Welcome guys to the Behind the Shield podcast. My name is James Geering and this is episode 133 and I am so honored to have on the show this week retired First Sergeant Matt Eversmann.
Now Matt was portrayed by Josh Harnett in the movie Black Hawk Down and he obviously was an army ranger who fought alongside so many brave men in the Battle of Mogadishu.
And this conversation was incredible yet I feel we barely scratched the surface of Matt's story and his philosophy and lessons learned.
So I want to preface this introduction by saying that there will be a part two and I would love to travel down to South Florida and actually interview Matt face to face in that second episode.
So we discuss an array of topics from lessons learned, leadership, ownership, the effect of reducing budgets on army special forces, fire, police and just an array of topics and obviously the events of that day.
So as I always say please go to iTunes, subscribe, rate the show, leave reviews and the most important thing is just share.
Share this episode, share other episodes if you've loved them and help get this project and these amazing men and women stories to every single person around the planet because I think they need to be heard.
So with that being said, I introduce to you retired First Sergeant Matt Eversman. Enjoy.
Thank you so much for agreeing to come on the show and I want to give you the first of the four rank initially.
So you're retired First Sergeant Matt Eversman. Yep. James has you spot on.
All right. Good. Because I've made some military faux pas in the past. I want to make sure I nail it. I call that Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman Lieutenant Dave Grossman once and it was corrected immediately.
But you know it's funny and like everything it's like trying to learn the hierarchy to the fire department for an outsider.
It's never bothered me. To this day people still call me Sergeant Eversman and it just confuses them trying to explain First Sergeant and the difference.
It's like you know what I'll take it. I'll take a pay. I'll take a reduction in rank.
All right. Well I always like to start at the very very beginning and then obviously A.O. would love to talk about you know the specific battle that you were I guess most well known for.
I don't want to focus on that the whole podcast. I want to talk about some other areas and all the years and years of service that you had after.
But I also would love to find out you know who you were and what made you the man that on that day was put in that position. So where were you born?
OK. Yeah I'm a native New Yorker. I was born on the south shore of Long Island.
And truth be told 1966 52 years old. So yeah I was a suburban New York kid.
Youngest of four four children just going about my business doing the same knucklehead things that everybody does in young life and wound up moving to Virginia for middle school and high school.
So that's kind of where the story really begins. But I must tell everybody that I am I am a New Yorker by birth.
All right. Did you have any military in your family. I did. You know interesting.
My dad was born in the 1930 38 no no 32.
Excuse me. And so when he graduated from college he was an ROTC when everybody did ROTC but too old for Korea too young for Vietnam.
And but he did a couple of years overseas and then my oldest sister she wound up becoming a nurse in the army for a couple of years.
And then one of my brothers was an engineer in the Marine Corps. But I'm the youngest baby I was. And also I'm proud to say the only enlisted soldier in the family and the one that stuck it out the longest.
All right. So then aside from his time in the military what else did your dad do as a career and what did your mom do as well.
Well my mother domestic goddess just the most the epitome of a mother and a homemaker. She kept the whole family going and ran that ship just the way it was supposed to be.
When we lived in New York my father like all the other suburban fathers pretty much worked in the city took the train in to Manhattan worked downtown on Wall Street.
And then it got the bug of becoming an entrepreneur. So we moved to Virginia and bought a small farm and eventually had a little lumber yard and a hardware store.
Oh brilliant. All right. So then when you were young did you did you have aspirations to become a soldier or join the military.
You know James I say I did and I don't mean that like it was it was predestined as much as I think every certainly in rural Virginia the idea of you know everyone for whatever reason wants to be a Navy pilot or Marine.
Why I don't know. No offense to my Navy and Marine brothers and sisters. But I just sort of you know no one ever thought about I'm going to go be a ranger and an infantryman or a knuckle dragger.
I'm going to I'm going to serve I'm going to do something really exciting and glamorous. So aviation kind of always seemed like it. But you know as life goes on it came closer and closer.
I realized one I didn't really have that desire to probably not the aptitude either. And but I did want to serve. And I think that to answer the question without rambling too much the the idea of service was always kind of there.
And you know just giving back a little bit. I don't want to sound more noble than than I am by any means. But you know that that was kind of never seemed unnatural I guess is my my my answer.
Right. And then and then as a young man or as a child even. What about your your athleticism. Were you a sportsman.
That's a loaded question. If I say I was I would tell you you know I played at a lot of sports but I don't think I was ever that good. But much you know like you know and I hate to sound so vanilla James.
But this you know you compete like everybody else does. And your youngest of four kids of course you got two older brothers you got to fight with all the time.
And you know I would say just the normal I think I was was it maybe average if not a little bit above average. But you know by no means a star in any particular sport though basketball kind of became my my big passion.
You know I think I would put myself in that you know I held my own. Not a starter but a good sixth or seventh guy off the bench.
All right. And then your journey into the military then from from high school.
So I like to call it it's my my son to read you know it's the most successful failure I've I've had. I wound up you know going to college for a couple of years right after high school and really wandering.
I like everybody and I don't want to dismiss it. I really probably shouldn't have gone on to school but I did because I thought that was what was expected and wound up studying economics and French of all things for a couple of years as my grades deteriorated by the day.
And at the end of my junior year in college the the administration very kindly put me out of my misery and asked me to take a take a sabbatical which turned into my army enlistment and a 20 year career.
So I really have them to thank for bouncing me out of school because of my my poor academics. But you know what it showed me was that I wasn't mature enough for college.
I really didn't have any burning desire to do it anyway. And while I was on this this forced break literally I remember a buddy of mine came into the lumber yard and hadn't seen him since we graduated high school three years prior and he turned out had left school enlisted in the army.
I was in Germany. Back when Germany was still divided and I can remember listening to him over the course of selling them you know some sheetrock and two by fours you know stories about being in Berlin and being on the Czech border and man that just lit the fuse.
Pardon the pun.
Yeah. Now what you you mentioned in college and I heard you talking to Matt best on his podcast not too long ago. And it's something that I've also talked about as well and I've gone through our higher education system here and my wife is going through it right now on route to optometry school.
But I think that there are some careers and some people who's who that path almost makes it more difficult to reach the profession that they're trying to get to. And I heard you mention about that and trade schools.
What's your opinion of our and this isn't like a political opinion but just of of our college system versus vocational school and maybe is there any any direction that we should be pushing that in the future.
Yeah. Listen that's a that's a phenomenal question and I think it is has nothing to do with politics and everything to do with reality. I think that listen you you you as I read your bio have seen the differences in systems from from the UK to the United States.
Some things better some things worse but we get here and there's just this expectation that we all have to go on to secondary education in order to achieve this American dream. And what I realized and I like to think that I'm a living proof that you don't have to.
There's no requirement other than what we put in our own minds to it says you've got to have a four year degree in order to be branded as as competitive.
I believe that somewhere we lost our way with the trades and we fell out maybe it was in the 80s and all the greed of of of that big money. But you know listen at the end of the day we need we need really great service industry.
You know people you know we need great painters and roofers and shinglers and plumbers and welders let alone mechanics we we need them all and somehow we've gotten to this point where nobody no Americans seem to want to do these jobs that require you know a fair amount of brute strength and a definite amount of street smarts and brain power in order to
execute you know a particular operation and that's what again I believe is the trade. So I'll go I you know like it matters that I go on record saying I think this whole idea of going to college is overrated. I think it's been blown out of proportion. I think there are plenty of kids that can go out and be supremely successful without a college degree.
Now you know while in the subject I just say one more thing and shut up the this idea though that hey listen I don't have aptitude to be a stockbroker. I mean I realize that I'm the reason I had to enlist. I don't understand macro and micro economic theory. I just don't. It's like demolitions. I don't understand it. I see it but I don't know how to do it. So in order to say hey Matt you know you're a knucklehead without a college degree go to Wall Street. Well clearly that logic doesn't work and there are some things that require us to do.
There are some things that require us to have credentials. I think is really the applicable word in order to to kind of participate in their reindeer games. But as a whole I don't see any reason why any young man or woman should feel obligated to go into that much debt after graduation in order to start living the dream.
I think we got to reeducate our employers. We got to re calibrate and we got to get people thinking like there's an amazing pool of talent that are constantly coming out of colleges and high schools in this case that you know with the right mentoring coaching and training are going to deliver.
One last thing I'm lying through my teeth when I said that last thing with my last. I'm an asshole sometimes. The the decision is by all. Neither do I want to sound like anyone that goes on to college is wrong in that all colleges ought to be burned to the ground and there are horrible institutions.
I really that is not at all what I'm saying. There are some some young men and women that absolutely should continue. They have the opportunity and they will flourish and grow and you know expand their mind.
And you know at the end of the day it's it's probably a good investment for some. You know we've got to raise the watermark on education in this country anyway. We've got a lot of we got a lot of jackass dummies running around that you know could stand to have some more education pumped into their to their brain housing groups.
So if you're listening and I don't mean to offend anybody about not going to college or going to college but I just say it's at the end of the day it's not a requirement for success. Yeah.
And that's something that we're seeing in the fire service where for promotion now they're requiring two four year degrees of which I have. So it's not a barrier for me.
But that's almost creating an environment where people that haven't maybe walked the walk and got the skills in the profession itself are fulfilling this administrative criteria and getting degrees in you know whatever and then being able to promote and then having a complete disconnect from the actual profession that they are now leading.
Right. Right. Yeah. You know it's one of those I guess like everything you know with the right balance you know you start a business or you go into business it's important to learn the fundamentals of economics and you know how to read a balance sheet and how to do all that stuff that you might not naturally learn on the job.
You know in your trade and learn it's like you said some organizational skills and management skills and you know how offices and in this case maybe a firehouse should be run in managing all that.
I mean of course you know learning how to do that might require formal education. It absolutely is. And listen as I've said before about some of my dear brothers and sisters at arms there are some kids that were really great young soldiers.
They were good machine gunners and they just didn't have the aptitude to advance for whatever reason. They they they weren't going to be able to elevate to that next echelon.
And that's OK. You know but just we got to understand that you know we we've got to find that happy balance in between you know the technical and tactical skills in order to advance. And I'm sure in your world that you know there's plenty of jackass chiefs running around there that you know ain't smelled smoke in a long time.
Much like in the army there's a lot of a lot of generals that have never fired a pistol or a rifle in a long time. But you know take the good with the bad. Yeah. Now that brings to another point as well.
I by choice have never promoted because I just love being a door kicker. You know I mean in the fire service side you know I can't it kills me to think I'd be outside the house fire instead of inside looking for someone.
But there's obviously a huge amount of my peers that are you know wanting to get to those officers positions and doing very very well. But one of the things that I I have a problem with personally is that in order to be a leader you need to promote.
And I my personal opinion is that you can be a leader at any rank and not have to start accumulating bugles to call yourself a leader. What's your perspective on that.
One hundred percent. You know like you said I enlisted soldier at the time I had enough college credits that I could have gone to officer candidate school you know to to be promoted from within to become a commissioned officer in the army.
And you know a lot of a lot of my my mentors were were really pushing me hard to do that because that seems like the natural progression you know you're enlisted guy now become an officer you become a platoon leader on and on and on and hey at the end of the day you're going to make some more dough.
There's no doubt about it. And that sounded really really tempting to me until it really started digging in deep on one of those moments of clarity that happens every once in a while where I realize you know mathematically.
Mathematically while I will make more money my time with troops will be significantly limited. And like you said you know you you would be outside you know watching people run into the fire as opposed to run into the fire.
And at the end I'm like you know I don't want to just be a lieutenant and platoon leader for eight months. I'd like to be a squad leader and platoon sergeant for three years like that.
That that that was really for me at the end that was that was what it is. I want to stay with the boys. I wanted to you know keep doing and be a you know kicking down a door and doing all the things that soldiers do so that that I'm right on board with you exactly.
Right. Well let's talk about your your journey through the military and because you didn't initially go into the Rangers did you.
No this was one of those typical stories that I'm sure you know anybody any veteran that may be listening has been down that you know you go to the recruiter thinking one thing and you walk out the door getting another.
And you know I pinch myself sometimes looking back just the dumb luck of how it all worked out. My idea had always been though to to become a Ranger. I'd seen it on you know a 60 minutes show that back in the early 80s they did a profile of it.
And I'm like man that's really really cool. They look high speed and you know I joined the army and wound up on a what they call an open contract which means after basic training they could have could have sent me anywhere in the world.
There was no guarantee of anything on the other side other than I was going to be an infantryman. And again I didn't know any different. I'm like oh you know OK that must be how it works.
And you know the grace of God I was the basic training cohort that that enlisted when I did all unbeknownst to us were tagged for a brand new light infantry unit up in Fort Durham New York.
The newest element of the 10th Mountain Division which was being re I don't know what the doctrinal word is but you know the 10th Mountain had gone out of basically gone out of business after World War Two and in 1988 they were bringing it on you know unflagging
un casing the flag the colors. That's what it is. Uncasing the colors and re you know instituting the 10th Mountain Division. So our whole basic training battalion was sent as one cohort through basic training through a IT and then up to Fort Durham to start a whole brand new unit from start which really was actually very cool.
It was a great introduction for me into the military and into the infantry and just absolutely loved it. Right. Well it's funny you just reminded me of a story. I don't know if you ever met Pat McNamara. He was Delta.
You know I have not. I know this name but I do not know him. Okay. Well he's I mean he's just you know it appears to be the exact same type of men that you fought alongside with in Mogadishu but when he enlisted his dad actually sent him with a lawyer so that the lawyer actually looked over the paperwork and made sure that when he finally signed it it was exactly what he was trying to get. I'd never heard anyone say that before.
That's funny. That's awesome. Well good for him and good for his dad for thinking that you know to make sure that they're not you know doing those rascally recruiting things that they do.
All right. So then how did you then get from there to Ranger School.
Yes. So I while I was up at Fort Drum you know brand new unit the army's thrown on a fair amount of dough at it so we could get all the you know as many military school opportunities out to the ranks as possible. So you know I actually went to sniper school first.
We had to go to why was it before trauma got sniper school volunteered for Ranger School. And with that you get airborne school and then it went to Sears School survivalvation resistance and escape school. You know and all this indicate which was interesting all in the conventional
army you know the light infantry of it. And for me it was just an awesome adventure. Now keep in mind this is peacetime you know and it's easy to beat your chest about you know going to war during peacetime and no one's shooting at you.
But you know for me I had nothing to compare to. So I'm like this is absolutely great. I'm doing all this this great hard training. I'm pushing myself to the limits. This is absolutely just more than I could have dreamed up.
Truly I'm like I'm digging it all the way home every day. It's really pretty cool except that during my first three years in service two things happened first the Gulf War kicked off or no excuse me.
First Panama happened. We invaded Panama you know in December 20th of 1989 and I was in Ranger School actually when that happened so missed that and on top of that my unit
sent out an edition didn't deploy to Panama so we were kind of over one in real world deployments and then after that you know the Gulf War happened and you know everybody in the world is seems is going to go over and
kick the shit out of Saddam Hussein except for the 10th Mountain Division and so we're basically watching this all on TV so we're over to and go into war and man that puts a that puts a really bad taste in an infantryman's mouth that you get left out and go into the show.
So it's an interesting point that you make as well because I've had a few a few members of Special Operations and Special Forces on the show who their career was either side of 2001.
So and it's always an interesting to see what the training looked like before and then what the train looked like after so when when you were leading up to that was any of the training preparing you in the right way for what ultimately you would see in Somalia.
The short answer yes I would I would absolutely say that without it at the short answer is yes I all the army training and a part of this also change I do have to say at the time I didn't realize it because you're young jackass and you don't really understand the process through which the army and I couldn't talk about the Marine Corps Navy Air Force Coast Guard but certainly the army training process is actually very well thought out very
performance oriented problem programmatic and progressive and I'm like oh okay that's cool and again it's time I didn't realize it but looking back it absolutely was very methodical in learning the basics moving up to what we eventually would do in wartime.
Now the the comma but is it wasn't until I left the conventional army and got into the Special Operations Command in the 75th Ranger Regiment that the training was much more acute in detail and complexity that really started testing the skills and training on the skills to a higher level of proficiency
that would actually be what's the word you know that you would actually fall back on in combat and I have to just say one more thing on that I know I see one more thing a lot.
That's not a backhand compliment to the conventional army nor to the 10th Mountain Division you know listen you got a division of 25,000 soldiers and a limited budget you know for for guns and ammo for everybody and then you go down to a unit that's in aggregate you know got 3000 people with the same budget you get a you get a shit ton more training accomplished.
You know in a smaller unit with a big budget I guess is where I'm going and so that magnifies the more punctuates the the the same army training process it's just you get a lot more you know you have a lot more training aids and opportunities you know to travel and train and practice again you know just to prepare for whatever might happen somewhere down the road in some distant land when we get the call.
Yeah and you hit on a point that I've talked about before and that's why I do like comparing police fire you know to special forces special operations because you know we especially you know firefighters that we don't know what the hell we're going to be called to it could be a fire it could be a cardiac arrest it could be a plane in a tree I mean you know school shooting and so there's this array of skills that we need to to be on top of and so I think this is a good point.
And so I think there's two areas that as far as who employs us I think that bar needs to be set very very high to get the men and women that are able to do that but as you also mentioned there needs to be an understanding that it needs to be a budget and a support.
You know and a work schedule that's going to create an environment where these men and women can train to the level they need to and also to not be exhausted to thrive when they actually have to go out there and do their job.
You know you can only crack that whip on race horses so much before they can't run any faster. You know you just you just can't you can't run them to death even though they are willing and able and will do it until the end they can't be they've got to be managed they've got to be led and I think that is a problem.
Listen you can just read the newspaper on any given day you know after 17 years of war you know our special operations command in general is really worn down and you know some of the problems you see you know we start you know there's some attrition problems and there's some broken system problems and you know gosh if manpower starts to leave then we need to grab more people and if you grab more people you know naturally the old standard
may lower a little bit and you know so it's just this dog wagging the tail sometimes of you know you just can't run them to death. You just you can't or else the whole thing is going to collapse.
Yeah and then like I said the budget having having the best equipment and the budget for the training which is something that I had your fellow Ranger Tim Kennedy in town a little while ago I did his sheepdog response class.
Oh cool and you know comparing what they're teaching just in two days with the unarmed combat and the the way they teach weapons versus how I'm sure many law enforcement departments are taught just in a range shooting paper targets and then you know maybe in the academy they learn some unarmed stuff.
You realize that that you need to have so much more training that is going to require a budget just it's just simple economics.
Yep yep absolutely and no matter what we like to think it ain't unlimited.
No exactly and that's that's where then the the responsibility goes on the citizens of which you and I are also taxpayers so we're not you know pointing our fingers at other people but the priorities need to be that they are told what you know the military the police the fire
EMS are actually expected to do and therefore instead of selling budget cuts to the public they need to be educated and say look for an extra you know few pennies out of your your paycheck when they show up on your children's worst day they're going to be as well prepared as they can possibly be.
Absolutely and listen not to go down that rabbit hole too much but you know every time I pass a fat cop I'm just thinking could you actually catch a bad guy if he was holding my daughter you know in a run but could you do that you know could you take a shot at 15 meters.
You know when's the last time you went to the rain shooting paper targets and I went the last time you you were you know I started thinking I look at him all the time tactically and I think man I'm not sure the taxpayer we're getting our you know our money's worth with all these guys because clearly being catching anybody anytime soon.
Yeah and then the foot race no and that's the complete reality and then same with the very very small you know police officers firefighters are they are they training to be a strong are they you know in the jiu jitsu gym all the time and some of them are and they're able to perform incredibly well but the ownership is the other side that I talk about a lot here yes we need to you know be given a good environment to thrive by the employer but but the ownership of yourself so in the Ranger Regiment.
You know how high was that bar set and what did you do to weed out the ones that had no right being there.
Yeah so listen it's my first introduction.
You know when let me just back up for a second you know when you were asking me about you know how competitive I was you know as an athlete or how good an athlete you know at a high school level that's kind of our first you generally speaking for all of us that's our first introduction to.
You know you pass fail you had the skills to make the team you did or you didn't have the skills and you didn't like that was it you know there was no middle area to either your name made it a roster or you didn't and you know I was at the time fortunate enough that you know I did make the varsity basketball team and.
But I'm going with this you get out to the army and the standards are certainly a lot higher than the normal high school but they're not that high they're not impossible to me and you know but once you get into the army if you keep your nose clean and your head above water.
You know generally speaking you're going to be okay you know you can plot along at a comfortable level and really not be that challenged and that's just the fact.
You get into this next command the next echelon the special operations world in the Ranger Regiment where the standards are demonstrably higher and not only are they higher in writing they're actually enforced so now you've got to pass through a couple of hurdles you know these selections to.
Figure out if you one got the got the got the talent the skills the heart the motivation to drive and you know in the knowledge and wherewithal to do it so that natural process weeds out you know some of the riff raff so to speak and then you have that constant.
Challenge of not just meeting but exceeding the high that those high standards and being held accountable and oh by the way you're in a unit that is this self licking ice cream cone of accountability and responsibility so everybody's constantly nipping at your heels to you know succeed.
I mean that i think i do believe in my heart it was always for the greater good and not from you know trying to see somebody feel that you know this competition to who's going to be the main effort who's going to be the tip of the spear always and you know if you're not first your last kind of mentality what goes a long way.
In the culture of the unit i'm not to say it's perfect listen there you meet people everywhere in the most elite units of our military and you like how on earth did you get in there you're just a shit bag like you're you might be really strong but you might be really good marksman or something but you're just an asshole.
You're just not a good guy every once in a while they get through the system it just happens but i think by and large in all honesty i think if you if you can this the ranks you would find that you know the further you progress within that command and that special operations community.
It's sort of naturally levels it out that the people that are just trying to showboat generally speaking they don't last and they're not going to make it.
Yeah that speaks a lot for keeping that bar high and we've got departments out there that do that and they probably don't have any of the fat cops as you said.
And then i know very personally of ones where the bars basically fallen off the rack and is lying on the floor actually fell in a trench below the floor.
And you know people you know will will get their unions to fight any annual physical test and you know you end up with exactly what you're talking about your kids just died because they can do their job.
Absolutely and listen I by no means would I presume to know the inner workings of the police department the fire department I've talked I've spoken certainly do enough law enforcement a local state and federal level to understand that.
Complexity with union and you know we're not going to have this you know the physical fitness standards or the marksmanship standards or whatever and I for the life of me I just I just can't understand it I don't know how I don't know how anybody carries a gun for instance and not the bag on the on the boys and girls in blue by any means I love them but I don't know how anybody that carries a side arm.
Is not scared shitless every single day thinking about what happens if I have to draw this weapon you know and put two in the chest and one in the head of a bad guy you know could I do that you know just like that could could I run to the sound of gunfire and pull that trigger.
That that would be frightening to me to think that that's what expected and I don't know how to do it. I can't even I can't even fathom that but I suspect that there are some cultures within that community that are that are allowing that if not promoting it.
Yeah yeah and I think that the problem is as we mentioned earlier if if you are able to climb the ladder with either a lack of knowledge or even a fear of the profession that you're in whether it's a the administrative ladder or even the union ladder and you're scared of being challenged physically or with your skills then now you're in a very dangerous place where you're able to enact the very things that are going to make you feel like you're going to be a very dangerous person.
Yeah you're in a very dangerous place where you're able to enact the very things that are going to make the environment that you're trying to protect actually a lot more dangerous.
Yep yep spot on and that is listen at the end and this is me being somewhat philosophical you know after only four cups of coffee this morning but you know you wonder every day when somebody gets up and you know scrapes their face or brushes their fangs are they looking in the mirror thinking you know I'd like to just be average today.
You know I just want to be you know second best today in my mind I can't comprehend that I can't comprehend somebody saying like I'm quite content just to be average I mean I joke about living a vanilla life now but somewhere deep inside my little knucklehead brain I still like to think I'm a tough guy.
But this idea though of I don't want to go out and try and be the best today I don't want to you know who does that like how how could that how could you function in this in this particular profession of law enforcement and the fire community and say yeah you know I think being being average is OK today.
That's craziness yeah I couldn't I absolutely couldn't agree more I'm so glad that we kind of talked about this subject for a while well speaking of the tough guy because you know let's let's be honest not only were you in an elite unit but also you were tested.
More probably than than most units have in our history but I'd love to kind of get into that area now so before we talk about your actual deployment and how that kicked off I would like to just if you're able to paint a picture of you know what the people of Somalia were going through as far as the famine and what initially America was trying to do to help.
Yeah so this is a couple of things first of all in 1982 when when I'm on the scene now I had just left the 10th Mountain Division I've gotten down to the Ranger Regiment the 3rd Ranger Battalion in Fort Benning Georgia and you know learn drinking through a fire hose again no pun intended everything about Ranger life.
My old unit at the 10th Mountain the 2nd Battalion 87th Infantry deployed shortly after I left to Somalia as part of this UN peacekeeping operation and I got to be honest I'm like I'm not sure I could have picked out Somalia on the map in early 1992.
Well Somalia if you just Google it and you can take three minutes to read the history you know it's a failed state there's nothing going on in Somalia except that it's the Horn of Africa.
It is just the right in the perfect location with two deep water ports that if we the United States or the bad guy Russians were going to fight a naval battle in the Indian Ocean.
Somalia is a great place to stage which is probably the only reason anybody really gave a shit about it and in the early 70s the Russians really liked Somalia so the United States was interested in it and eventually the Russians left and went to.
You know across the border and the Americans came in and started to help you know the Somalis do whatever they could do they had some.
I think they had some like sugar refining refineries if I recall whatever it was the US was involved fast forward now here we are in the 90s you know decades of civil war.
Malnutrition Sub-Saharan African life I mean it's just a it's a bad spot the US has long given up on it and we are watching these.
You know the UN participate in trying to stop the the the the the the mortality I mean you know it's horrible and you know you've seen the pictures everybody that's that's watched the news you know over timing and find on the Internet.
You know Christiane I'm I'm for I like to talk about her a lot but I mean this in a truly in a flattering sense you know she was one of the first that was broadcasting images from Somalia to the whole Western world and showing you know these people are dying by the thousands and.
You know it's really really gotten out of control there's no government to support it it's just tribal warlords slash terrorists that are running ragged letting people die killing their own and you know anybody with a conscience is called to say hey enough is enough.
So there's a big UN presence in Somalia in 1992 trying to make a little bit of order out of the chaos there.
I really don't want to suck up all the oxygen in the room on this but two things while you gave me the mic I want to point in this we get into the story so you got this big humanitarian effort going on in Somalia.
And that's everybody would nod their head and say is generally a good thing all these UN members the UN are there taking place helping support it everybody's happy that we're all doing good things but you know when you look at the United Nations now.
On one at the time the the the secretary general was a guy named Bucros Bucros Gali and this is significant in the history books because he's Egyptian and he hates Mohammed indeed you know they don't like the Somalis in general there's a cultural issue going on so right off the bat you've got some motives that are in conflict.
You know this the biggest most prominent warlord in Somalia is this guy indeed the big dog in the fight at the UN is Bucros Bucros Gali they don't like each other and oh by the way this country where indeed is is starving and in chaos so you know the recipe for disaster is already you know well in play before Everson and the rest of these guys get involved but you know it's set in that stage James I think it's important to understand.
You know whatever people think politically about the UN is is certainly up for discussion but in the big picture I would be remiss if I didn't say hey I they're trying to move in the right direction or trying to do the right thing in this big humanitarian aid but you know as you all know as everybody's listening knows generally speaking it's clumsy at best and pretty inefficient.
In general so that's where what's going on in 1992 is a lot of people rowing hard to try and stop the famine broker a little bit of peace deal and stop civil war.
Right and then so what was it that took you and Delta and the other members of the military that you guys were with to Somalia that was that was separate from that mission.
Yeah so while this whole effort this humanitarian effort is going on a group of Pakistani soldiers are are ambushed and killed slaughtered really by Mohammed Adid's militia.
I mean it's barbaric what they do they kill these Pakistani soldiers in the broad daylight right in the middle of the street and on top of that other UN forces it was proven had watched it happen and never lifted a finger and so the Pakistanis asked the United Nations for support afterwards and bring justice to it and the United States was the first to do that.
And the United States was the only country that said will you know will will will help bring the right this wrong will help capture Mohammed indeed and that's when we put together this task force ranger of which I was a member to go to Mogadishu and capture Mohammed indeed like that that was the mission.
Right now again people listening I'm sure have seen the film so I don't want you know to say well Matt will you tell me every single step of what happened from then.
But just very briefly so what were expectations when you went in on October 3rd and then if you can lead us through the the sequence of of things that happened that obviously worked against the initial plan.
Yeah so this and I must say if if if you all.
Listeners firemen and women and policemen law enforcement whoever's listening I want you to listen carefully because I there's some I believe some really valuable points and I don't mean to be presumptuous that I'm you know the the gift of the magi or the Oracle or anything but you know pay attention to the fact that
we did a lot of things definitely wrong I did a lot of things definitely wrong and I made a lot of assumptions that were definitely wrong.
So please you know to answer your question James yeah so here's here's the idea on October 3rd.
We know that to have a D top guys are going to meet in a pretty bad part of town and maybe even a deed himself will be there so we're going to plan this rate to go capture on the standard is that it's going to take 30 minutes.
In and out you read the book or seen the movie you know that couple of days prior to that however I myself had been.
I'm I'm laterally promoted to from the two IC of our helicopter to the OIC the officer in charge because my my boss had to go home was called home in a Red Cross emergency so here I am staff sergeant ever submit now the chalk leader of chalk for which.
You know we do it all the time this is full out one drill where you assume commander soon charge the next level up but now it's in combat so we're you know Matt Eversman has to make.
You know come to reality that now when I make a decision on the battlefield you know it's my decision my decision only to support the commander's intent and on on on bottom line is now I have a new responsibility and I have more authority.
You all again I say you all listen if you read the book or seen the movie.
Daylight raid we're going to go in we know that it's going to be about a 30 foot fast rope insertion which you know sucks but it's not horrible.
And consequently in our preparation that day we made some assumptions first of all we thought that the light raid.
Going in at 330 in the afternoon will be home at 430 we don't need our night vision devices so we didn't bring up.
30 minutes even though it is Africa and it's really hot at the time we had canteens and camelbacks I think you know I don't need to canteens or water because who's going to have time to drink water so I took one out because oh by the way I put 730 round.
You know magazines in a canteen in a canteen pouch that'll be good previously even with a couple firefights guys realize that hey the.
Body armor that we had a time was very ill fitting for some and so the back plates were too big so they take them out and everyone's like hey you know who's going to get shot in the back nobody's going to think about that so right up the back those are four things.
Before we even started this mission that were completely absolutely incorrect and we're going to come back and bite us in the ass my only feeble in this running commentary my only feeble is.
Observation of it all is that you know for me the lesson learned as a leader going back is you can unwittingly validate a negative.
You know what I mean you can unwittingly hey nothing happened because I didn't have my back plate in last time so I ought to be good it's all right it's unnecessary well clearly now you're like what a stupid logic but at the time it made very good sense that at my level.
We're not going to get shot in the back we would get shot in the front in the chest so here we are October 3rd and before I go on James does that make sense I hope I'm explaining in my mind it sounds crystal clear but.
It makes perfect sense just to online so the mentality that we see a lot in some of the places we work is well it's never happened so therefore it will never happen instead of it hasn't happened so therefore the probability of it happening is even greater.
Exactly absolutely no if you can think it it'll happen we'll get to that at the end so long and short we the bad guys are the spies.
Show that the bad guys are where they're supposed to be and we launch on this mission and again you know yours truly is in charge of his helicopter for the first time in combat and I get I can remember forget I got into the to the helicopter and for the first time it seems so silly.
You know I put on the headset so I could talk to the pilots and I didn't even know how to take where the push to talk button was.
And I can hear you know the pilots in my helicopter talking I can also hear everybody else on the helo common network talking on finally when the crew chief sort of punches me in the arm and shows me the push to talk button and the pilot yelling at me so I came in are you going to answer me.
Well then you can't make any assumptions that the new guy doesn't doesn't understand at all everybody's got to show me how to do something at least once so anyway off we go three minutes light or so.
Start our our approach onto the target and as we're working on the timeline of a 30 second warning my helicopter.
abruptly comes to a halt in the sky and the pilot says very distinctly, I can't see shit.
Totally not what you want to hear on short final going in on the target. And what had happened,
again, on this particular day, on this mission, my helicopter was the last one going in.
All the helicopters before that preceded us kicked up so much dust and debris,
flying so low in that part of town that it was like flying into a sandstorm. And, you know,
that ain't a good thing when you're in a helicopter flying, you know, in a city. And so, you know,
after some time, we are trying to figure out what to do. There's a big threat of RPGs from the ground,
decisions made, we're going to go in where we are. Boys start to go out. And as the last thing the
pilot says to me is, hey, we're in the wrong spot. We're about three blocks short of your insertion
point. Once you get on the ground, move in the direction of flight, and you'll be good. Like,
okay, Roger, you know, nothing you can do about it. You can't argue you, you got to go. It's just
fog of war kind of stuff. So one one sort of big deal here, again, for young, young leaders of all
ages listening, I'm the last one that's going to go in by design onto the rope. And as I'm kneeling
on the helicopter floor, I go to adjust put my goggles on, you know, my eye protection, and the
strap that holds the goggles on snaps, you know, Murphy's law right there. And there's I don't
have a backup. So I'm going in, in this sandy, dusty, you know, sandstorm. Before we even get on
the ground, I'm at a disadvantage. And I'm the leader without eye protection. I mean, what an
idiot my fault. Totally my fault. You know, I clean the lenses, but you know, the back had dry
rotted, I just hadn't, you know, I hadn't done the proper checks. And that was totally no one's fault
but my own. But what do you do, you just keep going. So I get on the rope, I start to slide down
finally get down to the bottom of the rope. And as I'm almost to the ground, I see below me, one of
my soldiers is already spread out on the ground right at the bottom. And I'm thinking, my gosh,
he's already been shot. Like we're we must already be in a firefight. And I get down this wounded
soldiers line area, bleeding all over the place. It's all banged up. You know, a couple of Rangers
are working on them. And I say, where to get shot. And they say, Hey, sir, need he didn't get shot,
he fell. Like you got to be shitting me. How do you have? What do you mean he fell? And it turns
out that Todd Blackburn had when he grabbed the rope to descend, the helicopter had had keeled
over a couple of degrees and he lost control and he fell off the rope almost 60 feet. And boom,
here he is, you know, still alive. But but, you know, knocking on heaven's door not to be overly
dramatic. So here we are. First day in charge in combat on the ground. And I got a liturgy and
casualty. Talk to my radio guy to call for a medevac. The radio doesn't work. We're in the
wrong spot. And literally, James, in the first, you know, 20 seconds of being on the ground.
Those four things happen. We're put in the wrong spot, liturgy, casualty, new coms. And we're now
in a firefight. I mean, by now we're getting, you know, shot at from from three directions. And
I'm like, that's a, that's a really bad way to start any kind of a mission. And that's just
going on on my particular helicopter, there are 19 helicopters, you know, all over this battlefield.
And that's just happening to me right then. And I suppose for a second to say, you know,
this whole battle that you read about, and you see in the movie, in one sense, is a collection of
several different battles. You know, everybody's got a different story from a different perspective
of fighting all the way, you know, from the time the whole task force inserted till the time it all
got out. And clearly, you know, I can only give give some commentary about my experience. But,
you know, as far as the rest of the battlefield is going on, you know, the the assault onto the
target building, you know, as I recollect, went went pretty well. In fact, you know, not only they
caught the two bad guys that we were after, but there were like 19 other, you know, blacklisted
bad dudes that they rolled up that we were going to, you know, we were gonna we were gonna have to
process and, and evacuate from from the target building. Really quickly, because again, this could
be a three hour discussion. Back at shock for we have to organize a medical evacuation for this
soldier. And instead of the the command coming to us, we send an aid and litter team to take Todd
Blackburn under fire from our location down to the target building, turn them over to the to the
commander and the senior medic, and then evacuated from there, which actually goes pretty well.
You know, from that point on, is that really the whole crux of the story goes, we all are
under the understanding that we've got all the bad guys on the target. It's just a question,
all the bad guys on the target. It's just a question of the commander saying, collapse back
to the target, and we'll all leave from here. When the first Black Hawk gets shot down, you know,
I mean, kind of our mission had been, I don't want to say complete, but we had the first part of the
mission was accomplished, we got all the people we were after. And as this is we're preparing for
exfil, first helicopter gets shot down by an RPG. So complete change of mission. Now, the focus
becomes getting to that first crash site, picking up all the survivors and the wounded, and you know,
dead if there are any and then extracting, which in my mind, you know, was not a believe it as silly
as it sounds, I wouldn't have thought that that would be I don't want to say as difficult,
because that sounds really naive. But it seemed like just something like, you know, we I'd seen
helicopters crash before where people walked off of it, you know, so I'm like, hey, you know,
helicopter crash. Now we'll just have to drive over and pick them up. We'll put a thermite on
the helicopter and we'll leave from there. Well, clearly, as you all know, if you've watched the
the movie or seen the book, it's not that easy. A lot of bad guys in town, huge firefights going
on all around us. While this focus of getting to the crash site is starting unbeknownst to us,
the second helicopter piloted by Mike Durant comes in to provide security. And as Mike's flying over
the battlefield, he takes an RPG. And while it's not catastrophic, it's enough that sends him,
you know, on his way back to the airfield to DX is his bird and get another one to come back.
And somewhere as he's flying back to the airfield, he has a catastrophic failure and
and crash at the bird. And now we've got two blackhawks down. We've already deployed our
search and rescue bird. We already have our our ground forces moving in one direction. We've
already called up our reserves from the airfield. We've alerted the U.N. like everything's in motion.
And we've got this this new helicopter crashed with kind of no one left to go insecure.
So, I mean, it's gotten really shitty really quickly. And, you know, to kind of finish this
this quick narrative, as you all may know, this story was written because of the actions of
of really three men, three Delta snipers that were flying overhead that watched all this happen,
saw Mike Durant's helicopter crash away from the main battle site and immediately said to the
commander, put us in. And the commander said, no, we can't put you in because can't lose another
helicopter. Do what you can from above. And as the story goes, they asked a second time later on to
go in. And the commander said no. And finally, on the third time with the crowd building,
the commander said, OK, well, we'll put you in and we'll we'll we'll get a force to you when we can
or worse to that effect. And so as this helicopter is making its approach, it takes fire. Brad
Hollings, one of the Delta snipers that's on the board, is shot. Gary Gordon and Randy Shugart
are able to deploy, get in, fight their way up to the helicopter. And as you know, the
only survivor of that crash is the pilot Michael Durant. And he's pretty banged up. He's in bad
shape. So they move him to safety, cannibalize all the weapons and then hold their position as long
as they can until they are, you know, sadly overrun by the enemy and are killed, protecting
Mike Durant. And as everyone knows, Mike has been captured by a deed, which really sort of changes
the whole, you know, ending to this story. Just a quick other aside, the first helicopter back to
the first helicopter that's crashed. Unfortunately, when this helicopter crashes, the nose of the
helicopter folds over the cockpit. And so the bodies of the two pilots have to be, you know,
the pilot, the helicopter has to be, what's the word, has to be taken apart, deconstructed in
order to evacuate the bodies. And that's the reason the task force in general is in overnight,
because we're not going to leave, you know, we're certainly not going to leave anybody, let alone
an American pilot member or task force, you know, into the enemy's hands. This whole story, you
know, at the end, though, James, you know, it's a, it's a sad story in one sense, it's an amazing
story in another as a participant, but finishing it all out, and then I'll let you jump it in. And
ask some more questions. You know, eventually, we you know, Michael Durant, and is repatriated,
you know, a couple of weeks later, after being held by Mohammed Adid, did basically brokered,
for lack of a better word, a peace deal, he brokered a way out of it. And our forces were
sent home, you know, I mean, that was it, we finished that battle captured bad guys, repatriate
our bodies, and then politically, the decision made to leave Somalia and come home. On the good
side of this story, beyond just the amazing stories of valor, and bravery and tenacity and just
American will, you know, Gary Gordon and Randy Shukart, the two Delta snipers who were killed,
protecting Michael Durant, were awarded posthumously the Medal of Honor. And that was
the most incredible thing to literally say that we were in the company of those kinds of heroes,
you know, in a shithole country that nobody cared about. And yet, they gave everything they
possibly could, protecting one of their own in the worst situation. I mean, that's, of all the
stuff, narratives of all the stories of all the lenses, you know, the story of Gary Gordon and
Randy Shugart and Brad Hollings is, you know, to this day, just an incredible picture of, of
the greatest things that Americans do, because in the end, you know, doing the right thing for the
right reason in a bad spot. Obviously, you've just, you know, what you just said in the last
20 minutes or so, there are a million things that I could, could talk about. But I think one of the
things that really struck me was, well, firstly, as you were saying, so there you were, you know,
your unit before not seeing a lot of action. And then, you know, when you're deployed, you come to
pretty much a worst case when it comes to combat. You got to, you know, vastly outnumbered, thousands
and thousands of thousands of Somalians, a lot of them hopped up on drugs that time of day as well.
But the, as you said, the current of heroism is the word that you like or not, but the courage
of the Delta snipers, for example, knowing that they were most likely going to die when they went
down, when the guys went back to the base, bringing the casualties and then, you know, gotten you
ammunition and then drove back out there again, knowing that they were probably not going to make
it. That's the one thing that I see. And again, it's falling back on that training and also
the kind of men that the organizations that you belong to had found first, because obviously,
you know, you weren't just made, you were found and then trained, that sense of courage, you know,
that sense of brotherhood that come hell or high war, even if you ended up dying, that you are going
to be there for the man you're right and the man you're left is really what I got from that whole
story. Yeah, absolutely. No, it is a, you know, it's the story of combat. I mean, it's the story of
the brothers in arms. It's the esprit de corps. It's everything that you just mentioned that is
shared and born out of the crucible experience for sure. The last part of the film as well,
the Mogadishu mile, you guys were left to the point where they had to basically run that last
mile. There's some narrative spoken in the documentaries and I guess suggestion in the
film as well, where the Somalis at one point let you guys and didn't give resistance towards the end.
Do you think that was a thing as it were? Or do you think you'd actually by that point worn them
down so much that they didn't even give chase? You know, that's a good question and I couldn't
give the empirical answer. I do know now, so just quick fact, I actually got out, I myself,
the real Matt Eversman got out in a vehicle the night before. So you see the movie with
Sergeant Eversman running that was not me. The reality though is that, you know, there was like
this imaginary and this is just my observation of being in the city and then on the way out of the
city. There was like this imaginary demarcation line where all of a sudden, like on one side of
the street, everybody was shooting and then literally you'd go a block and nobody would shoot.
Nobody being the bad guys. So I think that there was probably a little bit of that. I think also
listen, there were a lot of, you know, we put a, nobody likes to say this in a chest beating way,
but you know, I mean, we put a lot of damage on a deeds militia that day. I mean, there was just
absolute, you know, this was a violent, violent day for them. The estimates I read afterwards
where they were like 10,000 armed Somalis, you know, 150 American trigger pullers on the ground.
And, you know, the staggering, the numbers of enemy that were killed and wounded,
unbelievable. So I believe also there was this notion that indeed realized, Hey, I've got,
I've got, I've got a soldier. We don't need anything else. Cause this is gonna be more
bargaining chip. As it turned out, he was pretty smart in doing it that way. And I also think they
were attributed to the point they, they couldn't, they couldn't fight anymore. And then, yeah,
I don't mean that to sound like, you know, the juvenile chest beating bravado, but I do believe
that, you know, literally they couldn't fight anymore. Listen, you know, for all the enemy's
actions, it would have been so easy for them while our force was in the city to just go invade the
airfield. You know, I mean, you think, why didn't they just go take over the airfield? They, they,
it wasn't that strongly armed. It wasn't that hard that strongly defended. If they controlled the
airfield, you know, where are we going to go? You know, where are we the guys in the city? They,
they would, they, they would have been able to kill every single one of us had they taken over
the airfield, which they, you know, ostensibly could have done, but I don't think they could have
because they didn't have the bodies and they didn't want to fight. So the long rambling answer,
it's just my one guy's opinion. I think it's a little bit of all of that all wrapped in. I just
think that they, they probably realized afterwards, they, they know mass for them.
Yeah. Well, I know we got to be cognizant of time. Now you've got a call coming soon,
but I'd want to touch on one thing. And again, as, as a first responder and then putting myself
in the shoes of, of you and your men out there, it wasn't, you weren't fighting, you know, like
Nazi Germany, where you've got opposing uniforms and it's, you know, men of your age facing you
the other side of the trenches as it were, but you had women and children, you know, with AKs
actively shooting at you. What was the, the psychological trauma for you? Like once you came
home after that all sank in? None. And again, I don't mean to be glib about it, you know,
none. I think the, this idea, and I've always tried to explain it like this to people,
you know, the first lesson you learn, or that I should say you, one of the, one of the most
dramatic yet simple lessons I learned when this task force started to train to go to Mogadishu,
one of the Delta guys said, no matter what, look at their hands, doesn't matter who it is,
look at their hands. People can't harm you if they got nothing in their hands. So look at their
hands. That's where the weapon's going to be. And it seems so simple. And I'm like, wow, that makes
sense. Nobody told me that. So using that idea now it becomes, Hey, that let's just start
at the big picture. There is somebody with a weapon in their hands. That means they want to
do me harm. And then the second kind of graduation and this exercise is man, woman or child,
am I going to willingly let them shoot the soldier to my right or left or myself because
they're a woman and child that means to do me harm. And the answer of course is no, you can't.
Like you just, nobody gets a pass at killing one of our comrades because they're a woman or child.
Like that's nonsensical. So the answer to that question, I think it's one of those that plays
out great in the psychology books, but at the end of the day, people are just as dead whether they're
15 year old shooting you or an 85 year old shooting you, man, woman or child, it doesn't matter.
You're just as dead if they shoot you. Yeah. And that's actually great for the law enforcement
people listening because I'm sure that sometimes they have that exact problem they're faced with
on the streets. Absolutely. Now, and listen, now the psychology and again, Bill, I don't want to
be so glib that being in a gunfight doesn't have an effect on the person in that gunfight.
That's sort of the whole second story of how we do come back, how we go through grief, how we go
through the reentry into normal life and dealing with the psychology of it all, which is way many
pay grades above me, other than my armchair quarterback, Lucy Van Pelt, psychology is
faith, family, friends, maybe not always in that order, but those are the three things how I dealt
with it after getting home from the battlefield. That was my support network. And sometimes it was
just faith. Sometimes it was whoever my closest friend was nearby to talk to or the support of my
family always. But that was sort of my, that would be my answer. Ultimately, how do you deal with all
this stuff at the end? That's how it is. Brilliant. Well, thank you for that. Well, I'll make sure
that we also talk about your projects that you have coming up. A fascinating one for me is your
new documentary, Send Me. So if you wouldn't mind telling people about that and when we can anticipate it.
Yes. So thanks, James. So listen, these things in life just always be open to opportunity.
And when we moved down here to Florida, I randomly, literally randomly walked into
a gentleman who became a very good friend of mine, a guy named Tim Malloy, who had been a career
journalist, a broadcast journalist. And he had also embedded multiple times since the beginning
of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. And he had said to me, it's like, we should go over
at some point and do a show about the advances in battlefield medicine since Somalia. And seems
sort of like far fetched. But eventually we were we were able to do it. And then we had a great show.
Hey, James, I just got to pause one second and just let the dogs in. Can you hold on for one second?
Sorry about that. We have these two knucklehead Labradors and they just are
keep you beaten. And he's just started scratching. No. So anyway, we had this opportunity
that Tim put together earlier this spring to travel with the Air Force, to Landstuhl,
Germany, and then to Bagram Air Force Base and then out to Jalalabad, Afghanistan,
and just spend some time with all the different stages of medical units along the path. So
as it turns out, we got to this outpost in in Jalalabad and just literally within an hour of
an Afghan soldier stepping on ID. And we were able to follow like the entire journey from not
from the point of impact where this this commando was injured, but literally from the dust off,
landing to the first trauma center, all the way back from bog to bog room to all the surgical
units. I mean, it was fascinating. And we were able to capture all this and put it into this
documentary that we have called Send Me. And, you know, it's all about the service of these
these great young men and women from the enlisted medics to the docs on the battlefield,
you know, working at these class two trauma centers all the way up to, you know, the biggest
hospitals in Landstuhl. So we're hoping to have this. We would originally hope to have it out
this coming October, sometime around October 3rd or 4th with the 25th anniversary. But we've had to
do some reedits of which is way out of my pay grade that I don't understand or I just nod my head to.
So I'm hoping probably towards the end of next month, it'll be out. It's probably going to start
on PBS, but absolutely will keep you posted. I've seen some of the rough scripts or the rough
pictures. And I must admit, despite my face for radio, it's a pretty neat documentary. And
most importantly, not only have we advanced a lot and we are saving a lot more lives and,
you know, where it's critical how how you know, to emphasize how well our young men and women,
particularly in the medical communities have done and what they're doing on the battlefield.
It's just incredible. But probably more important than that, James, is this is a reminder. We just
filmed this, you know, a few months ago in 2018. And a lot of people need to remember we still have
soldiers deployed and they're still in harm's way. And there are still bad people out there that mean
to do us harm. And that can't be forgotten either. So we saw it as a as a two floor, you know,
a two part operation, one to show how great our medics and medical teams are doing and two
to remind America that we still have great men and women that are down range, you know,
doing bad things to bad people for us. Yeah. And I can't wait to see it. It sounds incredible.
And obviously it would be very pertinent for the medics out there listening, even if they're in the
civilian side, not the military side. Absolutely. Listen, you know, and I'm sorry,
I've kind of hogged up all the the conversation talking about me. But, you know, as you and I
were chatting before we started, you know, the similarities are are are are so, you know, between
our professions are are exactly they're just so similar. And, you know, while maybe not every
medic or fireman, you know, is running, you know, has somebody shooting at him, though, I suspect
that that does happen, too. You know, the the dealing in the crucible, doing your job in the
crucible, and particularly when ultimately it is about saving lives. You know, we got to always be
like you said, we always are preparing for the worst constantly, because I'm telling you, if you
can think of it can happen. And when it happens, trying to learn on the job ain't the way to do it.
Yeah. Well, I would love if it's OK to do a part two, because I know we've run out of time, but
I've got so much more I'd love to ask you if you have some more time in the future.
James, listen, absolutely. And I'm sorry that I should have told you that up front that I had a
little bit of a hard stop this morning. But, man, I please let me know when I can come back on.
Again, we can bore people. No one's going to be bored. So very quickly, though, I know you do
public speaking as well. So where can people find you if they want to reach out to you?
Yeah. So listen, first of all, you can go to Everson advisory, all one word, dot com.
You can find me on LinkedIn. You can find me on Twitter and clearly you can find me through your
links. But yeah, shoot me a note at Matt at Everson advisory dot com. I'm happy to chat,
help whatever I can do find us on the web or certainly on LinkedIn would look forward to
chatting with anybody. Brilliant. All right. Well, thank you so much for being so generous
with your time. I will let you go. But I am looking forward to reconnecting in the future as well.
Absolutely. Hey, James, thank you so much, my friend. I appreciate all you're doing. And,
you know, I hope if you are paths will cross in person one of these days on the East Coast
of Florida. But thanks for all you do and you be safe and everybody listening, you know,
check your sex, keep your powder dry. And, you know, I hate to say this because it calls me to
give the seals credit, but they really do have a great saying when they said the only easy day was
yesterday. And that really is magnificent. And of course, I say that with love for, you know,
our Navy brothers. But yeah, the only easy day was yesterday. So get after it.