#34 Cody Alford - Marine Raider/MARSOC Sniper Who Became a Nomad

Cody Alford is a former Marine Raider & Scout Sniper who was on the frontlines of the Battle of Fallujah. After an impressive 15 year career, he chose to walk a totally new path - van life. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: 🚨USE CODE SHAWN🚨 https://www.mudwtr.com/shawn (USE CODE SHAWN) https://goodranchers.com/shawn https://www.bubsnaturals.com #VIGILANCEELITE #SHAWNRYANSHOW 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

  Now, more than ever, we need someone on our side. But Rob Whitman? Whitman's votes drove up costs, cut Medicaid, and risked 350,000 Virginians' health care to pay for tax breaks for himself and his donors. He's not on our side. Shannon Taylor will fight corruption, cut taxes, and bring down costs. This November, vote for Shannon Taylor. She's for us. Paid for by HMP, the House Majority PAC dot com. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee.

• 0:29Shawn Ryan?

  Mr. President? My company tore me of the explosion on our rig.

• 0:33Speaker 00

  On October 2nd. Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami.

• 0:36Shawn Ryan?

  They all heap the blame on me.

• 0:38Speaker 00

  Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess, and Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and the Revenant.

• 0:46Shawn Ryan?

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You stall, you freeze to death, that's what.

• 0:50Speaker 00

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 0:53Shawn Ryan?

  I'm not the first then.

• 0:54Speaker 00

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a minute without parent.

• 0:59Shawn 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.

• 1:20Speaker 02

  I remember going back behind the window. I reload another magazine. And as soon as I pop out to shoot,

• 1:29Speaker 02

  it all goes black.

• 1:34Speaker 02

  The brutality of it all, and really what we were up against, I had no left or right lateral element to even comprehend that.

• 1:41Shawn Ryan?

  The body mutilations, the beheadings, the dismemberment, the...

• 1:45Speaker 02

  The human shields.

• 1:47Shawn Ryan?

  All that.

• 1:48Speaker 02

  But the night prior, my platoon commander comes in and he's like, "Everyone's gonna write their death letter."

• 1:54Shawn Ryan?

  Jesus Christ.

• 1:59Speaker 02

  And then you hear stories of your friends that you went to boot camp with, the school of infantry with, that are in your body, that are fighting for their life at the same time that you're fighting for your life in Fallujah just to find out how those dudes are dead.

• 2:14Speaker 02

  I don't remember the exact numbers, but I remember the feeling. And I have never been up to shake it ever since.

• 2:23Speaker 02

  That's when I had this out-of-body experience. At the time, I had no idea what happened. I thought I was dead. I saw this top-down view of what was going on. I could see my body, I could see my point man still shooting, I could see my other teammates on the ground.

• 2:42Speaker 02

  We were stacking so many bodies that we had to send patrols out to move the bodies, because there was interrupting our fields of fire.

• 2:49Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit.

• 2:50Speaker 02

  There were so many bodies being stacked that the locals were driving up their ambulances and picking up bodies also.

• 3:05Shawn Ryan?

  Serious question. Who wants to take the best shit of their entire life?

• 3:14Shawn Ryan?

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• 3:59Shawn Ryan?

  who was a Navy SEAL and a CIA contractor who died defending American freedom in Benghazi, Libya.

• 4:07Shawn Ryan?

  Bubz donates 10% of all proceeds to veteran organizations like the Glenn Doherty Foundation and 100% of all proceeds on Veterans Day. Let me tell you about Bubz's latest product that helps with energy, healthy digestion, your immune system, and your metabolism. Bubz Naturals Apple Cider Vinegar Gummies, which actually tastes so damn good that I ate all 60 of them the first night I got them. They taste amazing, and man, I got a lot of energy now.

• 4:45Shawn Ryan?

  Anyways, go to bubsnaturals.com, use promo code Shawn to take 20% off your order. Thank you, Bubz Naturals, for being a sponsor of the Shawn Ryan Show. Cody Alfred, welcome to the show, man.

• 5:04Speaker 02

  Thanks for having me.

• 5:05Shawn Ryan?

  Glad you made it.

• 5:06Speaker 02

  Me too.

• 5:07Shawn Ryan?

  I've been watching your Instagram for a couple of years now, and what really got me, your military service, I'm sure, is impeccable. I've reached out to some buddies of mine that are Marsoc and asked around about you, and everybody just had phenomenal things to say. But what really caught me was kind of your philosophy on life and how you, I mean, you live free, free of all the bullshit, at least it appears that way. And so I thought you'd make a great guest, and I can't wait to dive into that. We're going to hit your childhood, we're going to hit your military career really

• 5:48Shawn Ryan?

  heavy, and what you're doing now, and in your journey after the military, which I personally think is very inspiring. So, thank you for making it.

• 5:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm really excited, big fan.

• 6:02Shawn Ryan?

  My pleasure. But everybody starts with a gift.

• 6:10Shawn Ryan?

  There you go.

• 6:11Speaker 02

  Awesome.

• 6:13Shawn Ryan?

  Any guesses?

• 6:15Speaker 02

  It's gonna be hard. Let's see.

• 6:20Shawn Ryan?

  Nobody ever guesses.

• 6:21Speaker 02

  I never guessed and I should have not guessed because I would have got it wrong. This is sick. Bro.

• 6:29Speaker 02

  I have deployment stories of gummy bears. I love them.

• 6:33Shawn Ryan?

  Those are legal in all 50 states.

• 6:35Speaker 02

  I'm all about that.

• 6:36Shawn Ryan?

  Right on.

• 6:37Speaker 02

  Dude.

• 6:41Shawn Ryan?

  That's merch.

• 6:42Speaker 02

  I love it.

• 6:42Shawn Ryan?

  You're an XL?

• 6:44Speaker 02

  I, yes, I am.

• 6:45Shawn Ryan?

  Alright, cool.

• 6:46Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 6:47Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, man, you're welcome. Thanks for making it.

• 6:49Speaker 02

  Dude, I'm super stoked.

• 6:51Shawn Ryan?

  But, um, you know, we generally start the show with a question from patron, from Patreon. So patrons, that's what enables this whole thing to happen. They support the show.

• 7:07Shawn Ryan?

  They support my team, me. That's why you're sitting here. That's why I'm sitting here. And so I try to get them a question, at least one question, and they actually, man, when I told them you were coming, they were all fired up. We got more questions from you coming on than, than most guests. So I would like to do another segment, if that's possible, that's only on Patreon, ask, answering all their questions. They got a lot of good questions. But this one is from Kemble Williams. I thought this was a good question because it directly is related to kind of your

• 7:46Shawn Ryan?

  your mantra or your philosophy on life, your company. And he's basically asking, in a world full of fantasies, which we see on social media all the time, people pretending to be what they're not, or hiding certain aspects of their life, or, you know, you know what I'm talking about. What

• 8:09Shawn Ryan?

  what is defying the norm?

• 8:13Speaker 02

  That is a really good question.

• 8:15Shawn Ryan?

  What is normal?

• 8:18Speaker 02

  Normal is what you accept as truth. Normal is what makes you stay in the haze and daze of life, wondering and dreaming of something else, a different venture you can be on, but still doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. Norm is listening to society. Norm is knowing that you have a call inside for more in your life, whatever that may or may not be, and not listening to it. Norm is going through the motions and buying into the whole, go to education, go into debt, get a job, get married, get the white picket fence, save some money, buy your dream stuff when you're 65, just to be reminded that you don't have enough money to live,

• 9:01Speaker 02

  and then to die old age, full of regret. And I told myself I wasn't gonna live that life. So, in a world full of fake and fallacies, and not so much authenticity out there, defining the norm is finding your voice, finding you, and literally paving a path on however you want to, and whatever that means to you. So, if this is the path you wanna be on, do it, but believe in it. If that's not the path you wanna do, do something different and believe in it. To me, that's what defining the norm is.

• 9:32Shawn Ryan?

  That's a good answer. Well, I got my own question too.

• 9:35Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 9:36Shawn Ryan?

  So, at dinner last night, we're both new parents. We had some good new parent advice. So, but I didn't ask you this question on purpose, because this is what I texted myself in the middle of dinner. But, I don't know about you, but when my son came, it changed everything. And way more than I thought it would actually change my life. And I have a few rules that I've made myself, and those rules continue to, there continue to be more rules as time goes on. But, do you have a number one rule that you follow as a new father? Doesn't have to be like a whole philosophy. Could be one, just specific rule.

• 10:20Shawn Ryan?

  Like, my number one rule?

• 10:25Shawn Ryan?

  To keep myself in check for my son is I, when he is in my arms, I do not get on my phone. No social media, no texts, no checking things, no checking email, nothing. No phone while my son's in my arms. And I think that's gonna go into no, no phone when he's looking at me. Maybe even no phone when he's in the room. I don't want my son to wind up living on his phone like I see everybody else. You know, you go to a restaurant, you see married couples, they don't even fucking look at each other. They're looking at their phone the whole time. Or you go to a family dinner and you see half the family, you know, on their phone in the middle of dinner. And I, I never want that to happen. So that's my number one rule.

• 11:09Shawn Ryan?

  Do you have one?

• 11:12Speaker 02

  I think I have a view which transpires into rules.

• 11:19Speaker 02

  And that, that, that, that view is this, I'm the way. You know, that dude looks at me and, you know, when he was first born, I was scared.

• 11:33Speaker 02

  You know, I have a seven year old son that lives overseas with his mother that I don't get as much contact as I want to. And that makes it difficult. And so for seven years I've beat myself up for like not being a good dad, you know, not being a good man. And being in my son's life now, my six month year old,

• 11:51Speaker 02

  his first two months, I was still waiting for permission to be a dad. I was holding myself back because of all these insecurities and fears and just stories I've told myself for seven years, feeling inadequate, always thinking about my son, but not being able to do anything about it.

• 12:09Speaker 02

  And so when I,

• 12:12Speaker 02

  when I stopped feeling sorry and waiting for permission, I just started to engage myself with him. Everything changed because I found myself not being really interactive with him. I found myself easily distracted. I found myself needed to do or wanting to do things and having to watch him or hold him was keeping me from those things. I was very selfish. And I realized that no matter how I want to shake a stick at it, I'm the way. This dude is gonna model me. And if I don't show up as my best self, even with my hurdles, my hardships, my truth, you know, that kid is gonna grow up in a lie. And one thing that I've struggled really hard in the past four years is being present. And I think that's kinda what you're saying too about being on your phone.

• 12:56Speaker 02

  I can now pick up my son and like, he's there, I'm smiling. He, if he goes to sleep, my wife's like, get him up. I'm like, no, this dude is sleeping and I wanna, I wanna take advantage of this. I really wanna enjoy it because people say like, oh, you watch your kid be born, it'll change your life. And my life didn't magically change when he popped out. But my life did change, I just didn't know it. Because I was still battling things and knowing that I am the way, that I'm the vessel for him to watch and observe. I'm the lighthouse for him to see when times are tough and times are dark. Putting that responsibility on life in itself and that my role as a father and as a mentor and as a leader of the family, it helped shift me into gear that I wasn't already in.

• 13:41Speaker 02

  I had the capability of being in that gear, but I just needed to like, make it happen. Um, so I'd say my role is A, ever changing, but realizing that I am the lighthouse for him. And if I can't be that for myself, if I can't be present for myself, if I can't be working on myself, if I can't be bettering myself or pushing myself forward, how can I ever lead him to do the same for himself? And uh, being present has really helped that. And when I looked in that dude's eyes, I'm just like, I fucking love you and I mean it. And it's helped shift my perspective on, I hear stories, oh, I'd do anything for my kids. I'm like, but you won't even do anything for yourself. I would do anything for my kids. I'm like, you hate your fucking job, you make no money and you pawn off your insecurities on your children.

• 14:26Speaker 02

  And I had that as like this. This like guiding principles going into being a father and actually being able to be here and be involved and to me it just didn't make sense. And so I like stopped putting the blame or stopped projecting what needs to happen and start being what must happen. And through changing myself and giving myself permission to be like, yo, bro, step up, be a dad, be a man, be present, stop doing this shit that you know is not enhancing your quality of life. And, you know, that really changed it all. And when I look at him and I see him and I'm running late, but I'm spending time with him, I'm with him. And so now my whole view of life has completely changed even more. I'm doing whatever I gotta do to maximize my time with my son and my family because that is

• 15:11Speaker 02

  what matters to me. Before, all these other goals and dreams mattered to me, the distractions mattered to me. But those, those were because I had no rules. So when I meet men like you and dads like you and we share these conversations and I hear what's important to you, I add that to my Rolodex because I want to be the best dad, you know, and I want my kid to be around strong men. I want other men to help raise my son. I want a tribe to help raise my son. And the only way I'm gonna do that, I might be able to do it in the physical space, but I can take these other key points and key rules from these other great men that I admire and look up to and bring them into my life. It's challenging to me, but it's gonna benefit him because he's only gonna see what right looks like through my own actions. And so if I can't get my shits together, how can I

• 15:55Speaker 02

  expect to say I'm setting him up for success and that I love him if I don't love myself enough to put the work in, to do the hardship to put down the phone, which is hard to do, you know, guys like you and I, our businesses are from this phone. And at least for me, it can be very overwhelming at times. I can definitely fall down those rabbit holes and miss out on what's right in front of me. And that's really been the season of just stopping all the noise and focusing on what matters and being present because I definitely was not like that before.

• 16:25Shawn Ryan?

  So it's, yeah, so it's almost the same.

• 16:27Speaker 02

  It's the same.

• 16:28Shawn Ryan?

  Same, same rule.

• 16:30Speaker 02

  Same rule, just 15 minutes of explanation.

• 16:34Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, right. Right. You got any other ones off the top of your head?

• 16:43Shawn Ryan?

  What do you want your son, if you, it's not your choice, but what do you want your son to be involved in? What's one thing that you want to teach him, that you want to relate with him on? Is it, maybe it's jujitsu, maybe it's business, maybe it's shooting, maybe it's building forts? What are you looking forward to?

• 17:06Speaker 02

  I'm looking for, I'm looking forward to him becoming an individual.

• 17:09Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 17:10Speaker 02

  You know, I don't, I'm not gonna, there's nothing in my life that I enjoy so much that I ever want to put on anybody else.

• 17:18Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 17:18Speaker 02

  Because it's taken me long to even find interest in those things. And knowing what I think I know about the mind and how we evolve and how we grow and how we expand and how we heal and how we do all these things, there's a version of him that I want him to be able to have that space where he can find that version uninterrupted by outside influence, especially by us. I just want him to see mom and dad crushing their goals and dreams because you can't say, "Hey, son, I believe in you, go out and do your big things," but if you don't do that for yourself. So it's like a commitment to life.

• 17:51Speaker 02

  So that's, I have no expectations for him other than to set him up for success and what does that mean by showing him?

• 17:57Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 17:57Speaker 02

  That's the only thing I can do. If I, if I try to, I will never get into sports, I will never make him do anything. But I will encourage him to do more. And as he grows and as he evolves and as a leader and as a mentor for him, I will utilize my experience to see those gaps and, and offer guidance. Cause if he doesn't have a buy-in, he's gonna be resentful in whatever he's doing at such a young age. And that's, that's only gonna push him potentially further away from his true path and calling.

• 18:28Speaker 02

  So I'm kinda open. And it's all new and it's absolutely scary and I have really no fucking clue what I'm doing. So, it's exciting.

• 18:36Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. I don't think anybody does. I want to introduce my son to as many things as possible and, and one thing that I worry about a little bit is, and I don't, maybe you worry about it too, but you've got 15 years as a Marine Raider in special operations, that's a lot to live up to for a son, you know? And your entire career was in wartime environment.

• 19:08Shawn Ryan?

  I don't want my son to, I'm hoping he doesn't

• 19:14Shawn Ryan?

  try to do what I did to live up to whatever he thinks that I've accomplished. You know, and what I want to do is introduce him to as many things as possible and hope that he finds what interests him, not what he thinks I want him to be interested in. If that makes sense.

• 19:31Speaker 02

  That makes a lot of sense. You know, I think I had a, I believe my dad was a good man. But I didn't get a lot of like guidance and praise growing up as a kid. And so I think that was a lot of like, I was always trying to like crush it to like win dad's approval.

• 19:50Speaker 02

  And so reverse engineering that whole phase of my life, you know, and applying that to how I view my son and how I, at least right now, feel like I'm going to go into that season of evolution is I'm going to treat him like a teammate, teammate, I'm going to treat him like a team member. I'm going to hold him accountable, you know, I'm going to give him rules and expectations, tasks, conditions and standards. And like you said, interact, I want him to meet these other great, amazing men that they might have been superheroes back in the day, but right now they're super men. They're doing real things, they, they find passion in what they do, they're educated, they have their own two cents, they, they think for themselves and, you know, not a lot of people see that side of, especially veterans, especially our tribe of veterans, our group of people that we worked with.

• 20:35Speaker 02

  And obviously not everyone's the same. But there's so much more to life and I think we've, we learned so much more about life after all the suffering and the pain and the fucking misery and hardships we've gone through willingly or not, that can help expand the way you view things and work on things. And if I can introduce my son to that circle of people that are just living,

• 20:59Speaker 02

  growing, evolving, that might be all he needs. And if he wants to go do that other thing, then that's fine, but you know, my job is to give him a well-rounded foundation so he can build any empire he wants to, not a single track mine. I'll never raise my kid military, I'll never do any of that type of stuff. I didn't grow up that way. I was given the opportunity, but then the day. That flame inside, you can't tame that. You know, you can't. You can only nurture it. You can only encourage it. And you can only hope that you did good enough, right? You set the example enough. So no matter what decision they make, they're gonna go with their own philosophy into that unknown, into that fray. Because the military is not a bad place. The military is just as dangerous place as a nine to five job.

• 21:45Speaker 02

  It's the complexity of the mindset. It's what you're willing to do, what you're willing to accept, what truths do you have going into it? What vulnerability are you going to show yourself? What openness and willingness are you going to have? You know, that's, those are the things that I want my kid to understand and be open to. These words, these terms, these feelings, these emotions, to weaponize his mind so he can literally do anything he wants to. And to have enough courage to be like, I'm done? And have enough respect for himself to be like, I need help. That's, that's my main focus for him.

• 22:14Shawn Ryan?

  That's awesome. Well said. But, uh, well, let's move into you.

• 22:19Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 22:20Shawn Ryan?

  So let's start. Where'd you grow up?

• 22:23Speaker 02

  I grew up in Duncanville, Texas. It's just south of Dallas, Texas. Right smack dab in the center. And, uh, yeah, I did that for eighteen years till before I moved out and moved out and went to the military.

• 22:36Shawn Ryan?

  Well, what were you into as a kid? Hold on, hold on, let's go back.

• 22:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, let's go back.

• 22:42Shawn Ryan?

  What were you into as a kid?

• 22:43Speaker 02

  I was into, I was into art. I loved to draw. I was painting and drawing as a little kid, drawing spaceships, spacemen. Uh, I was in a lot of art competitions. Um, I think a lot of kids are, but I really enjoyed it. And then the computer came out. And then I got into like, uh, you remember paint? I used to draw on paint all the time. I used to draw like James Bond, like video game characters and very pixelated art back in the day. And I had this like talent for like blowing up like small stamps. My, my parents collected stamps and I would like blow up these stamps into like big drawings and paintings. Uh, I could just like, that's what I was really good at.

• 23:24Speaker 02

  Enhancing the size of something and kind of bringing it to life and that's what I was into. Then I got into playing video games, like computer games, mainly war shit. Because I saw this, uh, I saw this Ranger poster once. And it Kickstartered everything for me. My, this whole like fantasy of like this supreme commando.

• 23:47Speaker 02

  Premier operating, you know, disciplined lifestyle. I'm like, oh my God, this is awesome. And so then I got into like, kind of fantasizing about like, well, what would that life look like?

• 24:01Speaker 02

  Then I saw the movie Sniper with Tom Berenger and that just fucking solidified everything for me. Uh, so then what I got into was paintball. I got into, I was like making my ghillie suit at like eight years old, crawling around my backyard. You know, there's no YouTube back then, but there was VHS tape. And I recorded every like SEAL documentary that was on Discovery Channel. Every special forces sniper thing that I could see. Dude, I'd wake up, I would, you remember back in the day, there was like the TV guide pamphlets?

• 24:32Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 24:33Speaker 02

  I would like flip through there and be like, oh, this movie, this movie's playing at three o'clock in the morning. So I'd get up and like, record over like our Christmas fucking VHS tape, you know? Cause I needed some space to like, get this documentary so I could watch it. Like I just started nerding out on those things because it looked hard and I was really, I was really turned on by the aspect of like, not everyone passes and you know, there's a 60% failure rate and I'm just like, those things were interesting to me. Uh, so I was really into like that mindset of like, that's where I'm going to go.

• 25:08Shawn Ryan?

  So you really wanted to test yourself at a very young age?

• 25:12Speaker 02

  Yeah, I was into it. I knew my dad was in the military. He was, he was a Marine also. Never talked about it. Um, every now and then stories would come up with these around friends, but it was very few and far between. I was never, I was never influenced by mouth, word of mouth to ever seek that stuff. I think my parents just kind of knew that's what I wanted to do. I was always playing G.I. Joe. I mean shit, I would, I had one of those like toy Rambo knives, those plastic ones with the compass in the, in the handle.

• 25:40Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, nice.

• 25:42Speaker 02

  And I would, uh, I grew up in a kind of small home and I would low crawl from my bedroom into the kitchen area. I remember like my mom would like, um, she'd like put the, the comforters and laundry in the kitchen. She's like washing the clothes in the garage and I would like low crawl underneath like the pile of like clothes. And I would like hide out there. Sometimes it'd be for hours, waiting for my mom to like, lift it up and I'm like, ah, surprise her. I'd sneak up behind my cats. I'm like, dude, if I could sneak up behind a cat, I could sneak up behind anybody. And I think my cast just felt sorry for me, probably. They're just like, this fucking guy. So, but I felt cool, you know, it was like, that was it. I was into it. I was always trying to think like, if we got attacked in my house, I'm gonna hide behind my dresser drawers and I have like my rubber band guns and,

• 26:27Speaker 02

  you know, I always, I just had that mindset of like, I don't really know what it was. It was just in me and I wasn't like possessed with it. It was just like, it was my vision board. I had a vision board ever since I was a child.

• 26:41Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 26:41Speaker 02

  Yeah. Never even heard about a vision board until my thirties. And my vision board, I actually posted on my Instagram, I had this like cork board. And on there I had like, one shot, one kill. I was always drawing like sniper stuff in high school. Like I was always dueling, dude, teacher's talking, Cody's drawing, you know, I'm fantasizing. I'm drawing a sniper rifle. I'm drawing a skull with a boonie cover on it. I'm drawing like all sorts of shit, like just, I, I didn't know at the time what I was actually doing until now, later in life, I started to research, read more books and educate myself on these anomalies that have happened in my life, but they all started

• 27:22Speaker 02

  from a belief system and a mindset as a child. And my vision board had a classic truck. It had my scout sniper. It had like a marine patch on there. It basically had military and classic vehicles. That was it. And I grew up with classic vehicles. That's what I wanted. That was my dream. Uh, joined the military, you know, I get all these, I'm creating all these things, but little did I know it all started from a vision board, being a kid flipping through a TV channel, you know? I didn't, my parents never talked about, what do you want to do when you grow up? That wasn't even a thing. I was still worried about the next birthday, the next Christmas, you know? I couldn't wait for like, when I was in high school and like, there's a high school party, like,

• 28:03Speaker 02

  I wasn't thinking too far down the lifeline, not being present or not enjoying the childhood that I was having. But for some reason, I was really into that stuff, dude. I was gonna go be a commando and nothing was gonna stop me.

• 28:18Speaker 02

  And I kinda took that mindset with everything else. I wasn't really good at much things. I played soccer. Every kid plays soccer. I, I think I kinda sucked. I'm not even sure, but I played for a few years and I enjoyed it cause it was fun. I liked the whole team aspect. Then I played football and I was, I grew up in a five A, very large football team, like Texas football. That's it. Yeah. That's what you do. And I was so good at football. I made varsity my senior year, you know, like I was not good. I was a small, skinny, white guy, but my dreams were huge. I was the best player, you know, my dreams are huge. You couldn't stop me. My dreams are huge. I was gonna go make that play. And I don't really know how all that was instilled into me.

• 29:02Speaker 02

  But, cause I got knocked down a lot. I got put on the sideline a lot. I didn't really suck, but I couldn't match up to three hundred pound defensive lineman and offensive lineman. I, when you're, when you're building your intimidation stack, cause a football team is nothing but intimidation stacks. Skill and intimidation. You're not gonna put the string being on there. That's not gonna intimidate anybody. That's not gonna get psychological in someone's head. Even though I could break through the system. So at the time, the high school, the football team, they, they had this view on what their, what their starting line looked like. But I had that fighting spirit. And what that showed me at a young age was just like a lot of things, you know, I got beat up a lot. I ran from gangs a lot. I lived in a very,

• 29:42Speaker 02

  a lot of projects and apartments like were around the area that I lived in and a lot of, lot of street gangs. And I was that skinny white kid. I didn't know, I grew up very, I grew up independent. I could do anything I wanted to do. My parents didn't really restrict me on much. They also didn't give me free rein. I had some like guiding principles to like, come home, eat your dinner, you know, do these things, spend time with your mom.

• 30:08Speaker 02

  But I kinda had free rein to explore any adventure that I wanted to do within reason.

• 30:14Speaker 02

  But I realized that life is, life is hard at a young age. My parents worked all the time. My dad was a cop. My dad was a cop for forty-two years. Uh, not in an easy town. He worked in Dallas, Texas, which, or Dallas County, which was insane. So much crime out there. And a lot of his fears from the, and a lot of the youth that he saw that he's either, you know, dealing with their dead bodies, knocking on doors to family members. You know, I think that really put some fear into him to like, kind of put me in a box when it comes to like, hey, you're gonna fuck around and find out. You know, the world is not gumdrops and lollipops. Like, the world is very dangerous out there.

• 30:58Speaker 02

  And, but he also told me like, dude, you gotta stand up for yourself. You know, because it's, it's very violent, it's dangerous. Uh, and so those subliminal messages, which maybe he didn't know what he was really doing at the time, but it, it like ingrained into me to, to persevere, to push forward. I got beat up by this game today. Well, I'm just gonna ride my bike faster tomorrow. I'm gonna go a different route tomorrow. I'm gonna room, remove myself from that environment, you know? Oh, I sucked today at this play. Well, I'm gonna go find the players that are good and ask them like, hey, how could I do better for this, you know? Or what, how are you doing that? Cause I need to do that. Oh, you also run track too? Well, that looks hard and scary. Well, let me go try to run track. You know, let me go try to do these things because I realized I thrived in a team environment.

• 31:43Speaker 02

  I, I thrived even more when it was bigger than myself. And then I found a way to, you know, not manipulate my environment, but to adapt to my environment. I got tired of getting beat up, so I find new ways. I started rolling with a crew. You know, now I got five guys rolling on their little Huffy's to, to school vice me riding solo, you know? I don't go through in this time because this time is the, the loitering, lingering time and I'm bound to get hemmed up this way, you know? And I didn't look at it, I didn't know what fear was. I wasn't scared of things back in the day to how I understand they're very severe nowadays. But it just, I was just kind of set up for this like weird success where I had to figure it out. And my parents both worked and so I spent my summers or I spent my time off, you know, at home.

• 32:27Speaker 02

  I, um, Jerry Springer was my, um, what do you call it? Uh, like? Homeschool there at times, you know, these sitcoms, then like, well, these are boring. This sucks. So I, so I draw, I soothe myself with drawing, or I go outside and shoot my BB gun at like little G I Joe guys. And I just kept busy. And somehow it all kinda worked out, cause at that point in time in my life, I was really just buying time. Cause once I decided that I wanted to go into the military at a very young age, I was just waiting my turn. So everything up to that point, the football, the track, the chicks, the cars, uh, the, the, the parties, all these things

• 33:10Speaker 02

  as an evolution of growing up from a young kid, making it to high school where you're figuring out who you are, learning what you believe in at a very entry level stuff.

• 33:22Speaker 02

  I was just waiting, waiting my turn because I couldn't speed it up. But I was also trying to maximize. And my dad was really big on like, hey, you're about to be gone. You better like start spending time with your mom. You know, I'm like, oh, I gotta go to these parties. I wanna go do these things. And there's like, you need to start worrying about your mother. And I did not like that. I did not like to hear that as a kid. I wanted to go party. I wanted to go do what these other kids did where their parents may or may not have cared. And, um, you know, my dad told me one time, he's like, you might not come back one day.

• 33:57Speaker 02

  He's like, so spend time with your mother, cause you mean a lot to her. And I'm like, oh shit. Okay. And I was always like a mama's boy growing up. I love a mom. You know, my mom, she was a fighter. She had breast cancer at a very young age for me. And I lived with another family, uh, for quite some time while my mom was going through the whole process. And I remember, uh, we went to the mall one day. My mom, she's bald, you know, she's wearing a wig. And She's walking, she's holding my hand and this mall is like extremely fucking ghetto. Very ghetto. And they're like, "Look at this, look at this ugly bitch with no hair." And I'm a kid. At the time, I didn't even know what to do. And this is, this is new interaction for me.

• 34:42Speaker 02

  And my mom, she fucking gripped my hand, she fucking lifted her fucking chin and she kept on walking. I'm like, "Holy fuck." You know, that lesson did it hit me back then. But that determination, that perseverance to fucking keep on pushing, to like, "Yo, bro, we're not gonna let words break us in this family." We're not gonna let some fucking chump fucking bring us down because they hate themselves. You know, she said all this without ever saying a word. She led by example. My dad, my dad was the type of guy who, he worked his ass off. That dude did not have an easy childhood. My dad was really big into like family lineage. And, uh, you know, able to trace Alfreds all the way back to the Revolutionary War. Like, this dude was like deep into like the family tree stuff.

• 35:24Speaker 02

  And when I found out a little bit about his childhood, I mean, both my parents were born, they were like six and seven around World War II. Uh, my dad lived a completely opposite life to my mother. Very hard life, very abusive dad. And seeing how, what my dad did, he was an entrepreneur, then he like full-time police officer. Worked his ass off all the time. He would get shot. My dad was like cops. You know, he like, it was so bad where his area was, they made it on the TV show and my dad's, you know, drugged behind cars, he's got shot in his vest, shot in his leg. And this dude never complained once. He would come home, he would eat food, and he's like, "Hey, we gotta go do this." And I fucking hated that.

• 36:09Speaker 02

  Cause this dude was a machine. I just wanted to sit and just like imagine stuff, dragons in my mind and sit on the couch and like, be a kid. Yeah. Because I knew the hard life was coming my way, so I really wanted to maximize not living a hard life when I could. And that just didn't really fly.

• 36:29Speaker 02

  But yeah, I was I was shown from a very young age of maybe not what right looks like, but hey, this is the best that I know. And this is what right looks like based on that information, those facts. And both my parents were strong and my mom is still strong. She's a trooper. Um, I mean, just no stop. And that just trickled on to me. Uh, then my dad being hard and you know, I wanted to impress my dad. I wanted to like, I wanted to do things and make him proud. You know, I didn't want to be a wuss. I remember this one particular time, uh, I was in high school. And there was someone accusing me of something at a party that I wasn't even at.

• 37:10Speaker 02

  They thought it would be funny if so and so's older brother would like call me out and like try to fight me. And I wasn't a big scrapper back in the day. There was a point where I was, but I didn't seek it. A lot of my friends did. So luckily I was guilty by association. So that kept me out a lot of stuff. I learned that on early, early on in life too. If you can't do it yourself or you're not into that stuff, have a bubble, have a bubble that people don't want to mess with. And that could probably keep you out a lot of shit. And you can, you can infiltrate that bubble with a different view and perspective. And now you're truly powerful and forceful vice like violent all the time. And this dude comes up to me one day in, in the common area in the high school. And he's like, hey, I heard you talking shit about my brother.

• 37:53Speaker 02

  I'm like, what the fuck do you say? Like it just reacted, reacted. I just like stood up for myself. And he's like, okay, okay. He's like Friday and it just like, he said at this like time and day to like whoop my ass. And this dude was like a straight scrapper. This dude was like the real McCoy. And I remember telling my dad this and I'm like, I don't want to fight this guy, man. Like I don't want to do that. I don't even believe in this stupid confrontation. And I think it took my dad by surprise. I don't know if he thought I was like a pussy or what it was. Cause I'm like sharing emotion and like, like thought process at a young age. And I reflect back on that a lot because I still have that same vision today, like. Without belief, why am I doing it? And at a young age, I'm not trying to just go fight to get fight.

• 38:38Speaker 02

  It's not about getting beat up. It's about the principle of like, why am I even showing up to this? Hmm. You know, and at a young age, I didn't know what that was helping me shape in my life. You know, 20 years down the road, how that discernment of like, I don't believe in this. So why would I do that? You know, this doesn't make sense to me. So why would I fucking risk my life for it? You know, and I valued me at a very young age because no one else is going to do it but me. Uh, my parents kind of taught me tough love. You know, they didn't disrespect me. They loved me the best they could. But in all that process, I had to like, find me at a very young age to like, yo, bro, you gotta start fucking fighting for yourself, picking your own battles,

• 39:18Speaker 02

  fighting on your terms and stop just being a fucking victim because somebody, somebody wants to make an example out of you. And I got tired of being an example. So instead of me just like duking it out, trying to use my mind. Long story short, and I, and I, and I share that because it, it was so uncomfortable as a kid to say that to your dad, who was this like mainly man, um, this dude that everyone knew in his industry, his niche, his environment, this brave guy, this tough guy, to tell my dad like, I don't want to fight this guy. You know, like, what do I do? And him not really having the advice to give me, that was hard. Hmm.

• 39:58Speaker 02

  And I don't blame him for it. But conversations like that, I couldn't imagine were really prevalent back in the day. This is like 2001, 2002 timeframe. Emotions, depression, anxiety, PTSD, these things weren't conversation things. Yeah. You know, standing up for yourself, investing in yourself, using your, using your mind. These weren't mainstream things. These weren't family table, you know, dinner conversations. And I think I kind of took him by surprise a bit. But in doing so, being extremely uncomfortable telling him, I took that uncomfortableness and I like applied it more to my life. I'm like, okay, well, this is uncomfortable because he's not sure how to answer me. Um, and he like, I don't even remember the advice. It was very basic.

• 40:41Speaker 02

  Um, but I applied that to the rest of my life. I'm like, dude.

• 40:47Speaker 02

  Clearly, no one knows the answers to everything. So you're gonna have to fucking figure it out. And so I stuck to my guns, like I didn't want to fucking fight this guy. I ended up resolving it all. We figured it out. I mean, dude, we're friends now. This is years later. Uh, but at the time, it was really hard for me challenging as a kid, growing up with these big dreams, dreams to be a commando, but I wasn't willing just to go fuck and duke it out with this guy. You know, whether I'm gonna get risk, you know, risk getting an ass beating or not. It was just that I didn't have belief in it. It wasn't even my fight. Now, if it was my fight, if it was my doing, it would've been different. But it wasn't. And that, like, implanted into my DNA, into my mind, like, how I would live the rest of my life. I didn't know it at the time, but I would live my life and I would make decisions even,

• 41:31Speaker 02

  you know, as a senior in high school, as a new person in the military. I'd utilize that same concept, like, this doesn't make sense. So I'd ask questions. And that, that set me on a completely different path that little did I know that standing up for myself in a time where I could've buckled, just went with the flow, did the norm. Oh, this guy wants to fight me, I'll fight him. This guy is mad, I'll just show up because I don't want to, like, lose any street cred. I didn't care about that shit. Because where I was going, this basic level street cred means nothing. But the lessons that I can learn from this foundation that I'm building, this foundation that I'm experiencing in the complete unknown and discomfort that I'm going through, is gonna set me up for success. I just didn't know it at the time, but I did those things at the time. I didn't know what I was doing was actually gonna help me out.

• 42:16Speaker 02

  So, yeah. Growing up was fun, but at a certain time in my life, I was just waiting my turn. Because all I wanted to do was join the military. That's it. All I wanted to do was become a scout sniper. That was it. You know? Nothing else. I got, my Ranger dream got replaced because I saw that stupid Marine Corps slaying dragon commercial. And then I got introduced to Tom Berenger.

• 42:43Shawn Ryan?

  That's what did it, huh?

• 42:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's what did it.

• 42:45Shawn Ryan?

  The dragon commercial.

• 42:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't know why.

• 42:47Shawn Ryan?

  That was a damn good commercial.

• 42:48Speaker 02

  You know, actually, that guy, he was actually in my platoon later on down the life in my military career. It's crazy.

• 42:54Shawn Ryan?

  Are you serious?

• 42:55Speaker 02

  That's serious.

• 42:56Shawn Ryan?

  The dragon slayer?

• 42:57Speaker 02

  The dragon slayer himself.

• 42:58Shawn Ryan?

  Did he get an award for that?

• 42:59Speaker 02

  I don't know, but he got a lot of, he got a lot of smack talk. And when we found out, uh, because he wasn't, he was an enabler in our, in my job.

• 43:10Speaker 02

  And when people found out he was a dragon slayer, I thought it was sick. I'm like, bro, you should own that thing, bro. Like, you're the dragon slayer.

• 43:16Shawn Ryan?

  Like, we're all here because you killed the dragon.

• 43:20Speaker 02

  You killed the dragon?

• 43:21Shawn Ryan?

  You're the dragon slayer.

• 43:22Speaker 02

  You are the dragon slayer.

• 43:23Shawn Ryan?

  Everybody in the Marine Corps passed what year?

• 43:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, that.

• 43:28Shawn Ryan?

  Ninety-five is here because you killed the dragon.

• 43:32Speaker 02

  Because of you, I'm here.

• 43:33Shawn Ryan?

  I'm just kidding, but.

• 43:35Speaker 02

  But it was, it's crazy. I mean, that's what it was. Cause it was different.

• 43:38Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 43:39Speaker 02

  It wasn't the same. And then sniper with Tom Berenger, I'm like, oh shit, you could be a scout sniper, cause army, you couldn't be a scout sniper.

• 43:46Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 43:47Speaker 02

  In the Navy, you couldn't be a scout sniper. You could be a sniper, but that scout, that scout was premier. That scout was what set that sniper environment different from all the other branches of service. And, uh, I remember one day, cause I was really into, I wanted all the military shit, dude. I'd like, I would sew mil- Marine Corps patches on my shirt, dude. I was like straight nerd about it. Like, there was no denying what my vision was in life. Absolutely undeniable. And I remember there was this army commercial, very basic, very generic, but like, hey, if you call, you'll get this like VHS like information tape.

• 44:26Speaker 02

  And you'll get this camouflage boonie cover. And I'm like, dude, I want the boonie cover. This is sick. And I like, I just call this number, pss, done. So one day my mom's like, you got some explaining to do, mister. I'm like, what's going on? I'm like, probably in 10th grade. And she's like, 11th grade, actually. And she's like, what is this package? And it was like from the United States Army. And I'm like, she's like, what are you gonna tell your dad? I'm like, uh, I, I just did it for the boonie cover, man. Like, cause I told him, I'm gonna be a Marine and they never encouraged me. But they were like, oh yeah, we didn't expect anything different. Like, they knew it.

• 45:01Shawn Ryan?

  No kidding.

• 45:02Speaker 02

  It was weird. They knew it. I mean, ever since I was a kid, I want, like, at a very young age, I wanted to do that. And like I said, I wanted to be a scout sniper ever since a little kid and all these synchronicities, I've been packing groceries. That's what kids do, right? Well, back in my day, we worked at grocery stores. And I remember this one kinda weird fella, but it was now when I look back at my life, all the weird things, all the weird coincidences just helped reinforce the path that I was on. I remember this one guy in particular, he's like, "You have really deep-set eyes. I bet you're a great shot." Weird as fuck. I'm like sixteen years old, I'm like, "This dude is creeping me out a little bit." But I'm like, "I do wanna go in the Marine Corps, be a sniper!" Like, you know, I'm just like, it's just, the path is being lit. Little did I know.

• 45:48Speaker 02

  Just like bit by bit, piece by piece, vision board by vision board. Like, I'm building the reality, I'm building the life that I want. And that was it, dude. You couldn't sway me otherwise. I remember being like my counselor, she's talking about, 'cause I guess in your senior year, you could take like classes to help you get ready for college classes, and I didn't have the grades for that stuff. Uh, but they're like, "You could like take some college classes while you're in high school," and she's like, "So Cody, what do you wanna do?" Uh, "When you graduate?" I'm like, "I'm going to Marines," and she's like, she throws her packet behind her, like my stack of shit. She's like, "Okay, so what are you gonna talk about? We have fifteen minutes," and we just started rapping, you know, just like rambling about stuff, because that was it.

• 46:28Speaker 02

  I didn't wanna, "I wanna be a doctor," kind of, like, there was no plan B for me. It was, that was it. And I remember being in Spanish class, and I don't know if you remember, but you remember those box TVs they used to have in the corner? Yeah. I was in Spanish class, screwing off, flirting with chicks.

• 46:51Speaker 02

  And that's when we all saw it. The Twin Towers fall. You know, and I was like, "Fuck." So now my vision of wanting to join the military, I didn't wanna go kill people. I didn't, I wasn't joining for like, America, you know, my vision was because I felt called to do it, and I wanted to do it ever since a fucking kid, and then I see this shit on TV. And I'm like, "This is real."

• 47:21Speaker 02

  Without a doubt, I know whatever the path and career that I'm going to is going to lead me to harm's way. Like, there is no if, ands, or buts about it. At this time, I had a bunch of friends that were in the reservists. That was like what people did. They said, "I'm gonna go to the military," then they joined the reserves, and they come back and do the same high school shit they were doing. I keep getting older, but they still stay the same age. That's, that's exactly what was happening.

• 47:44Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 47:45Speaker 02

  And I'm like, "Well, shit, I'm going active duty. And I'm going to be this. I'm gonna be a scout sniper." Like, that's, that's it. I'm definitely going to have to answer for what I just saw on TV. I'm gonna have to pay that price. Like, that's gonna come my way, like, I know it. And, um, and obviously, it did. So my, my, my childhood growing up was, was cut and dry. It was just waiting my time.

• 48:17Shawn Ryan?

  So, did you go right in? You were able to go right into being a scout sniper?

• 48:22Speaker 02

  No. Um, I went to boot camp.

• 48:27Shawn Ryan?

  How did you pick the Marine Corps? I know it was, you know, you said you saw Tom Berenger, but

• 48:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:32Shawn Ryan?

  there are a lot of programs out there.

• 48:35Speaker 02

  Like specialized programs?

• 48:36Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 48:36Speaker 02

  Yeah. Um, I had this vision. I wanted to go work for the agency at a very young age, too. I wanted to be the James Bond spy, super ninja, mercenary. I was into all that stuff. Cause I was into the French Foreign Legion. I was into everything that people were most likely not to pass. And I just had this, like, warrior calling. Those guys are risking it on a daily basis, you know? Disregard their belief system, their actions. You have to be aligned to that job, to that environment, to even show your face. And I was just, I thought it was cool to, to have a different name, and to have a passport that wasn't from your own home country, and to live this off-grid life where you can literally be a

• 49:21Speaker 02

  ghost and do anything. I was into that. I was just very attracted to it.

• 49:27Speaker 02

  The Marine Corps, I don't know, like I said, it was the scout sniper aspect. That was it for me. If there was a scout sniper in the Navy, I might have considered it.

• 49:35Shawn Ryan?

  So it was just the, you had the, you had the potential to become a scout sniper. There was no contract.

• 49:42Speaker 02

  No contract at all.

• 49:43Shawn Ryan?

  It was a gamble.

• 49:44Speaker 02

  It was a gamble. Uh, the only way you can do that is, at the time, there was definitely no shortage of infantry men slots. I mean, at this point in time, I signed up at seventeen, so it was two thousand and two.

• 49:58Speaker 02

  Signed up. I signed my name, yeah. I enlisted at seventeen and, um, I'm like, I want to be a scout sniper. They're like, well, you have to go to the infantry. I'm like, okay. Oh, three eleven. So that's what I did. Get the boot camp.

• 50:16Speaker 02

  Go through that whole thing and I'm smiling and I'm enjoying every moment of it because I'm building, I'm now, now it's my time. I've watched all the movies. I fantasize all the fantasies. I fucking G I Joeed all the G I Joes and now I'm getting to live it out. So I'm like cheesing in boot camp the entire time. It sucked. It was very hard, very challenging, but like I wanted to embrace that suck. I wanted to be there. So it made it completely different because my mindset and my belief systems were aligned to the path that I wanted to walk, even though it sucked and was miserable the entire time. I graduate boot camp.

• 50:52Speaker 02

  I do the School of Infantry, which in the Marine Corps, you go to the School of Infantry if you're an infantryman or you go to MCT, Marine Combat Training. So if you're a non infantry person, uh, you go learn like basic infantry shit and then you learn your career field. School of Infantry, you learn if you're a rifleman, machine gunner, mortarman, assaultman, you know, all these things, you learn those career fields and then you bring it all together and.

• 51:17Speaker 02

  I made my intentions known. I went to one of the sergeants, you know, I graduated boot camp as a Lance Corporal. I was an honor graduate, so I was like the number one graduating recruit there. So I left boot camp three ranks higher than 99% of my peers. And that caught the eye of some of my instructors for the School of Infantry, which were, in retrospect, only two ranks higher than me at the time.

• 51:44Speaker 02

  So I found myself in a leadership position. I found myself a lot more mentorship from these corporals and these E4s and these Z5s because I was now being tasked with the word to go spread it to the men. I found myself in these leadership positions at an early, very young age. And in doing so, we had do man bro conversation times. I got to ask questions like, hey, how do I become a good leader? How do I manage this? How do I do this? How do I become a scout sniper? You know, what do I do after this? And one of them found interest in me and he's like, hey, the battalion you're going to, which is 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines, he's like, the battalion you're going to? I have a buddy there and they're running a sniper indoctrination in two months. He's like, so when you get there, sign up for it.

• 52:30Speaker 02

  And this dude believed in me. I'm a nobody. I'm a student like everyone else. You know, I'm going through the phase, the funnel system of like, but where I was going was someplace where these other men have not gone before. Even in boot camp, boot camp was... All my drill instructors knew that we were going to war. It was inevitable. And none of them experienced what we were about to face.

• 52:57Speaker 02

  And back in the day, I didn't know anything about ribbons. If I saw a dude that had like two ribbons, that meant nothing to me. I didn't know what that was. Even as a recruit, even, you know, in boot camp, even at a young Marine age, like, I didn't really know until I started to learn and then know. And a lot of these guys are peacocking because they're drill instructors. They're tough guys. You know, they're trained to get inside your head. They're trained to build you in capacities that you never even thought were capable. But they also knew that we were going to go to war. And they made it very clear. He's like...

• 53:35Speaker 02

  You guys wanna fuck around?

• 53:38Speaker 02

  He's like, you guys are going to war. All the ones going to infantry battalions after this or the school of infantry, you're going to war.

• 53:46Speaker 02

  And I don't think any of us really knew what the magnitude of those words. Cause you don't. You can, you can only fantasize so much until you get punched in the face. You can only fantasize what it's like to get punched in the face until you realize you get punched in the face. You're like, fuck, I was not expecting that. And my school of infantry class, everyone there is an infantryman of some shape or size. And we went to two, four, second battalion, fourth marines. And then we went to two, one, second battalion, first marines, which is the battalion that I went to. And both those units were very in the, in the mix in OIF two, in Ramadi and Fallujah. And literally half my SOI class didn't fucking make it out of their first deployment.

• 54:32Speaker 02

  Cause they're fucking killed. And

• 54:37Speaker 02

  we didn't know that at that age. You know, even our instructors didn't know, no one knew. My first deployment was Fallujah. No one knew what Fallujah was about. And

• 54:52Speaker 02

  but they did their best to like, give us that mindset butter, butter jam, you know? Push the fight, do these things, don't suck, don't quit on yourself, don't quit on your teammate. You know what I'm saying? It's not about you, you know, that's true suffering silence. And looking back, I'm just grateful. Cause they did the best they could with what they had and what they knew. And obviously training has significantly changed a lot since then. Cause there's a lot more experience now, there's a lot more wisdom. And those people are now in those positions where they're able to instruct. You know, but these instructors did a phenomenal job. And this dude that believed in me really kind of set me up for success.

• 55:34Speaker 02

  I'm like, damn, cause it was not normal to like find people to like believe in you when you're just a boot. Boot being a nobody. And so I, I smoke SOI, they were thinking about promoting me to corporal, but they said that the colonel there said I was too young.

• 55:49Shawn Ryan?

  What's SOI?

• 55:50Speaker 02

  A school of infantry.

• 55:51Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 55:52Speaker 02

  So it's the first like three month course you go to after Marine Corps boot camp. And, and it's only for infantrymen.

• 56:00Speaker 02

  So combat arms.

• 56:04Speaker 02

  So I didn't get promoted to Corporal, but they're like, "Hey, we're gonna give you this other leadership award, and it's gonna set you up for success when you go to the infantry." So I'm, I left boot camp stacked. I left my School of Infantry stacked. And more importantly, with documents that said, "Hey, this guy's not too bad", I was stacked with knowledge. This dude gave me this whole, like, uh, Marine Corps Planning Leadership Book, you know, these like, these TNR manuals, these like, things that no one had access to, no, none of my peers had access to. So I was given knowledge, I was given like, true tangible things to like, help me be successful. At the time, I didn't really see all the value in it, but I was also told like, "Hey, do this shit that nobody wants to do, and you'll always fucking win." I'm like, "Okay."

• 56:47Speaker 02

  So this whole time in School of Infantry, I'm doing like, all my online, they called it MCI, is Marine Combat Institute. It's like, all these like, online education, you needed those to get promoted back in the day, or to be eligible for promotion. Uh, cuz it was like, a scoring system up to like, a certain rank. And you needed to meet that score, so you needed to have like, all these like, check-in-the-box to be eligible for the next promotion. I'm like, "Well, fuck." I didn't come here to play small, bro, this is on my vision board, I'm here to win. I didn't know what winning means, but I just didn't wanna suck. And I remember saying, being told, "Do what other people aren't doing, and you'll fucking win." I'm like, "Okay, well, none of my friends, they're all getting drunk out in Oceanside, California, I'm staying on base, doing these stupid little MCI's,

• 57:28Speaker 02

  because when I got to the fleet, when I got to my first unit, I didn't wanna do this shit. Because I was gonna be focused on my next chapter, my next checkpoint, which is to become a scout sniper. So, I was doing the work that needed to happen to get me to where I wanted to be at, at an early age. I took advantage of that, um,

• 57:48Speaker 02

  because I had goals. And I knew where we were going, I, I didn't know, I, I didn't know I was going to Iraq in like, fucking eight months. But I knew I was gonna go overseas soon enough. And my goal was to be a sniper, so that needed to be my main focus. So I check into my battalion and I remember getting off the bus and like they're like they're telling us all these these fear mongering fear porn stories like oh they're gonna they call it a sea bag drag because my battalion that I was checking into is just a couple miles down the road from the School of Infantry and they're they're telling us oh they're gonna make you walk run down there in your alphas which is our green suit and drag in your sea bag and I'm like are you serious?

• 58:30Speaker 02

  Cause I'm in California I'm looking at Camp Pendleton looking all these big mountains I'm like I gotta go up those things? Like all these new hurdles in life I've never seen a mountain my first plane was flying to boot camp you know? And so getting at SOY I see this big ass mountain the first thing I do in reception is I I my buddy and I we go up to the top of that mountain because it was scary as shit we're like let's just get this out of the way because if I can go up that fucking mountain I can go up a hundred times and it not bother me like that was the caliber of men that I was around at a very young age and just looking back on that life man how fortunate to be around winners that weren't losers and um

• 59:10Speaker 02

  I check into my unit bus pulls up in the corridor decks of the big parade filled this big you know concrete slab outside all the headquarters buildings all these things and there is a few of these senior guys they're receiving all of us boots they're like hey if you're golf company so and so so and so so and so get off the bus and they're like yelling at them I'm like oh my god this thing is real this thing is real and um they uh I was I knew I was checking into headquarters company I didn't even know the fuck that was I was supposed to go to trailers platoon I'm like what is a trailer platoon I literally thought I was gonna be in a trailer like I had no clue what this was and I'm in headquarters all my friends are in you know

• 59:51Speaker 02

  an alphanumeric thing I'm there golf I'm in fox I'm in echo I'm in kilo I'm in all these things and I'm like I'm in H HQ I'm a headquarters guy okay?

• 1:00:01Speaker 02

  And I just see all my boot friends just getting thrashed, just pushing up, getting yelled at, just first sergeant smoking cigarettes and these dudes are doing eight count bodybuilders. I'm like, dude, this thing is real because we are straight fresh meat and these guys are all OIF1 veterans. And they know that war, we're going to war. And, uh, I mean, this is 2003 now. I mean, war is already happening, but they know that we are the fresh meat going with them into harm's way. And so they're taking it very seriously. So they're, they're kind of bringing that boot camp, school of infantry vibe and mindset. Cause you're a boot, you only know the shit you were taught. You know, nothing else. And so now you're about to learn your trade in these platoons.

• 1:00:46Speaker 02

  Well, I was one of the first few boot camps to have the desert digital camouflage.

• 1:00:52Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:53Speaker 02

  Where everyone in the fleet, all the senior guys had the woodland camis and black boots. So I quickly looked around and realized that I did not want to get my ass beat or have to do like random eight counts for no reason. So I quickly did what I do best. I blended in and I made it my priority. I found some camouflage. I like shoe gooed my like name tape on there. I traded digis because you have like so many from boot camp. I traded digis with like my roommate who was a motor pool guy and, and I blended in. And I was an E3, so I looked like I was a senior guy. I'm like, bro, I'm setting myself up for success. I'm not going to be like a target dude, because all my friends were targets.

• 1:01:34Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:34Speaker 02

  And targets get hit, you know, targets get the shitty details, targets get the crap into the stick. I didn't want that. And I'm in headquarters and my whole, the, I'm in headquarters and I, I really contemplated to go UA. Uh, my dream come true and I fucking hated it.

• 1:01:55Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 1:01:55Speaker 02

  Yep. Um, my battalion was at, uh, in 29 palms doing like a big training exercise, uh, called CACs, Combined Arm Exercise, big, big training event back in the day.

• 1:02:09Speaker 02

  And so there was a very skeleton crew back at home. Well, the fella in charge of the headquarters guys, being me, he was in charge of like the suicide crazy watch people also. They had like, they were wearing like white t-shirts underneath their woolen camis. They had like white lace and dude, it was like a shit show. And they were just, they were goofy. I'm like, dude, I don't want to emulate you. And I'm like 18 years old at this point. I'm like, you're not inspiring to me. Like this is, this is the Marine Corps? I was painting rocks. I was putting non-skid on steps. I'm like, what the hell am I getting into? With no signs of a brighter future. And it was like that for two weeks and I literally was contemplating like, I gotta get out of here.

• 1:02:54Speaker 02

  This is not for me. This is not what I signed up for. This is stupid. Uh, stupid without a purpose. Stupid with a purpose is different. Stupid without a purpose is just plain stupid.

• 1:03:04Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:05Speaker 02

  And so I'm back in our very, our very condemned flat top buildings that had rats the size of my feet rolling around in them. This is before nice barracks happened and AC was a thing. And uh, this one guy, this one sergeant comes in there and I swear he smoked probably like five cigarettes the whole time he was talking to us. He's like, "Hey, uh, my name's Tommy. I'm from a sniper platoon. We're doing this end doc in a week. So and so, so and so, so and so. You're in the platoon. If you don't pass the end doc, you're out. If anybody else wants to sign up for the end doc, uh, here's the list, sign up. Uh, here's a date and time to be there." I'm like, and all my friends that's in headquarters with, they all made it. Cause they're all expert shooters. In boot camp, I left as a sharpshooter. So one step down.

• 1:03:51Speaker 02

  Uh, it's a true story. Doesn't sound real, but it is. I shot on another dude's target so he could pass. Uh, cause he was a pizza box. He was like, not even going to pass the qualification course. And I shot on his target. So he get his like one score that he needed to pass. That took me from my one shot that I needed to be marks or an expert. And so I go to boot, I go to infantry as a sharpshooter. It's whatever. It is what it was. But that's also why my name wasn't on this like pick list. But I was able to sign up for it. So I signed up for this end doc and I'm like, just excited. I'm super excited. It's, it's coming true. And then I realized, oh my God. I did not know the things I was going to have to do to, to do this. And I remember us showing up and um, one of the first events we did was the pool.

• 1:04:36Speaker 02

  And I'm going back into my repository inside of mine. I'm like, none of the videos I watched were these motherfuckers in pools.

• 1:04:42Shawn Ryan?

  So you're in indoc now?

• 1:04:43Speaker 02

  I'm in indoc. Like, I sign my name up.

• 1:04:47Shawn Ryan?

  So what is indoc? Is indoc a tryout?

• 1:04:49Speaker 02

  Yup.

• 1:04:49Shawn Ryan?

  It's a tryout to get into sniper school?

• 1:04:52Speaker 02

  It's a indoc to get, it's indoctrination to get into the platoon. And then from the platoon, you're under observation. And then, once you're in the platoon, you're basically earning your keep. And then you're earning your keep to get a chance to go to sniper school, because not everyone got a chance to go.

• 1:05:07Shawn Ryan?

  So what, how long is this pipeline?

• 1:05:11Shawn Ryan?

  From indoc to sniper school?

• 1:05:14Speaker 02

  That's a big time gap difference. Indoc's anywhere between like two to three weeks. But then you realize and you learn very, at a very young age, you're constantly always under observation. So just because you made, you passed the indoctrination, you, you did all the hard things, you, you met the requirements that, okay, this guy can do, he can shoot, move, communicate, he won't quit, he can do land navigation, he's a candidate. You know, and we can teach him everything else he needs to know, because back in the day, the purpose of a sniper platoon was to train you how to be a scout sniper. Because then you go to sniper school to get your certification, to fine tune your adjustments. But in the sniper platoon, you're learning everything that they learn in sniper school.

• 1:05:57Speaker 02

  And ninety percent of it has nothing to do with shooting. It's knowledge. It's verbatim. It's attention to this, attention, attention to detail. You know, missing a period or a comma in the sentence, when you're reciting a, what the definition of a Marine Corps Scout Sniper is. What does reconnaissance mean? What does surveillance mean? What does target acquisition mean? What does a hide site mean? And, and if you miss a comma or a period, you're paying for that.

• 1:06:24Speaker 02

  You, you miss, you miss an item on your, on your kit, your, on your observation game, you're paying for that. And so they're, they're, you're basically in a school the entire time.

• 1:06:36Speaker 02

  So for me, that was like a year and a half before I got to go to sniper school, because I deployed in between this time period. But I, I get to the sniper platoon and-

• 1:06:46Shawn Ryan?

  Hold on.

• 1:06:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, oh yeah, bring me back.

• 1:06:47Shawn Ryan?

  Let's go back.

• 1:06:48Speaker 02

  Let's go back.

• 1:06:48Shawn Ryan?

  So indoc.

• 1:06:49Speaker 02

  Indoc.

• 1:06:49Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, let's go back to indoc.

• 1:06:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, so indoc, I find myself in this pool and I'm like sweating bullets, because I wasn't a good swimmer. Marine Corps boot camp. You're either a swimmer, or you're not a swimmer. They don't really teach you how to swim. It's like, hey, here's this Vietnam era flak vest, and this big old brain bucket that's surely not to save your life, and I want you to fucking jump in the water from this tall tower. And I haven't showed you how to do any of these side strokes, how to do anything. Figure it out. You're like, what the fuck? And you're just like, go. And that's how it was. And I just made the bare minimum to like pass the swim call, because it was a meat grinder. Because when I was in school of infantry, uh, there was an opportunity to go to recon. And you could sign up for recon back in the day.

• 1:07:35Speaker 02

  You could not, you could not sign up to be a scout sniper.

• 1:07:38Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:07:38Speaker 02

  So, in a school of infantry, you would come and you would confirm that you can do the recon screening, right, which consisted of, you know, some swims, treading water, underwater crossover, and physical fitness tests. Well, I signed up for that, and they told me to go pound sand, because I had like, the lowest swim qualification you could possibly have, and still be a marine. And so I'm like, okay. So, thank God that happened, because I would have deviated from this great life that I have, and the opportunities that I have. And, uh, so I get to the indoc, and the first thing we do is swimming. And I learned from that age, and that very young point, that the water is the equalizer for all men. You find out who wants to be there in the water.

• 1:08:21Speaker 02

  And you might not, and I learned also, you might not pass everything, but you can't, you can't fake heart. You can't fake determination. You can't fake fucking discipline. You, you have it or you don't. And I was the poorest swimmer at the indoc. The poorest one. But you could not get me to stop. And so, the chief instructor for the platoon, he took me to the side, and he started to teach me things. He's like, dude, you have no idea what you're doing, but you clearly aren't quitting anytime soon. So let me show you how to do this. So he actually taught me how to swim. And I realized that that was just a way to shed the fat instantly before we got to the fun stuff.

• 1:09:03Speaker 02

  And that really wasn't fun to me. Neither was the things that are coming my way, but it was like the entry level. Because the water is scary. They tell you to hold your breath in the water and swim, wearing your full camouflage utilities. That's not easy to do. They tell you to wear your full camouflage utilities after you've been swimming for thirty minutes and they tell you to tread water for thirty minutes. You're like, you want me to tread water for thirty minutes? Are you serious? And I was never exposed to these things because you don't do any of that in boot camp. You do none of that in School of Infantry. So these are all new phases and experiences of life that none of us have experienced. And uh, to be honest, we're just crushing it. Uh, I suffered swimming wise and they were like, okay, well, I can either give up on you

• 1:09:47Speaker 02

  or you're Lance Corporal from boot camp. You left School of Infantry with this leadership award. There's clearly something about you. You clearly just need to be trained on the things you don't know. And that is exactly how this, the Staff Sergeant took me in. And I'm very grateful for that opportunity because that has been a role in my life. I've not done great a lot of things. But I don't know what I don't know. And

• 1:10:14Speaker 02

  when I get put in those situations, people see that like, bro, I am the real McCoy. But I just, I just need the opportunity. I just need that shot, you know? Cause I want it and I'm willing to do anything for it. Uh, even drown, you know, even suffer, even know that I can't do that shit, but I'll still jump in the pool when I don't want to. When I want to fucking quit, but I'm not going to. When he told me not to touch the bottom and I want to, I wanted to step up and breathe, but I'm not going to because he told me fucking not to. And this means more to me than my comfort or the discomfort that I'm in. And this dude saw that and he took me in at a young age and mentored me mainly how to swim. And then after that, we did a lot of ruck running.

• 1:10:55Speaker 02

  Uh, there was this thing called Recon Ridge outside of Camp Hornow, which is Second Battalion, First Marines on Camp Pendleton. That's our base, the camp at the time. And there's this thing called Recon Ridge and it's, it starts off very basic. You're like, oh, I can, I can walk run up that. Like twenty feet into that thing, your calves and ankles are done. You're just smoked. And it just keeps on going up and up and up and up and up until you hear the, hit the ridge line. And then you find yourself traversing all these mountains and ridges. They call it the Alpha Shelf. It's the first layer of mountains in Camp Pendleton. Very distinctful. You can see them from the highway. They're very massive, large terrain features. And we're just up and down these things every day for like two weeks. Doing land navigation all over Camp Pendleton with like hard timelines.

• 1:11:39Speaker 02

  And your timelines were if you don't come back, if you don't come back with your points, you're out of the platoon.

• 1:11:46Speaker 02

  Those odds, I, I loved. Cause none of us had a handout there. Even my friends that were on the list to go to the platoon, they had to earn their keep, just like me and a few other guys that weren't on the list to go. You know, there was no handouts there. And these guys were already used to working in like two man sniper teams. But we had, we had four man teams and that's what we were working towards. But they didn't care if they had to go back to two man teams. Cause there was a standard. So it was like, it was so fun. Cause all my friends were cleaning guns, the armory. They're marching, doing dumb shit and like,

• 1:12:21Speaker 02

  I got my collar popped to avoid getting shafed by the rucksack. My fucking pants are unbloused. I have a heavy ass pack on. I got like drippy mascara paint, you know? Just like ah, like running down my face. And I was a king of the world. Cause we were, we had, we were told, you will run everywhere you go. You will not walk anywhere. I'm like, okay. And instantly you're already speeding, you're already standing out from the pack. So all of us in the sniper platoon, all, they're called PIGs. Professionally instructed gunmen. So a professionally instructed gunman or a pig, you're the boot in the sniper platoon. You're not a school trained sniper. You can do the job, but it's not your main thing.

• 1:13:03Speaker 02

  You're a point man, you're a radio man, you're an assistant team leader potentially, maybe. Uh, but you're not the sniper.

• 1:13:11Speaker 02

  In a hog is a hunter.

• 1:13:13Shawn Ryan?

  Sorry to interrupt.

• 1:13:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:13:14Shawn Ryan?

  We'll pick back up at hog, but so in the sniper platoon, everybody is in the Marine Corps. Everybody's there to support the sniper. Is that correct?

• 1:13:26Speaker 02

  In a sniper platoon?

• 1:13:27Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:27Speaker 02

  Uh, yeah, this, the, the sniper is the main focus, but the team is main focus because you're not doing sniper missions. You can't do a sniper mission without the team. And so the main thing is like everyone working as a four man team, a small element. Uh, that's the main thing.

• 1:13:46Shawn Ryan?

  So out of the four man team, how many snipers are there? One?

• 1:13:50Speaker 02

  It varies. My first sniper team had two snipers. My team leader and my assistant team leader were scout snipers, school trained snipers and the radio operator and myself as a point man. We were not.

• 1:14:01Shawn Ryan?

  But you're a candidate.

• 1:14:03Speaker 02

  I am in the sniper platoon. I've earned my keep to be in the platoon. I'm a platoon member. Uh, and now I'm just waiting my time to go to sniper school.

• 1:14:12Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:14:12Speaker 02

  So, you know, cause back in the day, hey, we got one seat. Well, there's eight guys. Uh, we got two seats, but there's 12 guys, you know, it's just different how, how to work to like get your chance to go to school. But every, every one of us were instructed on the sniper rifle. We all knew how to do observation. We all, we all, we all knew how to do everything because it was their job and their invested interest to make sure we knew how to do it all. Cause we're going to war and we're a team. I gotta know what happens to them if they don't make it. You know, so being in this platoon and these guys were like Somalia vets, OF1 vets. And I'm like, whoa, they're like, I was walking around Mogadishu with my sniper rifle. I'm like, what? Like just these crazy stories I've never even heard of before.

• 1:14:55Speaker 02

  And unreal that I'm even in the platoon in the first place. To look back at my vision board where I have this like skull with two cross sniper rifles, you know, now I'm actually in this platoon and our, our, uh, T-shirt was, uh, it had a dead man's hand, but it had the, um, it had a skull with two cross rifles on it. That was like our sniper platoon logo. It's crazy.

• 1:15:18Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:15:19Speaker 02

  And, um, so the, your, your school trained snipers are called HOGs, Hunter of Gunmen. And that's the title. That's the certification you get once you complete scout sniper school, scout sniper basic course, SSBC.

• 1:15:33Speaker 02

  So, the whole time I'm in this platoon, we're, we're just learning skills. Land navigation, dude, land nav, land nav, land nav. Observations, surveillance techniques, patrolling, you know, all the things to like make you a weapon. But at the same time, we're training for this upcoming deployment we all hear about. We're going to Iraq. We're going to this place called Fallujah. Not a big deal. No one's bells are ringing. No one's butts were tight. We're going to Iraq. So all the OAF1 guys, all the invasion guys were like, "Oh, you guys better get ready." But hearing their stories, you know, OAF1 was different. It was, it was different. It's a different type of violence. No one knew what we were getting into.

• 1:16:18Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:19Speaker 02

  Nobody. Uh, to the point where the training that my battalion was doing in preparation was called SASSO. Have you ever heard of SASSO?

• 1:16:29Shawn Ryan?

  I haven't.

• 1:16:30Speaker 02

  I forget the exact acronym. I'll try my best. It's basically Stability Operations. So we're doing this training.

• 1:16:37Shawn Ryan?

  Stability Operations.

• 1:16:38Speaker 02

  Stability Operations. Stability.

• 1:16:41Shawn Ryan?

  And you're going to Fallujah.

• 1:16:42Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:16:43Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting.

• 1:16:44Speaker 02

  And so, all these scenarios, we're doing checkpoints, we're doing sergeant of the guards. We're basically doing this like, uh, martial law. That's basically what we're practicing. It's really what it was. Martial law, we're practicing martial law. Show, shout, shove, shoot. These are the things that we must say. These are the things that we must do. Hugs and kisses. We're the professionals. Open hearts, open minds.

• 1:17:10Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I remember that.

• 1:17:14Speaker 02

  Well, there was a lot of that, but just not in the same context. And, but we did what we did best. We trained. And the cool thing about the Sniper Platoon was that we were part of Headquarters Company back in the day. Uh, and what that, what that means is that Headquarters is like your motor pool people, your cooks, your supply people, your radio people, all these things. And from there, they get dispatched to the, the companies, the line companies, infantry companies.

• 1:17:42Speaker 02

  Well, infantry shoots a lot of ammunition. Headquarters does not shoot a lot of ammunition, so we had a lot of ammunition. But we did not have a lot of sniper ammo. Which is weird. We're shooting like ten, twenty rounds at a time, and that was a training evolution. So we're making every one of these shots count. Oh yeah, it was very sparse. Um, but we did get a lot of fifty cal and we got a lot of five five six. So like break contact drills, small unit tactics. Uh, you know, all the things that you would imagine being a four man team. Uh, that's what we were doing. Well, on top of that, we would run missions for Border Patrol on Camp Pendleton. We would, uh, basically do a bunch of BOLO missions. And so we would pack up our gear and we would navigate

• 1:18:26Speaker 02

  the valleys and the crests inside Camp Pendleton, working our way towards like the Border Patrol checkpoints. And we're like, they get a BOLO like, hey, we're looking for a white van. So we're like, looking for white vans all night, you know, we're just reporting back. And it's like, it's like drill, you know, we're just drilling, we're not, we're not gonna do anything crazy. But, uh, we're utilizing a real world scenario to provide us real world mission training. Uh, and so we found ourselves doing that a lot.

• 1:18:53Shawn Ryan?

  That's smart. I think that's smart.

• 1:18:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, and cause money, money was,

• 1:18:59Speaker 02

  money was an extreme thing back then, meaning that it didn't exist.

• 1:19:02Shawn Ryan?

  But I mean, it's still, it's a real mission.

• 1:19:04Speaker 02

  It's a real mission. Yeah, it's a real mission. We are planning, we're briefing, uh, I mean, how we would even set up high sites, vehicle hide sites in the officer neighborhood. Because there was, there was thieves taking place, there was people breaking into shit. Well, guess what? We'll just put, we'll do a training mission out there.

• 1:19:22Shawn Ryan?

  So you guys are sniping thieves on base?

• 1:19:25Speaker 02

  With observations.

• 1:19:27Shawn Ryan?

  I'm just kidding.

• 1:19:28Speaker 02

  I remember being in the back of one of those Chevy Avalanches sweating my balls off, you know, I got like, I got the vehicle hide drave, I'm wearing the mock, you know, the mock up, the reaper hood, and I'm like, Just leaning back and like this dude didn't even empty out his car all the way and I'm like Breaker, breaker, one nine, you know, I'm passing reports and, but it was fun.

• 1:19:49Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:49Speaker 02

  Cause when everyone else is sleeping or playing Xbox or getting drunk or, I mean, and Marines are crazy dude. Like barracks parties and like barracks brawls are a real thing. Like it's straight gangland there, like no rules, people flying off of second story balconies, taped mattresses, like the horrible stories you hear, like there's no way that's real. Those were really real and those were really real back then. Like, those are a real thing. Well, we were doing a real thing too. We were fine tuning our craft. Uh, we were learning how to do vehicle surveillance, Trojan horse operations. We were learning how to do all these things that weren't done at the time, especially in the conventional side of things. Uh, but we had a commander who had a belief. We had a commander who was very outside the box and pushed us

• 1:20:33Speaker 02

  to, to train in that capacity also. Cause it was really easy. Cause the standard for Marine back in the day was go to the armory, clean your guns, hurry up and wait.

• 1:20:44Speaker 02

  Well, we were, we didn't do that. One, cleaning your guns for hours on end, you're just destroying them. Two, the training is not in the armory. The training's out in the bush. And I don't even need a gun for that. I just need a map, a compass and an objective. And that's what we did. So we would just do star courses all the time, land navigation courses all the time. So it was like a continuous indoctrination. Cause none of it got easier and it only got harder. Um, but that definitely, that's what set us up for success. And you know, that was a hard training that nobody wanted to do. But you took pride in it because there's only 12 of you. I think, yeah, 12 of us at the time. And, you know, when you're doing observations, as you know, it's three o'clock in the morning.

• 1:21:26Speaker 02

  And you're just looking at an area that's got no movement. That takes discipline. You know, it takes discipline not to go to sleep. It takes discipline not to drift your mind. It takes discipline not to screw your buddy over. It, and it takes discipline to be like, hey dude, I'm really tired. I need you to have covered down in 10 minutes for me. You know, all these things take discipline. So we're learning at a very young age, something that we never got exposed to from the military. Uh, in that capacity, the warfighting capacity, what it's truly going to take to, to make it happen. So, we're doing all this cool training for the sniper platoon. We're integrating with the infantry companies, you know, doing sniper overwatch, guardian angel missions.

• 1:22:09Speaker 02

  Basically, we're like, they're conducting their martial law stuff and we are, you know, doing observation, running reconnaissance surveillance for them. Sitting back, because back in the day, snipers were actually employed as snipers. You're the eyes and ears of the battalion. You are directly reporting to the commander, information of all things pertinent to surveillance and observation of the battlefield. And, because you were the first line of defense, because there was no recon elements in an infantry battalion. There's sniper elements. And back in the day, before we called sniper platoons, we were called stapletoons, surveillance, target acquisition. And that sums up exactly what we did. We were a stapletoon, and that's how I grew up in the community. And...

• 1:22:52Speaker 02

  That's what we did. We did this great training for SASO, and we're like, "Hey, guys, we're going to Iraq in a couple of months," and we're like, "All right." Meant nothing. Because it was so vanilla down. We did combat drills, we did combat scenarios in the SASO training, but the main thing was martial law. You're just policing up, spreading love and joy.

• 1:23:16Speaker 02

  That...

• 1:23:19Speaker 02

  Fucking changed very quickly.

• 1:23:25Speaker 02

  A different type of love and joy. And so, I found myself going on leave, pre-deployment leave. I go home to Texas, I see my family, and I tell my parents I'm going to Iraq. And my mom was super sad, and my dad was... My dad was proud, but not because I'm going to war. My dad was proud of who I've become.

• 1:23:50Speaker 02

  Uh, and I wanted to selfishly just go party, chase chicks. Cause in my head, I'm like, I'm going to fucking war, bro. I don't, I'm not, I wasn't a tough guy, but I didn't know what was gonna happen. So I wanted to go be an eighteen year old kid. I wanted to do eighteen year old kid things. And that's when my dad's like, hey, you better spend time with your mother. And I'm like, alright, I'll spend time with my mom. I'll spend time with you. I'll stay at home. I'll do these things. Um, so I did. And then I come back to Pendleton and we flew commercial, uh, air to Iraq, my first deployment.

• 1:24:30Speaker 02

  And I was a Lance Corporal, so I'm still on the working party committee, you know, doing all the shitty jobs still. And even our platoon, we had to give up bodies to go support these things. We got out a lot of things, but we still needed to support and be team players. So I find myself loading these, uh, sea bags, you know, that's where we learned the whole like conveyor belt system where you're just like, you're just a fine oil machine, you know? And, um, we're loading this, this civilian aircraft, sea bags in the bottom. None of us know what the fuck's gonna happen. None of us have a clue what we're going into. None of us, at least I did not. I knew it was gonna be war. I knew it was Iraq. That was it.

• 1:25:13Speaker 02

  But my mindset was stability operations. My mindset was the information that I was told and trained upon, that that's what I was going to execute and perform.

• 1:25:23Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:25:24Speaker 02

  And that didn't mean complacent. That just means that my mindset was on what my tasks were assigned to me.

• 1:25:33Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, what else would it be on?

• 1:25:35Speaker 02

  Exactly.

• 1:25:36Shawn Ryan?

  That's what you just spent however long training to do. That's what they told you you were going to do. Why would you think anything else?

• 1:25:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:25:46Shawn Ryan?

  Did you wanna go to Iraq or did you wanna go to Afghanistan?

• 1:25:49Speaker 02

  Uh.

• 1:25:50Shawn Ryan?

  Or did you care?

• 1:25:51Speaker 02

  I didn't care. By the time Afghanistan wasn't on, even on my radar, Iraq was. Uh, I think Afghanistan might've been for like other, like the East Coast Marines, but it wasn't for the West Coast. We were all Iraq, to my knowledge, at this time of life. So, and Afghanistan wasn't even a thing, you know, cause you hear Iraq. They didn't. What was a mass destruction? That's not in Afghanistan. That's in Iraq, right? And so I really only saw that as like the potential, the potential reality that I would face, you know, in this phase of, a phase of life in my career.

• 1:26:28Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I guess at that time Afghanistan was a strictly special operation.

• 1:26:32Speaker 02

  Very special operations. Now, we have marine units doing it, you know, our detachment one, which is our very first marine special operations asset. They were operating in Afghanistan around this time. They were doing a lot of missions at the time. But big general purpose Marine Corps? No.

• 1:26:50Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:26:50Speaker 02

  Iraq. So, we, uh, we fly to Kuwait. And we're drinking beer, oh, you know, we're on this plane, I'm excited. I'm like, this is crazy, dude. I'm flying this comfy plane, civilian plane. These stewardesses are like super kind and we got our guns in there and we're just like, they're like feeding us beer and I'm, I'm 18 years old, bro, I'm living it up. This is fun. This is awesome. This is the real McCoy. We get to Kuwait and I'm just like,

• 1:27:21Speaker 02

  what is this? And as my eyes open up to the scene, it's just like this crazy, massive monstrosity of things happening. You know, there's troops moving here, there's vehicles moving here, there, it's just like, whoa! It's like those, you see those old World War II films where it's like a staging area. And you're like, oh my God, this is it? And we did some training there, we did a lot of shooting there, we had obviously way more ammunition. We started to link up with other assets like, uh, human, human exploitation teams, EOD teams, because these things weren't, um, they were not organic to an infantry battalion. And so now we're getting introduced to them, we're doing collective training with them.

• 1:28:03Speaker 02

  And since we were snipers, we were like the tier guys of our battalion. You know, we're, we're getting, because their information, their, their sole purpose is based off actual intelligence and gaining information. Ours is the same thing. We provide information and intelligence is formed off that information. That's our main focus. Shooting is 10% of the job, so they say.

• 1:28:28Speaker 02

  And, you know, a lot of lessons still there. It was very airy, fun. People were excited. We're getting ready to go do our job. Why else would you join? You know, why else? You're getting to go put all those hard things to test. And still, no one knew what was coming our way. Uh, no one was complacent with like, oh, this can be a K in the walk. There was not mindset that never existed. But the true brutality of what Fallujah brought,

• 1:29:00Speaker 02

  I think if someone told you, you would have been like, no way. Telling stories of Fallujah still to this day for me, it sounds fake. It sounds made up.

• 1:29:11Shawn Ryan?

  Well, before we get into Fallujah, because that's where we're going.

• 1:29:15Speaker 02

  That's where we're going.

• 1:29:16Shawn Ryan?

  Let's take a quick break.

• 1:29:17Speaker 02

  Let's do it.

• 1:29:20Shawn Ryan?

  Many of you probably know by now, earlier this year, I did a psychedelic healing journey. And that changed many aspects of my life for the better. Two of them being, I haven't had any alcohol or coffee in over six months. Another aspect that changed of mine is my morning ritual. And I want to tell you guys about my new addition to my morning ritual, Mudwater. It's a coffee replacement. In my opinion, the best thing about Mudwater is every single ingredient was added for a very specific purpose. Cacao and chai for mood and a microdose of caffeine. Lion's mane for alertness. Cordyceps to help support physical performance.

• 1:30:03Shawn Ryan?

  Chaga and reshi to support your immune system. Turmeric for soreness and cinnamon for antioxidants. Not only is Mudwater good for you, it also tastes incredible. My favorite ingredient is the lion's mane because it keeps my brain alert all hours of the day. Some people like to mix their Mudwater with milk. Some people like to put some honey in it. Personally, myself, I just dump it in a glass of water, stir it up. And throw it down the hatch. Mudwater is Whole30 approved, 100% USDA organic, non-GMO, gluten-free, vegan, and kosher certified. Mudwater also donates monthly to the Berkeley Center for the Science of Psychedelics,

• 1:30:48Shawn Ryan?

  as Mudwater believes the country is in a mental health epidemic, and so do I. Go to mudwtr.com/shawn to support the show and use code Shawn for 15% off. That's mudwtr.com/shawn, use code Shawn for 15% off.

• 1:31:12Shawn Ryan?

  Art, it's 2004. You're going to Fallujah. You have no idea what you're in for. Fallujah is the... Probably the most well-known battle throughout the entire war. The bloodiest. We'll just leave it at that. It was indescribable. And you were there.

• 1:31:41Speaker 02

  I was there. The first one was Inherent Resolve. That was the... That was the operation leading up to Phantom Fury, which most people hear about. That was the concluding of Fallujah. That was the last battle. We were there for Inherent Resolve. So we arrive. We convoy from Kuwait to Iraq. We go to our firebase. It's called Bahriya. It was one of Saddam's old resorts. He had like some little go-kart places. He had a place where he had caged lions, a little lake in the center, right next to this place called the MEK.

• 1:32:25Speaker 02

  This big facility that housed aircraft, medical reconnaissance, and various other entities. In our base, we replaced the 101st Airborne and the Air Force.

• 1:32:41Speaker 02

  And these guys were battered. They didn't have much.

• 1:32:47Speaker 02

  And so we showed up into what you would think as a pretty austere environment. We had hard structures that were team houses. Uh, cause it was just like this big resort area. So there's multiple houses. Our, our kitchen was a big general purpose tent.

• 1:33:07Speaker 02

  And operations were getting pretty feisty there. We haven't gone out at this point. A couple of leadership are doing left and rights. Um, with the outgoing entities, uh, the recce guys with the hundred and first, their snipers. And

• 1:33:27Speaker 02

  you know, day one, not even day one into the city, but day one on the, uh, left seat, right seat. Two of our guys from our platoon come back with grenade wounds. On day one? Day one. And since what happened, there was always, there was this like weekly tribal council essentially that happened at this district center. And the sniper recce guys from the hundred first would set up overwatch, relay stuff and provide overwatch. We had a few members of our sniper platoon go out there and I was kind of butthurt. I wanted to go. It was the senior guys. Which at the time, I'm still new to this whole thing, but it makes sense. They're doing leaders reconnaissance. I just wanted to go out and do stuff. I'm here, I'm here to work.

• 1:34:11Speaker 02

  Well, they come back eating, eating grenades. Uh, the hundred first, as they're leaving, they did not leave with their heads held high. They were still getting killed and wounded all the way up to the point they left. Um, our kitchen, our, our dining area, which is a tent, took a direct mortar round. Uh, mortar rounds were really happening a lot. Impacting all over the firebase constantly, just harassing fire.

• 1:34:42Speaker 02

  And once again, we didn't really know what we're getting into. We did not have armor on our vehicles. All of our Humvees were soft skin. Uh, we started using the Mercedes IFAB vehicles. You remember those Jeeps with the roll cages? We were using those, uh, which are cool. Until they're not. Not in Fallujah. Not in fucking Fallujah. And so we started to really pillage what the Air Force had and what the Army had. We started to take all their blast blankets. The Air Force had armor on their Humvees. We're taking their armor, ghetto rigging its R rigs. Uh, and we had no optics. You had no optics?

• 1:35:25Speaker 02

  We had, we had iron sights. And, uh, ACOGs were not a real thing back then. ACOGs were in the fielding process. They were not, ACOG is the, I think, three by magnified optic. Uh, they were in the fielding process. They were not in our hands, not in our possessions. Night vision, good luck. Um, radios, personal radios, good luck. Uh, and the sniper platoon is completely different. Sniper platoon, we all had, you know, 148s. We all had team communication. We all had seven bravos. Uh, so we were pretty stacked. Um, we had some pretty outdated at the time, very dated thermals. Uh, but the infantry, maybe three guys had squad systems, squad communication systems.

• 1:36:10Speaker 02

  Maybe eight guys out of 30 had night vision. You know, and, and we're conducting, would be conducting full spectrum operations, uh, through all hours of the day and night. By the time, no one knew it was coming. Um, so when our guys came back with, with holes in their bodies and already out of the fight, they didn't go home. They stayed there. Um, it was, it was pretty crazy. Cause we're just day one on our firebase on this camp. And two of our guys are already out of commission. Two guys. Damn, two leaders. Two leaders and we're 12 man team. We're 12 man platoon.

• 1:36:53Speaker 02

  And, uh, well, four, my math is wrong. 16. We had four teams of four. And then we had a residual headquarters aspect element that could fill and go. Still pretty small, a lot of responsibility, very small outfit. And they're like, oh, it's crazy. And you're just hearing stories. And then you start hearing the booms. And then you're like, oh shit. Then you see the booms, you know, the mortars that are coming in and like all this now becoming very real to me. Like it was always real to me, but it wasn't, I never had the perspective of something I'd never experienced. You know?

• 1:37:34Speaker 02

  Hearing men fucking cry, like cry out for help. Never heard that shit before. You know, hearing fear has a sound. And hearing that sound, I've never heard that before. And it was, it was a culture shock a bit. And by the time we still had no mission, we had no plan. We're doing, uh, some of those guys from our, from our sniper platoon were doing Trojan horse missions. So low vis operations, uh, but cause you're a marine, they won't let you grow out your beard. So discipline. And so they're like, can't be paying their face, you know, wearing local garbage as much as they can. Uh, making themselves look like they have a five o'clock shadow and doing the best they can with what they had back in the day. Well, those missions started quickly to shut down.

• 1:38:19Speaker 02

  That's around the whole time, the whole, the blackwater thing happened. Uh, a lot of people are dying. And it started to stir up a horn's nest. Because I don't think the commanders knew exactly what their subordinate commands were actually getting into.

• 1:38:36Shawn Ryan?

  Which blackwater thing are you talking about? Are you talking about when the contractors were hung upside down on the bridge?

• 1:38:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:38:42Shawn Ryan?

  Burned alive?

• 1:38:43Speaker 02

  And so you hear all these tells, the stories of things going on. And you're like, shit, shit's real. This is when like the orange jumpsuit guy, remember that it was like an 18 wheeler driver getting beheaded? Do you remember that video was going around everywhere? And there's a lot of these things here like.

• 1:39:02Speaker 02

  The what is this dude is like this is I couldn't comprehend.

• 1:39:07Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:08Speaker 02

  War is war. Sure, you can probably comprehend that a bit, but the the brutality of it all and really what we were up against. I had no I had no left or right lateral limit to even comprehend that.

• 1:39:21Shawn Ryan?

  The the the body mutilations, the beheadings, the dismemberment, the.

• 1:39:26Speaker 02

  The human shields.

• 1:39:28Shawn Ryan?

  All that.

• 1:39:29Speaker 02

  Uh, it was crazy and. Remember one day. The uh, we stopped getting uh, stuff delivered to our firebase. Well, the firebase is a base camp. And all the workers we had coming to help us, local nationals, they their heads arrived in a bag outside of our gate.

• 1:39:53Speaker 02

  And so getting people to come help the Americans was extremely difficult.

• 1:39:59Shawn Ryan?

  They sent all the heads of your local workers to your front gate?

• 1:40:06Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit. How many heads? Did you know these guys?

• 1:40:10Speaker 02

  Did not. I'm just a dude. I'm still like living in La La Land because we're waiting for the mission. I'm just wondering why we're not getting a water supply. I'm wondering why, you know, this thing hasn't been delivered. I'm just a dude. You know, I'm waiting with my scratch off phone card, waiting in line for an hour and a half to use the fucking morale phone. Because I'm still living in a in a in a in a reality that I don't even know where I'm in and where I'm at. I'm just waiting for tasking, but all these big things are happening. And at the time, I was a low level guy. I wasn't really involved. You just hear the stories.

• 1:40:49Shawn Ryan?

  And you start. What the fuck does that brief look like? Hey, if you guys are wondering where our local workers are, their heads have all been chopped off and they're in packages at the front door.

• 1:41:00Speaker 02

  Well, back then dissemination of information wasn't really a thing. And that's my perspective. That's my view on things. And I say that because when we finally got the green light to go in. It was March twenty sixth, two thousand and four. And we are, we are tasked with, we are pushing through the city of Fallujah. And we're clearing it. With how many people? Our entire battalion. So four companies, my marine math is not that great when it comes to the breakdown of all those outfits. Hundred? Hundreds.

• 1:41:45Speaker 02

  Two hundred? Multiple battalions. So there's other, there's other units. Cause I believe Fallujah was a four by four grid square or two by two, something of the nature. And there was, my battalion was the main effort.

• 1:42:02Speaker 02

  So other adjacent battalions were doing other combat missions to support our push through the city. So they were more in the outskirts, kind of funneling people towards us.

• 1:42:14Speaker 02

  So the plan was. And so we staged at like zero two, zero three in the morning on our camp. Um, but the night prior, my platoon commander comes in and he's like, everyone's gonna write their death letter. Jesus Christ. And I'm like, are you fucking kidding me? Like, I got goosebumps even thinking about that. Cause at the time I didn't know. I saw some guys get shrapnel wounds. I heard the stories of the heads. I seen and heard the explosions.

• 1:42:48Speaker 02

  But then I'm told to write my own death letter.

• 1:42:51Speaker 02

  And I'm like, what do you say? What do I do? And I had a girlfriend at the time. So I wrote a letter to her. My parents were in my life. I wrote a letter to my parents. And we all turned our letters over to our platoon commander.

• 1:43:08Speaker 02

  And that's when I knew shit was fucking real. Do you still have those letters? I don't. Would you write? I really don't remember. I wrote what an eighteen year old kid probably would. I was motivated at the time. So I probably wrote some shit like, I'm dying from, you know, I fought for my country, I fought for my team. I love you guys. I miss you. You think your parents still have that letter?

• 1:43:33Speaker 02

  No, my parents got, my parents got more than a letter, uh, later. Okay. Um. We'll wait for that. Yeah, it's, it's coming up. Right on. Um. I mean, that's fucking demoralizing. Yeah, it was pretty demoralizing, but at the same time, I, we didn't, I didn't know any different. None of us knew, no one knew. And I get it, some people might be thinking, oh dude, it's war, what did you expect? But no, that's, I've been to war, this, this was hell. This was, this was something that shaped my life

• 1:44:09Speaker 02

  for the rest of my life. As long as I live, I will never forget that. I, I won't remember all the details. I still don't remember all the details. I don't remember all the phase lines. I don't remember the exact numbers, but I remember the feeling. And I have never been able to shake it ever since. Um, so we load up in these trucks, I'm in a seven ton, those big, you know, very clunky, non-quiet diesel, 18th military tactical vehicles.

• 1:44:38Speaker 02

  And we're all smoking cigarettes, light discipline, we're still on base. Cause the drive is only like 10 minutes.

• 1:44:47Speaker 02

  The drive from your DVD player, your shitty fucking food, and the thing you call a bed, you're 10 minutes away from hell. And it's just outside their gate. And the drive was that, 10 minutes, 10 minutes of fucking silence and pure fucking darkness.

• 1:45:11Speaker 02

  And I just remember feeling like the rumbles of the truck. I smell the, the JP8, the fuel, you know, you just, you can feel, you can feel that energy for all those fucking souls that are there. These fucking dudes, you know, like you can feel it. The silence, that bonding that speaks no words. That mindset that has no...

• 1:45:36Speaker 02

  It has no category. It just is what it is. And only situations can bring that about. And we stopped right outside the city. It's the cloverleaf. It was like this highway. There's a highway right outside of it. And there's this cloverleaf of a highway, like entrance points, on ramps, off ramps. And we, we, we park outside of that and we unload. And it's just dead quiet. It's pitch black. But there's these, these streetlights. We're all like, what's going on? You know, what are we doing here?

• 1:46:07Speaker 02

  Like, what's the next phase? What's the next step? And you hear gunshots.

• 1:46:12Speaker 02

  And a few of us, to include myself, we like duck. Well, it's our guys shooting at these streetlights, which it's not as easy as movies make, especially with 556. And it, it took a little, a couple of shots to like, to make these things happen. And then it got super quiet. And then, uh, my, uh, team leader comes up and he's like, hey, we're tasked to do Overwatch. And push forward. I'm like, okay. I was a point man. That was my fucking job. I was good at it.

• 1:46:44Speaker 02

  So not only am I navigating to a destination, which we didn't have one, uh, my head's on the swivel. I had to see everything and relay that back. Cause it's our mission to provide information to our battalion, to our commanders or subordinate commanders, so they can create and determine what's intelligence and what needs to be action and what, what needs to happen. And right on the outskirts of the city was this unconstructed building. And I remember making my way up there. And it's beautiful. The sun's peeking. There's that smell of unknown, a new country.

• 1:47:25Speaker 02

  And it was so peaceful and quiet. It was insane. Sell nobody.

• 1:47:34Speaker 02

  We slowly start to push up, we're still remaining in an overwatch position.

• 1:47:39Speaker 02

  And the IFABs come up, these small Mercedes Jeeps, and our weapons guys, our weapons company guys, the guys with the mark 19s, the 50 cowl, the 240s, were mounting on these little things. And I remember they pushed up in an L shape to provide support, so the infantrymen could continue to push up and bound, as they were trained to do. Bound from one place to the next place, and we're gonna clear this village, this, this city.

• 1:48:05Speaker 02

  And then, like that, an IFAB just disappears. And, uh, it blew up, like, literally like right in front of us. And I was like, holy fuck, this is real. Like, I always knew it was real. I heard the stories, I saw the explosions, I fucking saw the holes in the bodies. But now I'm there, in the thick of it. There's no chow time, there's no break, there's no pee break, this is it. And it's like, maybe 7:00 in the morning, 8:00 in the morning, the day has just begun. And that doesn't stop anybody. We push to fight, we continue to push.

• 1:48:45Speaker 02

  Now sporadic gunshots start happening. Now, we have, we have ground elements that are maneuvering, you know? Now we're in this hustle and bustle. There was no martial law, there was no stability operations, this is a fight now. And, uh, still not to the full capacity of what was awaiting us in Fallujah. And at the time, to me, as a point man on a sniper team, I don't, I didn't think there was a lot of planning. Uh, I'm not saying I was a master planner back in the day, but I learned about phase lines later in life. And there was no phase lines during this, there was no limits of advance, there was no real plan, it was, hey, go here, move forward.

• 1:49:26Speaker 02

  It was kinda like throwing spaghetti at the wall, see what stuck. And so, we get tasked again, we're like, "Hey, you guys push forward, establish Overwatch, you guys push forward, relay back to us, and the grunts will push forward also." We're like, "Okay." So that's what we did. And now, we're getting targeted. Uh, I find myself on another rooftop, and as a point man, I'm holding rear security, baby. I'm watching that door leading up to the stairwell. Not a fun job. My friends are shooting, they're engaging, they're seeing people with guns, you know, they're doing their job, and I'm like, watching this door. And then I realized, watching this door became very interesting, because I started to get shots all around my head, you know, pew pew pew pew, hitting the wall, so I'm like ducking,

• 1:50:10Speaker 02

  I'm like, "Shit." So now, I put that in perspective, like, "Yo, bro, you might be holding security in the rear, dude, but like, you can't just hold security in the rear. You gotta hold security all over the place, you have to be observant. Is your head past that, that, you know, ledge? You know, what is your guys doing? Have you looked back to see what they're doing?" And like, I'm learning all these things that I've never learned in training.

• 1:50:30Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 1:50:30Speaker 02

  And, uh, not like I was not trained properly, but there's only one way to learn certain things, and you have to collectively put it together. That's why, you know, investing in training is extremely important. Well, back in the day, we trained the best we could, with the funds we had, and the knowledge and experience that we had. Well, you know, I can't tell you how many TTPs, tactics, techniques and procedures, came out of, and SOPs, standard operating procedures, came out of Fallujah alone.

• 1:50:54Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:56Speaker 02

  Because tactics that you thought you were gonna do, we were still doing this Cold War era tactics. Well, that shit does not work in an urban environment like that, where that has been waiting for you, waiting to dominate your soul, um, literally waiting to kill you. There was skill houses set up all over the place. There was tunnel systems, there was, um, rat lines, there were loopholes, there were channel, like, walls knocked down to basically shoot in one house, and they could run through all these other walls, so no overhead, uh, aerial platform was gonna see them. You know, you weren't gonna see these guys. You were gonna hear shots, and they were gonna disperse, because they're fighting a guerrilla warfare. You're fighting a true adversary. And these people knew we were coming.

• 1:51:40Speaker 02

  They knew that the war was coming. They saw it with their 101st. They saw it with the air force. They knew that it was about to get thick. So these dudes made their last stand. And they prepared that battlefield as such, because at this point, they weren't really going. They were going the aspects of Fallujah. No one said, hey, we're clearing Fallujah. We're gonna own it. This didn't happen up to this point till we got there. And that's what this mission was. That's what our overarching mission was inherent resolved was to do. To take Fallujah. And we find ourselves maneuvering to another building and it's probably like lunchtime. And there's this two-story building. It's kind of under construction, kind of pretty incomplete.

• 1:52:23Speaker 02

  And I go in there, see the two-story building. We clear the bottom deck. I'll work my way up the stairwell, go into the room. We secure it. We set up our high site. And a high site back then, being very mobile and agile as we were, our high site really just meant depth. We needed depth. We had stand-off depth in the room. We weren't setting up blinds. We weren't doing any of that. These windows were unconstructed. Some of them were like massive, so we did the best we could with what we had. And so we got two M16s, two Berettas, and then two sniper rifles. That was all the weapons we had. Two M16s, two pistols and two sniper rifles. Wow.

• 1:53:07Speaker 02

  The snipers had sniper rifle and a pistol. And the radio operator and myself, we had the M16s. And around this time, it's still early in the day. You know, you hear some pop shots here and there. You hear some radio traffic, but nothing's really crazy. I mean, we saw some shit get blown up. That's crazy. But it wasn't this constant flow of craziness. It was a calm before the storm. Afternoon prayer happens.

• 1:53:36Speaker 02

  Once after new prayer happens, I'm by the window, that's where we had a radio set up at. And I see movement across, um, across the street, on the rooftop. It was, I call it like the, the, it was like a muffler. It was like a car place. There was a bunch of like car bodies up top and like mufflers and they were obviously doing like oil and shit at the bottom. You had the big cutouts. It was, it was like a, like a pet boys type of place, what I called it.

• 1:54:03Speaker 02

  I see these guys were across, armed dudes. And I give the heads up to my crew.

• 1:54:10Speaker 02

  Next thing you know, I find myself in a gunfight. And I'm on the left side of this window and I'm engaging these two dudes with guns. They're shooting at us. And then we're just getting fucked up with machine gun fire. Like it's just spraying down like to the point where like, we're not even engaging the window anymore. We're just gonna eat it. So we're backed off in the window, waiting to hear gaps and lulls in the fire so we can pop back out and engage. And how we started doing it was, um, the radar operator, he would go shoot and when he would go drive, that's when I would come in. We were playing that whole tag irrit game. Meanwhile, the two snipers in my team, they're in the prone position on the ground. Because when we're not actively engaging, very accurate sporadic fire is coming through our window.

• 1:54:56Speaker 02

  And it's like literally just like mowing on top of us. So if you, if you stick your head up, you're done. And these guys are just like, oh shit, you guys get him? Like they're, they're kind of like laughing. They're like, fuck, they've been here, done that. They've been to the invasion of Iraq. They were in Somalia. One of them was in Somalia. But it was real. It was, it was a real deal. It was really happening. And we were not participating. We were it. We were it.

• 1:55:19Speaker 02

  And I remember going back behind the window. I reload another magazine. And as soon as I pop out to shoot,

• 1:55:29Speaker 02

  hell, it goes black. And I remember this,

• 1:55:35Speaker 02

  this like profound exhale that came out of me. And I ended up on the ground.

• 1:55:44Speaker 02

  And that's when I had this out of body experience. At the time, I had no idea what happened. I thought I was dead. Um. I could see, if you ever play a game, or if you've ever seen a game where there's like a glitch where you can kind of see like a top down view. I, I, I saw this top down view of what was going on. I could see the, the, the fighters across the street. I could see my body. I could see my point man still shooting. I could see my other teammates on the ground. Like what the fuck's going on?

• 1:56:14Shawn Ryan?

  You've had a fucking out of body experience in the middle of combat?

• 1:56:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:56:18Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit. I've never heard of that.

• 1:56:22Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, uh.

• 1:56:26Speaker 02

  What happened was. I see this fucking light. I see all these things going on. I'm like, dude, I'm fucking dead.

• 1:56:35Speaker 02

  And I just get sucked back into this life and then I, I snap and I'm in this fetal position. My body went into this fetal position. And I start to move and I didn't know if I was convulsing or if it was for my friend kicking me. He's kicking me with his foot. He's in the prone position. Just. Hey, wake up. They're like, dude, we thought you were dead. We didn't see any blood. I'm like. What happened? I'm like crying and laughing at the same time. I have no idea what's going on. Uh, I got shot right in the helmet. And I didn't know this.

• 1:57:11Speaker 02

  And I'm completely out of it. Well, my body was down, fell at the radio, near the radio. They're like, get on the radio and call in support. And I'm like, what the fu- I'm like, what's going on? You know, I'm trying to figure out where I'm at. And they're like, get on the fucking radio and call for support. I'm like, okay. I'm like, I pick up this fucking handset.

• 1:57:38Speaker 02

  And I give like the worst radio transmissions ever. Every other word was break. Warhammer break. This is break. Grim Reaper break. We need break. I'm fucking out of it.

• 1:57:53Speaker 02

  And I get it out. I mustered out. I would call like, hey, here's our fucking location. This is what's going on. And I'm getting broken calm. And we're still under fucking fire, under attack. And so my team was like, we gotta get out of here. So we pack up the radio and we work our way downstairs. And I find myself with a radio operator holding basically being a shield for him. So he can set up the antenna, get communication, and we can get fucking contact. Cause we're like, dude, shit's about to get real. And my team leader and my assistant team leader, they're craning their sniper rifle and they got their pistol out.

• 1:58:30Speaker 02

  And I, I can see kind of the doorway of the building we're in. And then I see this window right in front of me as I'm like peeking out of this bathroom. And it's a very tall window and I see this head, the top of this head walk by. I see this turban and everything walk by. I'm like, am I, I'm like, fuck.

• 1:58:48Speaker 02

  Cause this is the real fucking thing. So I'm like, fucking tell everyone, shut the fuck up. There's people coming.

• 1:58:56Speaker 02

  So my, my guy stops on the radio communication, cause it's loud as fuck. We didn't have the best radios and antennas back there and we're in a concrete building. It's not, we're not in a favorable position to achieve communication superiority.

• 1:59:09Speaker 02

  And we're, and we're somewhat locked down. So we're not even in a defensive, true defensive posture. We're almost just waiting for it.

• 1:59:17Speaker 02

  And I see this shadow get bigger and bigger into this, into this room. I, I couldn't see anymore because I wasn't peeking out anymore. But I just saw the shadow figure get bigger and bigger and bigger. Until this fucking man's face, this adult face crests a corner. And I just jam my fucking gun into his face.

• 1:59:37Speaker 02

  He's got no weapon. I fucking hit him. I'm looking at him. And I'm like, what the fuck do we do? And they're like, oh, he's trying to come in and fucking look at body counts. You know, he's a fucking spy. He's on the lookout. And I'm like, I'm still like semi throwing up. I'm dizzy. I don't know what the fuck's going on still. I'm semi conscious to this, but like, I'm trying to process a whole bunch of th- stuff. And there's a whole bunch of stuff that I need to give that my priority than my own feelings and concerns and thoughts and emotions. One person ends up turning into seven people. People started to come to our house, no weapons. And we did not know what to do.

• 2:00:22Speaker 02

  And I'm like, I'm not gonna fucking kill these people that have no guns. Like, at that point in time, I made that decision, like, I'm not just, anyone can kill. And at a fucking young age, before I really learned what that life was about, it did not, they weren't a threat to me and you can't just, I don't know, at the time I didn't do it, so it is what it was. But we didn't have any stuff to hogtie them. We didn't have anything to secure them. All we had was fucking our weapons drawn at them. And we're like, dude, we are so fucked. We gotta get the fuck out of here, because they make a jump on us, we're done. Yeah, we're, we'll, we'll take care of few, but dude, we're outnumbered. Almost two to one at this point. Just males. And it was so random, and instead of them walking by, I'm like ushering them in, I'm grabbing them forcibly, bringing them in,

• 2:01:07Speaker 02

  because the last thing I wanted them to do was run away and tell people that these four gringos are inside this house, and they have no idea what's going on. And my team was like, dude, we gotta, we gotta make a bale for, we gotta, we gotta make a run for this thing. And our only option was to hit the road, skirt the fucking town, and just run until we made contact with friendlies. Because we're still getting fucking shot at. It's not as violent now, it's sporadic at this point. But now we have these guys come in and do quality checks. And we have no idea what they are, what they're about, what they represent, who they work for. It's just a lot of weird things are happening all at once. And so we make ourselves, work ourselves out of this house and we just started to bound.

• 2:01:52Speaker 02

  And we just kept unbounding until we ran into an infantry squad. And we tell them what's going on. We're like, yo dude, we're in this building over here. We got in contact from across the street. And they're like, oh yeah, we heard that shit. So we showed up and we just started fucking blasting both buildings. We didn't know anything. I'm like, not really putting two and two together. And uh, I'm like, oh y'all are blasting that fucking building too. They're like, oh yeah, we're fucking blasting that building. We're blasting that building. And this is new, you know, they didn't know shit. We didn't know shit until we started to like piecemeal these stories together. At the time while that's taking place, I'm throwing up. I'm like, oh my God, what's going on? I get a motrin and a cigarette.

• 2:02:37Speaker 02

  And uh, the doc looks me over, does that little eye sensory check and he's like, okay.

• 2:02:44Speaker 02

  TBI wasn't a thing back then. Yeah. No one knew what that shit was.

• 2:02:49Speaker 02

  And as we're basically teaming up, sharing stories, they're telling us, oh yeah, so and so got shoot, got shot through and through the ass. Well, little did we know his OIF one deployment, he got shot through and through the ass again. So this is now the ass guy. So there's some funny, there's some laughter going on in this like very chaotic place, which is still kindergarten compared to the varsity that Fallujah was truly about. We're like six, seven hours into the first day in this thing. It's nothing. It's all a cakewalk.

• 2:03:21Speaker 02

  And we get tasked that we're like, hey, uh, Delta is doing a mission down the road. We need to go provide sniper support for them. We're providing basically a cord on for them, outer support. And uh, I tell my assistant team leader, I'm like, dude, I'm fucking done, bro. He's like sucking the fuck up. Like Roger that. So we go in this like baton death march to link up, uh, to set up this outer's cord on.

• 2:03:49Speaker 02

  And I am walking left and right, I'm dragging my fucking gun, he's like, "Pick up your fucking rifle." I'm like, "Dude, I am fucking trying." I am, I'm toast at this point. I'm hitting all the dopamine, the adrenaline's wearing off, and like, I just got shot in the helmet. Hell, I don't even know who I got shot in the helmet by at this point, and I don't feel good. This, I'm getting to the point where I'm physically incapable of actually performing my job.

• 2:04:18Speaker 02

  We set up the rebel tracks, and they're like, "Alright, you're good, we're here." And the next thing you know, I just, I passed out. Passed out these rebel tracks. I remember, uh, I remember Delta doing their mission. They're like, "Yeah, we're good, we appreciate it." They do their shit, obviously, super fast, very calculated, very inspiring. And we're there on, you know, square to control, fighting powder in his life. We're there for a little bit, waiting for the next tasking order. Cause now, we're probably seven o'clock in the evening. We haven't accomplished shit. We haven't cleared through anything, we've reacted to stuff.

• 2:04:55Speaker 02

  And we come back to where we started at the very beginning of the phase line, and my commander's like, "Hey, you're gonna, I'm gonna send you back." I'm like, "I don't wanna fucking go." He's like, "No, you're gonna go back and get checked out." I'm like, "No, I'm gonna stay here with the team." He's like, "Listen, all we're doing is setting up mortars for the night, and then we're all pulling out in the morning, you have my word." I'm like, "Okay." So I go back, I get checked out.

• 2:05:17Speaker 02

  Eyes around the camper like this. Cause now, we're like, "Wait a second, we heard the stories, we saw the wounds, we hear the fucking explosions, now we experienced it all." And, you know, half this unit is full of new guys. And even the old guys are like, "Fuck, this is intense." You know, even for this entry level stuff that happened, this was nothing. Nothing. This was a drop in the bucket compared to the fucking storm that was coming. And so, we're back in the rear. Uh, I get checked out. Uh, basically, I was like, we had two and a half weeks before we went back in the city. And this time, the plan was to go back in the city and establish a stronghold.

• 2:05:57Speaker 02

  So my team was to support, two teams, sniper teams were to support echo company, and echo company was going to be the anvil of the main element, the main effort. Basically, meaning, we were gonna take over these few buildings. And the other companies, other companies in their battalion were going to start pushing fighters towards us. And so the thought process and the objective was, we'll go firm. We'll use all these adjacent units to basically just like push the hornet's nest into one, vector them into one area, to one kill zone, and then we'll do what must be done. And leading up to this, I'm like, no idea what to think.

• 2:06:37Speaker 02

  So we load up again, and this is, uh, this is when I see my first dead guy, like right in front of me. I pull up in a Humvee and I'm eating a strawberry applesauce. And I'm just like, I'm like, bro, I love to eat. And I'm definitely gonna get my food in before I gotta go do what, who goes, not, God knows what I gotta do. And so I'm pulling up because the grunts came in, because at this point, we've established overwash across this bridge. The grunts go in, they clear the strongholds, they get in a fight, uh, and they basically secure these objectives, the main element of this whole operation. And what we're doing is we're just eating rockets, we're eating mortars. I'm dealing with, you know, human shields, I'm dealing with calling in airstrikes, I'm doing all these things, fighting from an Amtrak, basically.

• 2:07:21Speaker 02

  Um, while all this is taking place, so this is, is a very quick evolution, but it is, it seems forever.

• 2:07:32Speaker 02

  We, uh, link up, and I'm shoving strawberry applesauce in my mouth. And then I see Frank the Fallusion laying outside, bloated as shit.

• 2:07:45Speaker 02

  Guts and glory. And he was a fighter as the Marines pushed in, uh, to clear these strongholds. And I'm just like, looking at this fucking dude's brains, I'm like, I finished my food. I'll leave him in the fucking truck, I grab my pack, and I go inside. And it is just like a bunch of ants moving around. Grunts are good at three things. Cleaning weapons, filling sandbags, and killing shit. And they are cleaning weapons and filling sandbags. That's the phase of life we're all in. Luckily for me, my sniper team, we make our way up to the rooftop and I'm on Overwatch.

• 2:08:28Speaker 02

  And that's basically how I found myself into this next phase of fighting and combat was this Overwatch aspect. And uh...

• 2:08:43Speaker 02

  It changed. Everything fucking changed after that. Um, March 20th, uh, April 26th, so exactly 30 days after I got ding in the helmet. Um, for weeks now, we're taking, we're taking sniper fire from this one building.

• 2:09:00Speaker 02

  And uh, at this point, we made so much noise. We, there was, we were stacking so many bodies that we had to send patrols out to move the fucking bodies because there was interrupting our fields of fire.

• 2:09:10Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit.

• 2:09:12Speaker 02

  And there were so many bodies being stacked that the, you know, the locals were driving up their ambulances and picking up bodies also. And our main fight was the sniper alley. And

• 2:09:26Speaker 02

  we would see fighters in black manjamas, you know, running left to right. And um, they were pushing our max ranges for our, and our max velocity for our sniper rifles. Our, our 308s were not fast enough to like see them on the right side to hit them on the left side. You know, we weren't, we'd had no time to lead them in a very small window. Uh, so we were getting our, our paydays closer. So we basically stopped shooting at them. And/or we would shoot and purposely harass them. We would miss. We would just let you know we're there because what we wanted to do is draw them in more. We wanted them to get comfortable and complacent. And so then we found out they were leaving telltale signs. They were leaving markings. They would leave rocks.

• 2:10:12Speaker 02

  They would have a runner that would come leave a rock by an edge and says, "Don't cross here. This is only for lookout." And they'd leave a can over here and this is where you run. You know, because fighters, they're not, they're not on iComs at the day, time. They're not iPhones chatting to everybody. They're, they're getting a very small brief and they're going to fight.

• 2:10:28Shawn Ryan?

  How'd you guys figure that out?

• 2:10:30Speaker 02

  Observation.

• 2:10:31Shawn Ryan?

  How long did that take?

• 2:10:33Speaker 02

  Three days.

• 2:10:34Shawn Ryan?

  Three days to figure out a rock is.

• 2:10:37Speaker 02

  Yup, because.

• 2:10:38Shawn Ryan?

  A no-go and a can is go.

• 2:10:39Speaker 02

  Because up to that point, we just looked at it as, at this point, we're looking at weeks, right? Couple of weeks of what's happening and then we're like, wait a second. They have a system in place that we're not seeing. So then we focus all of our efforts on like specific observation. And it just kind of worked out that way.

• 2:10:58Shawn Ryan?

  That's a good fucking pickup, especially if you're talking. You're far enough away to where you can't.

• 2:11:07Shawn Ryan?

  Kill these guys because the rounds aren't fast enough, they're too far away and you're picking up cans and rocks. Is a go, no-go.

• 2:11:16Speaker 02

  Because when you're complacent, your enemy, your enemy is complacent. You're a product of your environment and the more harsh we were, the more fucking harsh these guys were, the more. Gray space we gave them, the more gray space it took advantage of. And so we just stopped, we changed it up a little bit and we were like, hey, don't shoot. We let them fucking get some wins. Cause I got, I mean, I got an infantry platoon over here, they're gonna smoke these guys. But we don't wanna, we don't wanna keep on smoking them right here. We wanna figure out the fuck's going on. And uh, so now we bring in our Mark 19s to our rooftops and we just dial this shit in.

• 2:11:53Shawn Ryan?

  So real quick for the audience, a Mark 19 is a grenade launcher and if basically a fully automatic.

• 2:12:00Speaker 02

  Grenade launcher.

• 2:12:01Shawn Ryan?

  Grenade launcher.

• 2:12:02Speaker 02

  Very heavy, looks like a fucking turtle with a big old unicorn spout.

• 2:12:07Speaker 02

  And little eggs come out of it and those eggs go boom. And the machine gunners got super smart. Machine gunners are like, oh, bro. We're doing this, so we're bringing Mark 19s up there, we're re-vectering our machine guns on there. And we're just dealing death. And it was crazy, it was, it was literally fish in the barrel almost.

• 2:12:32Speaker 02

  Because one guy would poke out here and three guys would run that way. One guy would poke here and then two guys would run this way. So we're, so now we're like, okay, you take the left side, this, this phase line, you take the right side, this phase line. And we were basically, that's how we're picking up. So now instead of trying to like lead them, we're holding on these places. So soon as we hear an audible or we see it in the peripheral, then that, that is our trigger to engage. Cause now we have someone on observation that's seen the whole thing, a little further zoomed out. We have guys on these ten power fixed Johnny Nerdle scopes from Vietnam with silk webbing, right? Uh, old school fixed power, you know, in an urban environment is not ideal, very, very scary. Uh, at least I thought it was, cause you're instantly tunnel vision.

• 2:13:15Speaker 02

  And when you're tunnel vision down a tunnel vision channel, that's even scarier. Cause there's a bunch of doors and windows and moving things and all sorts of things happening and like, you have to have your head in a swivel. That's why we worked really well as a team. It sucked to not be on the sniper rifle. But being on observation was just important, cause it was a team thing, right? The only way we're gonna win, the only way we're gonna come out of this thing alive is we work together. And that's what I really enjoyed a lot about all that hell that we experienced.

• 2:13:44Speaker 02

  So we basically wrapped this up. We replaced our sniper rifles with machine guns and the machine gunners, they took care of the rest. We had a new, uh, point of friction was this house across the Jolon Cemetery. And this is a really big cemetery, very ancient looking. And across the cemetery was a mosque and right to the right of the mosque was this building with a blue satellite dish on top. This blue satellite dish house, we were always receiving

• 2:14:11Speaker 02

  pretty effective sniper fire from. And our commander, and at this time, we're, we're, we're in so much shit. We're calling airstrikes on a nightly basis, to the point where our whole house spooky was really big back in the day spooky, the C-130 gunship. Just, uh, our house was yawning. So much danger close fucking fire missions happening, 105s, 40 mic, mic. Fucking you name it, it was happening. If it could come out of the sky and out of a plane and kill shit, it was coming. And-

• 2:14:40Speaker 02

  That's how I attribute it. I could sleep through anything right now. Cause you had to like, you couldn't always fight. Every time there was a fight going on, you could run up, grab your shit, run to the rooftop, but you have to be smarter because the fight's gonna continue tomorrow. And that's where that discipline of the warrior comes in where, you know, it's, if I'm, if I'm needed, they will call me. You know, and that's hard to do because you want to be involved, you want to participate, but fuck man, you can't, you can't run yourself ragged. You're in a deployment for six months. We've been here four weeks. There's a lot of shit. If this is four weeks into this thing, I couldn't imagine what more, many more months is going to be like. And so we draw so much attention, uh, like making headlines, Delta shows up to our position.

• 2:15:25Speaker 02

  And they're like, hey, we heard you guys were in the shit. And we're like, every fucking day. And like, well, hopefully we can help. They brought a bunch of experimental shit out there. Uh, they, they were sniper element. And so it was super cool to like be around these guys and see a completely new version of professionalism. Different aspect, different mindset of everything. And, uh, working alongside them, we're sharing highsights together, we're sharing bunkers together. They're fucking teaching us how to shoot their 300 wind mag, teaching us how to use their fucking, they had the Horus vision back in the day. You know, like all these reticle options and optics and just learning so much information. And these dudes were down to earth.

• 2:16:06Speaker 02

  And we're kids, these are fucking men. These are old, that was an older breed back then. We're like 18, 19 year old fucking googly eyes like, oh my God, look at their gear, their gear is so cool. And listen to their stories. Well, now that we had them with us, our commander's like, uh, you ever heard of the name Doug Zinback?

• 2:16:25Shawn Ryan?

  No, I haven't.

• 2:16:28Speaker 02

  Major Zinback is a...

• 2:16:31Speaker 02

  He was a man, man amongst men, right? He was called the Lion of Fallujah. Before we went into the city, he stood on a tank and he said, "The dogs of Fallujah will go fat off of feasting off the dead bodies we laid to waste." And that's exactly what happened. Uh, I actually have a dog with a hand in its mouth on my kneecap from the deployment. There were so many bodies that they weren't whole after a couple of days. Legs, limbs, chunks were missing. You'd just see dogs running with fucking arms in their mouth and you're desensitized. And you're like, you can't even make this shit up. And then as we start dropping bodies, now there's bodies coming up from the fucking

• 2:17:16Speaker 02

  graves and you're just like, this is, this is hell. And around this time, we started getting filled at ACOGS. So now everyone is pretty outfitted with ACOGS. At this point in time, there's a lot of casualties that are taking place. And now even our corpsmen have M16s, because before the corpsmen had pistols in fucking Fallujah. Holy shit. Um, I still have the same helmet that's got a fucking hole in it. And, uh, you know, what's, what's his name? Maddox, General Maddox. Before we went into the city again, I was holding security on this fucking bridge and he called, he's like, where's, I was a big deal. I was like one of the very few cases that got shot in the helmet and lived.

• 2:17:58Speaker 02

  Um, and, uh, he had me come over there. He's like, let me see this fucking helmet. And I show him, as I'm a fucking little kid, wearing this helmet still that's completely useless now. It's, has zero stoppage capability, but I'm wearing it, so I got. Um, and he's like, he says something witty and told me to get back to my fighting position. And, uh, so I got this fucking helmet. I got all these doubts, these fears, these unknowns, these, these things, because my whole life has changed in a matter of months. My experiences, the, my outlooks, my perspective, the realities. I mean, fuck, I just got shot in the helmet on day one in the city and I'm dodging bullets every day. So I'm constantly battling that fear of, don't be a bitch.

• 2:18:41Speaker 02

  You know, I'm, I was to the point where like, dude, you, you have to just keep on moving. You can't, you can't stop and worry about you're going to get shot in the fucking head again. So I started to expose a little bit more of my body here and there to give myself an option, give myself a chance, uh, because I was still dealing with that, that shit. And um, Doug Zimbach, he's like, "Hey, I want to do a sniper mission, sniper kill mission. We have Delta here. I want you guys to go there and fucking stack bodies." That was his main mission. That was it. It was the simplest fucking mission I've ever given him in my life. And uh, so, obviously with the grunts help, we roll out super early. The salt men launch a rocket through this fence and we take over this fucking house.

• 2:19:27Speaker 02

  No conflict. Back in the day, you had seven bravos, which were not that great. You know, it's a two into one, big old PEC 15s, big ass laser, and these big old muskets, these Civil War muskets that weren't very conducive for a CQB environment.

• 2:19:45Speaker 02

  And pitch black, and you're just making all the ruckus. There is no sound discipline because you can't even see where you're walking. So you know, they had those metal doors that were really flimsy.

• 2:19:55Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:19:56Speaker 02

  We're hitting those. They had them on steps. They had early warning devices everywhere. And we're like, "Bro, this house was set up for success." So when they're upstairs shooting, you have to make a ruckus to go get them. But granted, this house was empty by the time we're there. But what we found there in this house confirmed all our suspicions. A big spider hole, big loophole, done extremely well, very professional. You know, small to big, done like textbook. Gave them all the angles they needed and the window they were burning was exactly to our house. And we could see the rooftop line. We could see Marines head bobble here and there. We had to use some planks and ladders to cross to get to other rooftops on our strongholds.

• 2:20:38Speaker 02

  And you could just see them move. And how we didn't take more casualties, I'm fucking grateful. But like, they had a great fucking vantage spot on us. Chest rigs, weapon cache, everything was in this house. Basically, you show up there, you fight, you move on, you go back to your family for fucking tea time. And so, we set up on the rooftop. Uh, one of the Delta guys is like, "Hey, I kind of got a weird feeling from this one. I'm gonna go back to, I'm gonna go back to support from the stronghold." Because we had two other sniper teams back there with the other grunt platoon. And so, we go up to the rooftop. I make my loophole. I set my team leader up for success. I built him a fucking stand for his shit. You know, some mattresses and pillows. I chisel out his loophole. I get observation up and it's hot as fuck.

• 2:21:23Speaker 02

  We got machine gunners up there, we got grenade grenadiers up there, grenade launcher guys, grenade launchers. Uh, all of our sniper sniper ammunition is up there. Um, all my crypto is up there in my day pack.

• 2:21:36Speaker 02

  And my night vision, everything. And my team leader's like, hey, it's really hot. How about you and the radio operator, how about you guys go down? And take a fucking hour. If we need you, we'll come get you. If not, come back in an hour and replace us. We're like, okay. So I'm like, hey, do you want my rifle? And he's like, no, you might need that. The radio operator gave his rifle to my ATL, cause he's like, fuck it, I'll take this. We go downstairs to this big like a mattress room. You remember those like big family rooms? There's mattresses up to the wall?

• 2:22:05Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:22:06Speaker 02

  We're in this room, my rifle's next to the door, the grunts have the same secured. Uh, delta's kind of like in and out, uh, different floors and they have other half their element at our stronghold position. They're communicating. They're observa- you know, doing observation, they're participating. Silence. And I light up this fucking cigarette. And I'm just smoking and joking with my friend. We're talking about some dumb shit. I don't even fucking know what it was. And then the fucking house starts to fucking shake. And we started to get a volley of RPGs and grenades and machine gun fire fucking all simultaneous. The room that I was in, I was sitting next to this window and across from this window was another fucking building with the window there.

• 2:22:51Speaker 02

  And machine gun fire just blasted our fucking window. And I find myself again in a prone position saying, what the fuck? And it's loud. It's dusty and it's fucking scary because then the screams started coming. And then the yelling started to happen. And then the fucking fire inside started to fucking occur, like machine gun fire picking up the grenade, like everything was happening all at once. Um, at the same time, we had this complex ambush. Basically, they they set us up.

• 2:23:21Speaker 02

  The Jason house wasn't fucking clear as it was thought to be cleared. And have you ever seen that footage? Um, where there's like a fucking bunch of people coming on ISR feed and there's like this pilot that drops a bomb? Remember that footage from back in the day?

• 2:23:38Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:23:39Speaker 02

  That was us.

• 2:23:40Shawn Ryan?

  No shit.

• 2:23:41Speaker 02

  That was this day. And so we are low crawling. I get to the fucking door. I grab my fucking rifle and I just, I, I, I, I see fear. I see people freeze. I see people fucking shake. I see fucking blood and I see straight like, but no cowardice. I just see what fucking brutality brings. And you hear, "We need a stretcher, corpsman, medic." We hear all these things. We're taking fucking casualties upon casualties. Doors are gonna knock down, uh, to provide gurneys for people. But here's the kicker, we can't get out. We're pinned the fuck down. We got guys jumping on our rooftop.

• 2:24:27Speaker 02

  We got guys fucking running to our front door. We got dudes trying to jump into our fucking windows. Pistols were running dry killing people that day. And we were literally going Winchester on ammunition. We're running out of ammunition. On the rooftop, as my friend and I make it out of this room and we kinda see what's going on, we see them just fucking bloody and mangled. My friend, he's a machine gunner, comes down, his fucking arm is gone. Another dude, his leg comes down, he's fucking goddamn Swiss cheese. My team leader, my ATL, they're fucked up. They ate all sorts of grenades.

• 2:24:57Speaker 02

  And you just hear screaming and you hear support, you hear help, and you just hear the volleys continue, continue, continue. And it is, it was, it's fucking traumatizing. You're like, you can't even imagine what something like that is. You can't even comprehend what something like that is. And hearing the story doesn't even seem real. Um.

• 2:25:22Speaker 02

  And.

• 2:25:27Speaker 02

  It just was never ending. And the only way we were staying alive was what was happening on the rooftop. And at this point in time, so many grenades and rockets hit our rooftop. Our ammunition is gone. Our fucking 240 is destroyed. Our fucking grenades are fucking exploding up there because there's a mass fucking fire. Um. And it's the fight for your life up top. We got guys just getting fucking blasted, getting fucking wounded, killed. It's just happening and it's happening right now. And they're like, we need support up there. And I remember hearing, uh, one of my good friends, he befriended me, he was a machine gunner, his name was Aaron Austin. He, uh, they're like, Aaron's hit, we need to get him down.

• 2:26:12Speaker 02

  And so I run up there. And, uh, I see my fucking friend white as fuck. And he's fading very fast. And everything stops. And it's just that Saving Private Ryan scene where just hell is breaking loose, but you hear no sounds. You're just looking the fuck around. We're taking fire from the minaret. So they got the, they got the elevation on us. We're taking fire from adjacent buildings, buildings. We're taking fucking grenades from various floors, like we're, we're tossing grenades back. We're literally surviving. We're not even fighting, we're surviving.

• 2:26:56Speaker 02

  And we can't make a fucking run for it because we're fucking pinned down up front. So we're calling in airstrikes, we're calling in fucking support. We're calling in medevacs. And we're told that our medevacs aren't coming. Because at the time, we're in the shit, we're in the OK Corral. So our command is doing battlefield circulations. So they're going around to see what's going on. They're taking assets that we fucking need. And here I am on this rooftop and I see my fucking friend shot. Multiple times. And.

• 2:27:30Speaker 02

  We fight, we do what we gotta do. The, the fella downstairs that I saw, freeze up. I saw him on the fucking rooftop fighting next to me moments later. Um, and then I see my friend and we carry him down and one of the medics from, from Delta. Uh, he like jams him in IV. My radio operator and I, we're at this fucking point now where the Abrams pulled up, the tanks pulled up. And, um, they're outside of our house just getting fucked up. They're just providing a shield so we can make the Mogadishu mile run back home. Cobras in the overhead, by this time the minarets fucking toast. You know, those things had like no, the mosque were off limits. Uh, but it was fucking gone.

• 2:28:12Speaker 02

  Um, rockets were exploding everywhere and all we're just getting told is we gotta get the fuck out of here. And we just start fucking exfil and bodies now that the, the tanks are here. And so the Delta medic, myself and my radio operator were basically like iron crossing my friend Aaron. Like doing this fucking mile, this, this run for our fucking lives back to our stronghold and everyone's bounding. My commander's fucking shot. One of the, the Delta guys, his fucking carbine was shot, so he's got a fucking pistol. His, he was shot in the fucking ear. My, uh, my company commander, he was fucking shot in the dick protector. Like dudes are bloody, dudes are fucking dead. And we get back and the fight continues, it doesn't end.

• 2:28:59Speaker 02

  It doesn't end till it does, to the point we ran out of sniper ammo. And, uh, one of the guys from the infantry, cause now my platoon commander, my, my team leader is fucking out of commission. My ATL, both my snipers are out of commission. And, um, so I took his rifle and I went to the rooftop and I started getting to work. Well, I ran out of ammo very quickly, cause all I had was, was in his gun and he didn't fire any shots. I mean, you're not gonna fire shots in a, in a, in a, in a fight like that, not from a sniper rifle. Not from a bolt gun at least.

• 2:29:31Speaker 02

  And, uh, the grunts that weren't supporting the fight, they're D-linking 762 rounds to feed me. So I can fucking put them inside, and every now and then I get a fucking tracer that I could see. So I know I'm not shooting match grade ammo. I'm shooting fucking machine gun ammo, which is designed to graze. And I'm just working with what I got. And I'm fucking crying, and I'm sad, and I'm still fighting. Everyone's fucking fighting. And it ends that night. And these Delta guys say like, dude, we have never. And I was on a team, these guys, one of them was on the team that got Saddam. You know, one of them was on the team that killed Uday. He was the one that killed Uday.

• 2:30:14Speaker 02

  And these fucking guys tell me, dude, I've never, ever been in anything like this. And my mind is fucking blown. I'm like, how do you Titans have never experienced this shit before? They were doing different missions, very violent, very dangerous, different. And, um, that night they fly out because they're still conducting combat operations. Their little birds are coming in. And, uh, the medic, he gives me his fucking patch. Because Aaron, I found out, died like just outside the mech, like five minutes outside the mech, because we're waiting on the resupply to happen. We're waiting on the vehicles to show up. But my battalion commander and my sergeant major wanted to go get in the mix. They're holding up assets.

• 2:30:58Speaker 02

  And to hear my fucking friend die five fucking minutes from like a roll one unit, where there's a real medical facility there. It fucking sucked.

• 2:31:09Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:31:10Speaker 02

  And, uh...

• 2:31:14Speaker 02

  Then I started getting introduced to the chaplain. And then they would come, they'd say some prayer shit. We'd do like a little ceremony for our brothers in arms. And that became a constant fucking thing. That was like a repeating cycle that never ended that deployment. I'm always seeing the fucking chaplain. The chaplain's always coming, someone's always dying. You know, IEDs weren't a really big thing back then. But vehicle borne IEDs were.

• 2:31:44Speaker 02

  Suicide, suicide vests and suicide-led vehicle-borne IEDs were a really big thing at the time. Squad gone. This fucking fire team gone. And then you hear stories of your friends that you went to boot camp with, the School of Infantry with, that are in Ramadi, that are fighting for their life at the same time that you're fighting for your life in Fallujah, just to find out half those fucking dudes are dead. All my friends, most of my friends that I had in boot camp and School of Infantry, fucking gone, dead as shit. And, uh, I just was, I became empty. Um, and this was it. This, this is what no one knew. You know, you could train for the fight, but you're never, no one trains to fucking lose their soul.

• 2:32:29Speaker 02

  No one trains to fucking feel empty. No one trains to like, you can't train for what must be done. You only must execute when the opportunity and the situation presents itself. And I had never seen so much heroism come from a group of men in my entire life. These dudes were dads, they were fathers, brothers, they were young men, they were, they were leaders. These dudes had dreams. These dudes were on their last deployment, getting ready to roll out.

• 2:32:58Speaker 02

  Half those dudes didn't fucking make it. And I get it, it's war, what do you expect, but

• 2:33:05Speaker 02

  what the fuck do you expect? And, you know, this deployment went on, these conflicts went on, I mean, to the point where we are getting combat replacements.

• 2:33:18Speaker 02

  To the point where our cooks are on missions. Our firebases are fucking empty.

• 2:33:25Speaker 02

  Uh, because we're sending everyone out there.

• 2:33:28Speaker 02

  And I remember one particular day, I'm still out there in the stronghold position, and our first sergeant comes up and he's like, "Hey, when's the last time you called home?" I'm like, "I don't fucking know." And he's like, "Here, call home. You have five minutes." I'm like, "Okay." So I pick up the cell phone and I call home.

• 2:33:48Speaker 02

  And I'm like, "Hey Mom." She's like, "Hey, who's this?"

• 2:33:55Speaker 02

  Well, I found out why I wasn't getting fucking letters. Why I wasn't getting fucking mail. Cause somehow I got put on the KIA list when I got shot in the helmet a month prior.

• 2:34:09Speaker 02

  And that phone call made it to my family. So my parents thought I was fucking dead. But they never got a follow-up phone call with, "Where's your ceremony?" You know, "What's the next fucking step?" My parents thought I was fucking dead.

• 2:34:21Shawn Ryan?

  For a month?

• 2:34:22Speaker 02

  For a month.

• 2:34:25Speaker 02

  And I was like, "Fuck dude, I put these motherfuckers through that shit too? Are you serious?" And I'm like waving it off, you know? I'm emotional now because I'm grateful to be alive, but at the time I was just surviving. So I was just happy that I had a cigarette that day. And had a cold coffee that I made. You know, my little MRE package. I was happy with the simple shit. The beef jerky that my friend shared that he got sent from home because his family is avid hunters. Um, and then I hear that they thought I was fucking dead. I'm just like, "You can't make this up." But it happened.

• 2:35:01Speaker 02

  And that just introduced me to war that was the standard for the rest of my life. Um, I ended up, um, that deployment was pretty hectic. We switched from staying in the city to rolling missions on the outside. Doing remain behind missions, doing a lot more shit. Seeing a lot of bad leadership, a lot of bad tactics, a lot of fucking egos. Costing men their fucking lives. Um, and I saw a lot of standards of what I wasn't going to accept or allow. Even from my team, I had a very, my team leader was a turd. He sucked, he was horrible. So I learned a lot from all this, how I learned a lot of what right looks like, what bad looks like, what's good, what's not good.

• 2:35:43Speaker 02

  And I was able to form what kind of, what kind of leader and Marine do I want to be? Cause I saw it all there. I saw some in the rear, but you never see someone's true colors like you do when they're faced with adversity. And this adversity was costing motherfuckers their lives. And so I'd say that's the best kind of adversity that you can pick and pull tangible things from. And so, all the younger guys in that platoon, to include myself, we ended up leaving thirty days early from that deployment to all go to sniper school. And missions were dying down, and to be honest, I was so fucking stoked. I'm like, dude, I might make it out of this motherfucker alive.

• 2:36:26Speaker 02

  And, um, that's what I did. I made it out that bitch. And, uh, so did the rest of my team. Missions definitely slowed down, that's how we afforded to start sending guys back home. Cause we took so many combat replacements that were just dying on the regular. It was a scene straight from like Band of Brothers, where like, I don't even wanna know your name, you're not gonna be here long.

• 2:36:50Shawn Ryan?

  Jesus.

• 2:36:50Speaker 02

  These motherfuckers would be at these patrol bases, minding their own business, eating an MRE, telling us what the civilian life is like, cause they got reactivated. Mortar rounds landing in their fucking lap, taking a shit, fucking dead. Sitting outside, smoking a cigarette, dead, telling us about his fucking kid. And it was just non-stop death. And there's non-stop fucking chaplains, it was non-stop memorial services, it was non-stop helmets and rifles, it was non-stop. It was the same shit on repeat. And I asked myself like, what the fuck is this for? We didn't clear that fucking city. We had strongholds that we pulled out of.

• 2:37:35Speaker 02

  I remember being on these fucking rooftops that we fucking bled and sweat on, and they're telling us that we're pulling out. And it was a glorious moment to hear those words, cause you're like, I might fucking survive. But then it was like, what the fuck was all this worth? They're like, hey, we're leaving this position, we're pulling back to base, and we're gonna start doing these other things. It was very vague, it wasn't as detailed as that, but that was the main gist. So we're slashing sandbags. What we called home for months, we're slashing sandbags. We're emptying it out, we're breaking everything that could be used against us. Anything that we used, a four to five position for us, we're fucking destroying it. Just to be told, hey, the trucks aren't coming. Seventy-two more hours.

• 2:38:24Speaker 02

  And we're like, we're like, fuck you. We have no morale. We have no nothing. We have nothing. And so we stayed there and we fought fought for 17 more hours. Not as bad, not as crazy as it was previously. Uh, cause after that day of being ambushed and after a lot of bombs were dropped, it changed a little bit. They learned that they're gonna get fucked up if they fight in the cities and their best tactic is to go back to guerrilla style tactics, hit and run shit and not fighting the bull head on. Uh, which obviously makes complete sense. So they started to fuck up surrounding villages. They started to fuck up surrounding civilians, you know, citizens, civilians. They started to terrorize, do exactly what they were there to do. And, uh,

• 2:39:08Speaker 02

  so I get this call, you know, hey, you guys are going back home to go to sniper school. And I was like stoked. Cause I'm like, dude, I'm, I'm getting to like in this chapter of my life, I'm getting to live. And I'm getting to go do something that I came here to do in the first place. And that's what closed out that chapter. But not before more deaths. You know, more fucking vehicle IEDs, kamikazes, just ripping apart a seven ton, killing seven fucking people. And you're just like, and it was calmer. But it was, it was just so natural to fucking happen there. It was just disgusting. It was, you're over it. I, I wanted to go home. I was fucking done. So I find myself home.

• 2:39:54Speaker 02

  On base, I just get back. I feel fucking empty.

• 2:39:58Speaker 02

  There are signs at the airport, thank y'all, you know, insert typical support shit. And I had no pulse for any of it. No one was there to meet me, no family, no girlfriend, no nobody. Um, me and my buddies, we get bussed back to our command.

• 2:40:14Speaker 02

  We get sent back to the same shitty flat tops that we left from. The condemned building, rats size your feet, water that's toxic and poisonous. And, um,

• 2:40:25Speaker 02

  that night was a night that the surrounding, the nearby camp, the artillery camp does their fire missions. They're weak there, they're quarterly, monthly, whatever fire missions. We're doing alum missions for training.

• 2:40:36Speaker 02

  And I remember being grateful that I'm back at home and then I just hear these fucking 105s go off and roll underneath my rack. And I just like ponder what I just went through. And I had to remind myself that I'm home and that this shit was just, this is what it was, this is normal. You know, they shoot fucking artillery, that's what they do, but I forgot. Because when that shit happened there, you fucking, you take cover. Cause you think you're smoking a cigarette in your food, but really what's happening is you're a fucking target about to get vaporized, you don't even know it. And so, I kinda started looking at things completely different. You know, I looked at things completely different, I got shot in the helmet, I'm like, holy fuck, I just died, or at least I felt like I died and I came back, I had the second chance.

• 2:41:18Speaker 02

  And then I, I kept on pushing that, that cat of nine lives, this whole deployment, just to come back to hide underneath the bed when I hear this, this explosion happen.

• 2:41:29Speaker 02

  But that's the price you pay, I think, you know, that's, that's what's required, you know? Sacrifices are required for things that you want. I didn't ask for the sacrifices, but those were, those were the cards that I was dealt and um, you know, I found myself going to sniper school, fucking crushed it. Uh, I was trained, my platoon trained me extremely well.

• 2:41:53Speaker 02

  And we went there with this like, we were those guys, people knew all about us. People knew that we stacked bodies, they knew that, and half the sniper instructors were, came from my sniper platoon. They were senior guys doing their school time time. And so we had a shit ton of snipers, we had so much experience. So we went to sniper school humble and eager, but we're fine tuning things. You know, it wasn't something new, I lived that life. And to professionally learn it all, to learn the things I didn't know, it was really just, I found myself checking the boxes because I got firsthand experience on how to do all this hard shit, so I went to sniper school to suffer. I went to there to suffer and to graduate. I got educated in some things, mission planning was a big one.

• 2:42:38Speaker 02

  Uh, we did a lot of big, more in-depth mission planning than I did. Uh, five paragraph orders were really big back in the day where you're handwriting 50 fucking plus pages for a mission. I'm carrying one tube of green cami paint, you know, like, nuts ass detail. I learned a lot of that.

• 2:42:56Speaker 02

  But sniper school was just fun. Cause I was alive. And I was getting to do the coolest shit that I didn't get to do. I was stalking, ghillie suit break in. I was doing all the things that I really didn't get to do overseas. Uh, so I got educated and I got to participate in things that were challenging, overwhelming, and helped forge me into an even better sniper. I had a lot of experience, I had a lot of training, informal training and the experience now. Now I have the formal aspect that just fucking propelled me. Uh, cause I realized that anyone can shoot fucking good. But now it's about getting missions. Now it's about, are you the best team? Are you the best sniper, right? Because like I said, anyone can shoot. You can train a monkey to shoot.

• 2:43:40Speaker 02

  You can't train a monkey to use his mind. Mission plan, brief of confidence, know what the fuck's going on. Tell your people what's going on. Inspect what you expect, you know? All these aspects that I was gaining and I was taking all these invaluable lessons and turning them into wisdom. So all that hell that I fucking went through and all my homies went through, because we all were there together. We're now taking those aspects and like, this is who we want to be. And we're molding ourselves as we go along. So the mindset from the high school, the mindset from getting my ass kicked, the mindset from, you know, boot camp and school of infantry and then my deployments, all these things, it's just all stacking up. And it's all kinda coming together now. And that's kinda what I realized, you know? Life, or at least the military, is just a series of events.

• 2:44:25Speaker 02

  It's up to you to determine what's wisdom, what's logic. It's up to you to determine if it's good or bad. It's up to you to really put thought and effort into the life that you're experiencing, or you can just exist in it and be in pain, be in hell. Not change your life, change your situation and, you know, being in that sniper platoon, that's all about that. Um, so I go to sniper platoon, I go to sniper school, I graduate. Great, I take out another company, now I'm back with the same battalion. Now I'm going to Operation Still Curtain. You heard of that one? No, I haven't. This is a 2005 timeframe. Still Curtain was where we went through, like, I swear, it was like five or six cities. Big fucking pushes, big missions. This was like a big, big fucking ordeal.

• 2:45:12Speaker 02

  Did not know at the time, did not know it.

• 2:45:16Speaker 02

  And but this time I'm on a Mew. So now I'm I'm training with force reconnaissance guys. I'm a sniper team for them. I'm super excited because that's just my natural progression. I want to go to force reconnaissance after this like. That's just all these different tiers, these different elevations of things to change and to get uncomfortable with. So we were on this view on the on these boats, this Mew Marine Expedition Unit. So I'm on this. LHA one, don't even ask me what the fuck that means. It was a big deck. Had it had like a carriers. It wasn't a carrier, but it had like. A top for like planes and shit to fly off. It wasn't like the big carrier boat. Maybe a midsize. They're all massive. And we're floating over, we hit like Hawaii.

• 2:45:58Speaker 02

  We hit Australia, do some training. We hit the Singapore, all these things, Hong Kong, all these great things. Get back to Kuwait, convoy to Iraq.

• 2:46:12Speaker 02

  Now I'm in Iraq. I'm like, I'm telling my younger guys, I'm like, bro. I'm like, I got the Fallujah mindset. Everything is a fucking threat. Everything is dangerous. And it was completely different.

• 2:46:25Speaker 02

  It was all different. And our mission was kind of different. We I realize what a true, the true force and power of a. Mobilization unit can do. When you're not pigeonholed to one place and you say, I'm going to clear this fucking city. I'm going to clear it. And that's what you put your mind behind? Oh, you clear shit. And. Our Mew, our 13th Mew was the main effort again. The main effort switched companies, switched roles. So last rotation, it was this company, this rotation is this company, but. You know, I found myself doing different missions that I wasn't doing before. I was clearing landmines or landfills by myself with my team. Because we had no EOD guys.

• 2:47:09Speaker 02

  I'm fucking throwing day packs with water bottles and rocks with 550 quart attached to them and slowly pulling them. Because I had to mark a route for the battalion to come through. That was our job. Push ahead, gain eyes on the objective area, report back. Well, as I'm pushing back, we had all these reports that, you know, all these different cities had different fucking minefields, landmines, all these things around. And there was like two EOD guys, two bomb guys for like a regiment. So like thousands of people, there's only two dudes. So like back in the day, if you found an unexploded ordinance or an IED, you stopped and you were on a knee for a very long time, sometimes days.

• 2:47:53Speaker 02

  Because you never knew what one bomb was going to do. And it was never that one that you see that gets you. It's the fucking daisy chain that you have no idea about. That's three stacks back and three stacks in front of you. You saw what they wanted you to see. And so clearly we held a lot of operations. Well, for this particular operation, we had a timeline associated with it. And I think our first city we'd go through was this place called Lusaba. It was right outside the 440 district, near, maybe it was Kurt Ball. I don't even know, they're all the same to me. But I just told like, hey, Cody, come in here. My battalion commander talks to me and he gives me this like fucking dad talk. He's like, I need you to clear this minefield. I'm like, what do you mean clear a minefield?

• 2:48:33Speaker 02

  He's like, I need your team to mark a route so the battalion can push through it. I'm like, how the fuck do you want me to do that? I have nothing. And they were talking about using like the grappling hook. You shoot like the 22 cartridge out your M16. I'm like, you want me to shoot a grappling hook at nighttime in bad guys' territory to scrape it? You think that's the best idea? My team's gonna get fucking murdered. And so the next best option was, let's be as quiet as possible and we'll just use a bag. So, so we did. I took my Eagle day pack, shoved water bottles and rocks in that motherfucker where it was

• 2:49:13Speaker 02

  manageable, towed a fucking line to it, toss it out, and pull it back. And we would run the lanes that way. We cradled wide berth and we would mark IR kim lights. And we'd start marking fucking routes to the release point.

• 2:49:30Speaker 02

  And I remember linking up, I was supposed to link up with the reconnaissance platoon that was out there to get a data dump from them, what's going on in the battlefield. And we were supposed to move up to find hide sites, observation sites, so when the battalion comes in, we can provide accurate precision sniper fire and reporting at the same time. I'm also tasked with finding routes and lanes to send tanks and fucking packs through. There's a lot of responsibility, I'm 19 years old at this point. I had a fuck ton of responsibility, all of us have a shit ton of responsibility. And I remember my team, all night, we were in and out of a ditch, reporting back, setting up comms, reporting back what we saw, setting the stage.

• 2:50:12Speaker 02

  And multiple times that night, my team walked through this one path that we thought would be a good route. We walked it multiple times, the recon platoon walked it multiple times. We deemed it safe. We fucking marked it. The next morning, the battalion landing team, the BLT, comes in, Abrams, fucking Cobras, LAR, um, troops. And my company commander that I'm supporting, his name is Ray Mendoza, huge, just D1 football player, whatever that is called, and collegiate football, that was that guy, dude, he was the ma- he was a titan.

• 2:50:57Speaker 02

  And the company rotation before that, he was my headquarters company commander, and still a savage. And now he's in the infantry, he's an infantry company commander, and he's the main effort. This dude had to be like 360 pounds with kit on, dude was massive, he was big. I'm in my overwatch position, I have my, my smock on, I'm like blending into my background, I'm in my glass, and I see the tanks and the troops come in. And there's Ray leading the pack, leading from the front, like a real fucking leader.

• 2:51:36Speaker 02

  Ray fucking disappeared moments later. He hit a fucking anti-tank mine.

• 2:51:42Speaker 02

  And the only thing through a route that we were on, and the only thing that we can think of is that we weren't heavy enough to set it off.

• 2:51:51Speaker 02

  Damn. And I questioned everything up to that point. I'm like, did I fucking not do my job?

• 2:51:59Speaker 02

  And that just reminded me like, no matter what you fucking do, when you play with fire, someone is gonna get burned. I can't tell you how many times on that deployment, multiple cities, I'm watching. I'm watching intersections all night, thermals, my teams, recon platoon, we're all watching it. Just to see IEDs blow up on it the next day. I was almost convinced that insurgents were turning into fucking dogs. And crawling around on fours to plant fucking IEDs, cuz I could not figure out how it was happening. And the only thing that really was there, they were probably just already laid.

• 2:52:37Speaker 02

  I mean, it's apparent. A big military force is gonna come and sweep in, so let's just backstock everything and fuck these dudes up.

• 2:52:46Speaker 02

  And I was psychologically getting fucked up cuz I was just seeing. No matter how hard you try to preserve life. You can't control shit. And you don't control a motherfucking thing. You can have all the guns, you can have all the security, you don't control anything. You think you do, you want to believe you do, but you don't control any of it. And that's a hard pill to swallow. Yeah. Especially when you're doing your job. And you take pride in your job, to the point where you're risking your fucking life. And to see something like that happen.

• 2:53:24Speaker 02

  Boggles my mind. And so this whole deployment, we're just clearing city after city, to the point where, when we're done with one city, we're getting back in our Humvees and we're driving back to this big base we're staged out of. Miles away, hours away. Just wanna eat food, we're dirty as fuck, we're battered. Just to come find out, we're getting yelled at, we can't eat in the fucking chow hall cuz there's some douchebag telling us that we don't have our cover on, our hat. Or our uniform is dirty, so we can't go into his chow hall to eat.

• 2:53:59Speaker 02

  And the fuckery that can come from war. I should write a book just on that. Cause it's unbelievable and you know this. You can't even make it up. There was a different, there was multiple wars going on out there and not everyone was in the same war I was in.

• 2:54:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 2:54:14Speaker 02

  Um, and so just another layer of perspective and another layer of just like, you gotta be kidding me.

• 2:54:22Speaker 02

  I just gave my fucking friends teeth, teeth up off the fucking ground. I can't eat in this chow hall. Are you serious? I got yelled at because I was fucking bloody. My sleeves were rolled up. I was carrying. I was covered in a head to toe in fucking blood. My rifle was fucking stained red from enemy's blood, my friend's blood. Um, and my kamis were going over my fucking hands. Cause I'm just wet. I'm sweating and I'm just fucking all wet. In blood. And I rolled my shit up. My boots are in blouse, my pant, my fucking, my boots are bloody. Everything about me is bloody. And I get fucking corrected. Because my sleeve, I was told to unroll my sleeves and to blast my pants.

• 2:55:06Speaker 02

  And to be told that my friend, I'm like, is he gonna get put in for an award? Well, it won't be this because that's reserved for staff and CEOs and higher. And I'm trying to make a reason of the hell I just experienced and all my friends just experienced and most of them died and some of them lived. And then there's this other war, this other reality that's happening right now that I'm clearly not tuned into. Cause it is not the one that I'm currently located at. And so I learned early on in my military career that there is endless perspectives and realities out there. And war is only fucking war to those who fucking claim it. And not everyone claimed that shit. They wouldn't be part of it. They wanted the accolades, but they weren't about war.

• 2:55:50Speaker 02

  They weren't about what the fucking true cause and the toll was. The fee to even show up for that place was, they weren't about that life. They lived in another la la land. And that's hard on morale when, um.

• 2:56:05Speaker 02

  When you have, you try to put perspective into your life, you're like, what am I doing here? I have fucking go, I want to be a doctor one day, I want to read a book, I want to do this, I want to do that. And I'm, I'm, I'm, you're thinking, you're not even going to make it to the next fucking mill. And if you do make it to the next mill, the chance of you doing that with ease is probably not going to be likely, because there's someone out there that lives in that for an alternative perspective in reality than you do.

• 2:56:33Speaker 02

  And, um, you know, we, we finished that, that rotation, just back to back cities, back to back cities, back to back fucking cities. It was never ending. Uh, but it was a part of history. You know, there will never be, I'm sure of it, there will never be another, or at least in the, in the global war on terrorism, there was never a, a, a Fallujah, Battle of Fallujah. There was never another Operation Steel Curtain that took place. These things were iconic at best, you know? And to survive those things, but more importantly to survive, because I have a lot of friends that survived that, that took their lives later down the road. So they didn't really survive it, they suffered through it. And they struggled through it.

• 2:57:18Speaker 02

  But to survive and extract that wisdom from those pain points,

• 2:57:24Speaker 02

  that's what I started to see in all the hell I was living. That's not how I justified loss of life. But that's what I started to, I can, I can say fuck this, fuck them, I'm a victim.

• 2:57:36Speaker 02

  Or I can be like, what can I take away from this? What, what lesson do I have from all this hardship? What lesson do I have from this stupidity? How can I apply that to be a better person? How can I apply that to be a better fucking leader? How can I treat my men when I have a chance to be up top? How can I be better for them? How can I make sure that I know, they know that I give a fuck about them, that I'm here to support them, and it's not the other way around? That I will lie, cheat, steal to get them the words and recognitions they need, not bend over backwards and crumble because I'm looking out for my own neck. I learned so much that this generation probably doesn't have that opportunity to do so. Yeah, they do.

• 2:58:14Speaker 02

  And, you know, that deployment fucked me up too. I was, uh, me and a bunch of guys, we were, you know what a micklet is?

• 2:58:21Shawn Ryan?

  No.

• 2:58:21Speaker 02

  Micklet, if I'm saying this correctly, my memory serves me correctly, it's, it's a, it's a pod. It's a backpack pod and you use it for clearing operations. So you take off this backpack, this micklet pod and it shoots this, uh, it shoots this like rocket out, this projectile out and it's a string of deck cords essentially. And you're just clearing routes. You're clearing lanes for tracks, for troops, for fucking everything. And

• 2:58:46Speaker 02

  they are APODs. I think that's what they were called, APODs.

• 2:58:51Speaker 02

  And they're loud.

• 2:58:53Speaker 02

  And they,

• 2:58:55Speaker 02

  if you're 50 meters, 100 meters behind them, they'll make you fucking throw up.

• 2:59:01Speaker 02

  And so I found myself in the last city that we would hit during this whole entire campaign. It was, uh, Carbala. And it was right next to your Fredies. And there was this palm grove that we needed to clear through and it was laced with IDs. So the reporting happened. So, so the reporting was said. And this is when I started to understand very little about TBI. Cause I didn't really have the residual effects from my, you know, a year, not even a year prior to deployment experience.

• 2:59:35Speaker 02

  But this time, I'm like getting really rocked. We're like just, we're just getting the wavelengths. We're just seeing the, the whiplash, the, uh, the shock waves of all these rockets happening and we're fucking dumb. We don't know any different. We're standing behind it, ready to push the fight. These things go off, we run forward. And then we do, do this. We do this more and more and more. We do this. This is a continuous thing and we're just eating it for hours.

• 3:00:02Speaker 02

  And that's, that's when something shifted in me. I didn't know it at the time, but that's when it really started to, this toll of like warfighting started to fuck me up.

• 3:00:14Speaker 02

  And we've, we, we finished this, this mission. We finished this deployment. I get back home and I'm like, I'm on the boat, headed back home and I could not wait to get back on the ship. Cause if I got back on the ship, I was gonna fucking live. My, my guy, my team was gonna live. We were safe. And, uh,

• 3:00:32Speaker 02

  I'm like, I gotta get the fuck out of this platoon. I wanted more. I wanted a different mindset. Some of my newer guys I wasn't driving with. The mindset of the battalion and the vision of the sniper platoon, the sniper community, all these things were happening at once. I'm like, dude, I gotta change my life, bro. I can't stay here.

• 3:00:47Shawn Ryan?

  What was it?

• 3:00:48Speaker 02

  What?

• 3:00:49Shawn Ryan?

  What was it? Was it?

• 3:00:50Speaker 02

  Change?

• 3:00:51Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, what? Why did you want out? You're a sniper now?

• 3:00:55Speaker 02

  The command sucked. The command did not value you. The leadership did not value you.

• 3:01:00Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:01:00Speaker 02

  And my sniper platoon that I worked my ass off to get into, it was going down the drain almost. Mindsets, at that time, they were saying hazing was a big deal. People weren't getting hazed, people were getting trained. People were learning what discipline and respect is. Unviolently. Now, there was some violent shit happening before, you know, this time. Uh, but at the time, like I said, there's a pig and a hog. You know, as a hog, you were your fucking sniper, your, your, your 550 cord loop with your necklace, with your sniper round. A pig doesn't have that shit. And I remember in training up even for this deployment, our platoon sergeant was real stickler about like segregation.

• 3:01:39Speaker 02

  I'm like, dude, if we make these motherfuckers feel, I mean, they're part of the team, but if we, if we give them everything, they'll, they won't want to go to sniper school. They'll just want to stay here. If they want to stay here, they're not an asset, they're a liability now because there's no evolution in their, their wheelhouse, their spectrum of, of growth in this platoon. Because I grew up in a sniper platoon or staple platoon with honor and discipline. I was told exactly how it's going to fucking be, and this is why. And then I started to see, phones started coming out, you know, like internet was popping, hot or not was popping, MySpace was a thing. And it was, I just saw this new generation of, of guys join my ranks and I, that plus the leadership, I'm like, dude, this isn't for me. And it cost so many lives because there were so many egos attached to it.

• 3:02:24Speaker 02

  I remember this one particular time, I'm, I'm at this training event and my platoon sergeant wanted us all to take off our sniper necklaces. And he's like, fucking take them off. And I see them again, you're out of the fucking platoon. And we're getting ready to deploy for this deployment I just talked about. And my guys are like, fuck you.

• 3:02:41Speaker 02

  And he's like, "Take them off. When I come back, they better be off or you're gone." He was that guy. One of our own. He was a sniper. But he was a drill instructor also. He was...

• 3:02:55Speaker 02

  He forgot who he was in this concept. And really, led by fear and intimidation, instead of compassion and leadership. And, um... I remember telling my guys, "Dude, this guy's obviously a tool. Let's just fucking take it off for him to come back in 20 minutes. I mean, Lee's will put it back on."

• 3:03:17Speaker 02

  And I could not get my friends in my platoon to look at it that way. They're like, "Fuck that." And I get it. I get it.

• 3:03:25Speaker 02

  But there's a time and place. And some of my friends, they were so willing to die on their fucking sword, right there. That battle was, that was it. They weren't crossing the line. That was it. I'm just like, "Guys, it's so small."

• 3:03:41Speaker 02

  It's so small. And four of them didn't fucking do it. Soon as this motherfucker left, I put my shit back on. Exactly what I said I was gonna do. I knew this guy was a toolbag. He, little man syndrome. And I knew that's what I needed to do to get over on this thing. Cause I had a goal. I had a mission. I had a vision. How can I be the best sniper if I'm not a sniper? How can I take care of my team if I'm not here? Cause I allow my ego to get in the fucking way. My necklace means something to me too. It means so much to me. I'm gonna preserve it. Not fucking relinquish what it all stands for. So four of my guys get kicked out of my fucking platoon that day. And

• 3:04:19Speaker 02

  on that deployment I was talking about, I'm on a rooftop, minding my own fucking business. You know, I'm engaging. And

• 3:04:32Speaker 02

  fighting stops. And this same dude comes over to me and he's like, "Hey, I wanna let you know that John's dead."

• 3:04:40Speaker 02

  And I just said, "Fuck you, motherfucker. This is your fucking fault." And I was so pissed, I was hurt.

• 3:04:47Speaker 02

  Cause John refused to take off his necklace. A fucking necklace that meant everything to him. And this fucking dude's like this tall. His name's John Maguire. Little fucking homie. He was rolling around Fallujah with a fucking saster, twice his fucking size. It was funny as shit. We put him in a backpack, troll with him at times, just fuck around. And they were clearing this house right adjacent to me.

• 3:05:13Speaker 02

  And John was one of the first ones to go in. Well, the insurgents had a machine gun position fortified in there. And so when the fire team went in there, because John got kicked out of the sniper platoon, got sent to the line company. John rushes in there, he gets fucking zipped in half.

• 3:05:31Speaker 02

  Rest of the half is fucking team.

• 3:05:35Speaker 02

  And I'm just holding grudges.

• 3:05:39Speaker 02

  And I had to get out of that fucking environment. I'm holding on to that for the rest of this deployment. I fucking hate this guy. I hate that my friends are dead. I hate even getting to fucking know even new people, because it's just, it seems to never end. And at that point, even one death is a fuck time when you did everything. I did every boot camp, SOY. My first deployment. Now my second deployment with the same guy, with multiple of those same guys, and they're just, they're gone. And they had dreams, they had hopes, they had all this shit. Because a fucking necklace and poor leadership. This fucking dude's dead. I mean, he could have died probably any other way, maybe. But that's what I was holding. I'm like, I gotta get out of this space.

• 3:06:19Speaker 02

  So I, you know, we were fast forwarding to the conclusion of that deployment. I'm on boat, we're floating out and I find out there's a recon, uh, force reconnaissance indoctrination happening soon and at this point, I still not a good swimmer. I needed to unfuck myself. So I go home, I bring my kamis, I'm swimming at the YMCA, I'm making shit happen. They're like, "Don't put your head in the water." I'm like, "Fuck you." I got goals and dreams, you know? And by the way, they look away and I go do it. And then that led me to showing up one morning at 5 o'clock at a pool deck with nervous shits 30 minutes prior, because I don't want to eat too much, so I ate a banana to make sure I didn't cramp up. But I was nervous as fuck. Because now all my friends that I worked with and deployed with that were force reconnaissance guys, now I'm saying, "Hey, I want to be one of you."

• 3:07:04Speaker 02

  I'm shifting lanes. I had homies in the recon community, I got homies in the force reconnaissance community, but now I'm saying, "I want to earn what you have earned, so now it's time for me to pay." So now we're not, now we're not friends. Now I'm a fucking student. I'm a roper, I'm a nobody, all over again. And I loved it. Because I learned that a lot of dudes talked a lot of shit in the military. "Lot of shit. I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that." But when push comes to shove, the ones that say they're gonna do stuff, if they show up, then you know those dudes are the real McCoys. Because it's so hard to show up. It's so hard to sign your name on a list and be like, "Okay, I'll be there tomorrow." At least it was for me. None of this shit was easy. I was

• 3:07:47Speaker 02

  fucking mind fucking myself. Never doubting myself, but questioning myself, like, "Dude, are we doing this? Is this really happening? How exciting? You have no idea what you're getting into? Good luck, motherfucker. Hope you can swim." And that's when I started the next phase of my life, my next phase of my military career, the force reconnaissance, you know, Marine Raider career. And that's where it all, that's where it changed. I put myself in a group of guys that gave a fuck about each other. The leadership cared about them. The, the, the training cared about them. The communication cared about them. The support system cared about not only them, but their families. I was like, "Dude, I'm where I'm supposed to be at." It's completely different.

• 3:08:30Speaker 02

  More money, different mission, different mindset, more hard gates to get through to get there. So you're earning your keep, everyone there earns their keep, there's no handouts there, there's no poor leadership like that, or you're gone. This thing doesn't sit well. So I find myself doing this screening. Guess what? I sucked. I sucked at swimming. I sucked at swimming. They're like, "Bro, get your chin up above water." I'm like, "Okay," you know, but I'm not, I'm like, not quitting. I'm suffering. And I am grateful of the sufferer. Because I've, I've dreamt about this moment for a long time. I dreamt about it the whole way on this fucking boat, and now I'm getting to do it. But just like the sniper shit, I'm suffering, I'm sucking, I'm not even good at it. I have all the reasons to say, "Fuck it, this is not for me."

• 3:09:14Speaker 02

  But I didn't quit.

• 3:09:17Speaker 02

  And however it happened, I passed everything else, but I didn't pass that portion. But I still got a phone call to show up. They're like, "Hey, we think this guy has something. We think he's trainable, and so we want him to come here." And so my platoon commander calls me in, my sniper platoon commander calls me in, he's like, "Hey, they called you. I felt like I let everyone down." Uh, they're like, "Hey, they saw something in you. They said you can't swim for shit. Um, but they, they think that you're trainable, so you're gonna go be a roper over at Force Reconnaissance, and you're gonna go try out." I'm like, "Get the fuck out of here."

• 3:09:58Speaker 02

  So I checked out of my infantry unit, I checked in, temporary.

• 3:10:04Speaker 02

  And I start the suffer process.

• 3:10:06Shawn Ryan?

  Well, before we go into that, let's take a quick break.

• 3:10:10Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 3:10:14Shawn Ryan?

  Did you know 75% of the human population struggles with sleep? I didn't know that, but I did know that I was one of that 75%. I'm a business owner, I'm a parent, my mind's running a thousand miles an hour, all hours of the day, to try to get these shows out to you. And then I started looking into it, and I found bio-optimizers. Bio-optimizers has identified seven different, unique types of magnesium that, when put together, help you sleep. The process is real simple, you take two pills before you go to bed every night, you sleep like a baby, you wake up, and you're ready to tackle the day. For an exclusive offer for my listeners, go to magbreakthrough.com/shawn

• 3:10:59Shawn Ryan?

  to save up to 42%. Again, you can save up to 42% on magnesium breakthrough when you go to magbreakthrough.com/shawn.

• 3:11:16Shawn Ryan?

  Alright, we're back from the break. You're going to Force Recon.

• 3:11:21Speaker 02

  Going to Force Recon, yup. And at this point, I've I passed the screening to get in there, uh, because we're swimming every day. I'm learning, getting educated, uh, a lot of the same stuff that I was learning and doing in the sniper community, a lot of land navigation, a lot of, uh, ruck running all the time. And there was a, it was like never ending. And all the older guys at Force were getting ready, they're trying out for Delta, so they're doing nothing but pack runs. So as a new guy, I am just doing pack runs every fucking day, it seems like.

• 3:11:55Shawn Ryan?

  So are you in Force at this point, or are you training to go?

• 3:11:59Speaker 02

  I'm training to go to school. I am a nobody. I'm a roper.

• 3:12:03Shawn Ryan?

  You made the tryout.

• 3:12:04Speaker 02

  I made the tryout. So I'm there and I'm earning my keep. But the next phase of your keep is, um, you have to go to RIP, which is called the Recon Indoctrination Program. And then, once you pass that, there is a Force, uh, at the time, there was a Force selection. So I had to go do that. And, uh, so there was like a screening to get in. Earn your keep, got a chance to go to RIP. You have to pass that. That means, okay, now you're basically prepared to go to BRC, the recon school. Um, whether you're Force Reconnaissance or Battalion Reconnaissance, you both go, you all go to RIP, and you all go to the same recon school, the Baseline Fundamental School.

• 3:12:51Speaker 02

  And then, so that's what I did. I went to RIP. Uh, that sucked. That was like,

• 3:12:58Speaker 02

  it was way different than my sniper experience. I was used to the ruck running. I was used to the land navigation, but they had the pool every fucking day, it seemed like. And I hated the pool. This pool in particular, they had no keys for the gate. So we always found ourselves jumping the fence to go swim in the pool. That told me that this wasn't planned. That told me that there was like no one there to come save me, uh, when I was feeling weak and wanted to quit inside. And every day of RIP, I wanted to quit. Every day. Every day, I'm like, dude, I'm gonna quit today.

• 3:13:26Shawn Ryan?

  Why? Why'd you wanna quit?

• 3:13:28Speaker 02

  Cause it was hard. And I told myself, it almost made like a joke. Like, if I can make fun of it now, before I actually had to go out there and do it, I'll just laugh about when I'm doing it, and then I'll-

• 3:13:36Shawn Ryan?

  You wanted to quit cause it was hard?

• 3:13:37Speaker 02

  Dude, it was so fucking hard to swim. I'm like, I don't know how I'm gonna make this pool. I'm not gonna make it in the pool today. They're like, oh, we're gonna do all this fucking swimming and crossovers. I'm like, fuck dude, I wanna quit. I can't do this shit.

• 3:13:46Shawn Ryan?

  After all the shit that you'd been through on your previous two fucking deployments in Iraq, which is, by the way, I don't think I've ever heard any fucking shit like that. You're worried about the pool?

• 3:13:57Speaker 02

  Dude, the pool was the equalizer of my soul.

• 3:13:59Shawn Ryan?

  Jesus Christ.

• 3:14:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, dude. Uh, the pool was unforgiving. I remember being on the pool deck.

• 3:14:08Speaker 02

  They split up to A and B. I was a B group, cause I was not a great swimmer. Uh, I'm passing things. I'm doing, I'm holding my own weight, but I'm also not a fish. And so I am, uh, I'm doing pushups. We're doing pushups and mountain climbers. And they're like, go! And they're just doing crossovers. And it's a 25 meter pool, so you're just underwater to the next edge, off your breath, underwater to the next edge, off your breath, and you're just repeating this non-stop. And you do not bring your head above the surface until you get to the edge. You just don't do it. And I remember doing pushups. You're like, push up! And we're like, counting off, and I hear, help! Help!

• 3:14:49Speaker 02

  And I looked to my side. I'm like, oh shit! This dude popped up to catch breath mid-pool, and he just got swarmed. And they took his ass to the fucking bottom.

• 3:15:02Speaker 02

  And he disappeared. And they're like, fucking push! And we're pushing up. I'm like, dude, what the fuck? And then I just hear this large ruckus, help! Help! Help! Blah blah blah blah. And you're like, oh my god, this is crazy! And you just hear, help! I quit! I quit! Blah blah blah blah. Just always taking him down. He's panicking. Panic is cancer, right? And it took me years to realize why you do all these hard things in the military, at least my own interpretation of them. But the panic like that is straight fucking cancer. And it spreads super fast in humans. And, um, this dude was fucking done. And he just wanted to fucking quit. They're like, oh, fuck you.

• 3:15:46Speaker 02

  And this dude ended up quitting later on that day. But this is now it's my turn to get into the pool. I'm just like, oh, my God, bro. This is gonna be intense. Well, I learned from a very young age, even in boot camp, that if you ain't cheating, you ain't trying. I was very hungry as a hungry recruit. So I would like figure out ways to find food in boot camp. Well, I wasn't a good swimmer, so I found ways to swim how I needed to swim and breathe when I needed to breathe. So I would like see when these dudes were like not like looking and I'd try to come up for air. Because I learned that if I'm not trying to get over on the system now and training, then I'm never gonna push the envelope in combat. And I understand what discipline is. I understand what doing a hard thing is, but there's something about pushing the envelope to me that I've always enjoyed.

• 3:16:30Speaker 02

  And that's what I've enjoyed about my entire career is I love making shit happen. And sometimes there's very unconventional ways to make shit happen. And so I can either get choked out or I can get over if I need to come up for air. And so I'm like, okay, that's my thing. If I have to come up for air, I'm just gonna wait till they're not looking. I'm gonna come up, breathe real quick and go back down. Well, then it kind of made it like a game. So now instead of me looking at this opportunity as like straight hell, I'm like, how can I survive today? Because I'm not gonna quit. I'm really not going to quit. I say it jokingly, I say it with my friends with smiles on our faces. Because it was like coping mechanism. There's no difference in seeing your friends get fucking blown and be like, holy fuck, dude, this fucking sucks. I get the fuck out of here. Well, I'm not really leaving anywhere.

• 3:17:15Speaker 02

  I'm just saying what needs to be said, doing what we're meant to be fucking done. So I can push the fight and continue on because I'm human. I have feelings, I have emotions, I have doubts, I have insecurities, I have fucking fears. Real, I'm a real person. And the pool has a way of bringing that out of you. And you've ever heard of the ball of shit or the beehive?

• 3:17:32Shawn Ryan?

  I've heard a lot of balls of shit.

• 3:17:35Speaker 02

  So they would take us and we all had ropes. We're called ropers because we're always doing tying knots underwater. You know, everything's getting ready for dive school, tying notes, all this shit. Notes, knots, not notes. And they took this water hose and we're in the bottom, we're in the middle of the pool. It's all fucking deep. And they're like, get closer. And you're doing the ball of shit. So you're like, kind of like nuts to butt, kind of treading water, just flailing. You're just trying to keep main lungs, air in your lungs so you can kind of stay afloat. But you're getting kicked, you're getting scratched. And they just take this water hose and they just wrap it around you and they get closer and closer and fucking closer to the point where you're literally struggling to stay afloat.

• 3:18:16Speaker 02

  And they're trying to see who quits, they're trying to see who panics, they're trying to see who can't make it fucking survive this thing. And if you would dive down to like come to the back of the ball of shit, they'd see they'd be like fuck you, get in the center and you're like fuck you and you kind of like wait a second till they call your name again. Cause you're like, man, they're gonna have to jump in this fucking pool to grab me, but you're like, wait a second, they will actually do that. So I'll go in the middle. I'll make it happen. And you just play these games of survivability because everyone there is trying to survive because no one's just like, oh, this is easy. Nothing's easy when you reach that point, that phase line of like, now we're trying to kill you.

• 3:18:54Speaker 02

  Now we're trying to see what you're really made of. Now we're trying to teach you what fucking training can't teach you and what combat won't teach you. We're trying to teach you what you and only you can teach yourself. And that's your determination to fucking persevere and push through it. And they didn't say it with their words, but hindsight being 2020, looking back at this whole evolution of life, I'm like, that had to be it, or at least that's the shit that I'm telling myself, uh, because those times are tough. A lot of running, a lot of swimming, a lot of things that I was uncomfortable with, but would you know, I got really fucking good at them because I sucked at them so much. It was so hard, but I was getting better. I was getting stronger. I was getting faster, uh, to the point by the time I went to recon school, I fucking smoked it. It was honor graduate. It was easy. Even the swimming.

• 3:19:37Shawn Ryan?

  You were the fucking honor graduate of recon school too?

• 3:19:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:19:40Shawn Ryan?

  Jesus dude.

• 3:19:41Speaker 02

  And dive school.

• 3:19:42Shawn Ryan?

  And dive school.

• 3:19:43Speaker 02

  And I sucked at swimming.

• 3:19:44Shawn Ryan?

  And boot camp.

• 3:19:45Speaker 02

  And boot camp.

• 3:19:46Shawn Ryan?

  And?

• 3:19:47Speaker 02

  Not sniper school. Not sniper school.

• 3:19:50Shawn Ryan?

  What about infantry school?

• 3:19:52Speaker 02

  Uh, yes, I was an undergraduate there.

• 3:19:56Shawn Ryan?

  Impressive.

• 3:19:57Speaker 02

  It worked out. Uh, there's a lot of flack that comes with titles like that. Uh, a lot of shit talking.

• 3:20:07Speaker 02

  And so I finished RIP and me and my friends, we had a guaranteed slot to go to BRC Recon School. But before we could go, we had to go past the FORCE end doc. So we're doing the screening to get in there and then we did the FORCE end doc, which was like another, you know, 15 plus mile ruck run, uh, double obstacle course, more swimming, more in-depth swimming, you know, all sorts of unfun things, physical fitness test. Um, it was a real gut check. I think we started at like six in the morning and I finished at like maybe eleven or 12 in the afternoon, maybe one, I don't even know. But we were told to go home afterwards and then I lay on the floor, my pinkies, my pinkies cramped.

• 3:20:52Speaker 02

  You know, it was like, you're done, you're depleted. Uh, but everything leading up to the point trained us and prepared us for that. And I was just so pumped to even be there because these were, these were my friends and my mentors and my leaders that I worked with before in combat and in training. And now I'm one step closer to being in their tribe, you know, one step closer to being part of this, this organization. And so I get my seat to go to the, uh, BRC reconnaissance course that was down in Coronado. And I remember checking in and I'm driving across the bridge. Did I watch all the Navy SEAL documentaries as a kid growing up? All the Discovery Channel they had to offer, I watched it. And to find myself on that obstacle course, doing that, that SEAL O course as a roper,

• 3:21:37Speaker 02

  it was like a fucking dream come true. A, that shit is not easy. That little spider wall fucked up my forearms. Uh, you know, the little bitty? Yeah. Uh, but just to be there and trying to, and seeing all these visualizations that I've had ever since I was a high schooler, kind of come to fruition, you know, I, I yearned to be wet and sandy. I enjoyed that shit. It sucked. But I really found this like fulfillment in like doing shit that was fucking hard, doing shit that I wanted to quit, but not quitting, fucking motivated me. I loved it. Um, being around dudes who wanted to quit, but didn't quit, I fucking loved it. It motivated me. And that's what I found myself in. I found myself in a newer caliber of challenges, newer caliber of individuals, different fucking things.

• 3:22:20Speaker 02

  And, you know, a lot of similarities to the reconnaissance community, like, you know, school, recon school was super easy for me. All you had to do is put out, not fuck anyone over, don't quit and pass your test. That's it. Those are pretty simple. The requirements to do all the simple things were not so simple, but I knew how to patrol. I knew how to land nav. I knew how to do everything minus uh the amphibious stuff. Finning was new to me minus rip when I learned it in rip, learning how to become a reconnaissance Marine and our training to be a reconnaissance Marine. And then nautical navigation, that was all new information to me. That was new uncharted territories, uh small boats, all new shit to me. But other than that, everything else I

• 3:23:03Speaker 02

  kinda knew. And I was a pretty senior guy with a couple other senior guys there. So we were mentors to the younger classmates, eighteen, nineteen year old guys. How old were you at this point? At this time, I'd just turned twenty-one. Um, and I spent many nights drinking out in town because I was just turned twenty-one. And I could bounce back. I was super resilient. I would go study down in Pacific Beach, study my little flash carts for my tests, getting hammered at happy hour, uh coming back to do a four-thirty beach run, you know, like unstoppable. I wasn't the greatest on the runs, but I never fell, fell out, never quit, never failed to time anything. But like, I was like this new journey of life. I'm like,

• 3:23:45Speaker 02

  bro, I am crushing it. This is, this is so hard, it's not even hard. This is where I belong. You know, it was like this, I, I was, I was so prideful to carry that rope. I was prideful to eat at the same chow hall the BUDS guys were going to. It gave me so much just, I felt so good about myself. Cause I had so many friends like, I'm gonna be recon, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that. And they never made the moves. And here I am, coming from a platoon, which I would have been in charge the next go around, I would have been in charge of that platoon. And I left that shit for a new, for a new tomorrow, a better tomorrow, bigger, better tomorrow, a new tribe, a new community, a new challenge in life, a new continuation of the, of the progression that I determined I was going

• 3:24:27Speaker 02

  to go do in life, you know? Just my entry point was the sniper. That got me in the door. That's what I wanted to do. And that's led and evolved to everything else that I've done in life. So I go to BRC. Uh, BRC was great. A lot of, a lot of great lessons there. Very fun, very challenging at times too, but like I said, I've already experienced it. So they weren't new challenges to me. They were just repeat challenges. So I found myself having to repeat the same indocs, the same screenings. I'm like, fuck another hard gate? They just kept on coming. I'm like, all right, well, this is what's required to get to where I want to in life.

• 3:25:00Speaker 02

  So I graduate BRC, uh, I check into my company to, to force reconnaissance and I'm just feeling like a king. Just new, newbie there, new guy and uh, just so many new opportunities ahead of me. Then I quickly realized that I'm just a boot all over again, you know? Everything I've done in the past, none of that shit mattered. No one gave a fuck. People knew of me. I had those friends because some of my sniper buddies were now force reconnaissance guys. It was like kind of a natural progression. Uh, at this time detachment one, the marine special operations organization was still kind of around, but more of a training capacity, but they were quickly being dissolved. They were coming to the force reconnaissance because unbeknownst to the time, there was this grand scheme to create a special operations

• 3:25:45Speaker 02

  in the marine corps to call it Marsoc. And this is all happening in the, in the, in the background, which we weren't really privy to. At least I wasn't and I was a new guy. So it makes sense.

• 3:25:55Speaker 02

  So one day I check up and, and it was great, you know, and they being in the unit, being a force reconnaissance guy was great. You show up, team huddle, you PT, there's no work to do, you go home. And if you're in a training phase, you, you do training, but if you're not in a training phase, you're in a downtime or a buildup. Uh, it was big boy rules. And I'm like, dude, this is great. I felt like an adult. I wasn't micromanaged. I was given a task condition standard and told to execute, and that was it. I'm like, this is brilliant. Everyone here is a senior guy. This is exactly where I need to be at.

• 3:26:27Speaker 02

  Then one day our commander comes in and he's like, hey, uh, it's a huddle. So our company commander tells us that, you know, tomorrow, basically they gave this big spill, like we're going to become special operations. And they're like, everyone's on relaxed grooming standards. We have more funding coming in, expect new weapon systems. Expect a very, you know, intense training regiment and we're just like.

• 3:26:51Speaker 02

  Bro, this is it. This shit escalated quickly. Well, we were still Marines. Shit still wasn't hashed out by headquarters, so that lasted about a week. Dudes were in civilian clothes, growing out their fucking facial hair, getting ready for various training missions, downrange missions. And it felt fucking awesome. It felt awesome to be treated like an adult.

• 3:27:13Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:27:14Speaker 02

  Uh, and it wasn't about the hair. It wasn't about the fucking facial hair. It was just about the the trust and confidence in us to, you're big boys. Do what you need to do for the fucking mission. We're still Marines. We're gonna stay within like common sense parameters, but go do what you're here to do. And I was like, holy shit, this is awesome. That lasted like a week. Then they just stopped with us again. They put us right back into our little bubble or box and they said, nope, cut your hair, shave your face. This is, training is happening, this is happening. And you're just like, what's going on? And there's a lot of confusion going on at this time. And I found myself at Fort Benning doing jump school. During this whole, during like the last part of this, part of this, and jump school is three weeks long.

• 3:27:59Speaker 02

  Interesting place to be.

• 3:28:02Speaker 02

  And for people out there that don't know, jump school is three weeks long. You're there for three weeks for it's like five days of jumping, four days of jumping, maybe three days of jumping. It's crazy. And you do only five jumps there. And you're there with a bunch of privates from the army. And you're just treated like a fucking nobody. You're marching everywhere, you're singing these silly songs, and you're a recruit for three weeks. It was very difficult to do, but you do it. Cause that's what it takes. Now things have changed.

• 3:28:37Speaker 02

  But anyways, I find myself there. When I come back from jump school, that's when we officially lowered our first force reconnaissance guide on flag. And we hosted or hoisted the first Marine Special Operations Battalion flag, our guide on. So that's when we were called IMSA back in the day. Before Marine Raider was a thing, IMSA, we are Marine Special Operations Battalions. Uh, our umbrella was called Marsoc, Marine Special Operations Command. So we were called Marsoc, but our units were called IMSA's. Where now they're called Marine Raider Battalion, so MRBs. So we've gone through some weird name changes throughout the years. Because with the history and the lineage of the Marine Corps Raiders, Marine Corps Raider, or the Marine Raiders, World War II,

• 3:29:22Speaker 02

  small boatcraft, small unit guys, that really made a name for these specialized insertions that were taking place. Small boatcraft, small reconnaissance, hit and run ambush style tactics, guerrilla warfare, other reconnaissance surveillance aspects of their mission. Well, that transpired into the big Marine Corps. That's why there's boat companies and the Marine Corps infantry units, where they're doing raid missions on Zodiacs, inflatable boats. They're doing, you know, hit and run missions. They're doing all these different type of things, but on infantry scale, because the Raiders got disbanded. Well, reconnaissance community was the tip of the spear, because that's all that existed at this point. Force reconnaissance was the premier one. Battalion reconnaissance was still freaking premier.

• 3:30:04Speaker 02

  Just force reconnaissance was your direct action and special reconnaissance realm. Where battalion reconnaissance is focused on supporting general purpose force. They support the battalions, the infantry battalions. They are your green side surveillance. They're the long range reconnaissance patrolling where, and they also do CQB, but the real mission for CQB and VBSS was fulfillment of the force reconnaissance mission. And I'm new to all this at the time. And they're like, hey, we're now a Marsoc. I'm like, okay, dope. You know, we kind of heard these things. Well, all these detachment one guys started showing up in our units. They're now our leaders. Because they all went through their own series of selection process to even get to there.

• 3:30:47Speaker 02

  You know, I think you had to like, you had to be a Ranger. You had to have all these schools, prereqs to even be considered for detachment one, before you even got to try out for it. Like, they had this whole like slew of like superhero shit. You had to be a dual insert, jump and dive, free fall, all these things. Uh, basic insert shit and basics like leadership stuff like and from the army side. And so we formed up and we found ourselves quickly deploying to Afghanistan. That was our main area of operation, but at the time Iraq was our focus. That was our, what we were planning for. And I was the part of the second company to roll out of the west coast to deploy overseas.

• 3:31:29Speaker 02

  Well, we didn't have our own special operations insertion platforms. We're still using the Marine Corps and the Navy to do our inserts. You know, whether that's to fly us or to transport us via boat. So since force reconnaissance went away, there was no one to cover down on that mission on the muse. This, the marine expedition unit. So you had this normally a seal platoon on every Mew. And then they were either on the submarine or a small frigate doing the VBSS, doing the commanders. Hey, I have a special operations team with me. Uh, and now Marsoc took over. There was no force guys. So now we're seeing reconnaissance battalion getting a little bit more meat on their plate to like, hey, you need to go do these things.

• 3:32:15Speaker 02

  Uh, but we still had the requirements. So I'm still training VBSS. I'm still training on how to like, you know, take over a helm, you know, scale up, scale up boat. I was still a sniper, I was on a recce team. So I'm learning, you know, I'm doing aerial sniping platforms, you know, all this type of shit. And, uh, all fun stuff. I mean, I'm doing training I've never done before. I'm shooting sniper rifles I never had access to in the infantry. I'm using optics, you know, night, night vision. I have all these things I've never had before and it was super awesome.

• 3:32:41Shawn Ryan?

  The golden conax box showed up.

• 3:32:43Speaker 02

  The golden conax box showed up and the, and the, their, you know, carte blanche, you know, budget came with it also where we were doing great things. And at the time we're so infant, SOCOM put so much money into us, special operations command as a whole. They're coming down to evaluate our training, coming down to like ominous, ominous clear sauce. Can you meet these mission essential task lists? Are you meeting the special operations standard? You know, can you shoot, move, communicate, do direct action, do special reconnaissance? Can you do foreign internal defense? Can you do unconventional warfare? Can you do all these things? And can you do it to a standard? And so it was super cool to have all these experts come down from Delta, all these other organizations. And evaluate us, provide input, and then hold us accountable. It was, it was super awesome to like experience all this shit.

• 3:33:27Speaker 02

  We're operating now, we're flying with one sixtieth, you know, the, uh, USOC aviation aspect, uh, not marine air. You know, I love some marine pilots, mainly our Cobra pilots, but like, there's a big difference between the SOAR and marine air wing. How they fly, how they do everything. And we were actually being treated like fucking adults. And it was amazing. And so our first company rotates out to Afghanistan and my company's on deck. I was Bravo Company, uh, First Battalion. You know, or First Marine Special Operations Battalion, and we were told we were going to Iraq. So we're playing, planning for a very Iraq scenario. What does that mean? I don't fucking know.

• 3:34:09Speaker 02

  Shoot, move, communicate. More of the same shit. I'm doing it all. And, um, we get on a boat to float, float over and they're like, hey, we're going to Afghanistan. And we're like, it kind of felt really cool to be redirected, to have this mission. You think you're going to Iraq, but now we're getting fucking diverted to go to Afghanistan. And our main area of operation was the Helmand Province. And at this time, we had Second, uh, Second Force Reconnaissance, which is now Second Marine Special Operations Battalion, which is on the East Coast. We have First Marine Special Operations Battalion, which is on the West Coast. And we are both operating either in the Sangin area, the Helmand area, second mainly the Sangin area, first mainly Helmand area.

• 3:34:54Speaker 02

  And Afghanistan was our main focus. We never sent any guys to Iraq till later on in the war. And, uh, it was awesome. So now I've been to Iraq two times at this point. I'm going to Afghanistan, pretty excited. It's a new area and, uh,

• 3:35:11Speaker 02

  Completely different battle space, completely different everything. The TTPs were different, the mindsets were different, how we were inserting were different. Our missions were different. I had more authority on these missions, you know, I wasn't operating under a general purpose force mission. Now I'm operating under a special operations command. I have a joint special operation task force. I have a combined joint special operation task. I have all these different new tiers of leadership and layers of red tape I'd never even heard of before, and now I'm exposed to them. And with all that came different roles and responsibilities that we got to execute. And so I found myself as a special reconnaissance, I was SR team and we're rolling around GMV gun trucks. I think I had like three sniper rifles on me. This is my first deployment ever being a truck, so I'm like, sleeping bag?

• 3:35:56Speaker 02

  Check. This, this nice comfort item? Check. But I was a trunk monkey, so I sat in the back of the gun truck just eating powder, you know, eating on that nasty sand, dunking up my guns all the time. So like everything's in trash bags but ready to get ripped off to an engage. And it was a super interesting experience, very kinetic, very different type of kinetic engagement. I did a lot more sniping in Afghanistan than I did in Iraq. Distance was definitely the advantage of the Taliban fighters. Some CQB, but a lot. There was, we weren't doing raids like was taking place in Iraq.

• 3:36:38Speaker 02

  We were doing more under the scale of humanitarian assistance, you know, L shape. Watch the pattern of life. Execute the task at hand, right? Do your mission. And it was, it was awesome, you know, learning around a bunch of different enablers and support personnel that we never had access to before. So now our ability to influence the battle space has just like 10x itself. I'm like, dude, we're targeting people left and right. We're targeting things. I'm like, dude, we can do this? This is awesome. And at this point, I did a bunch of specialized training before that. I went overseas, worked with people across the pond. I'm exposed to all sorts of stuff in the, the low vis, high vis, special reconnaissance realm.

• 3:37:21Speaker 02

  And now being able to apply it overseas is pretty freaking awesome, right? Anytime you can like utilize all that hard time that you're away from home and training and sacrifice and hardships and go actually execute it, you're like, bro, this is what's up.

• 3:37:35Speaker 02

  And that was just the beginning. That was just the tip, you know, that was a very kinetic Helmand, uh, Helmand, uh, Afghanistan, Helmand Valley operation. Uh, but it was just different. Like I said, a lot of long distance type of stuff, a lot of, uh, a lot of new valuable learning lessons that I got to add to my toolbox to help prepare me for the future deployments that were to come. And I'm still a young guy. I was a new noob, uh, in this organization, noob in this platoon and, uh, this company. And so we finished this rotation. I come back home and there is an opportunity to go, they were looking for volunteers to go to our school house. Cause now, I mean, we're deploying, we now deployed four companies to Afghanistan.

• 3:38:18Speaker 02

  Well, dude, we're taking casualties. We are, we do not have the manpower. And so we're cycling guys from like our sister platoons, sister companies into our deploying companies. So like, you're not on this like rotation where you have nine months to recoup. You might get like four or five months. We were breaking all the rules. All the waivers were going in for us because we were so young and the demand for us was so high. So COMS like, okay, you want to come play in this battle space? Well, this is what I need. So now while we're focusing on Afghanistan, we have a third battalion that was our, our FID, our Foreign Internal Defense Battalion at the time. Uh, they were a group of, uh,

• 3:38:58Speaker 02

  various marine infantry personnel that did like some type of selection, uh, some type of specialized training, and they were the ones covering down all of our FID missions across the globe. We still, because we had those responsibilities, because you can't just play in the GWAT, you gotta play in all aspects of the GWAT. Sometimes the ones that aren't kinetic, sometimes the ones that aren't the mainstream thing. And this battalion was covering down all of those tasks. And so they're like, hey, we had to create the schoolhouse because we have no way to increase new people. Uh, cause not every force reconnaissance guy got to stay in MARSOC. They went down this checklist and you either met this checklist or you didn't meet this checklist. If you were a turd, they sent you gone. You know, you were a badass force reconnaissance guy, but not every force recon guy stayed.

• 3:39:44Speaker 02

  Just like not every reconnaissance battalion guy stayed in recon battalion. They're like, hey, we want that guy, we want that squad, we want that platoon, bring them over. And so we were filling from the ranks that we had, from the most specialized units that we had, and then we're going to execute the task. Well, now we're tasked with creating the foundation to make this reliable and repeatable. Uh, so I was part of the schoolhouse to do that. And we basically set up the whole, uh, our selection process. We had guys come down from special mission units, help us set that up. We were running our own indoctrination program, based like our own OTC before the instructors to get us all qualified, get us all in the same team of music. So now we can go teach exactly what we expect. And so we, we called it IDC, Instructor Development Course.

• 3:40:28Speaker 02

  And it was a bunch of more, guess what, hard gates. It never ended. Time constraints, timelines, hearts, you know, left to right lateral limits, like, which is good, because now we're all earning our keep here to be part of this big new machine that's moving forward. And so for the next, I was actually at the schoolhouse four and a half years. And, you know, I put through, uh, the first three classes. I taught special reconnaissance, I taught, uh, observation, I was a Marsoc Advanced Sniper Instructor. So I taught that stuff. I taught, uh, Surveillance and Reconnaissance, um, you know, close, you know, close target reconnaissance, I did all those things. That's, that's what I taught.

• 3:41:08Speaker 02

  And then I had this opportunity to deploy from the schoolhouse. So I'm like, yes, let's do this. So I found myself at our selection, I was a cadre at our selection process, and I get a phone call like, hey dude, you want to deploy? It's like not a cold gig, you'd be working at the Siege of Sotov, the Combined Joint Special Operations Task Force in, um, shit, Bagram. And, uh, it's a six month rotation. I'm like, yes, sign me up. Cause I knew if I could get overseas with my guns, I could go to work. Cause I make shit happen. Cause I find a way to get what I want. I find a way to go find work. And, cause I never believed in face value stuff, right? And so my whole vision was like, bro, I'm gonna take all my guns that I can get.

• 3:41:52Speaker 02

  Cause they're like, most of these guys, I give them like a pistol. Cause your, your personal protection, I'm like, bro, I need my sniper rifle. I need my carbine, I need my pistol, I need my nods, I need a radio. And so I made all these connections while I was in, you know, in my outfit, in my unit by treating people nicely and being fucking not a douchebag. And so my armor hooked it up. I find myself overseas in Afghanistan and I find myself at this desk job and like, I'm like, this sucks. So many depressed people seeing all the red tape. I'm like, how the fuck do operations even happen on the battlefield? When this is the fuckery that takes place? These idiots are worried about what awards they're getting. They're pissed off that the ice cream is out in the, in the, in the chow hall.

• 3:42:34Speaker 02

  These losers are like worried about TPS reports when these dudes are trying to get on the battle space. They're trying to get funding, you know, to build something. They're trying to get resupplies. They're trying to get, you know, mission critical, mission essential stuff and they're getting red taped. And I'm seeing behind the scenes. I'm like, and I was a young guy. I was an E6 at this point. I was a young E6. And I was actually a pretty senior E6. But I'm seeing all this red tape. I'm like, dude, this is just full of inefficiencies. But that's how the system works. Doesn't mean it works the best way. It just works. Well, a fucking broken clock works too, twice a day. And that's what I found out that was this is how this whole system was working out.

• 3:43:11Speaker 02

  So I got some like shitty tasks. I had to like my, I was in charge of, um, nothing I was above, nothing I was against. It was just kind of a not fun task. I was in charge of all of our Afghan Army Special Forces. I had to do a bunch of numbers and our commandos. And basically all of our partner forces, I was just responsible for figuring out where they're all at, putting them on the map, talking to all my liaison officers from the different firebases and different teams and gaining a big picture. So that could get briefed to the commander. So very important stuff, very crucial. It just was a different experience than I was used to.

• 3:43:48Speaker 02

  And then I found my gap. I found the fucking needle in the haystack. And I'm reading the reports and I find out that there's this one team, uh, in the Hellman Raider team, Marsoc team, that is just getting fucked up. They're like constantly dealing with just any sniper. They're constantly dealing with fucking like just insider threat stuff, all sorts of issues. And so every day I went to, I made friends with the Siege of Sotov commander. Cause I brief like I talk, very interactive. I have a pulse and this dude noticed it. And I was like in his back pocket. He loved me. Um, and I asked him every day for like three weeks. I'm like, dude,

• 3:44:33Speaker 02

  here's the gap. I can, I have experience in counter sniping. Let me go do this. And he's like, oh no, you can't do it.

• 3:44:43Speaker 02

  Every day.

• 3:44:45Speaker 02

  Until it's like probably two weeks, two and a half weeks into it. Every day I'm asking him. I'm talking to the, to the command sergeant major. I'm like, hey dude, I can do this. I have a gap. Oh, by the way, I already replaced myself with this guy. Oh, and these other tasks and responsibilities I get are backfilled by this person. Like I created all this stuff. And at the same time, I'm doing PSD, um, with, working with the B doc there. I'm doing PSD runs to the capital, runs to, uh, you know, runs to Kabul, runs to the embassy. Um, getting that, that driving experience, that personal security experience. I'm like, I'm maximizing my time here because a lot of people are there kind of just for the ribbon. Yeah. You know, and that's just not who I am. And so they're like, all right, check it out.

• 3:45:30Speaker 02

  No, I get, keep on telling no. I'm like, okay. Well, I get on an airplane. I get on a C one 30 to fly to one of my firebases, one of my firebases that I was managing, you know, through email. I'm not like in charge of it by any means. Yeah. Uh, I'm just talking to a point of contact on the phone and I'm going there to like, I want to see what's up, meet my friends, see my friends, meet these people that I'm talking to on the radio and on the computer and put a face to the name.

• 3:45:56Speaker 02

  It was a SEAL buddy in, in mine, SEAL buddy and me, cause we worked in the same jock. We go there, we do our business and we take this trash flight back. Basically like, you know, late night red eye C one 30 flight back to Bagram.

• 3:46:09Speaker 02

  It's just him, me and a pallet of gear in the center of the C one 30 and the crew. And we're over, we're over the airbase. And this fucking explosion happens. And essentially what happened, the hydraulic pressure, the hydraulic pump machine that does flaps, landing gear, controls the fucking aircraft exploded in the fucking bay.

• 3:46:30Speaker 02

  And now there's all this hot, steamy, fucking fluid, just being sprayed everywhere. Dude, we're fucking drenched in it. It's all over the fucking floor and the pilot comes on the comm. He's like, dude, I can't lower fucking flaps. I can't get my gears down and we're over. We're right outside the city and we're like in like get shot fuck down space. I instantly start fucking taking parachutes and throwing them toward the fucking ramp. Cause the parachutes that were close to us were already getting drenched. I'm like, fuck this dude. I ain't dying in a fucking airplane. Start throwing parachutes toward the ramp. Get them away. So we gotta fucking bell out. We have parachutes that aren't fucking completely saturated. And then my, my seal buddy and I would just take our gerbers and our knives and we'd start cranking open. Uh, cause they had like a container full of hydraulic fluid.

• 3:47:15Speaker 02

  And we're just cranking cans and throwing them into this like broken, spewing, fucking hot, misting, choking yourself machine to get enough pressure in there. And the, the flight crew guys are throwing to us, this plane's jumping up and down the sky. We're like, dude, we're gonna fucking die. And, uh, dude, sure as shit. He gets his flaps going. He gets the wheels going and we land. And the ambulances there to meet us, that was a big deal. And they're like, they rushed us right to the hospital and they're like, oh, we gotta get you guys checked out. Like, no, we're okay. Like ralphing all this shit. We're literally drenched in all this fluid and it's so hot and steamy. It's like burning your esophagus. And, uh, I get into this hospital and, uh, I'm like, I don't belong here.

• 3:48:00Speaker 02

  There's like wound, real like combat wounded guys here. And I'm like getting rushed to, I'm like, oh, my lungs kind of fucking hurt and I'm gonna rush to x-rays. I'm gonna rush to this and just like, there's a fucking dude screaming over here. There's this guy missing a fucking leg. I'm like, like, maybe this isn't that bad. And, uh, but I don't know about you, but we have a good way of playing things off. They're not a big deal. Well, word got around very quickly and the next day, uh, my seal buddy and I, we were presented awards, uh, for helping and saving the crew. And that's when he told me, yes, you can go. And so he told me I had 30 days to make a difference or I'm coming back.

• 3:48:44Speaker 02

  I was out there for four fucking months. And that was the rest of my deployment. And I get out there, uh, their sniper for the team. Uh, he broke his arm back in the States, great fucking guy, solid fucking friend, solid American.

• 3:49:04Speaker 02

  He wasn't coming back on deployment.

• 3:49:07Speaker 02

  And so I, I just seamlessly entered this fucking team. I knew half the guys. I put the officer through school. And I was fucking humbled because my mentors that I looked up to as a young scout sniper, force reconnaissance guy, they were the leaders of this special operations team. And in a matter of two years of being out of the loop and training guys, so much has changed on a team. How they're broken down, what they're doing, the missions they're doing, the fucking, you know, everything has changed. So you got welcomed, but. Everyone, everyone knew me there. And I was super welcome. I was given specific tasks and I had a role to do. And it was simple. Go do your fucking job. I'm like, Roger that.

• 3:49:52Speaker 02

  But I'm finding out these guys are doing everything different. Inserting with one sixtieth, you know, we're doing nighttime raids, fucking ATV, side by, you know, all these things. Which I wasn't exposed to my previous deployment. Uh, my previous deployment was still special, but it was more conventional in the execution of things, but our missions were the specialized missions. Uh, how we did it was, I would say, a little bit more advanced than what I was kind of previously used to. This was completely different. Now I'm flying around doing aerial reconnaissance. Now I'm, now I'm doing big wig shit that I'm trained to do. I just never got a chance to do it. Now I'm doing it on this team. When I was really just going to supposed to fill a just desk job.

• 3:50:34Speaker 02

  Well, by this time, Marsoc finds out that they have a guy who was supposed to be a desk guy. On a fucking team, a very violent area. That gets all the fucking press. Where at? Fod Robinson near Helmand Valley. Okay. Yeah. So we're right off the, uh. Uh, right near this, this city called Pankalay, this village called Pankalay in the Helmand River is right there. And I think it's like highway one that leads all the way up. And it's like all your little firebases are right there and it was super fucking kinetic. Uh, a few weeks before I got there, half an O D, O D A got fucking zapped. Um, because there were, uh, there was a pressure plate inside one of the towers on our base.

• 3:51:15Speaker 02

  And Taliban attacked that tower, SOP, you flood to the tower, do your fucking job. Well, they walked up there, hit this pressure plate and they fucking got toast. Uh, we had insider threats all the time. Um, it was definitely a sniper's head haven, uh, in that area. And right outside of our base, we had this, uh, this hill called the anthill. And it was brilliant. I would just grab some food, grab fucking ammo, hop on a fucking four wheeler. And take off to this base and, uh, this anthill, I climb up there.

• 3:51:50Speaker 02

  And I would just get to work. And at this time, when I first started up, I was building target packages. So now I'm like, I'm observing, figuring out what the space is about. I'm taking pictures, I'm building a pattern of life. Uh, because I learned from previous deployments, you can shoot one person today or ten tomorrow. And I knew I was going to get more fish with more fucking bait than I would by just yanking or stabbing the first thing at a saw. And so, because we were still setting up patrols, but most importantly than just killing these guys. Our, our partner forces always getting jacked up. They're always getting hemmed up outside of our camp. And so I needed to see how they were actually coming there and how they're setting up these I A Ds. Who was a defector that was part of our crew?

• 3:52:32Speaker 02

  You know, like what are all these things were happening and what was our limited advance that I could see? Uh, where did I think the Taliban didn't think that we could see? And that's where I was at, that's what I was trying to see. That was the, that was my main focus, cause it's not what you can see is going to bite you. It's what you can't see that's going to fucking kill you. And so, you know, we're building all these target packs and we're like all these BOLO lists. And we're just, we're, we're creating a lot of momentum down there to the point where, you know, I got to stay out there past my 30 day limit. I'm doing my fucking job, finding myself going on these missions. I'm like, this is epic. You know, nothing, I mean, y- you know the deal. There's something about flying on a fucking bird into no man's land.

• 3:53:15Speaker 02

  Fucking taking off your fucking bungee and walking out to complete silence. There is not a fucking high out there like that, not to me. And I enjoyed every aspect of it. I was being taught things that I never saw before. I mean, dude, everything, dude, their charges were different because the TTPs changed. Everything was different and I'm just like, whoa. Like the wealth of knowledge is happening and I'm just being blown away with how we're executing and how professional these guys are because I'm producing the end result. But my friends, my homies that didn't go to the schoolhouse, they were still doing the mission, just to see their evolution and their professionalism change just for the better in a matter of a year, year and a half. That's insane.

• 3:53:59Speaker 02

  It was crazy and it was so impressive and made me so proud to like be part of that unit. Obvious reasons. They're fucking hitters, man. That's what they did. It's what we do. And yeah, that deployment was awesome. It was really fun. It was very enjoyable, but I learned a lot too. I learned a new aspect of like working these joint gigs. And this is where expansion, mental expansion happened. And I learned something new that I thought was stupid, but now I realize that that's just another game that you have to play. You can play it how they tell you to, or you can reinvent it and make it better, which is what I did. I made it so much better. I found my way on a team. Then I get on a team, I find a gap and I, you know, and I'm learning from these guys that have learned more than me and that have more experience than me.

• 3:54:40Speaker 02

  And I'm just, it's just this vortex of knowledge and I just realized like this is what's really fun about this job. No matter how much sucky stuff is out there, stupid Marine Corps shit I had to deal with, the evolution of the mind and the experience of like your skill craft and your trade craft is, that is a rush. You're literally becoming a fine tuned specimen. You're weaponizing everything and every aspect of your life. And that's the shit that kept on driving me for more and more and more and.

• 3:55:06Speaker 02

  Um, you know, I learned a lot that rotation, you know, more fucking crazy combat stories, crazy things happening. I'm just like, how am I surviving this? But you know, guess what? It worked out and I survived them. Um, I come back from that rotation.

• 3:55:21Shawn Ryan?

  Well, let's hear it. What were you guys doing down there?

• 3:55:23Speaker 02

  Uh, so what we were doing, our main mission was we were running disruption operations. So what that means and what that meant for us was that we would fly into no man's land, enemy held occupied territory where the Taliban leaders live, where the fighter leaders live. We fly into the backyard because we limited our chances of, you know, IEDs. We, we really, our main focus concern was, you know, shit that was set off inside as like a oh shit plan. That was our main thing. Um, and what we would do, we would come in under darkness, you know, patrol our 3K, 4K into our target site, breach our wall, establish our shit, and we set up an ambush. And the main thing was, is we were to disrupt this area of operation for the next three days. That was our mission. You will pick

• 3:56:06Speaker 02

  a fight for three fucking days. Cause after three days, we'll have all, every dude with a gun that doesn't like us on our position. Therefore, our commandos, our Afghan commandos and our other special operations teams can come in and insert these guys into the villages to create a new firebase, you know, to do all these types of things. Cause we were doing village stability operations was just now becoming a thing where you go inside these villages and you establish a exactly firebase, you work with the villagers and you create your militia force and you rinse, wash, repeat textbook shit that works. Right? We're, we're creating an army, we're creating militia, we're, we're, we're blending in the, the Afghan

• 3:56:47Speaker 02

  commandos, the Afghan army, the Afghan special forces with their local populace, which they think they're sold out. You know, so we're, we're combining the whole gyro, the government of, of, I forget what the.

• 3:56:58Shawn Ryan?

  So you guys were essentially a diversion to get the.

• 3:57:02Speaker 02

  Get the fighters to come to us.

• 3:57:03Shawn Ryan?

  Get the face in.

• 3:57:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, because what they were doing before when the commandos would go in to take over these villages to clear through declared any fighters and they're bringing a special operations team in there, plus an Afghan special operations team. There was so much hate and discontent because it was just fucking chaos and violence. They don't give a shit about your well or your your school that you want to build at that point. You just fucked up everything. So they had this great idea like, well, let's come up with these different missions where we can take a lot of the heat off the main effort, put these dudes to work. But now we're building up these Afghan commandos, these Afghan special forces. We're making them the good guys, not the not the pounders, the ground pounders where the locals hate them. Because the locals hate you, they're not going to tell you any information Afghan or not.

• 3:57:46Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:57:47Speaker 02

  And that's what this team's mission that I was a part of, that's what their mission was. I'm like, dude, this is epic. You literally just set up, you set up ambush positions, hoist your flag, dude, and then you just dill death. That was it. And I had a team commander, he's passed away now, his name was Matt Manukian. He died from an insider threat of following deployment. And, dude, this fucking dude got it. He gave a fuck about his dudes. He cared about the mission. He was that, he wasn't your standard Marine Corps officer. He wasn't trying to win the war on terror in six months. He was trying to keep his guys alive and keep his guys employed. You know, he he had their best interests. He had our best interests.

• 3:58:31Speaker 02

  He was a force multiplier. He was like everyone, everything you asked for. And to see that as a student, because I put him through school, to see him in that evolution and to hear these great things before I even get to the team, get to the team, get to witness it myself, you know what you're doing is working. And that's pretty good, especially when you're battling the bureaucracy of the Marine Corps, the bureaucracy of all the red tape you have to do for the military, to put all your energy and effort towards training, you know, someone in the special operations field and instilling that fucking mindset of like, this is, this is what's required of us. And so that was it. That was our main focus was these disruption operations and that continued on the rest of the deployment.

• 3:59:14Speaker 02

  And to the point where my Mars, like my headquarters command got pretty upset that I was out there doing these missions. Because I think their thing was that if they lost a number, a roster number.

• 3:59:27Speaker 02

  In combat, when you were assigned to this desk job, that was gonna raise a lot of questions. So I started to get benched. And I was told if I go out again, I'm gonna get fucking yanked back. And so I had to stop going on these raid missions. And I just stayed around the firebase.

• 3:59:45Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, man.

• 3:59:46Speaker 02

  Do my anthill shit, you know, do my sniping stuff as I could, support the team as best I could. Uh, but I'm definitely not gonna jeopardize their flow. Because I'm selfish. And I'd rather be with this quality, these quality of men, helping them move ammo than being back in that fucking place. Listen to another motherfucker tell me about ice cream that's not there. And, um, so I finished my deployment there on this team. Uh, I got probably like two, two and a half, three weeks of that life and it sucked. But I was there to support and we did a lot of missions around the base. This captain was great, man. He like shifted missions so he could maximize his team to include myself and I just felt so loved and appreciated and valued and maybe wanna work harder.

• 4:00:30Speaker 02

  So I used all the point of contact that I knew back in the rear to help these guys get what they needed because they didn't know those point of contacts. Because the people they're reaching out to, they're getting red taped. I'm like, bro, I know that. I've hugged that guy. I know this person. This dude loves me. And they're like, what? So now I changed my role to still be an asset in the team, but I was just using my fucking, I was using this phone now. I was using my phone to do my bidding and it worked out great, man. These guys got exactly what they needed. Do resupply of all the comfort shit, the good stuff they needed, the ammunition they needed, the weapons they needed, support they needed. I was having guys come out, do training with them.

• 4:01:04Shawn Ryan?

  Did you get them some ice cream?

• 4:01:05Speaker 02

  Dude, there was, there was no ice cream.

• 4:01:08Shawn Ryan?

  Just kidding.

• 4:01:08Speaker 02

  Oh, there was no ice cream, but I did bring them. My thing was cookies, those, uh... What were those cookies called? Those big, soft, gooey, uh, lord, no. Doesn't matter. There is these cookies out there. In Afghanistan. I forget, Otis Spunkmeyer.

• 4:01:28Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 4:01:29Speaker 02

  Remember those things?

• 4:01:30Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, yeah.

• 4:01:30Speaker 02

  Dude, pallets.

• 4:01:32Shawn Ryan?

  I was hoping you took the ice cream machine from the headquarters.

• 4:01:35Speaker 02

  No, I just had like seven pallets of Ripits, protein and Otis Spunkmeyer's airdropped in.

• 4:01:41Shawn Ryan?

  Nice.

• 4:01:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, like, we had a typical airdrop resupply, because that's how we got resupplied. Airdrops go out there on our ATVs, grab all their shoots, burn them so they're not used against us. Grab their shit, secure the area, load them up in trucks, bring them back to the base. Well, on this particular airdrop, I'm waiting because I have like, I have a surprise for these guys. I had like literally seven pallets to Cody Alfred. Unincluded because we're getting diesel, we're getting fuel, we're getting ammo, we're getting basic boring shit. I'm like, that's peasant stuff. I'm bringing the good stuff, the shit that makes you fat, shit that makes you feel good inside. The drinks, the sauces, the fucking, the cookies, all of it. Comfort items, that was my role. And this airdrop comes in, dude, and I'm just that, see their team, get super stoked.

• 4:02:26Speaker 02

  I'm like, and I'm gonna do just like them, but I made a friend. And that relationship brought seven pallets out of the sky into these dudes' bellies, into their fucking rooms. You know, those fed, because one thing I loved about Marsoc was that, A, we always left places better than we got there. And we always took care of our fucking own. We always took care of the Marines. Marines got treated like shit. General purpose Marines, treated like shit, all the time. And we would, every time we go to their bases to do coordination missions or to give them intel briefs. And granted, we're rolling up in full multicam. You know, everyone's got beards, not me, baby face. But all the other adults have beards, we're all in multicam, completely foreign. When they find out we're Marines, they're like, what the fuck just happened?

• 4:03:12Speaker 02

  And.

• 4:03:15Speaker 02

  But we're like, hey, we brought you some ham. We brought you fucking a pallet of lobster for your fucking men. And dude, to see those young marine faces that were getting treated like shit, you know, they're marines. They're just, they're enjoying the fruits of what they have and they didn't have much.

• 4:03:33Speaker 02

  So to be able to always get back in those capacities, I was like, dude, this is what it's about. This is fucking good. So we always took care of our own. We always took care of people. But you had to watch out because there's a thin line because Marines are like locusts. We had some engineers come onto our base once to help us move our ammo supply point and to build some new positions and bunkers. And we invited them into our chow hall, a very small chow hall, and that was a mistake. The slurpee machine that no one drank from because we weren't unsure what's in there, gone. Mayonnaise packets, gone. Ketchup packets, gone. Like locusts, bro. It took us weeks to like restock our kitchen, restock our, our, like the things that had like cobwebs on it, gone. Because we were scared. We're like, dude, we don't know what that is. How long has it been here? You know?

• 4:04:16Speaker 02

  Jesus, this shit was when Jesus was around, you know, this shit's old and ancient. And these dudes did not care. They were like, this is not an MRE. This is a roof of my head. They're happy. They're treated with respect. I can use your gym. We're like, no, you guys can't use our gym. We learned our fucking lesson. But yeah, we always took care of them and that's, that was, that was the amazing aspect of combat that I really enjoyed. Because you can do so much more overseas than you can at home. And you can give so much more overseas than you can at home because you have so much more there than you do here. And to be able to spread that love and to spread that gratitude and that appreciation and to maybe inspire one of those people to like do better at their job. You know, that's what it's all about. You know, I've been in gunfights with more women than most dudes have ever even comprehended in their life.

• 4:05:01Speaker 02

  Because, you know, when you see someone that's not part of your crew, you can keep them as an outcast or you can bring them into the fold and fucking lift them up. And so dude, I was using this engineer because I had to stay on base. So I'm using these guys as like my fucking squad. I'm like, yo, my dudes are out here doing this. This is what we're gonna do. You needed you to do this lieutenant. I need you to take your truck over here. You people over here and there's like dudes and chicks, part of the engineer and like dude, just. It's amazing what people can do when they're respected and they're giving a task, a condition and a standard. And uh, that's what I learned from that deployment. I learned this whole new level of empowerment. Cause before I got there, my, this team that I was a part of now, they're doing it. So I'm learning from them and now I'm getting to participate in it. I'm like, this makes this hell a little bit more manageable.

• 4:05:46Speaker 02

  This makes all this other previous hell, all these other previous stories, all these other previous hardships and just what the fucks? It makes a little bit more manageable now. Cause I'm seeing this evolution of growth and fuck, the higher I move up, the more I can impact. The better unit I go to, the more cool shit I can do and the more cool shit I can help people with. So it's like, there's a lot of connecting dots in this deployment. And so that deployment ended, I rolled back home and uh, that was kind of that. I finished my time at the schoolhouse. I ended up rolling to, I took over a team uh, at our third battalion. I was a team chief now. I got, I got called like, hey, do you want to be a team chief? I'm like, fuck yeah. And that was the number one guy in a team. I'm like, that was a big responsibility for me. I was a, I was a new E7.

• 4:06:31Speaker 02

  I was assigned to go to Africa. That was my area of operation and I'm like, Africa? I'm like, let's do this. Never thought I could go to Africa. Now I'm getting ready to go to Africa. I'm like, dude, this is a whole new field. I'm doing, I'm learning embassy stuff. I'm learning about money. I'm learning about different pots of money. I'm learning about all sorts of things that I never was exposed to. But there's all these other guys I've been exposed to this whole time. So I'm just learning more and more and more. Cause this is all new. And uh, cause educate, the, the education funnel is very quick in Mars like when we first stood up, even the first like four or five years. Cause what happened yesterday wasn't going to happen today. And maybe everyone else was smart, but I wasn't. And I only learned and knew what I was exposed to, what I could find information out about it.

• 4:07:12Speaker 02

  And uh, the battalion that I checked into at the time, our third battalion was kind of like our bastard battalion. I was like the seventh, you know, prior reconnaissance guy to ever be there. Uh, so we were, we were always instantly shipped out and we were conducting missions all around the world. What were you doing in Af- where'd you go in Africa? I was actually in Senegal. Our main thing was uh, human trafficking and uh, counter narco. Human trafficking? Yeah, very, it was, it was a.

• 4:07:41Speaker 02

  Very lucrative type mission, very vanilla executed mission.

• 4:07:46Shawn Ryan?

  What whole? Tell me about the human trafficking. And you said narco trafficking?

• 4:07:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yep. So apparently, uh, intel reporting was that there was, uh, this jungle, this Kozamonts, they were, um, the, uh, the fighters there were transporting drugs and weapons. And they're also, uh, you know, using prostitution, bringing people out there. Everything was for ransom. Everything was about money there. Everything was about drugs and guns. And these fighters, these Senegalese special forces guys were like getting fucking ass pounded. They were completely unequipped for the training and the, the knowledge how to operate in their environment. They're seeing, receiving a lot of the TTPs that we were fighting in Afghanistan.

• 4:08:33Speaker 02

  So a lot of bomb type of stuff, Al Shabab, AQIM, all these other terrorist organizations, violent extremist organizations were all kind of spreading knowledge and love across the battle space. And Senegal was pretty vanilla. It's pretty basic. Um, so we really had this cool mission on paper, but you have the embassy is like, nah, players, this ain't for you. This just got you out here. Your focus is to train these guys up. And at the time I'm like, shit, I'm gonna live, my team's gonna live in this deployment? And I'm wearing civilian clothes and I'm driving around a dope ass Land Rover? Like, okay. Oopsie, I'm not gonna enjoy this. And so I got to maximize this and completely new venue

• 4:09:15Speaker 02

  of deployment that I'd never experienced before. I'm learning, I'm dealing with, you know, agency guys, I'm dealing with fucking state department people, I'm dealing with, you know, operation funds, I'm dealing with just learning this whole new aspect of being a special operator. And I'm also learning what a non kinetic deployment's about. It could still go south at any time, but my mission was different. Now I'm training my partner force to go out and do the work. Vice me go with them. So this is when advise, assist and accompany was coming this big thing. This AA missions, advise and assist, advise, assist and accompany, AAA. All these new catchphrases and catchwords that were coming out. But essentially, we train our partner force up and they go do the work and they come back, report to us, we debrief and we, you know, set up the next training venue.

• 4:10:00Speaker 02

  How can we prepare them? What did you run into? What were the IEDs like? So then my engineers would come up and recreate the scenario, recreate the training venue. And then we just kind of cycled their guys through this pipeline. A lot of it was checks in the boxes because you kind of learn this about money at this point and you learn that some of these host nations don't really care about their training. They care about the funding. And so we're getting guys that weren't even part of the special forces crew. It was really weird, but very educational at the same time. Completely out of my comfort zone. Just, it was weird. I was always in the red navigating that battle space. But it helped shape me.

• 4:10:43Speaker 02

  It helped shape me for the future things and, you know, that knowledge and experience of doing not necessarily, I wasn't doing the kinetic stuff. I was empowering the kinetic operations. I was training the kinetic operations. That part was cool, but I was really stoked that my team was going to live. That was really, that was the first deployment I've ever been on that I felt pretty confident that all my dudes were going to come home. And I don't give a fuck what anyone says, I cared more about that than shooting a fucking gun. And I had a lot of young, eager guys in my team. A lot of them I put through school myself and I'm like very grateful that that wasn't our mission set. Well, we're in Africa for a couple of months and to rate a deployment ribbon, you have to be there for 90 days.

• 4:11:28Speaker 02

  I'm there like 65, 70 days. And I get this security call and I get told to check my email.

• 4:11:38Speaker 02

  So I log into my laptop and I check my email and it says my team's getting retasked. And I'm like, it's told that I'm being redeployed within the next like 72 fucking hours. So my team leader and I, my officer of the team, we devise a plan.

• 4:11:58Speaker 02

  We brief our team and we start breaking down shop. We fly back to the States and I come back to the States and I get told like, hey, you're flying, you're flying overseas right now and you're gonna go conduct a PDSS and you're going to Afghanistan. I'm like,

• 4:12:16Speaker 02

  I just got back from Africa. They're like, well, now you're going to fucking Afghanistan. I'm like, okay. So at this time, Marsoc was taking significant casualties as well as just our manpower management wasn't on point. We were breaking all sorts of red line dates for like having our head to pillow, I believe is what they call it, where you have to be home so long from training and combat to meet a readiness requirement before you can fucking go out again.

• 4:12:43Speaker 02

  And, go ahead. But you just come home from Africa. I just come home from Africa, but I didn't hit my whole dwelt, I didn't hit my max timeframe. Oh. So it's like it never happened. Yeah, okay. So I come back and I find myself, I'm flying to California with my team leader. Fly to California, I link up with our first battalion and I was to be the first, third battalion to deploy with the first battalion to Afghanistan. And my team was chose because myself and a couple of our guys had Afghanistan experience and we were the most senior ones of the battalion and my team was the most capable. So

• 4:13:22Speaker 02

  I get the mission, I'm being told, hey, we're deploying in like four months. I'm like, Roger that. I come back to North Carolina. I brief my battalion, hey, this is what's going on. This is my evolution of what I'm doing outside in the, in the West Coast and basically I got this green light to fucking do whatever I wanted to do. Dude, it was great. I built my whole training plan off a fucking calendar. I didn't do any of these stupid reports I needed to do. If I said I needed some gear, all I had to do was set up a fucking meeting. And I didn't always get the gear that I needed, but there was so much high vis on my team. Beyond high vis, we were like the fifth course of action that Marsoc as a whole chose.

• 4:14:02Speaker 02

  And to even be be by name in that course of action, I felt pretty fucking badass.

• 4:14:07Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:14:08Speaker 02

  And um, you know, so I had all the support through the training. Dude, my guys are just like, we're doing all sorts of badass shit and we're doing it all ourselves. No one's helping us. We're super self-sufficient. We're, we deployed ourselves to Africa, we redeployed ourselves to the States, we deployed ourselves to California. We fucking did everything, all of our training, everything ourselves. And now I'm getting new qualifications because now I have different requirements. I didn't take my whole team out to Africa because I didn't need, I had a cap capacity. I can only take so many people to Africa because I can only have so many soft people there. Afghanistan is a different story. Now my team fucking doubled. So now I'm rolling with a 24 man team almost. I got 14 operators, I have engineers, I got fucking dogs, I got bomb guys, I got JTACs.

• 4:14:53Speaker 02

  I got the whole kit and caboodle like I did on our previous Afghan teams. But now I'm getting it here and we're ready, we're setting the precedence of what, what right looks like for this mission set. Well, being a third battalion guy, for a third battalion team, we got hate, so much hate. And I came from this first battalion, that's where I started my career. And they were like, fuck you guys. You guys are just here for sympathy. Cause we were deploying four teams now, because we were only deploying three teams at a time. Well, now we're deploying four teams at a time and my team was creating that fourth team. My team crushed everybody. All of our training venues, my team fucking crushed it. I was not gonna let my fucking guys go embarrass themselves. I was not gonna let them be fucking bastardized.

• 4:15:36Speaker 02

  Because my battalion wasn't running a tight ship prior to all this. There was not a lot of standards that were being set there. That's why they're the bastards at the time. It's completely different now, but at this time, this very early stages, it was very volatile. And you're getting all the hate, like Marsoc's getting hate. Who the fuck are you guys? Why are you getting missions? Well, we're fucking doing good, so we're getting missions. But then you have that tribalism inside the companies, the battalions. Fuck those guys. Those guys are from third, like, dude, my guys would whoop your dude's ass. Why are you tripping? Why are we hating each other? Why are we doing this? And That was another lesson of learning stuff. Is this never ending learning? I was like, holy shit, there's you're never good enough one. It seems like and there's always room to learn and grow.

• 4:16:18Speaker 02

  And that's what we were experiencing and you know, my team just did amazing. They crushed everything. We find ourselves in Afghanistan, you know, a few months later, doing amazing things. I got sergeants that are, you know, E5s, doing millions of dollar deals, you know, talking to generals, running missions. It was a not as kinetic deployment as I was used to. I was very far north. I was near this place called Kajaki, the dam. It was very, very far north. And we were at this point of time where it was still a kinetic battlefield, but we were really transitioning into the downsizing. This is 2011, maybe 12. We were downsizing not only our soft presence, but we're downsizing our involvement.

• 4:17:00Speaker 02

  So everything turned into like, train the Afghan special forces guys and make them go to missions. And that was a tough one to swallow because we're in the same helmet area. We're in the same stomping grounds that all of our homies got killed at or all this shit that takes place at. And telling my younger guys in the team like, hey, because I was not about to just go on some random ass missions, just to go on a combat patrol to get contact. That's how you die. There's no justice. How could I justify your death? There's I have no mission. Walking around aimlessly is absolutely stupid. And I did a lot of that battle. I had a lot of those battles. One of my, my leadership counterpart in particular, he really wanted to do these things. And it was just a constant battle.

• 4:17:45Speaker 02

  I found myself, this deployment wasn't about combat for me. This deployment was about conflict. And I found myself spinning my entire work up, my entire fucking deployment, protecting my guys from what I thought at the time was poor leadership, decision making and poor employment opportunities. Uh, because it's really easy to allow cracks to happen in your mission planning. It's really easy to green light a mission that you don't truly believe in. And those missions you don't have true confidence in. And you never really have, you have as much confidence as you can in any mission planning. But if your team is not collectively visualizing themselves winning and coming home, that's not a good plan.

• 4:18:29Speaker 02

  And if it makes the youngest guy question shit, that's not a good plan.

• 4:18:35Speaker 02

  And I found this, this operation was a lot of those questionable plans. And I spent a lot of time on the phone. Putting up resistance, I had a lot of time in conversations and meetings, putting up resistance. It was just a lot of strange shit that was happening. And What did your team want? What did my team want? Yeah. They wanted to fucking fight. How was that? It's difficult. Luckily for me, I had very strong element leaders that were fucking true leaders. That were combat vets. That saw bigger than their ego. And made sure their fucking dudes were employed and empowered. You know, like, there was no easy task on my team. You know, my guys called them plenty of drone missions.

• 4:19:19Speaker 02

  But I tried to instill them and my leaders helped try to instill them like, yo dude, there's a different way to fight this war, man. This war is downsizing. You know, this is not being scared. This is, it doesn't make fucking sense. You know, we don't even, I can only send out so many soft guys per Afghan partner forces. So my odds aren't even in my fucking favor. So why am I gonna put myself in that gunfight? And at this time, the Taliban realized like, wait a second, if I just act like a mob, like a mafia. Treat this shit like street crime, I don't get fucked with. When they treat the environment like a fucking terrorist playground, they get fucked with. So now they're running their guns, they're running their drugs, they're moving their things, do shoot, move, communicating, doing their hustle. But on the fucking mafia side, I felt like, you know, they're doing completely different.

• 4:20:04Speaker 02

  Different of how, now it's tied to the government. It's tied to the fucking city council, it's tied to the village elders. Like, it's a completely different dynamic now because they realize that money is more important to them than conflict. And we're out there, so as long as they can be good boys and girls and not stir up the fucking hornet's nest, we're gonna be out of there in time. We're gonna be out of their fucking way, out of their poppy fields. And they can go run a fucking muck like they do. They focused, I'd imagine, on their government contracts. Their fucking, their drugs. And the things that made them hella big, because it costs money to run fucking wars. And Once my guys started to see that, they started to empower that belief system and make sure

• 4:20:45Speaker 02

  that our partner forces were good to go. You know, we supported them numerous combat, you know, mortar mission operations, drone operations. So we're supporting them. I just tried to teach the guys like, "Hey, man, we don't have to be the ones doing that." That's, that's the purpose of being soft is that we use our fucking minds to fight a fucking war because we're not in this like foot, foot to ground environment anymore. We're more like, "Let's use our minds to create the fucking battle space that we want to, not walk into something that we don't." And it was just that new era of life. Uh, but it all worked out. It all worked out pretty well. Um, all those guys were studs. I think they all appreciated what's going on. By the time I realized that there was a big, there was a big conflict and it was with me and the team leader. And it caused a lot

• 4:21:30Speaker 02

  of rift in the dynamics of the team. A lot of sides were being chose.

• 4:21:34Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:21:35Speaker 02

  And that-

• 4:21:36Shawn Ryan?

  It's polarizing.

• 4:21:37Speaker 02

  It's very, and it sucked because I was part of that. I was contributing to that. And at the time, I thought I was just and mighty. And whether that's true or not, which I believe is still true to this day, how I handled it wasn't the best, but that would be years later till I figured that shit out. I did what I best I could in a combat situation. Well, standing up for what I believe in and standing up for my men caused me to be in two investigations on deployment. Um, so now my team is getting all this visibility. So now we're the, we're this team from this one battalion attached to this battalion in Afghanistan and there's investigations going on. There's a bunch of witch hunting operations happening. What I mean by that, people were looking for reasons to get me out of there. Cause I put up resistance. Cause I used my mind and I trained my dudes

• 4:22:22Speaker 02

  to do the same thing. So when you weigh the numbers of like who's on what side, it was very apparent that something was fishy. There was not a clear cut pace thing. And I hated that for my guys. To the point where I'm like, "Yo, you can take me out of country right now, but take this guy with me and let my team be safe. But if you take me out of here, they're in fucking danger. This is not going to be good. There's going to be bad decisions to be made." And that was the war that I was willing to fight for. That was my, that was my necklace story. This is where I said, "You know what? This is where I fucking stand." And I still stand behind it. Because at the time-

• 4:22:57Speaker 02

  If you bend over once, you will always fucking fold. You'll be known as a person that folds. And I did everything in my educated fucking powers to adapt and to evolve to the environment that I was handed, to the situations that I was dealt with.

• 4:23:14Speaker 02

  But it still caused friction. So now this deployment, now I'm trying to keep my guys alive, trying to use them to use their brains, to do other fucking things, and make sure they're still maximized and being fulfilled and contributing how the best they can. Now I'm dealing with this whole administrative fiasco. And now, little do I know, my name is just being smeared all back home. Cause I'm the guy that's in conflict with an officer.

• 4:23:38Speaker 02

  And we wrap this deployment, I come home, my team crushed it. My team crushed so many things. They did so many amazing things.

• 4:23:51Speaker 02

  And all I was told was, you're under investigation again.

• 4:23:56Speaker 02

  I'm like, what about my team? They fucking crushed things, dude. Where's their credit? Where's their like, out of boys? And no one cared. Damn. And I allowed that to victimize me for a long time. I was really pissed off and hurt. But um, one thing I learned, cause I learned from that deployment too. One thing I learned is that

• 4:24:17Speaker 02

  we're here to adapt and evolve. And even in conflict, you can adapt and evolve. And it took me years later to get over this hatred, years later to make amends with this individual, but this dude is like my friend now. I've learned from this guy. He learned from me. We learned together. But at the time, you know, that wasn't the case at the time. That's not what came out. And so looking back and looking back at all the career, I just think about like, you know, we always have an opportunity to do something different than what we're currently doing. We might not feel it. We might feel like this is the direction that we must go, but there's probably another way that we can do it, but no matter how just you feel. And those perspectives took me a long time to figure out. A lot of healing, a lot of forgiveness to occur to do that. I mean, he's really your friend?

• 4:24:58Speaker 02

  He is my friend now. We're not still homies on the phone, but he actually was my retiring officer. Uh, because I have respect for him. Uh, because during this whole evolution.

• 4:25:10Speaker 02

  Dude, Marsoc smeared my name for like four years. I was like blacklisted, it seemed like.

• 4:25:15Shawn Ryan?

  So you were the honor man of four different things. I called around a couple of buddies about you. I think you're the fastest guy to ever make E8.

• 4:25:23Speaker 02

  I was, I picked up E8 in eleven and a half years.

• 4:25:27Shawn Ryan?

  Which hasn't been done before on Marsoc, correct?

• 4:25:30Speaker 02

  In the Marine Corps.

• 4:25:31Shawn Ryan?

  In the Marine Corps.

• 4:25:32Speaker 02

  Correct. And...

• 4:25:34Shawn Ryan?

  And now they're smearing your name?

• 4:25:35Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 4:25:36Shawn Ryan?

  Interesting.

• 4:25:37Speaker 02

  Because I was in conflict with an officer. And that does not go well. And so, I finished this rotation. I go back to the team. I finish my investigation. I get acquitted of everything. But I'm, I'm getting, I'm, case studies are being said about me and this officer. We, all these horrible things and you can definitely know that the case study is about me even though it's supposed to be anonymous. And I'm attending these safety stand downs, these mandatory training events, and it's about fucking me and this officer. And it was fucking embarrassing and demoralizing. And watching all...

• 4:26:15Shawn Ryan?

  This was, this was fucking big.

• 4:26:18Speaker 02

  This was a fucking very big deal. It was four years total. Two and a half years total, four investigations, acquitted of everything. Uh, but they were substantial to the point where I literally got fucking put on the sideline. I had to go to our operations shop to wait my timeout while these investigations were going on.

• 4:26:41Speaker 02

  So I got pulled from my team when I came back. And I was just, fuck the world. I was pissed off.

• 4:26:51Speaker 02

  And I was pissed off not because I was in this timeout position. I was pissed off because these other officer friends that I put through school that I've known through my Marine Corps career, turned their fucking back on me. Some of my senior enlisted friends turned their fucking back on me because of all these allegations I was under, you know, accused of. And all this like flack. And then, it all goes away. I get acquitted. I get a sheet of paper that says, "If you ever do something like this again, you're in trouble." And the commander that gave it to me is like... You can throw this away afterward in talking if you want to. I'm like, Roger that. That's what I fucking did. And I went back to work.

• 4:27:32Speaker 02

  I went back to work. I kinda had a chip in my shoulder, but my chip was like, I'm not going to fucking stop. I'm gonna go even fucking further. I had visions to take over Mars. Like, that was my goal. I wanted to be the top. I wanted to be the boss. I wanted to be the leader there. Um, I wasn't, I had a lot of great mentors that were leaders above me, a rank above me. Uh, then I also had some that weren't very good, but that's everywhere. So I'm learning from all the things I liked, what I didn't like, and all these amazing men that helped me get to where I was at, that looked out for me, that covered for me. You know, that had my best interests, even through these darkest times. Like, I'm forever grateful for them. And these were all lessons I was able to learn and bring into when I was in power, when I had that level of influence, where I got to pay it forward and anyone can screw anyone over.

• 4:28:15Speaker 02

  But not everyone can take care of somebody. You can, but that's a choice not everyone's willing to make at times, because it's hard. And you will segregate yourself from the fucking pack. Well, that's what these leaders did for me, and that's what helped me become who I was. So I'm in charge of a team again. Everything is fucking done. Um, I, I deployed to Germany. I, I work a desk job there. They're like, hey, go do this and you can come back to your team. So it was like an additional punishment. Uh, I'm like, okay. So I go to Germany and I fucking owned that thing. It was easy. I learned a completely different thing, and by the same time, it's helping me out. I'm building my resume, not even knowing it, because I'm open-minded. I'm there, learning all sorts of new aspects, and I'm just I'm afforded an opportunity to grow and expand.

• 4:28:59Speaker 02

  You know, I wasn't a one-trick pony. All these opportunities that didn't really look like opportunities at times transform my life. I just didn't see it, because I was holding on to grudges. I didn't see it, because it wasn't the cool thing at the time, but it was really setting me up for true success as a leader. Sometimes a leader, you do shit you don't want to do. You do the boring shit. You do the shit that you don't want to do. You, you don't get to hang out with the boys. You don't get to go fight with them. You gotta do this other shit. And I was really picking up this pace, and I was like, fuck, it's kinda uncomfortable.

• 4:29:32Speaker 02

  So I go to Germany, I work out there, I think I was there for like two months. Our focus was to operate for Africa, so I'm managing teams, emissions in Africa, reporting back. I'm another liaison guy, just had a higher tier now. And that's when I meet my son's mother, my eldest son, he's seven years old. And I start this relationship, all this type of stuff, that's what happens, that was basically that whole thing.

• 4:30:01Speaker 02

  I come back home.

• 4:30:05Speaker 02

  I start this company again, this team again, and I get a phone call. I get a lot of phone calls.

• 4:30:11Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:30:12Speaker 02

  And it was like,

• 4:30:15Speaker 02

  "You want to take over a company?"

• 4:30:19Speaker 02

  And I said,

• 4:30:21Speaker 02

  "Fuck yes." And I hung up the phone, and I went up to my boss's office. Because I've been asking, now I'm a Master Sergeant. I was already selected, I waited my, it took me a year to pin on, because I was so junior. I was at Freefall School, I was, I found out that I got selected for Master Sergeant. But I was so junior down the list, it took me almost a full year before I even saw the rank. Because now I'm waiting through all the numbers, waiting for my number to be called. Well, I'm like, bush league number, like baby back bitch number. And I pinned, pinned like weeks before this. And I, and I actually did it for a Freefall. I made a big fucking deal, my other buddy of mine, he picked the Master Sergeant, so we're fucking doing Halo jump and

• 4:31:06Speaker 02

  we like do our fucking thing, we fucking Velcro these big ass chevrons to our, our, our, our peak kit, you know, or, or, I actually was wearing my, my Combat Cry uniforms, it's got Velcro, so I slapped this big ass chevron on it. And we fucking jump. And I'm like, I landed, and I was just like, bro, king of the world, bro, because it all changed then. Because now, now you can't hold me to yesterday's standards, because the proof is in the pudding. And the thing is, I was told when I got selected, Cody, don't fuck up. Keep your mouth shut. I was told that specifically from a lot of my senior leaders. Because they knew that people were still at witch hunting me, because dude, I'm a very verbal guy.

• 4:31:49Speaker 02

  And I'm like, okay, I can fucking do that. And when I pinned on, it was game over.

• 4:31:57Speaker 02

  And

• 4:31:59Speaker 02

  I get this phone call like, "Hey, you want to take over a company?" I'm like, "Fuck, yes." And I wanted a company, but I was never looked at it because I was told I was too young. And I was told that how I interacted with officers wasn't of their liking. And I'm like, "That is the most immature, fucking unprofessional thing I've ever heard in my life." You know, and that's, that's the thumb the man tries to put on you. And I've dealt with that my entire life. "You're too young in charge of a sniper team." "You're too fucking young. I'm running combat missions by my fucking self." "You're too young. You're doing this." Like, all these things, it's like, that was the most uncomfortable aspect of being in the military, at least in my career field. Because I'm like, "What is good enough?" Do I need to get fucking blown up more? Do I need to bleed more? Do I need to see more horrible things? Do I need to brief more what I need to do? And now I get this shot.

• 4:32:44Speaker 02

  And this shot wasn't the first pick. The guy who actually had the seat put in his retirement package. Because he was like, "Fuck that. I'm not taking on a company." And I'm like, "Fuck, yeah, I will." Because I was the alternate for it. And then I get all these spills and all these briefs of like, "You better not fuck up." I'm just like, "Bro, where's the belief in me?" But my OG leaders that were above me, these are the E9s that valued me, that respected me, that looked out for me. They were like, "Go fucking crush it, dude." So I check into our 2nd Battalion. So now, I'm the one of the only few guys at this point that's, I've deployed and been part of every Raider Battalion. I've been part of the fucking schoolhouse. And now I'm checking in to 2nd Battalion,

• 4:33:26Speaker 02

  2nd Marine Raider Battalion, and I'm taking over Fox Company. And this company was savage, straight warfighters, dude. Like, they have like a lineage of straight, like, even GWAT lineage of like, straight, gung ho, make shit happen. And I'm, that's the company I'm checking into. These dudes are fucking savage. Like, they have the stare that they earned, you know? They have that, hmm, because they earned that, hmm, the sermon. And I show up as the fucking new guy here. And they're like, "Who is this tattooed guy?" And, bro, it was a game changer. Now I'm in charge of four special operations teams. I'm in charge of like 100 fucking enabler support personnel. I'm managing all these officers. I have an amazing company commander. I have amazing operations officer.

• 4:34:11Speaker 02

  Dude, I have amazing, the perfect situation you could ever ask for, dude.

• 4:34:17Speaker 02

  And we dominated. We fucking crushed it, everything. All of our training crushed. All this flak, "Oh, he's too young," crushed. Do my guys were the best equipped, well-trained outfit in all of Marsoc. And you could not sway me otherwise. It was undeniable.

• 4:34:38Speaker 02

  And my team's making headlines. They're doing amazing training. I mean, it's amazing what happens when you empower people. When you tell people, "I respect you, I know what you're here to do, and here's your left and right, well, limits, go execute." That is empowering to people, and they make shit happen. These dudes bend over backwards. My support people, they bend over backwards to support the team, guys. Like, I'm talking about three hours, one way, in a van, empty, by themselves, in case one of the birds went down, you know, uh, because they were having some, uh, prop malfunction, in case the birds went down, we had to insert our guys, you know, via van. Three hours, one way, three hours the next way. Like, these dudes working 24/7, working their ass off for shit. And we get all, we're getting all this limelight.

• 4:35:22Speaker 02

  Well, we're going down rage because we're using a new technique to how to target people that was not done yet. It was a very big deal. We're, uh, this new form of information operations that we're running. Completely new way that we gain target acquisition on the battle space and acquire our targets, like building true target packs. Um, and so it got a lot of high visibility. Well, my, my sergeant major comes to my office and he's like, "Cody, uh, I know the commandant of the Marine Corps is coming down to see your team, see your company, but I'm gonna need you to sit out on this one. We're gonna replace, we're gonna have him

• 4:36:03Speaker 02

  go act as the company operations chief and have you sit here." I'm like, "What the fuck?" What? Because the commandant wasn't a big fan of tattoos.

• 4:36:14Speaker 02

  And I'm just like, you gotta be fucking kidding me, dude. And the whole, my whole Marine Corps career, Cody, you should get your tattoos removed. No one's gonna take you seriously. Cody, you should remove some of your tattoos. Or how can you be a leader looking like that? This whole time, I'm like, bro, you know the Marine Corps was founded in a bar? Drunk ass fucking dudes, and you're worried about my fucking tattoos? I'm good for war, I'm good for fucking death, I'm good for my fucking soulless fucking trauma. But my tattoos, that's the one thing to your mind? I'm the youngest EA in the Marine Corps, and you're gonna hide me? You're gonna hide me from this? I'm not gonna go speak on behalf of my men, who I give a fuck about? Who no one's gonna talk about them like I'm gonna talk about them? Cause this guy would be the main guy speaking on behalf of all these dudes.

• 4:36:59Speaker 02

  And I was so pissed, I was like, I was so hurt, I'm like, dude, this is, this is fucking jacked.

• 4:37:06Speaker 02

  So that happens, move over, my guys fucking crushed it, that was the main focus.

• 4:37:12Speaker 02

  And we deploy to Iraq. That was our main mission. I've sent a team to Jordan, had a team in Lebanon, that I'm managing both. And then I have a team, two teams in Iraq. Well, I'm also in charge of all the special operations team in Iraq. Cause now I am the special operations task force, operation chief. So now I'm managing ODAs, SEAL platoons, Raider teams, various assets, various liaison shit.

• 4:37:43Speaker 02

  And it's getting real, like it's a whole new level of responsibility. And this is during the Mosul push, so 2016 I believe, 2015, 2016? And so much responsibility, so much red tape, and so much bullshit, and it broke me the fuck off. I'm standing behind seventy thousand dollar screens, watching Kill TV.

• 4:38:09Speaker 02

  Watching drone operators not get their shit together, being denied strikes as my team is getting fucking assaulted with Mad Max, you know, armored V bit, vehicle borne IEDs, you know, to the point where the non-arm drones that we see are watching these guys getting fucking welded in. So they can't escape. So the only thing they can do is bit themselves, blow themselves up. And I'm watching this shit. And, you know, we had limited air assets. Syria was a big thing at the time. Syria had a lot of assets, but we could only have so many assets in Syria and Iraq at the same time. And so to get an airstrike, to call it troops in contact at this point of the war, was a big no-no.

• 4:38:53Speaker 02

  Cause we were in this whole advise and assist, not accompany. And we were fighting the entire time to get that last A, that accompany aspect. Because what we were finding out is like, we have to do command and control. You cannot command and control a battlespace by not being on the fucking battlespace. You just can't do it. Not, not a partner force, not people that don't speak your language, have your same communication, have your same desired end states, have your same why and even why you're showing up. Soft guys are force multipliers. It's what we do. That's who we are. We have to be out there. And so, my guys were just crushing it on all fields on our targeting aspect. I mean, we have tier one units coming down to get targets from us. Cause we're the only ones producing and executing. We were at such a big deal.

• 4:39:40Speaker 02

  And it was amazing. It was amazing. And because of all that, all that hard ass work, we finally get that A mission. We finally get that accompany mission. And

• 4:39:52Speaker 02

  so my guys get to work on a whole new gambit of things and my role is the support role. I'm, I'm watching screens. I'm texting them. I'm calling them on the radio. I'm, I'm calling back at home. I'm yelling at generals. I'm, I'm yelling at colonels. I'm yelling at people. I'm trying to get support. I'm, I'm bartering. I'm trying to do anything I can to support my guys that are forward deployed because they are literally in harm's way. They're deploying in soft skin four pickup trucks. With gum mounts in the back. They're doing all these different various things and it's a different battlespace. And, uh,

• 4:40:24Speaker 02

  Then we started to take more casualties this way too, as the connects, environment picks up. Uh, we started to take more casualties and watching that shit on the phone, on, on the screen, it hit me hard. I was working eighteen hour days, stress eating Oreos and frosting. Cause I was so fucking stressed out, watching war on TV. Yelling at people on the phone to get assets and being told to fuck off. While my guys are out there, just in the fucking suck, duking it out. And they're worried about assets, they're worried about waking up the general to get permission to clear, to launch something. Damn dude.

• 4:41:04Speaker 02

  Um, around this time, we have a Iraqi helicopter, cause we first started partnering with the Kurds, Northern Iraq. Then we hit the phase line where they reached their biblical birthright, so they say. And then we transitioned from the Kurds to the Iraqis. That was a very dynamic thing in the first place. Some of the motherfuckers that we're fighting back in the day, we're fighting alongside now, cause now we're fighting, uh, you know ISIS.

• 4:41:32Speaker 02

  And you're just trying to make sense of it all, but it is what it is. An Iraqi helicopter goes down, like a little news helicopter, pilot lived, they got shot, he was able to put on the ground, but it was still a big deal. And so they had this big no-fly area where they weren't gonna allow medevacs, casualty vacs into the airspace to pull guys out. Well, one day, uh, my seal, my seal platoon, they get in a, they get in a tick, they call it, they declare a tick. And I still was getting denied assets, cause at this time, they rolled into basically an IED belt. And the EUD tech, uh, as he's trying to problem solve the situation. He got fucking smoked. And the seals are fucking pinned down and they're in this whole IED belt.

• 4:42:18Speaker 02

  And they're like, "We're fucking making a move." I'm like, "Roger that." And they fucking start beating feet out of the area. I'm on the phone trying to get a casualty back to come pick this guy up. And they're like, "The team needs to meet us at like fucking all like all these clicks away." I'm like, "Unacceptable, non-negotiable. Get him fucking here now. Here's the fucking grid, go." And dude, it was this whole fiasco, a bunch of shit talking, a bunch of yelling. Unacceptable, having to do that to get support? For a bird to come in and pick up a fucking KIA?

• 4:42:51Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 4:42:52Speaker 02

  And you add years of violence before this. You add years of traumatic brain injury before this. And then you watch years of fucking being smeared before this, all this sacrifice. What all these men go through to fucking be out there in the battle space and you're getting fucking denied, basic stuff, basic stuff. And being the person that's watching it all unfold, you're just like, "Fuck. It fucked me up." And those 18-hour days of watching the, the, the craziness happen, stress eating myself away, taking Ranger naps, I wasn't realizing, but I was taking Ranger naps like every second I could. Little fucking, "Oh, I got five seconds?

• 4:43:37Speaker 02

  Okay, I'm ready to go." And what I didn't realize at the time was my body started to shut down. My body was playing catch-up to me and I, and I learned during my workup that I was really playing catch-up. My body started to shut down before I even deployed. I was just really tired. I thought I was stressed. And this deployment brought it out of me. You know, not seeing the sunlight, eating shit food, always constantly staring at a screen, constantly being stressed out that if I'm not in here, my guys aren't getting support. If, you know, if we're not in here fighting for our fucking guys, you're not gonna hit what they need, just shit, unnecessary stress. Cause war's stressful enough. And this war concludes.

• 4:44:20Speaker 02

  We get to the point now where we're doing a battle space turnover and my company crushed it, the SEALs crushed it, the Green Berets crushed it, everyone crushed it, they did so well.

• 4:44:31Speaker 02

  And we come home.

• 4:44:34Speaker 02

  And we do this thing called, uh, home location decompression. And they ask you, you have to talk to the chaplain, you have to talk to like, physical therapist, you have to talk to your administrative person, make sure all your pace squared away and all this type of stuff and. It's my turn to go talk to the chaplain. And he's like, how was it? I said, fuck that deployment. He's like, really? I'm like, I had dealt with so many people looking out for awards for themselves. That's the shit that broke me. So many fucking times told no on a fucking phone because it was fucking dinner night.

• 4:45:14Speaker 02

  That shit fucking broke me. Being told no, I couldn't get a fucking helicopter to extract my fucking dude. That shit fucking broke me. Um.

• 4:45:25Speaker 02

  Giving blood to, I, I went on a mission with one of my teams, one of my Raider teams and, um.

• 4:45:33Speaker 02

  My dude got, you know, one of my dog families got shot in the fucking head. Feeding him blood from my fucking body, hearing him fucking scream for his fucking mom, fucking broke me.

• 4:45:44Speaker 02

  Being so exhausted, but still showing up,

• 4:45:50Speaker 02

  broke me. It all just started to add up. And I was fucking done with every aspect of the fucking military, every fucking thing. It broke me. I was done. I wanted to play no more. And to the point where now I'm talking to this like, in this home location decompression, supposed to be happy, stress free. And he's like, so Cody, tell me what's going on. I'm like, fuck you. And he's like, excuse me? I'm like, listen, bro, I've talked to plenty of you before. I've asked for the same shit, nothing's ever happened. I'm like, you get me help? And I'll fucking tell you whatever, I'll, I'll, I'll talk to you. He's like, well, what do you want? I'm like, I want Adderall. And I'm on my fucking sleeves fixed. I want my sleep fixed. He's like, okay.

• 4:46:35Speaker 02

  So he helps me get this packet going. I determined I needed Adderall because I was a space cadet. I could not hold the fucking conversations, hold the sentence. My brain was all over the place and I was so fucking drained, so tired. I needed uppers in my life. Um.

• 4:46:52Speaker 02

  I couldn't remember shit. I couldn't focus on anything. I was just done. Cognitively, I was just fucking crashing down. I needed my sleep fixed because I wasn't getting quality sleep. I wasn't, I felt that I wasn't ever, I could sleep 12 hours and still be fucking tired. I could drink 12 coffees and 12 fucking monsters and still pass out. My body was shutting down and at this point I was beyond desperate. Um, and so he's this, this dude and he's a fucking phenomenal man. He starts getting me these point of contacts. And I find myself now, I'm done with this deployment and I was asked overseas. He's like, hey, do you want to do another company operations chief deployment? I'm like, no.

• 4:47:34Speaker 02

  And he's like, it'd be really easier if you did. I wouldn't have to find someone else. I'm like, find someone fucking else. I'm done. And uh, I'm like, I can't fucking do this dude. And uh, I come home, that story happens. And then I'm checking into the schoolhouse now. So now I'm back at the schoolhouse my second time. I'm a senior S, I'm an E8 now for three and a half years. Um, a lot of experience on the deployment. Now I'm fitting a role that was a made up job for an officer billet. Because what we were lacking in Marsoc was these, these key officer billets that made them um, competitive to their special operation officer counterparts.

• 4:48:18Speaker 02

  Because you know, we have Marsoc, we have officers enlisted in every role that you can be in a special operations joint environment. And I found myself in this made up fucking job to support a made up position to make it look like it's something bigger than it is. And I went from 100 miles an hour to zero. And it was fucking difficult. I wasn't above anything. I wasn't above cleaning shit, doing shit. I wasn't above that. This wasn't an ego thing. This was. I need stimulation or I'm going to fucking explode. Cause I just had six months of straight 18 hour days, at a minimum 18 hour days, days I wouldn't see the fucking sun.

• 4:49:01Speaker 02

  Right? Not a woe is me thing, but just how it was. Sun is very crucial for us. Sleep is very crucial for us. And then once you up past a certain limit, you don't get that time back. You know, you don't, oh, you sleep for six hours, you rejuvenate. This isn't how it works. You're cognitively, you're depleting your brain. You're, you're literally fucking up your process. The longer you stay up, for the longer than a threshold that you actually have. And I blew this threshold. Uh, I found myself blowing up a lot. I was very aggressive. Um, I was very stressed out about the dumbest shit. Like the stupidity, the stupidity that I encountered, I would just lose it and just fucking go ballistic.

• 4:49:44Speaker 02

  If you were a civilian working in my job, trying to tell me what to do, I fucking lost it. If you were a douchebag trying to tell me what to do or not wanting to do your job, I fucking lost it. I was like, dude, what's going on with me? I went to the point, I'm finally getting Adderall now. Cause they're like, oh yeah, you have ADHD like a motherfucker. I'm like, no shit. We all do. This is not normal. And when are we gonna start, when are we gonna start connecting dots? You can't, we can't just mistreat ourselves and abuse ourselves all these years and expect us to be fucking chippy and cheery forever.

• 4:50:14Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 4:50:14Speaker 02

  And I think there's this phase line around that 11 to 13 year mark in the military where at, at least for me, I started to shift pretty hard. It really started to, all my TBIs, all my stress, all my fucking whatever started to catch up with me. I remember busting into my, uh, naval commander's office. He was our medical officer. And I'm like, give me something that's gonna keep me up or I'm gonna go fucking do meth. I was desperate. I would pass out on the fucking floor. I would pass out in my car. I would be late to work because I'd drive down the street and not even know how the fuck where I was. I would just wake up.

• 4:50:54Speaker 02

  And I would just like start crying because I didn't know how I got in the middle of the road. I didn't know where I was going. Um, everything was just like just system overload. And so I'm able to fill out this packet to go to, uh, we call it Intrepid Spirits. Most, most people call it a TBI clinic. And, you know, they were great A stuff.

• 4:51:18Speaker 02

  I list all my issues and how they work is you have to go get evaluated before you're even able to be seen by them. So you have to have all your ducks in a row before you can be seen by them. They make it super simple for you. And so my main thing was attention and sleep. Cause dealing with other things in life, I wasn't really privy to those words to even how to describe them. I thought I was just being an asshole because I was fucking super tired.

• 4:51:42Speaker 02

  I thought I was, you know, running behind schedule because I was tired. I wasn't connecting any dots. I ended up doing like nine sleep studies, three different places. And all three of them came back with, or all three places said that, uh, I wasn't narcoleptic. And I was praying that I would be labeled narcoleptic because there was a drug, there was a medicine for narcolepsy.

• 4:52:12Speaker 02

  And I'm like, I'm not making this shit up. I'm tired as fuck. I can literally take, I was on like forty milligrams of various uppers. There was some that were like a hundred milligrams. I'm on Dexedrine, I'm on Adderall, I'm on Providil, shit that they give guys to go on three day patrols. High risk training type of medicine. I'm on all these at the same time. And I wasn't hitting that third and last REM cycle to be considered narcoleptic. And, um, I could sleep 24 hours, still wake up tired as shit.

• 4:52:48Speaker 02

  And at this point now I'm confused. I'm like, dude, am I making this up? Am I lying to myself? What's going on? I went from this hero machine, Superman, hundred miles an hour to dragon ass. I rode motorcycles at this point in time. I'm falling off my motorcycles. I'm getting off them with them running and the kickstand's not down. I'm falling over at gas stations.

• 4:53:16Speaker 02

  Speed, I couldn't handle speed. So I'm riding really slow, which is even more dangerous.

• 4:53:23Speaker 02

  I was getting lost everywhere I went and just constant explosions of fucking anger, uncontrolled, and I was having uncontrollable adrenaline spikes to the point where I stopped my free fall pay because I couldn't maintain jumping out of an airplane because jumping out of an airplane already fucking gave me dopamine and adrenaline by the time I landed. And that was, you ever do jumps and you're tired afterwards? At least for me, that's how I was. Well, now that I'm having complete, I could just be sitting here and just like get amped up. And then my, my, my crash was just low. It was hard hitting and my fear was I'm gonna fuck up a dude in the, in the sky. Yeah. I'm not gonna be able to deploy my fucking chute, lower my kid, I'm gonna fucking kill

• 4:54:08Speaker 02

  myself. Fuck that. And diving, I was still doing diving at the time because I was in a controlled environment. I had a dive buddy and most of my dives were just for recall. So I'm doing it in a pool, very simple. Um, but everything about my life was fucking changing. I didn't know what it was. And I just started getting more and more pissed off. I got more and more uninterested in even showing up every day. And I got tired of playing games. I got tired of being someone else's puppet. I got tired of being, you know, dog and pony, looked the part to make, to, to make this made up position look like

• 4:54:46Speaker 02

  it's something. And granted, a lot of those observations were how I felt at the time. But at the same time too, I wasn't training. I was taking naps whenever I fucking could. I was looking out for my dudes, but I had master sergeants that I was in charge of and they were taking care of their guys. And so luckily I had this strong network of like leaders because my position really wasn't necessary. It was a fictitious position. Maybe now hopefully it's something. But I go to my boss, I'm like, dude, I need no responsibility. And he's like, what? I'm like, I need no responsibility. And I fucking said it sternly.

• 4:55:29Speaker 02

  He's like, what are you talking about? Like dude, I can't fucking do this job anymore, dude. I need no stress. I need absolutely no stress in my fucking life. He's like, what are you talking about? I'm like, I'm getting hounded on how many more medical appointments that I have. I'm like, my command, this command signed the document saying that I'm gonna be gone for weeks. And I'm getting harped on the phone. Why did so and so get a DUI? I'm like, I don't fucking know. Did you ask him? Where's that TPS report? I don't fucking know. Did you ask that leader in charge of that section? Like, why are we this stupid? You clearly see that I'm here trying to save my fucking life. And I'm just being just constantly bombarded with dumb shit. And I told him, I can't handle this, dude. I need no responsibility. The smallest thing is stressing me the fuck out. And I'm yelling at civilians.

• 4:56:14Speaker 02

  I'm huffing and puffing down the hallway of our schoolhouse. Being disrespectful. And throwing away everything I fucking bled and fucking fought for.

• 4:56:25Speaker 02

  I'm just, I'm fucking going out of control. And my friends are turning their backs on me. They're like, dude, it's not really that bad, Cody. You know, I wake up on the floor on a Friday night at my headquarters building. And my friends were still challenged, like, Cody, are you really, are you really that bad? I'm like, it's seven o'clock at nighttime. You think I want to stay here at seven o'clock at nighttime on a Friday or any day? And so my, my boss, he he looked out for me.

• 4:56:57Speaker 02

  And he's like, okay. We'll move you. So I found a position that was in our human performance section for Marsoc. Uh, they didn't have a rep there. And they're like, well, fuck, this guy gives a shit about mental health type of stuff. So we'll use him. I'm like, okay. So I leave the schoolhouse. I check into our headquarters, uh, our headquarters, uh, unit and I do this job and I find out about all these different medical practices that we have. Neurofeedback. Uh, breath work.

• 4:57:33Speaker 02

  Cognitive function, therapy, MRT, I found out about all these things. I'm like, why the fuck don't people know about this shit? They're like, well, we try to tell people, but they're not interested. I'm like, that makes sense. I remember getting those PowerPoint briefs. Then I'm like, yeah, whatever. Well, when you, when you foster an organization that does nothing but checks in the box, you're gonna get whatevers. They make you fill out these pre-deployment site surveys before you deploy. How many green beans, how many cans of vegetables you eat a day? God forbid you drink more than one fucking beer or you're an alcoholic. Well, no one's gonna say they're an alcoholic on these forums. These guys are putting away cases a night. You're not gonna say you eat a can of beans. You're gonna say eat six cans of beans because you're fucking, you're not gonna get hit for like some poor nutrition.

• 4:58:18Speaker 02

  You're gonna do whatever it takes to get the job, the job done. And so those are when those, those lies start becoming truths. I got this, I'm good, I'm good. Well, at this point, I wasn't good and I was very vocal about it. And, um, throughout this whole time, I'm on, I, I've, get told by this doctor, he's like, hey, he's my neurosurgeon, he's like, what if I told you, you couldn't be a marine anymore? I'm like, fuck you. That was my ego. Then I'm like, what? He's like, what if I told you, you couldn't be a marine anymore? I'm like, why do you say that?

• 4:59:00Speaker 02

  He's like, I mean, you meet all these requirements that says you should not be here. And at the time, I didn't, I had no idea what he was talking about. I'm like, hey, man, I'm going to, I'm going to school in Florida for a military education for my, my soft equivalent rank. And I'm like, can we have this conversation when I get back? And he's like, absolutely.

• 4:59:24Speaker 02

  So I go there, uh, and I'm there with a bunch of like, special mission unit guys and we're, we're learning leadership shit. Basic, big check, checkbox stuff that everyone's gotta do in the SOF community at this rank. Very impactful, very educational, very great rank course.

• 4:59:44Speaker 02

  And I find myself, uh, super motivated by these caliber dudes that I want to be around. Cause those dudes weren't fucking their friends over those, they just hearing their stories. I'm like, man, your command treats you like that. That's dope. Damn, if you say you have a family problem, something, something fucking happens. Something actually happens. This fucking dope. It was this whole new perspective because now I'm, I'm not asking questions about their gear or guns or mission. I'm talking about like real shit. And they're like giving me feedback. I'm like, fuck, this is crazy. Like, well, we don't have that. We should have that for sure. And I come back from this opportunity with this whole new wealth of knowledge and I'm really inspired by these guys.

• 5:00:27Speaker 02

  And at the same time, I still have my childhood dream. I want to go to Delta.

• 5:00:36Speaker 02

  And I spent my package multiple times in Marine Corps. Was told to eat a dick. Uh, through Marsoc, you've been, uh, you're too senior. You can't go. Dumb shit. White lies, truth doesn't matter.

• 5:00:55Speaker 02

  But I get this email, it was sent to all hands saying, no rank restriction. No restrictions at all. If you meet the requirement and you get invited and you get selected. Bon voyage. I'm like, this is it.

• 5:01:09Speaker 02

  And so I call my commander, my, I call my boss back at home. And I, uh, make sure, cause I've spent my packet before. I'm like, hey, is my, my packet still good? He's like, you need to come back and you gotta rerun your, your PFT. I'm like, okay. So I come back from Florida, I run this PFT.

• 5:01:26Speaker 02

  Fuckin' smoke, I'm in the best shape of my life. Before this, I just did a bodybuilding show, cuz I was so fuckin' depressed. I came back from that deployment when I'm doing that "how you feelin?" story, and my wife took me to a bodybuilding show and I saw her friends up there and I'm like, "This is weird," but at the same time, you had to have like, discipline to be up there. You had to have like, you couldn't have social anxiety and be up there, and I had all sorts of fuckin' things. I couldn't go bar, Walmart, out in town, driving was stressful enough, like, everything was too stressful for me, and I'm like, "Damn, even the worst shaped person up there, had to face a shit ton of demons to get up there." I'm like, "I need to do that." And so I went to go do that. And then that ended, I'm like, "I'm fuckin' depressed

• 5:02:10Speaker 02

  again." So I'm trying to do all these things, trying to fill all this, I'm like, basically taking this bucket, I'm trying all these new categories of life, these new challenges, to like, find value and respect for myself, cuz I'm just tankin'. My relationship's tankin', everything, my work, life is fuckin' tankin', my views on everything is tankin', and I'm hurting inside. And I just had this bucket, and I'm just pouring water, you know, skipping water out of my boat, it seems like. And I come back from this Florida trip, and I go to my neurosurgeon, I'm like, "Hey, I have an opportunity to go to this selection, and I've been wanting to do this forever." Um, and he's like, "Okay. Well, do you think it would be a liability

• 5:02:52Speaker 02

  there?" And so I fuckin' paused, and I'm like, "Yeah, I fuckin' would." You know, and I'm flashing back to Florida, where I'm with these guys, we're having dinner. Um, I'm like, "Hey, can you guys drive at nighttime? It's really hard for me to see now." "Hey, I'm not gonna go to the, I'm not gonna go to that amusement park with you guys, I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go fuckin' take a nap." Back at home, before I went to this human performance section, I had opportunities to shoot in the shoot house every day, had opportunities to fuckin' do all this training, go to these different events, and I didn't want anything to do with it. And so when this doctor asked me, "Do I think I would've been a liability?"

• 5:03:38Speaker 02

  It all like

• 5:03:41Speaker 02

  just came to me. I'm like, yeah, I fucking would. And that's when I fucking said, fuck it. I'm all in. I'm getting better. Um, because I was realizing I was just lying to myself. And I repeated that same thing seven years prior, had a chance to go to selection. I didn't get to go, but I was also had a chance to go to this TBI clinic seven years earlier. And the doctor at the time is like, hey, if you go to this clinic, the funny thing about it is it could fuck your chances over from going. I'm like, okay, fuck that. I'm not gonna go then.

• 5:04:13Speaker 02

  And I'm like, Cody, when are you gonna stop lying to yourself? When are you gonna start facing realities? So seven years ago, I was having these telltale fucking signs that I was avoiding because I was a fucking robot. Cause I was, I was trying to fill a fucking void. I was chasing my ego. I was fulfilling what I thought was my destiny. I'm, I'm making my vision board as a fucking young kid come to life and I'm doing all these things. And now I'm being fucking told by my own body, I can't do this anymore. And these words of like, I need help. They're coming out of my mouth. I never said them before. And I'm asking and I'm begging and I'm fucking crying and I'm pleading and I'm doing anything I can to get assistance. And this is all new for me and coming from the special operations community at this time of life, it was not normal.

• 5:04:55Speaker 02

  A lot of people thought I was full of shit. A lot of people started talking shit, friends, units. I'm just like, fuck you, man. Like, I'm trying to fucking live.

• 5:05:05Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 5:05:06Speaker 02

  And

• 5:05:08Shawn Ryan?

  What are they talking shit about?

• 5:05:09Speaker 02

  It's not that bad. Cody, everyone fucking goes through some hardship, bro. I'm like, shut the fuck up. Cause I knew, because I was really being challenged at this point. I had an opportunity to like, challenge myself as in allow someone else to tell me what my truth is, or to remind myself of my fucking truth is. I knew what kind of leader I was. I knew what sacrifices I made. I knew what my belief system was. I knew what mission I did. And nobody was gonna take that away from me. And so when I'm in this fight for my life to survive, because I'm fucking going downhill. I couldn't boil water. I'm fucking lost in a two bedroom, empty apartment. I couldn't navigate with the fucking GPS. Like, it was gradually just plummeting. Um, until I was just cry all day.

• 5:05:52Speaker 02

  And like fucking questioned why I mean, like, what am I doing? Um. And through this nonprofit called Operation Healing Forces, I signed up for it while I was active duty. And essentially what that was is my wife and I got to go to Vail, Colorado, and do this skiing, all-inclusive, healing retreat with three other soft couples. And through that event, because I had no confidence, I had, dude, I didn't believe in myself. I was a fucking grenade. I was destroying everything that I loved. I was swearing to my mother. I was just being a real shitty, sad victim person.

• 5:06:36Speaker 02

  Because this is all new territory for me. And through this, I met a Colonel, a Green Bay Colonel, and he told me about this amazing training treatment that he had in Tampa called MERT. Because I made this guy fucking cry, telling him my story. Because he's like, "Man, I went through a lot of these same things. I feel for you." And this dude really cared about the troops. And so I get my command to pay, to greenlight me to go to Florida, to go to Tampa, to do this experimental treatment called MERT. I don't remember the exact acronym, but it's M E R T. And it was only for special operators. Because it was a trial. So why not fuck these guys up or see if it works before you unleash them to the forces? I'm like, "Possi- this is a hope. Sign me up."

• 5:07:20Speaker 02

  Because if you sign up for the trial, you are guaranteed an active treatment. You're guaranteed, I think it was like 20 active treatment sessions. So I had the potential of getting like 40 sessions. Because you're going down there to do, it's experiment. And so you have a placebo case. You have your control and you have your placebo. And they didn't tell us which one we were. But I had a chance to get 40 fucking zaps to my brain, to re-stimulate my neural highways, to reconnect my pathways, and to have a fucking chance to like be normal, it seemed like. And I was desperate as fuck. And I'm like, "I gotta go do this." So I did.

• 5:08:03Speaker 02

  It was this magnet machine that sends these zaps and how I was explained to it, it depletes your glucose in your brain. So I was always even more tired afterwards, but it stimulates to do this brain scans. They figure out what part of your brain is not functioning. What's slowly firing, what's not stimulating you, what's stimulating you? And they hone in on those qua- those areas of your brain, those frequencies of your brain and they send these tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, these big Mickey ass, Mickey Mouse ear magnets. Just zapping the front of my head, the back of my head, the top of my head, different sides. Can you feel it? Yes.

• 5:08:48Speaker 02

  Uh, doesn't hurt. But because they all hooked us up to electrodes too. So now we're getting a TENS unit to our forehead. Because the real machine,

• 5:08:59Speaker 02

  you can feel it. It's like a mag- like electricity. So everyone's getting a TENS unit. So whether you're getting the actual treatment or not, you're getting the same effect. Because they didn't want you to, because placebo is a real thing, right? Yep. You can really cure yourself from a fucking placebo medicine. Well, for this case study, this trial, they wanted to make sure it was as like bottled up as possible, right? Take out as much, you know, gaps and security as you possibly can, keep it even playing field. And so, uh, I found out while I was out there, you know, they couldn't tell you information because you weren't there to heal. You were there to be part of a trial, but they highly encourage you to look around. And they highly encourage you to read things that may or may not be on the wall.

• 5:09:44Speaker 02

  And there's, I, I got one of these, uh, these, uh, posters on the wall that was like, walk out in the sunlight between seven 11, no glasses, no hat. Fucking drink this water, do these things, reset your acatic rhythm. And I'm just like, fuck.

• 5:10:00Speaker 02

  This is real and I did it every fucking day I was there. And I went from panicking, I I was staying at a buddy's house in Tampa and I had literally a straight shot to to McDill Air Force Base. Straight shot, you couldn't even make it up. You couldn't, you couldn't mess it up. I messed it up. I was two hours late because I got lost. And all I had to do was drive straight down the road.

• 5:10:23Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 5:10:25Speaker 02

  And I call my psych and I'm crying. I'm like, get me the fuck out of here. I can't stay here. I need to leave now. And he's like, Cody, he's doing an amazing job. He said, Cody, I come out there in two days, see how you're doing. I'm like, well, bring some fucking drugs, bring, you know, like, bring, bring something for this shit, dude. And I wasn't taking anything for anxiety. I didn't want to take a bunch of medicine because at this point, I'm already, I was so fucked up from all these uppers that I was on. And, um, and they just wanted to give me more. I'm like, I'm still passed on this shit. It's clearly not helping me. But I was desperate. I'm like, I'll do anything. And so he comes down, talks to my edge and I show up and I start doing this program and dude, within a month, I'm using my phone.

• 5:11:10Speaker 02

  Within a month, I'm like, not cooking meals, I'm heating up meals. Uh, I'm still aggressive. I'm still an asshole. I'm still wanting to change and grow, but not really knowing how to do it. But I'm seeing some change in my life happen. I'm getting a little bit of me back. Not fast, not much, but it was, anything was better than what I was going through. Uh, cause I was a completely different person. Um, my wife and I were married six months prior to this. And when I came back from this, that last deployment, she's like, I thought I fucked up. She's like, you look and act like a completely different person. She's like, I thought I made a mistake. And so I was really scared because I came back and I was so different.

• 5:11:52Speaker 02

  And, um, you know, I lost, I lost the last bit of me that I was holding on to on that rotation. Um, so now I find myself in Florida doing this treatment.

• 5:12:05Speaker 02

  And I'm still doing online college because I lived in fear. Because as a special operator, you're supposed to make six figures when you get out of the military at a minimum. You have to. That's your norm. You have to have a degree because I had goals. I wanted to work for the agency.

• 5:12:25Speaker 02

  And I'm muscling through all this online college because I knew once I get out, I'm not gonna fucking do this shit because it was easy and dumb and it was just fucking stupid. But I lived in fear. I was trying to check some boxes and do what I felt and was always instructed to do, you know? You're a soft guy, you gotta get out, six figures, have your bachelor's degree, and go crush life. Roger that. And that was the things I was holding on to. And then got to the point where my wife, she, um, she asked me, because I realized that the agency was gonna happen. Um, my buddy works over there at the time, he called me and he's like, "Hey, I'd love to fast-track your pack to the top of the stack to get you an interview, to get you a seat to try out." What did you want to do at the agency?

• 5:13:10Speaker 02

  I wanted to go work for Ground Branch.

• 5:13:13Speaker 02

  I wanted to go fucking fight with my friends. I wanted the freedom of responsibility to fucking actually be unleashed and not be fucking imprisoned.

• 5:13:22Speaker 02

  He gives me this phone call, he's like, "Hey, brother, I hear you're retiring soon.

• 5:13:28Speaker 02

  Are you fucking interested?" I'm like, "I can't tell you how much this phone call means to me. I never thought, I always dreamt that I'd be called, that somebody would want me or have an invested interest in me to help me get to someplace." And it happened. And as I'm talking on the phone, I'm wiping drool off my face because I just passed out of my truck outside my headquarters building. And I'm like, "I, I'm gonna have to say no."

• 5:13:52Speaker 02

  He's like, "Are you sure?" I'm like, "Yes." And I felt like a bitch.

• 5:13:59Speaker 02

  Because I wanted to do this one thing and everything about my life is fucking changing and I have no idea, I have no idea who I am.

• 5:14:07Speaker 02

  And my wife asked me when I'm in Florida doing this treatment, she's like, "If you had four weeks left to live..."

• 5:14:15Speaker 02

  What would you want to do? Because I was panicking. What are we gonna do when I get out of the Marine Corps? How are we gonna make money? How are we gonna live? What are we gonna fucking do? And she asked me that question and that set us on a path that we are here today for.

• 5:14:30Speaker 02

  I said, "I want to take pictures and travel around." And she's like, "Let's fucking do it." So I'm in Florida with the little bandwidth that I do have. I'm researching trailers, vans. We were even thinking about buying like an old school G-Wagon and like making like an overland rig and putting a tent on top and doing all these things and then I caught wind of this van life. And I sent her this link. Vans were pricey back then, but they weren't what they are now. They were half the price they were back in the day. Fully kitted out, a bed, kitchenette, all this type of shit in a Dodge Pro Master cargo van.

• 5:15:12Speaker 02

  And she's like, "Let's fucking do it." And so that's exactly what happened. I finished my treatment in Florida. I come back home and while I was gone, my wife picked up the van.

• 5:15:26Speaker 02

  She drove to Maryland, picked it up, drove it back to North Carolina. And we just started downsizing our life. At this point, we sold our-

• 5:15:33Shawn Ryan?

  Hold on. We've covered a lot. Before we get into this new phase of your life, let's take a quick break.

• 5:15:40Speaker 02

  Let's do it.

• 5:15:44Shawn Ryan?

  I love to talk about my meat. And so what I'd like to do right now is show everybody what I'm packing. Don't get too excited, ladies, because I'm talking about Good Ranchers. You see, Good Ranchers has premium meat cuts. So, how many of you are tired of going to the grocery store and you look at the meat aisle? And it's empty or it just looks like garbage? Because that's what it is. It's garbage. That's why you get Good Ranchers. It gets mailed, you get meat, premium meat mailed right to your front door. So ladies, you can get excited about that. Who doesn't want meat mailed right to their front door?

• 5:16:27Shawn Ryan?

  Like on call, literally, on delivery. Anyways, comes to your door, they're all individually packaged.

• 5:16:37Shawn Ryan?

  Like this, some good looking meat, right? Throw it in the freezer. You thaw them out. You never run out of meat for dinner. So, so you can have meat every single night. That's right carnivores. So what I need you to do is go to goodranchers.com/shawn. You're gonna get $30 off your first order and they're gonna ship you your meat for free. It's like a dream come true. So anyways, once again, go to goodranchers.com/shawn and get your meat shipped to your front door today.

• 5:17:21Shawn Ryan?

  All right, here we are. Now we're getting to the stuff that I really want to hear. The van.

• 5:17:26Speaker 02

  The van.

• 5:17:26Shawn Ryan?

  Three years, right?

• 5:17:28Speaker 02

  Three years, the van. Yeah, so basically she's like, "Hey, if you had a short amount of time to live, what would you want to do?" I said, "Travel, take pictures." So we started to lean towards that, create that reality. Um, I found a van in Maryland. It was made by a van company. Uh, we figured out how to get the funds. Because our main thing was like, how can we go do this off my disability? That was our main focus. What can I do to live a fucking life? Simplistic as possible to figure some shit out. And that was our main goal. So at this time, I sold like my dream truck, my classic dream truck. I sold that because it was the only liquid cash we had at the time.

• 5:18:10Speaker 02

  We sold our big, very large house that I was into that life. You know, for retirement, I wanted a Panerai watch and a Land Rover. That's all I wanted. Very obtainable goals. Meant something to me. Um, and my wife, she really worked all these budgets to help me try to get those. But I knew inside that that was just these attachments to a life that I was stepping out of. Um, and that didn't define me. But it was really hard to like, kind of like struggle with these things, even these materialistic things. But we sold our house, moved to a good friend of ours, his name's JR. He took us in, dealt with all my BS. And if he's watching this right now, he is probably saying, yes, I dealt with so much, dude.

• 5:18:53Speaker 02

  I was a grenade, such a grenade.

• 5:18:56Shawn Ryan?

  Who's this guy?

• 5:18:57Speaker 02

  Uh, he was one of my old teammates and we were his roommate. When we sold our big house, he let us move in with him. Um, so we're living, we're renting one of his spare bedrooms. Um, and then I found myself living in an apartment shortly after this.

• 5:19:17Speaker 02

  And we're working on this downsizing thing. We're selling all of our stuff. My wife had on all this list and things and, um, to try to like, you know, three bins, you put the things you want to keep, the things you want to sell, the things you want to donate. And she, dude, she coordinated everything because I was not a team player. I wanted to, I did the best that I could with what I had, but I wasn't, I wasn't making it a reality as much as she was, really helping us push towards that way. She was packing everything, she's a fuck trooper. And around the same time, she is looking at how pathetic I was. And she's like researching what all these pills are that I'm on. And she's like, you're literally killing yourself. We used to eat, we used to go to the grocery store and buy whatever we wanted.

• 5:20:04Speaker 02

  That's before we learned how to go to the grocery store. And you stay away from the center and you only buy from the outside, you know? Um, these pills, I quit cold turkey. I was straight addicted to these uppers. I could not function without them. And I was still passing out on them to the point where the doctors wouldn't give me more. I'm just like, you don't care about me? So I said, fuck that. And I quit all these pills, cold turkey. And I just, I just dealt with it for a few weeks as I detoxed from a very not fun withdrawal.

• 5:20:40Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 5:20:42Speaker 02

  And then she started looking at like heavy metals and she started doing all these research. Now we're downsizing her life, transitioning to a van, but we're, my wife is researching hundreds of freaking man hours and heavy metal detoxing. Why heavy metal detoxing? Well, because I was a brilliant guy that packed so many dips in my mouth while throwing flashbangs and loading ammunition and cleaning my weapon system without wearing proper rubber gloves. You know, a lot of things that we are exposed to that all added up. Uh, from the food that we're eating, uh, the hormones and the meat, I was so inflamed. So not only are we downsizing our life, we're changing everything about us. We went vegan for a bit. We stopped eating meat.

• 5:21:24Speaker 02

  If we don't know where the meat came from, we didn't eat it because we started to learn about energy. We started to learn about all, this literally opened up a whole new slew of like parallel for me that I didn't even know existed. Energy, healing, self-love.

• 5:21:40Shawn Ryan?

  Who cracked that? Who cracked into that? You or your wife?

• 5:21:43Speaker 02

  My wife cracked into the holistic aspect. I cracked into the self-love and energy aspect. Um, she felt both of those, but she really led the, the charge with the holistic aspect and detoxing. And I had this yearning to want to find healing. Um, I'd hear about, you know, things like mushrooms. I'm like, oh, there's a possibility to change. I learned about cannabis. I'm like, fuck, I can do cannabis and not have to do all these pills and have a similar effect. You know, I learned about cold showers and meditating, things that I've been exposed

• 5:22:25Speaker 02

  to before, but I didn't have the mindset or the belief system to follow through with any of them. And so we get to the point now where we're downsizing our lives. So we, and I'm like, not helping, not participating. And I'm just observing because I'm like pretty fucking useless. My wife made it happen for us to do it, planned everything out. We never had a plan on where we're going to go in the van. Uh, we just had a plan, like we had to be out of this apartment by this time.

• 5:22:51Shawn Ryan?

  That's it?

• 5:22:52Speaker 02

  That's it. We had no plan.

• 5:22:55Shawn Ryan?

  Weren't you guys talking about where you wanted to go? What you wanted? Nothing?

• 5:22:59Speaker 02

  That's stress, man.

• 5:23:00Shawn Ryan?

  We gotta be out of this fucking apartment in, uh, 30 days.

• 5:23:02Speaker 02

  That was our only guiding principle.

• 5:23:04Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit.

• 5:23:07Speaker 02

  And we were all about it because I knew that if I don't fucking change my life, I'm gonna end up overseas carrying a fucking gun for money. And that's will surely lead me to my death. I felt it inside. I had a friend tell me years before I was active duty, he's like, "Bro, I I really hate for you to see over there." He's telling me stories about his friends that amazing military career, amazing fucking dad, first rotation gets fucking smoked by a fucking artillery round. And I'm like, "Yeah, that doesn't sound fun." But I wanted it, but I also knew I had to do the extreme opposite to combat this yearning desire to go do this one thing that I had my mindset on at a very young age.

• 5:23:49Speaker 02

  And so we find ourselves in this van and we're eating different, we're doing different shit now and I'm like, "I fucking hated it."

• 5:23:59Shawn Ryan?

  Wait, so you left, so you're you're

• 5:24:01Speaker 02

  We left.

• 5:24:02Shawn Ryan?

  Where are you going? Were you just driving around?

• 5:24:05Speaker 02

  First, we decided to, we wanted to head out west.

• 5:24:08Shawn Ryan?

  Where?

• 5:24:09Speaker 02

  We wanted to head to the Utah area.

• 5:24:11Shawn Ryan?

  So you you didn't have a fucking destination, you're just like, "Just get in the car and fucking go west."

• 5:24:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:24:18Shawn Ryan?

  That's it.

• 5:24:18Speaker 02

  That's it. We just made it happen.

• 5:24:22Shawn Ryan?

  What are you guys talking about?

• 5:24:24Speaker 02

  While we're driving.

• 5:24:25Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, where are you, where are you leaving from?

• 5:24:27Speaker 02

  We're leaving from North Carolina. We, uh, drop off some stuff in storage because we have like some family heirloom stuff that we didn't get rid of, but everything else we damn near downsized, packed out a rig. I loaded like a tactical vehicle, two, two is one, one is none of everything. Tomahawks, flashlights, chem lights, med kits, like dude, I went berserker.

• 5:24:49Speaker 02

  And we talked about going into Canada before, I'm like, "Well shit, I'm not gonna bring my guns because I don't, how do I deal with that while I'm on the road?" And so I'm like, "Okay, what other weapon systems, security platforms do I have with me?" And I'm thinking all these combat tactical scenarios, worst case scenario stuff, which is over complicating the process. So we head to our in-laws' house that lived in Wilmington, North Carolina, said au revoir, and then we took off. We headed west. And our, our mission was to go on a small maiden voyage to work out the kinks because at the time our van had a shower and a composting toilet. It was fully decked out, but we weren't really sure how we wanted it all set up. It was just a kind of a, a shanty on wheels at this point, which is a hot mess.

• 5:25:34Speaker 02

  And we get to, we get to Utah. I got a few friends out there. And uh, I found myself just wanting to like be in their home and use internet and I wanted to be on the fucking phone. And I was addicted to technology and I needed dopamine and I needed attention. And this is the phase of life that I was in. I was so empty and lonely inside, even though I had an amazing wife, I was trying to fill voids. I was trying to fucking just escape the suffering that I was going through. Cause at the time, I didn't see the value of suffering because I forgot all the hardship, the suffering that I went through in the military.

• 5:26:14Speaker 02

  Cause I literally was a different person. I went from not being able to or functioning to not boiling water. That was a real psychological, you know, mental fuck to me. And I'm just trying to survive.

• 5:26:28Speaker 02

  So we get to Utah and I'm not happy. I'm kind of miserable inside the van. Cause I want, I want, I want, I don't want to be in nature. I rejected nature. I, I'm like, I spent all these years in nature in the military, getting rained on, being cold. I don't want to do that. Victim. Pouty pants. My wife's like, well fuck, you can stay in the van if you want to, but the dogs are not gonna walk away. I'm like, fine. So I stay in the van. I get high. I make music on my computer. If I had service, I'd fucking disappear into the matrix. Um, I just really played a big victim game.

• 5:27:07Speaker 02

  Then we link with my friends in Utah, Salt Lake City, and one of them, he's like, you thought about mushrooms?

• 5:27:18Speaker 02

  I'm like, I, I have, but I wasn't ready at the time. He's like, I can hook you up. I'm like, okay, what do I do? And he like, he's like measuring and he's like, oh, okay, take these. But this would be like one journey. So split that up throughout this pile that I give you. I'm like, okay. And so that was all the information I got.

• 5:27:49Speaker 02

  I'm like, Roger that. And my wife knew that I wanted to do this and it came about. I seeked it. I felt it. I wanted it. I've visualized it and it appeared oddly enough.

• 5:28:00Speaker 02

  We find ourselves in this uh, BLM land.

• 5:28:04Speaker 02

  And I told her like, hey, I'm gonna go do this. And she's like, okay. So I bundled up, I grabbed my journal.

• 5:28:14Speaker 02

  I wrote down intentions, not expectations, intentions, all, basically, I just wrote down all the things that were weighing me down in life.

• 5:28:21Shawn Ryan?

  Who told you to do that?

• 5:28:23Speaker 02

  Me?

• 5:28:23Shawn Ryan?

  Your buddy, or you just did it?

• 5:28:24Speaker 02

  I just did it.

• 5:28:25Shawn Ryan?

  No shit?

• 5:28:26Speaker 02

  I was.

• 5:28:29Speaker 02

  I got into journal a little bit before this, and journaling helped transform my life. It helped me communicate with myself. And it helped me find a place to be honest. Cause I wasn't very honest at this point in my life. I was very

• 5:28:44Speaker 02

  internal.

• 5:28:47Speaker 02

  So I said a lot of I'm fine's, I don't care. But actually, I wasn't fine. And in fact, I cared a lot. I just didn't really know how to articulate these things. Cause I was, I was so hurtful, I felt unworthy of love. I felt unworthy of an opportunity to live. I felt unworthy of a lot of shit. And so I wrote these things down.

• 5:29:09Speaker 02

  And then I fucking blasted off to the abyss.

• 5:29:14Speaker 02

  And this experience transformed my life.

• 5:29:21Speaker 02

  Forever.

• 5:29:24Speaker 02

  I did about three grams, three, four grams, maybe, nothing crazy. But for me, being, being a newbie at this, it was pretty significant. It was enough to take me over the edge where I had a breakthrough and I had these epiphanies and these aha moments. And

• 5:29:40Shawn Ryan?

  Where were you?

• 5:29:41Speaker 02

  I was in the middle of the woods, looking at the full moon. Tripping mad balls.

• 5:29:47Shawn Ryan?

  What are you seeing?

• 5:29:51Speaker 02

  At first, I saw what I would consider the universe. I'm like blasting through space.

• 5:29:56Shawn Ryan?

  You got eyes open?

• 5:29:58Speaker 02

  My eyes are open. I'm just like. All this is playing in my mind. I'm not moving anywhere.

• 5:30:06Speaker 02

  But the interpretation from my mind, my consciousness to what I think I'm observing, I'm blasting through space. Star jumping, just mock speed. I'm being showed what's possible. I'm being showed no boundaries. At least my interpretation.

• 5:30:25Speaker 02

  And then it just hits me and I have all these self internal reflections of um

• 5:30:33Speaker 02

  things that I wanted different in my life. And what it showed me from this very first journey was that I could change my life if I wanted to.

• 5:30:45Speaker 02

  And before this time, I didn't know if I was strong enough to do that. I didn't know if I could change my life. I thought this was it. I thought I was just gonna be a piece of shit the rest of my life. I thought I was gonna be a sad person the rest of my life. I thought I was gonna be a hateful person the rest of my life. I thought I was gonna be a victim the rest of my life. I thought I was gonna be ungrateful the rest of my life. I didn't want to be any of those things, but that's, that's the, the soul trap, the mind trap I felt myself in. And then I reintegrated back with my wife and, you know, and I journal this whole process. I journal every experience I have.

• 5:31:22Speaker 02

  And I come up with this sentence that I'm living a life without me.

• 5:31:29Speaker 02

  And I reflected on that for a little bit, didn't really know what that meant. I looked at a picture we had hanging in our van. It was a picture of me and her, my wife, and I'm like, I don't fucking like that guy. And I'm still kinda like on the up. I'm coming down, but I'm like, still pretty fluffy and feeling light. Very stress free, very communicative, you know, I'm talking, making eye contact. My wife's just sitting there. She's just there for the show.

• 5:31:56Shawn Ryan?

  But you're still, you're still feeling the effects of the

• 5:31:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I'm on the calm, I'm on the calm down. I'm not, I'm not peeking, I'm not blasting off, I'm not having all these introspective things anymore outside. I felt that it was coming to an end and I come back in the van because I'm hungry and I'm like, I think we had like a fucking pork chop or something and like ate it, looked like a buffalo and made a really big deal about it. Look at a picture of me on the wall. I'm like, I don't like that guy. I don't like him. And she's like, what are you talking about? That's you. I'm like, I don't fucking like that guy. And she's like, okay. And then I went back to journaling.

• 5:32:28Speaker 02

  And the next day I wake up and I'm just, I could fly. I had no stress, I had no anxiety.

• 5:32:37Speaker 02

  I felt happy for the first time in a very long time. I felt like I had a fucking chance.

• 5:32:43Speaker 02

  Well, since healing was all new to me, I rode that wave. But what I didn't do was reinvest into myself. I didn't take, I didn't take the money earned, the energy earned and redeposit into me. I broke the cardinal rule.

• 5:33:01Speaker 02

  I only took, but I didn't give. And what I learned through all my other experiences that I had to give that back. You know, what I gained, I had to put back into me and what that momentum I get, I had to put that momentum back into me. I have to take advantage of the space that I've created where in this situation, I just rode the wave.

• 5:33:20Speaker 02

  After thirty, forty-five days, I got depressed as shit again, super anxious again. Very limited on what I wanted to do in life. At this time, I didn't know what I wanted to do.

• 5:33:30Shawn Ryan?

  Before we go into that, who's, who's the guy that gave you the, that suggested that you try psilocybin?

• 5:33:38Speaker 02

  Uh, he's a marine buddy of mine. He's a civilian dog handler. Uh.

• 5:33:41Shawn Ryan?

  That's all, I mean, so it worked for him?

• 5:33:45Speaker 02

  It worked for him. He had his demons still, but he's like, hey, man, these help. And I was desperate where if you would have said, eat your own poop, it might help you, I would have tried it.

• 5:33:53Shawn Ryan?

  How, how long did the psilocybin trip last?

• 5:33:56Speaker 02

  Uh, this particular one was about five, six hours.

• 5:34:02Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 5:34:03Speaker 02

  Um. And I'm just, I'm journaling the whole time. I'm like staring at the moon the whole time. I'm like, I'm just coming up with all these aha moments and epiphanies and holy shit, that makes sense. And

• 5:34:17Speaker 02

  at the same time, I'm come up with this, this logo.

• 5:34:22Speaker 02

  And I didn't know what it was. I just drew it out. And so I leave this opportunity, I leave this journey and I feel just refreshed. I feel fucking reincarnated. I feel like I have a chance. And I'm looking at my journal and I have this logo drawn down and I have this idea

• 5:34:42Speaker 02

  to start a company out of nowhere.

• 5:34:46Speaker 02

  And, um, company is the company I own today is We Defy the Norm. And the logo I drew was my symbol for my brand.

• 5:34:56Speaker 02

  And what I learned from that experience and that symbol, my symbol represents the Trinity, the mind, body and spirit. But in the center, I have a time glass, an hour glass. And

• 5:35:11Speaker 02

  what I learned was that if we align ourselves, we can maximize our time.

• 5:35:18Speaker 02

  If we are online, our time maximizes us. And what I mean by that is if I align myself, if I invest in my mind, body and spirit and I actually put an honest effort, energy towards that evolution of self, I can now utilize my time. If not, my time utilizes me without me even fucking knowing it. See, there was a point in my life where I thought tomorrow would come. There was a point in my life at this point that time will heal this. And then I realized after this experience, this experience that that was all a fucking lie. We're not owed anything. Time is not guaranteed. Tomorrow's not guaranteed. And if anything, time is short. And we don't have much of it. And our time is our true power and our true energy. And with our time, we can change our lives or we can be a fucking victim. And

• 5:36:03Speaker 02

  it just propelled me on this new course of life where I wanted to fucking heal and I wanted to share everything about it. Cause it was so profound and I just looked at my entire life completely different from that moment forward that I was like,

• 5:36:18Speaker 02

  I have to do this. This is my call. This is it. And I didn't know it precisely at the time. But that epiphany of realizing that time is so fucking short and that I'm going to die one day.

• 5:36:32Speaker 02

  Really put it in perspective. And I told myself, like, Cody, you can go through all this shit that you've gone through and fucking just give up and live a mediocre fucking life. Where you can be a victim. You can feel sorry for yourself. You can do nothing different with your life. Or you can go face the fucking unknown. You can do this shit that's hard as fuck. You can do the things that make you uncomfortable. You can put yourself in positions and situations you never once imagined. For a chance? Or you can have the fucking norm. You could have an acceptance of what you currently have. And I realized that that really sucked and I didn't want that life. And I realized that everything leading up to this point was all by grand design. You know?

• 5:37:18Speaker 02

  Everything. Retiring early from the military. Being able to do this brain treatment. Being able to get this van. Being able to live on a very, very, very small paycheck. Having a supportive wife and a partner to help navigate this for us. And

• 5:37:38Speaker 02

  I felt empowered. More than I ever had before at this point. But I was still struggling. I was still hurting. But I had this little flicker of light. That said, "Okay. You can say you want to quit all day, but you know you're really not going to. So say what you gotta say. Do what you gotta fucking do and let's go."

• 5:37:58Speaker 02

  And that's when I started diving into like finding me. Cause I didn't know who I was. And it made me ask questions of who are you and what do you even want in life? And I didn't have the answers for that. And so we're traveling around. We leave this, we leave this beautiful place, this beautiful campsite and I'm just, I'm fucking high on life, dude. I love the fuck out of life.

• 5:38:22Speaker 02

  But I disobeyed the fucking golden rule, the unsaid rule. At the time, I didn't know this. I don't even know it's a real thing. This is how I'm interpreting it, because now I do it completely different. Because it wore off after like thirty days. This high went away. I was noticing that my cognitive, my brain treatment that I did was going away. I was resorting back to what happened, where am I at, what's going on, and I was kind of deteriorating. And then that sent me back off into a victim mindset, feeling sorry for myself, feeling sad. And so we start traveling around. We're just traveling around. We have no purpose in place. We spend much time as we can in BLM land. I'm connecting more to nature now. I'm not rejecting it.

• 5:39:05Speaker 02

  My wife is finally getting me out of my comfort zone, because I wanted to stay in my little bubble. And now I'm doing more nature activities. I'm walking outside with dogs. We're jumping in streams and creeks and chasing waterfalls, chasing fucking rainbows, living on the edge of cliffs until we run out of water. Like, we're fucking doing it. And all this happened about like two months. And we're like, you know what? Let's change the van up. We've been in this bitch long enough. Let's change it up. Let's make it ours. So we haul us back to the east coast. We do a bunch of modifications. We head up to Maryland, do some more modifications. Head up to Canada, get some custom bug screens made. Like, we're setting out for success.

• 5:39:45Speaker 02

  And through this process, I run into more plant medicine. I do more psychedelics. I do more psilocybin. Is it all psilocybin? All of it is, at this point. And the messages are becoming more profound. I'm expecting to blast off and look at this beautiful universe, this limitless, infinite, abundant place.

• 5:40:16Speaker 02

  And I'm just being told, "Fuck you, bro. You're going in." And I'm being repeated, these repeating patterns, "You're living a life without you." "I'm not me. I'm soulless." All these weird things. I'm like, "Fuck, dude." Because I was still feeling empty. No matter how much I wanted to save myself, I was still being destructive. No matter how many aha moments I had, I was still falling on my own sword. I was still being disrespectful. I was still being selfish and rude. But I was making this two steps forward, one step back process. So it was very confusing. I'm like, "Fuck, dude. We're gonna heal or we're not going to heal." And I didn't know, I was navigating all this by myself. None of my friends were into this stuff. I wasn't really into books, reading books outside of like The Alchemist at this point.

• 5:40:58Speaker 02

  I wasn't diving too much into anything. I was still pretty entry level into energy. I was still pretty entry level into nutrition and detoxing and the whole aspect of like, the water you drink, you know, purified water. I thought all that stuff was for yuppies. You know, I never really saw how it benefited me until I stayed consistent with it. And then I started to see my life change more. And I find myself in Tennessee. And I was there probably four or five months earlier at a friend's house. And we're talking about, I'm telling them about all these great epiphanies. I mean, I'm kind of having this like semi-god complex where I'm like,

• 5:41:40Speaker 02

  I feel like I know all the answers to the universe and what life is all about. And it was a really conflicting time in my life. There was a lot of new perspectives gained and I was having a hard time applying discernment.

• 5:41:51Shawn Ryan?

  How, sorry to cut you off, but did you have like a schedule? I mean, what, what was the determining factor of you

• 5:42:01Speaker 02

  To do more?

• 5:42:02Shawn Ryan?

  Taking more psilocybin? And how long, was there any schedule? Was it, "All right, I'm gonna do it every 30 days"? Just whenever you felt like it?

• 5:42:10Speaker 02

  Whenever I felt like it.

• 5:42:11Shawn Ryan?

  Did you feel like it all the time?

• 5:42:14Speaker 02

  No, not with mushrooms.

• 5:42:17Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 5:42:18Speaker 02

  Uh, with mushrooms, those were, those were kind of a violent ride for me. Very profound, very helpful, very opening, but they. I was probably doing them, I was probably doing three to five grand journeys, maybe. Every two or three months at this point.

• 5:42:38Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 5:42:38Speaker 02

  Um, I was curious. I wanted to know more.

• 5:42:42Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 5:42:42Speaker 02

  I was absolutely fucking curious of what. Of a new world that I had no idea existed.

• 5:42:49Shawn Ryan?

  Were you learning new things every?

• 5:42:51Speaker 02

  I was learning meditation, I was learning chakras, I was learning, um. Energy, I was learning about words, I was learning.

• 5:43:00Shawn Ryan?

  About yourself, I mean.

• 5:43:01Speaker 02

  Oh yeah, all these things. I was learning that, you know, how. Deceptive I was to myself and how I was the root cause of everything in my life and how. The power to change was all me, not anyone else, and because I was always asking for help and I was always reaching out, but I really needed to reach in. And the more I did, the more I told. And the more it told, the more I explored. Uh, because I would take that momentum and put it right back into me. I'm like, I'm feeling really good, feeling really chippery. So let me do more of these practices because it gave me the space to, to find different modalities. Which then helped me write down different words in my journal, which led me to different avenues in life. Which led me to different opportunities and experiences and it was all interconnected.

• 5:43:44Speaker 02

  And I find myself, uh, we're talking with a friend once, we're talking about ayahuasca comes up and I'm like, I'm not ready for that. He's like, oh, bro, you should go do ayahuasca. I'm like, dude, I ain't ready for that shit. And.

• 5:43:58Speaker 02

  I was scared. Cause I was, I was tasting what change could be like. But I wasn't ready for change.

• 5:44:06Shawn Ryan?

  Hmm.

• 5:44:07Speaker 02

  Because it was called a commitment and I was not willing to commit.

• 5:44:11Shawn Ryan?

  Why? Why weren't?

• 5:44:12Speaker 02

  I was scared.

• 5:44:12Shawn Ryan?

  It sounded like it was all positive things that are happening.

• 5:44:16Speaker 02

  But I was scared.

• 5:44:18Shawn Ryan?

  You were scared of what? What's the frontier or scared to leave everything behind?

• 5:44:22Speaker 02

  I wasn't worried about leaving anything behind. I was scared to have to create change. I was scared of what I could become. I was scared that I could be happy. And I was struggling with a lot of self inflicting wounds where I felt unworthy to even have this opportunity. Um, so I was struggling with a lot of self sabotage and limiting beliefs like I'm not good enough. Um, and I was struggling inside, you know, I have all these, these epiphanies or these messages saying like, I'm living a life without me. I'm like, I have no soul. And I started to believe that. Cause I felt it for a long time in my life. I felt I was soulless for a very long time. And I kinda attributed that to these open contracts that I put out in combat. Oh shit, get me the fuck out of here.

• 5:45:07Speaker 02

  You know, these silent things, these verbal things, dude, I was just putting that shit out to the universe. I don't know who the fuck I was talking to.

• 5:45:13Shawn Ryan?

  Yep.

• 5:45:15Speaker 02

  I'm saying fucking anything to survive.

• 5:45:18Speaker 02

  I was fucking thinking anything to survive. And so I don't know what kind of contracts I fucking dealt with back in the day. And at this time in my life, I believe in ghosts, I believe in energy, I believe in this shit. And now I'm like, damn, bro, it's time to pay, pay the piper. You fucking date some contracts, now it's time to pay up, bro. And I'm realizing, well shit, well, how do I rectify this? How do I change this? So I find myself in my friend's house. This is a few months later, we're traveling around the van. I mean, I'm loving the van, it's great, it's fun, but I'm still being a jerk, I'm still being poopy pants. But the van, the great thing about the van was we weren't tied to anything.

• 5:45:50Shawn Ryan?

  So hold on, just backtracking. So you're saying that you believe whatever you threw out in the moment into the universe. You know?

• 5:46:01Speaker 02

  Got to answer.

• 5:46:02Shawn Ryan?

  In combat, now because whatever you threw out happened, I want to get the fuck out of here. I want to live. You're out of there, you did live. You think.

• 5:46:13Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 5:46:14Shawn Ryan?

  You owe for that.

• 5:46:16Speaker 02

  I was open to it all. You know, I had a lot of life and death situations that I've walked away from, cutaways, shot in the helmet, planes fucking having explosions aside, like a lot of unexplainable things. Very explainable, but a lot of weird shit. And at this point in my life, I was stepping into a new evolution of self. I was asking much harder questions than I've ever, I never even contemplated them. So I found myself in my friend's house a month later. And I get a hold, I show up and lo and behold, my friend asked me, he's like, hey, are you interested in any mushrooms? My friend has some, I'm like,

• 5:46:57Speaker 02

  yes, because I learned this one thing about coincidences a long time ago, they're not a real thing. They're opportunities. So you can say they're coincidences and doubt them and judge them, or you can have faith and believe in it.

• 5:47:11Speaker 02

  And so I chose to have faith in this aspect, especially when it came to plant medicine. Because I was desperate. And

• 5:47:20Speaker 02

  I do another journey at his house, my friend's house. And it's all inside, same, some of the same things on repeat, but at the end of it, it said, I'm ready.

• 5:47:32Speaker 02

  And I didn't know what the fuck that meant. I came to the campfire, this is like five hours later, six hours later, people like, how was it? I'm like, I told them what's going on, what I saw, what I felt, and obviously it makes sense to me, to them, they're like, dude, this motherfucker's psychotic. But I'm like, dude, it's telling me I was ready for the next level. And they're like, okay, whatever.

• 5:47:51Speaker 02

  I thought the same thing. Well, the next fucking day, I get a phone call at 10 o'clock from a buddy of mine who said, hey, are you interested to go to Peru to do ayahuasca?

• 5:48:04Speaker 02

  And I said, yes.

• 5:48:08Speaker 02

  He's like, well, here it is, here's the deal. He tells me this deal. At the time, I have this opportunity to go take this job in LA to make hand over fist money, work in the cannabis industry. And this all worked out before I was gonna go do this.

• 5:48:24Speaker 02

  And at first I told my wife, "I can't do it." She's like, "Why can't you?" I'm like, "'Cause I'm fucking, I'm scared. How am I gonna afford that?" She's like, "We'll find a way." Because I was trying to, I wanted to, but I was scared. I was scared to invest, especially financially invest. Luckily, a nonprofit, uh, Herok's Heart Projects, uh, took care of me. Uh, they're, uh, they specialize in soft veteran community. Um, I just had to pay for my ticket.

• 5:48:52Speaker 02

  And so, two weeks later, I find myself in Peru. I am fucking terrified. I'm fucking traveling cross-country by myself. I am fucking terrified. I'm having to like, do these things and speak up and raise my hand and get a ticket and do this. And I'm going to a country I didn't speak their language. I'm terrified. My confidence is zero. You know, my, my operator skills are fucking diminished. And I'm still a hot mess. And so I find myself in Peru. I link up to the street. Uh, it was a very well-known one. His name's Dennis McKenna. Him and his brother, Terrence McKenna, who's deceased. They're huge in the psychedelic, uh, world. The fathers of it, almost. A lot of the aspects, a lot of the research and the studies and the papers

• 5:49:37Speaker 02

  and the, the laws and policies pushed for him. And he was hosting this event. And I go there and I link up with the shaman. We do this whole thing and we're getting ready for our first ceremony the following day, this first ayahuasca ceremony. And I'm like, "Fuck, I don't know what to expect." I was just hoping I didn't shit myself. Because I heard these horror stories, like, "Oh, you can, you purge one way or another." I'm like, "Oh, my God, worst-case scenario." That's who I was, worst-case scenario guy at the time. And so I go to my first ceremony and I'm like, I drink my brew. It's my time. And as I'm waiting my turn to get my, my cup, people are already flopping on the ground, making all sorts of weird ass noises. I'm like, "Holy shit, this is the real McCoy."

• 5:50:23Speaker 02

  I get my brew. I meet my ranger buddy there. He gets his brew. And I'm like, sitting there. I'm open-minded. I'm waiting. Nothing. Not a fucking thing. Not a fucking thing. Some rumble guts, couple of purges. I don't see anything. I hear nothing. I feel nothing. I go to the shaman. I tell him what's going on and he feeds me like, two more brew, like, two more cups. Nothing.

• 5:50:50Speaker 02

  And I went to him the next day and I asked him, am I not worthy for this? And he's like, what are you talking about? I'm like, I told him the story of, I felt like I was living a life without me, that I was soulless. And he looks at me, grabs my hand, and he's like, tonight, meet me upstairs, the yoga room, at like 6pm, whatever, after dinner. So I go up there. My interpreter, the interpreter's there, and she's like, what's gonna happen is you're going, uh, the shaman's gonna perform a soul retrieval ceremony on you. I'm like, what? She's like, he's gonna perform a soul retrieval ceremony on me, on you. I'm like, okay. So I stripped down my underwear, I fucking lay on the ground, I lay in this like pentagram, my body.

• 5:51:36Speaker 02

  And he puts these cups around me, puts these, these glasses of water. He's like,

• 5:51:45Speaker 02

  measures them up, my head, each point in my hands, each point in my feet. And he starts at my left leg. And she's like, stay absolutely still, whatever you do, don't move. I'm like, okay. I'm not a medicine, I'm not an addict narcotics, I'm not drunk, I'm nothing.

• 5:52:05Speaker 02

  And this dude starts singing his akatos, starts doing his chants, he starts on my left side, and works, this is, we clockwise, he works clockwise around me. By the time he got to my right arm, I'm fucking profusely shaking. I'm doing some like poltergeist shit, my eyes are in the back of my fucking head, and I'm crying. And I'm like, what is fucking going on? And she's like, Cody, don't move. Don't move, if you move, you're gonna break the circle. I'm like, and my back is fucking killing me, it's this, I got this pinch in my back, and it is fucking... I wanted to move, so, but I knew, I came to Peru to surrender.

• 5:52:44Speaker 02

  I came there to fucking go all in, and if I knew if I fucking moved my foot, wiggled my butt, if I did anything but my best, I'd have thrown away this opportunity of a fucking lifetime. So I was committed to the fucking death. And I'm like breathing all heavy, I'm doing a bunch of weird funky chicken stuff. And I'm like crying, like, what's fucking going on? I'm conscious at the time, my eyes in the back of my fucking head. She's like, Cody, don't move. And he, he gets to my left, my left hand, and he finishes, he finishes his singing. And he puts his hand on my chest, and I...

• 5:53:19Speaker 02

  I had this big release, this big exhale, and I just feel so at peace.

• 5:53:28Speaker 02

  And he says this prayer over me, and I'm like, what the fuck just happened? She's like, well, he entered through your back, your pain point, and that's how he accessed you. And he said that your soul was buried very deep down inside you by a bunch of dark entities. And so he had to fight them off, and he brought it back to you. So when he placed his hand on your chest, he brought your soul back to you. And I'm like blown away, dude. I'm like,

• 5:53:57Speaker 02

  this is some like magic shit. Yeah. Almost a disbeliever.

• 5:54:04Speaker 02

  And I'm like, But it worked. I'm like, what do I do now? Did it work? Well, the next ceremony,

• 5:54:12Speaker 02

  it was, I felt it. And I have the same experiences, but what ayahuasca showed me from this experience, how it was all collective, was it showed me to reconnect to me, to find me. It showed me how to clear up the headspace, the carousel of movies and thoughts that were playing nonstop in my head, that I was always holding against me, not allowing myself to heal and grow and move forward. It showed me how to address that. It showed me how to feel myself and how to connect to energy. So my second ceremony, it showed me how to clear the space up. My third ceremony, it showed me how to connect to energy and how to charge myself. So now, when, when the shaman was singing his akatos,

• 5:54:57Speaker 02

  uh, cause he's on brew too at this point, he's tapped into all of us, and he's singing, and I just, I just, I'm just getting charged. And I'm just feeling all this, just life just come to me, and I'm feeling everything that I've never felt before. I'm just like, I feel this dude singing. I feel his energy, I fucking feel it. And we finish.

• 5:55:21Speaker 02

  And they're like, okay, no red meat, no drugs. For like three weeks, I'm like, that's it? I still felt like I was missing something. And so one of my ranger buddy there, he had access to Changa, which is, my understanding, it's like a flower-based DMT. Like you smoke it, like it looks like flower, right? Like cannabis. But it's a longer lasting than DMT. DMT, five to 10 minutes, Changa is like 20 to 30 minutes, depending on how much you hit. And he's like, bro, this is the cherry on top. I'm like, what? New to all this? I just did a soul retrieval, I just did ayahuasca, I don't know. Dude, I'm, I'm junior, boot as fuck, this is all new to me. But I'm, I'm like, I came here to find self-love and I don't feel like I found that.

• 5:56:06Speaker 02

  I, I smoked this Changa.

• 5:56:09Speaker 02

  And he's, I'm like, what do I do? He's like, ask it what you want to see and experience. I'm like, I don't fucking know. He's like, ask it to show you the coolest thing that you've ever seen. I'm like, okay. So I rip this bong and I'm fucking gone. Dude, I'm, I'm fucking gone. Visual, I'm in a different dimension. I come out of this thing like 30 minutes later, I'm like, whoa! He's like, right? I'm like, dude! He's like, you wanna do it again? I'm like, yes. Cause like, I went there and I asked it to show me the coolest thing. Guess what? It showed me the coolest thing. But it's not why I was there. What was it? What was it there? What was the coolest thing? Coolest thing? Dude, I, I fucking saw a different dimension that I can't see with my own eyes. I saw happiness.

• 5:56:53Speaker 02

  I saw freedom. I saw feeling, I saw emotion, I saw fucking chance, I saw opportunity, I saw limitless fucking abundance. I saw the mountains fucking smile at me. They waved at me. I saw the fucking sky like it was the first time I've ever opened my eyes.

• 5:57:13Shawn Ryan?

  Did you actually see?

• 5:57:14Speaker 02

  Oh, yes. Yes.

• 5:57:16Shawn Ryan?

  Or were you seeing everything that you saw before you smoked it?

• 5:57:24Speaker 02

  In-

• 5:57:24Shawn Ryan?

  But it was just another perspective now?

• 5:57:26Speaker 02

  It was like the-

• 5:57:26Shawn Ryan?

  The exact same thing?

• 5:57:27Speaker 02

  Same thing in a different perspective. The same people that were there, I saw them. They're like fucking plant people. They're all tall giants. I'm like, what the fuck? It was weird to look at people in the face. Looking at the fucking, the smiling, waving mountain was trippy. I was like, oh shit. So I went to go look at these people. Oh shit-

• 5:57:44Shawn Ryan?

  You actually, okay-

• 5:57:45Speaker 02

  My eyes are open. I'm seeing this all.

• 5:57:47Shawn Ryan?

  No.

• 5:57:47Speaker 02

  And then I'm spinning in my own head at the same time.

• 5:57:52Speaker 02

  So I rip it again, and this time I asked, I wanted to find love for me. And I lived my whole entire life, everything about my life, I lived it all over again. And how everything in my life was leading me to that point right now, where I was at right now. All these people that I met here, all these different faces were all part of my life. And how everything was connected to one. And how everyone's just a mirror of us. And how everything that we encounter in life is, is something that we must see to move on to the next phase. Or we can see that as normal, just a person, just an opportunity, just a coincidence. And it dissolved all that delusion that I had.

• 5:58:35Speaker 02

  And then I ended up spinning in this fucking abyss of hell, this darkness, falling. And as I'm falling, I'm, I'm, I'm seeing words and I'm trying to speak them into existence. And the words are, "I love me." But they're coming out very broken, like my very first radio transmission when I got shot in the helmet. It was, "I love me." And I'm like, that's not good enough. That's not a fucking sentence. Those are three separate words. And as I'm spinning further and further and further into this endless, bottomless pit, just falling, I'm fighting so hard to say the words, "I love me." As soon as I say the words, "I love me," and I open my eyes and the trip's over.

• 5:59:17Speaker 02

  I knocked over a chair in the process. I'm sitting in this beautiful garden in Peru. I knocked over a chair as I was flocking around the ground, and I got in the chair and I just started to cry. And I fucking cried about everything. I, I, I released. I had, I literally had this love for me that I'd never experienced before and I realized that all this other love that I thought I was giving and that I had, I had none of it because I had none of it for myself. And I realized that if without me, none of that is fucking possible. I can't give what I don't have. That's why I wasn't growing, that's why I wasn't evolving, that's why I wasn't healing because I didn't even know what I was growing and evolving from. I was an incomplete puzzle fucking piece and I was just brought back together and shown that you are here for more. And

• 6:00:04Speaker 02

  my life changed. I went home and I was happy. But my environment wasn't saying.

• 6:00:12Speaker 02

  My environment was a

• 6:00:15Speaker 02

  product of my existence previously.

• 6:00:19Speaker 02

  And so then I spent the next years changing and rewriting my story

• 6:00:26Speaker 02

  so I can grow and heal. Cause now I, now I fucking truly, I felt connected. I had my soul back. I fell in love for myself and I'm willing to fucking fight for that.

• 6:00:36Shawn Ryan?

  Can we go back for just a second? You've mentioned

• 6:00:41Shawn Ryan?

  the environment that you had created. Is that how you worded it before?

• 6:00:45Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm. What does that mean?

• 6:00:48Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I think I know what it means because I felt it after my Ibegane 5MEO experience. So I'm just gonna share.

• 6:00:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:00:59Shawn Ryan?

  What I noticed is how people, how what I noticed, the first thing I noticed was how my wife was acting when I got back from that. And

• 6:01:13Shawn Ryan?

  my wife is a very positive person. I'm a very negative person and

• 6:01:23Shawn Ryan?

  and when I got back from my Ibegane 5MEO DMT trip.

• 6:01:30Shawn Ryan?

  When we would be out in town, I I've noticed

• 6:01:34Shawn Ryan?

  how my wife was, and I wasn't like that anymore. And I and I realized that that was, I mean, essentially, that was me rubbing off on my wife, all that fucking negativity. And I, as happy as I was after that experience,

• 6:01:55Shawn Ryan?

  it made me sad because I knew I fucking did that. I was like, fuck, man. She's judging those people because I fucking judge everybody. And all that kind of stuff, you know, she's being negative because I was so fucking negative. And

• 6:02:15Shawn Ryan?

  so many things that I observed that I saw Katie doing that I was, I felt guilty because I knew I was like, if it, if she never would have met me, she wouldn't be fucking acting like that. And I didn't realize how much I had, how much of an effect that had on her until I got home from that and it was basically, you know, you're fucking cleansed of that shit after an experience like that and and uh, so I had to recreate my environment. Is that what you're talking about?

• 6:02:52Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. You know, I I put my wife through the wringer for years. And as I was healing, she was holding space for me, allowing me to do what I needed to do, supporting me in every aspect, but just taking it to the face every time. You know, just being hurt, being let down,

• 6:03:12Speaker 02

  being disappointed, being mistreated, being disrespected. And

• 6:03:20Speaker 02

  and here I am happy. Here I am actively pursuing starting a business, actively pursuing healing,

• 6:03:31Speaker 02

  and she's suffering.

• 6:03:34Speaker 02

  And that sucks. That sucks to watch.

• 6:03:39Speaker 02

  And...

• 6:03:42Speaker 02

  But she's still with me. It is what it was. I couldn't change the past and I realized I couldn't heal either until I started to forgive myself. You know, I couldn't stop, I couldn't keep on being mad at myself for fucking doing this shit to my wife for all these months and all these years. Because if I did, I was never going to let go of that past. I'm never gonna let go of that version of me, that story. And then I was always gonna repeat the same shit. And so, I had to forgive that version of me. So I could become who I am today. And, you know, it was tough on her.

• 6:04:19Speaker 02

  Because it didn't stop with ayahuasca. I learned about DMT. Then I learned about acid, LSD. Then I learned about 5-MEO. Then I learned about all these other things.

• 6:04:35Speaker 02

  And, I'm like, I felt so called to them. I felt so called to put myself out there because I realized that self-healing, mental health is a weird space and people don't like it. Because I realized that I have the opportunity to hold a mirror up for people. Anyone can point a finger. But I hold a mirror up for people. And I can show you your true self. And that is not a comfortable thing for people to see. It's also not a comfortable thing for people to see what they can be. Because it must cost you your old life for the new life. And...

• 6:05:12Speaker 02

  I realized that these experiences with psychedelics and these, these self-explorations and these pondering sessions and these, these amazing cannabis evenings where I'm filling up journal upon journal of fucking information I call downloads and these things that I feel called and compelled to say.

• 6:05:31Speaker 02

  I'm like, I have to do something with this. And I know that everyone's into plant medicine. I know that everyone's not into cannabis. I know that everyone's aren't into these modalities and even healing. So this whole time, I start sharing my story online. What I'm going through, my pain points. And I realized that I have this ability to help people see that, you know, what the medicine has showed me was that I'm the medicine. And so for someone out there who's not courageous, or they don't want to, or it's against their belief system, or they're just not about that life, because it's very taboo.

• 6:06:11Speaker 02

  You know, if you have a society that is only fed red apples their entire life, and then you come out of nowhere and say, "I have a green apple. Are you interested?" They're like, "What the fuck is that?" That is a hard pill to swallow. Yeah. Because some people are like me. But they don't feel like they're worthy to change. They feel like they must pay their fucking karmic debt, stay in the hell loop system and cycle that they're in, and never fucking evolve. And that's all they're worthy of. And that's simply not true. If that was the case, why are we even exist? Why are we alive? Why do we have a thing called time? Why do we age? Why do we evolve? Why are those things there if that was the case?

• 6:06:51Speaker 02

  If you fucked up once, why, why would we have the opportunity to continue on? When we feel so unworthy of being happy and, and be, and to be loved, and to share that love, why would we just stop? You know? And... So that's what I really respect and love about the plant medicine is that it might not be for everybody, but healing is for everybody. Yeah. And they might not go through the experience that I go through, but if I can share my story, if I can share that glimpse of hope and belief, like, "Yo, bro, just because you suck today doesn't mean you gotta suck tomorrow. Just because you want to quit doesn't mean you have to quit." You know, just because times are hard, just because you're suffering now doesn't mean it's not worth it. We rise through the suffering.

• 6:07:36Speaker 02

  My whole life has been fucking suffering. I've smiled a lot. I've enjoyed a lot. I've had fun a lot. But there's been a lot of suffering along the way. Even now, I can still suffer. I'm human.

• 6:07:49Speaker 02

  But that is what separates us from who we were yesterday to who we can become today. Is that suffering process. And through all these different psychedelic experiences, modalities, and I haven't tried them all, but I've definitely tried a lot.

• 6:08:06Speaker 02

  It's always shown me that I am limitless. I can create anything I want to, and I am the fucking power. I am that energy, I am that light, I am all these things that I seek in life. I just have to give myself permission to fucking accept them and acknowledge them.

• 6:08:23Speaker 02

  I have to have that, give myself permission to be courageous for myself and say like, "I need help."

• 6:08:28Speaker 02

  "I need to take a knee." "I, I need your assistance." You know, and that's not easy for dudes to do, especially dudes. Dudes are the worst. Veterans are the worst. And getting out and sharing these stories and going through all these experiences and people thinking I'm fucking crazy because I'm like posting, I, I, I speak differently. I, I love philosophy. I, I speak and live philosophy.

• 6:08:51Speaker 02

  Because that gives my life a purpose. Because if I'm not expanding, I'm fucking dying. If I'm dying, why am I trying? Well, I'm constantly dying. So how can I flip the script on that? I'm dying the day I was born. My time is fucking short. So am I going to suffer in silence? How I was taught, how I was raised in the system of indoctrination? And you're indoctrinated through fear, through shock and awe, and through discipline. How can I recreate that same pattern but opposite? So I started diving into conspiracies, I started diving into fucking the universe, the energy, what is God? I started to seek out this beliefs, like what is belief? I had no belief. The stories don't really make sense to me.

• 6:09:36Speaker 02

  I never really bought off on them. But I knew that I had no belief in anything. And I knew that was a huge hindrance in my evolution of growth and self. Because if I didn't fucking believe in anything, why would I even try? And now I actually want to fucking try because I'm seeing traction in my life. I'm like, "Okay, Code, you can't stop." So I kept down this fucking path of like, trying to, to, to explore my own life. And I realized that through, especially DMT.

• 6:10:03Speaker 02

  Especially LSD, there was a different reality taking place right now, right in front of us. And it's the same perspective of you go outside and it's raining and you're like, oh shit, it's raining, my day is ruined. Within thirty seconds, the rain clears, the sun comes out, you're like, oh fuck yeah, the rain's out.

• 6:10:23Speaker 02

  What?

• 6:10:26Speaker 02

  And so I take realities and perspectives like that and apply it to the psychedelics and I see the cross-reference and see everything as perspective. I can be a victor, I can be a victim. I can say I'm happy or I can choose to be unhappy. I can take these gifts of opportunity, these gifts of wisdom, these gifts of chance and time, and I can apply them to something bigger than myself, or I could be selfish and do nothing within and ride the wave and wondering why I keep on going back to the same place that I fucking started at. And I lived that cycle for, for a couple of years, learning, exploring, educating myself. Had no one to talk to, lost a lot of friends,

• 6:11:05Speaker 02

  my circle was extremely small, not by choice. And as I'm navigating these systems, these loops, I'm like, wait a second. One, no one knows anything. Two, all I have is my truth. And three, I can only control my thoughts and my actions. And if I know I can control my thoughts and my actions, I can forgive myself of my wrongdoings and fucking grow and evolve. If I control my thoughts and my actions, I can choose to rewrite my fucking story and then change who I am through that story and how I tell that story. Because at the time, I was very victim, wondering why am I not changing my life? Why is my life not growing and evolving? But I was telling the same

• 6:11:47Speaker 02

  old story, doing different shit, expecting different results. Same old story, doing different shit, expecting different results, always ending up back where I started from. Because my story was never changing. And then I started diving into fucking cognitive and quantum field and Joe Dispenza and the subconscious mind and realizing that we are programmed from a fucking childhood state to live in fear, to be suppressed, to forget our power.

• 6:12:17Speaker 02

  And if you can look at that, you can look at, well, what happened? What went wrong? When did we stop believing in ourselves? All my trips, almost, I feel like, play more, be a kid more, have more of this feminine energy. Feminine energy to like the Instagram commandos, like, what? Wuss. No, player. I have too much masculine energy. I'm task oriented. I gotta do these things. I have these goals, these tasks. I wasn't setting time to play and to be and to exist. I wasn't letting go of control and just going outside with no intention other than to be outside. Going on a fucking walk without my phone. Walking my dogs and actually talking to my dogs vice fucking getting lost in my mind. You know? Having no true purpose, not being present. Now I hold my kid, I look at that fucking dude in the eyes.

• 6:13:02Speaker 02

  I'm connected to that kid. I don't fuck with my phone with my kid. I don't get distracted with my kid. He's my kid. I'm with him. And then I struggle and I fight for space to be present with my wife. I fight, struggle for space to be present with a task at hand, with my goals and my dreams, my visions, my clarity. You know, and now I take all those years of suffering and I apply it to the suffering that I'm doing now. The suffering of, you know, limiting beliefs, doubts, evolution, growth. What is healing? Are you even fucking healed? Is that even a thing? Can you even be healed? And I've come to this conclusion that it's not a, it's not a, I'm healed. I've learned that it's about the destination. It's not, sorry, it's not the destination, it's the journey. I've learned it's about the journey.

• 6:13:44Speaker 02

  And the journey that I've committed to is this fucking path of fucking unknown. It's the, I'm never gonna be, I'm never gonna stop growing. I'm never gonna stop evolving. I'm never gonna stop. My belief system and what I believe in, that's unwavering. That is my why to exist. But my belief system of how I feel, that's always up for debate. Cause how I feel can be an emotional state of where my ego's controlling my day vice my heart, my love. And I realize that I'm never above this expansion of self. And I realize that the more I work on me, the more I rewrite my stories, the more the stories that I have had lived and impacted other people can change also. You know?

• 6:14:23Speaker 02

  Me working on myself has given my wife that space to work on herself in the ways that she finds fitting and needs to. And now our roles are reversed where I'm fucking being there for her. And it sucks, it's uncomfortable. It's not fun.

• 6:14:40Speaker 02

  But that's the price. Because through the suffering is what you seek. And I see that now. Suffering is like, I want it fixed. I want Amazon Prime. I want happiness. I want now. I want dopamine. I want instant gratification. There is no, I did this one thing and I'm cured for life and I never have to ever invest in myself again. No. Because your wave just might be bigger than mine, that you're writing. We always have to invest in ourselves continuously. We're constantly under attack. Our minds are constantly under attack. We're constantly being poisoned with the things that we eat, consume, we view, we listen to. Everything is out there, literally to get us. Because when you are it, when you are that thing and you're suppressed, you're a slave.

• 6:15:21Speaker 02

  When you don't think that you have the power to change your fucking life, you'll never change your view system on how you see the world. If you're too weak to stand up for yourself, you'll always be a fucking slave to someone else who's more powerful than you. It's all by a grand design. And I realize that I'm extremely fucking powerful and so is everyone else. And the main thing, my business, we defy the norm, my coaching group, Defy Tribe, all these things that I do is to help people find their true power back and claim it and do anything with it. Because you're fucking limitless. I'm fucking limitless. There is no price tag to the mental capacity that I possess inside. I might not know the answers. I don't know a lot and I learn a lot and I fail a lot and I fuck up a lot. I still do to this day. I tell today, I didn't even want to go to the gym.

• 6:16:04Speaker 02

  I wanted to sleep in because I stayed up writing last night, but I still went. I still struggle with real shit. But the thing is, I know the difference was separates me from what I want to be tomorrow is what I do today. And in my years of trying to get into the healing space and evolve, I was missing the action part because the action came with commitment and commitment is fucking scary. When you commit to your life, the fact like, I'm gonna fucking die one day and I'm not gonna go out like a bitch. I'm not gonna fucking give away this fucking, I'm not gonna survive a fucking gunshot to the helmet, a fucking cutaway on a free fall fucking jump, a fucking airplane that almost fucking crashed. I'm not gonna survive all these things, put people through all this hell to fucking live a mediocre, very basic, average life where I have this calling inside.

• 6:16:49Speaker 02

  I'm saying fuck you, suppressing you and putting a thumb on you. Why would I do that? Because now I've become a product of my environment. Because if you allow your environment to control you, which I allowed the environment until I stood up for myself to control me for so long, I just relinquished my power.

• 6:17:06Speaker 02

  And, you know, to me, healing is reclaiming your power. It's saying, who do you want to be today? Create that vision board as young Cody did, and go build and fucking live that life. If I did that as a kid, uneven knowing it, why can't I do it now as an adult? Why can't I do it now with my business, We Defy the Norm? Why can't I do it now with my coaching group, Defy Tribe? Where I'm literally helping people by showing them a fucking mirror?

• 6:17:31Speaker 02

  And if we can, if we can heal ourselves and give ourselves permission to fucking grow and evolve, we'll change the world. And through all these psychedelic experiences and all the books that I've read, and all the beliefs that I have formed, and the aha epiphanies, and all the things I do in life, that's what it's led me to. And that's what I do and why I do what I do today.

• 6:17:55Speaker 02

  I'm still figuring it out as I go, but I'm not stopping. Because I know that the keys to the universe is through suffering. Because if it was easy, everyone would have it. If self-love was fucking easy, there wouldn't be depression, there wouldn't be kids on fucking pills, there wouldn't be all this sad drama shit. People would turn off the fucking TV, would live a better life. But people live in fear, they want to be controlled, they want a daddy, they want to be governed. They want to be told what to do. You have to go to a doctor to be told that you're sick. What ludicrous is that? That is a powerless person. And at some point in our evolution of self, we've lost our fucking power. And at some point in evolution of self, people fucking forgot that they have a say in this life. And that's the message that I share.

• 6:18:40Speaker 02

  It's your life, live it on your fucking terms. Defy the norm. If the norm to you is doing nothing different with your life, and it sucks, and you're unhappy with it, and it's hard, and you want to quit. If the norm is you fucking bowing down to that master,

• 6:18:54Speaker 02

  then fucking defy it. Defy that conformity. Defy the fact that that is your go-to thing. And the only person that's gonna fucking make a change in your life is you. Medicine will only show you the way, you gotta do the work. The medicine will give you the fucking wave. But you have to fucking ride it, and you have to keep on paddling to find the next wave and the next wave, because every fucking day is an opportunity to invest in yourself. And the more this world requires of you, the more tokens you have to fucking give it.

• 6:19:23Speaker 02

  What happens when you're depleted? You end up back where you started from. And that's where depression, anxiety, stress, fucking self limiting beliefs, self sabotaging, all this shit comes about. And so if you can look at your life as the fact that you have an opportunity to live and to go all in, do the scariest shit you've ever imagined in your absolute entire life, to do things, to think bigger than you've ever thought before, to fucking plan some really big objectives in life that you don't even think are fucking attainable, but you're doing it in the first place, that is going all in on life. And you can't do that, you can't have that thought process if you think you're fucking weak, if you're not think you're good enough, if you don't believe in yourself. Cause if you don't believe in yourself, how can you put and instill belief in anyone else?

• 6:20:08Speaker 02

  And even in my lowest time in the military, I fucking believed. But at some point, I forgot. When I chose to be a victim, I forgot. When my life turned upside down, I fucking forgot. When I felt sorry for myself, became a fucking pill addict, I forgot. And then I fucking started to remember. And I come to this conclusion that life is literally about, we've already lived this before. And our life's purpose is about remembering, remembering our worth, remembering our power, remembering that all that hardship that we went through, all the fucking tears we shed, the blood we fucking spewed, the bodies we fucking carried, that wasn't for nothing. It was for who we are today and who we're gonna fucking become.

• 6:20:50Speaker 02

  And we can either be fucking victims and feel sorry for ourselves and blame the world, or we can take extreme ownership and we're like, oh, fuck this dude. I don't give a shit how dark and scary this fucking road is. I don't care if I never see a fucking light, I'm walking that way. Cause I've been walking this way and this way sucks. This way leads to dopamine rushes and a lot of crashes. This way however, I haven't gone down that way. And if I apply logic to my life and I give that a fucking shot.

• 6:21:18Speaker 02

  There's limitless possibilities over there. And that's been my involvement with psychedelics, that's been my involvement with reading, that's been my involvement with journaling. Because there's so many limitless possibilities, and the only person that really puts limits on it is us. Your pain points is you, your suffering is you, your struggle is you. It's not your job, it's not your environment. It's your mindset, it's your belief system, they're not aligned, you have none. And being able to share that with people now, through my brand. People are like, "Cody, you're another vet company selling fucking t-shirts." I'm like, "No, bro, I ain't selling t-shirts." I'm sharing a fucking message. People just buy my shirts because they believe in the message.

• 6:22:00Speaker 02

  My shit's not telling you to fucking kill bodies, stack bodies, do cool guy, alpha male things. My shit's telling you to believe in yourself. It's telling you to fucking live now, die later. "Oh, I'm waiting till the right time to start that business, bitch." There is no right time. You're not even guaranteed tomorrow. Our fucking friends on the battlefield, they fucking thought they were gonna come home. They really fucking believed it. Guess what? It didn't happen. So am I gonna disrespect that lesson, that wisdom, by disrespecting my own fucking life now, even when I saw truth? Or am I gonna do something about it? And as I started to take my power back, I started to fucking believe all these things, like, "Bro, I don't mourn for my fucking dead, I live for my fucking dead."

• 6:22:43Shawn Ryan?

  Good for you.

• 6:22:46Speaker 02

  Because to fucking mourn, and to feel sad, you just gave your power.

• 6:22:56Speaker 02

  And so I changed my own story, man. I struggle, I'm not a perfect being, I fuck up. Sometimes I listen to gangster rap 90s music, sometimes I listen to Rufus the Soul. I'm a fucking mixture. I wear leopard print fucking shoes that say, that are embroidered, that say, "My life, my terms." Because I decided that I can live my life that everybody else wants me to fucking live, or I can fuck around and find out. I can see what I'm made of, I can see what I'm truly here for.

• 6:23:24Speaker 02

  I get a question, "Cody, how do I find my purpose?" "By fucking putting one foot in front of the other." You can't stay in the same ambush spot and expect not to get hit again. And so I take these lessons and these wisdoms from the ultimate prices ever paid, through those hardships and those hurdles.

• 6:23:42Speaker 02

  And I redefine my life by looking at them not as the suffering, but looking them as opportunities to fucking evolve.

• 6:23:51Speaker 02

  And to me, that's the ultimate honor that I could ever do for my friends that are no longer here, for all my friends that fucking killed themselves because they were too afraid to ask for fucking help. They felt too weak to fucking go get assistance and they're fucking dead. Because they chose the only opportunity they thought that was real. They chose the only escape they thought was fucking available. And it's fucking old. I hate the fucking phone calls. I hate seeing the post.

• 6:24:21Speaker 02

  So how do you change that? If I can only control my thoughts and my actions, well, I fucking change myself.

• 6:24:29Speaker 02

  And hopefully that's enough for someone else to change their fucking selves. And that person changes themselves and that person inspires someone's reactions to change themselves, the fact that someone else is defying conformity and investing in themselves, taking the fucking hard, dark, dark, long road that has no guiding factors, no guiding principle, there is no fucking lighthouse for you to see. It's just a fucking dark abyss. But people are afraid of the dark.

• 6:24:54Speaker 02

  I was afraid of the dark before, but I realized that it is the light path that takes you to salvation. It's that fucking dark, unknown space that you are fucking too scared to go into. That is your mirror. And I jump into that thing all the time. When I'm feeling like a bitch, when I'm doubting myself, I find the nearest mirror and I remind myself who I am. When I'm fucking sluggish, I hop in a cold shower and I fucking freeze my fucking nuts off, I snap out of it. Because I know that I will always be challenged, I'll always be tested, and I will always have the opportunity to be a victim. I will always have that opportunity.

• 6:25:28Speaker 02

  If I have the opportunity to be happy today, I have an instant opportunity to be very sad the same fucking second later.

• 6:25:33Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 6:25:34Speaker 02

  And, um.

• 6:25:37Speaker 02

  That's what I share with people. That's, that's what I believe in. That's my philosophy on life and that's how I, not justify it, but that's how I honor all these past lives. You know, these, these brave men and women that

• 6:25:55Speaker 02

  will never have a fucking chance to go all in, but I fucking do. And I'm not gonna fucking be a disrespectful fucking slug of a person by playing an old version of me that doesn't exist, that doesn't serve me, that doesn't enhance my life, that doesn't wanna win big, that doesn't wanna go all in, that doesn't wanna fucking help change this world to put belief back into people.

• 6:26:19Shawn Ryan?

  Well, that's a, that's a hell of a message, dude. That's fucking incredible.

• 6:26:26Shawn Ryan?

  How many psychedelic journeys do you think you've done?

• 6:26:36Speaker 02

  Um.

• 6:26:39Speaker 02

  Thirty.

• 6:26:40Shawn Ryan?

  Thirty?

• 6:26:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, thirty-ish, thirty.

• 6:26:44Speaker 02

  Uh, various psilocybin, LSD, DMT, uh, ayahuasca. Um. You can even have experiences with cannabis. Breathwork, I do with breathwork.

• 6:26:59Speaker 02

  Meditation.

• 6:27:00Shawn Ryan?

  We've come a long fucking ways.

• 6:27:03Shawn Ryan?

  Obviously.

• 6:27:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I don't, it's not a destination. It's just part of the process and when I forget to invest in myself, all I have to do is look back at my own logo and be like, bro, are you aligned? Are you investing in your mind, body, and your spirit today? Oh, you haven't done it for the past five days? And you wonder why you're, this is where you're at? To me, that's ownership. That's my mirror. My logo is my mirror. My company, my brain is my mirror. My coaching group is my mirror. My voice, my mouth, my ears, my eyes are my mirror. And I just create all these things to hold myself accountable, to remind myself, because if I can, if I can, if there's a chance, then there's a chance I can forget. And if, if life to me is all about remembering,

• 6:27:49Speaker 02

  then I must do what it takes to, to, to remember.

• 6:27:54Speaker 02

  And I can only do that by making deposits daily. And not all days are wins. Not all days are my greatest successes. Some days I'll just do fucking 20 pushups, bro. And I'll, and I'll, I kind of feel bad about it, but I'll go move my body. Some days, I won't eat right on my fucking, my meal plan, my diet, and instead of talking shit to myself, I'm like, alright dude, let's butt it the fuck up. You know, I had to change the way because there's a lot of rules and there's a lot of different. You need to live like this. You need to live so hardcore. If you're a dude, or you're a vet, you gotta be this. If you're a chick, you gotta do this. If you're fucking lost in life, you gotta do this. There's so many subscriptions out there to do. And I tried to do all of them. And I never felt, they were all like religions, religious titles to me.

• 6:28:39Speaker 02

  I never really felt connected to any one of them. Sprinkles of them made sense. But as a whole, complete unit, I'm just like, ugh. It's like a fucking title. That's why I give myself a fucking made up name. I'm a mindset belief builder. One, I believe in it.

• 6:28:58Speaker 02

  But two, I don't need to fucking be a, I don't need to have a title like anyone else. I'm me. How can I ever encourage you to be you if I say, hey, you have to be this label? You have to subscribe to this one thing. So, I kind of take this approach of like, oh yeah, I'm into breathwork. Hell yeah. I'm into, I'm into breathing, I'm into hugging. I'm into energy, bro. If I can't vibe with you, we can't hang out. It's as simple as it is. I've worked too hard to even have the feeling of what energy is, to jeopardize it. You know, like all these different things and I just have this toolbox. Instead of saying, I only do this. This is what I do every day because I tried that life too and I failed a lot. And when I failed a lot, I beat myself up a lot. So now I just pick, I, I, I pick and pull. I have this toolbox. Maybe today or this season of life,

• 6:29:42Speaker 02

  doing cold showers doesn't work. I took cold showers my entire winter off of well water in fucking the woods. Very cold. Not one hot shower. But I've taken hot showers in the summertime. Weird. But I, now I spend time in the creek vice, or the lake vice my shower. So I set a hole in a gun to, you have to do this Cody. This is investing in yourself. I'm like, yo, what, how's another way to skin this cat? How's another way to do this? Oh, this is really hard. So I can psych myself on be like, hey, man, I kinda wanna quit this, but I know I'm not going to. But I'll say whatever I gotta do to like make it happen. I'll fucking, I'll play tricks in my mind. Cause I will not be defeated.

• 6:30:22Speaker 02

  Because it's me that has to, to execute that, to say that. And I know from experience, cause I'm just, I'm remembering that I don't have to be a victim. I don't have to fucking quit. Just cause it's hard, scary, or you wanna stop.

• 6:30:36Speaker 02

  So I said, fuck it. And I'm just gonna rewrite life how I fucking view it. And I'm gonna share that if it resonates with people, then right on. If they can find a snippet of it and change their life, then right on. That's, that's what I'm here for. And I'm, and I'm not even throwing spaghetti at the wall anymore to see what sticks. I said, you know what? Fuck it. Throwing spaghetti in the wall, see what sticks, that's, that's for approval for other people. I'm like, I really only need approval for myself. And if I can believe in what I say, believe in what I do, and hold myself accountable and realize that I am human. I'm not perfect. But I can adapt and overcome and evolve from that state and to learn and expand my consciousness and to reprogram my subconscious consciousness and to, to find belief in things that I've only fucking fathomed. If I can do that, shit. Does it really matter if anyone cares if my spaghetti sticks, sticks to the wall? Yeah.

• 6:31:21Speaker 02

  So. And to me, that's being empowered. And through all that amazing life story that I have, a lot of doubts and insecurities and unknowns.

• 6:31:32Speaker 02

  Through that suffering, this is how I got here. And here is just the beginning. Here is just the next evolution of self in life. And I have no idea what tomorrow brings, but I know that I'm gonna give today my best as much as I can, even when I don't want to. I'm gonna give myself some grace and some love and I'm gonna apply that that love language from the medicine into myself. And I make those deposits. Now I can fucking, I can share that deposit with you. I can invest in you now. I can invest into this, that, and that person. But I'm making sure my cup is being filled by self-investment. So now I can give and give truth and not give insecurity, doubt, fear, scarcity.

• 6:32:14Speaker 02

  Um, and my whole life has fucking changed because I changed my story. Tony Robbins says, "You want to change your life, you gotta change your story." It's absolutely true. If you want to change your life, you gotta change your story. I went from fucking being an ultimate victim, couldn't be self-sufficient, to I'm limitless, dude. I'm fucking limitless.

• 6:32:39Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 6:32:40Speaker 02

  If I can't do something, I find somebody. If I want something, I find a way. I don't have these hurdles like, "Oh, that's too hard." I find a way. Because that's what we were taught. We find a way. So if I can remember that. Baracha.

• 6:33:01Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. What's next for you?

• 6:33:07Speaker 02

  Uh, what's next is I'm finally working on my book. I want to help people. I don't want to tell them cool war stories. I want to tell them how they can transform their lives. Um, so I'm working on this book. I have, uh, I'm revamping my, my coaching group. I have, I run this mentor group called Defy Tribe. And it is straight up about empowering people. It's some motivation, but more real tangible things to, to evolve your life. People, people want more money. People want better communication. They want better relationships. They want to look better. They want to feel better. They want to love. They want all these things.

• 6:33:50Speaker 02

  So I showed them how they can have it.

• 6:33:54Speaker 02

  And

• 6:33:57Speaker 02

  starting this community, the Phi Tribe community, my online mentorship program.

• 6:34:03Speaker 02

  That's just a drop in the bucket. That's just, that's just the next phase, you know, it's, and I'm grateful and these people are changing their life and they're believing themselves and they have their fair share of suffering ahead of them. There is no, "I did it. I fixed it. Everything's perfect." But they realize that they can overcome it. They realize that they can remember what worked before and apply it to their life now with the knowledge that they have. They're master creators. And that's what I show people. And so that's, that's what's next for me. It's like, how do I now taking that group to the next level? Dude, like, Tony Robbins, watch out, bro. You know, like, we're gonna share a stage together. Ain't competition with you, but I got a message to change the world also.

• 6:34:48Speaker 02

  And out of all the things that I really want to do or thought I wanted to do, that is the most that it keeps me getting pulled towards it. I got out, thought about wanting to make money. How do I make money? How do I survive? How do I feed my family? Let me go, let me go shoot some guns and teach people. Ah shit's fucking weak. It ain't for me. Cause I, I do it and I'm good at it, but it's not as a fill my cup. It doesn't challenge my belief system. It doesn't cause me to evolve. And I'm impacting on a very small level compared to how, how I feel I'm impacting now. And so what's next for me is the unknown, man. And I'm okay with that. And all I know is that the only way to navigate that unknown

• 6:35:32Speaker 02

  is just like put one foot in front of the other and all I know is I'm not stopping. So that's what the unknown has for me. I'm gonna fuck, I do the things that I say I'm gonna do. It might take me time, but I do them. And I'm gonna continue that momentum. I'm gonna continue putting myself out there. I'm gonna continue being a staple of what a special operator could be to what he can be.

• 6:35:53Speaker 02

  And I realized that as long as I carry that proverbial cross around and I say, this is my bro. This is me. This is how I live my life. I'm not above you. I'm not better than you. I'm just better than myself yesterday. And if I can walk around with that truth and share that message, then fuck, man, that might change someone's life. It will. And so that's what's next to me. I want to get in front of as many people as I possibly can. And share that one message they need to hear to transform their life, to realize they're powerful and to bring their power back to themselves. And these are all taboo names. That's why I give myself a fake title. Cause I can do anything. But I realized that all I need to do is get around them. All they need to do is connect, tap into their source.

• 6:36:36Speaker 02

  Apply their mindset to their belief system. And they're fucking unstoppable. But it's also that reprogramming of that, hey, suffering is part of the process. We are here to suffer. Cause through suffering, we find appreciation and value and self-respect and self-worth. We're born into this earth. Effortlessly. We didn't earn it.

• 6:37:01Speaker 02

  We didn't fight for it. Maybe in the universe, maybe as a soul, finding a contract to come into the earth, to the earth canal and to be born. But we were given life.

• 6:37:14Speaker 02

  And we're given opportunity.

• 6:37:17Speaker 02

  And when you live with that mindset, you're let down a lot.

• 6:37:22Speaker 02

  And so if we can help people reprogram like, hey, suffering isn't a bad thing. Suffering doesn't, doesn't have to be what it used to be. Suffering can just be part of the process. It can be part of the journey. Discomfort, that's part of suffering. Walking in the rain, that's suffering. Nobody wants to do that.

• 6:37:40Speaker 02

  But that's how you keep commitments to yourself. You said you're gonna go walk today. It's raining. Who cares? You go walk. I don't give a fuck. It's 10 minutes. Go do what you said you were gonna do, because you continue to let yourself down. All the meditation, all the brev work, all the plant medicine you're doing, you're just saying, fuck you. I don't care about you. Cause you're saying, you're saying, I don't care about me to fucking do what I say I'm gonna do. And these are all these things that I've learned that are very true to my life. And if I can hold myself accountable, if I can speak my truth and live my truth. Yeah, like I said, I'm not perfect. I'm not a supreme being, dude. I, I, I had a porn addiction before. I had a fucking pill addiction before. I used to fucking do all sorts of dumb horrible things. I'm still capable of those things if I allow myself to, but I do my best to not do those things.

• 6:38:23Speaker 02

  I realize those things make my life worse than they make my life better.

• 6:38:29Speaker 02

  So instead of beating myself up,

• 6:38:32Speaker 02

  I just give myself power to fucking embrace the suffering. Oh, fuck, I don't want to get up. I wanted to stay in bed. I'm so tired. Okay, and then be pissy all day because you told yourself you wanted to work out and you didn't work out. You really, you really want to live all fucking day doing that shit? See how well you're going to be present in your life? These are conversations I have with myself. These are realities and tests and trials and experiments that I ran with myself and I don't like those days. So now I'm like, hey, how can I keep my word to myself today? How can I do what I said I was gonna do for my wife? How can I maximize my time? How can I not be lazy today? How can I push myself towards the more unknown, the scary, scary, dark abyss?

• 6:39:18Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 6:39:19Speaker 02

  So.

• 6:39:21Shawn Ryan?

  Well, how do people find you?

• 6:39:23Speaker 02

  Uh, social media mainly, uh, social media, uh, and my website, We Defy The Norm.

• 6:39:30Shawn Ryan?

  Well, those will be linked below.

• 6:39:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, those are, uh, those are my main ones. I, I'm working on a website right now, uh, CodyAlfred.com, basically to consolidate all my stuff. But We Defy The Norm and my Instagram, The Cody Alfred, that's really how people get ahold of me. And I do my best to get back to people and my, my coaching program is linked through all those programs also. And I invest in people who want to invest in themselves. You know, my time is limited, my energy is, my energy is limitless, but my time is limited. So I have to find a good maximizing capability to, to provide and to serve. And that's why I focus on people who want to believe in themselves, who want to invest in themselves. And it's changed everything for me. Cause now I attract the energy that I want.

• 6:40:16Speaker 02

  I'm empowering people through their own fucking power. And we're growing collectively as a team.

• 6:40:23Speaker 02

  And dude, that's been a game changer for my life, for my soul.

• 6:40:29Shawn Ryan?

  Well, man, that is one hell of a fucking journey that you've been on. And I just want to thank you for coming. It's been a real honor to interview you and get that firsthand account of your life. And I just wish you the best, man. You're already a solid fucking human being, and I'm just proud as hell to know you.

• 6:40:53Speaker 02

  Likewise, man. Very grateful and humbled to be here and have this opportunity to do this.

• 6:40:58Shawn Ryan?

  Well, it's been my pleasure. But best of luck, man.

• 6:41:02Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 6:41:03Shawn Ryan?

  Cheers.