0:02

And I'm looking, I can see some guy

0:04

stands up and he's full

0:06

Taliban AK sling. And

0:09

he starts to raise it. I'm stepping aside and Mike

0:11

steps aside and he's got an MP7. He

0:15

just starts drilling this dude. And then

0:18

we're on this levee. And

0:20

then down below is like housing

0:23

for the rest of the Taliban. They

0:25

start running out of these

0:28

buildings. Some guys in sleeping bags on

0:30

the ground. They start running out like

0:33

ants. Welcome to Combat Story. I'm

0:35

Ryan Fugitt and I served Warzone tours

0:37

as an Army attack helicopter pilot and

0:39

CIA officer over a 15-year career. I'm

0:42

fascinated by the experiences of the elite

0:44

in combat. On this show, I

0:46

interview some of the best to understand what

0:48

combat felt like on their front lines. This

0:51

is Combat Story. Today's Combat Story

0:53

focuses on both Navy SEAL, SDV

0:55

Team 1 and DevGuru member Rodney

0:57

Brown and his connection to an

0:59

upcoming guest Mike Edwards. I asked

1:01

Mike in preparation for our future

1:04

interview who I could talk to

1:06

about Mike's time downrange. Surprisingly, Mike,

1:08

an Army Ranger, referred me to

1:10

Rodney, a Navy SEAL. After talking

1:12

to Rodney, however, it's easy to

1:14

see why and how this brotherhood

1:16

was created. Rodney spent years with

1:18

SEAL Delivery Vehicle Team 1 and

1:21

then several years providing intel support

1:23

and advanced special operations techniques with

1:25

Naval Special Warfare Development Group or

1:27

DevGuru, or what the press often

1:29

refers to as SEAL Team 6.

1:32

During his time downrange, Rodney fought side

1:34

by side with Mike and a host

1:36

of other international and national forces and

1:39

other government agencies or OGA. He

1:41

would go on to handle sources and

1:43

provide tactical hewmen for Coalition forces, at

1:46

time rolling outside the wire with just an

1:48

interpreter. Rodney was one of those who went

1:50

to buds multiple times, persevering to earn his

1:52

trident on the fourth attempt. He would support DevGuru,

1:54

work with the elite in the special operations community,

1:56

create his own crew, and then go on to

1:58

serve the United States Army. company, provide security

2:01

for Tom Cruise, that's a funny

2:03

story, and other celebrities, and

2:05

give his personal time to help fight

2:07

human trafficking. Be sure to stay tuned

2:09

until the end for a few rapid

2:12

fire questions and outtakes with Rodney and

2:14

of course, listen in for his stories

2:16

about Mike Edwards ahead of our upcoming

2:18

interviews with Mike where we'll ask Mike

2:20

about the same events to see how

2:22

two operators remember these things downrange. If

2:25

I could make one request before

2:27

we begin, please do subscribe, follow,

2:29

or provide a five-star review

2:31

on Spotify or Apple to

2:33

help get these stories of

2:36

amazing heroes and their leadership

2:38

sacrifice and courage out to

2:40

even more people. And with

2:42

that, please enjoy this wide-ranging

2:44

discussion with former SEAL Rodney

2:47

Brown. Rodney,

2:49

thanks so much for joining the show and taking the

2:52

time to share your story with us. Thanks

2:54

for having me. I'm glad to be here. It's

2:57

an honor for me to be on your show.

3:00

I appreciate it. Thanks for getting in

3:02

touch. Oh man, honors

3:04

all mine on this one. And wanted

3:06

to start out, I saw you had a drink in your

3:08

hand and I'm about to pour myself one. I'm

3:11

curious what you've got. Oh, this is

3:13

sponsored by Yingling, unofficially. I mean, maybe

3:15

they can pick it up and start, maybe

3:18

they'll start sponsoring, you know, every

3:20

show you have, in case of Yingling there. And

3:23

it's also my

3:27

initials, my name. So

3:30

Team RWB. Do

3:34

you have a W in the middle there? Yeah.

3:38

For real? Yeah, nice. I

3:40

like it. Yeah, super awesome. Yeah,

3:43

I started buying clothes and gear

3:46

from Yingling and everyone's

3:48

like, they should give that to

3:50

you for free as much Yingling that you drank.

3:53

Yeah, it should sponsor me, damn it. Yeah.

3:56

All right, Yingling. Step up here.

3:58

Step up, Yingling. So, um, and

4:00

yeah, actually I'm drinking a, uh, there's

4:03

a, um, micro brewery down

4:05

the corner from, from my, uh,

4:07

my place here. It's called Hoppus.

4:10

So, and they do a lot for first responders. So

4:12

I think it's cool cause and they got good beer.

4:15

Um, all right. So is

4:17

it a heifer margin or is it

4:19

just like, it's just actually, this is

4:21

an American light beer, which means it

4:23

tastes like Coors light. So I wasn't

4:25

loving that, but I'll take it, man.

4:30

I have one of the previous ones

4:32

like a matchup beer to the

4:35

certain, you know, uh, DOD branch.

4:37

That's right. That's right, man. I

4:40

was like, usually that's definitely a few. Maybe

4:43

some, some IPA, but definitely.

4:46

Maybe half of the, or maybe half of the

4:48

air force. I'm not sure, but yeah.

4:51

Cause I mean, I drank it when I was in

4:53

Germany and obviously the, the air force has the best

4:55

basis in Germany. So I can say, have advice and

4:57

spend their thing. Yeah. Yeah. My

4:59

stepdad was here for us. So I get to

5:01

live on the nice side of the base cause

5:04

they're always partnered with an army base. So

5:06

I get to live on the nice side of the

5:08

base, the nice gym pool, you

5:10

know, track, everything you can

5:12

imagine movie. Well,

5:16

the Navy isn't that bad either. Like you ended up

5:18

in a good branch too, but where did you grow

5:20

up? Like what, what are some of these places, the

5:22

bases you're at? So I

5:25

grew up in Arkansas in well before,

5:27

uh, my

5:29

mother remarried my stepdad. Awesome, awesome guy.

5:32

But he's in the air force. But

5:34

I grew up in Southern Arkansas. It's

5:37

a swamp and, um,

5:40

lakes and rivers and

5:42

hunting and fishing. So around

5:45

14 years old, my mother

5:47

remarries and we moved from Arkansas

5:50

to Alaska. And I spent my

5:52

high school years at Alaska. No

5:55

way. In Anchorage, El Mendor.

6:00

Yeah, a lot to unpack here. So I

6:04

assume you kind of grew up outdoors the way

6:06

you described this and it's a very different environments.

6:08

When's the right time you pick up a weapon

6:10

in your life? So

6:13

in our zone, I think they still do

6:15

it the same way. You know,

6:17

where I'm from, I'm

6:20

five years old, six years old, I get

6:22

a four chance for

6:24

my Christmas. No

6:27

way. Yeah. Behind the

6:29

trees like Santa delivered that 14

6:32

shot. Think of it as, you

6:34

know, in our way. Yeah.

6:40

So yeah, and then right around the same time I

6:42

killed my first deer. I learned

6:45

that right after that I killed a duck. And,

6:48

you know, I'm just, I grew up hunting

6:50

and fishing. I spend the summers fishing, winters

6:53

squirrel hunting. I don't know if people don't

6:55

squirrel on, but it's a real thing. I

6:57

eat deer hunting, pigs, shooting

7:00

pigs, wild game, just,

7:02

yeah, living outdoors

7:04

two weeks at a time. We take

7:07

vacation marks, so they give you days off

7:09

for school for deers. There's

7:14

more people around the world. Yeah, this is what

7:16

they think of America when they hear hear the

7:18

US. They're like, that's probably what it's like everywhere.

7:21

Right. Guns and hunting.

7:25

It's funny, probably two years ago, one

7:28

of the guys that I interviewed on here, a guy

7:30

named Greg Coker, who was a 160th, a little bird

7:33

gun pilot. He invited us

7:35

out to a gold star family event,

7:37

like a fundraiser in Texas. And,

7:40

and it was hog hunting from

7:42

a helicopter. So

7:44

I brought my then 14 year

7:47

old son who had lived in

7:49

Northern Virginia, France, and

7:52

Northern California. And so

7:55

we roll out there and there are kids who are like 10

7:57

or 11 Rodney who have like

7:59

they got their They open it like they're

8:02

tough box. Basically, they're getting out their weapon

8:04

and zero in it And that was like

8:06

you have a different experience on this

8:09

is what it's like in other parts

8:11

of America. Yeah yeah, I remember going

8:13

out with my dad and and

8:17

We're throwing cans in here and shooting them with

8:19

pistol. I mean you just

8:21

you were caught gun safety very early and

8:25

you know, it was down range and If

8:28

you didn't mind that and the

8:31

gun is taken away from those the worst thing.

8:33

I'm not being able to carry a

8:35

gun Here it wouldn't stick Right

8:39

with me a these are anything. I'm gonna give you

8:41

a stick and go out with a stick You

8:44

can't you know, yeah follow gun

8:46

safety, you know, and that's

8:48

like if you had an ND or something Yeah,

8:51

yeah, no accidental discharges

8:53

or anything. No Damn,

8:56

pretty sick. Right, but you learn

8:59

made gun safeties Ultimately,

9:01

you know, you believe

9:04

around guns and you have to be safe with

9:06

them They have a Arkansas

9:08

hunters education course. I went through that and

9:10

I that's

9:12

probably Fourth

9:14

of fifth grade they made it mandatory You

9:17

had a honey license and you were under

9:19

18 you had to go through a hundred

9:21

safety. So did that It

9:24

was just yeah part of growing up everyone

9:27

doesn't and It's

9:29

part of you know, that's how you live. Yeah

9:33

That's cool and tell me now

9:35

like you're outside in Arkansas. You're in the swamps

9:37

you go to Alaska Completely

9:39

different environment. Were you just outside

9:41

all the time? Well,

9:45

so I'm asking the summertime is Almost

9:49

24 7 daylight. So You

9:52

know our some kids come on

9:55

at dark 7 o'clock. It

9:57

could be 10 30 11 at night And

10:00

kids are still playing outside on the playground

10:02

because it's still daylight. And then

10:06

everything is, windows, you

10:08

have curtains so

10:12

you can sleep, but it's different. It

10:15

goes 24 seven in Alaska. And the

10:17

winter time is a little different. It's

10:19

darker more often. I would go

10:21

to school when it was dark, get

10:23

out of school and then it would be dark

10:25

in an hour or two later after getting out

10:27

of school. Cold, Anchorage,

10:30

it would go through

10:32

times where it was sinking below for a

10:34

week. That's a very

10:36

big, it's sinking below for the whole winter. Throw

10:39

up the whole winter, but it's also a hundred degrees

10:42

in the summer and no

10:44

humidity. So it's nice

10:46

and warm and outdoors,

10:49

swimming up and swimming glacial

10:51

lakes, just driving to

10:53

a local campground and

10:56

hiking up and going swimming. I

10:58

mean, just

11:00

the way that you can interact with

11:02

outdoors or get outdoors is really easy.

11:04

I know it's everywhere. Plenty,

11:07

I had to fly out to different

11:09

parts of Alaska. And

11:12

it's the same thing. I mean, flew out to

11:15

a base camp where they had a runway and

11:17

then we flew, would fly

11:20

from there another 15 or 20

11:22

miles of land on the knoll

11:24

where this airplane has these big balloon tires,

11:27

unload our camping stuff and they wouldn't come

11:29

back in a week. So if you

11:32

don't have enough food, if you weren't prepared,

11:35

they're only gonna be back in a week. I mean,

11:37

you got fresh water to survive

11:39

on, but anything else,

11:41

cell phones didn't have

11:44

a cell phone. I think we had

11:46

a sat phone with us that they gave us in

11:49

case there was a real emergency, someone

11:51

was dying. But otherwise, yeah, come

11:53

back, we leave a sign up, need

11:55

something or don't need anything. And then they

11:57

would fly over and then they would go back to the base camp. That

12:00

was it. Thanks. Sarah

12:04

was probably like a reminder of that for you when

12:06

you went through. Oh yeah.

12:08

Did you get any stick time? You

12:11

know, just from what I've seen in Alaska, people,

12:13

like you said, you got to fly to different

12:15

places because it's so remote. Did you get some

12:17

time on an aircraft? No, I never really did

12:19

that. And there's

12:22

so many accidents. You really have to be a good

12:24

pilot in Alaska to fly.

12:28

It wasn't around airplanes enough

12:30

to do it, but those

12:32

who do fly there, they were doing it and they've

12:34

been doing it for years. They've

12:37

seen all the weather, different

12:41

circumstances. And

12:43

the airplanes that

12:45

they have, they can land within

12:47

a couple hundred yards and

12:50

then take off from that. It's amazing. What

12:55

would you hunt there? So

12:57

the first time that

12:59

I flew out, we flew to,

13:01

let me

13:05

see, it started with a cave, flew out

13:07

to another Air Force base and

13:10

you could rent three

13:12

wheelers and go caribou

13:14

hunting. So me and

13:16

my stepdad and a friend that's

13:20

rented three wheelers and brought our guns in there

13:23

and we stayed at a hotel. It was

13:25

on Air Force base. And

13:27

I can't remember exactly, but

13:31

staying on Air Force base, renting three wheelers and

13:33

going out hunting. And I ended

13:35

up killing it. It was light in the

13:37

season, so most herds were already

13:39

gone, but there were the stragglers that

13:41

were kind of just the old males

13:46

that just were like, fuck it, I

13:48

don't feel like going with the herd

13:50

anymore. So

13:53

now just driving in, I saw one on

13:56

a frozen, like, small

13:59

lake bed. shot it

14:01

and then I was worried. You know,

14:04

I've never killed a terrible because I was

14:06

always shit. I'm going to go out

14:08

there and fall in the water. What

14:10

I've seen, you know, through this

14:12

the ice, making a big deal.

14:14

I was able to drag it back and I

14:17

came back to hero because no one else killed one.

14:19

But I was able to kill a terrible. Nice. First

14:22

time and then I went again with my

14:25

first wife's dad who was an avid hunter.

14:27

I was in the old game room. It's

14:30

got a 10 foot grizzly bear.

14:33

He killed in Kodiak, mountain

14:35

lions. The hunt that

14:38

we were on, we shot him. We

14:40

didn't find it for a day later in a bear.

14:42

A grizzly had already gotten to it. I

14:45

buried it. So they bury it,

14:47

let it rot and they come back and eat

14:49

the meat. So we found

14:52

after the bear buried it and tried to

14:54

bite the humans or had moved it to

14:56

a certain area. I'm mostly the

14:58

size of a horse. I mean, there's huge. Yeah. So

15:01

we found it. We take pictures. You

15:03

have to document because it's pretty

15:05

straight. You know,

15:07

getting fish. If you kill

15:10

something, everything must be. You're

15:12

not just doing it for the rack for the,

15:14

you know, for a Boone and Crocker award. Taking

15:17

the meat, packing that out, everything. But

15:20

we took pictures to show her a bear had already

15:22

gotten to it, cut horns off and broke the

15:25

horns back. The horns on this

15:27

news ended up being a Boone and Crocker.

15:31

We just weren't able to keep the meat. And

15:34

then we killed two caribou.

15:37

We had enough meat for a

15:39

year and a half. Just

15:41

the two caribou that we killed. It's

15:45

like a jungle with Disney Cruise. You

15:51

actually see caribou and the courage

15:53

running across the

15:56

plains of Alaska. We

15:58

were. I saw

16:00

a bear with cubs and I wasn't

16:02

shooting my pants, but

16:06

I was like, this is serious. And

16:10

so Andy was like, well, as long as

16:12

we're in between the bear and its cubs

16:15

and we're downwind of it,

16:17

they don't really know we're here. So

16:20

we'd watch him make

16:23

sure that we stayed downwind. And

16:26

one time we saw a

16:28

bear, it's my best about the same time we saw

16:30

a big. And I

16:33

swear this thing took off running uphill and it

16:35

was going 30 miles an hour.

16:37

It was like a flash of lightning. Like

16:39

they can really run. You're not

16:41

gonna outrun a goddamn bear. Maybe downhill if

16:43

you can maybe, but no.

16:45

Yeah. It's

16:49

a wild west in these areas,

16:51

not in the middle of nowhere. So

16:54

I could

16:56

imagine having been in Arkansas and then Alaska, you're like,

16:58

all right, how do I get to the beaches? Let

17:00

me go to the SEAL teams. What

17:03

was it for you that got you interested in that

17:05

path? Well,

17:08

I'd always been interested in something

17:12

and I've seen John Wayne movies, but

17:14

I didn't really put my finger on what it was.

17:16

So I think I grew up in the army,

17:20

John Wayne, didn't know what the special

17:22

forces of green berets were. And

17:25

then in high

17:27

school, a guy came in, I'm

17:31

not even sure if he was a real SEAL, but

17:33

he came in and had this nice belt buckle

17:35

on. He's like, you know what this is? I was

17:37

like, belt buckle looks pretty

17:39

awesome. He's got this bird

17:41

on it. He said, look, that's the

17:44

Navy still trying it. I'm a SEAL.

17:47

Like, holy shit. So then I started looking

17:49

it up. And yeah, it

17:52

was like the fires, I

17:54

tasted it, looked at it. I

17:57

thought about being peer rescued. I

18:00

really didn't know how to swim. I

18:03

mean, I never had to swim, but

18:05

I'd never done laps in the pool,

18:07

swimming in a lake, and

18:09

dog paddling, I could do that.

18:12

I'd never swim, laps,

18:15

competitively, like competitions

18:17

or anything. So I actually

18:20

joined the Navy and

18:23

I started swimming. Swimming. I

18:27

could go to the 25 meter pool once, and

18:31

then have to stop. I've

18:34

always been good at push-ups, sit-ups,

18:36

and pull-ups. But

18:38

I'm only five, six, really

18:41

five, five, but I say five, six.

18:46

And I never really ran. So I

18:48

got myself in shape to pass this screen

18:51

you pass, and

18:53

was able to get the one lap down

18:55

in the pool. Then I got it

18:57

down to doing 500 meters, side

19:00

stroke, a breast stroke. And

19:02

then, yes, off to boot camp. And

19:05

tried out there. When I tried out, when I tried out in boot

19:08

camp, I was late. I didn't

19:10

try out when I first got there, or didn't

19:12

have the opportunity. I can't remember what it was.

19:14

You mean trying out for like, for buds, or

19:16

to get the field route? Yeah, for buds. And

19:18

it was different back then. You come in, you

19:20

have a rate, and as

19:22

long as it matched up with a source rating

19:24

that the seals were, could

19:27

help with the seals, the

19:29

source rating, then you could

19:32

apply the seal after that. So

19:34

I joined, and

19:37

the first thing I saw was PR. And

19:41

I'm not that smart. And I was like, public

19:44

relations, this is gonna be awesome. I

19:47

mean, I never spoke in public

19:49

before. But then, since

19:51

I have no education, really,

19:53

not public relations. So

19:58

I'm like, I don't have any education. written to

20:00

you. So did that and...

20:03

Wait, hold up, Ronnie. Just a second.

20:06

Is this like a recruiter's sleight of hand

20:08

or this is, hey, you're filling something out

20:10

and it's just got the acronym and you're

20:13

like PR public relations? So it's like we

20:15

take the odds out and you have so

20:17

many points, which I barely made it until

20:20

tomorrow you have to become a CEO. And

20:22

then you pick, well, these are the

20:25

jobs that you're qualified. I

20:27

felt bozies being like, hey, I don't want to do

20:29

that. I already knew I didn't want to be a

20:31

bozies man because the trick and pain and whatever

20:34

bozies make do your tie and knots. And

20:39

so I was like, yeah, parachute. When I thought it

20:41

was public relations, like, yeah, I guess you was do

20:43

this. And then I got the printout after, you know,

20:46

as well and I accepted that

20:48

you were treated. I was patient. A

20:51

little bit of a left hand, but I'll

20:53

do it. You

20:56

knew you were just trying to go the CEO

20:58

route. So this was more of like something

21:01

to step into that other opportunity.

21:03

Exactly. And there was no plan like, yeah, if

21:05

I don't make it, I'll stay in the Navy

21:08

for the rest of my life. All of that

21:10

being the CEO training. And

21:12

I've heard other people talk about it.

21:15

And you think about seals and it's

21:17

like the Navy

21:19

seal movie or the one that really

21:23

helped me was Silver

21:26

Strands. Silver Strands,

21:29

but it ended up being SMBs. I didn't know

21:31

at the time, and I

21:33

can't remember the actor, but it's

21:36

a silver movie, silver strand. And it's

21:38

filmed somewhat in in

21:40

San Diego, it looks like it. But

21:43

in any case, it came around long at

21:45

the right time. And I was like, yeah,

21:47

that's, I want to be a seal. And

21:50

so, yes, joined

21:52

and then I was off to

21:54

the Navy. And but when

21:56

you join the Navy, you have like it seems you

21:58

have a persona or you think it's going

22:01

to be? You think it's all rock stars and

22:03

partying? I let the partying

22:06

take away too much. I

22:08

get in trouble. So I took the

22:10

screen sets late in

22:12

boot camp. I went

22:14

to my Aceful and I re-screened again.

22:17

And I get orders to

22:19

Bethesda, Maryland. Well,

22:22

at that time, there were different

22:24

places. They were brooking guys up

22:27

and they would start training for

22:29

the class up.

22:31

So I worked at a PSD,

22:33

which is Christian Law Department, making

22:37

entries into the service

22:39

jackets. There was probably

22:41

10 or 15 of us. Well, I had a

22:46

chip on my shoulder because I was short

22:48

and I thought Navy SEAL was invincible, even

22:51

though I wasn't Navy SEAL yet. So

22:53

I got in trouble. I came to Bethesda,

22:55

Maryland. I kicked down

22:57

a door in an empty

23:00

station and right next door

23:02

to Fort Myers. So it

23:04

delayed me going to SEAL training for about

23:08

a year. Being

23:12

in trouble, I was in

23:14

restriction in a jail for 45

23:17

days. Wow. Yeah,

23:20

reduced. So I was E1, reduced at E1.

23:25

Were you in a jail on a base? On

23:28

a base in Acosia, Virginia. Yeah. I

23:30

was like, living and

23:33

working. Yeah, I didn't

23:35

know I had jails on bases, but they do. And you

23:38

can see

23:40

synapse to one. And I

23:43

was almost really close to being kicked

23:45

out of the night. Douglas

23:47

is one of many who found a new

23:50

life through Seattle's Union Gospel Mission. I was

23:52

living on the streets when I heard this

23:54

guy talk about how he got clean and

23:56

sober at the mission. So I decided to

23:58

give it a try. I could

24:00

feel something working inside of me and

24:02

I knew I was getting better. Today,

24:04

my number one goal is to stay

24:06

clean and sober. To

24:13

hear more, volunteer or donate, visit

24:16

ugm.org. Rodney,

24:20

were you like a troublemaker growing up? I

24:22

mean, was this inconsistent? This was like you're

24:24

on your own now and you're trying to

24:26

adapt to kind of making

24:28

your own schedule to some degree? I

24:31

think it was. I was really never a troublemaker.

24:34

I was afraid of getting in trouble, but the

24:39

Navy caught up to me and

24:41

put me in my place really quick. Did

24:46

you need it, do you think? Probably.

24:48

I definitely needed it to wise up

24:50

a little bit. I probably, at

24:53

that point, if I would have gotten

24:55

into SEAL training and gone to training, I

24:58

probably wouldn't have needed it. I didn't

25:00

necessarily didn't have it and, you know,

25:02

would do that little things to

25:04

be down. There wasn't

25:06

the, you know, what

25:09

you're learning and going through it. I

25:11

learned things a hard way, always three

25:14

or four times, get in trouble. And

25:16

then I learned it and like, oh, don't repeat

25:19

that again. And then

25:21

it works out. I went through buds four times.

25:24

Oh, that's not the most I've had

25:26

on the show. I've had six before,

25:29

but four sounds like a pain. And

25:31

I was probably in buds. So I was supposed

25:33

to be in class 197. I got in trouble,

25:38

changed my orders. I went through a fleet. I

25:41

was in North Island in DRC 30, they

25:44

call it the Cod Squadron. Basically,

25:47

they, you know, fly this

25:49

personnel plane to the new products

25:52

in the C2s. So they land on

25:54

the carriers and they can cat launch.

25:57

So that's one for a year. Got

26:00

orders again, went actually went to

26:03

buds in 96 was

26:05

in 209 to 10 to 11. I

26:08

got pneumonia each time in hell weight.

26:10

So class up with three

26:12

to 600 people get into

26:15

a week. And by then

26:17

there's probably a hundred in the hell week.

26:20

Only by Wednesday, it's half of that or

26:22

less than that. So I made it to

26:24

Wednesday each time. And

26:26

then pneumonia took over. Ended

26:29

up getting out for two years, join the

26:31

reserves, and then came in as

26:33

a reservist. Wait a second. I need

26:35

just real quick. I mean, it sounds like

26:37

you you've set out on this path to be a seal.

26:41

You effectively don't make it. Or some people

26:43

would say like you failed three

26:45

times you get out. Was there

26:47

still this like I'm coming back here somehow or

26:49

was it, we'll see what happens to this isn't

26:51

for me. There was,

26:54

and for those who quit, you always

26:56

have that burning desire or I can

26:58

imagine what if I wouldn't quit?

27:00

Well, I didn't quit. It was just like medical.

27:04

So to me, I was like, this is

27:06

what I want to do. I

27:08

almost again, went to

27:10

pair rescue. I went through and

27:12

Alaska, they have a 24 seven pair

27:15

rescue and each station there, and

27:17

I talked to guys that work there. And they're like,

27:20

I'm going to be five. I'm probably going to retire these

27:22

five. There's just not the

27:24

growth, you know, the

27:26

fun job, a great job

27:28

that you, you know, you're not going to make

27:30

the rank here. Someone has to die for you

27:32

to make rank. And at

27:34

the same time, around the same time,

27:37

a new CEO checked on board at

27:39

the reserves, they never, I was at

27:42

Anchorage Lance Bogg. And

27:44

he got me fired up again.

27:46

He's like, I told him when I

27:48

was planning, he's like, well, you know, do

27:51

you want to go, do you want to be a still? I was

27:53

like, yeah. He's like, well, if

27:55

you get, you know, I'll give you the screening test. I'm

27:57

getting into the broads. So. was

28:00

right at the time I had

28:02

two weeks reserve

28:04

duty. We went to Guam and I

28:06

told him, I was

28:09

like, all right, I'll get back to Guam.

28:12

I'll take the screen test and I'll be

28:14

ready. So the two weeks

28:16

there running four o'clock and weren't this

28:18

still fucking hot in Guam, right? It's

28:21

like before daylight. So there's little wind

28:24

running and I would swim every day. You know,

28:27

just came here swimming opportunities. I

28:30

came back and

28:33

he gave me the screen test and I

28:35

was working in construction

28:37

and market level

28:39

marketing at the same time. I'm just, I

28:42

had a family of three

28:44

already, my wife and three

28:46

kids already. So, you know, trying

28:48

to make it in his meat and doing

28:50

the screen test. It

28:52

was like a week later. I did

28:54

great. You know, I'm not like an

28:57

Olympic, you know, passing

29:00

the test, but pretty good. He

29:02

calls me a week later. He's like, I got good

29:04

news about this story. He's like,

29:06

which one do you want first? I was like,

29:09

fuck, give me the bad news. He's

29:13

like, I'll give you the good news

29:15

first. You've been

29:17

accepted to steel training. And

29:20

he's like, you want the bad news? He's

29:22

like, you're leading next month. And

29:25

this was August. He's like, you're

29:27

leading the end of August, September.

29:30

So I packed up the families like the

29:34

Jeffers, not the Jeffers, but packed

29:37

up the family and the men

29:39

and we drove from Alaska to

29:41

California and I started steel

29:43

training for the last time. We

29:45

made it all the way through. Wow. All right. A

29:47

couple questions here. One, I just

29:49

would like to know what your mindset was like

29:51

making that drive, knowing what you've been through several

29:53

days of hell week, three times and knowing you're

29:55

about to get into it again. And I

29:59

remember when I was. I went to some advanced surveillance training at

30:01

the agency, which for me was probably the hardest thing

30:03

I ever had to do. And you're probably familiar with

30:05

that from what you guys do now. Um,

30:09

but I went in there with two kids and one

30:11

on the way. And I remember they sat me down

30:13

beforehand and they were like, you're, you're an idiot for

30:16

being here. There's no chance you will make it through

30:18

with young kids, kid on the

30:20

way, pregnant wife, no chance. And

30:22

I can only imagine three kids

30:24

driving from Alaska. This

30:27

guy's been here three times. How

30:29

much grief you must've gotten going into that.

30:32

Well, I'd heard it before when I was BRC

30:35

30, there were other, you

30:38

know, like parachute riggers, older guys, like, Oh,

30:40

you want to go to buds. You're

30:42

not going to make it. Nobody makes it through like,

30:45

all right. Yeah, I can take that. I'll

30:49

do it. You know, but everyone says, yeah, well,

30:52

games are at three times and going

30:55

back to the fourth class,

30:58

I knew it was my last chance. There was

31:01

make it or break it. I was 27, 29 is a cut off. Like

31:05

you don't make it through. Takes a couple of years to

31:07

get back in, right? You go through the

31:09

process. I knew, but yeah,

31:12

it was my last chance. It was

31:14

do or die. And I didn't

31:16

care. I was going to make

31:18

it through or more or die. It was

31:20

in a quick, you know, that

31:22

was, of

31:24

course, it crosses everyone's mind, but there was no

31:26

quitting. Like they're going to have to take me

31:28

out or I would die, you

31:30

know, trying to do it. And,

31:34

and, uh, so that time making it through, I

31:37

got to imagine like just getting through how weak

31:39

you probably felt like, all right, step one is done

31:41

here. That's

31:45

knocked me off each time, but anything

31:47

you learned in particular, like going through

31:49

that course, but four times or just

31:51

the completion, that you still

31:53

think back on even the last time

31:55

it wasn't easy being older. It's not

31:57

easy on the body mind. anything

32:00

like you just don't repair your body

32:02

doesn't repair itself fast enough. So

32:05

the younger guys, you know, they were

32:07

in and out, you know, they come

32:09

in drunk or hung

32:12

over on Monday. And there's

32:15

no way that I could have done

32:17

that. So I didn't drink, I stopped,

32:19

you know, strewn tobacco, lived

32:22

like a month pretty much other than

32:24

being married. But realizing

32:26

that like, it's

32:30

a drive that you

32:33

know you can do. And the

32:35

one thing I realized and often think

32:37

back on it is, or

32:40

what it taught me was the power of the mind, how

32:43

strong the mind is over the body.

32:45

And it says in

32:47

there, my mind over matter,

32:49

if you don't mind, it

32:51

don't matter. Right? Right.

32:56

Right. And it really is,

32:59

you realize the power of how strong the

33:01

mind is in the drive, the

33:03

body wants to quit. But as long as

33:05

the mind's still there, you're

33:07

gonna make it. You're gonna do

33:10

feats that you couldn't imagine before.

33:14

You know, sometimes you see people coming

33:16

out of Bud's classes and they're

33:19

like, Oh, I was in this class to 27

33:21

to your point. Maybe there's somebody,

33:24

I don't know, famous infamous in

33:26

the class. I'm not sure. Is there

33:28

any kind of a reputation

33:32

for a given Bud's class? Like when people hear, Oh,

33:34

I was in 227. Does that mean something

33:36

to people? Or is it only if you were in that,

33:38

do you understand? It

33:42

needs someone to other two guys, there's

33:45

a class that you were in. It

33:47

needs more of it. In that

33:49

class because everything that you

33:51

go through, right? And I, making it

33:53

to that class, I was one of two

33:56

original enlisted guys. Everyone else

33:59

was rolled in. them or

34:02

they joined the class as when

34:05

it caught up to where they were rolled

34:07

out to dive phase or third phase something

34:09

happening or whatever. So me

34:12

and another guy were the only two

34:14

original enlisted guys there.

34:17

And some guys are lucky. The

34:19

guy that made it through with me was enlisted.

34:21

He was 19. Made it through his first shot

34:23

all the way through. That's

34:26

because he had you man. You did all

34:28

this before. Some

34:31

people, yeah, it didn't take them as long.

34:33

And some guys, we talked in

34:36

like, Oh, it wasn't that hard how we can

34:38

be able to talk that it's

34:40

the one of the hardest things that

34:42

I've ever done. And

34:45

I look at Ranger training and like, should

34:48

the Rangers do? That's like,

34:50

they're doing a whole week every

34:52

other week or you know, Ranger

34:55

training is much harder than when

34:57

I think about it. Really?

35:00

What they go through and then they're

35:02

normal off and jumping somewhere. And

35:05

then do a six or 20,

35:08

you know, 20 mile pump,

35:10

take down a target and then have to walk back

35:13

out so many miles and

35:15

that's just before lunch. Right. That's

35:20

not buds. I mean, I think that's what people think

35:22

buds is too. It's not a beach.

35:25

It's kind of like that, but it's only

35:27

for six months. And then then it

35:29

becomes more gentleman like changing,

35:31

right? We advanced training or

35:34

becoming a diet supervisor or

35:37

jump, satellite jump master or something like

35:39

that. Right. It's, it

35:43

is. I don't

35:45

think I ever had. There

35:49

was no point in any operational, anything I

35:51

did operation where I was like, this

35:53

is harder than what I went through buds. Yeah.

35:56

But for Rangers, they're like, yeah, the

35:59

last one was harder than this one, I guess. Actually.

36:03

So this is a great, this is a great segue

36:05

to how we

36:07

got connected, right? Is through, through Mike

36:09

Edwards, who is a ranger and we're

36:11

going to interview him. And I just

36:13

said, Hey, I'd love to learn

36:16

more about you because guys like you, Rodney

36:18

and Mike are just

36:20

really bad at talking about yourselves in

36:22

a positive way. And I often find

36:24

it's almost

36:26

impossible to get you to say something good about yourself. And

36:28

so I got to go ask someone else. So when I

36:30

asked Mike, I was like, Hey, could you tell me about

36:32

somebody like that? I could talk to her. You

36:35

spent time with downrange and he

36:37

mentioned you. And then he's like, Oh, and

36:39

he's a seal. And I was just thinking,

36:41

what? I mean, I would

36:44

be like, somebody asked me about my agency time. And I

36:46

was like, go talk to this guy at the bureau. I

36:49

got to imagine there's a lot of, uh, there,

36:51

there are many other people who would select before

36:53

him, but I get the impression I'm just looking

36:55

at your background and having talked to you. Maybe

36:58

one of, I would imagine one of

37:00

your strengths is something about team building. And I don't

37:02

know if that comes from the teams or how you

37:04

grew up, but how successful you

37:06

were in the Navy. Like we're going to go on

37:08

to, to the teams you serve with and the units

37:10

and the training, create your own company

37:12

that you've run for over 10 years. I

37:15

have to imagine it's more than just one person

37:17

buying that like more than just Rodney. And I

37:19

wonder, does that come from buds? Is that instilled

37:21

in you or is that how you grew up?

37:25

Yeah, I think it was how I

37:27

grew up. Like team was hunting and

37:29

fishing. Like you're doing as a team,

37:32

right? And should go

37:34

sideways. You can only depend on yourself.

37:37

You like to think or know

37:39

that other people are out there

37:41

calling to help. I

37:44

met Mike and I want

37:46

to say, I mean, I think

37:49

I'm older than he is, but

37:51

he was just a genuine guy. I

37:54

didn't realize how much training and knowledge and experience

37:56

he had. I thought it was just another

37:58

guy in the range. We came

38:01

to the team, we

38:03

started talking and so

38:05

I, and I, and

38:08

my, one of my duties was

38:10

that I picked up my

38:13

informants, right? They would, and

38:16

I, you know, do a surveillance

38:18

route, pick them up, take

38:20

them back to Bay's, make them stay overnight,

38:22

and then I would, you know, debrief

38:24

them and then they would bang

38:27

them out and drop them off the next day. Well,

38:30

Mike started riding along with me

38:32

and seeing what I was doing,

38:34

how I was doing it. I had

38:36

some close calls before he

38:38

was there, which got

38:41

me into the mindset like I need backup

38:43

and maybe another vehicle

38:45

behind me, right? So they,

38:48

they, I have backup if something

38:50

goes wrong. They're not seeing what I'm picking up or

38:53

dropping off, but they, after that

38:55

point, they're picking up and coming behind me

38:57

and they're following me or vice versa. So

39:01

showing like that and, and

39:03

just he,

39:07

on ops with him, like he was

39:09

a master of combat from

39:13

so, and so

39:16

where we were at, the

39:18

guys, the, you know,

39:21

the, the ground force commander or the

39:23

team leader for us, sometimes they'd be

39:25

called away because Osama was spotted or

39:28

there was a rumor Osama was in

39:30

the mountains. So everyone came

39:33

that's going to fly away

39:35

and go try and find

39:38

Osama. And then we'd

39:40

be left there twiddling our thumbs, but

39:42

I was the Navy guy. I was

39:44

left in charge. I was an East six. It

39:49

was the first time being in charge, but, you

39:52

know, but it was, there

39:54

was nothing wrong with it. Well, I didn't know

39:56

that much about it. So Mike was

39:59

there. It just seemed like radio

40:01

calls. I'm like, all right, I know we got

40:03

this call, we're leaving the base, blah, blah, blah.

40:05

He's like, yeah, simple, man. Just, I'll

40:07

help you out. This is all

40:09

you need to make next. Once you get there,

40:11

this is the call. And then anything happens on

40:13

there, and then you'll report it, and then you

40:15

help them wear RTV. So

40:18

it made it simple, and I was like, talk, I

40:20

got someone on my side that can help out.

40:23

Not, I can worry about the

40:25

other shit, not the formalities

40:28

of getting to the target. But now I

40:30

can worry about the real shit, like what

40:32

guys are we gonna kill or not kill?

40:35

Yeah, exactly. So

40:39

we probably obviously jumped ahead just there. So

40:41

I'm gonna take us back, but just real

40:43

quick, what year did you end up meeting,

40:45

when does that happen? I

40:47

think it was, I think it was 2007. Okay,

40:52

got it. So. Yeah,

40:54

I think it was 2007, because I

40:56

finished my training, I was at

40:59

Dammit. I didn't make

41:01

it through green team. But

41:06

lucky for me, I had a skill that they

41:08

liked with

41:11

advanced special operations techniques.

41:15

And I wanted to develop that more, and

41:17

they were asking people to stick around. They

41:20

just weren't giving up, guys. And

41:23

the master chief was like, yeah, I will

41:25

put you into mobility. I was

41:27

like, I'll sweep floors around here in the master chief, but

41:31

mobility isn't gonna help me in my

41:33

career. And if you can get

41:35

me advanced ASOT

41:37

training, the next level, the

41:39

level three course, then

41:42

yeah, I'll be useful to you,

41:44

and it will help me

41:46

in my career. So

41:49

I went to training in

41:52

ASOT three, graduated, and

41:54

10 days later, I was in Afghanistan, and

41:56

I was the expert. That's

41:59

how it is. All the time, right? It was

42:01

the expert and the guy that was there at

42:03

the time, he was like, only

42:06

thing you need to be while you're here is you

42:08

and the interpreter need to drive and get to know

42:10

Kandahar. So that's what we did. We

42:12

rode around in a minivan, looking

42:16

at checkpoints, going through checkpoints. Just

42:19

cruising the two of you? Oh

42:22

my gosh. Going to get right there and

42:24

go bang and stuff. But yeah, just the

42:26

two of us out cruising

42:28

Kandahar. We

42:33

were stopped several times. And the one time

42:35

that I was stopped with the interpreter,

42:39

I didn't know what they were saying, but

42:41

I had to put cool on dress. I

42:43

looked from top, you know, like you could

42:45

see there was like I was an Afghan.

42:48

And basically we

42:50

were stopped and the police officers was

42:53

asking us, give

42:56

me, give me two, whatever,

42:59

act and denour so you can pass.

43:02

I looked at the interpreter and I was like, what are you saying? He's

43:04

like, he wants money. So you go through and I was like, I

43:07

pulled out the American flag and showed you. Don't

43:12

get through here. Didn't

43:14

even want to mess. So you kind of

43:16

alluded to the dam

43:21

neck and dev guru and we'll get into

43:24

that. But you start out, you

43:26

come out of buds and you go to an

43:28

STV, right? So SEAL team one. SEAL

43:32

delivery vehicle team one. And

43:34

if no one wanted to

43:37

go there, I don't think guys still want to go there because

43:39

there's a lot of dining. But going

43:41

to STV to an

43:43

STV team, and you probably

43:45

heard it before, the

43:47

responsibilities that you

43:50

get right away is different from any other

43:52

team, even the black group. Like there's

43:55

not that many people on the team to

43:57

begin with. Each platoon.

44:00

So starting out a brand

44:02

new guy, you're already,

44:05

you're the department head for air, right?

44:09

For air off, for boats,

44:12

mobility, or you're a

44:14

department head for comms already, and you're

44:16

a brand new guy. You

44:19

barely know shit about the

44:22

teams, right? You just graduated buzzy. But

44:24

that is one of the good things that forces you

44:26

to grow up, and the responsibility

44:28

that we're getting is more

44:31

than, and I've heard

44:33

other team guys and regular teams,

44:35

the East Coast or West Coast, they're

44:38

in the second platoon before they're a

44:40

department head of anything, or third platoon,

44:42

before they have that responsibility, or have

44:44

a chance to do that. Where

44:46

SPBs, you are given

44:48

that right away, and you either do

44:51

it or you get fired,

44:53

you know? And are they

44:55

assigning you to kind of that air, or

44:58

do you get a specialty

45:00

within there? Yeah,

45:02

so because I was a peer-shoot reader, I

45:05

automatically was, I'll

45:07

be the air guy, right? And

45:09

I hadn't gone through special operations,

45:12

rigor packing, york, yet, and

45:14

then, but that was added. But yeah, so I had

45:16

that, there were guys who were 18 Deltas. Right,

45:20

so they're already medics. So

45:23

they're gonna take that role. And

45:26

then they, you know,

45:28

you gotta fill a role from

45:30

comms to weapons, and you're

45:32

the guy that the

45:34

department had to do

45:37

weapons, medic, comms, rigging,

45:42

mobility, and

45:44

whatnot. So like

45:47

the Army, you have

45:49

a, but you

45:52

are, yeah, you're put into basically

45:55

a department where you already have

45:58

a SUA or you're sourcing. Now

46:00

that your SOs, I'm not

46:02

sure how that works. You

46:05

know, being an SO that just picks them on like,

46:08

you're not very smart, we'll put you in

46:10

mobility. That's

46:12

what you gotta do. Okay. Yeah, you

46:14

like to jump all right now. Put

46:17

you in your parachute rigor and go

46:19

through the special operations parachute

46:21

rigor course. Was

46:23

that course pretty cool? It was

46:25

cool, I mean, we didn't get to jump. But

46:28

we learned how to pack everything from ducks to,

46:32

you know, your whatever parachutes special operations

46:34

are using at the time. It

46:37

was all right. Jump master school, it's

46:40

cool, like stack line. You get to jump once.

46:44

So right, free fall is the best. I

46:46

mean, it's fun. But

46:48

you know, any course that the military puts

46:51

on, it makes it sucks, right?

46:53

Like you just say, went

46:55

to Yuma and did my free fall there. It

46:59

was like work. But you know,

47:01

you go out and jump on your

47:03

own and you know, civilian life and

47:05

it's fun. You don't have to

47:07

pack your own chute and rent all

47:10

the gear or diving. And then you

47:12

just leave that gear there when you

47:14

leave. For someone else? Yeah. Do you

47:16

let somebody else pack your chute? Like

47:18

if you're gonna jump civilian, do you

47:20

feel this need to check it? No,

47:23

because I couldn't, it

47:26

would take me a good

47:28

day or a number

47:30

of hours to pack it, to learn

47:32

how to pack it. And these

47:35

guys are packing it every day. That's

47:37

how they make money. Yeah, they're making money.

47:40

And they're making chips, right? So they're packing

47:42

it. And they say the next

47:44

one is free if this one doesn't work.

47:46

So I mean. That's

47:50

awesome. And

47:52

you do have a reserve, right? So. jumping,

48:00

that is probably the closest thing you

48:02

can get to like killing

48:04

someone. I think the adrenaline

48:06

rush and doing that is pretty

48:09

much the same when you, you get to

48:11

shoot somebody. Like a

48:13

free fall jump. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Stop

48:15

it. One, two. I mean, for, for

48:17

about two seconds, you, you show Lance,

48:19

you know, so join the year underneath

48:22

this big mushroom. You're like, you

48:25

can't even really can't, you can't

48:27

direct it anywhere. It's round. No.

48:30

You tried to direct it too much. It collapsed. You got

48:32

a police. It's just a whole

48:34

mass. So

48:37

when you're at that unit, so you're

48:39

it's SEAL team one, right? But you're

48:42

an SDV component. No,

48:44

still delivery vehicle team one. It's

48:46

its whole team by itself. Still

48:48

team one is totally separate. Okay.

48:53

Are you deploying with them at all?

48:55

Yeah. Yeah. So my first deployment, we

48:59

went to, so we're deployed

49:01

to Bahrain and then we had a

49:03

base though all year and then we

49:06

would deploy to other places

49:08

from there. We went to Oman, I think one

49:11

point Kuwait in different

49:13

places, but basically state

49:15

mission. So you're going out and

49:17

training the local

49:20

military, local police from

49:22

CQB to whatever

49:24

they have on their agenda or

49:27

whatever they need. A lot of it

49:29

is done now. I think, I mean,

49:31

to a certain extent, the military does, but

49:33

I think the state department is doing a lot of.

49:36

No. Yeah. Was

49:39

it not like an SF mission as

49:41

well fit as like such a key

49:43

component of the SF teams? And when

49:45

I was in the, you know,

49:47

I was brand new in the teams and

49:50

it was kind of, you

49:52

know, it was actually my 11 when everyone

49:54

started working together. And I

49:56

saw it then like, I was embedded

49:59

with. My first and

50:02

second deployment, I was embedded with an

50:04

SF team. If I

50:06

went up around Santa Barbara knocking on the SF

50:08

doors and like, hey, my name

50:10

is so-and-so, I'm

50:12

a still, and I want

50:14

to get more experience in

50:17

ASOC. And

50:19

someone like, yeah, or no one was there,

50:22

someone was like, hey, yeah, come on in, let's talk.

50:25

I'll take you out. I went out

50:28

to the Firebase with them, lived with them for

50:30

months, and to get where

50:33

I was going, it gets better. Why

50:38

would they let you? So just for people who are

50:40

listening, so it's your

50:42

second deployment, you've got a unit, you're with

50:44

the SEALs, you're in Afghanistan.

50:46

How do you have the ability to kind

50:48

of go and do this soliciting

50:52

for support? I

50:54

don't know how it... So I'm not

50:56

sure how it worked out, but

50:58

I was told to do, I did it, and

51:00

then someone was like, yeah, come with me. So

51:03

I came with my whole package of radio so

51:05

I could move palms to my base, my

51:07

hire, and told them what I was

51:09

doing daily, and I had to send a report what I was

51:11

doing and where I was at. And

51:14

yeah, it was the Wild West in

51:16

Afghanistan, 2004. Oh,

51:20

yeah. And

51:22

you can just, anyone can just jump on a ring flight

51:25

and fly to wherever you want it to go. Get

51:28

off of that base and walk around. There

51:31

would be somewhere for you to stay. There was food. And

51:34

then if they didn't want you there, then you'd leave that

51:36

base and go to another one. So

51:39

they basically said, hey, we need

51:41

your team effectively to go and

51:44

integrate or embed with some SF teams, and you

51:46

found... Yeah, it wasn't even just the whole team,

51:48

it was just me. There

51:51

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52:26

For people who aren't familiar, can you share that? Because I know

52:28

it's going to come up again here. So

52:30

it's advanced special operations techniques.

52:34

And, okay,

52:36

so you're

52:39

running informants to help you get

52:41

a better idea of the

52:43

battlefield and threats coming in and

52:46

how to counteract it and fighting against those

52:48

threats. And change people so that they can

52:50

fight with local towns,

52:52

people, but they can

52:54

fight against the evil.

52:58

And Caliban or whatever. What

53:00

made you want to do that? Because, I mean,

53:02

obviously there are different paths you could take in

53:04

the special ops community. Why this

53:06

one? This Intel-like one? It

53:09

was introduced to me, and I had no

53:12

idea what I was about or what I was getting

53:14

into. And when I get school, you

53:16

learn how to drive cars and

53:18

crash cars up and hot

53:21

water and stuff like that. Yeah, I want to do it. I

53:24

gave the course. The

53:26

first course I went to, there was

53:28

no hot water. It was report writing,

53:30

drawing. It

53:32

was making

53:35

the maps, making

53:37

maps, and then writing on the report how

53:39

to get to that. It

53:41

was people,

53:43

yeah, people committed, I think people have

53:45

committed suicide going through courses like that.

53:48

It was like, all right, I can do this. Report

53:51

writing. So I got the map, I got

53:53

the hangout. You could stay

53:56

up 24 hours, get all your reports here, and then

53:58

have a... the

54:00

instructor grade them, and you could sleep for

54:02

10 hours. But

54:05

yeah, it was writing up a report

54:07

and drawing maps and having

54:10

specific, right? It can be like

54:12

some, I've

54:14

become more of an artist doing through that

54:16

than I ever dreamed about. I mean, just

54:19

draw the place where you put

54:21

something or where you're supposed to

54:24

be. And there's no taking pictures then.

54:26

It was like, you start

54:28

off doing it this way. And then you

54:31

can graduate to pictures using Google and

54:34

other technology later. It's no joke. And so yeah,

54:36

for people who are listening, I mean, this is

54:38

source handling, right? It's you meet somebody, you got

54:40

to tell them where to pick something

54:43

up or where you're going to meet next time.

54:45

And you have to describe it probably through an

54:47

interpreter. So you've got another language barrier. Very accurate.

54:49

I mean, because you only have a few minutes

54:52

that you're going to wait

54:54

there for this person to come or for

54:57

something to arrive there, and then it'll show

54:59

up in the front. Then you got to

55:01

go to another place. It

55:03

could be that day or it could be a week

55:05

from now. You know, it's like chalk.

55:09

So my first deployment,

55:13

we at SED Team One, we

55:16

were Afghanistan

55:19

kicked off. So there were guys in

55:21

Afghanistan taking ass and

55:23

teams going there. And

55:26

STVs were like, we're next,

55:28

we're going to go there. Yes. Nope.

55:31

Nope. You guys are going to be here in

55:34

ball rain. And you're going to do the, you're

55:37

going to set up the mission for

55:39

IRAC 2 when that happens.

55:41

So we did all the reg work.

55:43

And we're like, yeah, it could

55:46

happen any day. And then we're replaced

55:48

by our sister platoon. They come

55:50

in and they get to do

55:52

all the work for IRAC 2. They

55:55

get to go out and take out

55:57

one of the oil. rigs

56:00

and I don't know if they got

56:02

to kill people but they did everything that

56:05

we show them how and

56:07

they got you to watch it basically for back

56:10

home yeah yeah just those guys yeah

56:15

we need to take a little Afghanistan so

56:20

but it was fun I learned

56:22

how they repel from my

56:25

hotel room down to someone else's hotel

56:27

room safely and

56:30

I learned that a

56:32

homebie hit

56:36

a berm going

56:38

35 miles an hour the

56:40

homebie would go straight up

56:43

in the air but then

56:45

it comes straight back down

56:48

right I learned how

56:50

to chime three stories they're go

56:54

into a small sister on

56:56

a ship you know

56:58

when you're a seal and you're not you're

57:00

training other people but you're not going to

57:02

combat and combat is going on you're

57:05

like fuck you

57:07

know idle no

57:09

yeah you gotta occupy it so what's the

57:11

what's the first time you remember going outside

57:14

the wire was that in that second deployment

57:16

like when you're down range so

57:20

on the first deployment second deployment went outside

57:22

the wire never

57:24

really gotten any gun battles it

57:27

was like we were chasing people all the time you get

57:29

there too late or

57:32

once we got there the

57:34

bad guys they had weapons on them so you

57:36

know you can't kill them so

57:38

it was it was fun I got to see

57:40

the other side of it and see how SF

57:44

does it and at that point I realized

57:46

that we're all going towards the same same

57:49

path like from mission briefs

57:52

or whatever else like we we're

57:54

all circling this all together so

57:57

that was it was a good experience and I got

57:59

to go outside was another

58:01

branch that wasn't my team.

58:04

No one liked us. They

58:08

thought we were the stepchildren, that we couldn't

58:10

do anything. We were half

58:13

retard. The

58:16

other team say this, probably

58:19

because we were pretty good at what we did.

58:22

Me and another guy, there was a

58:25

competition on the

58:27

West Coast. Me

58:29

and another guy had gone through sniper training,

58:31

and then they had sniper shoot-off. Me

58:35

and another guy, one between

58:38

teams one, three, and five,

58:40

the sniper shoot. With

58:43

sniper in the spotter, so

58:46

we won, but the

58:48

fucking assholes are like, this is the fucking STB,

58:50

we're not giving it to those guys. So

58:52

they gave it to them. No way. Yes,

58:57

choose the word. But

59:01

we learned, we proved our work,

59:03

and Red Wings happened, and

59:06

I was on active team.

59:10

Those guys in Red Wings replaced

59:12

our platoon, downrange,

59:15

half-winds, and the rest, the other half-winds,

59:17

Afghanistan. I had been in Afghanistan,

59:20

and I told the team leader, and the

59:23

OIC, he was like, listen, these

59:25

are the places you want to go to, this is

59:27

where you're getting in combat. But

59:30

it's not easy. They

59:35

did it, and they got more like a shoot.

59:39

They got more than they could shoot. These

59:42

are guys you knew, like you had met

59:44

and ripped them up. Yeah,

59:47

all of the guys. Hope

59:49

Trainman, because I was a

59:51

pitch in the head. When you

59:54

come back, the next platoon

59:56

was getting ready, or the next guys

59:58

coming through, the new guys, you helped me train. and then

1:00:00

getting STD, you

1:00:03

know, doing

1:00:05

combat swimmer ops, you know,

1:00:07

just around Hawaii, just training.

1:00:10

So, yeah, I changed all those guys. I

1:00:12

just went to the only

1:00:14

person I didn't know was the guy from first

1:00:16

TV, like two, and then some of the guys

1:00:19

on the hero, they crashed. But

1:00:21

yeah, that was

1:00:23

tough. I think that was probably the

1:00:25

toughest moment for anyone

1:00:27

in the civil teams because no one

1:00:29

expected it. You know, we're all invincible.

1:00:32

And then when that happened,

1:00:35

it was like, yeah, I guess we're non-invisible.

1:00:37

And then there was funerals. We

1:00:40

had media chasing us down at, you

1:00:43

know, bars that we hung out trying to

1:00:45

find out, you know,

1:00:48

if what the

1:00:50

survivors, who the survivors were, and reporting

1:00:52

it. Anyone that said anything, they

1:00:54

would repair it back immediately to

1:00:56

the media. And

1:00:58

they were family members. They were still waiting. You

1:01:01

know, my husband's still alive. And

1:01:04

we knew sometimes that they weren't, and there

1:01:06

was no possibility, but we couldn't

1:01:08

say anything. And, you

1:01:10

know, it was a

1:01:13

fucking nightmare. And for guys that had to

1:01:15

go and do, you know, escort the bodies

1:01:18

back from Dover, right,

1:01:20

and yeah, and I

1:01:23

only went to one funeral, which

1:01:25

was, but the other guys,

1:01:27

I mean, there were some guys that went to every

1:01:29

one, and they escorted the bodies from Dover all the

1:01:31

way back. And it

1:01:33

was, man, no one was prepared for that. They

1:01:35

don't prepare you for that. Were any

1:01:37

of those guys in your Buds class? No.

1:01:41

Well, Taylor, so Taylor

1:01:44

got killed on the aircraft. He

1:01:47

was in one of my Buds classes, but

1:01:51

he wasn't at the team. Yeah. But

1:01:55

yeah, I mean, that's real. Who

1:01:59

knows? He's the only survivor

1:02:01

who knows what really happened. But I was

1:02:04

almost in that platoon. For

1:02:08

some reason, I decided they gave me

1:02:10

the special training rather than to LPO.

1:02:16

Like, yeah, I'll go to the driver training

1:02:18

and finding out a lock ticket. So

1:02:20

I missed that one. But I

1:02:22

could have been on the Hilo

1:02:25

with healing or on the

1:02:27

ground with Latrell or in

1:02:29

Latrell. And all those

1:02:31

guys were new. There was not

1:02:34

anyone on the ground that had

1:02:36

a platoon before. That had any

1:02:38

units other than bags and training.

1:02:41

That was it. I feel like

1:02:43

there's a moment for everybody when

1:02:45

they realize in the military,

1:02:47

I guess, it doesn't have to be combat, but that

1:02:49

you're not invincible anymore. You know, like there's a training

1:02:52

accident. Everybody you

1:02:54

know is downrange and it

1:02:56

just slightly enters

1:02:58

your mind how you have

1:03:01

to operate slightly differently because

1:03:03

you're not invincible anymore. Yeah.

1:03:06

And you know, the safety

1:03:09

rules are written in blood, right?

1:03:11

That's what they say. That's

1:03:14

how we learn and that's how

1:03:16

we stop things from happening in the

1:03:18

future. It's so true. It's

1:03:20

so true. I

1:03:23

want to jump to your time. You

1:03:26

mentioned going through green platoon and now

1:03:28

making it obviously very

1:03:31

challenging course from

1:03:33

what people want to expect. But

1:03:36

you stuck around. Yeah. And I

1:03:38

feel like there's something there to stay.

1:03:41

They say, we're not here to train

1:03:43

you. We're

1:03:45

here to see what you know or how

1:03:48

fast you can pick things up. And I'll

1:03:50

tell you that. We're not training you. This

1:03:54

is collection. Was

1:03:56

that the hardest thing you've done? anything

1:04:00

but and it was it was like

1:04:02

don't want to budge again basically but

1:04:05

at a higher higher level and Guys

1:04:07

that make it through They

1:04:09

are They're smart.

1:04:12

They're athletic tactical

1:04:15

mindset like they Be

1:04:21

instructors They they

1:04:24

do really take out Right

1:04:26

the guys that know it or that have

1:04:28

an idea I had no

1:04:31

real or no CTV experience and

1:04:34

I already the second time I went through breathing

1:04:36

team I had already killed dudes and after incident

1:04:38

was like I

1:04:41

never had to do this to

1:04:43

kill somebody. I'll go through the

1:04:46

training, right? Yeah and

1:04:48

it is Selection

1:04:51

so I didn't make it

1:04:53

twice but I got to stick around in

1:04:55

the human role and That

1:04:58

and I always knew and I was

1:05:01

told like if you're a medic or

1:05:03

your comms or

1:05:06

The human guy you're gonna be on

1:05:09

you can be on every mission So

1:05:11

me going into ASOT was like that was

1:05:13

my ways To at

1:05:16

least try to be on every mission

1:05:18

that goes outside the world How

1:05:20

do you get treated in that

1:05:23

role when you're in that unit? Nobody

1:05:27

wants to do it and Those

1:05:31

that know about it They're

1:05:34

like, you know, it's good and they can show

1:05:36

some others You know, like whatever go talk to

1:05:38

your source like your interpreter

1:05:40

like dirty interpreters like balance my

1:05:43

best friend and interpreter He's also

1:05:45

American by the way, you may

1:05:47

speak Hush to you,

1:05:50

but he's from America. This

1:05:52

guy's protected me, right and

1:05:55

I'm protecting him and I'm

1:05:59

not gonna be here a shithead to him,

1:06:01

like guys who just talk down. And

1:06:03

you know, sometimes it was you

1:06:07

could drive a mission, which

1:06:09

is awesome. You have all the intel and you're

1:06:11

there in the front and you're like, all right,

1:06:13

this is where everything's at. This is the people

1:06:15

there. And this is what's going to happen. This

1:06:17

is how we're going to,

1:06:19

you know, infill and take

1:06:21

down the target. So

1:06:24

that was a good thing. And

1:06:28

but also, you know, you never trust

1:06:30

your source ever.

1:06:32

You always think that he

1:06:35

may be trying to fuck us or ambush.

1:06:38

So, you know, I didn't mind keeping,

1:06:40

you know, bringing men, mission

1:06:42

was happening like, you're staying with us or you're going

1:06:44

out with us and if it doesn't pan out, then

1:06:47

you may not make it back. It

1:06:50

was worst case in every open, you

1:06:52

know, and it is

1:06:55

a rule that's there and it helped, you

1:06:57

know, but I

1:06:59

feel most guys,

1:07:01

they hate it because there's

1:07:04

the fun stuff, right?

1:07:06

We actually get to the target,

1:07:09

but getting there is a long

1:07:11

process. You know, meetings and

1:07:13

all of this and coffee and shaking

1:07:15

hands and cigarettes. Totally.

1:07:18

I think people really don't see

1:07:20

that for people who have been in

1:07:22

in the intel community, you know how long it

1:07:24

takes from like the first time you get a

1:07:26

little nugget of info and you

1:07:28

develop it into something and you're on a target. Certainly

1:07:32

you can actually long process. Yeah, you can

1:07:34

action quickly, but a lot of times it

1:07:36

happens. Yeah, sometimes if you like, it

1:07:38

happens right away. But no, it's usually

1:07:41

that would be any person

1:07:43

and it just falls in. You

1:07:46

always have like ogres in the fire,

1:07:48

they may pan out, but you're shuffling

1:07:50

like a bunch of stuff

1:07:54

and we're knuckle draggers.

1:07:57

We're not, they don't know how

1:07:59

to ride. And

1:08:02

also make reports, right?

1:08:04

And that whole process, a lot

1:08:06

of teenagers are like, fuck it, I just

1:08:08

want to kick doors down. Yeah. Right?

1:08:12

You know, they're not in it for the long name. They're just in

1:08:14

it for the quick name.

1:08:18

Let's briefly, before we jump into your time with

1:08:20

Deborah, you mentioned you had already been on some

1:08:22

kinetic ops as a SEAL. So since I would

1:08:24

imagine that the work you're doing on the human

1:08:26

side is going to look very different, can you

1:08:28

take us to one of the more challenging

1:08:31

moments you had before you

1:08:33

were doing the human work

1:08:35

with DevGrew? Yeah,

1:08:40

so regular teams, and I mean,

1:08:44

I didn't get into combat with

1:08:47

my first opponent, but most of

1:08:49

us trained. So

1:08:52

you do this workup, and

1:08:54

then at the end, you have to

1:08:57

do a FTX, a final training exercise,

1:08:59

to show that you're deployable already. One

1:09:04

of my longest dives and others,

1:09:06

I'm not the longest at all, but

1:09:09

one of my longest dives was seven

1:09:11

hours. Seven

1:09:14

hours, FED, halfway through.

1:09:20

So it's about two and a half

1:09:22

hours halfway through. We get to go on

1:09:24

land. We're doing photos

1:09:28

and getting

1:09:30

into an insiliate bias act

1:09:33

of a live meeting. And

1:09:36

then we're packing all of

1:09:38

your dry baguette, swim

1:09:41

out to the SUV, and then

1:09:43

the SUV takes us to the sub. And

1:09:46

then we go from the SUV down to

1:09:48

the sub. And

1:09:52

it looks like when you're

1:09:54

in an SUV in the sub,

1:09:56

and it's still originalized, and you

1:09:59

can see. It looks

1:10:01

like something from Star Trek. They have to

1:10:03

have you on top and underneath there's a

1:10:05

service going You're going to say now and

1:10:07

then there's a color that comes up you

1:10:09

hook it on your There's one

1:10:12

there. You're you're taking things that need to get

1:10:14

out of it out of the Zodiac

1:10:17

or out of the STD and

1:10:19

showing it down this line. There's

1:10:21

boundaries. They're taking things down there

1:10:24

and In Hawaii

1:10:26

these abilities are under feet like

1:10:29

night. Yeah, it looks

1:10:31

like it looks like Yeah,

1:10:34

it can be like a space craft, you know

1:10:36

just that that cool, but

1:10:40

seven hours underwater

1:10:45

And Hawaii like oh it's warm in Hawaii, you

1:10:47

know, but you know water is 70 degrees your

1:10:49

body temp is 98 Your

1:10:52

body can just close to 70 is still high

1:10:54

but there's only an eight. It still gets cold

1:10:56

I mean the Pacific

1:10:58

is cold, but Hawaii gets cold,

1:11:01

too Everything

1:11:05

that you know, I'm gonna make it

1:11:07

your bud I think goes back to

1:11:09

buzz which is my hardest time those

1:11:12

times in the teens It was close

1:11:14

to but was never like house. It's

1:11:17

so hard. I'm gonna quit

1:11:19

Yeah, like you've already been through

1:11:21

cold you've already been to

1:11:23

a mental barrier like yeah There's

1:11:27

one time. I'm just

1:11:31

testing out my STD and my

1:11:33

pilot and navigator driving and

1:11:35

I'm in the back with a couple guys and I

1:11:38

pass out I Probably

1:11:42

probably is one of my nine lives

1:11:44

I think We come

1:11:47

up so we're cruising on Ford

1:11:49

Island We surface with

1:11:51

the STD where on drago, you know

1:11:53

block Keep

1:11:55

the lock with mouthpiece and

1:11:58

you start talking We

1:12:00

were probably on the surface for five, 10

1:12:02

minutes just talking. And then, we're

1:12:04

like, all right, we're going back down. We're gonna finish

1:12:06

the loop and then park

1:12:08

it. Well, when

1:12:11

I went back on O2 on the

1:12:14

bank, I

1:12:16

didn't, I didn't bleed it

1:12:18

off. So I opened

1:12:20

it, just got breathing all the way

1:12:22

down. I had this amazing

1:12:24

dream. I can't tell you

1:12:26

what it was, but it was super amazing. And then

1:12:29

for some reason, I pushed back

1:12:32

and the guy sitting behind me, he squeezed

1:12:34

my shoulder because he thought I was just fucking

1:12:36

around. And it woke me up and

1:12:39

I hit my demand dial and I

1:12:41

was like, new. And

1:12:44

it was, I almost didn't remember

1:12:46

it like that happened. We

1:12:49

surfaced and I was like, hey, I think I

1:12:51

passed out underwater. At

1:12:53

this point, he's like, yeah, you did this.

1:12:55

I squeezed you and then you were okay.

1:12:59

I was unconscious when that

1:13:01

happened. There was no

1:13:03

signs or diving illness or

1:13:07

the bands or anything, but I

1:13:09

passed out underwater and probably would have

1:13:11

died if that guy didn't do

1:13:13

that. Bleeds my shoulder. And

1:13:17

then I literally went, when

1:13:19

he did that, I hit my demand dial. I

1:13:22

could make it because I guess I've been trained.

1:13:25

I just love this system with fresh O2

1:13:28

and I woke up. But,

1:13:32

and it was like, at the time it was

1:13:34

like, I think this happened. Like I wasn't sure

1:13:36

it would happen. But

1:13:40

it's that easy. I think other

1:13:42

guys have died that way because

1:13:44

I'm not following diving rules. You're in

1:13:47

a hurry. It's easy,

1:13:49

it's fine. No pressure and

1:13:51

you should get to be once there.

1:13:53

You got it. One

1:13:57

of the things that comes to mind is you're

1:14:00

talking about. about earlier as you were mentioning, you'd

1:14:02

already taken a life. Having

1:14:04

grown up hunting, do you

1:14:06

like as you look back on that first time you had

1:14:08

to take another human life, do you feel

1:14:10

it's easier for you because you grew up hunting

1:14:13

the way that you did, the way you described? No,

1:14:18

I think it was easier

1:14:20

because I knew what I was going to answer

1:14:22

and I knew that that was what I was

1:14:24

trying to do. It

1:14:27

was a possibility. Yeah. If

1:14:29

you get into something

1:14:31

and you're

1:14:34

thrown into it, all of a

1:14:36

sudden you're thrown in, you got to kill people

1:14:38

and you haven't trained for it. It

1:14:40

was like not

1:14:42

your daily thought. You're going

1:14:44

to have some PTSD.

1:14:46

You're thrown in, it's trauma. But

1:14:50

in most stills, I don't think there's any

1:14:52

trauma from you killing people. I think maybe

1:14:54

from not killing people, there are times

1:14:57

that I was like, fuck, the RLEs

1:14:59

don't fit, I can't kill this person. They're

1:15:01

bad as fuck, but I can't kill

1:15:04

them right now. It's just not affecting

1:15:06

the RLEs. But

1:15:09

no, so it wasn't hard at all for me

1:15:12

to do it. The first time I

1:15:17

was screaming incoherently and

1:15:21

cheering the other guys, it was completely different.

1:15:25

What was the context of this? Was this

1:15:27

like a deliberate hit? Yeah,

1:15:29

so I was with Mike

1:15:32

Edwards. That's where I saw

1:15:35

him, true

1:15:37

professional, killer,

1:15:40

and just

1:15:42

someone who had the experience that

1:15:46

you didn't have to second guess and

1:15:48

you're watching like that's the same thing I would

1:15:50

do and then direct your

1:15:52

fire somewhere else. But yeah, it

1:15:55

was I

1:15:59

knew I was going to do it. Now, all

1:16:01

the hunting, but

1:16:04

I'm not gonna... Before it was like,

1:16:07

yeah, this is what you need to do

1:16:10

and it's cool to kill

1:16:12

a big buck

1:16:14

or whatever. I

1:16:16

still get it, but it's after hunting

1:16:19

people, it's a lot different

1:16:21

than shooting Bambi in the

1:16:23

woods. If it's some of

1:16:27

the meat or if it's a

1:16:29

super like giant buck that

1:16:32

would hold all the records and no one else is interested

1:16:34

in it, maybe I would, right?

1:16:38

And or if someone needs the meat, like

1:16:40

I will shoot something so

1:16:43

they can have food. But yeah,

1:16:46

I think it's not the same as it was

1:16:49

when I was growing up. And

1:16:52

do you think that that is because of

1:16:54

the time hunting humans? Is that what you're

1:16:56

saying? Yeah. Ronnie? Interesting. Why

1:16:58

do you think that is? Because

1:17:01

it's harder and humans are harder

1:17:03

to hunt. And I was at

1:17:05

the best place to hunt them.

1:17:08

We had all

1:17:11

the... All their asses to

1:17:14

hunt and not

1:17:16

get killed. And

1:17:18

you know, going out and just

1:17:21

not eating it. The

1:17:23

dough or this, you

1:17:25

know, black. I'm

1:17:27

just kicking on the dish on a drink and

1:17:30

watch Wildwise. You

1:17:32

almost feel bad. Yeah. Yes.

1:17:34

I see something super exceptional. Yeah.

1:17:38

It's like, yeah, we need to get rid of this one. He's

1:17:41

too old or, you know,

1:17:43

like this

1:17:45

animal wants to die kind of thing. But yeah,

1:17:49

it's not the same. I don't find

1:17:51

it as challenging. It's still fun. I'll

1:17:53

still go paratiming him. I think I'm

1:17:56

going to go and do some turkey thighs. I

1:17:58

would get a honey. I

1:18:01

yeah, it's not you say turkey-sized

1:18:03

alligators trophy trophy

1:18:06

Alligator. Yes, I'm

1:18:08

Florida. They have it here big

1:18:11

ones. I guess I don't know what I would do with all

1:18:13

of it All the beat. I mean, yeah a big button,

1:18:16

I know That

1:18:18

is more along the lines where

1:18:20

you know eradicating, you know pigs

1:18:23

Right from destroying crops and it's a

1:18:25

certain. Yeah, what you're helping by doing

1:18:28

that. Yeah. Yeah, okay Yes,

1:18:30

no more. It's not really a challenging I

1:18:33

don't want to go on the world. I stuck in the

1:18:35

world. So I Did

1:18:37

that? Completely and

1:18:40

I'm a pilot and I still feel that way so

1:18:42

like I hear you Kids like

1:18:44

let's go camping and I do it when I

1:18:46

you know, like as a dad But I'm still

1:18:48

like man can't we just stay in a hotel

1:18:50

for this? I know you can go chance of

1:18:52

the day and still stay in the hotel and

1:18:54

then you know do It's awesome All

1:18:58

right So one of the things that

1:19:00

the reasons I wanted to chat with

1:19:02

you Rodney was obviously because of Mike

1:19:04

like Edwards, right? Yeah I

1:19:06

was hoping you could share maybe one or

1:19:08

two stories of times

1:19:10

Downrange with Mike in

1:19:12

an operation and I'm gonna ask him the same

1:19:15

thing to tell me maybe the same

1:19:17

story You told me to hear like the different perspectives

1:19:20

Because everybody experiences it differently even if it's

1:19:22

the same event and it's so chaotic when

1:19:24

you're downrange So I don't know. Are there

1:19:26

any to come to mind that you could

1:19:28

share? I

1:19:32

Love Mike and he's so like honest

1:19:34

and likes to chew And

1:19:38

so I barely knew Mike and we barely

1:19:40

known each other for some time We

1:19:43

were flying in on an op and

1:19:45

on a mi bird, right?

1:19:47

So it's an old Russian heroes

1:19:51

and We we can have rough landing

1:19:53

where it was kind of like When

1:19:55

in bouncing it keep turning behind the

1:19:57

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we're in the middle. We're

1:20:37

sitting nuts and butts. Like

1:20:39

in the middle, we have Afghan soldiers

1:20:43

on either side. We're behind the team

1:20:45

guy. We're like, oh, we're going to

1:20:47

get shot. We're

1:20:50

all holding on to you. No,

1:20:52

see now, if it did cost a good band

1:20:54

sample. Yeah, I'm like, what was that? I

1:20:57

was like, yeah, I've been on too many.

1:21:00

He would crash it. That's why I

1:21:02

grabbed you like that. I was like,

1:21:05

oh, I'm going to be like a

1:21:07

shoe. I was like, I'm going to

1:21:09

be like a shoe. I'm going

1:21:11

to be like a shoe. It's like,

1:21:13

I'm going to be like a shoe.

1:21:17

And then

1:21:20

any ops where you're, you mentioned kind of clear

1:21:22

in a room, maybe, that you remember?

1:21:27

So the one op, and

1:21:29

he would tell you the same, and we

1:21:31

were, so we're in 10-R, along the Ardendal

1:21:34

River, Ardendal District. We

1:21:38

drove in, and then we had a

1:21:40

six, I think at

1:21:42

least a six or 10-kilometer walk

1:21:44

in. We'd

1:21:49

heard the story, you know, we

1:21:51

got the brief, and the brief was like,

1:21:53

there are no women or children here.

1:21:56

They were all

1:21:58

fighting AIDS. males

1:22:01

and they they this

1:22:04

is Calvin and Al-Qaeda and they're

1:22:06

just they're gonna go out

1:22:09

and kill amongst people so

1:22:11

we have information we go

1:22:13

there and it's not just like a

1:22:15

few of us so there's probably a

1:22:17

hundred Afghan nationals

1:22:20

that are with us

1:22:22

that are trained you know they're

1:22:24

good dudes and they have a

1:22:27

leader or US advisors with

1:22:29

each one of their local teams so

1:22:32

we get the permanent we come on

1:22:35

and as we get there the

1:22:38

AC 130 reports there's a

1:22:40

person on a bicycle and

1:22:44

and we're like or two people on the bicycle

1:22:46

they just left right talk

1:22:49

and so we hit them now and blow

1:22:52

them up and then ruin the surprise for

1:22:54

for the rest of the guys there or no

1:22:57

so we let that one go and then we

1:22:59

started we got them all together

1:23:01

and we're with so we're with Canadians Canadians

1:23:07

like just behind the second Canadian

1:23:10

they're like this sniper guys from

1:23:12

Canadians and then and

1:23:14

then it's team

1:23:17

lead and everyone

1:23:19

falls in and back and

1:23:21

then there's our CPT guy

1:23:23

that comes on the

1:23:25

radio so

1:23:27

we start walking up you know

1:23:30

and we can I stop you from just

1:23:32

a sec people are gonna hate me for this

1:23:34

but this is like an alphabet soup you've

1:23:36

got Afghans Canadians Air Force your seal Mike's

1:23:38

army like what if you can't share it's totally

1:23:41

fine but what is the context of this

1:23:43

unit that you guys are part of at

1:23:45

the time we're captured feel that's

1:23:48

really and so we're working

1:23:50

with OGA and on an

1:23:52

OGA target and we're able to go to

1:23:54

their target because we have the air assets

1:23:57

that can support us going out and and

1:23:59

they want us there because we have the

1:24:01

assets. So we start

1:24:04

patrolling up and the

1:24:06

two Canadians are front and I'm made

1:24:08

sort of close to the back or

1:24:10

middle and it's

1:24:13

all dark room nods and and

1:24:15

the two Canadians start talking to someone and

1:24:18

I'm looking I can see some guy

1:24:21

stands up and he's bold Taliban with

1:24:24

a case long and he's looking

1:24:27

and the Canadians just looking in and

1:24:29

poshly like drop your weapon

1:24:31

and get down

1:24:34

and this this guy's like what

1:24:36

drop my weapon like who

1:24:39

are you and he starts to

1:24:41

raise it and Mike I'm stepping aside

1:24:44

and looking like this motherfucker is about to

1:24:46

shoot at Mike steps aside he's got an

1:24:48

mp7 he just starts

1:24:50

drooling this dude and

1:24:53

mp7 so the rounds are fucking

1:24:55

tiny well he

1:24:58

goes through a full mag does mag

1:25:00

change and then we're

1:25:02

on this web and then

1:25:05

down below is like housing

1:25:07

for the rest of town they

1:25:10

start running out of these

1:25:12

buildings who doesn't sleep in bags on the ground

1:25:14

they start running out like

1:25:17

like ants and

1:25:19

we're all it's like shooting fish in a barrel

1:25:21

we're on this this ledge

1:25:24

above them able to look down just like

1:25:27

wow just taking them

1:25:29

out the guy in the front and

1:25:32

the so the committee and

1:25:34

their own early was like making a

1:25:36

shoot till shot at I

1:25:39

don't even know why they were there in the way

1:25:42

luckily Mike was there and took

1:25:45

care of that and then was

1:25:47

we were able to focus on the

1:25:49

ants running out and they were just

1:25:52

coming out of nowhere like

1:25:55

everywhere and so that was

1:25:57

my first time and I'm laughing

1:25:59

hysterically That's how my game works. You're

1:26:02

some blubber. You're a

1:26:05

bitch. What

1:26:07

is Mike saying at the time? Do you remember? Mike

1:26:10

is saying it all, but he's just like,

1:26:12

you know, methodically going through his variety

1:26:15

and taking down cars, like, no questions.

1:26:18

And I'm sitting there laughing, and the guy

1:26:20

next to me, there was some

1:26:23

type of, it was an explosion,

1:26:25

but... So they

1:26:27

had like this rocket

1:26:29

tube that was wrapped in

1:26:31

oil, or like it was in storage,

1:26:35

but it was sometimes a gun mount, something

1:26:37

like that. It was

1:26:39

pretty big. Well, one of our bullets hit it,

1:26:41

and it lit it up. And

1:26:43

I was like, oh, fuck, we're going to

1:26:46

suicide bomb it. Holy shit. I

1:26:48

mean, but it didn't turn out that wasn't it.

1:26:50

So we, you know, take you to

1:26:52

the next, and then we secured the

1:26:55

Canadians who had to go through and clear

1:26:57

the rest of the room, like, get

1:27:00

the fuck out, kind of thing. And

1:27:04

we're doing security lines on those who

1:27:06

are still living, like, we're not providing

1:27:08

aid to these fucking terrorists. So

1:27:11

then we get that settled down. And

1:27:13

like, all right, no mother is still,

1:27:15

you know, going through and recording. Like,

1:27:18

you and mine, and a

1:27:21

bunch of us go forward and just watch the next building that

1:27:23

we're going to go to. We

1:27:25

could hear a dog barking, like, it was just

1:27:27

like, rah, rah, rah, like, when

1:27:29

I can have someone's in there or something, and we

1:27:31

sat there for a while, didn't see any movement. And

1:27:34

it was, so there was

1:27:36

a canal inside a

1:27:38

levee, and then houses

1:27:40

were like, you

1:27:43

know, built below the

1:27:46

levee. So we had a raft

1:27:48

around them. It was a great fighting

1:27:50

position, really, except for the first one,

1:27:53

we were on the higher ground, and she was out of it.

1:27:55

But basically, it was protected,

1:27:57

figured in league. So we

1:27:59

start watching. next building, they

1:28:01

clear it. And at

1:28:05

the same time, I think there are on

1:28:08

the first compound, AC

1:28:10

130, there's dudes

1:28:12

running throughout this tree

1:28:15

field, like sniper

1:28:18

accuracy. Back from the

1:28:20

air from 10,000 feet. Yeah. Yeah,

1:28:22

right. We were at two months there.

1:28:25

Those things are great. Oh,

1:28:27

it's so phenomenal. So

1:28:30

we're at the next place and we're

1:28:32

there and then we're probably everyone catches

1:28:34

up and like, all right, we're moving

1:28:36

forward. So I'm

1:28:39

like point man walking up this

1:28:42

dude. So it's like a

1:28:45

lady, but there's a walkway through and

1:28:47

it's like a hill. This guy

1:28:50

speaks his head like this. Look at

1:28:53

him. We're all nods. He can't see the

1:28:55

shit for shit. He can't even hear something.

1:28:58

So I shoot

1:29:01

that dude in my gun jams with the next

1:29:03

round. And I'm like, but through

1:29:05

my jam, like moving

1:29:07

back and I start

1:29:09

going to back to through my jam, my

1:29:11

everyone else. I mean, we start, they throw

1:29:14

grenades. They're like, we're

1:29:16

just killing dudes.

1:29:20

Then it stops

1:29:22

and back off and then we back off and

1:29:25

we're like, all right, AC 130

1:29:27

and then, you know, it was about the

1:29:30

time that AC 130 was

1:29:32

going to have to win. So we're

1:29:34

like, all

1:29:37

right, we're pulling off. We can't really

1:29:40

defend it. They really have decided force. So

1:29:43

we're walking. We're probably three clicks out and you

1:29:45

see, you hear, you

1:29:47

see light first and then you

1:29:49

hear the sound. If 15th, I

1:29:51

think I'm not sure, came in and

1:29:53

just blew the shit out. It

1:29:56

was a huge explosion. You saw the light

1:29:59

and the. heard the sound and

1:30:01

we're like, yeah, that's fucking freedom. Yeah.

1:30:04

That must be surreal watching that. Like at

1:30:07

night you hear them coming in and then

1:30:09

just. Yeah.

1:30:11

It's like something, you know,

1:30:13

wrote the national anthem. Like

1:30:18

an eagle was flying by at the same

1:30:20

time. One

1:30:23

of the guys that I had interviewed, this guy,

1:30:25

it was a Marsoc operator Jason He was saying

1:30:27

it was so rare to get the jump on

1:30:29

those guys. And it sounds like you did that

1:30:31

night, like that 10 K hump in. I

1:30:35

don't think it was worth it. Yeah. So, and I

1:30:37

would sort of, I know

1:30:39

where the Marines fought in Marsia and all that.

1:30:42

That was our operating area. That's

1:30:44

where we were. Like

1:30:47

I know they had the one in clearly area a couple

1:30:50

of times, but

1:30:52

it was, we, yeah, we

1:30:55

targeted people and how

1:30:58

high and what level they were on the killing spectrum

1:31:04

for killing us and

1:31:06

commission soldiers. Right.

1:31:09

So ID facilitators, I mean,

1:31:11

usually when we could, if

1:31:13

they were low level, if they were there, we'd

1:31:15

take care of them. But we went

1:31:17

after those who are facilitating and that were

1:31:19

moving parts and all that for

1:31:22

ID. So

1:31:24

if we went on

1:31:26

something, we were going to usually kill something. And

1:31:29

I didn't realize, you know, knowing or listening to

1:31:31

the brief, like

1:31:33

we'd been through a breach like that a hundred

1:31:35

times, like nothing but finding it was, you know,

1:31:38

blah, blah, blah. Like, yeah, we're doing

1:31:40

it. It's going to be a drive. Right. Because it happens

1:31:42

time and time again. Mike

1:31:45

was, he was sick that day. He

1:31:47

told you a few minutes, like, you know,

1:31:49

he was like, man, you know, I'm

1:31:52

just, I've

1:31:54

been throwing up dehydrated and

1:31:57

it's slept. You know, I've been, you know,

1:32:01

I think I'm going to

1:32:03

stay back to this one. And

1:32:05

the team really was like, actually we need you

1:32:07

all of a sudden. I think we're going to need you. So

1:32:10

if you can make it and

1:32:13

he didn't pull through and Mike was

1:32:15

like the superstar. Right. But

1:32:18

two Canadians would get us all killed because

1:32:20

of their ROEs. Was

1:32:23

so restrictive. Yes. We

1:32:25

would have been shot before the

1:32:27

Canadians decided to get this guy.

1:32:31

Oh geez. All right. What, um,

1:32:34

let me ask you this as we talk about Mike,

1:32:37

if, when I interview him, is there

1:32:39

anything that you think I should ask him

1:32:41

specifically that would bring up an interesting story

1:32:43

or something funny that, uh, he

1:32:45

might not bring up himself? No.

1:32:51

And, and so,

1:32:54

you know, he meant like, uh, we got

1:32:56

through, I could go off base and

1:32:59

there were a lot of expats from breads,

1:33:02

taro, whoever, like

1:33:04

UN. So we

1:33:06

would go out and visit other people

1:33:09

where like, I guess the other

1:33:11

team that didn't know that or they're like, yeah, I

1:33:13

don't want to, I don't want to go off base

1:33:15

unless it's an off, like they didn't want to

1:33:17

go with this, but man,

1:33:21

that sounds crazy to me, Rodney.

1:33:24

No, there

1:33:26

was a whole nightlife Thursday,

1:33:29

Friday. I mean, expats

1:33:32

bars, their compounds,

1:33:36

driving around in the minivan and

1:33:38

getting to do whatever we

1:33:41

wanted. Really. I

1:33:43

mean, there were women,

1:33:45

some women, right? Where we were at,

1:33:47

but there were expats, like you

1:33:50

could go out. I mean, there was more

1:33:53

men than women in that case,

1:33:55

especially through like a base. help

1:34:00

even the islands like there were more

1:34:02

women on the expanse and right

1:34:04

we'd go out to hang

1:34:07

out with some regular people almost right like yeah

1:34:09

not just dod and

1:34:12

ops and like you know

1:34:14

builder poor yeah i

1:34:16

mean you're collecting intel as you

1:34:18

go along so one of the

1:34:20

stories mike will probably

1:34:22

share and i'm pretty

1:34:25

sure i'm at mike before he went to

1:34:28

i don't really know what it is but

1:34:30

rrd right where he

1:34:32

got this specialty training and doing what

1:34:34

i was doing before he was doing

1:34:37

it so he's going to mention probably

1:34:40

will being stopped at

1:34:43

a bridge we came back from

1:34:45

cask candy har

1:34:47

airfield we'd go there to pick

1:34:50

up people

1:34:52

coming in that were attached to

1:34:54

the the team or

1:34:57

people were yeah

1:34:59

somehow they were attached to the team where they were

1:35:01

coming out to give us something here right so we'd

1:35:04

pick them up at camp and then the islands in

1:35:07

our airfield to hannahar

1:35:10

city and the base that

1:35:12

we were on which was the base

1:35:15

was camp moholic named

1:35:18

after an sf guy who was killed

1:35:21

um and then it was it was

1:35:23

known by other names to gecko

1:35:27

um actually probably something else but

1:35:29

so we would do these

1:35:32

trips and i was usually the one

1:35:34

going dressed up we would

1:35:36

go so we went dressed

1:35:38

up like a local you're saying local

1:35:40

yeah so like someone driving past or

1:35:42

someone on the street looked

1:35:44

at me driving and i looked just like

1:35:47

someone you know from afghanistan they

1:35:50

really wouldn't notice so

1:35:52

for some reasons we

1:35:55

left i don't know if

1:35:57

we went there for a briefing or if we went there to pick someone

1:35:59

up up and we're bringing it back.

1:36:02

There were three vehicles.

1:36:06

Mine was a minivan. There may be

1:36:09

another minivan behind us or some type

1:36:12

of other vehicle, but

1:36:15

with us. And we had stopped

1:36:18

leaving Kandahar at

1:36:21

the main bridge. There's really

1:36:23

no... That was

1:36:25

the main road. I wouldn't know a way around

1:36:27

it. So we stopped

1:36:30

there and we're

1:36:32

all on the headset, right? Or

1:36:34

palms in our hair. The

1:36:37

drivers were talking to each

1:36:39

other in there. Well... And

1:36:50

I can start back and preface this

1:36:52

with... So the rule was no

1:36:55

one came inside our vehicle. We didn't get

1:36:57

out. And if they...

1:37:00

You have to get out, then we

1:37:02

were going to shoot. No

1:37:04

one's coming in. We're not getting out. Number

1:37:07

one rule. And if this vehicle fails,

1:37:09

we'll find another vehicle. If we can't

1:37:11

find a vehicle, we will find a

1:37:13

building, a hard point, and defend ourselves

1:37:15

from there. So that was

1:37:17

the number one rule. And I put that

1:37:19

out every time we drove after

1:37:21

I made the STATCOM call. We're

1:37:24

at this point going back to

1:37:26

where we're going. So

1:37:28

we get stopped and they're like... I

1:37:32

show the American flag, but

1:37:35

they hear someone else talking and

1:37:37

they can't tell if it's Russian. I

1:37:39

mean, they're asking. They can't read. So

1:37:42

who are these guys? They're dressed up.

1:37:45

And we can see there's weapons inside. We

1:37:47

probably look inside. And the person was

1:37:49

like, you all have to

1:37:51

get out. They're like,

1:37:54

well, we have to search your vehicle.

1:37:56

Like, we are not searching our vehicle.

1:37:59

And Mike, I can hear Mike. like in one of the vehicles,

1:38:01

he's like, listen, this guy's getting

1:38:03

there's a gesture on the roof. And

1:38:05

I think it's

1:38:08

gonna, you know, it's gonna go sideways.

1:38:11

Like, listen, don't do anything. And if

1:38:13

you do, let me know before you do it. So

1:38:15

we're all on the same page, we're gonna shoot it.

1:38:17

So I got to hold, hold, hold, don't fire. And

1:38:21

so I don't know,

1:38:25

if I started counting, I was like, give us one

1:38:27

minute, you know, doesn't look like

1:38:30

this is the way it's gonna go. And we're gonna go

1:38:32

through it. And then we may have

1:38:34

to shoot. So it was like counting down like, my

1:38:38

interpreters, they're US, but they

1:38:40

were from, came to

1:38:42

our, the family was from Canar. They are

1:38:45

like, no, no, we can work this out.

1:38:47

And I don't know, I'm telling interpreters don't

1:38:49

get out. We have to get out and

1:38:51

talk to them. Like, all right, you guys

1:38:53

get out. No other US do not get

1:38:56

out. They're talking to it looks

1:38:58

kind of exciting. Like, they, you

1:39:00

know, maybe a site. But

1:39:02

I'm telling Mike, he's like, 30,

1:39:05

29, or something like that. No, do

1:39:07

not shoot or not. We're

1:39:10

not gonna shoot until it's our

1:39:12

last useful. So my

1:39:15

interpreters knew it was like the governor,

1:39:17

the mayor. So they called

1:39:19

the police chief. And the police

1:39:21

chief called to the guys that had stopped

1:39:23

us. And they were like,

1:39:25

why the fuck are you holding these guys? They're

1:39:27

Americans. And they let

1:39:29

us go. But it was

1:39:31

so close that I don't

1:39:34

even think the discuit was, I don't

1:39:36

think that anything locked and loaded. It was it

1:39:39

was up there for show. And they all walked

1:39:41

around with the AK but probably no rounds and

1:39:43

they don't know how to shoot it. But it

1:39:46

was very close where, you know, it was

1:39:48

a Mexican stand up, we're gonna have a

1:39:51

fucking shootout in the okay corral, right? It

1:39:53

sounds like you kind of kept thing kept

1:39:55

a lid on it. But Mike, like, hey,

1:39:57

let's just open this thing up. 25,

1:40:00

24, no. Hold

1:40:04

fire. Hold fire.

1:40:08

Oh, man. What

1:40:14

made you and Mike close, I guess, because

1:40:16

you've gone on to work together later. Was

1:40:18

it like the downtime that you had? Was

1:40:21

it him hugging up on you on a

1:40:23

flight? No. I

1:40:25

think, yeah, I think it was just like

1:40:27

we recognize each other in what

1:40:30

we're doing. There was no jealousy.

1:40:33

Sometimes you'll get that where guys

1:40:35

won't ask questions or won't ask for help.

1:40:38

I am the opposite. If I'm in a

1:40:40

situation that I'm a little bit over my head or

1:40:42

whatever, oh, hey, this is what I got to

1:40:44

do. Have you done this

1:40:46

before? Give me some pointers. And

1:40:49

so I don't have a problem with that. And he was the

1:40:51

same way, right? And he'd go along

1:40:53

and ride along and he's riding

1:40:56

with me dressed up like an Afghan. And

1:40:58

then I'm out hunting dudes with him

1:41:01

and see how he works and how

1:41:03

he, you know, and knows just his

1:41:05

experience, knows from start to finish of

1:41:07

a mission, this is the way it

1:41:09

works. This is the way to do it. And

1:41:12

I had done it so many times. So

1:41:14

I just confided. And he was –

1:41:16

and he's generally like a good

1:41:19

dude, you know, like one

1:41:21

of those guys. Like

1:41:23

I don't think he has ever

1:41:26

means to harm

1:41:28

anyone at all, you know, if he does.

1:41:31

And I probably didn't think about it. Like

1:41:33

it's just – then that happened. Like

1:41:35

he wasn't intentional. He's just a

1:41:37

good, good person. What's

1:41:40

– this is just a question

1:41:42

I ask folks, Rodney, but when you look

1:41:44

back on your time in combat downrange, what's

1:41:46

one of the most courageous things you saw?

1:41:49

It could be with Mike. It could be separate. But

1:41:51

as you reflect back from all

1:41:53

these times pulling the trigger. Man,

1:41:59

I – Everyone that was

1:42:01

around were all, like it

1:42:03

was just fantastic to see

1:42:05

when you're in the middle

1:42:07

of war and battles going on, how

1:42:10

everyone acts. And there

1:42:12

was, I mean, everyone's

1:42:14

courageous at that point. Like you're just,

1:42:17

you're watching in awe

1:42:20

of everyone else

1:42:22

and why you're trying to

1:42:24

make sure you meet their

1:42:26

expectations, you know, or exceed

1:42:28

them without any jealousy.

1:42:33

It's just like, how can I

1:42:35

help? How can I make this mission faster?

1:42:37

How can we get through this? So,

1:42:41

yeah, so the most courageous, I

1:42:48

can't really, I mean, I've seen a

1:42:50

lot, I think just watching, like, when

1:42:54

the Canadians were stuttering

1:42:57

and the guy was, yes,

1:42:59

like, I'm not gonna, I don't know

1:43:02

who you are, I'm about to kill

1:43:04

you, right? He stepped aside

1:43:06

and lit the guy up. I

1:43:08

think that was courageous to

1:43:10

me. And it was

1:43:13

needed and it was right.

1:43:15

That wouldn't have happened. I

1:43:17

may not be here or it would have been a

1:43:19

different story, you know? I

1:43:24

know when you get out, you form 5326

1:43:27

consultants, right? And you were kind of coaching me

1:43:29

along before we started. What is the, I mean,

1:43:32

talk a little bit about what the company

1:43:34

does. It's in a very similar space, I

1:43:36

would say, to your ASOT work. But what

1:43:40

is the meaning of the name for those who aren't in

1:43:43

the SEAL community? So 5326,

1:43:45

in the military, there's

1:43:47

an MRS or like

1:43:50

your job code or

1:43:54

what you do for the Department of

1:43:56

Defense for Army, Marines, Navy, whatever it

1:43:58

is. 5326

1:44:01

is combat swimmer and

1:44:04

everything else was taking blue, red,

1:44:07

trident. Everything else was

1:44:09

taking, I was like, fuck, I'll

1:44:11

just go with a number 5326 consultants. So

1:44:16

I did, and at first I

1:44:18

did, you know, contracting with, you

1:44:21

know, Department of Defense. And

1:44:24

then it was

1:44:26

during Obama and things

1:44:28

started slowing down, I think

1:44:30

for DOD work, 1099 work. So

1:44:35

I got licenses for PI, security

1:44:38

in Florida and

1:44:40

arm security, RMPI. And

1:44:43

then, and then of course training. I

1:44:46

do still do training. But

1:44:48

yeah, it was kind of

1:44:51

filling what I'd done before, PI

1:44:54

word, private investigation. You

1:44:57

know, I can do background checks, surveillance,

1:44:59

and from workplace violence

1:45:01

threats to, you know, your divorce

1:45:03

case or something like that, but,

1:45:07

or just hearing someone's name that, that

1:45:09

you're going to hire and doing, you

1:45:11

know, the D on that person from

1:45:13

their social media to, to

1:45:15

their background, their criminal and everything else.

1:45:18

So yeah, so it really fit in. I'm

1:45:22

retired. I like to say I'm retired.

1:45:24

I still do the work. I've got

1:45:26

to meet some super

1:45:29

cool celebrities,

1:45:32

got to meet Tom Cruise and Gerard

1:45:35

Butler. That's awesome. Then

1:45:37

next to Madonna. I mean,

1:45:39

really, I mean, we didn't really talk, but close

1:45:41

to Madonna protecting her. And it's

1:45:46

fun. Security word

1:45:48

for celebrities. It's

1:45:50

fun. It's also like babysitting and

1:45:52

or you're just, you know, carrying

1:45:55

bags for them sometimes, but you're

1:45:58

driving them around. Driving

1:46:00

Miss Daisy. Douglas

1:46:03

is one of many who found a new

1:46:06

life through Seattle's Union Gospel Mission. I was

1:46:08

living on the streets when I heard this

1:46:10

guy talk about how he got clean and

1:46:12

sober at the mission. So I

1:46:14

decided to give it a try. I could

1:46:16

feel something working inside of me, and I

1:46:19

knew I was getting better. Today, my number

1:46:21

one goal is to stay clean and sober.

1:46:29

To hear more, volunteer or

1:46:31

donate, visit ugm.org. Maybe

1:46:34

first before I ask this next question, you mentioned

1:46:36

Tom Cruise. What was the context of that? Was

1:46:39

he just in town doing something? So

1:46:41

he was filming Rock of Ages

1:46:43