, you're not alone, period. Like, there is, there is positive role models out there that want to show and to show you and to hold your hand through your developmental phase. It's just more people like myself and then I'm trying to become, need to step up and just take ownership of that as well. Because, like, there's obviously my children that I have to change and work through, but I can also be there for their friends and their friends of friends. Like, and that's the opportunities that I have now and I'm just so grateful for because I can focus on it.

• 24:51Speaker 04

  My priorities of, like, it's a, it's a complete shift of, like, I've been so focused for 20 years on combating terrorism abroad. Like, there's a lot of work to do here inside of our own borders and that's what I'm focused on. And it starts at the household. It starts at, like, positive male role models. Like, we don't have those anymore.

• 25:13Shawn Ryan?

  So, are you saying those kids need to seek out a positive male role model?

• 25:17Speaker 04

  Well, it's not on them, it's like us.

• 25:19Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I'm saying for the kid.

• 25:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, like, they just know that there is, there is good people out there and what you're, like, it's not on them, like, the environments that they're, they're, like, raised in and situational, like,

• 25:40Speaker 04

  Like, I don't blame children for, for growing up in, in mud huts and radical extremism. I don't blame them. I don't blame children that grow up in poverty and around drugs and alcohol and, and abuse and, uh, I don't, they're the, they are the definition of innocence.

• 25:59Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 25:59Speaker 04

  Like, they are. At a certain point, that, that becomes their, their reality, right? Like, that's, and then they step into society and that's just their reality. But

• 26:12Speaker 04

  for me, it's about challenging other male role models to step up and, and like, seek out these, these, you know, this is our societal, if we want to make a change.

• 26:25Shawn Ryan?

  Be a good example.

• 26:26Speaker 04

  Be a good example. And that's just, like, showing people what right looks like.

• 26:30Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 26:31Speaker 04

  Like, that's it. It doesn't mean you gotta have this many volunteer hours at this or that. It's just when opportunities present themselves, see them for what they are. And, and, um,

• 26:43Speaker 04

  realize that the impact that you can have is, is profound. And you don't, you can't measure it. And it's not, like, quantifiable. So

• 26:54Speaker 04

  you just do it early and often. And, and I think as a, that's how you impact change. And, but to, you know, the children in the, in those situations is like,

• 27:05Speaker 04

  like, this is the greatest country in, in the world to, to grow up in, to, to be a part of.

• 27:12Speaker 04

  And don't, you know, don't let the circumstances that you've been presented with, you know, define you as a, as a person, as a young adolescent.

• 27:22Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I think you're a perfect example of, you don't have to live there forever.

• 27:28Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:28Shawn Ryan?

  You know, there are a lot of kids feel trapped, you know, that they're not ever gonna get out of that. But there's, there are ways out of it. And you're a perfect example.

• 27:39Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 27:39Shawn Ryan?

  And you operated at the, at the, at the highest level possible. So, so at what point did US military become?

• 27:51Shawn Ryan?

  When did you become interested in that?

• 27:54Speaker 04

  So I think it was probably my, between my junior and going into my senior year of high school, like I wasn't gonna, I got sat down by a teacher that like saw, he saw something in me and um, the potential or you know, the opportunity to, to like develop someone, you know, youth and he took, it was very like, uh, I don't know, I just remember it now because it meant a lot to me and I couldn't remember a lot about my past um, for a long, long time. Um, but you know, he was a positive male role model, you know, that isn't your

• 28:34Speaker 04

  biological parent, you know, and he also uh, served in the Ranger Regiment. Um, and I remember him showing me a photo of doing some like, small unit tactic training and stuff. I mean, I didn't know what it was back then. I was like, God, that looks so cool. And now I'm like, how was that cool? But, but it was like in the nineties or whatever. Yeah. Just like, blue, red, yellow, smoke, you know, this and that in the woods. Um, but as a young kid, I was like, wow, that's like really cool. And um, it, and it was, I mean, like the fact that he shared that and then, he wasn't trying to get me to join the military. Um, I was interested in listening to his stories and, and um, but he sat me

• 29:18Speaker 04

  down, was like, hey man, like you're not gonna graduate if you, if we don't like write this path. So he set me onto a path and, and uh, I mean, I was like, I had to catch up on a bunch of classes. I just kept like blowing off and either failing or whatever and um, but he put me on that trajectory like in a short amount of time, my senior year, or towards the end of my junior and then senior year and then nine eleven happened. Um, uh, two thousand and one and I remember I was in, you know, the classroom I was in and, and it was just such a like, a visceral like feeling and surreal uh, to see the towers,

• 30:03Speaker 04

  you know, the first one and then the second one get hit and then then go down. It was just like, this isn't real, you know? Even as a, as a younger, I was seventeen and I was like, what, what, what was happening? You know, and um,

• 30:18Speaker 04

  I mean, but that was, I mean, obviously it was, it was our, it was our reality. And I, I talked with him a little bit, but I went and talked to a recruiter, army recruiter. And then December I went to MEPS and did all the, and Tampa, because I went back to Florida for high school and signed up at seventeen in the delayed entry program. And my, I remember my mother had to sign as my, I was still under eighteen. So it was contingent on that I graduated. And then I turned eighteen and I left two weeks later for basic training. So.

• 31:00Shawn Ryan?

  Did you know you wanted to go into special operations?

• 31:03Speaker 04

  No, I, I joined, I didn't know anything about like who was what and what units are this and that and the other. But for some reason, the eighty second airborne, I had heard of, you know, it's America's Guard of Honor. It's a, you know, it's a, it's a very rich in culture and history and from World War Two. And that's what I signed up for was an airborne contract that brought me to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, like right away. So as soon as I finished infantry school and jump school in Benning, Fort Benning, Georgia, I went, I reported to Bragg at the end of two thousand two.

• 31:45Speaker 04

  And yeah, so, I mean, just completely wet behind the ears, man. I didn't know, I was just like a little punk, you know?

• 31:55Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 31:56Speaker 04

  And I got humbled all the time.

• 31:59Shawn Ryan?

  I bet.

• 32:02Speaker 04

  And yeah, it was a, I remember the platoon I showed up to and I was the only new guy for a long time, man. So I like ate it all as far as the, the hazing and.

• 32:16Shawn Ryan?

  Well, before we get into your time at the eighty second, let's take a quick break.

• 32:24Shawn Ryan?

  I used to live in Florida. And when I lived in Florida, I learned a very valuable lesson going through hurricane after hurricane after hurricane after hurricane. And that lesson is do not wait for the last minute to get the emergency type items that you need because they are not going to be there because guess who else is looking for that? Everyone else around you, everybody on the planet. So I invested in some long-term emergency food with My Patriot Supply. This is a one-month supply. This food lasts for 25 years, doesn't go bad for 25 years.

• 33:07Shawn Ryan?

  You just keep it somewhere, safe, hold on to it. And then when things like 2020 happened, the food shortages, the next hurricane, maybe a tornado, any type of emergency, guess what? While everybody else is scurrying around trying to figure out how they're going to survive this thing, you've already got everything prepped and ready to go. It's, I'm telling you, it is the best feeling in the world to be at home, see something happen on the news and know we're already ready for this. It's no big deal and everybody else is going to be out there scurrying around the grocery stores, fighting for a little case of water or some food.

• 33:51Shawn Ryan?

  My Patriot Supply is the nation's largest preparedness company. It is currently offering a 20% discount on their popular three-month emergency food kit. Go to prepwithshawn.com right now and grab your 20% savings off each three-month kit you need. That's prepwithshawn.com.

• 34:20Shawn Ryan?

  All right, Kyle, we're back from the break. You're joining the army. You get to boot camp.

• 34:27Speaker 04

  Basic training.

• 34:28Shawn Ryan?

  Basic training, whatever they call it over there. But, uh, what was that like?

• 34:34Speaker 04

  What a shock. It was, uh, like, the, you show up, you know, they shave your head. You get, and there's a line for everything. Get in line. You just get indoctrinated. And that's the point, I think, to, to following orders. Um, and, you know, and building, uh, to see if you can, you know, cut the, cut it. And I, um, I really thrived in that space because as much as I wanted or was acting out as an adolescent and as a teenager, I mean, I got arrested twice before I was 18.

• 35:19Shawn Ryan?

  What?

• 35:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, I totally forgot about that, but yeah.

• 35:21Shawn Ryan?

  You forgot that you got arrested?

• 35:23Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 35:24Shawn Ryan?

  What'd you get arrested for?

• 35:25Speaker 04

  One was like shoplifting.

• 35:27Shawn Ryan?

  What'd you steal?

• 35:28Speaker 04

  It was like a tie.

• 35:30Shawn Ryan?

  Nice.

• 35:30Speaker 04

  From like a department store and like one of the, um, like testing bottles of cologne.

• 35:37Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, yeah?

• 35:38Speaker 04

  On a dare.

• 35:39Shawn Ryan?

  On a dare?

• 35:39Speaker 04

  Yeah, it was like, oh, I bet you can't, but you can't walk out with that. And I was like, shit. I walked out with it. And then, uh, this guy was like, hey, man, I'm gonna need my stuff back. I was like, what stuff? And I was just like, huh. So he took me in and, and, uh, I was like 16, 17. I was like acting out, man. And the other time it was, uh, we got pulled over and we were, we skipped school and we're partying and stuff and drinking and, uh, yeah, underage drinking. And I had like a fake ID that I made.

• 36:17Speaker 04

  Because in Florida, I'm not gonna get into that, but. No, let's get into it. So we can't do them anymore. So you're a graphic artist at sixteen years old. Sixteen years, just resourceful. Nice. And I would like sell them. Okay, only, only. You made a business. Yeah, a little business. I forgot about that. Entrepreneur. Looking for ways to make money, to party, you know, and be cool. What does a fake ID go for in Florida back in what, the nine, two thousands? This was in late nineties, two thousands, yeah. So it only worked if, it was a kind of a limited model. But if you had, if you were born in eighty-four, I could turn the four into a one. And it's in two places on the ID. And then I would basically photocopy.

• 36:59Speaker 04

  So I erased the four to where, like with an eraser and then

• 37:06Speaker 04

  cut out a photocopy of a one, like the same, someone's ID that was born in eighty-one. And then like use packaging tape or whatever and put that over it and then, and place it correctly. And then you could, with warm water, you could rub the white, the white or the, the white off the paper. Off and then let it dry and then it'll be, it'll have the adhesive again and then place it over. So it wouldn't pass like a, it wouldn't, it would get you into clubs, like. That would get you old and like dancing and like underage or. Yeah, but you still couldn't like drink, but it would allow me to go and fit in and stuff with older.

• 37:49Speaker 04

  I had like older, older crowd friends and stuff and I wanted to be able to hang out. So.

• 37:57Speaker 04

  Yeah. And that led to, I had to like, I didn't even know what a Colonel was, like in oh six. Like I had to do, they had to do a waiver to get me in. And I had to like tell them, like talk to them, you know, and explain to them why, why I should, he should let me join the army. No shit. Yeah. And I totally forgot about that, but yeah, like, I was like, who's this and why do I have to, what? And I was like, okay. Um, and I talked to him and, well, I convinced him and, um, you know, it, it, uh.

• 38:32Speaker 04

  Give me one second on that. Where was I going with that?

• 38:38Speaker 04

  There was another element of.

• 38:41Shawn Ryan?

  You wouldn't have gotten in the army had it not been for that Colonel that gave you basically a second chance.

• 38:46Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah, and like, I was supposed to be joining with my cousin, like, we were, we both signed up together. But he couldn't, he couldn't score high enough on the ASVAB to get a bonus, right? And this is what good recruiters do. They had me take his ASVAB. For him.

• 39:07Shawn Ryan?

  Are you shitting me?

• 39:08Speaker 04

  Like, I feel out his name. And like.

• 39:12Speaker 04

  And then I scored high enough again to where he, so he could get a bonus, so he did the whole like, raise your right hand thing and the delayed entry and then never left. Like, he didn't graduate high school and just like went on whatever path he went on. So then it was just me. But, yeah, there was a lot of things, like.

• 39:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, there's a lot of pivotal points that just.

• 39:36Shawn Ryan?

  Worked out in your favor.

• 39:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, it worked out, yeah. I mean, there's been a lot of that going on. Just riding the wave of all of those. Um, but now I'm taking, taking ownership and taking control of my own life in my own actions.

• 39:51Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 39:52Speaker 04

  And that's really it. And the rest is for. For God.

• 39:55Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 39:56Speaker 04

  Which is a really comforting feeling, yeah.

• 39:59Shawn Ryan?

  You got in, you're at the 82nd Airborne. What's that like, checking in? Where is that?

• 40:04Speaker 04

  Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

• 40:05Shawn Ryan?

  Was your whole career at Bragg?

• 40:07Speaker 04

  Basically, yeah.

• 40:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, there wasn't. There wasn't much time. Spent, I mean, it was there and not there. I mean, I, I'm, I got there and.

• 40:22Speaker 04

  Like, it was just, it was awful, for one. It was, the barracks were like. They weren't the World War II barracks, but they were like the old barracks, man. You could still smoke in them and shit and like. Everyone smoked cigarettes for some reason. I was like, was this like a thing? It's like Marlboro, cowboy killers and. You know, I was just like. Well, I just want to fit in. So. I was so stressed out. I remember how. I got thought about going AWOL. Like, because. Like, it, it was, for one, there was a lot of systemic.

• 41:00Speaker 04

  Like just the cultural like racism and and things that I just wasn't used to like I was just like what is this and you know if I had something to say against against it man I paid for it and um because they would use the rank and this and that and everyone outranked me so it was just like go go smoke him smoke scuff auto scuff you know and I was like physically strong so they couldn't necessarily break me and that pissed them off.

• 41:32Shawn Ryan?

  There was a lot of racism when you went there and you stood up to it.

• 41:35Speaker 04

  Yeah, like when I first.

• 41:38Shawn Ryan?

  They crushed you for it.

• 41:38Speaker 04

  Yeah, like it.

• 41:43Speaker 04

  There was um I it really was off putting to me and it should be but it was like I was like hit by it where it caught me off guard I was like what is this like and um and that wasn't all of them but like the squad I went to specifically in the platoon it was kind of like it was there was elements of it and it was um I was like uh and um but I was also like trying to figure out who I am as like an adult you know young adult I was 18 and

• 42:19Speaker 04

  you know I uh physically like they would I'd be I'd have my back to the door like holding it closed every day like in a squad meeting they'd be fucking chain smoking cigarettes and just laughing and you know doing whatever and I'd be in the iron chair holding a Kevlar in each hand upside you know upside down and they would just be putting shit in it and taking it out asking me trivia like and if I got it wrong they would put more shit in it but I would be there for waiting on the word for hours at a time.

• 42:56Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 42:57Speaker 04

  I mean it was like and I remember one one time I went home because I would drive back to Florida just to get away like eight hour drive like on a weekend a regular weekend so like a Friday you know release and then come got to be there first formation or you know an hour before that formation and whatever so I'd be there I would just drive straight

• 43:19Speaker 04

  And this one time, I remember them like calling me, hey, we need you to show up at this detail. And it was like a shoot shakeout detail like that last minute. It was on a Saturday. And I was like, hey, sar- sar- sergeant, I'm a, I'm not in North Carolina, I'm in Florida. And they were like, oh, really? Okay. Well, no, just enjoy your, basically, the way I remember it was like, enjoy your weekend, but we got something for you when you get back. And I remember that day vividly, which I don't remember a lot about, just through physical and psychological trauma, it's like,

• 44:02Speaker 04

  but that is very vivid to me because I, I, uh, I got back at like four in the morning and the squad leader, staff sergeant like stayed overnight waiting on me. Like had a home off post, you know, and this is his life, you know, and

• 44:20Speaker 04

  basically every, I got smoked, like scuffed up or, uh, I don't even know what you call that, like corrective, like punishment or whatever for a good thirty six hours.

• 44:37Shawn Ryan?

  No shit.

• 44:37Speaker 04

  To the point where I was like, I can't, I was doing like, you know, I couldn't. And, uh, yeah, and but for, for what though? Like build character?

• 44:48Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 44:49Speaker 04

  Now, I don't think it really built character. I think what it did do for me is

• 44:57Speaker 04

  it showed me what a leader is and isn't. And, and it started to, it was like the, the first cusp of, well, this is what leading is and being in charge, right? Like being in charge is a title. Like I could throw a title on you, like whomever, and that doesn't mean that you, you know how to lead. Um, so that's why I've been very focused on.

• 45:22Speaker 04

  Like at its core, it's about communication and compassion for others to lead. Yeah. It just is like there's a time to take charge and be in charge like and and lead, excuse me. Uh, in those situations where decisions need to be made.

• 45:40Speaker 04

  But that's where I viewed and I always sought out like, there's gotta be something else out here better. You know, and I think very quickly, you know, we went to Iraq in um.

• 45:52Speaker 04

  Uh, June of two thousand three. With the eighty second. Yeah, and I realized pretty quickly when I'm like getting off the damn airplane and we're like locked and loaded, man. Doing all these like spirals to get into the biop and they had just like, you know, set up and I was like, oh, man, we're getting in it. Right, right. As soon as we hit the ground and I'm like, ah, here, here it comes. Were you excited? Did you want it? Yeah, I was excited. Yeah, I was like, yes. And uh, I mean, I was scared. I was like, oh, I don't know. But there were so many of us. I was like, oh, we got this and they know what they're doing. And then we they land and the the ramp lowers and it's the freaking eighty second airborne division band.

• 46:33Speaker 04

  Are you shitting me? I was like, wait a minute, you mean the band beat beat us here? Like, what?

• 46:40Speaker 04

  What is going on? It was just like, I I was, uh. I was really taken back from that and um, I was like, okay, we're all right. And report over there and it was like this tent that didn't have any, didn't even have the walls. It was just like a tent, no A C like none of that, man. It was one hundred and forty degrees, man. And I just remember doing the acclimation for two weeks where you're just laying in sweats or uh pools of sweat in these cots. And it just looks like human silhouettes, just like when you stand up from it. And it was just so and just like the ice, they would, the moments of reprieve, you know, like.

• 47:23Speaker 04

  Um, they would bring in these big ice blocks like from wherever and you just like. They try to like hug it, you know, and it was hot and um.

• 47:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, and then, and then we got put pushed to uh the base that we were gonna take over. And it was this old chicken factory in Mamma D'ia, Yusefia. And uh that's when shit started getting real. And um you know, that's the part where I think I saw so many other things. And we did so many different things as an infantry battalion in that, in that space that in support of other different elements and, and, and special operations. And I didn't know, I was just like, who the hell's that? Who's that? Why they look like that? And um I'm like, I wanna, I wanna see what, I wanna do what they're doing. Cause I also realized like, man, nobody knows what the fuck they're doing.

• 48:21Speaker 04

  You know, like in the, in the earlier stage of the war. It was just like, we're like ratchet strapping MRE boxes full of fucking rocks and sand and shit to, on cargo Humvees uses armor to roll around.

• 48:35Shawn Ryan?

  No shit.

• 48:35Speaker 04

  To roll around to just react to contact. Like what, what's our mission? You know, just react to contact or just like nine dudes in a Humvee just waiting to get stitched up and um.

• 48:47Shawn Ryan?

  Were you rolling out in convoys or was it just one?

• 48:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, we had platoon convoys just rolling out our areas of, of uh responsibility or whatever, but it was legitimately like fishing. Except for we were the bait. It's just like, what are we doing?

• 49:04Shawn Ryan?

  Um. How, how did you, I mean, at that young age in a conventional unit, I mean, did that strike you as, I don't know if we should be doing this shit.

• 49:16Speaker 04

  Well, there's, yeah, there was moments of that where I was just like, hmm. I mean, you see things and then you, you're a part of them and then you're like.

• 49:27Speaker 04

  I don't really understand that. And if they can't explain the why, like.

• 49:32Shawn Ryan?

  Would they try to explain the why?

• 49:33Speaker 04

  Sometimes, and sometimes they wouldn't. Sometimes they'd be like, because this is what we do. And I'm like, but I just would take note in my head. And I'm like, just like when I first showed up, like, okay, Roger that.

• 49:46Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 49:46Speaker 04

  And I, I use that to help build like my own like sense of uh duty and, and act and how to act and, and operate. And I, it's continued to like never really conforming to, well, we just do it without someone explaining. And I remain curious about it, you know? And I think that that's, that's a massive part of why I was able to accomplish these things I accomplished.

• 50:14Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm genuinely fascinated and conventional, how conventional units work because I, I never had the opportunity to work in a conventional unit. It went straight, straight into SOF. So are they, I've worked with conventional units, but I've never been in one. Are they at all open to new ideas?

• 50:37Speaker 04

  I think just like any, any organization that's still an organization in the military, like a conventional or not, like through 20 years of what we've been doing, like they had to evolve. And because like even when we were training, train up for that, that first deployment, I was doing inner and clear trench, man. Like Bangalore torpedoes, you know, concertina wire and like getting down and like clearing by fire with like two people online, like shooting everywhere. Yeah. I mean, it was like,

• 51:13Speaker 04

  we've, it's, it's evolved and it had to because it's, it's trial by fire. Like you have to, all those things that you did before that maybe worked for you in the past, or was this, this like garrison mindset of like, well, you gotta be crisp and roll your sleeves up and they looked really good on your arms, man. But like, uh, it, it, it's not.

• 51:39Speaker 04

  There's a balance between discipline and military bearing and culture and accomplishing the missions being asked of you. And to truly be able to do those as a conventional force or unconventional, we've had to adapt. And I think that the units that are successful and the divisions and the corps and the, you know, they're successful because they had the ability to do that eventually, you know? And I'm being critical of, this was in 2003, man, like. Yeah, I mean. It was the Wild Wild West. It was like no one knew like who's who, what's going on, all these things that we've just

• 52:19Speaker 04

  gotten so accustomed to and on the battlefield, like from, like, that's where I believe that we, as a country and a fighting force, are the most lethal and effective fighting force on this planet as when it, as military power is concerned, like, to be able to pick up and flex a division, the 82nd Airborne Division even, to as a deterrent from like, like an international, like, from war, you know, and, and just by maneuvering a force, that's that, that's, that's power, that's military power. Yeah.

• 53:01Speaker 04

  And we have that, and that's not taken lightly across the globe, you know? So I think that, you know, it's, it's using that as a, as a way to deter war, you know, sometimes, and the respect that we have across the country is because it's, it's found in, it was found in blood and mistakes and failures and never losing sight of that. How, how many, how many soldiers are you deploying with? I mean, we, it was like brigade task force, so like our, I'd say a brigade is what, three, it used to be three battalions, I think, if there's, I don't know, four, it

• 53:45Speaker 04

  was 500 or something soldiers in each battalion. 500? So each company's like 100 and there's four or five companies in a battalion?

• 53:55Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit. So you deploy with like 2,000.

• 53:57Speaker 04

  Oh, yeah.

• 53:58Shawn Ryan?

  People.

• 53:58Speaker 04

  Yeah. Yeah. It was like a third brigade, you know, task force and, and then all the supporting elements and, and that's where you get into like battle space owners and, you know, like truly owning, like in, in war, like owning battle spaces.

• 54:16Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 54:17Speaker 04

  And that really comes into play as I, as I progress through my career and understanding. And so having that, at least even having the exposure to it, maybe if I couldn't make sense of it back then, it helped me understand it more eventually as I'm trying to operate in that environment.

• 54:33Shawn Ryan?

  So deploying with 2,000 plus soldiers, I mean, that, that, I think I understand why conventional units are not so open minded and they don't want to hear new ideas because that would be 2,000 new ideas coming their way.

• 54:51Speaker 04

  No, there's mechanisms in place and, and organizations and that's why there's all these different selections and, you know, you, you wanna, you want something different, like go, go push yourself to, to see if you can cut it and, and then fit in and, and adapt to it because you can't just say, well, I just, cause it, it just goes back to like the person that's asking why, like why? And then, and then they're just so like, well, they couldn't explain why. So I'm just gonna motherfuck them. And, and, but you're not doing anything to better yourself or getting yourself, if it's, maybe it's something you

• 55:29Speaker 04

  can't change. So then you push yourself to, to be the best, like to, to make the most impact you can. And that's kind of what I did. Um, is I looked for, there was, I was like, there's gotta be more, there's more out there. I know there is, I saw it. And I, in that first trip, I was like, there's people out there. Like, what are they doing? And, um, And that's where, you know, it's, there's a ton of different jobs that you can do and.

• 55:59Shawn Ryan?

  Before we get into what they're doing, where you want to go and where you went, what are you actually doing in the 82nd? What is the mission? How much combat did you see? What's the op tempo? How was the leadership? I want, I really want to explore, you know, what that first combat deployment with the conventional unit was like.

• 56:21Speaker 04

  So I got back from that, that Iraq trip in April of 2004. And I wanted to try out for Ranger School. That's right. And because I knew that it was a way for me to get to a smaller element or, or, you know, as an E3, you know, I went to the 82nd Airborne's like pre, pre, um, pre Ranger. And they have a whole like order merit list. And I think I got like second as on it as a, as an E3. And it was a big deal. And, and then when I was going to go to leave for Ranger School, I met Erica, my wife.

• 57:02Speaker 04

  And I was 19 still, but I was at a club in, um, Myrtle Beach on a weekend. And I had a fake ID and I was drinking in the club. And, uh, you know, like that changed everything for me. And I was like, well, for one, she like, she kind of ghosted me after that. So, cause she was like, first of all, military and he's 19, like red, red flags everywhere. I think I asked her to like the military or ball that we were going to have coming back, military ball. She didn't go. And, um, and I left for Ranger School and I got back and I, uh,

• 57:46Speaker 04

  You know, that end of that summer and I had my, my phone and I had voicemail from her. And it was like, hey, I've been thinking about you and I was like, oh shit. So she lived in like western North Carolina, but and I just started, I fell in love like very, very quickly and, and you know, started instant father. Like I started raising my, my, her son is my own and he was three when we were dating and, and then she got pregnant in January and then we got married or no, we got married and then she got pregnant. Yeah.

• 58:21Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 58:21Speaker 04

  Following year. So like, you know, I did, I was supposed to be going to do this, that and the other after Ranger school. I did EIB. I did, I was gonna go do sniper school and they were like grooming me to, and I went to battalion scouts. So then I was like, this is really cool. Like we got to jump in during training and before everyone else, smaller elements, like, you know, reconnaissance type stuff and, and um,

• 58:52Speaker 04

  but I also was like, I, I,

• 58:58Speaker 04

  I was like, I'm not gonna miss the birth of my, my first child, Kyla. She's um, so my priorities, it was just like, nope. So I, I just, for a moment I was like, no, I'm not, I'm not gonna continue to, to be away and, you know, during that period and,

• 59:20Speaker 04

  so I was doing anything, everything I could to, to like,

• 59:25Speaker 04

  and I went to um, the old guard. That's, so I went to the old guard for,

• 59:31Shawn Ryan?

  What is the old guard?

• 59:32Speaker 04

  It's a, the, uh, they do like the changing of the guard or the, they guard the two million soldiers. They do like all the military honor stuff in Arlington, but it was a way for me to get, get out of the 82nd and know that I'm gonna be there for the birth, for Kyla's birth. And I went, I was there for 11 months. She was born. I went to selection from there. I went to SFAS from there.

• 1:00:02Shawn Ryan?

  Well, hold on.

• 1:00:03Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:00:03Shawn Ryan?

  Hold on, you're getting way ahead of me.

• 1:00:04Speaker 04

  What was like?

• 1:00:05Shawn Ryan?

  Let's go back to your first deployment with the 82nd. What are you guys doing? Are you seeing any combat?

• 1:00:13Speaker 04

  Yeah. No, it was um,

• 1:00:16Speaker 04

  That was the first time I saw like death, you know, and like from combat, you know, just other than just maybe a family member that passed away or whatever, like to see death and to be a part of it. What did you see?

• 1:00:39Speaker 04

  Like us maneuvering and killing, you know, killing people and then like some of my mates are being pulled out of Humvees and lifeless and uh, yeah, so it was um, there was a lot that happened that that whole trip was a lot, period.

• 1:01:10Speaker 04

  Do you want to go into it?

• 1:01:13Speaker 04

  I think it's, I think the first time I, I, there was two, there was two like big moments. I think it was when like we like maneuvered on somebody that was either it was a ambush position and we were able to, you know, flank through and, and, you know, kill them. It was just like that. It was almost like it got intimate, but only when we were like clearing through that, that objective, that small objective, you know, and, and it was just like a snapshot. It was like, oh, what is this? This is okay.

• 1:01:56Speaker 04

  And then like when I first saw one of our own being pulled out of a Humvee, you know, lifeless and dead, like just dead. I was just like, it, it was like looking at both ends of the, the, the good and the bad or the good and evil, you know, and to see it. It was very, it was confusing in that, that space I was in, in my own development. What was confusing?

• 1:02:29Speaker 04

  Like it was, it was like conflicting, right? Like the good guys die too, you know, and then the bad guys die and. The reality. The reality piece of it just really, yeah, the reality was not, it became like a very, a reality that just punches you in your heart, in your face, you know, and.

• 1:02:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:02:53Speaker 04

  What were the SF guys doing? Is that who you ran into over there? There, there was a bunch of different elements, but we supported them on a couple of missions and I remember them and they were the, some of the funner ones are, I say funner, just more thrilling. I was definitely addicted to the thrill of all of it, you know, and, and the,

• 1:03:13Speaker 04

  like, the risk, you know, I think I was, well, I know I was a risky, risk taker, thrill seeker. And it started to feed into that and I was like, oh man, this is cool. Where it's not like so, because there was some times where it was just monotonous where we're just like, I'm struggling to stay awake on, on guard, you know, in the, in the frigging,

• 1:03:38Speaker 04

  the towers and stuff that we just kind of threw up. And we would just get mortared or rocketed every frigging day and,

• 1:03:49Speaker 04

  but, you know, there'd be lols at night. We were just looking through that one tube, you know, or whether if it was 14s or seven deltas, I don't know, but,

• 1:03:59Speaker 04

  hey man, you're just like, alright. Just, uh, just fighting it, but, uh,

• 1:04:12Speaker 04

  yeah, I, I, uh, there was this, it was 18, 19? I was 19. I turned 19 over there. And I came, like I said, I came back after that trip. We'd, we'd, I mean, the.

• 1:04:29Speaker 04

  I can't even remember so much of it. It's like, I mean, I can, but accessing it is like, I haven't thought about it.

• 1:04:40Speaker 04

  But definitely formative, like years and not just like, I mean, it is for anyone that age, period. Like that, that timeframe of your life is, is important.

• 1:04:53Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I mean.

• 1:04:54Speaker 04

  But it is like, here you go.

• 1:04:56Shawn Ryan?

  Seeing that stuff right off the bat like that, seeing your, you know, your boys died and killing at nineteen years old.

• 1:05:07Shawn Ryan?

  What was it about it that, that drew you farther in to, because going into special operations, you're getting drawn in more.

• 1:05:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, I wanted to be more prepared, you know, I wanted to be around more, a more capable

• 1:05:24Shawn Ryan?

  unit.

• 1:05:25Speaker 04

  force, you know, and not that the eighty second wasn't, it was just, it's, I wanted to be a part of a smaller team and more flexibility, be, be more agile.

• 1:05:39Speaker 04

  And that's exactly what I did with going to Ranger School and then the, staying in the battalion and the scout platoon, because it's just a platoon that, that supports the whole battalion. And then, like, you know, eventually going to, like that next year, going to SF, uh, SFAS, the Special Forces Assessment.

• 1:06:05Speaker 04

  I was like, all right, this is exactly what I wanted.

• 1:06:07Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:08Speaker 04

  When I saw that, um,

• 1:06:11Speaker 04

  like just how they carried themselves in selection and, and I was like, yeah, man.

• 1:06:16Shawn Ryan?

  How did you apply?

• 1:06:19Speaker 04

  Uh, I think my, well, I know my, uh, one of the guys that was in my team had, was an eighteen X-ray originally and he. You know, obviously went through that whole pipeline, the special forces like, like to join the army from and right into that pipeline kind of thing. And they do all the special operations preparations, courses and stuff. And then they go to SFAS. Well, he got roadkill or, you know, cut. So then, but he wanted to go back. So he just, he started really talking to me about it. And I was like, let's do it. So him and I went together and we both, you know, we go, that was January of six. Yep.

• 1:07:02Speaker 04

  And I got, we got picked up and I started the Q course, the qualification course. And that was a pretty long, long experience, but. What was, what was selection like? It was interesting. I think, um, like I was very like intrigued by this out of the box, like way of thinking. Like, I just remember this one, one statement that one of the cadre I made. He's standing up there and he's like, you know, I have my hands in my pockets right now. He's like, cause I got pockets. And I was just like, I was enamored with that statement. I was like, it doesn't make fuck, it makes fucking sense.

• 1:07:47Speaker 04

  I've got pockets. Like, why don't I use them? I can't put my hands in my pockets without getting detonated on by somebody. Yeah. Uh, I was like, it just really connected with me. I was like, you know what? I like this guy. And, and I also like to be challenged and, uh, you know, in the physical and the, the, the cognitive kind of aspects and they assess and all these different testings and, um, you know, and then land navigation, I just felt so at peace doing that. Like it was just me against the, the, the terrain and myself and the time, you know, or whatever it is. And, but everything just kind of quiets down when you're out in the woods and, uh.

• 1:08:35Speaker 04

  You know, making, making mistakes, making, you know, bearing

• 1:08:42Speaker 04

  misjudgments. And it was just, it kind of tied it all together where it was like, okay. And I think the peace part of it too is like, the challenge of it and the, the drive was, it was just, I thrived in that, that, that element.

• 1:09:02Shawn Ryan?

  How many guys were there? How many guys showed up for selection?

• 1:09:05Speaker 04

  Um.

• 1:09:06Shawn Ryan?

  Roughly?

• 1:09:08Speaker 04

  Uh, man, it was, it was over a hundred, a hundred and something dudes.

• 1:09:13Shawn Ryan?

  How many came out?

• 1:09:17Speaker 04

  Uh, I remember, so they do like a formation where like, if you're in this formation, you didn't make it. If you're in this formation, they start playing like the, the Bow of the Green Berets. And you like salute the flag and shit. And, um, well, they play a few, a few things, but, I actually like teared up, yeah, when the Bow of the Green Beret, the Bow of the Green Berets played.

• 1:09:44Speaker 04

  You know, because it talks about the silver wings on, on your chest, you know, America's best and, but they're not coming home. Like, you know, basically placing those wings on your, on your son's chest and like, for him to carry that torch. It was almost like this.

• 1:10:05Speaker 04

  But yeah, it was almost like this, um, this part of me that just knew I was gonna, I was gonna die in combat. And that was gonna be my, like, my, my, my offering, my, my sacrifice, my, my way of like,

• 1:10:20Speaker 04

  escaping everything in, in, in a way that it looks like honorable or is, you know, it's just, there was an element of it that I am like psychoanalyzing from back then, but it was, yeah, it was a pivotal point, I think, where that was gonna be, and I said this for a long time too, actually, where I'm gonna go down like Bon Jovi, man, in Blaze of Glory. Like, that's, that's how I'm going down.

• 1:10:46Shawn Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 1:10:48Speaker 04

  Ain't no other way. Um, for years. That's the way that I thought.

• 1:10:55Speaker 04

  Oh, for a long time, actually, but I would say it back then in SF. It was culturally like, well, we were barrel chested freedom fighters, man. Like, that was like what we are. And I needed an identity.

• 1:11:14Speaker 04

  I yearned to be a part of something to help me like feel good about myself.

• 1:11:22Shawn Ryan?

  Was there any part of selection that you found that was, what was the toughest portion for you?

• 1:11:36Speaker 04

  I mean, the team week piece I thought was really like challenging, but not from a like making decisions or because things to me like even back then like I see I'm a very like visual like shapes and objects like, oh, put this together, do this, you have to cover this, this, okay, cool. Like, not that I wasn't stressed out like everyone else, but, but then communicating that and then like being in charge for episodic like periods where, you know, people are just followers because they, they just wanna do just enough to like, so they don't get cut or spot reports or whatever, like peered.

• 1:12:19Speaker 04

  And then there's people that genuinely wanna give you the same amount of energy that you give them. And it's filtering through all of that during team week that I do a pretty good job of, but that's a, that was like really challenging is working through that. And, um, cause you, it's like tasks that you couldn't do on your own, like physically, you just can't.

• 1:12:45Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:45Speaker 04

  So you have to like, when you're at your lowest, you know, or you just came out of a role, it's like being in Ranger School. It's like you're the, you get this reinvigoration of like, oh shit, roster number, blah, blah, blah. Come up here and you're in charge, you're the platoon leader, you're the platoon sergeant. Here's your frago emission, whatever. It doesn't matter how you slept the night before, didn't sleep or how long you moved. You just get this, oh, fuck me. This is my chance. This is because you only have so many chances. Um, but then you want that balance between like, I show up and, you know, put all my energy into it when I'm in the spotlight, but then when I'm not, I'm just a A turd.

• 1:13:28Speaker 04

  A turd. Well, yeah, a turd or just freaking, you're just an anchor, right? It's like, that's why I love the, the military, like buddy system and, and like battle buddy or, or dive buddy. Like when I went to dive school, like you are literally anchored to someone underwater. And they, and when you're, it's your freaking nav dive. It's like, you get these turbo legs, dude. And you're like, and you're just dragging that person. You're like, bro, like I was just yanking on the tether. Like, let's go. Yeah. But then you're that person. You're like, man, I was trying, man. I'm sorry. Like, um,

• 1:14:03Speaker 04

  but I just, yeah, that part of, um, you know, finding those relationships and nurturing and developing those with other, other like-minded individuals has been, it's been, um,

• 1:14:15Speaker 04

  like, like what I've been so passionate about, you know, and, and putting this, putting the amount of energy that like I would want them, you know, or they would want me. Like I, I put that into them, you know, and that's, that's been really great for me for periods of my career. And then there's been times where I've just been disappointed in my, like, like, what do you mean? Like, cause then it goes back to expectations. It's like, I had this expectation of something or others had that of me, but, but an expectation is, is a, is a recipe for resentment. It equals resentment and resentment is the enemy.

• 1:15:00Speaker 04

  Um, especially if it's something that isn't, having goals and, and objectives and, and things you're striving for a hundred percent, like, but having expectations of, of, of.

• 1:15:13Speaker 04

  Even yourself, you know, like that you don't understand and where they're coming from. Like that can be extremely unhealthy. And then you'll just never, never be good enough, right? If you have these things that you don't even know, like who you are. And you have these resentments that start building in your own self and then, and then others, then you're, now you're judging others and.

• 1:15:40Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's, um. Well, it's led me to, to this point in time right now where I'm sitting across from you and of this, of sound mind and, and, and with this clarity that I have. And it's because I've been through all those things. And.

• 1:15:58Speaker 04

  It's got, I have more to do. It just looks, it just looks different, you know? So you move into the Q course? Hmm. How many guys are on the Q course with you? There's a ton. There, there's like a whole student company slash SWIC is a, a big machine. Uh, the training group, you know, is a part of, uh, special forces and, um. Really? How many? So how many selections? They graduate like a thousand green berets a year. No shit? Yeah. Those, those numbers are probably like dated, but that's. I remember, I was like, how many? Like, like you just said, like it's a lot every year.

• 1:16:41Speaker 04

  Um, and, and they're the one percent, you know, and. It's, um, of the military and, uh, and they're small, you know? It's a small piece of, uh, of a large, you know, military system. Yeah. So how many, how many selections do they run a year? Do you know? There's like one a month. One a month? They may break twice a year or something where there's a gap, but. How many selection classes go into a Q course? I don't know. Like I, I couldn't tell you. How many Q courses a year? They're concurrent. They're going on concurrently. So like, if you start in one, you may finish in another. Okay. So they're constantly like, uh.

• 1:17:27Speaker 04

  Uh, your cohort, I think is how they do it. And they've changed it so many different times now. Yeah. Like you have like a.

• 1:17:35Speaker 04

  An I O D A is what they did when I was going through and but that was a they were kind of piloting it and seeing it if you could like start with a a team of people an O D A and then finish with them but it's through the branching off of like the different language programs and the length of time and then if you recycle something there's just so many aspects to the Q course like from small unit tactics to the survival evasion resistance stuff and then language school depending on which language like that changes the duration and then your MOS is also like I was an 18 echo communication sergeant and you know

• 1:18:20Speaker 04

  there's the weapons sergeant there's the engineer sergeant there's the medical and those are all like some of them are close but they have their own criteria so that's why it's like there's these committees in each kind of phase and you kind of fall through under a committee you go in through a committee and to successfully completing a portion of the course and then if you have to recycle or like Kaylee was born my 15 year old daughter she was born during the Q course so I recycle or not recycle but I came out for her birth and went into student company and then I just kind of got lost in the sauce there

• 1:19:04Speaker 04

  because then I'm just a number you know it's like and wait and waiting you know to get back into a pipeline basically because there's a there's a bunch of people either you know good good dudes waiting to get in that life you know I'm not gonna yeah I want to be there if I can so I was there for her birth and but then it's just like I also realized then too I was like man I'm just kind of a just a number in this place like I wonder yeah and then I also you know going through the Q course it was it was great it was awesome

• 1:19:49Speaker 04

  training man and really kind of honed in on some of the like

• 1:19:57Speaker 04

  Like I really like take pride in being a Green Beret and and and I firmly believe that like the most like capable group of 12 people like in in on a well-oiled, you know, cohesive team, ODA, is like the most capable force multiplier and and like like combat little element that you can put in behind in any country and and make truly make it like a substantial impact like for 12 people. It's amazing. Like if you have the right people, man, getting all the like all of them I didn't see in a short amount

• 1:20:41Speaker 04

  of time. And that's when I pushed myself to go try out for something bigger or more.

• 1:20:47Shawn Ryan?

  Hold on. Don't go there yet.

• 1:20:49Speaker 04

  Sorry.

• 1:20:50Shawn Ryan?

  Let's go. So you get through the Q course. Where are you going after that?

• 1:20:54Speaker 04

  So I uh, I knew that, or I'd been told that if you're a communications guy, sergeant, like they're gonna make you do time and signal detachment, which is like battalion level. Like you get your time in there for a year and then they'll put you on the ODA. So I was like, how do I negate that? I went to dive school and I took a pre-scuva and then during the course and then I went to dive school and route. But I had already, I went and because one of the dives, the pre-scuva instructors was in the company, like in 7th Special Forces Group before. So he actually introduced me to the company sergeant major before I was even out of the Q course. Like I stood in front of him. It

• 1:21:39Speaker 04

  was Brian Rary and I still stay in touch with him. And he was, he's like, all right, if you uh, if you make it through dive school, I'll bring you to this, this company. I'm gonna put you on the dive team. And I was like, Roger that. Moved out and then I went to dive school and that was super easy. And uh, just kidding.

• 1:22:00Shawn Ryan?

  I was like, well, I've never heard that before.

• 1:22:03Speaker 04

  It was, it was a.

• 1:22:06Speaker 04

  Man, yeah, I've never been afraid of a pool before in my life. I thought I loved the water and uh like I also love to breathe, which is a novel concept, right? It's like, oh, I can't breathe under here. Oh, and you're taking my air source. Oh, like constantly. Cool. There comes the wizard. You're like, oh, no, don't, don't go to the light. And uh, it is a very interesting school, man, but like physically challenging and, and, and you know, the cognitive like challenges of it are, there's, it's, it's not a, it's not a game, like Navy, like dive tables and, and understanding all of that and, or learning it and then um, yeah,

• 1:22:49Speaker 04

  it's, yeah, it was a, it was a kick in the fucking dick, period. And I would just go to the barracks like and look down at the pool in Q S and I'm like, oh, it's beautiful out there. Sefuwo, Special Forces Underwater Operations. I'd be like, there'd be like cruise liners coming in, in the Key West, like through the bay and like you could see them over there. They're going to the other part of Key West and like, I bet they're gonna have a great time. And then they look over at the pool deck and just like the, the craziness that ensues or that would happen and like jacking up, you know, drills and warming up. They gotta warm you up

• 1:23:28Speaker 04

  before you get in the water. And uh, we like, just like drowning people. You're just like, what? Like your mask is constantly charged, right? It's like, oh, get used to that. And you'd be doing flyer kicks and like, and if, you know, some people, they either they drain it, you know, through cracking the sealow, whether like by squinting or, or um, or they just can't close off the nasal like pass and then they're just like, Sergeant, I'm trying. And because they keep coming charging it. And then I remember this one time, you can't see anything, you just hear and you're just like, you know, doing the flyer kicks. I can do a million back then.

• 1:24:10Speaker 04

  But my dive buddy.

• 1:24:14Speaker 04

  He couldn't close off that. You know, they kept charging it. It was like the third time and they're like, okay. Looks like you just want all the water. And they just like slow poured him with this five gallon. From what I can tell is a five gallon, but just. He was just like, oh my God, he's drowning. Like, what seemed like for a long, long time. And I was like, bro. What it taught me though, was keep the water in your mask and just close your fucking eyes. Yeah. Like, just close your eyes. Like, it's uncomfortable, man. But, but it, it makes sense and like, they're teaching you. Just like with anything, if you can't do something with your eyes closed, then you need to do it more, you know?

• 1:24:59Speaker 04

  And that's whether it's gun handling or, or, um. You know, like, working through, especially like life-saving bits of equipment. Like, you need to be able to work through those things and, and, in different conditions. So, definitely, um. Fun, fun, uh, fun time down there. I gotta, I gotta take a break.

• 1:25:31Shawn Ryan?

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• 1:27:26Shawn Ryan?

  Kyle, we're out of dive school. You're going to your group. Where'd you go?

• 1:27:33Speaker 04

  7th Special Forces Group.

• 1:27:34Shawn Ryan?

  Where's that?

• 1:27:35Speaker 04

  Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

• 1:27:37Shawn Ryan?

  You spent your whole career at Fort Bragg, didn't you?

• 1:27:40Speaker 04

  Pretty much.

• 1:27:41Shawn Ryan?

  Nice.

• 1:27:41Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:27:42Shawn Ryan?

  Nice.

• 1:27:42Speaker 04

  The training course, the Q course is at Bragg. The 7th Group was at Bragg up until a certain...

• 1:27:49Shawn Ryan?

  Are they the ones that moved to Florida?

• 1:27:51Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:27:51Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:27:52Speaker 04

  I never made the move to Florida, but yeah, I went right to that dive team with the company. Sergeant Major, he kept his word. So I showed up and the battalion sergeant major had a real big problem with that because I had to go do in-processing and he was like, "Ah, Sergeant Morgan." He's like, "Oh, you think you're special, don't you?" He's like, "I got my eye on you. You got your Ranger tab and all this other..." Like, I was like, "What?" When I showed up, I was like, "This is the battalion CSM." And I'm like, "What just happened? Like, I did something wrong, you know, by..."

• 1:28:35Speaker 04

  Going to a school and, and, and doing it and like, and then that, you know, it was just, it was kind of weird to show up and then that was the reception of it. You know, here's like, welcome to the unit, welcome to the battalion or the group. But, you know, once I got through that with him, like, he locked me up at parade rest and like, I was like, whoa. Um, which I get to a certain extent, like, hey, this is still the army. Um, and, um, so I think the, uh,

• 1:29:16Speaker 04

  you know, it, it was like, it was still like very shocking to me that, um, and it wouldn't be like congratulated, like, hey, you went to a, a school that, I mean, it's like, not very many people go. And if they go, not many people like finish, finish it and CDQC and, and combat diver qual, qual course or whatever they call it now. But either way, went to the company with Brian Rary and, and, um, to the dive team and met, met my, uh, my new team, seven, uh, four, five or seven, two, one, five. What was that like? Were they welcoming? Were you pumped to be there? Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:29:57Speaker 04

  It was, um, it was, uh, varied levels of, uh, you know, experience, a few 18X rays, but guys that like Bill Diggatano and Dave Smith and a couple of guys that I just were forever friends. You know, I'm just still honestly reconnecting with some of those cats has been like such a, a great experience for me because some of my fondest memories were during that, that time as a Green Beret. Really? What are some of those memories?

• 1:30:32Speaker 04

  The relationships that that you you built in in the team um to to to work together to accomplish almost like sometimes a like like on the surface impossible tasks, you know, and you're like, you want me to do what with what and without the resources. And so you get very. Like, give me an example. It's like they're having you do what? So a big one would be the the village village stability operation. So VSO, at a certain point, they there was a big shift where they wanted us to go in and and do more of a traditional, like, live in the with the locals and like unconventional warfare.

• 1:31:16Speaker 04

  And, you know, versus. Are you talking about for real or for training right now? For real. Like, in Afghanistan, that was like my last trip with them was was to do that. And conversely, it was like seeing a bunch of different aspects of what an ODA can do. But then to really see what you can do is is to go into a place where, for one, you're not wanted. And they don't believe that you're going to stay. And then you stay. And it's like with zero resources besides what you you bring as as a team. And then building white space from there. So that was some of the my fondest memories

• 1:32:00Speaker 04

  were were being on that team, seeing seeing all the different missions that we had and then leading up to being such an integral part of that ODA to execute that mission that seemed impossible. And in the Chutu Valley and connecting Firebase Cobra and Firebase Tice in the in this valley that up to that point, just natural like terrain kept it like lines of it. It limited lines of commerce, all these things. Because the Helmand River was was a massive, massive river that basically, you know, ran north, south and. This mountain range, the valley, and then one came, kind of a finger came all the way down

• 1:32:44Speaker 04

  to where it was almost just a footpath around. And then everything beyond that was like you're in a different country because they were so limited, even through being, you know, this is 2010, being exposed to us in the country, you know, and but up to that point, it was only like night raids or like maybe a medical civil affairs team came in and did a med cap or something and but just pick up and leave. So they were ingrained, they were just like the Taliban had had them brainwashed completely. And we had to sift through like who is truly

• 1:33:26Speaker 04

  like supporter of Taliban and who is just like trying to survive.

• 1:33:32Shawn Ryan?

  How long did it take you to go through, to sort through that?

• 1:33:38Speaker 04

  I don't think we ever really figured it out. But we made it to where we showed them and proved to them because you have to gain their trust, right? And like bringing value outside of, well, like we got it, like the Taliban has all this, like they're gonna, they got guns and they're scary and all this stuff. So what do you guys bring?

• 1:33:57Shawn Ryan?

  Well, let's, let's go back to day one, you know, day one of your last deployment with them. And then we'll rewind and go through all the other stuff. But you're talking about VSO, standing up a village, basically, and, and creating a fighting force, correct?

• 1:34:12Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:34:13Shawn Ryan?

  So when you got to that village, had, were you the first Americans that had been there?

• 1:34:20Speaker 04

  Not, not, like I said, they, they had seen us like, but only in at night or in passing, like we just raised, you know? Because it was like, it didn't just happen like, hey, come, come to our village. We had to fight every single day. Like, and we were literally exchanging, you know, we were in firefights with the Taliban every single day across the river. And they cleared out a whole village, Sartutu, and they were like, they dammed up the irrigation canals and like they were running wheelbarrow or dishkas and wheelbarrows up and down this thing. But the veg covered enough to where like anytime we Would get some sort of air support if we ever did.

• 1:35:04Speaker 04

  They could, they would, they'd be masked to from overhead. So like they were dug in and we were so exposed because then every time. We had to keep that line, right? That frontline trace like that was it. We held it and we was, we switched with third group and we came in and then. We would do like split team ops out there because while we were training, half of our team was training a. Some sort of local force to come in and like be our security forces with us. And that was its own separate mission in a sense because it, it took. Like these are tar heads and like dudes that you're like, nah, you're, you are not the, the person we're looking for. I'm not giving you a gun and training you how to use it. So I can sleep.

• 1:35:49Speaker 04

  In a, in a, in a, in a four walls where I like, we had to pull our vehicle in it and. One of us was up every single night, like all night, period. And we would have the locals like man the checkpoints, but like literally we'd be pulling security. Internally and then hopefully they're looking outward. But really it was like trying to create as much, um, early warning as we could. So like Constantine wires. With like soda cans with rocks in them, like straight up just getting creative about. You know, we've learned these lessons, but to come full circle back to that. To being resourceful and truly like, it was very much to me like what we trained on in Robin Sage and.

• 1:36:33Speaker 04

  And, um, the, as a part of the qualification course, um, the foreign internal defense or like. Training the G base and guerrilla warfare and, and, but it was, a lot of it was, um. So we, one of our elements was back doing that, training the local force like to arm them and. And then we're, the rest of us are out there. So when we switch, like I remember this one, this one mission in particular, not mission, but convoy out there. They knew we were coming. Like they had, it was, took us an hour to get out there that we would ID, get ID'd constantly and. The, this one, we'd crest this one like terrain feature and just get stitched up every

• 1:37:15Speaker 04

  single time, but we would, this one in particular, a new guy on the team, Ryan Hendrickson, which is an SF teammate of mine, that was his first deployment with the team. And he was driving and I was like, the vehicle, I was in the passenger seat. And that, one of the first rounds, it hit, like hits, it hits the windshield in front of him, his face and just spalls it, right? Like definitely a disc around, but like, he pulled up in there, into the four walls, he jumps out, he goes, like walks over to one of the Afghans and he's like, let me get a cigarette. And like fucking just starts like smoking this cigarette like, and I was just like, you all right?

• 1:38:00Speaker 04

  It was just, it was really, um, welcome to, welcome to Afghanistan. Yeah. And, uh, you know, and he also, he, him and I, you know, he came to the team and, and he, I welcomed him, you know, I didn't like, oh, you're fucking F and G, right? New guy, like, no, like we were a small element and the last thing I need is like, there to be like, you haven't earned the right to talk to me yet. I'm like, I never believed in that anyways, but that was one of the things that, you're the forever friends, man. Like I've come full circle back, but like that was a really hard trip. What was the rotation like? It was like every. Like was it a week training them? No, it was like every three or four days.

• 1:38:45Speaker 04

  You'd rotate out? We'd rotate out, just based on the sustainment piece, like we would have to get resupplied out there, cause it was, you had nothing. We were like shitting in ammo boxes and bags and burning shit ourselves. Like it was straight up, and then. This is in common problems? This was in, um, Aruzgan, Deir Wur, um, Deir Wur, so, Aruzgan province, but, um, the city center was Deir Wur, but it was like its own, like the Malaks would get together, all the mayors and they do these like shuras and stuff and they were like this big thing and I've got this, some of the photos, and what I was gonna share with you is like me, like speaking in front of the, like the whole thing, all of them.

• 1:39:27Speaker 04

  Because I'm like, you guys aren't, you're not getting it, like. There's a couple, like, there's a few malics out here that are missing. And all these things that you're doing are never gonna, they're never gonna be like, they're never gonna take, they get the traction that they need to, to counter, to combat terrorism, without the, the rest of this missing link here, you know, because they're just funneling and training, you know, like, the Taliban have a safe, they have a safe haven. So I was trying to empower them to, well, for them to take ownership of it and, and step up and like volunteer, and we need capable people, like, that wanna, wanna help defend their country, and we'll train you.

• 1:40:09Speaker 04

  But we also just needed someone to pull security, so I don't get my throat cut in the middle of the night. Yeah. Every single night, like, I would have this, these night terrors where it was like, cause I mean, you'd, you'd hear about them, like, sneaking into peoples and just cutting their friggin' head, like, throats when they're sleeping. And that's why I was, I'm sorry, this was Helmand Province? No, it was a Ruzgon. Okay, sorry about that. Yeah. In 2010? So the Helmand River runs, yeah. Okay. So, yeah, 2010, and the Helmand River where we were at is probably like 75 yards across. Okay. I mean, it's a big body of, like, moving body of water.

• 1:40:50Speaker 04

  And like, to a point where we were, we were almost supposed to go do a dive thing to survey the dam, like, to redo a, a couple of the bridges and stuff, like, we were actually going to do a dive, you know? And we ended up. No shit? You guys were gonna fucking dive to that river? Yeah, well, dude, I used to bathe in it. So I would, I would have dove in it in a heartbeat. Like, it was, it was like the only moments of reprieve, you know? Like, you go down there and just frolic in the water for a little bit. Yeah. Cause then every, you just, you had to be switched on, like, all the time, so like.

• 1:41:27Speaker 04

  Like I would, I would run. Like I would run, well, once we moved in, let me back up. We had to, we had to clear out the Taliban from that village in order to then get over, because we couldn't, the choke point, like to try to get around the mountain pass here. Like we, it was a footpath, like the most, like they'd get the, the little bikes through there, like loaded down with 16 people and shit, but like still, like we couldn't use that as our way to get in and occupy. So we planned this big mission to, we did a damn Zodiac crossing at night and we put like an ATV on one Zode with, with a bunch of people and then the

• 1:42:11Speaker 04

  other Zodiac, we like, um, we just did a rope bridge and just like pull ourselves across, but like we needed supplies and because we knew once we went over there, like we were gonna like have to own it. And, um, that was the mission that, uh, we had gotten reports from human intelligence or whatever, like that night before that they, they were um, booby trapping the doorways, like with IEDs, with explosives. And so we're like, okay. Um, I'm like, is anything changing the calculus here of like why we're doing this without like, you know, planning a little bit further into this versus like, well, we'll just go up and over the walls or blow holes in the walls. I'm like, yeah, that's cool.

• 1:42:56Speaker 04

  That takes forever. And like, part of me just was like, I wish I would have said something more, like in that moment, but the mission, like through resources, everything kind of came together and we had to do it that night. And, um, we did and, and, uh,

• 1:43:19Speaker 04

  coming across like we had to clear every, every like step we took and thank God we had like a local Afghan force that was like switched the fuck on with finding, with finding these things, man. Like, but there was only a few of them. So each like, I had Few of what? Few of those trained Afghans that were expert, expertly trained in, in detection. And, uh, What are they detecting? Explosives, IEDs. Good. Yeah, with either road or like foot or mobile. They saved my life, I don't know how many times. Like. You found a lot of bombs? Yeah, he's like.

• 1:43:58Speaker 04

  Uh, his name came back to me the other day when I was talking to, um, that NYPD guy that I was training, but.

• 1:44:07Speaker 04

  Either way, he'd like. The cow, stop. I'm like, what? And he'd be like, look. He'd like pull this wire and be like, oh, I'm like, stop fucking with that thing, dude. And just like, right in front of my feet. And I'm like, ugh. But I mean, they didn't catch all of them and we did. And, uh.

• 1:44:27Speaker 04

  And it's like. You know, going over, we had to be, be very methodical with our movement. And using the cover of darkness to, to move slow, slowly through and clearing to get to breach. And we had five elements, right? So it was me and another ODA guy. And then a squad of, uh, local forces that we trained. And then one of those like, like the only other Afghan I trusted, like there was one of those cats. It was like, he was up front with me. And, um.

• 1:45:04Speaker 04

  I'm trying to remember his name, sorry. Um. And I got to breach, I was like the lead element. And then there was another two elements that went into the irrigation, uh, to clear that out. So my element was, was the furthest north. And then Ryan Hendrickson's element was, he was with the team sergeant and then their squad. And he goes to, I guess the interpreter, like stepped in front of the doorway. At the, the building he was at. Um, and he goes to tell him like, no, don't, don't get out of the doorway. And when he did that, like he, he basically put his weight on to the pressure plate ID and, and just set it off.

• 1:45:46Speaker 04

  And you just heard, I heard like the explosion. And then I just, I heard and felt like a thud, a body just thud, you know, hitting the ground. And then pause. And then these wails of just pain and agony. And I, and I knew the vo, the voice, I could hear it in the earshot, you know? And crickets on the radio. And I was just like. Oh, fuck. And I went to go run over there because it wasn't, it wasn't that far from me. Maybe fifty yards, like not direct, but very indirect route, but straight line fifty yards.

• 1:46:25Speaker 04

  And I went to go run and, and Ahmed Shah. Ahmed Shah grabs me again. I'm like, nobody puts their hands on me. And he says, Kyle, his English wasn't great, but like when he spoke to me, I knew like what, how, like it was serious. Like when he spoke to me in a way that he did. And he's like, no, let me go. And but it felt like it took so long to get back to Ryan. And when I got there, like with him clearing in front of me, so I didn't, he didn't want to see me get. He would just, they just cared so fucking much. And um.

• 1:47:06Speaker 04

  I got there and, and just the snapshot, I still, I can see it is the team sergeant's on his knees. Like over here and like Ryan's over here in agony, like bleeding blood is everywhere and just bleeding out. And I'm like, what in the fuck are you doing? And he's sitting there like on his knees, like trying to pull his tourniquet out and it's still in the plastic.

• 1:47:31Speaker 04

  And I just, I'm like, you're fucking useless, like in my mind and just went, went over. And by that point, uh, my other teammate, George, like got, had gotten there and actually got the tourniquet on. Uh, Ryan's leg and then I was able to help George, like, you know, work through the stuff with Ryan. But his leg was just hanging on by like the flesh, the meaty part of his um.

• 1:47:58Speaker 04

  Skin and uh, tissue and, and just like he had lost so much blood. And I didn't think he was gonna make it like right there and.

• 1:48:13Speaker 04

  But I knew that like we, I was like, all right, who's got a litter? Who's got the litter? You know, I'm like starting taking control like as they're working like Jorge's, you know, making sure the tourniquet stopped the bleeding and then we're splitting his leg with his own rifle. And like, like to try to like, put it back into place and, and then I look at the medic and he's, I'm like, he's like, where's, I'm like, where's the litter? He's like, we don't have one. I'm like, you don't have a litter? I'm like, you don't even have a Polis litter? Like, what? Not like, so I was like about to just like detonate right then, but I was like, all right. So I just went into and found a whoopee and just freaking busted out a whoopee.

• 1:48:58Speaker 04

  And uh, put him on that. And I was like, fucking grab a corner. Let's fucking, let's go. You call in the medevac, tell them to come right there. And, and like out of like using that we were taking fire from the Taliban over here, using the buildings to mask our movement. It, it was exposed, but it was maybe five, 600 yards from the, the injury site. And, you know, so they, they're on the horn with the medevac and, but we're starting to move them. And uh, the freaking, or the, the whoopee just freaking rips all apart. And we stop and I'm like, the team sergeant tells me that, well, they won't land right there.

• 1:49:43Speaker 04

  We gotta move them another K, another kilometer that way. I'm like, fuck all that. I'm like, no, you tell them it's, it's safe where we're at. Like, we, we got you covered. Like come in and get him out of here. And I got into this like back and forth with him and I was like, all right, fuck it. You make, make a decision. Silence. All right, fuck it. This is what we're doing. And I throw Ryan on my shoulders and just run with him for that whole like thousand yards, man. And got him, placed him onto the helicopter and said goodbye to him. And I didn't think I was gonna see him again.

• 1:50:28Speaker 04

  I just, he had like, almost like no life left in his body. And uh,

• 1:50:38Speaker 04

  I just, that was like such a somber feeling after like the Hilo left and it was just like everything just hit me all at once and I was like, what in the fuck just happened? And uh,

• 1:50:54Speaker 04

  yeah, I had to regather myself and then continue to like do the mission and we ended up,

• 1:51:05Speaker 04

  you know, clearing, killing a bunch of the Taliban and clearing them out of there and then I think we ended up finding 27 baby dropped IEDs. It took a long time. It took a long time to clear through all of it. How many bad guys did you kill? With us in there, I mean, I don't, there's no, in the teens, you know, in that local area, yeah. But they, they would just go up into the mountains and, and then they'd just harass us, you know, continual lead, because they were, they were gonna wait us out. They're like, they're not gonna stay. You know, so, and then they were like, but we left you some presents down there. So just,

• 1:51:47Speaker 04

  just even to get the locals to come back and like live in their houses. We're like, no, no, we're gonna stay. Like, they're like, no, there's boom, boom, you know? I'm like, yeah, show us, we'll get rid of it. But, because we were doing the old like, let's just search for them. And then it got to the point where it was like, nah, how about anything out of place, you let us know. Here's your home. Yeah. Like if something looks out of place, you let us know, we'll come deal with it. Because that, that town wasn't the town we were gonna stay in. It was the one across the river. Cause that Malik, the mayor, is the one that had all the pool and all the surrounding, like,

• 1:52:26Speaker 04

  isolated towns, you know? So if we could get him on board in our, you know, with what we were trying to do, then we knew that we would, with our efforts and then the ODA from the north coming from Cobra, was doing the same thing from the north. And uh,

• 1:52:45Speaker 04

  you know, us taking that valley cost us like three, three guys, ODA guys, like lives. And um,

• 1:52:57Speaker 04

  You know,

• 1:53:00Speaker 04

  it's a, it was a really hard, hard deployment with so many different like,

• 1:53:08Speaker 04

  like, there wasn't moments of reprieve. Like, you, you just were just stuck in it, you know? And then it started to become like, all right, well, this sucks. What am I gonna do about it? I'm gonna go for a run. So I suck at running. Let me run. So I would create my own little white space by, I'd have like a tourniquet wrapped around my waist, extend it out all the way, just right in my ranger panties. And then like, I'd have a grenade in one hand and my pistol in the other.

• 1:53:39Shawn Ryan?

  You would go through a jog through the Afghan village.

• 1:53:42Speaker 04

  And I'd run up to this, the highest point.

• 1:53:43Shawn Ryan?

  With a hand grenade and a pistol.

• 1:53:45Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. And, and it was creating white space. It's like psyops, man, psychological operations. And I'm like, I'm not afraid. And it wasn't that I wasn't afraid. I was trying, I wanted to make the situation better. And the only way to do that was to show, to show them, the locals, that I'm not afraid of these, these fucking inbreds. These, that we're like cave dwellers. Like, no, I'm not. And, um, I mean, the pistol was to fucking throw the grenade, use the pistol and then save one round if I need to for myself, you know, and, um, because you're not capturing me. But it's also just a part of like,

• 1:54:31Speaker 04

  just being in that, that space where you're not getting resourced, you're not getting the support you actually need to accomplish the mission. They're like, oh, you're buying, how are you arming them? Well, you're not giving us all the, like, the gun, the AKs to arm these locals, like, and we're buying, you know, guns on the black market, and then you got a problem with it.

• 1:54:53Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 1:54:53Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:54:54Speaker 04

  There's a fucked up, like, system here. And the disconnect between, like, oh, this, this VSO site is the same as that one, is the same as that one. I'm like, do you realize the sheer geography difference and, and then the cultural differences and just like one province or two or three? Like, you can't just say, well, why is this one so successful and this one's not?

• 1:55:17Speaker 04

  Get the fuck out there and see.

• 1:55:18Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:19Speaker 04

  Like, get out there and live with us.

• 1:55:21Shawn Ryan?

  I think it's a...

• 1:55:24Shawn Ryan?

  Just rewinding a little bit back to the Pan grenade and pistol. You know, as funny as that sounds and, and you know, every single soft guy that I've ever worked with, you know, they, we all say that, last round of the pistols for yourself and, and it's just, it sounds like nothing right now to me and you because we're so used to that.

• 1:55:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:55:49Shawn Ryan?

  But as a civilian.

• 1:55:50Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:55:51Shawn Ryan?

  And there are a lot of civilians listening. That's a fucking real thing. You've saved the last pistol round you have for yourself.

• 1:55:59Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 1:56:00Shawn Ryan?

  If.

• 1:56:00Speaker 04

  It wasn't like, it wasn't like I was intentionally going out to, like, because I didn't, because I didn't want to be here because I wanted to die. It wasn't a death mission. It was a, a risk I was willing to take to make our situation better. Even just a little bit and, and I saw the game that it would have by, you know, but then also the risk comes with like, you have to understand the consequences and the consequences of, of doing that or just being in that environment, period. Or that they will come and like kidnap you and, or capture you and cut your head off.

• 1:56:40Speaker 04

  Or, you know, dishonor you or, or things that I, uh, so like that last round is, is truly for me to take that off of the table for them.

• 1:56:56Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:57Speaker 04

  You know, it's not a selfish act. It's a, it's an act that I've talked, talked through and thought through and.

• 1:57:03Shawn Ryan?

  It's a, you don't want to wind up on national television.

• 1:57:05Speaker 04

  At that point, like how many times have you seen it?

• 1:57:08Shawn Ryan?

  For your family to see.

• 1:57:10Speaker 04

  If it just, the screams that you, that they're just implanted in your head from seeing those videos and hearing them and like, whether they're drugging you or not, like I, you're not gonna, we're not gonna get there, homie. Like I'm not, I'm, I'm not doing it like, and you gotta be okay with the fact that that's one of the courses of action that you will have to happen. Could potentially have to happen.

• 1:57:36Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:36Speaker 04

  And I can look at you in the eye and tell you that, oh, I've, I would have, I would have done it over just like that. To, because I saw what.

• 1:57:51Speaker 04

  The benefit was the trust that we built. And then the people, like the locals started just flocking in back home. And they would just thank us. Like people that they were like, no, no, like you guys, the Taliban are just gonna come in and once you guys leave and make us all pay. And just through like this archaic, like the Sharia law and, you know, all these things of like, you know, just the stuck in the stone, like the stuck in, you know, the past of, they haven't evolved as a, from a societal perspective and

• 1:58:34Shawn Ryan?

  How long were you

• 1:58:36Speaker 04

  and just care and like human decency?

• 1:58:40Shawn Ryan?

  How long were you and your team in the village before that the locals decided they trusted it enough to have come back?

• 1:58:47Speaker 04

  Um, probably, it was like, it was an interval or, you know, you'd see like, you know, one or two, the word had spread and then they'd be like, okay, they'd come try us out. They'd come feel us out. We'd hold these big shuras in the town now and the town was Hayzar. And then we'd stand up in front of everybody, you know, and tell them, hey, this is what we're doing. We're opening, we're gonna, we're gonna build a freaking, we're gonna build a bridge right here. And we opened up lines of commerce that hadn't happened in the history of like their society, you know, and connected outside of just a little moto.

• 1:59:32Speaker 04

  Like now you can drive dump trucks down this road. And I say we, I mean, we were the effort, but I mean, that took a ton of resources. It's moving like mountains, like moving a mountain. And but that's the impact in putting our money where our mouth was, like for real. It was like investing in that and not, and I'm just really thankful that we as a team got to say these things were gonna happen. And then they did versus like, oh yeah, promises this, promise you that, promise you this. And, and then we just pick up and move out because another mission comes in that's a bigger priority.

• 2:00:16Speaker 04

  And so it was really good to, to see that, but it took a couple of months for them to really start to believe that. Months, huh? Months. Wow. Yeah. So it was like, you know, they're like, yeah, you want to, you want a, a building in our village? Sure. What about that one? We're like, no, what about that one? We're going tactical advantage, all this, you know, uh, can we defend it? Is it fortifiable? Like, nope. They gave us like the most dilapidated, like walls and it was literally like four walls that were barely hanging on. And, uh, they're like, that's all yours. It's brand new. It's great. You're gonna love it. And, uh, and we just like, and then we got in this mix of like, oh, we don't want to build a firebase all over again.

• 2:01:00Speaker 04

  So it needs to look like on the surface, it needs to look like it's, uh, just another, you know, another home. And, uh, but then it's like, well, what about our security force protection? They're like, it's my security. Yeah.

• 2:01:19Speaker 04

  Um, that's where it gets in, they're like, what are you guys building out there? You need all these Hescos and this and that. I'm like, what fucking planet are you from? Yeah. Like, where are you right now? And they're, they're in the same country and they're sort of like fucking, their Keurig coffee's too cold. And I'm like, why don't y'all come out here for a little bit, man? And like, you'll understand a little bit more about what we're asking. It's not, yeah, it's, it's very, it was very hard to work in that environment where they're asking so much of us through blood and sweat, sweat equity and like, and, um, uh, uh, like, no, this is the mission.

• 2:02:03Speaker 04

  Like, uh, but then, but then they won't resource it or support it, you know, in the way that it should. And that was where.

• 2:02:13Speaker 04

  That's why I was like, I through the rotations I've done before and like, that was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I was like, I've gotta get, I gotta find something else where I'm getting the fuck out.

• 2:02:26Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. So what happened? Did you, did you see your friend again that you put on the helicopter?

• 2:02:31Speaker 04

  Yeah, so Ryan actually, so when he was in his, in transit back to either in Germany or in the States, he actually mailed a letter to Erica and we still have it somewhere, but it's like chicken scratch. He's probably doped out of his mind, you know? But he's, he wrote, he wrote something like, you know, Erica, thank you so much for, for supporting Kyle. You know, you don't, I don't know if you, I don't, you don't know this, but he's my hero. He saved my life and something along those lines and like, and then they, he was actually one of the first ones to do like the limb salvage and they actually reattached his leg.

• 2:03:15Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 2:03:16Speaker 04

  And, and he's redeployed as an ODA on an ODA team like several times.

• 2:03:22Shawn Ryan?

  No shit.

• 2:03:22Speaker 04

  After that and just recently retired. He wrote a book called Tip of the Spear. And I couldn't be more proud of him as a human being and just reconnecting with him after being in the shadows for 10 years after that, like it, it's been such a great healing experience for me and like we even, he's told me things that I just didn't, like I mentioned earlier that I, I didn't remember, but he would come back in and too. And it was just so, it was so great to have the conversation with him from his perspective and then mine and like, and then I'm just more, I couldn't be more proud of him as a, as a human. He's, and he's doing missionary work in Ukraine, like.

• 2:04:06Shawn Ryan?

  No shit.

• 2:04:07Speaker 04

  He's got a heart of gold, man. And like.

• 2:04:11Speaker 04

  You know, I think he deployed three or four more times with another, with an O D A. Once he finally like recovered fully from it. I mean, like it's, it's insane to me how they were able to do that. But modern like science and, you know, they, they did say that like had we not gotten the bleeding stopped when we did, like he would have for sure been dead. I mean, even just seconds, you know, and

• 2:04:31Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 2:04:33Speaker 04

  Cause he tried himself a couple of times. He just couldn't get it on to his, it couldn't make sense of what was happening. To hear his perspective is amazing and.

• 2:04:43Shawn Ryan?

  What's his name?

• 2:04:44Speaker 04

  Ryan Hendrickson.

• 2:04:46Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, maybe you can link me up with him.

• 2:04:47Speaker 04

  For sure. Yeah, absolutely. Um, yeah, I, I, I just, people like that is, is it, it's a really good like feeling to have worked with, with people like that and then to see them through their own struggles and physical and just to come out on and psychological like that is attached to all of it. To come back out and be the same person I had conversations with pre-injury, you know, and that's just like such a, um, cause that happened with my O D A commander too. From that trip, um, he stepped on an I E D and lost both his legs

• 2:05:27Speaker 04

  above the knee. And, um, man, this is the guy that played lacrosse at West Point. A freaking stud, Ben Harrow, Benjamin Harrow. And, um, when I reconnected with him, like after his, after he stepped on that I E D and like that happened, I went to Walter Reed with my family and was gonna go, cause I would just went to selection and was in the waiting period of something and, or it started the training course and I was like, I gotta go right after the injury. As soon as he got into, and he came back into, and was at Walter Reed, Ben Harrow. Like I went up to DC and he was like, I'm gonna, I don't

• 2:06:07Speaker 04

  know, but I just wanna show him like I'm here. And, um, he wasn't, I went up there and I got all the way to the same, the floor he was on. And this is like a week after he, um, lost both of his legs, like.

• 2:06:24Speaker 04

  He wasn't ready to see people, but I left like a basket and a note.

• 2:06:30Speaker 04

  Like telling him, hey, man, like, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm here. Like, I know your team is over there, but I'm here.

• 2:06:41Speaker 04

  And then after that, I hadn't, I had down doing, doing what I was doing in the unit I was in. And to be able to reconnect with him when I was going through the National Intrepid Center of Excellence,

• 2:06:54Speaker 04

  TBI, the treatment at Walter Reed, I reconnected with him. And it was like, he was getting around on his getaway sticks, man. Like, double MPT above the knee. He had to, he has like a world record for regrowing femur from, it was, it was so far, there wasn't enough femur to, to, to attack or to be able to support or tie on to a prosthetic. He wasn't going to walk. So he refused to let that happen. So he did some, like, just like, he always was that type of person and man. Like, they went in, like, would have to re-break and fracture, break traction. And to, and he regrew, not only enough to, like, put on a prosthetic, but like,

• 2:07:39Speaker 04

  Holy shit. Like some crazy amount of, like, six inches of femur or something, I don't know. But it's, um, it's amazing to me to see these guys that I, you know, fought side by side with and, and while I'm going through my own, my own missions and, and struggles and, and come back together and we're all the same,

• 2:08:06Speaker 04

  the same good, caring, you know, people that I remember, just with a whole lot of, you know, story behind us. And, you know, that's what really drives me to know that it's not too late. Unless you say it is. But.

• 2:08:29Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:08:31Shawn Ryan?

  Let's take a break.

• 2:08:32Speaker 04

  Yeah, this is a good break. Segment, it just kinda skipped around, but...

• 2:08:36Shawn Ryan?

  We're good. When we come back, we'll pick up with, after that deployment, when you got back home.

• 2:08:44Shawn Ryan?

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• 2:09:18Shawn Ryan?

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• 2:09:31Shawn Ryan?

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• 2:10:14Shawn Ryan?

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• 2:10:40Shawn Ryan?

  All right, so you just wrapped up your final deployment with your SF team.

• 2:10:46Shawn Ryan?

  You're back home.

• 2:10:48Speaker 04

  Yeah, so.

• 2:10:48Shawn Ryan?

  What's happening?

• 2:10:52Speaker 04

  Uh, coming back home. You know, I was prepping for. I had to go back to the and redo the eighteen miler and the board for the selection and assessment up in West Virginia. Because I had went uh, to West Virginia for the, for that assessment, um, before that deployment. And they told me, like, I need to go get some more experience.

• 2:11:25Shawn Ryan?

  So you tried out for?

• 2:11:28Speaker 04

  The unit.

• 2:11:29Shawn Ryan?

  The unit?

• 2:11:30Speaker 04

  Yep. Yeah, the CAD Common Applications Group or, uh, Special Forces Operational Attachment Delta.

• 2:11:38Shawn Ryan?

  And they told you you needed more experience? How many, how many deployments did you had up to that point?

• 2:11:47Speaker 04

  Four.

• 2:11:48Shawn Ryan?

  Four deployments?

• 2:11:49Speaker 04

  They were long.

• 2:11:50Shawn Ryan?

  To include the eighty-second deployment?

• 2:11:52Speaker 04

  Yep. So, I mean, all of them were six, eight, nine month deployments, you know, and but this is a short amount of time from two thousand two, three to, we're talking about spring of two thousand ten, when I went to assessment for that. And I, I made it through everything. And then, uh, when they do the last thing in the board, I, I didn't want to talk about some of the things that

• 2:12:23Speaker 04

  I needed to grow. Like I, like I still was in this, like, team mindset of like, that's just team business, man. I ain't talking about that. And they're not looking for that kind of person. You know, it doesn't matter how capable you are, you know, because I had made it through everything up to that point and, you know, that was a very humbling period where I was just like, well, that doesn't make sense. And then I couldn't see it for what it was and, and I needed to go do that other trip where, where, uh, I just talked about.

• 2:12:55Shawn Ryan?

  What, I'm sorry, what did they not like?

• 2:12:59Speaker 04

  It's not that they didn't like something. There's a lot of psychological evaluations they do. And, you know, they're very much like paying attention to the whole person. So you can physically make it, you know, through time, making whatever the time standards are. And, and the great equalizer is the terrain, you know? So you can only recover from so many mistakes. You know, it doesn't matter how physically fit you are. If you are on the wrong mountain, ridgeline, you're on the wrong mountain.

• 2:13:35Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:13:36Speaker 04

  And you can't even recover from it. So you have to, you have, so like it was, I felt, you know, it's, it's a,

• 2:13:45Speaker 04

  it was a very physical process, man, and you against yourself and a clock that you don't get to see. And, and that's why it's like, the mindset I've always had is like, I'm gonna let them tell me no.

• 2:14:02Speaker 04

  But then to be told no, it was like, well, hold on a minute. What do you mean? Everyone likes me and I just did this, like, what? So I came home kind of like, what do I do with my hands, you know? And then, but then quickly I was like, my team needs me. So I went and deployed to that village stability operations mission.

• 2:14:25Shawn Ryan?

  And do you think, do you think that was a generic,

• 2:14:31Shawn Ryan?

  a generic response? You need, you need more experience? I mean, four combat deployments is a lot of experience.

• 2:14:37Speaker 04

  No, I think it's a maturity thing.

• 2:14:39Shawn Ryan?

  You think it was a maturity thing?

• 2:14:40Speaker 04

  Absolutely, it is.

• 2:14:41Shawn Ryan?

  How old were you when you?

• 2:14:42Speaker 04

  Twenty.

• 2:14:43Shawn Ryan?

  First tried out?

• 2:14:44Speaker 04

  Spring of ten.

• 2:14:47Speaker 04

  I don't do public math, Sean.

• 2:14:49Shawn Ryan?

  About twenty-five?

• 2:14:50Speaker 04

  Twenty-six, twenty-seven.

• 2:14:52Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 2:14:52Speaker 04

  Twenty-six, twenty-seven. And I needed, I needed that, that other, that next, I went to SODIC after that. I went to the special, the sniper school. And then, then I deployed, you know, for nine months doing that VSO thing and came back. And I was gonna take over as the assistant team sergeant, but I had to make a choice like because I knew that they they said go and get some more experience, right? But there was that was that's as vague as it was. And part of that was on just on me to read between the lines and either say fuck it. Like tried, they didn't want me, missed out on me.

• 2:15:33Speaker 04

  Um, or I used it to to help like capture some of the things that I I couldn't see for what they were at the time. And and I I went back and did the long walk and then um

• 2:15:49Speaker 04

  the board again, and it was a different experience. How long is the walk? Uh, which one? How long is the longest? The one in the beginning that you do is eighteen miles. And then it's like it's like you do your P T test, you do the eighteen miler and then um, and then you're just like, that's a prequel, you know, like pre pre wreck. Yeah. That cuts a lot of the riffraff if you show up and you don't know that was coming. Yeah. And um, I mean, I I've ran selection a few times as cadre and it's really amazing to see, you know, from both perspectives. How many people have shown up to um, selection for that? It it it varies, but I'd say they screen out to where there's a hundred and ten to twenty that show up.

• 2:16:34Speaker 04

  How many? Vetted then they're the screening pool is very, you know, vast and uh they're pretty selective on just being able to attend. And then you, if you don't, if you don't make it, depending on which point, like you still get uh, it's the most professional like course I've ever been to. And then running it, you see like how to run a professional course, a military training course and or or just a any training course like it's so, it's like that perfect course on the surface, but behind the scenes, you got all these people just looking for work and constantly filling holes. How many people were from other branches?

• 2:17:20Speaker 04

  Um. Roughly? I mean, a vast majority is from the army. Um, I'd say there's a in the like, single digit, you know, numbers, you have guys from different branches that show up. Um.

• 2:17:37Speaker 04

  Yeah. Were you more confident the second time around? Well, yeah, cuz I didn't, I mean, for one, I didn't have to do the whole thing. I just had to, I, I went in when they were like finishing up another course and then I just did the last, the last like couple of days. Okay. And when I say it was like a different experience, it was because I was, I was, I matured like a lot. And a lot of that was like, I needed to be there to help save Ryan's life. I, I needed to be there to, to help like save other people's lives, um, to, to help, you know, rid, uh, th- those villages in the area of, of, uh, terrorism and, and, uh,

• 2:18:20Speaker 04

  my team needed me and that's, it's actually like a, a great, I feel really, I kind of, I use that to help like give myself, cuz I was really hard on myself about that. Like, it was like, oh, fuck me. It's like, first time I didn't pass something. Like, oh, like, what does that mean? It didn't make sense. What do you mean, no? Or come back and then we'll talk to you, you know? It was like this, and then I start telling myself, well, you know, they didn't want me, but they don't, then they do, you know, it's just like, I'll just fucking show up and see what they say. And, uh, I did. And I was able to, it was a different experience, meaning like, I was able to talk about things that I just, I get it, that you, it's the mission,

• 2:19:04Speaker 04

  the men and me, right? Like, it's, it's a, you're a part of an organization that, that the impacts are, they're strategic, they're national, it's a national like mission force and they need people that can, you know, not just physically, you know, uh, like fit a mold or adapt, they, they need you to be a decision maker, uh, your process, your ability to process and, and make decisions on sound judgment, tactically or, and strategically. Cuz the impacts, they have second, third world effects that you kind of hear about, you know, when you're, uh, you know, working my way up through the military, like, oh yeah, there's this whole second, third world effect thing, you know, it's like, it's like officer jargon, right?

• 2:19:49Speaker 04

  The fact is, is that you see it there and you have.

• 2:19:55Speaker 04

  Like your choices and decisions you make, they have like strategic impact. And like policy driven by a con op. Like US policy, there isn't one, so let's, we'll force this with a con op. A concept of operations or a mission that we create and, and then they like, all right, well, let's put something. Okay, cool. And I mean, it's, it makes sense looking back at it. And it makes sense in that moment, uh, when they said, all right, you know, congratulations and, you know, I think I got teary eyed. Imagine that. And that was probably the last time I remember crying for a long time.

• 2:20:38Speaker 04

  After that.

• 2:20:39Shawn Ryan?

  So felt good.

• 2:20:41Speaker 04

  Well, not crying, doesn't.

• 2:20:43Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, felt good that you got, you're going to OTC.

• 2:20:47Speaker 04

  Yep. And then I showed up for, at Brag still, and that was a big thing too, because the seventh group was moving to Florida as that was happening. So I wanted to like tell, you know, the fam, my family like, hey, this is what we're doing. Versus what I was, what I was doing was like, just hold on, like, just wait a minute. Let me, I'm gonna sort this out. I'll find out and then I'll let you know.

• 2:21:10Shawn Ryan?

  So you were, you're like, good news, family. We're not going to Florida. We get to stay right here.

• 2:21:15Speaker 04

  We get to stay right here in Fayetteville.

• 2:21:18Shawn Ryan?

  I'm sure they were stoked.

• 2:21:20Speaker 04

  Well, it's, one thing I can say is that they've been able to, you know, grow up in the same, and have some, like, some of the same friends that, from elementary school to like graduating high school. And, um, that's a, I didn't have that and I wasn't a military child, like, and it was that, that piece. I know that even though I've been, you know, out, outward facing for so long, like I've been able to provide that through, you know, the, the jobs that I've been given or made it to and then, you know, been a part of. You know, so there is some silver linings in it.

• 2:22:04Shawn Ryan?

  Well, let's get into OTC. So you made it through selection. You're going through the training pipeline. What's day one?

• 2:22:14Speaker 04

  I just remember showing up and being like, "Man, this place is serious." And I'm like, I was so like lighthearted. A lot of that was, I think, like a defense mechanism. Like, "Oh, you're smiling and happy, and you gotta like me," you know?

• 2:22:33Speaker 04

  But that was actually one of the only times I took a photo and didn't smile, was when we checked in that day. Because it's like, da-da-da-da-da, and then they get your badge, and I'm just like, in like a collared shirt, like dressed down, you know? And I was like, "Damn it." Looking back on it, I was like, "This is the only one they got." Because I took, I smiled on every other photo, which is like kind of, um... If you look at the, the, the wall, it's like where all the graduating classes, there isn't, for one, there isn't like a, "Oh, we're gonna graduate 12 people per, operators and direct support, like it's gonna be this many." No, you'll see classes with one, you'll see two.

• 2:23:15Speaker 04

  But they have them historically across the, since seventy, 1978. And it's really cool to be a part of that, um, once you finish. I mean, the training course, but that's only the beginning, you know?

• 2:23:29Shawn Ryan?

  How long is the training course?

• 2:23:31Speaker 04

  Um, it's about six months of, you know, we're very heavily focused in, in, uh, marksmanship and, um, close quarter battle. So, really focused in hostage rescue and learning, you know, learning what it, what it actually means to... You have a new job. Like, you, you, you come with your body of experiences and different services and different, you know, jobs, and that's cool. But if you can't let go of the fact that you're being asked to do a new one, you won't, you won't make it. And I say "make it," you never make it. Even when you've, excuse me, even when you graduate and go across the hall,

• 2:24:14Speaker 04

  it's a, selection is an ongoing event.

• 2:24:17Shawn Ryan?

  Does the...

• 2:24:21Speaker 04

  What's the attrition rate like? There isn't like, there's no metric to it's a, it's truly like a,

• 2:24:30Speaker 04

  like it only takes one person to believe in you for you to make it like to the next gate, you know, and um, but at a certain point, if everyone is unanimous, you're gone. Through the training course and then beyond that, like everyone's job is on the chopping block. It's, it's yours, it's yours. They're gonna hand you a tool, use your hooligan tool, haligan, and be the best hooligan tool carrier there is. And then they're gonna slowly ask you to do more and do more as your aperture starts to open. And you can see more of the room, see more of your awareness starts to pick out, uh, pick up. Because, you know, it's not,

• 2:25:18Speaker 04

  I mean, they've, they've already selected the right person. And now it's just a matter of, of is this, is this person like continuing to adapt and develop to the environments that were throwing him in. So it never ends? No. No, it's, it's, it's,

• 2:25:37Speaker 04

  you struggle to be mediocre in a place like that. In a, in a, in the highest, the highest performing group of people on this planet in one place and um,

• 2:25:49Speaker 04

  it's a, it's a, it's a lot. Um, but it just depends on what your priorities are, what's your goals? Where did you go? Uh, I went to um, one of the Sabre squadrons. One of the what? Sabre squadrons. So the stoics like, and this is the history of the unit was during the seventies, there was a, the, a lot of the uh, kidnapped, not kidnapped for instance, but the, the flights were being held hostage and, and um, like uh, airliners, excuse me. And the military, DOD was asked to, alright, here's the, here's a problem set. What's your answer? Or what's your solution? So they looked, the DOD looked at the, at large in the seventies and were like,

• 2:26:35Speaker 04

  uh, we got the kind of, we got this, maybe they could do it and like airline takedown.

• 2:26:44Speaker 04

  Aircraft take down and the answer was we didn't have something. So, you know, Beckwith and his, you know, vision with the two two SAS, you know, and spending time there and the regiment and the United Kingdom, you know, adopted and founded what is, was originally, you know, the two A and B squadron, like, and everything was built off of that. The spine is the long hallway where the two Sabre squadrons are off of it, but then all the support mechanisms are there too. But that's grown, you know, grown to the mission. So, you know, in the nineties, they stood up C.

• 2:27:29Speaker 04

  And, you know, a C squadron from Black Hawk Down and Mogadishu and that timeframe. And then in the late 2000, like 2009, they stood up a fourth squadron. And then we grew exponentially to dismantle the caliphate in ISIS. Because this, the whole, like, political environment of we can't go back into boots on the ground again and this and that. I'm like, what the fuck are we gonna do? They're gonna come here and cut our heads off.

• 2:28:08Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:28:08Speaker 04

  Like, they're literally cutting Americans' heads off. Like, what are we doing about it? Well, we got these units out there that can, you reach, reach out, touch somebody. Okay, cool. That's great to be a part of, which I was. And, you know, it's, but that only, that's only one piece of it. We have to, we underestimated them by a lot. And once we got a look under the hood, going out in, in, in early 2015, when we were going after the Abu Sayyaf and Abu Tunisia, they, they were like the oil emir. And they were just running, running oil in the black market.

• 2:28:52Speaker 04

  And like, they took over old oil refinery towns and like, like forced labor. And if you wouldn't work, they'd kill you from the Syrian, like, people. And, but they were also like,

• 2:29:09Speaker 04

  Kayla Mueller was the last American that was alive. And we tried to grab, go and rescue on a couple of times, a couple of attempts.

• 2:29:22Speaker 04

  Her and a few others, but we were always just a little bit, and I say we, it was just, it's a big moving piece to get us over into that, those positions and then not spook them. And there's so much that goes into it and you get really one swing at it. And then you have to.

• 2:29:41Speaker 04

  Bottom line is, is that.

• 2:29:47Speaker 04

  It's just the pure evil. Like the, I'm in.

• 2:29:54Speaker 04

  Radical extremism, like you take Al Qaeda, you take ISIS, then you make ISIS into Sunni extremists. Where, you know, we policy by, or excuse me, you govern from a political campaign promise and you pull us out of Iraq and two things happen. The Sunni extremism takes the fuck off and then guess who hates them? Sunni, Shia Iran, like they, they come in and fill our void where we as a country like left in 2010, 11, 12 in Iraq. And, and then it's like, then it becomes this enemy of my enemy is my friend.

• 2:30:36Speaker 04

  And because everyone hated ISIS, but we had to operate in that environment. I say we as representatives of the US government, battlespace owners even. Our unit became battlespace owners. It's like, what? We're out there with the like Syrian democratic forces. You got one of us in like hundreds of Syrian STF, like real time, like pushing this plot while Russia's coming from this side. Iran's just doing all its thing and trying to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. And like, that's where they've always wanted to get to. And this was an opportunity they seized years ago.

• 2:31:20Speaker 04

  And the only thing that kept them from going straight to there was ISIS. And it kept them, you know, more preoccupied while we.

• 2:31:32Speaker 04

  Had to grow to the ability to to to hold terrain. Where are the hostage rescue direct action? Yeah, I didn't know. I didn't realize you guys were doing that shit. Yeah, this whole boots on the ground shit like. So I have a very like, people ask me under different. Presidential like times like, you know, what'd you think about serving under this or that? Like Obama, for example. I have a skewed like perspective of what it's like to serve in the military during that timeframe. Because I got to do my job. Us and SEAL Team Six got to go and fucking get after it, you know?

• 2:32:14Speaker 04

  And but at a certain point, like we just became, well, they'll just deal with it. They got it. They had that button. They hit, they pushed that button and we're like, and there ain't no return button on there. Like, how do you get home? So there's no like, fucking, oh, yeah, you guys gotta get back. Okay, cool. And this, this like going and doing that mission like it was the perfect sized target for a squadron of us to just to flood, you know? And we went so deep into, we caught them with their pants down. They were literally like, oh, my God, the Americans are here. And I think we killed like 40 of them.

• 2:32:57Speaker 04

  Like internal to target, we probably killed 12 to 15. Like close range and then external to target, they were running down the streets, dark as fuck, just shooting fucking wrong buildings and stuff, man. And just getting their jihad on, you're like up there just like. I went back up to the roof to go throw the fast ropes off the the top of the roof. And the snipers are up there just filling dudes in. And I was just like, what is going on up here? It was like a firefight from the moment we got in until the moment we left. I have no idea. Well, I have an idea. There's just so many different things that happened on that mission where. Let's go through it in detail.

• 2:33:44Speaker 04

  Well, it was, uh, it was good to go after Abu Sayyaf and he was the last one that had Kayla Mueller

• 2:33:52Speaker 04

  being held and like raping her and all the stories that you'd hear from these Zedi slaves that would be leave her like they'd not be freed, but they'd escape and um it was just fucking disgusting, man. And it just was, I just sat, we sat over there, because we went over there to go like two periods of darkness, we were gonna go do this, go get Kayla and then that turned into she's been killed and and then he moved targets. So we, it's like the longest

• 2:34:28Speaker 04

  no notice deployment, warm start, cold, whatever you wanna call it ish. And we stayed there, like, in tents, just like waiting for months. And then we finally got a window and we went and it was this big moving piece from, from Erbil all the way into

• 2:34:50Speaker 04

  deep into Syria, like aerial refuels, like

• 2:34:57Speaker 04

  it was a big, a big mission. They consider it a treasure trove of intelligence that we got from that. It was like something like seven terabytes of, of of just like intelligence that we captured.

• 2:35:10Shawn Ryan?

  Let's go through it. So you went in by halo?

• 2:35:13Speaker 04

  Yeah, so I was on the, I was on the sixties and we, my team faster up to the rooftop, it's two, it was three stories, but the third story was a kupla with a stairwell that went down the center. So think four condos, apartments. So two on the top floor and then two on the bottom.

• 2:35:35Speaker 04

  We cycled in, so the four little birds went into the ground on the street with the other troop to flood the floor, the bottom floor, and then we roped into the roof and flooded. But we timed it to where

• 2:35:51Speaker 04

  the, their charges, we knew their charges were gonna go off before we could get ours on.

• 2:35:58Speaker 04

  And we, and when that happened, um, it blew our door, the doors, our breach is open. So, and I'm coming down the stairwell in the kupla and my, like, two ICs up front. And it's a stairwell that, you know, landing and then coming back down. And I see this guy, uh, a shadowy figure kind of through, I could see from, I was on like a the halfway down on the stairs and I could see into the apartment after the door blew open. And, you know, the breach is right behind the two ICs and they were, now they're like, oh fuck. And they're sticking the charges on the, on the wall to get out, like to put them up to get their, their hands back on the rifle and

• 2:36:41Speaker 04

  this dude comes flying in or out and ma- maybe he got within two feet of my, my, my mate and I, and he had, he was hiding behind this female. And I could just see it, like, he's running out with the pistol and like to her head and like, he had no idea we were right there. And

• 2:37:04Speaker 04

  before it became more of a thing, like I was able to, to see that even just a snapshot of like, I'm talking three or four feet of like depth into the room that it came from. I was able to key off that and then I shot him from the stairwell and the, and essentially in the top of his, uh, his head and then he just supermanned down the stairs and she kept like running. Um, before that became, me made it like, it would have been like from

• 2:37:41Speaker 04

  Me to you? Me, like closer than that to my teammates. Holy shit. Um, it was a really tight shot, like period, like between her head, his head, and then my mate, like his, off his rifle. Um, under nods, so.

• 2:37:59Speaker 04

  And that was just like, this is how this is gonna start, you know? And then we just kept going. And um, I mean, there was like moments where dudes, and this is why I, when I teach people, because I learned this lesson and my mates did, like, if I take my, one of my hands off my rifle, I'm gonna transition to my pistol to do whatever it is I need to do, you know? Lift something up. Because downstairs, they, they got into a situation where they open a closet door and there's a chick that jumps out or whatever. And behind, he goes to grab, one of my mates goes to grab the female off of, you know, out of there.

• 2:38:42Speaker 04

  And then an AK gets shoved in his face and he like grabs the barrel and the dude just starts racking rounds off like next to his head. And he's just controlling the muzzle with his own hands now. He's in a wrestling match now.

• 2:38:57Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:38:57Speaker 04

  And um, now my other mate had to like get into a position to like take a shot on this cat. And, and that's to me, I'm like, and it's the same way with like ladders. Like I'm, I've shot someone on a roof from popping up where ISR said the roof was clear. And um, they're hiding under layers of shit, man. Then you get a gun shoved in your face. You're like, well, at least I have my red dot sight looking through my nods as I'm coming up on a ladder run. But it's a, it, it, it's something that I talk about and it's founded in like real world experience on why.

• 2:39:38Speaker 04

  You know, with like rifles aren't meant to be shot with one hand. Like it's, I'm strong and there's plenty of strong people out there. But you know, that's not the way that they're, they're meant to cycle and to function and not, damn sure not shoot accurately or surgically. So for me, it's like, but I can do that with my pistol in one hand if I need to. Um, so transition.

• 2:40:08Shawn Ryan?

  How did the op end?

• 2:40:13Speaker 04

  Man, we got like,

• 2:40:16Speaker 04

  it was, the DAPs barely made it back. The close airs are like, they got shot through the refueling boom and like, they barely were able to fly those things back.

• 2:40:26Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 2:40:27Speaker 04

  It was a, we probably, I mean, we, we fucked them up. Like, period. And anyone that was still alive, that was ISIS, they came in, the leadership came in and executed them for not dying with their commanders.

• 2:40:47Speaker 04

  But,

• 2:40:49Speaker 04

  um, but it allowed us to look into, holy shit, they're moving tons of money on the black market. And go, whoa, and it just, the web of like how serious like it was becoming. And how much it could have been

• 2:41:09Speaker 04

  like our reality at home.

• 2:41:11Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:41:12Speaker 04

  Um,

• 2:41:14Speaker 04

  yeah. And that led to between the intelligence we got then to capturing his wife and them interrogating her, um, the Kurds, uh, to pen porting al-Baghdadi, where we were able to go over and kill him. And I,

• 2:41:37Shawn Ryan?

  all stemmed from that op?

• 2:41:40Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:41:41Shawn Ryan?

  Fucking amazing.

• 2:41:43Shawn Ryan?

  Let's rewind.

• 2:41:44Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:41:44Shawn Ryan?

  Let's rewind a little bit.

• 2:41:47Shawn Ryan?

  So, you get through training, you show up to B. What's the culture like?

• 2:41:52Speaker 04

  I didn't say B. I did just now, though.

• 2:41:56Speaker 04

  Um.

• 2:41:58Speaker 04

  It's kinda, uh, you know, everybody, like, there's this whole stigma, like, the personalities of a squadron. And B has this, like,

• 2:42:11Speaker 04

  oh, man, as long as you don't go to B, when you're going to O T C, or when you graduate, you're going across the halls, as long as you don't go to B, man, you get, it's like this,

• 2:42:18Shawn Ryan?

  That's the one everybody wants?

• 2:42:20Speaker 04

  No, no, it's like this, like Ranger, like, it, it's, it, I believe that there was, like, there is personalities and, like, and they have their own and it's very much its own, like, fighting force, you know, and self-contained.

• 2:42:39Speaker 04

  And I did see some of, I think, the residual, like, pieces, pieces of it, where you get this whole, like, blow off, B Squadron blow off, it's like, it's, uh, you know, through the hallway with other squadrons, you know, it's just like, but then I'm there and I'm like, nah, fuck that. Like, smiling in the fucking photos and stuff, I'm like, what? You want me to, no, that's what we do. It's back to the why. Like, why? Oh, well, it's just what we do. I'm like, oh, cool.

• 2:43:09Speaker 04

  Okay, like, I'm just gonna accomplish the mission, perform to the ta- the tasks that I'm asked and, and if you, and it's very much a performance-based organization, like, and if you can,

• 2:43:22Speaker 04

  if you can continue to perform at a, at such a high level, then you'll be successful.

• 2:43:30Speaker 04

  Um, but there's this, uh,

• 2:43:34Speaker 04

  like, it is a stigma of, of, like, oh, you know, you get there, there's assholes, you know, or whatever, in that squadron. It's a, I think I saw some of the older generational stuff, but the, just like with anything, you know, it's, how do you make, like, how do you change something, like, you know, you impact it and, and at the level you can and, and ask why. And if it's just, well, that's just what we do, then I'm like, nah, let's actually be social and, I would, because before, when I showed up, it was like, you can't, you gotta, like, knock on team rooms, on especially other teams in your own troop, it was a really hard time, period, for our squadron, our troop, you know, losing guys and,

• 2:44:18Speaker 04

  uh, that's what I showed up after. And there was a lot of in, not infighting, but...

• 2:44:25Speaker 04

  There was a lot of, of, um.

• 2:44:29Shawn Ryan?

  Dysfunction?

• 2:44:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. And, and I don't blame them for the, the things that, that happened and they went through and, um, but I was able to go in and, and, you know, be the glue, I think, and, cause every time I got promoted, like I went to, and I stay in the same troop, but I went to another team. So I went from the, mobility teams, or the climbing teams, or the water teams, or the climbing team, like, um. So for one, I got to do a bunch of different stuff as far as like infill techniques and skills, like, um, and,

• 2:45:07Speaker 04

  but also like, have a piece of my own self in each of the team rooms and, you know, photos that they keep and, you know, on the, you know, the culture piece of it, you know, and.

• 2:45:19Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:45:20Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's why I, I was really, I didn't tell anyone I went to SODIC. Cause I knew that they were trying to pull me to recce right away, or, um, I just wanted to be the best assaulter I could and best team, like.

• 2:45:33Shawn Ryan?

  You wanted to be an assaulter, you don't want to go to the sniper team.

• 2:45:37Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:45:37Shawn Ryan?

  No shit, why's that? But I think I know why.

• 2:45:41Speaker 04

  I wanted to be, I wanted to become the, there was always this like, I hadn't felt like I was good enough yet. Like as an operator, a journeyman operator, and then as a, as a, as an assistant breacher, and then as a breacher, it's just like, it opens up this like,

• 2:45:56Speaker 04

  there's just so much more to learn, you know, and, and to refine. I was like, I can't step away to go do another skillset, you know, that enhances and, and, and has its, like, they all like work together, but I felt selfishly, I was like, I'm better served doing this. And, and they also saw that too. So, cause they, I mean, they could just read my thing and see that I was sort of, you know, qualified or whatever, and they could have been like, send me to recce. Um, and you stay in the same squadron, it's just, um, yeah, I was always in the same, the same troop and, and, and it led to me being in the right place at the right time.

• 2:46:40Shawn Ryan?

  What, how long was it before you made it through OTC? You went to your squadron, how long were you there before you went on your first combat deployment?

• 2:46:52Speaker 04

  Two thousand, uh, six months, five months?

• 2:46:55Shawn Ryan?

  That's it?

• 2:46:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, four months.

• 2:46:58Shawn Ryan?

  Four months and you're out the door?

• 2:47:00Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:47:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's, yeah, in Afghanistan.

• 2:47:04Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, you're, you're in one of the most, the most arguably, arguably the most capable unit in the entire world. What's the, what's the operational tempo when you finally do, well, I guess not finally, four months later when you're in Afghanistan?

• 2:47:24Speaker 04

  I mean, this was in two thousand twelve, the beginning of two thousand twelve, yeah. I think we were still, we were still like, our, our op tempo was, was still pretty high. Like, we were going out, I say high, relatively speaking, I mean, there's this whole like, oh, you know, this hate, if you weren't in the unit during the heyday, like, what do you really know, you know? Like, early two thousands, I'm like, I don't know.

• 2:47:50Speaker 04

  I'm here, though, like, what do you mean, like, I, it's just like...

• 2:47:54Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I mean, where are you going out?

• 2:47:55Speaker 04

  No, it would be like, no, it would be like a couple of times a week we'd go out, um, versus like, twice a night or nightly or whatever. And sometimes it, like, it would be, like, back to back, you know, but I'd say on average it was, you know, two, two hits a, a night. But we, we also got really creative with, with how we were targeting and instead of just saying, whoa, you know, you guys are, you aren't feeding us targets, right? Like, we're like, fuck that, fuck that. We, like, finding creative ways of targeting that aren't so creative, if you just really look at, hey, man, maybe they've started to use some older methods and you're like, okay, cool, let's look for work.

• 2:48:39Shawn Ryan?

  Like what? Like, what methods?

• 2:48:41Speaker 04

  Hand, uh, like, ICOM radios. Like, got it, the cell phones, like, gigs up. You know, they've, they've, they're, they're savvy, you know, the enemy's savvy now, so they'll have like, you know, operational security using cell phones and just freaking...

• 2:49:00Speaker 04

  Telling each other all these intimate stories on the damn handheld radios. And you're like, alright, cool, let's start targeting those.

• 2:49:08Speaker 04

  And then we just started using that with Emmett, like, uh, from above and, and, um, alright, there we go. They were doing all these like tactical moves and marches, man, and we just started fucking them up. Like, bad. It was great.

• 2:49:23Shawn Ryan?

  How were you doing it?

• 2:49:26Speaker 04

  So they would, they would like oust people from, they'd be walking all night until they find a, a, a home. And then they'd occupy it by force, um, rape and do whatever the fuck they do. Feed me, sleep me, sleep, you know, or, or if they couldn't, um, they would sleep outside in the, right, like, right outside the.

• 2:49:47Shawn Ryan?

  So it's like, fuck me, feed me and give me a place to sleep.

• 2:49:50Speaker 04

  Yeah, and we'd be like, well, we're gonna come do all three for you, bud. Cause we watched you walk here.

• 2:50:00Speaker 04

  No, it, it's just, yeah, it, it goes back to.

• 2:50:04Shawn Ryan?

  So what were you guys doing when you got there? Were you killing them? Were you capturing them?

• 2:50:09Speaker 04

  No, they would, they vote, so everybody gets a vote.

• 2:50:15Speaker 04

  They, we would offset our, um, our airlift, so we had the sixes, so the little birds, but we would keep them offset to one side of the infill and then, cause the shithooks, the Chinooks, like, they, the whirlybird, you know?

• 2:50:30Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:50:30Speaker 04

  That you could hear those things coming from, so they'd always start shooting it up, like whoever was on the, the Chinooks. And then they would never even see us on the pods from the little birds, um, like, kind of the other side. And it would just, you'd clean up, you know, on infill, and essentially they would stay aerial as the cover while we were maneuvering, um, the assault force. And then once they got set, they would infill them and then they, then we'd push through. And it all should ambush, man, it's like.

• 2:51:04Shawn Ryan?

  Did you say an, a vote?

• 2:51:06Speaker 04

  A vote, they, they get to vote.

• 2:51:08Shawn Ryan?

  Who votes?

• 2:51:09Speaker 04

  The enemy. The enemy gets to vote, meaning, like, we don't just necessarily go in there to kill you. I mean, there's missions where it's like, this is a kill or capture mission. And that's still a vote. Like unless we get told specifically, like, we need to capture this person. And then there better be a really good reason why. Um, cause that changes the techniques that you'll use and the force, the risk to force, you know, to do that.

• 2:51:40Speaker 04

  But then the, yeah, I mean, so like, when I say vote, like,

• 2:51:46Speaker 04

  we're, if they're, if they're standing there with their hands up,

• 2:51:50Speaker 04

  if you can't discriminate your target, and if you assume, if you, if this is a threat to you, then like, you still, you, you have to think in man's game. You don't get paid, anyone can just shoot people. Like us, like, we have to be able to think and shoot surgically, but in account for our shots, what's in front of that and beyond.

• 2:52:13Speaker 04

  And if you can't, you don't, you don't stay there. You know, that's just that. And it's, um,

• 2:52:20Speaker 04

  rapidly processing, you know, threats and non-threats, and then taking custody of those until you can determine if that is an actual threat. And we've just gotten so, so good at it over the years of like, through callouts and things like that, like, you know, like, cause they'll set themselves off with explosive vests and like belly belts and all these things. And you just learn all these lessons through, through pain and through blood and, and loss. But you can, you can do all, there's all kinds of things that we've built to do to, to continue to discriminate until we say, you are no longer a threat. And now you, you know, you're coming back with us.

• 2:53:04Shawn Ryan?

  Gotcha.

• 2:53:05Speaker 04

  Yeah. And that's why I carry these with me. Guess I gotta detain, detain somebody.

• 2:53:12Shawn Ryan?

  Right on.

• 2:53:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 2:53:13Shawn Ryan?

  How many deployments did you do over there?

• 2:53:22Speaker 04

  Five deployments and then I don't know how many, a handful of like

• 2:53:31Speaker 04

  zero, like zero to 100, like we get a call, you get, you get rolled up in country X and that button I was talking about?

• 2:53:40Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:53:40Speaker 04

  Gets pushed.

• 2:53:42Shawn Ryan?

  A lot of those.

• 2:53:42Speaker 04

  Yeah. Once they found that button, holy shit.

• 2:53:46Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:53:46Speaker 04

  They were like, you know what, this fucking button works.

• 2:53:48Shawn Ryan?

  We like this button.

• 2:53:49Speaker 04

  They were just hitting it and then it's just such a massive like thing that happens logistically. Like, we started doing it a lot, so much, I mean, a lot and a lot more and a lot more and, you know, sometimes they don't result in us, like, maybe we're sitting in country X waiting on trigger to go and then that doesn't get met or we get told by the president to stand down or return to base, which is like, base? You mean, you mean 18 hours back that way?

• 2:54:24Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Let's go through one of the buttons. Just any.

• 2:54:29Speaker 04

  Oh, there's just one button.

• 2:54:30Shawn Ryan?

  What comes to your mind?

• 2:54:30Speaker 04

  There's just one button. There's just one button.

• 2:54:32Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. I mean, when it gets pushed, first one that comes to your mind. Where are you at? What are you doing?

• 2:54:41Speaker 04

  Uh.

• 2:54:45Speaker 04

  I mean, I.

• 2:54:48Speaker 04

  I mean, since Benghazi, since 2012, like, that button's been getting hit.

• 2:54:54Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:54:55Speaker 04

  And I can't even, I'm not going to elaborate on all the different times, but just understand that if you're an American, like being held abroad in a country that we.

• 2:55:12Speaker 04

  Can do something about like where it's not going to be a full, full on World War III situation, we're going to go rescue you.

• 2:55:19Shawn Ryan?

  I guess what I'm getting at is I want to hear and I want the audience to feel the experience of when that budding.

• 2:55:28Speaker 04

  Your bags, so like you're.

• 2:55:30Shawn Ryan?

  So if you could walk us through.

• 2:55:31Speaker 04

  So each bag has like a plate, like it's tagged and it has like, and you do this, like you have to maintain it. So you're training all week long and then you always button your stuff back up on weekends in case you get the pager or whatever and you, you have to, that sequence starts and you miss that train, man, you miss the train. You might catch the follow on bird or something, but don't miss the train. And it's one of those things that like you're, you're, you're at a state of readiness and ready to go, but you're also training for like your no, no fail mission. So you get pretty, pretty good at repacking

• 2:56:14Speaker 04

  your shit up. And the whole point is that if you and I come in, like I can grab your shit and I know that you've got three bags, they're tagged and they're in the truck. And then that truck gets loaded and once it's good, like me as the leader or second, the two I see, like I say, all right, we're up. And then that gives you time to get, to get there. If you were, you know, it took you a little bit longer or whatever to get into the unit. And then you go to the, the airfield and load up the C17s and off you go. Plan and route, build whatever charges you need and route, do all the shit you need to do.

• 2:56:57Speaker 04

  But we're coming. I mean, and we could roll off of the bird, the tailgate, the ramp and right into a driving to the target or go into like a mission support site that we deem that we need to do. It could look a multitude of ways and we have different packages that we.

• 2:57:17Shawn Ryan?

  Are you home just as fast? No, you're hanging out there for a while?

• 2:57:22Speaker 04

  No, redeployment piece is always like an afterthought.

• 2:57:29Speaker 04

  Because it's a big moving piece like those aircrafts. They're dedicated to us, but for return. It's not that they get prioritized based on. Well, the DOD is like prioritization.

• 2:57:45Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:57:45Speaker 04

  So I, and that's the part where like movement of, of people and amounts of people I'm not going to talk about. But just broadly, it's, there's a state of readiness that we maintain. And between, you know, us and our Navy counterparts, like it's a lot, a lot of responsibility. And it's been.

• 2:58:07Speaker 04

  Used not only for what it, what it's intended, but also to battle space, be battle space owners too. Like dismantling the Caliphate and not with ISIS. And it's like. Like.

• 2:58:20Speaker 04

  The whole, my whole mission in, in Africa was to maintain relationships with the embassy, with the country team. Wearing a suit every day.

• 2:58:31Speaker 04

  So we could divest of the trance of hell at the SEAL Team Six.

• 2:58:34Shawn Ryan?

  Do you want to write, go into that, the hotel? Are you ready for that?

• 2:58:39Speaker 04

  I can take a break for a sec.

• 2:58:40Shawn Ryan?

  You want a break?

• 2:58:41Speaker 04

  Yeah, I think it's a good break for, or a good time to get, start going into it, but.

• 2:58:45Shawn Ryan?

  Let's break.

• 2:58:52Shawn Ryan?

  I want to give a big thank you out right now to all the Vigilance Elite patrons out there that are watching the show right now. Just want to say thank you, guys. You are our top supporters and you're what makes this show actually happen. If you're not on Vigilance Elite Patreon, I want to tell you a little bit about what's going on in there. So we do a little bit of everything. There's plenty of behind the scenes content from the actual Sean Ryan Show. On top of that, basically what I do is I take a lot of the questions that I get from you guys or the patrons. And then I turn them into videos. So we get, right now, there's a lot of concern about self-defense, home defense, crimes on the rise.

• 2:59:37Shawn Ryan?

  All throughout the country, actually all throughout the world. And so we talk about everything from how to prep your home, how to clear your home, how to get familiar with a firearm, both rifle and pistol. For beginners and advanced, we talk about mindset, we talk about defensive driving, we have.

• 2:59:56Shawn Ryan?

  An end of the month live chat that I'm on at the end of every month where we can talk about whatever topics you guys have. It's actually done on Zoom. You might enjoy it. Check it out. And if Zoom's not your thing, or you don't like live chats, like I said, there's a library of well over 100 videos on where to start with prepping, all the firearm stuff, pretty much anything you can think of, it's on there. So anyways, go to www.patreon.com/vidulenceelite, or just go on the link in the description, it'll take you right there. And if you don't want to, and you just want to continue to watch the show, that's fine, too. I appreciate it either way. Love you all. Let's get back

• 3:00:41Shawn Ryan?

  to the show. Thank you.

• 3:00:49Shawn Ryan?

  All right, we're back from the break. We're getting into Mali, the hotel.

• 3:00:58Shawn Ryan?

  What are you doing there?

• 3:01:00Speaker 04

  Yeah, so that deployment, it was a deployment cycle where, you know, I was an advisor to the US ambassador or country team as a DOD, you know, task force representative advising on, you know, the task force operations, which we weren't able to do. And really, the French were and are like the only like kinetic, like assault force, like combating, you know, AQIM and ISIS and the, you know, all the Islamic Maghreb stuff, like Moctar Bal

• 3:01:41Speaker 04

  Moctar's crew and the trance of hell. So from Libya all the way down, you know, through, they've used the smuggling routes from, from like tobacco smuggling and all these different things as safe havens to build training camps and to move people, forces, like regroup, you know, for years, they've been doing it. And through the trance of hell and, you know, our, the fact that we allocated even one of us there for years, like in rotating, it was to build, you know, a force to be able to combat that. But, you know, not to get into politics, but I mean,

• 3:02:24Speaker 04

  The political environment didn't allow us to operate at the level that we needed to. And then ISIS became a real thing. And back to my point about us being tasked with dismantling the caliphate. We needed every last one of us. So we, um, my mission was to maintain relationships at the US Embassy and country team, to divest of the trance of hell of SEAL Team Six. So we can hand that off to them, like, so they could at least hopefully apply some more energy into it, not that they weren't already like in the Horn of Africa and Afghanistan,

• 3:03:06Speaker 04

  like just doing a bunch of stuff like, but with us, we needed every last one of us to go in to like in to, from Iraq into Syria and like these pilot teams pushing in to not only just do these raids in deep into enemy territory. If we were going to do this, we had to like maneuver on the ground. And I say all that because for one, I was only in country for three weeks when, when the hotel attack happened, but it damn sure wasn't my mission. And that being said, like, I didn't have a mission. The mission was maintaining relationships, like, they don't put you through all that

• 3:03:51Speaker 04

  training to then that be, that be like. Yeah, it almost seems like. Well, I'll tell you what, the, the part that really, and this goes back to like, I was exactly where I needed to be when I needed to be there. And I hang on to that because a month before that deployment, I wasn't going there. I was going into those teams, going into Syria or like a, a former like troop mate of mine.

• 3:04:27Speaker 04

  Basically told his team leader last minute, I don't feel comfortable, you know, wearing a suit and like briefing the ambassador and stuff like that, like, I don't wanna, I don't think I can do it. And, and I go, what the fuck do you mean, you don't think you can do it? Like, when I found, because they asked me, my team leader was like, Kyle, I know you don't want to hear this, but I need you to do this. Like, we, we need, this is important in the strategic, we need someone that's gonna hand this off and leave a good taste in people's mouths and, like, because we can't do our job without that handoff happening. And it wasn't like a, you know, done deal. Like, we had to basically,

• 3:05:12Speaker 04

  you know, work, it had to be worked through. And I was in that, that space of it being worked through, but, but asked to do it a month, a month out. So as far as all my, like, preparation and stuff like that, like, it's,

• 3:05:26Speaker 04

  I was like, what?

• 3:05:28Speaker 04

  Sure. You know, it was a three I C and I'm like, middle management and I'm like, okay. Um, and it all makes more sense now, like, why?

• 3:05:39Speaker 04

  You know, why it all happened the way it did? And, and that's not to take away from someone's, it's not, I'm not gonna what if it. The fact is, is like, I was there, right where I needed to be

• 3:05:50Speaker 04

  to make the biggest impact I did, or I could, and I did. And it wasn't, uh, anyone telling me what to do as far as, uh, like, the command, like, what do I do, boss? It was like a, a reaction. Like, I was sleeping in bed, like, drinking myself, like, because everyone just parties over there. It's just like, oh, this, this place sucks. So the state department is just out there like, oh, this sucks. Let's have vespers, let's have cocktail hour, you know, and dress the nines and like, impress people without like, big words. And I'm like, great.

• 3:06:29Speaker 04

  Um, and then I got called, you know, a call, uh, a call from God. Um, at seven, seven ten A M. And, probably hungover as hell. And, uh, you know, the, the-

• 3:06:50Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, you went to Mali, which is a permissive environment, correct?

• 3:06:56Speaker 04

  Yeah, I mean, yeah, we have freedom of maneuver up to the, there's a, there is a line where you don't, you don't have like.

• 3:07:04Shawn Ryan?

  But you've got freedom of movement. You can run around out in town.

• 3:07:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, for sure. In Bamako and like southern Mali, yeah.

• 3:07:10Shawn Ryan?

  Right.

• 3:07:11Speaker 04

  And I have, I've like drove all over it, but once you get past like Mokti or into Mokti and then into like Timbuktu, like that's a freaking place. And it's in, it's in Mali or Gao or it's like there it, it from the, the traditional like Toureg, like lighter skinned

• 3:07:33Speaker 04

  Malians that, you know, it's, they're almost like nomadic, you know, a people that just kind of go and farm and but then, you know, with ISIS or excuse me, Al Qaeda

• 3:07:47Speaker 04

  blending in with them, they're able to, you know, from a skin tone, lighter skin Arab.

• 3:07:54Speaker 04

  They're able to kind of intertwine and then you build, and this attack itself was.

• 3:08:01Shawn Ryan?

  Have you ever been in an environment like that before for work?

• 3:08:05Speaker 04

  Yeah, Colombia.

• 3:08:06Shawn Ryan?

  Colombia?

• 3:08:06Speaker 04

  It was a green bread, yeah.

• 3:08:07Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 3:08:08Speaker 04

  Where, you know, the kidnapped for ransom was a real thing and, you know, and the, the peak of, of those hostage,

• 3:08:18Speaker 04

  you know, either repatriations or, you know, I was a part of some of the, the, you know, the efforts during oh eight, early oh nine, when I was down in Colombia.

• 3:08:31Speaker 04

  Working through that stuff with the Colombian Lanceros and Batelón de Comandos, like the special forces guys.

• 3:08:41Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:08:42Shawn Ryan?

  Well, let's walk through, because this was a big incident. And it's affected your life tremendously. So you say it started at seven 10 in the morning on November 20th?

• 3:08:52Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:08:53Shawn Ryan?

  Let's start right there. Chronological order. Let's stay focused on this topic. Just walk me through the entire day.

• 3:09:02Speaker 04

  Yeah, so I, my, my day to day was, was going to the embassy, you know, and showing face, or showing my, my face and talking through if there was a meeting, there was weekly and bi-weekly, um, you know, different DOD, uh, briefs and stuff, but, um, there's no, there was no mission for me there. So I just kinda tried to look for work and, you know, there's, um, there's some ranges and stuff. So I was able to like start at least, hey, you guys wanna train? Like, anybody wanna train here? You know? And, um, and just getting,

• 3:09:43Speaker 04

  you know, trying to get that going. And, cause I had on my kit, my kit stays in my ready kit bag. And, you know, I was able to, it's just like a rolling thunder or a North Face duffel roller. And it's got my basic go to war gear, you know, my helmet, guns, my rifle, my pistol, my body armor, uh, my pano's and, uh, that's, you know, your basic, you know, Salter uniform and stuff. And, um, so I got a phone call that morning, uh, the day of the attack. And the phone call went something like this where it was, uh, the, someone at the agency,

• 3:10:24Speaker 04

  you know, wanted to call to notify me about an attack that they had been made aware of that was ongoing. And five to eight gunmen, um, shooting up the place, shooting up the, the front of the hotel, the Radisson blue, um, and Balma Kamali and explosions. Um, and that's what they, and, and launched from what appeared to be embassy, uh, driver or embassy, um, vehicle, vehicles. Um, and that was the, that was the situation report, right? And they called me twofold to let me know. And then, but it's not like it was my job to.

• 3:11:06Speaker 04

  Really, I was the next door neighbor of the deputy and they were, they couldn't get a hold of him. So they're like, hey, can you also go check on so and so? We can't get a hold of him. Can you help us out? And I was like, sure. My next phone call, as I'm grabbing my kit bag, I didn't have to do anything but grab it and take it to the front, threw, threw some pants on and a T-shirt and was like, everything's in this bag. I know it is because I put it there. It's where it needs to be when it needs to be, or it's, it's there, you know, and I know that because I've drawn from it. I've, I've just going back to just, you know, any tools or resources that you have, like, train with them, use them and when you need them, they need to be there. And

• 3:11:52Speaker 04

  so I'm on the phone with the MarSoc dude that is the, like, the closest thing to a warriors that I even, within a thousand mile radius, I don't know.

• 3:12:07Speaker 04

  And I'm like, hey, you and you meet me at my house. I'm going to wake up so and so or check on him. I'll be out front and um, they lived some, like a mile away. And the deputy, or excuse me, the regional security officers, like the, the acting or the assistants, Mike and um,

• 3:12:31Speaker 04

  the other one, sorry, I forgot your name right now.

• 3:12:35Speaker 04

  They, we all, they all came together and, but when I'm knocking on the door of the, the, my next door neighbor, the deputy chief,

• 3:12:45Speaker 04

  you know, he opens the door and he's on the phone in underwear and he's just like, picking lint out of his belly button. And he looks at me, he's like, oh, hold on. I'm on the phone. I'm like, no, hold on, there's the, the attacks going on, there's an attack going on right now and. I don't know exactly where the hotel is, but I know it's close and I can hear gunfire. So I'm like, that's definitely close. And it's about three quarters of a mile or less from my house, which are like town homes almost.

• 3:13:16Speaker 04

  And he's like, I'm on the phone. Yeah, I know. I got, I'm on the phone with some of our guys in the hotel right now. Like staying there because a lot of temporary duty personnel like would stay there. Whether it was our embassy or other Western embassies, like that's where they'd stay.

• 3:13:32Speaker 04

  Certain locations and that's why the RSOs know, you know, they don't. They don't say, well, they do, they should. And the assessments they do is, is this a place where we would put? Personnel that are on, you know, either permanent or temporary duty here. As a lodging, place of lodging and they have to do these threat assessments. And to me, it made no sense why that hotel was even on there as a, as a, as a good place to stay. When like, looking at it, like the reason they chose that, that hotel is not only for the density of like, like people, Westerners, if your mission was to just to kill as many Westerners as you can.

• 3:14:13Speaker 04

  You could throw a stone from across the street and hit the, the front of the, you know, huge front glass door windows because it's, it's a soft target in the sense that it doesn't have any standoff. It's not in depth. Like they have all these security apparatuses and mechanisms, but like barrier, like from a vehicular assault. Or, but it doesn't stop people from, you know, drive by, driving by and, and, and, you know, reaching out and touch someone, but.

• 3:14:45Shawn Ryan?

  Well, you know this though, Kyle. I mean, you're talking about agency personnel, State Department personnel, ambassador types. They don't give a fuck about security.

• 3:14:56Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:14:56Shawn Ryan?

  All they give a fuck about is a nice place to sleep with a bar.

• 3:14:59Speaker 04

  Nice pool, really nice.

• 3:15:00Shawn Ryan?

  In a pool.

• 3:15:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, badass pool.

• 3:15:04Shawn Ryan?

  And that shit's.

• 3:15:05Speaker 04

  Ignorance is bliss.

• 3:15:07Shawn Ryan?

  I've seen it in every country I've ever deployed in.

• 3:15:09Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 3:15:15Speaker 04

  So he tells me, yeah, you know, it's like it's their some of their TDY guys that were there to train whomever. And these are like, I met him like the day before. They're like Mac P song, like old, old, hard, crusty MFers, man. And they're in there, not again, you know, like, but I, but he, not again, man. And he tells me, he's like, yeah, he just kind of gives me the, and I'm like, hey, man, like, give me their room numbers, their cell phone numbers. Like, he's like, why? He's like, because I'm gonna go get them.

• 3:15:53Speaker 04

  And he goes, like, record stops, like, what do you mean? You do that? I'm like, yeah, I'm going there right now. Yeah, motherfucker. There are Americans. That's a start point. For me, I was like, thank you, please. Now I have room, a room number, cell phones, and now I can get on the horn with them while I'm maneuvering in route, absorbing everything as it's happening and processing to come up with a plan of action to execute. And I'm not pausing to do it, not like taking knee facing out and like, like, it's, it's happening real time. And it, it really like resonated with me. Looking back now, I'm like, what'd you think I was gonna do? Like, why'd you even like

• 3:16:38Speaker 04

  ask me that question? But it goes back to, you just don't understand. Like, the mindset piece of, like, right place, right time, right person. But it's also a matter of like, why aren't you doing something about it? Like, what are you gonna do? I just, I ain't got time for that. So it was like, I'm gonna go do something. And, you know, I was able to convince him to give me those numbers, room, room numbers and stuff. And as I'm moving, like, moving to the hotel, like, drove, we kind of drove around and got into the, the front, instead of driving right past it, kind of leapfrogged around, dismounted,

• 3:17:22Speaker 04

  and then kind of walked up, patrolled up. What are you, what are you carrying? What are you wearing? I had my, just a t-shirt on, the civilian t-shirt and like Prana, because they're stretchy pants. Sometimes men wear stretchy pants. It's a Nacho Libre reference.

• 3:17:43Speaker 04

  But, um, and then just like some shit kickers dude and like good thing they were pretty sturdy. Plates, helmet? Yeah, so like my regular like JPC with plates helmet, uh, HK four sixteen with my normal accoutrement, you know? And then uh, my surf fire RC2 suppressor and stuff like, and then my panos.

• 3:18:11Speaker 04

  And, but no more, like I didn't have breaching tools, I didn't have like bangs or I didn't have um, all the extra little bits of kit that would have been really nice to have.

• 3:18:24Speaker 04

  But, uh, so as I'm coming up, like I'm, the RSO is like, now he's talking with the ambassador and then the other RSO gets called by MSG or Post One and they're like, hey, you know, this guy's uh, this one American just like called and said that he's trapped in a room on fire and he's hiding under one of the banquet tables and they're shooting over top of him. Please come get me, come help me.

• 3:18:53Speaker 04

  So between those two calls, I'm, there's a lot of, a lot of noise and I'm like, just filter through this, like which one is the most life? That one. So threat to life, I'm like, let's focus on this one real quick. Let's get the information. Alright, he's gonna, I made the determination like, hey, Mike, you know where this room is, it's the banquet room, breakfast room.

• 3:19:19Speaker 04

  If I lead, like, can you help kind of point me in the directions I need to go? And he knew, they had the ground knowledge of the inside of the hotel. But somewhat and. What's going on when you're in there? I mean, it's fire just going. I hadn't got in yet, right now I'm still, so the RSO is like, well, hold on, like we gotta talk to the ambassador and like, you're already talking to him, but. What? We're going in to get this Terry, the American, the first American, um, in that room, the banquet room, because it was on fire and they were imminent life threat, right? Threat to life of Americans. I was like, all right, that's a, that's now the pressing

• 3:20:02Speaker 04

  start point for me. Um, and the fact that they knew I wasn't going to go through the front doors, they shot the whole fucking place up, like going in. And, um, and they chased a bulk of the people into the breakfast room. And that's where they ended up focusing their attention to get, to get the most. Kills. From the timing, right? So like seven, 10 in the morning, that's breakfast time to the time I entered, it was about seven 45, but I entered through a side door. I had to basically break into a side entrance, service entrance or whatever. And then work my way through all these, uh, like, um, conference area, you know, big, huge rooms on the, like

• 3:20:46Speaker 04

  the outer perimeter of the building or of the hotel. And then I was able to, oh, that opened up into the main foyer where it was like, if you think about embassy suites where it's like an atrium, where almost three sided atrium with floors all the way, you know, it was like seven stories. And you go into the atrium and it's like two spiral glass staircases, kind of going all the way up on each side. It's like super exposed. And I just, and it's just like the most like overly stimulating snapshot I'd have ever taken because I, I was absorbing all of it out front and like everywhere around me, because every corner, I was the guy up front, every like, everything was, was sensory overload

• 3:21:28Speaker 04

  and it was the smells, the, the sounds, the, the fire alarms, the smoke, the haze, the smells of death. Um, in western dress, it was something that I just.

• 3:21:41Speaker 04

  My brain was like, what? It was like, short circuiting a little bit, because I hadn't. I had, I had, I had become so desensitized to, to, to life and death, but in, you know, in certain environments, you know, and certain dress. And that's just, I think that's a part of like a self-defense mechanism. But this, my, for one, I didn't get a chance to prepare my mind, body, or spirit for violence, which is like planning contingencies and rehearsals, and you do that with each other and a team and a troop. And, and then you go out and do these things and, and they're like incredible, but you buy down risk

• 3:22:23Speaker 04

  with, with a collective experience and rehearsed like, plans of action that you just in place in the unknown, right? And it's a, I was just in reactive mode. And I was fully exposed, you know, my mind, body, and spirit was. And it was just awful to see and.

• 3:22:48Shawn Ryan?

  How many bodies were you seeing? I mean, how many people were killed?

• 3:22:52Speaker 04

  Well, a couple, the one, the first, the first few were just kind of like sporadic in the Fourier area. And then.

• 3:23:02Shawn Ryan?

  Did you know any of them?

• 3:23:04Speaker 04

  No, no.

• 3:23:08Speaker 04

  No, they killed 23 people total, Westerners.

• 3:23:16Speaker 04

  To include one American citizen, Anita Batar was her name. And I know that name and I will never forget it, her face and because she was the last one. Like, and I, the last one I needed to get confirmation on, like, I went back to her room probably five times that, that whole day. And cleared it again and again. And, and then I was able to confirm that she was one of the killed during the initial.

• 3:23:47Speaker 04

  But yeah, it was um, it was awful. She was in the um, like the blind leading the blind. Like into, like they chased them through the breakfast room, people. And then they set the, that room on fire. And then just were stacking furniture. They were trying to burn the place down. And then they chased them, everyone through the kitchen. And that's where Terry got left behind, the American that was in that room. That I, like they had didn't, they had set on fire and he wouldn't move. He was just like froze in that, wherever he was in that room. But I kicked the doors in to that room. And I mean, like even making it to that floor to get there was this big, I was like, you.

• 3:24:30Speaker 04

  Cover ten to two, you, ten to two, like anyone. I'm like, fucking pull security and cover me while I move. Cause I'm about to make a, a real big movement. Cause I had to run out and get on this spiral glass staircase and just mad dash it. Like to get up to the second floor to hold up and then bring them up. And then I went in and just went right into kicking these French doors in. And it was like a cloud. The whole room was full of just fire and smoke. And I just ran in there. And it fucking floored me. Cause I was like, I can't breathe. Imagine that. But like this mindset of like, it's a self correcting problem, man. But like, it just kept getting lower and lower to the point where now I'm on my belly. Like with my gun, like low crawling, gun light, yelling his name.

• 3:25:15Speaker 04

  And I'm like, wait a minute. He, first of all, no one's, no one's coming. I can't see any further. And I'm, now I don't know which way is the fucking door I just came from, cause I can't see. So I was able to like crawl the fuck back out. And then, I was like, this isn't, this isn't working. And I was like, get him on the phone, like direct, cause he was talk, they were talking through a cutout. Through the MSG, the marine security guards at post one. And then relaying to us, I'm like, fuck all that. Like, we got him on the phone direct. And then by that point.

• 3:25:48Speaker 04

  Because I went and did a bunch of, one of the lessons learned that I changed the way we train or had a part in that was communicating the fact that hostage rescue, hell yeah, we're great at it, but let's, what about in a fire environment? So we started training with Rescue one, two, three, four, and five up in New York, the FDNY, and they're really good at like manipulating a fire, you know, to, that it's gonna make it worse over time, but for that minute or two, it lifts and you can see further and they can go in and grab somebody. And they've been doing it for a long time. So between that and forcible entry is something we, I changed the way we

• 3:26:28Speaker 04

  train. And I was able to, you know, pull him, at that point, I was able to, for one,

• 3:26:36Speaker 04

  like know which direction he was, because it's a huge room. And then it lifted enough to where I was able to get deep into there and then like just pull him out by the, like he, he just looked like death, man. Like he had talked to death and he said, nah, hold up. And I carried, I carried him out, you know, and loaded him up and in a car. Like we did, that's where the, it was integral for having like the RSO and the relationships they have because they were working the embassy, like drivers and stuff, like shuttles, basically going back to a safe, a safe area away from this fucking hotel. And, you know, while this is all happening, you know, people are, the embassy's

• 3:27:16Speaker 04

  giving me, you know, there was some people at the embassy that were, they knew what I was like capable of doing and they, they weren't questioning it. They were just like, what do you need? And same with my command in, in Germany at the time. Like it was like, all right, got it. Kyle, what do you need? I'm like, stand by. I'll let you know what I got. And then eventually it was like, I need my fucking boys. I can't do this alone. And that empowerment, that,

• 3:27:50Speaker 04

  That trust is like, it was, it allowed me to be effective, to be agile, to make decisions on the ground. And what I talk about as tomorrow problems, like I watched happen where the Marsoc cats were, were just being told, called every five minutes, man, on their cell phones, like, what are you guys doing? Like, you shouldn't be in there. You're gonna get in trouble. Like, you're gonna ruin the, the platform for our source operations. And I'm like, hang the fucking phone up right now. I'm like, tell that motherfucker that's a tomorrow problem, and I need you here right now. Because what they're doing and what they did was cast seeds of doubt into any of the decisions that they were making.

• 3:28:32Speaker 04

  And if all those decisions were resting on the fact that they trusted me, and I wasn't in their command, but the moment someone from their command, 12 hours away, mind you, Yeah. says, well, you guys shouldn't be seen running around in full body armor. That's kind of like, oh, you're gonna ruin this platform. I'm like, first of all, you can go fuck yourself. Second of all, that's a tomorrow problem. You, you will deal with it, but there's lives like that can still be saved. Like, where, where the fuck, what planet are you in or on, you know? But they, they're just casting those seeds and planting seeds into Yeah.

• 3:29:12Speaker 04

  somebody that I needed to be switched, stay switched on and, and with me, like with me in this moment. And as much as I tried to like, say, fuck that, we'll deal with that later, started stepping for like, steps and steps, become an arms distance away, become, so then I was just like, holy fuck, I feel like I'm like, flat out alone in here. Even though you're moving with me, you're not where you're You're not here. You're not with, you're, you're too far behind. And then here, check, right the fuck out.

• 3:29:48Speaker 04

  Now, mind you, I wouldn't have been able to do it in the manner that I did it without them. So I just, it really bothers me that younger, I didn't realize the impression that I was having on, on so many people by just taking action and looking, they wanted to do these things, but they needed someone like me to just take lead and like form this motley crew of a team, you know, to do something. And I think like, and the whole team, like the country team, kind of really came together and they were like, well, how do we get accountability of

• 3:30:30Speaker 04

  all these people? Who, who do we have? Who's, who's unaccounted for American wise? It really like challenged them and they did a pretty good job of like filtering and pushing that information and getting it to me pretty rapidly. And, and I was able to form a list where I have, which I wanted to show you, but I started forming a list on just some scratch paper I found on the ground because I didn't have a pen and paper on me, like a good soldier. I had everything else, but I just found a piece of paper and I, can

• 3:31:09Speaker 04

  you hand me that bag? I do want to show you this because it's important. Yeah. So I grabbed a scratch piece of paper from the street and then like started, you know, writing down like names and room numbers in my excellent handwriting. And somehow it survived, like it's like super barely hanging on, you know, but this is the list that I started to form and it started to kind of, you know, these are room numbers and names of Americans that they were unaccounted for. And I, you can see that Anita Datar was, was on that list

• 3:31:52Speaker 04

  pretty early and I was able to get to her room pretty quick, but she wasn't there. And then

• 3:32:00Shawn Ryan?

  What are the scratch names of?

• 3:32:01Speaker 04

  After I rescued him.

• 3:32:05Speaker 04

  Um.

• 3:32:08Speaker 04

  Like going to the room and confirming that they are that person and I think I kicked in like fifty-four hotel doors, man.

• 3:32:15Shawn Ryan?

  No shit.

• 3:32:17Speaker 04

  Yeah, it was like, um.

• 3:32:21Speaker 04

  I, you know. The master key. Right here. I'll give the seals that, man. That whole like, uh, mule kick. That's where it's at.

• 3:32:33Shawn Ryan?

  Works.

• 3:32:34Speaker 04

  It does. Saves so much energy. And it was like comical watching people trying to, even with breach until I was like, what are you doing? What is that thing? The French when they came, I was like.

• 3:32:45Speaker 04

  Um, like step aside, please.

• 3:32:49Speaker 04

  I got really tired. But. Um. I got a heavy foot, man. I don't know. But, uh, plus it's all about like, you can waste a lot of energy not knowing how to. Like attack a locking mechanism or what's the breach, a breach, right? If you don't know how to defeat. The weakest point or the strongest point. Or the weakest point that you can defeat. Um, and obtain a breach. Either way, um.

• 3:33:18Speaker 04

  So the list, like I, I obviously went and got Terry that the first room and then I started getting. You know, the, the, the names and, and room numbers and I looked at the floor. Now I'm outside the hotel after the first time I went in. And I look at this and people are like. Hanging out, they're outside on the balconies, just like, you know, guests in the hotel. I don't know, they're, they can be from whatever countries, but, um. Some of them are like tying bed sheets together. On like the sixth floor. Like this, my man had like three sheets tied together. And he had a good thirty, forty feet of just. Drop. Before he didn't even touch the ground. And I was like, first of all, don't do that. I'm like, I'm like hand and arm, you know, cause I don't know if you're gonna, like I said in English, but I don't speak French and.

• 3:34:04Speaker 04

  Who knows if, uh, you know, what languages they, they understood or spoke, but. The pointy, you know, like me saying no, you know, and then having people like relay it, but. I'm like, don't do that. For one. That's not gonna hold up. And, uh. And so I was like, just barricade yourself in your room and don't answer the door. For anyone. Period. And um. We're gonna give them like reassurances while I'm like. How the fuck am I gonna deal with this? Like it. It's a lot and um. And I was looking at the room numbers and like the highest floor was on the seventh. The set, there was a bank of three rooms that were remotely close to each other on the seventh floor.

• 3:34:46Speaker 04

  So when I went back in, I was like, all right, I looked at the lower floor that I already cleared, came, went back the same way. And then. It was like, all right, if I find the closest stairwell to this bank of rooms. I'm just gonna go right up this stairwell because there wasn't no outside, there wasn't an outside fire escape or roof access. Cause I wanted to get down and work my way from the top down. But I, I did a whole sweeper on the whole hotel and there was no fire escapes. So I was like, I guess I'm going. I didn't want to go up the spiral staircase, staircase, so I went to like the fire. The fire stairwell, fire red stairwells. And went to the lower floor. Like. So if it was seven, three, one, you know, two, six and, and one, eight.

• 3:35:29Speaker 04

  I, I went to the stairwell that was gonna get me closest to it when I popped out. On that floor. If that makes sense.

• 3:35:36Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:35:36Speaker 04

  So. I did that. And then when I got to the seventh floor, I couldn't get in the door from the inside. Cause it was a, a crash bar. You know, emergency exit. So. I didn't have the tool or anything to like pop it from the inside, so I actually went down. A couple of floors and then went over. And then that led me into this. Like outside area of the hotel. But it, to me, I was just still in the hotel. But at that point, I had went around to the backside of it where. Uh, I went up that stairwell. And this whole wing of the hotel wasn't even on. It was like additions that they made and it wasn't even on like the emergency exit plan or anything like.

• 3:36:23Speaker 04

  And which I took with me for to capture that how fucked up this hotel was for one. Like this is what you have briefing on the wall here. Like there's parts of the hotel that aren't even on this, like additions, the whole wings. And um, just so chaotic. And uh, as I'm going up that other stairwell in between the third and fourth floor is when uh, like I'm about here in the clearance uh, on the stairs and you know, like running upstairs and then like trying to clear. And then the, the gunmen are like coming down the stairs and they're on the landing. And then we, we, we like lock eyes. And I stared down his muzzle from five feet away, like the That close?

• 3:37:08Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah, he's like right here. And I just go, oh, fuck. And but I looked through his, like beyond the muzzle and into his eyes. And I, and I, I was like,

• 3:37:29Speaker 04

  I saw a change in his demeanor. I saw a shift because he was not expecting to see me. Big American flag, panels on my head. He's like, holy shit, without saying it. Um, and this is all like very rapidly. And but the next thing through my mind was, well, that's me. I'm fucking dead. And uh, he cracks the first round off and I blackout for a split second. I mean, I got knocked out. Like I thought I was in heaven or hell. And I, and I just like, it's all like a fog and haze, but like,

• 3:38:11Speaker 04

  I'm like stumbling down the stairs and it's like, almost like things are moving in slow motion. And I'm like shooting, shooting back. And, and uh, he shoots like five more times. And they all hit like just in this concrete stairwell right around like pop, pop, pop, like right, like, like Samuel Jackson, man, Pulp Fiction.

• 3:38:35Speaker 04

  And so for, for me, the Divine Intervention piece, like, I just couldn't see it for what it was. And, uh,

• 3:38:43Speaker 04

  I just saw red, and I went running back up the stairs and yelled, and I actually cussed him out. Called him a bunch of basic ass bitches. And I don't know where that came from, but I screamed it at the top of my lungs. And then he yells "Al Akbar" at me and fucking pops the primer on a grenade. And I hear that, it's very audible, you know, time delay pop, like a Russian-style grenade, the pineapple-looking one.

• 3:39:13Speaker 04

  And I've heard it a ton in Afghanistan, and I know, so I was able to yell grenade and get out of the way, relative cover. And, uh, and that thing just bopped the fucking shit out of me. And somehow I was still, there was moments of blacking out right there for a second, or not, like, unconsciousness. But then coming back to, and it's just, I could, like, my teeth were just fucking, like, loose and dangling, you know, and... But I was just, I was just, you know, just holding them in place.

• 3:39:46Speaker 04

  Because I was like, I'm the only person that could stop these motherfuckers right now. And, uh,

• 3:39:53Speaker 04

  you know, when they threw, they threw another grenade on me, I was like, fuck. They can't, I don't have, I don't have what I need to deal with, like, to, to deal with this, I can't. They have the position and tactical advantage in this stairwell. And, uh, so I just, like,

• 3:40:11Speaker 04

  I just started going straight up. I was like, "Go get any Malian security forces

• 3:40:18Speaker 04

  that you can find now and get them up here."

• 3:40:22Speaker 04

  And I said that very calmly just now, I was yelling it.

• 3:40:28Speaker 04

  And, uh, you know, basically whoever they could muster up there, I was like, I was just going up and down the line. Like, "This is your fucking country, these motherfuckers are right here." I was just going straight up patent speech on them. Like, and I was like, "You, you're a fucking jail..." They don't speak English. And I'm just like, English fucking screaming, and like, they're, they're like, "We, we, we." I'm like, "Uh, you understand this," you know, and I was just so fucking, for one, I was like...

• 3:41:01Speaker 04

  It was hurting and I was using like I couldn't I couldn't stop. So I just used overwhelming violence of action to to mask any of that, any of the pain I was feeling right in that moment. And this is in hindsight, but

• 3:41:18Speaker 04

  I was able to like, you know, you take this shield and go over there. And I basically like hand like placed this dude and like, go over there. And then like, he got to the base of stairwell and like, they took one shot, popped the shield from up here and he drops it and takes it to the house. He's like, I served my country. See you later. Like, he was gone. And this was Amali and

• 3:41:43Speaker 04

  all right, next, you know, like, get the fuck over here. And then this guy shows up with a gas mask on his head and a pistol. And he's like, I got you. He didn't say that, but he gave me the look. And I was like, all right, don't let them fucking move. And then I cleared the rest of that wing, you know, kicking in every door I could and freeing not just Americans, but anyone at that point. I'm like, this is now I've locked them into a position. They couldn't go any like higher because it was a condo that they they were trying to find. What I found out later, they had some pocket litter. They were sterile. Like, they didn't have like comps. They had comps, but they they were

• 3:42:24Speaker 04

  burner phones and like, they had some pocket litter that had the room numbers of like in the six series, like six hundred, whatever, a bank. And that was where the Air France crew was staying. So like they flew, Air France would fly in daily there. So their flight crews would stay in a certain wing every time. And they were trying to get over, just like I was, to the certain wing or bank of rooms. And, you know, our our paths crossed very early in this process and that and they were no longer able to, it went from, you know, killing and making as much of an impact as they they wanted

• 3:43:03Speaker 04

  to or could to survival and barricaded themselves. And um, so they didn't kill another innocent person once they met me in that stairwell. It just took them, it took, you know, the rest of the day for for me to clear through and then

• 3:43:24Speaker 04

  The French came from, the assault force from Burkina Faso, the neighboring country, and one of my old teammates that was embedded with them, helping them, you know, target and do things. And he hopped on a bird with them. There was like 12 of them. And, but when they showed up, it was like almost 1pm. Holy shit. I ran into the stairwell with them at like... It's like 6 hours later. Yeah, it was like, it was like 8 something when, when I, when I encountered them in that stairwell. In, uh, 8:30 AM? No, 7:45. Probably 8:45.

• 3:44:06Speaker 04

  Something like an hour from getting Terry out of there, or less. I don't know. But, the...

• 3:44:16Speaker 04

  My whole point was when I, like, I kicked in one door in that, in that wing, and there was, there was a dude in western dress, just like with his shot right through his head. Like, and I was like, I looked back at the door, I was like, there are holes in the door? Like, how the fuck did he get hit? And after I cleared the room, I was like, there's no one in here. And, um, yeah, cause when I kicked it in, like, the, the deadbolt and the throw latch both broke off the door. So I, I cleared all of it, right? And cleared it out of the, the door frame. And I was like, it really like bothered me, not just the fact that he was like, obviously, you know, one of the killed, one, one of the west, one of the people that were killed, innocent people that were killed.

• 3:45:00Speaker 04

  But like, even in that, like, from a, I was like, this doesn't make sense. Like, why, you know, from a physics perspective, I was like, wait a minute. And I, I found out, you know, cause I went back with the FBI, almost in an unhealthy manner of times, to do my own sensitive site exploitation, but really trying to make sense of it all. I put a suit on and went back in there like every day, for days and days. And I didn't know how much, how many times I'd get a chance to go back in there, if at all. But they they were knocking on doors and then if anyone that would answer their door, they would just like even just through the people, not people, but the the

• 3:45:44Speaker 04

  throw last still engaged the hotel, right? So it like shuts in itself. And once you let it go, I mean, they would knock lightly in this one. He answered the door, but just stuck his head, you know, through the crack. He was like looking through the crack and they just smoked him right there through the through the crack in the door. They didn't have a fucking chance, man. Damn. And

• 3:46:09Speaker 04

  and

• 3:46:14Speaker 04

  but I do know that

• 3:46:18Speaker 04

  it was the most exposed I've ever felt like for a long, a long time. And then when that that troop came from the Berchina Faso, like I finally was just like, all right, let's fucking go like and I was like, hey, here's the deal. Like I went over there and was like to the commander. I'm like, who's fucking charging or who's in charge here? I'm like, here's the thing like they're right here. We got him. I can pin down like I can take you right to it. And they're like, oh, okay, okay. I'm like, okay, okay, let's go. And I was pretty amped still and like.

• 3:47:01Speaker 04

  Cause they're still in there. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Still barricaded in the same room? It was a it was like a storage closet. So if you think about the landing opened into, there was a door that opened into the condo, that metal door. And then to the left of that on the landing was like a storage closet, like two, two storage closet deep. They didn't have much room, but man, they were there. They had like tied up all their bandoliers and were loading mags while one of them was shooting and single shot. Like they were there to stay and die there.

• 3:47:41Speaker 04

  And uh, like, there was no way of flanking them at that point, at least not from my perspective. Like, there was no direct way of flanking without having some sort of climbing ability or, you know, coming in from the roof. So, um, also, just taking a step back, you know, and having to, like, spread that out with, you know, with the French, like, to be able to problem solve, which was awesome. Like, and I think this is, like, really ironic or funny, but they were like, "Oh, yeah, you come with us, but just stay in the back." I'm like, "Roger that. I've been up front all fucking day. I'll stay in the back with you boys.

• 3:48:26Speaker 04

  Let's go." And, uh, then I'm like, you know, doing all the, "What the fuck's going on? This is taking so long." Like, it's all this commotion up front. And I'm, you know, now, I'm like, there's no, there shouldn't be, like, there's gunshots, and I'm like, "Who the fuck are they fighting with right now?" And, uh, it was one of them, like, security force dudes, like, shot one of the fucking French, like, in the top of his helmet. I was more afraid of, like, once I went in first, like, it was like me against the fucking shooters. And then after that, it was like giving people permission to go in, and anyone and everyone, like, whomever, and with a gun. Yeah. And it's like, that was scary as shit.

• 3:49:11Speaker 04

  Like, I was like, how do you, you know, filter through? Like, I can, you know, discriminate a threat and a friendly. But that's difficult, even through the haze and the fog, you know? And, yeah, like, they shot one of the French right in the top of his fucking helmet. And he was walking wounded, you know, bleeding, but we were able to package him up, get him out of there. And then, next thing you know, like, now they're down and assaulted, and they're like, "Oh, you guys wanna intermingle in the teams now?" And I'm like, "Roger that." And I just kept getting further. Then I'm like, like, "In the team, team."

• 3:49:53Speaker 04

  Just flowing with them and that's that's a testament to like the ability to to not be so like indoctrinated and and and it just it took me two rooms to to to kind of like adapt to their techniques. And not get in the way. Cause at that point, it's like I could sure I could like fall on my sword here. You guys are doing this all fucking wrong if I wanted, but not that they were. I was just extremely grateful to be a part of any sort of like competent assault force. When my boys were like they were getting spun up in North Carolina and the guys in Germany were like loading in a C one thirty like. But they were ten, twelve hours away, eighteen hours away, like.

• 3:50:38Speaker 04

  So, you know, to have

• 3:50:42Speaker 04

  to have them there and and you know, just just to like see and bear witness to to to pure evil. And, you know, and and people just following. Like the like the American that was killed was was in a service elevator area that if they a group of them, like fifteen of them. Like if they would have just kept going, went right, like a turn and then freedom down a hallway. Exit, freedom. They went flew that kitchen into this service elevator and there's bodies in the elevator in in between the doors like closed on them.

• 3:51:26Speaker 04

  And then outside of it, they're just all executed from like point blank range. Damn. Like in the in the head, face. And you cannot see that, the smell.

• 3:51:40Speaker 04

  And they didn't have a fucking chance.

• 3:51:49Speaker 04

  So people ask me, they're like, even the ambassador, he's like, why is you, God, you're an American hero, like, why did you react that way?

• 3:51:59Speaker 04

  I'm like, well, sir, I was like, you got a minute? Like, if anyone should have reacted that way, it's someone that's been trained in this for, since, like, hostage rescue and, and, like,

• 3:52:09Speaker 04

  it's my, I have the ability, so it was my responsibility to act. Like, I'm not gonna just sit here and fucking hope and dream and, and, like, I'm gonna do something, and by doing something, the impact of that, now, mind you, the impact that it's had on me as a person, I, I can't, I'm only starting to heal from, and, uh, my family,

• 3:52:36Speaker 04

  I gave it all, I died in that stairwell.

• 3:52:42Speaker 04

  And I, I couldn't...

• 3:52:50Speaker 04

  I just maintained being, my priority was to...

• 3:52:54Speaker 04

  Well, no, I have the ability, right, so it's my responsibility, so, like, everyone, I stayed in that country for

• 3:53:02Speaker 04

  almost four months by myself, no one came and checked on me. All these embassy folks were having, like, these crisis response teams come in and, like, medic, doctors and fucking psychs and stuff, come in and do these evaluations. I was like, oh, those are cool, what's going on over there, like, that seems cool. All right, I'll be over here, just fucking licking a window, you know, like, pulling security, facing out, and, uh...

• 3:53:33Speaker 04

  Like, I was, I was hurting so bad, and I couldn't, I didn't know what that, like, how...

• 3:53:40Speaker 04

  I didn't, I couldn't really put word to like what I was feeling, you know, fear. And but anger is easy to mask that. So I was just really angry. And I remember, I don't remember this, but I called my wife that night when I got back to the room, my room by myself, fucking deathly afraid. And I just started boozing to numb it. And I just remember like she said I called was just like bawling. I was like bawling and she just was asking me like, oh my God, Kyle, what's wrong? What's wrong? Like, and then she started getting, I remember, I remember this because it was like, to me, it was like a point where I was like, you can't help me.

• 3:54:23Speaker 04

  So I pushed her further away because she was like, oh my God, what's wrong? It was like hysteria. And I was like, you can't help me. And what I really needed and wanted was to hold her and to hug her and to hug her children. But I couldn't. And no one, no one came and saved me from me. And everyone relied on me to be the savior. If, if something were to happen again, they were like, oh, let's just rally at Kyle's house, he'll figure it out. And I'm like, yeah, I'll figure it the fuck out, man. And I'm just fucking losing myself completely, trying to make sense of the physical wounds

• 3:55:08Speaker 04

  to my brain and the psychological and emotional and, and I was like, this, this is all too much. So I just, I drank. And I, I need, I, I seeked comfort in, in an extramarital affair. Because those are the two things that were super comforting. And I cope, I coped with those and that only kept me just barely afloat. And kept me from, had I not done those two things and they both fed into just more misery, but I don't think I would have made it back.

• 3:55:50Speaker 04

  I just wanted to fucking destroy myself and everything around me.

• 3:55:57Speaker 04

  And it's not about one specific event. That was the catalyst that unlocked so much other trauma in my life from my first visual memory being traumatic.

• 3:56:08Speaker 04

  And it's just like, that's when things started to become unmanageable in my life. How did that day end?

• 3:56:20Speaker 04

  When they got to the barricade?

• 3:56:23Speaker 04

  We, uh, I mean, we got, we killed them eventually at like, we had to, we ended up like, weren't bounding around and coming in through like a rooftop thing and then crawling down into this condo and locking them down from underneath and then below and, I mean, I think the French threw everything they had. Like flashbang and like conclusive grenades, but it was just flying right past them. And they had this corridor where they could just like, just spray down this hallway and then they had the stairwell. So they had them locked down and, um, so we couldn't come up from underneath, like, we had to, the dude that was, the French dude was holding the shield guy.

• 3:57:08Speaker 04

  That was his job. I mean, you're the fucking shield dude. And I was like, and he was like this young, probably a twenty something year old kid. And I know, and I remember this because like he got shot, I think through his, like, broke his hand. And then maybe he got like shot through his, like, the superficial part of his arm or whatever, so bandaged it him up, but I was like, he got within a foot of this corner where the barricaded guys were in this storage closet just to get close enough, but took, took like seven rounds in this fucking shield from a foot away. And was fucking, was bawling after that.

• 3:57:49Speaker 04

  And the guys weren't dead. They threw, and, cause the guy behind him was able to get close enough to throw an, on an actual like offensive like frag grenade on top of these cats. Which was this huge faux pas of like, you don't bring frags on a hostage rescue, man. And I'm like, well, what about in this case?

• 3:58:09Speaker 04

  So I know that we came back and I was able to train, I came back and was able to like bring the tactical lessons learned to change the way we think and train. I mean, that's my legacy there. It's not like to make an impact on that type of organization, I think is massive. And, and it's not like, oh, look at, look at me. It's just like, we evolve as a fighting force and that's why it's so capable, but as a collective. But like even the grenade, like right on top of this, the, these cats, like we had to go in and like rush up, ran upstairs and like finish these guys off. Cause they're like fucking, you know, they're like zombies coming out of the shit, but.

• 3:58:54Speaker 04

  I ate a lot of like overpressure and I guess I just never realized how much that impacted, was impacting me. Like because I didn't have a physical frag or bullet hole. Like those, the, there's like the wounds you can't see, that, that, that saying, you know? And I'm like, it makes so much sense now. Like, cause it changes so much about your, it changes your character. Like everything that used to be easier becomes more difficult and cognitive processing and function. But we were able to clear those guys out or kill them.

• 3:59:37Speaker 04

  And then that we, I still stayed in the hotel for another three hours clearing the rest of the hotel, like room by room. And I didn't, I didn't say, it was like six, six PM when I called, you know, objective secure, one, one cat, one American killed, confirmed, you know, her body. Cause I got a, um, a, a physical description from the, from the country team and she was one, um, I needed a tar was one of the ones that were initially killed in that service elevator area. But, and I went back to the embassy, still like my pistol belt on and just like.

• 4:00:22Speaker 04

  Like, just like, like, still got fucking shit all over me, like,

• 4:00:28Speaker 04

  gunpowder and stuff. And, uh, the country teams there are just like waiting for me to brief them. All circled up. And I'm like, "What's up?"

• 4:00:41Speaker 04

  Like, "Tell us all about it." Like...

• 4:00:45Speaker 04

  I'm like, "Okay."

• 4:00:48Speaker 04

  And people just looked at me differently after that, you know? And I was like, "Where the fuck did you think this was?" Thinking, "Did you think this, why, oh, you're worried now you're kids?" "Why the fuck are your kids here?" Like, "If, there's an oper- adult force operators here."

• 4:01:04Speaker 04

  "You think this is a good country?" "There's not very many of us." "My operator number is 965, since 1978."

• 4:01:13Speaker 04

  "That's not me bragging, that's me just to conceptualize how small we are."

• 4:01:18Speaker 04

  "I was one of less than a thousand still." "And..."

• 4:01:25Speaker 04

  "It just blew my mind." "They're like, 'What are we gonna get our, what are we gonna do about our kids?'" And I'm like, "Get them the fuck out of this country." "Like, I got it." "It's just not where it is. Like, we, I know we wanna spread our free democracy everywhere, "but..." "In due time." "This one hasn't baked enough, it needs to go back in the oven."

• 4:01:45Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:01:45Speaker 04

  And it's like, "It's just like the ignorance piece of it, and then masking it with like, "like, the, the, as you know, like, the partying and like, the social aspects of it, and..."

• 4:01:58Speaker 04

  "No, give me, don't get me wrong, there's great missions that the State Department's doing and spreading, you know, and, "um, and truly like, like, helping others. I'm just like, "Why did this catch you guys, like, with your pants down?"

• 4:02:12Speaker 04

  Um... Yeah.

• 4:02:18Shawn Ryan?

  Do you wanna take a break?

• 4:02:19Speaker 04

  Hmm?

• 4:02:20Shawn Ryan?

  Say the break.

• 4:02:27Shawn Ryan?

  Thank you for listening to the Sean Ryan Show. If you haven't already, please take a minute, head over to iTunes and leave the Sean Ryan Show a review. We read every review that comes through and we really appreciate the support. Thank you. Let's get back to the show.

• 4:02:50Shawn Ryan?

  All right, Kyle, you took pictures in the days after this happened and you got them here, so let's go through some of these. So this is where they were barricaded, correct?

• 4:03:01Speaker 04

  Yeah, yeah. So the storage closet, it was like two room storage closet that was, if you were to button hook around to the right of this doorway, that's where they were held up at and that's where they were tied the bandoliers.

• 4:03:19Shawn Ryan?

  They were in this room?

• 4:03:21Speaker 04

  If you were to go right into this and then button hook around, there was a storage type closet room, you know, maintenance stuff or whatever was in it, but it didn't go anywhere else. There was no escape from that. So then that door was closed, right? So that door, to me, once we were able to open it from the other side signifies like an end to a door that was, they closed, you know? And we opened it and that's where, you know, the shield guy was able to get close enough

• 4:03:59Speaker 04

  to be able to drop a grenade on top of them in that landing, just to disorient them enough to finish them off. And, you know, the door itself, it's a symbol to me of just carnage and...

• 4:04:22Speaker 04

  And a of an end to what I didn't think was gonna gonna end.

• 4:04:27Shawn Ryan?

  You have a picture of that door too?

• 4:04:29Speaker 04

  Mm hmm. Yeah. And that door is like, I took it from the hotel and and turned it into a beer pong table for the rest of that trip.

• 4:04:39Shawn Ryan?

  Are you serious?

• 4:04:40Speaker 04

  Yeah. It makes for a gnarly beer pong table with all the gunshot, like the ricochet, like the

• 4:04:48Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:04:50Speaker 04

  There was nothing else to do, man.

• 4:04:51Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:04:52Speaker 04

  I wanted anything and everything to to to just.

• 4:04:56Shawn Ryan?

  Get your mind off it.

• 4:04:57Speaker 04

  Mm. And using my own like bravado or like that operator macho like.

• 4:05:07Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:05:08Speaker 04

  It's it's a facade like because underneath it was this scared little boy that just wanted someone to hold his hand and say, hey, man, it's okay to not be okay. And obviously, looking back, I can say that, but going through it was like, I wanted to make sense of it. And because I didn't believe in things I couldn't see and the things I saw, I couldn't believe.

• 4:05:34Speaker 04

  And that's why, like, looking at the stair the stairwell, like, coming up, like,

• 4:05:41Speaker 04

  as I'm walking up the stairs, like, this is my or this is his this that perspective looking down, and that's me looking up. But you can see there's like a, and I'll give you the photo, but there's a small ricochet in between our fields of view. And

• 4:05:58Speaker 04

  that's what's depicted on my arm.

• 4:06:02Speaker 04

  That same little ricochet is there too. And it, this is a scene from like, I'm still building it, but it's like a ghost. Me running up and then kind of fading into the.

• 4:06:15Speaker 04

  The darkness.

• 4:06:16Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 4:06:17Speaker 04

  And.

• 4:06:18Shawn Ryan?

  So he was up and you were, you're looking up at him.

• 4:06:21Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 4:06:22Shawn Ryan?

  Literally.

• 4:06:23Speaker 04

  Yeah, so I'm only going.

• 4:06:24Shawn Ryan?

  The flight of stairs is like this, you're here pointing up.

• 4:06:27Speaker 04

  Yeah, so I'm going up, then there's the, a small landing and then it went up and then we, we caught each other like right here. So he's got the angle and the high ground. And I'm like here and trying to sweep back as I'm like running upstairs. And this is where like not having your mates like close enough to you, like.

• 4:06:49Speaker 04

  Yeah, there's a lot of things that ate, ate me up. Like there's a few shots that I know I took that I can't account for. And I, I just let that consume me. Cause what if I, what if I killed somebody that didn't, that didn't intend? And I let that just like destroy my, my, I'm better than that. I'm better than that. So then it would just, and then I would just like start like these negative self-talk like stuff and I'm just a shitty operator. I'm a shitty person. I'm a shitty father. I'm a shitty husband. Well, what do shitty people do? Shitty things. I'm not gonna do shitty

• 4:07:27Speaker 04

  stuff, but, but hide it. You know, so in a lot of this, I wanted, like I talked about that phone call with my wife and how I feel like she, she didn't have a chance. She didn't have a chance. It wasn't, it wasn't fair. She didn't have a chance to, to, for one, why, why is it on her to give me something I need? Like I need to be held, comforted, told it's okay. You're gonna be okay. Without her knowing that, you know, that's like an expectation and an unfair one where she's not in a position. Have I, and have I ever

• 4:08:06Speaker 04

  opened up, up to that point? Like, hey, I'm actually afraid. I'm scared to death right now. And I just want you to tell me, like, that it's gonna be okay. And I didn't have a, a trust, I couldn't trust in any other human being from my first visual memory. Like, cause if I wasn't in control, I got hurt.

• 4:08:33Speaker 04

  And I damn sure wanted to believe and trust in God, but if I can't trust in other humans, like, I saw it the other way. I was like, I can't truly believe in something I can't see. But I never lost sight of there being something out there bigger than me. As much as I used confidence or arrogance or the mask to compensate or to mask, you know, how I really felt, like I was vulnerable and exposed. And I was like, oh shit. It's like the Oz, you know, like they're, the guy behind the thing is just like, he's just a dude, you know? Yeah.

• 4:09:18Speaker 04

  Oz is just fucking dude. Where's the Oz? Just a dude. And it's like, you mean I'm just a dude? Like behind all this boyish good looks and charm? I'm, not only am I just a dude, I'm a human being, man. And forgiving myself for all the things that I had no control of, that I didn't need to be like forgive myself for, from my childhood. And not until I like was able to like he without sin cast the first stone. I mean, that's been something I've hung on to, even in the darkest days where I've been like,

• 4:10:01Speaker 04

  like it would manifest itself in self harm, self love, self hate, sabotage in my own personal life. Because, you know what, I was like, I don't, I don't know how to make sense of what I've been through my whole life. And it's just been, I've seen chaos and pure evil at its fucking closest. So I believe that that's just what I need. And in order for me to defeat evil, I gotta be more evil. So it started getting, taking this twisted form of like,

• 4:10:38Speaker 04

  My service was, was to feed into my ego. Because my ego was my sense of self. And, once that became exposed, through, you know, getting arrested beyond this and, and a couple times and, it's, you can't hide. It's like, oh, impostor. And, but then it was all about like, well, perceptions, like, I'm gonna abstain from alcohol or go to this treatment center because my, my goal was to be the best operator I could be and team leader eventually, in that unit.

• 4:11:17Speaker 04

  And, I even asked like, psych, I've been in talk therapy for six years. I've done about, I don't know, three neck shots, the Staling Gate blocks. I've done intensive inpatient, uh, therapy for combat-related stress and substance abuse. I've done the Army Substance Abuse Programs.

• 4:11:42Speaker 04

  Always for someone else though, and never for myself.

• 4:11:49Speaker 04

  Not only, like, not until I could,

• 4:11:53Speaker 04

  not until I truly saw myself

• 4:11:58Speaker 04

  from the outside, from, from an out-of-body experience where I... You had an out-of-body experience? Yeah. When was that? October last year.

• 4:12:11Speaker 04

  What was that like? What'd you see?

• 4:12:16Speaker 04

  I saw just the ugliness. I saw, I saw me for,

• 4:12:23Speaker 04

  not what I thought I was, but like,

• 4:12:28Speaker 04

  like who I was. What were you doing when that happened?

• 4:12:38Speaker 04

  I was driving back from Texas and I had my daughter with me and I was doing internships in, out in Austin and I was like, I gotta make it back. And there was something I had to make it back for and I was trying to rebuild my relationship with my wife and this was the third attempt. And we started dating and I was, I was spiraling, man. And I was running towards the only thing that I've ever had that's been stable and never lost sight of me, the pure kind, loving person. And that's my wife and

• 4:13:21Speaker 04

  I had my oldest daughter with me and I went to the bathroom and took a bump of cocaine, what I thought was cocaine. And I'm sitting in the driver's seat, just got gas, like, started sweating. And then I look, I look over at her and I'm like, I don't feel so good. Can you drive this next hour or so? And then I, I just like, that's when I could see myself. I was, I almost died from fentanyl overdose. Damn, man. And they had to narc me and like, this all happened in front of my daughter.

• 4:14:04Speaker 04

  Like, not the use of the drug, but man, I could rationalize anything. I'm like, well, I didn't do any pervert. So, because I, I had started messing around with like, things that could numb you in this space of being a jobless or a, an operator without a, a mission. When I got my neck fused and then left my wife and then I went and did the whole like, I was gonna take over the breaching sergeant major position and I was like, ah, once I decided I'm not gonna be operational anymore, I told them. And that was the hardest thing for me to, to say, but there were so many other things that I knew from chronic pain and insomnia, like migraines, all these things just started really coming to the forefront after I got my neck fused and my body, like...

• 4:14:51Speaker 04

  I was just like, I got so many other things I gotta work on. And but then I was like, but they that position like, I felt like that was the way for me to give back another five years without like being operational, but staying like involved. And then I went and helped out with the course for one day and it was around blasts. And it had been seven months since then between. And I had a migraine for eight days straight, like debilitating, like I couldn't get out of bed. And to the point where there was nothing. I just thought those were defo days. Oh, it's another defo day. Tylenol doesn't work.

• 4:15:34Speaker 04

  You needed some sort of central nervous system suppressant. Like it's neuropathic, like radiculopathy and nerve damage and all these things that I was just like, oh, it's only a beer, it's only gonna take it away. And culturally, it's okay. Socially, I can do this, you know? And then I couldn't do it because my drinking had been exposed, you know? Because it was, I was a high functioning alcoholic. I could perform. And then if I had something that day or the next day, I wouldn't drink. So I rationalized, I'm not alcoholic. I'm abusing it from time to time.

• 4:16:14Speaker 04

  My like I talk about using anything to mask and reveal my emotion. To me is abuse if you're using it. It could be sex, it could be work, it could be alcohol, like substances. It doesn't matter. But that's another way for me to rationalize always going back to it. Once I get it under control, then I'm like complacency. I'm feeling real good about myself. And my sense of self, my identity was my job. It always has been. Because no one ever showed me as a, as a, as a man, as a, as a contributing member of society,

• 4:16:54Speaker 04

  what, what it looks like to, to, to be those things without your work being your identity. And

• 4:17:04Speaker 04

  Through all those ups and downs, like, to me, I view rock bottom as my inability to lower, or to not, my inability to lower my standards faster than my circumstances. So I'll always dig a hole deeper. And the next one I would have dug would have been my own grave, for sure. Or I've been in jail for the rest of my life. There's three options. Those two, and then pushing a shopping cart under an overpass. Because I'm cemented in PTSD, where no one understands me. And the comparing of trauma is the, is the problem. And it's the reason that, you know, people are going and, and making the most selfish decision there is, and that's to take their own life. And I'm not above it.

• 4:17:48Speaker 04

  Like, I've, at all. I've been very close to what I think is the space of, or in hopelessness. And that's the most scared I've ever been. And that's happened to me since 2016, on three different occasions. Where I drove myself into a hopelessness feeling. And alone in a crowd. And no longer can be, I would, I knew that I was, I can't be in bars or this or that, because it was overly stimulating. And then I would just drink, and then I'd become something else. And then it like, it was just this, I used to joke around with mates and stuff and be like, "How dark passenger took over, bro."

• 4:18:34Speaker 04

  It's not a fucking joke, man. It's like a serious thing where, where, where, we compartmentalize to, to do things at such a high level, over and over. But if we don't think that we have to unpackage that at some point, then it becomes a dark passenger. And then we just kind of culturally just say, "Ah, you know, it's just, it's just, someone else is driving behind the wheel right now," you know? It's not, it's not okay. Yeah. Like, it's just, it's minimizing, it's minimizing the impact that that's having. It's not a split personality, it's not, it's you.

• 4:19:15Speaker 04

  And you need to give it the energy if you ever wanna like heal and recover, because you will. And I am, and only through the spiritual awakening I had where I truly saw myself. As many holes as I dug, this was the, was the most like closest to like,

• 4:19:38Speaker 04

  well, for one, death, but like I could see clearer than day through the, through the haze of just, I see that face, like, I just passed out, like, gonna choke on my own damn whatever, just laying, just sitting there in a seat.

• 4:19:57Speaker 04

  And just like the reason I think I'm still here is because I never, even though I never really knew how to love myself, like I would never have taken my own life because I would never do that to my girls, my daughters and my kids, like I just wouldn't do it. And because I, I love them more than I love myself. And that's the definition of codependency. And, and now, only through seeing that and then, and truly, like not having a, a reason or, oh, I'm sorry, I was just fucked up or drunk, you know, daddy doesn't act that way, you know, or I'm just so mad at your mom, you know, deflecting and

• 4:20:38Speaker 04

  like, or just being honest with them about, hey, I am dealing with so much and, and I'm projecting it on you guys, like they've seen all these aspects of me, but this time, there was no hiding, there was no words that could explain.

• 4:20:55Speaker 04

  It was just Raj that.

• 4:20:59Speaker 04

  And that's when I started my, my path to, to recovery and, and, and alcohol, and AA and, and acceptance has been the biggest thing for me. It's the first step, powerless, powerlessness. I viewed that as weakness my whole life, but it's an opportunity for strength and growth. And man, just by accepting that I'm an alcoholic, holy shit, it's opened up.

• 4:21:29Speaker 04

  Like a floodgate of feeling and connections. And the biggest one is a power greater than myself. Step two, believing in it, not just believing in it, not just paying it lip service or acknowledging that a power exists out there. For me, it's trust. And when I truly trusted in God, I've been able to communicate with daily. And now I can trust other human beings. And it's almost like being like a little child on like just happier than a pig in shit every day because there's so much joy that I just has been there. I just couldn't see it or feel it for what it was. And it's there.

• 4:22:14Speaker 04

  And that's why like I'm looking at this 10 months of sobriety where I'm like, man, aren't we all blessed?

• 4:22:24Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:22:24Speaker 04

  This is such a like, and it's never, it's not too late unless we say it is. And there's, and you're not alone. And it's okay. I'm telling you, it's okay to not be okay. We can do incredible things as human beings for good and for evil. And no one thing, act, decision, like should define who you are as a person. But it does, and I let it, and it doesn't have to though.

• 4:22:59Shawn Ryan?

  What was the last?

• 4:22:59Speaker 04

  We're not that special.

• 4:23:00Shawn Ryan?

  What was the last straw for you? What made you quit drinking? Was it the fentanyl overdose from your daughter? That's what, that was the last thing, cleaned it up after that?

• 4:23:09Speaker 04

  Yeah, because I was able to mask through, you know, I found I never really played around with drugs and, and because I couldn't in the army. It was like, oh, no, you're going to get drug tested and this and that. So I was like, and I never had a desire to.

• 4:23:27Speaker 04

  With alcohol, though, it was like, if I look back at the signs, I'm like, hmm, I don't think I've had a very successful drinking career, honey, like, at all. And I can actually look back and there isn't a happy, a truly happy feeling that's been associated with alcohol in me. So that's having an unhealthy relationship with a substance. And that's called, to me, an allergy. A, uh, it's, it's, it's not weakness, it's alcoholism. It's, I, I, like, I measured it, I quantified it. Well, you know, my dad, he'd drink a rack of beer, a case of beer, or whatever, at night. I don't do that. I don't have to drink to wait, or to function. Um, and that's how I would just, you know, rationalize anything.

• 4:24:12Speaker 04

  And just like, uh, when I got exposed to cocaine in strip clubs in Texas, I was like, wow, this is, this numbs everything, and I don't have to drink. But then it wears off, you know? So it's like, I can hide and function because of, I'm at such a deficit cognitively and emotionally and, and I can't let people see that. So I just wanna numb it. And I've always been looking for, for ways of numbing those things. And even the night of the Radisson, like, when I told Erica, I was like, you can't, in my mind, I'm like, she can't help me. I was like, just let me talk to the kids, and just started balling. And just told them all I loved them.

• 4:24:55Speaker 04

  And from then on, like, I was like, I'm out. And when I say that, like, that relationship I got in the extramarital affair, like, that woman was the only one that actually, like, there. A lot of people were like, oh, man, are you, how you doing, are you all right? Like, you asked me that a minute ago, and I knew what you meant by it. And I knew when I answered it.

• 4:25:19Speaker 04

  Like, I am actually okay. And I can say that with confidence, whereas before, I would always just, "Yeah, man, I'm good." "I feel fine."

• 4:25:30Speaker 04

  You know, and it's like,

• 4:25:32Speaker 04

  "Wait a minute. Like, is it lip service or is it like, coming from the heart?" And to me, I was just, I was looking for somebody that could, like, ask me a question without me prompting it. And, you know, she asked me straight up, like, "Hey, man, are you, how are you doing?" And I'm like, "I'm good." Woo! Saved the day! And, uh...

• 4:25:59Speaker 04

  No, she was like, "Oh, no, no, no, like, seriously, are you, like, how are you doing? Are you okay?" And I went, "No."

• 4:26:07Speaker 04

  And then she hugged me.

• 4:26:11Speaker 04

  And that was exactly what I needed in that moment in time. And that led me to an extramarital affair that led me to... She saved me from me there. I stayed there for almost four months, just like, no mission.

• 4:26:29Speaker 04

  Maintaining relationships.

• 4:26:33Speaker 04

  And I went back home, moved out, abandoned my children, tried to pick up and start a life with this woman in a place where it was never meant. It wasn't a reality, it was just like some twisted, um, blanket. It was a blanket that I needed, like, just a wet blanket, like alcohol was. And,

• 4:26:55Speaker 04

  you know, I've kept that door open even slightly. And the only first person that came and actually checked on me was when we were redeploying. And only because she called. Erica called

• 4:27:10Speaker 04

  my chain of command and was like, "Kyle's not okay." Like, "What are you guys fucking doing?" Were they helpful? Did they do anything? That got to my team leader at the time, and he flew to, like, see me in person and was like crying, because he was like, "I had no idea." And I'm like...

• 4:27:30Speaker 04

  Yeah, man, I've been like

• 4:27:33Speaker 04

  waking up every night and seeing these like shadows through the through the mosquito net like on my bed. And it just this like

• 4:27:43Speaker 04

  just reliving it, locking myself layers into this room or house by myself.

• 4:27:52Speaker 04

  And just couldn't could never um relax, like not even just relax like

• 4:28:02Speaker 04

  it's a state of hypervigilance that just I stayed in for for a couple of years. And

• 4:28:10Speaker 04

  like different therapists I've talked to or you know like people are introduced in your life at different at different times for different reasons. But this one in particular was a psychiatrist and they said something he said something to me in 2018. Because I was asking the heart some hard questions with my therapist. I was like, hey, am I doing more harm than good? By by continuing to stay in this environment?

• 4:28:40Speaker 04

  Because I was starting to see things a little bit more differently. What environment? Like the in the commando environment, I stayed operational beyond all of it and

• 4:28:52Speaker 04

  like the answer was no, I or I'm I'm doing a lot more damage than than good. But the it was said to me is like, well, it depends on what your what's your goal?

• 4:29:05Speaker 04

  Is your end goal be to be the best operator you can be?

• 4:29:10Speaker 04

  And I I feel like that's a cop out. When you work for a command and like your whole job is to keep us in the fight. But we're no good to you not in the fight.

• 4:29:23Speaker 04

  So let's keep you in the fight. And and

• 4:29:28Speaker 04

  now don't get me wrong, like he's not putting words in my mouth, but

• 4:29:32Speaker 04

  yeah, you're right. And then and then conversely, where an outside psychiatrist is like telling me, hey, man, I commend you for making it this far. This is two, two and a half, three years removed from the Radisson. He's like, I commend you for making this far.

• 4:29:47Speaker 04

  But he's like, there's a fire still burning, man. Whether the embers, it's still embers or whatever, it's, it's still a fire. Whether it's raging, like, you need to put the fire out completely. And you're never gonna do that where, here. And I was like, what the fuck did you say? It's me? I was like, there's no way. And he's like, he said this to me, he's like, you've had Delta for the past however many years, and you need Disney, man. You need Disney? And I said, you can go fuck yourself, sir. I wasn't ready to hear it, man. I just wasn't ready to believe it or hear it. And it's so true, though.

• 4:30:29Speaker 04

  If you think about, like, like, ER nurses or docs where they're in big, big cities or minuscules, and they're just, they're disassociated, they're, they're desensitized to life and death because they're like, oh, couldn't see this one, next. You know, like, you can't stay in that environment without moments of, of periods of reprieve to reconnect with humanity. But to function in that space, like, you have to be able to desensitize, like, oh, I just picked up this dude's skull I shot in the face. It's because I'm trying to put his face back together to get a photo. That's him, right? Like, all these things, like, they're not normal.

• 4:31:12Speaker 04

  There ain't nothing normal about anything I've done in my career. And that's okay, because I have a new mission. And it's still to help others, but now I'm doing it, having helped myself and continuing to help myself first, and love myself and build my sense of self from God and from within, from an altruistic mindset, and then be selfless. So I truly, where I told you, I have, I've gained my sense of self-being and, and worth from external validation my whole life. And that's just not the case, not anymore.

• 4:31:56Speaker 04

  Now I'm doing it because I know there's more for me to do. And it's to help others because that is the joy that I get as a human being. Like sharpening other people's edges and skills and staying sharp and connected with them. And having conversations and communicating and knowledge transfer. And being present and being grateful of this wonderful country that we live in. And this long life that I have to live ahead of me with hopefully. My wife and my children's children, you know. Because that's my legacy is not what I've done.

• 4:32:41Speaker 04

  Like what awards I've gotten or what rank I made or CEO job title, this, that. It's how we show up. And raise our children and protect them and then their children's children. Like that is our legacy. So that's how I change the generational like norms that I've been chained to. And I was never going to be like fully do that, continuing to operate in that space I was in. And damn sure weren't going to happen in a place where you struggle to be mediocre. And you never, you never really measure up.

• 4:33:24Speaker 04

  You know, especially when you don't know how to measure up to anything.

• 4:33:27Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:33:28Speaker 04

  So you just perform. And, and then you never really figure out who you are.

• 4:33:36Shawn Ryan?

  You know, I've said it. A handful of times, but um, you know, and a lot of people hate me for it in the community, which I really don't give a fuck about, but.

• 4:33:53Shawn Ryan?

  I've said that moving farther away, every time I move farther and farther away from the special operations community, the happier I get, the less stress I feel. And it took me a long time to come to that realization, though. It got so... I realized this fucking community is so toxic that I got to the point where I wasn't even gonna interview operators anymore. I wanted completely out, didn't wanna know anybody, didn't wanna fucking talk to anybody. I still struggle with it, you know, but...

• 4:34:31Speaker 04

  What do you think the biggest part of that is?

• 4:34:34Shawn Ryan?

  What do I think it is?

• 4:34:35Speaker 04

  Like...

• 4:34:36Shawn Ryan?

  I think it comes from... I think it's ingrained from training. It's who's the fastest runner, who's the fastest swimmer, who's the best shot? Who's got the most kills? Who's got the most operations? Who's got the most time in? Who's the best in the kill house? Who's the best sniper? Who's got the most jumps? Who's got the most qualifications? Who's got the most ribbons? Who's got the most ribbons with valor? Who is on the biggest op? Every fucking thing that happens in these communities is a competition. It never fucking ends, and that brings jealousy.

• 4:35:16Speaker 04

  Well, if that becomes... There's... It's great to have standards and units to a metric, like to measure something. Or else you never really know where you're at in space, right? And your mates can never really, like, appreciate, or you can't appreciate their, you know, where they're at, like, fully. But to dwell on it, though, to... For it to become, "Well, this is high school, right? Where, well, that dude's piece of shit 'cause fucking blah, blah, blah." You know, or their oh course time, or their fucking, like, this, this, that. And dude is fucking, like, toxic as hell. And this toxic masculinity of, like, "I have to pound my chest to prove how badass I am to other people in this space?"

• 4:36:01Speaker 04

  Is, like, shocking to me. It's, like, shocking as fuck. And I'm telling you, like...

• 4:36:08Speaker 04

  It's not deterring me from entering this space. It's only, it's, it's almost like motivating me to, to hit people with a little bit of fucking humility and vulnerability. And guess what? Doesn't mean I can't still like perform on demand. Performance on demand is what a measure of like what a great shooter and a good shooter is. Is consistently shooting good. Like it's not like every now and again, shooting this or, or like, and that's just one, one aspect. This is,

• 4:36:39Speaker 04

  there's so much experience that we have from being at war for 20 plus years. In special operations, even being smaller and smaller and more, more elite. But the, the more elite you get, the more like unhealthy disassociation you have with where you stand in humanity. And a part of that, like, that's not everyone. I'm not over, I don't want to over generalize. Some people have a very firm, grounded, and, and those are usually men of faith there.

• 4:37:12Shawn Ryan?

  And there are very many of them.

• 4:37:13Speaker 04

  And there's not. And openly of faith and, and, and sober.

• 4:37:18Shawn Ryan?

  And generally they are not well liked.

• 4:37:21Speaker 04

  Yeah, you're, they're gonna get shit on because they don't go out and, you know, big boy at night, man, big boy in the morning, you know, like, like, and, and trust me, like I partied my face off most of the time everywhere I went. Almost all the time. Like, because we train hard and we play hard. And it was this, this reprieve that I have that I could count on. Anywhere I went, we'd go all over the world, training in all these places and doing some amazing things. But for me,

• 4:37:54Speaker 04

  like it was, it was just, it was feeding into this, like,

• 4:37:58Speaker 04

  this facade. That was a, it was only, it was just a matter of time before it, it crumbled. And then everybody just saw this scared little boy down there.

• 4:38:08Shawn Ryan?

  I know.

• 4:38:10Speaker 04

  Just wanting someone to tell him it's okay. It wasn't his fault.

• 4:38:15Speaker 04

  You know, and it's a and then normalizing those behaviors as a parent. Like, as I've learned how to be a father and from a very young age, and it's like, well, they don't really understand how hard it could be. You know, you guys got it easy. That's the way I I parented for a while. Anytime shit got real, like, why are they bitching? Why are they crying? I don't get this. You know, and why should they get it? And why do I have to make it a thing? But that's a, like, those are the circumstances of the environments that I was raised in. And and that's where I'm I'm challenging myself to to not continue to adopt those and break it.

• 4:39:00Speaker 04

  And I'm working on that. I'm working, and I have a ton of work to do because, like, they're not going to always love you. They're not going to always be there. I'm a I'm a perfect example of it. You got to show up and do the work. And they deserve every bit of you. And they need it. They need you to protect them. And if I die tomorrow, I know that I am on the right path of of of mending and healing those relationships and and prioritizing them. Outside of myself and God, they are it.

• 4:39:44Speaker 04

  Like, you know, in my own, like, energy output. And when when those are like, when those are are healed, they're continued to be maintained. There's maintenance. There's no start or finish line with them. But I have a lot of work to do still. And I owe it all to the woman that's sitting back behind us. You know, the fact that I'm and she's my best friend and the first person I love to hate.

• 4:40:13Shawn Ryan?

  Why do you think she gave you a third chance? I mean, last night at dinner.

• 4:40:20Shawn Ryan?

  I'm just gonna be honest. When you guys walked in the door, I was like, oh shit. His wife has cancer. And then we sat down and we got to talking. And she told me that her hair fell out because she's so fucking stressed out about what's going on at home. And I was... That's heavy.

• 4:40:42Speaker 04

  Mm-hmm.

• 4:40:43Shawn Ryan?

  That's fucking real heavy. Why do you think she gave you a third chance?

• 4:40:53Speaker 04

  I don't know. I'm asking God every day about that. I... I don't think... There's no logical reason other than God for her. Like, her spiritual process is what has kept her... I think in the beginning, the first time, it was... It was me, right? Like, I think she had a lot that she was still learning about her own trauma and the work that she needed to start doing. And she started doing it. And... And I say "me" meaning like... Like, the appeal of being in a relationship and with me and like making it work no matter what. Because it's our covenant and her believing in that.

• 4:41:34Speaker 04

  But then now, like through the second, like God is the only thing that's... And I used to like make fun of her about it. Like, you have your God. Where the fuck are... Where are they? You know, and I was just so ugly. And... There's something... There's... It's powerful, man. And when that relationship can see through, you know? Because I... I also like felt so alone. And didn't know how to trust in others and... Like, I started developing like claustrophobia. And like all these different panic... Panic attacks. I was like, what the fuck is this?

• 4:42:19Speaker 04

  And at the end of the day, like, bearing all of it, right? Bearing the weight of the world. Like, I've been able to like give that to God and then share to another... With another human being. And because of her. She's... She's shown me the example that I need to follow in my spiritual condition. And we got a lot of work to do as partners and still as individuals.

• 4:42:47Speaker 04

  But. Have you ever asked her? Why she gave you a third chance? We talked about this recently. It's, the only reason is because of God.

• 4:42:58Speaker 04

  There was, there was nothing that. Because before, I think it was like she, she saw through all the ugliness, right? And I hadn't fully, I still had a foot in the door. And I was like, ah, I don't feel like I can, because I wasn't capable of even paying bills on time and myself and running my own house. And I was like, man, I suck. Help me, you know, I want a quick, I want to escape. I want to, here, come bail me out of this, you know? And. And I don't, that, I don't have another, there's not another one of those. I've already cashed that one in. Like. So now it's like, why, why are we doing it? Like, why is she, why is she like putting up with me still? And.

• 4:43:44Speaker 04

  She's my best friend.

• 4:43:48Speaker 04

  And the only person that's ever, I've ever like tried to trust and trust and trust. Um, but that's also the person that I've, I've inflicted so much fucking pain on.

• 4:44:01Speaker 04

  And now we're just dealing with all the like residual, like triggering, like things and pain cycles and.

• 4:44:11Speaker 04

  But if there's any, anyone else that I want to like go to the grave, like holding my hand, if they could put me in the earth, it's her.

• 4:44:21Speaker 04

  But to answer your question, I don't know, other than God and that, that spiritual process and that belief and.

• 4:44:29Speaker 04

  The. Like in me, you know, to when, when she can't see it, like, because I'm throwing out every bit of the. It's the ugly, the evil, the monster.

• 4:44:45Speaker 04

  When I was disconnected from humanity for, for two years of my life.

• 4:44:51Speaker 04

  Like. She's sitting right there. You want to ask her?

• 4:44:57Speaker 04

  Why, why have you given me a third chance?

• 4:45:01Speaker 04

  Erica.

• 4:45:04Speaker 05

  Because I've always believed in him and

• 4:45:10Speaker 05

  through my own faith in God, because I believe in God and I think anything's possible.

• 4:45:17Speaker 05

  But I saw through this, the mask and the hurt and the pain and

• 4:45:26Speaker 05

  I knew that my husband came back from Molly. His fine flesh came back, but he actually did die in that hotel that day.

• 4:45:38Speaker 05

  And so, seeing him,

• 4:45:42Speaker 05

  seeing glimpse of him throughout that, like he's still in there, like,

• 4:45:49Speaker 05

  having that hope. And I'm just seeing that and

• 4:45:55Speaker 05

  it's been a process and still seeing that he is there, you know, and coming, coming out.

• 4:46:04Speaker 04

  You're a strong woman. Strong human being, strongest person I've ever met in my life.

• 4:46:14Speaker 04

  How are your kids?

• 4:46:18Speaker 04

  I got a lot of, a lot of pain, a lot of things I need to, like truly, like put the appropriate amount of energy towards the healing. Are they gonna watch this?

• 4:46:31Speaker 04

  I hope so.

• 4:46:33Speaker 04

  You got anything to say to them?

• 4:46:37Speaker 04

  I love each and every one of you, Ethan. I've raised you since you were four and couldn't ask for a better,

• 4:46:48Speaker 04

  more capable son. And the star's the limits, man, like, and I, I'm, I'm sorry. And, you know, Kyla.

• 4:47:03Speaker 04

  You guys, you just made me so proud. And I want you to know that I will always be there to support you. And I know I've leaned on you guys more than you should ever have been leaned on to give me my sense of self-love as a father. And it's...

• 4:47:25Speaker 04

  I'm working and I'm continuing to do that work to be the best father. And hopefully, if you guys bless me, as a grandfather for your children. And Kaylee and Kennedy, you guys are okay too. No, I love all of you. And what I did doesn't define who I am. And what I'm going to do is just put the...

• 4:47:52Speaker 04

  A fraction of what I owe you as a father.

• 4:47:58Speaker 04

  I love you.

• 4:48:05Speaker 04

  Thank you for letting me do that.

• 4:48:07Shawn Ryan?

  You're welcome.

• 4:48:11Shawn Ryan?

  They're gonna love that.

• 4:48:17Speaker 04

  I hope so. That's the biggest thing for me is like, I feel like everyone's just so disappointed in me.

• 4:48:26Shawn Ryan?

  Well...

• 4:48:27Speaker 04

  But that's the shame piece and the self-forgiveness and belief and...

• 4:48:32Shawn Ryan?

  There's probably a lot of pride in there too.

• 4:48:34Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:48:35Shawn Ryan?

  You know?

• 4:48:39Shawn Ryan?

  I got a hell of a dad.

• 4:48:43Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:48:48Shawn Ryan?

  How many people do you think you saved in that hotel?

• 4:49:00Shawn Ryan?

  A lot of fucking people.

• 4:49:10Speaker 04

  Even now, like, saying that, like, I...

• 4:49:15Speaker 04

  I know it was exactly where I needed to be. Like, when I needed to be there, and...

• 4:49:22Speaker 04

  I can't even say my own marriage. I can't even, like...

• 4:49:29Speaker 04

  Prioritize my children over everyone else.

• 4:49:33Speaker 04

  You know, I'm still struggling with it.

• 4:49:36Speaker 04

  And...

• 4:49:40Speaker 04

  I just know that I'm not gonna hang my head on that. I'm going to... The fact that I was there and saved the people I saved, and now they're gonna have children, they're gonna have children because of my direct, like, actions. And conversely, the people that I've taken off of this earth. Like, the intimacy of taking another human being's life, like, that's eaten at me, and I've wore that on my soul.

• 4:50:08Speaker 04

  And I'm not looking for any more fights, man. My fight has been ongoing, and now I'm giving it the energy it needs. And it's right fucking here. It's having these hard discussions. At the end of the day,

• 4:50:27Speaker 04

  I'm gonna lay my head down tonight, and I'm gonna pray, and I'm gonna... Not dwell on all the things I didn't do today. I'm gonna highlight a few of the things I did that I am proud of, and then pray that I have another. And if I wake up,

• 4:50:45Speaker 04

  man, there's fucking joy everywhere.

• 4:50:50Speaker 04

  I just gotta see it, and I gotta say it so that I believe that. Because I'm telling myself these things, so then I do them and truly believe in them.

• 4:51:01Speaker 04

  And as I'm doing that, as a byproduct, I know it's helping others.

• 4:51:07Speaker 04

  It's just, I wish I could take back all the pain I've inflicted on the people I care about most. Cause I had no idea what trauma was.

• 4:51:17Speaker 04

  But, anything less than nurturing can be considered traumatic.

• 4:51:22Speaker 04

  And I say that because, I guess first I'm like, fuck, I've been traumatized my whole life. But more importantly, how much trauma have I inflicted? Either directly or indirectly, to the ones I care about most. And what the fuck am I gonna do with it? Or not do about it? You can't bury it. You can. You can't avoid it. You can.

• 4:51:47Speaker 04

  I'm choosing to acknowledge the fact that I'm remorseful for the things I've done. I'm proud of the things I've done for good. And those are just but like chapters in a story, in a book, that I'm still writing.

• 4:52:04Speaker 04

  And I have a lot of story to write.

• 4:52:09Shawn Ryan?

  Well, you're helping people by being this vulnerable too.

• 4:52:12Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:52:14Shawn Ryan?

  By the time this episode airs,

• 4:52:18Shawn Ryan?

  who knows how many people are gonna watch it, a couple hundred thousand, maybe a couple million.

• 4:52:24Shawn Ryan?

  There's gonna be a lot of people that

• 4:52:27Shawn Ryan?

  decide to live.

• 4:52:29Speaker 04

  And that's

• 4:52:30Shawn Ryan?

  Because you're sitting here, sharing your story.

• 4:52:34Speaker 04

  And that's the part you can't quantify. Like, is service to others, brotherly love. The principles that I've been trying to put word to. That I learned in the rooms of, uh, through my recovery and I'm like, like integrity. You can't have integrity in party life and then in others, like, eh, I was just drunk. Like, or, you know, like, it's there's no more of that for me. It's

• 4:53:06Speaker 04

  no, I'm gonna have those things. I'm gonna build those things and it's compassion, it's humility, it's vulnerability. Service.

• 4:53:19Speaker 04

  And my way of serving

• 4:53:22Speaker 04

  people of like mind and shared experiences, or you know, I think those are the easiest ones for me to connect with because of my resume. Like, oh, look at this guy. He's been through some shit, like, or he's done some really cool things or whatever. And the fact is, I'm like, yeah, and? I'm human. And it's okay. I'm telling you it's okay to not be okay. But comparing traumas is the enemy in this space of veteran suicide and first responders and it's

• 4:54:00Speaker 04

  they call you an understand. You know, that side of it where you isolate yourself. And then, well, I've been through, I won't say something because they've been through more than me. Or some shit. I get this all the time. Where they're like, hey, man, I've been through some shit, but nothing like you. And I'm like, stop. Let me explain how I view trauma. And mine's mine, yours is yours. There's no better or worse. Like how, it's what we do with it and how we process it in healthy or unhealthy ways. And then how that manifests in our lives. That make us better or worse. Not the trauma. Trauma is about that person's journey in life up to that point. In their perspective, in that situation. In their guard, like what they've guarded. They prepared their mind, body and spirit for, or they didn't. They were exposed, or

• 4:54:46Speaker 04

  it could be, you know, a car accident. Like, it could be a miscarriage. A woman having a miscarriage. Like, those were all equally as traumatic to me. Like, now, with the context piece of that person's life, that could be what tips them over the edge and takes, and to take their own life. And who am I to say that their trauma, well, they shouldn't have did that? That's not bad enough. Well, fuck me. I'm, I'm the problem. If I'm saying that. And then if I'm creating environments where that is now normalized. Well, fuck, well, like you and I go into this room. I go left, you go right. Some gnarly shit happens in the room. We leave, we get back to base or whatever.

• 4:55:30Speaker 04

  And I go, or you go, hey, Kyle. I don't know how I feel about what happened in that room. And I go, Motherfucker, that was a Tuesday, Sean. Get your shit back on. We're going back out. What am I doing? I'm perpetuating, like, an environment where don't fucking ever say anything isn't okay or weird or off. Oh, but if it's a tactical misjudgment, oh, people will fucking detonate on you. And as they should, and there's a forum for it, but...

• 4:56:04Speaker 04

  Like, that process is, like, man, what an opportunity to take as a leader in those spaces and be like, "What do you mean? Like, what's up?" Those two words could be the difference between that person drinking themselves into a fucking oblivion and blowing their brains out. And... And sharing something that

• 4:56:28Speaker 04

  they may never share with anyone else, and they see you as an opportunity of, well, maybe we went in the same room. But perspective is about, you're looking at it from your point of domination, because we don't strongwall here, brother.

• 4:56:44Speaker 04

  It's a little tactical joke, but it's a, you know, it's an L-shaped ambush, man. And, but it's my perspective and yours, and then our journeys in life. How we slept the night before. How exposed we are to to what it is we're perceiving.

• 4:57:05Speaker 04

  A little compassion can go a hell of a long ways. It's crazy. I mean, that's truly what leadership is, is compassion for others and communication.

• 4:57:16Speaker 04

  Like, good leadership.

• 4:57:23Speaker 04

  I think I've talked about it a lot. You have. I'm like...

• 4:57:31Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 4:57:37Shawn Ryan?

  Do you have anything else you want to talk about?

• 4:57:40Speaker 04

  I think we might need to schedule another episode.

• 4:57:44Shawn Ryan?

  I think it's a good time to end it.

• 4:57:45Speaker 04

  Yeah. No, I really do thank you, thank you for letting me, you know, have this conversation with you and this forum to share it. I know that there's, it's helping me significantly and her and my family. The ones I care about most and then others. The people, just like I said, the story about, like, I wasn't ready to receive things. Like, when, like even, like Kyle Lamb's told me things where, he's like, hey, man, try your best. Five years, four years ago, he's a spiritual mentor of mine and, like a father figure. And he's like, try your best to love everyone.

• 4:58:28Speaker 04

  And I was like, Kyle, if I didn't, if I wasn't afraid of you, I'd tell you that you're full of shit. And, uh, but it's like, it, it makes so much sense what he was trying to say to me. I just wasn't ready to receive it. So now I am truly, almost to a fault, like, trying to love everyone. That doesn't mean I gotta like everyone. But at its core, um, and that's where it's where I'm like this little kid out there, like, truly feeling, like, and seeing humanity and, but with a body of experience and a wealth of knowledge of, of, uh, like,

• 4:59:10Speaker 04

  like, things that I can use for good, that were on the surface awful environments or, like,

• 4:59:21Speaker 04

  environments that can define you and, and define you right into isolating yourself into

• 4:59:28Speaker 04

  nothing, like alienation of your own,

• 4:59:33Speaker 04

  your own demise.

• 4:59:34Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:59:37Speaker 04

  But it's all about iron sharpens iron. And he said that to me too, and metaphorically, I was like, "You need a harder metal to sharpen a softer one." So that's bullshit, but I get it now. This was the mind that I, like, the way I thought, you know? And very, like, I think abstractly and I communicate that way sometimes, but sometimes it's like, well, no. Analytical and like, I guess, not pragmatic, but yeah. Like, always trying to break down to the why, you know, that I talk about. And a lot of it, some of it's just blind faith.

• 5:00:19Speaker 04

  And a power greater than yourself. Because if you're the biggest thing in the world,

• 5:00:26Speaker 04

  it's a lonely island.

• 5:00:31Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I think you're making a hell of a comeback.

• 5:00:33Speaker 04

  I'm a comeback kid.

• 5:00:34Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 5:00:35Speaker 04

  I don't know if I like to climb out or dig in the hole, man.

• 5:00:39Speaker 04

  Or both. No, I'm not digging anymore.

• 5:00:41Shawn Ryan?

  You seem to be going in a very positive direction now. It's, it's...

• 5:00:45Speaker 04

  It's coming out in delight.

• 5:00:47Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 5:00:47Speaker 04

  Like, truly, it is. It's like that pressure, that monkey off my back of, "They need Kyle Morgan." Oh, then, I'm 965.

• 5:01:00Speaker 04

  They need me. No, it's not. They're fucking next man up. It's a machine. This country needs that. The world needs it. I don't.

• 5:01:11Speaker 04

  That's a good place to stop it, right there. I'm gonna cry, ain't it?

• 5:01:17Shawn Ryan?

  It was a real honor, man. It really was. I'm fucking rooting for you. I know everybody watching's rooting for you. And, uh, you know, best of luck with your training company, Blue Bearing Solutions. Get ready. Because a lot of fucking people are gonna want some training from me now. So, me included.

• 5:01:41Speaker 04

  Let's do it.

• 5:01:41Shawn Ryan?

  So if you ever run a course out here in Tennessee, let me know. I'll take it.

• 5:01:45Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 5:01:46Shawn Ryan?

  I will.

• 5:01:47Speaker 04

  No, I know, I know. You're serious and I appreciate this opportunity. I do. You're, you're doing,

• 5:01:56Speaker 04

  you're doing things that I really admire, and you're doing them in a way that's...

• 5:02:02Speaker 04

  You're creating this space, which you inherently are saving lives. And letting us and you be a part of that journey of sharing them. So keep doing it. I will.

• 5:02:19Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 5:02:35Speaker 02

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