Transcript of #133 John "Shrek" McPhee - The Sheriff of Baghdad

John Shrek McPhee.

Welcome to the show, man.

Thank you.

It's been a long time coming, huh?

I thought I should have been the first guest, if you ask me. I know you got hundreds of requests from people. I know. I know. You had to over the years from people. No, yeah.

Oh, yeah. We get a lot of requests. You're one of the top requests. So here you are.

I feel good.

Here you are.

Just so you know, like, probably my people were hitting you, you know what I mean? Like, why is my boy not in there?

You got a lot of them. You got a lot of. You get a lot of them. But, yeah, I've been hiring you up for kind of tracking you for, man. I don't know. Probably. Probably close to ten years now. When did you get out? 1111.

Yeah. Like spring, summer. Eleven.

Right on. Yeah.

I've been tracking you since you left your last job.

Really?

Uh huh.

What was. Which job?

I know your bosses.

Oh, which ones? Ninja.

Toby.

Toby.

Toby.

What's his other name?

Toby.

Like, okay. Yeah, man, I haven't seen.

I know a lot of guys a long time. I know, I know.

Like, Toby, that was a contractor now.

His staff now back to Contra.

Oh, is he?

Man, Beltway is rough.

That guy was switched on.

He's awesome.

Sure.

He still is, actually. Me and him, when he was in group, he was my. We hit all the competitions. Pistols, sniper shit. We just crushed. Like, we were doing the sniper comp one time. And they're like, the silly stage was like they had all these pictures hung at like 20 yards. So they're gonna show you a picture. You had to pick it, shoot it, and then one shoe shot, right? The second guy had to like shoot some steel with the pistol. Kind of lame by today's standards, but it was as good as it got back then, right? And like, literally the fastest time in the middle, you know, was like a minute 30. And like. So toad, we talk about it and he's like, he is little. Slightly faster with a pistol than me all the way. Missed that. That wouldn't have happened with me, but he missed one. But we made up the time anyway. Yeah, they're like. They show him the picture and he's like, fourth one from the left. I'm like, pow. He turns around, he's like, ping, ping, bing, bing, bing, bing. And then the guy's like, 12 seconds. I was like, is that good?

He's like, the winner was at a minute 30. It was like, yeah, rock on. You know what I mean? And then like, yeah, we used to just crush these comps all the time. Great guy.

Yeah, yeah. I thought he had left to kind of go your route, but.

So, yeah, he's kind of national guarding it right now, helping the guys he's in and out of, you know. You know how that works. Kind of trying to do it all still.

Right on, man. God bless him.

Yeah.

Hey, well, if he's not listening to this, tell him I said hello. And if you are listening. Toby.

Yeah, hello? Yeah, what's up? What's up? Like I'm saying a to the microphone, like, he's up there. Yeah.

But.

Well, you got quite the extensive career to cover and so we're going to hit as much of it as we possibly can. Thank God you didn't go Air Force, huh? How different your life would be if that would have happened.

Dude, I'd be a jet mechanic at the airport. You know what I mean? Maybe I'd have a nice vest on. What if I got the. The cone lights like, you know what I mean? You don't know. I could be good at that.

That's right. That's right.

And then the cone lights could have spawned me, like dancing in the cage in gay clubs. You know what I mean? That I'm rich. You know what I mean? Like it. Actually, that wouldn't have been bad either. Now that I think about it. That's a pretty good route.

Yeah, I guess so.

But quick introduction, not that you need one, but I. Here we go. John Shrek McPhee, you are a master instructor and subject matter expert, also known as the sheriff of Baghdad or Shrek. You are a retired US army special operations sergeant major with over 20 years of distinguished service. You specialized in various special minute unit special mission units, accumulated extensive combat experience across multiple theaters. You are one of, if not the only one to pull off. Pull off a successful solo raid in Afghanistan. Aside from the Singleton mission into Tora Bora, you've had hundreds of solo missions in Iraq and was a taxi driver in Baghdad.

You also burned a lot of cars. Can't wait to get into that.

My favorite pastime. If anyone's out there and got a picture of me burning cars, yo, hit me with that shit right now. Through divorces and stuff. I don't. You know what I mean? So there's guys out there got these picks. I want them.

You are the former boss of Tim Kennedy and called one of the greatest warfighters of all time by Kennedy. Since retiring, you have been a trailblazer and video diagnostic training, analyzing shooting techniques with unparalleled precision. Through a specialized app, you created SOB tv, which is the number one online platform for military, law enforcement and civilians. Interested in leadership gear reviews, mindset, firearms training, home defense, and military history. Your mantra is efficiency of speed and accuracy applied simultaneously with perfect technique. You realized after years in the military you weren't the funny guy anymore and wanted to change that. So today, you strive to be funny and positive every day of your life.

Amen.

Amen. Amen.

Couldn't have said it better.

And you're a family man.

I am. I am. Yeah. Yeah. I do a lot of things, man. Like, I tell people all the time on the range, like, this shooting shit is like, 3% of what I could do. The other 97%, like, we should talk about that. You know what I mean?

Yeah. Yeah.

But I never get to showcase that. Cause we're just on the range, you know?

Well, I bet that's an eye opener for him.

I don't think. I think anyone when I say that. I think most people just laugh, think I'm talking shit, but, like, I'm kind of serious. You know what I mean?

Yeah. Yeah.

Well, so before we get too in the weeds and what I want to.

Do is do complete life story on.

You starting a childhood, going through your.

Career, and into what you're doing today. But before we dive into that, we just got a couple things to go through.

One is I have a subscription account on Patreon.

There are top supporters that have been with us since the beginning. It's just a growing, awesome community to be a part of.

And one of the things that I give them the opportunity to do is.

Ask each guest a question.

Yes.

Here we go.

Fan questions. I love this. Let's go.

All right, so this is from Greg. Greg, what's the scariest moment you've ever.

Been in outside of war?

Mmm. Scariest moment I've ever been in outside of war, man. I don't think. I don't think that's a thing. You know what I mean? Like, when you're a badass, you got it like that. Like, fear is obviously not a problem for me. I don't know. I think I was scared of a lot of stuff as a little kid. Scared of the dark, right? But I don't know if I have a fear, and I have one fear, and I don't like shots.

I mean, it could be farting on a first date. I don't know what it is, you know?

Shots, I don't care about. Yeah. Shots, man.

Not a vaccine guy, huh?

Well, I don't like anything piercing my skin. I think. I think that's the. Anything that pierces my skin and blood might come out. I'm not sure if I'm super cool with that. You know what I mean? So shots is always a big deal, you know, and, yeah, I've been married, and, you know, like, you gotta go get your shot. And I always allow somebody to administer medicine on the inside of my body. You know what I'm saying? Like, I'm allowing you to do this, so let's get it. You know what I'm saying? But shots, man, I don't that at all. You know what I mean?

I do. I do.

Just the whole needle thing is a turn of, like. And it's not painful. It's not like I'm like, oh, my God, I hurt so bad. Like, I do jiu jitsu. Grown men try to pull my head off my body every day. It's not the pain. It's the. It's the anticipation of you're puncturing my skin, maybe, and blood's coming out. I don't know, but that's. That's my. One of my. Yeah, like that.

Roger that.

Next question.

This is from Alex.

Out of these 20 years of war.

And all the blood, sweat, and tears.

And heartache we all went through in this conflict, how do you feel when.

You found out that we were going to pull out of Afghanistan completely?

Yo, if you didn't read the fine print when you went in, which said we were going to this up on the way out. Not shocked. No. Shocker, man. We had a dude, I can't tell you how many conversations we had before we went in. This is where empires go to die. No shock. I'm not shocked. Anybody who's shocked, you, uh, check your pride a little bit, and don't be more mad than your boss is when this shit goes down. Like, because the reality is, is, like, I knew it was gonna end poorly the day I stepped foot on that dirt.

Did you really?

Yeah. Who didn't? You thought that was first day you got there? You thought it was gonna go well over there?

I didn't think it was gonna go well. I don't think it was going to. I didn't. I mean, I'd never envisioned the withdrawal, but I will say that I am enraged at how that went down.

Oh. I mean, it's a tragedy. We'll be fighting that equipment forever.

Yeah.

Like, that equipment just went to Iran. You know what I mean? You know the deal when Iran, China, the bad actors get all our shit one up it, and then we gotta figure out how to one up them. It never ends. But the reality is, like, this is exactly how I expected it to end. My first day in combat, even though I loved every day, I got rocketed and mortared, you know what I mean? Like, I knew it would end like that.

Interesting. How did you know? I mean, I'm just curious.

I just felt like everyone in the team rooms knew, you know what I mean? We're getting ready to go to Afghanistan. We're training. We're waiting for somebody in the government to do something, you know? Because from September to December, there's time in there to get in some reading, you know what I mean? Do some training, learn some shit. You know, read the Russian Aars. What is it? The bear over the mountain is the russian book or whatever. Read that shit and you'll see, like, we did the same as them. The only thing that we succeeded over the Russians in Afghanistan was cleanliness, because that's what killed the Russians. They didn't wash their hands, you know what I mean? They're out raping people, then licking their fingers. I don't know. They're doing. You know what I mean? But dirtiness, dysentery, like, that's what killed the Russians, not the Afghans.

Interesting. I don't know a lot about that, but you talk a lot about military history. Maybe we should start paying attention to whatever that tv show you got is. But we'll get into the weeds on that. So last thing before we get started.

Everybody gets a gift.

Yes. I brought some for you, too. Oh, I love this gift. You want me to do this first?

Go ahead.

Okay.

Go ahead.

These are the gummy. Okay, so real talk. I don't watch podcasts.

All good.

I have no idea what you normally talk about. I probably caught about maybe 10 seconds to maybe 30 seconds of your podcast and, like, different clips of different people saying stuff over the years. I do know about the gummy bears. I just got one question. Is there weed in these or anything?

Do you want there to be?

No.

Well, there isn't, then.

I. It's candy.

It's candy. It's just candy.

So first off, this shit's gonna get crushed. Hey, hey, I got a friend. I'm not gonna name any names. He might be with me right now. This is all he's been wanting and talking about at Machado camp. Like, man, we're gonna get these gummy. Can I have some gummy bears? I couldn't be happier with this. Thank you. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Let's see. Both of these the same?

Both the same. That's it.

Boom. And then there are some stickers in the bottom or something.

Is there some stickers in there? Nice, nice, nice.

Be like, shameless plug.

You put that on your helmet.

I will, I will. I'll put it on the back of my body armor. Like, I love it. I couldn't be happier about these gummy bears. I was like, if there. If there's weed, and I'm like, I don't really gummy bears with weed. Like, I could eat the whole bag. It doesn't do shit to me. I don't know why. So, like, they're worthless to me. You know what I mean? But candy, I love candy. So my inner fat kid is strong. Super strong. Okay. I brung this for you. There's a ton of shit in here, right? So have at it.

Oh.

So team sob backpack, right?

Perfect.

We give these out, like, at the members parties and stuff. Like, we also give out, like, shot glasses where you can wear it around your neck. So you always got it at the parties. Like, so we give out a lot of stuff, man. Okay, so that is a cooling schmog, right?

I.

So you know schmogs, right? Wear it around your head. I made them out of cooling material.

Nice.

Look, I'm on the range all the time. We talk about this, right? So it's big enough to. Where it'll hold enough water. Where if you wear it, like a schmog I just dumped, like, it'll. It'll hold a lot of water so it stays cool longer. You know what I mean? Like, most cooling towels are, like, this big, and it's like you can barely tie it around your neck. And then it's, like, one layer, and it just dries quick, right? So I just do the kind of diamond fold. I tie a small knot in it around my neck, and I just dump water in the back when I'm on the range. They work great.

What else do we got in here?

Yeah, the team Sob t shirt. Welcome to the team. That's a good looking shirt, I gotta say. One of my favorites. Classic.

Thank you.

Clean lines.

Another one?

Yeah, just in case.

Just.

Well, I didn't know what size you were.

Two is one and one is nine, so.

Yeah. Hey, you got one where you could cut the sleeves off it, do your hero shots. You know what I mean? Cigar in your mouth. M 60. Like, hey, people.

Oh, nice.

A sling rifle. Slings. Yeah. So we're on Amazon prime. Now, you can get these on Prime, 100% made in America. I make this myself. Made it myself. Basically, two point sling. Adjustable. And then I make my own QD. So you can see I have them machined. The reason I make my own QD is the older qds with the, like, the barrel ring. You know what I'm talking about? This crimp. Crimps the ball bearings in, so when you pull it out, the whole thing comes out of the rifle. Once that thing's together, it'll never fail. Unless you break the socket or something. There's no way you can get them ball bearings out of there with our manufacturing process.

Thank you.

So, 100% very compliant. Made in America, baby.

Nice.

Yeah.

Made in America. You don't hear that very often anymore.

Yeah, well, I was hoping maybe one day, if the army's listening, you know what I mean? It's very compliant, guys. 100% very compliant.

Those gummy bears are made in America, too, so maybe the army's listening to that, too.

There you go, people. Get this in that mre. Okay? So I gave you a Sig holster. I know you're a Sig guy. So that's the little Sig condom holster, also on prime, made in America. Actually, an ex police chief makes those for me. And then, basically, look. Leather. Why leather?

I love leather.

I love leather. Right? And then we kind of started when I early as a commando, we started with, like, leather and, like items. And then somewhere we transitioned to holsters, to, like, that nylon piece of shit, you know, the old. I don't know, eagle. I don't know who made it. I'm not naming any name. Sorry, Eagle. If it wasn't you, ever was. I mean, it is what it is. Like, that holster lost more guns than any other holster because the nylon won't stay tight, and the gun's too heavy, and it'll just pop out. That's where the lanyards came from. Right? And then Kydex came along, and I started using Kydex. And then what would happen is, I'd use the kydex. I'd run the o course. And I had this really nice Kydex. EDC. I'm running the EDC. Running the o course one day, and it cracked, and. And this is when I knew I had a fupa. You know what I mean? Like. Cause it pinched my fupa, you know what I mean? It cracked and pinched my fupa, and I had to pull it off of there. You know what I'm saying? Before then, I didn't know I had a fupa.

You know what I mean? I thought, this is of legends. And it fucking cracked. And then I was, like, fucking done with the kydex. Inside my pants, outside my pants, fucking fine. Inside my pants. I went back to leather. So the Kydex holster that pinched my fupa, I made a copy of it and out of leather. And that's all I've been wearing ever since, man, this is.

This is cool.

Yeah. And we call it the condom because it's minimalist.

Yeah, yeah.

And I don't know anybody else that's.

Making leather inside the waistband.

It's because it's always. You'll shoot yourself in the Walmart parking lot. Because if you google leather holsters, this is what all the Kydex manufactures propaganda. This is what they'll all tell you. The guy shot himself dry firing waiting on his wife to go shopping in Walmart. It's like, yo, time the fuck out. Let's ask a real question. Why the fuck is this guy dry firing in the Walmart parking lot while he's sitting down? Can we ask that question first before we blame the fucking holster? And then if you're gonna do that, what's this guy's level of fucking training? Can we ask that? Like, I got some questions before we blame the gear? You know what I mean?

Yeah. What else do we got?

Oh, boot kits. So your shoelaces, you feed them through the thing and then you put the clamp. So all you gotta do is pull it and go to tie your shoes.

Nice.

Kind of like a Solomon, but normally I put those, you know, the big Solomon quests. Yeah, the quests. Yes. The boot in the picture. That's what I use it for.

Literally, all this stuff is made in the USA.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, I give you some pens. I got. I made purple markers this year because I just got my purple belt. Thanks, Hickson. Congratulations. I gave you a couple pens. Those pens write really nice, you know. I figured you could use. Impress your friends with a sheriff of Baghdad, penniless, some stickers. Yeah. I gave you the kind of gamut of schwag. You got some super push in there. You got that prison wallet, you know what I mean? You got the. Stop sucking dick for beer money. They're all in there, man. Like. Yeah, the slaughterhouse chaos is my jam. That's real talk.

Nice.

Is that it?

Got one more.

One more.

Yeah. Slaughter things.

Perfect.

Yes.

Beanie slaughter things.

I know. You look like you could keep your head warm, just like me. You know what? I mean, like, I don't got too much insulation, just like you up there. I'm just not brave enough to do what you do yet, but I'm. I think I'm there.

Just get it over with. Decision. Well, I don't know if it'll be the best decision you've ever made, but.

It sure saves a hell of a lot of time in the mornings.

Amen. Yeah, I kind of. I kind of do the one size top or bottom myself.

Nice.

Ain't got that much, but.

Well, let's get into your life story. You ready for this?

Let's go.

Yeah, let's do it. All right. So, once again, started childhood, move through your career into what you're doing now. And thank you for. Thank you for all the gifts I'm lacking.

Thanks, man. Yeah, well, you need anything, just hit me. You know what I mean? I'm easy.

Perfect. I will. Where'd you grow up?

Shaghetto or Chicano? However you want to say it. I grew up on the south side. We lived by this as a little kid. I lived by the steel mills until the steel mills shut down. All my grandparents, my mom, like, we lived in one of them row houses where it was like, my aunt, my grandparents, us, they all walked to the steel mill. Walked back at the end of the day, and then one day, the steel mill was locked and, like, you know, fucking south Chicago. That's all it wrote, man.

What were you. Do you have any siblings?

Yeah, I have an older brother, couple years. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He'll probably watch this. He watches. He loves this shit. Like, actually, he tells me all the time. I say the same. No matter how many years I've been telling these stories, they're always the same. That's what he tells me. He's like, I heard you on the show. I'd be like, what'd you think? You're always the same. I'm like, thanks, man. At least I'm fucking consistent, if not any fucking thing, you know what I mean? But, yeah, me and my brother are close. I talk to him all the time.

What were you guys into as kids, man?

What were we into? We fucking played in the woods. We wrestled. We didn't wear helmets and rode bikes. We jumped ramps that were sketchy and wiped out. Let's see. As teenagers, we drove drunk just like everyone else. Typical fucking shit, you know what I mean? Like, just boys being boys with kind of no guidance. You know what I mean?

Yeah. What were you. I mean, were you into sports? Student?

Yeah, I was. Yeah. I've always been that 70. Like, what's the passing 70%? Is that where you pass? Cause that's, like, where I like to hover. You know what I mean? Like, so as a kid, like, I'd come home with like one d and all c's, you know what I mean? They're buying me ice cream, you know what I mean? This kid's gonna catch another beating. Cause he got a bee, you know what I mean? Like, it kind of wasn't fair, but I don't know, I didn't really ever complain.

What were you. I mean, what was your passion as a kid? Was it sports? Was it wilderness hunting?

I worked. I was a mechanic. I worked. That's all I did is I worked on trucks.

No shit.

Yeah.

You grew up. When did you start working?

I probably started working when I was like, 810. My stepdad was a truck driver. He owned his own truck, and I would just. I'd service it, adjust the brakes, grease it weekly. Like, I do the kind of weekly services or monthly services. So by the time I was like fucking ten, I could service a semi truck.

Okay.

And then I pumped gas in a gas station where he worked out of with his truck. And then I kind of worked my way up until like, you know, I kind of did it all. And then later I got another job at another shop where I just welded. Basically what I did is there's a lot of gravel hauling trucks where I grew up. So, like, these gravel hauling trucks, like, the bed goes up and they're on unstable ground, they'll flip over. The truck may not always flip. It'll break the frame, crush, like, part of the wall of the trailer. I just. It take me like two, three weeks, but I'd rebuild the truck and trailer, make it a look exactly like it was. It just that part would be clean and the rest of this fucking thing would be dirty.

Wow.

That's what I did as a kid till I started.

I mean, you started working at eight. Was that out of necessity or you just.

I just. I think my stepdad scene, I was pretty handy mechanically and just started showing me stuff, you know what I mean? And then after a little bit, I could do it myself and any kind of. That's how I got allowance.

Did you like it? You still love it?

Yeah, I fucking loved it. Yeah, I love mechanical shit.

What got your interest into the military?

You know, I knew everyone in my family had been in the military. I kind of didn't know to what level at that point. I knew I would join. I was just making so much money as a welder and a mechanic, that, like, does it make sense? Right? Because until I was an e seven, I took a pay cut to join the army.

No shit. What age were you when you joined?

21.

21?

Yeah. So I was a welder and mechanic. I make good money. I mean, I was. I asked my boss one day, I was like, hey, how come I'm the guy that always gets these fucked up trucks in this fucking two week, three week rebuild process? Like, I want that easy shit. I won't be changing these tires in and out shit. And he's like, you're the only one with the mental capacity here. They could probably pull it off. And I was like, well, that sucks. And he's like, back to work. I'm like, okay, boss, I'm back to work.

I think I read something that said that you. There was a lot of fighting as a kid.

Yeah. High school, I fought a lot.

Why?

I was the only white guy. I just got. People just wanted to beat me up all the time, every day on the bus.

Every day?

Every day.

What age did that start?

Freshman year. Yeah, I had to ride a bus to school. The only white kid on the bus. Only white kid in my school. Kind of like school for bad boys, for fighting in other schools. So I was the only white guy. And I, you know, imagine being on a bus with 72 people who don't like you. You know what I mean? So I just got beat up every day. And at some point, I realized I'm never going to win, per se, right? But I can start doing better. And then what I started doing is, if you were going to jump me today, I'm going to make sure one or two of you are going to the hospital for a couple weeks. That's two less people I'm gonna deal with tomorrow. And if this goes on on a daily basis, you're gonna be ten or twelve people down super quick. Sure. You beat me up every day. Sure. Did I just focus on one person?

Where'd you learn how to fight?

On that fucking bus. On that fucking bus is where I learned to fight. And then eventually, the school paid for a cab. Cause every morning, the cops had to pull us over. Broken seats, broken windows broken. Arms broken, noses broken. And then it just got so expensive for the school, they just paid for a cab in his cab. Some rando would pick me up every night, see the cab? I'd go get in it, and they'd drive me to school.

Nice. Wow. Wow. Same for your brother?

No. My brother was smart. He went to like, smart guy school.

Gotcha. So this, what was this, like a disciplinary school?

Yeah.

What got you in there?

Fighting.

Fighting at the other school?

Yeah.

Who were you fighting over there?

Uh, you know, stupid high school kid shit, I don't even remember.

So you just like to fight?

Yeah. I'll fuck you up. If I think you wronged me, I will come fuck you up. I don't talk shit or nothing. I will tell you exactly what I'm gonna do. Don't fucking test me. And I'll tell you a funny story. I had a. He knows. Haley's probably listening to this. There's a warrant officer one day, right? Like, I don't know, giving me shit. Me and my team, like, whatever we're doing, whatever, he doesn't like it, he's a warrant officer. And I was like, if you don't get the fuck out of my shoot house, I'm gonna kick you in the fucking ass. And he's like, you can't touch me. I'm an officer. And I had a big, like, quest boot on or big Scarpa boot. I fucking muay Thai kicked that motherfucker in the ass so hard, he dropped, fucking, couldn't breathe. I think Timmy was there. I think Timmy watched this, you know, and like, he dropped a. Couldn't breathe. And I'm like, say another word, motherfucker, and I will fuck you up now. And he never said a word after that.

I'll bet he didn't.

So, yeah, even as a kid, like, I don't talk shit. I'm telling you what's gonna happen and this will happen, and I'm just waiting for the start point.

So you were never an instigator?

No. No, I ain't gonna start shit.

It was all self defense.

Yeah. You fuck with me, I'm gonna take it to you. You know what I mean? Like, I don't fuck around. I think I was a little less ruthless in regular high school. Before the bus, after the bus, like, yo, fuck you.

Damn.

Fuck this. I'm not in the mood.

So whose decision was it to put you in that school? Was it parents or was it the school decision?

School, parents, they all hated me.

Right on.

But, you know, I mean, I had a dicey childhood to begin with, so, like, I didn't give a fuck what my parents thought.

Really?

Yeah, I think it. I think both me and my brother, like, by the age of, like, I don't know, he was maybe 14, I was twelve. I think we both knew we were more mature than my mom and my parents.

Why do you say that?

My parents were young people. They were young when they had us. They drank all the time. They wanted a party. You know what I mean? Like, they weren't really great parents.

Are you. Are they still alive?

No, I don't have any family. My family dies early.

Really? Yeah.

I don't have anybody but my brother, so they're all dead.

Do you mind if I ask what happened?

Let's see. My dad died at like 50. Already outlived him of some weird fucking shit I don't even know about. And then my mom died. She is a smoker, so she had lung cancer. Kind of died once from that. Came back to get brain cancer later to die later. You know what I mean?

Damn.

So. But, yeah, they were young, they were drinkers. My mom was divorced. Just like most women, once they get divorced, some. You know how some women after they get divorced, they just stay bitter. That was my mom. But she became bitter with everybody. She argued with her sister, she argued with her parents. She hated everybody. Right. And then me and my brother were like, there's got to be a better.

Way than this mandev. So was there. I mean, when you left home, was there any dialog with them?

Was, man, I left home at, like, we left home at twelve and 14 and we just did crime to eat till I was older. And then I worked.

What do you mean you did crime?

We did crime for food.

Like what?

Fucking robbing shit, fucking stealing food. Fuck anything. You know what I mean? Targets, opportunity.

I don't know what you mean.

And we fucking stole shit. I mean, I can't be more clear.

I mean, you were stealing food to eat or you were stealing stuff to sell.

Yeah. No, yeah, yeah. Stealing stuff to sell for food or. Yeah, yeah. That's what we did.

What did that. What age did that start? 1212.

Yeah.

So you started working at eight?

Yeah, worked till about this point. Me and my brother kind of went on our own. And then later I came back to working probably when I was about, I don't know, 15. I realized I had to put myself through school. So no matter where I lived, like, we lived in a brothel for a little bit, but.

You lived in a brothel?

Yeah.

Why.

Not a lot of places for a twelve year old to go.

How does a twelve year old get involved in a brothel and get a.

These are the people and your neighbors in south Chicago. These are your neighbors and family. You know what I mean?

Well, I want to hear about this. How did that. I mean, how did that happen. Did you get invited into the brothel to live?

Yeah, this lady took care of us. The lady that ran it kind of deal. She was like a hooker and a junkie. And I was just a little kid when I was twelve.

How was that conversation?

Nicest human being I ever met. She was great.

I mean, what instigated that to happen, though?

Um. Yeah. My, my, you know, the. The beatings will continue till morale improves. Even as a twelve year old. That's fucking, you know. Why are we fighting again? So me and my brother thought we could do better on our own. And we did.

Did she approach you?

Who? No, it's like a family friend. You know what I mean? Like, literally family and friends. Like when you grow up, your parents, like, you have cousins, uncles, people that know people. South Chicago is a little place.

How long did you live in the brothel?

I don't know, man. Probably a couple years.

Have you talked about this on anywhere else?

I've never told anyone this.

Well, I guess your brother's in for a surprise now, huh? So, yeah. I'm sorry, how long did you say you lived in there?

Yeah, like a year. I don't know. I don't even remember. But a little while we lived there.

I mean, can you describe maybe a little bit about daily life?

Yeah, we woke up, went to school, came back from school and then there'd be ladies in the house getting ready for work. They were normally gone all night. We live with this old guy. Actually owned the house. And as long as he got whatever he wanted, he didn't give a shit what they did. I don't know. I don't get it. It seemed weird. I'll never be in that situation, but I'm not judging. And then. Yeah, it was just kind of. Kind of regular, like no different than where I lived, except we were a little poor, which we didn't have money to begin with, you know?

Would you guys have a room there?

Yeah, we shared a room.

Customers coming in the house or is there.

No, normally they would go. Go wherever, do business.

Gotcha. Did you realize what was going on at the time, or.

Oh, yeah, you did. I mean, I could have been shooting heroin, doing heroin, doing co. I could have been doing it all. I just. I was a kid. I just wanted to get through school, put myself through school, right? And then figured I'd do something after that. I didn't know yet.

Shit. What was your relationship with your stepdad like? Was it.

You know, my mom was bitter, so he was only around when I was little. And then he was gone. And then it was like, boyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend. Fucking guys, man.

Shit.

So that's my childhood. Little dicey.

Yeah, I'm sure there's no worse for dive into there, huh? I'll bet there's a lot to dive into.

It's a long time ago.

Yeah. I mean, so when you left, I mean, you left at twelve?

Yeah. Lived on my own till I was like, I don't know, maybe 16. And then my mom kind of like, I don't know, kind of started to get her shit together. So I moved back with her, I lived with her, and then I lived with her until I joined the army.

How'd she get her shit together?

She just stopped being so fucking mean and drinking, so I don't know if the drinking stopped, but I don't know, she was just better. I don't know what that means. I don't know what her better was. I was just a fucking kid. Like, why I gotta be the fucking adult here all the time, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

So, yeah, I live with her, put myself through school all those years, went to school every fucking day no matter what. Walked myself fucking down the tracks in the fucking snow, you know what I mean? I wasn't barefoot. And then I didn't have to walk uphill both ways, but like, I had shoes and I walked to fucking school and miles to school every day just to make sure I went.

What kind of drugs was your mother into?

She just said alcohol.

Alcohol? No. Injectables?

Not that I'm aware of. No, I don't think she ever did anything like that.

Abusive?

Yeah, of course, alcohol. You know what I mean?

I got a question.

Yeah.

There's a lot of kids that are in this situation right now, today.

Yeah. Yeah.

So what would your advice be to a kid that's going through that?

Yeah, fucking do you go to school? Look, you're not gonna go anywhere if you don't go to school. Go to fucking school every day. School was a break from the bullshit in my fucking life, right? I didn't like school, I didn't learn. I still got C's, I still slept. You know why? Because this is sometimes I was fucking tired. Because who knows what craziness went out of my house last night, right? So I'd tell you, go to school, conduct your life. If you see, you're the fucking adult in any situation, I don't care your age, you're now the adult. Fucking act like it. You don't got a choice. You know what I mean? So you might as well embrace the life you think you want. So I went to school. I knew I didn't want to stay in a fucked up South Chicago my whole life.

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So you get in, you go to boot camp. How was that?

Fucking easy.

Was it easy for you, all that structure from.

Yeah.

Broken home life easy?

Yeah.

Did you like the structure?

No. Fuck, no. I don't like structure. I don't like fucking. I don't like leadership. I don't like being managed. You know what I mean? Like, I don't like any of that. But basic training was easy. Wake up, do your shit. Pretty fucking simple, you know what I mean? The garbage can is only going across the floor because it's scripted, and they probably do this every fucking month, you know? And as a guy who loves talking shit and being funny, at the time, these obscenities were new to me, and I thought that was great. And, like, they'd yell at somebody, and I just. I'm over there trying to hold back my laughter, and, you know, my drill sergeant would be like, do push ups. I mean, like, yes. You also don't. You know what I mean? Why? Cause I'm laughing again? Cause I think his obscenities are funny. Even when he'd yell at me, I thought it was funny. You know what I mean? So I thought basic training was great, man. I had a great fucking time. Loved every minute of it.

Where'd you go from there?

Rip? Back in the rip. Not rasp the rip days. Well, airborne school, then. Rip.

That was airborne joke. Yeah.

You did airborne school, right?

I did.

This is a joke. I thought it was a joke. You thought it was a joke?

I thought it was a joke.

It's a fucking joke. I was just hungover all the time, and then I get in trouble for buying beer for people. But, yeah, airborne school was just a joke. Besides getting out of the plane the first time, the rest was a joke.

And then you went to.

Yeah, and, like, literally, those motherfuckers showed up at, like, your air. You know how you graduate? You get that airborne beret. Yo, I got it ripped off my head and never seen that bitch again. You know what I mean? I would have liked to have had that now. You know what I mean? What the fuck is this? And then literally, they're like, load the fucking truck. So you throw your, like, two duffel bags on the truck. They don't say shit. And the truck drove away. We had to fucking run this truck down across post to the fucking rip barracks. Like, what the fuck? If it wasn't for the stop signs in the traffic, like, we'd have lost them. Never been able to. These motherfuckers just took off. It was like, what do we do? I was like, I think we follow our bags. And I just started, like, that's everything the army gave me. I can't just let these guys drive off with it. And then we ran to the rip barracks, and then those guys were fucking serious. Like, the army was a joke till then. And that's when I realized, like, the armies might be a joke, basic training, airborne school might be a joke, but these guys ain't fucking around at all.

You know what I mean? Like, the first time I seen a guy run the airfield at five minute miles, and I'm supposed to keep up. Like, what in the fuck is this? You know what I mean? Like, a dude took off so fast, I couldn't even. I just stood there and everyone's like, running. I'm like, oh, fuck now I'm like, waste. I'm never gonna catch up now. You know what I mean?

Did you? I guess I should make assumptions, but I would think that you didn't have a lot of respect for anybody. Any adults in your childhood? Because of your upbringing?

Yeah, I wouldn't say that at all. I respected people that earned respect. I didn't respect people who are just fucking. Fucking Karen's out there doing whatever the fuck they do, or whoever these. You know what I mean? I learned real quick people were who they were. And at face value, you're a fucking asshole or you're not, and I can figure that out quick.

Well, kind of. The reason I'm asking is it's. I mean, you grew up fighting. Obviously, the home life wasn't great. And so when you get to Ranger battalion and you see all these guys, these studs, you respect them.

Oh, yeah. I knew I was home. It's the first time like, I actually fit in somewhere in my life.

You fit in. What about it made me what.

Guys did what they said, you know what I mean? We're running the airfield in fucking x time. We come in at x time. Clean your fucking room. Your room's clean. No issues. You know what I mean? Like, it's the first time, like, people acted with responsibility. You know what I mean?

I do. Did you feel challenged?

Fuck, yeah.

At that point.

Daily. Daily. And then I was 21. I was able to drink on the weekends. They fucking hated me for that. Because, like, everyone drank because I was drinking. You know what I mean? So. And then I'll tell you, one day, this is the best thing. I zin rip. We get the hotel. We get the weekend off. We get the. Like, we go down to the hotel next to the Chickasaw club or whatever the fuck it was, so we could just walk over there, party, get back to the hotel, crash. I fell asleep by the pool and got sunburned. Like, bad sunburn, right? Cause I'm, like. I know I'm, like, three shades above pasty white right now, but it's only. Cause I was at my buddy's pool in Oklahoma City in his backyard. You know what I mean? So it doesn't, you know, ten minutes in the sun, and, like, my skin's gonna come off two days from now. Actually, three minutes. But I'm trying to be nice to myself. So I get sunburned bad, right? And then my sunburn, the skin's coming off. And the cadre, what do they tell me? Like, they were going to give me an article 15 for damaging us property.

And I'm, like, thinking, oh, no. Right? So what they do is, in the morning, on, like, the long runs, they'd make people pick me up and carry me for miles. So there'd be a guy on each ankle, just rubbing my ankles raw. You know what I mean? Skin's coming off anyway. Just rubbing my ankles raw, guy under each hip, my shoulders. Rub my shoulders raw. So, like, I had to do rip sunburned for, like, a week or two, and they abused me with that sunburn in every way they could.

Shit. What? How long is rip?

It's three weeks back then.

Three weeks?

Yeah.

What would you say the most challenging portion was for you?

Just staying hydrated.

Staying hydrated?

Yeah. They didn't fucking train us. They'd be like, all right, we're gonna learn map breathing. Anyone got any questions? Dumbest fucking question I ever heard. Everyone outside. We're gonna smoke you guys till we get a heat casualty. That's it. And then, like, you'd come back, like, someone would. Yes. Someone passed out. I couldn't take too much more myself. You know? You don't want to tell anybody.

So it was. So it's basically. It's just a beat down session to see who wants to be there.

I'll tell you this. The old rip that selection created guys that would not fucking quit. You know what I mean? Now, when I got the Ranger battalion, I didn't know shit about shit. You know what I mean? Like, that map reading class was mostly push ups out in the sun till someone passed out, you know? So, like, I felt like I didn't know shit when I got to Ranger battalion, but the reality is, like, fucking smart like tractor, strong like bull, man. I got this. You know what I mean?

So when you. I mean, how was the. How was the sense of accomplishment when you completed rip?

Yeah. Fuck. Hardest thing I ever done. Hardest thing I ever seen done in my life. And I just finished. You know what I mean?

Who'd you call?

I don't think I called anybody.

Didn't have anybody?

No.

Not your brother? Nobody.

Yeah. Yeah. I didn't call nobody.

So you show up to which ranger battalion?

First? I went to first.

Where is that?

Savannah.

Let's talk about walking in there for the first time.

Yeah. Yeah. I get to my platoon, right? I don't know. It's pretty good, you know, they made fun of me. I guess. I had a Chicago accent. I didn't know there was one. But guys would make fun of me, and they'd be like, oh, Adrian, you know what I mean? They'd make fun of the way I talk. No one really liked me. I don't think I was too popular. Like, who likes the new guy?

Was it like that back then? There was only a couple new guys.

Yeah. Like, the platoon would get, like, two new guys and, like, you're on shit detail till they get another one, you know? And then. Yeah, I just. You know, like, there was times where my squad leader's like, I'm gonna send the head private in here to square you away. Yeah, I just knocked that fool out in my room. You know what I mean? Like, walk out in the hallway, you got another private boss. Like. And then, like, you know, as I put in my time, you know what I mean? I became like, you know, one of the. You know. You know how it goes. You progress through the platoon, you know.

Who did you gravitate towards? I mean, you had to have somebody that kind of took you under the wing, correct?

I don't gravitate to anybody. I roll alone. I stand alone no matter where I am. I don't care if I'm gonna fit the other guys. And that's kind of the way I always seen it. And the whole mentor thing is lost on me.

Really?

Yeah.

Interesting.

Yeah. Everyone's flawed. How you gonna have a mentor? You know, there's guys that showed me shit, but, like, I never.

Aren't you mentoring people at sob tactical?

Um, I would say no.

No.

I mean, I think I'm a great role model. But I'm not, like, trying to convince you anything. I want you to be the best you you could be. So, I don't know, maybe I do mentor. Maybe it's just the way I see it. But, um, yeah, in the platoon, like, you know, and then, like, as I got up there, you know, as you know, I went to the sniper section. I was a. The company sniper forever. Like, what a fucking great job that was for me.

How long did it take you to get to sniper?

A long time. Probably like three and a half years. Took me like a year and a half to get to ranger school. Our platoon had so many guys on the list, you know what I mean? And then. And then you could jump the list, like, once in a while. They'd be like, okay, random pt test, highest score amongst the private gets the next slot. I'm not the fastest guy. Even though I could probably do the most push ups and sit ups, I'm not going to be the fastest guy on the run. So, like, some fucking little guy running that fucking, you know, eleven minute 2 miles is going to fucking crush me.

Yeah.

So I had to wait till my time.

Let's talk about. I mean, did you always want to go to sniper?

Fuck, I didn't know. No one knew. I didn't know what that shit was back then. You know what I mean? They're like, you want to be a sniper? I'm like, yes. Why would I say no at that point? You know what I mean? I didn't really know what it entailed. But I can tell you this, like, great at navigation, I never get lost. Like, I'd lead the company. Like, and then, you know, like, I don't know, like, just company training one year, we're like, in Eglin Air Force Base. Like, I'm the sniper team. So I got to recon the route for the company. Like, I'd walk to the next creek and get in and just sit in for a little cool down. Like, get up, you know what I mean? And then I was like. And then I would start giving the company, like, where I got in the water and cooled down, I'd give that to as like, hey, this is where you need to move to next. You know what I mean? Like, and they get to like, he told us to move to a creek. Like, you know what I mean? I don't know if.

And then, like, some days when it was super hot, the commander would be like, creak to creek. Just like that. I'm like, okay. And he'd tell everyone, get in the water, cool down, keep moving. Right. But, yeah, I like the autonomy of it. I'll do my job. You ain't got to worry about me. I'll get this shit done. You know what I mean? You guys just make sure you do your shit. What?

What, did you deploy with them Rangers?

Yeah, man. I jumped in Iraq in 91.

No shit?

Yeah. Fucking compound fracture, my fucking leg, right here. Yeah, I jumped in.

Was that pre sniper?

Oh, as a private. As a private, when I jumped in.

Oh, man, I gotta hear about this. So how long were you at Ranger battalion before?

About five years.

Five years?

Yeah. I wanted to stay. Like. It was my. It was my jam. It's where I thought I fit. And then, like, we had some asshole SAR major that was like. Like, dudes that were, like five and a half years were coming on orders to, like, Korea. I don't want to go to Korea. Like, I have nothing against. Nothing against Koreans, you know what I mean? Like, it's cold there. Like, I don't know what they do there. You know what I mean? Like, no interest ever in going to the DMZ for the army. Like, zero interest from this guy. Maybe that makes me a bad army guy. So fucking be it. But I was like, how can I control where I go? So I put in for the special forces selection.

Well, before we get there, let's go to the jump in Iraq.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean, it sounds. So you joined the military to become a mechanic. Yeah, first that didn't work out. So then you went airborne Ranger. I mean, did you. Was combat on your mind at all?

Fuck, yes. It's all you talk about as a young private and Ranger battalion. The news is, like, there's trouble in Haiti. You're like, let's go. Airfield jump. We mow everybody down, like. You know what I mean? Like, you're riding this roller coaster, and then they're like, there's trouble in Sierra Leone. Like, let's go. We're gonna jump on. You know what I mean? So, like, as a young guy, fuck. That's all you thought about? You know what I mean?

When is the. Did you see any combat in Iraq?

No, it was a fucked up jump. 30 knot wins. General Grange. Then Colonel Grange was the matter of fact, I just did a water jump with him last year. I had beefed out with him. I was like, I got beef with you. You're the only motherfucker to puncture my fucking body in 20 motherfucking years. Right? And then I j. And pied him in his static line shoot. And I'm just like, mmm mmm. Snatching shit. And then my buddy Danny's like, yo, you done jerking the general around? I'm like, I feel better. Like, we beefed it out. Friends now, like, so General Grange was the commander then, but I had a great time with him last year. He's a friend of mine, but at the time, I'm just a private in the back of the stack, you know, static line up my fucking shit on combat, loaded to the fucking teeth. Who knew how much I weighed. Mortar rounds in my backpack, fucking everything. The whole ranger combat fucking loadout thing, you know? And then we jump in 30 knot winds. I landed off the airfield, my backpack hooked on this, like, bombed building with, like, rebar.

Like, hooked on a rebar and literally kind of set me down. And then this leg hit rebar. And I was kind of laying there when I landed, and I'm like, okay. And then I learned this from the Brits, you know. Okay, this hand seems good. This hand seems good. This leg and foot seems good. And I lifted this one up, and it was like this in the sand. So I dumped some water on it, and that water got in there, burned immediately.

I'm like.

And then, like, a big j on my shin. Compound bone was broke. So I kind of push it in, pinch the skin in. Back then, we didn't have, like, I think I did a double pressure dressing. You know what I mean? Like, with the dry bond rags is like, really what they gave us for meds. I did a double pressure dressing and got up, got my shit, walked through the minefield on the outside of the airfield, jumped the fence, and then walked the airfield to make link up. And then I got to link up. You know, I'm just a private. I got to link up. We had this first sergeant, coolest, like, mexican guy ever, like this guy, and his name is Ivan. I don't know, but lamest parents. And Ivan's like, hey, God damn it. You made it, you know? And I'm like, thanks for sharp. And he's like, put your shit down. And, like, one of the first guys to make it, too. And he's like. I was like, hey, is the medic here? And he's like, yeah, what's happening? He was like, oh, something happened. I'm like, yeah. And he's like, doc, get over here.

Medic comes over, you know, cut that off. So I cut it off with scissors. They look at it, and then the first time I was like, oh, God damn it. You know, what? I mean, the medic was like, who did the dressings? I was like, well, I did sardine. It's AII did a double pressure dressing. One and then another to try to close the gap. Cause it was too big. And he was like, goes in his bag, throws me more shit. Put that back on. I'm, like, thinking fucking this how this goes, you know, they, like, how to do some road march, whatever. The mission was gonna be kind of petered out. They end up walking, like, 50 fucking miles for no reason with all this heavy shit. So all I missed was, like, a fucking heavy tactical road march, which I would have crushed anyway because road marching is what I do. But, yeah. And then I was just kind of broke, and they were supposed to cast my leg. And then my squad leader. Cause I'm a private. You're not going to see the medic. Can I see the medic? My leg hurts.

You're just being a pussy. So I went through that for a while, and then by the time my squad leader was gone one day, I went to actually see the medic. They're like, how come you didn't come back for your cast? I'm like, I tried. Like, I tried. Well, it's too late now. And then. And then the Ranger doc, this guy Doc Donovan, he was a. He's a ranger legend, right? And he was like. He's like. He's talking to me like, I'm gonna get out of the army or be med boarded because of this. And I'm like, I'm not getting out. How do we fucking fix it so there's less pain? And he was like, what? I'm like, yeah, I don't want to get out. I'm not here to bitch over this. I'm here to fucking figure out, like, how I can get back to running in the morning without so much fucking pain. And then, like, I was like. It was weird. Like, I didn't want to get out. You know what I mean? That's not why I was complaining about it. I was complaining because it fucking hurt, which is why I thought you'd go to the medics, but that's not always true.

So, um. Yeah, so I just fucking sucked it up for a while, and eventually it got better.

Did you say you're still a private after five years?

Me? No.

Okay. I thought you said it took five years to get to combat or to this jump.

No, this is when I. This was, like, 91, when I was new. New in Ranger battalion.

Okay.

I was a new guy. Yeah. It took me five years. I did five years in Ranger battalion and then I went to SF.

Oh, God. I mean, I just. I'm curious. So how long were you at Ranger battalion before you jumped in Tyrak?

A year, Max. Yeah.

So what was. I mean, what was your. How did that brief come down?

Fuck, man. The whole regiment. There's a fucking war going on. We're going to fucking war, baby. Everyone's like, yeah, who wants grenades? You're like, I do.

I do.

Who needs another Claymore? You know what I mean? The fucking. As soon as they start throwing grenades and claymores around, you know, this shit's fucking real. You know what I mean?

Are you pretty pumped about it or.

Super pumped. And then it was like. It was exactly like every airborne school fucking song, you know what I mean? Like c 140, you know, 64 jumpers, whatever the fuck. I don't even remember them songs. I'm doing this poorly, right? But, like, we got on the planes, we flew to Iraq. We fucking rigged up, we jumped the fuck out. It was great, but it was 30 knot wins, and it fucked up a ton of dudes. I think there was like. Man, it had to be like, I don't know, man. There's a lot, like, 80 backboards out there with dudes taped to them, you know what I mean? And then, like, dudes. Because the winds were so high, dudes got drugs. I see, like, remember the old, like, lbe thing that held the magazines? Like, three magazines, and, like, the lid came off with, like, the plastic buckle on the front?

Yeah. Yeah.

Remember those that would be ground in half and you could see every bullet in the magazine still and, like. Yeah, so, like, when I got to the. The medic point, when they're like, hey, you're not going on the road. March, you know? You. Medical. These are backboards. You guys got to go to the hospital, right? Dudes raped me for my gear. Like, raped me. So here I am, injured, having to just carry all my shit in a fucking ball. I don't even have a backpack. Someone took my shit.

So you come back from that, you do some sniper. You go to sniper school?

Yeah.

How was sniper school?

US army sniper fucking joke. Really ridiculous. Yeah. The stocks. You had to get, like, 30 meters from a fucking truck, and you're shooting an m 14 blank. You know what I mean? You know how much fucking gas. The gas probably touches the fucking truck. You know what I mean? Like, it's fucking ridiculous. I mean, I did well. I passed, you know, I shoot well. But, like, I thought it was a joke. And they, like, tried to smoke us one morning, and it's like, you're regular army. You're fat, you're out of shape. Like, why even add 2 hours of fitness in here? It only makes you look bad. Like, teach us something. You know what I mean? Yeah. So I thought, although it's the mark of the man you gotta pass to have your job, even though you're already a sniper, right? You gotta know the basics. I thought it was a little unrealistic, which made it harder than it needed to be. I think it could be a little more realistic, and guys would learn more and do better later instead of only thinking, like, I gotta get 30 yards on a stalk.

Good point. Good point. Did you do any other deployments in Ranger battalion?

Uh, yeah, tons. Like, I think we were in Egypt during, you know, Mogadishu. We were in Egypt at the Sinai waiting on the word. I done a ton of shit in Ranger battalion. Fucking jungle school so many times in Panama. Like, I don't even want to talk about it. Like, I'm a jungle expert. I don't know how many fucking times over. It's not even funny. You know what I mean?

Right?

Yeah. I did a ton of shit in Ranger batt. Tons of shit.

Well, what caught your interest in SF?

I didn't want to end up in Korea.

That's it.

Sit. That's all I knew. I mean, think about it. And fucking in the nineties, there was no Internet. Like, I didn't know. I didn't even know what a fucking Ranger was. And I did that. And then, like, these guys are going to special forces selection. Like, what was it like? And then a buddy of mine that was like, there's nothing you can't do. Every day, I'm like, I think I'll try this out. And that's what I told myself the whole time. There's nothing today that I can't do.

Well, let's take a quick break, and then we'll dive into that.

Okay?

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All right, John, we're back from the break. Getting ready to go to SF selection. That came across your radar. You don't want to go to Korea.

Yeah.

So how did it come across your radar, though? I'm just curious, man.

Like, other guys in my platoon went. So, yeah, this is an interesting thing. Like, back in the nineties, no fucking Internet. People these days ask me like, I want to follow your path. You know, how did you know you're. There was no fucking path. Like, it's a roll the fucking dice, man. You know what I mean? You just fucking went. You tried like, mark of a man, you know? But guys that went to the unit disappeared forever. You never seen him in Ranger battalion, like, gone.

Mm hmm.

You're never gonna see him again. Why? Unit didn't do nothing with the Rangers back then, you know what I mean? And then those guys were just gone. So the SF guy, the guys that go to SF selection would come back and, like, be around a little while before they left or something, so you'd get to talk to them, you know what I mean? The guys that went to the unit were gone within the month. Like, you never seen him again.

Interesting.

So, like, the time I went to SF selection, I figured I'm not married and I'm too young for the unit. And that's kind of what guys thought back then.

Gotcha. Gotcha.

Mature, married guys. This is who they take. So I figured, well, I'm still just a single guy. Whatever, I'll do SF. I might have been married at the time, but I figured I'd do special forces. A buddy of mine went, said it was. He was like, it's nothing you couldn't do every day. Oh, fuck. That sounds like me right there. You know what I mean? So I went, how was it? I was on the fucking worst team ever in the history of special forces selection. I'm pretty fucking sure of it. No shit. Why is that, dude? Like, I was just on a team with a bunch of fucking pussies, you know what I mean? Like, fucking. Let's just say it like it is. Like, you know, like, the smokings are only for so many hours. You can only do so many fucking push ups. This isn't a fucking thing. This is daily shit in Ranger battalion, you know what I mean? And, like, guys, like. And, like, we're doing log. I had a nickname, zero for a while for selection and, like, the mandatory log day, where it's like, huh, one. You know what I mean?

Like, you do the log or you lift it up, you know? It's like twelve people on a fucking log, right? Okay. If all twelve people actually lifted the log, the log ain't fucking heavy. But when everyone's bitched up, like, it makes the heavy end a lot fucking heavier, right? It makes the light end a lot fucking heavier. So, like, we're doing the log pt and, like, my team is just fucking, like, except for, like, one or two guys on my team. Like, we might as well be the fucking, you know, the retard squad out here. I don't fucking know. You know, it's fucking sad. So it's like one, you know, and they count the cadence, like 1234. And then you yell the number like one, you know what I'm saying? I just started yelling, zero. Fucking zero, motherfuckers. Zero, right? So I yelled zero so many times. One of the cadre came up to me, and he was like, yell zero again, and you may not make it through selection. I'm like, roger, that's sarge. 1234. Fucking zero again, motherfuckers. Like, I yelled zero again. You know what I mean? So there, he's like, you with me?

So he brings me to the front of everybody. Everyone gets a break while they're fucking with me. So anyone in my selection course, you're fucking welcome, especially you fucking pussies, you know what I mean? Anyway, so they gave me my own six foot log. The six foot log is worse than the big log, you know what I mean? But at this point, I can't be the fucking. I can't be weak here. You know what I mean? I got myself into this position, and you know how you get out of this position? You fucking rock star, that shit. I grabbed that log. One, two, three. Fucking 01230. I just kept yelling, zero.

There's the pathway for everybody that's asking.

There you go. And then, so everyone called me zero in selection, but, like, that little log was no joke. I literally had to, like, do shit. Be strong. Fucking breathe, you know what I mean?

Probably a lot girthier than the other logs, eh?

You would know. You're in the fucking navy, you know what I mean?

Yeah.

So anyway, yeah, and then, like, you know, like, you start first thing in the morning, and then you got to do, like, your selection event or whatever the fucking craziness they throw at you during the day. And, like, most teams are getting done around, like, 03:00 with their first event. There's a couple nights we came in, like, bedtime, and they just let us out there walking with these fucking whatever bullshit we're fucking doing that day. Like, I was on the worst team ever, and then I thought this was interesting. The final road march for selection. Like, literally, you walk, they line everybody up, you know, and I think there's, like, a gunshot or someone yells, go. Or air horn or something, you know, like, go. Everyone takes off like a fucking bat out of hell. And I'm just thinking, you ever been on a fucking 20 miler or 25 miles road march? Like, that is not the speed. You start at. You start slow, and you taper off. You know what I'm saying? That's how you win. And, like, all these people take off. So I'm just like. So I just start walking, right? And then about 2 miles in, there's a creek you gotta cross, right?

And I never seen this before. Like, dudes would stop, and they're trying to put a garbage bag over their leg, over their sock.

Bullshit.

I seen tons of fucking dudes doing this, so I just walked right fucking through. This gave me a major lead on all the fucking assholes, you know what I mean? Are you.

Are you serious?

Yeah.

They're putting trash bags over their feet.

So they can get wet?

Yeah. Holy shit.

Wow.

Wow. I never even seen that.

You know, I haven't seen that.

I just walked through, and I think later I had to take a shit, and I changed my socks because they were a little wet and. You know what I mean? But it's only because I had to take a shot. But I just walked through, and when I came in, you had to turn in. Like, you got to have, like, the star cluster. You know, the star. I don't know what you guys call them. The star cluster. And it goes, right. Yeah, you had to carry a couple those. So if you get lost, you know, part of the procedure to find you. Right. Well, you get done. There's a guy sitting there with a box, and he's like, throw your. Throw your shit in the box. I was like, okay. So I throw him in the box, and the box isn't, like, empty. I was like, in this box. And he was like, yeah. I'm like, there's nothing in it. He's like, yeah, throw them in the box. So I dropped them in the box, and I was like, there's nothing in the box. How many guys are done? He was like, there's another guy. Just hit the showers.

That's what he told me. So me and another guy finished, like, first. And it's not like I walked fast or hard. I just fucking walked through the water, you know what I mean? It wasn't magic. You know what I mean? I just kept a good pace the whole time. So I thought the team part, I thought special forces selection, the premise of it's fucking stupid, right? Because you're gonna do all this shit all day long, all this physical shit, and then they're gonna put you in the barracks at, like, dark, and you can't sleep till ten, and then you're gonna get major points if you fall asleep. Motherfucker. You walk me all day long, the only thing I'm gonna do is fall asleep. You know what I mean? So I thought the premise of the SF selection was kind of flawed even then, but I passed, so fuck everybody else. You know what I mean?

Mm hmm. Mm hmm. So where did you go from there?

7Th group.

7Th group?

Yeah.

And your first deployment was actually. How was it showing up to 7th Group versus Ranger battalion?

Yeah, my team sucked. It sucked.

You didn't like it?

Fuck no. Like, we had no bullets. We didn't fucking shoot. We didn't do shit. You had a fucking. It was like, more army than the Ranger battalion was.

No shit. What year was this?

Fucking mid nineties. Like 95.

So what were you guys doing?

Nothing. Unless we went to, like, we went to El Salvador and then we did, like, we. We trot, like, basic, like leadership for, like, e five s, whatever they would call that. We did, like, land nav, some leadership basic shit. But when we were at brag, we didn't do shit. That's why I was like, this fucking sucks.

So very unimpressive for you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Especially leaving, like, the brotherhood of Ranger battalion. You know what I mean? Like, we had shitty days together, a lot of us. You know what I mean? And that just builds those bonds, you know what I'm saying? I don't think SF got good till 2001.

Wow. Wow.

You know what I mean? In my opinion. And then I don't think it's any good right now. The SF baby program just ruins it, in my opinion.

Really? Why is that?

Because there's never been one fucking outstanding SF baby as a leader that I know of.

No shit. How long has that program been around?

Fuck, man. It was on and off in the nineties, and then they turned it off, and now it's back on. For the SF baby program, I would say this. You gotta be in the army, and you gotta know what it's like to truly suck. Because what happens is seeing this through the war years, especially the SAR major, is the SF community. There's so many new guys rising through the ranks in combat super quickly, as fast as the army. Al letcha, right? That guy was never in the army. So he creates a parallel universe of suck that is just like the army, but he thinks he's cool, but he's doing all the same stupid shit. Guys that came from Ranger battalion, the army that knows what it's like to be fucking. You know, my first fur sergeant reached in my toilet elbow deep, pulled his hand out. What's this? I said shit, first sergeant. What else would be in the fucking toilet? Do fucking push ups, you know what I mean? Like, not clean enough. Like, if you ain't ever seen that shit, you're prone to that shit. You seen that shit once. And no, you don't want that in your life.

And you're not going to be like that, right? You create this, another parallel track which is the fucking adult network of the army.

Interesting, interesting. What were you guys doing in El Salvador?

We just taught like, a basic leaders course, navigation, basic leadership, PT, shit like that.

Okay. Nothing of any real importance.

No, I mean, a couple of the cartels we were at had been overrun and guys had died in them. You know, late eighties, couple years before, you know, FLMN, just kind of. That whole thing just died down, you know? But, you know, I was 18 Charlie. The 18 Charlie's that I hung out with, like, we're on the land nav. Course. I'm with like, the guy, I'm supposed to be with my, like, counterpart or whatever. We're at this fucking rando intersection and he's like, yo, we haloed in just over there, came to this, fucking ambushed, killed 100 dudes, like, right here, right here. And he's like, yeah. And I'm just thinking, yo, I'm. This guy's supposed to be learning from me. He haloed in Claymore. Dudes, killed hundreds. Like, what am I gonna teach this guy?

Yeah.

You know what I mean? So we did basic leadership. It was a good time. And then I just. I did ten months in group and I just wasn't in. That's it.

You were only there for ten months and then you screened for a delta? How did that come across?

Yeah, I was at this guy's house at like one in the morning, drinking, smoking cigars, and he handed me a piece of paper which was an old dirt track across from the prison on Bragg. And he's like. It said 06:00 a.m. at this field. And I'm like, the fuck is this? He's like, you're taking the PT test at six. I'm like, I'm fucking hammered. It's one in the morning. I'm at your house drinking cigars. I am not going to a Delta Force selection tomorrow morning at six. He's like, yeah, yarn. What?

Who is this?

There's a Mogadishu guy, his code name's Elvis. He was in my cue course and like, just sat next to me. So me and him were ranger buddies, but at first I thought, who the fuck is this random e seven in the Q course that is good at nothing. We fucking do. You know what I mean? He's not good at the charges. He's not good at reading. He's not like, who the fuck is this crazy old guy in the cue course, you know what I mean? And then, well, turns out he was a unit guy, you know what I mean? Crossing over.

So he was coming from the unit in DSF?

No, he was going from eleven to 18 to get promoted in the unit.

Gotcha.

Back in the day, special forces guys usually get promoted a lot quicker. So the infantry guys would go to the Q course, pass, right? If they pass now, they're a special forces guy, they go back to the unit, then they get promoted on the special forces track instead of infantry.

Okay.

And back in the day, that was just quicker for guys.

Interesting. So this guy coaxed you into taking.

Yeah. So I went home. I told him fucking. Not only no, but fucking hell, no. And then curiosity killed the cat, you know what I mean? I showed up anyway.

Did you get any sleep that night?

None. And he said. He did tell me that. I was like, I'm in no shape to take this fucking PT test, you know? And he was like, all you got to do is pass the army standard to get in. Which that's pretty fucking.

What is it that you think he saw on you that he wanted you to just to try out, to screen?

Fuck. I'm squared away. I'm good at every fucking thing. And if I ain't good, I'm gonna practice till I am good. You know what I mean? So of everybody, like, why not? And then, you know, turns out later, a bunch of the guys from IQ course ended up in the unit. You probably talked to a couple of him, I think.

No kidding.

I would not doubt that. But, yeah, I don't know what he saw. You know, I just. I'm a seven. When you give me a written test, it's going to be 70%. You let me put my hands on shit. I'm really good at that, right? I was a mechanic. I can figure it out. And I'm really handy at a lot of shit.

So you show up at unit selection.

All and over, no sleep.

What's. I mean, just describe that experience.

I show up, some fucking rando dude. Like. And when I say rando, doesn't even look like a fucking army guy. Rando. You know what I mean? Like Rando dude, with a clipboard. Like. What's your name? All right. Push ups go, sit ups go, right? And the run. There was two of my team leaders in Ranger battalion in at that PT test. And they're like, what the fuck you doing here? You're not gonna fucking pass. And then I made sure on the last lap or two, I lapped them. You know what I mean? I wasn't gonna lap them, but then I was like, man, you know what I mean? I got a little gas in the tank.

Hey, by the way, I'm hungover.

Yeah, yeah, by the way, I haven't slept except. And then, yeah, I passed. And, you know, I got my selection date, went to select unit selection.

How long, how long, how much time are we talking between the screen test and going to selection month? That's it?

Yeah, not even.

So you just, you go back to 7th group and then I hang out for a month. That was that at 7th group waiting.

To go, dude, when I got orders for that Delta force selection, you know what I mean? Like, they wanted to give me scuba school. They wanted me, you know what I mean? They wanted to give me everything at that point.

Why? Why do they want to give you everything if they're just going to lose you?

Well, they didn't want to lose me, so they're trying to like, we'll give you a scuba school. We'll give you, like, they're trying to keep me around.

I gotcha.

And they're like, well, we'll give you a prescooba and you could do that as your train up. You'll be in super good shape before selection, which would, would have been a true statement, but my feet would have been soft for walking all those fucking miles, you know what I mean?

And that's why I didn't go, interesting, interesting. So you show up to OTC.

Yeah.

What does OTC stand for?

Operator training.

Oh, yeah. Okay.

Ain't no magic in unit acronyms, you know what I mean?

So how was, how was that showing up there? You're now at the, at the top.

Yeah. You show up, there's like fucking ten kit bags. Everything is perfectly sized to you, has your fucking name on it, like all you got already packed. All you gotta do is throw them on your shelves and start fucking training. Like I'd never seen that. You know what I mean? And I'll tell you another thing is like, when you pass selection, which selection was great, by the way, no one fucks with you. They just let you walk for days and miles and days and no one talks to you. And like, it's fucking great. It's the best thing ever. When I put on them GSG nine assault boots. So when you get done and you pass, you go, like, in the next room, and they had all this gear laid out where you got to try on your sizes. So when you show up, they got all your shit the right size and everything, and you just start fucking training, right? So I put on them GSG nine assault boots. Remember those? There was a day where those were, like, hot, like, you know what I mean? I had only seen. I might have seen one picture with a dude with those boots, but I heard they wore them, and that's kind of all I knew.

So fucking fuck you, Internet, for ruining the mystique of fucking walking into something blind, you know what I mean? But I put on them boots, and that's when I was like, holy fuck, the army don't do this. You know what I mean? And then you get there and it's just like, all the bags, your sizes pack. I mean, fucking tip top Mandev, top notch.

Let me rewind just a. Just a minute. Back to selection. It sounds like you pretty much breezed through every tryout you've been through up to this point. How was selection?

Unit selection?

Yeah.

Fucking loved it.

Was it challenging for you?

No.

Are you serious?

Yeah.

The first person I've ever heard say.

It, but I fucking loved every minute of it. But this is the premise or the core of what makes me me. Leave me the fuck alone. Point me in the right direction. So I just did that every day.

Do you want to describe selection?

Oh, yeah. So selection's kind of an easy fucking process. There's no real magic to it. You know, start out, they teach you navigation. If you fucking listen to the classes where the best fucking classes I've ever had on navigation. If you just listen to what the fuck they told you, you could fucking pass. But guys in the map reading classes think they fucking know it all, so they don't pay attention to the detail, right? And then. So you get your map reading classes. You do a couple weeks of fucking walking around the mountains. You know what I mean? Like, little kind of warm up, whatever you call it, right? And then fucking. It hits you. You're in the field and like, you got fucking ten maps. And you're like, I'm here. One map sheet, two map sheets, three map sheets. I'm going here. And it's like, have a good one. And you're fucking off. So the thing that really fucking, I think I liked, but the army doesn't like is no one tells you shit. There's no encouragement there's no dis encouragement, right? And then they're like, you know, they'd write on the board, 08:00 be at the truck.

And that's all it's saying, guys, like, well, I mean, what do you think you gotta have? Like, well, they also say, don't be late, light or out of uniform. So bring your shit, make sure it weighs right and fucking. Let's go. I mean, I just thought selection was all skill level one tasks. And I had a great time walking through the mountains. I loved every fucking second. Mandev. Well, no, there's one day I didn't love so much, but other than that, I fucking loved it.

What was that day, man?

I started to get a little chafed. Like, my inner thighs started getting chafed, right? And I knew I needed, like, vaseline or something to walk during the day so I wouldn't get chafed. I didn't want to go to the medic, because the thing is, as you go to the medic, you're automatically out. That's what guys think. So, like, I didn't want to go to the medic. So finally one night, I, you know, you got to put up, like, a poncho hooch. Like knee high, you got a lay, you got to sleep under it in the field, right? So I'm under my poncho hooch, and I was like, I'm just going to walk over to the medic thing and just ask for some vaseline or something. Vaseline, gauze, any type of lube, you know what I mean? So I go to the medic station, I knock on the Humvee. He opens the back of the, you know, the old medicum v, where the stairs came down on the door, right? So I go up in there, and it's me and him in the back of a Humvee. So we're like 2ft apart, you know what I mean?

And I was like, hey, my legs inner thighs are a little shaved. Kind of like bottom of my butt cheeks. Also, like, could I get some vaseline or something? He's like, drop your drawers. Show me.

What?

We're like, this fucking far away in the back of a Humvee. The medical Humvee, you know what I mean? What? And he's like, drop your drawer. Show me. And I'm like, this motherfucker right here. So literally bent over, spread my ass cheeks, and made sure I got as close to his fucking face as possible, you know what I mean? He's like, looks like you're a little chafed. Yo, captain obvious, like you're crushing it over here. Like, keep going. You know? He's like, looks like you're a little chafed. I'm going to give you some stuff. Here's what I want you to do. Go back to your hooch. Clean yourself off really good. The areas with the wet nap from the Mre, I'm like, okay, I got Mre. He's like, they give us to it. They got to feed us. I got those. And he's like, gives me this stuff. Rub this on, it'll go away, okay? So I walk out of the Humvee. I look at what he gives me, and it's analgesic bomb. So I don't know what the fucking analgesic bomb is. You know what I mean? I don't know what that means, but I know this.

A n a l is the first words, and that's exactly where I'm smearing this shit. So I figured, yo, this is. This is something for your ass. It's analgesic bomb. Why else my ass hurts? He gives me something that says anal on it. It just seems like if this is latin or something, it seems like this feels right, you know? So I go in my. You know what fucking analgesic bomb is?

I don't, but I guess we're about to find out.

It's not fucking funny. I'm gonna tell you that right now. This doesn't. This doesn't end up funny. So I do the wet naps. I wipe my shit. I clean my shit as best. I'm a good soldier. Clean your shit? He said, clean your shit. I clean my shit, right? And then analgesic bomb, like, and I'm raw, too, so I might as well fucking use this whole tube, you know? I want to save some for later if it works, but, like, I need most of it right now because I'm really chafed. So I get a good amount on my fingers, and I'm rubbing my shit, you know what I mean? And at first, like, the cream was, like, cool and cold, you know what I mean? So it went on. It was cooling. It was like, ah, analgesic bomb. Is fucking Ben gay. He had me rub fucking Ben gay on raw meat on the inside of my ass, my asshole, my thighs, like. Like Ben gay on my fucking raw shit. Are you fucking sick? You know what I mean? What the fuck is wrong with this guy? This is what I'm thinking, you know?

So I'm in my poncho hooch, screaming in fucking pain without making a noise till it was fucking done burning. When it got done burning, it didn't chafe. Again, not cool. You know what I mean? And then when I got to my squadron, my troop had run selection. So I went to the selection. I went to the troop that ran my selection. That dude was my medic. My first medic. And I was like, hey, can I. And then I'm a new guy on a team. Luckily, this, like, mid level guy to, like, next to be leadership guy on my team was in Ranger battalion, and we were really good friends. So I'm like, yo, what's up with this fucking medic dude? You know what I mean? And he was like, his nickname was Ass wound. Another story, right? And he was like, you mean ass wound? So and so. I'm like, he wounded my ass. He's like, uh, no, he wounded someone else's ass. And I'm like, oh, no, he wounded my ass too, right? And then I had to tell him the story. And every time I'd see the guy, I'd be like, I need whatever.

Like, I got no patience for you anymore, you know? Analgesic, bomb, fool me once, fuck me. You know what I mean? But, yeah, he was my first medic.

Let's talk about when you. When you left selection, when you knew that you had made it into OTC.

I was in group one month, and I was in OTC 30 days, Max.

How was OTC for you?

Fucking great. I sucked at a lot of shit. I was probably, I think the first time I ran the o course, it was so fucking, I didn't know how to run an o course. Do you go over the rope or under the rope? Do you fucking. I didn't know any of this. And in Ranger battalion, in Ranger school, you do the Darby Queen. But, like, I don't fucking remember that. You know, it wasn't a time. It's just kind of like, this is fun, and they're feeding us, you know? So, like, I had done o courses, but, like, I didn't know how to do an o course. So, like, my time was, like, I don't remember what my time was. Like. The worst time in history. And my counselors, like, you know, we've never failed anybody out of the unit for the yo course, but you could definitely be the first person for this, for sure. I'm like, thank you. In my counseling. Yes, sir. Thank you. Can I have another? You know what I mean? And then through the course, if I was weak at something, I was there early in the morning. On the weekends, I got with guys that throughout the bill, I got with my cadre, I got with them to ask their buddies, who were, like, CT Olympians, guys that, like, have orangutan arms that just fucking make the oak horse look, like, easy.

I did that on weekdays after work with these guys, show me these techniques, and then, like, the end of it, I came in, like, second or third on a rainy day where guys were busting their ass. Why? My tech neek was fucking tight. It could have rained. It could have anything. I'd have ran the same thing, because now I knew how to do it right. So I put in the extra miles. I came in early, I did the work, because I think as soon as I got to the building, I knew I didn't want to be anywhere else.

Can we talk about the shooting package a little bit?

What about it? What do you want to know? Everything, you know, starts out kind of easy. Basic rifle marksmanship, whatever the army calls that shit. You start shooting your rifles, you zero. They teach how to zero shoot. Some bullseye, you know, do your 100, 200, 300. And then before you even go shoot around with a pistol, you'll do a lot of hours of fucking dry fire on a sticky before you even get one bullet with that pistol. You know what I mean? So there's a lot of days, a dry fire before you even get your first round. And then as the pistol starts, you know, you're kind of far along as the pistol starts, right? And then I. There's a progression to it, and really, it's like. I don't know. It's a bunch of different topics that they got to put together. So, you know, one of the topics is, like, helicopters riding in helicopters, rappelling fast roping, like all that shit. Like that could be a module within itself. So you do, like, a little marksmanship, another module back to marksmanship, you know what I mean?

They break it up throughout the day. Okay.

Or throughout the whole total time. But the marksmanship standards are no fucking joke.

Yeah, that's what I hear.

They're not fucking playing. I sucked. I fucking sucked with a pistol when I first started. And then, I don't know, I probably. I was probably winning the shooting program for probably most of my OTC class. And then I had, like, one fucking day where I dropped, like, ten points, like, one bad string and put me in third, and I couldn't recover. It's so competitive. There was no way to get back to the top.

What did you find to be the most challenging portion of OTC?

Of OTC, I would say the most challenging thing in general is not going out when your other places training in training is not going and fucking partying.

Really?

Yeah. Fuck yeah, man. You're gonna show up tomorrow hungover. Like when I got to OTC and I am the party guy, right? Like, I'm the good time guy. I'm the fun panda. I will go buy beer. I'll bring my own alcohol. You know, I didn't go out. I didn't do any of that in OTC. And a lot of guys thought I was a plant. Like, they wouldn't talk in front of me. They wouldn't anything. And then, like, guys that knew me are like, what's the deal? And it's like, this is the only place I want to be. I don't need any of that shit, you know? So I would say the. The thing that fucking trips guys up more than anything is like, let's say, for example, you're out in Nashville, you know what I mean? And you could go to bed at 08:00 and come in tomorrow and be really good at what we got to do. Or we ended up till three in the morning out partying, you know what I mean? And, like, at that level, it shows.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? Like, when, you know, you're in Ranger battalion with 100 guys and you're at the top of the pack. I could show up hungover and still be in the top of the pack. When it's that competitive, you show up hungover, like, you know, take a last place today. You'll never recover from that. You know what I mean? So I think the most challenging thing is young men being men.

How about performance wise and training? What did you find the most. The most challenging portion of the course?

I don't even know, man. I didn't think it was really challenging in the sense that it's very professionally ran. So, like, they tell you what you need to do, and if you need help, some guy, I'll fucking show you. You know, not like other places in the army or for even green team at the Seals, there's no selection, right. And then what happens is you get to a spot and we're going to train you, but we're also hazing you to weed you out at the same time. Right. That doesn't lead to a good product. The rangers do that. You know, the, you know, seals do that. I mean, it ends up being a lot of times that's how things work, right. Is we're training here, but you're also going to get weeded out by this training also, right when you get to the unit, it's. If you're going to be the world's best, the world's best is going to show you how to be the world's best.

So there's.

So this is a different thing, you know?

So OTC, they. By the time you get to OTC, they want you. They don't want to get rid of you.

No, no. They want everybody. It'll never be full. You know what I mean? I don't care how big DoD is. It's not a big enough pool to keep the ranks full. So they want every person. You already walked the walk. There's no hazing. It's first name. Like, you need help. Hey, Bob. Like, fucking show me that pistol thing again.

No shit. So it's. Would you consider it a gentleman's course?

Yeah. In the sense that no one's gonna fuck with you. Now, if you're getting fucked with, you're fucking something up. You know what I mean?

How did it feel when you graduated OTC?

Yeah, I was one of the first guys drafted and that felt good.

What does that mean, drafted?

It's a draft. The squadrons need bodies. One squadron might need more. There's a rotation. This squadron gets people. You got your squadrons taking people, but what if they need more? There's a rotation, they might have the priority, but these guys get more guys. So it ends up being a draft, like the NFL, and then the earlier drafted, the more you're wanted.

Are you. Are you there at the time of the draft?

Oh. Oh, yeah. They'll fucking call your name.

No shit. So everybody's there?

Yeah.

Wow.

Yeah. And you'll know who number one is per squadron. First guy they asked for.

What number were you?

I don't know. Two.

Number two.

I'm not a number one guy.

Right on.

I'm gonna win from the bottom.

Did you know where you wanted to go? What squadron?

Yeah, I know. I didn't want to go to fucking B squadron, that's for damn sure.

Why not?

Fuck those guys.

Well, what's the. What is the culture in each squadron?

Her, I would say a squadron where I was is the older, mature brother, like, let's not do anything stupid. Let's kind of two bulls on a hill, an old bull and a young bull. The young bull says, hey, pop, let's walk, run down and fuck a cow. And the old bull says, no, son, we're gonna walk down and fuck em all. I feel like we were the older bull in that situation. B squadron was very much like gung ho. Like a Ranger squad back then. They wanted to wear their bdus, and they wanted to fucking run the old course. And they're. We're fucking got six packs over here, you know what I mean? And we're fucking intense. Pat McNamara's a B squadron guy, okay? Prime example. And then C squadron, like, I don't know, from the A squadron perspective, C Squadron was the little brother after Mogadishu, they took hits they couldn't kind of recover from, and it kept them more junior than the other squadrons for a while.

Really?

Yeah. Like, I mean, after Mogadishu's fucking squadron was, I think, almost decimated, right? Like, I don't remember how many people died or whatever, but, like, that'd decimate a squadron. And then think about this. Like, some of my buddies were, you know, team leaders in four years. Troops are majors in six. And, like, I was the first one to get promoted and take a team, and it took me, like, fucking six or seven years, you know what I mean? So think about that for experience between the squadrons, right? But from my perspective, in my squadron, that's kind of how we saw it.

So did you know this? Did you know this prior to graduating OTC?

Yeah.

You did?

Because when you walk down the hallway to chow, if you knew a guy in B squadron, he wouldn't say hi to you if he's with other B squadron guys. But the guys I knew in a squad were like, what's up? I hope you're doing good. Like, you know what I mean? Like regular people.

Yeah.

So you just kind of, like, see it? You know what I mean?

So how does it go when you graduate OTC?

You cross that hallway with all your shit?

Is there a board? Do they talk to you at all? And there's a draft. There's a draft.

Pack your shit. Move the fuck out.

No, like, sense of accomplishment. None of that. Just time to move on.

You got your foot in the door. If that ain't good enough for you at this point, you probably shouldn't fucking be here, right?

So you show up to a squadron, and how are you received?

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Uh, pretty good, man. Um, yeah, I mean, I was a new guy, like, for a while. My boss told me keep my mouth shut for a while. I did. One day he was like, why aren't you saying nothing? I was like, he's like, cause I told. I told you to keep your mouth shut. I nodded. He's like, you probably do well here. I didn't say nothing, like, but yeah, yeah, I don't know, man. I was received just fine. I definitely felt like I was fucking trained and ready to go. And for the first time, I felt like I was close to being on par with these guys, you know what I mean? Instead of like, what do we do here? You know? I felt like, I'm fucking ready. Let's go.

Were you on par at that point?

Almost.

Really?

I think so.

Okay.

I think so. Like, look, true skill won't come later, you know, until you're a boss and you don't got time to shoot and you're like, hey, guys, what are you doing? Like, I hate when you show up and beat us. Have more experience at this. You know what I mean? So, you know, experience is the time is the end of the day, I think, for that experience, whatever you call it.

What. What year is this?

96.

Where were you when September 11 happened?

Fucking trying to get jump numbers to go to a free fall instructor school. I was out at Rafer jumping.

Did you have any deployments with Delta prior to 911?

Yeah.

What were you guys into?

All kinds of shit. Bosnia, Bosnia.

After a while, what were you doing there?

I did PSD there, amongst other shit. Tons of shit.

Were you impressed with Bosnia? Mm hmm.

I mean, I don't know. You know what I mean? Bosnia was a fucking shit show. You know? Even then, we sided with the Muslims. That wouldn't happen after 2001. We'd go to these fucking, you know, camp turkish army camps, you know, fucking al Qaeda campsite. Nothing we could do about it. But the Serbs were the bad guys, right? Is that how the. It's kind of like how the war went? And I would say Bosnia. I love Bosnia, man. I thought it was great. I had a great time. It was. It was my first taste of chaos and making my own rules as I go, you know what I mean? And then I was a new guy. I had to hang out with. Like, I don't know, the guy who complained all the time or the guy who talked all the time, like you with him and he's like, why do I get the guy that never shuts up? You know what I mean? I'm the new guy, you know what I mean? So. But no matter who they paired me with, I had to, you know, do my job and I worked fucking hard in Bosnia.

I made everything I was asked for. I achieved. I think I got one of them defense meritorious ribbons in Bosnia, whatever the fuck, you know what I'm talking about? Like defense meritorious service or some shit. Fuck, I don't know. I got some fucking award for Bosnia. That's pretty good.

Right on. Where were you when 911 happened?

Brag. Yeah, as a brag. I was skydiving for free fall instructor. I had to have like 250 jumps. So I go out with the knights, I go out with the accuracy team and them motherfuckers are jumping like 1800ft time. I got out the plane, I was like, what? And the fuck is going, why the fuck are we doing this, right? And then like we're waiting to jump and then what the fuck? So like one guy's like, let me go in the team room, I don't know. And the planes were grounded. And then like someone crashed an airplane into the tower, you know what I mean? And like the first plane you see crash into the tower, like, is that pilot fucking drunk, you know what I mean? Like that's what I was thinking. Drunken pilots or something, you know what I mean? And then the second one and you're like, hmm. So that day I had to go back. My squadron was deployed. The only reason I was back was to go the free fall instructor. And I was basically the squadron commander. Like, I had a. I had a fucking man up on these btCs.

Like, you know, I'm like sitting in these meetings, I'm like, I don't know what to do. Like, well, you're the senior representative from a squadron. Like, yo, I shouldn't be in this meeting, you know, what? I mean? Like, we need a representative from a squadron. Like, fuck. Okay. So I'm, like, sitting in this meeting and, like, luckily, the B squadron commander at the time was like, B squadrons ready and standing by, ready, you know, ready to go worldwide and, you know, like, whatever the fuck officer shitty said, you know what I mean? I just said the same thing as him. What about a squadron? My men are, you know, oh, my guys were somewhere in Europe already, so I was like, my guys are, you know. Cause, like, the squadrons are always trying to angle out, angle motherfuckers on missions, you know what I mean? So I was like, my guys are already pre deployed. I know all the airplanes are shut down, but my guys are pre deployed, you know, X location and, you know what I mean? Trying to, like, we're better than these motherfuckers, you know what I mean? And then the B squadron guys at 911, like, they were driving gun trucks around the compound.

It's like, yo, we got a fence, we got guards. Like, why I gotta be on guard duty, too? You know what I mean? But, yeah, I was the A squadron commander for a little bit, you know what I mean? And then the word that came down in those meetings was, be patient. We got to figure this out. Don't do anything rash. Don't do. Don't start spinning. Let's be very methodical.

Did you have any idea what you were in for at that point?

Man, I was hoping it was something good, you know what I mean? Like, I've been around this long. Like, I ain't never. We ain't never done anything. Like, hopefully, you know, because there's whole generations of guys don't even get a mission, you know, especially my day, you know, the nineties and shit. So, like, I was hoping, like, hopefully something good comes with this.

When was the first team deployed?

I don't know. I was on the ground in, like, November, something like that. I don't even remember.

Were you the first team to deploy from that unit?

I don't remember how it went down, but, yeah, we were basically the first guys on the ground in Afghanistan.

And what were you doing there?

Fucking killing bin Laden. Battle of Tora Bora.

Let's go into that.

All right, you start, man. Me and a couple other guys controlled every fucking asset in the eastern western hemisphere for fucking ten days. Every fucking bomb, every pound of audience. Me and a couple other eyes dropped. And we killed a lot of people. We killed so many people in my fucking first day. Like, I just stopped counting then and there. Like, hundreds. Like, it's too many to count. You know what I mean?

How were you killing them?

Radios took some 50 cow sniper shots, shot some guys, but mostly just fucking moving up, bombing them. Moving up, bombing them. Right? Because you can't get there from here. And if they shoot at me from that mountain, like, I'll just level it, you know what I mean?

Let's go to the brief. Like, what was the. What was the mission briefing for Tora Boro? What were you guys doing? Like, what was the.

Bin Laden's there? Go get him and kill him. End of discussion. Want a dead or alive? That's it. How'd you insert fucking Toyota trucks, man? We drove up, drop a daisy cutter, man. I had old fucking, trusty, Rusty. I had this red fucking Toyota truck. I would attract mortar fire like you read about, man. It's fucking awesome. And we just drive right up in that bitch, right into the fucking middle. We get out of the truck. On my first day, I'm with this other guy. He was like a Panama guy. He was the guy that. In Panama, he shot the machine gun in the barracks and killed all the guys before they got out of bed. So, like, he had been to combat before. I drive my truck to the top of the mountain, past the tanks, there's fucking savages, the tanks shooting, like, total fucking chaos, right? There's press. We had to fight our way through the press. We had a guy almost shoot the press. It was great. Like, this is the best thing ever, right? I'm thinking. So we get to the top of the mountain, and, like, we're just getting bordered like you fucking read about.

And I was like, I asked that guy, I was like, is this incoming or outgoing? Like, what's going on here? Right? Like, he's like, why? I'm like, this is fucking great. And then. And I just stand in there, right? So he kind of, like, walked back by the truck and just left me there, right? And then, like, I don't know, ten years later, he was like, hey, remember that day on the top of the mountain? I was like, yeah. He was like, yo, those were income. But you had such a fucking smile on your face. I didn't want to ruin it for you. I was like, I asked you incoming or out? If you said they were, I thought it was like the tank firing, kicking up. I didn't know what the fuck was going on. So, like. And at the same time, like in the book, kill bin Laden. Like, the fucking savage Commander guy. I don't remember his fucking name, but he's just like, yes, those are your men. And like, you know, Dalton Fury's like, yes, those are my men. You know what I mean? And he's thinking, what the fuck are they doing?

You know what I mean? And I'm just over there like, this is fucking great. And like, the savage commander, like, your men are very brave, like, your men are brave. Like, they fucking love me. You know what I mean? But, yeah, that's kind of what it was. Like, total chaos. No idea what was going on all the time. Let's just make the best thing happen right now we can.

So was that your first kinetic deployment?

Yeah.

As an operator? Yeah, through Ranger, through SF, and. Sounds like several years over a delta as well.

Yeah.

So, I mean, how did that feel?

Fucking amazing, man. Amazing. And then, like, typical team shit, I got two guys arguing who's going to be in fucking charge. One senior by time. One's actually in charge, but he's junior by time to the senior guy. So these guys are arguing. I just leave him argue. It'd be like, yo, you know, call for a fire mission. Linear, sheath, fan amount. You know what I mean? Half air, half ground. I'm just fucking working it. And then be like, you know, be like, hey, they ask if we're danger close. Say, stop arguing for a minute. Hey, how far are we from the bad guys? 400 yards. They said 600. Yeah, send it. Get behind a rock and drop it. You know what I mean? And then, yeah, so these guys argued, and I just took the time to just focus and kill as many human beings as I could. They fucking shoot at us, we'd fucking level it. We'd move up. They'd shoot at us, we'd level it, we'd move up. Like, pretty simple.

Was that affecting you at all? That? I mean, that's your first. Let's talk about your first kill. You said you were on the 50. Do you remember it?

Yeah. Fucking McMillan 50. We shot dudes, like, I don't know, 2500 meters. The problem is, like, look, this is why I'm not fucking claiming a million of these fucking kills. Cause you can't get there from here. But I'll tell you this, the motherfucker's never shot again. How do you know? So is this confirmed kills? So, like, yeah, we shot people, man. With that 50, it was fucking great because.

2500 meters.

Yeah.

That's your first.

Yeah. Shit, first ten days of the war.

That'S your first engagement with a.

Later. I'd have to go to special forces sniper school because I thought I was gonna be a sniper team leader in the unit, because I'd been a sniper for so long in the unit, and, like, I'd already had kills, had a big beard. They hated me over there. You know what I mean? Like, oh, that's not right. That's. But, yeah, first ten days of the war, and then we just killed and captured so many people. Like, I don't think guys really understand, like, you know, the. The lone survivor story, right? The Taliban, you know, on the Navy SeAL team, you know what I'm saying? And it didn't go well for the seals. Okay. Yo, bring 400 of your friend. Tell them to bring their fucking trucks. Tell them to bring their machine guns. And, like, we would just kill. Kill all comers. All comers. You know what I mean? And you'll hear other guys. There's other times we did even more of this in Iraq. We just kill everyone that shows up. So it's like the lone survivor story. Like, I don't even understand it because we would kill hundreds of people in a fucking day.

Like, yeah, show up, we'll kill you, too. We don't even care. Like, I didn't understand how those things really happened. You know what I mean? Compared to my experience and what I saw. You know what I mean? And then so literally, man, I can't tell you how many days I got where we just killed so many people you can't even count.

So, I mean, no, basically zero rules of engagement. Just kill everything that shows up.

I used to call it State Department by Shrek. State Department. I'm the fucking State Department here. I make the decisions. Kill everybody. Let's go. Yeah. I love chaos. It's my jam. I gave you a chaos as my jam sticker.

Yep.

What?

Let's talk about some of your singleton missions.

So the first one, I had to go back into Tora Bora because I had been there. The premise of going back into Tora Bora is there was a guy who supposedly him and his sons brought in Laszen out. Right. They escorted him into Pakistan. Right. And then the goal was. The goal, find him. So I had to go out alone. I was out for days. Taxis, trucks hitchhiking, whatever you want to call it. I get to the area, I. You know, I had a Kent cigarette bag with a fucking, you know, a super eight vhs. I think it was super eight or maybe six mil at that time. Eight or six mil, like, cassette in the little recorder. You know what I'm talking about? In a Kent cigarette bag and, like, a sat phone. And I just fucking took a cab out of Jalalabad towards. Toward Bora mountains and hitchhiked all the way till I got there.

All by yourself?

Yeah.

Holy shit.

Yeah. And then, I mean, how the fuck.

Do you blend in?

You wear savage stuff.

And that worked?

Yeah.

No turp, no nothing.

Just shut the fuck up. You know what I mean? He's just shut the fuck up. Yeah. And then, like, I had to act it retarded at a couple of the checkpoints, you know what I mean? Like, got the AK to the chest and, you know, if I open my mouth, I'm dead. So that's not an option. You know what I mean? And then I just figured I'd mongoloid voice at volume eleven, so the guy's like. I'm like. And the guy's like, get the fuck out of here. You know what I mean? And that's how I got through the checkpoints, and that's how I got the assault force through all those checkpoints as well.

I mean, your adrenaline had to be going a million miles an hour.

Yeah, I would say this is. Any guy who is or girl who is abused as a kid can control that really well. Right. Because you know you're gonna get beat by dad when he comes home drunk.

Mm hmm.

Right. So it's always about controlling that. I think anyone who's been abused could handle those situations just fine, you know.

How did you get picked for this?

Yeah, I was in Assadabad. That's where I was stationed. And we were doing, like, all the northern valleys, like the Korengal Valley. Like, I've been in there with just two fucking guys. We didn't have no problem until I seen that restrepo movie, you know what I mean? I was like, I didn't even know that place was dangerous. I also used to drive through Ramadi by myself all the time while people were getting hung on bridges. But, yeah, I think in Afghanistan, man, I don't know. I don't know. That's a good question. I don't know if I have any words to describe it.

I mean, did you volunteer for it or.

I kind of. I didn't know I could say no. I didn't volunteer. So, in Asada Bath, basically one day we ran out of beef jerky and pop tarts. I like them pop tarts. You know what I mean? Like, I eat them brown sugar pop tarts. You just keep them coming, everything will be fucking fine. So, like, we're eating, like, fucking vegetables and, like, fucking goat. On the local economy in Asada, bat and I went to my boss, like, yo, where the I fucking defoe, man? You know what I mean? I know in Bagram, they got more fucking beef jerky than they could ever fucking eat. They got all the poggy, like, let me go fly back, fill my truck, and bring it back. And my boss is like, schedule those airplanes. Do whatever the fuck you want. I was like, got it. So I did all the coordinations. Next night, fucking Chinook comes in, drive in it alone on my Toyota truck, flies me to Bagram. I get out at Bagram, I drive to the chow hall to my squadron guy, and I'm like, yo, and the cook, the squadron cook. Always make that guy your best friend.

I'm like, yo, fill my truck, man. We ain't got shit in asada bad. He's like, oh, yeah, I got you. And then I see Dalton Fury and the SAR major for him, and they were like, hey, what are you doing? I'm like, stealing fucking Pogi from the Chow haw. What does it look like I'm doing here? Like, you know what I mean? And they're like, you want to go on a mission? I was like, have you asked my boss? And they're like, we will. And I was like, yeah, I'll go on a mission. What is it? Right? And they're like, come this way, right? And then. So they want me to go out alone. And the reason I had to go out alone is the general at the time said we could only hit targets if there's us eyes on, but you can't leave the wire. So when I came to Bagram, technically my status was in transit. So they kept me in transit through the whole mission. And then when I got back, they showed the video usis on, and they launched.

Interesting.

Well, that's the kind of shit we had to do to fucking make change.

How long did it take you to eat up to Tora Bora?

Fucking ten fucking days. Seven? Fucking the whole thing was like, I was out there, like, ten days or two weeks. Like it. You ain't getting anywhere quick, you know what I mean? Riding in fucking savage taxis and fucking jenga trucks.

I mean, can you just describe that mission in as much detail as possible?

Yeah, I left out of a cab. Out of the safe house. I left out of a cab in Afghanistan and the fucking cab driver to wherever the fucking cab drove. I got out with the rest of the fucking savages. There's a goat in the car. People are sitting on my dick. Like, fucking people smell like shit. I want to fucking throw up.

Like, how are you communicating? How are you telling them?

I don't say shit.

How are you telling them where you need to go?

I don't say shit. I just fucking ride. And then I got a truck.

So was the cab an asset or was it a local afghan guy?

I think the safe house coordinated. Coordinated for the. A cab that goes that way, right? And then the cab gets to a place, and the dude just gets everybody out and turns around, and then you kind of wait there for another thing. You know what I mean?

But I was at all coordinated.

No.

So it was legit.

Once I got out of that cab, I was on my own.

And so how did you communicate to get in touch?

I found a jingly truck. Well, first off, all you got to do is stand out there. Someone's gonna pick you up. That's how they do it. They'll just give you a fucking ride. You know, they're just fucking picking up randos out there all the time, like, you know what I mean? So picking up people ain't a thing. So I just kind of walk, and I walk with the people. Just kind of hang out. The fucking truck would come by, we all get in that truck, and then I kind of knew my way. I knew where Tora Bora was. I had already been there, right? So I knew, you know, which way, you know, trucks going that way. No good. Trucks going that way. Fuck it. Let's see where it goes. I could always fucking yell, make noise, and fucking jump out at any time I want, but I didn't really have to do any of that.

Where are you sleeping?

I fucking slept in a taxi or in the fucking jingly truck, you know what I mean? With the savages, like, people sitting on my lap when I was in the fucking truck, I had to sit in the middle. Every time the guy shifted, he, like, fucking handed my balls. And I'm like, yep, grabbed another gear. That's fine, too. You know what I mean? As fucking legit as it gets, man. And then the truck driver had a route, and he drove the valley to the end of the valley. He'd crash at this house at the end of the valley. And the next day he was a. He had a logging truck, and the next day he'd drive out of the valley, and they, like, bring trees, cut down trees, whatever. Logging trucks. Anyway, so when I rode with him, we passed the target house, literally. It's just kind of like, me, him at that point, I kind of under my arm out the window and fucking got that dude. Luckily, he was I think he was standing on the fucking front porch when I made the video. Like, it couldn't pid and the building at the same time.

It was fucking. The video was great.

Who was it?

That dude? Fuck, I don't remember his name. You know what I mean? But he was the guy where him and his sons were supposed to bring bin laden out of the mountains, right? So I do the recon. We get to this fucking house at the end of the thing, at the end of the valley. And you know how it's all terraced and shit? It's a fucking riverbed. They're all terraced. So we go to this house at the end of the valley, and I'm just with this driver guy. And we go in this house and there's dudes, and, like, they start drinking tea. They give me the black tea, which. Which I had learned earlier in tear and count will put you to sleep for three days. Because that's the opium tea, right? They're all drinking clear tea. They give me black tea. I kind of knew the difference. Drank it anyway. As soon as it was bedtime, the lights were out. I took my speed so I wouldn't go to sleep. And then in the middle of the night, I dragged that truck driver into his truck at gunpoint and fucking pointed the other way.

Room. Room. And he's, like, looking at me like, what the fuck? Because I think he actually thought I was crazy before then, you know what I mean? And then we got in the truck and drove away. And then at that house, I thought either they were gonna kill me. They had, like, this little boy they were abusing or some shit. I didn't even want to know what was going on in the next room. Never seen any females. And then as soon as I got that video, I wanted out of there. This is fucking mission success. I already achieved. Every second you are out there at this time, I am risking mission failure because I already reached what we needed. So I wanted to get back as soon as possible. And I'll tell you this. Being out alone versus being in a troop or with other task force 30, 6012, whatever, however many people I fucking learned, a hundred to one, what the fuck to do that day, you know what I mean? Because I can only count on me, you know what I mean? So my learning curve was through the roof. And ever since then, it's changed the way I see, think, do everything I do.

Did you have any. Did you have any type of communications with anybody back in the rear?

When I got back to the safe, house in Jalalabad is when I made my first radio contact.

Holy shit. So ten days, did you. Was it ten day mission or was it ten days up to Tora Bora?

Yeah, probably about seven. Okay, so a couple days, get back.

Gotcha.

And then the assault force came in. We went back and got the guy. There was another couple days, the whole thing, maybe two weeks.

So you actually had to personally get back with that video? There was no way to send the video.

No. Wow. And send in video was, like, in its infancy then.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? Like, if I could send the video, it would only been like, it took 6 hours to send a three second clip. You know how it was back then on satcom and shit. Like, kind of existent, but really, like, not like it is now. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

So I had to get back with that video shit.

So how was it when you got back?

Got back to the safe house in Jalalabad, contacted the rear, talked to, you know, Commander Fury, Drew. I drew the fucking assault plan on, like, a napkin or fucking piece of paper. And it was like stick figure dudes to trucks of to house to trucks to, like, home. And then that one option, we just drive in, we hit the house, we drive out. Right? That'd take forever. Next option, drive in, helicopter out, airplane to Bagram, right? So it was like, you know, airplane, helicopter, truck, house, later, like, whatever. General, like, called me Picasso. I seen your drawings, and everyone made fun of me, but, like, yo, Chicago public school education. You can't take your books, can't leave the school. Like, of course I'm drawing fucking sticks figures here. You know what I mean? Like, you didn't send me with a proper reporting format. I don't fucking know what to say or do, right? So, like, literally, the assault pan was a Trojan horse based off of my fucking stick figures. But what happens? I get back, I rented, I got more trucks. Like, now I got a terp. We talked to the driver. Like, I handed the driver, like, this wad of cash when we got back, and he was just like, ah, it was like, fucking $8, you know what I mean?

And then a driver, everyone got paid, but we filled the trucks with, like, them savage mattresses. You know how it's not really a mattress, it's just, like, foam, like twin bed size. Literally knee deep in the back of the trucks for guys to hang out. And then they were doing the Trojan horse. So what I didn't know is while they were at Bagram, they built facades for the back of the trucks that look like water bottles, you know what I mean? So if you lifted a thing, it was water bottles, cases of water, but it was a facade on a piece of plywood, so they couldn't see the assaulters. And it was like one box wide or something when they. So the guys flew in the jalalabad, met me with the jingly trucks, got off the trucks on the jingly trucks, five or 6 hours, five or six checkpoints, a couple sketchy ones to get.

Why sketchy? What happened?

I'm going to tell you sketchy fucking. I'm going to tell you what sketchy checkpoints look like in Afghanistan. They'll have that one little string in the middle of the road on like, two bricks on this side and two bricks on this side. You seen that before? Yeah. Fuck with that string. And there's a 50 cal over here that's just going to gun everybody down, you know what I mean? On the top of a hill over here, right? So. Oh, and when I say gun everybody down, they'll gun down the other Afghans, because once they, they start shooting, it ain't gonna fucking stop and they'll kill everybody. And then they'll be like, oh, we jean Ahmed. But yeah, these checkpoints are just fucking. You can't fuck with them. You're not gonna run it, you're not gonna fuck with them, right? And they want something, right? So one of the checkpoints, a guy was shaking me down. I just grabbed a dirty fucking blanket kind of off the floor on the bottom of the truck, and the guy snatched it from me and, like, waved us through. When we came back through, I bought a bunch of blankets and I just hanging hand in blankets to the guys, and everyone's like, ah, because it's a cold night, middle of the night.

Everybody loved them blankets. That's how I got the assault force through. And I had already been through with my truck driver a few times, you know what I mean? So, like, as a familiar face.

Yeah, yeah. So you get in?

Yeah. So salt force comes in. One of the sources, the source that gave this guy up, only gave him up because he wanted to fuck one of his wives. And when we raided the house, there was a super hot one. That is not the one he wanted. Anyway, he led the assault force to the house. I kind of, as the sniper, sealed the backside from the village, right? They're raiding the house. Villagers start to kind of like, a lot of villagers were coming about to overrun us, right? And I just fired over their heads with an AK because I had an AK. That's what you carry, right? What I didn't know is every fucking laser on the assault force is on my body. Like, yo, it was me, motherfuckers. Go back to work. You know what I mean? Like, these lasers over AK fire, right? Everyone's like, what the fuck is that? Right? It's just me, me. And then we raid the house, get the guy and his sons. Like, his kids were sleeping with a fucking water buffalo. Like, I'm trying to open the shed. We're clearing the outbuildings later, trying to open this.

It's fucking dark. Like, trying to get in. Open this door. Finally shine a fucking light. It's a water buffalo. Like, he's laying on the ground, and I'm pushing against his face, and he's just like, holy shit. Hey. And then, like, little kids stand up from, like, behind them, like. And they're like, they're sleeping with this water buffalo to stay fucking warm.

Wow.

So the kids slept with a fucking water buffalo. I think there was a donkey in there, too. Like, fucking bizarre. Like. Anyway, first time I seen a water buffalo. Fucking surprise, you know? Yeah. We cleared the house, and then I left. The next morning, helicopters came in. They exfilled, went back to Jalalabad airport with them. That's our first snatch of the war, right? And then I had to make my way out with the trucks later. And then I got to Jalalabad airport a couple days later.

Right on. Let's take a quick break.

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Let's get back to the show. All right, shrek, we're back from the break. We just talked about the singleton mission in tora borade. I want to move into you working with the pakistani commandos. Let's start.

Love that. Yeah, yeah. As a major in the pakistani special forces. What's up?

How'd that happen?

Yeah, I got told, like, we were crossing the border, going in to control both sides of the border, right? And we were supposed to go with the pakistani special forces guys, right? And basically, me and another guy, we were, like, company commanders. We were in charge of a company, and we did other side of the border. Shit.

Why were you secure in that border?

Yeah. Cause they thought bin Laden might cross at some time. You know what I mean? Like, we all know that was bullshit, but, like, we're securing the border right? Like, so I had been to other, like, they call it AFO, right? Advanced forced operations. Right? Back then, it was like black magic, you know what I mean? Like, who's gonna do this? Like, first off, war requires bodies, and what everyone doesn't know is everyone's gonna fucking have to do it before too long. But at that point, you know, like, aFo, this was a new thing, and then we had the opportunity to put guys on the other side of the border also. Why the fuck nothing? You know what I mean?

Mm hmm.

And then, yeah, basically, super easy job. Like, we'd get intel, we'd fucking drive them the point x, definitely not tell them anything. You know what I mean? And then be like, go raid that compound. And they'd be like, major, how did you know there'd be so many landmines in that compound? Like, I never told him, but, like, I could read the gps. That's what I wanted to say. But, like, be like, I just left it a mystery. You know what I mean? But, yeah, we fucking did all kinds of shit on the other side of the border.

What kind of stuff?

Well, you know, the fucking Pakistanis, first off, don't want bin Laden or al Qaeda in their fucking country. And I know this might sound hard to believe, and this was hard for me to take, but, like, the pakistani special forces guys are as proud as Pakistan, as we are America, and they want what's right for fucking their country, you know what I mean? Now, it's hard for me to grasp, like, wait, you guys are patriots of Pakistan? That kind of sounds ridiculous to me. But the reality is, it's where you live, it's where you work, it's where you grew. You're a special forces guy. Of course you're a patriot of Pakistan. You know what I mean? And these guys wanted to do. They're on the side of. Right.

What is a mission that stands out that happened over there in Pakistan more than the rest of them, man.

We'd run up on these al Qaeda compounds, and, like, they would want to surround them and, like, wait them out. And, like, in the middle of the night, they'd come out, guns ablaze, and then disappear into the dark. You know what I mean? They'd be like, yo, let us level the compound right now. And, like, they'd be like, no, we wait them out of really not much happened on the other side of the border, per se. Like, gunfights in the frontier providences. So it's pretty boring in that way. But we did get fucking rocketed and mortared every fucking night. Just like Afghanistan. Probably worse. I will tell you, one of our first missions, we were at Haqqani's house looking for Haqqani. And supposedly he dressed up like a girl. He was one of the girls. And they're like, no, we can't touch the girls. It's like, one of these girls is a fucking boy, but you can't touch girls in general. That's the same place where Bergdahl was. I rated the place that they fucking housed him. How crazy.

Oh, shit.

Yeah. Haqqani's place across the border.

What about. What about after Pakistan? Where'd you go?

I left Pakistan. I was shitting in a fucking hole in a fucking compound in fucking Pakistan. And I got the word my team had moved to Baghdad, and I was out of there that day. Literally. I got on a fucking. A birdhouse, a helicopter, went to Islamabad, got on a civilian plane, flew to Kuwait city, got off the plane in Kuwait city. And, like, I don't speak the fucking language, but there's a c 130 on the tarmac waiting for me. I'm trying to get to there. So I'm trying to tell all the fucking mandress guys in Kuwait city, I need to get to that plane. And finally, some dude walked me behind customs, everything. Fucking fired up some, like, the big ass airport busses. I'm the only one on it. Drove me to the plane. I get to the back of the plane, and the dude waiting for me is like, you're fucking late. You know what I mean? It was like, motherfucker, you ever tried to tell a dude, you need to get to that plane without knowing how to tell a dude? Like, come on. I did my fucking best. You know what I mean?

So, like, I get on a plane, we combat land into biop, and then that's where my job was. I was in. I was at the VVIP for a while.

So when you get to. When you get to Baghdad, at some point in time, you'd been named the sheriff of Baghdad. How did that come about?

No, that didn't come till much later. Much later? Yeah. Yeah, much later. Well, how did it come about, this guy? When I was a sar major, we hired a guy who was a retired SAR major, worked for the state department. He worked the crisis action center for the embassy in Baghdad through the war years. Got paid a ton of money to handle crises for the state Department. But you know what kind of crisis you handle while there's a war going on? None. There's a war going on like he didn't do shit. Finally one day his wife told him he had to come home. He couldn't stay gone no more. But he's killed it for money working for the state Department. So he retired out of Bragg looking for jobs on bragg. Comes to work at JSociel, he's like, hey, sar, major, what size shirt you wear? I'm like, I'm a double triple x. What's up? You know? And he's like, I got a bunch of Sheriff Abaghdad t shirts that, you know, when I was at the state department. You want them? I'm like, look, you know, for PT, for jiu jitsu. Like, I ruined t shirts.

I was like, bring them. I'll wear them. I just started wearing sheriff abad. I had a ton of them. I wear sheriff Abagh, dad t shirts everywhere. That's how it happened. That's how it happened.

That is not what I was expecting.

Yeah. And then, you know, Dave Kramer works for Magpul. He was like the archetypes guy. Forever Solomon's son, too. Anyway, he's like, only guy I knew that knew, like, about big business at the time. So I was like, hey, you know, I was thinking about, you know, I gotta have a business name or whatever. What do you think? He was like, if. Funniest thing I ever heard is you and that sheriff of Baghdad. If you don't just name and your business as sheriff of Baghdad. I don't know what name you should name it. I was like, well, if he says that, I'll do it. And I did it.

Right on. So tell me about Iraq, man.

So, yeah, so I land in Iraq, I get to the VVIP. Like my fucking desk is a marble table 60 fucking feet long. I'm in this ornate room with bath party symbols on this ceiling. It's wood, it's marble. We got like a fucking four, six head gold shower. Like, I'm like, yo, this is war. That fucking thing hitting me in the nuts, the gold thing, that's low. Like, this is how you fucking war right here. Not fucking shitting in a hole. So in one day, I went from like, shitting in a hole to like, fucking gold showers. Loved every fucking second of it. Ever since then. It's fucking great.

How was the op temple over there?

Iraq is amazing, man. We do ten hits, 20 hits? Fuck, I don't know how many a night. You know what I mean?

Like ten to 20 hits a night.

Oh, yeah.

How the fuck do you do ten to 20 hits a night?

Well, not only that, but during the Saddam fucking days, we might have to clear a whole Vida village. Like, that could be a hundred houses tonight, like door to door looking for these fucking saddam sightings. You know what I mean? It was fucking amazing. It's amazing, man. I mean, you know, in, in the unit, I think they call it like a. Like a shred fest where you do like 24, 36 hours, target after target after as many as you could do. There's another one we could hit somewhere else. Another one. Another one. Another one. That's what Iraq was. Shredfest. And then my squadron, you don't want to. You don't want us sitting around the house tonight because we're going to get drunk and break shit. So, uh, I fucking. We don't care if it's Joe shit, the fucking rag, man. Let's go get that bitch tonight. Keep me fucking busy. And I think a couple nights, like, guys fucked up the house. And the commander from then on was like, okay, you guys don't get any days off. And it's like, that's what we've been fucking saying the whole time. Like, no one's dying at Bragg.

We want to go out every fucking night. You know what I mean? So we, my squadron, man, we were in the beginning, I believe, way more aggressive than other squadrons, like, by far. You know what I mean?

Can you talk about. I mean, let's just talk about some of the operations that you were a part of there.

Let's see. Saddam was captured nine days after I left country. And me and another guy worked at intel on Saddam. Like, the whole time I rolled up his tailor. You ever see the video where Shaddam shoots the mauser in the air?

Yeah.

He's got that. The fox fur hat on. I own that hat.

No way.

Yeah, I own that hat.

Nice.

Yeah, but I rolled up his tailor. Like, I had all his clothes at one point, right? And I got this italian sweater and it's like blue and, like a red stripe or some shit. I wear it on Christmas Eve. I look like a fat man in a little coat. Like it's. It's like a large, you know, my belly. My beer belly's hanging out the bottom. You know what I mean? Like, I normally wear that on Christmas Eve. I got a sweater from them. You know what I mean? But, yeah, we rolled up his tailor. Everybody that fucking washed his dick, we rolled them up. Like, we were fucking. We were, you know, climbing it. And then nine days after I left, C squadron got him. And, like, I think we already had the intel, and it was already in the works. We had to go home for Christmas. So they caught him nine days after I left. But, you know, man, we fucking one of those, like, kings or one of the deck of cards, you know what I mean? Like, I paid no attention to it other than getting the x off the poster on the wall.

But like, you know, one of those guys, we fucking low viz shotgun, breached the front door, right? Fucking held his family hostage, told his family, contact them until he gives himself in. Fucking guy turned himself in like, three days later in Mosul or some shit, you know what I mean? We think his family hostage is fucking in his family home. Like, we got his sisters, his grandma, his mom. Yeah, we did a lot of weird shit for Saddam. We captured Saddam's. Saddam had a favorite piece of ass.

Really?

Oh, yeah. He had this. His favorite fuck was this lady. And, like, she was not hot, but she was married, so we figured maybe she knew where he went. So we rolled up her husband one day, right? I had him go to the Saddam's tailor store, had the tailor tell him to come to the store. And then I had. We had these Mohawk guys, you know, the Mohawks. We had locals that helped us and we trained them. And then they ended up becoming later the. The CT force, right? Okay. We had a couple guys we trained, we trusted, right? So I told my guys, I was. I was in a surveillance van out front, my minivan. If you ever see the picture where I'm all sweaty in the back of a van, this is me kind of watching over what's going on. So I didn't tell anybody. I didn't have time to tell my boss or anybody. And then my two guys, I was like, hey, if this. If we can't get this guy, quick, go start a fight on the streets to get them all out of the store. So had my two mohawks start fist fighting in front of the store.

Just like anywhere in the world, right? Everyone comes outside to see what's going on. Literally, the guy comes out to watch and, like, the assault team, like, he's standing his back to the door. They're gonna snatch him with and literally.

Shoot.

Fucking drive away. And then they're like, where'd the guy go? He disappeared in the crowd. And my boss is like, he disappeared. I'm like, no. Assault teams got him. He's like, who the fuck are the guys fighting? Those are our guys. Did you tell him the fight? I was like, yeah. He was like, you should have fucking told me. You know what I mean? I'm like, yeah, this happens so quick sometimes, you know? But, yeah, we captured his favorite piece of ass husband. Thinking that might help. It didn't. But in capturing everyone in his inner circle, what I would tell you is they were all christians.

Were they really?

If you touch Saddam, I don't care if you touch his dick or you fucking put clothes on his body. If it touches him, it was christians. Because christians martyr themselves, they go to hell. Muslims martyr themselves, they're fucking going to heaven. So his inner circle, the people that fed him, clothed him, fucking washed his dick. We rolled them all up. They were all christians.

Interesting.

And that's why there was always Christians in Iraq, and that's why Iraq was fairly western, because he had no beef with christians and he knew as human beings, less likely to kill him. That's all he wanted around him. His inner circle. Now, all the military commanders or whatever fucking sheikhs, I don't know, whatever the fuck they were doing, they were all savages. But his inner circle was christianse.

I'll be damned. I did not know that.

And then we snatched the guy who used to give Saddam baths. I was inside the tailor's house, on the roof. I went to the tailor's house and I knew he was supposed to be coming. I was kind of early setting shit up. He showed up early. Me and another guy had to go to the roof. I called the assault force right where he was driving away. Literally ran into the Humvee of the assault force. Snatch that guy. Yeah, we did a lot of the unique snatches for the Becca cards. Like, should be its fucking movie on its own, you know what I mean? We did a lot of great shit. I mean, I gotta be honest, people always try to thank me for my service. I'm not. I'm not the motherfucker you should be thanking. You should thank the kid. That was, like, grinding. I did whatever the fuck I wanted, like, and it was amazing. Like, all the time amazing. And it was this. I learned in Afghanistan we needed be much fucking smarter if we wanted to win. And I also knew there's not. There's not. We can't do enough hits to win this war.

We can't. There's no fucking way. You know what I mean?

What did you think of Iraq.

Strategically taking out Saddam? Fucking horrible for the world. Look where we are now. Should have left that motherfucker. I'd have pumped him full of all kinds of shit to fucking beat Iran again, you know what I mean? However, we gave it all away. It's a fucking shit show, just like Afghanistan. But the reality is, this is how it fucking goes. You know what I mean? Don't get upset. It's the fine print. You should have read it.

Do you think we should have ever been there in the first place?

I think there's no benefit to fucking taking Saddam out. I also thought there was no benefit. You know, Afghanistan. Mullah Armar came out years later and said, george Bush gave us 48 hours and invaded at hour 40. He said if he would have gave me full 48 hours, his answer was, give up bin Laden.

No shit. I did not know that either.

The shit the fucking media doesn't like to put out.

How do you know that?

Because I read what it.

Where did you read that?

Oh, man, I don't even remember. But, yeah, he wanted to give up bin Laden, and we attacked too soon. And he was like, fuck him. Mm.

Interesting. It's almost like we wanted the war.

Imagine that. Now, I wanted the war, too. Don't get me wrong. I was 100% for that shit. Rocket, mortars. Fucking send it. Let's go. No one dies on brag, you know? So I was all for it. But strategically, man, you believe in your bosses, sometimes they get it wrong, you know what I mean?

Did you experience loss of a teammate ever?

Yeah. Fuck yeah. All the time. Even in training, man. Like, man, the guy was partnered with in Bosnia all the time. Fucking rotor blade took the top of his head off one night. Like, Thursday night. Live fire, you know?

Holy shit.

Yeah. Yeah. People die.

Did that affect you at all?

No. Fucking. You died doing what you love. I'd fucking high five you for that. I'd high five myself for that. You know what I mean? Like, you died doing the one thing you're here for, not a better death.

How many teammates have you lost?

Fuck, I don't know, man. So many now. Fucking cancer.

Cancer.

If you'd have told me, join the Delta Force and be fighting cancer the rest of your fucking time, or your buddies are gonna die of cancer. I made a state in South America banging colombian girls, you know what I mean? So lots of guys. Everybody dies. I'm gonna die. I'm not gonna let it ruin my day, you know?

Mm hmm.

Mm hmm.

Where did you run into Tim Kennedy?

Yeah. So I left the unit. I was kind of like, in the Sif company. We really hadn't broke down in the troops yet, so I was a team sergeant. Timmy's team sergeant. Well, before that, he was just. I was in the dojos at Brag for something to do at night. As a single guy, just go down to the dojos at Bragg and just fucking roll jits with people. And then back then, being a blue belt, they're like, oh, sir, are you teaching today? Like, hell, no. I just came here to choke some of you lazy fuckers, you know what I mean? I'm not teaching shit, you know? And they're like, and the instructor back then was a fucking purple belt. You know what I mean? Like, so, like, this kid's in the dojo, and literally, like, he's just fucking sitting on me. And I'm like, thinking, this ain't a move. How the fuck do I defend that? Do I put a foot, like, do I lock up? What the fuck? And he's just kind of, like, sitting on me, like, come on, do something now. Let's go. You know what I mean? I'm like, who the fuck is this kid sitting on me?

So then that happens a couple times, and finally I'm like, hey, who the fuck are you? Where did you learn jets? Like, no one around here is at this level. You know what I mean? Like, where do you come from? And he said, you know, grew up in California fighting chocolate Dell, right? His backstory. So he tells me that. And I was like, fuck, man. I was like, you know, you're in the Q course. What group? Do you know what group you're going to? Or where you're going? Like, where are you at? In the kind of, like the pipeline or whatever they call it? And he was like, no, you know, it's kind of early on in the process. So I was like, well, you know, I'm in the Sif company. How would you like to come to the sift company? And of course, like, it's the most advanced company. You can't just get there as a new guy at the time. So he was like, yeah, I do that. So, literally, I went to my sar major, right? And I'm like, hey, I want to get a kid out of the Q course. And they're like, why out of all the people in group, you want a kid in the Q course?

Why pick someone else? We got fucking hundreds of guys. And I'm like, hey, I think he's a black belt in jiu jitsu, right? Like, this could really be great for our hand to hand program. At a minimum, we don't even have to put him on the team. Just let him be the fucking hand to hand guy here. We got slots. So my SAR major was like, well, the guy who runs the Q course, my best friend let's call him. Like, so he's on speaker. Like, hey, we want to get a kid over here out of your. Out of the Q course. And he's like, why ain't got enough dudes in 7th group over there? What the fuck you want with the kids over here for? Like, that was the answer, right? And they were like, well, there's not a rule why you can't take him, but, like, why do you want him? You know what I mean? And then, you know, yeah, they said I could have him. And then he came right to my team, and then I thought he would help the hand to hand program, right. But kind of didn't. You know what I mean?

Why? Because we were busy, you know, but, yeah, he was just fighting in the dojos at Brag, fucking just sitting on me.

Why did you leave? Why'd you leave Delta?

A couple reasons. Divorce. Messy, messy fucking divorce. They don't. They don't like that. They don't like that at all.

Why? That's. I mean, that's pretty fucking common, isn't it?

Fuck if I know. You know what I mean? Like, I would say this is. I don't know. If your divorces get messy, they'll fucking cut you.

Gotcha.

If anything's messy, they'll fucking cut you.

So what were. What was your position over there when you left?

A team leader.

Team leader?

Yeah.

Did you ever go back?

No, I ended up getting promoted to summer major. That's why I went to the J staff. I kind of went back, but I was already kind of too senior to backtrack.

Gotcha.

So I worked on the J staff.

What is the J staff? I don't know. JSOC, what were you doing there as.

The money Sar major.

Gotcha. How was it transitioning from delta back into special forces?

Man, it was crazy for a minute there, because I joined the army when it was the paper army, and I didn't exist to the army. So here I am, a new team sergeant, but I'm getting paid from the army. But the army think I doesn't. I don't exist. And I couldn't do anything until they could prove I was actually in the army. So I had to go back to the unit, go to the personnel section, have them unfuck my records into the army side, because I was never in the army when they crossed over digitally.

Wow.

So it, like, took three weeks. They're like, are you sure you're in the army? Like, you think I'd fucking be here? Like, you know what I mean? Like, what the fuck? Yeah. And then magically, when I got the 7th Group, we got orders to work under the unit in Iraq. You know what I mean? Why? The task force commander was my jiu jitsu partner, you know? And then we went to Iraq and worked under the unit.

How'd that go?

Fucking awesome. Are you kidding me? Like, man, we got Zarqawi's number two one night. We were with b squadron. They were all out. Commander came to me. My number two is on the grid. Can you get him? Like, don't fuck this up. I was like, I got this. You know, like, I think we got his, like, number two or three guy one night just because everyone else is fucking busy, you know? And then it goes back to what I already said. There ain't enough of us to hit enough targets to win this fucking war today. So they needed SF teams, they needed Rangers help, they needed. Fuck. There was times we had whole brigades tasked to a season area and just door to door that biggest bitch. Especially in the fucking Saddam days, right? So that's just kind of how it worked. So my troop goes over, works under. We were under blue squadron, fucking seals for a while. Complete fucking ass wound. Why is that? Oh, those guys are fucking horrible. Wyman and the boys, you know Wyman?

I don't.

Anyway, yeah, it was fucking horrible. Like, we had to work under him in Al Assad. The compound in Al Assad was built by the Delta Force. How do I know? Because I was part of the crew that built these pre staging bases so the unit could go anywhere en masse and fucking hit targets now and have a place for guys to sleep. Helicopters of fuel, wars, logistics, like. And they're like, can't use our gym. You know, you special forces guys, you can't use our gym, you can't fucking use our laundry. And it's like, I built this motherfucking place and they're like, so what? So, yeah, we worked under blue. So what we did is we took all their shit targets, fucking dumped them on our lap. And I ran it just like I would have an a squadron. We fucking hit targets every night. We pulled every thread. We didn't. We didn't go out and kill everybody. That's how you get intel. You'll never get anywhere going out and killing everybody. So we basically climbed the fucking lantern and like, one night, fucking their number one, we worked our way up to, like, their number one guy and then, like, they told me, no helicopters tonight.

So I thought there was no helicopters. They jumped on the bird and hit our target, which was their number one guy, and we worked ourselves up. So, like, the next day, day later, they told us they're bringing the boats, and they wanted us to ride the rivers. And, like, I was like, boat assaults, bucket list check. You know what I mean? So I was like, I don't give a fuck. Boat, fucking truck, helicopter. I gives a fuck. You know what I mean? We're getting some. And then the task force commander came down, was like. He was like, you know, hey, we captured, blah, blah, blah. And I was standing there with him, and he was like, the task force commander was like, he's like, we're bringing in the boats. We're going to have the SF guys in the boats. And he's like, let me get this straight. You are the premier seals in the world, and you're going to put your special forces guys on boats? And he was like, these guys work their way up through the bottom of your target deck to make you successful. You're gonna put them on boats? He looked at me and he was like, john, you're going under B squadron in Baghdad today.

I was like, okay, boss. So then we worked under B squadron, and that was just fucking great. Just fucking great. You know what I mean? Because, you know, you don't know what target you're gonna get. Because if they rolled on another target and another priority comes out, and this might be the only time, you know what I mean? It's fucking great under B squadron, right? And then B squadron left. A squadron killed Zarqawi that day, one of those days. And then a squadron came in and we killed, like, whoever was next after fucking Zarqawi in, like, a month, or. I don't know. It didn't take long, but, yeah, we were with B squadron when they got Zarqawi.

Nice.

Yeah, we were all. So was Timmy. We were all out that day.

Nice. Nice. Yeah. Tim talked pretty extensively about that.

Yeah. If you look at, like, the who killed Zarqawi picture where the guys in the DC use.

Nice.

Nice.

You know, with. Did all the killing that you were a part of ever. Do you feel like that ever affected you?

Yeah. Fuck, yeah. Mandy. I've had every fucking symptom of PTSD. Like, all these guys talking, whatever their fucking symptoms are, right? Like, guys cry about this shit. I've had every fucking one of them. You know what I mean? And you know what I mean? The problem with the getting hung up in that is it makes you one chapter of a book. Your book ain't over. There might be more chapters. There might be better fucking chapters. Get over yourself. Move the fuck on. I used to always tell guys to let it go, right? And I tell you right now, say, let it go.

Let it go.

How do you feel?

I feel great.

Imagine doing that for ten years. This is how I got rid of all that PTSD. And then I found out some of my PTSD. Fucking the forgetfulness. You know how, guys, I'm driving, I don't know where I'm going like that. That's a common one I heard all the time. Same here, yo. First and foremost, I went and bought a fucking Tom Tom. I don't need to know where I'm going. This motherfucker's gonna take me. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah.

And then I realized this is a brain cognitive function issue, has nothing to do with TBI, has to do with your brain. Getting the proper proteins, MCT oil, fix your brain, you're less forgetful. Now, is this a symptom of PTSD or is this a fucking symptom of life? The next thing, fucking drinking, you know what I mean? Hey, what are you drinking? Two bottles. Five bottles a night, yo. Five bottles a night. Like, I'm not going to tell you not to drink, but I'd tell you tonight, cut it down to two and a half. The reason you're fucking mean in the morning is you're actually hungover and used to it. That just makes you mean. Cut it down to two and a half bottles. You know what I mean? I'm not going to tell anyone to quit or not do something. I just say fucking use it wisely, you know what I'm saying? So I've had every symptom of PTSD, TBI, like, the VA, gave me a zero, right? And why is because I learned to let it go. And I learned that some of this shit was diet, some of it was brain function, some of it was fucking drinking, you know, the fucking hall pass, okay?

And this is the. You know, I did this with Timmy. This is why Timmy doesn't have PTSD or no one that's ever worked for me. Because if a guy made a kill for me today, that night we're having drinks on the spot, I told him, this is exactly what I expect you to do. You did a great job. Fucking end of discussion. Now, as your boss, I'm going to cut off the shirt, and we're going to look at your fucking shot placement. Because marksmanship is my problem, not yours. But let's go look at those shots and I check fucking bullet holes all the time.

No shit.

Fuck yeah. I'm in charge of the marksmanship here. If we're fucking this up right now, this shit's fucked up. We need to fix it right now.

So you would go on target, cut all the shirts off everybody that showed.

Up when I had chances, yeah. And show the guys their shots. And I tell them they did a great job on the spot. And when we got back later, I'd make sure we all had a drink, and everybody came by and fucking said thank you and shook this guy's hand. You think you'd ever have a problem if someone did that for you?

What was, what were satisfactory shot placement for you?

Everybody's shots were perfect. I never seen bullshit shots. My marksmanship works.

Roger that.

I've never seen any bad shots, you know what I mean? They're all kind of good center mass shots, you know what I mean? And then doing that, what I realized is hide above boar for killing people. Fucking doesn't matter. It's two and a half inches. You know what I mean? Okay. If I suppose to shoot here and I hit there, would anyone ever know when they cut the shirt off? Fuck no. So there's that. You know what I mean? Yeah. But, yeah, guys shot good shots and I'd make sure on the spot. I told him, good job, man. You know, because that's the time when you're questioning this shit. But what happens is if someone doesn't do that, you're gonna walk away, you're going to drown it in alcohol, right? We're going to celebrate with alcohol. You're going to drown it in alcohol. And then it's like a fucking hall pass. But the problem is the hall pass is fucking five years old. And now you got to unfuck all of this to get back to that, to unfuck all of that to make all of this good.

Where did you learn that? Where did you learn. Did you come up with that? Ripping the shirts off or just something I did?

Something I always did. Yeah. I wouldn't rip them off. I'd cut them with my shears or knife. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

I'd be quick about it. And then there's. Sometimes you can't do that. But if we could, I would.

Interesting. I've never heard that before.

Yeah, it fucking works. I mean, and I could tell you this, the guys that work for me, I don't think any of them have PTSD like that. That's great, but it's a. I don't think PTSD is a war thing? I think it's a humanity thing. I think you could be a kid, see your fucking cousin get hit by a train. You can be fucked up since that day.

Oh, yeah.

You know what I mean? So I don't. I don't think it's a war thing. I don't think it's a soldier thing. You know what I mean?

I do. I know what you're saying. What are some of the differences that you saw between your time in Afghanistan and your time in Iraq? How would you differentiate those?

Yeah, I would say this. The beginning of Afghanistan, fucking Rangers, the army, all of them just fucking sucked. Like, the first hit in Iraq, the Rangers, like, fucking and shot up some old people. My squadron fucking Sar major, like, puts me on brain detail. Why? Because I had a fucking pickup truck. Cause I drove from the fucking VVIP. Fucking Ken block with a fucking map to meet the squadron. Fucking downtown on a hit that's like 16 guys that look like Saddam with mustaches. You know what I mean? It's like, whoever called this place in, they were right. There's 16 motherfuckers in here that look like Saddam. You know what I mean? Only because, like, that's a popular look, right? So I drive my pickup truck. Squadron raids the house. Rangers shoot up the blocking positions for no reason. Like, fucking skipping 50 cow rounds down the Baghdad street is awesome. Until I was on blood and guts detail, I wasn't happy about that. Not my kill. I don't want blood. I don't want that blood on. I make the kill, I'll get bloody. I don't make the kill. Blood's yours. You know what I mean?

So this kid in the turd, he's like, get him this ceasefire. What the fuck are they shooting as I go over there? I'm like, fire. Finally, the kid, I'm like, hi. And he looks down, and I'm like, come here. And he leans over, I junk him out of the turret. I'm like, your fucking mess. Your kill. Put him in the back of my fucking truck. And like, they killed old people. And then the medic, you know, like, these fucking old people are in pain. And I'm like, hey, the Ranger medic, give them morphine, right? And he's like, I'm not allowed to give morphine to the enemy. I was like, do these old people look like enemies to you? And he was like, I can't give morphine to the enemy. And I'm like, you're gonna give these fucking people painkillers or I'm gonna fuck you up in the back of this truck right fucking now. And he was like, he gave them their morphine, right? And then they end up, you know, we got them to the cache, probably end up dying anyway, right? But the beginning of the war, they were, like, just ate up later towards Iraq.

Total professional force, 100% value added, right? So I would say the beginning, Afghanistan, the army was not ready for this, and I would say we weren't either, but we were more capable to adapt than the army.

Yeah.

And I think, like, that initial raid in Iraq, I think they fired those kids on my squadron's recommendations, you know what I mean? And that's when, like, we were, like, in the beginning Iraq. Like, why are we even bringing the Rangers? Fuck them. They're fucking their casualty producing weapon at times. We don't need casualties, you know what I mean? And then later it became a more professional force. Like, fucking. Just killing it later. So Iraq, I really believe, professionalized most of our special operations in a much bigger sense.

Interesting, interesting. What about just regular operations?

What about it?

What do you think the differences were? What were the differences for? You work in Afghanistan versus Iraq.

Yeah, Afghanistan, you're always at distance, always far away. Iraq is more like real warfare. You know what I mean? I'd also say this is the big army wanted none of Afghanistan. They want to fight in the mountains. Helicopters don't fly there. You can't drive tanks there. So the big army is like, whoa, Afghanistan's for you special forces types. You know what I mean? That's really how they played Afghanistan. Right? I call that bullshit card on the fucking army for that. They're just fucking pussies and didn't want to jump the fucking mountains like we were. And then Iraq comes, and the army's like, whoa, this is our fucking war. Why? Because you could drive fucking tanks down the street, right? So the army, which was much more into Iraq than Afghanistan ever.

Let'S move into your time. You went back to Delta as a sergeant major, correct?

Oh, I went to the J staff, yeah. How was that being a sergeant major? Fucking ass.

You hated it.

Fucking hate it. Every single day.

You strike me as a person that would hate that position.

Fucking ass wound. Every fucking day of my life. Life, I fucking hated my job.

How did that happen?

You get promoted to Sar major?

I mean, did you want to get promoted?

I didn't put in a packet. I didn't put. I didn't. Do you know how, like, you got to take a picture, put in a packet, like there's, you know, you're as an NCO, there's your professional stuff. So you get promoted in that? Yeah, I didn't do any of that shit. I didn't give a fuck. I didn't want none of it. But I made. I got promoted anyway.

So you hated it.

Fucking hated it.

Then you left.

I retired as soon as I could, yeah.

And so when did you start your training company?

I started training in probably 2005. I retired in eleven. So I had been doing some classes on leave, and I just go to the bosses and be like, hey, these guys want me to shoot with them for like a week. Can I take some leave days? And they'd always approve it because, fuck, I never took leave. I never wanted to leave Iraq or Afghanistan. I looked at it. I should have stayed there till the war was won or over.

How's your company developed?

Man, I fucking crush it. I crush this shit. I'm the undertow of the gun world, you know? All these fancy motherfuckers have rise and fall off the top of the gun world. Yo, I'm still here. Fucking doing this fucking since eleven now. Filling all my classes since then, you know what I mean? I'm just crushing it.

How many classes are you running a year, man?

On an average, probably. Probably 60 to 70 to 100.

Wow.

I feel them.

Well, that's credible. How many people do you take a class?

Ten or less, generally, but there's some ranges where the range could hold five. I do five. Range holds six smaller ranges, but never more than ten. I think I do twelve once in a while if I have to, but never more than that.

Is it just you instructing or do you.

Just me. Yeah.

No kidding. So who's your target customer? You look for people with experience, you're looking for people, you don't care.

Bring it. I do the video, the video don't care. I don't care what gun you got, what fucking holster, all that gear shit is bullshit. It ain't gonna fucking help you shoot better, you know what I mean? So anybody can take my class from fucking skill level nothing to, you know, I do pro shooters. The video. Only way to get that two tenths of a second 2nd, which could be the difference between first and fucking 10th in some of them matches, you know what I mean? So, like, I do pro shooters, I do fucking housewives, guys, wives, couple classes, like you name it. What.

What videos are you talking about? Can you describe what you're talking about?

Yeah, like, average day for me on the range is I videotape I see what you do, right? I just want to see what you do, what your habits are, what the fuck you know. And then this is point a, right? This is the whole thing. In the gun world, if you're not doing videos, you never have a start point. How the fuck do we know where you're going to end up? So first thing in the morning, I take a video, beep. Shoot your three rounds, I take a video, and then from that three rounds, I'll tell you where your bullets go. Why exactly? How you get them there, how you not do that? To get them all in a circle. And then no matter what my class is, average day pistol class is 43 rounds. In 43 rounds, I can get anyone in a three inch circle.

No shit. At what distance?

About three, five yards.

Nice.

Anybody?

Nice?

Bring me your lame, crippled and crazy. I got it. Shaky motherfuckers. What do they call that? Y'all got them, too? Blind old guys don't see so good. I got you. Fucking simple. Is it all pistol, pistol rifle. I don't even care. I do it all.

Do you do tactics?

Um, you know, I do with, like, SWAT teams. When they hire me, I'll show them shit like that. But the average day on the range for me is like a one day pistol, one day carving, you know, two day class, stuff like that.

Any mindset type stuff.

All I teach is mindset. Because if I give you a model to get better at pistol, you could use that model to get better at anything you do. You know what I mean? So it's all kind of mindset without mindset. And the premise of everything I do is I don't want to. I don't. I don't want to tell you what to think. I want to show you how to think so you can make those decisions for yourself stuff.

Very cool, very cool. How many people do you think you've trained?

Abby told me 15,000.

15,000 people in the past, since eleven.

Or something like that. And I think that doesn't include, like, people we don't count, like military guys, special forces guys, some SWAT teams. But I think she told me, like, 15,000. I'd have to text her, but I think that's what she said.

That's a. That's a city. That's incredible.

Team SOB is the undertow of the gun community.

How'd you come up with Team Sob?

Fuck if I know, man. Like, I don't know. Someone. I think it kind of came about is I started the app, the SOB TV, and then, and we had a Facebook group, right? And then back in the day, like, guys talked about guns and stuff on Facebook. No one cared. And then, like, Facebook started to band me into existence. Like, Facebook fucking hates me. You know what I mean? Like, zuck, if you're listening, it's true. I can't even log in. Like, you know how you go to log in and they're like, we'll send a code to your phone. That code will never come. And my phone number is correct. So I just got banned out of existence. So we kind of switched to another, you know, platform and where the guys could actually talk. And as soon as we got off Facebook, all the fucked up behavior from the guys went away because they're not trying to piss off Zuckerberg every day because he's fucking with us, so they want to fuck with him back. Once we got in another place, like, the guys were great. We just talk about guns again. And then I started building a community.

So then it was like, fuck, man. We're more of a fucking really big fucking team than anything else. And then I started making the team sob shirts and, like, fucking guys love it.

Very cool. Very cool. What's coming for you? Anything new.

Man? I'm just mid grinding it right now for work kind of summer. Summer. No real classes, so I'm kind of chilling till fall. So what I'm gonna do this summer is I think I'm training for worlds.

Worlds?

Jiu jitsu.

No shit.

I think I'm gonna go first off, master worlds. So I'm gonna fight old guys my age this year. If it goes well, next year, I might just fucking go for the open.

Nice.

Yeah, but, yeah, I. And then I told myself, I was like, you know, well, the average, like, shooting thing is, like, I go somewhere for four days, and it's like a one day class. Like a two day class and a one day class or whatever. Whatever the classes are. I told myself, I was like, man, I'm on the road sitting in these fucking hotels anyway. I should just hit a dojo and try to get a day of jitsun, you know? And then it started like that, and then it was like, I want to. I want to be there every day. And then here I am.

Very cool. What about your company? You got anything new coming out?

Man, we're on Amazon prime. You could get all your sob on Amazon Prime. I can't tell you how happy I am about that. You kind of got to look it up right now because we're kind of new, right? You know, we have a company that's supposed to do the marketing. Somehow I don't know how that works. You know, they talk to me. I have no fucking clue. So hopefully we'll be more and more on fucking Amazon. You can get shit from us from Amazon. Like fuck. You know what I mean?

Perfect. Well, Shrek, I really appreciate you being here. It was an honor to interview you and all your social media and website and all that stuff will be in the description and.

Yeah, thanks, man.

I just wish you the best of luck.

Thanks, man. Hey. You didn't even ask me any serious Timmy Kennedy questions. What's up? I didn't see this coming.

Do you want me to.

Yeah, you should. You know, Timmy, you should be asking me. He talks massive shit. Wrote a book, you know? Although I thought I was the best 40% of his book.

Well, I. You know, I already interviewed him. What do you want me to ask you about Timmy?

I don't know. You know him. Like, ask me. Ask me. I don't know anything about him. We haven't talked about that, so.

Well, if you want to. Well, what can I ask you about Tim? I mean, how was Tim when he showed up? You know, he's a very confident guy.

Yeah. Overconfident. Right. And that kind of led to the big thing in his book where, you know, I beat him up. I would say this. He was good at a lot of things, but he lacked what the army should have taught him is by the time he got to us, he should have had a really good appreciation for where he was. The gravity of the situation. I mean, he comes to me, and then we instantly work for the Delta force. Think about that. And then he's going to have to do his rest of his career. He's seen the big show. He see how good this shit works, how fucking well this works and all that. And then he had to progress to seeing some fucked up shit later with lesser people, you know what I mean? So I think he didn't understand the gravity of where he was. I know he talked about, like, me being a hard boss, but, like, I would only say, like, I knew the value of his life at a time where he didn't have a value you, especially as a young kid, you know what I mean? So I may not be the perfect guy to work for, but, like, I run a tight ship, and we're gonna fucking train.

You know what I mean? We're not just gonna fucking sit in the team room and call ourselves trained, turn this shit on, make a radio fucking call. Can you do that? No. Well, let's figure that shit out. Now, these guns, can you shoot them, yes or no? If no, let's do this better, right? So I just felt like, you know, in his book, he kind of talks about me as, like, you know, I don't know, like maybe a bad boss in a little bit of light. But the reality is, is like, yo, I had already done all this shit. You know what I mean? I valued everybody's life. And I know the war takes bodies, and I had already seen loss, and I had already learned the solo mission stuff. You can't kill enough people to win today, right? You just can't. The Nazis tried. It fucking work. Stop saying that. You know what I mean? Like, guys say that all the time. Stop fucking saying that. The only way to win a war is preserve life, whether it's yours or the people's lives that need to be preserved, right? So I think I was just in a much more experienced place when Tim came on, you know what I mean?

And, like, he's a great friend of mine. I was just at his house in Austin the other day. Like, I love his kids, his family. We're good friends. But, like, as a new guy, you know, in the Q course, he was probably the fucking baddest dude in the Q course. And then you come to a place where you're now bottom. That's hard for somebody with high confidence to deal with. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

And then I would just say, like, you know, here he is as a young guy giving me shit. I should be on every mission. A helicopter got shot down today. There's one fucking helicopter left. You know what I mean? Okay, I gotta cut one fucking helicopter. As a boss, don't take that personal. Your helicopter got shot down today. You're staying home today. What? How you want me to. You know what I mean? How else we gonna slice this, right? So he would take that as, like, a personal attack, you know what I mean? Like, oh, he's making me stay back because I'm the new guy. Well, yeah. Cause a helicopter shot down, and instead of bringing 36, we can only bring, I don't know, fucking 24. Who the fuck knows, you know? 29. I don't know. I don't know the numbers, but you know what I mean? And, like, I know, like, him having to stay back on missions sucks. I've been there. But the reality is, like, you can't just be fucking poopy and kick rocks while we're gone, right? You should be prepping them trucks, loading them machine guns. What if we need help?

You should be coming in guns ablazing, you know what I mean? So it's like, I think all that is he felt as a new guy as we were trying to keep him down, but what he kind of missed because he really didn't do any army time was, this is just the way it works for some time. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

No, like malice here. No one wanted to keep Timmy down, you know? And then he got so bad at, like, talking shit and being poopy that, like, the commanders, the officers are like, get him under control or we're gonna make sure he's out of special forces forever.

Wow.

And that's when I started to fucking get on his shit. So I know he might have hate me a little bit, but it was only to protect him. I mean, he's a decent guy, he's got great intent, he's fucking talented. He's just immature. What do you do? Right? And that's when, that's when we told him my commander's like, he needs to go to ranger school. Maybe this will learn him a little bit, you know what I mean? And so I told him he was going to Ranger school after Iraq. And like, basically he fucking cried about it a lot. Mister valedictorian of fucking Ranger School was not fucking happy and was totally verbal about it. And like, the commanders are like, if he says another fucking word, he's fucking goddesse. I get this. I got him, like, it's cool, you know what I mean? So I was the bad guy, but it was to protect him at the same time, you know what I mean? And then we were right. He went to Ranger school, he passed. He did fucking great. He learned, guess what he learned in ranger school about him and what he could take, you know what I mean?

And then, I don't know, maybe a year ago, maybe longer, he called me and he was like, he's actually in where he's now a team sergeant, right? Like, he's where I was, right? But he's 40. And he was like, hey, you know, now that I'm with you are, I kind of appreciate you, you know, stuff like that. And I was like, I just want to know. When I was the old man, I was 34. You're doing it at 40. Come, who won? You know what I mean?

So you did have to tune him up.

Yeah, I put him down in the dirt one day. Yeah.

What instigated that?

Man? It's just a fucking incessant talking shit about kicking everybody's ass, you know what I mean? And then like, one day I just like, yo, you're gonna kick all of our asses. Yeah. All of our asses. Yeah. I was like, yo, meet me at the fucking dojo at midnight, you know what I mean? And then what he didn't know is while he was all poopy out kicking rocks or mad at whatever he was mad at, all the guys are like, yo, I'll be at the dojo. I want a piece of this action. And, like, it's easy to fill the dojo that night. And then I was just like, look, we're gonna fight in the order of rank now. The new guys didn't like it. And I'd say Timmy did well for, I don't know, two, three, four guys, I don't fucking know. But he couldn't beat us all. And a couple of the senior guys, like me, like one of the senior guys was a golden Gloves boxer, you know what I mean? And he was just throwing it at.

Him.

You know what I mean? And then, like, I was second to last because the captain went last, right? And then generally captain, you know what I mean? Like one of my best friends ever, not a great fighter, you know what I'm saying? Kind of like, puss arm a little bit, you know what I mean? And I was like, well, this is it. It's got to be on me. And I just made sure in the time I had, I bloodied him up and I made sure he was down. And then all I did is I whispered in his ear, like, I hope we don't have to have this talk again. And I walked out, me and the guys walked out, left him in there laying on the ground, you know what I mean? But what I tried to teach him was, you can't beat us all. This is a team sport. We're a pack. You know what I mean? This is how we work right now. We should be a dozen lone wolves. But when those lone wolves come together as a pack, you got a dozen alpha wolves as a pack. Any one of them wolves can handle themselves.

This is going to be better than one lead dog and, you know, x other dogs. Does that make sense?

It does.

And that's really where I was going, you know.

I'll bet you didn't have to have that talk again, huh?

We didn't. No, never again.

It's funny how that works.

And then in Iraq, if I would have said, he's fucking gone, he'd have been gone today. And there's no recovering from that. Because you got booted out of combat, your career is over. You know what I mean? I didn't want to ruin someone's career or, I don't know, you know, if he's going to be a lifer or not. You know what I mean? Like, we used to. We used to joke, like, the guys that were, you know, like, when I was a senior guy, my senior guys, we used to call ourselves lifers, and the lifer has a different attitude about this than the guy who does one rotation.

Yeah.

You know what I mean? So we always try to keep him, you know, in a good place, you know what I'm saying? And then, you know, the other new guys, right, they've been around. They were on other teams. They're in the same boat as him. He ain't never done shit or been anywhere. You know what I mean? And that's kind of what some of the guys thought. So I would say this is like, I just wanted to groom him. Like, why kick out a fucking good guy? Like, the war requires bodies. I needed more bodies than the army would actually give me. Me every fucking day I was in war, in my opinion. So, yeah, that's my. My Timmy stuff. But, you know, I mean, I think he's great. He's a good friend of mine, but, like, I don't think he really understood or knew my experience level because I didn't talk about any of that.

Them.

The guys didn't know about my singleton missions or anything like that, but they just knew when, like, I knew everybody, you know what I mean? And General Miller comes around, he's asking. He doesn't want to talk to my boss. He's asking for me by name. You know what I mean? Like, that's kind of really all they knew about me.

No shit.

Yeah. So when I went to SF, no one knew that worked for me, what I had already done.

No kidding.

No, I had a fucking. I look like a mexican general. I got so many fucking medals, bronze stars, a fucking wards. Vita bikes. I had so much shit when I was in my. When we had to take our death photos. You know what I mean? You know, your death photo, I think there's a picture of, like, even with Timmy in it is. We got our class a, our dress jackets with all our ribbons on, and, like, I was just like, I don't care what pants you wear. It's a fucking picture mirror up. Like, put your jackets on, right? So when we took the death photo, right? Guys are like, wow, you got a lot of ribbons and stuff. You know what I mean? Like, it's the first time. Guys are like, wow, you already got a bronze star with me. Cause those guys had never even been to combat yet.

No shit.

Yeah, 7th group was kind of out of the war till then.

Wow.

Wow. Yeah.

How long did you work with him?

Tim?

Yeah.

I don't know. Not that long total time. Like, he kind of came before we deployed. After we deployed is when I went back to the dark side, and then I ended up getting promoted after that.

And you guys kept in touch this entire time, or reconnected it?

No, like, we've been in touch on and off of he. Like, I don't know, I think I've had the same phone number the whole time, but, like, he changes numbers occasionally, and like, hey, I changed numbers. Like, don't give no one my new number. Like, I didn't give no one the last number. But, yeah, I've been in touch this whole time.

I don't know, man.

Yeah, I'm hoping to get down to Austin and train with him because he trains with the fucking biggest guys in the world right now.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Yeah. Well, I'm sure he'll make that happen.

I hope so.

Yeah.

But, yeah, I mean, like, look. I mean, as new guys go, probably the worst new guy I had. Not the worst human in the world. Not a bad person. Just. I just think guys that previously were in the army understand the things that he hadn't learned yet. You know what I mean?

Does it make sense? Does make sense. What's your advice for new guys? Showing up to a team?

Yeah, man. First and foremost, you get to a team. Shut your fucking mouth. Just for a little bit. No one cares about you. You're fresh meat. You know what I mean? They don't care if you live or die. You haven't earned your fucking keep yet. Your fucking mouth. The next thing is, there's only one thing you gotta do. And the only thing I would say, the only thing you're given that you can't change is your name. You fucked that up. You're fucked. Don't fuck up your name. You know what I mean?

Yeah, I'd say that's damn good advice.

The next thing I'd say is try to be technically proficient at anything people throw at you, as dumb as it is. Read the instructions for the fucking little radio. You know what I mean? Like, so you know how to use it when the time comes. You know what I mean? Whether that technically proficient is shooting rifles, pistols, using a radio. Fuck. Medic. I mean, think about this. When I went out alone, I had to be my own medic, my own camo guy, my own weapons guy, my own explosives guy. Like, name all the different guys on a team. When you're out alone, you got to do all that shit. So I would say be technically proficient and it's not fucking hard, you know what I mean? Like, even hungover, just pay attention. That's all you got to do. Attention to detail, you know?

Did you like the Singleton missions more than working as a team?

First off, I loved having my own fucking task force in Iraq and the autonomy to do whatever the fuck I think is right. I love that. I love the singleton missions in the sense that, like, I didn't get stuck with anybody fucking stupid. I didn't have to do anything stupid. I could do this my way. I could do this, you know how I wanted to do it without anybody hindering or fucking stepping over the top of me. I like that. I'm not political. So when I go out and do this fucking mission, when I come back, I'm going to tell it to you like it is. Instead of, like, trying to hype myself how great I am. Like, look, this is what I follow and this is what I saw. You know what I mean?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, Shrek, is there anything else do you want me to ask you?

No, I think I'm good. I mean, if you can't think of anything. I'm good.

I'm good. Well, it was an honor to interview you and wish you the best of luck and I hope to see you again.

Thanks, man. Yeah, you'll see me again for sure.

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