Transcript for:
Benghazi Incident: A Survivor's Story

hey everybody it is September 11th 2023 it's always a uh very somber time of the year and this year we're covering the moghazi incident today is the 11th anniversary since it happened it's a incident that is obviously very near and dear to my heart is that was my outfit when I worked at CIA Tyrone Woods actually put me through SEAL training and um it's just a real honor to be able to to document this very important piece of history that happened in Benghazi Libya 11 years ago today and um we have one of the survivors on here one of the men that fought that night into the early hours of the morning and uh it's a full testimony of what happened that day and uh I hope you all enjoy this piece of History I just want to say thank you to my patrons without you this would not even be possible and if you can't support us on patreon please head over to Spotify Apple podcast leave us a review tell us how we're doing and let us know who you'd like to see on the show and uh last but not least we see all of you guys out there making content off of our episodes we love it we made it easy there's a folder below full of free hundreds maybe a thousand free reels uh down there that you can download for free turn it into your own content monetize it make money throw it on Tik Tok YouTube Instagram Snapchat wherever you want want all we ask is uh you direct everybody to the show and um anyways like I said I know this is a somber time of year lot of lot of loss happened on 911 and um God bless America ladies and Gentlemen please welcome Mark gist to the Sha Ryan Show [Music] Mark gist welcome to the show man hey thanks for having me Ryan it's uh it's a real honor to finally have you sitting across from me I've been you don't know this but I've been trying to get to you for a pretty long time over two years wow and um I not just you you Tonto you know and dude you guys are like a huge pain in the ass to try to get a hold of but um but and we've gone to several events together Y and uh you've just been bombarded after the event so I just I don't I know what that's like and so I I try to keep my space and respect it respect you you know it's funny how cuz you know and again it's kind of like how the Lord works is uh I'd seen a lot of your different podcasts you know bits and pieces and then I saw the one where you really started talking about Christ and your relationship with the Lord and uh um then I'm like found out okay wait he follows me so why and I'm look I'm like how am I not following him CU I thought I always had yeah and I'm like you know what I need to get on his podcast and so I just sent you a message in messenger and uh it just you know it was I think the Lord needed the time to be right yep I think you're right too and uh it's good to be home it is but um but we used to we used to I guess we can't technically say we used to work together but we were on the same project at CIA and um I've I've was Tyrone put me through buds put me through sqt we got a mutual connection there we worked with a lot of the same people and uh this is I mean just being frank you know and I I kind of Weir feel weird saying this to you because I wasn't there but I've been as much as I've been looking forward to this interview I've been dreading this interview because it's a was a catastrophic event there could have been some things done that uh could have turned the tides on what happened that day and uh we'll get into talking about that as well but um but without getting too in the weeds of it yet I just want to say it it truly is an honor to have you here man I'm I I've been wanting to document this his piece of history for a long time and and um you know that's part of what I do here is is history been Benghazi has been documented um a lot of history a lot of the guys stories and stuff that that come on here especially from from the military and from the Contracting days you know that nobody's documenting this no you know nobody documents it anymore and um especially you know the media they only want to you know it's very scripted now and so I I this is important to show what men it in in in in this point in time were like what the war Fighters were like what our mindsets was was like and and you know it's there's a lot of wisdom to be passed on to Future generations and a lot of lessons to be learned for military leaders and people that are going to become military leaders and and you know the stuff that gets discussed in here is just it helps a lot of people in a lot of different ways it preserves what culture we have left in this country and uh and it it shows the brave men and women who I mean yeah some of them have spent over 20 years now fighting you know and and so but let me give you a quick introduction here okay so Mark G you got 12 years military service some in Sniper platoon some in anti- in counterterrorism and intelligence you have a career in law law enforcement you're a county sheriff and investigator interviewer and investigator with crimes against Children and Families helping secure a number of convictions in child abuse cases that's a that's a subject we've been covering a lot here too and uh actually one of our interviews actually just got pulled down talking about that but um big problem us is the number one consumer of sex exploitation type videos yeah um 2004 you began Contracting for the US government training Iraqi SWAT teams fluent in Persian fary I had no idea about that interrogator translator you like getting the enemy to commit treason against their own country um at some point I believe you said 2009 you started Contracting directly for CIA yep you were involved in Benghazi one of the few survivors that came out of that um you were you had 22 blast injuries your left arm was mangled in a mortar attack at the NX you got hit the neck four or five times you're hitting the chest and stomach shrapnel near the F moral and kateed artery credited with saving as many as 25 lives The Thirst the we'll end it there we'll get into the rest there we start getting into the the details but um but um so quite the career and it's not over no not at all you now you're you've got a nonprofit Shadow Warriors give away service dogs you're just you're involved in a lot of really good stuff and uh we'll get to all that in the in the interview so the way I'd kind of like to structure the interview I want to get a little bit of your life story we're on a bit of a time crunch but um I really want the majority of it to be actions on the ground in Benghazi you know on September 11th because this is going to be released on the 11th anniversary on September 11th and um what it I'm I'm really happy that it lined up like that I think it'll be really good to do the anniversary of this and then and um yeah so but every show starts with a gift Okay so there you go don't be bashful open it up what do you think's in there oh you already looked coffee well so I am so ever since I left CIA you know I've done three and a half years of therapy I've done a lot of different things to get my my self back on track when it comes to TBI blast injuries and I'm just a huge proponent to brain health now okay and so that is so I'm a partial sh I'm a partial owner in the company shareholder whatever you want to call it but those are performance mushrooms from layered superfoods so that is that'll help with cognition that'll help with brain health that'll help with energy balance and helps I mean it just it's literally the best supplement you can take for your brain and all of those ingredients are sourced right here in the United States you can't say that cuz I mean my wife will love that cuz you know that's and a lot of it's from you know not just from the blast injuries at night but from all of the things that we've done you know in the military as contractors I mean how many times you shot the 50 cal sniper rifle how many times have you breach the door all of those cause micro tears in your brain and uh you know those are things that we always we're all going to suffer from um what do they call it I think uh um one of our good friends mutual friends uh it was has been involved in a lot of it but the uh operator syndrome yeah y I'm actually hoping to have Dave Rutherford on the show he's actually starting a foundation um that's all about bringing awareness getting treatment uh coaching guys through operator syndrome because I mean I don't know all the ins and outs of that but I think aren't there like 12 different I think there's 12 different symptoms uh that go into operator syndrome versus is regular post-traumatic stress but also in there there's a creamer and that also has a bunch of functional mushroom uh stuff for brain health a lot of adaptogens and um it tastes amazing so if you're a coffee guy yeah you'll like that awesome yeah thanks yeah you're welcome thank you so much so uh moving on let's get in let's just get into it man let's let's get into your childhood so where'd you grow up um I grew up in Southeastern Colorado a little town called Rocky Ford uh it got its name because that's the excuse me it's a place where the Santa Fe Trail going you know that came out of St Louis all the way down to Santa Fe that's where this it's a place where the Santa Fe Trail crossed the Arkansas River and it's a place where it was a rocky spot where they fored the river and that's how the town got its name uh 100 couple hundred 100 years ago 100 and something years ago so farm and ranching Community about well when I grew up it was close to 5,000 people um it's now it's down to about 3,000 but uh oh it's the population is declining yeah you don't hear that very often no it's it's small town America though there's no jobs it's you know if you're not farming and ranching I mean most of the people that live there have lived there forever I mean like myself my grandfather my great-grandfather settled 12 miles north of Rocky Ford in 1910 really so all of my family I I mean I grew up with almost all of my cousins and uncles and aunts um you know second cousins third cousins all of us in the same two counties we were all within 20 miles of each other oh wow so what did your parents do um my dad was uh um a banker um he ran a savings and loan and then wasn't a um after he left that he was a assistant vice president um to one of the bigger Banks uh that were local um my mom was a hairdresser and Homemaker and just most of her time was spent at home when I was little little and then uh when we were at school she uh worked cutting hair doing ladies hair and then after by the time school was over she was their home uh waiting for us oh cool yeah what uh brothers and sisters I have uh an older brother two years older than me I have a young one younger sister that's four years younger than me and then uh my parents got divorced when I was 16 um and both got remarried uh my mom got remarried too um it was actually and again small town stuff he was uh my uh little league coach and coached Little League along with my father so it's just um and then so his kids he had kids from a I've got one two three step brothers or one step one more step brother and two other step sisters oh wow okay on my mom's that my mom and for my mom's Remar and my dad I have two a step brother and a step sister there as well okay what' you like to do when you were growing up um were you Troublemaker yeah a little bit uh as my a talker my mom always said if I could you know I do a lot of public speaking and get paid for it my mom said if you have got paid for speak all this talking you did when you were a kid You' have never had to work again day in your life but uh so but um rodo Cowboy that's what I just I loved you were in the rodeo uhhuh when did you what age so I did a speech at a rodeo I'd never been to a rodeo before I did a memorial speech for the Dan Danny Deets Memorial Classic this year down in Texas and uh whole new appreciation fascinated with the ENT entire Rodeo experience it got to meet a lot of the the bull riders and right holy dude like that's these guys that's a dangerous job yeah it is I mean these guys are all missing fingers they're missing testicles they've ripped their shoulder out they've ripped their elbow out like it's yeah it's and then they tape it up and they go to the next Rodeo 12 hours later it's not if it's when so you were you that involved in the rodeo Oh young I was I started I think riding bulls um I was probably 14 somewhere around there 124 is when I did my first rodeo I had started riding horses from very young age um I mean we used to do the I was one of the uh our Riding Club kind of had did the uh Grand entries I was and ironic I was the uh I was always the guy that carried the American flag so when I we'd come in and horses would be full-blown running going as fast as they could coming into the arena and I got to carry it was my honor to be able to carry the American flag oh man and uh but then I did bearback and Bulls um off and on through Junior High in high school bear backing mhm I got to be honest I'm going to go off on a limb here and say I doubt there are too many Bankers sons who are in the rodeo today but um yeah but what I mean so does that you're riding a bull without a saddle or what is yeah so bull it's just a rope that's wrapped around their girth and uh you know you you it comes across goes back behind your wrist comes across one more time and that's what you're holding onto that and your legs and Spurs and uh you can only use one AR you know you can only use one hand to do it um the other hand can't touch the animal if it does it and you got 8 seconds to stay there um and then for bearback horses it's it's a small um device that goes over the withers of the horse kind of the same thing but and it's got a handle on it and you have that handle and when you're coming out of the Chute you got to have your feet above their shoulders you got to Spur them out is what it's called and so when their front feet land your feet have to be up on their shoulders otherwise it's a disqualification so and then you got to stay on for 8 Seconds wow wow do you have any uh did you have any incidents um a couple uh the broke this finger uh once cuz I got tossed over the front end of the horse and uh this finger didn't twist out of the didn't get out of the uh um bucking uh riging quick enough and broke that thing and but nothing major uh closest probably anything was my last time I rodeoed when I was in the Marine Corps I did uh a uh local Rodeo there and uh I got thrown off and got hung up um which is what happens is if you're Brien here and you get turned over without letting go you can't open your hand because if you open your hand the bull ride the bull rope comes out but if not you're stuck there and so you're attached that bull while he's spinning still and uh he kept spinning and I come up my body would come up and hit his head while he turned back into me and um thank goodness his horn were nubbed off because his hornn hit me straight in the sternum and uh knocked pretty knocked the wind out of me pretty bad but uh um and uh that was probably the closest uh closest severe call I had rodeoing yeah well what got your interest so you what got your interest After High School you joined the military right after high school um I actually joined the Marine Corps I mean I was going to do one of two things growing up and I had always said this is I was going to either work on a ranch as a cowboy cuz I you know bigger than the rodeo is I broke horses for my grandfather and I did that to make money um rode horses a lot and I just thought that's what I was going to I just wanted to do that I want to be a cowboy my whole life and not a Rodeo Cowboy but a but a cowboy cowboy and uh that or joined the military I mean my hero was my grandfather um he was a World War II veteran had five purple hearts Silver Star bronze star French for Belgian for J uh served in North Africa he was a tank commander um served in had the North Africa campaign medal had the German occupation medal which means that he stayed after the war during the occupation of Germany and uh he ended up retiring out of uh Fort Carson and that's where he met my grandmother and uh got married you know you had mentioned something at breakfast this morning about a commonality between you and your grandfather I'd like you to expound on that a little B you know you you start doing some research and I don't you know I haven't pulled his records exactly where he was at but um you know a lot of the battles in Africa in North Africa went through Libya and uh you know there's a good and he got injured over there from my understanding of everything and and most of this I've put together because I he gave me a shadow box with all his medals and everything and so I'm really putting it together through what i what I've seen because like most of you know the veterans of that time and Korea and Vietnam didn't talk about it you know they don't tell their stories yeah um which is a tragedy and that's what I really like about what you do is put in this your document history and those stories need to be told so you guys may have bled on the exact same soil so yep that's that's um I don't know what that would feel like but I would imagine it feels pretty damn good yeah yeah it is it's it's it's an honor to carry that you know um and uh I had three uncles that were in during Vietnam two of them in the Navy one in the Marine Corps he was uh my Uncle Jerry he was a crew chief on helicopters he was in the Marine Corps from 58 to 68 and uh got shot down a couple times um and uh he uh and now it was really cuz so I'll get back to so the reason I went in the Marine Corps one of the biggest reasons I went in the Marine Corps as a buddy of mine uh and we're still friends today um probably my best friend we became friends at our freshman or sophomore year in high school and we were it was after lunch and we were going to uh math class and we're walking to math class down the hall and he just walks past math class and I'm like where you going he said I'm going to go talk to the Marine Corps recruiter and I'm like I can get out of math class for this he's like hell yeah and I'm like okay I'm going to see the recruiter and I got down there and you know I was just a dumb young kid and he's like uh what do you want to do I'm like I want to jump out of airplane shoot things and blow things up and he's like well I've got a perfect job for you it's called the Infantry and uh that's how and that was December of 83 I joined the Marine Corps 6 months before I actually graduated December of 83 yeah I was one year old now you're making me feel old yeah and so 10 days after I graduated high school I uh I was in the Marine Corps um what' you do in the Marine Corps I started out in the Infantry I mean I I went to boot camp in San Diego went to infantry training school in uh Camp leun North Carolina um and then my first Duty station was in the Philippines um on Barracks duty but I was an infantry Marine um and uh carried a gun like I I I started thinking about it I've carried a gun since I was for the service of this country ever since I was 18 years old and I'm 5 be 58 this year so what at what point did you get in with the sniper Community um after I got back to uh Camp Pendleton I did a year and a half in the Philippines I got back and I was with second Balian ninth Marines and they have what they call stay patun it's surveillance and Target acquisition or it's the sniper Tunes um and then it was at the company level or at the Battalion level I'm sorry and uh I I knew I wanted to do more than just be a regular ground impounder I mean if there's something harder to do let's do it and so I tried out for that and got picked up for that and then uh um uh was did a couple deployments overseas um with stay Paton back to the Philippines um to okanawa all through the Far East uh you know and I really I really that was one of my I mean I love the Far East I studied martial arts um a lot of my time in the military and uh really kind of enjoyed that part of the world was there anything going on over there at that particular point in time or was it more of like a presence more of a presence uh and training I mean you know the Marine cor is one of those you is one of the services you know unlike the Army I mean you know the Army you get stationed someplace usually for a couple years um Marine cor you may get stationed somewhere for 3 years but you're never going to be there that long because you're going to do at least one or two six-month deployments overseas you're either going to fly over and then jump on a boat and get ran around the Far East or the Mediterranean um on a Navy ship and do training you know we trained with the Filipinos the Filipino Marines we trained with The Rock Marine you'd train with the Japanese uh and just all of that and kind of be out there as that force and Readiness should something kick off what what got your interest in law enforcement um you know I was married at that time and uh me and my first wife we adopted our son cuz I can't have kids um we found that out and uh we uh adopted our son and I I didn't I was deploying all the time cuz cuz I'd gotten out of the Infantry started I was an interrogator translator um and we were deploying 6 to 9 months out of the year and I didn't want to be that father that was gone all the time and wanted to make sure keep my my marriage healthy uh so I thought uh you know the only thing I could do my sense of service I think is what it was as well is I decided to go in law enforcement um easy transition so I came back home went to the went to to uh the Law Enforcement Academy and uh got hired on actually before I finished the academy by um a sheriff's department which is up in the mountains west of Colorado Springs [Music] interesting I 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getting into combating some of the child crime stuff it was probably about 3 or four months months after I had been with the sheriff's department um there a job opening came up for uh crimes against family investigator neur detective and uh you know and again it's I'm always I mean just the way I am I'm I always want to do the next best thing or whatever it is and I'm not afraid to do things that are different or difficult and so I chose that and uh you know and it was a lot of most of it was crimes against children um you know we didn't call it really trafficking as much then a lot of it was um child abuse child sexual abuse uh I was certified um as a forensic interviewer of children uh you know the Lord um I it was the Lord blessed me with the ability to get kids to tell me they should never have to tell anybody and um it's uh it was an honor to be able to be that guy as difficult as it is uh because my goal was there's a way to do it and a way to do it right so that kid never has to tell that story in court and it keeps them from getting having to be revictimized by the defense attorneys or having to do it in a public for like that ever again and so my goal was that's what I wanted to do is get it right and then with my background as being an interrogator in the Marine Corps if I get the per in the chair if I can get him talking about anything he's going to confess one way or the other he I can get him to confess and it's you know it doesn't take torture it doesn't take anything like that it just there's a method to it and uh can you talk about a little bit about that method yeah you know it's I mean I started my interrogation um and this this is one of the hard things for a lot of people to do because you got to sympathize or at least empathize with the with the per um I mean my interrogation I never would go arrest them and bring them in I would invite them to come in and you know hey I've got a report of this um you know I got to get it cleared up I'll get it off my desk need to find out what's going on and when I W when they walked through the door of my the police department I started the interrogation from there and there's a lot of reasons I did it that way is because if they come in on their own and not all of them would but the majority of them would because they're master manipulators I mean they think they've got it down and they can manipulate everybody because that's how they've made their way through life that's how they get the kids and a lot of times they're manipulating the parents of the kids before they uh even get the kids because if I can befriend the parents and if they can do that then they know they can earn the trust of the protector then they're going to ease up on on on the kids and uh so I would bring them in and walk them through and I would get people to come in and sit down and just act like they're typing on the computer or typing on a typewriter back then I'd have graphs and pictures and I'm staging everything so as they're walking in they don't see their name up on anything but they see all this stuff going on and they know it's about them so by the time they come in and I'd never to put them in an interrogation room because I don't want them to think they're getting interrogated I'm just there to talk to them I need to figure out what's going on you befriend them uh-huh and I'd make sure like if we're sitting here like this you know if the door's over there I make sure that it the perpetrator be sitting in your chair cuz I want them close to the door I want the door off to their side and I'd have a clock over here usually things like that so I can read their body language so when I'm asking questions and I start getting nervous there that's when that non-verbal Behavior comes out that they can't control and so they'll start looking at the clock cuz they're worried about time or their watch or they'll start leaning over to the door you know all those little things are indicators of um of deception especially if it's reaction to a certain question and uh Colorado when I was working there um was a single state single party consent which means that you can have a victim call somebody basically it's one person within that conversation if one person in the conversation knows that it's being recorded it's not a illegal wir tap that's legal okay so if some of your more adult kids or more mature kids and a lot of times it was kids that um got uh pered on I mean one of them was uh at a uh um was a swim coach and he had left and been he was working out in Virginia um and for a YMCA teaching swimming still um the girl had went to college she never reported it grew up went to college was struggling through college and started getting counseling cuz she'd repressed all of that and uh it kind of came came out and so we're still able to go after him because the statute of limitations um had is I can't remember what it is 12 15 18 years for that crime and uh you know it's getting her scripting it out getting her comfortable with using very descriptive words has to be very descriptive of what happened to him and calling the guy up and uh called him up talked to him on the phone and he had kids in his office and the moment she called pushed the kids out of the office um and went into his you know his manipulation and uh trying to manipulate her again and not talking to the cops you know the more I dive into this subject the more I realize this is this almost seems to be white color crime and you see these big busts and it's always White Collar it's always it's always a te it's not I I can't say always right you you read about it all the time it was a teacher it was a coach just here here in Franklin Tennessee they had one of the biggest sex trafficking rings in the country busted then a couple weeks ago that wasn't long ago that was maybe a year ago then couple weeks ago they found out that there was a soccer coach who had been and I don't know exactly what he was doing but he was drugging little boys and videoing it and he left his cell phone at a I believe it was at a pizza shop and they were trying to they were just trying to figure out whose phone it was they went through some pictures saw a video got it to the police this guy had been doing this for a long time and um so you as a as a former is somebody that used to go after these kind of guys I mean is am I correct in my assumption that this is this isn't the typical you look at a scumbag and think yeah no this is these are professionals I'll give you a good example I mean I had a guy that he was a karate teacher and he had gotten and so by the time I arrested him he had been already caught doing this once before in Ohio went to prison got out of prison there went to Florida tried to do it down there got caught didn't get caught by before he where it was criminal but his background got identified by a good reporter in Florida and then he moved to Colorado and started there and uh he uh I think we ended up having eight or nine victims and he had learned from his first time because his first time he wasn't he always tried to stay back out of it and what he did is he would coers his wife into sleeping with these teenage boys and he was he would watch wow and that's where he got his joles off and then he learned from that because he got caught cuz his wife ended up when they she flipped on him in Ohio well then he comes to Colorado because at the time Colorado had some very lenient um sex offender registration laws and uh they're getting lenient again I know they are and if they're not getting lenient on the law what they're getting is so we helped um get Colorado to pass a crime against a child a sex crime against a child was a lifetime sentence wasn't necessarily life in prison but it was a lifetime sentence you're on you're on parole you are supervised in some manner the rest of your life your registration wherever you go you have to register as a sex offender um you help get that P we were instrumental in helping that um but the problem is now they've reduced the number of people that can because of budgets they reduce the number of people that can that they need to monitor that many people I mean it used to be a p a guy go to prison um for that kind of crime it was an it nowadays there's a whole prison Wing sometimes whole prisons that are full of nothing but Predators child predators are you serious I had no idea yeah it's it's so it's so prevalent it's not just and it's not something new it's just something thank goodness to sound of freedom and you know good friend Victor marks and people like that that are bringing this to light yeah yeah yeah Victor's coming out here uh I think next month so that'll I'm I'm looking forward to meeting him it was cool to know that you guys are uh very well connected and know each other very well but um I don't want to dwell on this topic too much but do you in your when you were in law enforcement you were covering this kind of stuff I mean how many of these people are teachers coaches are they I mean do they get these occupations to yeah be close to kids I mean swim coaches gymnastics coaches soccer coach I mean teach because it puts in it it in Colorado two there's two things for them it puts them in a position of trust and people just like you know you trust teachers you trust your swim coaches all of those and it gives them access to kids and then again it allows that coach or whoever teacher to per to groom the parents a lot of times because we are so busy in our lives that sometimes we let other people raise our kids y I say it all the time and you know that's a key to it you want to protect your kids have a have live your life in a way where only one person has to work in that family so somebody else can be home to raise your kids instead of farming it out to I think that would solv so many problems in this world I think so too I it's it's a tricky subject you know to talk about because unfortunately just especially when it comes to single mothers you know not everybody not everybody has that option that is true but there are a lot of people that do have that option and they they don't do it they they rather have somebody else raise their kids for them and that's it's sad you see it everywhere you know and for those single parents you know what just be involved yeah be involved it it goes goes to what we talked about about situational awareness look the people that are around your kid in the eye because see if they look you back mhm that's just what you could you know how that works yep somebody who's got something to hide won't won't look at you in the eye that's true that's true you know that doesn't mean that they're pering on somebody or whatever but it just a red flag and but if you the more you are involved in your kids' lives and the more you're open to listening to them and having that conversation you know having a conversation with him yeah is and no you know be that pain in the butt parent that checks their phones you know yeah I mean I remember I grew up in a time with my parents it was I was seen not heard you know I would we'd be at the neighbors my parents and our neighbors um they'd come together and play Jin Ry or something like that and uh if you were bored and you walked up to the table and I'd be standing around you know bored my dad would be like do you need something I'm like no I'm know I'm okay I just seen what's going on he says so you don't have nothing to do let me fix that for you I'll find something for you to do and he would there would be a chore somewhere have you checked on the cows have you fed the horses have you cleaned the penss have you done this Dad it's 8:00 at night yeah it is go take care of that cuz you weren't around you you you weren't part of the adult conversation but at the same time he was always involved in my life too yeah per big part of this is big part of this problem is the parents but um let's move on to what got you involved what got your interest in Contracting for the government um you know I was uh in 2001 I was working as chief of police in a small town um and you know I had in 1998 I joined uh the 19th group Special Forces uh National Guard unit out of Colorado Springs or out of Colorado their headquarters up in Denver and uh um I'd been with them waiting to get training and waiting to go to selection when 9/11 happened and uh when that kicked off uh I was I just wanted to go over cuz that unit got ready to deploy they were going to deploy to usbekistan push down through uh you know with the Northern Alliance down in and uh the XO there me and him kind of had a disagreement on whether or not I should go or not and uh um because I didn't have an Army MOS at the time he was uh he decided that I couldn't go and uh I'm like you realize like I'm one of the only guys I'm the only guy in 19th group that spoke Persian farsy and could read it and write it I'm like that's the language that we're going of the country we're going to war CU it's very it's just a different dialect of eru or um of what they speak one of them you know it's not poshon but it's a erdu and uh Dari is it's just an older dialect of that and uh he's like I don't know how you do it in the rine cor but that ain't how we do it in the Army at the time but you know he's that's peacetime Army at the time Y and so I was like well heck with this you know what I'm going to find another way to go and uh I'd seen an article about a guy out of an SF Special Forces retired special forces guy out of Pueblo Colorado who um it was in the local paper had was contracted on convoys and I'm like okay I don't want to do that but cont cont ract and it opened my eyes to that part of the world or that part of things and so I started calling around and asking around with people uh who was the best company to go with and um triple canopy at the time was one of the highly most highly recommended and uh so I called them up and I'd sent them my resume and uh you know I got a call back from their recruiter and he's like you know your resume looks good um but you know I it's you haven't been uh active in a long time so I don't know that uh that's going to work and I was like I hung up the phone and I'm like man that just sucks and uh me and my wife she were we were dating at the time um and we were living together and uh I'm like man that sucks I don't and I just kind of like you know what I woke up the next morning I'm like you know what I'm to take that as an answer so I called the guy back up I'm like you know what the recruiter I called him back up I'm like I think you're making a mistake he's like why is that I'm I'm like so we're protecting diplomats right he's like yeah I'm like okay do you want some anybody can be a gunfighter but you also need somebody who has the wherewithal and the diplomacy to talk to people that are diplomats I said I'm a chief I've been a chief of police I've been a cop this is all I've done I've been both sides of this so I know how to do that too as I also know how to operate on my own cuz as a chief of police in a small town I had four other officers I mean it was like Mayar but it's on a high-intensity drug trafficking route and my backup most of the time was 45 minutes away so if you had a domestic or you had anything where there's a potential altercation you you're back you got to know how to deal and handle things on your own yeah and uh I kind of explained all that to him and he's like well we never thought of it like that and I'm like well you ought to he says he says well let me call you back in an hour I'm going to talk to the team well me being impatient me I've called him back in a half hour and I'm like have you made a decision yet or what he says yeah we want to have you and that's what got me in there and who was that with that was with triple canopy triple was that the was that the whips contract the state department yep that was State Department you know and the guys that started up uh Triple Canopy were all former dcore guys but they were all um CAG guys yeah that had been on the caride contract and saw that they could do it better and cheaper better for the you know and that's why they started triple canopy and I did that and then uh they lost the contract to Blackwater so I got sent home and we were able to talk them in because they were you know contesting the bid and they were still trying to save that well they they sent me home for a month and a half and paid me $100 a day just to sit at home waiting for the contract and the day that ended I got offered a job to train IR Rocky SWAT teams with USIS oh wow and uh that was with denn Dennis Chalker was running that contract plank holder of uh SEAL Team Six and uh and um oh who was the boss uh Dennis and he was another he was a commanding officer of uh sealed Team Six at one time after marenko okay no he's the guy who fired marchenko oh um right on so that's who I and I got picked up on that and it was only on a a three-month contract at first and then that three months you know I earned my way to stay for another five months or another four months so I was there for a seven Monon stent then went home and got offered a long-term job with them so I did that for a few years and that then I was part of that contract was also um being security advisers to the five leadership the five former Prime Ministers of Iraq so I got living I ended up getting on that part of that contract and I was living outside a black gate I don't know if you know in the green zone in downtown Baghdad where the embassy and all of that was there was Dr ayad alawi I was his security I was his security adviser um it was me and a South African and lived out out in town and downtown Baghdad outside the green zone um in a little house with uh three Kurdish guys and uh I most like I said most of the time was just us two two am two an American and a South African out there and it was all kind of it was interesting different way yeah and it was probably safer out there cuz that's when the embassy was getting rocketed all the time so you'd see the Rockets go over and land over there so I'm like yeah I'm glad I'm not staying over there tonight yeah yeah what at what point did the CIA OG contract wind up on your radar um you know you always hear about guys talking about the OG stuff and it's like okay I want to get into that and you know I'd always wanted to go work for the CIA um after I was in the Marine Corps when I was getting out I uh went to a I talked with a recruiter at a an event and uh the only reason they said yeah you know you got a great resume we just but you don't have a degree so we wouldn't take you um this is back in '96 when I got out of the Marine Corps and uh so I'd always that's always been kind of that thing I wanted to do and um so I just started applying to that and I got picked up by uh I think the it was um MVM who had the contract okay and uh they had the mobile contract I got picked up for that and uh so while waiting for my clearance to go through I had actually jumped on this other thing where we had kind of started in uh with a group of guys that started an airline called Kabul air um and it was kind of interesting cuz uh so Kabul air was we registered the air the company out of Kabul Afghanistan and we hired contracted Russian and Ukrainian pilots and their airplanes IL 76s and a12s and all of that and we'd fly in and out of a little town called fuera in the UAE H and we hul just basically hul military cargo around no kidding and my job I just flow I flew on every flight or all the flights we had an American or a Brit flying on all the flights to make sure the cargo got to the right signed by the right people cuz the pilots and the crew could not none of them spoke really any English hardly at all and uh so uh it was kind of of a neat thing one of the guys that that I worked that flew his name was jurgi it was a Ukrainian and we'd get up to cruising altitude and he'd always be like Oz like what do you want Yi he he could speak a little bit English he says two fingers vodka not two fingers two fingers vodka and okay so I'd give him two fingers vodka and I mean those boys drank vodka like we drink water yeah and uh that's while I was waiting for my clearance to get through and then once my clearance got through I got picked up by MVM but MVM had lost the mobile contract so they're like well you can come on as a static which was like the last thing I wanted to do go stand in a guard guard shack somewhere did enough of that in the Marine Corps but it was a step in the right direction and got got that and was able to prove myself to go to the Mobile Pro program cuz you know most of the time the mobile program they wanted you have 6 eight years of experience in the special ops Community yeah and technically I didn't have that cuz I was you know I didn't have that kind of time in that I did too many other things and but you know my my abilities is what got me there let's go back just a little bit you know I I had started off when I started Contracting I had started with the state department as well was total disaster but um I I could not stand it but um but oh just backtracking a little bit more OG uh for those listening that don't know what the OG contract is OG technically just stands for other government agency so that was the that was when you're not on the contract that's what everybody calls it they call it the OG contract and it the OG contract for all the other contracts out there State Department DEA whatever whatever con contract you're on the OG contract is what everybody wants to be on and it's got this I don't know what would you call maybe a bestique to it you know what were some of the things you heard about o the O contract before he actually got on there the biggest thing for me was the money the money I mean it was anywhere from8 to $1,000 a day and those things you know when I first started Contracting in 0304 that's when it was paying triple kopy was paying that but within probably the first by by the time' 05 come around that state department and all of those contracts started they started paying about half of that like 575 something like which is great money but I mean if I'm going to get shot at and take a chance of getting blown up I might as well make I'd rather make $800 to $1,000 a day instead of 500 to 575 yeah and just the quality of people also you're working with you know it's I mean it's you know you you you get in that environment over there long enough you know the guys that you want to work with and the guys you don't yeah um we were kind of talking about that for me I I kind of put guys in CL four classifications there's those I'd never go to war with and I don't want to go out and hang out with or drink a beer with or socialize with then there's the a group that I'd socialize with but never go to war with CU they're great people they just don't they're not Warf Fighters then there's some of those guys that are War Fighters but you don't want to go hang out with them because they're a Libo risk bad trouble yeah and then there's the the one the few people that I would go to war with and I would hang out with and have a beer with um you know and you find that and when you get into the OG you find more of those that are that are I'd go to war with and hang out with just a better quality of people I think in general I don't mean to a lot of it's professional yeah it's the big leagues it's the it's the it's where the professionals are at it's the contract everybody wants to be on and unfortunately or maybe fortunately not very many people ever get to the opportunity to to to go to that side of the house but um what did you think when you got over there well talk about uh let's talk about what it was what time when did you get over 2009 is yeah 29ish I think is when I first uh I mean my first place uh was Pasar Pakistan and uh that was like I mean it getting up there you know and i' I mean I've been to a lot of third world countries um and but that one was a little bit unique I mean uh kind of reminded me of the when Star Wars the first Star Wars you know when he walks into that bar when uh had all the weirdos everywhere in it you know cuz you see some sites I mean that is going back in history Pas used to be the cradle of I mean that used to be the place that they wanted everybody to that all the diplomats wanted to go to before the first gol for or the first war in Afghanistan um with the Russians when they took it over and when they took it over all the um you know there was up along the border there there's outside of Pasha there's just all the mud Huts that used to be housing for all of the afghanis that escaped Afghan when uh the Russians invaded and I mean you know poo as a bad thing over there I mean you know I you would see there was a kid I can remember this kid he must have been 16 17 years old and he had a little cart um with Caster wheels on it that he laid on his legs he was so decrepit with polio that his legs were folded up over his back he had one hand that steered and he had other hand with a glove on it and he would push himself like this going all the way down the street next to the busy traffic going the other direction um things like that you know you just see the resiliency of mankind as well yeah um there was a guy that had no arms that rode a bike he would put he had a rope tied from one handlebar to the other and he'd put it over around his back he'd jump on the bike and start pedaling and he would steer like that and he had no arms you know and it's uh the resiliency of man when you're not coddled or not told that everybody else is going to take care of you you know you had to take care of yourself and it was it was interesting over there I I I loved being a part of that and being able to operate over there I mean that's where we were at during um aad we had we weren't very far from there no kidding yeah you were there when the raid one happened I had pull I I got in probably two weeks after it did I had been i' had went home a couple about four weeks before and so I missed that but leading up to that I mean there's a lot of um you know you go to a lot of different places and you don't always know why as GRS I'm not always aware of what and who is being met um you know but you're in that area a lot what' you think of the training to get on the program I it was it's tough It's some of the toughest there is I mean you had to be a shooter you had to be thinking on your feet and you had to be a team player and that's what I mean you know it's a lot of guys that uh I saw a lot of guys fail that should you would think never I mean they're gunfighters M who have had a lot of experience but it's different shooting too it is you I found I mean I'm just going to be honest you know coming from the SEAL Teams I found that the I guess I shouldn't even call it a training course cuz that's not what it is it's a show up let's see what you got it's a performance course and if we like what you have you're in if we don't we're not going to tell you that and you're we'll never talk to you again and um I thought the shooting package that you had to demonstrate uh your capabilities with was extremely challenging very very I thought that and then you know I thought that the another thing that I thought that was a lot more challenging than most give it credit for is I mean you don't get any with the killhouse stuff I mean i' I always considered myself to be really good at the that was my thing I love the kill house what I found challenging was you get thrown into a they want you to demonstrate what you can do in a kill house but you're used to working with people that know exactly your every move all of that and now you're working with you're working with few guys that know how you trained as a how I trained as a seal but I'm also working with Green Berets Rangers Delta um Air Force PJs marine marsot guys police officers I mean snip Marine snipers and it's you got all these top level guys and everybody does it a little bit different and you're dealing with a lot of ayp personalities who think that their way is the best way known to man to do it and uh it took me a little time to to to to mesh you know and to open my mind a little bit to go all right these all of these other ways work too and to to learn to read off I mean cuz there were some big differences you know um with the way especially being a seal we were the only we were the only guys out there doing highport room entries right and um so so to get with all the other branches is you know at the at the top level and and a lot of fundamental differences but in the end yeah cuz the Marine Corp marso and well it wasn't marso marso wasn't around then but I mean most of force Recon and when marso was coming around was all low Port down here and you know and I know a lot of the guys that you know they got caught up in this highport thing being deer and got caught up with the idea that it was deer being a negative thing because you know and there's a lot of plus and minuses it's like it's a tool in the toolbox there's no like you said there's no one way to do it yeah what's successful is when you get in and out of the house you get what you were going there to get and you get him back out or you're going and getting taking care of business and getting rid of the people that need to get R and all of you guys get out that's a success yeah how all the little Integra whether you're highport low port Rick and two people going in six people going in side by side across you know across the hall from each other clearing as you go or going to the S I mean really what we did was what they've turned into uh for active shooter really you know cuz it's get to where you get to where the problems at cuz that's what your job is is that problem and that's you know law enforcement is way behind on that um especially at the lower levels yeah yeah what is there anything else that you found to be challenging in the in the in the vetting uh you know the I mean the driving was pretty easy for me because I'd been through a couple different driving courses one is law enforcement you've already been through a few driving courses um I I mean and I just I love driving I mean when I was a kid we had a we made we call it a coyote car it was an old Cadillac that we took the fenders off of so you didn't have that put some mud tires on it um cut a hole in the roof and we took you know what a sickle bar is I don't okay it's what you could it's apparatus that cuts hay and a sickle blade is a triangle like this and what they do is they go like this to cut the hay Well we'd take those and put them as um a grill on the front cuz they'll also cut barb wire fences and then you'd put two of them up here too cuz if you had your head outside of the top of the car and that barb wire fence got pushed up over and it come across the top it'd take your head off um but we used to drive across the Prairie out of Eastern Colorado hunting coyotes in this car and uh yeah and we'd go into town every now and then and get the cops to chase us and we'd haul us out into the country and just go through the bar ditch and cut through a fence and just drive across the Prairie and to get away from because they couldn't catch you and get home and uh Sheriff had already called my dad has the boys been out again with that car they got yeah but it's kind of the same thing so I had a lot of lot of driving experience already and that kind of stuff but um for me the biggest thing was probably the rifle because I had done more pistol stuff than probably most people cuz when I was uh anti-terrorism counterterrorism instructor we did I mean we were shooting 45s and um I mean I I was shooting back then a th000 rounds a day sometimes a pistol oh wow for couple weeks at a time and then take a week or two off and so I was always a good I mean that was my thing and so when the pistol thing came up I'm like oh cool this is good but I didn't spend as much time as like the team and marock and all of them on the rifle I mean you know I carry the rifle all the time as an infantryman but not training in that manner I thought it was challenging too man I I was like it didn't some of the calls didn't sound too bad until until you got put on that timer and then it was oh well you had the stress of running you know you're you're you're moving you're running and when you you got to run shoot and you got to have so many T so many rounds off Hit the Target in limited amount of time second and a half I mean that's not easy for anybody no you know I I do think I want to dwell too long on this either but I do think that I think the shooting package was a little bit higher than it needed to be I think some of the other training it wasn't really balanced you know but I will say they did a damn good job of coming up with a set drills that shows it doesn't just show accuracy it shows weapon proficiency it shows how to manipulate the weapon how to do like they they did a good job of coming up with a certain number of drills that that that show that the individual can demonstrate how to manipulate how to drive how to shoot how to accurately shoot how to do mag all of it you know was is with a relatively low amount of rounds and a low amount of qualifications I mean it was well and I think that you know the and the important thing out of all of it is doing all of that under stress MH you know and it's um because a lot of people could do that but do it under the stress of who you're competing against as well as the time limit and the and the physical exertion that takes placed in between shooting against shooting against a timer that you don't even always know the time in front of all the alpha males that you are there with with the instructor kadre breathing down your neck and you're shooting for a $300,000 plus job that'll get to you yeah but um that's it cuz you miss once it's over you go home that day y you're you don't come back the next day it's over yeah but um well Mark Let's uh let's take a quick break when we come back I want to pick up in your career when you started deploying to Libya in Benghazi let's get kind of a pattern of life that was going on there and then we'll get into what happened on September 11th let's do it a lot of people are struggling just to make their credit card payments every month it's a frustrating cycle and I understand just how stressful it can become but there's a better way use the power of your home to put you back in control of your finan es American financing can help you take advantage of the equity you've built and you can finally say goodbye to that NeverEnding debt that has been holding you hostage here's the best part their customers are currently 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sharper on a regular basis we also just received some exciting news in addition to being available in select Equinox gyms Ketone IQ can now be found in local Sprout stores nationwide I wish I'd had this product when I was on active duty I get better endurance I don't get the crash and it helps curb my appetite hvmn is offering my audience 30% off your first subscription order of Ketone IQ you can save 30% off your first subscription order of keton IQ at hmn.com Shan again visit hmn.com Shan And subscribe upon checkout for 30% off all right Mark so we're going to get into Benghazi and I just want to tell the audience from everybody knows Benghazi but I just want to give a little bit of spit a couple facts out about it so it was one of the most catastrophic events ever to happen to CIA it was at the time and to be honest one of the most cat catastrophic events to happen in the 20 years or so that we've spent in war um you've been wounded you were 22 blast wounds in the attack it was from an Islamic militant group your left arm was mangled in the mortar attacks at the an Annex you were hit in the neck four or five times you were hit in the chest and stomach shrapnel near the femoral and coted artery you're credited with saving as many as 25 lives the attack in gazi claimed five lives Tyrone Woods which is a mutual friend of both of us you were closer with him your dog is named after Tyrone Woods Ron Glenn dhy other contractors involved Dave Boon Benton Chris Tonto Ponto John TIG Sig or John TIG Tegan Jack Silva and yourself Mark ozge Osby in your call sign US ambassador Christopher Stevens died that day US foreign service Information Management offer officer Sean Smith Kia um and location Benghazi Livia at the US diplomatic compound CIA compound the annex this is the first time since 1979 that a US ambassador was killed in the line of duty the Benghazi attack had wide political consequences accusing the Obama administration of intentionally misleading the public and stonewalling Congressional investigators and Clinton Hillary Clinton the Secretary of State at the time for not doing enough to protect the Diplomatic pound and that's been an ongoing you know that's been an ongoing thing ever since I don't believe any government official has ever been held accountable I know there was a Delta team staged in Italy uh waiting to come down they never got authorization to come no um it was once again one of the most incompetent times of American leadership and um it it I know it strikes a core with you I can't even imagine it really strikes a core with me because you guys are my guys and I know it strikes a Corb with at least half of the country so and that's over 150 million people that care so I want you to realize that you know there's a lot of love coming your way from this audience but um but uh and I misspoke for Americans right okay yeah so what I'd like to start with is what was I mean generally how it works there is you show up and they assign you where you're going and then you kind of stick in that in that area you know for for at least a couple of deployments before they start to move you into other parts of the world so how many times had you deployed to Benghazi before September 11th none that was this was your first deployment that was my first deployment there I'd only been there 45 days a month and a half in this is what goes down yeah well can you describe a little bit about what the what the environment was like in Benghazi at the time what the team life was like just daily routine I mean Benghazi itself I actually um felt safer in Benghazi than I did when I was in Pakistan really because I mean Pakistan is you have this feeling of acceptance but most of the you know there's 90 million people in Pakistan 89 m998 th000 of them hate you um the people in the average citizen in Benghazi loved us I mean you know so like and at my average day I would get up um usually worked from get up around at night I'd work most through mostly through the night get back off whatever we were doing out in town during the night um sleep from you know 3: or 4 till 10:00 get up at 10:00 have breakfast we had an outdoor gym there go out work out at the gym go in read the read board see what's going on if there's any intel anything like that um and then a lot of times especially being first trip there I'd be out in town during the day um getting to know the lay of the land knowing the roads driving everything um meeting people uh and all of that I mean you know the GRS job was it started out as just Diplomatic Security you know and then I think that they I think you know and we were always kind of the bastard children of wherever we went because the operations officers the case officers didn't want us getting in their way I think as time went on they started realizing these guys have a lot more capabilities than just babysitting you know and that turned into surveillance counter surveillance an um doing all kinds of different operations what what kind of stuff were you doing over there other than regular Diplomatic Security you know um all the time I mean and a lot of this is U depending on what you want to do you know um I would my thing is getting out meeting the people I want to know atmospherics I want to know patterns of Life of people of the average citizen because if I can see that then I can see the anomaly to it when it's something else whether it's during the day during at night I mean all of that kind of stuff uh you know it was an open source um statement or or rule that we're always looking for Stinger missiles or Surface to air missiles um so we're always looking for that uh you know there's um and there's a lot of different groups in Benghazi you know when you talk about Libya as a whole as most countries over there it's the country itself is not a true um depiction at least the way most people perceive a country here in America is not a true depiction of what's life like there you know Eastern Libya was different than Western Libya two different tribes mhm in the South you had the torberg which were all your that's all your Gun Runners you know they're the they don't they don't get in politics leave me alone we're just running freaking they're the mafia of of of that part of the country or that part of the world um you know running drugs running anything they're friends with whoever's paying them um you know but Western Libya which is over in you know as Tripoli and that was a different tribe and that was Gaddafi's tribe versus what was going on in eastern Libya Eastern Libya was you know DNA and that's where a lot of the um training camps were that were training out in the desert training foreign fighters to go fight and kill the Americans overseas in Afghanistan and Iraq um you know and that's kind of the backstory that has never been told is why was Gaddafi going after them well if you go back and look at history it's because after we killed Saddam in Iraq Gaddafi that at that time was trying to take North with Africa into a gold standard take him off the trading in the US dollar for oil and wanted to make his own kind of instead of NATO Muslim African currency and trading partners well that didn't go well with us um at the time and he was allowing foreign fighters to be trained in eastern Libya and Gaddafi didn't care as long as he was getting the money from from the oil um but what happened is Bush basically sent a little bird over to him and said you know hey you're next if you were going to allow people to be trained to come over that are going into Afghanistan and Iraq and kill Americans you're part of the problem you're not part of the solution and we're going to kill you like or we're going to do what we did to Saddam to you well Gaddafi being the smart guy that he was and I don't care what I didn't like him but he's like he's he's a survivalist mhm okay so he went after the training camps and he didn't like that tribe anyways cuz they were different than his and that's what started the whole that those attacks and they started over the years you know and just became worse and worse until he had Benghazi surrounded uh in in 2011 and that's when the cry went out now what happened in America that was different we had a change of leadership but got elected out Obama administration got elected in different philosophy different way of dealing with that kind of stuff and I think at the time and this is the opinion of Mark G but Hillary Clinton saw her chance to put together a coalition and go after the bad guy because Gaddafi's been a bad guy to America ever since the lockerby Scotland um terrorist attack back in shoot when was was lockerby it was in the 18 or 1980s or '90s was it that long ago yeah I think 90s and he uh so he's always been a bad guy so it's easy to make him a bad guy and go after him well that's when Ambassador Stevens before he was an ambassador he was just a Foreign Service Officer in 2011 was pushed into Benghazi along with a team to put together the Coalition of militias that to fight against Gaddafi and Hillary Clinton put the Coalition of foreign countries Germany Italy France the US and a few others those were the big four to get rid of Gaddafi um I was in najaf at the time and I remember seeing stuff or hearing that I didn't see anything I heard that Gaddafi's Sons this was in 2011 were in DC trying to negotiate with the US to allow their father to Exile to a third country and what I was told is that Hillary Clinton said no we're going to kill him um so the whole thing of destabilizing that country came because somebody in my opinion again Mark G opinion wanted to have a platform to run on in 2016 that said look what I did I overthrew this country I put this Coalition together and we got rid of one of the worst bad guys in the world who happened to be doing what we wanted him to do at the time well that plan definitely went to yeah it did um Hillary Clinton is one of the most disgusting human beings on the planet very much so always has been always will be and we'll be inserting Clips on her response to Benghazi several times throughout the interview you won't see it until it comes out but I want to show who she is she is she's worse than her husband yeah I mean so to get back to you know so Benghazi if you look at it it looked like the streets look like a wagon wheel or half a wagon wheel you had the port at the center was the Hub and there was streets that came straight out from that that were so like Spokes and then there was strands that streets that would cross that and it was first ring second ring third ring fourth ring and fifth ring all the way out to sixth ring that's the name of the streets um and that's how the city was kind of divided up so if you could get on Sixth if if you got on Fifth Ring Road I could drive all the way from over the coast all the way over to the coast okay so to speak so it looked like a big half circle got and uh the consulate was on uh fourth Ring Road the back side of was fourth ring the annex was in between fourth ring and fifth ring about halfway we were about a mile away from the uh as as a crow flies from the consulate okay um that kind of paints a picture of it and there was probably five or six different militias that still operated in that area I mean one militia um was controlled the airport uh so anything that went in and out of the airport got taxed by them another militia controlled the Overland sea traffic or the Overland traffic another one controlled the sea port um probably a week or so before um 9/11 when the attack happened there was a militia that came in and painted a bunch of cars to look like police cars and put their people in uniform and drove around being the police extorting money out of the local citizens and I mean that's the nature of Benghazi there was no government entities really I mean there were there but they didn't operate with any control over anything or influence it was all the militias and money and the biggest one was February 17th martyr's Brigade and Feb 17 was also the one that all that was the umbrella of all the other militias to fight against uh Gaddafi and they were quas friendly with us as friendly as they could be um and uh though some of their Fighters attacked the consulate as well and uh just down so you had the consulate and it was the compound it was actually two compounds that were put together that were about 8 Acres then the compound next to it was probably three or four acres and the next one three or four acres and then the like the third or fourth down from it was an Al-Qaeda safe house and the road that ran in front of them all was called what we called at least or the state department called consulate Road that's their super secret name okay and uh the road the the that was on that on the would been the Eastern side of it was we what we called um Adidas um because there was a shoe store over there so it was easy we called that one Adidas the one on the opposite side on the western side of the consulate um that would make that block was called gunfighter cuz uh some of our guys we've gotten into a gunfight there before um so that's kind of the layout and but the average person in Benghazi loved us they were like yeah you know we're glad you got rid of Gaddafi because Gaddafi was trying to he you know he didn't care for that was a separate tribe he was willing to kill them all yeah you know which was a bad thing and yeah should have been stopped or but he was still doing what he what we wanted him to do from the politics side of things what was the relationship between the GRS operators and the regular CIA staff you know each one of us had a little bit different I mean the way it was depicted in the movie is probably more indicative of um Tonto and that relationship I mean Bob was a guy that he' been with the CIA for 30 some years M you know he was an old school spy probably done a lot of great in his career but he didn't think he needed us he thought we were as you said earlier a burden on them you know and a lot of those Old-Timers thought that because they're used to doing spy stuff the way they did in Europe MH you know where all spy agencies had a little bit of respect for each other even though they were trying to go after each other yeah if you don't mind I'd like to just interject a little bit here so the so at our time at the agency at CIA there you have these you have a lot of people that had been within the CIA for for a very long time who had never worked in a real wartime environment they've always worked in these in these semi- permissive environments like Russia you know Cuba all the Soviet countes you know South America but never anything where there's a lot of action and so when you take somebody like that who spent 30 20 30 years in a semi-permissive environment like that and then you put them into a war zone They don't understand the differentiation that you're that that the two different areas of operation have and so they bring all these they bring a lot of old school Cold War tactics into a real war zone where people want to kill you yeah immediately yep kidnap you exploit you get you on the news chop your head off you know and which we've seen them do several times and then you put that group of people in with people that have been to war and that do understand that environment and have spent 20 years 10 20 years fighting the war already and we're very familiar with that and when you get these two together it clashes it does clashes you know and they don't it took a very long time for a lot of the the people at CIA the the case officers and and it took them a while to come around and to realize hey these guys have been here for a long time this is I've been around for a long time but I've never worked in an area like this and these guys have for a long time and and it it it is still like that at certain places I'm sure it is you know it comes down to it's it's good leadership versus bad leadership and it's getting to know your people and your assets if you you know you know as well as I do if you don't know the capabilities of your team how can you properly employ them MH how can you use that asset to if and if you refuse to learn it then you're just failing the people that you're serving if you don't know the assets of the people under you you are a bad leader yeah it's just as simple as that if you don't take the time to get to know your team that's on you you are a leader and and I will you know I'll give and I don't let's give Grace maybe is the right word but sometimes we as well as type A personalities sometimes step on our own cranks and don't always when we get that feeling don't always try to work with them in a nice way M it's kind of okay I mean you know there's some of that there sometimes I mean and sometimes it's not just it's not the group by any means but there's individuals that are like that that's very true you know and and it doesn't help our cause sometimes we can't get out of our own way for that because I've worked with some great when I was in Pakistan I mean I got to work with some great CEOs and and they utilized us and a lot of it was forced initially because passports couldn't get um approved for case officers so you got to be do a lot of things that you never would have got to do anywhere else and because it had the right Co or the right uh chief of base and would let us do things and we were able to provide things that he could never get to that they we're like wait a minute how'd you do that because I'm not afraid to talk to somebody you know I mean things like yet I mean I remember talking to I saw this we were down on this beach and this guy was riding this horse and I stopped and talked to him CU I liked horses but that was my front to him and I got to ride his horse and then he he turned out to be the largest he ran the whole book of Karachi no kidding yeah so you know that guy knows sh yeah he know he's got dirt on everybody yeah but you know that's why I like getting out every place I go I'd get out and down and meet the people cuz you never know who you're going to meet and don't ever be afraid to talk to people I mean you know but part of that also came from my military career cuz as a when I was in interrogation platoons we started the Hat program which was the human intelligence exploitation teams and that was a lot of the training we had from then is you know you had to be blend in you had to work out in a per you know in a non-permissive environment set up safe houses do things like that um for the Muse if we ever had to do something in different countries and that's you know and so I had some background into that coming into this but that's just and working as a police officer I've done undercover work there as well so um it's just doing that and I think a lot of the guys tried to do that you know it just depended on which one some didn't and I got it but patterns of life and knowing what the people are doing where they're hanging out during the day I mean stop by the computer you know the the internet stores you can always run into some interesting people there yeah you know but keep an eye on that you know things like that and that was that was my goal every place I went was to be out in the community um it put you out there a little bit more but it's also going to help you do your job mhh and uh that's kind of That's So It was friendly but unfriendly there was always that undertones of you know there there's always bad guys running around yeah it's just a matter if they want to come after you you're not what was the team Dynamic within GRS did everybody get along yeah we did I mean it was you know there's um me and Tonto always but buted heads a little bit you know but that's just cuz two alpha males but nothing on a negative aspect I mean we all were there to work and it's goes back to what we talked about earlier it's being professional you know I don't I don't have to like you to work with you I'm there and that's the one thing most people don't realize is because everybody's like man I'll bet you guys are tight now yeah because we went through this big thing we have this common thing that is does bring us together but at the same time we weren't a team that worked together and she wanted to come over and say hi uh she you know we weren't a team that came there together we came there as individuals to form a team you know TIG had been there he was on his third tour okay uh Tonto had been there he was on his second Tai was on his second Los was on his first um DB I think was on his second and and uh Tonto and DB and Tai were supposed to have already on 9/11 they were supposed to have rotated home but they extended because they didn't want to have new guys coming in they didn't know the area so they instead they wanted to get past 911 what about Glenn so Glenn and his team were from Tripoli okay they were the GRS team up in Tripoli okay and so I mean I didn't I didn't know Glenn other than by reputation until five to seven minutes before he got killed okay wow he came up on the rooftop came over Ty introduced us you know Glenn just from people I've talked to before and after I mean he was that guy that you always wanted on your team cuz he had the most positive outlook on things I mean he always had a smile on his face um but he was also a gunfighter who you know if there was a gunfight anywhere around he wanted to get in it CU that's what he did he was that's who he was yeah um you know it's it's that's probably one of the things I I wish I could have known that man a lot better yeah I wish I never got the opportunity to meet Glenn I've heard a lot of amazing things about him and um he was I mean he said sounds like he was just a hell of a guy yeah you know and uh I don't know if I mentioned this on the show or just to you but um Tyrone Woods I mean he he put me through buds he put me through sqt which is Seal qualification training y never heard from him again uh for a long time and then we contracted together we never got we actually never got to deploy together but um yeah what a uh lost some good dudes so tono and DB had worked together in Pakistan um I had worked in Pakistan when DB was there but we never worked together we were always doing something different or at different locations in Pakistan me and Tig were had both worked in Pakistan but not together usually TIG was coming out when I was rotating in so it's and that's the dynamic most people don't understand is you know and that's how why you have to be professional doesn't matter if you like people or don't like people you're going to have you know we're Alpha it's like any team you're going to have friction between certain people but that doesn't matter because the job's more important and when you aren't a team that works together you have to be super super to me you have to be super professional because otherwise it's hard for guys to to work past that if you don't yeah don't have you know you got to have that respect for each other but you know we always bust each other's ball too that's just yeah how the teams you know part of it yeah you can't take that then you're in the wrong line of work exactly yeah but um well Mark let's start to move into September 11th um September 11th it's you know for us in I mean as you know in GRS every day whatever most of the countries we work in are holes mhm I mean they're dangerous there that's why we're there and every day is a 911 really you have to look at it that way otherwise you're not going to be ready for something that goes off but um we were you know the night before the Ambassador um had come down cu the Ambassador came down um from Tripoli with his with two of his protective detail and there was three guys that were at the consulate and that's one thing most people I mean the consul was 8 acres and when the Ambassador was there they had five diplomatic security officers to protect him on 8 Acres that's it that's it now they had some local Nationals that were at the gates and things like that and but you know they're not Dependable yeah they didn't have guns they had night sticks um I think part of it was the Ambassador I mean I didn't know him personally I never met him um but he spoke two or three different dialects of Arabic fluently I mean I think he let his guard down a little bit too much was too comfortable with the people um his team leader the team leader from the consulate I had talked with a couple weeks before and CU we were doing something over at the consulate and he had asked me he says hey do you think we should come in heavy or should we be covert and I'm like well how's he getting here they're like well he's flying commercial I'm like well you better come heavy because once he gets on the plane in Tripoli everybody's going to know where he's going because that's the way it is everybody when he lands here everybody in Benghazi is going to know it so there's a threat to him that's you better be aware of that threat but yeah well I'll have to think about it and I like the guys for his security team they were great guys but they wouldn't they're not guys I would want to go to war with I mean their team leader had several in Iraq five or six years of experience in Iraq but most of it was inside the green zone um one of the guys was on TDY to Benghazi because the you know it's that idea of getting promoted you had to have a hardship tour to get promoted in state department so I'm going to ship you over to some place like Benghazi which would have been okay if you would would have went to some place like Tripoli mhm where you have a large number of diplomatic security officers one guy that's a newbie or green isn't going to make that big a difference he went through there six week I think it was six at that time maybe eight week high threat course and now he's hna hna you're able to protect a diplomat in a very very very dangerous environment um but he was he's a great guy just not shouldn't have been there um but that's the procedures of the state department that screwed that up um so the night before they'd come over cuz they would always come over once a week usually for dinner because their their Cooks were local Nationals and you know how local Nationals are they don't wash your hands they yep or anything so to keep from always getting sick we had our own kitchen staff you know how the agency operates so we had our chef and uh our Chef was freaking he was a badass anyways I mean he grew up as a freaking gangster I think on the streets and uh first thing that on 911 kind of getting off the sequence of things but first thing he did was grab a shotgun said go ahead let him come in here he wasn't going to play I mean he he was he was right he was a good dude um but they came over for dinner and we offered to let them stay at the compound you know cuz our compound found was size of a football field square footage wise just more square and uh but the Ambassador chose not to he felt comfortable he'd went over went back over to the uh consulate and uh the next day you know we weren't going to have any moves we didn't really have anything planned um because of 911 you knowless air on the side of caution stay inside why mess why go out and make a target of yourself if you don't have to um until midaf afternoon the female case officer came up and said hey we I got to move I got to we got to meet some people tonight and uh um I drew the Short Straw so to speak but um I got along with her better than the other guys uh and uh she uh and I think that's they're like yeah you cuz I just talked to everybody I mean I don't so they thought I got along with her and so you can go on this one and and uh so we did and we left about 6:00 we had to go meet another couple um the way I you know I describe it as we had to go on a dinner date um but we went and met a couple at this compound and um met went and uh we uh met their you know it was their daughter's birthday so we were had dinner um wanted to smoke the hookah pipe the guy uh guy wanted you know cuz that's the tradition after dinner and he he kind of was up upset with himself because there the bowl of the hookah pipe had gotten broken and I'm like well you got a pear and he's like a pear yeah why I'm like here go get a pair and I had you know one of the uh um who made them we always had a bunch of knives all the switchblade knives in our conx and I had a couple I had one of those on me and he brought the pair off and so I cut the bottom off cut the top flat and hollowed it out and stuck it on top my brother was a pothead when I grew up and used to smoke pot out of an apple every now and then he'd make a pipe out of an apple and that's where I learned that and that guy was so enamored over that that he never thought of that because it was the tobacco was pair tobacco and I gave him the knife and CU he thought the knife was cool and gave him the knife and we just sitting there talking and smoking the hookah pipe when we got a I got a call from Tyrone and he said hey I get back to the annex stay away from the consulate didn't say anymore cuz it's on open source um unencrypted and I uh got a hold of uh I gathered up the female case offer I'm like hey we got to go we got to go now got loaded up in the car and we're we're on thin skin um thin skin means not armored vehicle yeah I forget not everybody knows those terms but uh but we had a secured coms in there and that's when we turned on the radio and found out what was going on and as we're heading out the gate of to the compound you could hear the uh you know an RPG go off you could hear gunfire explosions and the female case officer is like holy what's going on and she's getting she's and it was kind of funny cuz she's sitting there you know wanting to tell me okay we got to do this we got to do this I'm like I need you to shut up I don't need your freaking mouth I need your eyes look for threats and if it ain't a threat don't freaking say nothing cuz I'm focused on that I'm and I'm trying not to I'm keeping my composure cuz I don't want to be driving fast I don't want to make myself a Target and I knew so we had to drive West down the coast cut back in and come back a little bit through the desert and come back in uh to the consulate or to the annex and while we're doing that the rest of the team had already went through you know they had went up and said hey Bob we got to get over there and Bob and told him now you need to wait you know and we could all kind of understand that cuz you want he's trying to assess what's going on over there take a few minutes gather up Intel before you send your guys out because they are the security also of the of the annex for the most part you know so you could see I mean the guys could see the Tracer fire see the fire the smoke the reflection of the fire in the smoke coming from the consulate and the team leader had come over the radio and said hey if you don't get here now we are all going to die and that after having already went up and asked again and Bob said No they went up the third time and they didn't even wait for the third time when that came over the radio they just loaded up and headed out the gate and it was like a two to three minute four minute drive over there at best you know um they got over there went down gunfighter Road and come up to the intersection of gunfighter and consulate Road and there's a peak there's a uh hux pickup truck there with a PKM in it um or no no is a diska which diska is 12.7 MM 50 cal sniper rifle I mean belt belt fed machine gun for everybody out there but uh and this guy's shooting down towards the consulate you know and they're pulling up on this wondering what the hell is this guy friendly or not and as long as he wasn't shooting at them and that's kind of you know that was that's the life we live you had to decide on things like that on whether or not friendlies and Foe and who do you shoot who do you don't and this guy was so shooting at the guy and they could see Tracer Fire coming from this direction from down there and you know neither of them are hitting each other they're just freaking shooting like crazy well TIG jumps out and he's PE he Peaks his head around the door or the the wall and he sees that another hux pickup truck down there with a diska shooting back and Tig had a uh 40 mm grenade launcher on him so he br freaking drops three rounds on top of that vehicle and takes it out and while that happens Tonto and DB move they're going to go back through some of the compounds and jump fences and get up because there was a building they could get up high in to look into the into the an consulate so they're looking they they're doing that while TIG and Tyrone and Jack moved down the Front Street down consulate Road and they had picked up I think they picked up two Feb 17 guys and they that were standing there and the diska guy was a Feb 17 guy is what we found out so the Feb 17 February 17th martyr Brigade okay so they were with them well they're like okay hey we'll go with you these two guys and they moved down the con the consulate Road till they come to the front of the um front of the compound or the consulate and the big doors and when they turned to go in there what they ran into was the ambassador's residence his building was fully engulfed in fly and um what we I think what we did know at that time or they knew I couldn't say I did cuz but what they knew is there was approximately 40 armed individuals that had taken over so three guys are coming through the front gate and you know the only what do you have you know what do you have at that point to to freaking keep your life keep keep alive and that's element of surprise and violence of action mhm and the boys came through there and started face shooting those that deserved it and I think you know looking back at it the reason they were able to push three guys were able to push them off because Ty or Tanto and DB are up in the trying they got up to a high spot realized they couldn't see so then they had to come down and move around and they were able to come through there because it scared the living crap out of them they never thought there was going to be a counter assault they weren't ready yet you know and they the compound just got clear people wow the state department guys come out and that's when they started searching for the Ambassador could you hear everything that was yeah what's going through your head um at that point one part of me is wishing I was with them because that's where I should be in my mind but the other part of me I was I was at that point worried about getting back to the consulate or to the annex because um that's there was a lot of close calls of probably the worst the most dangerous one and I thought was going to be the end of it is is we're pulling up we're oh half a mile maybe a mile from the annex and on the dirt road and there was an intersection and as we're pulling up to it there's a car in front of us and I mean you know we're only driving 2530 M hour it's just flow of traffic not to so we're not bringing any attention to ourselves now you know and the female case officer she can blend in as an Arab she speaks Arabic but this blond hair blueeyed guy ain't going to fit in up close if you know if I'm away from it and dressed right I can speak fary enough in a little bit of Arabic where I can probably at least bide me some time but and as I'm pulling up these two cars pull in like this and about six to eight guys jump out with AKs and set up a roadblock and going through my mind is okay what the hell am I going to do here it's either freaking haul ass through it or not but um the good Lord was looking out for us because the car in front of me didn't stop and drove through the the um the roadblock and all eight of those guys all of those guys turned their attention to that car and started yelling at it and it stopped on the other side of the intersection on the other side and they all went up to it which gave me a chance I just turned in freaking 25 mph made me a little turn on the across the corner cut the corner off and just drove on down and got away um because I it's otherwise I'm like okay well I'm not going to go out I mean I'm not going to freaking just give up so we're going to have a hell of a gunfight here and I told the lady I'm like you better be ready for this she's like why what's going to happen I'm like don't worry about it just it's going to happen yeah and like I said the Lord was looking out for us I think I mean it had to be cuz there's why that guy didn't stop whatever it saved my life damn so what happens where' you get back to the annex I get back to the annex and I mean they're running around the case officers and all the people there running around like freaking cats I mean trying to figure stuff out you know the case officers themselves and Bob are on their phones crying to get a hold of whoever they can both assets and not you know um see what's and trying to gain more information on who and what's going on uh um I take over security I'm the only guy now Run Security there I mean we had two uh Cobra guys but you know they one of them they were both on the on the cameras and I I wanted their eyeballs there cuz they could do better there than they could so cobras are static security they're the guys that watch the perimeter they're the guys that are in charge of Base security they're the guys that watch the cameras they're they're they are the eyes ears and security of any yeah CIA base or safe house or Annex or whatever so I grabbed the chef with his shotgun and I pulled him I'm like I want you at this door right here and I told everybody all the case officers I said everybody's in this building is was in the talk if you're coming out that's fine but I told him I want accountability because my biggest fear was they're going to be out running around and if somebody comes in and jumps the wall yeah I need need to know who is where and I need to know that unless there's only one person out or two people out at a time that are ours so I know who bad guy it's easier for me to figure out who the bad guy is if they come over the wall mhm and had there been any shots fired at the nnx at this point um so I'm going back from up and down off the rooftop kind of making a perimeter check come back up check that and Up on the Rooftop you can see the I mean I can see the bill of smoke and the reflection of the fire you could hear see the RPGs flying Tracer fire all of that from there and you know and for me that was probably that was tough yeah because it's like that I'm not supposed to be here I'm supposed to be over there cuz that's where the boys are and that was that was hard how long were they over there they left the compound at about 9:30 I think I got back around 10 10:15 um they were over there till probably close to midnight they were there that long did not realize that yeah they were there for quite a while um I think they got back around midnight somewhere between like 1150 to 12:15 somewhere around there is when they got back I think and I didn't I mean I don't ever wear I watch so I didn't know exactly on the times um I know tono had a good um he kept track at times um you know he he was pretty good at that cuz he always had a watch so he would check on that and uh I know he took a lot of flack because he said this is what time things happened and somebody else you know somebody that was more important said a different time but you know Congress who was never there decided that it was a different time oh yeah Congress yeah yeah but uh so the guys over there after they I mean they're searching it was TIG and T and uh TIG and Tyrone that was started searching for the Ambassador they got up there I think Lo uh Jack was up there first and they the state department guys had come out um and they had pulled out Shawn and I think Lo started to try to do CPR on Shawn and uh um he was deceased already uh died of smoke inhalation and Jack had contacts in and he started to go into the fire and he couldn't because it freaking about melted his contacts to his eyes um so he come back out and Tyrone and uh uh Ron and um TIG started searching for the Ambassador and uh the way they described it was like I mean they couldn't see the end of their musles because the smoke was so thick and it was that bad and we didn't have any scbas or gas mask or anything like that nothing for uh them to wear so they would hold their breath and go as far in as they could um TIG knew the layout probably the best so he was the right guy to be with Tyrone search for as long as they could and then freaking come back out take a few breaths catch our breath and go back in and I think they went in and out of there probably five to seven times looking for the Ambassador and uh one time they got separated and uh Tyrone was telling me about it uh Ron was telling me about it on the rooftop before uh the last attack as that t saved his life because he got separated from him and couldn't find his way out so he started yelling for TIG and uh TIG was able to hear him and so TIG went back in didn't you know he' just gotten out and he went back in and was able to locate Tai and guide him out and uh saved his life then damn man damn yeah yeah there was I mean and you could hear all this happening yeah and uh about that time I think uh um let's see uh there was a counter assault so TIG was made one he was back inside trying to uh search for uh the Ambassador one last time and he' taken off his uh kit so he didn't have as much to freaking drag around um and that's when Tai um in the I think it in the movie I think it shows Jack doing it but it was Tai who the state department guys they had gotten Sean Smith body loaded up in the vehicle and they were going to send them back to the X um and it was about that time that the second attack happened at the consulate so they came back again the bad guys did and they came Tonto and DB had made their way on they were over at the talk for the consulate trying to collect all of the uh sensitive material um taking all the radios and getting that stuff ready um the state department guys had started getting ready to leave and TI had told him you know hey go out turn left don't go right because remember there's that Al-Qaeda safe house to the right well they went out and instead of turning left like they should have they turned right and drove right into an ambush um thank goodness they were in a hux pick up or I mean not a hux but a uh Toyota Land Cruiser um armored armored fully level six um and uh did they get right through the Ambush yeah they did they were lucky they hit the gy I mean they did what they were at least they did the one thing they were trained to do is drive yeah and I mean but it was shot to I could hear it coming I'm back at the anex when it shows up and I can hear it coming because I can hear the flop of the tires you know that's running on run flats and I just hear this du du du and so we got the gate open they come in and the front wind screen probably had I mean it was just shot to 30 40 bullets holes up and down both sides tons of bullet holes I mean they were just and they were overwhelmed when they got out I mean Scott Wickland was uh he had smoke inhalation cuz he was who was he was the AIC for that night with the Ambassador and got separated from him in the fire cuz Scott went out a window and was trying to bring the Ambassador out that window but didn't make it because the the Ambassador lost contact with him um it's a training mistake you know um and I don't like talking bad about it but it was the failure on training I mean Scott you know what we do is link on me mhm you grab a hold of me and hold on don't ever freaking let go if I feel you let go I'm turning around to look for you that never happened damn I that's the only thing I can draw from it because they got separated in the way Scott talked about it he turned back around to look and the Ambassador wasn't there anymore well you failed to get him to there and you know stay right here do not move like you got to do that to people cuz in that kind of high stress you know people aren't thinking you have to tell people what to do and that's that's another thing you know with the with the with the Cold War stuff kind of like what we were talking about before or like these types have never been in this type of situation and so if you do not get in front of them make ey contact and place them tell them what to do give them a job they don't they can't they can't function they're not used to that amount of stress nobody is no very few and if you don't you know it's and we used to teach this in EMT school you know if you're doing CPR and you come up on somebody and there's somebody standing around you give somebody a d look him in the eye you give them a direction you go call 911 you go direct tra you got to do same thing you stay right here I'm going out this window I will turn around and get youh you know or here I'm going to cuz he wanted to SEC his thing was he wanted to secure outside make sure that he wasn't sending the Ambassador out of window to get shot yeah you know um so while that's all going on the counter assault happens and there was a guy in the back um and by this time we have a Drone footage so they've got a drone overhead um so we're getting reports from them and I didn't know they had a drone over at that time I can't say I got any reports I didn't know it until after I got out of the hospital I got to see the Drone footed and you could see a guy with an RPG at the back gate um to the consulate and he steps out and he fires around and it goes right over the ambassador's residence you see this dot you know you see the tig and it's TIG coming out of the building he comes up the ladder and comes he's starting to come across the top of the rooftop um and to paint the picture for everybody out there is you know 99% of the roofs over there are flat and they've got a 3-ft basically wall around the top of them as a parit works great thank goodness for us cuz it gives us Co cover and concealment It's a Small Arms fire um but you can see TIG coming across and the guy would hide behind the wall load another RPG step back out and fire another one and it went over and then uh he stepped back loaded a third one and as he come out and fired TIG came up you could see TIG start to shoot TIG put about eight rounds down there to him and you could see the rounds you could see the the RPG had already launched and you can see them coming like this the art the Tracer fire going past it as it's starting to come to TIG kills that guy and then and this is where I tell people I mean because we had a I call it the seventh man we had a seventh man on our that team and that's Christ above because this RPG is coming like this and literally takes a 90° turn and goes off into the nowhere wow are you kidding me no that's impossible yeah I mean RPG is 3 and a half inch 80 some millimeter freaking anti-tank round going 7,000 ft per second or something like that 5.56 round 22 on steroids coming at 32 32 2800 ft per second something like that that it just I mean it just like boom just that way wow and that stopped the firefight TIG killing that guy it just died off that next that attack so at that time they were still Gathering up everything and they had to make the decision to stay there and try to defend that place in search for the Ambassador or fall back to the annex and uh an asset a guy came on and told him that there's they got a phone call that there was a local National who was on the compound that um friendly said that you know there's 100 guys coming this time and so everybody loaded up and freaking took off um and as they're going cuz when TIG TIG when they brought two vehicles up and then when they unloaded the vehicles you know over a gunfighter and uh consulate that's where TIG shot the freaking uh 40 mm and then he threw the back threw the weapon back in the car and they were armored cars so they locked those up um and went down uh when they left they had a one of the guys and in the movies and we don't talk about the team leader Ty was our team leader but he was our contractor team leader there was a blue badge guy there too um he drove that car in and that's how they left well when they left Tigs like my bag my go bag and my fre and 40 my 40 mm grade launcher in that other vehicle and didn't bring it back to the annex because they had just had to haul ass and get out of there why don't you guys talk about the Blue Badger cuz he was still at the time he was still there working okay and you know it's just out of respect for that didn't want to he's gone now gotta um I think he's out of government service and all um I'd worked with him at a couple other places and good guy but again I'd have a bear with him but I wouldn't go to combat with him um but uh and in the movie his character him and Bob's character were kind of combined okay so for the movie sake um but we got back and uh they come back and they rolled in and you know they're first saying hey where do you got security and I'm like well I here here and here and they knew where to fill and so Tonto and DB got on top of one rooftop TIG took the Eastern South Eastern Corner um Tai went up on first Tai went inside and checked on the guys that had smoke inhalation cuz he was our medic as well um and Jack got up on a building and I took the southeast or the northeast corner and uh most likely Avenue of approach was going to be from the North or the East the north was more of Zombie Land um some sheep pins and things like that and then to to the east was um really the only Avenue they could come in and there was a couple civilian houses in between us and this parking lot so you guys are on two separate rooftops we had three separate rooftops three separate rooftops and then myself I was on an elevated position that we had built before I got there it was built up a platform in the corner the northeast corner TIG was in the Southeast corner and we started seeing movement out there if if you don't mind real quick just can you tell me who's on each rooftop so so let's just do rooftop one two and three rooftop one would be the talk that's where everything happens in the end okay that's um Tai ends up on that rooftop okay he goes up there after he checks on the guys inside um we'll go clockwise that being 12 so to speak the next rooftop would be rooftop two Tonto and DB were there that's the rooftop covering the East and a little bit to the north from there okay and then there was a rooftop behind us that no one was on because that one Tonto and DB no there was a state department guy on that one okay and that covered the front Road the entrance to kind of the front Road into the South and then Jack was on the one that covered to the West and to the north okay and where are you TIG and the Blue Badger the Blue Badger stood in front of the door kind of took the job of the chef oh so he wasn't in the fight no not at all ever ever I don't know if you all been paying attention but there is a huge push to go to a digital dollar also Al known as Central Bank digital currency which could leave us a cashless Society but when every dollar is gone that means no extra cash for garage sales and no tooth fairy or piggy banks every penny you spend could be tracked and controlled of course Millions will call it a conspiracy theory but those people may end up on the wrong side of History that's one reason why thousands of Americans are opting out of the system and putting some of their savings into gold and silver to help you navigate that decision you can go to Gold code.com ran or call 8559362262 in free silver just for protecting your savings so with the possibility of a digital dollar coming at the very least you want to be educated about your options so go to Gold code.com ran or call [Music] was killing bad guys over and over again and there's just be bodies like a video game taking them out sometimes my gun would stop working and they were like advancing and then I'd wake gun my war with my battle was like in my dreams you enjoyed those dreams yeah I did [Music] I took a a shot on a guy he was he was reaching for his AK felt different than the other ones so we go to his little computer he's got KBR contractors truck drivers from like the Philippines staked on the side of like this highway in Iraq a huge roadside bomb and I remember going out to the the prime minister wanted to go out there and look and remember just seeing like shoes lining the streets cuz and the people blown out of their [Music] shoes that's one thing crazy about killing some of those engagements are close real close come here dude and you're holding dead bodies as they fade so I want to say something about blue Badgers so blue b when we talk about the team Dynamic of a GRS team there is a contractor element and then there is always one staffer now for the contractors we had already discuss this right you have to go through a very grueling qual qualification demonstrate your skills course 6 to 8 years Special Operations minimum every once in a while every once in a while there are exceptions that team is run by a CIA staff officer so the staff officer actually has none of th they don't have to have any of those qualifications very few of them actually have any qualifications a lot of them don't have to do the qualifications course and so what what you have is a lot of incompetent leaders leading Warf Fighters right and so which here we go another example the Blue Badger hid from the fight the entire time well and he uses the argument um that well his job and because his job is to make sure his job is to protect he's the AIC of the chief of Base uh-huh so he thinks that his in his mind his idea is the best way to do that is stand in front of that door so if you guys all get killed he's just going to take all hundred of the fighters coming towards you ex right instead of being instead of realizing that you know what another another gun up in the freaking melee when you have yeah there's six of us him would have been seven that extra gun could mean a whole lot of difference when you're dealing with could but it was a staff officer so there is that probably maybe it wouldn't have made much difference but and and and I agree with that I mean for me cuz there was one other we had one case officer who um had worked with activities group and had some experience but still not to anything and I sent him down cuz I'm like why don't you go on down and he was very happy that I sent him down because which tells you how much experience he had yeah but at least he had the will to get up on the rooftop I'll give him that um good guy but um so that's kind of where we're at and that's when we start seeing I guess a bunch of movement down to our East in the parking lot kind of where the intersection is on the other side of the houses and we start seeing people moving up to on our Eastern flank and they're bad guys and you know we're we've got mvgs we got night vision capability and for red lasers and so we start identifying targets so i' hit a Target and tell tto and DB hey you see this one yeah and he would hit a Target and they would do that how how far out are you guys engaging and well we hadn't engaged yet they were probably 100 met out oh so you're just Laing targets we're just Laing and watching them move up so these guys just for the audience so these guys you have lasers you have night vision you're lasing targets you're basically identifying them by hey I'm going to shine my laser on this guy everybody gets visibility the thing is for the civilians listening the bad guys don't even realize they're being lazed because you cannot see the laser unless you have night vision on right and these guys didn't have night vision right and and you know and and we're being extra cautious to make sure we're these are not the you know cuz they could theoretically they could have been February 17th guys setting up an Outer Perimeter cuz we had asked for that hey can Feb 17 come up and set something come up we never got a confirmation that they were they weren't so we wanted to make sure that we're shooting bad guys you know and there was a family couple families that lived in those houses so we were extra careful not to shoot towards those if we didn't have to so we're letting them move up and you know and we had flood lights on the outside of our compound so we had those lights on everything on the inside turned off so we had light out to about 30t maybe 40 ft out from the edge into the darkness and as they're moving up um TIG had then left his position because he didn't really have an A a lane of fire and came over and was coming up to where I was at and as he comes we had separate walls on the inside too he come through a gate and we had Apparently one guy got close enough from the north that he could throw an IED over the wall um oh man and it was a but it didn't have we were again I don't know why but it didn't have any shrapnel in it it was an explosive it was a it's a gel uh explosive they use a lot of times they use it for fishing okay and he threw that over the wall and tig's coming up cuz he was bringing water over and that blew up in between us and uh and it's you know that's what initiated their attack on us how long so when you guys are setting up and everybody's on the these different rooftops are you still hearing gunfire or is it complete silence silence now cuz they had pulled back from you could still see the fires over at the consulate but there was no gunfire over there how was communication with the Drone shitty was shitty yeah cuz we would ask okay hey we're this is what we're seeing what do you guys see well they by the time and I don't you know I'm gu here's by the time it went there was too many layers to go through is my guess because I've never had that in the past anywhere else yeah you know you usually get pretty good pretty quick response I mean so they were you guys had no direct communication with the Drone it was going through DC to probably tripy to Benghazi talk to you I'm guessing it went from Nevada yeah to State Department's war room where Hillary and them were watching to tripley to the talk up to us guaranteed cuz by the time they would they're like yeah you guys got people moving up yeah they're already shooting at us okay I mean by the time they told us that they're already close enough they started engaging us so they're they're trying to keep you up to date by telling you what's happened in the past right because the relay has taking so long yeah what before we get what what are they telling are you guys I mean obviously you're asking for backup is anybody coming what's that discussion that had already take I mean Tonto started asking for that before they even left the compound to head over there you know hey get us some fast movers get us any a spectre gunship and that had to go through Bob to Tripoli where got after that don't know cuz we didn't you know and cuz in cre we were almost I can almost guarantee you there was a freaking Spectre gunship there because that's just kind of how it is yeah there's fast movers over in Italy there was I'm sure there was a lot of assets all around I I'll tell you about most of them I found out since after a bit great yeah um so we see these guys and I think it was 15 20 guys moving up on us we had all I mean we had them in a crossfire Tonto and DB are up on the building me and Tig are over here um TIG after that IED went off he jumped up and was shooting right next to me um and I didn't have any ear Pro in at that time and his muscle was right here freaking blew out this eard drum um but uh we had him in a crossfire and I mean we took us maybe 5 to seven menes maybe 10 at most before we either took them all out or either killed them or injured them and they decided to pull back and we're feeling pretty good cuz we got through all that I got cut in the face cuz they were trying to shoot our our lights out five to seven guys you guys killed no probably 15 to 15 to 20 how many how many mags did it take to kill 15 to 20 people I went through two there probably 60 rounds yeah maybe TIG probably about the same and same with them so 120 240 rounds to kill to kill 20 people yeah what kind of ammunition green tip yeah green tip you know and and I kind of live on that I mean it's it's one of my rules is anything we're shooting once is we're shooting at least two to three times mhm so I'm put you mean because you know i' I've heard the stories or seen too many times where somebody gets shot up with 556 and then gets up because it doesn't do enough damage on them yeah you know it's that was one thing that I really didn't I found we should have been using 77 grain yep everybody should have been using 77 grain I learned that early in my seal career in Iraq and uh when I jumped over I was very surprised to see green tip and ball ball ammunition yeah now we had plenty of ammo cuz we' gotten a shipment in probably a month maybe three four weeks before that we had probably 80,000 rounds of ammo oh Roger that I mean and we had taken everything we had taken it all loaded in magazines and then put them in 50 50 cal ammo cans every corner of every building and every elevated fighting position had a can probably had 30 or 40 magazines oh good so you could move you know so you could move from one to the other and not have to worry about taking ammo or anything you guys prepped well yeah good yeah that goes back to my six piece prior planning prevents piss poor performance and uh so we're feeling pretty good and then we start seeing I don't know it's been maybe a half hour or so um we start seeing movement again um on our Eastern flank and now they're up on our north um in that downtime me and Tig had seen there was a lot of movement of some in the sheet pins and you could see guys walking back and forth but they didn't have guns and then all sudden the Sheep started moving and it's in the movie it's a great depiction because we're like cuz I'm sitting there I'm like are they freaking craw low crawling what would I do I'd use the Sheep's cover to get close and I'm tig's like what do you want to do I'm like and we had this debate about killing every one of the we were going to just shoot all the Sheep but if they if we weren't right then you know that's going to freaking and that why do you have that conversation with yourself worried about whether that's the right thing to do or not to kill somebody else's sheep because it's the freaking mentality that the Obama Administration brought into war fighting you know and that the green bad or the blue Badgers freaking put on you well I mean it's a it's a for anybody listening that's going that's ridiculous no it's not ridiculous because the Obama Administration railroaded Eddie Gallagher and tried to throw him for pris in prison for life for killing an Isis terrorists he also tried to throw in four Blackwater contractors one for life three for 35 years I believe and they actually served time it took um it took a pardon to get them out yep and so and this happened those are just two examples this happened time and time again I mean I remember being in lashara which was supposed to be the biggest offensive Force by the American sense fujia right and I remember when those R those Rules of Engagement came out Obama administration said if they shoot back at you and if they shoot at you and drop their weapon you are not allowed to engage y so he just chopped the legs off of every every US soldier and and Theater and so completely demoralized all of the US military I had a good friend that was Contracting it was uh I don't know if you were they had the uh um tribal anthropologists that were going out and meeting with tribal leaders they were people who had doctorates in tribal anthropology in that region and they were going out trying to do that touchy feely thing with the tribes and bring them in and he his job was to protect this lady and uh the guy serving tea instead of bringing tea up had gasoline in there and threw it on the lady and lit her on fire the guy got her put out but she ended up dying so him being the good Warf fighter that he was I'm going to find that guy the next three days he was able to track that guy down that threw that killed her killed him got arrested and thrown in freck and BM jail for murder how does that work it does how does that work it does not work no your job is to protect somebody you know that threat's still there yep but you know people which goes to Benghazi all of it you got people that are in Washington DC making plan making rules and regulations to freaking dictate what a war fighter is doing on the ground it's been a long time since we had anybody in charge who actually fought for this country it's been a very very long time I mean Bush but that was in the air really e Bush senior yeah yeah that was Bush I mean even bus Jr was just nothing yeah you know it was just a check in the box oh yeah I served uhh yeah okay Eisenhower yep was eyes but but anyways continue so we start seeing movement again and this time they're coming back it's like 40 guys I think is what we see moving up and uh on that Eastern perimeter of our compound was our back gate you know and and that this is one of the differences between us and State Department we had our our bigger trucks our supply trucks backed up against that gate on the inside so if somebody did breach it they have other obstacles to go through to get in um State Department on the back gate that they breached didn't have any of that it was just a gate that ended up being opened up for them um but we also had out from that gate you know about 25 30 ft we had uh some uh uh cement barriers to for barricade to keep from them allowing a um vad a vehicle born IED up parked up against it and out of the night come this vehicle come screaming down the dirt road slides to a stop and the guy jumps out and I catch him out of the corner of my eye as I'm watching him come in and he's got his arm thrown back like he's going to throw something so I shoot him three times kill him and what he's throwing lands about 10 feet from the back gate it's another IED and blows up and that opened up the SEC the next firefight and this one probably landed lasted about 15 to 20 minutes took a little bit longer to kill them all or get most of them but again we had them in a crossfire in between the and again the difference in the movie in this is there's only four of us shooting the rest of the guys are covering the rest of the perimeter and that's one thing the movie didn't show it had us all engaged at one time because there was only one one side that they were coming at but you got to you know as you know you got to protect yourself for what's not coming too or what could be coming yeah and uh so it's Tonto and DB here and me and Tig and just tearing them up um you know and I think I went through another mag and a half there maybe two mags again um and they pulled back again and you know again they realized I guess the the the dudes you know the wolf or the sheep dog protecting this place had a few more teeth in it than what was over at the consulate and uh they pull back and you know we start this is getting on about 12:30 at night I think um somewhere around there we'd gotten information that Glenn's team had landed at the uh airport and they were going to make their way to us but the thing they didn't have is they landed there and they they didn't have vehicles um they figured they would just you know we're going to do what we do is get there and then freaking Commander Vehicles MH um and again this is another another place where the seventh man on our team was working with us that night is Glenn's team in Tripoli earlier in the night when everything kicked off they were able to there was a guy that they had developed as a asset and that morning who owned an airplane wow and they called him up that night said hey we need your airplane he says yeah it'll be at the airport ready for you with its crew and so they got all that's how they got down to Benghazi was a private plane that they were able to because of a developed asset that day wow how many people came I think there were nine total and two of them were TF guys task force um they landed and so now they've got a there's a you know and this I tell people I'm like imagine you think tsa's bad imagine Landing in a foreign International Airport in a private airplane with a bunch of guns and you're an American and it's a controlled by a militia you know you got to have that wherewithal in you and the grant you know um and credit to the boys to freaking be able to deal with that situation negotiate you know and now they have they're in this negotiation to get vehicles and escort cuz none of them had been to Benghazi either so they don't even know I mean they've got a grid coordinate obviously but they don't know how to get there yeah so they've got to deal with that and you know and luckily I mean the one thing the agency has always done well with is money yeah you always got $100 bills that you can use to buy loyalty and but the militia there I think was dragging their feet because they knew they could get more money out of them cuz they knew what was going on even if they're not part of it and they know why they're there and because they didn't get to us till 5:00 in the morning you know and this is like 1:00 in the morning now and uh also during that time we had gotten information we got a phone call from a phone it was one of the State Department Security Guys phone it was Scott who the Ambassador had that phone got a call from a local National saying that the Ambassador was at the hospital and uh that was in between the first and second firefight at the annex and that's one thing for me my thought was that that was probably just a ruse I figured it was just a ruse to get us outside of our walls MH and um but luckily so the this is it is about 1 130 um and so we sent an asset over to verify we sent a local National that we had paid to go over and verify if the Ambassador was there and he did verify that he was but he was deceased um and uh so I think that's also might what have been might might have been what delayed Glenn and them I don't know for sure but because they may have been planning on going to get him once we found out he was there they may have went one thing we did find out from the asset though is that the hospital almost every bed was taken over by either by people that we had been shooting throughout the night they the Anar Al Sharia and Al-Qaeda guys had taken over the hospital oh man so luckily no one went there but they C and and so now after that second firefight we're really feeling pretty good you know no one no major injuries no nothing um I went I left my spot to TIG and I went to start checking and seeing you know hey does anybody need ammo does anybody need food water anybody need to freaking relieve themselves you know it's downtime you got to take care of those things anyways went over and I ended up up where Tai was and Tai went down and checked on the guys um that were from the med standpoint went inside and checked on the guys and then he ended up coming back up on top of building one and uh that's when me and him just it was kind of I think it was about 2:00 2 some so we were up there from 2: to 5:00 in the morning and just kind of talking and talked about our kids cuz he had a boy that was I think he wasn't that old his baby his son wasn't uh maybe between six and nine months old damn Tai had only seen him once um I had only SE my little girl at the time was seven months old TIG had a set of twins that were two weeks older than my little girl you know Tanto had two kids I think DB had a couple kids and Jack had just found out that his wife that morning that his wife was pregnant with their third child you know and that's and it's kind of a somber I mean it's wasn't really somber but you know you just it's you talk about family and this and that and Ty was tell that's when Tai told me about how TIG had saved his life and Ty had said you know these are some of the great he was these are some of the best gunfighters I've been with ever in my career which was awesome that he would say that about the guys yeah you know cuz we all really looked up to Tai I mean um I was I think I'm a couple years I'm like four years older in Tai but I knew he had more experience in combat than I did at the time you know and and he was that quintessential Master Chief every morning he would walk out and he'd be standing at the door of his Hooch and he'd have his Styrofoam cup with coffee in it and I'm like I can see you standing up on top of the freaking BM at the freaking Beach standing there drinking coffee like yeah you little Rugrats you know it wasn't a good sight I'll tell you that yeah I can imagine and I you know and and I was reading uh during that time I'd been reading um oh what's his name's book on uh the killing of uh um Bin Laden Bin Laden um robs was it what the what was the name no who was the wasn't there somebody No Easy Day yeah No Easy Day there's a couple of them yeah there was no easy day and it was funny because I'd be like and it gave me it gave me something to bust ties balls with every day because I'm reading I'm like man you ought to read this is this true you're a seal you can tell me Mark you what the hell yeah I don't I don't freaking believe in that kind of don't you freaking yeah and I'd read some more and i' every day I'd freaking hit him at breakfast or something like that and be hey did this really happen man you got to know you're on the insights you mean and we were kind of laughing about that and just talking about just everyday you know and um how he had extended and to and uh um DB and freaking Tonto it extended you know and he's like man I should be home right now and uh we're about 5:00 is when Glenn's team arrived and they pulled up um and it was a militia that escorted them up and uh they all got out and come in and um Glenn had come around and out of all of them everybody else went inside the talk except for Glenn and Glenn come around come up on top of the rooftop and so the rooftop is like 30 ft by probably 40 ft maybe big rectangle and there was inch and a half Square Tubing cuz we had taken um I wasn't there when they did it but guys had taken inch and half Square Tubing cut it up welded it bolted it to the side of the building for ladders that's how we got up and down and then on the inside there was a box that was about a foot and a half around plats come on plots quit begging for her attention plots she won't even sit by me now uh but uh so so when you come over you could step off instead of stepping down that 3-foot step and so on the the building to the north that's where the Dave the state department guy was he's the black guy in the movie and then me and Ty were on the opposite corner and out in front of us there was a quanta hut that kind of blocked some of your position and then there was a long alley that we were covering that went down Road on this end all the way down about 200 yd to Fourth Ring Road um and uh tig's still covering to the North and the East honto and DB got the East and the South State Department guy on building three has the South Jack is over covering the east or the west and to the north as well and Glenn's team comes over Glenn comes up onto the rooftop um you know and he uh he comes over and Tai introduces him to me and I'm I you know I'm like hey thanks I'm glad you guys are here it's great to have another gunfighter up here hopefully we ain't going to need you and uh they stepped to my left and started talking and it's getting on it's like bmnt you know it's 30 minutes beginning morning nautical twilight it's that 30 minutes of time before the sun actually comes over the horizon you can start seeing shadows and I'm like and I just kind of said haphazardly You know guys if it's going to happen it's going to happen here shortly cuz otherwise the sun's going to be up and probably within the next 3 to 5 minutes an RPG come out hit the wall right out in front of us um and a mortar landed on the wall the top of the wall in front of Dave and that opened up and they opened up with belt fed machine guns and AKs at us from down that aisle how far away um probably about 100 yards 150 yards okay um Ty opens up he had a belt fed I open up with my M4 Glenn is actually moving kind of behind us and I think he I think he was trying to get separation so we're all three not in the same spot so we can kind of get a crossfire going and uh I go through a MAG and I kneel I I squat down to change I change magaz and I'm starting to stand back up um the next mortar hits and it hits the Rooftop about 15 ft to my right right where the wall and the rooftop come in and knock me back some um and I stood up to start shooting again and that's when I saw Tai he's out of the fight he's in a fetal position of my feet I turn back to start shooting and when I go to start shooting I bring my left arm up to grab my gun and as I bring my left arm up that's when I realize I'm injured cuz it's hanging off at about a 90° angle you didn't even feel it uh-uh cuz I'm just thinking of getting into the fight and I'm swinging my arm I'm sitting there swinging the thing trying to make it work and I'm shooting and then the next mortar hits and I kind of glance over and that's when I see Glenn go down and it landed just a little bit deeper into the center of the rooftop and pretty too close to Glenn he went down I turned back and started trying to shoot again and that's when the third one hit and that's the one that I felt any pain from it felt like I got stung by a thousand bees and I basically I better get to some cover cuz the next one's going to probably take me out and I doed the cover um and then I everything went quiet um and I sat up and I was sitting in something wet I thought I was bleeding out and then I realized it took me a couple seconds it was cold so it was water cuz you know they always have a water tank on top cuz that's how you get water pressure for your yeah um so I got to take care of myself I pull out my tourniquet and I'm going to start I'm starting to try to hold my arm up and I try to put the tourniquet on and I see Tai over there so I forget you know I I crawled over to him because I was more worried about him than me and tried to find a pedal pulse I find a pulse on him I couldn't find a pulse so I sat back up and and went back to Star and trying to put my tourniquet on and that's when I saw a shadow come up over the rooftop which was TIG and Dave the state department guy he had gotten injured from the first one he took shrapnel in his head and then the other three got him as well his left arm was about off like mine was and his left leg about 6 Ines above the ankle was almost completely severed TIG got up on top of the Rooftop and got two tourniquets put on his uh arm and leg saving his life and then he came over to me and I always joke to kind of ease the tension of this kind of talking about this I always tell people this is where if you ever hear TIG tell the story he's going to lie to you and I'm like cuz TIG says the reason he came over to me next is he heard some whining on that side of the building and I'm like I was over there I didn't hear none okay so if happens I didn't hear none I was but TIG comes over and he he walks up and I'm I'm sitting there I'm holding my arm up and I'm grabbing my tourniquet trying to get it on before my arm falls down cuz there was only a bit of skin here and a bit of skin here that was holding it on and a couple tendons um I didn't know it at the time but what happened is piece of shrapnel went through there disintegrated 2 Ines of the radial bone 2 Ines of the median nerve shattered the Ona and came out on this side and uh so he comes over and he looks he looks down at me and he's like hey o you might want to quit playing with that damn thing you ain't making it any better you know that that joking around kind of thing to make lighten it up and he reaches down gets the tourniquet put on and he says hey can you get over to the ladder and I'm like yeah and I didn't know if I could I just gon to cuz I knew in my mind if Ty and Glenn are alive tig's gonna be the one that can save him and he's the only one Up on the Rooftop so I've got to get over there I can't I'm not going to let him take me over there and them die from it so I walk over to the ladder and that's when one of the TF guys come up um I think it was the marine uh he comes up and he says hey can you get down on the get down the ladder and I made the stupid mistake of saying yeah and he says okay I'm like help me get up on the ledge though so he helps me and so the ladder's right here and I'm sitting my feet are dangling kind of off the rooftop and then the ladder's right here and I'm like and he leaves and I'm sitting there thinking so how do I get my ass off this from here to here so the T the ladder came up pretty high so I hooked this arm under the around that top rung of the ladder and I figur I'll just slide off and my body will turn and I can land on the ladder and uh it all worked until my feet were supposed to hit but my feet went through the ladder but I I mean I had a death grip cuz I there was no way my obituary was going to read survive gunfight survive gunfight survive getting blown up three times felt off roof and broke neck I ain't going out that way you know yeah and uh I was able to adjust myself pulled my legs and got my legs under me climbed down the ladder and I walked around the building I was heading to the front and then I ran into one of the other guys that was coming up he walked me into the building um they laid me down on the floor and uh it was pretty much pitch black in there and there was four flashlights he left to go back up top and there was four flashlights in my face and uh it was the deputy chief of base and three other case officers and I'm like hey you guys got to cut my clothes off I'm freaking bleeding for more than just my arm and the only one that responded was the female case officer and she ran back to where our med room was and uh there was she I could hear her going through she was throwing stuff around and she says I hear a yell Oz where was where's the med shares and I'm like there're in the first set of shells third from the top and it goes it's my thing is I would always every place I'd go if I could I would take a a water bottle and cut the top off and I'd tape it where our med room was and I'd put tourniquet morphine and uh um medical shears in there and always keep them there goes back to that 6p thing and uh so I knew cuz those are the three things I need to save a life just like you said in your ADC pocket dump yep and uh she grabs them while she's grabbing them and coming back the deputy chief of Base he ain't G to be be out done by no woman all right so he flips open the buck knife and this guy's sitting there shaking like a dog crap in a peach seed and his I mean he's like this and I'm like boss put that freaking thing away cuz I don't want to get stabbed you're not I'll bleed until she gets here and she come over they got all my clothes cut off and that's where we found most of everything else most of them were gushing so it wasn't too bad um this one is pretty bad it was I got here it was about a millimeter I think they ended up finding a piece of shoudel about a millimeter from my coted um I got hit really high up on the inner thigh that one was about 2 mm 3 mm from my femoral three that's like that much that much yeah and then I've got a hole in my sternum that goes that deep into the sternum but a piece of it didn't go all the way through and I had body armor on they just came in from the sides I think damn dude um I had shrapnel in my face like there's there's a little black dot there that's still shrapnel there's another one here bunch of them I think I still have like 18 pieces in me um that and rock some of it secondary but uh I've got still several in my chest they're just they would never go get it because cuz that's one everybody's like why don't they take it out like cuz your body can deal with it better it'll encapsulate it with scar tissue and hold it right there if it starts moving then we got to worry about it but most of the time you don't have to and so then everything they this is getting on guess they then they got tying Glenn off the rooftop and that was pretty contentious thing I mean um it that really affected TIG I've heard this and uh can you describe it yeah cuz you know and I look at it different than TIG I think and a lot of it's because of my faith I think because by that time if it was me up there and that was my body my my spirit who I am is gone the Lord this is just a piece of freaking meat it's a it's a vessel I don't want you to freaking sacrifice your life to freaking carry me down when you can just throw my ass off there I don't and because that's what they did is they dropped them off the side of the um the rooftop and they landed and I mean they were already gone though they weren't it wasn't them and I know that's hard for a lot of guys to understand and you know and it but it cuz TIG saw them hit the ground and hurt him and that really hit him hard yeah and I totally respect that I mean I you know the way it affects way affects one person doesn't how it affects everybody yeah um and it was the TF guys you know and you know and we hadn't had a any we hadn't come back under Fire the sun was starting to come up and all of that so you know the argument could go either way why didn't they just try to carry him down well the one of the TF guys carried Dave down and Dave was like 63 6'4 250 lbs and he tied him to his back he made it impromptu harness to carry Dave off because Dave's couldn't climb down his leg was blown off almost and in and out of Consciousness so you know and then so I I kind of understand why they did get the hell off the rooftop don't sacrifice yourself for me that's how I look at it yeah ran plots and uh so then another militia cuz the militia had disappeared the group they took off and I didn't know this until I saw the Drone the the footage from our cameras after I got out of the hospital eight weeks later two months later um those guys had took off and you know everybody wonders why did they quit shooting mortars and it's because what it that militia took off and if that I don't know if they you could see them flash their lights when you could on there when at the same time you I knew that the mortars were coming in because of the time stamps on the cameras they flashed their lights and took off and they headed in the direction that the mortars were coming from and whether they did that on purpose or because their Commander was inside our compound so did they go doing that because of that or did they just happen to go that way I don't know but that's that's what stopped the mortars cuz the mortars were 81 they were French 81 mm mortars and so to the people out there an 81 mm Mort is about 3 and a/4 in and has a kill radius if I'm not mistaken like like 131 ft so if you're within that 131 ft you have about a 90% chance of dying I was within 15 to 17 ft of three of them oh man and like I said the blast went through me the first one the blast went through me and killed Tai you know and that's where we get in you know people are like well why him I don't know it's not my don't you have Survivor guilt I'm like why am I supposed to it's not be I and again it goes back to my faith is the Lord has a purpose for everything you know and it's it's hard for non-christians to really understand that even young Christians sometime to understand that you know CU and I think I've heard you you know initially was you had a hatred or at least to friends that got killed why would God let that happen you know and it's not that he let it happen or made it happen it's it's kind of like that um I just think we like who am I to question especially somebody to forgive me and take my sins who am I I ain't got I ain't so proud to question that guy because I know what he's forgiven done done for me and there is a reason for it it may to and maybe this is my way of dealing with it but what about Tai's son or his grandson or his that death that sacrifice for this country may have a meaning that we don't even understand couple Generations down the road you know I I mean my grandfather had five purple hearts and that having every why did he get injured and him live but how did that affect me that's why I'm as patriot patriotic as I am and I love this country is because I've got I come from a history of people who have sacrificed yeah who have served and that's just how I look at it I mean you know it's we all have a purpose and we're there's one thing we can't do is we can't get out of dying and I got asked when we were writing the book is uh you know weren't you afraid of dying that night and I'm like why would I be afraid of dying and I'm like one of two things I knew one of two things was going to happen I was going to live and come home and be with my family or I was going to die and go home and be with God either one of those is fabulous and who am I to be so selfish that I think I'm so great I should live that's up to him not me yeah my job is to serve to serve him and serve the brothers and sisters I work that I'm in a firefight with those are the thoughts you were having up there yeah that's that's incredible man it really is touching and you know I just that's some strong faith very strong faith and I think that's what's G allowed me to do all the I mean you know and I look back I mean when we talk about suicide I mean I probably investigated 25 suicides and in my as as a cop um and all the you know the way I've dealt with how I've dealt with kids and listening to all that being able to take that and and hear it and not have a hardened heart from it is because of him has given me that Grace that ability to do it and uh cuz I also was asked when we were pitching the book so the book thing I was going to write a book on my own at first and cuz all the other guys went back to work and so I was going to write one and but it was going to be a biography about my whole life and uh but when I was pitching it and I actually got an offer for a million dollar advance but before I signed it I went to the other guys and said hey I think this story needs to be told by all of us we've got a story here and we need to correct we need to tell it are we need to tell the truth of what happened how we lived it because that's the history is not getting told right now and that so we ended up doing it together um I made a lot less money on it but it made a whole whole lot better impact I think yeah um but uh they asked me they're like well don't you hate the people that were trying to kill you and I'm like why would I hate them and they're like well they were trying to kill you I'm like well I was trying to kill them too I'm like I don't have to hate somebody to kill him and then I thought how that sounded I'm like I can't have hate in my heart doing that job because that's when killing becomes murder because if you really go back and you study the Bible and you look at the Ten Commandments is that it doesn't say thou shalt not kill if you go back and look at the Greek and the Aramaic and the Jewish translation it says Thou shalt not murder and what's the difference between murdering and killing it's Hate in Your Heart and you know it's it's not the action isn't what's bad it's how you are in your heart I mean you look at people I um this friend of mine his wife was always uh you know you use the f- word a lot because I do I mean I'm a marine I use it like a comma um and I'm like yeah but it is it's just like I've got friends and you I'm sure you do too from Australia or freaking New Zealand and they use the c-word and there's two meanings of it you're either a good one or you're not and if you're a good one that's a sign of endearment yeah you know and it's here in the south I mean you've I'm sure you've heard somebody say bless your heart or how nice that's just a nice way of saying F you and if you got hate in your heart and you're saying it that and you're meaning that doesn't matter what the words you're using what's coming from your heart is hate yeah and I can't I will not I can't allow that cuz that turns anything I do into something bad and that's where I think we're we condition ourselves and we play that we try to our media and our government and our a lot of our leaders try to get us as Warriors to hate the people that we're going to war against yeah because it's easier they only understand that kind of killing you know that's um that's great advice man or I don't even know if that's advice but that's a great way to live I mean and I really struggle with the hate and to be honest with you I struggle with the hate more now that I'm home than I ever did when I was doing that job mhm and I pray that it leaves I try to think about other things but the way this country is headed it is very hard for me to to to even attempt to keep hatred out of my heart it is difficult now especially but that's that demon I mean that's that that demonic um attacks that we're under as a country I mean we've given up God from our churches I mean our churches aren't about God and a lot of them aren't I going to say all of them but a lot of them aren't they're about appeasement about their Coffer about putting new stained glass windows up but we've taken them out of our schools we've taken them out of our government we've taken Integrity which is God is what gives us that Integrity that right you know the righteousness and the guilt to have one or the other I mean it's okay to be to lie no it ain't it's not that I haven't done it and I by means am I freaking walk in the straight line cuz I screw up every day yeah there's not much Integrity left in this country it seems like there's damn near none left in the government and um but Mark what was it like for you how did you get home we had the irony of uh the Middle East is the mil we had another militia we able to get a militia come and escort us to the airport um I actually rode in the back of a hux pickup truck uh one of our team guys was sitting up on the edge um first picture I saw of me was uh on ABC News was a picture in the back of that hux pickup truck taken by one of the um local Nationals that had gotten it to a news reporter or something do you have that picture I not with me I but I can send you one if you have any pictures of the this day yeah I would love to put them up okay and have them be part of this episode yeah I'll send uh I'll go through with what I've got because I've got some stuff from after that would be that other guys the FBI guys that went there I would love to document that thank you yeah I don't think I've ever shared those with anybody other I think some are in the book but not many well if you give them to me they'll share them with a couple million people good so good um so you so you went to the airport uh militia escorted you and you rode in the back of a high luux I got there and they come over they were I was on a stretcher and they would grab that they come over to grab that and carry it and I'm like I I knew I could walk and I'm like I'm I walked into freaking Bazi I'm walking out and I pushed them aside they had an IV in me and somebody was walking with me and I got up and started walking to the um airplane and when I got to the bottom of the steps there was a flight attendant at the top and cuz he sent his whole crew this Arab lady and uh it's about that time that I remembered that I didn't have any clothes on cuz they had cut them all off I think I had my skibbies on that was about it and this lady just bolted to the back of the airplane and I thought wow man I really I either don't look good cuz I'm she either ran because I'm freaking jacked up or she ran cuz she was I don't look good naked one of the two I'm not sure and I climb the steps and I go back and she's walking forward with a handful of towels and I thought she was going to give one to me to cover up and she stops and starts laying them on the floor cuz she was her worry was I was going to bleed on her boss's airplane and ruin the carpet wow you know and so I pushed past her and I'm thinking wait till you see the next guy coming on cuz Dave was in and out of Consciousness he lot lost a lot of blood I go back and I lay down and they brought him in on a stretcher they had to freaking cut out break out all these nice wooden beautiful oak cabinets that were in there to get him able to get in and uh worst thing worst pain I had was the was the tourniquet after the fact cuz the guy our medic um he kept saying yeah hey I gave you morphine and I'm like no you haven't man I this hurts I need some morphine and I saw him he faked freaking giving me an inject and what he did is he had I don't know if you've seen them before they had the the glass vials of it in its dosage and there's a certain Contraption you got to put them in cuz they didn't have the auto injectors why they didn't have Auto injectors there I don't know yeah but he's like look he hits me in the arm I'm like dude that ain't it and uh when I was I got to Germany um or no we went to Tripoli and that's where my first my first surgery was by Libyan doctors in a Libyan Hospital they're the ones I figured my arm was going to come off I didn't figure I'd wake up with it um but they put it back together they were American trained doctors um when I come out of there it was the best feeling I had cuz I didn't have pain anymore cuz I was UND diloted or whatever either that or ketaman or something wow and uh but then I was going to tell you cuz and I didn't find this and then later that night we flew on a med bird out of there to um and you had said you didn't really misspeak when you said there was five that died because I didn't realize this and no one else realized it I was reading through my Med records on that flight and they had to inovate me and resuscitate me damn so I died up on that plane sometime but uh there's one remember that no no I can remember the guys where they were sitting um up to the front cuz the only guys that were up front was GRS guys in the back further back were other state department people I do have a picture of that I can send you please do CU I think tono took a picture of me on that gurnie but uh none of them were aware that I that had happened cuz I talked to them and they're like we don't remember that but it's in my Med record wow but they were probably freaking asleep so good you know cuz they had been up freaking for 48 Hours by that time if not more got to Germany they redid my arm ended up cutting me open cuz they couldn't find I had some shrapnel in my diaphragm that they could that showed entrance wounds but nothing coming through it and not nothing in there so they thought it got into my intestine and my and down my stomach area so they had to cut me open and pull all that out and make sure there was no perforations of that and uh then the piece of shrapnel they on my upper thigh they took some of it out but the rest of it didn't come out till two or 3 months later when I was home there was a little I had this lump on the inside of my leg there and there was a little black dot and I flicked it with my fingernail I'm like that's metal and I got some tweezers and pulled out a piece of wire that long damn that they missed I saved I got all of that sa I've got a bunch of that stuff saved I don't know why why but all the shrapnel coming out of me it happens every now and then yeah um and then I was there for oh how many days I was there for several days because they couldn't get my blood level stabilized and the whole time I mean until I got to Germany out of my second surgery my first surgery in Germany which was my my second my wife never knew if I was alive or dead dead yet cuz no one had called her are you serious yeah she woke up she never watches the the whole time I deploy she never watched the news but for some reason she did that morning and along the bottom was the ticker tape saying four dead in Benghazi Libya the nurse that took care of me in Germany called her after I got out of the hospital after I got out of my second surgery that's pretty bad yeah what was what was our offices response to you guys what what was the welcoming home what was cia's how did they receive you for me they did I mean they did good they cuz the guys uh they flew my family out when I was Landing they were there when I not when I land landed but they were there either later that night or the next morning um Obby you know did you know him cuz he he picked her up and they I mean they cuz she was I mean she had a my oldest daughter was 14 and my youngest was 7 months old and she had missed her flight in Denver so she was my wife is a mess and they did good getting her out there but they took care of her got her picked her up took her to the hospital and that's was like the I think it was like the 18th but so I was in Germany for several days they wouldn't fly her over there you know which is a bunch of jacked up to my in my opinion hindsight how was it seeing your family after an event like that it was awesome I mean just to see them it was it was everything it could be you know it's and cuz I did I my wife she asked me when I was in the in Germany cuz she got pissed at me when she saw me cuz she asked me what happened I'm like H it's nothing bad I just got a little scratch on my neck and I broke my arm that's what I told her and uh when she got there and she saw how jacked up I was she's like I scratch and broke your arm huh okay but she didn't really get pissed at me till after I was well enough to be pissed at um but uh they and you know the office was I I they took care of them they took care of me I mean you know a lot of guys come by um higher ups uh you know kind of probably doing partial debrief you know promising me the world that I could have a job you know I'm like I ain't going to be able to go back doing what I did I'm I'm like but I speak first you I'll I'll do translation I know you guys got a spot in Denver put me to work well you know once you get well you know you got to get through get everything going it's like okay that's like two years down the road I had two years of therapy of physical therapy to get back to this and to get it and I had 14 I think 14 or 16 operations total and I was to live on workman's comp and then oh who was the uh who was in charge of GRS at the time he was a team guy went blue but you know how you moment you go Blue at least then to me it's like they give you a labotomy and take out your freaking cuz he come it's kind of like going into politics right you just lose your soul cuz I was like okay um my wife couldn't they were going to put her up but she had to get back cuz my daughter had to go to school my wife just felt she didn't need to be out of school and hanging out at a hospital the whole time and it was probably better for me too cuz then I cuz I'm if they're there I'm worrying about them not worrying about myself um it would be best if we don't mention any names of the staffers because you know that opens us uh opens us up to yeah well and I haven't there's no real names yeah I won't mention it definit but uh I would love to drop names but you know it is what it is the guy he he come in because you got to fill out your DBA form cuz you know that's the thing is that's the insurance that's the insurance workman's comp Federal workman's comp well he comes in and he brings me the paperwork and he's like yeah here's your paperwork I'm like can you help me fill it up he says no I can't why not he because it'd be a conflict of interest I'm like you realize I can't write who said this the are whoever was in charge of GRS at the time nice yeah yeah and I'm like okay whatever you're tool you're jackass well you can't what do you mean I can't talk to you that way I can talk to you however I want you know I'm a contractor don't you remember actually said that yeah you can't talk to me like that yeah I'm like don't you leave it's like just you know I wanted to throttle him but oh I'm sure that he will die a miserable piece of that he is yep you know but um that's the hatred coming out of me Mark I want him to die a miserable piece of yeah I'm trying to get past this I really am oh I I'm I try I got to fight it all the time you know a lot of people say according to actually Hillary Clinton this was her statement so a lot of people say that this was triggered by a YouTube video correct and so this is her statement I condemned in this I condemn in the strongest terms the attack on our mission in Benghazi today the United States deplores any intentional effort to de-integration but let me be clear there is never any justification for violence acts of this kind so she's making an apology yeah she's taking the side yeah yeah she's a she is and then Obama's we're going to roll these too we're going to roll the actual some of the stuff but um that they said verbatim on camera so but um Obama's statement was I strongly condemn the outrageous attack on our diplomatic facility in Benghazi the end people have uh accused Ambassador rice and the administration of you know misleading Americans I can say trying to be in the middle of this and understanding what was going on nothing could be further from the truth was information developing was the situation fluid would we reach conclusions later that weren't reached initially and and I appreciate Madam Secretary do you disagree with me that a simple phone call to those evacuees to determine what happened would have would have ascertained immediately that there was no protest I mean that that was that was a piece of information that could have been easily easily obtained well but but within hours if not days Senator I you know when you're in these positions the last thing you want to do is interfere with any other process I realiz I realize that's I realize that's good ex number two well no it's the fact number two I would recommend highly you read both what the ARB said about it and the classified ARB because even today there are questions being raised now we have no doubt they were terrorists they were militants they attacked us they killed our people but what was going on and why they were doing what they were doing no no no again again we were misled that there was supposedly protests and then something sprang out of that and assault sprang out of that and that was easily ascertained that that was not the fact and the American people could have known that in days and they they didn't know that with all due respect the fact is we had four dead Americans was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night or decided they'd go kill some Americans what difference at this point does it make what difference at this point does it make you know that so it sounds like the fight went on for 9 hours minimum from when we got the this is where we come up with 13 hours from when we got notified that they were under attack which is like 9:35 mhm to when we flew till till we got to the airport was 13 hours okay so was it sounded like the majority of the fighting stopped at uh about 0500 yeah so there 511 okay on the from all the video I've seen so there was some sporadic stuff still going on by the time he guys I mean I guess probably never ended yeah you know it was kind of a I mean there was in between there was you know it kind of died down there really wasn't anything and then it'd come back and and here's what's and this is uh so Sarah one of our an analyst um her and DB have another book out called uh know thy enemy they've been able this what's funny as hell was she there she was in Tripoli she had been there I think I've been in contact with her need her sitting in this chair do I need to get her here yeah I'll hit her up I know I know exactly who she is she's actually brought up coming on the show and we've lost contact since I'll get her um it'd be good to have her right after see if that's even feasible but yeah so they've been able to through open- Source Intel identify at least almost at least 180 I think it is 150 to 180 of the attackers and most of those that the the one at the cons the consulate was led by Al-Qaeda they contract that all the way up to the number two in charge of al-Qaeda that put the order up and they did it all through open source wow um Anor alaria who was a Libyan local Al-Qaeda affiliate so to speak participated over there but then they're the ones who came over to us and attacked us okay and they've been able to identify the majority probably like we just had one of the the one of the guys that was uh orchestrated a lot of it was arrested by turkey in uh in Turkey can you I want to go into this but you have about 10 minutes before you got to be out of here you're going to miss your flight so I'm going to if you get me in touch with Sarah I will I will interview her okay as soon as possible yeah um I'll call I'll get her on the way to the airport perfect yeah please connect us um I think the most important thing to cover at this point would be how are you doing mentally you know it's you're going to always have struggles but not I mean it's never been real bad people I think they always come man I bet you got PTSD and I'm like no not really I mean I've there's I I can't say no completely but it's not like what people think people have this idea of what PTSD is it's like no I don't have bad dreams I don't have survivors guilt I don't you know it's this ain't the worst thing i' I mean this is probably the one of the worst but it's not the only thing that I've ever seen or done or whatever I mean I've been in a lot of different things have happened over the nine years that I was Contracting and time in military and time in everything you know and but I mean I wouldn't be where I'm at if it wasn't for the Lord for sure if it wasn't for Christ being in my life and him being first um you know I've always had my faith I was born with it I mean I was raised in the C the um Methodist Church I had a wonderful youth pastor and his wife that gave me that support and that Foundation um I think the difference every well because I always get the question well why is what's different now than it was then is before being gazy I kind of worshiped the Lord in a way that I it worked for me more of a selfish way I would try to do things that were the right way I'd work at it but not be full-hearted I mean I got blown up three times I should have died three times yeah I mean I'm like yes I know Lord I'm a hard-headed Jarhead you had to freaking blow me up to get my attention but you got it I'm yours whatever I'll be your voice I'll that's my job now is to bring people to the Lord to discipleship is because if you don't have that relationship with the Lord I think it's very very difficult to work through your PTS because you're never going to get rid of those memories I don't want to get rid of those memories yeah even though they're hard at times I want those because it's made me who I am yeah but do what I got to do and that's one thing that the dogs do for us as well is they help us learn how to manage our anxiety and our stress when it happens um you know and sometimes I sit there and say that my Stress and Anxiety isn't from all the stuff I've been through it's because I'm just getting old like I was D and this long not long after I was home probably a few months and I was driving down the road in one of the small towns where I was I was Chief at and these three kids are walking in front of me with their freaking pants hanging down three freaking white kids had their pants hanging down around their ass in the walking down the middle of the street and I come behind them I tap on the horn real light and they just look back and and I'm like get I'm out of the vehicle I'm like boys you better get the hell out of this road they got a sidewalk right over there who the hell you think you are I'm the guy that is going to put my foot up your and you're going to know my shoe size and I don't know if that was from that was them just being stupid cuz I think I'd have probably done that before but maybe that's an excuse too yeah but uh um it's a it's you got to work at it every day you got to work at it every day you got to make a choice to be I think that's it is we have victimized a lot of PTSD and our veterans we've told them that if you've seen bad things you have to have this and this is how it's going to affect your life and if it's not then you're not g i mean we've monetized it because if you have it you get 100% disability man I wish you didn't have to go to the airport right now I would love to dive into this conversation with you because I I see it you know and what I I see look it's a it's a it's a thing you know a lot there's been a lot of trauma in the past what 20 22 years you know and uh and and you've had one of the most profound experiences that you can have in in combat and um but you know I I see I see I see people I see friends of mine and and I see people they make a career out of PTSD right and it's it's you know and and they go around and they talk about it everywhere and it's I mean I still talk about it but what I like to talk about is how you've overcome it you know and how you've moved past it or how you've learned to live with it or whatever it is you know and and but I see it's just like any anybody who any any group group of people that start to victimize themselves you start to see the career ones and it's it's it it becomes very apparent that it's like okay you don't actually want to move past this you don't want to get better you you just want to use this for the rest of your life as a vehicle to either get pity or make money or or whatever it is you know what I mean get attention uh-huh 100% and um and and yeah I I I understand what you're talking about and and um so Mark just to end this I really hate that we have to end this right now I know it but um we can talk for another two three hours we could we could be here till 10:00 tonight but and you're welcome back anytime but I'm going to ask you for a lot of guys are coming home a lot of guys are home a lot of men and women the wars are done the trauma is still there for anybody that's experienced the amount of trauma that you have in Wartime environment what would your one piece of advice be to move past it make a choice because it really is it's choose to be a victim or not because if you choose to be a victim you're going to always look at it from a victim standpoint you know look at what happened to me oh war is woe is me you know what use it don't use it as a crutch to lean on use it as a a way to pull yourself up and out of it because you know what you're not a victim unless somebody unless you let yourself be a victim is it going to be tough no yeah I there's no doubt it's tough it's tough every day there's good days there's bad days but if you don't choose to live the only people that are going to pay for it are your loved ones because they're the ones that have to deal with it as well and if you don't choose to choose to live a positive life choose to accept the Lord as your savior and that's one choice you can make that is easy doesn't mean you have to be perfect doesn't mean that you have to stop I mean you don't have to stop drinking cussing fooling around or doing all those sins cuz the Lord don't ask you to stop he just says let me in your life the moment you let me in your life I will change you and he will if you let him in and that's the choice to make is that because you're going to bring yourself out of a hole because otherwise it's it's the way the devil does the devil uses us um to keep us down it's that little thing that's sitting on our you know we used to the media used to put a little angel over here and a devil over here on our shoulders and the devil sitting there saying you know hey you're no good you're worthless you know feel pity for yourself yeah you know all of those things why because it takes your soul you've got to stand up and be the man that you're supposed to be you know and um it's yeah it's hard but you make a choice every day you your feet hit the floor yeah am I going to freaking live and live positively and make a difference in somebody's life or am I going to make everybody else around me freaking feel the pain that I'm feeling yeah I think that's great advice Man mark thank you for being here man thanks for having me it was uh this was a real honor to be able to interview you and like I said I've been wanting to do it for a very long time and um I know I'll see you again yeah yeah I know I'll see you again do but it was an honor brother thank you thank [Music] you hey everybody I'm Shan Ryan click here to subscribe 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