#153 Kris Paronto - Inside the 13-Hour Benghazi Gunfight and the Hillary-Obama Cover-Up
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December 30, 2024
In episode 153 of the Shawn Ryan Show, Kris "Tanto" Paronto, a former Army Ranger and CIA security contractor, shares gripping insights from his experience during the 2012 Benghazi attack. Having risked his life to save others, Paronto brings forth a unique perspective on heroism, integrity, and the stark realities of combat. In this summary, we highlight the key takeaways and themes from the candid discussion.
Who is Kris Paronto?
Kris Paronto is a decorated war hero known primarily for his role during the Benghazi attack, where he fought off terrorists for 13 hours, saving over 20 lives. With a background as an Army Ranger and CIA contractor, he has since become a public speaker and author. He co-authored the book "13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi," shedding light on the complex circumstances surrounding that night.
Key Events of the Benghazi Attack
- Incident Overview: Paronto recounts the sequence of events leading up to and during the attack that took the lives of four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens.
- Competitive Mindset: The podcast conveys how Paronto and his team’s military training prepared them for the unexpected circumstances they faced. He emphasizes the importance of maintaining focus and calm during chaos.
- Survival and Sacrifice: Central to the story is the notion of selfless service, as seen through the actions of individuals willing to put their lives on the line for their teammates.
Insights from the Discussion
- Real-life Heroism: Paronto breaks down what true heroism entails, emphasizing the intrinsic motivation and emotional resilience demonstrated by him and his team during the attack.
- Political Environment: The episode touches on the frustration Paronto feels about the political implications of the attack. He criticizes public officials for their narratives that ran counter to the realities experienced by those on the ground.
- Impact on Relationships: Paronto shares how the stress and trauma of his experiences in combat affected his personal life, including his marriage and relationships with his children. He highlights the journey of reconciling his past anger and finding peace.
Personal Reflections and Recovery
- Finding Healing: Kris talks about the critical work he did to heal from both the physical and emotional scars of combat. His discussions also delve into spiritual elements, emphasizing his faith and the peace he found through it.
- Family as a Priority: The former contractors' reflection on their priorities on returning to civilian life points to the significance of family and relationships as anchors during challenging times.
Practical Applications
- Training and Preparedness: Paronto underscores the importance of proper training, equipment, and readiness in the face of unpredictable situations, suggesting other professionals in high-risk environments do the same.
- Mental Focus: Paronto’s insights reveal why staying mentally agile and adapting to situations can be vital in crisis management, resonating with those in and out of military roles.
Conclusion
This episode with Kris Paronto offers an unfiltered look at the realities of military service and the challenges faced in the aftermath of conflict. His narrative serves as a reminder of the sacrifices made by those in service, the importance of accountability, and the paths to personal redemption that many veterans experience after their careers. The conversation is not just about the past events of Benghazi but also about resilience and hope for the future, making it an impactful listen for all.
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Chris Peronto, welcome to the show, man. That's a long time coming. I would cry, I said it, but thanks for, and you're so tolerant, man. That was so cool that you were just willing to wait, and then just, hey, I'm gonna be in town, and I hope you'd have to bump anybody if you did. Sorry, guys, but just, you've always been a stand up guy with me. Thank you. I appreciate that. That's really cool, yeah. Thanks, bud.
My pleasure. I'm just happy you're here and I'm extremely patient. So there aren't many stand-up guys in it in the world and even coming out of our community anymore in this public figure world So it's nice to still find a few out there like I try to be but I'm not always a stand-up guy. Oh, I'm sure you are
Talk to my wife, man. I need to bring you home. Talk to my wife about how nice and reasonable I am because I don't get that respect at home, man. Well, Chris, I want to do a life story on you. Yeah. And obviously talk a lot about Benghazi and what you're doing now, but we're going to cover the full spectrum here. And so everybody starts off with an introduction.
So, I was gonna read, don't make me feel like a pretentious asshole. Oh no, you're good. Everybody gets one.
Chris Ferranto, former Army Ranger 2nd Battalion 75th Regiment. You responded to the Benghazi 2012 attack. You're the author of the Ranger Way and the Patriots Creed co-author of 13 Hours, the inside account of what really happened in Benghazi, your motivational and public speaker and the co-host on Battleline podcast.
You're the founder of the 14th Hour Foundation, owner of Battleline Tactical, and co-owner of Tonto Vodka. You're the host of a pro-military documentary series, War Heroes. You co-founded E3 Firearms Association, and you're the father, you're a father, husband, and a Christian. That's the most important there at the bottom. You could have cut out everything else and just read that at the bottom and I would have been,
I'm perfectly happy by that right there. I'm just tells everybody what a great band you are. I appreciate it. Thanks, man. Thank you. Cool. You say you're welcome. What is the e3 firearms association? Well, you know, and we it's so difficult. I don't know if you know Adam paint shot Adam. It was a SIG farm. He started SIG Academy. Oh, that trooper in New Hampshire.
It is a training website. It has been so difficult though to get that thing off the ground. It was just running the roadblock after roadblock because of Google. If you don't think there's state run media and state run
state-run internet web, there is. You have to be dumber and bag of hammers to not see that out there. But we've tried to get it going. There's a lot of training materials on there, videos out there. And you get sponsorships to come to battle line tackle courses. If you remember, you come to my courses for free. Oh, wow. So is it all online training platform? It's an online training platform, but it's a paid online training. How many lessons are on there? Oh, man.
I know just hip-pocket training stuff where I'll just jump on and do a 10-minute video. We've got to have 50 or 60 videos on. Oh, right on. And Adam's a wonderful, wonderful instructor. He is, I am the Lucy Goosey. Hey man, let's just go out and shoot. I'm going to give you some lessons. Adam is, which is great. It's a great dynamic because you do. There are people that respond to that kind of training better.
the by the book lesson where some guys respond to, just tell me what I need to do. This is what you need to do. But it's been, we've had it going for a few years now, and it's just always trying to improve the website, get that flowing. It's E3 does it and it's a whole association. So it's not just farms, there's camping, it's outdoor.
Oh, wow. Being aviation, John Rainwater runs the aviation side of it. You know, RVing, off-roading. And I say, so I tell the E3 owner, his name's Brian, Brian, Brian Johnson. I tell him, yeah, farms is like the redhead stepchild of E3 because all those are cruising and ours is just, it's been very difficult. And I get it too, because, you know, it's a paid website where
There's a lot of YouTube sensations out there that are showing training and you can get that for free. Yeah. So it is. And I won't do the free video stuff. And the reason being, it's not a money thing. It really is. You really don't have any control of who those videos are going to. And where do I get that from? Well, I spoke at an FBI Academy at conference, which had a lot of law enforcement officers, a lot of former FBI trainers.
And I sat down with them and they're great guys. You know, of course, it's not all formal functions. I'm with a bunch of cops, man. So of course, we're going to go to the bar a little bit and enjoy, enjoy, have some food. But I remember coming back and I sat with one of the officers and he goes, you know,
You've had Don Shipley on. I know. He goes, you know, I watched Don's videos, but now it's starting to bother me. A lot of these videos out there because they're teaching all these tactics and they don't know, they have no control of who's getting them. And the Dallas police off, Dallas chief of police came in and they had that tactical shooting where some officers died. And he was one of the speakers at that event as well. And it kind of hit home to me. I was like, yeah.
He's exactly right. We're putting all these videos and God bless him. I don't have nothing wrong to say about Don. I don't know, Don. We've never met. I support what he does. I think, you know, he's from what I've seen, he looks like he's a stand-up guy. And I'm just throwing that as an example because that's what the law enforcement officer said, the police, he was from Philadelphia. He's like, we just, you know, we're really, we're really getting not upset. But he says, we're really worried that the bad guys are starting to watch these videos out there.
Well, I mean, there's a caveat to that too. You know, I mean, what the fuck are people supposed to do? We've defunded the police. The border is wide open. They are actively sending $87 million a week to the town. Sorry, man. You know what I mean?
people have to be able to defend themselves, and that's where they go to do it. And they go in so way. And that stuff's out there no matter what. And that's where I can at least have some control though. And you know what I mean? I mean, people are
I 100% get your point. And it didn't make sense to me. And I get his point, too. Yeah, until he said, like I never really thought about it. But there is context. Things aren't the same as they used to be. Not at all. I mean, it's dangerous out there. I mean, Chicago is the murder capital of the country. And more people are dying there than they did in Iraq and Afghanistan. And it's no shock that that is one of my most, that I have arranged with a Chicago cop. Really? A lot of defense. Daniel Lombard, tremendous guy.
We've got a race called the compound. I don't think that's any coincidence that the majority of those are the biggest classes that I will have when I teach out there at the compound in Creek, Illinois. It's run by Daniel Lombard, divide defense.
is his country company, but he's a lead farm instructor for the Chicago PD. He's getting older now, so he's off the street, now he's teaching. But you're right. It's just this, where do I find some responsibility? And again, I never thought of it that way until I talked to it. I was like, you know, he's got a point.
So I'm not going to stop doing videos. Don't get it. No, that's not going to happen. But where can I at least have some control? I'm not going to stop teaching tactics with my classes. Well, Donald, you're a hypocrite. No, I at least have some control. I know who I'm teaching. I at least have something. And if we turn students away, when I couldn't verify whether they could carry the criminal, yeah, we have. I've done it.
I'm not ever going to tell guys to stop teaching tactics. And it's an outlet for us too. It's therapeutic for us. But I would just say after talking to that police officer and then getting back to the E3 stuff, being a paid website, I'm a problem with it being paid because we have some control of at least who the members are and who's watching. And if it's somebody that maybe is a criminal, shouldn't be owning a weapon, we have some little control that we can, I can't stop them from learning from other guys.
I mean, you're out. We can't teach you. But getting back to the E3 again, it has been an uphill climb with it because it is a paid website and you can get the training for free on YouTube or Instagram. And by, you know, from tactics or tax or tactics, shooting is fundamentals. There is no secret sauce. There's no Jedi mind trick. You're not going to, I'm not going to be teaching how to use the force.
The way I shoot, you can go watch another shooter, and you're gonna get the same stuff. It's just a presentation. Who do you like? What resonates with you? So, yeah, E3 has been good, and I think it's wonderful because we're part of an outdoor, or tell them, hey, go do something. Fire shooting is outdoor. Shooting is relaxing. At least in my opinion, shooting is you're outside in the fresh air, or you're at least doing something active. It's a sport. It really is.
You have the competition, the USCC, you have all those, the tag games, it's a sport now. And it should be like that. The reason I'm getting into why I talk about it and the paid and not paid is really why I don't do more unpaid and YouTube videos online. I don't do that. That's why I don't. It's because I don't have control of who's watching it.
And it was that conversation with that Philadelphia police officer, and then listening to, he spoke before I spoke, the Dallas Chief of Police, and not he wasn't condemning it at all. He's just saying, this guy knew what he was doing. He had some tactics, and I'd say, no, what he was doing. He knew how to pie. He knew how to, he knew how to edge a corner. Well, Chris, before we get too deep into the interview, everybody gets a gift. Oh, no, man, you're all gifted.
Nothing but hospitality. Oh, man. They're gummies. That's right. Those are legal in all 50 states. Fortunately, or maybe unfortunately for you, I don't know. But they are made here in the USA. Oh, that's what. And yeah. So there you go. Some vigilance league going. Those are hard to come by, by the list. Actually, this is going on my side by side when I get home. Nice. It'll be at the range, man. Thank you. Thank you so much.
We need to bring manufacturing back to this country, man. The only thing we manufacture now is drama and freaking political bullshit. That's right. You need more manufacturing. Thank you, man. You're welcome.
One last thing, before we get in, I got a Patreon account. They're my top supporters of them here with me since the beginning. And they're the reason I'm here and you're here. So one of the things I do is I give them the opportunity to ask each guest a question. And so this one is from Moose. What's up, Moose?
What was it like for you to see the Obama administration blatantly lie about something you saw firsthand, blame the attack on something unrelated and refuse to call it a terrorist attack? How did it feel to be on the ground at the annex and realize that help was not coming? Let's do one question first. Well, let's go first, first with the help not coming. And that's, we'll just go on a timeline there. We can skip that. We'll do that. Okay.
The feeling? What was it like for you to see the Obama administration blatantly lie about something you saw? Yeah, I mean, I can take, watch Fox and Friends, the last interview I ever did on Fox and Friends with Pete Hexa. It was back in 2014 or 15 where somebody caught him on a cell phone. It was either at Loyola or one of those liberal colleges there in Chicago. I can't remember which one. And he said Benghazi was conspiracy. He didn't know he was being filmed.
And of course, they threw it on the TV. It's at six in the morning. I was actually in Springfield. I was going to go speak at an event that was sponsored by the guy that owns Bass Pro. So I was staying out of the Bass Pro resort up there.
I told Pete I couldn't be there. I said, I got to zoom in. So I zoomed in at 6 a.m. and I'm half asleep. This was my fifth speaking event, like seven days, just spent. And pissed me off. Why wait? Of course, it pissed me.
All those lines continually, it was angry. It made me full of hate. And what did I say? And you can watch it. It's out there on YouTube somewhere, I'm sure. He said, what did you feel after you watched the Benghazi call of conspiracy? And I said, well, Pete, I said, I want to reach for the TV. I want to choke his ass. I want to choke him out.
And Pete, his eyes got big, he goes, you probably don't want to be threatening him before he was president. I said, Pete, that you asked me. That was my last ever Fox interview, actually. I ever did. And I did get visited by the Secret Service two weeks later. Luckily, I knew the guys. They showed up at my house like, Chris, we got to be here. You're threatening a president on national TV.
But if that tells you my anger right there, I mean, without even thinking, skipping a beat and it wasn't to create, it wasn't a troll accounts, it wasn't to do clickbait, it was an immediate reaction. As soon as I saw it, it was like that mother.
And I didn't want to kill him. Let's get in the room, put you in a lock and let's see how you feel. Man, that's what I felt. So, of course, I was angry. I was angry for a lot of years. And I think if you watch even your speeches that I've done out there, I just still do corporate talks. I just, you know, that's why I'm in Nashville and do your show. And I did just talk at the Gaylord there.
In the early days, the speeches were very, very angry because nobody was being held accountable. And there were people that were calling us liars. And it's hard to be called a liar, guys, when I saw a drone and I was shooting over their heads when those three mortars threw a fire for a thick hit right on top of the building seat.
The fifth attack that night and I was shooting and it wasn't the movie showed his daytime. It was actually it was Before morning an article Twilight, you know, it was right before this, you know You know what that is your viewers can Google that's right before the Sun comes up. So it's still dark. So my night vision was still long my 15s were on and
Remember the first one hit blew up on the backside of buildings? He was right over the top, run spun. He went cyclic on that belt fed, which was pretty fricking awesome because all I'm seeing is a laser beam as he turns and they're coming to attack us through the through the sheep slaughterhouse here. I put a few rounds over his head because I want to get in a fight, even though I can't see that because I'm I'm back behind them. I'm building a is unbelievable.
Dave, Dave, we've been shoots, Ross is up there, he shoots, bub is up there, he's shooting. So I'm seeing all this far shooting. I'm thinking shit mortars this way, they got to be bringing that whole force following those mortars in. So I turn around, make sure nobody's coming. Nobody's there. I come back. Two more shots. I see one hit directly right on top. That vision goes completely white. You know, this is over bun is like white.
As it comes back, I saw four, and now there's three. So, a guy disappeared. And I can hear him screaming. Even in all that, I can still hear him. It was Dave. I didn't know it at the time, but it was Uben. Just shared his shirt, his leg off, his arm, they were hanging. So, he's not completely gone, but he's legs this way, arms this way. How do I know that take God up there when you saw Dave, told me what his arms were like.
Take a few more shots, because what can you do? We're still getting attacked. We're in the middle of a fight. You can't stop fighting. When am I going to run off my building and go help? He's got three guys up there. I got to keep fighting. I got my sector behind me. I got to take. I turn around. I come back. They're still shooting. I took two more shots. And then I saw boom, boom, boom.
If you've been an artillery, you call for fire and you know what that is, that's far for a factor, right, where they wanna hit it. Night vision goes white. And as it comes back, I see as the pixie dust, it got quiet, it got silent. Really weird, I thought they were gonna keep coming.
All I saw was the charged particles, because blow-up explosion, the debris of the dust gets heated or charged, and it looks like it does. It looks like pixie dust coming down with my night vision starts to come back and refocus from the white light, and they're all gone. My brain said, your team just got turned to dust.
It's like, holy, I mean, it was, it was, it was, and it maybe felt like longer than what it was. It was only a few seconds, but I put my head down and I remember thinking it was the one time negatively, I thought that it. Every other time, man, there was a negative thing that happened. That was the one time where it was like that, holy shit, we might lose this. And I said, man, we can't beat this. I'm thinking to myself, we don't have any air support. They're gonna fucking keep hammering us. God, God was there all night, man.
And God kicked me in my ass and said, get your gun up, Ranger. And I know people are going, oh, fuck, that's no making, no, that's what happened. What do you mean God kicked you in the ass and said, get up? Quit whining, quit feeling like a victim. So you said a feeling you got? Is that a voice you heard? Voice in the back of my head right there. I still feel it. I don't get chills. And maybe it was my mom saying, you know, but it was, to me, it was that voice of God.
with something saying, we don't quit. You don't quit. Get your gun up, keep fighting. And I said, get your gun up, Ranger. That's what I heard. And that's being a Ranger too. And that's what Rangers are. When you're at the 75th, get your gun up, get your gun up. You're not quitting, keep fighting, keep pressing through. You learn that from RIP, which is option 40, now our RAS, now you learn that throughout. That's what's instilled in you.
Rangers before you, what they do in Vietnam, the 100 killer teams, they ran towards the fight. What they do when they jumped into Rio Hado, they ran towards the fight. There's no cover, they shot their way off the Earth, the tarmac in Grenada, what they do, they ran towards the fight. Now get your gun up, Ranger. So why am I so angry?
because when somebody calls it conspiracy and I watched, I watched, you know, I watched Ron and Bob and Dave and Dawes at the time, I thought, oh, I watched him evaporate. That's what I did with my friends. Like, holy shit, those guys are, they, they're gone. I've seen death before, but if you ever saw what your friends just, like, they're there and they're not.
So when he said it was a conspiracy, he's like, yeah, yeah, I was pissed off. And I was pissed off for many, many years. And it did hurt a lot of the relationship with my wife and my kids at the time. So that's, I mean, it's a great question, but it also points to how irresponsible politicians are with their words and how they don't give a shit. And him especially, you know, Hillary got what she deserved. She wasn't present, she was humiliated, she lost.
Is she gonna get more? Yeah, she's gonna get more when she stands before a maker or a god. God's gonna judge her and I hope he judges her and he's going too. It's gonna judge her well. How is she should? Obama's the one that got over scot-free. He was the commander in chief. Come on, man. Who's supposed to help get people to us? Is it Hillary and State Department? Granted, she was hugely responsible. So was Leon Panetta. General Hamm could have done something.
But who was the commander? And she was general, him. He was the, he was the Euro comp commander. He was the one that. And for everybody knows, Leon Panetta was director of CA at the time. At the time. And then he went to the sec that, you know, he became a sec definitely. But actually, um, but, um, you know, he could have done something too. And, uh, but Obama is the one that really is the one that's held her spy. Should have been a whole responsible for it all.
You know, and also with the rhetoric. Al Qaeda, remember? People forget that. What was his platform at the time? Al Qaeda was on a run. Terrorism is dead. He knew it wasn't. That's who attacked us. You had Sarah on. She knows a better name, but who was the one that mass reminded that? That's how I hear you. What is it? He's number two, Al Qaeda.
So, right, the guy that got away with it, and then continued to try to press a narrative which we see happens now. I got a question. I don't want to get too deep. I wasn't expecting to get this deep. That's just me, man. I go down rabbit holes all the time. What I want to ask, though, is I can see the rage returning right now. Yeah, it does. Of course, it's going to come. So what was the
What was the turning point that kind of eased that rage? That interview was won because it's like a white egg set? Yeah, that was because it was it was a last mainstream interview I ever did. Was that your terms or theirs? I said, I'm not going to do anymore. I told them I'm done. That was mine. I'm not doing that because I got I did get asked two times to go on Tucker.
And nothing to guess him, I like him. I just, I'm not doing that because that's what they want to get. I started real, that's what they want to get out of me. They wanted, they know Donald's going to come in and say something that's going to click bait and going to be pissed off because that's how all these was. I am very animated. I'm animated. I'm going to say what's on my mind. And if it pisses somebody, so what? I'm going to tell you how I feel. And that's great for ratings. It is. And nothing to guess. I got friends on there.
a chance of night and he's a nice guy and i uh... you know the uh... the the deuce is there they're nice people you know what the call is usually nicely street very very well they're not it's just was
It was really my family, my relationship, because I got divorced at that time as well. So that anger had carried over to where my wife and my kids, like, we don't want you around anymore. Your toxicity is here. You're just always pissed off. You're never happy. And we had gotten divorced. So when I did that, we were actually divorced at that time. And it was, I got to get myself right because
So it was doing the interviews that brought the rage back. I think just reliving it all and not being able to handle it and finding a silver lining to it, which there always is a silver lining. God gives us a silver lining for everything that we do. We just got to find it. How do you feel about doing this interview? I'm good because I'm at peace with it all. I don't have a problem getting there. I know it's going to bring anger out of me, but does it make me angry when I leave? No. It's going to have to see my kids. And I want to tell this because
I still talk to Ty's mom, Cheryl Bennett, wonderfully. I love her. She's my second mom. And telling this keeps their memories alive. We're back then it was more of
It's about me. I need to show you how angry I am. I need to show you how pissed off. I need, it was selfish. Now it's, I'm gonna tell you because I want people to know that. So when they hear a liberal, they hear on Obama, they hear a Hillary, they hear a Biden say, I was conspiracy, I was videoing a protest, they can say no.
I know that dude's telling the truth because just look how emotionally he gets. And of course, it's emotional. I saw my teammates die. They were my friends. I mean, we weren't best friends or nothing, but they were still my teammates and they still were my friends. And so they tried the powers that be tried to cover it up. But that was a turning point somewhat because six months later, I did put a gun in my head. We'll get there. Yeah. For starters. Yeah. Where did you grow up?
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Colorado, Alamoza, Colorado. Love it. My grandmother and grandfather were immigrants from Mexico, my Garcia, my mom's dad's West Texas, my mom's a Garcia. So we grew up in the lower middle class, but it was a wonderful childhood. Alamoza's small little town in the Senga de Crystal Range out there in Southern Colorado.
Then we go to visit my grandmother and grandfather, who were pickers, and then they own their own farm. So I saw them just a hard work, man. It was amazing. I loved being a Peralanto, but I also loved being a Garcia. I mean, my middle name is after my grandfather, Joaquin, Christian Joaquin.
So it was awesome. And it was just always happy, you know, always playing. I'd play with the what we called in the webbacks. I know that's a that's a that's a politically incorrect term. But that's what we the migrant workers that would come over work in my grandfather's form. Webbacks, man, the pickers. Yeah, I remember going out and that we would play baseball with them when they come from the field.
I remember one actually saved my life. I played hide and seek in a back potato truck and I was running away from my cousin and hit a bar that was across the top, cracked my head open and I laid there for about five minutes before one of them carried me out, found me bleeding all over and he carried me out to my grandmother's house.
I mean, it was just, it was amazing fun. It was a rough, it was a rough childhood. You know, it was a rough fun, spin your knee up, ride dirt bikes, take your lab out, go little hunting with the 22 or with a, with a pellet gun. It was wonderful, man. Skin, crack your head open once or twice.
Brothers and sisters? I have two. I have a brother and a sister and, you know, me and my sister, we have our issues, but we're close. That's a close family. That's not like there's no any hatred. My brother, no, my brother, he's awesome. I haven't either. It's one of those relationships, so it's like he'll call us and they'll say, what's up, Jackass? Hey, I say, yeah, what's up, douchebag?
I love you, man. And two years younger than me, we played sports together growing up. And athletics was huge in the family. My dad was a football coach, NCAA football coach. So when we were at Alamoza, he was the head coach at Adam State.
and the athletic director, then we moved to Brigham Young. We moved to Utah, because he got a job as an assistant at Brigham Young University. And that was a one hell of an experience. I look back at it now. I was like, wow, I was blessed, because that was during their glorious. So I got to hang around a clubhouse with Jim McMahon and Steve Young and Robbie Bosco and national championship team. And you're taking it for granted. You had Lil Vel Edwards, who they don't make coaches. That was like the iconic
coaches when coaches were actually coaches and not.
public figures, you know, LaVell Edwards, Paul Bear Bryant, you know, guys like that. What do you, you know, it's just the old school. He was awesome. But, you know, you had Mike Holmgren there, who was the offensive coordinator who later became the coach of the Packers, won two Super Bowls. Norm Chow, who was a legend in the NCAA, went to USC. Andy Reid was a graduate assistant there at the time. Coach, so, you know, I looked back, like, man, I was around some cool, and you just, and all I'm doing, I'm that kid running around the clubhouse.
playing catch with steve young going to the back of school yes so uh... so sports were big you know and i want to play football and i played football uh... we moved to organ state and i got a job or estate and we
It was wonderful there. Got to be around, you know, the Pac-10. It was a ballboy on the sidelines for the Pac-10. That was so fun just being at the games, you know, and that was Pac-10 at the time. I mean, that's Washington, UCLA, USC, when they were, I mean, they're still good, I guess, but it was amazing. It was just good, good time being around college when college was college, when it wasn't.
Yeah. Propaganda was processed about everything. It was college. It was PCU, man. It was where people would make fun of that. Yeah. Let's go have a, you know, so, and it was a college town. Now, bringing me on was a little different. It's more, man. You know, there's, it's not going to find a lot of Drake in there. But, uh, and then we, he got a job, um, in Colorado, back in Colorado and, uh, we moved and, uh, still we're still coaching at Mesa, it's called Colorado, it's called Mesa College at the time. It's called Colorado Mesa University now.
And we move there.
Of course, being around sports forever and my dad was a football player and my mom was a pretty good athlete in her own right. You know, I got some good genes in me and I managed to get a scholarship to play football and I played football for four years at, actually, I did. No kid. No to me, see, yeah. I was, I was, I was, I had a good time, man. Your dad wasn't the coach. He was the AD. I went to that car and to be quiet. What does that mean? Well, he was the athletic director at that car. Okay.
I didn't go there first. I wasn't, I was a typical college football player. I'd rather drink and party than go to class. So my first year at Mesa, I flunked out of college and had to go to a junior college to get my grades up so I could continue to play football. So I went to, it was called Dixie at the time because of the wokeness and political correctness. Now it's called something else, but we were called the Dixie Rebels. And I'm still at Dixie Rebel for all you, whatever you call the college now.
It was awesome. That was a wonderful experience because Dixie was like the program where BYU, UNOV, University of Utah would send all these truants to get their grades. So we were a football fan. We were awesome. We were number one in the nation. We finished number two one year.
So I'm around there and I'm around gangsters, man. I'm around the Donner Street Crips. I'm around West Coast Bloods, Tonga Crip Gangsters. Then you got farm kids coming from YouTube, big farm boys. And we had this, it was such a wonderful experience. It was wonderful to see so many
I was out of, you know, so many people of different backgrounds and nationalities come together for a focus to win games. Sounds like the military. It does. And it sounds like, you know, that's why I laugh when I hear all these DEI pro elders. So we had diversity way back then, guys. And guess what? We were called the Dixie Rebels, too. And not one black dude gave two shits. We were proud to be called the Rebels.
what we were. And I was, you know, I wasn't as true. I mean, they were hardcore. I just phoned out of school. Now, you know, I ain't going to lie, my ethnicity did help. It does. He's Mexican did. And they, my grandpa, you know, it was, it, it allowed me to at least have a, have a foot in the door where I don't care, we can kind of trust this guy. And stereotypes, stereotypes for a reason. I have no problem with that.
But it was one hell of an experience because we were so good. It was fun playing on a team of so many different characters. And what got me is that was back in the day when Bloods and Crips, you know, that was a big deal. There's gang violence all the time. And there was a guy named Stacy. He was a West Coast blood. He came from Los Angeles and then we had a guy named Chucky, who was best athletes I've ever seen in my life. He was a Donna Street Crip from Vegas.
And I went to Stacy one day, because I didn't get, I'm this naive kid from Colorado. You know, I don't know what I can ask or what I can. Let's say, Hey, yeah, how come you guys aren't killing each other? You don't be an idiot. Should I say that? Oh, I'm 19 years old. What am I saying? The right thing? And Stacy looks at me and he goes, he goes on the streets, man. Yeah. He said, we would. I said, I, I'd shoot that motherfucker. But here, I just want to win.
It's like, wow, that just makes so much sense. Wow. And that's also when I started going to military and then even GRS, a lot of people don't know us and I don't get along. We never have. I was going to wait till the end of the interview. No, and I'm sorry. I didn't mean to jump in that. Well, I mean, you brought it up. Let's do it. And I'm always.
I mean, obviously I've been following you guys. I mean, we were in the same profession. Of course, yeah. And I remember after it happened, you guys, you know, you did the book. Yeah. Became out lots of speaking events. I thought you guys used to speak together. We had to, yeah. And then it seemed like everything kind of, I mean, look,
What happened? Why don't you guys get along? Well, it's just personalities. There are nothing. Oz is a wonderful person. He is in his own right. It's just personalities. I'm very outspoken. Whenever we do speeches or things like that, he always wanted to kind of play like the politician. I got to make both sides. I was like, screw this. Say what happened? So we went at Oz, but even when we were downrange, it just was personalities. And it just was, there's just some guys who don't get along.
Did you guys butt heads before Benghazi with the first place we worked at together? I'd never worked them before. That was the first, first base that I worked with Oz at and immediately butted heads. It's just one of those bases where, you know, the guy come, a guy comes in and you're sitting, man, we just don't drive. He doesn't, he doesn't like my Jack Ashry. I don't like him being so damn uptight. But.
We were both professional enough, and this is a kudos to Rowan as well. Rowan really was our team leader. We had an official team leader. Rowan was our assistant team leader. We had a staffer that was our team leader, but Rowan was who we listened to, the staffer we never listened to.
This is funny how that's like the common theme. Well, when you don't hold a staff every, every, I know GRS team that the staffer is always the weakest link. You don't hold them to the same standard. Then they're not always going to get mad at me when I say this stuff. Tough shit, dude. It's the truth. I mean, I can count good staffer and I'll tell the standard. There are some that, but the majority of the good staffers were ones that had the same background.
We'll get into this later. But anyway, with Oz, it was nothing, and it wasn't a hatred. It just was, we don't like each other, man. Yeah. And you get to an age at 42 at that point. We're maybe in the early days in our 30s, maybe we would a FU, FU, just, but it wasn't like that. It was just you're, I'm 40. He's 45. I'm 42. It's like, there's no reason to create any more drama. Deal with your how we need to.
Just win, because that's still kept going in my head with Stacy said to me about the creeps and the bloods. We just want to win. Let's put the differences aside so we can win the focus. And that's also wrong, keeping us on, hey, what's the main focus here, guys? Everybody goes home. Put your stupid differences aside. Shut the hell up and do your jobs. You got your right and left limits. You got your right and left limits. And we stayed within those.
And it wasn't like, man, you're, it wasn't like that. It was just, you know, you're just in a room with somebody that you just don't get along with. So you stay in there as long as you can and then you get out and you go do your thing and you'll go to his thing. It is a lot more difficult because you've been on a lot of those bases doing this where you're on top of each other. So it's harder to get away, get away. But we did, you know, and you know, and Rowan wasn't dumb enough to put his room in the garage in the same room. You know, it was one of those things that's, let's make it as,
as possible. And there, you always, at least at that point in time, because of my age and experience, and I think this is important for everybody, even if people you don't like, you find things that you can respect about them. And I do. And again, he's tough as nails. The dude got hit with a mortar and tried to get up and shoot. I saw him, I told you in the beginning, I saw a guy get up and try to shoot after that mortar stop. And the gun kept falling. Because he would get up and he's shooting. I'd see the rounds and people.
Well, his arm, he hadn't realized his arm had gone far, so when you watch 13 hours and you see him getting up like that, that happened. That wasn't moving magic, that happened. So do I respect his toughness? Hell yeah, and he said one of the coolest things I'd ever heard in my life, when we drove to the airport, he's bleeding out, his arm's about coming off. We wanted to help get him on that plane, that executive's jet, and he said this, and I'll give him crew this for it, because it was some Clint Eastwood shit.
He goes, I walked into this country and walking out. That wasn't a movie magic. That wasn't a line written in. He said that. And I remember when I heard it, I was like, all right, Oz may not get along, but that's some cool ass shit right there. And so you cannot get along, so that's fine.
But you still find ways to respect each other and work together because the goal is to win. And I kept thinking about Stacey, the West Coast blood. The most intellectual, wise thing I heard was from a 20 year old gangster from Los Angeles. We just want to win. It's that simple. And I think that's why when I talk to corporations, I tell that's part of my speech. Just win.
That's the goal, let's win. But the difference is aside. And that's why also when we were out doing our speaking and you're seeing us on TV.
All right, we got to put on a united front here. We're stronger together. And because there wasn't hatred there, just was a dislike. Just didn't like, didn't care. Our personalities just didn't mesh. It wasn't that hard to go in there and do an interview together. And Oz had great things to say because he was there. He saw things that I didn't that helped expose the BS, because we were in different spots the whole time. Let's move back to
Yeah. Kind of. Growing up? We're past childhood. I want to get to this, but I want it to all be in one piece if that's okay. Yeah. No, no, no, no. You're good. So your football college, what got your interest in the military? I got this path.
When you're short and you're slow, you're not going to go to the next level. Now, I was really short, but I was super slow, so the NFL didn't come knocking at my door. So I remember I was just walking through the student union building there at Colorado Mesa. Mesa College was called the time.
And, you know, at the graduation, there's job fairs at these colleges. If you go to college, you are just going to see job fair. And I'm walking through and all these jobs are there. But of course, who's there with all the occupations, all the corporations, the vultures are over there in the corner. The Army recruiter, the Marine recruiter, the Navy recruiter, the Air Force recruiter.
And a long story short on that one, which is not going to be the theme here, but they yelled. They said, hey, you, I was a stupid enough one to look in that direction. I walked over there. They said, hey, what are you going to do? I had thought about FBI. I had thought about federal police. Every time I went to apply for one, I'd get a call. You need to experience. You got to go become a police officer. You got to go.
and you got to go to the military, and police just didn't sound fun to me. So I walked over there, I saw the Ranger video, I saw the recruiting video, which was the 75th Ranger video. So they're jumping out of planes, fast-roping. They showed me the Seal Challenge video, the Navy guy did. So I'm watching the Helocast, and I'm watching the Velocast, and I'm seeing all the cool stuff. You know, the Marines, they're landing on the beach.
You know, there were so many recon guys, the Air Force One. I always make this a joke. I say, I saw the Air Force One and, you know, they were in an air-conditioner room, nice, comfortable with good food. You know, they're showing the jets and things. And I just thought the Rangers was the best one for me. And so I said, signed up. I signed up. I enlisted right there after I got my bachelor's degree. No kidding. And 30 days later, I'm off to Fort Benning. And, um,
Did that? You literally signed up right there at the job. Yeah. Yeah. And the scariest thing that I'll leave. I tell you. Talk about an impulse. I was like, what am I going to do? And, you know, I had, well, FBI, they said military. And I do remember telling the recruiter, I asked him, I go, is that hard? He goes, yeah, I go to people quit. He goes, yeah. All right, let's do it. And, um, so move on and we go to Fort Benning, Georgia and, uh,
It did. I was like a round pagan around hole. I just fit. I went to, it was Sand Hill at the time. It was Echo Company 258. We called the House of Pain. I was supposed to be the hardest one there, but come on, they're all the hardest. Every basic trading depot is the hardest one.
The stingers honored graduate. I did really well. It just fit. It just, you know, physically fit. I got the athletics completely prepped me for it. You know, the teamwork aspect of it. You just had to get used to the yelling and they were still smacking us around. It was 1995, which if you didn't deserve to smacked around, then you didn't get smacked. And that made sense to me. It was based on merit. You work your ass. It's merit based. You're going to perform. You're going to do what you're told. We're going to move you up. You're going to be a smart ass. You're going to be lazy. You're going to be
fat body? No, then you don't. It's easy. It's a piece of cake. And I went to airborne school, but I was married to my first wife at the time and nothing against. She's a wonderful person. We just got married way too young. Just nothing bad to say about her, but she was having an affair. So I got my Jodie letter. Hey, I want a divorce.
And it really was hard from there on out airborne school on out because that wasn't something I ever expected that wasn't something in my family that happened Hmm divorce didn't happen to me that wasn't even on my radar. Yeah, and it was whoa This is so I'm fighting airborne school airborne school is easy. Just all you got to do is learn how to fall and
break yourself and then jump out of a plane. It was memorable. There was a memorable thing about airborne school, though, that was awesome. Again, God looking out.
My first two jumps, first day jumping, first night jump, I was the first one out the door. It was so awesome. Being able to have the door open, first jump, and I'm watching. That was cool. It's memorable. I threw in the night jump too. I was like, how lucky am I to be? How did that happen? I got lucky to be the first one out the door. So you know, your door opens, you get to watch all that shit for about 30 seconds before you go. But every more school then went through a rip, got through a range of rip, went second bat, and
We're there. I was there for about eight months. You know, you're an untapped guy and you've been around Rangers. You know, if we're untapped at range of Italian or shit, we're getting hazed. I mean, it's just miserable. You're hiding in your team room on the weekends because you don't want the tab spec for to come in or smoke your balls and haze the shit out. So you just like either hide or you take off for the weekend. But, um,
went on a GRX training mission at Bragg about eight months in, I was at battalion, and the joint intersection exercise. So we're doing a joint readiness exercise with blue, green, some PJs, and then the Air Force guys that poked the spec ops, the specter, and the task forces are two nice doctors were there too. So it's a big thing. It was pretty awesome. So I mean, I'm a private, I'm just, but I'm fighting this divorce. I mean, I'm watching on me.
And it's just killing her. Did you know who she was shooting? No, I mean, at that first two week, it was a two week jerex, the first week. I still hadn't figured it out. I was in denial, weren't anything. You know, that's no way she's doing that.
And this is for the admitted cell phone. Cell phones are a big thing. So to go home to call, you had to go actually go to a pay phone. So it wasn't like I could call and check all the time. Like you could now, which maybe that would have made it worse. Maybe this made it better. But I'm a new private. I'm around all these tier one guys. I'm just, holy shit, dude. I'm.
Should I, you know, and when you're a new guy, you have that bravado, but should I be here? You know, tab spec fours, you got tab squad leaders, tabby fives. These guys, this is old hat today. I'm like, oh my gosh. And so the stress levels for me, don't fuck up, don't fuck up. I got two hernias on my first jump too. So I'm, I don't want to tell anybody, because I got two little aliens going there when we jumped in. Is it Sicily at Bragg? I can't remember the drop zone.
Um, but anyway, it all came to, to head and I called home and I shoot an answer. So I finally called my brother, Mike, love him. I go, Hey, what's going on with Stacy, man? He goes, dude, I, I don't want to tell you. And as soon as he said that, you know, I was like, so it was in the, and I went home on block leave because right after that, we're going on block leave, which right before Christmas. And I just, I went to the guy's house and I stayed in his bushes. I was going to kill him. And I came to my senses.
which was great on my end, because I got out of there, but it was also where I even felt like a bigger failure, because like, man, I can't even do this. I'm the biggest pussy in the world. But God's got me. But of course everybody found out, small town, Grand Junction, Colorado, military found out, of course, because
I was very lucky. Instead of going to jail, I got to go to the VA in Grand Junction. They threw me in the metal horn, like to check on me. So the wheels are turning that I'm going to get. So hold on, did you get caught? Actually, what I did is I went back home, I drank myself silly, and my friend found me on the floor. My ranger buddy, who I joined with, it was home too on leave, he found me on the floor.
I was just drunk and took a bunch of talent on. Yeah, it's just so you tried to kill yourself in 1997 six or seven 96 then 96. Holy shit. Yeah, I was just one of those things because it is it's you're young your piss vinegar you're full of fire
You're a ranger, dude. Someone was gonna, you know, but I wasn't ready. It just was being young and stupid and doing stupid things impulsively that young people do, especially young guys like yourself and myself were just, we're not thinking, we're just action first consequences later. But the military found out. And of course there are, and we of course we called it commander, and the commander found out. And I had wonderful, so blessed,
First Sergeant was Frank Grippy, Ranger legend, Sergeant Major Grippy. He was dropping mortars and tubes in tour board in Anaconda when he was 10 mountain. He was a Sergeant Major. He was my first Sergeant. And we also had Captain Paula Cameron, who I think he's a three-star general now. He may have just retired.
But here's my CEO. And they, I mean, I wasn't going to stay in. There's no way I could stay in, but I managed to get an envelope discharge. And I didn't, I didn't deserve it. So I only finished two years out of my first four year contract.
Well, how long did it take you to snap out of that? Well, I went home. It took me two years. Well, I had two years and I have a choice. Well, you got out. Let me, sorry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you left, I left the army. You left the army. At the end of 1996. At the end of 1996 and then went back to your hometown. I went back to my hometown and I was like, I can't do this anymore. And what were you doing in your hometown? Nothing.
Just being miserable. Being miserable. It was as miserable as, but as with family, you know, my family, my moms, they're my dads here, my brothers are there. So I'm surrounded by family. My friends are still there because I just really been two years out of college. I still had guys that played football with that are still finishing up. And I had a buddy of mine named Brian Edwards. He goes, did you look like shit? I moved in with them. I hung out with my buddies.
You know, my parents were there, but I moved into a room at one of their old ex-football players. They were still playing when my teammates' houses. And that's what I recommend everybody to do when you go through divorce. I went south part of Ireland for spring break.
spring break. He goes, what happened there, Chris? He's like, dude, you look miserable. We're going to spring break. Come on, get in the car. We're going. I was like, okay, we went and I went to South Park for spring break. And I remember this. I am beyond the Lord works mysterious ways. I'm serious. It's just so made. I look back at it now. I'm like, my gosh, God really does have control.
I go there. Hold on, can I make a prediction? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you meet your current wife there? Get the fuck out. Are you serious? I went there. Hold on, hold on. How long had you been? Were you divorced? Yeah, we had been unofficially divorced for only about six months, but she had tried to divorce me and get rid of me at basic training. So you're like depressed at home. Yeah.
to bring in yourself to death, trying to commit suicide with a bottle of Tylenol. What am I going to do with my life? We're going to stop by spring break. I need you to smile again. And Brian, I love Brian. He is all he is. And he was a, he was a, but he was really good for outstanding wide receiver out there. But we go there and this is what's so funny.
And it's funny, but I also, I do believe there's Cupid is out there because we're at Charlie's. It's a bar there. No, it's Louie's. We're at Louie's. Louie's, Louie's bar and something. And I'm dancing, you know, and, but I'm still jacked. I'm a ranger, shredded, you know, I'm jacked up, shirts off because I'm the spring break, drinking, drinking, and all of a sudden the searing pains.
All flows down the side of my face and my eyes. Well, it was before fireballs, so they had those shots of cinnamon snops that the little ladies would carry around. Somebody had knocked a whole thing on me. And I look and it was my wife, my current wife. I look, it's like Cupid Zero. It's like, wow. And we danced, we were inseparable that whole spring break. I stayed with her. Wait, hold on. What was the one liner?
the picked up who actually uh...
I still think she's, and I tell her, I said, you spilled that cinnamon schnapps on me on purpose, didn't you? Because you saw my heaving chest, and I would show her, didn't you? She was like, that was, but that's the, that was actually the joke. And it was, because I still believe that you saw me, and you did that on purpose, didn't you? Just so I look at you. And I looked at her, and she's a volleyball player from the University of Nebraska, Omaha. And she's, you know, volleyball players. Come on. Watch college volleyball.
And, uh, you know, she's taller than me. She's five, 10. I'm five nine. She's five, 10. And, uh, just athletic and man, that was it. And then again, the whole spring break. So there was no one liner, but it was, I do give her shit. Like I said, you did that shit on purpose because you saw my man booth from all them pushups. And, uh, it was awesome. And, um, so when I went home, it gave me a direction. So I went back home like, okay, I, I,
The stipulation is my honorable discharge as I had to stay up for two years. I couldn't realize for two years. It came in my file. And my dad has a doctorate. My mother, she's a teacher, she had her master's, postological step here. Let's go back to college. So I applied to University of Nebraska, Omaha, took the GRE, got accepted, and I got into my Bronco II, and luckily I made it to Omaha.
I lived in a $100 and 10 a month room in the slums of Omaha. Omaha's a wonderful place, but it was the poor saying, Omaha, no intercreditioning. Nothing and it was wonderful. It's wonderful. It was just
It was just, it was like I'm out of a terrible element. And here I am by myself, no money. Bronco twos don't run. So it's in a crappy car. I'm still fighting double hernia surgery because I hadn't got my hernia fixed yet.
But it was like, man, this is awesome. And then my person I know is this woman that spilled drinks on me that I spent four days with at some point. And she was she was awesome. And we just we dated and I just got my life together. I went back to school. The VA got my chick fix. I got my herniest fix there was there.
grad school to me was the school, I'd say it's easy, but the ability to go to school and then also work, and it wasn't hard because the military was so regimented, you could do multiple whole things and not get enough sleep and still get it done. What was easy? So I got a job at Mucia Lomaa, working as a security guard.
go to school, and my classes I could take at UNO. A lot of the grad classes were in the evening, so I would take classes. And a lot of those graduate school classes, I wasn't for criminal justice, I was still thinking maybe the feds down the line even while I had done. But it was one week, so one through hour class a week I could take, and then it was just study, study, study. And to me, studying was awesome. A library was peaceful.
So I would get an internship. So I worked at the library. I could study. I worked at mutual mohawk during the day. So I was making money over there. And I was going to school when I was with this woman that was a young woman that was just hot and all hell is you. I mean, volleyball players and squats and jumps. Obviously, you can tell what kind of man I am.
She was amazing. And she turned out to be just a very wonderful person that social media see all the women on social media. She doesn't believe it. She's just a good home grown, Nebraska girl. Nice. And she took care of me. She really did. She got me back up on my feet. She got me
She just got the whole situation got my life back together, but she was the main focal point on that. Two years got my master's degree. I actually went from being a security guard to where I became an insurance adjuster. So when you watch the movie where they say, you know, you'll be happy being on that argument did happen. I fell asleep during the ambassador's speech.
I heard so much political boy. I didn't care. I would have been up half the night, dude. I was up half the night. I got up in the morning like, screw this. Do I really have to go wrong? He's like, Donald, get in there. And I'm sitting in the back. But anyway, when the argument said, yeah, there that happened. He goes, you'd be happy going back home and being an insurance suggestion. That's because I was. I still am a licensed national flood insurance program female insurance adjuster to this day. I still can run claims if I want.
That's what I did. I went to got that certification and started working at Misha Womaha and eventually I got back in the military and I remember it was hard. I went through eight different recruiters because nobody was going to help me when they found out what I did, even though I had an honorable discharge. My Wrench Recode was a three, which is very bad. That means you
You got an honorable discharge, but there's an asterisk there. And the last guy I saw, it was a recruiting command. It was right by my house too. I missed it for two years. I don't know what happened. Lord works mysterious ways, my friend. I'm driving home to go home. I'm like, well, I guess the military's dying. I got my master's, but I guess the military's out of the question. I see it in the corner and I'm like, how did I miss this for years? I'm right by my house and my one room.
in the house I lived. And I drive in there in the Nebraska Recruiting Command Sergeant Majors in there. I walk in. He's in there. I'm talking to a recruiter. He overhears me telling plead in my case to this recruiter. I mean, please, I really want to go in. I need to finish what I started. He walks in. He says, I'm hearing what you're saying. He said, do you really want to go back in? I said, yes, Sergeant Majors.
It was Roger that. He sized me the paperwork over. I sign it. He takes it back from me. As he's holding it, he goes, there's just one stipulation. You have to do it all over again. Roger that. So I did all the basic airborne Ranger. Did it twice. And went back in.
And you did it all twice. Yeah, yeah. If you want something bad enough, though, you'll do it. And it really, a lot of that, and you know this is, especially when you're early on, it's a mind game. It's fuck fuck games. I knew it was coming. It was in great shape. Because that's all I did. I worked, I went to school. I went with my girlfriend at the time who was a volleyball player there. So what did I do? She was half the time she was at the gym. So I worked out all the time.
I was running five minute miles. I could do 120 push-ups and two minute. I mean, I was very lucky. I had good genes from my family, you know, playing sports helped as well. So when I went in, I could outdo the drill source. But I saw how the military in those three years went from, it was actually four years. And I was, yeah, from 1995 when I first went into basic training tool, when I went back in and the beginning of 1999.
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Every drone structure, infantry drone structure, except for one, was tabbed. They at least had a ranger tab. They don't come from a range of a time, but they at least had a tab. Or they were mechanized and they'd seen some combat or been their deserts. I mean, they were hardcore. The one that didn't, and he was one of my drill sergeant, drill sergeant Hardney, the devil, loved that man. Big black dude, six, seven, looked like that demon from hell, but I love him.
He was actually the NCOIC for two of the online soldiers. If that tells you anything about his qualifications. He may not have his tab, but do you think he's disciplined? Yeah, standing eight hours at a tent. Yeah. So when I went in the second time, two guys had tabs, no CRBs.
not that much in shape. The only two guys, the senior drill instructor, he was from third bat, so he was a ranger. He was tabbed, and then our commander, our CO, was tabbed. And it was easier. They weren't throwing us around. They couldn't even get in our face. They could still do the shark attack.
But it was the standards had lowered The mile max the two mile run was 1154 when I first went in it moved down to 13 So it was easy. I was like Jesus. This is cake. I was
You know, all the standards had lowered. And it wasn't, it was, it was just, it was a hell of a lot easier. And of course, it was a lot easier because I knew what was coming. Airborne School was easy. Rip was hard, like Rip should be. I mean, it was just, it was a kick in the ass. Rip should be a kick in the ass. The only thing is two of the instructors there I joined in.
in 1995. So when I came back through, they were both E-6s, E-5s, and one was E-5, one was E-6. And they're like, what the hell are you doing? So Amy, why tell people that? Because I didn't feel the whole shit, you know, the nervous, you know, like you do when you went through Hell Week, or you, these guys are mean. It's like, I know that, Dave. I could outrun him five years ago. So it was, and then going back to battalion, went there.
got my tab, became a team leader, and then my platoon leader found out I had my master's degree, and then I'd been at battalion before, and he says, you need to become an officer, son. And so I became an officer. I got to my commission. No kidding. You became an officer. Don't tell anybody. I did not. I did not know that you would have not been invited to the show.
It wasn't long lasted though because I did. I got my commission.
And in 2003, I was going through I-O-B-C, I'm true officer of basic course. I actually joined 19 Special Forces Group II. So I stayed enlisted in the Guard as I was getting, because I did green to gold. I didn't go to officer of Canada School. I just had to do a year of green to gold at Creighton University. So I joined the Guard, 19 Special Forces Group, is where I linked up with my partner that does my vodka with me, Ben Morgan. For first Ranger Bat, he was on ODA 993. They brought me into ODA 993.
We were friends and we grew up in Grand Junction, but that's where we really developed a great friendship because he went to a different high school. We didn't really hung out. But anyway, I still had, I got my commission and I infantry got it. And at the end of the course, I was staying out there at the Malone ranges and my stomach was really hurting bad.
Terrible was feeling awful, but I'd just been out the cannon the night before drinking. You know, I was like, it's normal shit. We're out here sweating our balls off, just drinking. I ate a ton of pizza, of course. And I, you know, I had passed gas a little before I go and I charted, I chipped myself.
But the pain actually increased when that happened. So I was like, that ain't right. And I went and dropped her out and I blood all over. Just, I had what? I had blood, just, I had, well, they rushed me to Martin Island Hospital and I figured I had also colitis or Crohn's disease and it was really bad.
And I remember the GI doctor, yeah, I just had blood all over the place. I had shit blood. Because that's what it, when it becomes extremely inflamed for those who don't know what ulcer colitis is and all Crohn's use. It's your lower intestines and your colon become inflamed and they just have ulcers all over. And it looks like you've got road rash. It's like when you...
And I've had it for years. I just didn't really notice it because I was going at such a high level. And I think the focus was there to finish what I started, that I wasn't going to let anything.
hamper that, but it got so bad that now it was affecting my nutrients. It was affecting my energy levels because I couldn't. That's where you process all your food. That's where when you eat everything. And when it's all like that, your food, it doesn't process. It just shoots right through you. It's blood, mucus, and food. And that's what was starting to happen.
Wow. Yeah, I got discharged. I got discharged in 2003. And I was a kick in the balls, dude. That was my one, one time where in my life where God was, I was mad. Or I was like, man, I wonder if God really exists. Because like, holy crap, I went through all this, all this. And I remember lying on that gurney looking up at him going, really? Why? What the hell? And, uh,
Sorry, he has paid. God always has patience. He always pities us, which he always pities as the one that needs the most pitying to us at that time was me. And I went home and I lost 30 pounds. I mean, it was like Ranger school over again. I lost 30 pounds in about a week because I couldn't eat.
Were you just like completely devastated? It was, it was charged again. Yes, because it was, that wasn't the plan. The plan was, I had already, what did you think you were gonna do? I had no idea. I had no idea. No idea. I was, I didn't know. My wife was there. She was very supportive. We had actually got married. We had got married before I went to Ranger School. That's how wonderful she is. We got married at a courthouse and I was off the Ranger School of the next week.
But she was there and what did your wife do at the time? At the time she was actually, she stayed in Omaha and she was managing Goldgion. So she was a Goldgion. She was just working. She had a business degree and that was, you know, I fit her. She's athletic.
Gold jam at the time, that was when gold was really big. So she had a good job. Not that it was about 40 grand a year. That's tough for two people to live on. It couldn't do that anymore. But at that time, we were okay. We're living in an apartment. All she cares about is that we're just healing. So I'm trying to find natural remedies to heal myself. I'm going to nature, because I'm on prednisone, but prednisone is rough.
Um, so through the next year, all I'm doing is first of all, I'm, I'm eating things. And if it, if it goes right through me, I write it down. I can't eat it anymore. So I'm figuring out what I could eat my diet.
And then I'm taking the medication and then I'm going to go into nature of food stores, organic food stores. You know, there wasn't a whole foods at the time. You had to find my little mom and pop ones and trying to find out what could I eat to start to build my body back up? Because I couldn't take whey protein. I couldn't do anything that was dairy related. And I just tried to build my body up for the next year. And I found this goat clustering. I wish they still made it goat milk. I could do that.
And then I could eat corn stuff. I could eat stuff that was rice related. I could eat anything in the Bible. It was manna, manna bread. I could eat that for some reason. It didn't, didn't disagree with me. And I built my body back up for the next year. And at the end of 2003, I got a call on the phone from Blackwater Security. Blackwater called me first and then 30 minutes later, triple canopy call.
How did they get in? I mean, at that time, it was just word of mouth. And I remember they got ahold because one of my ranger buddies at both places were already working for him, and they had recommended my name to him. Interesting. And yeah, they were good. Actually, Blackwater was a gentleman. He, he's a great guy. Brian Masterfini was his name, and he had recommended that as rangers, let's
in the shot. He didn't know I was sick, though, either. But they got my phone number because he was a friend. He had the phone number. So he's like, here it is. And they called me. And I'm originally with Blackwater for Blackwater's because they called me first. And at that time, they were both great organizations. You know, Eric run in that. And it was still relatively small. And they had Lee Van Arsedale running, who's a, you know, Delta legend running triple canopy. It was, it was pretty good shit. And, and uh,
Was it for OGA? No, that time there wasn't, there was peak, it was called Polar Quest, was just starting to come online, but at that time it was the Bremer detail. What year is this? 2004. In the 2003 beginning of 2004. So cars I had already been going, the cars I detailed what a lot of your brothers were on, on that cars I made, just started to move into Iraq and they were starting to pick up guys to go on the Bremer detail, which was going to be
the Negroponte detail down the line, it wasn't State Department either, it was the Coalition Provisional Authority. Interesting. How did you like that? The beginning, it was great because it was like OGA. I remember showing up that...
GRS and everybody was talking about that. Yeah, that was that was the good old days I was when it was State Department really didn't have their hand in it So it was it was the wild west. I mean I was you know, that's where Saks started Saks was he was that's where he became really a legend over there with in the GRS was he was on the original Bremer guys love sacks
But anyway, yeah, that's what I, and I went and I went to the first class where I met Boone. Boone and I were in that first, it was called the, did you work with Saps on that? Not in the Bremer detail. No. No, he moved on, he was one of the first guys moving over to GRS. Okay. So that's actually was the trendsetter on contracting, but rightfully should be. And he was just a great guy. That's the one thing, he is an opera, but he's just a nice guy. I love that dude. He was, obviously I'm mentioning him, so he had an effect on my life, a positive effect.
But yeah, I went there and went through the training, which was basically three weeks at Moiok of Delta, long tabbers, white soft, blue, rangers, and Marines fighting with each other.
And never changed throughout your entire contracting career. It was, it was so hilarious. We didn't learn a damn thing during that. We went through all the shooting. So you had to pass the shooting, but as far as the PSD stuff, we didn't learn a thing. Cause they were just always, everybody was always fighting. And then you're having the, the white, it was the white stuff, the, you know, the seal, the white, the vanilla, the, the seal teams outside of blue. The me. They were there.
the regular ship at davie salers come watch it i believe in that i'd i'd rather work
The vanilla guys knew infantry stuff better than the blue guys. I was always said, man, you guys know your infantry shit down. You guys had it. My cane saw bones was a guy who worked quite often. He was awesome. And he hated blue. It's like, fuck that. But he was awesome. Bones was a man. And anyway, they're running the course. So do you think a blue guy is going to take shit from him or Delta? And it was, I remember sitting on the bleachers week two.
And we're trying to do through, we're trying to learn basic formations, walking formations, diamond, you know, and then how to react to contact when those formations. And it just turned into a big argument shoving from a bunch of guys that none of them have done personal protection. The other ones that were teaching it, and the ones that were teaching it, you know, they'd been downrange for what six. Hey guys, we're going to go on defense now. What's that? What's that?
I don't know, figure it out and teach it. It was awesome, because it was a beautiful day. It's early spring in North Carolina. It suns out. It's starting to sit. I'm in the bleachers, and one of the instructors come over to me, he's ain't always called someone Shrek. He come over to me, and he goes, what you smiling at for Ranger? I said, you guys are paying me.
Because I hadn't made shit for a year. You guys are paying me 250 bucks a day to sit out here in this beautiful weather, get a shoot gun, and I get to watch you guys just clown show. This is awesome. I'm just unbelievable. Like, how lucky am I to be right here watching the shit show go on? And it was so awesome. It was wonderful.
And then, you know, I finished the course. I had to go home for like two months because my clearance still hadn't cleared yet. And I hadn't got my clearance yet from state department. You know, that's when we started to figure out, oh, the, you know, DOD, NSACI have their own clearances. Oh, I didn't know that. I thought as you get one, they all, they don't cross over. So I had to wait for my state department clearance, got it, went home to my wife. I said, please don't divorce me, but I'm going to Iraq.
That's when the contract in life the next 10 years took over man. That was it and Early days and it was it was the Wild West and it was Man sitting up on top of a building on hyphen street with my ranger buddy and pigeon shit Over watching one of our PSD teams watching Bradley shoot down hyphen street spinning the guys in their turrets they Spinning because they're that was I still remember that was so cool and
So they got the gun up gunners, they're spinning, making sure they're looking and they're not going to get shut. Cause Hifu was bad at that time. That was real bad. And, uh, yeah, I'm ducking cause they don't know if I'm a good girl, but I want to shoot me, but just, that was wonderful times, man. You're having down by up, driving down Irish, route Irish at a hundred kilometers an hour. Fucking making sure that you don't get hit on that overpass or. There are not a lot of people that say they've had a great time running up and down route. I was one of the few.
I loved it. And I had an awesome team. We had a wonderful, just an awesome team. Again, another one, just guys that just, I don't got along, but it worked. So for those listening that don't know about route Irish, route Irish is most likely unanimously.
the most dangerous road in back. It was for a time. I mean, there were other dangerous roads too, like Hife Street was very dangerous. Route Wild, when you got up to Soder, was pretty damn dangerous. And even Route 10 at some points were dangerous. And then of course, Route 10, when it got into Ramadi and Fallujah, of course, were extremely dangerous. And God bless him, Helveston and the guys that got home and died there. But Irish was always hot.
Always something that he was dying or getting hit on Irish. And I loved every minute of it. And I had the best drivers in the world. And when you see a motorcade with three cars and they know the drivers know what they're doing. And I was very lucky enough that I moved from being from the trunk monkey to eventually I became the team leader. So I'm on that rear vehicle making the calls and just watching drivers do their thing, blocking and screening at 100K. It is beautiful.
And I just get chills thinking about it because I was like, man, it got to point where it was like a great football team where a coach didn't need to say a thing. Everybody know what they were doing and they just did it. It was amazing. Having my two left and right door gunners, cracking doors, if they needed to hit somebody, they'd hit them. If they didn't, they didn't. You know, getting out. And even when I got to be a door gunner on the left rear,
When you're going 100k and you got to crack that door and you're hanging out the side like, that's almost the same as hang on bench of a little bird as it's banking in. It's wonderful, man. Who gets to do that? That was fun times and we were up and down that thing in a two month period at one point. We had to run it six times a day.
It was six times a day. We were protecting the rhino bus and we got asked for that. We violated every security principle that you're supposed to have. Were you guys one of the crews that had the
Which somebody dressed up like a dinosaur at the back of a truck and rode that day. No, no, that wasn't us as far as you know.
No, it wasn't. It wasn't us. It wasn't us. It wasn't us. That was later down the line. It was a dying protein. That was later down. Yeah, that was down the line. It was team five, I believe, that did the dying core team because we would rotate with dying core on this because we were still didn't have enough people. So we would take it, then they would take something. I love the dying core guys too. But now that wasn't serious. That was the dying core team, which I wish you would have been out. That was, that was some funny shit. That was hilarious. You too, that stuff, guys. Dying a sore rod iron.
But, you know, we were a time and place predictable. We were a big target and we were slow. Everything you didn't want to be on Rod Irish, we were... Did you guys take contact? Just sniper fire from away. Right when you hit Rod Irish, you had those where the Edinburgh risk guys got it. That's that famous, that I say famous, that infamous video where those guys are on and there's an SF guy in there that everybody
hammered because he ran and hidden a little ditch. I'm not saying that. It was Edinburgh risk where it's right at the beginning. When you get out of the green zone and you start hitting Mount Irish, it's still Iraqi urban areas. And it's about 300 meters off the road. And they would sit PKMs or snipers on there. Because there was also a building that had been bombed and burnt out that they would snipe or fire about 100 meters away when you're going.
And so anyway, we would take every once in a while, but we got didn't get hit with a car bomb. We got very lucky. The Dancro team that took over for us got hit the next week. So we would just take any of your thing. All right. Well, we're good. Everybody good? Yeah. All right.
It's just added to the flavor, man. And it was something to say that for the team is, well, how awesome they were and how good motorcade operations, if you're running it right, they're going to hit somebody that's not doing it right. But I do remember that it was when we got the task to do it. And I was a TL, I was like, can you guys do this? Well, yeah, you know, what I might say, no, of course we can do it. But I went to the team and you should have seen the looks, man. Half of them were stoked. The other half were like,
I'm not going home. Yeah. And you're trying to keep everybody pumped up and in my head going, holy shit, six times a day.
Just the odds that we're going to get hit with a VBID. I said, we can take small arms far because we're going to keep moving. We're going to keep pushing through. Just don't stop. Don't create your own kill zone like the Edinburgh risk guys did that got hit where you get caught in a traffic jam there and then you push everybody out right and left. So you're basically, you've just given them an ambush zone. You've given a big target. But we could just keep pushing.
Don't worry about the rhino. It's got a much armor on it. It's the State Department armored bus that M1 Abrams has. It's going to be able to take a hit.
just be able to med vacuum or get them out there if it goes down but just keep moving and it was very we we just did everything right and we got lucky you know a lot nice man you you never got blown up on a very up blown up on irish that is it's like it's a for running six times a day time and place predictable with a huge
Bus is a target. I mean, it was that is incredible. It's lucky. It is very lucky. It is like because again, I said, when Dankra took over the next week, team five, they got hit a carbam hit him hit the right arm right off him. Boom. And, you know, I want to tribute to that. Okay. Yeah, we were just that awesome.
Now we're just like, that's luck. We're just that lucky. But it still brought the team together. It was wonderful. And it was very tiring days because you are distressed. I'm not diminishing your team, by the way, by saying that it's just luck. I'm just saying. No, no. Even like those CFPs and shit. And they were starting to drop the grenades with the little shoots off the overpasses as well. Of course, there is some, hey,
We did what we did what we had control of. We planned what we had to. We ran the routes right. The motor kit operations were great. We were doing what we needed to. We kept moving. We didn't ever stop. Let me say, sorry. No, go ahead. I get yelled at if I don't talk about these acronyms. So an EFP for the audience. An EFP is basically a bomb. It's a platter charge. It's a force projectile.
Yeah. Um, I want to say, I always say, I always say electrically, but that's not right. I don't know why my head say it's a platter charge. They put a piece of copper on it. It's a force projectile. I always forget what the E stands for. You guys can hammer on me later about that, but it's where it goes and that platter of that copper turns into molten lava. So it'll go through the armor and then when it goes through it, it cools and then it becomes
It becomes a projectile, a hard projectile. And they were starting, yeah, remember that? They were starting to hit us with that. And that was always a good sign. Well, they would even put those thermal sensors on. Yeah. So when they sense the heat of the engine, that's what would turn off. Because we were able to counter their, first of all, their wires, we could see them a lot of times, which even you just did. But with all the countermeasures, we could counter the cell phone.
So that was huge. Yeah. And yeah, we had a buddy that next month, a guy named Weaman, they got hit with the EFT when they were driving the mambas around. Blackwater had those white South African, and it went right through that armor. Yeah. And I always say, I love Weaman. I love Chris. He was a great guy.
He was actually our, he worked in the mill. I mean, it sounds kind of of cliche, but he worked in the mill room. He came in and he didn't have, he was not special ops. He worked in a small town police department and he came in and he wanted to get on the road and we would never let him on the road or like, no, he did. You don't qualify. This is where you belong right here. And finally, he got out on the road and
I got hit with an AFP, and he fucked him up. Damn, man. And I still love him to death, but I'll be on. I think I don't say one of that, because I would never say I don't even believe it. I do remember when they, because we didn't go pick him up, but the QRF team that responded, they went to help, or my team was the PSD team.
And I do remember when they came back, when the guys on the QRF team kept saying, I said, did you see we met? And he goes, yeah, he goes, what was he saying? He said, he kept asking me to take a picture of him. Sometimes you get what you wish for, man. And I'm not, not to guess he is awesome. And he's brave and shit. He is. But be careful what you always, that's always a reminder to me. Be careful what you wish for. Yeah. But yeah, we did that. And
And then I did another year, and then I went back home. And in between, I was instructing at Blackwater. So I was a farm syntactics instructor in between contracts. So I really never went home. So did you move to Moyock? No. I stayed normal. I should have a great job.
So it was, it was one of those things where we were just a part of a lot. It was, I was gone. I, or I'd go home for a month and it was hard because my son was born. My first, my 19 year old, he was born, uh, the first two months I was over in, in bag, my first two months on the contract. So I did come home to see his birth and then I went right back for another seven months. And then I, and, um, but that was, you know, at that time, that's, that's what I wanted. There's nobody to blame it myself. And what is, what is it?
My whole career was pre-kids. And so, I mean, as you know, today was my son's first day at school. Congrats on you. And I'm so happy that he's just like, dad, I'm out, man. Yeah. I was expecting like a little, you know, I'm going to miss you, mom and dad. No, he's like, I don't give a shit. I'm like, I see you guys later. But, um, but, uh, I am, I, I,
I missed his first open house because of a, I interviewed Trump. And otherwise there's no way I would have missed it. You gotta do what you gotta do. I'll tell you man, when my wife sent me pictures of my son, like with his backpack on walking into that school, I was like,
And every time I have an experience like that, I just wonder, like, how did my buddies do it back in the day? How do you rationalize that? I don't want to know what it's like to come home. You met your son when he was a baby. He was born. And then you come back, he's seven months old.
Now, today, at that time, it was just what it was. It was, this is what I'm doing. This is what I got to do. I'm providing for, you rationalize it because I'm providing for my family. But it's also a little ego. This is what I want to do. This is where I've been, this is what I've always wanted to do. And when I got discharged from the military, my buddies were jumping into Afghanistan. So, I thought I missed my war. You know how you do that?
No, I got my war. This is where I need to be. I'm going and I did have a good time. I wasn't enjoying it. It was wonderful. Now looking back now and experiencing, you're getting experienced the little kid time with my nine-year-old that I have been with him growing up, now it's, now it's hurts. And now it's like, yeah, damn. Do you feel it? I missed, I missed him and we had to, we had a coming to Jesus when he was 16 because we didn't,
know each other. And even when I was home as a contractor, there's no decompression. There's no demobe. You're off a plane, a commercial jet, and you're going home. And it takes about 30 days just to get your head right. You're not home. And then you have 30 days of downtime. And then you're back out again. So that's why I think it was even easier for me. I think maybe that was a defense mechanism for me. I don't want to go home and be angry and just let me keep working. And that'd go back.
and continue to instruct it more, and I wouldn't go home for more than a couple weeks, or I'd fly them out to me. It was good. At that time, it wasn't hard because I thought we were doing it for something bigger than it was patriotism. They attacked us. We're now looking back. I'm like, yeah, gosh.
I missed that. I would have enjoyed being a father then and luckily for us, him and I are very close now. I'm happy to hear it. Yeah, but so we were able to come to terms, same with my daughter too. What did that mean? Did it come to a head and there was a conversation? Yeah, yeah, yeah. When he was 16. What was that conversation? My wife and I had reconciled. We were back together. I'm sorry. When he was 16, so it was right on the year of 2018, where I got my shit together.
and him and her and I back together and we're out at a family dinner and we're out of all the garden, council below five. I remember vividly. And you know, my little guy, I'm being able to be a father with him. Even though I'm speaking and I'm not, I'm starting to whittle the speaking down, I'm starting to be home a lot more. You know, I'm hugging all over him. The stuff I really didn't do with the other two because I was just so detached when I was home. It was, I wanted to, but I
I didn't know how, I mean, it really was, cause I wasn't always there. My brain was sandbox, Afghanistan, brains, half brains there, half brains family, where now my brain is all there with the family. And my little guy did something, and I'm sorry, I can't say it, my wife, well, maybe people know, but I just, my wife's all good. My little guy, Peanut.
all my kids have calls. Peanut, he does something that the other two, Olive Garden, he's doing something, he's having starting to get angry, have a tantrum, because he got those little games there at Olive Garden, you can play on the little volunteers in the past when those kids, when my other two
Kiki and Bubba, when they were growing up, I'd get angry. Just lose it. Because I was back home, left the handle. I'm not getting mad at him. I'm actually being a dad. I'm actually, I mean, I'm being disciplined, but I'm having some patience. He looked at me and it killed me. It did. He looked me and goes, why don't you get mad at him like he used to get mad at me? And it was like, oh, I mean, it's a serious knife in the chest.
And I didn't have an answer. I couldn't tell him what was because of the wars, because of Iraq. I mean, that's an excuse, kind of. He's not gonna understand that.
And that was where I realized that he was angry with me for being gone for many years. And Kiki, my daughter, same way, because I was. My little guy, Peanut, got treated a lot better, a lot less hand spanking on the bottoms or whatever than the other two. And that's attributed to my mind state
being coming back because you know you come back and you have that excuse. What are you guys crying about? You see this little Iraqi kid, he's on the street and I'm nothing to eat. You're trying to compare the two. But it's completely different.
But that's how I am coming back. That's my rationalization. I may be yelling at you, but you could have it a lot worse. And a lot of guys, a lot of fathers now are realizing that because we're comparing their lives to these Afghani, the Afghani that's walking down the street carrying water up a five miles up a hill or, you know, or the kids that are caught in a crossfire because our car bomb goes off and it blows up a busload of kids going to school. You know, we're trying to compare that. And they don't understand that.
And that's not a fair comparison, but that's how I was until I was finally home more and able to come to terms with what was going on over there, that that was a life, but now my life is as a father here. And my actions were completely different with my younger son than it was with the other two. And I didn't realize it until he said that. How did you reconcile this? It came of present.
I'll go on him more, love him more. I told him, I said, when he pushed away from me, give him a space to then come back and just be, hey, you okay? Sound, I love you, man. And with the advent of cell phones, that's one positive is that I can just always, I love you, Bubba. And even if I get back, yeah, he's a teenager, he knows. And you know, I know what we reconciled because his junior year, he was his athlete as well.
When he played basketball, he played football as freshman and sophomore year, but he had three concussions. So I pulled him out. I said, no more. You're down with football. Play something else. He loves soccer anyway. So he went to soccer. He changed his number to 13. I was like, no way. I went to a game and I was like, you know, my wife, Tanya was sitting there. Is that? Oh, shit. I said his name. Sorry. Is that both? Thank you. I said, is that bubble? She goes, yeah.
It was his number 13. And that's when I knew that he'd finally forgiven me. And we were very close now. Yeah, I love that boy to death. And he is just a good kid. His mom raised him. He's nothing like me. He doesn't drink. He went to a school. He had a soccer scholarship to go play Northwestern College there. It's a Christian school in Iowa. And he's up there. And I thought it'd be all right. And he's like, Dad, I don't...
I don't do it. All the guys go to Sioux Falls and drink. And he goes, I don't do that. He goes, I go, when they come home and you have a track scholarship to the small college in Kansas, write that coach up and tell him you want to come. And that's what he did. So he was, he was wonderful. He's just, how about your daughter? She's headstrong, man. But now that she, we're starting to, we're starting to get better. Because it's, the daughter's way different.
Little boys, you know, boys, you can be a little firmer. Girls, you don't really want to, in my opinion, you don't, because you don't want them falling in with a man that bosses them around. But you'd also, you know, she's still your daughter. She got a discipline. So what do I do? Mama, handle this.
But it came to point to where, yeah, and my daughter's as far as her outspokenness is like me. My oldest son, he's not, you know, he's very, very, very quiet. He's strong, but he, you know, he doesn't argue back, he doesn't. He knows that I got, he goes, I gotta, I'll fix it. My daughter, she's gonna argue, argue, argue, argue. And there were times where we would be, yeah, we'd be yelling at each other, like, because the disrespect that was there and,
My wife finally said, I, she goes, just let me, let me handle it. And this was a couple of years ago and so done. He just default to my wife who, and my daughter responds better to her mom. And a lot of it has to do with me being gone a lot. But now we're, no, we're getting back again. We're reconciling and we're at a point where, and she's not very,
I think she's not very affectionate. She doesn't like the hugs and the kisses like my little guy does and my older son, who I said, I'm going to hug you until you're 40, until you're 50 years old, son.
They like it. I mean, my son doesn't hug back, but he lets me. She doesn't like it. And I think a lot of that has to do with her growing up and me and her mom, sometimes having some issues. We got divorced at one point and me being an angry, angry man coming back from deployments.
But she knows I love her. And there was an issue at her school that I love it. She wrote a letter to the school saying how she had a problem with one of the dress code issues. And I'm like, yeah. And I remember I'd call. I said, I got your back, Don, because I believe you. I said, I know you're doing the right thing. And that's what I love, because that is something Hanto would do. Like telling Pete Higgs that you're going to choke out a former president.
Hey, she got her opinion. Hell yeah, I got you. And I called her and she was, she, you know, so it's a lot of time where I'll tell her I love her. Okay, I love you, darling. Yeah, dad. I love you, I love you too, because I called her and I said, you write what you want. You know, I got you back.
Tell them how you feel. I said, I love you, didn't you? I love you, T-Dad. And that was actually just last week. Good for you, man. So it's just, it's being a father, man. You just have to figure it out. And there are, it's okay to be a disciplinarian. There's nothing wrong with that. But you also, your kids are all different. And for us that deployed, we do have to relearn. We have to change ourselves.
Warriors don't retire, like Ron said. And I know we put in the movie, but he said that. But it's the truth, but we don't ever retire, but we can't be a warrior at all the time. You can be a dad, but you have to figure out a way how to reach your kids. And luckily for me, my kids are smarter than me. So they would maybe not tell me, but they would say things where I was astute enough to pick it up, like my son or like my daughter. And they don't always have to say they love you.
Just in an action, like my son wearing number 13, I just know right then, he forgives me. We're good. And we have been perfect since. I'm happy to hear that. Thanks, man. Let's take a quick break. When we come back, we will get into how you got into the OGA contract. You got it, brother. Perfect.
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Thank you for listening to the Sean Ryan Show. If you haven't already, please take a minute, head over to iTunes and leave the Sean Ryan Show review. We read every review that comes through and we really appreciate the support. Thank you. Let's get back to the show. All right, Chris, we're back from the break. Yeah. And we just went through
a small portion of your career. Well, I guess not a small portion of my life, small portion of my last, but that way. But now we're getting ready to get into how you got picked up for G.A. That was, you know, again, I, I, and I keep referring this God's path, Lord works mysterious ways. It really, it wasn't anything.
I wanted to do, I was doing fine, doing, I was working with the Blackwater, doing state department stuff, but then also I was working with the Greystone, which was Eric's, he was trying to make like kind of an executive outcome sort of, but it was Greystone, so it was still Blackwater, but it was like a little offshoot, we were gonna- What's executive outcomes?
Um, that was the old South African PM where it was really a PMC mercenaries were. Oh, that was like that. Yeah, that was the where they were going and actually getting hired by governments to take down terrorist organizations or actually do direct action missions. That wasn't the De Beers shit.
It wasn't the diversion. No, this was the old and real mercenaries. Yes, the were the term mercenary. I would say, well, the term mercenaries back in the beginning of time. But that was where the government stopped in and said, we got to stop doing this because there were 60 South African
Those guys were 60 South African strong of former military, and they were taken out huge armies at the behest of some of the African governments. Read about them. It was pretty interesting stuff. They were bad assets. What is this called again? They were called executive outcomes. How the hell do I not know about this? I'm not so surprised too, man. That's a big deal. I'm a dumbass.
I don't know if anybody's still alive from any of those. You know, it was early, long 70s, 80s, I think it was. But anyway, Greystone was supposed to be Eric's kind of like a...
offshoot of that. So it was black water, but we're called Greystone, but we're no graystone either. Yeah. And I got left. It was very small and it just lasted, but it was bare-quality to keep that. Was it the agency's stuff? No, it was private stuff. We were going out South America and training local South Americans to go and protect bases.
over seas. So, protect black water bases more. So, instead of using the Nepalese, the Gurka Gurkas, you know, that we were trying to... All right, hold on. Let's talk about Greystone. I've had Eric on here three separate times. We have not talked about Greystone.
I don't think it lasted very long. It was very small. It really was more training going down there and vetting locals that we could use from South America, Central America. So I went to Peru and El Salvador. And then we also had teams going to Columbia and it wasn't anything nefarious. It's not like we were going down there and
starting to execute. We weren't pulling inks. Let's put that way. We weren't doing that. We were going out there to train and then working with the fours of this special and helping them train a little bit. So it was like a fit mission. It really was.
I think Eric wanted to get to a point where it was like its own self-sustaining army. Gotcha. But it just never morphed into that because then state, you know, that's when those times is when State Department started to take over the CPA, now it was high threat protection, then it went to that whips worldwide personal protective and State Department get their hands in. And that's when the microscope started going up Eric's, yeah, history where they were trying to come back from for stuff.
Whatever. I like Eric. I protected his family in between contracts. I'd go to Tyson's corner and, you know, I'd go run with him in the morning because I was the only guy like he was, he was a beast. He was physically, I'd run with him in the morning and I'd go take his kids to school because of the code pink that liberal terrorist crazy women group was always threatening them. So we had a team that would help him and I was on that as well. I was the detail leader for that.
But anyway, we did that. And I got to go to South America in between contracts. So I was State Department. And then you want to go Greystone? You want to go to South America? Hell yeah. So we went to Piero Peru, went to San Salvador, went to Lima, Peru. And it was fun. It was a good time. And again, my Spanish comes back, so I don't really feel like it's a deployment to me.
You know, and ate some good food, went to a couple of spend classes there in Lima, you know, chakira on bikes and spandex. What can go, well, anyway. Anyway, it was a great, and then it was in the training too, you know, and working with the Forza Day of Special, especially in El Salvador was pretty cool. But then I came back and I was still teaching high threat protection, getting ready to do another contract.
Marty Strong, who's a lieutenant, great guy. He's written a few books himself, but great guy. He was one of the program managers on the Blackwater contract, the State Department contract, and Randy Leonard was running, starting to run the OGA side house. We call it the Victory program, and AOB, Army of Blackwater program, which was the static CA guys, the base security guys. Marty comes to me and says, hey, you want to go work OGA?
And like Marty, man, I'm a state department and I thought the requirements were still like eight years or nine years spec ops. I only had six. So I was like, I don't qualify. And it was six, but he goes, you qualify. All right, yeah, cause I was jogging in Moiak. I lived out in the back at the PTC, the private training center, which was out. So I was jogging one day and he was driving home. And that's when he healed out of his window. He goes, you want to go do OGA? I was like, I don't qualify. And I'm still trying to run. He goes, you qualify.
All right, sure put my name in the hat. And then the next day, Randy came and there was seven of us instructors that had been working contracts. And there was the victory program, which we ran to get guys certified for OJ. It was easy. It wasn't anything to be on quite honors with you.
We're coming back and I remember, you know, we get done training. We're teaching a class for the day to send guys over on the WIPS contract. I was doing a high threat protection side of the house on that side. And he pulls all these guys and what get these are these are all tough guys, man. All pipe haters, right? Cool. Everything. I can do anything.
And Randy comes in and TDC had gotten a name for itself. It was hard. People fail. A lot of people were failing. And so Randy comes in and there's seven of us. He goes, we have a slot for TDC. Who wants to go? It was crickets.
All these firefighters, man, everybody's looking. Somebody say something. I'm like, fuck it. I'll go. And it was like everybody would. Because if one of us didn't volunteer, Randy was going to pick one. And, you know, if you don't pass it, well, then.
You may be able to come back on whips, but you're never working. It was. It was literally pass or fail. You pass. If you fail, never OGA ever again. Those listening OGA stands for other government agencies. So we weren't calling. We're getting into the intelligence stuff.
They had the clowns in action. We're getting into the clowns in action. Sure, true. But we didn't call it GRS. I didn't know what that was called. I didn't know it was GRS. You know, he said OGA, which I knew what it was, but it wasn't called GRS at that time. If it was, it wasn't, that wasn't the term used around the head shed there. Yeah.
So I say, and Randy says, okay, we need to get you spun up. And he brought in Dan Simpson, 30 Dan, one of the original makers of TDC with Randy. They, they, I mean, they started with Dan, another Dan, he started Geras, great guy. I wish we were his last name, I can't. But it's probably better you don't. Yeah, you're right. Even though he's pro. Well, he left and started Osen Hunter group. Oh, maybe different. So he's, but I wouldn't know worries that anyway.
He goes, we need to get you spun up. And if you're a Ranger and that seals, you guys use pistols. SF, they get good at pistols. Rangers, we get a pistol. We're throwing in a Rucksack. We're not shooting. We're rifling him and that's our thing. Rifles, machine guns, goostoffs, that's our thing.
And Randy goes, get out there. I need to start training. And at the time too, I wasn't using broom handles, which, oh shit, you know, and because we don't, that wasn't, you guys did blue, blue and, and white soft did a broom handle is a forward group that goes on the front of an AR 15. That wasn't a thing. High readies or M four, M four, M four AR 15, SBR PD, whatever you get. Yeah. You get all you gun porn people can, can call whatever you want and figure it out.
Yeah, exactly. But I remember and I never, we never did a high ready. That wasn't a thing. It was ready, low carry, low carry, low ready. So that's range, right? You got to teach your high ready. So I get out there with Dan, the high ready actually came pretty natural. The broom handle, I love like, man, where did, why am I not been using that thing? And it was just, I used the deer. I liked the deer for the four grip, the CQD four grip. It was excellent. It was perfect. It fit my hand, right?
And so I got the Alrightful stuff down. That was pretty quick. The pistol, geez. I mean, I could pass the State Department Quality Pistol, which is a joke. The TDC pistol was not a joke. That was like, whoa, how am I gonna do this? And we worked on that continually for about a week. And then it was like, you're gone, go see ya. And we went, my TDC course was held in,
Danville, not Danville, ITI. That's where it started. The racetrack out there, ITI, what is that, West Point, Maryland? I don't remember. It was called ITI. It's in Virginia. It's in Virginia, yeah. But we did it there, went there, you know, did the PT test, easy. I mean, actually, I'm running five-minute miles. It's nothing. I think I ran that whatever was in nine minutes where you had to run a half mile, carry the body, run back.
It's very blessed. I've been blessed with good Aztec running genes. The rifle part, it was tough. It was challenging. I mean, say it was easy. It was challenging. You know, it's tough. It was the time standards. They're tough.
got through that, the night stuff, again, we used night shit. I was used to infrared lasers. I was used to, I was so, it was awesome to actually not have a 14, a cyclops on. And it wasn't the 15s were you in that time. There were 23s, they were a little bit big. Oh damn, those old schools. Those little school ones, they were real heavy, but it still was all right. Yeah, used to it, because we had stronger necks back then. We were tougher back then. The vehicle stuff was piece, it was just tactics.
It was battle drill one alpha, man. React contract, break contract. You know, it's from battle drill squad attack, battle drill one alpha, and then you're either break contract or you flank, and it was, the vehicle attacks were pretty simple. It's just bounding. Often it's sex, it was infantry. And house stuff, no problem. Just don't flag your buddy. The higher ready eliminates that, which made it a lot easier. And just get on your target, think.
That's where I started. This needs to start kicking in more than this. More than the shooting. It's a chess game. Be three steps ahead of your enemy. If you're racing towards your gun, you're already screwed. You've screwed yourself. That's why I don't get into the YouTube. Let's go fast. Because if you have to go fast, you fucked up somewhere.
And that was what was teak. That's what Randy really. Dev grew ran seal team horse cock Randy calls. You know, where's holocaust? I came. He really harped into that with me along with my platoon sergeant Randy battalion, which I didn't really start to put together till TDC. Be three steps ahead so you don't have to react fast. It's a chess game.
and we had a MI5 and MI6 guys trained in there too. They were part of our vetting team too. And for some reason, I don't know if this was your, every MI5, MI6 guy I met was either named Mick or Mo. We had a Mick and we had a Mo.
I'll go up. Standard issue, call sign. But they were, one was an SBS guy, the other one was a Royal Marine that went to SAS. And they were a part of our instructing cadre, too. And those guys think, I mean, that's fine fix and then a lemonade. But they're always thinking. And that's it. So it really came out where things started to slow down. You know, your adrenaline, fire breathing, let's kick through that door. That's actually where I started paying it.
Take a breath. Let's start to slow it down, Ranger. All right. Be aggressive, we need to then bring it down. And it really, it just started to all make sense. So the room clarin was actually, it was great. It was like, man, I'm getting this. I'm, I'm actually becoming an operator here. You know, and, you know, it only took 10 years, but I'm there. I'm getting there. And, um, the pistol though, I was so worried when I did the pistol and, um,
You get, I don't remember, was it two tries? You get, you know, you do practices. They have us do some practice runs through. So it's not like they put you on their cold, you'd practice. This has changed. And I don't remember, because we got, we had a day of practice runs that morning, and then they said, okay, call. We went out and called. I bowled the head. All right, you get one alibi.
And I went and the body was fine. I was making the times. I couldn't hit the head because my grip was, I just didn't have the right grip. I didn't have the mechanics. I was really, because I didn't shoot a pistol a ton at range of a time. We just didn't do it. So I mean, out there, luckily for me, fundamentals are fundamentals are fundamentals. So I'm trying to find the front side, trying to do it within that time frame, which
The one that got the, the one that was getting me was the two of the body and then you have to, you know, you start at the 10 and you have to run at the two and put one in the head. So it's like, go, draw, you run and you have to put to the body, then you have to run down to the five or was the seven. And then you got to put one in the head within like, it was, it was stupid. It was like three seconds or something like that. I think these are different calls. They might be different now.
They might be. Um, and I still got my quals. If you ever want me to send them to you, I've still got those quals because I used to teach the course after. Yeah. I got you. So I've still got those two and they may, I'd like to see what you have. So I mean, I can always use more training material, man. I love a quals, but it was, that was getting me, I could get the body and then you had to run fast down to the three and it was like 10 to the three or no, I'm sorry, 10. Yeah, I was 10 to the three.
I'd have to look guys, forgive me guys, you guys all know, maybe I'll send it, we'll put it online, but it was an ungodly, it was tough, and I kept blowing the headshot, because you did that twice, and if you didn't get in the A box, both times, it didn't matter, you failed. You could get everybody shot in the world, but you had to hit A box, not outside yet.
And basically what he's talking about is there's a slot that we call the credit card. The credit card in the head. The prefrontal cortex lobe, right? The eyes. But so if you miss, if you hit outside of the credit card, you're done. You're done. It's on those IPSC targets, the IPSC targets. And the last one I got,
I didn't know anything different. I just got lucky as shit. Body was fine. Physically, I was fine. I was fast though. Still could run fast. I got there. So my job was okay. Get there. Get those bodies out. You're going to hit them because they're easy. All you do is A or B, which is here or here. That's a big spot from 10 yards. That's not hard to do, especially if you've been shooting a lot.
I couldn't do it now, but not much back then. And then use my speed and run as fast as I could so I could get a stable position and then just pray.
So it was run like this and pray and I did it. Got it. Nice. And I got it. I hit the first one center and I broke the line on this. Break the line, it counts. Yeah. And it's like, oh, yeah. And that was it. I made it to your S and we're back and.
It was a good feeling because you weren't looking down at that guy, but it was like, yeah, because not many guys had passed to EC. We lost half the course that we had. And all of them were Ranger Seals. We had 1D boy and SF. And we had 10 guys, 5 pass, 5 fail. Yeah. And yeah, went back and
They said, where do you want to go? I don't care. And I, they sent my first trip. I went to the seconder, went to Afghanistan, went to Kabul. And that was the end of 05, beginning of 06. And I forgot we called it the second day. I remember the main in the secondary. What, um,
When did you realize that the OGA contract was for CIA? At TDC. Yeah, because they would set us down and they would tell us. Afterwards or during the course? During the course. During the course. We would know. Randy started the program. He'd been agency for a while.
That's it. We knew. I mean, he didn't have to. It was, hey, guys, this is O.J. Wink, wink, wink. We knew. It wasn't, but officially when we got there because it was a, it was a Kornoff training area. It was like a private training area where there were no outsiders. A private training area within a private training. Yeah, exactly. So we're at the same spot all the way in the back. Yep.
And so that's when I knew, and what I was so cool about is that the teams, for me, the pay was better. It was great. It was great pay. Grant and I weren't getting paid well before, but it was still great. But the smaller teams, it was cool to me.
I thought that was neat. Being you and a buddy, and that's it. You're out there on your own, and then sometimes you're out on your own, on your own, on your own, where I do a lot walking within the cities on my own, which was awesome. I love that. Finally. Where was your first deployment? Cobble. There we go. When I grow this out, I can blend pretty good.
Not that i wish on my commissas but i could look like a business you don't have to draw on the man where the man jammies there's a lot of government workers out there yep you know just where would there were there were button down shirts man and in the winter time they were long coats and you could buy one off at the park down by the movie theater you know right where the uh...
Not the Serena Hotel. That's the one that got hit. But there's that other hotel downtown that had that park and you could just go buy stuff. And I'd stop and I'd buy local stuff. Throw it on. Yeah, you know, just make sure you delouse. You can smell a little bit, but it worked. And I loved walking on my own. Like, in Sax, he trusted me.
Or maybe he just thought, well, he's expensive, but I don't know. He's like, he's like, do you want to go for a walk? And I loved it. A lot of guys didn't. And I get it. I mean, when you're a white dude, tatted up down to here and you eat well and you're always buffed out, you're not going to blend very well. I get that. It wasn't that they were. It's just they didn't blend. I'm a little guy. I have a, I have a brown complexion, you know, I know how to handle myself. And I wanted to.
And so I got, man, I went to the Maude Market, walking, it was like Indiana Jones. I got to walk in some of those alleyways. It was, I have pictures of it. Now sometimes I'll post them. It was, it was where I was acting and I was walking with a CIA case officer. We're back there doing a recon, just seeing. And I think, honestly, I think she just wanted to go back there to see it was cool. And this was, I threw an MP5 in a computer bag.
At my gawk 19 on me, I wore just local, I wore just what they were. I wore khakis and a button-down shirt. And we went back, it was by CNN Circle. It was back by the soccer field where you go across the river and the muddy markets where the river was. And then if you come on the front side, it's where that two-story mosque, their famous mosque is.
Well, if you get out on the market in the river, there's the river here and then you see people walking to shop and there's a whole other shopping alleyway through that and you have to find your way in there. It was so cool. You just walk in and it's like it is like the movies. It's like this tight alleyway.