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This episode is sponsored by Transcend, a veteran owned and operated performance optimization company that I introduced recently as a sponsor on this show.

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Well, since then, I have actually been using my products and I've had incredible success.

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There was initial blood work that was extremely detailed, and based on that, they offered supplementation.

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So I began taking DHEA, BPC157 for inflammation, based on the fact that I've been a stump man and martial artist and a firefighter my whole life, lots of aches and pains,

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dihexer to help cognition after multiple punches to the head and shift work and peptides.

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Four months later, they did a detailed blood work again, and I was actually able to taper off two of the peptides because my body had responded so well to just one of them that it was optimized at that point.

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So I cannot speak highly enough of the immense range of supplementation that they offer, whether it's male health, female health, peptides to boost your own testosterone, which I would argue is needed by a lot of the fire service,

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or whether it's exogenous testosterone needed, especially after TBIs or advanced age.

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Now, as I mentioned before, the other side of this company is an altruistic arm called the Transcend Foundation,

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which is putting veterans and first responders through some of their protocols free of charge.

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Now, Transcend are also offering you the audience 10% off their protocols, and you can find that on JamesGearing.com under the Products tab.

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And if you want to hear more about Transcend and their story, listen to episode 808 with the founder Ernie Colling, or go to TranscendCompany.com.

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This episode is sponsored by a company I've literally been using for over 15 years now, and that is 511.

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Now, my introduction to their products began when I started wearing 511 uniforms years ago for Anaheim Fire Department.

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And since then, I have acquired a host of their backpacks and luggage, which have literally been around the world with me.

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The backpack where I keep all my recording equipment is a 511 backpack, and then most of my civilian gear, the clothes that I wear are also 511.

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Now, more recently, they've actually branched out into the brick and mortar stores.

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So for example, Gainesville, where I do jiu jitsu, has a beautiful 511 store.

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So if you are a fire department, a law enforcement agency, you now have access to an entire inventory of clothing and equipment in these 511 stores.

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Now, I've talked about the range of shoes they have and how important minimizing weight in our footwear is when it comes to our back health, knee health, etc.

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I've talked about their unique uniforms that are fitted for either male or female first responders.

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And then I want to highlight one new area, their CloudStrike packs.

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For those of you who enjoy hiking, this would even be an application, I believe, for the wildland community.

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They've created an ultralight pack now with a hydration system built in for rucking, running or other long distance events.

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Now, as always, 511 is offering you the audience of the Behind the Shield podcast.

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15% off every purchase that you make.

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So if you use the code SHIELD15, that's S-H-I-E-L-D-1-5 at 511tactical.com, you will get that 15% off every single time.

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So if you want to hear more about 511 and their origin story, go to episode 338 of Behind the Shield podcast with their CEO, Francisco Morales.

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Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast.

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As always, my name is James Gearing and this week it is my absolute honor to welcome on the show, Sean Spencer and David Waterhouse.

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Now, these two men were brought together, ironically, by simply being neighbors.

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Whilst both dreamed of entering the military, David became an Army Ranger and Sean found himself down the path of filmmaking.

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Sean has since made several films, including the powerful documentary Ranger, which features David's story.

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So we discuss a host of topics from their journeys into their career fields, David's path into the Ranger Regiment, Afghanistan, Pat Tillman,

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David's heartbreaking story of retrieving the bodies from Operation Red Wings, Ramadi, Transition, David's powerful mental health story, their perception of war, policing in America and so much more.

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Now, before he gets this incredible conversation, I want to underline two things.

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Firstly, you must watch the film Ranger.

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It is such a powerful perspective on what we asked our men and women to do the last 20 years.

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Secondly, please take a moment and just go to whichever app you listen to this on, subscribe to the show, leave feedback and leave a rating.

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Every single five star rating truly does elevate this podcast, therefore making it easier for others to find.

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And this is a free library of well over 900 episodes now.

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So all I ask in return is that you help share these incredible men and women stories so I can get them to every single person on planet Earth who needs to hear them.

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So that being said, I introduce to you Sean Spencer and David Waterhouse. Enjoy.

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Well, David and Sean, I want to start by saying two things. Firstly, and we will get to this.

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I just finished watching your incredible documentary Ranger.

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So I just commend you both on your storytelling, David, and your storytelling, Sean.

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And secondly, I want to welcome you onto the Behind the Shield podcast today.

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Thank you very much for having us. Yeah, we appreciate it.

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So where on planet Earth are we finding you today?

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We are currently sitting at my residence in Lyman, South Carolina.

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Beautiful. So I would love to start the very beginning of each of your stories.

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Let's start with you, Sean, and then obviously then we can lead David through his kind of military career as well.

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So tell me, Sean, where you were born and tell me a little bit about your family dynamic, what your parents did, how many siblings.

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Gotcha. So I was born in Miami, Florida. I've got one brother.

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My dad was into information technology in the early 90s, worked with a lot of different companies in the Florida area and then up in South Carolina.

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Mom was a stay at home mom for a long time and then got into doing nonprofit work with the Ronald McDonald House when I was a teenager and kind of worked with with them for a long time.

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So grew up in Florida and then we moved to South Carolina in the late 90s.

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And that's kind of where I ended up meeting David.

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We were actually next door neighbors for a long, long time, growing up, 15 plus years.

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We were both in the residence beside each other there.

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But yeah, that was kind of what that was like.

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So two things. Firstly, let's talk about the Ronald McDonald House.

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There was one next to the trauma center I used to work in Orlando and I heard nothing but amazing things about some of the families we had on the show and the support they got when they had a loved one, obviously a child going through cancer, for example.

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So what was your mom's kind of perspective of that organization?

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She started out as a volunteer there and now she runs a Ronald McDonald House like herself.

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She's a CEO there. So I think she just wanted to do something to give to give back.

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You know, we were lucky enough to grow up and, you know, she had two healthy kids.

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And I think it was just a way for her to get back into the business world and also to to help people out.

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I've helped there a good bit and volunteered, even did a lot of early video work for advertisements for them.

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So it's kind of somewhere where I, you know, as a budding filmmaker, kind of started telling stories for them.

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Beautiful. Yeah, I know there's a lot of nonprofits out there.

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Some most of your money will go to what it's supposed to go.

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Some, as we've discovered, not so much even in the veteran space.

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But Ronald McDonald is one that I definitely hear over and over again that it's a great place to donate to them, them and St. Jude's.

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Yeah, they're absolutely amazing.

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The work they do there and what they're able to provide families and just giving them a home away from home, especially, you know, any amount of convenience or comfort you can have

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when especially when a child is going, your child is going through something as traumatic as that, you know, any little bit helps.

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So it's a it's a fantastic place.

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Absolutely. And just touching on your dad's experience, I'm assuming you got into IT somewhat early on.

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When I look at the Internet now, I feel like we're there.

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You can do so much now with the Internet.

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I mean, thank God for GPS. I've got such a bad sense of direction and driving dying from the back of an ambulance, for example.

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Super helpful. But when it comes to AI, I personally can't help feeling like everyone was raving about Internet when it was dial up.

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Like, we're not there yet. You know, and I've had people making mockups for my second book that I'm finishing up.

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And you can tell it's AI generated because there's not a firefighter on planet Earth.

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It looks like this figure that he sent me with all squished shoulders and head that's like twice as high as it should be.

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What's your perspective? I mean, it can be tied into how your dad's seen the progression.

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But what's your perspective of the world of AI growing up around IT?

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You know, growing up, you know, we had a dad that was into that stuff.

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You know, obviously we had computers pretty early on the dial up thing, you know, AOL, instant messenger and all that stuff.

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Yeah. It was also an interesting way to also kind of get into filmmaking just because, you know, linear editing systems were very new.

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And he was a big photographer when he was younger.

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So that kind of started me on the path of like learning photography and things of that nature.

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It's it's pretty wild to see some of the stuff AI is doing, especially as a as a film editor.

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Now, seeing what is capable of some of those tools, I think it's it is getting there.

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It definitely is getting there is a lot of things where I feel like it has the edge.

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I feel like it still lacks in the ability to to really tell an authentic story.

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I think it does a good job at a lot of base level stuff, though.

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Brilliant. And now what about career aspirations when you were going through high school?

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What were you dreaming of becoming? Honestly, I you know, I was I was really wanting at the time to either be a Green Beret or a para rescue jumper.

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I was very big in the military history growing up, and that was something that I really wanted to I really aspire to do.

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And so having David as a next door neighbor, it was kind of like, oh, man, this is the ultimate source of military knowledge and perspective.

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You know, I kind of thought I'll have like kind of a leg up on guys who are are joining because I've got this inside perspective from somebody who, you know, just came back from the war.

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Film was kind of a secondary thing.

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It was kind of like I think both of those things kind of fought within me 50 50.

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And kind of after hearing the stories that David told and kind of having that veil pulled back and understanding the nature of what I was wanting to get into.

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I think at some point there was a turn where I said, you know, I think there's a lot of guys going over there and doing this.

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But this might be something that I need to tell, just seeing the profound way that this story touched me as as a teenager and an adolescent kind of growing up with that kind of Hollywood notion of what it means to be a soldier or what it means to die in combat or have your friends die.

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I definitely was among the generation who, you know, you kind of have blinders on.

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You see all that stuff in TV and movies and you're like, oh, man, I want to I want to do that looks bad ass.

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And like there's definitely is a there's a bad ass part to it.

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But at the same time, there is the reality of what is actually happening.

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And I think there's a line in the movie where David says, you know, when you're actually doing it and your friend, your life is on the line, your friend's lives are on the line.

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It's a very different story.

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And hearing that story from him and kind of looking at my life, it just it changed my perspective on what it meant to be to, you know, to go serve.

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We're jumping way ahead now in the timeline we're going to get to.

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Yeah, I'm going to jump a little there.

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No, no, no, no, I'm about to.

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I'm going to bring something in deliberately.

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Because this is what I talked about with the recruitment crisis at the moment with the military, with the first responders is the job is pretty much the same.

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But in twenty twenty four, what's happened is that people have seen the other side as well.

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So in the fire service, it's all heroic and you go into fires and you cut people out of cars and then, you know, everyone loves you and then you take your shirt off and do a calendar.

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The reality is all the horrible shit that you see on a near daily basis and the support or maybe the lack of support from the agencies that you work for and the shifts and the understaffing and the mandatory overtime.

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And obviously, with our veterans, the same thing, you know, the cancers from the burn pits and the mental health issues.

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And so what's happening now is that people are seeing what it actually looks like, the good and the bad.

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And so this is, I think, a beautiful opportunity for us to make changes in these professions and certainly take some of the romanticism out of war and put the horrors where they should be to send children off to kill with our flag on our shoulder.

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So I think this is what's so powerful about this.

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And obviously, David, you talk about that at the end is it's not about diminishing the role. It's about being truthful in telling a young recruit. And obviously, in Sean's case, that was something that swayed him away from combat and into storytelling instead.

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Absolutely. And excuse me.

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Absolutely. And that's, you know, that was that was one of the hard things because I was conflicted.

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You know, part of me was like, hey, I did all this. I did it for a reason.

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And I'm proud of that. But I also don't want my kids going and doing that.

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And so it's almost like, yes, all that happened, but it's almost a precautionary tale in a way.

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It's definitely how I took it, you know, when I heard it and like

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it had a very significant effect on me because it was it was no punches pulled. I said, I want to know, you know, give me you tell me what this is really about.

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And after hearing that story, I had my own kind of journey into

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a field like that. I was a first responder to the earthquake in Haiti in 2010.

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I was 19, so I had I had those aspirations of being a PJ or Green Beret or possibly even maybe trying to join the Ranger Regiment.

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But I went to Haiti after kind of having that story

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and kind of said to myself, all right, this is kind of like a proving ground. I want to see if this is something that I can go do and see how this affects me.

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And obviously going down there at the time, I mean, dealing with mass graves and burning bodies in the streets, you know, it was a

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it was quite a journey to jump into and to see. But it gave me an extra look, you know, behind that veil again of just seeing the fragility of life and seeing so many people's lives taken from them.

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Family members die. So I think it helped in my journey as a storyteller to have experienced, although not a combat zone,

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you know, a natural disaster area where, you know, so many tens of thousands of people lost their lives.

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So I think it gave me an extra ability to understand some of the trauma that David faced when it came to policing bodies up off Sotalo SAR and, you know, the Red Wings Recovery Mission.

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Absolutely. I had a firefighter on Trevor Williams, who his family had actually been over there.

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I think they were missionaries in theory, but they were present during it. So he had done special operations training in the fire service, but now wasn't with the department at that moment.

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And that happened while they were living there. And so he became a kind of impromptu first responder to that tragedy and the way he reported it. I mean, absolutely horrendous.

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Yeah, yeah, it was. I mean, when I arrived there, I had David at the time worked with a company called North American Rescue, and they were nice enough to set me up with a couple bags of medical supplies and a lot of stuff.

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You know, the guys didn't have down there. You know, it was it was a brutal time. I mean, there was a when I first got there, there was a guy that his hand had been smashed and they were basically using bolt cutters to remove the tips of his fingers because they didn't have any sort of medical shear.

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So as a 19 year old, my first task there was I was a big, strong guy. They were like, I need you to hold this gentleman down. You know, we're going to perform this surgery. You know, he'll probably pass out at some point, but we need you to hold him still so we can get this done.

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So is these very intense engagements with graphic violence, although to help somebody, it was still something that, you know, it's like something you'd never encounter in a regular life where it's like you got a guy, you're cutting somebody's fingers off with bolt cuts.

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It's like something out of a mob movie or a terrorist video. But you're you're there, but it's like, you know, you're you're helping people.

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But seeing that kind of stuff and understanding the the effect that that violence and that tragedy and trauma has on the individual just go, you know, hand in hand with telling the story in Ranger.

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Well, let's get to the beginning of that story then. So, David, same question to you. Tell me where you were born and tell me a little about your family dynamic, what your parents did, how many siblings?

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I was I was born in Natick, Massachusetts. Both my parents were from Needham, Massachusetts. My mother was the oldest of five and my father was the middle child of four. Yep.

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And so that's where I was born. I lived up there. Lived up there until I was about four years old.

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Parents got divorced and I ended up down in South Carolina when my mom moved down here for a job. She worked at a for Port Clyde. I have no idea what they did, to be honest with you.

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And my father is in the environmental business. A lot of work on shipyards, Navy vessels, doing tank work and things like that.

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Again, when you were young, obviously you got into a very physical profession. What were you playing as far as sports and exercise? I played very competitive soccer.

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I played golf, which is my the way I was able to decompress a lot in the military, played a lot of golf in the military just to just to get the hell out in the way, you know, on my own.

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And I played baseball. And what about career aspirations? Were you exposed to any kind of military mentors when you were young?

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My grandfather was in the merchant marines, but I honestly I think I only heard him say about 15 words in my entire life. He was a very quiet guy.

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So I really have no idea. I don't think any of his children have any idea. Nonetheless, you know, his grandchild.

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But no, everyone in my family known was in the military. I was the only one.

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But I always enjoyed running around in the woods, you know, as a kid and in playing war. And it was just kind of always in the back of my head.

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But I never actually thought that I would do it. I figured I'd play baseball in college.

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I had a scholarship to offer to me, but my grades were absolutely terrible.

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And so I ended up getting out of high school and started working in 9 11 happened. And then that was it for me.

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I was I was like, OK, this is my calling, I guess.

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But it always been in the back of my head. So talk to me about your 9 11 experience.

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How did that day pan out? You know, what age were you and kind of what was your response to them?

173
00:21:59,240 --> 00:22:05,240
Yeah, I was. Let's see, I would have been about 19 when it happened.

174
00:22:05,240 --> 00:22:08,240
I was living down in Myrtle Beach with a couple of my friends from Boston.

175
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And, you know, we were just down there kind of being stupid 19, 20 year olds. And I was actually sleeping.

176
00:22:16,240 --> 00:22:25,240
And one of our neighbors worked at a sandwich shop and she came to the manager there and she had a key to our apartment

177
00:22:25,240 --> 00:22:28,240
because she would let our dog out when we were, you know, busy or whatever.

178
00:22:28,240 --> 00:22:34,240
So she keys in and comes into my room and wakes me up. She said, Boston's under attack.

179
00:22:34,240 --> 00:22:38,240
So I jump out of bed, run in, turn the TV on.

180
00:22:38,240 --> 00:22:42,240
I'm like, Danielle, that's not Boston, honey, that's New York.

181
00:22:42,240 --> 00:22:48,240
And I woke my other two roommates up and we all kind of, you know, still wiping the crap from our eyes.

182
00:22:48,240 --> 00:22:52,240
And the second we saw the second plane hit live.

183
00:22:52,240 --> 00:22:57,240
And it was just I remember one of my roommates saying, what movie is this?

184
00:22:57,240 --> 00:23:02,240
And it was just so surreal. And we watched TV all day long.

185
00:23:02,240 --> 00:23:10,240
And I'll just I'll never forget the emotion that was pouring out of me at that time being like, man, I can't do anything.

186
00:23:10,240 --> 00:23:15,240
Stuck here, sitting down in Myrtle Beach, watching the shit on TV.

187
00:23:15,240 --> 00:23:19,240
I would rather be, you know, up there helping those dudes.

188
00:23:19,240 --> 00:23:25,240
And I think in the long run, that's what ended up kind of pushing towards the military is like, well, I can do this.

189
00:23:25,240 --> 00:23:27,240
I couldn't help with that, but I can do this.

190
00:23:27,240 --> 00:23:32,240
And that that was kind of like that decision was made pretty much on that day.

191
00:23:32,240 --> 00:23:37,240
What made you choose the army specifically and then Ranger Regiment?

192
00:23:37,240 --> 00:23:40,240
Well, no offense to the Navy, but I'd been around boats for my entire life.

193
00:23:40,240 --> 00:23:43,240
And the last thing I wanted to do is be on another boat.

194
00:23:43,240 --> 00:23:48,240
So, you know, when I told my dad I was joining, he was he was like, are you going to be a seal?

195
00:23:48,240 --> 00:23:51,240
I was like, absolutely. No, I'm done with both.

196
00:23:51,240 --> 00:23:55,240
So I look, I just kind of research into it.

197
00:23:55,240 --> 00:24:01,240
I was never good at foreign language. So that kind of ruled SF out.

198
00:24:01,240 --> 00:24:05,240
And then I looked at I was like, OK, well, I, you know, I want to jump out of planes on a rope, out of helicopters.

199
00:24:05,240 --> 00:24:08,240
You know, I want to be an assault force. I want to be kicking those doors in.

200
00:24:08,240 --> 00:24:17,240
I want to be clear in rooms. And the Ranger Regiment was was it was the best fit for me at the time, you know, with my mentality.

201
00:24:17,240 --> 00:24:23,240
Now, Ranger Regiment or Ranger selection, excuse me, is known to be pretty arduous, you know, between the sleep deprivation and the physical exertion.

202
00:24:23,240 --> 00:24:30,240
What was it that allowed you to complete each of these selection processes when some people rang the bell?

203
00:24:30,240 --> 00:24:35,240
Stubbornness. I'm a stubborn son of a bitch.

204
00:24:35,240 --> 00:24:38,240
And if you tell me I can't do something, I'm not going to go show you that I can.

205
00:24:38,240 --> 00:24:42,240
And that's literally that's all it was.

206
00:24:42,240 --> 00:24:48,240
Beautiful. So I know that, you know, this is in 2002 by this point.

207
00:24:48,240 --> 00:25:03,240
Walk me through, walk me through the the discussions that were going on, because if we look back at very early on post 9 11, you know, one minute we're in Afghanistan, the next one we're in Iraq, totally different country.

208
00:25:03,240 --> 00:25:09,240
So what were you guys being told? And then let's talk about your first deployment to Afghanistan.

209
00:25:09,240 --> 00:25:14,240
There was I mean, we heard all the whispers about possible invasion in Iraq.

210
00:25:14,240 --> 00:25:21,240
In all honesty, I don't think at least I didn't in the kind of the guys I was running with didn't didn't really think that was going to happen.

211
00:25:21,240 --> 00:25:28,240
It was almost like, you know, we're going to threaten them, you know, all of all let the inspectors in, let them do this.

212
00:25:28,240 --> 00:25:31,240
And I didn't we didn't really see it escalating to that point.

213
00:25:31,240 --> 00:25:35,240
And then as it got closer, it was like, oh, shit, this is going to go down.

214
00:25:35,240 --> 00:25:44,240
And it was it was it was strange because it reminded me of like World War Two, where you're like fighting on two fronts.

215
00:25:44,240 --> 00:25:48,240
You're fighting in the Pacific and you're fighting, you know, you're invading Europe.

216
00:25:48,240 --> 00:25:53,240
And it was like, how are we going to allocate troops like who's going where?

217
00:25:53,240 --> 00:26:00,240
How are we going to break it up? And so for for that, that was the main conversation was first it was it's not going to happen.

218
00:26:00,240 --> 00:26:06,240
And then it was like, oh, well, logistically, we need to start working these issues out because we're about to go on a two front war.

219
00:26:06,240 --> 00:26:10,240
Very different fronts to just just like in World War Two.

220
00:26:10,240 --> 00:26:16,240
I'm not comparing our war to World War Two, but as far as the separate theaters of war.

221
00:26:16,240 --> 00:26:27,240
When I speak to people who were on the ground early on each of those conflicts, a lot of times the stories initially of our troops, the allied troops being well received.

222
00:26:27,240 --> 00:26:32,240
We're here to kind of get rid of the people that were oppressing the native people of those countries.

223
00:26:32,240 --> 00:26:38,240
What was your reception like in Afghanistan the first time?

224
00:26:38,240 --> 00:26:42,240
It was mixed. Some people were happy.

225
00:26:42,240 --> 00:26:47,240
I mean, some people like run up and try to give us like crackers from their market or whatever.

226
00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:51,240
And some people would just mad dog the shit out of you when you're walking by.

227
00:26:51,240 --> 00:27:01,240
So, I mean, it was it was pretty noticeable who was happy and who was who was upset and Afghanistan way more difficult than Iraq.

228
00:27:01,240 --> 00:27:10,240
So when we kind of lead us through the story on Ranger, one of the things that kind of struck me is you were part of what you call winter strike.

229
00:27:10,240 --> 00:27:22,240
And you just kind of mentioned about certain groups within the military turning down a certain operation and then one saying, we'll do it.

230
00:27:22,240 --> 00:27:25,240
I'm not saying this is applying to this particular event.

231
00:27:25,240 --> 00:27:39,240
However, I've heard, you know, in almost a thousand conversations now, many who've been military, you know, rumblings of the danger of ego sending some of our troops into areas or in the time of day,

232
00:27:39,240 --> 00:27:44,240
maybe that they shouldn't be, which maybe kind of increase the danger to those people.

233
00:27:44,240 --> 00:27:46,240
It can be about that. It could be about just in general.

234
00:27:46,240 --> 00:27:53,240
What is your perception of ego and leadership in the experiences that you had?

235
00:27:53,240 --> 00:28:02,240
It's interesting because a lot of the guys like, you know, are humble guys in normal life.

236
00:28:02,240 --> 00:28:07,240
But I think, unfortunately, in this job, it pays to have some ego.

237
00:28:07,240 --> 00:28:17,240
I mean, you have to believe that you can go out there and whip anyone's ass at any given moment, whether it's a shitty time of day, a terrible place that you're getting in filled into.

238
00:28:17,240 --> 00:28:21,240
You have to believe that you're going to go in there and knock the shit out of these people.

239
00:28:21,240 --> 00:28:25,240
And so there is a certain level of ego built into the job.

240
00:28:25,240 --> 00:28:30,240
If you're going to be successful, you have to know that you're going to be able to go out there and win.

241
00:28:30,240 --> 00:28:34,240
So I think ego has to be a part of it.

242
00:28:34,240 --> 00:28:37,240
Now, some people have too much.

243
00:28:37,240 --> 00:28:40,240
So where's the checks and balances?

244
00:28:40,240 --> 00:28:43,240
I'm talking because, I mean, operationally, I mean, it could be the same as a firefighter.

245
00:28:43,240 --> 00:28:45,240
Get in there and it's a burning structure.

246
00:28:45,240 --> 00:28:46,240
It's a commercial structure.

247
00:28:46,240 --> 00:28:51,240
You know, there's no one actually to be saved and someone's beating their chest saying, oh, we're going to go inside.

248
00:28:51,240 --> 00:28:53,240
Sometimes that's just the wrong choice.

249
00:28:53,240 --> 00:28:54,240
Full stop.

250
00:28:54,240 --> 00:28:56,240
How do you temper that ego?

251
00:28:56,240 --> 00:29:06,240
So you have enough as far as a self belief, but you don't put your men and women in unnecessary harm.

252
00:29:06,240 --> 00:29:09,240
In all honesty, it's common sense.

253
00:29:09,240 --> 00:29:13,240
I mean, there's certain situations where you look at it and you're like, there's no winning here.

254
00:29:13,240 --> 00:29:18,240
So why am I going to unnecessarily put my people in harm's way?

255
00:29:18,240 --> 00:29:25,240
And there's certain situations that kind of toe that line where you're like, we might get fucked up, but we might win.

256
00:29:25,240 --> 00:29:29,240
And then there's other situations where you're like, we're going in that place.

257
00:29:29,240 --> 00:29:31,240
And it's just to me, it was always common sense.

258
00:29:31,240 --> 00:29:38,240
I mean, I'm sure it's different for every person out there, but that's how I personally viewed it.

259
00:29:38,240 --> 00:29:47,240
One of the things that struck me early on in the film, and it seemed like this haunted you probably as much as anything else that we'll talk about.

260
00:29:47,240 --> 00:29:49,240
And it kind of your career reminded me of the Banner Brothers.

261
00:29:49,240 --> 00:29:52,240
I mean, you guys were there and so many horrible things.

262
00:29:52,240 --> 00:29:58,240
But when I look back at the fire service, I've had this conversation quite a lot.

263
00:29:58,240 --> 00:30:01,240
It's not so much the grotesque things we see.

264
00:30:01,240 --> 00:30:06,240
It's the screams of the loved ones who just lost that person that really kind of haunt you.

265
00:30:06,240 --> 00:30:09,240
So talk to me about your experience.

266
00:30:09,240 --> 00:30:16,240
I know that you were there when Pat Tillman was killed, but obviously his brother was made aware during that too.

267
00:30:16,240 --> 00:30:20,240
Yeah, that was a really tough day.

268
00:30:20,240 --> 00:30:29,240
We had come to that valley earlier and I had said to my squad leader who was sitting in the passenger seat, I was like, this is a bad spot.

269
00:30:29,240 --> 00:30:35,240
And we came through and we got to Fobb Salerno and we re-kitted up everything,

270
00:30:35,240 --> 00:30:40,240
dusted down all the weapons because it was just moon dust coming into there.

271
00:30:40,240 --> 00:30:44,240
So we got all the vehicles all squared away and got our kit all squared away.

272
00:30:44,240 --> 00:30:48,240
And then we bedded down and then we weren't asleep for very long.

273
00:30:48,240 --> 00:30:52,240
And someone was like, hey, one alpha is in contact and get your shit off.

274
00:30:52,240 --> 00:30:57,240
So we all kitted up, jumped on the vehicles and were ready to go provide QRS to them.

275
00:30:57,240 --> 00:31:03,240
And then we got the call to stand down and be prepared to receive casualties.

276
00:31:03,240 --> 00:31:06,240
And we had no idea at that point.

277
00:31:06,240 --> 00:31:08,240
I mean, it doesn't matter. It's a Ranger that's down.

278
00:31:08,240 --> 00:31:10,240
We're going to treat everyone the same.

279
00:31:10,240 --> 00:31:14,240
Pat Tillman was no different and he didn't want to be looked at as different.

280
00:31:14,240 --> 00:31:15,240
He wanted to use just one of the dudes.

281
00:31:15,240 --> 00:31:19,240
He's out there doing the same thing we were doing.

282
00:31:19,240 --> 00:31:27,240
But it was having his actual brother there that made this exacerbated the situation

283
00:31:27,240 --> 00:31:30,240
because it was like now you're not only dealing with one person.

284
00:31:30,240 --> 00:31:34,240
And I served with a dude that had a brother in battalion as well.

285
00:31:34,240 --> 00:31:40,240
There were only a handful of maybe three or four brother duos in battalion, at least in 275.

286
00:31:40,240 --> 00:31:46,240
So like the having the brother effect added a ton more emotion to it because I just couldn't imagine.

287
00:31:46,240 --> 00:31:52,240
I mean, bad enough when you see one of your guys die or you got to go on to this place

288
00:31:52,240 --> 00:31:57,240
and get these dudes or whatever, but like your family, I just couldn't imagine.

289
00:31:57,240 --> 00:32:05,240
And it was just so hard to just be standing there and not be able to do anything.

290
00:32:05,240 --> 00:32:06,240
And that's the hard part about it.

291
00:32:06,240 --> 00:32:11,240
It's like when bad things happen, you don't get a chance to stop.

292
00:32:11,240 --> 00:32:13,240
You don't get a chance to mourn.

293
00:32:13,240 --> 00:32:16,240
You don't get a chance to feel sorry for yourself.

294
00:32:16,240 --> 00:32:18,240
Get over it.

295
00:32:18,240 --> 00:32:19,240
Tuck it down.

296
00:32:19,240 --> 00:32:20,240
You'll deal with it later on in life.

297
00:32:20,240 --> 00:32:22,240
Trust me.

298
00:32:22,240 --> 00:32:23,240
And you keep moving.

299
00:32:23,240 --> 00:32:25,240
And that's the way you got to be.

300
00:32:25,240 --> 00:32:29,240
You can't sit there and pout.

301
00:32:29,240 --> 00:32:34,240
It's a tough sport and it comes with consequences.

302
00:32:34,240 --> 00:32:35,240
Absolutely.

303
00:32:35,240 --> 00:32:40,240
And you've also said when we enter these professions, a man should be a yin and a yang.

304
00:32:40,240 --> 00:32:45,240
When you go into the job, but you're in combat with you go into a fire, whatever it is,

305
00:32:45,240 --> 00:32:49,240
at that moment, it's time for you to be a white circle, like all hard.

306
00:32:49,240 --> 00:32:55,240
But when that's done, you've got to find those moments to then start processing what you've seen and done.

307
00:32:55,240 --> 00:33:01,240
And obviously, when you're in a deployment that's unending, that might be weeks, if not months later,

308
00:33:01,240 --> 00:33:04,240
a firefighter, a police officer, it might be after the shift.

309
00:33:04,240 --> 00:33:08,240
But if you just keep burying it, burying it, burying it, you stay that white circle.

310
00:33:08,240 --> 00:33:11,240
And then that's where it becomes very dangerous.

311
00:33:11,240 --> 00:33:19,240
And I thought that was one of the things that Sean did a great job of was capturing and keeping me on point to help me

312
00:33:19,240 --> 00:33:31,240
realize that what I did was necessary and help me begin the process through the telling of because Rangers started out as a book.

313
00:33:31,240 --> 00:33:34,240
How was the origins, origins were.

314
00:33:34,240 --> 00:33:37,240
And then we realized that we didn't know how to write books.

315
00:33:37,240 --> 00:33:39,240
So we were like, well, we're good at movies.

316
00:33:39,240 --> 00:33:40,240
So let's try our hand at this.

317
00:33:40,240 --> 00:33:48,240
And it was honestly, it's probably the most therapeutic thing that I've ever done because I was able to get all that emotion out there.

318
00:33:48,240 --> 00:33:53,240
And I rolled over and showed the world my belly, which was very uncomfortable.

319
00:33:53,240 --> 00:33:57,240
But if it could help one guy, it was worth it to me.

320
00:33:57,240 --> 00:33:59,240
And it helped me in return.

321
00:33:59,240 --> 00:34:03,240
So at this point in my life, helping people makes me feel good.

322
00:34:03,240 --> 00:34:05,240
And it sounds a little selfish.

323
00:34:05,240 --> 00:34:07,240
Obviously, the majority of it's for them.

324
00:34:07,240 --> 00:34:11,240
But I do take a lot of satisfaction in as well.

325
00:34:11,240 --> 00:34:16,240
That seems to be one of the reoccurring themes when people make a healthy transition.

326
00:34:16,240 --> 00:34:19,240
And it might not have been an even transition.

327
00:34:19,240 --> 00:34:22,240
It might have been two, three, four years after.

328
00:34:22,240 --> 00:34:24,240
But it can be so jarring for some people.

329
00:34:24,240 --> 00:34:26,240
But finding that purpose again.

330
00:34:26,240 --> 00:34:31,240
And I've always said, when we enter these professions, you want to help.

331
00:34:31,240 --> 00:34:32,240
You do.

332
00:34:32,240 --> 00:34:38,240
You might be playing with your GI Joes or your Action Man, as they call it in England, and thinking about combat and killing.

333
00:34:38,240 --> 00:34:41,240
But ultimately, it's a very selfless thing to do.

334
00:34:41,240 --> 00:34:43,240
And then you get into it and you do the job.

335
00:34:43,240 --> 00:34:48,240
And then when you come out the other end, people go into real estate or whatever it is.

336
00:34:48,240 --> 00:34:50,240
And it's just not the same.

337
00:34:50,240 --> 00:34:51,240
It's not rewarding.

338
00:34:51,240 --> 00:34:53,240
In some cases, some it might be.

339
00:34:53,240 --> 00:35:02,240
But when people find another way to serve and realize you don't need a uniform solely to serve others, that seems to be a very healing element.

340
00:35:02,240 --> 00:35:09,240
And one of the interesting things is when we made this, we didn't know how it was going to be received.

341
00:35:09,240 --> 00:35:11,240
It's not your traditional war documentary.

342
00:35:11,240 --> 00:35:12,240
It's graphic.

343
00:35:12,240 --> 00:35:15,240
It's got some terrible language in there, unfortunately.

344
00:35:15,240 --> 00:35:17,240
I'm from Boston and I was an Army Ranger.

345
00:35:17,240 --> 00:35:20,240
I was set up for failure.

346
00:35:20,240 --> 00:35:28,240
But we wanted to tell it real so that people, you know, they wave the flag.

347
00:35:28,240 --> 00:35:29,240
They welcome you home.

348
00:35:29,240 --> 00:35:30,240
Thank God.

349
00:35:30,240 --> 00:35:33,240
It's not like it was for those poor guys in Vietnam coming home.

350
00:35:33,240 --> 00:35:35,240
I mean, we've at least come strides for that.

351
00:35:35,240 --> 00:35:41,240
But the thing that they don't understand is what actually happens when you're there.

352
00:35:41,240 --> 00:35:42,240
Thank you for your service.

353
00:35:42,240 --> 00:35:43,240
Thank you.

354
00:35:43,240 --> 00:35:44,240
I appreciate that.

355
00:35:44,240 --> 00:35:45,240
I really do.

356
00:35:45,240 --> 00:35:50,240
But I'd rather just be left alone because I'm trying to process what the hell I just went through.

357
00:35:50,240 --> 00:35:53,240
And you have no idea what goes on over there.

358
00:35:53,240 --> 00:35:57,240
You see, you know, some stuff on TV and you're like, oh, man, our troops are kicking ass.

359
00:35:57,240 --> 00:36:01,240
But like you don't know that I just had the worst day of my life.

360
00:36:01,240 --> 00:36:02,240
Yeah.

361
00:36:02,240 --> 00:36:08,240
So, I mean, it's as much as it's appreciated and it is God, it is.

362
00:36:08,240 --> 00:36:11,240
But sometimes it's just it's too much.

363
00:36:11,240 --> 00:36:13,240
And it's like, please, I don't want any attention.

364
00:36:13,240 --> 00:36:17,240
Just let me just float amongst you and be left alone.

365
00:36:17,240 --> 00:36:19,240
At least for me.

366
00:36:19,240 --> 00:36:21,240
We don't get told that too much.

367
00:36:21,240 --> 00:36:23,240
But when we do, I just feel super awkward.

368
00:36:23,240 --> 00:36:25,240
And I haven't been overseas or anything.

369
00:36:25,240 --> 00:36:27,240
We're just talking about purely as a firefighter and a paramedic.

370
00:36:27,240 --> 00:36:30,240
But yeah, it's you know, you're not doing it for accolades.

371
00:36:30,240 --> 00:36:34,240
And like you said, sometimes that attention can make you more uncomfortable.

372
00:36:34,240 --> 00:36:38,240
Yeah, I didn't do it for anyone to notice me.

373
00:36:38,240 --> 00:36:42,240
I just did it because it felt like it was the right thing and it needed to be done at the time.

374
00:36:42,240 --> 00:36:44,240
And and that's all it was about for me.

375
00:36:44,240 --> 00:36:48,240
I didn't. It's such an awkward question or statement to answer.

376
00:36:48,240 --> 00:36:50,240
Thank you for your service. How do you answer that?

377
00:36:50,240 --> 00:36:52,240
You're welcome.

378
00:36:52,240 --> 00:36:54,240
Like I did that. Doesn't that sound impersonal?

379
00:36:54,240 --> 00:36:57,240
I don't know. It's just such an awkward position to be put in.

380
00:36:57,240 --> 00:36:59,240
It's like, hey, man, I'm just trying to have a beer in the airport.

381
00:36:59,240 --> 00:37:05,240
Like I just sit here and have my overpriced Sam Adams and get on my plane.

382
00:37:05,240 --> 00:37:07,240
My $11 glass of beer.

383
00:37:07,240 --> 00:37:09,240
Yeah, yeah.

384
00:37:09,240 --> 00:37:13,240
All right. Well, then you talked about how you received in Afghanistan.

385
00:37:13,240 --> 00:37:15,240
Now you find yourself landing in Iraq.

386
00:37:15,240 --> 00:37:17,240
So, again, how was the reception initially?

387
00:37:17,240 --> 00:37:20,240
And then we'll talk about Operation Red Wings.

388
00:37:20,240 --> 00:37:26,240
By the time we got to Iraq, the mood had changed.

389
00:37:26,240 --> 00:37:33,240
I think the invasion forces probably got a really good reception from what I know.

390
00:37:33,240 --> 00:37:38,240
By the time we got there, I think people were starting to get a little restless, to say the least.

391
00:37:38,240 --> 00:37:41,240
We were very, very busy in Baghdad in 2004.

392
00:37:41,240 --> 00:37:45,240
I mean, we were out every night, multiple objectives, fall-on objectives.

393
00:37:45,240 --> 00:37:47,240
I mean, we didn't stop.

394
00:37:47,240 --> 00:37:51,240
But it was so much different than Iraq.

395
00:37:51,240 --> 00:37:57,240
For lack of a better word, the pace of play was like going from playing varsity to going to the NFL.

396
00:37:57,240 --> 00:38:00,240
Like there were so many more people, so much more condensed.

397
00:38:00,240 --> 00:38:04,240
You're in a much more urban environment.

398
00:38:04,240 --> 00:38:10,240
And people were friendly, but we were also blowing their doors off

399
00:38:10,240 --> 00:38:13,240
and coming in and flex-cupping people.

400
00:38:13,240 --> 00:38:16,240
Like you're going to piss people off.

401
00:38:16,240 --> 00:38:17,240
I mean, there's just no way about it.

402
00:38:17,240 --> 00:38:20,240
I mean, you go onto a neighborhood or a city block, everybody knows everybody.

403
00:38:20,240 --> 00:38:22,240
I mean, it's so different than here.

404
00:38:22,240 --> 00:38:24,240
I mean, you know who your neighbors are for the most part.

405
00:38:24,240 --> 00:38:25,240
Oh, what happened at John's house last night?

406
00:38:25,240 --> 00:38:30,240
Well, a bunch of assholes fucking blew his door off and came in and drug him out.

407
00:38:30,240 --> 00:38:31,240
We don't know where he's at.

408
00:38:31,240 --> 00:38:34,240
Well, that's probably going to irritate a few people on that block.

409
00:38:34,240 --> 00:38:39,240
And I mean, how many times are you going to do that before people start to chatter

410
00:38:39,240 --> 00:38:42,240
and kind of build up a little bit of resentment to you?

411
00:38:42,240 --> 00:38:45,240
And I think that's a natural thing.

412
00:38:45,240 --> 00:38:49,240
I mean, I think we would react the same way if that happened on my street.

413
00:38:49,240 --> 00:38:50,240
Absolutely.

414
00:38:50,240 --> 00:38:52,240
That's a conversation that's interesting.

415
00:38:52,240 --> 00:38:54,240
Quite a few of the Green Berets I had on the show, when I asked them,

416
00:38:54,240 --> 00:38:58,240
this is about Afghanistan specifically, you know, you're a king for a day.

417
00:38:58,240 --> 00:38:59,240
What would you have done differently?

418
00:38:59,240 --> 00:39:04,240
And almost all of them said we would have gone in basically with with SF, you know,

419
00:39:04,240 --> 00:39:07,240
attack the training camps, take out the key targets.

420
00:39:07,240 --> 00:39:10,240
But then a big part was then the exit strategy, get out.

421
00:39:10,240 --> 00:39:13,240
And they were they were talking either side of a year and a half.

422
00:39:13,240 --> 00:39:15,240
And I'm a complete layman when it comes to military.

423
00:39:15,240 --> 00:39:19,240
But as you said, if you imagine someone came into your country

424
00:39:19,240 --> 00:39:23,240
and you were being terrorized, initially they get rid of some of the terrorists.

425
00:39:23,240 --> 00:39:24,240
You're like, oh, these guys are great.

426
00:39:24,240 --> 00:39:27,240
Two years later, like, are they going to leave?

427
00:39:27,240 --> 00:39:29,240
Why are you still here? Yeah.

428
00:39:29,240 --> 00:39:31,240
So you can see how you create enemies.

429
00:39:31,240 --> 00:39:38,240
Yeah. As an occupying force versus just a quick hit, get in, get out, you know,

430
00:39:38,240 --> 00:39:43,240
and don't have, you know, so much extra damage happens where it's all of a sudden

431
00:39:43,240 --> 00:39:47,240
you get civilians killed and then that just adds fuel to the fire

432
00:39:47,240 --> 00:39:50,240
for that, you know, occupied force.

433
00:39:50,240 --> 00:39:55,240
And that was the thing that was interesting for me in Iraq was that was the first time

434
00:39:55,240 --> 00:40:01,240
I had really I started to change in Iraq and I started to see the other side.

435
00:40:01,240 --> 00:40:07,240
It didn't stop me or prevent me from being executing my duties and being out there.

436
00:40:07,240 --> 00:40:10,240
It didn't. But there was a shift in my brain where I was like, man,

437
00:40:10,240 --> 00:40:13,240
I could see why these people are pissed.

438
00:40:13,240 --> 00:40:18,240
You know, and I think that's where at first it was all gung ho kick ass.

439
00:40:18,240 --> 00:40:23,240
And then I started to see like what we're doing and how these people were, you know,

440
00:40:23,240 --> 00:40:26,240
not being treated, but, you know, the life that they were having to live under

441
00:40:26,240 --> 00:40:30,240
this constant threat of either is an insurgent going to kill me?

442
00:40:30,240 --> 00:40:32,240
You know, what's going to happen?

443
00:40:32,240 --> 00:40:37,240
Can I go to the store and get some chow or am I going to end up getting caught in an IED?

444
00:40:37,240 --> 00:40:41,240
Like you start to put all the pieces together and you're like, that would be terrifying.

445
00:40:41,240 --> 00:40:45,240
I mean, I couldn't imagine what it would have been like on the other side, a hundred percent.

446
00:40:45,240 --> 00:40:46,240
So it's never on the other side.

447
00:40:46,240 --> 00:40:50,240
But I started to realize, oh, man, this is this is harsh.

448
00:40:50,240 --> 00:40:55,240
War is not a friendly place for anyone involved.

449
00:40:55,240 --> 00:40:59,240
I honestly I don't think anyone wins in war.

450
00:40:59,240 --> 00:41:01,240
I don't think there's a winner and a loser.

451
00:41:01,240 --> 00:41:03,240
I think everybody loses.

452
00:41:03,240 --> 00:41:05,240
That's just my personal take on it.

453
00:41:05,240 --> 00:41:06,240
Yeah. What's that quote?

454
00:41:06,240 --> 00:41:08,240
Only the dead have seen the end of war.

455
00:41:08,240 --> 00:41:10,240
Yeah. Yeah.

456
00:41:10,240 --> 00:41:13,240
Yeah. I actually just interviewed Tulsi Gabbard a couple of weeks ago.

457
00:41:13,240 --> 00:41:18,240
And, you know, this is what I find interesting about her is, you know, she's in the military,

458
00:41:18,240 --> 00:41:20,240
but she's definitely a diplomat.

459
00:41:20,240 --> 00:41:24,240
Literally her role in the Army National Guard at the moment is diplomacy.

460
00:41:24,240 --> 00:41:29,240
But I think this is why films like yours are so important and Restrepo and some of these other

461
00:41:29,240 --> 00:41:36,240
really excellent ones that have been made is if we are chest beating and flying American flags

462
00:41:36,240 --> 00:41:42,240
and yee hawing about the idea of war and having t-shirts saying stacking bodies and all this shit,

463
00:41:42,240 --> 00:41:47,240
then you're going to spur on people into the Hollywood version of war.

464
00:41:47,240 --> 00:41:53,240
Now, to counter that, you put powerful books and poems and documentaries about war.

465
00:41:53,240 --> 00:41:57,240
You educate people on what it's like, because if you're not deterred from war,

466
00:41:57,240 --> 00:42:01,240
you'll get behind that politician that's like, yeah, we're going to go into the next country.

467
00:42:01,240 --> 00:42:05,240
But if you take a step back, yeah, and now you think about my son 16.

468
00:42:05,240 --> 00:42:12,240
Imagine if there was a, you know, constrict conscription now, then he would be sent off to war in a year or so.

469
00:42:12,240 --> 00:42:18,240
When it comes to your actual front door, your doorstep, and you see the horrors of it, it reframes it.

470
00:42:18,240 --> 00:42:22,240
Would I have been listed back when I was little? No, I didn't.

471
00:42:22,240 --> 00:42:26,240
But would I have signed up during World War II? Absolutely.

472
00:42:26,240 --> 00:42:29,240
Two very different missions, two very different times.

473
00:42:29,240 --> 00:42:32,240
But it is terrifying. This is what happened with the Falklands.

474
00:42:32,240 --> 00:42:36,240
Even though that, I've had more people on there, it was a justified conflict.

475
00:42:36,240 --> 00:42:41,240
As a little boy, I was like, wow, a politician can just snap their fingers and a bunch of men at that point,

476
00:42:41,240 --> 00:42:44,240
are sent off to kill, you know?

477
00:42:44,240 --> 00:42:48,240
So I think it's just important that people see the horrors as well.

478
00:42:48,240 --> 00:42:51,240
It's not doom and gloom in the whole thing, but it's like,

479
00:42:51,240 --> 00:42:56,240
understand what the potential is for your country, for your children,

480
00:42:56,240 --> 00:43:00,240
if you are agreeing and getting behind this particular conflict.

481
00:43:00,240 --> 00:43:06,240
For sure. I have four kids and I have always said this and Sean kind of tested this.

482
00:43:06,240 --> 00:43:08,240
I went to war, so you guys didn't have to.

483
00:43:08,240 --> 00:43:11,240
I don't want you to have to go through what I went through.

484
00:43:11,240 --> 00:43:17,240
And like, their intentions would be the same as mine.

485
00:43:17,240 --> 00:43:22,240
But I don't want them to have to live through and deal with the aftermath of what war.

486
00:43:22,240 --> 00:43:33,240
If you're actually in war, out on those streets every night, on hits every night, it changes you.

487
00:43:33,240 --> 00:43:38,240
It changes your entire perspective on life, on people, on relationships.

488
00:43:38,240 --> 00:43:42,240
And I don't want that for my children.

489
00:43:42,240 --> 00:43:48,240
Yeah, I think I've heard a lot of soldiers, sailors, airmen, et cetera, talking about this,

490
00:43:48,240 --> 00:43:53,240
that their children grew up when they were at war, 20 years of war.

491
00:43:53,240 --> 00:43:59,240
So the advert for the military was very different than during peacetime,

492
00:43:59,240 --> 00:44:04,240
because we were kind of relying on Chuck Norris movies and whatever else we were watching.

493
00:44:04,240 --> 00:44:13,240
So yeah, when it's dad or mom at home for a month every nine, or come back so different when they left,

494
00:44:13,240 --> 00:44:19,240
that reframes it for our young generation now that's looking to go in the military,

495
00:44:19,240 --> 00:44:21,240
because it is a very cautionary tale.

496
00:44:21,240 --> 00:44:24,240
And again, we need military and we need people to get behind it.

497
00:44:24,240 --> 00:44:28,240
But this is a perfect opportunity to fix some of the things that we did wrong,

498
00:44:28,240 --> 00:44:31,240
to take care of our veterans properly after they leave war,

499
00:44:31,240 --> 00:44:36,240
to be more diplomatic, to avoid wars that we shouldn't be in.

500
00:44:36,240 --> 00:44:40,240
I completely agree. And I want to make sure that I make this quite clear.

501
00:44:40,240 --> 00:44:43,240
I'm not in any way, shape, or form talking shit about the military.

502
00:44:43,240 --> 00:44:46,240
I love my service. I love my friends.

503
00:44:46,240 --> 00:44:54,240
And it absolutely needs to be an integral part of our strategy as far as how our country interacts with the rest of the world.

504
00:44:54,240 --> 00:44:58,240
But I would root for diplomacy first.

505
00:44:58,240 --> 00:45:01,240
Absolutely. Well, you mentioned earlier, you know, special operations.

506
00:45:01,240 --> 00:45:07,240
So one of the most devastating few days for the SEAL community, obviously,

507
00:45:07,240 --> 00:45:10,240
was Operation Red Wings and all the other people that were lost.

508
00:45:10,240 --> 00:45:20,240
So walk me through when you became aware of that operation and then your actual boots on the ground interaction with that tragedy.

509
00:45:20,240 --> 00:45:25,240
We were actually just kind of hanging out in one of the hooches and someone kind of,

510
00:45:25,240 --> 00:45:29,240
I use the word kick the door in, but like aggressively pushed the door in and said, get your shit on.

511
00:45:29,240 --> 00:45:32,240
A bird just got shot down outside of a sodabed.

512
00:45:32,240 --> 00:45:35,240
So we all kid up real quick. I mean, this is something we're accustomed to.

513
00:45:35,240 --> 00:45:40,240
It takes us like a minute to get our crap on and out the door.

514
00:45:40,240 --> 00:45:44,240
And then, you know, with the elevation, we had to start cutting guys.

515
00:45:44,240 --> 00:45:54,240
And so it was mostly NCOs and what we call TabSpec 4s that were on Red Wings recovery.

516
00:45:54,240 --> 00:45:58,240
We immediately loaded up, got on the airfield, flew to Jalalabad.

517
00:45:58,240 --> 00:46:05,240
And then we were waiting for dark. And then when dark came, we launched and we were going to go do a fast rope into the side of the mountain.

518
00:46:05,240 --> 00:46:09,240
And there was a terrible mountain rain storm that had come through that night.

519
00:46:09,240 --> 00:46:12,240
And it was so foggy. We got about 30 second mark.

520
00:46:12,240 --> 00:46:14,240
We turned around, flew back to Jalalabad.

521
00:46:14,240 --> 00:46:23,240
And then we had to sit there for a whole nother day into the next night, which was agonized, knowing that there's guys out there.

522
00:46:23,240 --> 00:46:27,240
I mean, you talk about anxiety. It was probably one of the only times I had anxiety.

523
00:46:27,240 --> 00:46:32,240
I was like, what if it was me? I'm out there running around the mountains like by myself.

524
00:46:32,240 --> 00:46:36,240
And we're sitting here like to do like, come on, let's go.

525
00:46:36,240 --> 00:46:40,240
So like I think that was across the board for everybody.

526
00:46:40,240 --> 00:46:42,240
It was like, can we just go and get this over with?

527
00:46:42,240 --> 00:46:52,240
And then the next cycle of darkness we flew in, we did about an 85 foot fast rope into the side of this hill, which is damn near the whole length of the rope.

528
00:46:52,240 --> 00:46:56,240
The rope's about 90 feet. And guys were falling off towards the bottom and stuff.

529
00:46:56,240 --> 00:47:02,240
One guy got his forearm stepped on. So right off the bat on infill we had injuries.

530
00:47:02,240 --> 00:47:06,240
But there was no getting medevaced. You're going to have to walk it out, dude.

531
00:47:06,240 --> 00:47:12,240
And so we walked all night and it was so foggy. It was foggy that night, too.

532
00:47:12,240 --> 00:47:19,240
And the guy that was in front of me, he was a team leader in third squad, which was I was a team leader in third squad.

533
00:47:19,240 --> 00:47:24,240
And he stopped and it was so foggy, even under night vision, I bumped into the back of him.

534
00:47:24,240 --> 00:47:29,240
I couldn't see my hands in front of my face. And he was like, dude, you walk point with me. I can't see anything.

535
00:47:29,240 --> 00:47:37,240
So we walked point together and ended up getting to the edge of the hill right at dawn.

536
00:47:37,240 --> 00:47:46,240
Sun was just coming up and my platoon sergeant went and kind of peeked over the hill and could see that it was going to be a bad day.

537
00:47:46,240 --> 00:47:52,240
And choice words that I won't use on your show here.

538
00:47:52,240 --> 00:47:58,240
Use any words if you like. That's why I have a E on it.

539
00:47:58,240 --> 00:48:05,240
This day you'll never forget. This is going to be a motherfucker. But we got to get it done.

540
00:48:05,240 --> 00:48:13,240
And those of us at police, we kicked out security and had roving patrols and there were about 12, no more than 15 of us.

541
00:48:13,240 --> 00:48:19,240
We dropped our kit, kept our med pouch on our hip and our weapons, but we dropped all of our plate carriers.

542
00:48:19,240 --> 00:48:30,240
And we walked down, descended the hill and started putting bodies in bags all day from dawn until dusk all day.

543
00:48:30,240 --> 00:48:35,240
And yeah, he was right. It was a motherfucker.

544
00:48:35,240 --> 00:48:39,240
I'm not going to lie about that one. That was a tough day for everybody. Everybody.

545
00:48:39,240 --> 00:48:48,240
SEAL community, the Ranger community, 160th SOAR community, special operations community. Everyone felt that.

546
00:48:48,240 --> 00:48:53,240
But it was our obligation. That's what the country expects of soft guys.

547
00:48:53,240 --> 00:49:00,240
Is to go get guys in shitty places that no one wants to be. Including us. We knew we were going.

548
00:49:00,240 --> 00:49:08,240
There was nothing in the world that would have not had us go. No one could say anything. We were going.

549
00:49:08,240 --> 00:49:14,240
But I mean, you're flying in and you're like, we're probably going to get shot out of the fucking sky.

550
00:49:14,240 --> 00:49:20,240
A bird just got shot down and we're going into the same area.

551
00:49:20,240 --> 00:49:24,240
I mean, we all kind of assumed like, OK, this could be it.

552
00:49:24,240 --> 00:49:31,240
And then we got on the ground and got to the crash and somehow we all managed to survive.

553
00:49:31,240 --> 00:49:39,240
But yeah, it was definitely a day I will never forget. That's for sure.

554
00:49:39,240 --> 00:49:48,240
Well, when you think about, you know, we went in, we got the bodies, we left. I mean, as you kind of storytelling in the film, you're on this extremely steep mountain.

555
00:49:48,240 --> 00:49:55,240
And, you know, obviously when a helicopter goes down, everything goes everywhere and there's some areas of intense heat.

556
00:49:55,240 --> 00:49:59,240
So, you know, I'm not wanting you to be super graphic and drag you down that road.

557
00:49:59,240 --> 00:50:07,240
But I think it's important to underline the extent that some of our military members go to make sure that they bring their brothers and sisters home.

558
00:50:07,240 --> 00:50:20,240
And even if it's just remains of so going to talk to me about some of the some of the extents that you went to you and your men to make sure that each of these men came home.

559
00:50:20,240 --> 00:50:27,240
The first. Bunch of them were kind of kind of visible.

560
00:50:27,240 --> 00:50:34,240
I mean, we were kind of, you know, anyone in the army that will know this term like hands across America in a way, like just kind of home in the hill.

561
00:50:34,240 --> 00:50:43,240
And then we come up on one and, you know, take a couple guys and put them in a bag and then we have to lug that bag up the hill and we put it underneath the tree.

562
00:50:43,240 --> 00:50:52,240
And and we just kept going down and some bodies were charred, some bodies didn't even look dead.

563
00:50:52,240 --> 00:51:00,240
But, you know, their eyes weren't blinking. It was it was such a different. Everyone, every one of them was different.

564
00:51:00,240 --> 00:51:05,240
So it wasn't like it was like, oh, we got there. And when we got there, the aircraft is still smoking.

565
00:51:05,240 --> 00:51:10,240
It was still smoldering. And that was almost two days after then shot.

566
00:51:10,240 --> 00:51:17,240
I may be about 36 hours. And so we got to got there and it was like, you know, there were some spots that were still hot.

567
00:51:17,240 --> 00:51:23,240
Like you said, the helicopter was scattered every year. There were pieces everywhere.

568
00:51:23,240 --> 00:51:34,240
It didn't. I mean, with the exception of the rotor blades, if you if you took the rotor blades off that and stumbled across that in the middle of nowhere, you'd be like, I don't even know what kind of vehicle this is.

569
00:51:34,240 --> 00:51:39,240
I mean, it was it was just it was unrecognizable.

570
00:51:39,240 --> 00:51:43,240
And the 160th guys, they were still strapped in when it went down.

571
00:51:43,240 --> 00:51:56,240
So most of those guys were still in the attach the aircraft and a lot of the seals had been thrown out of the back and suffered a lot of blunt force trauma when they when they hit the ground.

572
00:51:56,240 --> 00:52:03,240
So, I mean, it was it was just without going into too much detail, it was it was pretty gruesome site.

573
00:52:03,240 --> 00:52:13,240
So I think it's just like I said, it's it's to underline the extents that some of our military go to make sure that those members that we've lost are returned home to their loved ones.

574
00:52:13,240 --> 00:52:19,240
So it's more about that than than the horrors that you saw, even though you did.

575
00:52:19,240 --> 00:52:23,240
There was another kind of powerful moment, though.

576
00:52:23,240 --> 00:52:38,240
I actually never reached out to Marcus to try to get him on here. I need to still. But his book, you really I was really moved by the courage of some of the Afghani villages that that kind of sheltered him while he was being hunted.

577
00:52:38,240 --> 00:52:43,240
But I know you guys ended up interacting with him on that same mission.

578
00:52:43,240 --> 00:52:47,240
Yeah, that was third squad that actually ended up finding him.

579
00:52:47,240 --> 00:53:02,240
But to speak to your first point, yeah, the the Sharia law that they follow and it doesn't matter even if it's it's, you know, one of our guys, if you find someone and you bring them into your home, you're responsible for them and you protect them.

580
00:53:02,240 --> 00:53:10,240
And I know that this guy, you know, from firsthand account, these guys, you know, the bad guys were coming up saying, give them up, give them up.

581
00:53:10,240 --> 00:53:12,240
And he was like, no, I'm not giving them up.

582
00:53:12,240 --> 00:53:21,240
So, I mean, just imagine the set of fucking balls you have to have to sit there and defend someone and all these people want to kill.

583
00:53:21,240 --> 00:53:29,240
Now you're in their way and to have the courage to stand there and just see that through.

584
00:53:29,240 --> 00:53:32,240
I don't know that I'd be that strong.

585
00:53:32,240 --> 00:53:46,240
Yeah, I don't think they did that justice in the film, but they obviously did in the book. I think that should have been underlined more just the heroism and selfish selflessness, excuse me, of some of the Afghan people during that particular time.

586
00:53:46,240 --> 00:53:50,240
I mean, imagine if someone was banging on your door every day saying, give them up.

587
00:53:50,240 --> 00:53:53,240
We're going to kill you and your family.

588
00:53:53,240 --> 00:53:56,240
And he just said, No.

589
00:53:56,240 --> 00:54:02,240
I mean, imagine that I can't. I mean, that's just that's just incredible to me.

590
00:54:02,240 --> 00:54:07,240
Yeah, well, true, true selfless servant leadership, something a lot of us could learn from.

591
00:54:07,240 --> 00:54:10,240
Absolutely.

592
00:54:10,240 --> 00:54:14,240
All right. Well, then, now you find yourself down the Euphrates.

593
00:54:14,240 --> 00:54:20,240
I'm just kind of chopping into some of the areas of the film so we can get to you, you know, your transition.

594
00:54:20,240 --> 00:54:26,240
Talk to me about that final kind of mission that you had and your near death experience.

595
00:54:26,240 --> 00:54:37,240
Yeah, it was it was my last day. I should have already been home, but I was there and they were like, All right, well, my platoon started was like, Hey, how's you know, I need you to come with me on this.

596
00:54:37,240 --> 00:54:56,240
This could get hairy. And what they were we had picked up was that guys were coming and burying their weapons in the field next to this pump house and they dig them up in the morning, go conduct their attacks and then go back in the evening and rebury them so that they weren't bringing them home in case the house got raided or something.

597
00:54:56,240 --> 00:55:02,240
And so we got picked up on this. So we infilled and we were in what we call the pump house.

598
00:55:02,240 --> 00:55:11,240
And we were kind of sitting there day broke and all of a sudden, you know, vehicle came up. There were a couple of guys. There was an engagement by our snipers.

599
00:55:11,240 --> 00:55:19,240
And then there was a car coming down. We had to a split element. One was up by this market. It was pretty bad news.

600
00:55:19,240 --> 00:55:24,240
And the other one was down by the river, which was where I was at.

601
00:55:24,240 --> 00:55:30,240
And all of a sudden, the car kind of starts barreling down towards us and we were like, Oh, you know, we thought it might be a vehicle born ID coming.

602
00:55:30,240 --> 00:55:41,240
And the other house engaged that vehicle and stopped it when they came out to clear the vehicle, though, because it was daylight and just the market had just opened.

603
00:55:41,240 --> 00:55:49,240
They were immediately compromised. And from that point throughout the entire course of the day, it was just mortars, rockets.

604
00:55:49,240 --> 00:55:53,240
They were splashing down in the river behind us. They were landing in front of us.

605
00:55:53,240 --> 00:56:02,240
I mean, we were in probably eight foot high concrete walls. I asked one of the mortar guys, one of those lands in here, what's the damage going to be?

606
00:56:02,240 --> 00:56:11,240
Oh, he goes, I'll be dead. Oh, OK. Thanks. I guess that's a simple answer. Appreciate it. Thanks for keeping it short and concise.

607
00:56:11,240 --> 00:56:20,240
And then it was towards the end of the day. We like I said, we got engaged all day from morning until dusk with IDF and rockets and stuff like that.

608
00:56:20,240 --> 00:56:26,240
And I got up on the roof and I was like, hey, I'm going to pull my last guard shift to give the shit I've pulled so many.

609
00:56:26,240 --> 00:56:30,240
So I get up on the roof with another team leader of mine and we sit there, we pull our hour.

610
00:56:30,240 --> 00:56:34,240
And as we go to stand up, we were silhouetted because it was it was dust.

611
00:56:34,240 --> 00:56:41,240
And there was a single sniper out that went right between the two of our heads because my right ear was ringing and his left ear was ringing.

612
00:56:41,240 --> 00:56:45,240
Never found the shooter, never, never. But no one got hit, obviously.

613
00:56:45,240 --> 00:56:52,240
But yeah, that was that would have been my last day. And the irony that is before we went on that mission, I told my platoon, sir, I'll go with you.

614
00:56:52,240 --> 00:56:55,240
But just know I've seen this movie before I get killed.

615
00:56:55,240 --> 00:56:59,240
It's going to be on you. And he's like, I got you. I got you.

616
00:56:59,240 --> 00:57:03,240
And last shot of the day almost took my friggin head off.

617
00:57:03,240 --> 00:57:11,240
So gotten gotten the exfil got back to the base, flew back to Germany and then back to the States.

618
00:57:11,240 --> 00:57:16,240
So as we touched on earlier, that transition can be very jarring for a lot of people.

619
00:57:16,240 --> 00:57:24,240
I mean, not only have you got the actual excitement, I guess you'd say, of war or first responder profession, but you've also got that tribe.

620
00:57:24,240 --> 00:57:30,240
You've got that sense of purpose. You've got that shared suffering that's created a bond that most people will never even understand.

621
00:57:30,240 --> 00:57:38,240
And then one day you find yourself outside a fire station with the doors of clothes behind you or you find yourself back on US soil.

622
00:57:38,240 --> 00:57:50,240
Walk me through the first days, weeks, months of your transition from an extremely high up tempo combat deployment in Iraq to US.

623
00:57:50,240 --> 00:57:55,240
I'd say the first thing was that the volume on life got turned down.

624
00:57:55,240 --> 00:58:01,240
Everything was so mundane compared to what we had been doing on a daily basis.

625
00:58:01,240 --> 00:58:07,240
Like, oh, we're going to Home Depot or something. I don't give a shit about Home Depot.

626
00:58:07,240 --> 00:58:16,240
And the one thing that I never thought of until it was probably a couple of years ago, maybe it was like one of our first podcasts I think we did.

627
00:58:16,240 --> 00:58:22,240
I was like I was never for one minute in the military. I was never by myself.

628
00:58:22,240 --> 00:58:25,240
There was always someone within like arms reach.

629
00:58:25,240 --> 00:58:31,240
I mean, whether you had to go to the bathroom, whether you had to go on a patrol, you were never alone.

630
00:58:31,240 --> 00:58:37,240
And all of a sudden I found myself completely and utterly alone.

631
00:58:37,240 --> 00:58:48,240
And to me, that was a dangerous place because it was all the stuff swirling in my head about what we had done and coming back and the adjustment and all this.

632
00:58:48,240 --> 00:58:54,240
But I'm not I mean, with the other than a phone call, it's only I can sit down and have a conversation with someone.

633
00:58:54,240 --> 00:58:56,240
There's no one here that understands me.

634
00:58:56,240 --> 00:59:01,240
And I felt lost. I felt just completely isolated.

635
00:59:01,240 --> 00:59:11,240
And then that kind of fed into the fact where I wanted to be isolated and I didn't want to talk to anyone, which made all the problems in my head a million times worse.

636
00:59:11,240 --> 00:59:17,240
And, you know, I'm not going to say that I still don't struggle with certain things to this day.

637
00:59:17,240 --> 00:59:22,240
But, man, that first year, I don't know how I survived it.

638
00:59:22,240 --> 00:59:31,240
I really don't. And then Sean, starting in 2008, so that would have been 2007.

639
00:59:31,240 --> 00:59:35,240
And then in 2008, I moved from Boston back down to South Carolina.

640
00:59:35,240 --> 00:59:40,240
And Sean had all the interest that he previously discussed in the military.

641
00:59:40,240 --> 00:59:43,240
And I had a wealth of knowledge.

642
00:59:43,240 --> 00:59:48,240
So we sat in the garage and just shot darts and talked about shit.

643
00:59:48,240 --> 00:59:52,240
And he was he was all pumped. He was ready to go.

644
00:59:52,240 --> 00:59:59,240
Things didn't work out. And then we were like, well, let's start writing a book about this, because I was starting to begin to forget stuff.

645
00:59:59,240 --> 01:00:03,240
Yeah. And I said from the get go, I was like, this is a very powerful story.

646
01:00:03,240 --> 01:00:05,240
People need to hear this.

647
01:00:05,240 --> 01:00:12,240
I mean, it was a it was a battle for years because at that time you were still, I think, going through a lot of it.

648
01:00:12,240 --> 01:00:14,240
And you're like, I don't think anybody wants to hear this.

649
01:00:14,240 --> 01:00:16,240
Yeah, that was my initial. That was my initial.

650
01:00:16,240 --> 01:00:20,240
Like there are so many guys that have done so much more. Nobody needs to hear this.

651
01:00:20,240 --> 01:00:29,240
But we continue to I was like, let's just at least make a war journal just so you have it, just so it's there.

652
01:00:29,240 --> 01:00:34,240
And for years, you know, I'd come over or he'd come over.

653
01:00:34,240 --> 01:00:45,240
We chat in the garage. I maybe take notes or like, you know, record them on my phone and then jot down what he said later, you know, until we had, you know, a hundred or so page.

654
01:00:45,240 --> 01:00:49,240
And you script of basically the whole story laid out.

655
01:00:49,240 --> 01:00:53,240
And that's kind of where we said, you know, we don't really know.

656
01:00:53,240 --> 01:00:58,240
There's no way that I can turn this or we can turn this into a full fledged novel.

657
01:00:58,240 --> 01:01:04,240
But I was like, I got the camera equipment. I had been, you know, getting into film and video at the time.

658
01:01:04,240 --> 01:01:08,240
And I said, hey, man, let's let's sit down and record this thing.

659
01:01:08,240 --> 01:01:12,240
And, you know, I don't know if we ever thought it would turn into what it turned into.

660
01:01:12,240 --> 01:01:28,240
But I remember getting done with that and saying, like, I don't even know if this is like a film that anybody will watch it or because we were just so close to we had watched everything over and over and over until it no longer makes sense to you.

661
01:01:28,240 --> 01:01:37,240
And, you know, to speak to Sean's point about the war journal, when we when we started the documentary, you know, it kind of it was like it was like our little pet project.

662
01:01:37,240 --> 01:01:43,240
But in a way, it was like, hey, you know, my kids are still a little young.

663
01:01:43,240 --> 01:01:46,240
I want to make this so that they can look back and be like, oh, I understand.

664
01:01:46,240 --> 01:01:50,240
I might, you know, my dad was a little weird.

665
01:01:50,240 --> 01:01:55,240
So we kind of that's how it kind of started. And then it just kind of it continued to develop.

666
01:01:55,240 --> 01:01:58,240
And then Sean did an amazing job with the editing.

667
01:01:58,240 --> 01:02:04,240
And and then we kind of just sent it out to a few family members and friends and we're like, hey, just give it a look.

668
01:02:04,240 --> 01:02:08,240
You know, what do you think? And we really didn't expect to get the feedback that we got.

669
01:02:08,240 --> 01:02:11,240
I mean, I figured there'd be some pissed off people.

670
01:02:11,240 --> 01:02:15,240
I figured there'd be some people that didn't want to hear all that.

671
01:02:15,240 --> 01:02:17,240
As far as like, you know, I don't want to know what my husband did.

672
01:02:17,240 --> 01:02:20,240
I don't want to know. You know, I don't want to remember that.

673
01:02:20,240 --> 01:02:23,240
I had one guy call me and say, House, I love you.

674
01:02:23,240 --> 01:02:33,240
And I fucking hate you at the same time because it brought back so much stuff that, you know, had been kind of lost in the sands of time, if you will.

675
01:02:33,240 --> 01:02:36,240
And but, yeah, that's how it started.

676
01:02:36,240 --> 01:02:39,240
And then we just got great feedback and we were like, well, you know what?

677
01:02:39,240 --> 01:02:43,240
Let's throw it in the festival circuit and then I'll let Sean take it from there.

678
01:02:43,240 --> 01:02:53,240
Yeah, we put it, you know, we sent out to some family and friends, had a couple, you know, times where we'd have, you know, I'd have a couple of friends over and like, hey, just watch this, you know, see what you guys think.

679
01:02:53,240 --> 01:02:58,240
And then we sent it off into the festival circuit and it, you know, it got accepted.

680
01:02:58,240 --> 01:03:06,240
It was an official selection of over 30 festivals that won several awards and made a good splash there.

681
01:03:06,240 --> 01:03:21,240
And then once we we actually released it, you know, we just had such an overwhelming amount of support from the ranger community, from just the military community in general.

682
01:03:21,240 --> 01:03:26,240
Yeah, I do that in a sense. I almost kind of went viral.

683
01:03:26,240 --> 01:03:38,240
And those first couple of months of us putting it out and it was just it was wild to see that amount of feedback and just the amount of people reaching out and just saying, hey, thank you.

684
01:03:38,240 --> 01:03:42,240
This helped me understand my brother better, my husband better.

685
01:03:42,240 --> 01:03:50,240
We got a lot of feedback from Ranger wives, spouses just saying, hey, you know, I was able to watch this with my husband.

686
01:03:50,240 --> 01:04:00,240
It wasn't something that I ever understood, you know, or he could tell me. But this was a way for a lot of guys to sit down and say, hey, this isn't my exact story.

687
01:04:00,240 --> 01:04:12,240
But like, this is this is what it's like. This is what, you know, being in war and having some of these experiences is like and how it affects how it affected me.

688
01:04:12,240 --> 01:04:21,240
Yeah, for sure. And, you know, it was that was the really exciting part was was the reaction that was so unexpected.

689
01:04:21,240 --> 01:04:28,240
You know, but one of the things that I mean, I'm married and I mean, my wife and I spent a lot of time together.

690
01:04:28,240 --> 01:04:34,240
And if I was to tell her a story and this kind of dawned on me when the wife started calling because it was so unexpected.

691
01:04:34,240 --> 01:04:42,240
I was like, but you know, when I tell a story to my wife, we've been together for so long, she's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I hear you.

692
01:04:42,240 --> 01:04:46,240
But when another person tells your wife.

693
01:04:46,240 --> 01:04:52,240
Like, hey, I was there with Dave, they'll be like, oh, and then they'll listen to what the other person has to say because they're not.

694
01:04:52,240 --> 01:04:57,240
I've been married for 12 years. I mean, I haven't heard that. Yeah, I haven't heard that one. Oh, my God.

695
01:04:57,240 --> 01:05:11,240
You never told me that. Like, but hearing it from someone else, I think made it easier for them to to understand. Yeah. And, you know, that was that was so gratifying to help to help with all those people that just because I did the same thing.

696
01:05:11,240 --> 01:05:18,240
I got home, I clammed up. I didn't say anything to anyone. So, I mean, I can only imagine most of those guys probably did the same thing.

697
01:05:18,240 --> 01:05:26,240
You know, you don't want to know what I know. You don't want to know what's going on inside my brain, honey. Just leave it alone.

698
01:05:26,240 --> 01:05:30,240
And then to hear all of it, what we all went through.

699
01:05:30,240 --> 01:05:42,240
But from someone else's mouth made the difference. I think. Yeah. And it's just in a compact format to be able to say, hey, watch this, spend a couple hours, watch this film, and you're going to have a better understanding.

700
01:05:42,240 --> 01:05:52,240
And that's what I wanted it to be. I wanted it to be as close to what my experience hearing that story was and how much it affected me.

701
01:05:52,240 --> 01:06:02,240
Just kind of having that veil pulled back. And that's what we tried to deliver in Ranger was, you know, this is this is not pro.

702
01:06:02,240 --> 01:06:09,240
This is not against war. This is just here are the cold facts about what, you know, doing this is like.

703
01:06:09,240 --> 01:06:19,240
And here is, you know, a special operations, you know, soldiers experience firsthand and in an intimate telling,

704
01:06:19,240 --> 01:06:25,240
which I think is something that we were able to achieve because we sat for, you know,

705
01:06:25,240 --> 01:06:34,240
better half to two decades, you know, sitting in a garage telling these stories over and over again to the point where it's like we both know the stories in and out.

706
01:06:34,240 --> 01:06:46,240
And we're able to deliver that, you know, dialogue from David in the sense of like it's just like you're sitting there, you know, as a listener, you know, letting him tell you this story.

707
01:06:46,240 --> 01:06:54,240
I tell one of the cool things Sean brought up to one of the we got a message from a dude that I was in the Italian.

708
01:06:54,240 --> 01:07:02,240
And his message was, how did you remember all the names of the places? So some random like non along like that.

709
01:07:02,240 --> 01:07:06,240
No one is going to remember that place. And Sean had a very simple response.

710
01:07:06,240 --> 01:07:12,240
He was like, we never stop telling stories. So those names never got out of your head.

711
01:07:12,240 --> 01:07:18,240
You were able to retain them because we were continually telling the story over the course of 17 years. Yeah, yeah.

712
01:07:18,240 --> 01:07:20,240
17 years. Yeah, just never stop telling.

713
01:07:20,240 --> 01:07:28,240
So I think that led some gravity to the film because it really does puts you there.

714
01:07:28,240 --> 01:07:32,240
It's very, it's very descriptive in his storytelling.

715
01:07:32,240 --> 01:07:45,240
And I think that was the combination of some of the video and photos we had really helped to put a good image in the audience's mind of like what this was actually like.

716
01:07:45,240 --> 01:07:52,240
Yeah, I mean, those images and videos were absolutely essential, I think, to just kind of, you know, take us out from just the spoken word.

717
01:07:52,240 --> 01:07:54,240
You mentioned about people reaching out.

718
01:07:54,240 --> 01:08:02,240
Just so you know, it doesn't say his last name is his handle is the real Pete. But he said I was roommates with Dave at 275.

719
01:08:02,240 --> 01:08:09,240
Great dude. Glad to see this movie about him and RGRRGTRLTW.

720
01:08:09,240 --> 01:08:12,240
I don't know if that's like LOL and smiley face.

721
01:08:12,240 --> 01:08:15,240
It's like Rangers lead the way.

722
01:08:15,240 --> 01:08:24,240
Yeah, we were actually just just talking about that before we hopped on here. I said, hey, somebody posted this. Do you recognize this guy?

723
01:08:24,240 --> 01:08:31,240
And we're pretty sure he had it. He didn't have a beard when I saw him last time and spent 20 years.

724
01:08:31,240 --> 01:08:35,240
So he probably looked a little different, but I believe his name is Peters.

725
01:08:35,240 --> 01:08:38,240
His last name. Yeah, he was a great dude, too.

726
01:08:38,240 --> 01:08:42,240
And he went on to have a good career in the regiment as well.

727
01:08:42,240 --> 01:08:45,240
So that was really nice. I appreciate you reading it to me.

728
01:08:45,240 --> 01:08:49,240
So it's always good to hear nice things. Absolutely.

729
01:08:49,240 --> 01:08:54,240
But I want to go back because you talked about the first year and then obviously we'll move forward with the other films as well.

730
01:08:54,240 --> 01:09:01,240
But because so many people did struggle, you know, and again, it's not just military, it's everyone, you know, human beings,

731
01:09:01,240 --> 01:09:05,240
especially if you've if you've had the kind of trauma that some of us are exposed to.

732
01:09:05,240 --> 01:09:10,240
And then again, that removal from that tribe that was your support system for that.

733
01:09:10,240 --> 01:09:15,240
What were when you look back now, what were the lowest places you found yourself in the film?

734
01:09:15,240 --> 01:09:17,240
You obviously talk about drinking, for example.

735
01:09:17,240 --> 01:09:19,240
So what were your absolute lows?

736
01:09:19,240 --> 01:09:23,240
And then aside from obviously the catharsis from the storytelling,

737
01:09:23,240 --> 01:09:28,240
what have been other tools that have helped you grow from this, heal from this?

738
01:09:28,240 --> 01:09:39,240
I think probably the biggest low for me was when I first got out, the woman that I was with.

739
01:09:39,240 --> 01:09:47,240
I had such a problem, I was hiding beers and I would put a trash bag in the toolbox of my truck

740
01:09:47,240 --> 01:09:53,240
and I'd bring a couple in at a time, slug them down, go out, throw them in the trash bag in the back of my truck

741
01:09:53,240 --> 01:09:55,240
so they wouldn't be sitting in the trash can.

742
01:09:55,240 --> 01:09:56,240
That was pretty low.

743
01:09:56,240 --> 01:10:00,240
I'd never done that before, except for when I was probably like 15.

744
01:10:00,240 --> 01:10:07,240
And I found myself as a grown man hiding beers from my my significant other.

745
01:10:07,240 --> 01:10:10,240
That was pretty damn low.

746
01:10:10,240 --> 01:10:14,240
And that went on for a while.

747
01:10:14,240 --> 01:10:17,240
And finally I was able to get it under control.

748
01:10:17,240 --> 01:10:20,240
But yeah, that was not good.

749
01:10:20,240 --> 01:10:23,240
That first year was just the low of lows.

750
01:10:23,240 --> 01:10:29,240
You come off of such a high from combat, even though it's terrible and you see bad things

751
01:10:29,240 --> 01:10:36,240
and you have to do certain things and then you're alone with your thoughts.

752
01:10:36,240 --> 01:10:42,240
Well, go get a case of beer, slug that down by three o'clock in the afternoon,

753
01:10:42,240 --> 01:10:45,240
get in the car and drive back and go get another.

754
01:10:45,240 --> 01:10:47,240
I mean, just terrible.

755
01:10:47,240 --> 01:10:51,240
Just things I couldn't imagine doing nowadays at this point in my life.

756
01:10:51,240 --> 01:10:53,240
I just didn't give a shit.

757
01:10:53,240 --> 01:10:55,240
I didn't care.

758
01:10:55,240 --> 01:10:59,240
If I slammed my car into a tree, oh well, didn't give a shit.

759
01:10:59,240 --> 01:11:02,240
Just don't hit anyone else.

760
01:11:02,240 --> 01:11:09,240
And that was that was that was definitely 2007 was the lowest lowest point in my entire life.

761
01:11:09,240 --> 01:11:11,240
And what have you found has helped?

762
01:11:11,240 --> 01:11:14,240
Because I mean, I think one of the things that's missing in the mental health conversation,

763
01:11:14,240 --> 01:11:16,240
we've talked about stigma, stigma, stigma.

764
01:11:16,240 --> 01:11:18,240
And I think a lot of us are there now.

765
01:11:18,240 --> 01:11:21,240
We understand that this is something we should be talking about.

766
01:11:21,240 --> 01:11:26,240
But what I don't see is a message of hope, message of post-traumatic growth.

767
01:11:26,240 --> 01:11:29,240
So you see a lot of people, yeah, I'm dealing with my PTSD.

768
01:11:29,240 --> 01:11:34,240
Well, I think there's so much more than that in most of us, not everyone, but a lot of us,

769
01:11:34,240 --> 01:11:40,240
where the other side of going through that that trauma is a stronger, more resilient version of yourself.

770
01:11:40,240 --> 01:11:43,240
And, you know, and you guys with this movie are a perfect example of this.

771
01:11:43,240 --> 01:11:47,240
You become a beacon of light, then you share your story and it helps other people.

772
01:11:47,240 --> 01:11:52,240
So what have been some of the tools that helped you navigate some of that darkness?

773
01:11:52,240 --> 01:11:57,240
Well, the biggest thing for me, I got back into playing golf,

774
01:11:57,240 --> 01:12:04,240
which has always been kind of my crutch to kind of not think about it.

775
01:12:04,240 --> 01:12:07,240
But probably the most important thing that got me through it,

776
01:12:07,240 --> 01:12:11,240
and I'm not going to say it was just this one thing, but this would definitely be the majority of it,

777
01:12:11,240 --> 01:12:19,240
is coming to terms to myself with what happened and being like, I can't change it.

778
01:12:19,240 --> 01:12:23,240
There's nothing I can do about it. I have to do a better job of managing this.

779
01:12:23,240 --> 01:12:26,240
Alcohol is not going to help me manage this. It's going to make it worse.

780
01:12:26,240 --> 01:12:29,240
I mean, I'm not saying don't go out and have a couple of beers or something like that,

781
01:12:29,240 --> 01:12:32,240
but you know, you can't be drinking cases of beers every day. Yeah.

782
01:12:32,240 --> 01:12:37,240
And so coming to terms, having a good job, a normal job,

783
01:12:37,240 --> 01:12:42,240
which I was thankful enough to be in shot and brought their name up by North American Rescue.

784
01:12:42,240 --> 01:12:48,240
I was fortunate enough to be given a home there. And that helped. It stabilized me.

785
01:12:48,240 --> 01:12:54,240
It wasn't just me running out, doing whatever I wanted to with no accountability whatsoever.

786
01:12:54,240 --> 01:13:01,240
I knew I had to be at work, you know, five days a week, this and that, and it provided structure.

787
01:13:01,240 --> 01:13:04,240
And for that year in 2007, I had the structure.

788
01:13:04,240 --> 01:13:09,240
And you know, you're coming out of the military or the fire service or wherever, your whole everything is routine.

789
01:13:09,240 --> 01:13:13,240
It's all based off structure. And then that structure is taken away.

790
01:13:13,240 --> 01:13:18,240
And you're like, I don't know what to do. Fuck it. Let's crack a beer.

791
01:13:18,240 --> 01:13:21,240
And once I got that structure back in, it was like, oh, you can't do that.

792
01:13:21,240 --> 01:13:24,240
You can't drink at 10 o'clock in the morning. Yeah.

793
01:13:24,240 --> 01:13:27,240
You come home and have a couple of beers after work like a normal person.

794
01:13:27,240 --> 01:13:30,240
And having that structure put back in my life definitely helped.

795
01:13:30,240 --> 01:13:37,240
But also through that process, coming to terms with stuff that I knew I couldn't change.

796
01:13:37,240 --> 01:13:42,240
It was either I couldn't change the only thing that was going to come up, it was going to continue to change me.

797
01:13:42,240 --> 01:13:47,240
And I had to make that conscious decision to say, I did this. This happened.

798
01:13:47,240 --> 01:13:52,240
It'll always be there. And it's always right there. It's always right there.

799
01:13:52,240 --> 01:14:01,240
But I got to be able to have the mental fortitude and the maturity and the responsibility to have it sit right there,

800
01:14:01,240 --> 01:14:06,240
but be able to still complete tasks like a normal human being or what, you know, quote unquote, human being.

801
01:14:06,240 --> 01:14:11,240
So to me, that was the biggest thing. Coming to terms with it and the stability of having structure again.

802
01:14:11,240 --> 01:14:16,240
And that's what that's what pulled me out of that. That dark place.

803
01:14:16,240 --> 01:14:21,240
Now, Sean, I haven't asked you this, but again, obviously these these issues affect all of us,

804
01:14:21,240 --> 01:14:26,240
whether you've seen combat, been a firefighter or whatever it is, or, you know, you're just a regular human being,

805
01:14:26,240 --> 01:14:32,240
especially the impact of some of our earlier years on, you know, when we become adults.

806
01:14:32,240 --> 01:14:39,240
So just to put that same question to you, when you look back now, your lifespan, did you have any lows?

807
01:14:39,240 --> 01:14:43,240
And if so, were there tools that helped you climb out of that?

808
01:14:43,240 --> 01:14:52,240
Yeah, I, you know, coming back from Haiti and seeing a lot of the stuff that I had seen there,

809
01:14:52,240 --> 01:15:00,240
I struggled for many years to kind of understand and cope with what I saw.

810
01:15:00,240 --> 01:15:07,240
And, you know, it's strange relationships I had, you know, you know, losing girlfriends and things like that,

811
01:15:07,240 --> 01:15:14,240
because, you know, there was something, you know, inside me that I wasn't dealing with,

812
01:15:14,240 --> 01:15:22,240
that I, you know, it would come out in, you know, in bad behaviors where, you know, you're being verbally abusive to somebody.

813
01:15:22,240 --> 01:15:30,240
You're striking out in anger because you're in pain and you're looking for anybody as a target

814
01:15:30,240 --> 01:15:35,240
and anybody who's close to you. I'm sure, you know, this is kind of a thing.

815
01:15:35,240 --> 01:15:41,240
If you're close to somebody like that or who's had gone through those things, you're probably going to be, you know,

816
01:15:41,240 --> 01:15:45,240
you've got a target on your back just because you're interacting with that person.

817
01:15:45,240 --> 01:15:52,240
I found that over the years, the best thing that helped me was being able to go and talk to somebody about it,

818
01:15:52,240 --> 01:16:00,240
doing talk therapy, you know, getting with a therapist or somebody who, you know, maybe it's, you know,

819
01:16:00,240 --> 01:16:04,240
I was never one to want to go down the road of like, hey, give me a pill.

820
01:16:04,240 --> 01:16:08,240
I don't want to, you know, think about this. I don't want to feel or anything like that.

821
01:16:08,240 --> 01:16:18,240
I wanted to figure it out. And, you know, it took my entire 20s to accept and understand what I saw there

822
01:16:18,240 --> 01:16:24,240
and how it affected me and how it affects me to this day and just being able to be aware of that behavior

823
01:16:24,240 --> 01:16:30,240
and have a different perspective on it and see how I was treating people closest to me

824
01:16:30,240 --> 01:16:35,240
and how the pain that I may have been going through, how it was coming out,

825
01:16:35,240 --> 01:16:40,240
even if it wasn't something that was always at the forefront of my mind, kind of thinking like, oh,

826
01:16:40,240 --> 01:16:47,240
I'm thinking about, you know, something I saw. It's something that alters you inside and it changes your behavior.

827
01:16:47,240 --> 01:16:52,240
And until you become aware of that change in behavior and you accept that, okay, hey,

828
01:16:52,240 --> 01:16:59,240
this was a before and after moment and I do have these things that I have to work on,

829
01:16:59,240 --> 01:17:04,240
that's, you know, was the major changing point for me is just accepting that that happened,

830
01:17:04,240 --> 01:17:11,240
similar to what David said, and then going and talking to somebody about it and getting new perspectives on it

831
01:17:11,240 --> 01:17:14,240
and seeing how it was affecting my life.

832
01:17:14,240 --> 01:17:16,240
Brilliant. I'm glad I asked. Thank you.

833
01:17:16,240 --> 01:17:22,240
All right. Well, then we've been talking about the movie Ranger and we'll get to showing that you guys are having very soon with that.

834
01:17:22,240 --> 01:17:29,240
I recently had Trang Nguyen on the show and you were behind the documentary on him as well that I watched.

835
01:17:29,240 --> 01:17:32,240
So talk to me about that experience.

836
01:17:32,240 --> 01:17:36,240
Yeah. So we originally kind of met Trang.

837
01:17:36,240 --> 01:17:47,240
You know, I had followed him for a while on Instagram, I think, before he started his company with We Go Home.

838
01:17:47,240 --> 01:17:55,240
And, you know, we noticed that he had said stuff about serving in the Ranger Regiment.

839
01:17:55,240 --> 01:17:58,240
And so I sent him the film.

840
01:17:58,240 --> 01:18:03,240
I just said, hey, you know, I saw that he was kind of like an influencer in that, you know, in that field.

841
01:18:03,240 --> 01:18:07,240
And I sent him the film. I said, hey, man, I just want you to take a look at this.

842
01:18:07,240 --> 01:18:15,240
You know, he had put out a post about Bremen Baraza and that, you know, tragedy in the Ranger Regiment,

843
01:18:15,240 --> 01:18:18,240
those two guys dying in Ramadi.

844
01:18:18,240 --> 01:18:25,240
And, you know, I said, hey, you know, David was on, you know, call for that mission as QRF.

845
01:18:25,240 --> 01:18:31,240
Looks like you guys might have been in country at the same time and come to be, you know, they were.

846
01:18:31,240 --> 01:18:36,240
Trang was with Ako at the time.

847
01:18:36,240 --> 01:18:45,240
And they had had a mission go out where these two individuals, Bremen Baraza, were entering a room.

848
01:18:45,240 --> 01:18:51,240
And both of them, unfortunately, as they came in and split, you know, one guy goes left, one guy goes right.

849
01:18:51,240 --> 01:18:58,240
They both took a round in the side from a combatant bunkered in the room.

850
01:18:58,240 --> 01:19:03,240
When we noticed that connection, I sent Trang the film and we started talking.

851
01:19:03,240 --> 01:19:12,240
We went down the path of, you know, I kind of learned a little bit more about his story and just I said, hey, man, you know, the same way, you know, we told Ranger,

852
01:19:12,240 --> 01:19:17,240
I think you've got a story that is incredibly inspiring.

853
01:19:17,240 --> 01:19:29,240
You know, what your family did to come here and what he had to overcome as a youth growing up in, you know, Chicago in some really terrible areas

854
01:19:29,240 --> 01:19:40,240
as a, you know, as a very low income immigrant family, you know, with his mom and his sisters, you know, working to, you know, put food on the table.

855
01:19:40,240 --> 01:19:44,240
So we got to creating that story.

856
01:19:44,240 --> 01:19:48,240
You know, I went up to Chicago and filmed with him.

857
01:19:48,240 --> 01:20:01,240
And then it was it was months later when we actually sat down and did the interview once he had moved to Katy, Texas, and really went full blown with, you know, his company.

858
01:20:01,240 --> 01:20:03,240
We go home and doing that.

859
01:20:03,240 --> 01:20:05,240
It was a great experience working with Trang.

860
01:20:05,240 --> 01:20:15,240
And again, you know, we put that into the festival circuit, you know, I think won a ton of awards and it was a big hit there, too.

861
01:20:15,240 --> 01:20:25,240
So it is a great experience working with him and putting that out led us to another individual we're working with now, Hector Farrell.

862
01:20:25,240 --> 01:20:31,240
I think he's on Hector Bravo on Instagram.

863
01:20:31,240 --> 01:20:34,240
And we're telling a story about U.S.

864
01:20:34,240 --> 01:20:49,240
infantry grunts with the Big Red One in the early days of Iraq and his time over there as a 19 year old and lucky for us, very similar to David's ability.

865
01:20:49,240 --> 01:20:58,240
He had a archive of photos and home video that he was able to let us use to put this film together.

866
01:20:58,240 --> 01:21:03,240
So very excited about getting that out as well.

867
01:21:03,240 --> 01:21:04,240
Beautiful.

868
01:21:04,240 --> 01:21:09,240
It's funny going back to Trang for a second, hearing his time overseas.

869
01:21:09,240 --> 01:21:10,240
And it's crazy.

870
01:21:10,240 --> 01:21:14,240
I forgot there was that overlap that he told that story, I believe, in the interview.

871
01:21:14,240 --> 01:21:17,240
And then here you guys are, you know, from a different perspective.

872
01:21:17,240 --> 01:21:29,240
But arguably the most jarring thing that happened to him was being betrayed by Chicago as a police officer, like his organization, not all the things that he saw and did.

873
01:21:29,240 --> 01:21:37,240
And I think that really underlines how detrimental it is when your tribe turns their back on you and whatever that looks like.

874
01:21:37,240 --> 01:21:40,240
So, yeah, it was a very powerful perspective.

875
01:21:40,240 --> 01:21:42,240
Yeah, it's really sad to see that.

876
01:21:42,240 --> 01:21:51,240
I think a lot of especially law enforcement deals with, you know, everybody kind of hating them from both sides.

877
01:21:51,240 --> 01:21:58,240
So I think at one time, at least they had the department that was going to be like, hey, man, we got your back.

878
01:21:58,240 --> 01:22:09,240
But in this new wave of culture, especially kind of similar to how you said the thing about, you know, now the perspective on military people kind of see behind all this.

879
01:22:09,240 --> 01:22:15,240
Unfortunately, I think, you know, we're all flooded with everybody wants to watch the worst thing that's out there.

880
01:22:15,240 --> 01:22:21,240
So if there's a video of a police officer doing something that those are the ones that get highlighted.

881
01:22:21,240 --> 01:22:32,240
And so people have this perspective all of a sudden where they're seeing hundreds and hundreds of these types of videos and interactions where they never would have really seen that stuff before.

882
01:22:32,240 --> 01:22:37,240
So it's, you know, it's not that it didn't exist before, but people were not aware of it.

883
01:22:37,240 --> 01:22:47,240
And so now you have both, you know, civilian population and then the department population, you know, just cracking down on police officers.

884
01:22:47,240 --> 01:22:51,240
And so it's there's really no good place for them to turn.

885
01:22:51,240 --> 01:23:08,240
So that's why, you know, Trunks story is the story of a lot of law enforcement officers who felt that, you know, they had to leave that career that maybe they had aspired to retire in just because the risk to them is so great.

886
01:23:08,240 --> 01:23:14,240
The risk to their family is so great, even beyond, you know, they could die doing the job.

887
01:23:14,240 --> 01:23:22,240
It's, you know, if somebody doesn't like what they're doing, they'll destroy that person and their family and their name and, you know, everything about them.

888
01:23:22,240 --> 01:23:33,240
So it's like there's this whole other risk that those guys have to take now that has just never been so present as it is now.

889
01:23:33,240 --> 01:23:44,240
One of the things that's really apparent the last few years is we've just given the minority the microphone over and over again, and they project, oh, this is what our country is like. And it's like, no, that's not.

890
01:23:44,240 --> 01:23:47,240
You know, most people respect law enforcement.

891
01:23:47,240 --> 01:23:56,240
You know, I actually had a guest on Darrell and Monk Jenkins, who was a, he said he didn't elaborate.

892
01:23:56,240 --> 01:24:00,240
He said he was in the Air Force, and then they mutually agreed for him not to be in the Air Force anymore.

893
01:24:00,240 --> 01:24:07,240
So I don't know quite what the reason is for that, but he follows all the neo-Nazi groups around, and he's a black guy.

894
01:24:07,240 --> 01:24:09,240
And so that's kind of his whole world.

895
01:24:09,240 --> 01:24:17,240
And I said overall, because, you know, there's been times in the last eight years where it feels like, you know, there's a lot of fuel thrown on that fire.

896
01:24:17,240 --> 01:24:19,240
You know, where are we actually at today?

897
01:24:19,240 --> 01:24:23,240
And he goes, actually, he said what you're seeing now is a Hail Mary from a lot of those groups.

898
01:24:23,240 --> 01:24:25,240
He said they're dwindling.

899
01:24:25,240 --> 01:24:30,240
But if you listen to certain news stations, apparently every white guy in the whole of America hates everyone.

900
01:24:30,240 --> 01:24:31,240
It doesn't look like him. You know what I mean?

901
01:24:31,240 --> 01:24:35,240
So you've just got to be so careful of who you listen to in that projection.

902
01:24:35,240 --> 01:24:44,240
But I think as we touched on earlier, this is also a great opportunity for us to fix the things that are wrong with each of these professions, including lack of support,

903
01:24:44,240 --> 01:24:52,240
so that we do have young men and women excited to join the military because they know they'll only be sent to somewhere, an absolute last resort.

904
01:24:52,240 --> 01:25:01,240
And the same with police, you know, or fire and police, you know, you're going to be trained at a high level, going to have high fitness standards, defensive tactics, weapons training,

905
01:25:01,240 --> 01:25:03,240
so that you're and you're in pairs now.

906
01:25:03,240 --> 01:25:08,240
So now the chances of you needing to shoot someone have diminished rapidly and fire service,

907
01:25:08,240 --> 01:25:13,240
who give you the rest and recovery and sleep that you need to actually effectively do your job.

908
01:25:13,240 --> 01:25:20,240
So we're at a beautiful point where if you look one way, we can fix a lot of these and get people excited about these professions again.

909
01:25:20,240 --> 01:25:27,240
But we've also exposed that side that if you don't do it, news flash, you might not have a military police or fire anymore.

910
01:25:27,240 --> 01:25:31,240
So this is I think this can be a very exciting time in history, I think.

911
01:25:31,240 --> 01:25:41,240
Yeah, I think we fall prey to news now where it's the effort to be first and it used to be.

912
01:25:41,240 --> 01:25:43,240
It's the effort to be right.

913
01:25:43,240 --> 01:25:46,240
And so people are it's all about getting it out first.

914
01:25:46,240 --> 01:25:50,240
Doesn't matter if it's true or not a lot of times, though, we'll retract it later.

915
01:25:50,240 --> 01:25:54,240
So you have stuff that's what's what's the click bait?

916
01:25:54,240 --> 01:26:02,240
What's the thing that's going to make people so outraged sells when you can make somebody click something like, oh, my God, how could this happen?

917
01:26:02,240 --> 01:26:04,240
Or why are these people doing this?

918
01:26:04,240 --> 01:26:09,240
That's what sells. They don't want to tell you a story of like, oh, hey, this firefighter went in and saved his family.

919
01:26:09,240 --> 01:26:23,240
I feel like you hear that a lot less. But, you know, we do have a responsibility, you know, with the power of, you know, these platforms and the ability to, you know, for someone like us to even distribute a movie.

920
01:26:23,240 --> 01:26:30,240
The technology really just didn't exist if it was back in the 90s or even the early 2000s.

921
01:26:30,240 --> 01:26:41,240
The ability to reach people and do and market marketing the film and actually get it to a distributor where we could actually effectively reach this community.

922
01:26:41,240 --> 01:26:45,240
It just wouldn't have been there. Absolutely.

923
01:26:45,240 --> 01:26:49,240
Well, I got one more area. I just want to hit quickly and then we'll go to some closing questions.

924
01:26:49,240 --> 01:26:58,240
David, this is for you. When I think about everything we've talked about, really, you know, and the future of a nation, no matter what country people are in.

925
01:26:58,240 --> 01:27:10,240
What I realize is if we just point at the fire chief, the county administrator, the president and say you need to fix this, you've just relinquished all responsibility of how your country is.

926
01:27:10,240 --> 01:27:18,240
The answer to that over and over again appears to be mentorship. So first, as they say, you want to change the world, start at home.

927
01:27:18,240 --> 01:27:21,240
You got to make sure that you're a good parent and a good partner, you know, first.

928
01:27:21,240 --> 01:27:28,240
But then to walk outside your front door into your community and go, how can I help?

929
01:27:28,240 --> 01:27:36,240
And what I'm kind of hearing from this story is with Sean, you know, obviously you had this young man aspiring to be in the military and your mentorship sent you guys down this path.

930
01:27:36,240 --> 01:27:40,240
And we're having this conversation now about yet another film coming up.

931
01:27:40,240 --> 01:27:45,240
So just talk to me about mentorship through your eyes.

932
01:27:45,240 --> 01:27:52,240
Well, as the like I said, I have four kids. So like you said, it starts at home.

933
01:27:52,240 --> 01:28:04,240
And I've I have used a lot of the things that I learned in the military about leadership and about how to deal with people.

934
01:28:04,240 --> 01:28:12,240
And I made a lot of mistakes in my early years of leadership because it's, you know, in that area, it's kind of trial by fire and kind of thrown in and slight.

935
01:28:12,240 --> 01:28:16,240
And I figured out and they are like twenty three years old.

936
01:28:16,240 --> 01:28:18,240
It's almost 42 now.

937
01:28:18,240 --> 01:28:24,240
A lot of the lessons that I did learn that were good, I've been able to pass on to my kids.

938
01:28:24,240 --> 01:28:27,240
You know, be good to your friends, be good to your neighbors.

939
01:28:27,240 --> 01:28:29,240
Don't talk shit to your mom.

940
01:28:29,240 --> 01:28:31,240
You know, do your homework.

941
01:28:31,240 --> 01:28:35,240
You know, don't go outside and swear while you're in the street.

942
01:28:35,240 --> 01:28:47,240
Simple little things like that, little pitfalls to like, you know, help them kind of along their way. But, you know, for me, it was Sean, the mentorship factor that was it was purely educational.

943
01:28:47,240 --> 01:28:49,240
And that's how I kind of approach it with my kids, too.

944
01:28:49,240 --> 01:28:56,240
I mean, I wouldn't say I'm probably a conventional parent, but I talk to my kids real.

945
01:28:56,240 --> 01:28:58,240
I tell them what to expect.

946
01:28:58,240 --> 01:29:02,240
I tell them, you know, the world can kick your ass.

947
01:29:02,240 --> 01:29:10,240
So you got to, you know, you got to be prepared to handle that when it does happen, when you do get out on your own, you know, when you go to college.

948
01:29:10,240 --> 01:29:13,240
You're going to run into people that are going to be a problem.

949
01:29:13,240 --> 01:29:17,240
You're going to run into situations that you can't control.

950
01:29:17,240 --> 01:29:20,240
It's how you handle those that is the most important thing.

951
01:29:20,240 --> 01:29:22,240
They're going to happen.

952
01:29:22,240 --> 01:29:24,240
It's a mathematical fucking certainty.

953
01:29:24,240 --> 01:29:26,240
It's going to happen.

954
01:29:26,240 --> 01:29:29,240
I have to prepare you for when those moments happen.

955
01:29:29,240 --> 01:29:32,240
Otherwise, it's going to you're going to fall in your face.

956
01:29:32,240 --> 01:29:35,240
And to me, that starts with honesty.

957
01:29:35,240 --> 01:29:37,240
I don't pull any punches at anybody.

958
01:29:37,240 --> 01:29:40,240
I don't pull punches with Sean. I don't pull punches to my wife.

959
01:29:40,240 --> 01:29:41,240
I don't pull punches with my kids.

960
01:29:41,240 --> 01:29:42,240
Here's the deal.

961
01:29:42,240 --> 01:29:55,240
And to me, making them aware of the potential pitfalls and how to maybe sidestep that, you know, sidestep that landmine, you know, to me, that's mentorship.

962
01:29:55,240 --> 01:30:00,240
You know, trying to just help them not, you know, make some I made this mistake.

963
01:30:00,240 --> 01:30:02,240
Don't make this mistake, too.

964
01:30:02,240 --> 01:30:08,240
You know, and you put yourself out there and, you know, you use yourself as an example of, you know, in certain situations.

965
01:30:08,240 --> 01:30:09,240
Don't do that.

966
01:30:09,240 --> 01:30:11,240
I did this and it didn't work.

967
01:30:11,240 --> 01:30:13,240
Try something else.

968
01:30:13,240 --> 01:30:19,240
And to me, that that that's that's mentorship, leadership, however you want to refer to it as.

969
01:30:19,240 --> 01:30:24,240
But that that's kind of my approach is just honesty.

970
01:30:24,240 --> 01:30:26,240
Sean, same thing to you.

971
01:30:26,240 --> 01:30:30,240
It can be as the recipient or as you've grown older, becoming a mentor as well.

972
01:30:30,240 --> 01:30:39,240
You know, I think as as a recipient of that, especially looking to David, it's like a military mentor.

973
01:30:39,240 --> 01:30:46,240
You know, when that was something I wanted to do, I grew up doing ROTC and so I was like very much in that mindset.

974
01:30:46,240 --> 01:31:00,240
And honestly, you know, I've expressed this to him before at that time when I heard those stories and and had that double pulled back, I was almost upset that like I was almost like you kind of ruined this for me.

975
01:31:00,240 --> 01:31:07,240
And, you know, it's kind of like a boy's like version of looking at war and thinking like this is what it's going to be about.

976
01:31:07,240 --> 01:31:25,240
And then the realization of of what that meant and then to have it truly bolstered by my experience in Haiti and being able to take, you know, understanding the lessons that David had told me in these stories and then seeing it firsthand.

977
01:31:25,240 --> 01:31:37,240
When I got back from that, having seen so much death and destruction, I you know, it didn't it didn't make a lot of sense to me anymore to to go do that. I kind of felt after that.

978
01:31:37,240 --> 01:31:46,240
And after seeing the things I had seen, I was like, you know, I've seen enough I've seen enough for multiple lifetimes over, you know, seen enough people die.

979
01:31:46,240 --> 01:31:49,240
I've seen enough bodies have seen enough blood and guts.

980
01:31:49,240 --> 01:32:02,240
And although it's not a it wasn't a, you know, a military experience or being in a combat zone, the mixture of David's stories and that experience took me down a different path.

981
01:32:02,240 --> 01:32:09,240
And I realized, you know, just how much that experience and those stories affected me.

982
01:32:09,240 --> 01:32:33,240
I knew at that point I was like, this is something that I need to do. And I have, you know, a different skill set that will allow me to do this. And I now have these experiences that helped me even better understand somebody like David, because I have experienced, you know, that trauma firsthand, whether it's, you know, pulling

983
01:32:33,240 --> 01:32:44,240
seals off the side of the mountain or dealing with, you know, victims of an earthquake where, you know, you have mass graves and you have children dying have, you know, family members screaming.

984
01:32:44,240 --> 01:32:53,240
It's like you see that tragedy and chaos and trauma and you see that just how fragile life is.

985
01:32:53,240 --> 01:33:07,240
When I came back from that, that alien feeling of coming back to a regular society where things are are working, it was it's a very weird feeling because, you know, just how quickly all that can be taken away.

986
01:33:07,240 --> 01:33:25,240
So it added this fragility to life and this anxiety to life that at any moment this can all be torn apart and just how grateful we all need to be that we live in a free society. We live in a society where I have running water.

987
01:33:25,240 --> 01:33:33,240
I have a roof over my head. I have police and fire service. I have I have great hospitals and health care.

988
01:33:33,240 --> 01:33:41,240
We take for granted so much these things because we're just so used to them.

989
01:33:41,240 --> 01:34:02,240
And until you see that stuff pulled away and you see it pulled away from so many people and you understand that story, that's where, you know, so as a recipient of that mentorship, it it it definitely helped me grow as a man and as a storyteller and led me to the point where I'm at now.

990
01:34:02,240 --> 01:34:17,240
I think gratitude is an absolute superpower. You know, and sometimes we need to remind ourselves of, you know, if you woke up under a roof wearing clothes and your children got food in their stomach that you already doing better than a large percentage of the planet.

991
01:34:17,240 --> 01:34:22,240
Yeah, oh, absolutely.

992
01:34:22,240 --> 01:34:42,240
It's just a it's an incredible thing and I think it's it's hard for a lot of people to go there and unless you've seen, you know, or experienced something like that, it's it's not something that's going to be easily grasped.

993
01:34:42,240 --> 01:35:04,240
And we hope that, you know, through creating these films that we give a voice to these kind of stories and help people understand this, you know, very different side of the world that so many people never, you know, really see or get a chance to see.

994
01:35:04,240 --> 01:35:13,240
Absolutely. Well, before we go to where people can find all the films, talk to me about June 28th and the special showing that you've got on anniversary.

995
01:35:13,240 --> 01:35:34,240
So, yeah, on June 28th, David's brother, Alex, has actually put together a charity called the Further Faster Harder Foundation. And through that charity, they're doing, I guess, a screening of the Ranger documentary here in Greenville, South Carolina at the Peace Center.

996
01:35:34,240 --> 01:35:53,240
And it's kind of a, you know, it's a way for us to share this film with people and to, you know, raise, you know, you know, money to help veterans and to help, you know, this charity of basically giving, you know, veterans, you know, a voice.

997
01:35:53,240 --> 01:36:01,240
June 28th will be the 19 year anniversary of Operation Red Wings Recovery.

998
01:36:01,240 --> 01:36:19,240
So we wanted to try and honor those guys and keep that story alive. And so, you know, we put this, you know, screening together of Ranger. It will be the first public screening outside of the film festivals that we've done.

999
01:36:19,240 --> 01:36:36,240
So we hope to get, you know, as many people as we can there, you know, we've got tickets reserved for veterans. So we want to try and help get some veterans in there for free. But, you know, we just want to try and spread this story to as many people as possible.

1000
01:36:36,240 --> 01:36:43,240
So where can people find the films and then where the best places online social media to find you as well?

1001
01:36:43,240 --> 01:37:01,240
Okay, so online for the both of us, it's at Ranger movie. You know, if there's somebody who wants to send David a message, that's, you know, we're both through that portal there. Online, you can find Ranger and Wynn on Amazon.

1002
01:37:01,240 --> 01:37:16,240
There's also links in our Instagram for both films and for tickets for the Ranger premiere here in Greenville. So everything on Amazon and Instagram there, they can find through a Ranger movie.

1003
01:37:16,240 --> 01:37:28,240
Beautiful. Well, David and Sean, I want to say thank you so much. I mean, obviously two very different dynamics, two interesting life stories, but a pretty phenomenal kind of synergy when you guys ended up neighbors.

1004
01:37:28,240 --> 01:37:38,240
I want to thank you so much for being so generous with your time and also for your courageous vulnerability, which is so important and coming on the Behind the Shield podcast today.

1005
01:37:38,240 --> 01:37:49,240
Thank you so much for having us on. It was truly a pleasure and we look forward to seeing it when it comes out. Watching and listening to it. Hopefully we didn't sound too stupid.

1006
01:37:49,240 --> 01:37:59,240
No, thank you, James. We really appreciate it, man. And it's been great talking with you. And, you know, thank you and thank everybody who has supported this film.

1007
01:37:59,240 --> 01:38:20,240
It means the world to us.