Shawn Ryan Show - #90 Ryan Hendrickson - Green Beret, "Welcome to Afghanistan"

Episode Date: December 25, 2023

This week, SRS is bringing you a special holiday episode just in time for Christmas. Ryan Hendrickson is an Army Special Forces Green Beret with over twenty two years of service and is a Silver Star recipient. Hendrickson is also an author and humanitarian, founding his organization "Tip of the Spear." This episode covers Hendrickson's entire life story, from childhood to present day. Hendrickson explains his early career in the Navy and how he would ultimately pivot to being a Green Beret. Hendrickson had eight deployments to Afghanistan. In his first deployment, he was severely injured in an IED blast where Kyle Morgan, a previous SRS guest, carried him to safety. Despite almost losing a leg, Hendrickson beat the odds and served on seven more deployments. This episode documents some of Hendrickson's most harrowing moments in combat. After his incredible career in the military, Hendrickson applied his skillset to an entirely new battlefield: Ukraine. Since the conflict began, Hendrickson has removed over 1,765 landmines with his humanitarian group "Tip of the Spear Landmine Removal. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://lairdsuperfood.com - USE CODE "SRS" https://drinkhoist.com - USE CODE "SHAWN" https://1stphorm.com/srs https://firecracker.farm/shawn https:/gcu.edu/military Ryan Hendrickson Links: Social Media - https://linktr.ee/rmhendrickson.tipofthespear Book - https://www.amazon.com/Tip-Spear-Incredible-Injured-Berets/dp/1546084797 Organization - https://landmineremoval.org 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

Everybody, it's the last show of the season and it's a good one. Once again we're releasing this as one episode we know here at SRS how many people are out there spending the holidays alone and so I want to give it to you all in one piece. It has been one hell of a year. And had some amazing guests with them covered some incredible stories, exposed a lot of corruption, brought a lot of hope. Did everything that I wanted to do this year capped out at number two out of all podcasts.

And, you know, I just wanna say that I couldn't have done it without my team and more importantly, my wife. And here at SRS, we just wanna wish all of you a Merry Christmas. And thank you. Thank you for watching the shows. Thank you for the support.

Thank you for making this all possible because it wasn't for you. You know, we wouldn't be here. So if you get anything out of these, please head over to Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Leave us a review, like, comment, subscribe to the YouTube channel. And without further ado, please welcome my next guest, Mr. Ryan Hendrickson, a former Green Beret and just a all-around American hero. Somebody that we can all look at is an example of what it means to be a great American and just a great person. But once again, Merry Christmas. And I will see you in 2024.

Much love, everybody. God bless. to it, definitely. Me too. We've been talking for, actually we started talking right after I interviewed Kyle Morgan. He told me about you, talked about one of the incidents in the episode that I recorded with him. And ever since then, Kyle and myself, I was like, man, this dude would make a perfect guest on the show. It brings a lot of hope. He's been through a lot.

And Kyle, his every time I've talked to him about you, it just says phenomenal things to say about you, man. Yeah, Kyle's, I mean, there's, it's hard to put Kyle on the words. He's, you know, from, you know, hero to just, just brother, friend, everything. It's, yeah, it's hard to put Kyle on the words, but yeah, you, you had one of the,

you had one of the greats on your show, and that was Kyle for sure I love that dude. Yep. Really love that dude. But quick intro to you. So Ryan Hendrickson, your a United States green beret, army special forces, 22 years and 10 months in service, medically retired, you're an author, humanitarian founder of the nonprofit tip of the spear And you're just Ryan. Just Ryan. Yes. That's what

That's what I heard you want to be introduced as you're just just a regular dude. Yep Ryan Hendrickson. I love that eight deployments to Afghanistan. First one got injured in an IED blast and seven deployments after you lost of a leg. So we'll get into all of that stuff. But every show always starts off with a gift No ideas No ideas no ideas Those are vigilance elite gummy bears Nice legal and all 50 states without a prescription That's awesome. That's awesome. That is awesome.

Just candy. It's funny, man. We have like, we have one guy email, email him once and he was like, man, I'm on my third bag and I still don't feel anything. That was like, I was like, yeah, man, it's just, yeah, there's no special sauce in these ones. That's awesome. Yeah, but so how I just, yeah. There's no special sauce in these ones. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, but so how I like to do this interview

is kind of start with childhood, go through that, why you got into the military, what you did in the military, we have some really important stuff to talk about with your time as a Green Beret, and then we'll move into mental health. I know that's important to both me and you. And then we'll get into what you're doing now. And by the way, anybody that wants to buy Ryan's book, tip of the spear, it's on display right here. We'll link it

below. Make it easy on you to where you can purchase the book. When did the book come out? Make it easy on you to where you can purchase the book. When did the book come out? July 7, 2020. Right on. Yep. Cool. Well, this will give it a post to your three-year boost. Yes, so definitely.

Right on, definitely. But yeah, let's just go into childhood. Let's just start right there. Where'd you grow up? So, it's funny as we were talking earlier today. So I'm actually, I was born in California. We won't hold that against you. Yeah, please don't.

We're in California. In Redding, up North. Okay. Yeah, actually it's a small town, log in town called Fall River Mills. And it's back in the 70s when you're still log and unable to work up there and everything like that. But I was born in a small log in town, Fall River Mills. And then shortly on, after my dad, the logging company went up because of the spot at all and everything like that.

And then we headed out on the road to Oregon. So I was born in California, but I actually claim Oregon as, you know, my state and a small little town, Lowell, Oregon. Another one of those that used to be a big log in community and, you know, things happen the way they did. And so, but just a lot of hard work in, you know, Americans that live out in that area.

And so, yeah, it's, you know, jumped around Oregon quite a bit, whether it was living with my grandma or other relatives or whatnot, because we, yeah, we grew up poor. Extremely poor. Oh, yeah we grew up poor. Strangely poor. Oh yeah, extremely poor. Was your dad a logger or a family in the logger business? Yeah, so dad was a logger. Once he finished up in Vietnam, so he did four years in the army, two tours in Vietnam, and then he came home and went directly into logger.

And then that's all he knew from into Logan and then that's you know that's all he knew from growing up and everything like that in Oregon because he was born and raised in Oregon but But just logging and then once the industry went up then it was you know It's kind of now what you know company goes bankrupt We're you know penniless and so that started the journey of my childhood, growing up town to town to town. You're always the outcast, you're, you know, because you're dirt poor, you're wearing, you know,

hand me down clothes that, you know, I remember one incident that we had come back from Christmas break, I guess, and this kid came out to me and he's like, that's my shirt. He's like, no, this is mine, this is my new shirt. And, you know, his friends grabbed me and put me up against the locker and he pulled the tag out and then that his name on it and I was like, yeah, well, okay. So it was kind of like that, you know. Your poor, you're the outcast, you're moving town to town to town.

So that's pretty much, that was how I grew up. But in the weird way, I actually grew up really well because the lessons that my dad taught me from his experience. And so my dad taught me from his experience. And so, my dad is a born-again Christian. Okay. He did not start off as a Christian.

He was a bad, bad dude. How so? Lots of drinking, multiple marriages, just a fighter, just a bad dude. And so, you know, and he also struggled, you know, with his own mental health and his demons from Vietnam. And so the, you know, that real mean, you know, father figure. Not abusive towards us, but he was just that bad dude. You had brothers and sisters? I do.

Yeah, I have, so four older sisters and an older brother. Oh, wow. I'm the youngest. The baby. Yeah. Right. So, but yeah, it's the, you know, so I, I'm the youngest. The baby. Yeah. Right on. Right on. But yeah, it's the, you know, so I had two parts of my childhood.

I had the part, well, actually three parts of my childhood. I had the part of my childhood that, you know, I barely remember. I remember bits and pieces from. And that was when, you know, my, you know, my dad was, you know, at his lowest point. And then the part of my childhood where my dad found God, but he didn't understand or he didn't, he didn't understand how, you know, this new found faith and the life-saving faith that he found in God. And so it was very strict. You will not be like me.

You will not. And so it was very strict and very controlled. Because how I'm sorry, I want a bad track. Let's go through each phase. So there's the part that wasn't good. How will what what what ages? Are you so I Remember bits and pieces of it so I would say that I was probably like four when he or up to four so zero to four years old Yeah, four or five so

my my So my dad my mom had split and before then, my sister, in my brother, Robbie, Kristian, Paula, they're all from my dad's first wife and then my sister and I are from, you know, our mom, but our mom was, she was also a very bad person. And to the point to where the state of California gave full custody over to my dad. So that's very hard to do, to take custody from a mother and give it to the father. Do you wanna talk about that?

So the parts that I remember from my mom The parts that I remember from my mom was struggling, alcoholic, drug addict, and just with multiple different accumulated towards my dad finding God and Basically how that went down was my dad and again I I'm probably off on the time frame a little bit because I was just a little kid, but situation with Tia went down and My dad was driving my sister windy and I to my uncle Steve's house who was also a logger And he was gonna drop us off there. He had the shotgun in the car

in the truck and he was heading out to blow his brains out Holy shit, and so he's parked alongside the truck and he was heading out to blow his brains out. Holy shit. And so he's parked alongside the road and shotguns ready to go and a car pulls up. And a guy gets out and says, hey, there a problem. Do you need help? Car broke down.

Looks like you're, you know, you're out of answers. Looks like you need, you know, you need someone to talk to. And so the way my dad describes it, it's an angel, because this guy was a preacher at the local church. And that was the day that my dad was saved, local church. And that was the day that my dad was saved, was when he was going out to kill himself. So yeah, and it's middle of night, middle of night. And you know, this guy comes up and pulls over to see if he needs any help. And yeah, he definitely needed help. And so that's when my dad found God. And so then comes the times in your life when you're trying to, a lot of people when they just come into religion,

they're trying to make up for everything they did in the past. And when you have two little kids a part of the situation, it's like I do not want you to go up or to be like I was. And so I'm gonna force you to act be or whatever it is, the righteous path down this way. And so there was a point in my life

when it was a very controlling and a very dominated household because my dad did not want us to grow up and go down the same path he did in life. Okay. And so the third part of my life comes around to where then he finds his peace with himself, with God, with everybody. And that's when my dad and I are a relationship and everything like that, it just flurries because now he's at peace with himself. He's not out running Vietnam, he's not out running multiple wives, he's not out running the mistakes he made in his running multiple wives. He's not out running the mistakes

He made in his life. He's at peace. He's he's been forgiven for what he thought was unforgivable to the point of where suicide is the only answer but now he's forgiven and and so instead of trying to force us you know my sister and I to be or go down this path that he wants us to. Now, he starts to open up and you got to decide for yourself. You got to make your own path.

You know, this is your life. You're going to fall down. You're going to get hurt. You're going to have to get back up again. And so that's the three parts in my life that I lived. Growing up. When did phase two, what time period was that? So four to five to what age?

I would say phase two was probably until I was in middle school. Okay, yeah, so seventh, eighth grade. Yeah, about eighth grade. And then as I started in the high school He started, you know, he he went to Bible college and became a pastor but he started to Understand that you can't you can't force this down people's throw. I mean, there's you know They're there there are plenty of people out there that try and force their beliefs.

And that's, that's a no-go. That's extremism. But he just, you know, he finally, you know, my high school years, all those still poor, but he had come to a piece with himself. And now, you know, I'm learning so much. And, you know, what? And it's just that's, you know, that's the third phase of my life up until joining the military. But, but yeah, life, you know, life growing up was, you know, there was, there was another situation my dad, you know, when I was a kid when he was a reborn again, Christian.

He had gotten married again and he was still out working and he'd be gone for a while. And this lady and her roommate that she had, they were sexually assaulting me during these periods of my life. And so, and I never told my dad about that until... How old were you? Six to six to seven. Yeah. So, and I never really talked about it because, you know, in my mind, it was always the tough guy thing.

Like, oh, well, you know, shit happens. Or... It's six years old. Yeah, but but what that set me up for and that that trauma, you know, early on in my life, set me up for this, this distrust and hatred of women that really really plagued me for for a big portion of my life because if you can do this to me and I'm just a kid then all women do this

and it really you know it did it it It plagued a lot of my relationships and, you know, my growth in relationships, no one could ever get close to me. I wouldn't let them, because if someone gets close, it means you're vulnerable, and they could take advantage of you, just like that little boy. So, yeah, so I definitely, that was a huge, you know, part of my life that I was able to cover up through, you know,

drinking, women, and just trying to make myself feel like, you know, I'm okay. Who cares? You know, shit happens. And so that, you know, that set the stage for a lot of, you know, what we'll talk about further on in the conversation. But that period of my life right there, you know, kind of set the stage for a lot of failures later on in my life. How long did the sexual abuse go on for? It was around, it was around a year before my dad and this lady split. And then she kept sending me all these toys. So I wouldn't talk. And yeah, I never said a thing until 2010, when I was in my hospital bed after getting blown up. You kept it in that long.

Yeah. So one thing that I really like to do on this show is to bring hope, because there's a lot of kids. There's gonna be a lot of veterans that can relate to your story. And now with the childhood, I mean, we're talking about it at breakfast, all the human trafficking that's going on,

all the sexual abuse, sex exploitation, parents that are just pieces of shit. And unfortunately, there's a lot of them out there. And so, looking back through all those years, I mean, there's millions of kids going through this right now. And so, what I'm asking is, what would your advice be to those kids

that are in the middle of going through that? Why I chose to start talking about it, and this is only the second time I've ever brought this up on a public, well on a podcast or a show. The first time was just breezed over real quickly, because it is, it is kind of, it's a very sensitive subject for me, but the reason why I talk about it now is because of what you just said, there are so many kids going through this and they don't know what to do. They don't feel like they can say anything. And they don't feel that they have a place to escape to.

They don't have their own place. You know, it's a constant tear. And so the advice that I do have looking back now is the fact that I wish I would have said something. I wish I would have, something. I wish I would have cried for help. I wish I didn't keep it inside myself for so many years that I turned tell that person that's listening to this or that person that's struggling with, you know, the past, with this, you know, sexual trauma is don't, you don't have to let this control your life.

You don't have to become or remain a victim to this. You can take control over this and you can use this experience regardless of how ugly and evil it is. You can use this to help other people. And by turning yourself making yourself stronger by this situation, you're going to be better able to help those people that really really need it. Use these situations to make yourself stronger to help somebody else. Do not allow yourself to become a victim of this trauma because you will become a monster. And you'll tear everything up. I appreciate that, man. It's, you know, this year I made it a goal of mine to, this is my primary focus now, I wanna help kids, you know, and some of the interviews I've been doing have reflected

that, you know, and, and, man, it's just so common, like, yeah. Kids that are going through that stuff, I interviewed this friend of mine, his name's Prime Hall, he had a lot of sexual trauma as a kid to a peeping Tom and his window. And there's just, there's a lot of kids going through that. Yep. And they're likely always will be.

And this is guy, a man like you and Prime and the other people that have had on the show that have talked about it, you know, young me, Parks, had a horrific childhood. And you know, it's, you can't save all of them, unfortunately, while it's happening. And so to hear testimonies of people like you talking about it and the man that you've become and continue to become is, I mean, that could be what somebody needs to pull themselves out of that. Yeah. You know, yeah, you can't, if you let it, it'll turn you into a monster and you'll devour everything in your path.

You've heard me talk about them before, I want to tell you about hoist IV level hydration. Hoist is made in the USA and has half the sugars and three times the electrolytes that some other sports drinks without artificial dives or preservatives. Hoist is on a majority of the US military bases globally serving our war fighters and operations and in training. In addition to being one of three hydration products authorized by the military, they upped the Annie for hydration in the military by offering them a product with left sugar and more electrolytes.

My friends at Hoist sent us a brand new flavor that launched on their website, November 14th. It's called Black Cherry. It'll be available in stores in 2024. But for now, just use code Sean and order it to receive 20% off. You can use their store locator on their website to find a store near you or you can purchase directly from www.drinkhoist.com where you can use my promo code Sean to save 20% off. Hoist also offers 10% off to military and first responders on every purchase through the

website. Go check out their website that's drinkhoist.com. Use the promo code Sean to save 20%. If you like spice, I got to tell you about this new product I've been checking out. It's called Firecracker Farm Hot Salt. I've been putting this stuff on my steaks. It is the perfect amount of heat. You basically put it over top, comes in these cool push grinders,

push the button. Some hot salt comes out. The flavor is incredible. It's not too hot. What I really like about Firecracker Farm, other than the flavor, is it's a small family-owned business. It's just Alex and his family.

They've gone all in on this one product. Here's another cool thing. They donate to organizations like Operation 300 and the Pipehitter Foundation. Once again, the flavor is seriously amazing on everything you put it on. You can go to firecracker.farm slash shon. You're going to get 15% off your first order. Ladies and gents, like I said, this is a small family-owned business, so supplies go fast. Once again, that's firecracker.farm slash shon.

Check them out. So what kind of stuff were you into as a kid? So besides, I mean, besides given, you know, my dad ulcers, because I run out to the woods for two or three days and, you know, forget to tell them that we're out camping, you know, just me and some buddies or whatnot, you know, we're just, you know, we're 10, 11, 12 and just head out for a few days and come back. But that's, you know, that's the trouble that I got into, you know, whether it's out playing war and, you know, in the backpastures and neighbor farmer shoot you with rock salt because your paint is cows up with paintballs or you know Going out camping for a few days and forgetting to tell the old man where you're going stuff like that But you know as I started to you know once we got to where I consider my hometown

Low lowleurgan because I spent you know five years there So that's the longest time I ever spent in one place. I'm growing up So lowleurgan is now my hometown because you know there. So that's the longest time I ever spent in one place growing up. So Lowell Oregon is now my hometown because you know I have eighth grade through senior year there. And that's when I started to you know I got into wrestling, football, and just you know just figuring out you know how much I love the team sports and wrestling in general. So, never was really a stud in any of them, but I loved them. Love playing, love wrestling, stuff like that.

So, that's pretty much what consumed my life, you know, up until I graduated was sports. So, what got you interested in the military? Well, got me interested in the military was some very cold, hard facts from my dad. So the way the way the old man put it was this, he's like, look, you're 18 years old. You can, you can go to college. Well, let's face it, you're not what we call college material. He said, you can go out and get a job.

He said, but why don't you go and serve your country? Give your country four years of your life. You're gonna grow up, you're gonna see the world, you're gonna experience things, and then come back and figure out what you wanna do. You'll have money for college, but as a young man, as an 18-year-old, I do feel you need to go and serve your country.

Give something back to your country, and then come back and figure out what you want in life. But you can't stay here, because if I let you stay here, town of 1400 people, if I let you stay here town of you know 1400 people, if I let you stay here, you're never gonna leave and you're gonna be at the gas station down the road, you know, 35 years old, town stories of you know the homecoming game your senior year or something like that. He's like, you can't stay here. You gotta go and you gotta get your feet underneath you in life.

You gotta get knocked down. You gotta pick yourself back up. You need to get this thing started. Highly recommend the military. And so the military was always something that was gonna happen. My dad had pushed, you know, he's kind of molded me for the military, you know, basically my entire life.

And, um, and whether it was me out playing army or doing whatever it was, the military was going to happen. It's just, you know, it was hard for me to, to leave home because, you know, because I did. I was, you know, as kids a lot of times you get institutionalized because you're in the comfort of your family, you got, you know, you're gonna get fed, you're gonna get taken care of, you're gonna get, and it would play right into what my dad said.

You'll never leave if I don't make you leave. And so the military, that was basically the, like, well, I'm joined a military, because it was to happen regardless. And it was, I was, you know, it was exactly what my dad said. You know, you're going to go out, you're going to see the world. You're going to meet people from all over the place. You're going to expand your horizons, you're going to, you know,

you're going to do, you're gonna, you know, you're gonna do, you're gonna serve your country. And then you can come back and you can figure out what you wanna do from there. But, yeah, the military did exactly what he said it was gonna do. So, and I kinda had a weird, weird path through the military, I guess you could say.

So, and you'll end up reading about it, so my little distell here. But so I actually started off in the Navy. Really? I did four years in the Navy. 1996, the recruiters, the recruiters all come in and you're taking the the ass fab or you know whatever in I think it was the Air Force they were like oh No, no, no, no No, no, we don't know we were okay. We're you know, we're downside in military's downsizing at the time like no we That's really cute, but no good luck to you buddy like, no, we, that's really cute, but no. Good luck to you, buddy.

The army, surprisingly, they didn't need anybody. I was, you know, infantry was like an eight-month waiting period. Wow. Yeah, just to get to boot camp, I was like, okay. The Marine Corps, God, the guy came in. And he had, I'll never forget, he had at least an entire can of Copenhagen in his lip and he's sitting there yelling, you don't have what it takes to be a marine.

You're not good enough. I was like, okay, I guess, thanks for letting me know man, that's great. But he scared me. He's like, holy shit dude, you're, you're a really scary guy. I don't want to be around people like you, you're you're a really scary guy. I don't want to be around people like you you're scary And then the Navy recruiter now say hey You want travel the world go to foreign ports see foreign girls like yeah It's like all right, man Yeah, what do you want to do the Navy? I don't know. He's like boasts mates a hell of a job

You get a pick whatever you want from there. You could be doing he didn't mention you know the actual job, boasts mates a hell of a job. You get to pick whatever you want from there. You could be doing, he didn't mention, you know, the actual job of boasts mate. So, it's like, man, that sounds amazing. And he's showing me pictures of Australia, Thailand, Singapore, and I was like, I want to do that. And yeah, says color crayon right across the dotted line. And here I go, anchors away.

And I did, I did all of that. I got to travel the world. I was never on a nuclear vessel, so we were able to go into all the ports that like nuclear power or nuclear capable ships weren't allowed to go. Cause I was on an amphib, the USS Shreve port, and then I was on the USS Camden,

so I actually did a Medcruz and a Westback, so I circled the globe on a ship, and I went to all kinds of ports, and did everything that the recruiter said. It's like, yeah, this is what you can do. I mean, I never, you know, he's like, you ever seen Top Gun? Yeah, he goes, that's the Navy.

I never flew F-14 Top Gats. But, well yeah, that's the entire Navy. Yeah, there's. In a nutshell, Top Gun's gonna be your experience. Yeah, yeah, and his opponents for me. And so yeah, it was just, I mean, now, 44-year-old Ryan Henderson can never go back and do what 18-year-old Ryan Henderson did.

You know, two ships commissioned in the 70s, boiler-fed. Oh, my lord. Persian golf in the summer, both times. Like, ugh. I couldn't go back and do it, but I'm so happy I did it. You know what I'm saying? And I did. I grew. You know, I grew as a man and I met people from all over the United States.

My horizons brought and I did. I was able to experience a lot, but there was one experience that I had, that paved my way for the war on terror and my role in it. And that was when the USS Cole was bombed, we were a couple hours away from it. And so we basically went full steam ahead to the Gulf aiden and us in the Donald Cook were the first ships on the scene to help rescue the survivors of the coal and body recovery. So yeah, that was that was kind of my eye opening to oh people want to kill us. Like this, this is a real thing. to, oh, people want to kill us. Like this, this is a real thing.

You know, sailing up to it, that large hole in the side of it, the smell, you know, the smell of bodies and stuff like that. It was, it was my first like, oh, wow. Like, these guys want to kill us. And that was one of the first salvows of the war on terror, you know, without kaita. So not only did I get these experiences, you know, that my dad had talked about, that the Navy recruiter talked about, but I also got my eyes opened to what I would experience later on as a green beret fighting in the war on terror in Afghanistan. But yeah, that was the first branch.

What triggered you to move over to the army? Well, so the navy was the first branch. So then I got out and I was like, I'm gonna do the civilian thing. Horrible civilian. Horrible, try it for two years, trash. And I'd get mad at people because we're supposed to show up on time.

They're 30 minutes late, but why, what's the problem? I was high. I'm, you know, it's not my fault. I was drunk. You know, I was like, all right, I'm not going to fit in very well out here in the civilian world. So, I was, I was married at the time, but, um, you know, I was like, hey, I'm, I want to join the army.

And my first wife, she, you know, she's, well, she's coming out of the army. So she's, no, no, no, I don't, I don't want to be in the army. I don't want to be an army wife. You know, I well, she's coming out of the army so she's no, no, no, I don't I don't want to be in the army I don't want to be an army wife, you know, I'm done with the army. It's like okay So we agreed upon the Air Force So in January 2003 I Joe I transferred over to well not transferred I joined the Air Force and I transferred over to, well, not transferred, I joined the Air Force. And the Air Force, I was an ammo troop,

just a regular, just a flight line guy. It was a great job. Great job, I spent a year in Korea, one of the best years of my military life, getting to see the world from there. There, I did a few deployments, nothing crazy, no combat, but one trip to Iraq. That's where I ran into my first ODA team. I'm at the gym gym and here's the bearded ones. It's like, oh my God. So all that, we're all talking about what we think we know about either SEAL teams or green

berets or anything like that. This is like, dude, this is what I heard. No, no, no, man, I got a buddy who knows a buddy who knows another buddy that has a friend that used to be like, no, no, no, that's not shit, he looked at me once. You know, kind of, you know, we're a bunch of, we're a bunch of, you know, groupies. I guess you could say, so I'm at the gym and this guy comes up, he's like, hey, man, can you give me a spot? He's like, yeah, yeah, okay, cool. So we ended up talking for a long time. And he's like, yeah, man, we got a guy on our sister ODA team, he was in the Air Force.

He transferred over and went through the 18 X-ray course. And yeah, he's green beret right now too. So now I'll set them like, oh you can do that. Yeah, it's a blue-to-green transfer kind of thing. So then okay got it, you know, I was a boasting bait in the Navy, I was an ammo troop in the army, you're not going to jump straight over to green beret. There's no way, you can't do that. You got to be infantry or a ranger or something. How are you now? So I just put it out of my mind. So as my Air Force time is, you know,

it's I'm at, you know, four years and some months and now I'm going through a divorce. It's like, okay. I really need to shake things up in my life. I've never really challenged myself. I need to do something, something to get my mind off of what's going on right now. And again, I ran my marriage into the ground

because I still was that monster. That was just paths of destruction everywhere I went. Blaming it all on my past. Like I deserve this. This is why I'm this way. So that's, yeah, I'm allowed, I'm victimized. I'm allowed to do this. What kind of destruction?

Just the drinking, infidelity, just thinking, you know, not, never, never being actually mentally there or available or anything like that because the minute you let that person in close is the minute they're gonna hurt you. They're gonna hurt you. It's gonna happen. It's going to happen. It's just win, because all women are going to hurt you.

And so, and because I was still victimized and not able to let go or turn my past into a tool to help me better other people, or to make me stronger to help other people. I was using it as my crutch to be a piece of shit. And to be an ugly and evil human being because I deserve this, because what happened to me. No, but that's what my mindset was. So going through the divorce, you know, I had victimized myself. Oh, she left me and and all this other stuff. Refusing to realize that the only reason why everything failed was because of me 100% no ands ifs or buts. I ran it completely

into the ground, took a good girl and tore her to shreds all because I was being a little boy and living off of my self entitled victimization. So know, she did what she should have done years before that. She left. And I, 100%, I wish she would have done it earlier. But this point in my life, it's like, okay, well, I need to do something with my life. I need a victory.

I've got all kinds of defeats. I've got nothing but zeros. I don't have any ones. I need something. And so I'm going into the personnel office and to basically, you know, how, well, I don't know if you know, but if you're going through a divorce, you gotta be submitting the paperwork and everything like that.

So they're tracking what's going on. So I go to the personal office and there's this poster on the wall and it has a guy in uniform. Then half the uniform is Air Force, dress blues and the other half is Army Class A's. It's blue to green. And you can do an inner service transfer if you are in an overman career field in the Air Force. Over to the army. It's like, okay, well, huh, let me, so I asked about it. And my career field was overmaned. And I qualified for direct service transfer over. But now it's what do you wanna do? And so my dad, my dad's time in Vietnam, he spent it as a, he was a helicopter crew chief

on Huey's for Macvysog. So he was not a Green Bray, but he was a support guy for Macvysog as a helicopter crew chief, and then, you know, in the air of Gunner. So, he, you know, he'd always talked about the Green Berets, and I had the opportunity to interact to really dive into what they do,

and everything like that. And so I'm sitting there, and I have all this self doubt, like there's no way I can do it, can't do it, never gonna happen, why would I even try? But then my dad had told me something when I first joined the military and back in the Navy. And he said, you know, I'm going to give you some advice here. And he said, there's two, there's two old men sitting on a porch in their rocking chairs. He said, one old man

is miserable. And the other old man is content. He said, the first old man who's miserable, The first old man who's miserable, he is miserable because he let he let life pass him by. He never took a chance. He never stepped out of his comfort zone. He never failed. He was scared to fail. He never tried anything that he could fail at. He never he never put himself in vulnerable situations to where he may look stupid or, again, fail. And so he always stayed in this comfort zone.

He never tried anything that he could not accomplish. And because of that, he's sitting in his chair and he's looking back on all the I wish I would of in life. And he saw that he had wasted life. He had let all of life pass him by and never did anything. And now he just, you know, it was a life unfulfilled. He's an empty shell of a man, the other old man. He was sitting there and he's drinking his beer and he's looking back on everything

he did in life and he's fulfilled. He's gave life, he's taken life. He's failed, he succeeded. He's done everything there was to do that he could do as a man, everything. He's learned. He's helped people. He's, you know, failed. Been knocked down, got back up, but he's lived a fulfilled life. And he doesn't have any, I wish I would have. He's just sitting back and he is enjoying the remainder of his time knowing that he did the very best he could with what he had. And that's a man with fulfillment. He said, which old man do you wanna be?

He said, you can live your life in your comfort zone and never try. Never take a chance at failing. You can do that. But there's gonna be a point in time in your life when you're going to look back and you're going to have to Reckon with what he did and did not do And he said I wish I would have

are a dungeon a prison For old men. He said don't go up with I wish I would have. So when I was at the Army recruiter, he said, hey, we have this 18 X-ray. We need green braze. What do you think? And I was like, out, if I don't make it, or when I don't make it, at least I can say I tried. So I signed up. And yeah, I think a couple of weeks weeks later I was at Fort Benning going through Infantry Basic getting ready to go on through Jump School and then selection and to the QCourse if selected.

Man, I'm going to use that store for my son. Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah, it's the truth. It's the truth. Life will pass you by and how many people do we see out here that we'll never step out of their comfort zone? Probably about 90%. Yeah, they'll never take a chance at failing.

Yeah, you see it everywhere. Yeah, and the thing is about failure is if you use failure correctly, it'll make you stronger for when you succeed. Mm-hmm. And that's the truth. I mean, that's the truth. That's a good story. Yeah.

Yeah, it's... Yeah, there's gonna be a lot of, I call them old manisms that he's put on me throughout the years and it's all from the life that he lived. It's not no one could ever say like, well, how do you know? It's like, oh, have a seat. Let's talk. We're about ready to go down memory lane. You're going to see I got plenty of experience with good, bad, evil, and then pulling

myself out and make myself a better person. You know, that same like once a loser, always a loser. It's not true. It's not true. You can take those experiences and make yourself stronger and help other people with it. Then to me, his lessons learned. Yeah, I'm right. Yeah, I'm right.

I'm glad you said that. Yeah. But so, yeah, that's, you know, now I'm on my path, 18x Ray. I'm in an infantry basic and I love it. I love every bit of it because my mind is off of it. I'm off of the shit store I created for myself. By running a good woman through the ground, I'm just buried in the training

and then next thing, jump school and I hated it. Hated jump school. I hate everything about heights. Didn't know that before, but I hate. I hated everything about it. I was like, this job is not for me. I do not belong up in an aircraft, jumping out of it, stupid, but I did it.

And then selection, and I remembered, we started off with 405 guys in an October class. And by time, you know, the dust settled, there was 55 of us left and I think 22 got, or no. No, 55 got selected out of the 405. That's right. So 55 got selected and out of that 55, a 22 of us made it through the course. But once the dust settled and they, you know, they read off my roster number,

049 selected. It's like, oh, 049 selected. It's like, oh, that's me. Wait, what? That was just a boasting of the main and an ammo troop. How's that? So it was, it was a great accomplishment to get selected even though that selection isn't, yeah.

One, get going through the queue course and you figure out like selection wasn't that bad. There's parts of the queue course where you're like, wow, this is pretty horrible. But you're learning and, you know, I'm just, I'm progressing through. And I, you know, I get done with, you know, selection now I'm an SCT and then SEER

and then, you know, selection now I'm in SCT and then seer and then, you know, from there we go to language school and then I realized what the Air Force was really talking about about like, yeah, your test scores, you're kind of dumb, you know, I got to make, but make it through language school and then, you know, now what's your language? Spanish. So, and now I'm in MMS phase, so 18 Charlie demolitions and finish that now Robin Sage. The end of Robin Sage, you know, the instructor brings each candidate one by one over tells you if you're a fail, a recycle or a pass,

recycle or fail. And brings me over and it's like, right, welcome to the brother, pass. I was like, I did? Wow, and it was, yeah, it was just so fulfilling. It was just that day and that, how everything went down. It was one of those things that you'll remember for the rest of your life.

And so when I found out that I was gonna graduate and become a green beret, yeah, I thought, you know, like, all right, I'm at the pinnacle. I did it. Life is smooth sailing from here, right? I just accomplished a fairly difficult, you know, training course to go through.

Fairly. Fairly difficult. Yeah, it's difficult, but but the mil, I mean, there's a lot of difficult courses in the military. There are. Yeah, whether it's the one you went through being one of the top ones. Yeah, whether it's buds or the combat control, per rescue, special forces, Marsock, yeah, there's some, we, the United States can breed some special operators for sure. In my humble opinion, best in the world, just as our military and our special operations, yeah, the best in the world. But that's again, that's just my opinion. The British brothers that are listening, just my opinion.

But yeah, so I'm sitting here and I'm graduating and it's smooth sailing and life is going to be easy after this, right? Green beret now. I did it. And failed to realize one real critical part of life. This life doesn't care what course you just made it through or how badass you think you are. Life is even more badass and it's gonna pound you down.

And so, I'm riding this high, forgetting that it's still life. And yeah, it didn't take very long at all for life to show me like, hey dude, I'm still in control here. That was one wrong step. Yeah, and now what are you gonna do? So, and that, yeah, so what was that wrong step? So my first, I graduate the QCourse,

I get seven special forces group, get to my ODA where, you know, Kyle and I were together, Kyle Morgan and I were on the same ODA. When I first get there, he takes me underneath his wing and, you know, and I start to go through the new guys'isms and everything like that. Now, okay, hey, we're getting ready to deploy. They've been home for four months. And we're doing the, we're doing the surge and we're heading back.

What year is this? 2010. Okay. Yep. So we started working up for that deployment in April and we were boots on the ground in June. Yeah, April, yep. So yeah, it was a very fast transition from when they first got home to, hey, we need you guys back over there again. And the area we were going to even prompted a response from the Chairman Joint Chief Staff, Admiral prompted a response from the chairman joint chief staff

Admiral Mollin at the time because him and his entourage, they flew out to where we were conducting pre-mission training, PMT, and gave us a visit. I said, hey, you guys are going to a real bad area. We need you, talk. Where we were going was to the Chutu River Valley along the Helmen River that separated Arruzgan and Helmen Province. Insurgents were using that as a funneling highway to conduct attacks in around, you know, canterar and the areas, stuff like that. So weapons, men weapons equipment, long to helmet, river there. We were going to replace a third group team that was there.

They had been fighting every single day. And that's where we were going. So we get everything, you know, PMT, pre-mission trains done, and we're loading up and we're heading out, and now it's like, okay, that's what I, this is what all the trainings for. Now, was that one missing part of my life to where, yeah, I had a great job in the Navy. I had a great job in the Air Force, but something was always missing.

That a cop are, you know, getting actually into the fight. And so now it's come. And yeah, from landing in Bagram, then our movement over to Canahar, and then we start, we pack up, and we get our vehicles, and we're starting to move out to Firebase Tice, and within three days, we're ticked up. We're in a fight. Same story, everybody.

It's not like this is a big dramatic thing. Everybody in the surge was getting in fights because we were pushing in the areas that were previously dominated by the Taliban and or al-Qaeda. So how long were you in country before you got in your first gunfight? I think five days. That's it. So this is brand new green beret. Yeah. Going on to your very first deployment in five days later, you're in a gunfight. Yeah, it actually was, it was actually funny what happened. So we were driving up to do our left seat right seat ride to this area we called the West Bank or the Alamo where we'd be at.

And I was like, that's, I think that's a bad name for this place because I don't think the Alamo worked out too well the last time in Texas, but okay, whatever. So we're making our way out there and you know, the captain of the third group team. I'm driving, he's T.C. And he's like, okay, this is where you got to just hit the gas. Because we're going to get, we're going to get lit up on this open stretch of about 2,000 meters from here. The last cover, last cover, we weren't really concealed, but the last cover, to the Alamo, we got a gunnet and it's up a hill and then it's surrounded in a fishbowl kinda.

And so they have guns on all the high points and it's just shooting down into this place and like, huh, all right, and then you got the helmet river on the other side. So they can't really go anywhere. And it's like, all right, all vehicles move and hit the gas and RG33 doesn't take off like a bolt of light and it gets some speed up.

But once you're up the speed, it just also doesn't stop on a dime either. So we're head and there and now sudden you're hearing that tink tink tink tink tink and You know rounds are hitting the vehicles and then all sudden Swack the front window shatters or not. I'm sorry. Not shatter spider webs and Captain the Ellen is like drive drive drive because one more of those and it's probably gonna

It's probably gonna cave in on us and And so we were thinking a dish could probably hit the front windshield, disc around, sorry. So we make it into, you know, we're come flying into the gates there and guys are all up on the perimeter and everyone's shooting back and forth. And I jumped out of vehicle and,

and we're all, you know, all right, you get up there and help support that or whatnot. And it was just, it was, it was controlled chaos. You know, is this the first gunfight you've ever been in? Yeah. Yeah. It's controlled chaos. We're taking, we're taking a fire from the ridge line.

We're taking fire from the Helmen River, this World War One style trench line that they had over there, that we had hit multiple times and then they come back out and they're ready for round two. It's like, how is, how are you guys doing this? So I mean, it's a pretty, it's a pretty good, you know, fight. And then air shows up on station. And as you remember, back in, and I say back in the day, I was, it's not really back in days, 2010, but in the 2010 time, you've really had to need air support to get it because they didn't have enough platforms for the amount of guys that were out.

And so we finally get air on stations, a couple hours later. And then, you know, everyone, you know, you'll get sporadic fire here and there, but everything fades away because now you got air on station. And that's, that's how our time in the Alamo was. That's, that's how, you know, at the West Bank, that's, that's how it was. It was almost like clockwork, all right. Breakfast is over. Yep, here, here comes the rounds. And, you know, shit's coming. All right, it's about lunchtime, prayer time.

All right, gonna take a break. All right, here we go again. Yep, all right, good to go. And then, all right, I'm pretty much everyone's done for the night. Okay, yep. And it was, it was just clockwork. It was like orchestrated kind of up there. And if they were hitting us, they weren't hitting Cobra.

And if they were hitting Cobra, they probably weren't hitting us. And so it was just crazy for weeks and weeks and weeks we were doing this. And but the reason why we were there was basically we had Overwatch and we had Command and Control of that part of the Valley because we were going to be doing a major company clearance operation in the Q2 River Valley. To push these guys out, hopefully into spaces where we can hit them with aircraft and kill them. And at the time, I mean, with reports, there was reports from 2000 Taliban fighters in the valley

to who knows what, but... 2000? Yeah, but what does that really mean? 50? An Afghan numbers are 25. But the reports were coming in, and so we knew, like this is are 25, but you know, the reports were coming in and so we knew like this is a bad, bad area. Like we're once we, once we kick off, we're going to, we're going to be in it from everything

from the amount of engagements we've had for months up to this point to the reports that are coming in, everything. We're going to be in a fight. And so we had planned to kick off of the mission September 11, 2010. And basically it revolved around our ODA and our partner force. We're going to be pushing up from the South while in ODA and Commandos. We're going to come in from the Central and then a couple ODAs, with their partner force, we're going to come down from the North and basically kind of squeeze the fighters up into the mountains and then just bomb the crab bottom, tour of Boristile. And so it's like, all right, we're getting prepped for the mission and men weapons equipment, everything's good to go, got to get it across

to Helm and River. We did it with some pretty ingenious inventions by myself with Styrofoam and Zodiac rafts, but got four wheelers across, everything like that. Nothing sank to the bottom of the home in, thank God, because I was the new guy on the team, really didn't need that. But now, so it's September 10th, we're starting to stage and it's dead quiet. Nothing's moving in the valley.

It's like, all right. Obviously, they're tipped off, but okay. So now, all right, last check of everything, it's September 11th. We're moving to our last covered and concealed, and we're waiting on kickoff from the jock. So, wait non-sode if to give on kickoff from the jock. So, wait non-sode if to give us kickoff. September 11th, it's probably 10, 10, 30 PM,

11, and we get kickoff. It's time, yep, missions go, time to go. Green light. So, Cap gets on the radio, it all right guys everyone up smooth and our first objective We were gonna be clearing the the village of sea pest and It was multiple compounds, but we had taken a lot of fire from there. So we knew bad guys were in the area And if they weren't in the area then there's gonna be IEDs in the area for sure We adult with IEDs up to that point

But we knew that once we got past that certain part in the river Everything was gonna be IED And so we get up to our first, basically controlled stop. And now it's 1 a.m. We had moved for a couple hours. Slow movements. I'm up in the front with my Afghans, and we're clearing the route like everyone always does, and just slow movement to the first set of compounds.

As we'd rehearsed with our Afghan partners, they were actually a militia force. As we rehearsed with them, as we're going to get to a certain point, then you guys are going to go and clear this compound. We're going to get a foothold in it, we're going to clear it of IEDs, everything like that, and then we're going get a foothold in it. We're gonna clear it of IEDs, everything like that. And then we're gonna have our first command and control. We're gonna have our first C2C.

So, okay, good to go. Just like we rehearsed. So we got to the first point, about 25 meters away from the first compound. And I told our interpreter, Nick, I was like, all right, Nick, yeah, tell him, let's go. All right, go clear that compound. It's like, yeah, doing green brace shit here,

it's good stuff. No one's moving. Nick, did you tell him? Yeah, I told him, I'll tell him again. Like, just like we rehearsed, come on, it's that time. Let's go clear this compound. They said it's too dangerous. Well, no shit, that's why we're here.

I know this. It's very dangerous. Tell them again. Okay, he tells them, no. Said no, but that's not what we planned. We practiced this. Can't say no, can you? You can't say no.

Oh, okay. Well, why? Said it's too dangerous. This is, you know, your better trained, you should go first. It's like, well, yeah, if this was Texas, and we're clearing a, you know, a small town in Texas from insurgents, I would, yeah, it's my country, I'll go first, yeah.

But this is your country. Let's go. No. It's like, all right. So I turned around to tell my teammate who was actually the team sergeant also turned around to tell him, like, hey, these guys aren't moving. And he grabs me and he's like, go get Nick away from that door right now. It's like, what are you talking about? So our interpreter had wandered down to the first breach point,

doorway, whatever you wanna call it, of compound 001, and he's trying to wave him down. Still noise and light discipline, so he's not yelling, follow me, or anything like that, he's just trying to wave him down. Well, he's our only turp and And we have a bunch of militia guys with us. So we so it's like go get him away from that door now shit, so

I Again, I'll backtrack here in a second, but I wander down to where he's at and I grab him on the shoulder You know, what what are are you doing, man? What the fuck are you doing? Back up now, move back to Lance's position. What are you doing? Stupid, you know, and so he steps away from the breach and I cover his movement back because as of right now, whatever is inside of that compound is the unknown.

We don't know if a guy is about to stick an AK barrel out there and start spraying. Have no idea. So I'm covering his movement back and then I see something kind of move out of the corner of the compound. I'm like, oh, what is that? I need to get a better look at this. And then I, you know, I can't really quite see it. I don't know what it was.

Was it a cat? Was it a person? Is someone moving up along the wall? I have no idea. So I take a step in to look and boom. I'd stepped on a pressure plate IED in the breach point. So I'm at first I don't know what happened.

Nick's laying on the ground. He had made it back like probably like five to seven meters from me. Nick's laying on the ground. Yours are ringing. It's the hallway yelling, you know what I mean, Nick's laying on the ground. Yours are ringing. It's the hallway yelling, you know what I mean? Or the yelling down a tube, I guess is what you call it, or something, yeah.

The echoing. Yeah, the echoing, yeah. And it's what you hear. You hear as you're coming to, you hear echo-y voices. Yeah, in the ringing, just the ringing. And then at first it was this huge flash of light. And now I'm having a hard time seeing,

but I'm surrounded with dust and ammonia. You know that HME ammonia smell. And I'm like, if I don't get out of here, I'm gonna suffocate, I can't breathe. And so I'm trying to get up, but I can't. I'm trying to move, but I can't. So I'm getting mad, it doesn't hurt. I don't know what happened, but I'm getting pissed

because I can't get up. How long do you think you were out? Seconds. That's it? Yeah, if I was even out at all, I don't think I ever went out. No shit. So I'm laying there and as the ringing and everything,

I'm like, okay, I can't move. I don't know why I can't move, but I just stop controlling breathing. What happened? RPG, recoilless, like what happened? I know what's supposed to, I'm supposed to be doing right now because I've seen guys get blown up

and you start screaming and stuff like that. It's like, what happened? And then as the dust starts to clear, and again, I'm talking minutes here, this is seconds. You know, but as the dust starts to clear, I look down at my right leg and my boot is at a 90 degree angle to my leg. And so I'm trying to figure out, because again, let's go back to the ASFAB test score, not the brightest.

Trying to figure out why my boot is pointing at a 90 degree angle to my leg. It's like, well, I didn't take my boot off, but, huh. So the dust clear is a little bit more. And now I'm hearing, you know, people are, um, Lance is yelling like, Ryan, Ryan, you okay, Ryan. And I pick my leg up from behind the knee and my boot flops over. And then I see, um, sticking out of my pant legs,

I see these two pearly white objects. Like, the bone should be the color of bone. You can't call it white. It's this whole new glowing, you know, it's September 12th. It's for something in the morning. It's about that time when you're like, do I need neds? Yes, no, you know, that kind of time.

But these two objects that are sticking out of my pant leg are like glowing white. And then I realize that's my tip and my fib. And then that, and then it hit me. The pain just, oh, check, that's there it is. I'm hit, I'm hit, I'm hit, I'm hit. And yeah, that's like that pain of, God, I've never felt anything like that before.

Just excruciating pain. And it felt like it took forever for me, for it to hit me, because I had to realize what happened. You know, my brain wasn't computing the pain. And again, I'm not, I, I'm not neuroscience or anything like that. But for me, once I realized that was my tip and my fib, it, it absolutely just smashed me like it, like it didn't hit with by a truck. I've never been hit by a truck, but I would imagine that would probably be pretty painful too.

It was your tip and fib were coming out of the leg that the part of the, was it completely blown off? No, so was it the part that's was still attached to the part that? Yeah, so my, yeah, it was coming out of my right leg just here, right above my ankle. So, and... So, I'm laying there, and I'm, you know, I hear people in the background, like now people are starting to get their figuring out what happened in Lantziels. He's like, Ryan, we're trying to get to you, hold on. Get your turn to kid out. And so I'm trying to fumble with my turn to kid, but I'm in shock.

Like I can't believe what I just saw. My leg is at a 90 degree angle, and that was my tip and my fib. So it's right here. That's where the bones came out of. Shit. Yeah. So I'm trying to get my turn a kid, and I'm, but I keep looking down.

Horrible mistake with injuries. Don't look at it. Just, you know, look at your thigh and then start to get that turn again on. But I keep looking down and just keep putting my head back. And I remember, you know, Ryan, we're trying to get to you. We got to, we got to clear up to you. And this is all Lance. Other guys are on the radio.

What the fuck just happened? Who was that? What happened? Trying to figure out, trying to get at least three W's out of it at all. But Lance is in shock because I stepped on an IED 25 meters from him and he was Lance. He was the team's aren't.

Okay. So he's in shock. I'm going in the shock. And he's, you know, he's screaming for a medic. And I just, I remember, did he put the tourniquet on you? No. No, I remember looking back

because I'm laying this way. Here's the compound. And I can see Lance in the background and he seemed so far away. And I remember I laid my head back and I said, I'm going to die here today. No one can get to me. And I remember, I remember looking up and I instantly started going through my life in the mistakes that I've made and the people that I hurt and the paths of destruction that I had created and I was ashamed of myself. That I was going to die there that day,

never of ever being a man. I was always a little boy. And that's how I was going to die. And so I remember asking God for forgiveness and understanding that people could read into and say, oh, well, you gave up, you accepted death. Okay. Maybe I did. I don't know what mine stayed.

I was in, but I remember looking up and I was asking God for forgiveness. And then there was this hawk flying just circling me. And it was crazy. It was like we're in a full fight right now. The Taliban had, they were moving down the river, our overwatch guys were engaging them. Aircraft were coming in and engaging them. There's a fight going on all around me. And there's just this one hawk circling me with the aircraft and everything and People say well, how do you know God is real? Because I saw them Yeah, I saw him that day. He told me you know, I got you

This is your wake up call. So I laid my head back and it took about, probably, I now was like, I'm just gonna go to sleep. Slap. And teammates got to me. George McGonion and Kyle Morgan. And then slap again. And like quit. They got to you? Yeah, again. And like quit.

They got to you? Yeah, cow. So hold on. The team sergeant that was behind you, you said 25 meters. What was he doing and why didn't he render aid to you? I can't answer that. I don't know.

I shock. Maybe shock. I don't know. I shock. Maybe shock. Yeah, I may I don't have a good answer for that. Okay, so Kyle Morgan and who and George Magganya So how far did they have to go to get to you? Do you know a long ways through minefield? Through a minefield So this guy's 25 meters away. And these other two guys, Kyle Morgan and the other dude, go through a minefield to get to you

just to slap you on the face. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah. Yeah, George hit me, I was, man, I was pissed. But yeah, they understood that where there's one IED, there's five, there's 10, there's two, there's one IED there's there's five there's 10 there's two there's 20 um and

they knew that I Was on a I was on a time I was on a time clock and If if they didn't get to me regardless of their life limmer. I say I was gonna die get to me regardless of their life, limb, or eyesight. I was gonna die. My, how many of you guys were there? How many green berries were on the ground? Roughly.

Roughly 12. Yeah, I think we had our whole ODA for the mission, whether we had guys up on Overwatch or down, actually doing the clearance, we had about 12. So, but yeah, Kyle and George, they got to me and started rendering aid immediately. I think, I can't quite remember, but I think I had attempted my turn of kit,

but it was just loose. You could move it up and down your leg. It was, you know, and then they just started cranking that sucker down and I remember I was like, hey, this really hurts. Like stop, they're like crank again. It's like, oh my God, please stop. You know, and I, yeah, I was like,

turn of kits are worse than getting blown up. This really hurts Like who who who invented this stupid? But yeah, then you know they hit me with a fit and all all I bought a chew it up immediately You know, I'm just I'm begging for painkillers hit me with morphine shot and all of a sudden I have I have hives Everywhere it's like oh, I'm allergic to morphine like okay. of a sudden I have hives everywhere. It's like, oh, I'm allergic to morphine. Like, okay, this is a great time to figure this out. But you know, it's okay, hey, we got Ryan, we got Ryan stable, Taliban are moving in right

now. We got a move. They took the butt stock off my M4, ace wrapped my leg up because we're about ready to have a hasty ambush put in on us. And what I did was I kind of, the Taliban had an ambush set up for us, but I kind of messed it up for them because I stepped on an IED a little bit earlier than they thought. It's like, well, you shouldn't have harmed it then. But, yeah, it's time to move. We can't drop. Taliban know it very well. If we close the distance with the Americans,

they're not gonna drop bombs on us. So, now we have a gun fight. Good. Those are good odds for a guy on the high ground, a guy on the low ground. So, now it's like, okay, time to go. So, basically, it's like, where's the litter? It's like, we need to bring a litter.

And, you know, I'll never forget this call. So our captain, and he lost both of his legs the next deployment, but our captain is on the radio and he's like, hey, we got we got a patient urgent critical. And the medevac was they said, well, we can't we can't go down there and pick him up. It's too hot. There's too much gunfire RPG stuff like that. We can't get down there. You have to move him out. We can't get down there. It's like, we need you guys down here now. He, this guy's gonna die. And he's like, one guy or a whole air crew.

Shit. And over icon chatter, the Taliban were celebrating. I could hear him laughing and cheering. You could hear that. Yeah. Over icon chatter, because Nick had the Icom up and he was monitored during their movements to us and they were celebrating. He was like they're celebrating. They killed, you know, the American, they're celebrating in,

you know, they played that horrible music that they do. And it was over me. And so that was burnt, you know, obviously into my mind. Do you remember that vividly? Vividly. Yep. And so the call, you know, there's a lot of indecision on the ground and Kyle, final Aaron, Kyle's like, I'm in, you're out. I'm taking over this.

Who's out? Lance. The team sergeant that was okay. So he was in, he just, he couldn't pull it together. Yeah. Wrong job. Yeah. So, now Kyle is like, Ryan, it's gonna hurt really bad. I'm picking you up, I gotta carry you.

And it was. It was extremely painful. But Kyle picks me up fireman carry and starts moving to where we could set up in HLC and actually land a black cock to get me out of there. land a black hawk to get me out of there. And I mean, 1,500 meters. And it's just, yeah, it was Kyle carried you 1,500 to 1,500 meters. Yeah, we had to stop a couple times so he could, kind of loosen up a little bit. How's he carrying your fireman's carry? Yeah, fireman's carry, but he just kept moving. With full kid. Yeah, with holy shit. Yeah, yeah, he just kept moving because

saving my life meant more to him than his comfort, his pain. than his comfort, his pain, anything that was going on in his mind at the time and even his own life. That's what it meant to save my life. So, and so yeah, they, you know, it was years later when Kyle and I talked and I didn't realize that the whole team knew that that was my last flight.

I was going to die on the helicopter from blood loss. And yeah, I didn't I didn't realize it was that bad. I mean, I knew it was bad because I mean, I knew it was bad because in Terran Cow, they had told me that, you know, I support our, I just like meet at the fridge, or you know, at the supermarket, but I had expired twice. And I was like, okay, is that bad? It's like, oh God, you're dumb.

Yeah, man, I mean you died twice. It's like, oh. Oh, and blood transfusions and everything, but yeah, if it wasn't for Kyle, carrying me out in Kyle and George's quick response to me, yeah, that would have been it. I would have died right there along the home and river. Damn, Ron.

Yeah. Let's take a quick break. Yeah, just keep telling you stuff. Just get tough for a break. Let's take a quick break. Yeah, it's good time for a break. Let's take a quick break. Yeah. get very busy, hectic, it turns into a lot of stress. Next thing, you know, a whole month has gone by. You don't even realize it because you've just been going so fast. And when you get in these situations or these, these, these little sections of life that are like that, what's the first thing that always goes to the way side?

You're diet. I'm guilty of it too. My diet goes to complete when I'm stressed out, when I'm busy, when life gets hectic. And you know what, the first thing to go from my diet, it's always greens. It's just how it is. I don't know why, it's just always greens.

And so I started trying this new product from first form, opta greens 50, these are great. They are processed with low temperature. That way they don't affect the ingredients. There's no synthetic colors, flavors, sweeteners, or preservatives. It's 100% non-GMO and gluten free. Here's the cool thing.

They come in these little travel packets now, right? So you can keep these in the truck, keep them at work, keep them at home, open one up, dump it into a bottle of water, and there's your daily vegetables, greens, whatever you wanna call it, intake, right? Then on top of that, they also have opto reds 50, which is your daily reds intake.

These are also amazing. They actually taste pretty good too. So whether you're a busy parent athlete or somebody who just wants to take care of their body, Optigreens 50 can help keep you at the top of your game. Visit firstform.com slash SRS to get yours today. That's firstform.com slash SRS. First one STPHORM-SRS and get free shipping on all orders over $75, Optigreens 50 from First Form. At Grand Canyon University, they believe that the military men and women are the unique among the young common.

You fought for our freedom. Your bravery in leadership are celebrated by all Americans. GCU matches your commitment to excellence. With our counselor specializing in military benefits in over 260 flexible degree programs online as of March 2023, GCU makes higher education possible for our nation's protectors and their families to pursue your next journey. GCU salutes you, God bless America.

Find your purpose at Grand Canyon University, private, Christian, and affordable. Visit gcu.edu slash military. you slash military. All right Ryan, we're back from the break. We had just wrapped up your story. You're on the bird heading home. And you know, we only really have one perspective and that's yours.

So I got in one of your teammates on the line here, Kyle Morgan. Yeah. And he's going to give us his perspective of what happened. Kyle, you on here? Can you hear me? Brian, can you hear me? What's up, brother? What's up, man? I'm really glad that you're sitting down and doing this interview, man. Your story is incredible, brother, and I'm just glad to have been a part,

even a smaller part of it in what you're continuing to do, man. So Sean, you're in the best hands you could be with what Sean's doing for this country and arguably for this world. Thank you, brother. Well, Kyle, we just wrapped up, we talked about this on your episode too, but I just wanted to get your perspective of everything that happened on September 12, 2010, starting from where Ryan went to the breach point. Yeah, so, I mean, like you mentioned, I talked about this in the interview I did with you

because this was a pretty big part of the journey that I've been on in my own healing and growth and just being there for your mates. And so back enough to that day itself, we infilled across that river, which it wasn't a small river, the Helmand River. And I think it's important to mention that we had gotten some human intelligence

that they blew me trap the doorways that night, which we knew they were, you know, dammit up the irrigation canals, running discos down wheel barrels, you know, using the cover concealment piece of it. And, you know, we were taken in effective fire daily. I mean, that's how I met Ryan, was in trial by fire.

And, you know, I was in soda, can I miss our pre-mission training, but when he got to the team, he was just this new guy on the team that had, you know, probably older than me. And I was like, I think he was an Air Force and maybe, I was like, what are you doing? What are you doing here? And I'm just happier than shit to be there. And so I feel like we owed it to all of our guys on our team to once we got that report, to give it the energy it needed.

And I think I protested us in filling that night, but based on us, so we could actually reevaluate some things. And based on resources and us not being able to get resource and we finally did with all the different moving pieces of this, close air support and all that, we went ahead and did it. And we thought we could mitigate some of the risk by going in up and over walls and blowing holes through walls

instead of going through the thresholds. And we're preparing every step we take kind of thing using the cover of darkness but by the point by the time we got to you know reaching the our our initial points or the you know the actions on piece it was already you know morning to highlight time and I just remember I think I was on the northern element, but on the same side of the canal as Ryan and his element. And the way we were broke down, I'm sure you mentioned, it was like two of us and then a squad of people

that were barely trained and then a couple really competent asking us that we had, you know, that had saved our lives multiple times, up to this point. And I believe Ryan was, you know, I know he was with the team sergeant and I had to medit with me and that was probably 50 yards north of Ryan's position

but I just know that it was this, you know, obviously, for my perspective was this explosion goes off and I just hear this like, I could hear a thud, right? And it wouldn't have been Ryan's body. You know, you know, you know, blasting up and then, you know, hitting the ground,

it was that, that quiet after the explosion. And, you know, I think my initial reaction was just to take off running over there. But one of my partner force guys that had saved us a ton of times up to that point kind of stopped me and said, Hey, let me leave. Let me let me leave out. So it felt like it took an eternity for me to cover that distance

to how long did it how long did it take after the explosion an eternity for me to cover that distance to our How long did it how long did it take after the explosion that you realized it was Ryan Not not very long because I could hear his voice like audibly like There was nothing over the radio, but I could hear him his screams After that flood and um, I that's's when I went to go take off. And nothing crickets on the radio. And I just took off. And with moving very slowly, what felt like was extremely painstakingly slow and to get back to him. But when I rounded that corner back up towards his position, the first thing I encountered was the team sergeant just sitting there on his knees,

kind of messing around with something on his kid. And then he kind of tried to grab my attention and hand me something. And it was a turn of kit that was still in the plastic. And I was like, I was like, you're useless, man. Like, what are you doing? And I didn't say that, but I was like, I was like, you're useless, man. Like, what are you doing? I mean, I need to say that, but I was thinking it as I'm continuing to pass them to Ryan. But when I got there, Port A or 18 Fox had already gotten there to him and had Port A not gotten there when he did, like, line for sure, would have blood out. Because I think Ryan was trying to, you know,

self-aid apply a turn to get, but he couldn't, to himself. And, but where they was able to get that turn to get in place and actually stopped, because up to that point, he had lost, you know, a ton of blood. And I just know that, you know, the actions of a few of us, were able to really, you know, get him packaged up, of us were able to really get them packaged up, we'll stop the bleed, and then get them packaged up, and get them to that next higher level of care.

But there was a massive breakdown in a few things. Even the fact that we knew when we crossed that river, you were going to end up staying over there. So we were limited on how many resources we could bring over with us, but we didn't have a letter, at least near my element, or Ryan's element. And so we didn't even have a post letter. So I went and grabbed a wibi or found a wibi poncho honor. And we got him, we put a chart of basically put everything back in line as we could with his injury

and then one of it with the bus talker as they are and then put them on that wibby and kind of grab some corners and at that point I'm trying to tell the team sergeant to bring the he-lo's in and just pointing in a general direction over clearing, but I also believe that we were taking some effective fire, or at least the other element was taken fire down towards the irrigation canal. And the dust one or the Medevac flight, the Medevac flight said that they wouldn't come in.

And obviously, we're carrying Ryan at this point with the Poncelloner or and it starts ripping apart because Ryan's not a little fella. He's a thick man. I think that's where my neck injury started because what ended up happening after that was like this punchline or you, it's not rated for that. So in the train, awful. It was just like just super rocky and rolling. And so we got to like a small little piece of cover,

like a little ravine and kind of set him back down. I know that he had, apparently I think he chewed the fentanyl lollipop. So it wasn't as effective as it could be. He's an agonizing pain the whole time. And I just see the team stars and just not making any decisions after, you know, the healers says they can't come in. And, you know, then the poncho, Blonder Rips, and I'm just beyond frustrated.

And at that point, I was just like, A-Lance, make a decision. And then pause, nothing, nothing. And I'm like, this is what we're doing. And Ryan actually reminded me about me saying that because he kind of came back to you, I guess. Because remember when we talked about this last year, Ryan, we reconnected and it was really cool to have that conversation because I just, through time, if you know, forgot certain aspects of my life. But it was really cool to see, heard to have that conversation

with you and need to give you some of my my perspective too, but ultimately I'm like, this is what we're doing. And through him on my shoulders and I think he was complaining about his his net's the whole time hurting for some. Yeah. What was what was your plan, Kyle? When you said, I'm taking control, what came after that? Because we were taking fire, the other element was taking fire and we needed to make a decision on where that

kilo was going to come in, because we were separate, right? We were separate by terrain. I felt comfortable with the fact that we had the buildings kind of masking that engagement know, that the engagement can reaching us that we could bring that heal in, you know, another 400 yards. And but what what the conversation that was happening back and forth is is he wouldn't he wouldn't even think that to to the meta back. So in the captain, which was a phenomenal, which I'd love to have him like chat with you as well,

Sean, because his story is incredible as well. And then Captain and Arrow, I think I talked to him about him and my interview. And he was over there with the other elements. And you know, it was basically just like, let's get this hero in right here, we can't move him. We don't have the, what we need to be able to cover the distance from what they're proposing as a, as a man example.

So ultimately, it was just like, okay, like, just bring him in, like right there. Wherever they feel comfortable in, we got to keep moving to them. Since it's another, at that point, it was probably another 800 or a thousand yards to get to the helo. And, um, yeah, so I just remember, like, carrying him as far as I could and trying to hand him off occasionally. And ultimately, I started carrying him and I ended up carrying him through the actual healer. I was just immerse in him on the healer through the brown out and just seeing, you just kind of look like death man. And I was just, you know, I was like, I don't know if I'm going to see him again. And then, you know, and then he takes off and, um,

and it was just, it was like, Erie, because I think cast had rolled in and the close here sport had taken out some of the fighting physicians. So like, it was just eerily quiet. Once the hero, you know, was out of audible range and, and I just remember going back and just feeling like, what the fuck are we just doing? Like, um, like, I was just, because I had protested like, what the fuck are we just doing? Like, I was just, because I had protested going, like going based on the intelligence, regardless, of how, you know, we knew that area was, they've fortified.

But that report that we had gotten, like I just felt like we could have given it a little bit more time, and then the fact that I thought we lost, we were potentially losing Ryan completely, not just to the mission, but to life. And I just felt like we owed him, as I wasn't that senior,

but I mean, I've been on the team for a couple of years at that point, and I feel like we failed. And all the stuff that the team started, and that wasn't his first like discrepancy right their negligence. I mean the gross negligence and like who who has their turn to get some with them in the plastic man Like that's not preparation. That's not being prepared. That's not anything we teach and Just because you're a team sergeant doesn't mean you don't need to like you need to be the one setting the standard And that's what actually drove me

To to to continue to push myself to be better as the best version, you know professionally as I could and I just know in the other part too is like we had to finish the mission. It was just like there was this this somberness Peace and I think we ended up there in like 27 IDs In that village like baby traps over time wow like Yeah, man, and you know the and I and the other part too that was kind of like

Didn't say well with me is like I know we were isolated out there because this was a part of the village stability operations initiative thing that I know we were isolated out there because this was a part of the bill, it's the ability operations initiative thing that the great-barreys were trying to reintegrate or spew to stock or so come. And it, I get part of that, but we were isolated as far as communication, limited to certain means. But I feel like we didn't find out how he was doing if he was even alive for way too long. How long? To me, I feel like maybe we got a little bit of report that he was in Germany and then

on his way to the States, but then... I don't know, we... We have to say that. It felt like a week. Oh, really? Shit. We have to add it to like a week. Oh, oh, shit. And you know, it was there was just so many things that you know, I I had I had a very serious discussion. I had I had other discussions before about other

Negligents or discrepancies with that team sergeant. Not just means that the team as a whole that we were successful based on the guys on our team and it wasn't in our captains were always really great. But the, you know, some of the breakdowns in some of the decision making is really what forced me, not forced me, but like validated, because I didn't want to leave my team, especially after that trip as well. But to go to the unit that I went to, but to be able to reconnect with Ryan has been phenomenal and to see what he's done with it and the story and the bookie road. And he's just, he's helping so many people with what he's doing and still doing. He's over there, he's helping so many people with what he's doing and still doing he's over there be minding

Like he's that he's they it's mind-blowing that the selfless service that that man You're continued to do you know and But that's just the caliber person this and across from the show We're figuring that out. It's time goes on man. Thank you for thank you for Putting them on my radar seriously. Yeah. Do you guys have anything you want to say to each other before we move on?

Yeah, bro. Like I was telling Sean, I wouldn't be sitting here today if it wasn't for you. And I know you don't really like to hear that, but it's the truth. And so yeah, all the way back in 2010, I'm always, we're family. You're my brother.

But yeah, me sitting here on the show today started back September 12, 2010. You know, I love you, brother. And I'm always going to be here for you. And in order for you to tell the story that I know that it's going to help so many people, you couldn't be in better hands than you are with Sean. And the fact that this is happening to me is, I'm beyond excited to watch this interview. And, you know, I'm always gonna,

I just know that, like, John's a forever friend. You know, as you're in that hot seat, you know, sharing, you know, the best and the ugliest parts of you, it's a part of the bigger mission that John's creating and executing. So it's an honor, man, and I love you both of you. And thank you for bringing me into this special interview. Yeah, brother.

It's my honor, man. I love you too, brother. I love you too. And you're one of my favorite humans. Seriously, I'm very proud to know you man. But hey, call best of luck to you. Talk to you soon. I'll call you after the interview. I'll take your YouTube. Alright, brother. Bye-bye.

Yeah, like I said, people throw around, you know, the word hero a lot. And I'm no hero, but I've served with them and you just got off the phone with one. Yeah. You know, you ever heard about, you know, just people that have worked, you know, I'm just a normal guy working amongst heroes. That's, that's, that's a hero. So, you know, I don't think anybody that's not sure is ever considered themselves a hero, man. Yeah. So, it's always for somebody else to make that decision. Yeah, it's, that's a good point. Yeah. Yeah. Heavy fun, call, bro.

You want to take a break? No. No, good to go. All right, let's press on. Yeah. So, yeah, we, uh, I'm on the bird now, and I remember lifting off and, um, you know, looking down at the team, and I, I, I could see, you know see as the guys were getting smaller and smaller, that was probably it for me.

I would never be the same again. I didn't know how bad off I was. I didn't know how much blood I had lost, but I knew that Ryan Henderson, as I knew it, that day would all, would be different. So we fly into a Tarenkout, and the, the team that is going to meet me, apparently they were expected in a buddy.

Are you serious? Yeah, a couple of my buddies were at TK and heard about the MetaVac and they weren't sure if they were getting a body or a Ryan, you know, wounded Ryan or what it was. So, yeah, I showed up and, you know, I'm alive. And there's some pistons. It's like you're alive.

And so that range of emotion and everything like that, but they're getting me towards the... So it got to them that you were dead. That's what they were telling me, yeah. How many other people did they tell that you were dead. That's that's what they were telling me. Yeah. How many other people did they tell that you were dead? Um, had any family members been contacted? So there's mixed on that. I had asked my dad about it and he had told me that he was given the wrong information at first, but he's glad they cleared it up.

Not sure what information that was, and he won't share it. I'm sure we could all rebuild between the lines here. But my buddy Nick and Jeremy, they, whether it had come through the grapevine, I can't see anyone given an official report. Like I doubt the helicopter would have gave a report of one KIA coming in. So I'm not really sure, but over the years talking to him,

they were like, yeah, we thought we were getting your body. It's like, oh, okay, I didn't realize things were at that point. But, so I remember getting, you know, like, oh, okay, I didn't realize things were at that point. But, so I remember, I remember getting, you know, they're rushing to the helicopter, everyone's running. I'm like, what is going on here? There is a lot of frantic people.

And not out of control, just very controlled, but they're not wasting time. And they're starting to cut clothes. And I had on my lucky organ ducks t-shirt, you know, huge organ ducks man. And I remember this lady went to it with the trauma scissors and I was like, no, this is my lucky shirt. I will take this off myself and you know, I'm trying to fight her, you know,

just what I remember. Yeah, it's probably, I probably was, you know, way more out of it. But in my head, I was putting up a really good fight. And then, and then she, she had said something along the lines, have you seen your leg? Like, how lucky is this shirt, sir? Let me do my job. It's like, yeah, I'll get another lucky organ next t-shirt another time. So, and then it was lights out. And so, I don't remember much past that except for when I came to the first time that I woke up

after surgery number one, or however however many I don't know. So when I came to, there was a couple guys out in my room, one of my buddies, Dino and then Calvin. And again, I was a new guy on the team, so these were more senior dudes. They've been around for a while. So, you know, these were more senior dudes. They've been around for a while. And but they're, you know, they're in my room. And it's like, hey man, you know, glad, glad you made it, glad you're live. Here's a note from the 18 Delta that rode with me from, you know, when I got hit, to TK. And the note said, if you're reading this note, you know, when I got hit, to TK,

and the note said, if you're reading this note, your life. Holy shit. Yeah. So I didn't know why he wrote that note. It didn't, it didn't make sense to me. What do you feel like reading that note? Confused.

I was very confused on what happened. Like, why am I reading the note if you're reading this year alive, you made it. Like, of course I'm alive, why wouldn't I be? And then it took years later talking to Kyle that I probably shouldn't be alive. So I'm reading that note and I still have it today. I have it in with my purple heart, but I'm reading that note and I'm trying to dissect

everything. And I remember I started crying and like team guys would, you know, my teammates like stop crying. Stop crying man. There's going to be plenty of time to cry. StopCrying. You need to get control over this StopCrying. And so, you know, I, you know, it's trying to,

you know, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, let's, let's, you know, stop, you know, I still can't figure out what happened, I look down, I'm like, what is that? What is that down there? What happened? And so Calvin, he was on another team, but he was one of the more senior 18 deltas in the company. And he was on another team. And he heard that I got hit. And so he wanted to check on guys in the company. And he was talking to me a little bit. But I remember Calvin told

me, he said, Hey, man, we're heading out to that area too. And we're going to get these fears that did this too. And so, you know, I was trying to say, you know, something, you know, I'm the new guy, what am I really gonna say? Like, hey man, be safe, watch your back. Whatever it was, just trying to have something to contribute to that powerful message. He just relayed to me,

we're gonna get these f**kers that did this to you. And... Yeah, Calvin died that mission. Along with Mark, Com back controller. Yeah. Yeah. So they killed a lot of guys too. Yeah. But that was Calvin, Calvin's last mission. That haunts you.

Yeah. Yep. Yeah. So, do you think they would have gone out any other way? I don't know. Yeah, I don't... It's hard to tell because that starts to... That starts to get into the line of self- victimization. Well, if I would have just done this, maybe he would be alive today, or if I could have done this different, or this, maybe he would still

be here. That's, you know, there's, you know, our lives, our lives are like a book. The beginning chapter in the end chapter has already been written. That's up to God. When you're born and when you die, that's in God's hands. What's in the middle is up to you. How are you going to fill in those pages of your book? That's up to you. But the beginning chapter in the end chapter has already been written.

Someone could say, well, what happens if you kill yourself? That was the end chapter. It was already written. That's in God's hands, not yours. And the more that I've tried to handle and control death over the years, I mean, it started off with Jason Holbrook. He died early on on my first deployment and we had gone through the cue course together. And, you know, as I tried to understand death

and as I tried to reason with why, in the end, it's not up to you. The beginning and the end chapters of your life is it's not up to you. The beginning and the end chapters of your life is it's not up to you. And it's hard but refreshing. When you know you don't have control, it's in God's hands. At least for me it is. So I, obviously, I do get a little, you know, I get, I get choked

up with Calvin, I'm a human being. But there were times when I used, you know, his death as a way to create even more of a victim, to why, you know, here's a husband with kids and anything like that, like it's not fair and to victimize and to try and understand death. You can't understand death. That's not up to you. Stan, death, you can't understand death. That's, that's not up to you. So, we talked about this quite about this morning.

I'd like to, what you're talking about is survivors guilt. And a lot of people hear about it, and not a lot of people understand it. Yeah. And so if you're willing, I'd like to, I'd like to explore this for a little bit. Yeah. So what kind of feelings were you feeling after you died? When I heard I felt like... Number one, when I heard he died, I was on every narcotic known to man for my leg and all the procedures I was going through. But I automatically took it as it was my fault.

How? There's no way it was my fault. You know, that's just... That's the... That's the uncomfortable thought process that goes through survivor's guilt. And so when Calvin died, especially when Calvin died because of the conversation we had before he left, I felt that me getting injured was the reason why he was killed. And me getting injured put my team at risk. And me getting injured put my friends at

risk. And me getting injured was the reason why people weren't going to go home to their families. Is that the case? It's not. But that's what, that's what if you allow it, that's what survivor guilt can do to you, is you can take on that whole burden of something that you have no control over. It's not up to you. But you can take on that whole burden and make it your own. That's now every single person that got hurt or died is your cross to bear and tell you can't bear it anymore. Then what do you do? Is it alcohol?

Is it drugs? Is it suicide? Then what do you do because it's impossible to bear that guilt and it's in the word survivors guilt? And it's impossible. You can't live with survivors guilt Sometimes going to break and it usually breaks in the form of suicide as we've all seen. It does. But survivors' guilt is dangerous. And it's a victimized mindset because there's something that you could have done that would have prevented that. And lots of veterans have survivor skill. Thousands. And it's a prison. And it's a prison that you can't... It's dark.

It's lonely. But the thing is, it's people try to rush in and help you. And you push them away. To stay in that dark and lonely place. Yeah, it's bad news, man. How are you handling that now? So survivors guilt for me and how I handle it now

is by talking about it. How I handle it now is maybe my about it. How I handle it now is maybe my message is going to reach one person. One person is gonna hear what I have to say and maybe think twice about their path they're on or the decisions that maybe they're getting ready to make because of the survivor's guilt, because of the survivor's guilt, because of the stress of carrying that burden.

And so with me, because I do believe that the beginning and the in chapter of your life has been written, you can't control that. It's not up to you. Send God's hands. My survivor is guilt. I deal with it through my faith in my belief that what I just said, the beginning and the end is an up to you. God's plan, regardless of how unfair it seems, that's God's decision. And that helps, that, that calms me down. That suits me. That is, you know, what I need to be able to take a lot of the emotion out of it,

even though it is. It's very emotional for me to talk about. But again, I'm a human being. But I can take a lot of that emotion out of it and I can see how I can use this message to help somebody, to give somebody that light in the darkness. You know, take some of that burden. You know, I carry the loners tons of us out here, thousands some of that burden. You know, I carry it alone. There's tons of us out here.

Thousands of us out here. But we're not going to find you. You got to reach out. If no one knows you're struggling, no one's going to know you're struggling. They're true. You know, so that's, that's how I've, my faith in using my experiences

to help other people. That would be. Can I ask you a question? You spent 22 years in the military, correct? You didn't eight deployments. You've been around the soft community for how many years now? 13. 13 years in service to include outside of service? Oh, no, outside of service would be...

16, 17. 16 years. So you know the community very well. But that specific moment in time, that operation where they went in to clear out that valley. Do you think there is any other place that those men would have wanted to be at at that specific moment in time rather than clearing that and valley out. No, no other place. Me neither. Then next to their brothers. Yeah, you're not fighting for a government. You're not fighting for a president. You're not fighting for political or religious

beliefs, you're fighting for your brothers. Left and right. Yeah. That's it. Simple. And I saw that day, a man that was going to give his life up, so I had mine. That's heroism, that's Kyle.

Yes it is. Let's take a quick break when we come back, we'll get into the recovery. Yeah, that's gonna be a fun one. All right. I want to tell you about this business venture I've been on for about the past seven, eight months, and it's finally come to fruition. I've been hellbent on finding the cleanest functional mushroom supplement on the planet, and that all kind of stemmed from the psychedelic treatment I did.

Came out of it got a ton of benefits, haven't had a drop of alcohol in almost two years. I'm more in the moment with my family. And that led me down researching the benefits of just everyday functional mushrooms. And I started taking some supplements, I found some coffee replacements, I even wrapped a brand and you know it got to the point where I just wanted the finest ingredients available no matter where they come from and it got to this point where I was just going to start my own brand and so we started going to trade shows and looking for the finest ingredients and doing that, I ran into this guy, maybe you've

heard of him, his name's Laird Hamilton and his wife, Gabby Reese, and they have an entire line of supplements with all the finest ingredients. And we got to talking, it turns out they have the perfect functional mushroom supplement. It's actually called performance mushrooms and this has everything. It's USDA organic it's got chaga, cordriceps, lion's mane, mietake. This stuff is amazing for energy balance, for cognition. Just being honest, see a lot of people taking care of their bodies.

I do not see a lot of people taking care of their brain. This is the product, guys. And so, we got to talking and our values seemed very aligned. We're both into the functional mushrooms. And after a lot of back and forth I am now a shareholder in the company. I have a small amount of ownership and I'm just really proud to be repping and be a part of the company that's making the best functional mushroom supplement on the planet.

You can get this stuff at layeredsuperfoods.com. You can use the promo code SRS that'll get you 20% off these performance mushrooms or anything in the store. They got a ton of good stuff. Once again, that's layeredsuperfoods.com. Use the promo code SRS that gets you 20% off. You guys are going to love this stuff. I guarantee it. I want to give a big thank you out right now to all the vigilance elite patrons out there

that are watching the show right now to all the vigilance elite patrons out there that are watching the show right now. Just wanna say thank you guys. You are our top supporters and you're what makes this show actually happen. If you're not on vigilance elite patron, I wanna tell you a little bit about what's going on in there. So, we do a little bit of everything.

There's plenty of behind-the-scenes content from the actual Sean Ryan show. On top of that, basically, what I do is I take a lot of the questions that I get from you guys or the patrons, and then I turn them into videos. So, we get right now, there's a lot of concern about self-defense, home-defense, crimes on the rise,

all throughout the country, actually all throughout the world. And so we talk about everything from how to prep your home, how to clear your home, how to get familiar with 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. It's actually done on Zoom. You might enjoy it. Check it out. And if Zoom's not your thing, or you don't

like live chats, like I said, there's a library of well over a hundred videos on where to start with prepping, all firearm stuff pretty much anything you can think of It's on there. So anyways go to www.patrion.com slash vigilance elite or Just go on the link in the description. It'll take you right there and If you don't want to and you just want to continue to watch the show, that's fine too. I appreciate it either way. Love you all. Let's get back to the show. Thank you. Alright Ryan, we're back from the break and we're gonna get into how the recovery went man, you're like

Yeah, the recovery process That's how you learn a lot about yourself during the recovery. So basically going back kind of to the beginning. So I had made my way to Longshule finally, I think it took them about five days to get me out of country four days because of blood transfusions and stuff. Got the long stool and then my follow on was going to be Brooks Army Medical Center. I found out my buddy, Captain Will Lyles, he had both of his legs blown off. He was at Brooks Army Medical Center and so I wanted to be with friends and my dad and

sisters all lived in New Mexico. So it was easier for them than Walter Reed. So, you know, I'm on my way, Brooks Army Medical Center, and get there, get it, you know, the, we land over at a lacklin Air Force base, ambulance ride to BAMSEY. Then I get admitted. Then they start, another debris mid-surgery. Let's figure out what's going on here. Okay, got a good picture. I don't really know the time frame,

but maybe days later, I meet with my doctor. Here's your orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Schu. But maybe days later, I meet with my doctor. Here's your orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Schu. And then I meet with the staff and everything like that. And they're telling me with my leg. So we have good news. You're limb that you have right now. It's, there's a lot of healthy tissue.

So basically, we've got, we've got a few options for you. We're gonna get back to, and then we'll kinda, we'll kinda talk about it, but there's a lot of people very interested in your injury. Okay, fair enough. Why? But, sure. All right, get back to me. So at this point in time, they are really focusing on this thing called limb salvage. Instead of hacking limbs off left and right, maybe we can try and save these limbs

because of the advancements and these different devices that work like a prosthetic limb, but you don't need to have an amputation. So with my injury, the blast had gone up through my foot, so it blew my foot in half, and then it exited out at my calf, but it was pretty clean cut. And so what my doctor was telling me is the reason why they amputate a lot of limbs is for tissue damage, not necessarily bone.

He was saying, I can fix any bone. Its tissue is what usually causes the amputation or the need for amputation or bone infection. So I had multiple visitors that it came by and, you know, they're talking about my leg and so now, here's the big meeting. So my doctor, Dr. Shoe, comes in and he said, hey, so we kind of want to do an experimental exploratory surgery on you. Limb salvage, it would basically be reattachin your leg. It's not a good chance it'll work,

but the research that goes into it is gonna help a lot of people. And if it does work, then that's gonna advance limb salvage, research, technology, and everything for the guys that are inevitably going to be going through injuries like you had. Your leg is one of, you know, is a leg that definitely should be amputated, but we think there's a chance that we can save it. It's like, well, what's the chance that we can save it.

It's like, well, what's the chance? 10 to 15%. It's like, okay, well, I'm not going anywhere. And Dr. Xu, great friend of mine to this day. Love to do the death, but he said, once we completely remove that limb, that's it. So we can do that. And you'll be back up on your feet again, probably a lot less

pain than you're going to go through if we do this other procedure. And you'll probably be back to your unit a lot quicker than if we do this other procedure. But this other procedure can help a lot of people with what we're gonna learn from your limb. Okay, let's do it. I mean, once the legs got, what's the worst that can happen? We just, we finish removing it the rest of the way anyways. Okay. So, hold on.

Uh-huh. Where is, so this is how many days after blast? This is in the 20s, September, early October. So we're a month away, roughly. Where is the bottom half of your leg? It's being held on with rods and everything else. Yeah, what do you, like, I was just hanging there by a thread, right?

Yeah, when I got hit, when Kyle got to me, my leg was only hanging there by the skin. Like you could have cut through the skin and then grabbed Ryan Hendrix and then the leg and walked out. So the blood is flowing back through your, I have different compartments in there, but what ended up happening,

and I don't know the full story behind it, Dr. Xu would be what, he would be able to fill it all in, but basically to keep my limb and everything contained with all the wound vacks and everything like that, just to get me back to the states and then they can do the surgeries from there. The amputation and then move from there.

I had so much damage that they couldn't actually do a skin flap for the full amputation without moving above the knee. And so now it's like, okay, let's either need to heal skin up before doing the amputation or lip salvage. And again, this is the best of my knowledge. I'm probably off on, you know, a quite a bit of the finer details, but the damage to the leg, there wasn't actually enough healthy skin to do the flat without moving up higher. Don't need to have an above the knee amputation. So let's pump the brakes real quick and see what we can do here, which turn into the limb salvage process. So when I signed that I would do this surgery and so I don't remember what surgery it was.

I had 27 surgeries on my right leg. But one of the surgeries I came out and I had this entire bird cage wrapped around my right leg bird cage wrapped around my right leg with rods going through all five of my toes, rods going through the backs of my heels and rods drilled into every single one of my bones and it's called an X-Fix. But it looked like it looked like some off a saw movie like a torture device. Just like, what is this? And it's huge.

But it was aligning all my bones up again. So basically what the name of the game was after that, and when I actually was ready for rehab, or I'm sorry, physical therapy, was they lined up the tip because they said, you don't really use your fib. We don't need to worry about lining them both up. The fib can just float there. But they lined up the tibula and now you're looking at, you know, an inch, maybe two inch gap of bone that you have to grow

back. And to close in all the wounds, now you have skin grafts. So my whole right leg and the bottom of my foot is skin grafts from my thighs. So now you got infection, you have skin grafts taking, you have bone growing back two inches. And a bunch of other obstacles you have to get through to get to the point to where something happens with your leg, but we don't know because we haven't had a limb that bad be salvaged before. So we're gonna learn.

that bad be salvaged before. So we're gonna learn. And through when I was released for physical therapy, I mean, I went at it hard. From running the track, well, not running. Gimp in my way to the trash cans, puking everywhere, falling down, rods, rod that's going into the bone, getting smacked off of something and sitting in the, oh man, it was, how, hold on, how long was the,

how long gonna take it just to be able to walk again? Okay, yeah, that was a good point. Let me back up some. I just, I just, I just out ran my headlights big time. So, taking pause right there and then, so so as I'm as I'm in the hospital, I was there's there's a couple situations that happened. The first the first one was I was very I was not a very patient patient, I guess you could say. I wanted results right then and there. And I wanted to know what my future was.

And during this time, from when I actually made it to Brooks Army Medical Center, to when I actually started physical therapy, I went through a very, very emotional and mental health crisis with myself. From, you know, survivors guilt like we talked, to who am I now? To now, I have to actually face. I have time to lay here and think about the mess that I've made of my life.

So a little bit ago, we had talked about, you know, my divorce that led me to special forces. And the trail of destruction I had led throughout my life, always being the victim, always it's not my fault because of this, this or this. And then in SF, I was able to push all that deep down inside because the mission and we're training and everything. I never had to face it again until I'm laying in bed in Brooks Army Medical Center and nothing but time to think.

And so now I'm actually I'm going through a very, very difficult struggle mentally from, you know, who who in my what is my purpose? You know to To that should have been me all the way down, you know things like that Pointless pointless things to think about but that's where my mind was at and I was struggling and I wanted to give up I just wanted to give up but My dad he was my caretaker. And I remember there was a point in a lot of my self-loathing that he finally said,

I've had enough. We need to have a talk. And the talk went kind of something like this. He said, what happened to you? Was bad. No one's gonna argue that. It was bad. He said, it's not the worst injury in the world

and it won't be the last injury in the world. He said, I got it. But you have a choice to make right now. And we gotta have this talk because you're heading in a direction that I don't think you're gonna be able to pull yourself out of You said you have a choice to make right now. He said you can continue to Let yourself be the victim. You can continue to let this injury own you Change you make you this injury. You will always be victimized by this injury. You will never

leave September 12, 2010. You will always be there for the rest of your life. And let me tell you what's going to happen. First of all, you're going to try and make people understand what you went through. And when they can't, you're going to get angry and you're going to push people away from you. And people are going to try and rush in because they love you. And then you're going to get angry and you're going to push people away from you. And people are going to try and rush in because they love you. And then you're going to get more and more angry and secluded and push everyone away from you until there's no one left to push away from you. Then you're going to be further victimized because no one's there to help you. And that's when people make really bad decisions is when

nobody, when they feel that no one cares and no one's there to help. So what's the point? And he said, I don't think I don't think you'll make it back from that. Or you can use this injury to make yourself a better man. You can use this injury to make yourself stronger, better. You can use this injury to make yourself stronger. Better. Renew your relationship with God. Remember all that stuff that you told me about, lay it next to the helmet, river how you wish you didn't do this and that and that. You got the reset button. You have something that most men will never get in life, a chance to start over. You died your back. You can start over again. You got the reset button.

You've been handed an opportunity, although you're in such pain right now in darkness, you can't see it. You've been handed one of the greatest opportunities ever, a chance to redo. And you can make yourself bigger, better, stronger, not only for you, but to help other people. Use this injury to make yourself a better man to help other people. And he said, you're gonna fill fulfillment like you've never seen before in your life. But he said, the choice is up to you.

And if you continue down the path you're on right now, you will kill yourself, son. Yeah. So that was one of the talks that, you know, I had had with my dad, that really started to, well, okay, how, how do I make myself stronger from this? And then doors started opening up.

Once I started to look at this as an opportunity to help other people, an opportunity to, well, yeah, maybe if this does work for me, maybe it will help somebody else that I'll never even meet again or before. Maybe this will do something that, you know, I have no idea, but if I don't try, I'll never know.

And if I never know, it's because I didn't try and that's a year-fold. And so I started to really aggressively, you know, try to, again, it wasn't that conversation. People need to understand it. Wasn't that conversation and I'm a new man. It's not a movie. I'm always falling flat on my face to this day. I fall flat on my face. And I'm picking myself up just to get hit again. That's life. So it's not like this was the revelation and then the sun was shining and the seas were calm and life was great. Then and there, and the seas were calm and life was great. Then and there, you know, no.

It's then life got hard. Because now instead of taking the easy way, it's easy to be a victim. That's why we have so many of them in our country. The victim role is easy. The entitled victim role, it's simple. Why do I know it? Because I was.

That was me. Well, there was the sexual abuse whether it was I Can't do this because of this or getting blown up or all this. I made myself the entitled victim. I did I was really good at it, but man and up Changing from a boy to a man. That's hard. That's extremely hard work and a man, that's hard. That's extremely hard work. And so that's when the hard work began, is now I wanted, you know, how can I use this to help me? How can I take the old man's advice? And like, what do I do? How do I do it? And then because I was trying, things started opening up for me. And next thing, you know, I mean, I'm doing physical therapy,

you know, I've been approved for physical therapy and bone is growing. And the skin grafts are taken first time. And things are happening for me that I'm just like, keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing. And, you know, in the back of my mind, you know, people say, well, what gave you the drive? Was it just to help other people?

Now, there's two other things too. Number one, my Sergeant Major came in and said, I'll send you back to war if you can get fit. And number two, Taliban were laughing at me on the radio. And they bloodied me up, but they didn't beat me. So those were the two big driving forces behind the motivation for me to get better. And I was told by everyone, except for Dr. Shoe and my physical therapist, Johnny, everyone told me, management, expectation, you are done.

Your military career is over. You will be medically retired. And this is it. You need to understand that because you're setting yourself up for failure. You are done. Start to figure out what you're going to do now after you recover from this and move on from the military. Yeah. Except for two people, Dr. Xu and Johnny, yeah man you want to go back? Let's make it happen. So now I do understand the management expectation part though, I really do. You can set yourself

up for failure quickly when you believe so deeply into something that's just not going to happen. You know, it's the power of thought as well. I don't know if you've looked into that stuff, but the power of thought is extremely powerful and they're proving it with science as well. And that's what you've got. You've got the power of a thought. And everybody has the power of, everybody has it. It's just most people won't access it.

You know, they will take the victim road. And I mean, little unrelated, I don't wanna lose place in the story, but I just want to bring something up with the power of thought. I've been watching this guy, his name is Greg Brayden on YouTube. And he is a, I don't know what you call maybe a quantum physics guy, but he talks about this study that they did with photons. Do you know anything about this? study that they did with photons.

Do you know anything about this? So they put all these photons in a vacuum. And they wanted to see what the photons do when people are watching them. And so they put these photons in a vacuum and they record what they're doing however you record photons They record what they're doing when nobody's in the room Yeah, and they act a certain way then they put somebody in the room watching the photons and they react completely different

Then They try to trick the photons and they have a human watch the photons through a camera. And they have somebody watch the photons and they have the camera recorded without anybody watching and they still react completely different. So that just shows you that human consciousness and thought just being around things. It changes what is. Yeah. And that's proof that that's proof of how powerful thought

in consciousness actually is. So to actually apply it to your own leg. Without even knowing that that's what I was actually doing. Yeah, man. It's real. It is a real, people think that this stuff is bullshit. And science and technology is getting so good now that it's proving how powerful, thought, prayer,

consciousness, whatever you want to call it, how powerful it actually is. Belief. Belief. Belief is one of the most powerful things in the world. If you give somebody hope, it's extremely powerful. Yeah. Hope is very powerful and contagious. Yeah. Yeah, that's, it is crazy going from the percentage chance that I was getting to now bones are growing, skin grafts are healing first time.

And, you know, I'm going from the hospital bed to where, yeah, I used to sneak out in my wheelchair all the time just because I got bored and nurses, nurses just hated it. And I remember another instance, you know, I was like, I want to walk dad. He's like, I kind of just had your leg reattached, maybe not a good idea. So like, while I'm walking, he goes,

well, we're in a hospital. So, yes, if you get hurt, we're here already. So not a big deal. So like, okay, and I got up and it'd been months since, you know, what, two months since I'd been, you know, on my legs, our leg, and then kind of dragging this guy around. And oh, man, I got up. I was, man, I feel good, Dorfins.

And I'm like, I'm gonna make it to that window right over there. You know, moving over there with Milwaukee, and the windows getting smaller, smaller, smaller, boom, hit the ground, passed out, then nurses, like mad, like, what do you guys doing? I can't, we're gonna have to hand cuff you to the, you know, just all kinds of stuff. Just like, dad's like, oh boy, I want to walk.

Just Mr. Hendrix and he just had. It's like, I know, but he's stubborn. He's like, oh, kind of thing. But no, I remember when I was starting, you know, starting physical therapy, and the physical therapist I had, his name is Johnny Owens, and the dude is a legend. You know, so I had this legendary orthopedic surgeon. I had this legendary physical therapist, and then there's a prosthesis guy named Ryan Blanick. And he's a legendary prosthesis guy.

So all these guys, you know, again, going back to that, when you take, you know, people will say, well, how do you know God's real? Because look at, he took, you know, once I decided to start to take control over my life slowly, but I start to take control over my life and start to use, you know, these experiences and these situations to better myself to help other people, things started to line up for me. And, you know, it took me years to look back on it and it's like, how is that possible?

Because it's in God's hands. And so I'm, you know, I'm getting, you know, my bones are growing back quickly. My skin graph is, you know, it's, they're like, wow, there is zero complications with your skin graphs. It's unheard of. And next thing I know, I'm getting this entire bird cage removed off my leg. I was supposed to have it on for two years and I'm getting it removed off my leg. I think it was eight months.

Wow. Yeah, I had grown back two inches of bone, tibula, then connected the upper part of my leg with the lower part of my leg. No, I'm sorry, upper part the upper part of my leg with the lower part of my leg. No, I'm sorry, upper part, lower part of my leg. And, you know, my foot had naturally fused together. So the bones and everything has just grown back together just naturally.

Mm-hmm. Amazing. Yeah, how they say you grow bone is through resistance and friction. You have to pound the crap out of yourself. And so with me, the constant drills and the weightlifting and the pain that I went through, those, the ladder drills that Johnny would have me doing,

and stuff like that, Ryan, keep pushing, Ryan, straighten your back out, Ryan, one more, one more, one more, one more, Ryan, keep going, keep going, keep going, you know, Ryan one more, one more, one more, Ryan keep going, keep going, keep going, you know, and just throwing up and like, all right, you good? You got it out? All right, let's go again. You know, I grew bone back.

Create, I mean, just fast, you know, Wolverine fast. And, you know, my foot and everything like that. And it's like, oh, okay, we have something here. Now I'm getting the Idao device, which gives me, you know, basically a blade, a running blade. And now I'm looking at, oh wow, okay, I've been medically retired.

I fought to stay on active duty through the Continuon active duty waiver. So a co-ad waiver, which they were given the special operations guys because of the amount of money they spent on you for training. So, I was medically retired. I came back on active duty through the waiver. And it's, you know,

I had a dead man's profile. I can't stand longer in 30 minutes. No carry in anything over, you know, 30 pounds. The list goes on. 10 issues and all this other stuff. I was like, I am not wearing uniform and 10 issues. Uh-uh. But, so, you know, I'm back on active duty again.

I'm still rehabbing. Things are going great. Final check up and it's like, you're good, man. We can send you back to the physical therapist at your unit, the Thor program. You're good here. It's like, what? Wow.

I was basically fighting for my life. September of 2010, and now November 2011, I'm going back to seventh group. Holy shit. Like yeah. You know, I still have to clear the return, are the return to war program they have there are the return to Fit to Fighter, you know, the Thor 3 program.

So amazing program, by the way, hands down amazing. One of the greatest things that special operations is done for their guys, the Thor 3 program. But I still have to clear all those hurdles and be fit to go back to a team. But I'm packing up vehicles, and I'm driving from San Antonio, Texas, back to Crescue, Florida. I mean, I don't like the word, I don't like to use the term I should have been dead because you're not dead.

So then you shouldn't have been dead because you're not, you're here. I should have been is a way of Kind of victimizing yourself to something, but after a very catastrophic injury That could have killed me Now I'm dry. I'm on I-10 heading back to Crestview And I'm gonna be checking into my unit and checking into Thor 3 program and seeing what happens from there. And I was just...

It was the power of hope, belief, having people backing you up, that tribe mentality. You know, I mean, we all, especially special operators, we thrive off of the tribe mentality we do. And have an hope and taking back my life and refusing to become a victim of my circumstances, refusing to let that victimization take my life over. It almost did. Very close. But now I'm starting to take my life back. And now it's all sun shines and rainbows. Except for life has something to say about that. So I'm heading back, life is great. Check into Thor 3, finish up a grueling, grueling two month long process with them. Very hard. And now I'm cleared to go back to an ODA.

Wow. When I was told my profile says I'm non-deployable I Have a dead man's profile in all this other stuff but seventh group was able to take to override that the warrior transition Their way or their profiles on me seventh group could basically take the responsibility, saying, no, no, he's good in our eyes. So I had worked kind of, I kind of worked some, not backdoor deals, but I came in at the right possible time. My company had already left for Afghanistan,

and the same company I was with when I got blown up and no one really knows me back at seventh group. They're skeleton crew, you know, rear d's back there, but no one really knows me. And so because I was new before then. And there was a lot of guys getting injured and killed in 2010. So, okay, who are you?

So I never really brought up the injury. I just, hey, I got hurt. I was cleared through the Thor 3. Here you go, here's this. All right, the group surgeon signs off on it. I'm deployable. I'm head back to Afghanistan. So our major said, if I could get cleared,

he'd send me back to war. So I'm just gonna to help him out and head back before. So, so I, you know, so my my date for Return to Afghanistan is March and you know, fly back in and show up and I'm expecting, you know, ticker-tape parade and everyone, 20, you know, everyone's lined up to, you know, wow, you did it. You're the greatest thing ever. No, I got there and I got the, what the f*** are you doing here? What?

No, I'm clear to the point. I'm sorry, what? And so the company sergeant major was very upset that I had returned. But the battalion sergeant major who made this promise to me, was like, well, I did make a promise. So they're trying to figure out,

well, what do we do with this guy that shouldn't even have a leg right now? Like, what do we even do with them? So this is March 2012. And their, you know, their, the regiment had taken quite a few wounded and killed so far. And they were under maned on ODAs

all over Afghanistan. And Sergeant Major said, hey, I told you I'd send you back to war. I'm a man of my word, but I hope you're ready for this because where I'm sending you is probably one of the worst places in Afghanistan, but they need you. Said okay, say you're going to Panduea district Ken Harp province 2012 right before the massacre

It's like okay, it sounds cool and he goes Yeah, you know that old saying careful what you wish for he's like be careful run It's a bad area. And anybody who's been Afghanistan knows about Pangeway. It's a bad area. So, yeah, that was my return trip from, you know, everything I had went through up to that point whether it was all the surgeries the rehabilitation the physical therapy Now I'm in Pangeway district, Ken, to Harp Province before

Bales committed that mass that massacre killing all those civilians Holy shit. Yeah, so there's no reason into this now and then And then probably two weeks later, he did that. Villager said, turn him over to us. He said, no, he said, okay. Good luck. And I, there were so many, so many kids lost their legs that year in Pangeway. Infantry guys that were with us,

they were taking casualties daily. Daily. The ODA up from us in Belon, Belon by, they were taking casualties. Yeah, we got tore up in Pangeway. It's a nasty place. But that was, I'd made it back. What was your mission there? I was still in 18 Charlie.

So I was doing route, not route clearance is a bigger package. I was doing clearance for the assalters or whoever. So it was back to having a metal detector with my Afghans and then we're clearing up in front of everybody as we're moving towards whatever objective we're going to. So it's back to IADsingen. Damn man. That first one I found, I thought I was going to pass out on it.

I was uncovering it. It's like, yeah, there's the yellow tape, you know, the yellow tape over the pressure plates, trace the wire around, it's like,'s the wire getting a little whosy here. And then the afghan that was with me said, Ryan, we just blow it. It's okay. It's all right, we'll just blow it up, man. But that trip, I removed a lot of IAD's that trip.

Pangeway was nasty, nasty place. But I'd made it back. And I keep going back to this as we're talking, you know, well, I made it back. Now, now it's sunshine and rainbows. Or life is great, you just did it. And then life, life does what it does, you know, just beaching down again. And again, because even though,

and as we continue on, you'll start to see where my life has come from there. But even though I had made the choice, I didn't want to be a victim. I made the choice that I wanted to take control over my life and do use my experiences to make myself stronger to help other people. I didn't quite have as good of a grasp on that as I do now,

but I knew something bigger was working in my life. What exactly it was, I don't know. But there was something bigger. There was a purpose. I just didn't know what it was. And, but I still had those old demons, the things that were still haunting me for me, their my childhood, or the way that I had made myself a victim for so many years, and then it's really easy, you know, just to say, how is this happening? Oh, it's happening because I did went through this, and this happened to me.

And so it's easy to go down that victim role. It's so easy. Then you're trying to steer, and you're just going all around the path. a steer and you're just going all around the path. But 2012 was a great confidence boost for me as far as getting back into it, getting back. There was one mission we went on that we had to, we called it hilltop 2000. And it was 2000 meters in elevation gain and about a click. So you're going pretty much straight up.

And not only did my leg hold out, but I was helping guys carry their gear to the top. So there was situations like that that were big confidence boosters for me that a lot of people that are listening may be like, yeah, man, so you got your shit straight, you're back on track, but I was still not actually dealing with my demons that I had.

I was just using one victory or one situation or buried myself into whatever in order to avoid actually having to deal with who Ryan Hendrixen is. What is Ryan Hendrixen? What are you supposed to be doing? So the 2012 trip finishes up. We do multiple trips to South and Central America. And then there's a volunteer position that opened up with another company that was going Afghanistan. They said, hey, we need an 18 Charlie. So like, yeah, I'd love to go back to Afghanistan,

2016. And so we do the normal workup for it and everything like that. And we deploy and our first mission comes down. We're supposed to do a village clearance in Bogland province. It's like, okay. So we get everything ready to go. And this is weeks, you know, packing up everything. Okay, now it's time, load the birds, get everything. All right, now we're flying actually to where we're going to meet our partner force. And it was,

it was NDS and commandos. So no, okay, now, met up with our partner force. They brought us up to, you know, they called it OP Burns. It was this, this hilltop that overlooked the valley. It was this hilltop that overlooked the valley. And we're just sitting there watching this intense firefight in the valley unfold between Afghans and the Taliban. And it's like, wow, that's a hotbed there. Like yeah, this, every time we go down there, we get just destroyed.

So what the plan was, was ODA was going to infill in under the cover of darkness, but in Afghan humvees and stuff like that. And so the Taliban would think, oh, this is just normal Afghans again, let's tune them up. And then we'd bring in all of our air power and just destroy them. Great plan. So go through everything now to it's kick off. Okay, we're heading out. It's, you know, it's, I don't know, 11 o'clock at night. We're driving nods. So driving down these roads till we get to our dismount. So now we're dismounted, moving forward to the first objective, but before that first objective, we have to clear through this orchard, and orchards, as you well know, are nasty, nasty areas.

So it's myself, and I have four Afghan National Mine Reduction Group guys with me, and we had trained together. One of the guys, his name was Abe. And I've known him for multiple deployments. He'd saved countless amount of American lives. And then, Bezmula is another guy that I've known for a while. And so I have these two guys on my team, plus Joweeed and Khan.

And we're moving forward and saying, okay, we've got to the orchard. The solters, they're going to set up security and we're going to move into the orchard and start to clear. The path to objective, to the first objective. Okay, done this hundreds of times. All right, let's go. So we start pushing into the orchard and all of a sudden I see this flash of light and hear this loud pop. So everyone hits the ground. It's like, what was that? Is it was a sniper? I mean, what's going on? It's one o'clock in the morning at the time. So, you know, myself

in Jauede, Jauede was in the front and he's trying to pull this trip wire off him. And he had just hit a trip wire IED that was a grape shot charge in the wall. That was right next to us. And it didn't go off. The the blasting cap popped, but it didn't initiate the explosives to then send out the bolts, nuts, nails, rocks and everything else. That was coming our way. And so, you know, when we investigated a little bit, we found that there was a chunk of mortar shrapnel that had basically disarmed the grape chat charge

in the wall. Are you serious? Yeah. And so, you know, okay, get the blood pressure down a little bit. All right, we're good. Keep moving forward. And it probably 15 more steps. And I see, we're at a turn in the trail.

And I see this object dart from one end of the compound to the other. And then Abe, he goes, Ryan, Ryan, Ryan, Ryan, Ryan. And then this PKM opened up. And we hit the grounds. And when the PKM opened up, it felt like you could reach out and grab the flame that was coming out of the barrel. It felt that close. And so we're pinned down in the front. We're returning fire the best that we can. This guy keeps jumping out.

And well, first of all, I had my IR strobe on because I was the lead, the flood. So I had my IR strobe on. And the over-icom chatter, the Taliban are talking about, hey, that's the American capture or kill the American, we have them cut off because they had us in an L shape. So the assaulters were cut off from us in the orchard. So they can see me.

So I was like, oh shit, they got nods. So I took off the Irish stro robe and I threw it as close to where that PKM was at in the mud hut wall. I threw it as close to that as I could get. And then I'm laying there and rounds are hitting everywhere. It feels like hot bacon grease, just all over your skin. And I keep, you know, sending a few rounds down range, you know, I'm laying on my side and then I roll back over

and lay on my side. But um, this guy, he would jump out and just all of our and let an RPG fly, but he didn't have none. So he didn't know where he couldn't quite see where we're at. So it's hitting around the trees and stuff like that. And he shot off three RPGs, but every time the PKM gunner would stop. And so I saw him this last time. And I remember, you remember the thumb triggers for your laser? Yeah. I remember I hit my laser when he jumped out again. And his midsection was right in the middle of my laser. Yeah, kidding. And yeah, I would like to say, you know, yeah, it's super cool guy to the chest, one in the head. No, no, no, I put like 30 from the knee caps all the way up to the forehead.

Yeah, it's it. I wanted, I wish I, you know, I wish I could. To the KKM guy. No, that was your G guy. Okay. I wish I could make it sound cool, but I was scared. My journal was through the roof and I dumped the mag on him.

Sounds cool to me. But then the PKM starts back up and we're getting reports that these guys are trying to cut us off in the orchard. In our J-TAC, our combat controller, he was on the radio and he's like, hey, we have to drop. And they said, we can, it's danger close. And so when they actually took my position to where the PKM was at, it was 22 meters. And so they needed a, I think it was a three-star approval.

And this is one o'clock in the morning. So we're pinned down in this position for like five minutes. That's a long time, yeah. And just fighting for our lives. And finally, the approval is, they're approved to drop. And so the J-TAC comes over the radio and he's like, Ryan, this is gonna be big, man, keep your head down.

Good luck. It's like, good, this is gonna be big, man. Keep your head down. Good luck. It's like, good luck. Why would you say good luck? That's horrible. But I'll never forget the, he's like, keep your head down, man. Keep your head down. Good luck.

I'll let you know. And it's, you know, it's hard to hear him over everything. But finally, I hear the aircraft overhead and he's like, weapons release, man. Good luck, brother. Boom. And I felt, I felt like my skeleton had walked out of my body

and kinda like turn around at me and like slapped me. And then came back into my body again. I felt like jello. That blast. I mean, I remember when it hit, I looked up so I was in, I was in a deflaid on like a motorbike road, wider than a trail, but still enough for a motorbike.

And there was about, there was about six inches of deflaid on each side. So I was low. And I remember when it all passed over me and the mud hut walls are dropping around, not walls, but parts of it. Chunks that would probably hurt really bad. Tree limbs and everything just falling down all around me

and nothing touched me or my guys. We got a little dust and stuff like that, but it was like there was this halo over us because I looked up and it was like, that's like a 50 pound chunk of wall right there. Holy shit. And so I remember getting up and we're staggering back. We're trying to run back.

The salters have now, they were able to, the Taliban that were trying to flank, they're all dead. And so now it's like, okay, we're trying to stagger our way back because they're gonna hit it again. And yeah, this time they hit it, we were 85 meters away. And I remember my head was just pounding. And I looked over at the J-TAC and he's like, you know, your life can't believe your life, dude.

I thought you're, you know, and all that other stuff. And I was like, man, how big was that? 250 pounds, you know, he goes, that's a 500 pound J-Damn, we just dropped on you, dude. Holy shit. Yeah, so holy shit. Yeah, 22 meters away. Yep.

Yeah, and that was in the very beginning. And so, you know, I started to get my my wits about me. Okay, now send in the afghan, the commandos, the assaulters, and they're clearing the compound. We're coming in after them. And I'm just like I'm trying to shake it off. Okay. All right. Let's let's do this. And we're seeing it, you know, you got Taliban or dead throughout the compound, a stuff like that. It's like, okay, here's compound, you know, whatever number it was. Now, Sun's up now. Well, it's coming up, you know, it's probably like 5am. Now it's time to start moving through the rest of the village.

So, you know, the teams aren't said, hey, man, do you need to get metavact? You good? It's like I'm good. Yeah, good to go. Let's, let's keep moving on. Adrenaline's still pumping stuff like that. But I didn't want to leave my friends. You know, it wasn't a heroic thing. Or this like, I'm a tough guy. It's, I didn't want to leave my friends. You know, why if I can still walk and still do the job, then I didn't want to leave my friends. If I can still walk and still do the job, then I don't want to leave my buddies. And so we continue on through this village. And I think I blew up myself 20 some IEDs and the Afghan counterparts, they blew over 50

in this village alone. Like this village was completely rigged from 107 rockets that are, you hit a pressure plate over here, it launches a 107 rocket from down there. Just, this was a nightmare. Trinches, bunker system, everything. And so we found out that this was a big suicide bombing staging point

for suicide bombers to go into Kabul. So we finally, we get to L.O.A. L.O.A. All right, now we're going to start our withdrawal process. Yeah, we had some pop shots here and there, but nothing substantial. So, the teams are in the team leader, talking to the commandos, their Sergeant Major, and team leader, and saying, hey guys, we just took this village, we need to hold it. Like, we need to leave guys here, and they're like, we're not staying here.

It's dangerous. You guys stay here. Well, no, we're not staying here. It's dangerous. You guys stay here. Well, no, we're not staying here either. The mission was, we clear it, and then you guys hold the ground. They're like, well, die if we hold the ground. We're leaving too. It's like, well, all right.

Well, amongst this entire argument, the team's the first sergeant, the commandos first sergeant came up, and he said, and through a interpreter, he said, hey, we got guys moving this way now. It's like, well, how many guys? I don't know. They keep popping in and out of great bros and tunnels. It's like, uh oh. And it wasn't much after that. It's where the entire road we were on it just erupted in

Dust getting kicked up everywhere from the rounds that were coming in and then RPG was in by and the amount of firepower that was put down In that area we were at It was just it was deafening and so now we're jumping into ditches and we're getting prepared, you know, we're trying to figure out number one, what's going on? And where are they hitting us from? Okay, we're getting hit from the front. Okay, now we're getting hit from the left.

Okay, now we're getting hit from the right. So we're in a U-shape. And they're not shooting each other because they're behind cover. And so we're getting hit from three different sides. And right off the bat, I can see two Afghans laying in the road, they're dead. And then we can't get to them.

It's just there's a lot of fire coming down on us. But now we have three wounded Afghans. Okay, and then I have three other Afghans over here. Okay, guys wounded over there. Okay, okay, we need to get to our trench line because we can actually crawl this trench back and it's full of water, which means that there probably won't be IEDs in it. So let's stay in the water and let's move back to find other Americans. This me and it's Frankie right now.

We're the only two Americans in our position. Like, this is not good. And then we hear the dreaded noise, the release of a mortar round. And then boom, mortar round hits far. Second mortar round hits far. Third mortar round hits near. So what happens after that? They're about ready to split the difference. And so it's time to move more around his far. Third more around hits near. So what happens after that? They're about ready to split the difference, Bill. And so it's time to move. So run across the road, grab the one afghan by the hair. Yank come out of the ditch, because it's like, come on, come on, they won't move.

Yank come out of the ditch, the other two follow, run to our ditch, now we're moving south. We're heading back down towards where I can see our medic Joe, he's down there waving, you know, come to us So we start moving down. We're carrying two of the Afghans with us. All right, get to our first established CCP All right, let's start to figure out what's going on here Afghan, you know bodies are starting to come in and then

We hear the worst call in the world. Eagle down, Eagle down, Eagle down. It's like, well, okay, who? We don't know as roster number yet. Another radio call, Eagle down, Eagle down, Eagle down. roster number so and so. Eagle down, Eagle down, Eagle down. roster number so and so.

That's three. Eagle down, Eagle down, that's four. It's like, holy shit. Like down, eagle down, that's four. It's like holy shit. Like we're getting guys hit left and right, Americans and Afghans. And so now we're bringing, you know, we're getting Americans to the CCP and the far side of the CCP, Taliban comes up out of the trench line, starts engaging us in the CCP. Wow. So now we gotta fight that off. The mistake they made is they were engaging us

at like 85 meters. And so air came in and just mop them up, but we had to move because guys were coming out of tunnels. And so now we're moving to another location where we see a pretty big portion of our Afghan commandos at. And they're waving us over. So we're trying to move them over.

Got our casualties all over there. And it's crazy. You have mud hut wall and then a mad dash for like 25 meters because as you're running across the road, it's just, you know, the rounds just hitting. And then, okay, now you're within this compound wall. Okay, good to go. Medics are going absolutely, you know, they're just working one guy after another. And then that's when you're seeing, you know, the, all right, put him over there. He's dead. Okay, put him over here. He's this category, he's that category, we still can't get Medevac

in, areas too hot. And so we're trying to get control through air support, but as the helicopter, as the Apache's are flying over, they're saying, who is who? Like, who is who? The Taliban are in your lines. We are engaging dudes at 5 and 10 meters now. And that's just stuff you hear about, or you saw on a movie. That doesn't really happen in Afghanistan. You're engaging dudes at 150, 200 meters. But now guys are coming up out of trenches and stuff, and you're fighting guys in your

own lines. It's like like holy cow. So finally, we're able to get separation. Get our Afghans back in. This is ours. Get our Afghans back. Okay, now we have our new security perimeter set up. We have neutralized the mortar tube.

81 millimeters been neutralized. Okay, good to go. Now let's start getting Medevac in. Okay. Got Medevac coming in, getting American, or getting the most critical out first, whether they're Americans or Afghans, the people that were most critical were leaving first. And a lot of respect for that too, because we were all there fighting together. So now it's men weapons in equipment. We're getting told to withdrawal. Like leave this area. Dudes are coming in fast. Get out of here. We're gonna we're gonna bomb this entire place. Okay, men weapons in equipment. All right, we're missing four guys.

Shit. We're missing four guys. Alright, okay, so first guy, where's the last time Afghans pointing over at the last CCP go there and he had been killed in the corner and no one saw them there in the corner. So he had gotten hit and kind of slouched in the corner and died. Okay, now we're missing three guys. There's another guy that was in the trench line here. Okay, we got him. Now we're missing two guys. Where is Abe? And where is the Afghan commando sergeant major? We don't know. When's the last time we saw Abe? 500 meters up the dirt road towards the Taliban.

Shit, no one gets left behind. We have to go get them. No one gets left behind. And so, you know, the risk-verse reward conversation has had slash argument. And it's basically, hey man, I understand no one gets left behind, but we're risking lives to go and get them. Yeah, I understand we're risking lives to go and get them. But if we don't go get them, we also have another problem on our hands of green on blue. Well, then their Afghans, they should go get their own guys. They're

not going to. But if we don't go get their own guys, now we have a problem. We have to go get them. No one gets left behind. So our JTAC said, hey, I got an idea. And I know this is going to sound something like a movie. I'm sorry, but he said those two Apache's, I'm going to have them do a gun run up the road and we're gonna take off running behind them and get to that last place. And he was like, I hope this works because they got fuel for this and that's it.

It's like, okay. So it's like, all right, here they come. Patchies are inbound, all right, and that cannon, just like, oh, geez. And I was like, God, please help my leg hold up. I got to get to aid help my leg hold up. And we just took off running down that road. And the patches were doing there. It was like, it was like a dream. Kind of you were just kind of out of it. But you were moving forward. And we got to the last bridge where I had last saw Abat where our L.O.A. was. We got into that last bridge and I looked over

the right hand side and he was floating there in the water and dead. And then the sergeant major was next to him dead Damn And they were in muddy water, but they had bled out so much that it was red So All right, we got the last two now. We got to get him out of this six foot ditch And we got to get him back and man bloody bodies are hard to grab on to and The mud and everything, and man, we're struggling to get them out,

finally get the Sergeant Major out. All right, we're moving back. And we start heading back all Americans. Yeah, we went out to get our two Afghan brothers. And then other Afghan saw us coming back with them and started running out to help us and stuff like that. But we went back for Abe and the Sergeant Major because of our belief that no one gets left behind.

And we are willing to fight and die to bring back one person because of our belief structure that no one gets left behind. And we did. We did him right. We got him home to his family. The Taliban were going to desecrate the bodies. We got him and the Sergeant Major back to their families.

And that was, yeah, that was the, that was the 2016, we'd been on multiple missions after that, but that was the biggest, that was the biggest fight I've ever been in in my life. How long did that fight last? About 18, 18 hours. You get a silver star for that, correct? Yeah.

But no one got left behind. That is fucking incredible. I wish the rest of the country had that mindset when we would pulled out of Afghanistan. No, me too. Me too. I've definitely, you know, I've went back to Afghanistan after that 2017, 19 to 20, or I'm sorry, 18 to 19, 20 and 21. And in 2021, we definitely been 17 and 18 and 19, we did great missions.

But my mission in 2021 as a contractor, I was, you know, I had retired in January 2020, and I went and I contracted. And so I was a counter-threat contractor at the time. And we were armed contractors, so we went out on missions and stuff like that with ODAs or, you know, Marsock or whoever it was, but my job in 2020 was base closures. I'm sorry, 2021 was base closures. And that's a weird, weird feeling, especially after you have done what you've done. Blood has been spilled, brothers have been lost. And the result, the ending result of it is we're closing down down bases, handing them over to the Afghans that 100% do not intend at all to hold these

bases, which will then fall into the hands of the Taliban, and where that American flag used to fly will now be the Taliban flag. And so I started out at New Antenic in Helmand and then Dwyer. We closed down New Antenic, closed down Dwyer, calf, and then bath. And I left out of bath. And going up onto the perimeter walls in bath, you could see the Taliban flags flying everywhere. Conducting GDA patrols in 2020, when we were in the peace agreement with the Taliban I was at donkey and we were conducting GDA patrols and

Taliban flags everywhere and the new guys didn't understand it but it was Yeah, it was something else and then 2021 watching the Taliban move through all the areas that we had, that people had freedoms and the ability to earn a living for themselves, to take care of their families the way they want to, to raise their children and live their lives on their own terms was gone. Gone. In a blitzkrieg, it didn't take them any, it didn't take them no year or two years, whatever, whatever these people in Washington were trying to say would take the Taliban. If they ever were able to do it, took a month, a couple months.

And I sit back now and I look at what we did in Afghanistan and the lives that were changed there. And I see that Al Qaeda has resurfaced there. And different terror groups are still fighting for control, whether it's ISIS fighting the Taliban or you name it. What did we do? That's a hard question and that's gonna lead into a lot of mental health struggles. It already has Yeah, it it it has and it's gonna continue to lead into a lot of mental health struggles that a lot of people have It's gonna lead into a lot of things man. It's gonna I mean Who's gonna serve the country? Yeah. All the people that did serve the country, that's the mental health.

How's the world going to see the United States now? We've been abandoned yet another country that we invaded and promised to make better and we've been left them to die. and promised to make better, and we fucking left them to die. Yep. The, we, it's hard for me to go down this road, man, but, The consequences that this country is going to feel from the f***ing way that we acted when we pulled out of that country, we're going to pay for that for a long f***ing time. Yeah. And it started with 13 heroes that were killed at Abbey Gate. Yep.

Yeah. I don't know the answer to it. I don't either. I don't think anybody does. But I know... The answer is to hold these fucking politicians accountable. Yeah. There's no fucking accountability in this country anymore for people that...

for the elites, for the people in politics. Look at this shit. They're just running around, fucking rampant. They don't even give a fuck anymore. They don't try to hide it. They do shit on every fucking thing. And they don't have to hide it because they have pushed an agenda in our country

that we no longer understand that they work for the people. They are elected for the people. They are elected by the people, and they work for the people. And nobody knows that anymore. Nobody understands that our elected officials are elected through us to work for us. I don't think anybody understands it because I'm watching it. I'm watching unfold on the news daily. How are you not held accountable for this? Don't have to be. You fucking kid me? I'm better than you. You're just a you're just part of the population.

Better than you. You're just a, you're just part of the population. I'm the government. Yeah, I can go down some real dark holes with that one, but I, we all know what it leads to. Yeah. You don't even have to say it. Yeah. Psychobrack.

Yeah. Thank you for listening to the Sean Ryan Show. If you haven't already, please take a minute, head over to iTunes, and leave the Sean Ryan Show review. We read every review that comes through, and we really appreciate the support. Thank you. Let's get back to the show. All right Ryan, so we just wrapped up some contracting work that you were doing and had to do with the afghan withdrawal. And so now you're kind of transitioning out of a combat role and back into civilian life. How's that go for you?

So the transition over from doing the contracting job, Afghanistan is closed down. I'm actually still a contractor at that point, but there's no real mission inside. Next thing maybe would be Syria or something like that, but now, I have time to actually, again, that the one thing we were talking about from the hospital time, I have time to think, I have time to kind of dissect everything. And the big topic there is Afghanistan. Afghanistan has had a major portion of my military life from 2010 to 2021.

And so now what? And so with time to think, I also have time to kind of bring back up a lot of those things that we had talked about from earlier that I've always kept myself so busy in my life to where I never really had to face who's Ryan Henderson. Even in the hospital, it was, okay, I have plenty of time to think, you know, I'm going through, you know, the, the, the mental struggles that I was, now I'm going to bury myself completely into rehabilitation and physical therapy. And I'm going to continue to move forward with this. Life is great. Life is good. But I still haven't quite addressed, you

know, things from my past, whether it was the childhood trauma, or, you know, things from my past, whether it was a childhood trauma or, you know, my earlier life or the destruction that I created throughout my life being this entitled victim to my injury. And a lot of that, the mental, I guess, for better lack of words, the middle mind field that I was constantly navigating myself through. So I'm sitting there and I remember it's January 22nd. And I remember it's January 2022.

And I'm supposed to deploy again in May of 2022 to Syria as a contractor. And it's January and we're watching this, we're watching this buildup at the border in Ukraine. And so the world is watching. Wondering what's going on? And no one, they've been building up for a while. And I didn't really think too much into it, but along with watching that build up at the border

and this agonizing question, who am I? What am I? What is my purpose in life? And then having to figure out, you know, who Ryan Henderson is and to deal with, to turn those past traumas and experiences into something that I can use to help other people. Now I'm kind of sitting at this, you know, November, December, January timeframe of 2021, 2022, and I'm really starting to, you know, purposefully dig deep into who I am as a person and how can I use my experiences

for something more than this? This can't be it. This contracting job, it's not fulfilling. I'm not doing anything that's really, I'm staying in my comfort zone. I haven't stepped out. I'm doing this job because it's a paycheck and it's a comfort zone. So February, February, 2022 rolls around.

Tensions are getting a lot hotter at the border. Ukraine and Russia. And I'm watching things unfold, but still I'm in disbelief. No, there's no way. February 24th, 2022. Russia escalates the conflict. So the conflict started in 2014.

2022 was just an escalation of that conflict. And I remember like a lot of Americans, I was watching the TV and I was watching these events unfold where two nations were going at it. You know, this is a near-peer war. This is an insurgency. It's not a rebel know, it's not a

a rebel movement or anything like that. This is a war between two countries. And so, as I'm watching all this unfold, I start to feel this, this nag, this nagging, like, this nag, this nagging like desire that I need to get over there and do something, but I can't, I'm a government contractor. What am I gonna do? Am I gonna go over there and fight? Am I gonna, like, what am I gonna do, Ryan? No, stop.

The old man calls up. He said, hey, I'm watching the news. Yeah, me too, Dad. He's like, don't even think about it. I said, think about what? He goes, you know exactly what. He's like, don't even think about it. He said, you've done your part.

You don't need to go over there and fight. Don't even think about it. So I was like, okay, well, I wasn't thinking about it, dad. I was. But then I started talking to one of my buddies. His name is David cutting him. And his family founded the missionary organization, Y-WAM, Youth with the Mission. And so Dave and I have gotten really close. And we had been, you know, we were talking back and forth and I said, yeah, I just, I feel lost right now.

And this is the beginning of March. And I said, I feel lost right now. I feel like there's a higher purpose for me, but I just, I don't know what it is. I don't know what I can do. And I'm still, you know, I'm still kind of running from demons or chasing demons, or I'm trying to get a handle on who Ryan Hendrixen is.

But something about Ukraine is just, it's pulling at me. And I don't know why. And he's like, well, what do you want to do? So I don't know, I mean, I feel like I should go over there, but I don't know if I want to fight. I've done enough of that. I was like, there's got to be something bigger. Something, you know, I don't know what my purpose is.

And he said, well, I can help you figure it out. He's like, what are you talking about, Dave? He goes, yeah, we got a wide way on campus in Kiev. And the people that volunteered to stay behind, they're running buses to all of the suburb areas that the Russians are coming into and evacuating people out. He's like, they've never been to war before. They could probably use your help. You know, just to stay alive. It's like, would you want to do that? And it just hit me like a ton of

bricks. So I quit my contract and job. And I headed over there the middle of March. And it was like it was like a Robin, it was like a Robin Sage exercise. All right, man, you're gonna fly in the crack out pulling. You're gonna meet up with this guy at, so get from the airport to this hotel. You're gonna step this hotel two days. You're gonna meet up with this guy. He doesn't speak English,

but he's gonna take you to the border. Then you're gonna get dropped off and get with another guy who's a border expert. I was like, border expert. All right, cool. Really great guy, doesn't speak English. You'll be fine. It's like, okay, great. So then you're going to get to a safe house.

Another guy is going to pick you up and bring you all the way into Kiev. And then you'll link up with the Y-WAM guys and start the work, any questions? I was like, I've been through a scenario like this before. It's called Robin Sage. So, all right, so of course, you know, I say, all right, jobs have been quit. You know, Don, my wife, she's strangely, extremely comfortable with it.

Like yeah, you know, this is a good cause. It's like, no, you're, you crane. Yeah, I know. It's a good cause. You're gonna help people. Ukraine, Ukraine. You know, the Russia, Ukraine, the war. I know. Okay. And so I head over there and, of course, the plan goes as plans always go. Guy shows up five hours late, get to the border, and then I'm able to get across fairly easily. The border guards are like American.

Okay. And then those two words that I hate the most. Good luck. It's like, God, plus America. All right. So now, safe house, and then Ukrainian who's turned out to be one of my good friends, Max picks me up. And we're heading to Keeve.

And Keeve is a ghost town. No traffic, no vehicles, nothing's moving. It's like holy cow. So I get to the Y-WAM campus, get some sleep, and they say, hey, we're doing a run. Did you bring the body armor? Say, yeah, I've rubbed on the armor for us. It's like, cool.

Do you know how to drive a stick shift? Say, yeah. It's like, okay, you can drive this. We're going over to this place, so we're gonna bring women and children out. Oh, like right now, right now? Yeah, wow, like right now, right now. Ha, ha, ha.

So hit the ground running with these kids. They were all low 20s. And they wanted to help so badly. And their way of contributing was to evacuate women and children out of areas that the Russians were moving into because men had to stay in fight. And so now all of a sudden, you know, I'm sitting here and we're evacuating people out of the suburbs of Kiev and a little bit further beyond, but it got a little risky if you started heading to. If you try to skirt around the Russian lines, you can find yourself in a bad situation

really quick. So we were staying in areas where we had clear, you know, with your all, with your all as a military term, but we had a clear way out if we needed to. If it got, you know, and there was a couple of incidents where Ukrainians, you know, would stop us, shut all lights off. Everyone's real quiet as that Sue fighter flies overhead or whatever it is, you know, but for the most part, it's just, we're going in these areas and these families that are just been ripped apart by a war.

You know, the wife and the kids are saying, probably they're final goodbyes to their husband. As he's being armed at that point, here's an AK. You guys are leaving. You're going with them. And I'm watching, I'm watching all this unfold. And I'm seeing the worst and the best of humanity. I'm seeing the purest and the evilest. That's not really a word, but you know what I mean, of humanity. People are charging in to defend their homes and we're charging in to evacuate out their families. And so now I'm starting to see

that the mental health struggles that I've had, whether it was my childhood or my injury or whatever self-induced entitled victimized pitfalls that I've fallen into throughout my life. I'm starting to see that none of that really matters right now because I'm doing something that's bigger than myself. I'm doing something that is is helping other people and I'm never I'm I'll get a thank you, but that's it. Yeah. I'll never see these people again.

I won't even know what ever even happened to them. And all of a sudden, I'm starting to feel this purpose to my life. And this reason for Ryan Hendrickson, this, I'm starting to see this rough outline of who Ryan Hendrickson is. And everything that had happened to me, whether I did it to myself or it was done to me, now all of a sudden, it's not fading away.

It's always gonna be there with you. One of the biggest mistakes people make in their mental health journey is they want the situation that happened to them in the past, whatever it was, whether it was a rape or it was abuse, or it was a traumatic injury, or it was losing a buddy and combat. Whatever it was, people try to make it disappear

like it never happened. I want this out of my mind, out of my life, this never happened, I'm done. How do I do that? You can't, it's impossible. And they will fight so hard to make this situation like it never happened instead of understanding that it did happen. And there's nothing you can do about it. This is a part of your life. Now, now you're at the forks in the road,

like my dad told me, are you going to use it to make yourself stronger and help other people? Are you going to become a victim of it?" And that's where a lot of the breakdown happens with mental health, but I was laying back at night after a mission and we're unarmed. We're just going in. There was one point in the chaos of the initial evasion where the Russians were coming this way and we were driving this way on a road and I was like those are Russians. Yeah, it was because the lines were blurred, but I was laying back at night and you can hear you can hear the explosions in the outskirts of the city.

And you can, you know, you you would just listen to and hear it and I was laying back at night and I just remembered, or I was that fulfillment that I was getting, that I did something that was bigger than myself. I did something that was making me the man that I wanted to be when I was laying there next to the home in River. And I looked back and discussed at who I was as a man. March, 2022, I was proud of myself for once in my life.

First time in my life. That's the first time you've ever been proud of yourself. Yeah. First time in my life, I had a purpose and I was proud of myself. And my mental health, from there, the purpose grew. Now the Russians are moving east and civilians are coming back to their homes

and they're hitting mines and they're hitting booby traps. This is something I understand this world. I understand this pain. That child doesn't need to go through the pain that I went through. That's not fair. They're the innocent caught in the middle. I can help with this, whether it was from just basic awareness in the beginning of April of 2022.

Like, hey, don't touch this. Stay away from this. Yep, I would probably no one come into this place. It's rigged for sure. To now, I'm helping, you know, people with detectors. This is how you use this detector. This is how you handle this mind. This is how you do this. And when I was getting ready to come home in May of 22, I looked and I said, you know what? of 22, I looked and I said, you know what? This is who I am. This is my purpose in life.

And I have this purpose because of September 12th, 2010. I understood why God put that IED in that doorway for me and why He had to bring me to the brink of death. Why God put that IED in that doorway for me? And why he had to bring me to the brink of death in order for me to become the man that I am slowly, but I'm becoming today. That was God's wake up call. You're fucking up.

This is gonna hurt really bad, but I need to get your attention because there's something bigger for you. You have a purpose and you're not fulfilling it. It's going to hurt, but trust me, this is for a reason, Ryan. And I saw that play out. My dad said it to me in the hospital room.

You have the golden ticket. This will change your life and you're going to change many other people's lives. Then I came home and I did. I started up the 501C3 I have now and I've been back to Ukraine five other times, removing landmines. You've been there five times or six times? Six total., our six total. Six total. But five removing landmines. So I came back and I just started helping civilians out within their areas.

Where, where, where's a minor? I can help, I can do this. You know, now you have a perspective that not a lot of us get, you know, going to war. And I don't have this perspective. I don't think anybody I know has this perspective of what war is like. You are the only person I know that has this perspective. And I find a very interesting. What is it like in the middle of a war when you're not on any one particular side. We had spoken breakfast and you're not really,

you're not there to choose sides. You're there to save innocent people who are caught in the middle of war. What is that perspective? You ever heard of strength through vulnerability? Yes. Strength through vulnerability? Yes. Strength through vulnerability is what it is. I am becoming the man that I think God had planned for me.

Through, and I'm becoming stronger through the vulnerabilities that we have and our vulnerable state is Yeah, I I go into these areas unarmed and we remove land mines booby traps explosive Devices and we're not armed. We don't take sides We are there for the innocent civilians caught in the middle. And I've been told multiple times that's insane. You're an idiot. It's like, all right, I got it. Or do you have a death wish? Or, you know, yeah, keep believing God's going to save you and see where that, see where you wind up. That's fine. My belief

in my faith goes back to the beginning and the end chapters have already been written. It's up to you to fill in those middle chapters and I'm filling them in the best I can. And the end, you know, my life's going to go on for a long time. But this new, you know, the chapters that I'm filling in now are not full of pain, despair, destruction, hurt, anger, guilt. They're full of helping people and, and, and, and strength and strength and just courage and forgiveness and empathy and healing. That's what these chapters are now. And again, I didn't know who Ryan Henderson was before February 24th, 2022. And I found who I am and what I meant to be and what God wants for me. I found that. Finally, people, you know, people is like, well, I'm just an

old dog in the fight. I'll never change. Yes, you will. You can. My dad changed. He went from a shotgun underneath his neck to who the man he is today, who raised the man I am today. And I changed from an absolute monster, a self-entitled, victimized monster to what I'm doing today. That's, you know, the fact that when people think that, I'm never gonna change this is who I am.

That's another way of victimizing yourself. You're already making yourself the victim. And so, yeah, the vulnerabilities of doing what we do, and I don't, I don't demine on the front lines. Like, we're, we're back 15, 20 kilometers from the front. You know, we've been in areas where they'll start hitting it with artillery and then you, you just leave. So yeah, I don't, I don't want to be a victim here.

So I'm, I'm heading out. Um, but, yeah, I mean, it's the strength through vulnerability to doing, the doing something that's bigger than yourself, regardless of the cost, helping people that that you'll never see again. You don't know who they are. You may get a thank you, but you're helping them because a lot of people abuse the term, it's the right thing to do. What's the right thing to do? Like, what is, what's the right thing to do?

Hiller thought he was doing the right thing. Stallone thought he was doing the right thing. Like, what's the right thing to do? But when you're helping people out because of your belief and your faith that this is what you're supposed to be doing, I mean, there's a huge power to that. And it revolves around having a higher purpose. But I could not have gone Ryan Hendricksson pre-Brooks Army Medical Center.

I couldn't have gone straight from the self-entitled victimized Ryan Henrickson into this. I never would have saw, I never would have took the chance. I never would have saw the doors open for me. I had to take control over myself. I had to take responsibility like my dad said for my actions. Who the fuck are you? Who are you to try and push what you think other people should be doing? You know, okay, so yeah, you got wounded here. You had this incident happen here,

this happened to you. Who are you to try and force people to fill your entitled void through pity for you and all these accolades that you think you need from somebody else to Build you up because you think you deserve something That is so far beyond what anybody else gets because of an incident that you think you went through who? Are you and who made you God? You're not special. You are a person just like everyone else here. Regardless of what path you chose in the military, first

responder, I don't care. Name the job. Regardless of the path that you chose, you're no better than that guy over here and you're no better than that person over here. We are all human beings who made you God that you're going to force these people who are trying so hard. Thank you for your service. Thank you for your service. Thank you. Thank you. Don't understand. Thank you. You're they're trying hard, but no one will ever feel that entitled void in you because you won't allow it You will suck people dry You will push people away from you unless you take control over your own life A lot of the mental health problems we have right now is people want the solution given to them without any work They want this do you know what I did for you?

Do you know I served our country? I've done this. Your freedoms are because of me. You wouldn't have the freedoms you do unless it was for me. And go down that whole rabbit hole of entitled mindsets that a lot of veterans give and they put off to a community that does support. But they don't allow because you keep wanting more and more and more because the entitlement void will never be filled.

And as you want more, people start to move away from you. To where now you're not, now you're secluded, you're alone. Well, I mean, those are damn good points and I'm gonna say, man, you came at a perfect time because I've been talking to my wife about how the veteran community continues to victimize themselves.

And, you know, and it's a, it's a tough, not to crack. You know, I don't, excuse me, I'm gonna disagree with you a little bit on some of these things. Like, while I do, I understand, especially, I'll say it, especially the special operations community is the most entitled community in all of the military, maybe even more than pilots.

But, and it's because, yeah, we did bust our ass to get there. You know, it was a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, you know, the cue course, buds, whatever it is, we talked about training at the beginning and your opinion is we do have the most capable special operators on the planet. That does create a lot of entitlement. I think that in the veteran community in general, I think there's also a certain amount of resentment that a lot of us feel as well,

especially when we just watched or in your case took part in the Afghan withdrawal and you see half of the country, is all about how that went down. They're a great it's okay you know they saw it happen maybe they're pissed off for five minutes but hey by the time they wake up in the morning they can forgot all about it because did it affect them? No it didn't affect them. The 20 years award did that affect them? No, it didn't affect him. You know, and that shit bothers me.

I don't feel like I'm self-entitled. I mean, I've worked for every fucking thing I've gotten. I mean, you see how the shows run. It's me and you sitting in here in the studio. I run this shit. You know, I have an awesome team behind me, but it took me a long time to fucking build that. But I still struggle with resentment, you know,

from the American population that's set on their fucking ass and didn't done shit and allows this bullshit in our country to fucking go on. Like the Afghan withdrawal, I'm tired of that shit. You know, and it does. It builds a lot of resentment. And I can tell you right now the hair is on the back of my neck or standing up. Yeah. Right now because it makes me so fucking angry that I ever put my ass on the line for 50% of the fucking people that live in this country who are self-entitled and turds.

With that being said, and that's just my opinion, but I do think there is a, I mean, I just said I went through it. I think there's a certain amount of resentment that a lot of us feel and maybe it's justified, maybe it isn't, but you know, there are a lot of weak, fucking people in this country, a ton of them. And it just, it bugs us. Yeah, with that being said, I'm 100% on board with you when you're talking about I'm 100% on board with you when you're talking about victimizing. I mean, that we had a, I wish we would have had the conversation. We had a breakfast here on camera. But, yeah.

You know, I mean, I do. I see it all the time. And the tricky thing with the veteran community is this shit is coming in waves. You know, because it was, it was, I mean, shit, I got out of the seal teams in late 2006 and then spent the better part of a decade at the agency contracting over there, you know, going to all the same shittles I want to and the military and seeing the exact same stuff and and And so I guess what I'm saying is there's 20 year time period where guys are cycling through You know and it's it's a multi-generational war. Yeah, that we just got out of it's the only war that

You could have joined and gotten out and had an entire career of compact, more than World War II, more than Vietnam, more than any of them, an entire fucking career, 20 years from enlistment to retirement and more. And so you see in these waves of vets come out and they're all, it's a struggle. And the cycles, they just keep starting over and starting over and we're gonna see the last cycle here soon of guys coming out.

But I pay attention. And I think that there are a lot of vets who don't want to move fast their service. You know, they think they've hit the pin that much, that profound of a, of a whatever, you know, that's the pinnacle of your existence, then everything, and after that is downhill. You know, and I went through that, I'm sure you went through that. Hey, I'm at the pinnacle, made it through the cue course. I f***ing, your leg, you got a silver star, you know what

I mean? I mean, there were a lot of pinnacles, you know, that you've overcome, but you keep climate and you keep out doing yourself, you know. And I think a lot of vets, they get, they get because of the, because of the news and what other vets are putting out in the struggle and everybody knows the VA system is a complete disaster and everybody knows we get treated like shit. You know, and where we are the probably... Well, I don't want to say this, but what's on, well, I'll say it. We're probably one of the communities that are treated the shittiest, flushed down the

toilet and forgotten about quicker than anybody else. I mean, you watch the news and every other community, demographic, whatever the fuck you want to call it, of people who are victimizing themselves or they want reparation. Whatever it is, you know what I mean? It's all media covers it, doesn't matter. What demographic, what group of people, what fucking sexuality doesn't matter, they'll cover it. Veterans, fuck them. Shit on them. Flushing down the toilet. We don't want to talk about this

shit. You know, and so you can either victimize yourself because of that, or you can find overcommit and do exactly what you're saying. But what I see is I see a lot of guys that they make a career, that's their new career is victimizing themselves. And it's like, you know, I think that... minus all the trauma, you know, that everybody's seen at war and reintegrating back into civilian life,

you know, veterans minus the PTSD and the TBI and all of that and the suicide epidemic that's going on. And I mean, it's a huge problem. Huge. But two things that that struggle with, especially coming out of the special operations community is the inability to reinvent yourself.

That's a big huge problem. The inability to reinvent themselves, I mean, you just And to continue to develop is men and women. You know, it's a lot of the development I've noticed. It stops at the end of the military career or on that last combat deployment. That's where the development stops because they get stuck. And they get stuck in that life and they know they're the pinnacle of war fighting. And they can't find a way to develop into the pinnacle of something else. And what it just starts with, a step, one step, you know, in another direction

and leaving that baggage behind and, and I know that's hard. I know it's hard. I did it. I did it. You know, you got to take responsibility for yourself. Just about everybody in this that's sat in that chair from the military has done it has figured out how to do it, but You know, but you know then you see You

You have to want to get the better man. You have to want to leave that shit behind and in and even a lot of Influencers that I respect you know that I have a tremendous amount of respect for and even a lot of influencers that I respect, that I have a tremendous amount of respect for. I still see them doing the same shit influencers. Whatever, I just, influencers is, I hate that word, but I hate it. But people with a big presence, with a big audience,

I'm fucking rooting for them. And I don't say this publicly to any of them because it's not my place, but inside I'm like, man, you've got to, you've got eventually, each and every one of us, I feel like it gets to a point where it's like, you have to stop addressing this problem and move on. Like you've made your mark. You've donated, you've coached, you've helped, you've talked about it, you've done every

f***ing thing you can. Now it's time to move on and prove to your audience that you can move on from this shit. Or, you know, what I do is I, I mean, veterans will always have a spot in my heart, man. I mean, I am one, you know what I mean? And I do know the f**king struggles. And I like to concentrate on the guys that are getting out, but, you know, it, for my personal development, you know, my personal development was, I mean, I went from being a contractor to teaching tactics to interviewing former colleagues and men and women like yourself to, all right, I got to keep developing. I have to keep developing. And so I bring on

other you know other guests and I broaden my network and I talk about other issues. There's more issues than just the veteran community. Now I'm getting involved in this anti-sex trafficking movement and sex exploitation and all this shit that's plaguing our kids, which are the future of a country. You know, one in four girls is molested in this country. As per CDC, which I don't trust the CDC, so it's probably worse. One in 13 boys is fucking molested. You know, I mean, there's, you have to develop, I guess, is what I'm saying. You have to develop and you have to broaden your horizons

and move into other areas. And that's just how you can develop as a person and the veteran community really struggles with that. I think a lot of professional athletes struggle with that too when they think they've hit the pinnacle of their life. Absolutely. And I think I used to not want to admit there's a lot of similarities. Because how fucking hard can it be going from being an 18 year old basketball player to making $20 million of fuck here?

And then you want to listen to your bullshit sob story about I blow your money. But I do understand being the pinnacle of a certain occupation. And then it goes away and you have no fucking identity. You have to do exactly what you're talking about. Who is Ryan Hendrickson? Yeah. Who is Sean Ryan?

I don't fucking know because everything that I thought I was is now gone. Yep. And everything starts with a purpose. You gotta have that higher purpose. And veterans in order to be able to even realize that you need to have a higher purpose to know who you are as a man or a woman, you have to be able to take control over yourself first. The fact of the matter that half the country gives two shits what happened in Afghanistan, they don't care, they don't know the sacrifice, they don't know the suffering, but part of part of that healing for yourself is, is the understanding that

you can't force them. You can't force the sheep of this country because we have a lot of them. You cannot force them to ever understand what you went through because they're not going to. And there's no amount of talking. There's no amount of lobbying, there's no amount of force that will ever make somebody understand something that is incapable of it. Therefore, as that human being, as that veteran, you have to be able to understand this and be able to fill that void in yourself, that your entitlement has created. A lot of veterans fall into the entitlement hole. You don't know what I've been through, you don't know what I've done for you, and it's gonna get worse because of Afghanistan.

And a lot of us have a good reason to fill that way. But the problem with entitlement is it creates victimization because you're never gonna be able to fill that entitled void, it is impossible. You can't do it. We have a whole country of victims. That's why I know it's impossible because we have a country of people that will never never leave victimization. They will always be the victims. I'm not talking veterans. I'm talking a country. I don't. And so but the veterans plague themselves because they do have a right, they do have a right

full complaint in a bitch. Do you know what we just did for us to do this? We're at a very dangerous time in the veteran community right now because of Afghanistan. It's very dangerous and it is critical that veterans take, they, they take control over their lives and start to fill that gap through a higher purpose. You have to heal yourself before anybody else can help you. It is impossible for anybody to fill that entitled, victimize, that entitlement gap that you have that is leading to the victimization of yourself. It isn't possible for someone else to fill it. You have to work on yourself in order for me to be able to help you.

You can't call me up on the phone after you just blew through three bottles of jack to tell me that life isn't worth it. And you're that what are you doing for yourself? To as the military would say, unfit yourself. What are you doing for yourself? How are you? How are you? How are you trying to take control over your life besides calling multiple people after you've already burnt through a bunch of booze

telling them life isn't worth it. And you can't, you know, you're never gonna amount, you know, just the I get fired up over it because It is it's a lot a lot of people want this solved by somebody else. I did this for you now You do this for me. It doesn't work that way. There's the three Fs in life If you're not feeding someone finance and I'm a Guess what you aren't going to they they't, they can't do anything for you. You can say, and tell your balloon to face, thank you for your service or, hey man,

I'm really proud of what you guys did or anything. Or hey, you know, yeah, you guys deserve what you got, whatever it is. You know, there's no amount of talk that will ever fill your entitlement void. You have to do that yourself. And then once you realize that and you start to work on yourself, then you can start to actually get, you can start to appreciate and actually use the help that other people are giving you, you can use it to benefit yourself to make yourself stronger to help other people. And through helping other people, you find that purpose in your life. People ask me, is there a cure for PTSD? Or PTSD? And I said, yeah, there is.

It's finding something that's bigger than yourself that helps other people out and doing it. Your purpose, your purpose in life is what you're doing right here. I've been thinking about it the entire time we've been talking. God is working through you in crazy ways. Like this message, the message of, you know, people like me and all the other guests that you've had on here, that message is changing people's lives everywhere. You went through however many years of your life looking for who Sean Ryan is and this

is Sean Ryan, given people the platform to tell their stories, to come out here and shed a few tears, to get emotional, to show that we're all fucking humans. Regardless of what special, whatever you were, we're still human beings, fears, anger, despair, depression, happiness, guilt, all that, we're all still human beings. And with that purpose, now I've said that entitlement void, it's starting to be filled. You're not entitled to it. You're not victimized by it. You're taking control over things because

you're helping other people. And to me, that's, that's what saved my life. I could have been one of the 22 a day. No. I could have easily have been one. I saw. I saw it as a viable option. That's what saved my life. I could have been one of the 22 a day. No. I could have easily been one. I saw. I saw it as a viable option. That's dangerous. Well, you know what a shit gets anywhere. I know what I can do. Yeah. Yeah, that's a dangerous mindset.

I could have done that. I see why guys do it. That's bad. And it's because you lack that that purpose for your life You operated at this level when you were here and now you're here Who am I I used to do this but now you're trying to for you're you're not letting this go You know people need to know what I used to do people need to understand who I was I Need like I need this same sort of fulfillment in my life.

I'm just this right now. I need this. This is gone, brother. You can't ever get that back. You have to find your new purpose. You have to find that new, you know, who you are as a human being. You'll always have this, but that's not who you are. You know, I'm not Ryan Henderson, Greenberry, I'm Ryan Henderson. That's it. And I've done this, and I've done this, and I've been here, but I'm working myself up here,

and I come back down here, but then I build myself back up. But all of it revolves around you as a human being. You have to have that higher purpose for your life. Or else you're going to sit down here, wishing you were back up here, climbing and falling down that slippery slope and you're never gonna achieve this because you don't understand that this is gone.

This was a part of your life at one point in time, but this is not who you are. Every single person who's up here worked their ****ing ass off to get there. Whether you, you know, even these people that have had everything handed to them their whole life, you know, to mean that are that appear to be up here. They're **** miserable. If they didn't earn their way, I mean, how am I saying this? When we, when you put it up here, people think of, what do they think of?

They think of success, they think of, athletes and rich athletes, people of the big following. Yeah, you know, but there's a lot of people up here that didn't earn their f**king way way up here who are just as miserable is all the people that are still victimizing themselves because they know damn well they didn't earn their way to the top. They're just a f**king chump that wound up there and they don't even know what the f**k to do now that they're there. Yeah. You know, and that might, I would think that's even more miserable than, you know, to me, and then being down here.

Yeah. But up here, what it really is, is it's peace. It's what your old man said. You know, that story that you told me at the beginning. Yeah, you got two guys. Yep, you know Sitting on a Portion chair and one of them didn't take any risk and just coasted through life and the other guy failed succeeded Went through heartache went through hard times went through good through good time, he experienced life to the fullest.

Yeah. And then he got the chump. But what the guy in the wheelchair that was fulfilled, he is also, he's been at this point before in his life. And when this point was done, he moved on to the next point that was up here. Yup. And the next point, if he stayed stuck in this point,

he never would have left from down here. Bill. And then the regrets of letting life pass you by, and then I wish I would have, why didn't I ever move on from seventh group? Why didn't I ever move on from September 12th, 2010? What if I would have just, and then go down that whole list?

It's sad. It's sad to see it. It's sad to see it. And I want to say something to a backtrack, and then this totally unrelated, but, you know, I'd mentioned, you know, the resentment back to the resentment that veterans feel, you know, and especially with the Afghan will draw on the direction

that the country is going, look, I said 50% of the country didn't give a shit. Well, there's also 50% of the country didn't give a shit. Well, there's also 50% of the country that does give a shit. Yep. And, you know, and I will say another thing, you know, we're all being fed a bullshit mirage right now. There are more people that give a fuck

about where this country's headed and what how shit has gone down over the past however many years, you know? And there are more red-blooded patriotic Americans than you think there are. It is the f*** the corporations that are putting this mirage on that make it appear that more of the country thinks like them. That's not true.

You can see it in stock prices on these different corporations. You can see it in ratings on these news outlets. Target. You can see it in the ratings on this show. This showed hit number four. Not long ago, today we're back up to number 10 out of all podcasts. Dude, we're just above 60 something episodes. We're just above 60 episodes.

This shit doesn't happen. No. That's how many, and it's not me. And it's not you. And it's not everybody else that's sat here. It's the fucking audience. They want to see this stuff. They want to. This is what they're into. This is lines with their values. This is lines with how they think the country should be. This is how they picture the country. And you don't hit number four out of 60 fucking pod. We hit it at 58. We hit number four, 58.

Now, I don't know. I think we're at 65 and we're back to number 10 again. And you know, that's not to brag. That's to give hope, man. Yeah. Because that is how many people are aligned with the values that we're talking about right now. Yeah. I agree with you completely. They're looking.

It's just hard to find because media is corrupt, political is corrupt, corporations are corrupt. Yeah. is corrupt, political's corrupt, corporations are corrupt, and they're trying to force everybody and do that agenda. And we're not f**king having it. No. No. I agree with you completely because I watched what happened with Target. Who else took one of the just cast

traffic hits? It was Bud Light. They got smacked. And there's a car deal I think was Ford, maybe. I'm not even aware of that one. Yeah, but yeah, but it's everywhere. Everyone, you know what I mean? It just it's if you look, if you look through the smoke, you will see this shit is a m***ing mirage. Yeah, it's not like that. No, no.

And it shows that's the reason why I do know for people that are suffering, you know, with mental health and stuff like that. And they like, first of all, stop watching the news. Stop, man. It's it's it's propaganda. It's media propaganda. But the people that are suffering with it, I'm telling you, there you don't need to. You can figure out who you are. And there's tribes out here. We're in tribe mentality. There are so many Americans that are here to help. That are here to help you with that purpose. But they're not gonna come find you.

And that's what I tell veterans all the time. You have to wanna be helped. Yeah, yeah. I can't do it for you. You can't do it for them. Nope. You know, you have to want it. And a lot of, you know, we talked about it today in breakfast.

There's a lot of people they do not want out of that victim mentality. Because it's easy. It's easy. It's easy. It's comfortable. And we promote it in our country. Look at our movies.

Look at our TV shows. Everything is drama, victimization. Listen in our country. Look at our movies, look at our TV shows. Everything is drama, victimization. Listen to our music. Look at what we're pumping our kids with, what you listen and watch is what you're gonna become. Yeah, and we love the drama, the victimization, the entitlement. Look at what we're doing as a country.

I mean, our country's full of victims full of them It's just but We still I believe The majority Are not like that Yeah, man, it just like we were talking about earlier,

nobody is gonna get you out of whatever you're in. Nobody is gonna get you to the top. And even if somebody did get you to the top, nobody's gonna respect you once you get there because everybody knows it was handed to you. Yeah. Cause you're a chump. Yeah.

And so, get off your fucking ass, quit feeling sorry for yourself and start making some changes. Yeah. That's how you do it. 100% say it again. Get off your ass and start making some changes. Yep.

Doors will open for you once you take control. I promise you that. Yeah. Yeah. But well, Ryan, what a great discussion, man. This has been amazing. I'm just so happy that we got to meet and that Kyle Morgan connected us and me too. And man, I gotta do it.

It's just, it's an honor to have you sitting in that chair across from me. And it's an honor to be here. I hope we stand touch. Oh, we will. I really do. We will. But how can people get in touch with you?

How do they donate to your cause? I love what you're doing over there in Ukraine. I especially love that you're not. It's gotta be hard to not pick a side, you know, when you're in the middle of a war zone, but you've chosen the side of the innocent, and I mean, it's just amazing, man. What you're doing, how can we donate?

The landmineremovable.org, that's our website right there. So, and yeah, we buy detectors and landmine removal equipment. We bring it over, train up Ukrainians on it. And then we go out, we do mine with them for a couple months. That's my way of vetting them to make sure that this equipment is going to continue to, you know, remove landmines at a civilian areas and then I donated all over to them. And then I come back, fundraise again, buy

more equipment, go back over, do it all over again. How much is one of those landmines removal devices? So a chea detector would be $2,400. $2,400? How many binds of you? 1,765, I'm not counting. Shit. I'm not counting.

Did you just say 1,765? Mm-hmm. Dan, is that just you or is that the people you've trained to? No, that's four of us. Fine. Man, that's a's that's four of us. Fuck man. That's a lot. Yes.

It's on. You know, it's bad. It's nothing. Early putting a dent in. Not even a dent. If you put in if you put a drop in the bucket, it's the most minute drop. You didn't even put a ripple in the water. That could be one field in Ukraine.

Well, I don't know if I'd say that. How many kids do you think you've saved by? I hope a lot. Yeah. So there's definitely a ripple man. Yeah. There is definitely a ripple. Maybe it didn't get all of them, but you got a lot of them in the right places. Yeah. And there's a lot of kids. Yeah. And women. Yep. And men, walk it around today that wouldn't be because you're out there doing that. I hope so.

Yep. There's no hope, brother. You're doing it. That's a real thing. But anyways, all right. That's a fast-butt. Yeah. But anyways, alright. Yeah.

Former Navy SEAL Mike Ritland keeps it real on the Mike Drop Podcast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the stage Rudy Reyes. The ethics of the martial art is why I joined the Marine Corps. I never thought I was going to join the military because I'd been around so much gun violence, and I wanted to be the antithesis of that. I love fighting hand-to-hand, it's fair. You don't have to kill your opponent. You can beat them with ability and skill. Bike Drop, RAW, unfiltered, intellectually sound, wherever you listen.

With ability and skill. Bike drop, raw, unfiltered, intellectually sound. Wherever you listen.