Transcript for:
David Rutherford's Life Journey

[Music] David Rutherford, my best friend. Welcome to the show. Sean, my best friend. Thank you for having me. It's an honor to be here. Honor is all mine. Honor is all mine. Been a long time coming, man. Difficult to quantify that time, isn't it? Well, lots happened in that time and uh you know, we'll cover most of it, but um I just want to say, man, I love you so much and our lives have been so intertwined since about 2002. And um I mean you put me through SQT. We contracted together at CIA. You introduced me to my wife. You married us. We've got a lot of history together. We've got a lot of history. And um you're just such a a huge part in in in me and my family's lives. And and um our families have become close. And I love Janna so much. and your girls and and um I'm just really thankful that you're here, man. I appreciate that. It's uh the feeling is uh mutual for sure in in deep deep ways. And you're the first guest in in the new studio. Number one, I was really hoping that would happen, but uh and now it's here. So, you ready? Yes, sir. Let's do it. Everybody starts off with an introduction. Dave Rutherford, founder of Frog Logic Concepts, a motivational training company with clients like Bank of America, UBS, and Mel Lynch. You expanded into sports and supported Oregon State Baseball's 2018 College World Series win and developed a leadership program for the Boston Red Sox and Mookie Betts MVP Quest. Former D1 lacrosse player at Penn State, former Navy Seal, served eight years in Naval Special Warfare, including a combat deployment to Afghanistan in 2002. CIA contractor who deployed multiple times to high threat zones like Afghanistan and Pakistan. Author of two children's books and one adult book on self-confidence. Hosted the David Rutherford show under the Clay and Travis, Clay Travis and Buck Saxton Network. husband to Janna, father of four teenage girls, you run a charity focused on operator syndrome, and most importantly, you're a devout Christian. And like I said, this this is the most personal interview I'll ever do. And um and once again, it's just a real honor to have you here, to be the first guest in the new studio. But most importantly, man, like I said, I just love you so much and our lives are so intertwined and um this is going to be big. I love you, too. Everybody starts out with a gift. You got any guesses? Yeah. What do you got? Yeah. I want some full-blown THC gummies. I I don't want the legal in 50 states. I want the legit ones. Maybe maybe you'll get the legit ones after. But those are the legit Vigilance Elite Gummy Bears. Made in the USA, legal in all 50 states, unfortunately for you. But you can take those on the plane back to Florida, give them to your girls, and um these things are going in my studio right up right next to my desk, man. Right on there. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. You're welcome. And I got one other gift for you. I personally picked this one. Oh my god. Nobody's gotten this yet. Oh, dude. Oh, you're kidding me. That is the Sig Sauer 211 GTO. It's 6 hours 2011. It's been a long time coming and uh I love that thing. The weight is perfect. 9 mm. Comes with our updated optic. Oh my god. 21 in the magazine, plus one in the pipe. So, 22 rounds. Wow. Maybe we can break that bad boy in today. I think we should. I think we should. We should. Definitely. Can we do the upside down one? We can do whatever you want. This is beautiful. Thank you, man. This is You're welcome. You're welcome. This is absolutely just a phenomenal gift. Yeah. I need this down Florida cuz Florida man's down there. So, the Florida man. This is beautiful. Thank you. Have you ever been the Florida man? You know, I've I've There's been one or two stories where you could have you could have called me Florida man. For sure. Yeah. Like Yeah, for sure. Um would you mind if if I gave you a gift, too? Yeah. Yeah. I love gifts. All right. Um it's my love language. For sure. I just uh you know sitting in this chair is is one just the magnitude of of of what you've brought to the industry and what you've brought uh to so many people in this chair and what you've given them and what you have given so many other people their families and their stories that will live for eternity And as you said, our lives have been so intertwined that I wanted to give you something that that had a representation of that. And so, um, thank you so much. Um, this piece. So, my daughter Blair did most of all the pastel work and then I drew the operator. And um up here, this is supposed to be your daughter looking over the horizon where peace is down into the space where I think all of us are always trying to get which is to clear out some of that white light that Christ gives us in the midst of hell. And you know, I remember being in the teams, we they always would say, "All right, in case of glass, but break war. In case of war, break the glass." And so I put a little plaque on the bottom that said, "Because of war, the soul is broken glass." And our journey has gotten us to this. And and I think there's some peace in our lives finally and it's through our families and through our children and through our faith. And so I I want to present this to you, brother. I love it. I love it, man. That's beautiful. Yeah. If you notice, he's got a little vigilance little V tattoo on his on his on his arm, man. That's really special. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome. Whose handprints? Uh that's that's Blair's because it's that touch in the darkness that we're always searching for. That that grounding effect of somebody that can get us through that. Man, I love this. Yeah, man. Look damn good here in the studio. That's what I was hoping you'd say for sure. Thank you. You're welcome. My pleasure. Should we kick it off with a prayer? I think so. You want to lead? No, that's that's all you, man. This is this is your house that you built, and I I love when you pray over me and with me. All right, let's do it. Yeah, man. Jesus, I just want to thank you for the opportunity to interview my best friend. It took a long time for me to talk him into doing this and uh I just I just want to thank you for the opportunity and and also if I could just ask that that whatever comes out of this interview and and it's going to get heavy. I know it will, but we just want to bring hope to the world and show that there's a way out of the the downward spiral after after you leave service. And we also want to just we want it to help even farther than that. We want we want this to bring hope to kids, adults, anybody that's struggling. There's a lot of struggles that Dave has gone through in his life, and he just he always finds the way out. And I want to I want to use that use Dave's journey to show everybody that there's a way out. And so please just please just be with us during this interview and and keep us in line. Make sure we're we're honoring you and and and and spreading the message in Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Thank you, brother. All right, we got one more thing and then we're getting into it. Okay. So, I've got a Patreon. Mhm. You got a Patreon, too, don't you? I do. Yeah. And uh so Patreon's been with us since the very beginning. Actually, before the show even started when we started in the attic, then we moved to the garage. Remember those days in town and now we're out here in this beautiful studio. And and they're the reason that I get to sit here with you and and that we we were able to do this. And so it's turned into quite a community and and um one of the things I do is I offer them the opportunity to ask each and every guest a question. I haven't read this one. The team wouldn't let me read it. So this is from Gregory Lton. Dave, with all the trouble Sean has gotten you into over the years, how is how is it that you've remained friends? Oh man, that's a great question, Greg. Um, you're a a a unique person and that was something that I've always been attracted to. I've always um wanted and inspired to surround myself against people that went against the grain or were different. and you've always been that person from the first time I met you and those wild eyes that you had when you were 19 years old, man. And there's just something different about you. And and then when we reconnected in 2010 and just on and on and on and the more the closer that you've allowed me to get to you, the the more I want to be closer to you. You know, I you're the closest thing I have to a brother without being my blood. And so if you were like, "Hey, let's go, you know, drive these motorcycles through that bar. Let's let's go do this or let's do that." I'd be like, "All right, let's go." You know, and I just um it's easy to be your friend. Um, and it's it's it's the hard stuff is wanting to be more in your life, wanting to be with you every day. And, you know, thankfully that, you know, we we talk regularly and and and you listen and you share with me and you help me. And I think when you have that, it just you're willing to go to hell and back or in our case, hopefully we'll get to heaven with each other. I hope so too, man. Yeah, man. You know, Dave, I just I just want to say thank you, man. And um kind of touched on it before when we took our little walk, but you know, when I left, say contracting, nobody would give me the [ __ ] time a day, man. Nobody would. And I never really understood it. But you were always trying to connect me to people or support what I did. And I just feel like I never um I never gave you the credit or appreciated it to the full capacity. And back then, you know, I didn't I didn't realize how important connections were and and what you were doing, but you know, is as as life has moved on, I am very in tune with that. And I know what you were trying to do now. I didn't know at the time, but I did know. I know now. And um I just want to say thank you, man. You're welcome. So, it's just it was it's been, like I said, it's just been an honor, you know, watching you grow and watching you become who you are and the impact that you're having on this world. And I just knew it was going to happen. There's just like I said, there's just something different about you. A lot of history. Fought together, fought each other. several times, introduced me to my wife, married us, you've mentored me, and and um it's going to be a [ __ ] crazy interview, man. It is. But so what you think of this is your is your legacy piece. Thank you. Your wife, your daughters, their kids, their kids' kids. This is it. This is your life story. Thank you. So, we always start off with where did you grow up, man? I grew up in this uh beautiful little beach town in southeast Florida called Boca Raton. The mouth of the rat. Yeah, the mouth of the rat. The mouth of the rat. We moved there. I was I was I was born in in Pompo and my parents had moved down from Michigan a couple years prior and born in 72 and and they moved to Bokeh in 73 and it was a dream. It was like I don't even know 15 16 17,000 people in Bokeh at the time. You know, it was that small. Yeah, it was teeny. Boy, how that town has changed. I'm telling you what, there was there was nothing past uh Military Trail, like nothing. And it was wonderful. It was the most idealic place to grow up, you know. And I mean, I remember by the time I'm four or five years old, my my longest, oldest friend Richie, you know, we're riding bikes down to the beach and back and, you know, we're going over to Tomaso's Pizzeria and meet my other friend Mark Polmo over there and and it was just you just lived on our old BMX bikes and we played sports at the local community center and it was just it was amazing. It was really amazing. So, it was a just a phenomenal place to grow up. Brothers, older brother, Eric. Yeah. Um really a special human being. Yeah. Just an amazing amazing guy, you know. He was my my idol, my hero. I think he was the person that really pulled out the artist out of me. um you know, you don't you don't know if who you are, what talents you have when you're little. And my brother's 5 years older than me. And I just have these vivid memories of sitting around and just drawing with him, you know, and I' I'd draw my little armymen and my X-wing fighters and he'd draw these cool animals and, you know, like lions and and he just had this gift and it was it was really special. Um, you know, he was just an amazing amazing guy for me. uh you know up until a point where kind of his life kind of changed. So how about your parents? What did they do? So my father was an attorney. Um you know it's funny after they when they graduated Michigan you know my dad my mom was pregnant my dad had a job already you know worked at a factory went to law school um both at the same time they had a newborn kid. They were just kids themselves. They're, you know, 22, 21, 22 years old. And, you know, it was either my my dad's parents had moved out to California and my mom's parents had moved to South Florida. And my dad got hired by a firm in LA and hired by a firm in in Miami. And my parents my mom was just like, I don't want to go out to California. You know, there's too much going on out there. Some of their friends from college had gone out there and struggled. And and so they moved to Florida and you know my dad was in the grind you know he was a new hireer and and so when they decided to leave that and moved to Bokeh my dad with a few other guys started his own little law firm and he was like I think it the story is like he was one of 19 lawyers in the Bokeh bar you know and it was I mean it this place was teeny and my mom was amazing you know she was a big- time tennis player So, you know, every day in the summers, I'm I'm going to the tennis courts with my mom and, you know, she's trying to make me love the game and I'm throwing my racket and I want to play and but like I just I was just followed her around everywhere and and you know, I remember going to the beach club, you know, not what it is now. It used to be just this teeny little thing over on A1A and you know going and eating those creamsicles, right? The the the orange creamsicles and swimming races that and my brother would win and it just grew up on the beach and kind of chill and they were pretty incredible parents. They are still incredible parents. Both of them are 80 now and still live in Bokeh. And it, like I said, it was it was a wonderful experience. You know, my dad worked his butt off. You know, he was for when he was trying to build the firm, he was a seven days a week guy. I remember as a kid, we would, you know, most dads are taking their kid and they're going to the field or, you know, throwing baseballs or te-ball. My dad's taking me to his office and where he's working on his cases and he's like, "Here, take this dictaphone and play with that." you know, I'm sitting there recording stupid messages and crawling underneath his desk and and then afterwards we'd go do something fun, you know, and and but I just it was it was special cuz they really cared about their community. That was I think of all the things about them as a couple that really made the biggest impact for me was how much they loved where they were from. They love their community. And you know, my mom was in the Junior League. She's one of the founders of Bokeh. You know, my dad, God, he was big in the United Way. He was on the hospital board. He they ended up starting all kinds of different charities in Bocraton and they really loved the community. And I grew up with that. And and it was I was proud I was really proud to be from Boca Raton. I was proud of my parents, you know. I I I remember my dad when we got a little bit older, he started making a little bit more money. He belonged to his first like golf club and poor guy would be like, "Hey, let's go play golf." And I'd go cuz I love to to drive the golf carts, right? And so I I'd do donuts on the golf cart and then I'd whack or whatever and chuck my club in the in the whatever and just but he he would always in those moments that's when my dad who's a very intense cerebral guy. He's a he's an intellect. My mom's the athlete, right? She was a won a couple state championships in tennis when she was a little girl and you know really talented athlete. My dad was the intellect. And we would get on out in the golf course and he would, you know, say things to me like, "David, you should be a Renaissance man." And I'd be like, "I don't know what that means, but sounds kind of cool. Yeah, that sounds good. Well, I'll be a Renaissance man." And or he'd say like, you know, always be your own boss. And I had no idea what that meant. or he'd be like, you know, integrity is everything, you know, and he would he would give me these these lessons constantly. I mean, I remember when I was probably six, seven, or eight or something like that, we would on Sundays, he would break out a chessboard and he'd set up the chessboard and, you know, he'd put some cassette tape in, some jazz or, you know, a guy named Felonius Monk and I'd be like, "What the hell is this?" you know, and and then we'd play chess and then after that he he'd flip on 60 Minutes and we would watch 60 Minutes, you know, and he would always say the world's a bigger place than you can imagine and it's important to understand what's out there, you know, and I think the combination of that that that wisdom like be a Renaissance man but go explore the world really kind of settled in and it was a played a a big role in in my young adult life. And so it they were like it still plays a big role in your life. I it I've never stopped like that was the defining influence I think was to pursue that kind of that kind of mentality to to look at the world in that capacity. Were you competitive as a kid? Oh dude, you're competitive now. I lived real competitive. I lived, eat, sleep, and breathe sports. That was it. That was my thing. And it was, you know, flag football, te-ball, soccer, tennis camp, uh, uh, anything that I could compete on a team with. And I just gravitated towards it. Um, and you know that ended up really really saving me in in multiple ways in and in in my childhood for sure was that that escaping into those sports and kind of getting lost and into some of the other things that emerged in in my childhood. So saving you from what? Um, my our my life was about perfect. really perfect until I was about eight or nine years old. And then my brother around 13 or for 14 started changing when he was 13 or 14. When he was 13, something changed in him and the household started to change. I mean, and I was just like, "Oh, I guess he's just a teenager. I don't know, you know, and and and he was an athlete, too, and big football player. ended up being, you know, captain of his high school football team and all that. And and but the house changed and it really um when he was 15 is when it it it kind of I don't want I don't want to say it shattered kind of the the bubble that that we were living in, but it certainly it certainly cracked for sure. Um, at 15 he came out to my uh parents as gay. And you got to imagine this was 1982 and kind of the height of the AIDS epidemic. You know, there was a a real I don't maybe animosity or bigotry. I don't know what the appropriate but you know I think most people were just afraid of homosexuality and they thought if you you know stood next to a gay person then you're gay or you were friends with someone or and I think he was really in this predicament in this small town um came out to my parents and my parents didn't handle it as best as they could have you know they're from you know Michigan's from Moskegan my dad was from Detroit and, you know, very conservative growing up and all of a sudden your, you know, your 15-year-old son tells you they're gay. What are you supposed to do and how are you supposed to act? Cuz there's no playbook for that. I mean, now I think it's it's so much different. And it's so much more accepted and supported which is wonderful to see you know and you know people being able to live their lives in that capacity without you know without any type of of attacking or or like there used to be. I mean it was it was pretty harsh back in the day for sure. and and so for him to come out and then my parents not being able to know how to embrace it or to get behind him to help him to help navigate I mean to live in this space and in fact they kind of they kind of push back on it in a in a pretty heavy way um in order I think their initial concept was to kind of to protect me and so they they really kind of mandated that Eric didn't tell me and didn't kind of live wasn't wasn't able to live openly as gay and as a result of that I think he spiraled pretty deeply and you know next thing you know he was partying pretty hard and and really pushing the envelope and going down to Fort Lauderdale and also remember this is the age of of you know South Florida in the 80s was cocaine epidemic. That's right. That's right. and and he got consumed in that abyss of of where he was and didn't know how to break out and didn't have, you know, had a few people I think at in in high school that were quiet and supported him. You know, this this person Sean and then eventually this this woman Katherine who who's still friends with today he met at a at a drama. He was in into theater and you know very um wanted to go to uh to theater school in college and wanted to pursue the arts in that capacity too. He's very artistic as well. How did the how did the household change? I mean what changed the arguments, the yelling and the his state of mind. It was just you know one minute I I had my brother there and then the next he was gone. And so it was almost You felt like he was gone. Yeah. Yeah. Why did you feel like he was gone? Did you understand? No. At eight. No. Well, I didn't know then, but 15 is when it really exploded is where it just the fighting that they would get into and you know, he wouldn't come home on weekends or wouldn't his grades would struggle or he and my dad would just go toe-to-toe over and over and over and over and just screaming and I just was like, "What the hell's going on?" And unfortunately for me, I blamed him, which was incredibly difficult. You know, now, you know, we our relationship struggled for several decades, many decades as a result of just me being like, why why can't you, you know, why can't you get squared away? Why can't you fix this? Why can't you bring calm back to our house? and and without knowing that it was really about his own frustration and and the lie he was being forced to live somewhat. And you know, for me and him, it almost became non-existent. There was no relationship anymore. At what age did that happen? At 15. He was 15 and I was 10. You were 10 years old. Yeah. Yeah. Have you guys ever mended that? I think we we're trying. We're really trying a lot harder. I I think the me going through my divorce was a moment he really stepped in and was there for me in a in a big way. And so since then we've really really tried to um work through it. And I also think, you know, the age of my parents now were is another time, you know, when you're it's like, whoa, they're at the space and, you know, he lives in New York City with his partner James and you know, that's there's a gap and they have very busy, very focused lives and, you know, he's in the event business and James is a very successful in the fashion business and and that's their life. And so, you know, as my parents have gotten older, it's like, "Hey, man, I need your help." Cuz, you know, we live just we live about 2 minutes away from him. And and he's been wonderful. And so, I think now we're really starting to to realize he's he's really he matured a lot faster than I was because, you know, after he left home at 18, he moved out to California. He essentially didn't come home. He was done. He was, you know, he had moved out. And the thing that really, I think, triggered his journey in a deep, deep way was when he finally got sober. And he's been sober almost 40 years now. And And 40 years. Yeah. Yeah. He just turned 57. And I think he was like 22 or something like 22, I think. Wow. And and so he's been working on himself. Imagine being in in the fashion industry and he wanted to be a model when he was a kid. You know, it's crazy. I did some child modeling when I was a kid. And you did child modeling? For who? Burger King. Skippy Peanut Butter. Burger King? Yeah. Hold on. I got to hear this [ __ ] Yeah. Yeah. Crazy story, man. Uh, how the [ __ ] did you get into bottling, dude? Me and my buddy Chris were riding our bikes in our neighborhood. I drove by and this woman in this Cadillac, a Mary Kay Cadillac, screams out, "Come here, honey. Get over here." And and I'm like, like, "What do you want?" You know? And so we go over and she goes, "Have you ever thought about modeling before?" And I'm like, "Could you imagine if that happened today?" No, like you're going to jail, right? And and I was like, "I don't know what you're talking about." She's like, "Where do you live, honey?" And so I, you know, rode the bike and she drove her car and came over and asked my mom, you know, I think your son would do pretty good in the modeling industry. Does I'm doing this fashion show at the Boo Hotel. You know, do you think he'll want to be in it? And my mom's like, "Yep." And next thing you know, I'm walking this runway. I don't even know how old I can't picture you doing this at all. Dude, it was crazy. It was crazy cuz then that led to I got this she introduced me to an agent down in Miami. Next thing you know, I got on went on all these calls. I started getting these commercials. I'm going down I mean my sixth grade year I think I missed 80 plus days of school going to my modeling and doing Are you serious? Yeah. It was crazy. And for me initially it was awesome because I got out of school. I hated school, right? I'd be back in time for sports, for practice, and I was making pretty good money. So, any Star Wars action figure I wanted or G.I. Joe, I could get it. So, we'd drive down. It was hilarious. We'd she pick me up from school, you know, we'd go to McDonald's and then we'd drive down. I'd usually fall asleep. We I'd go do she drop me off at some studio in Miami. I'd shoot, you know, a print job or something and for Berdines or something like that. and or go do a Burger King commercial. And my favorite one was Skippy Peanut Butter. I met Annette Funachello from the old Mickey Mouse Club. That was cool. Um and then we'd come home and we'd always stop and initially we'd stop at toy stores and I I loved action figures, right? And then or she'd stop um at eventually then it became the the um s Army surplus store. There was one in Fort Lauderdale. And when I started, you know, becoming fascinated with John Wayne and war movies, probably I was like eight or nine years old. And then I'd, you know, I'd stop and I'd get a ninja outfit or some throwing stars. And, you know, back then you can only get them in in these these uh army surplus stores. And yeah, it got to the point one one time I was the the closest I I got to really kind of being really successful was I was in the final. There was a movie called Cocoon back in the day and um I got to the final was me and the kid who actually moved went in the movie and he got the role and you know went you know shot this huge movie and you know it was about like alien forces and stuff and you know it was it was uh cool but right after that it it it became you know I became a pre-teen and a teen and it became uncomfortable at that point and I didn't want to do it. I just uh Why did it become uncomfortable? I I felt like I was missing out on my friends and hanging out with them and I just I didn't like it. I I I got frustrated with it, you know, even though, you know, you're making money. Like I'd rather, you know, be in school, get out of school, go to practice, play in the my teams. And it was it was problematic. Then also like when you go on and anybody who's been in any component of the industry like it there's nothing glamorous about it, you know, you're sitting and they pin your clothes and you have to sit still for 5 hours while they shoot all the shoots and get all the shots they want and and I just got to the point I was like, "Mom, I hate this. I don't want to do it anymore." And and then that was it. And so I I stopped. But yeah, that was right around probably 14, 13, 14 is when I was like, I'm done. But it was incredible because um you know, we went through a a really my dad's law firm kind of imploded when I was uh graduating when I was a senior in school. And so out of nowhere, I ended up we I wanted to do a fifth year of high school. And so all that money I had saved up was I I was able to pay for a portion of that experience. And so, you know, it goes back to that idea that you go through these things at certain times and you're not sure what it's going to mean or how it's what it's how it's going to affect you, but it's going to affect you. And I think understanding that the lesson isn't immediate. Like that's when that stuff started in particular with my brother, you know, that was I didn't understand what was going on. I didn't I didn't I didn't get it. I didn't understand why he didn't want to be around me. And as a result of that, I that's when I really leaned in and started to realize that I wasn't going to get what normal brothers give each other. And so I had to go find it. And and probably around it was like 13, 14 where I kind of figured that out. And so I really developed strong intense relationships with my friends. And you know, Richie was one uh Chris in in in middle school and high school, another Chris in in high school. And these they became my brothers. And that was meaningful for me cuz I just I didn't have a sibling. You know, once he left in ' 85, he was gone. And he'd come home occasionally, but it wasn't like, "Oh, hey, Eric, let's go hang out and do things." And and then Yeah. So it was it was uh you know you're in one minute you're in this idealic world and then the next there's chaos around you. And so for me the way I managed that was I just dove into my athletics and really was like this is it. This is what's going to save me. And so it was essentially football and and lacrosse became everything to me especially football. I've spent years on this show pulling back the curtain and trying to reveal what's really happening in this country. And the truth is there's a double standard here in America. You see time and time again people defending themselves, defending their family, and then the judicial system goes after them. It's a double standard. And if you don't believe me, check out episode number three with Don Bradley. 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Why do you think you and your brother Eric haven't mended things up 100% by by now? That's a great question. It's been over 40 years ago. Yeah. Do you hold resentment? Uh no, not anymore. I think once John has been amazing, I just for me it was like what did I do? You know, I think that was what it was for many many years. I mean, and listen, we couldn't be more diametrically different, right? Right. You know, he's in the fashion industry. I was a Navy Seal. Right. He's gay. I'm not. Right. He, you know, is an activist. uh and you know I'm I do a almost a political show for you know the the the right and so I think that separation and then you know obviously when I went into college I did not mature my emotional intelligence was pretty sharp. can talk about that. But and then in the teams it was it was even more complicated cuz I you know I was in San Diego mo almost the whole time and he was up in LA and I think we saw each other in the seven years I was in San Diego. I think we saw each other six times. Um and you know he never once came to visit me. I was always driving up there and you know the one time he was in San Diego which was a kind of crazy story with uh uh Charlie and and Rick and it was a Super Bowl thing that went haywire. Maybe that's for a different show but let's hear it right now. Yeah. Oh god. This is definitely a right turn right now. Um it was Super Bowl in San Diego. What was it? 2002. Are you talking Charlie Melton? Yeah. Oh, boy. And Rick Slater. Oh, boy. And so, get good. You wanted the whole story? Yeah, man. All right. Uh, I had I was the combat deployment happened that summer. Was really struggling from that. Really struggling period. Came went home over Christmas, got engaged, came back. And my brother used is an event planner. He's one of the biggest he works for one of the biggest companies in the world. And he is the man. Like he put like if there's a New York premiere for F1 to Brad Pitman, he did that, you know? He ran the whole thing. Like he's amazing at what he does. He's he's got so many gifts. And and so he was an an event planner back then and he was working for the NFL experience. And so he called me. He's like, "Hey man, we're going to be in town." And these are like massive blacktai parties. And they were going to have it on Myiramar Air Base, right? Kind of fuse it in. The war had just been going on for a year and they wanted to coingle and it was in San Diego and and so he's like, "Hey, do you want to go to this thing?" And I'm like, "Yes, I do." And uh I forget when he he this was like I think he called me that it was almost that Friday and Charlie and I had started a bender that Friday and I think it was Saturday night we drank pretty much all through the night. Next morning woke up started going and I don't know how Rick came over and I'm like hey man you want to go and he's like yeah and next thing you know it's the three of us. So, I mean, Charlie's 65, 66, 265, 270, right? Rick was 63, 2, you know, 235. And then me and and we go to this thing and we actually put a button-down shirt on and we go in and we go, we're early, we go on base, we go right to the bar and just start getting after it, right? Getting after it. Well, you know, I'm I'm the guy who's always kind of trying to stir the pot. And so I'm looking around. I see these guys over here. And I walk up and say, "Hey, how you guys doing? What's up?" And you want to have a drink with us? And like, "Yeah, come over." And and uh this guy, I'm talking to him. And he he he runs uh small venues, like little stadiums, like little soccer stadiums or whatever. And I forget where he ran them, but and then he had his head of security guy there with him. and I'm talking to him. The other security guy was over with Charlie and and Rick at the bar and the guy tells me, "Oh, yeah, he's a Vietnam vet." I was like, "No, that's awesome. That's really cool." And he's like, "Are you guys in?" Like, "Yeah, we're in the Navy." And he's like, "Oh, okay." And he's like, you know, he he was he was a Navy Seal in Vietnam. And we're like I'm like, "Get out of here. Are you kidding me?" I was like, "Yeah." So, I immediately go right over to the bomb like, "Hey, dude. I heard you're a seal and you were in Vietnam. He's like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah." And I was like, "Oh, you what buns class were you in?" And he was like, "Wow, it's, you know, it's top secret." And so and so it starts, right? And I'm like, "Oh, it was Oh, man. That school." I go I go, "So tell me, you know, some stories, you know, and I was like, and these guys weren't in it yet because I didn't want I I had to build it up, right? And this was back in in in uh the the different days of of my uh what fascinated me, right? And I he ends up telling me all these stories how he did the secret stuff in the Laos and Cambodia and I'm almost like this is really cool. But then I ask him a couple quantifying questions, you know, and and like do you know Rudy Bosch? And that's right when Survivor was on. So it was the biggest TV show. Rudy's a legend, right? He's one of the most famous Navy Seals ever. And he's like, "No, never heard of him." I was like, "Okay, cool." I was like, "Hey, come over and meet my buddies, you know?" And so, you know, I want to tell him about your stuff. So, I brought them over. There are three sheets that'll win. And I come over and now I'm like, "Hey, you know," and and I start telling and and Rick looks over and he goes, "Do you know Master Chief Gallagher?" another legend, team two legend in the teams, like the man, right? I got a chance to meet him at at one of the reunions down at the um Chief Watson Patches has this little uh marina down by the the the museum and got to meet Chief Gallagher and they were all It was the coolest thing ever. These Vietnam guys just sitting around shooting the [ __ ] and uh he's like, "No, never heard of him." You know, and Rick's like, "Get over here." you know, pulls him in, gets in his face, and is like, you know, you're you're [ __ ] lying right now, and we know you're lying, so you're going to drink until I tell you you can go. And so we're just p Charlie's just like boom boom boom. And then, you know, then he's, you know, then I forget who it was. He like finally is like, I'm out of here. And like bolts and the guy like they disappear. And so now we're laughing and just, you know, slamming. Next thing I know, I go over and and I'm I don't know, I got a cigar or something. I don't know how. And I see my brother beling towards me and he looks pissed and he's got some person some woman with him and he come and he's like, "Get over here." And so they take me behind the curtains. They're like, "Did you this woman like am I did you threaten these people who paid money to go with your drunk friends? You got to get out of here right now." And I'm like, "I didn't do what I you know, and Eric's like just shaking his head like you idiot. What are you doing to me?" Right? This is my job. You just threatened somebody. And I'm like, "I didn't say you know." And we come out and the Marine MPs are there and there's like 10 of them, right? because they heard there was seals, right? And they're always they're are going to overwhelm in force. And so they're like, "All right, gents. You, you, and you." And uh the three of us got escorted off Miramar base uh and and barely got away with almost destroying my my my brother's, you know, his his event. So yeah, that was uh but anyways, going back to the relationship I don't I'm you know how you get into those moments where you're not sure what the solution is and you kind of dig into a a a state of mind or you dig in more so into a state of emotion. and you lock that emotion in, whether you're protecting yourself or you're trying to rationalize your behavior cuz it doesn't feel right. But you don't want to back down because of how hurt you've been or how wrong you are or whatever the context for your shame. And I suppose I couldn't get out of that. I suppose I was probably You felt shame. Yeah. As I got older, for sure. What did you feel shame about? That I wasn't there for him. That I couldn't help him. That nobody gave me the opportunity to be like, you know, Eric, I don't care if you're gay. Like, you're still my brother. I love you. How can I help you? I mean, there were several times, I mean, I didn't even he didn't even tell me until I was in college and he was older. Like, we sat down one time. He's like, "You know I'm gay, right?" And I was like, "I didn't know, but I assumed." And and I had gotten into a couple fights with my friends who had said something when I was in high school when I was older like, "Well, yeah, well, at least my brother's not gay." Or whatever that is. And and you know, got into it a couple times with with friends as a result of it. And you know that shame of not being able to support him, not being able to be there for him. And then you know over a while because I wanted his love, you know, I wanted a relationship. I just I didn't I didn't know I didn't know how to process the entirety of those emotions in a in a way that what if what you're freed from those that shackle of shame. What would you say to him right now? Oh, that I love him dearly and that I'm proud of him and that I admire him and that I'm grateful that we're close. You know, we were just up in New York and I had an event up there for my firm and we decided, this was after we had spent a week in in Maine with all of Janna's family, her immediate family. It was like 18 of us, right? Wonderful, amazing people. and I'll talk about them later. But and so I had this event and so John was well why don't we go to New York and see you know Eric and James and I was like yes absolutely and he's just so good with the kids and so caring for us and he gives us so much. This is a guy that's moving at a thousand miles an hour. I mean he's putting on you know they're spending million dollars on these premieres and he's running the whole thing. and so constantly grinding, but he makes the time and he comes and he he goes to lunch with us and he has dinner with us. And so we were able to celebrate uh my birthday dinner up there and and just I think it's the presence that I I I think I want more of just to be with him, near him, and just so we can sit in that that long space to try and fill it in. I think. And so I I I love him and and I I just I'm looking forward to um our relationship growing stronger and stronger and stronger and particular just being in a space where we can rely on each other. That would be that would be, you know, the dream. I hope that happens, man. Yeah, me too. Let's move on, right? What got you interested in the military? Oh my god. Actually, you went to school first. I did four years of college. I I my the jump from 17 to 23 or 22 was was really intense. It's where my world really collapsed for the second time. Um you know, my dream had always been to play division one football. like that was I was the guy. I went to, you know, quarterback camps up in Indiana every summer. I University of Michigan football camp. I, you know, I loved it. I just everything about the game for me is is just makes sense. I love the camaraderie. I love the tactics. I love the arduousness of it. I love the pain that you feel. I love the the competition of it, right? uh the grittier team wins, the the closer team wins. And and that's really I think what shaped who I am fundamentally the most was that that sense of of camaraderie that exists within a close team. And and so but my senior year uh uh we went 0 and 10. We didn't win a damn game. Uh, in fact, uh, my last game against our arch rivals, I can't believe I'm openly talking about this on on your show, but I think we got beat like 64 nothing and they knocked they knocked me out of game twice, like hit me so hard on a blind side, cracked my helmet open and I mean it was, you know, the culmination of my whole childhood focus on football, you know, came collapsing down in an 0 and10 season And that really put me into a panic. And um it was uh uh it was a guy at at at school at St. Andrews who his name was Gary Neils. He's one of the most probably one of the most significant influences I've had in my life as a young man. Um he was a uh uh the MVP of the 1977 NCAA Division 1 lacrosse championship. He was a goalie from Maryland and he had come down from a school up north and he was my assistant lacrosse coach and he was the you know the dean of students and I just looked up to him and and I think he had brought it up to me. It was just like, listen, there's this thing called the post-graduate year. And a lot of guys up in the Northeast, you can do this fifth year of school. You grow older, you get stronger, you play another year sports, you get another year high school, and then you go to a better school or bigger school. And so I brought this up. My parents were like, "Do you want to do this?" And I was like, "Yeah, if I can if it gives me an opportunity to be able to play in college." And so I applied to like six six different schools up up in, you know, from New Jersey up to New England and ended up getting accepted at at CHO Rosemary Hall in Connecticut. And it was fantastic cuz the quarterback uh you know, he was like, "Yep, love you coming up. We're going to throw the ball 45 times a game." Absolutely awesome. And and it was amazing. And and also too because in the spring we had won a state championship in lacrosse and I was you know the top player in the team. I ended up being the Florida representative to the national all-star game for lacrosse. Now just to clarify it that was not a big deal back then because Florida had like 18 teams, right? And and I remember I was on the West team and there was nine midi lines, right? and I was a midfielder and I was on the ninth midi line with the guy from California and the guy from Colorado. So, you know, it wasn't that big of a deal, but it was still I was able to take that accolade transport into this next evolution of my athletic career, which was to go to Chen. And I and I remember showing up in in August and I was so excited. I was like, "This is my shot. I'm going to go to this great school. I'm going to get it, you know, recruited by a D1 school. It's going to be amazing. And I remember showing up first day and we're doing our tests and strength stuff and and I look over at this guy next to me and I said, "Hey, how you doing?" I'm I'm David. What's your name? He's like, "Mike." And he's like, "Uh, I'm like, "What position you play?" And he's like, "Quarter." And I go, he goes, "What position do you play?" And I go, "Quarter." And this dude had recruited two of us and we both showed up. And so everything was shot in that moment. And it's like, dude, coach, you just told me I was the guy. That's why I came to this school. That's why we're paying this insane amount of money to go to the school so I can come here and throw the ball. And and um I don't know what it was. We had a really solid team. a lot of great guys, you know, Kirby and and and we had like nine postgraduates and Brian Linger was our captain and all these amazing human beings, really special guys. And and so Mike and I looked at each other and and said, "Hey, do you you want to go for it?" And he's like, "Yeah." And so we just split time the whole year and we went undefeated. We were one of the best teams at that time in CHO's entire like 112 year history. And we were beating teams by like 50. Um, and we won the championship of that big school and it was incredible. And I was riding this huge high and was getting some looks and was getting some smaller colleges and and um and then um lacrosse came. I played basketball and then play lacrosse and we run a championship in lacrosse too. and but no big D1 offers came in other than for lacrosse and it was one for UMass and then one for Penn State. And the reason I got the Penn State offer was again because of Gary Neils. He had sent a letter uh to Glenn The who was the the head of coach at at Penn State and said, "Hey, you know, this guy's not from, you know, Philly. He's not from Long Island. He's not from Maryland, upstate New York. He, you know, but he's a really good athlete and if you give him a shot, um, he'll you he'll make you proud. And so he put his reputation on the line for me. And I went on a recruiting trip to UMass and I went on a recruiting trip to Penn State and it wasn't even a choice. And so I I chose to go to Penn State. And uh it was um a funny start because when I showed up, my whole intention was I I was going to try and walk on the football team. I had created this illusion that I could play at Penn State. Right from the time I was a little kid, I was when I was little little it was like all right, you know, go to University of Michigan, win the Heisman, then go play for the Pittsburgh Steelers. you know, you're a kid and you just you you're it's not like it is today where there's max preps and there's every single stat and they rank everybody's fivestar blue chips, four star, three, like wasn't like that. And so I had conjured up this illusion that I was a lot better than I actually was. And so I said, "All right, I'm going to go to Penn State and I'm going to walk on." And I, you know, I showed up, we showed up in like August. And my roommate was still one of my closest friends to this day, Mike O'Keefe, who I just love dearly. He was like a godsend that he was my roommate. He was an all-American from Baltimore. And we were in freshman study hall class. Uh and uh it was all the athletes and he's like, "Hey, man. I think you need to go tell the new freshman quarterback you're going to take his job." I was like, "Yeah, man. Where is it?" And there was this dude in the front row that was the biggest human being I've ever seen. And it was a guy named Carrie Collins. And Carrie was the number one recruited quarterback in the country. And he was like 6'5, 255 at an 80 yard ball. And he was just I've never seen anything like it. And and kind of in that moment, my whole world shattered because the illusion that I had created of who I thought I was um was untrue. You know, I was 6 foot, 160 lbs, soaking wet. I I did have a strong arm and probably I could have handled the the the comp the complexity of a D1 program, but I physically I was just I was nowhere, you know, I might have been a decent D3 quarterback maybe. Um, and so all of that dream that, you know, that 10 plus years of of wanting to play football in college just collapsed. It just went away and immediately I started uh to collapse uh emotionally. How so? I because the alternative was to, you know, all right, I've got this opportunity as a lacrosse player. I'm going to move in and I'm, you know, I'm going to be really good there. But like I said, my roommate was an all-American from Baltimore. Like our freshman class, these these people were phenomenal players from Talzin. There was Grant and Brian and Mike and and Hank and and you know JT like Mike Buzza my other close close friend and there's a cool story about Mike and Mike they they actually came to my buds graduation um like Mike Buzza was on the under 19 all world team from Philly and these guys they could do things with their stick I I just I couldn't even dream of and so I had a little bit earlier started as a as a way to manage kind of my frustrations and my fears because my fears really began to emerge when that whole stuff would started going down with Eric. I think I I my insecurity really began to blossom in those times. Um and I became afraid of a lot of things you know during those years and afraid of failure for sure afraid my you know I was afraid I didn't measure up I was afraid of death right um you know I it was weird you know at 13 14 all of a sudden I become fascinated with you know my favorite movie was Apocalypse Now and the deer hunter and so it wasn't those weren't your typical war movies, you know, Rambo was going on at the same time and Commando and all that, but I was more attracted to those very intense stories of of how war affected people. And, you know, there was this other show that that came on, I forget what year it was, but it was called The Day After, and it was about nuclear holocaust. And you know, that was my salvation. And I would to escape when I was home in the chaos of the house. I'd go into my dad's den and we had that little cable thing with the little box and I'd just close the doors and I would sit and I would just watch TV and movies for hours and hours. And I was drawn to these very intense stories about um the collapse of the human spirit. And I think that provoked a a deep fear for me that that was possible and feasible. I was watching it in real time with my brother. I watched it when my dad's firm collapsed. I was, you know, feeling the effects, you know, that 0 and10 season. Like I wasn't who I thought I was. And so I think everything the foundation began to fracture and those that insecurity and that fear emerged significantly. And so fast forward my freshman year we show up and and kind of at CHO I I kind of defaulted into this almost an alternate personality to protect myself from that fear. And I'd gotten the nickname at CHO. They called me psycho and I'd do dumb stuff. I remember I I I stre like these functions. I would get hammered, you know, in the middle of the night with my friend uh Chris and and Mike and um and just tried to project myself as a lot stronger than I was. And so in the fall of of of 91, I kind of collapsed pretty rapidly and started drinking a ton. Like a ton, not even not a little bit, like blackout drunk every time I went out. And, you know, and started, you know, smoking a ton. And and I mean, I by the end of my first semester, I think I had like a 1.2 grade point average or 1.3. like I collapsed and couldn't find my footing and it just kept getting worse and worse and worse. Um, and by my, you know, my sophomore year, I was still on the team. I'd gotten eligible through sophomore into the fall. Um, and was trying my hard, but I just wasn't connecting. It wasn't hitting me. Like I I felt inept. I felt unqualified. I felt um I was scared that I would never no matter what I could do would be as good as these guys. And so I gave myself this out that I I I had I someone had given me this this guy my team had given me the nickname Elvis my right and like fall ball freshman year. And so Elvis became this moniker and it became this alter ego for me this this personality that I could hide behind. and as the party guy and the eccentric and and right around the same time I I discovered uh my real passion for art and you know some of the first artist I I really found you know I've always been I was always because I was taken I was an art major with a minor in poetry and some other minors you know sociology philosophy and all that and and but I tell people that and they're like what did you say you know and I didn't that was the only other thing I was good at, right? I was good at sports and I was good at art. And so I'll be an art major because what else am I going to do? And and had a couple cool classes that really allowed me to explore the depths of what art looked like. And I remember I discovered, you know, Van Gogh and, you know, you learn, take 5 seconds to, you know, I took a bunch of art history classes and you learn about Van Go and his relationship with Goan and the change of impressionism and what he battled psychologically. And then I found uh, you know, um, Charles Bukowski as a poet and, you know, and that was revolutionary for me. this guy who had essentially lived on Skid Row for, you know, four decades and wrote these these beautiful poems that just resonated with me. Um, music like Miles Davis and when you understand the complexity of of who Miles Davis was, you know, I'm just now all of a sudden I'm being sucked into this. And then, you know, of course there was Jim Morrison and The Doors and then there was Hunter Thompson. I mean, I I remember reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. It was like I was just like, "Oh my, this is it. This is who I want to be." And and then really I had an English like a lit class and then part of the se or poetry class and part of the section was on the beat authors um from the you know 30s4s and 50s really that blossomed in the 1950s Alan Ginsburg and William S. burrows and and and the one that really the seminal work that I think really changed my my impression of where I wanted to go or what I wanted to be was Jack Carowaks on the road. And I read that and I was like that's what I need to do. Like none of this is making sense for me anymore. I'm not a I'm not an athlete anymore and I can't recover that no matter how much I pretend and I'm not a student. Like I I I couldn't handle that or chose not to handle I should say I could handle but I chose not to handle it. And I tried to encapsulate all these different ideas of these artists because I really believe that to be a great artist, I had to be that eccentric um wild man, you know, the the the guy who stands on the bars and can drink, you know, you know, 10 pints of Guinness in a bottle of wild turkey and who, you know, smoked, you know, cigarette after cigarette or swisher sweet after swisher sweet and and I really allowed myself to be consumed with that. Um, now the I think the positive aspect of it is that that's where I really started writing. Uh, that's where I really started drawing and I really started painting and I got to explore what that was like. And you know, the one thing about art is that when you're in hell, if you can put it on paper or you can put it on a wall or you can somehow get it out of you, it makes it somewhat tolerable. And that's what I did. And I remember in my sophomore year, we lived in this old house and there was a, you know, a bunch of us that lived in this house. and um JJ and Grant and Brian and my friend Tony Gronky who I love. There's got another part of the story about him and and I lived in the basement like this moldy, nasty, horrible basement and you know I'd come home and you know when all the bars would shut down all the everybody every fraternity would kick me out and I would cuz I just walk into the fraternity be like Elvis and I'd you know drink everything they have and go to the next house and and and I would come home and I would have a bottle of Bushmills and I'd open that bushill And I would paint on the walls and I'd, you know, paint these insane pictures of of the angst and the frustration and the pain that I was suffering from. And and I'd write just poem after poem after poem. And that began to take hold of me in a pretty significant way to where, you know, the thing is there's there's a an allure to these titans of of art, right? There's something that sucks you into them. There's something that's um romantic about that life, right? when you you you know you think about Jackson Pollock or you think about Andy Warhol or you think about some brilliant musician right Jimmyi Hendris or and you watch what they do what they can create and it it it it alters your consciousness right it it opens perspective and so as I was in this profound transition in my life. I didn't know how to find a foundational cornerstone, if you will. I didn't know what that was. Um, and so I started, the depression started setting in pretty significantly, and I couldn't shake it no matter what I did. I just drank more, you know, and it just got worse and worse and worse. Um, and then it was my um, so but what was interesting is I I averaged like a a 18 during the regular school year and then I averaged like a 41 or 42 in summer school, right? Cuz and I always joke that it's cuz I was from Florida. I couldn't handle the cold, right? And and uh and um in Penn State, but in the summer so the summer uh there's this crazy thing called Arts Festival. It's really beautiful thing. It was my favorite part about Penn State. And Mike and I were up there and I was living near some other these female friends of mine who were on the lacrosse team and it was Chrissy and Alyssa and Megan and wonderful. And Chrissy and I were were super close. She was and she was kind of a dead head uh artist and she she and I would just talk about these people endlessly. We would just go get a coffee or drink and we would just talk about this stuff. Well, that summer I I I met somebody and and you know, had a little short relationship and then kind of ended it and that was it. And then the fall began and at this time it was my junior year and we were living in this place called Stonehenge and that's just the name of it and it was it was it was me, uh Mike, um Buzza, Billy, um Scoons, um Brian, and and Grant. and and I lived me and O'Keeffe and and Scoon lived in the top and I lived in this little hole up front and you know had these just by then was really struggling and I remember being at a party in the fall. It was cold. Was really cold. And I had left the party. Was pretty pretty inebriated and walked outside and there was a snowfall on the ground and and this girl who I had seen kind of came up to me and she was I guess at the party and I hadn't seen her and she came up to me and she goes, "Elvis, I want to talk to you." And so she came out and we're in the street and she goes, "Do you know where I've been?" And now mind you, Penn State is, you know, 65,000 kids, right? I mean, it's a massive school and you can never see anybody. See them once and never see them again sometimes. And and she came up to me and she goes, "Do you have any idea where I've been?" And I said, "No, I don't." And she goes, "Um, you got me pregnant." and I left school and I was going to have the baby, but I had a miscarriage and I lost the baby. And so, you know, I'm sitting I don't like how am I processing this and what do I do? How old are you? I want to say I was probably 21. 20 21. Yeah, probably 21. And don't know what to say. And and I guess I just you know why? why didn't you tell me? And she looked at me and she said, "Because I didn't want you to have anything to do with the kid." And that was kind of the lowest moment that I'd had. Why did she not want you to have anything to do with the kid? Because I was out of control. I wasn't trustworthy. I wasn't didn't have integrity. I was a mess with alcohol and drugs. I was just What kind of drugs? Mostly just pot. You know, I I I I was nervous about cocaine. I'd had a couple friends who had ODed and, you know, my brother had battled that a little bit and and so I was nervous. So, I never got went down that, but you know, some psychedelics. I was, you know, definitely lurgic acid and mushrooms and cuz, you know, you get into that world and you're like, "Oh, this is going to make me a better artist." And you believe that, right? You read all the stories about Ken Keezy and Timothy Liry and you know the Merry Pranksters and you're like all right that's where I want to be. There's there's a perfection in that. There's a freedom but the truth is there is no freedom. What happen you always end up devolving into hell with it and it's just the natural progression. And so after she told me and she was I don't remember how it end cuz I was kind of in shock. And so at that point I I I left the party and went back to Stonehenge, went up into my little hole and cubby and um uh drank the rest of my bottle of Bushmills and and broke out my shotgun and put a shell in it and was seriously contemplating shooting myself at that point. Holy [ __ ] I didn't know that about you. Yeah. And it's like everything slows down and you know you're trying to at least I was trying to figure out what was worth it. like why should I why shouldn't I just end it if this person felt I was so such a a a lowly human being that she wanted me to have nothing to do with it in any way shape or form not even the consideration to want to give me the option right because of my character like where do you come back from that and I I just remember just just be weeping in my room just like just just trying to work up the courage, right, to pull pull that that trigger and God brought Mike O'Keefe home and he heard the music and he came up and he just started banging on the door and he's like, "Vis, V this, let's go, man. Come on. Come downstairs. this cuz he out of everybody he he really helped me the most. Like he saw it devolve day by day, month by month, week, you know, year by year. And he was always there. He was always the guy like, "Come on, Viss, let's go. We're going to, you know, lacrosse party." And and I think right after that is when I finally got kicked off the team uh my my junior year. And he just banging on the door. This V this come out. Come here buddy. Come on man. Come downstairs. Come hang with us. And that was it. That was that was the thing. his voice that made me get up, kind of shake it off and and I I went out I went downstairs and kind of just sat there just trying to process it all. Did he know? I think he suspected it. You never told him? Uh I did. I told him later. What' he say? Uh he said I kind of felt like that was coming. He's like I there's been more times than just that. I've worried about you. Like I said, man, because he's It wasn't the first time I thought about it for sure, but not in that way. Not in the place I was like, I want I'm gonna do this cuz I I don't I don't deserve to be here. And that was the other thing. It was weird. It's like to get to a place where you can't see all the good in your life because all you can do is sit in the the hell of like what you're not doing right. And you can't see beyond it. like you have these blinders up and it's almost like a weird filter. You see the world through this, you know, infinite layers of negativity, you know? I call it the I call it the negative insurgency, right? It's that thing that just hunts you and hunts you and does not let you go. No matter where you try and move, where you try and escape, however you try and do it, it just haunts you and and it's you can't see it. You don't know why it's happening, where it's coming from, and you're too afraid to look at yourself. How did you So, if you said you were going to leave school to be a dad, I mean, how did you rectify that situation with I didn't even get to that point. You didn't decision. I didn't know she was pregnant. I didn't know what was I I didn't even like it was just she showed up. Hey, I was pregnant. I was going to have a kid. You weren't going to be part of it. That's what she wanted to tell me. So, she had already had the miscarriage. Yeah. And come back to school. [ __ ] Yeah. Yeah. So I was like and then that that just continued it and it it just got worse and worse and I think that year I forget it was something like almost 90 straight days of being intoxicated. Yeah. It was just it just didn't I just didn't want it then. I mean I'd wake up pour myself a glass of Jack or you know hit the bong or whatever it was just to numb just to stay numb as much as I could. Damn, man. Yeah. How'd you get over that? God, it's the only answer that I can give cuz it was in it was in midappril 1995. Did you have a relationship with God at that time? Nothing. So, looking back, are you saying it was God or you found God at that point? No, I just looking back, but I know that was the first moment where it was like God kind of came in and was presence in my life. I had gotten so bad my senior year. I was essentially off the team. I was living by myself, completely isolated. That's the other thing, like the desire to continue to isolate and isolate and isolate. That's what people with these types of of challenges, depression and anxiety and fear and and you know that's what it is and pain the presence of pain like you want to be isolated and you're ashamed of it and and I'd gotten to that place where I didn't want anybody to see me and and it was April and I knew I was in trouble and I woke up one Sunday and and I was Not I mean, you've you've seen my places before. I'm not exactly the most uh uh uh uh squared away. I'm I'm a bit of a a a tornado. You definitely don't have OCD. Okay, I'm sure. I know. I'm definitely the artist, right? And so I got I woke up and I looked over and there was a pile of clothes in the corner and I was like, "All right, I got to go." I'd been wearing the same jeans for a couple weeks and it's like, "All right, I got to go do a laundry mat." And and I drove out to this laundromat just off campus, not far from where this had happened. It was an a lacrosse house that people used to live at. And and uh was in this laundromat and and I used to take, you know, my a sketchbook with me or one of my poetry books and and I' in those moments I'd try and reflect and I'd try and find something that positive, right? I try and quantify the pain in in some type of pros or a drawing or sketch or something. And I showed up and I just sat there and there was nothing. Just nothing. I was just sitting there watched that laundry go round and round and round. And then just like that, something hit me. It was like, you got to change your life right now. And it was overwhelming. like it was it was like a hit. It was I felt a movement. I'm like, "Okay, what is it? What do I do?" And and you know, being a lawyer's kid, it's like, "Write out all your pros and cons, son." You know, and look at it, you know, intellectually. And so I'm like, "All right." So I wrote out the pros of staying in school and the pros of leaving school and the pros cons of staying in school and the cons of leaving school. And none of it was good. like I didn't have anything to think about or do or nothing. And then I got hit immediately with a thought and it was because of Tony Gronsky from Scranton, PA. And Tony, when I was a freshman, they lived he and and his roommate Marlin lived next to me. And we became friends with Tony. He's just a great guy, amazing, total Scrant guy and but funny as hell and had these little sayings he'd say. And we just loved him. We adopted him and he was just but he was older than us. He'd been in Army reserves and he was squared away and as a freshman he had given me a book about Navy Seals in Vietnam and I remember I read and I I didn't know about SEALs like I and when I was a kid it was always Green Berets and Rangers, right? John Wayne, um you know um Apocalypse Now and and The Deer Hunter. I mean, those those movies were I mean, I had tiger stripe camo, you know, stuff when I was a kid, and it was because of those those things. I was like, man, I admired that. I'd always admired what they were and what they could do. And then he gave me this book. I put it down. I never thought about it. And then in that moment, it was like, that's it. Because when the whole thing, the whole context of the book was about these you I mean, you know, these guys that were in Vietnam doing these missions out in the middle of nowhere with a few guys and and they would accomplish things that were crazy and and I I was like, "That's it." Cuz at that point, my fear had utterly consumed me. I was afraid of everything. I was afraid of I couldn't even try anything. I was just afraid and self-confidence was completely shattered. Like I had none. I didn't believe in myself at all in any way. And and then I had been kicked off the team. So I had no support. And even though Mike and and Buzz and and all those guys were wonderful to me, they were always there. They Brian Schwarz, I mean Grant Yod, these men these they were always there. They always cared about me and but I was off the team and so I was alone and so I said, "All right, well, I'm going to be able to repair all of this by going in the Navy and becoming a SEAL." And that was it. That was the decision in that moment. Had you ever had contact with her since she met you in the street? No. How often do you think about that? I' I'd been able to suppress it for quite a while. Um, and then obviously having children and then having daughters that brought it back up, having daughters now. Um, yeah, it's it's a everything is more intense about all of my relationships that I've been through. Um, now that I have daughters and I think about how I behaved and I think about how I acted and and I think that really kind of really shifted my approach to relationships after that as well too. Um, and I think it it it added a component of of not being able to recognize when when relationships weren't healthy anymore and staying in them probably too long, which became a a pretty regular thing for me for the rest of my time until I met Janna. So, yeah, it's I it comes up for sure and definitely in preparation for this. I mean, obviously, you know, to try and encapsulate those pivotal moments, they they're not typically the best moments of your life, and that was certainly one of them. What advice would you have for somebody that age that has gotten somebody pregnant, had a miscarriage? How do they get through that? I think the biggest thing is is to lean on people that you can count on who will give you the truth who will talk truth to you. I think also faith is a big thing, right? I didn't have anything. I didn't have anybody to turn to, you know, I I didn't know where to go. I didn't know where to rehabilitate. I was ashamed. And I think, you know, one thing that is is pretty inevitable uh for young people is is there there's an intimacy that's, you know, that's where the overwhelming component of your passion comes from. And as you're a young person is in those emerging intimate moments with people that you're you're just, you know, infatuated with or you're bonded physically to. And I think unfortunately people just don't think and they get encapsulated in the moment and next thing you know someone gets pregnant. And I think a lot of people obviously we we know the numbers of abortion are are astronomical. Um, and I think it, you know, there are also a lot of people, uh, that I know that have pushed through and and had ch children, right? They were together and they got pregnant and then they got married and, you know, intimate parts of my immediate family understand that deeply, right? And and so I I think what I would say to people is is um, you know, don't be afraid to ask for help. because it's such a in impending imposing uh idea that you know you did something wrong or you weren't good enough or something happened and I think both for the female the woman who's involved in that especially to seek out people that are they can talk to and then also the young man because that's I think a lot of times that that kind of there's a a myth that young men don't have the capacity to process that stuff or and many times they don't for whatever lack of emotional intelligence maybe or or it's just fear, right? And so, you know, those are those moments where that fear and that pain you have to you have to move into it. Like you have to be willing to um recognize that that you're going to learn something deeply from it. And if you really invest in understanding it and you you can begin to rely on on that deeper level faith as well too which I w with I wish I wish I had. You know another piece of advice that I want to get from you is you know we talk a lot about veteran suicide. You've lost a lot of friends. I've lost a lot of friends. We've lost mutual friends. A lot of them you know but on top of you know the veteran suicide epidemic. I mean, today's youth, uh, with everything that they deal with, with predators, with blackmail, with with social media, with with the with the the self-esteem problems and trying to belong in school, and with all the confusion that goes on today. I mean, teen suicide is at I don't know the statistics, but I do know it's at an all-time high. After co girls teenage suicide increased by 50%. and your wife Janna, you know, dealt with a suicide with her ex-husband and and you know what, but specifically for teenagers, what advice do you have for somebody that's riding the line? I think the biggest thing is to know that you're loved because in those moments you don't it it's not that you I don't think it's that they don't believe that they're loved but they can't reciprocate or it would be better for them to be gone. I could red I'm the problem. So I could help my family or my friends. They would have a better life if I was just gone. And then it's the other is like I can't handle this anymore. I don't want to fight this anymore. It's too overwhelming. I'm exhausted. I don't have any options. And I think that's the challenge. And and I think you know the the insecurities of young people really as an emergence of the desocialization that took place, right? You know, when I first started working with kids in 2006, the statistic was like 13-year-old kids, boys were connected something like four to 6 hours a day. It was, you know, whether it was gaming or whatever. And then girls, it was a little higher, maybe 5 to seven or eight, something like that. And then now, you know, kids are connected for 13, 14 hours a day. They're on their phones or they're immersed in streaming and they're they're in that space where it's they they they're not given the opportunity to process. there's these emotions across from somebody and across from somebody that they trust that that will sit and listen that will maybe not give advice but say I I I can I can't snap my fingers and make this go away but what we can do is we can work together to get you back to a place where you can you can gain that foundation that find that cornerstone and that cornerstone is the key to the whole thing, right? The cornerstone of Christ. Because if you know at a minimum that that he died for us and he died for our sins, then you begin to contemplate, all right, the sin of self-loathing, the sin of of, you know, of of not believing that you're good enough or you're capable enough or that life will change. You know, you you you think about some people that are just trapped in in in trauma, whether it's generational trauma of the dysfunction of family or it's, you know, whatever circumstances they are. And and and you know, obviously I think it's it's it's ridiculous to assume that that youth trauma is encapsulated in people that are economically in in a struggle. In fact, I I think, you know, I've I've seen many people that are not wealthy or even, you know, or even have an abundance, if you will, but they love on each other and they have very strong family dynamics and those that sense that, you know, you've got each other's back even in the midst if there's the natural squabbling that takes place among siblings or parents or whatever that are trying to parent you. I think you know those bonds those are the those bonds are what chain us to that cornerstone and that's that's that's the the mixture that's what connects us that's what creates if you will almost the net that saves us in the freef fall that we move into are those bonds right and so that's the the key you know is to get involved in conversations and to have meaningful conversations with each other those first moments where you you start to say, "I'm ugly. I'll never be popular." Or, "I'm not I'm not good enough to be the top, you know, I I I don't fit in with anybody." Or, "I'm a little different." All these things that, you know, once you get on that that that infinite wheel of despair, it's very difficult to jump off or even to slow the wheel down. And I believe that that that human interaction is the way to do that. It's been that way for as long as as you know, human beings have been interacting and sharing stories with each other in their tribes. You know, that's why when people come into the seat and they sit across from you and they share these stories, there's a reason why so many millions of people have been affected, billion now, is because those stories, they connect with them, they touch them in particular when they hear, you know, what they imagine to be um immortals or or people who are operating at some higher higher level of of of strength or whatever that might be. And they come in and they show their vulnerability and they show their struggles, right? It it connects you to them. And I think that's what we need more of. We need more dialogue. We need more sincerity, empathy within each other. And that's not to say we have to become, you know, weak by any measure. It actually takes more courage and more strength to sit down across from somebody that you care deeply and say, "What's really going on with you? I want to know. I can't promise you I can solve this in the next hour." And I think so many people. When we become isolated in our own thoughts, we cease to see other people in their pain and respect it. And I think that's a critical thing for us to do. And and it really takes that that little bit of like, "Hey, you good?" I mean, I think about it all the time. And I think about it with Dave Hall. I mean, I I I got a call from from Chris and said, "Hey, man, Dave's struggling." And I called him up. I'm like, "How you doing?" He's like, "I'm good. I just got out of rehab and I'm going to go do Smileyaska and I think I'm good." And I was like, "Okay, man. You know, come down to Florida. come stay with me for a month. And I've got this great program that Dr. Free is running out in in in in Methodist in Houston. And and I was like, I'll pay for it. I'll raise the money. I'll get you there. He's like, well, I'm going to go back to home in North Florida for like a week and then I'll call you. And I was like, okay. And then I immediately hear he's he's killed himself. It's like, why didn't I drive up or why didn't I go? and and that's the other half of it for those that are left behind, you know, that process. So suicide is not something that we should cower from. It's not something that shouldn't be talked about. It's not something that shouldn't be discussed openly. I mean, it's it's a massive component of existence, right? The human soul is fragile. And the result of a fragile soul is the the self-loathing that moves into wanting to inflict pain to end that that pain to end that existence. And you know, it's just I I I would tell kids, you know, lean into somebody who loves you. Don't be afraid to tell. and then and then to sit down with with somebody that's got some wisdom on them and and and talk about, you know, one of the things that John and I are going to start working on here in a little bit as a as a course that we're going to put out under the Frog Logic Institute about suicide. You know, I think another thing just to just to add to that is, you know, especially for young people, you know, who don't have a lot of life experiences, you know, life comes in phases and phase always comes to an end. You don't know how long it's going to be. Maybe you have a shitty childhood. Maybe you got shitty parents, shitty siblings, bad friends. bad decisions. But if you're willing to change, life just it comes in phases and it will always turn. Wheel just keeps going. It'll always turn. And so just know there are better days ahead. Yeah, there are better days ahead. Hope. But let's take a break. Yeah, man. Let's go break in that new Sig. Done. All right. Why are elite athletes and high performers using Armor of Colostrum? Because Armor of Colostrum is nature's first whole food with over 400 bioactive nutrients working at the cellular level to help build lean muscle, accelerate recovery, and to fuel performance. All without artificial stimulants or synthetic junk. 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That's 8667818900 or you can go to americanfinancing.netsrs. All right, Dave, we're back from the break getting ready to get into your naval special warfare career. So, we left off at Downward Spiral in College, Apocalypse Now movies, The Deer Hunter. you got interested. Where do we go from here? Well, it was after that moment. I remember I mean it's a pretty shocking thing to call home and say, "Mom, Dad, thank you for just spending, you know, tens of thousands of dollars on my education. Oh, by the way, I'm done. I'm not finishing. I'm walking away." And my brother had walked away, too. And this we come from a family I think there's 17 people in our family that have graduated from the University of Michigan. You know my grandfather had gone to Dartmouth. Um you know my cousin was undergrad at Brown and a graduate at Columbia. You know one of the top people in the entire world in the literature world. He's a senior editor at large for Random House. His name's David Ibershoff. And there's a lot of pride in education in education and in maximizing those capabilities. And so I I you know that was I was petrified cuz the first the first person I really needed to get confirmation from was my father was to say, "Hey, will you support this? Will you get behind this?" And I was I was scared. And I think I waited a couple days and then finally I I I I had to call him and you know he typical fashion he maintained his control and was just like all right if this is absolutely what you have to do and what you want to do why don't you come home and and you know we'll go from there and packed up my stuff and I drove home from Penn State and um it was May of of 95 five and got home and there was it was different this time um than the last four years of you know coming home and you know going down to South Beach with my you know my other close friend Mark and hanging out down there and just you know not not thinking at all about what my future was going to look like just more of of of what I was trying to numb myself against. And I got home and over those four years, what one of the beautiful things that took place during that time was my father and my relationship blew up. Like it it emerged. It I'll never forget one of those my sophomore year. He knew I was struggling. He too struggled. Uh he got kicked out of Michigan his his sophomore year. The only person I think in Michigan history to be expelled for intellectual drifting. They called it. intellectual drifting. Intellectual drifting. And on his way out, he he got confirmation from whoever was, you know, kicking him out saying, "Hey, if I go to this other community college or other school and I get straight A's and have a 4.0, will you let me in?" And the guy's like, "There's no way." Yeah, absolutely. So, he goes and he goes through summer school and goes and gets a 4.0. And one of the interesting things he talks about is that summer he read all of the great works of literature. like he made a list of the top works of literature from Henway to Steinbeck to you know ever to Keats to Whitman all of them and he read all of them and he had come up during my sophomore year when I was living in the basement and uh he came back one night my mom went to the the Nitney Lion in and he came back with me and we sat and we drank bush mills together and it was the first time he explained that situation and how he had wanted to move to New York and be a writer and pursue his art because that's where the art comes from in our family. It comes from my father. My father was an artist growing up. He had a he had a tough childhood. Um his mom had a stroke when he was four years old and and that changed his life or eight years old. I think it was eight years old. And it changed his life because his mom was then handicapped from then on. And and my grandfather, Robert Bruce Rutherford, you know, had to take care of her, work a full job, and then my my dad and his sister. And and I think somewhere in there, he kind of got lost in his own mind, too. And that art emerged in him. And so he had these dreams of moving to New York and being a a famous author, famous novelist. and and he sat down with me and told me that story and it was like the first time he had ever been proud of me intellectually because even though I wasn't going to class much I was still reading Nichi Camu I was I was learning about art history and the Medici families and the Venice and you know um the emergence of of of all different typ types of philosophy. I took multiple philosophy classes, multiple psychology classes. You know, you're in the humanities and I just started to consume those other works. And and it was in that moment where I I felt a bond with us. And that was pivotal because even though I was not behaving, I wasn't proud of of what I was doing. I wasn't proud of where I was going. He still loved me and he was like giving me the space to figure it out as is later what he told me. And so fast forward, I get home and I'm walking away from the thing that I thought was all my dad wanted me to be, which was an intellect. That's the way I would gain his pride in me. that he would be able to one day look at me and said, you know, son, I'm I'm proud of you for for graduating and, you know, going to law school and coming to work. Although, he never once asked, you know, hey, I'd love for you to come and work with me as as an attorney. Never once. Never pushed me in any direction one way or the other. And in fact, restrained himself a lot knowing that I think I had created this false illusion of who I was athletically. And he allowed that space for me. So, I come home and I remember and he said to me, he goes, "Would you give me two weeks before you go to the recruiter?" And I'm like, "What do you mean for what? I I want to go. I want to get this started immediately." He goes, "Cuz I didn't want to think about it." Like, I didn't want to linger in it. I didn't want to learn. And uh, you know, and he goes, "Well, you just give me two weeks." And for the first time over two weeks, my dad would come home early and we would spend all afternoon and evening discussing it. And we would talk and he'd be like, "Why do you want to do this? What about this is going to fill whatever holes inside of you? Um what are you going to learn from this? Uh do you are you aware? I mean, you have these fears. Are you aware you're going to have to face these fears? You're going to have to in ways you can't fathom. are you aware it could all it could irrevitably change you forever in your life and we had these really intense deep conversations about life and I was convincing and he got to the point where he's like okay then I I just want you to do one more thing for me and then I'll I'll you know I'll support you unconditionally in this I was like what's that and he goes you're going to need to go talk to Bud Miller and I It's like that I like I got nervous at that point. So Bud Miller, my best one of my best friends in high school was Chris Miller. Phenomenal guy, amazing amazing friend to me. Um his father was a Vietnam veteran and had a couple tours, was a Marine Corps officer and was bigger than life, right? He was the CEO of a major company called Arvita back then, which they built much of of Southeast Florida. He was the CEO. He was the chairman of of, you know, of of our school board and our prep school we went to. And he just commanded attention. I always had this amazing affinity for him. So, I'd, you know, spend the night and very, very juaposed to my father. My father was not that guy, right? He was quiet and listened and I mean he's an attorney and he was empathetic and he was he was he was you say that like all attorneys are quiet and empathetic. the the apparently that's not the case. But the way I grew up, I watched the nobility of the way my father he was in estate planning and I mean you think about it what what happens in estate planning. It's the worst moment of your life. someone's died and my dad would guide people through this. And he would sit down and be like, he'd be like, you know, David, think about what I do and how I help people in those moments because I'd be like, "Dad, why aren't you like big time trial attorney or, you know, why aren't you going out?" And he says, you know, I tried trial attorney. I I hated it. I didn't like it. A lot of it is is not what it seems. you know, it's kind of a a charade, if you will, but in estate planning, I can help people in the greatest crisis of their life, you know, and that influence combined with my mom and the dedication to charity and what she did in the community, like that really was a a model for me. I mean, it was a phenomenal example for me to exist in. And anyway, so he's like, "All right, we're going to go talk to to Bud." I was like, "Okay." So, he called and arranged it. And I remember going over to Bud and walk in and Bud Bud was a big crown drinker. Crown on the rocks, man. Just crown crown. And we go outside. They lived in in this this neighborhood. And and we go outside and he's like, "Come outside." And he pours me a crown and the rocks and he's like, "Drink it." I'm like, "Okay." And he says, "So, you want to go to war, huh?" And for the next several hours, um, he told me about some of his the intimacy of what it was like for him in Vietnam. And it was rattling. It was the first time I'd ever had anybody talk to me in that way. I'd never had I mean nobody we had people in our family a couple generations before that had served were part of Roosevelt's cabinet you know were we had a couple of my great uncles were generals and stuff but since my grandfather's nobody had served and that was uh an eyeopening experience to say the least and he shared with me about a time he he he would not the the famous stories of tunnel rats, right? He would never make any of his guys go in the tunnel. He would go in the tunnel instead of his his men and one of the times the tunnel collapsed on him and his he essentially was, you know, suffocating and his men had to dig him out and and you know, you hear that and then you hear about the story of of men in his underneath his command dying in his arms multiple times and and it made it real or more real, more tangible. It still wasn't real yet, right? Obviously, but it made it real. Like, it made me really think, whoa, is this is this what I want to do? Can I can I handle that? Like, what what will it do to me? Is it going to change? Because my greatest fear from the beginning was that if I go into the teams, I'll lose that piece of myself that's the artists, right? And I didn't want that to happen. you know, you I'd read enough stories about JD Salinger and, you know, Hemingway and and these other people that had seen combat and how it changed them permanently. And now, luckily, maybe not luckily is not the word, I think, fortunately for those men, that pain was converted into really beautiful art. And so, I was nervous like maybe if what I saw or what I went through that would be erased in me. And so, I had that in mind. And when I went to the recruiter, uh, man, I was probably had long hair, huge sideburns, a a nasty goatee. I was probably about 225 lbs, out of shape. And I walked into in Delray where it is. And I said, "Uh, hey, how you doing?" He's like, "May I help you?" And I was like, "Yeah, I I want to be a Navy Seal." He's like, "I bet you do." And he sat me in that chair and put on that cassette tape called Be Someone Special. And uh it's funny, man. I I just watched it. You can find it on YouTube. And it's, you know, guys fast roping into a target and assaulting it and planting a bomb and it blowing up and snipers taking guys out and then it moves into this the story of Buds and it and that was the first time I'd ever cuz back then there wasn't anything, right? There's a couple books from Vietnam. There was Rogue Warrior and that was it in the Charlie Sheen movie. And and none of that encapsulated what it was for me. That video was the first time I got a window into the intensity of it. And I was like, "Yeah, that's it. That's what I need. That's what I want." And he's like, "Okay, sign right here." And I said, "Well, I can't. My dad made me promise I'd take it home and show him, you know, big contract. I take it to my dad and he reads through he goes he goes it is what it is you know you go in they they own you and I was like okay that that that works that's fine that's what I want so I I signed was at MEPS and you know in June 23rd I think of of 1995 I was at boot camp and so what was it that really drew you in? I think it was the redemption that I imagined I would feel if I could face death and not collapse. I think if I could stand next to somebody who entrusted their life with me and I had the strength to do that that somehow all of my fear would go away. Did it did was there any aspect of I mean, your athletic career came crashing down. Your academic career came crashing down. You had a miscarriage with a woman. I mean, it's a [ __ ] tough spot for a guy. What, 21? I was 22 cuz I had done the fifth year of high school. So, I was a young 22 years old. I mean, a lot of failures. Is there any aspect of this that you that that that that mean did you want to make your parents proud? Did you want to you so for example for me you know when I when I looked at it it was a way to be the best the very best at something that was actually attainable. You were in control. All you have to do is not quit and perform. There's no size requirements. You're too small. You're too big. You're too skinny. You're too There is none of that. And so it's it's it's a way to you see what I'm saying? Yeah. It mitigates all it's a way to be the best at something to make people proud of you and and and and and it's all within your your grasp. You can actually see it happening because it's all on you. There's no [ __ ] scouts. There's none of that. I I don't know if I I mean obviously there's a part of that cuz you know I'd always been really good at all the things that I had tried and then I was a failure. So yeah, there's a part of wanting to be a part of something elite for sure. Um but it it it was more I I just didn't want to be afraid anymore and I thought that was going to do it. Like I would be surrounded by the strongest men there were and if I hung then they would look at me and and they would be like, "Yeah, he's good to go." And that would I I could release that sensation that I I was afraid of not being able to perform, of not not being able to measure up, I think. So there's a part of that in there, but it was much more uh contained in my own mind and my own perceptions. What about killing? Did you think about killing? No. Did you want to kill? I Yeah, I mean not in a way where it was at the forefront of my thoughts at all. Like that wasn't it as like, oh, I'm going to go in and I'm going to kill people. That wasn't it at all. And I think a lot of that because I think I mean if you look at the 80s and you know in the early 90s the movies that were personifying you know mass level killing and and from a um um male perspective and that power and that comes with it. I don't know. I mean I don't know if that was the thing that was enticing me at all. I mean, obviously the more you go down into the program, the more that becomes a more significant because when you realize that, well, that's what this whole thing's about. Like it was it was interesting. I it took me a long time when I remember when I first got out, especially when I started working with kids. I would, you know, any kid that was saying, "Hey, I want to go in the teams or somewhere. Can you?" And I would sit and talk to them. And I I would never ask that question. And then uh a little bit later, our friend Dan Cerello Taco um I talked to him because he was really influencing a lot of people when he first got out when he was running that CrossFit gym and he's put like I think it's like 27 guys have come through him and gone in and succeeded. So I asked him I like you know what do you what do you ask these guys? And he goes the first question I ask is do you want to go kill people? And he's like because that's the whole thing. And I was like, "Holy cow." Um, but at that time, no, that wasn't. It was more just about filling the hole that that fear had created in me. How did it feel to sign up? Like I was gaining control of my life. Like I moved an inch forward, you know? Like I finally like, "Oh man, that's big. That's an adult decision. That's that's I'm leaving I'm leaving the the protective nest of of Bocratone and college and you know I'm I'm now it's real. I have to go figure it out. Why do you think I mean I hate to put it like this but I don't know any other way. I was the I was the same as everybody else that I served with, including you. What is it that draws people to killing? Why are why are young men that are so interested in special operations, being a SEAL, being a Green Beret, being a Ranger, being a Marine grunt, being a Mars guy? What what what is the fascination with taking someone's life? Have you dove into that at all? Um, yeah. I mean, obviously it's there. We we have some mutual friends that have an exorbitant amount of of of confirmed kills, right? And talking with them in those capacities, you you I mean, some of them they you get a they they would describe it as, well, I got really good at it. And I was really good at it and I enjoyed it, you know, because you're able to I think as you you mature in the process and that that reprogramming really takes hold that becomes the objective cuz at first it's like can I hang in buds right can I hang in hell week and then once you beyond that then it changes completely then the focus begins where it's like oh no That's it's not about hanging at all. It's about how good you're going to integrate with this group of men to go do that job. That's it. And all the other [ __ ] is just fluff. It's just distraction, right? I just I just I just don't under I mean and I think about it with myself like why did I mean cuz that it is what it is. Mhm. You go in and you want to kill another human being. I think eventually for me it was right off the bat. Really? I just had a craving. I wanted I wanted to I wanted to legally kill somebody. Yeah. A bad guy. Yeah. I could I can I think I've I mean I've obviously you have those discussions in the midst of it and and I think it's so integrated into your like the evolution of your consciousness how you see you yourself in the community that that plays a major role in it right and that becomes almost the criteria right of your service and I think that that that overwhelms naturally as It should cuz it's not a game. You're not playing a game. Like there's no game about any of it from the day you first walk out into Coronado and you show up. Like there's no g. It's not a [ __ ] game. And that So if it's not a game, what's this about? And very quickly, you know, through your instructor staff constantly telling you this is what it is. This is what it's about. This is what it is. And then as you get closer and closer, but for me going in and and and you know, I got to, you know, I went through boot camp and then spent a little bit of time in Great Lakes and then went to Bethesda Naval Hospital and in a transitional weight period before my BUDS class started. Like I wasn't thinking about any of that stuff. I was just thinking about all right, am I in shape enough? Yeah, it should be all right. It should be good. you know, this this shouldn't be because again, there were no videos, there were no books, there were you had no idea what to expect. It's like, yeah, I got this. I'm a D1 athlete. I I'll be fine. And it wasn't like, oh, I need to mentally prepare for this cataclysmic shift in the way I'm going to look at life and death. Now, it was about the death component for me that was definitely there, but it wasn't the the reverse of that. It wasn't like, oh, I'm going to deliver death. It wasn't that that for me at all. Not until much later. And then and then, you know, but initially it was just like I you contemplate but for for me I felt like every day I was just trying to hang on cuz you know my pathway was just not not conducive for as as it would be for or as it was for many other people. So how was the checking in the buds? It was nuts. I I remember uh I drove across country with my friend Brian who had been in boot camp. Brian and John, they were both 18 in boot camp and we made it, you know, all good. We were in the same, you know, state flags division and and uh like I was the ARPAC and they were the two watch leaders and all that and and uh which I couldn't even believe that. That was just mind-blowing to me that you know 4 months before I'm you know on mushrooms in state college and now I'm in charge of this thing and it's just like what is happening and and you know but then we went to Bethesda and they started training hard like and I was just like I was still going up to Penn State on weekends and hanging out and so then drove across country with Brian went to Thanksgiving in Arizona and then saw my cousin And then we checked and we drove straight to Coronado and it was like a Sunday night and I remember like let's go check in. He's like no let's this is stupid. We're not let's come back tomorrow morning first thing when everybody I was like dude we're here let's check in. Let's get in the barracks. Let's start. And so we go in and I go on that quarter deck and I'm like hey you know Seaman Rutherford reporting for duty type stuff. And the quarterback watch was looking at me like I was nuts. Like, what are you doing here on a Sunday night? Like, idiot. You know, and I was like, "Hey, man. We're here to check in." He's like, "Why don't you go somewhere else?" You know, and and uh and and I'm like, "Hey, man. We're here to check." He's like, "I got to wake up the watch." I was like, "Okay, well, wake him up." You know, I had no idea. So he wakes up the the the chief that was asleep in that little place behind that quarterback and this dude comes out like a bull in a china shop and starts screaming at us, drops us down, banging him out, beating the snot out of us, right? We get a little beat down, you know, this thing's going on. I'm like arm shaking, back swayed, like, oh my god, he's screaming at me. I'm going to make this my personal mission to make you quit in the next, you know, 48 hours. And I'm like, "Holy [ __ ] this is buds." I hadn't even signed my name in. And then I got nervous. That was like, uhoh, this is this is going to be hard. And and then it started and and you know, it was like overwhelming. What class were you? I started in 205 and uh I made it about I think three weeks. Uh, and the soft sand just crushed me. Um, and my ITBs flared so bad I couldn't bend my knees anymore. They just they just locked out. And I go into medical and they're like, "All right, we're going to drop you." And I was like, "Wait, what?" And I had come under the dive far program because there was so short a medics in the teams at the time that they gave this special uh program that if you signed up under this program you'd go straight to boot straight to BUDS. No no no a school right straight to Buds and then if you graduated Buds then you would go to 18 Delta and get your your corman call. I was like sweet. I was like, if I have any detour, if I go to any other command, the wheels could fall off immediately. So, I wanted to just get straight there. 18 Delta, for anybody that's listening, it's a u it's a medic. Yeah. J Somci, Joint Special Operations Combat Medic course. And so I I was like I I'm now I'm like, "Oh my god, the medic is tell the doc is telling me he's going to drop me." And I'm like, "Oh my god, I just got here." And um somebody was like, "No, let's just roll them." And so they gave me a roll from 205 into 206. Let's rewind a little bit. Yeah. Let's talk about one one day. I didn't get the one one day. And this was an indo This was an indo. Oh [ __ ] You didn't get the one one day. And that's when I was like that's why I was I was scared. And there was great guys in this class. I mean class 205 was just I remember the officer uh was just incredible. the OIC was and like hard charging guy and I was like man I really and then I'm out of that class like that like you couldn't even think and um so they roll me into 206 and now this time I'm like all right that's not happening so it's you know two months in between there were six classes back then and there was two months so I'd go through the day and then after work every day in the barracks I'd go for beach runs every day just to work on my legs just to get stronger longer. And as we as 206 started in dock, I was I was like, "Oh, I know what I'm going to do. I'm going to be a road guard because road guards, even though you're sprinting and getting crossing the Silver Strand and all that, road guards would get to eat first. So, you'd get to digest your food longer, right? So, you get in the chow hall, you eat first, and then you get you could actually sit and chill before ever." Because if you're in your regular boat cruise, one day boat crew one goes in first, next day boat crew 13, the Smurf crew goes in first, right? And you never know. And if you're the last boat crew to go and you only got 40 minutes to eat, you know, you're finishing your food, you're getting in line and next thing you know, 5 minutes later you're at the CTT at the combat training tank puking your food because you only had four minutes to eat your food, right? And I was like, road guard. So the extra training road guard. So, I class up. Day one was unbelievable. It was the coolest thing. We had a great class. A bunch of amazing guys in there. Um really just tough guys. Uh and it was interesting. That was the first time they had a a film crew that was going to be with that crew. Um and and do a little bit of filming of them and do a special. I forget what TV show it was on, but was this the Discovery Channel show? No, that was later. That was when I was an instructor. They they did that one. Wait, were you on that? All those No, cuz I was a SQT instructor. But all those guys came into our class. Like I had those were I think that was like my first class I had uh as an SQT instructor. Um so 206 starts week one. Awesome. I'm having like it's I'm like sweet. I'm going. And end of that first week, wake up Friday, my feet are killing me. I feel swollen, my heels are killing me. I tell my boat crew leader, he's like, you know, just get through the day. So I get through, I tell my oh my, my boat crew lead, like, hey, why don't you just run over to medical, just check it out. And so I go over to medical and they're like, all right, we'll send you across street, go across street, get X-rays. And I had stress fractures in both tibas and fibas. So that was just like devastating and I'm like what do I do? And well the my our o was like well on Monday go in to medical and to talk to the doc. So I you know got on my start uniform. I go in and he's like that's it. We're going to non-verbal do you you're dropped from training because you you're broken. You're not going to you're done. And imagine, you know, I it's not even not even a year since I left and now I'm it's over. And and for me, it wasn't I was wasn't going to a school. I was going to a ship as an undesated E3. So I was going to be in the bowels of a strip ship chipping paint until I could figure out an A school or whatever. And so I was just shattered. And he the doc's like, "All right, go over to the base training officer. go tell them what's up. So I go over to the base training officer and the grinder was I think it was it was like first phase, second phase, BTO and then and then the quarterback and I walk in and I'm standing at a tension, you know, stiff and just like on the precipice of just melting down. And he was like, "All right, Ratherford, what's going on?" I go, "Sir." He's like, "Hey, man. Stop the sir stuff at ease. you better just talk to me like and tell me what's going on. And I was I was flabbergasted. I was like, I I don't know what's happening. I don't know why this is happening to me. I I tried to get in shape. I've been working hard. Try to get my legs ready and I've never had anything like this before. I played, you know, I was a D1 athlete and and he's like, "All right, wait here." So he walks out. He's gone for five minutes or so or whatever. Comes back in and he says, "Well, uh, it appears that you got a little Buds Angel on your shoulder. Um, someone seems to think that if uh you could get healthy, you might make a decent frog man someday. So, do you want a single roll or a double roll?" And I'm like, like I didn't even know what to say. He's like, "You better tell me what you want otherwise, you know, this is over quick." And I I was like I and smart me. I'm like I'll take a double roll. Dumbest thing I could have ever done in my life. Right. Why is that? It's just too much time. I mean, four months is just way too much time because it starts to grind on you where you all your friends are moving on and moving forward and you're just sitting in the same spot and but you're going in, you're getting, you know, I mean, you know, in between those phases. It wasn't like a regular day, but you're still doing two, three workouts a day. You're still swimming a ton. You're still, you know, running to chow. You're still doing it, but you're not going anywhere. And that was hard. That was a really difficult time. I I was grateful because I I I had a friend Mark who was had been to Buds a couple time before and he was like an E5 E6 and he had a place off off off off base that he would let me sleep at and like he figured out how to finagle it so I could go sleep there and and it was just hard. I got into, you know, that was when I started drinking a little bit and partying, you know, with the guys who were waiting to class up or whatever or guys that I knew that were in classes. I knew a ton of dudes that were in 207 um and would hang out as they were moving forward or my 205 or six buddies and and it just was it was a long time and really started doubting myself again. Um, and then thank thankfully, uh, I I made it to getting classed up with 208, and that was a life-saving thing. The the guys that I went through 208 with were just incredible human beings. Tom, Gary, you know, just Jeff, Mark, Rob. I mean, my boat crew going through Hell Week was they were just titans of men. I mean, all of them went on to elite level careers. Really just performing at the Heis. And these were the guys that I was in a boat crew with. And it was phenomenal. And it just it was it was awesome. I'm not going to say it was easy because that's not was not easy, right? Struggled with everything a little bit, you know, drown proofing and not tying and all your typical things. But it was it was all great because they were so motivated. My boat crew leader was a a guy named Adam Smith who was the admiral's son. And you know, the the one time I I got close to wanting to quit was was in Hell Week on Wednesday night. And and what was it? We had first off when we started like it was it was it was bizarre. It was like a omen, right? It was the Friday before the Sunday. We were all lined up on a grinder and Admiral Smith came in and went down the line and inspected the boat cruise or whatever. And he came to ours and he's standing in front of his son and his other brother was a SEAL, too. And he's he looks at us and goes, "Sir, you know, is your boat crew ready?" "Yes, sir." You know, the whole thing. Booyah sir. And uh it was just a cool moment between a father and a son. And I was really proud to be with these guys. I mean they were they were so strong like so strong and so capable and you like felt you know that feeling you feel stronger with them like you can do more. And uh he looked around and he said uh he looked at the instructor. He said, "All right, guys. Uh all right, instructor staff. Uh I would like you to to take it easy on this boat crew for me." Essentially just like light them up. Yeah. Light them up. I I did we did uh what do you call it? Two steel peers. We did like in in breakout we lost two guys quit immediately and they didn't reorder our boat crew for almost like 24 hours. We only had five guys. Um and they just leaned into us and and and nobody broke and it was just incredible. Like everybody got stronger and stronger and stronger and like Bing, remember Bing, man was just he was just like had that look just angry like always just pissed you and he reminded me a lot of a lot of each other and and but like nothing was going to break him and he'd just look at you and you'd want to like do more like get your hands under the boat or under the log or whatever it was and they were all and then Rob was always just smiling, you know. and just you you just you work. But it was Wednesday night. We had done uh um we had done boat passage and it was it was an El Nino year. What's boat passage? Uh well where you paddle out, pass, you dump the boats, flip them back in and come out, right? Surf passage I guess. Yeah. Um and it was an El Nino and so it was like 20 25 foot waves. It was the biggest surf in 10 years that California had seen. And the instructors were like, "Send them out." Right. And when you talk about a yard show yard sale, there were boats and chem lights and dudes in water for like a mile spread out wild. It was people were getting nuts. And we had a couple guys in our boat crew that surf. So I grew up surfing and Adam had surfed and some other guys. And so we just got lucky. We timed the set and we got out and we're out there and we're like, "All right, how do we hide our chem lights so we don't have to go back in, right?" And then then, you know, you're Adam's like, "Nope, let's go flip it over." And so we're going in and you know I I I was threeman port side and we're going and I think you know I think all right we're timing the set and that boat just starts going up and up and up and up and that wave just went like went like that and just threw the boat once it was breaking and I remember being I don't know 20 feet in the air whatever it was and Rob was like 10 ft below me. You know, guys are in the air. Remember, don't lose your paddle. Don't lose. All I could think about was not that I'm going to hit fall on my buddies beneath me or the boat's going to land on me or drive. All I could think was about don't let go of my paddle. Don't let go of my paddle. And we hit and obviously the train wreck the next following sets hit you. And I remember coming up and like I'm gonna die right now. It was so big and so aggressive and so it was chaos. And I you couldn't see anybody's chem light cuz you know you got those old K-pops are strangling you in your your helmet and you just like don't lose all I could think don't lose my paddle like I didn't even think start swimming in shore right and finally you know figured out got into shore and at that I apparently at that point one of the senior instructors had been like maybe we ought to not send them out there anymore right you know because dudes were just quitting quitting quitting quitting And finally we got together, they brought us in, they stopped and then we went down and did Chief's Beach and at Chief's Beach they do this thing and it's uh they build this big bonfire, right? And you sit around on the edge of the bonfire and the way it worked, they made it sound this was before I think right after Midrats and the one of the instructors like, "All right, here's how to work. You guys come up, you tell the funniest story you've ever told in your life, and then you stay up as long as the next person's story isn't funnier than yours, right? And so I was like, "Oh, this is going to be awesome." Right? Cuz I can I've got some funny stories. So it started and they were good. And some dudes would last two guys. Now, when you're there, when you're in the line, you're just far enough away from the flame where you can't really get feel it like you might like a window blow and you feel a little bit, but you're still wet and you're, you know, you're just jackhammering the whole thing and but if you you're there next, you're right in front of the fire next to the instructor. So, I'm like, that's it. if I can stay up there, tell this best story I've ever told my life, it, you know, that'll that'll be it. And so I it was my turn and and there were some dudes that were hilarious in that class. I mean, hilarious people, like funny as hell. And so it's my turn. And I get up and I tell this funny story about uh a big bad wolf mask, a disco ball and and and a girl I knew in in in college, right? And it was like everybody's laughing like it's it's laughing their brains out. And I of course I extended the story. It's like a 20 minute story. So now I'm starting to feel dry. It kills every The instructors are laughing. My hands are starting to dry. I'm starting to dry off in my face. I stopped shaking for the first time since Sunday night. And I think I went like five or six dudes. And so in that moment, like now my boots dried, I could feel my feet for the first time. And I got comfortable and I forgot where I was. And then a dude got up and told, you know, hilarious study. Everybody is laughing and the instructor looks over at me and goes, "What are you laughing at, Rutherford?" And I'm like, "Huh?" And he's like, "Go hit the surf." And I run, you know, that did it. Like that's I hit that freezing cold surf and it's and it broke me. And I was like, I can't go back out there. Like, I can't do it. So, I hit the surf. I'm jackhammering again. Then something happened. Next thing you know, uh, an instructor was pissed at us. made us surf tortured. We're in there getting surfed and they're just screaming at us and the waves are huge and I'm holding arms with Adam and and I and I look and I was like, "Dude, I'm I'm done. I'm I'm going to quit. I can't do this. There's no way. I can't go to combat. I can't I don't have what it takes for this. I can't even stay mentally engaged, you know, when I'm dry, you know, how am I going to go to com?" And it just spiraled. And God bless that that man. He he saved my career. He was like, "Dude, don't you know, don't quit." He's like, "Wait until you're done with this and then then we'll quit." And I'll never forget like right after that, he had like he had talked some said, "Just get through this and then if you want to quit, I'll let you quit." And right after that, um, Braveheart had come out around then sometime. I forget when it was, but our one of our senior officers, who's one of toughest, best dudes I've ever met in my life, this guy Tom, he screams freedom. And the whole class like got got hard and then we just powered through it and and made it through. And and I was on top of the world. Like I was like, I just went through the hardest thing of my entire life and with these men and they didn't quit and they didn't let me quit. I was finally I was like, "This is where I want to be." And that was a powerful moment for Who was your first call after hell week? Um I think I I don't remember. I don't know. It might I don't know. Could have been my parents. Could have been my girlfriend at the time. Um, you know, I was just like, "Make sure you pick me up as soon as they let me go first tomorrow morning because it was like an idiot." You know, everybody else like stayed in the barrack and didn't move. I got picked up. We went down to PB. We ate breakfast with a couple other dudes who had already threw and then we started drinking. And so by like noon, after a week, I was already starting to drink and and just like, you know, all right, now I'm I'm hard as nails. this is what frog men do, you know, and that was the culture of the time. This is pre 911. And and I think that was really what began to manifest as that culture like I'm a freedom frightening root and toot and barrelchested fighting [ __ ] frog man and I'm going to, you know, go harder than everybody else. And that started to come in. And I think a lot of that was from my insecurity coming back in a new way. This time it was more about how am I going to live up to these guys? How am I going to how am I going to measure up? Cuz what I saw and what I was witnessing is people were just hard. Like there I remember some dudes it seemed like even in the worst they they seemed like they weren't phased by it or not that they weren't phased but that it wasn't going to bug they weren't it wasn't going to bug them and that was like powerful. There was a guy who I really became close with. His name is Henry. And Henry was the was an E5 was a senior medic for our class and and he was kind of shorter and what didn't have like a seal build and he had been a rescue swimmer in the Navy and and those those instructors would beat the hell out of him like just for fun just because you don't look like a Navy your uniform's disheveled. You're a piece of [ __ ] And they would just beat that poor dude. And I remember he would go over, you know, to report injuries or, you know, we've got this many guys quit, this many injuries. This is what our class count is. And go report the each phase every morning and every afternoon. And so he would come over to the cage in the pit and he'd be like, "All right, all right. I need a swim buddy to go over there." And [ __ ] dudes would like scatter, right? Because nobody wanted because they knew he was going to take a beatdown. And so finally I'd be like, "Yeah, I'll go with you." Cuz I was going to be a medic. I admired him. He he took heavies. And and every time we'd go over there, we would he would just they just like to beat on him. They wanted him to quit. And like I remember on the Dirty Name cuz he was short. He was like five, 5'6, 5'7 maybe. And the Dirty Name just crushed him. Right. the one for if you're listening, you jump up on a one little stump and then you got to clear like a sixft pole and then up to a 9 foot pole and there's probably like three to four feet in between them and and if you're short you just have to wing it like all in like to go for it and I remember being on course one day watching him and of course I always like the old course that was like my relax but my only time I got to relax because I love the O course and he was stuck it was just smoke cuz he had smoked them already a couple times and he was on that dirty name for like an hour or however long we were there. They just do it again, do it again, do it again. And later we found out he actually cracked a couple ribs and he never quit. He never whined. He never turned himself into medical, nothing. And and so that that's the caliber of men you're around. And I was like, am I that hard? Am I that tough? Do I have enough? But you I you know that the whole mindset of iron sharpens hard that's true and I learned that then with those those men in in 208. How was the rest of buds? Horrible. What were your hang-ups? Uh I die face. Uh I failed pool comp. My only thing I ever failed and that was describe pool comp. Pool comp is for simple terms how weaken in the pool, right? It's where you're fasttracked into into into open circuit diving. You have twin 80s on your back and like day one first, you know, hour in pool on Monday, you're doing buddy breathing, right, with these old school, you know, hose intake, you're doing it above and below. And then day two, you're doing, you know, ditch and dawn. You take your gear off a specific way. Everything has, you know, the straps are perfect. There's a sequence. Every everything in the in the teams has a sequence and soft especially because you have to be able to replicate it under duress, right? And so that meticulousness is really the if you can master that meticulousness, I think buds becomes it makes more sense to people. I was never a meticulous guy. So, but that week I was doing good. I was my my swim buddy was this guy John. good good guy, a little bit younger than me, but hard charger. And we did great all the way through um the uh the week and um that Friday, you know, we got up to it and it was pool comp. The pool comp is you start on the side of the pool, combat training tank, twin 80s on, flippers on, jump in, go down on the lines on the bottom, you get on your hands and knees, and you walk on your hands and knees back and forth across the 9 ft. And then the instructors come down and simulate four different types of of problem sets. First is a surfitit mask ripped off, fins ripped off. Next one is a I think an inhalation or an exhalation problem, right? Turn off your J valve, turn off your air, you know, fix mess up your hose. Then third one is a ditch and dawn, right? Put that your equipment back on. And then the fourth is the whammy knot where they just completely take your hose, stand on your head, and tuck them in the back of your manifold. And then you have to get those. And and for some reason, I don't know, I was I was dealing with some pretty heavy stuff with my girlfriend at the time. um struggling, was fatigue, was tired, um you know, all the typical things that everybody faces every day. But you don't those are the things like guys don't necessarily talk about in buds, right? It's like you leave the command and and you can if you leave and if you can live off base or whatever, but like there's an aftermath of the day like a psychological recuperation that takes place and and sometimes if you don't have that in check, you're not recovering properly. You're not getting, you know, you're not ready or prepared for the next day. in the AR by then I mean I I I had been there jeez a long time I mean coming up on a year I'd already been at Buds and um Friday I was like all right I'm I'm good as long as I don't get instructor Watson as long as I don't get him Adam Watson man the redheaded devil dude as long as I don't get Watson I'm good and I go up it's my turn on the deck I turn around guess who's sitting Right out there, dude. I was up in I want to say it was like 12 seconds. First S surf hit came down on top of me. Fins off, bounding me off thing, you know, I'm like I'm going signaling. I'm going up and come up. I feel fine. You know, just freaked out. Um and then he, you know, comes up. Rutherford fail. And so then you get another one that day. I failed that one on a twisted strap or something or no sequence. I did a sequence backward. Failed on that one. Remediation all weekend where you're practicing with your buddies. And then Monday hits and you're right back in the pool. Failed the third one. You get four attempts. And then the fourth one I got in. I was like, I got this. I did everything great. Came up. I feel fine. And and it was one of the officers of of of second phase is like sorry Rutherford uh twisted strap. I had I think my chest strap was twisted and fail. You're out you're rolled. And they remember they took us and they put there was like seven of us that failed and we had to sit at one end of the pool while everybody else who had passed was down here and they were moving on and that was it. And I had failed and I was so I was at a 208 and that again was just devastating cuz you start to feel it, right? You start to feel the wear and tear. You start to feel it in your shoulders and your hips and your your feet are screwed and your hands are aching all the time and you feel it and it it builds up. And then to to fail to be a failure now to fail in an evolution was was was really difficult for me. Um thankfully again I had those those seven guys. Henry was one of them, Larry, Chris, a couple other guys, John, they were part and we got in that that in between. And you know, for my my uh my penants, um just almost like every day or every other day, we would go to the combat training tank and guess what we would practice? Poolcom. Poolcom. So for two months uh waiting for class 209 to come up uh I would practice pool comp and needless to say uh 209 came up got in 209 I was the first guy in the water I was up and um passed Rutherford passed I was like yes done and then some guy one of the students had a had a problem they shut it down training and I was like the only guy that had passed that day. And so I'm like, "All right, sweet." And uh that night I went out and uh to in PB and I was like, "Yeah, I'm going to go. I'm going to I made it. I'm partying." I go out and I walk into this Irish bar in PB. And I walk in and it was like, you know, in in blue or animal house, the the music stops. Everybody looks over and it's like 10 instructors are sitting there and I'm like and they're like get over here now and I came over I was like drinks on me you know buy everybody bought everybody a beer and they were cool and and these uh these two instructors in particular one's name was Brian and one's name was Keith and uh I sat down with them and I remember the first time an instructor had ever talked to me because he's show up. They're like these gods. They're these things that are larger than life. And you know, instructor Ashelman, instructor Decker, and you know, these just pipe hitters of I mean, you know, Master Chief Danny Chalker was our command master chief. He was a plank owner of Seal Team 6. And you know the the head of PTRR um was uh you know um Waros Warner Reworks who was also a plant owner of of Seal Team 6. And so you know these are the men you know Chief Ois and all these guys that like you they're not human and so they're unattainable and you like when do I get to feel that? And that night was the first time and and and Brian and Keith sat me down and I'll never forget I asked both of them. I said,"Well, you know, like how do you like what how would you describe what it's like?" And they're like, "It's a lifestyle." And I was like, "I don't understand." They're like, "It's 24/7. If you want to be a good Frogman, you have to be committed to this 24/7. Every day you're thinking about this. Everything else in your life, you have to put aside. you cannot let anything move into your, you know, your your the forefront of your consciousness. You have to be 100% dedicated. And and that was amazing for me cuz that was and then I asked them both. I I as I remember asking um Brian first. I go, "Well, you know, you know, what advice would you give me?" He goes, "Learn how to flip it on and off." I like, "What does that mean?" It's like learn how to take the pain and the intensity and flip the switch on the emotional aspect of it and then turn it on when you need excuse me and I go oh well you know he'd been in like 15 years or so and I think he's like 12 or so and I go well how do you do that and he's like I don't know I still haven't figured it out and then the next day showed up and I worked the pool deck and and every instructor that was in that like beat me down through the whole time, the whole class to class. So, I think I must have done like a thousand push-ups that day. And I don't even know how many 8count bodybuilders, but it was worth every second that I' I'd made it through that. So, that was cool. And then I then I was, you know, officially with 209 and ended up finishing with 209, which was which was definitely hard. And those guys were amazing. just just wonderful, you know, Doug, Liam, Landry, uh Mike, all these incredible guys in that platoon. Mark um just they again it's like these are if you want to create a reflect a positive reflection that you can aspire to surround yourself around really motivated ambitious young men and and that's what it was for me. How did it feel for you to graduate? Uh, beyond a relief. I mean, at that point, it was February 97. I started in November 95 and I finished in February 97. So, it was over a year. And I remember being on the island just hanging on by a thread, you know, but I I finished and it was it was done. And it wasn't I wasn't I didn't feel immeasurably confident. I didn't feel like I was on top of the world at all. I I felt like, wow, that was really really hard. And I knew it was going to get harder. And I was like, uhoh. Like, am I going to be ready for this? Am I gonna like how am I going to do? And and so it wasn't it wasn't as much of a woohoo kind of feeling, you know, as much as like okay, what's next? And and am I ready? Can I can I go into whatever the next thing was? So what year is this? It was February 1997. 97. Yep. Where do you go from there? Uh this is where the the beauty Can I let me just backtrack one little statement? the the guy who had saved my career at the beginning in 0 in 206 was warn officer Rewartz. He was the one who told the and I didn't find this out till much later in my career. He was the one who had told the base training officer that if if Ratherford is healthy, he might make a decent um frogman someday. And the reason he said that because every time I'd have be overwhelmed by that doubt, by that fear, which was still pal, you know, you know, palpable every day in me. Um, I figured out a way because I'd always been the motivator in all my teams, whether I was quarterback or captain of a team or whatever it was, I always felt like that was a huge component of that responsibility to lift up your your your teammates, right? And so what I would do to distract my own sense of of fear, I would find a guy that was struggling and then I'd try and motivate him. I'd direct my own I compartment I don't my own anguish to try and lift somebody else to keep me distracted from my own inability. And so he had witnessed that and was like all right then you know and that's what he saved my career for sure. Um, so you graduate I graduate buds and because I was in this dyare program, this this medic program, we didn't immediately go check on board a team and then start back then there was no SQT as it is in its current form or even when I was in custody, you used to go to a team and it each team ran its own training that was your probationary training called sealed tactical training. And so like I wasn't even assigned to a team yet. I was at TDY and I went to team five and I was there, you know, cleaning the [ __ ] on a daily basis in the Mastered Arm Shack and I was picking up cigarette butts by the platoon huts and I was, you know, they didn't even give us equipment to do PT in or anything. I remember it was middle of winter and we were doing ocean swims or bay swims and I was like hyping out. I we did a bay swim from the bridge around. I was hyping out and the exo like had to push me up onto the beach and he's like, "Go do some jumping jacks." And then I finished it cuz I they didn't have any wets suits to give me or I wasn't worthy of a wet suit. And and so for these four months I'm in limbo and I'm just cleaning [ __ ] and like I'm a new guy, but I'm worse than a new guy cuz I'm not checked on board team five. I'm just there temporary duty until jump school. So I do that, made it through that. That was tough. That was a tough tough one. There was the the the Mastered Arms guy hated me just because I started getting a little chip on my shoulder at that time because I was like, "Wait a minute, we just made it through buds and now because of this medic thing like I'm in limbo and I got to clean [ __ ] for 4 months and like it started getting on my nerves a little bit and um you know we're partying hard and so I like that distracts you and you're like you're not again I'm not moving forward. forward in my career. Like I have buddies that graduated 205. They're already in a platoon workup, right? They're already moving forward. They're doing the job. And now I'm in TDY again. So that was that was really frustrating. But we ended up going to jump school. That was fun. We all went over there. We had a blast. You know, jump school's a joke. But it's it's I what I like about it though is I love the way the army is able to put mass people through a program and do it pretty well. You know, I I respected the black hat guys and you know, I mean, obviously the the extensiveness of the I mean, you're just graduating, bud. You know, you know, do pull-ups and you can just do pull-ups forever. But I like the way they ran their program. It was my first introduction army. Then from there I go right into 18 Delta and that was um July of of July of of 97. And that's where things like really were like whoa this is serious stuff and 18 Delta began. Yeah. When did you when did you get your trident? So 18 Delta was supposed to be 6 months. I was there 8 months. So that was July where when we were in New York, New York August through November. And then we had to take the civilian paramedic qualification. So I showed up I I failed the cardio cardiology part of that. So I had to stay longer. So I graduated 18 Delta in January of 98. drove across country back to I got SEAL team one. Checked on board SEAL team one in February of 98. So I finally had a team. Stoked, ready to go. Get me in ST. Nope. I go back to work in the mastered arm shack cleaning [ __ ] again after 18 Delta. After 18 Delta. Yep. Why? I don't know. I don't know. It's not like it's at team one. It's not like you're going to complain, you know. I I that's where you're going. You're working. You're they don't need you in medical. They don't need you in training cell. So, you got to wait to go through ST. That's not until the summer. So, you're going to work in a mastered armshack. I remember I got there and I went in and it was it was a BM1 coupe. And uh I remember I came in one day and I was like, "All right, I'm motivated." And I gave him like four or five chits, right? And these chit that one was sniper school, free-for-all school, comm school. Like I put them all in. I was like, "Hey, you know, you know, petty officer Rutherford, here's my chits. I want to go to these schools." And I'll never forget, he's sitting there and he looks at he goes, "Oh, this is a good one, man." Yeah. I I I went to sniper school after my like third platoon. And he rips it up and he drops it in and he go I'm put it in the circular file cabinet right here. And then Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. This this looks a comm that'd be funny. He goes, "Yeah, yeah." There he goes. Right there. He puts it in and it just rips out. He goes, "Hey, why don't you go out to the grinder and clean the grinder? There's some trucks out there that need to get cleaned. Why don't you go do that?" And that was that was it. And and I was like again like really dude I just got out of like the top medical training program in all special operations you know spent a month in New York City on in the in the ERS and on the ambulances. I mean we we we saw hundreds and hundreds of patients and you know had my first person die on me. You know it's like was October 31st. Um, we thought it was going to be an insane night and show up difficulty breathing. Walk in this a room half the size of this an apartment and there's this firefighter working this guy and I was with these two experienced paramedics. They're like, "All right, Rook got on a guy." And so I worked this guy for 45 minutes and then they're like, "All right, he's dead. Stop working him." And Was that the first time you'd seen death? Yeah, that was it. That was the first time. How'd you handle that? Um, the hardest part for me was I felt like I performed what I needed to perform. Like I went through the whole code that you learn, you know, but when you stop, it's it's abrupt that it's not what you thought. Like in a movie there's there's a solemnness or there's whatever, you know, at a funeral. You're not you don't you're not intimate with the the the the transition, right? You're not it's none of that. It's like and now I'm in the middle of it and I'm never kid the guy's on the ground and his wife and his son and his girlfriend are standing at his head and like you're the senior medic dude and he's on the phone with the doc and he looks up and he goes he goes all right that's it real caught it. It's called the doc called it. And I'm still going and I'm like this and I'm like and the other guy's at his feet and he's he's holding his cup of coffee, right? His New York cup of coffee and he's like, "Hey man, stop." He's like, "Pick up all your [ __ ] Let's go." And I'm looking up here at them and I'm looking over here and I'm looking at this dead guy and that was that was tough like because you saw the pain immediately in them and it it just and it was it was it became almost like he was just a piece of meat at that point. I was like, "Hey, I'm hungry. Let's go pick up your shit." And as we're working getting up, the cops come in from outside and I'm like and I'm like, "What about him?" like it's not our problem, man. That's that's cop's problem now. And I was just like, holy [ __ ] And like the whole rest of the night, I was just like, what just happened? And there was a that was the thing that really was challenging for me cuz I chose to be a medic cuz I thought that that was the thing that was going to enable me to hold the artist in me. Like it's the empathy. So if I become a medic and I can save people's lives, if I ever have, you know, the opportunity to take someone's lives, it'll counterbalance it. So I wanted that. And I also felt like that was something that would be good because it's a component of that service that makes me feel good, right? when when you're a good medic, your your team needs you and they rely on you and there's a part of that that's just important. And so like that was the thing for me like if I'm going to be like that'll I can earn my way as a medic and be able to stand amongst great men if I'm a good medic. And so that's that, you know, that's what I tried to do. Um, but that was the first one. Yeah, that was the the first challenging one. Yeah. So, when did you get your trident? There's the great question. That summer went through ST and this was the first time they combined both coasts cuz what had happened before was at a team you'd show up, every team was different. Every team had a different cycle of when they'd start ST. You'd go through this three-month course. was a probationary period. Then you come out and you test out. You go to every, you know, the dive locker, the air locker, armory, uh, you know, first lieutenant, all these groups and you test out your knowledge base on all those. You know, the there's the blanket and they flip the blanket and every there's 10 different weapons or whatever, five, seven different weapons and you have to reassemble and under time and have to ascendable a drager and then break it down and the air all these tests and you pass that, then you go to your chief's board and then you get awarded your trident. That's the way it was working. Well, every team was doing it different. Like you go to one team and they'd fasttrack it. Like team five, you show up, they immediately put you in SDT and then you go do it and then you come back and you test and boom, trident right into a platoon. Other teams, your probationary period would be longer and and so everything was kind of out of whack and there was no continuity. there was no pipeline and it was problematic and people were complaining because you know part of that getting your trident in is your special duty pays all this and so they combined ST to get everybody all the teams all these guys so there's like 72 of us in this group and it was so much fun that's one of the most fun I ever had in the teams was were those three months it was I met so many amazing guys Jerry and Nick and and I mean just endless amounts of people. Big Mike Bearden and he was the first team guy from my thing that ended up dying. He he he burned in on a parachute accident right after ST not much long after. But like these it was just fun. Like everything about it was the training was fun, the guys were fun. We had a blast and that was good. So I felt like I was getting going. Finished that. checked back on into back at one, took my boards, passed my boards, went in my Chief's board, and just got crushed in my Chiefs board. And that was that was heavy cuz like, you know, you're always looking for a Chief's approval. You're always looking for them like a boy, good job. Way to go. And you know, team one had some I mean, there was still a guy from Vietnam when I was there, a master chief. and then another senior chief that I think had 13 platoon at that time like and these guys were like they ran the show. And so I went into that chief's board and you're sitting in a chair or you know folding chair and there's you know I think eight chiefs staring at you and they just lit me up. You know you why couldn't you make it through buds straight through. Why'd you quit college? You're a quitter aren't you? Why are you a problem? and they just lit me up and I did not perform well. I was just like uh you know and then they give you these if if this if you were around and this happened and you saw someone do this would you report them and all this stuff and and it was just I you know I was not sure of myself. I was I was stunned that they were attacking me because I quit college and like they just got me like they got under me. And any insecurity you had, they brought it up. They they and and at that point I was doing better, a lot better, but I was still nervous. I was still cuz now I'm at a team and team one and there was some just pipe hitters at that team. And and and after SCT, I went to work in the in the training in training cell. I was a support corman on trips and my boss was Derek. amazing dude, brilliant. And then then there were these other guys. There were a couple guys who were on the Patilla who was at the Patia air raid in Panama. Uh there was another guy who would end up this guy Wall-E who was end up being my first platoon chief who had you know he had been in combat before and like there was this uh Master Chief Will Guile from Damn Neck Guy. Matt Bgeois, Dan Serillis where I first met Dan, Matt Lennig, Chris Good. Like team one was full of like they were these impressive like just frog men. That's the best way. They were frogmen. And so like do this and now I'm I I that was a place where I was like all right here's an opportunity for me to learn because I was going on these tra these training trips with platoon and so I was like all right this is where I can redeem myself after that miserable board. And so I was like what can I do? How can I help? Like first one out last one there. What can I do? And some of them started to really kind of I'm not going to say mentor me, but they were they noticed and so they would start letting me sit around and listen and and they would teach me and and so that was really cool. And then I got assigned to a platoon and we were starting January whatever back from break or whenever it was and it was hotel platoon and I remember we started I still didn't have my trident, right? There was four new guys in the platoon. Five new guys, one one Junior officer. Everybody had their trident. Everybody's there and I didn't have my trident. So I went to my senior. I'm like, "Hey man, you know what's up?" And he's like, "Oh, don't worry about it." It's like two months into it training almost 3 months. Finally, I go up to uh my senior chief and I'm like, you know, "Hey man, can I can I get a trident?" you know, and he's like, "Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me go in." So, apparently he went into the command master chief and said, "Hey, is there a reason why you guys haven't given Rutherford his trident yet?" And he apparently he said, "Oh, I totally forgot about it." Yeah, give it to him. What? Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Now, I remember when that happened, I mean, you that's about as angry as you can get, right? But, you know, as I got older and moved down along in my career and out of the team significantly, and you just go back to, well, maybe there was something I wasn't doing. Maybe I wasn't what they had hoped I would be, or maybe I was letting them down. And it was it felt like I was there was mixed messages coming and um but yeah that was a sobering experience for sure. That really really that was uh that was hard to go through but I got it and thus started the the How did they give it to you? Oh, he just he just like like there was a pinning at at team one and it was like the guys that were behind me that had come up who were in a platoon and there was big pinning. Everybody was there came out and had a great co at the time. Guy was just the stuff former damn neck guy. He would go on ops like I remember when I was How did they pin you? Uh on the back we went out back grinder on the burm. Went out the back. Uh actually we're on the grinder. I forget there's like six. There's a picture of one of the chiefs hosing us down out there. So I think there was six of us. Santa come up. He puts it on and then everybody in the team came by and just drilled me as hard as they could in my chest. And it must have been 25 35 30 guys. They they hit me so hard my trident bent and then one of the the the pins in the back broke off in my chest and but it was the happiest day of my life. So what I'm trying to get at here is the backs are off on the pen. There's three pins. I think there's three, right? There's three. Yeah. They mash it into your chest. Blood wing. Blood wings. What? Blood wings. Blood wings. That's right. full-blown as hard as they could hit. And in my platoon, like they lit me up. They hit me as hard as they could possibly hit me. Like I had a black and blue mark on my chest for I don't know week plus. Just destroyed me. It was, in my opinion, it was one of the greatest traditions there was in the teams that I guess is no longer there. It's not there anymore. No, I don't think so. What a shame. It is. What a shame. I remember at SQT we actually used to have to hide it. Yeah, we would hide it. Yeah, there'd be the big ceremony. The NOP special warfare center, you know, captain would come in, pin everybody. Wasn't no one was there. We'd do it in the bays over at remember SQ the bays. We'd do it in there and then afterward we'd have everybody line up outside medical and they'd come in one at a time and we'd all just just drill them in there. So, we ended up trying to keep it going. Yeah, I remember your buddy Rick Slater punched me through a door when I had mine pinned on right through the [ __ ] bathroom door. Rick, well, I mean, how did that I mean, how did that feel? What did that feel like to call your dad and tell him I got it? So, my parents had flown out uh and um we we went up my they used to stay up in Lagona and so they were like, "Hey, come up." So went up there, we stayed up at this hotel in Goon on the beach and and my grandfather had passed away a few years before when I was out there. Really hard on my own man obviously and I had gone up to his house. They had lived up in Palver Veries and I'd gone up and check on the house a couple times and and took one of his handkerchiefs. My my grandfather always had a handkerchief with him. always just and would always be right there with it like true old school and usually would have it monogrammed. And so I got a monogram handkerchief of my grandfather and I I took that trident and I put it in a handkerchief and I remember being in the we'd gone to dinner and we got back in the room and I I said, you know, dad, the only thing I've ever wanted from you is for you to be proud of me. and and I pulled it out and I I gave it and he unwrapped it and you know it was a pretty heavy moment. So yeah, and he said, "I've always been proud of you, son." So yeah, it was good. That's awesome, man. Yeah. So you're in? I guess I felt like I was in. You're in. I felt like I was in for sure. Where do you go from here? a year of and a half of absolute madness. Like again, this is pre 911. We were uh you know, team one Southeast Asia platoon and it was just full tilt like we they called it we call ourselves hotel hell. And I designed this, you know, our patch and it was this this H which was on fire and then you know the team the one behind it and it was a black patch and I think I think out of the 16 of us I think like 10 dudes got the tattoo on them you know and we were we were crazy. Absolutely out of our minds. It was more fun than anything I've I've ever even experienced in my life. I mean, we had my OIC uh shotgun JW Bill JWitt was, you know, I'd been in 206 with him. He had made it all the way through Buds with stress fractures, never did anything like just a bad hard dude. And he was our platoon. He was wild. He was a wild man. Uh our our chief was was Wally Graves. Um one of the most influential men of my entire life. Like grew up in Florida. Dad was a doctor. So kind of similar, you know, real smart, sophisticated, was a reader, you know, had that little eccentricity, but was hard man and could hang and was brilliant and was a phenomenal medic and always pushed me to elevate my game, you know, and then didn't put up with my [ __ ] cuz at that point I started getting a little cocky and uh started getting a little little little overzealous, shall we say. Um, you know, um, what were you guys doing over there? Oh, I mean, when we first deployed it was, we went over and it was going to be nothing. We were just doing J sets. We were just going, we spent almost a month in the Philippines, almost a month in Thailand. We had the Korean SEALs come to Guam. We were working at Guam. And then we did this one cool thing. We did uh like a a nuclear surveillance stuff in Australia. Went down to Australia and that was kind of I know it was around the Olympic time and stuff. Nuclear surveillance. Yeah. Yeah. What is that? Uh we used to have these devices where you could detect nuclear material and we were in charge of doing it on the water because it was a big hardener. Sydney Sydney Harbor was a massive harbor. So, you know, we would drive around in these boats with these devices and you could detect and we would train and they would have, you know, small little, you know, controlled pieces of of nuclear material that they would hide and we would try and figure out. We did all low pro and fishing boats and stuff and, you know, that was kind of cool for sure. Um, but the other stuff was just mayhem. Absolute mayhem. bar fights, women, you name it. Typical insane cruise. It It was ridiculous. I mean, it was I don't know how. First, I don't know how anybody didn't die. I mean, the amount of alcohol we consumed. The other is I don't know. I mean, there were some definite divorces that came out of that, I'm sure. Um, but it was but that was the culture at the time, you know, and so part of it was you're frustrated, but there's nothing going on and that was kind of the culture. Oh, well, we might as well go have fun. I mean, we're training. We were training the ties and the Filipinos and, you know, we're doing stuff, but it's not like, oh, we're getting ready to go to war. It was a completely different mindset. And were you disappointed? Yeah, for sure. When did that kick in? The disappoint the weight on the trident that that started to really get to me. I didn't like I didn't understand. And and then for all Well, I I should probably back up like because of the medic stuff, every time my career would get going, there'd be a a derailment of the medical requirement. Like I'd have to go do medical, do medical as everybody else was going. Like when I in my first platoon, there were guys that were in their second platoon that graduated buds after me. So here I am like and not just I think like a couple classes too, some of them. And so that was frustrating, you know, that I'm always behind and I was like, man, because all you want to do is just get after it. You just want to go do the job. And so for me it just I was like the needs of the Navy were a lot was a lot more for me alone. Now ever other guys have had wonderful experiences. They were straight through. They got right to it. They did amazing. they thrived and and maybe that was part of that that inner insecurity that was emerging that or maybe it was arrogance or I I'm not sure but it was frustrating all of it like I I was just like is this it is this like I I've I you know left the college and that whole life and now but this was so that was you know May of of 95 and this is February of of 2000 and I I'm like right back in this this lifestyle of of you know living hard and and getting after it you know I mean it just it was like no one no one we are we took so much pride that nobody could outp party us that nobody could out like I remember being in Fort Chaffy, Arkansas. You know, we used to go out there that beautiful range and we show up and like first night I think we we we left the bar at 5 in the morning. We drank we drank them out of tequila. We drank them out of vodka. I mean like it was like why do why do you think that the seal cultures at least back then? cuz it's the same when I was in, you know, and um why is it so why is the culture the way it is? Bar fights, booze, womanized. I think the further away from combat you get, the more complacent the organization becomes. And I think the combat that the teams had engaged in in Vietnam with not only with you know the regular operations but with MV visog it was just was so intense and I think coming back from that it was it was difficult. Now I'm sure if you talk to the guys that were in Desert Storm you know they did there's a couple they did some cool really cool things. um you know Panama obviously Grenada I think there was some guys we lost some guys in that remember the parachute guys got some drowned in there but it wasn't consistent there was some guys going in Bosnia Kosovo there was some stuff a buddy of mine Andy had done a cool blowing up a bridge over there and but it was so in in between like there was you weren't it wasn't for sure like if I remember if if you got to go do a shipboarding in team three like you were a god like you were a combat god, you know, if you had anybody had fired their weapon, it's like, oh my god. And so I think what do you do? You supplant that desire cuz like you had asked about in the beginning, the desire to go do the job. And the job is to go kill the bad guys, right? That's it. That's the job. If you condense everything down and distill it down to what our job is, is to go get rid of the enemy. That's the job. Whether it's through, you know, developing your own intelligence packages, reconnaissance, you know, it's assaults, it's it's CQB. I mean, all of it revolves around killing the enemy. And when that doesn't take place, we I mean, famously, our, you know, that that CO at team one, I remember some guys, another team had gone down to TJ and and gotten in trouble and which which happens for sure. Um TJ's just a bizarre place, man. I I had a girl die on me and DJ before, too. What? Yeah. Yeah. I had was gone down there. I'd gotten back from 18 Delta. Was at Team One and TD, you know, in Mastered Arms. We went down to TJ for the day, my my my girlfriend and I. And we were walking down Revolution and these I looked up and there's this girl on the ground, another girl over top of her like begging for help. I I literally had a face mask in my bag come up. I go, "What's up?" She's like, "She just collapsed. She just collapsed." And I end up working this this poor girl for 45 minutes on the ground and she ended up dying. Uh apparently that that time they were serving methyl alcohol for shots and this girl had like a heart condition and it triggered the heart condition and she died. And so like I think someone had gone down gotten in trouble and I remember the the team one um CO had made a comment like we had gotten our ass chewed by the master chief and he came out and he's like hey you know I understand you can't feed a tiger milk so don't be dumb right that was his his his guidance and I I think that was the mentality. You you you you spend all day every day training training training preparing for war preparing for war. That has a profound psychological impact on the human mind. Period. I don't care. And especially with the proficiency with which our organization does it the unit they I again and I all to all my Green Beret brothers and Ranger brothers and Marine brother Mars brothers and ASOC I love you all. All I know is my training and so I'm going to always lean towards that being you know the most difficult and and when you begin to analyze our training and how it breaks down. I mean, you had Commander Giri in his chair. You understood he the way the sophistication of how we address the psychological change of a young man's mind to becoming whatever it is you were before. I had one kid whose parents were in jail when he was a little kid. Another kid grew up gang banging. Another kid grew up from Arkansas with a GED. Another kid had a master's in English lit. You know, the whole spectrum of people. They come in with this willingness to engage in the culture and it's really a culture of death, right? I just learned about that term last November through my therapist. It's like this is a culture of death. And so you have to be willing to move through that eye, through that gate, right? that psychological gate that everything that you had known before that time, you almost have to like press pause or to delete it or to bury it in the recesses of your consciousness and then you pass through that gate and then everything out there is the the cultivation of that culture, right? To become comfortable in a culture of death. And so when you have that wheel spinning and there's no end result taking place, I think it it it the wheels end up accelerating to a place where um people lose their um their sense of purpose and I think that's what took place uh during those times. Now not all guys I mean there I mean there's a guy in our platoon double G love him dearly. I mean, he had children at the time. He was a devout Christian. You know, he was the first Christian I ever saw on the teams who was openly practicing. There are not very many There are not very many people that don't fall into that. Not at all. And and I remember I would say it's 1% or less. I don't know. I think it's gotten bigger. I think it's grown. Maybe now. I'm just talking about when when you and I were in No, there was almost nothing. like it was almost frowned upon. I mean, we would because he wouldn't steam, he wouldn't party when everything. And I remember I always love Double G because he had the most interesting life. He had had all different kinds of jobs. He'd worked like a crab fisherman oil rig. He was homeless for a while. And and he was the most confident, quiet guy there was. And I'd be like, "Come on, double G. Let's, you know, in Thailand, let's go to TQ2, man." And be like, "No thanks, man. I'm going to stay home. I'm going to read my Bible. I'm like, why? You know, and and and we lived next to each other in in Guam and I would, you know, why? Because I hadn't didn't have religion in my life. I didn't have that experience. My parents were not religious people. We didn't go to church, you know, nothing. So, I didn't have a base of faith in me whatsoever. And Double G was the first person I saw. and and he was competent and he was, you know, he he wasn't the the team guy, he was the frog man. And I was just like, whoa. I was like, that's intense. But I I completely got wrapped up into the other thing cuz, you know, one of the things that really I think emerged out of that those times was, you know, the intensity with which you can bring violence to call like that's the key, right? The whole context in the teams is like the violent the premise of being the violence of action. If you're if you can be violent like that, like that's a standard of of your reputation. And I remember and I dude, if I was not that kid, didn't know how to fight. I mean, there were twice in college I got knocked out. One time I went to visit Chris Miller at Dennis and I got beat up by a one-armed [ __ ] you know, some kid that was like 5'5 whose arm was in a sling knocked me out because I thought I was so tough like and just knocked and I fell down the hill, broke my nose, you know, I was just not that I wasn't tough. I didn't know how to be tough. I didn't know what tough was. And so you get in, you're surrounded by these dudes that are just animals, man. And they're they're all tough. And so it's like, all right, I gotta be tough. I gotta I gotta get into bar fights and I got to drink a lot and I gotta gotta train hard and I gotta you know I got to steam all night and train hard all day and I and you you are sucked into that and and I think it there's a requirement about it that's that's a necessity like you want that you're trying to but it's very difficult the management of that because how human beings respond to that type of imprinting is not always 100% predictable. Especially when you have there's a proponent of there's a a presence of of sociopathology that's existent, right? They that's who they're recruiting. They want people that have these types of tendencies that can be uh uh programmed or manipulated into this this space where violence is is it holds a premium and in in your personality. And we do that very well. Very well. And so I think without war going on, where else are you able to disseminate? You come off four, three straight weeks on a training trip, you're shooting guns all day, you're kicking doors, you're blowing stuff up, and you come home and and what do you do? Like, oh, I'm going to go to Bible class or I'm going to just like go to the beach and relax. Now it's like let's go, you know, let's go down to Fiber McGee or let's go down, you know, to Mission Beach or let's go down to the gaslight and let's just see how many fights we can get in. Right. And that's the thing. Mhm. Mhm. And that's tough. Like you're having to manage this expectation and that's for me. I didn't I I didn't have the confidence to pull back and be like, you know, I don't want to do that. I was like, I got to keep this facade up. I got to keep this insecure. I got to I got to hide this insecurity that I'm I'm not as tough as these other guys. And so I I I did my best to try and represent myself as that guy and really tried to push the envelope. Well, Dave, let's take a break. When we come back, we'll get into your first combat deployment. Sounds good. Do you ever just get stuck on the home screen trying to pick a show to watch? Or when you're trying to decide what to have for dinner, you just pour a bowl of cereal instead. Having too many options can be overwhelming. The same applies if you're a business owner who's hiring. It can be overwhelming to have too many candidates to sort through, but you're in luck. Zip Recruiter now gives you the power to proactively find and connect with the best ones quickly. 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Got assigned to the next platoon immediately. A wonderful uh guy named uh Mike Higgs. Uh love this guy. He was an instructor of mine in in um in uh Buds and my LPO uh um was another instructor of mine. Gillespie was his last name. And he was like a titan of a guy and I just was like, "All right, this is going to be awesome. This is going to be serious and focused and we're going to kill it." Not that I didn't enjoy all the other stuff. It was just it kind of got away from us and and and so now it's like, "All right, reset." And all of a sudden, guess what? I have to go get my paramedic reertification done. And so instead of going back to New York, what we did was we would go to San Antonio um and we would work on the ambulances and in the ERs there. And I was kind of excited about it because I was a little bit more mature. I really had learned a tremendous amount. When you I mean firefighters and EMTs, God bless them. uh nobody understands the magnitude of of what they endure on a regular basis. Um they just they are on the front lines of human sorrow and I have so much respect for them and what they do and it's just awesome. So I went out there was going through the University of Texas San Antonio their emergency med program and it was awesome. We were learning a ton. And then about midway through, I got a call from my LPO basically saying, "Hey, Rut, uh, I'm sorry. I hate to inform you, um, but SEAL Team 1 has decided to let you go and now you're an instructor over at the Naval Special Warfare Center. You're going to be an SQT instructor." And it's difficult to encapsulate the pain of that one. I mean, I know I say I'm saying that a lot, but this one was the most the most devastating for sure. This one was the one that that almost broke my spirit completely. Um cuz here I am on the precipice of going into this great platoon, great group of guys. I'm not a new guy. I've got some time, you know, I'm getting my legs. I'm feeling good. I've gone through some great courses and I'm ready to go. And then all of a sudden the command master chief at team one was like, "No, you're we're putting you at at SQT cuz they the Naval Special Warfare Center made out a call countrywide. We need two medics to become because we're short medics. We need two medics who will be uh junior medics at SQT." And so for whatever reason, the same guy who kept my trident from me um [ __ ] canned me and sent me over. So I had a few months left in San Antonio, which devolved into a a pretty dark place. Um and you know, had some good people with me. JT was awesome with me and and and JD was there and and they really were supportive and I got through I got through it but I it was not good. And so when I transitioned and went over to SQT I was in a the absolute wrong space headsp space you should be in and when you become when you're given the opportunity to be an instructor. Um, and I I just felt so jaded. I had the worst chip on my shoulder that I had in the entire time in the community. And it was horrific. And I just showed up and I think it was April of that would have been 200 April 2001 and did not care. uh was living down in Mission Beach with my buddy Chris uh who had been in my sister platoon um at team one who you know one of the Savage brothers and he and I were just going off in PB and Mission Beach and he was really struggling and I that's one one relationship I wish I had been better to help him through what he was going through cuz he was going through something similar that let down of of the experience experience and the over the, you know, the saturation of partying and and it was just a horrible time. We were just, it was just not healthy in any way. And and I'll never forget I had gone out. It was I forget how long I've been there like a month or so. And I'd gone out on a Sunday night. There was this little bar in Mission Beach. I forget what it was called, but I I was a regular there. And I went there one Sunday night. You had to be in work next morning, 5 a.m., didn't matter. and got hammered and there was the rugby team had had come in there partying. That's where they that was their local bar and they were huge rugby team. Rugby was really big in in San Diego and and uh sitting at the bar and one of the guys were playing pool and they like sprayed beer on his spit beer on his buddy and it went all over me and so I you know turn around I got my Navy watch cap and my wife beater and my you know Dicky's pants and my Doc Martens and I think you know my one or two tattoos and think I'm a tough guy and I turn around I'm like you know what's your problem man you know total the dude was amazing he was like I'm sorry. You know, I didn't mean to. Can I buy you a beer? And I'm like, no, man. You can't buy me a beer. And I was, he's just like, hey, I'm really sorry. We're just having fun. And I was like, you know, f you, man. And I wouldn't let it go. And finally, like before I know it, I'm surround, you know, two dudes both side, this guy, and this guy just tease off and just hits me so hard in the nose and my nose just goes off to the side. And then they just start, you know, just way laying me. And now I'm like, "All right, I'm in trouble now." And I my nose started just pouring blood out. And so I was like, "All right, how am I going to get out of this?" So I just like flailed up and I just exhaled and I exhaled around and I just covered them all with blood from my nose and they're all like and so I like bolted out the side door, ran a couple blocks back like got out a bat and like all this stuff and I'm like calling all my you know the instructors and I knew a bunch of the team one guys were instructors and I hey man I just got jumped I need you to come down and they're like hey rat Go to sleep, man. Sleep it off, bro. You know, and like and they just kept and so I went back and I remember I was hiding in the bushes and I was going to jump these guys when they got out and I end up passing out in the bushes. And and the next day I went in and hung over, nose busted, blood bloodshot eyes, and I'm supposed to teach. And uh my boss, Senior Chief Bruce Cunningham, um got pissed and was really pissed and um there had been a couple other uh comments and complaints about my performance and and so he called me in and and my warrant Mike Lou was in there and and he lit me up and he's like, "That's it, dude. I'm I'm sending you to captain's mass." And I'm like, "Whoa, what do you what do you mean?" He's like, "Dude, this is you don't deserve that trident. And that was the hard like one of the hardest moments because I'm like I knew I was messed up. I knew I was a problem and I was being called out for it and I couldn't I couldn't admit it. And he was just like, you know, I don't it's not up to you where you go. I don't care you want to be in a platoon. I know that. but this is where you're at. I need you here. I need you to do your damn job. So, I'm going to send you to Cavis Mass. And I was like I was like, "Can I just explain to you?" He's like, "No." He's like, "Put it in writing and and give it to me." And so I went back and that night I wrote out, you know, this long story of how all through my career, every time medical would send me off and disrupt the sequence or flow of my career for this medic thing. And I gave it to him and he called me in. He goes, "Is this real?" And I was like, "Yeah, you can you can check. It is." And he goes, "Okay, I'm not going to send you to cabs mass, but I'm I'm going to give you one more chance." And if you don't change, you're out. I'm going to pull your tribe. I'm going to kick you out of the Navy. You're gone. And I was like, "All right." And and I and I go, "But you know what do you want me to do here?" He's like, "What do you mean?" And I go, I'm a one platoon wonder. Like, I don't know anything. I can't teach these kids. These kids aren't going to respect me. I can't go in there. I don't have five platoon. I don't have this. I'm haven't ever been anywhere. I haven't done anything. I I I'm I'm an elite at, you know, drinking, but I I can't teach. I don't know how to teach. And I go, "What do you want me to do?" He he goes, "Well, what do you what can you what can you do? What do you think you're good at?" And I was just I don't know. I can I guess I can motivate people. And he goes, "Then that's all I want you to do. I want you to figure out how to teach medical, but I want you to figure out how to motivate." Because medical is the first week. And he goes, "We'll teach you the rest. If you do what we ask you to do, you're always on time. You're always early. you do everything we ask, we'll we'll teach you how to become an instructor." And that moment changed my life forever. Um because he believed in me. Um and really kind of took me under his wing and had, you know, all these unbelievable guys at SQT, these guys that I revered, former Team One guys and and from other places, too. um Anadano and Touch and all these guys, Carlos and and I learned how to teach and that was one of the most rewarding things I've ever experienced because you you you have these essentially and by then they had consolidated SQT into SQT. It was now a 34W week program. you went to BUDS, then you went to SQT, and you and it was a pipeline, and they had fixed all the nonsense. And so you came to this program and it's like, all right, you have a the primed, you know, individual that's ready to do what you tell them to do. Like, hey, I want you to go run through that brick wall and they'll do it, right? You mean sensation and buds like you're just like, unleash me, let me go. But what is SQT designed? It's designed to reinstill your own individual ability to think creatively, to become a commando, and to advance your skill sets more. But I didn't I didn't know how to do that. I didn't know how to teach. And I really leaned into these guys and watched. I went to everyone's class. I tried to be a part of everything they did. I saw how people taught. I'd have Bruce critique me. I'd have Matt critique me. I had Chris critique me. All these men would I'd be like, "What do I need to improve? What do I need?" Oh, tweak this and this and tweak this and oh, and when you do this and I and and they taught me how to not only teach medical, but I, you know, taught land nav and I taught um, you know, weapons and foreign weapons and and and I taught um um explosives. I remember DJ's dad came out, me and this other instructor Andy, which was I love Andy. He was such a great guy, and he was in charge of demo. And I was like, "Hey, can I learn with you?" And Don came out and was like this demo god and taught us demo. And it was like this it was a way of experiencing the teams I had never experienced before cuz there's a a responsibility you have with these these young men to get them ready to go into a platoon and like if you don't show up at a platoon I mean they don't play around like gone like you're out if you can't perform in a platoon and so that's your responsibility but I never felt that when I was going through I thought it was just another check off right get to the next thing but now it's like no we have to teach these men how to be men and how to think and and how to be legit commandos. And it was awesome. It was so amazing, especially going out to N Island. And I remember just the impact and and it got to a point where Bruce put me in charge of all the damn down man sequences and all the FTX and all this. So, I got to create the down man scenarios. I got to run them. And it was amazing. And we just started having a bunch of guys come through. Like really, a lot of the Red Wings guys came through. Some of the guys in in Extortion 17 came through. All in all, when I was there, about 257 guys came through. I went through. I know. We'll get there in a second. That's after. So it was that summer 9/11 happens. I'm in a dive soup course. We finished dive soup, you know, going through the whole thing. That Friday we went out to Nil and that Saturday we started IADS. And I'll never forget I used to give like these hoo-ya speeches before we'd start IATS because it's a seinal component. If you learn to do this, you'll be okay. Like this is the thing that distinguishes you. If you can shoot, move, and communicate, and you can do it well with your teammates, this is what establishes your credibility. And I remember this time, and I'd do a little, you know, I get fired up. And I remember this time I was like, "All right, gents, you know, look to your left, look to your right, look behind you because there's a probability that some of these people will not be here uh in the future because we're going to war." And that's when everything changed. It was palpable. The whole community changed. Everything changed. Everybody's attitude changed. It was serious now. And I really tried to lean into that and tried to uh experience that. And it was an amazing feeling like it really you felt you felt what you had hoped you would feel by serving and then serving at that level. Now it was real like now it was important. Um not that it wasn't important it just it wasn't makes it more real. Makes more real cuz you people are going to go to war right. I mean what Damn Neck was on the ground by the end of October. you know, team three was there. Not long after that, you had sock and I mean, it was it was on. They were going and and I'll never forget I I ran into a guy I had known at Team One Christian and he was at a training command, but he was all kitted up on on the Amphib side and I was like, "What are you all kided up for?" He's like, "Dude, I'm I got in a team one platoon that's going over next in in the spring." And I was like, "Get out of here." here. And he's like, "Yeah, man." He goes, "You dude, there's a they're doing an augmented platoon called the mobility platoon." And I was like, "What's that?" I like, "It'll be like a mobile platoon. They're going to dust off the DPVs, the different patrol vehicles. They're going to use these things and they need I think it was like nine guys or no, 13 spot. No, there were nine spots for this augment platoon." He goes, "You ought to throw your name in there and they need a medic." And I was like, "Holy cow." So, I immediately went to Bruce and Mike and I begged them to put my name in the hat. I begged them. I said, "Listen, I've been crushing myself." You know, I we at that time we were writing all the new curriculum. I mean, we were just working around like I was there all the time. And I was like, "Could you please please just give me this opport? I probably won't give it, but would you please let me try this? And they stewed on it for a bit and they put my name in the hat and that went over to Will Gu. Master Chief G was the command master chief of Spec War Center and Captain Smithers was the captain. And 13 dudes put their name in for that. And we got to Master Chief. He sat on it for uh a few like a few days and then it went to the captain and then the captain sat on it and it was down to a couple dudes and they gave it to me and that's what did it. And so I was able to in February of O2 depart ST SQT go TDY over to SEAL team one to augment this DPV platoon and that's when it began. How did that feel? uh like my first big win, like I had gotten to a place where my performance was indicative of of something I could be proud of and that warranted uh uh like an attab boy. Like here you go. You know, you did you did a good job. We're going to fight for you. And and Bruce did and Mike, they really fought for me. And it it was incredible. And the next thing I know, I'm out at an island and I'm staring at this desert patrol vehicle. And mind you, I didn't even know how to change my oil. Like I like I was as non mechanical person as there's ever been. And now like the whole thing is mobility. And luckily um there was a guy Larry who was our LPO who was fantastic and just amazing. And then I was in some guys I had gone through training with some team one guys that were phenomenal. Monty Bill. Um you know uh so this is a this is a mix match mixed bag of nuts platoon that they pieced together. Hodge podge. Yep. Of guys. We had some younger guys. Did anybody have any combat experience? No. No. Not at all. Yeah. So how I mean so if you guys were training I mean how did they come up with the curriculum for the training pipeline when nobody has any experience? There was a master chief who had been in charge of SQT who had actually been in the platoon, the damn neck platoon when they built these things for desert, the first desert storm cuz that those vehicles were the first vehicles into Kuwait. And so they had gotten all this success and there's some photos of them back then. So they brought these things out of mothballs and they got these guys. with these they put them together and they sent those guys over and they actually went to Afghanistan for a little bit with the vehicles and then we I went over first. I volunteered to go over first at Advon. Um went into uh uh where were we? we were in Kuwait and um and that's when I I I I saw the first guys that were coming back and and listening to what they were going through and there was a guy that had um been on a pep billet I think with the Aussies or with the Brits and he had there was it was when Mike Span had gotten killed the the ground branch guy had been killed at this prison and then there was this prison uprising. They killed him and they set in I forget it was either Aussie but but it there was a seal in there who ended up dropping bombs danger close on the roof and he won like their distinguished Knights cross or something like that. It was a team guy. I'm so upset I've forgotten his name right now, but I'm little little fatigued. But but he I met him and like I was like, "Oh my god." Like you could just see it on him. Like he had just been to combat and I was like, "Whoa, this is intense." And so in Kuwait, we trained for about 70 days. They came back for half that, taught us, trained us, boned us up, got us dialed in, and we're like, "All right, we're out of here. You guys got a month left." And as it turned out, it was like for every hour we drove out in the desert, it was like eight hours wrenching. And it was just I mean it was the most ultimate crash course that you could ever receive uh on a vehicle. You know, I remember Larry who was had been in boats guys over at Damn Neck and was just like, "Here's a carburetor. Take this apart and put it back together." And I'm like I'm like like I don't I don't know. He's like figure it out. And and so we just grinding we came up with SOPs and maneuvering and driving and and I love driving. I mean that was my thing. I love driving that vehicle. It was just you I mean you're going 90 miles an hour at night nods on 50 calve. Like it was just like you're like okay this is this is Frogman stuff. This is cool. And then in the we got the call in the end of May we we left and we we flew into Bram. The end of May. How did it feel when you landed in Bram? Awesome. You know the the C17 corkcrew all the way down like everybody's on nods, you know, vehicles out, everybody's efficient, moving great. It's like, oh man, this is it. Like this is cool. you're expecting like the they're gonna overrun the gates because you'd heard about Tora Bora, you'd heard about Robert's Ridge, you'd heard and then for me the the hardest one was um Matt Bajois. Um, you know, Matt got blown up at Tarnac Farms where Osama bin Laden was when he was at Damn Neck and left kids and a wife and he was one of the one of the nicest guys when I was a new guy at Team One and Training Cell who would actually spend some time with me and and that that was the first palpable sensation of death that that kind of got me and and so it provoked a a pretty substantial fear of getting blown up. Um because when we landed at that time there was a rough estimate of about 25 million landmines in Afghanistan and we were driving around in those the DPVs which were essentially sand racers with you know a little bit stronger transmissions and some racing components and you know slick the thing was like 2800 3,000 and then you'd put almost 2,000 lbs of gear on it and you know it was not all four-wheel drive And and so when we got there, you know, there's there was two paved roads in all of Afghanistan and then just everything was off-roading and we were in these vehicles that weren't great at off-roading. So yeah, that was that was the first, you know, the first week too were like, all right, I think all of us, me included, I was kind of the intel rep and it's like I was expecting a stack of folders of targets, right? Here's all your HVTs here. Pick whichever one. Go get this guy. Go get the Taliban. Go get al-Qaeda. And everybody was still just, you know, you could taste revenge in your mouth because of 911. It was still in you. You still had it. And and now, you know, there there been some team guys that had gotten hit. And and it was like, all right, let's get after it. And and but it wasn't like that. it seemed unorganized, you know, going into the talk because it wasn't it wasn't what I later understood, you know, the agency was running the war and JC was doing the heavy lifting and they weren't quite sure how to employ us um outside of that. And so it it kind of felt like, all right, well, what do we do? Where do we go? I remember we did this shakeout patrol of the vehicles up across the valley under the other side of Bram and we go up and we get in this we actually like got stuck on this little finger and you know they don't maneuver well. They don't have great turning. I remember we're in the rear vehicle and um I forget who was in the the turret, but someone's like, you know, look left, look. And right next to me there's like three or four Afghans with AKs just looking at me. And it was that hate, you know, that first time you look, someone looks at you with hate and you know that dude hates me. That if that dude could shoot me right now, he would shoot me in my face, no problem. And I was like, we literally sitting ducks in these vehicles. We can't maneuver. I was like, can you get a shot? And dude, can't even turn the 50 cal, right? That and it's just like, well, this is different. This is not what I had in my mind. And I think it was strange because I wasn't there was no clear direction. There was no clear answers. There was no clear you guys go do this, go do this. And so we kind of had to figure it out. I remember it was the SF guys. There was uh the the reserve unit from I think Carolina I think it was I forget what 19th group or something. I forget what their their unit name was. But I ran into these guys and they were amazing. They had jingle trucks that they were using. They had motorcycles. They were doing lowro stuff. And they were they were they had figured it kind of out because there were I guess one or two of those guys that had actually been in Afghanistan as young Green Berets during the Russia uh Afghan war and they had trained the Muhajin fighters to fight against the Russians. So these guys knew like a bunch of skill sets that we didn't know like we didn't have. We were still running off kind of SOPs from Desert Storm and and they were phenomenal. They were great to work with. They were very informative. One guy gave me this book called The Bear Trap, which was the history of the Russian Afghan War and how devastating it was for the Russians cuz I mean, you know, fight the Afghans in their backyard is tough. It's hard. They're really tenacious. I mean, Afghanistan's where empires go to die. And I was like, this is a lot different than what I thought it would be, that we would just be dominating. Um, and and it was it was almost like they wanted us out of Bram. And so after I think it was about a month, we did a couple patrols and stuff, but nothing substantial. Um, they moved us down to Kandahar and that's where things kind of shifted. It was like kind of end of June we moved down to Kandahar and at that time it was only SF only soft units foreign and us and then there was like a couple R units and then the CBS and then like Army Corps engineers that were I mean there was no indoor showers there was no indoor chow hall I mean it was still pretty raw and I and I was like all right this this is a place we'll be good cuz the terrain was was a lot better. It was less mountainous. It was more wide open. So, I was like, "This is where we'll be able to employ the vehicles." Cuz the other SEAL platoon that was in with us, they didn't have vehicles. Like, we entered the country, we had no vehicles. And so, how are you going to run missions when you don't have any vehicles? And that was that was another thing that I was just like, wait a minute, how do we not have just like basic Humvees? And we actually ended up borrowing some troop carriers from the Canadian soft, the Canoft guys. And so we were end up started to do some missions at that time. What was the first mission? First big one was a joint mission to go in the Deau River Valley. Uh we were going to snatch a couple senior Taliban guys cuz that's where all the poppy production and that's kind of where they were hiding out or that was the estimation. That's what we the intel we got. And we would drive in big joint op SF agency us. I think we had five vehicles, one agency vehicles and six, you know, SF vehicle like huge huge joint op. And they were we had put in a reconnaissance team. There was the little village where the they thought the guys were. And then what we thought is that when the ops started, they would flee into this valley cuz we had put a a recon team up here and they were they would run in here and hide and then we would just go pursue them and and get them there if we didn't get them there. And so we drove from Kandahar out to the Dro River Valley. And it was like it took I mean I think we drove for like three straight days like just constant driving like you know and at night you're crawling and you get into that big accordion and I remember we were behind. I was always rear security so I ate more dust than that. I think I still got some Afghan ship flake in my ears somewhere from that one. Right. And uh we I remember us getting setting up night was coming then H hour and I'll never forget we were going in and they had launched first cuz they were going to stage and hit the compound and then we were going to drag through if there was anybody leaving and um we hit and there was a vehicle coming out after HR had gone and we didn't have an interpreter. We didn't have, you know, it was just a bunch of cowboys, right? And I remember we stopped the vehicle, everybody acts filled, stopped and uh Joe Burns, God bless him, man, stopped and like opened fired across, you know, the the thing. And we're like and and everybody's like, "Is he like, is someone shooting? What are you doing?" And and someone's like, "Why'd you shoot?" He's like, "That's my interpreter. That's that's my interpretation to stop the [ __ ] you know, the goddamn vehicle, you know. He's like, "Get out. Get out." And and we wrapped those dudes up and zip tied them and put them in the back and and kept going and and SF team hit that compound, took a couple guys. And it was crazy because that was the first official story that CNN had come out with Christian Anumpur saying that we assaulted a wedding that we took down a wedding. That was the first time that that had happened, you know, and it was like we we were just going after innocent Afghans in a wedding, you know. And so we went through, they did their thing and we went to go retrieve the guys on the recon and and that was, you know, we got them down. They were they were pretty jacked up cuz the heat and they were running out of water and I remember that was an interesting experience cuz it's like we'd been up for so many days. I, you know, it's funny. I was with uh uh Dan Luna and Monty and they we got to this the place where the valley and they're like, "All right, you three go out there and clear up the valley, you know, in those valleys. It's just massive. And and and take the EOD guy with you, you know, and it's like it's there's so many places that you could get shot and you're just you're delirious cuz you've been up for four straight days, maybe gotten a couple hours of sleep or and we're walking and I and I remember with Dan, God bless him, man, I started like hallucinating a little bit and I was see I remember seeing like a pink bunny rabbit in like a little little hole in the in the side. I'm like, "Hey man, do you see that bunny rat?" He's like, "Dude, don't say that." You know, he's like, and uh we're sitting there and they're like, "We're it's clear there's nothing there's nobody back here." And and I remember this all of a sudden we look up right across about 100 meters up on this little plateau. This Afghan guy comes out and he's got a donkey and he's like barking. He's like, you know, and we can't understand him. So I jump up and I'm like, "Freeze, don't move." move and and he backs away from the ledge and I I go hauling up and um I get up and I'm like holding on him. I'm like, "Don't [ __ ] move. Get on the ground. Get on the ground." And he can't understand a lick of what I'm saying. And he's just backing away and like I wasn't sure what was in the donkey or feet. You know, I didn't seem armed. And I'm just like And so I'm I'm just like, you know, I go boom. And I'm like, "Get on the ground like fire." Next thing another dude starts firing from I'm like cease fire, you I'm like I didn't I didn't think I was like okay I'll just like scare him and that's dumbest thing I could ever done and the dude just turned splits and just like goes up the mountain like a billy goat and I remember one of our chiefs was just screaming detain him detain him and so Monty came up and we tried and like we couldn't like he was it was like a goat like a billy goat and he just disappeared and we finally got the eyes back and and we're like, "Well, what do we do now?" And they're like, "Let's get out of here." And so we we drove out and it just it kept just spiraling like it didn't make sense. We we ended up we had to drive all the way back. We drove through this one village where there was like men 18 to 45 wearing black turbans and they essentially like we' kind of got in a log jam and I remember Double G was in a turret and this Afghan guy was like, you know, like pull off your sunglasses and Double G drops him and goes like this and he points to his AK and he's like get out of here. essentially like get out or we're going to and I was like why aren't we like grabbing these guys detaining them you know figuring out how to get an interpreter out there figuring what's out what's up because it was obviously there were no women around no children around no nothing but nothing happened like nobody made that call like all right let's just get back to base and and one of the things the guys that had really given me a ton of insight were the Aussies cuz they had these lorries that they could do long range reconnaissance in it. And I remember up in Bram I they would come in and they looked like they had just gotten into it and I finally went up I'm like hey you know what do you guys are you getting into it and they're like yeah every time we go out we get into it. I'm like well how does it work and they're like man they sent us out to you know east bump whatever over here. What we do is we figure out where the routes the passage routes through the valleys are. We drop little OP teams and we watch for a week. We see where they're all kind of congregate and meet up and then we just go drive and park our cars right in the middle of their villages and wait for someone to shoot at us and then we just get in firefights. And so they were getting into all the time. I'm like, well, let's do that. You know, we let's just go camp out and see if someone picks a fight with us. And so we leave there and on the way out there's this, you know, car or this this moped next to us and and I'm like that dude cuz an SF guy had had a like you know when the kids come out you're like oh get the kids you give them Skittles and stuff. Well one I think an ODA team had done that. Well a kid had dropped a grenade in the navigator's seat and like killed this guy. And so I had this, you know, I'd rigged up a gun on my steering column and, you know, pointing my gun at kids were picking up rocks and cuz they'd throw rocks at us sometimes. And and I'm like, "All right, I'm someone shoot that guy." And it was Master Chief Crampton at from team one. It was like, "No, Rod, no one's going to shoot him. It's just a couple kids on them." I'm like, "All right, can I run them over?" And he's like, "No, you're not running." And I'm like, "They're they're gaining intel on us. Let's wrap this. No, just let's go. And and he was right the whole time. Well, anyways, we make this turn and there's this little hooch with this dish gun, this, you know, massive anti-aircraft gun. And we turn and these guys are the columns going down this tree line towards this little hooch. Well, they run and dude gets in the hooch and starts getting on the dish. So, I think this guy's going to turn and train and just light up the whole thing. So I haul ass out into this agricultural field to get an angle with our 50 cow and this other guy comes screaming going like don't go don't go don't go and and he's like like and and Mash's like stop the vehicle right now right so I stop the vehicle and I had driven us into a minefield and I'm looking at him he's looking at me and he's like dude do not move the vehicle We're going to get somebody out of the car. They're going to back you up along your tracks. We're going to So, we get out and we come up. We go over the hill. We come into this 30 foot crater of an Russian anti-tank mine. We make our EOD walk, you know, for 2 hours on this road, not even a road, but it packed thing cuz we thought the whole thing was mined and end up getting back to Kandahar. And so, that was the first the first mission. And I was like, "Holy cow." Like, "This is what it's going to be every time." I was like, "All right, this this is going to be intense. This is going to be kind of cool." But it didn't turn out that way. Um they ended up giving us a little sliver of of area that we could exploit down by Spin Bulldock where you've been before because we had gotten some information that there was a safe house there cuz that's where all the weapons were coming across from from um Queda where Mula Omar had his tribe right that they were and so all the stuff was coming across there and then right below that was the desert of death. So, we're like, "All right, we've got these DPVs. Let's go down. Let's exploit that area. Let's go set up." We put in a couple missions to go set up an urban reconnaissance that got shut down. We did a couple like couple ops where we drove in there OIC uh got sick or something or wasn't, you know, dealing with the heat or whatever it was. And so, we had to cancel those, come back early, come But that's all that was going on. like there was nothing and we couldn't understand because we kept putting in FOP orders and kept saying hey let us do this and it just wasn't going the way we thought it was going to go here we are in Afghanistan we kind of know where the enemy I mean we did a three-day recon one time and put eyes on this like T-section valley and we'd seen heard training we had seen like I had seen on Bino is like a a ceremony of people getting like these black turbans like it was definitely a talban village. Unbelievable. And that was actually a pivotal moment for me cuz I remember on our third night and me and Larry would take the late night shift. Everybody was running out of water. I mean I took in 22 quarts of water. All the other guys had like 20. They were running out of water first thing the third day. We weren't getting picked up till that night. So I'm like, what happens if we run out of water and then there's a sandstorm or where are we going to go? And and so I remember that what really started like what do we do? Like how do we solve this? And and that night that last night was the first night I'd ever prayed and that was the first time I mean you you've been out there you out in the middle of nowhere in Afghanistan. There's no lights, tons of stars, and it's surreal. Like you're like, I'm around the other side of the world in this place where this culture, you know, are basically, you know, trapped in the 15th century in tribalism, but yet they were able to participate and orchestrate the most significant attack on in US history, and we're over here hunting them down. It just was surreal to me and we were in this predicament and it was the first time I was like, you know, I felt kind of compelled to ask God. I was like, "Hey, can you if you're there, can you help? Can you get us out of this?" And that next night came in, got picked up, and we dropped another OP team off, but a goat herder had walked into the one the OP team that was across the way from us, and they had zip tied the guy, sat on him for a while, and then cut him loose when they got loose. Well, that guy went right down. So, when our other OP that was at the end of the T-section where they could watch where the training was, they got compromised immediately. So, we were getting spun up to go out, get in. But the the Hilo pilots, the TF160 guys are the greatest pilots, hands down. I mean, these men are unbelievable and what they do. Their courage, their ability to fly those things are they're absolutely the best of the best. And they went in, grabbed those guys, and got out. Nothing happened. But immediately, we put in our after action, then a follow on OP order. Let's we want to just drive into that the village and let's just light them up. Let's go. Let's take down that whole compound complex. And and it got shut down. And nothing came from it. And so at that point, I was just like, you know, what are we doing? Why are we here? And I remember right around then there was this thing called the loyal loyal the loyal Jurga. And they brought all of the warlords from all the different regions. They shut all operations down and they got this thing to install Carzi as the president and like so that just shut operations for I don't even know it seemed like a couple weeks maybe and that was it and I was just like all right this is going to be it and then everything changed on on August 18th and 19th. What happened on August 18th and 19th? We had started a relationship with the Canoft guys and they were wonderful. I just those guys are the most professional guys. They're amazing. They actually had this great software that was our pilots were using that could map the earth because you know back then the mapping systems of what was there I mean we were rolling off 30-year-old Russian maps and stuff. I mean, it was it was poor. And so, they were really beneficial. Well, they reached out about a few days prior and like, "Hey, let's do a joint op. We got an HVT." Cuz they were a tier one unit. We've got an HVT. We're going to go you guys be our cordon force, right? You per, you know, come in. You'll get the perimeter of the compound for squirters and let's roll. And so, we were like, absolutely awesome. Tier one unit. they probably have great intel because one of the things we were realizing is that the the sharing of intelligence was not flowing the way I had imagined that I was told my first platoon I was the intel rep this group I was the intel guy and nothing that I had ever been taught was happening right there was no intel shop that you can go in and people would be like this is going on this is going on this is going on and so We rehearsed and got ready, get out, planned, and the idea was that we would fly in 47s and the main unit would hit, assault the compound with JTF2. They'd have a couple team guys as assistants in the internal. Our task unit commander would be in there with them. And then we'd have four teams of four on the corners of this house. And so I got in with one of those teams. So we launch, we're going in, we come down, we So it's compounds here, right over here was this a fields, egg fields all around it. Um some kind of trees along a pathway, more compound. And so we landed here and we got off and our job was to get to this corner right of the compound. Then there'd be one here, one here, and then one on the far side. And I remember this time like it was there like my heart was pumping because this was this was a a takedown. It was a snatch and it's like all right this is Frogman stuff. This is cool. And I was the I was the only med medic in the external team of of all these these four teams. And so that's a lot of pressure, right? It's like all right, you're the guy. And now there were medics inside but outside. And I remember getting off the thing patrolling a little bit to the corner and I heard cracks and it was gunfire. And I jumped down in the prone like like you're taught gunfire and snaps and you jump. And I remember I'm kind of trying to figure out my night vision, my helmet and my back, my med bag and all this stuff. And I'm trying to look and and I remember, God bless him, man, Eric Shelonburgger, who's now passed. Um, leans over and he goes, he goes, "Rut, what are you doing?" Like, "Dude, you didn't hear those gunshots?" He goes, "Bro." And he had been in combat before. He had been a Marine prior, too. And he's like, "That was like 50 feet over our head. They weren't even in our direction." And I was like, "Oh, okay." So, I got up and and I'm like, "Okay." And I'm like, "All right, go." Now, I'm like going and my one nod is fogging up and and I and I'm like, "All right, relax. Calm down." Like, "Do your job. Hold your corner." And and we had the external commander, Mike, amazing guy, great officer sitting there. Then Heath was our comm guy. And then um um it was me, Shelley, Heath, and and Mike. And he's running the external. Meanwhile, there are these hilos over top and they're calling in. Hey, we've got squirters. They got out of the building. And you can hear internal. They're clearing and clear, clear, doing the whole thing. And and we're getting word that one of the hilos where we were. Here's compound. We're on this corner corner. And this Hilo's hovering here and has this he says, "I've got a couple guys pinned down out here, you know, get out here." You know, cuz he's sitting there lawyer and burning fuel and he's calling and they're not done with the total securing of of the main compound. And so this guy's like, "Hey man, like you can hear him just like hovering in this area and it's loud as hell. We're you could still kind of communicate over here. We're probably I want to say 200 maybe meters away maybe maybe 150 175." And finally they get a call from inside. Hey, we're secure. And then Mike's like, "Well, we're going to go grab these guys." So we we consolidated the three groups. They had a little powow. Hey, how are we going to do this? Cuz he was in a fields, right? Like huge, not a huge, but six, seven foot egg that was in and you know, the egg fields are rutdded. And this guy's hanging over. He's like, "Hey, get out here. I'm I'm, you know, my fuel. I need to get off station. I feel vulnerable." And so it's decided that we're going to basically get online and we're going to walk through the target old school, you know, basic tactics and approach and um especially in the egg fields, right? So, it was this team was on this four, then it was our four, and it was I'm pretty sure it was it was um I want to say it was Heath. No, Mike, Heath, Shelly, me, then it was Larry, um John, Beltran, Monty, and Darren. And so we started walking and that was scary because you know you're walking and the guy's the the guy you heard over the radio I've got a guy. You don't know if he's got a weapon, got grenades, got anything and you're walking right into him. I mean, can you see? No. What's the terrain like? I mean, it's it's a fields that are rutdded. So for a for irrigation. So you're kind of stumbling and it's, you know, the first section was kind of open and then you hit the stuff that's head high and so you're trying to adjust the depth to see through the fields and where the hilo and then then the hilo you get so close now you can't hear anything. You couldn't hear comms between each other. It had just overwhelmed. And I remember Heath's comms kind of had gone down. So, I had stepped in to help with the comms to the Hilo and he's relaying information. This is where they are. They're right underneath my rotor wash. Come over here right now. And I'm trying to relay it. You can't really hear anything. And it's just chaos and but we're going like we're going to go. This is the mission. If these were the squirters, the guys, and they're pinned down, that's the mission. So, we're going we're going and we get into it and we kind of clear out and and they're kind of chopped down now. There's a little clearance, but then there's another thing where you can't see. And I all of a sudden I'm walking and I step on something. And I it did not feel small. It was big. And immediately I just one nod. I look down. And I draw down and I just start mule kicking whatever was underneath me as hard as I could. And I adjust and it's a dude. And now I'm like I'm trying to sweep for gun. Helicopter's over. I start calling to Shelly cuz I was you're on you're on this walk forward. I'm here. I step on it. I kind of turn to here and I'm kicking it and I'm going Shelly Shelly. Um, and then Shelly comes over and I'm like, "Hey, hold." And and I'm like, and then I'm trying to pass over the radio. I got someone. I got someone. And obviously you can't hear anything because the heel is right over us. And so I'm sitting there and I'm just waiting for the dude to, you know, pull a grenade and just let that thing go. And I'm like, "Hey, you got him. You got him." And we were trying to work something out. And then as soon as we're here, we're on front. I turn here. I look up and I see muzzle flash right in front of us. And in that moment, I'm like, "All right, the other guy is out there. He's opening up." So I immediately call contact front. Scream at contact front. Drop down. get in a prone engage, you know, go through mag. Shelly engages. I think a couple other guys down the line engage. I couldn't see or hear Larry, Tommy, uh, Monty or Darren. I couldn't see them because the the the scrub or what was ever. And I go in, I get out a grenade and I'm prepping a grenade and I look at Shell and I go, "Should I throw it? I throw. He's like, "No." And I'm like, "All right." And then all of a sudden, cease fire comes out. Like, "Ease fire. Cease fire." So, it goes out. Meanwhile, the helicopter had moved off behind us. So, there's a second of like, "What just happened? What what went down?" And I remember immediately that's when you heard man down. And there was man down call. And I'm the only medic and I'm not I don't know where the man down is. I don't know where it is. So I'm trying to get comms, but the rotor still behind us so you can't hear on comms still. And so what I do is I immediately start going down this line and I made it probably down to Heath and the other guys and I'm like, "Is there a man down?" They're like, "There's nobody injured down here. There's nobody." So I was like, "It's got to be the other side." So I came back and I was like, "All right, I'm going to go check the hilo." So I made a diagonal and I went back and I came through with the iron cross to give a bonafites and there's dudes in a half moon out and it was the air crew and I came out and I said, "Do you have the down man?" And you know, Hel is still spinning. You're screaming. No, we don't know where he is. we don't know where he is. And so I'm like, "All right." So then I turned and I went back up and this time I got back up to Heath, but then I heard I could hear now something and these guys were calling out. So I walked forward off to here and Larry had been shot, Tommy had been shot, Monty had been shot, and Darren hadn't was fine. Monty had taken a round in his magwell right here. So he's holding his gun. It hit his magwell and had his magwell not been there, his plate stopped. It would have gone right through his stomach into his spine. Probably would have bled out right there. Tommy took a round in his upper quad and his upper leg through through and through femur fracture. uh femoral artery tear, was in a lot of pain, and Larry had taken a round right through the front part of his shin and blown out the back of his calf. And so I'm like, meanwhile, I was like, "We need more guys. We need more guys." So, more guys got up. We I got Larry, put him on my shoulder, and I hopped him over, got him on the Hilo cuz the Hilo was then the plan was the Hilo's on station would then fly us right on the other side of the compound kind of up the hill and we would have actual medics on a medevac birds on station, right, with and I and I remember that I thought there was going to be a dock on like a a trauma dock on and a medic and a and a army IC. And so I got Larry to the thing, came back out and it would it had taken I think there was like six dudes trying to carry Tommy John Beltran cuz he was big dude, right? And just manhand all kit and all. So we got on the Hilo and I and I was I looked around. I was like, "All right, I got to get these guys to the Hilo cuz we got to get them out of here." Cuz Tommy was was not good. like he was he was already struggling and I was like, "You guys good? Can I go?" And they're like, "Yep, go for it. We're good." So I jumped on the Hilo all my [ __ ] Got on and Jen just the Hilo lift off and I'm trying to triage the guys like and there was a sniper weapon that a guy had hot on there. There was calm [ __ ] hanging down and so it was like a chaos and I'm trying and I got Larry had gotten a tourniquet on himself and so I just went over check tourniquet check bleeding check his breathing like I'm good then I went over and Tommy had gotten a tourniquet on but it wasn't good it wasn't high enough so I put another one on got it deep as high as I could strapped that down and I'm like how you doing? He's like I'm in a lot of pain. It's it's it's not good. And I'm like, "Are you should you go with it?" He's like, "It's not good." So I was like, "All right, how much blood has he lost? He's definitely got a femur hit, right? A femoral bleed." So before I knew it, we sat down. Like we were like up and then down. And I look out and about 35 m 40 m away was the 47 spinning. And I'm waiting for a team of guys to come over with stretchers. and we'd get the guys on and we'd we'd all we'd f them over. And so one dude runs out and has got a stretcher and I'm like, "Oh shit." So then another it was that an air crew guy and then it I didn't know he was a medic, but it was a medic. They came over, they put Tommy on the stretcher. I got Larry and we hopped over like I carried him over. We got him in the back and I'm looking around waiting for this team to to come out. And there was nobody. It was just us. And so I'm like, "Oh shit." And so now I'm I'm tired. I'm exhausted. I'm I'm I'm feeling overwhelmed for sure. And I was like, "All right, what do I do next?" I triage go a, you know, go through it. T compact, you know, TC, tactical combat casualty care. What do I do? Is is bleeding secure? Is there airway secure? Right? Or is there circulation? You know, are they good? And and the I was like barking orders, but was not making a lot of sense. Finally, the the the crew chief grabs me and shakes me and he's like, "Dude." And I'm like, and meanwhile, rotor's going, you can't hear anything. He's like, "Dude, are you all right?" And I'm like, "What do you mean?" He goes, "That's a medic. He's on your team. Use him." And then I was like, "Okay." So then I went over to him. I told him, "This is what we got. This is what I've seen. I I haven't I haven't done great body sweeps. I haven't I'm not sure if there's other wounds that they don't know. I haven't gone under their, you know, kit yet." He's like, "Okay." So he starts and I go, "Where?" And I go up to the front of the thing of the And I'm looking for I thought there'd be like four big med bags, like trauma bags. There was nothing. I come back and I go, "Where are the bags?" He goes, "This is it." And where's yours? I go, "It's right here." He goes He goes, "You do him, right, Larry, and I'll do him." And I was like, "Okay." So I went out and I checked his his tourniquet, made sure he was good, made sure he was with it. He was doing good. And so I wanted to elevate and isolate so his his his tibian and fibia which was shattered didn't just start cutting into that his um his guy that got shot right here in the right here. Yeah. Larry and that his like pepil artery didn't get nicked or what like I had. So I got a water box. I I bandaged the back of his calf and put it on that elevated it and made him comfortable and I said, "Are you good?" And he's like, "Yeah." So then I did full sweeps. He's like, "I'm not hit anywhere else. I'm good. Everything." And I'm like, "Okay." So then by that time I had gone over and this dude had already he was prepping a line. He'd done the sweeps. He was like, "He doesn't have any more shots. He's lost a lot of blood. His pupils aren't good. He's probably going into hypoimmic shock. And at that moment, I realized we're 45 minutes away from Canahar. And I was like, "Holy [ __ ] Tommy's going to die. John's going to die." And that was that was the hardest minute right there. I was like, "Oh my god, what am I doing? I I is this are we going to" And the guy's like, "Hey, dude, just do what I tell you to do." I was like, "Okay." And so helped him get the IV, got the IV, just amazing medic. Unbelievable dude. Like he was just on the point. The whole thing was amazing. And so then I got John situated, comfortable. I was like, "You good?" And he's like, "Yeah, I'm in a lot of pain." But you could tell he was his leg at that point was probably this big. I mean, he was he was definitely in hypoic shock as, you know, it's hard to see in the lights on the thing, but he was it just did not look good. And so I the guy was like he's like, "Give me something for pain. Please give me" and I was like, "Hey man, what do you want to do?" He's in a lot of pain, really hurting. He's like, "I'm nervous cuz he's in hypothermic shock. If I give him a lollipop, uh, you know, morphine or fentanyl lollipop, it could put him into respiratory distress." and I'm not sure I want to do that. And so we took off. We started going and I'm just kind of lying with with with John and just trying to be like, "You're good. You're going to make it. We got you. This guy's got you. We got an IV. You're good. We're going to get you back. We're almost there." And you could just see him. He was going in and out. And I'm like, "Here it comes." Like, "This is the moment where this guy's my friend is going to die in my arms. and thinking, you know, I didn't think back to, you know, what Bud Miller had said, but now I'm in this moment and he we gave we ended up giving him the lollipop that really helped him, right? It slowed his heart rate down, but it didn't it it it slowed the blood pumping down and and so it was like then we started packing his wound. He was packing like he's do this medic again. I can't John Beltran would have died that day if it not have been for this guy for sure. And it was just it was the maybe he was the angel that needed to be there for me or whatever it was, but that that dude was amazing. So we got back and by the time we got back to we landed on in Canahar and there was a full medical team waiting. They came running out. They grabbed them both. I mean they were amazing. I mean it was a whole thing and immediately got him in got him into you know there's surge in there and it was unbelievable and it was like okay meanwhile I have no idea what's going back on the target. What's happening? No nothing. All I know is we got it back. They're not going to die unless you know they die in surgery. And certainly it was a a possibility for for John and he it was they were everybody was amazing like it every just it was operating. And I was like, "Oh, wow. This is really cool." And immediately I went into a debrief and some said, "I forget what chief I sat down with, but immediately tell me the story top bottom one happened." So I gave him the debrief. And they're like, "All right, dude. You're done. Go back to the hooch and just chill. We'll come get you in a minute if we need you." And so I didn't want to leave, but they're like, "Get out. Go get out of here. We got it. These guys just need their health, their care." And I was like, "Okay." So, I got my [ __ ] and I went back and I remember I got a cigarette and I was sitting just outside just trying to process what had just happened and I was just like, "Thank God they're not dead. I just thank God that they didn't die and and just smoking a cigarette." Well, sun was coming up and immediately um Humvees came in. It was guy from guys from the raid, the other the other group. And Darren came out and I was sitting there and gave him a cigarette and we're having a cigarette and he goes, "Hey, did you hear what happened?" And I said, "No, what happened?" And he said, "The doc dug 5.56 out of John's leg and Larry's leg." I'm like, "What?" He's like, "Yeah, he dug 5.56 frag out of his leg." And in that moment, uh, my life changed for a long, long time. Because immediately I had the sensation that I was the guy who had shot them. [ __ ] How did you know? I just felt it. I just felt it. I when I had spun around to contact maybe I spun too much and I and cuz what had ended up happening was and this I got this from Darren cuz Darren had taken shots at a squirter and I'm like wait a minute what do you mean you shot? He's like yeah he's like I I took some shots at a guy that was running away the other guy. And I'm like, well, and and so as we talked it out, it immediately kind of flushed out in my mind where as we were walking through when I stopped with with Shelly and the guy, they kept advancing. And what I think happened is they they began advancing a little on an angle. And so Darren got out to here, saw a guy running away here, maybe the other guy that they had pinned down cuz the helicopter had moved off off site. And Darren took a couple shots at this guy. And I think that's what I I saw. And so when I dropped into the prone instead of being straight island, I think I was on an angle and my round hit Larry's leg, hit Tommy's hit Larry's shin, hit Tommy's leg and hit Monty in the magwell. Holy [ __ ] Yeah. Now, none of that was said. Nobody came to me over the next few weeks. Um, nothing happened. There was an investigation that took place, but nobody like pulled me off the set and said, "Hey, Rut, man, we think this is what happened." Nothing. We kind of had to stand down for a few days. I think we did one thing after that, but we ended up leaving Canah of on on September 10th of of 2002. And I remember both feeling relieved that we were leaving, but also an incredible weight that eventually that was all going to come out. in some way. I I didn't know how or why or anything and that I was gonna have to face what that meant for me and my reputation, but even more so that, you know, the idea that maybe I had shot my own guys and what I was going to have to live with with that. So when we landed in Bahrain, those few weeks was was really difficult. I was completely isolated. I I truly tried to distract myself obviously with with a lot of booze, you know, almost got in some trouble with Tage um and just tried to run from it. And meanwhile, people are like, "Hey man, what happened out there?" You know, "Did you save those guys lives? Tell me the story and all that." And I was like, "Not happened." And didn't want to say it. Didn't want to talk about it. And then redeployed home. And I'll never forget redeploying home. Just shame. Just a level of shame that was just like a cloud that just followed me everywhere I was going. And we got in the middle of the night, North Island, you know, team one come out the door. It's, you know, 1 2 in the morning, 1 12:30, 1,2 in the morning. You know, there's dudes with their wives and their kids and everybody takes off and there's nobody there for me. I didn't have any place to stay. I didn't have anywhere to go. And then a buddy might have been like, "Hey, dude. Yeah, I'm going to go take off with my friends. You can go stay at my pad if you want." and it was Andy. And so I went down into IB and he was, you know, I think it was like 234 crawls crawl steps away from um the [ __ ] hole bar down in IB. And so got down there, went into that bar and drank myself into oblivion. And then uh a day or two later got on a plane and was in South Florida for leave, post-eployment leave. [ __ ] Dave. Yeah. Did it ever come out officially? They did another investigation when I had gotten back and I remember cuz they had wanted me to do the brief in in medical like we had another I got back in November and class started and that might have been your class or was the it was a class right after that and and uh I remember telling the story almost like I was like it was almost like a confession of my ineptitude. It was a confession of my um of my unworthiness, you know, and that somehow I was in this it was like my penance almost. It was there was no pride in it. There was no excitement in it. There was no I wasn't I wasn't I felt ashamed completely. And then I think it was either before or after Christmas. Uh I had heard from Mike Lou that there was an investigation that had come down and it had been determined it was inconclusive uh how they were shot or who shot him. Uh they just couldn't determine that uh specifically. Um, and some of, you know, I would imagine that some people might go, well, you know, you you don't know, like there was no definitive, like you don't know if you did it or you didn't. And and there's just it's just I always just believed I did. And that sent me into a a spiral that's almost destroyed me again. Yeah. Yeah. How are those guys now? Larry's wife, I want to say 2006 or seven around that time. It was a lot of blur. Those next three years, four years were pretty blurry. Um, I used to call him in the middle of the night and begging for his forgiveness and crying and, you know, whether I was hammered on alcohol or cocaine or whatever it was, just begging him to forgive me. And finally, she was like, you know, rut, you can't call anymore. Don't call again. So, I haven't spoken to him since then. And um John Beltran overdosed last fall and is dead and he battled a lot of demons after that injury. He was never able to really get back to full duty. He got hooked on pain meds and became a pretty substantial addict on and off for 20 years. Um was married, had kids, and lost that marriage, everything. And and you know what's crazy is is he would call me for years every August 18th 19th and he'd be like, "Hey Rod, man, how you doing? Are you good?" And for years I would not pick up because I was ashamed. And then, you know, finally I pick up and I remember one year, I forget what a year was, but I just started weeping. And he's like, "Why are you crying?" I was like, "Man, I I ruined your life. You know, I took your dream of being a team guy away from you because I [ __ ] up." And I'll never forget, he's like, "Man, you saved my life." He goes, "I'd be dead if if you didn't act." He goes, "Wor's hell, man. It's confusing. It's crazy. But if you hadn't had done that, I'd be dead. And I was never able to rationalize that as a as an acceptable component of of my life, my existence until I started uh till I met Janna. But last fall when I got a call from one of my other closest friends, Johnny Satello, who was very close with John and Scotty Wartz and uh you know he middle of the night typical call he's like, "Hey man, Johnny's dead. He just overdosed." And that was devastating because, you know, I would have been I just wish I I could have allowed his forgiveness to seep in and then I for some way, shape or form could have helped him just could have helped him rebuild his life or something. And so that that's going to be with me. Damn, Dave. You know, I know that was a big I know you've battled that for a long time. How are you doing now? Um, I mean it's definitely cathartic to be able to speak speak it openly. I think there's probably six or seven people you know friends of mine from the community and when I was at Blackwater the agency and you know they've been amazing supporters and always say the same. You don't know if you shot them, you know, you still were in there with them. You still helped them, you know, and they've always been even you, you've always been just I mean, I remember the first one I told you and you were just like, man, you can't let that pull you down. And you know, you made a gesture to me not long after that that was you sent me something and and you know, I have it buried in my closet and and every now and then, you know, it'll be stumbling through and I'll see it and I'll just remember the support that I've been given and people who care and and know what how devastating that's been for me and And you know, the the the thing that you always want from when I was a little kid was just not to let your teammates down. So I think, you know, I'll get an opportunity, you know, to to hug him and to say I'm sorry again. And you know, I'm sure him being him be like, "Bro, it's good, man. You're all right." You know, and if Larry's out there, I'm sure cuz he had said the same thing a few times, too. He's like, "Man, it's okay. Don't don't worry about it." You know, there's a there's a strange there's a strange thing in in our world. you know, your whole your whole reputation is built on what's going to happen under fire, you know, everything. And, you know, that few hours contorted my entire perception of of what I could do and what I was worth for the next decade plus. and warped my interpretation of of who I am. And whether I could do it or, you know, I shut every dream down within the community rapidly after that. You know, I'd wanted to potentially screen, you know, but there was no way I could. It's like, I'm going to put my name in the hat and someone's going to hear it and they'll be like, you know, [ __ ] that guy. He's not worth it here. He can't handle himself out there. And, you know, and then it was like, all right, well, how do I redeem myself? And all right, well, maybe I'll just get back in another platoon and and maybe go to Iraq or whatever. And then I was like, man, how do I live with it every day? And every, you know, I finally, and it was crazy cuz the detailer when I got back, I I'd in court, I'd asked, "Hey, that was my second deployment." You know, it was a combat deployment. Can I put my name in to screen? There was a screening in November. And you know, my boss is hacked off. The master chief at team one had agreed he would put me in, but you know, then I'm like, "Fuck, man. I there's no way somebody knows somebody's going to say, "Hell no, we don't want him over here." And so, you know, then it was like, "All right, hey, how do I get in my another platoon?" And the detail is like, "You're not going anywhere. You just took a little v combat vacation for February to to October from SQT. You're going back to SQT. You're giving me that time back. Then you're only an 18 delta short course, corman. Then I'm going to send you to the long course because we need long course IDC medics in the teams. And then once you're back from Fort Bragg, then I'll let you go to a regular you're going to go back to a regular platoon and you're going to do another regular platoon and then maybe you can screen after that. And so I it was even if even if I any of that had had seemed like a pathway to salvation for I just never believed I could ever recuperate my reputation in the teams. There would always be somebody somewhere who knew that I had shot my own guys. So I got out Looking back, what do you think you could have done differently to man? P. There's anything I can say to anybody who carries a gun for a living. Positively identify what you're going to shoot at if you don't. And it's crazy. Is that possible? I don't know. I don't know. I mean, you I mean, I've gone through this scenario thousands of times in my mind. I've evaluated my training. Did I execute the training with which I was trained? You know, I think about all those hundreds of high ads at night at Nyl, you know, in the night. Contact Front, you know, drop, open fire, peel left, peel right. Like, I think I did what I was taught, but I also know I wasn't sure. Like, I didn't have a dude in my sight with a gun. I reacted to muzzle flash. And you know I don't so it's it's that I think you know that's the key and that's the difference between I think I say all this and I explain all this as a sensation like this was the lesson was my own humility. Maybe the lesson was my my being more meticulous, being more methodical, being more focused, being more whatever it is. But that's not the lesson. The lesson for me is this was a a a deployment. Remember when you asked me why'd you go and did you want to kill people? And it was more about that confrontation of of death and how I would react and what I would do. And so that recon where I prayed and I felt the presence of God for the first time in my life. Immediately after that, God started testing my resolve. Was I going to maintain my faith? There was even an occurrence where we had gone out and done this long range recon. And mind you, when we were living in Canahar, we were in these these GP tents, horrible, 120° out, Afghan dust, everything. And I would sit in in my bunk here and across from me would be Monty and JC, John. And every day that we'd be in there, they would sit and have Bible study together. And every day I would watch them and think to myself, what are they doing? How do they do this? How do they how do they how do they connect to God or to Jesus or whatever that means in this moment? Like why why are they doing that? And I didn't understand it. I didn't understand why it was so moving to me for to watch them. and they would share psalms and they would or you know all types of verses from gospel to the old testament and they would talk and they'd have bible study together and I would sit there and just perplexed and like why what is it doing for you and like after that recon I I was like pray and I felt something and then couple weeks later we were doing this op and we're out in the DPVS nothing happened we got picked up came back. We were in the backs of helicopters. We hit the flight line. We came down and we set up on a flight line. Well, before one a guy had had, you know, gotten on this the Hilo had coming off. He had forgotten to clear his Mark1 19, you know, the Belf grenade launcher on the on the front passenger of the DPV. And so we got him like there and I'm sitting there and he had gotten sick on the the vehicle from the fumes in the back and puked all over. And so I got my video camera, typical douchebag, and I'm like, "Haha, new guy's puking and he can't hold his whatever." And haha, and just get down the vehicle. And our senior is like, "Hey man, let's go. They'll they'll be right behind him." So we pulled out, we left, and we came around this fuel truck on the flight line. Go around that. We're going to get back. And he's like, "Hey, man. Where are they? Let's go back." And I was like, "All right." So, we back up, come around, go back around the fuel truck, and the fuel truck front cab is smoking. And I'm like, that's weird. So, we come out and come up and Larry's just sitting just shaking his head like this. And JC's got down like this. And and I'm like, what's going on? And he had accidentally when he cleared it sent one flying, sent an egg and it right when we had come around the back it had hit the cab, gone through the the front of the cab and because of the metal plate on the driver's seat, it hit that it detonated in the cab. Had it been a foot up, it would have gone through the seat through the back, hit the fuel tank, exploded the fuel tank. we would have been covered in fuel. And I'm like, "Oh my god, why am I not dead?" And then a few weeks ever later, that experience happened. Why aren't they dead? And so now I'm in this battle of trying to make sense of what I'm supposed to take away from this deployment. Not, oh, you're dialed in. You're you're you're a team guy. You're a real frog man now. You're strong and you're capable and you're you're you've got conviction and you can face things. It's more of of God's trying to tell me something about my life and what he wants me to do. And I wasn't I didn't know how to evaluate that. I didn't know where to begin. And over that Christmas break, I'd met somebody and was like, "All right, let's get married. That'll that'll take me away from this. It'll give me" and it was an excuse. It was a passionate romance that happened quickly. It seemed like it was a fit. And so, fast forward, I asked her to marry me. in short amount of time. And I was like, "That's it. I'm getting out in June when my second enlistment's up and I'm moving back to Florida. I'm going to get married and I'm going to have a normal life and I'm going to figure out whatever I'm supposed to figure out." And that began a very arduous, difficult uh couple years, three years. and kind of the there's a couple major points. One was Passion of the Christ came out in February of n of of 04. I remember going to it. Meanwhile, I've never read the Bible. I've never studied the Bible, nothing. And I go to this movie and from the first word that Jim Cavisial spoke and and you know your interview with him is one of my favorite of all time. I was weeping uncontrollably like broken down and then the whole from the moment he's they bring him in and they start beating him all the way through the crucifixion. I was uncontrollable and it didn't stop. I continued in this uncontrollable weeping for hours and hours afterwards and then finally I kind of calmed down. There was a knock on the door and in came this box and I was like she's like who's that from? I was like I don't know. And it it said you know JC up top and I opened it up and it was from John and it was a gift. It was our platoon plaque and it was a bottle of of Patrone because he had felt so much shame and horrible that he he that had happened that I possibly could have died that he had he come up to me. He's like, "Man, I'm so sorry." I was like, "Hey, dude, don't worry about it. Just, you know," he's like, "What can I do?" And I like, "In the future, give me a bottle of tequila. We're even. It happens. Don't you I know you didn't want to. I know you didn't need to. I know you didn't have to do that." And so like here I'm consoling this guy who I'm witness to praying every day. The day I see passion the C sends me this thing. Then I start thinking about why the initials JC. That's right. And that was the fight now I'm in. I I felt like God was trying to communicate with me, but I was so ashamed of who I was and what I was that I couldn't do. And that that was where things were ugly cuz she quickly realized this was not a healthy relationship. She decided that we're done and and kind of right at that time is when I I got an opportunity. I went to work for Blackwater in the fall of '04. Let's stop. Yeah. Let's go back. Yeah. For starters, I just want to say it's been a lot of vulnerability in that chair and a lot of humiliating confessions. I think what you just did is the hardest thing I've seen anybody articulate. Thank you. Proud of you. Thank you. Love you. Love you too. What would you have done different after the incident when it comes to your relationship with these guys? I should have gotten more involved in wanting to know how the investigation took place, what other people thought, what they saw. Like it was almost like nobody would speak about it, especially to me. I think other guys probably talked about it, but I almost just got isolated in it. And so that would have been much better for me and to go and and to engage in it immediately. I think I shouldn't have gone home when I got home. I should have when I got to Bahrain. I should have sought out a a pastor or chaplain or my chief or senior chief or someone and said, "I'm struggling. I need some help." But that just wasn't a thing then. there was nothing and when we got home it's like see in 30 days and there was no support and so I came to Florida and I'll never forget man I my best friend's younger brother had a bachelor party and we went down to Key West for this thing and like I just was inebriated for days on end and just just couldn't communicate couldn't talk was detached And so I wish I had done more to re-engage in a in a conversation again. I just keep going back to that reality like you're not going to process this at an individual level. It's too immense. And that's the component within the human condition. That's the that's this this intensity of pain. And when you have overwhelming pain, it elicits the deepest the deepest fears you have about your own insecurities, your own ineptitude, your own, you know, that these fears, they overwhelm you. They begin to control you. And the only way you can diminish those is to engage with people that can help you deconstruct those fears, pull them apart, take one piece, rationalize that one piece in a way that you can comprehend and and and handle. And I think that's a a really intense thing, right? It's like, but at at at I turned 30 in Afghanistan and I certainly wasn't 30 emotionally in any way. And I think, you know, that's just the thing. You have to be able to go and engage. You have to do this. And I wish I had done that more with every one of those guys. And I've pulled so away from all of those. I've lost touch pretty much with with everybody that was a part of that platoon. Those our the other platoon that was there, people that were affiliated, people that were, you know, that were at SQT with me, I kind of pulled away from them. You know, the only person I really tried to stay in touch with was Bruce. Um, you know, he ended up contracting, ran into him, but I'd call him and try and talk to him and stay in touch with him, tried to start a little business with him, and, you know, he ended up uh going through some challenges and ended up drinking himself to death. And so I think that was kind of the person that I had always hoped would give me the attab boy that would kind of replace that shame with with some some estimation of of acceptance and and maybe even a little forgiveness. You know, I think that's that's the thing we're all ultimately looking for. We're looking for forgiveness, right? We're looking for someone that who loves us deeply to look at you and say it's okay. Things happen. You know, we understand. And that's that's why my battle and my pursuit of Christ for the next 10 years was so substantial and so difficult cuz I I I didn't know how to ask Christ for forgiveness. I didn't know where to go for forgiveness, you know. And it wasn't like there weren't people that were gracious and supportive, but you know, it wasn't until really ' 06 where I I I went to church for the first time really ever on my own. And it was a guy, a mentor of mine named George Andrews, Reverend George Andrews, who was the first person that I was like, "What does it mean to have faith?" and and that's kind of really where I started to heal. How do you feel now that you've shared that your deepest I mean it's secret it's nerve-wracking vulnerability. It's scary. I mean, I I've got to walk out of this room, you know, this episode will drop and, you know, I I I I give a hundred speeches a year. I'm last year, I was in in front of almost 4,500 people. I've got my my own show now. Again, I, you know, I'm I'm public. You know, what's going to happen to my kids? Are their parents going to tell their friends? Are they going to be ashamed? You know, I know my wife is not because she knows the story and has been overwhelmingly the person who's benefited me most for processing that because she's had to pro her own sense of of shame at a at a high degree. And so, you know, but you don't know you don't know how the world's going to react. But I what I do know is that I know that Christ loves me no matter what. I know John had forgiven me. I know Larry had said he'd forgiven me. Um, and I know other friends of mine that, you know, are part of the community and the adjacent communities have have said, "Man, it's okay. Like, you don't need to carry that burden for your whole life." So, yeah. Well, you got a lot of respect for me for doing it. Thank you. I think you're going to feel a lot better. I I think so. I mean, you know, we've talked about it. I mean, we've talked about it extensively and and we talked about it in the leadup to this and and I don't think there'd be anybody else I could do it with, you know, in this capacity. You know, it's hard because, you know, the there's a measurement of of success that I think the public has or a measurement of of interpretation of how they interpret success of our community. And that's, you know, the these massive stories. I mean, you hear about these missions and these these things that these guys get engagements and all this and like, you know, there's it's not like they're um they're not building themselves up their bravado. I think sometimes people have a tendency to look for that and people will embellish in certain stories and obviously that's a always a challenge and and anybody that's public or or whatever but you know this has been that thing. It's like hey this is the reality of my combat experience. I don't have any you know grand firefights. I don't have any I don't have any like oh you save the day. I don't I don't I don't have any of that stuff. I have that that that incident has encapsulated the space and spectrum. Now I chased I chased um redemption for years. That's why I went to Blackwater. That's why I went to the agency. I thought some moment some time I would have a moment where I could redeem myself and and you know there's been some things I've gotten I was able to do that were positive and healthy and all that but you know it it it doesn't doesn't make that ever go away. So that that what you have to do is you just have to address it. You have to live with it. You have to recognize that it's a piece of your nut life. It's not all of you. And I think, you know, that has taken me 20 plus years to to figure out phases of life, Ben. Yeah, man. I think this is that moment. It certainly feels like it. Good. Let's take a break. Saw this building. We're high. [Music] I know everybody out there has to be just as frustrated as I am when it comes to the BS and the rhetoric that the mainstream media continuously tries to force feed us. And I also know how frustrating it can be to try to find some type of a reliable news source. It's getting really hard to find the truth and what's going on in the country and in the world. And so, one thing we've done here at Shawn Ryan Show is we are developing our newsletter. And the first contributor to the newsletter that we have is a woman, former CIA targeter. Some of you may know her as Sarah Adams. Call sign superb bad. She's made two different appearances here on the Shawn Ryan show and some of the stuff that she has uncovered and broke on this show is just absolutely mindblowing. And so I've asked her if she would contribute to the newsletter and give us a weekly intelligence brief. So it's going to be all things terrorists. how terrorists are coming up through the southern border, how they're entering the country, how they're traveling, what these different terrorist organizations throughout the world are up to. And here's the best part. The newsletter is actually free. We're not going to spam you. It's about one newsletter a week, maybe two if we release two shows. The only other thing that's going to be in there besides the intel brief is if we have a new product or something like that. But like I said, it's a free CIA intelligence brief. Sign up. Links in the description or in the comments. We'll see you in the newsletter. All right, Dave, we're back from the break. Hopefully, we can lighten it up here a little bit. Me, too. But I do I just want to I just want to say again, man, I know that took a lot of courage to get that vulnerable and to talk about that. And you know, however people judge you from here on out, I mean, you're a [ __ ] great person. Thank you. And that's all that really matters. Thank you. I appreciate that. You're welcome. So then you go to work at Blackwater. That was a hell of a story right there. Uh my fiance had basically said, "No, we're not getting married." And then I was working for a domestic security company out of Grand Rapids, Michigan called DK Security. I was selling camera systems to strip malls. And I was and the whole pretense I went to work for this guy and he was a great guy. John Kendall was his name. really amazing guy. Vietnam vet uh US Marshall was partnered with an FBI guy, but John was really amazing guy. My my uncle Dave from Grand Rapids had knowing him, gotten me the interview and gotten the job and really put a lot of conf. But the whole thing was like they were going to let me start a division that I could start bidding on contracts overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan, which was where the money was, right? you know, and and so I had recruited like six guys, two guys to come and help start it and launch it. And there was a couple and figured out, I never forget, he was like, "Well, why don't you write up a business plan for me?" And and I'm like, "What's a business plan?" And he's like, "You'll figure it out. Just so I go down to like Office Depot and get business plan proriters plus, you know, and it's like this thing." And it's like, oh, you know, what's your IBIDA and what's your and I'm like, I have no idea. So, I went page by page, step by step, insurance, you know, Lloyd's a London, figured this and wrote this 34 page and like a month later dropped it on his desk cuz I would go up there once a month. And he's like, "What's this?" And I go, "This is my business plan for being starting contract work overseas because it's incredibly lucrative and I think we could kill it." And he's like, "Okay, I'll get back to you." in the fall. Uh I was not doing good. I was I was struggling still. Really really trying. Like when I first got out of the teams, there was a stretch um in in August. I got out in June, end of June 03. But in August, I had a 21-day stretch where I was vomiting and diarrhea and like it just was I couldn't I was just sick. Really sick. And nobody could figure out what it was. Nobody. And I just think it was the stress. It was maybe a parasite. It was some whatever. And I was a mess. And and the the first person to really help me begin to heal um was a woman named Maggie. And Maggie was a woman. She was a healer. Uh masseuse. She's amazing. And I had met her when I got home from that f that deployment. I couldn't turn my neck. My neck was so jacked up. And she was she had helped my mom who's a tennis player. Her scapula had frozen and she had released it and was a wonderful person. Amazing. So she had put me on her table for like 4 hours and finally I could move my neck for the first time in months. So I got out. I'm a mess. My mom's like, "You're not okay." And I'm like, "Yeah, no, no shit." And she's like, "Well, you ought to see Maggie. You ought to work with Maggie." And I was I was like, "I can't afford her. She's incredibly expensive, right? And but was phenomenal. She goes, "Well, she's got a son. Why don't you, you know, work her her son wants to learn how to play football and lacrosse, you know, why don't you barter?" So, I called her up and I said, "Hey, would you be interested?" And and she's like, "Absolutely." So, we trade. I started working with her son. I think he was 12 years old and there single mom, whole thing, rough upbringing, dad not in a picture. and and she would heal me and I'd get on the table. We'd probably meet once every two months and I would be on that table for 4 hours and that started the process my body and my nervous system. That was the beginning of me trying to figure out but you know by the next year I'm miserable in the job and and the you know this very kind nice young woman that I was with she was just like I I can't do this and I was like all right and then it was something like that a day or two later my buddy Joe Masterangelo who I'd gone through training with I was at team one with my first platoon with you know old Chochi And um he called and he's like he's like Rut I was like what's up? He's like hey man I need a guy. You me maritime interdiction program overseas. I need to know right now. And I was like I'm in. Typical team. Yeah. Typical team. I go I'm in. I'm in. Let's tomorrow. Yeah. No it was I He's like you got to be at Blackwater on Tuesday. I'm like the shooting school. He's like it's not a shooting school anymore. and and and then goes and then on Friday we're leaving for Azerban and I'm like what's Azerbjon and he's like it's a country north of Iran don't worry about it meet you in you know and so I it's like hey I'm taking off you know I go and I come we go over to Azar Bashan and we started this project and it's actually in the first part of Eric's book he talks about this project that we built and it was essentially we took over the fid FID mission cuz soft couldn't do it anymore because the opo was so huge in Afghanistan and Iraq at the time. So FID for the audience is basically US forces training indigenous forces on tactics. Yeah, that's right. So we went over here started did a week then in February March went over for 60 days. We redesigned their bases. Like I geeked out on that stuff. I love, you know, designing things. So, redesigned their pool. We did like like a mobile shoot house, the ranges. We brought them boats, motors, and we built a maritime interdiction program from scratch in Azerban. And it was me, Joe. We had this kooky old old team guy initially, but then we got this wonderful, amazing guy named Hugh Middleton who was a a former Damn Nick, team one guy, brilliant guy, and it was the three of us. And we built this program and all, you know, I remember the summer like the final FTX was to put these guys in Zodiacs on one of their cutters, board it right at dusk and then board it, you know, at night and that was it. and like we accomplished the task. And you know about the day before we were able to going into that FTX, we had finished retrofitting their pool. And this was like this old 1950s spetnaut base from the from the communist days of of Russia when it was a province. And we do the pool and we're like, "All right, we're going to have a hoo-ya day." And there was a hook and climb and we're like, "Everybody go get your wets suits and meet us out here. We're going to do this." And like hour and a half later, we're like, "Hey, where is everybody? Let's go." and we've got this interpreter and whatever. And they come out and I'm like, "All right, you guys ready? Here's the drill. We do it." They were going to just jump in, swim, climb up, jump out like a relay. Joe's sitting up on top of the thing. He's right here. I Right. Ready, go. They jump in water. They couldn't swim. [ __ ] So the day before we're supposed to go board underway and we'd already sent them out in the Caspian in the middle of the night doing basic, you know, maritime navigation drills. They no one knew how to swim, right? Cuz they said they had all been to Turkish buds. And I was just like, "Oh my god, they don't know how to swim." I'm like I'm like, "Huw, they're going to miss the ladder. They're going to get foreign fatigue. They're going to go into drink and they're dead. We're going to kill people. We're going to go to jail." and Azar Bjan and and you know it had been a wild ride. Aar bean's a trippy place man. I mean, it was it's really really wild. And I had struggled there for the first couple because of the breakup and that had failed and everything else, but then I I kind of snapped in and I got in shape and Joe Joe was a uh I think it was like a blue belt or purple belt at the time and you just he was like, "We're going to train." And so we would leave the thing and go to the national training site and he would just beat the piss out of me every Tuesday and Thursday and I didn't know what I was doing but he would just pound on me and we had this great relation. We lived in the Hyatt. It was just bizarre. Like it I called it the last outpost cuz that's where all the deals of the stands are done, right? Cuz one week you're in Hyatt and it's all the Americans, then the next week it's all the Russians, then the next week it's all the Arabs and and it's just like this cycle of peculiar place. It's like the cantina in in Star Wars, right? And um so we find out they can't swim and so Hugh looks at us like, "Well, you guys are going to be the safety swimmers." And we're like, "Wait, what?" Like, "You're going to jump overboard. Save the guy and then we'll get that." They did it flawlessly. They did it great. So I remember Gary Jackson, who was the the CEO at the time, was like, "Hey, great job. You guys will always have a job at Blackwater. You're good." And and then like two weeks later, I got a call uh and I was full-time. Like it was awesome. I was making six figures full-time. We were getting ready to do another one like a fid out in Paycom and like this like this was it. We were going to be the FID guys and write curriculum and all this. And I was like this is awesome. And I got my life back and and I got a call two weeks later from the head of training, Big Jim, and he's like, "Hey man, uh we just had to fire you. that contract's out. Uh, but if you want to go to Afghanistan, we got a gig for you. So, that September, I found myself in Afghanistan and I was working on the Afghan counterdug commandos. No [ __ ] Yeah. I didn't know any of this stuff. Yeah. What? How was that? Uh, um, eye opening, enlightening. That was the first time I started to really suspect um there was alterative motives going on in Afghanistan on our part. Yeah. What kind? Um we were training the the most the most uh incapable group of people to try and be commandos to take down the drug dealers. Mind you, at this time Afghanistan's GDP about 90% of it came from the sale of of raw opium and they had three major points that they would distribute over the use border in the north through Harat and Iran and then down through Queda into Pakistan. Right? Mind you, uh Carzi's brother was the third biggest drug dealer in in Afghanistan. And I found all this out from the DEA. We were working the DEA fast teams. These guys were the old cocaine cowboy days down in Colia back in the 80s and stuff and they were they were awesome. I love those guys, man. It was so fun. But we would train these guys, me and Joe and a couple other dudes and it was horrible. And then so I got the opportunity to go on a couple ops with him and you know still struggling in my own place and like I'm trying to still find that redemption and um I remember we hit one target up north and it was just empty. There was no one there but kids, right? Afghan compound full of kids, women and a couple dudes. We spread them up and and I remember like there's no one here. There's no opium here. There's no nothing. This is bizarre. But I do remember that the kids I it was the first time that the the destitution, the morale, the the abysmal nature of a future possibility for those kids hit me, you know, and that was the the birth of Frog Logic in that moment was like, oh my god, maybe there's something that I can effectuate greater change in life with than through the barrel of a done in my own pursuit of redemption. Maybe I can redeem myself by helping kids. And then I did another one which was another fiasco and I began to realize that we're not we're not doing anything with drugs. We're not this is just a sham. It's just spending of money uh to do all uh to portray that you know the American military or contractors whatever trying to we're we're making an impact on the drug distribution. And I remember we did this this uh uh trip our country league uh TL needed me and Joe to provide security. We got on this Hilo, went all the way up to Mazar Sheree and got dropped off and he went off with these other kind of guys and came back and we flew back and and I remember was like, "Hey man, what what was that all about?" And he said, "Well, we just met with the warlord who's like or the drug dealer up here." And I was like, "Did you where is he? Why aren't we interrogating? Why don't we bring back?" He's like, "Well, there's they got a deal going or something like he feeds us terrorists or whatever." And you're like, "Wait, what?" And then I found out this guy was pushing 1,600 pounds of opium across the USB bridge every week or something crazy. Every week. It was insane. It was insane. It was nuts like how much opium was leaving the country then. So I went over to the DEA guys. I'm like, well, what's what's this look like street value? What's And it was Afghan with Stan was still supplying the world with opium for heroin. They were still the number one distributor. and you meanwhile you're like Taliban isn't selling and all this and and I was like wait this is all a lie and that's when it really kind of hit me and what was other bizarre others I I picked up a last minute job going out they had said hey man you did really good redesigning the bases and stuff and the training facilities and John do you want to do that the side contract for the Afghan border police where you design the training the base the whole thing and then you know you lead this building project and I thought I'd get paid more and I didn't. And so I here I am doing three jobs getting paid for one as a contractor, not full-time. And I just again kind of got to that point where I was like, what am I doing with my life right now? This is this is not where I want to be. And out of that uh this this concept to work with kids emerged. And because I at that point that trip was the first time I really started reading the Bible and I remember I read the New Testament through that trip and that's when you really just if if the word you let the word hit you, it can change you. And it did. And I that's the inspiration for wanting to, you know, essentially put the gun down and and start working with kids. And so initially I was gonna try and go work with Doctors Without Borders or a U or, you know, a Red Cross or some organization that can go into these war torn areas and I can help kids or and then kind of work with kids on the side or just do something to help kids that have nothing. And if you you've been there, you've seen these kids have nothing. Essentially, by the time they're 13, the girls are essentially just receptacles for procreation. Little boys are raped. I mean, it's it's just a brutal brutal culture. And not all of them, but a heavy degree of them. And that was the thing I was like, "All right." But then you start to realize NOS's, they can't stand working with soft guys, right? Because you're like, "Are you a f an idiot? Are you are you an idiot? You can't go out there and do that. That's dumb." You know, and and they're like, "What do you mean? We're helping people." And you're like, "No." And in fact, you know, a team guy, Nick Czech, died um in an operation at at I think it was Red Squadron that did it where they went to go save a doctor and he was a point man. when they were going to hit the target, a guy came out, saw him, shot Nick going through the door, and Ed Buyers went in and kind of saved the dock and protected him and and received the Medal of Honor for that. So, I was like, "All right, I don't want to do that. That's not going to work." So, I came home that Christmas and was really kind of like, "All right, how do I do this?" And I'd read a couple different things. Three big things jumped at me. Teenage obesity was out of control. And I found an article about West Texas County that, you know, 13-year-olds were some exorbitant high percentage of those kids were morbidly obese. I found an article about girls teenage suicide was on the rise for the first time in 20 plus years or whatever. And then the other one I found from a couple psychologists who were studying the effects on young children from hyperconnectivity and they had coined this idea called internet withdrawal syndrome and it was essentially the desocialization of children who were hyperconnected and just lived on their screens. And these guys were kind of trend setting in terms of the study. And as we now know, the effects of it are are are pulverizing in particular postco. And I was like, well, I don't need to go overseas. I can just help kids in America. And let me try that. So I came up with the idea, the name Frog Logic, and it's, you know, me paying tribute to the frogman of the Navy. And what I thought I would do is I would fixate first on self-confidence cuz that was the thing the main thing that I had to rehabilitate coming out of school. And that's what I thought that Buds and the training had done. It was it rehabilitates your self-confidence through these really unique evolutions and the ideas and and so I wrote this, you know, teeny little kids book called forging self-confidence. and and um I started my first like frog logic motivational training program at the local YMCA and there was eight missions cuz I I had looked at everything I could pull out of or extrapolate that I had learned in in Buds and it was this like these 26 things and I condensed those down to eight core ideas or missions and I figured out how to dude meanwhile you know I'm just back from Afghanistan and I'm telling my dad, "Hey, I'm going to start a kids training company." He's like, "You know, I'm telling my friends, hey, I'm going to do this." And people are looking at me like, "What are what are you talking about right now? What what are you?" And I'm like, "No, I'm doing it." And the first guy that really believed in me was Jan Lennon. And Jan I had gone to high school with. And he was an attorney and he'd moved back to Florida and we ran into each other at a bar. And I'm like, "How you doing?" and is he's like good and so I said hey man why don't you go interview with my dad and all this but he was he's like this guitar savon and I said hey man would you come over I've got this idea I wrote these songs that go with the missions and we can do it and that'll get the kids moving and all this and he's like he's like that sounds cool and so he comes over and I read the lyrics and he just plays the song and and it was like oh my god and and next thing I know I'm at his daughter's second grade class I'm wearing my jungle boots boots, my tiger stripes, and my, you know, I had Frog Logic polo and and I'm kids are doing push-ups and he's in his suit and tie playing the guitar and and it was awesome. And it was awesome cuz it wasn't that. And it was like, okay, this could work. This could make me feel better. This could give me some redemption. Um, I did one more gig in Konis. uh training regular naval personnel uh had a board ships and at that point I was done like right after that I was had fallen out uh someone had accused me of of something and I was just like this is ridiculous I'm not doing this and left and went full on with frog logic and working with kids and that summer worked with a a foster care home for boys. Uh, I started talking to a couple schools. And then in the fall, a guy named Kieran Kennedy in Canada from Ottawa cuz I had started putting some stuff on the internet and he found me and was like, "Hey, I want you to come up and work with my school and if you come up, I'll introduce you to all these other schools and you can do your thing." And so from 2006 7 and into eight I spoke to thousands of kids in in North America. Wow. And introduced Frog Logic to everybody. You are a teacher and a mentor. I mean we we kind of skipped over this because I thought we were going to chat about it after the Afghan deployment. But I remember being an SQT. You you had a hell of a reputation. It was not bad. But uh you were a cool [ __ ] in all of our eyes and the FTXs that you put together with the mouage kits and all the medical stuff that we did trying to put IVs in somebody going on the beach in the back of a pickup truck. I mean, it was challenging and I learned a lot and I I still remember it to this day. And I also remember, you probably don't remember this, I was at my friend's house, Kyle Pollson. Yeah. who lived down in IB. Kyle died. Mhm. But he was he was renting a house with a couple people and you showed up for one reason or another. I don't even think you knew us. I don't know if it was an accident, but you pulled up on your Harley, drunk as a skunk. Maybe on some other stuff, I don't know. But but I was I think he had just ridden up from TJ and I was like, "Fuck, man. That dude is [ __ ] cool." I was like, "He's a badass instructor. He's got a great energy. Overly confident. Do not want to [ __ ] with that dude." And yeah, it just stuck with me. That's I mean, it stuck with me forever. But I mean, I appreciate And even afterwards, man, after I had gotten out of the agency, and we'll get to this stuff, but I mean, you really helped me, you mentored. I remember going up to your office in that building in Bokeh when I moved there and mapping my business out and all the different ideas. And it was, like I said, Ben, you were the only person to give me the time a day back then. Nobody else had time for me. You're There's just something in your eyes, man. All the way back in those days. I remember going to that that party. Remember coming back from TJ with Pat. We had gone down there and just That's who it was. Pat Babblet. That's right. Another crazy [ __ ] He made me look bad. Is he still alive? I think Pat's it I think he I'm not sure. The last I heard he had owned a bar in Cambodia where you could pay $100 and and shoot a water buffalo with an RPG. But Pat and I, we'd drive down into TJ, man. We go down and in and tense needs us. And what were you guys doing down there? How bad did it get? Uh, be honest. Remember, I was in a rough place. Oh, I know. Yeah. So, now I know. I didn't Nobody knew that at the time. Everybody thought you were Cuz I I You You learn how to put the facade on, right? So people don't see how much pain you're in and and and the way you do that in the teams, you just, you know, you put a little a little bit of sprinkle a little crazy on yourself and that can people have a tendency like I'm not going to ask him what's going on, you know, and and meanwhile I'm hanging out with I mean absolute madmen like I mean Scotty Wartz. I mean, me, Scotty, Johnny Satello, I mean, we would I mean, Pat Babick, I mean, it was like full tilt every time I'd go out with dudes. So, you know, I it was it was hard. There was a lot of a lot of uh trying to uh numb myself from what was going on. Um, but you know, I remember that party coming back and and I remember you just were I the thing for me was I always had the most respect for the youngest guys because of of Nick Hawks and Pete Scobel. Um, they were like I mean Nikki was 18 and Buds and I'll never forget a story. We were 208 and Mike McGrath was our OIC and he came out. We remember you used to like after the end of the day you'd get in the pit and like all right who has any qu you know gripes or concerns get it out and some you know you get the junior officers like oh we got to be more squared away and we got you know and it's like the hya and I remember one day Nikki raises hand he kind of saunters out in the middle and he goes any of you [ __ ] pricks don't feel like putting out then just quit now would you and this little kid like he's buck 35 five, soaking wet. And in that moment, I was like, "Holy cow, he the just the strength at that age." I mean, at 18, I was a blithering idiot. And to see young guys, and it's what it's like 96 97% dropout rate for guys under 19 or something like that. It's it's abysmal. And you were one of those young guys. I mean, dude, I remember the first time I saw you, I was like, "This guy's like 15 years old. What is he doing here? I mean, literally, that's how I felt. Well, I Well, I And it's like, but you were just you were feisty and tenacious. You had that look like those other guys and you weren't going to quit and and you absorb things quickly and so I I respected that and but you know, you're the where I was is like I don't you just you just drive on and so uh you know, I think I'm trying to remember when we reconnected. You know, we reconnected. We reconnected. What? I'm Well, actually, we reconnected briefly. Very briefly. Um, for one reason or another, I was in I went to Bokeh. Yeah. I don't remember what the hell I was doing there, but very briefly at your house. Yeah. And then the real reconnect happened when we got when we really started to get close is after that safe house got hit that I was at. Oh my god. We were contracted for the agency and you stepped off the helicopter. But we'll get there. Okay. We'll get there. So Frog Logic, you start that. You write books, speaking, mentoring, all kinds of stuff. I had a security company called Trident Security Solutions. I was trying to design curriculum, threedimensional curriculum with new technology because I thought I always hated PowerPoints because like you just recycle them, right? And then team guys, they'll just put a funny picture in and that's their addition to the curriculum, right? Or a funny video cuz videos were coming out and and I was like, this is ridiculous. There's so much and and I had this guy, this another buddy from St. Andrews who was doing incredible stuff with three-dimensional design. and his name was Dave Garham. And we I approached him and I said, "Hey dude, I've got this idea to take all the IG's from the military. We'll start in the SEAL teams and we'll turn them into three-dimensional." So imagine your SIG sour dissecting. you can see the function of it, how it disciplines your M4, uh your night vision, all your equipment and and then the other thing is on this system, you press one button, it translated into other languages, you know, and it's all on your disc instead of remember you'd travel with the cruise box and every IG you go everywhere with this huge box of cruise box. So now I was like everything fits in the CD folder and and we called it Trident Virtual Solutions TVs. And I remember we went out to Buds and pitched at Buds and all this and and I had no idea about, you know, the the the game and or anything. And so that kind of failed miserably, but but it was the it was the kids stuff that really really made me feel better. And then at that time I I I met my my ex-wife. Um and we had known each other for a long time and we kind of she kind of grew up you know and and together and she's younger and I had kind of like all right I need to change my life settle down and this is it. And so it seemed like we met and the opportune time was right after my last Blackwater thing. And and so I was like, "All right, my life's holy cow, I got some control." Uh I was getting in shape. I was, you know, I felt good about myself. Um and everything was going pretty well. And then, uh the economy collapsed and schools can't don't have any money. and I couldn't, you know, pay my rent and and I was like, "Oh, no. What are we going to do?" And I think it was in spring of of '08, a friend of mine reached out was like, "Hey, dude. I've got uh a gig that I think you'll like. Uh it's working with the agency and you'll be training case officers. Uh are you interested?" And I was like, "Absolutely." you know, yes, out of necessity, uh, financially for sure, but also to be able to go back and teach and then to be able to to work with the agency was I was like, "This is going to be the coolest thing in the whole world." Like finally, you know, the these guys are because by then you you knew that I understood the the power that they had to conduct operations and the control of information flow and and the role that they had played, you know, and were playing at a at a high level. And so just jumped at that opportunity. And so April of of uh of '08 was my first course. Um, and we ran this course on the Blackwater campus. It was not through Blackwater. They were called the US Training Center. They had sold. Eric had to s sell from all the fiasco that he had gone through. And and um I I remember showing up and I was like, "All right, this is going to be awesome." You know, and the whole idea is that case officers, you know, were colllocated on FOBS, regular case offs, not PMC, paramilitary case, they were on FOBs. now and the kinetic nature and the optempo was so insane that they were integrated with J- Sock units and other you know regular you know tier three tier 2 soft units and they were like it information was being converted into actionable intelligence in real time and so these guys like you know you I mean you know the deal they're on in the fob they do a meet they get intel that you know somebody the buddy's you know, brothers, sisters, cousins, aunt, uncle is in the town for the next four hours. He's a bomb maker. You give him the bag of cash. Well, you know, it it becomes like the the country chief can make it actionable or the even the base chief in some cases. And and so these guys were then the the task unit guy, the dev group guy or the delta guy would be like, "All right, you're getting in the bird with us and you're going to P this guy cuz we don't know the case. we haven't worked and we're not doing it. And they would pull these young kids who had one week of pistol, one week of long rifle in in the farm and they'd be operational with these guys. And so my assumption was my job was to was to turn them into operators. And I'll never forget I show up first course and Dave was the the course lead SF guy. loved him from Baltimore. Just total Snapart had funny as hell. Great dude. And then the the guy from the agency, man, he looked like George Foreman. He was awesome, man. But he was just the coolest dude. And uh I was like, I'm working for the CIA. I was like, all right. And so first two days were medical and I taught that. And then we go into shooting. It's pistol on the course. I've got this female case officer and she points the gun and she shoots. And we're at like 2 m, 3 m, whatever it was, you know, and single shot, single D. And she misses the target. I was like, "Okay, let's do it again." She misses again. And I was like, "Give me the gun." And I, you know, keyhole five round rhythm drill. And And I was like, "It's not the gun." And she goes back and she misses again. I'm like, "What in the [ __ ] is going on? What is this Jason Bourne bullshit?" You know, and I'm I'm screaming at this poor like team guy [ __ ] And she starts tearing up, you know, and I'm like, there's no godamn crying in combat, you know, and I'm just a complete [ __ ] to this poor girl. And and Dave's like, hey, hey, hey, man, why don't you go get some ammo? And I was like, I'll be right back, you know, and and I'm walking away and this dude who's I I didn't met him yet. He just showed up and he's like, hey, man, come here. Come over now. I was like, "What's up?" And he's like, "Hey, you're you're team guy, huh?" I was like, "Yeah." He's like, "You're an instructor, too, right?" And I was like, "Yeah." And he's like, "Okay." He goes, "Man, you if you keep that up, like they're they're going to ask you to leave at lunch." And I'm like, "What? What do you mean?" He's like, "Yeah, they don't play. They're not operators. They're not here to become operators." He goes, "I've seen it. I've seen team guys land overseas in Iraq, go into a brief, start, you know, spouting off and then get right back on the bridge and go home like in the same night. And I was like, "Holy cow." And uh that was tanto. No [ __ ] Yeah. And that's where I met Chris and and it was the best advice I ever got. And so that changed it. And and what was amazing for me is I was with a really amazing group of guys. There's Brian, some other dudes, and um John um who ended up being in Benghazi and and and Tonto was there and I learned all right, what can I learn from them? And so for two years I got this incredible education because we'd have you know 15 to 20ome case officers come through and there some people would have 27 years you know being done all kinds of insane amazing things and I would identify somebody I really admired uh and um I would say hey can I have breakfast with you? Can I have lunch with you? Can I have dinner? do you want to get a beer afterwards? And I would just ask them, "What do you do and how does it work?" And they taught me more about um people than anybody had ever taught me because that's what they do for a living. They're the world's best interviewers and they're brilliant, you know, and they don't need to be Jason Bourne. All they have to do is be intellectual and sophisticated and understand the dynamics within the human condition which cultivate different motivations, right? And if you can learn someone's motivations, you can extrapolate information. and that I got this overwhelming education and it really transformed me and it became something and I met this one in incredible guy Todd and um we just became immediately close friends and former EOD guy and had been on on on mobile and was home because he had some infection in his ear from Afghanistan and lost his balance and so he was teaching now and He was amazing and we became friends and I loved it and I loved it. But my problem was is like I just really gotten engaged and was serious and had pl starting to plan a wedding and I'm gone 15 days on 15 days off 15 days on from April till November December and that's really how my relationship started right and so I finished that um that first year she had said hey I don't want you to do this anymore and I was like, okay. So, I went to work for another friend, actually, Jan Lennon. It was a mortgage marketing company out of the Boston area. And so, now I'm I'm, you know, one minute I'm teaching case officers, you know, how to better integrate with Jacock units and learning and in the midst of it, you know, because it was 08. It was the height of everything going on. And now I'm like showing up at banks and trying to promote this marketing business. And I was, God bless him. I mean, he was wonderful to me. Jeff's an amazing human being. And he believed in me and I was like, I'm going to support you and get you out of this. And and I couldn't do it. Like got married in November. And then by March, I was like, I'm done. I'm going back. And so immediately started ' 09, all through '09. And then in the beginning of the fall is when Todd was like, "Hey man, do you want to deploy? Do you want to do this? you want to go mobile? And I was like, yeah, I do. I really do. I I hadn't been deployed like that since ' 05. I felt like a hypocrite. I felt like I was saying things that I didn't really know. I didn't know the operations of it. I was just, you know, I I felt um almost felt like I was a fraud, you know, really. Yeah. It was it was again that insecurity came out. remember I was still seeking the retribution. I was still seeking the the the salvation of the experience and I wanted to uh redeem myself and I felt the only way I could redeem myself if I went down range again and was got involved in that. And I remember I was uh he's like, "All right, the head recruiter is going to be at the long distance range and we're out there and we're doing just some sighting and stuff or whatever and and this truck pulls up and all of a sudden I I hear this voice. I'm like, I know that voice and I turn around and and it's a a friend of mine that I had been in the teams with was at gone to the paramedic refresher and it's him and he looks at me, he goes, "What's up, Rut?" He goes, "So, you want to go overseas, huh?" And I was like, "Yep." He's like, "Done. I'll get you in the training course." And uh and that's it. So, that like the next month I went through the 3-week training course. And like you said, I remember my one of my my favorite part there a couple of my favorite parts when you did the interview with Tucker Carlson, but you talked about it and I thought you did a tremendous service. I thought it it was tough. It was hard. The shooting was hard. Shooting package was hard. The you know the surveillance stuff, the calm stuff and I really enjoyed it. Met some great had a couple you know buddies team guys. Yoast was with me and and uh there was I remember there's a ranger Chris the rock and man he was hard just tough and it like I still talk to Chris. Do you really? Yeah he's doing good. Yeah, I I every now and then I I'd send him an email or something like that, but I he would just call me out because after Tonto had told me like, "Hey, like my whole mentality was like I'm going to be Mr. Positive all the time, right? And I'm going to be that guy." That drove him nuts, man. He would be like, "You're so full of shit." He's like, "Shut up." I I remember it was it was freezing cold in Eastern Maryland at whatever that dude who did the CQD [ __ ] was. I forget what his name was. And and uh freezing outside. I'm like, "This is awesome, man." You know, and he's like, "Shut up." but he would just call me out and and and but he was like he's the one who set the tempo and and and so went through it passed that and then got a date a deployment date for January 2010 and but that last class I did and this was the trippy thing that last class I did um we had a woman come through that um was a a big deal. She had been on the original Bin Laden desk. Um, and she they were grooming her for seventh floor, but she wanted to do a combat deployment. She wanted to go find Zar Howi. And and I remember she came through and I remember them telling me, "Hey, you know, there's a lot of eyes on this. I want, you know, they're like, Rut, you're a good you're one of the best instructors. really get behind her and explain not only what it is that she needs to be aware of with the units she's going to have at her disposal and around her, but also really emphasize how positive uh the group, you know, GRS is going to be and how much they can assist her and what they can do. And I remember, you know, when we graduated, we went to dinner, me, her and another junior co and and and I remember just talking to her and was really emphatic about the dynamics of being downrange and the complexities of it and just was not forceful, not rude, not anything, but tried to be as adamant as I could about the importance of of working together and really what that meant and because I really didn't know the dynamic. I'd never been downraged operationally with the agency yet and and um and and I remember graduated class. Good luck, you know, God bless. And and was on holiday uh in Colorado. We we were coming home from that trip and I found out that that's when that uh double agent blew himself up in was it was Shkin, right? Coast. She was in the coast and and eight uh GRS and and case officers were killed and she was she was a part of that and you know they had you know struggled with the dynamics of the security profile for that because he was telling her like I have met with how I know where he is. I've got the info. And and so they kind of uh altered some protocols and and he detonated himself. And I remember we lost uh some good guys. Jeremy Weiss was fresh out of the teams and on on GRS Southside was one of the most respected guys in the whole program and and he died and and and then some some of the case officers as well too. And and that was like, okay, welcome to go cuz like the next week I was on the bird over and landed in Afghanistan in January of 2010 right after that. And so what was your first trip? Uh January 2010 where Lash that's when we that's when we met. That was my first trip. Like I got off the plane, went over the middle of the night, walked in and and this was my favorite part of Well, you were my favorite part of that whole thing, but that's that's next story. I walk in and there's Evan Hayer and he was a greeter and and he was just like, you know, Evan, he's just kind of like he's always just kind of like chill, right? And I was just like, "All right." And he's like, "You hungry?" I was like, "Yeah, yeah." So, we sat down, started eating. Everybody else kind of took off and we just started talking. And one of the questions that I always asked people dating all the way back to Blackwater was, "What's your plan?" Like, "How are you going to get out of this? How are you going to figure out how to put the gun down and move on with your life?" And I was sincere. I was interested. And you know at that moment the the number one response was I'm going to I'm going to do about four years of contract and save up enough and then I'm going to open a bar. You know that was that was the answer. And I was like that's such a bad answer. And I remember Evan was the first guy that had a whole idea all planned out how he was going to do it and what he was going to do. And I was fascinated. We talked for like six straight hours. Was it Black Rifle coffee? No. No, it was he had so one of his original ideas was to start a a crowdsource funding for veterans startup companies. It was brilliant and and he had some other tech ideas and gear stuff and his mind is just fascinating once he starts talking about it and yeah, Black Rifle didn't emerge until a few years later and um but we became really fast friends and he was the one this is what you got to think about this is what you got to do and uh and then I know it was a couple days later I was on that Hilo and uh landed in Lash Let's hear your side. So again, did they tell you what you were walking into? They didn't [ __ ] tell you. Uh I mean remember the country T who I liked a lot? Um um race. Yes. Loved him. I thought he was brilliant. I thought he was great. And he was kind of like, well, you're going to a site that's kind of been going through some stuff. They they had to leave the safe house, but didn't get the story at all. And there's a new you're moving into a new base that's being built. And I was like, "Yeah, awesome, man. Cool. Wherever. Fired up. Let's go." And I remember taking a Hilo ride down there. And we landed and I remember seeing the British footprint and then we landed off to the side, not near it or in it or anything. I was like, "Where are we landing out here?" And I came out and just trying to look around and it's still spinning and I'm like, "What's up? Where, you know, who's, you know, and I'm and I'm loud or whatever and they're like, "Come on, you with us? Get over here and get in the vehicle." And got my, you know, my kit bag and put it in and and you were there, but I didn't know it was you, you know, and I remember we drove out. It was like into the other place and the lights came on and I was like, "Holy cow, I know you." And and you're like, "What's up, Rut?" You know, and I was like, and you're like, and you you said your name and I was just like, "Holy cow." I was like, "What are you doing here, man?" And you're like, "You were just pissed. You were so living." I was like I was like, "Dude, like you're my connection, man. you're the team guy. I need a team guy, you know, and and you just could not speak like you were fired up. And that's what I remember was was the introduction. I was pretty pissed. Yeah. So, yeah, before you got there, just to fill up the audience. I just switched from Blackwater to Sock for a pay raise. This is my first appointment with Sock. met a met Evan connected with him immediately great great great great rapport and um he's like oh you're going to the site lash lash cargo I'm like okay go down there little bitty safe house you could hear the interpreters [ __ ] each other in the middle of the night none of the agency blue badgers or the agency employees had ever been to combat zones, at least to my knowledge, especially the chief of base. And we were doing all these meets and the at the time Lashkar Ga Helman Province was the hottest zone in the country and we would go and we would meet these people, you know, we do our little SDR. For those that don't know, it's kind of like a counter surveillance type route that you would take in and you know vain thing working with agency doing that kind of a job is don't be time and place predictable. Mhm. Well, chief of base was lazy, had no experience in a war zone. He was a cold war guy. And I come down there and immediately start picking things apart, which still hadn't figured out. That's not how the agency works. They don't like constructive criticism, but I said it anyways because I knew some [ __ ] was going to happen. And I said, "Hey, um, in a morning brief said, "Hey, we've uh already run this route three or four times, same time, same route. We're time and place predictable. We need to change things up. Of course, they blow it off. I'm like, well, we're going to get [ __ ] hit. We're in this little house in this little compound. About 12 hours later, the gunfire starts and they I can't I think it I can't remember if it was Taliban or Al Qaeda or who, but they had taken over a a high-rise building in town. Local Afghan police were trying to take care of it. They they just started chucking grenades down, shooting RPGs or bullets flying everywhere. We couldn't get a good vantage point to shoot back. This went on for like 10 [ __ ] hours. It was insane. And we were pinned down. We couldn't get out. So, we started burning all the classified material. I remember the chief of of base was hiding in a bathtub going, "Oh my god, we're going to die. We're going to die." I am my buddy. You know, do you remember DVO? Yeah. DVO yelled in looked in the bathroom like, "What the [ __ ] are you doing in there? Get up and get a [ __ ] gun." And that, you know, so anyways, we're burning all this [ __ ] The Brits actually had to come extract us out of there cuz we couldn't [ __ ] get out. And so they sent in this huge convoy, a big show of force to come extract us out. Then they dump us in this [ __ ] old base that we're building with no back, no front gates, no nothing. Yeah. No front gates. 140 local workers inside the wire every day. Yep. And so I'm [ __ ] pissed. I'm like, how the I'm like, how the [ __ ] did I wind up here? I thought this was supposed to be better. And uh yeah, I was demoralized. I was demoralized because they weren't taking any constructive criticism. We just got hit. Could have gotten killed. It actually came out later that they had pinpointed exactly what house we were in. They had over a hundred fighters on the other side of the river just about a click away, a kilometer away. And so they started doing drone passes to try to scatter them. It was nasty. And uh they told us we had reinforcements coming. So we go out, wait for the Hilos to come in. Did you come in with Race? Race was already there, I think. No, you came in with Race. Cuz he he had to go. Yeah. Me, Race, and K. And Yeah. He comes down. I think Evan was with us, too. No, Be later. He came a couple weeks later. He didn't come while I was there. Okay. You left and then he came out until we got another guy. That's what it was. And the way I remember it, you jump off the hilo and you start yelling. And I was like, "What the [ __ ] Is that who I think it is, bro? Is that you?" Like, "Yeah, yeah. Who is that?" And uh and then and then I gave you the lowdown and you're like, "What? What the [ __ ] is going on here?" When we were back and you Yep. you had that that super positive attitude and I'm like get that [ __ ] away from me. I don't want to [ __ ] hear it. You're running around trying to set up oak horses in the [ __ ] camp and I'm like I'm not doing that [ __ ] There's no [ __ ] way you The morale was pa it was it was abysmal and the morale was bad through the whole community because of what had happened. coast and and I was like, "All right, how do we even operate when every you that just happened? I'm at this place. Coast just I'm like, this is a [ __ ] show, dude." And I was like, "All right, I can just start." I just kind of lifted people up, man. And God, that did not work. It did. It did not work at all. It did not work at all. But funny story about that. But I don't know if you I don't know if you were there yet or not, but uh that same chief of base after this happened, he wanted to he still continued to act like a hard ass. And there was all the We had a cat problem. Lots of [ __ ] stray cats everywhere pissing [ __ ] and all over the place. He's like, "Hey, get rid of these [ __ ] cats." And my buddy Scott goes out and he puts these bricks in a pillowcase and he walks up to the he walks up to the chief of station and he's he goes, "Hey, I got the solution to your cat problem." And he starts flinging this pillowcase around full of bricks. and he just goes slams these [ __ ] this pillowcase full of bricks on the on the concrete right in front of him and his face his face was just like oh my god I can't believe you did that he goes it's just [ __ ] bricks it was Dude it was the funniest that was I think that might have been the only time I laughed that entire [ __ ] deployment other than when we got [ __ ] faced off that bottle Jack Daniels and whoever brought my god and I wound up falling in a hole and sleeping the sleeping it off in there until race comes over he's looking at me he's like rough night last night dude that was a good night though cuz everybody needed to blow off a little steam you know do you remember the the PMCO Jeremy and then his guy who looked like Were they there when Lee Lee who looked like uh Um, the guy who was uh the cowboy look like the metal metal gear solid guy. The which one? The Metal Gear Solid guy? Yeah. Yeah. Snake or whatever the hell his name is. But those guys were they crack like every time I'd need a sanity check, I'd go over to them and Oh, I wasn't doing it for you? No, dude. No, I I'd be like, "Holy cow, dude." Like, he's about ready to bust a gasket, dude. and like nothing like and I'd come near you and you'd look at me and I'd be like, "All right, I'm gonna go over I'd go the other way, dude." Yeah, that was uh that was my indoc like that was my first trip. [ __ ] I didn't realize that was your first trip. My first trip and and like leaving that and getting home, I'm like, whoa. Me, too. I was like, whoa, am I can I do this again? And and the next the next coast had just happened. And I had mentioned that I was like this just happened. Yeah. It was everything had gone wrong and then I went into the place where it was the worst and and nobody was was was I think the morale was just at a at a all-time low at that point. What did you think of the agency overall? The entire experience? I think they I mean because I did another I did a 90-dayer that summer which was better there. It was a lot better. We didn't get much worse than Yeah. It couldn't have gone any worse. But we got a good TL who was good. He worked with the guys a lot better. We had some guys doing good case work and it was good. It was long. I mean it was the summer and in last 90 days. Um, oh, you went back the last 90. Yeah, I did a 90day. And it was crazy cuz cuz my ex was pregnant with our first and this was the one I was like after that I was like, "All right, this is the one I'm going to get shot or blown up on or like." And that was the summer I got saved. That was the summer I came to Christ. How did that happen? I I had been working hard, reading a ton of the Bible, really trying to understand and and I think I got to the place where I don't know if I felt like I deserved Christ's love, but I know I was loved by Christ. And I wanted to make sure that if I died and my child was born that my child would know that I was a Christian. And so I I called a little pastor at the church we went to in Del Rey and it's like, "Hey man, you know, giant beard whole thing and like I want to get baptized." And so I went in, got baptized, and then left right after that for 90 days. And um that was awesome cuz on that trip I really leaned in to reading the Bible and really tried to understand it. And you know, um, it was it was a a good it was a better trip than that first one for sure. And so I I began to appreciate I I became friends. There was one guy that had been around a long time who had actually come through training a couple years before who was there who I really liked, Robert, and and he was wonderful to me and really was uh in insightful and was uh uh understanding and was good. And so I think at that point I was the job was was it was good but it wasn't what I thought it was going to be. I thought I would be doing a lot more you know sneak and peak stuff and all kinds of stuff. But um I remember that summer also too was when the Maria push began and I remember we had a a PMCO that had come out. He was a former I think colonel in the Marine Corps and his son was out there in a Marine Corps unit and they were doing overt daylight patrols and a guy a kid that was in front of his son had tripped an IED cuz they were just planting them every night. They'd walk through and blow these poor kids up. and and um I remember him and the pain in him and how frustrated he was with what the regular military was doing, what the mission was. And also that summer is where I began to understand the the the problems of that there was no genuine mission. It was just uh presence and it was coming up with things to figure out how to do just collection and whatever. And you know, I think the the the JC guys were still doing great work and some of the the the the GB guys were doing great work and you know, but I I I was so so new. I I I it was difficult. It wasn't until the next deployment. So I got home um uh first child was born and then about 30 days later is when I went started my second rotation I went to Pakistan and that's where things got interesting. How so? It was just a different thing. It was it was more of the the sneak and peak stuff. It was low profile. It was it was sketchy, you know, where we were and and it was real work. Like it felt like it was real work cuz, you know, we were, you know, in western Pakistan Pash and and, you know, there was a lot of stuff. That's where everybody kind of works things out and what, you know, all the the stuff that's going on. And I met some really talented guys. Um, really talented guys. That's when I met Max and I met some other guys and I'll never forget, you know, I'm still trying to portray, you know, Captain Positivity. And I'll never forget, we're in the chat hall in the middle of the night and I couldn't sleep and I go in there, Max is in the corner with a cup of coffee and I'm like, "What's up, man? How you doing?" And he goes, so I'm like, he's like, "Shut the [ __ ] up." And I'm like, "What? What's up, dude?" He's like, "I know you're not like this. I know you're not that motivated. I know you're not that happy, so shut up. And I and and immediately became good friends. And and that was where that was interesting. That was really I don't know if you remember the guy, the Green Beret who was in Karach who they tried to rob him. Um and the guy in the motorbike turns around, points the gun at him, he pulls out his pistol. Ray Davis. That's right. They got his book right over here. That's right. And that created an international incident. And what I didn't know at the time, you know, that was the beginning of the leadup for the bin Laden raid had begun. And that made operations really difficult because they were that just all hell came loose down on the thing. And and so we our profile really ramped up and it was I remember, you know, hey, we really got a lot more intel. They we got to be aware, we got to pay attention. And and then I was there for like 60 some odd days I think it was. Left, came home. We moved with a newborn up to up to um North Carolina. North Carolina to Asheville, remember? Cuz you had just moved to Bokeh. And you're like, "Dude, where where are you going?" And I was like, "I got to get out of this town, man. I can't be here." and and I'd moved up there in the hopes we'd find some mountain house and you know build a little range and just kind of have some peace and and then um I remember the bin Laden raid happened and then right after that cuz I when I was up there I had developed some videos and started because I was like man I can't keep I don't know if I can keep doing this like this isn't going to be healthy. It's definitely not healthy for my relationship. It's definitely not healthy for me cuz I was still chasing something that really wasn't going to happen, right? You're not going to get into that. I mean, how many how many GRS guys you ever know that got into the huge firefight and the you know, and the whole thing and and not a lot. And so, you know, it's all pretty low pro and if you're good at what you do, it's nobody knows you're there and you do it subtly and and that was the thing. And so I started like going all right and I remember right after the bin Laden raid a person had called contacted me through my website and was like hey do you want to do a speaking engagement for this Fortune 100 company and I was like absolutely yeah all in and she's like okay it's about an hour talk how much do you charge and I was so dumb I I was like okay a lot is a daily rate right and it was like 750 at the time or whatever I was like okay I'm going big. Like, this is a big company. I'm going big. I was like, $2,000 and I I will you hire me and I'll do whatever you want for 24 straight hours. Like, I'll do breakouts, I'll do training, I'll do team building, whatever you want. And the lady stops. It was so funny. Her name was Darcy Bose. And she had been the agent. She'd been Oprah Winfreyy's agent at one time. and she worked a lot of the Bulls, the Chicago Bulls back in the 90s were worked with her and now she had she plays speakers with and she stops. She goes, "Hey, listen. Can I be frank with you?" And I was like, "Yeah." She goes, "That's the dumbest number I've ever heard." And I was like, "What? What do you mean?" She goes, "Just cuz you're a Navy Seal, you should charge 5,000. And if you can actually speak and you're articulate, you should you could charge 10." He goes, "Here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to tell them 6,000. I'm going to take a,000 and give you five. How's that? And I was like, $5,000 for one speech. And I was like, oh my god. And I did that and then a week later I redeployed back to Pakistan. And this time it was sketchy. It was just we were we felt like we were always on the defensive. It got so sketchy. Pash, you know, and there was one point uh one thing that really kind of has stuck with me and what was really a pivotal moment for my beginning to lose faith in some of the institutions that I had held on a pedestal. And that was um after the raid obviously the doctor who had gone and and led us you know found out it was him he got wrapped up and they were holding him in a jail in Pesh and I don't know where it came from or what it started but it it kind of emerged that all right we're going to go you know storm this jail break him out take him with us and and get him out of dodge and and get him out of country and and it got shut down. And I don't I don't know if that guy's still in jail. I don't know what's happened to him. I don't know. But that was that was that was painful. Um and that that's when you start to realize, oh, there's a different way of doing things. Um and the rest at the point we ended up having to leave Pesh uh get out. I mean I remember we were coming they had asked me to develop a whole emergency plan like what do you do if we cuz they we were getting like we had one group of guys get shut down brought you know at night checkpoint video uh TV show TV cameras they're sitting in their kit. So then there was like stories. I remember one story in the new P that Blackwater assassins are in Pesh and the only way you can kill them was with silver bullets and we had that up and like bizarre stuff but it it got heavy. It got sketchy and we had incredible guys out there and they were and so we ended up pulling out and and producing back to the consulate and we took off and went to Islamabad and spent the rest of the summer in Islamabad operating and that was a whole different thing too. Now it's like you're in a city doing it and it was a whole different game. And again there was some amazing amazing guys. There was this uh Green Beret medic who was just out there, but like he was dialed in like he had it down pat. He knew how to drive low pro. He knew how to mingle in in the city low pro. He was an animal in the gym and like he I was just like and he was a brilliant medic and I was like all right. And then I also met Randy Rhodess and the combat chassis and I just fell in love with that guy and you know he was hilarious and his look and take on the whole thing and he like kept me smiling and then Max and then ended that finished that and then came home and then went back one more time in the fall and and that was the end of it for me. What year did you stop contracting? Nove I was September October November of 2011 cuz I missed I missed I missed Blair's first birthday and that was devastating and I came home and and my ex was just like if if you keep going we're done. And I didn't want to lose my family and I didn't want to lose anything else. So I hung it up, you know, and that was that was probably the one of the hardest things I ever did, but because I never got redemption, but I was okay in my faith that like, okay, I'm I'm going to go all in on this other thing, this this trying to help people with Frog Logic and and training and motivational coaching and stuff. And and I'll never forget I like I was home and I was praying hard on it like God, you know, give me something. What do I do? How do I how do I move on? And out of nowhere, uh a guy who I'd gone through training with back in the day, Kyle Crowberger, had reached out, had seen my stuff online and was like, "Hey man, uh do you still speak to companies?" And I was like, "Yeah, I do, as a matter of fact." And he's like, "Do you suck?" And I was like, "I don't think so. I think I'm okay." And he was working for a uh mutual fund company called Pioneer Investments. And he's like, "If you're any good, we use speakers all the time. If you're any good, I'll use you. Then my buddy will use you." And that and I think I did something like 30 events that year. And that launched my speaking career where I didn't have the contract anymore. Wow. Yeah. And that was the transition for my new life. But we we got a lot of friends that are still contracting. Yeah. Some have been contracting over 20 years now. Yeah. And you know, you get sucked into that money. It's about what? Maybe 250,000 on the low end, maybe maybe 350 on the high end if you're killing yourself. Yeah. Yeah. What advice do you have for guys that are caught in that that hamster wheel that want out that feel trapped? Maybe they weren't smart with their money. They want out. They want to rebuild their family. Humble yourself first and just give up the sensation you're chasing. You've done it enough and just restart. The problem is the identity shift. Um, you know, there's, you know, there's institutionalization, right, is the is the term that people use. You do one thing for so long, that's all you are. That's all you can ever become. You see it with inmates become institutionalized. You see it military personnel. Professional athletes suffer from it tremendously. You know, you you're a professional athlete. You start at four years old playing organized sports. 12, 13, you separate. You're put in a bubble. You're groomed. You know, then you go D1. Then you go pro. And next thing you know, you're 24 or 5 years old. You've been going for 20 straight years. Your entire identity is encapsulated and your performance on a field, on a court, on wherever. And it's over and you don't know what to do. The same thing carrying a gun for a living. Like that's it. And it's a pretty substantial indoctrination, right? I mean, you you've experienced it. You've seen it. You you contracted for an extended period of time. and you you get to that point and it's all you know it's all you you think you can know but there's there's a way out and you start with humbling yourself and you start from scratch I mean I remember when I first started speaking I was horrible it was horrible and just reps and reps and then I started to devise when I was in Pakistan I wrote my first adult book and I took the core concept of that confidence, the self-confidence book and I turned it into an adult book and I I didn't know what I was doing. It was so funny. I'd reach out to my cousin who's this, you know, he he's written six novels, you know, that turned one into a movie, one, you know, I mean, he's a brilliant guy, top guy, random. And I would call him and I'd be like, "Hey, man, I'm writing this thing and this book. It's like this cheesy self-help." And he'd be like, "Just write what you feel, figure it out, edit it, and then put it out and see what happens. And then adjust from there and do it again and do it again." And I think it's the fear of starting over for people and that loss of identity because we spend so much time, we invest so much pain and suffering into cultivating the personality that we believe we're that it's fixed within us. And that fixed personality is seems it becomes almost a crutch if you will. No, crutch is the wrong word. It becomes a um almost like maybe a guiding rod for us, right? you're holding on so tightly to this thing and even if you don't recognize that you're you're you're you're entrenched and you're not moving forward but it's still you have this identity that that is that has generated a value in yourself a high degree of a value right if you're Navy Seal that's an important identity if you're an athlete it's important identity if you are a lawyer or if you own a business Those are big identities, but when all of a sudden they're no longer viable for the development or the growth or your momentum forward, you have to let go of that and you have to go wander the desert. And that's the hard thing for people to do. But that's how we grow. That's how we grow in that pain, that humility, that suffering. And and so that's what I recommend. I mean, I've I've talked to dozens of guys like for, you know, I was one of the first guys out there doing it. I mean, I I I remember I I started my first podcast in 2013, right, called Navy Seal Radio and I was like one of the first guys out there doing it and and I was speaking and started working with sports teams and guys would get out and they'd call me up like, "Hey, Rut, I think I want to try this speaking thing." Like, how do you do it? And I' and I'd spend as much time as I could with them trying to just explain what I did and how I did it. And it's not perfect. I mean, it it wasn't great. Other guys have had a lot more success than I have, but it's really trying to coach them through that that loss of of self that they thought they needed forever in order to be able to create something new. And that's what I I suggest to people like there's it's we go through changes constantly and that's change is the hardest aspect of of of life right but we also know in particular us the greatest lessons that we do learn we learn the hard way and so that's the only way that's the way that Christ learned and taught us and that's the way we have to learn but you have to be humbled in that that suffering want to bounce around a little bit here. Sure. Back when I found my faith in Sedona after Dan died, you and Janna were there with me. Mhm. And at that time that was not on my radar at all. You almost kind of pushed it on me. And at the time I was, you know, pretty fresh out of psychedelics, was really into energy and all this other [ __ ] And I remember talking about frequencies. Mhm. Do you remember this conversation? Absolutely. I also remember where you almost punched me at lunch. By the way, that we still have to address this other one. We almost skipped over that portion, but we'll get there. Okay. But you had mentioned that something about when the sea was parted, they used the the god, all three god frequencies. Do you remember this? Can you explain that? That was the first thing that anybody had ever told me that actually grabbed my attention. And then fast forward two or three days and I had that experience up on the up on the vortex. Yeah. Maggie is the person who introduced me to that in my life. Uh and at that time she was pretty pretty connected to Native American culture. And and if you understand anything about people that are ultraconnected to to nature, that's what they're feeling. That's the sensation, right? the the energy of a new dawn of of a lightning storm, a tornado, right? The static that comes with a hurricane or whatever it is, you feel all that and that's energy, right? That's those are those frequencies changing and they're they're changing on a on a level that's beyond our most of the time beyond our perceptions, right? Beyond our our sens senses. And so I think for me the first time I had ever really understood is when she would put her hands on me and heal me. And I was like, you know, it was amazing. I was under like everything about me felt better. And I also remember as I got deeper and deeper into my faith, I started to recognize that when you hear or read the different sermons and you think about that and and the one I think for me that really stands out is when they were on the sea and the sea becomes tumultuous and and you know they think they're going to drown and that their ship's going to sink and Peter and everybody's scared and what does Christ do? He he walks out on the water and he says, "Come to me." You know, and so his whole energy was different, right? He was calm. He was he was not allowing nature to distract him for what his mission was, which was to instill a deeper faith in in those men on that boat. And and what did he do? He asked Peter to come out and to trust him, that faith in him. And he didn't. He walked out on water and then and then he went back to that consciousness, that human consciousness. And I remember I I forget who exactly introduced me to the God frequencies and I think when I w it was when I was in uh North Carolina and um I have we have some friends that have a beautiful mountain house out there. um really amazing people and been friends with them a long time and they have a um a labyrinth on their property and I remember one of the times when John and I went up there when we were first together and we had someone come in, you know, put us in the labyrinth and kind of read our energy and and and there's there's a vibration. Everything has a vibration, right? Any living thing, there's energy moving. It's it's electricity. And I remember being introduced to that concept that God has his own particular energy and that's what shapes the universe and so if that energy is what comes through the word right and the word is what shaped right God spoke and all was created God spoke and we were created God spoke you know and and and I think you know the the metaphor of of Adam and Eve and us you wanting to know more or wanting to get away from that frequency or that energy, you know, that's when that that that self-consciousness emerged and that that shame emerged and and then, you know, we left Eden, which was that purity of energy. And so that was the place and and in North Carolina is one of those energy vortexes supposedly. And then Sedona, there's another one out there, too. And and and the idea is like there's certain places on the earth that vibrate more intensely than others. And there's, you know, maybe that's the earth emitting its own signal into the universe because the earth is connected to God and connected to the universe. And so if you can get in that, it can reshape and kind of reestablish um the frequency in you. And I remember, you know, we were so excited to go out with you guys and and you know, when you showed up, it was it was heavy, man. Things were changing for you rapidly and and and I just like I was in a really good place because of of Janna. I mean, it was a little challenging obviously because of COVID and what had happened and all that, but I I felt strong and and I remember like, "Hey, man. remember once we left the restaurant, we were out on the thing. It's like like listen, you just have to give into it. You have to be able to feel it and not question it and just open your heart to it and it'll hit you and it'll it'll it'll seed itself in you. And I think, you know, that's that's what happened. You you were now in the right time and space for it. You were ready for it and it happened. Yeah. Let's move into Let's move into that night that you almost killed me with a [ __ ] dog. I mean, I had had a suicide attempt maybe a couple months before then. Mhm. Called you. You were my first call. Mhm. I mean, what was that like? The divorce was before we go to the divorce. What was that like when I called you? I Oh, it was it was a gift. It was a real gift cuz a lot of guys don't call that shame of it. They don't want to talk about it. They don't want to expose that they're in that space, right? It's like I'm I'm not strong and and I'm breaking down and I don't know what to do. and I actually made an attempt and and there's just shame in it, but you called and gave me the opportunity to come and it was like it was an honor to come over and you know that was I think a real a real um a real substantial evolution for you and I in particular because it was like that's the trust like that's the thing I'd boys once we went through the divorce part and all that like you were, you know, nobody like you done, you had done that for me. You were there when I needed you and and and you not only were that just there, like you were really there. And so it's like you called me and I was going to be there for you and and that's how you build that those that another level of trust, right? Everything's about trust. The whole thing. The whole thing. And if you get the opportunity to to provide that to somebody, there's it changes the whole thing. It changes everything. Now, moving forward into that night, I don't remember why I came over. I was I was half in the bag. Yeah. you you had called and and I was kind of like blew it off like I'm good man I'm not doing anything and yeah I remember coming over this is preja oh yeah this was and in the midst of the divorce you handed me a letter and I read the letter I don't remember what it said but I remember I read it as a goodbye letter to your daughters pretty much. I remember looking at you and I just slapped you in the face as hard as I could and told you to [ __ ] snap out of it. Yeah. Yeah. And then I was enraged. Yeah, we were both enraged. Yeah. I think I about choked you out. you you got on top of me and were just you did like there was was no head of taste like I I was in shock and then you just kept coming and then I was like all right I like now now you're going to feel my wrath and then we moved outside remember that yeah in the pool deck and the grass there and that's where every pain piece of pain that I had felt from that loss, you know, that and and I really was believed that my kids were at stake and that I wasn't going to be able to be a a father for them because it's just the nature of what I did and being on the road all the time and I was worried about their situation and and you were just like, "We're going to we're going to fight through this. And I remember like you just you just you're a lot stronger than I thought you were and you're just and then you start like toying with me and he started playing with me and I remember Gabe being there like almost like hey man are you going to break this up and he just sat there and he's like you're going to get a dose cuz you need a dose right now. And I just remember like everything I did, you could counter it or was just frustrated and I couldn't think. I couldn't like I was just um I was breaking down again. Like I was I couldn't put I couldn't assemble a state of mind that made sense. I was illogical. I was irrational. I was angry. I was I was afraid. And I don't know how it happened, but I remember we switched around and I got I I didn't I I think I fisheyed you. I fish hooked you. The only thing I remember after that is you on top of me with my arms pinned to the ground with your knees and you had grabbed a dog bowl. Yeah. A big [ __ ] dog bowl. Yeah. Zulu's dog bowl. and you had it like this getting ready to come down on my head. And I just remember thinking, well, this is how it ends. I get smashed in the face by a [ __ ] dog bull by my best friend. And uh I think Gabe maybe have stepped in at that point or I don't know what ended it. I can't remember. He came over and kind of like looked at me and and Gabe was not somebody I wanted to mess with at all. Um his silence was was frightening because you knew the pain he was in and he he he ended it and but I I you know I just you know you're up in that position and you realize like that was the moment of clarity like you weren't there you were there to help me and through some bizarre reasoning like you were helping me by beating on Hey, like we were getting this out. We were like getting purging this pain that you and I were both suffering from, but we were purging it on each other. And it just was exhausting. And then I remember like kind of snapping too. And again, shame like my god, what am I doing? Why are we doing this? I love you. You love me. Like, and I think that was a big another big huge transition for us. It's it's weird. ly most people cultivate relationships in a slow methodical you know give and take this reciprocation of empathy in a meaningful way but to that's not the way we did it and it was always intense but I think that's why the trust became what it is today and there's nobody you know almost nobody I trust more than you other than Janna and I and because of those moments because of what you've done for me, because of what you've done for my family, what you've done for my children, what you're doing for me right now. Like, you just that that's what you seek. That's what we want. Do you still have that letter? I think I do. Yeah. Are you going to watch this with your kids? Oh, man. if they ask me to. What are you going to say to them when they see this part? I don't know because I I don't I don't know what they'll ask. I don't know what they'll want to know. You know, these my my children are all brilliant, you know, and they're they've been through a lot. Both my biological children and and Janna's biological children have been through a lot and they're resilient and they're strong and they're intelligent and they're empathetic and they're beautiful and I I don't know if it's going to happen now or in a year or in 10 years. I don't know. But my hope is that they they do watch it and if they have questions they want to sit down. I mean, it's it's tough, man, because, you know, I I' I have all this experience and all this life and all this all these different stories I've gone through, and I want so desperately to share with them everything I've learned in order to prepare them for for their adventure, for their voyage, for their quest of of trying to find out the ultimate answer to the two most significant questions we can ask ourselves, which is who am I and why am I here? And so this is part of it. You know, my story is part of that and our story is part of that and these stories hopefully will not shape them but inform them and then they they can begin to trust um my intentions and what I want. I've been trying to teach them, you know, for a long time now, you know. I mean, I've been with with Janna coming up on eight years and and you know, Chloe was 10 and Gracie was jeez, she was six and so a lot almost a lot of their life. And you know, I You're doing a fantastic job. Oh, thanks, man. You want to talk about fear? Like, that's the greatest fear there is that my children are going to have to experience a world that's really hard. And I pray that, you know, Christ is in their heart. And I pray that they're have the intestinal fortitude to survive and to thrive and in whatever adversity they face. And so that's what John and I are our main intention is to teach them. But it's hard, you know, it's hard. You're, you know, I'm not perfect at all. I suffer from a lot of things. I mean, it had gotten so bad for a few years that like I finally, you know, I had to start seeing somebody and how I could be a better parent, you know, and be more tolerant and be more patient. But, you know, you know, now what we call oper operator syndrome, that's a real thing, man. And so trying to manage that and and and and and be an example of of not not a not of something to emulate, but something to learn from, you know, that's that was that's what I want. Well, I think when they do see this, because I'm sure they're going to watch it. I hope it's with you. But I guarantee you one thing, they'll have a greater understanding of who their dad is and what his struggles are and why he is the way he is. I hope so. They will. I'm praying it it happens for sure. How did you meet Janna? God's will. Was that a PTO meeting or some [ __ ] wasn't it? No, it was it was crazy. So, it was at the school. Was at the school. Yeah. I I you know, the the divorce came and went, you know, was in the midst of what was going on at at TNQ at the with Marcus and and the Wizard. And that was devastating just trying to push through in the midst of that and my losing my family and that collapsing. and and I remember the divorce was finalized and in right before July 4th of 2017 and um you know I was struggling financially. I'd kind of gotten whale laid with alimony and, you know, got out lawyered and and was petrified that I wasn't going to be able to parent these two little girls by myself and just had a really significant breakdown on a we went out to Colorado. My parents had a place out there and and just kind of melted down and my my my oldest was really struggling from the whole thing and was very confused and she was young and didn't know what was going on and so a lot of like really challenging worrisome behaviors were emerging out of her. I remember just like kind of collapsing and struggled you know and then started feeling a little bit better and I had a great support group that really helped during that time. I mean, David Corley was amazing for me. Um, Max was amazing. Mark Clarm was incredible. Richie was amazing. Um, you were good, you know, amazing. I mean, [ __ ] you were in it with me and had this great team and and my parents my parents were unbelievable, unbelievable, amazing for me. And so it's like I got through it better than I'd ever gotten through anything. You know, college it was four years. Post teams it was three years of misery. And then this it was it was relatively compact. I mean it was about a year and a half of of pretty substantial misery. And our our relationship really began to struggle in 2013. 14 worse, 15 worse. By 16 it was essentially over. And you know, she wanted a separation and a divorce and then and it was just so that summer came through the fall and I remember in the fall of 17 I had reached out to Maggie again and said, "Hey, Maggie, can we do a sweat lodge and she had this remarkable guy named Jeff and had run sweat lodges?" And I had done some with her son a couple times before. He ended up going through a ton of stuff, going in the military, going to Buds and and actually made it all the way to Damn Nick and and um so I asked Maggie, hey, can we go through this, you know, this thing? And she was wonderful through that as a support, too. And we did this this sweat lodge with uh my close friend Lex McMahon. Amazing amazing human being, former Marine, you know, runs a fight promotion company in South Florida. Just amazing. And you know, Met Lex and and and this other guy that I had met doing, you know, training case officers who we had become very close. And he was just a remarkable guy. four years in combat. Just really amazing guy. And I and kind of to back up like kind of my low point was as the relationship was collapsing. Um in the spring Bruce Cuttingham had drank himself to death and that was devastating cuz I couldn't pull him out. I tried multiple times. We could not pull him out of that. and it was his funeral in October and I'd gone to his funeral at Arlington, spoke at it and went and had lunch and then went over to the Naval Academy for Brian Hul's funeral was in 209 then went over and was killed as a PMCO at the agency was shot by sniper and so went over there and and I reconnected with this friend and he was a mess. I was a mess. And so, fast forward the next fall, I reached out. I like, "Hey man, want to come down and go do this sweat lodge? I'm really kind of broken and I want to know." And and Lex was going through a ton himself and I was like, "You want to do it?" So, we went in this sweat lodge up in Lake Worth and it was amazing. And it was the probably third one I know, but this one like it's called Warriors Lodge. So there's 21 lava rocks they heat up and they put in this thing and you get in and this guy leads through these prayers, these four sequence prayers. You tie these prayer beads and you know and you tie hundred pieces of tobacco in this red thing on the string and then you put it above you and man I tied 100 prayers and they were like and almost all of them were like God please just let me find somebody I can love who will love me for who I am and help me help my children and help me get through this. And we went into this thing and and by like hour two and a half three and my face is in the dirt and it's so high. It feels like my eyes are melting and my skin's melting and this guy's saying these prayers and and you know I just break and I was like I got to get out. I got to get out. I got to get out. So, I got out and I'm my face is in the rain and I was in the mud and I'm sitting there and I'm just looking up at the sky and I'm just I'm broken and Lex I look over is next to me in the mud and then my other friend is next to him and then there's Maggie just sitting above us just looking at us and I remember us just like and she kind of smiled at me and it was like you're going to be okay now And after that I was like I got to change my mentality of this. I have to assess this differently. I have to look at life differently. I have to find I have to be a better man. Um I can't keep carrying this stuff on and on and and force other people to experience it. Most especially these two little girls who need a father now and a broken home. And so I was like, "All right, kind of pull myself together and and uh two months, three months later, I was supposed to go speak at this Broward County Sheriff's thing. They canled last minute." I was like, "Whatever." And called another friend and who was participated at the girl school and was like, "Hey, do you want to go to this thing?" I was like, I was first I was like, "Hey, you got a spot at your table." He's like, "Yeah, come do it." So I was like, "Cool." And so show up and and met her. She like she was I got to the table early and I was just like why am I here? What am I doing? And there was a single everybody sat down a single seat and this woman walked up and sat down. It was Janna and I was just like oh my god. And I was like I don't know. It was like thunderbolt hit me and worked up enough courage at one point to go over and show my moves. And mind you, I had been married eight years, nine years. And I'm wearing jean, it was it was denim and jean, a denim diamonds or something. I'm wearing jeans and a jean shirt and a fedora and I had the long hair and I'm and she's like and I'm like and I sit down next to her and and I start and she just comes back and it's like you know essentially like who do you think you are? None of this is going to work with me. I don't know what you're doing. I just kept going and she just was a snapper head back and I was like, "Oh my god." And we ended up going to an after place together afterwards. And it was it was like it was this this like oh my god this person and the way she smiled and her eyes just like they ripped through me and I the person we were with she was like you know why don't you go home with him cuz like she had babysitters and I like and I was like yeah yeah yeah yeah. Let me drive you home. Yeah yeah yeah. And she's like, "I don't know." I was like, "Please." Like, "I'm good." She was like, "He's fine. Go ahead." And so drove her back and we're sitting outside and I said, "Hey, is it cool? Can I have your number? I would I would really like to, you know, see you again." And she's like, "Uh, yeah. All right." And so she gives it to me and and she got out and ran in and that was and I went back that night and she had left her her jacket. She made this cool jacket with her name Stroolo on the back and sequence and I was like I sent her a pitch picture of the jacket and I say you're now you're definitely have to see me otherwise I'm going to hold your jacket hostage. Dumb choice of words, right? Like first text after this like horrible ch but that's me. I was I was an idiot, right? And she's like hostage. She's like psycho and I was like no no no no. And um she she wrote that I I I it wouldn't call me, but that's essentially what it what she was implying and in her return text and and so that next night I called her and and we talked for 3 hours and then I left that week to go on the road. I had a couple speaking engagements and we every night we talked for 3 to four hours. Following week she agreed to go to this wine tasting. We went and it was just oh my god. And it happened quickly and we were just talking and I've never met anybody that could talk and was interested in what my thoughts and the way I felt and you know and and it wasn't she didn't want to hear about me working with the Red Sox or having a big podcast or being a speaker or writing books or she didn't give a [ __ ] about any of that stuff and she wanted to know who I was and what I had gone through and our I was just blown away by her. But there was this mystery. There was something deeper that she wasn't sharing with me. And she was a private person and and and you know and I remember it was right after the Parkland shooting and I had done an event where I had spoken to a guy who's in a who was a financial adviser his clients and then he had kids that go and he reached out. He said, "Hey, would you come and speak to these five kids who are at Parkland and try and help them through this and explain it to him?" And I was like, "Absolutely." And and um and I said, "Hey, would you like to come with me to see this is what I really am passionate about doing?" And she's like, "Okay." And we went to this thing and I delivered the speech and we left and she was quiet and I was like, "Uhoh, what's going on?" You know, "Did I say something? Does she not dig this? what am I doing wrong? And we went back to my house and we went in to my bedroom and we sat down and she's like, "There's something I have to share with you." And I was like, "What is it?" And she's like, "I want to let you know that uh my husband committed suicide and that's why I'm I'm a widow." And I don't know what it was about that. I think you know some people would be intimidated by that or be how do I react to that? How do I over measure up? You know how do I replace that? What do I do? And you know that's all a selfish way to look at it. But I for me it was a sign it signified her strength. that she was a person that could lose this amazing human being, you know, in the prime of his life. He was, you know, an assistant and personal trainer for one of the largest rock stars in the world. And he just through whatever reasons or whatever unknown, he just kind of went through this collapse. while she was pregnant with her second child with Gracie. And she spoke with just not of anger or or frustration or or anything about him, but she spoke she spoke about reverence of the experience and what she'd learned. And so, you know, she became a widow at 29 years old with a four-year-old and a four-month-old, two-month-old. And she didn't quit. She didn't break down. I mean, obviously, it was debilitating and unbelievably traumatic in every way and every sense of the word, but she kept fighting and she fought for those girls. And those two girls are just amazing human beings. They're such beautiful children and they're gracious and Chloe is like me. She It's crazy. She's so much like me, but she's not even my blood daughter. But she has, you know, got big energy and she's athletic and she's, you know, she's hilarious and she's got this beautiful laugh and she walks in the room and lights up and and and then Gracie has just she's just been touched, you know. And I'll never forget the first time we came together because we kept it a secret for months. We didn't want to deal with what would happen at the school or we didn't want to, you know, cuz my divorce was already kind of known around this the school and it was, you know, it was, you know, I was the single guy. I was the, you know, whatever people describe you as. you know, and and our first time we I met the girls with her, we went over to that same guy's house and um and it was Easter and it was like and instantaneously falling in love with those children and her and it was like, "Wow, this is good. It's going to work." And I had already like this one was like 11 days and I knew I wanted to be with her. Like it was just it was I you know I if you know it's you don't want to say you know the the old thing my soulmate but it was deeper than that. I found somebody whose soul was intact and was honest. She's the most honest person I've ever met in my life. And I needed that. I needed truth. I needed truth. Desperately real. Yeah. And so that began our relationship and it and it came out of the recognition that our tragedies were not going to define us. And she proved that. I remember the first time I met her. Katie and I had dinner with you guys and I remember the conversation after was for the first time in my life I'd seen you completely content and being yourself. Yeah. Your true self. That's right. Yeah. She taught me how to do that cuz she does that every day. She is who she is. And I, you know, we all, we want to be that. We aspire. We have ambition for that. But for whatever reasons, whatever experiences, whatever trauma we carry or whatever it is, it's difficult to manifest that under duress and ex extenduating circumstances. But that's who she is. And she allowed me to discover that in myself. How did you propose to her? about a year later. Um, yeah, we that was February 10th and then the following year and what's nuts is the anniversary of of Tony's death is like a day later is when I asked her to marry me. And um, so many just other interesting things about those times. Scotty's death, Dave Hall had a funeral and around those times and and it never phased her. It never like our first trip we we took together was to Scotty's funeral like that was right around the same time and and um yeah and it it was amazing. we did at my parents house and all the girls were around and and I got down on a knee and and I asked her to marry me and it was uh unbelievable. She said, "Yeah." And I thought I'd never get married again. I thought there was no way I could do it. I couldn't go through that again. And uh she made me want to she made me want to be a better man. uh not just for her, but for her children, for my children, and for our family. Yeah. It's worked out great so far. Yeah. I've I mean, she's taught me that you're not defined by your failures. Uh you're defined by what you do every day. You're not defined by the insecurities you feel. You're defined by how you persevere in them. You're not defined by your shortfalls, your ineptitude, your lack of intelligence, your whatever you think are your shortfalls that you're not find you're defined by how you make other people feel and doing the right thing. And that's where she comes from. You know, her parents, that's who they are. That's who they live. That's what they live up to. and her brothers and their families and and that's, you know, that's where she comes from. She comes from Maine and uh, you know, teeny little town up in in in J Maine. Well, Dave, we're wrapping up the interview here. Yeah. You got anything to say to your kids? Yeah, I do. Um, don't be afraid of the unknown. You know, that wisdom that my dad gave me. Be a Renaissance man. Be Renaissance women. Um, seek out the challenges, the hard things, you know, live, figure out what you are inspired by, what your passion, what your meaning is, and where where you want to go and and, you know, embrace your fear and have self-confidence and seek out great teams and and when you do that, you'll find your purpose and then and then live openly with purpose. in your heart and and and that's an important thing how to do that. That's what I've that's what all of my insecurities have led me to want to do to teach other people how to do that right. That's what it's inspired me to continue with Frog Logic and to work with the people I work with and to do what I do and in the hopes that my children will say, "Hey, this this is something that works and it's not coming from a a madeup place like I didn't read, you know, some motivational book and be like, "Oh, this sounds cool. I'm going to I'm going to try and do this." It all comes from, you know, the life I've lived and the life of my friends and what I've learned from you all and, you know, from the Dan Cerillos and and, you know, the the other people in my life that are are so impactful. You have anything you want to say to Janna? Yeah, I love you and thank you. Um, I would not be I would not have found I would have not have rediscovered who I am without her. Um, I would not be able to do what I do. I would not have the confidence to come in here and and sit across from you and share as extensively as as I have without without her. She taught me how to communicate again. She taught me how to um have strength again. What what mattered with strength. And she taught me how to love again. She taught me how to want to heal, how to want to figure out how to improve and get better. Um you know, she helps me in every way, shape, or form. You know, she helps me run the business. She helps me run my business with, you know, the the asset management firm I work with. She helps me write curriculum. She helps me um um everything in every aspect of my life. She's my my ultimate best friend. She's my my lover. She's my She's And I think what I want to tell her is that, you know, I I will always be with her. I will always love her. I will always try and be better for her and and that I'm not going anywhere and that I'm I'm I'm in. She she gave me something when we first started together when she knew when she was willing to take the risk with me and and I promised her I would protect that with everything that I have at this band and I just want to reinforce that that I I'm going to do that. She's really brought out the best in you, man. Yeah. Thank you. You're a lucky guy. I feel like it. Yeah. Good. Well, Dave, I can't wait to see what the David Brotherford show brings in the future. And for anybody watching, it's awesome content. So, but most of all, man, thank you for being my friend. Thank you for introducing me to my wife. Thank you for marrying us. Thank you for being a mentor. And I love you, dude. I love you, too. You're welcome. Thank you for being my best friend, and thank you for not beating the hell out of me too bad. And thank you for sharing this space that you've created that's making so much good in the world and and for inspiring me to keep trying to do the same because that's that's worth it. that's worth everything we've gone through is to is to give back to share what we've learned. You'll always be my best friend, man. Thank you. Say yeah. [Music] [Music] No matter where you're watching Shawn Ryan Show from, if you get anything out of this, please like, comment, subscribe, and most importantly, share this everywhere you possibly can. And if you're feeling extra generous, please leave us a review on Apple and Spotify podcasts.