Shawn Ryan Show - #25 Eli Crane - Navy SEAL Sniper

Episode Date: May 5, 2022

Eli Crane joins Shawn Ryan to talk about his time as a Navy SEAL Sniper, starting his multimillion-dollar company "Bottle Breacher" in his garage, and running for Arizona State Congress. From childhood lessons to failing sniper school, Eli is an example for every American who has ever had to persevere through life's great struggles. View the rest of the interview on Rumble https://rumble.com/v13itqk-shawn-ryan-show-eli-crane-navy-seal-sniper.html Vigilance Elite/Shawn Ryan Links: Website - https://www.shawnryanshow.com Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/VigilanceElite TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@shawnryanshow Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/shawnryan762 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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You have two choices. You surrender where you're dead. I know some people have different answers for where that comes from. But I think, I think in spiritual life. If, in one, you become a Congressman, what are you gonna do when that big suitcase full of money is staring at you right in the face? What's going down?

We got another phenomenal SRS episode coming at you. This one is a former seal sniper running for Congress in Arizona. We dive deep as always and the second half of this episode is actually on rumble. I don't make the rules. I can't control it. It's not friendly on this platform. So it's over on rumble. You can go down to the link in the description and head over there after this interview. If you want to watch that portion, that's fine too. But I do have an ask. I've said it before guys. it really is getting harder and harder to reach the audience on this platform. So what helps is when you like, comment, subscribe, turn the notification bell to all.

Hopefully get notified if you don't. There's not really much else I can do. But here is the good news. There is good news. The gummy bear famine is now over. So head over to vigilanceelete.com. Get your hands on some while they last, because they never last long. But hey, thank you all for being here.

Love you guys. My family loves you guys. And if you need me, I'll be out here in the woodside now for everybody else. All right, love you. Enjoy the show. Bye bye. Eli Crane, welcome to the show, man.

So you are a Navy SEAL sniper, entrepreneur, bottle breacher company, one on Shark Tank, and now you're going into Congress. You're running for Congress and Arizona. Okay. What? I mean, you're gonna become a dirty politician. Yeah.

I know, man, just having people even say that, it's hard to even hear you know, politician because there's such negative connotation with it. Have a good reason. Well, you know, I listened to a couple of your podcasts and I heard you say I'm one that when you were going into the SEAL teams that you had to stand up for the country, it was after 9-11 and when you said it, you made it sound like you were never going to have to do that again. And now here you are again, standing up for the country, doing something that I don't think you really want to do. You're doing it for the betterment of the country and that's very commendable.

Yeah, politics is never something that I wanted to do and it doesn't mean that I haven't been interested in it because I've always found it fascinating. But actually getting in that arena is something that I never wanted to do. Yes, I think that's the biggest difference when I look at, because I see a lot of similarities when I look at joining the Navy the week after 9-11 in wanting to serve in that capacity.

I see a lot of similarities between right now wanting to run for office. But that's definitely one of the biggest differences is that I always wanted to be a seal for a very long time. And I worked very hard to get there. This is something that I really never wanted to do, never plan to do. But I'm just so concerned about this country right now

that you can't complain about it if you're not willing to do something about it, right? Yeah. Well, I got it being honest, you know, you seem a lot different than most of the politicians that I've met. Most of the politicians have, they have like a little peppy attitude and, and, and it's almost like an elevator sales pitch,

and you're very calm collected to the point. I don't think you really care what people think. You're just going to say it how it is and and I gotta be honest like that's really refreshing to see especially down our last night when we're talking about all these different things but before you do go into office wanted to give you a little present here and boy better be some damn gummy bears in here yeah gummy bears I mean if you do I heard about the gummy bears.

I mean, if you do get elected, maybe you can pass those out over there in Congress and lighten some of these assholes up. Hardly these is good. Is Harbor or gummy bears? They're better. They're better than Harbor or something. They're better than Harbor or something. Oh my goodness.

And you got me something. I do like some gummy bears. Thank you, man. It's an awesome cap. Awesome. Yummy bears. Thank you, man. It's been awesome cat. That is awesome. Thank you, Sean. You're welcome. And then you got me for something

from your company, Bottle Breachers. So that's right. We call that the Moab, the mother of all breachers. Oh, damn. It's a 30 millimeter bottle breacher That's serious it is serious man, so the case is real It wants fired and then the project all you get has to we had to meet we have to machine those you can't you can't get those This was fired the the case was. It's once fired brass.

Yeah. That's awesome, man. I'm going to have you sign this, and it's going to go right over there on the set. So awesome. This is cool. Thank you. But, well,

I want to get right into the interview, but before we do, I just want to say, you know, we'll start with childhood. I want to talk a lot about your sniper career because we haven't talked about that with any other spec ops guest on here. So I'd really like to dig into that, get into your transition, how you became an entrepreneur, and then we'll get into the dirty politics. And so how I want to do it is we'll take break whenever we want.

When we hit the dirty politics, that this show is going over to Rumble. So you want to talk about some things, not everything's YouTube friendly. And so I'm linking the Rumble description below. So when we get to that point, if you want to listen to the politics and your opinions and views and how you think we should be going in the how we should take the country in a new direction, that will all be over on rumble.

So, but what's start, what's childhood, where'd you grow up? I actually was born in Tucson, Arizona, and I was raised in Yuma, Arizona. In Yuma? Yeah, yeah. My dad moved us down there. He was a pharmacist, and he went to pharmacy school at the University of Arizona in Tucson,

and then moved the family down to Yuma because there were some good job openings down there. And so it ended up being an interesting place to grow up, because it's in the desert, it's one of the hottest places in the country. I think what, looking back on my life to this point, I think one of the things that made it funny was, I did three tours in Iraq,

and a lot of my buddies were always complaining about the heat. And I was like, oh, this is kind of like being from you, but you know, with Arabic street signs. So, um, and, you know, Yuma has some of the best Mexican food in the world. You know, um, we've got sand dunes right outside of Yuma. Um, once you cross right into California, because Yuma's right on the California border, but like if you like to off-road, or go to the lake, Yuma's a pretty cool place. Really? Yeah.

What'd you like to do as a kid? You know, I love to play football. I love playing sports. Football was my passion. And yeah, I also love to shoot when I got the opportunity to shoot. I was just you know fascinated with you know hunting with my BB gun, my pellet rifle, whatever. Good family life. Yeah yeah it was it was pretty it was pretty good you know until right around the time I was about 17 and then my family was pretty much blown up.

But yeah, I consider myself lucky to have had both my parents until I was 17. Do you want to go into that at all? I don't mind going into it at all. What happened at 17? My parents got divorced. You know, there was some infidelity in the home. And, you know, my parents decided to split. And in a way, I'm grateful for it,

because I got to see, you know, firsthand,, firsthand what that can do to a family. And I think a lot of time stuff like that can be generational. And so it was good for me because in ways, because I wanted to make sure that that was never something I brought into my family and to protect my family because I saw the fallout, I saw the aftermath of it and I never wanted my kids to experience that and it doesn't stuff like that when a when a family gets destroyed like that, it doesn't just affect the people directly involved. I mean, it has collateral damage throughout friend groups and all sorts of things. And so, in a way, I'm glad I got to experience that and just the pain and the hurt that comes with it

so that I can remember how it felt and make sure that I never do anything like that. Wow. Did you have any brothers and sisters? Yeah, I've got two brothers. I've got an older brother, a name Zach. He's a chemist in Colorado and then my younger brother gave. He's a lawyer now, but he was, and I think he's still in the Marine Reserves, but he was a co-oper pilot. Oh, wow. Yeah, graduated from the Naval Academy. It's kind of cool. He's two years younger than me, but it's kind of cool, man, for, you know, for a good, for a good while there, my little brother kind of became my hero, because I remember growing up and wanting to play football and...

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ExpressVPN.com slash Sean to learn more. When I when I started to realize that probably wasn't going to happen that I didn't have the necessary skill to to make it as far as I wanted to go. It was really cool watching him because you know being his older brother I'd always get my hard time like he would you, he would go into his room and he would just study flashcards. He'd study SAT books and how to get his SAT scores up. And I'd give him a hard time. Let's go throw the football or something.

But he was really diligent with it. And then I had, you know, was just graduating from high school. And he was taking a lot of these entry tests and applying for scholarships. And he got into West Point, the Naval Academy, and the Air Force Academy. Wow. I mean, just, and it was, what was cool is like, you know, the deal, Sean, you see people on television or whatever, and they're, you see them, you watch, we all love to watch a success story, right? I think that's why people love the shark tank so much. They want to root for the underdog, underdog. They want to see how it's, how somebody can, you know, go from nothing to something,

and it was just cool because I got to watch my little brother do it right in front of me. And I got to watch the process too. Not really being able to connect the dots on, hey, will this ever amount to anything? Or could we have just been hanging out playing and run around the neighborhood? And it was really cool to watch him be successful like that, because it really opened my eyes to what

you know what was possible if he applied yourself. Damn, that's, is he helping with your campaign at all? Be an attorney or? You know what? He's not, but we have had some, we have had some discussions about that because I know that, you know, if I get the opportunity to go serve in Congress, I know that there will be a lot of legalese, a lot of documents that I have to look through and having somebody that speaks that language and reads that language and somebody that you trust. That's gonna be huge.

Yeah, well, bad. Well, at what point did you, I mean, 17, that's late in and your childhood. Yeah. And basically early adulthood, what point did you decide you wanted to be a seal? So it was right after that time period. I was, I think I was 18, 19-ish,

right around that time frame. I knew that I wanted to be in the military. You know, my parents had done a pretty good job. I think raising us to understand that, you know, freedom isn't free, even though that's cliche. And it gets said all the time. They would point, we grew up in Yuma. there was a Marine Corps air station in Yuma, and I remember them pointing out Marines at our church and even service members all the time and being like, hey,

those guys do something that's way bigger than themselves. Make sure you show them respect. And that was something that always registered with me, and that there were people that once they became adults, their focus wasn't merely making money, or providing for their families, healthcare, insurance, et cetera. There were people out there that devoted their lives to something a service that was so much bigger than them. And that was something that you know always resonated with me. And so I thought to myself that might

be something that I want to do when I get older. And so as I was getting through school and realized I didn't have what it took to play football at the levels that I wanted to play, I started doing a lot of reading and a lot of studying. Okay, if I'm going to make this decision, if I'm going to go into the military, what route do I want to go? Because I knew there were a bunch of jobs that you could do. And the Special Forces community to me was very attractive. One of my favorite authors is a guy named John Eldridge and he writes this book.

It's called Wild at Heart. And he talks about, and it's a faith-based book, but he talks about how the biggest question that every young man has is, do I have what it takes? Do I have what it takes to be a man? Do I have what it takes to be a warrior? Do I have what it takes to be a good husband?

Do I have what it takes to be a good father? And we're always asking, we've always got that question. And so this was long before I ever read that book, but that was definitely a question that I had. And you might have had the same question yourself. I definitely did. Did I have, do I have what it takes to hang with the best? Do I have what it takes to make it through the toughest training

in the Department of Defense? And initially the answer was no. Really? Yeah. I didn't make it through seal training in my first try. What, before we go into that, what drew you into the seal specifically versus green braze or marine reconnaissance PJs? So the research that I was doing said that it was the hardest in DOD almost

Almost across the board said it was the toughest training in the department of defense and The other thing too was I I loved the water like I loved swimming. Or at least I thought I did. Yeah. Until I got to you know seal training where they actually use the water the water, they weaponize it against you to try and break you. And so those were a couple reasons right there, but then as I was researching and looking through, even though the seals were considered to be the water specialist, according to literature, I was reading, they still did everything that everybody else did as well. And as you go through that pipeline and then you start working with other groups, you realize that, yes, certain groups have certain specialties. But I just thought it had a really good variety. And my dad gave me a piece of advice when I was in high school. He said Eli

The trick to being happy in your career is to pick something in life that you would basically do for free He he wanted to make sure that I didn't chase something because of money or security I think that was something that he did and he wanted to make sure that his son didn't do it and And I'm glad that he did because I think that's why a lot of, I think that's why a lot of individuals have mid-life crisis because once they get halfway through their life, they realize that we only go around one time. And life is short. And if you're not living a purpose driven life, if there's not more to your life,

then just paying the bills. And I'm not knocking anybody for doing that because some of the biggest sacrifices I've ever seen are men and women who work a monotonous job that they don't like to provide for their family. And I think that that's fantastic. But I think that you can do that and live a purpose driven life and where there's a mission outside of that's greater than those things.

I think you're absolutely right. I've seen a lot of that with when I used to train people. I would get a lot of these gents that would come in and they'd be in their 50s, late 40s to early 60s. And it's like they were making up for last time. Right, you know, they were, it's almost like they're becomes, and this isn't everybody, you know what I mean? But they're becomes like this fantasy

of what it would have been like if they had done X, Y, or Z. And in my instance, what I was saying was what would it have been like if I would have been a seal. And a lot of that was guys that chased the dollar that became extremely wealthy. And what I've noticed with people that become extremely wealthy is it's like this never ending beast that you're just feeding. It's never enough, it's never enough, it's never enough, it's never enough, and then they figure out this is about experiencing things, not money.

100%. You know, so man, I'm glad you said that because I've never actually put that into words like you just did. Yeah. Interesting. No, it is, I noticed, you know, I noticed that too. So after failing and then coming back and I became a seal at 25,

and then I made my first million dollars at 35. And by all accounts, people looking from the outside would be like, oh man, this guy's got it figured out man, he's crushing it. He's, but to your point, it's true. I mean, it doesn't, I've been poor and I've been wealthy. I'll take wealthy any day, but it, in my opinion, it doesn't fulfill you. And I think that's why you see so many celebrities that they get to this, or pro athletes, or whatever it is that you put

on a pedestal. They get to this level. And we all think, oh, they've arrived, right? And then they have problems with addiction. Often you'll see suicide. And a lot of it in my opinion is is because when you get to the top or whatever whatever that level is for you or whatever you want to achieve and you realize you're still the same human being. You still have the same flaws. You still have the same fears, the same the same anxieties that you did before, even now, a lot of times are elevated because it's a lot further fall from the top, right? And you know, that's why my faith is everything to me because it's not something that the world can take from me ever.

And but yeah, it's just been interesting to be able to experience some of those things and see that you know King Solomon talks about it in the you know book of Proverbs how it's all How it's all a waste of time You know how it's all vanity. It's all it's it's all a waste of time and it's It's all vanity. It's all, it's all a waste of time. And it's, you know, I know that that probably sounds depressing to a lot of people out there

that are chasing it. And I think most of us were the type where we need to, we're like, well, that's great Eli, but I'll figure that one out on my own. I'm gonna keep chasing this. And do chase it. I think that you should experience it for yourself. But there are so many things that are bigger in life than title and money. And that's one of the

reasons that I know I'm really not worried about. People ask me all the time, they're like, so let's say you become a congressman. What makes you think you're not going to be like everybody else? I've seen a lot of things that a lot of people haven't. I've experienced a lot of things that a lot of people haven't. And I know where it leads. And so this isn't about another feather in my cap. It's about once again service. And it's once again, this country's in trouble. And it needs the next generation to step up and say, I'll go, I may not be perfect far from it. I don't have all the answers, but I'll go. But I'll go.

Man, that's refreshing to hear. Very, all of it for where you're going. You know, it's like I was saying at the beginning of this, when I talk to politicians, there are always, it's just never since genuinely. It's theater. It's theater. It's put on the blue suit With the white shirt and the red tie get the American pin flag and this is the approved narrative

This is what you can talk about and people are sick of it. They really are It's one of the only reasons I think that a guy like me can even run in today's world because people are just like me can even run in today's world because people are just like, well, he might not say the politically correct things. He may not look like a politician, but I think he's telling me where he's really at. And it's sad that it's taking the current events that we've been experienced to get to this place, but I am grateful to see that it's not just me.

There's a bunch of guys that did the same types of jobs that we used to do that are recognizing how much trouble we're in. And they're like, okay, foreign and domestic, I'll go, I'll go. I can't do much worse than the people there now, right? No, so we'll get into that in a little bit. But, so you joined, you want to bud,

you didn't make it the first time what happened Reality happened No, it's I mean it's the toughest training in the world and I was immature and I wasn't well prepared and Because I didn't do what I needed to do to be prepared and so and because I didn't do what I needed to do to be prepared. And so, it was interesting, man. I actually made it through Hell Week, which I would say the majority of team guys would tell you is the hardest part of training.

Some will say it's not. I guess it just depends on how you look at it, but I made it through that week, and then about a week and a half later, I was performance dropped from training. Really? Yep. And then, what was it?

What was, was it the runs or was it? It was a combination. I'd failed life saving three times. Oh. And then, um, that I went to an academic review board and they were like, look, we know you're tough. You made it through hell week, but we need the best of the best here. And you're not measuring up.

They were like, you fell to run, you've failed to swim, you've failed an obstacle course, and you ranked in the bottom 25% of your class. Damn, yeah. Which is, I mean, it's like that, you know, that's hard. It's hard, it's hard, but it's how steel training is designed. It's good, and I deserved it. One of the biggest reasons I believe I was ranked in the bottom 25% of my class was because I was immature.

And I wasn't, like if there was a job to be, you know, it's, it buds, it's not just a time-brunz, time-swims in O-Courses. It's like, hey, we need that office cleaned over there. You know, after hours, once the training day is done, who wants to get it? You know, my hand wasn't flying up in the air, like, hey, I got it, I'm on it.

And it was just, my attitude was more self-preservation than being a team guy and taking one for the team. And I think a lot of the times that comes with maturity and I lacked it. And so, I absolutely deserve to go away and I'm glad that they keep the standards and I hope they always do. I hope they keep those standards high.

No. How old were you? I was 22. 22? Yep. Where'd you go? I went to the USS Gettysburg in May, Florida. We called it the USS Regretty's Bird. I thought that might get you to. Oh man, what are you doing there? I was a gunner's mate. So,

you know, like worked in the armory, worked on the ship's small arms, and I did a lot of sweeping, I did a lot of brass polishing, a lot of cleaning, and it was good. It was good for me because I needed to grow up. I needed, you know, I needed that an extra dose of tough love. You know, I've never talked to anybody on this about fleet time. Really? So let's talk a little bit about fleet time. How long were you in there?

So they recommended that I come back in a year that the seal instructors, but if the CEO from the ship let me go, then he wouldn't get a replacement for me. So they were like, no, we're not letting you go early. And so I did two and a half years on board the ship, did two cruises on the ship. And it's just, it's interesting to me

and my hat is off to the men and women in our Navy that do that job for 20 years, because it's not an easy life, man. It's not like, to me, and guys like us, it's kind of like being on a floating prison. It really is. I mean, think of a 450-foot boat with 400-plus people on it. You work, if you're underway, typically, you work from, like, six in the morning. Your day will start at seven after your day will start at seven after chow. You'll go to probably five in the afternoon at least working your day job and then you'll stand a

night watch every night. Every night. So you'll stand either the eight to midnight, the midnight to four or the four to eight every night. And there's no like days off on Saturday or Sunday, you're always underway, like it's just constant. And so like when you're out for a month at a time, which was very routine for us, I mean you're working a month straight, that schedule.

And it gets to the point where people get burned out. No. And it's not like the teams where your reputation is based on performance, per se. It's conventional military. So you don't get in the steel teams, you get treated very well. Yeah. And in conventional military, you know, it's a, it's a, it's completely different. So it's to the point where they, you know, it's a completely different. So it's to the point where they, you know,

at times we'll have to have like an aft watch that sits at the back of the ship and looks over the back of the ship, you know, for, you know, other vessels, but also for people that just jump over the side. Did you guys ever have that happen? No, we never did, but it happened on other ships. It never happened on our ship. But it does happen.

Damn, that's like watching Lauderdboil. Yeah, yeah, it's a wild life, man. Did you get a lot of flat coming from buds? Was there a lot of animosity towards you? A little bit. And I think one of the biggest reasons is because guys that come from buds do not want to be in the fleet.

So you have an attitude to chip on your shoulder. And I think that's the biggest thing. And also I think there's like probably a little bit of a superiority complex that comes with it. Like, hey guys, I wanted to be a seal. Not do this, not do this job. So I think it, they're called buds, duds, you know, so, or buds failures or whatever you want to say. But I think a lot of it is because of the attitude that buds

duds show up to the fleet with. And I think that that's where a lot of that comes from. And I struggled with that attitude as well. I struggled to take ownership of my failure for a while. I remember showing up to the ship. My master chief was talking to me. And you know, looking back on it, he was just talking about, he was, I can't remember how the conversation went, but I

remember getting defensive and talking about how I didn't deserve to be dropped because I made it through hell week and I never quit. And I still hadn't taken ownership of it yet. And I could tell as an older wiser leader like he, he knew that there, that I, I needed to take some ownership of that, but I wasn't ready to take that ownership yet because I was immature. And I think that that's one of the greatest things that you can ever realize is that a 90 95% of the time in your life, you're where you deserve to be. Now, that, now, and I want to preface that with everybody starts from different places. But once you've been given the opportunity, and that's what I love about America,

you know, once you've been given the opportunity to go out and start working on things, we have, we have people in this country, I think I was sharing with you last night at dinner, a third of the millionaires in the United States every year, weren't even born here. They're immigrants because they come here, they size up the landscape in the situation and they say, you're telling me, what I have to do is I have to work my tail off. I have to make really good decisions. And I just, I have to sacrifice. And I just do that over and over and over again. And sooner or later, I can live in that house over there. Yeah.

And the stats show it all the time. A third of the millionaires created in the US every year immigrants. And that's, to me, that's what I love so much about this place is like, if you're willing to take ownership of where you're at and where you want to go and if you're less focused on where you start the race from but just where's the finish line for you and how how am I going to get there? You can you can live you American dream. You can be successful here. And it was the same and it was the same in the teams. Now everybody can't go into the Navy or the military, I get that, right?

But that was just another experience for me where I realized that if you work your tail off and you're willing to take ownership and you're willing to sacrifice you can do something great. Glad you said that. So you went back to Buds. Yeah. After two and a half years you got off the USS Regretta's Berg. Yeah. How was it showing back up? You know, it was interesting because when I was there

the first time I was in E3, when I came back, I was in, I believe I was in E4, maybe in E5. Yeah. I should know that. Yeah, I think I was in E5. I was in E5. Yeah. I should know that. Yeah, I think I was an E5. I was an E5 when I came back. So there was a little bit difference there in that you had more responsibility, but it was scary for me because as a kid, I was diagnosed with asthma or exercise induced bronchitis.

And so I was horrible at the runs, like, because my lungs, even after an albuterol treatment, only function at like 60 percent of what they're supposed to for their size, right? And so like I was almost every run I passed, like I would come in right at the bubble, maybe 10 seconds to spare, maybe more like usually like five. Like I remember how you'd hear him counting down on the beach like five, four, three, and... Oh damn. Crane comes across the finish line. And usually, three, and... Oh damn.

Crane comes across the finish line. And usually I was dry heaving every time. But so the second time I came back, I caught pneumonia like right in first phase. And so I failed my first two runs in first phase. Oh, shit. And I was, so I was my first two runs in first phase. Oh, shit. And I was, so I was, they were like, hey, look, if you fail one more run, you're gone.

So here I am. I had just signed orders to come back to seal training, knowing that if I didn't make it through, I was gonna have to go back out to the fleet for four more years, be back on that floating prison, knowing that I probably, there was a decent chance if I couldn't get over this pneumonia, I wasn't even going to make it back to where I was the first time. So that as you can imagine created, you know, just a lot, I mean, really there was a lot of anxiety

and a lot of pressure and a lot of fear just deal just knowing that you know Damn you failed the first tube. How did you how did you I mean? How do you even get in with that? Did you lie on the medical exam? Well, so like I said some doctors had said that I had asthma some doctors said I had to exercise and do sprunkitis so I had asthma, some doctors said I had an exercise in duespronchitis. So I told them that I had exercise in duespronchitis, but by the time I was older, like I could pass the Navy physical fitness test or whatever, with decent scores.

And so they're like, okay, yeah. Cause there's a lot of kids that have like breathing issues or asthma so they're like, okay, yeah. Because there's a lot of kids that have breathing issues or asthma when they're younger and then as they get older, it kind of levels out quite a bit. And so I definitely didn't play it up. I definitely downplayed it like, hey, this isn't a big deal at all. But it was just something that I really wanted to do. And so I found a way to make it work.

And the way I was able to make it work was by getting really light. I walk around probably about usually around 220 pounds, but I got my weight down to like 175, so that I could, you know, just nimble. Yeah, well, just so I could, my lungs could keep up with a smaller frame, right? Yeah. Interesting.

Yeah. But you made it. Yeah. I made it. And with Buds class, two, five, six, and then I went immediately to SEAL Team 3. Is that where you wanted to go with Team 3? You know, I wanted to go to the West Coast. I really, I don't recall necessarily wanting to go to a certain team.

I just wanted to be on the West Coast, if possible. Well, let's take a quick break real quick. I know you want to Chris Kyle's platoon, right? Yeah. So we'll talk about, we'll pick up right there when we come back. Go. Already Lys, so we're back from the break.

You just showed up to seal team three. You're in Chris Kyle's platoon. Is he, is he a chief at this point? Or... So I'm not in Chris's platoon yet. Okay. So the very first thing we checked in and Syltin III was deployed.

And so they had like a command, like somebody, like a chief that was running stuff at back at the team, that it also checked in after the team was deployed. And so we would report to him every day. They were like five of us. They went from my buds class to SEAL team three. And so we were just showing up to the team.

We'd clean a little bit. And then they told us they were going to try and send us to some schools while the team was gone. And we wouldn't be joining them. And so I was like, oh, this is good because my wife was living in Tucson. She'd just finished up her degree at the University of Arizona where I had dropped out of to join the Navy years before that. And so I was like, oh great, we can start our life together. And so I was

like, why don't you move out here? And so she moves out. And I'm like, they're not going to send, they're not sending us on this deployment. We're just going to go to schools. This will be a good little, you know, one of the more chill times, I think, while I'm doing this job, and sure enough, she moves out two weeks later, they're like, yeah, yeah, change your plans. You're going to, you're going to deploy, you're going to go overseas and join up with, you know, one of the deployed task units over there. And so they had to send us to searschool first, they sent us to searschool. I can't remember what happened,

but the other guys, I think the other four or five guys, they all went to the same sear class, and then they had flown over before me, and I went like two weeks after them. I went to searschool by myself, and then I flew over by myself. So that was kind of wild flying over to a war zone by yourself. You know, no guns, you don't know what you have no context for what that's going to look like.

And so, but flew over there, joined up with Bravo Platoon at Steel Team 3. You know, the OIC was a guy named Rourke Denver. Okay. And then, you know, joined that group. And it was cool because they put us through a little bit of like some fam courses, like making sure that we knew what we were doing. and then they started bringing us out on the ops like they let us turret gun they let us carry you know the 48 the 46 what year was this so this would have been 2006 so it's hot so right yeah right as you were getting out like I was you know getting in and so I was, you know, getting in. And so I was in Habania at the time. And it was a really good experience.

And by the end, we were, they were working to send to the rotation and just trying to make sure that we were, you know, because when we went through an SKT they didn't have, and I'm sure they didn't have for you either, but we didn't have night visionT they didn't have, and I'm sure they didn't have for you either, but we didn't have night vision, we didn't have lasers. So all of that stuff we had to, you know, kind of learn on the job.

Well, yeah, I mean, I felt lucky because we knew that we were the only guys in our class that were getting into the fight that quickly. Damn, so you went straight from Bud's Eskieti to Seal Team 3 and roughly about two weeks later, you're on the ground in Iraq. So it probably would have been more like a month, a month and a half, probably on the ground,

but still real quick. Real quick. Yeah. Real quick. Oh yeah. Yeah. I remember, because my wife had moved out with me and she, I remember one weekend, like, or right before I left, like she was, you know, she was pretty upset with me because I just wasn't present. And my mind was just like, I knew what was in front of me. I knew I'd never been

to into a war zone like that before. I knew I didn't know and really any of the guys that were already on the ground working together in that platoon and I knew I was flying over by myself and it was just like, that's a lot. That's a lot. And that's where my headspace was. And so, yeah, there was definitely a lot of anxiety there. But was it literally just you on a C-17 and a bunch of? No. So some of my flights were civilian flights going over

and they had me dress, you know, they had me dress as a civilian going over. And I can't even remember all the, cause you have to take multiple flights, but I just remember the final flight, the final flight in calling somebody, I was giving a phone number, called this phone number and you know somebody came and picked me up at the airport and drove me to where I was going to be. And you know it was interesting because

then I showed up and they were like hey go talk to GM1 Pierce and They were like, hey, go talk to GM1 Pierce. And you probably never knew Dave Pierce, man, but it's probably the ratest armor to ever live. Really? Yeah, ginger dude. Like I show up, they're like, yeah, go talk to GM1 Pierce about getting a weapon. And so I find who this guy is.

I'm like, hey, GM1, I was told I could come get a weapon from you. Where can I get one? And he's like at the getting store. Like he was just a total smart ass right off the bat. And I'm like, who is this guy? And you know, just at this straight face, but you know, you came to appreciate this guy and just love him. He's one of my best friends now, but it was just like, come on, bro.

Can I get a gun? You know, could give me a hard time. Just give me a gun. What kind of stuff are you guys doing? The platoon was doing a lot of sniper overwatches and a lot of DAs. And so occasionally we get thrown in on some of that and we were just doing a lot of turret gunning

and as a new guy obviously all the collateral duties make sure that the you know make sure that the trucks are gassed up they're clean make sure that the trucks are gasped up, they're clean, make sure that the heavy weapons or the cruiser weapons are clean, we did a lot of that, we did some FID as well. You know, it was our job to also when the partner force, which I'm trying to remember, I think it was just some which I'm trying to remember, I think it was just some Havana or some Iraqi army unit that we were partnering with when they would come over, they would usually come over a couple hours before the ops. And I remember, I remember, you know, it was our job to watch them and make sure that they didn't get

into anything or go anywhere they weren't supposed to go. And it was funny because we had this little make shift movie theater, I remember. And you know, we were told you guys can let them have one snack and then you know, you just put on a movie for them. And I remember one of my buddies, Nate, one day he put on the movie Team America. And I mean, just like, I was just like, oh my God, we're gonna get in so much trouble for this, but it was pretty funny just watching these guys watch Team America, you know. And so we would do a lot of that, we would do a lot of the collateral duties,

and you know, every once in a while we got to get in on a pretty cool app. What were you guys hitting? Were they what kind of targets? You know, there was a lot of guys making V-Bids, IEDs, that type of stuff. A lot of residents, resident homes, just stuff like that, but yeah, for me, I wasn't really as a new guy that came over three months

into deployment. I wasn't involved in the targeting or the intel side of things at all. It was just like, I was on a need to no basis. Yeah, go hit this house. Yeah. Were you guys getting a lot of engagements? Was it a lot of dry holes, mixtures?

Yeah, I would say, I would say it was, uh, it was, I would say it was more like a mixed bag. You know, definitely, you know, definitely, you know, a hairy event here or there, but for the most part, it was just, you know, overwhelming, you know, overwhelming our target or the enemy before they could, you know, do anything. And you know how that goes. I mean, when you roll in to somebody's neighborhood with 15 or 20 team guys, and I mean,

can you imagine being on the other side of that? It's like you have two choices. You surrender or you're dead. That's it. You know, I mean, you might, if you're good, you might get one or two of us, but you're not gonna survive that. That's not.

And I think you see real quick that most people make the choices survival. Yeah. Walk us through your first op, like your first real world op, what were you carrying, what were you feeling, what was the anxiety like? My first real world op, I was in a turret. Really? Yeah. I was on a 50-cal.

And it was interesting because... Have nothing to compare it to, you don't know... You don't know what that's gonna be like. You don't know if the moment you leave the base, people are gonna be shooting at you. And like I remember, you know, one of the things I noticed was how they would use like telephone lines to try, you know, down telephone lines

to kind of restrict access. And I remember spotting at night, you know, down telephone, down telephone lines and guys being like, hey, make sure you duck back in and just holding security for guys while they went and did their mission. But yeah, we had a 50-cal. I think I had my M4 in the turret with me,

a SIG 226 on my side. And I think my M4 had a hip-lea laser on it. Oh, wow, that's, yeah. That's a little school. That's a little school. Basically a big infrared spotlight with the cross, with the crosshair in the middle of it. And so, you know, it was just pretty wild.

That was, you know, for me anyway. Pretty mundane, overall, You know, it was just pretty wild. That was you know for for me anyway pretty pretty mundane op Overall, but just being you know a month and a half out of out of bids It was pretty cool. What do you think your biggest fear was heading out the door for that? Just failing letting the guys down right I think they they had shown so much trust in us to even bring us out on Ops without, because for the viewers and the listeners out there, most of the time you'll go through a year and a half work up

before you'll ever go on a deployment. So just the fact that they trusted us to go on these Ops with them and watch their back was a big deal and I definitely didn't want to let them down. Man, it's cool that you said that, you know, I was expecting getting shot, getting blown up. Your biggest fear was letting the team down. Yeah, and I mean, that doesn't mean that I didn't have those other fears too because I did. I knew going in that the biggest risk was to get blown up with an IED.

And you know, some would argue that especially when your turret gun and you're pretty much the most vulnerable person because half your body's sticking out of the vehicle. You know, but you know, But, you know, I'm just grateful that, you know, I got to come home to my family, my kids, but there's a flip side to that too. You know, I mean, you know that others didn't, and I think that that's been one of the things I think I'm struggled with the most is just some of my buddies that didn't come home and you

know what you you you ask why me why did I get to come home and you know or or and I it's not it's maybe a little narcissistic but even sometimes you let yourself go there and well, if I was there, would it have changed anything? You know, yeah. Did you guys lose anybody on that deployment? Siltein 3 did, yeah. Arplatoon did not, but uh, But, uh, Tasking it to bruiser Probably, I don't know, maybe a month after I was there, Mark Lee was killed.

He was the first seal killed in Iraq, and he was killed Down in Ramadi, which was like 30 miles from us. And then, so we had worked that night as well, and I remember coming back, and I don coming back. And I don't remember if I was on the op, or if I stayed back, but I just remembered, we just hotwashed the trucks, brought them back, got them ready, because by that point,

we knew that one of our guys had been killed right down the road, and so we just regassed know, regast up the trucks, got them cleaned. And then we convoyed down to MSR Michigan to Ramadi for the memorial service. We held like a little memorial service there. And, um, yeah, that, you know, I remember kind of feeling like a fish out of water because I never met Mark and he was a he was a new guy like me with that was his first deployment but I remember wanting to show respect, you know, to the older guys and to his brothers who knew him. And, uh, yeah, I mean, it was, it was pretty, it was pretty crummy because not long after, I think it was, um was Ryan Job was shot I think in that same believe in that same engagement and he was shot in the face and in both of those were new

guys and so as a new guy you you're thinking to yourself, well, is it because they're not wired tight? Is it because they're not doing, you know, what, why is it new guys that keep getting hit? And so you're, you're running the math in your head. And it wasn't, but maybe another month and a half later that Mikey Montsourr and that same deployment was killed as well, another new guy. And so I just remember, you know, thinking, hey, you know, the odds are that it's going to be, you know, if somebody gets killed in this unit, it's from whatever reason it's going to be one of us. Yeah. But, um, and I know that that's silly, but you do start, you do start picking up on the trend, right? Um, but yeah, I mean, it's, it makes it real really quick when guys at the team, you know, are dying.

Yeah. So you wrapped up that deployment. Yeah. Actually, you know what, if you're willing to talk about it, what was that memorial like? Because I've heard of guys having Viking funerals out there on, you know, in country. And if you don't, then that's perfectly fine. Yeah, I just remember. I can't I can all I can remember was.

All I can remember was us an anxiety level because guys were pissed. Guys were furious. And I'm like this new guy, Pion, who just, you know, wants to show respect and not, you know, make anything about, make anything about me and just like head down, you know, I remember, like I think I walked up to the casket or something and I can't we were supposed to do something, but I can't remember if we were supposed to salute it or what we were supposed to do, but somebody came up to me afterwards and said something like, I didn't show enough respect or something like that.

And I was like, well, man, I apologize, dude. But it was one of those moments, I think, where guys are pissed off. They're looking to take it out on somebody. And when you're a new guy in the team, like you are a prime target. But I do remember they were playing music in the background, and one of the songs they played was Crazy Game of Poker by OAR.

And I remember that because it was one of my favorite songs. But, you know, I just, you know, I just felt, I felt awful for Mark and his family. I knew that he was married at the time. And I felt awful for the, the other dudes that just lost their brother. And I felt awful that I'd never got a chance to meet him just because, you know, I'd heard so many good things about him. One of the coolest things, because I've got a chance to become pretty close with Mark's mom, Debbie. Oh, really? Yeah, mom and Lee.

She's an amazing woman. And she still does a lot today for the community. And one of the coolest things I learned about Mark was that he would carry the 48 without a sling. And if you've ever carried a Mark 48 machine gun for longer than five minutes, you'll realize really quick that you want to sling on that thing. Yeah. Or to put the carrying handle like in your carabiner on your kit, but he wouldn't do it.

Like he was just a beast. Yeah. And I'm like, you know, that made me respect him a lot. He was my head-maker buds when I showed up for a Aussie. Yeah. Yeah. He was really humble, cool guy to be around. Aussie.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So you wrapped up that deployment, you come home, back with a wife. Yeah. How's that? No one. It was, it wasn't good. It wasn't good. And the biggest, I think one of the biggest reasons it wasn't good was because of immaturity, you know, on both of our parts. But we also, we also just had, it's like pretty close after I got back, I got put into Chris Cosbyton immediately. And then during ULT, I think it was, we had our first kid. And so not only did I have Chris Cosby as my OPO,

who loved the just hammer-new guys, like he loved it. And so I had that going on at work every day and then I'd come home and I had a new born in, you know, in my bedroom at night. And so you combine that with immaturity and two people that are trying to figure out how to be married and live together. You know, it was just on top of, you know, I would say some extra stress that comes with that job. And, you know, it was a combination for, I don't know what a good word is, maybe dysfunction.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's not like, you know, it's not, I'm not saying it was, I'm not saying it was always bad or anything like that, but one of the things Sean that I want to do for the rest of my life, man, is I just want to try and bless other people and help other people man because when you front, and when it's always a facade, and you're always trying to put on this,

like, oh, everything's hunky, door-y, all the time, you're not helping anybody. And most of the people out there watching this right now, that's not their reality. They're struggling with something. It took me and my wife a while. And it took me and my wife a while. Probably took 10 years before I felt like we had a good marriage. Wow.

And I didn't know that that would ever even, I didn't know, I was at the point where I didn't know that that was even possible. Like it was even in the cards for me. You know how you have a certain experience for even a year or two and you're like, oh, this is probably what it's gonna be like, you know, there's probably no changing this. Well, when you've been at something for 10 years and it's like at best good, most often it's

mediocre, you're like, this is the ceiling. I mean, this is this is the reality. And so, yeah, I mean, at that point, it was, it was tough because there were just a lot of new brand new dad. I didn't even want to be a dad while I was in the, in the military because I didn't want to be, I don't want to be away from my kids and I didn't want to be an absentee father. So now we've got a newborn sleeping in our room every night, going, dealing with one of the biggest hazers known to man. He like, you know, it was just like, talk about walking around it on egg shells at work. I mean, I don't know what your platoons were like.

I don't know what your new guys, your new guy experience was like, but when, you know, I had buddies that we graduated where there were a couple doors down and a different platoon and they're like, nah man, that's chill. You know, we don't get in best with much and not us bro. Really?

Oh dude, yeah. It was like, we were always like watching each other's back. I mean, it was always like, it's almost like you resume swim buddy rules. Like, hey, don't go in there without a swim buddy, you know, you could get out of control quick. But, you know, looking back on it, man, it was, it was good in ways just because what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Yeah.

What was they doing? I mean, it was just like, you know, it was, it was like, uh, there were a lot of, a lot of rules, right? A lot of rules like I remember one of the rules was, you know, you have a crazy, you have a crazy week, you know, training or whatever, and then you get a go home spend time with your family on the weekends, right? But that not in my Platoon, bro. Like, you had to be, the rule was, you're supposed to be at any bar in San Diego within

20 minutes ready to buy, buy beer, get choked out, and clean up puke out of the restroom. I remember, and it didn't matter for you and your wife had a date night, and you guys needed some time. Date night? No. Get your ass down here. Be at Danny's in 15 minutes. It was just like, thankfully because I had a new born at home and Chris was big on family, he let me off the hook more than the other guys, but because I was the only guy, there was only like, I think two or three guys in that platoon that even had kids. So Chris did like, you know, he did give me a little leeway because I had a kid.

Nice. Yeah. Did you go to sniper school at Epitome? Well, this gives me another great opportunity to talk about failure. Perfect. Yeah. So, I did go to sniper school, but I didn't make it through sniper school. I made it through pick and then scout and I didn't qualify with the M4. So you have to qualify expert to move on and I didn't qualify. So that was hard because I came back and basically, I had to tell Chris that I'd let him down. Wow. Because I was the only one that he sent. Oh, man.

Yeah, I mean, you can imagine. Yeah, especially all the snipers out there to have to tell that to Chris Yeah. Yeah. Chris Kyle. Yeah. It was rough, man. And I mean, you want to talk about feeling like a complete turd, you know, I did. And thankfully, I got the opportunity

during the next workout to go back through. and they didn't make me, they didn't make me go through pick and scout. They just let me go to sniper, sniper school once I qualified. No, nice. For those listening, sniper school, I don't know if it's still as well used to be broken up into three portions. So, yeah, pick was learning a lot of taking pictures, sending them over a secure net, over SATCOM, radios, all that kind of stuff, Scout is all stocking.

So basically learn all the reconnaissance type stuff, building hidesites, all that kind of stuff before you actually get to the shooting portion. Right. Correct. Yep. Cool. Yeah. And, um, you know, man, it's, it's crazy. Like when you look at

just like scout, for example, like stalking, you know, the second, when I was going through sniper school this, the second time, When I was going through sniper school this the second time And actually got into the third portion which is actually this sniper portion where you all you do a shoot but are you still have to do some stocks and then some life fire Some life fire shots In the midst of it. It's it's wild when you just look at what you have to do. For the audience out there, I'll give you an idea of what I remember out in Atabari, Indiana, which is where we do our

sniper portion. They had this like this grass stock and it's a thousand yards. And so you don't have, you didn't really have, I mean, when you show up, when you show up, like they drop you off on the edge of this field and then you have to, the instructors will be a thousand yards away where the targets are. And so most of it is just grass. And it's like, you know, probably about that high. And there's a tree here or there,

but most of it's just grass. And so you'll spend, and you had to get within, I think it was like 300 yards of your target. And you don't have a rangefinder. So the only thing you can use to range is the reticle in your scope, your night force scope, which is what we had at the time.

And so what you would do is you basically spend three hours crawling in the grass so that they couldn't see you. And you would have a drag bag so you'd have your gun tied to your body, tied to, tether to your body, and you would drag your gun so that it wouldn't create, you wouldn't wear it as a backpack to create like a bigger profile so that they could see you. So you have like

40 guys on this grass stock that you know, you all take off at the same time You know, you've got four hours. You've got to get within build an FFP or like a final firing position within like 300 yards of the target. You've got a bunch of instructors at the other end, all of them have spotting scopes and they know where you're starting from. They know what time you're starting. And so all they're doing is just burning the field,

like looking at the field. And then behind you, you have what they call walkers, which are other instructors. And so how it works is everybody takes off. And guys are like, you know, looking at the field, is there any dead space? Are there any like high points of ground that I can use to stay behind

so that these guys over here can't see me? And everybody takes off. And you hope you pick a good route to start going down. Because sometimes it's hard to tell like what the terrain is going to look like five, six hundred yards down the road. And so you take off and if they if you hear a whistle blows, everybody has to freeze right where you're at because the instructor the instructors down on the spotting scope have seen something. And so what they'll do is is they'll be like okay.

have seen something. And so what they'll do is, is they'll be like, okay, and they, so what they'll do is they'll put the spotting scope on one of the walkers, one of the instructors that's just walking the field with the snipers that are moving through. And they'll be like, okay, say you're a walker. All right, Sean, I got a, I got a, I got a student. He take, take 20 paces forward instructor, Sean. And so you'll take 20 paces forward instructor Sean and so you'll take 20 paces forward and then they'll be like okay come right five paces and then you'll come right five paces. We're like okay back two paces left and then you'll take two paces left okay and then he'll be like all right there's a sniper at your feet. I can't I know I know that's where I saw I'm ducking and if And if there is a student,

write it his feet within a couple feet of him, that's one hit, right? And so you can only get, I think you can only get three hits. Per stock? Per stock. And you can't get the same hit twice. If you get the same hit, and it gets a lot harder than that,

because even that's difficult, but then once you get within 300 yards, that's where within that range where you have to build a final firing position and take a shot, this is when it gets really hard because now you start building a final firing position and so you've got clippers on you, you're veging up, you're taking veg that matches the environment that you're in and you're stuffing it in your gilly suits, you're preparing your hat and you're doing it all like really slowly so that the because these guys movement will pick up quicker than anything else in their spotting scope. And so you find try and find a good find a brush or something to get into or even just some tall

grass and you're moving really slowly to try and make sure that there's not know, that there's enough veg in between you and them to where once they start burning the area, they won't be able to see you. But once you say, okay, I feel good about my spot, I've got enough related veg in my gilly suit. Yeah, I'm ready to take my shot. I don't think that they're gonna be able to see me once they start burning this area.

What they'll do is they'll, you'll be like, say I'm the sniper, I'll be like, all right, shoot her ready. And I'll call out, because I'm still 300 yards from them, right? So they can't hear really my voice very well. So I'll be like, hey, instructor Sean, I'm ready to take my shot.

And they'll be like, okay. So you'll come up over the radio and you'll be like, all right, I've got a shooter that's ready and you'll make sure that you're not close to me yet. You'll make sure that you're 10 yards from me. And then you'll say, okay, I got a shooter that's ready. And so what the instructor's are doing is they start, they know that there's a shooter 10 yards

from you. He can't be further than 10 yards. And so they start burning the bushes, the grass. Can they see anything? Can they see a glint off of your scope? Can they see a piece of your shoulder that you didn't veg up or whatever? And they'll be like, okay, move to five yards.

And then instructor Sean, we'll move five yards from the shooter. And now they'll start burning five yards around the instructor. It gets worse. And if they hit you, if they see you at any point, that's one hit in your FFP for being visible to them. So if you get one more, you're done. So then they'll be like, okay, move within two feet.

So the instructor moves like to where he's like, right on top, damn near your right on top of you. And as you're laying there behind your gun, you're like, of course they're gonna see me. I mean, you're damn near standing right on top, right on top of me. But that's how it works. And you have to be so well concealed that even when he's two feet from you, they can't see anything. And it's not done yet. Because then you still have to take your shot. And it either, whether it's a live fire shot or it's a blank shot, you have to set things up because when you're gun, when you shoot a shot, it expels a lot of the gases, right?

So if they see grass move, right, or anything, that's a hit. And so, and it's still not over because you have to be within 10% of what you range that shot at. So you have to do, there's no range finder, you're using the reticle in your scope to range how far they are from you. And if you're more than 10% off, you fail.

And so, yeah, and that's just the stalking, some of the stalking portion. Wow. Yeah. That's, wow. Yeah, it's legit, man. It really is, because like, especially once you've been, like, not all the socks were grass socks where

you had to crawl the entire time. But I remember one of them was a, you know, no kidding a grass stock. There was a thousand yards and you, you crawled, you had to crawl for like three hours just to get up. I mean, that is Crawl for, Crawl for 30 minutes and let me know how you're feeling. Yeah. You know, and you know, it's impressive what the guys have to go through to get through. Damn.

So if you get three hits on the same stock you're done. Yep. You failed the stock. Because it seems like, I mean, whatever, you know,, I mean they're producing the best snipers out there, but it seems like if you get caught right off the bat I mean in your crawling. Yeah, I mean you're not gonna they could just track it Yeah, yeah, it's it's so if they don't want you there you're You're gone. Yeah, I think there's some, you know, I noticed that Hunters did really well. Really? Yeah. Guys that were just used to, you know, always trying to outsmart

the game and, you know, be camouflage, really well. I noticed that they just did guys that really spend a lot of time out in the field hunting seem to do really well at sniper school, which, which was pretty cool to see. Yeah. Makes a lot of sense. Yeah. How many guys made it through that? You know, we had a pretty, pretty high attrition rate. We actually lost, I want wanna say five or six guys, not me, we lost a couple because of sniper school,

but we lost probably four or five guys because of a van fight. Yeah, yeah. No kidding, like they, some guys went to, I think Bloomington, Indiana, where IU and got into a van fight coming back and just destroyed the van. And the cadre wasn't having it,

even though the guys were like, we'll pay for it out of our own pocket. And so a bunch of dudes got shipped home. Damn, typical team we actually had. Yep. Did you guys have Murph there teaching? Nope. Murphy. Yeah.

So, you went back to the team. Yeah. I guess if you want, we can breeze over that second deployment. You went back to the team as a sniper. Yep. And then, and then what? Yeah, and then it was unfortunate in ways because by that point, we were no longer allowed to even carry our weapons on ops. Yeah, so, yeah, so it was 2010 and we were turning over

This was my third and final deployment in the teams we were turning over with the Iraqi With the Iraqis and they you know they wanted to de-escalate everything Yeah, and so snipers don't typically do that. And so we weren't we weren't doing sniper overwatches anymore. The majority of what we were doing was DAs, a bunch of FID, and one of the biggest missions we had on that deployment was to try and find a guy that was MIA or KIA and they had then found his body yet and it was Major Troy Gilbert. He was an F-16 pilot and he was shot down

over Fallujah. He was bailing out some SF guys that were in a pretty pretty bad tick. I think back in06, I think that's when this whole thing went down and he got his F-16 got shot down and they got to the crash site and there was enough, you know, like blood in the cockpit, that they thought there was a good chance that he was dead, but they weren't sure, but his body wasn't there. And so, they embedded a guy with us, and I can't remember who exactly he worked for.

He was a former SF guy, but his job was to help try and bring any KIA MIA guys home. And so we spent a good deal of that deployment looking for the major. Did you get them? We didn't. They did get them. I think it was a group of team guys, maybe two years later, finally, finally brought his roommates home, but it was pretty cool. I got to meet his wife Ginger and their kids.

Due to his crazy man, he had like five kids and he had two twin baby girls that were like less than one when he was killed. And they are the kindest, sweetest people you've ever met. And I felt I remember I was in it a van in Scottsdale's like a golf tournament like raffle or something. And I think we donated some products to be raffled off and they asked if I wanted to come up and be a part of it. And I didn't really know who was going to be there, but when they were like, oh, gold star, this gold star family's going to be here.

And I did the math, put the name together, and I was like, oh man, that's a part of me wanted it. Teller, hey, they're really our guys overseas looking for your husband. But I didn't, felt a little torn. I didn't want to bring up any, you know, like, upset or anything like that, but I went and I decided to go introduce myself and I introduced myself to her and I told her hey, I There are guys looking for your husband. I know we were looking for your husband and she was just the sweetest lady

I'd ever met and she was I could tell she was glad to hear that because I know they get told that by a lot of people Like a lot of high-ranking folks, but to actually have somebody that was on the ground, you know, watching, you know, sledgehammers and pickaxes go into concrete slabs in case he was buried underneath it, you know, I think you could tell it meant something to him. Damn. What did they find of me, you know? It was like in the same area that we were, it was within the same area that we were working in. So it was kind of, you know, unfortunate, but I'm just glad that they found him. I did feel bad for the family though, because I think that they had like three, you know, three funerals for him.

And I'm just glad they finally got to, you know, they finally got to, actually bring his roommate home, you know. Bozzie. Yeah, he was dead. Yeah, I mean, Bozzie, do they fucking mutilate him or anything? You know, I didn't hear about that.

I didn't hear about that, and I'm kind of glad. I didn't hear about it because I remember when they were giving us the brief on, hey, you guys are gonna be looking for the major. I remember, they showed us pictures of his kids and his family, and that was something that always got to me. Like, even when Chris was killed,

like I remember being fine through the memorial service, but as soon as I saw pictures of his kids, man, because they don't get to choose. Yeah. You know, now they go through life without a dad, and that just hurts, man. Yeah. Yeah, that's something that always got me at the Memorial Services,

when you see a five-year-old get a folder up flag handed to him. Yeah. And the bag vibes a plan. But, uh... Let's take a break. Yeah, let's do it. Alrighty, we're back from the break. We had a little discussion and I was going to go right into kind of your transition and reintegrating in disability and life, but you'd brought up a specific story. So let's cover that real quick. It was on your first deployment?

Yeah, yeah. You know, sometimes people will ask me, like, did you get, we ever scared, and the answer is yeah, I was. And one of the times that was the scariest for me was actually on a sniper overwatch on my first deployment where we started getting mortared. And so to like kind of unpack unpack that Typically we would you know we'd we'd go in at Night and we would take a house that we thought would give us

Good sight lines for whatever we wanted to watch and one One day we were watching I think we're watching MSR Michigan for people planning VBIDS or not VBIDS, I'm sorry, IEDs. We also knew that some partner forces were going to be patrolling through that area, so we wanted to make sure that if they came under contact, that we could support them. And so I remember we came in, you know, in the middle of the night, there was a family in the house. And when there is, and there often was, you can do a couple of things. You can either make them stay in the house, or you can let them go. And either way, especially at that point, the war that was in 2006, the locals kind of knew

what was going on, whether you let them out or you kept them, because they would kind of do check in on people, because they knew that type of stuff happened. If the Ryan family didn't come out, send their kids to school by 0800, they knew there was a good chance the Americans were in their house. Or if you let them800, they knew there was a good chance the Americans were in their house, right? Or if you let them go, they're probably going to tell people, hey, there's Americans in our house. And so I remember going in there and then, you know, taking this house that we thought had good sightlines and then

getting all set up and ready to go for the next day. And as a new guy, my job wasn't to be on a sniper rifle. My job was the whole security. And so I remember my job was to watch the west side of the house. And so I found a good spot by a window, a little bit back into the room where I could watch, you know, pretty much everything that was going down on the left side of the house and, you know, I took off a lot of my gear, but just had like my frags like laid out by, you know, by the window and I had a Mark 48 machine gun. And, you know, as the sun came up,

and most of our snipers we probably had four or five snipers on the yacht. Most of them were facing north watching this MSR Michigan you know road that was out in front of the house and I remember I don't know maybe maybe I don't know maybe it, maybe, I don't know, maybe an hour or so after daylight, one of our snipers took a shot, killed, you know, killed a bad guy. And then probably, you know, probably three or more, three or four more times our snipers started, just started engaging people. I remember one of them, you know, one of them shot this guy in this car on my side of the house where I could see it like it was

shot through a car windshield like the front windshield. I remember looking out the side of my window and sure enough this right in the driver's side, you know, front of this windshield had a big old spider, spider vein bullet hole in it. And this guy was dead. One of our snipers shot him through that. And it was, it was, it got pretty eerie really quick because he, the sniper shot him right in front of a school. And so within, and I was watching this, everybody's amped up, shots are being fired, we're starting to kill bad guys. And I remember probably 10 minutes later, a bunch of women and children, first a couple

women or a couple kids, I think came out saw it. And then the screaming started, right? These women and children are just screaming and crying. And then I remember them pulling his dead body out of the car and pulling him into the school. And my spidey senses were through the started going through the roof. It just made so And my spidey senses were through, they started going through the roof. It just made, like my spidey senses knew, they were like, there's no better way to start a fight than to rile up women and children because as they get riled up,

a motion start getting riled up and then people won't revenge. And I just knew it. I knew we were gonna get hit. And so, sure enough, like 45 minutes later, the small arm start. First it's indirect, you can just hear it cracking over, cracking over the heads.

And then it starts getting more direct and you can start to hear it, hitting the building a little bit. And, you know, everybody's on full alert, just ready to rock and roll. And I don't know, maybe 10 or 15 minutes later, the first more here, pop up in the air. And there's a guy named Mike, one of our snipers,

who is on the same level as me. We weren't on the roof, we were on the level below the roof. And he had propped his Mark 11 up on a desk, and that's what he was using as his platform. Mark 11's a sniper rifle for those. Mark 11 is like a sniperized AR-10, or a 762 magazine fed sniper rifle with a suppressor on it. And I remember Mike, Mike was a badass. Mike was tough as nails

but definitely the type of guy you don't want to mess with. And I remember as soon as that first, you know, mortaround popped up in the air, I heard Mike's voice change and he yells over to me. He's like, take cover and I was like, if Mike's telling me that, and I can hear it in his voice, this is serious. And so, first, more around comes up, you know, here it, here it explode, not a direct hit. And then they just start popping these more to rounds up in

the air. And I'll tell you, Sean, I don't think I've ever been as scared in my life because it is like the movies, man, you know, you can hear those things whistling through the air. And the difference, like when you get shot at, it happens so fast, you don't really have time to be scared, right? But with mortar rounds incoming, like, and you can hear those things whistling for five, six seconds in the air,

the whole time you're thinking, is this it? I wonder if this, you know, if this is a direct hit, this hits this house were done. Thankfully, these guys really didn't want to, I could tell they didn't want an extended fight, they kind of wanted to just see if they could hit us with the mortar rounds and then get the hell out of here. So we didn't pinpoint their location and kill them. I think they only launched like four or five mortar rounds. One of them, I do remember one of them though, hit on the west side of the house, probably

like 60 yards from my window and flag flew up and through the window. That was pretty close, but I'm just glad that, you know, they were off on their shots, but then our A.O.I.C. at the time called in already. And from, I think, from, from Havana, yeah. And that was pretty cool to hear the big gun start, you know, start going off in the distance and then the tree line that we thought we were taking, the mort gun start, you know, start going off in the distance and then the tree line that we thought we were taking, the mortars from, you know, started getting, started getting rocked. And the fight, the fight was over at that point, but that's always, that's a scary feeling, man.

Not only, not only hearing mortar rounds, you know, you know, whistle through the air and not knowing where they're gonna hit and you're taking small arms fire. But like when you're in a sniper overwatcher, a situation like that, you're usually in one of the worst neighborhoods on planet earth and there's like 10 to 15 of you. And you're in somebody else's city

and you're constantly thinking how many how many bad guys can they must Or to send at us. Yeah, and if you know when you know that you're probably not going to get extracted till nightfall because Nobody wants to risk the vehicles in the daylight, which you know, we didn't always own we usually own the night You know that we we could be in for it, you know, for a while. Yeah, it's like a feeling, I've been in a couple of similar situations and it's like the feeling of helplessness. There's nothing you can do.

You can't figure out where it's coming from. If you can, like it's the tree line, you can, yeah. There's no target to shoot. You're just gonna eat it and hope it stops them. You know, hope you don't eat it and hope it stops them and there's, it's completely out of your control. Yeah. But yeah, damn.

How did you guys get out of there? Like I said, I think on that up we were going to stay for a couple days, but I think they decided to pull us. I think they pulled us that night and as soon as it as soon as it got nightfall We we went to rally point and and You know that our guys came in and picked us up. Yeah, but other team guys are yeah, yeah

Damn and when you say 10 to 15 guys They're spread out in different OPs, right? Not one. We were all in the same, and that one we were all in the same house. But yeah, that does happen sometimes. You spread them out. But I wanna say there were probably, there were probably 10, 12 guys on that app.

Okay. And then we had, our partner force was downstairs holding security. We had, our partner force was downstairs holding security. But yeah, it was, you know, it was an interesting, you know, definitely. That was probably, it wasn't the closest call I've ever had, but it was the most scared I've ever been in combat just because the anticipation factor that come with mortars and you just being able to hear it for five, six seconds before it hits somewhere and you're wondering where it's gonna hit that you know that

yeah what was the closest call? The closest call would be would have been on my next on my next platoon my third and final platoon and we We got ambushed by three Three guys at about 110 yards and And I was like laying in the street nowhere to go just watching trace around just fly over us. Oh, shit Yeah, it was it was pretty wild, man. I was a point man that night. And so I was leading us, we had like a 600 yard control into the target house that we were gonna hit.

And we were going after a dude that was making V-bits and IEDs and just a really bad dude. And unfortunately, it was the first night that we'd given our partner force, the eight digit grid coordinates of the target that we were going to hit, and sure enough, we got lit up. You know, that's been going on in warfare for a long time, you know, just partner forces playing both sides of the fence. And it was kind of surreal just because there were, I think two guys had an AK, two guys had AKs, and then one guy had it, it looked like an RPK belt fed heavy machine gun. And he had belted together probably two belts,

probably 200 rounds of tracer. So you could just see every round, just like flying over your head. And thank God they were shooting, you know, maybe a foot or so high. And so none of us got hit. But when I went back that night and looked at it on the, because we had a predator, we had two apaches,

and then a C-130 overhead. And I watched the predator feed, and we actually used some of the tools to like measure how far we were from them. And it was 110 yards, which is not, that's not far for those type of weapons at all. and it was 110 yards, which is not, that's not far for those type of weapons in there. So, that was definitely the, my closest call.

Well, let's talk about your transition. And so you came home, you did three combat deployments. Yeah. Come home, do you have two kids at this point? I had one kid at that point. The other one would come in about a year. How was that reintegrating? You know, it was still, like I said,

my marriage didn't get good until like 10 years in. And so it was still pretty tough because I came home in probably two years after coming home while I was on short-edgedy we started after having our second kid we started our small small business bottle breager and so you bring this stress of running a small business together into a marriage that's not even really good to begin with, two small kids. And in my case, somebody who was dealing with whatever mental issues I was dealing with, but I had some pretty severe anger and rage issues at the time. And I think I had some pretty legit survivors guilt and maybe some other stuff going on,

but you know, it was, I was just in survival mode because I knew at that point I was getting out and I was watching friends of mine get out and struggle to find something they could sink their teeth into. Not just some find some job, but you know, so that was, it was a very difficult time for us, but it was a, you know, I'm grateful because I've learned so much in the teams about unconventional warfare and I saw the application in business. And so just use that same drive, the same resiliency and tenacity and use the same type of tactics, unconventional tactics to try and build a business. And so it was a bittersweet time.

Interesting. So how long after you separated from the teams did you start Bottle Breaker? I started it while I was in the teams. You started while you were in the teams did you start bottle breager? I started it while I was in the teams. You started while you were in the teams. Yeah. How old were you when you left the teams? See, oh man, are you gonna make me do math? Yeah.

Thought you were gonna put me on the spot. Well, I'm going as you made your first million at 35 million. Yeah, so I was probably the 33 years old when I started it. So you made your first million and two years of being a business. Yep. That's amazing. Yeah, it was, and obviously a lot of it had to do with Shark Tank.

We, and obviously it's not in business, it's not what you make, it's what you keep, right? But in year one at Butterbreacher, we did 150K, which just blew my mind. When I started this thing, I wanted 50, or I'm sorry, like $500 a month, that was my goal for supplemental income. And I wasn't even thinking about growing a company necessarily, just making some cool products and selling them for supplemental income. And so in year two, we really started ratcheting things up

and I think we were gonna head about that, we were projecting about $900,000 to a million in our second year. And then that halfway through the year was when I pitched to go on Shark Tank. And we were doing about $80,000 a month out of that one car garage. Damn. Yeah. $80,000 a month. Yep. And we had, and it was a one car garage, Sean.80,000 a month yep and we had and it was a one-car garage Sean so it was a manufacturing facility in a one-car garage we had four laser engravers in there we had a polishing wheel in there I had a little Honda EFI generator because my power my house couldn't support all the all the

drain from all the equipment we had two laptop computers in there. Like we had shelving for, you know, outgoing order rack and then my kayak was like still hanging in the ceiling. Like it was it was crazy but it was wild. I remember going to an open casting call for Shark Tank. After I applied, I had applied online and not heard anything from them. So I went to an open casting call, which was like probably 10 minutes down the road from my house down the 163.

And I remember, I didn't even practice my pitch. I just walked, I had this cool cigar box. I laser engraved the Shark Tank logo on it and my logo, the Barbreacher logo. I remember, did you know Kevin, place? I had never met him. I know who he is, I never met him. So he worked with Clint Eastwood on the movie, American Sniper, and Kevin was in my

platoon from 06 to 08. And so Kevin was kind of like a technical advisor on the movie, and he reached out to me when they were wrapping things up with the movie and asked me if I would make bottle breaches for the casting crew of the movie. So it was really cool. I got to make Clint Eastwood a bottle breacher, Bradley Cooper bottle breacher and just all the guys, whatever names Kevin gave me. So we did a really cool like limited edition bottle breacher for those guys and Kevin did me a solid and he got a picture with him and Clint East would hold him up his bottle of preacher. And so I took that picture and I put it on the inside cover the cigar box and so I went to an open casting call. We're only the first 500 people got guaranteed

the opportunity to pitch. So I showed up like it one in the morning so that I could pitch these guys at like one in the afternoon the next day. And I got in front of this lady, her name was Mindy. And I opened the cigar box and it had the Clint Eastwood you know, picture with him holding his bottle of breach and then I had an assortment of the other, some of the other skews that we did because I wanted it to see it wasn't just one thing like there were varieties that we could do, right? And it happened to be like Father's Day weekend.

And so I laser engraved Happy Father's Day on some of them. And I was like, I was like, man, would you believe it if I told you that I've sold $80,000 of this product out of a one-car garage About 15 miles from this location and she's like, no, you haven't I was like, so I pulled up my phone and I had my Etsy app on my phone and I started scrolling and I showed her This is how much revenue we've done. This is how many orders we've done, you know, this how many messages we have and then I showed her the product you know Some of it I showed her the variety of products because, some of it, I showed her the variety of products because you only have like a minute to pitch to these guys. And then it's it's right,

you know, they want you to keep it real short so they can get people out of there. And so I said, do you have any, do you have any men like a dad or a brother in your life that would think that this was cool? And she's like, are you kidding me? My dad and my brothers would freak out over this thing. She happened to be from like Iowa or something. And like, just, you know, and I was like, well, I'm gonna leave these with you. You, this is how much we've done in sales. This is the backstory.

You know, I'm still an active duty seal. This is Clint Eastwood. Does he look happy with this thing? And she's like, yeah. And so they told us, when we did the open casting call, they were like, look, don't call us. We'll call you, right? And if you hear from us, it won't be for a couple of weeks. That was on a Saturday Monday morning at like 0 8 30 at an email in my inbox, like, hey, we love the pitch, we love the product, you're

moving on to the next round. Now you have a week to make a video. So we had to call a video ographer, figure out like a script and how we were going to shoot this thing and then, um, and we made a video and then we just started going down the shark tank pipeline process. Damn, that is cool. So you were in there before even separated. Yeah, it was crazy. I actually, when I went to Sony Picture Studio to pitch in the summer of 14, I was still on terminal leave. So I had like a month left on terminal leave.

So I had like a month left of terminal leave. And so it was wild, man. It was wild like it. Wait, no, no, no, that's not right. I'm sorry, sometimes the days get mixed up. But so I separated, I separated in October of 14. We went on the show in like, I think like July or August of 14. I was on terminal leave at the time, but then when I got out of the Navy like one the

month before our episode aired, so it was just like boom, right from one thing to the next. Man. And it was, you know, it's like, you know, I talk about my marriage because I realize there's people out there that are struggling to figure it out. And that's why I talk about it, not because I'm proud of, you know,

not being a good husband or something like that. But, um, so yeah, we went from seal teams to young kids right into the, kind of like the deep end entrepreneurship wise. And we went, the day before Shark Tank, we made like 150 units on a good day. When I woke up the next morning, I had to make 60,000 units and answer like 20,000 emails. And as, you know, for people out there

that makes something, you know, you don't just, you don't snap your fingers and that happens overnight. It takes a lot of innovation because what, and we say this in the teams, but what used to work yesterday? No, it's not gonna work tomorrow. You have to innovate and figure something new out. And we did.

Yeah. What, what does it that you think brought you and your wife together? Yeah. After struggling for so long. You know, it was, it was 100%. The catalyst was a Christian men's retreat that I went to. Really? Yeah. 100%. And I know that that does that sounds like Something that guys like us would typically avoid like the plague, but and I did for a while my But I had a good friend of mine who invited me to come to this Christian men's retreat. It was called wild at heart and

He was also a shark tank business owner. He's like Eli you, you got to come check this thing out. And I was like, oh man, that sounds pretty lame. And I was like, what are we going to be doing? Like singing, kumbaya, or doing truss falls, or somebody going to break out rattlesnakes or something like that. But now, man, it changed my life, man. It was awesome. And it just showed me how I hadn't been stepping up. I hadn't been fighting for my wife.

I'd been so busy fighting with her and trying to be right. That I hadn't fought for her and I hadn't fought for her heart. And it was so cool, man, because they take you back, they take you back into their story. And it's like 400 guys that show up there. It's like from all walks of life, every profession, I've met other team guys there, I've met a, Rangers there, I met doctors, all sorts of people,

all sorts of guys that are struggling with a lot of the same things. And it was just really cool because if you go back into the biblical story and the biblical narrative, we do have an enemy who's come to steal, kill, and destroy. John 10, 10 says, the thief has come to steal, kill, and destroy. John 10, 10 says, the thief has come to steal, kill, and destroy. And that ties into the whole good, evil narrative. Do you believe in evil?

Do you believe in good? What's the origin of it, right? And if you start asking some of those serious questions, the Bible has a lot of answers on that. Now, I get it. Not everybody believes the Bible. I get it, not everybody believes the Bible, I get it. But it was just, it was, it was an eye-opening experience for me because it framed it up in a way that like it just made so

much sense for me, it just made so much sense to me. And it, you know, one of the things they cover is why does God give you a masculine heart as a man? Because you were born into a world at war. And everything that you love, you're gonna have to fight for it. And I realized that not only was I not fighting for my wife, but I spent a lot of my time fighting with her. And, you know, it just made me want to be a better husband.

It made me want to be a better husband. It made me want to be a better dad. I knew that unlike in the SEAL teams, I was given certain weapons for certain jobs. I knew I didn't have a lot of the weaponry or the training to be either of those things, but I wanted to pursue it and I wanted to get better at it and I wanted to work at it. And so it kind of lit a fire in me to just come back and really work at those things and it changed everything and it took time. But, you know, and there were other issues too, like I told you I was dealing with a lot of anger

and a lot of rage. And there's a verse in the Bible that says, I stand at the door and I knock and whoever answers the voice. Whoever hears my voice and answers the door, I will come in and eat with him and eat with me. And I think just thinking it's so cool, that's something I love about the gospel is that when you read the gospel and you read how Christ, you know, Jesus was here on earth, he didn't make anybody follow him. He didn't make anybody follow him.

But he's not gonna, he's not gonna at the door. And I realized that there were certain rooms in my heart that I didn't let anybody into, because I needed them. That's how I protected myself. Yeah. Hey, that room. You're not, you're not allowed in there, Sean. I don't care if you were a teen guy or not, I need that.

That's how I protect myself. And if you get too close, watch out. And if you get too close, watch out. And I realized, man, that that mentality was causing a lot of pain and a lot of hurt to those that were around me. It was good at times. It was like, there's a dichotomy there. I could use it to protect us. But the moment you cross that line, I'd use it against you. And I remember praying about it and I was like, Lord, will you tear this? Will you just come into my heart and will you tear all of this out, all of this baggage, all of this anger, all of this rage? Because I don't want it anymore.

I'm tired of trying to carry it around. Yeah. And you did? No, it worked. Yeah, it did. Good for you. Yeah, man. How are you and your wife now? Pretty awesome. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we're still, we're still two human beings, and we still both struggle with selfishness. And I think that there's a verse in Ephesians that says, as husbands, we're supposed to lay down our lives for our wife, like Christ did for the church. And when you look at what Christ did for the church, he died for us.

And I was dissecting that verse, I was looking at it, I was like, not only, you're not willing to die for your wife. You're not even willing to, you're not even willing to forgive her. Or you're not even willing to put your pride down and love her and fight for her. And it was just like, it was so cool, man, because it just, it gave me, it gave me some like, some goals and, you know, some, a new perspective on how much I'd let her down. And, you know, and it was cool too because, you know, there is good and evil in this world. And I know you've seen it.

I know some people have different answers for where that comes from. But I think it's spiritual, man. And so I think a lot of this stuff that we deal with, I think all of it has spiritual connotation and spiritual foundation to it. And it's like just like we were talking about getting shot at. You can be getting shot at. You can hear those mortars whistling through the air, but if you don't know where they're coming from, good luck.

You know? Yeah. Man, that's a, I'm really glad we covered all that stuff. Yeah, it's a real honor to be able to interview you. Well, and again, man, out of respect, I know that that's not the answer. A lot of people don't want to hear it. You know, a lot of people would disagree with a lot of that stuff, and I'm cool with that, and I'm glad we live in a I'm glad we live in a country in a place where you and I or myself and whoever's listening or

watching can disagree or not, but not believe the same thing. And we can openly talk about it. Yeah. Because I realize there are places around this world. If you talk like that, you get killed. You can be thrown into prison. And to me, that right there is evil. I want you to be able to have a different opinion than me. You know, I, that's one thing I love about this country, man, is that like, and I hope it, I hope it

never changes, is that we can agree to disagree and we can have difference of opinions. And we have the right, you know, to worship, however, we want to worship or not at all. But the way I see it, and we were talking about some other stuff at dinner last night, but if you stumbled across something or found something that worked, and you don't share that with others, you're not a teen guy at all. No. Very true.

Let's start moving into politics. So this is the portion where we cut the show and from now on, the rest of this is going to be over on Rumble. Why do we got to do that, dude? Well, you know, there's the YouTube friendly version And from now on, the rest of this is gonna be over on Rumble. Why do we gotta do that, dude? Well, you know, there's the YouTube friendly version and then there's the not-so-youtube friendly version.

But I thought I just got done talking about freedom of speech. Did I not just get done talking about it? Find suitable mental health medications can be a challenge. The gene site test may help. Did you know that genetics can play an important role in gaining insight on how a person may respond to various medications? Understanding this may help reduce medication trial and error. Genesite is a genetic test that analyzes variations in DNA.

It shows how genes may affect someone's metabolism or response to medications commonly prescribed to treat depression, anxiety, and other mental health conditions. Visit geneSite.com for more information. The Bullwork Podcast focuses on political analysis and reporting without partisan loyalties. Real sense of day job is sprinkled on our PTSD. So things are going well, I guess. Every Monday through Friday, Charlie Sykes speaks with guests about the latest stories from Inside Washington and around the world. You document in a very compelling way.

All of the positive things have come out of this, but it also feels like we have this massive hangover. No shouting or grandstanding. Principles over partisanship. The Bullwalk podcast. Wherever you listen. No shouting or grandstanding. Principles over partisanship. The Bullwalk Podcast.

Wherever you listen.