Transcript of #334 Clint Emerson - Inside SEAL Team 6's Spy Unit: Black Squadron New

Clint Emerson.

How you doing?

Welcome to the show, man.

Thanks for having me. It's cool to be here.

Thanks for coming.

You got an awesome studio. Well, I appreciate that. It is beautiful inside out. I mean, do people get to see the whole thing? Have you ever shown all of it, or—

On camera?

Yeah.

No, we haven't shown all of it.

Oh man, that's nice.

We've got some secrets in here. Yeah, but, but I think it's just— they get the gist of it.

But it's got a spa vibe.

Thank you.

I can tell you're a man who loves massages. Oh, man.

But, well, yeah, man, I can't believe it's taken this long to get you on here.

Yeah, well, life, you know. But it is good to be here. I was going to tell your guys that you're like Oprah, Ryan. So many, so many tears have fallen on this leather chair. I'm like, man, I hope I don't cry while I'm here with you.

Hey, same chair sits up Episode 1.

Is it?

Yeah, man.

Oh, nice.

Yep.

History.

Same exact positions too.

Make sure I smell this chair before I leave.

But, uh, but yeah, I'm excited about this. Yeah, really excited.

Yeah, it should be fun.

Well, let me give you an introduction here. We're going to get more into that, um, towards the end of the interview, but I thought that was a great, uh, great opener. Clint Emerson, you're a retired Navy SEAL who spent more than 2 decades in naval special warfare. Including time with SEAL Team 6. During your career, you specialized in intelligence collection, surveillance, and high-risk operations in hostile areas, including missions involving Somali pirates, al-Qaeda leaders, and other covert targets. You're also the bestseller— you're also the bestselling author of 100 Deadly Skills, where you break down the surveillance, survival, and tradecraft techniques you learned in special operations for for a civilian audience, awarded the Scott Fitzgerald Award for Excellence in Writing. Since retiring, you've worked in crisis management and security consulting, helping people and organizations prepare for threats like targeted violence, kidnapping, and other high-risk situations. You are the only special operator included into the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C. Welcome to the show.

Yeah, thanks, buddy.

So, you know, typically in these things we start at childhood, which we're going to do a little bit today, but, um, we're only going to touch on a small portion of your childhood at the beginning because this is all going to tie back down, back down, back to childhood at the end. So scary. Uh, kind of the first time we've done something like this. But everybody starts off getting a gift.

Oh, of course. You know, I think I tried these, but they came out of somebody else's Vigilant Link gummy bear bag, and they were spectacular. So I will definitely be gobbling these down. I would love to counter you with a gift if this is a good opportunity. Sure.

We can do that, or we can do it later on, whenever you want.

I'm game. I don't know what works best for this whole, like, I gotta get up and get it and give it to you. Kind of thing.

Let's wait till— let's wait. We'll wait till it's appropriate. Okay, cool.

Perfect.

Probably the second segment, but I can't wait. I love gifts.

Yeah, it's good for you. I think you'll like it.

So we'll start with where did you grow up?

Well, I am a born-in-Texas kid, but at the age of 8, we, uh, my dad got hired by Aramco and we left the United States, moved to Abqaiq, Saudi Arabia. where he worked for the oil industry until I guess I left for high school. So I grew up in Saudi, which was in the '80s during the height of— well, terrorism has always been going on, hasn't it?

Mm-hmm.

But it definitely was going on then. You know, that's back when TWA was nicknamed, you know, Terrorist World Airlines, you know, because of hijackings and all the things that were going on during that time frame. And Saudi, with, you know, obviously is a very interesting place to grow up as a Westerner. So I could imagine. Yeah, not a lot of fun.

What age did you say you went there?

8? 8 years old, second grade, all the way up to high school. Wow. Yeah. So, um, not a lot to do for Western kids. You know, you live on a compound, it's surrounded by anti-aircraft guns, concertina wire. probably the first time I actually started paying attention to security because I was like, well, are they trying to keep bad people out or are they trying to keep us in? You know, you're like, why, why do you have all this? You know, gate guards with AK-47s and the concertina wire part was interesting, you know, razor blades at the top of the fence line and the anti-aircraft guns that you could see out in the distance. And yeah, it was an interesting way to grow up. And you had, uh, You had a security force, then you had the religious Saudi police. Um, a lot of redundancy, you know, and there's always somebody around to see something, to ask you what you're doing.

Hmm.

Um, I wouldn't say it's a surveillance state because they're not that motivated. You know, they're some of the laziest people on the planet. But, uh, but they definitely had all the resources in place that made you question, like, why? Why you got all this, you know? And then, um, then you quickly realize as a kid, like, oh well, there's a lot of terrorism that you heard about in the news outside of Saudi, um, but there was plenty of events inside, right? Khobar Towers, um, was during that time frame, and, uh, a couple other events inside the kingdom. And then you go, oh, okay, now you get it, right?

Interesting.

They're keeping their own out. And also keeping us in. They don't want you wandering. Yeah.

I know you don't have anything to bounce it off of, but did you like it there as a kid?

Not really. I mean, it's a radical Islamic state back then. MBS since then has westernized Saudi, and he's really trying hard. He's a 30-something-year-old prince of Saudi, and he's doing a good job, I think, opening the kingdom up and trying to create new venues, really following Dubai and how it's prospered. And I think they see themselves as, as they had gotten behind, you know, and they, uh, their, their values and their dedication to the religion actually kind of, kind of held them back, you know, because they're home of Riyadh and— or of Mecca, sorry. And, you know, there's a lot of weight in that for them. And so I think Saudi felt like it could never actually modernize because of Mecca and you have a lot of respect there still for the elderly and older clerics and those really running Islam. And, um, so I was there during the height of, you know, the most extreme aspects of Saudi religion. And if you look at Saudi as a whole, it was like 27 different tribes or clans, whatever they called themselves, all the way up till the 1950s.

Mm-hmm.

And then the biggest clan or tribe pretty much gained power and it became a kingdom. And ironically enough, the 1950s is when Aramco was established, which AR is Arabian, AM is American, and CO, company, and started pulling oil out of the ground. And very quickly became one of the richest countries in the world, liquid. But as a kid in the '80s, that was the height of when a majority of Saudis didn't want you there, you know. They didn't want Americans, Brits, or Canadians because that's a majority of the folks working for the oil companies, um, pulling that oil. And you felt it, you know. And there was, there was a lot of privilege there for the Saudis. I remember my dad, he would get just so irate. Like, if you're standing in line at the souk, right, to pay for whatever merchandise we were buying Saudi citizens had a front-of-the-line privilege no matter where you were in that country. If you're a Westerner, you're the back of the line. You will always let a Saudi go first. And I always think like, why aren't we doing that here?

I was just going to bring that up.

Yeah. Can you imagine like American first in line? Like, I actually— I can't imagine it.

No, because it's never America last.

Yeah, and but as a Westerner, you're standing in line for an extraordinary long period of time sometimes. And my dad, I remember he would just turn red in the face, you know, and I could just hear him under his breath, motherfuckers, you know, like just pissed that he had to let these people in front. It was part of their protocol. It was part of, uh, you know, when you get briefed up in Houston at, you know, at, uh, Aramco headquarters before they put you on a dedicated 747 to Saudi, you know, they tell you, hey, these are the protocols. They give you all these briefs and the culture. And so, you know, and that was just the beginning. You, you notice that, you know, you are second-rate, third-rate citizens, you know. Like, even like, um, the Saudis back then treated Indians, Pakistanis, and Filipinos— they were the slaves of that country, you know, literally. And, uh, even, you know, there was times we even had to get in line behind them.

Wow.

So it was—

yeah.

And if you didn't follow it, you know, it was all kind of like the, the threats were real. You know, you get deported in a heartbeat, you know, for sometimes the, the simplest things. You know, they don't care.

I don't think there's anything wrong with taking care of your own. Right.

There was something to learn. Now, being a visitor, it sucks. But now as an adult, I can reflect on that culture and go, damn, man. But then there's the other side. Back then, women, we'd go on base or there was a base, but on compound they had 2 restaurants. They had one called the Date Pit. Dates are very—

Oh, okay.

Dates that grow on palm trees is one of their biggest fruits, if you will, or vegetable. And it's got one seed, right? So what does that make it? One seed is a vegetable. Yeah. And so it was called the Date Pit. Good play on words, but it was kind of like the fast food. A lot of kids would— us kids would go there. Hamburgers, hot dogs, that kind of thing. Then they had the dining hall. Dining hall was more of a sit-down kind of restaurant, but a huge partition down the center. The women would go to one side, the men would go to the other.

Really?

To eat. Yeah, that's where all the women would go because you even had Saudi employees living on the compound. And, uh, and so you had to follow a lot of those traditional cultural rules and, you know, basically social etiquette and protocol. And, um, yeah, everything was separate, you know, and it was always the women behind these curtains separated from the men, you know, and the kids would always default With the with the women, and didn't matter where you went. That's how it was. You know, there were a number of times that really made the living there unpleasant was that Saudi younger Saudi men—they're probably in their twenties. You know, and you got to remember, I'm like eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. You know those age groups, and they'd go out of their way to like kick your ass. You know, and their favorite thing, you know, and I think we kind of joke about going in and out of the Middle East, but their sandals. Their sandals are this hard leather. And somewhere in their upbring, they learn how to hit you pretty good with the blade of those sandals. Those sandals, they take those sandals off, or they got really good at throwing these things like a damn Frisbee.

And they would, I mean, you know, 20, 30 yards away, throw that sandal at you and they'd hit you in the head every single time. So I was like, damn, man, they're good at this. And those sandals, the blade of them, I mean, it's, it's like getting— you might as well get hit. by the edge of a plate, you know, like a, you know, dinner plate. You know, it's, it's hard and it hurts and it sucks. And, uh, it's not to say that we probably didn't bring some of those beatings on ourselves, just being bored. Yeah, Westerners with nothing to do and cause trouble, you know.

So why did you come back to the States?

Uh, they, they only go up to the 8th grade there.

Okay.

So a lot of Ramco kids go to Swiss boarding schools at 9th grade. you know, for basically high school. So at that point, my dad had had enough. You know, once again, he was a Texas kid growing up in Texas, kind of had that like, I'm not gonna let somebody push me around that long.

Yeah.

You know, I'll go make a, a decent salary for a little while, see the world. Um, you know, as we all have learned, Saudis are not bashful when it comes to money, you know, so Then this is the '80s. They would make you leave the country for 30 days at a time. So they'd give you an 11-month visa, and on the 12th month, they'd give you $5,000 per head in your family and say, leave. So you'd go on a 30-day vacation and go see the world or whatever. And, you know, and oh yeah, by the way, stop and get your visas renewed and then come back to work. So that aspect of it was actually really cool. We got to see all of Europe one year, you go see parts of Asia another year, and, and pretty much all paid for by, by the Saudis, you know. And I always thought it was funny. I had this kid, they were Mormons. And so there was like 8 kids in that family. So can you imagine they would take the $5,000 per head and then they would just go to Cyprus and hang out for a month and not spend a dime?

Nice.

I was like, that's pretty smart. Yeah, just take all that money and put it away.

So what got your— what got your interest in the SEAL Teams? Um, you went— you went to— you came— you came back, went through high school, went to college.

Yeah, so a couple things. Um, as on one of those trips, you know, we were traveling through Frankfurt Airport And the first thing you want to do when you get out of Saudi is have a Coca-Cola, at least for me, because all they had was Pepsi. Now, they don't pronounce the P word in Arabic, so it's Bebsi. So you got— you're stuck with Bebsi Cola the entire time you're in Saudi because a couple of reasons. At the time, Coca-Cola supposedly was run by Jews. The can is the colors of the Crusaders, red and white. I don't know. But they didn't allow Coke into the country. Okay. So, you know, they got a lot of reasons for a lot of stuff. And so if it's an airplane leaving Saudi, it's not going to have Coca-Cola. So the first place, land in Frankfurt, whatever. And we get to our gate, you know, my mom and dad, my brother, they go stage themselves and I beeline it to the little restaurant bar across from the gate. And the first thing I do is go to the bar and ask for a Coke, fountain Coke. And there's this guy standing there.

He looks kind of like us, you know, he's all tatted up and he's got like— actually, he's got a black collared polo on. Could have been Dick Marchenko himself, I don't know. And I'm a curious kid and I'm kind of looking at his tattoos. I'm like, what's that? He's like, looks down at me and he's like, what? He's like, I said that tattoo right there. He's like, that's a trident. I'm like, what's a trident? He's like, it's a symbol, represents, you know, military unit. What military unit?

The SEALs.

Like, what do SEALs do? He's like, kid, where, where are you from? Like, well, I live in Saudi. He's like, what are you living in Saudi for? I'm like, well, my dad works for Ramco. And, you know, and he's like, oh, all right. Well, do you remember when we bombed Libya? Like, yeah, actually I do. Because, you know, at the time, Vice President George Bush came in country. I was a Boy Scout, so I'm color guard. Hold the American flag. And I've got mine proudly wearing my Order of the Arrow sash. And, uh, and he stood behind the podium and told all the Americans, hey, you know, in the next coming months there may be conflict, and if anything happens, we're going to have C-130s and everything set up for you guys, get the Americans out of country because you are the closest country for retaliation of some sort, right? So I tell this guy this story. He's like, yeah. He goes, well, those B-111s had to come in extra low. And I'm like, oh yeah, why? He's like, well, so they wouldn't get shot out of the air and da da da. And he gives me a lot of— I don't know if it was even legit, right?

He's like, me and my buddies though had to sneak in the middle of the night and we had to take out the anti-aircraft guns so that these B-111s could roll in, drop bombs, and roll out, not worrying about any threats from the ground. I'm like, what do you mean you took them out? Like, well, you show up in the middle of the night, we shoot everybody on sight, and then we put a bunch of explosives on the guns and run away and they blow up. Like, holy shit, like, that's what I want to do, right? And up till then, this is the '80s, right? I wanted to be a ninja up till then because ninjas, you know, the movie Revenge of the Ninja was like my favorite movie. I was like, I want to be— My favorite. I love that movie. I want to be a ninja. I want to be a ninja. I meet this guy in a Frankfurt airport I'm like, okay, all right, I'll switch over to SEAL now. I want to be a SEAL. And of course, later you find out, like, well, if you murder people as a ninja, it's called murder.

But if you murder people as a SEAL, well, then you get labeled a hero. It's like just a matter of picking the right side of the line in life, right? So anyway, I switched from ninja to SEAL and— Switched from ninja to SEAL. And when we got back, I remember going to the library and starting to try and find these SEAL books. And there was only I think there was one and it was like a picture book.

Only one?

I think there was one SEAL book that I could find in that library, in the Abqaiq Library in Saudi Arabia.

Wow.

Times have changed. Well, yeah, I've contributed. Yeah, that's actually kind of funny. So now we have a whole section of our— Yeah. Oh, boy. And so I find one SEAL book, and I think it was like a picture book, you know, and it just had photos in it, like guys coming out of the water, the camouflage face and the jungle hat and different things. And I started digging in and digging in. And, man, interestingly enough, they had this career-oriented MS-DOS computer system at the school, and you would sit at it during— I don't remember if it was during class or something, and you would answer questions, click, click, click. Green screen asking you a question, A, B, C, or D, A, B, or C, D. And you, you know, as a kid it felt like 300 questions, it was probably 50. And you answer all of them, and then on the printer, you know, with the green line, green and white line printers with the holes in the side, you know, print it all up. And then it would tell you, you know, based on your interests, what kind of career path you should take.

And sure enough, the top 3, the first one was Offshore rig scuba diver, welder, right? Marine biologist. And the third one was UDT. Didn't even say SEAL yet. It just said underwater demolition team, United States Navy. And I was like, huh. So then that led to looking into scuba. I found out that I had met the minimum age for PADI certification, which at the time was like 12 years old. So, I told my dad and he's like, okay. And, there happened to be a PADI scuba instructor guy that would do classes at night. He worked for Ramco, but he was also a master diver and had all the instructor quals for PADI. And so, we'd go to the local pool and you do all your lessons and deep end and learn all the class and you take the test and then eventually you go do open water, right? You go out and this is the Persian Gulf.

Right.

Korea Beach, you know, and going out, walking out through sand, crappy murky water. You know, the Gulf then is the same as it is now. Go to the bottom, do your open water part, get in a circle, instructor's in the middle, makes you take your mask off, and then you got to clear it and all of the little things. And, uh, did all that, got my qual, and my scoutmaster An adult who also was scuba qualified was like, once he learned I was scuba, I was like, hey, do you want to go do Tire Reef? I'm like, yeah. I'd heard about this Tire Reef. It was a, it was a reef made of the tires that they use on the big desert vehicles out, you know, they're massive. The tires are the size of this room. And, and it's a whole reef where they've dumped them, stacked them. You know, done different things with them that you can go to. So the way you get there is you go out to the end of a pier. We get to the end of the pier, and it is the biggest swarm of jellyfish I've ever seen in my life.

My scoutmaster's like, "Yeah, don't worry. We're just gonna instead of jumping in and giving me the okay, don't fill up your BC with any air. Just take that leap. We'll jump right through them, sink to the bottom. I'll find you on the bottom." I'm like, "Uh, okay. This is my very first dive." And so, you know, hold your face and mask. Take your step off the pier into the jellyfish. You know, of course. Of course, it's pins and needles, my face and my hands, everything, right? Pass through the jellyfish, get to the bottom. There he is. It's murky, it's dark, but I see him. Bubbles. Okay, okay, okay. Give all the hand signals. Off we go. And he has this rope that's along the bottom, and you just start going along the rope. And I'm right behind him. We're just pulling ourselves, and it takes you out to the tire reef. And we get out to the tire reef. You're kind of cruising around, you know, you kind of get up and some of the tires are upright and you can go up, blow a bunch of bubbles, create a big bubble, go in there for a split second, clear your mask, whatever, put it back on, do what you're not supposed to do, right?

And, um, and then we cruise around some more. Well, before you know it, I lose track of this guy and he loses track of me. And I'm looking out in the distance for bubbles. I don't see bubbles. So I'm like, what the fuck? And I'm all by myself now, 12 years old, out the tire reef. So I circle this thing half a dozen times, looking in and out of the tires, looking around for him. I can't find this dude. And then I'm like, okay, well, maybe I'll just go back. Okay, so now I'm looking for that rope. Well, I didn't pay attention where that rope came in on the, on the reef. So now I'm on the perimeter looking for this damn rope, which I can't find the rope. I'm like, well, now I'm starting to panic. And I'm like, what the fuck do I do now? So I'm like, well, there's the surface and I can figure out my bearings. So I go ahead and start to make the ascent, hands up, you know, following all the textbook rules, which I just learned. I get to the top, break the surface, fill up my BC, look around.

It's choppy, it's horrible, it's cloudy, and I can't see land. And so I'm circling, circling in a panic. But, you know, I'm only right here.

Mm-hmm.

So I'm like, well, Kick really, really hard, get myself way up. And I do that bobbing, basically 360, boom, see land like, oh, thank God. Fill up my BC, start turtle backing. And it felt like it took an eternity to get back to that beach. I was way down from the pier. I drifted, get to the beach. At 12 years old, you're single, little 180 tank in your BC. It feels like it weighs £1,000. And I'm carrying my fins and all my crap and walking back and he's sitting at a picnic table. Oh, hey, what's up, man? Was that fun or what? And I'm looking like, what? I was like, you left me. And he's like a grown-ass adult, you know? And, um, but I tell you what, I probably leveraged that experience. I don't know how many times in BUD/S, you know, like Beehive, anytime you're doing pull comp. Like that moment, I was like, oh, I've already, I've already been lost at sea.

Mm-hmm.

And, you know, and tried, had to figure this shit out on my own as a kid, you know? And not that, Pull a comp or any of that stuff was easy, but I definitely leveraged that moment. I don't know how many times. It's like, okay, you've been here, you've kind of done something like this kind of sort of at least once in your life when you were a kid, so you can definitely handle as an adult.

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So, good question, man. I, I always wanted to go to the Navy. I just didn't have the balls to like actually sign up, you know? And I didn't know, you know, back then you didn't— there was no information. There's no internet or anything to leverage to like, okay, well, how do you become a Navy SEAL, you know? Um, I ended up going to University of Houston of all places. And, and I ended up meeting a guy, Rick, Rick and Brian. But Rick was the guy I met and he had been to BUD/S. I was like, and he was like this goldmine of information. And I was like, so tell me all about it. And he's like, well, he told me as far as he made it, which was like Hell Week or whatever it was. And he ended up having an injury and ended up out of the Navy. So he could only give me so much, but gave me enough to know that, okay, you got to be able to do push-ups, pull-ups, this, this and that. And you just go to a Navy recruiter and sign up. And I was like, okay. So once I learned the, you know, very basics, um, and I started working out with this guy, and then we pulled in another guy, Brian, and then, uh, the 3 of us were like, well, I kind of motivated them in a weird way.

They're like, well, why don't we just all go in together? I was like, you would go in again? It's like, fuck yeah. So we went to the Navy recruiter, and at this point I had maybe a semester left on my degree. I was like, hell, gotta scratch it, right? So we go to Navy recruiter, we sign up, and, uh, I didn't tell anybody until about— I didn't tell my family or anybody because my dad, you know, he's like big on college, finish college, da da da. But I was like, screw it, I'm going. We signed the dotted lines, and about 2 weeks from leaving to go to Chicago for boot camp, you know, like told my parents. Of course my mom cries and My dad was kind of like, what? I was like, yeah, it's going to happen. He's like, all right. And, you know, off we went. The 3 of us went to boot camp at Great Lakes at Christmas, left right before Christmas. It was great. Sideways snow, learning how to march. You know the deal. Spend 8 weeks learning how to march and make your bed. That's, that's Navy boot camp.

Yeah.

And then, and then A-school. I picked corpsman. I was going to school for kinesiology at USC.

Okay.

Yeah. So I was going to— I thought, oh, it's like sports medicine, you know, kind of had an interest in medicine from doing my first aid merit badge. And then I realized basically Navy Corpsman School basically is the Boy Scout first aid merit badge. That's really it. 3 months. You learn really nothing. You know, you learn how to take pulse and count breaths and maybe stop bleeding of some sort. And then, uh, and then you show up to San Diego, BUD/S Class 203.

203. What year is this?

'95?

'95.

I think that started in '95, graduated '96. No, started '96, graduated in '96. Fuck, I don't know. '95 to '96, I think. Yeah.

What'd you think of BUD/S?

Um, BUD/S is— you've had enough guys. So the only thing unique for me Is my true, true name is Smith, right? Everybody has a pen name, right? And so there was we started with 180 something guys in our class, and there was probably five or six Smiths. Okay, and as you know, at the end of every day of first phase, you go to the first phase classroom and you sign deficiency chits. I was C. Smith on the list. So of course, I ended up with every deficiency chit for all the other Smiths every single day.

Damn.

And what is the one word we're only allowed to say all through BUD/S? Hoo-yah. So mine always had a question mark at the end. You know, they'd say, Smith, push-ups! And then they'd pull out another deficiency. Pull-ups! Another one for, you know, the O-course, the swim, the run. And I'd go up there, hoo-yah, and sign every single one of them. There was like, you know, 4 to 6 a day, to where eventually a couple of the instructors are like, pull me aside with this other kid Garcia, and they're like, hey, you two suck. You guys are horrible. I mean, I don't understand why you show up to this course and you can't do push-ups, pull-ups. You suck at the O-course, you suck at runs, you suck at swims. You know, remediation. I want you to show up at the First Phase office when the day is done every day from here on out. And this was an instructor who was fresh out of SEAL Team 6. He had a reputation for being wired a little tight, and he looked exactly like Richard Gere. And anybody from my era who hears this knows exactly who I'm talking about.

And I remember showing up like, holy— this is gonna suck, right? Show up, first phase office right next to the bell. You're staring at that bell. He comes out, he's got a big old dip in, he's spitting. You're on the grinder. Hold on a second. Goes back inside, grabs his lawn chair, folds this thing out. And we're like— I kind of look over at Garcia and like, we're in this for the long haul, man. This is gonna suck. And, uh, and he's like, 8-count bodybuilders, begin. And we just start going. About 30 minutes into it, which is a long time doing 8-count bodybuilders, he's like, go hit the surf. And so we take off like, oh, thank God. And that's a long run to the berm, over the berm, into the ocean, back, you know, get wet and sandy, the whole thing. Come back, push-ups, ready, begin. Start doing push-ups. 8-count bodybuilders, begin. Pull-ups begin. You know, fireman squats, putting him on my shoulders doing squats, put on his shoulders doing squat, fireman carry to the surf, switch, come back. You know, so I carry him to the surf, we dump him in the water, get wet and sandy.

Now he puts me on his shoulders, go back, and this goes on. And it's starting to get dark, and I'm like, dude, they're gonna— and while we're whispering to each other, and then definitely while we're hitting the surf, like, dude, they're gonna try and make us quit. This is gonna suck. You know, don't quit. Okay, don't quit. Yeah. And this goes on every day of first phase for me in Garcia. And we get about before Hell Week, and Hell Week at that time was the 6th week of BUD/S. So we're probably week 4 of getting my ass handed to me after every day. And at this point, a couple other Smiths had quit finally. I was like, thank God, because these guys were screwing me over every day. And, uh, so Garcia, we're doing push-ups and he decides to cross his feet for some reason instead of at attention, ankles side by side. He crosses, which is what instructors would do, right? They'd cross their foot doing push-ups. And the instructor gets out of that lawn chair and Thai kicks him so hard in the ankle, snaps it, breaks the kid's ankle.

No shit.

And I'm like, oh God, just keep doing pushups. Keep doing pushups. Don't look. I didn't see anything. And then there was a hesitation and the instructor's like, keep going, get your feet right. And he couldn't, he couldn't get that ankle to do what he needed it to do. Right. And he's like, you know, take him to the surf zone. So I throw him on my shoulders, fireman carry him to the surf zone, throw him in. And this kid's borderline crying. He's like, not crying because of pain. He's crying because he knows that he's not going to be able to continue, you know? And it hits him hard. And he's like, he goes, dude, I think he broke my fucking ankle. And I'm like, I think I heard something snap, but put some weight on it. He kind of puts weight on it, kind of gives, and he's just like— and things start swelling up. I mean, shit. Throw him on my shoulders to bring him back. And that instructor's like, no, you carry. You're supposed to switch. Couldn't do it. He couldn't even get me on his shoulders. He couldn't even stand. And so the beating stopped at that point.

He's like, go put ice on it. I'll see you guys tomorrow. Next day, he goes to medical and, uh, never to see him again. I don't even know where that kid went. And that was the end of his career. Crazy part is we get through Hell Week. We get to dive phase, and I remember it was like day 1 or 2 of dive phase. The first phase instructors come in with second phase instructors and they're like, everybody drop in the whole, the whole room, right? We drop and we knock out whatever the required push-up is. What is it in dive 40? You get bumped up from 30 to 40 or—

And I cannot remember.

Whatever it is. So we knock out our push-ups. Now we're still in the lean and rest. And one instructor is like, all right, whoever witnessed instructor so-and-so hit a student a couple of weeks ago, stand up. And I'm like, nope, I'm not gonna do it. Stay in the front line and rest. And then they go on, start beating us, and to where the class leader is even like, whoever it was, just identify yourself. Nope, I am not going down this path. I just held on to it, man. And they beat us a couple of times during first phase. And I remember one night we got back from one of the first night dives, still got the twin 180s on, we still got our rubber on. And, and it was like, once again, who was the man who saw an instructor in first phase hit another student. And, uh, I was like, I'm not doing it, not giving it up. And so they made us put our fins, you know, one in your left hand, one in your right hand, filled up our masks with water, and then we did the death march with our twin 180s on all the way down to the demo pit— demo pits, which is— I think it's a mile and a half down there, a mile and a half.

So it's 3 miles.

Mm-hmm.

Well, you have your hands out, fins out, mask full of water, soft sand, march, twin 180s in rubber. And, uh, I still— everybody in that class at that point was basically like, whoever it was, give it up, give it up, just tell them. Nope. This is the first time actually I'm kind of like saying it out loud, you know. What's funny is Fast forward 10-plus years, I, um, where the hell was I? I was in some East Coast locker room and there he was. And he's a warrant now.

No shit.

Instructor. Yeah. And I went up to him and said, I don't know if you know this, but I'm pretty sure I saved your ass when you were a BUD/S instructor. And he just kind of looked at me. He's like, oh yeah, why? I was like, do you remember me? And he's like looking at me and, I don't know. Yeah, you look kind of familiar. We crossed paths, you know, overseas, wherever. I'm like, nope, it was BUD/S. BUD/S Class 203. And there was just this moment. And then he's like, his eyes got a little bigger and I could see a little bit more of the whites in his eyes. He was like, holy fuck. Yeah. He's like, I almost got shitcanned for that shit, man. You, you were the guy that never came forward. And I was like, yeah. And we kind of laughed, you know. It's like, it's like a big thing, you know. But yeah, full circle, you know. That was probably the highlight of BUD/S other than my trouble— troublemaking side, you know. I carried a Handycam from first phase all the way through and made a video of our BUD/S class. I snuck that thing around the whole time.

Wow. Damn, no shit.

And then had it edited out in town in San Diego, and they pieced it all together and gave everybody— back then it was cassettes, VHS cassettes. Everyone got one when we graduated, and it had all these moments. I had set the camera once, like, in our cage. Remember the cage area out on the beach? So I set the camera up there and hit record, and we were just getting our asses handed to us out on the beach. And then there was a time where the instructors had us in the dip tanks, you know, trying to freeze us. Yeah, you know, and I'd gone and set the camera up while we got our asses handed then.

Oh shit, do you still have that?

I do, I do. I have all the footage somewhere.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

I wish I had something like that.

Oh yeah, it was, uh, it was a thing, you know. And, um, then later we got— I got them— I had it burned to DVD and that's what I have left now. I'm like, where's the DVD player? Yeah, that was BUD/S.

Right on.

Them looking for me.

Right on.

Yeah, getting my ass handed to me. And the beatings after First phase didn't end until then. Finally, when the last Smith quit, they stopped. No more deficiency checks. Yeah, right on. It's crazy.

Where did you want to go from there?

I always wanted to go to Team 3.

Why?

Well, growing up in Saudi and not liking the culture, and that was before Force 21, you know, So Force 21 is when the community was restructured so that everybody deployed everywhere. Prior to that, the teams were all regionally focused. So SEAL Team 3 was the Middle East. And so that little kid in me, right, was like, I'm gonna come back someday and fuck with these people, you know?

Right.

And so that was, that was the driving factor, you know, that 8-year-old Clint, man, it's like you think about how powerful that is when things happen to you when you're a kid, right?

Yeah.

So you fast forward to us being in Iraq, and I remember looking at this kid, probably around 8 years old, looking at me with evil eyes going, well, guess what I had? I had options. 8-year-old, I can be a doctor, I could be an attorney, I could do whatever the hell I want. And what did I do? I stuck with that passion that was put there when I was a kid.

Interesting.

Yeah. Now you look at these kids and you're like, huh, what opportunities they have?

It's a damn good point.

Zip and zero, you know? Yeah. Well, those moments of reflection, right?

You know, a lot of people want to know, they always want to know, you know, what got you through BUD/S? What was it?

Man, in the moment, it was just pure desire to be better than who I was at the time. I saw myself before I went in the Navy. I was just going down. Even though I was in college, I just felt like a loser. And I didn't know what I wanted to do. And I had SEAL on the brain since I was a kid. And so I just felt like I was destined to be a loser, and I was like, man, I'm going to do everything and anything in my power to prevent that, and needed to prove it to myself more than anything. And you know, and I think like a lot of us that come from like broken homes, we're just trying to prove to ourselves on a regular basis that we're worthy and that we can be better than what we are. And then the minute you achieve it. You're looking for the next thing to be better because it only satisfies you for about the 30 seconds you get that trident punched into your chest. And then you're like, I'm a fucking loser still. I'm a fucking loser. You know? Then you can make it to a national agency and be like, I'm still a fucking loser.

Mm-hmm.

Then you can get to a Tier 1 command and be like, yep, I'm still a fucking loser. And that's the drive. And it's— sometimes I feel like it's still there today. Just a fucking loser. And you're just trying to prove that you're not every single day, you know?

Are you proving it to yourself, or are you proving it to somebody else?

Well, I think early on I was probably doing it— I didn't even realize it. You know, you're, you're definitely not doing it for yourself. Right. I think early on I was trying to prove it to family and friends and this and that. And then you get older, you get a little wiser, and you start reflecting a little more and you go, okay, yeah, I'm definitely just trying to fill—

Who in your family were you trying to prove it to?

What's that?

Who in your family were you trying to prove it to?

I think early on, I, you know, I was like, oh, just even for my little brother, give him like, hey, him be proud of me kind of thing, or my mom, or your dad, or your friends, you know, maybe even, you know, who I was engaged to at the time, stuff like that. You know, you're kind of like— but it's not till later you realize, no, I wasn't. I was, I was definitely proving it to myself, but telling myself a different story, you know? Yeah. Yeah. It's, uh, I think, you know, that childhood stuff is sticky. Yeah. You know, for all of us, you know, you look at the community, it's what, some crazy— I don't even know if it's been proved, but you hear it all the time, like, oh, 95 or 90% are from broken homes. And that's special operations as a whole. Yeah, it's interesting.

But I mean, I've learned that in here.

Would you say almost everybody— has anybody come from like a normal home? You?

I did.

Oh, yeah. So mom, dad stayed married. Everything's happy. Yep. Wow. Yeah, that is an anomaly. And Mike Ritland.

Yeah, my parents have been married for 50 years. Yeah, but I know I'm an anomaly, you know, because the majority of the guys that come in here, it's child abuse, sexual abuse. Like, it's just— it's— I had— I had no idea how common all those things actually were.

Yeah.

Until I started doing this. And, you know, the majority of guys and women, you know, that have been on the show have been through that at some point in their childhood, if not the entire time. And man, I think that's, that's one of my, uh, I mean, it sucks to hear it, but it's also, uh, I think it's a beacon of light because I do realize how common it is and That means millions and millions and millions, hundreds of millions of kids are going through it right now. And they see this and they see that there's a way out of that that can be a tremendous success. And so I think it's a beacon of hope. I hope it is to a lot of those kids that are going through that.

Yeah. And you don't know any of it at the time. You think that's normal. That is your norm. Whatever your parents or your priest or whatever it is that's going on in your life, you think it's the norm until you realize one day that it wasn't, you know. And but until then, it's like almost like a superpower. It can drive you and you don't even know it. You know.

I felt like a loser too. You know, that's— I think that's what got me through.

Yeah.

But I know that's what got me through. I didn't even give a shit about being a SEAL after a while.

I was just like, I, I have to do this.

Yeah, but, but I know you, you had a loss right at graduation, correct?

Oh, yeah. Yeah. So You know, it was— we graduated BUD/S and, uh, went to 18 Delta, checked into— yeah, is that the order? Yeah, 18 Delta, then jump school, then checked into SEAL Team 3. And, uh, checked into SEAL Team 3, you know, and as you know, back then STT Was what is now SQT, and it was all handled in-house. And each SEAL team had its own training cell. Had gone through STT, was on the tail end of it, and had just jumped into a platoon. And this is back when your platoon decided when you got your Trident. And is the Fourth of July demonstration. New guys are usually the ones that get chosen to go. do the Frogman version or all the Frogman tasks. So mine was the Frogman, Draeger diver, 3 of us online coming out of the water with our guns and looking cool and walking through the clack— the crowd of people that are there for the rest of the 4th of July demonstration stuff. And it's that morning, my, my mom and dad had come to visit and they were going to watch the demonstration. And so, oh, actually it was the day before, the 3rd of July.

And, um, my dad had gotten up that morning, and I lived in a condo in downtown San Diego, and so you could like walk down the street, get a newspaper kind of thing. So he walks down, man, never comes back. And so cell phones were still in their infancy then, you know, you had landline. I don't even remember if there was a cell phone involved. Either way, made, you know, communication far difficult than what it is now. And so he left, he didn't come back. Time goes by. I had to go to— I knew I was pressed for time on the rehearsal stuff, but it got to the point where it was like concerning. You know, I had already driven the neighborhood. I'm looking for him. It's like, kind of— he's a very squared away dude. Like, he didn't get lost. He may have gotten distracted looking at like architecture homes and stuff because he's an engineer kind of guy. No, that wouldn't be it, you know. And you kind of do this process of elimination, creating excuses, driving around, starting to stress, stress, stress. And then by the time I get home, somebody had called the landline.

It was my dad's brother and says, hey, your dad is at the hospital. I'm like, is he okay? And like, yeah, yeah, I heard him in the background. Like, oh. Huh, did they say what happened? No. Okay, so I drive over to that hospital, and I had also done paramedic school before this, so, and so I knew this hospital really well from doing all my paramedic runs. And so as soon as I walk in, do the name ID thing, they started walking back towards the chapel, and I knew that. those doors. And I was like, oh, fuck. And so the rest of the ER is to the right, and I saw, um, a set of closed curtains. And so I beelined it there. I stopped following the doc that had bad news, and I just went straight over there. And I was with my brother, and he was— he's 11 years younger than me. He kind of followed me, and I didn't even think about it because I was like on a mission. And so I pulled back the curtain And my dad was already in a body bag laying on the table, and he had an ET tube sticking out of his mouth.

They leave it all that like that, um, prior to the autopsy. And so then it was like, that's when I realized like my brother was looking at the same thing as me. And so it's like a very emotional thing. And so I just got my brother out of there because he was too young to be seeing that. And then, uh, yeah. And the part that really was crazy and sucked is that obviously worse— not anything worse than that, but, um, he had brought this motorcycle, 1970s Triumph Trident, and, uh, he had rebuilt that whole thing, blacked everything out, chromed anything that could be chromed, and then put 2 tridents on the gas tank. You know, it was pretty badass thing. Was made a Harley sound like a Honda. It was so loud because it was a triple 3-cylinder Triumph Trident. It was the same motorcycle Evel Knievel used to, you know, jump buses or whatever, you know, he used to do. Same kind of— same exact make and model. And, uh, yeah, I had that thing forever. But that was like his gift to me for finally getting my bird and the whole thing. But it was, uh, that was the kickoff to You know, showing up to SEAL Team 3.

Yeah, it was, it was a shitty moment for sure, and it used to bring me to tears. But I think, you know, as time goes by— because that was 1997, he was 46 years old.

46?

Had a massive heart attack in between 2 parallel-parked cars. So when he dropped in between them, nobody could see him. He was young enough to probably have survived it. And, um, I went into like investigation mode afterwards and went back to that area. And I talked to this lady who said she thought she heard somebody yell, but she was— had her hair dryer going. She turned the hair dryer off because she thought she heard something, looked out her window. Her window was at an angle where you couldn't see in between the 2 cars. And then I talked to the paramedics, and I knew those guys, and, um, Yeah, just a shitty way to kind of kick off the, the SEAL Team 3 portion of the career, you know. I was like, man.

Damn, man.

And it's all the stuff that he would have loved, although all of our stories, you know, every dad wants to hear all of that, you know. And so it was like, I always had these moments, I was like, man, my dad would love to hear this or see that or shoot that gun or whatever. But yeah, it was a Definitely a shitty way to kick it off. So— You still have the bike? I had the bike for a while, and, uh, my mom— there's a whole other story— she ended up selling that thing because she needed the money. So some guy in Texas has it. But, uh, yeah, be kind of nice to get it back. But yeah, she got rid of it a long time ago.

She needed cash.

Damn. Yeah. Yep. Um, but Team 3 was a, you know, the, you, you know, the reputation, like the West Coast, you have SEAL Team 1, which is like Stalin Team 1, right? Super strict. Then you had Team 5 that was super laid back. There was no Team 7 back then. Then you had Team 3 that was in the middle, like probably one of the coolest teams to be at. It had a little bit of both, you know, strict But also you could have fun, you know, it wasn't miserable like some of the guys at Team 1. And, uh, yeah, it was a good place to be.

If there's anything you could say to your dad right now, what would it be?

Oh man, like, I think number one it'd be thank you for— because I've always looked at any Any man who— see, this is that Oprah Ryan portion you're trying to pull out of me. I'm going to leave tears on this chair with everyone else. If there was any guy, like any guy that takes on a mom and her 3-year-old, because that's what he did. He wasn't my dad, you know. So any guy that'll take on— he's doing his master's, he's working a full-time job, and he's taken on my mom. in me at age 3, that to me is like a pretty honorable, amazing thing, right? So I don't think I got a chance to really go, hey, you know, thanks for taking that big step. That's a huge step for a 20-something-year-old, whatever age he was. You know, I'd definitely say thank you because he was a— He was a rock of sorts because my mom was not. So, and he did the best he could for sure, you know, filling that role. So I'd, I'd definitely just tell him thank you. Yeah, you almost got me on that one.

That's cool, man.

Yeah, yeah, good dude. But yeah, the stories that he would have loved to have heard, you know. It's like, damn, man. You know, that's the only guy you want. You don't care about telling your friends or, or, you know, even other team guys. It's like, you know, if you're gonna tell stories, it's the dads that want them and deserve them, you know, not really anybody else. So...

Yeah.

Yeah. Would have been cool. But hey. You know, life goes on. Just keep moving forward, right? Compartmentalize it, deep-six it to the bottom of your soul, and deal with it some other day when you do ibogaine.

Have you met your biological dad?

I did. Yeah.

You did? Well, how old were you?

Uh, it was just a couple years ago, I think. Yeah. No, so there was a first time I met him We came back from Saudi, met at some park, and I just remember him asking my mom, wow, he's skinny. Do you ever feed him? And that's all I remember of that.

No kidding.

Yeah. And who knows, you know, his story and then my mom's story and the truth is somewhere in the middle, right? So, but yeah, I kind of— it was really what didn't meet him. Because I think I was probably really nervous as a kid and not knowing what the hell to feel or think about that crap. But, um, and then fast forward how many, how many ever years till just recently, you know, met him again. Pretty uneventful. Kind of asked him, gave it, interrogated him on a couple things my mom said and just was like, hey, so why this, why that? And he had pretty neutral, normal answers. And at this point he's an older guy too, so You know, but it was, it was interesting, you know, it was— he's shorter than me and, you know, you're just seeing somebody older, probably more frail than what he used to be. And so I think I had moments leading up to it where I was like, I'm gonna ask this motherfucker all kinds of questions and put him on the spot and ask him this and that. And but once you're there, you realize, you know what?

It's already come and gone at this point. It doesn't matter, you know. Anything I asked him was just curiosity, you know. Most of it was just about my mom because, you know, she was a little— she was a little on the crazy side.

Did you get anything out of that?

I think I didn't get much out of it, but I think— I think and I hope it gave him something. It was weird. I felt like I was kind of doing it I felt like I wanted to do it for him. Because you think if you put those shoes on, you go, okay, all these years have gone by. Didn't play a role in raising this kid. I know I kind of thought like, well, maybe he wants to give him something. You know, I thought it would give me something too, but it really— I didn't really notice anything, honestly. No, who knows.

Did you feel a sense of guilt from him?

Um, I noticed a little bit of nervousness. I think maybe a tad of— maybe there's a little bit of embarrassment in there. It's hard to tell because that's the first time to read them. Um, yeah, I didn't notice any guilt. But I think he was a little embarrassed knowing, right? He knows his own truth. So, and once I sensed that, I just kind of kept it simple, you know.

Gotcha.

Yeah, yeah. But I didn't give him any stories, you know. Those would have been kept for the, the dad, the guy who actually jumped in those shoes and did that job, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, let's take a break.

All right.

We come back, we'll get into SEAL Team 3. If you spend any time off-road like I do, you already know how easy it is to end up second-guessing where you're at, whether you're still on a legal trail or if the route ahead is even worth taking. That's why I've been using OnX Off-Road. It's an off-road navigation app that shows trails, public and private land boundaries, places to camp, and detailed trail info. All in one place. And what makes it really useful is the amount of actual trail data. You can check difficulty ratings, terrain details, trail photos, even recent reports from other riders before you head out there. The other big thing is you can download maps ahead of time, because once you lose service out there, your phone is pretty much useless. But with onX Off-Road, everything still works offline. And if you're riding with a group, their location sharing feature lets everybody stay on the same map so nobody gets lost or separated. What I like most about it is it gives me a lot more confidence when I'm exploring somewhere new. I'm not wasting time backtracking, accidentally ending up on private land, or trying to figure things out once I'm already deep into the trail system.

I can plan ahead, know what I'm getting into, and spend more time actually enjoying the ride instead of worrying about navigation the whole time. Search OnX Off-Road in the App Store or Google Play. Again, that's OnX Off-Road in the App Store or Google Play. Looking for another way to support the Sean Ryan Show? Head to seanryanshow.com and check out the latest drops from Vigilance Elite. We just released new gear, including this beautiful moisture-wicking VE Performance hat and SRS Campfire mugs. And you guessed it, Vigilance Elite gummy bears. Oh shit! Every purchase directly supports the show and helps us continue bringing you independent conversations without compromise. Visit seanryanshow.com and grab yours today. All right, Clint, back from the break, moving into your time at SEAL Team 3. So this is where you and Mike Ritland became buddies, right?

Right. Yeah.

Did you guys go through BUD/S together?

No, he was several classes behind.

Oh, okay.

So I met him and Glenn and all those guys. They showed up. I think I'd already done a deployment or 2 when they, when they checked in as new guys. Oh, right on. Yeah. Back when you could tase people, right? You know, I don't know, what do you think? The hazing thing, I always felt like it was such a great thing, you know. Like, I equate it to, you know, you either did it for celebration or correction, and it worked either way, you know. If a guy was getting married, you haze him. If it was his birthday, you haze him. But if he's also really not performing the way that he should and/or, you know, had a safety violation or something crazy, well then You know, you haze them. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Just seems too bad.

I don't know what it's like now.

Yeah, I've heard, uh, yeah, I don't either ultimately, but I heard it's all kind of not that way. The camaraderie is not the way it used to be.

I didn't really get hazed. I got the shit knocked out of me. Oh, okay. I didn't really get hazed. Yeah. Yeah. Our guys, when we showed up, they, I guess they had a really bad that. And, uh, so they made like a— they were like, we're not doing that to our guys.

And what year was that for you?

That was— I don't— I think I showed up, it was '02 or '03, I can't remember exactly.

That's about when the Ethos came out.

But no, it wasn't any of that. I mean, it was a rough crowd. There was a lot of bar fighting. There was a lot of bar fighting. Yeah. Um, and I think they kind of more took an approach of We'll wait till they get cocky, and if they do get cocky, then we'll knock the shit out of them. And that's, that's what happened to me. So a couple times. But, um, but anyways, you got any good hazing stories? Yeah, let's hear about it.

Um, probably my new guy hazing, you know, because you get one when you check in, right? And it's like, uh, it was a thing. And I feel like a lot of this was leftovers because, you know, you look at the Vietnam guys that were left, there's a couple of them in the '90s when I checked in that they had created the culture. You know, Vietnamese— Vietnam-era combat vets created the culture of the SEAL Teams, especially during all that time of like peacetime or not really operating.

Mm-hmm.

And, um, so the hazing piece was such a big deal. And I remember we went to Shaw's, a new guy, And, uh, it's after doing runs in the house all day long, and then we're in the weapons cleaning room, which was like part of a house out there at Shaw's at the time. And, uh, me and one other new guy kind of realized we're by ourselves. There's no one else in here cleaning their guns right now. Where did they all go? And, uh, just as we realized it, they Roll in. This is back when you wore flight suits and balaclavas for all your CQB stuff, you know. So they roll in with their flight suits on and their ninja hoods, and they systematically, you know, tackle us, take us. And, uh, and it's cold at Shaw's. It's like in the 40s at night, 30s maybe. I remember the swimming pool had a cover on it. Somehow we end up out there. They strip us down butt naked and put— it's Justin, I'll just keep his first name— and they put Justin and I in the 69 position.

Oh, what?

And they tape us into the 69 position. And, uh, and then they pull out the mini blasting machine, okay? And they had— I don't know how they pulled it off. With— you can do anything with duct tape, but they had somehow got it to where my head is basically shoved into Justin's ass and his face is shoved into my ass. Right. And there's enough flesh exposed on our asses for the, for the lead wires of the mini blasting machine.

Oh, shit.

And puts— they duct tape those leads onto our asses and they have 2 machines. So once they had them in place and they're like, And then my ass would then clench his face because it sends that electrical current. So it's like tasing your ass, causing your ass to clench. And so interestingly enough, it was like my face kept getting sucked into his ass every time it would clench. It was like, you know, pull me in and pull me in closer, you know? And Justin, You know, he was— he loved squats, so his ass was definitely more powerful than my ass. So he didn't have it as bad. But, uh, and then of course it's freezing cold. They pull out the hoses, drenching us. And then the part that freaked me out was the swimming pool. They're like, let's just throw them in. Well, it had a cover on it, right? And these guys aren't always thinking, as you know, like the smartest.

Mm-hmm.

And this is how people accidentally die. And when there's hazing going on, like it happened out at the, you know, on the East Coast, you had the guys that tied the guy— he was on a spineboard and they tied it off to a bridge and then chunked him off and the rope didn't hold. Holy shit, I didn't even know that. He hit the water and it flipped over and he drowned because he was on the spineboard.

Wow, I did not know that.

Yeah, there was a lot of like stories about Hazing gone wrong back in the day. But, um, yeah, so I mean, they were gonna chunk us in and that cover would have just wrapped us up like Saran Wrap and you drowned to death, you know, while you're taped to the 69 position with, you know, your best buddy. But, uh, anyway, that, that was, uh, that was the, you know, welcome to the team's hazing out at Shaw's. Nice. Memorable for sure.

No, it sounds like it.

Yeah, that Team 3 early days, this is pre-9/11. You know, your workups probably in retrospect were more about liberty than it was about training. And you still trained and you trained hard, but you know, when you compare post-9/11 to pre, you realize, wow, we weren't really training that hard, you know. Um, and operationally you weren't doing much except Team 3. Team 3, we were doing all the shipboardings. And enforcing the embargoes against Saddam at the at the time. So, but training-wise, it's pretty like you know basic when you really reflect on it now compared to you know these guys are like running advanced you know day one which you would consider advanced if you were to compare the two eras right. But probably one of the most memorable. And I haven't talked about this as much, but one of the most memorable training exercises, I was paired up with my platoon chief, and he was a former Marine gone SEAL, hard as nails, one of those guys that never takes a break. You know, he never, you know, takes his boots off or lightens up his laces in the middle of a 10-klick hump. He always leaves his ruck on, never takes it off, you know, during, you know, an infill or an exfil.

One of those guys, right? Just loves being uncomfortable and never gives himself any grace or opportunity to just take a moment or take a breath. And, uh, so one day they're like, hey, so we get an opportunity to dive against, uh, the dolphins. I'm like, dolphins? What do you mean dolphins? And, uh, they're like, yeah, dolphins. I'm like, what is that, like some piece of technology or something? Like, no, no, they're real dolphins. Like, what do you mean we're diving against real dolphins? They're like, killer dolphins. They know how to kill people. I'm like, and we're gonna dive against them? They're like, yeah, man, it's gonna be awesome. You know, I'm like, oh, okay. So then it was a 14-man platoon. So 7 dive pairs get put out broad daylight, middle of San Diego Bay, and all you're told is like, yeah, These dolphins will come and, you know, they'll, they'll tap you and that's it. I'm like, kind of like, huh, all right. I don't even know what the hell they're talking about. I mean, this whole thing was like completely foreign to me. And as we're in the Zodiacs kind of heading out and our little points that we're going to drop each other off at, you know, Chief was like, all right, we're going to be near a pier.

I'm going to grab onto one of the structures down below. I'll hold on to it, kind of bear hug it and pretend to be you know, a pier structure pylon. And then you, you know, you're on the buddy line, so you just get below me and just kind of lay down on your stomach in the dirt and the sand down there and just pretend to be the sand. And I was like, okay. I don't even— like, it's so foreign to me. I'm like, what are we doing? You got Drager? Okay, we put their Dragers on. We go in. It's a beautiful day. Obviously it's San Diego. Every day is beautiful. And we go down, we get— we kind of make our way over to this pier and And, uh, we knew that there was a time when these, these dolphins were gonna be put in the water. It was either one or two of them. And the dolphin program obviously was like super hush-hush then, and now I think there's a Discovery Channel thing, and I've heard guys talk about them or whatever. But, um, you know, these things are basically trained to detect, uh, combat or enemy divers, and then will kill them.

And they have a harness that kind of slips over their head that basically gives them— it's like a weapon.

Mm-hmm.

And, you know, I'm not sure details— details don't matter for the story, but they are incredible animals. I think we all know mammals, these things are just as smart as us and they communicate. We know that as a pod or as a team, they can kill a great white. You know, they can get up to whatever it is, 30, 40 miles an hour underwater. And if they hit you, you'll die. Right. And so I'll never forget, man, we're in the water, we get set, go down. He grabbed— I kind of watch him grab on and pretend to be part of the pier structure. I stretch my buddy line out, I get on my belly, and I'm just kind of eating sand, kind of just hanging out on Draeger, just taking a moment and kind of thinking to myself, like, what? I don't even know what to expect on this. What the fuck is going on? You know? And then you hear, and you're just like, what the fuck was that? You know, in the water, everything is omnidirectional. You don't know which way it's coming from, and it sounds like it's right here, you know?

And you just keep hearing, you know? And then you hear, and you don't know if it's getting closer or further, where the— where it's at. And, uh, and then all of a sudden, I feel like this big thump right in the center of my back. Boom! Just kind of drives me into the sand a little bit more. I was like, oh, that must have been it. And so I just lay there still. And then now I hear my chief on Draeger, and he's yelling through his, you know, through his mouthpiece. And so I roll over and I look, and the sun is in the background. It's beautiful. And this dolphin is, like, just majestic, just hanging out, hovering above in space right there in the water. And you've got the silhouette of my Chief, and these two are taking turns punching each other. Okay? So now Chief's movements in the water, a punch, right? It's like, it's just slow motion, and he kind of hits the side of the dolphin down below its eye, you know? and kind of yelling at it like, get out of here! And then that dolphin would just look at him and go— and then wham!

And just hit him right in the chest, right in the Draeger, and then back off and kind of look at Chief. And Chief would look at the dolphin and then, ooh, another big swing and miss or hit. But it was nothing, right? And then the dolphin would look at him and go— and then whack! And then hit him again. And you hear him go, ooh! And each time this dolphin is hitting him harder and harder right in the center of the Draeger. And eventually, Chief, you know, the way they know whether they killed you or not is they have this Styrofoam cone on their beak, and it's supposed to pop off after they hit you and go to the surface, right? And while this thing wasn't coming off, and so he eventually gets smart and kind of grabs the Styrofoam thing and lets go of it, and they both look at each other. The dolphin just goes— And then just, and just disappears into the water. And like, holy shit. But probably one of— I mean, when it comes to like training and something, I mean, it was like funny and beautiful all at the same time.

Like, and I had that— I had my buddy line stretched out as far as it goes because I was like, I do not want anything to do with this.

I'm good.

Yeah, if it decides it needs to hit something else. Because there was rumors about one dolphin named Jake who had, uh, Broken a couple of team guys' backs hitting them so hard. Oh, broke ribs. And they ended up retiring him. And supposedly he had like kills in some harbor around the world where they deployed him.

No kidding.

Yeah.

Right on, man.

Yeah, super cool.

Wow.

But I mean, so point being is pre-9/11, you had time, you know, to go give— go be the training apparatus for dolphins, right? Because it was more for More for the dolphins than it was for us.

I didn't realize they deployed them. I thought they were all like base defense type stuff.

Yeah, I don't— I mean, I don't— I used to, I think, know more about— forgotten it all. But yeah, I think they had deployed them a couple times on behalf of other harbors and other countries kind of thing.

Interesting.

Yeah, interesting. But yeah, other than that, we're— our deployments were ARGs, you know. You'd have a couple platoons that have to sit on a ship and go do the entire ship deployment.

And I'll bet that was horrible.

It was horrible. Did 2 of those back to back. Um, actually, that's when, yeah, I met Mike and, and Glenn. That was theirs. So that was my second ARG and that was their first. And it was, uh, it was a good crew, so it made it kind of funny. I mean, Glenn Doherty, Mike Ritland, Shane Hyatt. It's like just the 3 of them alone is nothing but trouble. So, but, uh, yeah, we, um, I don't know if it was that one, but ship boardings in the Persian Gulf was like the thing before 9/11. Like Team 3 was doing them all the time and we kind of were like the pros at it. Why? What, what was going on? The embargo against Saddam at the time, oil, weapons, anything that was coming out of Iraq. So, there's a lot of smuggling going on.

Okay.

So, these things would come out of the KA completely blacked out. They would ride that international Iranian 12-nautical-mile line completely no lights. And, we would pretend to be fishing boats kind of hanging out loitering. Once they pass by, because these are big tankers, and so we would slowly roll in behind them because the superstructure created a natural shadow that the radar couldn't see behind them. It can only see in front. So you'd wait for them to pass by, and then you kind of slowly roll in, and then, you know, crank up the speed, and then, uh, get up next to these things. Those ribs would get skin to skin, hook, climb, get on board. At the time, it was like, this is the ultimate frogman op, you know. 20 knots, crappy sea state, you know, you climb up that ladder, You know, and a caving ladder is what, 6 inches wide, little aluminum with, you know, steel rung, you know, whatever the hell— what are those things made out of? Titanium rungs and aluminum wire. And up you go, you know, and you climb up, get to the bridge as fast as you can. Half of you go to the bridge, half of you go to lower, you know, lower steering.

And then take that thing, turn it into international waters and hand it over to NATO forces. And they take the oil or they take whatever's on board. And then you get off, get back on your boats and do it again because there was another one coming.

And how many were you guys doing?

You'd— God, you would do like between the big tankers and then a whole lot of dhows. You do a lot of dhows, you know, like those things were only like 100— the big dhows are what, 100, 150 feet long, something like that. You know, you do a bunch of those where you're literally pulling up next to it and like leaping, you know, from the RHIB over to the, to the boat. And, uh, you know, it kind of depends on the night. There are plenty of nights you're sitting around doing nothing, but in a deployment, you'd, you'd definitely get your fair share of hook and climbs.

Right on.

Yeah. And, uh, Team 3 started like inventing protocols and ladders and, you know, and started actually developing stuff and Just to make it go faster, smoother, you know. And yeah, it was kind of the thing, and it was the only thing going on, you know. I remember other teams were trying to get, you know, getting on the Middle East just so they could get that operational experience. But kind of goes back to— I think it was either one of our admirals, Olson, I think, you know, or maybe McRaven, you know— What used to be the op of the decade. Back then, you know, after 9/11 just became the op of the night, right? Yeah. Everybody was, you know, doing something cool every single night.

Yeah.

But pre-9/11, you're like, it was good to be at Team 3 because you're actually getting to work. You know, it was fun, but it was a good team. And then, and then what? 9/11 happened. And where were you? When 9/11 happened?

I was, uh, I had just graduated boot camp.

Oh, wow.

Actually, I'd just gotten out of a hernia surgery. I went through boot camp.

Hernia?

Huge hernia. I was scared to tell anybody because I thought they'd kick me out of the program.

Probably. And, uh, and then it just got so big, I was like, I had to go get it sewed up.

I have to do something. And I was like super reluctant. I was like, I don't want to get kicked out of the BUD/S program.

They're like, yeah, I'm asked, like, how long have you had this?

The whole time. Yeah. But, uh, but yeah, I just got out and then I was supposed to fly home actually, uh, for recovery.

Oh, perfect timing. Yeah, before, you know, but didn't fly home. Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, I was driving across Coronado Bridge to work that day and, um, At the time, my wife— ex-wife— she calls and is like, the United States is under attack. And I was like, well, shit, you know, what are you talking about? Then show up to Team 3, and sure enough, at the quarterdeck, um, there was a TV there and everybody was kind of staring at it. And just as I look over some guy's shoulder, Plane 2 went into Tower 2, like live, and watched it. I was like, holy shit, that doesn't seem like an accident. It's kind of weird. Why are these planes just flying into buildings? You know, so first you think it's like some air traffic control software glitch, you know, or it's like, uh, that's really weird. Then, yeah, then it just obviously everything escalated after that. Our— we had platoons ready that were about to deploy and everything shifted. And before you know it, we're helping them build their pallets. And they just— first place they went was Afghanistan. You know, Team 3 just kind of led the way.

And I remember I was like trying to get in on one of them and couldn't, you know. But shortly after that, Iraq kicks off. So before you know it, now we're covering Team 3— was this still before Task Force 21 when they said, okay, now all teams and all are deploying everywhere now?

Yeah.

Before that, it was just— we were all doing the math, like, how is Team 3 gonna maintain a war in Afghanistan and now Iraq? You know, and then McRaven, who came up with the whole Task Force 21 thing, you know, did it the right timing and seemed like they pulled that off overnight. Yeah, because before you know it, we push into Iraq and then Team 5 relieved us and it just became a— that became the cycle, you know.

What eventful operations were you on?

Uh, like, well, probably the biggest noteworthy Um, was the gas oil platform.

Okay.

Because that kicked off the war, and it was— we, uh, we were sitting in Kuwait waiting for that whole thing to happen. We— I know there was times we didn't think it was gonna happen, times we did. So we were just all, you know, basically fucking around. There's a tent city, you know, and we had 4— I think we had 4 to 6 tents that were ours, you know. And, uh, We had 2 tents across from one another, and I think you've heard this before, we had these cardboard signs on the outside of each tent. One that said, lions led by dogs, you know, and then the tent across from it had a cardboard sign that everybody could see that said, never before have so few been led by so many. Because, uh, All of a sudden there was, you know, dozens of '06 SEALs coming out of their reserve desk jobs now wanting to check the box on war that never got to do it during their tenure in the community. So we had never seen any of these officers before, and they literally just reservists came over. And then, of course, lions led by dogs, you know, that went over well.

I'll bet.

What's funny is none of them said remove those, and we were like the entryway into the area, so everybody read these big-ass signs written, you know, with Sharpies nice and thick. And, uh, and then we would just heckle people walking back and forth between our tents, you know. We had built a war garden, we had white picket fences. I mean, during the time we were just hanging out waiting for war to start, we just got in trouble. And I was the LPO, I was in a leadership position for that platoon. So of course I had all the leadership coming to me, can you please tell your guys to just at least wear their uniforms or something? I'm like, I'll try, I'll try, but you know, I'm telling you, it's not going to work, man. This is all about morale right now. Like, I'm letting them do whatever because that beats the alternative, trust me. And they're just like, well, you need to— they need to blouse their boots. I said, they're not blousing their boots. None of that's happening, not on this watch.

Wow.

It was, yeah, it was an interesting time. But that was leadership that had no combat experience, so they were very, uh, risk-averse is probably the best way to put it.

What a joke.

It was, it was, uh, it was interesting. Well, so then they're like, all right, you're gonna take down the gas oil platform. So we, uh, we train, train, train to dive in you know, set up a blow-and-go line, and then you hook your draggers into this line at about 10 feet down, and you blow and go. You close the valve, weapons up, frogman style to the surface, hook climb onto the— we trained that over and over and over again. And then at the last minute, um, at the time he was Captain Howard— Captain Harwood, uh, the guy who was very popular for wearing a mask on the news. The ball-headed— now he's an admiral, but at the time he was Captain Harwood. And, uh, he makes the command decision like, we got to prove the value of these jet boats. And we're like, what do you mean? You're just going to pull up, pull up to that go plat with your jet boat. Why can't we take the jet boats, you know, a nautical mile or 2 out and dive in and still prove the value? No, no, no. You're going to pull right up to that thing.

And we're just like, wow, for somebody who's risk-averse, you're putting us in— and this thing was lit up like a Christmas tree, right? It was this huge light bubble around this thing. You see us coming a mile away. And, uh, so that was the command decision that we're just gonna pull up to the surf deck of this GOPLAT, um, gas oil platform. And, uh, take this thing down. And intel said, hey, there's 3 bad guys and a hostage or something like that. And, um, like, wow. And even then, pulling up, they have obviously the high ground, the bad guys do, and supposedly it's wired to blow up. So at least for diving in, you got stealth on your side, element of surprise, all this and that. You you float in with some boats, that doesn't exactly give us the element of surprise. So it, um, it kind of started to smell and appear like, you know, this total suicide mission, which is one of, one of my new guys labeled it, you know, this is a suicide mission. Like, shut up, we're just, we're gonna have fun with it, okay? We're gonna do whatever we're told, you know.

So that same new guy ended up actually quitting. He, uh, he, we, uh Yeah, he was— he ended up saying, hey, this isn't for me.

I remember Mike Ritland told me that when I interviewed him.

Yeah, yeah. He— I was— I had asked him a couple times because there were certain questions he was asking in the briefs that kind of made you turn your head like, what are you doing, man? Why are you asking that? Like, is this smart? Should we be doing this? Is this our job? You know, he— and I remember confronting, asking him like, hey, man, you, you all right? And he kind of turned around, wait, are you all right? Are you the one that's scared? And I was just like, no, but you're kind of asking some questions that are concerning. Maybe don't ask those questions anymore in front of leadership, in front of us, you know, like just stop, you know. And then eventually ended up, yeah, gave up his bird, gave up everything and was like, I'm out of here.

I've never— I mean, wow.

Yeah. I mean, to go through all that training and earn your way, it's unfortunate, really. You know, but he had to like stay back in Kuwait. And, uh, we, after we took the gas oil platform down, you know, we got in our Humvees and drove north on Highway 1. I mean, I was really no mission. Just, hey, go to, go to Iraq. It's like, okay, you know, we're on our way with our Humvees we borrowed from the Army that had zero armor. We like took the doors off, you know, it was horrible. But, um, yeah, we ended up pulling up to that thing. I was boat 1, number 1 guy, jumped off on the surf deck. Shane was right behind me. We ended up taking those stairs at Mach speed, got about halfway up the stairs to get to the superstructure, and boom, first gunshot. I was like, holy fuck. And then on comms, I'm like, dynamic, dynamic. That was the word for like, okay, the gig's up, just go. And we get to the top. And it's right near berthing where the superstructure is. There's a guy standing in front of us, no gun.

We're like, get on the ground, get on the ground. We kind of move up to him, break, look to our right, and there's like, I don't know, seemed like a dozen dudes staring at us. And there was only supposed to be 3 bad guys and a hostage. And I'm like, now we're like, holy fuck, you know? And now everyone else is catching up. And, um, we're telling all these dudes, get on the ground, get on the ground, looking at their hands. And it was kind of— it was an overwhelming moment because you didn't know who had what. And we're thinking triggering device, and now you got all these dudes, and why are they standing here and not like— So real time, it's just one big puzzle. And what we do best, right? Just start, you know, stick to your training and start figuring out solutions. So get them all to the ground, looking for guns, looking hands. And then start clearing the superstructure, the berthing. That was the priority, to look for the triggering device if there was any, if the thing was wired to blow. Anyway, we ended up clearing it. And now you're clearing the entire— this thing was one click long, 7 decks.

So 7 clicks of 3D environment because the floors aren't floors. They're great. You can see up, you can see down. And it's a horrible environment. You know, when you are like, now we're like, wait a minute, it's not 3 bad guys. There's more. Now we got to go out 7 clicks of this and clear it. And so we just started clearing it from end to end and deck to deck, and it was a long-ass night. I remember we were so dehydrated and out of it, we weren't ready for it at all. I mean, if, you know, we're finding shoulder-fired weapons, anti-aircraft guns, and then it was wired to explode, all subsurface. So all the explosives were just below the waterline. And, um, find the— found the triggering device. We had some EOD guys with us, so they made everything safe. Um, it took hours. And, um, and then, and then we had Marines roll in. They kind of took over. So by the end of it, there was 27, I think 27 bad guys, no hostage. And there was like 16 of us, right?

Wow.

If they really wanted to man up with all the guns and the shoulder-fired rockets and the anti-aircraft gun, and, and then the place was wired to explode, I mean, it would have been an interesting— you know, following Saddam's first run, what did he do? He blew everything up and created these environmental disasters that made Bush, you know, the first Bush, look dumb, right? And so Our whole job was— the mission was, hey, prevent environmental disaster by taking the thing down before they could, you know, light themselves off, really. And, um, yeah, so then, uh, we turned it over to the Marines, and then we get back and we do a quick debrief and kind of like, all right, when was the first shot fired? And, uh, Turns out one of the boat guys arming the .50 cal in the bow was really nervous. No way. And so his thumb hit the button, launched that AD straight into the very pipe of oil that we are there to prevent spilling, you know, into the Persian Gulf.

Holy shit.

Yeah. And had choice words for him and put him on a plane back to the US. And I don't even know what happened to that kid, but yeah, who would have thought, right?

No.

And so now we take our Sanford and Son hoopties that we got from the Army, these Humvees that had zero armor, and, and we, uh, you know, load them up with MREs, water, and fuel. And then we had LAW rockets and AT-4 rockets zip-tied to every horizontal, vertical pipe, you know, or, you know, every part of the vehicle. And then our guns and comms. And they're like, yeah, just drive up Highway 1 and, uh, link up with the Marines. We're like, oh, okay, interesting. That was it. And so we start driving up Highway 1, Kuwait, across the border. I'll never forget the pride, you know, looking to our left and looking to our right, the lineup of the Marine Corps, because the Marines had the eastern portion of Iraq and then the Army had the western portion. And that's full on everything— tanks, artillery, all of the Cobras, everything you can think of. racked and stacked heading north.

Damn.

To just sweep the whole side of that country. And of course, the east had all the big cities for the most— you know, it had, you know, you know, hit Baghdad, Nasiriyah, Baghdad, some others all the way up to Tikrit, you know. And it was a full push, and we were part of that first wave. And it was true, like, seeing true combat, you know, like When we got to An Nasiriyah, the Marines were in trenches. It was trench warfare. You know, that's when Jessica Lynch convoy had just been hit. She was in a hospital that we could see right over there. You know, and we were sleeping under our Humvees, and they'd put the perimeter around a medical waste site. So it was all nothing but hypodermic needles sticking out of the ground, and we were laying on them thinking, "Wow, why are we getting poked?" And you'd look, and in the sunlight you'd see the the. the glitter, and you'd realize the glitter that was shiny on the surface was all hypodermic needles that they'd been dumping there for—

Holy shit.

And that's what we were sleeping on every night. Are you serious? It's crazy, right? And, uh, and then, uh, we kind of get settled in. Um, we had these pop-up tents that we had bought in Kuwait last minute, like camping tents. I mean, you know, so we're setting up camp, and then I remember me and Glenn were like putting up IR netting over our little We had like, what, 10 tents, little dome tents, like North Face tents, and then putting up IR, a big IR dome over that for like whatever reason, for shade, and thinking, okay, yeah. And then we got our lawn chairs out and we're all sitting around like, oh, this is war. The Marines are working hard. They had like nothing for us to do at first. And then, uh, and then at the time, Captain or Colonel, Colonel Kelly, right, who we later know as General Kelly working for Trump. Captain or Colonel Kelly, O-6, comes out onto the battlefield and he pulls us aside and he's like, all right, you my SEALs? We're like, yeah. It's like, there's a city called Suck Ass. It's probably called something else in Arabic, but I don't know it.

We just call it Suck Ass. Population 80,000. Okay, I want you, you my SEALs, I want you to go over there and start killing everybody. We're like, wait a minute, huh? He's like, yeah, 100 killer ops. I'm turning it on. Okay, ready, go. And he turns around and walks away, and we're just kind of like looking at each other like, well, there's only like 16 of us against 80,000. This ought to work out great, you know? And, uh, and I believe right after Al Nasiriyah, he was the first Marine colonel to be awarded general on the battlefield since Korea.

Wow.

Yeah, I think something like that. I have to look that up. Um, great guy, hardcore. I mean, the Marines were not fucking around, man. It was like a sight to see. And so, uh, yeah, we'd set up some L ambushes and we're kind of starting to get our feet under us operationally. Like, what are we going to provide? What are we going to do? You know, our OIC chief and myself started going to all the leadership meetings Just outside of An Nasiriyah and really starting to kind of figure out the groove of where, where to special— because they didn't think special operations would play a role. And this is conventional combat, you know, trench warfare up at the front. It's crazy, you know. And artillery going off that were set up behind us and Cobra helicopters rolling in regularly, lighting up the place day and night. You know, it didn't matter. You just constantly boom, boom, boom. It was really incredible to see. Um, and then, uh, then one night, you know, Glenn and I got pulled aside and, and at, um, Colonel Kelly's direction, we were told like, hey, keep this between you guys, don't advertise it, but we need you guys to go up to the front line and you know, start pulling dead Marines out of these trenches.

And the rumor at the time was that the Fedayeen were— you know, everyone was so tired. Like, I remember, I've never been that tired. You didn't sleep days and days and days. There was just no sleeping. And so the same thing applied to these Marines up in these front trenches. And supposedly the Fedayeen, those were the guys with the balaclavas and black trench coats They were sneaking in and like literally cutting throats while Marines were sleeping because they were exhausted. It wasn't because it was their turn to sleep or anything like that. And so we had heard that and we were like, what the fuck? And so we, um, so we went up one night and it was just Glenn and I, and we had like some Marines that were just kind of providing security and really just starting to pull bodies and kind of pull them to the back of the line. And it was probably the most emotionally intense thing that I had faced at that point, you know.

Shit.

This is real. And that's why they didn't want anybody knowing, because they— it was all very discreet because they didn't want to fuck with morale, they didn't want to fuck with the push. And, uh, it made sense, you know, like, hey, let's just get them— get the bodies, get them wrapped up and get them home.

And, uh, yeah, it was, uh You know, I'd never even heard about that.

Yeah, it was pretty haunting, and it's still haunting to think about because you look at them and they're kids, you know, you can look at them in the eyes and you're like, holy fuck, man. Um, but yeah, it was a, it was a thing. And, um, there was a, there were some other, you know, events that we had to help out with, with those guys, but Um, you know, Al Nasiriyah was, was messy. You know, I think it was also for the Marine Corps' first time for them to kind of get their combat legs under them too. There was like tanks wiped out everywhere. I mean, it was, it was like, holy shit, you know, because you wouldn't think that— we didn't hear anything about an actual battle going on. You just thought, hey, the United States military is just kicking ass, until you got there. You're like— Holy fuck, US tanks that are all burned out and fucked up, and, you know, a ton of like convoy vehicles that were burned out and, you know, had been attacked. And, um, just, you know, surprising to say the least. Um, then some days go by, we kind of got into our rhythm.

Um, we had a reservist commander kind of take over. who was very front-leaning. And finally we started kind of like really working, and we were doing hunter-killer. So we were going to all of your, um, any Scud that was pointed in any direction, but most of them were pointed towards Kuwait. We'd go find— we get reports about a Scud rocket or a launching site, roll in, put demo on it, blow them up, keep on moving. And that's kind of what we provide. As the line moved, we were always just a little bit ahead of the line. Um, doing reconnaissance and taking out some of these Scud sites, clearing buildings, ammo caches. And we did that pretty much all the way to Tikrit. And then Tikrit was supposed to be this— we, we meet up with the, the Marines, they set up a perimeter, we got into the center. It was the first time like, okay, now guys can take, take a break and sleep, you know. I remember one of the convoys we were part of Our, our Humvees stacked in the front was a ton of like convoy vehicles and behind was a ton.

We're kind of in the middle and the sun's coming up. We're all sitting in our seats lined up. And I remember waking up and I look at Zach to the right. I look at my OIC. I'm sitting, you know, back seat left, our point driver. He's passed out. And I step out and I look up the line. The main convoy's already left, but there's vehicles in front of us. And I walk up to them, they're all asleep. Then I look at the rest of the line. We're talking, I don't know, 20, 30, 40 vehicles, sitting ducks as the sun comes up. And everybody is passed the fuck out. Could not stay awake. All the drivers are asleep while the front convoy had already left, you know. So—

Oh shit.

I quickly start— we run, start waking everybody up, waking, you know, down the line, getting everybody awake, getting engines running, and then start moving. I mean, it was— sleep became this— you didn't realize it, you just was rare. You just didn't get any sleep at all. Every time you moved, you'd lay up for the night, you'd go out and do something, you'd lay underneath your Humvee to sleep, but you didn't sleep. You just had— I just had crazy nightmares of Fedayeen guys like cutting our throats in the middle of the night. Once I heard that story, it's all I thought about. And, um, yeah, and then we make our way to Tikrit and, you know, get inside this Marine Corps perimeter. I'm like, all right, it's time to sleep. And, you know, I got told the guys, you know, just lay down, try and get some sleep. And me and LT took the first watch. And then like right when everybody's comfortable, all hell breaks loose. There's this explosion and gunfire, fucking shit coming at us. The Humvee, our front Humvee got hit, got a bunch of bullet holes in it. And, uh, we take cover and trying to figure out what the hell's going on because you're inside a perimeter of Marines, which 18-year-olds on .50 cals, you don't know which way they're pointing these things, you know.

And, uh, all hell breaks loose. Get on NODs, you can see, oh, I saw this Fedayeen guys in this tree line. They— so the Marines have basically put the perimeter around some bad guys. And, um, because it was at night, they didn't clear it. And then we ended up inside the perimeter next to the bad guys. So the bad guys are over there and we're over here. We're trying to go to sleep, they're waking up shooting everybody. And, uh, so NODs, lasers, probably not even 100 yards away, we engaged them. I remember his first time, like, background, background, watch your background, you know. And, uh, ended up One of the guys ended up killing him. Then we get online, roll up there, search him. This is when you realize, first time, you know, these green tips, um, will zip right through somebody. Because we knew between us there was whatever, let's say 12 rounds. There was 12 holes in this guy. But during the whole time while we're engaging him, it was like he didn't even know he was being shot.

Mm-hmm.

You know, and this was '03, and so those— they were, you know, their green tips are just so hot, they're just zipping right through people. And he didn't even know it because he just kept on walking with his AK-47 like he's sneaking around, you know. And, um, eventually he drops, and, you know, you go up, search him, and then, um, and then, uh, and all the rumors of Tikrit the next morning was going to be a bloodbath. And so We went in, we knew we were taking Saddam's palace. And probably the most eerie thing is, is we roll in and there was nobody there. It was like the whole town had left, and it was so quiet that that made it even a little more like sketchy, you know. We set up, and I guess the Marines had their— did whatever they did, but for us it was uneventful. And, you know, we set up for, I don't know, a couple of days, a week. And just, uh, you know, that's the, the gold toilet, you know, seats. And, you know, the place had already been looted. And yeah, you know, the first kind of exposure to one of Saddam's palaces, his birth palace, you know, and all this and that.

And yeah, that's probably the long version, but it was one big op, you know. This was before operations had names.

What, what time span was it?

The whole first couple of months of the war.

No shit.

Yeah. So you're— yeah, I don't remember. I mean, it was just constant, you know, just moving, sleeping in the dirt. Oh, I remember while we're hanging out outside on Osiria, it's time for Jessica Lynch to get rescued, right? And we had heard like, oh damn, Nick's rolling in. And, uh, Sure enough, they roll in. Their Hummers had a nickname called Hammers, I think, because they had like supercharged motors and they were armored and they were very Gucci'd out or whatever, you know. So they, uh, their Humvees— I don't know where they were staged, but they were staged for them because they were staying in a 5-star in Riyadh, right? They get in their helicopters and their starched cammies, fly to their Humvees, get in their Humvees, and then drive to us. And here we are, we're like covered in dirt and grime and sleeping in the dirt. And it was the first time where you could see like these guys get out of their Humvees and they're kind of looking at us like, whoa, like these white side conventional SEALs kind of living in the dirt and in the combat and this and that. And I knew a couple of them there, you know, from the, you know, from Team 3 guys and touched base with them and everything and There's that like split second where we felt like, oh, we've got the upper edge on these guys this time because, you know, the competition between the regular teams and SEAL Team 6.

And but they rolled in and fucking annihilated that thing that night. Just, you know, one of my good friends was the gunner and just, you know, weapons free and just took out that entire bottom floor. with .50 cal, just lit it up. Overwhelming firepower. Then, then the assault team went in on the floor, and something I think came from the roof and got to her, grabbed her, and got her out of there. It's pretty cool. We watched it from afar. Back to feeling like a loser again. Well, I'm still a loser. I'm on a berm in An Nasiriyah, been here living under my Humvee, and these guys roll in, pull the rescue of the year off, and then go back to their, uh, 5-star Riyadh. Yeah, it's pretty funny.

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Yeah, during that ambush, um, there was pop shots we would take. You know, you had some idiots, man, that you gotta remember the ROEs at the beginning were— there really weren't any. You know, once You're like, every male of fighting age became kind of like, okay, that's a bad guy, that's a bad guy. And you realize in that first couple of months, dudes were taking their uniforms off and they were wearing civilian clothes. You weren't fighting an army.

Mm-hmm.

You were fighting what you thought were army guys dressed in civilian clothes, you know, and But there wasn't a lot of engagement at the beginning for any of this, any of those early SEAL platoons. That ambush, um, I definitely was shooting at those guys. And, uh, and then to the right of me I think was the AOIC, and to the left of me was my comms guy Zach. Um, but everyone else was just still trying to figure out what the hell was going on, get on NODs and kind of get online. But by the time they even figured out, it was over. You know, um, and I know our .50 gunner up, up top on the Humvee would— was taking shots from time to time at different stuff, and— but nothing like what was to come, you know, the future of, you know, the SEAL teams in Iraq or Afghanistan. I mean, holy shit, you know.

Yeah, yeah.

It was game on. But we were at the beginning when, you know, you still had leadership that was very, like I said, a little risk-averse. No one's dying on my watch kind of attitude.

Yeah.

You know, of course no one wants to die on your watch. But I remember at our debrief at the end, and it was, uh, yeah, it was Captain Harwood and our SEAL Team 3 head shed. And a big portion of that was a letdown, you know. And I told him like, hey, you know, when they're like, hey, you guys have any comments or concern? It's like, yeah, you know, like, this is the pinnacle and could be the only opportunity that a SEAL has to, you know, shoot people in the face, what he's trained to do. And you guys kind of hamstrung it, prevented it. Like, you took, you took that away from a bunch of guys, you know. If it wasn't for some of these reserve commanders we ended up working for, the Marine Corps, you know, probably wouldn't have been able to do anything. But once those guys kind of didn't have oversight over us, that was the only reason we were able to like actually do some fun stuff, you know.

Yeah.

But obviously it all changed once, uh, some more motivated, aggressive leadership got in there, man. Then the game was on, right? So yeah, um, it was an interesting time, you know. It was awesome. I wouldn't take any of it back or change it because everything has to evolve, you know. It's just the way it is. And when you take a, a bunch of SEAL teams and say, okay, now we're going to war, and it'd been, you know, 20, 30 years since anybody had really been true combat, then you start with the training wheels and eventually, you know, get to the point where guys are just crushing the enemy left and right every night.

It's interesting, you know, how you describe it. A bunch of reserve officers who had never been to war. Yeah. All scurrying out like a bunch of— like a bunch of cockroaches. Oh yeah. Going to war. Yeah. To prevent everybody to actually fight.

To go to war. Yeah. Yeah.

I know. A bunch of pussies.

Right. You know? Yeah. There's a lot of unfortunate moments with the leadership. And you— I mean, even I'm probably giving them excuses as we speak, but, you know, that, oh well, you know, we hadn't been to combat, we hadn't done this, we hadn't done that. But the truth is the truth at the end of the day for those guys. Yeah, they know who they are. So there's a lot of them.

Yeah, there's a lot of them.

Yeah. So where do we go from here? Well, came back from that trip, and that's when I was like, I was kind of disgruntled. I had my— I was, uh, Sailor of the Quarter, Sailor of the Year, put my officer package together. I was back at Team 3 and I was about to do my board. And I think it was like the day prior, I, um, I took my, my, my officer, my OCS package and just— was it OCS or Seaman Admiral? It was one of the programs. I just threw it in the trash right in front of my CO. I was like, I'm not doing this. I don't want to work with you guys. I want to stay with my guys, you know.

Wow.

So dumped it in the trash, and then the next guy in line, uh, took it. I think he's still in, actually. He's like— he's got to be a captain. But, um, yeah, totally threw that in the trash and was like, just didn't want to be part of that, you know. And, uh, and plus, we both know if you want to operate for the long haul, you stay enlisted, you know. And I wasn't there for the retirement. I wasn't even thinking about that, you know. I knew I was going to do 20, nothing more, nothing less. And I didn't care about the retirement. Something every now and then I'm kind of like, maybe I should have. But, you know, I wouldn't— I still wouldn't change it. The enlisted world runs the show. And, and you, uh, got to confirm that once you get to the East Coast, that the enlisted do run the show out there. But, um, yeah, I got back, threw my officer package in the trash, and then, uh, my Master Chief, um, you know, had told me about a new program and they were doing a screening and selection for. It sounded interesting, it sounded different.

I was like, sure. So I went to WARCOM, and it was a new initiative led by Admiral Callan at the time. Um, I walk into this conference room. I got like my dress whites on and, um, sit down. It's a bunch of people in civilian clothing. I didn't know anybody except for the Master Chief, and he was in civilian clothing. I kind of look at him like, hey, what's up? You sit down. They're like, hey, how you doing? Like, good. Like, uh, go ahead and turn around in your chair. I was like, okay. So I turn around in my chair. Now they're all at my back and I'm looking at the door I walked in. I get handed a piece of paper that's on a clipboard and a pencil. Like, go ahead and, uh, draw the quarterdeck that you walked through 2 minutes ago. And I'm like, oh shit, was I paying attention? You know? And I started sketching overhead. You know, I remember, okay, there's the front desk, there's the doors, there's some doors over here, there's an American flag. American American flag, you know, some chairs. And I put my, you know, cardinal bearing north arrow down at the bottom.

Like, this sucks. I don't fucking know if this is even right. I'm like, uh, okay. And they're like, okay, turn around. Go ahead and tell us what you saw. I'm like, well, I think I saw— and I kind of describe everything in my drawing. I show them the drawing. I kind of go over it real quick and And then they're like, okay. And so then they start asking a series of questions, you know, like, you know, where you been, what have you done. They gave me some scenarios, you know, you're in a bar overseas, you know, guy walks in with a slung AK-47, what are you gonna do? I'm like, oh, watch the guy, pay attention, make sure I take note of it, you know, orientate myself properly inside that bar to where this guy's at, you know. And they're like, okay. And it's a lot of questions like that, very scenario-driven. And then, and then they— what was it with the— they had like a small little like cup and they had a bunch of broken down writing pens inside, all the springs, the ink cartridge, the tops and the bottoms. And then they had a stopwatch and they're like, okay, go ahead and put all those pens together.

Okay, so dump it. And I'm like putting these, you know, spring cartridge, put it down into the bottom, put in the top, function test. Okay, do the next one. They were all different makes and models of pens and it's like, that's weird. And then they had some math problems. So they gave me the math problems. I wrote them down. They're like, okay. They time it. It was like basic algebra stuff, something like that. Did those. And then they were like, okay, turn back around. I turned back around in my chair. They're like, starting from left to right, you know, everybody introduce themselves. Go ahead and tell who each person is. I was like, oh shit. I'm like, that's definitely one thing I suck at, you know. I was like, but I'll I'll give it my best try while I'm talking to this door in front of me, right? I'm like, okay, so I think the first guy was Frank. I know that the next guy was Billy because I worked with him. Next guy I think was, you know, Phil, you know, or something. And I just, you know, I don't even know. I didn't know anybody's name.

I was just like fucking fumbling through it. And I could hear them kind of laughing a little bit. So I was like, okay, thank God. At least they see the humor in my— In this. And, uh, then they're like, okay, um, what were the first 3 questions we asked you? I was like, damn it. It's like, you asked me to draw the quarterdeck. You asked me to tell them a little bit about myself. And then you guys started introducing yourselves. You know, this thing, I think it was like an hour interview. It was really odd.

You know, sounds like it.

Had no idea what was going on, what it was for. And they're like, okay, thanks. Like, all right, I'll walk out. As I walk out now, there's like probably 20 other SEALs in their dress whites all standing there waiting. I was the first— I guess I was the first to go. I saw another dude I knew. I saw a couple other guys I knew. They all were going in for the same interview, you know. And, um, go back to the team and a couple weeks goes by and I'm not really even thinking about it anymore. And, um, my master chief, command master chief at Team 3, pulls me in and he's like, hey, uh, you know, we're gonna, um, there was a program. I don't know if, you know, you did your interview and stuff. They called. And so, you know, we're gonna send you over there like TAD at first, see if they like you. And I'm like, send me where? Like, to WARCOM. Like, what am I doing? They're like, oh, they'll tell you that stuff when you get there. And so I get over there and check in, and, um, there's nothing permanent because they just wanted to— it was me, another guy that was in my platoon, actually, my— one of my lead comms guys.

And then there was like 2 or 3 other SEAL, um, senior chief and a master chief that I had— I didn't really know that well, but I knew of them. And, uh, they sat us down and said, all right, Find, fix, finish. We're really good at finish as a community. We're okay at fix as long as it's like rural-based reconnaissance, like, you know, recce teams, snipers. That's about all we know about getting a fix on a target, right? We know nothing about the urban side of getting a fix on someone. So what we are tasked to build, um, with basically unlimited budget and it's a ready-go, work as fast as you can, is build the fix and the find for the community starting right now. And we're like, well, what the— I don't know, it's the first time I've ever heard of find, fix, finish, you know. And, uh, so they kind of explain it to us, you know. Find is really all the INTs. At the time, there really was SIGINT, there was HUMINT. Now you got 100 of them, you know. Um, we're like, uh, okay. And they're like, what is that? And it was just, hey, ready, go, go figure it out.

And so with the power of the admiral and an unlimited budget, civilian clothes, and basically got blue badged into every agency in DC and carte blanche, ready, go figure it out. And that's what we did. And so we went to everyone to figure out, well, how do you find bad guys? And okay, now if we're gonna build a program, what would it look like? And, uh, we had— then we put together at the group level, Group 1 and Group 2, we put little cells of guys together as force multipliers to start helping on educating the force and determining, you know, how to do this. And this was all pre-GWAT. And so We got really far really fast and built, um, the entire ASO program for Naval Special Warfare, then built the AFO program. So my buddy covered down on ASO, but the Army was the proponency for ASO. They ran that, um, and then we became the proponent for AFO and we ran ours. And then I eventually got it certified through SOCOM. And it became the first, like, joint course. And, uh, so there's a lot in there because—

Oh shit.

We were deploying, we'd go overseas, work for an embassy, not really have a job, and come back and say, okay, I think this is what we need. And then go, all right, build a course, let's educate some guys, and then send them over to fill that void. And then But what we realized is once you have a foothold in an embassy, that is the magic in the whole program. So it was like, all right, we need to get guys over there. Well, we don't have enough SEALs. Okay, put an intel kit over there. So then we learned, oh, start grabbing people from the fleet, start drawing in. We're going to build this thing out, get footholds at the embassies. Once you have a foothold operationally, then everything else comes from there. And so It was very, very strategic. It was very operational and it was very tactical all at the same time. So I was learning through a fire hose, agency-level shit, you know, uh, you know, at the national level, then at the operational, then at the tactical, and going, okay, well, how do we put all this together? And then you had Admiral Callan and even McRaven, because McRaven had started a thing called Quantum Leap, I think, prior to all this.

And I was privy to it when I was trying to learn, like, well, how do we build something in light speed so that we can get our guys involved in outside the theaters of war? And truly operational prep of the environment, which used to be called operational prep of the battlespace. Congress didn't like the word battlespace because it intends that we're going to do something nefarious there, so they change it to environment. Um, and we started just mapping it out, but McRaven had one thing that was so sticky that I remembered, and I still use it to this day. And it was, if I were to send you, Sean, to China right now by yourself, how would you take out an aircraft carrier by yourself? And it's a pretty impossible thing getting into the country, the layers of security. When you dial in and look at the ports and harbors there, you're not getting close to an aircraft carrier in that country. But how can you take it out? And then the quantum leap aspect of it, when you start thinking strategically, was, well, I don't have to get near that. I can go 20 piers down to the tugboats that have zero security.

And if I take out every single tugboat in that harbor, that aircraft carrier isn't moving, right? And then that, just that one example, just set my creativity and everything we started doing on fire. I was like, wow, that's what we need to be doing. That's how you get ahead, because that is all about how you think and allowing Frogman to be as creative as possible. The tugboat theory became the theory.

Mm-hmm.

Right. And so then it was like, okay, now we can build on that. So we started, uh, we started with the education and the deployment simultaneously. So anytime I wasn't like putting a course together or testing out a course, then I was going overseas. And it was awesome because you got to wear all these different hats all the time, every day. And then, um, so then we, uh, we partnered with Army USASOC for all the ASO billets, and then we started contracting. You know, you had a bunch of Army guys get out and start companies that taught ASO. So then we started using them. And then I was running the AFO and defining it like, okay, what is advanced force operations? And mapping it out and really getting into it. And what all does it include? You know, so we break out the doctrine. So it included, you know, joint RSO&I, which is reception, staging, onward integration, and movement. So RSO and I was like, okay, what is that? At the conventional level, it's how the Army moves 100 Apaches to Kuwait, right? Reception, staging, onward integration into combat. If you think about it, it's a logistics nightmare.

What does that mean for me and you? Me as a singleton, it's like, how do I get a troop of 22 guys from the beach to the safe site Put them on target, they annihilate everybody with non-attributively weapons and ammunition, back to the safe site, sanitize them, back out to the ocean. And then I go around, sanitize everything they did before the sun comes up, and start my day job, right? So that's what became RSO and I for Naval Special Warfare, missions like that. And we knew there was people out there already doing it. But Admiral Cowan was like, we're taking that from them and we're going to do it through excellence and professionalism and creativity. And we started building these programs. We started putting people in embassies. I mean, everything all at once, as fast as possible. And, uh, it became a program of record and became a big deal for Naval Special Warfare.

Yeah, it was a huge deal.

You guys, people that followed, ended up learning all the TTL stuff and basic electronics, electricity, like The AFO course I built, I mean, it was awesome. I mean, you started with getting your concealed carry classes. We had district attorneys in all the major cities buy off on it. You got creds, you got guns, you were packing the whole course. And then, uh, and then you would go to— initially it was TSS, Technical Surveillance Science, in New Orleans. They would teach you basic electronics, electricity, modification of consumer products. Lockpicking alarms. Once you got all the tech under your belt, tracking, all that, all that stuff, then you would go into physical surveillance mode. We had the Brits coming over teaching physical surveillance. They were all MI5, MI6, SAS guys.

I took that course.

Did you?

Yeah, it was awesome.

Did I put you through?

No, it was just them.

Later?

Oh, I think it was that course. It was a contract, right? Yeah, yeah, we— I took We were— yeah, we were, we were going to do the Bosnia thing. Oh yeah. That's like when this first popped up on my radar. So I guess that would have been '04, I believe. Yeah.

'04, '05. It was presented as test.

And then I got switched and I wound up going to Afghanistan. But I went through the whole course. It was— it's probably the best course I've taken. Yeah. In the teams.

I had so much pride in that thing, man.

I was Surveillance, counter-surveillance, running ops from Richmond to Virginia Beach.

Yep.

How to blend in, like the shit we were talking about this morning.

Yeah.

I remember they'd take us to— they, they, they'd put us in— we'd start walking around a mall, and then it became a couple of city blocks, and then it became all of Norfolk, and then it became— then they introduced cars and vehicles, and then all the way up from Richmond down. And yeah, it's getting into top floor of Bank of America building and all kinds of shit. It was awesome. And they'd put you in uncomfortable— they would— you would have a target that you had to follow or whatever, and they would always take you into the most awkward—

Yeah.

Victoria's Secret, a baby store, places we don't belong, that you feel uncomfortable. And then they would confront you there, and you would have to act— you would have to figure out how to act normal. Or they'd, they'd walk into an elevator, and one of the guys on the team would follow them in, and they'd— what time is it? Oh shit. But it was, uh, yeah. And there was no shooting, no explosives, no jumping out of planes in it. And, uh, it was my favorite course.

Yeah, some guys had a knack for it and loved it, and some had a knack for it and shouldn't ever do it. Just because—

I was pissed they were going to take me to— I guess, I guess they were like, they had an augment to somewhere in the UK.

Yes.

And I got selected for it.

You would have loved that. It was a great building.

Yeah, I was, I was pissed. Yeah. And then I got— yeah, then we went to Afghanistan, which, whatever, you know what I mean?

Yeah. There was nothing but good deals back then. You know, it was like every day was a good deal for me running and building and kind of putting that whole thing together and then also deploying at the same time and testing it, you know? I remember the first, like, offensive technical stuff, right? I remember I was in Djibouti and our first sales pitch was, hey, our guys can do source vetting. Wow. How do you guys do source vetting? Well, when you're vetting somebody and you have them come to a hotel or whatever, we can exploit their car because guys know how to break into cars and we can exploit their briefcase if they have a briefcase and blah, blah, blah, you know? Right. It was just to sell the technical capability that a guy can do these things. Right. It was very defensive. And, um, but it worked, worked like a charm, you know. Hey, we can set up camera cars for you, right? Take the case officer's car, rip it apart, put cameras outward looking, inward looking, put it all back together. Because they learn all this stuff in the course, you know. And, um, the BEE portion of the course, I feel like whether guys realize it or not, was the most important aspect, especially when you fast forward, you know, when things started getting more advanced, because that basic electronics, like electricity package, um, that's what allowed what later that I would call like a true, like, back to our roots, a naked warrior program.

If you look at, you know, World War II, whatever, the guys with their UDTs, a knife in their mouth, and fins and a mask, and go get it done with a 22-pound haversack. And I was like, okay, well, you could take that concept. How do you apply it now? The modern-day version of the naked warrior is an operator who's transitioned to operative, right? Operator being a guy who wears body armor, cammies, night vision, kicks in doors and shoots people in the face. Now you've transitioned that same guy with that same experience to an operative where he's business casual, flying business class. He doesn't have 21 other dudes stacked up behind him. All the success, all the failure resides solely on him. He's got as much cash as he needs. He takes off from Dulles, he goes overseas, he gets the job done and comes back. Right? That's the dream job. And I was like, yeah, you know.

A lot of guys didn't like that. No, I know. That was what I was, uh, I was very drawn to that from the get-go. I was like, yeah, this shit is cool.

Yeah, it is sexy. Yeah. But, uh, Yeah. Yeah. And I swear, putting that together. Oh, yeah. No, it was awesome. And it just, it just kept evolving it every year. And then we solidified it all, got rid of all the contractors. We housed it at the NSA. Now you could teach everything in a SCIF, secure it, lock it down, and then take it to the next level. which is kind of where it, where it, where it ended up. That's where its home ended up being. Majority of the courses run out of the NSA, and you had all their assets and everything that they brought to bear that made it like 1,000 times more professional, made it very secure. And, uh, and then being that close to all the other agencies, it became like a reputable, you know, course of instruction that Like I said, even SOCOM signed off on it, and instead of ORCOM funding it, it became a SOCOM-funded thing and took off.

So did you take this over to development group too?

So that's kind of how— part of it, yeah. So I, um—

Because you went over there to Black Squadron, right?

Yeah.

And you— but it wasn't— you weren't an assaulter. It wasn't like through Green Team and all that stuff. You went over to Black Squadron, and that's kind of From what I understand, this is what they do.

Yeah, yeah. Um, I laugh because, you know, when you're a non-green teamer inside that fence line, let me tell you.

Oh yeah, I've heard.

Especially if you're a deploying, you know, guy inside of a troop. You know, it took a couple years for me to build the trust, but Um, yeah, so I had— once I built that course and it was kind of like on autopilot, um, then I moved out to DC. I was helping with the course. We built an NSW DET DC, and it was one billet. I sat in it, and you were liaison to anybody. Like, I got pulled into so much stuff. I've— I, I can't remember half of it. Like, if you're an enlisted operationally operate, sitting in a, in a basically a C billet, right? A deployable billet in DC. You'll have every agency coming, hey, can you go do this for us? Hey, can you go do that for us? I mean, it was pretty phenomenal. And, uh, at the same time, so I was attached to NSA but representing Naval Special Warfare inside the Beltway. Um, and so I got pulled into countless things. I did a lot of cool deployments. Um, that was where the initial— one of the deployments that kind of led to me becoming more, you know, independent and doing the singleton stuff was, um, bin Laden's boats, right?

Bin Laden had 27 vessels, and they had like a 3-ring binder of these vessels and pictures and stuff. And they're like, man, we need to get these things like tagged, you know? And, um, I think the initial idea was like the 3rd deck at Fort Meade, having this Tom Clancy room with all these screens and being able to see, you know, all 27 vessels on a, on a global screen. You know, I think that was the idea. But, um, so the first little gig was, you know, hey, we got this boat called the— well, it was called the Jamil, and it's a smaller metal, um, tanker, not really that big, and it was supposedly sitting in the Djibouti port and harbor, right? And so I was like, all right, let's go put a fucking tracking device on this thing. And so, uh, that was like kind of like the first, like, you know, trial run. And I was working a lot with all of your TTL companies.

Did you do it creatively?

Yeah, yeah, we pulled it off.

How did you do it?

literally went in there and put it on there. So this is where cover and all that kind of stuff, right? We were kind of still learning, but the duty-free shop inside— well, inside the Djibouti port and harbor is a duty-free shop. And a lot of times if you're a Westerner, you can get away with going in there and, uh, buying cigarettes, buying alcohol, whatever, right? And so there was a lot of recces involved. We built a camera car, you know, took a car, break it apart, put outward-looking cameras, put it all back together, and then drive through there. And it took some time to actually find it, but it was its color scheme. It was green with a white superstructure. And so we knew, okay, gotta get that. And, and then once we ID'd it, they had literally taken paint and painted over Jamil and like had some other name written on the side of it, you know? And in the nautical world, every, every, like, Like, like aviation, um, everything's English, right? So you gotta— so it makes it a little more bearable to figure things out. And it had some other name, and, um, but we knew which boat it was.

And, um, and so once we kind of figured out the port, the, the pattern of life of the port harbor at night and different times of day, and then also the guys at the front gate, you realize, okay, they're lax. They're not like security. They're just guys checking vehicles coming in. I'm just management of the flow of people coming in and out. And then, uh, yeah, once we figured out, we were like, okay, it was me and another team guy, and like, let's go ahead and see if we can pull this off tonight. Oh, there was one other piece to this. So the, uh, I think it was the agency had someone who had access who worked in the Port and Harbor, and so we built first-generation camera with RF antenna into a pack of cigarettes with a little pinhole. And, you know, this was back when we were using these Sony XView cameras you could buy online, you know, put it all together in this cheesy little RF device and it would push back. And that was— it was video, so it wouldn't push very far. And, we put it in the kid's backpack.

It had a mesh exterior pocket, so we put the cigarettes down in there, made sure that everything lined up just right, glued it all in place, made this kid wear this backpack, and then he went on board and was able to film the inside. And, it filmed locally, but it also pushed. Of course, once he got into skin, it went static. And then, we were able to collect the wrist fluid once it came out. So, we knew like, oh, okay, now we know the inside of this thing. We knew the outside. And then went over there one night. They had a ladder going up, you know, to the side of the boat, no different than any other Navy vessel, from the deck up the ladder. And just kind of dressed like they dress, acted like we owned it, walked up and were able to drop the device. There was a— there was like wood paneling and wood deck on a portion of this thing. And Any device, it has to be able to just see the sky. That's the most important thing. And make sure that it's not behind metal, right? It can be fiberglass, wood, can be pretty much behind anything, but it has to be able to get— it has to be able to see satellites so the device knows exactly where it's at.

And it also has to be able to communicate with us or whatever device it's talking to. Early on, They had what was called MAT tags, multi-access tags. And so that was— it can communicate through SIM cards, it can communicate through satellite, it can communicate RF if I do a drive-by and collect the information off of it. Literally dropped it in there. It's nothing sexy. And then got out of that damn harbor as quick as we could. And Fred, the team guy with me, was driving. Get back in the car, which we're driving. And he was so fucking paranoid. He's like, we're being followed. And we ended up creating our own little crazy on-the-fly SDR back to where we were staying. And I don't think anybody was following us, but it felt like someone was following us. And it was probably just—

I think in those, at least in my experience, you just— human paranoia.

Yes.

You always feel like somebody's following you or watching you in those situations.

For sure. And we were fumble-fucking through it, you know. We didn't know what we were doing. And then you come back and you go, okay, where did I fail on that? And it's like SDRs, tradecraft, you know, just taking the risk of a harbor that was okay lit, but we were fortunate that that one happened to be in the dark, you know. And we got lucky with a lot of the environmentals that you just didn't think to take into consideration. You're just kind of like, fuck it, let's just do it, you know.

Did you have any cover?

No, I didn't think so. Nothing. And things get— and then we just advanced it from there. Everything. We advanced the tags. These companies were working with building tags. And, um, I mean, it just kind of grew from there. We had another bin Laden boat, um, another run. This one was the, uh, I think it was called the Hamor. It's named after— Persian Gulf has these huge fish. Big black fish. They're like bass of the sea. They're massive. And they're not scared of humans, but they're called— I think they're called the hamor. This thing was named after it, and that one was anchored. They're like, yeah, go out there and tag it. And it's like, okay, well, we weren't advanced enough for that yet. You know, you had turtle high, turtle low systems. Remember those you train with? It's like a magnet. And just— we thought about doing that, but those things can be seen if they pull into a port or harbor.

Mm-hmm.

So, but yeah, that was the kind of the kickoff first, like, vessel. And I think, uh, by the end of the run, I was the only guy who had tagged vehicles, vessels, and even like a, a shoe sole, like sole of the shoe.

How'd you tag that?

Oh man. Um, so So the lead negotiator and leader of the Somali pirates was standing on the side of the road in Bassaso, Somalia one day, broad daylight, on his phone. And some of our guys— when I say our, the PIS, which is the Puntland Intelligence Service, which is a bunch of Somalis that I went in a bunch of times and trained these guys. And there's some crazy stories associated with that. teaching them surveillance. And, uh, they like see these guys, they rolled them up. I wasn't there, I'd just come in like a couple days later. So they see them on the side of the road, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. And so they square the block, come back and grab them and throw them in the back of their truck, right? And take them to the safe site. And, um, there was— and at this point, this is— you fast forward, we would now have NSW guys, part of the very program that I had kind of built, the SA. You know, I don't know if you remember, they had these special activity teams that had been given, I don't know, a bunch of different names, but it was basically a command of team guys that now sitting in these houses in different areas now.

It's like, wow, this thing is advanced, you know. So they're holding on to this guy. And so we roll in and they're like, So here's the deal. There's this whole like political issue. You got the 3 main clans in Somalia, and the elderlies have to kind of buy off on like this guy going away. This is the guy that was on the radio talking to Jonas and those other Gold Squadron guys and different people for, uh, or Red Hybrid. You had Jonas though, um, Killsaw, Who's on, you know, Extortion 17 guy, um, who was like on the radio and doing all the creative talking back and forth with the Somali pirate leader negotiator. So when you're watching the movie Captain Phillips, there's the voice on the radio. This is that guy. Okay, these guys just rolled up because they see him standing on the side of the road.

No shit. Yeah.

And he is a rock star in Somalia. And he is brought— I mean, he brought in the biggest part of their economy. Somalia imports everything, and it only exports one thing. Can you guess what that is? It's the largest exporter of camels.

Cotton.

Well, they import cotton.

They import cotton.

From Ethiopia.

Yeah.

Those khat planes come in, land at about 11:00 AM. Khat trucks go out to the khat stands all over Somalia. All the khat stands have khat by about 1:00 PM. And then by about 3:00 or 4:00, the entire country cheeks are full of khat and they're high and they're just wandering around like zombies with literally two— they got their cheeks full and two cigarettes hanging out of their mouths. So you can count on them all being high, and you can get away with a lot during that time, obviously, when you, you know, just like we always do, you just use the culture against them. But, um, should have been a shorter story, but they wrapped the guy up. Gives you context to who he is. And, uh, then there's a— it's a thing. We couldn't just snag him if we wanted to maintain support with the little support we had in Somalia. So all of those, like the PIS, you know, the, the Puntland Intelligence Service, we had the kind of the same version other places. And so they all had to kind of agree, right? They're like, hey, you're going to take this guy who's the biggest part of our economy.

All his ransom money was funding that country, right? Millions and millions of dollars, right?

Wow.

So it was political. They're like, we want to pull him. So there was this back and forth, and then there was this point when they were like, hey, we got to let him go. We're like, what? And I'm more— I'm there at that point, and I happen to have— I always like carried all these different tags with me everywhere I went. And, um, and I had a, a Black Squadron tech with me, and they were like, well, hey, so how do we— we're told, hey, like, make sure you tag him. Like, tag him. You know, so, you know, they had stripped him down and put him in like some, you know, their own clothes and kind of took his own clothes. And we created this whole storyline on how to get his clothes and his shoes and everything. And, and they were like— he— one thing about Somalis is they always are— interestingly, they're always dressed nice. They got slacks on, long-sleeve shirts untucked, somewhat clean-shaven. They're always kind of moving with a purpose, going from point A to point B, and always like leather dress shoes with old-school wooden soles. And so we took his shoes, pulled out the insoles, had a Dremel, put the tag in there, put it back.

We put his shoes on, walked around in them, making sure it didn't feel different than the other. Made sure it was heavily concealed, everything glued back in place. And then we were like, all right, here's the test. You know, it was the day to release him. And so, you know, they gave him his clothes and he got dressed, he put his shoes on, he didn't act any different. Kind of watching him, let him out the front door, went— or went and dropped him off, but basically let him go knowing that, okay, we gotta potentially grab this dude if he runs or whatever, the Klan leaders, you know, don't come to a decision on this guy. So, um, some— I feel like a week or so went by and everybody agreed. And then, uh, yeah, they ended up lighting up that area so that his tag would reflect back. It worked. Kept track of him the whole time. It's really cool. And then, uh, then eventually rolled him up. Um, they basically ran a rendition package on him, you know, where move him from jet to jet. He doesn't touch sovereign territory so that he can't, you know, pull any bullshit with the attorneys.

And then, uh, he showed up in New York one day and put on trial, and he's sitting in prison in New York.

Wow.

All those crimes against, you know, U.S. companies, citizens, all that.

Yeah. Shit.

Yeah.

That's pretty badass.

Yeah. Who would have thought though, you know, the guys just throw him in the back of the truck, you know, while you stand on the side of the road. I mean, You know, it's kind of— sometimes you get lucky.

Damn.

Yeah. And here's another interesting— you know, that particular tag was invented and created by no other than Mitch Bradley. So everyone knows who Admiral Mitch Bradley is. He's been in the news a lot because of the strikes against drug boats in— no shit— South America. He's our current— is he SOUTHCOM or whatever? I have no idea.

Um, I guess he would be, right?

But when he was, uh, I don't know, when he was in '04 and '05, he was at JSOC, and I, I don't know where he worked, in like science and technology or something, but he, he created this tag. It's fucking smart.

Right on, man. Yeah. What were you doing in Yemen?

Um, we were always in and out of there, primarily, uh, those were during the AAA days. Anwar al-Awlaki. Anwar was controversial because he was an American citizen. Um, he was the guy that was on— back in the day, YouTube allowed everything. and censored nothing, believe it or not. And so back then you had people in orange pajamas getting their heads chopped off by al-Qaeda. You had, you had everything on there, man. And, uh, one of the most prominent propaganda guys for al-Qaeda was a guy named Anwar al-Awlaki that we nicknamed Triple A. And he, uh, US-educated, US citizen, But from Yemen, his dad is a wealthy guy in Sana'a. He, but he was their lead propaganda guy. He had a magazine called Inspire to inspire people to radicalize. It had a lot of radical Islam articles in it, but it also the biggest thing is it always provided. It was a true magazine printed and published, and it had diagrams to how to build bombs, S vests. IEDs, uh, vehicle ID. I mean, you name it, and it was everywhere. And, um, then he had his YouTube channel where he radicalized probably more people than bin Laden ever did.

You know, if you look at the 2 Boston Marathon bombers, they're radicalized by Anwar's videos. If you look at the Fort Hood shooter, radicalized by AAA. Most— and there was plenty. The shoe bomber. The reason we were taking our shoes off at TSA for so long is because of AAA. The underwear bomber. Right. Luckily, we didn't have to take our underwear off at TSA, but I'm sure— I'm sure they thought about it. No underwear allowed. But he was— he influenced more people and radicalized more young Americans and young Muslims than anyone else out of all of al-Qaeda. And so he's basically considered, I think, number 2. Once the command killed number 1, um, you know, then he became number 1, and he was in Yemen. And so, uh, a lot of our trips in and out there was just really targeting him. Uh, the CIA on drone strikes had missed him like 2 or 3 times in a row. Um, he would come into Sana'a from time to time, and they'd always try to hit him on the highway going back out to wherever he lived out in the middle of nowhere, and it didn't work.

And, uh, so then eventually, you know, once we had a foothold at that embassy, you know, I think the agency was like, hey, what can you guys do? And so I went over, and it was to tag his vehicle. I was like, all right, this is cool, you know. And, um, he had a driver that would always park outside of a 24/7 convenience store, and he would park that damn car right in front of the glass. And the cashier inside conveniently pointed outward towards cars parked right there. And over there, you know the deal, they like park up on the sidewalk, you know. So he would put this thing like danger close, the bumper to the glass. I mean, there's barely any room to actually walk on the sidewalk. And it was, you know, you could tell it was with purpose. His driver did this on purpose, keep his— keep that vehicle under watch 24/7, or at least when it was parked there. And across the street was like this hotel, shitty-ass hotel of sorts. And so once we kind of figured that out, we would roll in and set up, um, recce cars, camera cars, park them, leave them, collect, go back, drive them away.

See what we could collect on the driver, get ID quality. This was all spread out over time, but eventually we got ID quality of the driver, figured out which kind of car. Then we go out in town, procure and/or commandeer the exact same car, bring that back to our place, break the car down, rehearse, figure out how we're going to do it, this and that. And then my, uh, my task force SCA is like, hey, you know, you can be as creative as you want on this. I'm like, Okay, what do you mean? He's like, well, you know, if you gotta like steal a van or steal something, you know, and, you know, come up with something creative so that you can park right next to it and knock it out real quick. And I was like, uh, okay. So took his hint, like started looking around like, okay, I need to steal a van now. You know, it's like, yeah, I've been looking forward to commandeering a vehicle for covert operations. Yeah. And, um, The— believe it or not, the closest van were these Army guys, like US guys. So I like kind of ask discreetly, hey, can we just steal their van?

He's like, yeah, you can do whatever the fuck you want. I'm like, yeah. So now I'm stealing these guys' van that they bought. I'm just like, well, hell, that's the best way to do it. Take a van, known people, steal it from them. At least don't tell them about it. Borrow it. So we borrow it, and then I have one of the techs go out in town, buy like a thermite torch, and we cut a hellhole into this floor of the van, right? And, uh, and turn it into this hatch. And then we buckled down a spare tire to it. So if under inspection it looked, you know, if you opened up the back of the van, you just saw a spare tire that, you know, was locked down to the floor and You know, this kid did a great job. I was like, man, you did a good job, buddy. Give yourself a Bronze Star after this deployment, you know, like everyone else, you know. And, um, so the idea was, you know, hey, we're gonna pull up next to this thing and, um, and with that guy sitting inside at his little cash register, you can have guys in the back open up the trapdoor, drop down to the street, roll from underneath.

the van to underneath the target vehicle and do your thing. And so, um, we had one guy, I think he was a Blue Squadron guy, pull the recce. He was out on the street. He was our overwatch. And then, uh, I was team leader for this whole team of guys. And so I ran team lead and full disguise. I had my Yemenis mask on and my man and my man dress. And Yemenis like to wear their, like, a blazer. It's kind of something that sets them apart. And they wear their headdress instead of on their head. They wear it kind of over their blazer. And so I was looking at me, everything, drove the vehicle, happened to be a parking spot, got lucky right next to the target vehicle. And Park next to it, kind of looking at this guy, get my light up, a cigarette, start letting my mask smoke, crack the window, look like I'm just going to hang out. That's nothing unusual for that environment. And then as soon as I saw him look away, went back behind the curtain, he's all blacked out, kind of, kind of, kind of, kind of like how we had our own concealment built into the back of this van that didn't look anything weird or could pass inspection.

Open up the door, hit the deck, roll under the vehicle. Um, so had a new— a brand new tracking. It had double satellite hockey pucks. It had double cell phone antennas, which are like— look like black thumb depressors or tongue depressors, you know, on a wire. Bottom line is you had like 4 or 5 things you had to Conceal. Um, rehearsal is basically a piece of cardboard on your chest once you're underneath this thing, and you're mixing these like super potent epoxy, and you squeeze it out of the tube, squeeze it on there, mix it around, and then you start fucking, you know, start fucking gluing shit everywhere. Double zip tie, did everything, you know, make it look right. Back into the vehicle, um, get back to the front seat when the guy wasn't looking. And then, uh, yeah, no big deal. The overwatch cleared us, everything was good to go. Pull out of there, leave. Boom, got a tracking device on Anwar al-Awlaki's car. Go back, we're all proud and happy. Pull it up, tracking's good. Pinging on all 4 channels. This is awesome. So next day, thing starts moving, moving around Sana'a, this and that, goes and does some things, logging.

We're able to kind of bounce all this information off other people. And, um, and then, uh, right at like around the 24-hour mark, drops.

Nothing.

Well, one thing. Double cell phone dropped, double satellite dropped. And I'm like, what the fuck just happened to this thing? What did he, you know, go get an oil change? And the guy, you know, there's a risk to all this. You go get an oil change, somebody puts it on a rack and they see something, right?

Mm-hmm.

And then find something leads to everything else. You know, it's there's risk. And we're like, holy fuck. And it was a huge success, you know, and, uh, now it's not. You're like— and that's the thing about that, that world, as you know. It's like all the success, all the failure resides solely on you sometimes, or you and your, you know, if you've got a couple of techs with you or whatever. Motherfucker, man. So then I'm like leveraging everything I have Fort Meade or NSA dialing in on Yemeni's phone network trying to figure out if we're lost and this and that and pulling all these resources on their switchboards to figure out what happened. Couldn't figure it out. Time goes by, time goes by, valuable time, valuable time. Now, we're back to pulling surveillance on the hotel. Now, 2 or 3 nights later, he's not parking there anymore. Well, like, fuck, burned, possibly burned. Like, I think about 7-day mark, and I'm already stressed out, can't eat. You know, this is one of those things where you just don't want to go that way.

And, uh, what were you guys gonna do, drone strike it?

Uh, there was a lot of courses of action, you can imagine. Like, this was, uh, um, at the time You know, McRaven was, uh, was JSOC, and so very aggressive. Um, Mitch Bradley, the same admiral that's been in the news lately, was my boss. Um, so yeah, there was a lot of courses of action because drones hadn't worked. So it was like, let's do it differently. You know what that was? Who knows? Um, And so turns out, 7-day mark, after every phone call, I was talking to tracking companies, agencies, all of the tech components of everything. This isn't going to surprise you, but JSOC stopped paying the bill on all of the communication components of that particular device.

Wow.

Yeah. Oh, and for me, I was like, oh, thank God, you know, because I'm running that op, it's mine. And of course, one minute you're the rock star, next minute you— it's that whole hero to zero thing, you know. And definitely felt it in that moment. And, uh, then it was like, oh, so then we know the problem. You could fire it back up at this point. That thing, I think A week later started pinging out in the middle of nowhere. They'd just gone back out to where they lived. And, um, but it gave valuable information. It gave a pattern of life that then was used later to eventually kill the guy.

Yeah.

Yeah. I think we were there.

I spent a lot of time in Yemen.

We probably crossed paths. Glenn, my favorite place to work. Glenn, do you know that coffee shop that was supposedly owned by the American couple? They lived and it was kind of— it was over by the embassy. It was walled in. It was outdoor.

In Sana'a? In Sana'a. Yeah.

Supposedly owned by this American near the Sharm el-Sheikh spot.

Yeah.

Owned by an American company. Like, what American couple own a fucking coffee shop in Sana'a? Had all kinds of antennas on top of it because they lived there too. So I remember I was going in and Glenn was coming out. We'd like literally bump into each other and like, oh, Hey, American? American? Yeah. Speak English? Yeah. You want to get a coffee with me? Sure. You know, we're kind of putting on the act just in case somebody's watching. Go back inside, get coffee. It's fucking last time I saw the guy too. That was it. That was his trip to Yemen. He came back home. I didn't get to see him. And then going over to relieve Thai was the next trip.

Yeah.

It's pretty, uh, God, such a small world in that world. Yeah, there's, you know, you'd run into the same dudes and you're always like, are we the only ones like doing this shit around the globe? Because that's kind of scary if it's true. Everyone's gonna recognize us at some point, you know.

Well, shit, I mean, today you can't even do it. No, with all the facial recognition and all that stuff. I mean, I've heard that you can't even You can't even get fake passports anymore. You can't, you can't really do any undercover.

No. Yeah, when I was leaving, everything I think was going, you know, back to true. The agency was leading the way. But yeah, you couldn't. And even with masks, you know, with the— I have a, my, my Arab mask and I have my Somali. And it even got to the point where there's, um, certain thermal that you— if it's running, you can see it. So you have to assume, like, once there's a piece of technology out there that can burn it, that particular piece of equipment, then, you know, you can't, uh, you can't ever use it. You can't trust that it won't be seen or seen through or whatever.

Yeah.

You know, but it was powerful. Disguise was very powerful there for a while, you know. like, uh, deception point of view. And we were the only ones really using it offensively, Jeff and I. You know, the agencies always use disguise as kind of like go meet a source you never met before, or when you're shitting in your own backyard kind of stuff. But we were the only ones kind of—

That was a hard enough— that was a hard place to hide, to even with the local GARM. I mean, yeah, because it's so tribal there. Um, I mean, we would do— we would walk these assets and, you know, through the whole city and clean them, you know, walk them through metal detectors and malls and whatever.

Yeah.

You know, to clean them before they finally got to us.

And yeah, we would—

even women, you know, uh, actually it was women. We, we just— we get burned every time, not even realize it until the asset's in the car. He's like, was that Was that your guys in the hotel? You know what I mean? And be like, how did you know that? You know, they're like, oh, he's wearing the thing on the wrong side, or he's doing this, or he's doing that. I think it's impossible for, you know, a Westerner to really get it down perfectly.

No.

At first glance, it's great, but yeah, to actually do it, no way. And we had— we've had assets get killed because of it. I mean, it's It's a tough place to blend.

Yeah, I would say almost every— all of the places we went, you know, Somalia, my mask probably there. And, you know, you got gloves that go up to your armpits to make you a black guy, but it only works because, you know, they're high on khat and I'm doing it at night, you know. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah. For CMOE, which is what But, you know, your initial question, getting pulled out of NSA, it was because I ran a course for the 4 or 5 E-9s at Dam Neck. It was like a 2-week course. They came up and I kind of put them through it and they realized, wow, like, you know what you're talking about and you've actually done this stuff. Why don't you come work for us? And I was like, okay. So, you know, did the screening for Dam Neck, you know, the interviews and the psych tests. And then I actually said, hey, Probably a good idea to go through Green Team. They're like, nope. And these E-9s at the time were like legends. And so what they said went, there's no arguing with them, you know. And so when once I got there and got into Black Squadron, um, you know, my job really didn't have anything to do with Green Team, but it's nice to check that box because it's selection.

And if you're a SEAL, You want to be a selected guy. But I put in like 5 different chits and they were turned down every time. So there's a point when you just go, okay. And they just— you're not here for that.

Gotcha.

You're not here for that. You're not here for that. You're here for CMOE. I was like, roger that. But CMOE is clandestine methods of entry. So we built the program. I built the program there, which is basically locking alarms, getting in, leaving zero attribution to the United States government, zero forensics. And so Jeff and I had like a— God, we had like a $10 million budget, which is nothing compared to what guys have now. But at the time we're like, holy shit, just the two of us. And that was to build the capability. So we went to the 2/2 SAS's capability, went to SRR while we were in England. They had a great small CMOE capability, very experienced, get the IRA back in the day. Um, went to FBI, TOS, their whole— theirs is a $100 million CMOE program, right? Went to PAG, which is the agencies, that's another $100 million fucking, you know, entry program. And we're like, well, we got to build something in the middle. So we're just a 2-man shop and—

Yeah.

You know, we, uh, got educated at the highest levels and were able to get, you know, Ultimately, the goal for anything is, you know, you want the squadron to be able to own the target. So our main job was to provide reliable, repeatable means of re-entry. So that means make a key. So that's, uh, that's cool, man. That's all we did is roam around the planet breaking into shit. And most of the time, there's only 2 reasons I'm gonna be in your house, in your car, on your boat, and that is either tactical or technical. And you'd probably rather it be technical than tactical, because if I'm there, that means 22 guys are going to show up after me and fuck you up for the rest of your life or make you disappear at sea. If it's technical, well, you get to live a little longer. We're just going to listen to you, watch you, and see where you go, you know.

Mm-hmm.

But it was definitely— I mean, like You couldn't ask for a better job. Singleton world, you know.

Well, like I said, I wasn't as deep in as you were, but that was, uh, it's my favorite stuff. Yeah, it was just— I don't know, I can't even really describe why. It's just— I don't know, it's just cool to be on your own doing that kind of shit.

Yeah, that's it. It's the— it's—

I would have loved to have done TFO.

Yeah, I, I, um, did classes for them. I'd get pulled up there.

Really?

Yeah, I got to help out with their selection, and they've got a great history. I mean, that's the closest selection to OSS selection that there is in history to this day. Yeah, super cool. But I would help them out, out in, uh, Nevada. Fucking phenomenal course. I, I, um, there was aspects of that that I put into ours. Because I was able to go see it and these guys are onto something.

Well, that's really cool, Ben. Yeah, I did not know that you were the one that pretty much built that entire program, at least at the beginning of time, you know.

Beginning of time.

The beginning of its time.

Yeah, um, seems like very cool, 20-plus years ago at this point. So yeah, it's old now, all old news. I can't even imagine what they're doing these days.

I'll bet it's pretty damn cool.

Yeah, I bet it is.

But you want to take a quick break?

Sure.

I'm always listening to something on the road, working out, walking around the house, traveling, whatever it is. And what I like about Amazon Music is it puts music, podcasts, and audiobooks all in one app. So now with Amazon Music Unlimited, you're not just getting music and podcasts, Your subscription also includes access to audiobooks, which makes it easy to keep something good going no matter what you're doing. I've been listening to Project Hail Mary, and that's the kind of audiobook that really works in this format. Hearing the story in the narrator's voice pulls you in differently. You get the pacing, the tension, the personality of the characters, and it makes it easy to stay locked in whether you're driving, training, Or knocking things out around the house. With Amazon Music, you get music, podcasts, and audiobooks all in one app. Try it today. The internet wasn't built with your privacy in mind, but Glacier was. Open the app, tap connect, done. You're protected. Remember, privacy isn't paranoia. It's protection. Take your privacy back. Download Glacier today. All right, Clint, we're back from the break. I think we covered a lot of the Singleton stuff and everything you're doing, or is there more to go into?

I think that's plenty, right? I mean, people get the idea. It's really about, hey, you're taking seasoned operators, turn them into operatives and going and getting shit done outside the theaters of war. And, you know, creative way of taking out bad guys. It's really super cool stuff. And yeah, I mean—

So what's some of the stuff that you carried back then or carried now? Let's do a quick everyday carry pocket dump.

Um, back then, it's gonna sound weird. I mean, I always had a couple of tracking devices. I had my lock equipment. Smart jammers for alarm systems and stuff like that. Um, recce stuff, urban recce, like cameras and hide materials and video. Um, you know, and notice the first thing I mentioned is like, oh, an MP7 and a, you know, some kind of whatever pistol. But, you know, your tools, as you know, back then, or for that kind of stuff, is You know, it's, it's commercial-level stuff that you can explain away, you know.

Mm-hmm.

Um, and so it's really— it's not about guns and all that. It's, it's about having a great storyline. If you ever get pulled over and have something, you got to have a story, you know, that matches what you have on you. And then that story also has to match the environment that you happen to get rolled up in. That's all you're thinking about the whole time, right?

Mm-hmm.

Because the layers of your cover come off as you get closer and closer to a target, to the point where if I'm on my knee making a key to a lock, I really can't explain that away. So that's why time on target is so important. You want it as minimal as possible so that you can get your layers back on, because the further you get away from that target, the better. You know, my, you know, disguises. You know, obviously those masks come in handy. Um, one of them was actually on display at the International Spy Museum in DC, and then I guess some agency attorneys went through there after it'd been on display for like 4 or 5 years. You know, the agency purposely unclassified the sky stuff so that someone can— like, you can throw it in the trash. Because before then, if you threw it in the trash, oh, you threw away classified material. So they unclassify all this crap. You know, and I didn't— what am I going to do with a mask that's built to my face, you know? So I just donated it. And, uh, the former deputy of Black Squadron was actually the director of the Spy Museum when I donated it, so he was good with it.

I was like, oh, okay, well, if he's good with it, then— but they came through and took it, you know, and stuck it in their new museum at headquarters, I guess.

Oh.

Supposedly. I don't know. Or they threw it in the trash. Who knows? You know, but, um, it's actually— there's a— yeah, there's a funny story to this whole disguise thing. Like, um, at the time, uh, PVH, you know, or the, the CO of SEAL Team 6, pulled Jeff and I in. He's like, you guys are, uh, my disguise guys. I'm like, uh, I wouldn't call us disguise guys. We just wear them from time to time. In case there's a nanny cam, you know. And he's like, yeah, whatever. Here's the deal, can you disguise a troop of guys, like, you know, with masks and stuff? And he's like, well, whatever. I'm like, well, no, probably not the mask because it takes, takes 6 months to build those things, you know, or whatever it is. I said, we could probably use, uh, you know, some, some LA guys. And he's like, yeah, yeah, okay, figure it out. I want you to take 22 guys and get them disguised. Like, as what? Like, I don't know, Afghanis or something. We're like, okay. So I call up, uh, the first guy I called was Stu Siegel. Okay, Stu Siegel Productions.

He, he, uh, we used him in the AFO course, and he is a producer that was in LA. He decided to open up his own production studios in San Diego. And, um, he had sets and he had an Afghan village that looked real realistic, and we can run scenarios there with actors and everything and really get guys squared away on blending in or building rapport, right, for some of the things that require communication. And, um, and so I call him up, and he's famous for all the '80s cheesy TV shows. So Pensacola, uh, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, remember Renegade?

Yeah.

Um, Hunter, uh, Silk Stocking Murders, right? He produced all those in San Diego. Um, his claim to fame though was, uh, Jeremy the Hedgehog. He started in porn. So Stu was a, was a porn producer and made Jeremy the Hedge— is that his name? Jeremy the Hedgehog famous. You know, the ugly little guy with the really big—

Yeah, I know who you're talking about.

Yeah, got a lot of meat on that guy kind of guy. But, um, never seen it though. Uh, and so then he switched out of porn and started to do all those TV shows, has his own set and stuff. And then at the same time, I was like, well, who can do like really good— the Yeager Brothers. Now the Yeager Brothers got their fame early on in the special effects world with Freddy Krueger. They got all kinds of awards and stuff, I guess, back in the day, and they became like the top special effects, uh, place in LA. And so they could make really cool masks, um, super detailed, but they're faster. So I was just like, okay, I can leverage all my resources and figure out who can knock this out the quickest. And Stu, of course, like, I got you, we can knock this out. So if you know Stu, he's like a big barrel-chested bearded— he should be a team guy, but he's you know, he's a Hollywood producer. And, um, so we fly these guys out there to the Afghan village, dress them all up, you know, they put prosthetic noses and bushy eyebrows and, you know, and beards and this and that and, and, uh, all these tanning ointments and got them looking all, you know, put— gave them AK-47s and then had them run around in this village.

And we filmed it because the, the special instruction was, hey, Film it with cell phones, film it with Handycams, film it with all kinds of just average crap, right? Like average technology. And while you're at it, go ahead and use some high-end security cameras as well. And we'll just see how these guys look. Do it at day, do it at night. Kind of did the whole thing. And, um, you know, I'm like, what the— what's this for? You know? And so we come back and kind of present it to the CO, and he looks at it, he's like, oh, okay. It was really All right, thanks. And that was it.

We're like, what the—

because we jumped our ass to make this happen. So did the— it was a, it was a troop out of Silver Squadron. And so we're just like, what the fuck was that for? Well, fast forward, turns out one of the courses of action for, uh, the bin Laden raid was to let everyone do it in disguise and then let Pakistan take credit for it. And so this was like to see how they looked if they happened to get captured on cell phone or cameras or whatever it is. Then it's like, oh, okay, that's kind of cool. That's my big claim to fame in the bin Laden operation. Controversial bin Laden operation.

Boy, how that would have changed the latest drama, huh?

Yeah. What is it? What is it right now with the latest?

You know what I mean?

Whose is it? Yeah, I kind of lost track, honestly. Like, is it— who's—

I don't know. I can't keep track either.

Who's winning? Is there anybody winning?

Winning?

Is this the who shot bin Laden thing?

Oh yeah. I don't know.

Is that the current? I don't know. What were you talking about?

That's what I'm talking about.

Okay.

I mean, it's been kind of like the ongoing thing, right?

Yeah.

I just like, had that have happened, how— what a change of—

no one can say anything. And I think maybe that's why The course of action just was never looked at seriously. Like, all right, these guys aren't going to keep that secret. I swear to God it was me. I'm the one with the big nose.

Oh man.

Yeah, that was weird. But you know, yeah.

Yep. So why did you leave?

Well, boy, that's an interesting question you just threw out there. Well, I was rolling up on my 20 to begin with. And so let's see, that was 2000. So, you know the deal with retirement. You can put your retirement paperwork out 24 months out, 2 years out. As soon as you do that, it's supposed to kind of take you off the bench and you can take that last 2 years and kind of just do whatever you want and concentrate on your new future. At that command, it doesn't do that. I put my paperwork in, but kept working and still got pulled into stuff here and there. And plus, you're addicted, so you don't really say no to anything anyway. You want to be part of anything. And then— but the way out ended up actually having some drama attached to it, unfortunately. And it actually hinges on what we just joked about. So, um, they're basically— I'm sitting at home one morning and I get a call from my ops chief who I had gone through BUD/S with, and he's like, Clint, don't come in, man. They've got your picture at all the checkpoints. I'm like, are you fucking with me right now?

No, I am serious as a heart attack. They have your headshot at all the checkpoints. And I was like, uh, okay. He's like, I'll call you back once I have more information.

What checkpoints?

To get on base, to get to the command.

Okay.

Right. So I'm like, still thinking maybe he's fucking with me. Like, why would they put a picture of me?

Oh, you mean there's a picture posted?

A picture posted.

I thought you meant pictures of you going through the checkpoints.

No.

What?

No, no. Yeah, a picture of me.

Like, this guy, like, if you see this guy, bring him in type shit?

Yeah, okay. Yeah, something. And I was like, huh, all right. So that was kind of like obviously nerve-wracking. And I'm like, so I'm sitting at home now.

This shit really comes in handy.

What's that?

Now all these masks really come in handy.

Yeah. So I'm sitting there and I'm kind of like, what the fuck could this be? You know, like there's nothing. Like I've lived a pretty clean career and You know, I'm sitting there going, have I done something wrong? Did I say something wrong? Did I— you know. And anyway, a day turns into days and I'm starting to call people and nobody knows anything. And, you know, as you know, or I always kind of compare it like to that Eddie Gallagher moment, like knowing what it's like to have no control over your future, right? And I didn't— I got a fraction of what he got, but I had that feeling like, oh, you know, what does this mean? You know, you start thinking it's the 800-pound gorilla sitting on your chest right now. It's the United States government. It's this, it's that. Your mind just starts taking off in all different directions. And, um, you know, I'm just sitting at home and, uh, didn't know, uh, didn't know what was going on. Nobody gave me any word. And then I think about a week went by, and then finally my ops chief, same guy, he calls me up and he's like, hey, uh, you know, I hope you're doing okay.

It's still real blurry around here. I have no idea what's going on, so just hang tight. And I'm like, I've been hanging tight. Like, what the fuck is going on? And, uh, he was like, I'm sorry, I just don't have an answer for you. And I was like, what the fuck? You know, um, and then a couple more days goes by, he calls, he's like, hey, meet me at the, uh, I think it was Harris Teeter grocery store. He's like, meet me in the parking lot. I was like, okay. And so I— he's after work for him, so once he gets— meet him over there in the evening, it's pouring rain. Um, he's like, hey, do you have your, uh, access badges and all your stuff? I'm like, Yeah. Like, yeah, I've been told to take it. I'm like, holy fuck, you know, like you're handing over, you know, all your NSW. I got a ton of them on there too because they give me access to places in DC and this and that. And I hand it over to him and, uh, um, I mean, he's like, sorry dude. He goes, I, I still have no idea.

I was just told to come get this from you. He's like, just hang tight, we'll figure it out. I'm like, great. So now I go home. When that happened, now I start to branch out and call other folks. And so the first person jumped to my mind, um, was one of my buddies at— I think he was at Team 8. And Team 8 was the one where they handed over a CIA source or whatever it was. Remember this? Team 8 guys hand them over. He's alive. And then when the agency got a hold of him, he magically died. Do you remember this?

I don't.

There was a bunch of team guys at 8 or wherever that were getting— they were getting like court-martialed, and it was some crazy drama. And I talked to one of them, and they were like, call Louie free. Because, you know, he, he ended up walking into the courtroom. The judge knew who he was. Everybody knew who he was. Louie basically looked at the judge and said, you know, this is like a kangaroo court. This is ridiculous. Let these guys go. They didn't do anything wrong, and you know it. And so the military judge respected and knew who Louie was, the point where he basically let those guys go because it was a total sham deal or whatever the drama. I don't remember the details anymore, but so they're like, just call him, you know. I, and I remembered there was a trip I took to Yemen in one of the houses There was a, a kid named Justin Free, and, uh, and I was like, oh, I've met Louie's son. He's an officer team guy. So I hit him up and said, hey, I've been told to probably hit your dad up. What do you think?

He's like, yeah, call him, get him on your side now and get it over with, you know, that way you're, you know, you're good. And I was like, okay. And if you don't know who Louie Free is, he's, he's a former federal judge. former director of the FBI, and he owns probably one of the most reputable law firms in the country. He— his law firm took down Sandusky, right? All this— what was that, like, sex crime, sexual stuff at one of the universities? He took down, um, the BP oil spill in the Gulf, you know, when that thing was dumping, you know, millions of barrels of oil per day. Um, but great American. And, uh, he's a kind of an American icon, actually. He's kind of checked all the big boxes in the legal world. And, um, so I called him up and said, hey, I have no idea what's going on, but, you know, I had all my badges pulled. I've been basically sitting at home for a couple weeks. And, you know, here's this guy I don't even know, and he's like, don't worry, it's gonna be okay. Like, if you can't think of anything that you've done that's that wrong, then it can't be that bad.

And either way, I'll take care of it, you know. And it was like, wow. And it was the first time in that couple weeks feel like, all right, now I got somebody on my side. And it's not just somebody, you know, he's got horsepower. And in fact, on that first phone call, he's like, do you want me to call 60 Minutes? We can, we can light this up in a heartbeat, man. I was like, no, not yet. I said, if it comes to something like that, sure. And, um, this is a long story, but to shorten it, you fast forward They do this full investigation that I don't know what it is. I just know there's an investigation going on. They're not really talking to me. I kept Louie up to, up to speed, but I never told anybody that I had him in my court, um, and had him on standby to just start, you know, destroying people if it was necessary. And, um, and it— and then one day I get called in. You know, I had to go to the visitor center. They took me to the MWR building, which is like, you know, you couldn't work for, you know, somebody who's been at the command for whatever at that point, 7 years, something like that.

You know, it's like, dude, you're treating me like, like a maintenance guy coming to fix something, right? And, um, they pull me into the MWR and, you know, a SEAL warrant who was in charge of the investigation or whatever, sits down in front of me, pulls out this big binder, and I'm looking at the binder. I kind of see like it's, it's like printoffs from my website. Okay. And so he's flipping through it and he's like, do you, uh, do you have a company called Escape the Wolf? Like, yeah. Are you, uh, actively making any money right now? Like, No. Do you have some product that you're offering?

Yep.

Is there a conflict of interest with this product? I haven't sold any product. There's nothing. So he's got all these questions that have to do with my retirement company. And then he's like, so Matt Bissonnette, And then I'm looking at him like, yeah? He's like, are you aware that there's a book that came out? I was like, I don't think so. No. He's like, hmm. So are you friends with Matt? I was like, we're acquaintances. I think I went over to his— he had a company called Element 5 or something like that. I can't remember. Anyway, I was like, yeah, I've talked to him a couple of times. That's about it. He's like, oh, uh-huh. Like, staring at this guy. And he's like, well, a lot of what you've got going on right now, you know, looks and smells kind of like what he did. I'm like, well, what did he do? He's like, well, he, he had wrote a book and he had sold rights, you know, to a publisher and collected that money while he was on active duty here at this command. So what outside income are you collecting while you're here at this command?

And I'm like, none. And he's like, well, you've got a lot of infrastructure set up online, and that's part of the reason why you're sitting here. And some people or whatever has some issues with all this. And I was like, are you aware that I put in my retirement paperwork already? He's like, no. I'm like, yeah, so I've already put in for retirement.

Hell of an investigation you got going on here.

And then he's like, uh, okay. And I said, are you aware that I also filled out a chit respectfully requesting to start my retirement company called Escape the Wolf? You got to be shitting me. And I have 5 signatures of my entire chain of command, and all the paperwork is sitting in the JAG's office. office. And he's like, you have— do you have copies of this? I'm like, yeah, at home. You better believe it. He's like, oh. So this is like 2 or 3 months later. Okay. And I had stressed out. I was down to like £160 thinking, I didn't know what to think. And it's them targeting. There's about 20 of us that they targeted. you know, to figure out who had outside sources of income because they were comparing it to the likes of what Matt did with his book and wanted to— they didn't have control of Matt. The CO at the time was putting pressure on the DOJ. DOJ then was coming after Matt, but it was a dotted line, you know, it wasn't enough. So when the CO's job was threatened by the Joint Chief of Staff that, you know, hey, why do you have your guys getting out writing books about covert operations.

Um, that same CO saw his career pass in front of him. You know, his grandfather was an admiral, his dad was an admiral, and now I think he saw it as like, oh well, now I'm not going to make admiral because of this kid's— this person's book. Well, so I'm going to have to take it out on— Takes it out on his own people. And I just happened to get wrapped up into that 20 guys, and we all got Trident boarded and treated like criminals. They still did it?

They still Trident boarded you?

In order— well, the new— in order to close any case in Naval Special Warfare, it's the Trident board that closes the case. So keeping your Trident, but we got to finish the board. So in the board is when the true colors came out, and I'm sitting across from a Master Chief who—

You should board yourself for being a fucking dumbass, right? I mean, it was—

it was all kangaroo court, you know, knee-jerk reaction to try and burn a bunch of guys that they had control over because some other guy, you know, did something they didn't like. That's what, you know—

And so you did the proper channels. Board?

The other 19 didn't fare so well, but, uh, they still were like, hey, yeah, we gotta board you to close this thing out. And so I sat down from a Master Chief who had an investigation on him that was ongoing, right? And, uh, and I knew about it. I don't even know if he knew he had an investigation going on on him. And he's like, so, Matt Bissonnette. I'm like, uh-huh. He's like, why didn't you disclose that, uh, you bought your house from him when you moved to Virginia Beach? What the hell, dude? And I'm like, what are you talking about? Like, yeah, I bought my house, but Matt's out of town, I'm out of town. My wife and his wife basically made the deal. Like, I, I said, I knew I was buying a house from a team guy, but I didn't, you know, that's it. Like, what do you mean? And what's— here's what's interesting that I knew is the same Master Chief had sold that same house to Matt when Matt moved to Virginia Beach. And so I was like, didn't you own this house at one time? And he was like, that's not the point.

I was like, okay. And then, uh, then it was over. They did their little kangaroo court. Okay, you get to keep your trade-in. I was like, well, good, because I'm like retiring next month, thank God. But I mean, that was my exit out, you know, out of the Navy. It was fucking horrible and stressful and immature. Yeah, yeah. Wow. Some of the other guys, man, they were sweeping the quarterdeck for like a year. They got their tridents pulled, sweeping the quarterdeck, told that after that year of punishment, we'll give you your bird back. Some of them, once the year went by, they didn't get their bird back. Just let him— yeah, see ya. It's crazy. These were seasoned—

That dude, it doesn't surprise me.

Seasoned, experienced operators. And they— these were like troop chief level guys.

Eat you up and spit you out like you're a piece of shit. I see it time and time and time and time again.

Yeah, in here. Yeah, all the time. Yeah, every unit.

Yeah, it's what they do.

Well, they say, you know, it's a fence line of sharks and eventually you get bit. So got bit. It's kind of like they say, well, you can't make chief until you get in trouble, you know. It's like, well, that kind of holds true a little bit.

Yeah, the hypocrisy is just like— yeah, nothing I've ever seen.

It left a bad taste in my mouth for a really long time, and then eventually you're just like, well, whatever, man. Like I didn't do anything wrong, and I was glad I was the only one that filled out the right paperwork because, you know us, Naval Special— nobody fills out paperwork in NSW. And the only reason I filled out that paperwork is because my deputy in Black Squadron, who was an Army guy, was like, yeah, you should probably fill out a chit and just cover your ass just in case. I was like, oh, good call on that. Yeah, an Army guy, because they're all about the admin stuff, you know.

Wow.

But yeah, I listened to him and it paid off. Yeah, fun, fun, right?

So we covered the Escape the Wolf stuff.

Yeah.

So let's talk about ibogaine.

Oh boy, ibogaine.

How'd that go for you?

Um, I think I benefited far more than I know. I feel like I went into it pretty ready compared to a lot of guys. I feel like a lot of guys— I don't know about you, but they sign up, they go down, and they really hadn't done a lot of prep work, you know. So I had— I'd been through therapist after therapist after therapist, and I finally found Scott, um, out of Florida. And this guy is basically like part therapist, part Yoda, part poet, and has this very, um— he just has an ability about him. You can vomit all over his desk and he will take all of that and turn it into just gold bars of wisdom, wisdom, where you're sitting there going, yeah, exactly. You know, if you tell like how you feel or what you're thinking, I don't know how many times with this guy I would say, exactly, that's exactly what I'm thinking, that's exactly what I'm feeling. You know, 2 years straight of working with him and, uh, prior to ibogaine, and was able to just uncover the why to a lot of my own personal issues.

You know, is this the childhood stuff that we're coming back to?

Yeah, yeah.

I thought this was coming after ibogaine.

I'm sorry. No, it's— it was all during the— that ibogaine was like the grand finale for me.

Gotcha.

Yeah. And so he made me dig, and, um, you know, and he, uh— there's one exercise he had me do that was so powerful that it kind of unlocked a lot of compartmentalized stuff from childhood. And, um, he said, you know, before I grew up in Before I moved to Saudi, I was in Dallas, and, uh, I'd had this memory of standing in the bathroom doorway as like a 4 or 5-year-old, leaning against the frame of the door. My mom's sitting on the toilet, right? She's got a cigarette hanging out of her mouth, and she's like, ah, Clenny, you know your dad?

Uh-huh.

Yeah, you know he's not your real dad, right? And I'm just like— and then she just kind of left it at that, you know. And in retrospect and through therapy, you learn, like, a boy's identity is through his father, you know, trust is through the mom, and, you know, a whole lot of other things that carried a lot of weight in that moment. And then she stacked a whole bunch of other stuff on over time. Right? Things that I remembered, you know, when—

Yeah.

When I was learning to walk and talk, she was teaching me how to lie, cheat, and steal all at the same time. I remember us going to grocery stores and she would always stage me in the toy section, be like, stay here, I'm gonna go get our stuff. And, uh, you know, I'd stand there and look at all the toys or whatever and And when she filled up her basket, she'd roll by and be like, okay, pick something out that you want. Okay, I'll take, you know, whatever, GI Joe. Grab a GI Joe thing, and then we just walk right out the door. We never went to the cash registers. Almost every single time we go grocery shopping, never paid for anything. And I just thought that was normal. I never— I was like, oh, maybe I didn't even— I don't even know if at that age it crosses your mind that you didn't pay for anything like everyone else, and that the groceries in the grocery basket aren't all bagged separately. It's all just in there. And I didn't know any of this stuff. And then anytime she was lying in front of me, I always remember her looking at me and telling me in German, don't say anything.

And, uh, I always look at her like, what do you mean? You know, as a kid. So she knew she's bold-faced lying to somebody and then looked down at me and, you know, ze Geist, or whatever it was she said, that, you know, don't say anything in German. And so I just watched her for a lot of the childhood do all her things— lie, cheat, and steal like crazy. And, uh, But I didn't know any of that until Scott was like, hey, here's an exercise. You're going to figure out what apartment you lived in in Dallas and, uh, go find it. And so I look up my elementary school on Google Earth, and then I kind of knew that— I knew that, okay, that was the school. And I could remember fragments.

Uh-huh.

I remembered what that, that swimming pool at that apartment complex looked like. And so I was able to go, okay, that's the complex. Then I So now it's time to go do this experience. And, um, he told me, he's like, all right, I want you to drive there, you know, anchor yourself to the pool, and then walk the path to the apartment you lived in when you were that little boy. I was like, all right. And so get there, pull in. It is a shithole, like shithole, shithole Dallas apartment complex. And I even felt kind of— I was like, oh, I'm glad I'm packing heat, you know? And go to the pool, get on that path, make my way. And, uh, and I remember it was the bottom floor apartment. They were 2-story. And I'm standing right there, and it was like this overarching feeling of insecurity came over me, standing there staring at that damn door. And he's like, all right, now you're just gonna imagine Close your eyes, whatever you need. Now, you're going to walk through that door. I want you to picture it and describe it to me. And, I'm like, okay, living room is to the left, kitchen is— or living room is to the right, kitchen is to the left.

You go through the dining or the living room and off to the left down there is a set of stairs. That set of stairs go up to your bedroom. Okay, take those stairs, go up. And then the door, first door to the right was my bedroom. And open up the door, look in. He's like, okay, so, you know, what do you see? And I see myself. It's like 5, 4 or 5-year-old Clint. What are you doing? I'm on my stomach. I'm by myself. And it was interesting. You walk into the room and for me visualizing, I could feel the feelings of that kid. It was fear, loneliness, sadness, depression. It's fucking crazy. And he's like, okay, well, you know, walk over and then just lean down, put your hand on his back. What is he doing? You know, he's, you know, doing Superman coloring book or whatever. And, uh, you know, he's like, okay, you know, let the kid— let him— let, let little Clint know that you're there. And, uh, You know, and let him know I'm there. And, you know, and then he turns and looks up, and man, it was like so powerful.

I lost my shit like right there, like even talking about it right now. And, um, and it was all about like, hey, you're gonna, you know, get little Clint, get him to stand up. You're down at eye level with him, you know. Give him a big hug and hold on to him. And yeah, I just remember you're hugging this little version of yourself at that age. And yeah, you could feel all the feelings during that moment, even right now, like replaying it. And Yeah. Wow. So you hug this little kid and you tell him, hey, everything's going to be okay. Do you want to get out of here? You know, and the little kid's like, yeah. You know, little Clint's like, let's get out of here. You hold his hand, walk him down the stairs, back through that living room. At this point, you meet yourself standing outside. Now you've you know, you got the— you know, you got your little version of yourself with you and beelining to the car. Literally opened up the passenger door and visualized putting him in there, closing the door, going around, getting in the driver's seat and driving away and leaving that place, you know, in the rearview mirror.

And then, uh, never forget, I went to this coffee shop that was nearby that I'd already kind of pre-located. He had me kind of Said, hey, you know, when you get done, find a safe place and like, you know, give me a call. And so then I get there, get on the phone with Scott, and, uh, fucking lost my shit. And it just unpacked— it didn't unpack it, um, it decompartmentalized a big portion of the just the bad things. during childhood, not just up to that moment in that apartment, but it allowed all that compartmentalization to start just busting open, even post, uh, apartment, like moving to Saudi and things in Saudi. And, um, you know, all of unraveling— It unraveled everything. And, um, you know, when, you know, then That was just the beginning, you know. And in that 2 years with him, he was able to— you get to like just whatever, I don't know, maybe 6 months ago, he was able— I was— I got kind of, you know, like we all do with any therapist, you get kind of frustrated with some of them. Like, okay, tell me what's going on.

Like, fix me, you know. And, uh, you know, and you got to find the right one. I'll tell you, Scott's the one for a lot of— I feel like for a lot of us. Um, and so he was— I got to kind of a frustration point when I was like, all right, come on, what the fuck? What's going on with all this? And he was able to take that red thread and sew it from when I was 5 all the way to that moment in time. And, um, and I, and I sat there and listened to him and I was just blown away. Because he took every single— like, even these fragmented things, I would say, in our discussions, he had made note of it. You know, things you don't think are anything important, you know. And, um, he had made note of all these things over 2 years and was able to just tie it all together. All the abandonment, all the trust issues, all the control issues. I mean, you name it, I had deep-seated issues that, you know, were, I think, in some cases, like, the most deep-seated and the worst he'd ever kind of dealt with or tried to dig up out of somebody, you know.

So your sign or symptom at the surface could be drugs, could be alcohol, could be women, um, but that's just a sign or symptom of something much, much larger. And what in the therapist world we'll call your 10%, right? That's just the 10. When somebody cries over spilt milk, it's just 10%. It's not the spilt milk. It's not the drug addiction. It's not the alcohol. You know, it's not the womanizing. It's the 10% is— those are just signs and symptoms. When you actually take time and find the right therapist, now you can excavate down into your core, into your soul, and find the 90. And that should be everybody's goal, is go, okay, I gotta go find my 90, because that 90% is the why you have signs and symptoms. And when you never go figure out your why, well, then you can't really solve the problem. And, uh, so for me, having those 2 years and getting to the why. When you show up to something like Ibogaine where they tell you, hey, intention is everything, right? Your intention's going in, your intention's coming out. You got to make sure those intentions, you know, are real and anchored ideally to your why.

So, I showed up knowing exactly like, okay, I got these abandonment issues from my mother, trust issues from her that led to trust issues and abandonment issues with women, which then the control issues. It's trust. I mean, it's all connected. But, if you don't know that it was all connected or unravel all of that crap from your past, well, then you can't really solve the problem. You can go to ibogaine and go face your demons, If you will. But still, if you don't know the why, then you may not benefit as much from it. So anytime I'm talking to people now, I'm like, dude, figure out the why first so that you can show up with the intentions that are connected to it, right? So if your intention going under the mask— I don't know if you were doing it, but I was like saying them to myself. Okay, you know, trust, abandonment, all the— hey, thrown out with the old. In with the new, right? Even when you do the fire ceremony, you're burning the old so that you can bring in the new. And so, mine were all trust abandonment-issued intentions and getting rid of them so that you can now finally kind of live free of all of it and live a normal productive life and get rid of all the bad habits and go find a guy like that or gal.

Who gets you, who connects with you, who sees you, and then knows how to interpolate it. You know, I used to go— we used to go to these marriage therapists. I'm like, you go to a marriage counselor who's never been divorced, you know, it's like they're, they're not the one. You know, if you're going to be a marriage counselor, you probably should have been divorced a couple of times and seen both sides of it, the good, the bad and ugly, and now you can talk to it. I think counseling across the board should be handled that way. If you're dealing with addicts, okay, well, hopefully you were an addict because that's where you benefit the most.

Makes sense.

Yeah.

What did you piece together? What were the missing components?

I mean, for me, knowing the abandonment piece, the trust, and how it was all anchored to my mom, like, I had no idea, honestly, you know. Plus the ibogaine, what it did is allowed my conscious to come back to the surface, you know, probably the first time on the post-ibogaine where it was nothing but every bad feeling for about 40 or 45 days straight. You know, grief, shame, guilt. There wasn't one good feeling for about 40-plus days. Every day I opened my eye knowing that this is going to suck. You know, I'd wake up and go, oh God, there it is. And I just feel it.

Hmm.

In the random crying. You know, be driving down the road, start crying. Could be at the grocery store, start crying. I mean, it's just like it consumes you, or consumed me for, you know, 40-plus days. And then there was the one morning where you finally wake up, you open your eye, you're kind of like, oh, maybe I'm back to neutral, right? Everything's not as bad. You kind of feel normal one more time again. You know, but man, but ultimately, yeah, brought my conscious back, kind of reset my moral compass, probably, you know, and made feelings. Yeah, made me feel again. It's pretty interesting and powerful, right? I'd also say. You know, with some of this psychedelic stuff, like, I also noticed too, and I'm sure you've seen it, it's— I think they need to be careful with a lot of it, you know. I think it's, um, you know, calling it medicine and, you know, and, uh, capital— capitalism is starting to get its hands on it.

Yeah.

And I feel like when that happens, you better be careful, you know, because before you know it, it'll be readily available and it won't cost so much and you won't need a nonprofit or you won't need this, you won't need that. And I think it just— they need to be careful how they—

Yeah. I don't know what to think anymore. Well, me and you, I mean, that's the first time I met you randomly. We're at the hotel getting ready to go down. You went to a different house. And I, I don't— I am, uh, I don't know what I think about it anymore.

This was your second time, right? So did you have all the bad feelings like I did? Mm-hmm. Yeah. And still creeps in there if you let it?

Yeah.

Me too. Like, it's weird. I can almost as if— imagine the mask is off and right now I could do like almost like a 1,000-meter stare and good doesn't creep in. It's like a bad feeling that starts to come over me. Is that what you kind of— if you just let silence, hang out a little too long and think about it.

Do you believe in God?

I do, yeah. I, um, I didn't always, but even in the ibogaine, I asked— you know, you can get to about like whatever they tell you, like around 7 or 8 hours, you can start asking ibogaine questions. And so I remember saying, hey, show me God. And like a film strip coming down from the top of my mask in there, in cursive white writing, it said, show me God. Exactly what I was thinking. And then it kind of kept going. It was like a very— like a movie reel almost, right? Then the very next thing that started to come down was this black medallion. It looked like it was probably this big when you're under the mask, right? And it had cutouts in it. And as you know, you try to focus on anything in there, it goes blurry on you, right? And so I was using my peripherals trying to make out what the cutouts had, but they're kind of the eerie Part of the whole thing was it was backlit by a raging fire. So the only reason I could see the cutouts on this medallion or coin was because it was backlit by this fire that was burning.

And it slowly— I tried to keep it there, but it just kept on moving down, down, and disappeared out of the bottom of my mask. It was really Odd.

You?

What about me? What'd you— you asked, do I believe in God?

Oh, yeah.

Something on the second run that—

There was, uh, I mean, I believe— I mean, are you a Christian? When I say God, I mean, yeah. Do you believe in Christ?

Yes.

I don't know, because I'm not really—

Don't know about the Christ part?

Oh, no. I'm 100% sure.

Oh, got it. The ibogaine part.

Yeah. There's been a lot of good that's come from it. I'm not ready to share everything that I've been through yet and that I may continue to go through.

Yeah.

But I will say, I think there's a possibility that that is a realm that We as humanity should not have access to.

Yeah.

I think that a lot of deception can happen in that. I think we have a veil over us. I mean, I did. I'm very— I feel very in tune with the spiritual realm right now, all the shit that's going on around us that we can't see.

Mhm.

And, and I think that You know, I mean, we can't see frequencies. We can't see certain lights. We can't see really anything. We only have, you know, five senses. But doing that kind of proves that there's a lot more going on, and I think there's a possibility that God put that veil over us because we. Are not ready for that.

You could see that. Yeah, especially as more and more people get into this whole DMT on drip, hanging out in different realms for hours at a time. I'm sure you've had people on here, you've heard about that.

Oh yeah, I've been invited to do it.

Nope, um, I'm good.

They're talking about talking to entities, and that just seems like something that I don't really want to mess around with.

No. And, uh, yeah, I don't think—

yeah, I've been a huge proponent of it, and sometimes I feel like maybe that was a mistake, and maybe I've led a lot of people in the wrong direction. But at the same time, I'm not sure. And I'm not— yeah, I'm not really 100% ready to go there yet because I'm still trying to figure out what it all meant and what it does mean. And, uh, but that's kind of where I'm at right now.

Yeah, I'm with you. I think people just need to be neutral on it. Don't get— don't become a huge—

don't get on the A lot of people get into that and then that becomes their god.

Well, it becomes their new addiction.

It's their— it's talk— talking to the medicine.

Yeah. You know, I think just we got to be careful with some of the language, but, you know, the whole like God made it, it's natural to the earth. And I'm like, well, you know, so rattlesnakes and crude oil. I'm not drinking it every morning with my breakfast.

Yeah.

You just got to— I think there's a lot of good that it's done and can do. And I think they just need to keep it from getting capitalized upon because I think that's where once it starts going to market in any other way than how it is right now, I feel like that's when things go south. Just maintain the control over it and do it right. You know? Yeah. But yeah, where's my gummy bears? You know, since you gave me these— start here. So I appreciate you giving me these though, really, because I want— now I want to give you something in return, if you're okay with that.

Oh, love that.

Okay, so I'm gonna get up for a second.

Okay.

You asked me about EDC, but I gotta take a moment here and, you know, counter you, your gummy bears, with at least a Shadow Systems. Okay, all the components All the components built, made in Texas. Okay. It's a veteran-owned company. He's a West Point guy. Don't hold it against him. Trevor Rowe, West Point combat vet. This is the MR920, and it's kind of their flagship compact. It's already set up, optics ready. Obviously, that's number one. That's for you.

It is.

Okay. Shadow, obviously veteran-owned Texas company that— yeah, tell me how that feels.

That's nice.

Yeah. That one's been around. It's actually being carried by a whole bunch of law enforcement agencies. And then you are getting the first ever— this thing's the heat, dude. This is the new Shadow Systems U526. This thing is ready. This is serial number 0005.

Dude.

And, uh, they did not compromise on this thing. This thing dry is only 6.£2. Didn't compromise on the barrel. It's twisted It's chrome-lined. Beautiful. It's got user-adjusted safety switch. You can put it at either 60 degrees or, or you can put it at 30 or 90.

Right on.

There's a lot of other perks to this. It's not your typical, you know, 5.56 rifle. And then we put the Or they put the EOTech 2-dot. Have you shot through the 2-dot yet?

No.

So it has 2 dots inside. The top dot is zeroed 50 to 200, and then the bottom dot is 200 out.

No shit.

So all you do is change the focus of top dot or bottom dot, and, and obviously a magnifier there for you.

So thank you.

Yeah, man. And I was hoping I was the first to— yeah, see that? Is it—

I don't know if it's on. Holy shit.

So that's the other piece I forgot. It's a 2-stage, 3-pound trigger on that thing. So you distinct first stage and that— yep. And then the second. £3 on that, the barrel, the stock.

Dude, this is, uh, this is nice.

Yeah, I hope you like it.

I love it.

I was hoping I was the first to counter your gummy bears with, with a weapon.

You, you are.

Good, that's all that matters.

And, uh, well, I got something for you too.

Oh, oh yeah, we're at that point in our relationship.

We are, dude. This is—

damn, thank you. Yeah, I hope you get, get out back and tell me, tell me how it does. I think you'll dig it, dude.

Maybe we can do that real quick before you leave, but, uh, I know we're pressed for time here, so I'll just get right to it.

So, uh, not going to say a raise or It's funny how these things roll.

I thought we were going into MP7 territory.

Oh shit, damn.

I thought we were going into MP7 territory when you did the EDC, but you actually made fun of it, so I was like, oh shit. But, uh, yeah, so this is, uh, Sig Sauer Rattler .300 Blackout. I got a buddy over at Sig His name's Jason, and, uh, everybody knows him now. But, um, yeah, I was, I was looking for a, a new bedside gun, and I wanted .300 Blackout because the penetration power.

Yeah.

And it's like, just flies through everything, as you had mentioned, especially with green tip.

Yeah.

And, uh, which we found out too. Kind of funny that you found out 2 years before we did. Yeah.

For whatever reason, that bore just flew through them.

Didn't travel. But, um, yeah, so SIG Rattler .300 Blackout SBR with the new SIG optics. Got a SIG flashlight on it. It's got a SIG suppressor on it. Folding buttstock.

That thing's the heat.

Super quiet.

That's pretty.

But, uh, yeah, and you know, SIG's an awesome company.

Yeah, yeah.

So quick story about Sig, if you don't mind. We, um, there's a sheriff's department that, that, uh, the county over from here, and I got a friend that works there. Very poor county, not a big budget, huge meth problem. And he told me the shit that they're running over there.

Yeah.

And it is like 25-year-old ARs, mix-matched stuff, unreliable, jamming all the time. And, uh, and like I said, he's a good friend of mine, and I— it just— I was like, this is crazy, man, that you guys have to rely on this shit. Yeah. You know, especially in that county with what you're dealing with. And so I, uh, I, I just— I was, I was like, how many— he, he runs a SWAT team now, and I was like, how many guys are over there? They said about 30. So I just, uh, I wanted to buy them 30 rifles so they're good to go. And I called Jason up at Sig and I said, hey, you guys have any old stock laying around that I can just buy at cost and give to these guys? And, uh, he said, well, give me a couple days. And I was like, look, I don't— I'm not asking for you to give them, or I'll pay for them. You know, it'd just be cool if you could give them to me at cost. So he gets back to me and he says, hey, yeah, we got the perfect— we're going to give them these.

I think they're the— it's a 5.56 SBR. He goes, we're also going to outfit them with optics, we're also going to outfit them with flashlights, and we're also going to outfit them with suppressors. And I don't need you to pay for any of it, we're just going to get it right to them.

Damn.

And I was like, dude, That is— that shit's awesome. Yeah, you know what I mean? So, uh, good American right there.

Good company.

Yeah, and they make great shit.

No, yeah, can't beat it. Rattler .300 Blackout just sounds cool. Yeah, awesome, man. This is beautiful. Thank you.

Well, Clint, that was an awesome story, man. Thank you for sharing all of that, and, uh, and it was an honor to interview you.

No, back at you. It's great to just be here with you finally, and I appreciate the voice. Probably the only one I'm going to do for, hell, the rest of my existence. So this is podcast interview, last one done.

Right on, man.

Yeah, thank you for having me, man. Appreciate it.

Thank you for coming.

God bless. Yeah, you too.

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