0:00

This is JACO podcast number 479

0:02

with Echo Charles and me JACO

0:04

Willock. Good evening, good evening. Good

0:06

evening. For extraordinary heroism and

0:08

an outstanding performance of duty

0:10

in action against the enemy

0:12

in Afghanistan from October 2001

0:15

to March 2002, during its

0:17

six month existence, task force

0:19

K-bar was the driving force

0:22

behind myriad combat missions conducted

0:24

in combined joint operations area

0:26

Afghanistan. These precedent setting

0:28

and extremely high-risk missions

0:31

included search and rescue,

0:33

non-compliant boardings of high-interest

0:35

vessels, special reconnaissance, sensitive

0:37

site exploitation, direct action

0:39

missions, apprehension of military

0:41

and political detainees, destruction

0:43

of multiple cave and

0:45

tunnel complexes, identification and

0:47

destruction of several known

0:50

al-qaeda training camps, explosions

0:52

of thousands of pounds

0:54

of enemy ordinance, and

0:56

successful coordination of unconventional

0:58

warfare operations for Afghanistan.

1:01

The sailors soldiers airmen Marines

1:03

and coalition partners of combined

1:05

joint special operations task force

1:08

South task force K bar

1:10

set an unprecedented 100% mission

1:12

success rate across a broad

1:15

spectrum of special operations missions

1:17

while operating under extremely difficult

1:20

and constantly dangerous conditions.

1:22

They established bench mark.

1:24

standards of professionalism, tenacity,

1:26

courage, tactical brilliance, and

1:28

professional excellence while demonstrating

1:30

superb as free to

1:32

core and maintaining the

1:34

highest measure of combat

1:36

readiness. By their outstanding

1:38

courage, resourcefulness, and aggressive

1:40

fighting, spirit in combat

1:43

against a well-equipped, well-trained,

1:45

and treacherous terrorist enemy,

1:47

the officers and enlisted

1:49

personnel of combined joint

1:51

special operations task force.

1:54

K-bar reflected great credit

1:56

upon themselves and upheld

1:58

the highest traditions. of the

2:00

United States Armed Forces.

2:02

And that right there is an excerpt

2:05

from the Presidential Unit

2:07

Citation for Task Force

2:09

K-bar which which represented

2:12

some of the first troops

2:14

on the ground in Afghanistan

2:16

after the attacks of September

2:18

11th 2001. And it was an

2:20

impressive start to the war, but

2:22

as we found out only the

2:25

beginning of the war. And some

2:27

of the men that were there,

2:29

especially some of those frontline troops,

2:31

some of the more junior men,

2:33

went on and continued to fight

2:35

around the globe for the next

2:37

two decades. And it's an honor to

2:40

have one of those men here tonight,

2:42

Scott Neal, Scott is a

2:44

former Green Beret Special Forces

2:46

soldier who fought both in Afghanistan

2:48

and Iraq and other parts

2:50

of the globe. And he's

2:52

now president of one of

2:54

the most successful veteran companies

2:56

in America, Horse Soldier Bourbon.

2:58

And it's an honor to have him

3:01

with us here tonight to share some

3:03

of his experiences and lessons learned

3:05

along the way. Scott. Thanks

3:07

for joining us, man. Thank

3:09

you very much. It's honor

3:11

and privilege and I'm just

3:13

looking at a K-bar right

3:15

in front of me, giggling.

3:17

Task Force K-bar, which was

3:19

a post, what was the

3:21

northern area? Dagger, and sword.

3:23

So three kind of main

3:25

thrust elements, so dagger obviously

3:27

was the unconventional side, sword,

3:29

and K-bar was this idea

3:31

of joint at the time,

3:33

so multinational multi-forces. We'll get into

3:36

that. It's really interesting to think

3:38

about, you know, from my perspective,

3:40

having spent 20 years in the

3:42

military, having worked a lot with

3:45

the big Navy, with the Marine

3:47

Corps, with the army, and knowing

3:49

the, how challenging that can be.

3:51

So for you guys to get

3:54

thrown together like that, I bet

3:56

that was good times. It was

3:58

as ad hoc. but necessary at

4:00

the time, right? And it's kind of

4:02

grown into what we take advantage of

4:04

now, but I don't know if it's

4:06

going to be enduring because Big Army,

4:09

Big Navy, likes to break things apart

4:11

and make it what it used to

4:13

be. Well, we'll get there eventually, and

4:15

I don't know. I haven't figured out

4:17

if you and I were ever in the

4:19

same time, and perhaps there's a chance

4:21

that we did missions together. in Iraq

4:23

and I'm sure we'll figure that

4:26

out if we did. But let's

4:28

get a little background on you.

4:30

What was growing up like? Rough

4:32

and rowdy kid, I grew up

4:34

in central Florida. My family had

4:36

been in Florida on cattle and

4:38

citrus groves since the 1830s. I think

4:40

my family history, we've got roles

4:42

in the similar Indian Wars, the

4:44

Confederate cavalry they were known for

4:47

at the time. So it was

4:49

just very rural and very poor,

4:51

but very happy. So my grandfather,

4:53

he was well known for long

4:56

cattle drives and he played the

4:58

fiddle. So everybody from Nashville would

5:00

come down and he would make

5:02

fiddles for him. And I grew

5:05

up around the blue grass out on

5:07

the range kind of thing. So your

5:09

grandfather was alive while you were alive?

5:11

Oh yeah. Also you were watching and

5:14

play the fiddle. All the time. And

5:16

I remember, you know. a

5:18

red barn with lots of cousins. Every

5:20

Saturday, big potluck, you know, the things

5:22

you admire as a kid, you don't

5:24

realize that you don't have a lot

5:27

because you had a lot with family.

5:29

But I always loved cowboys and

5:31

Indians and cops and robbers and army

5:33

men and everything like that. So I

5:36

kind of set my pace to

5:38

what I always wanted to do and

5:40

that's just join the army. And that

5:42

was was already a thing in school

5:44

that led you in that direction. Did

5:47

you play sports or anything like that?

5:49

All of them mediocrally, right? So my

5:51

brother was the champion, right? Always the

5:53

all-star, always the team captain, everything. Was

5:55

he older or younger? He was older,

5:58

six years. Sure. I love. I broke

6:00

my collarbone actually racing motocross, which

6:02

kind of ended playing football. I

6:04

wrestled, but I was at the

6:06

weight class of I think 155

6:08

at the time and every other

6:10

kid was. So, you know, I

6:12

played in between. I was on

6:14

the high school drag racing team.

6:16

That's pretty speed. Awesome. Who knew? But

6:19

yeah, it was fun. Did you guys build

6:21

your own cars? How was this all about?

6:23

I had a... How'd I miss out on

6:25

the high school drag range? Well, you had

6:27

the shops, right? You had the wood shop,

6:29

you had the car shop, so... They don't

6:31

have that stuff anymore, by the way, which

6:33

is a damn shame. I know. And it

6:35

was just, you know, what's that... Stupid musical

6:37

grease, you know what I mean? When

6:39

the guys got together and they went

6:41

in there and they built white lightning,

6:43

it was like that. So I had

6:45

the car that was a 327 and

6:47

a Chevy Vega, so a crappy, nothing

6:49

little thing and he'd go down to

6:51

the track, tune it up, and he raced

6:53

other high schools on the weekend. Damn. Good

6:55

times. But you knew you always wanted to

6:57

join your honor. That's it. I had no

7:00

other aspiration. Back then, they had the GI

7:02

Bill, you know, join and go to college.

7:04

But for me, I was like, eh, you

7:06

know, I wanted to be an airborne Ranger.

7:08

Airborne Ranger is what I want to be.

7:10

You go to a recruiter, I did the

7:12

late entry, I waited till I graduated, and

7:14

four days later left. Never looked back. And

7:16

did you have some kind of contract or

7:18

what did this recruiter? Recruiter? Hookale entry. Okay,

7:20

but you wanted to be an airborne Ranger?

7:22

I wanted to be an airborne Ranger because

7:24

that's all you would hear in movies

7:27

or whatnot. So I went to one-stop

7:29

unit training where they train the entire

7:31

battalion. So at the time you went

7:34

to Fort Benning in the infantry and

7:36

the entire basic training battalion all training

7:38

together then went to its first duty

7:40

assignment and that was four-door California. So

7:42

wait, so like... When you say the

7:45

whole battalion trained together, what about the

7:47

senior NCOs? No, all the privates. So

7:49

all the new guys, all the privates.

7:51

And when we got there, they had

7:53

a whole cadre ready to receive it.

7:55

So I don't think they do that

7:57

today, but back then it was kind

7:59

of... this idea that we would form

8:01

that way everybody would grow senior to

8:04

the point where after about the third

8:06

or fourth year those who get out

8:08

get out those become sergeants go on

8:10

and it was good because you know

8:13

you have lifelong friendships with somebody

8:15

who started basic training with and

8:17

then you go to Fort Ord

8:19

which was light infantry which meant

8:22

you walked everywhere. 100 mile road

8:24

marches. It's like wow. And then what

8:26

was your job? Is a rifleman?

8:29

Just regular rifleman assistant gunner right

8:31

mule whatever you get some you

8:33

know 70 pounds of lightweight you

8:35

know backpacks and you sleep out

8:37

of it in the elements and

8:40

our first kind of conflict was

8:42

Panama. Did you get to jump

8:44

in or did you get to go

8:46

to Panama? I was in Panama back

8:48

in June so if you look about

8:51

the conflict it started rustling you know

8:53

this idea that You know, we had

8:55

issues now that I'm senior and

8:57

can read history. It's a lot

8:59

different, but we deployed Fort Sherman,

9:02

then Fort Sherman to Fort Espinar,

9:04

which is across from the locks,

9:06

and it was a Panamanian base,

9:09

and we dug in at the

9:11

officers club because Americans were staying

9:13

there, and for four months, stayed in

9:15

at Foxhole. And then we rotated out

9:18

November. Oh, you just missed it. Yep.

9:20

And like, man. So. Now did you

9:22

feel at the time? Because I

9:24

joined in 1990, right? And so in

9:27

1990, it was like, you know, we

9:29

would hope that there would be one

9:31

mission. You know, I guess when I

9:33

first joined, we were hoping that the

9:35

Gulf War, I thought, you know, we

9:37

were hearing news reports that there's gonna

9:39

be 40,000 casualties in the first 48

9:41

hours. I thought 100% I'm gonna go

9:43

to war, it's gonna be all said,

9:46

I'm gonna get good, it's gonna be

9:48

World War II type scenario, let's go.

9:50

So when that was over in, whatever

9:52

it was, 96 hours. A dustup? Yeah,

9:54

I was pretty heartbroken to say the

9:56

least. I was in training when it

9:59

happened, so mad. I just missed Panama,

10:01

right? I get to another infantry unit

10:03

and I say, okay, I want

10:05

to go SF, start going through the

10:08

training, and then the war begins. When

10:10

did you hear about SF? I heard

10:12

about it because we're sitting in

10:14

a foxhole and seven special forces group

10:17

was living at SB&R and

10:19

then you'd see these guys run by

10:21

in shorts, UTTs at the time with,

10:23

you know, big mustaches, you know, like

10:25

sergeant. They're not Panamanian, who are

10:27

they. don't look at him, don't

10:29

touch him, don't say anything. And

10:32

after four months of just watching these

10:34

guys run by, I'm like, I want

10:36

to be on that side. I don't

10:38

want to sit here in a foxhole.

10:40

And so the recruiter came around, you

10:42

see this, you know, video of you

10:44

out of helicopters in the water and,

10:46

you know, world peace and, you know,

10:48

lightning fast and all these things, the

10:51

young man, I said, that's it. And

10:53

you go through the... First physical fitness

10:55

test, you pass it, then you

10:57

find to get orders to brag

10:59

for selection. So at the time,

11:02

there's no Google, there's no book

11:04

on how to win, how to

11:06

get through special forces. So what

11:08

year is this? What year did you

11:10

show up there? Um, 90, 91-ish

11:12

to begin training? Yeah. And you

11:15

did you do anything to prepare

11:17

for it? Somebody must have told

11:19

you like Top of Rock or

11:21

something? Like that piece of paper

11:23

in front of you is all

11:25

you got was a printout at

11:27

the time, right? It says here,

11:29

we recommend that you, you know,

11:31

run a lot. We recommend that

11:33

you walk a lot. And special

11:35

forces selection, I learned then and

11:37

myself going through it and then post,

11:40

there's no encouragement. It's all on you.

11:42

to present yourself as you're going through

11:44

these tasks. So at the time, I

11:46

couldn't call anybody. I didn't know anybody.

11:49

They said, don't talk about it, that

11:51

you're going. So I'm like, OK, I

11:53

show up. And if the sergeant said,

11:55

start running, I started running like force

11:58

gum. And at the end, these. stop

12:00

running, that stopped running, right? Climbing

12:02

the obstacle course, you know, yes

12:04

Sergeant, and you, that was selection

12:06

the whole way through. I don't

12:08

know how much you want me

12:10

to talk about it, but it's,

12:12

it starts off all individual, right?

12:14

How, if you run now, you know,

12:16

five miles, you don't know what the time

12:18

standard is, you just run it. You do

12:21

a 12 mile road march, you do an

12:23

obstacle course, you do a land nab, you

12:25

do all these individual things, and you have

12:27

no name. It's just a number and you

12:30

look on the board that morning and they

12:32

say show up at area X, you show

12:34

up, they read you your task and you

12:37

execute and they say get back on the

12:39

truck and you go back to the

12:41

barracks, take some intelligence tests, go

12:43

to bed, you can quit at any time.

12:45

And as you're going through that

12:47

are people dropping out so you

12:49

must have people quitting and then

12:52

people not making the standard, whatever

12:54

the standard is that's unknown. Yeah.

12:56

So you get up in the morning. you

12:58

find you know whatever board your numbers on

13:00

it's always a different group you go to

13:02

that task when you come back things are

13:04

gone and people are gone so you don't

13:07

know at the time who quit or who

13:09

got hurt because sometimes some things people will

13:11

twist their their leg or maybe fall off

13:13

an offical course so you don't know you

13:16

don't hear the hubbub because you're in your

13:18

small task at the time and then in

13:20

the morning because most people self-reflect

13:22

and they'll sneak out on fire

13:25

guard or something like that and

13:27

and leave and they're just gone.

13:29

Yeah. And now you're, we started with

13:31

about 360, we ended with about 56,

13:33

and out of the 56, 42 were

13:36

selected. And that final selection that they're

13:38

making, what are they basing that on?

13:40

Like you got a kid that showed

13:43

up, how long is it, three weeks?

13:45

Yeah. So you get a kid that

13:47

shows up three weeks, completes all the

13:49

tasks and gets done and you go,

13:52

yeah, no. So there's, once again,

13:54

I've learned this afterwards, Bob who. You

13:56

want to have on here as well?

13:58

He ran selection as well. Right, and

14:00

so one is physical, obviously,

14:02

it's a, it's, it's, can you

14:05

pass, that's it, not can you

14:07

be faster, passer, do you pass

14:09

the minimum standard, okay? And nobody

14:11

tells you what it is, you

14:13

just have to pass it. So

14:15

next is, can you work as

14:17

a team? So these team tasks,

14:19

very dynamic, you know, you apply

14:21

sweat. and impossible conditions and can

14:23

you operate in a task so

14:25

the sergeant has a kind of

14:27

list as they're observing. Do you

14:29

go through these things, right? Do

14:31

you help when you help? Are

14:34

you being noticed? Do you help harder?

14:36

Right these kind of things and

14:38

next is the aptitude portion so

14:41

after all these physical tasks you

14:43

come back You'll eat your child

14:45

you go back to the classroom

14:47

you start taking psychological and Memory

14:50

test and General aptitude test and

14:52

that'll start to put you in

14:54

a bucket whether you have skill

14:56

sets to be a medic a

14:59

communication sergeant dumb like me weapon

15:01

sergeant right bang all these things

15:03

they start to filter that out

15:05

through the process and actually I

15:07

learned that this selection process is

15:10

part of the army human behavior

15:12

in sciences department so it's very

15:14

calculated as you go through this

15:16

process so at the end what

15:19

do you want somebody that's physically

15:21

morally right mentally capable of

15:23

expeditionary entrepreneurism for the military

15:26

right remote low resources, high

15:28

stress, you know, solving your

15:30

own problems because there is

15:32

no solution other than what

15:35

you create. So at the

15:37

end of it, once you're

15:39

selected, that just begins

15:41

the training. Did you have

15:43

anything that really challenged you

15:45

in selection itself? Or you just

15:47

kind of a gray man type

15:50

scenario? I would say gray man.

15:52

My last name is Neil. So

15:54

I always lined up in the

15:56

center. That's true. And so... You know,

15:58

I always kept quiet. I did. I didn't

16:00

try to game it. I didn't try

16:02

to read my way through it

16:04

or ask for advice from others.

16:06

I just took it every day

16:08

and did what I was told

16:10

like Scotty Gump. And you know,

16:12

what I went through mentally though,

16:14

luckily I was a poor kid

16:16

that worked really hard because your

16:18

brain is the enemy. And it

16:21

starts lacking sleep. It starts

16:23

lacking physical capability, you start

16:25

to doubt yourself. So your

16:27

losses come from within. And

16:30

those that surrender to it are the

16:32

ones that walked off, but there's

16:34

a reason. Because once again, in

16:36

a small team, alone and not

16:38

afraid, you can't walk off the

16:40

mission. So that part was good.

16:42

It worked. I mean, the people

16:44

that have come out have been

16:47

very successful. Some have escaped through

16:49

because maybe they were physically gifted.

16:51

You don't have to be a

16:54

rocket science, but it can't be

16:56

totally stupid, because then the skills

16:58

training will weed out the stupid. Then

17:01

you get done with that and then

17:03

it's into the Q course. And by

17:05

the way, so now what we were

17:07

talking about was, so the go-for happened

17:10

at some point, and you're all looking

17:12

at that going. Dang, you guys were

17:14

all looking at each other, but we

17:16

just missed that whole thing. Turn it

17:18

back on. Hold on a second. You

17:21

know what I mean? I'm the one.

17:23

Don't you realize, you know, what's going

17:25

on? And you can only watch it

17:27

from afar and maybe a few media

17:29

sources. And you don't understand what Green

17:32

Bres are doing, let alone seals or

17:34

any, you know, other mission, anything. You

17:36

don't know that you're missing. So let's

17:38

accelerate this. be pulled out of class

17:41

today and they need me they need

17:43

me now i mean do i gotta

17:45

write a congressman but no and it

17:48

was over you know then you graduate

17:50

and you think you're the most

17:52

capable physically fit you know you're

17:54

the right tool on the team

17:56

and they can't wait for you

17:58

to get there And I get

18:01

to my first Special Forces team

18:03

and here are all these legends

18:05

that had just, you know, worked

18:07

with the Kuwaiti underground.

18:10

They had, you know, fought, exceptionally. And

18:12

here I was a young kid.

18:14

So what were you guys for?

18:16

Where'd you end up at? Fifth

18:19

Special Forces Group. Oh, awesome. So

18:21

in Special Forces, you're aligned regionally.

18:23

So Fifth Special Forces Group at

18:25

Fort Campbell, Kentucky, we're aligned towards

18:28

the Middle East. So when I

18:30

say Middle East, think about Muslim

18:32

religion and cultures all the way

18:34

up to the stands, which has

18:36

just become open, mid 80s, all

18:39

the way down to Saudi and

18:41

Kuwait, Yemen, then into

18:43

Africa with Eritrea, Ethiopia,

18:45

Somalia, Kenya. Yeah, it's a great

18:48

AO. Yes. And at the time

18:50

though, I hated it because everybody

18:52

was going to Okinawa, right? They're

18:54

going to first group in Asia,

18:57

the fun places, right? Europe, South

18:59

America, here I am, going to

19:01

the desert. Yeah, yeah, that's, so

19:04

that the seal teams used to

19:06

be oriented geographically as well, and

19:09

we changed that, luckily, I think

19:11

it's luckily, luckily, we changed it.

19:13

prior to 9-11 and to where

19:16

they started to, at least started

19:18

to change it, to where a

19:21

team was a team and you

19:23

could deploy that team wherever.

19:25

But the geographical locations that

19:27

it used to be was

19:30

Seal Team 1 was Southeast

19:32

Asia. So think the good

19:34

times of what you just

19:37

said, Okinawa, Thailand, Philippines, Guam,

19:39

and then Seal Team 5

19:41

was supposed to be winter.

19:43

which on the west coast just

19:45

meant it just went one word

19:48

Korea yes and I guess northern

19:50

Japan as well seal team three

19:52

was was the Muslims areas that

19:54

you just mentioned so I was

19:56

supposed to be over in the

19:58

desert in south West Asia and

20:01

then the East Coast, Seale Team 2

20:03

is Europe, Seale Team 4 was South

20:05

America. So that, you know, Seale

20:07

Team 2, everyone want to go

20:09

to Seale Team 2, and everyone

20:11

want to go to South America

20:13

too. So, and then Seale Team

20:15

8 ended up being sort of

20:17

Africa, Africa areas. So it was

20:19

geographical for a while, and there

20:21

is still a remnants of that

20:24

in some form, at least versus

20:26

West Coast, but guess what? I

20:28

had guys with me from SEAL

20:30

teammate in Iraq and you know

20:32

everyone worked together so we

20:34

had to get over it. But

20:36

at the time for you were

20:38

you thinking well at least I'm

20:40

in the area of operation to

20:42

what will most likely have a

20:44

conflict? Or were you... Yes, this

20:46

and no. Young, excitable. Scotty, you

20:49

know, wanted to. Because just FY,

20:51

I thought I was going to

20:53

Vietnam. I thought I was going

20:55

to the Mekong Delta. This was

20:57

in 1990. When I first got

20:59

there, you see the legends there,

21:01

you know, literally a year

21:03

and a half out from the

21:05

Gulf War, but then Somalia was

21:08

kicking on. right and we had

21:10

guys going in and out of

21:12

Kenya and driving up humanitarian assistance

21:14

into Somalia. So there's always something

21:17

every year we would go back

21:19

to Kuwait for three or four

21:21

months in a rotation just in

21:23

case there was another invasion so

21:26

it was free for all training

21:28

all the demolition anything you can't

21:30

really do back in the states

21:32

because you're isolated within a military

21:34

base right over there free for

21:36

all. Right, just tons. You, dairy

21:38

range. I mean, tanks and T-72s

21:40

and close air support and all

21:42

of these things, it prepped you,

21:45

you know, for the conflict,

21:47

but then I spent six

21:49

months in Africa with doctors

21:51

and vets treating rare cattle

21:54

diseases in tribes that were

21:56

being attacked by Somalis rustling

21:58

their cattle. It was

22:00

awesome. I mean, lions and

22:02

tigers and bears every night.

22:04

And you're trading beads and

22:07

you're trying to eat with the

22:09

locals. I mean, it was full on.

22:11

I did six, seven months in

22:13

Pakistan with the DEA, you

22:15

know, learning the drug trafficking

22:18

and routes. So Lahore to

22:20

Karachi to everywhere. Once again,

22:22

small team alone and not

22:24

afraid. Those were the perfect,

22:26

you know, pre-war missions that I

22:28

don't think even anybody realizes

22:31

the value of being in those

22:33

environments and the networks you create

22:35

and the interagency came from before

22:37

9-11 and how we had to

22:39

rely on post. Yeah, those are

22:42

those are great missions for a

22:44

peacetime military going out living amongst

22:46

the people and like you pointed

22:48

out, that's how we build those

22:50

relationships with those host nations. and

22:53

we learn about the cultures, hopefully

22:55

we capture that information so that

22:57

we can utilize in the future

22:59

and we don't do dumb things.

23:01

So those are great missions really. And

23:03

I wish, I suspect they're kind of

23:06

getting a little bit back, we're

23:08

turning back into a peacetime so

23:10

the even flow, but we have

23:13

to remind ourselves and our commands,

23:15

you know, what we did in

23:17

between. in between peace in Colombia.

23:19

We worked heavily with their security

23:22

forces, special forces, everything to defeat

23:24

the FARC. It took 30 years.

23:26

So we're now have friends deploying

23:29

down south and working with

23:31

those same forces we did

23:33

before this. We have friends

23:35

now going back into Africa.

23:37

What I'm not certain we're

23:39

ready for is to capture

23:41

those relationships. right and keep

23:43

fostering them so young commanders

23:45

keeping up with the young

23:47

commanders that eventually become three

23:49

star four stars of whatever

23:51

country and if something happens

23:53

you plug back into the

23:55

software life network and you pull

23:57

them back into that relationship. So

24:00

you rack up a bunch of deployments

24:02

during that time and again, those sound

24:04

like really good quality deployments for that

24:07

time period. In that time period for

24:09

me, I was doing, I did one

24:11

deployment that was what we called a

24:14

spec ops deployment, we deployed to Guam

24:16

and then did exercise out of Guam.

24:18

But then we had seals that were

24:20

in combat in Somalia who had come

24:23

from a Navy ship. And you could

24:25

volunteer because no one wanted to be

24:27

on a Navy ship. as a seal.

24:30

And so it was very easy to get

24:32

that spot if you wanted it. So I

24:34

looked at it and said, those are the

24:36

guys who are going to combat, then me

24:38

and some of my buddies were like, let's

24:40

get go on that kind of platoon. So

24:42

I did two of those platoons and spent

24:44

a bunch of time driving around in

24:46

circles off the coast of Somalia,

24:48

driving around in circles in the

24:51

Persian Gulf on both those, and

24:53

then eventually I did an aircraft

24:55

carrier deployment as well when I

24:57

was out on the East Coast. my

24:59

enlisted time I was working in the

25:01

in the training as training cadre at

25:04

seal team one and that's kind of

25:06

was was where I spent the 90s

25:08

and did you you ended up

25:11

as a drill sergeant didn't you

25:13

at some point that's so awesome

25:15

it's not so you know SF

25:17

just probably like the seals mid-career

25:20

at school house time. So typically

25:22

most go back to Fort Bragg

25:24

or they go, you know, wherever

25:26

some of these school houses

25:28

are and every year Special

25:31

Forces was required to give

25:33

four Green Berets to drill

25:36

sergeant. And so I got

25:38

notified about four months previously

25:40

and I was trying out

25:42

for another element and I'm

25:44

like, eh, I don't need

25:46

to go to that. I'm going to go

25:48

to this. And literally the week of

25:50

the head of the post school said,

25:52

hey, you know, you know that your

25:55

drill starting school is coming up in

25:57

a week. I'm like, what are you

25:59

talking about? no idea I thought we

26:01

got rid of this he goes no no

26:03

no no no well let me call this

26:05

other start major oh you're good don't worry

26:07

about it comes Friday hey you need to

26:09

pick up your packet to go to drill

26:12

school I'm like hey this thing solved I

26:14

don't know who you're talking to you need

26:16

to talk to this guy this guy calls

26:18

me up about an hour later and says

26:20

uh yeah I can't work through this and

26:23

I picked up my orders to go

26:25

to drill certain school Friday afternoon at 330

26:27

I showed up on Monday and you sit

26:29

there in a big room and they

26:31

start yelling at you and they say if

26:34

you don't want to be here stand

26:36

up now so I'm like that's easy I

26:38

want to be here and you have

26:40

shut up sit down and so for two

26:42

years I went to four um how long

26:44

is drill search school six months maybe

26:47

shorter I can't remember right

26:49

blocked it in my special

26:51

place, right? It's just repetitive. This

26:53

is how you march, private,

26:55

stand up, march. It's just barking

26:57

this repetitivenessness. And so I

26:59

went to Fort Leonard Wood,

27:01

which is home with the artillery.

27:04

So I'm like, I didn't get

27:06

infantry, crap. I went to Fort

27:08

Sill Oklahoma, and then it was

27:10

the brand new gener integrated basic

27:13

training. The summer of love. So this

27:15

is like 1999 or something? Yeah,

27:17

99 and 2000. So this was

27:19

the, you were there for the

27:22

first integrated men and women together. in

27:24

an open bay barracks type scenario? No,

27:26

you had men on one side of

27:28

the open bay and then you had

27:30

a door, you had women on the

27:32

other side, but I call it the

27:34

summer love because you're intercepting love letters.

27:37

I mean, they're just out of high

27:39

school, right? And these are the band

27:41

members, the cooks, all of the other

27:43

soft side of everything. And I was

27:45

a senior drill sergeant, so I had

27:47

other drill sergeants that were, you know.

27:49

infantry or mechanics or whatever and you're

27:51

just teaching them the basics of basic

27:53

training right out of March how to

27:56

organize you know you fire a leader

27:58

every other day you just private

28:00

you paid for this right this

28:02

is your experience we're gonna give

28:04

it to you and you know

28:06

half the time you're just trying

28:08

to take something that's clay and

28:10

amount and just mold them into

28:12

something before they leave on and

28:15

you know go to whatever specialty

28:17

they're doing so every eight weeks

28:19

a new batch every eight weeks

28:21

seven days a week three thirty

28:23

in the morning till you put

28:25

him to bed at 930 at

28:27

night now did you get The

28:29

I mean how many how many

28:31

people in it was it a

28:33

company you're putting through? No, I'm

28:35

putting a battalion through at a

28:37

time. So maybe 600 How many

28:39

suicide attempts are there? There? Hmm

28:41

boy None successful right because you

28:43

have constant touch and and watch

28:45

usually it's an AIT where they

28:47

have time to slow down and

28:50

think, they got a lousy weekend,

28:52

their first girlfriend's leptum, you know

28:54

what I mean? They're in such

28:56

a managed culture of go, go,

28:58

go, go, you know, there's all

29:00

the doubt and all these other

29:02

things that you just force it

29:04

out of them, right? There's no

29:06

breath. The reason I asked that

29:08

is because I remember. There's lots

29:10

of a walls. Okay. There's like

29:12

a couple suicide attempts, which is

29:14

weird, you know, you're kind of

29:16

like, whoa, like, this kid's four

29:18

bunks over for me and he

29:20

just tried to kill himself with

29:22

a safety razor or whatever. And

29:25

it seemed like if you had

29:27

600 people going through at a

29:29

time, you would see a lot

29:31

of that stuff. Yeah, it was

29:33

mostly towards the end when you

29:35

finally, you know, you have no

29:37

time off the first four weeks

29:39

and then maybe four hours to

29:41

go to church on Sunday you

29:43

let off the pressure. day to

29:45

go to the store, right? You

29:47

got a couple bucks. And then

29:49

literally the last week is when

29:51

you see people, they see the

29:53

train tracks as they call them.

29:55

Right, they, there was no members,

29:57

all pay phones at the time.

30:00

They'd all stand online to drill

30:02

sergeant there and mommy and daughter.

30:04

and family and that was it.

30:06

It's all scripted. Today, you know,

30:08

I can't speak for it, but

30:10

I can only understand. You have

30:12

kids, unfortunately, that maybe didn't disclose

30:14

they were on medication or something.

30:16

So by the time the third,

30:18

fourth, fifth week comes about and

30:20

they don't know how to handle

30:22

themselves anymore. They were little chemically,

30:24

you know, blocked and they don't...

30:26

know the structure of life, they

30:28

don't know how to take an

30:30

ass chewing, they don't know the

30:33

difficulties of these things, and that

30:35

adds up. Did you get any

30:37

like major insights into human nature

30:39

when you were doing this, or

30:41

is it just... Did it become

30:43

so repetitive? It becomes repetitive because

30:45

once again control you have a

30:47

very scripted format, right? So big

30:49

army doesn't let you deviate. This

30:51

isn't make it up as you

30:53

go. So every day as a

30:55

drill certain you have to emotionally

30:57

break them, right? Take them individually

30:59

down, make them hate you collectively,

31:01

right? So is that what they

31:03

teach you like you want to

31:05

make them? You know what I

31:08

mean? Because if I get them

31:10

to focus on me, they want

31:12

to outperform me. They want to

31:14

be up earlier before I get

31:16

there. You know what I mean?

31:18

They start plotting and scheming. They

31:20

know my personality. Then I got

31:22

a unit. Then I remove myself

31:24

and I give that unit or

31:26

that cohort to the military that

31:28

then shapes them for the new

31:30

foundation. Jack. And you did that

31:32

for two years? Two years. Is

31:34

that... And then you, so you

31:36

go back to fifth group. It's

31:38

the summer of 2001. Okay. And,

31:40

uh, you know, so now I'm

31:43

communicating. I was only on one

31:45

team for since 91, 92 until

31:47

I left 99. So do I

31:49

go back to the same team?

31:51

But they had started a new

31:53

unit up in fifth group that

31:55

was more of a direct action

31:57

kind of, uh, they called it

31:59

the. manners in extremist force. So

32:01

each group has this regionally oriented

32:03

kind of SRDA team that's already

32:05

in the area in case things

32:07

happen. You could respond to your

32:09

capability or you can prep for

32:11

somebody else. And I'm like, oh,

32:13

I'll do that. Sounds good. Blow

32:15

stuff up, shoot things, you know,

32:18

punch people in the face. That's

32:20

America. I'm angry. You know, two

32:22

years of being a drill star

32:24

and I wasn't happy. We got

32:26

there and it began the cycle.

32:28

You now had new funds, new

32:30

capabilities. You were going. Did you

32:32

go to the SIF team? Oh

32:34

yeah. Oh yeah. So it was

32:36

the very beginning. And we got

32:38

to pull in the best from

32:40

fifth group, right? We started doing

32:42

exchanges with other units. We started

32:44

getting on the national exercise program.

32:46

So doing more complicated things. You

32:48

know, now you're like, oh my

32:50

God. So we were ready on

32:53

one. October to go in the

32:55

Middle East and begin as a

32:57

SIF company. And got it. So

32:59

you were, you guys had done

33:01

a workup. Yep. And a training

33:03

cycle. Then that was the first

33:05

fifth group SIF to go through

33:07

a training cycle like that. Yeah.

33:09

That's awesome. And then you were

33:11

prepared to go on deployment to

33:13

the Middle East where we're gonna

33:15

go Bahrain or Kuwait or something.

33:17

So you're gonna go there and

33:19

be on standby for four months

33:21

or six months or whatever. Yep.

33:23

Do a normal deployment. Yep. And

33:26

you were going to leave on

33:28

October 1st. Yes. Okay. So we

33:30

want to pre-deployment leave or something

33:32

on September 11th? What were you

33:34

guys doing? September 11th. 595, which

33:36

is now kind of our sister

33:38

team and. They had just got

33:40

back from Uzbekistan. They were training

33:42

the Spetsnachts in As you know

33:44

the Soviet Union fell apart They

33:46

had a lot of nukes and

33:48

other capabilities They had Al Qaeda

33:50

and other elements trying to enter

33:52

and you know sneak through and

33:54

also you had the kind of

33:56

drug markets that were getting into

33:58

Europe and Russia So they

34:01

were training their forces and capability

34:03

a typical security force assistance training

34:05

and they got home Mark had

34:07

just left the team Bob and

34:10

will and they took our snipers

34:12

We had an exercise that weekend

34:14

and we were inserting snipers on

34:16

this foe terrorist training compound and

34:19

they were sending back signals and

34:21

Digital and all kind of other

34:23

things and these were SIF snipers.

34:25

Yeah, okay and when the morning

34:28

of 9-11 we're in a probably

34:30

the second day of our exercise and

34:32

I remember the Intel sergeant walking in

34:34

and on the whiteboard he said the

34:36

World Trade Center has been hit and

34:38

we thought it was just part of the

34:41

exercise for the scenario an escalation right the

34:43

curveball and if hour later he came in

34:45

and right the second one's been hit so

34:47

we started sending out RFIs requests

34:50

for information what does that mean

34:52

you know exercise exercise exercise you

34:54

know what's the complication so It

34:56

wasn't until four hours later than

34:58

Moholin came in and said stop.

35:00

This is for real. And if you did

35:03

see the movie, it was the chow hall,

35:05

everybody went to the chow hall and saw

35:07

CNN and were like, holy crap.

35:09

Because you guys were in isolation.

35:11

Oh, that's right. I remember they'd

35:13

put us into, they'd put us

35:15

in, Echo Charles, back in the

35:18

day. For an exercise, they would,

35:20

part of the exercise would be

35:22

to get put into quote unquote

35:24

isolation. and in an ISOFAC, an isolation facility.

35:26

So you'd go in there because you know,

35:28

you weren't allowed to talk to anyone, no

35:30

one was allowed to talk to you, you're

35:33

focused on the mission, you can't be, you

35:35

don't want anyone to talk about what you're

35:37

gonna be doing and all this, so they

35:39

put you in this ISO, that's where you

35:41

guys were. And the only information that

35:44

you're receiving is from the people

35:46

that are controlling the exercise that

35:48

you're gonna do. This is just part

35:50

of the exercise. Why was it

35:52

right? All of a sudden we've

35:54

got a cell in America We're

35:57

uncovering the cell we're sending back

35:59

information we're you know, doing assets,

36:01

we're doing all the things that

36:03

on this checklist of capabilities you're

36:05

supposed to have. And when they

36:07

put the World Trade Center's been

36:09

attacked, it's just, does this accelerate

36:11

timing? You know, you start thinking,

36:13

you know, what does this mean?

36:15

What are these shocks and patterns

36:17

of, you know, not normal? And

36:19

so you start thinking through them

36:21

and request information and you go

36:23

further. So we literally thought that

36:25

that was it. That was it.

36:27

So now you go to the

36:29

Chow Hall, and you guys, like

36:31

I'm sure we all knew, it's

36:33

time to go to war. It's

36:35

time to go to war. So

36:37

we were already packed and ready

36:39

to go. So now what to

36:41

do. The world's in chaos. They

36:43

shut down the airways. presentations need

36:45

to be presented to multiple commands

36:47

to remind them, you know, that

36:49

we're a capable competent force. We

36:51

work for you. So you have

36:53

to do a little bit of

36:55

salesmanship again, because everybody's in chaos.

36:57

You have, you know, obviously, National

36:59

Forces, you know, in theater forces,

37:01

all these other things, you start

37:03

to see that it became, you

37:05

know, who's going to get what?

37:07

Mark and Bob, their team was

37:10

put back together again. Because they

37:12

just came from the area so

37:14

you start to see two parallel

37:16

paths Where the unconventional side was

37:18

being formed They didn't know exactly

37:20

what to do with the direct

37:22

action side So we moved forward

37:24

into Kuwait and then we moved

37:26

into an island off the coast.

37:28

Were you married at the time?

37:30

No, so you were just a

37:32

young single dude not getting a

37:34

shit about anything right this is

37:36

how it ends, right? This is

37:38

how legends are made Let's go

37:40

but to move a company of

37:42

our size with our capabilities that

37:44

requires a lot of airlift, right?

37:46

We don't, we don't move lightly.

37:48

There's no more one team, one

37:50

seat. You know, we have vehicles,

37:52

we've got platforms, we got things.

37:54

So to get us over to

37:56

the playground. It took a lot,

37:58

but luckily we had it done.

38:00

And ahead of time, I actually

38:02

went into Yemen first. So- Prior

38:04

to getting to Kuwait, you went

38:06

to Yemen. Like how many guys

38:08

should go to Yemen? Was it

38:10

a site survey to see what's

38:12

going on there? At the time,

38:14

everybody wanted to help America and

38:16

everybody realized they had an al-Qaeda

38:18

problem. So if everybody came on

38:20

the network, they would get funding

38:22

and fighters. And they would, you

38:24

know, it was the time. And

38:26

so Yemen had reached out. They

38:28

had their own cells and problems

38:30

and they sent a small team

38:32

to work with our counterparts to

38:34

see what we could do to

38:36

provide, you know, aid and capabilities,

38:38

not only on the close family

38:40

protection side, they're always worried about

38:42

themselves, these leaders. And then what

38:44

kind of force, what could they

38:46

get, what kit, what lethal aid

38:48

packages, whatnot. So we went in

38:50

there evaluated them, went all over

38:52

again. This is you and one

38:54

of their guy. Yeah. Who's like,

38:56

is it your team sergeant? What's

38:58

your role in this? What's your

39:00

position? At the time now. No,

39:02

I'm what they call a cell

39:04

leader. So now we're organizing troops,

39:06

so three teams, you know, 12

39:08

for sniper, 24 assaultors, headquarters element.

39:10

And so I'm a cell leader

39:12

with about six seven guys. But

39:14

this was such a piece together

39:16

opportunity. They just needed a couple

39:19

guys just to go evaluate. So

39:21

did you how did you how

39:23

do you how did you get

39:25

to Yemen? Was it civilian aircraft?

39:27

Yeah flew in You know you

39:29

have your linkups meet you on

39:31

one side of the airport and

39:33

you get the shake down You

39:35

say nothing you do nothing the

39:37

embassy, you know comes by and

39:39

picks you up and then you're

39:41

gone How much time do you

39:43

spend in Yemen? Probably week and

39:45

a half two weeks and it's

39:47

still so it's so it's hard

39:49

to look at things in a

39:51

pre-9-11 mentality. Because in post-9-11, and

39:53

as we began to actually fight,

39:55

like we all got so much...

39:57

experience that to think about what

39:59

it was like going into for

40:01

you going into Yemen the beginning

40:03

of the beginning yeah right so

40:05

I mean here I am going

40:07

into gun souks you know looking

40:09

at can you buy off the

40:11

black market or market and equip

40:13

people what a resource or value

40:15

you're looking at at the time

40:17

they were called the rangers or

40:19

we called them the rangers you'd

40:21

see them do a couple things

40:23

you'd watch them go on a

40:25

mission it's just that's the old

40:27

OSS horns of Arabia right they

40:29

don't know what is needed or

40:31

what's going on or whatever big

40:33

people are thinking about big things

40:35

we need you to go just

40:37

evaluate and assess build some packages

40:39

work with the elements in the

40:41

embassy and Hold fast. How long

40:43

did you spend there? A week

40:45

and a half. And then you

40:47

go to Kuwait. Well, we go

40:49

back to Kuwait, then we go

40:51

further into the Gulf, and that's

40:53

when the war had begun. So

40:55

in the beginning of the war,

40:57

it was really an air campaign,

40:59

and they tried to bomb anything

41:01

that they thought was relevant. But

41:03

once again, big air force and

41:05

big targeting planners are looking for

41:07

bridges and tank depots and things

41:09

of conventional forces. After

41:13

about two days of that, they

41:15

don't know what to do now.

41:17

And so, you know, as we

41:19

start hearing the chatter come in,

41:21

the unconventional side, you know, it

41:23

was proposed that, hey, we used

41:25

to work with the Mujahideen, let's

41:27

find some resistance fighters. A couple

41:29

had reached out because they had

41:31

saw some congressional delegations and other

41:33

people when they traveled abroad, so

41:35

they started using literally an old

41:37

business card. and called an individual,

41:39

an individual called a buddy in

41:41

a Pentagon, the Pentagon called him

41:43

back the next day, he called

41:45

him back and said, I'll take

41:47

fighters. And that's how the unconventional

41:49

side started. And then where, when

41:51

did you, what were you hearing

41:53

you were gonna do? Like how

41:55

did that, how did the planning

41:57

and preparation for you going into

41:59

after? Afghanistan, how long did that

42:01

take and what it looked like?

42:03

It started in, so October 19th,

42:06

the first two SF teams

42:08

went in, then you had

42:10

a national force which is

42:12

now disclosed, went in to

42:14

Omar's compound. You had the

42:16

Rangers that jumped into South

42:18

Kandahar, so you started thinking

42:20

strategically, how are we going

42:22

to move forward and position

42:24

forces because things were landlocked?

42:26

They didn't really have a

42:28

relationship in Pakistan to maneuver.

42:30

Uzbekistan was still on the

42:32

edges, right? Still remnants and

42:34

influence of Soviet. So they realized

42:36

they needed some, you know, on the

42:39

edges airfield capabilities. So that's

42:41

what you saw go for. So

42:43

initially, the two teams, one

42:45

was maneuvering towards Kandahar, the

42:47

other, Mazrasharif, and the north

42:49

to capture that airfield, which

42:51

was a heavy lift capable

42:53

airfield. And then we started

42:55

planning for central Afghanistan, you

42:58

know, airfield seizure, hold, resist,

43:00

you know, things out. So

43:02

it was kind of in

43:04

a way like you guys

43:06

were going to be utilized for

43:08

what you had trained to

43:10

do. Yeah, which is kind

43:12

of nice. Yeah. So what started

43:14

happening, we started seeing through messaging

43:17

and human intelligence that all of

43:19

these unconventional battles. you now have

43:21

chaos within the Taliban and their

43:23

Al-Qaeda brothers, they're over-communicating. So now

43:25

you have capabilities that would hear

43:27

this chatter and they would start

43:29

meeting up behind the scenes trying

43:32

to figure out how to contain,

43:34

resist, they didn't know what's going

43:36

on, so now you start to

43:38

figure out that they're meeting in

43:40

certain areas. So that becomes the

43:42

picture perfect. We need more surgical

43:45

and a capability that can strike.

43:47

precision behind the lines versus unconventional

43:49

Mad Max front of the lines

43:51

things and that's what got us

43:54

into the game. Yeah because that's

43:56

really just so everyone understands so

43:58

that's like absolutely. the capability

44:00

that your unit was. A

44:03

hundred percent. Direct action. Oh,

44:05

we are gonna know the locations

44:07

of bad guys through various intelligence

44:09

sources. And when we know where

44:12

they are, we need to send

44:14

people to go get them. We

44:16

followed the script in the script.

44:18

You know, usually you'll try to

44:20

put eyes on, whether it's electronic

44:22

or human eyes. You get pattern

44:25

of life. You communicate. You determine

44:27

whether that is false. right by

44:29

pattern of activity could just been

44:31

a rival saying I don't like

44:33

this person or none of the

44:36

indicators at the time would would

44:38

warrant a package or somebody coming

44:40

in then there's a trigger event

44:42

you go you hit all around

44:44

it because you can't at the

44:46

time we weren't very good at

44:48

saying that's the compound because there's

44:51

40 compounds so you have to

44:53

isolate All of it. And then

44:55

smart men make smart decisions. I

44:57

could run into an objective and

44:59

know this isn't it. Or you

45:01

can run in and it's the

45:04

harness nest. And so you use

45:06

all your dark arts to speed finest

45:08

of action. I forgot to ask you

45:10

this. Did you have a language? I did.

45:12

Back in the day on, does SF still

45:14

go to language that's still part

45:17

of the pipeline? Persian Farsi, which

45:19

is Iranian. And then never spoke

45:21

it because I was always in

45:23

the Middle East for Arabic, modern

45:26

standards. So I took modern standard

45:28

classes then in Africa, Swahili. So

45:30

if you learn 2030 words, how

45:32

to count the 10, do you

45:34

speak English? Does your friend speak

45:37

English? Can you call somebody who

45:39

speaks English? You can get around.

45:41

And you always will find that

45:43

English is the business language. There's

45:46

always somebody. So you just learned

45:48

to be conversationally and pleasant

45:50

and whatnot. You never really

45:52

technical. They threw a language

45:55

program into the pipeline for

45:57

seals for a little while.

45:59

with such a hands up. You know

46:02

what I mean? Stop. It's just like

46:04

we're so bad. I think it's part

46:06

of, you know, the culture of green

46:08

rays when you know that's the, that's

46:10

what you guys do. It's like we

46:12

go and work with the indigenous forces,

46:14

but it's a level of pride that

46:16

you can speak a language and speak

46:18

it well and all that seals are

46:20

just like, you know, I don't want

46:22

to learn another talk like that. Yeah.

46:25

Just distracting me from my other tests.

46:27

I was like that too. But, but.

46:29

There's a difference between speaking a language

46:32

and growing up in the culture and

46:34

understanding the nuances of three cups of

46:36

tea, you know, the book about sit

46:39

down, get to know each other, talk

46:41

about your family, where's the weather, you

46:43

beat around the bush. And it was

46:45

the same way when you work with

46:48

indigenous forces. I mean,

46:50

they're humans, they're guerrillas,

46:52

they're part-timeish, you know.

46:54

They're a little slow on

46:57

wanting to go charge down

46:59

the hill and take a

47:01

battle and you have to,

47:03

you know, it's like talking

47:05

to your cousins, like starting

47:07

a cousin army, right? So

47:09

as you guys are recognizing

47:11

that, okay, they've got targets,

47:13

we're gonna go, I mean, how

47:15

freaking pumped are you guys

47:18

at this point? Now, our

47:20

first mission was like everything

47:22

you trained to be, right?

47:24

You get on the helicopter,

47:27

you get off the helicopter,

47:29

you run to the objective,

47:31

you explicitly breach outer perimeter,

47:33

inner perimeter, you start encountering

47:35

people, you move through the

47:38

objective, you start doing SEC,

47:40

you could, it could have been

47:42

training, exercise, or how we

47:44

operated, now with two ways. And

47:46

that fire. So this is, so you

47:48

get, you get to Afghanistan, and how

47:51

do you guys get there? Like C.

47:54

Kandahar was starting to fall, they

47:57

just took an over the airfield,

47:59

they wanted a... precision team

48:01

because displacement of

48:03

leadership and they wanted to find

48:06

them right so we loaded up

48:08

that day I remember they called

48:10

in a 130 that was doing

48:13

a milk run diverted him from

48:15

going to Qatar he landed

48:17

he had two nurses in

48:19

the back we backed in our trucks

48:21

our gun trucks loaded for

48:24

bear and we said here's

48:26

the destination. And the nurses are

48:28

like, what are we supposed to do?

48:30

I'm saying, well, you could stay or

48:33

you can get off. But we commandeer

48:35

to 130 and that was it. Yeah,

48:37

you had to just be so freaking

48:39

fired up. It was, so same thing,

48:41

you land, it's still rolling, the tailgates

48:43

down, you roll the trucks off, and

48:45

you go for it. Then you get there,

48:48

and did you already have the. like

48:50

your first target package you know what

48:52

you're gonna hit so you get on

48:54

the ground you have a little bit

48:56

of time to establish yeah can a

48:58

hard airfield light so you didn't have

49:00

any kind of anything you were just

49:02

a mobile assault force so which is

49:04

kind of awesome it it it well how

49:07

many computers did you have with you enough

49:09

at the time you had those little

49:11

panasonic tough books that was it And

49:13

enough to write a something up and

49:16

put it in to digitize it and

49:18

send it off. Nowadays, Echo Charles. That

49:20

damn assault force is showing up with

49:22

500 people with power points, printers, the

49:25

whole nine yards, lamination machines. You're in

49:27

a different world when you see the

49:29

printers come out. You're like, there it

49:31

is. Change, but it, so it was

49:34

on the fly. You start doing what

49:36

you do. You build train models out

49:38

of cardboard boxes for ammunition

49:40

and styrophone and you. kick

49:42

open a crate and I can

49:44

show you photos of just areas

49:46

of of where they start hearing

49:48

shatter so as they develop it

49:51

more you start planning you know

49:53

who goes left who goes right

49:55

start coordinating your aviation assets and

49:57

then one night it's you put

49:59

in the the SOs and you

50:01

see what they they see. And

50:03

you show up there and you

50:05

are part of this task force

50:07

K-bar and task force K-bar was

50:09

actually being run by a seal.

50:11

A captain, I think it was

50:14

a captain at the time, Captain

50:16

Harwood. And interestingly, the whole the

50:18

whole thing was also being run

50:20

by a seal by a guy

50:22

named Bert Callan, who was an

50:24

admiral at the time. And it's

50:26

interesting because Calland was my second

50:28

CEO at Seal Team One and

50:30

Harwood was one of my common

50:32

doors along the way. So here

50:35

it was, what are the chances

50:37

that both those guys are in

50:39

the senior positions for the kickoff

50:41

of this war? Because there's not

50:43

a lot of SEALs compared to

50:45

SF for sure. I think it

50:47

was a sign of the times

50:49

that came about from the relationships

50:51

in Somalia. So if you look

50:53

at, you know, Blackhawk down, for

50:56

example, but then how many seals

50:58

that eventually went on to leadership

51:00

with Olson, right? The dynamics of

51:02

this joint operation changed it. And

51:04

culturally, you could say one thing,

51:06

operational, how do you report up,

51:08

how do you get approval? You're

51:10

always trying to win the yes.

51:12

So all you want to do

51:15

is present factual, demonstrate that you're

51:17

capable and confident, and earn trust

51:19

within the leadership that they give

51:21

you the go. Right, and I

51:23

think that became the first thing.

51:25

We had our very first mission.

51:27

It was, we were starting to

51:29

get in other elements. They didn't

51:31

know what to do with the

51:33

Dutch, the Germans, the New Zealanders,

51:36

the Australians that were coming in,

51:38

right? So all of a sudden

51:40

you'd put together a mission. They're

51:42

like, no, no, no, not sure.

51:44

Let's do the New Zealanders today.

51:46

And it's like, okay, let's plan.

51:48

Obviously, they got lots of mountains.

51:50

They know about heightsites and okay.

51:52

So we started doing what I

51:54

call old-fashioned Greenberry confidence targets around

51:57

the area of Canada. hand a

51:59

hard, don't know exactly this thing,

52:01

we've got some Intel, let's put

52:03

some eyes on, let's do pattern

52:05

life. So you're practicing, rehearsing like

52:07

a kindergarten band, right, to make

52:09

sweet music and then people are

52:11

getting more trusting of each other.

52:13

And then finally, I think the

52:16

first couple of minutes. So that's

52:18

what you guys were doing, do

52:20

you guys were going out and

52:22

doing little wreckies? Yeah. Now are

52:24

these rural wreckies or urban wreckies?

52:26

Rural. Rural. So you're going up

52:28

in a mountain somewhere? In the

52:30

mountains or outside the edges of

52:32

Kandahar, you know, once again, the

52:34

militias had already taken over inside

52:37

of Kandahar and, you know, there's

52:39

a whole other story of the

52:41

hospital where some al-Qaeda were hold-up.

52:43

So there's pockets. You don't know

52:45

where people have fled. So now

52:47

there's total unorganized chaos on leadership.

52:49

And where are they reconsolidating is

52:51

what you want to find. So

52:53

you don't want to find masses

52:55

of two, three hundred. They didn't

52:58

exist anymore. They were four commanders,

53:00

you know, three people seeing each

53:02

other, couriers, you know, dispassing information,

53:04

trying to find out, you know,

53:06

cashes, things like that. So the

53:08

first couple missions were, you know,

53:10

more confidence. They weren't really, okay,

53:12

there's 20 bad guys and these

53:14

are the bad guys and they're

53:16

going to resist you. You're going

53:19

to go in guns of blazing.

53:21

It was, we don't know. We

53:23

don't have the assets, we're not

53:25

mature back then, like we have

53:27

today, we have 360 of, you

53:29

know, capabilities, then it was like,

53:31

hunches. I was sitting here thinking

53:33

about the maturity level of the

53:35

US military at the time, and

53:38

it was like not super mature,

53:40

because it just when you're doing

53:42

it for real, there's so many

53:44

things that come into play that

53:46

you're just not... There's not there

53:48

in every training exercise in the

53:50

world that just doesn't bring the

53:52

same element to it. There's something

53:54

that you can't train for. No,

53:56

because it's real. Right? Exactly. And

53:59

I could sit here and tell

54:01

you the first times of things,

54:03

first times you shoot at a

54:05

vehicle and the tires don't explode.

54:07

You know what I mean? It's

54:09

like, God damn Hollywood. But come

54:11

on now. You know, and the

54:13

first time you breach into things,

54:15

you get a misbreach, it doesn't

54:17

open. You get a misbreach, it

54:20

doesn't open. You get a misbreach,

54:22

it doesn't open. You get a

54:24

misbreach, it doesn't. First time I

54:26

was shot out, I was in

54:28

a Humve. Sparks coming off like

54:30

who's flicking their cigarettes out of

54:32

that vehicle like what is wrong?

54:34

Why is someone in my platoon

54:36

smoking? No one smokes. Why is

54:39

someone smoking all of a sudden?

54:41

Oh sure enough they're getting shot

54:43

at cool got it. Well, you

54:45

know the first time you shoot

54:47

a rocket you don't have your

54:49

hearing in you know it dizzy

54:51

stinks combat becomes you know increasing

54:53

first time you shoot at somebody

54:55

but you got suppressors you know

54:57

what I mean you're like It's

55:00

there all things we all collectively

55:02

needed to learn. You know, now

55:04

20 years later, I wonder if

55:06

the new elements coming up have

55:08

received those lessons that we put

55:10

those things in place. So, you

55:12

know, after I got back from

55:14

that deployment, I also had the

55:16

Special Forces Advanced Urban Combat Committee.

55:18

And we tried to program these

55:21

things in because... We had learned

55:23

a lifetime of lessons in one

55:25

deployment, but we had special forces

55:27

guys redeploying in urban environments now,

55:29

especially Iraq, that they didn't have

55:31

the depth we had, and we

55:33

couldn't solve, we couldn't race to

55:35

everybody else's urban problem. Yeah, yeah.

55:37

So going back to this, you

55:40

guys do some reckeys, you guys

55:42

are out there, you're getting your

55:44

feet wet, you're developing a little

55:46

rapid maturity of like, okay, I

55:48

went outside the wire, we maintained

55:50

communications, we didn't have any accidental

55:52

discharge. Yes, Ranger Sergeant, we passed

55:54

this stage, we all came back

55:56

with, you know, men, mission and

55:58

material. complete and then we did

56:01

our first this is it and

56:03

it was about a five compound

56:05

spread and we had some partner

56:07

forces with this that were going

56:09

to be the outer cord on

56:11

and we realized that we couldn't

56:13

use typically you have one 60th

56:15

which is you know very well

56:17

known very precise They've played this

56:19

game a while because of the

56:22

distance we had to take Air

56:24

Force 53's and they're not known

56:26

as combat landing capable. So we're

56:28

flying, we're flying, it's about four

56:30

hours at altitude and weather, you

56:32

know, you're trying not to freeze,

56:34

you're getting fueled and you land

56:36

and it takes off and you

56:38

do not know where on God's

56:40

green earth you exist. And it's

56:43

like landing on the moon. And

56:45

you realize that your night vision

56:47

only sees so far. And then

56:49

what do you do, pull out

56:51

your compass? So we turn on

56:53

one GPS, can find itself, you

56:55

say, got to move. It's like

56:57

the Ranger sergeant in your ear.

56:59

You know what I mean? What's

57:02

you going to do private? What's

57:04

you going to do? So we

57:06

start moving up to high ground

57:08

and somebody goes over the radio

57:10

and says, what about landmines. So

57:13

do you crouch on the ground and look

57:15

for the three little sticks that you see

57:17

in the movie? You don't know what to

57:20

do Then we start moving out once again

57:22

to a little high ground and then a

57:24

helicopter flies over us We're like okay. Let's

57:26

follow the path of the helicopter and then

57:29

somebody says on the microphone What if they're

57:31

taking off and leaving are we running? It

57:33

just starts happening. You're like now you're in

57:35

total blackout chaos. You just don't know what

57:37

to do this is your first mission This

57:40

is the first one big big yeah this

57:42

is it is how it ends mission so

57:44

how far away from the target were you

57:46

we were they put us 300 meters off

57:49

well that's actually not bad right but there

57:51

was a rise a hill in between us

57:53

so we couldn't see the compound because the

57:55

limitations and as soon as we got to

57:57

the top you can look down by the

58:00

way echo Charles saying 300 meters isn't that

58:02

bad because I've gotten out of helicopters and

58:04

been like oh damn it it's the it's

58:06

it's two clicks away yeah with a ridge

58:09

line and they landed you know for when

58:11

you're in a helicopter by the way

58:13

Like a thousand yards is like

58:15

a thousand meters is is is

58:17

30 20 seconds. It's like, oh,

58:19

you want to lay? Yeah, we're

58:21

in the spot. Yeah, this week.

58:23

We there. Yeah, we're there. Okay,

58:25

boom they set you down. You

58:27

just you just traveled, you know,

58:30

two kilometers, which is going to

58:32

take you six hours or four

58:34

hours to cover in the ground,

58:36

which you could have covered in

58:38

30 seconds out of a helicopter.

58:40

And there's no breechers there. you

58:42

know, for the heavy outside. So I

58:44

take off running, you know what I

58:46

mean? I'm running at him, but then

58:49

I'm trying not to yell, you know,

58:51

it's me, it's me, I'm coming behind

58:53

you, please look, you know, don't turn

58:55

around and smack me. And I run

58:57

past him and I see Tony and

58:59

Jay trying to put some small charges

59:01

up against this big massive outdoor.

59:03

So Afghanistan was very compound where

59:06

you had an outer 20-foot wall,

59:08

you know, three feet thick, you

59:10

know, three feet thick, like dungeon

59:13

medieval times and it took a

59:15

lot to penetrate it effectively. And

59:17

I smacked their hands, I put

59:19

on my charge and I said

59:21

run. Because I did the short

59:23

fuse one. Where you know what I

59:25

mean? It's not the, we've got to plan

59:28

this. It's the big one and the

59:30

short fuse one. There are two things

59:32

that go together. People run. Whites of their

59:34

eyes glowing green and I said, run.

59:36

You pull it and as soon as

59:38

it goes off, you run in. There was

59:40

a, they had a log on the

59:42

back of the doors. the two outer

59:44

doors and I see it flipping through the

59:47

sky. You know what I mean? And

59:49

then you're like, and you're crying because

59:51

this is how it ends, right? This

59:53

is everything you had hoped for.

59:55

And you run into the compound

59:57

and you begin, you know, your

59:59

process. of just making your breach.

1:00:01

And I came up to the

1:00:03

window, I raked and braked and

1:00:05

threw in a flash bang and

1:00:07

it hit something and dropped right

1:00:09

into the threshold there and exploded.

1:00:12

And then the salt element

1:00:14

runs past me and goes to the

1:00:16

first door blows in and it was

1:00:18

a donkey inside the building and a

1:00:20

small. Area so there's you know tend to

1:00:22

salt you but you took that donkey by

1:00:25

surprise Tell he started kicking How do you

1:00:27

put that on the purple heart? Right? I

1:00:29

had this I had to say one of

1:00:31

some we come on this building where in

1:00:33

Iraq we come with this building and you

1:00:35

know we had this big plan and you

1:00:37

know I'm the assault force commander so I'm

1:00:39

probably the number two guy to get to

1:00:41

the door I kind of step back let

1:00:44

the boys go in And you know, all

1:00:46

of a sudden I hear like, you know,

1:00:48

get in there, it's a stable. It's like

1:00:50

they had been using this building as

1:00:52

a stable, and there's a bunch

1:00:54

of freaking donkeys in there, and

1:00:56

the target was approximately 12 feet

1:00:59

to my right, the actual target

1:01:01

building. So we did a little

1:01:03

transition, but yeah, those animals be

1:01:05

funny sometimes. It gets whirder. Okay,

1:01:08

this is just getting warmed up.

1:01:10

More happens. So Tony, who was

1:01:12

my team sergeant. Route of a

1:01:14

man was the all-arming weightlifter

1:01:16

in Europe, hands as thick as

1:01:19

sausages. Smart like tractor. Brilliant guy.

1:01:21

We finally go around because it

1:01:23

was a failed breach. I like

1:01:25

him already. Go around the other

1:01:27

side. We breach in. It was

1:01:29

a long hallway and then you

1:01:31

go to the first door and

1:01:34

it had a blanket over it.

1:01:36

So once again, what training exercise? is

1:01:38

that to even conceive it. So you

1:01:40

push it aside, you rush in, and

1:01:42

it's just nothing but it's squishy, and

1:01:44

there's no furniture, and you're just like

1:01:46

bouncing in a bouncy house. Like, what

1:01:48

the heck is this? And they had

1:01:50

stack carpets up, and that's how they

1:01:52

had beds. And there was no person in

1:01:54

there, but all of a sudden we started

1:01:57

seeing movement in the corner. We're like, oh,

1:01:59

crap. And now. You're under nods, your

1:02:01

visions are differently, depths are differently,

1:02:03

and we go to draw back

1:02:05

and we see these little hands

1:02:08

pull this carpet, which is a

1:02:10

blanket up, and she sits up in

1:02:12

this little girl. And she starts screaming

1:02:14

and crying. You're like, you ever watch

1:02:17

cops? You know what I mean?

1:02:19

And you're like, oh, crap, dad's

1:02:21

probably in the other room. You

1:02:23

know, what do you do now?

1:02:25

There's no scenario where you now

1:02:27

have civilians. And, uh... Tony starts

1:02:29

moving into another corner and they

1:02:31

had something stacked and he thinks

1:02:33

it's the body. So he started

1:02:35

kicking and, you know, beating up

1:02:37

grain sacks. But then you go and

1:02:39

you say, do you leave the person there

1:02:41

or do you keep going through? And

1:02:43

so when we get out to

1:02:45

the middle, other assaultors that come in,

1:02:48

but then the buildings, you know, has

1:02:50

a fire going on. What are you going

1:02:52

to do? Right, so I ended up

1:02:54

with this little girl on my hip

1:02:57

outside, you know, directing the cell during

1:02:59

combat. You know, they're finishing off in

1:03:01

the corner. Now you're an SEC, part

1:03:03

of the building's on fire. All of

1:03:06

a sudden you recall that there's a

1:03:08

bank of computers and the right cell

1:03:10

phones, you know, now let's get back

1:03:13

into a burning building. This is why

1:03:15

we're here. Let's start picking our way

1:03:17

through that, right? Then you start your

1:03:20

collection points and you find Mama had

1:03:22

abandoned everything, so you bring

1:03:24

the kid over to Mama. It's

1:03:26

all these things become the truth

1:03:29

that we experienced from then on.

1:03:31

And you know, from before that,

1:03:33

it was always, you know, let's

1:03:35

train as you fight. No, no, that's

1:03:38

not how you're gonna fight. And so

1:03:40

we had to adapt very quickly. Yes,

1:03:42

some of those things. you know eventually

1:03:45

because i ended up running the training

1:03:47

out here for the west coast

1:03:49

seals and we had civilian actors we'd

1:03:51

hire we had women Arabic-speaking women middle-aged

1:03:54

women that would you know be yelling

1:03:56

and screaming then we got to a

1:03:58

point where we would just want to

1:04:01

do things that the guys would not

1:04:03

expect. So I'd, you know, I'd tell

1:04:05

my conduit like, hey, you know, let's

1:04:08

get give them something to think about.

1:04:10

I remember I'm standing outside a hallway

1:04:12

and I see where is a target

1:04:15

out in the desert and I see

1:04:17

like the assault train get to a

1:04:19

room and they like open the door

1:04:22

and like there's a couple stutter steps,

1:04:24

which you don't see a lot of

1:04:26

stutter steps. You know, at this point.

1:04:29

I'm like, what did my guys put

1:04:31

in there? So I walk up and I...

1:04:33

My guys had two guys in there dressed

1:04:35

up like clowns and they were having a

1:04:37

pie eating contest. So that's what these guys

1:04:40

walked in on. And the thing is, as

1:04:42

funny as that story is, and as

1:04:44

stupid as it is, just like you just

1:04:46

said, what do you do? Yeah. Is, if someone's

1:04:49

sitting there with a clown outfit on and

1:04:51

they have a pie in their hand,

1:04:53

what do you do with that person?

1:04:55

How do you handle that the matter

1:04:57

is? There's going to be things in

1:04:59

combat that might as well be a clown

1:05:01

to clown sitting even eating a because

1:05:03

it shocks your brain in the same

1:05:05

way. You couldn't have conceived of this

1:05:07

idea and you're going to have to

1:05:10

do something about it. And like I

1:05:12

said, we're talking about the maturity of

1:05:14

us as war fighters. You went into

1:05:16

a room. There's a little girl in

1:05:18

there and you're like, wait, how is

1:05:20

this even happening? It shocked your brain

1:05:22

because and it's so obvious. What? There's

1:05:24

children in Afghanistan. I know it's like,

1:05:27

of course there's going to be children

1:05:29

in these buildings. We didn't think of

1:05:31

those things as obvious as they are.

1:05:33

And so I thought that was really

1:05:36

important. And that's why I think, you

1:05:38

know, the way that we eventually adjusted

1:05:40

our training was, it was, and I

1:05:42

was having a conversation with some seals

1:05:45

the other day, is the training might

1:05:47

not be exactly what you're going to

1:05:49

see in theater, but it has to be

1:05:51

training that provokes you to have to think.

1:05:53

and make decisions. And if you can make

1:05:55

a decision in this urban environment and you

1:05:57

can make a decision in this jungle environment.

1:06:00

and you can make a decision in

1:06:02

this CQC environment, well then when you

1:06:04

get in this environment you haven't quite

1:06:06

been in, you still can go through

1:06:08

the same protocols to make a decision

1:06:10

at that time. So it's a lot

1:06:12

of lessons that we learned. Well,

1:06:14

one thing I took away is on

1:06:17

an objective, if you're the assault leader

1:06:19

or the troops aren't major or... or

1:06:21

whatever senior level leadership is resisting the

1:06:23

temptation to be the leader in the

1:06:26

door because you need to be the

1:06:28

logic leader what's going on on smelling

1:06:30

things this is going too easy uh

1:06:33

oh let's start coordinating let's move people

1:06:35

to the left and right because you

1:06:37

know everybody will get sucked in to

1:06:40

the noise and if you're not a

1:06:42

mature logic leader sitting back you

1:06:44

know letting and hearing and smelling and

1:06:46

I call it you know the X-ring and

1:06:48

the 10 ring and the 8 ring and

1:06:51

9 ring it takes a lot of leadership

1:06:53

and experience to you know look at those

1:06:55

as well. Yeah and even that story I

1:06:57

just told about we're hitting that target and

1:07:00

ended up being a stable. Even when I

1:07:02

told that story I was like I

1:07:04

was probably the number two or three guy

1:07:06

get to the door and you can't sometimes

1:07:08

you just end up there but but just

1:07:10

taking a step back and my guys knew

1:07:12

if they saw me if they saw me

1:07:14

And I was doing something that it

1:07:16

was going to engage me in

1:07:18

a minor tactical scenario, whether it's

1:07:21

prisoner handling or doing room entries.

1:07:23

Look, you got to do room

1:07:25

entries? Of course. But we're approaching

1:07:27

the target. It's really easy for me

1:07:29

to take a step back. Guys fill in

1:07:31

that spot. And that way, I'm not the

1:07:33

number one, two, three, four, five guy. Yeah.

1:07:36

And now, by the time, oh, they're

1:07:38

shooting inside, or there's not shooting inside,

1:07:40

or there's donkeys. And I can say,

1:07:42

okay, if there's donkeys, this building, it's

1:07:45

probably not the building, we're supposed to

1:07:47

be hitting, and there's a building right

1:07:49

next to us that looks almost the

1:07:52

same, let's hit that one. And I can

1:07:54

make that call. Whereas if I'm in there in a,

1:07:56

in a, in a, in a, in a donkey fight,

1:07:58

I'm not making any decisions. That's

1:08:00

that's the first big mission. How did

1:08:02

it how did it conclude? Do you

1:08:04

roll up a bunch of computers and

1:08:06

thyroid phones? A bunch of things and

1:08:08

it turned into a special forces selection

1:08:10

event because one of the events you

1:08:12

have to carry these crates right full

1:08:14

of you know ammo and stuff and

1:08:16

your hands are bleeding and so now

1:08:18

you're your your post mission you're consolidating.

1:08:20

You only have one hour to be

1:08:22

there right because of the distance and

1:08:25

everything and if you didn't make the

1:08:27

helicopter in one hour is 24 hours

1:08:29

later reset. So you're like, okay, now

1:08:31

you're the time master, right? And

1:08:33

the guy's calling out time. We

1:08:35

moved to our rendezvous location. You

1:08:37

don't know who else has encountered

1:08:39

or what's going on. And the

1:08:41

first helicopter that comes in crashes

1:08:43

his front landing gear takes off.

1:08:45

So now you're down one. Okay,

1:08:47

the cycle in the second one.

1:08:49

Who's a priority? Let's put, you

1:08:52

know, some people on here and

1:08:54

some objects. It comes. The third

1:08:56

helicopter quit in the air.

1:08:58

Refusing land. So now

1:09:00

you're down to three helicopters.

1:09:02

So all these scenarios

1:09:04

were true. And then likely

1:09:07

we had one Marine 53

1:09:09

with triple engines that could

1:09:11

go, you know, beyond tort.

1:09:13

They stuffed the rest of

1:09:15

the salt force in there

1:09:17

and we took off and

1:09:19

went home and unwound. How

1:09:21

was the op-tempo after that one?

1:09:24

Every third night. And so

1:09:26

you guys got into a

1:09:28

good groove. Yeah, every third

1:09:30

night some One objective was

1:09:32

the hornet's nest right and

1:09:34

it was very complex. It

1:09:36

was multiple buildings some went

1:09:39

in you know behind the

1:09:41

mountain because the helicopter washed

1:09:43

and walked in and staged We

1:09:45

took in vehicles because it was

1:09:47

in the middle of town and

1:09:49

that objective we started, you

1:09:52

know Seeing there were people on

1:09:54

it So you're starting to hear

1:09:56

chatter that you've got active

1:09:58

and then there's question

1:10:00

we just bomb it and soup

1:10:03

it up or do we keep

1:10:05

going so they said keep going

1:10:07

and we you know moved into

1:10:09

the compound and instantly somebody came

1:10:12

running out and you grab a

1:10:14

hold of them and so it

1:10:16

begins and there was maybe 24

1:10:18

assaulters took out 22 guys and

1:10:21

was over in a minute and a

1:10:23

half. What were the 22 guys doing?

1:10:25

It was they it was a

1:10:27

schoolhouse and they had thought that

1:10:30

we wouldn't take it down. So

1:10:32

people had learned things we would

1:10:34

or wouldn't do based on how

1:10:36

we articulate ourselves at times. They

1:10:39

had taken vehicles, so there were

1:10:41

17 SUVs, a couple anti-aircraft guns,

1:10:43

so everything said that that's a

1:10:46

meeting place. And when you go

1:10:48

running into the school, it was

1:10:50

an open compound. We came into

1:10:53

the back and they were already

1:10:55

outside talking to each other. and

1:10:57

so it was so you caught

1:11:00

off guard yeah instantly it was

1:11:02

on and so I went down

1:11:04

got pinned down you know with

1:11:06

some guys that were firing

1:11:08

outside the windows because it's

1:11:10

a compound and Tony and

1:11:13

another guy went in the

1:11:15

very first room and the number

1:11:17

two guys he's going to go in

1:11:19

somebody came out the next room beside

1:11:21

him so he got caught right then

1:11:23

in Arizona ended up in the first

1:11:26

room by himself and that's where he

1:11:28

did hand to hand four guys killed

1:11:30

him all basically broke his collarbone

1:11:32

you know so now the firefights

1:11:34

on there's probably about seven rooms

1:11:37

all together when he did hand to

1:11:39

hand what was his weapons like so

1:11:41

if you run into a room and

1:11:43

somebody's beside you and you're coming this

1:11:45

way they just grab on you. They got hold

1:11:47

of this guy. Yes. So he shot one.

1:11:49

Because the number two man didn't come in

1:11:52

because the number two man was previously occupied.

1:11:54

Next guy came out of the next room.

1:11:56

I mean it was just absolutely ended up

1:11:58

with a one man room. and somebody literally

1:12:00

grabbed his barrel, which we do that

1:12:03

shit to people all the time in

1:12:05

training, like grab their barrel. So now

1:12:07

you're under not, right? You're alone, firefights

1:12:09

are happening, you know, simultaneously, multiple, everything

1:12:11

right then and there. And so I

1:12:13

go into the next room, I remember

1:12:16

I didn't have time to put a

1:12:18

charge on, so I kicked, it kind

1:12:20

of came open, I threw a flashbang,

1:12:22

but as I'm, flashbangs out of my

1:12:24

hand, I look down, I see a guy

1:12:26

laying on the ground with his gun with

1:12:29

his gun up at me. So I immediately

1:12:31

step on his barrel. And then you

1:12:33

start going into the room and

1:12:35

there's about seven guys in there and

1:12:37

they're all trying to shoot out the

1:12:40

window or out the back. And so

1:12:42

you surprised him to the point that you

1:12:44

got to shoot these guys in the

1:12:46

back that they were shooting out the

1:12:48

window. Yeah, I mean, it was full

1:12:50

on. Yeah, it's nice. By the time

1:12:53

we came into the center of the

1:12:55

compound and we started our first engagement,

1:12:57

I mean, we're talking. seven or

1:12:59

eight meters. Now, you know, when

1:13:01

you start shooting AK, it lifts

1:13:03

up, right? So instantly

1:13:05

everybody's squatting now. They're

1:13:07

in a duckwalk because,

1:13:10

you know, the guys are getting

1:13:12

shot at and you literally go

1:13:14

into this room and they're all

1:13:17

trying to face the windows. So

1:13:19

you're actually in the center

1:13:21

of the room. Yeah, it's awesome.

1:13:23

Engaging that way. So once again,

1:13:26

how do you train to that? Then

1:13:28

the next room, the one guy we

1:13:30

took off, he had his hands up.

1:13:32

And they say they proceeded, the gun

1:13:34

trucks came around, there was guys fighting

1:13:37

on the outside now, so now we

1:13:39

had some outside contact, we had to

1:13:41

clear through, the 130 started spotting sprinters,

1:13:44

which later on you'd learn that the

1:13:46

actual leader, they disengaged quickly and make

1:13:48

a run for it. So. Did you

1:13:50

guys have any wounded? Not on

1:13:52

that compound, the one up north,

1:13:55

got somebody shot somebody shot. and

1:13:59

that was Like what number mission

1:14:01

was that in the or how

1:14:03

long three? Oh, that was number

1:14:05

three. Yeah So that was a that

1:14:07

was an ask quick escalation yes

1:14:09

into into the so you know

1:14:11

when you hit right that's it

1:14:14

other ones we would hit and

1:14:16

the SOs were There for 24 hours

1:14:18

a lot of chatter it was it

1:14:20

was a crossing station we're waiting

1:14:22

for you know somebody particular so

1:14:24

you had to do a change

1:14:26

out of positions One of the

1:14:29

guys got a kidney stone. So

1:14:31

imagine the medic trying to bring

1:14:33

him in and out. Because he's

1:14:35

a common guy. I mean, just

1:14:37

things freak snowstorm. They send back

1:14:40

a picture. They're covered, you know,

1:14:42

a foot of snow on him.

1:14:44

They're like suckers, right? I don't

1:14:46

want to be in this. No

1:14:48

way. So that was Afghanistan. And

1:14:50

tell it, it, big army came in

1:14:53

and said, turn the war back

1:14:55

on. We need somebody to shoot

1:14:57

somebody to shoot at. and Anaconda

1:15:00

happened. And also, while

1:15:02

this is happening, you had

1:15:04

the guys from 525, the

1:15:06

horse soldiers, is that

1:15:08

595, the horse soldiers, those

1:15:11

are your buddies, and they're

1:15:13

running the whole, what is

1:15:15

it, horse soldiers book, 12

1:15:17

strong book, well, became 12

1:15:20

strong book, became the 12

1:15:22

strong book, became the 12

1:15:24

strong movie, And now there's

1:15:26

an actual real book, not

1:15:28

real book, but there's a

1:15:31

book that was actually written

1:15:33

by Mark and Bob who

1:15:35

have decided that if someone's

1:15:38

going to tell their story, it

1:15:40

should be the people that didn't

1:15:42

tell the story. So the first

1:15:44

foray, once again, it kind

1:15:46

of wasn't in our culture to

1:15:48

talk and, you know, think about. storytelling

1:15:51

because we were still in Iraq war

1:15:54

and everything. The first one that came

1:15:56

in actually while we were all still

1:15:58

there was Robin Moore. And he

1:16:00

had wrote the book, The Green

1:16:02

Berets, The French Connection. So he's

1:16:04

kind of like the Patriot writer

1:16:06

of Greenberry story. So he heard

1:16:08

this and he came in, but

1:16:10

he was very, very old. And

1:16:12

he had, he was co-opted by

1:16:14

somebody that kind of led him

1:16:16

astray. And so his book he produced

1:16:19

was half washed, half made up,

1:16:21

half everything, because nobody wanted to

1:16:23

talk or say anything. And then

1:16:25

when they finally, somebody was

1:16:27

approaching to command. I'll just use

1:16:30

his name, D, you know, started

1:16:32

to get about a day's worth

1:16:34

of the story. And it was

1:16:36

all fake names. And then it

1:16:39

was like, I don't know if

1:16:41

we want to talk anymore. And

1:16:43

they left. So that book is

1:16:45

small percent of one position of

1:16:48

the story. Nobody's went in and

1:16:50

nobody's gone back and took all

1:16:52

the unconventional teams in the DA

1:16:54

team and tried to place it

1:16:56

at one time. So there's never been

1:16:58

a totality of stories because none of

1:17:00

the guys knew what other guys did.

1:17:03

So once you get back to the

1:17:05

team room, you know, you don't talk

1:17:07

about fight club. So nobody talked about

1:17:09

what you did or what you did

1:17:11

or what you did or what you

1:17:13

did. War just continued. Yeah. And at

1:17:15

the time, like, you care, but you

1:17:17

don't care that much. No. It's like,

1:17:19

yeah, I got my own story. It's

1:17:21

like, oh, cool. Oh, yeah. That's about

1:17:23

the conversation. Like, maybe there's one that'll,

1:17:25

oh, yeah, hey, make sure you put

1:17:27

your magazines over here, don't put

1:17:29

your radio over there. But other

1:17:31

than that, it's funny, the Sog

1:17:33

guys from Vietnam, like, they had

1:17:35

no idea what. They didn't even

1:17:38

know each other in many cases.

1:17:40

Nope. Nope. Same thing. With a

1:17:42

team room, you're isolated in a,

1:17:44

I was only on two teams

1:17:46

for 17 years. Yeah. So Mark

1:17:48

and Bob. You know, we've become friends.

1:17:51

Mark came over to our unit

1:17:53

after he left 595. And that's

1:17:55

how our friendship became closer and

1:17:57

closer. So you do know each

1:17:59

other. and your kids play ball

1:18:01

together and you're just in the

1:18:03

same neighborhood. And fast forward

1:18:06

when we started this business, hey, you

1:18:08

know, Mark, do you want to go

1:18:10

to the stiller? Yeah, let's go to

1:18:12

the stiller. Hey, I know somebody that's

1:18:14

an SAS. Let's go to England and

1:18:17

see a distillery in England. So this

1:18:19

thing organically, but then I was there

1:18:21

in Tampa when somebody called up

1:18:24

and said, hey, you know,

1:18:26

they're doing a movie. You're

1:18:28

like, what? What do you

1:18:30

mean? Well, you know, they

1:18:32

got actors and everything. Are

1:18:35

you guys advising? They're like,

1:18:37

what movie you're talking about?

1:18:39

And literally flew out there

1:18:41

on a Friday, went to

1:18:44

set on a Saturday, the

1:18:46

lawyers asked in a leave

1:18:48

by Saturday afternoon, and that

1:18:50

was that. Yeah. Let me

1:18:52

put it down. That's awesome.

1:18:55

Yeah. I was listening to an interview

1:18:57

with Mark and I just was a

1:18:59

part of a movie. So I've written

1:19:01

a bunch of kids books, got made

1:19:04

into a movie. But one of the

1:19:06

things that Mark was saying is the

1:19:08

same thing that you just said, which

1:19:10

is the movie had begun filming

1:19:12

when Mark showed up. And look, are

1:19:15

there some changes you can make when

1:19:17

the movies begun filming? Kind

1:19:19

of. But it's like the frame of

1:19:21

the house is there. And maybe you

1:19:23

can select what color paint you want

1:19:26

on the cabinets, but other than that,

1:19:28

man, the whole, the foundation, the room

1:19:30

layout, the plumbing, the electrical, you're not

1:19:32

moving that stuff once it's already been

1:19:35

kind of bought and paid for. It's,

1:19:37

once again, it's, we don't understand the

1:19:39

process culturing SF, you know, I could

1:19:42

talk to lots of other friends that

1:19:44

have been in the business and they

1:19:46

understand when they're involved and when they're

1:19:48

not. The movie, they told them. At

1:19:51

the end, it's a movie, not a

1:19:53

documentary. So sometimes you're trying to question,

1:19:55

you know, it wasn't exactly like this,

1:19:58

not an aug. A movie, you know. love

1:20:00

interests and you need a little

1:20:02

tension and there's about two prime

1:20:04

characters you know so after the

1:20:06

movie was made it ran into

1:20:08

some controversy obviously the name horse

1:20:11

soldiers the Hawaiian family had owned

1:20:13

IP and they wouldn't release it

1:20:15

so they had to change the

1:20:17

name which was a big no-no

1:20:19

that's why it got changed and

1:20:21

nobody was going to participate after

1:20:24

it was done but the command

1:20:26

said hey we actually dreamberries aren't

1:20:28

doing so good you know recruiting wise

1:20:30

and media wise that's embrace this

1:20:32

movie and there's some resistance it's

1:20:35

like and then they said we'll

1:20:37

let you go to the red

1:20:39

carpet premiere and we're like oh then the

1:20:41

wives were like oh red

1:20:44

carpet did you say Chris

1:20:46

Hensworth and so it's like

1:20:48

okay they got us and

1:20:50

then how this business started

1:20:53

we're in today is we

1:20:55

literally were traveling the world

1:20:57

just as friends making some

1:20:59

whiskey for fun with some

1:21:02

other veterans and we didn't

1:21:04

know if it was going

1:21:06

to be a business or

1:21:08

not so we kind of

1:21:11

like the uh... i hope you're

1:21:13

getting to be a party if

1:21:15

we can bring some of this

1:21:17

whiskey we're making. They're like, sure.

1:21:19

So we literally went, poured some

1:21:21

in a bottle, printed off on

1:21:23

a laser printer, a label, and called

1:21:25

it horse soldier and took it to

1:21:27

the red carpet premiere. That's how the

1:21:30

business started. Who do you say owned

1:21:32

the rights to horse soldier? Wayne family,

1:21:34

1959. The horse soldiers. Oh, dang. And

1:21:36

then how did you print the label

1:21:38

off and get permission to use the?

1:21:41

the name for the wisk, the bourbon. We

1:21:43

didn't know what you're supposed to do or

1:21:45

not do, that you're not supposed to transport

1:21:47

alcohol across state lines and share blah blah

1:21:49

blah. We just learned how to make it

1:21:51

and we made it for fun. So we're

1:21:53

like, oh, here we go. How about once

1:21:55

you were going for it though? Did you

1:21:58

have to buy that? Oh, yeah. Oh. So. The

1:22:00

journey of starting a business, right?

1:22:02

So we were in transition. Some

1:22:04

guys were still in, Bob was

1:22:07

still in, he was the head

1:22:09

of selection, Mark was still playing

1:22:11

contractor warrior overseas, so we were

1:22:13

in different places. And we started

1:22:16

going to craft distilleries because it

1:22:18

was fun thing for friends to

1:22:20

get together and go see how

1:22:22

VACA was made or rum. We'd

1:22:24

done a 10-day horse and mule

1:22:27

train through Yellowstone. And we gave

1:22:29

up the horses and we're going

1:22:31

out the west gate and we saw

1:22:33

a craft distillery sign that said free

1:22:35

tours and tastings. We're like, this is what

1:22:38

men do, right? We boat mostly up

1:22:40

to the bar. Before they get arrested.

1:22:42

Free whiskey? I don't think that far

1:22:44

ahead. I'm in the moment. And it

1:22:46

was fun because the wife came out

1:22:48

and it's a little bar and she

1:22:50

started pouring some things and you're of

1:22:52

course. Sipping it and she goes, oh,

1:22:54

this is potato vodka. You're like, sure,

1:22:57

can I get another one of those?

1:22:59

No, no, try potato flake vodka. Oh,

1:23:01

I could taste. But one of the

1:23:03

wives and co-founder Elizabeth started looking at

1:23:05

the bottle and talked to the wife

1:23:07

about the label and the texture

1:23:09

and the things on it. And

1:23:11

then the husband came out and

1:23:13

said, would you like to see

1:23:15

the stills? And he go behind

1:23:17

the... the rope and you see

1:23:19

mechanical and engineering and what time

1:23:21

do you show up to start

1:23:23

this. So we literally got back

1:23:25

to the Airbnb checked out and

1:23:28

hit every craft distillery from West

1:23:30

Yellowstone back to Tampa Florida.

1:23:33

It took us three weeks on a

1:23:35

journey. And no DUIs. No, no, no.

1:23:37

Because we would stop. We're mature. You

1:23:39

know what I mean? And we called

1:23:41

up Mark and he said, hey, I

1:23:43

got an essay as a buddy that

1:23:46

owns a distillery in Scotland. So we

1:23:48

flew to Scotland, went to whiskey university,

1:23:50

went up, you know, space-side. Is whiskey,

1:23:52

is whiskey university a real thing? Or

1:23:54

you just, there's a real thing. Yeah, so

1:23:56

we don't know these things. You don't know

1:23:58

the culture. You just. scratch your way

1:24:01

into it. And so we took official

1:24:03

classes on nosing and tasting the history

1:24:05

of whiskey without the E, which is

1:24:08

the English version, right? And we go

1:24:10

to see what tourism sees at a

1:24:12

distillery. You kind of walk this velvet

1:24:14

guided rope and then you go through

1:24:17

the curio shop at the end and

1:24:19

you buy three bottles for your buddies.

1:24:21

You go to the next one and

1:24:24

then when we got to Thorso, the

1:24:26

northernmost city in Scotland, where the Vikings

1:24:28

came. There's nothing to do, but work

1:24:31

at that distillery and go to the

1:24:33

bar. Work at the distillery to go

1:24:35

to the bar, right? It's like oil

1:24:38

drags. And we learn how to turn

1:24:40

them on, you know, the Scots are

1:24:42

very efficient. There's no task left unmanaged

1:24:44

with them. And we left, we came

1:24:47

home, somebody said, what's the difference between

1:24:49

whiskey and Scotland and Irish whiskey? So

1:24:51

we said screw it, let's go to

1:24:54

Ireland, spend a month in Ireland. Tealing

1:24:56

and Thorso, or Kelbegan, and just would

1:24:58

knock on the door and say, can

1:25:00

we work here for a week? And

1:25:03

so we came back, we went into

1:25:05

Kentucky. Can I work at a

1:25:07

warehouse on the weekend? We would just

1:25:09

go and see a bunch of

1:25:12

broke vets, man. This is interesting.

1:25:14

Can we just come, just pick

1:25:16

your brain and everybody was

1:25:18

open. And so we started

1:25:20

forming a company. called American

1:25:23

Freedom Distillery and my

1:25:25

business partner mentor John

1:25:27

Coco, previous generation Greenbree

1:25:29

agency, him and another

1:25:32

buddy started an insurance

1:25:34

company highly successful. Daddy Warbux

1:25:36

successful, right? And he understood business

1:25:38

so we formulated it and we

1:25:41

started making a couple barrels and

1:25:43

that's when the movie hit. So

1:25:45

we went up there, did the

1:25:47

movie. came back from the movie

1:25:50

the next day we went to

1:25:52

a charity event and the owners

1:25:54

of ABC liquor in Florida heard

1:25:56

that we were somehow part of this

1:25:58

movie. We heard that He owned liquor

1:26:01

stores and he said, I'll take

1:26:03

50 cases. Nice. Now you had

1:26:05

to go make 50 cases.

1:26:07

Yes. Literally, put a

1:26:10

legionaire, went back there,

1:26:12

filled up some juggo

1:26:14

bottles, printed off some

1:26:16

labels, licked them on, drove them.

1:26:18

Across the eight lines. No. No.

1:26:21

They arrived. What's the statute of

1:26:23

limitations on state lines? Son of

1:26:25

a bitch. The mistakes. But we

1:26:27

didn't know. So we just learned

1:26:29

how to make it. Now you

1:26:31

don't know what distribution is, what

1:26:33

sales is. We didn't even have

1:26:36

an invoice. You didn't know any

1:26:38

of this stuff. And that first

1:26:40

year, we were educated. We formed

1:26:42

alliances. We formed partnerships. And today

1:26:44

we're the fastest growing bourbon in

1:26:46

the country. I'm building seven

1:26:49

million gallon facility. It'll make

1:26:51

100,000 barrels a year, which

1:26:53

is a million cases, which

1:26:55

is the size of Woodsford, from

1:26:57

a bunch of guys who knew

1:26:59

nothing about anything. And where are

1:27:01

you guys building that? In

1:27:03

Kentucky. Did you guys buy

1:27:06

the land already? Yeah. So

1:27:08

you start knowing when you

1:27:10

go, there's a, to get

1:27:12

started, usually buy somebody else's

1:27:14

contract distilling. I have about

1:27:16

30,000 barrels aging right now,

1:27:18

and that's a whole separate

1:27:21

business because four to six

1:27:23

years to eight years has to

1:27:25

age. And then I have my

1:27:27

horse soldier Bourbon as a

1:27:29

brand, which we did 150,000

1:27:31

cases last year. So we

1:27:33

realize that if I bought

1:27:35

a barrel from somebody else and

1:27:37

I paid $1,000, if I made

1:27:39

it myself, I make for 500.

1:27:42

I'm losing that profitability. So at

1:27:44

what point in your business plan

1:27:46

do you start to transition to

1:27:48

think 25 years, 100 years out,

1:27:50

if I can only integrate all

1:27:52

of my production manufacturing and then

1:27:54

my sales side takes over once

1:27:56

it's age appropriate. So we bought

1:27:58

an old golf course. in the

1:28:00

smallest town in Kentucky, away

1:28:02

from all the big distilleries

1:28:04

and COVID hit. Oh. So

1:28:06

what was a plan to

1:28:09

build a distillery, a hotel,

1:28:11

5,000 person amphitheater because we

1:28:13

like to think big? Mm-hmm.

1:28:15

Came with drones, right? We

1:28:17

don't think small. It would

1:28:19

have cost us $1.50 to

1:28:21

build, then it got up

1:28:23

to 450 million. And so

1:28:25

we had to... break apart

1:28:27

the big idea into little

1:28:30

chunks and now the build

1:28:32

is about halfway done we've

1:28:34

got the tanks in we've

1:28:36

got everything we're gonna open

1:28:38

up the 4th of July

1:28:40

2026 nice 250th anniversary of

1:28:42

America America American dream screw

1:28:44

it that's bad for amateurs

1:28:46

yeah right on little deviation

1:28:48

there rewind a little deviation

1:28:51

there rewind a little Let's

1:28:53

bring you back to the

1:28:55

military. You're you get done.

1:28:57

So you get done with

1:28:59

that deployment What's your next?

1:29:01

What's your next? We get

1:29:03

back there at the same

1:29:05

at fifth group. Oh, yeah,

1:29:07

fifth group still still on

1:29:09

the SIF Still in the

1:29:12

SIF already heard rumblings getting

1:29:14

ready for Iraq Because

1:29:17

we had already been in

1:29:19

the 90s into Kuwait we

1:29:21

already knew certain elements had

1:29:24

you know whether it was

1:29:26

WMD or whether it was

1:29:28

Unconventional or regular warfare strategic

1:29:30

reconnaissance those ideas were probably

1:29:32

just blown off the dust

1:29:34

and So by November team

1:29:37

started getting ready and going

1:29:39

into Jordan and Kuwait and

1:29:41

positioning by this you know

1:29:43

early February the missions were

1:29:45

set and by the invasion

1:29:47

teams were already going inside

1:29:49

to whatever is now oh

1:29:52

three yeah so you lead

1:29:54

the invasion from multiple fronts

1:29:56

if you recall it only

1:29:58

took 90 days once again

1:30:00

from And were you over

1:30:02

there on the push-up? Yeah.

1:30:04

Nice. And what were you

1:30:07

guys doing? One mission still,

1:30:09

you know, sensitive enough, then

1:30:11

that problem was solved and

1:30:13

it became, you started picking

1:30:15

up either oars. Either you

1:30:17

were going to do the

1:30:19

Jessica Lynch mission or another

1:30:22

force was. Well, shit. They

1:30:24

got it. Because the war

1:30:26

was just over within a

1:30:28

flash. What do you do?

1:30:30

You know what I mean?

1:30:32

They, we were literally in

1:30:34

Baghdad, going to the market,

1:30:37

hanging out, and shops, you

1:30:39

know. Yeah, and there was

1:30:41

that weird time. Yeah, there

1:30:43

was a weird time where

1:30:45

it was, like, there wasn't

1:30:47

an insurgency. There wasn't, it

1:30:49

was kind of, like you

1:30:52

said, you're going out in

1:30:54

the market. Yeah, it was

1:30:56

quiet. And we didn't understand

1:30:58

because we had bypassed, you

1:31:00

know, you know, a lot

1:31:02

of things in high site,

1:31:04

a lot of things in

1:31:07

high site. Hopefully we understand

1:31:09

now, but we don't, you

1:31:11

know, all these compounds, where

1:31:13

these munitions were, that became

1:31:15

the feeders and fuels, you

1:31:17

know, all of these things

1:31:20

we didn't secure, we were

1:31:22

such a rush just to

1:31:24

exist and occupy. And then

1:31:26

from there, once you had

1:31:28

the lack of structured governance,