The Raid, The Record, and The Lawsuit | Rob O'Neill | EP 429

Summary

Cleared Hot Podcast, Ep. 429

“The Raid, The Record, and The Lawsuit | Rob O’Neill”

Host: Andy Stumpf
Guest: Rob O’Neill (former Navy SEAL, participant in the Bin Laden raid)
Date: January 26, 2026

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Episode Overview

This exceptionally candid episode features Rob O’Neill, the SEAL who became publicly known for his role in Operation Neptune Spear—the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. O’Neill sits down with Andy Stumpf for a densely-packed, unfiltered conversation exploring skydiving mishaps, the culture of Navy SEALs and special operations, the truth about the Bin Laden raid, and Rob’s ongoing defamation lawsuit. The episode includes exclusive revelations, self-reflection about military culture, and vitally, a detailed account of what happened on the third deck of Bin Laden’s compound—most of which O’Neill claims to have never shared publicly until now.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Record Straight: First Encounters & Parachuting (00:10–19:00)

• Andy and Rob recall their intertwined histories, including Andy being Rob’s first tandem jump instructor. They deep-dive into skydiving experiences, training mishaps, and the culture of instruction in elite units.
• Memorable mishaps: Tales of near-fatal parachute malfunctions and the brotherhood’s dark humor.
  • Notable Quote:
    “We were going down fast... I filled my socks... I look up to the end cells had blown out... ‘I got bad news. This parachute’s broken.’” – Rob O’Neill (09:10)
• Details on how tactical parachuting shaped SEAL preparation for special missions, including pre-raid assumptions about how they might have to catch Bin Laden in a cave or under fire, and iterative development of high-mountain operational tactics.

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2. Military Origin Stories, Swimming Struggles, and Selection (24:00–40:00)

• Rob details enlisting from Butte, Montana, his accidental route to BUD/S (SEAL training) with zero swimming ability, and learning the ropes the hard way.
  • “I didn’t know how to swim... I figured, he’s a professional recruiter—why is he gonna lie to me? And I signed. I didn’t know how to swim.” (25:29)
• Both discuss the surprisingly low physical standards to enter BUD/S and the phenomenon of rapid voluntary attrition.
  • “The first PT, within hours, you will have your first quitter in every class... 20 people quit the first day.” – Andy (30:21)

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3. SEAL Culture, Life, and Animal Preferences (41:00–58:00)

• Dark humor and camaraderie in special operations, tales of mishaps, and pet preferences (shepherd vs. malinois vs. dachshund).
• Discussion on the value of trusting skill, risk mitigation, and why robust experience is essential before taking on the highest-risk roles.
  • “Tandem is awesome, but that is not a junior varsity evolution.” – Andy (16:00)

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4. The Lawsuit: Anti-Hero Podcast Controversy (41:19–54:00, 1:19:29; resumes 2:02:52)

• Rob elaborates on his $25 million defamation lawsuit against the Anti-Hero Podcast (Brent Tucker and company), who have accused O’Neill and others of being frauds for years, damaging reputations and family life.
  • “They’ve been making a living off calling out veterans... and whether this Tucker guy likes it or not, he will be known as the guy who made money off trying to ruin veterans’ lives.” (41:55)
• Andy probes: Is it ever right for veterans to call out other vets? Both explore the difference between healthy accountability versus public shaming.
• The lawsuit’s personal toll: Rob’s daughters harassed online, persistent claims of fraud, and his insistence this is about damaging lies, not who killed Bin Laden.

“I’m not a fraud… If there’s a problem with the room and you’re at Delta, give me a shout… 16-year-old kids who are thinking about joining the Navy and now aren’t because I don’t want to put up with this… We—I mean, this conversation should be had.” – Rob O’Neill (92:38)

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5. Revelations: The Bin Laden Raid and the After-Action Cover-up (1:07:14–1:33:00, with intermittent returns)

The Account

• Planning and Entry:
  Rob describes the chaos, the plan going awry, and how the team adapted after a crashed helicopter.

• Stacking for the Assault:
  He details movement through the compound, the precision and nonverbal communication, and the moment his team encountered Bin Laden.

• The Room, The Kill, and the Aftermath:
  Exclusive admission: Rob reveals details not previously admitted in public accounts or his book.

  • The first man up the final stairs (“the point man”) shot at Bin Laden but possibly missed or only wounded him. Rob followed, fired, and saw Bin Laden’s tongue come out. He admits that multiple SEALs entered almost simultaneously and that at least one fired more rounds into Bin Laden’s body point-blank after his death.
  • On the debrief:
    “If that happens in front of you… are you going to debrief that?... Guys come in there blasting Bin Laden, one guy shoots him in the face in front of me. I’m not telling that story. We need to make this work... This is a bad, this is a bad situation now.” (77:52)
  • On After-Action Reports:
    Rob acknowledges that the official debrief omitted these unflattering facts; the team offered “top cover” for each other and created a “clean” story, believing their bond would last forever. He now regrets this.

• Why Come Forward Now?

  • Rob explains that persistent public attacks and the effect on his family compelled him to finally tell the unvarnished version.
  • “What changed your mind about talking? Constantly getting harassed. My daughters not losing sleep…” (92:38)

The Cultural Critique

• Both reflect on the broader impact of truth, legacy, and public trust, suggesting the military and public would ultimately be better off with honest accounting, despite the impulse to protect teammates.

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6. The Medal of Honor and Recognition (1:25:38–1:26:00)

• Rob advocates for the point man on the Bin Laden raid to receive the Medal of Honor for his actions entering the suspected suicide-bomber room, drawing comparisons to Michael Monsoor and the decisionmaking under fire.

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7. Transitions, Trauma, and Healing (2:04:10–2:15:00)

• Rob opens up about struggles with alcoholism post-military and how psychedelic therapy (Ibogaine, 5-MeO DMT) provided a profound shift for him.
  • “The way I describe it is I would get demonic... It wasn’t a bad drinker, it was a strict great evil that came out of me... Ibogaine did it.” (124:16)
• Both advocate for alternative, holistic transitions for veterans, rather than hasty, bureaucratic tap programs.

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8. Reflections: The SEAL Brotherhood, Professional Jealousy, and Legacy (1:41:48–2:01:00)

• Discussion of post-raid animosity and professional jealousy in Red Squadron and the larger SEAL community.
• The strange duality of being “heroic” and a pariah, and how professional resentment and rumor-mongering shape the public narrative.

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9. Closing Reflections: Life After War & Future Plans (2:33:37–End)

• Rob concludes with desires to focus on family, his new speaking agency ("Operator’s Collective"), and finding a deeper sense of peace.
  • “I want to hang out with my kids as much as I can... That’s all that matters.” (153:37)
• Both discuss the enduring cost of their service: lost time with children, the brotherhood’s limits, team unity and betrayal, and paths forward for healing.

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Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

• On being a “fraud”:
  “53 awards, 16 years in Navy SEAL, never took shore duty, was involved with all kinds of combat operations, I’m not a fraud.” – Rob O’Neill (92:38)

• On omission in debrief:
  “We gave him top cover. There was no question when we were all standing around Bin Laden’s body... The guy that cleared the garden there. There was no question. And then we recorded a debrief like we do 100% of the time.” (82:30)

• On public reaction:
  “The American people want to believe that it wouldn’t [happen]... Because they want to believe that people at the level that you were asked—well, they've never heard the debrief. Why does it matter?” – Andy & Rob (100:07)

• On military jealousy:
  “Why do you think it came apart? ...It’s got to be some sort of professional jealousy.” – Rob O’Neill (111:22)

• On healing and psychedelics:
  “The ibogaine did it because the ibogaine goes into, opens your mind to a point that you're seeing stuff that you suppress.” (126:18)

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Structural Timeline / Important Segments

• 00:10–20:00 — Skydiving, tandem mishaps, SEAL qualification tales
• 20:00–40:00 — Early SEAL selection, swimming, attrition
• 41:00–1:00:00 — Lawsuit overview, military culture, gun debates
• 1:07:14–1:33:00 — Bin Laden Raid narrative and revelation
• 1:33:00–1:47:00 — After-action, cover story, and team dynamics
• 1:47:00–2:13:00 — Transition, therapy, Ibogaine
• 2:13:00–End — Brotherhood, legacy, family, closing remarks

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Final Notes

The episode is a blisteringly honest account of military life at its most elite—and most human. Rob O’Neill offers a detailed, sometimes searing look at the reality behind the world’s most famous special operation and the unintended consequences for those involved. It is required listening for anyone interested in the intersection of history, war, brotherhood, and personal truth.

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For Follow-Up

• Operator’s Collective / Rob O’Neill’s speaking agency: For more info or booking.
• Andy’s show notes: [Cleared Hot Podcast official website/socials]
• Episode relevance: Particularly vital for those interested in special operations leadership, veteran well-being, and the real costs of fame in the military age.

Transcript

[Rob O'Neill]

Okay, I got the red smoke. Sun runs north and south west of the smoke. West of the smoke.

[Brent Gleeson]

Okay, copy.

[Rob O'Neill]

West of the smoke.

[Brent Gleeson]

I'm looking at danger close now.

[Rob O'Neill]

Give it to me.

[Brent Gleeson]

I mean, it cleared hot. Dude, we have to start with. I have to correct the record. Anytime anybody has ever asked me whether or not you and I have crossed paths.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yes, we have.

[Brent Gleeson]

I apologize for not remembering that I took you for your first tandem.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah. See, because I was talking to Lauren Manley, our mutual friend.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

And she said. Yeah. I was talking to Andy, and he said, you never met. I'm like, we met, and those are a blur. It was my first tandem, so the way that it works, as you know, you go to the tandem course, you need to get jumped as a passenger.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

And the way the course. And by the way, the squadron went to Norway on post appointment leave. I said, I'm gonna go get my tandem call, which is not as good of a deal. So. Yeah. So, like, incredible. I loved it. But, yeah. So to get introduced, you were my. You were the guest instructor. You were my first tandem guy. And I remember thinking, because I knew you had a lot of different styles of jumps, a lot of BASE jumping, a lot of canopy work.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

And so I Honestly, as. I mean, I'm. I'm Pre Team Leader, SEAL Team 6, but I'm like, I don't want to do the. The passenger. But I felt good. You were there.

[Brent Gleeson]

Nobody wants to be in the baby B.

[Rob O'Neill]

But no, it's not. I'm gonna learn the canopy. But, like, just going out, it's like.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

I think it's to put your thumbs in here. I believe you said do the Terry Schiavo as a passenger.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. The Stephen Hawking. Yeah. Depending on the audience.

[Rob O'Neill]

But then even when we pull, then you were. I mean, you're explaining it. I know how canopy works, but it's like, this is just not. Not good.

[Brent Gleeson]

And then.

[Rob O'Neill]

And you hit the. You hit the center.

[Brent Gleeson]

It's. Yeah. Those courses were some of the most fun I ever had instructing or just going through instructing AFF or teaching the students, like, in selection who had. Weren't free fall qualified at the time when they were coming through. That. That is exciting. You either trust your skill as a jumper or you don't, because you got to let go of the student. And it can get. It can get western.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah. I've had. I was an AFF instructor, and the first time I had someone a lot faster than me. Like, you got to catch them.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

And this isn't the wind tunnel.

[Brent Gleeson]

No. And you're on the ramp. And usually you're like, hey, in the course. Why did you guys talk about having an instructor on each side? And now it's just me out here with my lonesome. And I actually, I finally got to the point where I would have them dive out and I would poise out in front. I would just hold onto their chest strap so I would let them do their first jump. Unhelp.

[Rob O'Neill]

Oh, really? But you got.

[Brent Gleeson]

I would just. Because I don't want to get head shook at the. Because I used to do that to people. Ready, set. Just kidding. As they go.

[Rob O'Neill]

Ha. Oh, shit. Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

So I would hook their chest strap with my finger and just pull until I knew they were coming and then poise out. But you. It takes a while to get to that point where you're like, listen.

[Rob O'Neill]

Because they're going to see that exit.

[Brent Gleeson]

Oh, it's glorious, though. I mean, that's what GoPros are for. Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah. I was. The first time I did a skydive was in. I went through the Yuma course. We didn't have it in the pipeline. Okay. And I remember I wasn't really paying attention. I mean, paying attention. But the one that was more important than I realized is they said if I'm flying at you and my tongue is out, it means you're backsliding.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

And my first job, I thought it was awesome. I'm just like, oh, this is sweet. He's excited. His tongue's out. I'm like thousand miles an hour backwards.

[Brent Gleeson]

The most common mistake.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah. Cuz you don't. You don't feel like you want to kick the wind. Yeah, I guess. Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

I. I enjoyed doing the tandem course. I would say the tandem course leveled up my jumping ability probably more than anything. If you can jump a person with equipment, a rucksack of any size becomes absolutely laughable.

[Rob O'Neill]

So I think the tandem course is awesome. And the Deland course was great as far as canopy skills. Yeah. Because I think we did so many hey hos because, well, the bin laundry was going to be a hey. Everybody knew that.

[Brent Gleeson]

Really?

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

I did not know that.

[Rob O'Neill]

Oh, yeah. It was definitely going to be a hey ho.

[Brent Gleeson]

Were. How were they going to get you into Pakistan or were they going to try?

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, no, no.

[Brent Gleeson]

Before.

[Rob O'Neill]

Before we knew where he was, before we knew. We assumed it was going to be a cave jump because they didn't tell.

[Brent Gleeson]

Us a cave jump.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, we were. Did you jump in Marana on like the Nixon Runway and.

[Brent Gleeson]

Oh, yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah, because there's going to be on like that's why we transitioning to the put the gun underneath the attack board because we're going to be shooting under canopy, Jason Bourne style. We were, we were prepping for that.

[Brent Gleeson]

I think I've seen a movie that opens.

[Rob O'Neill]

It was never going to happen, but that was like the only way we're going to find bin Laden. We didn't know he was in a bottom bed. So we did a lot of jumping. We had dudes jumping painter poles and the little giant. I remember giving a JNPI to dudes. Dan Corbett, Dirty Dan Corbett, who's fearless. Team guy, red team guy. Like 10 months in a Serbian prison, that dude.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

I remember he had the wall locker on him and I was giving him a JPI for a night jump and I'm like, look, I know that your saddle's on and I can see your chest straps sort of going through stuff.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

I can't confirm this parachute's going to even come off your back.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

But he's going to jump and he did.

[Brent Gleeson]

That's one of the coolest things I think about Development group.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yes.

[Brent Gleeson]

Is the developing of the TTPS. We, way back in, what was it, 2002, a small group of us started testing the TTPS for high mountain stuff because we were looking at putting in. It wasn't for anything Bin Laden raided. We were just looking at trying to figure out ways to get in security forces to try to catch or stop squirters from going off target on things that were really hard to get. So we were looking at putting in just a security force and we went up there and we ended up putting guys on tandem systems that weren't tandem qualified. Like full on. Getting wavered from the CEO. Like, this is what we want to do. We want to set the drogue for non tandem jumpers so they have bigger canopies.

[Rob O'Neill]

That makes sense.

[Brent Gleeson]

It made sense. I don't know if the jumper is strapping on a tandem system for the first time without being qualified.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah, I mean, you give them a, you give them a rough go though, like, hey, here, by the way, here. Oh.

[Brent Gleeson]

I mean, we talked about some stuff.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah. This is like the same thing, but then you got to do some other shit.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, it's. At that time I was already a tandem master. So I'm sitting there like, how hard can this be? But then you're looking in the eyes of some of your friends.

[Rob O'Neill]

You're like, not everybody, not everybody's excited about jumping. No, I was. I loved it. I'm not as good as you are. I didn't do the base jumping. I would have liked to. I got, I got into, we went to, we went to Miranda quite a bit. You want to hear a good tandem terminal story?

[Brent Gleeson]

I have one for you when you're done. Because I had to jump.

[Rob O'Neill]

Big Mike Coletta.

[Brent Gleeson]

That is a large.

[Rob O'Neill]

Big and. And today's episode is brought to you.

[Brent Gleeson]

By Montana Knife Company. Yes. Right. You know who these people are. They're in Montana. They make knives. They're a company. What else need I say about this brand? Founded by Josh Smith, the youngest master bladesmith in the history of bladesmiths. Competed twice on Forged in Fire. I will say his blade chip twice. He really didn't follow my advice when it come to heat cycling, which, you know, you go hot to cold, it's how you make a blade stronger. Very simple things. I'm sure he regrets not listening to my advice. It's not a big deal though. What he's building down in Missoula is unbelievable. I was just down there picking up a bunch of knives that I'm going to be giving to each one of the guests that come in studio.

[Rob O'Neill]

Why?

[Brent Gleeson]

Because they're freaking fantastic. They. It's, it's amazing to see his facility. Everything from, from the steel that's going to be coming in and how they are heat treated into sharpened. Put together the CNC machines, the lasers, it's. I don't have the words to describe it. And then also what does he have out front? A black rifle coffee shop as well. So he is absolutely killing it. What I'll say is this. The knives can be a little bit hard to get a hold of because it's tough to manage the demand for them. It is immense. Head over to montanaknifecompany.com though. And looking at it right now, there is a good amount of knives that are in stock. They're not always there. The best thing I can suggest for you is to sign up for their email and their test text notification lists. They drop blades on Thursdays and Saturdays. Those go pretty quick. But you can always go to the website. The blades they do have in stock are going to be there. And don't sleep on their apparel as well. I will say this. In about two weeks, one of their jackets is going to be coming out. I may or may not have absconded with one in the helicopter. Holy cow. Unbelievable. Be on the lookout for that in the future. Montanaknifecompany.com Back to the show.

[Rob O'Neill]

We decided instead of. I think it's. You're going to set drogue at 7:5 to slow down to 5.

[Brent Gleeson]

5.

[Rob O'Neill]

I was big at the time too. I was pushing 30. He's about 270 maybe.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. Oh, damn. You're close to max weight of that.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah. And. And I said so just for people who are listening, you. You set a drug when you jump tandem to slow down to the other people's terminal velocity, whatever the. When they're flying on their bellies.

[Brent Gleeson]

Y.

[Rob O'Neill]

But you got to know because you do throw it. And then you look, you're gonna know what it feels like to not have a drogue set. But you want to know. You know what it feels like. So you do. Tanner. You know the. I'm just.

[Brent Gleeson]

And it's like, that's how you know. Because your face is smeared because you're reentering orbit.

[Rob O'Neill]

We had Steve Curtis jump with us.

[Brent Gleeson]

I know Steve, and he can jump on.

[Rob O'Neill]

He's pretty good on his head. Yeah. So when we jumped, it looked. The way I describe it is it looked like Clark Griswold when he greased the bottom of his thing. It's just fire. We were going down fast. And I know Steve had a tough time keeping up with us vertically. Trying to. Yes, trying to. Me and Mike, we're just hauling ass like it's going. And I told Mike earlier, I'm going to set the drogue at 75 or. Sorry. At. At where we at a five. Yep. Slow down to five. Five and pull. And I. I put the thing out. We slowed down. I. I set or pulled out the canopy and it was a complete bottom skin opening. I packed it up and when we opened, he slipped some discs in his neck. And I. My pants to the point of it wasn't a shart. I filled my socks and now we're. Whatever. I look up to the end cells had blown out like they were flapping. And I said to Mike, hey, we gotta. I gotta. I got bad news. This parish is broken.

[Brent Gleeson]

Oh, so that's first mistake. You never tell the passenger.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah. And so he turned around with his broken neck and said, if way my head's gonna fly off. And I said, okay, we'll just do it. And like, there's steam following us from what I just did. And we came into the damn Tet night. Right? Tetrahedra.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

Smoked in and I don't think I unhooked anything. And he said, yeah, so that's my last jump of the day. And I said, cool. Can I borrow your boxers? Because these are going in the dumpster.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. Bottom skin openies can be.

[Rob O'Neill]

There's a on a 10.

[Brent Gleeson]

Violent. So while that was in the course as a student. God, I remember the things you remember. I remember the first day when they were checking logbooks, and I think I had. I had somewhere between, I think, 5 to 700 jumps when I went to the tandem course. I think 250 or 200 was the minimum.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah, 250.

[Brent Gleeson]

But you're like, you know, you're looking at people's logbooks. You're like, hey, your last 100 are all with the same pen. And I'm not gonna make any assumptions.

[Rob O'Neill]

Here, but I'm thinking we gun decked it.

[Brent Gleeson]

And it's like, dude, do five and switch the pe.

[Rob O'Neill]

Oh.

[Brent Gleeson]

So my partner, who I ended up in your partnered up by height and size, largely. We go. And I went first as the tandem terminal and as the. The ti. No big deal. I get on the front for our tandem terminal. We exit and immediately start tumbling. No drogue out. So as this passenger.

[Rob O'Neill]

Oh, you're the passenger. I'm the passenger.

[Brent Gleeson]

Okay.

[Rob O'Neill]

Oh, oh, I get it. He gun deck. Okay. Oh, yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

So as a passenger, I like. I come out of, like, position one, Right. I'm like, okay, cool, get stable.

[Rob O'Neill]

I'll stabilize this.

[Brent Gleeson]

Go back. We start tumbling again. I open up again. Stable. I go back.

[Rob O'Neill]

He hasn't said his drug yet.

[Brent Gleeson]

No, he never did. I reached back as the student in front and grabbed the drogue and set it for the TI because we were smoking through the altitude.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah, you're gonna hit the ground eventually.

[Brent Gleeson]

Or you're gonna have a cypress fire at like 200 plus miles an hour.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah, okay, that's worse.

[Brent Gleeson]

So we get to the ground.

[Rob O'Neill]

There's a lot of that could go wrong here.

[Brent Gleeson]

All names will stay out of this story.

[Rob O'Neill]

Oh, God, I gotta know a name.

[Brent Gleeson]

We afterwards, I'll tell you, we get to the ground. And I was like, hey, man, just so you know, I set the drogue. And his no bullshit response was, I'm glad somebody did, because I sure did.

[Rob O'Neill]

That's actually the best response you could have.

[Brent Gleeson]

But so he was aware of it.

[Rob O'Neill]

And at that point, I'm glad somebody did.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. And at that point, I'm thinking, what was your plan? Like, is this just. We're gonna have ground rush till Cyprus.

[Rob O'Neill]

Fire, and then that's a bad opening.

[Brent Gleeson]

I don't even know how did you survive that? I think you would survive A reserve.

[Rob O'Neill]

Opening with two guys going terminal.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. Which would be over 200 miles an hour.

[Rob O'Neill]

No, you're gonna break some.

[Brent Gleeson]

You're gonna break something or the system. I don't know. It would be a combination of both, but it would be horrible.

[Rob O'Neill]

That's a. That's bad. And so I'm glad someone did, because I. I wasn't going to. Did he freeze up or what happened? Was it, like, mental that I didn't.

[Brent Gleeson]

Talk to him a lot after that? Well, no, I switched partners.

[Rob O'Neill]

Did he get booted at least?

[Brent Gleeson]

No, they let him go do it again.

[Rob O'Neill]

It was one of the few.

[Brent Gleeson]

And you know the deal, too.

[Rob O'Neill]

He's lucky you were his passenger because you had experience with that. I mean, but it's not like the tandem turns. Her first jump, he'd been stable. He. Well, he's a drone.

[Brent Gleeson]

But that's the thing with the drone. If you think about it, with a tandem, most people will get it out within early. Tandem Masters, you'll see they're, like, barely out of the aircraft, and then they're snatching that thing. The more experienced tandems, they'll ride through this. Oh, you get to get stable. It's like you pitch it in about 10 seconds, but.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, you should be able to just do anything and get stable, correct? Should be.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. So, yeah, he was. He was just a little earlier on, that was the only time as a student, I went to the. The course leader, and I was like, I need to speak with you privately.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah, this should be a conversation.

[Brent Gleeson]

Well, and you know the deal, too, as a student, because it's not. I mean, at that point, you're already at a squadron. It's not like you're going through a selection course, but you're also. You don't want to air out your fellow. Like, there's a lot of stuff you can work through together. It'd be like if you were in selection, a green team, and you'd go to the cadre, like, hey, you guys didn't see this, but I want to.

[Rob O'Neill]

Share, just let you know for safety's sake.

[Brent Gleeson]

The course director that time was a good friend of mine, and I was just. I just needed to let him know that if he made me continue to jump with this person, I was going to kill him.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, see, and based on his answer and the fact that he gun decks and jumps, like, he's a good. He sounds like a good dude. It's like, wasn't quite ready for that one. I'm not. I don't.

[Brent Gleeson]

He got through the course.

[Rob O'Neill]

Okay.

[Brent Gleeson]

They put him back up with an instructor and did another one.

[Rob O'Neill]

Good as they should.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

Maybe some wind tunnel time.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, they, they did not do that. He did his second tandem terminal that day, and I think then just progressed. But it was. Yeah. That course will. That will level you up in your ability beyond. After that course, you don't have a.

[Rob O'Neill]

You don't have a. How'd you like the bundles?

[Brent Gleeson]

I remember my first thought. I was the first guy out on our pass, and I had hooked up to the bundle, you know, and the ramp wasn't down yet. And you have just these little straps that you're holding on to. And then the ramp comes down, you know, and the camera guy's backing you out and the bundles over the edge. And the first thought that I had was, why do I make such poor life choices?

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah. Same thought.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

I had that thought when I first day at boot camp. I first day on the ramp of.

[Brent Gleeson]

The bundle, and then as soon as you, you know, you go out over the top and, you know, you gotta wait until it gets vertical and let go. You see people shopping cart on videos and just getting yoinked out by their belly.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

Which is wild. They'll tell you up, down, left, and right that they didn't do that. You'll ask them to debrief. We just do this all the time in the course, too. Talk us through your exit. Oh, it was great. I rode the bundle out, got vertical, and of course, the instructors are sitting there like, tell us more. And then you hit play.

[Rob O'Neill]

We have the video right here.

[Brent Gleeson]

And then they're in the airplane with a full arm extension three feet from the ramp. You're like, hey, bud, let's work on the cognitive recall here. But after that, loved it.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

The first one, though, I, I just didn't think it was a great idea.

[Rob O'Neill]

No, it's, it's questionable. And, and people have asked. I, I, I was, I had a malfunction that almost killed me. I was, I didn't die on a tube. Yeah. On a hey ho.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

Because it was during the transition from the old school cutaway to the low performance canopy to the high performance canopy with the low performance cutaway.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

And I had two incels on the left side didn't inflate, so it dove. Yeah. So, like, the one side, whatever one, maybe the left side started eating and it just, it started pulling me back.

[Brent Gleeson]

Your parachutes with your eyes open.

[Rob O'Neill]

Now, here's the thing. I just realized I had two bad openings, and that was. Yeah. That was a dive where I burned about 7, 500 trying to cut it away because my head was pinned in line. Twist. Could be the. It could have been anything. Could have been the exit. Could have been. I mean, you can up. But then I had the. I said, if I ever want to see my daughters again, I have to. I have to cut this away. Yeah, I cut it. It landed in Farmer Brown's field, and I landed. I saw one of True. Chief came up and he's like, what? So you just look like you saw a ghost. And my first response is, we need to change this or it's going to kill somebody. And then Lance died a year later. Yeah, same malfunction, but he didn't do a hey, ho.

[Brent Gleeson]

That's it. It's a.

[Rob O'Neill]

It's. I mean, it's dangerous, but like, I.

[Brent Gleeson]

Was gonna say tandem is awesome, but that is not a junior varsity. No. Want evolution. And that's why they need to send the more experienced people. And I think people and anybody listening to this, if you're in the pipeline and you want to do this, just wait till you actually have the appropriate amount of jobs.

[Rob O'Neill]

Get the. Yeah. And for people that. That follow seals, too. And you want a dog at home, I'd recommend a shepherd, not a melon. Wa. They're awesome on Instagram, but you need to be awake with a malinois at least 22 hours a day.

[Brent Gleeson]

Or you can get a mini dachshund like I have. And they're better than all of them.

[Rob O'Neill]

Love approved.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, they are. I mean, his name is Javelin, of course. Named after the heat seeking fire and forget missile. And he's the most amazing dog ever. And I can carry him around much like you can with the shepherd in Malinois, but it takes far less.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

Javelin I like. I would have named him Lamar after the guy who threw a javelin far in Revenge of the Nerds.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. But I'm trying to get another one, an all black one. And name Carl Gustav. My wife is slightly resistant.

[Rob O'Neill]

I love the two names too, and I love the meaning behind it, because a lot of people won't get that.

[Brent Gleeson]

No. And, well, her issue is I don't want to be yelling Carl out in the open and people. Because these dogs don't listen. Their recall is amazing. Their adherence to what you'll hear literally sit and be like. Because we call him Hobby for sure. I'm like, hobby, come here. He's just. Look at me. It's like, no, not coming. His recall is amazing. He just doesn't do anything. He's the most stubborn dog I've ever had, but also the. Probably the biggest sweetheart I've ever had too. So. So, yeah, for the record, we actually have met. I apologize.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah, no, it's good.

[Brent Gleeson]

I'm gonna assume that it was inspirational.

[Rob O'Neill]

I. No, I. I do. No, I. I wanted to. No, I'm being serious. I wanted to see the difference. I was watching where your turns came, what altitudes, because you did it. I don't know how you do it when you're just doing tandems, but you did it by the book school house. And you did like the. The thousand seven five five hundred.

[Brent Gleeson]

You're supposed to do that to demo.

[Rob O'Neill]

Or 755, something like that.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, you're supposed to do that.

[Rob O'Neill]

I mean, you hit the sandpaper it. Which is.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

Which you should as a Seal Team 6 operator, after you see the exit out, do a shitty pack job.

[Brent Gleeson]

I mean, I could. We could show you some video of people not hitting the peas.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

I worked with a lot of guys who. They actually hated jumping. They would do it because it was required, but they. You could tell in their eyes it was not something they were passionate about.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah. Which is fine. No, it's fine. But they're doing it.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

It was the other way. I loved it ever since.

[Rob O'Neill]

Oh, I love jumping.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. Ever since I. I actually got my civilian qual first down in San Diego. And ever since I got that, I have been just in love with it. Montana sucks for jumping, by the way. There's no DZs here.

[Rob O'Neill]

You're already up at altitude.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, but there's actually nowhere even to jump. They do the Lost Prairie Boogie for a weekend per year. Other than that, that's it.

[Rob O'Neill]

You got to get to Arizona probably.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, but I mean, I love it. But do I love it that much at this point?

[Rob O'Neill]

How many jumps you got?

[Brent Gleeson]

8,500 something along those lines.

[Rob O'Neill]

That's good.

[Brent Gleeson]

So I could take years off and do like a classic skydive. I'm not going to do anything technical like a wingsuit or BASE jumping, but yeah, it's.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, you've done every continent. That was a couple years ago, right?

[Brent Gleeson]

Three years ago in January. Like earlier this month was the three year anniversary of it.

[Rob O'Neill]

Were the Anaki running the DZ in Antarctica?

[Brent Gleeson]

No, there was some.

[Rob O'Neill]

It was.

[Brent Gleeson]

We were near the alien base. You know, we didn't have the clearance people. There's space lasers there. My God. Why, why are people falling for this?

[Rob O'Neill]

Because they watch TikTok and it's fun, though, you got to admit. At night, take a sleeping pill, try to go to sleep, watch a little go down a rabbit hole, see some cool shit.

[Brent Gleeson]

I mean, your definition of fun is clearly different than mine.

[Rob O'Neill]

It's fun to see what people believe in, and then just to bait people a little bit.

[Brent Gleeson]

I had to get myself off the sleeping pills on deployments. Like, I ended up. Because they're addictive, for one.

[Rob O'Neill]

No, I mean cannabis. Like a gummy.

[Brent Gleeson]

So, yeah, probably better than Ambien, I would say.

[Rob O'Neill]

Oh, Amy can be a nightmare.

[Brent Gleeson]

Literally.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

I didn't realize until many years until we were using it that it's a hallucinogen, not a sleeping pill.

[Rob O'Neill]

Oh, yeah. It is too. And I also realized there's a very important reason to take your ambien after the C17 refuels, not before. Guys have done that before, and they're wandering around Ramstein, toothbrushes in their hands, like, no pants on.

[Brent Gleeson]

So HB was my first team leader at Gold.

[Rob O'Neill]

Great guy.

[Brent Gleeson]

And he's. He is probably one of the best examples. Well, there's no doubt enlisted leadership that I've ever had. At nighttime, his routine was pop two read until he would fall asleep, but he would have two more ready to go. That was in a single night. That's a varsity level. Varsity. I don't know.

[Rob O'Neill]

It didn't affect his performance at all.

[Brent Gleeson]

No, that's just. I mean, let's be honest. They weren't controlling. I mean, it was literally like, how much do you want? So people would start with one. Wake up in the middle of the night, take another one. Yeah, I couldn't sleep. Right. For deployment, after deployments, for weeks after that, getting off of that stuff. So I finally had to remove myself.

[Rob O'Neill]

If you can get. Yeah, yeah. We would send our interpreters across into Pakistan, and they'd come back with big. It was a big box called Zolp Z Z O, L P for Zolpidem, which is the guess, the name for it, really. Pakistani Zolp is like a nickel of pop. That's good for a winter deployment, I guess.

[Brent Gleeson]

Damn. I'm sure that was definitely made in a. Yeah, it was safe.

[Rob O'Neill]

Definitely safe. Those Pakistani doctors are known for being very, very safe.

[Brent Gleeson]

I bet. Where do you want to start, dude? How do you want to enter? There's a lot to unpack.

[Rob O'Neill]

What?

[Brent Gleeson]

Where do you want to comfortable with anything? You tell me. Where you want to kick it off with?

[Rob O'Neill]

Montana.

[Brent Gleeson]

Montana's amazing.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah. How'd you end up here? Let's interview you For a sec.

[Brent Gleeson]

My ex wife was born and raised in Great Falls. Her father was at the Air Force base, which I think. Yep, Malstrom. They moved to California. He was in the financial industry, banking at the time. And like most people from Montana that I have met now, there is always this pull. They want to go back. So we never went back and visited Great Falls because my ex has a. What would it be here? Aunt who worked for the Kalispell City School District. So this is where we had somebody who knew something about the area. So we came and we started visiting here for a couple years in a row. Had the chance to buy an investment property down by Lake Mary Ronan. And that was kind of our entry. And we spent a month there in December, I think it was in 2016. And it was. There's a picnic table outside about this size. And I would sweep the snow off of it every morning. Like six to eight inches of powder. The kids were outside all day.

[Rob O'Neill]

Snowman for the kids.

[Brent Gleeson]

It was insane. And then we went back after that to where we were living in San Diego, out in Otay, which is out in eastern San Diego. And I could spread my arms out and touch the stucco between the two houses, you know, and there was like six versions of the same house but paint a different color. And the doors on this side. And I remember we just sat down at the dinner table, like, what are we doing and why? And our oldest son was getting ready to go into eighth grade, and I had the experience of kind of going blind into a high school, and I didn't want that for him. So I basically said, if we're going to do this, we need to do it now to get into the social circle so he can have a better on ramp. And we smart. We sold the house like three months later.

[Rob O'Neill]

No.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. And never looked back.

[Rob O'Neill]

Great decision.

[Brent Gleeson]

Got up here, decided we didn't like each other that much. Huh. So that particular portion didn't work out.

[Rob O'Neill]

However, put a little wrinkle in a marriage.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. But I'm never leaving. Dude, this place is amazing.

[Rob O'Neill]

Oh, yeah, it's awesome.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

And Butte's nearby. Butte's different. The way that I describe Butte best is I brought my wife Jessica to Butte many times, and then I brought her to Big Sky. We went to the Yellowstone Club, and she was out in the back.

[Brent Gleeson]

Oh, those are almost identical.

[Rob O'Neill]

But yeah, it was so funny. She didn't realize she was saying it. It. She's out there on the balcony, goes, my God, Montana is beautiful. This is nothing like Butte. It's like, well, fair.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. Also you should look at the yearly dues for the Yellowstone Club and the average price of homes. So. Yeah. I mean, Butte is known for mining, I believe.

[Rob O'Neill]

Oh, yeah. Opening up open pit mining, a super fun site. Now the Berkeley pit is.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

Almost 6,000ft deep, full of toxic water.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. And the Yellowstone Club is known for celebrities and opulent wealth.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yes.

[Brent Gleeson]

So. Yes. There's two different.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah, they're a little different. It's just funny the way she put it. It's not a very pretty town. There's really good food there. They put gravy on everything. Anything.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. You think you'll ever get her to Montana or is she. No, not interested.

[Rob O'Neill]

No, East. We're east coast.

[Brent Gleeson]

Really?

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah. I love the Northeast.

[Brent Gleeson]

Okay. Huh. Did you join the military from out of Butte?

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

Okay. So from Montana, I was playing college.

[Rob O'Neill]

Basketball at Montana Tech in Butte, Montana. And it just happened. One of those days that a lot of 19 year olds get. It's like, time to leave town. I gotta get out of here. And it was.

[Brent Gleeson]

Had you traveled much before that?

[Rob O'Neill]

No.

[Brent Gleeson]

Is your world.

[Rob O'Neill]

No, I had seen the ocean. We did do like some Disneyland trips. I think we went to Florida once. But I had two bent. Two Bens. Ben was one of them. Jim was the other two guys I grew up with who were Marines, they left Butte Central the same day, went to boot camp together. And they were always going to be marines. And when I needed to leave town, I was like, well, I've seen Full Metal Jacket. I know two Marines. I've seen them on leave. They look cool. I'll do that. And so I went to join the Marine Corps because, I mean. And I tell people that now, like, if you're just over it at that age, you can get out of town. Three hots in a cob man.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

Went to join the Marine Corps. And he wasn't in the office. And the office is still there. He was out to lunch, literally. And Chief John Judy was sitting right.

[Brent Gleeson]

There because of course, the offices are right next to each other.

[Rob O'Neill]

They're right there. And I went in there, though it is a true story that Ben and Jim, two Marines, told me the Marine Corps is actually part of the department of the Navy. It's just the men's department.

[Brent Gleeson]

Accurate.

[Rob O'Neill]

And I went in there to ask him if they're part. He'll. Where's the Marine? And he said, why do you want the Marine? I said, I want to be a sniper. Said, look no further. We have snipers in the Navy. You got to be a SEAL first. And he brushed over the SEAL part. And I figured, he's a professional recruiter. Why is he gonna lie to me? And I signed. I didn't know how to swim.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, that could be problematic.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah. And then they showed us a video. My mom came down with me and she told me later, like, there's no way you're making this. She didn't tell me that face to face. Yeah, but behind the scenes it was. There's not a chance. But I still had my Montana tech id. They had a pool. I'd go there every morning at 5 and try to swim. I didn't like when I first got there. I knew how to keep myself alive, but I'm standing, didn't know any technique. And I'm like, all right, I'll just.25 meters. I'll swim down and back and swim a thousand, see how it feels. And everything was fine with my plan until I entered the water. And I'm like, this is bad. And then Mike Driscoll came in to work out and he went to Beautiful, but he went on to Notre Dame and he swam there. And. Yeah, he said, what. What. What brings you here? And I said, I just joined the Navy yesterday. I'm going to be a seal. And he said, and not like that. And he showed me the breaststroke and the side stroke, and I got his work on that. And then I ran into Jim McBride again, who's a retired Marine officer. And he was one of the Marines. He just finished air crew. And he taught me more. Yeah. And good enough to pass the test to get in boot camp. That was about it. Well, Was it a 500, 500 yard swim? I think, yeah. 500 yards.

[Brent Gleeson]

Did you go to Great Lakes?

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, I think probably is a year.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

I did the test at the same.

[Rob O'Neill]

Place, but I was amazed at the test because I checked. I got there at that bleachers and looked at the U.S. navy SEALs poster. Well, it's kind of cheesy, but also awesome.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

And I'm looking around like, oh, God, there's. I'm never gonna make. Look at all these people. You get in the water, two people pass a swim.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. And I mean, I don't know if you remember, but the barrier to entry, to pass that test. I think it was maybe eight pull ups.

[Rob O'Neill]

Six. Yeah, I think it was eight. Six.

[Brent Gleeson]

So it's called seven. We're both right.

[Rob O'Neill]

You do seven, you're getting into butts.

[Brent Gleeson]

Well, and then I think 50 push ups, 50 sit ups.

[Rob O'Neill]

It wasn't 42 push ups, 50 setups.

[Brent Gleeson]

That's what I'm, I mean, and this is almost 30 years ago for me. But, but yeah, the barrier to get to the initial training pipeline is not like the hurdle.

[Rob O'Neill]

It's not even a, it's a, it's a, it's a mediocre morning workout, but you do a mile and a half run in, in boondockers and.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, but people fail.

[Rob O'Neill]

It all blows my mind over 90 fail that test. It's crazy. And I would, I used to go do the test. It was Tuesdays and Thursdays. I do it every week just to, just to get a workout. Because you're, I mean, rice and gravy and Navy boot camp. Learn how to fold shirts. Yeah. And then like one of the weeks, the, the one of the. I don't know if the SEAL chief was with me. He goes, I here twice a week. You realize if you fail this once, like, we're not sending you to buds. It's like, oh, okay.

[Brent Gleeson]

Well, I mean, well, in theory, you should be getting better. How was the swimming in buds did that. But did you have any time?

[Rob O'Neill]

No, I thought that would be the reason they kicked me out because I didn't really know how to swim. But they, they pulled the. We'll give you a California swim, buddy, and they'll just guide and just kick. And that's what we did. And I didn't fail any swims. And you know, it was always, it was a race at the end. But yeah, it was, it was, it was good. And I, I, I didn't mind the swims because no one can really yell at you.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. And for people listening, the guiding is actually, I would say it's equally as important as the swing. And what it means is the, the pair which is swimming the un. What is it? Underwater combat recovery. Underwater combat recovery stroke that technically, I think by the letter of the law, your wrists have to stay underwater.

[Rob O'Neill]

So you're extending and you can't do the crawl.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. And you come back.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

You cannot take your hand over, but you're facing each other. And I think you got to be within six feet. The stupid swim buddy rules. Which makes sense for conceptually, but. Yeah. But one person has to navigate. Even though you're going down the coastline.

[Rob O'Neill]

Towards the Hotel Dell Convex, concave, all that.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. You will. If you look like a porpoise all over the place, you'll fail.

[Rob O'Neill]

Because adding, Adding time.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah. It's point A to point B. Yeah. If you got a guy who can swim that's fine. And once you learn how to keep your hips up and, and kick. Glide, you know, just with your kicks. Yeah. Which you know what they should do. Crazy. Because they're getting better, smarter with nutrition and training is swimming lessons. I know so many seals that didn't really know how to swim.

[Brent Gleeson]

They have them.

[Rob O'Neill]

They have them now. They were starting to get them when I left. 2.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. Especially if you have a problem with swimming because they'll identify it. I believe in the pre training or the PTRR or. Yeah, ptrr. Physical training, Restroom rest and relaxation. I don't know if there's a lot of that.

[Rob O'Neill]

No.

[Brent Gleeson]

But I think they bring in swim coaches now. So if you're struggling with that, they should.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

And it's a lot like the obstacle.

[Rob O'Neill]

They could use a pull up guy too.

[Brent Gleeson]

You would think that with the long arms.

[Rob O'Neill]

I didn't. That's another one. Training for buds. I already signed the contract. I'll go down to Clark Park. They got monkey bars or horizontal ladder. Yeah, whatever we call it. I don't know. And then I got on there, I'm like, okay, so that's zero. Jesus, I gotta do some back work.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, for sure. God was such an interesting.

[Rob O'Neill]

But I mean the test's not that hard.

[Brent Gleeson]

No, just got.

[Rob O'Neill]

You got to be doing something, you know.

[Brent Gleeson]

It was wild when I went back as an instructor. Is the number of students that quit on the first day at buds in first phase. Every.

[Rob O'Neill]

The first day. Like the pt.

[Brent Gleeson]

The first PT within hours.

[Rob O'Neill]

Why?

[Brent Gleeson]

I don't fear.

[Rob O'Neill]

It's got to be fear.

[Brent Gleeson]

I don't know. I don't think anybody has ever gone to training thinking, I can't wait to quit. I assume that they all go with a mentality that they're going to graduate, but within an hour you will have your first quitter in every class. And honestly I don't have any data to support this. But anecdotally I would say data support.

[Rob O'Neill]

Tell me the story.

[Brent Gleeson]

I would say 20 people quit the first day. Which doesn't make sense because I want to know what did you think was going to happen? What did you sign up for?

[Rob O'Neill]

I. We had a guy quit in his dress whites. Checking in.

[Brent Gleeson]

It is the most efficient way to do that.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

Right back out.

[Rob O'Neill]

We got into the classroom, everyone's in their dress whites, little ar. Airman o' Neill with one little ribbon. And the instructor comes in as a joke. All right, who wants to quit? One guy. I do. And it's got to be because he wanted to get off the ship he was on.

[Brent Gleeson]

Done. Yeah, but aren't you gonna go back to another one? Probably.

[Rob O'Neill]

You'd think.

[Brent Gleeson]

And you're gonna have less choice in where you go because you're falling directly into the needs of the Navy.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah, well. And they're not going to give you any breaks. You obviously had somebody pull some strings to get you off a ship to get you here.

[Brent Gleeson]

Dude.

[Rob O'Neill]

But in that respect, too, a lot of guys that made it were second classes. Because I'm not going back to that.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

People don't realize. And I had. I did a marg. I did a Margaret. Yukon strike. No Market strike. You come in a mark. I went on the boats. And sailors work harder than. Than a lot of people in the middle. I would. I would tell younger SEALs, I don't want to see you with the scullery or with the. With the dudes prepping chow or the guys on watch because they're working harder than. You go down there and you play Xbox. Yeah, we're not with these Navy guys. They're legitimately. Because it's like. It's like eight on, eight off. But four hours of watch or some like that.

[Brent Gleeson]

It's a life that. I think I did 14 total days in 17 years in the Navy. And it is.

[Rob O'Neill]

That reminds me of the scene from A Few Good Men when they're wearing the whites or whatever. And the woman in the back said, jesus Christ, Cath, you're in the Navy.

[Brent Gleeson]

For crying out loud.

[Rob O'Neill]

All you can say is nobody likes her very much. You did 14 days on a ship total.

[Brent Gleeson]

Dude. It was at the Nimitz. Was most of it.

[Rob O'Neill]

That's not even on a ship. That's on a carrier.

[Brent Gleeson]

I know, but, dude, I was like the guy that. I'm like, pulling people aside. Hey. I don't know how to find my way out of where I am because this hieroglyphics on the bulkhead. I don't know how to read this.

[Rob O'Neill]

And second of all, what's a bulkhead? Well, I can find my way out from under a ship by seeming.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

I don't know what a level and a deck, dude.

[Brent Gleeson]

I mean, I'm talking deep, open indoors and just seeing people that probably haven't seen the sun in months and just slowly closing the door and wandering around. Then I ended up on the superstructure. And then. That's a different level. Yeah, that's a different kind of getting in trouble.

[Rob O'Neill]

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

Why are all the color devices way sh. I mean, I'm like an E5 at this point in a flight suit with just my, you know, my freaking bird little leather patch just like, I think I need to get out.

[Rob O'Neill]

You ever seen the dudes come up from the engine room? Yeah, yeah, they come up. Don't say they're all covered in oil or whatever.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

And they eat their child and leave. And I remember talking to some of the sailors, like, look at those, dude. And all they said was, yeah, they always up the washing machines.

[Brent Gleeson]

So crazier. I actually have spent 30 days on a sub, so I don't have sub time.

[Rob O'Neill]

I've been on a sub that was.

[Brent Gleeson]

It was. I mean, it was the Kamehameha. We were out in Guam. It was my second pre 911 deployment. So we were just doing. What do they call it? Mslo. Msli. Mass Swimmer Lockout. Mass swimmer lock in where they. It is actually.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

Dude, when you're doing it so you're submerged sunset, they, you know, they flood the tank, which can nerd some people out. It makes sense of why we do a lot of the stuff we do in training because you need to keep your together.

[Rob O'Neill]

The claustrophobia is really an exercise in breathing.

[Brent Gleeson]

It is.

[Rob O'Neill]

Oh, and if you get like stressed out at. Was it an MRI or CAT scan? Whatever. Buds is not for you.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, but dude, they would crack open the back once they equalize the pressure. And you're looking out and you can just. The color of the sunlight and you can slowly see the prop spinning of the subtle. And they're like, yeah, just here you go. Go up. And then they trail a buoy and they're like, come on back down here. Like, this is kind of awesome that.

[Rob O'Neill]

Seeing something that size submerged.

[Brent Gleeson]

It's wild.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yes, we did.

[Brent Gleeson]

They needed to do one evening. Of course. I was one of the newer guys still. They had to do essentially a personnel recovery. So they launched two of us out of the bed. Just two of us. And it's nighttime in the middle of God knows where. We were somewhere off the coast of Guam.

[Rob O'Neill]

Beautiful deep. Yeah. Mariana's trenches out there.

[Brent Gleeson]

Crack a green chem light with a rubber band and I would put it on my finger and just launch it up into the air. They're like, just keep doing that and we'll flash a light at you when the sub is lined up. So it's just me and a dude in pitch darkness and we're sitting there.

[Rob O'Neill]

That's eerie.

[Brent Gleeson]

What was eerier is when they lined up and you start seeing this huge black mass moving underneath you and you're like kind of Putting we're on open circuit. Right. So we're watching it happen. And the coolest thing was to submerge and let it just pass right underneath you. So you're just like hovering in place.

[Rob O'Neill]

Awesome.

[Brent Gleeson]

Is this up and then you just do a front flip into the chamber and grab a hold of it on the way by. It was.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

Not. It was like, is this the largest shark ever that's gonna come just eat me ass first? But because I'm like, you know the deal out of the water. We are the ones who are the most vulnerable. Everything that lives in the ocean can just tear your ass up.

[Rob O'Neill]

Get owned by anything out there.

[Brent Gleeson]

That was a memorable experience though. Just me and another dude up there launching a cat light up into the air.

[Rob O'Neill]

I haven't seen that. I mean even on a ship attack. Like when you're. When you're on your final attack leg and you can hear the barnacles on a ship.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

That's intimidating. That is just there.

[Brent Gleeson]

And then it gets dark and you feel like you should be up against it. But you have to keep going. You hear it closer and going.

[Rob O'Neill]

And everything around you is a shark. And all I'm doing is counting my kicks. I had the best. We were talking about your trick on the ramp with the holding this thing.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

My best trick is a dive soon is because as a dive supervisor you have to get them purged. Yeah. So you're going to go pure O2, exhaling out your nose the nitrogen and you got to make sure you're good to go underwater. So you can't really talk your way for the dive soup. And then when you get underwater. I'm just explaining this. When you get underwater you're kicking bubbless. Makes no sound at all. So you're just in your own mind. So before I would send guys on like a two hour turtle back and a four hour dive and say okay, everything looks good. Hey, real quick, quick. Rising up and push them in the water so they get to sing Eye of the Tiger for four hours.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

That's a good move.

[Brent Gleeson]

Dude. Those days because you sing.

[Rob O'Neill]

You just sing the whole time and then yell at your butt.

[Brent Gleeson]

I remember dives where I had Britney Spears song stuck in my head. I don't remember the song, but I do. And then you hum it. And then if you can get your.

[Rob O'Neill]

Dive buddy, your buddy doing it, you can harm it.

[Brent Gleeson]

Catch him. Yeah. God. Why did we do the things that we did?

[Rob O'Neill]

I don't know. I mean I think. I think. Well, the. Because you can do side scan sonar with a sub and you can find out everything that's going on. And if you need to, if you need to disable the ship, hit it with a help qualifier or something else. But I think we're doing it because when the EMP hits, you need to know map and compass.

[Brent Gleeson]

It's so. It's crazy to see people don't.

[Rob O'Neill]

They don't. Imagine the GPS turn off.

[Brent Gleeson]

I would be okay with it. My, I was, I was a point man for years. I love terrain navigation. I love celestial navigation, all of this.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yes. Terrain navigation. If you can get that down.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yes. Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

Just like literally the get the lens at a compass or whatever you're using. That's the peak.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. You can line it up with the topo map. You know exactly where you're at and you just walk. I mean, I loved it.

[Rob O'Neill]

Lineup's great.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. In the modern area. No, in the modern era of People's CarPlay shut off and their GPS shut off, it would be pretty wild.

[Rob O'Neill]

They don't know how to start fire.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, I guess they probably don't.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, living in New York too, I've, I've explained to my neighbors, they, I mean, I live in a liberal community fair. I mean, they're not crazy. Yeah. I was explaining to them like the second Amendment. I said stuff out here which you got to remember with the whole socialist, communist, whatever argument. I was like, to be safe with your family, you know, and you need to know your family and your community and your local, like school board local, blah, blah, blah. And then you'll get. Have guns and have emergency food. And they said, someone says something like, what, you have emergency food, what if you run out? I said, well, I'm obviously going to come eat yours. Don't let one entity own all the guns, including the government. You guys understand this second amendment type. Just explaining like just the communal aspect. But if, like, if the power goes out in New York, like near the city, 200,000 people are going to die in a week.

[Brent Gleeson]

It would be chaos.

[Rob O'Neill]

Chaos.

[Brent Gleeson]

It would be. I forget the quote, but it's basically. You're not. We're at any point in time, we're nine meals away from chaos, which I think is true.

[Rob O'Neill]

Famine.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. And it would just start fraying. Society would start fraying. What. When you talk to the, your community and their thoughts on guns, what are they against?

[Rob O'Neill]

No, no, no, no, no. They're listening. They listen.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. But is their initial position, are they against guns in general or they just want. Want the good guys to have guns.

[Rob O'Neill]

It seems like they want the good guys to have the guns. And they're really, really against mass school shootings. And that's their answer.

[Brent Gleeson]

Who isn't?

[Rob O'Neill]

I'm against them.

[Brent Gleeson]

But I also support the second amendment and say you shouldn't even on the right.

[Rob O'Neill]

I've been attacked for saying my preference for home defense is a pump action shotgun. That's my preference. I like it because I like the.

[Brent Gleeson]

If.

[Rob O'Neill]

I mean, I keep it one in the chamber, but if something like, I'm not. I don't anticipate a SWAT team coming to get me because I didn't pay the taxes. It's some dude trying to break in to steal jewelry. Yeah. So even if I have one in the chamber, I might let him hear it because nothing sounds like that. And if I. When I was like, entering a house in Iraq, if I heard a pump action shotgun, I'm gonna find another way to enter. That's just a good deterrent. Maybe he'll leave and I don't need to kill him. And then like, the far right guy's like, yo, you big pussy, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, if I kill someone in my own house, you know, the cleanup that I have to do in order to make sure I don't go to jail. Like, I want a deterrent, man. Shotguns are good.

[Brent Gleeson]

It's interesting to me when people will critique a tactical assessment. And it's not like you're trying to write an instruction manual for other people. You're talking about your own personal preference through the lens of a career of having to make those choices. And people say, rob, you're a. Meanwhile, this person has never been in a tactical situation in their life.

[Rob O'Neill]

I have been told I've obvious. I've obviously never been in a gunfight.

[Brent Gleeson]

Okay.

[Rob O'Neill]

So no, I've been in a couple. And this is why I choose this way to do it. I'd rather not be in a gunfight if I don't have to shoot anyone ever again. That's awesome. I've lived a pretty good second half of my life.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. I would really like to live the rest of my life avoiding violence of any kind.

[Rob O'Neill]

Of. I've been to war a lot and I don't want to see any worse.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. I mean, my favorite activity is basically play wrestling with my friends and doing jiu jitsu. But the last thing I want to do is actually put my hands on somebody who I have to for real.

[Rob O'Neill]

Right? Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

Do that. It's like. No, I get. I like.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, you have to win.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. And it's like, I don't actually want to hurt anybody. I've gone through enough of my life where hurting people was not expected, but at least on the menu, if required, and certainly. And I've had enough.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah, me too. I hear you so well with the Jiu Jitsu too. I was, I was gonna get back into it. I'm getting so old. I just got into chest now.

[Brent Gleeson]

I mean, they're basically the same, except for the.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, I don't.

[Brent Gleeson]

I'm pretty sure, complete lack of similarities.

[Rob O'Neill]

But if I'm walking down the street, though, and I'd run into a grand master, I can kick his ass. If I. If I see a dude working coffee, but he happens to be a brown belt, he'll me up.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, that's not gonna. Just about anybody.

[Rob O'Neill]

That's the difference right there. You know, now that I have to stretch out of bed, when I get out of bed, I would just like to play chess.

[Brent Gleeson]

You just got to find the right training partners. I found Jiu Jitsu when I was 40, and I. I figured out a way now, actually, no, I think I found it when I was 41 because I've been at it for about seven and a half years. You can do it.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

You feel different getting out of bed, though.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

My favorite meme from COVID was it was a guy standing up out of a wheelchair for the first time, and it was like Jiu Jitsu athletes. After two weeks off, it's just like his body was finally recovering.

[Rob O'Neill]

Oh, yeah, it's.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, man.

[Rob O'Neill]

I. I was rolling with team guys and I was. Was tired of breaking pinkies.

[Brent Gleeson]

And that's, that's, again, that goes to the training partner. You got to find the ones, find a really good training who are not idiots like us.

[Rob O'Neill]

That's a problem.

[Brent Gleeson]

There can only be one idiot like that on the mat. If there are two, they will find each other and they will fight almost to the death. And that is actually how it's not sustainable, so.

[Rob O'Neill]

That's exactly right.

[Brent Gleeson]

God. Okay, let's just go. Let's go. Modern day backwards lawsuit. Where are you at? Talk to me about the 25 million.

[Rob O'Neill]

Right now I'm in a lawsuit for defamation of character. And it's the anti hero podcast. And what went down is basically them calling me in a very, very hateful tone, a fraud and a liar for two straight years. And they've been making a living off of it. They've been making a living off of calling out veterans, and they've They've done it to me. I think I was first.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

And I did respond back when I was drinking heavily. Shouldn't have responded the way that I did. What was the response? No, just I didn't see it. It was something along the line. I think it was something along the lines of I don't even know you, bro. Yeah, something like that. And then whatever, back and forth. But they've been added after me and whenever they use my name the clicks go up. And then they did it to Tim Kenny, they did it to Jocko, they did it to Chris Kyle, God rest his soul. They did it to Marcus Latrell. They did. I think they did to Dakota. And what I mean, whether this Tucker guy likes it or not, he will be known as the guy who made money off of trying to ruin veterans lives.

[Brent Gleeson]

So let's, let's parse this here for a sec because I'm curious. What are your thoughts on or should there be the ability to call other veterans out?

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, yeah, but not, not, not that way. I, I think a phone call.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, so that's what I'm saying. But I agree with the phone call. I think if you are connected with the person, I think that the first move should always be to go directly.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah, I agree.

[Brent Gleeson]

When you and I, we talked briefly on the phone. Shit probably about a month ago when we were setting this up and I think, I'm pretty sure I told you my biggest concern in all of this is the external view of the veteran community and how it erodes. The biggest question I get now is how do I know who to trust? And that's actually a really hard question to answer because there are public examples and I don't want to harp on Tim too much. I think Tim is a. He's one of the nicest people that I've ever been around. But at this point, the volume of information around what he has been in his own words, not what other people were saying. Yeah. Is at a point where it's like, man, the conclusion that I am coming to, that the evidence points to is that you lied repeatedly, why you did. So I leave that to you to make up your own mind. But a phone call, I don't know, it fixes that one. And most of those things that were said were actually public facing. So how do you address that without being public about that? I'm not trying to compare the two situations.

[Rob O'Neill]

It's not my problem.

[Brent Gleeson]

That's what I'm saying. I'm not trying to compare the two situations. I'm just. I'm thinking out loud. Should there be a mechanism? Because vets, unfortunately are probably the only people that can sniff out the bs.

[Rob O'Neill]

Oh, no doubt about it.

[Brent Gleeson]

Call out other vets. I think it's the how.

[Rob O'Neill]

The how definitely needs to change.

[Brent Gleeson]

How do we do it? Because when the. When the end state of people, let's say coloring outside of the lines is public, does a private phone call solve that or does the response actually have to be public too? And I don't necessarily have an answer to this.

[Rob O'Neill]

I don't know. I mean, I don't think it necessarily needs to be public. Especially like when they're comparing to me. It started with Tim Kennedy with a Bronze Star without valor.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. Slick BS versus bv.

[Rob O'Neill]

But a lot of people don't realize there is administrative award for a bronze star. And then the V means you're in combat. But he didn't have a V. And that's where the argument started. I don't know all the stories he told. I'll be. To be fair, I've met him a few times and I like him personally.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

And he's a black belt in jiu jitsu. One UFC fights. I'm taking his word. That's how we started. Bronze Star with V. I have four of those with V. Same don't give a. That's what the argument starts. But then we start saying, Tim's a fraud. Rob. Just like Rob o'. Neill. It's like, hold up.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

Four bronze stars without two silver stars that don't come with valor. It's assumed gallantry. Like another one, Val. Another one like that. That. When you. When they start lumping me in, maliciously saying they're all liars, that's. I mean, you're broad brush stroking. It's not calling Rob o' Neill and saying, hey, here's the issue.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. And again, I'm not trying to.

[Rob O'Neill]

You know, I've never been asked about what happened in the room by anyone there except the point man in the bedroom.

[Brent Gleeson]

Well, give me like a few more minutes, we'll get to that.

[Rob O'Neill]

I'm just saying. I'm just saying that's a very important question.

[Brent Gleeson]

Oh, I know. And trust me, I'm not saying you.

[Rob O'Neill]

Didn'T do your research. Yeah. Hey, I want to view people too, man.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. No, the veteran public facing positives and negatives. There has to be a way to. And again, I don't have the answer to this. And so separating the two, because what can happen is that. And I agree with you on this. You can develop a following, let's say. And the first ones you have a history of, you find something and you talk about it, it and it's true and it grows, right? So. And then you find something else and you talk about it and it's true. Maybe your business model even shifts to that's what, you know what I mean? Then it becomes that. Then you're looking for more salacious, you're looking for more controversial. And then you get one wrong, right? I don't know. And this is where it just gets lost. And people are like, I'm so tired of seeing vets attack each other. What do we do? Which vets telling the truth, which one's not. And I don't have answers to any of this. I'm just trying to paint the picture of what I, what I see in front of us. And it's, it's rough.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, the, When I checked into red Squadron in 2004, Wyman Howard was a CEO and I remember, I'll never forget. We're, I mean we're standing against a wall, fresh out of Green Team, don't know shit about this place. And I remember him saying, you know, talk to the entire squadron and I'm there. I'm a fly on the wall, amazed at this level. And he said, you know, when we all retire, if we work together, we'd all be millionaires. But that's never going to happen happen. And that's where it needs to be stopped. Because people working together would get rid of some of the questions that come up for some reason. And I don't know where the stories, some of the stories is built on each other. I don't know where they come from. But there's a better way than just saying this guy's a fraud, kill him or not kill him, but ruin his life like you think. I mean Tim Kennedy had a lot of. And are they better off people that pointed it out?

[Brent Gleeson]

I don't know. I don't know. And for Tim, I think he has done more net positive than net without question. Question. The problem with, in my opinion, which counts for nothing, the problem with the situation with Tim is that he won't own it.

[Rob O'Neill]

That's if he would own it off the bat, it would have been a better call.

[Brent Gleeson]

It would have. And I mean if you look back at the first video, he basically at the end said, you know, fuck you guys. The anti hero guys.

[Rob O'Neill]

I'd heard that too. I didn't see it.

[Brent Gleeson]

So I watched it. He made the video and it's like, dude, you went after the messenger instead of the message. And then when he did try to own it, I forget the exact verbiage, but I unintentionally, I would like to take unequivocal responsibility. Yeah. And he didn't. And I understand why, because I think there are probably cascading legal consequences from that. He might be in risk from his publisher. From a book.

[Rob O'Neill]

Oh, yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

Things of that nature.

[Rob O'Neill]

That's my advice for anyone writing a book. If you. If you've talked to someone in the military, get it approved.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. I mean, that is unapproached. That is.

[Rob O'Neill]

I did. I mean, that's what I did. I was like, I had. Well, my book came about funny because my. My father's convinced that I do everything and has been like, he's convinced. He's still in Butte, Montana. Right?

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

Here's the point. When I joined the military, I was in the delayed entry program and GI Jane was coming out. Demi Moore just been down there to check it out. We were at home and there was a Life magazine depicting buds. And inside was drown proofing. And my father said, see, that's you right there. I can tell that you by your calves as he was facing dad. I'm literally not in the Navy yet. Yeah, Like, I'm not.

[Brent Gleeson]

That could potentially be me in an evolution one day. But I, like, I saw you yesterday and this article was written last month. Yeah, yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

Just so it's funny. No, what was the first question, though? Because I was making a point about my father.

[Brent Gleeson]

I don't know if there was. I was talking about how owning.

[Rob O'Neill]

Owning it. Yeah. So. So anyway, sorry. So getting a book approved when I got to Bud's. I remember, check. I'm in my whites again. Same fucking day. Someone is up at 602 yelling at someone else who just finished the 5.5 nautical mile swim or whatever. I'm like, yeah, what am I doing here? And my dad said, keep a journal for sure, because someone's gonna want to read your book one day. And I remember, I'll keep a journal, but who the gonna read my book?

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

But then I had a journal. It's like, well, I'll just get this approved. And it did. That's kind of how that came about.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, I've heard.

[Rob O'Neill]

Get it approved.

[Brent Gleeson]

I've heard horror stories and stuff. Sliding through like a train on greased rails. When it comes to.

[Rob O'Neill]

Seriously, I was surprised how fast it was for me.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

They took out a. They took out one number and they made me say Army Special Forces instead of a different unit.

[Brent Gleeson]

Interesting. I wonder what that.

[Rob O'Neill]

Because I was impressed with them. There was this.

[Brent Gleeson]

There was a time because they're amazing.

[Rob O'Neill]

When I ran into Delta. The first time was that we're not ran into Michael. Redacted like sorry about that. I remember seeing them and I think like I'd work with them at the command but then I saw them in biop over at Baghdad International on a deployment and they were getting out of little birds and I you not I was thinking that's Delta. I hope I meet the guy that kills bin Laden because they're gonna get that mission eventually. That's. That's. And I was impressed with those dudes.

[Brent Gleeson]

Those guys are awesome.

[Rob O'Neill]

I don't give a who you are. When you step off a little bird after a gunfight. You're a cool.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, no. I did a cross training workup in deployment with a squadron. They're fantastic.

[Rob O'Neill]

Fantastic. And they had the best job on Iraq.

[Brent Gleeson]

The vis.

[Rob O'Neill]

Are you me that's your job? You're gonna hunt people off a little bird with a machine gun? Yeah, sign me up.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, there are a few jobs.

[Rob O'Neill]

Talk about jealousy. Jesus. I wanted that job.

[Brent Gleeson]

So where do you think the lawsuit goes from here?

[Rob O'Neill]

Hopefully the court, they're trying to get it dismissed right now. They want it dismissed before discovery. I don't. I want to go to court. They're trying to move it to federal court, but all three defendants are in. Or the, the. All the defendants are in Florida. Doesn't need to go federal. We're going to keep it in New York. We move to keep it New York.

[Brent Gleeson]

How do you think the discovery process would impact that? If they wanted to subpoena, let's say everybody that went up to the third deck.

[Rob O'Neill]

They, if they. They could subpoena everyone. Well, I mean they could if they wanted. There's no reason to.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

The, the two people, the first two people in the room saw what happened. The third guy in the room it told. He said he didn't see what happened. And the third guy in the room was not the number three man in a stack. He was the point man of a second stack. Really? Yes. That's where the confusion comes in.

[Brent Gleeson]

How did he end up the point man of a second stack? It was their distance between the first.

[Rob O'Neill]

Now and I need to clarify also just for people listening, this lawsuit is not about proving who killed bin Laden. It's about mal. Defamation of character. They don't need to subpoena anyone to see how mean and rude and taking Trying to make a living off ruining me.

[Brent Gleeson]

What's the bar the burden of proof on that for your lawyer?

[Rob O'Neill]

Probably the lawsuit if they read it they would see how much stuff I have depicted over the even the past year which is statute of limitations. Okay just malicious. Jealous. So it's essentially it's about your being a dick and you're going to stop you're. You're making money off defaming me. It's. I've told the story about my daughters who are in college now that were and I'm not disparate like that's what they say now too. Oh what about the veterans who didn't come home with their kids? I'm not saying anything about them. I'm saying my kids, my 4 year old daughter at her preschool at Rollingwood Elementary. I was at her tea party on my birthday Good Friday April.

[Brent Gleeson]

She's not currently at the school issue.

[Rob O'Neill]

Not anymore I was gonna say because.

[Brent Gleeson]

I'd be like Michael make a note of that time because we are bleeping.

[Rob O'Neill]

That out but no, no, this was 2009 okay so I'm in Make sure.

[Brent Gleeson]

You'Re not doxing your own child right now.

[Rob O'Neill]

We've done some security stuff for that four years old, my birthday we get a call, gotta go Rich rescue Richard Phillips. Give her a kiss leave for war from her okay three year old my other daughter I gotta leave to go on the bin Laden raid. Haven't even told my wife where we're going because we just got back from deployment and I'm telling her I gotta go now. This is a one way mission to bin Laden raid. We're gonna die on the way in get blown up when we get there. This is it. I gotta tell her goodbye. She's three. She told me to wait. Went upstairs, put Mr. Elephant and a a pillow in a hello Kitty carry on and said well you're however a three year old can say you're gonna take me on vacation when you get home. Okay. Now they're in college and they're proud of me and they have tick tock and everywhere everything they've ever been proud of their date. Your dad's a fraud. He's a fraud. He's a liar and a fraud.

[Brent Gleeson]

Do they get that in person or online?

[Rob O'Neill]

They get it online but then they call me at night they can't sleep. They've been proud of me their whole lives that I'm stopping. That's how you get a defamation lawsuit for people listening it's not about who killed been to Lied.

[Brent Gleeson]

Done.

[Rob O'Neill]

How much of you're taking pleasure in maliciously defaming me?

[Brent Gleeson]

How much of the responsibility. And again, this is a way upstream question. How much of the risk. I'm not saying you're responsible, but your actions or decision to come forward with who you are and the book and putting your name out there if you hadn't made that choice.

[Rob O'Neill]

My name was out the second I pulled the trigger. And I heard the comments into the.

[Brent Gleeson]

Military worlds or the civilian.

[Rob O'Neill]

Here's how it started. Started even on the second deck. I ran into Will Chesney on the second deck with Cairo and he asked me who got him. I heard other guy who got he said Nisro. And I One of the answers I heard was, oh great, we're never going to hear the end of this because I tell stories, I talk. So people were asking and then, then we get back and there's a. We go to the CBs, there's the Internet, stuff like that. On the flight over, people are, you know, we got Virginia, we got some guys in D.C. we got Coronado. Hey, don't tell anybody. But then you get back and it's like your bartender, don't tell anybody. So my name's out.

[Brent Gleeson]

Out.

[Rob O'Neill]

Someone that was a fellow at the White House called to say hey, we heard it was you.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

Names out.

[Brent Gleeson]

Well that's out, but that's inside of at least the bubble.

[Rob O'Neill]

I'm talking like I didn't, I didn't know I didn't release it then I'm. We're gonna be the best friends forever. Doesn't matter. Yeah. And there was just, just, just getting back. It just there was. There's butthurt. People were buttered. Like we went out drinking the night we got back.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. I'm not saying that though. What I'm saying is publicly coming out out and acknowledging.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, I mean later on like I stayed in the Navy.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

I went to JSOC to put in. I wanted to be a master chief. Yeah. But then really bad started happening. I went to JSAC to put in a warrant package. I'm still going to stay in for 30 years.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. Is an eight.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah. Okay. I'm down there. JSOC and then extortion went down. Obviously everything morale can. Yeah. We were having some issues at Red Squatter and it was being a JSOC didn't help that I wasn't around the command. Bis was going around starting a lot of going to see the master chief every Monday morning talking about me saying I'm Signing a book deal, going to D.C. like, I went up to D.C. i was dating a girl. I was separated, getting divorced. And I get a text on a Saturday night. I get a text saying, you need to be back in Virginia Beach Monday morning at 7 for like a reprimand. Because this tattletailed on me.

[Brent Gleeson]

What were the problems that Red Squadron was having?

[Rob O'Neill]

They didn't like. Well, they didn't like the way the bin Laden thing went down at the end.

[Brent Gleeson]

Started shady when it was almost like a draft. I heard like, they pulled like the senior. Most people and everybody kind of took a step down. Like, the skipper became like the troop.

[Rob O'Neill]

Commander before the raid or for the.

[Brent Gleeson]

Ones who actually went on the raid. I had heard.

[Rob O'Neill]

Because I'm talking after the. After fish. I could talk about before.

[Brent Gleeson]

Well, I'm just. I had heard that the way they picked the people to go on the raid had seniority, had some lasting impact on the camaraderie of Red Squatter. Maybe. Perhaps people felt like they deserve to be there, but they weren't chosen.

[Rob O'Neill]

Morale was the lowest. I'd. I remember it being at Red Squatter before. Yes.

[Brent Gleeson]

Because of that.

[Rob O'Neill]

Because of the. A lot of the structure with the senior leadership. And I'm not trying to badmouth the senior leadership.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

The style was way too micromanaging. Yeah. And we used to get into you. I'm sure you saw it when officers come in, they've got three years. The enlisted guys are running the show. But then the officers know they need to do a lot of. So they're really gonna start burning people out. And that was going on a red squad. I'm not trying to pick anyone out, but just with the leadership they started. And then. So you get. We're all back from a deployment. I was in jbad. I was running the outstations. We get back, we're in Miami. Some guys are out west in Vegas or whatever, doing your first post deployment, good deal, trip. And then we get recalled. They recalled ones and twos, some threes.

[Brent Gleeson]

And for people listening, that is. That's a rank structure. One being the highest inside of the team, whether it be skipper, you know, the troop level, team level. So, yeah, the senior personnel.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah. Yep. So. And so they pull us in. I think there was 28 total. It was alternate, so I think it was a 23, 22, 23 team. And then some alternates.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

But we're at the new building, which. I don't like the new building. I like the old building.

[Brent Gleeson]

I've never been.

[Rob O'Neill]

You're not missing out. It's just, it's like a skiff. The whole second deck's a skiff. So you got to go to that end of the mile long building or that end to go upstairs to walk a mile to your team room like that. But they called us into room, a conference room behind the conference room and lock the door so no one else can come in but these 28. Yeah. And these are all SEAL team six guys. So what, what's going on? And you come out and well, I can't tell you. And I don't care if you're trying to be cool or not. So morale takes a hit there. Yeah, guys pull themselves off of the trip because they're not telling us what it is. It started out with we found a thing and no, they started out with something about cables under the ocean that we're going to go repair.

[Brent Gleeson]

That is like an estimate.

[Rob O'Neill]

That's a, that's, yeah, there's a cover story to get us out of town. And then they said, okay, we found a thing in a house in a bowl in these mountains and you're going to go get it. What's the thing? Can't tell you type. And so dudes didn't think it was a real mission. So like they had ruts being run in Guam or LA and shit like that. So they pulled themselves off. But morale was really taking a hit. Yeah, this is before the Midland raid.

[Brent Gleeson]

Okay. Before we get into the raid, I want to, I want to make sure that the publicity with your kids, if you hadn't had put your name out publicly. Do you ever sit back and wonder the difference?

[Rob O'Neill]

I was at a point, I was at a point where my name was out enough that I decided, well, there's.

[Brent Gleeson]

A difference between your name being out and somebody coming forward.

[Rob O'Neill]

And yeah, there's also a difference between admitting they know who you are or putting your head in the sand and saying, well, they'll never know because I didn't say anything yet. Yeah, that's where I was at. And it's.

[Brent Gleeson]

It.

[Rob O'Neill]

People know this, this. I have to, I mean I, I'm not even going to get into the. They've moved a lot since the bin Laden, my kids have. And it's been bad, bad, like not fun.

[Brent Gleeson]

If you hadn't been as public as.

[Rob O'Neill]

You have, well, if I wouldn't have been picked for the bin Laden raid, I would probably be a master chief at San Diego right now and they'd be fine.

[Brent Gleeson]

Sure. But also things like, you know, the Esquire magazine and stuff like that. If you chose not to participate in things like that.

[Rob O'Neill]

See that was, that was a different reason for that. And no, my whole point is though.

[Brent Gleeson]

But like the choice to exist publicly is a choice. Do you ever. I, I'm not arguing against the defamation. What I'm saying is the biggest.

[Rob O'Neill]

Being a public figure.

[Brent Gleeson]

Being a public figure and the choice to do so, even though in the military circles your name was out. I was at trade at, at the time when the operation went down in a, I'll tell you the name of the master chief afterwards, but he was a previous red guy and your name came up. I mean this was within days. So yeah, in the military for sure. But that's different than being a public figure. Yeah, it's, yeah, it's. Do you ever think about if you could go back in time, I guess the question is would you still decide to be a public figure based around that particular operation? Not that your career is defined by that, but it's probably.

[Rob O'Neill]

No, my career is defined by that.

[Brent Gleeson]

Now would you make the same choice as far as public figure, your desire? Not desire.

[Rob O'Neill]

I would have changed. I would have made a lot of different decisions.

[Brent Gleeson]

What would you have done differently?

[Rob O'Neill]

I would not have provided the top cover in the after action report that I did.

[Brent Gleeson]

Don't jump ahead.

[Rob O'Neill]

You're asking.

[Brent Gleeson]

I mean we, we're getting there.

[Rob O'Neill]

Look, I'm not, I'm not unhappy that I gave a squeeze to the point man going upstairs when I was, there was no one behind me. I'm not unhappy when a troop chief behind me before I went into Bin Laden's house said let's clear the garden. I said the garden's good, let's go in Bin Laden's house. I would have kept doing that. I wouldn't have given as much top cover though. I, I doing what happened after the Bin Laden raid. I remember saying into myself, myself, I'm going to regret this. This is going to come back to haunt me. Okay, it has.

[Brent Gleeson]

What do you mean by top cover?

[Rob O'Neill]

I can explain to you what happened because the big thing they talk about is an after action report.

[Brent Gleeson]

I have heard or read that there exists a cell phone audio recording.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah, I've heard there might be two, but I know the commanding officer recorded.

[Brent Gleeson]

One so and for clarity, before you even start talking about this, I have never been on an operation that was at that level of neither had I. So what I'm saying is like the A, I have done well, that's what, that's the point. I was they're like around the table like, you know what I mean? Cuz they were like super low level and if we really needed something to focus on or like change something we would sit and talk about. I've never done something like this structured.

[Rob O'Neill]

That's what I'm saying too on this. Give the brief to the Ranger colonel. Let's get our together. Yeah, that's. There's a debrief and then there's probably the a.

[Brent Gleeson]

So the boys got together, talked about.

[Rob O'Neill]

The first, the first debrief was over Bin Lan's body in Jalalabad.

[Brent Gleeson]

Okay.

[Rob O'Neill]

So we got back, I was on the 47 and this is how weird it was. I mean this is a. I'm in, I'm in a new area now. Like we get off the bird. I, I had a piss bottle in my pocket. I didn't want to use the new diapers they gave us in the flight in because I just never used them. Same reason I carry the old school nods. Not the quad knives because I've jumped with these. I know they work. I know where the battery goes. I'm not gonna. With new knots.

[Brent Gleeson]

Way less heavy too. Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

So I also had a diaper, but I'm just gonna use a piss bottle. I'll remember to throw it out. Forgot to just. I chopped in line with piss in my pocket, cargo pocket. When we get back, we land. I'm going to put the pisser at the back. There's a trash can in the back of the hangar where we park the helicopters and there's these mechanics from TF160 pointing at him. Me. That's the guy that got him. Throw the thing away. The other bird comes back, run into the point man. We have a discussion over here. And then Bin Laden's body's over here. So we go over that and the ground force commander said to Bill McRaven, Admiral Bill McRaven. Do you want to meet the guy that killed him? He brought me, brought him over to me. He put his hand on my, on the back of my neck like this. And it was like almost a fatherly, yet uncomfortable. Yeah. Looking at Bin Laden, he says, your life just changed forever.

[Brent Gleeson]

Where was the ground force commander?

[Rob O'Neill]

He was right next to me.

[Brent Gleeson]

No, no.

[Rob O'Neill]

Oh no. In the In. Yeah, in the. He was. He wasn't in the room either.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, I mean which for any ground force commander out there, he better not be the. I was gonna say see one of.

[Rob O'Neill]

The best ground force commanders I've ever had. And again this goes to the theory not the theory.

[Brent Gleeson]

Theory.

[Rob O'Neill]

The practice of a debrief when we were in Iraq in 07. The best summer of my life, by the way. And we're hitting target, target, target following. We're waiting. The sun's going to come up. I need to call in the birds, but we got, you know, the GRG things, whatever. And then my troop commander's right here. I said, all right, here's the deal, blah, blah, blah with this building. Now we're gonna do is flex here, hit this, but. And I looked at him and go, sir, you're in charge. And he said, oh, make no mistake, I'm not in charge. I'm responsible. You're in charge. Don't me meaning go do. Go do what you have to do and then tell me what I have to know. Yeah, that's an after action. I know any guy's gonna do an after action. It's like, that's exactly how it went down. Perfect. Everyone's safe. Yeah, I've been. I've done hundreds of them. And every. Everyone listening to this who's been in the military has two. And you know an after action report, when something can be incriminated, you don't just throw it out for them to record.

[Brent Gleeson]

What you and the man talk about away from him when you did.

[Rob O'Neill]

He asked me the two questions. The two questions anyone from that team has asked me about the room other than an email I got from Bis later. And he asked me where the. Was everyone.

[Brent Gleeson]

The one man asked, okay.

[Rob O'Neill]

And then he said, was he hit when you went in there?

[Brent Gleeson]

So he had taken shots.

[Rob O'Neill]

He took a shot.

[Brent Gleeson]

Okay. And was asking you whether or not.

[Rob O'Neill]

He was hit When I saw him.

[Brent Gleeson]

When the debrief went down, yes. What was the difference between those two?

[Rob O'Neill]

The difference was the shot that hit him on the top of the head. And then what we said was. And then I went in and he was circling the drain. That's the story. That's clean. Clean meaning there's no questions. That's their debrief.

[Brent Gleeson]

Is that what happened?

[Rob O'Neill]

No, I. I'm prepared to tell you what went down. And I've never told anyone before.

[Brent Gleeson]

We'll get to that. But. So.

[Rob O'Neill]

Okay, this is an exclusive.

[Brent Gleeson]

First off, you might want to give it to somebody else because I'm kind of a. I don't know if you've.

[Rob O'Neill]

Read Good news is I'm a retard. Well, here's a couple of retards with good microphones.

[Brent Gleeson]

And here's the thing, too. Like, I'm not. I'm Not a provocateur. Right.

[Rob O'Neill]

I never thought that.

[Brent Gleeson]

And I think actually one of the first things I told you on the phone was like dude, I don't care who killed.

[Rob O'Neill]

I believe I said I don't either.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, but because what this means is in the official debrief the truth wasn't told. Which another way to put that is somebody somewhere lied.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah, possibly.

[Brent Gleeson]

Well, if the truth wasn't told, I'm going to connect the two on that. Right. If the story that was told in the official debrief is not what happened on the ground.

[Rob O'Neill]

Then it was kind of close.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, but you know as well as I do that doesn't mean anything.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, at a debrief it really doesn't either there.

[Brent Gleeson]

Unless that debrief is used to paint the official narrative moving forward.

[Rob O'Neill]

Possibly, yeah. The good news is though, in the debrief, the appointment for the second sack, who was three men in the room, everyone him and behind, doesn't need to be subpoenaed because they didn't see it. And what some guys saw, they just, they. They didn't see what they think they saw. When, when people are on TV admitting they shot Bin Laden while he was dead. And the appointment was always in front of me. They didn't say how far he was in front of you.

[Brent Gleeson]

So what actually happened when we were.

[Rob O'Neill]

I was eight guys. Well now I need it back.

[Brent Gleeson]

Talk me through. Yeah, talk me through.

[Rob O'Neill]

Because we can skip the garden.

[Brent Gleeson]

Cuz I agree with you on that. I feel like the garden was probably a visual. Sweet.

[Rob O'Neill]

I think the guys who crash in the front yard cleared the garden on the way.

[Brent Gleeson]

We're going to give that one a.

[Rob O'Neill]

Visual pass and I'd love to hear cuz I don't know what happened on the helicopter, the crash. All I know is we fast drove a ton training to the point where I was like we got to stop. I'm 10 times. The only person to fast rope on that mission was the pilot. Good cop. Yeah, he put it down like he got when I do when I walked in. Well after we had a failed breach on the northeast corner because it was a double door. But, but breacher put 7 foot C6 gonna open it. Blasted it. Brick wall, but that's good.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

No one puts a fake door. So he's in.

[Brent Gleeson]

I was gonna say that is an interesting indicator.

[Rob O'Neill]

That's. But that's a. That's learning by failure.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

Because I think there was even a conversation fail. Breaches is bad. It's like. No, this is good. That's a fake door. No one does that. He's definitely in there. But now we. Because we were put on the outside because the helicopter pilot saw the first one go down. And my team was supposed to go to the roof, but then he came down to get out and I had so me piss bottle in pockets. I remember stepping my right foot out, looking at Bin Laden's house, thinking, well, I guess we start the war from here, no problem. I mean, we didn't need the preparation. We've been doing CQB forever, but since we knew the exterior, I know goddamn well we can hit that one fail, whatever. And I heard something about dash one going around. They were saying, dash one going down.

[Brent Gleeson]

Oh, and I don't want to get too much into the tactics, obviously.

[Rob O'Neill]

I mean this, this part of the story is cool because yeah, we're gonna, we came over the radio saying, hey, we're gonna blast the carport. And same guy clear the garden. Said to one of the snipers, the sniper that actually rescued us, your Phillips, he goes, oh, we're trying to go silent. He goes, really, buddy? We just crashed a helicopter the front yard. Silence is going. It's kind of one of those funny conversations.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. Also, the C7s are not quiet.

[Rob O'Neill]

No. Then though, we're going to blast it. He said, no, we'll just open it. So they open it and you know, the thumb came out and it's like I. And I remember thinking, okay, I don't know why they're in there, but that doesn't matter. They just are.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

And that's important in life. It doesn't sometimes. Doesn't matter why you're here, you just are. Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

You can talk about that later.

[Rob O'Neill]

Later in the debrief. So.

[Brent Gleeson]

And I remember plan was the initial plan. Just. I'm trying to get a better understanding of how you guys plan this. And again, I don't want to go into the tactics of how anybody clears anything, but were you guys planning on deliberate it? Slow mechanical movement?

[Rob O'Neill]

No, fast, because we had to get out. We had 32 minutes on station really. But I mean, we could refuel with some of the 47s we brought in.

[Brent Gleeson]

But are we talking like full on hostage rescue? You're on fire.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, no.

[Brent Gleeson]

So I blended the two.

[Rob O'Neill]

Pie the door. But yeah, a hybrid, if you will. Yeah. No, we were going to drop off snipers, machine gun, Cairo, cheese and then interpreter. I still, I don't know who that guy is, but he had a gun, he spoke fluent it Urdu. Then we were gonna go to the rooftop, fast rope. And then we had a system rig where actually 001 draft force commander hopped out, put the rope around his back. And then we fast rope onto the balcony. We're going to shoot through the window that we think's going to be there.

[Brent Gleeson]

Oh, interesting.

[Rob O'Neill]

And then the first team is going to fast rope, take the guest house, come in, we're gonna hit them that way.

[Brent Gleeson]

The classic Oreo, right? The delicious center is not as delicious for those on the inside.

[Rob O'Neill]

It's hot in the delicious center. But then they crash landed. And so we're out here. The pilots saw them put us out. Their thumb comes out now they're already clear. Yeah, and that was cool for me because it turns out I got a front row seat to watch this. And I'm, I'm literally taking snapshots in my mind because this house is going to blow up and we're going to die. And I got to remember, and the whole thought process too, because people say, why weren't you scared? It's like, what an ending. I'm with my boys, man. These are my, I went, I went there with my friends.

[Brent Gleeson]

Was there intel that it was rigged or just the assumption based off of the no intel?

[Rob O'Neill]

It was assumed.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. Which is not a bad assumption.

[Rob O'Neill]

But again, looking back though, the only one that really martyred himself was the Khalif.

[Brent Gleeson]

Was he the dude in the outbuilding?

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah. Wasn't that, what's his name, the Khalif from isis? He blew himself up, but other guys like Bin Laden didn't. It's like, I call that the. They get more heaven if they recruit guys to go blow themselves up. It's. I call that Amway for Allah.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, but.

[Rob O'Neill]

So he didn't blow himself up, but we thought he would. So when we go in though, there, there's a. The crew went over to the guest house. That was business crew. So him and the guy from Blue, Blue squad over there.

[Brent Gleeson]

How much time would you say is elapsed in this? I mean, it's easy, like two minutes maybe.

[Rob O'Neill]

But I, what stuck out to me is I went to the front, there's a window going into one of the bedrooms. And one of my guys, really close friends had taken shots, but the woman jumped, jumped on him and she killed her too. And I remember him saying something along the lines of, I just killed the woman. Is this, are we something online so we're going to be in trouble or is this bad? And I remember.

[Brent Gleeson]

Talk about that later.

[Rob O'Neill]

See, that's what I remember thinking. Like how up are our lawyers and our rules of engagement that we're on the bin laden radio. Tier 1 operators are wondering if they're going to jail.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. Because I mean, actually after they leave the barrel, if you're going to jail or not, is that's going to sort itself later on. Yeah. You got to work your way through the problem. Problem? Yeah. Not advocating for shooting women, anybody. I'm just saying in the moment, you need to complete. Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

And it wasn't like he was shocked. It just. It was brought up.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

But then other guys went in. So now it's a long hallway and there's doors off to the side. So I go in there in the hallway. I get out of the hallway, and there's a dude from the other bird in there. And that's when he said something. And he said something about helicopter crash. It's like, what? Helicopter crash? He said something like, well, ours did. Like, you walk right past it. We crashed. And I remember watching dudes, just being proud of them because I'm looking for bombs too. I'm thinking the thermal barrack will be hanging down. Excuse me.

[Brent Gleeson]

And what did it look like on the inside?

[Rob O'Neill]

Standard house. Standard house in Iraq.

[Brent Gleeson]

No indication of the stuff that you were looking for?

[Rob O'Neill]

Nope, not till the second day.

[Brent Gleeson]

Okay, so at the first days, okay, at the first deck, were you thinking like, oh, damn, maybe there is less risk?

[Rob O'Neill]

When I. Yeah, I stopped. I didn't see any charges. There was nothing there. No guns. Except for the. I mean, the dude. Yeah. And then I remember watching guys. Guys go through breaching problems. I remember one dude in particular. You know him? I don't want to say his name. He's not public. Watching him go. I'm on the. I'm in Osama bin Laden's house, looking down a hallway. There's a barricaded door to get to the stairwell. The intel chick told us would be there and Khalid will be there.

[Brent Gleeson]

Like.

[Rob O'Neill]

And I'm watching this dude. He's now going through the problems. I've watched him work at Seal Team 2 when I was with him through making charges, coming up with tactics. Yeah, you know, check the door, kick the door, hit the door, Hooley sledge.

[Brent Gleeson]

Like, solving it on the floor.

[Rob O'Neill]

And he's working it. And I'm. And he puts a charge. He blasts it. I'm like, I'm sold. So proud of this dude. And working that without. Like, I remember it's stupid to think of awards, but I'm like, this is some Navy Cross. I'm watching this Is. This is history. Proud of these dudes. Bam. It's open. Now we go. So I'm like eight dudes back, and we're at that stairwell. I saw it go down, but not as. Some people were closer to it, but it was where the point man whispered to cle.

[Brent Gleeson]

And I heard him up the stairs.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah. Because she said, you will run into Khalid bin Laden, and he. He will be armed, and he will be. Be his last line of defense. And she was so cool. She being the woman that found bin Laden. I think I said chick earlier. Sorry about that. She said, you will run into Khalid bin laden. He's like 20 years old. He's his last line of defense. And if you want to shot, if you can ace him, you'll get a shot at the big guy. It was the way she told us.

[Brent Gleeson]

So it's interesting way to describe.

[Rob O'Neill]

That's how she talked.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, fair enough.

[Rob O'Neill]

It's cool. And so then they were separate. I'm looking sort up, and normally in an urban environment, I'm like seven dudes, eight dudes in front of me. I'm gonna back up because they're gonna. If they start, I'm gonna. I'm gonna back up, but I'm like, we're gonna die anyway. Boy, I got to see what they do because we're very good at being quiet. None of that yelling, none of the clear stairwell.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, and so that's what I meant. Like, so. And I don't think people understand how surgical those elements can.

[Rob O'Neill]

People do.

[Brent Gleeson]

You can go from so loud to being whisper quiet. There's no yelling, there's no running unless you need to. It's body language.

[Rob O'Neill]

Body language?

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, like, that's it. You can tell that person is going this way because they're oriented. And also, you know who your friends are through the way their shadows move.

[Rob O'Neill]

I can't. I can't get people to understand that. You can tell who they are by the way they walk.

[Brent Gleeson]

Oh, 100. From a distance.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

Or the way they carry their gun or the way that they are. Yeah, it's that, you know? Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

And at that level, too. That's another thing. The CQB at the Seal Team 6 level is. Is just different. Like when I. Well, I've never explained to anyone there was two trains up the stairs.

[Brent Gleeson]

Was it wide enough for it?

[Rob O'Neill]

They were just behind us.

[Brent Gleeson]

So. So.

[Rob O'Neill]

So. So we on the second floor, the appointment said. I think he said, come here. Come here. In two different languages. Yeah. And Clee got confused, and boom, he. Him And I did step over cleat.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yep.

[Rob O'Neill]

And so we get over and I was like, that's the coolest thing I've ever seen. I. I wouldn't thought of that. I would have tried to pin the bottom or something or give him a fake and gone high. I don't know. Yeah, but he killed him. It was awesome. And then we get to the second floor and that's when dude split up. So.

[Brent Gleeson]

So does the staircase continue?

[Rob O'Neill]

Staircase was kind of up.

[Brent Gleeson]

Okay.

[Rob O'Neill]

Straight. So because the. When I'm back here, point man goes here, shoots everyone splits. And then I. And I've been asked why didn't he follow his shots? Well, because that's another level. That's the third floor and he's by himself. And if you, if you take a shot and follow it, that's suicide.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

I mean you can. But I'd wait, I'd give it a pause.

[Brent Gleeson]

Unless there was an incredibly compelling reason to do so.

[Rob O'Neill]

Taking a shot at what you think you see behind a curtain and it moves is not a compelling reason to do one man entry on a third floor.

[Brent Gleeson]

I would agree. Especially if you were to trigger something that could have consequences for everybody else.

[Rob O'Neill]

Because plus if he goes out there, gets hit, now we got a wounded man. We're not up there there.

[Brent Gleeson]

So he basic. So you're basically. He wraps and he's holding. Now in the third, it wasn't rap.

[Rob O'Neill]

It was more turn on to it. So here. And he shoots and then I'm behind him. I came up as two man mount.

[Brent Gleeson]

And at this point, the second deck is being.

[Rob O'Neill]

It's being cleared and there's offices. I remember the. I. I don't think I ever made entry late. I later I came back down. I didn't go to the left, I went to the right later. Yeah, but now we're down to two and it's a. I mean, where's the other train?

[Brent Gleeson]

What did you mean by that?

[Rob O'Neill]

So they're clearing.

[Brent Gleeson]

Okay. So the train, the majority of the bodies are sweeping through the second.

[Rob O'Neill]

There you go. Just got to clear the second. Then we're going to make entry. But. But he took a shot and he could see movement. There was a curtain there and it almost looked like a military blanket. A green blanket, but a shower curtain. And that's what we could sort of see back. I don't have his backlit, but he could see people moving.

[Brent Gleeson]

But did it just open to a large room?

[Rob O'Neill]

I kind of went to the bedroom off to the side. When we went up and in and he was just saying he didn't know it was me, but he knew it was this guy because I. I gave him positive whatever. And I'm not guiding him. He knows what the Phoenix were doing. I've been to war with this guy Lot. He already shot. I'm here. And he's like, we got to go. And I'm like, all right. And I can see it right now. And it. On my part. It definitely was not bravery. It was, this is where we run. And he's going to blow himself up. Okay. And I'm going to feel. I mean, it's like, I might survive this. I'm going to feel it. I'm tired of thinking about it, though. Let's do this right. So we did that. And he goes up the stairs. And he moved it. And the girls are right there. His. His. His daughters. And they're suicide bombers. Got to be. Right. Right. So he moved him. There's been Lot standing there. A mall's right in front of him.

[Brent Gleeson]

How much time did you guys have up there with just the two of you?

[Rob O'Neill]

It. Seconds. If that. Because as we enter, I shoot him. It was enough time to see his tongue come out. And I hit. His head was up. And I saw his son Hussein, 2. And. And the humanity of it came through. It's like, this kid has nothing to do with this.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

Move them back. And I turn in their hair. Okay. So they turn. And now it's two trains. And this is a. This. This is not chaos, but this is now a. An extremely dynamic room. Two trains have entered. And it got to the point when we. Because one of the most dangerous things in CQB Ship takedowns. Parallel trains.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

And then you can clear back. But if you clear forward. What. And we got to. I mean, we're doing everything. This is in training. We're doing everything from chem lights under the door to you knock. Is it safe for. But. And it came down to. All right, don't worry about pointing your gun at someone, even if you're on fire. The new rule. Don't shoot someone who looks like you. So we're super good rule. But it's so simple. Right? Instead of the. The barrel waving the cliff. Just don't shoot him. Like, oh, my bad.

[Brent Gleeson]

Don't shoot the person that looks like a spaceman.

[Rob O'Neill]

But. But now. So I just killed the line right here. Moved them all who'd been hit here. The other train comes in. Now guys are shooting bin Laden. I need to go get a picture. I pour water on his Face. Someone point blank shoots him in front of me and I go, what the was that? We gotta identify this guy. Now I ask people, there's, I've never told that story before. And there's a little bit more that I will save for the Bible on the stand. If that happens in front of you, you, are you going to debrief that? Guys come in there blasting me lawn. One guy shoots him in the face in front of me. I'm not telling that story. We got it. We need to make this work. This is a bad, this is a bad situation now. And I've been leaving breadcrumbs for this for 10 years now.

[Brent Gleeson]

It's a tough question, man. I'll be honest with you. I lean towards telling the truth.

[Rob O'Neill]

That is the truth.

[Brent Gleeson]

No, that's what I mean in the debrief though too.

[Rob O'Neill]

Because the reality is at the time it didn't matter. We're going to be best friends forever and no one needs to know this happened.

[Brent Gleeson]

It's still a lie though.

[Rob O'Neill]

No, I didn't tell it either.

[Brent Gleeson]

There's also lying by omission.

[Rob O'Neill]

Whatever. It's a debrief. I didn't tell that part of the debrief. This is the truth.

[Brent Gleeson]

I understand that. What I'm saying is you knew that what was being said in the debrief wasn't the truth. And I'm not trying to, I'm not trying to assess blame. That's not what I'm trying to do. But you asked what would I do in that situation. And again, this is a hypothetical. Right. Easy for me because we're sitting in Kalispell, Montana and I don't have the pressure, you understand, literally the global optic that is going to come from this. So I understand.

[Rob O'Neill]

No, you know what's, what's crazy is not really the global. I mean, obviously eventually, like eventually realize.

[Brent Gleeson]

This is going to be global news, let's put it that way.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, but at the time being, being in that, like everyone's special.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

So you don't really take credit. Yeah, not credit, but you don't take, you don't appreciate how special. Like we were surprised as when we got back to the Seabees place in on Yahoo, you See Seal Team 6 kills Osama bin Laden. That was surprised rising.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

Would I do that differently? No. Yeah, I would do it differently if I could go back and do the debrief differently. You goddamn right I would. And if you want this on tape, fine. But. And again, I wasn't talking. But also with the argument That I was four man. I hope they play the debrief. Yeah, that that blows me being the four man completely out of the water.

[Brent Gleeson]

I don't know if you saying you weren't the one talking gives you the.

[Rob O'Neill]

COVID I'm not trying to get. I'm not trying to get covered cover.

[Brent Gleeson]

And I'm not saying this top cover should have.

[Rob O'Neill]

I was going to take that to my grave. This no, this doesn't matter. This team got him.

[Brent Gleeson]

So going back to your question though, I would have. I want to believe that I would have told the truth to include the guy walking up point blank because here's the reality. He shouldn't have done that in the first place.

[Rob O'Neill]

No, he shouldn't.

[Brent Gleeson]

And I understand.

[Rob O'Neill]

But also I should understand exactly for being the guy that did it.

[Brent Gleeson]

I agree with you.

[Rob O'Neill]

I'm a lot taller than the guy that did it. I we're talking about you can tell people who are there by the shadows and their walk. You know goddamn well I did not Cano bin Laden. Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

The I understand why not only somebody would do that but also shoot his dead body after 20 years of sustained.

[Rob O'Neill]

Now to be fair there too. I don't have a problem with that. I just need to identify what I have a problem with is someone doing it and then years later they say that's what I did. Trying to take credit credit for that is not the case. I'm a team leader. I just watched a guy who's not a team leader miss the shot of his life. I'm not going to put that in a debrief either.

[Brent Gleeson]

Why.

[Rob O'Neill]

Why would. Why does that need to be historic when no one knows what happened in the room and no one's.

[Brent Gleeson]

No one's AR should never be released. Right.

[Rob O'Neill]

Fair enough.

[Brent Gleeson]

It should have never been released. So why not tell the truth and the whole truth.

[Rob O'Neill]

I wish I would have. No, I mean this was.

[Brent Gleeson]

What do you. So let's say, let's hype. Let's spin this out because I'm just curious, what do you think the reaction would have been from the military if in the debrief you had said then, yeah, this guy came up point blank when we were getting ready to take a picture, shot him in the face multiple times and multiple team members shot, been laud and dead on the ground. Which I'm going to be honest too. I don't have a problem.

[Rob O'Neill]

I don't have a problem with it. Yeah. Based on people being 11 worth for murder at war. I'm not taking that chance with my best Friends, I'm not taking a chance. Plus, no one's ever going to fucking know know. As long as we keep the story straight, which we did.

[Brent Gleeson]

Not at the JSOC level.

[Rob O'Neill]

You don't.

[Brent Gleeson]

Well, don't you think we should be better than that?

[Rob O'Neill]

I also don't think we should have tattletales at a JSOC level, which we do.

[Brent Gleeson]

You don't have to worry about tattletales.

[Rob O'Neill]

If you tell the truth in a. Well, I mean, fair enough, fine. But in a debrief like that, you've never told the commanding officer on the record exactly what went down. That's it.

[Brent Gleeson]

For clarity, I've never done a debrief like this where the commanding officer.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

Gave a.

[Rob O'Neill]

No one.

[Brent Gleeson]

There's this level of operation you were on and then like under the table.

[Rob O'Neill]

This entire team knows exactly what happened. There was no question when they hit record. We gave him top cover. There was no question when we were all standing around Bin Laden's body with Admiral McRaven there and Zero One there and everyone there, the guy that cleared the garden there. There was no question. And then we recorded a debrief like we do 100% of the time.

[Brent Gleeson]

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[Rob O'Neill]

Well, there's no problem. I'm telling you what happened.

[Brent Gleeson]

No, no, I'm not, I'm not saying a problem with you. What it, what this can be construed as is that we lied before, but now I need you to believe us because we're telling the truth and I don't. And that leads into the bigger question.

[Rob O'Neill]

No, no, it's, it's, I've, I've told the same story every time.

[Brent Gleeson]

No, I'm not talking about your particular story.

[Rob O'Neill]

I didn't get to that detail.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, I'm not talking about your particular story again. I'm talking about the legitimacy of the debrief, which is what things like McRaven is going to make his decisions based off of or information. You know what I mean? Like, like, man, well, you know, this.

[Rob O'Neill]

Story is at, in the Navy SEAL Museum in San Diego on like it's a, it's a display this exact story. And it was actually cool because the McRaven's voice he, he moderated and he said when I talked to the appointment after when he jumped on the suicide bombers. Why would you do something like that? He said, I didn't want the guy behind me to die. Very honorable.

[Brent Gleeson]

I mean I would wish I had the stones to do that.

[Rob O'Neill]

And I'm, and I, what I will advocate for is a medal of honor for him.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

And I have before he jumped on grenades, didn't go off on the bin Laden raid. That's pretty impressive.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. I mean you wonder whether or not Mansour is another example.

[Rob O'Neill]

Right.

[Brent Gleeson]

Grenade hits his chest and falls in front of him. Would I have the stones to do.

[Rob O'Neill]

I would say right now.

[Brent Gleeson]

No, I mean I would like, I Would say I hope so.

[Rob O'Neill]

I hope so. That's it. Well it's like the same thing that we would ask ourselves. Well how are you going to respond the first time you get shot at?

[Brent Gleeson]

I'll let you know when it happens. You want to tell yourself you're going to be super brave. I remember the first time I got shot at. I, I didn't even know I was getting shot at because I was in MOP level four.

[Rob O'Neill]

Are you me? Oh that's Iraq.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yes.

[Rob O'Neill]

Cuz we're going to get. We're doing mustard gas now.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. We're doing like kio. I'm like on nods. MOP level four. And we get off the helicopter and guys are like oh man, we just got the living shot out of us. And I was like.

[Rob O'Neill]

Didn't even know.

[Brent Gleeson]

I was like what?

[Rob O'Neill]

Fighting in MOP level. And that's.

[Brent Gleeson]

I ripped it off almost immediately cuz I was going to suffocate.

[Rob O'Neill]

I'd rather get biological weapon. At least I'm out of this.

[Brent Gleeson]

So what would you define the top cover as that you provided? Where did the shot go from the number one man? Is that what he was worried about?

[Rob O'Neill]

I don't know what he was worried about. I don't know. I, I mean I, I don't. I mean it's almost the common understanding that other dudes are going to shoot bin Laden too. Yeah. Yeah. And that whatever. That the top cover is fine because you don't need to know what happened and then it's going to be fine. And that's the mission. I don't have a problem with that. But then it's, it's the debrief turns into this business putting himself in history. History. I, I'd love to get the debrief from the guy he was with from Blue Squad and what actually happened at the guest house too.

[Brent Gleeson]

What. I don't know if I've. And again this military.

[Rob O'Neill]

That's for them to tell I wasn't there.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. This military operation rises to a level of again. Something I've never been a part of.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well and the shitty thing too is like with the rest of the team, like they, they didn't see it either. What.

[Brent Gleeson]

Why do you think there is such a difference in. And the difference seems to occur at the, at the level between the second floor stairs and the third.

[Rob O'Neill]

It seems like it. I haven't fully read through this book.

[Brent Gleeson]

I've read through portions of yours. Well, I haven't read both of them in totality but it seems like there is It. There's a very parallel track up to a point, and then it kind of diverges and that.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, his. His book was based on the after action report. And then he. He got sued and lost.

[Brent Gleeson]

Well, he got sued and lost for writing it in the first place. Right. Not the accuracy of it.

[Rob O'Neill]

Still lost.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, but what was he. You know, I mean, he got. He. Well, I don't know, man.

[Rob O'Neill]

I mean, I proved mine and it got. It got approved. Didn't get sued, didn't lose.

[Brent Gleeson]

It was approved, but there was no way anybody approving it could check it for factual accuracy.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, I mean, nobody can. 1. There's one other guy that was in the room. I mean, there's a couple other guys.

[Brent Gleeson]

What I'm saying, though, with. With Bis's though too. I don't think his. He didn't get sued because of factual inaccuracy. He got sued because he never got it cleared and had permission to write it. So yes, he did lo. He did lose that, but we. We should be clear on what the grounds were that he lost.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

It wasn't for accuracy of the details that he was putting in. It was for the fact that he wrote the thing in the first place.

[Rob O'Neill]

He got sued, lost.

[Brent Gleeson]

Correct. That's a really large check to write.

[Rob O'Neill]

I want to help, dude.

[Brent Gleeson]

I mean, not.

[Rob O'Neill]

Not too much, but that's a lot.

[Brent Gleeson]

I don't understand numbers that.

[Rob O'Neill]

Was it true that Bill McRaven asked him if. To apologize and they wouldn't sue him? Was that even true?

[Brent Gleeson]

You'd have to ask him.

[Rob O'Neill]

I don't.

[Brent Gleeson]

I don't.

[Rob O'Neill]

I haven't talked to him.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. So the. The deviation though, seems to be going up from the second to the third floor.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

What do you think he saw? Which would make him. How. How much time after the events that you described did he arrive to even be able to see anything?

[Rob O'Neill]

I. I couldn't. It's got to be seconds, though.

[Brent Gleeson]

Okay.

[Rob O'Neill]

Because I. I do. When I'm looking. I can see it right now. And it's. I can see going in the room. I can see Bin Laden standing tall, skinny, dead, moving the wife. And then I can see the uniforms. I. Guys are in. I remember specifically seeing. I'm not gonna say his name. He's out. The third guy. Appointment for the second train come in. I know exactly who he is. And he didn't know what happened in the room. So everyone behind him doesn't know what happened in the room.

[Brent Gleeson]

I've never seen a military operation where nobody can agree on the details. It is not fascinating.

[Rob O'Neill]

You know what's awesome? Well now they can't even agree. If it's been a lot. I've heard it's a body double.

[Brent Gleeson]

You stop it right now.

[Rob O'Neill]

You know the, my I had a.

[Brent Gleeson]

Comeback though I can only go so far.

[Rob O'Neill]

My, my, I was so over it. When I got asked that we heard you got a body double. I said look, I shot a guy who got out of bed with Bin Lan's wife. Either way, he had it coming. If it's not, if it's a body double, Bin Laden's going to kill him.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. I mean I think if you even look like a close approx. If it was a. That looked like bin Laden, I think he might have eaten one.

[Rob O'Neill]

You know, like I think it was a midget look like bin Laden. I'm shooting him on general principle.

[Brent Gleeson]

I would have to agree. I mean that's a scary looking. Nothing against the aforementioned short people then.

[Rob O'Neill]

So then you're done with this and we're going to put him in a body bag. And the realization starts to hit like we might live. We might live. Let's, let's assess this. And then, and then I went downstairs. I ran into Cheese with Cairo. That was. And he asked. It was funny that we, we were amazed at how much shit was there. I, I went into one of the bedrooms in the second deck and pulled out a like a big London Bridge type bag. The one when we first started getting. We thought we were so cool.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

SEAL Team 6 gets the open those up and it's all, it's vacuum sealed raw opium. But I thought it was rib eyes. It looked like steaks.

[Brent Gleeson]

Really.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah. And then just like well, they're funding. This is. These are drugs. And then you find.

[Brent Gleeson]

That makes sense.

[Rob O'Neill]

Like old school towers for computers and break those take hard drives and discs and papers. And it's like they were running it from here. So starting to gather and then back upstairs, grab the body. Four of us actually the point man and I, I brought from being the point. Not the point man behind me. We, we brought him downstairs to the sniper who rescued Richard Phillips. And we were talking about me and the point man.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

Talking about the shot on the way down. Then we drop him off to the sniper and we're like, hey, this is your guy. He's like, you, me, let's get the out of here. So I mean it was quick. It's not like a. Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

It's not an extended period of time.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, we got in line. We're gonna leave now. And it didn't matter. It really didn't matter. Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

Why? I mean, so was the point man just worried that he had winged them all? I don't, I just don't understand the.

[Rob O'Neill]

Need for, I don't know. I, what was the agreement you guys came to? We're in Pakistan. We're in, We're, It's a title 50. Yeah. We don't know what's going to happen. We don't know if there's going to burn us. Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

And for people, Title 10 and Title 50 are different.

[Rob O'Neill]

I'm not saying you missed a shot. I'm not going to say that. It's a, it's, it sucks. That's an important shot that you're supposed to hit that. And I'm all get shot. This, this is, and by the way, make this decision quickly because the, the rest of history is basing everything on this.

[Brent Gleeson]

So he was good with that. Was it his idea or was it a com.

[Rob O'Neill]

We. He was talking. Yeah. And it was sort of we, we agreed. But I mean, and like the, like I said, like in the room, if they want to say what happened, if other guys want to say what they saw, I don't problem with that. But I'm telling you what happened and I'm not comfortable. I wanted that top cover forever, man. I'm happy to die with that knowledge. It sucks. It sucks.

[Brent Gleeson]

What changed your mind about talking?

[Rob O'Neill]

Constantly getting harassed. My daughter's not losing sleep. Fraud, a liar. It's like 53 awards, 16 years in Navy Seal, never took shore duty, was involved with all kinds of combat operations. I'm not a fraud. And if there's a problem with the room and you're at Delta, give me a shout. I'll, I'll, I'll come see you, man. I, I, whatever, I'll explain it. And if we can't come to an agreement, 16 year old kids who are thinking about joining the Navy and now aren't because I don't want to put up with this. Like, you don't need that in the, in the public space. We, I mean, this conversation should be had. Yeah, I mean, I'm fine with it. It's the truth.

[Brent Gleeson]

I don't know what would have changed in the debrief.

[Rob O'Neill]

Anything.

[Brent Gleeson]

No, in the debrief at all, though.

[Rob O'Neill]

What does it change? I mean, it's just the point man.

[Brent Gleeson]

Is like, dude, I took a shot that. And first off, people hearing this like, oh my God, a woman got shot. I'm like, listen, well, they don't care now. Well, and then they shouldn't cure them. Because a man or a woman, like a lawful enemy combatant is based on a lot of things. What's between your legs is not one of them.

[Rob O'Neill]

It's.

[Brent Gleeson]

It's your actions. It's hostile act, hostile intention.

[Rob O'Neill]

Didn't we just say something happened? Doesn't matter. Yeah, that's what happened. Doesn't matter.

[Brent Gleeson]

Then why change the.

[Rob O'Neill]

It just happened. We changed. Was clean. Like every other Debra. Like when in Iraq when we hit a mosque with three straight Carl Gustavs. We kind of left that out of the debrief.

[Brent Gleeson]

What do you think the 01 and McRaven would think about the debrief being modified?

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, I mean, 01 was there and then afterwards, like, I mean, even with your. Well, not your. Sorry. Even with the. I didn't mean you, you bastard. Yeah, right. The, the after accident. Like with me being the four man. Right after that, getting on the C17.01 pulled me in the appointment aside and he had whiskey and we all took a shot, three of us. And it's like, well, that's general rule, general order number one. You can't drink in Afghanistan. Commanding officer just had a shot with us. That's illegal. Why wasn't that in the debrief? You know, it's like, why was it just two of us? Why was I the four men having a three man drink?

[Brent Gleeson]

I mean, you're stretching here a little bit. Usually having a drink with this skipper is not going to be in a debris.

[Rob O'Neill]

I'm saying stuff that happened that's like. There's certain things. I wasn't the four man. I didn't knuben a lot. Laden. Yeah, we changed the story so it was clean and it's over. And guess what, USA apple pie. We killed bin Laden. 911 is avenged. Or is it?

[Brent Gleeson]

Until people raise questions. And that's the problem.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah, they could have asked me instead of going on a two year diatribe.

[Brent Gleeson]

How has nobody ever sat down? I mean, you've done, you've done a bunch of podcasts. How does nobody ever ask?

[Rob O'Neill]

I told them.

[Brent Gleeson]

Oh, you were saying before though that you had never talked about or.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, I didn't talk about that part. Yeah, I left the breadcrumbs. Point man takes a shot, blah, blah, blah. Amal's hit. Yeah, it's like just, just put them together. No, it's o' Neill Canute him. It's like, no, I didn't. The one guy said I did and then it caught. Caught traction.

[Brent Gleeson]

How did Bin Laden, look, was he haggard?

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah, he was tall.

[Brent Gleeson]

And how old was he when he died? Michael, can you look up.

[Rob O'Neill]

I was 60.

[Brent Gleeson]

I wonder if he actually knew how old.

[Rob O'Neill]

You know what he looked to me was. Was confused. And I had read something Amal wrote later that he. She said something along the lines. He said something to her along the lines of they're not here for you, they're here for me.

[Brent Gleeson]

54.

[Rob O'Neill]

54.

[Brent Gleeson]

Well, let's be honest, it's very hard to determine age in Afghans. Oh yeah, I think I've seen 170.

[Rob O'Neill]

We were doing interviews for security. No, these dudes fought with the moves against the Russian. Tell me, the 25 years old, did.

[Brent Gleeson]

It look like it had hung on him like he was.

[Rob O'Neill]

He looked 105.

[Brent Gleeson]

Just grayed out.

[Rob O'Neill]

Oh yeah, well, the. No. Oh, in line with the guys. He was gray. I wouldn't say grayed out. I saw him then and I saw him afterwards. Like in JB and stuff? Yeah. Great. I saw him take the picture. I was eating a breakfast sandwich in the last. When they were taking pictures of him for the. In the DNA and stuff in. In bath.

[Brent Gleeson]

I mean assuming at that point, they probably. Well, it depends on how close the shot was, the visual identification.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, it was him.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

Now the pictures exist there. I heard from a congressman that they're in a file cabinet at Langley. The pictures have been loved. And then we have some too. My gloves are in the. The ones on target. I still have those gloves.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, it's. I mean, I have no empathy for the man at all. I wonder. And again, the reason I ask about what he looks like, like I wonder what 20 years of running and hiding does. Stress wise to the body.

[Rob O'Neill]

I had heard rumors that he was telling his kids not to get involved in the family business. Don't know if that's true because I think Hans is alive and I think he's still running training camps like 27 of them in Afghanistan.

[Brent Gleeson]

Did they ever determine how long he had been in Abbottabad?

[Rob O'Neill]

No, I think it said five years. I don't know.

[Brent Gleeson]

I'm curious where he had been along the way. Did they ever put. Because I'm assuming the woman, the agency, obviously people were looking for this person. I wonder if they were able to retroactively determine kind of the breadcrumbs along the way of where he went from Tora Bora to ending up all the way.

[Rob O'Neill]

I don't know. They didn't tell us that, but I'm sure, sure they did.

[Brent Gleeson]

It'd be Fascinating.

[Rob O'Neill]

But I heard they. I heard they busted him from a phone call. That the courier, not Ali, was an American we killed in Yemen. Abu Ahmed. No, a Kuwaiti.

[Brent Gleeson]

Okay.

[Rob O'Neill]

He called his mom and someone smarter than us was listening to that. And he. She asked where he was. He said, I'm working with the people from before.

[Brent Gleeson]

In the documentary Zero Dark Thirty that I saw, they caught him from the courier.

[Rob O'Neill]

I thought that was a good movie. Movie?

[Brent Gleeson]

I don't know. I wasn't there. You tell me, how accurate was it?

[Rob O'Neill]

It was. I didn't like the tattoos or the pop collars. And then when they were. When they were throwing horseshoes, they had. They had a humor in it that was similar. Like when.

[Brent Gleeson]

Also hard to describe how much humor we have. Even while on target doing our job.

[Rob O'Neill]

There was a conversation similar to when I found out they crashed. When the guy in the room said, your helicopter crash, you walked right past it. It's registered. That's how they got in here. And one of the snipers from outside saw the. The tail from the bird because the pilot rested it on the. On the thing. So the tail's exterior. The sniper's doing laughs with the dog. Yeah, he came over the radio too and said, hey, they're ready for us, man. They got a training mock up of our super secret helicopter in the front yard. And someone said, no, jackass, that's ours. We crashed. And he goes, yeah, that makes a lot more sense than I was just saying. But in the movie it says, yes.

[Brent Gleeson]

It does wake me.

[Rob O'Neill]

Wait a minute. That is. No, they said something like that in the movie. Something like the helicopter crash goes, yeah, I saw that. Was that on purpose? Purpose. It's like that is some. A team guy would say on target.

[Brent Gleeson]

Oh, 100.

[Rob O'Neill]

Because the humor never leaves.

[Brent Gleeson]

I think you actually have to have it, otherwise your brain would explode for non kinetic reasons. Based on some of the stuff that.

[Rob O'Neill]

They ask, you never lose your sense of humor.

[Brent Gleeson]

Well, I think we know some people who have and it changes them as people.

[Rob O'Neill]

It's too bad. Well, it's.

[Brent Gleeson]

I know.

[Rob O'Neill]

I think war does that.

[Brent Gleeson]

You're not as big as fan. I think it's safe to say. But Brent was sitting in that chair.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

And he was talking about some of the team leaders that he knew. And they became. Became older angry men and they didn't used to be. And I could see that. Well, I wonder about it.

[Rob O'Neill]

Often I've seen it. I've seen dudes I know Team, Team two that went to the troop chief level at Gold And. And, I mean, for obvious reasons.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

It's not the same. I mean, they asked a lot out of us, man.

[Brent Gleeson]

They did. And I don't know if it's possible for it not to change you.

[Rob O'Neill]

I do the. The trainers. Hutch, he. He was working on my back one day, and, you know, he came from, like, the Carolina Panthers. Yeah. And he's like, oh, you've all changed, every single one of you. Like, you're. So he's not going to war. He's just working on this, right?

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

He notices the. And dudes did, man. They got disgruntled as.

[Brent Gleeson]

I don't know how you couldn't especially. I mean, I don't.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well. And it's normal. We're out there just killing people every night. Every night.

[Brent Gleeson]

Well, not even that. Even when you don't or you. You're like, why do we keep running into the same people on the same target? Why are these people getting catch and release? Like what we're fighting in the bureaucracy?

[Rob O'Neill]

I've had Al Qaeda just tell me that in English. They're going to send me to Abu Grave. I'll be out in 30 days. That's why you change the debrief right there. I'll tell you that much. I don't think he made it to Abu Grave.

[Brent Gleeson]

Rob, I'm going to tell you, man, I don't know if there's ever a good argument to change the debrief.

[Rob O'Neill]

Just saying.

[Brent Gleeson]

I'm not saying. I don't understand why it happens. The American people want to believe that it wouldn't. I think that's the issue. Because they want to believe that people at the level that you were asked, well, they've never.

[Rob O'Neill]

They've never heard the debrief. Why does it matter?

[Brent Gleeson]

Because it speaks to the person who is speaking in the debrief.

[Rob O'Neill]

Fair enough. You can ask him why he said it.

[Brent Gleeson]

I don't think. Do.

[Rob O'Neill]

I wish I would have said, okay, here's. Yeah, I wish I would have. And I remember thinking, I'm going to regret this, but we're just going to stick with this. Yeah, I'm with my guy. These are my best friends. This. This is not going to be animosity like we just did this, and we're going to go to every Seal reunion until we're 100 years old if we don't drink ourselves to death before then. That was the attitude then.

[Brent Gleeson]

But that doesn't make something that is wrong.

[Rob O'Neill]

Right? We can pick apart morality all the time. That's what happened.

[Brent Gleeson]

I'M not, I'm not. And again, I'm not trying to place judgment or have a morality conversation. I have no judgment about it. I'm just saying from people who don't understand the world that we came from, that it's going to be hard for them to make the leap of like, yeah, but why?

[Rob O'Neill]

You know what I mean, looking out for your buddies, unforeseeable future. I mean, imagine having this conversation. But the point man's in jail because I said, well, he shot them all. I mean, could it happen? No. But would it? Maybe. I don't know. I'd rather take.

[Brent Gleeson]

Is there anything wrong if he was in jail for shooting somebody that he shouldn't have?

[Rob O'Neill]

I mean, you have the number one guy in the world are walking by and blasting him in his face. That might, might be jail time.

[Brent Gleeson]

There's definitely that. I would say, yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

And.

[Brent Gleeson]

And between shooting a mall or people, people shooting a dead enemy combatant in the face multiple times, like, yeah, one of those is way more.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, that also happened. And maybe we should put some top cover on that too.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, man.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah, it was. I mean, I, I had my hands here to take a. I just dumped my analogy on his face and then he gets canoed.

[Brent Gleeson]

That's rough, man.

[Rob O'Neill]

Oh, it sucks. Sucks.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. And it sucks.

[Rob O'Neill]

But again too. Guess what? You don't want to see how justice is served, but it is.

[Brent Gleeson]

Well, most people would say they want to see justice.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well on this one, justly. Well. Well, when they say too, it's like, well, did you agree with burying him at sea? No, I wanted to hang him from the Brooklyn Bridge. They said to bury him at sea.

[Brent Gleeson]

Who do you think made that call?

[Rob O'Neill]

Because that wasn't someone who doesn't know their.

[Brent Gleeson]

That's the body double. That's where it starts. Then they stuffed him into a sea bag and he lives in Soho, you know, or like he's got a macchiato stand down in soho.

[Rob O'Neill]

I've been, I've been asked, how do you know they buried him at sea? He's not in a bucket of beta Dyn@CI. I'm like, I don't. I didn't see him throw him in. We handed him off to some army guys. They took him. I don't know if he's buried at sea. I didn't care.

[Brent Gleeson]

I mean, yeah, at that point, your tasking and responsibilities have been complete.

[Rob O'Neill]

We were supposed to die last night. I don't give a. Every day is a blessing. We went on a one way mission, man. We Lived all of us. No one was hurt. Oh, by the way, at the debrief too. We would have noticed if someone got shot, they would have mentioned. Mentioned it.

[Brent Gleeson]

When did you start changing your thoughts about the one way? Like after he was dead and you're thinking like we might get out of here. When did you start having hope that it was going to be a two way versus a one way?

[Rob O'Neill]

When we brought him outside and put him at the foot of the. Of the sniper, we heard Geronimo at that point. I was actually with Cheese when they said Geronimo. That was funny. That was the first time we actually connected on a high five. Talking about clumsy white guys. Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

Tough under nods though. Depth perception.

[Rob O'Neill]

It is.

[Brent Gleeson]

But luckily there's like a lot of missed fist bumps.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah. I remember he did she's made the sound from like Little John was really popular then.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

High five and a hurt. Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

How worried were you guys about a Pakistani response?

[Rob O'Neill]

Oh, well, that was the worst part because now we got to fly out on A. On a 47 because we gave the body to and our bird to the chalk one. So they took that out and they went to a mountain to refuel on another 47. Which now when we're talking about heroes, no one mentions that the army and blue squad and rescued red squad on the bin Laden raid. They came in and rescued us. So we're outside trying. We don't have. And we don't have cct. We don't have anybody. So we got to call them in. We know how to do it. I'd rather have an Air Force guy for sure. And we've got a over here tweeting. Right. So this dude's outside tweeting about. You can read him still tweeting.

[Brent Gleeson]

What?

[Rob O'Neill]

Why would they be doing an extra Pakistani. Yes. Because I look at this dude and. And you can read himself. I'll find him for you. And I'm thinking, all right, we're in Iraq.

[Brent Gleeson]

Please tell me says something like going down. Hashtag about it.

[Rob O'Neill]

Why would they be doing if. If X was anything then what it is now? We're. But I remember thinking hashtag about event. Hashtag sponsored.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, hashtag ST6.

[Rob O'Neill]

That would. Oh, but I remember looking at bin Laden's house. We're gonna call in. You know, we almost blew that helicopter down too. Yeah. We got a time fuse on a thing. This guy's. This guy's over here tweeting. I'm looking at him thinking, if we're in Iraq right now.

[Brent Gleeson]

Oh my God. First off, Off. Where's the proper spelling? I mean, take your time. Get it out properly. So. So hybe athar.

[Rob O'Neill]

I guess so.

[Brent Gleeson]

I feel like he broke this story.

[Rob O'Neill]

I. I'm giving him credit right now, but when I looked at him too, he's got a. His face is lit up with the phone. I'm thinking Iraq. I'm shooting him because he's gonna. He's setting up an ied.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

But then it hit. It's like, you know what? They have no idea we're here. And then the bird comes in. I'm talking to the sniper again. And really, how much. How much time? Fuse. When's that going off? Like 30 seconds. Oh, we got abort. We aborted the 47. It turns, this blows up. We almost took down a goddamn Chinook. Comes back in. And then we get on that thing, and then we. We get in there now we're leaving. I'm sitting next to the sniper. This is actually a cool story. I'm with him. You know him. I don't want to say his name. He doesn't want it out there yet. When he rescued Captain Phillips, that was the most important. I. Even afterwards, when we were on the ship, we were on the Boxer, and I said something like, you just did the most, most, like, important thing in SEAL team history. And his response was, cool. Can we go home? Like that? Like, just kill a guy? So when we got back, he's getting like, I, I, I'm not poor me. Whatever it. But he's getting from specifically his team leader, who didn't shoot, trying to fire him because he came in smelling like booze. Like, we got back home, we're not drinking because he just rescued Richard Phillips. Whatever. And I would always go up to him and say, hey, dude, don't listen to this. I take my dip out. Take one of mine. You're a hero. Don't listen to this. This is no noise. You're a hero. Whatever. Give him a dip. Every time, whenever that will come up. We're riding out from the bin Laden raid. I got my. My shitty old school nods on, and Copenhagen came in front of me and said, take one. Now you know what it feels like. I'm like, okay, that. And then a blue team guy from New York was there, and he goes, who got him? Like I said, I. I did. And he said, on behalf of my family, thank you. I'm like, holy, what is going on here? And they were leaving on a bird, but. But they are going to scramble F16s. We sold them because they're our allies and I'd heard room now they didn't. Are they? Are they.

[Brent Gleeson]

Let's put.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, if myself, I'm not an expert.

[Brent Gleeson]

In geopolitics and again my opinion only counts for me. I'm going to put an asterisk yes. Next to the allies portion of that.

[Rob O'Neill]

See, not me because if my, I want my taxpayer, if my taxpayer dollars aren't going to Pakistani jets, I want them to build up Al Shabaab because that's what we're doing. But yeah. So now we're leaving though. And I had heard afterward I ran into some of the pilots. They actually had some stuff above us and they had F15s and something. This is just cool. I hope it's true. Something along the lines the F15 pilots let the F16 pilots know this is a bad idea for you. Yeah, but we don't know any of this and we're just, we know 90 minutes and we just all started our watches and we're just sitting on this.

[Brent Gleeson]

Bird just to get down in jback.

[Rob O'Neill]

90 minutes gets us across the border and we thought like we might have to fly as far as the fuel can get us and run and we're in a spot too. I mean think of all the shit there. If we, if we land in a body bad Pakistan, something bad happens like I don't know, helicopter crashes, like West Point, their version is there. It's not going to be cadets, it's going to be local cops. And I don't, I didn't go there to kill local cops who have no idea what's going on. They're working the beat so this is a lot of going on. So we're flying out on a 47, not as stealth as the stealth birds.

[Brent Gleeson]

Which by the way, not to interrupt you, it is fascinating to me when all this stuff came out publicly I had only heard of those helicopters.

[Rob O'Neill]

I didn't know about them.

[Brent Gleeson]

And then to see a picture there and it was just kind of like glossed over. It was actually probably like the biggest secret of the operation. I don't think the president sitting there poorly destroyed by the way. I know they use the tools that they could.

[Rob O'Neill]

All we have, all we have is thermal barricade.

[Brent Gleeson]

Do you know that within China, China 36 hours those things were lifted and shifted and it was, I'm like, oh my God, dude. That is one of the closest held secrets on the front page of global newspaper and nobody's talking about it except for the Chinese who are like they.

[Rob O'Neill]

Have, excuse me Just like them.

[Brent Gleeson]

Now that's weird.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

Sorry to interrupt.

[Rob O'Neill]

No no. But yeah the flight out then is just start the watch the familiar wine of the. We've all been in the chunks.

[Brent Gleeson]

47. Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

47. I love those things and I love when people say. I've said to me too. So that's a pretty slow helicopter. That's the fastest helicopter we have. Yeah. That's two of them. Engines hauling out.

[Brent Gleeson]

Some of the best sleep I've ever gotten is in the passenger seat of a Hilux facing rearward in a 47. 47 just with a crew chiefs like hey, you can't get in there. And I'm like okay, understood.

[Rob O'Neill]

That's like just rat. Can't put your. You can't put your sleep back on top of the carnage box. All right.

[Brent Gleeson]

Sure.

[Rob O'Neill]

I just took two ambient I better.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. I have 10 minutes of usable time to get up there. And then you need to leave me alone.

[Rob O'Neill]

Oh yeah. I don't. I don't want to be falling off this thing. I don't want to limp away from this. Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

That's in long 90 minutes man.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

Over largely the route out. I'm assuming it's probably over not populated.

[Rob O'Neill]

I think it was point A, point B.

[Brent Gleeson]

Straight line.

[Rob O'Neill]

I think it was just haul ass, pedal the metal. We started our watches and Chesney told me he was listening to A Great Day to Be Alive by Travis. We actually told Travis Tritt that. Pretty cool.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

Because he never listened. She's never listen to that story again. That song again. Because he was on I think when Falco was killed and he was running Falco and he couldn't listen to that song. And it's fitting because now I got kyol. We're leaving. 10 minutes. Yeah. 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 minutes. Right. I started thinking about a no hitter top of the seventh home team. I don't want to say anything. I don't want to jinx this. 70, 80 minutes. Got to get to 90. And then. No I've. I've actually told Al Michaels this. I started thinking face to face. I started thinking about the greatest sporting event in the history of this country. 1980 Lake Placid Olympics hockey. Team USA is a bunch of college kids who don't even like each other.

[Brent Gleeson]

I love this movie that they made.

[Rob O'Neill]

Amazing. Yeah. The Russians obviously the greatest hockey team ever assembled. Haven't lost since the early 60s. Every gold medal. This team has no business being on the ice.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. The Russian team definitely not genetically modified in any way. They're not on any injectable chicken breast or.

[Rob O'Neill]

But I started thinking about the end third period. Now they're winning. Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

Oh, the clock. Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

But if you go to YouTube, you can hear that crowd too. We can this up. 10, 9, 8, 5. And then you hear five seconds left. Do you believe in miracles? And then the pilot came over the radio. All right, gentlemen, for the first time in your lives, you're going to be happy to hear this. Welcome to Afghanistan.

[Brent Gleeson]

Man.

[Rob O'Neill]

That's first high five. No high fives. When we heard it was bin Laden, nothing. When we're shooting, nothing blowing up, we're finally get back. High five, Boom. Now we're going to be best friends forever.

[Brent Gleeson]

Why do you think it came apart? Why do you think the best friend idea.

[Rob O'Neill]

I have thought about it every day. It's got to be some sort, some sort of professional jealousy. I, I know at that level, at the tier one level, I know that guys who didn't get picked for the mission were extremely jealous. I'm at a tier one unit. I guess I'm not at a tier one unit. They were jealous. It was really hurt.

[Brent Gleeson]

And then experience and time are real things, though.

[Rob O'Neill]

Imagine being on the stairs to Bin Laden's room and Bin Laden dies and you don't like the guy who did it. Maybe it's jealousy.

[Brent Gleeson]

I mean, I remember my first. I was working for HP at Gold Squadron. My, my first year, I got handed a sledgehammer.

[Rob O'Neill]

Oh, yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

And I'm like, guys, I know how to use this from my days at Team 5. But then you watch them move through the house and I'm like, okay, this is different. And they're making decisions and you have to take the time to learn how to read body language and get to.

[Rob O'Neill]

Know your first run after Green Team with Red Team team, they were gone. I didn't see. I didn't see them.

[Brent Gleeson]

Did you have the thought in your mind? I don't know if I'm capable of doing that because that's what I had my first.

[Rob O'Neill]

I thought I was so good at CQB after Green Team because that's all you do.

[Brent Gleeson]

Also for clarity, you were. It's just a different level.

[Rob O'Neill]

You jump at first and then a CQB for nine months. Yeah, a different, different level.

[Brent Gleeson]

Well, I'm saying a level that people out of Green Team. You were good at CQB. You were probably better than 99% of people.

[Rob O'Neill]

Easily.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. Then you go up to the squadron.

[Rob O'Neill]

Forget about it.

[Brent Gleeson]

So I understand. I never. The, the cool thing about my Career is I never got out of the new guy cycle. So I was an E6 and then got commissioned and got out as an 03. I'm like, sausage maker the whole time.

[Rob O'Neill]

You know what I mean?

[Brent Gleeson]

Because first of all, I was at gold as an E5. Like, there's no better job. There's no better job than being an E5. The young. The youngest dude in our class. Yes.

[Rob O'Neill]

That's like lottery shit.

[Brent Gleeson]

I know. And they're like, here's the sledge. Don't kill us and don't do anything dumb. I'm like, I don't know if I'm capable of doing either of those, but I'll do my best. And so. And then I left there. I had made E6. I got to Buds. I was the newest instructor. Like, not even the LPO, just a professional new guy. Just a professional new guy. Then I get Commission. I'm an 01, right back down to the bottom of the ladder. And I got out. I got. I made 03 like, two months before I got out. Because every two years, you get a B.

[Rob O'Neill]

Advanced. Yeah. Yeah. Automatically.

[Brent Gleeson]

So my second. My.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

My Last deployment in 2010 was with Team 3. I was in O2. No, I left on that deployment as an O1. My troop commander goes, here's your lieutenant bars. You can borrow my lieutenant commander ones when you need to go to the meetings. And I made. Yeah, I made 02 on that. And then oh, three, right before I got medically retired, I never got out of the wheels of the machine.

[Rob O'Neill]

Awesome. What was it like the first time someone said sir?

[Brent Gleeson]

It was hilarious.

[Rob O'Neill]

That is funny.

[Brent Gleeson]

The first time I ever got saluted, I was driving on to. It was I had. Because I was at buzz and I went to no additional training. I got this package saying, hey, you got picked up for the LDO program. So I went over to the NAB bayside to the exchange and found a Filipino woman and said, I need officer uniforms. And I don't know what that means, but I need them all.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, she'll know.

[Brent Gleeson]

So I put my khakis on the first day after my commissioning sermon. I'm driving on the base, and this kid salutes me at the compound. Driving onto the BUDS compound, just the gate there, that's off the silver strand. And I audibly started laughing.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, yeah, I don't know how it.

[Brent Gleeson]

Happened, because he looked at my I.D. he's like, good morning, sir. I'm just like. I drove into work, went over to a buddy of mine who was an E9. In first phase, like do I have this on right?

[Rob O'Neill]

Oh that's funny.

[Brent Gleeson]

And he was like actually no belt buckles.

[Rob O'Neill]

Upside down belt buckles.

[Brent Gleeson]

It was, it was flipped the other way.

[Rob O'Neill]

Oh that's awesome.

[Brent Gleeson]

So it's. Dude, it was.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah, that makes sense. Cuz when we were in east you didn't know what khakis were. No. Huh.

[Brent Gleeson]

I know. I went to the. I literally went to the Navy exchange cuz those women.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well everyday little prizes.

[Brent Gleeson]

I mean, well that and those women know more about military and uniforms than.

[Rob O'Neill]

We do run the Navy. Especially that the supply side and then the, the Nexus dude.

[Brent Gleeson]

So they decked me out and I'm walking around like do I have this? It was weird, man.

[Rob O'Neill]

First time I made Senior Chief I went to the damn neck. Went through the the gate. Yep. He said have a good day Senior Chief. I did a U turn and I want to hear that again. What's up homie? Let's hear that one more time.

[Brent Gleeson]

I could never handle the salute thing man.

[Rob O'Neill]

That's got to be weird. That just doesn't. Doesn't. Yeah, makes sense. The getting saluted.

[Brent Gleeson]

God. Here's a. So I, I think I would have stayed at the command for as long as possible. It wasn't really my choice to leave. So I got hurt in that deployment in 2005 with a squadron and I had.

[Rob O'Neill]

Remember that?

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. I had made an agreement with the.

[Rob O'Neill]

Cuz we turned over with gold. That was my first deployment in Jed.

[Brent Gleeson]

The. The squadrons at that point weren't their own commands. So it wasn't the co. What did they call him? He was just the oic.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah. It'd be Golden Lead.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. Who I think was the same 01 on your.

[Rob O'Neill]

He was.

[Brent Gleeson]

That's what I'm saying.

[Rob O'Neill]

So you know that dude too. In his defense, I knew him. A SEAL team too. Yeah. He was planning the bin Laden raid since before 911. Like that was his thing. Yeah, seriously, like that was always his thing. It was to the point of like this is just ridiculous. Like I saw him on the weekends like planning this before 9 11. He's.

[Brent Gleeson]

He's a little touched. I would say DEFCON 3 autism. Something not nuclear but like he's approaching.

[Rob O'Neill]

I, I never had a problem with him personally. I've also never seen executive officers or junior officers badmouth an officer in front of enlisted guys like that.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, he was fantastic. For me, he was the officer detailer when I was getting ready to get out and they said we're not submitting this because your medical Record was like seven pages. They're like, no, the doctor wouldn't sign it. I'm like, I have plans, just so you know. And my EAOS is on like Monday. This was a Wednesday. I call up the od. Teller didn't know who it was. He answers. I'm like, dude, dude, I need help. I had a year extension within like, oh, really? 30 minutes. I've had nothing but great experiences with him.

[Rob O'Neill]

No, so am I. I mean, I've, I've worked longer hours. I've never was his roommate. I've heard it's difficult, I'm sure.

[Brent Gleeson]

But anyway, so I was. It was like.

[Rob O'Neill]

Because he had it like a two star by now.

[Brent Gleeson]

He's got to be. He's on a rocket ship to the top. I'm sure.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, he's got three silver stars.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yes.

[Rob O'Neill]

Isn't necessary for promotion, but it looks good to a board.

[Brent Gleeson]

Oh, it's not necessary for promotion, but let's just say you're really competitive with the other packages.

[Rob O'Neill]

The ground for commander on the bin Laden raid.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. So after that deployment, anyway, I was going to go down to air ops for about six months just to take some time off because we had been going back to back to back to back and it was actually far less kinetic than what you guys built into in 6, 7 and 8. It was just earlier on, I don't think the enemy had really figured out what the hell was going on or put together like a counter strategy. But I was going to go to the air ops because I love jumping. So I'm still on crutches. I get flown back. The squadron is still overseas and the E9 of the command asked me to come up CMC to the third deck, the old third deck building, which was right across from Admin. I'm on crutches. He's sitting there in his khakis and he's like, you know, you haven't done enough, so we're going to put you back into the rotation cycle. And I was like, master Chief, and I'm not proud of this. I said, basing this off of what I see on your uniform and your wrap, I've done a hell of a lot more than you ever have.

[Rob O'Neill]

How do you like that?

[Brent Gleeson]

He immediately stood up and started yelling at me. The knife cutting hand.

[Rob O'Neill]

Oh, he brought up the blade.

[Brent Gleeson]

So we discussed. Yeah, he was pissed, but I was like, listen, man, you're sitting here telling a guy who is on crutches that I haven't done enough and I can look and visually identify what you have and haven't done, which I can still respect you as an E9, but this is the deal that I made with my squad squadron. He's like, no, you.

[Rob O'Neill]

Wow.

[Brent Gleeson]

So that's why I ended up leaving. Because I couldn't get the downtime that I needed to actually just recover, work on my marriage. The only bill that was available was buds.

[Rob O'Neill]

He was disgruntled about the Blackwater thing.

[Brent Gleeson]

I don't know what he was.

[Rob O'Neill]

So he was really pissed because he said that he mentioned people by name that went to green team, did a pump, and then went to make Blackwater.

[Brent Gleeson]

Money, which is not what I was trying to do.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, he didn't care. He made guys on my green team re list there instead of doing overseas for tax exempt.

[Brent Gleeson]

You'll like the end of the story though.

[Rob O'Neill]

Let's go.

[Brent Gleeson]

So years later, we're in a meeting and I'm an officer at this point.

[Rob O'Neill]

Oh yes. I, I. You don't even need to finish a story. I love it.

[Brent Gleeson]

It's the only time I looked at somebody. I'm like, you can go ahead and call me sir.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yes. That is exactly what I wanted to hear.

[Brent Gleeson]

So that came from.

[Rob O'Neill]

I literally got the hair just stood up. That's so awesome.

[Brent Gleeson]

Full circle. I shut him down in an ops meeting and he got pissed and I forget what he called me. I think he just said whatever. And I'm like, actually, sir. It's sir.

[Rob O'Neill]

It's sir now.

[Brent Gleeson]

And he turned a shade of red that I don't know if it exists on a color palette. That's the kind of revenge I'm talking about. Like years in the making.

[Rob O'Neill]

This is literally. I'm not kissing your ass cause I'm in your new studio. Top five stories I've heard at that command.

[Brent Gleeson]

Dude, seriously, I couldn't believe it. I mean, I shouldn't have said what I did.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah, you should have. Fucking him. I mean, the same reason right now.

[Brent Gleeson]

I'm literally hobbling down the. I mean, you could hear my foot on that stupid lolium hallway. I could take a normal step and then it was flat. Cuz I had drop foot. I had hemiplegia for a year, which is basically paralysis of the leg. Like I haven't done enough. Like, dude, I'm not saying I've done.

[Rob O'Neill]

Anything, but did we just have done enough?

[Brent Gleeson]

Man? What do you want from me? This place doesn't have to be a wood chipper.

[Rob O'Neill]

No, but it is. Well, I asked. Like I said, I went to the the Seal museum in San Diego. Which is. Which is great. And it's. That's a spot, too, where team guys should be able to go if we have to hash anything out. It's a cool. And the VR, the virtual reality thing there.

[Brent Gleeson]

I've never been.

[Rob O'Neill]

Oh, it's. I was. I went. I snuck in, like, by myself. I did the virtual reality alone. I put the thing on, and it's like these. This wind. And I'm looking. There's team guys right here. I'm, like, checking out their gear. Like, really? Yeah. And then we're in a Hilo. Like. Like a Blackhawk. And then we do a free fall jump into vbs. Like, it's really cool. Like, you can see it. Like, I could. I can do a JMPI on these fake guys that are next to me.

[Brent Gleeson]

Okay.

[Rob O'Neill]

But then. But I'm at the museum. It's awesome. But then it's like, hey, why isn't there anything about Richard Marcinko here? Because we're really bad at that. It was blackball. Why I would. I never met him. I would have loved. I would have loved to have a drink with Richard Marcinko and to hear.

[Brent Gleeson]

I met his daughter. I don't recommend drinking with her.

[Rob O'Neill]

No. She an animal.

[Brent Gleeson]

She can be unkind.

[Rob O'Neill]

Growing up with him. Why is that?

[Brent Gleeson]

Hard to say. Never met the man.

[Rob O'Neill]

I saw him once. Never met him. But I think we should have been able to go into Seal Team 6. But they blackballed him.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

We should have the bin Laden team in the team rooms right now telling the shooters what. What goes on.

[Brent Gleeson]

Which version should they.

[Rob O'Neill]

Whatever. I'm gonna tell them about Green Jim and how you got your slice of whatever and 100. Always tell the truth in your diverse, no matter what happens.

[Brent Gleeson]

I think you should, man. Man. I think you should.

[Rob O'Neill]

Hey, maybe it's done. It's done. That's just. It is what it is.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. And like I said. And I say that without judgment, and I understand that. There is no pressure on me to say that because we're decades removed. Right. Like, I get it. It's. I don't know how to put a bow on that situation.

[Rob O'Neill]

Bow on this.

[Brent Gleeson]

No, I don't mean, like, the situation itself. As to how people can arrive to a place, like, let's just put it to bed and move on.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, I would be happy to do that. Yeah. But then I got this podcast, Gas coming down my throat every day for four years. My wife's getting pregnant, miscarriages. Because it doesn't matter what I feel, how Are they affecting my family? This is up what you're doing. And that's how you get a $25 million lawsuit for defamation. Not for a debrief.

[Brent Gleeson]

How long does that process take?

[Rob O'Neill]

But my lawyers are working right now.

[Brent Gleeson]

Did they give. Is this like a two year thing? I. I just know the speed of their lawyer wants.

[Rob O'Neill]

Is dying to get. Get it dropped. He's dying for dismissal. He does not want to go against me in court.

[Brent Gleeson]

Do you think it's a good look either way?

[Rob O'Neill]

Win or lose, they didn't need to do this. Now they're getting sued. This didn't have to happen. And guess what? You can to Tucker, man. Why don't you make a living off you did. All we know about you is you got shot by somebody.

[Brent Gleeson]

They do Delta does a better job of. I'm not going to say quiet professional, but they do. They, they. They talk less.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, Brent Tucker's the face of Delta Force whether they like it or not.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, there's this. What I'll say is there's less. There's less out there in the public domain. Maybe that will change over time.

[Rob O'Neill]

You know what too. I tell you what. Speaking of Delta, it'll be interesting.

[Brent Gleeson]

We're talking about airlines or.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, see I have a history with that the Delta are you know to.

[Brent Gleeson]

Fly on them yet.

[Rob O'Neill]

I. I think so. I'm not going to. That was bullshit. Stupid. It was stupid. I mean I was a stupid on my part. Oh yeah?

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

But it was to me. It was fun. Again drinking at the time. Thought it was funny. Not funny. It turns out if you drink too much and tweet, it can be not as funny as it sounded at the time. And then you realize you're hungover. Oh, that was stupid.

[Brent Gleeson]

How'd you get a handle on it?

[Rob O'Neill]

Ibogaine. I did ibogaine three times.

[Brent Gleeson]

How. How bad was it before you did the ibogaine?

[Rob O'Neill]

Oh, horrible. I. The way I describe it and to my wife especially is I would get demonic. It wasn't a bad drinker. It was a strict great evil that came out of me.

[Brent Gleeson]

Did you realize it at the time?

[Rob O'Neill]

No. No. And I was surrounded by yes men. I was surrounded by people who can benefit off me being drunk.

[Brent Gleeson]

How?

[Rob O'Neill]

Money.

[Brent Gleeson]

Oh, I think being surrounded by yes men ever is super dangerous.

[Rob O'Neill]

That's something else. Oh yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

That's just an echo chamber.

[Rob O'Neill]

No, I don't want to be told yes all the time that I'm right. That's stupid. I want to be told wrong. That's how you Learn that was one problem with getting out of the seal teams is, is I thought I could trust everyone and you can't really. People have their interests in mind.

[Brent Gleeson]

What was it that got you to explore ibogaine the first time? Was it one thing or a combination?

[Rob O'Neill]

It was the alcoholism. It was running into team guys that had quit drinking that were very, very successful. Their marriage was great. They quit drinking for years. They didn't tell me how. I'm like, that's great. Quit drinking, man, I'd love to. And then they say, oh, I did psychedelics. I got into psychedelics. I went to ib, ibogaine the first time. It was fantastic.

[Brent Gleeson]

Okay.

[Rob O'Neill]

And the way ibogaine works is once you go through it and then the 5 Meo DMT, it resets you and it's going to stay with you. For me for three months and that's when you need to adjust and get your new schedule down. For me, it's a meditation, rosary, yoga, working out and then start your day. For me, the first time was so good that it was like, cool, I'm cured. I can have a beer. I let alcohol back in.

[Brent Gleeson]

How long from the ibogaine experience to letting it back?

[Rob O'Neill]

Six months, five months, maybe five months.

[Brent Gleeson]

I have no experience with it, but I've heard from people. It is powerful and it just changes your relationship with the substances.

[Rob O'Neill]

You know what for, for disgruntled veterans who are just addicted to hate. I would love to help them get ibogaine. It is a, it is a go there and you just, it's, it's better, it's peaceful. The second time I wanted to take it serious. I needed a third time to the realization I can't ever drink again. Which is great. I mean, trust me. I mean there's fuck ups in my past that I, I can try to explain. It's like I was drunk, man.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

And I'm not now. And that's it. And my, you know, my kids are better, my family's better. But the ibogaine did it because the ibogaine it goes into, opens your mind to a point that you're seeing stuff that you suppress and it's a, it's a, it's having. It's going to be a part of my life forever. I'll go back. Maybe not as soon as next summer.

[Brent Gleeson]

Summer.

[Rob O'Neill]

But it's a, it's a vacation now because I'm familiar with it. The sweat lodge is incredible. The food is phenomenal. They ambulance.

[Brent Gleeson]

What country did you go to?

[Rob O'Neill]

Tijuana.

[Brent Gleeson]

Okay.

[Rob O'Neill]

Ambia Life sciences. I'm convinced they plucked these Michelin star chefs from Mexico City. They probably did. And they gave them. I'm serious. And they gave them their own menu, their own kitchen. No one fucks it. You get this Michelin star meals, sweat lodge, great IVs, ibogaine is just. It's going to be a bad dream for 10 hours and you just need to know that you can guide it. And you just, you, you don't want to fight it. You just need to be open and welcome it.

[Brent Gleeson]

Does it feel like 10 hours or does time perception change? Both.

[Rob O'Neill]

You've. I. The last one, it. It started off the punch in the face and then let me sleep for the last five hours.

[Brent Gleeson]

Oh, damn.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, I went in there with an attention because I see demons every time and demons, like I stare at them. You have a weird. It's a weird. Not everybody hallucinates either. There's been heroin addicts that, that slept the whole night were complaining about it, but then they weren't dope sick, so it worked. And, but for me, like it was weird. Like I had a. One of the times. Like they'd lay you down. There was five of us in a room, mostly Green Berets, one dude from Delta. And what you do is you put, you take the pills, the red pills, which is cool because you're going to.

[Brent Gleeson]

See the Jerry Matrix.

[Rob O'Neill]

That's why they did it. And you're gonna. So like you take your pills and there's these beds suddenly take them outside of the fire ceremony when the sun's going down. The Coronado Islands. Gorgeous. Take your pills. You're all bullshit. You, you have a, like a burn list. Here's what you're gonna do here. And you don't need to tell anyone, but guys are in such a mood. Like I'm gonna tell you what's wrong with me. And it's always funny to hear like a Green Beret because you start laughing at his up problems because you're describing what I do and then you do it. I. I went up there with the. I'm go. I'm gonna ask this demon what his name is and why he's here. Every time I've seen him, he shows up with a. A white face and red eyes, black gums, yellow teeth. And he's pissed off. He's always right here. I'm gonna ask him his name game, what he wants. So we went up there and like you sit down, the Delta dude, he's. He's out, he's having A his. It starts early for him. And I think your mind takes a snapshot of the room because once you put it on and start hallucinating, you can sort of see everything in the room.

[Brent Gleeson]

Oh, like a see through VR mask?

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah, you think it is. And so then I'm back there, I'm waiting for this demon. I look over, start having a conversation with the dude, the Delta guy. I'm just having a, it felt like a five, ten minute conversation. I want to get more into it. I pull my mask up and he's not even looking at me. I'm just talking to someone that ain't there. So the demon comes in. Now this time he's not ugly, he's. He's blonde hair that's slick back with bright teeth. And he said, I'm not that bad. He was alcohol, I'm not that bad. Right. And it was like something in the medicine attacked him. And I, I sort of came to and the nurse was wiping me off with a blanket. And he was. The Delta guy's like, yeah, you're something up underneath that blanket or whatever. We get back down and I'm laying there, the demon's gone. I want to sleep. And I hear him go, what? And I look at him, I go, what? And I take him off, I go, what? He's looking at me. He goes, I can't hear anything with that mariachi band playing behind you. And I go, what? And that's the kind of you're seeing and it's just. And, and it's your mind doing it. So like for me, the fork in the road, the bad's on the left and the goods on the right. And like on the good, it's like I see my maternal grandma, grandmother. And with the bad, I'll see bad. And then if your mind wants to get creative, you can let it. And, and, and the, my hallucinations are so vivid. Like if I want to imagine I'm skinning someone alive, I can. It gets bad, it gets dark, but you can tell it stop. I'm not ready. And it'll stop, but if you don't. And even one of the, like one of the problems with ibogaine is I've seen guys, I want to leave, I'm leaving early. Like at 9:00am you get like, you start at sunset, 9:00am they're going to give your IVs so you can be done. And one of the dudes left and he's going to leave. And we're talking a 28 year Sergeant Major Green Beret like he is not a new guy and he's done. And he went down to his room and then later we all came back. He came up and said, I can't be in a room one. I'm terrified. And then that's why they take your phones away, because you're in what's called a gray day, which is this weird hangover. It's not a hangover, like a headache. It's. I'm driving. Drained.

[Brent Gleeson]

Just like exhausted.

[Rob O'Neill]

I made the worst decision again of my life. I'm gonna feel like this forever. Like people, they take your phones away because people were making calls to people who recommended threatening to kill them when they see them. But then. So you get a sleeping pill. Not a pill. I get a little natural concoction after a Reiki massage, which is crazy. Next level energy.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

Where they're pushing the energy out. I don't know how that worked. I'm a big energy guy. Now that I've been in psychedelics.

[Brent Gleeson]

Do you collect crystal crystals?

[Rob O'Neill]

I have one. I don't collect crystals. I know. My daughters have asked me, hey, what time was I born? Like, stop.

[Brent Gleeson]

I have a friend, Greg Anderson. I'll link you guys up. He's a collector of the finest crystals.

[Rob O'Neill]

The finest crystals.

[Brent Gleeson]

He sends me them. I give them to my wife. She puts them near her.

[Rob O'Neill]

I like one that you can rub because I don't smoke cigarettes. Perfect.

[Brent Gleeson]

Trust me. I'm sure he has the answer for you.

[Rob O'Neill]

But you. You get your sleep, you wake up and then you do 5 Meo DMT, which is. So I became Venom. I. Yeah, it is.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

Ibogaine is a plant based medicine. This is totally both natural. This is a psychedelic. That's a medicine. This is the 5 MeO is the most intense psychedelic you can get. And it starts off right away. And no one has. I've heard one person explain it. I forgot what he said. No one, Joe Rogan, couldn't explain it.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, he says basically, like being shot into the middle of the known galaxy through a portal you can't describe.

[Rob O'Neill]

It's. It's a kaleidoscope where you can see behind yourself. And once you get through, the first part is. Is. Is the stratosphere. You got to get through it to get to space. And it's rough. And if you don't submit, if you don't tap out and just say, hey, I'm here for this. You can breathe. Then you. You hit the stratosphere and it just opens. I heard. I mean it. You know what it Felt like. It felt like I was busted. Like, you just got caught. Like, oh, shit. Every bad thing I've ever done, you know? And then. Then you hear. I heard his maternal voice. Like, you're here, you're home. And that was my grandmother again. And it was something along the lines of, we're not waiting for you. We're just here. And it's almost like you can see the bad guys over here. And it's not forgiveness. It's an acceptance of we're all doing what we're supposed to do. And the medicine. It's a maternal voice and it's. It was fucked up. It said to me, the only people who go to hell are people who think they deserve to. And it was getting at. It was getting at. It's not. It's nothing against Jesus forgiveness. It is. You need to forgive yourself.

[Brent Gleeson]

I've heard that that's a. Like, what about a 10 minute ride? But it seems longer.

[Rob O'Neill]

I. The first time I did it, I was. I hadn't done ibogaine yet. I brought my wife to watch me.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

And I did it. And I asked her, how many days was I just out? And she said, 45 seconds. I saw everything. Whoa. It is. But I love it now. Like, it's my favorite. I'm scared shitless of it.

[Brent Gleeson]

Easy, psycho. I should have just seen your eyes. You're like, it's my favorite, but I've skipped.

[Rob O'Neill]

That's the fear. I'm scared of it. Because you get ready for it. And you know what you got to do? Because you got to sit up and you're gonna. They. They do it and you take your big hit and another one and you hold it and you count to 10 and they. They bring you back. And then you just go into it now when I did it, when I do in Mexico, the guy. Now, I didn't. I didn't make any movements, but I don't know. I don't know. And the guys who were going crazy. There was an Air Force guy there. That or no, sorry, army guy, another Green Beret that went nuts. And I didn't think he liked me. Like, we were there for four days. I didn't. I just. For some guys like me, that's fine. Fair. And she's always making this face like, he doesn't like me. When he told me after. Like, when he got done with, he was screaming, crying, fighting. We're lucky the dude administering it was a black belt. So he could keep him down. He could keep him down. Not. I'm not Doing anything, just keeping him. The guy woke up and he came over and, like, he hugged me because I was right there. And he was just saying he had before. I. I couldn't smile. I was just trying to smile. I couldn't because he'd seen his buddies blowing up. And. And they. And he was like, this is the first. Like, literally the first day. This is the. The page is turning. Learned the sergeant Major. No. When we're driving back to the airport, he said, call Amber Capone when you can. She runs vets.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. Marcus and Amber. Yeah, they're great.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yep. And he said, you tell her she saved my life because I was going to kill myself next week. This was my last chance.

[Brent Gleeson]

Isn't it crazy that you have to go across an international border to do that? Currently, I know they're looking at it, and I.

[Rob O'Neill]

It should not be looked at. This is proof that there is no. There's no money in the cure.

[Brent Gleeson]

I almost think I agree and I have two thoughts. One, I think all exit from the military should actually be handled by an ngo. Fuck The TAPS program for seven days. All that. It doesn't work.

[Rob O'Neill]

I know not to work. Core frames. Do a job interview. Got it.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. And it's like, turn people over to an NGO for 90 days. And almost especially from a soft background or if you're exposed to a lot of trauma that actually might be a necessary step in your evolution to transition from one into the other.

[Rob O'Neill]

It would help.

[Brent Gleeson]

Help. I think it would. I think it would do.

[Rob O'Neill]

It could be something as simple as a nice bed to sleep in, a cold plunge, a gym and a hot tub. Yeah, ibogaine helps. Like, there's. It works.

[Brent Gleeson]

I only know of one person who didn't have an experience like you have described. Otherwise, it has been resoundingly successful for the people that I know. And the guy who it didn't work for ended up taking his life later on anyway.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah. I mean, it's just too much. I mean, but this is definitely. This should be the. The. I mean, look at this disgruntled vet. The vet, bro. I mean, if. If a lot of just got together and just did ibogaine. Like, I've heard stories of dudes, team guys that threw the bad grenade. A suicide watch and hated. And then he goes to ibogaine.

[Brent Gleeson]

Let's be clear. The grenade was good. He threw it in a bad spot.

[Rob O'Neill]

Grenade was fine. Grenade function as designed. If you. If you looked it up in the manual, it.

[Brent Gleeson]

Unfortunately, that thing actually probably clacked off right inside the Three to five second.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah, it did. That's a tough one. But again, too. And these are this.

[Brent Gleeson]

And I know the team leader well from that because I went through selection with him and he told me what happened. I'm like, man, again, like, I know him too.

[Rob O'Neill]

Phenomenal.

[Brent Gleeson]

Oh, he's. He's fantastic. Hasselhoff is what we call him.

[Rob O'Neill]

I know. I love that dude too. I heard a rumor that one of the. I posted a picture with him in it, and I don't think that's true, but I heard he just hates my guts. I don't, I've never, I don't know. I've never posted a picture of anyone's face. Yeah, a lot of guys took pictures and something posted that I'm in in.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

What was awesome, though. I remember I, I heard about the, the movie American Sniper when it first came out because, like, it came out after the bin Laden raid.

[Brent Gleeson]

Okay.

[Rob O'Neill]

So everyone was curious about. And they're like, yeah, the deadliest sniper in US History. I'm like, I know a guy.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

He was getting a couple every night. Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

He lays. He laid some people down. His.

[Rob O'Neill]

Oh, my God. Did he.

[Brent Gleeson]

His rotational average was.

[Rob O'Neill]

Oh, Jesus.

[Brent Gleeson]

Atypical.

[Rob O'Neill]

I was with him and I, I saw that. I, I, I don't want to get too into detail, but I remember saying, why did you do that? He goes, I just never done it that way.

[Brent Gleeson]

I mean, our job selects for some weird people. I. Talking about myself when I say that as well.

[Rob O'Neill]

My, my wife says I was me. About me. I was never supposed to be a seal. I was supposed to be like a chef or something else.

[Brent Gleeson]

Mary Steven Seagal.

[Rob O'Neill]

I should. Well, I also cook. Nicely done. No, no, but like, the, the sociopaths and narcissists are attracted to special forces, and there's a lot of them there. And I, I thought I was.

[Brent Gleeson]

I haven't thought about it like that.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah, I, I thought I was for a while because it didn't. Everyone's killing people didn't bother me. It. Later it started to.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. Well, I also think the why behind that situation. And I don't know about your experience, but very often you're given super limited information with a very tight window of time to make a decision. You know what I mean? Like, like, it's not like we're sitting around watching somebody for 72 hours as they live their life, you know what I mean? And have interactions with people. You come around a corner like, ah. You know, like, you get. The weird thing is, though, you get the rest of your life to think about that. But in the moment, not a. Yeah, in the moment. It's binary because that's all of our training. That's all it is.

[Rob O'Neill]

It is so fast. I. I was a sniper and I was asked what's the furthest kill I have? And I think it's 10, 15ft, maybe. I. I didn't. I stayed in. Typical.

[Brent Gleeson]

I had a holdover on that.

[Rob O'Neill]

I had a ju. I actually my holds were high. My holds are up here to hit. I was. Because you go to recce or assault and there was a joke. Someone said, well, you're sniper wanting a sniper. I said, well, because I was working with Hoff, I'm like, snipers are going to kill more people, but I have a feeling assaulters are going to kill more famous people. Joke.

[Brent Gleeson]

Smoking, probably. Yeah. What. How was your transition out of the military?

[Rob O'Neill]

It was. It was difficult. You just. Because. Well, okay. You brought up the. The. That article in Esquire.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yep.

[Rob O'Neill]

That wasn't about. That was about. I. I wasn't a poor me healthcare. It was that someone should do something about the health care. So I wrote an article through Phil Bronze. I didn't. Still didn't know if my name's going to come out officially. So I'm going to write the. The shooter article to get the attention through Phil Bronstein. Because what we're going to do, I've got an entire lobbying effort set up through Heather Podesta, one of the Podestas, Pretty fucking big name in D.C. we released the article, go right to Harry Reid's office. He's the Senate Majority Leader of the United States. We're talking to him about health care. He's offering a position for someone like me to fill. We need this gap that if you don't do 20 years, you get something. That's what it's about. It's about lobbying to change it. I'm an E8. I'm a senior chief chief at Seal Team 6. I'm very aware I'm not getting a retirement. I don't give a. I'm trying to help. Then here's your spin. You get, oh, Neil's still stupid. And no, he doesn't know. Not the case. Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

I was gonna say most people understand the exit retirement qualifications when they sign on the dotted line.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah, I'm trying to. Trying to make a change. That's the same reason for advocacy for ibogaine.

[Brent Gleeson]

What we were talking about the camaraderie mentality in red before the operation. How was it after when the guys who were able to go on the op came back, horrible.

[Rob O'Neill]

When we get resentment, probably resentment like a. And then stupid would happen. We went to give the debrief to Secretary Gates at. On the third deck of the new building. I think one of them. And then Al showed up from Red Team. Been at red team for 19 years. Red team for 19 years. Mass chief.

[Brent Gleeson]

They wouldn't let him in, which is insane.

[Rob O'Neill]

But yeah, they wouldn't let him into the debriefer. Gates we run on the middle. It's like, you know, he wasn't fair because he had worked for 19 years. But as a courtesy for morale stake in the future. Let him in. No, we get down to Kentucky to see the President. He goes down to see the 101st because he's got back from deployment. Top cover. He. A lot of people do top cover. Weird. He came in to see the team. We're waiting for Obama and Biden to come in. I'm in the front row with the team right here. Face from TF160 comes over in front of me and throws me a salute. And I look at the entire team and I'm like, could have done without that. And again, you know, team guys, this is how the sewing circle bullshit. While he's doing this, he's writing a book. I heard. I went over to Silver because we lost extortion. We need to backfill. I went as a team leader of Silver because we realized a little animosity. Red Team. So we go over there. They're having meetings about me writing a book. I just signed a $17 million book deal.

[Brent Gleeson]

That's a good advance.

[Rob O'Neill]

No one gets that advance. I'm over in Afghanistan. Bin Laden wasn't even the last guy I killed with that gun. My last mission was an L ambush. Which is awesome.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, it's very.

[Rob O'Neill]

My only. Only L I've ever done. That's a good story. But yeah, back to. It's like book deal. Only like this is someone else who might be writing a book. The whole admit nothing, deny everything, make counter accusations. He's writing a book. I'm not. I'm overseas saying I came in through the front door, I'm leaving through the front door. I'll go back to war. Bad move on my part because now they're back here. This whole spin up. The animosity about O' Neill gets saluted in front of TF1 60. This is how the animosity starts.

[Brent Gleeson]

I swear I read something somewhere. And I'm not saying this report is accurate. But I think it essentially said that you and Bis were arguing about your books that you were both going to write in the cage area.

[Rob O'Neill]

That's, yeah. Never brought up in the cage area. I was never going to write a book. I didn't write a book till like 2017.

[Brent Gleeson]

Okay.

[Rob O'Neill]

I didn't write it when I got out. That was someone else that did that. I was, I, I, when I, when I met my wife, her company hired me for a speech. I gave a speech there. I didn't even mention, mentioned bin Laden. Yeah. It's not like I got out to tell the bin Laden story.

[Brent Gleeson]

You know, I don't, I don't fault people for writing books as long as they color inside of the lines of their, of the truth and their experiences. Because people have earned the right to do what they want to with their experiences. It's not for everybody. You don't have to write books that are all war stories. You can do a lot of different things with that. So I don't begrudge people for writing a book.

[Rob O'Neill]

I don't either. I wish I'm glad that George Washington had had an author with, with him when he crossed the Delaware. It's nice we have a story in there so we know what happened. Yeah, I mean that's it is what it is. I, I, I want everyone in the mid laundry to tell their story. I mean if they don't want to. But there was a lot of different angles.

[Brent Gleeson]

I think as time goes on, as we get more time from it, I think that will probably happen. I would hope so.

[Rob O'Neill]

I hope so.

[Brent Gleeson]

I think the historical record.

[Rob O'Neill]

I want to hear the damn Venezuela off.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. Damn, dude.

[Rob O'Neill]

Talk about now. Talk about professional jealous jealousy. I couldn't wipe the smile off my face that whole weekend. Like I'm walking around just like, dude. The only time I'd felt that feeling was when I watched when we were in Afghanistan. We watched blue team jump into Somalia to rescue Jessica Buchanan. I was jealous for that too. Fuck, man.

[Brent Gleeson]

Do you think that from the decision makers that there's any chance, and don't get me wrong, I love the CAD guys. Do you think in their decision making matrix when they're determining who to decide to give it to in the JSOC umbrella that they look at things like Neptune Spear and the outcome of that and the public nature of that and they go, you know what? Not this time probably.

[Rob O'Neill]

I don't envy Wyman Howard, but he took over the job right after the bin Laden raid to CEO. I mean he got Shit from everybody.

[Brent Gleeson]

You'd have to think, I mean, I'm not saying it should or shouldn't, but you'd have to think that that factors into it in some way.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah, maybe. I mean, why did we get the bin Laden? Delta didn't. Is it maybe McRaven was in charge? Charge?

[Brent Gleeson]

I think it had to do with. I think you guys owned Afghanistan at the time.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, that was smart front.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, I think, I actually think.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, we were really good at keeping Afghanistan when everybody wanted to go to Iraq and also keeping people at the White House. Scott Moore would say like, you get in touch with him? I did the. I don't want to say the name, but I was, I worked there in D.C. for a while too. And it's like, what'd you do today, sir? He's like, I walked around the White House spraying my musk all over the place, knowing with the State Department, White House, all that shit eventually when bin Laden pops, they're comfortable with Seal Team 6. Yeah. And the outstations too. I mean, there's a difference between carrying a gun in Iraq and the type of gun you carry in the mountains.

[Brent Gleeson]

Oh, for sure.

[Rob O'Neill]

Take that space gun apart. You don't need all that ounces and pounds.

[Brent Gleeson]

I agree, man. Silver. So you went from silver?

[Rob O'Neill]

I went from red to silver.

[Brent Gleeson]

Red to silver Silver to out or.

[Rob O'Neill]

Silver silver to out? I, I extended my EOS was January of 12, but extortion obviously is down. And then I, I extended six months. I'm going to deploy as a team leader. I got lucky there. Team leader got hurt. They needed one. I, I want to leave. I want to get away from this. Like going to war will be the best way to get away. And I'm still not upset with that decision.

[Brent Gleeson]

When they started Silver, did they do a blend of all the squadrons?

[Rob O'Neill]

Okay, yeah, they brought, brought all the dudes in. Okay. And we went over there and I was in FOB Shank for the winter.

[Brent Gleeson]

What was the L ambush?

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, there was a group of Taliban dudes that lived in the small village. Village right next to this mountain. They would wake up every day, drive around it and go on a road that no one else took. This is a winter in the mountains. And they'd go to like a road and they were wait to ambush and no one would show up. And then they would do it again.

[Brent Gleeson]

We call this establishing a pattern of life, right? No.

[Rob O'Neill]

So you know how our day start? You wake up, the sun will be down in two hours. What? Get your coffee.

[Brent Gleeson]

Vampire schedule.

[Rob O'Neill]

And it's like, yeah, am I gonna go to the gym or are we gonna go out an op? And it's like, well, here's what's been happening. We watch it. We're like, all right, just keep an eye on them. So the next day, nothing. That night, Winter in Afghanistan. He did it again. It's like, okay, well, tomorrow's Friday. That's their day of prayer. If they do the same on Friday, they're doing it Saturday. So we watch them on Friday. They do it like, all right, here's what we're going to do. So we go to sell it, because you got to sell everything to the army. We go to an army officer and say, okay, here's what they've been doing. And what we're going to do is we're going to insert here, not even a long offset. Said we're going to walk to this thing of rocks right here before the sun's up, and we're going to set up an L. And his. His first question was, what's an L? And I said, what?

[Brent Gleeson]

I said, well, they should know that.

[Rob O'Neill]

I said, sir, that's an L. Ambush is actually the second thing they teach you in the Army, I think is that's your rack. And this is an L. Yeah. And he goes, well, explain it. Well, there's a. There's a basin and a maneuver. Yeah. And he go, who invented it? I go, sun Tzu. I think when he wrote the article were 10,000 years ago. Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

It's like one step above battle drill one alpha fire to maneuver. Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

Shoot and maneuver in their communicate. Anyway, we talk them into it. So we insert. We actually brought victory cigars. We're gonna smoke. These dudes smoke cigars. So we send this thing and behind a rock pile and then there's other rocks where the. The maneuver element can hide. And then we put snipers up here so they're maybe 200 yards from the X, which for a sniper, you wanted in which nostril. Just see if I can hook that up. So as simple as a plan can be. All we want you to when you tell us that they are in the car and they started and you can see RPG is straight up. Just go ahead and give us a green light. And then when they get around the mountain, give us a yellow light. And then when you say red, we're gonna see him. We're gonna pop out. So I'm briefing the officer that. And he's like, okay, so you're gonna pop out? Yeah, we're gonna stop. What if he doesn't stop, I'm gonna shoot him. I don't understand what I'm explaining to you. So they let us go. We do that. We're out there and we're setting up, and it they call us, the car can't start. The car won't start. Typical mission there. This car wouldn't start to the point where I wanted to put my down. Run over the mountain, teach them how to put in second, pop it. This is. This is. Whatever finally starts. Like, okay, we're antsy. We had the cigars lit, and we're out smoking because we've been there so long. All right, so we're gonna put these down in ambush these. This is a road no one uses in the snow, in the winter in Afghanistan. This fucking minivan comes driving, and it's all women and children looking out. The fuck are they doing here? Afghanistan, it fucking sucks over here. That shit happens. So we didn't light up them, and then all of a sudden we get back. The car comes at red light.

[Brent Gleeson]

So we hop out.

[Rob O'Neill]

Land of death. Guy comes here. I'm in front of this dude, and he said his English, I'm assuming, was bad because all he said was, fuck, fuck. And he puts it in reverse and he starts spinning out. And I'm. From me to you, away. And I'm like, get out of the car, dude. And I'm kind of looking. I'm like. I'm knowing the snipers are just itching to go. I'm like, you need his. Boom. Head explodes. This guy hops out to the trunk. We light all these dudes up. Rpg. And kill all of them. I think four of them, maybe five of them. And then we get the cigars. We walk up to him. Afghan comes up with an RPG with a bullet and a bullet hole through it. Mr. Rob, Mr. Rum. Like, just take that.

[Brent Gleeson]

Don't pick up unexpended ordinance.

[Rob O'Neill]

He's an Afghan. I'm happy he wasn't trying to it. Yeah. But then. But then, literally, we're in a Boston Red Sox hat. That's it. Thanks for coming. You're done.

[Brent Gleeson]

What were you gonna do when you got out? What was your.

[Rob O'Neill]

I didn't have any idea what was going to happen. I. I didn't know if we were going to sell maybe something in consultings. Consulting. Maybe we sell sunglasses. I had a couple guys that were going to come with me, but once we got the point of no return, other dudes heard what we were doing, started giving them, like, I'm just going to Reenlist, like, all right, I'm on my own. So I got out on my own and just through connections in D.C. san Francisco and New York, I just started to meet people that ran businesses and I started to come to the realization that the skills we not have been taught, but what we learned. Because you can get taught tactics to a certain level, then when you start inventing them, when you start seeing what your opponent's doing, how do you adjust and make sure that the people coming up or readjustment readjust to the adjustments. How the most. The way we're doing it right now is the safest, most efficient way to get from point A to point B. If we come up with a faster, better way combat clearance, fine. Everyone has to know it, then we'll do that. And then we always follow our rules every single time to a T. And what I would tell my guys is don't die because you got bored. Don't. I've pulled missions off before in Iraq where we're were tracking a dude on the phone who happened to be a IED maker. Boom, boom. Daytime hit. This guy, phone's off, phone's off, phone's on. Across a bridge, done. We're out, we're out. You're such a. Why are we cutting this off? We're that close. And we couldn't go get him because you got scared. That's our SOP man. We don't cross the bridge for an IED maker. Two days later, I see the guys in the gym, right? That dude we went after, what was his name again? I don't know. All right, what are your kids names? Don't die because you got bored like that. So we're inventing the tactics. So I, I learned through effective communication. When you're done saying what you're saying, stop saying it. People liked it. I got introduced by someone else to leading authorities, which is a speaking agency she's got me through the door with. Her name is Amy Holmes. She was a contributor at Fox at the time. She got me in there just through people that she went to college to, like Princeton with. One of the guys wives. I got in there, told the CEO. The CEO, not the whole story, but. But I'm from SEAL Team 6. And then we came up with, well, let's come up with five stories and five examples and do that. So for the first two years of speaking, I didn't mention bin Laden.

[Brent Gleeson]

How has it been being probably the most recognizable SEAL name out there in the modern era?

[Rob O'Neill]

Weird. I still don't expect to be recognized. It's not normal. I mean, I haven't had a bad experience in person. The closest was actually a former Red Lead, a former officer that. Really? Yeah. And the interaction was. He went to a speech and he. He had. He bought one of my books and he took notes in the front of my book how shitty I was. And then through the speech. No, listen, though. Yeah, through the speech, the notes changed. It's like, well, I mean, you're a good speaker, blah, blah, blah. And he waited in line for like an hour for me to sign a book. And he got up there and he looks at me and goes, stand. I don't know. He goes, stand up. And I go, can I help you? And he puts my book down and opens it to read it and it says, like, former Echo 01. And I go, man, I go, did you buy. Did you buy my book? And he goes, yeah. And I go, did you just wait in line an hour to tell me this? And he goes, yeah. And I go, and do you feel better?

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. Was that a good utilization? Thanks.

[Rob O'Neill]

Thanks for buying my book. I don't know what to say. I mean.

[Brent Gleeson]

It'S weird, man. Our. Our community is the. The brotherhood is a term that I have heard countless times while I was in.

[Rob O'Neill]

Brotherhood is more overused than war fighter.

[Brent Gleeson]

Well, I tell you what, man. They will also. They will go out of their way to tear you down at times too. And I'm sure you've gotten.

[Rob O'Neill]

And you have a podcast.

[Brent Gleeson]

Oh, and here's the thing, though. For me, it's easy. I never did shit.

[Rob O'Neill]

Right?

[Brent Gleeson]

Like I'm. I spent the minimum amount of time at the command required.

[Rob O'Neill]

After the command. That's when we were the happiest, when we were all working. But we didn't do.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, it's like I. I tried to do a good job and not kill myself or anybody else. I wasn't supposed to.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, that's a good job. That's the definition of a good job.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. And so I didn't do anything high level. I never did anything super high speed. And I'm just honest about that.

[Rob O'Neill]

I'm like, guys, now how. Isn't that awesome? To be honest.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

Don't even remember anything.

[Brent Gleeson]

You don't have to worry about the spaghetti noodles of. Hold on a sec. I don't. I don't. Can I say this? Because in the other story, it's like, dude, I just tell people and so I can give people.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, that's where I'm at right now with a lawsuit that's why I told you the truth.

[Brent Gleeson]

It is weird.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

And I'm sure there are people at the command, they're like, take Angie's name off the wall. And it's like, you can do that. Because I actually will never go back.

[Rob O'Neill]

Oh my God. Can I not come to a stunt muster? I never go to. I don't wait, I don't want to go get drunk with 50 year olds are probably going to beat each other up. Okay, I'll just hang out with my kids then I'll be fine. And it's the whole thing. It's like, dude, I was a Navy stuff. I was. I was also a high school student. I don't go around saying I'm a professional 13th grader.

[Brent Gleeson]

What do you want to do with the rest of your life? What do you.

[Rob O'Neill]

I want to hang out with my kids as much as I can. I've had. I've had a second chance because I have my Navy daughters and now I have, I have my kids, my new family. This was cool. I had one of my college daughters home with my wife now who's her stepmom and my youngest daughter. And I had to stop them. I said, look, don't. I'm not just emotional. I'm going to cry because I'm been a combat guy. But I need to think thank the three of you right now because I've heard so many people say that have grown children. I would give anything I have all my money to go back and have one day with you as a 2 year old. And now I get that because I see you and her and I see her and you and you all made this possible. I get to relive this. So I want to spend every day I can with my kids. Yeah. That's what it's all about. That's all that matters.

[Brent Gleeson]

We lost a lot of time with our kids.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah. I mean, and it was normal. How many Christmases do we make?

[Brent Gleeson]

You know what's funny? On my rotational cycle, never miss one.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah, we turn over the goal all the time too. I always wondered why if I threw one of those rags across the wall, it would shatter. Just clean up your catch rags, guys. Jesus. Gold team. You know, I'm telling you, I'm not.

[Brent Gleeson]

Going to tell people how to party. All right? They can live their life how they want to.

[Rob O'Neill]

I love turning over the gold demon. It was sometimes it was literally the 47 lands. I see Rob Reeves. High five. He's out.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

Was that.

[Brent Gleeson]

He was a good dude.

[Rob O'Neill]

He was the best I think. Think because, you know, it was in. I mean, obviously swim buddies and buds. Green team is top five, bottom five, obviously. I always. Always in the bottom five, top five. Rob Reeves is number one.

[Brent Gleeson]

I turned over most of my departments to him when I left the squadron. Super God damn fucking extortion, dude.

[Rob O'Neill]

Extortion was of. Who were the best guys you ever worked with? They were all on extortion.

[Brent Gleeson]

That was my troop. I'm not going to say I would have been on that helicopter, but that was the troop that I started and was 2 troop. So, I mean, it was obviously many years along the line. Who knows where the career would have progressed. But if I had stayed on that track back. You're on that bird might have been for sure, man.

[Rob O'Neill]

You know, Lou was at. Lou Langless was@turbine3.3. So that's Marcus Luttrell, lone survivor bird that got shot down. And he said. He didn't say it to me, but when he was, he said, I'm gonna go down the village and I'm gonna try to find out. But he stopped and said, I just. I never want to die like that. And he died like that.

[Brent Gleeson]

Jimmy Hash told me the same thing about a conversation he had with him on the Machine.

[Rob O'Neill]

Is the one of the. Again, top five? Yeah, I'm gonna run out of fives. That's two. Two.

[Brent Gleeson]

Jimmy. There's three Jimmy Hatches.

[Rob O'Neill]

You know, to be fair, too. You know who's hovering close to top five?

[Brent Gleeson]

I've heard he's been a spectacular operator. I heard the same thing about you.

[Rob O'Neill]

That when we would do shooting competitions in green team and a red team, there was two dudes. I'm thinking I'm gonna probably lose to him. And then I don't know if his name's out, but Shortcut. Phenomenal shooter. Yeah, but it was. That was like. That was cool about Seal Team 6. I would wake up like, I'm excited. I get to go to work with people who are better than me. And when we're like, shooting, it's like, okay, you got to tell me about your pouches. Will you move that one? What? What. What did you do? Yeah, what time did you go to sleep last night? Did you work out of the range first today? I got to know what you're doing. That's what it was like.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

That's why a lot of this doesn't make sense.

[Brent Gleeson]

Jimmy Hatch, there's three of them. So there's pre. There's Jimmy Hatch. Before, he was unconscious for a week at the jump team. When they decked into a stadium. Then there's the Jimmy Hatch after that that. Then there's the Jimmy Hatch after getting basically his leg blown to sh.

[Rob O'Neill]

I see. I see blood and a fentanyl lollipop and his. And that's back when fennel's cool dude.

[Brent Gleeson]

In his rubber room experience. I've known all three of those jimmies. And I tell you he's fantastic. He's great. I had him on too. God.

[Rob O'Neill]

We talked for funny as too.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yes.

[Rob O'Neill]

He used to write. Did he talk about the newspaper? The inter squadron newspaper? He wrote. He would write it and I knew who it was. No one knew. He called it the. You gotta ask him. He had a news. A newspaper he put out and he actually asked me. He says I like the way you tell stories so I'm gonna. Can you contribute? So we would do this newspaper because he liked me from one thing. I was talking about a debrief and I'm tired. I was a battlefield interrogator. Sorry. I was a tactical questioner.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

And the. The thing was, you know, we learned too. It's like I'm gonna talk to Al Qaeda right here. The turf's back here. I don't rapport. I'll talk to him. You tell him you find. Talk to me. And I was doing a debris like yeah, blah blah. And he said we're going here. Turns out he's lying. Like they lied to you. And so I thought that was funny. Then we started doing the. Not that. What's the name of that thing? It's funny. But yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

So you printed out leaving the team room.

[Rob O'Neill]

Just leave it around like fly like flyers. And so you read about the up things in red squatter like we did he get busted? One of them got busted because the bird. Bird flu was huge in Iraq and. And someone brought a bunch of. This is a horrible story. Someone brought a bunch of chicks like chickens in a pillowcase from Target and it's going to be funny to release them in the. In Al Asad in the big barracks.

[Brent Gleeson]

Technically that is funny, but it's hilarious.

[Rob O'Neill]

Not the bird flu. So. Oh God, I forgot how horrible the story is. So the master chief saw and said look, come on, get rid of these chicks. So a guy went out with the chicks chicks and just start beating them on the ground. Killed all the chickens. Okay. Morbid. Matthew found out. He's like I didn't say to do that. Jesus, you fucking psycho. So then I think Jimmy got busted over Easter putting peeps in the Massachusetts gear because he Wanted him on target to go for something. And all of a sudden he's got the chicks. But now I think it was Jimmy and they're putting him in the mashif walks in, it's like, oh, I'm not.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, it's not as funny in this moment.

[Rob O'Neill]

No. And I'm. I don't. I don't think I've got a. I've got a silver tongue. And I'm. I'm not talking my way out of this. That I'm stone cold. Like, all I can say is that's not my hand. But, yeah, Jimmy's man. He. And skydiving with him is probably. He's probably the most fun to skydive with.

[Brent Gleeson]

He's out of his mind. He is crazy.

[Rob O'Neill]

He's a crazy person.

[Brent Gleeson]

He was crazy before he started hitting his head at a high rate of speed.

[Rob O'Neill]

And he's a liberal. I love when he would say that too. Well, but he's liberal in, like, a good way. He's not crazy.

[Brent Gleeson]

I mean, liberal and conservative. I don't even think people can agree on what those terms mean anymore anymore. Because for conservative people, then there's you're not conservative enough. Then there's liberal, and then there's you're not liberal or progressive enough. And then people in the middle who try to have some semblance of thought, depending on what category the question may be, they're just like, whatever. You're the forgotten people.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah. Seriously. Oh, haven't try to have a conversation. Forget about.

[Brent Gleeson]

I mean, you're the one living in the blue state.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah, I'm actually. What I'm saying now, because that dude Mandani got elected. And what I say to people, I'm an optimist. Okay.

[Brent Gleeson]

I heard you campaign for him.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah. No, no, but what I'm. What I am telling people in New York is I'm an. I want it to work. I want communism to work like it never has before, which means it never has worked before. They're going to find out it's horrible.

[Brent Gleeson]

I just hope that it. Let's say it does work or it doesn't. Let's just pay attention to the test results so we can stop saying it's never been applied properly.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, even now they'll say, well, it's never been worked properly. And there is no communist country, really. It's like, Cuba's not doing well.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

I mean, look at China. They show you good. They say they're the future because they have driverless taxi cabs. We have those Too.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, the propaganda machine specifically.

[Rob O'Neill]

It's insane. It's insane. I heard they have really good helicopters now too.

[Brent Gleeson]

I'm telling you, man, when I saw that, I was like, oh boy.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, we didn't. Well, you know, I think too on the ground the pilots said they could fly it out.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, I don't know if I, I'm not an expert in aerodynamics. Why do you think they just didn't bip the thing with a 500 pounder?

[Rob O'Neill]

They didn't question, well, a pile of people inside. Okay.

[Brent Gleeson]

I mean that's a compelling reason.

[Rob O'Neill]

It is, yeah. But if we're gonna do that, just bomb the place in the bomb in the first place. I'll be a buzz instructor right now.

[Brent Gleeson]

Was there ever a thought of a kinetic strike without sending boots?

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah, that was one of the five options to hit him with 22J downs. That's why they didn't do it.

[Brent Gleeson]

22.

[Rob O'Neill]

That's what the Air Force recommended. And then when they were in the brief, they said, well, that's all we got. And that's, I guess when the Air Force chief of staff said something thing. Well, Mr. President, there's one more option. He didn't know about the helicopters. I guess I wasn't in there. And that was a cool story too. Hearsay. But nowadays hearsay seems to be good enough. He was, we told him the plan. It was two helicopters, two birds, 32 minutes on target, blah blah, blah. If we get compromised, we're going to hard point it and you send someone to Islamabad to negotiate. That's our plan. And I guess he said, okay, well what do you need to rain hell on the Pakistanis? Because my guys aren't surrender to anybody. Which is pretty dope.

[Brent Gleeson]

That is pretty.

[Rob O'Neill]

That's like, that's as non partisan as you can get.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

How do we bomb them? They're not surrendering.

[Brent Gleeson]

If you win the lawsuit, do you think that it will stop the interactions that your kids are having?

[Rob O'Neill]

I hope so. I hope it stops all the Rovette interactions.

[Brent Gleeson]

Well, it sounds like the people reaching out to your kids aren't the Bravettes though. It seems like. You know what I mean?

[Rob O'Neill]

They're not reaching out, but they're. It's on their timeline and it shows up and they know who Brentuck Tucker is and they've heard the horrible things he said just based on the fact he doesn't like that I make money. There's nothing to do with who killed bin Laden. And now why don't they want to go to court? With me. I want to go to court and they're going to spin this watch. Watch them spin it into something. I want to go to court. I'm telling the truth.

[Brent Gleeson]

I stay out of the courtroom because I don't know anything about the law. I got my juris doctorate by watching suits during the pandemic. That's about it.

[Rob O'Neill]

I may. It turns out I run a tiger farm.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

How good was Tiger. How great was this country when all we did, we all watched Tiger King and everyone got along.

[Brent Gleeson]

It was a fantastic show, I tell you. A great place to weather. The COVID was here, I bet. Oh my God. I mean, they took very seriously for about six weeks. And then after that, what are we doing? People started peeking their heads up and it's like back to jiu jitsu.

[Rob O'Neill]

And good that was. I was in Nashville and what we came up with to fight to stop the spread was at Old Hickory Golf Club. They didn't put the pins in, so no, no one could touch the same pin in. And we're like, can we ride the same car? Like, I guess like, well, you're outside. Yeah. Well, then we had a we. I think during 2020, my foundation had an event spec word Transition foundation special operators. Transition foundation as a foundation at Old Hickory Golf Club. And Kid Rock played. He was in my wedding. He's playing there. Lee Greenwood played. We had. Who the hell was there? Um, there's a couple big. Anyway, we're out there on the dashboard in the middle of COVID Covid. And my father in law said, all right, if nobody here gets coveted, it's not real and nobody got it. So I don't know what we were doing.

[Brent Gleeson]

That was a weird timeline.

[Rob O'Neill]

That was weird as like we look back, like, did that happen? Are we in a simulation?

[Brent Gleeson]

It happened. I wonder what people's memory of it will be if something like that happens again. That's one of the main things I hear people say, well, it's a social experiment. Which my response is, I think they took it too far because now I don't think people would comply. And if it did have the fatality rate they were saying it was, we'd be in trouble.

[Rob O'Neill]

They didn't have. Look, if something is a pandemic and you need to get tested for it instead of just bleeding out your eyes and ass, it's not real.

[Brent Gleeson]

I don't know if science backs that up. But.

[Rob O'Neill]

But I mean, like, wait a minute. Sound though like, I'm over there. I'm in. I'm in Nashville, Tennessee, tipping The chicken food line. Who's wearing all this? 20 bucks says thanks for braving the storm when no one knows what it is. It's a, basically a political way to get mail in ballots.

[Brent Gleeson]

I mean that is certainly a nature.

[Rob O'Neill]

They're finding out a take in this country. The good news is we don't arrest anyone who deserves it.

[Brent Gleeson]

Also a bold statement.

[Rob O'Neill]

I mean it's true. I mean Bill and Hillary, Hillary just blew off Congress. Imagine if you do that. Yeah. You know what they said?

[Brent Gleeson]

I don't have anything to talk to him about.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, fair. But they, all they said was, well, we're standing up for democracy. Cumulative. At least use a new argument.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, I'll be honest, man. It's. I, I don't have an understanding of how a lot of the stuff works at those high levels like that. Like did they put them off forever? Did they do, did they delay and they're going to go some other time.

[Rob O'Neill]

I think that they're just, just banking on the fact we as a public are going to forget about it. That's why all the laws get passed over holidays.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

So we got the Fed, which is not federal, but they got a brand new castle built. It's like the fourth branch of the government that's not federal. It's just bankers.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. I mean we got some improvements to make for sure. I mean we definitely have some room for improvement.

[Rob O'Neill]

I mean even Glenn Beck is calling for Pam Bondi to be fired. He said, I remember a year ago he said I'm give her a year and there's no rest.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

We'll be talking midterms.

[Brent Gleeson]

The next three years are going to be interesting. I don't.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, if the Democrats take it, we're going to be doing impeachment for two years.

[Brent Gleeson]

I mean we would have to get to that point first. I'm like listening to a man talk about we need to have Greenland. Trying to figure out what's going on here.

[Rob O'Neill]

I saw the Babylon be put out. President Trump with a look on his face. Oh shit, I meant Iceland the whole time.

[Brent Gleeson]

Even if it was, let's just. Okay, let's say. Of course that's obviously a yes, a joke, but either one of those, like what are you talking about? Greenland is an incredible ally. We have full access to the country as it is. They are a member of NATO.

[Rob O'Neill]

I think he's pushing, I think he's pushing in NATO.

[Brent Gleeson]

That's actually where I.

[Rob O'Neill]

Because I think it's like Europe is not strong and we really don't have any I mean, alliances change, but necessity does not. And if, I mean, I, this is me. I don't get, I don't get briefed anymore. Europe, we got Greenland, we're good. And then Europe can become the Islamic Republic of whatever they want to call it. But we're not sticking around for that.

[Brent Gleeson]

Like there are options in between that and not having Greenland. That could be explored. Imagine so, you know, you have painted the outliers.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, I think that's the, that's the Reader's Digest version of, of what's going. Maybe. But I don't know what's going on either. I think Greenland's cool.

[Brent Gleeson]

I think Greenland's cool. I also think it's a sovereign nation.

[Rob O'Neill]

Owned by the Dutch.

[Brent Gleeson]

Who cares who owns. Owns it? You know who doesn't own it?

[Rob O'Neill]

We don't.

[Brent Gleeson]

Correct.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah, we.

[Brent Gleeson]

And again, they're an ally. Yeah, I do think he is. It's either pressure or an attempt to break NATO. I think that actually makes sense.

[Rob O'Neill]

I mean, look at the way the guy negotiates. It wasn't about the drug boats. However, Delta Force is going to kidnap the president. I mean, that's pretty cool. That's a good negotiation right there. I think you won.

[Brent Gleeson]

It's an interesting play for sure.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah. I mean, he's definitely doing outside the box stuff, knowing he doesn't. Doesn't have a third term. But at this point, who knows?

[Brent Gleeson]

I mean, our constitution would say we know.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yes. However, if J.D. vance runs and he's his vice president and the J.D. vance wins and all of a sudden he resigns, guess who's president again?

[Brent Gleeson]

Hit me with that scenario one more time.

[Rob O'Neill]

So hold on. J.D. vance can run.

[Brent Gleeson]

Oh, if he was his VP, he was VP.

[Rob O'Neill]

And then J.D. vance says, you know what? I'm not ready for this. I'm going to resign.

[Brent Gleeson]

Prince, how dare you? For even putting.

[Rob O'Neill]

But I gave you that exclusive too. I know you're gonna be getting all kinds of good off this.

[Brent Gleeson]

Oh, my God. But Trump would be like 140.

[Rob O'Neill]

I almost wonder if sometimes he's just trolling people.

[Brent Gleeson]

I think there's a 100 true aspect.

[Rob O'Neill]

Of that because you gotta figure, look at all the. I mean, he had a really good life before he ran.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. From a monetary perspective, for sure.

[Rob O'Neill]

You know that I, I went to his office before he ran and he wanted an endorsement. I explained to him, like, look, I'm new to the private sector. I know what's going to happen for me financially. It's probably not a good move.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah.

[Rob O'Neill]

But then I Got in touch with later I said, you know, you're going to win this thing. And he said, how do you know? And I said I speak to 10,000 people a week and I never asked them who they're going to vote for, but I do ask them who their neighbor is going to vote for. You're going to win.

[Brent Gleeson]

Interesting, because no one's going to approach that.

[Rob O'Neill]

Actually no one admitted at first they're supporting Trump suicide. Yeah, I mean professional suicide.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what goes.

[Rob O'Neill]

Oh, never a dull moment. Especially I heard in like September. So we're supposed to. I love rabbit holes. We're supposed to lose gravity for seven seconds like in September.

[Brent Gleeson]

Okay, what are you reading and where.

[Rob O'Neill]

No, that's just, that's the, that's the ambient talking at night. No, I saw.

[Brent Gleeson]

So this is you talking to yourself. You actually don't have a source?

[Rob O'Neill]

No, this is the rabbit hole. I know this isn't real, but that's the. No. Remember the spaceship? No, the, the comet around the sun. Atlas, whatever.

[Brent Gleeson]

Oh, I remember watching a documentary of people killed themselves because they thought they were going to board it.

[Rob O'Neill]

The comet that went around the sun, it's going to be a mothership ship. That was all a couple five months.

[Brent Gleeson]

What you didn't hear that story? Hell, I'm going to tell you right now. You and I have very different Internet search histories.

[Rob O'Neill]

You didn't hear about the Atlas comet going around the sun? No, there was a mothership.

[Brent Gleeson]

No, there wasn't.

[Rob O'Neill]

Can you, can we look that up? Am I crazy?

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, hold on.

[Rob O'Neill]

What was it called, Tommy? You know, Atlas 3.

[Brent Gleeson]

I. Yeah, listen, I'm not saying that people weren't talking about this, but I'm certainly saying it wasn't real.

[Rob O'Neill]

They were talking about it. I actually heard one of the funniest jokes I've ever heard. A stand up comedian made a. About that comment.

[Brent Gleeson]

Oh God. Three eye Atlas.

[Rob O'Neill]

So that was it. We're going to end. The world is going to end now. It's. I mean this, I've heard rumbles of the gravity. It's not going to happen obviously. It's just the, that's the rabbit hole. I like to read sometimes take takes my mind off of.

[Brent Gleeson]

I mean other is the world flat or round, Rob?

[Rob O'Neill]

Oh man. Gun to my head.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, well then let's assume we don't have to get to that point. We can just answer.

[Rob O'Neill]

I'm saying the world is round. Round.

[Brent Gleeson]

Okay.

[Rob O'Neill]

It's a globe.

[Brent Gleeson]

What would you say on a debris.

[Rob O'Neill]

The Moon land you. Another guy said the moon is round. I'm just going with it for the sake of the team. No, my, you know the theory since we're going down this hole. I heard it, but now I like it because the moon landing with the lack of infrastructure and a camera on the moon like that, you really did that. But of before we had wheels on the bottom of a suitcase.

[Brent Gleeson]

You know you can see some of the moon landing stuff up there.

[Rob O'Neill]

I know, but here's my theory. So when they come back, I, I heard it. So it's not my theory. Yeah, they're, they like Neil Archon, Buzz all and they're sitting there. They don't look like they're happy. They look like they're at an interrogation. It's because someone said that the way that this dude spun the conspiracy is they got to the moon they saw was actually there and said we can never tell anyone what's up here. They got back. We need a studio now.

[Brent Gleeson]

Interesting.

[Rob O'Neill]

That's cool though I didn't come up.

[Brent Gleeson]

I like that theory a little bit.

[Rob O'Neill]

I don't want to say we didn't land on. I want to say we did.

[Brent Gleeson]

We definitely landed on it. I'm not sure we did as much as we claim we did.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, I mean that, that side by side they have if there's how they fit that in the lunar module.

[Brent Gleeson]

I don't ask questions like that. Well, some questions are best left.

[Rob O'Neill]

No, God no.

[Brent Gleeson]

This is the danger of the Internet. You can find anything that you're looking for, anything. And that's, that's maybe that's why I've never seen a point and I didn't pay attention to politics a lot. I have never seen a point in society though where people are arguing over truth. We can't actually even determine what is the truth.

[Rob O'Neill]

That's true.

[Brent Gleeson]

And I don't know where that leads actually.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, right now it's not even truth. It's your feelings. How does it make you feel?

[Brent Gleeson]

Who cares?

[Rob O'Neill]

That's what I'm saying. Feelings. Feelings, yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

I mean they have their place, but not probably in policy or, you know.

[Rob O'Neill]

A certain demographic's been voting based on feelings and a lot of, a lot of that turns into communism because it sounds good.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. Some of those people actually believe though, you know, when I, I, I, I'm glad we live in a place where people can believe some wild stuff if they want to.

[Rob O'Neill]

I am too. But there should be a written test before you're allowed to vote or an oral test. I'll take.

[Brent Gleeson]

I don't think that's in the Constitution.

[Rob O'Neill]

I know, but it really. Well, you know what? We need to trim a little fat off the Constitution at some point.

[Brent Gleeson]

I don't think it works like that.

[Rob O'Neill]

It seems to have the second Amendment. I guess if you cut out the second, then it'll get rid of school shootings.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, but the second amendment hasn't been cut out yet. We've just been arguing we cannot touch the Constitution, period. Not the first 10 for sure. It would fracture the Bill of Rights.

[Rob O'Neill]

Absolutely.

[Brent Gleeson]

A lot of people don't understand that. That it would actually fracture and destroy the framework of the Constitution. It's possible. I think they need 3/4 ratification, but good luck with that when you can't get get people to agree on.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, look at.

[Brent Gleeson]

What does 3/4 actually mean?

[Rob O'Neill]

You need math is racist. You know that, but I mean, I don't know that.

[Brent Gleeson]

That was Rob o' Neill that said that. I don't believe math is racist.

[Rob O'Neill]

We don't watch the same news, Alice. I do live in New York and I hear weird.

[Brent Gleeson]

We could watch the same news. I refuse to believe that math is racist.

[Rob O'Neill]

No, you haven't heard that math is racist?

[Brent Gleeson]

No, I've heard it.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah, I don't believe it is either. I believe math is the truth.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yes. Okay, now we're back to it online.

[Rob O'Neill]

People don't like the truth.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah. Oh, where do you want to leave people, man? We've been at it for.

[Rob O'Neill]

You know what I would like to tell people, which is exciting. I just started a semi speaking agency because I've been in spots too where I'm speaking, but I can't make it or whatever. And they want something similar. So I started the operators collective.

[Brent Gleeson]

I was hoping you were going to call it the semi speaking.

[Rob O'Neill]

That's way better. I'm in. I'm in.

[Brent Gleeson]

Very close to sse.

[Rob O'Neill]

We can do. You can agency.

[Brent Gleeson]

You can find an E. Yeah, but.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah, we're going to. We do keynote speeches. But what I've noticed people like is like a fireside chat panel type thing like we're talking about before this dude.

[Brent Gleeson]

The best experiences I've like, literally was just in New York. It was positioned as fireside. It was incredibly well attended and we went well past the allotted time because people can ask about. This is what I'm dealing with. What are your thoughts on this? Like, presentations are great and I've been to some good ones, but I've been to some ones that suck. But that interactive nature where like, hey, I have this problem right now with this. This team. What are your thoughts? Powerful.

[Rob O'Neill]

It is. And so we. We have mostly seals. Dakota Meyer, Medal of Honor recipient, Marine, couple civilians. So we're doing that. And it just. Just a way to try to. My Rolodex, help other guys out, just to try to build up outside work. Like we said, the transition is not. Not easy. And then I have. I have my own podcast, the operator podcast that I do that. You should come on, sir.

[Brent Gleeson]

I'll come on.

[Rob O'Neill]

You should. Cool.

[Brent Gleeson]

I'm good.

[Rob O'Neill]

I wanted to say sir, that's why. I mean, you're obviously invited, but it just was like, I haven't. I haven't sir on anything today. So that was. That was your.

[Brent Gleeson]

Sir, I tell people, listen, I was a limited duty officer. Let's go real heavy on the limited and light on the duty.

[Rob O'Neill]

It was always. Yes, it was always nice. When the LDO wrote in, though, it was like, I can. I can talk to this guy.

[Brent Gleeson]

I was in my cammies one time. Same building on the OP side, over on the nab. And a chief that I didn't. Had. Never met him before. And I'm just sitting there. I mean, I didn't have as much gray when I was in. So I'm sitting there, butter bar. And I was talking about something that she was like. He's like, sir, we got this. It'll be, you know, give it some time. You'll get enough experience. And, you know, we got this from here. I saw him a few days later. My khakis.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah, there's. Check these out. So how you been?

[Brent Gleeson]

I said nothing. He. I just watched him. He was like.

[Rob O'Neill]

I saw an E5 do that to Jocko. Jocko came out. Because you seem an admiral. Yeah. So he's E4. Because you get E4 cap. E5 cap to oh one through semen. Admiral. So now he come. Jocko comes out in his cam. He's to check in A Team 2. E5 sees him, calls him Anson all day. Anson. Anson. Ensign this, Anson that. And then Jocko came in khakis the next day, and all of a sudden it's sir.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, be careful judging a book by its.

[Rob O'Neill]

Don't do it. I. I have said that for a long, long time. That my thing started as a young SEAL. One deployment pre 9 11, one hump jump. I fucking know everything. I'm trying to find fake Navy SEALs. That's my thing. I'm Don Shipley and the UP SEAL Reunion East Coast. My first one with the deployment, and I see an Old timer, SEAL team had. I'm like, I'm gonna with him because he's a fake. And I asked him when he went through buds, and he said, well, I went through hell week in 1944. And I said, we didn't have hell week in 1944. He said, well, we did on Omaha Beach. And I was like, you know what? I'm never going to pick a fight ever again in my life because I don't know know what someone knows. And that guy just mentally destroyed me.

[Brent Gleeson]

It was a very solid response from him.

[Rob O'Neill]

I am still. I, I, I, I think I wanted to say and so what are you having to drink forever? Because I'm buying all.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, here's just my credit card number.

[Rob O'Neill]

Keep it.

[Brent Gleeson]

I'll update it when the expiration date flips over.

[Rob O'Neill]

I'll. Yeah, I'll see if the bank will let me get a raise. My limit.

[Brent Gleeson]

Are you carry on or checked luggage?

[Rob O'Neill]

I am. Check luggage then.

[Brent Gleeson]

Do you familiar with Montana knife company Blades?

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah, I know a guy I can give this to that can take it home.

[Brent Gleeson]

They make a tactical series, so Dana White was given one of these and almost cut his finger off. Okay, I'm gonna assume that you know how to take a knife out of a plastic sheath.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, we're gonna see that now that.

[Brent Gleeson]

It was one of their most trending videos, actually. It was when Dana went and was.

[Rob O'Neill]

Like, yeah, the pressure's on me. I'm feeling the microphone on my chin.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, it's not that bad.

[Rob O'Neill]

Oh, wow.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, just use the thumb on top to help push the Ks off.

[Rob O'Neill]

Oh, God.

[Brent Gleeson]

Don't cut yourself.

[Rob O'Neill]

Where's the.

[Brent Gleeson]

Let me see.

[Rob O'Neill]

No, I want the lever. Which one of these?

[Brent Gleeson]

So put your pinky in the little circle.

[Rob O'Neill]

You know, just for the sake of not cutting myself.

[Brent Gleeson]

Here you go.

[Rob O'Neill]

Just, Ah, look at that.

[Brent Gleeson]

And then you can finish it. Okay.

[Rob O'Neill]

Jesus. You put pressure on me and.

[Brent Gleeson]

Oh my God, those things are badass. That's part of their tactical series.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah. Tommy, I'm gonna need you to send this to me in New York, if you don't mind. I think it's illegal in New York, so.

[Brent Gleeson]

So whatever it is New York. I'll be sending him a New York compliant knife.

[Rob O'Neill]

I have a feeling I'm gonna lose this one in a lake.

[Brent Gleeson]

Yeah, whatever he got was definitely inside of whatever regulations you have.

[Rob O'Neill]

I'll just keep it in Montana.

[Brent Gleeson]

Perfect.

[Rob O'Neill]

Well, cool, man.

[Brent Gleeson]

I know you gotta get to the airport.

[Rob O'Neill]

Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

Thank you. Thank you for reaching out and thank you for making.

[Rob O'Neill]

Thank you for having me. This has been a lot of fun. Seriously. Thank you.

[Brent Gleeson]

For sure, man. Yeah. First guest in the new studio I'm liking.

[Rob O'Neill]

That was my prerequisite for coming. I was like, is it brand new? Yeah.

[Brent Gleeson]

I mean, it was unspoken, of course. Immediately invest tens.

[Rob O'Neill]

That's why I waited so long. Hell yeah. Thanks, man. Thanks, buddy.