Shawn Ryan Show - #43 Eddie Penney - SEAL Team 6/DEVGRU Operator

Episode Date: December 24, 2022

During his 20 year military career Eddie Penney served as a United States Marine and Navy SEAL with SEAL Team 6. In Eddie's new book Unafraid, a chapter titled 'Kill Addict' he describes desire to take the fight to the enemy and subsequent addiction to the fog of war. Among the many challenges he experienced while serving at DEVGRU the greatest loss occurred while in Gold Squadron: Extortion 17. Eddie also shares how he grew from being scared of Jesus to surrendering to God and becoming Unafraid. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://www.bubsnaturals.com USE CODE "SHAWN" Please leave us a review on Apple & Spotify Podcasts. Vigilance Elite/Shawn Ryan Links: Website | Patreon | TikTok | Instagram Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Have you noticed that most ice cream is now common smaller cartons? Not blue bell. Blue bell takes pride in providing our customers with full half gallons and full points of our delicious ice cream. We would never want to deny any one of all the rich and creamy goodness found in every carton. Bluebell wouldn't have it any other way. Hey everybody, it's that time of year. I'm at Franklin, Tennessee and getting ready to release episode 43.

Three years ago today, we kicked off the first episode of the Sean Ryan Show. And since then, we've had 43 episodes. And in just 43 episodes, we have hit up to number 55 overall out of over 8 million podcasts. I just want to say thank you all. That's all you guys. It's the reviews, it's the likes, it's the subscribes, it's all of that. It's sharing the content, it's sharing the love. I think we spread a very positive message here on this platform and we're going to continue to do that. And I just want to say Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah,

happy holidays, whatever your flavor is this time of year, me and the team at vigilance elite just want to wish you the best. We love you all. Let's get to the next guest. My next guest I had the pleasure of working with very briefly at my time and SEAL team 2 before he went on to SEAL Team 6 development group. Guys this is another really really deep one. It's one of the best episodes I've ever done. If I had to say one thing about Eddie with my time with him outside of my studio is he's one of the few guys in the SEAL teams that just has a reputation and his reputation is he's just a guy that everybody wants to be around. He's just a solid human being, he's a solid operator.

He spreads a lot of love, he's a solid operator. He spreads a lot of love. He's got a hell of a story. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome my friend Eddie Penny to the Sean Ryan show. Please like, subscribe and comment to the channel. Head over to iTunes to Spotify, leave us a review. Once again, we love you all, Mary Christmas, happy holidays, happy Hanukkah. I hope you guys enjoy the show,

and it's gonna be a hell of a year in 2023. Happy New Year, too. Love you guys, brother. Thank you for having me, man. I appreciate it. It's been damn near 20 years. Don't, again, don't put the number to me. You believe that? It's crazy. It's been a long time. It's been a long time.

So, former Marine, then you want to seal team two, then you want to development group, CEO of contingent group, CEO of unafraid. You got a podcast with your wife now who seems lovely by the way. She's awesome. She definitely makes you happy. She's the queen. She's awesome. But anything else, am I missing anything? Some side hustles here for like leadership or team building stuff that do with other individuals' organizations, some speaking. But yeah, I kind of followed under the unafraid brand or that whole mindset piece.

So that's about, yeah, covers it. Just getting into motivational speaking. Yeah, just recently, I just kind of, I wouldn't say walking away from contingent group, but just kind of getting other people to take certain things on and then moving over to the encouragement side. That's your passion, though, right? Right now, yeah, it's like it's taken over and I can't fight it. Just like, that's what I want to do. I like it.

Well, we've got a lot to dig into. Yeah, we do. The first thing I noticed after not saying it for 20 years, your vocabulary has changed quite a bit. There's no more for letter A. Yes, that's, yeah, I... For letter BAD words in there. About six months ago, I've been trying to just better myself.

I don't wanna do this. I just kinda noticed I'm cussing more and it'd be around my children, not even realizing. It was like kind of default from the military. I mean, you know who we hang out with. We kind of have a bad mouth. And I don't look at other people bad for it.

It's just like, I don't wanna do that. And yeah, so I've been, and it's been, it's been a struggle. You've only been doing that for six months, clean it up. For about six months, yeah. And I would say probably like the last month, maybe something a half that it's like, okay, I'm really doing good. I might have like one slip up a day or something,

but I'm like, gosh, just trying to better myself. I just don't want to do it. Man, I'm betraying to do it. It's hard. And I can't. I haven't. I haven't. You don't even dance around the words.

It's like it was never part of your vocabular doing a great job. Yeah, well, we'll see. Here, you know, the things we're going to talk about. I'll do my best. But yeah, I just, I noticed like certain podcasts. And again, it doesn't offend me whatsoever. I mean, I'd be a huge hypocrite if I said it did. Because I used it probably too much. It was like every other word. And I just like, man, it's not up. I don't wanna be known for that, especially when you're talking to other people,

you're trying to encourage other people and my children, like trying to be the example, right? And that's one of the things that I need to get rid of. And it's been, it hasn't been easy. Yeah, well you're doing a hell of a job. I appreciate that, buddy. So, but everybody that comes on starts up with a gift. This is a hell of a job. I appreciate that, buddy. So, but, hey, everybody that comes on, starts up with a gift. This is a box of donuts.

It might be. It might be. The Sean Ryan show. We were just talking about this. Hey, America. Legal and all 50 states. So far, right? Yeah, right now they are.

I love it, man. Thank you. I appreciate that you're welcome And I'm gonna probably eat those on the flight home all of them good for you but and we we didn't say author You just yeah, so yeah, yeah, so new and then yeah author of unafraid and now working on book number two and kind of number three How's the book doing? It's told good, man, we're going to a lot of good feedback. And that was kind of the beginning of like when we went in the beginning, when we, when myself and Keith were the co-writer, great friend now, we started writing.

I was like, Hey, there's, there's one thing. And that is to help others and like glorify God. Like I do not want to skimp on that piece because for me that was my like, say my life. It really did and we can get into that stuff. But yeah, it's been awesome. The feedback we've gotten from it's helping a lot of people, both veterans, single parents, and people that are just struggling.

It doesn't really just go for veterans. It's really for anyone and everyone. Cause I mentioned briefly, as you know, at the end of these chapters, we got the hot wash. And it's kind of like a debrief or a critique of that particular chapter in my life. And I'm just kind of talk about things. And it originally started to be letters to my children.

Like, hey, don't make the same mistakes that I did. And we kind of brought us like, hey, this needs to be to everyone. So it's kind of dedicated to everyone. It this like, hey, this needs to be to everyone, so it's kind of dedicated to everyone as like, and people that aren't even affiliated with the military law enforcement or anything that could be close to it or reaching out, saying, hey, this really helped,

you know, my organization or my business and that dude just hearing that, it's everything. Definitely needed. It'll be linked in the description and everybody go buy his book and leave a review. Yeah, leave a review for the book So I'll leave a review right after this interview, but I can't wait to dig into it We're gonna talk all about the book one chapter in particular that caught my attention was kill addict Yeah, so I want to get into that

But and then the interview we start with childhood. This is your biography here. So we're gonna start with your childhood, moving into your Marine Corps, your SEAL team, Dev Group, the dreaded transition and everything you got going on now. Awesome. But first, before we kind of get into the weeds,

you're sitting here, I'm sitting here because of my Patreon community, the Vigiancili Patreon community, they support the show, they support everybody that works here, they're awesome. And anyways, I give them, I tell them who's coming on the show, they're all excited about you. There's a ton of questions, We only have time for one because

It's gonna be a long one. Make it easy. Yeah, it's a tough question. No, it's a tough question. So this is from Eric Covington What advice is a single dad would you would he give to help communicate to a young daughter to have a foundation of understanding on how to deal with fear, the woke world and how to keep a solid mindset growing up in today's culture as a kid and a young woman. That's a great question and that's a great question. He said the word mindset, which I love as you know. As a father, speaking in this is based off personal experience, as I talk about the book, getting custody of my

children, one was a boy, and then I had two daughters, five and 10, and then my son was a 10 month old. And coming from an operator where you're kind of in savage mode, and then coming back and like, you need to focus on these little people. And the difference between me talking to my son versus my daughters, I'm used to talking to guys like us, team guys, military guys that are getting shot at that are shooting other people. So I kind of had to change or shift by knowing my audience and it took me a while and I made a lot of mistakes.

I, my tone, I was kind of more of a do as I say, you know, like the drill instructor kind of, and it was completely wrong. But to answer that question, I would say that empathy, getting on their level, having those feelings, listening, this was very hard for me, was listening, you do not know at all just because you're a father or a mother that's raising these children. We don't know at all. Those little people running around can teach us a lot about just humanity, each other,

yourself. They're trying to communicate in a lot of times that I've learned when they're at a certain age. They just don't know the words to communicate what they're feeling. They don't know what that is, like the sadness. They don't, a lot of them don't know that that's what they're feeling.

I mean, we're grown adults making mistakes, like, man, I'm angry. I should probably pull myself out of this situation before I've maybe punch somebody in the face or do something I shouldn't do. But getting on their level, listening to them, processing what they say, take that pause, and then delivering that in a proper way

by not raising your voice, guilty. But be the example. They're gonna watch you. They're gonna watch what you do. They're gonna watch how you speak back to the cussing piece, right? Watch how you speak, how you interact with people, how do you go grocery shopping, how do you drive?

All these little things, they're like, they're just gathering, they're little sponges, they're just gathering all this information. And then try to develop that relationship as best you can, but like, to go off of that question from what I personally is, what I failed to do was just listen. Listen to what they were trying to communicate, get more information out of them, get on their level and just get in their world, get in their world, which

is tough to do because we're like, we're for the most part self-absorbed humans. Like we're kind of thinking about me, me, me, and, you know, and I'm no exception to it, but that would be my advice is like, it's tough. It is tough. Because if it wasn't tough, everyone would be doing it and we're not doing it. And especially we see bringing the media and we go to school and like twerkings the coolest thing. I mean, more people know about twerking than they know about like being a good person or morals and ethics or integrity. And it's. So the place, and we can't, I think a lot of us blame it on the school system, and I'm not saying that they are not

guilty, but it starts in the home. Yeah. I mean, it starts in the home for us to become an operator. Where did it start? It started in Buds, the foundation. This is what a seal is. This is what an operator does. And then we just grew upon that.

It's like anything with a pee-wee football, to grade school football, to high school football, to college football, to NFL. And you're just stacking on this experience and wisdom as we go. Well, the foundation starts back when you're in pee-wee. How to treat people, right? What does teamwork? What does it mean to lose? What can we improve upon learning, learning the lesson, right?

But that goes back to the home. So the parents, yeah, it starts with you and it ends with you. Planets it, but I truly believe that. And I'm not going to pretend that I make all the right decisions. I don't. I feel almost daily, I would say. I'm like, crap, I got to fix that. Hmm, I got to fix that. I don't want my kid to see me drinking a lot. I don't want them to hear me cussing. I don't want them to hear me cussin. I don't want them to hear me raise my voice to my wife because that's not okay. Because guess what?

They're gonna do the same thing. If I think if we take a step back and look at, we were raised, we're probably doing a lot of the same things. Yeah, so. Totally agree with you. So long answer, but that's a great question. That is a great question. That's situation Dick takes per that's a great question. That is a great question. That's situation dictates per family, but great question.

Yeah, there was a lot of questions on there for you. A lot of it had to do with dev group and stuff, but listening to your story, I listened to one of your podcasts from Mike Ritland several years ago, and man, you think you know a guy. And the parent piece in there was really, really powerful and touching. And so I thought that was the perfect question for you.

That's a good question. But, and then just to add to that, I do, everybody's these days is looking for somebody to blame. And yeah, school system, everybody's these days is looking for somebody to blame and, yeah, school system, it's all over the news, you know, what they're teaching and I disagree with a lot of it. Yeah, so, so do I.

With that being said, you are your kids biggest example. And if you don't like that kind of shit, they're, you're the example, just lead by example and they're going to follow. And what's as's hard to do, and I talk about that as you never know who's watching. I go over like coaches that I watched, certain individuals that I watched, but I did one little thing, one certain thing

that means nothing to them, but it meant the world to me that changed my work ethic. The way I treat people, it's huge. It's just one thing. There's a study out there, and I don't know where it came from, but it's like for every negative thing that we do, it takes 10 positives to erase that negative. So if we raise our votes at our kids

or do something we don't listen to and we assume that we know what's going on, they're gonna hold on to that. They're not going to remember that, hey, good job on your football in your football game or good job on your grades. It takes 10 of those good out of boys to get rid of that negative. It just goes to show you how powerful that negative piece is. And unfortunately, my children growing up dealt with more negative than positive from me because to be honest with you, I was the child.

I didn't know what to do. I was lost and I turned to drinking, I turned to pills to sleep a night. And yeah, they taught me a lot. Well, before we get into that, let's start with your childhood. I know you grew up in Ohio. Yeah. Since an Adi Ohio played sports pretty much the whole time, mostly football, baseball,

and then... Were you good at them? I was good at baseball. I was good at Peewee football, and then when I got to like seventh-eighth grade, I was kind of late... Late-loomer? Late-loomer. Kiwi football and then when I got to like seventh eighth grade, I was kind of late. Late bloomer. Late bloomer. So I told my dad, I was like, hey, these guys are too big.

And I'm like, I just don't want to do it, so I quit. And I'm glad I did. And when I did that, I joined the swim team, which was great for buds. Not realizing that I was gonna get a buds. But as a child, I was always running through the woods. I would play video games maybe on Saturdays. I think my mom would let me have it for about an hour or two

and I'd play Contrail, you know, Up Up Down, Down Life, Right Life, Right, BA. So, right? You know the good codes. So, I would do that, but mostly in the woods, building forts, running like a madman, making spears, all kinds of stuff, man. But that was my passion, just being on the woods and roaming the creeks, looking for snakes to kill them because that was with a good buddy odds

that I grew up with that we call ourselves the snake killers. And we just go out, looking for Yeti or something and killing snakes. But it was a great childhood man It was always outdoors fishing just something swimming in lakes It was it was a good time. It was awesome brothers and sisters. I had a cat a cat I did no brother and sisters only child I tortured that cat Alex. I don't see you as a cat person. Yeah Yeah, I don't either but there he was I think our neighbor had a litter. My mom said, maybe

this guy needs a cat because I'm not going to give him a son or a brother or sister. So we had a cat. I mean, it was awesome. But I like, I would, when we moved, when I was in seventh grade, I'd like drop him off the balcony. We had like a the loft kind of like overlooks. I would drop him off and we had a couch underneath and he would kind of bounce off the couch. That's it. I mean, it was at a good fun.

I wasn't like, hey, let's torture this guy, but he did not like me. I would like hold him. I mean, just, yeah. Things you shouldn't be doing. Things I shouldn't be doing. Yeah, were you popular? Growing up.

I wouldn't say popular. I was friends with everybody, like the jocks, like I was just nice to everybody. Never really bullied or picked on, but I mean, I was kind of into my little clique with the swim team. That was probably, yeah, that was friends of everyone. Good childhood. Good childhood. Yeah, sounds like it's good everyone. Good childhood. Good childhood. Good childhood.

Good childhood. Yeah, good childhood. Yeah, so my parents were divorced. And I lived with my mom for most of the time. I'd go see my dad every other weekend and like dinner on Wednesday or Thursday night would go out to whatever, get some food and he would drop me back off of the house.

But yeah, I mean, like my dad, when I was a child, was like my little hero, always would look up to him. But yeah, my mom took care of me, she was always there. That's like been one constant for a long time, as always, her, she's always been there. That's good. What do they do? Is it perfect?

So my mom's retired now. My dad still does kind of drywall. He's in the drywall business, been the drywall business for a long time. And then my mom does, she did like clerical work. I think she did like payroll or something. So she'd always drive downtown, you know, worked on like the high rises and stuff like that

and then come back after work. So she did that for the most time. She took some accounting courses on, not online, but through like the community college, I guess, or whatever it was, I don't remember what it was. Yeah. But yeah, she kind of like a business-businessy type. Well, where did your interest

and the military come then? I guess, you know, when I was my dad's weekend, his way of parenting was like, hey, check out this new Sylvester Salon movie or check out Arnold Schwarzenegger, check out this new guy Van Dam, right? And I would watch him all and I was just like, glued to the thing, I like to the TV,

just like glued to it and I would watch him over and over and over again, like looking at their gear, like, what is that, what is this? And I would just like try to, and we didn't have internet. So you try to like magazines or try to figure things out or go to the library, like military, like what's, what's anything?

And I just fell in love with it, like just someone got stirred up inside me and it like became a passion. So, I mean, gosh, as long as I can remember, I mean grade school, I was like, dude, I want to be in the military. I want to be in the military. Oh, no, no, sorry, really? It sort of real early. And then I remember, I mean, grade school, I was like, dude, I wanna be in the military. I wanna be in the military. Oh, no, no, sorry, really?

It started real early and then I remember a specific day, my mom took me to a night game, a Cincinnati Reds game, and they just got done with a star-spangled banner and it was during Desert Storm. So I don't even remember, they had the yellow ribbons, they had a sticker with an eagle head, support our troops, and I mean, very patriotic stuff from what I From what I can remember nothing would I kind of feel like definitely not in the Vietnam era

Which I was not around be can hear the stories or kind of what's going on now But very supportive it seems like it at my you know to my young eyes And that at the end of the star-spangled banner which I definitely stood for you know took my hand down and afterwards They had like fighter jets banner, which I definitely stood for, you know, took my hand down and afterwards. They had like fighter jets fly over in just that noise. Oh, is that dude, I rocked my world. I was like, I talked to my mom because I'm like, you know, she'll look it up at her. I'm like, that's what I want to do.

And I didn't want to be a pilot. I just knew that I wanted to be in the military. Seeing that flag flow, I just felt like a great sense of pride in this country. And I didn't know what the heck I was even asking for, what I was thinking about, but for some reason, that planet is seed that just morphed inside me. It was awesome. And I remember that night. It was a night game, since I read the game.

I'll never forget it. Damn. And that was it. That's all she wrote. Well, so when did you start really getting serious and looking into it? So I did this swim team for a while, and I thought about it, and then swimmers are going, I was a freshman, the seniors are looking at colleges,

they're going to colleges, I'd go with them to check out the university, do it work out at their pool or whatever, they would allow that to happen. And I was like, well, maybe I'll swim in college, try to get a scholarship. Because I was starting to get a little bit better. I mean, most of these guys started like, when they're 10. So they were like freaks in the water.

And I was, I mean, started in ninth grade. I could barely swim a length of the pool. And then towards my junior year, I started getting really good. And then I did not swim my senior year because my coach died. Who was a huge influence on me. But I mean, there was like little segments of life

where I'm like, I wanna be a lawyer because I watched the firm with Tom Cruise. I'm like, I think that's a good job. I wanna do that. I wanna be a doctor because I saw whatever. It's just a fluid, you know? I mean, we influence people or we get influenced by people. And everything came back to the military,

but when I was a junior year, a really good friend of mine was a senior, and he enlisted in the Marine Corps. So he went down to Paris Island in South Carolina. And when his graduation came around, he had a brother, and they reached out and like, hey, Eddie, would you like to go down there for the graduation? So I asked my mother, of course, and she, yeah, she'll be great for you. So I went down there, I like fell in love. I was like, just seeing the obstacle course

and they're like doing the pugal sticks and they're boxing and marching and the guns. And it was cool, like the unison of them marching. I mean, I've kind of learned in the military what looks cool is not the coolest, like diving at night under a ship. That's scary, bro. Like that, you know what I mean?

You didn't get any enjoyment out of that. I, what I was done, I'm like, that's cool. But during it, I'm like, shark, what? Shark? Am I going to get sucked up into the suction of the ship? You know, I mean, you know, it's the, the reality kind of hits you. But I just fell in love. And I'm like, all right, like, and I wanted to be a seal thing. So I saw, you know, the Charlie Sheen movie and Michael Bean with, you know, Navy Seals. And I did the Marine Corps thing. I did, and just, I was like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go be a Marine.

What year was this? I enlisted and I went August 23rd of 1996. Okay. I left to go in the Marine Corps. Right out of high school. Right out of high, I was 17 17 my 18th birthday was in boot camp Sitting in my rack hoping no one would find out that was my birthday Yeah, you just don't draw attention to yourself, right be the great man

But yeah, it was it was cool. It was it was a good experience. I Didn't fall in love with the Marine Corps That's all about rank. It's not so much about how you perform. It's about rank. I care more about your hair than how you operate or do your job. You picked that up at that young of an age. Yeah, I started.

Yeah, I didn't know better, but towards like year two, two and a half, three years, I'm like, this is ridiculous. Like, that's concentrated on like working. That seems like a more important thing, like having an operational fighting force then, hey, you look good. Like, are those creases? Like, okay, cool,

because the enemy's gonna give a crap about that. Like, it's like, who cares? I get the point to being presentable in the discipline. I understand that, but it seemed to override people during their job and influencing other people and being a leader. And sorry, I didn't like that.

What did you join the Marine Corps to do? O3-11, so basic infantrymen. And that's what I wanted to do. So I did my ass in this funny, this kind of funny, sad at the same time. Because I did my ass valve and you know, they get the scores back and they're like, so Eddie, what do you wanna do? I was like, I and you know they get the scores back and they're like so Eddie

What do you want to do? I was like I want to be no 311 and they're like good because that's all you're gonna be able to do It's my ass Vab I guess was not the greatest so and I was like cool I don't care like just I wanted like What I thought you know the Marines do storm the beaches, you know get off a zodiacs go do the thing right, storm the beaches, you know, get off a zodiacs, go do the thing, right? Be on the front lines. And, yeah, that's all I cared to do. I just wanted to be in the fight,

not knowing what that meant or what exactly came with that package deal. Yeah. So, when did you leave? Did you do one in Lisbon? And then? I did four years, yeah, about my three year mark. So the reason for me leaving about two and a half,

three years in, I was like, I learned about marine scout snipers, which everyone I saw that was in marine scout, that they were just squared away. And scout sniper school was right there on Quantico where I was stationed. So I would see him like running with their gilly suits on with packs, they had other, you know, their long guns. I was like, dude, I'm gonna go where I was stationed. So I would see him like running with their gilly suits on, with packs, they had other, you know, their long guns. That's like, dude, I'm gonna go do that.

But you had to be a rifle expert. So you got, you know, you got your three calls. You got basic, basic marksmen, then you got your sharp shooter, then you got your rifle expert, just like we do in the Navy. Same thing in the Marines, but you had to be a rifle expert,

the best one to even go to sniper school. And I was a basic marksman. So I asked my team leader, I was like, Hey, can I, can I go to the range to try to, you know, up my qual? And I went and I got sharp shirt, I missed expert by one point by one shot. And so I was like, Hey, can I go again? So they sent me back like three months later, I miss it again by one shot. So I was like, hey, can I go again? So they sent me back like three months later. I miss it again by one shot. So I was like, just give me one more chance. And they're like, hey, we do this. You get it, you got to reenlist or extend to go to school.

And I was like, I'll do that, no problem. So I didn't extend, thank God, but the spot opened up and I got to go within six months, I think I was back at it. And I miss it again. One freaking point. Three times, man. Wow.

And I was done. I was deflated. I was done. I was like, this sucks. I'm like, man, I kind of chalked it up. Like this military thing maybe wasn't for me after all. Maybe I'm not as it's not what I've always wanted to be. So I was like, I'll go back to Cincinnati and be a cop.

Like, you know, I just wanted to, I don't like evil. I just wanted to somehow fight evil the best way, the, in some way, you know, shape or form. And I'd say probably around that time, I don't know how much time was left in the Marines, maybe eight, nine months or something like that. I was like, and I don't know what sparked it. Oh, I know what sparked it.

We did a trip to West Virginia, because when I was in Quantico, everything that we did was training the officers. So officers go to OCS, officer candidate school, and then the Marine Corps, you go to a thing on the other side of the base, it's called TBS, the basic school. So every Marine officer does this six month school. It's all field craft. Like learning to set up patrol bases, patrolling, shooting, how to do, mount, military operations in urban terrain, a little bit of CQB, all the explosives, grenades, more shooting, heavy weapons, stuff like that.

So every officer does that, which other services don't. So I like to applaud the Marines for that. That's super cool. So we were like the op 4, like the bad guys for for all this training stuff. So I was in the woods or in the field with these guys. Like my first year, I counted the days, it was 315 days. And it wasn't like overnight, but like some would be like 9 to 5, like for a week, but someone would be like, all right, you're out there for three weeks straight. and you're like, you're stinking and just like, it's just, it's just bad. But I learned so much. And then, but everything was for them. Everything was for the officers and I get it. But you know,

at the same time, it's like, dude, I have zero experience and you want me to try to feed these guys. So we just kind of played war games. But we did a trip. We were going to teach some officers mountaineering. And I am, most of played war games. But we did a trip. We were going to teach some officers mountaineering. And I am most of us knew nothing. This is our first duty stations. Actually at school of infantry took all the names that started with a P. There's nine of us. Like you're going to Quantico. Like that's, you know, it's not like based off of anything. It was like, okay, alpha mat somehow the P's got chosen, which sucked. And so we go there to West Virginia to learn mountaineering. So we spend three days out there learning to repel,

make rope bridges, you know, tying all the knots, to figure aides, how to like do river crossings, all that stuff, and I like aided up. I was like, oh my God, there's like, like cause it was like making me better. So there was like, it was training for us and I was like, do this is awesome. So I fell in love.

I was like, okay, where do I get more of this? And obviously the answers would have been like, Cypress School, well, kind of failed that one. Marine Force Recon learned that their budget for gear and ops wasn't the greatest at the time. They weren't even attached to so-called, I believe. So I was like, all right, let's come back. You looked into all that at that, you know?

Yeah, yeah. Wow, that's impressive. So I look, I asked questions, I guess you could say, because there was a guy that came from battalion recon. So you got battalion at the time, I don't know how it's set up now, but you had battalion recon in the ad force, where forces might be like,

you're kind of like more of your, the way it was explained to me, more you're like your hostage rescue, kind of like your tier one-ish type, where Battalion was more, just dudes that are more squared away have better training, kind of infantry type. Like, Rangers, and for people that are watching

that if I butcher and I apologize, but that's what I was led to believe by being told by guys over there. And I was like, all right being told by guys over there. And I was like, all right, I'm going to go with my dream way back when I'm going to do the seal thing. So not even making sniper school and then wanting to go to the hardest school that I believe the military has to offer.

The feedback from family and friends was not of the most encouraging way. It's like, dude, like people don't make it. People don't do anything, but it didn't matter. Like my mind dude like people don't make it people don't do anything But it didn't matter like my mind was like on it Like it was on it like I I know I can do it. I just felt it like I know I can do this and so I crossed over and went to buds So there was no breaking service you just want to break I couldn't I tried to like sell back my leave Like you can just have my leave just get me there as soon as possible. I was like, I don't need the 90, because I had like 90 days or whatever saved up. And they're like, no, you have to finish it out completely.

Be out for one day to so we can drug test you and all that stuff. I was like, yeah, I'm gonna get high on this one day off before I go, before I go, once you had to do the whole out processing piece for the Marines, and then you gotta do the whole in processing piece for the Navy, which is a frickin nightmare, as you know. So did that, and then had to go up to transitioning processing unit, which is up in great legs for other services, veterans coming in. You go up there, it's really like a, it's a, it's a mess.

Let's just put it that way. And so we, you know, get all your paperwork, and then had to do a A school, like get a job and then Navy because there was no seal at SO, like there was no job. That started, I think, when we were in, like a couple years in. And so I went to Gunners Made School right up there in Great Lakes because it was something, they told me it was close to infantry, which it's not, not even close. I learned about circuits and positive and negative and resistors, which I still know nothing about.

I know there's red and black and positives and negatives. That's where we stop. But you had to have a school. So if you don't make it through, they have a place to put you, right? Cause I didn't want to go open contract and end up on a ship painting it or something like that. So did the school and went out to buds. And it was awesome, man. It was everything and more. He liked buds. I liked it. It sucked at times, of course. But just the learning

about my body, what I can and can't do. And then the mindset piece of it all, I was like, oh my gosh. Like, we as humans have so much more potential than our goals. Like we might have, like, I wanna accomplish this. The truth is, you set your, you know, the standard here, bro, you should be shooting up here. Yeah.

We see it all the time. I see it all the time. I see it all the time. I'm sure you realize the same thing. It's like, wait, I can do way more than this. Yeah. Way more. You know, when you're like, it's something as simple as like, I can't do any more pushups.

I can't do any more. And then they're like, hey, you're out of here. If you don't knock out five more and you knock out seven. Yeah. So it's like, I mean, we can. You know, our brain, you know, our brain is our worst enemy and it's our best asset, plain and simple. What was your favorite part of buds?

Gosh. I really, I really enjoy like the camaraderie of being with the boys. I really liked it. I liked the surf torture. I liked the surf torture. You liked the surf torture. I mean, it sucked. I just, I like fed off of it.

Like I get, like if I do sparring or something like that, or whatever, and I get my bell rang, it like amps me up. I'm like, oh yeah, okay. Like I'm stimulated by a little bit of pain. Okay. And that would bring out a little pain, it would just motivate me more. Like you can't break me, I just had that you can't break me,

you can't break me, I'm getting stronger and stronger and stronger. And that's what I thought to myself all the time. And then seeing people quit motivated me. Really? Yeah, I'm like, all right, it's not made for you, it's made for me though. And I would give myself that self-talk.

And a lot of that got me through and the guy to my left and my right. I tried to hang out with the good people, the one with the good personality, the ones that tried to make you laugh. Not the one like this sucks. When he's just gonna end, I'd get away from the toxicity.

So, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe 9-11 happened when you were in buds. Second phase, yeah. What was I like? Serial. It was weird. I remember just getting my tray. I was at the cafeteria, galley,

childhood, whatever you want to call it, getting my food. And I was walking out of the line to the table area. And on the backside, they got all these, all the TVs. And like everyone's like, paused. It's like someone that paused on the remote and you know on the back side they got all these, all the TVs. And like everyone's like, paused. It's like someone that hit pause on the remote and you know the frame stands still and like, what the heck's going on? Like I'm not paying attention.

I'm looking at my food like I can't wait to devour this, right? I put my tray down and the guys that I'm sitting down with are like just staring, they're just glued to the TV and I'm like, what's going on? And they just like point up and I'm like, and all I see is one of the, I think one of the, one of the towers, I don't know if it was one or two, one of the towers was, was, was going up and smoke. And then the second one came in,

and I remember exactly what I saw, but I could, I could tell it was an attack. And right at that moment, it was like, okay, but did we just get attacked? And then, you know, the thoughts go, well, they push us through training, like, they're not getting to go to the fight. It just, you just kind attacked? And then, you know, the thoughts go, well, they push us through training, like they're not gonna go to the fight. It just, you just kind of knew instinctively,

like, hey, it's about to get real. Not that it wasn't real before. And to say it didn't change the mindset a little bit would be, don't disservice of that whole event. But yeah, I kind of, I mean, you know, it's different. It's different when there's actively something going on versus something could be going on, which was what the case was, first phase and a little bit of second phase, which is like, you know, we'll answer the call when it comes, but now it's like, okay, the threat is imminent. It's real. Here it is. Let's

go. So it kind of tweaked, tweaked your brain a little bit. Did you guys have any, did you have anybody quit after, I mean, nobody quits after how we, I don't think we had anyone quit. I mean, we had, you know, the basic injuries, we had to roll somebody, but I don't think anyone quit to my knowledge. There was guys like I kicked out, you know, that wasn't fitting the mold, I guess.

But I don't think anyone quit. Okay. So, but I'm not 100% on that. You know, it is, looking through your the toilet paper roll, not seeing the big picture of everything you're like, God, just give me through this hour, just give me through this minute, just give me through the next five seconds. Did the instructor staff change it all after 9-11? My memory is a little foggy, but I mean they would have to. I know

one of our instructors had a, his fiancee or wife was a flight attendant on a flight from somewhere to New York that morning. It wasn't her flight, but I could see them doing stuff and we were kind of, we were kind of brought into the classroom and kind of debriefed what was known, which wasn't a lot about what was going on. But, you know, you could see it in their eyes. You could see it in their eyes. Yeah. Yeah. You can see it. So you finished buds, you go, did you go to team two right away? Team two right away. Yep. You went to team two. I wound up a team two later. Yeah, because you went to team two right away? Team two right away. You went to team two. I wound up at team two later.

Yeah, because you went to eight first, I went to eight first, and I went to two. And when I got to two, you guys' platoon, or your task unit, I guess I should say, was like the golden task unit. I don't know what you guys did. It was, we had the influence from our tier one guys. We're gonna find out what you guys do. What were you guys doing over there?

I mean, we had the way it started the first couple of weeks, because we jumped in right when work up was starting, I believe, for the first deployment. And I was, I think, or sorry, sorry Afghanistan was going or when did Iraq start kicking off? Iraq started kicking off right in 2003. Okay, so I would have been, it was like during that time both of them were kicking off. So it was like, okay, where are we going?

And we know we didn't know, but we're assuming we're going to go get in the fight. But our leadership that came from the other side of the street are tier one guys. They changed the whole way we did business and they made it more like them. So instead of like K, we got two platoons and you guys were all doing the same stuff. They kind of made it like K, we got a mobility guys, we got our cyber element and then we got our assultors. And they changed it all. And so I was with the assaulting side and just kind of fell in love with the breaching. And that deployment, I just wanted to go to breaching school,

but it was rare for new guys to go. That's where there was a spot. Yeah. So I didn't go, but I was like the secondary breacher, I would like just, I was mentored by a lot of, a lot of solid dudes. And just like hung on to every word and just tried to like soak up as much as possible.

And I just fell in love with the breaching world. What did you think of the seal teams when you first showed up? Was it everything you thought it was going to be? I thought it would be, it had a conventional taste to it. And I only say that after being at the Tier 1 unit. I only say that I wouldn't have probably known better, but it was like, oh, we can't let you out until like four. I was like, are we babies?

Like, if we had nothing to do, send guys home. Especially when you're always on training trips, you have deployments, like we have a thing called families. And I think that's a problem we have, is we wanna know why divorce rate is 90% a lot of it's based off of stupidity because we think that this is the way it's supposed to be. Dude, we preach this unconventional mindset, this we are unconventional, we do the guerrilla warfare, right? But yet when it comes to, you know, sticking to the 430

or 4 o'clock rule, like, come on,, like, that's, that's, we're done. We're not, we're not regular military here. Yeah. You're expecting guys to fight and get shot at. Where did you wind up deploying to on that first one? The first one we are kind of like dragged around. First we were told we're going to Germany, then we're going to Guam, then we're going to South America. And we're like, what the heck? And then we are going to Iraq. And then they have pulled out, then we went to Iraq. So we're going to Germany, then we're going to Guam, then we're going to South America, and we're like, what the heck?

And then we are going to Iraq, and then they have pulled out, then we went to Iraq. So we went to Mizzol, up north, and we were just like, you guys are gonna be doing DAs. We're like, really? I'm like, yes. I'm like, yes. So we went up there, and our first two months was up there,

and it was cool. It was really cool. It was eye opening. It was eye opening. It was just busting, breeching the doors down, going in, and kind of like, swat style. But the whole time we did there, I don't believe one shot was fired.

I mean, because you're not obviously getting the high-value targets, the HVTs, you're getting kind of the lower ranking or whatever the Intel says that we should be going. But it was cool. It was in the progression and the progression of my career and like in the experience, it's probably, it was awesome.

Like it wasn't like boom, boom, boom right away. It was gradual, that would come later. But it was good until, and then you know, two months in, we get the PSD piece, the security detail down in Baghdad when the interim government came in. So we packed up all our stuff, which we weren't proud of. Yeah.

And to be honest, we like, didn't even train for PSD. Yeah. Really? So we were kind of like, all right, this is what it looks like. I mean, we did a little bit, but not like, hey, this is gonna be your mission overseas here. We're to do a workup for it. We didn't do that. I was kind of like on the job training, but, you know, we pick you pick it up, right? Yeah. You know, like

bad guys, the way they think, all right, let's defend. But instead of, you know, up in Bazool, when you're, you know, when you're taking it to the enemy, when you're on the offensive, now you're on the defensive. You're waiting to get hit by the vehicle born IED on the side of the road. You're a guy that you're watching, you're constantly around is a target. I mean, and we had a lowy years before he was up in England and Saddam sent his guys up there

and he got the citizens to kill him. And he had scarth over his face from hatchets that they took to him when he was sleeping. He didn't even survive it. Like I took him a year to come back but like just seeing their scars on his face, like much respect, you know? And a lot of people say he was DC's puppet.

And he might have been, you know, now that we're learning right about this government, I don't know, but you know, the guy was anti-Sodom. I mean, especially when someone tries to kill you, and probably not gonna be friends with you after. Yeah. So, but it was an experience that led to my company later. So, I can't, it was good to do.

Yeah. Not fun at the time, but it was good to do. Pretty discouraging, probably. It was very, especially, that, I mean, that's every teen guy's dream, I think. Yeah. Kicking down doors, right? Taking it to the bad guy. And then, you got to go watch somebody.

Yeah. I don't want a baby say you. Nothing against you. I just don't want a baby say you. Yeah. I'm trained to do more. Yeah. That one there's a war going on. Exactly.

But say you come home, do another work up. Yep. And during that time, my second child was born, probably three months for the second deployment. So when I was in the Marines, found out that my first daughter, Kayla, was born. She was when I was in the Marines. So when we went out to Buds, she was two or three. So I had one, one daughter, Kayla, was born. She was when I was in the Marines. So when we went out to Buds, she was two or three.

So I had one, one daughter. And then before the second one, my second daughter came, Samantha. So I think I left on that second deployment. She was three months old. Was that hard for you at the time? Ah. As sad as this is to say, I don't know.

I didn't want to leave, but at the same time, I wanted to leave. I wanted to be over there. Like, I was just itching to get over there. I just wanted to fight. Like, we just don't go through all this training and volunteer to be put through hell, right? Pretty much, and then just not to be back at home.

Yeah, it was sad to leave, And I missed them, of course. But I was like, that's where I'm supposed to be is overseas. That's that's where this is. And that's where this is. So yeah, and then when I came back, it was, you know, she'd die months old and just like, it's ridiculous. Wow. So was that so the second poem? Is that the one we did together? That's the one we did together. So I think there was three or four guys from our task unit we had to get more guys on yours. Mm-hmm. So I volunteered because I've never been to Afghanistan So I was like, yeah, please send me and I because I did not want to go do PST again. Yeah, and I was at PTSD again because it's about So I volunteered I was like, I don't about the time I called. So I volunteered.

I was like, I don't care what I do, just like give me over there, like because I heard the fighting was more intense. There was, you know, it was a more formidable opponent. But I, yeah, I just wanted to be over there. So I volunteered right away to go with you guys and I'm glad I did. Yep, it was pretty boring.

Fuckin' deployment if they asked me, but. Yeah, but it was cool to see the landscape kind of get to know the people. And that was like my first like, troop in contact encounter. It was nothing big, but got to shoot the 240. It's some trees where we were getting shot at. And I was like, okay, and it's just like what I was saying

earlier, like with doing the DAs in Iraq, it was just a small progression. Like, okay, you got in your first like, troop in contact. Nothing crazy, but it was just like adding another layer of experience. So, I mean, that's just the way I look at it, because there's no other way to look at it. Yeah. Well, after that, so that deployment got cut short.

We went down to Candidhard, did a little bit of stuff with the cansof, which didn't really amount to much. And then, I'm not really sure what happened at the top level, but I'm fairly certain that we got kicked out of country. That'd believe you're right. Because we shot the whole camp down. Yeah.

It was a Campo letter or something. It was a little cold, yeah, we should roll down. And then we went the whole camp down. Yeah. Was it campo letter or something? Is that what it's called? Yeah, we showed it all down. And then we went back to back to Baghdad. Yeah, so what'd you guys do? So we split ways there. I went to another platoon in Baghdad. You went to, I believe you're a regional platoon. Yeah, so I went back with them

and they were doing what they called a mentorship for PSD to almost it again. PSD in like training their like, I rack he's on how to do it, or other entities that were taking over. And it was a lot of sitting down and then we were like, we had to do something. I mean, the worst thing you can do

is get a bunch of team guys sitting around doing nothing. It's just good things don't happen. We're like a bunch of children, which that's fine. Like we wanna go operate. That's what we're created to do, and that's what we feel, right? And finally, we started getting some of the sniper apps. Like I know Sadder City was going crazy.

Some guys got lucky to drop some bombs, and I think our snipers and radio men and medics got a lot of those, which I was none of. But got to do a couple sniper ops. Again, no shots fired where I was. I know a couple guys got some. Yeah. And was that who you were with?

That's how it was. Yeah, we were the lucky ones that kept getting the pills. Okay, I thought so. Yeah, I thought so. But, yeah, I thought so. But yeah, nothing. But it was just cool to like another mission, I guess you could say, to get experience undoing. But it was nothing.

And then I realized like, I don't want to ever want to be a sniper. This is so boring. Ha ha ha ha. Like, I want to kick down doors, man. Yeah. But it was great experience. It really was. So from there, that was your was

at your last deployment at team two. Okay. So I I screened or sent in my package to go over across the street to our tier one unit and they pushed it back. I was supposed to get back and go right into like a month later a couple weeks later, and I got pushed six months and started going, I go to the training detachment. And then I told one of the guys, I was an operator over there and he did something because he's like, hey dude, you're going to, you're going to the, the, the, the green team,

like right away when you get back. And all I was doing that the point was jacking steel. Like me and Jason Workman, that's all we were doing when I got to Baghdad, which is jacking steel as much as we could. So I put on like probably 10 pounds, like some taking all the supplements, have my wife at the time, send over anything and everything, just like to try to bulk me out, because I'm like, if I'm not going to do anything, at least I can do is like, just get bigger and get stronger, but definitely not faster. So I was like crap, I was like started stressing

about the run, I was like, okay, I'm gonna start running, so I kinda tapered off on the weights a little bit. And so like probably two or three weeks later, once we got back home, or total time, I had to be doing that screening test to get in. And I passed the run, I kind of had no problem with anything else, but the run, I made by like 12 or 13 seconds, but it didn't matter.

As long as you pass, they give you a time, as long as you pass, it doesn't matter how close you are. Yeah. So, but yeah. So you want to write to green team right after that deployment? Yes. No downtime. No downtime.

Maybe a couple weeks. How's your wife and family? I mean, what do they think of that? I was very self-absorbed. I really, I mean, I'm sure I asked, but my mind was made up like, hey, here's what I'm going to do. And I would justify as like, hey, we get more money if I go over there versus over here, deployments are shorter. I would pretty much turn into a salesman where I wouldn't, you know, I was like, is that cool with you? But I really wasn't asking.

It was like, is that cool with you? But inside of like, I'm doing this, no matter what you say. And that was kind of it. But she was supportive from what I can remember. She was supportive. But I mean, the cracks in my family life. Did they already started before you went over? I would say, I'd say they started around

after my first deployment. Okay. The cracks, you know, they weren't little baby fractures anymore, they were splitting. And it was starting to get worse, because that was party and hard. Yeah. I was drinking a lot. Mostly on trips when I come home, because the kids I really wouldn't drink too much unless we had like a backyard barbecue or something. But I noticed she was doing a more. So I guess she was kind of coping with her own, you know, dealing with it. And I really didn't

take current a consideration at all. Like I was like, hey dude, like suck it up. And that's just not the way to do it. And so that didn't help. I did not help. I mean, I take ownership that I really failed. And I think I was definitely majority of that solo owner breaking that marriage apart for sure. Like I just, I was so self-absorbed, all I cared about was the teams. I cared more about the boys than her. Yeah, do you think that looking back now,

do you think drinking was definitely part of the culture at that time? Oh, of course. Yeah. I mean, yeah, it's better than cocaine or heroin, you know what I mean? So I mean, of course, in our society, it's socially acceptable. What's not socially acceptable is when you're just doing it, just try to go to sleep.

And my brain, and I wasn't like, because I didn't really see too much in those first two deployments. I really didn't see like a bunch of dead bodies, you know, your body's getting destroyed. I didn't see that in the first one. I mean, I think the biggest thing that I saw was probably that second deployment, maybe some of the first deployment.

There's a huge roadside bomb, and I remember going out to the Prime Minister wanted to go out there and look, and I remember just seeing like shoes Lying in the streets because and the people blown out of their shoes from the from the overpressure Yeah, but their shoes remained And it was it was a crazy site and I was like, ah man, and like it's one of those images that you like you don't forget Yeah, I really didn't see

Or really experience the stuff that you're like, man, that was a close one. Or like, whoa, like, well, like, okay, that's, they're all right, we're good. Yeah. Not this first two deployments. Well, before we get into the next step in your career, let's take a quick break. Let's do it. Cool. Serious question. Who wants to take the best shit of their entire life? Right here. I do. How do

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use promo code shan to take 20% off your order. Thank you, bubsnatrals, for being a sponsor of the Sean Ryan Show. All right, Eddie, we're back from the break. You wrapped up your fairly short career at Seal Team 2. You're moving on to development group. Let's talk about what that transition look like. I was excited. You know, you hear the stories,

like they're doing these operations and you know, they get these fire fights. And again, I still didn't know what I was asking for. But I just wanted to be there. I was so excited. I was like,, but I just wanted to be there. I was so excited. I was like, it was like Christmas daily being over there. It was like Christmas. I mean, just some great operators.

They treat you like a seasoned operator. I mean, you're still learning from everyone. These guys got so much experience. And I just ate it up. Great influences influences man. Let me just the mentors that they were. And then they took you under your wing and just showed you the way they kind of operate.

And it was just, it was awesome. It was super awesome. Like I loved it. What was Green Team like showing up there? It was good. You're around all the guys are putting out to get to that, the next rone on the ladder. And it was, I think, green team was harder than Buds.

Really? It seemed like there was more stress. You had more to prove. Your ego was kind of more on the line. You could go back to the team, back to team two, as a, I mean, you would call yourself a failure. Like failed or whatever it is, not to say that like, and the guys that didn't make it through,

they're great individuals, great operators, but just, it wasn't, I guess, what they're looking for. And it was tough, man. It was extremely tough, but, you know, the main thing they concentrated on was CQB, and that happened to be my strong suit, just like it was, like I can just walk in a room and I can process really fast.

I can't process in the relationship world, but we're with my children, but for some reason, you know, it won't CQB, that just, I just got it. Like I just understood threat bad guy done, not, you know, hostage, don't do anything wrong. Like I just got it. Like I compliment the angles and doorways and windows. I just got it. I complimented the angles and doorways and windows. I just

got it. And I say that humbling. There's so many other things that I really took me a long time to get. I wasn't that great at it. I guess probably more of the passion piece. But there's nothing cooler than go through a hallway running and gunning and peeling off, coming back out of the hallway, going to the next room. What do we got? It's a surprise behind every door. You just don't know what you get. But it was, I strived in that. I did really good. And I'd say probably, you know, the two things that I found in green team that they get rid of you for was, well, minus if you have an attitude or you just like don't fit the mold,

was CQB in the beginning of it all, if you do a crazy safety violation throughout and then jumping, if you're not landed on the ax, you're not deploying correctly because I mean, when you're asked to be at altitude at nighttime, stacking to fly into wherever, you gotta be, I mean, dudes die. And I remember one, I talk about that

and talk about this in the book is like, it was like our final jump, like our final test jump and I came down with strip. And I had like a one, two, one, three. I was hallucinating. I was out. And they came in like one of the instructors ahead, he got a jump and I was like, hey, can I just do it tomorrow? Like just let me pump in some meds. And he's like, no, he's like, you have to do it now. And I was like, all right. So I went to got the medic. And I was like, hey dude, I don't know what you have to do. Pump me up with, do something. And give me on that freaking bird. And I do, I thought I was like, I mean,

you have a strep before. And you have a tip, it gets sucks. And you want me to jump out of a plane, which I didn't like to begin with. And I was like, screw it, dude. I really didn't care if I burned in. And I got up there and I even think that there was only a couple guys that needed to pass.

Like, they let me alone because they knew I was sick and I, okay, just, you go, this is your shot. And I just kind of like fell out of the plane, you know, stabilized myself, pulled, and then I landed where I was supposed to. I was good to go, took off my shoot, dropped it right there in the DZ, and then we ran it to my rack, and went back to bed. I was done, man.

But that was probably the hardest piece. Minus the runs. It's always the runs, dude. That is like, take the knife out of my freaking back, dude. This sucks. I hate the runs dude. That is like yeah, like take the knife out of my freaking back dude. This sucks I hate the runs, but there's probably the two hardest things that I thought but it was again the camaraderie It was all it was kind of like buds on steroids like hey everything's operational like we're gonna You know an F&P a full mission profile It was cool like it was it was exactly where I wanted to be. It was exactly what I wanted.

It was awesome. And then the final stage of that, and I actually heard this on Shipley's, is with Sear School, the final thing. Yeah. And the final thing or the exercise is they drop you off wherever and you have to make your way back to the command out there to the schoolhouse.

And you have no money, you have no IDs and you have to figure it out. How far are you? I think they said like 20 miles or something. 20 miles. She kind of like got a smooch yourself and all that stuff, but what we did was took a razor blade and we cut the soles of our shoes

and we put like our ID and wrapped some hundreds around it, stuff it in there, because they check you. And as soon as they dropped us off, found a cab, went to a bar, got ripped. And I was with Marcus Cappone. And we get back, we get to the school house house like one guy is coming in with a case of beer This is like an Air Force freaking school the final stage of green team Not paint. We're just so excited like we just didn't like this over. You know, it's it's all good and

We come in hammered. I mean, I was hammered and we almost got kicked out. I had to go see the master chief when we got back To our commands back in back in Virginia And I was like are you kidding me the last day? I'm about to get kicked out like I am a moron like I am an idiot and Acceptus and I was I was I was scared I was like man like, like, what I do. Yeah. I was like, this is stupid.

Come on, man, grow up. What did they say to you? Just kind of like, again, don't remember exactly the words, but like, hey, we can't do that. We represent this command. Just can't be doing that stuff. You got to do the course to get the experience, all that stuff.

And I was like, I understood it. I mean, I was humbled. And I was like, I'm sorry. Whatever, I can't remember what I had to do the course to get the experience all that stuff and I was like I understood I mean I was humbled And I was like I'm sorry Whatever I can't remember what I had to do. I'm sure I had to do something But there was a punishment and I can't recall what it is But it didn't matter. They didn't kick me out. I got to graduate and go But my you know with my squaders. So that was literally the last. Last day, last event. All we had to do was fly home.

Holy shit. Damn dude. Dumb. That would have changed a lot of things. A lot of things, but for some reason, man. For some reason. Yeah. You know, you had mentioned that a lot of solid season

operators didn't make it through for whatever reason that's not what they were looking for. Can you describe maybe what the SEAL Team 6 command is looking for in an operator? I think out of the box thinkers, I think that's a big thing, a team player. I wouldn't say someone that goes with the flow. They just went out of the box thinkers. And some of the guys that were awesome, they would just get flustered and do the same safety violation like three or four times in a row.

Like just because it's a lot of stress, man. It's a lot of stress. And then you just got this cadre, these instructors is like watching you and they don't miss a thing. I mean, you know, for buds, right? Like they say it all. It's like, David, how'd you see that? But yeah, I really just think like, you like kind of put it like you didn't fit the mold or I heard in this, I believe this is probably true, is, and I know from being up there,

you get a list of green team guys. And you right there, like this guy's not a, this guy's a turd, this guy's a turd, this guy's good to go. And you write it down, like this guy's a turd, and you got to obviously give a reason. And I'm sure some of those guys, still, some of those guys aren't invited.

And some of those guys are invited, but watch that guy. Because I'm sure if you got one guy saying this, another guy saying the opposite, you know, they gotta, you know, do the right thing. But there's some of that. How much of that is legitimate, towards versus personality conflicts? I can't really speak on that piece, but there has to be some

personalities. I mean, some people take things very personal. They had to run in, mouth on off, whatever it is. I really didn't like what you did. You were an idiot when you were drunk. You did this when you were drunk. Usually comes down when you're drunk. So yeah, I mean, it comes down to a lot of things and it's nerve-wracking. You're like, you're gonna tell me I can't go before I even get there to prove myself. Yeah. But, you know, there's a little bit of politics, I would think, into it. But I don't know the grand scheme of it all.

Okay. So I would... You saw that list come around a lot when you were... I saw it like, you know, when new green teams would come in, if you're in town. And I even think you'd get it overseas, and you would just kind of eyeball it. Don't know anybody, are it cool? Like, whatever it is.

All right, we need to get this guy. This guy's awesome, like frickin' yeah. Yeah. It just depends. I mean, at the same time, you're like, dude, this guy's awesome, like he's got to get in. Like, and they, I think they have to take that in to make decisions because, you know, there's always more

than, you know, they only have so many slots versus the guys that are applying. Yeah. they have to take that in to make decisions because there's always more than they only have so many slots versus the guys that are applying or that requested to be there. So they gotta do their due diligence. So you graduate, how do they determine where you're going? They have a draft kind of thing. And I think a lot of it is like having good buddies

at certain squadrons kind of pulls you that way. I mean, I had the guys that I was a team too with. I mean, I ended up with my squadron because of those guys. They're already over there. Yeah, they were there. They came back and so I'm sure they rallied for me to go there, but then it's like, you meet a good buddy,

a good instructor that's at a different color and you're like, what do I do? Because this guy's telling me this. I don't know. I don't know anything. Just give me up there. But I went where I was supposed to go. So you went over to Gold Squadron.

There are a few people in the military that have experienced more loss than gold squadron in your time frame Which we'll get into chills, yeah, but I want to say that because it is I Can't think of any unit that experience more We went through the ringer And it was a weird time. Yeah. It was very weird. How was it showing up to gold? Phenomenal, phenomenal.

Just walking in, seeing the pictures, seeing the stuff on the wall. You got, you know, who would a and Kusay's freaking gold-plated guns hanging up? You're like, there's like AK-47 chandeliers. It's just, it's awesome. It's just like big old table. The middle's like nights at the round table.

It was awesome. It was the coolest thing in the world and the people that were in that room made it the coolest place in the world. I mean, they're professionals. Like, the number one thing that was always talked about is doing your job better and better and better and better and pushing you and pushing you

And it wasn't like you're a turd like figure it out. It was like hey, let me show you how to do it And it was awesome like it was it was a great show of leadership and camaraderie and teamwork It was it was the coolest thing that I've ever experienced which is great being out And you see other organizations other businesses and, and they're not the one, a quarter of it. It's like, man, you can really fix yourself if you do certain things.

Wow. So it was, I have nothing but respect for the men over there that I served with. I mean, they were true heroes. Was it a welcoming environment, or was it, what are you doing here, who do you think you are? There's always a little bit of heckling, but it's a good fun, it wasn't stupid.

It was fun, but it's more like, hey, you're a part of the team, man. Here's your gear. We all love gear. Yeah. How many guys went over there with you? From your green team. I'd say probably five or six, I think.

Five or six. I think so. Adam Brown was one of them. Oh Adam was one of them. We were in the same green. He was a team leader at Green Team. He was a team, Dom. Dom, what over with me.

We all went over together. Oh. And a couple other guys. me. We all we all went over together. Oh, and a couple other guys. So what happens when you get in there? You know, you get all checked in, you get your cages, your, your, your beautiful cage. I heard Chip Lee talk about that too. It's, it's so like, you know, we got the cages, right? But just like, it seems like every time you come back to your cage, there's like a little package, like Santa just came and dropped it off. More gear. It's like, seems like every time you come back to your cage there's like a little package, like, Santa just came and dropped it off. More gear, it's like, dude, like, where do I put this stuff?

Like, I need another cage. Like, there's just so much gear. Like, for different regions, different climates, all that stuff, different missions. And I'm like, I don't even know what this is, but like, okay, I'll put it on my shelf over here and things I don't know what it is. I need to learn. But it was cool, dude.

And then you, you know, you do the, again, which I talk about in here, you do the yard, yarding in, we get the big yard of beer and they drop in a couple shots. Down it, start to say a little speech. I tell you to shut up, you get your patches and those patches, man, holding those patches. It was like better than I tried it,

getting my seal tried it, which was a great time. I don't want to take away from that, but it's just like, dude, this, this, since I was a kid, this is what I wanted to do, is be here and finally go get to fight, like really fight. And I say that, not knowing what really fight meant. You know, you don't realize until you're doing it. But it was dude, it was, it was the, it would be like if Christmas, 4th of July, and Thanksgiving, and every other cool holiday plus your birthday,

were wrapped into one day, that would be it. Nice. It was awesome. For me. You know, each one of the, obviously I never spent any time over there, so I don't know, and I am curious. I hear each, and I've picked it up, especially with gold.

There seems to be kind of a culture or a vibe at each squadron. And from what I've been able to gather, just from knowing you and Dom and Adam Brown and some of our other mutual friends that wound up going over the gold. It seems like golds were everybody that I know went for the most part, but it seemed to be very religious. It seemed to be a very religious god-faring squadron. That's funny you say that because I've never thought about that. Really? because I've never thought about that. Really? No. I was never, I was not a man of faith when I was in at all. But I mean, if you look at it, the crusader,

we have crosses and a lot of those guys were, their faith was strong. And yeah, but again, I don't know other ones, the other squadrons are doing, but yeah, that'd be fair to say. That'd be fair to say. Was there a lot of praying and? Not that I was a part of, I made to be quite honest with you,

I'd be like, get that crap away from me. Okay. If someone was pushing in my face, but at the same time, I was always, I was kinda like what I like to say, Christ curious. Like, what is that exactly? What does that mean? And I remember asking Adam and Adam a lot, like, hey,

I asked stupid questions like, what book do you like better, the old testament or the new testament, not knowing what the heck I'm even asking, like, what kind of question is that? And I would ask, and I would just try to like, get just a little bit of information before I get to, it probably good to give you a little background on that, which I've kept locked up forever until this. So when I was, my parents went through a divorce, probably when I was

seven or eight years old, and I was in my bed one night. And like if you can just imagine a room, I'm against on the far side of my window, my bed was there and then the doors on the other side. And I wake up for some reason I look over and I see Christ. I see Jesus. And I knew who Jesus was. And my mom never took me to church a lot.

I went a couple times, but you know, you always see the picture. I knew who Jesus was. Where did you see him? In my room. Where? In the closet. On the wall. He was standing in the middle of the room and he was transparent. I could see my bookshelf that was behind him. And he just stood there. He made no facial expressions. Kind of had a, like a glowing light to him. Long brown hair, beautiful face, like just perfect. What was he wearing? A white robe. A white robe.

And I just remember I could see my books behind him because he was like, well, and I didn't know what to think. I didn't know, I didn't know. And I looked over and I'm looking at him. And I'm just like, and I'm not scared. I'm not screaming. I'm just him and I'm just like, and I'm not scared, I'm not screaming. I'm just so, I'm getting chills, man. I'm soaking this in.

And I'm not knowing what anything is. I was awake and I saw that. And for however long he was there, he vanished. And soon as he vanished, my room was the blackest of black I've ever seen in my entire life. It was so dark and the fear that came over me was overwhelming. It was the scariest thing. It ruined it wrecked me. Really?

Soon as that darkness hit and I tried to screen for my mom and I couldn't and I finally got the courage and I guess you could say strength, I was like paralyzed. And I went to her room and I really didn't say anything. I don't know if I mumbled anything or like, hey, I saw something or whatever it was, but my freaking went to bed in her room. And then the next couple nights, just thinking about it wasn't the greatest sleep,

but I was scared, so I would cover my head up, turn on, you know, my, use a night light, which I never did before. I mean, in night light, that was like pretty much Batman's freaking signal. It was so bright. I was like, dude, I don't want any more of this stuff. I was like, this sucks. Like that scared me. And I was confused. I didn't know like, and I, and I, a couple of days later,

probably about a week later, I think, I somehow, my arms made it out of my little protective fortress of my, of my blankie. And I felt tickling in my arm. I heard orchestra, like organ music, you know, dolphins or whatever, church. I get a church. Yeah.

Which is the creepiest sound in the world. And I feel tickling and I wake up and nothing's there, just my light. And I'm like, freaking out. I'm like, what is going on? And I, the chills are ridiculous right now. I'm like, seeing it all. I go to my mom's room again and just, just a lot of weird things happened

during that time, during my parents' divorce. But I know what I saw and I know I was awake when I saw it. And to me, Jesus became the boogie man. I went okay. Nothing to do with him. Keep it away from me. I don't want to be near you. I don't want to see you. It was so bad. I went over to spend the night with a friend that I met at seventh grade when I switched schools. We were awesome played basketball together. I was just cool dude. Whenever this house, not knowing his father was a pastor. And he had a loft where we were going to sleep for the night.

And I was walking up the stairs and on the left there was a picture and it was Jesus' face. And instantly I was like, I gotta leave. I called my mom and Peter picked me up. As a house. This hurts to talk about. I was scared to death of him. I slept under my covers until I was a sophomore in high school. Are you serious?

I was scared to death of him. I'd be sitting on my couch watching frickin' say by the bell. And I would make myself think about Jesus busting in like a Navy SEAL and taking me away from my parents. Just scooping me up and taking me away to God knows where. I would have their thoughts often. I painted this picture that he was evil. He was wrong. He was bad. And I didn't know anything about him. Did he ever reappear? No. I mean, in other ways, which we'll get to, but no, that was, I mean, I didn't want anything to do with him. I did not want anything to do with him whatsoever.

I wouldn't, I mean, I, you know, I, you know, got married at a church. My first marriage. And went to other weddings, but I would never go to church. I didn't want to be around. I would drive by one and I would cringe. I was scared. I was scared. I was extremely. What was it that helped you overcome that fear after you were soft more? That came a little later.

Do you want to go in timeline or you want me to jump to it? We'll go in timeline. We'll go in timeline. Well, it is very strange that you had this connection to Jesus as a young kid all the way up, but through high school. And then you wind up a gold team as, I mean, do they call you a crusader? Heck yeah? Yeah. Yeah.

So, interesting. So, you get over a gold team, we covered the culture a little bit. What's the cycle like? Kind of like, you know, being a team too. You know, you do your individual kind of work up, go into schools. I mostly did breaching schools or lockpicking alarm bypass, just like the fun stuff. Like I just did have, that's all I wanted to do.

I mean, there's other schools you do, but mostly it was breaching stuff. Like I just wanted to be a breacher. And so you do that in the second, you know, a few months, you're kind of working together as your team, then your troop, and then you're on standby for any real-world calls. Your alert is what you'd call it, where you have to be, you have to be within, yeah,

you have to respond, come to the command within a certain time limit to be there to a real world event anywhere in the globe. And that's a few months, and then you go on your deployment, and then you just repeat that cycle. And every, we just rotate our squadrons, just rotate doing that stuff. Did you jump into a full cycle or? I came in, I came in right when they got back. Okay. They were back for, I think they came back a week later.

Okay. And then they went on their leave to the little family time, some were some stayed, and then we were back in the cycle. So you got, you know, guys walking around, they just got all this experience. and they went on their leave to the little family time, some were to some state, and then we were back in the cycle. So you got guys walking around, they just got all this experience or they did all this crazy stuff. They're telling the stories, you're just like,

I wanna be a part of these stories. And so it was cool, and they all were experienced. They were all experienced. They all had multiple deployments over to either Iraq or Afghanistan, they knew the deal. They knew how to fight. They were all experienced. They all had multiple deployments over to either Iraq or Afghanistan. They just they knew the deal. They knew how to fight They they were fighters. They were war fighters. They knew the deal and They kind of raised me. So at that point, I mean you know for a fact you're gonna get what you're fighting him into do you're fighting No doubt in your mind. No doubt in your mind. There is no, I hope we.

It's when we. I can't wait to. That's what it was. How long was it when you showed up to go before your first deployment? Six, nine months? That's it. Something like that. How was that?

Where'd you guys go? First one was Iraq, Western Iraq, nothing but DAs. All DAs? It was breaching nonstop, nonstop breaching, kicking indoors, shooting dudes. Every night, multiple times a night. I wouldn't say every night. I mean, there'd be like the stent of like, hey, we're going, you know, it's like, hey, this is the 10th day we've gone out

and we're getting it on. I mean, there would be like a day or two here that we, you know, there was nothing going on or we're letting something develop. But for the most part, you're going out, man. So when you got over there, you got on your first opponent to Iraq, you know, in a regular sealed team, it's, you're probably

gonna, I mean, I don't know, I can't remember. It seemed like three weeks, maybe even a month before you really start getting into a type of move. When you go over with team six, is it like that? Oh, you're, you're targeting developed by the guys you're relieving. They pass their target set off to you. Okay. And so you're running the gun, a man. So you drop your the guys you're relieving. They pass their target set off to you. Okay. And so you're running a gun, a man.

So you drop your bags and you're... You got about one to three days. That's it. To get it, to get ready for it. And you're on. I mean, it's game time. Who are you guys going after? Usually your HVT, your high-value targets, I mean some

NVTs, medium value, but I mean whoever in Tells Tony, this is, you know, this is the cell we need to hit or this little tribe, whatever you want to call them. That's what you would do. And you know, I think I can recall maybe one or two dry holes. Do you want to describe your very first hit? one or two dry holes. Do you want to describe your very first hit? I can't remember. Okay. I can remember my first kill. What's up about that?

I can't remember my first hit. Do you want to talk about your first kill? Sure. We were, remember the guy, he was wearing his white manjamies, and he had like black and white peppered hair, or peppered hair. And at this particular

compound, they were sleeping outside, usually they're up on the roof and then you know, in summer, it was summertime, but they were in the courtyard or they like outside. So there's like these little bodies and these little bodies. And you can hear our recce guys, our snipers, you can hear their silence, 45s's just taking dudes out, taking their little centuries out, and I'm like, okay, that's like cool sounding. This is probably my, I don't know. 10th time out maybe, never found myself in the right position.

I'm like, and I was hungry, I was like, oh God. I think Dom got his first one. I'm like, God, I want to be you. And I need to, like, you can just see the smile in his face. I'm like, ah, give it to me, please. And so this dude and his wife were sleeping on the ground and were coming up and it was enough to go white light. And I just see him reach over and I can see the pistol grip goes for it and And I just see him reach over any, and I can see the pistol grip

goes for it. And then I just dropped him. Just dropped him right there. Well, he was already down. Just shot him there as he lay. And I remember one thing that was so crazy about that is his wife right next to him. Did I make any peep? Did I cry? She just looked over and just stayed there. She sat up and she had no emotion. Are you kidding? And I was like, that's weird, right? It's weird. It was very weird.

It's like she knew his time was coming. She's just waiting for the night for us to hit him. Do you think she was relieved? Possibly. I mean, who knows? She could have been forced to be there. I was never believed, possibly. I mean, who knows? I should have been forced to be there, but she had, I mean, I would be glad to believe that.

You have no emotion, I mean. It seems so. I hope my wife would cry or something. Yeah. But there was nothing, man. It was just seemed very weird, and then we just, like, take on the targets, and then that feeling of putting those bullets into them

was just like, I know crack is extremely addictive, extremely. I've never done it, but you hear the stories, right? Talk to some prior users or whatever. That feeling was like, I was like, I want my life to be this feeling. Like, I want to shoot as many bad guys as I possibly can. And that was my mission. It's like, bad guy, you're going down. I mean, that's what we're there for anyways, is to take it to him. And I loved it. I loved it. I like it.

It was my oxygen. It was the blood that ran through my system. Do you remember all of them? No. At times, I'll think about something, or I'll see something, or make me think of one. But I can't. There's no way.

I mean, there's dozens. I can't think there's no way. I mean, there's dozens. I can't think of them all. How many times was it just you engaging a bad guy versus... Our whole team or something? Yeah. Dozens. Yeah. I mean, I never kept count. I tried to and not much luck.

I mean, a lot. I mean, 50 or something around there. Solo ones. I mean, not including assists or whatever it is. Did you, did that feeling ever start to change? I wanted a more. You wanted a more. I wanted a more. It's time went on. I wanted a more. Especially when you get into our later deployments and your buddies are passing and it just stir something up and you just want to take it to them. I mean, you want to take it to them and just get their evil. Once you really learn what they do to women and children to an American convoy, to other people, other contractors or whatever.

We had, I mean, we had to paint a picture for you what I mean is we had one up where I took a shot on a guy. He was, he was reaching for his AK. He, like, head in his hand, he was like, about ready to swing it around, dropped him. And I don't know why. I felt this way, but I felt a little bit of remorse. I was like, man, if you just felt bad, it wasn't like it wasn't a justified shooting.

It felt weird. It felt different than the other ones. It just felt weird. And so I was curious. So we get back from the op and I go to the, in our Intel shack and I'm like, hey, man, if you find anything on this dude, we do our pickup, whenever they have it,

they're at the target and exploit it. I was like, hey, if you find anything on this dude, you know, we do our pickup, whatever they have at the target. And exploit it. I was like, hey, if you find anything, like, please come get me. And a couple hours later, he's like, hey, follow me. So we go to his little computer. And one of the CDs we found, it's this guy that I just took out. He's got KBR contractors, truck drivers from like the Philippines, staked on the side of like this highway in Iraq. They're tied up with their hands behind their back and

their feet wrapped around the post and there's probably, I'd say somewhere between three and five. In this guy, these guys where this one dude was one of them, was doing ballistics on him. He would stab him, he would shoot him in different parts, not like shoot him in the head and like take him out, but like your leg, your side. Stab him here. And they were just, they were laughing and they were laughing and giggling. I was like, how could you do that? And then I'm like, you're dealing with pure evil. That's how you do it. I mean, it's pure evil. That was one of the times something of a thing kind of changed. I was like, you get, you get no more remorse from me.

You don't, you get nothing. I don't feel sorry for you at all. And I was like after that, like things up to it. Yeah. I was like, if there was a way to kill harder, I'm sure heck was searching for it. Did that, did you see that early in your career? What do you mean?

That specific incident. I was probably, man, I mean they all kind of run together. It's a probably third or fourth deployment. Okay. Over there. How many deployments did you do? Probably third. Total is seven.

Okay. Five with, But Dev. Was were you always priviless to that kind of information? You know, what do you see? And you hit a guy at a target or the team takes somebody out or you take somebody out in the intel team does the SSC and the target. You guys always get to see the information and the, what am I searching for? Like what they find, pretty much all of it? Not all of it. What these guys have been responsible for doing.

Some we do, but it's like a, it's like Clif No Version. Like a couple of lineers saying, this is what they were doing. They just hit this convoy last, that killed five Americans. You'll hear about that. But not like the details. Like we've been looking for this guy for X about a years,

unless you really want to know, and you just go talk to him and they'll tell you, you know, you get the information. Okay. That guy I wanted to know about, and he showed me, had I not probably asked him, I never would have known about that. I'm glad I did, but a championship,

that it kind of calloused me. We hear the word calloused, right? And they'll tell you, oh, we're getting calloused. Like, yeah, you're right. We are, and there's a reason for it. And yeah, just heart of my heart, I look at humanity a little bit differently. Yeah, I can imagine.

So you went to Iraq for your first deployment. It's some point in time, the area of operations changed for development group and Delta, Delta took Iraq. Development group took Afghanistan. I don't believe there was much crossover. What did that happen? That's kind of a jumble when all that happened, but we kind of got kicked out

because the army wanted to get their, they wanted to be their, they wanted to be where the fight was. And then when we moved, it blew up over in Afghanistan. So then they're like, oh crap, we want to go there. They're like chasing it. We were just, you got it, you know what I mean? But we were still sending guys to Tyrak.

We were in both places. We were in multiple places. And I think that one, when all that was going on, I think I was back in Iraq places. Okay, we're in multiple places and I think that one when all that was going on I think I was back in Iraq again. I think I think I lead to two To Afghanistan and the rest where I rack oh Really yeah, there majority of them were Iraq for me. I mean I did couple like full ones over at Afghanistan Okay, more in Iraq We came home from your first appointment with gold.

How did you feel after that? You had been very busy. Yeah, kind of numb and just went down the rabbit hole a little bit more of like, hey, this is priority. The country's priority. Shooting bad guys is priority. I don't want any dental. And I put the kids in my family behind me.

And I mean, not behind me as I like left them, but you know, like I said, there's fractures turning to cracks. They turned into gaping holes. And it was getting worse and that's getting worse. And I was doing nothing about it to try to make it better. My wife would at the time was like, we should go to counseling. I said counseling stupid, I'm not going. And just wanted to be on trips. I would volunteer for any and every trips to be away from my house. I just didn't want to deal with the emotions.

I would do it with the noise of... And this is the truth, but it sucks to say, I didn't want to deal with the school, my kids' school. I didn't want to deal with the frickin' or having a plumbing problem. I did not want to deal with, hey, can we talk about what's going on in our marriage? I didn't want to deal with any of that.

I was like, leave me alone, I'm gonna play with my gear, and I'm gonna go overseas. Like, that's all I want to do. That's all I wanted to do. That's it. I mean, things were okay, you know? But you could just like, it's just the root of evil in our fricking marriage

was just coming through and it was just like, I started looking at her with disgust. Why? I just, she would not knowing it, that was really me causing it. She was drinking a lot and I was getting ticked off. You can't be drinking all the time. My anger started getting worse.

Her anger was getting worse. I'm into the point where she, during green team, she tried to commit suicide. No. During green team. So before green team, man, I'm like, and I knew like this has happened before. I think it happened one of their times as a team too.

Down to a bunch of pills, I had to take it to the hospital, get her a frickin' pump, there's stomach pumped, to pretty much save her life. I'm like, geez, what are you doing? So before green team, I knew that this was there. So before green team, I'm like, hey, please, I need to concentrate on this. Like this is like, my brain, everything needs to be

into this. Like I have got to be 100% all in, I have to. And she's like, of course, of course, I'm here to support you all that stuff. And it was like maybe a couple months in, it was a silver union, it was in town for the first time I'd ever been. So we went and said no of the buddy and his wife

and my wife and we were having a couple drinks and I guess she She got irritate she always got irritated if like she was in like the center of communicate like center of the conversation And we're just talking about so we're talking about green team mostly and you know We're interjecting and like we're talking about other things and all that stuff and she got like irritated. It's like Pulse me aside like hey, why aren't you talking to me? I'm like, dude, if you want to talk, like engage in the conversation, like we're in a group setting. And she got weird, she stormed off.

And about an hour later, I get a call from the babysitter. We had, at that time, two children. So both my daughters. And she's like, something's wrong. She's like, Leah, your wife called and said, our text had like, take care of the kids. And she's like, I really worried me. So I'm letting you know, as I, of

course, she did. Like here we go again. And so I get a call. Our texts, I don't know. Yeah, I think texting was, yeah. And something she communicated to me, she's like, I'm at a hotel, you will not find me. I'm like this, and she's like, I'm at a hotel, you will not find me. And she's like, this is it. And I was like, gosh. And I really just wanted to be like, it's a cry for help.

Like, let's, like, I really just wanna be here and drink with the boys. That's, I mean, so self, that just bad things. So I started calling hotels, trying to find out where she was. It was on the fifth time. I asked if she checked in and she did. I was like, you need to go to her room,

get her out, because she's trying to commit suicide right now. So they went up there, she wouldn't answer the door. I was like, you need to get the cops there right now. So I got the cops there. And I was like, you need to, and I get in permission, like you can bust on that door. I'm like, I will pay you for whatever the damages are

and get her. They go in there. She's in the bathtub or by the bathtub, which is blood soaked towels everywhere. She sliced her wrists. It was a bad one. It's bad enough whether she got put to a psych ward for a few weeks, I believe.

So her parents came down to watch the kids so I could finish off training. And it was just like, so every night, I'd be done with training, exhausted, smoked, and I'd go see her. So walking in, sitting down at a table, with just like, very weird. You know, she comes out in a robe,

and what do you say? I have no idea. What do you, yeah, in a robe. And what do you say? I have no idea. What do you, yeah, I didn't either. What did you say? I don't know. I was like, I mean, you can't like, what are you doing? Like, what's wrong with it?

Like, I'm sure there was some of that. Like, suck it up. It was always my go-to. Like, suck it up. Like, what do you do? Like, it's fine. Like, what do you, what do you flip it out about? No compassion whatsoever. Zero compassion from when I can to recall. I mean, that what do you do, like, it's fine. Like what do you, what do you flip it out about? No compassion whatsoever.

Zero compassion from when I can recall. I mean, that was really me in the day which was zero compassion. I would show some of my kids of course. Not to her. Not to her at all. I mean, there would be those rare instances where I'd be like, oh, everything's perfect.

This is so cool. But for the most part, just I want to go work That's all I want to do is go work. Damn, man But that was that was that was rough that week. I think a week or two she was there and it was like Thankfully, we were in town doing whatever training at the command. So it wasn't no crazy bad, but dude, it was just like You know, I wanted to do was leaving go get like because you're my kids. I don't want to be there. You did want to see your kids though. Yeah, I do want to see my kids. Like, yeah, I always want to see my kids. I always want to see my kids. Were they old enough to put together

what was going on at that time? I don't think so. I think my oldest now she can remember things she'll talk about. She's like, I didn't know this after, you know, she read the book, she's like, or she'd need listen to the book. She's like, I'd thought that when this happened, that this happened. So, but she's like, I get it now, like, okay. So, I mean, she knows, but I never really told him, or, I mean, I never told him about any of this stuff.

Yeah. Until my oldest was like 18. They didn't know anything. And I may have thrown under the bus by their mother for years, I never said anything. Cause it didn't matter. I wasn't gonna tear their mom apart.

Yeah. And I wanna do that. That's not okay. No matter what she did to me. Well, you went back. You went back to, let's get back to deployment schedule. You went back, you should go to Afghanistan, you're second deployment.

Man, I don't know. I think I rack, I think. Okay. And I can't remember. I think this was when we lost, Mike Nate Louie. And I don't know if it was, I think it was like the third or fourth deployment

somewhere in there. I really can't think they all seem to mesh together, but that deployment, that's the one that changed my world. We did, we went to a target and our team, our troop kind of broke off. We had three different buildings to hit. And I went to one, or my team went to one, and then the other guys hit like another compound,

maybe 500 yards down this dirt road. And we get up on the wall, cause we're going call outs, cause we don't wanna go in, cause this network was known for suicide vest. A lot of them, cause we shot a couple dudes, and every one of them, every single one of them had a Suicide Vest, every one of them. And so I'm up on this wall and I, my vantage point is I can see through the door

in its light inside, dark outside. There was maybe a couple like dim, dimmer lights on the outside, the exterior of the building. And I could see in there and a guy stopped, it's like right where my vision is. So I got my, not even, can't even use my dot because it's light in there. So I'm going to red dot on him with my doubler. And I'm just on him so I can see him. But I couldn't tell what he had.

He had something on his waist, but I couldn't tell. And I saw kids, like pretty much when I could tell something was around the day, I see kids come in. I think like two or three. Any like brings them in and he clacks himself off. Whoa. So those kids just evaporated, he evaporated

and that roof of that house, lifted up and by the time it settled down that overpressure got to me and I was knocked off onto my back and I was like trying to come to like what was kind of you know get my bearings and I was like holy crap I do just kill all those kids. It was another time was like these guys are freaking animals. These guys are savages. They don't care about human life.

They care about their agenda or what they want to do, kill the infidel. That's all they care about. Enough to worth, we're gonna kill themselves and their children. And I was like, how do you fight that kind of enemy? You know what I mean? It was heavy. And I was like, how do you fight that kind of enemy? You know what I mean? It was heavy.

It was heavy. So that happened. So the other team sent two or three guys to help us out, because they're like, all right, this is seriously where the action is. We're calling in air support by a couple of squatters. Just taking as many people out as we can, because clearly they're not coming alive.

So we're like pulling in the arsenals. And then we get calms on our radio that two guys, our guys got shot. And that was Mike and Nate. And so we finished what we were doing. We go back and Mike condate had passed. And I remember I walked by and Mike was on the ground. And I could see him. I could see his face.

I could see the damage done by the machine gun fire. And that was, we saw a lot of death over there, but death was seen from the bad guys and death from your guys, two different worlds. And I can still picture that from every detail, everything. And I, it might actually, me Nate was still struggling. He was still had breath. And I mean, I could hear the wheezing and hear him fighting. And then it just got quiet. And then we had, like, had to move to Maxwell.

We had to like, dump some grenades, take out as many dudes as we can. At another building, the third building, Buddy Eric Fro, who we just actually had on the on the on the on the freight podcast. He was walking into a building, he like, because we were we were we were doing the pying technique we weren't just rushing in because of these suicide guys. And he didn't see anything and he walks into the room.

And I guess there were some stack of blankets. And the guy was like in a fortified position with blankets, kind of blocking it, like kind of concealing it. Dude unleashes a full magazine of AK. And it went all around his body. Didn't hit him. He came out of that room from what I understand and from what he said. And then his number two man, just kind of like true eyes, where he's like, they're checking the body. He's like checking all his body, you didn't get hit once.

Wow, that's not the first time I've heard that. Yeah. Yeah. So it was a crazy target. And that was my first exposure to losing the good guys, our guys. And what ensued was more drinking? To stuff it? Didn't know how to process it?

You have some guys sleeping it off? You have some guys can't sleep. Personally, I would get a couple hours. I was up for a few hours, get a couple hours. I didn't know the difference between night and day. I wake up thinking it's day, it's night. Go to sleep, wake up, it's day. Like just everything ran together.

Like nothing made sense. And we are on a stand down after those, maybe two or three days. And then Adam Brown, he injured his leg prior to us deploying. He backfelt, he was done, he was healed. He came out. And then a couple of our army counterparts came up from Baghdad to help us out and kind of see what was going on. And then about it was actually one week later, it was the night of the Super Bowl. We were like, have this huge, I'm sorry, that was the night of the Super Bowl. We had

this huge party like plant to watch the game chill out, get a bunch of pizzas. But we ended up going out and then Mike and Nate, know passed on that one Then a week later same same Same target set same same crew We go to the another the compound and we're very weary now that you know they just took out two guys You know they're blowing themselves up. They don't care their own houses up that they just took out two guys. They're blowing themselves up, they don't care, their bone houses up. So extremely weary, we didn't move up to it.

So we did another call out and nothing was going on. Like one dude came out, everything seemed to be good. Then stuff started happening in the house, started building up. A lot of women and children were starting to get stuff by the front of the house. So like if you can imagine a house front door and on the front door there's like an overhang.

A very, almost like a car port, but the car port is like a huge slab of concrete. It's not like a tin roof, and it's like a bomber with like two big stanchions at the end to keep this thing like big ones, practical ones, I can picture it all. And I called over to Louis the front, and I was like, hey dude,

because he was our EOD guy, I was like, hey bro, and I was taking over team leader that one, because my team leader was down, he was sick that night. So I like just took over a spot for that night. So I came over calls as I gave brother, Louis, or whatever, uh, Nuke, zero, four, I think was this thing called him up and said, Hey, move up and try to help out with the, uh, you know, get all the women and children back and search in them, make sure

that I carry anything. He's like, Roger that two seconds later, he jumps over a little three foot wall, runs up to that one of those pillars. And it was getting crazy. Like we, by that time we had a team moved up, the other team, that was primary entry, moved up. So on this wall, there's a door, and then Louis over here by this carport, or whatever it was, front porch, whatever you would call it. And it was getting crazy.

And so as I crap, they need help. So I come around my wall, maybe like a, the wall was probably up to my shoulders. Like you can see perfectly, to take shots, duck down if I needed to, it was like, it was amazing spot. It was like right in front of the door. Somewhere in there, a do got shot, by throw actually.

And so I moved up right on Louis. I moved up like I'm a gun, and I put my hand on his right shoulder. I was like, what's going on? He's like, oh, just craziness, man. Just freaking, like we're just trying to get this out. So, you know, we're trying to get people out. And I think I've told you this before,

I've got serious Tom's disease, terrified of missing stuff. I always want to put the breach on the door. I want to be the first guy in the room. If anyone's getting an action, I want it to be me. When Dom got us killed and I didn't, I was like a little baby. Like, why does he get to play? And I don't. You know what I mean?

Yeah. So, for some reason, man, I can still see a beat of sweat going down his neck. I can still smell it. I can still see it. I can feel it. For some reason, I was like, there's too many people here and it's like, I heard this voice. I got this feeling. I can't even describe what I got. It was like, everything wrapped into one saying, get away,

get out. Like an intuition. Whatever you want to call it, whatever you want to call it. Something that said, get away from where you are right now and go back behind that wall you just came from. And that is not me. I've never done it before, besides that one time, that I can remember.

I've always had to be there, especially when we got to deal with some stuff. We got to work, I'm ready to work. I want to work. Something told me, so I told Louis, I was like, man, I'm going to go back on the wall. We got too many guys up here. And I'm like, are you good?

He's like, I got this, bro. Like, I'll see you in a few. I was like, all right, dude, I love you. You know, we do our little, I love you, brother. So I like, had my arm on them on that shoulder. I rolled out, soon as I buttonhooked that wall, out that gate and made that turn where I was covered, the house exploded.

And it wasn't a baby explosion. Half the house was gone. That team that was on this side was covered. Blue a couple guys out, 30, 50 feet against the backside of the wall, which I was behind. Dude, we're covered in rubble. And I was like, what the heck? I got, I mean, I got hit with debris

on the back of the helmet. Nothing, nothing compared to what these guys did. The dust couldn't see anything. Like, everything was just gone. It was like, what you would hear the fog of war. It was the first time I was like, wow, this is, this is was just gone. It was like, well, you would hear the fog of war. It was the first time I was like, wow, this is the real deal. Like I was just discombobulated, did no was going on.

I didn't know what way was up, down, left, right, didn't know. I finally, you know, got my bearings wrapped back around and like I'm a member, I'm in the middle of this courtyard and the dust is just settling and I'm like, what I left and what I saw were two different things, two different pictures. And I felt something on my foot and I'm like, man, what the heck?

And it was our dog, Digo. He was buried and the only thing I was sticking out was his mouth and he latched onto the first thing that came and that was my foot. So I ripped out my hiking boots out of his mouth and went back to where I thought Louis was and he was gone. And I'm like, what the heck? And there was one of our our arguments was over on the side. And I saw him like, what's going on? Where do you have Louis? He's like, yes, and Louis was underneath this slab.

And so, like, there was a hole held up by some rubble, some rock, some boulders from the house. And we're crawling in there trying to grab him. We can reach like this calf to try to grab some fabric to like pull him out. When I grabbed his calf, it felt like jello. There was no bone structure. It was like when that thing fell, it folded him like an accordion and took out pretty much shattered all bone. It didn't feel like a leg. It felt like a jello mold or putty. And he was stuck under there. We

couldn't get him out. And fortunately, the guys inside the building died. I think there were some random shots by our snipers. Don't want to contain that stuff. But we finally got him out. Our PJs came over with our, I think they're called SAVA or SAVI. I talk about more, a little more detail in here. But they lifted it up, got his body out and we just started exfilling. I think by Bradley, I think the QRF came

and exfilled out. And to this day, my man would have if I didn't, what if I'm gonna come over that radio and say, move up? What do you be here? Why did I hear that voice? And he didn't. I know different than him.

Why? These are questions that I somewhat still answer or ask myself. This what makes why did I hear that? Why did I tell him to go over? And yeah, it's been a tough one. I'm sorry, man. It's war, right? Man. Man, and I know Louis.

I know. That man wouldn't want to go out any other way. I knew that for a fact. None of our boys that we lost. They were warriors, man. They knew what was... They knew it was at stake. They knew it. And they were... they were proud to do that job. And they would do it again. There's no doubt.

Yeah. But, um... yeah. Let's say a break. I want to take a minute to tell you about Vigilance Elite Patreon. Patron support is what makes this show possible and gives me the ability to bring these one-of-a-kind stories to the public. Go to patreon.com, slash vigilance, elite, and support the Sean Ryan Show today. All right, Eddie, we're back from the break. Just had an emotional ending to that last portion there. It was a good time for a break. Yeah. And I wanna ask you because you've experienced more loss,

the guys over at Gold Team have experienced more loss than anybody else that I know. And I'm always curious how you deal with loss. you deal with loss. Initially in how I deal with it now are two different worlds. Before I would drink and I would take pills or I would take any nighttime medicine I could to sleep because I couldn't sleep. It was always to the bottle, beer, wine, captain of coax, just so I wouldn't feel, just so I wouldn't feel, I would stuff it and stuff it. And I didn't, you know, I didn't, I didn't know you're supposed to feel. We signed up for this, we're supposed to do this. This is just part of war. But that's not the correct way to do it, because what that was doing is I'm drinking

more and just stuffing as I'm drowning out my family. I was drowning out my family. I wasn't present. I mean, I remember I talk about this as well. Do you remember American sniper? You see them, you're right. Bradley Cooper comes Chris Kyle, the character, comes back, I think from, I don't know what deployment. And he's he's sitting in his chair with a beer. And he in the kind of the camera pans around around and shows what he's looking at, which is a TV. But the TV's not turned on. And he's just sitting there. And he's physically there, but he's mentally checked out.

He's back over there, and that's, I saw that and broken to tears, man. I was like, that's it. That's the realest thing I've seen out of any combat movie that I've experienced. I was like, that's it right there. And I felt like that I'd be back home. I'm not with you. I'm here. I remember going out to eat with my family

or going to a pumpkin patch or whatever it is. And I'm not even paying attention. I'm thinking about stuff over there. I'm thinking about the what ifs, the should've could've, the why did I, the why didn't I, all those things and just replaying these things over and over and over again, nonsense, like on a loop, that I couldn't stop it and I didn't want it to stop. It was like, I just couldn't, I don't know, everything was about that, it was about the teams,

it was about being overseas, it was about fighting, it was about the losses. How do you deal with loss now versus that? And we'll get into this, but my remedy has been Christ. 100% saved my life, saved literally saved my life, saved my life. What is it about? What is it about Christ that you find comfort and or maybe comforts the wrong word but when you when it comes to dealing with death dealing with loss friends teammates What is it about Christ that brings you comfort? I Read there's a there's a verse,

and it's actually Proverbs three, and I don't have verses, remember, but this one, I remember, Proverbs three, five, is do not lean on your own understanding. Because we as humans, we just don't get why this, why that, like why'd I miss that one shot at sniper school? I'll tell you why,

because I was not supposed to be a sniper, I was supposed to be a Navy SEAL. And you know, we we we talk about these unanswered prayers and all that stuff, but do there's there's always this bigger and better thing usually. If we're if we're doing the right thing and we're being obedient and uh it just gives me peace. I can't I can't really describe the feeling inside what it did to my heart and my brain. My soul, I should say. I just find comfort like, hey, it is what it doesn't mean I don't struggle. I still struggle. But I see the loss for what it is as I couldn't control certain things.

And that's life, man. War, evil, good, it will always be here. Always has been, always will. And he's just my, he is my, my, pole in the ground, that no matter what storm comes through, no matter how crazy the winds are, no matter how bad anything is, I can hold on. I can hold on to that pole and I'm alright. I know I'm alright. I know it. I know it. I know he's got me. It

doesn't mean that everything's peaches and cream. It doesn't mean that at all, but I know he's got me. And I know if I go through some trouble times, I'm just gonna get stronger. I will get stronger. And the life lessons that have happened getting my kids, dealing with that struggle has only made me stronger. Didn't understand it at the time. It's always hindsight. And I kind of, you know, I keep referring to this, but that's, I mean, that's my story. And the hot wash, as I talk about it, you know, I keep referring to this, but that's, I mean, that's my story. And the hot washes I talk about it looking back, I should have realized this or I should have done this, you know, thank God I did this.

But it just, it soothes my soul. He does. It's just, I can't explain it. I ran from it. I was terrified of it until I allowed it. And we can get to that. We'll get to that. I got one more question on loss. I've never asked this, but I've always been curious of what other people's thoughts are.

I don't know how to word it, but I'm just going to do my best. But when it comes to death and loss of friends, who do you, when you experience a loss and it's a friend, who do you, who do you feel worse for? Do you feel, because we have, we have two different kinds of losses happening in the veteran community. You have lost some battle. And then we have the suicide epidemic that's going on.

Go back to the used to, like I do that. There was Eddie already. And then there's the new Eddie old Eddie would have been like your week, your coward. How could you not handle your stuff? You're an operator and this is how really you selfish piece of crap, leaving a family like that, leaving them like this. That was my thought. I have a different thought because I've been put in that position.

So my mind sets a little bit different on it now. What is it now? It's a real thing, man. It just sneaks up on you. It sneaks up on you and all of a sudden you find yourself holding a frickin' pistol. And it's like, what the heck am I doing? Luckily for me, I was able to stop myself, or put it down and walk away. But I get it. It was just like everything my world was just crumbling in. And I was always like, how could

anyone do that? I mean, how could you do that? I mean how could you do that? You selfish piece of crap and I find myself in the same situation and yeah that'll help you real fast. So I have a different approach I take it a way more serious if someone speaks about that. I know it's very real Are some cry for help? Absolutely are some extremely real? Absolutely do you wish? Some of the guys that have taken their own life would have died in battle I Do me too of course. It's what?

It's a warrior's death man, right? So we read about it. It's what it's a warrior's death, man, right? So we read about it. It's what we watch. So we dream of it's different. It feels different. It feels a lot different. But one thing that I've realized is there's the battle that we refer to in the spec office world that's over in Afghanistan, Iraq, Africa, wherever the war is. But there's another war that we still fight daily. There's evil present everywhere. We can see it.

Pick up your phone, scroll. You'll see it. Look in the school systems. You'll see it. Look at things government officials are pushing. You'll see it. Like evil is real and it is rampant and it needs to be crushed.

Yeah. Well, getting back to deployments, got a little side track there, but I wanted to ask those questions before I lost them. Let's get into Afghanistan versus Iraq. You spent a lot of time in Iraq, we've talked about Iraq. Let's talk about what you were doing in Afghanistan. Afghanistan was awesome. I like that a little bit better because it was a little tougher. Terrain's tougher. The fighters a little bit tougher.

And it really depend on the fighters where media was. Like, are they over here or are they over here? And they would seem to really, you know, beef up their fighters in that position. But all in all, Afghanistan was way tougher. It was a harder target. They didn't care as much. They were, I mean, they have centuries of fighting. So yeah, naturally, they're ruthless. They're ruthless people.

I remember one, we did one op. And we usually go through the gate, get to the door, do a call out, or head home when they, if we can sneak in without them knowing we're there. And we get there, we kind of do an L. We cut a couple centuries. I think the rangers are pushed off, blocking like the next block or two over. They might be hitting another house over here. And we just take, start taking machine gunfire,

like crazy machine gunfire, like, da da da da da, you know, they got talking guns over there. Grenades start coming over, things are blowing up, I'm like, holy crap. Like this is like, it seems like the grenades are not stopping. So we had to push back and go on this, like the other side, there was like a, like a, like a low canal with a little wall. It was the best cover we could have. So we went back and then my team leader came up

and we developed this charge. We used to, I'm sure you've heard of the book bag charge. You put it on the wall, but it's like 20 pounds. I carried on one up, I'm like, I'll never carry this thing again, dude. Like, like, no. So we worked on making a smaller charge. I can do the same effects.

So we came up with like taking two blocks and the over pressure will make a cutting with C4. It will cut through. We can drop a thermobaric grenade in this little hole and then that pressure will bust out a huge hole. So we can get guys in. So like, all right, we're testing to get on this target. So how did you figure that out?

Well, the one that figured that out. I was, I helped. So my buddy Travis, who was a, it was our master breacher, he's like, hey, we put it, start putting it together. And he's like, we started testing it because we did not want to carry that 21, so he's like, if you take two blocks, the pressure from this and the pressure of this will meet and they cut, because you know there's like the science of explosives. And then we, we was like, let's try it with a thermobaric to blow it out with the overpressure and it worked.

And we hit this target and the first wall I did, I actually grabbed Dom. I was like, let's go, cover me. So we've run up there, do the first on this. Like you can see, like on the backside, there might have been some windows, but they were up top. You couldn't see, but all you could see was like a flat mud hut, like thick mud.

But you could see where the rooms were divided because it was kind of sticking out from the adjacent wall, whatever you want to call it. So the first one, the one closest to us put the charge on there, blow it, and the explosives was enough. I didn't need to do a thermo and we go up there, we're clearing it, and there's like a donkey in there.

So like, okay, you're not, like you just kind of look back at us, like, all right, you're good, bro. So, so we go to the next one. And I like, I started like calling them like, he'd give me my charges. Like, I had him like, space throughout the team. Like, people carry a couple of them for this very reason. So we go to another one a little bit further down where we think they would be. Blow that one down.

It was a kitchen. No one was in there. I go back because we're like, setting it up. I'm running back getting in our little canal Command detonating in this freaking so it's like it's crazy. There's dust everywhere explosions are going off Like you want them one more of my charges put it in between the two holes that I've already made put it up there blow it. And I believe I did not throw a thermo in that one either,

the second one I did, but it made a big enough hole where I didn't need to do a thermobaric. So the dust is going out like the dirt, which is like kind of make a little ramp. And so Dom kind of wraps goes far as the dust is, you can see all by the dust go we just kind of pan We start pying off like doing our cross cover and we just start seeing dudes and there's like machine guns Like grenades start we finish take off the couple dudes that were still breathing They get a couple guys with their AKs in there just trying to take over the next explosive that was gonna come

And when I walk into this room, like after we took out the dudes, like we call the team and we're just kind of holding on our adjacent doors and we're going out to the rest of the compound. And I'm standing, and I'm like, man, this is really weird. Like the things you think about, right? And I'm like, it was like, like a perfect carpet,

like a very nice carpet. I was like, huh, interesting. I'm like, I was like, like a perfect carpet, like a very nice carpet. I was like, huh, interesting. I'm like, I gotta check this out later. So we, we clear the compound, come back to that room. I gotta check this out later. I put on the white light to like, cause I wanna see what exactly we just did.

Cause the dust, I mean, it was, it was hectic, you know? And I go to where I was standing and I felt it. And I put my white light down and all I see is a frickin eyeball Staring up at me So the dude got flattened by the breaching charge like folded and I was like that was my first breaching charge kill and I was like that's awesome But it was weird man because like you just see this dude flattened out, see the side of his face,

and just his eyeballs just like staring at you. Totally, I mean, he's done. So you weren't on a carpet? I was not on a carpet. I was on his insides. Interesting. Yeah. I've never felt that.

But dude, folded. His back had to been right on that wall. Like, he had to be like on it. That's, I can't even picture it, to be honest with him. It was weird, it was weird, but cool at the same time. Yeah.

Like don't shoot at us. Or this is gonna happen. Right. What was the opt-empo over there in Afghanistan? It was it was big. I mean it was it was A lot it was fast. It was we went out a lot a lot And the targets they weren't like cheesy targets. They were like they weren't like one or two guys. They were like a lot of guys Like how many we did one these guys took over like a lot of guys. Like how many? We did one, these guys took over whatever cell,

whatever whoever they were, bad guys, took over a school and there was probably, I think there was 11, 11 bad guys on that one. I mean, they were just everywhere. We had another time standing right by a door and I moved positions. And about a minute later, I saw our looking down, saw 30, I can remember, it was like 30 to 50 men

run out of the door, I was standing. And I went down to the draw and back up. They were getting away because I knew we were there. Wow. Pour it out right where I was. I was so mad, I was like, dude, that was a lot of kills I just missed. Yeah. I was like, darn it.

Well, to hell. But dude, I mean, it was real. Like, there was like, it wasn't, you know, ones and twosies. It was like dudes gathered together to go fight. That's who it was. It was different. It was different in Afghanistan than Iraq.

I mean, Iraq had some targets where there's a lot of dudes, but not like what I saw in Afghanistan. Were you on the operation that Adam Brown got killed? Okay, so before about two weeks before we I was actually going to go to an outstation for that one. Two weeks before is when I got custody of my three kids. So I my command my head shed new. I was like, I can't deploy. I was like, I'm gonna be out of this command

that are leaving me and they just pretty much told me, like, hey, on this deployment, figure out how to be a dad. They left me alone. I was alone learning how to be a dad that whole time. And about halfway through, I get a call about two in the morning for my team leader who had to stay back too because he had to get surgery done

on knee or shoulder or something. And he's like, I got him just passed. And then I was with Adam at team two, green team. I remember you guys were really tight when you showed up to Arpportun and Afghanistan. Yeah, he's just a good dude to be around. He was just fun to be around. His stories, I mean, nothing,

some things might have slowed him down. Nothing stopped him. I mean, when he lost his eye, I was right at the top of the stairs as he was coming up. I was next to the guy that shot him in Afghanistan when he lost his fingers. I was the one that put his fingers back on and tried to wrap him up the best I could.

I knew how to well. He was a, he was a, dude, legend. He had a great energy about him. Great. And he was, I don't think he was always a stand up guy, but he became a stand up guy. He did. I never knew him previous to, to when he was a stand up guy.

He was just a picture, perfect team guy. I was very upset all the time, because I wasn't doing what I wanted to do. He had a great way of kind of mitigating that and remotivating me and I learned a lot from him. And we also had a conversation last night at dinner about, and I've had this conversation with several other former work colleagues or guests on the show. And I mean, Adam was, he was just a, he's a great role model for any human.

Oh my god, yeah. And he wasn't, he wasn't a shithead team guy like me or like you who was, I'll speak for myself, who was boozing, barf fighting, womanizing, pills, everything. So that you shouldn't be doing, I was doing, Adam wasn't that, Adam was a family man. Adam cared about his kids deeply,

spent a lot of time with him. He was a man of God. He made you wonder why. Yes, that's, he made me Christ curious. He was one of the guys. I was like, and you're right. Everything you just said, you're absolutely right. He was different.

Why him? A lot of it seems to me like a lot of the guys that die in combat. It's like why the fuck wasn't that me or why wasn't that Eddie or why wasn't that the guy that's fucking three other chicks on the side and not paying attention to his wife?

It's always the standup, good example to others. It winds up dying. Do you feel that? Yeah, I question that a lot. Yeah. I question, you know, a guy that seeks God. Why that? But I've also learned that when we look to God and like,

why would you do this? There's a thing out there called evil that can get into evil men. And it goes back to lean out on your understanding. It's really not up to us to more business, even know why. We like to think of it, but I don't know why. And maybe with his book Fearless, the lives that he's changing by his story, maybe that's why. I don't know.

I don't know these answers. Well, I mean, I like to think about this stuff, you know, and it'll get you to go down this little thing called a rabbit hole. It will, it will. And then, you know, when you think about it and everybody has their time and everybody has their place and they make their mark and he made you curious,

which kind of formed you and who you are today, which you're spreading a very positive message and it's impacting thousands of people. And maybe you wouldn't have gotten there without knowing Adam, you know, and now you are carrying that torch. But... It's a big torch. Yeah, it's a big torch. But can you talk about that night at all?

That's a past. Yeah, even though you weren't there. But can you talk about that night at all? Yeah, even though you weren't there. I, you know, I know the story, I think it was like a tree or on a fence or on a wall or something like that and then got nailed from an adjacent building, but I don't know the details. I was told, but I don't recall.

I just know on my side got the call and we started drinking up two in the morning when I woke up and just started doing shots. And I'm like, not again, another guy, and again, I'm like, man, it just seemed like every deployment, we were losing dudes. It's like, you know, you question yourself, like, is our tactics wrong?

Like, what are we doing wrong? It was just, you know, you question yourself, like, is our tactics wrong? Like, what are we doing wrong? It's just, you know, it's war. It's war. It's not supposed to go the way you think. It's just not. You mean, that's why we do contingencies. That's why you have multiple LZs when you infill, right?

Because if this one's messed up, we're gonna go over here. Because nothing goes as planned. What does Mike Tyson say? Everyone has a great plan until they get punched in the face. It's very true. War is no different. You know, just like business. We're so set on this.

You can't be set on this. You got to flow. You got to flow. You got to flow. You got to move. What's the recovery time after over development group? What's the recovery time for the next operation if you do take a loss? I think the ones that I was, I'm sure it's always different, you know? Not long, maybe two to three days?

That's it. I think so. How do you send the guys off? We usually do a wood like stand, which just turns out to be across, you know, put our put their gear on it, their uh, their carrier, play carrier, and we put their helmet on top. And one thing I've learned is we won't mess with it. I remember with one of the guys, and we'll just keep it, I mean, just the blood, the, you know, there's pads in the Mitch helmets. They soak up, they soak up blood.

If you would like press on it, blood would just seep out. It was covered. Every one of the pads, you know, you got the different pads. You can move around based on your head shape and comfortability. I was just covered with blood and you put that helmet on and the weight of the helmet and you can just see the blood trickling down. This would stand. And it's just like, oh my God, man. And you got the rifle out there. And I think we put the boots out there and we put them right by the flag pole

and they stay there after we lost those guys they would go with us every deployment. We would make it, we'd bring it. Holy shit. And you lose your guy, you get the alcohol that they have. And the next morning, because you're running opposite night,

and next day time by, you know, by you get everything done, you get in a circle with those still there in bottles, just get passed around, you take it and you pass it. Another one comes, you take it and you do that until every bottle is dry. And the crazy thing about that is you don't feel anything.

You don't feel it. I don't know how you're feeling it. I don't recall feeling the drunkenness, the buzz. It was just empty fluid. It was, you know, just don't, you're not there, your brain's not there, man. Your brain is shut off and it's like, just shuts it down. And then you walk around questioning everything, questioning all of it.

Why? Why? you know the why a? A lot of guys start to question why we were there in the first place do you question that? Again at the time no as like hey, we're we're fighting bad guys like we're going to get the bad guys I was like and I was sold on it all now knowing fighting bad guys like we want to get the bad guys. I was like, I was sold on it all now. Knowing government and agendas, I question a lot of it. If not all of it, I question a lot of it. I do too. And I hate saying that. I love this country more than, I mean more than anything. But one thing I've realized is that government officials You aren't the country if you're on your shady crap. You're nothing but a terrorist. You're the exact same thing that we're hunting down over there

You're just domestic. That's why we do our oath, right? Foreign and domestic. There's a reason for that and we can see the reason So yeah, I, a lot of it's BS now, and it hurts. That you're really part of something that you make a difference, which in a roundabout sort of way you are, you're killing the bad guys. They're not can beef up and get stronger. But I don't, I think it's all comes down to an agenda.

And unfortunately, I don't think we're it's all comes down to an agenda. And unfortunately, I don't think we're ever going to find out what that is. I don't either. But yeah. What I totally agree with you. I don't believe it. Yeah. Let's move on to your family life.

Please, miss the deployment. Yeah. Got custody of the kids. Got custody of the kids. How did you get custody of the kids? So, around the deployment storm of the kids. How did you get custody of the kids? So around the deployment storm of the evening going, she, when we were separated, she's like, hey, her family lived out in Tennessee here.

And she's like, I want to go out there, take the kids and live with my parents and get on my feet and go to school. And I was always gone, always gone. And the shooting school that we go to quite a bit was right by close to where she would be. And I was like, hey, just let me talk to him when I want to talk to him. And this wasn't like a, okay, sure.

Like I had to really think about this one. And I was really thinking about her well-being and the kids. I'm like, I'm always gone. I'm like, this training ain't stopping, which it did. But I was like, maybe this is the best thing is for her to go, because I really wanted her to get on her feet. Take care of those kids.

Be a role model and do the right thing. So they had a good example. So she goes out there, radio silence. Couldn't text, couldn't call nothing. The only thing that I could in like a span of maybe, I don't know how long it was, a few weeks, a month, two months maybe, as I was out in Oklahoma and I drove six hours to get my kids and she's like, she's like, you have two hours. If they're not back in two hours, I'm calling the cops on you.

And I did not wanna deal with that being where I was. So as a good little boy, I dropped them off in two hours and drove my six hours back. I took him out to dinner or like a early lunch or something like an early dinner. That was it. And I was like, this is enough. So I went to my lawyer. I took about the dinner or like a early lunch or something, like an early dinner. That was it. And I was like, this is enough. So I went to my lawyer.

I was like, here's what's happening. This is BS. Like, let's, we got to do something. So we get her to court. And she paints this beautiful picture for her, horrible for me. Of how I cost her to do this, I'm the reason for all of it. And she was probably right, but I mean, all blame was on me on the other side

of the tables. And I'm like, and I'm like, that's not true. That's what I just wanted to speak out so bad as she's telling this amazing Academy Award-winning acting scenario. But I had one card to play, and I knew she was not clean. and she was saying she was clean. And before we went in there, I told my lawyer drug test, drug tester. And I'm like, I've

volunteered myself. I will totally do a drug test. I know I'm clean. Let's go. So at the end of all these stories, my lawyer doesn't say they asked me a couple questions and I said, I will stop deploying. I was in there in court in a suit with a full beard, Shaggy, I looked like, you know, the caveman from the Geico commercial. I pretty much looked like that dude, like trying to get my children. Just all I wanted her to do was I wanted 50, 50 custody

to move back to Virginia Beach. That's it, I didn't want full custody. I just wanted to work, like I figured like I could still do, you know, get both of both of the best worlds, both of the best worlds. And so I tell them I'll stop. I'll do a training position, all this stuff. And he awarded her to stay out there. And he just Sally said was,

hey, if he wants to talk to him, he gets to talk to him. If he wants to see him, you make it happen that he can see his children in a story period. And so my lawyer before is like, hey, we request a drug test and the judge said, Roger, that. So we both, I didn't even, she didn't even want me to do one because she knew better. She did it and she popped and she lied. So everything she said was BS. So the judge told the lawyers, you need to move back to Virginia Beach right now. And she refused.

Her lawyer dropped her and the judge found out about this and told my lawyer to tell I to go get his kids. I was deploying in two weeks. Holy shit. My command knew about it all. My command knew about I kept him informed. I was like, Hey, and no one no one's like, team guy's not going to get his kids. I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, my kids. That was the last thing I thought

would ever happen. And I had a choice to get my kids or keep deploying. And to be transparent, I had to think about that. Yeah. And it wasn't a long thought. It was maybe a few minutes, but it wasn't like, yes, awesome, I get my kids. It was like my world was closing up really thing. I mean, really, really fast. and it was rough.

That world closed and that had sharp edges and it was hurting. And my dignity as a seal, which I live by, was dissipating really fast. So I asked if I could do one more deployment. What a long, he was like, no. So I got my kid, I went out there, my mom and my stepdad met me out there, I got my kids,

and we drove back to Virginia Beach and went back to the house that I was gonna let her have because I was where the kids grew up. Started to refurnished all that because she took everything out, like everything, like I had no birth certificates, I had no social security cards, I had no shot records, I had nothing. I had a bag per kid.

I had no idea how my 10 month old, what diapers he had minus what I was in there. I had no idea what he ate, what formula, nothing. She gave me nothing. She told me nothing. Zero. I had to start fresh on everything, getting birth certificates and all this stuff and just figuring it out, refurnishing a whole house, getting groceries. I had to ask him, like, what do you guys eat?

I don't know, I don't know what they eat. Oh man, that's what I do. How old are your kids at this? Your son's 10 months old. 10 months old, Sammy, my middle child. She was five and Kayla was nine or 10. I think she was five and Kayla was nine or ten I think she was ten So that mean Kayla's up to the plate

And she Rockstar Putting those kids through that life dealing with honestly a turd dad that all he cared about himself does not fare it was not fair at all but they got strong, man.

I had some strong, strong kids. And we did it, man. I mean, my thought process was like, all right, just keep them alive. Don't let them die. That was everything, man. Just like, don't, don't let them die. And we made it through. And my, and the command was super cool with me, figure it out, figure

it out, started coming back in a little bit working in the breach or cell, like just picking locks and doing some RSO-ing stuff. And they let me like, hey, figure out how to be a dad. And I did and started to come into work a little bit more. And then after about a year of that, maybe two, about a year. We were going back on on deployment. My boys were going back on on deployment. And my kids, their summer break was coming up

and we worked out with their mother like, hey, since you never see them, you could have them for a few weeks in the summer. Because the kids still need to see their biological mom, they just need to. And so I realized that we deploy a week after my kids are gone. So about a month out, a few months out, I talked to my old team leader or to the command, I'm like, can I, can I jump in and hear, and then like, how can you and I explain to them? They're like, okay, cool. So I started training with them. They trained locally. I tried to jump in and hear and then like how can you and I explain to them like okay cool

So I started training with them. They trained locally. I tried to jump in with them go to the range shooting do CQB together do any I would have babysitters come by watch the kids. I go do a training exercise come back, you know dad's all freaking opt out and I deployed That that was my last deployment. I think I was gonna do a it was like a 45 or 60 day deployment just because my kids were coming back that had to come back for school and three days before I was gonna rotate out to come back home extortion happened oh man and We were supposed to go out that night.

So we were in J-Bad, Jalalabad, and they were in, I can't remember where they were, but we had the birds or some of our 160 of guys, we had weather or something, they couldn't, they couldn't fly, so we didn't go. So they couldn't get our birds so they used national guard ones to go do their op. And I remember being in my, you know, we got a deploy me,

got our individual rooms and he had like a common area where, you know, the coffee's made and you got the video games and you watch TV and got the couches. I remember sitting in there with my freaking feet propped up, just chill and watching probably rescue me or something', somethin' good. And my team that comes in, he's like, hey, your bird just went down. And he's like, it's our, it's our boy's bird. Like, there was two of them.

One of them had all our guys, another one had just the air crew. Devastating, regardless of which one shot down. So obviously, we're hoping it's someone without our boys. Less lives lost, right? So we all like rush over and they got it up pulled up on, I can't remember if we were starting to get our gear on or we were trying to get essay situation awareness of what was going on. But I remember watching the TV screen like the huge monitor and they had the thermal from ISR looking down And you could see that helicopter down and

There's bodies spilled out of the backside of the open ramp of the 47 and I remember seeing like in the thermal, you know heat signatures are white, right? Mm-hmm And you can see their white bodies slowly slowly turn to black and their life was leaving them and they were going. So we see that we finally like figure like we need to get in there once we finally got to like crap that is our bird that is our boys like we need to go we all go get our gear on. We're grabbing quickie saws in case we had a cut dudes out. We're grabbing anything and everything that we think for this rescue operation slash keeping the enemy at bay. And they wouldn't let us go out. They were

sending the Rangers. And the decision was made by our CEO. And at that time, I went to, I went to, I went to stick my fist through his face. I was like, how dare you? That's our boys. That they're, how dare you. But thinking about it now, always science, right? He didn't want, he didn't want those images to be our last images of those guys. But you know, some of the Rangers more than capable of taking care of that. They had a great job. They were out there for probably I think three days dealing with that. Getting the bodies. So we get the bodies back and we had, you know, I think it was a total of like 38 or something like that.

And they had, we had two C17s to get all these bodies back to Dover. And it was my time to go back a three, a couple of days later. So I just, I was one of the guys that there was like four of us escorted all the bodies back to Dover to meet the family members of all these guys. to meet the family members of all these guys. And when I was over there, I somehow, I was told by my team leader because the command was gotten touched with everyone. And Jason Workman's... At least thinks about you. I'm really sick of that. I'm really sick of that. I'm really sick of that.

I'm really sick of that. I'm really sick of that. I'm really sick of that. I'm really sick of that. I'm really sick of that. I'm really sick of that. I'm really sick of that. I'm really sick of that.

I'm really sick of that. I'm really sick of that. I'm really sick of that. to blaming you to offer my memorial service. And then, to take him to Arlington where he was gonna be, put in the ground. So of course I wouldn't refuse that. So I talked to the doctor or whatever who was dealing with the bodies. And I had them point out workments. and most of the bodies where you couldn't they were charred. They couldn't you couldn't tell who they were.

But workmen had some tattoos and they he showed me his casket. So steel caskets. And I pulled my my ground pad. And I put my ground pad, next to him, put my sleeping bag next to him, sat there, laid there, ate there. And you know how they always tell you like on takeoff, like please sit down, buckle up.

They wouldn't dare ask that, just lay there the whole time. Next to them, put my back on his casket and just escort him all the way back, get to Dover. And then we land the whole family's there and just seen. I got a whole new bucket to bust out with my therapist right back. Just to see the family's man and their faces and the tears. And the kids that had no clue, that their dad's gone, their uncle's gone.

It was the most, it was traumatic. It was traumatic to try to find words to comfort them. And those words, they were hard to come by, if any. What do you say by, I know, I know. I'm sorry. He was awesome. What do you say? And Obama came out and we, and I'm not a fan of his policies

or anything whatsoever. I'm not a fan of him at all. But I will tell you this. He greeted and shook everyone's hand in that room. And there was a lot of people. He went to every single person. And I was like, I was like, that's cool. I was like, regardless of what BS you're involved with, I was like, that was cool. And when we went to the hanger to offload to C-17s with all these caskets flag draped,

he stood at a hands salute of very crisp one the whole time that dude did not move and we were like going on like three days in his sleep. I mean we're sitting down because we're like exhausted. Our backs are coming us from the pain of just operating and that dude did not move. He was just crisp, did not move for 45 minutes, like nothing, the whole time. And as much as I don't agree with his policies and all the corruption I think that he's maybe involved in, I hear in some respect for me on that day,

for that, for showing that right there to the respect for those men. I have to give that to him. I have to. I saw it with my own eyes. So after that, they have to do their all-top sees and try to put body parts with, to ever, I mean, gosh, however you do that, I mean, there was caskets coming back, which is body parts.

Like, no names, just body parts, legs, hands, heads. I think there was like two caskets full of this. So I had time. I went back to Virginia Beach. I got my blues. Staying one night. I had my girlfriend at the time. Flew in from Oklahoma. Staying one night. Went back up to Dover. To catch an angel flight with Jason. And so we get on the bird and there's another casket that gets on him, kind of confused. I never done an angel flight before. And it was an army guy that passed at a different operation.

And his little escort was on there too. So we fly, we drop them off. I think it was at St. Louis. They get off and then it's just Jason and I Went on to the blanking And I just remember Just like staring at his casket like just Attempting to process things

And I just couldn't. And when I got to blending his brothers were there. He's got three brothers and his mom and his dad. And they're an amazing family. Amazing family and his wife and his son, Jack. So it was the same age as my son Tristan. So that made it worse seeing that seeing him. And um, and we had, you know, we had a memorial service out there and we, I was out there with

him for two weeks because there's all these memorial services going around. There's so many guys in our command, like Charlie, huge bus. I think a couple buses and they're just hitting all these spots and we were like two weeks in line. And I'm just sitting out there with his brothers and every night, what do you do? You get tore up, drinking, suppressing, stuffing. Cause I know what to do. There's not a man you'll out there that tells you what to do. Because no one knows what you're feeling.

No one knows you're in sides. We can put a scientific name to it, but they don't know. They don't know. And everyone handles things differently. And my was drinking to the point of passing out every night. So I could sleep because I would not sleep if I didn't have something or at least That's what I thought maybe I just developed a habit. I don't know But I I felt like I had to have it

To think about Mike Nate Louis Adam Too true upon extortion Josh Harris Colin Thomas guys that I did training with, so I mean, Axel said and buds with him, like I just did just the numbers of like all these guys I went to training with and now they're all gone and it's like I knew before I went that that was gonna be my last deployment but that was like I was like, okay, I need to stop the eddy show and think about your kids.

And I did not wanna do that. I did not wanna get off that train. It's like the train was going on, the operator gets left at the train station, but the identity is gone. So finally, I had his memorial service out there in blending. And one of the guys of the command, Jason loved Robert O'Keehn, and if you're familiar, he's an awesome singer. And I didn't even know anything about him until Jason, he'd always come over to my trailer.

When we were in Baghdad, that second deployment, that was his first. We'd watch movies and drink and all that stuff, and we play Robert O'Keen. Someone reached out to Robert, kind of explained the situation. He shows up at the mortal service, gets up on stage, come coming home and finish the song everyone's

in tears no one clapped no one did anything he got his guitar sat down and the most classy way I've ever seen. Like he just gave his respect. No questions asked. If I want to understand that conversation was like, I'll be there. There was no, oh, are you going to cover this? It was none of that. It was like, I'm there. I got that was one of my fans and he did that

and he was doing this. I'm there. That is America. That is America. That is respect. That is how you earn it by example. And that man is an example. He is a phenomenal, phenomenal man.

Never talk to him. I don't need to. I watch his actions. The way he handled himself. He didn't want to do signatures. He didn't want to do anything. He just walked in with his Johnny Cash all black, suit on, played that guitar, saying a song that Jason was definitely smiling down on. Did what he came to do left. And then after the memorial service that night we went to a place called Spirit Cove, drank of course and just taught Jason stories and had fun

But the buses were there from all the All the people going to all these memorial services. I mean we're just like can imagine this like it's just death You're just consumed with death. I can't imagine that just you're consumed everyone's like crying You drink too much you're crying and you're not drinking you're crying But you don't know what to do with yourself. It's like, what do I do with my hands? You know, I made sure you just don't know. And after that, it was time for him to go back to Arlington.

So we'd go back to Arlington. And we're there. And they've got them all lined up next to each other. All the guys that decided to go to Arlington and Jason was right next to Millsie. He's a really good friend with and Stacy and Jason had this thing for rainbows. Sure enough, she looks back.

I'm standing behind them. We've got Jacks and I got Stacy, family back, I'm standing behind him, you know, got Jacks, I got Stacey, family, and I'm kind of behind him. And she looks back to ask a question or something, and she just looks at me, she's like, pauses. She gets like a weird look in her face, and she goes, there's a rainbow behind you. Wow.

I turn around. And it was the brightest, most colorful rainbow I've ever seen. And that rainbow stands for one thing and one thing only. And I'll take this much at home with sexuality. It's a comfort that God gave and just seeing that I was done. I was taken out of the knees, emotions took over that I was stuffing and stuffing and stuffing and trying to be a pillar of strength for his family. I was just standing behind him,

hoping they would not look back at me. Bolly, it took me out. It was like internally took me out. That was done. So we do the service, you know, do the... Put the trident on the coffin. And a couple extra, I have another trident had to do Melzies, put one on him and the one on Jason.

And then went back home. And the kids weren't home yet. And the rest, it's hard to go downhill. More downhill than before. Did that rainbow you saw? Did you start to believe in Christ more? Was that a sign for you? I didn't think about God then.

I didn't think about God then. I chalked up to what a coincidence. How weird. You know, it's because of the rain and the sun. And that's what happens, right? You get a rainbow. I didn't put the two together. I didn't give it the time of my thought. I came right after that. I had to leave the command. I was at the breaching cell and I knew I had to do something. I think I was at my, I was like it it's six and a half years in, 17 years. And I'm like, dude, I've

got to finish this out. I got to get my retirement. Like I'm not going to stop, but I could not operate. So I found out about the coordinator position that they had around the country. Are you familiar with that? I'm not. So you kind of like, you got mentors, like, they've usually retired, like seal, swig, EOD, divers, air rescue guys. And I think there's like, there was like 28 around the country. And the point of the whole, the program was, is to help train guys up, get some more awareness

about what they're about to go do because the Navy was losing so much money about guys showing up, the water's cold and they quit. Well, the Navy just paid for you to go out here. Now they got to pay for you to go somewhere else. So they're like, we'll start these programs. And you kind of like run them through the ringer, give them workouts a couple of times a week,

kind of answer questions, kind of give them some mindset stuff, talk to them about some mental toughness. And I remember my first workout, I had like, there was, I think there's probably like 10 of these like high school, maybe I like a college or two kids there.

They were like, in tears and every one of them quit. And I was like, am I being too tough? And I'm like, and I didn't know and, but my job was like, hey man, like you need to know where you're going. And if you're quitting now, you're for sure gonna quit out there. Like I'm saving you. I would like you're saving you.

But the recruiting command is like, you gotta have this amount of number. You gotta have this many. And I sort of told them like that's ridiculous. Like you cannot force these programs on individuals. They have got to have their heart and soul into it. That's it. It doesn't work any other way. There is no, I think I might try that. It just doesn't work.

I mean, you weren't like that. I know for a fact, you weren't like that. You got to be all in. You have to be all in. And, uh, and I didn't, you know, it was ridiculous that whole recruiting pace, like you guys are like morons are morons to like, if you get, like you have to. And like you're just like, making people go, like, all right, cool. Like if you need some, like, we'll get this guy shot. That's totally gonna wash out and they do. They wash out boot camp.

And so we did that. So during that time, drinking got horrible because I was away from my guys. And I was just on an island. I was in tall soical home on no friends. I think I should have been a fiance at the time my children. It seemed like the right thing to do moving out there because I could help with my kids and then try to build my business. I started a contingent group. I worked on my degree, got my degree in security management

because I was a hundred percent tuition assistant degree in security management, because I was 100% tuition assistant, like why not do it? Like I was just trying to do anything and everything to like, to try to stay busy, to like, not think about the past that I was not involved with anymore. But, what, what, what, what, was it hard for you to leave the command at that point, or were you ready?

I did not want to leave. You didn't want to leave? I did not want to leave. I did not want to leave. But I knew it was the time for me to leave. And looking at my kids and thinking about them over me, which was hard to do, to be honest, it was the right thing to do. I wasn't going gonna try to do more deployments, pawn them off on this, try to figure out a center for this trip or the, I just like,

they needed a dad and a. I tried to step up to that and I messed up a lot of things as a father. I didn't know what to do. I just didn't know what to do. I remember the kids would come home and I didn't know what to do with them. Like, what do you do with these kids? Like, you're not't know what to do with them. Like, what do you do with these kids?

Like, you're not going to work on my gear with me. Like, what do we do? You know, and then you just kind of, and then I like, dug back to my childhood. Like, what did I like to do? Let's go play Wolfable Ball in the back. Let's go play Tag. Dark hide and seek.

And just like, started to make sense slowly. And then my girlfriend at the time, she was a Christian, good to church all the time, we'll talk about God, and I would just kind of like, you know, go back to my childhood. When I would, we had a long distance relationship, she was in Tulsa, and I was on Virginia Beach, and when I would go out there, but, you know, sometimes it'd stay as long as I could. So she'd go to church Sunday morning. I'd have her drop me off at a bar so I could drink and watch the Cincinnati Bengals play football.

Well she wanted to church. I wouldn't go to church with her. I didn't want to go to church with her. I did not want to go in there. I knew the things I would hear were going to strike me like a lightning bolt So the things I would hear were gonna strike me like a lightning bolt and I didn't want to deal with it. I started to feel it kind of like no. And I did that for quite a few times. I was like, drop me off, I'm not going with you. And I kind of told her like, here's why. She's like, that's not like that.

And I'm like, you don't know. You don't know, I do. You don't know, I do. And it kind of came to a head. Once I moved out, you know, I was on the coordinator position, starting contingent group. It came to a head.

We went out to, we left to also went to Oklahoma City for her work, her brother, who was her boss, had a, like a work party. Had like a party bus. Me to this part five, we're gonna go on night, have a good time. Right up my alley. So five o'clock comes, kept in the Coke.

And some are around nine-ish, ten-ish. I guess I'm blacked out. I had one of her co-workers giving me lap dance right there in the bar in front of her, all her colleagues. And she pulls me outside and I think she pulls me outside. And she's like, you're a hammer. You're a mess and I straight up said word for word. I will cut your fucking face off. Classy, right? You said that, too, or? I said that, too, or.

With her brother slash boss right there. I didn't care. I didn't care. I didn't care. And of course, literally, I didn't mean that. But in my brain, that's exactly what I was doing. Right. And I looked as I looked into our eyes, that's exactly what I was picturing. And that's one thing crazy about killing, I guess, is when you, you know, in your engaging in some of those engagements are close, real close, not sniper shots of a thousand yards, but like, come here, dude, and you're holding dead bodies as they fade. And you see those eyes looking at your eyes, you see the whites of their eyes. And you just watch

the life drain from their bodies. And you love it. And you love it. Pictureing that was not a problem. Pictureing that was a joy. And I would never do that to her, but in that moment, hammered, I was doing it in my brain. And the next day, I end up at my house because we were living in two different houses. I woke up by myself and my clothes was shoes on on the couch and knew this was not good. I knew this is not good and she came over and she goes, do you remember last night?

And I go, absolutely not. And she tells me the story I just told you. And we were engaged at that time. She took her ring off, threw it at me. And she said, I want this in my life or in my family, because she had two kids as well. And I couldn't say anything because she was right. I had some things I needed to work out.

So, it's probably good time for a break. Let's say a very good. I want to give a big thank you out right now to all the vigilance elite patrons out there that are watching the show right now. I just want to say thank you guys. You are our top supporters and you're what makes this show actually happen. If you're not on vigilance lead patron, I want to tell you a little bit about what's going on in there. So we do a little bit of everything.

There's plenty of behind the scenes content from the actual Sean Ryan show. On top of that, basically what I do is I take a lot of the questions that I get from you guys, or the patrons, and then I turn them into videos. So we get right now, there's a lot of concern about self-defense, home-defense, crimes on the rise, all throughout the country, actually, all throughout the world. And so we talk about everything from how to prep your home, how to clear your home, how

to get familiar with the firearm, both rifle and pistol. For beginners and advanced, we talk about mindset, we talk about defensive driving, we have an end of the month live chat that I'm on at the end of every month where we can talk about whatever topics you guys have. It's actually done on Zoom. You might enjoy it. Check it out. And if Zoom's not your thing, or you don't like live chats, like I said, there's a library of well over 100 videos on where to start with prepping, all the firearm stuff. Pretty much anything you can think of it's on there. So anyways go to www.patrion.com slash vigilance elite or just go on the link in the description. It'll take you right there. And if you don't want to and you just

want to continue to watch the show that's fine too. I appreciate it either way. Love you all. Let's get back to the show. Thank you. All right, Eddie. We're back from the break. This has been a very heavy interview. It's been tough. Yeah. I know. I know. This is going to help a lot of people. I hope so. But let's get, we talked about, you know, you left dev group, you're at home, you broke up with the ex, fiance, or she broke up with you.

What's going on with the kids at home? Just, you know, trying to do dad life, whatever the heck that is, trying to figure it out. And I mean, this took years of struggling and still drinking. I quit drinking after that night when I told I was going to cut her face off. I quit drinking for almost a year, I think. I quit drinking. And the reason why I quit drinking is she had me or she gave me an ultimatum to go to

this certain conference. But we did that in a second. But I mean, kids are at school doing their thing. I would do, you know, during the day, I would do contingent group work or schooling or go, you know, train these kids to go to one of the special programs in the Navy. And then they come home and, you know, try to figure out how to entertain these kids. Make what's for dinner, all that stuff. She's just all the mundane stuff of life. Before you quit drinking, would you try to hide your drinking from your children? I would do, I think I would put it sometimes

in a different cup, like just like a normal cup that I'd be using, but usually no, I didn't. And I usually did not, I would have like a glass, like with dinner or something, but usually that stuff would start when they were in bed. I would bust open the wine, usually the wine and down a bottle, sometimes too, and then go to sleep. But I usually, I mean, there was times

where I was like, I don't care, like I need it, I need it, right? Yeah. So, but most of it took place when they were asleep. What kind of pills were you on? I had to get a lot of surgeries after I left Devigroup. So I had to get my knee done, my foot, some hernias, those shoulders, had to get some anchors put in, so they'd give you, you know, oxycodone cot,

whatever that you wanna call it. And I fell in love with that stuff, dude. I was like so happy, I was like my happy pills. And I would take those, try to get more if I could, and I would take it all all the time, until the prescriptions ran out. I would just keep doing that. But that was really the only pills.

I would like, I think I need surgery on this. Like it's bad and come to find out it is bad. Just to get some more of those pills. But mostly I would do like nighttime use of necks. You were doing surgery just to get the pills. Yeah there was like there'd be time like I could deal with the pain is really when bad like maybe I'll deal with it later but at the same time I'm like let's just do it now like I love surgery. I love being put under just escapes reality and the pills

those pills are nice yeah but didn't they would always run out. And I would do a lot of nighttime musanex, because I learned that they would give me extremely vivid dreams. So I would do, you know, one, that I'd have my dreams next night, do one, you know, one teaspoon or one little cap full. And then when I wouldn't have my dreams, I'd up at that two, and one little cap full. And then when I wouldn't have my dreams, I'd up at the two and I would do two. And then when I wouldn't have my dreams, I would up to three and then so on and so

forth. And then as I could hear, I stopped this, but my dreams, every single night, I was killing people in my dreams. But he's would die. I was killing bad guys. And I was like, my war with my battle was like in my dreams. Just over and over again. It was always in the back of a helicopter. And there's just big bodies.

And just like see the guys coming at me. And I was just like, like a video game taking them out. Sometimes my gun would stop working. And they were like advancing that I'd wake up. Uh. You enjoyed those terms. I'm gonna go on with stop working and never had like advancing the night we got. You enjoyed those terms. Yeah, I did. That was back in the fight. Yeah.

Is pathetic as it sounds to say right now. I was in the fight in my head. And yeah. How long did that go on for? Why do while the drinking mix with that stuff wasn't a great thing, and I don't know exactly when I quit drinking. I think it was after, but when after the cutting of the face thing happened, I pretty much had the ultimatum, eight ultimatum by my girlfriend at the time now, because she threw me through the ring back, I mean, is she wanted me to go to this like Christian camp, which I didn't

know was a Christian camp really. I mean, I kind of knew, but it just sounded like the way it was sold to me or told to me was, hey, it's a bunch of dudes. You do a bunch of shooting, a bunch of food, talk about some stuff. Like, it's like a men's retreat. And I had no friends. So I was like, I mean, and it was kind of like, hey, you do this or else, like this, there's no hope for us.

I was like, all right, I'll do that. And because I'm like, I'm in the middle of Tulsa by myself, I have her, kind of. And I was like, I'll go. But I Tulsa by myself. I have her kind of, and I was like, I'll go. But I didn't know, so this whole thing was called, it's based off of John Eldridge. I don't know, he's got a book called Wild at Heart. For the audience, if you have not read this book,

you're in your man, or even have a man in your life, highly recommend it. It's a great book for men. And it kind of tells us what we're supposed to be like. We're supposed to be the hero in the story. And it gives us great thing. And I'm here in all this crap for the first time. Like, what the heck is going on right here?

But when I go to this camp dude, like I'm looking for alcohol. Like surely there's like some wine or beer. Like looking for coolers I open the coolers freaking soda's water So like already I'm like the sucks. So I'm sitting down you get like you're the little launchers like in this open like Conference area you put your little chairs down and you got a big screen and they kind of go into it So it's it's like three days Get there on the Thursday and you're done by like Sunday afternoon and the first thing it kind of like into it. So it's like three days, get there on a Thursday

and you're done by like Sunday afternoon. And the first thing, it kind of like, it goes into like, father wounds, how were the hero? You know, we're built as men to rescue the princess, like it's in our DNA. And he kind of, John Eldridge is like on the screen, saying this, it was done through another satellite, like church out of Oklahoma City. John Eldridge is like on the screen saying this, it was done through another satellite church

out of Oklahoma City, but it was the Colorado where John Eldridge was. And I'm like, this is so dumb. I'm like, what am I doing here? Like this is ridiculous. And he said something that really kind of, it really got me kind of hit home a little bit. And I'm a big movie buff.

You know, when we go to deployment, we're watching nothing about movies, movies, series, movies, movies. We've got to memorize. We're the douchebags with the quotes, right? Like, what movies is this from? That's just what we do. I still talk in quotes, it's ridiculous. And my wife looks at me like I'm a moron and she's right.

But if you think about movies, he's like it's built in our DNA. Movies have three things, three elements that is in every movie. There's a hero, there's a villain, and there's a love story. And right now, people as they are, listen, like trying to think of movies, and you can't think of any, finding Nemo all the way to 300. There is those three components in there.

There is the hero, there is the villain, and there is a love story. And he takes that and he says, that's exactly what the word of God, the Bible is. There's Jesus, there's Satan, and it's God's grace that we're going for. It's that love, there's Jesus, there's Satan, and it's God's grace that we're going for. It's that love, it's that heart. He wants to love us.

He wants to be loved back. And he said that, and I'm like, and I was really more hung up on the movie thing. I'm like, that is so true. And he's like, the Bible's all around you. We just don't realize it. Like it's in every single movie. It's the same thing. Different characters.

And so they use, because they're trying to hit home to men, to stand up to be more manly, and to stand up for the right and lead your family, which we have a hard time in this freaking, in this country, probably across the globe. And looking at me with my children, he was right. I wasn't a leader. I was a failure. I was not doing the right things. I mean, was it right to stand up to take care of those kids? Yeah, but I wasn't the one that's supposed to do. I wasn't leading by example. I was leading by talk, which is BS. And so he teaches that. And he shows movies like Braveheart, William Wallace. So he teaches that and he shows movies like Braveheart, William Wallace. He had a villain like English, right?

He was the hero, save the Scots, and it was a love story in that movie, love for the country, love for the woman, the patriot, last of the mohicans, all the gladiator. We can see it in everything. And I was like, okay, I'm here. This is actually kind of cool. What's this? I'm going to give it 100%. So we kind of go into this stuff, and they get classes throughout the day.

And I just notice, these classes go on. There's probably like, I'd say about 100 people from the age of like 16 to like 70, like just men, boys, whatever you want to call them. And I just start noticing every class, like just men, boys, whatever you want to call them. And I just start noticing every class like dudes are getting picked off. Like they just start crying. And I'm like, I might get it together, bro. Like there's other dudes around. Like suck it up, right? So you were taught. So I was taught, like suck it up, what are you doing? And I didn't get it, I didn't understand it.

And I didn't like shame on you. It was more like, it was more, what's happening? But I don't have what that is, what is that? And so at the end of my, remember our end of our first course, it was the first class of the second class, or like, all right, they give you some questions to think about, to kind of ask yourself, hey, please take your notebook and your pen

and this, these questions, and just go find a place outside and go pray and write down these answers. And I heard the word pray. And remember, if we go back to childhood, like this stuff is kind of like coming out, it gets me every time I talk about it. And I was like, man, like, you, you, you,

you pose and I'm talking to myself here, you pose and act like you're a man. You can go overseas and face evil and take it to them. You can take a blade and stick it in some flesh, but you're gonna have a hard time to go outside by yourself and pray. And I had that conversation with myself.

And I was like, self, you're right. So I went out there, I found a little like outcropping of some rocks and like the sun just wasn't up, it was like early, we got up like at 6, 6, or even whatever. I said my first words to God. Ever. I mean, minus the, please don't let me die on this off tonight as we fly in or I'm getting shot at as I'm trying to be as low as possible as bullets. Skip over my head.

Yeah. Ever. I wouldn't call that my head, yeah. Ever. I wouldn't call that, pay God, that's what I need. Without fear. I need a hand out. We're talking to him. I was talking to him like he was my father.

This gets me, man. This gets me. And I just started talking. I was like, I don't know you. I was like, you know my past. You know how you scare me. And soon I'm saying whatever the heck I'm saying, not even know what I'm saying.

And it didn't matter. It didn't matter what I was saying. The sun breaks the top of the trees in this warm, because it was the chili. This warm sun being just nails my face and just warms my whole body. It just warms, like, right when I started talking to them. Like, maybe a couple of sentences in.

And I was like, oh my God, I just like, like I got zapped through my whole body. And I chalked it up to it as a coincidence. Of course, I mean, at the right time, at the right angle, son, you know, comes up in the east, that's in the west. I mean, just that's just happened to be here. And that was it, That's all, that's all it was. And I say all this in hindsight, knowing now, everything. And I go back in, I do my thing, I write it down. But something's stirring inside me.

And I was curious, I was, I was curious to see what these guys are crying about. I was like, thinking about all my past. I would always think about why I took my hand off Louis and went around that corner. I wanted answers. I needed answers. And I wasn't going to find answers from any human on the surface. I know that. answers. And I wasn't going to find answers from any human on the surface. I know that. And I started going through more courses, more classes, more one outside train, trying to get better at it. But, you know, I think I know for me personally, we always think that there's like, oh, you got to do it this way. This is the wrong way. That's not it at all. Just like talk. Just talk. God knows your heart, man.

And once I learned that, it just came, it just flowed. And I thought there was like, oh, step one, okay, step two. Another year, go step three. And that's a bunch of BS. And I started just seeing guys throughout the weekend get taken out and taken out and taken out. And then guys, like, man, I pray for you. And I, like, I didn't tell anybody this, but in my head,

I was like, I really want someone to put their hands on me and pray for me. Like, I want someone to pray for me. I don't, this weekend changed my life. I don't know why I wanted someone to pray for me. All that crap. I never thought I could be forgiven, forgive of your sins.

I'm like, man, I've killed more people. I've done things that most people don't even dream of. Think of. Can't even think, can cocked in their brain. I've done it. From booze to women to pills to killing gun knives grenades explosives nothing anything and everything all of it like there's no way there's no way you can forgive me and I wanted someone to pray for me and the the last night of this thing, nothing's happening to me, really,

I mean, a little bit of something, but nothing monumental. At the end of the, at the end of the, um, come at the, they have the bonfire and like, to give you this like little post a note, by case the things that you want to get rid of, right down what you want to get rid of. And I was like, this post it, ain't gonna do it.

I need like a legal pad with like 100 pages. So I like, I like, give you some more of those boosts. So I'm putting down, I want my drinking to go away. I want my anger to go away. I want a direction on it, it'd be a good father. I didn't want to be a good father. I didn't want to be a slave to watching porn on the freaking internet. I wanted to be there for my family. I don't want to be absent.

I want to piece in my brain from the stuff that we went through overseas. I want to clarity on my future. I just want to be a better man. I'd be happy with that. And you know, you get around this, you get a bunch of these dudes around the fire and you got your little piece of paper and everyone goes around. But I didn't know and you you'd say what you want to get rid of, you don't have to. But you know, about halfway through, I got up and you know, I said my thing and I got choked up. I got really choked up and I threw it in the fire and it felt good. It felt good.

And I'm like, you know, it stole my head. I'm like, this is stupid. It's a piece of paper. But nothing's's gonna change. Questioning everything, testing everything, not believing anything. But there was still just something tugging on my heart. There was just something very small, just tugging on me. Enough to keep me engaged. And I was walking away from the fire when they like everyone went and I was like all right I'm gonna get out of here like I just like want to be alone and just go do something get a bad whatever

I had no me soon x had no alcohol like how do I do this? Um, and this guy comes up to me young guy. I was probably I think it was 32 when this all happened He was 26 and Kyle Tomson, he actually has a podcast undonted. And he came up to me, he's like, hey, do that was really cool, what you said. I was like, thanks dude. And he's like, do you mind if I crave for you?

This dude came up to me. I was probably 2.30 tattoos. That was a big boy. He was not. He was younger. And he had the balls to come up and do that. And that right there is obedience. I've seen many of men that you can, you just see them like they're intimidated just to have a conversation with one from one human to another. I'm not just saying me, but with many people just because of, oh, he was in this movie or he's a UFC fighter. Whatever it is, you're still human. I don't care. It doesn't matter. But he did not. He came up and he did that.

And as soon as he put his hand on me and started praying, I lost it. I... It was starting to make sense. It was all making sense to me. And so I talked to him for about an hour, two hours at the end of that night with the bed, and the next day was Sunday. And we had like a, they played worship music, but not like, like, kind of like rock, you know.

And they played it every day, and it's been like, I can be pleased to turn this crap off, I try to like rock, you know. And they played it every day and it's been like, I can be pleased to turn this crap off so we can like get on with this. So I can get that out of here. For some reason, man, I'll never forget the song. I had to look it up. It was by Matt Redman, 10,000 reasons. It was playing in the beat of that song and the words of that song rocked my body. It was different, something changed, something changed internally.

I would say I don't know how, but I do know how. It just changed. And I felt different. And I started to smile. Knowing you're a kid, you do something you're not supposed to do. And you're down on yourself. And you're mom or dad or a family member or maybe a close friend, it comes up to you.

It embraces you or just kind of patch on the head and say, hey man, it's okay. It's all right, we all make mistakes. That's what God did to me. Right. Right then and there, that's what He did to me. I can feel it. And still be in the hard headed S O B I M. Like, it's probably another coincidence. Maybe just I really liked the song. It's like, dude, when do you get it?

So I'm just like jamming out to the music and it's just like, it feels good. Like, so I'm like, dude, I'm like, I'm like, this is, I'm like, put my arm up. I'm like, man, this is just insane. And I was moved, like I was moved internally. Like I felt different. And so at the end, they kind of like think some of the presenters, some of the guys that get some

of their speakers, some of the guys that share their testimony because some of the testimonies man, they're like, hey dude, I cheated on my wife, I did this. And they open up, they're very real. And I like, I really, I appreciate that. And I think that like that conference kind of made me who I am now, where I'm not afraid to be real.

And I will be transparent because all of us go through something, some degree, it might not look the same. It's a different flavor for all of us. But we're going through some stuff. We're all going through some stuff, some way, shape, or form. Relationship, work, health-wise. We're all going through some stuff. But they did that, but they were saying thank you.

And then one of the things is like they said, we wanted to recognize the guy that we think did the most change. And I was like, well, that's not going to be me, because I've really talked to anybody and all that stuff. So I'm just waiting to listen. And they're like, Eddie Penny, they call me Nate. And I was like, wondering if I'm that stuff. So I'm like, just waiting to listen. And they're like, Eddie Penny, they call my name. And I was like, wondering if I'm that guy.

So I go up on stage and they're like, hey, we can tell a change in you. Wow. I always, I always explain stuff like this, man. I mean, we don't really know what's going on. If you can imagine two boxers in the ring fighting each other, they're looking head on, chest to chest. This is my vantage point, right?

The coach and the fans, they can see looking in, right? They can see, they have a bigger picture. I just have this. And that's kind of what happened that conference is, I guess they saw something that I didn't think I was doing or feeling or acting. And they gave me this pen. It was made out of an olive tree from Israel. And I had like a cross on it.

And I still, I carry that pin with me everywhere. And I started crying right there in the stage in front of all these men. And I didn't care. I didn't care. I was about 80% sure that I found God. I'm like, okay, wow, like, so this is real. This isn't, this is real. And I think back to things like Adam said and other guys that I deployed with and I'm like,

I start to see it. I start to see these deployments. I start to see certain things why this happened versus this. I start to see my life experiences why. I'm getting the why answered. to see my life experiences why. I'm getting the why answered. Getting the car, drive back to a gun, was gonna ride from my girlfriend's brother, same one, that took me, took me to my local city to get my truck and I drove from Oklahoma City back to Tulsa

and I called my girlfriend at the time, uh, to be my doggal messity, to get my truck and I drove from Oklahoma City back to Tulsa. And I called my girlfriend at the time, slash, fiance, maybe depending on the day. And, uh, I called her and I tried to explain the weekend. I couldn't talk. I just started crying. I cried 15, 20 minutes. I haven't cried like this. I mean, I had stuff for decades.

I thought I was good, I'd call back. I say a couple words that start crying again. I got to cry back. I can't even get, can even muster the words. And I tried this throughout and then finally I came out and just talked to him to get home. Like I just got that real quick and I hung out the phone because I was going to start crying again.

I cried pretty much the whole drive home. I just didn't understand, but in that moment I felt so loved. Like I just felt so loved. And I'm like all those things that I'd hear or I call you a crazy Christian or you Bible from her or all these things. It was making sense.

It was just making sense to me. It was just I could feel it inside. And so I get back, I tell her about the whole weekend and supposedly she went up to St. Louis with her friend and she had no intention of coming back. I guess when she was out there, she went out to a bar and she was sitting on some couches and a fight broke out. And some dude got pushed into her, knocked her off her off of her couch, knocked over the couch.

And I guess she got some kind of something. And I shouldn't be here in her and her friend, like, drove back that night. And she's like, she told me that. She's like, I had no intentions of continuing this relationship after this weekend. She's like, I wanted you to go just to help you. And so we worked, and I think that's when I decided to quit drinking, not quite for a while.

But it wasn't, I think it was maybe two or three days later, I'm in my car driving from a workout or something. And I pull up to this red light, just turns red. There's like this car wash over to the side. And they have one of those like blinking side like the red where they could flash as like, save 10 save 10% or you know buy a car wash and come back in a week for a free one. And I'm sitting in my car and I'm like show me,

I'm like I just straight up saying they show me, show me I'm saved, show me I'm saved. And I was getting, I was getting aggressive. I was like show me I'm saved. Like I don't believe this crap. I was like, show me I'm saved. Like, I don't believe this crap. I'm like, I almost testing him. And even though this happened and this happened, like that can be explained, this can be explained,

this can be explained. Like show me, show me I'm saved. Cause I'm like, I've done this. I'm crying at this red light and I'm talking. If anybody's, you know, park next to me at this red light, they're gonna be like, this guy's loony. Probably should call it cops before he kills us or himself. And I look over to the sign, and all I see is one word, saved.

S-A-V-E-D. That's it. One word. It wasn't saved 10%. It wasn't pulling now to save two dollars. It just't saved 10%. It wasn't pulling now to save $2. It just said saved. That's incredible. I saw that.

And I'm like, I'm yours. I'm like sold. I'm like sold. So at the end of that conference, they tell you, I like to go all in on everything. Like, I want to be a seal. I would read everything, listen to everything, watch everything to try to be the best.

And they would give some books out and they'd be like, hey, you should probably start off with this book. You know, it teaches you about prayer. And I was like, okay, if you say that's what I should start out with, I'll go buy that book. And they're like, oh, this is another one, but it's a little more, it talks about spiritual warfare. And so I heard the word warfare. I'm like, what? I'm like, oh, this is another one, but it's a little more, it talks about spiritual warfare. And so I heard the warfare, I'm like, what?

I'm like, what'd you say? I like, that sounds like something I would like. And not knowing, or not believing, or just not even taking the time to have thoughts about that, about the evil and all that stuff. But I started with this prayer, prayer-like book, and I was like, okay, this is like boring, this is like trash, like, no wonder why people don't

want to be Christians. This is weak. And I was like, what's this literature book? And I looked at my notes, I found it, and I ordered it. And I started reading it. And I was like, there's, there's a whole other world. There's, there, the evil isn't the evil over there. I mean, it is, but there's evil all around us. And like, just like there's, like if you got a question yourself, like why am I having this not good thought right now? Was it provoked by something?

A lot of the times it's not. Like why did all of a sudden, do I want to cheat on my wife? Why did the sudden order to leave my wife? Why are my kids? So I don't want to give them up for adoption. Like if we're honest with ourselves, we have maybe not those exact thoughts,

but thoughts like that, like that guy that just cut me off, I'm gonna get out and rip off his frickin head. Why do we have those thoughts? And if you a believer, and you believe in that spiritual warfare, that you got the good and evil, then there is this unseen world that, you got certain forces that will put these evil thoughts in

your mind. And you really sit down and think about it in my opinion. It's very real. And I look back I'll go this way. I did not it was not easy. I still went back to drinking. I separated from my, when we ended up getting married, I separated from my wife and started sleeping with everybody I could. And I would call myself a Christian, because I believe in Christ and all that stuff, but I was still doing not the right things, which is where, to be honest with you,

most Christians live in that world. And I was that guy. I was that guy. Thinking I'll be saved, you know, I was more of the talker, not the walker. You know, I wasn't walking in obedience, the way I should be. And that's kind of funny, like talking about this, if I was like me 15, 20 years ago, I'd be like, okay, so that future me is a freaking nut job.

I'd be like, yeah, you're crazy. But I wasn't walking in it at all, and I was drinking, and my relationship was falling apart and I was doing the wrong stuff. And then one day my kids were at school after I moved, we moved in, we ended up getting married, we moved into a house. Eight months later, I moved out of the house.

Oh man. Got my own freaking house. I was a freaking wreck, dude. I shouldn't have been in a relationship. I couldn't even control I couldn't control this. Even after coming, you know, people think like, oh, you should be fine, you're a Christian. Dude, there's a war going on.

You still got to fight daily. It's not easy. It's not easy. It talks about it in the Bible all the time. Like, you got to fight. Like, there's a fight and that's where a lot of men are failing. They just, they're a pushover.

And I was being a pushover, I was getting trampled on by evil. I mean, that's all, I mean, that's the great word for it. And if I myself, in my bedroom, when the kids are at school, and I'm just sitting on my bed, and there's a nightstand, my nightstands, right here in my good old SIG 228,

is sitting right there, now I just look over and I hear a voice yeah this is a way I've never thought about suicide in my life that's what I'm saying why do those evil things pop in your brain because there's a different side there is stuff going on around us that you just got of and people call me crazy I don't care. Based off of my experiences, I picked up that gun. And I remember holding it right here. I just like was thumbing it, touching it, feeling the cold steel. And I was like, yeah, it's that time. Enough is enough.

I'm done hurting. And I had like this view of like a bird's eye view looking down in my room and seeing my lifeless body with my brain splattered, big old pull of blood, very detailed, very detailed. detailed, seeing all the body parts and mutilations and disaster, I saw it was easy to visualize, right? And I pictured my kids coming into my room after school with their backpacks on, seeing my lifeless body. And what that would have done to him. And I put the gun down and I stood up in a freaking rage. And I was like, what the fuck am I doing? And I'm like, my God, my God. And I start cursing him.

I'm like, you say you're the savior and all this stuff, and I was mad, man. I was like, how could you let me? How could you let me do this? You're supposed to be healing me, and I blamed him, which was wrong. And I got out of my house and I went to the gym, my therapy. And that was the one time where it was about that time to clock out. And someone was wrong, man. I couldn't figure it out.

I was going back to sleep issues. I'd be up for two days straight. Sleep for a couple days. Be able to sleep for a couple of nights. Up for a couple more nights. I couldn't figure it out. I don't like what is wrong with me. And then a buddy reached out, um, Ken, and he's like, Hey, there's this brain center down in Dallas, uh, called cerebrum. And he's like, hey, there's this brain center down in Dallas called cerebrum. And he told me about it like a year ago and I was like, yeah, I'm good dude. And I'm like, maybe that's what I need to do. Because when I failed to mention earlier when I was doing the RSO-ing, when I was a breach or sell, I would, you know, watch other, like we'd have SWAT teams come in

and our other units do their breaching stuff. And I would just make sure they're doing it, you know, watch other like we'd have SWAT teams come in and or other units do their breaching stuff and I would just make sure they're doing it, you know, safely. And they would use just like deck court, like not a big explosive, right? Not like a C like C6 strip or something like that. Just like a basic like let's get the effect of like this, I'll get the explosive. of the explosive. And the overpressure from these weak charges would go off in my head would be pounding. Pounding, compared to the charges I was don't ever see. I mean, times where I thought my pants were ripped off by being so close to a freaking charge.

And I'm like just having your bell around. You just like, but I fed off of it. Like I told you like a pain, the pain for some reason. Feeling that, amp to me up before I, it was like the fighter walking out to the ring and they got their music playing. That explosion and that blast feeling that overpressure on my body was my song.

As I walked into the arena, which is some bad guy's house. That was it. And but towards the end, it started hurting. I was like, I can't do this anymore. I can do it from way back here, but it was so bad every explosion. I was like, it was like, almost took me to the ground a couple of times.

It was so bad. Damn. So I thought about that when he recommended it in a second time to go down there, because he asked how I was so bad. Damn. So I thought about that when he when he recommended it in a second time to go down there because he asked how I was doing. I said, I didn't struggle, man. My workouts were struggling. I wasn't eating as much as I should. And if I was, I was eating crap. I was angry with my kids. I couldn't take, I would start yelling at people at the gym for not putting their weights back. I mean, that was a jerk.

That was a punk. That was a 100% Tier 1 douche bag. So I went down there and they did all their stuff on me, did all their crap and definitely had some spots in the brain. And they did a bunch of like, to therapy to kind of get it back. And I got

back after a two week trip down there and I sat down to work the first day. I was back and for the first time I sat on my computer for like six hours and like was just knocking out work. I was starting to get my seven to nine hours of sleep a night. It was like someone pushed the reset button on my body. Yeah. And it was just it helped a lot. It helped a lot. So the brain, the brain definitely had some stuff going on that I was oblivious to. I didn't realize how angry I was I didn't realize the effect that all the drinking dead, you know, I was so busy Trying to stuff my pain and think about my pain. I didn't realize the pain that I was causing my family

String to selfish Let's go back to that weekend The retreat. Yeah, Christian retreat. At the beginning, you'd talk about when you saw Jesus as a child and scared the hell out of you. Did you think about that? What were you thinking? I saw the reality of it. If you remember, and the way it was, was when I saw Jesus, I wasn't scared. When he left, I was very scared. My opinion and my, I believe, like, no.

I was deceived by the devil until I was 32 years old from that one day. He used the darkness and made him look to be the boogie man. He wasn't the boogie man. I believe that. I believe that with all my heart. 100%. How long did it take you to do replay that in your head? Just now?

No, at the retreat. Were you thinking about that day when I was at the... I was scared to go there, but I'm like, man, like you're just gotta go and do this. I think it happened probably, there might have been little clips of it happening when I was there, but it happened more after the fact when I started to read the Bible and started to seek him and listen to people that talked about him. But the thing is, man, is like, that was weird about, I wouldn't say weird about me,

but is where I feel like my calling is now, is that there's not a, I feel like Christianity, the church is very watered down, and it's like it's designed for women. Like I'm not here, and I hear a lie, I got a church, or you hear something. And it's like, oh, let's love each other. We have grace. We're going to, you know, turn the cheek, all that stuff.

We're going to be kind to each other, no matter what happens. And that's great. That's good. That's good to have love, and it's good to give grace. And it's because we all mess up, and it's good to give people second chances. And it's good to give grace and it's because we all mess up and it's good to give people second chances and it's good to forgive. That is good. But there is a warrior piece that we are called to do and it is the men are failing. They are failing, they are failing, they are failing. failing, they're failing. And it starts with that mindset. And I believe that men just need to be called out in a positive way. So they can realize their potential. Like you have got to realize your potential of what you were created to be. And I believe you're created to be to lead your

family and stand up for evil. You've got to expose the evil and you've got to stand up for it. for evil. You've got to expose the evil and you've got to stand up for it. Look at our world. Look at our country. Yeah. What do you hear the most? Evil. Because the good people that really have good intentions and goodness in their heart, they're keeping their mouth shut. And the big reason is that because they're afraid. They're afraid for someone to come out and they're afraid of any tension. They're afraid to be confronted and they're afraid of any tension. They're afraid to be confronted because they won't go there. Oh, I don't know, you know, wrestling feathers, like,

that's not your call to be. And they're like, oh, well Jesus, like he was, okay, cool, read the Bible. Jesus, starting crap all the time against all the people that were freaking, like, that were more legalistic. And, yeah, I think that's my, I think that's like where my heart is taking me

is like to bring in that warrior mindset is like from the battlefield to this battlefield. There's a lot of dudes that are good men, and they just don't have the leadership or the know how. I mean, if you don't know, you don't know. And with what we're surrounded by, we are the product of what we are surrounded by. That's like it says, don't hang out with the wrong people. If you listen to a bunch of death metal, satanic music, guess what you're going to start believing?

You start eating a bunch of donuts, guess what? You don't go to the gym, guess what? You hang out with a bunch of smokers, you're probably going to start smoking. It's the same thing. We are surrounded by, and I don't mean this in a bad way, but at the same time, I mean in a bad way. We're around some weak people. And it's not okay. It's, they need to stand up, they need to rise up, and they need to speak out, and they need to lead by example.

And I was so guilty of this. And until recently, I'd say probably the last year or two, it's like, I mean, since I found Christ, it's been getting stronger and stronger. That's kind of like when we were in Buds, right? We are this, we're cool guys, we did Buds. Yeah, but we were way better after we did our next school at Jump School, right? We are this, oh we're cool guys, we, you know, we, we did buds. Yeah, but we were way better after we did our next school at jump school, right? We were way better after SQT. We were way better after our forced deployment. We were better than that after our second deployment. And we just get better and we get better and we get better and we train and we train. It's the same thing here in life and the same thing in Christianity world as you don't get better like crap, I need to stop drinking.

Like right now I'm like, I gotta stop cussing. Like I don't, I want to better myself and I don't know what's next. Hopefully it's not sweets. But yeah, I got like, it's just like, dude, it's just bettering ourselves. Like why would we not want to better ourselves and there's that evil and the world that pushes everything but and here's

an example of that around around my house. It's a newer development kind of like our area we're in right now and they've been put up new stores, new restaurants. In the last year, marble slab, cold stone, great American cookie, all these are phenomenal places, by the way. Nestle toll house cookie, nothing but cakes, a pie place, a cupcake place, tiff's treats, which is a cookie place, not a sin a bun place, but a sort of like sin a bum, but you get to like put a bunch of other toppings on it, all opened up with a square mile of each other. Wow.

You eat, and I'm just gonna use this as one example because there's many. You eat a bunch of crap, you eat a bunch of crap, and you know this from personal experience, I know this from personal experiences, our listeners know this from personal experiences. You don't function good. Your energy goes down.

You get that freaking food coma. You get that sugar rush and then it drops and you just like turn into a miserable piece of crap. You don't have no energy. And that filters over to your kids or to your colleagues. Our society is not helping our case. We preach all this stuff, well, we need to be healthy. I would need to exercise. But you weren't here on that during all this COVID stuff, were you? No. Is it because they want you to push whatever they want to push?

We know what they want to push. They want the dollars, but we are surrounded by people with cruel intentions. And if you don't stand up, and if we don't rise up, you will succumb and you will be a victim. Period. And we talked about this a little bit last night. Yeah. It's sad. It's very sad. Yeah. Let's take a quick break. Let's take a quick break. Thank you for listening to the Sean Ryan Show. If you haven't already, please take a minute, head over to iTunes, and leave the Sean Ryan Show review. We read every review that comes through, and we really appreciate the support. Thank you. Let's get back to the show. at the support. Thank you. Let's get back to the show. All right, Eddie, we covered a lot. We covered your career in the military. We're covering your transition out and how bad it got at home. I took your kids. Where are we going from here?

kids. Where are we going from here? So after Oklahoma we were going to divorce with my, we got married and that was a very, I mean I think the total marriage was a year and she, I take full responsibility for that man. I was, I was drinking a lot. I was angry. I was mad at the world. I didn't realize what I was doing. And I don't use as an excuse at all. I just, I messed up man. I messed up hard.

And so I had no one to help me with my kids. I started a contingent group, risk mitigation, don't have security. Before we get into contingent group, we talked about why you left Louis shoulder, why you went. Yeah, so that kind of goes back to the, I always wanted to know why. Why, why did I hear or feel or sense or whatever. I can't even, I can't even put a label on it when I felt or heard. Why did I hear or feel or sense or whatever I can't even I can't even put a label on it what I felt or heard Why did I leave that position and he didn't and That was a question. I asked myself forever and

And it was it the only thing I it's it was God it was God has a was something Pulling me away from there. And now I question why me and not him. Why didn't he hear it or feel it? Why did you come up with that answer? I have, I got to be with you, man, my life has done some twists and turns. And the seal thing was always a passion. I just knew it. I just knew it.

I knew the military. I just knew it. I knew the military. I just knew it. Probably the last year, my mindset has gone from that to more of like my faith. I just want to share the word. I want to share my story and show that God is real, that our society will do anything and everything to push it aside from the Pledge of Allegiance to not discuss certain things in school. And in my opinion, taking faith away is the number one thing that is destroying this country. It ain't the people. People suck because there's evil. You take away the good,

but still leave the bad. What's going to happen? Evil will reign. And I believe that's what's happening. And I just, I have a passion. I have a passion for God. My heart is for God. And I mess up. And I, and I don't like some of the things that I should do. I want to do some things that I want to do, not him. I still fall into that trap at times and need to pull myself out, but he always pulls me out. But that's just where my passion's going. I want to tell my story and encourage others. That's what we're going. Well, you're definitely doing that. There's no doubt about it.

And it's not even me doing it. It's not even me doing it. But it's awesome, man. It just makes me feel good. It makes me feel alive. That's been my career. It's twisted as this thing still is. It's good.

From where I was to where I am now I look back on my call my gosh. I almost took my life. I almost took my life. And that was not in the cards. It was not time. And I question sometimes like, what do you have for me?

What do you want me to do? And I feel by the certain circumstances and the people that are coming into my life and doing certain things, I know what I'm supposed to be doing. And that's, I'm his freaking warrior. I'm a warrior for him. And I'm going to lead other people to fight. Good for you.

Yeah. One did contingent group start. So contingent group started when I was in Tulsa. I did a contracting job with a friend that I was, that we were a team two with. Good old Joe, JLo. And so I started also some contract with him. I was like, dude, we could bring some more people into this.

So I developed a company and got the insurance. So like guys could fall under the insurance umbrella and just started it from there and just kind of morphed. And finally got a really good client that does a lot of work down in Central America. And then we're starting to do a lot of trips and then other clients reaching out and then we're kind of adding in driving services, armor cars, uparmored, intelligence reporting assessments. It just started kind of like tracking money and then we're doing this and all this stuff

just started happening. All right. Now we need to put this freaking huge security system into this freaking huge building, and not just your cameras, but like we need drones flying around, we need this, we need that, and like, okay, and we figure it out, and we get it done. Just got it with our network. I mean, we've got all the guys pretty much on their phone.

Yeah, you know, when we were talking about contingent group yesterday, I had no idea how in depth and technically advanced these security systems that you are putting together for these clients are. I thought it was already sprig going in and wiring up some camera systems on the house and maybe putting some reinforced doors and hard windows in. And when you were describing me, describing to me the technology, I didn't even know that shit existed. Yeah.

I mean, it is incredible. And that's not me. That's the guys that that's their specialty, too. I'm kind of like the bigger overall manager, like we need to, I kind of go and do the assessment. I look for the weak points. I'm very good at thinking like a bad guy. Like, are we need to fix this?

We need to fix this. You probably should think about this. Like, do you travel? Okay, let's put these protocols in place. So we just developed this whole, it's not just the cameras, it's not just like, hey, we can show you God,

you know, a license plate reader up on the street. It's all of it together, because not just one thing's gonna protect you. It's multiple things, right? Like we're carrying a gun, carrying a backup magazine. Now we have a blade. Maybe I need to use my car. So it's just like, you know,

putting those layers of protection around the individual family organization, whatever it is. And it's cool. It's, everyone's different, but they need. I mean, how many, you probably don't even know, but how many different aspects of this business are there? I mean, you're wiping people from the internet, you know, cleaning it up, cleaning their names up

from the internet. I mean, home security, business is security, travel security, personal protection, everything. I don't have an answer for that question. I don't know how many things we do. It's a lot. I mean, from a simple of a background check to putting in the most advanced technology

to keep you safe based on the asset to someone traveling overseas and knowing what it's like over there to going with them to pose as a camera crew, because we're going low key. Whatever it may be, we do it all. What is your typical client base? What type of client are you looking for with contingent group?

More, it's more higher end. It's definitely on the upscale or like an organization. But there's some smaller things that I mean, individuals need protection or just like, hey, let's monitor this. So we need to do the right things to just protect them. It just really just depends. But it's more on the upper end. Okay. The majority, not all, but the majority. Okay. It sounds like you're kind of stepping out of contingent group. It sounds like unafraid, motivational speaking, becoming an author, spreading the word of Christ.

Yeah. Is your new passion. That's the passion, man. And contingent group is, sounds like it's a well-greased machine now. You don't, that doesn't need all of your attention. Right. So let's, which is hard to walk from when it's your baby. Yeah. It's like, ah, I'll come back. I understand that.

I understand that. But I'm still fully engaged in there. I'm still don't think it's, I, because I do enjoy it. Still, it's just, I'm being led. I'm being led and I got to listen. Yeah. Well, I do enjoy it still. It's just, I'm being led. I'm being led and I gotta listen. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's, when you were telling me about that yesterday,

it really blew me away. I was like, holy shit, this is way bigger and way more advanced than I imagined. But let's talk about unafraid now. So how did that start? Did this start with your wife? No. So my wife comes in at the very end

because the book was not done. So this book, the first thing that I come up with, came up with, the verb name was Fassad. And it was, I was the Fassad. I was the poser. I was the fake. I was this Navy seal, right? But below, I was a bag of crap. I was, I was weak, physically strong, but weak, mentally, and emotionally, very weak. I wouldn't say mentally. But one night before the suicide piece, like right before, wow, it was like right before. That's interesting. I never thought about this. Wow.

I woke up about 2 a.m. and I just like thought heard. I should write a book and I was like, that's stupid. I'm like, do you not mean Navy SEALS write books. I will not be a part of that category. That's exactly what I was telling myself. And I couldn't go back to sleep and I literally was like, fine, like a little kid. Went to my office, got my legal pad, got a pen, came back to my bed, brought to my pillows, started writing.

And that night I wrote out pretty much the outline of this book. Uh, so I went into... in depth to give it some... to give it the meat and potatoes of it. And I didn't know where to start. So the one thing that I knew very well Give it some, to give it the meat and potatoes of it. And I didn't know where to start. So the one thing that I knew very well was the chapter about Luis that night. I knew everything. I knew the details.

I knew the way things touched. I knew the way things looked. I knew the way things smelt. I know how I felt. I remember everything. So I started that chapter and I did that chapter. And as I'm writing that chapter, I'm bawling, I'm losing it.

And I'm like, I had to like take a break. And I went back to like my childhood, brought about my childhood, and I went to the Marines. And I had a specific incident in the Marines where I like turned the corner and like, I'm now a man. When I learned really what mental toughness was.

And I wrote about 150 pages over the next couple months. And I just, I don't know. What was the turning point in the Marine Corps? We were, I'm sure you've heard of like the sand fleas down in Paris Island like these little bugs They just bite you they suck. They are so annoying. It's just like a ticker a bee that I've heard too much It just like it kind of stings you But they have tons of them down there and we were we're drilling and I just like had my

Rifle at right shoulder arm so it's like laying like this and we're just standing there and This one of the little sand flea kind of comes up and lands on my forearm. And I'm kind of like looking on my peripheral vision, like looking for the instructors. And I think I'm clear, and I kind of just do this, kind of wipe it away. And all I hear in this deep voice was,

recruit Penny. And I was like, my gosh, here we go. And it's like fall out. So I fell out and I just followed him. And I knew where we're going. And we're going to the, but they call the sand pit. There's these pits. They'll get a big sandbox all over the, it's like the beach, right?

For buds, but they got these sand pits everywhere. And they just beat the crap out of you in there. Like side straddle hops, jumping jacks, what are called pushups, sit ups, sprints, a count body builders. I don't think burpees were invented back then, but all these different calisthenics and things, just annoying, make you sweat, it's middle of summer. And I was alone with him,

this is the first time I was alone with a drone instructor. And I was like, I'll take your punishment, I don't care, it's not a big deal, dude. Like, we're going and we were there for so long, like the shadows moved to the other side of objects. Like we were there so long. I was like, I was like, I wanna file a grievance. I feel like you're abusing me.

Like it was like, I was like, dude, is he allowed to do this? Like it was getting me to that point. And I wasn't looking for a safe place. I'm like, this just seems awkward to me. Like it seems like I'm beginning to go to Florida now. And they just start to beat me. And then he starts to have me do these sprints, there's like this shed where like how's like lawn mowers

and lawn equipment for that area. So he's like, hey, sprint back here, or sprint there and come back and you've got 45 seconds, and lawn equipment for that area. So he's like, hey, sprint back here, or sprint there and come back and you've got, 45 seconds, whatever. The time was never enough to go do what he asked and come back. It was by design, right?

And I was getting frustrated. I was dripping sweat. It was going to my eyes. You know the feeling that just burning, like, acid in your eyes. And I was starting to irritate. And I was starting to feel sorry for myself. And I was like, give myself the victim mentality.

Like, oh, poor me, what did I do? Like, well, you're the one that did that. You actually started this. And he kept doing it, and he kept doing it. And I started crying. 17 year old, way from mommy, getting destroyed by this troll instructor Martinez. Never forget him.

Wearing glasses, his Marine Corps glasses that I just wanted to rip off, punch him in the face. I wouldn't have done anything because I couldn't even lift my freaking arms or move. I was smoked and he just kept doing it and doing it and I was like, dude, when is in and he can see me breaking. He can see me breaking and he comes up to me. He stops barking orders and he comes up to me and he looks at me and I was hoping that he didn't see the tears, but they don't, you know, they see it, right? And he goes discipline.

You guys, he goes, it might seem like a small thing to itch a bug off your arm, but in combat, sitting in an ambush, it can mean your life. And then he goes more importantly, the guy's next to his life. And he just stared at me. And it was like he was looking through me. And something switched to my brain. I was like, let's go. Let's go.

Give me more. That's what I was thinking in my head. Yeah. So he steps out of the sand pit and I'm like, okay, are we done now? Like, I think you made your point. And he starts don't it again. And we keep going. And we keep going. But this time, I'm like, angry. I'm mad. I was like, you will not break me. I was like, I was like, hoffin. I'm like, let's go. Like, I was like, saying stuff. I was like, let's go. Let's, like, I was amt. It was like someone just him with a shot of adrenaline and I was going.

And that has changed my mindset ever since. Probably important to throw that back in there, but that was a big deal. That was a big day for me. That is when I began my man. That is when my mindset and the kind of bird that unafraid how I think that was it. That was it.

That was different from that day. Very different. Wasn't Timid or Shy. I was like, let's go. So that was, yeah. That was a turning point. That was a turning point. So unafraid. Let's get back to that.

Start it as a book. Yeah. So now it is a brand. I have the, and I put, I put the 150 pages that I wrote by myself and tall so Oklahoma up on the shelf. So started working with the NRA. It was a carry guard course. It was a bunch of spec ops guys,

they put in a bunch of Tier 1 guys to run these shooting courses for the NRA to give it some life, because the NRA is made up of like a bunch of older people. And it's just, well, it's outdated. So they were trying to give it life. So we were trying to breathe it into it. So we did these shooting courses, phenomenal shooting courses.

So I met Keith on one of these courses. He was actually writing for the NRA and he was writing for Guns and Ammo, field and stream. Like he's, he's, you know, does a lot of, it's a big hunter, big gun guy. He actually knows like the nomenclature of things, like I don't know anything, like dude, just give me a gun that works.

Like I'll, like, I'll tell you what it does. But you know, it's all that stuff. But I put a gun that works. Like, I'll tell you what it does. But he knows all that stuff. But I put him through that course. I was his instructor and he didn't need any instructor. He just did it so he could write about it. And he was gonna do interviews with instructors to kind of talk about it to give it like, to boost it up to try to get some traction.

And that course went away. And I knew Keith was writing for, did a book that we discussed last night for a New York bestseller. It's turned into a motion picture now on prime, my name is on prime. He did a couple of those books. He was a big part of that. But due to legal issues, you won't see that.

Yeah. But I hit him up. I was like, hey man, But due to legal issues, you won't see that. But I hit them up. I was like, hey man, or I did the Ritland podcast. The episode 23, I think that's the one you listened to, the first one. And a lot of people are like, dude, you should write a book, you should write a book. And I talked about a lot of the things

that I initially wrote about. So I was like, ah, maybe I should do that. It was kind of weighing on me for like a couple of weeks. And I was like, I wouldn't know where to, I don't know how to write, like I, I like like a fifth grader. So I remembered Keith and I texted him. I was like, hey man, can we talk?

And he called me that right away. And I was like, hey man, can you do me a favor? Can you listen to this podcast? I listened to the podcast. He's like, yeah, man, I'll do it seven times this week. It's like, cool. They calls me the next morning. It's like, I listened to the podcast. He's like, yeah, man, I'll do it seven times this week. It's like cool. They calls me the next morning. It's like I listen to the podcast and he goes, that's awesome, and I go um

I think it's good enough to be a book. He's like, yeah and uh, my would you help me write it? And he goes, I thought you would never ask. I did not know this at the time. Keith was having a falling out with the person that he was working with at the time. And he was looking for another project. And he actually, he's like, I thought about you. Cause I knew some of your stories,

we talked about it, you know, over drinks or whatever. And then when he's like, when you sent that to me, he's like, I already knew what it was. And I already knew my answer. And it was just like, wow, and we started working on that. It took a couple of years. He would fly down. We would do the interview. He would interview me. I gave him what I had.

And then he put the words to it. And I have got to give him credit for the words in this book. I told the story, but that man made art. Like it is so good. He's a phenomenal writer and a very dear friend,, very upstanding guy, a very trustworthy guy. And at that before, like kind of at the beginning of this, it was like pre-COVID. I was kind of in a little piece of like the motivational stuff

and I was like, man, why is everyone afraid of everything? Like, I saw like the Trump, the Trump verse Biden was going on and I heard a stat on the radio. I don't know if it's true and it doesn't matter, but it probably is. It said that 63% of voters are afraid to tell you who they're gonna vote for. 63%?

63%. I was like, that is the dumbest thing in the world. And it's because they don't wanna, they're afraid of any conflict. It goes back to what we were talking about with the Christian men same thing so I was like Unafraid like a fell in love with the word on a freight enough where I got an attitude like it was everything

And I'm like and I just Brain storming thing and I found I was going through shutter stock To get a photo for a post for contingent group or something like that. And I saw this logo and I was looking for a picture of a heart, I think it was, for I don't know what it was. It was something based around security or whatever it is. And I saw this logo, it was a half a heart, half a brain. And it had some like paint splotted around it or something. I was like, that is awesome.

So I downloaded it, kept it on the computer, didn't really use it for anything. And then when the unafraid thing is like, dude, I need to make a logo for this. So did a t-shirt, t-shirt started to sell. People were like, I love that. I love the way it is. And then we started putting the logo together,

which actually a little bit before, sorry, a little confused on that. So we did the logo and then started doing just a t-shirt. And I was like, man, like people are like, hey, thanks for just that shirt. Like it, it helped me. I was like, how does a shirt help you? But then I think about the stuff that I wear.

I love motivational stuff. I love motivational quotes. I was like, okay, cool. I'll just, I'll do another t-shirt. So we started doing more. And then what I realized without realizing it is all my branding was kind of moving to Christ. I didn't realize this.

I wanted to be a fighter, like to be a fight, not so much like a fighter, but like to fight for what you believe to be right. And so I did like biblical verses that show tell you that you need to be a frickin' a fighter, like sure to say not passive, like I'm not gonna be pushed around. And just like, I'm going all in, like, and then just trying to like turn it into that, and just kind of morphed into this thing. And one day I'm up in the shipping room,

turned our movie room into a shipping room. I'm just looking around, like Gulf of Stickers and the bands and the shirts and the pins, and just all of it. And I'm like, I just gotta look up the sky. I'm like, you are so sneaky. Ha ha ha ha, fuck.

I'm like, I've got faith stuff everywhere without even realizing I've got faith stuff, faith stuff. I'm like, I, it was like I was blinded to it all. Like I'm all about the warrior piece, all about the warrior piece. Like I sure would say warrior, but I'm like, well, we'll put that on a cross because I believe that. We go back to gold. Got the cross.

Yeah. It all meshes now. It makes sense to me. It comes full circle. It's full circle. It's a great way to put it. And then I'm like, okay, so all people were starting to reach out on Instagram and like saying, hey, thanks for posting this. And I started

putting some just Bible verses that meant something to me. I'm like, hey, maybe I'll help somebody else. And there was one time, one time, this individual reached out. And I think it was a dude. And he goes, you posted this, and it just saved my life. He just... I was like, wow. One quote, a few words on a little screen, or wherever he watched it. Save his life. And I knew it you watched it. I saved his life.

And I knew it wasn't like, you saved my life, man. It was, you saved my life. I could feel it by reading the words. And that started happening more and more. And I'm like, that feeling I described about killing someone Got trumped By the feeling of helping someone

By encouraging someone I was like That is awesome. If it just helps one person that would have taken their life or would have gone home and beaten their kids, I was like, okay, okay. All right, I'll do that. And it's like not to stop, especially when this book came out, the messages. You really helped me out.

I was a single father struggling. This helped me out. I've been addicted. This helped me out. Show me light. And that's what it's about. Enough of me. Enough of me.

It's about them. It's about him. That, that is a better feeling to put a bullet in somebody's eyeball. And don't don't fool you. That is a great feeling. But One and one I'm one I'm sold I'm all in I Want to keep doing it and I'm going to good for you. Yeah What else did that lead into led into Some speaking stuff And I was actually talking to Keith about this.

It's like I need to do more speaking. I want to do more speaking. I want to feed guys. I want to feed more. I may let into more products and stuff like that. It's leading into books two and three coming up. But as I was talking to Keith, I was like, dude, I need to somehow give these talks, but kind of,

I want to interject God more. I want to talk about God more. And I don't want to talk about God where someone's like in verse, yada, yada, yada, where it's just like, because I remember me, I'd be like, all right, I'm checked out. I don't know what that is. You lost me. And I was like, I need to do that in a tactful way. And I'm thinking on myself because man,

if you said anything wrong, I'm like, I'm stiff-harming you, like I don't want anything to do with you. Like you can't force that stuff. I was like, I wanna somehow do that. I wanna talk about it more. And cause he's a part of, he's, he's that story.

He's me. And a day later, two days later, I got a call from a guy I did a podcast with a year before, he was a pastor at a church. And he calls me and he goes, Hey, Eddie, what's going on? He goes, this is, you know, so and so. And if you remember, I was like, yeah, yeah,

I'm like, how you doing, bud? What's going on? He's like, I have to talk to you. I was like, all right, he's like, I have two questions or two things I need to talk to you about. I was like, okay, cool. He's like, one, do you think, you know, next year around Memorial Day or for the July you come up and talk to my church?

I was like, yeah, I was like, sure, like I'd love to do that. And it kind of goes back to like, I need to interject more faith into my speaking and my testimony, right? Because if I leave that out, I'm not doing it justice. And I'm lying. And he goes, one more thing, and he goes, this is, he's like, I've been thinking about this for weeks. He's like, I've been thinking about this for two weeks. He said two weeks exactly. And he goes, I don't know why.

Why I'm even asking this. He goes, I do know why, but it's just kind of crazy. And he's like, I really have no, and he was really worried about my reaction to what he was about to say. And he goes, you've been on my mind. And I was like, I want to be like, that's not really how you started a conversation

with another dude, bro. But he's like, I can't stop thinking about you. I've been praying for you. He's like, you've just been way in heavy on my mind. And he goes, I have a gift of I can write really good testimonies in a good way that you can tell your testimony and how God interjected and how it does, you know, it did certain things for you. And he said that, and I was just talking to Keith about this a couple days before.

It's crazy. And I was just talking to Keith about this a couple days before It's crazy. I was blown away I was like what the heck and so I Said sure I'm like sure, okay, like that that's good. He's like well just you know think about it and Pray about it and like when he said pray about I wasn't like okay What does that mean weird? I was like okay? I will and I will and I did and. And like when he said pray about it, I wasn't like, okay, what does that mean? Where does that mean? Where does it mean? I was like, okay, I will. And I did. And I was like, okay, I feel good.

You know, I feel good about it. And he's like, let's talk, you know, next week. He texted me like, let's talk in a couple of days after you have time to digest a process. So we talked. And I think I didn't mention, so I told you this book was called Fassad. And then it was like, when it's Keith and I started, it was within war.

Just because like what I'm feeling within, like the war within Sidahmeah, there's like a freaking combat zone in here, bro, and my heart and my head everywhere, every little piece of my body. And then the war being in Afghanistan, Iraq, you know, Africa, all that stuff. And so it was within war. And then it just changed when we got to the publisher to be on a parade. So I have this call with his pastor and he goes, he goes, hey, Eddie, I really don't know a lot about you. He's like, I listen to a couple podcasts.

And then you get the book out. He's like, I need to read that. So I really get to know you just so I can deliver a better testimony speech, whatever you want or sermon. And I was like, let me cite right there. We're not going to call it a sermon. We're going to call it a battle cry. I'm like, we're going to warrior. Like, I've been convicted. It's warrior. It's warrior to teach people warrior. We've got enough soft crap going on that we don't need that anymore. We don't need, we don't need more. And I'm not ripping on the soft crap. on that we don't need that anymore. We don't need we don't need more. And not ripping on the soft crap. We need that compassion. We need that love. We do need that. But just think about it when you talk to your kid. But at the same time, when evil brings

its head up into your face, you need to be ready to fight. And we're not we're not equipped. We are not equipped. It's like us going overseas and we don't have any body armor and we have a gun with no ammunition. That's how we are right now. Yeah. I'm carrying stuff, but I can't do anything with it because I don't know how, I don't have it.

And so he goes, okay, battle cry it is. And so he goes into, he's like, here's what I'm thinking. I'm like, I was like, I've been thinking about the same thing for probably like the last year. He was like, he's like verifying every thought that I've been thinking about the same thing for probably like the last year. He was like, he's like verifying every thought that I've been having. Then I thought I was just like, Eddie,

you're thinking about yourself here, you're going off on your own. This is something you want to do, which I'm trying not to do. And he goes, I also want to send you my book to read, just so you know who I am, kind of what I believe, just so we, you know, before we work together. And I was like, sure.

And he goes, so my book is called The War Within and I go would you just say and he goes The War Within and I was like as I dude we the book on a parade was going to be called Within War forever like years and it changed at the last minute and he's sending me a book now called The War Within like you can't make this up. No you can't. You can't make it up. Another coincidence. Another coincidence. And I'm like dude okay like all right so like my passion and what I think you know where it's taken me and being verified by individuals not even that I know, you know, it's coming to life. I read his book and it was like eye opening. It just really eye opening stuff. And it was a great book. And so he just, day before we came here, before I came here, he sent me the first draft

of the testimony, it was like six pages, and it was like good stuff. It was like my story, cause he knows my story, he's like, you plug in this story here. He's like, we're gonna work through this, we'll change some stuff up, and it was like, you can't make this stuff up.

The timing. Yeah. I mean, how many coincidences do we wanna call out here? You can't make this stuff up. The timing. Yeah, I mean how many quints of this is doing what I call out here? We've called out a lot. Yeah, it's not. And I'm convicted. I'm convicted on what it is and I really just think like my next my next chapter As I'm fighting for God, man, I'm like going to be that warrior and I'm going to tell people my experience because that's all I have to go off of based off of his word and what I've

experienced and how you process and what you take in is up to you and up to him. I have nothing but to tell the story. And I'm fine with that. And to encourage people, and to motivate people, and to give, because I've taken too long. How's it feel to get up there and speak? I like it. You like it? I do. Do you get a rush out of it? I wouldn't say a rush, but I feel I feel very comfortable and I feel it's where I'm supposed to be. It's like, okay, this is my domain,

this room's supposed to be. And it's just good to fill people. I can see, just seeing their faces, like it clicks, oh, like I'm like, oh yes, cool, rock on it. How do you give your speeches, do you give? It's more based off like a mindset. Your mindset. And I may use past experiences. Why, I mean, does that's all I have to go off of? Yeah. Of what worked for me, what helped for me,

and I just kind of go off of that and talk about the mindset piece. And now I feel I'm talking to my first church in December, possibly at the same time, maybe before this thing comes out. And I'm excited. I'm really excited just to be in God's presence. And I have a, I feel when I get up there and it's my floor being in that arena, no matter what the structure looks like or what it is, knowing what it is,

I'm going to lose it. And I'm okay with that. Good for you. I'm okay with that. Do you want this out before that speech? You do your thing, man. You do your thing. But yeah, I think that's what I'm supposed to be. I think I'm supposed to be encouraging, talking about faith. That's what I think I'm supposed to do.

I think I'm supposed to be producing the gear that helps people. Like, my daughter's wear this, my son wears this, my son's wear this, Amanda will wear it, my wife. And they'll just walk down the stairs and I'll just see on a parade and that, just sing in that. I'm like, that's right. I'm going to tackle everything.

I'm not going to be afraid of it. I'm going to go do it. And yeah, just accountability. I love it. Good for you. I love it. How'd you meet your wife? And so that's like the biggest, that's a big piece.

So God is awesome. God is awesome. He was the savior of my life. Christ was the savior of my life, 100%. Meeting my wife is like a whole nother type of awesome. I mean, you know what it is, right? Like you're, I really believe we've seen the, the pictures on media, your only, the man is only as good as the woman next to him. And I really believe that. And I, I, I see, see that now. When I moved down to Texas after I was at Cincinnati for a brief time, I moved down and I went into the gym

and I walked over the first day. I'll never forget it. Then I was in a relationship at the time. And I looked over and I saw my wife amanda. She was just a nobody at the time. And she was on the stairs, stepper, on our little perch looking over the gym, donor, on her stairs, black yoga pants, hair up, and a bun, looking over the gem donor on our stairs black yoga pants hair up in a bun with a red tank top on and I was like stay away from that woman that is bad news. I like that is going to make me do some things that I've done in the past and I don't want to go there again. And so I but see you're there quite often at the gym. Just her schedule would

work out. I would be lying if I say I didn't tweak some scheduling pieces to go outside with hers. But I didn't talk to her. I kept my distance. I knew what would happen if I ever talked to her. And I was right. She was going through a divorce. She had two kids. I had my kids. Only two of them at that time.

One was out of the house. Two were with me and I was with another woman. And we were going through some stuff. We were on the verge of breaking up. She was going through a divorce. And we just became friends. There was, it's the first woman I've been with that there was nothing physical. I didn't hold her hand. I didn't kiss her for like two years. For two years. Nothing. What was the initial conversation? I guess one of her friends is shot. What's that? What did you need a spot?

You can go spot. She said what I guess one of her friends came over. I don't know if she asked her friend to come over or she just did, but I'm sure they were I get tell they were talking about me which secretly I loved. The validation, right? So she comes over, she goes her friend. she's like, so you in a relationship, I'm like, I am. And she goes, oh, okay. And we just started like going back and forth. And then she goes, so you're not in a relationship. And she like changed her wording. So she asked me first, are you in a relationship? And I go, yes. And then we do this conversation. And I'm like looking over

at Amanda, knowing why she's asking me this conversation and I'm like looking over at Amanda, knowing why she's asking me this. I know it's because of her. I know it. You just know. And she goes, so you're not in a relationship. And I go, that's right, I'm not, I go, no. I just say no.

Or I say, or I go, yeah, I go, yeah. I just get fusing. And then when she left, I'm like, oh my God, I just said I wasn't in a relationship. Like I was like crap, I was so flustered. Knowing he was her, like Amanda's gorgeous. Like she just, she takes it. Like I understand the song, take my breath away.

From top gun, I get it. From top gun. The original. And so she probably goes tells her, yeah, he doesn't have a girlfriend And so she probably goes, tells her, yeah, he doesn't have a girlfriend or is not with anyone. And so Amanda goes down, she knows a friend that works in the office at the gym

and she goes, look this guy up. She like, saw me come in one day. She's like, somebody that, let me see all the people that just like they're calling the last 15 minutes. So they get it up, she pulls it up, sees who it is, goes to media, figures it out, and she's like, and there was,

my girlfriend was attached to the account. She's like, okay, this guy has a girlfriend. Okay. And so we eventually start talking, her dad, she like, I can't remember how that first was, we just started to make a little comments to each other, like little things, nothing crazy, then we just started like talking,

just like a friendship kind of developed. Like there was no, dude, there was nothing. Like a little harmless flirting. Is that what we're going? I would even say that. I mean, it got there, but at first it was like, like I asked her, she like, hey, do you need a job? Like I need someone to do background checks

because I don't want to do it anymore. And like it's something that she could do remotely as long as she's not to do it. And so she started working for Contenture Group and she was just like a friend, like God on a truth, a friend. We didn't do anything, but we started working out at the same time, sort of like talking to each other.

And then my relationship ended and then her divorce was getting bad. And she was kind of like me talking to her, then she would talk to me. And there was like some ups and downs with the relationships. And then we finally just said, hey, let's, let's, you know, let's see each other. After her, you know, she was done with her situation and all that stuff And we just that was it it came exclusive and like That woman's got my heart man that can tell cheese got my heart. She loves the inner man She is my best friend she

I know I get new judgment judgment for her and she holds me accountable, which I can't stand sometimes, but that girl holds me accountable. She will be like, you are being a loser, like, stop. I was like, okay. I mean, just, just don't life with her. It's heavy, oh man. It's heavy, man. Thank you. It's, it's a greatest thing. So we were doing the book. We got to finish it up with me proposing to her. I went and talked to her mother because her dad passed who was a group of spec ops dude and Vietnam with the army and had a security company like the same stuff.

That's weird. So I guess I would say a lot of the same things that he would say. I would be messing around, be like, okay, pumpkin. And she would be like, what did you just say? And I'd be like, pumpkin. I'm just joking around with you.

And she goes, my dad used to call me that all the time. Like that was happening all the time. One more coincidence for you, to show you, or to show everyone pretty much and myself. We we got we we did a Montana trip. We did that road trip I discussed with you and I proposed to earth a grand t-tons up in Jackson Hole and it was awesome. We did you know 13-day like Kitten Montana, shooting over to South Dakota, coming back, Colorado, all that stuff. And we got engaged on that trip.

And then so we, the venue we wanted, we couldn't get until, we just had it like two weeks ago, our ceremony. But we got married, went to the courthouse, got married. And I was like, hey, why don't we go get some dinner, like celebrate somehow? And she goes, okay, cool.'t we go get some dinner, like celebrate somehow. And she goes, okay, cool. So we go to like our favorite little Italian place. And I text my son. I was like, he was the only one. I think that her kids were somewhere else

and mine was gone somewhere. And I was like, hey, do you see me? Look at the menu. Here's the website. Tell me what you want. We'll bring it home for you. We're gonna grab a bite to eat. I go, okay. So he sends what you want and we'll bring it home for you. We're gonna grab a bite to eat. I go, okay. So he sends what he wants, it's like the most expensive thing. And I'm like, in so Amanda's like, he's not getting that, like dude, it might be my son's palate, it's like ridiculous.

He's like wanting red snap or why all the other kids want chicken nuggets. And it's like, it's good to have kids test or taste everything. But dude, when they start liking, it's like your bills like now $900 when it's supposed to be $9 But amie's like he eats at eats at all. I love sushi. He loves it all But I was like what did that so we got him something else and I was like what did that? What did he want so I like look at the menu? I was like dude that does look good

So I got that and it was like clams mussels Calamari and like some pasta with some marinara. So we get it and you know, we say grace and right that earlier that day, I did a podcast and I have to rehash past relationships my past. And it's hard for her to hear sometimes. Yeah.

I mean, rightfully so, I understand. I really do. But I try to explain like, hey, I have to talk about my past. I've got to talk about all the bad things. Otherwise, the redemption and pulling myself out of very dark place means nothing. I've got to set the stage. And we were talking about that. And I

might get all good. Like we're it's it's good. Everything's fine. And I felt bad for her. I was like, I don't want her to relive this. I want her to read. I want us to live us right now. And so I take a bite. I dig into a clam and I get the meat out with my fork and pop in the meat, enjoying all of a sudden I get this crunch. I said, what the heck? I thought like, I'm molar or some kind of weird cap that the Navy put in has fallen out. And so I, like a fact, I eat all the food around whatever is in my mouth, this forward object. I pulled out. And I'm like, you got to be kidding me. It was a freaking white pearl. What? It was a white pearl. Not a black pearl, not a piece of rock. It was a white pearl that you would

see if I'm going to go pick out a piece of jewelry and get it for my girlfriend, fiance, or wife. That's what you would pick. That's what you would be one of those. Are you serious? It's where I got, I could not believe it. I could not believe it. And she thought I staged it, which I was like, man, I really should of.

That's a great idea. But I'm like, I'm like, what the heck? I'm like, we're like, we're looking at this thing, we're just like, we're putting like a napkin and our waitress comes by, I'm like, we just found a pearl. In this waitress we use all the time, she's been there for 20 something years

at this restaurant. She's like, never has anyone found anything like that. And she's like, I'm gonna see it. And we show her, she's like, oh my God. She's like, you just found that? We're like, yeah. Like, yeah. And we like, so she's like, oh my God. She's like, you just found that? We're like, yeah. Like, yeah. And we like, so we start googling, right? Because Google tells all. And it's like, the chances of finding a pearl in a clam or oyster is like every 10,000. Clam is more is more rare. But usually when you find a pearl or what we would consider there's like, there's like,

multiple, like, five different colors. There's black ones, there's all these different colors. The chances of finding like a white pearl is like, it's just not gonna happen. It doesn't really happen. Another coincidence. So I'm like, and it's, and we're looking at, like what is the meaning of this?

One of the meaning of it, and it says, you know, like it says new beginnings, wisdom. And it's just like all these things, it's like, oh my God, what's happening? Like, what the heck? And I go, and after I process, once again, I start crying. And I'm like, do you understand this? And she goes, what do you mean? I go, we

just got married today. This is a gift from God. I truly believe that that was a gift from God. It still is a gift from God. I believe it. The quince it dances. It doesn't add up. It doesn't work that way. It does not work that way. So we call our moms. She's talking to her mom on her phone.

I'm talking to my mom explaining this. They're trying. We're trying. I had to like, she called her good friend. She's crying. I had to call Dom. He's starting to choke up. I'm like explaining all this,

like trying to like calm down on my dude Can you freaking believe that this is insane? And it's just like finally I have trying to like Get my life That was like a tangible sign like hey, you're on the right track to me That's what I felt like it's like hey, you're doing good. Keep going. Good job. Here's your water. Here's a cliff bar. Keep going. And it was just, it felt really good.

So we took that pearl and we turned into a bracelet and we keep it where we always have these two seats where we have coffee and we got a little I call it the battle box And it's the clam the clam that it came out of and this pearl bracelet sits in it with a bunch of pictures Oh, man, so anytime we're arguing with each other we pull out that battle box and we put this on top and it's like do you remember this? And we hash it out And it's really cool good for you and minus her rings That was the only piece of jewelry she wore. Was that pearl.

This past weekend. It was... I'll make sure I give you the picture. I'm really happy for you. I... And only if... Only when... I finally started to listen, I stopped listening to myself and started listening to him.

And since I did, like I said, when I quit drinking, things started changing a lot. And I mentioned that pastor that reached out, he's like, I've been thinking about you two weeks ago. Exactly two weeks of the day is when I stop drinking. To that day, I'm not making this up. Wow. Yeah, man. It's beautiful.

It really is. It's beautiful. And it's not like it's all, like I said before, peaches and cream are walking through the field of daisies. It's still deadly, a fricking grind, man, to try to do the right thing, dealing with kid issues, wife issues, work issues, friend issues, the news, current events, it's still a battle. But we can choose how we handle those, and there's certain things that we can do to make this and this better You know, yeah, there is happiness is a choice. Oh, 100% 100% it is yeah, it really is and

Yeah You got it I do I see it all over you I do and I appreciate that man. That means a lot it really does Yeah, I'm very happy man. I'm very happy with my wife my wife is I love her so much I can tell I do what's this podcast you guys are doing together So we have the penny so we have two podcasts We got the unafraid podcast where we kind of like talk about the chapters and we're starting to do other things now but then we got the Penny's podcast

which we just started having these conversations and we're like, I was like, man, why don't we, we should do a podcast over this? Or she said it and I was like, okay. So being true to my word, I just started ordering a bunch of stuff off Amazon. Got it sent up and just took a room that we were like, I was a sitting room. Like, all right, this is the new podcast. Actually, I had jujitsu mats everywhere that the boys and I would just mess around with and do fighting stuff on.

So I ripped those out and made a podcast room. And we just wanted to be real. Like we just said, we want to be real. Talk about relationship things. She talks a lot about having to deal with me. My anger, certain issues, the drinking. We laid out that. We talk about it all. We talk about a lot of stuff, faith stuff, the struggles. We talk about it. We're just real, man. We're just real. And I loved on that podcast with her.

We just get so close and I can just see her working. And I just, I think that's probably one of the best times that I truly understand what she's talking about and what she's getting. And it's good. It's really good. Yeah, it's fun. I like watching it.

You guys interact with each other. It's a good example for a lot of... I don't think there's a lot of happy married couples. I don't think there is either. I've had two of them. That were unhappy. You see that at least me and my wife say when we hang around couples who aren't happy they

get they it's just not a good atmosphere to be in a sense you can sense jealousy you can sense they want your relationship to crash they want to drag it out on your level and end up so putting things out like that like what you and Amanda are doing, it's just a good example for married couples.

I appreciate that man. That's good to hear. Yeah. That's good to hear. It's hard to do them sometimes because the mindset's going to be in a certain place, especially for her, she's like, I really just don't feel like I just don't feel like it and I am We have a discussion about this actually like two weeks ago. I was like

We'll be amp to do a podcast and she will like it's time to do the podcast and She'll get a real bad headache or she'll get really tired or she'll make I just don't want to do it and it happened like two or three times. And like on the third or fourth time, I was like, I was like, do you realize that we will have it ready to go? We know we're gonna talk about, we don't like plan. We just, we just want a free flow, right?

Shoot from the hip. But we have a topic, right? Because of based off of something. I was like, do you realize that this has been happening right before we're about to do a podcast? I was like, is it possible that you're getting these feelings because this message shouldn't go out to help all these different people? Like, it's not a coincidence that you're feeling that. And it goes back to that spiritual war of herpes. And calling it out like, dude, we gotta fight this. Like, let's go, we're pushing through this.

We've gotta do it. Yeah. It's helping others, man. Yeah. It's helping others much like this show is gonna help others. Just like I watched your shows that I'm not on and it helps me.

I mean, listen to Chip Lee, I was like, dude, man, wow. Like it was good. I mean, I hate hearing that. And hate to hear other buddies go through that. But at the same time, it's like, dude, man, wow. Like it was good. I mean, I hate hearing that. And hate to hear other buddies go through that. But at the same time, it's like, okay, I'm not alone. It's normal. Yeah. It's not normal, but it's, you know what I mean.

Yeah, you know what I mean? Is the podcast still on, it's not unafraid? Already penny. The podcast is on everything, like YouTube, Spotify, it's on unafraid or any penny. The podcast is on everything like YouTube, Spotify, it's on everything, but you can get if you go to edipenny.com, I put some of them up there, but I have links to all the podcast on all my profiles.

I got like the link tree or whatever. Yeah. It goes to anything and everything. Okay, we'll link it below. How do you guys pick your topics? Me and my wife do a podcast who are very similar, but not so similar, where we just, we call ours, it's not just us, and it's bringing up struggles

and the whole point is be like, look, this is what social media looks like, but that's not what we're dealing with. There's a real, we're a real couple behind the scenes, we're real struggles. Not this facade. Yeah. And so we put it out there in hopes of people like,

oh, we deal with that shit. We get advice from it. We've gone 100%. Oh, absolutely. It goes both ways. It goes both ways. You're just kind of starting the conversation. Yeah.

And we just kind of go over what we're honestly dealing with or struggling with. We'll go over some just kind of starting the conversation. Yeah. And, uh, yeah, we just kind of go over, honestly, dealing with or struggling with. We'll go over some of that at the time. Yeah. Like, in some of it, like, oh, man, we should have talked about this or we, we, or another couple or something. We might hear about something and we're like, let's talk about this. But usually it's stuff that we go through. Like, I talked about my anger, like getting the gangling block shots did really nothing for me. We talked about that stuff.

We talked about that vision I had about the craziness that's been going on, the coincidences, just like crazy stuff. We just talked about it. Yeah. But a lot of the struggles, I mean, we called the PTSD piece a lot because she lives with it. She had to deal with her father. And now she's dealing with me. So she understands it very well.

That's how she'd been probably deal with me. And I'm much better now, but I still have my issues, man. It's got a way better since I quit drinking, but... What's something you would like to work on? The cussing still. The cussing? Yeah, but I mean, I don't wanna get, I have a tendency if I'm upset with someone

that I can kind of pretty much treat you like you're dead. I don't wanna do that. I can do it with my kids. I do that. I kids. I do that. I don't like doing that. You're almost like you're dead to me until I'm over-pouting. And then I can come back and be getting engaged

like nothing ever happened. I wanna get better at that. I wanna look at it for what it is. And be like, okay, you're a child. I'm a 40-for-year-old man. That claims to be mentally tough, right? Like I said, man, I still struggle like just like the next guy. I just fix one thing and move on to the next.

But that would probably be my number one thing is that the patience and the understanding and the grace. A little bit more. Okay, that's my battle right now. That's my battlefield. ending in the grease a little bit more. Oh, God. That's my battle right now. That's my battlefield. Well, Eddie, I just, man, I'm happy you came. I'm glad I got the invite, buddy. I appreciate it.

It was awesome to see you, dude. You too. And well done on this podcast. Like, you've got a very good podcaster, dude. You too. And well done on this podcast. Like, you've got a very good podcaster, dude. I'm very proud of you. Thank you. And like, I'm just glad things are working out for you. Got the family.

You're getting over ruined by Californians. Like, I'm just... I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's good to see your brothers like don't well, man. Yeah. I love it.

I love it. So just Keep going keep going. I know you will I will you too. I got one last question. Yes, sir You have a son I do your wife has two sons So I have a right now. I have a 13 year old son I have an 18 year old daughter and a 23 year old daughter. She has a seven year old son and a 10 year old daughter So we all we both have all these. Okay, that's what that's what she brought in she brought in two I have three Okay, all the ones in the house from my side right now. So we have three total in the house after everything you've been through Would you want your sons? Did you in the military and go to war?

your sons, to join the military and go to war. Am I allowed to pick a good government? That's... Would you want your children to experience what you experienced? No. And yes. No. Because I don't want them to have to deal with the aftermath. No, because I don't want them to have to deal with the aftermath. Yes, because I want them to understand evil and I want them to live.

And I know that sounds kind of weird going to war living, but it makes sense. That's living. And fighting for a great country, no matter what the tabloid said, this is a great country. And this is no matter what the tabloid said, this is a great country. The people of this country are great people. What we stand for is a great country. That flag is great.

Yes, I would want them to stand up, but only, only if their heart and soul is in it. That's it. If their heart and soul is not in it, then I would want to do it. If they felt forced to do it, I wouldn't want to do it. But they wanted to it. If they fiend it, if they craved it, absolutely. And I know the baggage that comes with it, and I would be there to support them the best I possibly could. Well thanks for answering that. Yeah, but once again Eddie, it was a real honor to have you here sitting across from me and I just wish you the best of luck with the contingent group without afraid with your book, with your next book coming out, your podcast, your personal life,

your family life. Likewise, my friend. Likewise. Thank you. It's good to see you where you are. It's good. Thank you. Sorry, let me.

Thank you. Appreciate it. I'm not going to let you down. I'm not going to let you down. I'm not going to let you down. I'm not going to let you down. I'm not going to let you down. I'm not going to let you down. I'm not going to let you down. I'm not going to let you down. I'm not going to let you down.

I'm not going to let you down. I'm not going to let you down. I'm not going to let you down. I'm not going to let you down. I'm not going to let you down. I'm not going to let you down. I'm not going to let you down. I'm not going to let you down. I'm not going to let you down. I'm not going to let you down. I'm not going to let you down. I'm not going to let you down. I'm not going to let you down. I'm not going to let you down. I'm not going to let you down. I'm not going to let you down. I'm not going to let you down. I'm not going to let you down. I'm not going to let you down. I'm not going to let you down. I'm not going to let you down. I'm not going to let you down. I'm not going to let you down. I'm not going to let you down. I'm not going to let you down. I'm not going to let you down. I'm not going to let you down. I'm not going to let you down. I'm not going to let you down. I'm not going to let you down. I'm not going to let you down. 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. The Bullwalk Podcast, wherever you listen.