Transcript of #162 Leif Babin - What Leadership Looks Like in the World’s Deadliest Warzones

Leif Babin, welcome to the show, man. Thanks for having me, Sean. It's an honor to have you here.

It's an honor to have you here.

Really here. And, man, we've got history together. We went through buds together. I'm sure we'll get into some of that, but, man, I just I've been following you for a long time, man, in in what you're doing, and, you're just putting out amazing stuff. And I think you're a great example for for veterans and and seals coming out of the teams and and anybody coming out of the military.

You know? It's it's we both know it's it's a it's a big struggle for a lot of people, and, to have, you know, good examples to follow and and and good leaders like yourself, it's just it's really cool, man, what you what you've accomplished and what you've done after the teams, and and, I just I wanna commend you for that.

Thank you, Sean. That means a ton to me. That means so much coming from you, and I keep I'm so proud of you and your success and and the the powerful voice that you have been for so many great stories, and and how you've represented, you know, as a as a teammate, how you represent the SEAL teams, how you represent the veteran community. And it's, it's great to to reconnect with. It's been way too long.

And and, man, I was thinking about all the history that, that we had through our time together, and and what a great time that was. Like, what an what an incredible time, and, and and our class and what people went on to do and and the combat that that you saw and so many others saw and and and were a part of, but just can't, can't tell you how excited I am to be here with you, and, I'm I'm proud of you and all that you're doing and and honored to call you a friend.

Thank you, brother. Feelings are definitely mutual, and and, like I said, I've been been looking forward to this for a long time. So but, everybody starts off with an introduction here, so let me get to yours. Leif Babin, former US Navy Seal officer, served 13 years in the navy, 9 of which were in the seal teams, several deployments to Iraq with the infamous task unit bruiser. You are the coauthor of the New York Times bestseller, Extreme Ownership, the number 1 New York Times bestseller, Extreme Ownership.

How US Navy SEALs Led and Win in the number 1 national bestseller bestseller, the dichotomy of leadership with Jocko. You are the cofounder of Echelon Front and currently serving as president. You're the recipient of the silver star, 2 bronze stars, and a purple heart. You're a husband, a father to 3 kids, and a Christian man. Am I missing anything?

I'm sure I'm missing quite a bit. But

No. That's, that's it, man. I think the, being a husband, father, and and a Christian, I think are the the most important aspects of that entire bio there. I think those are the most important jobs I've had, and and, I was lucky enough to serve with some incredible people, you know, like yourself going through training and then on the battlefield. And, I'm just honored to be able to share some of those lessons learned with with others around the world and and to see people that can take and apply some of the leadership lessons that we learned on the battlefield and and their lives.

It's, it's I'm I'm humbling and and mystified about how, you know, just the the how far and wide that has spread and and the impact it's had. And and it's, it's it's it's incredible to me to see that. And, and that's kinda what keeps us going. That's our mission, of why. And and I get to honor the the teammates that I lost and talk about their legacies and and all that they did and how they lived.

We have a lot to dive into. We have a lot to dive into. And, and, so in the interview, I want to that's what I wanna do. I wanna cover your your life story, your time in the teams. I mean, I've heard I wasn't there, but I've heard a lot a lot of amazing things about tasking at Bruiser.

I had, you know, several friends that we went through buds with that wound up, serving with you and under you. And, you know you know, once again, I just you hear a lot of shit about a lot of people, you know, in the teams, and, especially officers. And, man, I've just you always come, like, highly recommended, and and your guys just your guys fucking love you, man, and it's it's really cool to see that. You don't see that in a lot of in a lot of platoons, I don't think. Not like what I hear about yours.

And so, I can't wait to dive into that.

But that's the highest compliment you could ever pay me, man. And, I I love I love those guys. I'd do anything for them. And, it's it's, just to honor my lifetime was to was to serve, serve with some awesome awesome teammates.

So we have a Patreon, and, Patreon is our they are it's our subscription network, and they are our top supporters. A lot of them have been with us since the beginning, and 1 of the things, I'm proud

to be a member.

Yeah. Thank you for being a member. They'll they will be ecstatic to know that you're in there. But, so you know, we, I offer them the opportunity to ask each guest a question. And, usually, I only pick 1, but for you, there were a lot of good questions, and so I think we're gonna we might do 3 here.

First question is from Charlton Clark. What are 3 words that encapsulate a powerful leader and why?

3 words that encapsulate a powerful leader and why. I think the 3 words, the 3 most powerful words, are it's my fault. It's my fault. And I think as a leader recognizing that you are responsible for everything that your team does or doesn't do, just as a dad, you know, or or a a spouse, you're you're responsible for everything that your family does. And I think that understanding this concept that we we call extreme ownership, man, our our ego is such a powerful driver in in the world, and it wants us to point fingers or cast blame or make excuses or say, hey.

Look. Look at that guy over there. He's more successful than me. He got lucky or, you know, he got this break or he started with some some advantage that I didn't have. Instead of and and when you do that, what you do is you you don't actually take action to correct the problem, to actually implement solutions to fix that going forward.

And so I think when you when you accept ownership for every single thing that happens in the world, every single thing that impacts your mission, then you could actually take action to solve problems, constantly learn, constantly grow, constantly improve. And I think that that makes all the difference.

Man, that's that's great advice. Thank you. Stephen Casey, what is the most significant leadership principle you have seen that is essential but has problems transitioning or translating from the military to civilian situations?

That's a great question. I think, initially, I thought that this concept that we call cover and move, which is teamwork. Right? We're working together as a team. You and I are trying to move across the street under fire.

You're laying down suppressing fire, so I could move. And then when I get across the street, I lay down suppressing fire so that, you know, so that that you can move. Like, we're we're we're covering and moving. We're leapfrogging. We're mutually supporting 1 another.

And when Jocco and I first launched Echelon Frohn, our leadership consulting company, we went in to talk to, you know, corporate, a a business, and, and I we thought, man, should we even talk about this concept? Like, how does that even apply? And, you know, we're talking this is a gunfighting tactic from the battlefield. And the moment that, you know, the the senior executive team is telling us how, you know, the sales team and the production team, you know, are are like they're not on the same page, and they're blaming each other and they're pointing fingers at each other. The marketing team is saying, well, the sales isn't isn't telling that, and the the the sales team is saying, well, marketing is not actually setting us up for success.

You got a bunch of finger pointing, a bunch of blame blame casting that we said, okay. Let's talk about this concept of cover and move. And and they they said, hey. That's that's exactly what I need you to teach to my team. And so it's really just the recognition that it's not about you, it's about the overall team and the overall mission.

And and that applies that applies to your family. I mean, when you see, when you see a, your your your wife, you know, or your spouse that's like struggling or frustrated with the kids or something that's going on in the home front, and you can say, hey. Okay. Those school applications are taking a long time, and you got a bunch of stuff on your plate. Why why don't you let me just take that off your plate?

I'll I'll take that. I'll I'll run with it. It's that's that's cover move in action. You can actually you're working together as a team, mutually supporting 1 another in order to accomplish a mission and win. And and I think, initially, we weren't sure how that would apply in the in the, you know, in the civilian world, and it absolutely does.

I think 1 that's harder to apply is the the what we call our 4th law of command, that's decentralized command. Decentralized command is a you know, the the obviously, something you're familiar with being in the military. It just simply means that everybody leads. And I think a lot of times when you talk to a, you know, a leader that wants to control everything, they wanna do everything, obviously, that doesn't work on the battlefield. And that's 1 of the strength of the SEAL teams and special operations units.

You've got thinking shooters. I mean, even going through BUDS together when you were 18 years old, you're a smart, capable, talented individual that, just because I'm the officer and I'm in charge, like, I I need you to be able to step up and make calls. I need you to be able to solve problems. I need you to be able to move the team forward in a positive direction. I can't make all the calls.

I can't you know, if you're just sitting and waiting for me to to tell you what to do, that doesn't work. So that's that's a concept that's hard to get across in the civilian world. People say, well, I don't trust my team or, know, they don't have a strong relationship. So we help them work to build those relationships. That's it's all based on the strength of relationships.

It's built on trust. When people understand not just what to do, but why they're doing it, you know, what we call commander's intent in the military, the purpose, and the goal, and the end state. But oftentimes, now we start to see leaders when in this civilian world, they they release, you know, the authority, they give people ownership, and they kinda let people run with stuff. The problem is they get too detached. They get too far away.

And and so it's always a balance. Right? It's a dichotomy, and you're getting pulled in different directions. So you wanna be detached as a leader. You wanna step back.

You wanna let your people step up and lead and and and run with a plan and execute the plan, give them ownership of the plan, but you can't be so detached you can't be so detached that you don't know what's going on. You're too attached from the the challenges or problems, and, and then you can't actually support your team. You can't guide your team. You can't actually step in and help them, you know, if you're not even familiar with the challenges.

Or you can't see when they're getting off track, and and you maybe need to, you know, help redirect them. When you're talking I'm just curious. When you this is a personal question. When you're talking about when you're relating stuff back to, you know, to Ramadi or gunfighting scenarios, because it sounds like you guys kinda do that. How how quick I mean, how fast do civilian types wrap their head around what you're teaching them when you're using those analogies?

Pretty fast. Pretty fast usually.

I think initially, some people would think I guess I can put it this way. The the biggest excuse is that I think the biggest excuse that any of us give ourselves, me included, is that it's harder for me than it is for other people. And so, yeah, Sean's maybe experienced some things in the battlefield. Well, how does that really apply to me? Or, hey.

You've done some things in your life, and you have some good lessons learned, but that doesn't really apply to me. I have a different situation. Instead of keeping an open mind, instead of saying, oh, what can I learn from Sean? What what is what is the experience? How can that apply to my world?

What lesson can I take and apply, you know, to that? And, you know, before Jacqueline and I wrote the book, Extreme Ownership, I'd have a lot of that. Businesses would say things like, well, how are you gonna translate this to the business world? I I get they would say that over and over again. Tell me how you're gonna translate these combat leadership lessons to the business world.

And I think once they read Extreme Ownership, they realized that the hardest part about combat leadership is it's not about planning, executing missions under fire. It's not about maneuvering troops with bullets flying over your head. The hardest part about a combat the hardest part about combat leadership is getting a diverse group of people with different skill sets, and different agendas, and different perspectives to work together as a team to accomplish a mission. And obviously, that applies to any team in any situation. It's people.

It's actually getting people to actually work together as a team. Put their own egos, their own agendas aside, and put the mission first. And I think that's that's what makes the SEAL teams great. They're certainly the best units in the SEAL teams have that. Right?

They they don't they put the team and the mission before anything else, and, and it's it's not about them as an individual. It's about the team. They're gonna sacrifice for the team. They're gonna sacrifice for their brothers on that team. And, and so I think that when people realize that that's how these concepts translate, it's just about getting people to work together as a team to mutually support 1 another to accomplish a strategic goal.

That applies to everything, everywhere.

Makes a whole lot of sense. That's good to hear that, that they can comprehend it, that that fast. That's that's that's really cool.

We do have people to push back. You know, they'll they'll be they'll be we'll come into a company I was with the company a few weeks ago, and they where, there's there was half the the the room of several 100, leaders were were female executives. And, you know, these lady executives, some of them were pretty skeptical. They they told me afterward, hey. I was pretty skeptical about how this applies to me, how we were gonna take these these, you know, leadership concepts and apply them and, in in our world.

And, and they they they came up and said, this absolutely applies. We need more of this. Wow. And so I think once people are just willing to open their mind, they realize that, every problem that you face in life is a leadership problem. Your frustrations with your spouse, your frustrations with your kids, your friction points in the community, the the frustration you have with your boss or the people on your team for not doing what you want them to do, or the the people outside of your immediate team that you depend on for support, these are all leadership problems.

And I think once we think about those problems as leadership problems, then we can start to apply leadership to the point of fruition as the the marine corps would say, to get those problems solved. But you see that what might seem like a hopeless problem actually is a solver problem. Interesting. If you're my my boss and you're micromanaging me, and I'm feeling like Sean just need to get off my back, I'm being micromanaged, and that's I feel like I'm in a hopeless situation. Well, Sean doesn't trust me.

What can I do about that? He just needs to back off and and trust me and let me do my job. But if I realize that, actually, I control that situation, I take if I take extreme ownership of that situation and realize if you're if if what I'm feeling is micromanaged, you're asking me questions about what's going on. Well, that's because you care about the situation. If I and you don't have enough information.

You need some more information. So I start to take action to push more information your way, to build a better relationship with you, to talk to you about what what I'm doing and why I'm doing it, to get some guidance on you so that or to get some guidance from you so I understand the strategic goal and that we can be aligned. And if we do that, then then I can get that prompt solved. All of a sudden, you're like, hey, Leif. You got it.

Good to go. Let me know how you wanna do this. And so those those check ins become less frequent, and so what seems like an impossible situation actually is easily solvable the moment I put my ego in check and the moment I actually take ownership, then I start to lead lead up a chain of command and and apply leadership, to get to get problems solved.

Wow. That's great advice. Thank you. Thank you. Did you know that studies show that 80% of resolutions fail by February?

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Call 866-781-89100 for details about credit costs and terms. Alright, Leif. 1 last thing. I got 1 gift for you. Last 1, I promise.

We're getting to your story. But, just a little something for the ride home. Those are vigilance league gummy bears.

That's awesome. I've, I've been looking forward to sampling this.

Oh, right on. Well, now you got some.

Outstanding, man. I appreciate it. Thanks, brother.

You're welcome. But, alright, Leif. We're gonna like I said, we're gonna go into your life story, and, I have a feeling this is gonna get really heavy. And, I think people are gonna get a a a lot out of this episode. And so I once again, I just wanna say that I've really been looking forward to this.

And so let's start let's start at the beginning. Where did you grow up?

I grew up in a small town in Southeast Texas in the the Piney Woods, called Woodville, Texas. And, it was an awesome community to grow up. And it was a small town, about 3,000 people. We had 2 stoplights. We had 2 Dairy Queens, which made us, I guess, big time, at the time.

But, it it was, it was just a great place to grow up. You know, there was if you wanted to go to a fancy restaurant or a movie theater, you had to drive more than an hour away. But I loved it. I mean, I spent all my my childhood playing in the woods, and playing some kind of combat in the woods, throwing spears at each other, building forts. People sometimes ask me if we played cowboys and Indians.

We actually were in we were all Indians all the time. Everyone no 1 wanted to be a cowboy. Everyone was an Indian, and and so we were we were the Native American warriors out there patrolling the woods, setting booby traps for my mom to, like, fall in in our backyard. And, we lived in a in a great neighborhood with just kind of woods behind the neighborhood, and we were just constantly in the woods playing and and, out from, like, sun up to to sun down. My mom had a whistle that she would blow, and we had to be within hearing distance of the whistle, which was I pushed that pretty regularly, but you could hear that whistle would come back.

And, and I grew up in a great household. My mom and dad were loving, wonderful parents. They really took their their job seriously as as, my dad was the was the town dentist, and, he had a busy job. My mom was a stay at home mom and then a part time, school teacher and and a school librarian, but they they really just poured into me and my my brother and 3 sisters. We had a big family, and they just they took that as their primary job as as raising us right up upright.

You know, the the proverbs, train up a child in the way he will go and when he's older and not. Apart from that, I think they took that very seriously and and really set an amazing example for me, you know, as a as a as a mother and dad and and just, were constantly there to support me. And I was my always my dad's, like, fishing and hunting buddy. Really? He had friends that he'd he'd hunt with, but we spent so much time together on the lake, on the ocean, you know, fishing and hunting, out in the woods.

And, it was an amazing place to grow up. And I didn't fully appreciate, the town of Woodville and the community until after I I I left school, or I went off to the to the naval academy. And and when I was really deployed overseas, because the amount of care packages that would come in from not only my family, but friends and just members of the community. I mean, it was stuff that we would share, with with the rest of the task in it because there was so much stuff that was coming in, and it just you know, there were some great communities across the United States, but it was it was it was just a a quantitative measure, of of just how awesome that community was to grow up here and just how supportive and and patriotic and and, amazing. The the church was a big part of of our life growing up.

We started going, to the First Baptist Church of Woodville, when I was in 3rd grade. My dad became a a deacon there, and, church was mandatory every Sunday. When I started being a little wild man, you know, in my my high school days and, partying a little too hard, my dad would come in and drag me out of bed and say, You're going to church, boy. Here we go. So then we get home from church, and it was put on your working gloves and working clothes, and I remember trying to push back and saying, Hey, dad, Are we supposed to not work on the Sabbath?

And he said, this isn't work, son. This is fun.

Yeah.

So we'd be out chainsawing brush and clearing land. We grew up on them. When I was about 12, we moved to some acreage kinda out in the woods. We lived in a neighborhood before that with woods behind it, like I mentioned. But then, it was it was, constantly just working to clear that place and, you know, keep it nice.

Build build fence and repair fence and clear brush, and it was just an awesome way to grow up. It was, it was an amazing community. 5 kids? 5 kids in my family.

Where'd you fall in the birth order?

I was the second.

The second?

My sister and I are very close. We're, 16 months apart. So, she was, she was she'll never let me live down that she was, in those 16 months. I guess she lived a a lifetime of experience that she's older than I supposed to be. And then I have a twin brother and sister.

My parents only had 3. They had me and my sister, then the the 3rd child was twins. My brother and sister are fraternal twins, and then they had a surprise about 8 years after that, my baby sister. Nice. Nice.

It was I was the only 1 that served the military. I always wanted to do that. My dad had been in, the army, and then, in the air force. And so I spent my first couple years at Ramstein, Air Base. He was stationed there as as an air force dentist.

And, I was the only 1 that went in the military, my my 5 seventies. But for me, that's all I ever wanted to do was be in the military. So

What'd your dad do in the military?

He was a he was a he was in the national guard, and, in the army. And then, and then he was they they paid for his dental school, and he served his his, I think 4 years Wow. After, dental school. So he was stationed at Ramstein for, I think for 3 of that. So my first kind of 6 months to we came back when I was 3 years old.

Wow. I lived there too when I was a kid.

No kidding.

My dad was in the army too as a pharmacist. Well, our upbringing is, very similar.

I never knew that. That's awesome.

Yeah. Been it. Yeah. But, who are you tight with all your siblings? Or

I am. I am. They're they're, they're they're a great family, and, we all keep each other in check. And, but, yeah, they're it's they're a wonderful family. Everybody's got kids.

We have a huge I think my parents have 17 grandkids.

Holy cow.

That's awesome. Like 18 to, you know, 2 or 3, I think.

That is awesome.

So it's, it's a it's a pile of cousins every time my kids, you know, go. It's it's magical, and they scream, why can't we live in Woodville? Every time we go there, the kids

can just run around the woods. That's awesome, man. Is everybody in Texas?

Everybody's in Texas. No.

Nice. Nice. Nice. What were what kinda were you a star athlete or anything like that in growing up?

I played, you know, I played probably like a lot of people. You know, I played soccer and baseball and and and bask I was horrible at basketball. I realized that wasn't my sport when I I I I got a rebound. I think that was in 4th grade or 5th grade, and I immediately shot I shot the the basket, scored a goal from the other team. I was like, basketball is not for me.

So when I started playing football in 7th grade, and tackle football was, like, everything. And in in small town Texas, it's you know, we'd have 3,000 people, in the town, and we'd have, like, you know, probably nearly that many people at the game, you know, on Friday nights. It was just a it was an awesome thing. I loved it, man. It was the closest thing to suiting up, you know, and and, gearing up for for combat, you know, that that that you could do, I think, in the civilian world, and it was, it was a a super it was it was a fun time.

We had our in in our high school, the, the the head coach, our head football coach, coach Melvin Houston, he'd been there for years. Awesome guy. And and he was a real mentor to, so many people on the team, particularly for some of the star athletes who were raised in in homes that maybe didn't have a have a father there. He was an incredible guy, and his wife was also the, was the, the choir director. So all of us, like, the entire starting lineup in football was, like, in choir as well.

It was mandatory. He was in track, so we all ran track also to keep in shape. But, you know, we had we had some of the star football players. They're, like, marching in the band at halftime. Everyone kinda did everything.

Wow. And

it was just it was just a fantastic place to grow up.

Awesome community. Very cool. What what got your interest in the military?

I can't ever remember wanting to do anything else. I mean, from the time that I can remember wanting to do anything, I I wanted to be in the military. I was painting my face and crawling through the, you know, the the the backyard jungle, and and, it was I just I wanted to be some kind of combat leader. I had a little step where we had these f 4 phantoms that would come fly over from, some of the bases in in Louisiana. I remember a couple of, like, b 52, like, tree top level flights that were pretty awesome.

So there there was, like, a small step where I was like, oh, man. Maybe being a pilot would be cool. But then I quickly went back to, like, no. I wanna be some kind of a ground combat leader in some some capacity. And then when I was, like, in probably I was probably in junior high school and I started hearing about the SEAL teams and, the the Marcinko books, came out, read Rogue Warrior.

You probably read it probably about the

same time.

I did, and, that was that was 1 that really I started reading about the seals in Vietnam and learning about the Rongsat special zone and, you know, Cam Ranh Bay and and Na Bay and all all these places that our our seal forefathers were operating out of. And and I was just smitten with that. And, then the movie Navy SEALs with Charlie Sheen came out

Oh, yeah.

And while I was in high school, and it it just, that kinda cemented it for me, that I wanted to be in in in the SEAL teams. And, so I I I I wanted to go to the Naval Academy to pursue that that that dream. And so I I I put in a package for the Naval Academy. I I put in a package for West Point as well, and we had a super strong, West Point, Alumni Association in Southeast Texas. And, 1 of the head head guys, he was a silver star recipient, from, the Korean War.

Amazing guy. He was really close friends with my my grandfather, and he was a a big advocate of West Point. He's a West Point grad, and and, he was pretty heartbroken when I chose I chose navy. But I chose that because I wanted to be in the SEAL teams. And my dad and I did a lot of fishing growing up on the Texas coast.

There's fantastic, inshore fishing, offshore fishing on the Texas coast, and we were going out on the Galveston jetties, and I remember just watching all these I I'd accepted my appointment to West Point because I got picked up in, like, it was, like, January of my senior year. And so I'd accepted my appointment. And I still hadn't heard back from Navy. It was like, and and finally in, like, late April, when I was graduating in May, I finally I got I got, I got accepted to West Point. Or I'm sorry.

I got accepted to Navy. So I'd already accepted my appointment to West Point. I finally got, a a an appointment to the Naval Academy. And so then I was like, man, what do I do now? Like, I don't know, well, what I wanna do.

The alumni network told me, they said they said, the Westbourne the Westbourne alumni network said they said, alright. You got a decision to make here. Dwight d Eisenhower went to West Point. Jimmy Carter went to Navy. Which 1 do you wanna do?

I was like, man, that's a tough 1. Yeah. You're you're putting it on me here. That was

that was a tough statement.

But But I was I was out fishing. My dad had a little center console fishing, but we were out there trying to catch some speckled trout and redfish on the Galveston jetties. And I I I remember looking at these just these oil tankers. You know, the Houston ship channel comes into the Galveston there. It's 1 of the busiest ports in in North America.

And, just watching these different tankers come in and all the different flags, you know, sail from around the world, and I just remember turning turning to my dad and saying, I'm I'm gonna go to naval academy. I wanted to be I wanted to be in the navy, and I wanted to be in the SEAL teams. That was the purpose. And, after 4 long years at at navy, I did not get selected for the SEAL program.

Damn. You know, it's it's why did you I know you said all throughout your childhood, you wanted to be a leader in a ground unit. But why I'm just curious why didn't why didn't you go the enlisted route? Why did you why were you hell bent on the academy?

Man, that's a great question, Sean. I, there are many times as an officer when I was, sitting in a tactical operation center and, when I was, you know, when we were passing out the the the PowerPoint ranger patch, you know, 3000 hours, I'm where you you just, where I was like, maybe I should have listed in in the seal teams. I definitely questioned it when I graduated from navy, because when I didn't get service elected, I I I, you know and and and, man, they made the right call, to be honest. Like, they they only took 16 guys out of the naval academy, and, there was a prior enlisted seal in my class, so they took 15 guys. And, you know, there was 200 people that went out for the screener.

It was probably 80 guys that graduated from the screener, and probably 40 or 50 of those guys could have gone and done really well, any of them. And so they only took 15, and I I was not 1 of those 15. And that was based on my grade point average, which was atrocious. I was, I was part of that, that half of the class that made the top half possible. And, I had a terrible conduct record because when you get, you know, a midshipman that was 2 years older than me who was kinda barking orders at me and telling me what to do, I let them know that I was not too pleased about that.

I was pretty strong willed and hard headed as you you know me to be, and and, I think that, that didn't serve me well there. So I had a conduct record. I got got in motion trouble, and, and so I wouldn't select it. But actually, it was the it was the best thing that ever happened to me because my time in the service fleet was was awesome. I I was instantly thrown into, a position of responsibility and and and leadership.

And, and I served, you know, 3 different deployments on 2 different ships, got to sail all over the world and and see some amazing things, work with some incredible people. Well, so what was well, to answer to you, you tried out

sorry. Go ahead. Well, I was just gonna say,

to answer your question, I think what my parents were pushing me to, like, go to college first, and that was probably a bigger factor, but it was it was a, I don't know. Like, there were when I when I got service selected, out of, for for the service fleet out of the academy, I was like, man, I probably should've listened to the Navy. So, I it but it was it was I think my parents just kind of encouraged me to go to college. I was interested in the Naval Academy. You know, I was I was interested in having a, degree under my belt.

If I hadn't gotten 1 of the academies, I would have gone to Texas a and m and been on the the corps cadets there in the ROTC program. So I I think that was probably more their their

Right on.

Encouragement than anything else.

Right

on. But there's certainly times that I regretted that, and and, what I loved about the SEAL teams was, you know, man, the the while the college degree might might have separated, officers from enlisted at some point, I mean, the post 911 world, that wasn't even the case, you know, for a lot of guys. Like, Brian Bill in our bloods class, sort of electrical engineering degree, probably a way better GPA than I ever had, you know, and so many guys that I served with, like you, you know, were just super smart guys, you know, and and, we're way smarter than I would ever be. So it was, there wasn't a lot of differentiation. It was just something like like a different role.

Interesting. Interesting. So so I didn't so they're recruiting right out of the academy. I didn't I didn't realize there was that much. But 200 people tried roughly 200 people trying out, that's well, that's pretty stiff competition.

What so when you found out that that you didn't how did they tell you you didn't make the cut? Do you find out immediately?

They announced it's like service election night. And so they kind of they announce you. And and so I had put my first choice was naval special warfare. My second choice was marine ground. I was like, if I can't be in the, you know, a seal, I'll go be a marine, infantry officer.

Maybe I can try to go, you know, force force recon and, you know, that that route. And, and then my third choice was service service warfare of the the ship drivers. And so when they they they basically, like, just, you know, you they distribute a piece of paper that gives you the service selection with all the, you know, the seniors, the the firsties there. And, you're sitting there in, like, the wardroom on on, you know, and it's it's, I I saw my best friend and roommate, just his head just, you know, he was he was really disappointed to knock it. So we were both going out for the, you know, the SEAL program.

That's what we wanted. And so when he didn't get it, I didn't get it, and we were right there in the room together sitting next to each other. You know, it it was an encouragement, you know, to keep going. And and and, but again, it was the best thing ever happened. I loved my time in the service fleet, and I wanted to be a SEAL the whole time, but I instantly I flew out to went to about 6 months of of school in in, Rhode Island, and then I flew out and met a ship.

And we were enforcing sanctions against the, against Iraq back you know, before, before the war kicked off. So these were the UN sanctions that had been in place since the Persian Gulf War. And and so I got to work alongside, seal seals would go take down these ships. Our boarding team would go alongside and and take over the ship and then just vector them over to a holding area. It was super cool, man.

We had

You were I forgot. You were on a boarding team. Correct?

If I remember right? Yeah. We did dozens of boarding. So How did how did

you get involved in that?

They they just the ship just selected me to be a part of it. I was lucky enough to to be, be a part of that, and it was it was really it it was a neat thing to be able to see and do. And and I think just being able to navigate a ship across the world was, it required a lot of responsibility. I mean, when you're the officer of the deck, you're in charge of the ship when the captain's asleep in his stateroom at nighttime or if, you know, if he's elsewhere, you know, you're responsible for the the entire well-being of that ship. I mean, there's massive responsibility on your shoulders.

What

kind of ship were you on?

I was on a, destroyer, DD 972 USS Oldendorf. Did 2 years on that. We had an awesome, you know, wardrobe of of great officers, and the enlisted sailors were outstanding that were on that thing. And, it was it was just a great leadership, opportunity for me. I learned a ton of lessons.

I learned a ton of things wrong. You know, came in kind of this strong willed incident and got shut down, you know, realized, like, look. I need to rely on my my experienced, chiefs and and and, sailors to actually lead this team and learn from them. And so I I got to see, like, what good leadership looks like. It's not the person that's barking orders at people.

It's actually being the the silent leader that listens to the team and and lets them runs run with things. And then I went to a different ship, FFG 38 USS Kurtz. Did about a year on on the, there as a training officer. So I did the first ship. I did 2 deployments to, the Persian Gulf.

I kinda transit that, you know, in Indian Ocean, you know, Pacific transits. And then, and then I did a Western Pacific, deployment with the with the Kurds, the frigate. Both of those were were great experiences and, awesome group. And and I got selected probably halfway through my time at, being on the that second ship, the USS Kurds. I got selected this was September 2001, and I got selected, finally on my second package that I put in for the SEAL program.

And so right as September 11th happened. Wow. And and, so we knew this was, you know, real. We knew we were going to war. I knew after Budge, we're going straight to a, you know, to a, to a SEAL platoon and deploying overseas.

And, and so probably about the time that you were, you know, going, going through your boot camp and and and just starting your Navy journey, I was, for me, it was interesting because some of the sailors you know, there's so many sailors in the fleet with a 70, 80% attrition rate that didn't make it to BUDS. I remember 1 of the sailors, he's a great great guy, asking me, like, you know, hey. You got selected, you know, for for BUDS. How far do you think you'll make it to the program? You know?

And I thought I thought that was a crazy question. I was like, all the way through the program. I go, like, why why would I be even going if I didn't think I could I was gonna make it all the way through? You know? I think in, you know, in his mind, having gone there and not made it through just was, like, impossible to be able to make it through the program.

And and I think I I I was so appreciative of the experience. You know, when I got to buzz and you and I are going through buzz together, it it enabled me to to, to think about what it took to actually get there, all the effort that it took. And I had some amazing people that pulled so many strings for me, you know, to to write letters of recommendation, to to train me and prepare me and get me ready, you know, physically, and and stuck their neck out to to get me selected out of, you know, dozens of people that applied. And and so I was never gonna do you know, let them down in any way. And and it gave me it gave me, some some great perspective.

Man, I didn't realize you got picked up in September of 2001. Where where were you where were you when the towers went down?

I was on duty to pier side in, San Diego at 32nd Street Naval Station aboard the USS Curt. So I was the duty officer, and, and, we were just you know, everybody was just waking up in the morning, and, you know, obviously, that's, you know, 6:6 in the morning, you know, on the West Coast when 9 o'clock, you know, when it went down, and, on on the East Coast. And I got a call from the, the incoming duty officer who was listening to the news on his way into work, and he said, hey. A plane's just hit the World Trade Center. And I thought, I'm thinking it's like a little Cessna sightseeing plane or something, you know, that got too close.

I'm like, what are you talking about? So I went in and we turned on the news, in the wardroom. And I turned on the news, and I'm sitting there watching, like, man, just smoke blowing out. And and we just watched in in on live TV as the second plane hit, and and we knew instantly, this is an attack. Like, this is real.

We're at war. And and it just was changed everything.

Wow. Wow. And so you you were selected right after that or right before that?

I don't remember the exact date that I found out that it was, it was right around then. And, I can't remember if it was just before or just after, but I I know I got the news, like like like in September 2001. And, and so it was I knew this was real. And I was lucky enough. I had a I had a great commanding officer on onboard, the USS Kurds, and he was kind enough to, send me TAD over to SEAL Team 5.

And so I was TAD to SEAL Team 5. I went over there. I helped out wherever I could, you know, the administrator side, but they assigned us to a a senior chief. And, he was all he did I mean, he just trained us all the time. And and so we we for like 6 straight months before I went to BUDS, I was I was spending most of my time over at Sulte 5 just training and preparing.

And some of my friends were there who had helped pull some some strings, you know, for me to be there. In fact, that very same SEAL who'd got service selected, and,

No kidding.

Yeah. He got, he he he had get got picked up just the the year before. So they went through the year year before that, you and I went through buzz together, and he he was just there as a new guy, assistant platoon commander. And so, man, he'd take me out for runs. I would the runs that he took me on were harder than anything we did in butts.

Like, I I would puke my guts up. And as a result of that, I I I never I was a I was a horrible runner. That was the thing I probably struggled with most, and, and I didn't I didn't fall back and hit the runs and buzz just because, you know, thankful I hadn't had that opportunity. How long was it prepare.

How long was it after you got the word that you showed up at BUDS?

We classed up 241 classed up in April of 2002. So, that was, yeah, it was it was it was pushing 6 months of kinda prep and and training. And, and I knew that when I got picked up, like, that was the last time. I I I was already a lieutenant j g, and I knew I was I was gonna make, you know, lieutenant at the 4 year mark, which if you remember, I I put that on it first phase. I got, I got quite the, the promotion party, if you remember, the the beat down.

But, yeah, it was it was, I I knew that was like the last shot. So I was already training for it. I was already preparing for it, but what I had about 6 months of of people that really and it's so hard to train when you're underway on a ship, you know, as far as running and swimming and doing the you know, you just can't do it so, well. So it was just awesome to have, you know, my commanding officer and the the senior leadership on the on that ship support me and and be excited for me. And on my previous ship, I mean, they wrote super powerful letters of recommendation as well, you know, that enabled that to happen.

And if I didn't have the seals that were pulling for me, that, that that wrote me a letter of recommendation, you know, and and more than anything probably was was admiral Smith, who was retired chief admiral. Based on Adam and I are friends, and and, he he had, our close friend who's still serving, I won't won't name him, you know, was was probably my my biggest advocate or amazing guy, and, pulled so many strings for me, trained with me, got me ready, you know, connected me with with Adam and then Admiral Smith. And Admiral Smith wrote me a just incredibly powerful letter of recommendation, that, that if people hadn't pulled the strings from me, man, I would have never ever had the opportunity to serve.

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Join AMAC and be part of a movement that stands for you, your family, and your future. You know, what do you what is it what does the selection look like for for an officer to get into BUDS? What what are they what's the selection process look like?

I think the bill is I think there's 24 billlets at the academy today, and I think there's something like that. It's a for all of, like, ROTC. And then there's, like, a

handful take 48 a year?

Something like that. I I I don't know what the numbers are. I I have to double check that. I I think it was I think that was it for a while, but it's it's highly competitive right here.

Interesting. So they only take 48 men

It's something like that. Yeah. The program. Yeah. Don't quote me on the numbers of that because it

goes half

of that. That. But it's it's it's very highly competitive. And then there's a handful of of, of officers that come in, like our our mutual friend, Travis, that will, you know, come in with a with a with a, officer candidate school billet, and, you know, who went through went through buzz with us. And and, they they'll, there's just it's it's very competitive as an officer.

So you're you're training with people like, I mean, I I was competing at the Naval Academy with, you know, the the the captain of the water polo team. Like Mhmm. I was never a competitive swimmer. That guy's gonna destroy me. Like, somebody was on the cross country team.

Somebody's on the triath you know, a, on the triathlon team.

They gotta be looking for more than that, though. I mean, they can they can find physical fitness anywhere. What what are they looking for specifically in an officer? I mean, you because it sounds like you weren't even no no offense, but it doesn't sound like you were a superstar athlete at the Naval Academy. I I definitely was problems running.

You weren't a swimmer, you know, and then you have all these guys that were. Maybe that's not why you got picked up. I don't know. But, I mean, they have to be looking for more than athleticism.

That was a part of it. I think it was a major factor. I think they're also looking for grade point average. They're looking for, you know, student leadership opportunities. I was never a student leadership because I was always in trouble for some.

So I think, you know, there's just, I mean, I wouldn't trade. My my time at the Naval Academy was awesome. I really enjoyed my experience there. There were some there was some negative examples, right, that that, that showed me, like, the leader that I didn't wanna be, as well. I think that's always the case.

Right? I think I think good leadership is rare no matter where you are, but there also were some amazing leaders there who poured into me and then set a great example. And frankly, Sean, I'm I'm I am I wouldn't trade that for anything. I mean, the fact that I didn't get service elected for the SEAL program. I had to work as I had to work my ass off.

I had to I had to train. I had to go out and build relationships. I had to stop feeling sorry for myself and making excuses because that would have been easy to do. Right? Well, this person knew that person or this person got picked up or that person happened to, you know, make better grades than me or this person is a better athlete, you know, and that shouldn't be what it's based on.

You I can make all those excuses. What I had to do was before I even understood this concept, we now call it dream ownership. I actually I didn't take extreme ownership to say, if this is what I wanna do with my life, I'm gonna have to actually do the work to make this possible, and, you know, to to open the door. And I when I put in my very first lateral transfer package, so I had to get fully qualified as a service worker officer. And, so that that took me about a year and a half on my first ship.

You know, man, it's that's a huge qualification to get. Right? You have to study. You have to prepare. It takes a long time and effort.

And when you I finally got that qualification, I put together I I met every requirement possible, and I put in a package that I thought was a strong package, didn't get service selected. Wow. I got turned out again, and and that was crushing to me. I thought, damn. What this, you know, this is and I I I the senior officer, he was a captain at the time, and he was the chief of staff over at WARCOM, the naval special warfare command, so very senior officer.

And I reached out, just tracked down his contact info, scheduled a meeting with him, and went over, and sat out sat out to talk to him. And I said, hey, sir. I'm, you know, lieutenant j g Babin. I wanna be in the I wanna be in the SEAL teams. This is what I wanna do.

I think I can get you a quick trip to this community. What do I need to do to, you know, make this happen? And he told me he was like he he said he was like, no 1 has ever scheduled a meeting like this with with me. I think that shows a lot of initiative on your part. You know, keep trying.

You know, get your scores better. Get some better you know, get go get some strong letters of recommendation. Put it in a package again, and I think you'll do better next time. So I think just we call this concept default aggressive, that problems aren't gonna solve themselves. Like, you actually gotta go solve problems.

You actually have to make things happen. Things aren't gonna just fall in your lap. Like, you gotta go make it happen. And that applies on the battlefield. It also applies anywhere in life.

And the opportunities, I think it's real easy for us to look at people and be like, well, you know, that person got lucky, or this person just stumbled upon that, or this person had that door open for them. And more often than not, man, you people make their luck through hard work, you know, discipline preparation, effort, all the years years of of effort behind the scenes that people don't see. And, and so I think that to me was a tremendous life lesson of, like, hey. This isn't going to happen unless you go and do the work to make it happen. And that required training, you know, being the best service warfare officer I could be.

I knew that, like, instead of complaining about not being in the SEAL teams, if I wanted to be in the SEAL teams, the best path for that for me was to be the best service warfare officer I could be. And, and there was I mean, people would say this that, well, you don't wanna be they won't wanna let you go, you know, if if you're, you know, if you're too too critical for a member of the team. That's total bullshit. Right? You gotta the the the better that you are on your team, the more the higher you perform, the the more that your leadership's gonna wanna write you a strong letter of recommendation.

Right? The the more that people are actually gonna wanna take care of you and help you out. So the more I could contribute to my team, you know, that happened to be a ship, that I was assigned to, the better it would be for me. You know, going and building relationships with people, reaching out to folks that that could write powerful letters of recommendation, you know, and and it was, I I think for anything in life, like, it's the opportunities are not gonna come your way. You gotta go make things happen.

You gotta be default aggressive. And, and and it's, you know, again, if you wait for problems to go away on their own, they just they just wanna get worse. You know? So I'm I'm thankful that happened. It was the best thing that ever happened to me.

And I can tell you, Sean, years later, after I was serving as a a a senior, you know, executive for in the business world, we call it right at the operations officer and executive officer position, and I was frustrated with the employment of SEALs or lack of employment of SEALs in in combat at the time, and I would get super frustrated about things that were way above me in the chain of command. There, I can remember at least 3 different occasions where I jumped in my truck. I drove across the Coronado Bay Bridge. I went over to 32nd Naval Street, I went over to 32nd Street Naval Station, which is where all the ships in San Diego are. And I walked out on 1 of those piers, and I looked across at at Coronado, at naval amphibious base where the SEAL teams are.

And, and I remembered what it was like, and it was it just put that all in perspective for me. Wow. Like, you know, this is, I can't ever forget what it was like to be over here, wanting to be there, and wanting to do anything I could to get over there. So no matter how frustrated I am, I'm in the single teams, and I gotta do the best I can, and and and, impact the people around me, you know, and try to try to make whatever you don't happen to be assigned, try to make life as good as I can for for those people that I'm with.

Wow. That's interesting. So you would go back to what you couldn't wait to leave to reset?

Just to give me perspective on what it was like. Like, to remember what it was like to to wanna be in the SEAL teams and not be there.

Man, that's cool. That's cool, Leif. So correct me if I'm wrong, with a breakfast, I think we I think we had a discussion where are you mentoring junior officers in the SEAL teams or junior officers that are wanting to go to the SEAL teams?

When I when I got back from our my second combat deployment to Armani, I took over the junior officer training course. It's over 2 years. I ran that training program, for every single civil officer, that graduated from BUDS. So before they go to BUDS, before they go on to their, you know, the advanced training, the SEAL Qualification training, they they would go through a 4 week classroom week long field training exercise. And so I'd been through that program.

That's that's where you and I broke off together right after we graduated BUDS, and then you went on to seal seal qualification training. And and, so I I won't you know, the officers from our class went to, Sears School and some some other schools, and then we went to the junior officer training course together. And so I got a chance to run that 4 years later, and I got a it it was a great program when I went through it, but I think, it it was focused on trying to help you understand how it was organized. And and what I got to do was really, I think try to revamp it to to just try to set those leaders up for success, you know, and and and to help those leaders be ready for the most difficult combat situations that they might come up against.

We'll get into more details with that, at a more appropriate time in the interview, but what I'm the reason I'm bringing it up is what what are you looking for in junior SEAL leadership? What are some of the what are some of the top attributes that you've identified that that great leaders inside of naval special warfare all seem to have?

Number 1, humility. Humility is the most important quality of a leader. And the reason I say that is because look. If you don't have an ego, you don't care about winning. Right?

You just mail it in. You don't care about outperforming the other, you know, other people or or doing well. Like, ego drives us to to be successful. So you gotta have an ego. But so often, ego is the the it just it just absolutely destroys people.

It destroys careers. It destroys teams. It destroys relationships. It destroys lives. And when people can't put their ego in check, they're you just you can never get better.

You can never improve. And I think, you know, the biggest lesson that I've learned in life through some extremely humbling combat operations, and then beyond is that it's it's be humble or get humbled. And anytime that I'm feeling like, oh, I got things figured out, oh, I've gotta, you know, oh, I'm I'm ready for, you know, for the worst case scenario, life might throw me, man. You you get humbled, and and, you get put in check. So I think that humility is is number 1, the most important quality.

Because without humility, you can't learn from anybody else. You can't you can't you can't get better. Right? You can't evolve. You can't adapt or innovate.

You can't listen to other people's ideas or learn from them in any capacity. And worst of all, you can't look yourself in the mirror and conduct an honest self assessment, a brutally honest self assessment because that's what's key. If you if you can't do that, there's no way you're ever gonna improve. What's required is an honest self assessment of like, okay. I need to do these things to improve.

I need to do these things to actually fix myself going forward. Okay. These might be my strengths, but these are my weaknesses. I need to work on those, you know, to to get better. Hey.

We might have gotten lucky on that combat operation, but but if you know, we better be prepared for that worst case scenario next time in case we don't get so lucky. And so I think number 1, humility. Number 2, ownership. And that goes right along with each other. Right?

If you're gonna point fingers and cast by and make excuses, it's right there with humility. The driver of that is is ego. But oftentimes, the reason I say ownership is because if I'm gonna wait for you to solve my problem, like, that problem is not gonna get solved. So let's say you and I have a conflict, and we don't see eye to eye on something. You know, I I can I can say, well, Sean just you know, I don't like the way Sean talked to me?

Yeah. You know? Or or Sean needs to come apologize to me. Or, you know, Sean, that's Sean's fault for not seeing the world from my perspective. Or I can actually take ownership of saying, you know what?

Sean, there's some reason that Sean disagrees with me on this. Let me actually learn from his perspective. Let me actually take ownership of fixing this problem by taking some action, you know, to to to actually get his perspective and see his perspective on things, and see what I could have done better to to better communicate, you know, what what my perspective was and ask more questions so I could I could see the world through his eyes. And so I think those things are are are super critical. Teamwork is a great example of that.

Right? If you're just about yourself, and you can't actually put the team at the overall team and the mission first, I think that's a that's never that's not someone's gonna gonna do well. And particularly in high performing organizations, whether you're talking led to like a seal unit or a special operations unit or a SWAT team, or frankly, like a super high performing sales team, you know, in in the corporate world, a lot of times you'll talk to them about the concept of recovery move and teamwork, and they'll say, oh, we're doing awesome. We're doing awesome. You know, but our admin department sucks, and supply sucks, and they're not getting us what we need.

You know, and hey, the the the senior leaders up in their corporate high-tech, they don't know what's going on down here. And so they they and what you realize is, like, they they they think about teamwork within just their immediate team, not about the other teams that they actually depend on to be successful. So, you know, when you start realizing, like, hey. I I need a better relationship with the admin department so that we can get paid, so that we can actually get the paperwork taken care of, so that we can actually do what we need to do and and focus on our job. You know, I need a better relationship with supply so they can give me the tools that they that they that I need to be successful.

I need a good relationship with my chain of command. Probably 1 of the biggest lessons I learned from Jocko, is not having a good relationship with your chain of command doesn't help you, and it certainly doesn't help your team. So you gotta build a good relationship with your chain of command just to to make sure you're aligned with them, make sure they understand, you know, what what you're trying to do and how you're trying to do it and why you you and and they have the information they need, you know, to better support you and make better decisions. So I think when you're looking at humility, ownership, teamwork, I think those are crucial things. Discipline, I think is something else.

You know, if you have people that are not disciplined, I mean, I think about somebody, in our blood class, like Brian Bill, you know, for instance, who probably wasn't born great at everything. Right? That guy was so he was the only guy in our entire bloods class that was first time every time in in, in in, die phase, you know, through through, the pool competency test, which is, you know, if you don't know what a pool cop is, it is miserable. Right? Where they're tying your hoses and knots, and and, and that was that's a terrifying test, right, for so many people that that, you know, even people that are comfortable in the water.

And it was we had so many rollbacks from the previous, you know, class as you know. You know? I was 1 of them. Yeah. You were 1 of those.

It was and and those stories you guys told us, it was, like, terrifying. You know? And so, I think that, Brian was the only dude on that wall this first time every time. Why is that? Well, he was he he was methodical in his preparation, and and it was he was disciplined.

And that enabled him to to be successful in everything he's trying to do. So I think somebody, you know, it's great to have some innate qualities and natural abilities, and those things are great. When you can combine natural ability and and discipline, that's unstoppable. But, you know, hard work is gonna beat, natural ability over time if you've got somebody whose discipline is gonna put in the work. So, you know, I I think those are the qualities, that I think apply not just to a SEAL leader, but but I think to any leader in any situation.

You know, somebody who's humble, somebody who'll take ownership, somebody who's a team player and puts the team first as somebody who's disciplined.

Man, that's great that's great to hear. Thank you. I got a ton of questions, but I'm gonna save them for the leadership section. But so let's get back to Buds. So you you show up to Buds.

We're classing up in April of was it 2001? 2,002. 2002. Correct. And, so what, I mean, what was it like for you walking in the compound as a as a as a as a BUDS candidate, BUDS student?

Man, I might have been different from a lot of us. I I loved it. I thought it was awesome. I mean, to me, just just having the not that you weren't certainly, we were walking on eggshells all the time. Right?

Any and I remember afterward, particularly as as the class officer in charge, right, as the senior person in the class, it didn't matter what happened. Right? I don't think I failed a single room inspection the entire time. Actually, I did. We had 1 spot inspection in in diaphase that I failed.

And, me and my my roommate failed. It was it was like 1 is but every other inspection I passed. Every other personnel inspection I passed, which was unheard of, and yet I got beaten. I was the 1st guy to get beaten every time. Right?

Because you're just anybody in the class feels you as the leader are responsible, and, and so you're gonna you're gonna pay the man for it. That was just part of the game. You know, I I I embrace that with a sense of humor. You know? So so there was, you know, there was it took a couple of years to be able to walk on the grinder before you're kinda like, who's looking at me?

You know? You feel like you need to be running and and calling cadence. But, by the way, they don't call cadence across the grinder anymore, man. It's I missed that. That was so that was so freaking cool.

Like, just to my left, to my you know, just just yelling at our class as we came across the grinder. For me, just knowing the history of that place, you know, knowing not only through the seal teams, but for our the underwater demolition teams, our frogman forefathers before before them, and and knowing all of that took place right there. Right? I mean, it's Coronado, naval amphibious base. I mean, this is this is where the, you know, the guys are going out and swimming up on on, you know, beaches like Iwo Jima, you know, and and and Guam and Saipan.

I I mean, just just amazing amazing history. And, I just I I thought it was awesome. And, you know, checking in, I mean, you know, for guys like you that were class ahead of me, you know, initially, it was like, you might as well have been been there for 30 years of experience. Right? Because you I'm just showing up, and you don't know, like, what to do.

I quickly, like, just try to just have a sense of humor. I remember they they I walked into the the, INDOC office. Right? Those first few weeks, the musical, in in doc, the indoctrination, before you started first phase, and and 1 of the instructors was was like, Babin. They just walked up, and he was like, hey.

He's they they had, like, their coffee mess there, and they had, like, this fancy coffee, and that came from the fleet. There's no fancy coffee. Everybody's these chiefs, you know, the fleet are drinking, like, black tar coffee that was, you know, reheated coffee from, like, 5 days ago. So they had this, like, fancy coffee mess in there, and they had a they had a pile of, like, like, sugar cubes. I mean, and it was probably, like, I don't know, 50 of them.

He's like, how many of those sugar cubes? You know, can you eat it once, Babbit? I'm like, all of them. I just, like, shove them all in my mouth. You know?

And, yeah. Just I I think from that, I just I just try to, you know, just have a good sense of humor about it. And, it was yeah. To me, I thought it was I mean, it was the quality of people that that we got to serve with there was, you know, I think in that post 911 era of people that, you know, like you that are, like, enlisting in the navy. This is what they wanna do.

I'm gonna go serve my country in a time of war. You know? It it was it was it was just incredible, man. And, and I I just I wouldn't trade that for anything. It was awesome.

What about the intimidation factor? Were you intimidated coming in, checking in there?

Totally, man. Of course. Know? I mean, are you you're kinda like, do I make eye contact with people? Do you not?

You know? You kinda just figure that out. You know? And, we talk about, you know, the dichotomy of leadership. Right?

You you gotta try to find that balance. You gotta be confident, but not cocky. Right? And I said humility is the most important quality of the leader, so you gotta have some confidence, but you also you can't be cocky. And I think just trying to find that balance was like, you know, knowing that, like, the instructor staff that, some of the guys that would, you know, say I hate officers and give us a hard time, you know, more than anything else, they end up being my favorite instructors.

And they just, you know, even though they've dished out the worst physical punishments in pain, they were just they were awesome. And and you know, some of those guys who who, you know, were, like, looking to give the officers a hard time, you know, I 1 of the things I loved about inductor, do you do you remember the the officer belly flop contest off the the the high dock?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Off, like, the 15 foot board. That was so awesome. I mean, it just you're like, okay. If I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna win. Like, I'm going all into this thing.

I'm gonna make it so painful. I'm gonna I'm gonna, like, knock the wind out of myself, and someone's gonna have to, like, haul me to the south. But that to me was like it was it was fun. I think you just try to, you know, try to make the the best of it.

What was the usually, everybody I know has some type of, you know, they're worried about a hang up in BUDS, whether it's the pool comp or the 50 meter underwater swim or the 2 mile swims or whatever it may be. Mine was the 50 meter under underwater swim was the first 1 I was really nervous about. What

How'd you do on that?

Crushed it. First time.

Was hard. I was It was easy. You know what was crazy? So we I'm sure you've watched Discovery Channel, like Oh, yeah.

That left 50 times.

So I did too. And and and they what I realized later, some things like Hell Week, like, they really can't show you just how hard Hell Week's gonna be. Right? So, like, it's I thought Hell Week's way harder than, you know, than I even envisioned it could be just kinda based on watching that show. But some of the other things like the ocean swims, the cold water, like the underwater swim, they were I I realized they were focusing on people that were struggling, and so it made it look like it was impossible.

So, yeah, I mean, they I thought the 50 meter underwater swim was like no factor. You know? But, some of the things that that that kick my ass, man, were,

Before though, before we did, what were you worried about? What was your biggest fear?

I worried about it. I sweated every single evolution. Okay. Every single 1. And and I had a a friend tell me that sweat every evolution.

Like, just just you you you better be worried about preparing. We're gonna spend our weekends prepping, planning. We've done stupid stuff too, like like pool comping each other in, like, the, you know, in the in the in the, like, local, like, apartment complex pools, you know, in, like, civilian dive breaks that we rented from the local like, stupid stuff, like, dangerous stuff. If you're listening to this, don't, or watch this, don't do that. That's stupid.

You You know, you're gonna AGE yourself. You definitely need a diet master there to make sure stuff like that's not going on. But, we were we just tried to sweat every evolution. I was, I was worried about the runs because I struggle with runs. And I found the runs were like the runs were hard.

I mean, they definitely were, you know, all out spread for, but I don't I don't think I I don't think I got in the goon squad even 1 time. That was also because our our good friend and classmate, Seth Stone, had made the egregious error of marrying 1 of the BUDS instructors Oh, yeah.

His sisters. I forgot about that.

So we the officers would get regularly pulled out and just beat on for that, and then the entire class would get beat on. And then wherever Stoner was, we call him Seth, though, we call him Stoner, but wherever Stoner was in the lineup of the runs, if you remember, they would just find him and be like, goon squad. Here I'm back, and he he would just embrace it, you know, and and, just start bear crawling. The goon squad, everyone's just getting beat on, and and, everyone else is, like, circling up. But, you were a good runner.

Right? You weren't I don't think you were in a goon squad. I was

a good that was the 1 thing I was really good at, was running. Yeah.

I remember you being a good runner. The swims for me, I was like 1 bad swim. Our mutual friend who I won't say his name, but, we got put together. It was 1 another officer, and he was not a great swimmer, and I was not a great swimmer. So we were like 1 bad conditions away from failing to swim.

The I think the only swim I failed was the the ones where they forced us to wear, like, the new fins. Remember that 1?

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

And and on behalf of the class failed, because we had to wear these these new bands that were supposed to be so much better, and and we all went back to the old school, like World War 2. Like

You did eat. Feed. Duck feed. Yeah.

But it it was, that was 1 where I was I wasn't a fast swimmer. I'm not gonna go for a while, but, but I I knew I was kinda 1 basketball away. But I think 1 of those the hardest things for me, that I didn't anticipate was the drown proofing. People thought drown proofing was easy. Did you did you have no problem with drown proofing?

I thought drown I thought drown proofing was easy.

So many people did. Drown proofing was horrible for me. Shit.

That was hard for you?

When I after we did, like you know, bouncing off the bottom was fine, but once we had to do, like, the traverse, you know, with your hands and feet time, and my heart rate got up, and then I started doing the flips.

So just for the audience that doesn't know what drown proofing is, basically, what they do is they tie your feet they tie your feet together. They tie your hands together behind your back, And you start off just in the deep end, right, bouncing up and down, kinda getting a rhythm into breathing, then you have to float, then you have to swim. Was it a 100 meters? You have to swim a 100 meters, with your hands tied behind your back and your feet tied together. And, it is challenging.

It is the swim is

definitely challenging. Well, I I've struggled with it, and I was really struggling with it. And and 1 of those buzz instructors who was the the meanest instructor, you know, when he came to officers and just hammering them, he, he just pulled me aside and put me in, like, he put me in, like, the forefoot section. It was like he's, like, hands and feet tied. You just you're gonna do your bounty in the forefoot section.

And he just, like, left me there, and then he moved me over to the to the, you know, 9 foot section. And it was it was like a it was just like a progression, and that really helped me. And then actually, 1 of the other instructors remember, we had to, like you were supposed to so after you do the that you know, you you do that traverse, then you were supposed to, like, you do, like, a flip and and and then go down and grab the mask, and then you you were supposed to do, like, 3 flips and then, like, 5 bounds, and then that was the end of the test. And, 1 of the instructors on the side was, like, I I I think I was probably 30 flips in. He was like, again, again, again.

Yeah. And finally and finally that same instructor that helped me out came over. I was like, Davin, you're good. Get out of the pool. And so it was he, he kinda helped me out.

But, I mean, he knew you were gonna get the full benefit on it, like, no factor. Yep. And, that was so that that to me was harder than I thought it was gonna be for whatever reason. And then life saving was life saving was

a challenge too. Kick in the ass, man.

The smallest instructor we had, I from so if you remember, we had our our, you had your unconscious victim

Mhmm.

For the I don't think life saving is like that anymore. What do

you mean is satellite?

I don't think it's like a pass fail evolution like it was. Like, I don't think you can get kicked out of the program. Remember for us, like, if you didn't pass it,

like Oh, yeah. I remember that.

Kicked out. And so the the the unconscious victim, I got the smallest BUDS instructor we had. He was like, probably a £150. He was the unconscious victim, which means he's laying there. I just grab him home across the pool.

And then the the very next 1 was, if you remember this instructor who had started at, he had played starting linebacker at, Arizona State University.

Oh, yeah. I remember him.

And, and, man, he was an awesome instructor. I loved it, but he he kicked my ass in the I, like, I I swam over to him and realized, like, he's, like, save me, and I I grabbed him. I think it took me Was this Scottie Walker?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we can say his name. He's in the buds thing. Yeah.

He's in the 234 thing. So

I don't know if you could say Scottie was Scottie was hilarious, but he he just, like, attacked the underwater, and, it was it was a giant wrestling match with a well, he he probably weighed 250. Yeah. I was like I

remember watching that guy when we were doing log PT pick up the fucking log by himself and just start running up the berm with it. And I was like, holy shit.

I remember that too. And we were we were all like, dude, that is that guy's an animal. And I got I remember I it it it was probably it it felt like it felt like a 20 minute evolution for me to get him to the side. I don't it probably wasn't near that long. Right?

But I finally get him to the side, and I crawled out the combat training tank just outside, and I just puked my guts up. And then I just and I crawled back in there, and it was like the next 1, the next 1, the next 1. So that was that was a tough evolution. But it was awesome. I mean, you also knew that, like, what was cool about that is there's nobody that I can't save.

If I could save if I can save Scottie attacking me, you know, under those conditions and this monstrous human, and I could get him to the side and fight him the whole way, like, I could save anybody. Yeah. It was and just the training program itself was just awesome. Yeah. Do you

remember do you remember when Ben do you remember that armpit hair tactic that Ben created?

I do remember that. I've forgotten about that.

Yeah. Genius move.

That was a genius move. I, I don't think that I, I don't think that I I can't remember if instructors shaved their armpits for that or if they, if they stop, but it was,

he I remember he had what did they call that victim? You had, like, the the passive victim. You had the unconscious victim. You had the 1 that's gonna fight everything you do, basically beat the shit out of you as you're trying to save him. And I I think it was I think it was Pranger.

Was it Pranger? Ben went out to save to save Pranger, and he just reached all the way around his chest, grabbed a big handful of armpit hair, and just yanked it. The instructor was like, I'm good. I'm good. And, what a genius move.

Dude, I I remember instructor Nave had me I didn't even know what a triangle choke was. He had me in a triangle choke on the bottom of the 15 foot section of the combat training tank. I'm, like, trying to go underwater to get away from him, and he just, like, locks me up in this triangle, like, down on the bottom of

Man. Man.

That was crazy.

When did you when did you find out you were gonna be the class OIC?

So in INDOC, I was the senior guy. I was the only author, for a little while. We had a few authors that end up getting rolled back. So I think I was the there were 18 of us in BUDS class 241 that, like, started with 241 and made it through in 1 shot. I think I was the only officer from that that group.

And, and and the the rest of our, like, 44 guys that graduate, you know, were were rollbacks. And, man, thank god for you guys because when you got rolled back in the class, like, y'all were y'all brought in this, like, okay. We've been here before. We understand how to prep for these things. Because at the time, we didn't other than the Discovery Channel show, like, you don't even know what's coming.

Right? The schedule's secret. You can't it's not like you can walk in and ask the instructors that. You know? So, that was that was massive.

But I we had several o's that were, like, rolled in, and so, I think when when you got rolled back into the class, that was, I got there was there was a senior officer who took that role, through Hell Week, and then shortly after Hell Week, he got, he got rolled out, and so then I I became the senior officer again. So most of the class, I was the I was the senior officer.

What did that I mean, what did that feel like for you to be the OIC of of I mean, that's a lot of induced pressure, I would imagine.

Yeah. It it definitely is. I mean, I think, it it instantly luckily, I'd learned the lesson of, like, hey. I can't do everything. I'm here to rely on my, on my teammates to make this happen.

Right? I need to use my senior list of leadership. You know? If I'm running around trying to count everyone, right, that doesn't work. Right?

You have to have a and if the LPO, the leading petty officer is doing that, that doesn't work. We need quarterly broker leaders. You know, you need people in those brokers that are helping those brokers leaders out. This is how decentralized command actually works. And so I think it was, that to me was like the the the thing that I was you know, I would get, sometimes people would come up with ideas and say, hey.

Let's go ask the instructors if we can do this or we can do that. People wanted to kind of try to cut corners. I I was you know, I think I know I frustrated some of the class sometimes when I was like, yeah. We're not gonna we're not gonna we're not gonna expend the leadership capital on something like that. We're gonna just show up when they told us to do it.

You know? We're we're not gonna ask if we can come 15 minutes later. Right? We're gonna like, like, it's not it's not worth it. And I think for people that at at that time, I know some sometimes, particularly some of the o's and boat crew leaders got frustrated with me, you know, with some of that stuff, but you have to just, I think, really prioritize, like, what you're gonna put push back on, what you're not.

And and, like, we we had a phenomenal class. I mean, it was awesome. And, it it was, I mean, you joining our classes. It was 1 of my my favorite stories of the the whole thing, man, with the whole week kickoff.

Yeah. Yeah. That was,

that was our thing.

Yeah. I got rolled because I failed the first phase exam. Genius move, Sean. But it all worked out.

Everything happens for a reason.

Was an awesome class. And, I do think my most memorable experience in BUDS with Leif Babin was the Okhorse wrestling match when I, got a little too far out in front of my skis and challenged you to a to a to a wrestling match. I didn't come out on top. But,

dude, that was so awesome, though. We, so we show up to the old course, and, we show up to the obstacle course. And and, you know, if you don't know anything about the the buzz obstacle course, it's it's a notorious obstacle course. It's been these these things have been around for a long time. All these obstacles are named.

And before even CrossFit or these kinda high intensity, you know, interval training was even a thing, the old course was that. Right? You're gonna do 7 or 8 minutes of, like, max put out effort, you know, when you're done with that thing, and then you add the soft sand runs and, you know, to the, to the demo pits and back. You know, that's a mile and a half down, mile and a half back. And then and then, and then add a ruck, you know, ruck run, you know, in that soft sand on top of that for dirt phase.

So we were out there for that evolution, and I can't remember what happened. Like, our something got screwed up. The schedule got screwed up. I know I had cleared the proctor we're supposed to be there, but the instructors never showed up. And, of course, there's nothing worse than, like, bored, bud students standing around.

So somehow it started with these wrestling matches that were going on, and and we had some wrestlers in the class, so people were calling each other out, like like, WWE SmackDown style. And I remember, like, I was just kind of, like, trying to stay above the fray, making sure, you know, because it's in the sand. We didn't want people's head hitting rocks or yeah. Obviously, at this point, you get injured. Right?

You're gonna be Yeah. Roll from the program, but just so you don't even graduate. So I wanted to try to prevent that. I was trying to stay above the fray, and all of a sudden, you know, I got Sean out there. You, like, walked out in the middle.

It looked it looked like Apollo Creed from the Rocky movie. I want you. You you were like, Batman, I want you. And, like, just challenging me. I was like, okay.

I guess I got I got no choice here. So they have they they, like, drew a ring in the sand, like Kumite, and we had a big mess of that. So that was awesome. I think it was probably more of a stalemate than anything, but

Yep. Yep.

I I stuffed the tape down.

Pretty sure you choked me out.

While I was I I think I just held you in place until it was like, okay. Let's move on to the next. Everybody got bored. But, dude, your my favorite story from you was that hell week experience because, you know, we were no 1 knows it's kinda like combat. Right?

No 1 knows. Hell Week was I think it was the 5th week for us going through 1st phase. So we've been in 5 weeks to endoc. We've already been in 4 weeks, you know, of of of first phase at that point. And I think we started our class, we started with a 193 guys, and, then I think we started with, I think we started we started a whole week with a 101 guys.

So our our automatically, we just get all already a bunch of people had quit. Right? It's getting whittled down. And I remember those numbers well because it right. It was so you're already losing a bunch of people, you know, in those first few weeks.

Now hold on. Let me just I I just a 193 guys at 1 1 day or a 193 guys in Endoc?

A 193 guys in Endoc Okay. Is what started with Bud's class 241. That's what classed up Okay. The original class. Now some of those guys left, others got rolled back in.

You know, the numbers have kinda switched around. And by the time we were in, we were about to start hell week, we had 101. Wow. So, we'd already lost, you know, both guys a lot of guys who quit, bunch of, you know, injuries, things people enrolled, things like that. But you you were a brown shirt rollback, which is like that that coveted brown shirt was was had to be awesome.

Right? You made it through through hell week. And so we

If you remember, right, they actually took our brown shirts and gave us the white shirt.

Well and I think that's what's so I know people who I know people who, in the previous previous years have been given a chance. They screwed up something in buzz, you know, in in in in dive phase or 3rd phase, and we're given a chance to go back and start day 1. And they're like, no. Thank you. I won't do it.

They they turned down a a career in the SEAL teams because, they were not willing to go back. And and, so once you've made it through hell I mean, hell week is hell week is, is close to combat as you're gonna get. I mean, it was designed by Draper Kaufman and his staff at Fort Pierce back in World War 2, you know, for the for the, naval combat demolition units that were hitting the beaches at Normandy and and, you know, and blowing up all the I mean, these these are the first waves at Omaha and Utah, and they were trying to create as much mayhem as possible for them. And so they tried to combine all this training down, you know, weeks of training into just 5 continuous 24 hour days. These guys have, you know, up all night, no sleep, explosions going off everywhere, chaos and mayhem.

And just like combat, nobody knows how they're gonna do until they get in that situation. And I remember just reading the bible, having bible study.

And me You were having bible study man.

In Buds? Totally. Yeah. Wow. Andrew Paul and I on our team, several others, you know, we've got issued those bibles.

Yeah.

Those those those little Buds bibles that were, you know, in in IV translation and and, in the in the camo. I still have that 1, man. And we we were reading from judges about the story of Gideon. And the story of Gideon, who's this reluctant warrior, like the angel of the Lord appears to Gideon and says, hey. You're gonna go fight the Midianites.

And Gideon's like, what are you talking about? I'm the least of my family. I'm not even the biggest and strongest guy in my whole family. You know, Midian is so much stronger, more powerful than Israel. Like, what are you talking about?

I can't do that. And and the angel continually assures Gideon that and he he says, some translation. It's it's in you know, the it was, you were a mighty warrior and god is with you. And, those those are just such powerful words. You know?

In some translations, it it's god is with you, mighty warrior. And it's you know, Gideon is this reluctant warrior, and, of course, he is empowered to he he he calls out to Israel. Thousands of people come to the call. You know, he he has thousands of of, of Israelite warriors that have answered the call, and God says, that's too many. People aren't gonna believe in the miracle of this.

So he, like, whittles it down to just a few 100. And Gideon goes and and destroys the Midianites with just a few 100 warriors, you know, through the power of God. And, and so it was we were reading that verse, and in fact, Andrew, Paul, and I, like, during hell week, you know, when when when in the darkest hour, you know, like like the second day, like Tuesday night, you know, and probably the largest number of quitters, I remember quoting that verse to Andrew, you know, him quoting it to me. Like like, it was

In the middle of it?

In the middle of it. Yeah. That was like, I I said, I told him, you're a mighty warrior. God is with you. You know?

Go get back under your boat. You know? So, like, those things are those those verses were super powerful to make it through. But even then, like, I'm nervous. Like, I didn't I didn't sleep at all, man, you know, prior prior to hell week.

Like like most people probably didn't. You probably didn't before your 1st hell week. And what's crazy is you guys at 2:40 had, like, the worst hell week of all. I remember it was like I was I was going into SEAL team 5 because I was TAD there before we crossed up. Actually, maybe I was already in India.

I can't remember. But I was scraping the ice. I scraped the ice off of my windshield.

That was 239.

With 239. I would love

to take credit for that, but I can't. But that was class 230. I think that was I remember watching that, but it's like it's fucking snowing in San Diego right now, and these guys are in the water. And, I was like, holy shit. And I remember watching, like, all these badass guys just, like, quitting quitting.

Okay. I guess

I remember it

just But going

What? 2240, you guys had a huge amount of guys that got pneumonia.

Yeah.

I think it was a particularly miserable 1. It certainly wasn't the June hell week that we had, which the water wasn't as cold, the weather was cold. It just meant we ran more, you know, but you'd you you definitely went through a tough hell way for sure at 2:40. And, and so when you got assigned to come back and that brown shirt, you so you get a white shirt, you know, you got a white shirt, you make it through hell, but you get that brown shirt. I mean, this is a super coveted thing.

We're all looking at, you know, you and, you know, the guys that have made it through. I'm like, oh, man. Those guys made it through hell week. And we're talking, you know, the vast majority of the the 70 to 80% of the people that don't make it to training quit during hell week. And so when they took away your brown shirt and, like, sent you back, you know, as a white shirt, and I just remember, like, I was in awe, man, of, like, the attitude that you had.

You were like, alright. This is what it is. Like, we're gonna do it. You know? And and, I'm gonna go through this thing.

I'm gonna be a a team player for 241. I'm gonna tell them what I know. I'm gonna support the team. And, you know, we're all nervous, man. We've been up, you know, for, for nights on end.

Everyone's kind of freaking out. We're reading these bible verses. They're trying to, like, strengthen each other, and and and right as they kick off, you know, they come into the tents, and they have an amazing way. I think I hadn't slept for easy 24 hours prior to that just as I was able to kind of relax enough to, like, fall asleep for, you know, 10 minutes. Right?

They come in, all of a sudden, the blank fire is going off. They'll fit machine guns and grenade stems are being thrown, And, and I remember running out there. We had we had instantly had quitters from the team that had been thinking about it. It got to their head, and they're they're already ringing the bell within minutes. And we're running out to the grinder.

We're running around, and I remember them calling you out by name and getting and pulling you out of the class, and, and, and then and then giving you your brown share back, and now you got the support. And it was it was 1 of the coolest things I ever saw, man, because there were so many people who would have been like, no way am I doing that. I I just did this. It's supposed to be the toughest military training in the world. You're gonna make me go through it again.

And, like, that's what you were willing to do, and you were a team player the entire time. And then even as a brown shirt rollback, man, you were checking on us. You were looking at us. You're like, hey, guys. You know?

You were just strengthening us, giving us some encouragement. It was freaking cool, man. And, and I remember later, you gave me some photos of all of us just like, well, we look like just just just disaster, like, wet, sandy, all, like, contorted on these

swollen.

You know, 3 days in when we get, like, our first chance to sleep for 45 minutes or an hour or whatever. And, you know, you but you're, like, taking taking photos for us, like, just helping us out, looking out for us. And, it was it was awesome, man. It just was a it was like the consummate team player, and the person's gonna put the mission first, and you were like, hey. They're telling me to do this.

Cool. I'm gonna do it. And even you were you were willing to go into that with such a great attitude, and you could tell the instructor staff was, like, fired up by that. And, you know, the the respect and admiration that they had for you to be to be willing to do that. And you were like because I don't how much you you were it wasn't immediate.

Right? Like, it was I mean, you were running around the grinder.

Yeah. We did the whole I think we did the whole they they we did the whole breakout, and then they they they called me and, the other 2 gents out first first serve torture. As you've heard on my show before, there are bad guys out there who want to try to take us down. It's all they think about. And if you ask me, this could happen at any time.

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Yeah. So it was we were probably 45 minutes or hour of, like, solid physical beat down. At this point, you probably are a 100% convinced that

you could

do the entire next 5 days of no sleep.

Because Holcomb had actually told us, like, they're probably gonna pull you guys out. We're, like, like, right before, and we're, like, alright. Whatever. And then I remember seeing him and break out, and I was like, they're not fucking pulling us out.

And, Like, he was just playing mind games

with Tony. Yeah. Yeah. But, well, thank you for saying that, man. I I will say, I think the thing that sticks out the most, and you were a great fucking leader, by the way.

I really I really looked up to you, you know, going through BUDS and

Amazing. And,

I had a a terrible mistake in 3rd phase right before right before we were done on the island. I had it AD with a blank round. And talk about a 1 of the most humiliating experiences of my entire fucking life. And, yeah, I had an an AD is an is an ax accidental discharge. And I just remember getting called out immediately, and I was like, fuck, man.

We're, like, a week away from getting out of here, and we're done. And I'm probably gonna get kicked out. And I don't know what the conversations were, you know, behind the scenes. I never asked, but I just I always respected you for not making for not making more of a thing out of it. And, because it could, man.

That's that's you know, when you make a mistake like that, it's you feel like the entire world's crashing down. You know? And and, and, I've never talked about it before.

But I haven't thought about that in a long time.

Yeah.

And, you know what, though, Sean? Like, to me, like, it was failure is the best teacher. And and I think that those are the things that, I can't imagine that that helped you as a shooter and as an operator. You know, as teaching tactics, you know, down the road, you know, those kind of lessons learned and the the weight and pressure after all that you've been through, you know, I I weighed on you, but for, you know, you were always, like, exactly the kind of person that we wanted in the SEAL teams. Like, like, exactly the kind of person I wanted.

I remember at 1 point the instructor staff going through hell week saying, like, who's not performing in your boat crew? Like, who's you know, always always trying to solicit, like, info, and I I'd always be like, me. I'm not I'm not performing. You know, I wasn't gonna throw guys on the bus or things like that. And then you but you you start to realize, like, hey.

They're they they want good people to serve in the SEAL teams. And if if you don't want somebody if you wouldn't want somebody on your platoon, you know, if you wouldn't wanna wanna go to war with somebody, then that's like, you owe it to the SEAL teams that, like, these guys should be weeded out the program. Right? That that's what the program is actually for. And, and so I think, that was somebody like, you were always an absolute standout performer, always somebody who put the team first, and and I mean, to me, like, you know, I don't think that was ever a question in any of these truckers' minds, and, you know, and and everything I could say positive about you was was always said, man, because you were a go getter.

You got things done. You're smart. You're capable. You're talented. You're innovative.

You're a hard worker. You're a physical put out guy all the time. And you you absolutely the kind of guy, you know, that, that I wanted to serve the SEAL teams with, that that other SEALs you would wanna serve with as well. And, frankly, my hat's off to you, brother, because I was 26 years old, man. I was a old man.

There were a a couple of guys over there. Our leading petty officer and and, a couple of the the, our our noncommissioned officers. But, man, I was I had 26 years of, you know, maturity experience for for you to do that as an 18 year old, you know, to have the maturity, to train and the discipline to actually train, and and to put out and to be able to make the attorney, Brooke. I don't think I could've done that at 18, man. So, I mean, that's to me, that's that's what I loved about the SEAL teams.

It was always about the guys, and the quality of the people that I got to serve with, and and, guys like you, man. And that's that's what I love most about Buds. It's like, hey. We might be getting beat on. This might be physically punishing.

We could look at each other and just laugh about how ridiculous this situation was and and, or how funny it was or how much we were actually suffering. And, you know, that that, that's the best of the seal taste, man.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm I'm with you, man. And, and, you know, like I said, your reputation precedes you and and went with you everywhere you went.

And, so moving out of BUDS, I mean, where did you we all get a a dream sheet. Where where did you wanna go? Where what team?

I wanted to be on the West Coast, you know, just because I'd been stationed in San Diego. My friends were out there. Just you know? I I I had spent some time on a a ship during a midshipman cruise in in Virginia Beach, and and I just I like San Diego. You know?

I I've gotten to know it better, and my closest friends were there. So, I think, I'd put West Coast Seal teams, and I got service elected, or or I say service elected. I got selected for I was gonna be sent to SEAL Team 1. And excuse me. The so I got sent to SEAL Team 1, and, or I I had orders to SEAL team 1.

And, that was a problem for me because in their rotation, like, as you know, I I put on lieutenant in in BUDS. And so I was already a senior guy. What that was gonna do was I was gonna I was gonna start as a 1 time platoon commander. So I would have had I

I would have the chance

of being an assistant platoon commander under my belt. And that was a problem. I was gonna like, instead of, you know, having a full workup cycle and deployment as an assistant platoon commander, which will give me some experience in the SEAL teams and give me some perspective, I I just didn't think that was good for me. It wasn't good for the SEAL teams. And so luckily, I had some good friends that that was my same my same friend that was at SEAL team 5 and several other friends that were there.

They went in and talked to the executive officer, and commanding officer at SEAL team 5, and they pulled some strings from me and got the defense of the company some new orders, so I went to SEAL team 5 and, as an assistant platoon commander. So even though I was a I was a lieutenant, I had a chance I

never thought of that.

I got a chance to be a a platoon commander. It was the best thing that ever happened to me, and I'm so thankful for, you know, my friends that were there and for the senior leaders that were there that pulled strings for me, and made that happen, and, and really opened some doors for me. So we got a got a chance to go through, and, got a chance to serve with some of our our mutual friends, Elliot Elliott, you know, from our Bud's class, who may be Elliott may be the most senior the the most significantly wounded living SEAL, like, through the the GWAD era.

Yeah.

You know, who got wounded Ramadi and and TBI, you know, and and, lost his leg, wheelchair bound, like like, you know, significant injuries, but, just an amazing guy, man, and such an awesome dude. And, always loved stories from Buds. I I pulled strings to get him over to CLT 5 and try to stack that platoon. He was coming out of, you know, the 18 Delta, combat medic course, special forces combat medic course that our corpsman went to. But it was it was great to be there with Elliot, some of the guys that were in, you know, classes just just before us and and behind us.

We'll get into we'll get into deployment cycles and everything that happened. But just real quick, I mean, when you when you pinned your Trident on, you'd been passed up. You didn't get selected 2 different times. 1 in the academy, 1 couple years after the academy, then you make it through straight with no hang ups. I mean, who was your first phone call when you when you passed Buds when you got through?

My first full call was to to my my dad. My dad mom were praying praying for me the whole time and knew that's what I wanted to do, and and, you know, just wanted to thank them for their love and support. You know? And, all the all the prayers, and and, that was, I think my dad has since since got, you know, disappeared, but he had a voice mail for me after after hell week. I called and left for him, you know, too, as well.

But that was it was a proud moment, man, and and getting that getting that Trident. And you and I, you know, we didn't get pinned together because that was at SQT during the time, but, it I remember remember well, Ty Woods, who, was, you know, our instructor at, Seal Qualification Training that, he probably probably pinned your trident on the chest just like he did for me Yep. As well, man, that we later lost in in BG. He was an awesome guy. And, yeah.

That that that blood pinning ceremony was, was something that that we we had a full on Navy investigation on. I had to answer all these questions, and

Oh, man. Really?

Yeah. And they they were like, you know, this can't happen. This is hazing, and and that's what they they an officer was like like, doing an investigation. And I was like I was like I was like, I wasn't hazing. Like, this is completely voluntary.

This wasn't hazing in any way, shape, or form. Like, I saw that that I saw that as a ritual. There's, like, this is what I wanted to be a part of. And so I asked him the investigating officer was like, hey. Did you did you get your trite bin on?

He was like,

what was it? Oh, shit. It was a seal.

Yeah. I was like, that was a different time. I was like, there was no no hazing whatsoever took place. Yeah.

That's awesome, man. Yeah. That's awesome. Well,

you know, I

do have 1 other question. I had no idea you guys were studying the Bible on Buds. And, you know, I think I think, at least for me, faith in general kind of dissipated into nothing, for a for a very long time until recently. And, I'm I'm just curious. Did you did that stick with you throughout your entire career?

Man, I've fallen so far, Sean. I've stumbled, you know, as as much as anyone out there. And, I'm glad I had the foundation, you know, built in me. I think, and by the way, man, you you're a it's I love that you share your faith with people. I think that's an incredible thing.

I don't know how people who have been through dark times in their life make it through without faith, man. I I people ask me, how is it that you're doing okay? You know? And I think knowing that there is a creator that's in charge of the universe, that has all things planned out and has a plan for each 1 of us, right, that that to me is is everything. And knowing that you can screw everything up, and all you have to do is simply just ask for forgiveness, and and strive to to to, to follow the righteous path as best you can, knowing that we're all gonna fall short of the mark.

You know? But that's all it takes. And and I think they're, that to me is is is everything. And, it's I think thank god that was instilled in me at an early age. I didn't realize or or fully appreciate that.

I I went to I went to, the the the public school. I went to a a private school at a small, like, 3 room log cabin schoolhouse, until I was in, like, 5th grade, and then I went to public school in a in a small, you know, East Texas public school. And then before my junior, I transferred to a a a public school or I'm sorry, a private Catholic school in the the bigger town of Beaumont. It was about an hour away in Southeast Texas. And so, you know, I that it was it was the level of education there, I think, was gonna open some more opportunities for me.

It was probably easier to get accepted into the naval academy, you know, as a as a result of that, or 1 of the service academies. But it wasn't until I started going to school, and, you know, I was going to school in in the the Catholic school was outstanding school. We had a religious, class every semester. And and I was going to to school with kids that had, had been in a religious class every from kindergarten on. You know?

And I remember the so this is my junior year, and and it's my first ever, like, religious class because in public school, we we didn't we didn't have that. But I went to, you know, Sunday school every Sunday with them. The, First Baptist Church of Woodville, I was in involved in the youth group, and we we were constantly my dad would study the Bible and talk about it at home. It was constantly something that we referenced and talked about. And, and so I remember the teacher in in a in high school, in this this, at Mount Senior Kelly High School asking, like, in in the the in in the, spiritual class there, like, what is how did the Israelites get to Egypt?

And and I was like you know, I just I was kinda looking around the room. I was ready for somebody to jump in, and I was like I was like I just raised my hand, and and, and I thought I talked about Joseph, the code of many colors, and, you know, his brothers sold him into slavery, and then, you know, he's, which is an amazing story from the Bible. Right? Joseph is sold into slavery by his brothers that are jealous of him. He goes his brothers think he's dead.

He goes to Egypt. Years later, there's a famine in the land of Canaan. His brothers bow down before him and are asking for, you know, for food supplies. And and and what he says to him is that, you know, what you use for good, you know, what what you, meant for evil, God chose to to use for good. And so all the Israelites come, and so they they, and they start to become, you know, populous in Egypt.

They they eventually they slave 400 years of slavery, that results from that in Egypt until Moses lays them out. And I was kinda looking around the room, like, everyone knows the answer to that question. And afterward, people were like, dude, like, what? How did you know that? And I was like, I was like halfway paying attention in, like, Baptist Sunday School.

You know? Like, getting kicked out because I was bad and, you know, cutting up and bunch of people in the back of the head. But I realized, like like, studying the bible was, that there that had been ingrained in me. That that's something my my my family did. That's something that we did in church and in my youth group, like, opening the word, studying the word, and I'm so thankful for that that foundation, that that was built to me.

And then there's times when I strayed very very far, you know, from that. But I I I thank God that that always has brought me back to, like, the truth. Right? Always understanding that there's forgiveness or anything. And, and and that all it takes, you know, is to, is to recognize your own failures and flaws, and none of us are actually good enough, you know, to to achieve righteousness on our own, and only through the the blood of Jesus can can we do that.

And and that's all it takes. So that to me is, I've shared that with with many people when I talk about it. You know, we don't need an openly secular organization at Echelon Veront, but, I think there's so many foundations of that are biblically rooted. Right? When it talks to being humble, I mean, you know, that you can't study scripture and not realize, like, abject humility is, like, is is, like, continually the theme.

You know, the the the proud will be humbled, and the humble will be exalted, and and, and that's throughout the the the scripture and particularly in the in in the new testament. But, I I think, you know, the idea that, like, if we gotta take ownership of our problems, like, we're never gonna actually be good enough, and that's that's what prevents us from, you know, from achieving salvation. So that to me I I think to me, faith is everything, and I think having that foundation that's, you know, that that's built in, and and study of the word. I try to be like the Paul talks about the the noble Bereans who, after he would preach, to them in the synagogue, would study the word to see if these things were so. So, right, you hear something in a sermon, you hear something from a pastor, you hear something from somebody in the world, we would actually search the word, open up the Bible, study scripture, make sure that that actually is the truth, and, and that it's it's it's open for any of us to study and and know.

But I just you know, it's been really cool to to hear about your spiritual journey, and I and I thank you for sharing that. Because I think for so many people out there, they're trying to find some answer, you know, in the secular world. They're trying to find whether it's fame or fortune or money or, you know, power, followers on social media, whatever it may be, and and and they're never gonna find that. Right? That we we all know that, that that doesn't lead to happiness.

It is the and I think being grounded in that by the way, have you ever been to the Palace of Versailles? I don't think so. So the Palace of Versailles, I I got a chance to go to, France this summer, just before the 80th anniversary of the the Normandy invasions. Oh, man. Did a go rock event there.

We did the 80 kilometer rock, you know, about 50 miles. It was brutal, man. 19 hour, get some evolution, but awesome to do that with the Go Ruck team. And, but we we went to the Palace of Versailles, and my wife and I took our kids there. And and, yeah, we have a nanny there that came and helped us with the kids, and she did some great reporting there.

And the Palace of Versailles is probably the greatest monument to the idea that money and power and fame and fortune cannot buy you happiness. It is the most magnificent place you could ever go. Like, golden gates, and I mean, this was the seat of power, right, for the, you know, for the for the French kingdom. From Louis the 14th, it was the sun king at the height of France's power, 1 of the most powerful people in the entire world, you know, all the way through Louis the 16th who eventually, you know, he he and his wife Marie Antoinette were led to the guillotine. And I think 1 of the reasons that happened is because I don't think they had a clue what was going on outside the palace, man.

It is I think they were they're surrounded by people who you can walk around these amazing gardens and this incredible, just ornate, palace that would have just eclipsed. It's mind blowing to think about the power and fame and fortune and influence and, you know, that was going on. This is the reality show. Right? TV every time that everybody wants to be a part of, and and you just sense that it's probably the most miserable place you could be.

Right? You can't trust anybody. Everybody's got their agenda. Everyone's trying to, you know, to undermine the the other, and and it's it's I think it's just a living monument to that. I think it's worth going and worth seeing

Very interesting.

You know, for that. But it's, again, just leading us back to the faith of, like, what buys you happiness? Right? It's it's the it's the the the proud will be humbled, and the the humble will be exalted. And only through recognizing, my own failures, abject failures, and flaws, and weaknesses, you know, can I actually, find salvation, you know, through, through through Jesus?

And I hope that's something that, that others can turn to and and and see because, that is, that is how you you find peace in this world.

I'm not, like, extremely wealthy or anything, but it but, you know, I'm working towards it. And so doesn't the Bible say something like a rich man has, like, a fucking

It's easier for a camel to pass through the the eye of a needle?

Yeah. What do you think about that?

Yeah. These are those are great questions, man. I think, Abraham was very wealthy. I had massive herds. So did Isaac, so did Jacob.

Joseph became the second only to pharaoh in Egypt, you know, the most powerful empire of the the time, you know, and and the day. I think, I think god I mean, Job Job was, you know, was given a tremendous wealth. Right? That's 1 of the things that was taken away from him that when Satan was trying to get him to to to curse god. So I think there's I think god, I I I think I think god gives us I think as long as you remember that the it belongs to god.

It belongs to god. And so you can choose that to do good with it, you know, or you can choose it to be selfish with it. I think god has given you the means to to to help people, and, and I think I kinda like Dave Ramsey's take on it. You know, that when you have, like, the the, you can't help your you can't help anybody else out. Right?

If you came to me and you're like, hey, Leif. I'm having trouble paying my bills, and, you know, I might lose my house here if I can't pay my mortgage. And if I don't have my own finances in order, like, I can't help you. Mhmm. I can't do anything for you.

So, like, I need to if if I have my finances in order, then I have the ability to actually have the means to help you. That it enables me to help other people. So I think when it becomes when it becomes the object of worship as, like, no, no, I want more money, but it's money for the sake of money, I think that's where it becomes a problem. And then when you know that it's all, man, it's all, like, it's just all dust. Right?

It's you can't take any of it with you. I think when people kinda hold that up, it's like, this is what success looks like. I think you do have to be careful that it's, there is, you know, the I think that Jesus talks about the Jewish culture of the day. It was like, hey, if if someone was poor, well, that means that God, like, you know, they did something bad. If someone was rich, then God had blessed them.

They did something good. And Jesus, threw that on its head. Like, that thinking is not true at all. In fact, when his disciples, had asked him, you know, when he encountered a blind man, you know, who sinned, this man or his parents? And Jesus said neither.

This man is blind so that God could be glorified, and then he healed him. You know? So, I mean, I think it's it it just throws out the idea that, like, you know, bad things can happen to us at any time. Right? All of this can be, you know, can be given and and taken away.

And I think as long as you use the means that are given to you for good, you know, to help those in need, to help others in need, and that's I love what you're doing that, man, with, like, the veterans advocacy groups, and and and bringing people into the fold, like, not working yourself. Right? So you can actually help people, and and and get them into the fold so they can get taken care of and get the benefits they deserve, you know, through through the VA. I just think I think those things, using the platform that you've been given for good, man, like, that's that's that's you've been given this platform for a reason, man. God has placed you in that position for a reason.

Yep.

And you you can choose to use it for good or ill. Right? And and, when you share your faith with people, when you try to help those in need and try to actually reach out to those that are struggling, you're in hard times. Like, you're using it for good, man. And that's what I think has been so awesome about seeing your success.

Man, thank you. Yeah. It's just something, I don't know, man. I think about it all the time because because, you know, I wanna wanna set future generations of my family up to tell you don't get pushed around. You know what I mean?

And I in my opinion is is you you you create enough wealth to where you can't be fucking pushed around anymore. And that's, like, something that's really important to me. I don't want I just I just don't wanna see look. You see all these fucking families, and everybody's getting pushed around, man. Pushed around in their beliefs.

You know, you see it in you see it everywhere. And, and it just, like, from the I mean, it just looks like the people that don't get pushed around are the ones that that work themselves up to be to be wealthy so that they, you know, they they can afford to, you know what I mean, pull their fucking kids out of school and put them over here and and,

I think there's definitely something to that, man. Right? I mean, if you if you become uncancelable, you know Yeah. Like, where where some way some way they're trying to put the pressure on you, you know, and you could say, like, well, I'm not gonna do that. You know?

Or, hey. I'm gonna oh, I you yeah. That might be a big paycheck, but I'm not actually gonna take that sponsorship because I don't want you dictating what I get to say.

No. I'm I'm never I'm never I'm never fucking like that.

Well, I think that's what's been awesome, man. That's what's driven the success of your show, man. I mean, there's no question in my mind about that. Like, you get to you get to talk to people you wanna talk to. You don't pull punches.

You don't, like you know, you say what you wanna say. And I I think, and not that you're not smart about it or professional about it, you know, but I think there's, I I think the self censorship, I think you were talking about with Joe, you know, on on the Rogan, Joe Rogan experience was like, that's that's the worst of all. Right? Like, oh, I shouldn't say that because Yeah. Someone doesn't wanna say that.

I mean, I just think it's I think that's the kind of thing where I think there's enough people pushing back on things now where that pendulum is starting to swing back, where people are like, yeah. We've had we've had enough of that.

Yeah. I think so too. I mean, is that something you think about, though, build when you're building your business? Totally. The the the wealth stuff and what the bible says about Totally, man.

What was the what was the what was the passage again? The camel?

It's it's easier for a rich man to pass through the eye of a needle is the is the passage that Jesus talks about. Now there's some controversy about whether he's talking about, an actual geographic place or an actual needle himself. Like, what and then he was asked about it. His his disciples are asked about it. He says he's saying it's not impossible, and there clearly are many, many, you know, many examples of, wealthy people, including Joseph of Arimathea, who was a wealthy man that Jesus was laid in his tomb.

Nicodemus, who was the 1 of the Pharisees, and and, Jesus called him the teacher in Israel, in in John where he comes to Jesus by night and asks, like, you know, how do you get to heaven? You know, how do you be born again? And, and so those are things that, these these were these were believers that were wealthy in positions of power and and used their their power for good. You know?

Interesting. Yeah. It's just you know, it's something I always think about, and I know Jesus is, you know, all about family. And so if the goal is to, you know, protect your family with it and everybody around you, then I I just don't see how it could be bad, but, you know, I don't know. I get wrapped up in these little

I struggle with it too, man. I struggle with it too. You know? As as we started to gain some success, as well, but, I mean, the cool thing is, like, you as you're you're I mean, you've got a growing business. Right?

You're you're you're employing people. Like, you're you're creating livelihood for people. You're, I think that's that's huge, man. That builds our economy, and, you're promoting, you know, the the sponsors in those companies, you know, that that employ people. I mean, those those things all have huge impact, so you gotta you can't lose track of that.

I think we live in a society where, you kinda get demonized, right, of, like, success. Yeah. And you shouldn't be apologetic for it. I think you should be, again, confident, not cocky. Right?

Like, you've confident knowing, like, hey. This is what I'm supposed to do. This is God's given me the opportunity to do this. I'm gonna use this platform for good, and then I'm gonna help people in need. If I see someone in need, I can help them.

Cool. I'm gonna I'm gonna absolutely help them, and I'm gonna use that, the the means that I've been given for good. And I think also, again, knowing that, like, ultimately, our faith is not in money or savings or even our firearm stash, as much as I hate to admit that in our house right there. Our faith is in the almighty creator of the universe who's in charge of all things, man. And, and even if he lost everything, right, it it like Job did, You know, he's still on the throne.

He still has a plan, and, that's that's that's that's where your faith lies. You know?

So a lot of people looking for that right now. A lot of people looking for that. It's really it's cool to see, you know, how many people are coming to the word. But, well, Leif, let's take a break. And, when we come back, we'll pick up at SEAL Team 5.

I know everybody out there has to be just as frustrated as I am when it comes to the BS and the rhetoric that the mainstream media continuously tries to force feed us. And I also know how frustrating it can be to try to find some type of a reliable news source. It's getting really hard to find the truth and what's going on in the country and in the world. And so 1 thing we've done here at Sean Ryan Show is we are developing our newsletter. And the first contributor to the newsletter that we have is a woman, former CIA targeter.

Some of you may know her as Sarah Adams, call sign super bad. She's made 2 different appearances here on the Sean Ryan show, and some of the stuff that she has uncovered and broke on this show is just absolutely mind blowing. And so I've asked her if she would contribute to the newsletter and give us a weekly intelligence brief. It's gonna be all things terrorists. How terrorists are coming up through the southern border, how they're entering the country, how they're traveling, what these different terrorist organizations throughout the world are up to.

And here's the best part, the newsletter is actually free. We're not gonna spam you. It's about 1 newsletter a week, maybe 2 if we release 2 shows. The only other thing that's gonna be in there besides the intel brief is if we have a new product or something like that. But like I said, it's a free CIA intelligence brief.

Sign up. Link's in the description or in the comments. We'll see you in the newsletter.

Alright, Leif. We're back from the break. You're getting into you're, getting ready to check-in to seal team 5 as a brand new guy, but in 03. And, so let's just talk about, you know, what that experience was like checking in. Let's go to day 1.

Yeah. It was awesome. The walk across the the the the quarterback there at Seal Team 5, and, we were in the old kinda Quonset huts, you know, then. And we we ended up building like a new building that was all kind of fancy, and some of those old Quonset huts have been out there since the World War 2, you know, underwater demolition team days. But it was awesome.

I I knew a bunch of people at Seal Team 5. It was great to be a new guy there. There was a bunch of pipe hitters there. There were people that were just, they had just come back. I checked in in I, we we came back from Alaska, our our winter warfare training trip, which I did in August of 2,003, which was actually miserable.

It was like 40 degrees and raining on us, you know, for a lot of the time. But we had a great time up there, you know, on on the they we we awesome fishing, and, we came back excuse me. We came back from, from that, and I immediately went on, like, an elk country trip with my dad and, and my brother. We went up to the mountain to Colorado and and, went and pursued some some elk with our bows. And then I came in.

I checked in his SEAL team 5, and the guys were just a couple of people had just come back, but the team was deployed. So Iraq war had just kicked off, and, and so, you know, SEAL team 5 had taken over from team 3 that had done kind of the initial takedowns of the the the oil platforms off the coast, and then SEAL team 5 had really gotten to the mix with with the the DAs. Right? The direct action missions, the capture kill raids, and they were, they they started using vehicles and and and and jumping in, you know, using those vehicles as, like, your mobility home, and I think they initially had to borrow vehicles from the National Guard unit, because we didn't have the capability in the SEAL teams at the time, and and so that became like, I came back, and the guys that were coming back from that deployment started trickling back, you know, over the, in in the fall were were highly experienced. I mean, they had more experience than any any SEAL unit since Vietnam at that point.

So it was really cool to learn from them and talk about the real world experiences that they were, you know, that they were, they were getting. And and, it was just just a lot of great mentors, a lot of open up notebooks, and ask a lot of questions. So, Will,

I mean, what was it's just such a different experience than, you know, from what I experienced. I mean, you're you're going especially going to team 5, I didn't know that they were the kind of the first ones out the door doing it in, in Iraq. And so, you know, as a as a lieutenant in o 3, I mean, we've already discussed the fact that you were gonna have to do a platoon commander, which means, you know, you're in charge of everyone in the platoon for those that are listening. And you were able to, you know, finagle your way into kind of an a o I or not kind of, an AOIC slot is what it sounds like. So second in charge, in your your you know, from your words, you're getting ready to lead men who have the most experience out of the entire SEAL team organization, all of naval special warfare since Vietnam.

I mean, what is that what is that like for to walk into that, you know, with with with, I mean, a junior guy right out of SQT? I mean, we basically yeah. We're SEALs, but we really don't know shit. You know? And we haven't really experienced anything other than training.

And you got these guys coming back who you just mentioned capture kill missions. They're getting after it.

It it was very intimidating, man. I when I graduated BUDS, you know, when you and I you and I graduated BUDS together, you know, we felt like, hey. We just graduated BUDS. Like, you know, we're ready to go take on the world. Right?

Then you start going into SQTs, field qualification training. You start getting some of the fundamentals of close quarters combat and land warfare and, you know, maritime operations, you realize, man, there's a lot I don't know. Mhmm. And then you start getting that first workup, you're like, I don't know anything. I know absolutely nothing.

And then I deployed to combat, you know, I deployed to to to Iraq, and when I was leading my first combat missions, like, I know absolutely nothing at all. Like, it's even less than nothing. So it definitely was very humbling. It was cool though because there was you know, I think just realizing that, like, hey. I can learn from these guys.

Let me talk to them. Let me let me understand what what they what they know. And I think everyone was trying to, like, get in, you know, into the war effort. Everyone get a had a chance to you know, everyone wanted a chance to go go forward and and be in the fight. And for me, like, right off the bat, our very first training block was, was the, our very first training block was, was the assaults block.

And, and so we started, you know, go going through and learning that and, you know, doing our close quarters combat, And then we did our we did our our visit board search in Caesar Bach, you know, shortly thereafter that. And it was, that was, I I had had a bunch of experience boarding ships as we talked about, you know, in in the Persian Gulf. So I climbed down these ships onto, you know, climb down the the Jacob's ladder, right, the rope ladder and the plastic rungs that you lower, you know, from the side of the ship. I've climbed up and down those things a thousand times, and, in my very first VBSS training block, we're doing some hook and climbs from the 11 meter ribs, you know, from the from the special boat team, detachment that took us out. We're 13 miles off the coast of San Diego, and we're boarding the duty oiler.

Right? It's like 800 foot long, US Navy service ship. This is the ship that, like, the other that's that's refueling the, you know, the Navy warships and the carriers. And, and so we're 13 miles off the coast of San Diego, and, we're doing the hook and climbs, you know, climbing up that old caving ladder just as if you as you've done. And I remember I was about to walk off the the deck.

I was like the 1st down on the ladder to climb back down onto the rib. And we'd had a guy that was driving the boat. They they clearly had a new coxswain at the helm. Like, he was somebody who was having a tough time, you know, and you remember what it's like when you're climbing up that little, you know, paving ladder. Right?

You're getting your boat's going, you know, left and right, like, you know, are moving out, hauling out from the ship. Like, it's treacherous as you're trying to climb up the 25 foot freeboard, and you're bouncing up and down the waves. And so I we kinda complained about it. You know? I thought this guy can't drive the boat, and people were kind of complaining about it, but no 1 no 1 said anything.

I didn't say anything. And so, I'm about to climb down. So now the caving ladder, we climbed up. We cleared the ship. We took down the bridge, and so now we're gonna do another run, and they threw the the the Jacob's ladder over the side, this big, heavy, you know, rope, ladder with the plastic logs.

This is now admin. Right? We're just climbing down back onto the rib. So I'm climbing down this thing. And right before I go, 1 of the trading attachment instructors is running the train.

He says, don't be scared, Babb. And he made some comment like that. I'm like, whatever. You know, I just I just like like, I was like, man, I've done this a 1000 times, dude. I I I walked out.

I I so I I get down to the bottom row of the ladder at the waterline. The waves are going up and down. The rib comes in. As the rib's about to haul off the side of the ship, I go to step on or as the rib comes in, I'm about to go step onto the ship, and the rib hauls out probably 10 or 12 feet from the side of the ship, and I went right down in between Oh, yeah, man. The rib and the ship.

And, it would have been fine if I had positive flotation on. We went and did our dip test to the combat training tank, you know, just like we're supposed to be a positive flotation on. Man, if not, I'd have been 2,000 feet on the bottom, you know, off the coast of San Diego out there. But it it was, I go I I got my my leg wrapped up in the painter line. Oh, shit.

Now I'm getting dragged upside down underwater by this 800 foot long vessel, and, and I mean, I didn't know what to do. I mean, if this was they're going, like, 12 knots, which is a lot of pressure. You know, if you're underwater, the the and and my leg is, like, suspended, but my body is, like, underwater. I got my helmet, body armor, weapon, you know, radio, all that stuff on me. Luckily, I had a a weapon shape, not a real weapon, because I I ditched that, you know, as soon as I could.

I was trying to get to my, you know, my little scuba bottle, the HEEDS bottle. That got just ripped away by the force of the water, so I couldn't get to that. The rib comes in and just and and they're trying to rescue me, and they just smash me between the the rib and the ship. And luckily, I had a if I had a if I had a ProTek on, a plastic helmet, I'd have been killed. Almost certain it would have smashed my head, man.

It it, I had my Kevlar on, and so it it it the the boat smashed my nose. It just kinda like fileted my nose open. But, the rib realized they can't help me, so they just kinda hauled off, and they were sitting probably 200 yards off the, you know, off the the quarter, just kind of just no 1 knew what to do. The guys on the ladder didn't know what to do. And I'm I'm, you know, I'm I'm trying to reach the water.

Every time I tried to get my hand, I would just get ripped right back down by the force of the wave. So, I I within probably, you know, it felt like an hour. Right? It probably was 2 or 3 minutes, but it, I I very quickly realized, like, I'm I'm not gonna survive this, man. This is this is over.

Wow.

Holy shit.

And it just happened like that. And it was I just remember thinking, what a stupid way to go, man. This this is, like, this is so dumb. You know, I've done this a, a 1000 times. And, luckily, some heads up guys on the ladder, my teammates above me on the ladder, they realized, you know, climb back they climbed back up the Jacob's ladder, and they they everyone was kinda just wondering what to do.

And they started 1 guy was like, hey. Let's hold this thing. And they started holding it in by hand. And they lifted me. I mean, that was a massive feat of strength and very heads up, you know, for them to do, because it was a contingency that they hadn't really even thought about.

And so they they started holding the ladder in, and and as it lifted me up out of the water, the painter rope popped free off my leg, and I floated down the side of the ship. Damn. And, I I mean, I could see just blood pouring down my face. The the rib, the so the rib rather let me the rib comes over to pick me up. I just float right down the side of the ship.

They I'm I'm kind of in the stern wash, you know, as they come pick me up, and they they their faces were white. I mean, they were, like, eyes this big. I must have just looked

Probably thought you were dead.

Blood just pouring everywhere, and, and I I I probably looked especially crazy, Sean, because I had a gigantic smile on my face. I was laughing because I was so I was so happy to be alive, man. And I I did not think I was gonna live through that, and, I was I was stoked. And and actually, Ellie Miller was the corpsman on that, man. Ellie treated me, and and, was keeping pressure on my face, took me to Balboa.

You know, they got me stitched up. I sat out for another couple weeks till the stitches healed, you know, and and Damn. And, got our got our go plats on.

Holy. Yes. So how did you how did you how did you gain the respect of the of the guys of the seasoned guys coming back from combat?

Man, I don't know if I did a great job. I'll tell you. I learned I made a lot of mistakes. And and as I said earlier, like, mistakes are the the best teacher. And I think so many of the you know, when you ask me, like, what what are you looking for in a leader?

Humility is number 1 because I think so many of the mistakes that I made, particularly early on, were when I was really trying to prove myself. You know, when I was like, I need to show people that I'm a competent leader, and I need to show people that I know what I'm doing, and I'm in charge of this, or, you know, that and and I made all kinds of mistakes like that. You know, instead of actually what you need to do is show people that you're humble. What you need to do is show people that you can listen. What you need to do is show people that you can lean on the most experienced people.

We were lucky. We we had a super squared away crew in in our in my first platoon, a SILTY 5 Bravo platoon, and and, they were awesome, man. Like, it was a a great crew of guys. We had a stellar crew of new guys, and we had some some experienced guys that just come back from from combat. And, it was, and, we had a we had we we had a, our our platoon was was tough as nails, man, because our our our physical training coordinator was Dave Goggins, who was Oh, shit.

All our training, and Dave is exactly who who who you see Dave today, man. It was you could always tell our platoon because no 1 had any skin on their shins because we're constantly climbing ropes doing, you know, hundreds of pull ups and running like crazy, and he organized all the PTs. And, it was good, man. It was it was a good time.

I'll bet it was good with that guy running it. Holy shit, man. Well, when did you find out so you check-in to team 5. We talked about that. When when did you find out where you're deploying to?

We were all fighting to go to chance you know, to get a chance to go to Iraq, and we've we've we learned that we were gonna get surged, you know, forward with, they were gonna combine. We were gonna be part of SEAL team to reach deployment. So they took they took some of the platoons from team 5 and split them up, and, and so the plan was to go half of that to Iraq and then half to the Pacific theater, you know, to run JSATs with our our, you know, partners. And, so we knew we were gonna go Iraq, first of all, and then all of a sudden, the, you know, SEALs got handed the the personal security detail mission for the top 5 interim Iraqi officials. I don't know.

Did you get did you get tied up in that for your, first 1?

We did. Well, not for my first 1. We you know, we talked about my first 1 at breakfast. When I went to Baghdad, we did we were the whole team was tasked with it. And, we had a very just a really fucking cool OIC.

And, I don't wanna say his name because I don't know what he's doing nowadays. He might still be in. But he started farming us out to he started farming us out to conventional units and, who were having problems with with with, the ID stuff going on. And so they, yeah, they sent us he got us into all these different locations, helping training, and going on operations with with conventional units, primarily army units. And we would do, like, a mini workup training course on on sniper operations, take the guys out, and then get rid of the problem, you know, kill the bad guys.

And and, and so we've I never had to do any p t s or PTS PSD, personal security details in Iraq because he had farmed us out.

That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I can tell you that that I mean, having done a bunch of that, on that first deployment, for for a few weeks, and then, on on our second deployment to to Ramadi, just seeing, you know, so much of that war was a defensive war, right, for those guys that were, you know, when the when the enemies 70 to 80% of of, of attacks or IEDs, you know, roadside bombs, and and when there's nothing to shoot back at, you know? Yep.

And you don't even know who placed it there, and you're losing guys, and you're hauling your dead and wounded comrades out of the street. There was nothing, I think, more powerful, you know, for a morale booster than, you know, for those conventional units to know the soldiers and marines that were out there in the streets running those convoys, knowing that they had frog men on the high ground, snipers that were had their backs, you know, and were covered for them so they could move. I think it was it was phenomenal to be able to do that and support those guys.

Yeah. And, and I

think it was it was it was just game changer. You know, and if you think about every every bad guy you eliminated, right, is more soldiers and marines are coming home to their families as a result. And and, I don't I don't think we did near enough of it. And, some of the people that criticized us, you know, later of, like, that's not a special operations mission. I was like, man, you you know what you're talking about, man.

This is this is these are Americans that are getting killed. Like, whatever we can do to try to help win this thing and help more of them come home with their families is is what we're gonna do.

It was awesome, man. I mean, you know, not only the operations that we did, but but we ran into and several of these I've talked about this before, and a lot of the guys that a lot of the conventional guys, that we worked with emailed in saying, hey. I was I was the 18 year old that got that kill that day or or thanking us. And we ran into, I think it was I think it was the 10th mountain guys, that we worked with. They were the first ones we got, colocated with, and we ran and they were the last ones that we saw.

We ran into them at the chow hall at the end of the deployment, and and 1 of the sniper teams, that we had trained and taken out came up, and they were like, hey. We've killed x amount of, you know, more bad guys. We have not had any, casualties since you guys put us through that, and, we just wanna like, all of our equipment's different. Well, they've changed everything. They took all the recommendations that we had and, implemented just about everything.

And and it was just cool to see, man, like, the impact after you're gone. You know? Like, we went there. These guys were getting blown up, like, every day. We killed the guys in the first 12 hours, I think, and and then moved on to the next unit.

And ended, like to run into those guys 3 or 4 months later, whatever it was, and and just to see them, like, still doing the job effectively, probably even more effectively, and and taken 0 casualties when they were every other day, I was like, this is fucking cool, man. You know what I mean? To I mean, how many how many guys are still walking around today that would have been killed had we not gone there and trained with them? And then they have kids, and their kids will have kids. And, I mean, you're when you when that kind of shit happens, like, you're not just saving a life.

It's it's an entire fucking line of lineage, you know, that is gonna be roaming the Earth. Because 16 guys from a SEAL platoon went and trained with that unit and brought them on a real world operation, and it's cool to think about. You know?

That's awesome, man. That's outstanding. And I think you sometimes, you know, when you when you think what what it's all about and, like, you know, all this loss of life and, you know, friends that we lost and families that have been destroyed, you know, in in the wake of it. And and even those guys that are seriously wounded as well. Right?

Lives are changed and altered forever. It's really good to remember that, man. It's good to remember the impact of that. I think it's a little bit like that. You know, it's kinda like It's A Wonderful Life, right, with, with George Bailey there and getting a chance to see, like, you know, what it would have been like if you didn't do that stuff.

Right? And and I think, I think it's a good reminder, man, of of the impact that it has. And it's, it's just it's so much bigger than us. Like, for me, like, I was gonna do everything in my power always, right, to help try to try to bring as many Americans home as as we could, do everything we could to do as much damage to the enemy as we could. And, and I think that's that's just an obligation that we all have.

And and, so for me, like, it was I was I I was lucky enough. We got assigned that that security detail mission, and the team right before us had been given it. And, man, that was that was not what we wanted as you remember, but I think Blackwater came in with, like, a a bid. It was, like, a $100,000,000 per, you know, per guy, and, the Bush administration said, negative. That's too expensive.

Seals, you got it. But I think the seeing that, like, you know, 2 of those guys have been assassinated, you know, in the months prior to the SEAL team's taking over it. And so when this is like a no fail mission, we have to keep these 5 interim Iraqi government officials alive. I loved 1 of the guys that passed down to to me, you know, from the previous SEAL team said, you know, we know there's bad guys looking at us. We know they're gonna try to, you know, they're gonna try to take us out at some point.

Our whole goal is just to make them say not today. Not today. They look at us, not today. And we're gonna be, you know, we're gonna be a hard target. They're gonna look at us, not today.

We're gonna try somewhere else. We're gonna hit some softer target somewhere. And, and I thought that was something that always stuck with me, and, and and the SEALs did that amazingly well. Right? Kept all those guys alive.

It was frustrating for me as a as a as a I got to go out with the detail, every once in a while, but most of the time, I was assigned to the tactical operations center. So I'm in there as the as the liaison officer, you know, just tracking their movements and kinda setting up their the logistics. Not what I wanted to do, but it was a job that needed to be done, and and I felt like I was probably the best guy, you know, to be able to do it for my platoon and and help them and support them. Learned a ton, you know, about about passing information back to the talk and how they can best support you. And luckily, I had a great, executive officer, who, who sent me out.

He tasked 12 of us, bunch of us from, you know, from SEAL team 5, SEAL team 8. Got a chance to go, go and and, be a part of some cyber operations up at Samara supporting the, the big red 1, first aviation up there. You know, didn't see a lot of come. Got shot in a few times. Kind of small little teams kind of, you know, going through the city, little 4 or 6 man teams and climbing up on rooftops and trying to do the Yeah.

Sneaky frogman stuff. It was it was pretty fun. You know, we engaged a few guys. I think we had 1 confirmed kill from that and, you know, a few problems, but, we definitely disrupted the the the the IDs that were being laid and the the mines were being put in the street. And it also gave me an appreciation.

You know? Obviously, I love the SEAL teams, man, and I'm so proud of the training that we went through and and the guys that we served with. But when I flew up to Samara, and, it was funny because we left Baghdad. We had 12 guys with us. It was like 82 degrees on the tarmac in Baghdad.

We landed Samara after a couple other stops. It's nighttime. It was 39 degrees. I had 5 guys with no warmies.

Yeah. How bad.

And, and it was like so we're trying to piece together this stuff. We're living in this, like, burned out, you know, building. And I didn't realize, you know, our guys are complaining about the, you know, Baghdad, and they're eating at the Al Rashid, you know, hotel with ice sculptures and stuff. And I remember jumping in a you know, we're we're rolling around these up armored vehicles and, you know, and it was a lot of times in and out of the green zone. Obviously, there was dangers.

I mean, people were trying to attack the the guys. I'm not saying the risks were were were were limited, but I remember sitting in the cab of a big, like, 5 ton truck. There's, like, you know, quarter inch steel plates welded on the back. They they didn't have doors on the cab. It was a it was a Arkansas National Guard unit, and they're giving us a ride from the airfield over to, like, in in the in the the downtown city center where there's an ODA team.

We were gonna stay with them. And I'm talking to this this, you know, Arkansas National Guard soldier. I was like, man, you're kinda hanging it out up here. I know, he's he's like, oh, man. This baby because I've been it's like, this baby's eating about 14 RPGs at this point.

Yeah. She's my good little charm. And I I was just like, man, here we are. Like like, these dudes are out here roughing it. Right?

They're in the they're in the fight. They're getting attacked all the time. They don't have near the equipment that we have. They don't have near the train that we have. And, that that to me was like like, I'm gonna do everything I can to help every American that's on the ground here in every way that I possibly can.

You know? Yep.

I thought you were gonna say he looked at you and said, I'm not the 1 hanging it out. That's your vehicle. But, but, yeah, it was pretty bare bones there at the beginning. But, but, well, when when did when did Elliot get hurt? Was it this platoon?

It was it was the next platoon. So the he he stayed in that same platoon. I rotated to a different platoon, the SEAL team 3.

Okay.

We came we we ended up getting rotated out of Iraq, so we went up to Samara for, like, 3 3 weeks. Then we came back, did a you know, our turnover, and then we we did the the relief in place, you know, between the squadrons. And so we got sent to the Pacific Theater. So we went around doing the JSATs with the Royal Thai seals and the and the Republic of Korea seals and and, excuse me. We spent a little time at Okinawa.

You know, just just, I got I got to see a different theater, got to train a little bit, spent a bus stop in Guam, surfing, and partying, and and Nice. And and, basically, we just trained like mad men the whole time and and got in really good shape. And, and and we're itching for a chance to go back. You know? So I came back with SEAL team 5, and luckily, my commanding officer at SEAL team 5 at the time, he he said, you're you're going to SEAL team 3.

And I was I was so pissed about that, Sean. Like, I was like, these these are my guys. I wanna take over this platoon. I wanna be their platoon commander. And, and, you know, he was detached from this, and he said, look.

You're you're already senior. It's it's important that you you'll be 6 months ahead in the workup cycle, you know, that that you you deploy so that you'll be eligible, you know, for promotion down the road, and that, like, this is best for your career path. And I was like, I I pitched a fit about it, man. I was like, are you kidding me? You know?

Like, I was I was the kind of argument and push back type, and he was like, nope. It's happening. You're going to SEAL team 3. And, and thank God he did that, man, because I love those guys at SEAL team 5. They were awesome, and still some of my closest friends in the world.

And they relieved us in in Ramadi. But thank god I I got a chance to go serve in Tassen and Bruiser in SEAL Team 3, and so I I showed up. At the end of that deployment, I came back, did did a little you know, got got a little bit of of, a leave, and then went straight to SEAL Team 3, checked in as the platoon commander, got assigned as Charlie Platoon. We heard about this guy, Jocko Willink, who was our our, platoon or our our our, task unit commander. He was in charge, and and I I had heard about Jocko.

I'd never seen Jocko. I didn't know anything about Jocko.

What did you hear about him?

I heard he was pretty intense. I heard he was a, my platoon chief, Tony Ofratty, was a phenomenal phenomenal SEAL. And, I I think probably 1 of the best seal chiefs that 1 of the best platoon chiefs that the seal teams has ever produced.

Okay.

Like like, phenomenal battlefield leader. Wow. I'm talking like, hey. We're taking massive fire from that building across the street. Give me 2 guys on on me.

Let's go.

Wow.

And, my like, he is absolutely the guy that you want in in a gunfight. You know? And, and so he was like he was like you know, he had a reputation. Tony everyone loved Tony. Been around for a long time, and and, he'd been busted down, like, you know, multiple times for, you know, shenanigans.

Yeah. You know, just old old school, you know, teams teams, and and, and so here he is in the platoon ship. He's like he's like, trust me. Jocko is the 1 guy that we want as our task. He's the commander.

I was like, alright. And then when, so when Jocko Jocko had been the admiral's aide, so he got assigned as the admiral's aide, and he gets he he he comes over. And when I met him for the first time, you know, Seth Stone, our our brother from, you know, from BUDS, he was the Delta platoon commander. So we we were platoon commanders together. We had a bunch of guys from our BUDS class in there, you know, as well.

I knew a ton of these guys. I've been deployed with SEAL team 3 just before this, so I I got to meet Chris Kyle and and some of the other guys. You know, just just prior to that, they'd been in in Baghdad doing a bunch of cyber ops on, you know, Haifa Street and supporting the Fallujah offensive, you know, that went down, while we were while we were deployed, you know, in in, the fall of 2004. And so now we're here in the spring of 2,005, standing in this the of the task unit, and so Jocko shows up. And I was like, man, this dude looks like an ax murderer.

He doesn't smile at us. He just walks up, like, just mean mugs, like, hi. I'm Jocko. Like, no smile whatsoever, and, like, just walks away. And then, dude, you remember Stoner, like, you know, who's he was an emotional guy.

Man, I love Stoner, so much, and he he was like, that dude hates me, man. I can see it. You know, he's like and and and and I I was like, hey, man. Listen. I hear he's the guy that we want.

I was like, let's we knew he trained jujitsu. You know, we knew, he just got his black belt. You know, he's a big jiu jitsu guy. Like, we knew he had a ton of operations. You know, he'd come from SEAL Team 7 as a potential commander.

He had a a bunch of operations that, that he'd done. And, so he probably has much experience as anybody in the teams at that point. And, and so I was like, hey, man. Come on. Let's just let's work hard.

Let's train jiu jitsu. You know? And, after a couple months, like, yeah, Seth and Jocko ended up being, like, super close. So, in fact, I think, you know, it was, Seth was probably the little little brother that, that Jocko never had, you know, to to Jocko. And and, but Jocko was like I I he set the tone for our entire task in it.

We had an awesome crew of pipe cleaners in there, man. They were they were excellent. They came they were just coming back from Iraq. Lot of, a lot of experience. You know, Chris Kyle was our lead cyber appoint man, and and, he had a ton of experience coming from Fallujah, coming from Haifa Street and some of the other places in in Baghdad.

And then the new guys that we got in were were were studs too, man. You know, we sent them to schools. It was an awesome team. And, but Jocca really set the tone for our entire team. And and of, like, hey.

Right away, he was like, right away, he was like, we're not tasking a Bravo. We're tasking a bruiser. And I

was like so, you know, we

had 3 task units, a, b, c, right, alpha bravo Charlie and the phonetic alphabet. And I was like, I thought that was weird for, like, 24 hours. I'm like task unit bruiser. And then, like, 24 hours later, we're like, task unit bruiser. So, like, it was actually I I learned later this is something that he got from, a book, by a US army, a retired colonel named David Hackworth called The About Face.

And if you haven't read this book, it is a phenomenal phenomenal book. Hackworth joined the the army when he was a private. He he lied on his paperwork and listed when he was 17 to try to make it into World War 2, just missed World War 2, but was brought up to the ranks, as, you know, I'd learned from all his mentors who had just just, you know, defeated the Germans and Japanese in World War 2, and then he served in Korea, and was eventually, you know, commissioned as an officer, made up to colonel, multiple deployments to to Korea, multiple deployments to Vietnam. I think he was the when he died, he died in, the early 2000. I think I think it might have been while we were deployed to Iraq the first time.

And, I think he was the he was the the highest, the most decorated, like, living soldier at the time. Wow. I mean, like, crazy, crazy awards. But, like, they call him, like, mister infantry, and and so much of he changed the names of his units,

Interesting.

For what? Give them, like, a personality.

So, you know, I'm gonna I'm just gonna task unit bruiser is like a legendary unit. And, you just you don't hear, look. There's no other there's no other task unit that has a that has a call sign that I'm aware of. You hear people talk about task unit, bruiser, all over the place. It don't know a whole lot about it, other than the reputation.

But, I mean, it seems like you guys have really created or did create, like, some type of of, like, very strong culture in that platoon.

The culture was massively strong, you know, in in in our platoon, charter platoon, and Delta platoon, the Seth's platoon, you know, and the entire task in it. And, you know, there's 2 60 man SEAL platoons and a 5 man headquarters helmet that Jocco was in charge of that we started out with, and and he set the tone right from the beginning. Like, we're tasking a bruiser. We're gonna work harder than everybody else. We're gonna train harder than everybody else.

We're gonna be ready for the worst case scenarios, you know, on the battlefield. And that that was the culture of of our team. And what's interesting about Jocko is you look at him, and he's got this, like, super stern kinda look to him, but he he actually and even though he didn't smile at us for the first couple of months that we worked together, in fact, the the first time, we were we were all training jiu jitsu. We'd come in at 5 o'clock in the morning, training jiu jitsu. He'd lay mats out in the, in the high bay at SEAL team 3.

It was mandatory for all the officers, and we had a bunch of enlisted guys who would come in to train too. And you could tell us at at officers' call, you know, the morning meeting, because you you'd say you know, if you said, like, hey, Laith, or ASAP, like, everyone would kinda turn their head, like, their whole body because their necks are all, like, jacked up, because we're, like, cranking on each other and hurting each other, and everyone's going just full bore level 19 Berserker mode. But the first time that I realized that Jocko was, like, actually, you know, not super serious all the time, like, I'm demo he's like demoing a jujitsu move at 5 o'clock in the morning. We're in the high bay. He's like he's like, Babin, get over here.

You know? He's he's like, grab my hand. Yeah. My other hand. He has my other hand, and he's like, bow to your sensei.

Bow to your sensei. And I and I I'm like, wait. That's Napoleon Dynamite. He's he's quoting Rex Kwon Do from Napoleon Dynamite, but he's doing it with a straight face, and he's not like he doesn't even smile, and I'm like, okay, this dude's joking around. So like that was the first time I got to see, you know, Jocko, who's totally like totally jokes around a lot, you know, like and he's obviously professional when he needs to.

But what I think what Jocko did for us was I think channel, like, aggression and and guys that wanted to go get after it into like he he he really taught me to be what we call, and I was calling for, the silent leader. That, like, that's what good leadership looks like. Like, you would look at someone like Jocko and think Jocko's in charge. Jocko's a prior enlisted seal. Jocko's got more common experience than, you know, anybody else here, so he's gonna dictate everything and run everything and tell you what to do.

And he did the complete opposite. It was he said, hey. Here's the goal. Why don't you come up with a plan and tell me how you wanna do it? You know, and it was it was the first time that I saw, like, we'd roll out on operations.

Well, he doesn't he doesn't say anything. He's letting the team run it. So I realized that's what I need to do as a leader, is let my team step up and lead. And, and so when my team is leading, now I can look up and out. Right?

Every leader should be trying to look up and out down the road. Now So instead of me solving the immediate tactical problem, I'm thinking about the next step or the next step or the next step beyond that. You're thinking about the long term strategic problems, you know, down the road. And that's what every leader should be trying to do. And, you know, Jocko also, he used what we call the indirect approach, which is, you know, instead of saying, hey.

Listen. You know, I had 1 platoon under my belt, didn't really have I had a handful of combat operations. I had 0 DA missions. Right? Capture kill raids at that point.

0. Seth had done a couple of them. You know, I'd done a handful of sniper, operations, but I didn't have any I didn't really have any experience. And, you know, but instead of instead of saying, you know, for us, when when when the training detachment instructors who obviously drive a very high standard of performance, when they would say things like, hey. You guys are good to go.

You met the standard. You know, we're out of here at land warfare. Okay. Your patrol is good to go. Hey.

Your your your immediate action drills when react to contract and, you know, those those are good to go. Hey. You guys could take it back to the camp. Instead of Jocko saying, like, you knuckleheads aren't as good as you think you are. Combat as hard as you think it is.

You know, we're gonna keep pushing the standard even higher. We're gonna do this again. He actually he actually just called us over, and he said, hey, Leif Stoner, Do you think we're ready for the worst case scenario in the battlefield? And we, like, looked at each other, and we're like, no, man. No.

Let's do another run. Let's do another run after that. Let's do 3 more runs. And it was us doing it. It was if we just said yes, he would have been goal.

Sounds good. Let's go back to the camp. But he he just and he would ask us an earnest question. Right? A question that he wanted the answer to.

Mhmm. And let us reveal the truth of ourselves. And I think it's such a powerful leadership concept instead of, you know, this works on your kids. Right? This works on this works with your spouse, with members of your community, with your team at work, anywhere in life.

When you can ask someone a question and and allow them to reveal the truth to themselves instead of trying to just bash them over the head with the truth. Because what good is telling people the truth if they don't listen? Mhmm. But when when when you can ask someone a question like that, now it's it's not Jocko saying do 2 more runs, and everyone's complained about it. It's it's actually me saying we needed to do 2 more runs so that we're ready for that worst case scenario.

I'm talking that over my platoon so they understand it as well. And I think there was that was a kind of culture that became part of the team of, like, hey. We have to be ready for the absolute worst case scenario that we might come up against. And, and so I think that was it was a culture of always striving to do better. And immediately, I think what what set our tasking apart was in my previous task in it, it was kinda like most field task units where we did we had some really talented people.

We had some experienced people. We did some things well. We did some things not so well. But the things that we didn't do well when when training detachment would say, hey. You should improve on this, there was pushback.

You know, we were kinda like, nah. Mhmm. I'd like to see them do better. Yeah. Look, we're good to go.

We'll play the game and just get through this and get overseas. And in Task Force, it wasn't like that. It it was we were our own harshest critic. It was it was really critiquing ourselves. And when these training instructors said, hey.

Look. Your headcounts are taking too long. You need to figure out a way to be more efficient. We're like, absolutely. Let's let's figure this out.

Let's work on that. And we were our own harshest critic. We're always trying to get better and improve all the time, and that became the culture of the team. Whether you're a brand new guy, you know, that was trying to contribute in some way to, you know, managing your fire team, you know, all the way up to me as the platoon commander to Jocko as the the casketed commander, and and figuring out ways to be more efficient and effective all the time. And, and I think that's the strength of the SEAL teams.

Right? It's always that innovation, that that I like, always trying to get better in what we're trying to do. Always trying to prove and seeking inputs from from everybody, no matter if they're in a leadership position or if they're simply just a, a a shooter, you know, who's in charge of just themselves and their piece of the mission. I think when you've got a when that becomes the culture of the team, know, that makes all the difference. You got a team that's constantly improving, constantly learning, constantly growing.

We made all kinds of mistakes in Task Gear Bruiser. We screwed all kinds of stuff up. But we learned from those mistakes, and we would implement solutions to try to fix them and to prevent them from happening going forward.

I mean, are we ready for the worst case scenario? That is a that's a tough question. Was there ever a yes?

I don't think so. I think we were honest enough with ourselves, right, to know, like, hey, man. I've never been in the worst case scenario.

Mhmm.

So are you ready for it? Like, are you gonna be ready for it? And I I think, you know, when you show up to something and you're overtrained, like, hey. We didn't get to train that hard. Cool.

It's easy. You know? It's easy. Like, that's, no like, that's what you want it to be. You know?

If you can make training harder than actual combat, like, that's that's the way that's awesome. That's IT. You know? And that's 1 of the lessons that we brought back to Armati, you know, with us, you know, after we deployed if you'd ask me if you'd ask me, as young lieutenant Leif Babin, Charlie platoon commander, Taskade and Bruiser, Hey, Leif. Are you gonna be in you know, do you think you'll get in a blue on blue, like, friendly fire situation?

Man, I told you, like, that happens to losers who don't know how to plan and execute missions. And, you know, the book Extreme Ownership, like, that's chapter 1. That's chapter 1, the very first major combat operation that I was a part of, massive blue on blue, massive blue on blue issue. And and and and, you know, we talked about before, like, the idea that, like, we had to if we didn't take extreme measures to mitigate the risk of that happening, like, it was absolutely going to happen, particularly in the urban environment where there's it's confusing with so many different units that are out there, particularly with our SEAL snipers that were going out undercover of darkness beyond the forward line of advance, and you've got, you know, US tanks and Humvees and and units that are coming into an enemy held area, and they're getting shot at by enemy fighters. You know, it it just the idea that, like, that is absolutely going to happen unless you take massive steps and mitigate the risk, of it happening.

And and it it was it was just 1 of those things where, like, I I just realized, like, combat is so much harder than I thought it was ever gonna be. And and those things can happen so much easier than you ever thought it it could be. And once you're in it, you can't just can't just peek your you know, if you're taking effective fire, man, you can't just peek your head up over the wall and say, hey. Who's shooting at us? You know?

Like, your head's gonna be gone. That's gonna be the end of you. So, if you're getting suppressed, man, that's all that's all you can do. You know? And and I think it's, you know, we had we had such a close call on that first that first situation where we had about that whole squad of my guys, on that operation.

Let's rewind real quick. So this is your first operation?

That was the first What was your operation?

First kinetic operation of the deployment. Let's just walk. What were you guys doing? What was the op?

Yeah. If you will maybe it's better to back up to talk about what it was like to arrive in Ramadi and and, you know, and start there. When we we were we were we thought we were gonna go work with the, you know, with the ICTF, you know, in Baghdad and and do the the, this high speed Iraqi commando unit that probably had the most training, right, of any any, any, Iraqi unit out there. And that's what we thought we're gonna do. We're gonna do go do these kinetic operations.

It was gonna be super fun. We were excited about it. Everyone left to go on predeployment leave. And while we were on predeployment leave, we we got a change of orders. They decided to consolidate the 2 different squadrons that we're deploying, and we found out we're going to Ramadi.

So at the time, Ramadi was just a violent hellhole. I mean, it was the it was, it was it was a city of 400,000 people. It's the capital of Anbar province, and it's a fraction of the size of bag I think the whole greater area of Baghdad has something like 2 and a half or 3,000,000 people, you know, in Baghdad. There would be more significant attacks, right, or enemy attacks that happened in and around the city of Ramadi, this small city of 4 100000 people just a a few miles across the city center. There would be as many or more attacks in Ramadi on a daily basis as there were in all the attacks.

Why was Ramadi such a strategic location?

I I think it was after the it was in the heart of the Sunni Triangle. Right? And it was the largest it's the capital of Anbar province, which is the the the Sunni capital. So this is where the, Saddam's kind of base of support and operations were. So I think there was a lot of support for for Saddam and the insurgency that came out of there.

I think after the marines smashed Fallujah in 2004, many of the the fighters that were there fled and went to Ramadi. And so so, you know, from, like, late 2004 into 2005, Ramadi was, was was just really the most violent place in Iraq. Zarqawi, you know, who's the leader of the of Al Qaeda in Iraq at the time, had declared that that Ramadi was the the capital of his caliphate, and he was gonna establish the capital there in Ramadi. There was something like 3 to 5000, insurgent fighters that controlled most of the city. And when we arrived in April of 2006, it was, man, it was, I think I landed on the ground.

It was, like, April 3, 2006. It was it was instantly, it it was apparent that this was a very different deployment than the 1 I've been on previously. And I've been hearing about Ramadi. You know, we you know, you'd hear every day in the news, you'd hear, like, you know, 3 US soldiers killed in Anbar province, or 2 marines wounded in Anbar province, and most of those were coming in and around the city of Ramadi. I I think Anbar province was was accounting for something like 70% of US casualties in Iraq at the time, throughout most of 2005, 2006.

And most of those were coming in and around Ramadi. So it was it was just a violent terrorist stronghold. And, when we got when we arrived there, right away I mean, even in Baghdad, like, there's you're you're flying around in a helicopter, and, you know, like, if you flew over Ramadi in the daytime, like, you're getting shot down at the sky. Like, no 1 was doing it. Yeah.

So it it was it was like vehicle convoys, and it was, every single week, there were memorial services going on in at at the camp. It was, there were US marines and soldiers getting wounded or killed almost every day. Damn. Almost every day. And, and multiple times, I remember there would be, like, a call to a loud speaker for, like, like, a a a a mass, like, blood drive.

You know? Come get blood, you know, for a mass casualty situation that would happen. I mean, there were people killed on base in the chow hall with mortars in the base, you know, before he even left the base. And when we were driving so the seals were working out of a place they called Shark Base. It was like an old, like, republican guard, effort.

And after Mark Lee was killed, we we renamed it Camp Mark Lee, but it was kinda on the edge of Ramadi, like right on the Euphrates River. And, in order to get there, you had to try to drive off the main camp. It was still kinda behind the walls of the camp, but, but there was there was a, you would drive through what they call the vehicle graveyard. And the vehicle graveyard was, you know, these these these vehicles that would hit IDs, Humvees, tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles. They would they would drag these these twisted, burnt hulks and just they would just leave them out here in this kind of you know, it was just kind of a kind of a junkyard area.

And, man, it was a powerful reminder of what was out there waiting for you every time. Like, you're going you're going to, you know, you're you're driving past that every single time you launch on an operation. Driving to that vehicle graveyard, just knowing that those twisted, charred honks of metal that used to be a vehicle, you know, Almost all those had had, you know, soldiers or marines that were killed or wounded in them. And, and then the, you know, the gates were like a it was a it was a m 88, which is like a it's basically like a tow truck for tanks. I mean, these things weigh, you know, a tank weighs 70 tons.

You know, an m 1 Abrams tank. And that's what they have blocking the gate because it was such a threat of, like, a, you know, massive IED threat coming in, and people would be attacking the camp. And I've been on the ground for probably about a week there. We turned over with, a crew from SEAL Team 2, outstanding crew there, and they had built awesome relationships. They trained a bunch of the Iraqi units, and they were doing a ton of operations, but it was kinda mostly on the outskirts of the city because there was no US presence inside the city except for the marine bases that controlled, and the 1 on first airborne, first the 506, battalion that controlled, task force red courier control at the eastern part of the city.

And the marines from 38 marines controlled the, the the the, main route to the city. It was called Route Michigan. At about every kilometer, the the the marines had a had a base there. And even still, even though we controlled that road, that road throughout our 6 month deployment there was overwhelmingly the most heavily attacked road in all of Iraq. It had 7 to 10 IEDs, on average in every any 24 hour period.

This is a road that we controlled. So, like, US forces control that road. Every kilometer there, there's a marine or army checkpoint. And so, I mean, it was just it was nonstop, you know, combat that was going on all the time. Nasty.

And when we showed it, it was just it was I was just in awe of the soldiers and marines that were there. And, and the fight. There was a there was a national guard unit that was on the ground, and seeing these national guard you know, the national guard, man, they they they don't have they have a fraction of the training and equipment that we have. This was the 228, the second Brigade 28 Infantry Division of Iron Soldiers, based out of Pennsylvania. And, and they had they had national guard from really all over.

They had some Utah National Guard, Vermont National Guard, Pennsylvania National Guard. And these guys had you know, they're they're part time soldiers. And they they many of them had been on the ground for over a year at that point. And, I mean, these these guys were hardened combat warriors. And sometimes they they've I'd show up and and the SEAL team 2, you know, would introduce us, and and they'd you know, they'd look at us in our high speed little 10 inch barrel M Fours and our our gear, and, you know, we had better night vision and lasers and stuff like that.

And they're looking back at us like like, oh, man. Look at look at that. Look at the seals. They've got you know, these guys have all this cool gadgetry, and I I just you know, for me, Sean, I was like, man, this National Guard soldier, you know, who's probably 19 years old, has fired more rounds through his weapon in his year here than all of us put together are ever gonna fire in our entire careers.

Damn. And,

I mean, they they they were just in the thick of the fight the entire time. The marines that were manning the, the the checkpoints through that city, in particular, the ones that the government center, that was Kilo Company, 3 a marines, awesome unit of marines. We worked really closely with, with their Lima company, Kilo company, and and, India companies, and, man, they were they were freaking awesome. And the the government center was taken, an OPVA, which is named after, like, the veterans administration, building that was it was like a Iraqi veterans administration building, I guess, under a in the Saddam era. But those 2, they would they'd get hit once a week by 50, a 100 insurgents, attacking from 3 different directions, hitting them with, you know, a dozen belt fed machine guns at the same time, lobbing mortars in, a super accurate mortar fire, and then somebody trying to drive a 5,000 pound V bed into their position.

I mean, it was it was every week. Wow. For them. And, so we just you know, when we showed up there, it was like, man, how can we help these guys? What can we do to help in any way that we can?

And, and so we just decided to get to work.

You know? So what was the work?

The work was what can we do? You know, what is our part of this mission? And, and for us, it was number 1, SEAL snipers. Just like the work that you were doing, we can take our guys. We can take a pretty small group.

And right away, we we were told there was some red areas on the map that were like, don't go there. These are Al Qaeda. This is Al Qaeda in Iraq battle space. And if you go there, you're all gonna get killed. Nobody can even come recover your body.

And so we realized, like, hey. That's the enemy safe haven. Like, is there a way that we can get into these safe havens and and mitigate the risk of being overrun, you know, by a 100 enemy fighters? And so what we what we did was, we started kind of on the edges of the city, you know, pushing in with some of the marine and and army patrols. We're setting up cyber overwatch position.

We'd go in undercover darkness, set up on the rooftops of buildings, in the windows where they wouldn't be expecting us to be, And and, you know, if you were in a bad area that had no, US presence before, I mean, all of a sudden when the, you know, first call of the prayer goes down and, you know, the sun rises and the city's moving around, I mean, you got you got enemy fighters moving around with RPGs and Belfan machine guns and starting to coordinate attacks on, you know, nearby friendly patrols and and outposts, and it was just a shooting gallery for the the snipers.

So you so you could actually sit in an OP in an area that was black and see the enemy combatants forming up to go outside of that area to to engage and, ambush US forces?

Definitely. Multiple times. Yeah. Many, many times. And and,

In the daytime?

Well, we'd be in there. We we sneak in at nighttime and and and try to be hidden as best we could, you know, in a position. And what we did, though, was we adjusted. You know, the the my idea before of a sign permission was, like, a little small, like, 2 man, 4 man element, 6 man element. Man, these elements, when you're going in there, we had to have you know, we go in with a 30 man helmet and lock down, like, a 4 story apartment building.

Particularly, it didn't start you know, initially, we started working on the outside edges of the city. Mhmm. And then once the US forces started establishing these these, combat outposts, they build a forward operating base right in the enemy neigh held neighborhood, a permanent form, outposts that they could work out of, bring Iraqi soldiers with them. Oftentimes, what we do is be the 1st US troops on the ground for that. So we sneak in undercover of GARDENUS, and the ID threat was the biggest threat.

So how do we mitigate the risk of that? Well, we would foot patrol. So, I mean, it was throw everything on your back. We're carrying Carl Gustaf, you know, shoulder fired rockets. We're carrying 40 millimeter grenades.

We're carrying multiple belt fed machine guns. Every squad, multiple belt fed machine guns. Because we had to be ready you know, we we would take the the minimum force that we would take, we usually was at least a squad of SEALs, because that way, I at least had 2 fire team elements that could bound. And if we're going into a super hot area, it would be double that. It'd be like a bunch of pain size or even more.

So you

so you guys are running 30 man teams, and would those teams

go to So maybe 18 or 20 of those guys would be SEALs plus, EOD. You know, our bombs our EOD bomb technicians were phenomenal, and we're we're absolutely, you know, part of our a critical part of our team just like the ones you worked with. And and, we had some awesome shooters too, man, that they could do both. And, their their, so we also had, we'd also sometimes we would plus up with squads from, conventional, army units or or marine units as well, just because we wanted to have some more Americans out there with us. And we'd we'd always have Iraqi soldiers.

So, you know, we might have 12, 15, 20 Iraqis with us. I did not, look, those guys were out there risking their lives. I did not count on them in the gunfight. So, you know, when it was we saw that too many times that when, you know, if you got a 100 enemy fighters trying to overrun your position, like you are the only thing that's gonna save you is Americans. And, and the things that saved us was Americans with Belfet machine guns.

Those machine gunners carrying the the, you know, the the, mark 48, you know, 762 Belfet machine gun and the mark 46, l 556 Belfeld machine gun. Those guys saved our lives over and over and over again. Just be back attacks, preventing us from being overrun. If we're on if we were on a patrol, with Iraqis, you know, if we're getting attacked, like, enabling us to be able to keep the enemy's head down so we could get off the street laying down cover of fire for us. I mean, I just I I talked to those Vietnam SEALs about how much they loved their machine gunners, you know, that were carrying the Stoner machine gunners in the m sixties, you know, back in Vietnam, and how that would enable them to push deep into Viet Cong territory where nobody could come get them.

And the only QRF, you know, all those Vietnam guys have working in, like, the Rungsat and places like that in the in the the Mekong Delta in Vietnam was like another 7 man seal squad. And they had some, you know, maybe some, they had Seawolf. You know, they they helicopters that were suborn overhead and and some aircraft. But those machine gunners kept them alive, and it was exact same thing for us in testing a bruiser. Those machine gunners like Mark Lee and Ryan Job and and all those guys carrying the heavy belt.

And she got Jake, our our mutual, you know, Bud's classmate, man, he was those guys were awesome. And, you know, carrying so because you're full patrolling in every time, and so they're carrying massive heavyweight.

And Real quick. Let me I wanna get into some specific examples of how they how effective the the the AW the automatic weapons guys were. But from let's let's look at a bigger picture real quick. So from for Ramadi, what was the what was the overall mission? Not just of tasking a bruiser, but what was the overall mission?

Was it to was it to infiltrate and occupy in the city and take it from AQ, Al Qaeda?

That's a it's a fantastic question, man. I think what's interesting about it is, never did I see a time where the generals in Baghdad or someone from the Pentagon came and said, here's your mission, Ramadi. And so the guys in Ramadi figured out what that mission should be. They were close to the problem, and the the brigade colonel that was in charge, you know, the the colonel and and his staff that were in charge of that national guard unit, they got they got, relieved by, about a month into our deployment by the ready first brigade combat team of the first armored division. And those guys were brought in tanks and firepower, but they brought in a a a a perspective on that as well about what that mission should be.

Colonel Sean McFarland was the guy in charge, and his staff were just they were phenomenal, man. And, we, we love that National Guard unit too. Those guys were outstanding, but the the the the ready first brigade combat team is who I spent the bulk of that deployment with, know, helping them. Many of the marine units and the, that, task force Red Curry, the 1 of our airborne unit, those guys stuck around as well for for much of that our deployment. And, but they they they what they realized was the the mission in Ramani was to stabilize the city, secure the local populace, and ultimately lower the level of violence.

That was the goal. That was the goal. And I think if you you know, I think for so long, if you'd asked the SEAL if you'd asked me, you know, my first opponent, like, what's your what's the SEAL mission in in, you know, in Iraq? What are you trying to do? Like I said, kill bad guys.

Mhmm.

And I think something that Jocko really recognizes, like, look. Either US forces win in Ramadi and we all win, or US forces lose and and we all lose. Mhmm. And it doesn't matter how many bad guys we kill or capture. It doesn't matter how many operations we conducted.

If US forces lose here, we all lose. Mhmm. So what we have to do is help US forces win. And we understood that that was the mission, was to, you know, stabilize the cities, secure the local populace, lower level of violence. And we realized our part of that was to, take a small element that was very heavily armed.

I say small. Right? It meant it might have been as many as 30 guys if you're locking down a 4 story, you know, apartment building. And many times we tried to put 2 elements in that were mutually supporting 1 another because there's nothing stronger than mutually supporting Overwatch positions with interlocking fields of fire. I mean, that's how you're gonna defeat an enemy that way outnumbers you when they're trying to come and attack your position.

When your other that other position could cover a move, you know, cover for you, and you can cover for them, you know, as well. But we that's how we mitigated the risk of going into some of those areas. And we knew that we could take a fairly small group of guys with a lot of firepower carrying the shoulder fired rockets, carrying the belt fed machine guns, you know, carrying the 40 mic mic grenades, you know, JTACs with aircraft supportants overhead. We had artillery battery. The artillery battery in Ramadi fired, I think they fired over 5,000 rounds Wow.

From their 1 55 batteries.

So when you're when you're going out with 30 guys, are you breaking them up into 15 2 man teams and putting them in different locations? Sometimes. 7 4 man teams and you guys all in in in 1 location?

Sometimes. But what what we typically would do, we would we would, I like to be in multiple locations so we can mutually support 1 another. We also found though that when, when we teamed up a lot of these operations, we were the very first US troops on the ground. We would even go in and do some reconnaissance

Mhmm.

And as a as frogmen, right, the the river, the Euphrates River runs right through Ramadi, and there's a there's a Habbaniyah Canal kinda breaks off from there as well. So we had access to much of the city, and there was a there was a badass marine boat unit there called the, dam support unit. They had these, circ boats, these small, small unit riverine craft that they could stand for, but it kinda like a rib. Mhmm. Kinda like a combination between, like, a rib and a sock ar.

And, so we teamed up with those guys, man. They would they would we'd sneak in there at nighttime, totally blacked out, and, you know, night vision, they'd just drop us off at the bank. No 1 have any idea we were in there. No shit. You guys

would do a water insertion at night Did

a ton of them. Yeah.

To do a reconnaissance to what? Find your find where your sniper hides and hopes are gonna be?

Find out where they would be, do reconnaissance of the area, you know, engage ID layers, which we often did. And then and then we we'd use that as an insertion platform, go in there at nighttime, jump off on the beach, full patrol in. So we we could set up a sniper you know, our sniper hides. And so we would oftentimes take down the buildings or buildings near those buildings that would eventually be the the the the common outpost.

So would you would you insert guys? They would they would infiltrate the OPs, and then the rest of the team would come and link up later, or would you exfil back out of the the the location that you're at and then get the rest of the team and then go back in? Sometimes we did reconnaissance missions where we'd

go in and kinda just probe and do a little recon and then come back and kinda use that as part of planning. You know, obviously, you have to hit multiple buildings that don't know exactly where you're going, try to go into different areas and do some misdirection stuff. But, usually what we would do excuse me. Usually what we do is is an insertion method. Would we would we would go in there and set up in the cyber high to try to get in position before the first call to prayer.

You know? So we could get in position by, you know, by daylight. Then we would start to, like we we would wanna try try to get some long access looks down, you know, some of the the main, the the main avenues of approach. And then usually, we would be so we would wait, until, oftentimes, the, you know, the the first some of the some of those larger operations, you're talking over a 1000 soldiers and marines on the ground, 50 tanks, dozens and dozens of heavy, you know, engineering vehicles. I mean, they're they're trucking in, you know, 70,000 sandbags to, you know, multiple semi truckloads of, you know, Jersey barriers and and Texas t barrier.

You know, those giant concrete barriers to try to, you know, concertina wire roles to, like, reinforce these positions. Because you know you're gonna get attacked. I mean, they're coming. And that's usually where we could we could really help those guys is so we would set up and cover for them as they infiltrated. And there were multiple times.

I remember, like Oh, okay.

So so you would so you would know I'm just trying to wrap my head around the the overall mission. So so you would know where the conventional units are setting up, then you would conduct reconnaissance around that specific area, find the best vantage points, and then and then set up the OPs?

Well, sometimes we would conduct, a reconnaissance provided to the the conventional units to to maybe record made made a recommendation on where they could set up. You know?

Okay.

Or take them with us, you know, on those reconnaissance missions. And then we would plan that thing out, and we became, like, their go to, as far as, like, you know, they they realized the effectiveness of SEAL snipers, and what we could do for them, you know, to disrupt attacks because, you know, they're super vulnerable. Right? When they're trying before there's any they're just out there in these neighborhoods. They're getting shot at.

You've got, you know, hundreds of enemy fighters that can muster and start attacking their positions. And so and so our Cybers were able to to disrupt those attacks over and over again. But a lot of times we we'd be sitting in a position, and you'd see, like, the the the mine clearance element in their big, like, MRAP, you know, those V hull vehicles. They were the only guys that had them at that time. We would ask for them, and nobody else had them.

But you'd see them slowly, like, on white lights, like digging IDs out of the road. And there was to to to the 1 of the first major operations we put in, I mean, they clear they cleared they cleared dozens of IDs out on that I mean, in like a route that was coming down off route Mission, that main road that I said was statistically the most heavily ID'd road. A couple months before we, moved into that area, right before we deployed, the marines had tried to push down a road into where we end up putting a a combat outpost. It was called Route Sunset, and they hit something like 13 IDs in less than 500 meters. So, I mean, it was just it was it was constant.

You couldn't even get into these areas, and so we're just we would watch those guys clear, and so it it took, like, 4 or 5, 6 hours for them to clear all the way down, and we wanted to make sure that IEDs weren't being emplaced, you know, on on top of that. And so then then all of a sudden, tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles, you know, those troops are coming in, you know, in in Humvees. And and man, I remember this 1 time we were sitting in this sniper hide in in what was gonna be the the buildings that would become the combat outpost, and we're on the 3rd story, and I'm looking over the side, and I got that mine clearance element. I mean, they got this it was called the dagger was the call sign for the vehicle, and they got this huge, like, arm that's like like I think they called it the buffalo was the vehicle. And they're like digging.

It's this big robotic arm that's like digging in the dirt, and this this robotic arm got, like, blown off, like, every night. You know, they, like, replace it. And I'm looking down there, and I could see these, like, Projos. And, I mean, it's I'm I'm look I'm looking over the rooftop. I'm like I was like, this is, all of a sudden, it occurs to me that, like, if that thing goes off, I I mean, this is, like, this is, like, 1 5 5 rounds.

You know?

Like, that thing's gonna take my head off. You know? My face is gonna be gone. I was like, if I can see the, you know, explosive, it can see me. I need to get back behind the rooftop.

I mean, it's like right there, like, at the base of the building overhead. And we found a bunch of them too, like, on the, along, like, the creek we were patrolling across as the the army went and burned burned out the vegetation later, and they dug, like, I mean, they they found 8 or 10 IDs in there. We were we were, like, patrolling all of them.

Are just everywhere. And then from

the combat outpost, once we had that established, so then we could push out it deeper into enemy territory. And so initially, the army would say, like, hey. We want you here in in this building so that you could cover our guys. And and, you know, you're looking 360 for a 100 yards in all directions, you know, for blocks. It it's it's all you can see is US soldiers and marines.

Like, I I can't even engage anybody. Like, the so so we've talked them into it, and luckily, Jocko would kind of explain why we needed to do it. And we pushed about 300 meters outside the the perimeter, and they were worried about us getting attacked. Well, we pushed 300 meters outside the perimeter, set up in a big 4 story, apartment building. I wanted to go in a different direction.

Chris Kyle was like, that we need to go there. That's the apartment building. And luckily, I was, I was I was at least humble enough as a as a leader. I made all kinds of terrible mistakes, but at least humble enough to listen to the guy that knows who he was talking about, to say, okay. Cool.

Let's do do it, you know, Chris wants to do. Thank God we did that because, I mean, we had, over the next 48 hours, we disrupted, like, all kinds of attacks on that combat outpost. And that was just kind of the model for what we did over and over and over again. You'd you'd see, like, a dozen enemy fighters that are trying to, like, rally to to and and they they know they're they're gonna attack the combat outpost, which you can't see, or or you get, you know, rise of the sun comes up, mortars are landing, dead center of the combat outpost, kills a soldier, wounds 3 others, and, the soldiers can't even shoot back. Right?

Indirect fire is coming from, you know, kilometers away, over blocks of, you know, the city, and, you can't even see the launch point. And so our cybers were able to engage engage guys loading mortar tubes into the back of a a vehicle, you know, from 600 yards away. So It was that kind of element where, like, those soldiers, when they started hearing, like, the 300 win mag, you know, it was, like, 3 enemy fighters engaged with 300 win mag. I mean, you would just hear, like, they were they were so stoked about it. They knew that, like, we were up there on the high ground, you know, to protect them and help them out.

And as a result, I mean, every single time we called them, because when we're deep in the military, like, we got a we got viciously. They always figured out where we were. Sometimes it was like sending, like, unarmed kids through the neighborhood, knocking on gates. I mean, you know, all the standard stuff, and they knew we weren't gonna engage that guy. But, but they they they wanted to figure out where we're at.

So, it would we just adopted the marine tactic from 3 8 marines of, like, it became an over fighting position. So if if you didn't have an urgent surgical casualty, like, you weren't calling EVAP because that's what they wanted you to do. You were gonna be in the streets getting ambushed, have an IED clacked off on you, you know, or or having, you know, multiple machine guns engaging you while you're patrolling out. So we try to wait till under the cover of darkness if possible. Damn.

Sometimes we didn't do that because if I was felt like I was in a position that was not very defensible if they attacked us. Like, if they could get if we were on we had rooftops, but the all the rooftops were kinda equally, you know, high or even higher around us, and they might have the advantage over us. So there were a couple of times when we had to make the tough call. They just you know, it's kinda like the you make the the the least bad decision you can. Right?

And you're like, hey, man. I know we're gonna get attacked, but we can move fast on foot. We could do some misdirection, and we can get back to the base. It's gonna be better than allowing them to set up a massive attack, you know, on our position where they have all the advantage. You know?

So I think we've we've done a fantastic job of painting what Ramadi was like back in 2006. And so let's rewind back to your first kinetic operation with the blue on blue.

Yeah, man. Even before that, when, the guys hit the ground, the very first like, I've been at Vons, I've been on the ground for, like, a week. Everyone arrives, and so the they they're they're just offloading in the camp, and we got in. There's, like, a massive multiple, like, multiple unit, like, well coordinated enemy attack on the camp. We're talking like so every single seal was on the rooftop of the camp just dumping fire across the river.

And, that was, like, the first the very first I and 1 of 1 of my guys who was who's our probably our most senior machine gunner, he'd been it was his 3rd deployment to Iraq. He'd been a machine gunner, you know, every time. He'd done a bunch of assaults, done a bunch of, capture kill raids, you know, those direct action raids. And and he he was like, this is the first time I've ever fired my machine gun. I mean, he'd been on the ground for, like, 3 hours.

You know?

Are you serious?

I mean, how many hours? Shot, like, 500 rounds off the rooftop. So Yeah. So we knew, like, this is gonna be different. You know?

And then that first particular the the first major operation, first of all, I was so pissed at Jocko for this because he wasn't I I was I had to be acting tasking a commander for that because, and it was the right call, man. It was the right call. But I, like, I wanna obviously wanna be out there with my guys on the battlefield, And, a bunch of guys, they the the army this was the 101st Brigade or the 101st Airborne Division. This was the, the first of the 506, Task Force Red Curry. And this I mean, they they live that the the the celebrated band of brothers tradition, you know, from the the book that Steven Ambrose wrote in the HBO miniseries.

This was the the the first of 506 Parachute Infantry Regiment. Awesome, awesome unit. And, they're man, they had a they they just had a phenomenal soldiers, incredible leader, of their battalion commander. And, they were asking for help. They're about they were doing some operations, pushing in what was called the Malab District.

It was a really, really bad area. And so our guys, went out there and set up a position. We we had you know, our our job tasking from the combined joint special operations task force, you know, that was the the green beret colonel in charge of all the special operations at theater at the time, was everything was gonna be by with and through Iraqi soldiers. So we were we were tasked to train and fight, company and battalion size elements of Iraqi soldiers. Like, that was literally our tasking.

So that's what we were there to do. Mhmm. And, obviously, that was an ODA mission. It was a little bit different for SEALs to kind of adopt that. But we took with us we took with, Iraqi soldiers with us on every mission, and and the SEAL SEAL team 2 guys before us had done a great job of training those guys up and trying to mitigate some of the risk of their training.

But that's what our guys were doing on that very first mission. They they sent, that we had an omen of SEALs that was going out as as combat advisors to the Iraqi soldiers. And we're talking like, like a 100 Iraqi soldiers on the battlefield, you know, with, with like a dozen of our guys and some of the army, the military transition team, and some marines that were with them. And then we had, 2 different SEAL sniper teams that were going out there along with some army sniper teams. And so they went out onto the battlefield.

They briefed where everybody was gonna be, you know, everything the the plan made a lot of sense. I'm kinda tracking this mission. I I you know, I'm watching their con ops, and I'm listening to it on the radio, and and it was pretty clear that, like, all all hell kinda broke loose on the operation. And we expected it to because in the malab district, this was like this is our very first major operation, the task in a bruiser. So Jocko felt like he needed to be over there, located with the battalion leadership so he could kinda be the liaison officer to manage that as the command and control with all these different elements out there.

100% the right call to be able to do that. So Jocko's out on the battlefield, but instead of being, you know, with with there's all these different multiple seal units out there, he's collocated with the the, battalion staff from task force Red Curie, you know, trying to trying to manage that. And, we we have this this report of, like, a a a massive enemy attack that goes on. So our SEAL sniper, Elm, is reporting the attack, and, then all of a sudden, we also get a report that, you know, there's there's a report, that, the the insurgents are attacking the the, Iraqi unit that's out there. And there was there was some there was some issues I won't get into on the communication side, you know, as well, that kinda broke down, passing communications.

But, Jocko's out there on the battlefield. He shows up there. He knows that his guys were in trouble. They were calling for heavy QRF. Right?

They they want tanks. That means they're in a dire situation. They feel like they're about to be overrun. And so Jocko shows up there with the command and control element. He he moves up, sees the the, the the the Anglaco officer.

Right? The the, air naval gunfire liaison officer that's that's there to coordinate an airstrike on a building. There's red smoke marking where the enemy is. He knows that his that the the sniper team is in there somewhere or should be close by, and, and so he just he he he's kinda trying to deconflict what's going on. Mhmm.

And he went up and kicked the gate open. And, and it was Tony, my platoon chief on the other side, was like, and realized, like, this is a blue and blue situation.

So Oh, yeah.

And no 1 understood what was going on. This was, meanwhile, I'm I'm monitoring the radio on the other side of the city. I'm getting traffic passed back to me. There's a there's a huge spin up on this, but all of my guys that were in that cyber position, that was that was a squad of my guys that were there. And, it was, they were all convinced, I think, that they were about to die.

I mean, they they they they had moved they they moved out to a a sniper position under cover of darkness. They realized that where they were was not a good and defendable position. They didn't have visibility on where they needed to to see, to cover the road that they were supposed to cover for the soldiers and the Iraqi, the US Army soldiers, Iraqis that were moving down that road. So they moved position across the road. And they weren't able to pass that, that information for for, you know, for a series of reasons, a breakdown in in in communication.

Then the Iraqi soldiers were out of sector, so they were supposed to it was supposed to be like hours before they were clearing. Well, some of the Iraqi soldiers, I think, decided, like, hey. We're gonna get killed if we're out here. Let's get this thing over with. They like rushed to the furthest point away, you know, from, the friendly, you know, outpost, Camp Corregidor, and then tried to rush back.

And so they were out of sector, so all of a sudden, you know, as as our sniper team is setting up, they zip tie the the the gate to the, and they're setting up, and, you know, it's it's just starting to get light. So like, first call, the prayer goes down. So night vision doesn't work, you know, but you can't really see, and, and all of a sudden, they've got somebody, you know, creeping by the window with an AK 40 7. Like, they see the unmistakable sign of AK 47. Like, they engaged that guy, and they they didn't realize it was an Iraqi soldier that was out of out of sight.

So the Iraqi soldier, you know, they, that guy gets killed. Several others get wounded. The Iraqis engage back. The Iraqi gets dragged back. They call in for fire support because they're thinking, oh, man.

There's Al Qaeda insurgents are hold up in this building. And, man, we we got this on video. There's an embedded, there was an embedded reporter, I think, from Stars and Stripes with with the, the the the, unit, ANCO unit. They they pulled up a Humvee, and they dumped probably they probably dumped 300 rounds of 50 cal into the building. And our mutual friend, Matt, that we were in buzz with is on the rooftop.

And, and, I mean, guy, all all he could do is just take cover. Rows are coming to the rooftop. Like, 1 round, luckily, it went through the concrete wall, not to slow down. It, like, hit him in the face and, like, embedded up under his cheekbone. Are you shitting him?

He said he was burning him, but he, like, grabbed it, like, and pulled it out of his face and, like, threw it threw it down on the roof. And so these guys are like, man, we're about to be overrun. Right? They're calling for that QRF, and and, they're thinking, man, these guys this is they're bringing it. This is our first major operation.

So they're calling in for tanks and fire support. Outside, they're calling in for tanks and fire support to a tank pulls up. When Jocko gets up there before we kick the gate open, there's a tank with a their gun trained directly on the building where my guys are holed up. And they're just all kinda hunkered down trying to just take cover and not get their head shot off. You know?

I mean, you can imagine. Right? There's 50 cal rounds coming, you know, and and belt fed, you know, 762 coming right over your head. All you can do is just bury your face and try try to take cover, and return fire as best you can. And and, they think they're about to get overrun.

And and and then on top of that, not only were they gonna engage with tanks, they're coordinating an airstrike. So the Angico, you know, the the JTAC, right, the air controller, he's coordinating an airstrike that's that's about to just demolish his entire building. So I'm unable to wipe out my our entire squad. Yeah. And, so this was the lesson from that of, like, just how easily like, we thought we had taken every step possible to mitigate the risk of that happening.

And so meanwhile, I'm back at the at the tactical operations center. You know, we're monitoring radio reports. We're hearing that, you know, we've got wounded seals. And I know it's I know it's 1 of my guys, so I know it's it's Matt at this point. But, we're then we're hearing that it's friendly fire.

Right? So, like, okay. What's going on? Man, all of a sudden, word spreads like wildfire. Right?

The the the webby, like, instant, you know, chats are going on across the the, you know, the the every every talk of, like, friendly fire, friendly fire. Like, what's going on? What's going on? And and, so, I mean, there's there's, like, massive scrutiny on this operation, you know, right away. And I remember I I jumped in the truck.

All I know is that Matt, you know, my brother our brother, we went through BUDS with that that I've done, you know, the this workup cycle that's in my his his particular. I know he's been shot in face. I don't know what that means. I don't know if it means his head's gone. You know?

I don't know what I mean if he's gonna die. So I jumped in a truck, drove across the base, to Charlie Med. That was a medical facility, and, and I went went to to to pick him up. And, man, they'd you know, they they put him on a morphine drip and, and patched him up and gave him some antibiotics, you know, for for infection. And when I was talking to him you know, obviously, he's kinda out of it.

Right? He's got it's a morphine and and, but but he's like, man, they brought it. Those guys brought it. He's like, dude, we're gonna overrun our position. He's like, I thought we were all gonna die.

And he kept saying it over and over again, and I I was like, Matt. I was like, Matt, it was friendly fire, man. It was friendly fire. It was friendly fire. And I probably said I probably said it was friendly fire probably 6 times before it, like, sunk in.

And he was like, what? And it was like, he he couldn't believe it. You know, he couldn't believe it when I said it. And, and so I think that right there as, like, you know, our commanding officer flew out. We had an investigating officer that flew out.

It was we were so fortunate to not lose any of our guys on that. I mean, it was horrible that we lost an Iraqi soldier on that. We took up a big collection for his family and tried to do everything we could, you know, for him. There were a couple other Iraqi soldiers wounded. Luckily, they recovered, you know, from that.

But it was so close to being just absolutely catastrophic. We're talking, you know, wiping half my platoon out. And then, you know, when people were looking, like, what heads are gonna roll over this? What heads are you gonna roll? Who screwed this up?

Right? This is friendly fire. This is the worst. This is the cardinal sin.

Mhmm.

The cardinal sin that you can command. X-ray platoon in in in Vietnam, right, that had a, a friendly fire incident, and and this is this is the worst case scenario that can happen. And so we had a big debrief, and our commanding officer, our commanding master chief, were sitting in there. The investigating officer who was our JAG was in there. People are wondering, like, who's responsible?

Like, who's how did this happen? Who's responsible for this thing? And we knew it was probably Semester gonna roll over. And, and Jocko stood up in front of the, of the task unit. We're all in there.

And, and he said, whose fault is this? And, man, there were you know, the radioman stood up. I was like, man, I didn't I didn't pass the traffic on where when we moved location, I should have made sure that got passed. That's my fault. The, you know, the seal that engaged Iraqi soldiers said, I didn't get proper PID.

I thought that was a, you know, an enemy, a sergeant, and, and I engaged him before I had proper PID. That's my fault. I I should've I should've made that happen go forward. I mean, over and over, the guy with the Iraqi soldiers, you know, who had been commoditizing them said, this is my fault. It was Iraqis.

We're out of sector. And we just went around the room around the room. Machaku was like, no. It's not your fault. I'm like, no.

It's not your fault. No. It's not your fault. He's like, this is my fault. Like, I'm the task unit commander.

Everything that happens to this task unit is my fault. I'm responsible, and we're gonna do everything in our power to make sure nothing like this ever happens again. And just to to watch that happen, like the power of extreme ownership in front of everybody in the task unit. You know, our respect for him was already high, man, and it went through the roof after that. I realized in, like and and our commanding officer, instead of he actually left there.

He had greater trust in Jocko and in Task Force, because he knew that we were gonna take steps to make sure that it didn't happen again. And we did prevent it from happening again. Friendly fire happened probably friendly fire would erupt, but it never became catastrophic. We were always able to manage it. We could, you know, we we could stop it before, before anybody was killed or wounded.

And, it was always a constant threat, but we took massive steps to mitigate the risk. And in fact, even I and even even, some of the guys, some of your your your, steel teammate brethren that plugged into our team, they were awesome crew that came out and and joined us. And they were kinda jokingly calling me the rocket man there for a little bit because I had these 2, I had these 2 flares on my back. We had a white flare and a red flare. You know, a white flare was, a red flare was SEN QRF.

A white flare was like ceasefire. And, and so that those were single device. I was like, man, I want that with me all the time, just in case that we have that happen. I'm gonna carry that thing those things around on me. That's ultimately my job is to prevent this from happening.

So we implemented lessons learned at every level of the team. We we took massive steps to mitigate it from happening, and and, when it did happen, you know, like, oh, we get we get some rounds over our head. We instantly had the radio comms, and we had a good comms check with that. You know, the tank that was shooting at us, we could get them a cease fire. You know, we're marking our positions, cease fire.

Sometimes we'd throw a freaking giant, you know, via 17 dayglow orange signal panel, you know, half the size of this room over the side of the building and let every insurgent know where we were at just because, that was better than taking, you know, 1 20 millimeter main gun rounds, you know, in in deep position, because the threat of that was significant every time. Damn. Wow.

Wow. You know, I heard you talking I heard you talking once. I think it was with Jocko about getting shot in the chest and the plates. Can you run through that?

Yeah, man. That was, the darkest day of my life.

I'm sorry. And I know

that August 7, 2006, man, we lost Mark Lee. And, and Ryan Jobe had been wounded right before that. And, yeah, I I took a round. I think it was a ricochet, you know. Otherwise, it probably would've killed me, split my spine in half, you know.

What were you guys doing?

We were, it started as a big, basically a coordinated search operation into what was called the j block sector of Ramadi. And so after we'd established those combat outputs, we'd push sniper overwatches out, and then we would push, we would push, patrols with the Iraqi forces out. You know, we try to patrol into the city, engage with the local populace, show them that we were there to actually support them, talk to them about where the insurgents were. You know, these these were the Marine Corps calls them census operations of kinda just showing the local populace that, like, we were here to support them. You know, that was that stabilize the city, secure the local populace, you know, part, which which paid huge dividends down the road, you know, to ultimately lower the level of violence and and, you know, the Anwar awakening, you know, came out once.

But all that started with breaking the back of the insurgency, like, really lowering their their their military capability. But what we would do is is push our, push patrols out with the Iraqi soldiers, and the the military, transition teams that they were assigned to them. And we put cyber overwatches out there, and we had a bounding overwatch that was in a cyber, you know, cyber position covering. And we were out with we were out with, an awesome unit, from the, this was from, this was from the task force bandit, team Bulldog. So this was this was bravo platoon, first, it was bravo platoon, 1st battalion, 37th armored regiment of the 1st armored division.

I mean, this is a this is a unit that had been in the Ardennes, you know, force in the bow Battle of the Bulge in World War 2, like, historic unit. Incredible group, that we built some awesome relationships with. And and, we by the way, we couldn't have done any of these operations without these soldiers and marines. You know, we push into these areas. The only reason that we could do that, the only reason that we could push so deep in enemy territory is because we knew that the soldiers and marines were gonna mount up in their tanks, mount up in their Humvees, and come to our rescue and aid.

And they did it over and over and over and over again all the time. And we we had an just an incredible working relationship with those guys, and and I wouldn't be sitting here if it wasn't for them. And, and so we supported them as well. Right? When they asked us to do this, we helped them.

We put it in cyber over watch positions. And so we were pushing our Iraqis deeper into, you know, enemy held areas. And, as we were clearing through an element of the j block, we'd we'd done probably, I don't know, 6 or 8 operations, like, in this area, kinda pushing deeper deeper in. And, Ryan Job was 1 of our machine gunners. Amazing guy.

Incredible guy. And, well, the kind of guy that I don't know I don't know how long it took him to get through BUDS, but it was a long time. He was 1 of those guys that was never gonna be the best athlete. It was just absolutely tough as nails.

Yeah.

And, was a was a just a stud, you know, awesome machine gunner, super strong man of of faith as well, you know, and and hilarious. But he was he was the machine gunner basically holding the security for Chris and the the sniper team that was on the rooftop as we had this kinda bounding overwatch. And I was with the Iraqi, element that was moving forward to the streets. And we were about an hour and a half or 2 hours into that operation. Again, 1 that we conducted many many like that before, and all of a sudden, I mean, we hear, we hear, a, a shot ring out.

I mean, you could hear the impact of it. You know? And, and I I hear, you know, our most experienced our most common experienced guy was Chris Kyle, an awesome awesome teammate, and, tremendous sniper. Saved lots of lives in the battlefield. And and, man, I could just hear in Chris' voice.

And then he's like we we called Ryan's nickname was Biggles. And, he was like, Biggles has been hit. I need a corpsman to the rooftop now. And, man, I could I could just hear the in his voice, you know, how horrific that was. And I literally been talking to him, you know, both those guys, like, 30 seconds before that, right, to just walk down the stairs, you know, to to to try to you know, we're gonna organize our team and kinda push out to the to the next building before we take the roof out there.

And, man, we get you know, so we go rush it back up to the rooftop, and, Markley, who is rolls right back up there, another awesome machine gunner, just an incredible, incredible guy, steps right into the very position that Ryan got shot. Like, right in the position with his belt fed, Mark 48 machine gun, and just starts laying down spares and fire. Knowing that, like, we're gonna get shot back, you know, at any moment. And we got up to Ryan. You know, I Ryan had been hit in the hit in the face, and just a single single shot hit him in the face.

You know, you could call an enemy sniper round. You could call it just a you know, obviously, it was not your average, like, spray and pray, you know, in surgeon. Somebody that had some good side picture trigger squeeze, engaged him, hit him in the head. And, man, it just it just looked horrific. I mean, he's, you know, his his eyes gone, like his Holy shit.

His face looked like he's missing. And you know how blood looks, man. It's just so I I just I ran up to him. I just grabbed his hand. I was like

Is he conscious?

When I rolled up to him, he's just he's just laying there. And I grabbed I grabbed his hand. I was like, hang in there, brother. We're gonna get you out of here. And I I didn't believe that for a second, man.

You know? Like, it just looked like it was there was no chance. And, you know, meanwhile, Mark and and is standing there laying down suppressing fire right over the rooftop wall where he just Ryan just got hit. Other guys stepped up there too. We're laying down suppressing fire.

You know, we're getting the we're calling in the CASAVAC vehicle. The corpsman rolls up there and is is working on him. That corpsman was Johnny Kim, our you know, just a phenomenal guy in in there, you know, going to work, you know, on Ryan. And, miraculously, Ryan, like, sits up. He, like, sits up and says, I'm okay.

And, you know, he's he's he was the the blow was kinda going down his his throat. Right? So he has to kinda sit up to kinda clear that. And, and we get under his armpits. We're getting him down to the CasaVac vehicle.

You know, we had a, m 113 armed personnel carrier down there, you know, for Kazavac. And, so we get Johnny, our our corpsman, and and we got, you know, guys under each each shoulder of Ryan, and we're getting a escort off the roof. And he he walks off the roof, really, by his own power, like, down the stairs, And, just, just incredibly, incredibly tough, you know, human being. And, we found out later that Ryan got hit in the when when he was in the hospital, you know, they had all this shrapnel in his face, and they were trying to figure out, like, what exactly happened. Because I thought the round just impacted him, you know, but he he what we we realized that, like, there was a there was a round impact on the receiver, right at the base of the receiver where it meets the buttstock for his mark for the 8 machine gun.

And we were an hour and a half into this operation. He was, you know, it's it's a 117 degrees. You know, it's miserably hot. We're carrying all our gear and water. I mean, Ryan must have been swept profusely.

And hit, man, just like the awesome teammate that he was, awesome machine gunner was, Ryan was on that machine gunner. He was on that machine gun looking down the sides of his weapon, ready to provide cover fire. And if he hadn't done that, he would have just taken his hat off. You know? That round would have just taken his hat off.

So, like, that saved his life. And, we unfortunately, we didn't figure out till later. It was it was 2 weeks later that we realized that, that, the the the shrapnel had severed his optic nerve to his good eye, and he was gonna be blind as a result of that. Yeah. And so I didn't know how it was gonna go at the time we we evact Ryan.

You know, as we sent our corpsman with him, we pulled back to the, you know, we pulled back to the base. And August second, we'd done multiple operations in this area. We've gotten tons of gun fights in this area. There were definitely a lot of insurgents. But there was something different about August second.

Like, this was probably I think it it was the largest single, like, engagement of any of the the the the engagements that made up this, like, you know, 8 or 9 month, like, battle of Ramadi. And the insurgents were just coming out of the woodwork, attacking the soldiers that were out there, clearing. So we had 1 sector, they were clearing another sector. After Ryan got hit, we pulled back, and and, went back to the the, we pulled patrol back, about a kilometer to the to the base, kinda refitted, and the soldiers were, like, under attack, man. They they, you know, and they asked us if we could we could help them.

And, and and, you know, they were getting attacked from these different positions. So we loaded up in in Bradley Fighting Vehicles, and we rolled back out, you know, into the into the city. And it was it was man, there was so much going on that day. Like like, for guys like Mark Lee, for all the guys that were in charge of the platoon, like, they knew they were going back out on the teeth of it. Like, we'd just seen what happened to Ryan.

And, you know, our brothers in the army needed our help from, team Bulldog there. And and nobody hesitated for a second, man. Jocked open their gear, reloaded mags, refitted with grenades, loaded up into those, those Brads, and we we rolled out. No shit. Those target buildings.

No hesitation.

No hesitation, man. Those guys did did everything I asked of them, man. Unbelievable courage. We had the the firefight was so bad that day, man. We had, like I think for, the combat commander's name is is, Mike Byamas, a close friend of mine.

He's retired now. Main gun Mike, we called him. He fired over 50 main guns from from the his tank throughout his his, time there. And, I I don't know how many of you have done that since, like, the World War 2 airman. 50 main guns.

But, he was, he was a phenomenal guy. I think every I think just about every tank and Bradley fighting vehicle out there was, know, we would use the term Winchester. They're out of ammo. Like, they go out black when the tank's out of ammo. Like, they they shot every single main gun round that they had.

Damn. In that engagement. And,

That is some serious shit.

It was it was it was it was right in the teeth of it, man. And so I think for for me, you know, I talked to Quikley over with Tony, my my platoon chief. I was like, look. If we're gonna hit a target where we got bad guys that are shooting at us, you know, the best thing we do is soften it up, you know, first. So, we had the, we wanted to go in and try to stay off the street.

We knew we had at least 1 sniper out there, so we wanna try to use armor, you know, to get into to to to these areas. And so we had those the bratty fighting vehicles and the tanks just blast these buildings, man, before we went into them, and then smashed through the walls, and lowered their lower their, their ramps, you know, before we engaged. And we hit we hit 1 building. The insurgents had already, like, pushed out of it that they, you know, the army told us, hey. We're getting engaged from from this building.

There's a surge in that building. So we loaded back up. We hit we hit another building. And in the second engagement, as we went into that building, man, the building was on fire as we went in there. Like a a main gun round had already hit the building.

It just blasted it open. They were, as we started moving into the building and clearing through the building, we took fire from the opposite end of the hallway, and, Mark Mark was hit and killed. And somewhere, I was hit in that gage, but I I heard the gunfire ring out. I stepped out into the into the hallway, got got hit, and I just grabbed 1 of our guys who was in the hallway. It was clearly a hot hallway with bullets and ricochets flying around to push them across the the, the, the hallway, you know, just to try to get him out of the line of fire.

And, and and, you know, I heard the man down call. Mark was 20 feet away from me, you know, when that happened. And and, you know, guys came came, as more assault was poured into the building. Like, they they cleared the rooftop, and and, it was, it was it was the absolute worst day of my life, man. And I think the fact that I got hit, you know, just in between the plates and, I mean, I knew I've been hit, You know?

But then, the guy that I pushed into that room was like, hey, Laith. You're bleeding. You know? Just just blood always looks like more than it is. Right?

It was my whole inside of my, you know, inside of my vest was soaked, and it was just, like, trickling out. You know? You could see here, like, the tap, tap, tap, tap, like, bleat blow out the floor. And and, but there just wasn't time to even think about that, man. You know?

It was Mark was down, and we moved up to him, got the corpsman on him, got him casivacked. And for whatever reason, like, I thought there might be some hope. You know, Mark was unconscious when we got to him. I thought there might be some hope to him, man, but he'd been he'd been hit the head. He was killed instantly.

And, Mark was just such a incredible, incredible warrior, man, and he was doing exactly what I asked him to do, you know, which was, engage, enemy insurgents. He was he was moving down a hallway, stepped up right into the doorway to, you know, to engage enemy insurgents that were shooting at us from the building next door, man. And and sacrificed himself for me, and the rest of the guys were coming in there. And he was, I mean, just like Ryan, just the most incredible teammate. Just the the just absolutely hilarious, strong as a just just strong as an awesome, incredible athlete, but just the the kind of just representing the absolute best of the SEAL teams.

You know? And, and I would do anything, Sean. I'd do anything to trade places with them, man. I got lucky, you know, for whatever reason. I got I got lucky, and and some ricochet hit me, and, you know, they patched me up.

And and, and I I you know, there there'll never be a time when I go up to Fort Rosecrans Cemetery and see Marsh grave there. I don't wish I was gonna be a lot of the guy out there, man, and not him. And, I think that's 1 of the hardest things, that I could have never prepared for. Right? When these these guys that you love and would do anything for, It's the ultimate dichotomy as a leader.

It's the ultimate dichotomy, which is to to love your guys and wanna do anything for them and be willing to trade your life for them if you could, and yet sending them out on missions where you know that they they might get injured or killed. And I think it's, it was it was something that I tried to pass on to the next generation of SEAL leaders that I you know, just the the reminder of, like, what's at stake. And we would do a memorial run, every junior officer training course that I put through. Like, we'd park our our vehicles down at at, Dog Beach and and Ocean Beach, and we would ride 5 miles uphill all the way to Fort Rosecrans Cemetery. And we go pay our respects to where Mark Lee is buried, and Mikey Mansour, our teammate in in, Delta Platoon, who was killed about a month later.

And pay our respects there, and and just, remind remind these young leaders about what's what's at stake, man, and then the burden of leadership. And, I think for me, they'll never be like, it's a it's a burden that never goes away. You know, it's a burden that never goes away. And I think what's as a man of faith, Mark was a tremendous man of faith. And, he had wanted to be a pastor, and he had gone to the master's college, to study and be a pastor before he decided that he wanted to he wanted to join the SEAL teams.

And, and I remember quoting scripture and talking about, there were there was a there was a time when we were out, when, you know, there was, we were engaging targets, and we were talking about, like, the worst case scenarios. You know, these mangy Iraqi dogs that are like, you know, these kinda junkyard dogs that are running around. Like, the worst case scenario is that they these mangy dogs are like chewing on you out the street. Right? And we talked about how this was, you know, that, in the Bible, there's there's numerous examples of that where, like, the prophet Elijah, you know, and Jezebel was trying to kill him, the prophets of Israel, that the dogs are gonna chew on Jezebel.

When David and Goliath Goliath says that he's gonna give David's body after he kills him to the birds of the air, the beast of the field, and and I we're talking about this with with Mark. Right? This idea of, like, of being a warrior on the battlefield. And and, I remember sharing those scriptures, you know, with Mark and talking about his faith and and how powerful that was for him. And I know I'm gonna see him again 1 day, and I look forward to that day, man.

He's, he was an incredible man. And, and Ryan Jobe, you know, 3 years after the surgery, I think it was the 22nd surgery to repair those wounds that, you know, when he was wounded. We lost him, you know, for complications of that surgery as well. And, like him, like just like Mark, Ryan was an awesome man of faith. You know, he came back from that deployment, and being blind to him was like an inconvenience.

You know? It was, he he he climbed 14,000 foot Mount Rainier, totally blind, to this awesome organization called Camp Patriot. I know I know a number of seals that attempted it and were unsuccessful in their summon attempt, you know, with with with their sight, you know, and, and all their limbs. And he asked me to go on I was I was the spotter for him, and we he shot this world class bull elk. He's this little camera system.

I mean, he I was just a phenomenal guy. He married his longtime girlfriend. They were expecting their first child. Yeah. I and and, you know, when when that happened, it was just just a just a tremendous, tremendous loss.

But I know that that that Mark would have wanted us to keep going, right, to keep operating, to keep doing what we're doing, to try to make a difference there. And I would talk to Ryan on the phone, and Ryan would tell us to keep going, know, in those operations. Keep doing what you're doing. Keep going out there. Keep getting after it.

Do everything you can, you know, to try to bring more soldiers and marines home to try to win this thing in whatever capacity we can. And and, man, I just I'm just so thankful and fortunate and honored to have been able to serve with guys like that, you know, who were willing to lay down their lives. And and Ryan 1 time told me he's like, it didn't make me a hero. Just because I got shot in the face. I'm not a hero.

It didn't make me a hero because I got shot. And I told Ryan that what what what made him a hero was not that he got shot. It was the fact that he knew that he could get shot at any time, that that he could get gravely wounded or killed, and yet he jogged up in his gear, and he rolled out all his operations over and over and over again. And he did it for me. He did it for his teammates.

He did it for the teams. He did it for the soldiers and marines that we were trying to protect. He did it for the NS Iraqi people that were out there, you know, living under this brutal reign of terror and fear, you know, that that Sarqawi's henchmen in Al Qaeda and Iraq, later ISIS, you know, ruled over them, with and, and I know Mark Mark was a hero for the same reason, man. Mark was a hero for the for the exact same reason that he was he was willing to do that over and over and over again. And I just think it was it's the honor of my lifetime to be able to to have served alongside heroes like that and have, and and be able to tell their story and share their legacy.

Damn, life. That's heavy. That's heavy. I'm sorry I had to go through that, man.

We're gonna see him again 1 day, Sean. Yeah. I look forward to that day.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, when I first checked into 240 at Buds, Mark was the Mark was my my headmate. And

kidding me.

I didn't know that. Didn't get to know him, terribly well, but, I am very thankful that I got to meet him. And and, he he gave me the ins and outs of Buds. What a great guy.

I I I didn't realize that you guys, I guess I should've known that because, you know, I didn't put it together for several several months into Charlie Platoon as as he started to come. He joined our platoon and started working with us. And, and it was that wasn't in our initial workup. That was just that was several months before we we deployed. But somehow we put it together like he knew Brian Bill.

And so I realized that he had been to Buds previously. Yeah. And and, and those guys have you know, Brian was 1 of the guys that had trained with him. They'd lived together in Virginia Beach, and, you know, they they Brian was 1 of the guys that encouraged him. And I'll tell you what, man.

As destroyed as I was, he Brian Bill, was is is is close to Mark as you could be. And Brian wasn't close to a lot of people, man. He he was but he was very close friends with Markley. And we talked a lot about Brian, and, you know, obviously, I was I was close to Brian and Buds and was a was a friend of his through that time. And when we came back, man, I was not just was just my soul was crushed.

My soul was crushed, man, from Liza Mark and Ryan being blind. And, and particularly knowing that I had some minor wound, man, I was like, hey. Pashing me up, and I'm going back to work. You know? Like, it was like, why couldn't that have been me?

Why couldn't I have been Gil and not Mark? Why couldn't I have been Blanton, not Ryan? And, you know, luckily, I had a I had a great commander, in Jocko who pulled me aside and said, hey, man. We don't have a crystal ball, and we don't know when that stuff's gonna happen. And if we did, we wouldn't go on that operation.

But we can either choose to do nothing, you know, and take no risk, or we could do everything we can to try to make a difference here, to try to save American lives here. And that's what Mark would want us to do. That's what Ryan is telling us to do. It would encourage me to keep going, man. And that support from Jocko was was immense.

But I remember sitting in the mission planning space as we're just kinda all reeling, you know, from from Mark's loss. And and at this point, we didn't know Ryan was gonna be blind. You know? We I I knew it was grave. I didn't know how I knew he was wounded badly.

I didn't even know he if he was gonna, like, out of the woods as far as making at that point. And I got a call from Brian Bill, who was in Baghdad with SEAL teammate. And he said, hey, man. I heard about what happened. And I just want you to know, like, I'm gonna go home.

I'm gonna take care of the family. I'm gonna take care of Maya, Mark Mark's wife. You know, I'm gonna be there for Mark's mom, Debbie, and his family. Like, don't worry about it. You guys are gonna continue to operate.

Like, I got this. And, man, I can't even tell you how much that meant to me. That for he never questioned a thing. He never, like, said, what what happened? What are you guys doing?

Like, all the emotions that you might, you know, expect. He just he just said, hey, man. I'm here. I'm here to help. And gave up what was an awesome deployment, you know, for those guys.

You know, he bagged it, doing a bunch of great operations, to go and support Mark, man. And it was, that was the kind of guy that Brian was. And, it was, I can't even tell you how much that meant to me, man. Just getting that call in, like, the darkest hour in real life, and, like, a teammate just putting his arm around you. You know, because that that was 1 of the hardest parts.

It's like, hey. I we're here. Like, the the what deployment is continuing. Operations are going on. I wanna go back.

You know? I wanna be able to to talk to Mark's family and and support them and be there for I wanna be with the Ryan's family, and and yet you can't do that. Right? There's still operations going on. So just knowing that teammates like that, you know, were doing that was that was I'll never forget that, Matt, for Brian.

That was just, I think, a real testament to the man that he was.

How long was it after that that you guys were on the next hop?

We we had a stand down. And, because we just we needed it, man. We've been going hard. We've been going hard. And, Del's platoon, working across the city out of Camp Corregidor, was gonna be on the, they were gonna launch an operation, like, the next day.

And and Seth Stone called Jocko, said, hey. We're gonna roll this 24 hour 24 hours. And so, he and Chaco said, hey, man. You can still go in the op, and and Seth was like, look. I think we we need to roll this 24 hours.

Right? Everybody needs to decompress. Everybody's emotional. You know, and and so that was that was an important thing for us, I think, just to realize, like, we need to we need to allow our guys to decompress. But we we had a memorial service for Mark, and, man, it was so guys drove down the most dangerous roads in Iraq.

You know, our teammates came from Volusia and Haditha and and, and from across the, you know, the the the Ramadi down that, you know, route Michigan, that deadly road, you know, to come pay their respects. And we had an awesome moral service where we said goodbye to Mark. And then 40 hours later, we jacked up in our gear, and we we rolled back out.

Do you wanna talk about the service with Mark, or is do you wanna keep that between the platoon?

I think we all just said our goodbyes, man. You know? We all just did our best to honor him, and and, you know, 4 guys had gone back with Mark to escort his his, you know, earthly remains home and be there with his family and be there for memorial service, you know, for that. And and I think it was, it was an amazing turnout, man. Soldiers, marines there, our AC soldiers.

It was, it was just the kind of person he was, man. He he he was, he was just the he was the best, man. He he was I've never seen anybody who could use humor in the darkest situation, like, to just drop a joke or or or, like, a movie quote, you know, and get people laughing and, like, get them get them just to kinda shake things off. Like, he was, he just was, yeah, man. He was awesome.

You guys took a lot of losses, and, you know, the the the world is very volatile right now, and we're gonna get involved in some more stuff. There's not a doubt in my mind, the US. And so, you know, for the future generations that are gonna go through similar experiences as what you just described, you know, what advice do you have for them?

Yeah. I mean, our losses you know, every time I think I've seen some combat, Sean, I read about I read about marines at Iwo Jima. You know? I I I, got a chance to visit Normandy this summer. Right?

And I'm standing on the beaches of Okinawa and and, or I'm sorry, the beaches of Utah. I've been I've been on the beaches in in Okinawa as well, you know, when I was deployed there back in the day. But just being there at Normandy kinda opened up my eyes to some stuff. Like, some of the inland fighting campaigns and things that were happening, and you realize the kind of losses that that that military units have sustained over the years. You know, you go to the battlefield like Gettysburg, you know, or so many of the battles around here, you know, in Tennessee, they're not far from where we are now.

I mean, just massive, massive loss of life that did eclipse anything that I've experienced. And I think what I can just you know, what I could say is, like, what's helped me is, number 1, faith, man, knowing that, like, God has a plan for you, you know, and and the survivor's guilt that that's so easy for any of us to carry with us, is, is like the God has a plan. And, and so I think you gotta lean on God for his plan. We don't know what that plan is. None of us are guaranteed tomorrow.

We don't know what what what he has in store for us, but just trusting in him for that plan, leaning on faith, and knowing too that, like, you know, taking extreme ownership of situations, debriefing, learning lessons, even if it's things that you know, August 2nd, the enemy fought in a way that we hadn't really expected them to do. Like, they brought it. They attacked in huge numbers. And that was that was a different, that that that was that was a different tactic. Right?

The enemy is gonna adjust tactics. So you gotta debrief. You gotta learn lessons to apply that stuff going forward to make sure that you try to prevent those things from happening, again. And, and I I think more than anything else, I think it's about taking care of your people, man. Like like, you your responsibility as a leader goes way beyond way beyond just looking out for them in the time that you serve with them.

It is about looking out for them and their families, like, for the duration of your life. As and and I I will feel that way about the guys that I served with, and as long as I'm breathing, man. Like, there's nothing I wouldn't do for them. You know, there's nothing I wouldn't wouldn't help them out with. There's there's and sometimes, you know, you lose touch with people when you haven't talked to them in a while, and maybe people forget that.

And I think it's important to reach out to people and remind them of that. It's important to check-in with people. It's important just to to to be thinking about, how you can continue to support them because it goes way beyond just in the immediate aftermath of some horrible situation like that. And it's it's not just about showing up and and paying your respects at their gravesite. It's about checking in with their family, checking in on their kids, you know, reaching out to their your teammates, asking them how they're doing, letting them know that you're there for, man, and that is you're all in this thing together.

And no matter what and I think that's you know, when you go to a battlefield like Gettysburg, there's there's memorials all over that battlefield. And that's what it's for, man. People put their hands up just like in Normandy. There's memorials all over there. People people the veterans that survive those battles go there, and they put their hands on on on those memorials, and they remember their lost teammates, and they and they support each other, and they help each other.

And I think that's something that that goes way beyond just the time and service that you have with people. It's lifelong and even beyond that.

Thank you for sharing that, Leif. Let's, I know it's been heavy for you, and I I just I appreciate you going through that, man. And, let's take a break. Alright, Leif. We're back from the break.

Once again, I just I really appreciate you digging deep and and and sharing those stories, because, 1, I think it's it's it's extremely important, to for those guys to live on, you know, through stories. And 2, it's a very, very important piece of history that that I'm just honored to be able to document here with you today.

So Well, I appreciate it, man. I was I'm honored to share it. And anytime I get to a chance to talk about, you know, the the teammates that I lost and and and honor the legacy of Mark Lee and and Ryan Job, I mean, I think it's, I'm I'm I'm happy to do it, John. I appreciate you. I appreciate you passing on.

I think there's there's so many lessons, you know, that, that we learn from that. And and I think, for me, I think some Americans, though, need to need to understand, like, sometimes people will come up after I speak about leadership, and I talk about reminding. I talk about Mark and Ryan and and Mikey Montseur, you know, and and, you know, Gabe's life and our sister platoon, another phenomenal team guy and awesome machine gunner, you know, just like Mark and and and Ryan. And people come up and be like, I'm sorry, man. Like, I'm sorry you went through that.

And I think it's important to say that that, like, we had some dark days in Ramadi, man. I I I think the, you know, the the it's it's kinda cliche. Right? The, Charles Dickens, tale of 2 cities. Right?

The best of times. It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. But I think it's important to say that, man. Like, I would trade those dark days for anything.

I would trade the days when we lost Mark and and Ryan and when Cali was wounded and when when, we lost Mike. I had to trade those days for anything. But most of those days were some of the absolute best days of my life. And knowing that, we were working with an awesome crew of warriors that we were out there fighting against an evil enemy, making a difference and and have an impact and making sure more soldiers and marines came home to their families as a result. And and I think that's something that I think a lot of Americans have a hard time.

You know, we kinda live in a in a day sometimes where it's like, well, you know, is there really good and evil? Like, yeah. There is. There absolutely is. And I think when you see the kind of savagery that the, you know, the precursor to ISIS, the Al Qaeda in Iraq, what they're doing to innocent people, just to butchery and torture and rape and murder, and just horrific, horrific stuff, and I think when you know that you can make a difference in the world and and rid the world of some of that evil, then it's a it's a great thing, man, to do everything you can in that regard.

And I think I think America needs to remember that. Yeah. And, so most of the days that I served there, were some of the best days of my life. I wouldn't trade for anything.

Is there anything else on this deployment you'd like to cover?

No. I mean, I think that's I think just knowing that we you know, there were so many lessons in our life, so many things that, like, that, I thought I was ready. You know? I thought, like, hey. We you know, combat was so much more difficult than we thought it was gonna be.

And and we were just humbled, like, on every single operation. Like, something didn't go right. The enemy does something you hadn't planned. You know, you thought you deconflicted that so that all the friendlies knew where you were, and next thing you know, you're taking 50 cal, you know, rounds right over your the top of your head. You thought everyone knew, you know, what the position was because they could see your marking device, and come to find out that they can't see that, you know, when they're looking through their their tank sites or I mean, just so many things like that.

It was just over and over again with those lessons that we learned. And, I think probably the biggest lesson, that I learned is that it's it's not about you, man. It's it's not about me. You know? It's not about Charlie Betune or or or our seal unit.

And that's 1 of the lessons I try to pass on as I wanted to take over that leadership, training course. And, you know, 1 1 example of that is like, you know, when we first joined the SEAL teams, right, it's you're training to operate in a SEAL squad or a SEAL platoon. And it's just you. Right? And you have assets that are supporting you.

And obviously, you know, if you're JSAOC or you know, there there are times when you got a whole bunch of assets that are supporting just a a a special operations unit like that. But on the battlefield for us, we would have, you know, there might be there might be 2 aircraft, all of Anbar province wide. So if you're gonna, like, declare troops and contacts whether the aircraft will be over your head and you could utilize them just in case you might need them, where you're pulling them off of a you're pulling them off of a marine squad that's pinned down and maybe have has guys that are gonna bleed out and die. You know? Or maybe they get overrun, or maybe these soldiers that that are, you know, in this horrific situation, like, you're you're pulling assets away from them.

So I think that really was, you know, that really for me was an eye opener of, like, it's not about me or my platoon or, like, it's just we're part of the overall team, the overall mission, and and, and and so we gotta share assets. Right? We gotta share resources. Like, we gotta actually contribute to the overall success of the mission. And I think sometimes, teams get focused on, like, what they're doing, you know.

But I think Jocko really kinda pulled me aside and and helping me understand that, like, this is, this is not about us and how many operations we do, or how many bad guys we kill or capture. This is about, you know, are US forces winning or losing? Like, are we gonna be successful as as, you know, as a nation here? Our coalition partners are not. So I think that was 1 of the biggest lessons to bring back, for us.

I've never heard it put that way, to be honest with you. It's always been about the unit. I think that's what Pulling assets. Let me let me it's always been what assets can we get, not we're pulling them from these these these units and unique perspective.

Well, every everybody I mean, look. You should be trying to get as many assets as you can. Right? Like, if you've got an AC 130 gunship, use that thing. Right?

If you got helicopters, use that thing. If you got tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles, whatever assets you can have, that's great. But I think when you start to 1 of the things I'll the 1 of the this this is my favorite thing to do with, when so I was it was a when I when I came back from that deployment from Ramadi, they they they sent me to the center, and someone decided to put me in charge of the junior officer training course. And so, I was happy to pass on whatever lessons I had there, but we spent 4 weeks in the classroom and a week long field training exercise. And the thing that I love to do was I would play the part of, like, a army company commander.

And I used, like, main gun Mike, the guy I talked about earlier as as like, this is you know, he's got tanks. He's got assets. So so these seal you know, these junior officers, they're leading the squad at, you know, on the onto this training battlefield. They gotta come up with a plan. They gotta come brief me on what they're doing and what support they need from me.

And so they'd come up to talk to me about their mission, and I would just be like, hold on what you got, man. I got some guys, we're we're actually activating QRF right now, so stand by. And and I I would just have them, like, stand there, and, and just just to to realize that, like, hey. These army units that you work alongside, like, they that that company who has in charge of 200 soldiers, and a dozen tanks, like, he's got a lot of stuff going on. You're not the only thing that's going on.

So if you're showing up there thinking it's it's all about you and and, hey. My big office that's happening, and I got to witness that with a special operations unit. I was standing right there next to, a company commander when a special operations unit rolled in the theater, rolled up there, handed him like the g you know, the the, the the GRG and said, hey. Here's what's going on. And the and they actually were blocking the exits to the combat outpost.

And and the company commander's like, hey, man. I I got tank I got troops out of the field right now. You gotta get your vehicles out of here. I gotta be able to use these tanks. You know?

And it was kind of a rude awakening for that special operation unit to be like, oh, there's other stuff going on around here.

I thought it was.

My big mish, you know? So I I think that's that was what I try to train those junior officers is just to pass it on to them. You know? It's not that as a leader, you don't try to get every asset that you can for your team, but it's that you realize that it's about the overall team and the overall mission. And and so if you are hoarding assets, you know, or you are focused on yourself, like, there may be things that you're doing that could negatively impact others, you know, who are also trying to carry out their mission, and we're all in this thing together.

So, I I think looking up and out for a leader and, and thinking about others, and those other units that you gotta operate, you know, in the same battle space with is is crucial.

Yeah. Def you before we before we move on to the rest of your career, I wanna go back, and I wanted to ask you, what did you receive the silver star for?

I received the silver star for that, that horrible situation on August 2, 2006. And, I don't know if I've ever publicly said that before, but, I asked Jaco not to write me up for that, man.

Really?

Yeah. I was like, I don't wanna award for that. This is the worst day of my life, man. I traded for anything. Mark got killed.

Riot's wounded. I don't wanna award for that, man. We we did the best that we could in in a horrible situation. I'm proud of my platoon and how they responded in the worst situation imaginable. You know, to get the building clear, to call in air support, you know, to to, get casualty evacuation, all the things that they did, under the worst situation, you know, imaginable.

But I was like, I don't want no work for that. And, for whatever reason, he decided to that, that it was a German award, and he wrote me up for him. So I accepted that award as a as a recognition for the my team, Charlie Betune, and what they were able to accomplish.

Do you feel that there's anything you could've done to prevent that?

I think that when you lose guys on the battlefield like that, like, I will rethink that for every moment of my life. You know?

I I know you were gonna say that, and that's why, as tough of a question as it is, Have you found anything you could have been different, or is it a never is it a never ending thing where you will always look for what you could have done different?

Yeah. I think I think that, I think that there is you're constantly thinking, man, what if I had done this or what I've done that or what if I had done this? And that's that's where I think Jocko's guidance, you know, is my task to get a commander and saying, like, man, we don't have a crystal ball. Like, if you had known that stuff was gonna happen, you wouldn't have gone on an op. You wouldn't have lost that operation.

You know? And I think the tough thing for me is, like, you know, is is realizing, like, I can't you know, we've got the army out there that needs our help, and they're in the worst situation of in they're in the worst single engagement of, like, the entire battle of Ramadi that lasted for 9 months. You know, they killed, 94 guys, you know, in, I think 94 guys killed in action in the 228, that National Guard unit, and I think 98 total guys killed in the Ready First Brigade Combat Team. And so, of all the combat that those guys saw, like, this was, like, the worst. You know, or this was the single, like, hottest day of, you know, gunfire and and and, mayhem and enemy attacks.

And and so I I think for me, it's the recognition, like, I you know, when somebody needs your help, you know, I think you do everything you can to help. And I I try to mitigate the risk that we can control, you know, by riding in Bradley Fighting Vehicles so that we were behind armor and not out in the street getting shot at by snipers, by smashing through the walls, by softening up targets with 25 millimeter chain gun, rounds from the Bradley fighting vehicles and and, and and main guns from the tanks, you know, before we actually enter those buildings. But there's there's just never it's just a burden that never goes away. You know? And I think I think you you just you have to do the best you can in the with the information that you have.

You know? And I think there's, I would trade the trade that day for anything, to do something different, to bring Mark back or Ryan back. And it's something that will always be with me. You know? I think sometimes too when you're on the on the battlefield, the the if you're conducting operations, like, there's no the the expectation that you are going to be able to be in significant combat, sustained combat over time without taking casualties, it doesn't happen.

It doesn't happen. And, you know, I remember a question our commanding officer asked us, like, you know, with any with any operation that you go on, you know, you should ask yourself, like, is it worth it? You know, is it worth the loss of 1 of your guys? And, you know, as we talked about that question, like, I I can answer that question right now. No.

It's not. I wouldn't I wouldn't trade my guys for I wouldn't trade my guys for Osama bin Laden. You know? I wouldn't trade my guys for Zarqawi. I wouldn't I wouldn't trade any single 1 of my my guys for for any of these, you know, insurgent terrorist savages that we're fighting.

But that's not the right question to ask, and I don't think it's any different than I don't think it's any different than a if you'd asked a company commander at Omaha Beach, like, would he trade 1 of his soldiers for Adolf Hitler? I think he'd have said no. I think he'd have said no. Of course not. Like, this is the most soldier I care about.

I'm not I'm not gonna I'm not gonna trade that guy's life. But they were willing to make the sacrifice because they realized that, establishing a foothold in fortress Europe was the key to being able to defeat Nazism so that we could live in freedom around, you know, across the globe and and maintain our way of life. And so I think it's the same thing. Right? If you're looking at, if you're looking at a mission like that, it's it's, it's never gonna be worth.

Like, it's you're never gonna make that trade, but the the the the trade is that you do the best you can to try to to try to have the most impact that you can. And, in in the time that you have, and you gotta mitigate the risk and control. And I think that's all you can do as a leader. And I think sometime the lesson learned is that combat is dangerous, man. It's it's dangerous business.

And if we don't have the will to kill if we don't have the will to kill the enemy, and if we don't have the will to sacrifice, America has, then then we shouldn't be in combat in the first place.

Leif, I just want you to know that I don't take that question that I asked you lightly. I I asked it because there's gonna be people in your shoes. There have been many people in similar situations, and and, you know, just your your answer alone might save somebody's life. So thank you.

Well, I'm happy to share that, man. I think I think, you know, for every leader, right, we gotta we gotta take risks. There's no there's no common operation without risk. Right? There's no you can't do anything in life without taking risk.

But you gotta mitigate the risk that you can control. Right? You don't wanna run to your your death, right, with your hair on fire. And I think I think trying to balance that dichotomy, right, of of being aggressive but not being reckless, is crucial for every leader out there. And, it definitely made me think, you know, deeply about that.

In fact, there was there was a follow on time where, we had, we had some aircraft overhead that saw, like, some armed insurgents, like, run into a building. And, and so, you know, after after losing Mark and and losing, you know, losing Ryan, like, I I wasn't it was we were gonna look at alternatives, you know, to to try to hit them in a different way instead of even if we smashed that building with tanks and blasted it, like, we weren't gonna run into that building. We're we're gonna make some adjustments. So I think every leader has to make has to learn the lessons that they can, lessons that they learned. And and I did a poor job, I think, of of even letting my guys know of even some of the some of the ops that we turned down.

I've I've talked to some of the some of the guys I served with in Charlie Betune that were, like, blown away that we we turned down operations. Because we looked at it. The risk versus war wasn't there. You know, we're like, no. We're gonna focus elsewhere here.

It's that's there's too risky. And I think the, you know, the chance of mission success are are limited, so we're not gonna take the risk there. And, and someone never even knew that. You know, that we were that that we were doing all we could to try to mitigate those risks. You know?

Yep. Yep.

But you're not going into combat without taking risks. And if we're not willing to take risks, man, it's we ought to not even be there in the 1st place. And I think that's the kind of thing. Like, the idea that we can we can go to war without taking casualties, you know, it's just it's it's just not true, man. It's not true.

And and I think that's more than anything, I wish that we had leaders who have been to war who understand that so that they could think very deeply about whether or not those risks are worth it.

You know, at breakfast, we had a small discussion about I guess, there there had been some controversy about the the special operations mission that you guys were on, and and and people were saying wasn't special operations missions because you were operating and gunfighting in the daytime. And so I wanted to just give you the floor on that.

Yeah. There was all kinds of criticism, you know, like that. I've I've I've certainly been the victim of the armchair quarterback stuff. I mean, that's gonna happen, right, when things go wrong and things go bad. And I understand that.

I think that's a function of people just, I think, not understanding what we're doing and why we're doing it. And, and I think I could've done a lot better job of instead of getting angry or frustrated with people of just kind of explaining that, you know, and and talking about why we did what we did, and the impact that it actually had. And, yeah, I think, you know, Casket and Bruiser killed a lot of bad guys, and, a lot of those were Chris Kyle, our lead cyber point man at Target Platoon was, you know, was the ringleader of that, like, who did a tremendous amount of damage to the insurgent fighters there, disrupted dozens and dozens of attacks on, soldiers and marines and our own guys, Iraqi, troops. It saved a lot of lives, man, and had some huge impact. And, when we were in the the squadron after action brief, you know, when everyone's standing in there, all the senior officers and noncommissioned officers are in there kinda talking about the the lessons learned, someone stood up and asked Jocko, hey.

You guys were out in the daytime for a lot of this stuff. You know, do you think that's a special operations mission? And, Jocko explained that, you know, 99% of the of the enemy fighters that we killed were during the daytime. You know? And he said killing bad guys is a special operation mission.

Next question. And I I think this is exactly right. Like, it's this is you know, I think sometimes special operations units, we need to be innovative, and I think you can be conventionally unconventional sometimes of, like, oh, we can only go out when it's nighttime. We can only go out when we have, like, the, you know, the, well, what happens when you have a target that shows up in a marketplace in the middle of daytime? Like, we have we have to be able to actually list targets.

Right? We have to be able to figure out ways to, you know, to to to do things where people aren't expecting, if they're expecting us to come at nighttime with a, you know, undercover darkness every time. So, I think our our best special operation units are constantly innovating and adapting, you know, ways to do things like that. But I looked at what we were doing in, in Ramadi. We were we were going out.

A lot of what we were doing was undercover darkness, and that it was going in at nighttime, setting up, remaining over day when the enemy was actually out when they had freedom of movement, when they were actually running around the streets, because they knew we we would dominate at nighttime, and aircraft could take them out, and and, and they knew we we own the night. So and then trying to patrol out, you know, undercover of darkness at nighttime. But there was, I I think that, you know, taking a fairly small group of guys, a lot of firepower, going in deep in enemy territory in a place where people couldn't get, supporting the conventional units that were then coming in, you know, in in behind us in mass, I think is very closely equivalent to our forefathers from the underwater demolition team. So naval combat demolition units. Right?

These were the first guys on the beach taking the taking the, taking the risk, you know, that were hitting the beaches in in landing craft like Higgins boats and naval combat demolition units or scouts and raiders. And then in the Pacific theater, the the frog men, right, the underwater demolition teams, they were out there, doing the reconnaissance, opening up the way, blow blasting holes in in the, you know, the coral reefs, and obstacles so that, so that, you know, the marines and and soldiers could land. And I think that's a lot of what we're doing. And there was a there was a shift in World War 2 where those those, combat, those, underwater demolition teams, the UDT went from, daytime to to or nighttime to daytime operations. Nighttime, they were trying to do nighttime.

They thought it was safer, and they shifted to daytime because they thought, okay. Well well, initially, they thought it was too dangerous. But they realized that when they got these little frogmen swimming around, even with the Japanese pillboxes blasted at them with mortars and artillery and machine guns, most of the time, these guys wouldn't be hit. And it was only I think there was only a handful of UDT men that were wounded or killed throughout the entirety of, like, daytime, like, beach reconnaissance operations. So they were able to do it and mitigate the risk, and they also were far more effective in the daytime.

And so I think that was what we were doing, in the daytime was, I think, very similar, right, to just making that shift. And then it was the opposite of Vietnam, you know, where the in the Vietnam War when when, seals, you know, were were going out in the daytime initially. Right? You're chaining the Vietnamese frogmen, and that's kinda how the the mission started, and now all of a sudden, we're gonna start into some kinetic operations. Well, nobody went in at nighttime because Charlie owned the night.

You know, the Viet Cong were out there patrolling, setting booby traps, setting up ambushes. And I've talked to some of those those Vietnam seals who made that transition and realized, like, okay. The enemy is out of the night nighttime. We've got a shift to being out at night. And the conventional units thought that was crazy.

They thought you're gonna get a bunch of people killed, but but, the SEAL teams were able to have massive impact, you know, for such a small unit on the battlefield because they went out at nighttime. They went into areas that nobody else could get into, and they did a lot of damage to the bad guys. So, I felt like what we were doing in Ramadi was very much in the spirit of of that. You know, the SEALs of Vietnam and those same underwater demolition teams in World War 2.

Great analogies. Great analogies. And so so you get home. You can let's wrap up to asking a bruiser deployment. You get home.

You move into this leadership course. How what what's the time frame here? How how fast did you change the

past? I I reported in, I think it was it was, like, February 07. And, so so we got back end of October 2006. And, we I mean, I basically spent a couple months in SEAL team 3, turned over, and then and then went to the center. And we and so I I just I took over the course.

Did you wanna go over there? I I was in a very different role.

I was ready for a break. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I wanted to see you know, do I wanna get out? I didn't really know what I wanted to do. That that was a heavy deployment, man.

Yeah. And, it was, so I I wasn't seeking that role. Somebody decided that that was a good place to put me. And, what was cool about that is, is I loved it, man. I loved every second of it.

It was it was awesome. And the best job in the world has been a seal platoon commander. There's no better job in the world than that. The next best job, I think, was teaching that junior officer training course. It was, you know, I had some, you know, the the I got to see it was it was an amazing leadership laboratory.

I got to see different, officers that were coming through that training. We had prior enlisted SEALs coming through the training. We had, you know, we had guys coming out of OCS that had been in the civilian world, and now all of a sudden in the navy, we had people coming out of ROTC, programs. We had people coming from the Naval Academy. We had people doing inter service transfers from the marines or air force or army that would come to that program.

Also put some special operations, or some air force special operations officers through there and some Norwegian marine Jaegers that came to that program as well. So I just got to see a bunch of different different people, a bunch of different styles of leadership, and it really solidified for me, like, what works and what doesn't work. Because I'm putting them all in these challenging situations and seeing how they react to things. And and so it really solidified, like, this is what works and this doesn't work. And, and so it was it was awesome to see.

Just to, it was a it was a phenomenal learning experience for me. I think if you really want to know something well, you need to teach it. You know, I'm sure just like when you started teaching tactics, you know, all of a sudden, you gotta people are gonna ask you questions. You have to be able to know things from different angles. You have to be able to to think deeply about things and how you might react to certain situations and and with different variables.

And so, that, I think, really solidified my thought process and thinking about leadership. And, of course, the first hand, it was bring Jocko over to give what we call the Jocko brief, you know, and kinda his lessons learned and and, and seeing that over and over again. And I got a chance to bring in Vietnam seals, and, and and and, 1 of the my most favorite things was bringing in the most outstanding senior and junior list of SEALs that I worked with and having them talk about the officers that they respected and liked and admired and the ones that they didn't, and what what the difference was and give their perspective. You know? And so I think that's something as an officer.

You don't often get to see that or hear that.

What were the major differences?

Many of the ones I talked about are humility, people that were humble, willing to listen. You know, I think, there were, I think the people that wanted to try to act like they have it all figured out or have to show people that, you know, I've got something to prove, I think that number 1 is that that's what pisses everybody off. Right? When you got somebody that's not humble and thinks they know everything, nobody likes that. No 1 likes a know it all.

It doesn't matter what you what experience you have. We used to joke, we we had a we had a acronym for we weeb, which was when I was in Baghdad, and then it became we weir when I was in Ramadi. You know? And so, like, when when people are, like, dropping these, like, when I was there, like, you know, when I was here, when I was this unit or that unit, And, like, look, man. That's not, you know, that's not the way to lead.

Right? I think asking people questions, helping people understand, you know, the truth for themselves, like I like I mentioned before is, is, is the way to lead. And so I think I think that's what really rose above is people that were humble, people that were willing to listen and learn. I think and then the fact that people were gonna, like, look out for the team and the mission first. It's it's amazing to me.

I remember the first time I heard the the term, servant leadership. And I was like, what does that mean? And the idea that, like, a servant leadership means that you you know yeah. I'm gonna I'm gonna look like, I'm here to serve the team. I'm here to they don't work for me.

I actually work for them. I'm here to help them. I'm here to put the team in the mission first before myself. And I thought that was kind of a crazy terror the person I've heard. I mean, honestly, that's what good leaders do.

That's great. If you're a servant leader, that's awesome. But I just thought that was weird that it was even a term for that because it's it's like the worst leadership ever. Right? If you're gonna look out for yourself, if you're gonna be 1 of these tick ticket punchers that's gonna be like, hey.

I'm all about me. I'm gonna put my needs and my wants, you know, before the the the team, or the mission. And I think that's that's just that's terrible leadership. No 1 wants to work for someone like that. So those those are things that kind of and then obviously somebody that just butts out.

Somebody that's gonna try hard. Somebody's gonna have a sense of humor. You know? Somebody that's gonna hold the line on things when it actually matters, and, and let some things slide when it doesn't.

How do you this is a personal question about leadership. And, you know, how do I I gotta there has to be a line between you and your guys. And how do you keep how do you keep let me rephrase this. You know, it sounds like your leadership style and and and, you know, the conversations that we had at breakfast and I mean, you were really fucking close with your guys. Like, very, very close relationships.

Very personal relationships, it sounds like. And so how do you how do you maintain that respect as a leader at the same time as as as getting so personal with with your guys? Because that you know, as a business owner, I found that that line can be very tricky to navigate.

It's extremely tricky. And that's a fantastic question, Sean. I think this is the $1,000,000 question. Right? As a leader, you have to be close with your troops, but you can't be so close to them that 1 becomes more important than the other or or more important than the the overall team and the overall mission or that they forget who's in charge.

And I think there's, that's a real fine line because it's different for different people. Right? I I mean, there's the SEAL teams you know, I came from the fleet where it was I was gonna you know, I was Ensign Babin or lieutenant G G Babin. You know, it wasn't this, like, first name base. We worked with a lot of the soldiers and marines, and they were like that.

Whereas we're on a first name basis, you know, my I mean, charter Lieutenant, I was a layef tenant. That was my you know, like like, yeah. I'm a lieutenant, but I'm Leif. Like, that that's you know, everyone's on a first name basis. I'm sure your your platoon was like that.

You know, your platoons were like that as well. And, but it's so the line's a little more blurry, but I think it's different for different people when you realize, like, hey, guys. We gotta knock this off and, like, get focused on what we need to do so we can get this done. And if people aren't paying attention, then you know, like, okay. I'm a little too close.

Okay. I've, you know, I I need to I'm gonna I'm gonna have to maybe create some degree of separation, you know, here in some way. So you gotta be close with the team. Right? I think the you gotta know your people.

You gotta understand what motivates them. You gotta understand who they are and what they do and what their skills are and what their strengths and weaknesses are and and how you can help them, like, where where they wanna go in life, what you can do to, like, to set them up for success. And, I think that's crucial, you know, for any leader to to know, but you do have to, like, find that that balance. And I think for me, as the o as the AOIC, right, the assistant platoon commander, you're like 1 of the boys, and you're not quite the OIC. You're not the platoon commander in charge.

That was it's a big step up, I think, from to go from AOIC to OIC, and all of a sudden, like, you're in charge. And and I realized I probably crossed that line, you know, with particularly with guys that I go into BUDS with, and I was, you know, I've been in SQT with and I had very close relationships with, and, you know, we'd go out drinking and partying and hanging out, and you realize, like, oh, okay. I have to like, there's there's I'm gonna have to create some degree of separation here. Maybe it's maybe it's I go out and, you know, spend some time with them. Like, alright, guys.

Stay out of trouble. I'm I'm, you know, I'm gonna, I'm I'm heading back. But I think I think it's just trying to create that so that they you're close with your troops. You're you're close with the team. You understand them.

You know them. They know you. They know you care about them, and, but but you're not so close that that 1 becomes, you know, more important than the other or the good of the team or or that they forget who's in charge. I think that's a it's a tough balance, but it's it's different for different people, so you have to just I think if you're aware of it you know, 1 thing that would Jochen and I say with the economy leadership is even just the awareness that there's this dichotomy that exists, and you have to find the balance is 1 of the most powerful tools you have as a leader. Because then you can start to monitor it.

Hey. Am I too close? Am I not close enough? You know? And then and then you can start to find balance, and you're never gonna be perfectly in equilibrium.

It's always gonna be constantly trying to make adjustments all the time.

Okay. Makes makes a lot of sense. Do you did you ever vent to your to your guys' frustrations?

I was probably the chief hater at drinker in chat tasking the bruiser for a little while. Just, if you remember the old Dave Chappelle, the Chappelle Show, the player haters ball was 1 of my favorite episodes. And normally, they just held up pictures of people. They would just, like they sit around and go, hate hate hate, just, like, make fun of them. And and, I would just throw shade at my chain of command, you know, and talk about I had a great relationship with Jocko.

Like, we love we all love Jocko. But, you know, the next level up, the chain of command, our commanding officer and staff, they were always asking for paperwork and, you know, look. They were good people. I I I liked them, but they they would they would pile a bunch of paperwork requirements on them. Like, I don't have time for this stuff.

We're out here trying to fight the war. I don't need to be doing that stuff. You know? And then, you know, you get questions from, you know, the the siege of SODAF in, you know, 80 miles away. And, you know, the the the JAG officers asking, you know, about, you know, the rules of engagement and make just making sure that all everything was followed, you know, precisely, and and you you start to it's really easy to get frustrated and and get emotional and push back on that.

And I'm lucky that I had, you know, Jocko to to to ask me. It's like, hey. Does it help you to not have a good relationship with your chain of command? And I was like, no. It actually doesn't.

And worse than that, it actually it actually hurts my team. Because if I don't have a good relationship with my head of command, and they don't trust me, well, they're not gonna prove our operations. Right? They're not gonna give me the resource I need. They're certainly not gonna be we're not gonna be the go to unit that they choose to go action of of, you know, a a target if they're gonna pick 1 platoon out of the entire team, or it's not gonna be us, you know.

And so, you know, we when when I would vent sometimes, Jocko would kinda just allow that and then just ask some questions to kinda turn it back around to kinda think about, like, what could we do to actually lead up the Cheyenne command? Like, was our commanding officer and staff? What do they want? Do they want us not to be successful? They want us to win.

They want us to win. So if they've got questions about what we're doing, about how we're mitigating risk, I haven't pushed enough information up up their way up there. They don't understand why this why this mission's important, and they're questioning that mission. I need to actually push some information to them and talk to them about why we're doing this. Pick up the phone and call them and talk them through it.

And then the, you know, the JAG at siege of Sodaf, we were writing these, like, really basic, like, engaged military male, you know, with a AK 47. And the JAG is like, well, every, you know, senior male of the household is allowed to have, like, 1 AK, you know, within their home. If you remember, they had they they were allowed to have 1 firearm. It was like their their second amendment because a lot of people didn't have access to banks, and so they had their valuables in their home, and that was how they defended their valuables. So the JAG is like, hey.

This is was is it illegal for them to have an AK? And, you know, meanwhile, I'm like, are you kidding me? This guy's shooting at us, you know, and you're questioning my decision, but I didn't write that in the report. So that's why he asked some questions. The and the moment that I put the haterade down, stop, like, you know, hating on the chain of command and and and telling them they just need to back off and let us do our job and realize, like, oh, I need to push more information to the chain.

And we started to think, okay. What does a Jag he he's never sat behind a sniper rifle. He's never looked through a 22 power night force scope. You know, he's these these snipers are operating with incredible discipline, man. Incredible discipline.

I'm talking, you know, watching hundreds of people walk in front of their sniper scope, and they're engaging enemy fighters. And we're talking about, like, with with minimizing collateral damage in a way. Sometimes these sometimes these savages would use, like, human shields, like children, like, hold them in front of them and try to run across the street with their RPG. You know, it's cybers like Chris and Tony and others who, like, able to able to drop those guys and not injure the children. I mean, amazing in a way that no 1 with a machine gun's gonna be able to do that.

Nobody with a Bradley fighting vehicle 20 millimeter chain gun's gonna be able to do that. And, and so I was very proud of our snipers and and the discipline that they were using. And and I realized that the problem was we weren't describing it in a way, that that that, that articulated to someone who had never been there, you know, what we were actually seeing. And the moment that we started doing that, and putting that into our shooter statements, man, they they were like, awesome. That's great.

Keep doing what you're doing, and what what support do you need from us? So, you know, I think so often we feel like we're in a hopeless situation, you know, if we're getting scrutiny from our chain of command. And, if we take ownership and actually just lead up the chain, it makes all the difference. And I realized, you know, when I was venting to my to my guys and kinda throwing hate, you know, at the siege of soda for at our task group that was, you know, 30 miles down the road in Fallujah, all that does is just undermine my authority, you know, as well. Like, I that that never helps you.

Right? If you're gonna if you're gonna just throw your chain of command under the bus, that that just that just undercuts everybody in the chain of command if you do that. It's it's not good leadership. And the best thing you could do is to say, hey. Listen.

Understand this is frustrating. Here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna put this paperwork together. We're gonna get this done. We're gonna send it to our chain of command because they need this information, and and we're gonna do this so we can build a relationship with our chain of command so that they're gonna support us, you know, where we need it.

And so you could talk to your chain of command about the realities of it, you don't have to just you don't have to, like, just sugarcoat something that doesn't make sense. You know, like, hey. This they're telling us to do this stuff. Mhmm. It's not fun.

It's a bunch of extraneous work that we have to do. We have to put in a bunch of extra hours. Maybe you don't have to stay long. You know? Stay late or stay over the weekend or whatever.

You don't need you you don't lie to the team. Right? You don't say, like, oh, this is great. We're gonna do it. Like, they're gonna see right through that.

Yeah. What you have to do is tell them the truth, tell them why you're gonna do that, and then help them see that you're building a relationship up with the chain of command. You're you're putting some leadership capital in the bank so that you're not pushing back on everything. So that when

it when it comes time to really push back on the things that matter, you're able to. What how much of your decision making process and and and the reason that you made certain decisions did you share with your guys, if any? Did you did you ever feel like these are personal questions that I'm asking for myself running as a as a guy running a company, and and, you know, I feel the need to to explain some of the decisions that I make, to my guys. I don't necessarily know if I should be doing that. And so I'm just curious, you know, what what do you do?

I think it's absolutely the right call to, I I you know, you this idea of, like, a 100% transparency, not everybody needs to know everything that you know. You know? You would spend all your time trying to communicate things to people all the time. That's that's not a good use of your time as as the owner of a company, but if that's 1 of the biggest lessons and the most humbling lessons that I brought back with me. I wrote an entire chapter about about that in extreme ownership.

It's chapter 10, leading up and down the chain. So I talked about leading up the chain. Mhmm. But this is leading down the chain, which is I don't think you can I don't think you can do it enough to explain why we're doing what we're doing? Because I think when you kinda think people get it, you know, leaders will think, well, they maybe they get it like 7 out of 10.

Like, no. They get it like 3 out of 10, maybe 1 out of 10, maybe 0 out of 10. And your job as a leader is to connect the dots between the hard work that people are doing, the overall success of the mission. And, and it's because they don't see it. Right?

They don't see it when they're out there in the grind, you know, every day. You gotta constantly help them see how what they do contributes to the overall success and mission, and how it's gonna ultimately benefit them as well. So I don't think as a leader, you can remind people of that enough. And, I mean, I I planned the the so many major operations to go and take areas of that city back, and we were the lead element on the ground with those, you know, a 1000 soldiers and marines and the all the tanks, everything we talked about. And when we got back, Jocko put this slide together.

He he was tasked with going and giving a brief to, like, the I think it was the chief of naval operations, you know, the senior admiral in the navy. And, and he put the slide together, and they showed the map of Ramadi. It showed the red areas that were al Qaeda battle space where when we'd arrived, we've been told, don't go. They're all gonna get killed. And then it showed these blue circles going in with these combat outposts, the US outpost that went in.

And then it showed, like and and each 1 had, like, what what our seal involvement was, and how we supported him, and then it would have, like, yellow and green kind of expanding out. And you and and and he put this it was like a building slide, you know, on on a Microsoft PowerPoint slide. And so the map overlay with this building slide and before he went to brief, just just Jacque was a great leader. He always was like, hey, man. Take a look at this.

Tell me what you think. And he played that slide for me, and I was like, damn, dude. Like, that's what we freaking did. Like, Like, I never put it together like that before. Wow.

Never. And it was, I I planned and led every every single almost every single 1 of those operations that that are the blue circles that are going in. Like, we were the 1st boots on the ground for these, you know, support. I was intimately involved in the planning for these things. Some of them were weeks in in planning.

You know? And, and when he saw my reaction to that, he was like, he I had never put it all together. Because, I mean, I'm coming back from Monty. We lost Mark. We lost Ryan.

Like, I'm like, man, I know we made a like, we certainly had some impact there, but do we have any lasting impact? Like, should we should we have done what we did? Like, all these questions. Right? Then I'm constantly running in my head all the time.

And when he put that together, I was like, that's what we did. That's what we contributed. We we contributed to take that city back, and and you you could see it in the combat outpost knowing that 100 or maybe a 1000 soldiers and marines for each 1 of those blue circles are going in. You know, that that these are people that dozens of them might have not come home with their families otherwise. You know?

And, and so when you when you start putting that together, what's cool about that, Sean, is, you know, we can all split up and kinda win our separate race, and I have had the chance over the years to pull some of my guys together and and and show them that slide.

Do you still have that slide? I do have that slide.

And I'll put it up on screen? Absolutely. And it will be, it was when I show them that slide, they say the exact same thing. Damn, dude. I had no idea that's what we did.

That's cool, man.

And so I think it's a reminder that, like, you can't do that enough as a leader. And it's 1 of the most humbling lessons I learned of, like, if I had just taken the time to take a step back, remind people about what they're doing, how the impact you know, our our mutual friend, Jake, you know, that we went through Buzz with was was a machine gunner for us. I remember him telling me, you know, he's like, man, I'm just carrying this machine, and he's carrying this 600 round load out and this machine gun. And and we put, I mean, we put optics on those machine guns because we they needed PID. They weren't using, like, the ACOG to to to shoot the gun with it.

We needed a PID at target. So, I mean, it's it's getting heavier. Right? With all this gear you're putting on, it probably weighs £20, you know, and you're carrying, you know, 600 rounds. Each of those 100 round boxes is, what, 7 and a half pounds.

Mhmm. And they're carrying plus, you got helmet, body armor, water, you know, all this stuff. They're patrolling multiple kilometers to get in, you know, some of these areas, particularly in the rural areas outside the city when we were doing some of that work. And, I remember Jake coming to me and be like, dude, I'm just security detail for Chris and the snipers, man. And and I was like, man, I have just failed him as a leader.

I was like I was like, Jake, when we get attacked, which is pretty much every operation, and we have 3 dozen enemy fighters trying to overrun our position, We're not beating back that attack with a bolt action rifle, bro. We're beating back that attack because of you and your machine gun, and that machine gun has saved our lives over and over and over again. We could do none of this without you carrying that heavy firepower. And then we talked a little bit about, I was like, how many times have you, like, shot your your load out, you know, your entire load out? And, he was like, I don't even know.

I was like, I don't even know. Like, he didn't even know. And and it was interesting because I talked to I talked to some of the Vietnam seals and, some guys that were machine gunners, including Moki Martin, who's a phenomenal seal. If you remember Moki, was just a legendary West Coast seal, 6 deployments of Vietnam, amazing guy. And he was telling me, like, we were just talking about, like, how many how many times they actually, like, changed the belts on their machine gun, their stoner, you know, their M60.

And it was like, in his 6 deployments, he was he told me it was just a it was a handful of times. Like, you know, they would break contact and they would break off, and I was like, well, how many times did you guys shoot your, you know, like, your entire load out of Belfed rounds you're carrying? He's like, I don't ever remember a time doing that. And so, you know, Jake and our machine gunners did that, I mean, like, almost every single operation we went on. So I think I had I did not help him understand just how important he was for the mission and how he was contributing to the mission.

We couldn't do any of this without, all the work the Cybers were doing and making supersession shots is not possible without those Belford machine gunners. You know, guys like Jake, guys like Mark, guys like Ryan and Mikey Mansour that were out there, you know, carrying that heavy equipment. So every leader, I think, has to do that. And then when you can put it in your pocket, you know

You're just consistently empowering your guys every chance you get.

Well, I think the lesson is that I was I wasn't doing a good enough job of I did not do a good enough job of taking a step back and realizing, like, hey. They don't know that. Mhmm. And they don't know that because I'm not telling them.

That's what

you you do have. The lesson I brought back is, like, I gotta do a better job of telling them, of letting them know what they're doing, why, you know, why they're doing the impact they're actually having. What's the strategic impact that they're actually having? So, you know, I think when you've got people on your team that are in the grind, you know, they're head down, they're doing a thankless, you know, what seems like kind of thankless work. You know, when there's editing videos or posting social media clips or, you know, scheduling travel for podcast, what whatever it may be.

It is, it is absolutely imperative that you constantly remind them about how important their job is and how what they do contributes the overall success of the mission, and how that ultimately is gonna benefit them, you know, down the road as your team continues to to grow and expand. And I think it's every leader's job to do that.

Man, that's some great advice on this 1. Thank you. So after the after the the, I'm sorry, the the the the the leadership, what was the unit? What where did you I'm sorry. After the next after your next station.

So I went back. I talked to that junior officer course for 2 years, and tried to teach, you know, those junior officers everything I wish someone had taught me before I went into a tough combat situation. And and then, then I went to, the, the director of training, was, was an was an awesome leader who came to me and said, hey. Why don't you come be my operations officer over SEAL team 1? And and that was, he was that was Keith Davids, who was our, just just, stepped down as our our naval special ward for admiral.

He was a phenomenal leader and was an awesome guy to work for. So got a chance to got a chance to go and serve with him as operations officer, at at SEAL Team 1. Did another deployment to Iraq, supported some guys in Afghanistan. You know, we sent to to we sent guys to multiple locations around the world, but I was pretty frustrated on that deployment, man. Like, sitting in you know, we did a I I the theme was to, like I had said for all our guys in Iraq, we were trying to embrace mediocrity and, like, not operate a bunch so that we could try to pull our guys and move them to Afghanistan where the fight was going pretty hot and heavy.

That was 2,009 and 10. And so things were kinda just ramping up for, like, the, you know, the marine push down into Marja and Helmand province and some of these big operations that were going on in in kind of the Taliban strongholds, in in Helmand and and Kandahar province. And, and we didn't do a good job of embracing mediocrity because we did a ton of operations. But I don't think I had a single seal on the on on that operation or in in Iraq, we captured a bunch of bad guys and, you know, disrupted some some terror cells, and and guys did great work, man. We had an awesome team.

But, I don't we didn't have a single SEAL fire his weapon in anger in Iraq on that deployment. And, and meanwhile, you know, it just was marines are getting blown up all the time, you know, soldiers getting killed in in in Afghanistan, and it was very frustrating me, you know, every time we tried to say, like, hey. We can send more guys to Afghanistan. We can support, you know, the the conventional units, and they're moving into these villages and Taliban stronghold areas. We could do what what Task Force and Bruiser did for the, you know, for for the armed and marines in the in the urban environment, just it from the high ground, you know, on the ridge lots with with SEAL snipers, and we would constantly get told, like, no demand signal for more SEALs.

What changed? I think it was the force cap. You know, president Obama approved, like, the surge the surge numbers there, and I think there was just a I think there was some there was a force cap limitations. Hey. Well, we'll surge forces there, but we're only gonna serve x number of forces, so people are tracking everybody that's there.

And, frankly, I don't know that there was a lot of appetite in our senior in our senior leaders. I think there was more of a there was kind of a a an argument going on that we should be more on the kind of the find fix and let the kind of host nation forces do the the finish piece.

You know? You know, it was a really interesting time. I mean, I had no idea you were you were, sending guys down to Marsha in Helmand at the time, and I was down there contracting for the agency. We had a safe house get hit. And I remember the it was supposed to be the biggest offensive the 2nd biggest offensive force of the entire global war on terrorism since Fallujah.

And they had amassed a ton of marines down there to do this push. And then I remember when the ROEs came out for the military that they were somebody could shoot at you and drop their weapon, and you you could not engage them. And, you know, I just I remember hearing that and and thinking, like, holy shit. You just chop the fucking legs out from every marine down here that you want to conduct this massive offensive force with. And it was just it was it was mind blowing to me.

Like, talk about demoralizing your fucking people.

I can only imagine, Sean. There's there's no way you can win. Right? It's what I talked about before. Right?

If you're gonna go to war, man, you gotta have the will to kill the enemy, and you gotta have the will to die. And and, I mean, there's this is what it takes to win. And I think the the you know, my frustration was that we didn't we couldn't we couldn't get hardly anybody involved in it. So, you know, we had 1 troop that was working out of Kandahar at the time, and they kinda got split up, and and and tasked to some different provinces. And And we had some guys who did some great work there, man, and and and made a difference.

You know, it made an impact for sure. They did awesome awesome work, did a bunch of combat operations that killed a bunch of bad guys, and opened up some areas that Taliban had kind of controlled before, and, you know, enabled freedom of movement for US forces, and kinda pushed the white space back around some of those bases where they kind of, you know, kept people, you know, in where they're attacked the moment they get off of base. But we couldn't get more people there, and, you know, I we only had a handful of guys that supported, you you know, some of the marines pushing into those areas. And the whole time, like, you know, the there was just a pushback with the naval special warfare, and and, I just felt like, to me, that was probably the the number 1 driver. You know, our our friend, Elliot, that, a month after we left Ramadi, got blown up, coming out of a sniper overwatch position.

He'd been wounded. The, ins 1 of the insurgents had crept up near his position and literally, like, rolled a grenade through a loophole. So So he's sitting there on a sniper weapon, and they push a grenade through the loophole. They, like, snuck up, like, somehow jumped from rooftop to rooftop, pushed the grenade. Grenade goes off, wounds him in the arm.

And so as he's getting casovacked, you know, they called in the the Bradley fighting vehicles. As they're getting casovacked, they clacked off a big ID on them. And, I'm thinking, like, ripped a Iraqi soldier in half in front of him and blew him up, you know, really bad. He lost a leg. Horrible white phosphorus shells, will he be chills?

So, like Oh, man. Horrible burns on on his body. And and and, yeah, man. He just was like, man, you Ellie's just as good a dude as there is. You know?

Just an awesome, awesome team guy. And, we served together at SEAL Team 5 and been to buzz together, served together at SEAL Team 5, then I turned over with him. I remember seeing him and my close friends that were now relieving me, you know, as we went home. And And I remember seeing him in the turret turret of a 50 gal a man in the 50 gal in a turret of a Humvee about to make the bush across down that horribly dangerous road, Route Michigan. That was the most heavily ID'd road in all of Iraq, and he was, like, all smiles, like, fired up.

You know? And I was just, man, just just said prayers to, you know, protect these guys and look out for them. I I knew what they were up against. You know? And I think it was November 19th.

Like, he he got in, and then 1 of the other SEALs got injured, like like, thought he lost both his legs, like just, you know, was like blasted on his back. And then I did lifted his legs up in the air, but his, like, his tib fib is like like he's got double compound fractures. So, like, all he sees is like his stumps and lifts his legs up. They're like hanging down. So I thought he lost his legs.

And that guy, thank God, ended up recovering and had, you know, these titanium inserts in the legs. Look, amazing, amazing guy. But Elliot was in was in real bad shape, man. And, I, so I spent a bunch of time with him, when he came back to the States, and he went to, Burke Army Medical Center, which is the primary burn care for cell you know, you know, center for the for the, the military. And, you know, just seeing some of the guys who were in the ICU there and coming out of Iraq at the time was was a horrific, horrific thing, man.

Just knowing, like, you know, you see these soldiers, marines with, like, their faces burned off and no fingers and, like, no ears and noses and lips and stuff going. And just and many of them still are like, you know, they're they're making the best of it, man. You know? They're happy to be alive, and they're they're could could continue on their lives. And and it was it was man, those those guys were just just heroes, man.

Just heroes. Just awesome, their their attitude on life. And, but it made me wish that we put a lot more of those insurgents in the dirt than we did, and we did everything we could. But then when I you know, as I was serving, I would go over, and Elliot then went to, he then went to Balboa Naval Hospital. And so I was going up there and visiting with him, and and I'd see a bunch of those marines that were coming in coming in from Helmand Province to Conner Har Province and a place like Sangin and, you know, Marjah, and, you know, legs gone, arms gone.

You know? Yeah. And and to me, it was I think that was kind of the final straw for me of, like, man, this is we can help these guys, and and, you know, we're not being allowed to do it for political reasons, whatever those are, whoever's responsible. You know? And and, you know, I felt like it was, that was that was probably the final straw for me of, like, you know, I think it's time for me to probably get out.

Yeah. Do something different.

How was it getting out for you? A lot of people struggle with that. Hard.

Like, I never wanted to do anything else, You know? And, I

met your wife yet? I did.

I met her. She, put up with a final deployment for me. We were dating.

So she so you married her in service?

Well, we didn't get married till right as I left. Okay. So, we, we got engaged right as I got back from my my last deployment. So I I was like, you know, we're gonna put her to the test, see how she does to the deployment. But we had met at the, the seal warrior fund event, you know, which is the the, the big fundraiser for the seal teams in in New York City and and, in October 2,000 and 8.

So the financial world, it just melted down, and yet we still had some very patriotic Americans that are giving money to support SEALs and their families, and and it was it was it was Elliot was there for that. Ryan Job was a speaker for that. In fact, I I don't think I'd even have spoken. I I don't think I would have attended if Ryan Job called me and said, dude, if you're not if you're not going to this, we're never talking again. So he's he was a speaker.

He gave an amazing speech, you know, and and they handed him the speech, like, the night before, and he's like, hey, knuckleheads. I can't read. I'm blind. So it's definitely mean this to me, so you're gonna have to, you know, give me the speech, but he, yeah, he he gave a fantastic speech, man, and and we were all there because, because the the mob store family had wanted Mikey's teammates to be there. You know?

Mike had received the the the medal of honor for jumping on a grenade to save his 2 teammates on either side of him, and, my our teammate and, you know, Delk Platoon. And, and so the the Montessori family had had, had asked that Mikey's teammates be there. So they flew a bunch of us out there, and and, it was, it was amazing. I'm I'm I sat right next to Mike's mom, Sally, who's, as as I I met Jennifer the first time, I met this pretty red haired girl. I was like, what's what's her deal?

I wanna get to know her better, and, I told her that we had you know, she worked at Fox News. I told her that Fox was on, in our tactical operations center. She's like, well, if you guys want, come by. I'll give you a tour. And so we, I brought me, Seth Stone, and another 1 of his guys, by who were like the biggest, like, wannabe lady killers ever.

They were just spitting game at everybody from the the, you know, the the the interns to the, you know, to the, to the anchors, and, and and Jenna, who's just put them up just just put everybody in her place. Like, didn't take any of that stuff from anybody. And then I took her out that that night. Like, I talked her into coming and meeting us for a drink, and and I took her to meet Elliot. She met Elliot and and, you know, was easily, like, loved Elliot and, you know, was, was was fast friends with them, and and, and so the the rest was kinda history there, man.

But that was that was another contributing factor for me certainly to get out. I mean, I had you know, we had been dating 2 and a half years on the opposite sides of the country. I was stationed in San Diego. She was in New York City. Closest the Navy was gonna get me was the Pentagon.

I had 0 interest in being a staff officer at the Pentagon, and, and so I was like, it's it's time for me to move on.

What was it about her that that got you?

Man, she's beautiful. She's smart, and she's got an amazing heart. And, she asked me within, like, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, like, she probably learned more about the SEAL teams than anybody I I like, you know, people are like, oh, you're a SEAL. Like, oh, that's that's cool. Like, oh, that's really neat, or, oh, I'm so annoyed.

You know, like, people, you know, that that, might say something like that, but she was asked. She was like, well, how how do you guys train exactly? You know, how often do you poi, and and where you know, what is what's what's the training like, and, you know, how are you organized? Like, she asked all these just, like, interesting questions. And, and I was like, I definitely wanna get to know know her better.

And, it was, yeah, man. I I just I knew right away. I texted I texted somebody when I was leaving New York City of, like, I just I just I just met the future missus Babin. Till the first night. Girls in the phone book.

Yeah.

Right on, man. How long have you guys been married now? 13 years. 13 years? Congratulations.

What is the secret to a successful marriage?

Man, the secret to successful marriage is extreme ownership. It's extreme ownership, man. If because it's also it's the most important place that you can apply these leadership concepts we've been talking about. It's also the hardest, because you're so emotionally tied to someone, you know, and your ego's evolved and, like and, I could tell you that when I start pointing fingers and casting blame and making excuses, my wife reminds me that I wrote a book called Extreme Ownership, and I should start taking some. So she, she definitely puts me in my place.

And, and I'm like, Jack, but all the things that, like, any team needs to be successful. Like, cover and move, we talked about is, like, this is we gotta cover and move for each other on the home front with the kids, with work, like, around the house, you know, whatever it is. We gotta be able to cover and move for each other. We gotta communicate. I mean, it's simple, clear, concise.

It's not that, hey. I you know, she asked me to do something. I need to give use a read back to make sure that I understand, you know, what it is that I need to do. I need to ask for some clarification. I need to make sure that, you know, just because I asked her to do something, she'll put something out in the morning, like, okay.

This kid the kids need to be here, here, and here. You know? And then she thinks that, like, it that doesn't all process in my brain. Right? I gotta write it down.

I have to reference it. So, prioritize and execute. There's gonna be a 1,000,000,000 things going on at the same time. You know, for the family, we gotta be able to pivot and be flexible and and shift to emerging priorities, and, stay detached, particularly from our emotions when somebody's, like, you know, had enough. Like, the kids are kind of you know, they got you at wit's end, and you're frustrated.

They're like, hey, babe. I I got the kids. I got this. I'm gonna take them out for a little bit. You know, just I don't need to ask what she needs me to do.

I don't need to ask her where she needs me to help. I can just step in. You know? And then decentralized command, I think if we all kinda understand we understand, like, what's the goal? What's the goal we're trying to do?

And I think when we do that, that, that enables us to to to we can all work together toward that goal. You know? She may she may do something that's slightly different than I might have wanted it done, or I might have not thought about doing it in that way. But if it gets us toward the goal that we're trying to accomplish, if it helps us to raise, you know, some some patriotic, god fearing, competent, kindhearted children, you know, that are gonna be good members of contributing members to their society and and and community. That's what we want, man.

That's what we're trying to do. So I think, I think letting some things go. Sometimes you're, like, you do these little pet peeves. You know?

Yeah.

I think that's the most important thing of, like, okay. If she's doing something that's annoying me, it's not her fault. It's actually my fault. It's my fault. And, that's I I need to I need to figure out a way to, like, take ownership of that and, like, fix that.

Great advice.

I think that's I think that's the key.

Let's move into your transition into into civilian life. How how was that for you? Did you find it I mean, you know, there's no secret. There's a suicide epidemic going on in the veteran community. A lot of addiction, a lot of alcoholism, a lot of drugs, a lot of womanizing, a lot of I mean, it's just it's it's really a nasty time in a lot of our lives, and I'm wondering if you experienced any of that.

A lot of depression, a lot of resentment, a lot of anxiety.

I I I certainly, I think I experienced some depression, anxiety. I think when all of a sudden, the thing that I had always wanted to do with my life is, like, now behind me. Mhmm. You know? And now what?

You know? Mhmm. And I think that's a that's a that's a freaking hard thing, man, you know, to talk for anybody.

Do you feel like you wrapped a lot of your identity into being a SEAL?

I don't know if I wrapped my identity into being a SEAL. I I loved it. Mean, I just I just thought it was the best job in the world. You know? And even though it's look.

It's not this it's not without frustrations. Right? It's not that it's as I as I got further up the chain of command in the SEAL teams, you get further away from the guys you like to be around and the the job that you like to do. So, I mean, just an example of that. I was at the the I was at the special operations task, task force, like a headquarters, and we were in Ramadi, just down the street from Camp Markley.

We named the shark base Camp Markley, and then, and and so the what had been a former kind of, intel base was was, was named after Mike Montour. So I was at camp Mike Montour working out of there, and, man, it was, you know, I think we had a 180 people at the at the special operations task force headquarters, and I think there were, like, 6 SEALs there. You know? So it was and we were great people there. All all performing a important function, but it was you're just getting further away from the guys you like to be around and the things you actually like to do.

So, I think, you know, when you you you're completely removed from that, right, when you get out. And so then it's like, okay. Now what? And I was gonna do like a lot of people do is just go back to school, because it's kind of a transition, and, you know, there was you can get paid. You get a you get money through the post 911 GI Bill, and and so I was gonna kinda follow that path.

And for whatever crazy reason, I said I was gonna go to law school, and I had some people help me out because my grades were atrocious in college, but hold some strings to, like, get me into law school, and, like, you know, I was accepted to Fordham Law School in New York City. And, and so it was just right down the road from where my, you know, wife was living at the time, and and, and so we just got married, and and and, man, as I I started this, like, 2 week kinda academic enrichment program they called it, which was like the for the people who've been out of school like me, or didn't make good grades like me. And, and so they they as I started it, I I just realized, like, man, I had 0 in common with the other students in the class. And as we started to study law cases and things like that, I'm like, I don't think this is what I wanna do. You know, and and this is a 3 year program.

I was I have to spend 3 years doing this. And and then, Extortion 17 happened. You know? And, you know, largest loss of life in the single incident in the history of the SEAL teams. Helicopter shot down.

Brian Bill, you know, Derek Benson, both in our butts class. Awesome dudes. You know, both lost on that. I knew another a handful of guys were on that too, as I'm sure he did. And, and Brian Brian Bill just been in my my wedding a month before that.

It was just crushing, man. It was crushing. And, it was, I mean, he actually, like, finagled a deal. He stayed to, like, go to, like, a jump master school so so that he could, like, stay late, go to the wedding, and then he, like, flew, you know, flew overseas to, you know, to meet his meet his unit. And, you know, it was just horrible, man.

And it was just a reminder of something that you and I both know, right, which is life is too short, man. You can't waste a day of it, man. Can't waste a day of it. So I immediately deferred law school. I was like, I'm not gonna spend 3 years going to school.

And so then it was like, well, now what now what do I do? So I go into different law school. I'm like, I don't have a job. I'm not employed. I don't know what I wanna do.

You know, I had people offer me some positions in, like, the finance sector, and I went in and, like, saw what they were doing, you know, the traders. And and I was like, I don't care how much money they make. Like, I I would rather I would rather, sheer my testicles off with a rusty bowl of pieces of scissors than sit here in front of this, like, you know, trading like, it it just wasn't what I wanted to do. You know? And, it it was, and so we went out to this little place down the way.

It had some good margaritas, and and I was sitting there with my my wife, Jenna, and and she says, what what are you gonna do now? You know? I was like, I I have no idea. She said, well, what is it you love to do? Like, what are you passionate about?

And I said, SEAL platoon commander is the best job in the world. Like, that was the favorite job in the entire world. I'll do that over again in a second if I could, but I can't. And even if I even if I could do it, I wouldn't be deployed to Ramadi. You know?

Like, there's no there's no I can't go back and and relive that again. But as she kinda asked me that question, I thought about it. I was like, the next best thing was teaching leadership to those junior officers. That 2 years that I spent training those junior officers, putting a 130 something SEAL officers through training, and, trying to pass on all the less stuff, which someone had taught me. Like, it was incredibly rewarding to see those guys grow as leaders, take on that, you know, the lessons that we learned, apply it, get better, and and then I see them go forward.

Go you know, places that I didn't, deploy or didn't have any combat, experience with, like like Afghanistan. They they would come home and say, this this was game changer. Thank you for teaching us. Hey. You taught me this leadership concept.

I applied that. It made a huge difference. You know? We focus on building these relationships, and and, you know Damn.

That's awesome.

Opened up all kinds of opportunities for us.

These guys all kept in touch with you.

A bunch of them did. A bunch of them did. Yeah. You know, I've lost touch with with someone, but they they it was awesome, man. It was so rewarding to see that.

And, and to know the lesson that we learned and that we paid such a heavy price for, you know, a task and a bruiser were being passed on. And, and so when I said that, my wife said, call Jako, start a company. So I did, and we launched launched a company that became National Front.

How'd that conversation go? Let's Jako.

Let's start a let's start a company.

You just said let's

let's start a leadership company. He said, Roger that. Let's do it. Well, what

was he doing at the time?

He was working for a mortgage company and then teaching leadership for that mortgage company and kind of helping them, kinda in in their process, and they kind of they basically, like, carved out, like, a you know, I think they made

Jacco Willink was working at a mortgage company? Yep. Interesting.

Yeah. Well, he he learned a ton about leadership, right, and how that applied to the business world. It's taught all the problems that they were having, you know, from the inside. And so from that, he taught me a ton about what he learned, you know, from there. I thought Echelon Front was my idea, Sean, for, about a year and a half.

And then I realized that just like this is Jocko's way, like, about about Jocko retired in, October 2010, so about a year before, I left active duty. And, and he he was I went over. He was, like, cleaning out his cage. I I did. I was like I was like, man, it's a, you know, it's a sad it's gonna be a sad day, and the Jocko Le Seal team's here, you know, when you get out.

And, and he said, I I forgot about this conversation. We had a conversation, and he we're standing in his office at at training detachment. You know? And he said, he said, what would it take to bring you on board to start, like, a leadership consulting business? And I I threw out some number that I thought was, like, gargantuan.

Right? It was, like, barely, you know, barely 6 figures. You know, it just seemed like like, it seemed like the most gargantuan number in the world compared to my, like, Navy paycheck. And and, so he had planted that seed, like, probably a year and a half before we had that conversation. And I did I forgot about it for a long time, and that's kinda Jocko's way, right, that indirect approach of, like, planting the seed.

He he wasn't he wasn't like, hey. Remember when I said that? Like, this Yeah. He doesn't care who gets the credit. Like, this is this is what good leadership looks like.

That's cool, man. And so how did it develop?

It developed, the very first year I made less than half my Navy paycheck, and I was like, this thing is never gonna pay the bills. And thank God my wife had a great job.

Well, let me let me brief. What was the original what was the original plan? I mean, what were you guys doing at the very beginning?

The plan was to teach leadership. The plan was to teach leadership the same leadership concepts that I taught in that junior officer training course, the same leadership concepts that he taught when he was running training detachment.

To who? To companies? To To

any to anybody that wanna talk about leadership. And, and the I had just to back up a little bit, I had the the first epiphany that that I recognize that leadership applies everywhere, there was a company that did an off-site to San Diego. Big corporation, kind of in rapid growth mode, and they had had, like, a the so they had a leadership off-site San Diego, and somehow they got connected to someone at the SEAL team, like, 1 of 1 of the junior officers that I put through training. He was 1 of my, he was 1 of my, he'd been an assistant platoon commander then was a platoon commander, and and and he said, hey. This company is gonna come by.

There was a retired his I think he'd been his former, like, his the the CO, because he he was a lateral transfer from the service fleet like me. So he'd been on a navy ship, and the the commanding officer of that ship had retired and was running this kind of leadership consulting business. And so he was bringing this team of, I don't know, 10 or 12 executives by. And and so he's like, hey. Will will you come and talk to him about the stuff that you taught us in, you know, the junior officer training course?

I was like, well, how long is that gonna be? He's like, I don't know, man. 20 minutes, whatever. You know, something like that. Just short.

Just, you know, put out some share a thought, answer a question or 2. You know? That's about it. Mhmm. And so we went in there, and and and I talked a little bit about, I talked a little bit about leadership and, like, what we were trying to teach these, you know, the the I mean, even just, like, putting the team and the mission first.

Right? It's not about you sharing resources across the entire organization. They just started firing questions, and, and we were in there for an hour and a half of just nonstop, like, questions being fired. And, and I I didn't know anything but the military. I mean, like you, I got I'm I went to the Naval Academy out of the out of high school, and so I was 18 years old.

I I never knew anything about the civilian world other than part time jobs, you know, that I worked in high school. But, it was the first epiphany for me of, like, hey. Everything that we learn here applies, and the world needs this. The world needs leadership. Leadership is the solution to people's problems.

They they don't know it. They don't know it. And what we understood is that leadership is a skill. It's a skill that we're not born with. It's a skill that we have to learn.

And you're not just like you don't know how to play the piano when you're born or drive a car or or, you know, shoot a basketball or wrestle or whatever it is. Like, you have to learn that stuff. You might have some innate abilities that give you an advantage over others, you know, that may maybe give you a leg up on others. But if you're not willing to learn the skill, you're not gonna improve. You're not gonna get better.

And I think leadership is exactly the same way. And I I witnessed that over and over again when I was teaching that course because I saw, leaders who might have what you might think are a lot of of innate leadership qualities that that would be important. Right? Like, they were charismatic. They could you know, they weren't nervous to stand up in front of a a room and present an idea or talk to their team.

And then you had other leaders that were super introverted, like, didn't wanna, you know, like, were terrified to stand up in front of a group and present an idea. And, of course, I made them do that all the time, you know, just trying to get them used to that. But what I realized is that even people that you might have think have all this advantage with these innate qualities of charisma or, you know, they're kind of a, you know, loud, you know, person that that that kind of people gravitate toward, or they can engage with people. And if that person wasn't willing to learn, if that person wasn't willing to humble humble themselves and I get better and apply, you know, and and and take ownership of mistakes they made and and apply, the skill of leadership going forward to improve, like, they didn't get better. They they they struggled.

And some of them actually got fired, and and maybe even had their birds pulled and and, you know, left the teams as a result. And yet I watched leaders who who who were terrified to stand up in front of a group, like super introverted, like the quiet spoken, kinda soft spoken types, maybe didn't have any of the what you might define as an innate quality that might give people an advantage of leadership, and they did awesome. I mean, they were phenomenal. As as long as they they were willing to learn, they were willing to improve, and they were willing to get better all the time. And and I'd see those guys go, Some guys who struggled in the field training exercise portion of that that that, course that I ran, and I and I I would see them get better and then and watch them go out on the battlefield and do amazing things, man, and have their guys talk about what an extraordinary leader they were and how they may you know, just how they've saved lives or, you know, were able to build relationships or vector resource.

I mean, just incredible stuff. And and so that to me, it was a recognition of, like, every everything that we learned applies, you know, to to people in the corporate world, in the business world. We work with people in the nonprofit sector, in the education space, you know, first responders. We do a ton of work in, with first responders, and, anywhere that people wanna talk about leadership. I think we we take the lessons that we learn, and we talk about how it can apply.

And I think we totaled it up last year at the end of last year, we've worked with something like 1600 companies and organizations over the last, 16 100?

No. Wow. How many of those you know, we've talked about a lot of the the sales that went through the leadership course with you. You'd heard from, you know, after later on in their career about what worked, and and and do you do you get a lot of that in the civilian world

as well? We do. We definitely do. And it's super rewarding, man. It's it's our why.

Right? It's sometimes when you're on the grind and you're traveling and you're gone from home a lot, and I'm always thankful for the opportunities that we have. You know? It's it's amazing to see I mean, even after you know, we're we're pushing, this month marks the, the 9th anniversary of the publication of Extreme Ownership. And, the fall on board, the economy of leadership that was published in 2018 has now been been, rereleased, but there's still people driving the sales of that book through word-of-mouth.

People are people are reading it, buying 5 copies for their team, buying it for their, you know, their kids, buying it for their family members, and that kind of word-of-mouth of like, hey. This has been impactful, and it's been amazing to see that that. And when people come come back to us and tell us that, you know, extreme ownership saved their marriage, you know, they were blaming their wife for all their problems and, you you know, or the wife blaming their husband for all their problems or, you know, having issues with their kids and and, or or they're were frustrated at work, that they were in a hopeless situation and didn't feel like they had any influence on the organization, didn't think that their leaders cared about them, and and they were able to start to take ownership of those problems and lead up the chain of command. It's amazing to see. It's amazing to see, the impact that has, and it's it's just humbling and mystifying to me, man, to see how, you know, how those lessons continue to be applied.

And, I just it's it's I'm blown away by it over and over and over again, and, about how how people are taking and utilizing this. And it's it's not me that's doing it. It's not Jocko that's doing it. We just shared some lessons learned that they actually have to apply. That's the hard part.

You know? I can share some concept with you that can then that can help you, but it's it's up to you to actually put your own ego in check, have an honest assessment with yourself, and actually, you know, implement a solution to get problems solved going forward. And I think, you know, for us, probably the best thing that we do is just help people realize what winning looks like. What does winning look like? You know?

Is is it what does winning look like for you? And when you start to think about that from a detached perspective, it's not about how much money you make. Right? It's it's it's not about, you know, proving that you're right, you know, if you're in a conflict with someone. It's actually about, it's about building the strongest relationships that you can, you know, with people and having the most impact in the world that you can and spending time with the people that you love and care about most, you know, that that's most important.

And and so I think when we can get people attached to their emotions, kinda put their ego in check, and, like, if you and I have a conflict at a company, and let's say we're finding over resources, and we're 2 department heads. I want those resources. You want the resources. You know? I'm I'm in there, like, lobbying to have the resources taken away from you.

You know? Or some case, that may be so it might be we'll see conflicts that that that get created so bad that we might have to only we can only communicate with through, like, mediated email by HR. This is what happens. Wow. Human conflicts, and you're like, Wow.

Crazy. When you when you when you can help someone say, like, hey. Is it important is that other department important for, like, what you're trying to do in your department? Like, yeah. It is.

Okay. Do you think it's important that you have a good relationship with the the leader of that department? Yeah. It probably is. Yeah.

And so, like, when when you when you can't communicate with someone except through media to email by HR, does that do you think that makes you look what does that look like to everybody else as a leader? You know, when you can when you can help them start to reveal the truth in this, what's the chairman of the board thinking about? What's the CEO? What's the senior executive team thinking about you? Like, how's that do you think you're ever gonna get a chance to be promoted up the chain?

You know, if you can't actually get along with people and work alongside and build a friendly coalition so you guys can actually cover and move for each other, you should support 1 another so that the team can win. And when you get people to start to think about leadership like that, and they realize, like, oh, you know, they're looking at this little tactical victory of, like, I'm trying to get the best of this person. You know? I'm gonna demand that that I get the resources from them, and that's what Winnie looks like. And it's really the opposite.

Right? If I care about the team, like, I should be in their lobby for you to get the resources. Like, hey. You know what? Sean, we got some limited resources here.

Your team needs these resources more than my I I think my team can probably do without until we can get, you know, more resource available. I'm gonna give these resources to you. We're gonna build an awesome relationship, man. I'm gonna help the team win. That's I'm I'm showing everybody.

I put the team and the mission before myself or my team and our own interests. And, and it's like, this is what it takes, right, to to if I wanna be a winning a a a member of a a high performance winning team, like, that's the attitude I gotta have. And and when you when you start to just get people to see, like, what winning actually looks like, it's it's often very different than well, you know, you you guys if you can put your emotions in temperature, you go check it. It just you you free your mind. Man, you know,

this sounds like a lot more of a, lot more than just a leadership training course. Sounds like a a a way of life and, that can help you with all aspects, you know, of what you're going through with your family, with your business, wherever wherever in the military, doesn't matter. Sounds like these aspects apply to to every every aspect of life, and, that's really cool that you guys put that together.

I appreciate, man. It's, I wanted to be able to share that, and, it's, it's it's it's like I said, it's humbling. It's humbling to see how many people have taken in and utilized that. You know? But if I can help even 1 person out there in some way to not make this mistake that I've made as a knucklehead leader, to not lead with ego or try to prove that I know, you know, all the answers, I think, that to me makes all the difference, right, of of the, it's in a life, right, it's it's it's be humble or or get humble.

That's the way it is. So, happy to pass those lessons on.

Thank you. Well, Leif, you know, we're wrapping up the interview now, and I just I just wanna say, you know, it really was, man. It was it was great to reconnect, and but it was a real honor to to have you here to share what you shared with about everything, man, especially, you know, the your darkest day. I mean, I I, I really commend you for how you handled that and and and and how you described the guys that have passed, and and, man, you're just a you're just a hell of a guy, Leif, and and, a true leader, and, I appreciate you.

I wish I was better, Sean. I wish I was better, man. And, and I think, I'm I'm just on the path, you know, trying to learn from my mistakes like everybody else, and, I hope that people could take take those mistakes and learn from and apply it going forward. It's it's an honor to be here with you, brother. I can't I'm so proud of of, all that you're doing in the world, man.

You got such an important voice on so many topics that, you know, other people aren't willing to tackle or or take on, and, I couldn't I couldn't be more, you know, we were joking on it before we started this. I go, I've never guessed. We were working together in buds with 18 year old Sean that you would that you would have the, the wardrobe with so many, so many sport coats out there to put on, but, it's awesome, man. And, so proud of you. Love love what you're doing.

Keep doing it, man. You're making a huge difference to the world.

Thank you, man. And, and just for the record, I personally learned a ton, about leadership talking to you today. And so thank you, man. God bless.

Thank you. Hi. I'm Joe Saul Sehy. I host of the Stacking Benjamins podcast. Every week, we talk to experts about saving, investing, personal finance trends.

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