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.com. We want to welcome to Veterans Radio today
David W. Brown, a Navy SEAL in the 1980s. We're
going to talk about his life though because I
think there's a whole lot of life lessons in
there and we love giving pearls of wisdom to
our veteran radio listeners. David, welcome to
Veterans Radio. Thank you for having me. Really
excited to be here. Well, the book is titled
Anne Goliath. You get the inside joke on this
when you realize his first name is David, and
he's not the biggest, roughest, toughest guy
you've ever met. So it's a David and Goliath
story. and it's the subtitled, The Littlest Navy
Seals Inspirational Story About Living Your Biggest
Life. It's really a good read, and David, you
were, you know, from the get -go, your mom and
dad, your genetics, you were never gonna be a
big guy, were you? No, I started off small and
stayed small and you know what, in the end, it's
okay with me. Absolutely, it's all about a mindset
and it's really about, your book is not the typical
how to become a Navy SEAL book or how to do leadership.
It's really about talking about that kind of
human condition. and being able to be resilient
and getting through things and being persistent
and having determination. But those were skills,
whether they were inbred, genetic, was it nature
or nurture. Talk to us about your early years
of being the littlest guy in every class. I didn't
know that I was going to be the littlest person
going into even kindergarten or grade school.
It just happened that way and as I came started
getting older, you know, and I advanced into
the grades, the typical thing happens and when
you're the smallest person in the class you get
picked on and I was picked on and one of the
very important moments in my life was when I
ran home to my mom and I was crying and and I
said you know the kids picking on me what do
I do and she was a a fiery Irish redheaded woman
and she picked me up on her knee and sat me down
and said nobody's gonna pick on my little boy
and she made me make a fist and and punch her
hand and punch that she said now you you punch
this is how you punch you do this and she did
i did it several times so i was like laughing
i'm like yes yes yes i'm gonna i'm gonna stick
up for myself and you know you go and you stick
up for yourself you know you if somebody picks
on you punch them right in the kisser and um
so i went to school and as you can imagine i
got in a fight with the kid that always picked
on me and we you know we're third grade so it's
not this is push and shove and punch this then
then and then nobody really won the fight and
we ended up becoming friends later on but it
was a big it was a big influence for me and my
mother helped me bring that confidence out that
I could stick up for myself. It's not like I
wanted to go out and get into a fight but that
certainly things worth having were worth fighting
for and That was the beginning if you will of
how I was started building my confidence as even
as a young as a child Yeah, you really at some
point needs there's a couple of pearls of wisdom
here what one is You need somebody who's got
your back right in your instance. It was mom
mom said it's okay to Let me show you how to
throw a punch and if you're getting bullied Fight
back. So it's important to have somebody in your
corner and knowing when the second pearl of wisdom
here is standing up for yourself, knowing when
you've got to be the one, right? I mean, nobody
else is going to come to your rescue. You got
to find it within yourself. Yeah, absolutely.
that's the key. I think finding it within yourself,
knowing that it's there and having a circumstance
to bring that out is really important. That's
where the nurture part of the nature and nurture
comes in. You know, we all have abilities and
skills that are inherent to us that we got from
our ancestors. Your mother, your father, and
all your ancestors bring all these things, qualities
to you and you just have to get out there and
live life so you can experience and how to focus
on those things and be a better person. Let me
put some more context around this. You grew up
in what I would call coal country in Wilkboro,
Pennsylvania. Your parents, as I say, were short
in stature. You topped out at five foot three
inches. were 110 pounds when you went into the
Navy. But along the way, before you got there,
you had these experiences that both from your
parents, maybe grandparents, that sort of started
to shape your life. And there's an analogy that
you use about sheepdog that I hadn't heard before
that I thought was really helpful to frame this.
Tell us a little bit about that. And that came
from a some research I was doing about why why
am I the protector? Why did I go into law enforcement?
Why did I go into the military? And during my
research I found came across a book called On
Combat from Colonel Grossman and in it he explains
how certain personalities exist in in our society,
and one of them being a sheepdog. And the sheepdog
is the protector. Now, the sheep don't particularly
like the sheepdog sometimes, but you know what?
They're willing to live with the sheepdog because
they know the sheepdog can be there to help them
if the wolf, and that's the other factor in society.
You have the wolves that are going to prey on
the sheep. So when you talk about the sheepdog
personality of mine, that's where that analogy
comes from is from Colonel Grossman and it's
a great story and I agree as soon as I read it
I was like this is spot -on because even today
now that you know I've had a career in law enforcement
I'm known even though I'm retired I'm known as
the unofficial sheriff of my neighborhood because
I'm the one who goes to the City Council and
if there's some something a safety issue I'm
I petition for it and I rally my neighbors and
it's just part of who I am. Now also to put context
into this, I believe you were one of five kids.
You somehow convinced yourself you could fly
and you tried jumping off a few things until
you proved to yourself this is a bad idea. But
you also got yourself scuba qualified at eight
years old. You had a lot of confidence in some
of these areas and in some regards, I think you
are telling us confidence trumps maybe IQ. as
you mentioned, I tried to jump off a wall with
cardboard wings, thinking I would fly because
I had dreams about flying and I quickly found
out that you cannot fly with cardboard wings.
So confidence is great, but it needs to be coupled
with common sense. As a child, I pushed, let's
just put it this way, when I saw things that
were dangerous, that was a moderator for me.
So I was often in the hospital getting stitches,
sprain, bumps, bruises, and that's just, again,
is another personality trait. One of those personality
traits that I think you inherited or got from
somewhere is you were really adverse to quitting
anything. You know, jump off the roof once, it
didn't work, okay, I'm making a different set
of wings, let me try it again. You weren't a
quitter in any shape or form, were you? It happened
once, and if you recall, it was the football
story. I decided at 80 pounds, I was gonna try
out for the football team in junior high school,
and 80 pound kid. playing football against 100
200 pound kids didn't go well for me and I quit
the team and it was it was absolutely devastating
for me. It took it took over a year really to
get over the fact that I was a quitter and that
had such a influence on me going forward that
I swore to myself I was never going to quit anything
again and and I haven't I simply have not if
I take on a task and even if it's difficult and
I don't do well I learn you know I learn from
my experiences and I go forward I don't look
at it as a failure and if you can never fail
in your life if you look at every single experience
as a learning opportunity so that's an old you
know it's not getting knocked down isn't the
failure the failure is failing to get back up
So as long, and you were very persistent and
determined to always get back up. 100%, spot
on. And you write about success, failures, and
focus. And I think this is, you know, the first
part of this book is so important for anybody
maybe to give to, as I said, their grandkids,
their nieces and nephews, their own kids about
Look, you may feel like you're too small, you're
scrawny, you're bullied, you're an outsider,
but your story's really about overcoming all
that, even when people told you, you're too small,
you're too weak, you're a poor runner, you'll
never make it in the Navy, you'll never make
it in the SEALs. Talk to us a little bit about
the mountain you faced as you climbed up it,
ultimately, to graduate BUDs and become a Navy
SEAL. Oh, you're absolutely right. My whole life
leading up to before I went into the Navy, I
was always told you're too small for this, you're
too small for that. You don't get picked in grade
school for the teams. And then when I was finally
get to the point where I'm trying to decide what
I'm going to do with my life in high school,
and I went to the Navy recruiter and found out
that there was the thing called UDT underwater
demolition team and SEAL teams and I'd never
heard of it before but It was in a book that
he gave me job descriptions for the Navy. And
so I read that and I said, well, this is this
is it. I have to do this. And, you know, I was
really into Jacques Cousteau. I was into James
Bond and Speed Racer and all those shows back
in the day. And, you know, I read this and I
said, wow, I'm going to be Jacques Cousteau and
a machine gun. I'm this is everything I want
to do in life. And I went to the recruiter said,
this is it. I'm going to be a UDT seal. And he
just looked at me and he had a kind wrinkle forehead
and he said no no you're not no these are UDT
seals are big strong guys you are not and you
are not gonna make it you need to pick something
you can really do now now he was talking to a
guy who had been told he's too small to do this
his entire life so I went but I I respected his
opinion. I went home. I read everything else
in the book. I came back within the next couple
days and I said no this is what I'm going to
do and that's it. Sign me up. It's not that easy
is it though? For me to make the decision was
easy to go forward with it. Of course not. I
was terrified. Here's the funny thing or the
interesting thing about why people don't do things
is because they're afraid of the unknown and
they're afraid of failure. And of course I was,
I was afraid of the unknown and I've never been
out of Pennsylvania. I didn't know anything about
anything at 17 years old, joined in the Navy.
And then I picked probably the hardest job in
the Navy to do, physically at least. And I was
afraid, but that's... That's life. Everything
is a challenge and especially the things that
you don't know that you can accomplish is even
more of a challenge. But that shouldn't stop
you. You have a phrase in here which I wrote
down and I want you to expand on a little bit
about the loss, the battle within the prison
of the mind. It's an interesting concept because
it goes back to what you just said about Being
afraid to try something because I already figured
I've already convinced myself. I can't do that,
right Yes Absolutely, and that's that's the that's
the first hurdle to the as you The first step
on the yellow brick road, right? You can't go
get to anywhere if you don't get that out of
that to get over the challenge in your own mind
that there's a possibility that you could succeed
and there's plenty of examples I use but for
me when I was for instance in going through SEAL
training my biggest challenge was running I was
a very slow runner my inseam is 28 you know so
you got a step twice as much to get to the tall
guy at 6 '2 Exactly I'm practically in a sprint
the whole time when they're jogging and so I
fell behind often and often and they did all
kinds of it's called the goon squad they made
me do all these crazy exercises and all the guys
that fell behind were in the goon squad until
finally I was on a run and I felt was falling
behind again and and this was the do -or -die
situation for me in SEAL training is I was either
going to catch up and be the person that I needed
to be in order to succeed or I was going to quit
and I was going to fail and as I mentioned that
is not in my vocabulary even then and so I had
this I want to say it is outer body experience
where I just couldn't even feel my body anymore
I convinced myself I was going to physically
be able to catch up with them and I did and I
caught up with the group and So we go back to
what you just mentioned. How do you unlock the
limitations in your own mind that you can't do
something? And when you're faced with something
like a life or death situation that I felt I
was in, that's when the true colors come out.
The other thing buried in that story is having,
and mentor may be too strong a word, but having
somebody again who has faith in you, who can
tell you tricks of the trade, which is one of
the things you got about how to run in sand,
and I really thought like, there's somebody who's
trying to help you, even though they're a pretty
rough exterior, talk a little bit about how that
helped keep you moving through the process. I
was very lucky to have a mentor when I checked
into SEAL training. And he was another guy, short
guy, about five, six. His name was Senior Chief
Cassini, Filipino. And he took me aside from
the very first day and said, you know, Dave.
Brown, this is how you're going to have to, what
you're going to have to do in order to make it
through training. And as I said, I didn't know
anything about SEAL training. And so he was there
to show me how to do the exercises, how to run
in soft sand. And he actually took me out and
he worked with me for a few weeks. checked into
training a couple weeks early so I had a little
bit of time for him to show me how to do things
because as you mentioned there are nuances to
everything that can make it easier in a way that
you can get through if he wasn't there to show
me all the little nuances like you said like
running in soft sand step in the step in the
marks of the person in front of you run in the
first run in the person's footsteps What that
did, I mean, physically, it may be lengthening
my stride, right? So number one, that helped.
But mentally, when you're running in the footprints
of the person that's making it and succeeding,
that actually is that momentum is pulling you
forward and instead of you pushing yourself.
Well, and I think that again that's one of when
you read this book, it's really about the human
condition The book is titled and Goliath by David
Brown It it focuses you on some you know sort
of basic rules of life and one is don't be afraid
to take a little help and There's always a nuance.
There's always the people before you have always
learned a way to get through it You know glean
some information to them and your journey will
be a little easier won't it? Absolutely and you're
very lucky if you can have that type of mentor
and I tried to be that person throughout the
rest of my career helping the people that I hired
and as special agents and investigators and I
always told everyone even the first day I was
hired them I'd bring them in my office and say
look I hired you because I feel you have the
ability to replace me and that's my job is to
make you good enough to be able to take my job.
You have a couple of other phrases in here that
that I wrote down because I think they help everybody
understand things. One was bad never lasts forever.
And that's important to link back up to the prisoner
of the mind, right? The games that's going on
inside your own brain, like, I'll never get through
this, it's horrible, this is a bad situation,
but it doesn't last forever, does it? No, it
doesn't. And in training, budge training, the
way you get through six months of hell is you
break it down into what we called evolutions.
And there were many evolutions in in the day,
some worse than others, but we always knew mentally
that that particular evolution was going to end,
no matter how cold it was, no matter how hot,
nasty, wet, that when the clock reached noon
or whatever, one, two o 'clock, when that time
ended, the bad was going to be over. survive
that evolution and then then you went on to the
next evolution and then the next one but if you
put them all together it was this giant ball
of of of drama that you could never get out from
underneath knowing that you were going to have
to survive six months of what you were enduring
at that moment you had to know that it was going
to end and just endure the moment don't get too
far ahead of yourself And again, this is one
of these life lessons on the human condition.
Right now may not be great, but don't let your
mind spin out so far out you can't get through
it. You've got to get through the evolution as
you talk about sucking up and get through the
evolution. Now, we're going to run out of time
and this always happens to me because I really
enjoyed this book and all the little wisdom in
it. But you were in the SEALs. You were in the
Navy for, I think, about seven, eight years.
You then went into law enforcement. You were
a special agent with the National Criminal Investigative
Services, NCIS. I'm sure you must have been Mark
Harmon's inspiration for the popular TV show.
If you could have only got the royalties right.
You then left NCIS and took a leadership position
at the Environmental Protection Agency's Criminal
Investigative Division, or CID. So from a scrawny
little kid in Pennsylvania, this isn't a life
you could have ever imagined, was it? No, not
at all. When I got out of the Navy, I remember
saying if I could just make $30 ,000 a year I
would be set and I could retire. Now it won't
buy a car. I said to myself I'm gonna get my
college degree when I was in the Navy and I did
I went to night school and I got my degree and
I was gonna get out of the Navy and wear a suit
and carry a gun was what I used to say and so
I did that I went out and With the same fervor
as going to become a Navy SEAL, I attacked being
a special agent, and I think I did really well.
In the end, I advanced through the ranks from,
in the government terms, GS -7 pay grade all
the way to where I retired as a senior executive.
And part of this is I want to get across to people
and you'll David's very candid in the book. There's
a lot of heartbreak along the way, both personal,
marriage -wise, and all of that's in all of our
lives, but some of the things you earned early
on in your life, pre -Navy, during the sealed
time, I suspect those lessons helped you get
through the hard times in the rest of life. Absolutely.
There are physical challenge and then there are
personal challenges and mental challenges and
I don't know which is more difficult as I mentioned
at you know certainly the beginning of the book
there's a death and I say something to the effect
that nothing I had experienced in the Navy or
in budge training or as a special agent prepared
me to deal with the death. And that was hard.
It was hard. And it really took me to go back
and remember the situations that I had faced,
the difficult ones, and said, well, if I can
get through that, I can get through this. As
we mentioned, it's another evolution. It's not
the most pleasant, but it's just another evolution
in life. Well, David Brown, you've had a great
career path. I think it's inspirational The story
and Goliath is available from all Booksellers
online and elsewhere and I really think it's
useful a useful read for those who may be struggling
or have family members or friends who are struggling
with sort of all the outside negativity they
get about you can't do this, you can't do that,
you do this, you do that. There's a lot of wisdom
in here, and I think you did a great job of bringing
that forward in. And Goliath, which is a, oh,
I had it here somewhere. Double Dagger is the
publisher, I believe. Yes. Well, thank you for
spending some time with Veterans Radio today,
David, and wish you nothing but best of luck
on the book and in the future. Thank you for
having me and shout out to all the veterans,
all the great job you do out there. It's a safer
world because of you. And I want to thank everybody
for listening to Veterans Radio today. I am Jim
Fossone. It's been a pleasure to be your host.
I'm a Veterans Disability Lawyer at Legal Help
for Veterans and you can reach us at 800 -693
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