#298 Jason Magnavice - SEAL Team 6 Red Squadron Operator

(dramatic music) - Have you seen this show before? - Yes. - I watched the one with this. - Oh, okay. Your buddies was DJ. - You watched DJs? - Well, I knew DJ when he was a kid. - Yeah, I saw that. - I did a freaking, I did a platoon with his dad. His dad was actually my platoon chief. I knew DJ when he was 13 or 14. Just to go hang out with his parents. They don't always, you know, they have a big deer roast. You know, we'd go hunting and eat some venison, tell stories, his dad was the most incredible story teller. Very, still very animated, huh? - Still is, right? You still talk to him? - No. - No. - What is with DJ? - DJ, I shoot him with text every now and then. Like I went to Virginia Beach about a year ago to go through a workout program, their VHB, it's called. Very, it's an awesome program. And then we were gonna link up then, but our schedules didn't ever seem to run on. To add up, run on. Let me start you off with an introduction. Ready? - I'm ready. - All right. Jason Magnavice, Jay Mags. Retired Navy SEAL with over 26 years in the community. Eight years at SEAL team two, 15 years at JSOC, joint special operations command dev group, which led to earning your airline, transport, pilot, certificate, and numerous FAA aviation qualifications. Served as a tactical communicator, sniper, lead jumper, and team leader, completed four deployments to operation and during freedom, completed four deployments to operation, Iraqi freedom. Closed out your career as the coordinator for recruiting candidates for Naval Special Warfare. Senior listed advisor for the only enlisted aviation unit in the Department of Defense, currently in airline pilot flying a golf stream for a private family holding a 767 type rating at a major freight carrier, raised with a Jehovah witness mother in a Vietnam vet father. Most importantly, you are the father of one daughter and the grandfather of two boys. No social media, no book, nothing to sell. Nothing to sell. They're right there. I did, right there. I found that out. But, but, well, since you're new to media, I thought we'd kick it off with something real easy. Think it's super easy to talk about everyday carry. Me, I got a 365 Legion, AXG. You got a 365 Legion? Yes. Nice. Nice. What do you carry? What else do you carry? Actually, I just picked up a staccato. Nice. Two days ago. Nice. You like it? It's a little Gucci, you know what I mean? But it shoots like a dream. It's heavy. It's a, it's an XC. But it was one made, our community actually got, it's got like little bone frong on the side, American flag on it. That's kind of why, and it got a pretty good deal for a staccato. Nice. Yeah, it's a, it's a cool deal. Yeah. So what would you carry, what would you carry when you were a pilot in development group? Nothing. Nothing? No. No, we flew pretty much in the States. That's pretty much it. Yeah. We'll find our bosses around, gear, tune from, you know, certain places. Yeah, we didn't carry no firearms. Right on. What would you carry if you were doing some blow pro stuff over a dev group, talk about pistol, what's in your go bag, any cool devices you may have had? We pretty much carried the 226 back then. Before they transit in the big, the, the HK, what's it, Mark 21, the 45? The HK? Holy shit. You guys were using nose? A couple, a couple guys carried them. Yeah, it, it just for the suppressed value of some of them. And a Ruger Mark III, I've got a Mark IV, but we carry the one, the self-suppressed Ruger 22. Self with a little hush puppy. Yeah, for shooting up streetlights and stuff like that. Nice. Nice. Anything else? What kind of medical? Let's block it. We had PJs that did all that stuff. What kind of long rifle were you using? I had a SR-25K. I like to carry it 308. It was a shorter SR-25. And 300 win mag was like the laser beam back then, and an hour, but I know it was shooting 6, 5, creating more, all that other stuff. Yeah. What's your favorite round? I like 308 and 300 win mag. You like 308, 300, do you like 300 blackout? I got a Daniel offense PDW, actually, that's pretty sweet. No shit. But every time he squeeze off, it's like there's five bucks, five bucks, five bucks, five bucks. You know what I mean? Yeah. [LAUGHTER] Well, I got you a present. Would you get me? Do you want to see it? Sure. All right. It's a bag of gummy bears. Vigilance league gummy bears. See, I do have shit to sell. Like gummy bears. But that's a bag of Vigilance league gummy bears. Made in the USA, legal in all 50 states. So you can fly home. Am I going to pop positive if I take these with anything? My pop positive for sugar and red dye. And that's about it. And I did get you one other present too. Since we're talking about weapons and-- Oh, yeah. This is a story behind this. On guns and everyday carry. Oh, no way. Yeah, man. Have you seen these? This is-- That is sugar frailer? This is-- no, this is-- this is-- this came out after the Rattler. This is better than the fucking Rattler, in my opinion. But this is the SIG MCX spear. And so this is-- they're replacing all of the supposedly. They're replacing all the military rifles with a 6.5-- excuse me. Yes, 6.0. Shit, dog. There's so many rounds coming out. I can't fucking keep track. See, there's 6.5 or 6.8. Yeah, you start talking guns. But this one-- so they got a 5.5.6 version, a 300 blackout version, and a 6.0, whatever version. And they put their new optics on the top of them for you. This is like-- You can't even get these. You can't get them barely. And then are you familiar with Silencer Shop? Yes, I just picked up a couple of Hawksworks cans, a 5.5.6, and a 308. No shit. Yeah. Well, SIG was ecstatic that you were coming on the show. I told Jason-- I've got a buddy over there. Jason, he runs a marketing over there. And he was like-- That's a great place. They're a great company. If you've been out there-- Yes. We went out there for an event for the foundation. Oh, nice. Like two october's ago. Yeah, it was a good time. A lot of good people at that place. A lot of good people. Nice. Well, and then Silencer Shop-- There you go. Silencer Shop got word that you were coming on. And I don't know. I guess you'd already have experience with them, but you put in-- once you get signed up with them, they make it super easy. They do all the paperwork for you. You go to a gun shop that's got Silencer Shop kiosks in there. It just makes it super simple. And then the other thing they do is they also fight for basically gun rights, especially, obviously, suppressors. So fucking awesome company. But told them you were coming on to, and they wanted to throw a can on there, so that's yours. Extremely honored. Have fun with it. I will-- we got a little place, land pass, Texas, that we do some blinkin' at. Nice. Nice. Try to eradicate the hog population out there because they get out of control. I hear that could be pretty challenging. Yes. But-- From a helicopter, it's entertaining. Nice. Well, maybe we'll break that in later. We got to range out back, so-- Thank you very much. You're welcome. Thank you. You're welcome. And then one more thing to crank out before we get into the real interview. So I have a Patreon account. And it's a community that we've built. And so they're the reason that I get to be here with you today and do these interviews. So they get the opportunity to ask every single guest a question, and this is from Rex Herman. What was the moment in your career that changed the way you think about leadership the most? The moment when I've worked for some incredible people and listen, guys, when I first got to the command, I'll just call this guy Crazy Horse. He was one of the best leaders I ever worked for. You know, a humble guy that didn't think he knew everything all the time. And if he had any, that's like who I wanted to be like. We respected him. He was a hard worker. He led by example, but he wasn't hard-headed, right? He was just, hey, if he had a quiet, he wasn't afraid to ask a question. He wasn't afraid to delegate other people that he knew were better at certain things that he wasn't. And that's what really made me respect leadership a lot from him. - Right on. - And a few other people. - What date, what year did you get to the command? - 2001. - Holy shit. - Yeah, I went over there. - And you left in 2019. I think you told me before we started. - 2016. - 2016? Holy shit. 15 fucking years over there. - I went over there for a break. - Two. - I saw that in your house. online, you wanted a break and then decided to scream for dev group pre-911. One of their break I was tired of doing six-month deployments when I was a little creek and I didn't want to worry for your platoons too. So it was a long workup. You know, some of the deployments were over six months, six, seven months. And my daughter was born what year, 97, and I was gone a lot. And we weren't really working that much, a little stuff in Bosnia, Copsovo, that's pretty much, yeah, there was a work schedule back then, and then I'm like, "Hey, honey, I'm going to scream for a bunch of my buddies are going over there too, a whole bunch of my buddies from two are going over there." Like, I'm going to scream and some of the guys are, you know, pretty set in their ways that are like team two, you know what I mean? They were, some didn't want to go over there. They didn't want to go through the challenge of the selection process again. And I could get it, I could understand it. So some of them were trying to talk me out of it, but I'm like, "No, dude, I'm going to be home." You know what I mean? I'll be home for three months at a time. You thought you were going to be at home, but oh, no, this is, I got out of the selection process, green team, in September of 2001. Holy shit. I remember walking across the compound when we were talking about the planes and the towers. The first stop with, man, ATC must have screwed that up. Then when the second one hit the tower, yeah, they took our whole class into a briefing room. Our skipper came in, gave us the brief, and we were like, "Oh boy. Exciting. Exciting is when you're going to be busy." But, you know, the families, the families were like, our guys are going to be gone for quite a bit. And we were. Damn, man. We were. Damn. Yep. Well, I know you've had one hell of a career, but let's start prior to the career. All right. Where'd you grow up? Library, Connecticut. What were we into? I was in the bikes. Baseball and football. Pretty much. That's it. What about when you were a littler? When I was time in the woods. Oh, yeah, well, my grandfather. So that's, yeah, getting back to the, yeah, by the way, I got to get for you. We'll get that down the road. But yeah, my grandfather taught my mom's dad. He was a Korean war guy. He, from Kentucky, big backwoods guy. Yeah, he taught me. We go hiking all the time where we used to live by a reservoir in library, Connecticut. Yeah, he'd take me on hikes, point out. It's like poison, I had he poisoned oak, showed me how to make little spears with his little folding knife, and then yeah, we climbed this mountain. He called it Jason's mountain. Yeah, it was pretty, pretty good upbringing. Me, my dad also taught me a lot growing up. He was kind of a stickler for baseball and football. Pretty stern when it came to that stuff too. All really serious. Yeah, right on. Yeah. What did your dad do? My dad, he worked. Well, when he got out of the Navy, he worked for a cargo company as a supervisor for transportation, and then he actually retired from the state of Connecticut, working as a transportation supervisor for the state. What about your mom? She pretty much a stay-old mom or in most of her life. I got a sister, I'm four years older, and then a brother, I'm 10 years older then. Okay, because you're the oldest. Yes. Your mom was a is or was was Jehovah's Witness. Yes. We have we have a prior Jehovah's Witness work in here. Great people, aren't they? Yeah. Awesome human being. He's editing the show right now, but is he still like he's got some fucking stories? Oh, yeah, it's rough. It's rough growing up as a kid being a Jehovah's Witness. They stole his kid from them. They did? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I guess I can't say they stole his kid from them, but they it's a it's a custody battle in like the whole. They're all going against them. It's wild. The religion did. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure I'll tell you about that. Yeah, that's crazy. You had a good experience? No. It's hard to explain. So my mom had me when she was this is a funny story. My dad got drafted. He was 20. Your dad got drafted. Yeah. He got drafted. He was supposed to go to PBR, then he volunteered for summaries, because it was also sub-training and writing Connecticut to the sub base there. So it's convenient in before he got. Yeah. So my parents are married in May. And my mom was a little missgoody. Awesome. I love her to death. Little missgoody to a shoe. I'm like, my you were born on say certain date in October. And on my birthday is two weeks later. So she turned 18 and I was born two weeks later. Wow. Yeah. They're still married. Wow. Yeah. It's cool. But when my dad was deployed, you know, and some of the sub trips and stuff like that, Jehovah's Witness says, you know, they go door to door in the Saturdays or throughout the week and they kind of pooled her into it. And because she was probably pretty easy to influencer to have, you know, like a congregation of people, like my dad, and they do a great, they're incredible human beings for the most part. You know, everybody's got their, I can't argue that Apple. Everyone I've about. Yeah. They've been super nice. But then, you know, going to church three times a week or the kingdom hall, that's what they call you know, the church where they go. I haven't wear a suit, which I still to this day. I don't like wearing a suit. Get dressed up in a little suit, little tie. Go to the Bible study once a week, like a Tuesday night. You go to church Wednesday, Sunday for an hour and a half. Yeah. I was, and oh, and you know, celebrate any holidays. That's what I was going to, you don't celebrate birthday Christmas. Anything. Yeah. But if you dig deep into it, hey, I'm not promoting them. I'm not saying anything, but they do. Like when you go into a normal church, you have your pastor priest up there, right? They just talk off the cuff. They just give you, you know, with a lot of their knowledge, which I think they gain internally as themselves. Listen, spring cleaning is here. And before you convince yourself, your kitchen's fine. Go look at the pan you've been using. If it's warped, burnt or sticking to everything, it's time. That's why I switched to hex clad. These things are just built different. You get the performance of stainless steel, but with the convenience of nonstick. So you can actually get a proper sear without dealing with a nightmare cleanup after most pans make you choose, either they cook well or they're easy to clean. Hex clad gives you both. You've got great heat control, nothing sticks, and you don't have to baby them. Their metal utensil safe, dishwasher safe, oven safe, up to 900 degrees, just solid across the entire board. And there's a reason these have over a million customers and tens of thousands of five-star reviews. Even Gordon Ramsay uses them at home. 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Did you have a conversation with somebody talking about the weird star line that's going to be happening in a couple of weeks? Yeah. How do you know about that? Did you watch that episode? I got crazy family members. No, somebody, my mother-in-law sent me that. My mother-in-law sent me that. No shit. She's really off the cuff stuff. I'm like, you got to calm down with this stuff. If she reads some, sends us some stuff. Here we go. The banks are all going to explode. This is going to happen. That sounds like here. That's why I try to stay away from you. I just try to do my own thing. I try to stay busy. But getting back to the holidays, Easter, Christmas. What's your talk about this guy? The second Cummings happened in Easter 2026. I'm excited. We'll see what happens. You got to be ready for it. a week away any day and get ready and getting back to that religion, getting back to the Jehovah's Witnesses, man, did they believe in, you know, Armageddon is going to eventually happen, all outlining revelations, all the shit you see going on the rule right now, sir, I got is like, it's what it says. People just take it for granted. I'll just hold home. It's starting in Iran. Yeah, it's kind of, there's certain signs, but it's fucking wild, but you gotta have, hey, you gotta have faith. It'd be ready for it. That's the big thing. Yeah. What got your mom out of it? When did she win a military? Really? I'll get back. Yeah, so I graduated high school at 17, and I couldn't, they wouldn't, my parents want to sign a waiver for me. My dad wanted me to go in as an officer, so he's like, "Jay, give me a year of college, and I hated school." Like I told, getting back to the store, I wanted to be a seal since I was 10, like 1982 when I saw the first Rambo movie. Nice. Yeah, when I joined the military, she stopped going to the kingdom wall, stopped going to church, and she kind of let it. And then my sister had kids, and then all of a sudden they started celebrating Christmas and everything. Yes. Is your dad a Christian? He was raised Protestant, but yeah, he believed in God, but really not the nomination, I guess. Gotcha. So he grew up celebrating Christmas? Yes. Then you guys did not celebrate anything? Yep. He just went along for the ride to keep my mom happy. Yeah. Do you celebrate Christmas now? Yeah. Yeah, I do. Yes, I do. Man, that's fucking correct. That's just weird to me. It's weird, and then just, yeah. You know what everybody's talking about? Yeah. It's a way, hey, but they have, hey, they stand behind their faith. They really, they're really sticklers for it. Go door to door, spread in the word. It's, I've let them in all the time when I was in Virginia Beach. I don't seem too much in hospital. I don't see many go and door to door there. But yeah, I've let them in and talk with them, you know, and give them my viewpoints. And like, why don't they don't believe in really serving, you know, a particular government of country. They believe you just served God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, all that. You're making this sound really good. Yeah. It's no, if there was one true belief, yeah, I think that's one of the truest because I've been around it all. I've heard it all from Catholicism today. Are you many denomination? I guess I, I consider myself Catholic. Yeah. Okay. I consider myself Catholic, but I bounce back and forth between that and non-denominational. Because I, and I'll tell you why, I think that the Catholics have the spiritual warfare stuff down better than anybody else. I think they really understand what's going on, you know, in the other realm. And but I think that the, I think that the Catholics don't do the best job of teaching about the life of Jesus and the Bible and non-denominational churches do a much, much better job of yeah. And so, you know, I grew up Catholic and then left right around when I joined the seal teams, didn't come back to Christianity for, I guess I found faith about two, three years ago. And so, really dove into the non-denominational stuff to learn about Christ and the Bible and all that stuff. And then actually through the show interviewing all these extra assistants and stuff like that, it kind of got me back into, you know, I'm really interested in spiritual warfare in that realm. Yeah, there's a whole different, yeah, there's definitely a whole different realm I believe in too, definitely. Yeah. But like the first time going to Italy, like I walked into Vatican, I was at this place, it's pretty cool, but it's very materialistic, right? Very materialistic, which a lot of stuff, in the Bible, it sounds a lot like the Pharisees. Yes. Yeah, I'm with you. I'm, I'm, I totally, and then how do you explain in celibacy? I'm like, it was really say, anywhere in the Bible, to be, I mean, God wanted a made a woman for out of his own image that he created. He wouldn't have made it. Yeah. He wouldn't have brought even, right? Yeah. Down the road, you got to be, hey, you got to be celibate. You can't procreate. It makes, and I'm not too sure the real reason behind it. I've heard a bunch of theories about keeping, you know, certain sex of the, the Catholic church within each other. You know, I'm not too sure how, where it really came from. I don't know either. But it's just weird. Yeah, it's, once again, like you said, I don't think you just got to have faith in, in whatever you believe in. Yeah. Is there some weird, yeah, I mean, there's some weird stuff going on. Definitely some weird shit going on in the world. But, well, so you wanted to be a seal since 11 years old, spent a lot of time out in the woods, carving spurs, making weapons. Yeah. Well, my dad is why I brought this for you. It's a movie prop, but I saw the first Rambo at 10. Joho was witness, kid. My dad takes me to see, because he heard about this movie at work or something. He takes me to see first blood rate rate at our movie, 1982, 83 came out to 82. And I was like, holy cow. I'm like, that is, I mean, that image you get in your head at 10 years old too, like the, just being in the woods, the freaking blade that he had. Yeah, I know what I mean. The same to Jimmy Lyle one. Jimmy Lyle made Dark. I saw a knife smith, he passed away a while ago, but I was intrigued. And my dad's like, yeah, green breeze, like a saying a movie or then or somebody else. Guys are real bad asses. My dad's, I worked with, you know, these guys called the, you know, UDT's and seals back in the South China scene. Some Marines, they did a couple, a few things with them. And I always love the water too. And you know, that image of coming out of the water with, oh, yeah, you know, all kidded up. It's, when you're impressionable of that age, it's, it leaves a big mark on your brain. And yeah, when I was a middle school, like, Jay, what do you want to do when you cross? I don't want to join a Navy. Nobody knew in the 80s what the freaking seal was to like 1990 when, well, when Marc Single wrote the book, rogue warrior, whatever. And then in 1990, when the, the seals movie came out with Charlie Sheen or whatever, and I thought that was pretty cool. Like again, I was impressionable. 17 years old. And, um, yeah, when I wanted to be a team guy since, yeah, I was a young kid. Yeah, but I couldn't, I graduated high school. My dad wouldn't sign a waiver for me. Like I said, I was 17. No, I want you to go and be an officer. No, it's not, I don't like college. You know, I don't like school at that time. And, um, I turned 18 and joined back then it was on delayed entry program. I was talking to my recruiter the whole time. I was in college in, uh, he's like a one recruiter that didn't lie to you, right? Like I always say, recruiter is bullshit. And he was a quarter master rating on the submarine. And back then they had the die fairer program, which you join, but as a non-rate, go to boot camp, pass the screening test, go to buds. And then if you fail, if you make it through, you get a rating. But if you don't make it through buds, it's not like nowadays where you can say, I'm emotionally distraught and they lay out of the Navy. If you didn't go to buds, you're like chip in paint and, you know, swabbing decks as a non-rate in a fleet, which is not good. And my recruiter is like, Jay, the odds of you making it through buds are very small. Because you're going to want to have, if it falls through, you're going to want to have a good rate in the Navy. So I'm a QM. It's a pretty decent rate. And I just think, I want to the shortest A school, you know, the shortest school you go to for the rating. And back then, I think it was single men with three weeks and QM was six weeks. So, yep, sign me up. And yeah, boot camp A school in Orlando, then straight to buds. Right on. What do you think of buds? It would hold on. Let me back up. What did your parents think when you got in? And I think they thought that I would make it through buds. But that was a great thing when it came to the graduation. They weren't happy. They weren't happy. But they knew I wanted to do it. And when I, yeah, when I took 18 a man, I signed a line. Yep. Right on. They got over it though. Yeah, yeah, they did. Yeah. So what did you think of buds? You get there, well, hindsight's always 20, 20 when it comes to buds, right? I got there in your 18, right? Yep. Just get ready to turn 19. And I got there in August, right when a bunch of, we had like 12 officers in our buds class. Mostly all Academy guys. We had two year forced Academy guys too. It was a good group of dudes, hard chargers, you know what I mean? And but back then, you're just young and dumb. And you just, it buds piss me off while I was there. Like I never thought about quitting. I was just mad all the time going through buds and jogging into the compound. We first got there and getting step everybody getting like, dude, shut the, they're going to drop a drop. I told you, stop. We didn't yell that but not only our own, our own nose, but biting instructors of buds like constantly. But it was, it's a big mind game. Like they say, but like when I was doing the coordinator thing, I'd have seen it 20 or kids would ask, what's the, I'm like, dude, it's a, it's, if you could pass the PST and just stay healthy, you know, and deal with the mind games and buds, you're going to be fine. Yeah. Yeah. As you know, it's a big, yeah. A lot of, a lot of mind games. - Did you have any hang-ups? - No. - Nah, but when we got to the, what's that stuff? Guys who get TBI, the side of their knee, whatever, not TBI. - Oh yeah, the, the, the, the little tendon. I always thought it was bullshit until I got to the center of my island and I could barely bend my leg, but yeah, I made it, ended up gutting it through, but that's TBI. No, I forgot what it's called. - Time that I was. - Yeah, the typical band. Yeah, something like that. But yeah, that was the one time I really got pretty much, I guess you'd say, hung up. - That's it, though. - Time runs. A couple of times in the old course. Yeah, I remember getting hammered once for that, trying to time the rope swing and struck your yell at me. I, I said a really bad word to him. Sure enough, he had duty that night in the grinder and like the whole thousand eight count bodybuilders. Just a mental part, too. Just staying healthy was, it was the key being smart, you know what I mean? And not doing anything like this is stupid or, yeah, staying healthy was the biggest, in a band cold wet and sandy all the time, you just gotta get used to it, man. You got it. - What did you, what did your parents think when you hit graduation? - They were proud. Yeah, my parents never fly either. They're home bodies. They don't fly anywhere and they flew out to California to San Diego, came out to Coronado. Yeah, they were proud. Still, yeah, I gotta find some of those pictures back then before the digital times. - How did that feel? - Total proud. - To join in the military. - But then I was, I was happy that they were happy that I actually made it through and I got pretty fortunate with the same class. But then we had to go to jump school right after that airborne and that was a freaking, throw in a bunch of gung-ho young navy dudes and do a pretty regimented army school for bedding. That was, we got in a lot of trouble there. We got a couple guys got sent back to the can-but back then and was like, alright, we'll send you back in a couple weeks. - What'd you get sent back for? - I know you get sent back, a couple of my buddies did for just, yeah, we're running in formation with each of 'em, we're running around the formation. We jump into freaking water before we did a PST. Just being, you know, cocky. Yeah, it's kind of, you look back at it now and you're, it's kind of like, yeah, we were pretty done. - Yeah, we, uh, we weren't even that fucking bad and they just kept picking on us and, you know what I mean? Be, uh, the army contract just kept picking on us. So one of our guys, you know, they make you do watch and shit out the barracks since, so a really good front of mine. He's, he's, he's passed away now. It saves Kyle Paulson, then what's Kyle Paulson? He, he posted all his guys up there like, he's like, you go watch that door, you go watch that door, you watch the front door, you watch the back door. I'll be right back, went in to the Sergeant Major's desk and took a huge shit. (laughing) Right, took a huge shit. Right on his fucking desk and you know the watch goes all night. - Yep. - And so the next morning like, we're all out there standing. - And you knew you're getting blank, you knew you're gonna get blank. - I know, right. Well, none of us even fucking knew and we're just, he didn't tell, he didn't tell the guys that he had posted up on the doors, he didn't tell any of the other guys that were coming in for buds, you know, we're all in the same bud's glass. And we're standing out there in formation the next morning. And this guy was just a total, it was just like, dude, we're not even doing anything. You're being a fucking asshole to us for no reason. And he comes out. (laughing) - He sleeps like, he's fucking, you fucking seals. And I'm, we're all like, what the hell? Who shit on my fucking desk? That's when he fucking starts his thing, starts the mustard with who shit on my fucking desk? And it was just, it was, I mean. - Did he ever get caught? - Or did he, anybody read him out? - No. - He told us that night, but now none of us wrote, thought it was fucking hilarious. So yeah, just the visualization of that dickhead, you'd have an escape shit off of his desk. (laughing) - That's freaking disgusting. - Yeah, I know, it is. - It's also hilarious though. But yeah, yeah, anyways. - And you knew you were gonna get blamed for it anyway, because yeah, those freaking navy guys, 'cause I think we had a couple of yoddy guys there too, but yeah, we got blamed for it pretty much, you know, the 32 foot tower? - Oh, yeah. - Well, like the second class is the E5s. We're in charge of the little hill. You jump off the 32 foot tower. You hooked up the little deerings. You do your four count and get down. We had this big dead black bird on top of the, and we thought it was gonna go up to our black hat. Our black hat, our instructor was a cool dude. He jumped into Panama, freaking. He had his little freaking mustard stain on his airborne wings. So he, he was in the 75th Ranger regiment too. So he had a little bit of animosity from the other instructors looking at him, but he was real cool to us into the future team guys. It just got out of buds. But we thought he was gonna be up there and they switched sides, but we took this black bird, shoved its head. It was somehow, it died up on the freaking hill. We shoved the head in the deering. So when the runners come down, like they hook the little rope up in the deering and they're bringing, they're running in this bird. It wasn't small. It was like flopping like this. So the instructor nods them out leaving. - Oh, crashed. - He just yells, "Everybody drop." And it was a different guy. And we got, yeah, they hit, well, tried the hammer. We were, we just keep doing push-ups 'cause it's always been doing our lives. Well, to that point. And he was, he took everybody off the hill. We hammered us for a good hour. And the poor other people up on the hill that we're just going through airborne, they had to pay the price for our stupidity. - Oh shit, dude. - Yeah, that was, yeah, I mean, interesting times back then. Well, time to go, man. - Good times, good times, good memories. - But definitely. - So where do you go from jump school? Team two, team two. - Yep. - What was the reputation and team two back? - Oh, my team won and team two, man. The seal team shoe, they called it. It was, yeah, you don't wanna be a new guy hanging around in the locker room in the cage area, not a Friday. Put it that way. (laughing) - Yeah, hazing was pretty common. - Did you get it? - Pretty fine. - Oh yeah. - Give me a good hazing story. They don't do this shit any really. - No, dude, I wasn't, when I made third class and got my bird, we were at Fort Picket in Virginia. And my, my first platoon, they all went, we all went to Kat and his mass after deployment for a hazing incident that was actually an accident but it went to the wrong people. But anyway, yeah, I'm talking, if you try to fight back at all, 'cause I was a pretty good scrapper back then. Now, it's all over when somebody's got your balls in their hand and they're twisted, man, and you're getting, you're getting tied up or zip tied and getting dragged out, you're shaving your balls, hot sauce in the balls, getting hit with paddles. - Yeah, it was, it's stupid, right? - It's all fun and games until you're tied, naked to a spine board hanging upside down from an elevator shaft and they're shooting fucking simulation rounds at us. - Yes. - And then tape your head up and put a little pinhole on your mouth and throw you in the fucking showers. - You're like, welcome to team two. - They're like, waterboarding, like, what, what, what, you know what, tie it, man. - Yeah. - Drop a rag in your face while you're hanging upside down and then as soon as you take an inhale, somebody's blowing cigar smoke in your face. Yeah, they're like, that's not torture. - Or whiskey down your throat. - Oh, my goodness, yeah. It was stupid, I mean, back then it was just, like, and then once you actually, you got, there were like no fucking rules when you were in, but that's why, you were, I mean. - Like no rules, you were smart. When you got secured on Friday, we would sneak out through the locker room, jump the back fence over by STV and get to your card. You parked down the road so you want to get freaking, guys would have, yeah, keg in a locker room, you know, a Friday and freaking. - Where do you guys at? (laughing) - We don't want to be around, man. - Did you carry that forward? - No, I did not. I, no, I can't say that I did, I wasn't big into it. I wasn't really big into it. No, as I thought it was stupid when it happened to me, so I'm like, "Why do I want to do that?" But when you were a new guy and after you got hazed, and if somebody else was gonna get, hey, they made me and my buddy, John, we were to take down guys. I'm like the most dangerous part of hazing somebody that doesn't want to be hazed, right? You gotta go in and grab them while everybody else tries to control 'em, tie 'em up, do whatever. And then I just, yeah, it wasn't for me, really. - Yeah, yeah. - Well, how did it feel to check it into Team 2 after Buds? - A lot of pride, a lot of pride in Team 2, 'cause they had a rep, I kind of wanted to go to four, 'cause I like South America, jungle type stuff, which come to find out they were what I got, I really don't like it, jungle, I much. There's a lot of history there. When you walk across that quarter deck, and then, but you still gotta go through STT, [BLANK_AUDIO] and seal tactical training back then before they stopped doing that. It made it all go on in Coronado. But STT was, it was fun and challenging. I mean, the summertime in Virginia at AP Hill, very hot, and then that's where you try to start, you know, building your reputation too, because nobody really cares who you are until you get, you check into your team, and then you start training, and that's all to shoot and move and communicate, and really, really big back then. It still is, it still is, but now, you know, you got a little, a lot more to worry about with drones, and stuff like that. - Yeah, yeah, actually yesterday we brought these, were you involved in, were drones big when you left? - They were just coming in. They were just being teeny, quite a bit. Now it's like, it's one of the deadliest things in the battlefield, obviously. - Dude, holy shit, I did this, I did this little, we made a piece of content yesterday, and we brought these drone operators from Ukraine down. - Oh, that's a gun, yeah. - Those guys know what they're doing. - Dude, holy shit, so they kind of briefed us up on everything they're doing. I had never seen it on the closest thing to drone war for I've seen as a fucking predator overhead. - Yep. - You know, none of these like FPV drones are like, so we brought them on this properties over 100 acres. And they gave us, you know, hey, this is the drones, these are the capabilities, these are these type of drones, and they're like, all right, go hide, we'll give you a HUD start and then they're sending the drones after you. And, dude, holy shit, you can't hear where the fuck they're at. You, I mean, like, it sounds like they're right above you and they're over there, and it's impossible to get the fuck away from those. - Yeah, I took some shots at one, just for the hell, I just wanted to see what the side picture was like, and there's no way in hell. I mean, you're basically trying to hit a four inch dot. - They just came out with a particular ammunition. I read some of the four drones that you could shoot out like a 556 or whatever, too, and it still seems like pretty hokey to me, 'cause it shoots in a pattern, well, the one rounds, splits in like four little rounds, we're, yeah, even if you try to jam them, you know what I mean? I think they still already pre-programmed for what they're gonna do, where they're gonna go, and the other ones are a big problem, too. - Yeah, well, I mean, once you're identified, you're fucked. - Yeah, because, I mean, I just had a pistol with me, I was like, you know, just for the hell of it. I was like, I just want to see, I just want to put myself in the fucking scenario and actually take it seriously, and, you know, I was like, listening to their tactics and shit at the beginning on how they find people and all the different capabilities and what the weaknesses are. So I was trying to utilize some of that stuff, and but once they're on you, you're fucked. - Done. - Like, doesn't, doesn't, if you shoot one down, there's just gonna be a swarm of them coming. - 20 more of them, yeah. - And they're even saying that you can have one on station, or more than one on station, and have the same pilot control and multiples. So, you could, you know, fly 10 damn drones and have nine on station and just up that one went down. - Another one. - Switch to the next one, you know what I mean? And they're already hovering on station. Just waiting for it. - Waiting a bounce. - Yeah, I was like, this is-- - That's nuts. - You're fucked. - A shotgun, even a shotgun, you know, you don't even have that many shells to go through, you know what I mean, maybe hit one, but by the time you got one coming behind you, too, it's, yeah. It's a whole, yeah, different battlefield. Like, we always say, like, get back to the STT thing. That's where they really teach you, well, the diving and then shoot, move and communicate. And now you gotta really stay low, move with discretion and definitely have somebody watching your six or somebody that's gonna, yeah, 'cause the drones are the biggest, I mean, for when I'm here and now and all this stuff, 'cause I've been out of the game for a while. And then talking to people that know a lot about it. It's, yeah, it's a different battlefield, definitely. - It's pretty wild. - Yeah, it's pretty wild. 'Cause as you said, yeah, back then, in the beginning of OEF and OIF, OEF, yeah, predators, drakeos up there, and now they're, they're kind of outdated. - Yeah. I mean, these things, one of them was like, that big. - Yeah. - Said he can go 300 kilometers an hour, I think. It's fucking crazy, that's insane. But, actually, I could be off on that. But, anyways, back to you. - Back to me. - S-T-T. Yup, AP Hill, then the dive in, and then. - Yup, got in the first platoon. - How was that? - It was actually a pretty good deal, 'cause they usually don't give like new guys out of S-T-T back, but like I said, we don't wear fair platoons, right? So we go into Alaska and do telemark skiing. You learn how to live out of a backpack for freaking on most 11 days, unsupported. And so I got into it when I worked with him, and create people in there, my first, the dive buddy, was Tommy Valentine, who unfortunately passed away quite a time back and jumping accident in Arizona. Or, yeah. But, yeah, he was my first swim buddy. He was a freaking stud all in all the time. Awesome, awesome dude. I'm learning a lot, you're pretty much trying to gather. You're trying to see, like we talked about earlier, like, "Hey, who do I want to be like?" You know what I mean? And, yeah, Val was definitely one of those guys. He led by example, hardcore, super incredible combat dive or two. And like, we take that shift for granted nowadays, right? How much water is in the desert? But, yeah, super squared away. Pretty much everything he did. Where was your deployment? We went to a first trip, they moved the command, well, not the command, the unit from Scotland. Yeah, we moved on over it, but to Italy. Brandizi, the heel of the boot. 'Cause we were staged there just to go over it back at 4th, to Bosnia, to Syria, or Kosovo, for whatever, just to work with other little units over there. We really weren't doing much as far as combat wise. And, team-aid did a couple of ship take downs in the Adriatic around that time to enforce embargo. Like I said, this is back in the '90s. And then we went to Norway, which was a blast. I've heard those are awesome. We went there for a month. And yeah, the funny thing is, I'm raising my whole life, right, thinking I'm Polish and Lithuanian. My first trip to Norway, I get there, we're talking to marine agres, they're like, they're version of great, incredible people. They're like, are you skinned, are you in Norwegian? Like you got a big head, you kind of like (laughs) you look like us. And I'm like, no, dude, I'm not, no, I'm like Polish and freaking, I think Lithuanian, you know, the back then. Sure enough, I get my freaking 23 and me, whatever the DNA check done, comes back. Hey, you're 80, it's like 78% from, and in Norway, that area, it's right over here, it's kind of a little bit to the UK. And my mom is also the same. Like my dad, is he even my dad? No, he is. But yeah, he don't have any, like I don't have anything that my dad has in him from his DNA, it's weird. Well, like the ethnicity traits or whatever, you want to call him. But going back to the first trip to Norway, and they're like, are you in Norwegian? I'm like, nah, like you look like you could be, you know what I mean, they were, like I said, this was back in '93, '94, and I'm like, no, and yep, sure enough I am. But Norway was a blast, man, a lot of skin. Those guys are born with freaking skis on their feet. Jumped turning with 80 pound rucks on with the tele-skis on, holy cow, we're just too busy picking ourselves up off the snow, you know what I mean? Yeah, damn, damn. What was going on? I mean, I know what was going on, but what, did you wind up going to Bosnia, Kosovo? Yeah, well, we've got to Sarajevo hang out there. Actually, that's where I started. Made a couple of good friends with a couple of CCTVs, kind of like controllers over there from, yeah, we just drive around to various, like safe houses there, hang out, hang out there, bring them food and stuff and come back. It was a lot of driving around, not too much. Well, what was the mission back then, right? We, it's funny how America goes to one extreme when we were protecting Muslims from getting killed by Christians, right? The Serbs and all that were, and I really wasn't clear what the mission was over there. I really, it was just, it sounds like every fucking war. Going after, I'm not really sure what the fuck was going on. Well, going after Piffwicks and like the person wanted for war crimes or whatever, like these generals that were in charge of the mass, freaking graves and stuff and killing just, and like towns of people, you know what I mean? Yeah, but that was very, like a lot of genocide going on. Yeah, a lot of genocide, you know. Yeah, humanity could be evil at times, man. So what, I'm just curious, I mean, this was a, I don't want to overlaid our experiences, but this sounds similar to when I joined. What, what was your impression of the civil teams? Were you fired up or you disappointed? I mean, you've got, this all came off of Rambo in 1982. Yes, it did, it did, you're not. - No, no, yeah, I think I was just along for the ride, like waiting for something to happen, you know what I mean? And the training was fun, but we made, obviously, you know, we make things that people pay to do for fun, suck. Like jumping, like dude, oh, we go skydiving, like don't care if I ever see a rig again, you know, diving. Like it's not the fun of staring at a compass board, freaking depth gauge and a stopwatch for freaking two hours under water and freezing your ass off, right? But you learn a lot and you want to be good at it, right? You don't want to be a subpar, especially. The biggest thing is not letting your teammates down, I think that was, so the brotherhood, you know, you definitely see from the beginning, once you're in, once you get kind of established in your role and you build that trust, but as far as being bored, yeah. It was as far as like not actually doing what you're training to do, I think that's kind of what was going on in the past couple of years too, as well with guys, just getting bored in one day and just, you know, but you got to be careful, you asked for it too. You got to be careful, you asked for it. So you, you spent some time, how long were you in team two before you decided? Eight years, oh, eight years. Yeah, there's something, glad you brought that up. Something that's not in that piece of paper right there. So I got out in '98 for eight months. I got out, I was going to be a U.S. Marshall. Couple of my buddies from team four already went, went over and doing it, I went through the whole process, got out, moved to Connecticut, moved back home. 'Cause I thought I was going to work out a new haven, and guy I went to high school with, it's a Marshall. It was the head Marshall at the time. A guy I went to high school with his dad's best friend. So he's like, come up, yeah, come up here, you move up here, and I'm waiting to hear back from the Marshall service about what I'm going to go to go and call, you know, to start a school on here, please see whatever. And then I get a letter back then before emails and all that. We're sure we have to tell you that you know how long you're going to consider for it. And I went through the interview, I went through the, like you're going to see how you're going to interview it. The fucking sealed teams become a Marshall. And they've denied you. But can everyone for a minute, why did you want to leave the sealed teams becoming a Marshall? - My daughter was born. I didn't want to deploy anymore for no reason. Just what we were talking about earlier, as far as like, you know, being bored, where it really wasn't anything going on. And I thought it would be cool, you know what I mean? And just talking to other buddies too. Like, hey, it's better than being an FBI agent 'cause you don't got as much red tape to cut if you want to do, this is back then, you know. Yeah, and I got the, says, you're no longer being considered for the position. And I called up one of my buddies. He's like, yeah, dude, it's a whole, they're doing a whole scrub. They're, it was at that time, it was kind of like, because I looked away at who I am. Who I am, I wasn't going through with that class. I'll just leave it at that. So I'm like, shit, what am I going to do? Like I got a new mourn. Well, my buddy's like, hey, the federal prison's hiring. And damn, very kinetic. And I'm what, the whole shit. It'd be a freaking CO, right. And so I go, I go interview for that job. 23, 24 years old. And I'm like, yeah, I guess I could do it. And it just went from male prison to female prison. Medium security, federal correctional institution in Dambury, Connecticut. And I'm like, dude, you sure you want this job? Like, I need something, man. Wait, let's start off as a GS7 or GS8, whatever. I'm like, I just got out of the Navy. I got in my buddy of mine. Well, it's also in my first platoon. He got out, this is where I'm going with this. He moved to Florida to be an EMT. And we talked back and forth. He's like, he's like, fuck this. I'm going back in a Navy and back then. So this is a fun, I don't know where I'm going with this. (laughing) But anyway, I go to Glanko for the training down in Florida, if we see, what were they training the federal CEOs? And that was a fun. Only one other dude knew what I did prior. Like, I just kept it on the download. He was a Marine and we both worked at the same prison, but we both went to training together. And when you're down there, you shoot like a Ruger 9mm. They all freaking AR-15s and a shotgun, a pump shotgun. And yeah, it was, it was a good time. It was a pretty, this shotgun story I got to tell it though. It's what, so this, you line up in like a couple of, when you're shooting everything else your own line, a shotgun, you're getting like a two lines, 'cause I think I don't know one of the same money for shells or it's just something that you say. And it was like a Remington 870, I think. Pretty basic pump gun. And there was a lady, a DEA agent that was an instructor there, right? And I'm just having a good, I'm like, dude, I'm like, what, this is gonna be funny. So, 'cause she's like milking everybody through it. Like, oh, this is what you do. Like, you put one in the chamber this way and then you load it like that. And she's like, all right, be careful, it kicks a little, right? And I get up there, and I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, dude, I'm like, I'm all nervous and shit, but he was trying not to laugh, right? And she's like, hey, just relax, just relax. And like, dude, I've been, John Shaw taught us how to shoot shotguns, you know what I mean? (laughs) I grabbed the shell, I go put it in backwards, you know, the brass face, and then she's like, no, no, no, no, no, it goes up. I drop it. - You did this shit on purpose? - I drop it, I drop it, and then I load it up, and she's like, okay, be careful, you know, it kicks a little. And like, the way they're showing how to shoot was like, boom, ch, ch, ch. So, boom, boom, boom, boom. Give it back to her, she called me a fucking asshole. And the guy behind me was laughing, I'm like, dude, I just wanted to have fun with it, and one of our instructors, so like, he started laughing his freaking ass off. 'Cause it was a pretty, the way it went down, you had to be there to see it, but it was pretty fucking obvious. She was like, be careful, I'm like, no, I'm a little nervous, I'm nervous. (laughs) - That's awesome. But yeah, I did that for eight months. I found out my buddy went back in the Navy, and I'm like, dude, I can't do this anymore. So, I called up, I'll call him Mad Dog. A lot of people are gonna know who he is, and he was working, another great guy, another great role model. Growing up taught me how to ski, actually. Well, growing up in the teams. And I'm like, hey, are you taking, I'm like, can I go back? I know you'd be calling back. Like, are they taking, he's like, yeah, you gotta go see your recruiter. I'm like, what? I just can't, he goes, yeah, you gotta go see your recruiter. This is before, as so it was actually a rate, I was still a quarter master. So, I went to the same recruiting office, I went in freaking, dude, 10 years ago, when I first started talking to him, when I was in high school. And obviously, the same recruiters aren't in there. And like, hey, I wanna go back in the Navy, but they call it a nav vet. Like, I'm a nav vet, I wanna go back in there. I'm like, what would you do? I was like, I was a quarter master. I think it was second class, and he gets up, he calls a detailer. He's like, no, they're not, they're not taking you back. I said, by any chance, he's 5,326. And, dude, I'm wearing, I'm wearing T-buzz, torn shorts, and like, freaking beat up T-shirt. And he's like, you're a fucking seal? (laughs) He goes, oh yeah, they're taking you guys back. And that was another little journey. So I had to go back to the maps, the military entrance processing station, up in Springfield, the same one I went to before. And my recruiter drove me up to, what the recruiter I was working with. He drove, I had to do the duck walk, go through the whole physical again to get in there. And then when we're staying in there, swearing in, I'm like, talking to this kid. Hey, when you go to the Navy for, he goes, I think I'm gonna go to Buds, you know, I wanna be a seal, I'm like, I heard that's tough as shit, man. Like, it's a pretty hard, you know, line of work to choose. And my recruiter's like, Jay leave him alone. Like, don't be, I said, we'll talk about it afterwards. So it was going through the whole recruiting thing again, going through the whole, damn, freaking. Yep, I came in, two weeks later, I was in a platoon with DJs that, I'm like, two in chief. Yep. How was that? It was good, it was a fun, it was a good time. It was good just getting back in, man. It was good getting back in, man, it was just good getting, being around, you know, going to work, I'm not saying, going to work at FCI for like eight months, and then having that broken service, and then realizing, you know, how much you do miss, like the biggest thing in this, when you leave are the guys, right? And the boy, so getting back in, right into another one of where people tune, yeah. Right on, it was, and then, they had two years later, I screened for a, damn, that Kredev group. Well, before we dive into dev group, let's take a quick break. All right, perfect. If you've ever hired somebody like I'm in the middle of doing right now, you know this can be extremely overwhelming. 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And now you can try it for free at zippercruder.com/srs. That's zippercruder.com/srs. Meet your match on zippercruder. Hi, I'm Sarah Adams. The host of vigilance elites, the watch floor, where we highlight what matters. It became a permissive state. Explain to you why it matters, and then aim to leave you feeling better and formed than you were before you hit play. Terrace, hostile intelligence agencies, organized crime, not everything is urgent, but this show will focus on what is need to know, not just what is nice to know. All right, Jason, we're back from the break. We left off and you took a quick, you took a, you took another break from the SEAL teams, became a correctional officer, went back to team two for about another two years, and now you're sounds like you're getting ready to scream for development group also known as SEAL Team 6. Yes, I wanted to go over there to take a break. You wanted to go over there to take a break. Yes. Did you tell them that in your screening? No. I'm just kidding. I wanted to go over there to stop because my daughter once again was young and I was never home just wanted to stop with the six month appointments, and I'm like, you go over there, had a bunch of my buddies went over there and they're like, it's great, you know, you hang around for three months, just carrying a beep around your back then, and then you train, you use some very specialized training, you know, for another three months, you get to go to schools, you wanted to go to civilian schools, great shooting schools, you know, lock pick and all that stuff, and at a very high level, and then you train with your team back then or squad right now for another three months. So you're home quite a bit except for when you're picking and choosing what training you want to go do. And this is what you were told. Yes, this is pre-9/11, and I finished a training program there in September 2001, and yeah. Well hold on, let's talk about the screening. Like green team? Yes. It's definitely more cerebral than like you would say, like, it buds as far as the shoot and move and communicating part of it. I mean, when you got in, when you got, you know, went through green team, I mean, I'm out of fucking dev group guys so I can't talk shit, but I know what I saw when I was in, and I got out in 2006, and they went from running one green team a year to running two green team a year, and it seemed like the majority made it through green team. I think it was this completely different scenario when you got it because there was nothing going on. Retention was probably really good. Yeah. Guys weren't dying, so there wasn't really much to fill, so it was really, really fucking hard to get in there. It harder than probably should shove my mouth because I'm not one of them. No, no, but I get your point, even when I went over here to screen, when I said, I was like, I wasn't impressed by the attitude to some of the guys over there. They're like more high in mighty than you were, you know what I mean, and we have guys coming over there that were, that have done real-world shit boardings, you know what I mean? Real-world operations, either in Bosnia, Kosovo, and we knew that the guys, the command, really weren't doing anything except hanging around and maybe go grab a person wanting for crime and that was the big thing or, you know, take down a ship that gets hijacked or whatever. And I wasn't impressed by the attitude because they were like, oh, like this fucking new guy, where your blue is when you go over to the screen and do your interview and all that stuff, and it was just like they're arrogant new, it's pompous and arrogant. And you could, then even after green team, you could kind of see why they are because you do get some pretty good training, like really good training, and, but as you said, once again, there's, there wasn't much going on and then 9/11 happened, and that's what it was. They weren't taking anybody though, were they? I mean, they were taking like very few people for September 11th. Yeah, it, it's a good ol' boy network, you know what I mean? They go around, they ask everybody you work with, and you dump a tunes with, and if you don't, if you don't like somebody, I just give a reason why because there are a lot of great guys that don't come over to the command because they just don't want to deal with the bullshit, you know what I mean? Back then. And then when we got busy and started growing, yeah, that's when, they were, because we were gone, I mean, quite a bit. Yeah. The three-color teams were, yeah, four months, four months, four months, you know, and you rotate every four months. How was green team? It was on, it was challenging, safety is a big thing there, and doing things at a very high level, you know, being able to shoot well, it's a big thing, safety violations, I said is the biggest thing that gets people shaking from there, and not being able to think, shoot not unknown, instead of, you know, what you're supposed to do in the house, that that was the, I think the most challenging part for, for people going through the training, jumping, they take it, that at a very high level too, can't go one degree off heading, when you, you exit the plane, you got to be able to, yeah, fly a tight formation under canopy, and everything that diving, it was pretty, you know, at a high level, because you're not just some peers anymore, you're diving as a whole group, so, oh no, shit. Yeah. With a little pole, yeah, right on. So you get through a green team, where do you go from there, to a squadron, and then, well, a team back then, and then we've, we've punched out to Afghanistan, which squadron, red, red squadron, is that where you met this, I met him a few years after that, when he came there, yes, okay, red squadron, and you graduated, it was a red team, it was red team back then, and then they started cloning squadrons to, made up with our army counterparts at CAG, as they were squadrons, so they're like a team anymore, just make it squadrons for the higher ups, a J-soc to make it easier for them. And so you graduated, green team, right, before September 11th? Right during, right during, we were going, we were walking across the compound when the first plane hit, and I remember when my buddies comes out of the locker room, he's like, "Do you hear what happened?" And that's when we had just, like, phones were that big back then either, we were just watching the news inside the team room, or inside our training room, and then another plane hit, then our skippers, like, called a meeting for all the cadre, in all the class, and kind of gave a load on what's going down, and that's when he said there's another plane, they're tracking down right now, after one hit, the Pentagon, and yeah, it was kind of, it was exciting, it was an exciting time, I think, but then it was, you know, this is, shits have already get real. What's your wife think? She was worried, obviously, all the wives were, yeah, that first appointment wasn't really good for the wife network. Yeah, when we first, when we first punched out over there, see you, hold on, hold on. So you get done with Green Team, what, and then you go right to Red Team, right to Afghanistan? Yes. Yep. Well, we had a few weeks in between, and we were working on stuff that we might be doing over there, as far as insertion techniques, like jumping, how we're going to work, freaking, getting our gear set up, because it was the first move for, I mean, going to Afghanistan, just kicked off, and we wanted to be sure, were you the first watering to go? No. No. Second. What were you guys doing? What was the mission going to be? I'm down, down the bottom was the big one, obviously, when you first got over there, looking for him all over his network of people, and yeah, just trying to find him, and that was a big mission when we first went over there. Well, let's talk about flying in there, I mean, you just have roughly a 10-year career at Sil team, too. Yeah. Yeah, eight years. Eight years at Sil team, too, with a eight-month break. You joined the Sil teams, because of Rambo in 1982, and now you're stepping foot in a country that just. Where Teracelle is that just fucking hit the 12 hours in Pentagon. Yeah. We flew over there. That was friggin' entertaining too. The crew that I was with, the team, the boat crew, I'm like a little squad, you call it, pretty, in the teams. We moved around. We called ourselves the orphans. We moved around from, we landed, we got in Kandahar and then we went to a couple other small towns. We were living out of a backpacking memories for almost four months. Holy shit. Yeah, just standing by, trying to get, develop intelligence to actually track down people in this network. And then we, they had a big, a big military offensive operation in Kandahar happened during our first pump over there, where we lost Neil Roberts, Fifi, Chappy, the controller. And yeah, that was, you were there for that. I was one, we were on the other bridge. Yeah. Holy shit. Let's go ahead of that. Well, getting into that was even funny, because my chief, my boat crew, which is called Crazy Horse, he's like, "Jay, are you still up on your J-Tack stuff?" Because he comes out of a meeting, right, and we're just messing with our gear. Like I said, we were moving everywhere. And he wanted to know if I was still, because I was a communicator too, as well in my platoons I've done. And I'm like, "Yeah." He goes, "Do you know how to use, like, 117 FOX, right?" Yeah. He's like, "Why?" We had no idea what was going on. He goes, "I'm trying to get us some work." We were an assault team. We weren't a wrecking team, but they wanted to put up, they're like, "Well, we got snipers in here. We get, we get 10-inch barrels to the most stupid." But it was two hours. You got two hours. Go do your radio checks. Meet up with Al, who was our freaking Arkham support guy, not a team guy, but a very smart, incredible guy. And get a DMC 120 satellite antenna, the donkey dick, UHF, I'm like, two hours. And then we got to pack out rucks for, I think we're going to be out there seven to ten days. And guys weren't really sure. I'm like, "How to pack out of winter ruck?" Because it was freaking cold and we were at 10,000 feet, not between nine and 10,000 feet. So yeah, we're doing, I'm doing radio checks as we're getting on the freaking 47 to go in. I'm like, holy shit. I'm like, "I'm going back up with the latest again." They're sending a fucking assault team in to do sniper work with two hours of prep time. Yes. It was just, it was one of those things, "Hey, it's better. Let's go do something," said they're not doing anything, right? And yeah, we inserted it up on this point. It was, uh, jump off the ramp at us, set up our freaking, our OP site as TF Mountain. It was the 82nd-hundred-first year of born, as they were moving to clear out this valley. And we just called in cash for a week. And then one night that March 4th anniversary just passed that was, yeah, when Neil and his team was slavvy and a couple other guys, that's when they inserted and got lit up. And if if you fell off and ended up dying, I just interviewed Pete Blabor about this. Oh, I think he was, yeah, he was out there as a part of, didn't he write a book? He did. Yup. He was at the Delta unit that was there before. How do you feel about that now? I thought it was, we helped out a lot, we did, I mean, we supported, you know, the big movement with TF Mountain, whether it was the hundred of, yeah, those guys. And it was, uh, I didn't feel good when, you know, we found out that, that Fiji passed away. You know, all of our casts went to them and then we kind of, yeah, we took it out in the Taliban and the next day, put it that way just with more casts in, yeah, were you the one calling the cast? Yes. How did that feel? It was, I mean, you're on your first operation that's gone kinetic, I'm assuming. Yes. Well, big time kinetic care. Yeah. It was a fucking huge operation of cut your teeth on it. Do it. Yeah. You know, kind of, yeah, we'll call the cat from, we have shoot B52s, B1s, 18s, 15s. Yeah. Do you remember the first cast you called where you killed somebody? Uh, yeah, it was right there with B52s on a, on a dish cassette, actually, you need to describe it. We had short, we had shorty rifles, too, which was, yeah, our post-op debrief on that was all right. We do this again. We got to do it a lot better, but can you describe your first cast? It was pretty, it was actually, I mean, it pretty dramatic. I mean, as far as what a B52 could drop, you know what I mean? And uh, pretty accurate, too, I mean, uh, describe everything. What were you hitting? It was a dish composition in the town that, that was a good, maybe two, three thousand meters from us. And but we'd see these guys come up, start lighting up to 101st, 82nd, we had them all graded out already. And we were doing this with a GPS and a rangefinder bag if there's a lot, yeah, there was a lot better ways to do it nowadays. But it was super accurate. As soon as you give, you know, the modified nine line to the pilot or the controller up there in the B52, they, the program where the JDM is going to go. And yeah, took it out and then freaking four hours later, another guy would come out of the, there was a big cave system, it's called the whale. And yeah, the guys would just come, come out of that and just like refill the roll and just keep doing it. They were like little ants, you know what I mean? How did it feel to for your first gas? I felt successful and it felt good, it was just work, you know what I mean, it's just pretty much what it's about, it's it. How many bombs do you think you dropped? Oh my goodness. Did that was a long time ago, a lot, that's all I know, a lot, yeah, I got to read, I got to read the post that we did, it was, yeah, a pretty good amount of munitions. How bad. Yep. What was the sentiment like after Nail died? Oh, revenge, I think, you know what I mean? And yeah, that whole thing, yeah, was, I mean, it was tough too because the guys that I was with the other four dudes that knew him really well, I knew him from two that he, he came over to the command before I did, and the two guys that I were with were really good buddies of him. And when we, when his call sign came back that, that's who fell off the helicopter, they're like, shit. And at this time, getting back to the wives being home, at this time we, we didn't even talk, yeah, we didn't even, we haven't talked to anybody for like almost a month from home. So they were kind of worried, then that hit the news and our command did not know how to deal with that. They were hearing about Nail before the command told anybody and that when we got out of the field, I'll never forget L, like I said, our calm guy, we get out and we're going to the Gardez, mud pit and he, he's throwing his two radium phones. He's like, call home. They call home now the wife and that work is losing their freaking mind. So that was a big lesson learned too for the command after, yeah, after PT passed. Who came after that deployment? Well, they're not the point we did another good little Wolverine, which was a good, a good little operation and ended up working out perfectly. We were going after Zawa, Harry, his bodyguards and that was perfect L shape. Once again, the orphans had to run around with a perfect good L shape, ambushed up with 247s and Zawa, Harry, what wasn't there, but yeah, we got the mission accomplished as far as dealing with the detail. What was that mentioned about going after, going after their bodyguards? It been a lot and we thought he was going to be with them too and the intel wasn't that great. Where was that right outside of Gardez, do you want to describe it? What was your role in that? Asalter, yeah, it was, we rolled up on in the 47s and like a L shape, they ambushed. They said they had squirted. This is a funny story. Well, not funny. They said they had squirters up on another ridge line and like somebody that they thought was fleeing from a part of that motorcade that we ambushed and we, wait, you ambushed a motorcade? Yeah. How did you do that? 247s. Okay. We caught them right when they were doing the little traverse, the timing in the TF 160th guys are freaking awesome, man. Yeah. The way it was set up to in the LZs, the landing zones, they put them on. It just happened to be perfect in the guys that we were going after, didn't even, I don't even think they knew what, they started shooting a bailout out of the vehicle, but the vehicles were three of them, but after that it was over. They only went out through squirters and it was just a farmer in the field. I was the first one off the ramp on there, I got my two buddies standing next to me in the skies. We get back into 47 takeoff, the goal lay and we're right next to where the crew chiefs yell on at us, where those guys at. I get off, I look at them and he's got his hands and so I'm thinking, okay, maybe he's got a suicide best on it, that's fast. And he keeps walking towards us and my buddy and next to me, he's like, dude, I'm like, Oh, no. And once again, this really got to be a thinker, right? You just don't, like, blast somebody to freakin' do it. So I let three rounds rip by his feet, and he, he falls over on his back, like a freakin' upside down turtle. Hands in the air, we go zip time, and my buddy was just getting ready to drill 'em. He was just a farmer out there, a goat, a goat-erder, you know what I mean? And we took him down, drop them off, and after we found out who he was, and that made me feel really good. Not because it could have gone another way, which would have been, hey, that's the fog of war, but, yeah, that was something I remember really good about, I mean, specifically about that, that I was comfortable with at that time. - Right on. - When I was first growing the business, I was literally boxing up gummy bear orders myself, packing bags, printing labels, trying to keep up with fulfillment on top of everything else. And at a certain point, that just didn't work anymore. And that's when I found ship station. 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Go to shipstation.com and use code SRS for 60 days for free. 60 days gives you plenty of time to see exactly how much time and money you're saving on every shipment. That shipstation.com use code SRS. Shipstation.com code SRS. (air whooshing) (water splashing) (water splashing) (air whooshing) - You guys are busy. - Yeah, but it was a lot of sitting around, waiting, you know what I mean? Like waiting to do something, getting approval to do something. And then, yeah, one through three times, wasn't really that busy. I was gonna go to the training cell until one of my chiefs said, "Dude, you wanna go to Iraq?" And I'm like, "Yes, I wanna go to Iraq." 'Cause I've heard stories from Green, or it's everything a team guy wants to do. Get up at night, eat dinner for breakfast, and then walk out to the birds, you can go to your work, come back and do it again. Maybe all night, but yeah, Iraq was, I think with every team guy at that time, the type of operations they wanted to do, just going out and getting busy. - Oh, shit, what year was this? - 2003 and four. - Same squadron? - Yeah. - Yep. - Yeah, and we sent a couple of other guys, we would do the crossbreeding. We sent a couple of guys from our, I think even this, did it from the newer guys, actually, to go work with CAG, with Delta Force guys, and then we'd do it back and forth, and we took a lot of lessons learned to and brought that into our training, in our SOPs the way we operated, coming from each side. Like you ever remember doing a hot hallway in training? - Oh yeah. - Right, that's one of the stupidest things you could do, right? If CAG'd run on the way down there, instead of maybe crashing or talking to grade, and we'd learn that lesson the hallway from a couple squadron guys in the army. - No, shit. To sort of get you augment over there? - No. - No? - No? - No. - You went over there with the, with Delta Force? - Yes. - Yep. - How was it? Was it worked? - It was cracked up to me. - Yeah, it was, it was in, um, yeah, we were busy, you know? - But it was everything, like I said earlier, that you kind of want, yeah, men, you just load up, come up with a game plan, it got to the point, like the first couple of times when you're planning to go, you know, go to work. It's, you overthink things a little bit too much into, and you get like a little bit nervous. And, but then when you, once you keep doing it more and more and more, it's, it just becomes second nature. Like you could go, all right, we gotta go take this down and freak, our officers wouldn't even come in there to, they'd let the team leaders figure out, okay, yeah, I got the white side, you got, you got the green side, blue side, whatever boom, just go to work. But it was great and then walk out to the little birds or 60s or 47s, in the targets would change all the time depending on the intel and what we had, what we had going on over there. Just going after you guys, going after-- - Just going after bad guys, just going after, yeah, the, just in bad dudes, shit that were coming over from, yeah, different places, two different, you know, different countries and not only just in Iraq itself. - How many targets you guys had in the night? - It would depend on the follow-ons, some nights, one, some nights, five. It just depended on what we got off one target if we even landed on the right building and, or if they moved somewhere else. That's what ISRS, that's what great too, helping us out. And getting back to where we're talking about the drone, we're now with the drone warfare, it probably is so much easier to actually pinpoint in that mistakenly hit targets, you know what I mean? - Yeah. - Yeah. - Okay, what did you, so now you're doing close quarters combat. - Mm-hmm. - Lots of action. - You got a wife, a kid at home. What's going through her head during all this? - You don't even think about them, they're, yeah, if you can't let that distraction get in your way, you know, that's where people make mistakes. Like when you leave home, it's yeah, it's, all right, as soon as that gate closes, you walk in there, like, yeah, if you think about that, you're gonna let your boys down, you know, to be in part mentalized. Yep, you could compartmentalize it. You're just like you do lose in a teammate. You gotta compartmentalize it and put it in the cupboard and try not to let it peek itself out, keep the cupboard closed. - What about the cadence? - Cadence of ops. Are you keeping up? - Yeah. - You feel good about it? - Yeah, it was, back in that time, it was what we wanted to do, like what we were trained to do. But the cadence was there, definitely, yeah. - Do you remember your first kill? - Yeah, it was on a rooftop. I mean, I don't wanna talk about that, but yeah, it was, yeah, it was, 'cause we were a record team. We climb up buildings in a, yeah, I don't know if that was my first one. Once again, you compartmentalize that too. But yeah, I have a gun on a roof. Sneaking over to side as our assault team was coming up. Yeah, we'd like to climb buildings there. They're record guys. Did they kill him, bother you? - No, no. I mean, of course it's gonna bother you if you sit back and think about it, right? But no, I mean, it was just, it had to work. And you're doing it to save, if you put it in their mindset, and like, hey, I'm protecting my guys right now, and that's pretty much what we did a lot of as a record team. Yeah, I'm covering my guys, protecting them, and that's, you don't, you just don't think about, yeah, the actual action that you just did. - You're doing anything else you wanna talk about on that deployment? - She does, they all kinda blend together. Oh, getting to, yeah, when I wanna talk about one, good buddy of mine, like I say his name, he'll know, one of the best operators I ever worked with. You know, we were on the roof. This is actually a pretty funny story. I told you he's carrying an SR-25K. And this was supposed to be like a can, and like a little, it was gonna be, almost like a dog and pony op, 'cause we were doing a turnover with another color team coming in. This was like our last stop before he went back to the States. And it was gonna be super easy, right? Walking once again, climb a building. There's no cover in the building. It's a flat mud roof, a stupid idea. Right, a stupid idea to climb this building. We got Rangers coming down the other side of this canal covered in elephant grass that we're gonna take out. Whoa. Take out a tent close by not take it. I'll just go in there and see who the heck was in there So we climb up the building. We're laying there. Then we start getting lit up by A building to come to find out was 300 yards away We start getting lit up from a PKM on top of a freaking car. It looked like it was like a black Mercedes Then a guy comes out of a house behind us and starts lighting us up And we're like what the this was supposed to be easier in this and we're in a room for like sucking mud My buddy's standing up and looking through his nods. I'm like, dude, what are you doing man? Fearless and he worked with Cag for a little bit too. They love them over there I like get the fuck down man, and he's like dude, is that what is that meanwhile? I'm fishing for my in line For my scope my night vision for for the scope I was carrying He's still standing up. He's looking and I put the in line. He thought I had My 556 my wrecking M4 when I had the 308 And I couldn't see behind I couldn't really pick out what was going on because there's a big light Behind the car where the guy was shooting with PKM and I'm like well, I don't know how far that is And I carry The rifle duped in a 300 so I know my holds for a hundred and five hundred that it's a short barrel 2308 Take the shot the light goes And I'm like holy This happened in seconds like dude, they're at 300 yards. Great as I'm transitioning down to the guy shooting a PKM Who I hit in the shoulder by the way. I'm not too proud about it because all this always flip flops to come to find out They all ducked behind the car And they said and I'm like oh I carry a mag of AP rounds Right here too and they're ducked behind the car. So I fish tail. It's got a big ass piece of bigger tape on it I put it in my first round hits like 20 yards in front of the car You know, it was but then I worked it up to the car and then yeah, we took care of business come to find out the next day After our turn over the next night the people we were turning over with blue They went in and said yeah, they're like how do you guys see what they see that well at nighttime shooting and all that and Yeah, we did a pretty good job. Yeah But that mission was supposed to be like freaking just Go in gather some intel and leave and that's not the way it worked out. Yeah Damn how many times did you go over there? Four four times and I left yeah, then we started working out of Ramadi we started doing Yeah, transition in a lot more around instead of being And Ellis I be able to move though all over the place Then we went to when it really started Getting entertaining when we brought our forces up just north of Baghdad to Bacaba And then weren't used to bad guys weren't used to having people coming at night And do operations up there and that's rate when I got the call To get back to the beach to start flight training for the Aviation unit that we have no shit What so what is the aviation unit and how did that pop on your radar A bunch of my buddies when I were to fly over there and well, I got a funny story about that So my first time back for my first pump and OEF Back home, you know basket lead for two weeks And my chief my bokeh leader he's like Jay You got to escort the weapons out the shaw's gun box. I'm like all right How do I do that? I'm still a new guy. We just got back from my first trip our first deployment when we talked about earlier And it's a go over to the airport to Norfolk international on the agenda on the the other side of the airport This is back in 2002 2003, right? And You're gonna see a gate go up to that gate ring the buzzer whatever So I drive there a gov you pick up truck. Well, that's in the back and I see this big dude wearing a polo shirt khaki pants. He's waving the up Back up throw the guns in the caravan to see to wait a little turbo prop for a four-hour flight to Memphis So we take off and his dudes asking all kinds of questions about the deployment and like hey about Robert's Ridge What's going on? I think he's just like some normal dude, right and total oblivious I'm like, dude, are you fucking team guy? It's a cookie I am And um he ended up The down the road he was a master chief. I'm freaking Neptune spear and a bit lot of nut He's always trying to get back to freaking big guy I'm trying to get back to The blue you know what I mean and I can't right now and I'm like dude wait you're you're freaking flying an airplane like you're a team guy pilot right now flying me to freaking Memphis So that's when I'm like, well, this is pretty freaking cool kind of scary, but pretty cool, you know And yeah come to find out that program was developed back in the beginning just to learn how to steal airplanes if you had to do it if you Man, I remember I don't know about that shit. I didn't know it was still going on. I I didn't know clue at the time either Apparently Yeah, I didn't know anything about it and then come find out yeah, it's It's kind of where they sent people that they really don't want to It wasn't a good thing to go to but it was a great trade a great skill to have right they send you to civilian flight school You get your all your pilot licenses even CFI Flight and struck your licenses and then You just pass it on. Why do you say it's not a good place to go? Well back then it wasn't because we were at war And you don't want to be a team guy flying around the United States while your buddies are off You know doing work overseas. So is that is that what you do? Well, I was burned that that was the first time. Oh, you talking about flying around in the state. Yeah, that's yeah, you just You don't deploy at that time shit. Yeah You said well, they just spend a bunch of money for you to go to the school and they do utilize you to a certain extent pretty well How do they utilize you flying gear flying equipment around just like it makes the process of moving Like weapons from one place to another place Okay, and there's one little special program we have for our bigger bird our bigger plane that we have there The 1900 which is used for Yeah, a lot of special stuff was far but in the United States nothing crazy Interesting Is it's I mean is it still like that? I think so I've been back there in a little bit. It's been a couple years How many people were involved in that eight that's it 10 Yeah, it's a good it's a close-knit unit to it's We don't know much What talking about it, but what And we've we talked about you wanted a break to be with your daughter How old is your daughter at this point? It's 2013 13 years old Was that the big reason you wanted to do it? Yeah, and it just get a break from Yeah, just kind of getting you know the same Routine notes and normal in every four month every eight months, you know, yeah And also building that skill because when I went over there. They're like hey, you're never gonna You're not gonna make master chief If you don't you know, take a certain leadership position as a troop chief And I'm like not rather get my pilot trade, you know, then have to worry about making E9 you know, so and it It turned out to be a smart move and also being home a little bit more, but you do go to fly school for like almost eight months In Florida, so it's a lot of back and forth. How did it feel to be on home after all that? It felt good. It felt good. We got divorced Of course, they get divorced. Oh, yeah. Yep Yeah, we'll be separated for like three or four years and then Try it again and then nope, just didn't work out Sorry, typical, typical story about teen guys. Yeah, yeah 90% success rate at getting divorced Are you close with your daughter? Yes, I try to be closer We had our little problems when she was like a younger entertains, you know what I mean and when me and her mom were separated was kind of She could pick and choose who she wanted to see me and her mom really didn't have a ugly divorce Well, I would just say hey, what do you want without but When she was going through that age. Yeah, she was a typical teenage girl and plus I was flying a lot. I was just learning the fly Yeah, but I'm pretty close to her. Yeah, she lives in Virginia Beach right now So you got divorced after the break? Yes What led to that do you think? Uh me being gone, I think and then also just yeah, just My wife my she said that when I got back from my first trip to Afghanistan and like something changed y'all bet it to it and blame in like a I'm still me, you know what I mean because we could part metalize then uh, there's something different like nah, I'm good You know what I mean? You know how we are our community like we just ignore it and Just keep rolling in some of the people close to you actually see The changes that you choose to ignore happen and I think I think that's what led to pretty much it. She was just Yeah, is there anything you would change Anything I would change yeah, no nothing nothing I wouldn't change anything How long after you took the break did you find it getting divorced? We're not took a break. Well, we were separated for three years anyway, and then so it was probably five six years. We cut the worst Yeah, like in 2015. Yeah Did you feel different when you were coming home from Iraq? No, I've just worn out. Did you notice any changes? I didn't know it was she might have noticed yeah to looking back, do you notice any changes? - Behind sites, always 2020, right? So I think we had to probably, yeah, maybe it was a little more cold, more when I got home, you know what I mean? More, I guess I sound like psychiatrist now. But I wanna say, not as caring, but not as emotional, I guess. So that's, I guess that's a side of me. She saw that we changed pretty much. So you, do you feel like that you had any PTSDBI? - No, I did have a PBI and I had to go through that with the FAA, too, that's another story. But not really any PTSD. I think we're good at compartmentalizing, you know, the certain days like March 4th, like we talked about August 6th, like the Extort to 17, the other certain times where you like shit hasn't been that long. You know what I'm like, you missed those dudes too, so it's kind of, but then you just move on, right? 'Cause if you dwell on it, it doesn't, does you know good at all? - Yeah. - It's steering the bottom of a freaking pocket bottle or something, you know what I mean? - How do you deal with it now? - Just compartmentalize it, stay busy, stay busy, don't analyze it. I like shooting, you know what I mean? I'm in a car, it's motor sight, that's what I do. When I would come back from my deployments, I rebuilt a 93 Mustang in my garage. That was the way I dealt with it. I could get back from my first pump in Afghanistan, go let me garage work in the car, and motor cycle, so I like motor cycles a lot. That's how I deal with it. Keep busy, 'cause if you're a stagnant mind, it's not something that's good. - Yeah, what kind of motor cycle do you have? - Ducati. - No shit, not a Harley. - Mm-hmm, it's a V4 actually. - Right on, man. How can I? - No Harley, you know, it's a teliano, it's a telian. (laughing) - Right on. So what did you think of the aviation unit? - It was good, it was monotonous, you know what I mean? But it was, it was learned a lot in freaking. A lot of times you're on call. I'm like I'm an American, Adam Brown, I was flying. When Adam Brown was killed, and yeah, we were on standby, then my wife knew his wife from doing, she would do her hair actually, and then I got a phone call from our command, and like, yeah, I'm 11 o'clock. Hey, you got to fly to Arkansas, how it springs, my wife heard it on the phone, and she's, what? I'm like, yeah, no, I don't know if she goes, that's where so and so lives. And at times like that, that's hard too. We fly on a KGO team out to tell the family, and this is like shoot right before the year before extortion. So. - Well, other than that, the aviation unit was, it was a learning experience, put it that way, and set you up for the future too, but if you wanna stay with the flying part, it did, yeah, until I went to, when I did my last three years at the recruiting district, I wasn't flying much at all there, but when I got out, I got an opportunity to freaking jump right back into it again. - How was the recruiting duty? - Oh man, dealing with recruiters? - I don't know, I don't know. - I don't know the fuck you did that. When I first went in there, I told them I had very little respect for that anybody that could sit behind a desk in the military for a career, and have a rating of a Navy counselor. And then I think it should be a civilian position personally, 'cause they want, like our job there is to give them quality. All they care about is quantity, right? And you're screwing with the young kids, like futures and lives. And I was glad I went there with a rank that I had as a senior chief, 'cause I don't see how, like a second class at E5 could go to that job, 'cause they would just get stepped on as far as, hey, keep giving us bodies, you know what I mean? We're like, "We're not gonna just sign somebody off." That's how that job got created in our community when they made, as so, an actual job, seal, EOD, diver, rescue swimmer, yeah, in Swick. They recruiters would just, you know, pencil whip their PST scores, and then they sent them up to boot camp, where they already spent money on getting the sky up there, going through boot camp, and they bought them the PST. Like, why are you sending these guys to us, you know, and that's where they put it in the shit screen at the recruiting level. So they would have more qualified candidates go up there. And it was cool, like going out the way it came in, you know, talking to kids, answering their silly little questions about buds and training, all the book writers books that I may have read one or two. (laughing) "Do you know how about this guy?" But it was a rewarding job. It was rewarding, even though I think like maybe five kids I sent, they made it through buds, but in three years, right on. So why did you, what led from the aviation unit to the recruiting? I wanted to move to Texas. Why did you want to move to Texas? 'Cause I like, I used to like it when we trained on there. In the '90s, we trained at Fort Hood, and go visit Austin, back when it was a nice sleepy college town. It's not anymore, but I just like the weather there. It does get hot the people, the culture when I was there. And it worked out, I didn't even know that job was a job. I called up my detailer, and he told me that there's a recruiting job in San Antonio, who like working there. I don't want to be a recruiter, he goes, "No, no, it's a coordinator." I never even heard about it before, once again. And you work with a civilian counterpart that works for Academy, it's like a contractor. So there's two of you. And I know zero short duty, as far as every command I was at, I was always on like C-duty to bully whatever I wanted. He's like, "Dude, I'll hook you up with this job." And that's what made me go to Texas. I'm like, anywhere San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, and it recovers a humongous district in Texas. San Antonio, all the way up to the northwest, all the way down to the south. - Wow. - It's huge, a lot of driving. But like I said, it was rewarding, it was rewarding. - I mean, what was it like for you, dude? Just totally punch out of that command. - Out of steel team. - Oh, that was kind of relieving. - No shit. - It was kind of relieving. Yeah, it was good just to move on and think about the next chapter. - You were done. - Yeah. It was, yeah, and things started to slow down too a little bit. But I'm losing friends, like when Extortion 17, we got shot down now. I was sitting, I actually flew up to Boston to pick guys up that were training up there. And I was sitting behind a home plate, a family park, 'cause I was only one of the top red sock and patron fans that everybody knew that was up there. They had tickets, so I'm sitting behind a home plate and my phone, it was actually this, my phone vibrates and like, he's a two troupe. And I'm like, who, like two troupe? Like what, it's not sinking in. And that was when, that was August 6th when Extortion 17 got shot down with quite a few of our friends on there. But then, yeah, and that was very around the time. I was like, I just wanted to move on and do a more cushionier job. You're ready. And the divorce just wanted to get away from, you know the area, hang up the roads area and start out, start out new. And I had a new girlfriend who's not my wife. - Well, congratulations. - Yeah. - How do you meet her? - That is another interesting story. So before all the book writers, right? The, at our command, we'd have people come down, we knew people in the AVH, this is when I was fine. We knew people in the aviation community, like higher ups, like some of the guys that founded net jets, just through doing our recurrent training in LaGuardia Airport. So we'd bring them down for visits. They'd visit the command. I'll never forget one time I walk it around the command, get a mature of a room kind of like, you know, the team room and then going downstairs, showing this monument we're getting built. And one of the head guys of United Technologies, probably a Whitney, he's like, well, when's it gonna be done? And, well, like, well, we don't know. We need like 25,000, whenever operations guys is telling us, you know, he turned around through his assistant, whipped up one of those big, like notebook checkbooks and writes it in the here. It's covered. So, through that, he was good buddies with my current wives, best friends dad. So we met up through that meeting right there, and then it just kind of a long story short. I mean, my wife's gonna be pissed. But her best friend died and then we, I called her just to say, hey, I'm sorry about it. And then we linked up that way. Got you. But through that meeting, that happened at the command. Of course, it was, they got to shoot like, free and get 50 kills, the Monodos, they got to shoot grenade launchers. They had a blast and now they don't do that anymore. I can't even get on the command anymore 'cause of the notoriety. but they were very happy and it was a pretty cool the way that went down. with taking care of the memorial that they were building for the command, just as one guy I'm right to check, it impressed me too, and they were happy with their experience there. Right on. What was the like for you separating out of the Navy? I mean, it sounds like you're just a hotter person already. Yeah. Yep. Well, I was offered a job to actually fly by a great company out of California, Solaris Aviation, and I thought they were rolling the dice with me too as well because it's flying a jet and all I have been flying is turbo props, twin turbo props, it's like a jet with a prop liner anyway. So to see you all there, it gave me the opportunity to, like, dude, I'll give you a job right now and vandalize or teeter, bro, I'm like, no, I'm not leaving Texas, something pops up in Texas will let me know, like two weeks before I retired, a golf stream job popped up and I got the freaking go to initial training for it, and it was a little bit easier in flying a prop. Things just move a little bit quicker, and then I rolled right into that, you like flying a golf stream? Yeah, it's a gorgeous airplane, it's a gorgeous plane, all of all the golf streams, I would fly a 550 though, it's a beautiful airplane. Right on, man, and then it started to be up, did that, and then flew for another guy to Austin, a single turbo prop, a PC12, which is a gorgeous plane, they're incredible, and the guy was one of the best guys ever flew for in my life. Then it got hired by a big freight company and did that for a little bit and kind of take it in a break and just working with my buddy out of North Carolina. Right on, man. How do you, I mean, so you got out in 2019? Yes, they're retired. Do you miss it? I miss the boys, I miss the fellas, you know what I mean? I do, but when I think back, do I really miss it that much? Not really. I mean, I miss some of the cool things we did, you know, but I was ready at that time. I have replaced shoulder, my knee, my back's jacked up, it took a toll, you know what I mean? And mentally, it takes a toll on you, it takes a toll, especially with the FAA, it takes a toll. What do you mean by that? We went to Isleman, I got back, and I'm trying to help other people out with this, right? I got back from Isleman going through the mail, went there for the TT races, the motorcycle races there, it's freaking incredible experience in itself. But I'm going through the mail and I go, oh, I never get a letter from the FAA, open it up. I'm like, hey, we see your disabled vet, yeah, and you got to tell us everything that that's on your VA letter. And I'm like, well, when I take my physical every six months, I check off like the stuff that bothered, I didn't even know about half the stuff that was on my VA letter, and I read it. Like, oh, oh, because it's kind of like a blanket one we had, yeah, it's a long story. So I go through everything that's on there, I got TBI, PTSD, I got sleep apnea, all this other stuff, and I got to go get it taken care of. So I see a great doctor in Savannah, Georgia, he has me go through everything, I go through all the testing, smoke it, my brain is like fried, going through the neuropsych testing. And then I end up answering questions to a bunch of other guys that are disabled vets that are pilots that are going through the same thing. But a lot of these guys, they keep trying to push for more disability, right? But they don't report it to the FAA. We check everything off every six months when we get our flight physicals through our docs and there's a box in there, are you disabled, boom, you check it and you get fill out, you put it in everything you have and you're good to go. Some guys are lying, they got in trouble, they got caught. And what's weird is they're worried about some of the veterans, right, that are around there and you can walk around a flight operations area and see like a five foot four, three hundred and fifty pound man pilot walking around, like I'd be worried about that guy, more than they'd be worried about, you know, having a vet flying an airplane. What do you think they're worried about that's fine airplanes? I don't know. Well, disabled vets. Yeah. Interesting. Well, some, I mean, there are some crazy people out there not even vets, you know, and I mean they do stupid shit, so, so you're a grandpa now. Yep. How's that? I don't see them that often, but when I do, it's cool. The one, the littlest one, Braxton, he's a, he's a tear in a, yeah, toppers, they're both good kids. They're good kids. They're crazy. They're good. Right off. Yeah, it was weird. That wasn't planned either. So, yeah. Right off. Yeah, they're, they're good kids. I spoil them when I see them, you know what I mean, it's pretty much what you get. I can't, I'm looking forward to getting them out in Texas, do some shooting. I already bought them like a little 22, a little time cat, whatever. Nice. The little can on it. Yeah. I'm looking forward to that. Maybe you can get them behind that 300 black out there. Yeah. A couple more years. I don't want to give it to Braxton. He might turn around and shoot me with it. Oh man. You want to go break that thing in? Mm-hmm. Well, before we do, what do you got coming up next? Anything? Anything exciting? No, this was a, no, this was a big step for me. I'll tell you that coming in here, talking to you, and thanks for the opportunity. My pleasure. Jason. I got recurrent training next week, so that's my next big step. Right on, man. Well, I wish you the best of luck. Thank you. Thank you, Matt. Cheers. Thanks. No matter where you're watching the Sean Ryan show from, if you get anything out of this at all, anything, please like, comment, and subscribe. And most importantly, share this everywhere you possibly can. And if you're feeling extra generous, head to Apple Podcasts and Spotify, and leave us a review. Imagine setting your makeup, then forgetting it's even theirs. Meet new grippy setting mist from Maybelline, New York. Gel to mist technology locks in your look for up to 24 hours, with flexible, all-day comfy grip. No tightness, no stickiness, no residue. 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