Shawn Ryan Show - #77 Tom Satterly - The Battle of Mogadishu "Black Hawk Down" 30th Anniversary | Part 2

Episode Date: October 3, 2023

This week on SRS, we welcome Command SGT Major (R), Tom Satterly to the show. Satterly is a former Delta Force Operator with over twenty years of combat experience. He has participated in operations all across the globe. We're breaking his incredible story into a three part series. Part 2 Thirty years ago, on October 3, 1993, U.S. forces planned to seize two of Mohammed Farah Aidid's top lieutenants during a meeting deep in Mogadishu. The raid was only intended to last an hour, but exploded into an overnight standoff and rescue operation extending into the daylight hours of the next day. Operation Gothic Serpent would claim the lives of 18 U.S. service members–the deadliest battle since Vietnam. Tom Satterly was on the ground that day. This is his story. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://lairdsuperfood.com - USE CODE "SRS" https://1stphorm.com/srs https://bubsnaturals.com/shawn - USE CODE "SHAWN" https://puretalk.com/ryan Tom Satterly Links: Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/tomsatterly All Secure Foundation - https://www.allsecurefoundation.org All Secure Foundation IG - https://www.instagram.com/allsecurefoundation Books - https://www.allsecurefoundation.org/category/books Please leave us a review on Apple & Spotify Podcasts. Vigilance Elite/Shawn Ryan Links: Website | Patreon | TikTok | Instagram | Download Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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previously on the Sean Ryan show yeah grip and Columbus, Indiana was still small town cornfield well what got your interest? a friend of mine one of my best friends in high school had joined the military and a minute. You're crazy, man. I was like, I'm off the basic training, and I'll be back in about two or three months. So what was the briefing like when you guys were going over? No news is good news.

Tell your families that no news is good news. We don't know when we're coming back. We don't know if we're going to do We don't know if we're gonna do anything. But we want to go catch a D. I saw a guy across the street pop out of the Naked Cane. Ain't but up. He either shot him right in the head or whatever. He disappeared in the room and his weapon flew out the window.

Was that your first kill? The guy on the roof? Yeah. So that was exciting for you. It was. Well, before we head into three October, let's take another quick break. It was. Well, before we head into 3 October, let's take another quick break. Yeah.

It's October 3rd, 2023, and today marks the 30th anniversary of the battle Mogadishu, which was part of Operation Gothic Serpent, which was in Mogadishu, Somalia. Many of you know this event from the famous movie Black Hawk Down. Now Operation Gothic Serpent took place because the Somali National Alliance was starving their citizens to death. So, US forces went in there to help these people out. And it was an operation that took a lot of casualties. 18 U.S. service members killed 73 wounded. On the other side, casualties are much heavier. They estimate in between 300 and 700 casualties on the national alliance, a lot of trauma, a lot of death. It's important that we document these type of events and we learn from them. And we honor the men and women who both fought in those battles and more importantly,

who died and didn't return home from those battles. Today we have a new friend of mine, retired Delta operator. This is his last time he will ever speak of this publicly. And it's a real honor to be able to document his testimony. Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, please welcome for tired Delta operator Tom Satterley to the Sean Ryan show.

Now take just a moment and pay respects to the men who fought and died that day. God bless America. All right, Tom, we're back from the break. We're getting ready to get into October 3rd, which I know is a very somber memory for you. But I'm going to, I'm just going to spit out a couple

of facts and then we'll get into that day. Happened in Mogadisha, Somalia, October 3rd, 1993, began as a one-hour mission, launched with the mission with Irene, Irene, Irene, was the longest sustained firefight since Vietnam. You guys were fighting with depleted resources, limited water, limited ammunition, limited medical supplies. A lot of you were extremely dehydrated and a lot of physical suffering. Change the way that Delta and the Armed Forces conducted missions from that day forward. 18 American soldiers were killed that day. You guys were fighting with less than favorable

rules of engagement and these countries, Somalia, do not fight under the Geneva Convention standards. So I just wanted to bring a couple of facts up before we get into that. the Geneva Convention standards. So I just wanted to bring a couple of facts up before we get into that. And then you have also stated in previous interviews that American soldiers' body parts began showing up at the base gate in trash bags. Let's start with the trash bags.

What hurts me the most about the trash bags probably happened a couple years ago. Talking to one of the spouses, his body parts were in the trash bag. And she can't use trash bags. She just can't use trash bags anymore to think of that. I don't know what the delivery was for. I don't know if it was to give them back. And that's just the only way to do it if they hacked them apart and drug them to the street. But I mean, that's sad when you, that's how you identify people

who's in body parts and trash bags delivered to your front gate. I think it might have been of something to try to appease us maybe, to slow us down from what I think they knew would be hell unleashing that we wanted to yeah or taunting you know I don't know what their purpose was but it's certainly angered everyone who were these guys I think the body parts were from probably Park Gary Gordon and Randy Schugart and maybe one of the crew chiefs that they had overrun that crash site number two. The guys had gone in. Once the guys got on the ground and fought their way too,

I'm two other snipers. It requested me put in three times. We're denied and then finally, given the okay to go in, just crash site number two. I mean, they didn't find anything. It was too late. Everybody had been taken out. They'd captured Durant.

And so they came about next filled back out. But I think all the body parts came from that crash site. Oh, man. Cause we stuck around our crash site all night waiting for body parts to get the pilots. They were buried underneath the helicopter that had flipped as it crashed. And so we couldn't get them out until we had a heavy vehicle to pull it, you know, the helicopter away.

And so that's why we ended up staying there the whole night to repatriate those bodies that were kept, you know, caught underneath the helicopter. I don't even, I couldn't even tell you how many days after that the body part showed up. It was just a haze for me. I just was angry. I wanted to go back out and I wanted to kill everybody. It's just a response, you know? A traumatic response to, like, how dare you? Where the US, you know?

That was simple of a thought process was that for me? How dare you were the good guys? I just remember thinking that night, just let us go. Just let us out of this house and we'll go home, you know? Just let us ease on out of here. And let's stop all this shit, you know? Of course it didn't but Yeah, that was a long night

Let's go to the morning of October 3rd. Let's just go through the whole day Yeah, I'm ever waking up and it was a sunny day. It was nice And they were gonna make I think they had decided already to play some volleyball like officers versus NCOs and whatnot. I'm everything. I'm going to go out for a run. I'm waiting to play volleyball. So I went out.

I was going to go out for a run around the airport. And remember I was leaving. They had taped the commander to a cot and propped him up as one of the players And so they couldn't count him as a player So trying to spike the ball into his face and whatnot, but I remember seeing that when I was leaving laughing It was completely taped at this cot And I went off from my run Halfway through the run maybe um, Pagers went off I'd try to run all the way back and as fast as I could

It was like one of those oh my god. I can't believe I'm halfway out on a five-mile run I'd turn and run all the way back and it was fast I could. It was like one of those, oh my God, I can't believe I'm halfway out and I'm five mile round. I get to run all the way back and get it up and get on the helos. By the time I got back, they're already firing the helos up. People are starting to run out and I'm kitten up.

It's fast I can and grabbed everything I could. And, you know, what's going on? I'll be back in an hour, you know, some of those things. Okay, I don't need nose, I don't need water. I'm gone, let's go. But everybody kind of thought that. Everybody did the same thing. Load up and he wasn't sat there for a while.

I mean, we sat there for a little bit. I didn't know what it was going on, but it was the guy on the ground, sitting in the signal in front of the wrong building, kind of thing. Yes, they're here, you know, as he's afraid to do it, put up the VS17 panel and show us in the sky that yes, this is the meeting house kind of thing.

So we're waiting for that develop. We're sitting on the helicopter. We don't know there's just blades are turning we're waiting How many of you guys are there? I want to say it all 90 maybe ish with the Rangers and everything Total and 90 how many Delta guys Hmm, let's see let me do the math Well, I think we plussed up with other squadron people. Well, I know we did. So it would have been six, maybe 40, maybe, maybe, mostly

Rangers, you know, mostly, they're the larger element too. Surround us so we can do our job. It didn't work out that way. Yeah, so made a back sit on the bird waiting. Team leader comes out and starts screaming. You know what we're doing? That's blah, blah, blah. You're going here.

I'm like, okay, it's just like always, right? I think call the Irene Irene Irene, we take off and launch and next thing, you know, it's browning out already. We're starting to come in, it's already browned out. The little birds have made a gun run. The other little birds have come in and landed on the corners of the buildings wherever they need to go. So they're on top. And it just the black cost came in for the rangers to set them on the outer perimeter and it browned everything out. So our heel, how to get set on outside the perimeter. We were supposed to get dropped right in front of the target.

We had to drop outside the perimeter in a clear area and we start taking fire. So we had to identify any house to go in for cover. So we just picked a house, when I remember this huge man, just this huge man standing there in front of me, like, but a gentle huge man, just huge man standing there in front of me. Like, but a gentle, huge man, you know? And women behind him screaming and he's holding a baby,

like a little baby in his hands, and I'm trying to pull him over to get him to get away from the door and to take a knee. My friends come in and scream, because he doesn't see the baby nice. This big man turned around and thinks I'm struggling with him, you know, and he's trying to get this big man to kick him out behind the knees and I'm trying to know, grab him the baby. I'm trying to keep the baby. And the guy goes down to his knees, hand him the baby and they cuff him and made a plan like, how do we get out of here? We got to get out of here and get back around to the target. So we just kind of devised a quick plan, waited for things to settle down

in the dirt and everything so we could see. Pulled back out of the house, turned back down the road we were on. And I remember moving on both sides of the street. And me and the other guy, Jake, were in the middle. And I remember two vehicles, really nice vehicles coming out of that area. With nice stress, you know, four nice stress men in each one. And I thought, stop the vehicles. Screaming on a team layer, Pete, what do we do? Hey, this could be them, this might be him, you know?

And it's like, it's not the target, keep going. Oh my God, we keep going. I mean, I don't know, right? What is the target? It is just one of the houses that they were having a meeting in. A bunch of the deeds leaders were having a meeting there. It was just a home. And it was a capture kill?

Yeah, okay. Yeah, hopefully to capture to get information on a deed. Not sadly, but most of them died on the ex-fill in the five time by their own people. But, fought our way into that target and they had already had everyone detained, you know, handcuffed, but they had pulled out to move to another building to pull a security so we went in and it starts searching the building. Find an AK's here and there underneath stuff, you know, handcuffed, but they had pulled out to move to another building to pull a security so we went in and it starts searching the building. Find an AK's here and there underneath stuff, you know, they had these huge 50 pound bags

of sugar. They were making Coca-Cola or something there. That was weird. I remember searching up top, like pulling out these 50 pound bags of sugar and looking underneath them and one guy was handcuffed on the ground already and I remember dropping one of those bags and landing on it. It's like, let out this moan, I'm like, oh man, I didn't want to do that, right?

And so we searched in the whole place and I'm asking people questions and nobody's answering, you know, and I just say it there, I'm like, who knows a combo to the safe? Nobody's saying, all right, a interpreter, who knows a combo to the safe? I ask him, nobody says anything.

Okay, next person that doesn't know the combo to the safe is gonna get shot in the face, you know, it's like, oh, it's a combo to this. I man? Somebody says anything. Okay, next person that doesn't know the combo to say, it's gonna get shot in the face. It's like, oh, it's the combo's it. So I'm like, oh, that works. Threatening people works. So open up the safe, sack, Somali money. And I'm like, yes, I have a big score for me, right? Put it in a garbage bag, you know,

and cash in a garbage bag. I got on my shoulder. We're gonna ex-fill. And I'm gonna have this bag of cash, you know, I won the day. And so we're prepping for X-Fill. And I hear an RPG and it's an explosion. And looking out on the street, it's one of the five times

got hit. And I'm like, oh, like, whoa, you know, like we're getting, we're getting hit now. That's weird. The fact that we had already taken fire on infill, and we had already lost one ranger who fell 90 feet of blackburn. I don't know what I either didn't grab the rope the brown out whatever fell 90 feet and landed instantly had a meta back for him

And so they I think they loaded them up on a humbee and we're driving back to try to get him which saved his life So we're down those people and that was on infill Catch back up to prepping to ex-fill now. I remember moving around that building to another courtyard probably off of that building. The metal walls, you know, the metal gates that they open and close. There was a car parked in there and there was two teams in there. My team and I don't know another team from us and then some Rangers and we'd shut the

gate. We're kind of waiting on the vehicle convoy to roll up and we'll get in and we'll go home. At public mobile, we do things differently. From our subscription phone plans to throwing a big sale right now when no one else is. Well, maybe they are, but who cares, our sale is better. And it's on right now, no waiting necessary. You have the latest phone. Now, take advantage of a great price on a 5G subscription phone plan. It's the perfect deal for anyone who could use some savings right now.

Subscribe today at publicmobile.ca. Different is calling. And I thought, I'ma slash that, that was it first. I remember standard waiting decks film laughing, I got the bag of cash in my shoulder, we were talking, and I hope he make it back for dinner. You know, we're still cracking jokes. And then that ranger's neck just opened up right there. And they kind of fell over.

And you see a hole in the metal gate. And I'm like, oh shit, the medics jump on him, start grabbing up his neck. And I'm like, oh, this is growing into something worse. You know, I remember getting nervous, but still we're gonna be home for dinner, right? You know, just joking around and then another RPG and I'm ever looking up and seeing it hit the helicopter The tail of the helicopter you saw it head. Yeah, and it just started auto-rotating. I'm like, oh man. No, no, no, you know

And it crashed a little bit northwest of us or northeast of us and And it crashed a little bit northwest of us, or northeast of us, and devised into the quick plan, right, calling up higher, whatever team leaders doing at the time, I know now, it was calling up higher, getting, you know, where's it at, guide me to it, get the con, woulda go to it, you know, the mission had just changed, you know,

and we gotta get to that helo. Load up on both sides of the streets, you know. Put out the one. Did you know the pilots? No, them, no. I know who they were, yeah, their names a little bit, yeah. But now I wouldn't say I knew them, you know. I used to say I knew everybody, I'm friends with everybody, and I've learned that, not

you're acquaintance, you know. We're friends if you know my kids' middle names or something, and then we're close. Back then, you know, we're all one, know my kids middle names or something, you know, then we're close Back then, you know, well, we're all one, you know, but I didn't I couldn't say that I knew them And I remember lining up on both sides of the streets and heading that way, you know and just moving in a column both sides of the streets Cross-covering for each other and every intersection we crossed on our way was just a halagun fire I'm really looking just one. Yeah, every single one. And they were paralleling us, trying to beat us to the crash site. And so we knew we had to speed up,

so we gave up security by using speed. And every intersection is halable, so you had to just kind of wait and then go. And I remember going past some onus, and there weren't people at it. And I was kind of watching around the corner, and waiting for other people to cross, and then this donkey comes walking across the street.

Just standing there, like he's just chilling. And then we start taking fire on the railroads, shooting from behind the donkey. You start seeing feet behind the donkey. I'm like, I ain't gonna drop the donkey to drop the dude. I remember shooting the donkey and it took off. And then those dudes are standing over there, you know, guns in their hands, like, uh-oh, donkey's gonna like, man, they'll do anything to get at us, you know? And I remember thinking, I remember calling my team, or one of my friends over,

look at this thing, man, what's this donkey doing? The stater, he goes, I don't know, it's crazy. And then, you know, we get, you know, taken fire, so we realized what was happening. Okay, moving down the street and finally turned to head north. And then we had a couple blocks to go. A couple of Somalian blocks to go, which is just, you know, not that far, probably 50 yards. Maybe a hundred yards at the most.

And remember turning the corner, the other team took, the other, you know, the other couple teams took the far side of the street and they were in the lit side. I think the sun was setting, you know, on this side now, and it's lighting up the east side of the street. So we weren't in as much. And they were taking more fire. And from up near the crash site.

I remember my two IC jumping out of the middle of the street, and I jumped out with him with way M4 and he shot the two or three down and hit literally hit this building. I mean, this little shack just passed the crash site where one dude was in. And he just jumped out and, boom, I mean, it was a little lucky shot and he knows it too It was one of those that hit and I was like holy shit and then one guy came running and we're sitting there engaging and right But before I had walked out in the middle of street with him. I remember looking over and I saw Earl and his team shooting up the street And when I look back there were two people dragging Earl into their building and I mean I didn't see him get shot or anything. I just thought, I'm gonna have him to Earl, you know, he'd fall down.

I mean, Earl got killed instantly. Um, shot right there are plastic protect helmets. You know, so we could be faster, right? Lightweight protect, skateboard helmets. Um, we're gonna push him further down the street, worked our way down. And I remember Paul Howe is a team leader, and he was angry.

Remember his anger. And he had ended up on our side of the street somehow, and his team was on the other side. And we got down to the crash site, and our team ended up being the furthest north and the furthest west of all the fighting. We were that corner with the crash site being here. And everyone else being this way down the street, injured and wounded and the Rangers and whatnot. And we're Paul coming over just pissed off

and screaming and it's just all screwed up and blah, blah, blah. We gotta take this house and I'm like, all right Paul, but chill bro, chill. I mean, this is, you know, you gotta be under and he kicks the door and we go in and it's full of women and one guy again. We're gonna crown them all into the living room, the kids in the living room,

and then this one guy handcuffed in the living room. We're gonna be dominating that house and that's where we stayed the rest of the night. Had a car port with a little metal roof covered, sliding into the car port for some reason, seemed backwards to me with an entrance, the kitchen off to the right, a living room off to the left,

a little bathroom just off the kitchen, and then three bedrooms, tiny, tiny little home. But it was right on the corner of the crash site, so we just occupied every room, plung guard out every window. I didn't know anybody was killed or wounded yet. By then, before we even made it to that crash site, the rescue bird had come in, and they had fast-ropped. They took an RPG right to the rotor blades

as they were fast-ropping into the crash site. And so they ended up pilot-held that beautifully. They ended up fast-ropping all in and then trying to secure the crash site before we even got there. And before we even got there, the Simillians had gotten there and they were overwhelming the helicopter. So Dan Bush had jumped out and ran out of cover range and ran around the corner with the saw to dispatch as many Simillians as he could to defend the crash site. But he in turn got killed doing that as well. I got shot doing that. So another

guy runs out and grabs him. Another sniper ran out and grabbed him and as he was dragging him out of the way, a little bird came and landed in the intersection with the pilot shooting and he fives out the window to help them. He got shot through the neck, pulling Dan to the helo to put him in and he he kept he tried to get back in the fight. And they wouldn't let him. They made him get on the bird as well. And they exfilled both of them and Dan ended up dying of his wounds. And I didn't know any of that till the end.

These are all your guys? Yeah. And so that's how the night started. No water, no night vision, we're set up poorly on an undominated intersection with a crash site. And just they just kept coming. They just kept coming all night. They kept trying to probe our weaknesses, coming up the alleyways, tearing down our buildings with RPGs,

just picking away at the walls, and then you'd hear the helicopters calling in, the ISR above telling us, say there's a convoy of vehicles moving in, we're gonna send the little birds over and see what's happening if you can't do anything until they actually enter the area. But they were trucking people in from everywhere.

Found out years later how kind it was training there at the time. How many guys do you estimate coming at us? Coming at you that died. Maybe 500 to 1000. 500 to 1000? I mean they just kept coming. I know I heard reports that the hot, I mean who knows these reports are real, that the hospital had filled up that night, you know, from wounded from them. But they would load them up truck after truck and pipe them in. And who really got the most kills with a little birds?

Coming and just keeping them off of us. I mean, danger close rockets right across the street. Guys, we're out in the streets underneath the cars and the brass from the miniguns would fall on them and they'd freak out. I mean, it was funny, what happened to me? I was freaked out, it's hot, and it's heavy and hurts. You think you're getting shot, you don't know what it is.

And it's like, oh, and then the morning when the 10th mountain showed up to help pull us out, same thing happened to them, they're all freaking out. I'm like, don't worry about it, man, it's the old school shit. They happened earlier in the night. But yeah, I just kicked off to wear wave after wave after wave. How close, me to you. That close. Same position. Yeah. They'd make it that close. At one point in the night, man, another buddy would land down at the

gate facing the crash site, open car, you know, carport gate. And from this direction, or all the Rangers to the right and to the left is the bad guy territory. And two local smisers, with AKs over the shoulders, just walking, talking, came from that direction, the Rangers direction, and walked right in front of us. I look at my buddy, I'm like, he looks at me, I'm like, he goes, oh well. You know, and once they got out of line of sight from the team across the street, he opened up, I opened up, and one dropped, and then I went around the corner, you know, and then probably died too a little bit later, but it's like the nerve, man, do they forget we were here?

I mean, and how did they get here from all the way down there, right? Who didn't shoot them from down there? They would come up, I was sitting on a window, on a bed, poking my weapon out of a window, covered with bars, had a house on a bed, poking my weapon out of a window covered with bars at a house this far away looking at a wooden shutters to another window. I could hear people rustling around and there with weapons and you could hear them charging

weapons and talking and I just shoot through the wooden shutters and then you hear them screaming around and then you hear them later talking again and I know they were going to open that window and do something and literally'm literally three feet apart. And I just keep shooting through the wooden shutters. So I sat there for a while. And at one point, or this clicking and dragging, clicking and dragging, I'm like, here's something. And I looked down and there's a full, a, a, a, a,

a Somalian on his hands and knees with an AK in front of him, crawling up to my window. And I tried to get my M4 out there and I couldn't get it out there and I pulled my 45 out, stuck my hand through the bars and was aiming at literally at the top of his head and I pulled the trigger and it was so full of sand from the rotor wash. The hammer falls halfway and it just sticks there. You gotta be sure. I'm like, what the fuck? Recock it, safe, laid on the bed. I'm like, I pulled out one of those little Austrian grenades as little ones and pulled the pen. And I showed her to the guy standing on the door,

I was watching, and they're winning. And he's like, I'm like, he just steps in the hallway and I stuck my hand out the window again to look. I remember dropping it. I remember him looking up like, what was that? And start to move to get up and I just laid on the bed. And that thing went off into the whole ceiling was just covered. And I remember this smell of burnt hair. And then somebody came in screaming, what was that? You know, and I instantly I'm in trouble, right? And the guy at the door goes, he just threw a grenade

and I go, oh no, I was a flashbang, I lied. Right, I had a bad idea because I thought I was in trouble. And he's over there going, no, no, it was a grenade, it was a grenade, go, you're right, it was a grenade. Look at this shit, you know, look at the ceiling, man, what do you think I threw a grenade for? And then I'm defensive, right? And I thought, man, you know,

they didn't even hit me then. I thought I finally got to use a grenade was my thought, you know, other than basic training, I got to use a grenade. And then they kept switching positions. So you'd stay awake and ended up being in the car port, standing up on the hood of a car to the same alleyway that I just blew

that dude up in. And I get here more rustling around. And I'm leaning against that metal roof that slopes towards me, but it drops off in the alleyway. And I'm thinking, I could slide a grenade up that way, right? And it just fall right over. And I remember thinking, but if I don't make it slide back down to us, right? So I'm like, all right, I got to really chuck this.

Now, I remember having this conversation with myself like, if I don't do this right, I'm going to frag the whole command element and my team who were in the carport, taking care of two Rangers, which I'll get to that story. Soon of sliding that grenade really hard up on there and I think you hit the wall and fell down and blew up. I don't know what happened, but I ended up doing a lot of suppressive fire, you know, because looking around these corners, you could hear people. I'm just shooting, skipping off walls, trying to keep people away versus just trying to

kill people. Back in the day, you don't shoot unless you have a target, right? And it's a threat. Then it was to me then it turned into suppressive fire, just to keep people away. But those, you know, those two Rangers in the court, they were out on the corner of the building, pulling security to the west with a saw. And there was two of them. And it was off the corner where one of my friends was pulling guard out the window at the

crash site. I remember I was, I was the one person position now that had a free float. I didn't have to have a window for the time site. I remember I was the one position now that had a free float. I didn't have to have a window for the time and that was your break. And so I'm walking around going, you need water, you need water, and I'm pouring water out of flyer pots,

because we don't have water. Pouring in the canteen cups and little pipe dripping out of the wall, I'm like, whatever, man, we're eating eye-dime pills. Here is an eye-dime pill, now drink it, because we're so thirsty. And I remember grabbing this canteen and I turned around pills, here is an I die in pill, and I'll drink it, you know, because we're so thirsty. And I remember grabbing his canteen and I turned around, walked out the room

and it turned back around asking him a question with my two IC sitting in a couch in the hallway, like right here. And I turned to look at my friend and I'm like, I started asking him a question the room just explodes. And things hit, you know, gravel, gravel, wall parts hit me in the face and I'm just standing

there looking in the room which is now on fire and my two I see it's like what was that? I go, I don't know, you know, just like conversational. And then it hit me and I screamed RPG and I went running in the room because you know Jake was in there and I remember looking, I mean you couldn't see and I remember looking down and I saw what I thought was his leg. And I went to pick it up and it was his concrete beam that was on top him. And I threw it off and somebody else Rick came in to help as well. And I remember him just coming up, just groaning for Ariel, all the air knocked out of his lungs,

because he was leaning against that wall that the RPG hit. And that wall had dissipated the effects, RPG other than explosives and it just kind of knocked this wind out of his lungs knocked him over and I'm sure that hurt for a while and then left a huge hole in our house staring right at the crash site. I remember pulling the door shut thinking man they can see right in here now and I saw a glow coming out from underneath the door like pretty soon and opened up up in the couch was on fire. Because that RPG motor had snapped off. It was such a short distance

that it was flying around the room still and then stuck under the couch and caught it on fire. So now I'm going outside, trying to put this, I'm filling flower pots up again, I'm running back in and poured on the couch and I go out and throw up, because of the noxious, whatever that couch is made of and some oil, go back in there, pour my water on it, go back out and throw up from the smell, go back, whatever that couch is made of in Somalia, go

back in there, pour more water on it, go back out and throw up from the smell, go back in the pour water and finally put it out. And I remember thinking, we have a huge open hole now, the next one is going to hit the living room, right? This wall stopped, the next one is going to hit the living room. So, I ended up putting mattresses up on every wall. And I mean, I pulled the mattress, I'd lean it up against the wall, which everybody's making fun of me at the time.

And I remember coming back when the house got hit with another RPG, with another one of my teammates sitting there, the mattress had protected him from all the wall flying in. I remember walking in going, see, see how do you, man, few choice words. But those two Rangers that were outside that wall had to run out and drag them in and I drug the spanic kid in I don't even remember his name and the other guy somebody else drug in the other the other cat

Working on them They're they're tore up pretty good and the medics are working on them And I'm just helping what do you need? We need we need and cut its pants off of the spanic and I mean his has nuts We're gone pretty much. He's got shot in the bud, shrapnel, whatever, and it kind of just blowing. He's bleeding out. And I remember putting the mass trousers on him,

Aaron him up, trying to air him up and get the pressure on him and after packing him with gauze. And another team member from across street, come on, everybody need any help? And he looks down and a guy that's a mass trust son, he's like, oh man, you're missing your nuts. And I've been lying to that dude, because he's a Hispanic and he's wanting to start a big family,

you know, and I go, wait a minute, you know, because they don't teach you that. You don't walk up and go, oh that's horrible, you walk up and go, you're gonna be all right buddy, right, you give him hope. I've been giving him hope and he walked up, just blurted it out like oh shit, man, you know Nick guy starts freaking out. What do you mean? What do you mean? I go?

Did you're good? You're still good, you know, you had one left and you only need one, you know And it up being good. He ended up being good down the road and the other guy had his whole heel blowing off Still in his boot Still in his boot and you can see the whole boot leather torn in his heel It was disgusting and I remember just putting a air boot on him boot on and everything you know packing that put air boot on him And they were good the rest of night really, you know just monitored them Across the street a lot of people saw all the movie if you see the movie blackout down there working on the guys for moral Arterie kept slipping away. They couldn't get it. That was right across the street.

Horrible for the medics that worked on him. Years later, they talked about it. The fact that I just kept trying to save and we didn't have blood, we didn't have, you know, IVs, we didn't have anything to give this kid who just slowly died, you know, just blood out who just slowly died, you know, just blood out with the medic soon, everything they could, cutting him down, trying to clamp off his arteries, it just was too far gone. All of which I didn't know, you know, until later. So we got this big hole in our roof, you know, I got people creeping up and it just continues all night long.

It's all we could do, switch positions, keep firing, we ran out of ammo. Did we have a river? Completely. We ran out of ammo. At one point, I had a knife on the bed thinking, all right, you know? This is the day.

And I thought, I remember thinking, I'm gonna do as much damage as I can before I'm gone. You know, and that's when the team leader runs in and I could hear the convo in the city. The 50 cows, RPGs, you know, the dish gets going off and you knew the differences. And it'd be louder and louder and like, and then it'd get softer and softer, you know,

as they went around and kept getting blocked by burning tires and it'd and kept getting blocked by burning tires and they just kept getting blocked from us. And Team Leader came in and I'm like, hey, are they gonna make it? You know, I was like, no, no, no, no, no. And that's when I had my knife on the bed. And I remember thinking, it was terrified.

And that's when it all got better. When I reserved and relented to the fact that I was going to die, it got better. There was nothing be fearful of anymore. I knew my destiny and that's all I wanted to do. You know, back then we didn't have speedballs. We didn't, we didn't resupply. We were in and out, you know, that's all we did. So back in the rear of their pack and boxes, they're putting stuff together

and then the helicopter flies over and hovers right over us, start pushing ammo out, water jugs out, they're exploding, ammo's exploding, and rounds are going everywhere in the dirt. And then they take fire from the house directly to our right, second floor. We didn't know anybody was in that building. And that's when another

friend got shot in a face. He was eye-level with that guy, hovering in the Elgabra shot. And he was one of the snipers. That's when he got shot in the face. He lived to that. And then being the young guy with the youngest guy being injured, me being the youngest guy that's not injured. Go out and grab that ammo, right? I'm like, wait a minute, go grab it now, because they're shit going up and down the street, you know, and they're called bullets. It's like, we need it, go get it.

And I remember thinking, I got so mad, I just stormed out there and got on my hands and easy start grabbing all that I could run and dump it. Grab all I could run and dump it. I was just pissed. And then grab all the water and brought it in. So everything was in our room now. What do you think is next? Disseminate that water and ammo. Hey Tom, take this water across the street.

You know, 30 feet can last a long time. You two, five gallon water cans in your hand and you start to run. It gets farther and farther away as you slow down and you're trying to run, but everything's in slow motion. And then as it speeds up as I get to the door, I remember thinking, and screaming, eagle, eagle, eagle, because I'm going to get shot by my own people now because I'm running in this house, you know. And I didn't, I don't know if anybody told them I'm gonna get shot by my own people now because I'm running in this house, you know? And I didn't, I don't know if anybody told them I'm coming. Scream and eagle eagle eagle,

I run in and dropped the water cancer as nobody in the house, now I'm terrified. Am I in the right house? Did they leave? Who's in here? So I kind of worked my way back and they're dealing with business in the backside of their house, you know?

Because the crash site was directly adjacent to the side of their house. They're dealing with people creeping up the back. Hey, you got some water in front. I'll bring some ammo over. You know, they're good. We're running out. I said to run back across, grab ammo, run back across,

take him some ammo, come back across. I'm thinking, man, I hate being the young guy, you know, the new guy. At that point, the new guy got up. He was, he better shook it off. And then, you know, it was one of those, like I said, all night long, repeated stories of just waves of people coming, little birds going back, rearming, getting ammo, coming back out.

They blew through crew rest. For once in their lives, they blew through crew rest and kept going. And it was one of those things that kept us alive. And then, right before sunbreak or sunup, it was the 10th mountain, came walking down both sides of the street. Like, it was a Monday and you know, and they were going to the park. And they had two packy vehicles with them in the back.

And I remember one guy coming in, started, ain't back any dip. I'm like coming in, started a big guy and he dipped. I'm like, bro, do you know what we've been doing all night? And you come in looking for dip and you just got here. You know what I mean? It was one of those weird things. And they set up like they normally do on the streets. We're like, I wouldn't do that, man.

I would watch what you're doing because none of that worked for us all night long. And you know, some of those guys started getting shot at but they finally got the vehicles up there pulled the helo off the off the bodies put all the bodies on top of the two vehicles we had because the rest of the con boy was about a mile away on the main street they couldn't make it you know no armor wants to go down the tight street like that without infantry so they ended up sending just two

through all the bodies on top and all the wounded inside and it was like, okay, load up, we're gonna head on out. I thought, man, I was getting happy, you know. Flip the handle on one of those things, start to climb in the back and all I saw, you know, you can always get one more in a military vehicle, right? How many is it, hold one more?

You'll get one more in there. Not that day. I literally opened the door and it was like, Sardine can, it rangers. I. I just pulled it shut and locked it back and I'm like, well, I can't get in this vehicle. Nobody can. You can't get on top. It's covered in bodies. So they devised another plan. We'll walk along the vehicles. They'll use we'll use them for cover and then we'll get back. That was a good plan until the first rounds came,

right? And then those vehicles, wrong, took off and we're just standing there and that's the Mogadishimals started. Running and gunning, I was out of ammo again. I remember people were dropping mags and reloading their mags and I'd pick up a mag off the ground and knock the dirt out of it, sticking in at three rounds, you know, in there and I'd grab another mag and it was that bad. Yeah, it was for me anyway. I mean, I don't, you know, guys are dropping mags stick it and I had three rounds. You know, in there and I'd grab another mag and it was that bad. Yeah, it was, for me anyway. I mean, I don't, you know, if guys are dropping mags with three and I'm like, all right, you're not apparently not off, bad odds bet off it as I am because I have zero mags,

zero bullets. So I'd pick them up and start using them. And then I remember getting to that head and south and getting to that corner where we're gonna turn back west towards the target that we hit that night. And I remember they were sending a patchy in to rocket the black hog. We had already put a send area on it,

but they wanted to rocket it, destroy it more. So nobody could use anything in it. And I saw the patchy moving around and coming on in. I thought, I'm gonna stop and watch it. I've never seen this before, right? Just stopped in that corner. And Stuart Washington just kept hovering and moving and back and forth, I'm like,

that's gonna take forever. It's regular army probably. So I turned and my team was gone. Everybody was gone. I'm like, what was I think it? What was I doing? I just took off running down the street in the direction that I knew we had to go.

And a halfway down that street and one of the medics jumped out, he said, Tom here, and he basically pushed me in between two walls. And in an alleyway, right as an RPG hit, and I don't know that he knew that. He just grabbed me to get my attention. Right as an RPG hit, which messed up his ear,

but as right as he pushed me into that wall. So I missed out on that again. He got lucky on that one. Swaps in magazines, you know, and head it back out and and shooting in every door and window that you could, you know. You just don't know who shooting at you in the city. So you just shoot at what you see. And I remember finally making it back to all of the vehicles and all the tanks. And it was weird that the tanks were just shooting

into the city. And these armored vehicles were just rocking at the 10th mountain, rocking 50s into the city. And Mark 19's and launching grenades and God knows what they're actually, what they saw. It was a sight to see. I remember looking up at one of the packy drivers and I was like, smacked him on the head.

And he looked at me and I'm like, thank you. Like, thank you. And he just looked back like it's terrified, you know. Like imagine the whole night not in that vehicle, you know, it's just, they didn't want to be there more than any of us did. And then they were trying to devise a plan on how to get us out. And the whole plan was to load everybody up and go to the Pakistani stadium, which was close, and then fly everybody back to the airfield in the in the he loves.

And up until about two years ago, I didn't know why, but our two home Vs, unarmored home Vs that we loaded up in the back of, just start driving. We used to shoot and everything on the streets we could see until we crossed that road, you know, the good plans. And I mean, I think I was still shooting towards and that people, somebody screamed, hey, we crossed the road. I'm like, I look and there's a dude standing on the side of the road just chewing caught, you know, getting high and I'm like, oh, okay.

All right, all right, we're good. We crossed, you know, I'm still watching people now, right? And it was terrifying. We pulled up on like burning tires in the driver's door. What do I do? And I go, don't you fucking stop. Whatever you do, don't stop. Plough through it, I don't give a shit,

but you're not stopping, you know, so we plow through that. Made it to the back gate of the airfield, went in the gate and sat there for like 30 minutes. Like, where's everybody at? They should be right behind us, you know? Where you at? Radio was dead, so I couldn't, you know,

talked to anybody. And there's a picture of me sitting on that home V with the 10th mountain riding on it, you know, and whatnot and me sitting on there. I'd bump the cigarette off one riding on it, you know, and whatnot. And me sitting on there, I bumped a cigarette off one of those dudes. I'm smoking a cigarette next to two other team guys like, and I'm going to return to look at them and go, you realize who you just rescue? You know, like you just pulled us out of the fight, you know, and I had that little

moment with the cigarette and then that said, we got to drive around back to where we live. Find out what's going on. And that's when I realized the night. As we're driving up to our hangar across the street from us was the medical tent, the hospital, which the nurses would scream at us every night because they never got murdered until we showed up. And then we got murdered every night and they were pissed off that us every night because they never got mortared until we showed up. And then we got mortared every night and they were pissed off that we were there because we drew in the mortar rounds. And I remember pulling up and right before we turned

on our gate, there was a little cutout on off the side of the road. And I remember seeing out on 12 bodies, maybe. Covered in poncho liners and ponchos, but you could see the boots. And I know the difference between Adidas assault boots and tan desert boots. And I knew who wore who, and who wore what? Now there's way too many Adidas assault boots right there, you know. I have no idea what's going on and we got in and I saw, got in the gate. I saw two home views with RPG blasts on the sides and in the windshields and bullet holes

and blood on the ground and sand everywhere. Blood in the vehicles and the smell of bleach. I'll never forget that smell. I've smelled it. And it takes me right back in a second. And it's, you know, they bring the vehicles back, throw sand, absorb the blood, throw bleach on it, and then load them back up and send them back out to try to get to us.

And that's when I, that's when the helicopter start coming back and landing and people start getting out and that's when we start getting word as to who was gone, who was missing, you know, missing. And we're missing people. How do you miss people? There's always a head count.

I always thought, how do people go missing? POWMIA, who the hell goes missing? All right, you got a buddy, you don't go missing, right? And I didn't understand it until you go to war. And you're in the chaos and the battle and you're defending your spot and you're looking through these toilet paper tubes. So you know, when you tell your war stories, somebody's standing right to your left or right is going to call you a liar maybe because they didn't see what you saw, you know,

they're looking through the same thing, that fear of that's all I see. You know, then you look over here and that's all you see, you know, and you got your head on a swivel, but if you're not focusing, you don you don't your head on a swivel. You don't see anything So you have to focus focus focus focus focus and so everybody's doing the same things telling around story And once the heat those came back we started getting word and we heard missing and then we I mean I know we went back and start watching the news and it was already on the news And that's when I saw him drag him bodies through the street. I'm like, who is that?

What's this at, you know? Then you realize you're the star of the show, you know? And that's you. And then you realize, oh, it's in the news. Is it that bad? Like what, you know? And all I can do is rearm, reload, grab my nons for sure, ton of water, and ready to go back out.

Just ready to go back out. Found out Gary, Randy, pilots were missing. DeRant was missing. You know, and then all we could do is wait. They wouldn't let us go back out. They were just trying to gin up intel. I'm figuring out what was going on. And they were flying signature flights still.

They were flying around broadcasting, you know, we won't forget. We won't stop looking for you. And then another squatter came over and we were told we're being replaced. We're too decimated, too angry. They wouldn't let us go back out. And so all we could do was train up the other squadron on what we had seen and what we had done. And I remember sitting back and watching in a struck me, two different targets hit at the same time, over here, C squadron, over here's A squadron, the replacement squadron.

And over here you couldn't see a head. Everybody that hit the building was down low. Nobody's in a window. And over here you saw people walking around like and training, you know, looking around, peeking through windows and like, don't do that. Don't do that in the city. You lose everything. You lose your head. You get shot, man. You get shot by a little kid, you know, turn a corner. You see 15 year old or younger kids, whole May case, you know, what to quarter, you see 15 year older, younger kids, whole neckhaste, you know, and what do you do? What do you do? Women come running out with AKs, what do you do? You got to survive. And so the flight back was quite a weird one for me. Flight back home.

Yeah, it was kinda empty. A lot more empty. With the knowledge of what had happened and the news. And I remember nobody had called home. And I remember a friend of mine, a friend and I had one over and grabbed a phone off of the 10th mountain division or something on the other side of the airfield and like, oh, you got a sat phone, huh? Called home, let them know, you know, we were alive, even though hopefully the unit had done that.

But the unit's, you know, ideas, no news is good news. We don't call you, don't worry, you know, like you tell a spouse that, right? Mm-hmm. That only work out. don't call you, don't worry. You know, like you tell a spousa, right? That only work out. Remember the flight back was just one of those quiet ones, just reflecting on what happened and why and who was gone and who was injured and would they make it and the images of everything coming into your head and I remember landing, they did, we didn't land for Bragg or Pope because it was too much publicity on what had just happened. So we landed South Carolina, I don't know, taking buses for a couple hours back to work, putting my kid away and then walking out and getting my my ex-wife's car.

And I distinctly remember after the entire vent, the shrink came up and talked to us right before we left. And the hangar, and he said, now listen guys, you've been through some traumatic experiences that you don't realize yet. And they're going to hit you sooner or later. I got to realize that and they're going to hit you sooner or later. It goes, if you go home, you become overwhelmed by emotions or an event, it's normal. I'm available on my friend like, is this freaking loser? What is he mean, man? Or warriors? Fast forward, I get in my wife's car. She drives me home.

I don't say a word, which was normal for us. And we got home and I got out of the car. We walked inside, sat and said a word. I sat in my bag down and I turned and looked at her and she said, so how was it? I start bawling. I start bawling. And she, no idea what to do. Like, whoa, like, how was it?

I mean, like, was it good, right? And that's the answer you get. Good. I just start bawling, man. Until I fought it off, I just was sobbing. I never told her what happened. I just sobbed until she left and I stopped crying. I don't know how long it was later, I kind of told that to one of my close friends at

the time. And then he kind of shared with me, did the same thing and I'm like, oh, it's real. I mean, it really happens. Just don't tell anybody about it, right? That was a... I remember thinking then, I shrank nose something. He predicted something, you know, like he's a seer. It was weird.

And I started listening to him a little more after that, you know. Trying to get better. About top to him? Yeah, I'm not about Samoia, just about how to be better. I think they probably knew, you know? Cause they said, you know, you keep climbing these mountain tops. And then you climb the higher one.

Then you see a higher one, you climb it. When are you gonna sit down and enjoy the mountain top? I go, is there another one? Like, is there another unit to go to better than this? I'll go there, you know, bigger, higher, does more. Like, just enjoy the mountain top, man. You're on it, just enjoy. You know, you're too busy chasing something else.

And I never listened to that, you know? I didn't, I only listened to what I wanted to. If I fit my agenda and if fit my storyline, I would listen to it. If it didn't, I didn't want to have anything do it because I didn't want to leave that unit because all I wanted to do I didn't want to have anything to do it because I didn't want to leave that unit because all I wanted to do

was never let that happen again. So I worked harder. I trained harder. I started moving into leadership positions. I made my men train harder. I tried to teach them as much as I had learned as they moved out. And the new kids came in. How much we'd learned Which I found out later most of them thought we were bipolar Assoles because they didn't realize why we behaved the way we behaved Just aggressive and angrily and spoke to everybody like they were shit, you know Because we hated the world and we didn't know it But we wanted

Empartable them as much knowledge to not let that happen again ever. And that started my life of one I'd given up on life, my switch had flipped. I didn't care in Somalia. I lost my empathy and compassion for humans. You know, if your life was fucked up, you should have thought about that in high school, right? You should have made better decisions. You know, you got yourself where you're at. And I didn't care. And all I wanted to do was train. All I wanted to do was be better, so I could stop that from happening again. And it never would never happen to my people.

And so all I was picking up all that time was, you're not good enough. Tom, how many teammates did you lose? Well, Dan Bush had just left our team. I went to snipers. And so I consider we lost him, because he was on our team for a while. We lost Gris Martin, who was on our team. We lost Gris Martin, who was on our team. He was driving our vehicle, our Humbee, that we had uparmored with plywood and sandbags. And an RPG went right through the wheel well where we couldn't arm her.

The rear one and hit him on his right hip as a driver. And detonated his 45, which went off and then melted his 45 and injured him so bad that he died while they tried to save him. And I could keep going with suicides. with suicides. From that battle or early deaths from God knows what, you know. And I certainly can outline lost lives like family lives from that event. But the thing that strikes me the most is we never got to bury anyone. We never got to say goodbye because it all happened before we got home. And the only person that I didn't realize had done so much that night until I got back and saw those vehicles and then heard the stories who died two, three days later when a mortar-round landed basically on him right after a memorial ceremony for all those we had lost on 3 October. It was Matt Ryerson.

Morrison. He came out for us four or five times at least. Get turned around, come back, drop off the wounded, recruit more, and come back out again. Lose people, turn around, go back, get more, and come back out again and again. Because that's who he was. The two days later he died when that mortaround hit him and took out our commander as well. And a couple other people, one of my best friends at the time. I just walked past them talking there from the port of bodies. And Chatea for a second, my friend stayed. I went back to the cot, laid down.

I was chilling and I stood up to grab some kit and then explosion. You know, I didn't know at the time. A chunk of asphalt hit me in my leg and I started bleeding there and I was like, what, I'm taking some of me blip at charge. I mean, oh shit, somebody had an AD with an explosive. And then I heard screaming. I just took off running in that direction. And I remember out of the smoke comes Jake hopping on one leg

because he had his Achilles tendon sliced almost 90% through and he couldn't, couldn't walk on it. And I remember grabbing him and throwing him on a cot and just wrapping up his, because he was in shorts and flip flops, you know. Wrapin' up his Achilles tendon as they started to carry me away, screaming, avenging me, avenging me, Tom. I a vanjume, a vanjume time.

I'll never forget that, the funny, funny shit in the middle of all that. But I mean, the docs came over, the hospital's right next door. The docs came over, our medics were all over it. Our commander had been gravely wounded. I mean, he pulled through, but I'll never forget his screaming. I'll never forget stuff of the man as he was. Football player, just a big, big man with a big heart. It just recently passed away. Just screaming and pain and it wouldn't stop. I

remember laying in the bunker because they made us all go to the bunker except for the wounded and the medics and they moving them. I remember laying in the bunker just covering my ears. I couldn't ear it anymore. And then the cries for blood came out. We need blood. We need blood. We need blood. We're all donating as much blood as we could. And they were trying to keep mat alive and keeping Gary alive. And the mat didn't make it. Mat we got to bury.

Mat we have to memorial for. By the time they had the memorial, memorial for mat, we were back home. And it was dress greens, Nevada, Iowa. I was part of the 21 good salute team, you know. We were back home and it was dress greens, Nevada, Iowa. I was part of the 21 good salute team, you know, and I'm so, I'm thank goodness I'm outside for the hard part. You know, that would the the bugler and the backpipes play. I was happy to be outside.

And I'm glad I got to do that with Matt, at least, you know. He was like a took me in as a father and came out for all of us, you know, until he died. And everybody took on his kids. There's a family. He had two young boys. The spouses or some of the strongest women on the planet. Most of them get cancer. The military drops them two years after I think the death.

Or seven years. whatever that time is three three years and then that's about the time they're developing cancers. I know a lot of them that have in their fight. Your husband's a mental of honor winner and you're not being taken care of properly. It's just a sad state. The shit those people went through. And for them not to take care of their spouses, for as long as they need it. Some of them I know that wouldn't remarry, just wouldn't remarry for 20, 30 years.

Like when I'm just recently finally married, wouldn't remarry, just wouldn't remarry for 20, 30 years. Like, when I'm just recently finally married to a loving man who took his sons in and just, but she would not marry. She could have married. She was in love, that was who she was married to, you know, and, and, uh, I'm glad she finally worked through that. And can move her life on, you know,

remarried and hopefully move on. I know I try. That's why this is my last one. Cause I don't get this detail, typically, and it still hurts, you know. Yeah. It's funny, people say say well tell me about some higher. Let's talk about some mind. I instantly I Feel it, you know, and I'm start gritting my teeth and jaw muscles start poking out. You know, I'm trying to get through it But it's that heavy and

I've done a lot. I've done a lot of work in the last 10 years on myself. It's still heavy. And that's my worry, you know, for everybody out there. Is that the ones that are like, I'm good. Fit as a fiddle, you know. That shit didn't affect me. Yeah, it did. Yeah, it did. You just don't want to admit it, you know, how could that not affect you?

How could losing that many friends in an 18 hour period? Not affect you. I got a speeding ticket years later doing 90, I'm 104 and 40, you know, whatever, I was out in Salt Lake City driving down Skull Valley, heading out to a place, you know, to do some stuff. And it was a straight road through the desert and nobody's ever on. Halfway through that, there's one farm, one house and the speed limit drops to 40.

I'm doing a hundred and some. There's a cop, pulls me over. I'm like, whatever, I pay the ticket. Two years later, the ticket makes it back to North Carolina. I've got to go to defensive driving school or lose my license So I go to this defensive driving school and they have this chart on how angry you are this angry angry driver thing You know if you lost a friend have you had trauma. I literally checked every block on this sheet

They gave it so I gave turn it in and most people I like one checked to, you know, if any, I checked everyone up. Eric, are you serious? You know, it's not the place to mess around. I go, they're all true. Everyone else are true. I mean, that's not why I'm doing 104, but everyone else are true. And I kind of realized, man, I've had a lot of things happen to me when you don't really

stack them all up when it's one at a time, one at a time, one at a time. People over the years that you keep losing to a point that they wanted to do a study. They had made up a couple of years ago. They wanted to do a study on combat losses, and they wanted to include the suicides that were related to that combat event. Because they're specifying these events and these trauma events 30 years later. We're here we're at 30 years later and why am I emotionally welling up all the time when I try to talk through this? Have I not worked through it enough? I mean, what is the reason? Yeah, I think I've worked through it so much that I can talk about it.

I can't get through it. But as I can talk about it. I can get through it. But as I said, this is my last, because everyone wants to hear it, and every time I tell it, it just traumatizes me again. And Jen's always like, you know, you really want to do this, because you really become an asshole when you come on for a few days, I'm like, no, no,

I'll work through it and every time I do it, I get, you know, I don't notice it, but I get more aggressive, I get more tense and uptight. And she's now has to work through that and how to give me through that. So it's good and helps me work through it. But, you know, it's just reliving that trauma over and over again.

It's like living it over and over again. Yeah. Do you carry a lot of survival skills from that up? No. You don't? I don't think I did. I don't think I ever felt that way. I lost people.

I know that and that hurt. But I don't feel like... Like I know a guy that was in a vehicle that got art, you know, I did, he's the only one that lived in that vehicle. The only one that lived out of all his friends and his entire team. That's survivor skill. Like why did I make it out of all of this? To me, I chalked it up to luck.

I threw out tactics when I saw the 15 year old kid shoot somebody. You didn't go to school for that did you? You didn't take tactics, you just pulled the trigger in a general direction. And you know, when you have bullet holes in your clothes, it's a lot of luck. It's a lot of luck. So I just chalked it lot of luck. It's a lot of luck. So I just chalked out to luck. Um, and I didn't have survivor's guilt.

Is there anything that could have been done after that operation that could have improved your mental state for the rest of your career? Talking about it. Getting everybody career. Talking about it. Getting everybody together to talk about it. With a coach, a licensed clinical social worker, whatever, in the room, to give you the reasons you feel that way. It took me 20 years, 23 years. I've been really hard on this for seven.

I've been really hard on this for seven. I've been out 13. I played the game. I'm okay for three. I think it's on average. It takes an operator 13 years to even ask for help. So I might have been ahead of the game at three. But after three years, I lied about how hard I was doing it. You know, I was kind of placating, I think. I lied about how hard I was doing it. You know, I was kind of placating, I think. And then I started realizing and hearing these professionals tell me these simple lines about why I feel the way I feel. And it just, it clicks. Like, why is that so easy?

Because it's an outside source and someone who studied that. So many people Have told me I don't want to see a shrink unless they've been to combat because they won't understand me You know, and I'm like well then I don't want you to see our shrinks unless you've been to school for four to six years because you want to understand them Like what I go they're not taking you to combat they're helping you with your mental health They're helping you work through why you feel bad. They're giving you the reasons that they know of

and that they've learned and why your brain works the way it works. Not combat. They don't need to go to combat to know why your brain's behaving this way. You don't have to go to combat to have your brain act this way. So it's not combat.

It's not that defining factor. It's the trauma which can happen anywhere. And trauma can be dealt with the same way pretty much no matter what the trauma is. The stories are different. trauma which can happen anywhere. And trauma can be dealt with the same way, pretty much no matter what the trauma is. The stories are different. The trauma behaves the same in your body. It's biological.

And when you've had that repetitive, my switch is on, my fight, fight, fight, fight, when you come home, I can't fly to freeze anymore. I want to fight. So when I'm embarrassed, I'm mad. When I'm scared, I'm mad. When I'm ashamed, I'm mad. When things don't go the way I think they should go, I'm mad. And I'm not mad, I rage. Because I live at a five. So when you make me mad, I go to eight. I'm almost maxed out already. And I didn't know that. I didn't realize I was at a five, you know, all the time.

Until a lot of therapy, a lot of one-liners that made it easy. And then Jen tell me, it's not what you say, it's how you say it. Is there any specific one-liners that really resonated with you? Just off the top of your head. Hmm, hmm, hmm. Yeah. A recent one that smacked me around the face with a frying pan was talking to a new therapist. A new one, I think. We have four or five of them. I've talked to all of them before. I've talked to other ones before before. I've found the good one that we got that we still

have as well. We call our unicorn or miracle worker. Or the other ones are great as well. But this newer one, here's the same story. Dishes in the sink, things that made me mad. Why can't I just get the kid to do this? Why can't I get, you know, why does my wife never change the toilet paper roll? How's it so hard? Why don't you hang your towels up?

Why do your dirty clothes go on the floor when the basket's right here, right? My brain thinks I'm gonna die because something's out of place. I don't realize that. And I kept trying to validate that. But I'm just teaching. I'm trying to teach the kids or my wife how to be.

Put the clothes away, it's lazy, right? I use the word lazy a lot. You're just being lazy. Pick it up and put it here. Why do I have to do? Is it my job? For six years, every day, banging my head against the wall, pull her and, hey, you know, because they're step kids, right? I don't want to go at the step kids. Mama Barrel come out,

right? And she told me with your aggression, don't ever talk to my kids, don't ever talk to my kids. Don't ever talk to my kids in an aggressive way. And so I talked to her. I would remove myself every day, poor Jen. Hey, why are they leaving distancing? How come they stack the trash so high, everything falls out? Do they not know to take the bag and put on put on new one in? I mean, why are they so lazy for? Why don't you do this and that? And then recently this doctor looks at me and she goes,

that's your problem, isn't it? I was like, what do you mean that's my problem? You're the one that's upset about all that. No one else in your house is, that's how they live. This is how you want to live. Where are you imposing your will upon them? And I went from trying to teach to, I'm an asshole, like, wow, there's a way to do these things, you know, not grabbing your spouse and telling her what to go say.

And if they're your own kids, not grabbing your kids and telling them what to do is, how can I reach them? Or is it time to reach them? You know, is it, are they able to able to hear as children what I'm saying? It reminds me of that movie where they were breaking up and it was Jennifer Aniston and I don't know, I just want you to want to do the dishes. And he's like, why would I want to do the dishes?

I don't know, ever. And I'm thinking, I am a little bit weird. I? You know, I'm never, and I'm thinking, I am a little bit weird. I love doing dishes. I love cleaning up shit. I love things being perfect. It's been since before the military. And it's just don't of me.

And the kids don't want to do that shit, so they're not gonna do that shit, right? And so I went through, well, I'll punish them. If they do this, they'll be punished. And they'll learn not to do that, you know, and I'll take away what they love, and it nothing worked. Until she said, wouldn't that your problem? It is my problem.

I need to work on me. Again, something I'd forgotten about that I always need to do, and I tell other people, no one can help you, you have to do it yourself. They can tell you what to do, how to do it, but if you don't do it, it doesn't work. And I'd forgotten that, trying to force them to clean, pick up things they don, how to do it, but if you don't do it, it doesn't work. And I've forgotten that. Trying to force them to clean, pick up things they don't want to do it. And I've forgot that's mine, that's my hang up. I need to work on my hang up.

And if it bothers me, pick up the cup and put it in the dishwasher and shut up, you know, no big deal, but I was making everything a big deal. What do you think she stuck with it? You think she understood what you were going through? Who? My wife? Yeah, your wife. Yeah, she went through a lot, herself. Growing up in her family Growing up as a young adult outside of her family a rape

Angry family um And then a marriage that she wasn't That she was into and she realized they weren't into her and that she wasn't into it. It was maybe too soon and one of those, and that trauma was attracted to this trauma and she understood it. She had, so she, not forgave it, but understood it. She could work within it and I'm very good looking.

So she had to stick around. So I like to have that because I hope that was part of it. But just, I've never met anybody as understanding as her. When I first met her, I thought she wanted something, like more every day. She was so nice. I'm like, what is it you're doing? What's wrong?

What do you want? She's like, what? Bubbly, I'm like, you know, I used to wake up and she'd bubbly, bubbly wake up and just start talking to me. Not roll over and just growl. You know, like what? What's so happy about the morning, young?

I'm like, what's not happy about the morning? I just wanted to be angry and I, and she just took me down the path of showing me who I was in a mirror, something I'd never done before. And I didn't like it. I didn't like how it was behaving to people that you care about. People I love, people I'm supposed to protect, but I'm the monster. Second protector from everybody but me who lives with her the most and knows her every weakness and uses it against her. Yet, I'm here to protect her. So many go through that.

So many enter that shame cycle by saying something or physically doing something and I'm sorry isn't enough anymore. And then the cycle starts of, I'm no good, I'm worthless, I should just take my life, you know, this and that. But Jen had that patience. I don't think she had the knowledge of what to do, and she had the patience and the love of a person who understood trauma and just stuck with it. Shouldn't have. Shouldn't have. But she did. So how of a wife? Yeah, she stuck with me now. We'll get more into that towards the end of the interview, but you'd already said it,

but I'm going to ask you if there's anything else because at some point, somebody's going to do that again. Somebody's going to go through a similar experience. They're not going to quit and they're going to keep operating just like you did. And so what advice do you have for the next group of men that that happens to? It's advice I put out every day because it's happening right now. It's happening to my friends, it's happening to the people that they know behind, you know, beyond them. Talk about it with your bros, whatever, but go outside that, use that therapy that you have at your organizations.

There's counselors at all of them. They have all these fit programs now. The workout coach, the counselor, the diet coach, and nobody uses the counselor. They want to work out, get fit, and eat right. This is part of being fit, body, mind, spirit. If the mind is out, other things are out. The mind is the most important part of your body, I believe, because it

tells the rest of your body what to do. And it's how you think. And it controls everything. So talk about it. You know, I would tell organizations to do mandatory, mandatory coaching and counseling. No matter what, because no one's going to admit it in those organizations. So you have to make a mandatory. You have to make sexual harassment training mandatory, right? Click buttons, whatever makes you feel good in the government. You know, don't tell Sally she looks good at work, right? They play that game, but they don't play a game where, let's say used to be 22 a day, they're trying to bump it down to 17,

but if you know the facts, it's, you know, it could be up to 40 to 48 a day of suicides. The enemy can't touch us. It's our inability to deal with our own emotions. That's causing us to lose so many good people, because they've lost hope. They don't feel like they belong in a world that they really we need leadership in. We need calm, steady leadership in this world and there isn't out there anymore.

You know, it's in these warriors who are being put down and looked at like animals. It's like living inside the castle walls and spitting on the guards. and spitting on the guards. That's how it feels like a lot of people out there. Be trade, let down, pull out of Afghanistan. The assisted suicides of veterans, you know, that they're talking about now, and different countries that they've enacted, and the VA mistreatments, you know, people that, you know, hear many good stories about the VA. I try to build it up. It's a big organization. It's got a lot of veterans to help, man. You're going to wait in line, right? There's other alternatives, you know, go out and

try those, but some are stuck with the VA, you know, but that anger that will build up, they have to talk about it. You know, I think it should be mandatory when you come home for deployments to sit down, you know, maybe before you go home, have a talk, maybe on the way back home, have a talk. And then when you're home, throughout the next weeks of decompressing, actually decompress and talk about anything that had happened, and pull it out of the guys because it would work.

Chasing fitness, I can run all day, my beach muscles are huge, I could give a shit. I want someone mentally strong next to me, fighting next to me. And you're not mentally strong when you're struggling and you're hiding it with booze or drugs or whatever it is your thing is, you know. Because that's what you do, you know, and that's what people start doing after 20 years of war. I remember our first deployments were, guys, we're all out in the bay, because that's what you do, you know, and that's what people start doing after 20 years of war. I remember our first deployments were,

guys were all out in the bay, getting their kit, check, check, check, ready to go. Fast four, three deployments. Guys are in their rooms, you know, drinking booze, waiting to get on that plane for their number to be up. It's a numbers game at a certain point.

To, you know on being drunk overseas To just trying to either feel or forget whatever it is whatever your pleasure is of the day Trying to feel or forget and then they come back and think I don't need help. I'm good Like I want a mentally strong warrior next to me They'll be physically strong, but I want them mentally strong. And to do that, you kind of need to know what's going on at home. You kind of need to be infested in your people, know what's going on at home. So you're going to understand why they're behaving the way they were behaving.

I think that's great advice, man. And I won't call a break, but um, I just want to say God rest your friends man your teammates. I know that was tough. Thanks Second break This episode is brought to you by Coca-Cola creations the sights and sounds of the future are a mystery to us Accessible only through our imaginations, but for the first time ever, the taste of tomorrow is closer than ever. New from Coca-Cola Creations, Coca-Cola Y3000, the bright, fruity taste of the future,

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Ontario only, it's his favorite sponsor week. You or someone you know has concerns about gambling. Visit connectsontario.ca. All right, Tom, we're back from the break. It's a nice break. And so now we get the rest of your your career which I'm gonna be honest with you I don't even know how to cover all this we got 1996 Bosnia

Pakistan Iraq Iraq Iraq Iraq Iraq again Iraq again Iraq again What sticks out to you the most? A mission Iraq going north of Baghdad. No, south of Baghdad. Sorry, the rat line to a wedding party, right? Because they always have guns at wedding parties. Plenty of salt is pretty far distance to have a cure if it tanks and Bradley's, but I was gonna roll them forward, but I got overrubled on that one, like they'll stay here at the house,

and if you need them, I'll send them. All right, we probably won't need them anyway. It's a screw, you know. Infield to this wedding party, and now that I'm headquartered as element, what sticks out the most is I'm in charge of people now, right? Okay. Going from a kid to,

I have souls under my control now, and I don't want to screw that up. So I'm landing outside, you know, I got guys laying on the roofs of this building, Rangers are surrounding us again, and I held headquarters element, me and Medics and EOD guys and you know whoever else doesn't go in first, landing out here out in this field. And they took an RPG to the helicopter immediately. They were, it was a training facility. They had

all these weapons laid out underneath blankets and everything. As soon as we hit and they flipped them open and started shooting, It was like, man, here we go again, right? Didn't hit me yet, like here we go again. That helicopter dropped everybody off on the roof, limped over, crashed about 200 meters away, hard landing, 200 meters away at the end of the field. So that changed everything. I had to send the Rangers over to secure that

and check for any wounded. So that took me out a perimeter, most of it. And that, they stayed there the entire night. There was gunfire happening, and then a guy comes squirting off the target without a weapon and running. Didn't see us. I'm sitting with my nads watching this.

We're in a flat slick mud field that hasn't been planted yet. So you can't even walk. It's very slippery. That kind of stuff is six and sucks your shoes in and rips your shoes off and you're running through it. So I'm like trying to move on this stuff quietly. I'm like, there's a dude coming, you know. He's running right towards us.

I'm like, got my weapon on him. Got my weapon on him. You know, he's like, he's coming right for us and then he takes off running off to the left, you know, he doesn't even know we're there. And he didn't have a weapons. I didn't shoot him, right? And he hands up digging around on the bush over here

to my left in between the target, and he's off to the left. And I can't shoot him because the Rangers are behind him now. So I was like, I'm gonna creep up on him. I'm gonna deal with his cat. So I can get on doing my business. So me and the medical creepin' him out in the sky and he turns and sees this,

just takes off running towards target. I'm like, I can't shoot him, right? I wanted to, but he wasn't armed. So instead of a squirt off a target, I get on the radar, I'm screaming, there's a squirt on to the target. There's a squirt coming onto the target and he goes, what?

Next you can see you know, I see lasers from the roof. This dude flips up a blanket, reaches down and grabs a weapon, he doesn't see the lasers. I see all the lasers, and everyone else in the target sees the lasers. Like, literally, it was like a flower't see the lasers. I see all the lasers and everyone else in the target sees the lasers like literally, it was like a flower petal of lasers.

As soon as he touched that weapon, he was it, he didn't think anything else, you know, and I was like, all right, I'm coming on the target now guys, turn off those lasers. So I brought everybody on the target. There were squirters everywhere, made my way inside, send the commander to the roof, still dealing with stuff.

And I'm starting to talk to the guys on target, which is now that's kind of my job. Roll in, control the whole thing, and then talk to detainees, and try to figure out there's another target. I can go hit right away before we head back. I'm talking to one of them, and I hear this radio call,

I got a squirt of grim, and then I hear this boom, and I filled the explosion. And it was in a back room at the house. I don't thought shit. And I looked at that dude, I go, you better help none of my men are freaking injured. Or I'm going to make this a bad day for you, you know? And the therapist like, oh, I get a call on the radio. It's stinky and cab, man.

They followed a dude into a room and as soon he turned around before you know before they could kill Hamie clacked it off so they were shooting him as he clacked it off He's like Kevin's really bad And he's like pull me so Kevin's really really bad and I remember looking at him going I Don't give a shit, you know, I can't give a shit I have like 40 other people I have to give a shit about you know, let Let's pack him up and get him out of here, you know, so call him and medevac. I did give a shit, right? But I don't like to hear that stuff on the target. And that brought me, that was a second thing that took me back to Somalia was in Somalia on one of the hits.

I shot gonna door open with a slug. And then I went off and cleared in the room and then my two I see came in and he goes, Hey, you know, you shot a woman. I was like, what? Because you know, when you breech that door, it went through that door and through the next wall and it went into a woman's leg. And I'm like, I'm okay, I'm sorry, you know, he's like going there and take care of her. So I'm going to package her up, band her up, put her on stretcher, me and a friend or carry her out on X-Fill, gonna put her on a Humvee.

And, you know, brought her back, took care of her, and everything's probably richest woman in Samoino. So that struck me, you know, as a similar, as a similar thing. And then the healo crashing. And then that room getting blown up, and then this guy saying, and I wanna do the Medevac right away,

but I can't because we're taking fire from everywhere. I've lost all the outer perimeter rangers so we're taking fire from different houses and I wanna use the AC 130. They can pick up all this shit and they're looking at it and they're telling me what's going on. So I go, okay, I need accountability. I got rangers over there.

I have a team members squirting everywhere, taking down all these houses in this compound. I got a guy blown up and he had to bring a MetaVec in and give me a head count. Or we're missing one dude, missing one guy. Find out what TV was on, find out who it was, and I go, where was he last seen? Go back that way.

Find out who he is. I can't suppress targets, I know where it buys at. And I can't bring a MetaVec, so I suppress targets. I know whereabouts at and I can't bring a med of X I suppress targets. Meanwhile, my commander's going, hey, they're calling me from the jock. They want to send a helo with a team on it to go after that squirter that's in a building three blocks away.

Hell, I don't know. You know, and I go, tell them no. And I took off running, you know, and then the fires guy comes over, hey, we've got a group of cars coming in to our target at high-ready speed. I go, take them out. Hey, later, hey, we've got a group of cars leaving the area, you know, with guys in the back with guns.

I go, take them out, stop asking me how to do your damn job. Do your job. Commander comes back to me. Hey, they really want us to chase these squirters. I go, tell them no. I got a lot going on. Still looking for a guy, right? I'm not gonna send more people out.

I'm still looking for one guy so I can suppress fire. They don't know what's going on on the ground, right? They want shit done. Third time, I make it to the roof, the past information to the boss. He's like, hey, they really want me. You to send me, yes. Because he was, that was new for him.

That was his first hit with me because my other boss had gone home. So he was my new boss. And even though I knew him, I was his instructor, no TC, now he's my boss. And go give me that radio. And you can't, he took it from, and I took it from his radio guy and I go,

negative, I'm not sending anybody after squirters, I'm working the target here, I'm working fine on him, is a man and I got a downhilo out, I threw it back, I'm gonna go, that's how you fucking do it. You know what I took off, went and about, do my job. And then finally somebody somebody come back hey we found oh boy we got him back okay

suppress fire suppress fires now let me know when it's done where was he what's going on and another thing to struck me the backtrack sorry I'm on the roof after that bird went down I'm the one calling Black Hawk down. I had to make that call. Again, I'm gonna stuck there all night. Didn't bring extra water. And I'm on the roof going, I did it again, man. I did it again. I let this happen. And I was pissed at myself.

One, I was thirsty. We had our nods, but I didn't have extra water. Had a Black Hawk down, had dudes messing, finally got him back, suppressing the fire, and I go, what happened? Where was he? Was he in the, I mean, what's going on? How do you have one guy out on his own?

Well, he was out talking to a cow. Yeah, I did that too. I go, what? He was out talking to a cow and I go, okay, he goes on the MetaVac bird with the, with the injured, when we go out, he's dehydrated, what? Because she was out talking to Karen, I go, okay, he goes on the Medevac bird with the injured, when we go out, he's dehydrated, right? Up figure, he must be dehydrated, he's acting weird. Medevac finally got them back.

That's the first time I found out what a dark team was. Because I'm like, blow that helicopter in place and we're outta here, you know? Negative, we're gonna send in a dark team. I go, I get it back on the radio, go, what's a dark team? A downed aircraft rescue team. I go, that exists. Yeah, we're gonna send out some test pilots,

some parts that you need. They're gonna put it on the helicopter and then they'll fly it out of there. And I go, how long does that shit take? You know, like, I'm under fire. I already called for the QRF, you didn't roll the QRF, everything's kind of settled, but we've been here

a long time now. That doesn't take much for people to trickle in and figure out what's going on. So we go through that process. Oh, no, a fix in the helicopter, you know, and finally, they take off. You know, they're limping out of there and they take off. All right, load everything out.

We load the helos up and we left. and there was a huge cashier of explosives in the garage that we left in the car that we found. So anybody in the target that wasn't bad stay away from this house, it's not going to be good for three days. So we told them to stay away for like days. We flew back, found out that the helicopter had to make a hard landing somewhere else. And they worked through that on their own and picked back up and limped to the rear. And I'm like, thank goodness, this is over. Then I went into the talk and watched them bomb that house, you know, and destroy that or the shit there.

And then I started doing research on what happened to my guy that was talking to a cow, and how's my other guy doing? He ended up doing all right. The guy that got blown up was fine. Now the guy thought it was dehydrated. I went down and was looking in his room, asking his teammates like,

what's going on? There's ambient on the table. There's ambient over here. There's ambient over there. And I'm like, shh, tonight we take the ambient and then we roll out on a hit and we forgot we take the ambient. And so we take more ambient and we roll out on hits

and you're on ambient talking to cows on a hit. And it hit me that I'd failed. Cause I should have been checking on the guys. Instead, I wanted to be that cool leader that let them do their own thing in their own room. I won't look and just be there when I need you versus really taking care of them. And finding out what was going on down there.

So that ended that day. Got him cleaned up, ended up doing all right. The other guy, like I said, ended up being okay, but that mission sticks out on top just because of the similarities of, you know, that just went back and forth and took me back to Somalia. You had mentioned a couple of times that you'd had flashbacks and combat back to Somalia, but I don't believe you've ever had flashbacks from any other incidents. How often did that happen?

Smells, take me right back that frequently. I don't like bleach at my house too much. When I hit it, I'm like, okay, here comes the bleach. But smells take me back, and that's often other missions would take me back with similarities that would happen Fourth of the time maybe And it was more of a what can I do what it's happened before and then then I start thinking of and like I shake that shit off Get back, you know learn the lessons not the emotions with it

That took me back a lot and then the spouses always takes me back. But I don't go back to Iraq much. To me Iraq was what I thought war would be. I didn't do the Wild West thing as much in Iraq when it went hard in the West. By then I was the star major, the task force. Because I'm sitting a bunker in Belad, you know. Hating life and watching KEL-TV, like, you know, but I'm not gonna be the star major that goes out and hit with you every night

because I wanna relive my life and you hate me because I'm on a hit with you, like, happened with us. You know, we're going hits and I'm a McCraven or General McCrister, well, I wanna go on a hit with you, I'm like, stay in the vehicle. Now I get a call, hey, I'm a McCraven wants to come over, I'm like, no, he doesn't, no, he doesn't wanna come over here. You know, you don't wanna come hit with you, I'm like, stay in the vehicle. Now I get a call, hey, I remember Craven wants to come over on Mac. Now he doesn't, no, he doesn't want to come over here.

You know, you don't want to come over here, man. You don't want to see, you know, you want plausible done liability, whatever. So I, you know, I hated it when like the command element that doesn't go out on targets, goes out on target, just experience it. I'm like, you don't, I don't need a dead general or dead Adam or all of my hand, you know,

I don't want that shit. So I didn't go out with the guys. I didn't want to. You know, and every now and then, hey, you want to go out with the guys? You know, no, you can go. Someone's got to stay here and run this shit, you know? As much as I hate it, I hate it less

than they hate me showing up. You know, because they got their team. I get it. What year did you pull yourself from that role from going on target? Probably 2005 or six? Okay. Probably 2005 or six

because I started getting surgeries from getting messed up and I'd get that hey don't go back to never put a helmet on your head again and then four weeks later I'm running through Felicia chasing a semi my helmet on my head. I my neck started her my Man, I screw this up again. I'm fine Another surgery, you know, and finally fuse the neck and then it moves a lower back I just kept doing the thing, you know that you shouldn't be done Just going back not listening to anybody, but it wasn't, I mean, nothing was like some oil. Nothing I think will ever be like that.

For me, anyway, obviously, anymore, but I never felt trapped. I always had military around in Iraq. You know, there was always a regular army unit you could call in to ask some Bradleys, man, I never had those before. I used to take them on every hit. I used to have two tanks and two Bradleys

do whatever you want with. Okay, come on the hit with us. Stay like 500 meters away or a couple of hundred meters away. 500 meters away, you'll roll in once we hit the target, you know, and you'll hit on each corner and you'll scare people. And if I need you, I got you. And I got asked by Sir Major, why do you take them all the time?

We stood hits without ISR and I go, yeah, now we have ISR. And you gather and tell before you go on the hit and you realize it's not worth going in blind unless it's necessary. Why do I take tanks and breads? Because you told me I had them. But you don't ever use them. I go, and the day I don't take them, I'll need them. It just sounds really stupid.

Are you worried about wasting gas or something? Man, I mean, it the day I don't take them, I'll need them. It just sounds really stupid. Are you worried about wasting gas or something? Man, I mean, it's a government. So, it was a here's tanks and brass, but why are you using them? Y'all use everything you give me. I'll use it all every night if I could, and to bring everybody home. But it was a rack as much as I expected it to be.

It was normal to be. It was normal to me. It was the job that we did, and you're done with it in your back. You get creative, you got boards, you get creative. Like, I wanna climb this three story building this time, attack from the top. I'm like, all right, go ahead, man. We'll go in the bottom door.

You go up the top, no need to, but if you wanna practice a TTP on a target, let's do it, you know, so then you end up working with the FBI and doing other things. So you get to roll out and do different other than combat things as they go searching for people trying to poison the water system and what not. And you're just kind of securing them into a building and like you got 20 minutes max like 40 minutes later, I just need a little more and like you're done. You're out of here, man We can't stay here that long on target You know they didn't get it. They're showing up. They're black SUVs

Well, just intermingle with your convoy. I'm like He's got to understand they don't got it Yeah, I mean those guys didn't get it at the time as they were there. They could have been new, you know day one but Search and salt shakers and I'm like this is not an FBI lab, brother, where you got to get out of here. If you want it all, it's in a box, you check it later, you know, you don't test it on target. That was interesting. When you did get back from Smiley, the next, your next deployment was Bosnia, correct? Yep. Either protecting generals, well, that's what I did. It was protecting generals.

So, well, how did that feel to go from that level of combat and Mogadishu to Bosnia where you're protecting generals? I think I looked at it like a sham job, but an easy job. Like, who's gonna go after this guy, man? I mean, surrounded by people at time. He's got Delta Force protecting him. We're always planning the routes.

When we started, we drove. We drove vehicles, we pulled security, it took double what we needed over there, home. Cause we didn't trust anybody doing anything else. When it slowed down, we used MPs from Germany to drive. We trained them up on how we wanted them to drive. And yes, you'll drive on the MPs from Germany to drive. We trained them up on how we wanted them to drive. And yes, you'll drive on the sidewalk, yes, you'll run red lights, and yes, you'll push cars out of the way. That's it, you won't

stop ever, or we're going to pull you out, and that's it for you. They did pretty good. We just cut our numbers in half and just did the gun part. And a couple of times I, it was kind of funny doing these jobs, you know. You got other teams out doing Piffwicks stuff, chasing the war criminals. And that was horrible to listen to a hit where you're pulling security for the general and he's in the talk. He's like, come on in with me. You know, and you're listening to them do a hit. I remember him asking me after one hit.

He's like, I remember saying, all right, put the puppies back in the box now, until we need them again. And I remember hearing him say that, like, like, break glass in case of emergency kind of thing. You know, only bring the boys out for that. And he turns and looks at me, because how is that to you to listen to your boys do a hit over the radio? And I go, it's a lot like, listen to somebody else, your wife.

You know, that's my job to be out there. And now I'm in here doing this for you. Yeah, that's what it feels like, but somebody's got to do it. And it was one of those, it's almost a relaxing job. You got to hang out in Bosnia and find a bar that might be open or grab some food or restaurant that didn't get blown up. And then some funny things like the Deputy Secretary-General of the UN, you know, Lansing. We drive over with the general in the back who wants to meet him and he,

hey, the Deputy Secretary needs to make a phone call, you know, and he jumps in. I just armor all the seats, you know, and you're the driver. You take care of everything and I was driving the main limo at the time. And he got in, he kicks his loafers off and he gets in and just starts talking on the phone. I'm like, these people are different. And I said, you might want to buckle up, sir. And I start driving. And in the general, he knew he buckled up.

And I'm whipping around cars, you know, and I'm getting it and he's sliding into the general. He's sliding into the door, because he didn't put a seatbelt on. And I just arm her all the seat. He slides back into the journal and I'm phoning because general's like, hey Tom, the secretary of the general into the journal and phone, and he goes, General's like, Hey Tom,

Secretary, you don't have to make a phone call. You think you slow down, and I looked at the mirror and I go, hey sir, how about you don't tell me how to do my job, and I won't tell you to do yours. And I went back to driving,

and it hit me like, I just smarted off to like the man. And he goes, did you hear that? Tom just told me to F off, and I was like, I didn't say that, sir. He laughed it off.

And I'm like, all right, he got it. You know, he got it, which was good. Most wouldn't get that. Yeah. But Bosnia was good. We stayed in one house by the Olympic tunnel. We called it because of the Olympic symbols on the tunnel. Some of them ripped off.

And neighbors were getting their lights shot out. And a window shot. It's sniper, right? We think it's sniper. And so me and my roommate sat up at the house and I was up, you know, I was downstairs by the door with my pistol waiting in a chair. He was upstairs watching out and then up creeps us dude with a rifle. He's and we're on little walking. He's like, now in open the door.

The dude takes off and chasing him through Bosnia with my pistol. Up to Sila Runner, I'm starting to run out of breath. Like, who's this dude, man? Finally catch him towards the end, throw him to the ground and get him. It's a damn kid with a BB gun. I almost shot him. I went knocking door to door. His parents were on vacation in like Spain or something and they left the kids at home

in Bosnia and Sarajevo. And I'm a shot the kid because he's just doing kid shit, you know, in a war zone. parents were on vacation in like Spain or something and they left the kids at home in Bosnia and Sarajevo. And I'm a shot the kid, cause he's just doing kid shit, you know, in a war zone. That's even probably worse than a war zone. So I went knocking on neighbors doors and they were happiest shit to grab that kid and take him on and the cops showed up. You know, and they were all happy

cause they were sick of their shit getting shot up with his BB gun, you know, and they in a con his parents or whatever and became friends with the neighbors then. But I was thinking that happened there, that were just kind of fun. We found some explosives underneath the bridge, when the Pope visited, and turned it into the Pope team, like, I'm not touching that shit, you know,

and they came and fixed it up, and I'm like, oh, it's happy, but things like that would happen, people would show up, and you'd have to help escort them around, but it was an easy job. Until you're needed, right? Until you're needed, and it's a shit job. That was kind of a relaxing job for me.

We did that two or three rotations, a couple of years. Yeah, guys going at different teams, going in and out, intermingling teams. And I think also we did the CT Olympics in 95 that year. And I was on that team, training up for that team, made that team. And we compete with all the other counter-terrorist units around the world in Germany. And made the team, was rehearsing some stuff and jumped off a moving trailer to go shoot some targets and rolled my ankle.

I heard a snap, I'm like hop up, I'm like, I got it, man, I got it, you know, I got to make the team. I ended up going over as a watcher. I got pulled, missocked, man, but it was fun to watch. It was good to be there for it, but it was one of those heartbreaking things, you know. I got a call, I was in Jackson, hello, at a ski trip, setting up a ski trip, my team leader calls me

up as a Friday, I'm getting drunk, right? I'm in the hotel getting drunk, it's a Friday, he goes, hey, we're trying out for the CT, let me some Monday, you're coming. I go, what, I get back Sunday night, yeah, be here Monday morning with tryouts. All right, I finish getting drunk, wake up Saturday, get drunk, Sunday morning,

get up, we fly in late Sunday night, and I get up and did the tryouts and made it. I was like, all right, just because he made me, because he made me do it. I'm glad it did, it was a good experience though. When did you start? Where did you go from? You went to Pakistan in 2000.

Yeah, that was a more of a house things going over there. How do they receive Americans and kind of what's going on and see how much information you can gather and pass back and we land in Islamabad. Checked in with the embassy. They wanted to do some kind of surveys on their embassy. For I walked in and go first and screwed up, as you got palm trees, you planted out in the soccer field. Yeah, Ambassador likes palm trees. you planted out in the soccer field.

Yeah, and Bachel頂X palm trees. Does he like to land helicopters when he needs them too? Because you can't land a helicopter anymore, right? You've taken up all your helo space for a Neo, you know? So got them to cut all the trees down, which he loved and then kind of, and it had just recently burnt down and they built a new one too, so that was good.

Hung out with the birds and their embassy for a bed. I mean, we really weren't doing much in Islamabad. It's like Washington, D.C. all the bootings look great. All the streets are wide for the parades and really nobody's there. So we get in a car and drive to Lahore and Peshawar to where the caddies and the golf, you know, have a carry-8 ks and this is one of those towns you're in. I was like, all right, I don't know if I want to leave this hotel. You know, this is one of those towns where we're not really welcome. And we didn't, you don't realize you're ramping up to a war,

but yeah, there's much information as we could, how the roads were, how the people were. And I remember being in one of the hotels and it's like, there's no bar here. Of course, we're in a Muslim country, right? There's no bar here. I'm looking around like, oh no, you can go to the seventh floor. And if you show your course, we're in a Muslim country, right? No, there's no bar here. I'm looking around like, oh no, you can go to the seventh floor,

and if you show your passport, you can get a drink. I'm like, oh, I got you. We got there, show our passport, so we're in a Muslim. Okay, turns around, he's got warm beers on the shelf, and I'm like, oh, I never mind, that's not worth it. But it was an interesting trip with those Jenga vehicles and people hanging off of them in the buses,

and that's where you learn Where the biggest vehicle has it right away even if they're wrong and you're right, you know You get run off the road by those buses all the time over there. So it's kind of It's kind of a trick to drive a car over there By this point I think you go to Iraq and 03 correct so that was Seven years

Yeah, right when 911 kicked off They picked me to go set up the invasion of Afghanistan So I flat to white sands set up this whole training area the unit of fly in and they'll do these hits and practice desert mobility, which was my dream job. Been on my buddy team the whole time, didn't do my buddy shit. I wanted to do mobility in the desert at war. I was so excited. Went out to white sand in New Mexico, landed, had my medic with me and you know, CCTV

guy, whatever to set up stuff. Opened up my suitcase and there's a card and I'm like, oh, cool, a card, you know? Open it up. Start reading it, said, don't send flowers, don't call. This is the second year you missed your anniversary. I shut my card, put it away. I was like, look to my men, I go, I'm screwed, man. I'm really screwed.

Finish that trip, came home, get the debrief, and I told my star major like, hey, I kind of got this. I need to go home and smooth things over, and he's like, you need to go be an instructor. I go, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I need to go to mobility, but I need to go home and smooth this over first. Because now your way past your time, you've been a team leader way too long. It's time to go to be an instructor. When you come back, you'll be a troops star major.

So right when 9-11 kicked off, I went for two years to be an instructor. I was freaking out. I was freaking out, right? Then my first introduction to Iraq was at the end of my time training our shoothouse was going on was under reconstruction, so I was up at the FBI shoothouse up near Kwanaka teaching up there and I was handing it over to the next guy taking it and I packed up fluid Iraq to do like a leader's recon of what's going on, went on a couple hits with another squadron and then came back and then I would take my troop over next. And so that was interesting, just to go over for like a week, run with another squadron just to get your feet on the ground

and see what's going on, listen to the leaders and then come back and then take your troop over, it was pretty good. Let's rewind, because I was good-murder to ask you after Smolia how you received incoming Delta Vise. And then you told me now you're an instructor. Yeah. There was a lot of black hog down lessons everybody wanted to learn. And we were ready to impart them everybody. We wanted everyone to know and whenever somebody would, you know, you teach it and then they do it in something anyway.

The way they've always been taught, you know, you have to pull them in and start talking about, listen, the reason you don't do this is this. And this is what we found here and here and here and there. Okay, and you know, I got to get past that. But the way we would do is like, listen shithead, you know, I didn't grab him over. And so I think somebody told Jen at one point that I'd worked with for,

worked for me for years was, man, I thought all those guys were, you know, bipolar assholes, you know, from Somalia. They were all just crazy idiots. It's like, oh, yeah, maybe we do talk a little harsh, you know, and you don't soften your edge there anyway. So whatever they got was what they were gonna get the whole time. But I heard that from other people, from other unit members, like, yeah, Tom's fair, but he's an asshole, you know,

and that was my moniker. I was proud of that. Yeah, I'm fair, for sure. But I'm an asshole, yeah, I'll be an asshole. I don't care, you know, that's easy to accept. And I realized, no, they're serious. They meant it, you know. I took them on a hit and I rack one time

it was Christmas day and I was bored. And I'm like, we hit a target the night before and they lied to us. I could tell they, I knew they lied to us. We found it from one other person, they lied to us. One person took off a target that they lied about some things and it's now it's Christmas day. We're just sitting around taking the day off.

And I thought, well, the guys are probably bored, aren't they? Pulled out the packet from right across the river from the house with the night before. And I go, all right, get the team leaders in here. We got to hit. Yeah, they come in. I'm like, I'm going to keep these guys busy. So I don't think about Christmas at home.

And yada, yada, yada. When I did the hit again, came back, Christmas days over. I think two years ago, I was talking tellin' that story to some guys who were there, like, yeah, oh man, we just wanted to relax and chill. I was like, well, I thought y'all wanted to go be busy, you know, like, no, we'd been busy. We just wanted to chill.

And I was like, I was taking a simulia thing like, let's keep going, all right, let's keep going. And I learned a lot there. Well, later, that, you you know I should have slowed it down a little bit even for even for those guys even for the guys in the unit not everybody wants to or has that trauma where you got to keep going all the time you know they haven't been exposed to like that much trauma. So I look back now and I'm like wow I wonder we seem kind of harsh and rough they didn't understand it they hadn't seen that yet.

You know, and then at some point you start getting people that had been to war with the Rangers and with SF. And so they had already deployed and they come back, they still join the unit and they just wanna go do more. You know, I applaud those guys, because they saw what it was like. They wanted to elevate it more, you know, or maybe they sat in a fob and hated it and wanted to do more.

So I applaud you people that joined the military during war. I joined for cash when we weren't at war. We hadn't been at war in a long time that I knew of. So I applaud everybody that signed up after 9-11. So you really had not seen, you didn't see any combat in Pakistan, correct? No. You didn't see anything crazy in Bosnia. Now, I'm trying to think of they mortared much. You know, you'd see mortar rounds in trees,

and I go, bad, I didn't go off. You could have stepped on a land mine at some point if you got off a trail. I mean, they were everywhere. We'd take the general fur run, and there'd be land mines off, right off the path, and they're all marked and everything. But I'm like, can I just go off if they go bad?

You know, it's like shouldn't we just remove them, but it was a nonstop operation there. So the reason I'm asking is you had about seven years without combat. Yeah. So were you worried how you would react when come back, came back around? Did it, did it, did it, did the previous trauma affect your mindset of going back to war when you knew it was coming? I think I know, I thought at the time that I had readyed myself. I wanted to vindicate myself,

and I was ready to go back. I wasn't afraid. I was probably cocky and stupid. And I knew it was in a different role. That's what made me afraid. It was a different role. Set it around and around and breaking shit. Now, I had stiants in my command, and I'd pull back on the reins

and keep it from doing crazy stuff like I used to do. It's like, now your mom and dad, you know, you gotta keep the kids in line. And it was terrifying for me to lose one of them. I didn't think or care about me, right? I mean, that's an easy thing for me. But any one of them had terrified me to no end. To the point before I'd go out on every hit,

you know, once I did radio checks, shut the door and locked it up and called, all right, roll. I closed my eyes and by the, before we got out the gate, it was one of those prayers to God, let me make the right decisions. Let me bring all my men home

by making the right decisions. Don't let me shoot the wrong people. Let this be a clean, easy hit, no bullets fired. I don't care, but please help me bring everybody back. And I'm like, I'm done with God. Let's go. You know, and I'd roll out the gate, and it was just back to straight, not evil,

but evil thoughts of, there's no goodness. You know, I thought there was no goodness in the war, so I had to get rid of all the good. What was the first, what was the first engagement you had after Somalia? The first real one, there was a lot of smaller ones, little hostage rescue of an Iraqi here and there. Go hit this target, you know,

and you find a guy locked in a room from the outside with a gun taped to his hand, like another criminal guy or another gang member, whatever one of him dead, so they would use us, pass off information. And I'm like, why is this locked on the outside? You know what I mean? Who's in there that it's locked?

He's a prisoner, you know, and then guys went in and he's got a gun taped to his hand, but they didn't shoot him. And it's like, cut the gun off. It's like, thank you. You know, it's like, I don't know your deal, but you're going to the Pokey, right? I'm done with you. I don't taped to his hand, but they didn't shoot him. And as I cut the gun off, like, uh, thank you. You know, it's like, I don't know your deal, but you're going to the Pokey, right?

I'm done with you. I don't know who you are, but those things would happen. But the one I remember the big one was Halloween night. I couldn't tell you what year it was. We rolled out with the SAS. And there was a target in, wanna say Ramadi. Ramadi, or Flutia, I wanna say Ramadi. Ramadi at Fallujah, I wanna say Ramadi. And we rolled up into,

this Ramadi first from Baghdad or Fallujah. Anyway, we rolled up into one of those towns, Ramadi at Fallujah, talked to the regular army and the whole day started with, we got this hit, blah, blah, blah. Okay, bringing the team leaders, let the team leaders plan, the team leaders bring in their teams, they plan, and then they turn and breathe it to me and the boss. And I was like, sounds good to me, right?

You're not doing anything tactically wrong. My job's really just to make sure you don't do something stupid. The boss is like, well, I think we need to change this or that and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, no, you're not the one going in the door. They're going in the door. They're comfortable with a plan. It's tactically sound. We approve it. Well, I think, no, stop.

So we, all right, approved. We drive out. We link up with that regular army unit who's gonna help pull security force cause probably was Ramadi and we were going into Flujan, a little word about Flujan. So we brought in a regular army unit with us. We had their Bradley's as well. We're rolling in with the SAS and I remember

as we were flying down the main road and then the guy's navigating and all of a sudden he locks up his brakes, you know, like, oh, I missed a turn. And he did. He almost missed a turn. And he so he locks up his brakes on his own V, which causes second one to crash into him, which causes us the third one to crash into the second one.

I went flying out, laying on the hood, and guys were like, ah, I heard their backs and everything. I'm like, great, we're in the middle of the street. We just crashed into each other, right? It's like Keystone cops, you know? Anybody hurt? No, we're all good. And vehicles are running. Yeah, we're all good. I continue to target, other, right? It's like keystone cops, you know, anybody hurt? No, we're all good vehicles around here. Yeah, we're all good.

I continue to target, man. Hopefully they didn't hear any of this, you know. We roll up on a target. And while we were talking and briefing the regular army unit before we left, that's when my commander changed the plan on his own. Back to the one he wanted. Talking to the colonel with the regular army unit

on the hood of a Humvee, being big guy, you know, we'll do this and that. This and that. And I looked at the team leaders, it's like, it's not what we briefed. I said, nothing's gonna get you killed. It's not a good time to like bring it up now. You can either A, do what you plan to do originally, and all of deal with it later, or B, do this plan. I said, probably do this plan, because that's what they all expect.

They agreed on them like, okay, good. So we roll up and do that way. What happened was we missed the Intel information that I think the boss should be receiving that this is the target switch to, or this is the target switch to this is the target. Everybody miss it. So the SCS roll up in front of this target. Get out and walk to this is a target. Everybody miss it. So the SCS roll up in front of this target.

Get out and walk to this target. Empty, so they do the whole street this way. We did the same thing. We hit this house, do the whole street this way. Fought, you know, worked our way back. And then the Brits worked their way back and they're like, hey mate, we're gonna go in one more gate before we load up.

My guy, soon as he opened the gate to that house where their vehicles were parked in front of, RPK opens up from the front door. Brit drops dead, another Brit wounded, they get drug out, it just all hell breaks loose. That house was full of form fighters in black pajamas like nobody's business. They were on the roof and let RPG's laid out. They were on the roof, they let RPGs lay down,

they were in the house, they had ID's, ready to roll, probably fresh out of Syria, just got their tracksuits, passports taking away so they can never leave again, hand in their guns and probably gonna move them somewhere to go to a hit somewhere. So we line up the Bradley's, you know, and the Brits loaded that dude up and took off

back to Ramadi in their vehicle alone. Without telling us, I called in a Metabac and said landing in the middle of the street with fire, you know, come this way, all right, bring in the Brit. There's already X-Field, I'm like, where's the head count? What's going on here? Get that Hilo out of there, was unneeded. Start tearing down the front wall with the Bradleys,

just tearing down the front wall. Fire toad missiles into the house, you know trying to suppress all those guys The command called up. Hey, we want to send some high-marge your weight. I'm like wait a minute What I'm across the street and you got brits on across the street in the other direction. You want to hit one house With rockets from say I don't know somewhere the desert. Yeah, man, they're great. No, no, I don't want rockets. I don't trust rockets, you know, so they kept tearing it up with the vehicles and toes and they brought on some kilos and shot it up.

Now it's time to go in. Time to go in and clean it up. That's my job. Boss stays on top, calls higher. I go in, I work the target. He's like, hey, baby, early, he was trying to call fire missions. Hey, fire mission, baby, woo! On the roof, like having hey, baby. Early, he was trying to call fire missions. Hey, fire mission, baby. Woo, on the roof, like having a good time.

I'm like this ain't a good time for me, really. And by the way, that's fire sport guy. Why don't you do your job? Talk to hire. Let me do my job, work the target. I tell you what's going on. You tell hire. Don't do fire missions.

Time to go into the building. He's like, I'm gonna go into the building with the teams. I go, that's my job. You stay on the roof, you call up higher. So I'm going in. Go okay. I'll stay on the roof and I'll do your job. So they go in, teams go in.

They had to go up the next building, climb on the roof and actually shoot the guys on the roof. Go get the guys inside, to wake their webstairs, it's so destroyed. Trying to get up get up the broken stairwells. You know, there's an old guy laying underneath. They told me with a garage remote control with a red light going off, pushing it, trying to detonate, but it had separated, you know, to blast. They were pounding out the back into where the brits were and the brits were catching them or smoking them, whichever they needed to do. And we emptied the

whole house and finally cleaned everything up and headed back. And we got back, I walked into the door, I walked in the talk, and I looked at the circumcision of the commander, go, can I talk to you guys for a minute? Yeah, they came out on the front porch of our house and begged, dad, and I looked at him, I said, listen, it's him or me, that's leaving tonight.

I can't do this anymore. He had done something else on an earlier mission where we were catching little Saddam, the guy that was on, you know, behind Saddam, as a security guy in the early stages of the war. And that dude was in the house and there was a huge television. I mean, a huge TV there playing Xbox on, you know, and we wrote, went on, rolled them up. And I looked at it and I know the law of land warfare, right? You can take an enemy stuff and use it for the war. And I looked at that TV and I'm like, that would look good in our talk, man.

That thing's huge. I told him one of the heavy breach, I go, hey, get that thing off the wall. I'm going next door and see what's going on. Let me know when you got off the wall. We forgot how to put it in the vehicle. You know, he's like, all right. I go next door and everything's cleared up and cleaned up. And I look at the bus, I go,

hey, I got a nice TV on the way for the talk. He goes, huh? You can't do that. I go, yeah, you can. You can't take money in you use it, but you can take anything and use it on the battlefield or use it for battle. No, you can't leave it.

And I'm like, I'm taking it with me. I already called hiring, told him I was bringing it back. He goes, no, no, you have't leave it. And I'm like, I'm taking it with me. I already called hiring, told him I was bringing it back. He goes, no, no, you have to leave it. He had done that. And I have Afghanistan with his other troop, with the same troop before I was there when they did a raid on a convoy they went by. And they went down to check the vehicles

and it's sugar and coffee. They'd been out in the desert for like a weeks and weeks. And they made that. So they started taking sugar and coffee off the vehicle and he made them dump it all out. And so I told David Breachers, I go negative, smash it. If I can't have it, they can't have any of that. So they start taking sugar coffee off the vehicle and he made him dump it all out. And so I told David Breaches, I go negative, smash it. If I can't have it, they can't have it.

You know, so smash it. Kemen, I had to smash that TV man I got on now. I can't take it back. So I got back, I called him out and told him, and boss, like, where's the TV? I go, mm-hmm. He wouldn't let me bring it back. So after the fluency incident,

and he said on the front porch, he goes, him or me, let's leave it tonight. And the boss goes, send him out. I was like, shit, I went in because we roomed together, right? And I went in there. I laid down on my bed. I just stretched and I looked up. I go, oh, hey, the boss wants to see you on the front porch. Because you know what about? I go, he just said to send you out. He didn't tell me why. And I only guessed why, right? He didn't tell me why.

He didn't only guess why. He went on out. He was out there for like 15 minutes. He came back and he just started packing his bags. He's like, hey, man, I'm sorry. I got, no, there's no reason to be sorry. It's just, you can't operate this sorry. I got no reason to be sorry. It's just you can't operate this way. I've been here a long time.

And you haven't. And you'll be gone in a shorter time, even if you stayed here. And I'll still be here. It's not a power thing. It's let the team leaders do their thing thing. And you're getting too involved. And that's all officers. Don't make it here.

Anyone ought to become a great commander somewhere else, just not there. That's when I got the new guy in, and that's when the helicopter happened, you know, south. So, those kind of rolled a little bit back to back. Yeah, but the first one was the Halloween night. Yeah, that all happened on Halloween night with the brits. And so we kind of dubbed that one,

I forgot what we called it, somebody with Halloween manits and so we kind of dubbed that one. I forgot we called it Somebody to do with Halloween man crash on the way in wrong intel and the right well right intel. We didn't hear it Just bad juju that night Let's talk about Operation rib dawn That was a good one, you know the night before the night before we had a hit come up and back dead. And it was like, hey, it's one of Saddam's keepers. And we've been chasing Saddam for a while.

Let me back up. Let me back up to Thanksgiving. Proud of Thanksgiving. I get called in by the star major in the talk. I understand some guy in there and sitting close with one of those scarfs on his nagging Proud of Thanksgiving. I get called in by the star major in the talk. I'm gonna introduce some guy in there and say, in close with one of those scarfs on his nagging tail, yo, you're new to Iraq.

That's a cool scarf, right? So that's still cool to you. And he's standing there and he's like, hey Tom, this guy's a secret service from Texas. He's one of President Bush's private security when he's at Texas. The president is gonna dump his security in DC. He's gonna go to Texas for Thanksgiving

and then they're gonna take a secret flight over here and I want your true pull protection at, you know, buy out the Baghdad International Airport. It's like, okay, all right, what do you want me to do? And so Guy Tony who took his own life after that, took me out, she'll make everything you wanted to do. Then we brought the teams out or the team guys out.

And he's like, Hey, what can I tell him? What can I, because he told me not to tell him. It was the president until the last second. So I devised this story that was Dallas Cabo cheerleaders coming in to entertain the troops. And we got to protect him. I'm like, Hey, yeah, I'll do that. Right.

So they were motivated. We went out to the airport, you practiced our vehicle lineups and everything. So we're out there Thanksgiving night. And you can hear that plane coming in and we're all waiting on the end of the runway. And I'll send you to your force one spiral on down. And they all look over and I'm like, all right, I think now's a good time to tell you

who's coming in. It's not the cheerleaders. I know it's gonna piss you off, but it's the president of the state. So he's gonna come serve some food and talk to the boys. And they were pissed. You're right. Stop. I know it's gonna piss you off, but it's the president of the state. So he's gonna come serve some food and talk to the boys. They were pissed. You're right.

Stop. But then it picks up and they're like, all right, this is cool. You know, as soon as we're chasing Air Force one down the runway for no reason other than to catch up with it later. You know, I mean, like, why don't we just stay down this the other way? We get out.

We really didn't have much to do with it. There was a few secret service. Connolly Sir Rice was there. I mean, we really didn't have much to do with it. There was a few secret service that Connolly Sir Rice was there and she's a little firecracker. Piled him and drove him over to the mess tent. We followed him over surrounded him and then I'm not as AIC, but I'm close to him, you know. And we're backstage and he's going to go talk to the troops someone's talking about. And you know, who loves you the most? Blah blah blah, building him up. Cause I don't think they knew he was there yet. Cause it was that surprise visit no one ever knew about. And we're standing backstage and he's like, all right.

How you think you get sedoms? You get him yet? Like he didn't know. And I looked at him and I go, well, it'd be a good Christmas present, wouldn't it? Well, yeah, that'd be real nice, you know? I think I'll go talk to these boys now and he took off. And then when Seeker Service Leans over and he goes, did you just promise the President and I

say she'd have sat on by Christmas? And I go, I hope not. Said, I hope I didn't do that. I hope we didn't take it that way. He goes, you don't say anything to President unless it's a positive sentence. Said, okay. Okay, good to know now, you know?

So he rolls out and we roll back and then move on a few more, well, about a month or so, you know. Baghdad that night, get a hit coming in. Hey, wanna sit on his handlers, we think is coming into town, we think. He's gonna be at this house we think, and then maybe we can find out where sit on his and we had guys who were ill and no with other know other agencies down the street and I thought well they

won't they won't want to be in on this so I'll go grab them bring them back. That was the next day never mind. We roll up, plan to do the hit and as we're rolling in I see some guy walking down the street. I just noticed you know black coat whatever, walking down the street and went in another gate. I thought okay I logged it in gate gate. I'd say, okay, I'd log it in, gate color. I don't know why. I went and hit the house, really nothing there.

I'm like, here we go again, nothing, nothing, nothing. We call it chasing Ellis, right? Never catch in Saddam. Then we started taking fire from like, far away at the backside of the house. And I thought, why are they trying to draw us in? Why would, you know, why would someone shoot at us with our armored vehicles from

that far away? So I said, Hey, I sent a team down. I said, there was a guy went in a gate, told him the car, the gate, and it might have been Chris's team. Chris was on that team. I think poured down that street. And I told the story before about the guy at the end, they went in and cleared the place and found him underneath the bed with the plastic AK almost killed him. They killed him. We wouldn't know where it was, right? But they didn't. So we caught him.

But to hear it later, I think somebody met him at the gate and scared the shit out of him like they were trying to get in the gate and some guy opened the gate and he was standing right there and freaked him out and said, took in and then everything else was the same after that. But they pulled him back, brought him to the target. I'm like, all right, never mind. Let's roll on back. I didn't even talk to that guy.

It was just uneventful. But we brought him back for suspicious reasons. Because he had the toy AK and almost got smoked. And why would you have a toy AK? And you know, underneath a mattress and someone else's house took him back, sent him to the blood for the other guys

to have their way with him. And I went to bed. And everybody went to bed halfway through the day now, you know. Hey, hey, hey. We got a sedom hit and I go, yeah, yeah, when don't we have a sedom hit? I want to finish sleeping. No, no, no, it's a good one.

Get up. I want to wake everybody up. I go, don't wake anybody up. Let me look at it first before you wake everybody up, you know? Start looking at it, planning it. Yeah, he's pointing out this, house to crit, this town, a fish farm, he's in a bunker's in a bunker, and I'm like All right, wake the team leaders up man. Maybe man will bring them in here

Woke them up everybody gets excited Wake the teams up come up with a plan. There's another troop, you know up into crit our air was Baghdad and South Influzion on that they were to crit and up in that area So as we rolled in to link up with them and link up with the fourth ID, they got to choose which target they would hit because that was their area. So they chose the fish farm, the fish camp on the river. And I'm like, okay, we'll take the house in town

because that's probably where he's at, right? Roll in with the fourth ID, they surround the town like it's a normal patrol. We roll in behind them, the other guys are rolling into the fish farm. We blow the door open in this house, and I go in, there's like, I don't know, five or six, little babies laying on the, right,

in front of the door on the ground. I'm like, I'm jumping over babies, and none of them, they're all still asleep. And then there's this 90 year old guy coming up, put him down on the ground, and then my boss comes in, oh, what's going on? I go, watch your babies, you know,

I'm starting moving babies, that way. And this guy comes, I, some old, oh, what's going on? I go, watch your babies, you know, I'm starting moving babies out of the way. And this guy comes, I have some old, old, old guy. And then one of the team members come back like, fish in the freezer to the top. And Saddam love fish. And I was like, oh, oh, oh, so we started talking to this guy, not interrogating. Talking to this guy and finds out he cooks first and not. He's just cook.

And he knows where he's at. And he starts having a heart attack like they all do when you're going to roll him up. Right? Everyone has a heart attack or a women's star having babies. Look, I don't care what you're doing. You're still going with me, right? And I'm on the radio going, hey, listen, I'm going to do a follow on mission. I'm going to tape or tie this cook to the front of the pander. He's going to point it out and we're going to go and they're like, return to base. Like, listen, you don't get it. I'm gonna put him up, he's gonna point, we're gonna drive there, I'm gonna get Sid Ami,

goes, return to base. I'm so mad. So mad I told the guys, you know, I probably custom, hey, he's blowing this whole thing, we're gonna ruin it, blah, blah, blah. Roll back to the palace that we ran when we started. Found my boss and started to chew his ass because I was so mad and he goes,

shut up and come here. I followed him into this room and it was one of those things where I opened the door and I looked to the left and I'm like, salt and pepper beard out to here with a leaf in it and just standing in our handcuffed at a plastic table and I'm like, he shuts the door and I go, holy shit. That's him. he shuts it down and I go, holy shit.

That's him. He goes, yeah, I go, it looks like dirty Uncle Fester, right? He's apparently spoke a little English and knew who Fester was or just didn't like me and spit on me. He said, I'm spit on you. Yeah. Yeah. What'd you do?

Imagine myself knocking him out, right? But I looked down and I said, okay, you'll be dead soon. And I just turned and walked down. And the boss came out behind me and I go, damn, that was it. I mean, that's it. It literally it. I had this whole plan. Move in, fly in, put them on a aircraft carrier,

so no one can get him. Everything changed. He went on biop, stayed in a house, milled biop with two tanks right outside of it. You know, and then went on trial. But I remember driving back in the back of the vehicle. Everybody's asleep. I got the SAR major with me and he's talking to me.

And he's just got a smile on his face. Pretty cool. We caught him, huh? He goes, nah. I no longer have a retention problem. Cause he knew guys were happy, they finally caught somebody and I'm like, oh yeah, and then you go home, you go to bed. And the next day someone's, hey, hey, hey, hey.

And you know it's not a sedom here, but it's next. And that's when it hits you. I didn't matter, does it? We're all excited, we caught Saddam. Hey, we killed Ben Laden. Hey, they were both removed from power of really not doing much by the time we got them all anyway. So it's just next.

It's just never ends. It just keeps going. You're like, so excited, Saddam, Saddam, if we ever caught him, blah, blah, blah, and you catch him, you're like, that's just another dude, isn't it? It's just another dude. And this one's nasty and dirty and living in a hole, you know? Living in a hole in the ground with a lot of money and a lot of cigars and vegetable cigars.

I got a box, those in there probably dry right, sitting out. But that was an uneventful But that was an uneventful capture of a world leader, that a world leader, right? But it's like, here comes next. You know, it never ends. And then you kind of realize this is relentless. You know, when I was interviewing Chris Van Zahn, we took a break and I have one of the original decks of cards, you know in that cabinet. I think you saw it and He still smokes

You know we're out back We're out back having a chat and He told me he goes, you know We got damn near that entire deck of cards every night He told me, he goes, you know, we got damn near that entire deck of cards every night. And he had said, you know, people ask, how many guys we got, you know, during our time over there. And I think he thought I could relate to him, but I can't. And he just, he's like, I don to him, but I can't.

And he just, he's like, I don't even, I have no idea. How many guys we killed over there? I couldn't tell you. And that's a lot of work, man. I can remember, you know, then they had the blacklist. He got the deck of cards, and then they had the blacklist and nobody knew about, you know, and I remember chasing one on BL 54, blacklist. He got the deck of cards and then the blacklist and nobody knew about, you know, and I remember chasing one on BL 54, blacklist number 54. Chasing him, chasing him, chasing him,

chasing him. Always got away, always got away trying to find him, how to find where he goes when he goes away. Finally devised an idea, he liked to frequent the lady's houses, you know, in the red light district type thing in Baghdad, even though they don't believe in that kind of thing. And so, guy slipped up and put a tracker on his car and then forgot about it. Every day a helicopter popped up at the airport and see what was going on and go back down.

Nope, that's a signal. Now this quadrant comes in, we pack up, we do the handover, our stuff and I use, and we're ready to go home, and all our guns are packed away. Helicopter does this, shh, bieb. Hey, beacon just popped out in the middle of the desert.

A quarter starts firing up and I go, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, no, no, no, sir. Everybody unpacked the boxes for going after this asshole, right? Chased in for a long time, I wasn't gonna hand it off on the night of. Everybody's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, they packed up. We load our vehicles. We drive out of town. Which was the first time I felt good in Iraq. We drove out of town. We started hitting the desert. There's nothing. We stopped to take a break before rolled in the compound and hit it. Got out of the vehicle stretching my legs

And it was fresh air and it was desert and it was beautiful It's not a light and sight and I thought This place could be alright without the people right could be alright without the people in it or at least the the jerks in it And I felt good, you know, I felt like a runner-way home. I'm gonna do this last hit and Oh God don't let that be a bad decision, you know, I felt like a runner-way home. I'm gonna do this last hit. And oh God, don't let that be a bad decision, you know? So we rolled in, like, let's roll in hot, like you mean it. And we rolled in, there was like eight, nine dudes lined up. We rolled them up, captioned them all, not a shot fired.

Eight or nine in a row, and I had a picture of who it was. And I actually like I knew what I was doing. I'd go to the first guy. Obviously wasn't him. Second guy. God, I don't know, man. I don't really know, right? Third guy, I'm like getting closer and like,

oh, you know, you know, come me, sir, huh? He's like, no, no, no, and I showed him the picture, yes. He just, no, no. They didn't point to anybody. I go the next guy. No, not him. I go the next guy. No, not him.

I go the next guy. Oh, oh yeah, it's Tommy. So, Tommy Seerhoney's like, his head dropped and went, got you. He started to lean forward and headbutt me and try to, no, don't jump on me. His hands were cuffed. I lean back real quick and just gave him a quick kick

and he went flying across the floor. And I go, that's the man, you know? Never about us, we took back, but that was the one we finally caught him on the last day. My rotation went back, packed our stuff back up and flew him the next day with a smile in my face. And we finally finished that one. A little bit of closure.

Say, Quick Break. I wanna 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 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 a 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.

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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, Tom. We're back from the break We're getting towards the end of your career here. You're in a leadership role and you stood up a new squadron, D squadron. Yeah, that was interesting. Prior to that, I moved from Troopsard to Combat Support Squadron.

It's our major. So I had that for a bit. Combat what? Combat support squadron. Combat support squadron. So it's the squadron for everybody that support for the squadron's active support guys, the combat support guys.

So we have other support guys that do other things. The combat support guys go to combat. So I was in charge of that element. A couple years and that's when I started going back and forth, Iraq as the CSM, you know, let in our unit CSM get a break and just rotating back and forth, sitting in the chair for him at times and you know, months at a time and then going back. But so that was my time of combat support squadron. You know, I'm talking, take care of those cats who do their own thing. That was easy.

And then they stood up. Everybody started doing a fourth of everything. They're supposed to give you, quote unquote, more time off, more time at home, which turned into more time to do more things around the world. Right? So they're all complaining about it now. No, it didn't give us any more time.

So they did the run, who they're going to pick. And they grabbed me like, hey, we want you to stand up the new squadron. All right, I didn't really want to, right? I didn't really want to stand up a new squadron, right? I wanted to stay in my squadron forever. You know, you feel comfortable there and just move up. Like, now we're going to start a new squadron and you don't have an office here. All your men are in the other squadrons and you have any equipment. So they converted the your men are in the other squadrons and you own an equipment So they converted the old photo lab in the basement of our building and converted it to my office

You know, and I had the commander who they were still picking at the time And actually started out as John Brennan He's one of the senior leaders now and now and then it rotated to John Braga. Thank you. The first names were the same. And John Braga is who's now in charge, special operations. And so I rotated from one head to go to school who started to another one.

And it was we're down on the photo lab. We finally found an Opsar major. It was kind of a guy that people were like, I don't know if I want to worry about that guy. I'll worry about that guy. You know, he's very detailed. So we brought him down his Opsar Major, it was kind of a guy that people were like, I don't know if I want to worry about that guy, I'll worry about that guy. He's very detailed, so we brought him down his Opsar Major. Then we had a group of three. We're sitting there, what do we need to order? Well, we got to order.

Everything everybody else has, I guess. So let's give it a snibers, find out what they want, give it the salters, find out what they want, give it the drivers, the aircraft team, the climbing team, what equipment do we need to buy? I don't know, right? Where do you get all this information? They purchased that stuff over years and years and years. So I'm not in contact with any of my troops. They're in their different squadrons.

They started building up a fourth troop in each squadron over time by taking people around. And then I was in charge of those fourth troops, which would eventually become D squadron. And so I'm not trying to design our new wing because they're rebuilding, they were redoing the unit anyway. And the first wing was going to go to C squadron and know whatever baby. And then D would get to last. So I'm like, so I have to be in this photo lab for like six years, man, or something, you know, and not attached anybody, nowhere to park equipment. And they ended up giving the first bay to Deescoater,

which was good, but I was already gone. And it was one of those designed the bay. How do we do the bay and make it new, make it a new super bay, make it wider, put an elevator in it, who thought a banel elevator finally, right? To carry all the heavy shit up instead of cranking it up with a rope and a winch.

So put a huge elevator in there, made the upstairs better for training, you know, and storage, you know, and team rooms were a little bit better. And then all the other squatters took shape like that. And we went out and train and prepped and getting ready to go to war and everything and get everybody trained up and I was over in Iraq doing another ICS-M gig. And the doc had called down to the troops down in Baghdad. He said, you guys didn't fill out this medical paperwork. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You need to fill out the medical paperwork now. So what do they do? They call me.

Hey, the doc from the unit keeps calling us and they're bitching about medical paperwork and blah, we don't have time for that. So what do I do? I fare, but that's the whole way. I pick up the phone and call the doc. Hey, Doc, don't call these dudes anymore. You want something call me. They're not going to do paperwork for you. It's not crucial. Don't worry about it. Quit bothering them, right?

It didn't like that. Didn't like that at all. He quit bothering. So maybe a month later, I get a, no, I'm exactly back home. I actually was back home and they called me to the med shed and said, hey, your cholesterol was zero in January. This is like March or April now. You did a kind of a physical, probably my over 50 physical or something. I don't know what it was, but your cholesterol's zero. And I was like, oh, is that good?

Right, low, right, it's real low. Like, no, It's real low. No, it's not good. It's indicative. The doctor said it's indicative of steroid use. I go, is it now? Zero sounds like a pretty even number, you know? So I go and talk to the docs.

And the docs like, well, I don't, there's no test doctor. I mean, your test doctor was low. This and that. Have you butternut? No. Have I done it before? Sure. Have I done it before? Sure. Have I done it lately?

No. What have you taken? So I started, well, I bought this on the internet. I bought this on the internet, you know, because I'm working out. I had, it's like 10 surgeries. I want to go back. I want to be healthy.

I'm trying to get fit again. Bought it on the internet. Probably had nothing to do with it anyway, but they grabbed that and ran with it. And I got a call from Braga one night saying, I need to come over to your house. And I go, well, four, you've never been here. So I just need to come over and I go, oh, well, look, man, if you're just going to come over and relieve me, don't bother. Just say it. Don't put yourself through the embarrassing part of coming over and have to look me in the face. No biggie. I get it. Whatever. I didn't care. And I was done anyway, right?

Did I like it? No, but I was done anyway. So it was one of those whatever, you know, been here way too long and So he ended up coming over and I remember he's like, no, no, I'm coming over and I looked at my wife and you know ex now obviously I kind of need a X. She goes, what? I'm going to need one of your Xanax's manners something because I think he's coming over here to let me go. Yeah. She could go, well, four and I go, I think this medical shit, you know, because I

talked to the doc, he's like, well, you took something and maybe that did it. Right? I'm like, I don't know. Whatever. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. And I, you know, I guess I'll go. So he relieved me that night. And then our star major, the unit came back from a trip

and he found out about it. And he's like, you get fired by an officer. And I go, yeah, kind of, because that's not cool. What happened? I told him a little story and he went and started researching. Come to find out, it was Lab-Air. Lab-Air is was Lab-Air. Lab-Air is? Yes, Lab-Air.

The rumors were flying. I mean, I heard all kinds of rumors. I was already relieved. I didn't lose rank, I didn't lose anything. And I said, well, hey, all right, where do you want to go now? Then, sorry, but we can't hire you back and bear some of the command on my... What?

Some embarrassing is what happened to me. So, I ended up taking another job that put me right in Iraq again, working with smaller groups. And when I was over, I got a call from the medic, a doc who had just recently given me an MRI and he's like, hey man, your right shoulder is not even attached anymore, really.

So don't pick up a Rucksack, don't try to pick up a weapon anymore. Come back and eat surgery immediately. I'd just been there like a month and a half and rolling up this new program. So I went to the commander who called me in for a briefing after I'd been out in the field for like a week, working with some locals,

calls me back in to give a brief to a general. You know, just come on out, come on out. All right, so I come flying back into the blood from where I was. One of the brief at a certain time, I changed clothes. I'm not dirty, I got scruff, man. This has taken me now 10 years, okay. So I got scruff, barely on my face.

I go walking in, I give the briefing to the general, you know, about who's working for us and what they're doing. And it's going well, blah, blah. Yeah, thanks, and he leaves briefing to the general, you know, about who's working for us and what they're doing and it's going well blah blah. I think he leaves. And that commander looks at me, he's like, what are you shave? I go, are we there now? Are we there now? The operator beard's gone and you need to worry about my stubble when I just came out of the field to brief somebody and what I'm doing.

I said, by the way, I got to go home. My shoulder's falling off and I got to get a sown back on some. I'm doing, I said, by the way, I gotta go home. My shoulder's falling off and I gotta get a sown back on. Some, I'm heading out. I turn, I got on the next flight and flew home and I had surgery. You know, and then that, that lab error thing was one of those, you know, that ended that job, right? So I was in a sling for a long, long time.

And they said, what else can we put you in? Oh, it's just take CDD, I'll be a Surmaid or CDD, right? I'm in combat development directorate, you know? So all the guys that develop all the shit and talk to the dogs and, you know, the smart, hundred pound head scientist and invent stuff, I gotta be down there, I'll go down there and be the star major.

Well, we can't really put you back in a leadership position because we took you out of one. So that was my last two years at General Sikolic, wanted to reconnect with SF. So that's, I said, you know what, I'll go do that. That was my best two years. I forgot what it was like to be on a team with people that worked together, friendly.

Not that we weren't friends at work, you know, but it was so competitive. It was so individually competitive, like you gotta get one up, gotta get one up, just kids always chasing your heels. I mean, that's everywhere, but the competitiveness at that place is ridiculous.

It's just ridiculous. And when I got to that team, over there, the training team, and for two years of CQB and shooting and teaching these new green burrays and working with the guys I was working with, I really had to thank them for bringing me back to that team feeling of togetherness

and not you trying to take my job, you trying to make me, you know, you're trying to be better and make me look bad. It was refreshing two years. They helped me get over that, you know, what I add me in betrayal is what I kind of call it, which is one of the highest reasons, you know, people, one of the highest reasons

that people take their lives is adding me in betrayal. It's just when you work so hard for somebody and then they throw you away or side because they no longer need you. But it was one of those things that, It's just when you work so hard for somebody and then they throw you away or side because you no longer need you. But it was one of those things that I was open about. I was honest about. I bust them off the internet and they're like, well, people take that when you're coming

off steroids and I go, it was an anti-estrogen. I was trying to get, I'm making this shit up as I'm trying to heal. Like, well, we know you're trying to get better and understanding everything and it ended up being lab air anyway. And it wouldn't take it back. That was a hurtful thing. I mean, I get it. I don't get it, but I kind of get it, you know, coming from an organization like that, you can embarrass those higher than you, I guess. And if they won't take a hit, you know, and keep going, and white try. So that led me into those two years of a little bit of healing, or it would have been a lot worse when I left.

And that just, that kind of sank me the way it all happened, you know, spent two years building that squadron up and we're getting ready to deploy to war. And the day they let me go was the day they were heading off to do their last training event before they deployed. And in the bay, I had to go tell them in the bay as they were low-knut that I'd been relieved and the work at who the new star major is. And you know, in the current time, it'll be this, you guys have a good time and a good trip and take care of yourselves. You know, they're like, what the fuck? You know, I don't know. I see a tern and left and went through that whole process of Iraq, surgery, and then last two years

it ranged 37, which takes me to the end of that 25 years. You spent two years building that squadron out. Yeah. What kind of culture did you want it to be? You'd mentioned early on in the interview that each squadron has a culture- slash personality of its own. I like the blend. I like the chill, but I like the go get it attitude, but not either or all the time,

because either or of anything is too much all the time, no matter what it is. I liked it. There were two calmer squadrons and then one really aggressive squadron. So I let them work out the SOP days, like what are our SOPs gonna be for this squadron. And I get back and forth, back and forth

as I'm sitting up front and I'm like, y'all figured out, I'll be in my office, man, I can't see her all day, you know, so they shook it out, figured it out. And in hearing now, they're doing pretty amazing things. I mean, I don't take credit for that, but the culture, the way they've integrated back into and they're kicking ass just like the other squad,

and it's just pretty, I'm pretty happy about that, you know. Being a plant holder, whether they've ripped my name down or left it up, I don't know. I don't really care. But I cared then. I really cared then. And that led into a whole retirement fiasco for me. I had turned into hating everybody, not trusting anybody, not doing a retirement ceremony. Like I'm not down.

Now, I'll just leave. I don't care. You know, and one of the officers, Chris Downey, you CD, who was the last American standing in Afghanistan when they boarded the planes. He's like, Tom, man, come back to C-squarting, he was C-squarting commander at the time. Come back to your old C-squarting,

man, we'll throw you one up and upstairs, we'll throw you a retirement party. I'm like, no, I don't want it. Because you got to me. Come on. So I, I relented, decided to do it. It was on a day they were doing a golf tournament, somewhere. So waiting on the star major to show up, come time to start. I come walking in. He comes walking in his golf equipment. Or they walked into the room and looked around.

Normally you get a Legion of Marit, you know, you get all these awards and show when you leave, and then thanks, plaque. I went in and looked at the table, no Legion of Marit, no other award, just the sixth award of one of mine, a ribbons that you read, it mean nothing. I looked over for unit colors, there were no unit colors there. They give them to people who are there for two years

in good standing, I've been there 20 years, and they reflected on the last two years of my time there that they thought was wrong, even though it wasn't wrong, right? It was proven to be wrong the whole time. And I was furious. So I walked back out in the parking lot, and I'm like, I'm not even going.

I'm not gonna go. You know, there's got a lot of people showing up and I saw the star major walking in. I go, hey, yeah, I gotta talk to you for a second. Yeah, yeah, what's up? I go, why is there no Legion of Mary and why was everything else downgraded? I wanna know what to say, Tom.

I go, what do you mean, you don't know what to tell me? That sounds about like you, you don't wanna tell me. You just don't know what to tell people, do you? And he's like, well, what do you think I'm going to go to bat for you to get these from the general? I go, yeah, I expect you to go to bat for me. Like I've been to bat for you, you know, since Samoia. He's like, yeah, just wouldn't do it.

And I'm like, but what did I do to not get that? You know what I mean? And so that whole retirement ceremony was just sickening to my stomach. As I stood up there, you know, my mean? And so that whole retirement ceremony was just sickening to my stomach. As I stood up there, you know, and my son pens on some shitty ribbon, and that I've got five of already, you know, and handing me some crap, and I couldn't wait to get out of there. And when I did, my wife had set up a surprise limo ride out to Southern Pines and have a dinner with all my close friends, and halfway out at limo driver pullover. So pullover man, I got out and just start

throwing up. Everybody's laughing, oh you drunk all right there guy man I dropped. I just sickened my stomach just sickened. They're getting kicked out like that. And I couldn't tell you why and Ruined that, ruined that, retirement ceremony. And then down the road years later, I find out many people had to happen to them. Many people had it Just a bad experience leaving. And I'm like, I didn't know that. I didn't even know about you and why you left I'm like, I'm going to thank goodness because I heard all kinds of rumors and stories that none of them were true You know, people are just making stuff up because they had no idea what had happened to me. I didn't lose rank, I didn't lose money,

I didn't lose anything. You know, I didn't lose the command sergeant major put down to sergeant major. I kept the command sergeant major. They couldn't do anything because they didn't do anything. Everybody wondered why I wasn't in that squad or any more and why I didn't deploy. I go ask somebody who knows, man, because I don't.

You know, I was one of those, not probably hit me don't you know, it's one of those That probably hit me hard, you know, and that's when it was a I think seven days later I Was flying to Jordan Because they didn't have a plan. I know what to do and somebody said hey, I'm running ranges at Cassadek man Come on. Like what's it pay, you know? Oh, he told me the amount I went. Hell yeah, packed up, and flew to Mon Jordan, spent a year and a half there, which ended my third marriage,

because here I go again, you know, I thought money would make it better, but I was trying to fill that void, trying to keep going. Yeah. You know, guys like to stay in the fray as long as they can, and I was trying to, but I was tanking so fast. That retirement, the way I felt the last two years and how it all ended up was sickening to me, you know, for a place I love so much and for people, giants that I respected so much. I'm sorry that happened to you, man.

Yeah, I appreciate that. Me too. It happens more frequently than you think. It doesn't surprise me. And I said nothing good in is well, or it never in, right? So you gotta make it bad first. Yeah. Well, Tom, it's been a long day.

We say we pick up tomorrow. He's good. Invin' into civilian and transition and the other side of this whole thing. Yeah, the better side. All right, that'll take me. Next, on the Sean Ryan show. What do you guys do? Like, what's your mission set? And he said to free the oppressed.

He's like, yeah, we build nations. We go in and we help the oppressed. We free them. That's our job. I said, nobody has ever put it that way to me. You always hear fight for freedom. But no one had ever put it that way. We're the humanitarians going in, trying to stop the bad guys to build the new, so that the good guys in that community can thrive. What point in time did you hit your lowest point? My wedding night.

Former Navy SEAL Mike Ritland keeps it real on the Mike Drop podcast. He's the co-CEO of the All Secure Foundation, which is this special operations and active duty combat that's time-satterly. Nobody helps you shoot your gun. They trained you, had a shoot your weapon, so we're going to train you on a thing you've never been trained for, out of come home for more. Everything else that turns people away from it, we try to brand it. Reduce or dismiss the kind of stigma that's associated with it. You have to.

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