DJ Shipley - SEAL Team 6 / DEVGRU Operator | SRS #015

hey everybody i'm in downtown franklin getting  ready to head into the office to wrap up dj. shipley's episode for the sean ryan show with  that being said it's becoming increasingly. more challenging to reach our  audience so if you don't mind. helping us out please hit that like button leave  a comment hit the bell and turn notifications to. all that's not just this channel  that's everybody's channel that you.

like all right love you guys hope  you enjoy the show and thank you. and uh one more thing happy thanksgiving. war's not fair i think that was a lesson learned  out of that doesn't matter how good you are. if you don't get the chance to fight the  chance to show how good you are doesn't matter.

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that makes this show drive on so thank  you for all the support see you on patreon. first deployment in the seal teams you get in. biggest loss and seal team history  happens then you get through green team. and right after you graduate what maybe six less  than a year afterwards yeah i mean august of uh.

august of 11. extortion 17 happens which  again is the biggest loss in seal team history. i remember looking over and seeing um  jay and i remember him sitting upright. and i watched him get shot one  more time um right in the face.

and it looked like that was it he hit the ground  so hard you knew he was dead so the way it was. it's the front door and is a long ass hallway  going down and there's a dude who's in a sandbag. position with a belt head at the end of the  hallway and it's just chewing down the hallway. boom spins him around and dumps him he  gets back up grabs him and gets shot again. so hold on did you eliminate the threat yep  he's dead did he he didn't hit you he did.

he did hit you he hit me in the in the chest plate. i unloaded on him got off  three rounds in a boat log. i think he took a double stack to the elbow  so it blew out his entire arm and he took. him to the face that basically removed his jaw  removed his nose um and you could look inside him. you could hear that dude the  impacts you'd hear him smack. you could hear him screaming  and it was very satisfying.

and as we go to divide this  dude opens up on the front door. and lets it go and just you just see  splinters of wood and just [ __ ] traces us. it's not reality until it's reality. that's not gonna happen yes it is whether  you want to or not it's happening right now.

hey everybody welcome back to the show i want  to start by giving everybody a couple of updates. on what we have going on here at vigilance elite  and i want to start off by saying thank you to. everybody that left us in itunes review guys  the sean ryan show now has 10 000 itunes reviews. in only 14 episodes that is unheard of  so if you haven't left us a review yet.

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are on this show possible these stories most  of these stories have never been told before. and it really is your support that allows all of  these productions to happen so thank you very much. moving on we're now getting into the youtube short  game so we have all these different artifacts a. lot of them are from guests on the show maybe  you've seen some of them in the background of.

the show and we are now doing a studio tour  of each and every piece on youtube shorts. you can click the link right there  and they'll show you the youtube. short the first one so we'll be doing  that all right let's get on with it. ladies and gentlemen and now what you've all been  waiting for my next guest is a former navy seal. and a former development group also known as  seal team 6 operator he's got the better part of.

17 years of operational experience he's  also the founder of tribe skates which is a. skateboard company that employs only gold star  family members if you don't know what a gold. star family member is it's basically a family  member who has lost an immediate family member. in war that's who he employs which is very  solid work he's also the founder of gbrs.

group which is the premier training group in the  united states and most up-to-date at this time. ladies and gentlemen please  welcome my next guest mr dj shipley. dj shipley welcome to the show man appreciate you  having me yeah it's an honor it's good to be here.

yeah it's good to have you we've been wanting to  get one of you guys over here for a while and uh. and you know finally it happened so but just  a quick snapshot of your career before we get. started 17 years in the military most of pretty  much all of which is in naval special warfare. went through bud straight into the seal teams  and then over to deaf group so medically retired. now you are the owner of two successful  companies one being tribe skates where you employ.

all everyone employed there is a gold star  family member correct correct and you guys. make skateboards apparel uh you gave me one  of those boards it looks really awesome uh. it's gonna look great here in the studio and  then the other company uh you co-own with your. best friend and former teammate cole fackler uh  gbrs group which uh in my opinion is probably.

the most relevant premier exclusive training  group in the country right now i mean you guys are. definitely the most relevant and uh up to speed  fresh out and from tier one unit so that means. a lot thanks yeah so uh if you haven't checked  out gbrs group check them out um so who do you. when you guys are hiring are you only hiring seals  you're only hiring tier one or tier one get a.

couple air force guys we've worked with a couple  guys from the army side call in and bring some. favors and some some niche stuff we got a couple  long range guys and we pull in we need to and. now we have a full-time recce guy for chris so you  know cqb's bread and butter but i'm not afraid to. branch out but yeah it's got to be the tier one  resume cool what are you guys teaching are you. teaching well last night at dinner we were kind of  talking about it it was private lessons it sounds.

like groups all the way up to swat yeah i mean  we do everything military local law enforcement. got a couple government contracts stuff like  that and then the civilian market the open. enrollment stuff scared us it did after the  chris kyle thing especially yeah um a lot of. people on the yard line a lot of people brand  new to guns a lot of people that really want to. shoot somebody really want to become famous  and there was no real good way to vet them. unless you do private so we do phone calls talk  to them for an hour and then we google search.

the [ __ ] out of them you gotta do a little bit  of vetting yeah and set up a call with those guys. and if they have five or six friends of all equal  skill set or the same in state then we'll set up a. separate training event we'll drive down there  we'll fly in bring them up to us and kind of do. everything cool and you guys are based out of  virginia beach and we've got a gym there got. kitchen showers kill house got everything what  no [ __ ] damn how long you been doing that.

almost two years now two years yep maybe started  at 19. damn well it looks like it's uh online. looking in you know from the outside looks like  it's exploding so that's awesome congratulations. i appreciate it but uh well before we get started  i always give everybody a gift there you go jesus.

there we go. merry christmas somebody must have told you dude. i mean you talked about did you say how much i ate  this [ __ ] what's that should tell you how much. candy i eat dude i do man i have a sweet tooth  bro thank you really yeah yeah we talked about. the gummy bear stuff last night i love it  um yeah so before we get started uh i have a. subscription account and uh as much as i'd love  to tell everybody that gummy bears finances.

everything that's going on here uh really it's my  patrons on patreon uh that support the show that's. how you're able to sit here how i'm here how all  this was built and uh so one of the things i do. for them uh is i tell them who's coming on before  they get here and uh i let them you know comment. and a bunch of questions and then i pick one uh  to ask so this is from will on patreon uh to you.

he says i know his company does a lot  for gold star families and i'm sure he's. experienced his fair share of losing friends  either through physical or mental combat. would he be willing to give any advice  on how he deals with these feelings. that's the first one that's that's that's the only  one i'm going to give you it's no softballs okay.

how i deal with it personally yeah. we get a lot of questions on how to deal with  loss and uh i've done some videos on it and. and it's just everybody's always  curious you know how guys like. me or you and and our colleagues deal with that  get through it you know each one's different. um for me for the longest time i just ignored  override i just compartmentalized everything.

didn't happen to me it's not me i don't have  to worry about it yeah it's easier just to uh. not accept it to be reality. when you do a dangerous job long enough it'll  eventually get you yeah unless you're fortunate. enough to retire um you can't let it can't let  that be your defining moment almost like you're. waiting for it to happen the gold star thing  happens you do a dangerous job firemen police.

military doesn't matter we all have our gold star  community people that die in the line of service. and for me it's uh it's a show of their loyalty  like i want to see how far they'll go they just. showed you they just went the whole way  like what an honor to be part of that. organization where people will give up their  lives for people they've never even met like. that's how i process now when i see it i see  the families it hurts it sucks yeah there's. so many dudes i mess you know you're at harry  seed are buying groceries and i look over and.

there's a whole family damn yeah  the two platoons with her husband. what do you say go and give him a hug  and pretend like it's okay it's not okay. but they did exactly what they  wanted to do yeah at that moment like. he was right where he wanted to be surrounded with  the best people on earth duty loved um dudes he. would gladly die for and they got the opportunity  to show how committed they were to cause.

so i honor their sacrifice now it took me a long  time to get there but that's what i do now i just. honor them good for you man that's a great answer  um you know i think uh a lot of people experience. loss and one thing i always tell them is you know  you have to you know it's good to mourn but um. you got to think of how that person would want you  to live you know and i don't think that anybody. that i know and i'm sure anybody that you know  wants you moping around for the rest of your life.

uh because they died doing what they want to do  and uh so it's always good to keep that in mind. but well great answer so let's get on with it. um so we're gonna just start with childhood  and go down a timeline of kind of uh your. all the way up until now but you've been  surrounded and by the seal teams your. entire life you're born into it your dad was a  seal several family members of yours are seals.

and then you wound up joining at a very young age  but let's just start right at the very beginning. with some of the childhood stuff what was it  like you know growing up with your dad being. an operational seal going on deployments all  the time and uh and that's a that's a very. high standard to live up to  as a kid so let's start that.

so yeah um when my dad graduated buds i was my  mom was six months pregnant so he checked in. team one she gave birth to me and i essentially  grew up in a platoon hut he was the only guy. who had a kid at the time so basically got raised  by wolves which was cool um we transitioned we. moved over the east coast um like 89 like i was  young for i don't remember anything started up. school typical stuff but he was gone the entire  time um from the time he went to the east coast.

i forget what the rotations were back then  i mean they were six eight month deployments. and he did eight of them back to back so i mean he  was gone yeah gone 200 300 days out of the year i. mean you remember the work up schedule you've  gone a lot grew up on a small farm five acres. but god man we had everything chickens ducks geese  guinea hens pheasants quail raised chesapeake bay.

retrievers cows horses everything um and i'd  take care of it all slopping hogs at five a.m. um hot water heater blows out pipes freeze like  the whole thing it's like i remember doing that. my entire life just dealing with the farm  life and then he'd come back home we'd go. hunting and he was like now looking back  on it's kind of surreal um it was awesome.

it was great like you're dead superman yeah how  [ __ ] cool is that but back in the 90s like. you remember nobody knew what a navy seal  was no one so like my dad was in the navy. your dad's in the army it doesn't really  matter nobody gets it as we started coming. up you know charlie sheen and that whole thing  like people started no but nobody really knew. there wasn't a war going on it was um it  was 80s and 90s small little skirmishes but.

um losing people in combat wasn't a thing  we never had to live through it it didn't. happen it'd be a training accident  every now and then and that was it. so yeah i kind of went through  that whole thing found my outlets. um because i spent a lot of time alone you  know me and my mom had my sister growing up and. your sister older or younger younger five years um  so yeah it was kind of just three of us living on.

that farm making things happen he'd come back home  and gear up for another deployment we kind of just. picked up where we left off you know but it  was weird like people who uh who aren't in. the special operations community or don't know  anybody like that they think when your dad's uh. in the military it's i don't like gunny highway  like flat top haircuts and yes sir no sir my dad. treated me like i was a new guy really yeah like  we were we were best friends we were like that's.

who i wanted to be well when did you at what point  did you know you wanted to become a team guy um. it was always just assumed and it was always  said like we were always doing something. like when i'd have friends come over and  stay the night we wouldn't do typical things. we would do uh we'd do a physical challenge. so we would run out we'd pick up ten logs we'd  throw it over here we'd run back ten push-ups.

do five pull-ups run over here we'd do like an  oat course like a circuit and if i didn't win. better win it was one of those things so he's  always kind of assumed and then when i hit. skateboarding that's all i wanted to do i was  addicted man i bought in hook line and sinker. i lived in the middle of nowhere in chesapeake  virginia and we had a little cul-de-sac next door. some older kids skating i kind of got in that  and when he would leave on deployment i'd have. six months of no interruptions i'd knock  out chores and straight over there that's.

all i did all day i obsessed damn started  competing and that's what i wanted to do. you started competing yeah well like the half pipe  and now i did street um he built me a big vert. ramp in the backyard so we did the whole thing  um wrote it all but i really like street park. um and that was kind of the punishment i'd get  hurt you broke your arm they're not gonna let you. a navy you can't be a seal if you get a plate and  screws they're not going to take you you're going.

to ruin your entire life overriding the skateboard  no [ __ ] so it really was just assumed you're oh. you're a [ __ ] team guy oh absolutely you know i  didn't know any better i didn't care yeah i mean. i remember um i think like middle school i  remember talking to my mom one day and i was like. would dad be upset if i became a veterinarian  because i love animals i do i really like dogs. like a kind of a weird obsession but a healthy one  i like dogs more than people and i wanted to be a. vet and um it was kind of just pushed off like  why would you want to be a vet and you can be a.

navy seal true everyone so quickly dismissed  you can't be a professional skateboarder you. can't be a veterinarian you could be a navy seal  um some things kind of fell into place that uh. forced it hand a little sooner  than probably it should have yeah. you talk about uh being addicted to the pressure  to perform uh during your childhood and then.

and then you kind of talk about it again uh  later on and i think when you got to dev group. but what what were you addicted to performing  to when you were a kid what pressure was it. to your dad yeah um and there's all kinds of  pressure but for me i wanted praise and this. long analogy i get into where i equate everybody  to a certain type of dog that dog's up bringing. um and i'm a labrador i am i just want a people  please just bounce that tennis ball on the ground.

let me go chase it i'll do whatever you want to  just pet me on the head at the end of the day. and that's all i wanted i just wanted him to  acknowledge me that's all i wanted it's like. i'm not good in school like we go and we hunt  and i shoot everything like i get a good boy. doing that but i didn't enjoy it i didn't i  did it because it was a thing to do with him.

i don't care what we did if that dude would have  been a fly fisherman i'd be fly fishing like i. didn't care i just wanted to be next to him but  i didn't enjoy hunting i didn't send him a deer. stand i didn't get it yeah i mean i shot him went  duck hunting snow goose on him and i had a blast. but if you ask me what i want to do at 4 30  in the morning it wasn't go shoot snoogies. not back then i wish he just would have wanted to  do anything so yeah but the yeah the pressure to. perform everything became a competition and  then i just started competing at everything.

not good things yeah you know doing  young childhood stuff yeah so you join. you join at 17 years old yeah i got into a  little bit of trouble when i was 16 and um. long story short had to go to court and uh  the old man threw me at the mercy of the court. and said um your honor he he can't be charged  with this you know we have to get this off his.

record because he's going to go to the navy  and he's going to be a navy seal what was it. um it was a an assault charge  with a robbery with a robbery. me and uh meet a bunch of my buddies got  into a fight and in the course of the fight. reached into um somebody's jacket and  grabbed her phone and spiked it on the ground. and because the dollar amount associated  because it was physical altercation.

it became robbery and his parents wanted  to press charges make it a big deal. um at the end of the day we bought him a  cell phone and he got expunged off my record. um i mean it came up years later but yeah i mean  so i had to get a waiver for that i had to get an. age waiver underage possession tobacco so i had  a bunch of waivers going in um which wasn't good. um didn't really help my case and the judge  looked at me and deal community service and. let me leave and uh i didn't realize at  the time but he had already gone to school.

and talked my guidance counselors on my principles  and had signed me up for summer school so that was. my uh my sophomore year going into my junior  year and it already signed me up so the end of. my junior year i graduate or we finish that year  in june and i basically do summer school until. august and then i'm gone already had me signed  up for delayed entry program everything like i. was going to the navy damn like there wasn't any  doubt about it yeah no seal contract no a school.

nothing undesignated send it so how the hell did  you get the bud zone if there was no contract. i passed a screen test to boot camp  that's it i didn't realize how um. i didn't realize how dangerous a maneuver that  was like my entire career for the people who don't. know if you don't have a seal contract i tell  people do not go to maps do not sign that contract. because now they own you yeah and they do if  i would have gotten sick if um if the whole.

class would have gotten the flu and they just  don't give you the screen test i'm going to the. fleet for four years like that's a long way  to get back from yeah um no a school so if i. didn't make it through buds i was going to be a  deck seam and be a bosun's mate i didn't get in. i already had a trident i didn't have a  rating damn yeah so uh just for the audience. that they don't know what the hell in a school is  in a school basically um i kind of describe it as.

it's almost a marketing play of  the teams like they need seals but. so many people quit that what they do is they  find all the jobs in the navy that have a shortage. most of them are the ones you have to be either  really intelligent to get into or the complete. [ __ ] jobs and uh it's kind of a mixed bag of  nuts there you pick one you go through this the. training you go to buds uh whatever 80 85 people  quit and then they fill those job descriptions.

so so you didn't have any a school you went right  into you went right from boot camp to bud so were. you 17 when you got to buds no [ __ ] yeah he  um he was getting retired so the way we did it. is he retired i think on the same day that  i became active we did a one-for-one swap. we have the exact same name he's a junior  i'm the third and we just swapped him. so he pulled strings um i graduated boot camp i  came back to little creek i was a white shirt a. little scruff roll back waiting for my bud's  class yeah did that for three months and flew.

out to california with a sea bag and sent it  i didn't have a car i didn't have a driver's. license the entire time i was back i didn't have  anything like i didn't i didn't know anything. like my senior year i was in buds i knew nothing  i didn't know anything i didn't have a cell phone. had nothing i just sent it so you grew up in the  teams yeah oh you take me on training trips it.

was a blast i got the ap hill for the demo courses  and a bunch of the guys i worked with later in the. teams i remember them when they were new guys and  they remember me damn that's crazy being out there. taking a skateboard out of ap hill and doing kick  flips over cases of beer for the guys and yeah. oh dude like we did the whole thing i'm  like my childhood was [ __ ] awesome. and it was like growing up in the teams it was  cool but my entire time because i never saw. the reality of war um i thought buds was i  thought that's what we were doing for for a career.

because you get a team too back in the  day the rudy bosch airs and they do log bt. buddy carry ruck runs and all kinds of weird [  __ ] like it was miserable like the pt two miley. ocean swims every week like it looked like it  just continued so when we went to buds i was um. i was not i was too young to be in good shape  i was in good enough shape and i was just too. dumb to quit i didn't know any better like when  people would quit on the the very first day i.

couldn't get it through my mind like this isn't  going to stop anytime soon boys and it would it. confirmed my biases when i'd look down the beach  and see seal team one doing log pt i'm like. yeah dude they're paying us to work out this is  the best thing that's ever happened to me like. i didn't care i was super human like the whole  chafing thing i didn't get it didn't bother you no. nothing when i graduated hell week my dad was uh  he was contracting then my mom flew out to pick me.

up and uh she was having me take pictures um it's  a famous photo they've got that uh they've got. that um that blood's class book they did the only  easy days yesterday that's on my bud's class you. can see a bunch of pictures of me in there and my  mom came to pick me up we had to spend 24 hours in. the barracks and then you could go out in town and  do whatever um my mom would take a bunch of photos. do all this and i missed the bus back  to the barracks like that that 500 yards.

and i sprinted the whole way back there barefoot  went back to my room and checked in and um. dude it was probably 8 a.m the next morning  mom took out a bunch of boys out for murray. calendars breakfast did the whole thing uh the  whole den mother and then made me go run the o. course so she could take pictures of my dad oh  [ __ ] yeah man when i ran a full low course. when you got the buds i mean probably  everybody over there knew your dad right. a bunch of the cadre did my um i guess  kind of my quasi godfather was the exo at.

group one time so he picked me up and actually  walked me through the quarter deck and it started. a bunch of the uh bunch of guys were old team two  dudes so they already know full benefit oh yeah. yeah full bending how about everybody around you  were they getting full benefit because you do. yeah um yeah they did but a lot of it was just  isolation which is fine how many times how many.

guys did you start with do you remember i'll mess  a number up um i mean i thought it was in the 200s. yeah it was it was a ton um i started with 246  and i got rolled graduated with 247 and i think. 20 originals something like that wouldn't many  yeah if you had to pick one portion of buds uh. who was your hardest claw was it second phase  pool comp qualcomm i got ruled for that um.

just bad advice yeah bad advice i am i mean when  you do it you have to do a bunch of sequences. um you know they hit you with the  whammy knot they do the whole thing. um it's a whole series of procedures you have to  exactly correct and the advice that i was given. was they just want to see you not panic they  want to see you calm cool and collected don't. get wrapped over the procedures just show  them they are not going to rattle you done.

and i went down they smashed me and  i didn't do basically any of those. procedures they completely flustered me i did  it everything i could do and then i came up fail. there's one same thing happened again it  was a the final check was a j-val flick. that was the final thing and i kept messing it  i was just overcome by events um i let them ride. on my cage and they did yeah got rolled back  the next year or the next class a couple weeks.

but it was what i needed i needed it. so you graduate and you head over to team 10. yeah  we um finished that buds we all went out to kodiak. alaska for winter warfare training and at the  very end of that they asked for 10 volunteers. to deploy early with team 10. it was a weird cycle  everybody was getting kind of messed up and they. needed people to go right now i think you were  giving guys a month off in between getting your.

trident and checking the team so guys wanted to  go home they wanted to see wives and see moms and. all that stuff and nope every dude in that  class under 19 years old's hand rocketed in. the air as fast as they could no [ __ ] so they  had to everybody they had to make a decision. mm-hmm everybody we had a so cole um he had  orders of team one we already knew we were going. he had orders to team one he traded in  the middle of our class to go to team 10.

he was from virginia beach and he was big in the  surfing and he wanted to stay out there and um. i guess he'd want to break up the  bromance so yeah he swamped right there. oh [ __ ] yeah we drove straight across  um how did they pick the 10 guys volunteer. so there was only 10 volunteers they needed 10  people and yeah volunteered did you know you were. going to war oh yeah for sure they told you yeah i  mean there was no uh at team 10 they weren't doing.

um a uconn rotation anymore yeah there was a it  was men manning i think we only had two groups. we had one going to afghanistan and one going to  iraq that's what you know yeah so yeah well before. we get into that deployment let's take a quick  break when we come back we'll pick up there cool. what's going on patreon.

join me on vigilance elite patreon  for our live video teleconference. all right so we're back you just graduated skt  you volunteered to go to war show up to team 10. and you're 19 years old on your  first deployment to iraq how was that.

um humbling yeah was there any before we  get into that was there did you mesh with. did you have any time with your platoon before  you went out the door or did you just show up and. it's like hey guess what i graduated early and uh  i'll be uh heading out the door with you tomorrow. we showed up in um don't quote me exactly i think  we showed up in august and we deployed in march so.

a little bit a couple months um we got to  the major blocks we got cqb land warfare um. missed all the pro dev so didn't wasn't one of  the guys went to sniper school or any of his new. guys so no new guy schools at all they gave us um  hazmat demo driver which i couldn't do because i. didn't have a driver's license um you had to be 25  so i couldn't do that i couldn't get a rental car. um yeah it was basically just the that was like  the lowest life form on earth but we had uh we.

had nine new guys and nine old guys so it was good  man the mesh was good the learning curve was high. um the standard in that platoon was extremely  high but it should have been i'm glad it was. now i didn't understand the time i thought  they were being dicks just be dicks yeah um. but if i could done it all over again  i wish i would paid attention more. a lot of that um a lot of that resistance came um  from feeling like i was already part of it because.

i'd been born into it um so it was hard for me  to let go of you know a little bit of arrogance. i'm sure um the fact that i knew everybody  like i already knew them like the cmc was. my dad's best friend i've known him my entire  life damn so it's it's weird to see him in the. hallway like hey master chief didn't see him  on the weekend like hey matthew you know what.

i mean what was your dad thinking did what was  his reaction that you recall right after that. 19. i mean he was happy for me was he yeah he's  pretty stoked about it interesting yeah i mean um. you could tell he was nervous until my mom was  really nervous um i mean iraq in 2004 or five. being shot never entered my mind  like navy seals hadn't been shot.

that's not a thing like we're good it happened  sporadically nobody's died yet not in iraq. it was the ideas we were worried about it was  like they were hitting them all day every day so. when we got there i mean that was pretty surreal  like flying in you know take off 19 years old and. you know you're on a c-17 getting  ready to land and people start you. know two hours out they're breaking the no  vans body armor helmet nods loading guns. i've never deployed apparently this is completely  normal like we landed like we were going to.

be under fire the entire time like you had no  idea and when i mean now that you've deployed. you open it up and there's a guy with a flatbed  pulling off isu 90s like i thought we would be. shot down like the way they were flying in it  was crazy um everybody's getting sick just um. it was early in the war it was a  different environment no one had any um. any real combat experience yeah even the older  guys in the platoon had been to afghanistan but. it was more of um the presence patrols it wasn't  sustained combat they hadn't had it before so we.

were all kind of new guys together where were  you guys uh baghdad baghdad yeah so we uh we. split we did psd for a little bit and then  um we do two weeks of that to doing the um. all the dignitaries in iraq real  quick psd's personal security detail. so a lot of teams were doing that for the  iraqi government officials yeah it was a way to.

way to stay busy way to be employed  like hey if we if they have to put. us here for this maybe they'll let us do  da's too so we had a strike force set up. and because i was so young i mean a lot of the  new guys got pushed over to the strike force. if they didn't want a 19 year old kid standing in  front of cnn you know driving around the president. of iraq or whatever else we were doing um so i  was lucky in that sense i got to go over with. we did a weird conglomerate with team 10 and team  four from the east coast we all deployed together. in the same compound and i think we had five and  seven the same thing so we were just overflowed.

with people so we got to work with everybody  it was pretty cool so what were you guys doing. then if you weren't on the psd team doing raids  raids yeah i'm just streaming what are you doing. um a couple of weeks a couple of weeks yeah um  you know four or five like staying busy they. um but they were all mobility packages we'd  pull out of that base and there was no armor. um there was no uh no armor and turret  gunner so i'd rocked a 50 up front um.

and it was bad man like we uh you just  see the rubble on the side of the road. expecting to hit one you just wouldn't and we  make it through and you come back you're like. okay gotta get some pancakes here we  go we gotta make it back we drive back. and nothing would happen like every day  was a breath hold just wait and get hit. you'd hear that sig axe would get reported all  the significant activity all the ids that were. hit the day before it's the same route in and  out you have to drive there to start everything.

it's like you know marine convoy here army convoy  there 10 people killed here god like when is. this going to happen and because a curfew was so  strict that time you never saw anybody we didn't. do anything during the day so at night i mean i  didn't see in iraqi and actual local for months. no [ __ ] no not until we started doing da's we  just didn't it'd be a couple dry holes here like.

are there people in this country like where  are they the curfew was so stringent right then. you didn't see them and then all of a sudden  you got on a good target set now there's a. bunch of people out you know you're like okay  this is it it's weird man like iraq was a weird. animal especially then being so young just not  really knowing um like the training i felt uh. the training was good but the mindset wasn't like  i had no idea mentally how to prepare for that i. just didn't it's like we're doing land warfare in  you know arkansas i don't know what that has to.

do with driving around iraq right now like yeah  i'm really good at running a saw in a 60 like. but we're gonna get blown up right now  yeah i mean uh target discrimination. you'd see people on a rooftop ski mask  carrying discus or you know pks whatever. are they good are they bad are we gonna shoot  these people like don't fire until you're fired. upon and they wouldn't shoot at you are they  good he's like ah sometimes neighborhood watch.

that's a lot of pressure on a 19 year old  kid to not shoot a dude with a pk like you. want me to wait until he shoots me that's  kind of a weird thing to say but damn no. well then how far so so we're your first  deployment and the biggest loss since still team. history happens yeah man so we're in the compound  um everybody was there um four ten five seven.

we're all in there we've got a centralized jock  and you guys never came to the jock we just didn't. you stayed out of it we stayed in our own little  bat cave doing new guy stuff but i remember i was. walking back from the gym one night and the double  doors open and it was a huge um tv screens you. know typical jock cinematic screens all over the  place and uh this frantic oh stuck his head out. and grabbed me he goes you would seal team 10.  and i said yeah and he goes go get you oh i see. right now and i looked over his shoulder and  i saw what looked to be the side of a mountain.

and a big smoldering thing sitting on it and  i ran back out there and i grabbed him as fast. as i could and told everybody all the new guys  stayed put and all the old guys ran into the jock. and it only took a couple minutes and you could  hear it um you could hear grown men wailing and. they knew like i got goosebumps thinking about  it [ __ ] man you didn't know so i was supposed. to be an echo with him i was and my lpo of golf  platoon pulled me out because he knew my dad so.

i was supposed to be in afghanistan and now i'm in  iraq but all of our best friends that volunteered. all went to echo platoon and echo platoon is on  deployment in afghanistan so i think all of our. best friends are dead we think everybody's on  the same bird and they're all dead right now. and we hear nothing for like two weeks you  didn't hear anything for two [ __ ] weeks nothing. everything converged in afghanistan and they  put us on river city and we heard nothing.

i saw pictures of dead guys in the gym when  it came out in navy times yeah we didn't. know anything we didn't have email accounts back  then like we weren't it wasn't like you were on. some secure access like you didn't you didn't  get anything they shut down the phones and um. when the cmc finally came in he briefed  on the entire thing and they broad brush. the actual ground element i didn't find out  about marcus latrell and all of those people. for months later i never heard the story um he  was so overtaken by the helo going down that.

marcus who like i had no idea never even  heard that story um he came in and i remember. asking him um everybody walked away and i  grabbed him it's like your new guy's dead. he said nope and it was a sigh of relief  selfishly because the new guys are who i knew. and then i thought oh [ __ ] all of that  experience is gone right now he didn't have.

a total he just said no new guys but you knew  it was an entire bird full like you knew that. it's like now the name started to come out  and i remember they uh they set us all down. we were sitting down uh outside of a bunch of  trailers big gravel big uh fire pit and we put. up the proxima like typical team guys [ __ ] and  they're playing the memorial service they shot at. little creek they're playing it for everybody  and uh you know you see uh see seth lucas.

coming to frame they pin his old man's award  on him and i'm [ __ ] bawling my eyes out and. it keeps going through and through and it  gets to a point um patsy gets up and speaks. on danny's behalf and i remember i said it  what the [ __ ] is an sdv2 guy doing there. and then fcv1 i'm like what the [ __ ] is  that but no one knew no one said anything. um at least not at that time it didn't make  any sense to us so they just augments or they. just yeah they're just assisting echo we  had no idea it was a qrf at least i didn't.

for a long time um and then it started to come out  about the lone survivor and everything else and we. started to piece the story back together but until  i was in back at stateside mid-second deployment. or mid-second workup 2006 i finally heard the  story from someone who was there i had no idea. they um yeah that helo was the only thing that  mattered like that was that was our entire world. did that um because we were right around the same  age that time when i was into and uh did that.

did that hit you like did the magnitude of what  happened actually hit you being that young and you. didn't know anybody you know you didn't know those  guys i didn't know them either no it didn't hit me. no the old guys i didn't know um i mean you knew  some of them um got really tight with their wives. afterwards all the kids obviously um but no like  they were uh you were playing chief equipped and. i don't know you yeah but i'm not in ecclestone  um known for reputation stuff like that but.

at that time there's no way you  could understand the magnitude. of what that did with community  yeah talk about a dose of reality. that's reality like that's what you're doing yeah  like these people are actively trying to kill you. it's like like to me it wasn't it wasn't real yet  it was like a cowardice thing like oh yeah they. playing ieds like this and that but team guys  weren't getting shot like they weren't dying.

they had a couple random ones but not  like that not like that yeah it's like. seals don't die like that like you can't  just take out that many it's not a thing. so yeah heavy dose reality on the way  back but yeah the magnitude wasn't. probably until extortion actually no that  long yeah it didn't hit me until i got we. relieved those guys over there and uh it didn't  it didn't really sink in until we started seeing.

some of the intel reports and they were i  remember uh i was with a good friend of mine. sitting next to him and they it was shown they  were showing deets on there and he just started. [ __ ] crying and he uh they were stripping his  clothes off and he was like i remember when he. got that [ __ ] tattoo on his rib cage and i  was like oh this is [ __ ] the real deal but um.

yeah yeah man it's real deal like there's some  evil people on this earth really committed to. the cause yeah i mean yeah it's really  hard to train for that scenario though. it's like how good everybody was on that hilo like  they were all bad [ __ ] dude they were awesome. and it didn't matter it's like god if you  just wouldn't let him sit on the ground and. then ambushed him like some cowards that [ __ ]  yeah like yeah like war's not fair i think that.

was the lesson learned out of that doesn't  matter how good you are if you don't get the. the chance to fight the chance to show  how good you are doesn't matter yeah yeah. let's take another quick break we'll come  back we'll uh get into your second deployment.

all right dj so we're back from your first  deployment and it's 2007 i think you're 22.

years old now and you're getting ready to go back  to iraq again for a second time and uh you found. yourself in somewhat of a historic firefight uh  that's been talked about a lot so um i'd love. to get your take on what happened and and how  that deployment went um yeah kind of leading up. to that um and we'll kind of segue back to it we  um on our turnover up when we first flew in there.

the so we had our our platoon our sister  platoon and we had a we were leaving seal. team four so that was my day's platoon so our  turnover out with our sister platoon is when. mike dave's incident happened he got shot 27 times  [ __ ] that's how we kicked off the deployment. that's how it started mm-hmm [ __ ] hey man so we  had one of the guys in the systemation got shot. got medically retired took a a crazy round through  the arm and it um had a bunch of nerve damage and.

balled his hand up he's out and he was one  of our corpsmen too he's an awesome dude. so we automatically lost him and we basically  just combined forces were you on that operation. i wasn't that was our sisterable tune and it  was one of the handover offs um so it was team. four heavy and then a little bit of team 10 um  you know the hq element a couple of senior guys. just to see how they did business these what the  routes are like just what the target sets like. and it just so happened they were going after um  an aq cell that had just shot down a marine helo.

so they had all their guns had their body armor  had helmets had night vision had the whole thing. [ __ ] so we kind of rode that wave pretty  much the whole deployment it was super busy. a different area working for uh working for the  west coast um teams so it was great we were busy. like super busy and it it felt like how i  thought it would feel really yeah like this.

is what you envision when you're you know like  even um even some of the animosity stuff like um. we'd go to the chow hall and they'd [ __ ]  about it because we'd come in wearing tank. tops and now you gotta wear like even the stuff  we would complain about it made you feel like. i feel like a navy seal now yeah like i feel  like i'm in a strike force like this is how it's. supposed to feel like we're gelling we're going  out every night like this is this is what it is. but the reality hasn't set in yet on  what we're actually doing because it.

hasn't happened to you yet so it's  not it's not a real thing yeah um. a couple months in that deployment we're we're  steady um engaging with the enemy it's fine um. and one night we go out and we're in a really  bad um in a really bad section where were you. guys at um just outside of fallujah but we were  operating this little town called karma okay. and it was good but um a lot of palm groves  a lot of a lot of nasty [ __ ] out there we.

just we were not trained to do so kind of  coming to play later about our inexperience. um but one night we we do an offset in phil we're  patrolling a target and we get about 200 meters. out and you could see the entire posture shift  of everybody in that assault force everybody. switched you could smell it like this is a [ __  ] ambush like it just is walking down the road. the houses we were walking past like you just you  were waiting it was a breath hold the entire way.

um and i say that because people started doing  things they've never done before the pace they. were moving we've never moved to that pace before  um when we would um when we would do patrolling. and training like there's a lack of daisical  patrol and there's a patrol to contact like. we're gonna get hit right now everybody  was in patrol to contact mode like it's. happening right now you're waiting for trader  to throw rd sims and kick the whole thing off. like it was it's right there and i remember  the last 50 feet sprinting to the building they.

had a big overhang and we've been getting isr  updates there's multiple guys on the roof okay. so as we patrol up there's a bunch of  guys in the courtyard of this and it's a. it's an iranian influence so that we're kind  of going after now and they fight completely. different we locked down some guys on these um on  these sleepers on our courtyard and we we maneuver. up um made silent entry we go in we're doing our  whole clearance and i bolt straight for the stairs.

um it's a huge open room um i don't know how to  describe it um just a huge open room with little. offshoot bedrooms made no sense to be a house  it was like a structure um and they had a a. two-tier landing that came up and banked and then  it basically just opened into the roof just a an. opening in the middle of the roof and you walked  up and you're surrounded 360 720 by the roof. stacked up the train got right there right  at the last little breach of it so about.

this high underneath it and uh i stood up  and threw on my laser and there was a dude. sprinting at me at full blast with a pistol  in his hand and unloaded six shots at me. no [ __ ] yeah so he unloaded um i unloaded  on him got off three rounds in a boat lock. so dropped to my knees and we called  xville ran around the back everybody. got their guns up and running and  grenades started coming off the roof. so in rally what happened is so hold on did you  eliminate the threat yep he's dead mm-hmm did.

he he didn't hit you he did he did hit  you he hit me in the in the chest plate. in uh one of the magazines so pistol caliber  like a 45 dead center i mean dead center. um so snack me there which i don't know how we  did it with a downward angle because that was. presented so blind luck snapping the plates  were good i don't know where the other five. went i don't know how they didn't hit anybody  else um but i mean he was probably within.

six feet and he was there what you didn't  realize um and the isr update we did not get. is he was standing at the base of stairs waiting  they never told us that he's standing there. waiting for us to come up and there is a another  shooter in a sandbag position with a belt fed a pk. aimed at top of the stairs and he's pulled off a  suicide vest and laid it at the base of the stairs. and pulled back a command wire and you can see him  he's holding it he's waiting to clack it off and.

we never know so if i would have made entry if  i shot that dude and would have continued to go. that guy would cut me in half so just blind luck  that i got bolt lock and i'm forced to retreat. so we start trading grenades on the roof back  and forth a bunch of different maneuver elements. are happening we've got three or four guys that  are fragged from the grenades our chief included. you corman our terp. our jtac to a bunch of guys not bad but bad enough  i mean your first time being wounded like um.

takes you by surprise like your  wounded eagle it's like oh no. like how bad you actually think the worst um  but we had to win the fight so we're trading. grenades on the roof we're doing that whole  thing and um one of the guys wanted to send. a one of the names from the courtyard he grabs him  perfect english um he's like i know who that is.

oh yeah he's like it's my cousin tells  him again like send that dude up there. and tell him to tell his cousin to come  down here like we don't know who's up there. the slant was really weird that night with  how many women and kids were supposed to be. there was bad intel he was kind of just  hodge-podge and we sent that dude back. up there and he's calling out to his cousin  you know whatever he's saying whatever he's. saying he got halfway up the stairs and  poked his head up and that dude let it go. killed his own cousin and here we go more  grenades are coming off the roof um so the.

whole force now we're basically locked down inside  of this building and grenades are coming off we. don't know how many dudes are on the roof and now  there's multiple maneuver elements of bad guys in. and around the city we have to fall back now um  we have super badass new guy posted up with a saw. basically everybody wants that opportunity  rocked the front of this building so we can all. run underneath it that dude stepped out and just  sent it we all ran back and um we got our first.

fire mission in like a first like no ship fire  mission yeah so um that was cool i didn't know um. i've been hit yet you didn't know you've been hit  yet i had no idea we uh i kept having a bolt lock. so i'd fire three rounds bolt lock i dumped  out a mag grabbed a new one and when i did. it cut my fingers so where the round hit it it  had blown out the back of it a big spider web. so when i grabbed it it filled my hands open  so i dropped the mag and grabbed a new one.

got the gun back up and running and for whatever  reason i grabbed it off the ground and put it in. my back pocket i don't know why i didn't i  just i did it um so we got back on the helo. we're flying out after that whole thing um we  got all the medevac guys out they were fine. minimal injuries nothing crazy um we're flying  back on the hilo and i'm sitting next to uh. the jay redman and i held up the mag and i'm  looking i'm trying to focus it with my nods. back and forth and i don't  know what it is like it never.

it never entered my conscious thought that i  took around there yeah i didn't know what it was. put it back in my pocket and we get back to the  ready room and we're going in for the debrief. and i dropped my gear and i looked at it and  it still in disbelief what the [ __ ] is that. and i hand it to one of the other guys  and he's like that's a [ __ ] bullet dude. oh sh that is a bullet that is a bullet dead  center um but it's weird when you look at the. bullet and the angle it came into um we did  a lot of breaching back then we land a lot.

i used to run around with the charges captain  and i had them all capped in and i had. my primary charges and a pouch right there and  it nicked the edge of the pouch where the caps. were exposed to so obviously if it would have hit  that blasting cap that would have been a whole. damn that'd been a bad day so for the audience  just real quick i'm just going to interrupt. uh when he's talking about the caps being exposed  basically a breaching charge is a bomb you know.

that they use to blow a door blow a hole in the  wall blow whatever up and uh the blasting caps are. extremely sensitive so if that would have hit one  of those uh it would have been the end of the road. for you mm-hmm yeah we were running on big charges  we blew everything um we blew everything that was. the sop back then if you could uh you could blow  it you blew it so you didn't even [ __ ] feel you. didn't feel the fact that you got [ __ ] pegged by  a 45 in the chestplate so thinking back on it um.

the guys behind me said they saw me like take  a reflex i didn't feel the next morning um when. i stood up and i arched back it felt like i  did too many sit-ups like sore and sternum. um kind of hard to take a full breath but  nothing like would you imagine like i imagine. i would have known instantly like oh my god  i didn't the adrenaline was so high that. that's kind of what we use for like a training  analogy now like when that adrenaline dumps.

you won't know yeah you won't know like in  approximately a gunfight that is that close when. you see muscle flash and you feel it it's very  different it's not being shot after 300 meters. it's not uh it's not hitting the wall inside  of six feet it's a very different experience. yeah no i've never been shot i don't know you  know what that feels like but i always imagined it. would uh knock you on your [ __ ] ass damn luckily  it didn't yeah no [ __ ] so yeah we got through.

that one that was like reality is set in though  and it's like okay all the stuff in training now. now everything is slowed down the cqb is super  crisp now it's all real world we're very current. and it's good like business is great  we're going out every night every. other night we've got assets it's like it's  awesome as good as it ever could have been. and we go back this is um to the firefight  you were referencing was uh the one with.

jay redmond and those guys um that was september  10th um so almost on the anniversary and uh. everything that could have gone wrong went  wrong but in a positive way um zero lume. there wasn't an ounce of moonlight out nothing  and for the guys that don't run around with night. vision um those things aren't perfect they're not  man you don't have any ambient light out there.

like they don't work very well they just don't  so we were going back to the exact same spot two. houses down from where that thing happened so we  called it the karma house the bad karma here we go. and we're going to land on the axe. we're going to blow the front door and take this  thing down hard that's what we did back then. um so flying helos right to the front  door and this is what we're doing. and we knew from past experiences exactly what  kind of resistance we were going to meet and we.

planned for the worst like i went in on that thing  completely knowing in that first room i was going. to get shot damn like they had belt feds they  had suicide vests like these guys are committed. for sure if we go in right now that first room  is going to be sketchy and we landed on the axe. and we ran through that thing like we've done a  million other times and there was no one there. dry hole and we get an update that all those guys  had left and it ran out the back and now they are.

an adjacent essentially a corn field but if  you imagine um imagine an endless field of. nothing just a plowed feel and then right in the  middle of it is about 500 yards of six foot tall. i don't know what you call it it's like straw  but it's not i mean you can't see anything. um and they're trying to walk us down on top  of this guy so we all switch over it's um.

like six or seven of us and we all get  online and we're all starting to walk down. um we've all switched over to  fires and we're listening and. two of the new guys and one of the eod  guys had not switched over to fires. they were we literally interlocked arms that's  how bad it was you couldn't see [ __ ] we couldn't. lose anybody inside there um we'd never walked  the palm groves before we didn't have a dog. we didn't have the experience and looking back on  is one of the most dangerous things i've ever done.

because you knew the guy in there had a gun like  for sure you knew that uh they run around with s. vest and you know they're committed so now we  are walking on there so if you imagine just a. a big open field with a big sparkle in the  center of it and we're gonna walk towards it. and we're gonna walk until we find  this guy okay so we do completely. committed interlocked arms and we are walking  forward and we're getting the updates 15 feet.

ten feet. you're standing on him. and you see everybody looking  down like he's not here. third person from the right you are standing on  him and we all look over to the right nothing like. what the [ __ ] so we're all on a line standing  right there and jay calls an audible he's like. whole maneuver element take a right-hand  turn because we know there's an open field.

we just have to cross and now it's completely  open now we can re-gather our [ __ ] and we can. assault from this side if it's walking through  all this all this crazy brush we can approach it. from the open side and just walk in the brush a  little bit maybe call him out do something else. and when we turn right this element  stayed they didn't get the word. so now we have a bad guy our element and then  another element now we're in a polish ambush. we turn we walk out and we enter this beautiful  manicured open field there's not an ounce of.

cover anywhere in it there's not a rut there's  nothing there's not a rock there's a single tire. and it's about 20 feet yeah 30 feet from the  edge of the uh from the edge of the brush line. it's just out there and we're standing there in  a team guy gaggle standing around like wondering. what the [ __ ] is this guy really there is it a  dog is it some animal like these guys are clearly. lost and we don't realize that that bad guy is in  there probably six feet inside and he's looking at.

us and we're from the middle of the wall and we're  close we're having a full-on conversation and. um at one point we're trying to relay to the  other guys because now we know we've lost three. now they're lost in brush country and we have to  reconsolidate them so we can deal with this guy. because now we know the reality we've turned the  entire profile blue forces bad guy blue forces. we've got all the rest of the guys over here on on  the west side and now we're trying to do a link up.

like we have to get them around to reconsolidate  with us um the blue force pitcher and knowing. where everybody is um it's challenging  at times but you really have to know then. we basically walked right up to the edge it's um  yeah jay's there our corpsman our terp the jtag. and a guy we'll just call matty is standing there  with me and we're all in kind of a team guy gaggle. and jay hears something in the bushes and i  think he believed at the time it was the guys.

and he screamed out hey and when he did that  dude let off the biggest hollywood belt fed. burst i've ever heard everybody dropped it was  like um we do the new guys scenarios you know. you're doing land warfare the first contact and  all the headshed dies just and that you've got. to drag around like you know playing war games  that's what it was like everybody hit the deck.

and there was a tree probably. 30 feet that way and i remember i turned i heard  it watched him drop and i was sprinting so fast to. that thing i remember the dust kicking up in front  of me when he was tracking me um i dove behind the. tree and he pounded on that tree for what seemed  like an eternity um i was on my back looking up i. mean you can imagine helmets cockeyed there's no  ambient light i can't see [ __ ] through my nods.

um and there's just dirt blowing all over me  i mean i am consumed by this i don't even know. where he's at now i don't know if he's on his  feet chasing me down like i'm just overcome with. withering [ __ ] fire um and then it stops and he  pans back over and he starts to engage the dudes. um this thing goes on for um for a little bit  we're trying to reconsolidate um the jtac has went. out and he's trying to grab people now he's behind  a tire i remember looking over and seeing um.

jay and i remember him sitting upright and i  watched him get shot one more time um right. in the face and it looked like that was it he  hit the ground so hard you knew he was dead um. so this inaudible has to be made we have the jtac  and behind this tractor tire that i mean it's a. it's a tractor tire it's not big  it's about that half the ground.

serves no purpose and he's behind it and i'm  directly adjacent from him looking at him. like i have an out out this way we can't  because we have all these dudes that are. shot up and i remember it was like the scene from  black hawk down come to me [ __ ] you come to me. ready yup and i got up and i ran  as fast as i could and i dove. like a baseball slider and behind that thing in it  it was such a sigh of relief to feel another human. next to me um i was so thankful that he was  there and now we have to figure out how to.

get out there and bring those people back here  and this whole thing's happening very very fast. so jay's been shot multiple times he's  uh he's discombobulated he's talking. and this guy's still trying to shoot him  but he can't see [ __ ] because it's black. so if you're quiet he can't hear you. the bravest thing i have ever seen in 17 years  happened on that night um i watched maddie get up.

and run forward after he'd already been shot and  grabbed our corpsman is dragging him backwards. just like on the movies corman pulls out his  pistol and he's shooting into this bushline. um and maddie gets shot again spins him  around and dumps him he gets back up. grabs him and gets shot again dumps him he  gets back up and continued to drag him back. until we got them all back to the tractor tire  you know we're all pulling them in there we. basically just dog piled on them just plates on  plates um just trying to build up a human wall.

to not let these people be shot again um and he's  still shooting us the entire time he hasn't let up. he just doesn't know where we're at now so if  we can keep everybody quiet we've got hands. over miles like people are screaming we had uh the  corman got shot through tib fib shattered his leg. matty got shot through the brachial artery hit his  humerus and shattered that and it flipped over the. back of his neck and i remember because we talked  about it later and it made sense he looked very. confused at one point um in between dragging the  corman back and he said he was looking for his arm.

when it broke it snapped and went over his  neck and he looked down and just saw this. um couldn't see it um i mean there's  no moonlight you can't see anything. you can't see under nods right there it's just  gone you look down and there's a stump there. so he doesn't know he's been shot in the leg um  jason shot a leg in the um in the side plates. i think he took a double stack to the elbow  so it blew out his entire arm and he took one. through the face that basically removed his jaw  removed his nose and you could look inside him.

it was as bad as it could have been um so we  get them back and we go into t triple c mode. tourniquet's on there we're packing wounds  we're doing that and thank god for that course. um i don't know where we'd be without  that the live tissue training and all that. that was uh i was so prepared for that um we  were in and out of that blowout kit so fast.

to uh and i i joke with matty about it  he was um i put the tourniquet on he. was begging for me to stop i was like two  more two more turns finally got the blood. to stop and i had my fingers inside his arm  feeling out that thing the medics working on. jay and um the corpsman putting on tourniquets  pressure dressings all that and i remember. having a distinct conversation with maddie he's  begging me for quick lot he's like quick club. over and over and over i remember from talking to  uh the surgeons during the training he's like if.

you dump quick lot in there the only way to remove  it is to cut it out and it's inside of his bicep. and i mean to me i have the bleeding stopped  i have it under control and i'm not pointing. quick lot in you because they're gonna have to  cut it out of you like i'm saving you you're. not dying here like you don't need that quick  lot um we had a bunch of hemostatic dressings. like i'm packing this thing it's fine and  uh he wouldn't shut the [ __ ] up about it. so i told him yeah and i grabbed a i think a quick  lot and i mean this is underneath a tractor tire.

where rounds are coming over it's like i've got it  and i pretended like i did it and i went like that. and uh he said thank you so much so yeah you never  got quick lot um so the next thing we uh we have. tourniquets on them we are talking about what  we're going to do now and he is still engaging. and the jtac j um starts prepping a fire  mission and it's close um it's the closest uh. at that point is the closest uh fire mission the  coalition forces the entire war no [ __ ] yeah.

that's the name um. 10 meters 15 minutes 10 [ __ ] meters i mean close  enough where you could take a grenade and throw. it holy [ __ ] i mean like it was they started  walking them in by this time the other element. we had had maneuvered away um nobody was firing  because we didn't have um we didn't have a pitcher.

we didn't know where this dude was coming from we  didn't know where our forces were and we thought. we thought that if we were to engage this guy  we would have hit our own blue forces so there's. a big flow in the fire and we were basically  just being withered that we were we were just. getting chewed up um i mean strobes getting  shot off helmets like it's like it's in there. and they're everywhere but hitting human beings  so we've essentially taken the tractor and we've. stacked up plates in between them on our  sides and now we're just working on people. we're laying on top of people doing whatever  we can in jace prepping for a fire mission and.

he's asking for 25 mike mike and 40 mike  mike and basically to start walking it in. and i remember a distinct conversation  they said no they said it's too close. and he said we're gonna [ __ ] die anyway juliet  alpha send it gave his initials they started. dropping it and you could feel it you could you  could feel the vibration start to get closer and. closer and start to bounce you off the ground a  little bit and kept coming kept coming kept coming. and then they started going tally on target and uh  i mean you could hear that dude the impacts you'd.

hear them smack um you could hear him screaming  and it was very satisfying i just let him go. like let him go like we're not walking back  up that tree line again let that dude die. we called in um we called in for a medevac they  landed right on the axe um right there where. we were we loaded them on there and i jumped in  um the corpsman already been shot so we had him. maddie and jay redman um and we talked about the  typical team guy [ __ ] sometimes about if this.

happens just put me out of my misery you know what  i mean like if i get hit by an ied and it blows my. dick off just finish me like people say that [ __  ] yeah that would have been one of the times um if. my face looks like this put me down and he was the  most coherent the most calm dude i have ever seen. sitting upright leaning forward letting [ __ ]  pour out of his face so he could breathe um and he. didn't say much man i don't know if the shock hit  him i don't think he knew how bad it really was um.

so i'm working on maddie and hilo we're  kind of doing the whole comb thing. running down his fingers we're finding bullet  holes we're trying to patch all this stuff up. and we get him back um those hilo pilots flew  that bird so fast um i thought they were going. to suck us out of the bird but we had to  shut the doors i've never been in 60 that. flew that fast ever i mean to this day that  thing that thing was in a full attack mode. the entire way back it was the fastest [ __  ] i've ever been in and thank god for it um.

some of the stuff you don't think about like um  the tourniquets slipping like now the compartment. syndrome sets in all the blood's getting pushed  out now it gets loose now we start blowing blood. all out of it like it's in my mouth it's all over  me like i'm covered in it head to toe like it's. i mean it looks like a scene out of blackhawk  download by back of that hilo like there's just. med kits everywhere and just people lay down  it's like another dose of reality you know. team guys do get shot and if you're if you're  not trained to handle that situation you won't.

you won't you won't rise to that like if i  wouldn't have been through t triple c if all those. dudes would have played out that exact scenario  hundreds of times in training i don't know what. would have happened like it's a testament  to how good those dudes prepared that jtag. the balls he had yeah to drop that the confidence  he had in that ac 130 crew like if you missed. that thing like your first round for windage it  was so close he could have killed us it's like.

that's the confidence um it was humbling man  to get back from that thing i remember we um. we dropped those guys off i wasn't there for  the rest of the target what happened after that. um i was probably gone for an extra two hours and  i came back from the debrief and i walked in and. you know i'm an emotional [ __ ] wreck um. i would have sworn that matt was gonna die  for sure like jerry looked like he was dead. um i never thought he'd make it i mean just  the way his face looked like he looks so bad.

but outside of his arm no real life-threatening  injuries um outside of a [ __ ] kind of cosmetic. stuff i mean he it's a really lucky way to get  shot matty was uh he was a different animal. he got a bad infection external fixators you  know it's all over the place in the hospital. um a very surreal moment um especially for that  deployment just that's how we're gonna end this. whole thing just it's a somber way to go home on  that deployment and i never really got to process.

it i didn't have time um just the whole reality of  what had happened kind of what we've been through. damn together as a group um being in  firefights is one thing like being in. that is completely different like just helpless  you couldn't shoot back i couldn't do anything. i could just lay there and put my plates in front  of that guy and hope he shoots me and not you. and give you a tourniquet outside of that man  outside of moral support like we're all just in.

this together and i would about anything there's  no way we would walk away from that there's. no i thought we were dead after the initial  contact it was so close it was so violent um. and i think it was kind of that um  not laxative attitude because we. were definitely wired tight for that but  it's not reality until it's reality like. that's not gonna happen yes it is whether you  want it to or not it's happening right now.

so um yeah a lot of good lessons learned from that  a lot of stuff that carried with me my entire life. even in training usually a lot of guys will put  on this hollywood show during training they'll um. they'll run out there and they'll like try to  save the princess or some kind of crazy [ __ ]. no sometimes you have to sometimes you have  to get up and you have to say cover me and. you have to go out and do that and sometimes  you have to call in danger close fire missions.

sometimes you have to run out there being shot  already and drag back a dude to save his life. like there's no argument with that that's the most  heroic [ __ ] i've ever seen ever um i mean to. this day like if i had one defining moment where  i stood back and i was just star struck that's it. like if i had to if i had to capture a you  know a 30 second clip of do you want to be a. navy seal why do you want to be one because  people will do this for me that'd be it.

maybe jay calling the fire mission matty  run out there grab him back to corman. dragging him back it's a badass move  that is some heavy [ __ ] [ __ ] man damn. so yeah i um i'd almost been killed six seven  times on a deployment it was it was getting. rough and that was kind of the last straw we  were about to do turnover they medivacked all. those guys home and then they sent me back  on the first bird and when i landed i went.

and saw one saw matty in the hospital his  mom was in there and um it was cool man like. then the connection to reality because we hadn't  had that before i've never had a guy in a platoon. be shot and it gave me a really good insight  on what happens when you actually get shot like. it's not the movies it's not a graze it's like  oh yeah he took and he continued to fight for. six hours and he doesn't miss a  rotation that bullet hits your bone.

you're out of this program maybe forever  you're definitely out of it for nine months. multiple surgeries now infections and rehab and  physical therapy you get it cleared by the doctors. and everything else everything that goes in behind  the backside to get you back up and running it. wasn't a reality we never had to deal with it like  i definitely take that forward now to training. like we do simulation [ __ ] i use that as  a prime example if you haven't seen what. happens when a bullet hits human bone on the blue  side or on the bad side the bullet doesn't care.

it's doing the exact same amount of damage  like you're out of the game for six months man. yeah so but yeah that was uh that was how we  wrapped up 2007. that's pretty [ __ ] rough. you keep in touch with all those guys  still or yeah i was just texting with uh. with the jtac actually dave before yesterday  really trying to get him to come in and. do the skateboard thing um yeah get smart therapy  on get the boys back together i think everybody um.

well those guys will met or not i don't give  a [ __ ] like that really [ __ ] us up um. yeah it's rough man yeah got to sit there and just. wait to die damn yeah it was um yeah it's  a real experience just the proximity of it. um that's something that can't be um it  can't be overlooked like it's different being. pinned down from a couple hundred meters away like  you can get up and maneuver not this one like if.

that dude would have stood up and just walked us  down it had been over so it's like all the lessons. learned on laser placement how to focus your  nods ambient conditions everything else it's like. i know now it's like one more pearl and lock  that one away i won't ever forget that again damn. so it's like everything you know i think we kind  of take that forward in the training now it's like. all these lessons have been learned not because  you know we're superhuman but because we're honest.

and we [ __ ] things up and everything you're  doing right now i've [ __ ] up before there's. no reason for you to make the same mistake yeah so  yeah i mean huh it's a big thing just not being um. not being mentally prepared for that situation you  thought you were but i hadn't hadn't looked at it. in a in a realistic lens yet it was still  video game mode still training mode it was. that's not going to happen to me  even though we were walking down.

interlocked arms waiting to  get shot wasn't reality yet. you scared shitless i knew it was coming any  moment but in until it goes loud it's not real. [ __ ] man. how was it being home after that. terrible i was [ __ ] up man i had uh i  was dating a chick at the time um she uh.

[ __ ] just went solid dude i  was just i was in a bad spot um. everything sent me over the edge just so hyper  vigilant um i just couldn't shake it and uh. i think i really started to obsess over everything  then like the details and training training. methodology and just like i really became a  student of the craft then like then i got it. all the [ __ ] all these old dudes have been  talking this is why this is what they were trying.

to prepare me for but they didn't have a formula  to give it to me they didn't have a they didn't. have a movie they didn't have uh they didn't have  their own c story to tell me this they just knew. from training over and over and over this is  what it has to be and they were right like if. you make training so realistic you don't know the  difference because of your mindset it's very hard. to trip people up if i paint it real in my mind  during training my body won't know the difference.

let's take a break that was heavy oh [ __ ] man.

all right man so we're back that was  a pretty [ __ ] devastating deployment. but uh you came back and a little bit of good  happened you met your wife so how did that happen. so after 2005 um you had the red wings thing  go down and most of the wives stayed local.

um so we all stayed there now a bunch of them  lived offshore drive so that became just our. our running crew um we go there new family  dinners laura mcgreevy's house all the time and. um just became a big melting pot of gold  star families um internet patsy threw them so. um yeah i've never met her before didn't know  danny didn't know any of that i'd seen her for you. know a five minute segment before and um yeah gold  star community kind of brought us together which.

was pretty taboo let me backtrack just real quick  because the audiences know this so you eventually. wound up marrying patsy who previously was married  to danny dietz who died in operation red wings. she's a gold star yeah so yeah which at the time  was um it was taboo like nobody did that they um. this is gonna sound bad but i'll say it um we  kind of wrote them off like they're untouchable.

once your husband dies like you can't date  again um and i know team guys did it i did. it too you judge them like how long are they  supposed to wait do they wait 10 years like. you can't judge people for that you  have no idea what they're going through. and kind of the school thought where i came up in  the teams um i fell in love with her right off the. bat and i didn't give a [ __ ] if she was a gold  star or not um and i caught hate for it i did.

had answers and tough questions um i didn't  care what was it about her he liked so much. um her understanding she got it she knew exactly  what it was reality had smacked her um her stepdad. was cecile so she'd been in the navy she knew  the commitment um and she served herself like. she knew exactly what it was she knew what her  deployment was and she knew the reality of it. i didn't have to explain it to her i feel  like that's a big thing in the teams is.

people marry their high school  sweetheart after you've been. gone for four years and you come back and  she has no idea that you're gonna be gone. 250 plus days out of every year like she  has no idea you're gonna come home with. you know three weeks of nasty ass laundry drop  it off and leave for a two week training trip. i didn't have to explain after she already knew  and she was bought in so it made a it made that. transition so easy because she was dedicated as i  was so she uh she really let me she let me obsess.

like she knew where i had to go to get to the  level i wanted to get and she encouraged it. so yeah i mean she saved me for sure how long  were you guys dating before you got engaged um. about a year and a half so a year and a half yeah. did you see you met her pretty much  right when you got home yeah and then. by the end of the next workout you better do the  next workout um i think around it was thanksgiving. that year or something like that um proposed to  her in front of her old family my old family and.

the community kind of erupted in a positive  way it was awesome that's cool yeah dude it was. as it was supposed to be yeah so on on this trip  home it sounds like it was pretty eventful you. you met your wife you got engaged you screened for  green team yep um started my third workup we um. i was in a very uh i was writing  an emotional roller coaster.

daily i just was um i was  drinking back then a lot um. just trying to numb my senses  i didn't care what it was. luckily i never did anything really  stupid um definitely had my moments. that was the only thing i knew  i didn't know what else to do. people that i could talk to wouldn't talk other  people that have been exposed to similar things.

they uh they put up this facade like um. [ __ ] wrong with you so i just i did the  exact same thing i walled it up like nope. i won't even address that i won't  address any of these feelings i have. i want to address the anxiety my performance  anxiety going into that 2008 2009 year was through. the roof like having panic attacks and i didn't  know what they were i thought i was having little. mini strokes if you haven't had one they're it's  alarming like just sitting down in a cold sweat.

yeah i have no idea what's coming over me right  now but i know it's not good and i know i can't. say anything to anybody because they'll pull  me out of this job and that's not happening. so we have to do what we do suffer in silence  just be quiet and continue doing your job and. that's what you have to do um fortunately  for me right around that time we started a. new workup and i got a i got a new platoon  chief who uh used to be over to command.

his name's barrett and um he was everything i  needed like i mean you couldn't have you could. have molded a better dude at that moment in time  for me he um he talked to talk he walked the walk. and he performed and he was he was nasty  he was he was um because usually you know. guys kind of they have a shelf life and they don't  you know your platoon chief or your uh your troop. chief isn't making the entries every time he  doesn't need to be the best shot anymore because.

he's commanding controlling everything it wasn't  like that with that dude he outperformed everybody. and he basically set the bar at what development  group is supposed to be and like that's what it. became like i can't outshoot him i can't out  pt him i don't know more about cqb than him i. don't have a combat experience he does um and  it humbled you which is exactly what i needed. exactly what everybody needed we needed we needed  to see the in-state i needed to see what you.

could accomplish if you um if you went all the  way and that's what that dude did he showed us. like if you want to be a professional if you  want to be the guy you have to go all the way. well that was good advice or bad advice i  took it literally and um i started to set. up little walls um little break off points and  relationships and friendships and everything else. if you impede anything on this progression  i'm done not one [ __ ] second will i give.

to you because you're not worth the end state  you're not you're not worth me sacrificing my. dreams and my hopes and all my wants and wishes  i want to be the best navy seal i can possibly be. and if you slow me down one second i'll never  talk to you again like i don't have time for. it like this community that organization this  job deserves the very best of me emotionally. spiritually physically everything tactically  and you have to completely in my opinion.

to reach uh the highest level you possibly can  you have to cut out all the other [ __ ] and i. thought that job deserved it i did i grew up  in my entire life and you've never met a dude. who loved being maybe still more than me i just  did every day i woke up even through the where. everybody's complaining in the platoon space  on this and that i loved it i'd come home and. i just i just smile man just thankful to be there  thankful that i'm doing exactly what i uh what i.

was put on this earth to do i loved it did you  cut any did you cut any important relationships. or was it just a coincidence and a little [ __  ] no i cut off i cut all kinds of [ __ ] out um. we had a. in a platoon life um people that spread a lot of  hate a lot of discontent a lot of [ __ ] talking.

um a lot of guys that call them nine to fivers the  last one in here you show up five minutes before. our first muster near the first dude bouncing  out of here at 4 pm like what are you doing. yeah birds of feather i'm going to shun myself  and i'm going to isolate myself with only people. that are better than me and that are going to  help me achieve the level i want to achieve the. people that want to stay late and train the  guys who want to show up early and work out. the guys that are doing courses on saturday  and sunday like the guys who are going to.

fully commit that's who i'm going to surround  myself with it's the best thing i ever did um. it gave me the focus i could just strip out  everything and i could just tunnel vision. every day had a purpose like today i'm doing  fitness i'm not checking my phone i don't have. social media wasn't a thing you didn't have  to deal with any any kind of [ __ ] like that. um but you could just scrub away bad  relationship toxicity out of your life. so um we do that deployment um it was a long  stand down it was really eaten away at uh.

at the boys overall collective um long story  short we uh we deployed in a big joint fashion. and the rangers uh had an issue back to iraq he  deployed back to iraq back to baghdad um had all. the assets third time um full rotation and uh it  was awesome like the target set we inherited was. amazing like we were going to be getting it and i  think we were there for 10 or 15 days and we were.

just feeling ourselves out the asset schedule  and everything else like all the things that. actually make the machine run we were slowly  figuring out i was a team leader at the time. so i'm in all the briefings and all the meetings  and the rangers go out and they get into a. firefight and they kill a guy and it happens to  be one of the shakes son-in-laws and they threw. some political [ __ ] storm into the air and they  sit us down for 90 consecutive days so we have all.

the task force people there we have everything  kilos everything and every day they'd come in. roll 24 roll 24 should be on friday it's  a long weekend it's a four day weekend on. tuesday we'll get an update friday we'll get an  update and they kept doing that the entire time. so i mean you can imagine yeah get a bunch of guys  overseas that just want to fight just want to get. out of the door and you're not letting them and  you're not telling them why we didn't do anything.

i didn't choose that dude i wasn't on that target  none of our people were why are you punishing us. then you got to feel being a political pawn then  you realized that it was nothing to do with us. just some guy flexing it's not going to let you do  your job but it eroded the cohesion of that entire. organization like we were at each other's throats  man it was bad um just the living conditions like. you could you wouldn't see people for days  there was no reason to have a meeting it's. like we weren't training we were just rusting  um and luckily barrett kind of pulled us out of.

that and he'd have um basically pulled all the  guys together we do cqb we go to flat range we. started training that group within the group that  spread the collective and we kind of just you know. it took a little bit but we all got  back on step and on around the 90th day. he came in and he said [ __ ] it we're moving and  we lifted that entire package and we drove it down. the road a couple hours um to fob war horse and  we set up there and it was busy like it was uh.

it was everything we wanted to do um we inherited  a bunch of target sets from uh from the army side. which is really good got to interface with those  guys a lot got to learn about palm groves and. a bunch of new ttps that we hadn't even thought  about um things that would have really helped. us in 2007 we're now learning now like yep i've  been there i know exactly what he's talking about. so we got to learn a [ __ ] ton we got to  put it to put it to good use it was good. who are you working with from the army  um so we had a ranger element with us.

we had the tier 1 personality there 2-2 ses was in  the same compound um so he was a it was so funny. man the uh the ses i [ __ ] love those dudes they  they'd roll through the chow hall and they've all. got american flag patches on i'm like it's over  the patch he said gotta blame it on somebody. like okay cool those guys were great man just  um i remember seeing them you see all the unit. guys you see the sas guys i mean i'm a kid and  they look like they're seven foot tall like they.

look like marcus cabone like they look enormous  they've all got huge beards and long hair and like. holy [ __ ] that's what the pros look like like  now you get to see it up close just before i. mean it's just it's just us you get to see the  other organization you're like you get to hear. what they're doing going out at night and you  don't get to so you get to hear about this huge. firefight they got into and you can you got to sit  there with the rangers and twiddle your thumbs and.

play reindeer games until we got the lift and  shift and it's like okay let's all be big boys. again and um it was fine it was it was a decent  deployment nothing uh nothing to really write. home about um but it showed me how uh shouldn't  the seesaw method if the op tempo goes up or. island wherefro can go down like you don't need to  have xbox and flat screen tvs and all this crazy. [ __ ] if you're working every night you sleep on  cots in a tent with no ac eating mres the happiest.

dude you'll ever see nobody gives a [ __ ] when  that doesn't happen morale has to go up somehow. and there was nothing to give you you can't booze  you can't leave the country there's nothing to do. you're just stuck there and you just have  to watch other people go out and work. just to watch how um how that eroded the unit  cohesion it did um it took a while to get it back. i mean you had to really really bring the  voice in like movie time just you know not.

not mandatory fun but you had to do things to  bring everybody back in to re-explain the why. i think part of the training part of the mindset  conversations the mission planning conversations. would they'd take such a philosophical role  then because of him that um everybody would. buy in it was like nothing you've ever heard  before his thought process on mission planning. that's completely different school i thought like  that is a okay that's it's a new concept to us.

just um the whole thing just everything the target  approach the the methodology between everything. everything was to the why so he  was teaching all you guys that. that's a [ __ ] oh dude he's a leader he is man  he's amazing um he got to stay and do a troop. chief right after that which i mean anybody who's  worked with him i mean he's a demi god in my eyes.

like i [ __ ] love that dude if i had to pick  one dude right now that i'd put on my dream. team like that'd be one of my first bugs he was  a great and i needed him so bad at that moment um. and we came back from that deployment  and uh i was kind of on a negative crash. i was trying to stay positive because  i had green team to look forward to. and um know i got married did all that we  flew over spain had the honeymoon came back.

got into a blowout with uh with my old man  like um not a big blowout just an argument. and it escalated into uh not speaking um basically  starting green team into blind so in january of. 2010 had an argument and it escalated from  there and it got worse and worse and worse. and i couldn't do it i couldn't  i couldn't have any distractions.

the platoon chief told me exactly what  green team is going to be like i've seen my. buddies go through it i've heard the horror  stories i know how much pressure is on it. and um that's what he kept saying he's like  you have to have a perfect day every day. no distractions no booze no chick drama  break of your girlfriend do whatever don't. buy a puppy right now like it's the only thing  that matters lock it in right now and give it.

your total commitment and you'll be  successful and that's what i had to do. so yeah um a couple months turned into a  really long time yeah how many guys started the. green team um called somewhere between  um 80 and 90. how many came out. um.

20 20 22. not many low 20s yeah you want to  go into any of that yeah we can let's do it um. what do you want to talk about let's talk about  the first day of green team what happens um. we show up you do a screen test  you hope you do a physical test. it's the only known in the entire selection  process you know exactly what it is it's written.

on a piece of paper everybody knows what it is and  it doesn't matter that is the most stressful thing. you'll ever do it just does um it's by  design you know it was it's like a dream. come true just to be there um until we started  the screen test and you get a bunch of dudes uh. a bunch of the guys that have already made  it come out and they watch you they hold for. you for sit-ups they count your push-ups they  count your setups they tell you if your pull-ups.

are right and that is a very intimidating thing  like you're you're a college football player and. you're coming out for your pro debut and  tom brady's throwing footballs to you oh. [ __ ] yeah no pressure and back in the day um  they look like vikings i mean super long hair. big long beards and they look [ __ ] mean they  did and it was intimidating and i loved it.

i did man i i got off that bus dude i  used to take benadryl before green team. i get so excited i get so i get so amped up  i take benadryl to try to calm myself down. um it's like a cheap man's beta blocker but um i  loved every minute of it it was um two different. schools of thought you could try to survive it  you could try to polish all the way through and. come out at the end and be more capable my advice  that uh i was giving me was take every day like.

it's your last day and try to absorb as much  knowledge out of that [ __ ] place as possible. and that's what i did every day um there's a  lot of pressure to perform we talked about that. addiction um every day you want to perform and the  fear of because now i had that falling out with uh. with my parents the thought of not making it now  really set home the thought that i would have to. come home and look at patsy after all the [ __  ] she's been through and tell her i didn't make.

it i couldn't fathom it it'd haunt me at night um  wasn't sleeping um yeah the pressure consumed me. i try to use it uh to my advantage but it's  hard man it's hard when every day it's like. you see the best dude i've ever worked with just  got dropped like why the [ __ ] am i still here. i don't really care so one more day do they tell  you why you get dropped yeah they do no yeah they.

tell you i mean yeah i mean it's team got a  team guy they tell you exactly why and looking. back on it now um that's exactly how it has to  be because you know what the end state is like. i mean it's hard for people to hear  like your ego gets put in check but. you're not good enough to be here whether  that be a person that personality thing or. performance saying it doesn't really matter  like you can try to come back or you can't. does everybody have the option to come back or  you have to be invited back anybody back do you.

go through the screening again or um they give you  a class up um i'm sure it's different every time. a lot of guys have to rescreen some guys will  stay there and they'll roll back they get hurt. or uh they mess something up it's kind of like  how we can since if you get past a certain block. sometimes you don't have to redo that block unless  you really mess it up you gotta redo the whole. thing which i mean that's what um that's what most  people don't realize is how hard that place is.

physically like the screen tester double what it  is to get into buds that's the bare minimum like. if you're not if you're not cranking 120 push-ups  140 sit-ups 30 pull-ups like you're you're last. like if you do the minimums you're  not going you have to be a freak. which was good we were afforded a lot of  time to train and get ready for it a lot of. time in the shoot house a lot of time shooting  mentally preparing for it and that was right um.

that was right at the height of like the human  performance aspect so we had a badass strength. conditioning coach at group two um that really  helped us out he went over to the eagles and. runs their their stuff um i mean so we were  ready like the crew we had assembled i mean. that was that was as prepared as you could have  been oh [ __ ] so we showed up the first day. i've never been so nervous my [ __ ] life dude i  could barely breathe um and i was a freak i mean.

i'm i say that cocky because i was like i was in  shape when i showed up that was the one thing i. had going for me is i could pass that screen test  and i'll tell you what the pressure of that day i. barely got through that [ __ ] thing it's just  cranking out 140 push-ups and a single set like. no issue now i've got that dude who i want to  be like is counting for me and i'm at 70 and. i'm blowing snot out of my face like oh my  god like i'm just going to try to do these. perfect and hopefully he doesn't say anything  to me and let's just hope for the best like.

that's what it was i mean it's [ __ ]  stressful and then every day it just. continues i mean it's all cqb based and you know  everything else you got to do over there but um. the pressure to perform you can't have  a bad day yeah and it becomes addicting. like what would you say god most  guys cqb cqb and that's all yeah. yeah let me get a couple guys for some other  stuff some jumping some personality stuff the.

officers have a hard time at the end because now  it's all the pressure's on them but no man it's a. it's a humbling experience what's the pipeline  look like what are the different blocks of journey. um let me know how much i can really get into but  i mean it's basically um if you were to assault a. target it's basically what it is a bunch of  cqb a bunch of shooting a bunch of jumping. um you do all the land warfare type  stuff and then it's all the other. external stuff you have to do did they tie  it all together at the end yeah like a big.

oh yeah you know a couple of exercises oh yeah  not bad i mean it's it's as real as it could be. i think it feels real so what's it like  when you uh when you graduate when you're in. um anti-climactic really no tradition is  there any traditions you can talk about. when you make it in or um yeah when you get  in there but uh we graduated green team they. came in they read a bunch of names off  and then they said what squadron they.

were going to read off a bunch of names he's  like all right get in the trucks that's it. yeah we got the trucks we went out and we did  an fmp that night big full mission profile. like we knew we were going it was like i i  didn't have a cell phone i couldn't couldn't. tell my wife and just like because where i wanted  to go was exactly where i went um and i wasn't. shy about asking where i wanted to go so i mean  um it was like all my dreams had come true just.

finished up green team um well  actually let's go back in green team um. we'd do a big jump block i'd already had uh  150 200 skydives before i had my own parachute. because i knew what i had to to be able to  do so i started training on my own and um. it's in august. we had to do mandatory downwind landings um it's  where they want you to run with the wind so you.

got a lot of speed coming in it's to teach you  that the parachute doesn't know the difference. if you're going into the wind or downwind if  you do the flare the same you can manage it. um and i hit a divot going hard um i panicked a  disco and cobra struck this thing and i smashed in. and i thought i broke my back i heard a [  __ ] loud pop and my whole right leg went. numb and i freaked out and i jumped up  real quick and i dusted myself off and i. okay we're good and i went back in there and  i walked over to the corpsman and i told him.

i was like i don't know what the [ __ ] i just  did but it's something bad he's like you want to. do a dexterity no no i finished jumping for the  rest of the day and i think that was on a friday. um and i grabbed and i was like i gotta get  exercise right now like we got to keep this. hush-hush we drove over to the er um we shot  x-rays came back benign they thought i tore my. hip flexor so i just kept training on it um kept  jumping probably did another 50 60 jumps on it.

and we're doing all the normal stuff you know  10 mile rugs conditioning runs buddy carries. we're doing the whole thing um and now it's  developed to i can't lift my leg up like i'm. dragging this thing now if i wanted to drive a  car i'd lift it off the gas and put on the brake. like it's it's done and i don't know what  it is but i know i'm not saying anything. because i don't want to get rolled so we  finish up jumping and we're about to do um. we're about to get to the very end we already  know we're going to go we've got some little.

[ __ ] admin block thing we have to do and my  leg's still messed up and i call back into rehab. we start going through the whole thing and  he's like let's go in let's get some ct scans. let's get an mri and let's see if maybe you  broke your back like maybe that's what it is. and uh they came back to get me i never  forget we were doing the nfl combine. um and i was on i think i was on crutches  at the time we uh we did the broad jump the.

vertical max bench press squat deadlift we did a  bunch of [ __ ] like that a bunch of cone drills. and we just got done and uh they walked in  and he's like um cmc need to see you in rehab. it's like oh [ __ ] i walked over there and  he's he's sitting down he's got a big smile on. his face and puts his hand on my knee he's like  it's gonna be okay and my heart [ __ ] dropped. like you could have just shot my [  __ ] puppy like my whole life is over.

and um i looked at rehab guys who were super [  __ ] awesome and i was like what's going on i. was like back broken he went nope your hips broken  your femoral neck snapped off because i don't know. how the [ __ ] you're walking and i looked at him  and i was like i think it's my back and he goes. well this x-ray right here this mri and they pull  it up and you see it like thermal neck to bottom. socket snapped all the way off so that impact had  broke it and somehow it had re-locked in position.

and it just hadn't sheared if it had shifted one  inch left or right all the blood supply goes to. the hip it dies total hip reconstruction you're  out of the military damn so it's like that and i. looked at him i've never had surgery um i mean  i've been hurt a lot growing up as a kid i've. broken everything but i've never had surgery and  he's like we're gonna have to emergency surgery. and i looked right at him right in front  of that cmc and i said during a [ __ ] way. no and he looked at me and he goes that's the  only option he's like you're not deploying.

how fast can we do it he goes we  can get it done tomorrow at 7 am. let's go i walked in they pumped in um three  titanium uh five inch lag bolts through my hip. and i showed the rehab the next  day and we started physical therapy. we had to finish see your school i got a gnarly  infection out there you know they put you in the. box they play the whole game it's really well  ran um it was actually one of my favorite blogs.

really it was really well done um it's a different  series school than one we did um it was really. well ran i learned a lot about school but i  got a nasty infection so i had this wound on. the side of my hip i could press on my thigh and  blow pus out of it i mean it was bad like they. were doing pick lines in my arms it was it was  bad and um my body started rejecting the screws. i didn't know how bad it was going to be but i  knew that i had to deploy soon so we're coming.

up on the new year and we're supposed to  deploy um the realist have christmas there. and then we're going to deploy in january so  made it through green team got a broken hip i. think we had surgery in end of november and i'm  going to deploy in january and they're saying. it's uh a four to six month recovery time um i  i feel superhuman i was even faster back then um. and those guys they're not dumb in we uh we do  vitamin d3 we do calcium all the supplements. to try to get that bone to grow as fast i  quit dipping i started right back up after.

i healed but yeah quit anything to try to  get myself in the best position to deploy. and i still was and i still wasn't cleared so  the rehab guy so badass he deployed with me. i met over there and he stayed for like two or  three weeks and we did physical therapy there and. i tested out in afghanistan they've they flew a [  __ ] rehab specialist physical therapist with you. on deployment under we had one of those huge  box jumps like one of the ones like waist high.

and the final test was i had to put on all my  gear and i had to do a depth jump off of that. and land on one leg and i'd never forget i looked  at him um i looked him right into [ __ ] eyes. and i was like mike i don't know about this um  brother and he went if you're not sure don't do it. and i stepped off and it [ __ ] hurt it  hurt bad and he went how are you feeling 100. okay he signed me off and we started going um  damn it [ __ ] i cleared it out and had a good.

deployment um it was a half one it's probably two  or three months long um because i caught you know. behalf of with all the guys who graduated  green team with and then came back and. kind of geared up for the next  one just the constant rotation. so you you've been through three iraq deployments  before you did your first deployment with. dev group yeah and they were all pretty eventful  deployments how did that first deployment.

compare to your other three  um especially your second. that one was okay um because we were new guys  and it wasn't my element i was attached to it. um the team that i was supposed to go  to was doing some other [ __ ] that. wasn't really conducive for new guys to be there  um it was more like an older senior position um. we were kind of doing the outstation thing so they  didn't want us to get bogged down with that so we.

got to stay with the strikeforce um and it was  cool we got to do a bunch of stuff we were we. were battling um kind of a weather cycle just  the way it did so not as super busy as it was. but we turned right back around the next year  and that was um 11 into 12 and then it was good. it was good it was uh it was humbling just to  see that i hate to say how nonchalant but just.

nothing raised them like they'd go out and. whatever would happen and it would be like  holy [ __ ] it wouldn't even get debriefed. like it was so um it was so  effortless to watch the move it was. i mean it's like watching gretzky take the  [ __ ] ice like oh my god like that's what. that's norm so you know what do you mean  by that do you mean there's no build up.

no i mean it's just it's that even keel all the  way through pre-op on the up post-op it's just. easy yeah like it doesn't matter what happened  it professional like that's the way it's supposed. to be done and then you saw it and then it all  started to click that's why that's why that's why. it's to achieve that to where i mean one of the  guys um i mean i one of the guys who's out there.

did some pretty amazing [ __ ] on it  on one of these [ __ ] things and uh. i made a comment during the deep reflect are  we not gonna address that and uh i'll never. forget dude he looked right at me almost  with uh a little bit of snap and he's like. and you get in the end zone act like  you've been there before and walked away. and that was the that was the tone like  don't pound your chest it doesn't matter. you got to prove it again in five hours like  okay yeah it's like the the level of proficiency.

was so [ __ ] high that it was like you were  just you're just in a constant run to maintain. it's it's humbling man like to watch it at finest  it was uh it was everything i ever wanted to see. yeah i mean it's like grown up playing baseball  your entire life and you finally get to go watch. the yankees play like you're in the dugout with  them you get to see them you get to touch them.

i mean to me it's like my entire life  was nothing but seal team that was it. yeah that's all i ever known now i get  to see it at the highest level it's. i mean it gives me goosebumps man i like to see  it that good and you're like holy [ __ ] i had no. idea because you get stuck in a get stuck not in a  falsehood but um the standard becomes the standard. until someone exceeds it and when the  collective exceeds it became a dynasty like. i can't believe how good it was looking  back on it now like that's as close to.

perfection as i've ever seen it and it was  the norm like no chest pounding just go like. humbling yeah that's interesting especially i mean  they really set the tone it sounds like when you. when you get through green team  and they're just yep shipley. here so and so here yeah getting a [ __ ]  truck you know so makes uh makes a lot of sense.

but all right let's take uh let's say a quick  break and then when we get back we'll get into. uh when you're a specific deployment you're on.

all right so we're back you're we're getting  into some deployments but i wanted to bring. something up reading through your timeline  you know first deployment in the seal teams. you get in biggest loss and  seal team history happens. then you get through green team and  right after you graduate what maybe six.

less than a year afterwards yeah i mean august of  uh august of 11. extortion 17 happens which again. is the biggest loss in seal team  history so let's start there. um kind of the way we talk about it is where were  you where were you when 9 11 happened yeah where. were you when june 28th happened and where were  you when august 6th happened i know exactly where. i was i was sitting in a movie theater with my  wife sitting next to me my shooting buddy's wife.

and then my shooting buddy we're all entering a  movie and we're probably 45 minutes into it and. phone goes off and you're glued to these things  um can't miss a text message like i mean the. addiction the the addiction to your phone becomes  a real thing like you can't miss a text message. you can't miss a phone call ever um and his phone  goes off and mind us too when we both crack them. and we both looked at each other at the same  time and he had got a text from somebody.

in the white house um a staffer used to be  a team guy and he said call me right now. and i had the exact same thing the exact  same time that said call me right now from. a different guy okay and he texts back what's up  and uh he said afghanistan hilo and get the word. i like to write in my old ladies get up walked  her out of that movie they split and drove each.

other home and i jumped in a car with him we drove  straight to work and everybody was in there like. it was spreading fast um nobody had any real  details i mean we did but um it went into um. it turned into a [ __ ] circus it was like i  was reliving a movie that i'd already seen that. i didn't want to know the ending of um i've  been here before i already knew what this is. all the notifications basically everybody's  throwing on dress blues they're driving out um me.

and my wife are grabbing groceries and gallons of  starbucks and dropping off at gold star houses um. just really trying to take care  of our own that's one good thing. about the gold star community is  they know exactly what they need. so basically notification team would go out  and then we would roll in behind and drop off. gifts um you know groceries we'd pick up kids  from from school we'd do whatever we could um and. that's the collective that's everybody but it's  just what you did trying to make sense of what it.

actually happened um there's just no good way to  there's just no good way to go about that i mean. that loss is felt this [ __ ] moment like that  didn't happen that how did this happen again. um and you couldn't explain why i  mean things happen in war things that. you wish didn't happen you wish it wasn't a  reality it's absolutely reality it's another.

reality check it doesn't matter how good those  dudes were you couldn't have picked a better. there wasn't a more capable fighting force on  the [ __ ] earth than the dudes were on that. helicopter and it didn't matter it did  not matter gone in an instant it's like. like how are you going to come back from  that and then selfishly how are we going. to take care of all these families like what  do we do now it's like every foundation just. dumped in trying to support trying  to do whatever they could to.

i mean inside of that we're trying to rebuild  like we still have we're still fighting the g-1. like we can't let this be our defining moment we  just can't we've been through this thing before. um unfortunately the the ceo at the time had been  through had been to this exact same thing he was. a group two commodore when red wings happened  he had been through this whole [ __ ] thing. so put a plan in action we had to rebuild the  force had to take care of all the families.

um take care all the kids me and  patsy started making memorial t-shirts. within 12 hours just trying to raise money just  trying to do anything that's what a lot of people. don't realize is a there's a there's a gap like if  you're pronounced dead your paycheck stops there's. a long gap before any kind of life insurance  comes in or any kind of support so the only. thing that puts food on the table the only thing  that puts gas in the car is their foundations. like people that are raising money um and we  don't how long that gap's going to be like now.

we've got big name foundations that really lend a  helping hand but it doesn't matter to them to that. singular family the whole world just came crashing  down it's over like it'll never [ __ ] be okay now. it's like anything you can do to try  to lighten that burden you try to. that's making a memorial t-shirt if  that's you know picking up the kids. and having to make skateboards whatever  it might be you have to do something um.

but i'll tell you what that was um  that was a super dose of reality. because doing a lot of [  __ ] in helos and it's like. that's the reality that is exactly what is going  to happen like there's nothing you can do for them. it doesn't matter like you can't plan for that  you just can't i mean you can you can try to do. things but a hilo gets shot down with all those  people on board there's no good scenario out of. that and it crippled us we had to rebuild the  force and every team had to give up bodies um.

and that was the whole point of contention like  people wanting to rebuild people not wanting to. rebuild i don't want to go i want to go just it  was a it was a circus here for a couple weeks. it was do you want to describe a little bit  more in detail how many lost what happened well. without getting many specifics uh the weather  was not in favor um it was a high alumni.

um and a force went out and got  contacted and needed to launch a qrf. and they launched in that troop to be a  qrf and on final they got shot down um. everybody's in there like you've got an  amazing force you've got the world's best. sitting in the back of this flying school bus  it lands down they shoot it on the sky it's um.

you just can't plan for it you just can't it's  31 people gone including some afghan partner. forces but an entire troop of people yeah  it's just gone and i mean things that people. don't think about things that i know that haunt  other individuals is um think about the guy who. missed that deployment had a  shoulder surgery and wasn't there. think about the guy had to go home for a  birth of his kid you should have been there.

like that's going to weigh on  that dude forever and it is um. i don't know i just remember walking into the  building it being so [ __ ] somber just um. you didn't know where the smile like you  wanted to have fun at work but you couldn't. like how dare you smile right now it was one  of those things like um it wasn't a forced um. it wasn't a force thing it's just it's what  it was i mean we were in the trenches for a.

long [ __ ] time man we just were and uh it felt  like it was so hard to get back out of it we try. to rebuild and we've got the force and they're  back and they're i mean they dump every dude. they pull guys from all the other teams and try  to rebuild that one troop and they grab some. [ __ ] all-stars man they did like they spared no  expense they grabbed some serious [ __ ] talent. and they rebuilt um and they built a dynasty  like they built some [ __ ] bad ass dudes um.

it was like one thing after another so  we get them all back up and that's 2011. um so i had nick check in my team we  were in the same five-man team and he. got pulled out to go over there to backfill  when all the guys got killed in extortion. and it didn't feel right didn't seem right um  him and my wife really tight um we did our first. uh platoons together and when he went over um i  rolled into his team as a new guy and i [ __ ].

loved him man god he was awesome he just was he  was uh he was everything he wanted a teammate. he came over and retiled my entire kitchen him and  my wife when i was on deployment before his first. deployment with command up until the last hour  he drove to the command covered in tile stood. and put on fresh clothes  and got my plane damn mike.

[ __ ] great dude and uh you know we just came  back from uh we just came back from afghanistan. deployment in between extortion um so we  backfilled them had to sleep in their beds. had to do that whole thing that's a very  somber and sombering thing to have to do um. i mean it's the reality like this is what it is. sleep in a dead guy's bed so um.

just another reality check trying to get in  there and hit a really good target set and. everything's great and we're we're going to work  it's all steady in the back of your mind it's like. any moment here any moment this thing's going to  get us and it almost did a couple times the exact. same thing i mean we took rpgs off the refueler  um getting shot on infield lexville i mean just. close ones yeah um testament to the pilots  capabilities just how good they were um.

but right after that um that was a really good  diploma that was probably my favorite deployment. um because the people we were with like that team  god man i um i did not deserve to be in that team. um i [ __ ] loved that if you could have uh  if you could lock me in a time capsule i'd. still be in there i would have never came home  i loved it so much i had separated myself from. everything outside of that um it was the only  thing that made me feel normal was being there.

i i loved it i loved the banter i loved  the [ __ ] talking i love the pranks. um i love the professionalism i love the  absolute obsession to the detail i loved it. and to watch those guys work. with the team that took the loss nope or was this  okay this is after all right we just rolled base. in the same kind of like you guys on june 28th all  right you guys rolled in same thing okay at the.

same base you relieve yeah all right um it was uh  it was weird man just the whole thing was dicey we. came back kind of like my mentor at that point  like my my true north was my team leader then. he um his wife is best friends with patsy  my best friend to him his groom's in my. wedding i know before i screamed  at all that i [ __ ] loved him um. and he got hurt got medically retired  after that deployment um our number two.

did three or four other guys  got [ __ ] up pretty bad um. and it just i hate to say i had all my eggs  in one basket but i i love being in that team. so much the energy the collective um i was  not i was not ready to lose that i wasn't. and when he was gonna medically retire he'd [  __ ] crush me is this okay nevermind keep going.

so it crushed me it was like that's who  i want to be this is a whole team like. if we can just freeze this [ __ ] like everybody  will re-enlist we'll just stay here it's amazing. we came back from that deployment we're  kind of rebuilding he's moving out we've. got new guys coming in everything's good um  and nick checked the police he deploys out um. i'll never forget man i'm sitting with my wife  at yard house i've got both my uncles um i come.

from a long military background on my dad's side  i've got him my grandfather was a fighter pilot. usair um u.s airways pilot after that my other  uncle was 75th ranger regiment jumped into panama. and did 25 years in the secret service counter  sniper team my other one was the marine. um was marine infantry guy so i'm sitting across  my two uncles we're having an honest conversation. and my phone goes off it's one of the guys from  the team like we're not doing anything but just.

we're in virginia beach hanging out and i grab it  um he's okay what's up he's like walk outside real. quick and bebop outside and his car is driving by  i'm like plugging one here i'm like hey what's up. is that you sitting down no should i be  and there's a long pause um [ __ ] man uh. this is a long pause and he said  nick got shot and i waited i said.

okay where is he when we need to go pick  him up he's even longer pause and i can. feel it i can feel it building up inside me it  feels like it's resting on my [ __ ] sternum. it's about to come out of my [ __ ] mouth and i  don't know what it is but it's something and uh. in the shakiest [ __ ] voice he  could muster he said he's gone.

and i uh i let out a whimper i let  out something i started [ __ ] balling. i've been to work in 15 minutes i hung up  the phone i dried my eyes real quick i'm like. i'm gonna walk in there i'm gonna sit down  this [ __ ] booth i'm gonna eat my kung pao. chicken i'm gonna drink this moscow mule i'm  gonna get through dinner and then i'm gonna. drive to work and i'll i'll tell patsy tomorrow  like i mean she loved nick she [ __ ] loved him. um and i sat down and i stared right in between  my uncles i picked a spot on the wall and i.

stared there and they're all looking at me i  can feel it and she put her hand on my shoulder. and i looked over at the corner of my eye and  she said tell me and i [ __ ] i [ __ ] lost it oh. you know [ __ ] man. do you want to talk about what he was doing  he was doing a hostage rescue for a doctor.

named joseph in afghanistan um bad scenario  obviously ed byers got the medal of honor um. a bunch of navy crosses that came out of that op  um the long story short they uh they patrolled up. nick's walking point and one of the sentries  came out and they had a brief engagement. um and he ran up to make a dynamic entry  super fast like the gig's up we have to go. so we closed the distance and um they  had a bunch of blankets in the doorway.

he's clearing the blankets trying to get  inside and as he makes entry he takes a round. kind of over the rest is history guys came in  killed all the bad guys saved all the good guys um. you know i talked to the  guys that that worked on him. you know the only positive um  out of the whole [ __ ] thing is.

they got the hostage that's why you sign that's  why you go there is to do that mission only. um and to know that you gave your last  breath trying to save another human you know. that's exactly who he is um  so it's an honor to know him. um but [ __ ] man i did not want him to go. was that your hardest loss.

probably i am i didn't even process it i  didn't i um i still involved that [ __ ] i. [ __ ] threw up a wall so [ __ ] thick i did  and about five days later i ran all the uh. all the schwag so all the all the t-shirts  and the hats i made the shadow boxes i did the. going away [ __ ] and i had to go make his  shadow box and uh i had all his awards had.

all this [ __ ] all the patches and all  the stuff we were going to put inside of uh. inside his shadow box and i walked into john will  studio some guy that made all your deployment. plaques and i walked in i got a really good  relationship with him and all the ladies. working there and i walked in um and his number  two lifted her head up from the office walked. out and saw me and i was totally normal just like  this and she when i am so sorry and she said it.

i haven't cried like that probably  ever that was probably it um. i dropped my [ __ ] knees man i was dry even. he was such a good [ __ ] dude he was so talented  and he trained all the [ __ ] time and he was you.

couldn't you couldn't have done better and  the reality he was gone i wasn't ready for. it i tried to wall it up try to pretend like it  didn't happen and then i try to make excuses like. why did that happen to him and then i had to  justify it to patsy why that's not going to. happen to me it's like i better cut out more  negative [ __ ] i better cut out everything. i've got to completely obsessed now like this is  what i have to do now and it just justified it.

like we're playing for [ __ ] keeps man like  became another thing that i'd slide in there. like you know you want me to spend more time  at home you want me to do this i have to obsess. this is [ __ ] for real if i have a bad  day at the office that's what happens. being the patsy who is a gold star wife and her  previous husband you know died uh killed in combat. did were able to lean on her a little bit more  would she uh like could you relate to her a lot.

more than most guys could relate with their wives  and i mean yeah and especially because you know. because i grew up in the teams i grew up in  it i felt like i felt like i was much part of. that community as anything else um and yeah we  leaned heavy on each other and a lot of it was. she convinced me it was okay she's like dj  that dude loved everything he [ __ ] did.

he loved it there's no there's nothing else  that you would have done if you would have. given him an option of dying at 80 in a [ __ ] bed  alone or dying on that he would have picked that. it's just dude he was like he doesn't want  you to be here depressed mourning him all day. he wants you to go [ __ ] get it on that's what  he wants he wants you to go back to [ __ ] work. and be as good as you can fair enough  and the obsession continued it's like.

i wasn't touching myself i didn't know anything  about grieve i just i walled it up i did. we stopped talking about it we made uh we made  shrines for him we made memorial patches um we did. everything um but i had to go do the notification  and knock at his door for his fiance at the time. dude i don't know how people do that but uh i can  remember every detail of it it was [ __ ] terrible.

we all met at my house um 7 00 am had me um will  chesney um and one of the guys um who was on. nick's new team who's an op chief we all met at  my house patsy was there she kind of gave us a. brief on kind of what to expect because we've done  notifications before for august 6 but you never. know so you know we kind of pow-wowed it like hey  who who's ringing the doorbell who's saying this. we're all in dress blues and it started pissing  down rain um it's like torrential downpour.

in our shoes you know we wear the black horror  frame dress shoes it was so hot in virginia beach. when extortion happened from sitting on the tarmac  it had melted all our shoes it melted the heels. off so when we got out of the car and we took  a step all the heels blew off our core frames. and nick jack is a neat freak he's  ocd he's got white [ __ ] carpet. so i get out i've got patsy in the car behind us  she's got uh groceries she's got starbucks she's.

got a bunch of [ __ ] just uh like you're not  leaving a house for 48 hours here like this will. this will tide you over until we can figure out  what we're gonna do um because you're not a wife. it's kind of a weird you know predicament you're  in um so it's really like we had to take care of. her notification teams went out to the families  and all that but i remember ringing that doorbell. and hearing her upstairs directly above the front  door i remember hearing her walk down the stairs. turning the corner and as i got closer and  closer the footsteps got louder and louder.

um and i was on a [ __ ] breath old man i did not  want that door to open i was hoping she wouldn't. answer it i was suddenly get turned around  and somebody else would have to do that and uh. throw bull flips doorknob opens slowly starts  to crack and as soon as she [ __ ] saw she knew. she didn't cry she's looked at me kind  of cocked her head and like she knew me.

tell me and i [ __ ] came and i gave  her a big hug and [ __ ] balling. um and i told her we had a very um. very um no [ __ ] conversation about  what's gonna happen over the next 72. hours um kind of everything  we need to to get done um. then we kind of just went from there like  you got to go buy a [ __ ] dress you got to. go buy this you got to get this right now like  these are all the things that has to happen um.

and you've got about 12 hours because this thing's  going to go and you're not going to have time so. whatever you need let's get on it right now  remember her making a comment on the black. uh shoe marks we track black [ __ ] all  throughout his house and she's like god. you're lucky he's dead or he'd [ __ ] kill you  i'll start laughing like no doubt stanley steamer. they were vacuuming the carpets and shed um we all  drove dc together we uh that was the coolest thing.

um drove there and picked him up um same thing  we did for the guys at extortion we all drove. darren unison met all the planes and did all  that and she drove up there with us it was uh. oh [ __ ] man just it's like one of those things  you just wanted to be over and you didn't because. now you have to do the memorial now you have  to get up and speak now you have to go through. all your photo albums and pick all the photos you  like they have to put into a montage you have to.

watch it over and over and over now the family  starts to fly and you got to meet all of them. like it just it never ends it felt like  that that process was five years long like. i was [ __ ] crippled at the end of that one  um i just was i was in a [ __ ] bad spot um. some key people in the organization were  shifting out they were retiring they. were getting medically retired and i felt  the void i did with him being gone it um.

it really felt a void. that takes us to 2013. so i think that transition from um from nick  dine until basically the rest of the career i um. confirmation bias everything i had ever said  everything i had ever told patsy was coming true. everything um i used to tell her  things um because i'd obsess um.

i bet you in my entire time in the teams i bet  you i went into that building every day i've. been in virginia beach minus 25. every saturday  and sunday i'd go through there just to show face. to make sure my cage was still there like  i had to touch the magic every [ __ ] day. to make sure it was real damn i had to i was [  __ ] obsessed but it was good because everybody.

else with me was just obsessed but i justified  to her i'd start to separate myself from her. separate myself from different friends  outside of the organization just. it was a linear focus this is it this is the only  thing that [ __ ] matters there's no distractions. and it reminded me of my childhood um  the only thing that matters is the team. like dad's got to go unemployment  you can't do this because of that. like you can't do this because it'll affect  deployment i can't get shoulder surgery because.

i need to go undeployment i can't do this because  of that we can't take a vacation because of this. and i self-justified it um i was like no  one's going to die if i'm a 65 husband no one. like i'll be a husband when i retire would you  change anything looking back now doing that. yes and no um what would you change.

i would have retired sooner they try to retire  me in 2014. um i wish i would have let him. i was in such a [ __ ] bad spot man i just um i  let it take me don't let it take me um i don't. regret it some days i do but um i thought it  needed it i thought um i thought it was a worthy. cause man everything we did all the training  the late nights the early mornings um it gave.

you a it gave you a purpose it did it gave you the  why and it became very easy to just judge people. like you don't work out you don't shoot  you don't care you're not a professional. you don't do this like get the [ __ ] away from  me i'm gonna surround myself with these dudes. because they only give a [ __ ] this is the only  thing that matters and it became addictive it did. because you got to see the performance you got  the feeling like i mean it's a measurable thing.

like i started here and i ended here and i  only did that because i didn't let anything. else distract me there's no skateboarding just  no snowboard trips for me i couldn't justify it. i couldn't justify breaking my wrist and missing  deployment i couldn't justify wakeboarding and. blowing out an acl i couldn't justify it  i could justify the skydiving thanks it's. part of work it couldn't justify anything else i  couldn't justify drinking like any [ __ ] drink. two drinks in a single city like i haven't  been drunk since 2010. wow i don't do it.

can i safely operate a vehicle can i speak  to the police can i discharge a firearm. can i provide life save medical aid  if the answer is yes i'm good to go. if i'm shit-faced i can't do  any of those that's a metric. if i can't articulate my speech and police officer  to get you out of a [ __ ] jam i've gone too far. i pull up on a car wreck on the side of the road  i gotta save him like in my [ __ ] face and that's.

why i blow past him because i'm afraid i'll get a  dui that's not an answer that's not a professional. answer the answer is i don't have to worry about  that because i'm professional i'm not drunk. i'm professional i don't need to put  booze in my system i don't need to be. shitfaced at 2 30 in the morning that doesn't  make the group better yeah the group before. the individual became the standard and [ __  ] man it made it made life so much easier. just what you're doing now make the group better  no and why are you doing it true negative people.

in your life static whatever does that mean what  were you doing to cope then because a lot of. people you know they cope with booze they cope  with drugs they cope you know all kinds of ways. to cope you had to be coping somehow so after i  broke that hip um i've got some painkillers um.

so long story short i'd i blew out that hip um  i rushed rehab i did and the way they put those. screws in um they lifted my t-band on the side of  your leg and pumped in the screws laid the it band. back and we did that 20 uh a 2012 deployment i  had a i had a pretty bad fall down the side of. a mountain and uh those screws came out and they  blew through my t-van um had to do another surgery. like it was bad um and the rehab came after that  it's on painkillers and i needed to be on them um.

i had a bunch of surgeries that i needed to  get and i was just i was held together with. you know rigor statement chewing gum i was  banged up man and um started eating tramadol. and everything else and it just it became a  norm like i wasn't high i just i didn't want. to feel the way i felt like i'd wake up in the  morning it's like i feel like this at 32 holy. [ __ ] you're just numb to it yeah you just how  much terminal were you taking you know [ __ ] then.

i mean i even 300 milligrams of pop like that oh  i had your [ __ ] done several a day oh yeah but. it's like i didn't realize what it was doing  because it wasn't uh it wasn't a narcotic you. couldn't be addicted to it [ __ ] yeah you  get addicted to not feeling pain that's what. you get addicted to um and i didn't realize it  but that continued from essentially 10 until.

when i retired. like 18. um yeah i rode that train for a while  tram it all and uh i'm just curious how did you. know how did you know it was an issue what what  happened with me personally i know was an issue. when i ran out and i felt what what that felt  like without having any and uh that [ __ ] hurts.

i that yeah um. so i just came back from a deployment um. into a nasty firefight a bad one a lot of really  close proximity [ __ ] ate a bunch of grenades. um the long and short of it was um because of  the proximity to it we had to use some breaching.

charges and some ordnance essentially on top of  yourself to get out of this certain situation. and it [ __ ] us up man like no i pro no ear pro  i mean grenade's landing between me and you boom. just a cumulative effect these little concussions  that blew out both ears um oh man i mean just. um by the by the end of it um i've blown  out both ears i've torn both labrums and.

both shoulders both hip labrums gone um crunch  a bunch of [ __ ] in my lower back and my neck. so i needed to have surgery on both  shoulders and both hips and my back. by the time the whole thing was done  and i didn't realize how bad it was. [ __ ] i don't know do we get into it do we talk  about them no let's get into it okay [ __ ] it. we uh so the backside of this is we had a  dude um that did the the canyon mall attack.

remember that so it's that dude um so it's  around the horn africa and we are going to go. get this dude it's a president-directed mission  so it's a big one um the biggest one that i've. ever done for sure um intel's painting uh  painted pictures it's maybe not accurate. beachside bungalow like he goes here to watch  tv hang out be super benign in and out cool.

not the [ __ ] case we get there we've planned  we've rehearsed and we've done all our [ __ ] i um. i'm running the primary breech on the  first floor i go up and over the gate. i should probably start off with uh we  swam in so that's a whole different set. of problems um we swam in a uh a slaughterhouse  offshoot um so you can imagine all the great.

white sharks it's a real [ __ ] thing um  that's the fastest i ever swam in my life. so we swam in we do our whole thing i  go up and over um and i mess around with. the locking mechanism on the gate to try to  get it open and there's a string going from. the gate it looks like it's going inside um  and now i think that was a an early warning. device i think it was hooked to a  battle it was hooked to something.

we get the gate open we bring everybody in  and as we are rolling up to the front door. they start getting contacted on the roof guy  comes out shoots skips off one of the guy's. helmet now the firefighting suits and it's three  stories and it's getting [ __ ] chaotic dude like. they have been prepping for this for a long [  __ ] time and this is not a beat side bungalow. there's uh there's no doors they're all walled  up from the inside just nothing to attack you.

can't see anything it's like i'm trying to get the  door open but you don't know where the hinges are. you don't know what it is it's just huge um super  thick door [ __ ] man it probably must have been. six inches thick this is a [ __ ] fortress it's  a [ __ ] fortress it's a [ __ ] it's a literal. fortress um they start getting contact on  the roof and we sprint up the front door. and as we go to divide this dude opens up on the  front door and lets it go and just you just see. splinters of wood and just [ __ ] traces us and  doesn't hit anybody we roll to either side and.

now we're trying to deal with this problem  um the hate coming out of that front door. was nothing like i've ever seen it just continuous  ascended in and the way it ended up being was a. long wall the door in the center i'm on one side  and i've got my shooting buddy on the other side. i've got my team leader behind me and we're trying  to figure this out like we have to get inside. but we're not supposed to kill this dude that  was the whole thing is for whatever reason the.

powers to be really wanted us dude alive and  the last thing they told us before we went. i i would rather you shoot him a hundred times  and he lives then shoot him one time and he dies. bring him back alive well i'm [ __ ] committed  we all are we're gonna bring that dude back. alive we came up with every plan we could have  um and at the end of the day if you don't be. captured you're not capturing dude you're just  not um especially in that part of the world.

with just how violent they are i mean  you've seen blackhawk down that's the most. realistic war movie i've ever [ __ ] watched  that's exactly how it is they are [ __ ]. and they come on quick so we're in this we're  in this [ __ ] storm in the middle of the door. and i'm trying to decide how i'm going to blow  this thing i've got my charge in my hand it's. already capped in um i've got my hydrogel peeled  i'm ready to stick this thing and i'm timing. between his burst coming through the door so you  see it all chew up like three two one goes live.

again [ __ ] man you're just timing it he finally  goes and i slap this thing and there's nowhere to. roll there's just nothing to do um you gotta eat  it it's like luckily for me the guy behind me is. super experienced we all are very experienced  preachers and we knew we could take it we've. been there before just unfortunate turn  your head and exhale and send it and uh. that concussion blew out everybody's ears we  were all done um and when it blew i could see the.

locking mechanism behind it was it looked like a  [ __ ] railroad tie was stuck down so big new york. lock and we weren't getting through it but it blew  out a slat about waist high down about this wide. and grenades started coming out of it accurate. so the way it was it's the front door and is a  long ass hallway going down and there's a dude. who's in a sandbag position with a belt fed at the  end of the hallway and it's just chewing down the. hallway there's a dude in the first room off to  the right who's shooting at us through the window.

so i've got my shooting buddy pinned he's taking  fire over this shoulder he's taking fire down the. hallway and he can't move you can't do anything  it's like a big railing we've got all the rest of. the guys on so we're the only three that are stuck  on there we're trying to get this door open um. let me back up when i place the charge i  roll back and i look at him and i was like. turning steel and i turned my head and i blew  it and when i looked back up he was gone and i.

looked down and i saw the hole and i thought he  went and i to my knees and i start going for the. door and my team leaders pulling me back i guess  he had jumped over the wall um i thought he went. and i was not gonna let  that [ __ ] dude go alone so. i'm on my hands and knees trying to crawl through  this [ __ ] hole and uh he's pulling me back. like we're good we're good well now we can't get  out um this thing's been going on for a couple. minutes the guys on the second deck are in the  same [ __ ] storm the guys on the roof are in.

the exact same thing now there's people that are  surrounding us we're taking fire from the whole. thing's getting dicey um and we've got to [ __ ]  leave like we can't sit here and do this for no 10. more minutes like you're not going to let us kill  this guy we can we've got to get out unfortunately. for us the only egress route was directly behind  us which is directly in line with that dude's pk. so the only way out is to run straight through  his alley can't go up and over the walls there's. not enough time we don't have enough ladders  and quite a few guys inside the courtyard um.

we're trading grenades back and forth to this  dude and it finally comes time the enemy qrf. is upon us and they're in technicals  heading our way and we gotta [ __ ] go. so look at the tl what do you want man  he's like get ready for an rpg like [ __ ]. i mean like bells already rang like we've  got [ __ ] coming out of our nose like we're. we're super concussed um and we ate uh for the  guys that know i mean we had a 1200 grain ect.

from arm's length away jesus no we were pro  and we just sent it i mean i know what that. charge is going to do the over pressure is going  to [ __ ] me up but it's not going to blow me up. i know what that charge is doing what  it won't and i was confident in it um. and we had to send it there was no other way i  wasn't going to turn around and leave without. giving it every every bit effort i  could and i looked back at him and. i don't know how the [ __ ] we're gonna get out  of here it's like get a t-bone so my buddy was uh.

down in the courtyard he had a t-bomb because  we had to swim in a bunch of this [ __ ] so. we had spread loaded a bunch of stuff um so i'd  already launched one in and i looked at him and. we did a we did a real world flea flicker which  is one of the coolest things i've ever seen like. [ __ ] threw it across the doorway caught  it untape it and launched it um but it was. funny it was so funny to see uh the tl he's  like pushing on the walls he's like doing the. doing the the math in his head like this  many queer square feet the concussion this.

over pressure what's it gonna do to us and  um we launched it we sent a bunch of rounds. down there and basically called for xfil like  hey i'm gonna i'm gonna let this thing loose. this over pressure charge and then when it  goes boom we're all gonna take off and run. and that's what we did and i'm doing the peekaboo  thing he's shooting i'm trying to see where he is. and i finally see it and i've got that t-bond  lucky running pulled a pen and i launched the. most beautiful toss i've ever had and uh when i  turned the over pressure was so bad it blew me.

off the porch and we took off at a dead run  as fast we could go had a big uh a big guy. there blow through the gate we didn't even open  the gate everybody came up and over that's how. it was taking too long we didn't have time to  [ __ ] with it so he shouldered the gate and. blew through it that's how we got out and that  dude never skipped a beat firing at pk never wow. like i'm i threw a t-bomb essentially  what i thought in that dude's lap nothing.

continued i don't know how he didn't shoot  us i don't know how he didn't shot one of the. recky guys off the ladder um like chewing up the  wall that he was on i mean [ __ ] crazy just the. continuous hate that was coming out of the thing  um when we made it back down we got a quick head. count we had everybody there the the enemies  massing um and we've got to get the [ __ ] out. um and the surf was shitty so the extract platform  long story short gets rolled over and surfs them.

so now this whole thing um it happens in on xvil  um just in the in the confusion and everything. else just trying to get boats in alignment and  i mean we had dudes get not left out at sea but. basically like this is such a [ __ ] show right  now and it is so [ __ ] dangerous we're just going. to swim as far as we can we turn on an iris strobe  we just swam got picked up by a bunch of x-fil. platforms and everything else but in the course  of that um essentially the only way to get out is.

i grabbed a hold of the bow line and i wrapped it  around my my wrist and i had them tow me out on. the zodiac and when they picked up enough speed  the weight it spun me and it popped my shoulder. so now my arm is essentially paralyzed  like it's not working it's like. holy [ __ ] i do the exact same thing and i wrap  it up with this one the same thing like oh my god. now i'm treading water like i've  got use of my arms but it feels like.

it feels like it dislocated like it feels  strange um an exorbitant amount of pain. we get on a jet ski round two and that thing  flips and because we're straddling it the weight. flipped with such force it blew out this  um blew out the uh the leg of my right hip. and my left hip so now i'm essentially bobbing  like a bag of [ __ ] jesus christ so me and my.

swim buddy we make it out we get on there we  we do our debrief they strip us down naked um. with all those frags that we ate everything  none of the frags stuck in us i mean we were. super concussed we were [ __ ] up but you could  brush it and it was like uh like metal shavings. everywhere it was like it was like god came  down and just said not today i mean it was. every inside your ears inside your eyelids [ __  ] everywhere i mean it was the strangest thing um. we got back on we started doing like the  tbi reporting um you know what's your name.

and i was feeling [ __ ] weird the three guys  were on that porch were feeling very weird um. and you couldn't explain it um because  i mean i've been knocked out a bunch. with fight club and skateboarding like i am  no stranger concussion this is very different. um i went into a med check and they shined the  eyes uh the white light in my eyes and i threw. up and then i started getting scared i still  can't hear [ __ ] both my ears are perfect um.

i've got a bunch of other wounds pre-existing  that are nasty i've got a nasty stomach infection. like an open wound that i had we had a surgically  super glue before we did it so i had all kinds of. [ __ ] i was battling anyway and it kept getting  worse we finally got back to base five days later. and i remember laying in my bed with my sunglasses  on wanting to die um i didn't know what the. [ __ ] was going on with me i couldn't make rhyme  or reason i um i couldn't get my thoughts together.

i couldn't get anything i couldn't be there for  the debrief i was just i was [ __ ] out of it. and i didn't know what was going on and they  drove me to a french hospital out in town. and they ran a ct scan in the back of my skull  right back here was jet black in my brain and uh. the uh the doctor came back and she's like  what what is that i was like i don't know you. tell me and she's like i don't know how you're  standing right now she's like that's a major.

that's a major blow to the back of your  head nothing hit me in the back of the head. she's like well something didn't  i don't remember any of that um. i remember seeing the mri and i remember just  telling like that's just over pressure man. like that's just over pressure and um they  said whatever they did um they got documented. you know we finished all that and we fly home um  i'm on the next flight home taking his deployment. that's the last thing to happen we fly home and  i land and i have a six-month-old waiting for me.

i land i drive straight home and there is a  newborn laying in that crib be dad and dude. the next 48 hours of my [ __ ] life um i  didn't know what to say i just i couldn't. everything started to go to [ __ ] i couldn't  remember that i couldn't remember my wife's name. i couldn't remember my daughter's name  um i got lost driving a [ __ ] work. you've been a virginia beach i called my wife  one time in the [ __ ] norfolk scope parking lot.

crying my eyes out i don't know where  the [ __ ] i'm at amnesia set in. um i'd wake up in places um i'd go to drive  to work on a sunday and i'd end up at uh. like the farmer's market i call pat's  like i don't know where the [ __ ] i'm at. i couldn't remember anything um and i had no  rhyme or reason i couldn't say it to anybody. but everybody else was having the  exact same [ __ ] thing going on. um and it was only getting worse every day it  would get worse and with the headaches were so bad.

the photophobia was so bad i wore sunglasses  for years i did until we got it under control um. i remember i remember coming to one day i  was in the gym um out in town wife doing. crossfit or some [ __ ] and i woke up i'm  flat on my back and i'm looking up at her. and she's kneeling over me and she is bawling  her eyes out like tears are falling on my face. and i look at her i was like what what's going  on she's like where the [ __ ] have you been.

she's like you've been laying it for 15 minutes. i don't remember going to the gym i don't  remember doing anything i don't remember. anything about that morning i remember that night  i remember [ __ ] um like my long-term memory. people places things like it's it escapes me. it does and it was getting real bad and we had  a we had a heavy breaching trip coming up and um. my boss at the time knew i was in a [ __ ] jam  like he knew i was um he didn't know how bad but.

he's like i don't think you should go on this  breach and trip man he's like you you're good. you're current there's no reason to ring your bell  anymore than you need to just take some time off. okay and i didn't want to and i end up going down  to medical to uh fill out some kind of paperwork. or something i'm having a conversation with one  of the docs there and um i don't know how i said. it i don't know what i said but it was something  to the effect of i don't know if i'm gonna kill.

myself or kill my wife but there's something  going on with me you have to [ __ ] stop me. and the next thing i remember is the command doc  the command psych who's a [ __ ] angel my boss. are sitting in a chair with their hands on my  shoulder giving me value telling me it'll be okay. and then i go to niko so my trip to nike was not  um not something i wanted um i was in a bad jam.

and when i when i showed up there i didn't know  i didn't know what was going on with me i had no. idea well before we get into niko i talked to your  uh wife for maybe 45 minutes the other day and uh. she had some kind of intuition uh while while  that op was going on that you were in trouble. she said she just felt something  and uh sure should she was right. so you got home she said uh one of  the first things she noticed was.

your dinner was right in front of and you  didn't even realize it and you're asking when. when the [ __ ] are we gonna have dinner  she's like dinner's right in front of you. she uh she took one i'd pull up uh i pulled  videos on her phone because i know she was. sending to people um i mean it was a video  specifically i was cutting steak and it was. like six minutes just over and over the same  piece just cutting it i'd join these trances um.

and i remember it now like going into a  trance and telling myself to come out of it. and i couldn't it just i'd forget to come out  of it i would i just i'd lose track of time um. i just i didn't know i thought it was going [ __  ] crazy and then it was the whole cte thing was. coming on board and it's like yep this is exactly  what this [ __ ] is like everything got super dark. um oh [ __ ] man i'd set my uh i just wanted  to die i did i've i wanted to [ __ ] die and.

i didn't know why um i had to pitch a perfect  life had a badass wife gorgeous kid dream job. my life was heaven and all i wanted to do  was die yeah i didn't know why i'd sit in. my guest room with that [ __ ] dog of mine  and uh i talked to him i would like that. that dog saved me more times than any [ __ ] thing  else dude i'd sit there and um the obsession over.

the details are probably what saved me the most  because i think about putting patsy through that. i think about the reality of shooting myself  in the scene it would make in this house. the mess it would make that she's going  to have to clean that up what am i. what's my kid going to find out what  are they going to say when they find out. and i didn't just not doing it but i wanted to  and then i started to turn into other things like. i got to get my rocks off somehow like what's my  outlet going to be like threading the needle like.

that was the only thing that made me feel alive is  the sketchier [ __ ] would go the more i liked it. man it just that tv actually  gets away from you fast it um. and nobody talks about it yeah sit in  those [ __ ] rooms and i know those dudes. feel the exact same way i do and they're  not saying anything um and they never did.

i think that started to drive a wedge because  i needed it so bad i needed someone to confirm. that i wasn't going [ __ ] crazy and because the. because of the teams you know not  want to show weakness no one did. and i thought i was alone other people you know  they check in they do this they do that but it. didn't matter like i'm not i'm not telling anybody  i'm [ __ ] up i'm just wondering why no one else.

has anything wrong with them yeah like none  of this [ __ ] ever affects you nothing you're. not human no you never get headaches nope you  ever feel weird after a full day breaching nope. you ever piss blood nope hmm you forget where the  [ __ ] you're at nope maybe i am crazy maybe i. am the only [ __ ] one that drove me way down  the [ __ ] rabbit hole because now i've spent.

my entire life to hit a [ __ ] pinnacle and i  can't remember anything it's all escaping me. um yeah i mean patsy uh she called command she  called my boss and she's like you have no idea. what the [ __ ] is going on with him she's like  he's gonna kill himself she's like he needs you. guys right [ __ ] now we have to figure this out  and nike was very new um on the scene right then. so that was uh 2014. went inpatient niko for 30  days and they did a whole work up on me and put me.

on all kinds of fancy uh prescriptions and uh they  helped they did um i thought i was having seizures. i didn't know what a panic attack was um i didn't  know what uh real anxiety was i remember sitting. in the chow hall and um i remember sweating  into uh into my food and people looking at me. like sweating through my beard um because of so  much sensory overload in that [ __ ] cafeteria.

chomping chewing hitting the fork banging  the dude in the back washing pots and pans. it all just consumed me and i just sat  there and i just started [ __ ] sweating. like [ __ ] man i get the [ __ ] outta the  [ __ ] out of here and i'd have to leave. and i tried to make not a big deal but  it was a big deal because i was so low. actually i wasn't so low just no one [ __ ] tell  me yeah um so yeah they uh we went up to nika we.

did the full workup got put on um a bunch of  different meds probably 15 15 prescriptions um. got put on a stimulant so adderall to kind of keep  me focused which helped cymbalta um we did zoloft. we did everything practicing at night to stop the  dreams we did beta blockers we did everything and. basically ran that concoction along with tramadol  and everything else basically the duration and it.

wasn't until the very end when i got hurt one more  time when i realized what that [ __ ] actually was. let's take a break there. so.

all right so we're back from niko today you got  the prescriptions did they give you any insight as. to what was going on with you medically yeah they  um they went through you know full body head to. toe every mri contrast i mean everything you could  do to the human body they ran test for um had a.

couple spots on a brain but nothing crazy but they  also back it up with we've had people come in here. in wheelchairs pushing themselves around on  straws with no spots in our brain so they couldn't. really make rhyme or reason just concussion  operator syndrome a bunch of that kind of stuff. the tbi um ocular stuff so i um the over pressure  messed up my right eye so i can't really focus it. so they called it tbi related ocular  dysfunction so i've got to wear glasses.

like if i really try to dial in a shot it  all goes to a haze i can't do a super finite. focus so it makes shooting kind of weird my depth  perception is kind of off but i'm used to it now. and then i had five surgeries had to get you want  to do both shoulders both hips and my lower back. um the neck was a they wanted to do a um. [ __ ] i can't remember um.

some kind of surgery on my neck  um and i did not want to do it. all the docs were like hey if  you can get by then push it off. like i didn't want to get surgery i don't want  to miss a deployment we were gearing back up. i mean i was in that thing for 30 days like i was  going [ __ ] crazy all this [ __ ] is happening. to you and you're worried about missing a [ __ ]  diploma that's the only [ __ ] thing i care that's. why i was so pissed i was like why can't i just go  to portsmouth right up the road and come to work. every day and i didn't realize what niko was it's  to get away from the phone decompress completely.

and it was [ __ ] rough man that um i was not  i was not good with that [ __ ] to be able to. pull the phone away because you're glued to it  um you're waiting for that thing to ring the. city come to work all [ __ ] day and it becomes um  on my nightly routine dude i'd uh i'd check that. phone team guys exaggerate this is no exaggeration  i bet you i checked that phone 50 times a day. damn to make sure my battery was charged was  my was the charging cable plugged in right.

like all that different [ __ ] like i have  a i have a serious phobia with being late. like an unhealthy one and the thought of  missing a movement was not a [ __ ] option. um i wouldn't go on family vacations that  involve flying or long-distance travel. if we had a trip coming up like no i can't miss  work i can't do it so we get there and um we're. in niko and we're doing the whole thing and that  facility was amazing um from the acupuncture to i.

mean everything they did there was amazing um  and they [ __ ] saved me i was in a bad spot. and they see all kinds of people that staff really  been over backward to me and i think it's because. they um they saw where i worked they saw how  young i was and they saw how devastated i was. that um i was potentially done and they came  in at the end of 30 days they diagnosed me with. all kinds of crazy [ __ ] um i mean everything  and they recommend that i get medically retired.

he's like hey it's not going to get better  dude he's like you need major surgery all over. and they almost got me they uh they almost got me  they pulled a guilt trip and they were like do you. think you can perform your best i like this and  i knew the answer was no um but my ego caught me.

and i went [ __ ] outperform you give me these  meds let me go see and dude i i ran hard i ran. full tilt for the next four years from 14 to 18 as  hard as i could go never missed a day at work um. the best time of my life what did your  wife think she wants you to retire. yeah because what nobody else saw is what  i was like at home um i was [ __ ] vile man.

i spit venom out of my mouth all  day long i was just [ __ ] hateful. i hated everything anything that wasn't to do  with work i didn't want anything to do with it um. you know my daughter was a burden being  married was a burden having a dog was a burden. you know having to do taxes was a [ __ ] burden  like why can't you just let me be like one of. the 300 [ __ ] spartans and let me just do this  this is my profession can everybody just cater. to me and walk around and [ __ ] fan me that's  what i wanted i did like my ego consumed me and.

anything that potentially could derail me or  um slow me down in any way was not an option. it just wasn't i couldn't let it happen um and  the only way to obsess over work and i felt and. do it at the full commitment that i needed to was  to have no attachments so i emotionally started. to separate from my wife my kids um you know  i tried to play the game when i came home but.

it wasn't i was thinking about work the  entire time i didn't want to change diapers. um it was just it was i wanted  a kid so [ __ ] bad with her. and in 2013 i got one and i was [ __ ] i was  through the [ __ ] roof man i've never been so. happy my whole life and i went overseas she was  you know two months old and i got hurt and when. i came back i just it ate me alive and when  i went to nike it got even worse now i'm i'm.

separated now they're telling me there's something  wrong with me and it's not going to get better. now i look at my family and i start to  resent him like you [ __ ] did this to me. if i wasn't thinking about being a [ __ ]  father i wasn't thinking about being a husband. that probably wouldn't [ __ ] happen to  me i started a blame shift on everybody. that's what i did um i threw my walls back  up like yep we're gonna lean forward in this. i'm gonna give this thing everything i  can and i'm gonna ride this [ __ ] all.

the way through i never in a million  years thought i'd get medically retired. never i'd never [ __ ] let him no  there's no [ __ ] way i'm too hurt. but i'm medicated i'm fine like i'm good  um i was shooting immature x probably. five six times a week auto injectors for migraines  um i was taking essentially a lethal dose of. maxill for migraines supposed to take three a week  i'd take three a day um i was in a [ __ ] jam man.

when the sun would come up and crest my world  ended when that sunlight hit my eyes it was over. were you deploying with all this yep i wore  sunglasses all the time medicated um it got. real bad one night um it was probably 10 o'clock  at night um i walked into the uh walked into. the kitchen and i don't know why i don't know  what the [ __ ] i was doing but i hit the uh. i hit the microwave and the light came on and  hit my eyes just right and i [ __ ] collapsed.

i pissed myself started dry heaving i'm in the  fetal position just shaking um i was shaking so. hard and i didn't know why i couldn't control  it it felt like i was gonna break my own hands. it was all i could do it was like i was trying  to pop my own head off by squeezing everything. as tight as i could um and i hadn't had a migraine  like that in a while um because i stayed doped up. all the time i was constantly taking maxall and  amitrix and everything else and i thought i had. him at bay and this [ __ ] thing hit me dude and  it uh she was trying to call 9-1-1 i'm screaming.

at her i'm calling her every name in the book  um don't you [ __ ] dare she's that was her big. threat she's like i'm gonna call you troop chief  don't you [ __ ] dare don't you [ __ ] dare um. and she should have i wasn't [ __ ] i was  in a bad spot man um and everything on me. hurt it's like you said if i um if i'd miss  a dose of tramanol i felt everything i had.

i'd go to the gym in the morning and i'd fake it  and i was [ __ ] miserable like i had never felt. that much pain i got diagnosed with a fibromyalgia  when i was uh when i was up there and for the ones. that don't know it's uh it's basically a made-up  term it's when you have agonizing pain and they. can't tell you why they label it fibromyalgia  but for me um it felt like i had shin splints. on every ounce of my body um like when you shook  my hand it felt like you were breaking my hands.

my feet when i would walk i could feel  it it felt like my feet were splintering. um it was terrible every step i took i was  just an agonizing [ __ ] pain so i just. ate painkillers all day and i masked  it and i trained and i deployed and. i didn't every trip i could anything to  get me away from virginia beach to just. escape reality and it didn't pay off um i was i  was hurt a lot worse than i really thought i was.

um i mean i felt bad i didn't realize um it was  only a matter of time before i all came apart. i'd go through these long  bouts of depression weeks on in. um i wouldn't want to speak i'd  sit there i wouldn't want to eat. i'd lose motivation i wouldn't want to go  work out and then i'd start to make excuses. you know when you lose focus on the why you know  you don't have the target set you want you don't. have funding you don't have the leadership you  want you don't have this you don't have that.

and you lose focus on why you're actually there  because none of that [ __ ] [ __ ] matters. the enemy hopes you're not training he hopes  you don't have funding he hopes you haven't. seen the inside of the gym in two [ __ ] weeks  he hopes you don't know where your guns are. right now that's what he's hoping and i let it  consume me and i just started to hate everything. and then i found skydiving um did you start doing  that recreational yeah um i really started to.

obsess over it like that was that was kind of  my thing when i was uh at the command anyway. um i wanted to be a breacher that's all  i wanted to be [ __ ] love breaching. and the team i rolled into had a bunch of badass  breaches already they don't need another one. they need a guy to run all the air stuff so i went  way down the jump rabbit hole and um the only bad. thing about that is it's so far removed um from  what the teams are because it's such a civilian. dominated sport that i started to hang out with  everybody who wasn't king guy i'd go on these.

long trips to arizona to support courses and you  know i'd four or five hundred jumps a year and um. wanted to start competing and and that was so  unlike me to do anything outside of work the. fact that i would go recreation skydive like  that's that's what my wife said she said what. the [ __ ] are you doing i was like i'm doing  it for work i'm doing it because they asked me. i don't need you to be a breacher i need you  to be an air subject matter expert i need you.

to be the best jumper in the room done if  you had asked me to be a [ __ ] dental tech. i'd be a tier one [ __ ] dental tech it didn't  matter that's what you wanted me to do and. that's what i'm gonna do and i obsessed over it  i spent a lot of personal money and a [ __ ] ton. of time out there jumping and wind tunnel and  got all my instructor certifications and you. know throwing out tandems and everything else  and but it started to remove me from the group. i started running a bunch of solo projects or me  or one or two guys and we'd go out there and we'd.

just jump we'd go do a hundred jumps in a week and  we jumped um and it really started to take a toll. on the family life like i was gone a lot i can  remember um her sick as a [ __ ] dog like puking. over the toilet and begging me not to go on  this trip and i looked at her no sympathy. gotta go i didn't have to go that was a  made-up trip that was a fun trip for me.

and we'd have a work trip to start on  monday i'd fly out the friday before. and i'd get a whole week and we'll jump in with  all my friends and the work trip would start. and then i'd stay late so i turned a two-week  trip into three-week trip so was it the fun you. were after or was it just getting the [ __ ] out  of uh he was getting the [ __ ] out of virginia. beach it was something completely different that i  didn't have to answer to anybody for it was my own. um completed separate group of friends  who didn't know me didn't didn't give a. [ __ ] about my background maybe they knew they  didn't ask they didn't care about the politics.

they didn't care about what happened overseas they  just they liked me for me and they like skydiving. and i use that as an outlet but i really  used to just separate myself from my family. and um just i threw up another wall like i had  my virginia beach life and i had my jump life. and i'm just running straight this way and um  she hated i mean she begged me she bagged me.

stopped going stopped jumping stop doing  this stop doing that and i wouldn't. i couldn't i was so addicted to it and it wasn't  even jumping itself it was just escaping reality. when i'm flying around when i'm jumping these  super small parachutes and doing whatever. i'm escaping reality my reality is i am [ __ ]  miserable and i am waiting to die and i'm just. unhappy i don't have any justification for it i  can't make rhyme or reason but if i say anything. they're definitely going to kick me out of  here so i'm going to suffer in silence and.

i'm going to run this [ __ ] thing until  the wheels fall off that's what i did. i ran it all away what was the wake-up call was  it the accident i um i went down to florida me. and my shooting buddy a couple of the guys we were  doing a civilian skydive trip it's like a big camp. um it's a certain type of free flying we were  doing and um it was amazing great time but i.

was so broken from everything else um things  you just don't realize um so we're on a we're. on the first day of the jump trip and we're  flying in a uh a formation it's called upright. basically you're standing and you're flying across  the sky on two feet and flying that way and you. have to lean back with your arm as far as you  can you have to press down into the relative wind. to get the throw to launch you forward so it's  understanding all the details and everything else.

you know it's trick flying but it's fun you build  a lot of speed and i was so broken up top um. i left the video too i leaned back as far as i  could and we're hauling ass and all of a sudden. i flip over and i feel a weird pop and my  chin locks to my shoulder i'm in free fall. and i can't move my arm it's pinned behind my back  i'm like what the [ __ ] i roll over and i start. to track away to try to get away from the group  we're probably at 7 000 feet and we're taking it.

low and we exit at 14 000 feet so we're you know a  little over halfway through the skydive but that's. the dangerous part is when we have to break away  so we don't open on top of each other and i turn. i track away and i go to pull and i can't pull  my hands at a knot it's locked up i can't deploy. i jump a small parachute anyway  and i'm not a packet of peanuts um. so i had to open up my reserve and i  open that thing up and it's super small. and that's something you don't think about  having to land a small parachute with one.

hand so i lift my arm up and i unstow the toggles  and i i loop it in here and i'm flying super um. super casual pattern on the way in i come in  with one hand i land i get up and i've got. a jump suit on and my arm is paralyzed like it's  it's hanging down on my hip i don't know what the. [ __ ] is going on but the only thing that kept  coming up in my mind is they were concerned on. uh taking cymbalta taking the tram at all in three  or four of the medications that i've been taking.

forever and they're like you have to stop taking  that or you're gonna stroke out man like you'll. have a [ __ ] stroke i thought that's what  it was i thought i had a stroke mid-free fall. i mean like when i came down i was pinned like  this i couldn't do [ __ ] i couldn't lift my arm i. couldn't do anything they couldn't get my jumpsuit  off when they did my humeral head was down to here. so what happened is i reached my arms back to  fly and my arm dislocated through my armpit. so humor head attached and it came through my  armpit that's a very bad dislocation it's very.

hard to reset especially when um a little bigger  than it's probably like you know bigger and uh. i landed on the ground and i remember standing  on my hand trying to lift up to try to pop it. it still hadn't hit my mind that my shoulders  have sucked i've never had one dislocate like. that i've had them in and out but not like that um  my teammates here he's like dude what the [ __ ].

i don't know what to do we've got an er a  mile and a half down the road i was like. i'm going i jump in a rental car and i drive  myself right to the er i'm still in my jumpsuit. um they go up on the next lift they continue  jumping i check myself in the er i tell them what. happened and they spend two hours trying to get  this thing back in socket let me preface this i. pride myself on my pain tolerance it's world class  i can take an extraordinary amount of pain i can. that [ __ ] oh my god that dude cranked on my  shoulder i was sweating i was dry even um i.

wanted to [ __ ] die he was bad and uh finally  they gave me um propofol whatever it is knocked. me out reset it and they put me in a sling he's  like hey gotta go back i'm freaking out because. i don't want to tell work what has happened so  now my little hamster wheels going around like. i don't have to tell anybody about this like  we're good i drive back out to the drop zone i. see all the instructors all all the guys like what  happened [ __ ] arm came out like jesus and all.

the guys like hey man we'll refund you for your  for the camp because you can't jump the [ __ ] are. you talking about i'm jumping he's like you can't  jump your shoulder just came out stockings like. i'm jumping i'll take the rest of  the day off i'll be back tomorrow. we went out to uh when that's like a food line  or whatever and bought a bunch of kt tape and. youtubed it and kt taped my shoulder in place um  put on a quasi brace that we bought from you know.

whatever pin my shoulder and just taped it so  all i could do was deploy and i could reach up. um and i could grab my toggles and i could steer  it which made landing very uh very challenging. because i jump a high performance parachute so i  really have to be able to control this thing and i. just let my go get a hold of me and i didn't give  a [ __ ] they uh i showed the next morning they. did not want me to jump we had a conversation and  uh we settled on a wager if you can do 10 pull-ups.

right now i'll let you jump and i jumped on that  bar and did tim pull up so [ __ ] fast and he went. go ahead i put my suit back on i went up and did  a jump very gingerly um not getting real dynamic. did a second one did a third one did a fourth  one and on the fourth one i got a little cocky. and i leaned into it a little bit too  much on final bringing in the parachute. and it popped out of socket again.

the exact same thing through the armpit the exact  same [ __ ] way and the instructor looked at me. because it's not common to fall on landing um not  at that level and they looked at me and gave me a. weird look and i was like i was like getting more  [ __ ] banana peels out here trying to you know. brush it off and then i looked at him i was like  hey man like i kind of tweaked my neck on that. opening i'm just gonna sit out the rest of the day  and i walked around that dz for an hour faking it. because i was so [ __ ] embarrassed and i was like  yeah you know guys let me go back to the hotel. i'll be back in an hour to pick you guys up and i  drove straight over the er now in civilian clothes.

had changed and i walked in the exact same doctor  is working the exact same desk and looks at me. he went looking to do you for i was  like i was putting on this t-shirt. my my shoulder came out we got to put it back in  and he looked at me and smiled and he reached out. and grabbed a blade of grass out of my ear and  went getting dressed out in the field are we. come on went back knocked me  out popped it back in place.

um and i didn't jump the rest of that trip i  couldn't it was so bad um and i knew how bad it. was like the amount of pain it was going through  my body was uncommon and it couldn't be good. we get back to the command i walk into rehab  and i tell them i was like hey man i got some. serious [ __ ] going on he's like oh we'll go in  there we've got you know great shoulder surgeons. um super experienced and we went in there  and looked at that thing and he went.

dude this is gonna be the one like this  is it like whatever we'll do a quick one. it wasn't a quick one we um we went  and did that shoulder surgery we uh. we did the mumford we cut out a section  by collarbone we did the bicep tendonisis. so relocating my bicep tendon we put in  two anchors in the front five in the back. i got a nasty infection we found out that i'm  allergic to the waterproof bandages they put on.

me so i got a folliculitis almost like cellulitis  just gnarly infections all over me dude like bad. and the rehab process after shoulder surgery  is not fun it's long you can't rush it takes. six months and by the time i got done with that  um the medical paperwork had already been pushed. he's like you got to do the exact same thing to  the left and we've still got to do both your hips. like we got to fuse your neck we got to fuse  your lower back like that's it man and i was.

in so much pain at that point when we  got done with that shoulder surgery um. not throw anybody into the bus but i i will  they forgot to do my nerve block when i got. that shoulder surgery so i went in we do the  whole thing and i wake up in a recovery room. and this that operation's supposed to be two hours  and i was in there almost six long [ __ ] surgery. a bunch of stuff in here a bunch of bone fragments  are floating around um your shoulder dislocates.

and slams back in it chips away the corners  i've got a couple four millimeter pieces of. bone floating around in there they can't get to um  four millimeters uh-huh yeah so my humor had just. broke off big chunks of it now it's just free  floating in there just grinding everything out. so i wake up in this shoulder surgery you  get your arm pinned you're in the sling. and i wake up and i'm overcome by it like if you  would have had a pistol sitting on the thing i.

would have shot myself it it's indescribable  how bad that pain was it was it was everything. it was reality and that doctor walked  over and he's like how you feeling. i've never felt this much pain in my entire life  he's like nerve block not help did you do one.

his eyes get real big and he looks  at me he's like i'll be right back. he leaves comes back three minutes later  with two other doctors and uh he's like hey. so we decided not to give you the nerve block  now we're gonna give it to you post surgery. so it'll be more effective for you okay and they  free they freehand the same use you do it under um. um under like an x-ray or whatever you know  what i mean yeah um and they don't they just. drop this thing in they hit me this is fine right  what's that it's from the spine right they did it.

through my neck through your neck yeah so you hit  some nerve bundle just above your collarbone it. basically just paralyzes everything from here to  here okay so he misses it and a couple minutes. later i remember sitting there and doing touch and  goes and you're all [ __ ] up from the anesthesia. and i remember leaning my head back and my tongue  was paralyzed and it rolled in the back of my. throat and i i essentially started to swallow  my own tongue and i remember throwing my head.

over the side and scooping my tongue out and i  couldn't breathe i was gasping it was nothing. trying to scream i can't get anything out  there's no nerves there it's after hours. i had a later surgery um this is  probably eight o'clock at night it's. everybody's gone at this point man manny at  the hospital and i remember i grabbed the uh. the little monitor the ekg thing and i knocked it  on the ground remember this lady came running out. of the back and i'm holding my throat like this  and her eyes got his biggest silver dollars and.

i remember them shoving an o2 mask on  me and then i remember waking up later. so what had happened was they hit the wrong  nerve bundle and it paralyzed my throat my. voice box my tongue and my right lung um man  i was just drifting off the holy [ __ ] i just. would have passed out would have been over um  so the whole rehab process comes after that. um but after that because the pain was so bad we  go to pain management and now i get on more meds.

and now i'm on all kinds of weird [ __ ]  now it's like they're just stacking it on. top of me over and over and over and it's  not getting better it's only getting worse. to the point where i don't know  what i'm going to do anymore. but i'm having some very hard  conversations with patsy and everybody else. like if this is what i have to live with daily oh  no like i don't know what the [ __ ] i'm gonna do.

like i can't lift my arm like just the whole  rehab process was so [ __ ] bad and luckily you. know we start the medical retirement thing  but it takes so long to actually get there. what kind of conversations are you having are  you talking suicidal yeah yeah um you're having. conversations about suicide with your wife how  many times did that happen more than you can count. yeah and it was one of those things like i told  her i was like i don't i don't know what the.

[ __ ] is going on with me like i sit here and  i just i don't want to do this anymore i'm tired. um kind of just everything from my childhood  and everything to the teams and just. everything just felt like he was hanging around  my [ __ ] neck man i couldn't do it anymore. i was just i was [ __ ] tired i feel like that's  the common theme with dudes when they hit that. spot is that's what they say i'm just so [ __  ] tired i just don't want to do it anymore just.

like reality set in like that was it i'm not  coming back from that one um and we got through. rehab the med board had already started um we had  hip surgery scheduled we had my left shoulder um. scheduled and it was going to be three years of  uh surgery windows i'm like i can't [ __ ] do. this man that rehab was so bad it took everything  out of me it was [ __ ] miserable the navy seal.

foundation stepped in and they had a rehab program  ran by an x-team guy actually from the command. virginia high performance um they chop you with  a world strat world-class strength conditioning. coach they cater your meals you two workouts a  day do the float tank massage hyperbaric you do. everything and it's basically a four week block  you can extend and do eight weeks so i did eight. weeks with those guys and i came out of that  no [ __ ] in the best shape of my entire life. really i felt like i don't need to be retired like  i'm good i was high as a kite i was on every med.

i was already on um but i looked apart i looked  [ __ ] great um and i still wanted to die inside. but i still my ego you wouldn't let it go like  i could still do this i can still do this um. and then i couldn't i just couldn't  do anymore i ended up going to um. a neurobehavioral ward at um at bethesda so  right across the street from naiko it's called.

seven east and it is for a it's essentially a  detox clinic so in between all of that i go back. in to refill my prescriptions in our physician's  assistant he was brand new and he inputted all my. stuff in and hit enter and an error code popped  up and he went i can't give you that he's like. you can't take that and this it's like no well  that's a problem because i've been taking that.

for a long time and i [ __ ] need it and he had  a very candid conversation with me and he's like. no what do we do now whole team came together and  they're like we've got a med washout we want to do. you know you're starting the med board right  now let's get you off all these meds and we'll. figure out what your baseline really is  and we'll go from there okay and somehow. they suckered me into it um and i was not  expecting that i expected to go back to nico.

and it was not niko we walked in they took shoe  strings dental floss tooth they went through. everything you couldn't have anything and uh there  were a couple sf guys in here a couple rangers. bunch of guys like some some pretty bad tbi [ __ ]  um one of the guys uh he was a fighter pilot had a. had an ejection ride and it gave him parkinson's  so to be able to watch people how bad it can get.

it really made me feel uh feel like a giant [ __  ] like you see how bad some of these dudes are. and i got there um and i never  forget man she walked in and uh. this sweet little black lady she looked me  and she goes are you ready you know what yeah. oh child okay she reached in and grabbed all my  meds and she's like not anymore and she locked.

me in that room i bet you i was in there seven  days i didn't really leave that room for seven. days i laid in a fetal position and i detoxed  off everything i had been on and it was the. worst thing that's ever [ __ ] happened to  me um i heard piss in the bed throwing up. i mean. you everything about the spirit world man  like being alone in isolation no cell phone. no nothing it uh it consumed me i didn't have  skydiving i didn't have the team i didn't have.

my wife i didn't have anything i was just i  was eight up dude i was eight the [ __ ] up. it uh it was bad and around the seven ten  day mark i kind of came out of the haze. and i walked out for one of the first times  and sat down with a group and had breakfast and. i was sober for the first time  and i was an agonizing pain. like oh my god this is this is normal this  is reality right here this is where i'm at.

and we slowly started to input a couple  meds um they left me on a couple things. just no no painkillers i couldn't do it  anymore from the nsaid use over the years. i've got like stomach ulcers so if i take an 800  milligram motion i piss blood like weird stuff so. i had to come off all the insides the only thing  they left me with was cymbalta and adderall. which hindsight being 20 20 i  probably should have came off those.

but at the time i couldn't i couldn't even fathom  it my anxiety was so bad my depression was so bad. and those pills were the only thing that kept me  sane and i say sane relatively i was in a bad spot. the patsy came up to see me in  the hospital drove up there and um. you think it would have  gotten better and it didn't um. so now we've got two kids got a brand new  born uh i'm just in a bag of [ __ ] so.

i come back from that and essentially got  miele my youngest who's now my therapy baby. just laying the lane in the bed just feeling  sorry for myself i don't really know where i'm. going from here but i know my career is over  i know i'm miserable i know i really want to. take a bunch of pills to stop feeling like this  but i can and i don't know what i'm going to do. they introduce art therapy it's kind of where  the whole tribe skate thing started to go. it was a spillover from niko  i started art therapy at nico.

and then um the whole staff knew me and they  all remembered me so when they heard i was. next door they opened up the facility and i could  go over there as much as i wanted to they let me. uh do the dog program so i get to hang out with  puppies all day therapy dogs and do all that um. the red cross walked in one day  she's like what can i bring you. how about a blank skateboard deck and some  paintbrushes do you want i'll make that happen. and she wasn't supposed to you're not supposed to  leave that place and she snuck me out she walked.

me downstairs and put me in her car and drove  me out downtown bethesda to a skateboard shop. and bought me a blank skateboard it was her own [  __ ] money snuck me out totally she got in trouble. and brought me back and she's like if anybody  asks it just showed up here yes ma'am and i. made my first board big paper mache thing a bunch  of [ __ ] hands coming out of it um yeah just you. know the whole mass concept you do yeah neither it  was essentially that but i did it on a skateboard.

and i just dumped everything i had in me on that  board and i felt better i had an sf guys going. through a dark spot a real bad spot same thing  his career he was not ready to go had him do the. same thing like just try it just paint this whole  thing white make the whole [ __ ] thing black now. do this now do that started to help conversation  started to go and get the relive experiences and.

you know had art therapy [ __ ] it helped we  were in that thing for 31 consecutive days. inpatient um detoxing off meds having to talk to  all kinds of therapists about your feelings and. pain management specialist and  the big thing i got out of it. i was able to override pain so well um that i  couldn't tell if i was hurt or if i was injured. i couldn't tell the difference  anymore everything felt the same.

um if i stub my big toe or if you break  my leg it all felt the same i didn't care. i mean we'd go in there for some of these things  and i'd have these long conversations with the. doc and they'd ask and they wanted to know  tips and tricks on how i get over this and. i talk about things i do mentally to try  to flush out some of the pain i was feeling. you know i was doing breathing drills way before  it was a cool thing to do and um i'd imagine like.

i'd i'd go deep thought concentration i would i'd  paint away pain i just spread loaded throughout. my entire body so it wasn't isolated in  one spot and i became successful at it. but it doesn't last forever yeah um it was  so bad when i came out of that [ __ ] place. so that's how tribe skates was born art therapy  yeah man like i came out of there and you know.

you're getting ready to retire the reality of  the thing's gonna happen and you don't know. what you're gonna do might get a contract what is  it did you know you were retiring at this point. i knew yeah the med board has already started  um we're into we've crested into 2019 now um. i'm still jumping a little bit from what i can  um i'm contracting working some courses in my.

off time just maintaining currency all that and  then that's when we get to um to tribe skates and. like i actually made it a thing  we brought in coal we had a shop. and it was my uh my little therapeutic outlet  didn't make any money but it kept me sane was. cold still on at this point yeah he was still in  okay yeah he transitioned over he was doing um. like a training position um but his med board  was about to start he was banged up he said.

multiple surgeries he's chewed up um and  that's when i got into fracture burning. it's like i had to replace something  some sort of danger element. with something else so the skydiving i couldn't  do right now i'm going to the med board if i got. hurt again they are definitely going to fry me um  i just have to sit back here and i just have to. when you go through that they take all your  specialty pays away um so you used to make an x. amount chop that in half and that's they maintain  you at and that process can last as long as they.

needed to and i had a lot of injuries  my medical record's two volumes. um they take your [ __ ] pays away the day the  day you start it every specially pay goes away. um sometimes you know i've heard rumors guys  having to pay back re-enlistment bonuses. um all kinds of [ __ ] man like it's bad but they  hold you to that so now the lifestyle you've been. accustomed to living you can't afford to live that  anymore so now what do you do just get depressed.

you can't get a job it won't let you  have outside employment so what do you do. just miserable just waiting to finally  retire if they were given the option just. to leave i just would have left i was so  over by then um i was [ __ ] hateful dude. i didn't want to accept that  was actually happening to me. and then you know i had to kind of close out  that chapter and accept it like this is what is. happening and i finally got my retirement date the  med board is over it's probably uh may or june um.

there's an invite for the world record for a  skydiving thing um and i went out there and i. did my training gems and i  got picked up and i got a slot. invitee for the for the world record it's gonna  be held in chicago that year and it was like. that was the [ __ ] best thing  to ever happen to me so excited. came back home and you know  got zapped with the voltage.

kind of reset everything so at that point  when that had happened i had been through niko. done four more deployments been through seven east  came off all the meds except cymbalta and adderall. now i've got the um the world  record thing coming up super excited. basically leaning in heavy on tribe skates  just doing that all day long just trying to. keep myself sane i'm in the best shape of my  life with uh with vhp and training every day.

and i feel like a million bucks like i'm finally  starting to come out of it at least on the surface. things were still rocky with the family i was  still um any moment i could to separate myself. i did i mean i do it now um just out of habit but  i'd be up at 5am every morning there's no reason i. don't answer anybody and i'd go saying skateboards  out in a [ __ ] empty parking lot at 5am. just to be by myself i didn't  want anybody there with me i just.

i didn't know what i was going to do man  but i knew it wasn't anything positive. yeah yeah all right let's move into  let's move into father's day 2019 yep so. i started to try up skates started doing fracture  burning we were laying graphics doing normal stuff. and fracture burns kind of introduced me so  you take a microwave transformer you pull it.

out and you hook it up to jumper cables and run  a lead out to 110. there's no real safety measure. there wasn't on that machine so i ran an extension  cord out of my house to an octopus outlet. take said machine plug into said  octopus outlet and then hit the button. hit the button unplug it now there's  no power going to it the unit's good. i've been doing it for months burned hundreds  of boards at this point um i've got my got my. chi down i've got my got my whole system down  and it's therapeutic it's [ __ ] dangerous.

like you got to be you got to be locked on  so i'm in super good shape it's father's day. i am burning paddles for um an eod unit it's about  to retire so they're giveaway paddles i fracture. burn them now and they do a bunch of cool stuff  with them um and a buddy calls me he's like hey. i've got a couple more can i drop them off and  i've been out there since 6 a.m like send it. fast forward i burned uh probably 10 boards  that morning and um he shows up and they're.

not sanded they've got lacquer all over them i've  still got a bunch more boards i got to do and you. have to sand off every ounce of that lacquer  or it won't conduct just won't do it you got. to spray electrolyte solution on it hit it with  the voltage so he is um i'm fractured burning. boards i stop i take a break he's plugged into the  octopus outlet with the sander sanding them down. in the confusion um the sander gets unplugged my  machine gets plugged and the switch gets turned on.

so i've got um saw horses set up i'm sanding  down boards um with a bristle brush knocking. all the knocking all the ash off i'm spraying  them down with a hose so the whole backyard. is covered in water i'm in a i'm in a tank top  and board shorts no shoes on um doing my thing. remember like it was yesterday we're in  front of my bay window and it's probably. from here to there and it's close we're  standing essentially on the back porch.

both my kids are there they're watching the  ipad or watching cartoons eating breakfast. it's probably 8am and uh the old lady knocks on  the window she gives me one of these like it's a. [ __ ] father's day let's go trying to go have a  family breakfast and do the whole thing last burn. last burn i was like all right man let's knock  out this last one and i grabbed those leads and. i readjusted my hands and if you're true north  that's where he was i was about in this fashion.

and when i grabbed those leads it snapped me  and spun me towards him and every muscle my body. contracted and i can remember my head fighting  the urge he wanted to slam back and touch my. own spine and i remember fighting it as hard as i  could i could remember my teeth heating up and it. felt like there was a copper spool like a taste  copper in the roof of my mouth [ __ ] spinning. um we made eye contact i remember him screaming [  __ ] [ __ ] oh no no no [ __ ] and the contraction.

got so [ __ ] hard i ended up taking a step back  at some point and i landed in a puddle of water. but when i did that i heard a loud pop it  was my collarbone shattering and if you. listen to patsy i leveled out in the air and i  shot across the yard still holding on to these. things holy [ __ ] i remember hitting the ground  and skipping and having this thing um it felt like.

my entire body was um being burned alive it um it  was intense and it was static but it was static. you could you could feel um like the static on  a tv like everything went to that and it was um. the static sound was inside of your [ __ ] brain. and he unplugged me and everything went  black and i don't know how long i was. out for i don't remember but i remember  opening my eyes and he was in my face.

and i remember exhaling and smoke coming  out i remember looking down on my hands. and i had a burn through my palm  had one coming out of my finger. a shot came out of my head some arc spots out  of my thigh had one come out next to my ass. um and i remember laying there and he looked  at me and he goes you know where you are. on the ground and he said are you okay i said no. i'm not okay i was like my collarbone's broken and  my left shoulder is out of socket for sure and uh.

he kind of rocked me up forward and i had a big  mouth of copenhagen in and i bit through my tongue. so you can imagine what that feels like just kind  of open my mouth and just let this [ __ ] pour. out of me it was just a steady pull of blood um i  didn't know how bad it was but i knew it was bad. my wife's freaking the [ __ ]  out the kids are freaking the. [ __ ] out he's freaking the  [ __ ] out rightfully so um. i told them i uh i do pretty good to keep  my composure situations like that and i.

was like we're good i looked at patsy and i  was like i'm driving myself to the hospital. i'll go get checked out go eat breakfast i'm not  ruining father's day and that was the stupidest. thing that's ever left my mouth you're gonna  drive yourself to the hospital now after this. and i remember i stood up they were trying  to find me shoes um trying to find a hat. and trying to find my wallet i live maybe two  miles from uh like a level three trauma center.

and he's gonna drive me there my wife is gonna  call her mother to come over and watch my kids. and they're gonna meet me there they've already  called cole they've called everybody in the shop. um tell everybody know what's happened. i stood up and i said all right i'm walking  to the truck and i turned and i got to the. gate and it's probably maybe 40 feet to my  truck and i took a step and everything went. took another step and it reminded  me in the moment i thought about it.

you remember kill bill um you remember the  five finger death punch yeah take five steps. on the fifth one you die exactly like that  i got the four and i was [ __ ] right here. i was a [ __ ] cyclops i couldn't see  [ __ ] and i was scared to [ __ ] death. i could feel my heart rate slowing down like i  could feel it i mean you think it'd be blowing. through my chest it wasn't i could feel it  and i didn't feel right i felt very strange. and i took one more step and everything went  jet black it's [ __ ] totally blind and i'm just.

on the side of my house i can't feel anything i  can't put my arms out because everything is broken. so i'm just i'm i'm hoping that someone's going  to come save me and i can't see a [ __ ] thing. nothing and i start to breathe i start to  hyperventilate try to flood myself with oxygen. and i forced it i opened my eyes as wide as  i could and i started to deep breathe until. light started to come back in and i felt a  hand on my shoulder it was him and he guided.

me to the truck and by the time i got there my  vision had came back but it wasn't normal vision. it was like superhuman vision it was the brightest  colors i've ever seen in my whole life um. it was like i could see like superman  i saw everything i felt everything um. i've never been so in tune with my body  ever i could feel i could feel everything. we got in the truck and we drove to the  hospital and we hit every pothole on the way.

so my collar bones in like 30 pieces it's just  kind of gravel just moving around my scapula is. blown out and um every bump we hit it felt  like a shard was going to go into my lung. i didn't know how bad it was at the  time but i had a pretty good [ __ ] idea. and we walked back there walked in told him  exactly what had happened we don't know the. voltage i don't know the ampage i don't know  anything except that everything i've ever read.

is no one survives this [ __ ] um so i should  have been dead they brought me back on the. table they stripped me down they're going through  everything um they shoot the x-rays they see the. collar bones shattered they see the scapula they  see everything else and this doctor comes back. and he tells me he's like hey man  what do you do i told him he's like. here's the issue is with electrocution injuries  your body starts to produce some kind of enzyme. like i'll [ __ ] up the name so i'm not gonna try  but he goes if that number hits we'll call it 10.

if it hits 10 your whole body is going to turn  into essentially like rhabdo muscles are going. to liquify and i have to start chopping [ __  ] out of you i'm a lot bigger than i was now. that i am now and he goes i got to start cutting  out big things dude he's like peck's gotta go lats. gotta go glutes thighs hamstrings we gotta  cut it out of you because if not it turns. to mush it turns septic and you'll [ __ ] die  he's like so when this thing goes we gotta go.

so i'm imagining now i'm laying in a hospital  bed and this dude's gonna walk around the corner. with a [ __ ] piece of paper and start cutting  pieces off of me so it's just your tissue it's. dead tissue that's rotting yeah essentially  like tops there's so much trauma all the way. through your body produces natural enzyme that  basically turns [ __ ] septic and he's like that's. what happens with rhabdo like muscles liquefy or  whatever um and he was concerned about it and um. they did an ambulance ride all the way up to  the burn unit put me in there ran every test.

they could all the x-rays you know stayed there  for a couple days and that dude came back in. and he goes i don't know what the [ __ ] is going  on with you he's like everybody on earth produces. this enzyme everybody you know with it 10 we've  got to start cutting [ __ ] out everybody sets. it a 5. he goes not only you not at a 5. he goes i  can't find a trace of it in your whole [ __ ] body. he goes it's a medical [ __ ] mystery why  you're alive i don't know um there were a.

bunch of theories about because i was holding  on to both leads um kind of connected to circuit. my muscles just contracted until i blew [ __ ]  out and if he wouldn't have unplugged me i just. would have stayed like that and cooked you know  another second longer they were talking about uh. it's kind of like doing a um a defib on somebody  he's like we don't know what your heart was doing. if you would have unplugged it you know 0.25  seconds pre or post maybe you were flatlined. and died we don't know he's like because no one  survives it so we can't forget test data for it so.

i remember laying in the hospital this is right  after it happened and i was supposed to work a. jump course the following day this happened  on a sunday i'm supposed to work on monday. and i remember calling the uh  the people i was working for. um skydive suffolk and uh i was crying i was  like i am so sorry like i can't believe i. did this to you it's like i'm i'm going to be  there i'll be there tomorrow at 0-7 i was like. i just don't think i'll be able to jump and that [  __ ] doctor looked over me and he's like you ain't.

going any [ __ ] way just like that patsy jumped  my ass and i was like that's like i'm just gonna. go down there i'm in slings i'm not doing any [  __ ] he's like you could [ __ ] die just like that. hand the phone over patsy talk to her and  basically he he's not gonna make this trip. um and i didn't want to hear that and  then i instantly asked him like well i've. got the world record coming up in four  weeks and he looked at me and he's like.

your days are done dude you're not [ __ ] jumping. he's like you're gonna need major hatred  reconstructive surgery and i just went through it. like i had just gotten done yeah like i just went  through a year-long rehab process like again what. the [ __ ] man like you talking about driving dude  in a hole like not again man not a [ __ ] can um. and the things you don't think about like putting  on socks i couldn't put on [ __ ] socks i couldn't.

wipe my own ass i couldn't bathe myself i couldn't  do [ __ ] i could do nothing i was worthless. for months i mean i've got two plates and 27  screws from here to here like it's over my. my collarbone doesn't hinge on my sternum right  like this scapula thing when that thing blew out. that was an injury that i never respected before  you hear about people breaking shoulder blades and. scapulas like yeah that's a terrible injury it's  terrible when it blew out of my hand it kind of.

fused my hand so when people would shake it it  blew a hole through and hit the nerve and hit. the nerve bundle and hit the tendon so anytime you  would move my thumb it felt like you were ripping. my thumb off you screwed i couldn't i couldn't  draw a pistol holding a carbine was miserable. um and i had to basically just deal with that  and you were going to contract as well when. you're retired correct yeah i'm supposed to go  in september december so that was out the window. now there's no way yeah with the rehab it took  there's no way just had to keep pushing that.

date back further and further try to lean in heavy  on tribe skates but now i'm hurt now what do i do. like now what i do went back out at 6 00 a.m five  days later and i finished for actually burning all. this [ __ ] skateboards what i did yeah my wife  woke up and you have never seen a look like that. dude she stood on that she stood on that back  porch and looked at me and if looks could kill. i'd be [ __ ] dead call me everything she could  selfish [ __ ] and she was right um but i told.

her i was like it's it's like skydiving you have  a cutaway you have to get back on the next load. go back up you're going to build it up too much  in your head now it's like it's a freak accident. i'm lucky enough to be alive and if i don't do  it right now it's like this thing will define. me right now i was like this isn't who i am i  can't let this [ __ ] thing beat me i have to. do it again and i think she understood and  we obviously have a different system now and. it's very controlled now i don't let anybody  do it around me we uh we cut that out of it.

but that rehab coming back um  the very next day we started. i called vernon griffith my trainer and we  started the very next day with a two pound dumbo. doing the whole thing over again and it was. it was miserable damn and you started uh  gvrs group so we had yeah we had tribe. skates and then um yeah in 2019 right after  that we started uh gbrs so that happened and.

i retired in august um that happened and when's  father's day july june and july 19th yep yep um. yeah we started out in september gbrs it's like  full steam ahead we gotta go it's focused on. rehab every day i heard a full-time trainer  and just focused on rehab trying to get back.

that's not really what happened i uh i separated  myself from everything i um i used to skateboard. [ __ ] as a as a coping mechanism it's really  just an excuse i um i had to i had to replace. my love for the teams my love  for jumping and my love for. being away from my family i had to give myself  something else and um is the worst thing i ever. [ __ ] did man i um i let my yo get the best  of me and started cheating on the old lady.

and just pushed them away i just did i am i  ran multiple affairs for the better part of. two years um all the way through and i  pushed out my [ __ ] whole family man. i um you were able to keep that [  __ ] together for two years you ran. two businesses you're retiring you have a family  with two kids and you're doing multiple affairs.

and the thing that disgusts me the most  about it is because i love the team so much. i put patsy on a [ __ ] pedestal because of  who she was what she'd already been through. and you know we pride ourselves on loyalty and  that's the biggest loyalty breach on [ __ ] earth. i had no justification for it she's  badass dude like i don't deserve her.

i mean she's hot as [ __ ] too you know what  i mean like i had no excuse she's perfect. i just didn't want it i wanted to consume myself  with toxic people and that's exactly what i did. i hit it for a while and then  i couldn't hide it anymore. i just i couldn't it i was  gonna [ __ ] kill myself. um was back on pain pills i just i couldn't do it  anymore i had all my stuff from um from before i.

was back on tram and all back on percocet from  the electrocution and i went back on status quo. i was like i don't do anything half-assed  i'm going to do it i'm going the whole way. and i basically everything i did  before i just kept doing again. i just subbed out the teams for businesses and  affairs and i went well then you kind of came. into contact well i mean i know you guys knew each  other before but patsy made a call to amber capone.

would what so we heard about it we heard what marx  and amber were doing and um what was the final. straw i mean it sounded like it was like the last  call of desperation there so marx and amber did um. i guess you'd call it a commercial it was  kind of like their story and we knew their. story like we know them the entire time so  we knew everything they had been through. i mean broad brush we know and uh they  made this they made this trailer i guess.

and uh i was gone on a trip and she sent  it to me and uh i was laying in bed at a. [ __ ] marriott and i watched that thing  and i bawled my eyes out uncontrollably. because i knew how bad i had  taken i knew how far i had went. and i didn't know how to fix it i  didn't think it was able to be fixed. i didn't and she sent it to me and  she went if you love me you'll go.

it's kind of a weird thing for a wife to ask  your husband to go to mexico and do drugs. try to fix yourself and what i'll go i'll go um. it didn't matter though i i wasn't hopeful um  once she said she wanted me to go it was like. a beacon of light it let in some hope she  does give a [ __ ] she does want me better.

like she wants me back she's willing to  work this out she's willing to accept me. um she didn't know everything that was going on  she didn't um she might have had an assumption. but she didn't know she definitely know  the severity of the affairs she didn't. so by the time we get there  now we're in business with uh. three other team guys and now we're all gonna  go we're all gonna go together we're all going.

to heal together we've all been through some  serious [ __ ] and we're going to go process. this entire thing together in one  field swoop what i didn't do um. what i didn't do was be honest to the  people around me on what i was going through. i didn't tell them everything i had going on. the [ __ ] overseas the disappointments on  retirement the transition life the affairs.

um you know drama with my drama with my family  just everything i didn't let them know how bad it. was um and i had a [ __ ] serious secret i had one  that i couldn't come back from there's no way it's. uh it's my defining moment and that'll be the last  thing that anyone ever hears about me is how bad. i [ __ ] this up and there's no way to fix it so  it's every day we got closer and closer to mexico.

i fell more and more in love with  my wife and kids every [ __ ] day. i still wasn't homesick i still wanted to be  gone but i would see it and it made me regret. everything i had done for the last two years i  just every time i saw him it was just the guilt. it um it hung around me it hung  around my [ __ ] neck man and uh. you wanna go through the whole story you take  it all the way yeah so we uh we link up with.

marks and amber and uh we fly out there and uh  we put in some serious [ __ ] work men that uh. that medicine that entire experience is nothing  on this universe it can't be quantified you. you can't do an experience and pass it off  and tell somebody your story and it sounds. too bizarre it just does divine intervention  and everything else you believe in aliens after. that [ __ ] like it it doesn't make sense um the  word cosmic comes up a lot when people do it like.

you feel like you're one with the universe it's  weird um you become interconnected to everything. and you understand everything you've ever done and  it is at the forefront of your mind when you wake. up the next day so how does it happen then i mean  is it immediate or you feel it the next day or. no i mean you process that thing for weeks um  it's in your system for a long time at least it. felt like but you know you go down and you do  a ceremony you give out your intentions and i.

haven't told anybody my intentions i haven't told  anybody what i'm trying to deal with none of them. um they have no idea they assume that  we're um dealing with some ptsd [ __ ] and. some some stress some operator syndrome maybe  some other stuff and uh we did i have a game. had a very profound experience and i woke up  the next morning for the first time in a decade. i would have cut off a [ __ ] arm to teleport home  i've never wanted to be home that bad in my entire.

life um and i knew it was all for nothing i knew  it didn't matter there's no going home for me um. just the thoughts that go through your  mind when you know you're [ __ ] up so bad. you can't come back from it what do you say  like how do you enjoy that experience how. do you process the information knowing you'll  never get to share it with another human being. because again this road i got to [ __  ] kill myself and that's what it was. um that's a hard thing to wrap your  head around like i'm so selfish i'm uh.

i'm such a [ __ ] coward that instead of  face of music this is what's gonna happen. we process the entire day we wake up the  next morning we do a ceremony we um we all. come together and we're working through trauma  together it's a bunch of team guys in the same. room a bunch of them we know coupling we don't  know and the common theme um because i'll just say. it now after ibogaine i'll just say it i looked  at all of them um and they were pouring out some.

some serious [ __ ] some serious childhood traumas  and dumping them on the table for everyone to see. and i called them all out [ __ ] you guys i've  been sitting here for 16 [ __ ] years alone. thinking i'm the only [ __ ] dude you've been my  best friend my entire time you've never told me. that why'd you let me do this alone why like  how many [ __ ] times i almost blew my head. off in a [ __ ] guest room why why don't you [  __ ] tell me man it's [ __ ] rough dude it uh.

and you see the collective everyone everyone  in the [ __ ] room the exact same way dudes. have been 25 years had a [ __ ] 30-year  master chief in there same [ __ ] thing. like why why the [ __ ] didn't you say it i want  a [ __ ] answer tell me i didn't have one like. i wasn't ready you better [ __ ] get ready like if  any of you dudes go back home and you don't jump.

on the first building and scream from the [ __ ]  rooftops this [ __ ] will save you and [ __ ] you. don't be a senior man but secret not with  this [ __ ] i would have been so much better. off if people would have just said it like  this happened and this is how i'm feeling. it's okay to not be okay this [ __ ] is [ __ ]  this is life man like as bad as we want to feel. like we're universal soldiers and [ __ ] dolph  lunger and jean-claude we're not like we're grown.

ass men that have kids they call us papa you gotta  stay up late and do homework we gotta drop kids. off on school buses and you got to get on a [ __  ] airplane and fly away and never see them again. you got to be okay with that um and it's a hard  thing to do especially when you do it solo when. you never say it not that it's not there it's  there it's on the forefront of everybody's mind. and you're just not saying it so we had a  beautiful um beautiful couple hours processed. a lot of [ __ ] had a nice family dinner  and we're just constantly just on topic.

talking about just everything [ __ ] man i  felt so relieved to be able to just say it. but i hadn't said it yet yeah i hadn't said a  [ __ ] thing yet we wake up the next morning. and we're gonna do five meow um dmt we sent  up a couple guys and they were saving me. last um i i think maybe they thought i was  gonna have a conniption um everybody knew.

i was really working through some [ __ ] and they  just didn't know how bad it was um and i laid back. um you know we smoked a five laid back and i've  never cried like that in my whole [ __ ] life. every ounce of pain i have caused my wife i've  caused my kids and anyone else i felt right then. and i did it over and over i was chasing the  release all this negative [ __ ] had filled up. and it was coming out of my mouth and i  couldn't stop it i just i needed to purge.

all of this hate that i had inside me and  it was really just hatred for myself it um. they told you you'll know when you're done  you'll wake up and it could be on the the. first dose you'll be on the fifth dose it  doesn't matter you'll know when you're done. and i rolled over and i was done like  i was at complete peace with everything.

like i've never felt so alive i've  never felt so connected to this earth. i've never wanted to go strap on body armor  and deploy more in my entire [ __ ] life i. felt like i had a superpower we all did and we  all talked about it i feel like i know something. no one else on this earth knows it's like you  do it's like you have a secret no one else knows. like this medicine will save everybody [ __  ] i wish i could just give to everybody right. now and fix everybody that's not how it works um  and we're still processing all this information.

so we've done that we do our final  ceremony and we're flying home the next day. they've uh we've been in river city there's no  phones there's no email there's no nothing we. had to write a letter home um and they basically  gave us a blanket statement they were like hey. send this text out to your significant other  everybody's married so send it out to your wife. it says hey i'd love to um i'm through with the  ceremony i can't wait to see you and i can't wait.

to tell you about everything that i've experienced  blanket statement and i knew patsy was itching. um to hear from me and we haven't heard from  days and your river city on friday and now it's. on monday at like noon so we're in san diego  we're at an airbnb waiting for our flights. and um like okay because you know we're  all business partners all the wives are. interconnected so you can't text your  wife before i text mine yeah right it's. like all right ready three two we all  send it all their phones go off not mine.

she's probably at the gym i hit her hit  her location she's at the house okay. send another text hey are you available for  a call i call the house they don't answer. click back on location she's not  sharing her location with me anymore. what's strange call her cell  phone straight to voicemail. the [ __ ] like maybe the kids are on  the phone maybe they're just swiping up.

they're watching youtube  whatever so i let it go um. three or four hours go by nothing and i know the  other wives have talked to them they're not saying. anything to me they haven't heard anything and  they're tight like all the they're we're tied. we get a drive to the airport we get to the  airport and i'm on uh i'm on pins and needles man. i can't even [ __ ] breathe because i have the  secret and i don't know how it's gonna get out. and now i'm a certain question like does she  know she find out about the affairs what the.

[ __ ] is going on we get into the airport um  we stop in a layover in atlanta and i power on. my phone and there's a notification that pops up  that says um password's been changed to my email. that's weird and then i go to log on to i  had a ghost uh instagram account um that i've. run all these affairs on and she had hacked into  that she changed the password and opened it up and.

she opened up on friday when we went river city  and she had all day friday all day saturday. all day sunday and all day monday to read through  everything i had said and done the last two years. everything and you're a team guy so you know  exactly what those were and she read it all and. at the very end of it um she found out that one of  the one people i was having a favor was pregnant.

oh [ __ ]. so i don't know any of this i just know that  now she's in there and now i'm panicking disco. and now i'm telling them oh my god like  she's hacked into my instagram account. like she knows like we don't  know we don't know we don't know. we landed virginia beach we drive back to  the shop all the wives are there except mine.

take a big breath and i walk upstairs in  my office and every [ __ ] thing i own is. some cardboard boxes sitting in my office  everything and there was just printouts of. all these text messages that i'd been sending  out screenshots of pictures and all kinds of. there's a there's everything in there and i knew. that's it you know coming back from that  one there's no coming back it's heavy man um.

and i uh i saw the other wives give everybody  a hug and i um i looked up a coal kissed him. on cheek told him i loved him and um  he said i'd call him in a little bit. and i had no intention of calling him in a  little bit i jumped in my truck and i drove. straight out to uh to sandbridge right out by the  ocean and i backed my truck up right next to uh.

right next to the command gate and i sit there in  my truck and i contemplated everything i had done. my entire [ __ ] life from the fall out with  my parents to the you know having kids and the. affairs and everything in between actions overseas  everything i had ever done it was so crystal clear. it was like i had superhuman memory for  the first time i remembered everything. but it wasn't anything positive it was  just all the terrible [ __ ] i had done. it was in the forefront of my mind and  i didn't have the courage to call patsy.

i didn't um thinking about um thinking about  making that phone call and her not answering. but her just dismissing me i couldn't do it  um all i wanted to do was see my kids that. was it just let me see my two girls just  let me give you one [ __ ] glimpse of them. and i'll be out of your hair  just let me say goodbye to them. and i'm uh i'm parked over there and she called  me out of the [ __ ] blue just called me and.

she was tracking me um colette actually  followed me so he knew where i was going. she tracked my location knew exactly what i was  gonna do and she called me and she's like hey um. i need to see you let me see you  [ __ ] face to face right now. is that okay had you made your  mind up how you're gonna do it. yep i shoot myself right in front see that truck.

made a video for the kids whole thing  selfie video that's a [ __ ] man. so she found you she [ __ ] drove  up parked right next to me um. she got out of that car like she had a thousand  times and i was sitting on tailgate and uh. she walked over to me i'm sitting on  the tailgate and she walked right in. between my legs and pulled my glasses  off my [ __ ] face and she cried um.

i've never seen a woman cry like that. bought her [ __ ] eyes outside or died i  mean um one of those uncontrollable ones with. [ __ ] just coming out of your face and um. i was trying to tell her how sorry i was  how much i regretted everything and um.

she looked at me right in the [ __  ] eyes and she knew that i was back. it's the weirdest thing you can't explain it um. but she looked at me and my eyes were clear for  the first time i was off all pain meds when i. woke up from ibogaine never had another painkiller  no cymbalta no adderall no copenhagen no nothing. no affairs nothing since then but she saw it she  saw that i was completely sober for the first time.

ever and she looked me right in [ __ ] eyes and  she said are you willing to try to work this out. i said absolutely and she was like i  don't know if that means we're married. but she's like i can't have you kill yourself  she's like these [ __ ] kids need you too much. the shop needs you don't do this these families  like you and me can you and me can figure out a. common ground and that's all i wanted i knew we'd  never stay married i don't [ __ ] deserve her.

i just didn't want to lose  at all i didn't want her to. i didn't want to end it like that and we  went back we had a super hard conversation um. and she asked me she's like i  want to know everything right now. and i [ __ ] told her everything i fell on my  sword and for the first time in my life i didn't. i didn't filter a [ __ ] thing i sent it the whole  way i told her every ounce of it every detail. how long had been going on why had been going on.

and what i'm gonna do now um and i told her i was  like i don't want i don't want you to stay with. me i don't want you to stay married to me i just  want i want the opportunity to make it up to you. just give me one [ __ ] chance to prove to you  every day that i'm [ __ ] sorry like i don't. need to be forgiven just give me the opportunity  to make it okay and every day i wake up with that. in the forefront of my mind like i'm going to  show you today how committed i am i'll show.

you how far i'm willing to go for the family  and that's the that's the goal every day and. ever since that [ __ ] day since i've landed in  virginia beach we have never been better it's um. [ __ ] it's hard to say man but we have never  been better my kids have never my kids have. never loved me more it's weird my oldest called me  dj until i retired all of them yeah and now it's.

like that's my why now. it is like i'm the luckiest [ __ ] dude i know  i am and i don't deserve to be i don't deserve. i don't deserve to have her i don't deserve  to have those kids but i'll [ __ ] take it. um she stuck with it through all that [ __ ] she  [ __ ] did man she stuck through with all of that. everything she's [ __ ] been through all that [  __ ] i put her through not the affairs like that.

life and teams of me was [ __ ] rough man um i  mean she used to look forward to me being gone. all i cared about with that [ __ ] place i  did i just i cared about the teams i just. i wanted to do that i didn't  want any distractions and then. i let it consume me and then i needed to find i  needed to find something else skydiving i couldn't. do that anymore now what now we're doing this it's  the worst thing that's ever happened to me it's.

the worst thing i've ever done and it's the only  thing in my life that i wish i could take back. the rest of that [ __ ] i'll take the scars i'll  take the bad memories i'll take the look on her. face that's what keeps me up at night just the  breach of loyalty she trusted me everybody did. they trusted me to to do her right and i [ __ ]  didn't i let my ego take control it [ __ ] sucks.

some [ __ ] heavy [ __ ] man yeah that is  some uh real heavy [ __ ] that's an amazing. woman no [ __ ] if we think back to not going to  mexico just imagine if that happens on a tuesday. she finds out there's no mexico yeah  i'm the same way that i was before. i wouldn't be here i was too [ __ ] suicidal yeah  like i mean i was hinging on it like i was man.

i was just i was itching for a reason and that  was my reason without her man i wouldn't be here. yeah i was actually gonna have her call in but uh. things didn't go as planned but we're wrapping  this up but i got to tell you man you've got to be.

one of the most resilient people i've ever [ __  ] met that is uh been through a lot of [ __ ]. it's a daily stroke it is mine like that [ __ ]  road ain't easy and i'll tell you what after i um. after the whole thing kind of came out you know it  spread through the community like [ __ ] wildfire. i was surprised how many  other people it happened to.

a [ __ ] ton of people a bunch of people that i  knew i had no [ __ ] idea like i mean cheating. to it's a common theme in the military i mean it  just is gone the road a lot it's a common thing. i feel like she should got an exemption it's like  i owed that to her you've been through enough. you didn't deserve some [ __ ] typical team  guy piece of [ __ ] cheating on you didn't. she's [ __ ] perfect and i took her  for granted it's [ __ ] terrible.

every day i wake up i'm going  to prove to you one more time. that's a struggle she said that when uh when  i talk to her that every day that's the first. thing you say when you guys wake up yep it's  the truth i mean she keeps me accountable. and that's what i needed i needed  someone to hold me accountable. it's like since that's happened.

i mean we turned over um the gold star  thing started right after that and it's like. every day i'm dealing with  that and i'm also dealing with. everything else that goes along  with it so i mean me and her. we're thick as thieves now i mean we have to  be like put our backs against the wall just. you and me at the end of the day it's just this  the rest of it's just noise it doesn't matter.

it's good for you like the big thing about mexico  it doesn't matter the only thing that matters just. family things i control things i can reach out and  grab and pull in everything else it's fake social. media it's not real people pretend like they're  happy and they're [ __ ] not and i see it now. i know exactly who that guy is i know exactly  the pain he's in under the pain that she's in.

doesn't have to be that way if we just open up and  we just say it can save people like i'm sick of. people killing themselves over what feels like a  a mountain of time it's not it doesn't have to be. yeah no i think we were just more open  about it just say it be a lot better off. if you have one piece of advice for guys coming  out now because we're hitting 20 years you know.

what would it be you guys transitioning yep  it's gonna be a lot harder than you think it is. i see a lot of guys who do a failed  transition now because they try to do it alone. you didn't do anything in the military alone  nothing you didn't you didn't write your own. eval you didn't do anything you didn't do your own  med checkups you didn't you had a team supporting.

you the entire way through guys try to get  out and they try to reinvent themselves into. something brand new with no experience and they  try to do as a singleton and when it doesn't fail. so damn good they hit rock bottom like why  like i get it you want to go to goldman sachs. that's awesome you're the only navy seal  in that [ __ ] place are you gonna talk to. are you gonna have a conversation with when  you're having a bad day a [ __ ] bad day what. are you gonna do you're gonna call everybody  else is busy like you have to have people to.

check in with i think that's the other thing  that saved us after mexico we just say it. like there was open dialogue in that place now  all the gold star kids are in there we just say. it like we're not we're not having this [ __ ]  anymore we have open forum conversations like. you got some in your mind say it say  it right [ __ ] now don't hold it. don't let it faster it won't get better with  time you won't just get over it in five years. you won't it'll compound it'll snowball and it'll  consume you um well i'm glad you're spearheading.

that yeah i appreciate it i got one last question  you have kids after all you've been through. all those deployments all those injuries mental  physical would you want your kid doing that.

yes and no if they were gonna  do it with true believers. with the right crowd that dedicated to  the mission um and really obsessed with it. absolutely if it turns into uh some  water down thing in 15 or 20 years where. it becomes like a part-time thing no  in my opinion that career field um.

special operations in general it cannot be a  part-time approach you can't mass-produce that. you need people that'll obsess over every detail  the nation deserves it i have a kid who's lucky. enough to be a part of that absolutely but i don't  want some watered down i don't want that it's too. dangerous to have that it's like the only way to  do just do it right do it the best your ability um. i know i do it all over again i do every ounce  of it except for the last two years as far as.

military every bit that i hated every time i was  [ __ ] somebody it's all part of the story i was. exactly where i needed to be doing exactly  what i needed to do and i'd do it all again. well man i just want to say it was  a real honor interviewing and uh.

seriously truly it was an honor i appreciate it. so anybody looking to find you the links are  below and man i just wish you the best of success. and most happiness i appreciate  it thanks for having me on cheers.

you.