#313 Eric Frohardt - DEVGRU Gold Squadron Sniper and Assaulter

Summary

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The Shawn Ryan Show — Episode #313: Eric Frohardt

Guest: Eric Frohardt – DEVGRU Gold Squadron Sniper & Assaulter
Date: June 15, 2026
Duration: Approx. 4hrs 10min (Content summary begins at [01:05])

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Episode Overview

In this deeply personal, wide-ranging conversation, former Navy SEAL and DEVGRU (Gold Squadron) sniper and assaulter Eric Frohardt joins host Shawn Ryan for an unfiltered journey through his life. They explore Eric’s unglamorous farm upbringing, his path into the SEAL Teams, lessons in leadership and resilience, combat stories from Iraq and Afghanistan, and the challenges of transitioning to civilian life. Central themes are faith, family, post-service purpose, and the bittersweet cost of a life lived on the edge.

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Table of Contents

• Origins: Small Town Roots & Family Values
• Athletics, Football, and Learning to Lose
• The Accidental SEAL: GI Jane and Proving People Wrong
• SEAL Training: BUD/S, Suffering, and Full Benefit
• Early Teams: Team 5 Culture & Deployments
• Getting to DEVGRU (Gold Squadron): Culture, Standards & Leadership
• Combat Stories: Iraq, Afghanistan & Close Calls
• Faith, Loss, and Meaning Post-War
• Transition to Civilian Life: Loss, Purpose, and Entrepreneurship
• Service, Legacy, and Advice for the Next Generation
• Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

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Origins: Small Town Roots & Family Values

Timestamps: [13:20]–[21:14]

• Eric grew up in Sac City, Iowa—small town, 1200 people—on a hog/corn/soybean farm.
• Strong work ethic: “The farm…honestly, it forged me. It helped me make it through BUD/S. Hog farming is not glamorous. There’s no hog farm version of Yellowstone.” [14:33–15:29]
• Family dynamics: Oldest sibling, close-knit, parents shaped his calmness (from mom, a nurse) and energy/resilience (from dad, a “big ball of energy,” farmer at 6’5” 350 lbs, “who could still beat me in a 40-yard dash at 65”). [18:12–19:35]
• Key lessons: Responsibility, accountability, respect for women, the importance of calm and hard work.

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Athletics, Football, and Learning to Lose

Timestamps: [22:36]–[31:58]

• Eric participated in every sport in his small town, but especially loved football—even planning a “growth spurt” to play Division I.
• At junior college, realized “I wasn’t big enough, strong enough, or fast enough…but I learned so much. Sometimes the person you become in pursuit of a goal is the real reward.” [28:10–31:58]
• The lessons of losing—and getting back up—became a foundation for SEAL training later on.

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The Accidental SEAL: GI Jane and Proving People Wrong

Timestamps: [31:58]–[41:12]

• Epiphany: Watching GI Jane, three beers deep, Eric says, “I’m gonna join the Navy and become a SEAL.” The reaction? “You’ll never do it.”
  “I just needed someone to say I couldn’t do it. I enlisted the next day.” [32:13–32:42]
• Family reaction: Dad’s encouragement (“I really think you’ll be one of the few that makes it through”), Mom’s concern, but both supportive.
• Intense preparation period on the farm: Swimming, running, PT in the barn (“like Rocky IV”).
• Clarity and purpose: “One of the most purposeful seasons of my life…singularly focused.” [34:10]

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SEAL Training: BUD/S, Suffering, and Full Benefit

Timestamps: [53:31]–[74:32]

• Arrival at BUD/S: Never been in the ocean before. First lesson—freezing cold, relentless physical/psychological test.
• Huge attrition: Started with ~180, graduated 19 originals out of BUD/S 225. “If you circled who’d make it based on looks, you wouldn’t have circled me. You can’t measure heart, resilience, or willingness.” [56:32–59:47]
• What did it take?
  • “Clarity and willingness. Resilience. People who learned how to lose and get back up.” [61:07–64:17]
  • Navy/Army can’t screen for it—selection reveals character, not stats.
• Personal hardship:
  • Chronic, undiagnosed kidney stones, especially during Hell Week, repeatedly misdiagnosed as IBS—“full benefit” (maximum suffering).
  • “I went through Hell Week with a kidney stone…and diarrhea.” [70:55]
  • “If that happened to me now, I’m quitting.” [73:58]
• Tenacity: Only two in his class never failed an evolution.

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Early Teams: Team 5 Culture & Deployments

Timestamps: [76:05]–[136:17]

• Post-BUD/S: Humbling start as a “new guy” at SEAL Team 5; surfy, more relaxed culture than East Coast teams; grilling, kegs, volleyball after Friday PT.
• Hazing stories: Duct-taping, the “happy hat,” taping guys to spine boards with vodka and alarms (“sinister”); “You walked around waiting for your number to get called.” [79:08–80:45]
• Early deployments:
  • Guam and the Middle East (post-9/11): Close calls with underway shipboardings, including nerve-wracking climbs with minimal gear, and electrical shocks while breaching ship superstructures.
    • [97:23] Eric describes his first real-world night climb and a harrowing near-electrocution.
    • “It was as real as it gets—not a lot of bullets flying, but scary. Underway shipboarding is dicey, especially at night.”
  • Loss of a kidney after repeated medical issues surfaced during land warfare.
• Marriage and family: Met wife Leah in San Diego; rapid proposal and wedding around deployments; “She’s been my rock.”

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Getting to DEVGRU (Gold Squadron): Culture, Standards & Leadership

Timestamps: [144:33]–[154:05]

• Four deployments with Gold Squadron/DEVGRU after two Team 5 tours.
• On arrival: Shock at resources, maturity, and standards—older teammates, better gear, “It’s not good enough to be great at your job; you have to make others better.”
• Humility + obsession: Best operators “are humble enough to never stop training and obsessed with getting sharper. You don’t buy a spot at Dev Group, you rent it—rent’s due daily.” [154:05]
• Leadership takeaway: “You start as a great follower before you can be a great leader.”

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Combat Stories: Iraq, Afghanistan & Close Calls

Timestamps: [163:39]–[205:44]

• Super Bowl Sunday 2008, Iraq:
  • Simultaneous assaults on multiple HVT locations.
  • “They were running out with suicide vests and AKs…fifteen people wearing suicide vests…It was all head shots.” [166:17]
  • Eric narrowly survives a close-range gunfight; another operator’s suicide vest fails to detonate.
  • “I had this feeling—how did I get here? I’m gonna die in Iraq on Super Bowl Sunday.”
• Just nights later, a houseborne IED crushes his assault team. Eric survives, blown away from the blast by being at a window; several teammates die.
• Afghanistan: Narrowly avoids death after learning he’s having a daughter; “a bullet whizzes by my head and cuts off a chunk of hair.” [188:07]
• Faith tested—a moment of regret for not sharing beliefs with teammate Louie, who died days later.
  • “I wasn’t afraid to run into Al Qaeda for the flag on my shoulder, but I was afraid to speak up for the cross on my chest.” [183:31]
• Medically retired after Navy discovers his old kidney waiver forbade deploying, five deployments later.

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Faith, Loss, and Meaning Post-War

Timestamps: [179:48], [213:01]–[218:44]

• Lessons of combat loss—why good people die, survivor’s guilt, faith, and the hope/burden of meaning.
• Eric describes his daily spiritual practice: reading the Bible, prayer, journaling. “It gives me energy and strength—it’s worth it.” [215:28]
• No PTSD: “I have regrets, but no nightmares.”
• Expresses gratitude for being spared, but always wonders about the reason/purpose. “Am I fulfilling my calling?”

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Transition to Civilian Life: Loss, Purpose, and Entrepreneurship

Timestamps: [210:59]–[245:07]

• “It was harder to leave than to join.”
• Lost identity, camaraderie, paycheck—the toughest years were the first two after getting out.
• Building a new purpose: pivoted to father/husband as core drivers.
• Found purpose through faith-based business group (“abiding”—prayer, study, journaling became daily practice), restoring clarity and meaning.
• Started businesses—gun range owner, CEO of Strong First (kettlebell fitness company), director at NRA, then consulting in energy, real estate, and more.
• Now focuses on leadership speaking and serves as Chief Standards Officer for a real estate development firm.

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Service, Legacy, and Advice for the Next Generation

Timestamps: [245:32]–[248:52]

• Advice to separating service members:
  • Take a brief break if possible; first job won’t be the perfect one.
  • “Get a base hit…The next opportunity reveals itself when you move.”
  • Be patient—purpose is built, not found overnight.
• Legacy: Service started as a selfish aim (“chip on my shoulder”), but became genuine service and sacrifice after 9/11.
• Closes with a heartfelt prayer for all, emphasizing gratitude and service.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

Unforgettable Soundbites:

• “Sometimes the person you become in pursuit of a goal is the real reward.” — Eric Frohardt ([31:57])
• “I just needed someone to say I couldn’t do it. I enlisted in the Navy the next day.” — Eric ([32:13])
• “I had days on the farm that were harder than SEAL training.” — Eric ([65:41])
• “Clarity and willingness—those are the keys. When I failed, it was because I wasn’t clear on what I was doing, or I wasn’t willing to pay the price.” — Eric ([62:46])
• “The best of the best were humble and obsessed…You don’t buy a spot at DEVGRU, you rent it, and the rent is due daily.” — Eric ([154:05])
• “I wasn’t afraid to run into a room full of Al Qaeda, but I was afraid to talk about my faith.” — Eric ([183:31])
• “I lost my identity when I left. I used to say, ‘I’m a Navy SEAL.’ Suddenly, I’m just another dad at Target buying diapers.” ([211:17])
• “Get a base hit…You don’t need your first job out to be the big home run. Sometimes the next opportunity reveals itself when you start moving.” — Eric ([246:59])
• “Am I fulfilling my calling and purpose? That’s always the question.” — Eric ([204:38])
• “God, I don’t deserve a day you give me. Thank you for this one. Show me what to do and how to do it.” — Eric’s daily prayer ([193:01])

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Timestamps for Important Segments

| Segment | Timestamp | |---|---| | Meet Eric Frohardt; Overview of Career | [01:05] – [02:53] | | Upbringing, Family, Small Town Life | [13:20] – [21:14] | | Lessons from Sports & Football | [22:36] – [31:58] | | GI Jane’s Inspiration, Joining the Navy | [31:58] – [41:12] | | BUD/S: Attrition, Hardship, Full Benefit | [53:31] – [74:32] | | Team 5 Hazing & Deployments | [76:05] – [136:17] | | Transition to DEVGRU (Gold Squadron) | [144:33] – [154:05] | | Humility & Leadership at DEVGRU | [154:05] – [158:12] | | High-stakes Missions, Gunfights | [163:39] – [200:40] | | Surviving Blasts & Faith Under Fire | [200:40] – [209:13] | | Med Retirement and Identity Loss | [210:59] – [212:57] | | Building Civilian Purpose | [213:01] – [218:44] | | Entrepreneurship & Leadership Roles | [232:07] – [244:53] | | Advice for Service Members | [245:32] – [248:19] | | Closing Prayer | [249:52] – [250:42] |

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Language & Tone

• Tone is candid, humorous, humble, and raw.
• Eric frequently self-deprecates, downplays acts of heroism, and emphasizes service over ego.
• Themes of resilience, humility, faith, and gratitude recur throughout.

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Final Thoughts

Eric Frohardt’s journey is a testament to grit, humility, faith, and adaptability. His experiences at the tip of the spear—shaped by the lessons of farm life, football, and failure, and strengthened by adversity—offer profound wisdom for both warriors and civilians. Listeners are left with practical insights on leadership, faith in the face of trauma and loss, and the lifelong value of service, humility, and relentless self-improvement.

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For donations to the Kilimanjaro climb benefiting Global Partners in Hope (water/medical aid for West Africa), see episode show notes.

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“Clarity and willingness: when you figure out what you’re willing to give for your goal, and you’re clear about what it takes—there’s nothing you can’t do. That goes for war, for faith, for life after the Teams.” — Eric Frohardt, [62:46]

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Transcript

[Sean Ryan]

No one goes to Hank's for spreadsheets. They go for a darn good pizza. Lately, though, the shop's been quiet, so Hank decides to bring back the $1 slice. He asks copilot in Microsoft Excel to look at his sales and costs and help him see if he can afford it. Copilot shows Hank where the money's going and which little extras make the dollar slice work. Now Hanks has a line out the door. Hank makes the pizza. Copilot handles the spreadsheets. Learn [e-mail] Work.

[Eric Frohart]

One crunchy bite of Hershey's cookies and

[Sean Ryan]

cream bar, and I'm taken right back to college.

[Eric Frohart]

Move in.

[Sean Ryan]

Day I was a little overwhelmed by

[Eric Frohart]

the newness of it all. Boxes were everywhere. I needed a break from unpacking. But just as I was able to take a breath and open my Hershey's

[Sean Ryan]

cookies and cream bar, my new roommate Rachel walked in. I offered her a piece, but she said no.

[Eric Frohart]

Then after a beat, she said, actually,

[Sean Ryan]

those are my favorite ones.

[Eric Frohart]

So we left. The ice was broken, and we've been friends ever since. Hershey's, it's your happy place.

[Sean Ryan]

Eric Frohart. Welcome to the show, man.

[Eric Frohart]

Thanks, man. Thanks for having me.

[Sean Ryan]

It's good to have you.

[Eric Frohart]

So it's good to be here.

[Sean Ryan]

Eddie Penny connected us.

[Eric Frohart]

Yep.

[Sean Ryan]

I love Eddie.

[Eric Frohart]

Yep.

[Sean Ryan]

He's a huge inspiration into my faith journey. And.

[Eric Frohart]

Wow. Yeah. That's awesome.

[Sean Ryan]

How long have you guys known each other?

[Eric Frohart]

So Eddie and I were. We were together at Gold for a while. I known. I didn't know him before he got there because I came from team five, and he came from. I want to say team two.

[Sean Ryan]

Team two. Yeah.

[Eric Frohart]

So I think I got to. I got to Gold a little bit before him, and then he, you know, he got there, and then, you know, I met him, and we started working together.

[Sean Ryan]

Right on.

[Eric Frohart]

So right on.

[Sean Ryan]

Good dude.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

Well, I'm glad we connected.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah. I'm thrilled to be here. Thanks, man.

[Sean Ryan]

Thrilled to have you. So let me start you off with a introduction here, if you don't mind. Yep. Eric Frart, you spent nearly 12 years as a Navy SEAL serving with both SEAL Team 5 and Naval Special warfare development Group. You deployed around the world, specialized as a sniper, point man, and lead climber and completed climbs of El Capitan, Denali, and Aconcagua. There it is. You are medically retired as a SEAL operator chief after combat injuries and a medical condition that cost you a kidney. Since leaving the military, you've Built and led high performing teams across multiple industries and now serve as chief standards officer at Grant Golden Rod Companies. You're a leadership speaker, board member, husband, father of four, and a committed follower of Christ. Welcome to the show.

[Eric Frohart]

Thanks for having me, bro.

[Sean Ryan]

Got you a present. You want to see it?

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

All right.

[Eric Frohart]

All right. Do I make get up or. No, No, I got it.

[Sean Ryan]

Since you. Since you don't have any truck guns, dude, thought maybe you might like one of these.

[Eric Frohart]

So that is the ultimate.

[Sean Ryan]

Do you know what that is?

[Eric Frohart]

Oh, my gosh, bro. That is sweet.

[Sean Ryan]

That's the SIG Sauer Rattler. So SBR version with the collapse or the foldable stock, fixed iron sights. That's one of Sig's new red dot optics up there. It's got a Sig flashlight on there with the thumb activation switch. And then silencer shop.

[Eric Frohart]

Oh, my gosh.

[Sean Ryan]

They heard you were coming too, so. So the gun is from my friend Jason over at Sigs.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

And then silencer shop heard you were coming, so they wanted to throw a can on their suppressor. I love silencer shop because they do all this extra stuff for the second Amendment.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

And yeah, they were pumped that you were coming on the show, so they wanted to. They wanted to present you with a brand new, new 300 blackout truck gun.

[Eric Frohart]

Bro, I. Well, first of all, thank you to you. Thank you, Sig and silencer shop. That is. That is freaking amazing. How does this work?

[Sean Ryan]

You got to push the top. Push the top thing down.

[Eric Frohart]

This thing down.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Eric Frohart]

Oh, I see it.

[Sean Ryan]

Dude, that suppressor's illegal in Nebraska, right?

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

Cool. I thought so. Did you use 300 blackout@dev group at all?

[Eric Frohart]

They were starting to a little bit.

[Sean Ryan]

Really?

[Eric Frohart]

But then I always ran a 416A P226 before they were switching. And then some of the, like, some of the dog handlers and maybe EOD guys were running the.

[Sean Ryan]

What was it?

[Eric Frohart]

The MP7, right. The little.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Eric Frohart]

And then when I did recce work and sniper work, you know, once in a while. What was it? The 417. But that thing was just big and loud, so most of the time. 416.

[Sean Ryan]

Right on. Yeah, right on.

[Eric Frohart]

This is freaking amazing. Thank you.

[Sean Ryan]

Maybe you can use these on your next adventure.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah, for sure. These are awesome. Thank you.

[Sean Ryan]

So you're leaving at the end of the.

[Eric Frohart]

Legal in all 50 states.

[Sean Ryan]

Legal in all 50 states.

[Eric Frohart]

I got to take these back to Nebraska, man, get them past the drug dog.

[Sean Ryan]

Yep. You'll be good. You'll have got them Passed several times. But yeah, maybe you can use those on your climb. You're getting ready to leave on a climb, right?

[Eric Frohart]

That's right. That's right. Getting ready to climb Kilimanjaro. We're taking off in about almost 20 days. Just 21 days. So we are climbing. My son and I, along with eight other climbers, are going to go climb Kilimanjaro to help raise money and awareness for Global Partners in Hope, which is a. It's a nonprofit based in Omaha that does work in West Africa. Specifically. They do. They build water wells and medical treatment facilities, kind of like treatment centers in kind of underserved French, kind of the French speaking West African area.

[Sean Ryan]

Right on, man.

[Eric Frohart]

Oddly, I had met the. So I met the CEO and founder of Global Partners and Hope when I was moving to Nebraska. I emailed my former commanding officer at DEV Group. He was Captain Moore when I left, and now he's retired Admiral Scott Moore. And I told him, and I was telling a lot of my friends, like, I'm just, I'm leaving Colorado. I'm moving to Omaha. Just giving people a heads up. Right. And I had stayed in touch with my, I, I had stayed in touch with, at the time, Captain Moore. Anyway, he's like, you gotta go meet this guy Ian when you move to Omaha. He runs a nonprofit there. He's connected to everyone. So a few months after I live there, I go and meet Ian Vickers. He started Global Partners in Hope and is the CEO and executive director. I go and meet him and before he had started that, he was a pastor of a church and built a big church in Omaha. And then before that, he, he mentioned to me that he preached at a. In a very small town in northwest Iowa. And the town was same town as where one of my aunts and uncles lived. And I asked, I'm like, do you know my aunt and uncle Joyce and Alvin? And he's like, oh, my gosh. I pastored their church in northwest Iowa. Not only that, he lived with them while his house. While he was trying to move into his house.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Eric Frohart]

So we just kind of. We kind of connected. He started to introduce me to some people in Omaha. Eventually, he asked me to be on his board. So now I'm a board member honored to be on the board of Global Partners in Hope. And a couple of. I think it was the end of, maybe the end of 2025, at one of our board meetings, we had heard about a similar nonprofit that was doing a climb in Africa, Climbing Kilimanjaro to Raise money and awareness for their cause. And we just. One of us kind of posited the idea of doing it for what we're trying to support. And then before I knew it, we had 10 of us signed up to go climb Kilimanjaro. So we are going to leave in 20 days. And the money we raise from this climb is going specifically to. To water wells and medical treatment facility there. And in that part of Africa, like, access to clean water is. Is so limited. And just having clean water saves so many lives. And not only does it save lives, it gives women and kids more time, because kids during the day, they might be sent to fetch water from somewhere that has clean water.

[Sean Ryan]

Yep.

[Eric Frohart]

So now they're spending their day fetching water. They can't get educated. So just a. Just a well makes a huge difference. And the wells that Ian builds and that global partners builds, they are self su. Self sustained. So when we build these wells there, they. We train the locals how to operate them so when. When money is raised, we don't go back to donors later and say, hey, we need that. That well we put in. It needs to be fixed over and over again.

[Sean Ryan]

Right.

[Eric Frohart]

Like, they're self sustained, and the treatment facilities we build are the same way. And we're like, a little bit goes so far there. Like, Ian teaches at a college in Omaha, Creighton. And I've seen him, like, ask the kids, like, hey, who in here was, you know, born from C section, cesarean section? And generally something like. I don't know what the percentage is now, but it could be 10, 20% or whatever it is. I have four kids, all born my C section.

[Sean Ryan]

Right.

[Eric Frohart]

And he's like, now put your hands down because you wouldn't be here. Because in places like West Africa, if the mom needs a C section, like, the mom dies, the baby dies.

[Sean Ryan]

Right.

[Eric Frohart]

So in this little treatment facility there, a couple hundred people and a couple hundred moms will be alive because of a. Just a new little hospital.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Eric Frohart]

And the. The crazy thing is, like, the hospital that he's building there, that. The treatment facility, it's something like. Like $180,000.

[Sean Ryan]

I saw that.

[Eric Frohart]

Which is, you know, even in Omaha, where it's very affordable. Like, you can't. You barely buy a house for that in our country. So we're climbing Kilimanjaro to raise money to help with the well and a treatment facility. And, you know, we're gonna go whatever. It's 44 miles, and you start at like 12,000ft and you finish at 19,400. So it's 44 miles and whatever, you know, 7,000 foot of elevation gain. And you're gonna spend. We're gonna spend seven nights sleeping in a tent, eating dehydrated food, and hiking all day. And, you know, it's hard, but, like, we're choosing to do it. You know what I mean? And they're like, their, their days are that hard and they, they don't get to choose. You know what I mean?

[Sean Ryan]

Man, that's cool. Is there a. We'll put the link in the description for anybody that wants to pitch in on.

[Eric Frohart]

We have a. We have a, A landing page for all the different climbers, and each, Each separate climber has their own landing page. And my son and I have our own. Our own page. And I'll give you the link. And I mean, 50 bucks goes a long way. So.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Eric Frohart]

Very exciting.

[Sean Ryan]

Noble cause, man.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah. Thank you.

[Sean Ryan]

So let's get into your story. Where did you grow up?

[Eric Frohart]

I grew up in a very small town in northwest Iowa called Sac City, Iowa. I was born in Fort Dodge, Iowa. It's like 40 minutes away from there. And I was raised in a small town and grew up mostly working on the farm. So my mom was a nurse and my dad was a farmer. And, you know, I spent as much time as I can remember out on that farm. So, yeah, very small town.

[Sean Ryan]

What are you guys farming?

[Eric Frohart]

We raised corn, soybeans and hogs. And for us, I think at our highest, Maybe we had 800 acres of corn and soybeans. Right. But most of the labor was hogs because with the corn, you plant it. Same thing with the beans. You plant it and then it's in the field, and then you don't really do much to it until harvest time.

[Sean Ryan]

Right.

[Eric Frohart]

But year round, there was hog work and we had, like, back then, it was pharaoh to finish. So we had like, boy hogs and girl hogs, and they had baby hogs. And the way it works now is people generally buy hogs that have been weaned from the moms and finish them out. Right. But we had, you know, we had hogs indoors and outdoors and pretty big operation. So it was. I. I tell people now like, like the farm, I. I learned so much on that farm, and it helped shape me and it, like, honestly, it forged me. It, like, it helped me make it through buds. But like, hog farming is. Like, it's not glamorous. Yeah, right.

[Sean Ryan]

I'll bet it's not.

[Eric Frohart]

There's no, there's no hog farm version Of Yellowstone. Right. It's just. And like, I just remember, like, I hated it, like, really well. I mean, I liked being on the farm and, like, working, but then it was like there were days when you're like, all right, I'm gonna. Hard work, low pay, and, you know, and just sometimes dirty, nasty work. You know what I mean?

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Eric Frohart]

And. And I've told my dad since, you know, I wouldn't. Wouldn't trade it for anything, you know, so.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah. Danny. Brothers and sisters?

[Eric Frohart]

I do. I have two brothers and a sister, so one of my brothers and my sister live in Omaha, and then one of my brothers is in Orlando.

[Sean Ryan]

Right on. Yeah.

[Eric Frohart]

And we're all very. We're all very close still, so.

[Sean Ryan]

Right on.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah. I live about a mile and a half from one of my brothers.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow, that's awesome.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

Were you. Where do you fall on the birth order?

[Eric Frohart]

What's that?

[Sean Ryan]

Where do you fall on the birth order?

[Eric Frohart]

I'm the oldest.

[Sean Ryan]

You're the oldest?

[Eric Frohart]

I am the oldest. Yep.

[Sean Ryan]

Right on. What were you in. What else were you into as a kid?

[Eric Frohart]

So grew up on the farm. You know, it was very. Work hard, play hard.

[Sean Ryan]

Right.

[Eric Frohart]

Get the work done. But we had four wheelers, we had a dirt bike. We had a Honda Odyssey, like the old, like, single seat dune buggy.

[Sean Ryan]

Nice.

[Eric Frohart]

Before. Before they renamed a minivan an Odyssey and, you know, fishing and hunting and just building, like, when I was little, like, building forts, just all that sort of thing on the farm. Tubing, you know, behind the four wheeler in the snow and just, you know, just. You kind of made your own fun out on the farm. Yeah. But then as I got into like, middle school and then in high school, I was, you know, really loved football and lifting weights. So.

[Sean Ryan]

Were you close with your parents?

[Eric Frohart]

Very, very close. So I, like, I don't. I don't have, like a sob story like some people who, you know, joined the military. Like, I grew up with very loving parents and who, you know, we weren't spoiled by any means. We worked hard, but we had, you know, we had a nice home. We always had amazing meals and we always had spent time together and, like, watch TV together, like everyone did back

[Sean Ryan]

then,

[Eric Frohart]

and close to my siblings and, you know, all of that. So I learned a lot from, like, Learned a lot from my parents, you know, and my mom was just so. So calm and so caring and so loving, and she worked so hard for us, and she was. She was gone a lot because she was a. A nurse, but she would always still like, find time to make our favorite favorite meals and that sort of thing. And she was most of all I remember about my mom was just her calmness. And that's something that helped me like when I was in the teams, right. And I could always kind of just be relatively calm when things were getting like wild. And my dad on the other hand is not calm. Like he's just like this big ball of energy or, or was. And he like when I graduated high school, my dad was like, I don't know, like almost 65 but 340 and he, he could, like I was training for football and he could still beat me in a 40 yard dash. Holy, he's a monster. Are you serious? Yeah. And like he, he can't put his index finger through the trigger guard of a Glock 19. Like he's a beast.

[Sean Ryan]

Whoa.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah. And so I'm like, Holy shit. I couldn't like, you know, if, if I like mouthed off to him, he could just pick me up with one hand or whatever. But he, you know, I learned a lot from him too. We worked hard, but he always played with us. He always did things with us. Like kids from other, like my friends would come out because he would like he could work all day and then pull us around on a behind the four wheeler in the snow. Like he always, he's very playful. But then he also, you know, taught us like to be responsible. So like if you had a job to do on the farm, like you were responsible for getting it done and then accountable for the results, right? So if you left, if you left the pen open and the hogs got out, like you better take blame for it and you better go put them back in.

[Sean Ryan]

Right.

[Eric Frohart]

And the thing most of all from him was probably just respective women. So the cardinal offense in our house, like if mom got upset, like we were in trouble and you didn't want him make my dad angry like a, he had a temper, but he's also almost 65350, right. Like he could, he could be scary. So I'll bet if mom got angry like we tried to, you know, butter her up before dad got home. So anyway, yeah,

[Sean Ryan]

for this show, the biggest thing is preparation. When you're sitting down for a long form conversation, you can't just show up with surface level notes. You need real depth, structure and the right questions. That's where I've been using Claude. It's helped me with research, building outlines and shaping better questions. Before I sit down with a guest, I'll take a topic or a guest, run it through Claude and it helps organize everything and tighten up the structure. It's a tool I use every day, and it has become a huge part of my workflow. Claude is the AI for minds that don't stop at good enough. It's the collaborator that actually understands your entire workflow and thinks with you. Whether you're debugging code at the midnight hour or strategizing your next business move, Claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems that matter. It's not doing the work for me. It's helping me think deeper. I still bring my own perspective, but it sharpens the questions, tightens the flow, and helps me get more out of every conversation. Ready to tackle bigger problems. Get started with Claude today at Claude AI Srs. That's Claude AI Srs. And check out Claude Pro, which includes access to all the features mentioned in today's episode. Claude AI srs. Were you good at sports?

[Eric Frohart]

You know, I. I thought I was like, so in a small town, you kind of get to do everything. And when I was really, when I was younger, it was T ball and then little League, and then, you know, I made the all star team in Little League. But it's such a small town, Right. And then there was a time where in the summer I would be doing like, baseball and swimming, and I was like, I was on an all star baseball team and an all district swimmer. But this is a town of whatever, 1200 people, right. I don't know how big it is now, but it's not huge. I graduated with right around 30. Damn. But I always loved, like, for whatever reason, like, I just loved football. And I worked. I worked so hard to play football. And I. So I had played all those sports and basketball, like you kind of ran track. You just did it all, right? There was. And back then, people didn't specialize either. And it was a small town at small school, you kind of. Kind of could do it all.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Eric Frohart]

If I was in even Omaha now, I probably wouldn't make the team on half those sports in any of those schools.

[Sean Ryan]

Right. So.

[Eric Frohart]

So I. But I think it was my. By the time I got to high school, I was just so tired of not having a summer. Cause it was like, like grade school and middle school. I would have swim team practice in the morning, go to the farm all day, and then have baseball practice at night.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Eric Frohart]

And then once the practices were kind of over, there was game times. So there were. There were times where I would have two swim meets a week and two baseball games a week. Maybe a tournament on the weekend. And farming every day, right? So my summers, they were a blink.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah, the busy kid.

[Eric Frohart]

And then, so when I got into high school, like, I just had this, like, epiphany. I'm like, I'm just going to play football. And my summers were going to be spent lifting weights and doing farm work and fishing, right? And then maybe some, you know, running and conditioning stuff for football. And then all of a sudden, like, I just had these awesome summers. Like, I was just lifting weights in the morning or doing the football conditioning stuff, the sprints. Farm all day, work on the farm all day. And then, you know, maybe go fishing or go out or something at night. Um, and I, I like, that was a lot of fun, but I was, I was decent at football. I think my senior year I was, you know, pretty good. Thought I was made all state as a linebacker. I think it was like second team all state or whatever. But I'm like, ah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get like. And I wanted it really bad, right? So I went and tried to play football in college. And my. Again, my dad's really big and my uncles are anywhere from six three to six four and big mean, my little brother, he graduated high school at 6:5 to 75. And my cousins are 6:3. I mean, my other little brother right now is 6:3. I'm the, I'm, you know, kind of the runtime. But I thought, like, oh, I'm going to go to college and I'm just going to go to junior college because I'm just going to hit my growth spurt later. Like, I was planning a growth spurt and I'll go to junior college and I'll get like two years of football, right? I'll get on their strength and conditioning program and eat some more and then I'll get better at football. And like, two years later, I'm going to get it. Like, this was my plan. I'm going to get a Division 1 scholarship to Iowa State and play, right? Like, that's what I, that's what I wanted more than anything, right? So graduate high school. I go to a junior college, community college in Mason City, Iowa, called Nyack, Northern Iowa Area Community College. And I get up there and I'm thinking, like, it's just junior college. It's going to be like 13th grade, right? Like, it ain't. It's not like I'm going to like back then, like, I live in Nebraska now, And in the 90s, Nebraska was like the football club. It wasn't like I was going to play Division 1 at Nebraska, where I, you know, probably wasn't worthy of carrying water, right? And I show up, show up at Nyack and there were a few people like me, kind of farm kids. But there was also like Division 1 talent there from other states who were like, like Iowa and like parts of the Midwest. They have a good like junior college feeder program that like feed the main universities and there's people there that maybe didn't have good enough GPAs or high enough acts.

[Sean Ryan]

Gotcha.

[Eric Frohart]

And they're getting their grades up to then go play elsewhere. So we had people on our team like get picked up to go play Division 1 later. And it was a good junior college team. So I get there and wouldn't you know it, I'm like, not that good. Like I. And I had, you know, I had like bulked up a bunch, right? I got above 200 by the time I before I went there. But I was trying to play linebacker and like the linebackers were like 220 and they could run faster than me. Like I had the speed like of alignment and I was strong. I just couldn't like, like I couldn't play right? So I like to say I wasn't big enough, strong enough or fast enough, but like I just wasn't good enough, right? And it was, it was kind of eye opening when you just see that kind of talent. But like the cool thing like, like I don't have any regrets because like I like to say, like, you know, I never achieved my gridiron goals,

[Sean Ryan]

but

[Eric Frohart]

I learned so much. Like I learned just like football is a hard sport, right? The games are fun when you're good, but practices are hard, right? You're hitting, you're wearing pads. I remember in high school we were doing two A days in Iowa and it's hot, right? So we would have morning practice and then a late afternoon practice. And in between that, instead of going home and playing video games and drinking Gatorade like half my friends, I had to go work on the farm between the morning and the afternoon practice, right? And I might be bailing hay and drinking Pepsi, right, Like instead of video games. But back to football. Football is hard. It can hurt. But you learn like so much about teamwork and commitment and preparation. Like every. The more, the more time you spend in the weight room or off season conditioning, the better you'll be like, you just learn all these things and you learn kind of like a team sport, how to win and how to lose. Like some people that don't play those Sports, like, they just, like, don't have that experience, right? So I learned a lot from football, and I never achieved my goals. But, like, like, sometimes the person you become in pursuit of a goal is the actual. Like, you didn't know it at the time, but that's the reward. You know what I mean? And we were. I don't know, we had finished. Finished a year of football. And I mean, you'll get a kick out of this, but we're watching a movie about SEALS in a dorm room. And I've had like, maybe like three or four natural lights, like the cheap version of Bud Light. And I'm sitting there, like. And it's. I'm ashamed to say it was GI Jane literally watching. And my. One of my friends in college had, like, rented GI Jane for Blockbuster. I got hooked on it, and I watch it, I'm like three or four beers deep, and I just. I don't know, a light bulb goes off, literally, and I go, I'm gonna join the Navy and be a seal. I'm so. I'm not gonna play football at the moment.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah, like right there.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah. I stood up, I said this in the dorm room. And we had one dorm room that was like, no beds in it. It kind of was converted into. It had like two couches and a tv. Like a party room.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Eric Frohart]

And I just said this light bulb went off. I'm like, I'm gonna join the Navy and become a seal. And. And someone in the room was like, yeah, whatever. You'll never do it. You can't do it. Like you're not big enough. Like it wasn't big enough. But, like, I know a guy who was a Marine, he's much tougher. You'll never make it. Right? And like, in that, like, I just needed someone to say, I couldn't do it. And I enlisted in the Navy the next day.

[Sean Ryan]

Holy. On a bet, still hungover from the light.

[Eric Frohart]

Literally from GI Jane.

[Sean Ryan]

Damn.

[Eric Frohart]

Right now. I didn't leave the next day. I joined on delayed entry. Right? The de, it was called.

[Sean Ryan]

Are you just hoping that all your teammates look like Demi Moore?

[Eric Frohart]

I just thought, like, so I. There was something like, you know, like, we all have a chip on our shoulder that go and do that. We're, like, going to prove something. Yeah, right? And I'm like, I'm sitting there in college. I'm like, well, I'm not proving anything here. Sitting as the third string outside linebacker.

[Sean Ryan]

Right.

[Eric Frohart]

I need to go do something different. Right. And I will be the first to say it was a, like we can get into this later. But it was a selfish pursuit. After 9 11, that all changes because now I'm like, oh, I'm serving my country. But I joined the Navy to go prove that I could go do something, which that's fine, right? Like it is what it is. I wanted to prove that I could do it. And then I had someone tell me I couldn't do it. I enlisted in the Navy the next day on a bet. And then I was in the delayed entry program. So I finished out my, finished out my one year of college because I'm like, I might as well finish this year in case I go back or whatever. And then that time I think college got over. That year of college gets over in what, like May something. So from May to October I'm on delayed entry. And then I go back, I go back to Sack City and I literally have this like period of my life that is like one of the most purposeful moment like seasons that I've ever had. Because I was, you know, I was young, like 19, but I knew what I wanted to do with my life. Like there was, I was singularly focused, right? I was going to be a Navy seal. I had so much clarity like about that and so much purpose. So I would. And I had gotten this dumb little like printed PDF from the recruiter. It was called the warning order back then. And it's this old school, like

[Sean Ryan]

like

[Eric Frohart]

15 pages of 8 and a half by 11 paper that's stapled in the corner that it has the, the running program, the swimming program and then the calisthenics program, the push ups, the pull ups, the sit ups and the dips. And to me like I took that home and you know, I had finished my junior year of college or I'm sorry my one year of college and I was like £215. Like I had bulked up for, for ball but I wasn't getting any faster and I wasn't still gonna play. And I show up back and back at home and I got this now I got this path, right? And I literally like I'm going to spend the whole summer just working on the farm and working out. So I'll like that whole time basically June through October, like every morning I would do, I would work up. It worked you up to a two mile swim, right? So it had a, it sequentially got longer. So towards the end of that like five, like three to five days a week I'm doing a two mile swim in fins, in a pool, like it's in a rec center indoors. And I remember it was like, how

[Sean Ryan]

many laps is that?

[Eric Frohart]

44.

[Sean Ryan]

Oh my gosh.

[Eric Frohart]

It was 88 lengths.

[Sean Ryan]

Damn.

[Eric Frohart]

It was 88 lengths or 44 laps. And I would like sometimes lose count. So I was like, you know, I'm trying to figure out how to keep my count. And I would do that every morning, right? Like anywhere from three to five days a week. And then the running program, well, I'll go sequentially. Then there was the push ups, the pull ups and the sit ups. And they had these pyramids and it was anywhere from three to four days a week, right. And like, they have so much better shit now from like the human performance side. Like, and they have p. Like they have these programs that the SEAL recruiters give you. This is just an old printed off thing that I got from a Navy recruiter in Basin City, Iowa. Yeah, But I'll never forget, like, I didn't even have pull up bars. So I like, I build a pull up bar from a rafter in the barn. And then, you know, I had this piece of carpet on the floor in a shop, like a machine shop for push ups and sit ups. Just a piece of old, like kind of like this, right? That was my PT pad.

[Sean Ryan]

Nice.

[Eric Frohart]

And then I even like built a dip bar in the shop. So it was kind of like Rocky 4, right. So I'd do my swim in the morning, I'd go to the farm all day and I'd do chores and do, do the work or whatever, whatever I was doing. And throughout the day I would take a break and grab a set of pull ups, set of push ups, sit ups, dips, whatever the program called for. And then when, sometime late afternoon, you know, maybe when the chores were almost done or even like we had a, we had a farm site that was like three miles away, right from this one farm site. So if that day called for a six mile run, like, I would just put on shorts and run in my boots from this farm to that farm, do chores and then run back. So I'm like farming all day. I do like 2 mile swim every day, farming all day, and then work up to like five or six mile runs every day. And I'm like super in shape, Right?

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Eric Frohart]

And then I'm sure you experience the same thing. You get in like, you get in this great shape and then you go to boot camp and get out of shape. At least Navy boot camp.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Eric Frohart]

But I'd, you know a big part of the story that I'm leaving out was my dad's support.

[Sean Ryan]

I was going to ask, what did your parents think?

[Eric Frohart]

So on the one hand, it was, like, so helpful when someone said I couldn't do it. Like, I needed someone to say, you couldn't do that. I was going to prove them wrong. And then I came home from college. I think it was around Christmas and New Year's, you know, the break. And I told my. I told my folks, like, we were at my grandpa's house and have. Getting ready to have Christmas dinner. And I was like, I had. I had been meaning to tell him sooner, but I just didn't have the courage because I thought he was gonna, like, whap me.

[Sean Ryan]

Really?

[Eric Frohart]

Right. Like, I mean, just jokingly, like, yeah, you dumbass.

[Sean Ryan]

Don't want you to be a farmer or something?

[Eric Frohart]

No, but, I mean, he wanted us to go to college, right? He didn't. He didn't actually. He didn't want us to be farmer. He's like, he doesn't want us to take over the farm. It. It's our experience with farming was, like, long work, hard hours. We didn't, you know, we didn't make a ton doing it. We didn't have land, you know, he didn't inherit land. We couldn't buy land at the time. Like, it was. It was just a lot of work, and it wasn't for us.

[Sean Ryan]

Not.

[Eric Frohart]

Anyway. He never, like, pushed us. He never pushed us to be farmers. I mean, we worked on the farm because that was that paid for room and board. Right. But in. In a moment. And he was just, you know, he's so awesome. But I. I just go, all right, dad, well, I'm not going back to college next year. I'm going to be a Navy seal. I said all that in, like, one breath. And he just looks at me, you know, looks down on me, and he's just like, okay, well, like, I forget the words exactly. But something like, like, I really think you'll be one of the few that makes it through, and you'll be good at that. I'm excited for you, son.

[Sean Ryan]

Right.

[Eric Frohart]

And, and. And to have that, like, that encouragement, you know, from your dad was just like, you know, so powerful.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Eric Frohart]

And just a reminder, like, you know, hopefully someday, like, I'll be aware enough where someone, if they need that encouragement from me, like, I can mimic that. That makes sense.

[Sean Ryan]

What did you tell them you were going to be before that was it when you went to school?

[Eric Frohart]

I was taking ag business and criminal science classes, so I was either going to be a farmer or in the FBI. I. I honestly didn't know.

[Sean Ryan]

Right on.

[Eric Frohart]

And part of it was, you go to junior college, A lot of it's general ed, and you might change later. Anyway. Yeah, you can get your general ed done at junior college, community college, and then go to university, and you might change your mind by then. You know what I mean? So I was not. Wasn't really sure.

[Sean Ryan]

What about your mom?

[Eric Frohart]

My mom? So, yeah, she's. She was a nurse.

[Sean Ryan]

No, I mean, what did she think?

[Eric Frohart]

Well, she was concerned. Right. She didn't really. She didn't know what that was like, what a SEAL was. Right. My dad knew because, you know, he'd read even, like, Rogue Warrior. And, like, when I grew up, like, as a little kid, every Friday, dad would get a tape. We didn't have a Blockbuster, but we had a corner store with vcr. Like, we would have to rent a vcr. And he would bring an action movie home. Could be Rambo or a Commando or Die Hard or, like, some 80s action movie.

[Sean Ryan]

Oh, yeah, man.

[Eric Frohart]

And so, like, Friday night was always, like, movie night. And, like, that, like, really shaped, you know, he was aware of what seals were. And one time we did. You know, I think it was, like, the. Certainly in the 90s, but he brought home the Charlie Sheen Seals movie. And, like, my brother and I watched that. And, like, the next day at the farm, we had this swing set, and we turned it into our obstacle course. Nice. Yeah. So I was one of those, like, for a while, I was one of those, like, every time I watched a movie, my career path changed.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Eric Frohart]

Like, if it was Backdraft, I was going to be a fireman. If it was GI Jane, I was going to be in the Navy seal. So. Yeah, anyway, my mom was not. She's supportive of it, but, like, also, like, back then, like, this is 98. Like, it wasn't like, she. She didn't know what I was signing up for. You know what I mean? But Mom. Yeah, she. I would say, you know, Fast forward to 2001, and now I'm on deployment. Like, they're. You know, they're turning into prayer warriors just because of the way things changed. So I made it. I don't know, finished my year of college. I had that summer of purpose and trained, and I shipped off and went to boot camp in October.

[Sean Ryan]

Right on.

[Eric Frohart]

And then boot camp, you know, it's. I'm sure you experience the same thing. Like, you get in really good shape, and then you go there and you're just folding clothes and doing dishes and I mean, it was awful. I mean, was yours the same? Yeah. I mean, shining. Shining your boots.

[Sean Ryan]

Shining your boots. Sweeping the floor. A lot of cleaning.

[Eric Frohart]

Swabbing the deck.

[Sean Ryan]

Swabbing the deck.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah. No, boot camp. Boot camp for me.

[Sean Ryan]

Basically, all the extra motivation you need not to quit Buds 100%.

[Eric Frohart]

That's absolutely right.

[Sean Ryan]

Oh, this is what I'll be doing if I don't make it right. This is horrible.

[Eric Frohart]

No, thanks, bro.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah. No. So I go to boot camp in October of 98, and it's mostly uneventful. There's two things that stand out about boot camp. A, I met Matt Bissonnette and I were in sister divisions in boot camp.

[Sean Ryan]

Oh, no.

[Eric Frohart]

So I meet him in boot camp. We end up going to Bud's one class apart. I go a class before him because he had a longer A school. But then we show up at Team 5 together. We're in the same STT class at Seal Team 5, and we do for two rotations at Team 5. We are in sister platoons. Right. So we're kind of going through all this together. I would have gone to dev group the same time he did were it not for my kidney thing, which we'll get into. So I've known no one longer in the military than him.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Eric Frohart]

So met Matt in. In boot camp, and then it was towards. So towards the end of boot camp, The. And boot camp again, it's so. It's pretty easy. A. I was in really, really good shape and be like, the work. Like, the work ethic you learn on a farm. Right. Which just carried me through. Has carried me through so many things. Made like boot camp was simple, but at the end of boot camp, I had this extreme pain in my side. Right. And my parents come to be there for graduation, and you get to go spend. I don't think we got to stay in the hotel with them, but, like, they could pick you up during the day and, like, take you out to eat or whatever. And so I've been at boot camp, and I'd missed my folks and missed my siblings and my brothers and sister, and they're all younger. And I'm like, like, as boot camp approaches, you're just so excited to see your family. It's been like three months.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Eric Frohart]

And you're so excited to get out on town and eat real food, not this crap from this chow hall. They finally get there, and boot camp's finally over. And I can't do it because I'm in this, like, I just go back to Their hotel room. And I'm curled up in a ball on the bed, right? And I just want to be in a fetal position. And I get like. So I get like, I see the doctors, the boot camp doctors, and they're just like, well, it's probably ibs, irritable bowel syndrome. And eventually it kind of goes away, right. Or whatever. And I. This, this is a pain that would plague me like in boot camp at the end of boot camp and then once in BUDS during hell week, and then once in sniper school and then once in land warfare for when I was at Team 5. And I would later find out like, it's a kidney stone. So I had this pain.

[Sean Ryan]

Been in there that long?

[Eric Frohart]

Well, I would, I would. They would pass, right? And they would like, they would like somehow the way the doctor explained it to me, like, it would get stuck in the. My. The ureter is the tube between your kidney and your bladder. And mine was like, had like scar tissue in it. So there would be times where my kidney wouldn't drain all the way. And then if it would get backed up, it would form a stone. Right. So I find out, never diagnosed. Like, I'm diagnosed in boot camp with IBS and constipation and it's a blocked kidney. So. And I'll go through that sequentially. But like, so I finish boot camp and then I go to whatever. Back then, SEAL wasn't a rate. So I went to a school. I went to sonar tech. Sonar tech. A school in Point Loma. So anyway, that was like,

[Sean Ryan]

I think

[Eric Frohart]

that's like five weeks sonar tech. But they don't. And they don't send a five week a school graduate into the fleet. They have to go through other training before their actual sonar techs. And I was the honor man of my sonar tech a school. And they were going to give me my choice of orders. I'm. I'm like, well, I'm going to buds.

[Sean Ryan]

Give somebody else the first choice.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah. And you had that as you probably. I don't know. When did you join?

[Sean Ryan]

What, 2001.

[Eric Frohart]

Okay.

[Sean Ryan]

July 2001.

[Eric Frohart]

Got it right before nine.

[Sean Ryan]

Eleven. Yeah.

[Eric Frohart]

So like back then you had to like. This was called the Seal Challenge Program.

[Sean Ryan]

Same.

[Eric Frohart]

And you were gonna get E4 out of buds if you made it. But you had to pass these. You had to pass a test in boot camp and then in a school. Right. And then the first day of buds. As long as you pass those PRTs, you're in it.

[Sean Ryan]

Right.

[Eric Frohart]

So you know the drill. Yeah, that's What I was doing. Right on. Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

Well, let's take a quick break, and then when we come back, we'll see if all of the BUDS candidates, when you showed up, look like Demi Moore.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

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[Eric Frohart]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

Getting ready to show up to buds.

[Eric Frohart]

So. Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

What's your first impression? What's it like walking in there?

[Eric Frohart]

Well, I was. You know, my time in the military and in the team, like, all of it is marked by steep learning curves. You know, they, like, take people off the street, turn them into seals, or in my case, take them off the farm.

[Sean Ryan]

Right.

[Eric Frohart]

And first of all, I'm one of the guys dumb enough, like, naive enough, like, when they're like, who's never been in the ocean before? And I'm like, right, like, thinking it's a badge of honor. Yeah. And Then, you know, whatever the proctor, whoever the instructor was at the time, he's like, get over here. We gotta go catch up. Takes me to the ocean, like. And we're. I'm in at the time. Ptrr or something, you know, before you're phased up. And he just proceeds to surf. Torture me until I stop shivering.

[Sean Ryan]

Right.

[Eric Frohart]

And I'm like, I don't. You know, I had seen the ocean, I guess, technically, because I was in Point Loma for a school, but I never been in it. And, like, I didn't realize how cold it was. How cold? The Pacific Ocean. Like, I watched Baywatch. That's what I thought I watched Bay. That was my Baywatch. Well, I've. Everyone's running around in swim trunks and, you know, bikini suits.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Eric Frohart]

And I'm like, it can't be that bad. So, long story short, I. I wasn't expecting the water to be that cold or taste that gross, you know, that salt.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Eric Frohart]

But my first impression, that salt.

[Sean Ryan]

And coming up from Tijuana,

[Eric Frohart]

my first impression, it's. I don't know, it was kind of interesting. You kind of look around and, you know, you're all kind of like measuring each other. Like, you know, is that guy going to be here at the end and

[Sean Ryan]

measuring each other up? Yeah.

[Eric Frohart]

And I've done it, you know, I've done it recently in a college football or whatever. You kind of looking around and trying to see where you might fit. And for me, I. I don't know. I'm sure you had the same experience, but I'm not sure how many people we started with. I have seen and heard it was somewhere around 180 or 160 or whatever. And we graduated six months later with 19.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow. Damn.

[Eric Frohart]

21 total. 19 originals. And if you took.

[Sean Ryan]

You 21 total 19. Holy. You only had two rollbacks.

[Eric Frohart]

Three. So it's 22. Sorry.

[Sean Ryan]

Holy.

[Eric Frohart]

And we had. If you took, like just. Just say it's 150 or 190 or whatever it was we started with. I wish I could find this out. And you just took this long, like this big panoramic photo and I gave you a Sharpie and I said, now circle or not you. But if I just gave it to some random person, circle the 19 people that are going to make it through based on appearances. Like, you wouldn't have circled me. Like, let's say all of our shirts are off or whatever. You wouldn't have circled me and you wouldn't have circled half the people that made it through because you can't really judge someone by their appearance, like in that role.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Eric Frohart]

Better example, A better example would be Excel. Take all 190 or whatever, however many candidates there were. And every name is on a row, so it's 190 rows or again, however many it was. And then every column was immeasurable. Run time, swim time, obstacle course, push ups, pull ups, sit ups, like tested. And then I just said, all right, now highlight the 19 people who are going to make it. Well, you wouldn't have, I wasn't in the top, you wouldn't have chosen me and you wouldn't have chosen half the people that made it. Or even, even looking at pedigree, like if you just looked at people's like resume and there was a, there was like some really good, you know, college athletes or Olympic alternate, decathlete or whomever that were the best runner, swimmer, push ups, pull ups, fastest o course times, like all of those.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Eric Frohart]

And those people didn't make it. Like it's so strange. And then you have like the failed junior college football players and the washed out wrestlers and the whatever. Like it was now for sure. There were plenty of, there were plenty of guys that looked like they were going to make it through and had the measurables and had the pedigree. Like there were a few of those, but that was more the exception than the rule. So it kind of taught me like you can't judge by appearances, you can't judge by measurables and you can't judge by pedigree, at least in that context. Because like there's no quick way to measure like a guy's heart or, or what they're, what they're willing and able to do. Their drive, their determination, their, their resilience. And that's just revealed over a period of time which is six months and they call it buds.

[Sean Ryan]

Right.

[Eric Frohart]

So to me, like, I think like, what makes someone make it through that? I don't know. Obviously there's some grit, there's some determination, there's some stubbornness, all these things. But I think something to prove there's a, there is that like, oh, I have something to prove.

[Sean Ryan]

Right.

[Eric Frohart]

Or a chip on my shoulder. And I'm, I'm from a, such a small town that like when I was going through hell week, there were signs in my town, like I had friends that were from these big, big towns in New Jersey and California and everywhere in between. And they're anonymous. Like I'm not, I'm not anonymous. Yeah, there's A big deal just to get out.

[Sean Ryan]

I'm from a similar town, actually. About eight times the size of your

[Eric Frohart]

town at 8,000 people, but still small.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah, but. But yeah, I'd be just getting out of the. Just getting out of a small town is a big fucking deal, right?

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

You know, and I mean, you go back there today, it's like walking back in time. It's like, holy shit, everybody's still here. Which is awesome.

[Eric Frohart]

I know. I have nothing against that. I love my small town and I literally. The, you know the bank signs that have the ticker, like the digital.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Eric Frohart]

My parents are like, there's your name's on the ticker because you're going through hell week.

[Sean Ryan]

Holy.

[Eric Frohart]

In this little town. And so for me, there's also this pressure, like, I'm not going to quit. A, I don't want to let my parents down, and B, I don't want to go back to my hometown with my tail between my legs. Most of all, I had something to prove. You know, I wanted to go do something hard. And I think just having so many factors, but just being very clear on what you want to do and being willing to do it, like every time. And I thought about this a lot. But when I failed at something, it's either I wasn't like crystal clear on what. Not just what I wanted to do, but what it would take. Like, I wasn't 100% clear on what I'm doing and what it will take to succeed, or I wasn't willing. Like, and there are, there's. It's great to know, like, if there's something like, to succeed, let's say to succeed as a. Whatever stockbroker. Name, name the thing. Race car driver. Two very weird, weirdly different roles. But like, you have to know what it takes and then you have to be willing to do what it takes to succeed. And if you don't, if you're not willing, that's fine. Don't do that. So for me, when I, as I look back and I look at different things, since with the benefit of hindsight, like, clarity and willingness are like, very important. Right? Yeah. And I think in buds too, I mean, there's so many different character traits, but like just resilience, like the ability to bounce back up because no matter how good of an athlete you are, you will fall and you will fail. Right. Or you will. You will be brought low and just the ability to return to baseline. I think, like, kind of.

[Sean Ryan]

I think that's a huge part of making it through yeah, that not enough people talk. I mean, when you're bringing up washed up wrestlers and all that kind of shit, these are all people, these are all kids that have learned how to lose, you know what I mean? And, and have gotten back up and tried it again and again and again and again, you know what I mean? And I think, you know, when you're talking about the best athletes, because it's a big, it's the big mystery, right? Like, how the fuck do we learn who the hell is going to make it through these programs? It's been like the question since, at least since I came along, which,

[Eric Frohart]

what

[Sean Ryan]

was that 20 something years ago? You know, and, but yeah, that's what I think that's a big component is people that did. It's resiliency, right? It's learning how to lose, pick your shit up and get back after it.

[Eric Frohart]

How to get, how to get, just get back up.

[Sean Ryan]

Some people learn that through broken homes. So I think that's why there's a lot of people that come from a broken home that make it in there. And you just really, it's a mixed bag of nuts when you get out. You know, you got rich kids, poor kids, abused kids. Like it's, but they all, I think that's, that seems to be a common denominator.

[Eric Frohart]

Well, that's why, like I said, like I, I've heard, you know, the Navy, the Navy spent millions of dollars to try to figure this out because they want a higher attrition rate. So they're trying to get better, more qualified people into it, but they can't, they still can't figure it out. The army has done the same thing with their special programs. And the answer is like, there is no quick test. It's revealed over the selection, right. And the recipe is different. Like the recipe that made me get through that. My resilience came from the farm, right. And the toughness that I learned from my parents and playing some football and you know, I didn't have the, the classic sob story, but I mean, I, I had days in BUDS that were easier than days on the farm. Like, I had farm days that were harder than SEAL training.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Eric Frohart]

And that's where I learned that. Right. So I think you're right. I mean, there is like, you just look at a picture of like a Bud's graduation photo and you know them all so well and you think about their stories like New Jersey, California, Florida. My swim buddy from Washington state.

[Sean Ryan]

Right.

[Eric Frohart]

I mean, I was, he was my swim buddy the entire time. Like first Second and third phase.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Eric Frohart]

We both made it through together. And like, you just hear their stories and then they hear about the kid from the middle of the country on a small farm in Iowa. And like, there is. Yeah, there is no one. There's no one story. But there's common denominators. Like people who knew how to, I guess, get back up right, from falling and failing.

[Sean Ryan]

What did you find? What did you find the most challenging

[Eric Frohart]

about buds? So. Huh. I was oddly. So I was oddly one of the. There's two of us in our class that never failed one thing the first time, every time. So I never won the time to run, but I was always in the top five. I never won a swim, but I was always towards the beginning.

[Sean Ryan]

No shit. Somebody that had never been in the ocean before.

[Eric Frohart]

My swim buddies, my swim buddy was really good at guiding and I literally just like followed his.

[Sean Ryan]

Right on, man.

[Eric Frohart]

You know, And I was good at, like, I could fin all day, right, because of my two miles in the pool five days a week. Right.

[Sean Ryan]

I.

[Eric Frohart]

So nothing was. I mean, it was all. I should say it's all hard, right? But nothing stood out. I. I wasn't the most. I wasn't the strongest on push ups and pull ups and sit ups, but I was in the top 10%.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Eric Frohart]

And I was actually quite good at the O course. Just like I have long arms, big hands, and I had grip from the farm, like so. Because so much of the O course was like kind of grip stuff, you know what I mean? And I somehow like passed dive physics and pool comp and weapons practical, all those things, like the first time, right. Like I just. Whatever. But the hardest part about BUDS was for me was Hell week. And that same side pain that I had had in boot camp revisited me. Right? And it was Wednesday or whatever the Steel Pier night was, so that, you know, the, the Steel Pier where. Which I think is like the hardest part of Hell week, and that's my, my recollection of it is the water temperature determines how long you can be in the water. And then when you get out of the. Like they have to take you out of the water so that you don't get past hypothermia or whatever. And it's based on the water temp and that's based on average weight. So there's a lot of fluctuation. And you know, we all know we don't all have the same body fat. So they, the BUDS instructors have a timetable where they're allowed to keep you in the water. And it's based on the water temp. But on Steel Pier, they make the whole thing miserable by. When you get out of the water, you're laying on a pier about this wide, and it's metal, and then they hose you off with a garden hose, right? So it's colder than the water. And, like, that's the night I had another, like, side pain attack. So I'm sitting there just wanting to curl up into a ball and. But I'm laying on that pier and just getting, like, you know, kind of jackhammering. And again, like, at the time, I wasn't diagnosed with anything other than IBS with const. They're like, oh, it's IBS with constipation. So now they give me a laxative. Well, now. Oh, now I have diarrhea. And essentially. And it's hell week, Right. And you don't get to stop and go to the bathroom. I don't know. That's not a very glamorous story. But I. I. At the time, I'm not. So I wasn't. What's wrong with them?

[Sean Ryan]

I don't know.

[Eric Frohart]

Give him some black, like. Because I'm like, holy. Curled up in the. In a ball. And I went to. And I didn't even get to stop. Then I went to sick call the next morning, and they're like, well, what's the matter with you? I'm like, I got this terrible pain in my side. I can't stop curling up in a ball, and it really, really hurts. And they're just like, probably constipation. Ibs give them some laxative, and you're just like, oh, my God, Hell week, bro. So.

[Sean Ryan]

So you went through hell week with a kidney stone that they were giving you?

[Eric Frohart]

And I have to stipulate because I know a lot of people will see this. That was not diagnosed. Right. I only know this with 99% certainty because a few years later, and I had this pain revisited me. A few years later, I had the pain again, and I was finally properly diagnosed with a kidney stone.

[Sean Ryan]

Holy.

[Eric Frohart]

Same exact pain. Right. And that happened when I was going through land Warfare at Seal Team 5, which I'll get into later. I'm trying to stay chronological here. So long story long, 99% sure that not only was, you know, hell week, hell, like, I. It was full benefit for me, like, having this. Not only having what I'm 99 sure is a kidney stone, but also having diarrhea.

[Sean Ryan]

Damn.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Eric Frohart]

So that was the. I mean, that's my answer to Your question. What was the hardest part about buds, probably. I mean, how the.

[Sean Ryan]

Are you going through, like, around the world, like, all this, like, the. The longest mile with laxatives?

[Eric Frohart]

What? That. That's Thursday.

[Sean Ryan]

Literally just shitting.

[Eric Frohart]

They just give you that. They gave me that Thursday morning, and then I just. It ran its course in about 12 hours, and I'm just like. But, like, thankfully you're wet all the time, so you're always in the ocean to rinse off.

[Sean Ryan]

It still hurts. Here's some more laxatives.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

Drink water.

[Eric Frohart]

Talk about your fuck, man. All time misdiagnosis.

[Sean Ryan]

Oh. Oh, man. That's up, dude. Wow.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

So. So, hell, we've heard shitty time for you, for your.

[Eric Frohart]

For your audience. The term full benefit. Yeah, that's just. That just means, like, when it sucks extra hard. Like, I had full benefit. And then like, to make like, the funny thing is, like, so here I. I graduate. Hell week. They secure Hell week on Friday afternoon, and then right after that, you all go in. They see you at the. At the medical thing before you walk back to your barracks. And I go into medical. I'm like, well, my toes kind of hurt. Well, both my big toenails were ingrown and they yanked out my big toenails. My God. Here I have this kidney stone. Oh, your toe hurts. Kidney stone, diarrhea. And it's finally over. And like, oh, as a parting gift, we're just gonna take out your big toe.

[Sean Ryan]

Oh, damn.

[Eric Frohart]

And you get, like, you know, you get like a week off the next week walking week. But there's not much of a break. Like, after that, you're back into it. And like. And, you know, I still don't have my big toenails. Like,

[Sean Ryan]

so. Wow.

[Eric Frohart]

Full benefit.

[Sean Ryan]

It's definitely full benefit.

[Eric Frohart]

Holy. And somehow I'm like. And I. As I tell people that I'm like. And even like, in my mind, I'm like, how would you not quit? Like, that is too. But, like, I don't know if I didn't know any better or I was just dumb or I wanted it that much. I. I don't. You know, if that happens to me now, I'm quitting.

[Sean Ryan]

Like, that sounds like a major lawsuit nowadays.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah. Yeah. What the fuck?

[Sean Ryan]

Damn. Holy shit. So you made it through Hell Week.

[Eric Frohart]

Made it through Hell week. I graduated Bud's Class 2 to 5.

[Sean Ryan]

How did that feel? How did it feel to tell your parents, your siblings, your friends back home? You get. You made it.

[Eric Frohart]

You. Well, as you know, like a. I made it through Training, but then they're like, oh, so you're a seal? Well, then you have that period of time because you can't even like it. It's kind of anti climatic, right? Because you're not a SEAL yet. But like you graduated buds. I was beyond, you know, very proud, right, of my accomplishment. I'd done something that I'd set out to do, right. I worked hard and I achieved it. And I had gone through a little bit of, you know, had an obstacle, right. So it, I felt amazing, right? But then, and, and it's very short lived because then you check into a. You know, back then we went to, we went to jump school in Benning, right? And then you show up at a team and then it's kind of like pretty humbling, right? Because now you're a new guy and not only are you a new guy, but you're a new guy at a team without a trident, right? And so checked into Team five and yeah, kind of, you feel like you start all over.

[Sean Ryan]

Did you want to go to the West Coast?

[Eric Frohart]

No. You did so funny, like, and I'm like, ended up loving it, right? I mean I loved kind of pre 9 11. Every team had its own kind of like personality, right? And Team five was kind of like known as Surf Surf Team five. And like everyone thought I would. Like, I didn't. You know, I look like a surfer now. I've never surfed, I don't surf, right. But I chose like literally 2, 4 and 8. When you do the dream sheet. Yeah, Like, I wanted to go to the East Coast. Like, I wanted to go to the east coast and I wanted to go to Dev Group. Like that was.

[Sean Ryan]

You already knew about Dev Group.

[Eric Frohart]

I got in trouble in third phase because we had BUDS instructors talking to us about the different teams and I literally. And so I'm not even graduated yet. I'm like. And I go, well, what does it take to go to Dev Group? None of them had gone there. Well then like two of them beat me because, like, you haven't even made it through this yet, dumbass. You know what I mean? Right? So it was always on my radar, but I wanted to go to the, I wanted to go to the east coast. So I went to SEAL Team 5. And I had had the best time. So like, it was just so different than the east coast and it was so different than just growing up on a farm in Iowa, you know. But I met, I met some, you know, awesome, awesome people, had some awesome teammates there, some awesome experiences. Any good hazing Stories we, you know, the hazing was. And it didn't happen. These are not my stories. These are things I've witnessed. Like we had guys that would get, you know, taped up naked to a spine board, you know, with basically, we would call it riggers tape. But for people that don't know, it's basically duct tape or just get covered in spray glue. I think one of the, one of the worst ones I heard about was a friend of mine got like, hey, he got like taped up to a spine board, like head to toe with duct tape to a plastic spine board. And they taped a funnel into his mouth and poured vodka down it. And then they put him in a closet and they taped an alarm clock to his head and it was just ringing the whole. So he couldn't pass out. And then they left him there for like eight hours to chew his way out or whatever. And he had like pissed and shit himself in the tape.

[Sean Ryan]

Oh man, I've not heard the alarm clock one. We did the happy hat.

[Eric Frohart]

The happy hat was common.

[Sean Ryan]

Oh, that's the, the happy hats where they, for the audience, it's where they tape a handle on the top of your head, wrap your whole head and duct tape and then they tape a handle on the top of your head. So anybody that wants to walk by and grab the, grab the handle and yeah, shake your head around and there's not a damn thing you're gonna do about it.

[Eric Frohart]

So these were always like horror stories. So when you're a new guy, like showing up at a team back then, you kind of walked around like just waiting for your number to get called.

[Sean Ryan]

Right.

[Eric Frohart]

And I've heard other kind of, you know, I've heard, I've heard wild ones like this. Like someone they threw, they put them in a cruise box and threw them in the San Diego bay with a can, a can of spare air.

[Sean Ryan]

I haven't heard that.

[Eric Frohart]

And then they had him on like, you know, he's like 30, 50ft down and they had him on like 1 inch nylon and pulled him back up. I'm like, holy. You're pretty lucky that didn't go badly.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah, no kidding.

[Eric Frohart]

So I didn't witness that. That's a second hand one that I've heard. But yeah, it was pretty epic back then.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow, wow, wow.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah, but the alarm clock one is pretty sinister. Like not only to just get taped to a spine board and then to get your stomach filled with vodka, but then to tape and that's a good one. Like, dude, it's just awful.

[Sean Ryan]

I Kind of want to do that to somebody now.

[Eric Frohart]

You got any new guys on staff?

[Sean Ryan]

We do.

[Eric Frohart]

We do.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow. So what. How was it? I mean, what was your impression of Team five when you showed up?

[Eric Frohart]

So Team five, it was so. I loved it, like. And so we're going. I am there for a couple of weeks before I went through stt. Back then it was sealed tactical training. And that's all the recent budget, the recent BUDS graduates that show up at teams one, three, and five. There was no seven. Okay? So teams, all of us that were out of BUDS and jump school, and we were not yet seals and not yet in a platoon, we went through a. A class called STT.

[Sean Ryan]

And

[Eric Frohart]

among that class, like, and that's three months. It's like 90 days. And in that class, there's people that are going to go to one and then three and then five.

[Sean Ryan]

Right.

[Eric Frohart]

And at the time, like, one was the hardcore, like, no fun one.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah, right.

[Eric Frohart]

And three was kind of in the middle. And Team five was, like, totally the more relaxed, like, Surf Team five. And then midway, like, early on in STT, we had a new commanding officer at SEAL Team 5, Tom Dietz. And he had come out with a policy. And at the time, this was, like, groundbreaking. He said, no more mandatory pt. Your adults work out on your own. We'll have one group PT a week on Fridays, and we'll chase it. It was kind of a monster mash pt, so for the audience, that's like a run, swim, O course, ruck kind of combo adventure. And like, back then, every Friday at Seal Team 5, you had a long PT and it could be running or swimming or a combo and rucking or obstacle course or combine, all of those. But it was always over at noon. You showered and changed. And there were two kegs on the grinder.

[Sean Ryan]

Nice.

[Eric Frohart]

And it was kegs on the grinder. By grinder is like a asphalt, like, blacktop area and maybe some hot dogs and some burgers and two kegs. And that was like the kickoff to the weekend. And Team five, it was like, it was very interesting because there was also a volleyball net there.

[Sean Ryan]

So people are like, you guys had a volleyball net?

[Eric Frohart]

Oh, dude, they're playing volleyball for, like, training or. Everyone had, like, skateboards, so they're moving around the weapons containers in, like, longboard skateboards.

[Sean Ryan]

Nice.

[Eric Frohart]

It definitely was this kind of surf, like, team team. And we finished stt showed up at team 5, and I could just train how I wanted to. And then every Friday, we had to do a workout together. It was awesome.

[Sean Ryan]

Right.

[Eric Frohart]

Versus, like having this regimented, like run day, swim day, gym day, or whatever. They kind of let you do what you wanted, which was pretty cool. Yeah, I think, you know, eventually they all got more like that. Right. But my impression of Team 5 was like, I didn't want to go there and I ended up being glad I did.

[Sean Ryan]

Right on. Yeah, right on. When? How long was it before people turned up?

[Eric Frohart]

So finished. Finished stt. And I was supposed to go into. A platoon a few months after that. Sorry, I'll rewind. I finished STT, then I finished my total of 6 months probation. Took the Trident board. Earned my Trident. Every team had their own Trident board. That 1 team 5. For as lax as it was as a. As a culture, we had a very hard Trident board. So it was like an eight or ten hour day. And you went from diving to Marops to land war, and you had to do all these different things and have written tests and then like a performance test. And like, it was a long day

[Sean Ryan]

all in one day.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah, it was like almost 10 hours.

[Sean Ryan]

Holy shit.

[Eric Frohart]

And. And you had like. You were in your cammies, they made you put on face paint and you were carrying a ruck between stations, taking apart weapons, writing out a dive chart. Right. Putting on a static line rig and getting inspected, fixing a Zodiac, like all these things you had. You had like a 90 minutes or whatever per session. Gotcha. So it was like both a. A practical and written thing. Earned my trident finally. And now I'm like, now I was like a SEAL and I was supposed to platoon up. I forget the time, but it was going to be in like Echo or Foxtrot platoon. But then Charlie and Delta platoons did a. They did a nighttime combat equipment static line and like three people got hurt and two of them were going to be out of the platoon, so they grabbed two new guys and I got to be one of them. So I platooned up early.

[Sean Ryan]

Oh, right on.

[Eric Frohart]

So, yeah, I forget the exact time. You know, that's so long ago. But so I ended up getting into a platoon at Team five. And then they had already done more than half their workup though. So now. And they had done like Marops and some of the suck like back then, like special reconnaissance, some of the sucky blocks of training. So now I'm a new guy in a platoon that's already done half the hard stuff. Well, they didn't all really love that, you know what I mean? But I had an awesome time in that. In that platoon. I think we had like right into they had finished mar up. So we went right into combat swimmer. Right. And that's like whatever three weeks back then. And then finished that and pretty soon we were doing CQB and a Shaws trip. So it was great.

[Sean Ryan]

Right. Right on. Where are you guys heading to?

[Eric Frohart]

We end up going to Guam.

[Sean Ryan]

Guam?

[Eric Frohart]

Yep. Pre 911 Guam deployment. And so we're there. We deployed like mid to late August 01.

[Sean Ryan]

Oh, so right before.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah, right before 9 11. And my, so my birthday is September 7th. And I call my mom on my birthday from Guam and she's like, well, what do you want for your birthday? And I'm like, you know, I'm some dumb, whatever, 21 or 22. 22. And I'm just like mom, I just want a war to fight. Right. And you know, dumb. The stuff that dumb young warriors want. So anyway, we started in Guam and then we got sent to the Middle East.

[Sean Ryan]

You went to the Middle east from there?

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

What was, what was September 11th like for you?

[Eric Frohart]

Well, I will, you know, obviously I like it. So memorable just because. So I remember not long before that having a big birthday party out in town, you know, I mean I'm turning 22 on deployment, right. I think it was that. And then, I don't know, like my. So my wife was going to college classes and she would wake up early in the morning at the time, Sorry, girlfriend. And I call her and she, she just says, I think, I think someone bombed the World Trade center or. And then she's like, no, maybe a plane hit it. And I go what? Like, and I, I remember this. Like we didn't have laptops in our rooms and stuff like that. There was in this. We stayed in a, not even a barracks in Guam. It was a kind of a bah. Kind of like hotel. Right? So there's a hall, it's almost like a college dorm. There's a hallway. Everyone gets their own little dorm room. We each had our own room and that's where we were staging because we originally went to Guam in August and we were supposed to travel to like go and do joint training with like Australia and then go to the Philippines and maybe Thailand and Malay, whatever, all the PAYCOM stuff. But you have these rooms in Guam or they did. And we didn't even have a tv. I didn't have a TV in my room. But at the end of the hallway they had one of Those old like 3 foot thick big screens. Yeah, Remember those? And I just remember her saying something about the World Trade center, you should get in Front of a TV and I like just kind of like she doesn't know what she's talking about. And I walk to the end of the end of the hallway and there's already people around the TV and I'm just like, like I get there in time to watch the second plane hit it, you know, and it's like, oh. And from that moment like pagers started to go off. No one knew right away who did it. And but that night, you know, we were getting different intel briefs and then pretty soon we're getting more and more briefs and you know, instead of worrying about like where are we going to go out tonight? It was, hey, we need to, we brought all these guns with us from Coronado. Not only do we need to make sure they're sighted in, but like let's get a few more yard lines or whatever. It got very serious like that, that, that switch from you know, pre 911 and just kind of SEAL platoon was a, a rock band was like, hey, we, you know, we had all this fun, we were ready to do this stuff. But mostly it was like a deployed a party, you know what I mean? But it got real serious.

[Sean Ryan]

So when did you guys figure, when did you guys hear you're going to the Middle East?

[Eric Frohart]

So we originally we thought we were going to go to Afghanistan and obviously we didn't. We ended up and we're constantly getting these briefs but it probably was, I think it ended up being like three weeks later that we got shipped to the middle, flew to the Middle east and. We ended up, we ended up replacing a Team 3 platoon that was doing underways or VBSs in Kuwait and they got to go to Afghanistan.

[Sean Ryan]

Gotcha.

[Eric Frohart]

But along the way I want to say we stopped in like Oman or something like to refuel. I forget exactly where but there's there was like Dev Group guys there and Delta guys there getting all ramped up for Afghanistan and we were just like whoa. And we thought that's like, oh, we're in the right spot, we're going to Afghanistan. Then we land in Kuwait.

[Sean Ryan]

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[Eric Frohart]

And by the way, like, so my first, my first rotation, my first deployment, end up doing it in KUWAIT Right post 9, like right when 911 happens. But in hindsight, I think I got to do, you know, 20 plus real world non compliant shipboardings, a few of which I was the lead climber on. And it was kind of like, Obviously in post 9 11, that doesn't seem like that big a deal. But I'm like, hey, that was, you know, was better than what they were doing before, right? And we were ostensibly a. There was the, you know, the Iranian oil embargo, the Iraqi oil embargo, but then there was also this, you know, this idea that Al Qaeda terrorists were going to be like funneling out on these ships. And that's how they, you know, that's how they motivated us to do it. But you know, it, the gravity was still real and people were still drowning doing that. So it was as real as it gets. Not a lot of bullets flying, but, you know, still pretty. Could be scary. You know, underway shipboarding is like dicey, especially at night, especially in, you know, in these waters and with stuff like that.

[Sean Ryan]

You want to describe the first one?

[Eric Frohart]

Huh?

[Sean Ryan]

Do you want to describe the first one or the one that anyone. That's of significance.

[Eric Frohart]

So there's two that are very memorable. And I was like, so I was a new guy. I was a jack of all trades. One night I'm a lead climber, one night I'm a breacher. Go figure. And there was one and it is pitch black. We have nods on and we have like, back then we're still running MP5s, you know. And so the pole man had put the pole up and then the ladder man was unrolling the ladder, you know, on the bottle. And the original lead climber went to climb and his Handgun. The handle on his sig got stuck in the rung and he was climbing against it and he didn't like realize. And it was partially the fall of the ladder, man, because it was all unspooled and he was sitting there and like, just couldn't go right. And then after like maybe a minute or less, he like, let's go. And he tapped me because I was the second lead climber. He's like, bro, you're up. Go. And I'm just like. And now I'm going to be the lead climber up this underway ship that's like steaming into Iranian waters. And it's a, it's a 20 foot, 20 plus foot climb on a caving ladder that doesn't have a runner on top. I'm the one that's going to climb it and set the runner. So why shimmy up that thing like, like it's like so quickly and, and by the way, it's, it's like oddly like climbing the. A small ladder on the side of a grain bin or a grain silo in Iowa. And so I shimmy up this thing and I get to the top, you know, and the hook, the grappling hook is just, it's not on anything, bomber. It's just on the lip. And I just climbed this thing on a hook that's just weighted on a lip. You know what I mean?

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Eric Frohart]

And I get up there, I clear the thing with my pistol. I look at that, I'm like, oh, crap, I got to get off this ladder.

[Sean Ryan]

Right?

[Eric Frohart]

And there wasn't anything there immediately to like hook it to safer. So I pop up over the. Over the thing, over the lifeline. And then the first thing I do is, you know, I'm. Everything is clear around me and I'm up there alone. And I take that, I take that grappling hook, I hook it on something more solid, and then I take my safety runner out and I run that around something more solid. So now it's hooked on something solid and it's on a. And the runner is on something solid. And then back then we were using like that little like the Kim light, right? That with the tape on it. And I put the Kim light over like, okay, the ladder is now on something more. Bomber, sorry. More solid. And then there's a runner on it. And then the rest of the team came up and like that was, you know, a lead climb on a non compliant shipboarding on my first, you know, my first deployment. So pretty cool. It was, it was memorable. And then There were, there was another night where we had this shipboarding was like a step over freeboard. So that ship had been so laden that you didn't have to climb the RIB could pull up next to it and you could step over onto it.

[Sean Ryan]

Oh, wow.

[Eric Frohart]

It was that full of oil and it was steaming. It knew we couldn't go into Iranian waters. So as soon as they saw us, they were like steaming into Iranian waters. And. And that night I was, I was carrying. Remember the torch? Yeah, the like oxygen torch or whatever it was. And I have a torch on my back and I step over the. So I step off the RIB over, over onto this tanker, straddle over the lifeline, right? And we're like, we're standing. There's like water ankle deep. It's like that laden, right? And I'm standing there and they had put, they had put like heavy steel up going into the superstructure. And some of it had angle iron behind it. And so we have to try to, you know, you have to either take down like, whatever the engine room or the bridge, right? To stop the ship. And they had protected the bridge so well with the extra steel and the angle iron. And I bust out that, like that torch, you know, had that rod and I start it and I used the entire tank on half of the diamond cut because the, the steel was so thick and it was reinforced behind it. So I didn't run out of rods, I didn't run out of battery, we ran out of oxygen. Just trying to get like, you know, obviously I'm a new guy. I'm probably not as proficient as I should be on this. I tried, but at some point, like, it didn't matter. I get halfway a half diamond cut and we get a call like, hey, you guys are almost in Iranian waters. You get off in the next five minutes. Or you have to jump right off a boat that's moving with huge screws and all that, right? So the ribs are pulling back up to pick us up and. And like all of a sudden, like, we're standing in more water. It's almost like the ship we were on, like, was either taking on water or whatever, but like we started and it was like this deep. And now all of a sudden, just on the deck, right? It's like knee deep water and there's like a big battery on this torch that you use to start it. And I am sitting there as when I, when I grab the lifeline to straddle it and go back onto the rib, I'm just starting to get. I'M I'm getting some voltage and I'm like. And, like, pretty soon I'm, like, halfway stuck there. I'm like, I can't, like. And my buddy's like, I think it's the battery. He's trying to unhook me. And, like, I'm standing in water. I got this big battery on. I grab the metal lifeline and it's like, oh, I think I'm just catching a little voltage here.

[Sean Ryan]

Right? Holy.

[Eric Frohart]

And then, like, I. That very same night, that very same night, we had to get off this ship that was like, going into Iranian waters. I had half cut this diamond and I, you know, was getting, like, not electrocuted. That would be an exaggeration. But I'm feeling something like. I grew up on a hog farm and we used to have fights with cattle prods. It felt like that, like, where you're getting hit by a cattle prod.

[Sean Ryan]

And

[Eric Frohart]

like, to top it all off, a teammate of mine, as we ended up. So we. Back then, we had ribs and mark fives. You probably remember mark fives. And we would do longer transits in the mark fives. And then when it was time to do the climb, get on the rib. So the RIB picks us up off this boat, this ship, and then we're going to transit back onto the mark five. And, like, I don't know how, but for, like, even with all these climbs and stuff, no one ever fell overboard, right? One time we had a. A guy fall upside down on the ladder and have to get pulled up from the ladder, which was scary, but no one really fell overboard until one night we are like, the night of that, when I was getting shocked by this torch. We're stepping from the ribs back onto the mark fives. And teammate of mine, who's the radioman, so he's got a big radio and it's pitch black and the boats are. They're kind of moving. He steps, slips and hits the drink in the northern Arabian Gulf, Turns on his strobe and he's got this big radio on and where it's like, man overboard, right? Like. And we could, you know, we had nods. We could see his strobe and everything. But he's. And that's. That's Jack Carr, the. The guy author, right, who still. Still close with. But he's written those books and one of them is the Amazon show terminal list.

[Sean Ryan]

So right up.

[Eric Frohart]

It's memorable to me for that.

[Sean Ryan]

But. Wow. So then you. You guys come home.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah, we finished that deployment and come home and I Was I had met my now wife Leah right before, not long before that deployment. And then so the first year of us dating I had, I did a six month deployment. So really only six months dating. Right. And back then it's like, you know, now you can FaceTime from deployment like but back then it's like calling cards.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Eric Frohart]

And you know these phone banks and a little bit tougher dial up emails and that sort of thing. So I come home from that deployment and my post deployment leave I get like three days off and my post deployment leave is sniper school which is not in any way stretch any way shape or form that relaxing.

[Sean Ryan]

Right.

[Eric Frohart]

And at the time like there was an east coast and a west coast sniper school. It wasn't all centralized under the. Whatever it is now the center. And I, so I go through my, I show up at sniper school instead of getting a, you know, a nice long post deployment vacation and I, I forget all the details. But at the time they, they said one NSW sniper school, one which starts with like 30 people, expends more ammunition than the Marine Corps sniper school does in a year.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Eric Frohart]

The amount of. And that's just the AM And I'm not saying they're better or whatever. I'm just saying we had that much more money to spend on ammo. So you are spending. And sniper has evolved so much with reticles and ballistic coefficients and all that. But like back then hours and hours and hours were spent on yard line. Right. So there was a marksmanship portion which was a couple of weeks at Camp Pendleton and you had to qualify, you know, expert with irons before you could move on. Right. And then it was then we got shipped to not ship but we went up to Coalinga, Northern California and that's where we spent most of the, most of the marksmanship part of sniper skill school was spent in Coalinga and we would basically you're living in a tent there. There wasn't even birthing. It's something like six weeks and something like that. And there's a couple of weeks where you, you know, it's M14 and then you move to your like your 308 and then your 300 and then at the end you do the 50 cal. Right. Like it's a couple of weeks with each one. I think 50 Cal is just one week or whatever it is. Like I forget exactly. But it's, it's five or six weeks and you're in a tent and then all day long you're just, you're either prone on yard Lines, or you're in the. Behind the berm. We call it the butts, right? Those target butts going up and down. And you're marking targets, right? And these are like, long, hot days. Well, back to kind of like full benefit. I have another side pain.

[Sean Ryan]

Oh.

[Eric Frohart]

In sniper school. And I end up going. I think it's Lenore. You know where we did. Do you remember haps? High altitude, where they put you in a chamber before you can go to parachute stuff? So they had a chamber there where we did haps, but then I had to go there back because, you know, because I had this side pain. And they're like, well, we don't know what it is, but we can tell you're in a lot of pain. They gave me Vicodin, right? So I spent. I spent the night in this.

[Sean Ryan]

Better than laxatives.

[Eric Frohart]

Way better. It's way better. And so I spend the. Again, at this. I should be clear. I'm not, at this point, diagnosed with a kidney stone. I know in my heart it was because I got that same pain later that did get diagnosed. And I end up losing a kidney, right? So I know what it's like. So I spend the night in this hospital. I think it's Lenore. I might not be pronouncing that right, but I'm all hopped up on Vicodin because it's painful. They drive me back to the. My tent where sniper school is the next morning. And the next day, we have our UKD test. Unknown distance test. And on a UKD test, you're kind of. You're like, here. And then they have, like, four targets at this yard line and maybe four targets here and four targets here. Whatever, right? Like unknown. It's not like an even yard line. It's not like 100 or 200. But they're. And they're not on the yard lines. You have to guess how far they are. You have to mill them the height with your mil dot and then dial. And then you get four. You get one shot per target, and there's either five targets per. Per spot or four. But there's a total of 100 points on the test. And you either. You have to, like, hit the thing. It's like a miss or a hit, right? And I am still on, like, high from Vicodin. And I asked the. So I asked the instructor. I'm like, man, I just spent the night in the hospital. Do you think I could retake this test some other time? And, like, back then, like, they tr. They treated sniper school as they wanted attrition like, it was a badge of honor. If, like, more than half of our. Well, I would say half of my sniper school did not make it. And they didn't. Like, they didn't feel like it was their job to make more snipers. They felt it was their job to protect, like, how hard sniper school was, right? And so he tells me, he says, take the test or go home. You can always come back next year. I mean, I'm a seal. I've just done a deployment. I am here on post deployment. This is my post deployment leave. You should want to make more snipers, right? The teams need them, right? So I'm like, I get. What do I have to lose? I'm going to take the test. And the only problem is, so I'm sitting there, I'm high, I'm confused by my reticle or I'm sorry, by my elevation turret. So they did let my spotter help me dial. I had to squeeze the trigger, But I was so relaxed that I got the top score. Now he was dialing my scope. He was. So I'm sitting there, Sean, like, oh, you know what I mean?

[Sean Ryan]

Like, wake up 30 minutes later and I would just.

[Eric Frohart]

Dude, I was like, man, my trigger squeeze is so smooth. Like, because I was still on this. Like, I mean, again, someone might get in trouble if you're, like, taking a sniper test on Vicodin nowadays. But so again, past that, I finished. Finished sniper school and not. Not. I finished the marksmanship part of it. And then we had to go do the stocking. That's where more people fail out, is stalking. And I made it through stalking. But I got like, all of a sudden I started losing a lot of weight and, like, I got down to, like, below 170 and oh, wow. I'm like. And there was a couple of us that were, like, getting really, really sick. Well, unbeknownst to us, like, a few of us got valley fever, which is. Mike Ritland got it. He was not in my sniper school, but he got. He got medically retired from it. Oh, he lost a lung from this or portion of a lung.

[Sean Ryan]

And I forgot about that.

[Eric Frohart]

So that is the reason that the SEAL teams no longer go to Kinga. Apparently there is, like, a fungus in the dust that's like, prehistoric or whatever. And if you're like, in that dust all day and the wind's blowing and you breathe it, the spores can, like, form in your lungs.

[Sean Ryan]

Holy.

[Eric Frohart]

And I was one of, like, I was fortunate enough to be one of the people who got it. But I never, I got it and beat it and never lost any lung function. Right. So I actually have like they say you have it forever, but you've beat it or whatever. Like you, you have the antibody or whatever it is. Someone would, is probably watching this now and correcting me on that. But I got valley fever. Not to the point where I lost lung function, but I got really, really sick. Lost a ton of weight. My face started to like, just, my eyes sunk in. But one person from my sniper school, like, like he got medically retired from it and then Mike.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Eric Frohart]

You know, ended up getting, getting it really bad. He lost part of a lung. So like kind of back to the full benefit theme. Like finished, finished sniper school with a kidney stone and valley fever.

[Sean Ryan]

It's been a rough go for you?

[Eric Frohart]

Been a rough go, yeah. But no, it was good. I, I actually finished sniper school and at that point my. In my second platoon.

[Sean Ryan]

Right.

[Eric Frohart]

Had already started. I joined them.

[Sean Ryan]

How did you meet your wife? In Guam.

[Eric Frohart]

I met her before deployment.

[Sean Ryan]

Are you guys still together?

[Eric Frohart]

We are still together. Wow. We, we met in San Diego. Before my first deployment.

[Sean Ryan]

Okay.

[Eric Frohart]

So being from Omaha and me being from Iowa, like, we, we connected like closely right away just because of the kind of shared midwestern background and, and like she's, I mean my wife's the greatest. She, we dated through the first deployment, we got married right before the second. And then all the other ones that, you know, a dev group that she went through and the stuff she's gone through. And we are, you know, 24 years married. 14, 14, 16, 18 and 20 year old kid.

[Sean Ryan]

Damn. Congratulations, man. How many years married? 24.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah. I mean, people say I don't look old enough to be married that long and have a 20 year old kid, but I'm like, my MRI looks old. Right. And all the all. Well, actually my med record's pretty thick.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah, right.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah. So long story short, like, I can't, you know, anyone who tries to give me credit, I always like, don't give me much credit. I had so much fun. But like whatever Leah put up is 10 times put up with is much harder.

[Sean Ryan]

So how did you guys meet?

[Eric Frohart]

So we meet at a bar in downtown San Diego and we had just finished. So I'm in my first platoon and we had just finished. We finished a month, the month of January in Kodiak, Alaska, which is as cold as it sounds. Good times doing over the beach with dry suits and land nav in the snow. Right now I should Say, like, remember how I said the farm made things a little easier? Like that Christmas break, I went to Iowa for Christmas, and I was there for, like, a week around Christmas and New Year's, and it got to, like, 60, maybe 65 below with the wind chill. Like, at one point, I remember getting to 20 below, and it was like, man, I was. Didn't even need gloves now, right? Because it had been so cold. And I'm spending my entire Christmas leave helping my dad keep the hogs alive outside. So you're outside for a little bit, you're melting the waters. They had these outdoor waters. You're feeding them, or you're running straw and hay to their sheds, right? Just to try to keep these poor pigs alive. And, like, when it gets to, like, 50 below, like, your. The amount of time you can spend outside is limited. So you'd go out for a little bit and come in and warm up. I'm doing this for, like, a week. And then we go to. I get back to San Diego, I'm like, it's so nice. And now we fly to. We fly to Anchorage, Florida. Sorry. We fly to Kodiak, and we're going to spend the entire month of January on Kodiak Island. And we get up there, and it's like 20 degrees. I'm like, it's warm after Iowa, right? It was warm. So back to Leah. I spend a month training on Kodiak Island. We get back, and I had just spent a month with these guys. Like, if we weren't out in the field, we were at a little bar in Kodiak, right? Or we were in the barracks, and we're all going out that night to Maloney's downtown. I'm like, I don't want to go out. I just spent a month with you guys. I want to. I want to stay in my apartment and relax, right? And it was, man, you know, I'm a new guy, so it's mandatory, right? It wasn't like I could say no, right? I just didn't want to. I'm like, shoot. So I go out, and that's the night I meet my wife, right? And she was supposed to go watch her dad play in the Pebble Beach Pro Am up in whatever by Pebble Beach. At Pebble Beach. And she didn't want to do that, so she wasn't supposed to be there either. And we meet at a bar in downtown San Diego, and she walks up to me and she's like, do you have a girlfriend? Like, I'm like, sitting there At. I'm like. I'm sitting at a bar. I have, like, a Coors Light and a Jaeger. Like, because back then it was like, you always get, like, a light beer and a Jaeger shot. And I'm getting ready to take my shot of Jaeger and, you know, chase it with the Coors Light. And she's like, this girl just elbows me and is like, do you have a girlfriend? I'm like, no. And so we talk for a while, and oddly, Matt is there. He was there the night I met her. We talk for a while, and she finds out I'm in the Navy. She didn't even know what a SEAL was, which I thought was a bonus. And so she kind of like, well, I don't really. Like, I don't want to marry someone who's in the military. Bye. Like, she goes away. Well, she comes back later, and we sit there talking for another half hour. And then she looks at me and she's like, I'm gonna marry you. And I'm just like, dang. Like, that's a little forward, right? Well, like, we ended up. We date for whatever. We date for, like, less than a year and a half. And then we get married before my second deployment. And she. And that was at Team five. And then she went through all the stuff at Dove group, and then. Yeah, so she's been. She's been through the ringer. Been my rock, man.

[Sean Ryan]

So what's the secret to a successful marriage, man?

[Eric Frohart]

I mean, it definitely takes two. You know, I think, like, we've been. Been very, you know, fortunate. I think there's obviously, you have to love each other. You have. And there's, you know, selflessness that goes into it. And honestly, our faith has helped us a lot. You know, we. We didn't start, like, when we were early married and in San Diego, certainly we didn't go to church all the time, but we got, like. We got into church big time in Virginia beach especially, as, you know, things started to get scarier. And then we've always gone to church together, since that's a big part of it. And I would. I would also say, like, I think people think of marriage as a. It's a 50, 50. Like, if there's this much to do, I'm gonna. You know, it's a 50, 50 split. Like, we're gonna. You know, I'm gonna clean half the kitchen. You're gonna clean half the kitchen.

[Sean Ryan]

Right.

[Eric Frohart]

Like a zero sum game. But I've heard this. I've heard it said this way. And I wish I could remember who said it so I could attribute it properly. But that's the problem. It's not 50, 50, it's 100. 100. Like you both give all of yourself. Right. And I think that's good advice.

[Sean Ryan]

It's a great way to put it.

[Eric Frohart]

So. And it, you know, doesn't. Doesn't hurt to pick the right wife the first time. So I mean, obviously there's, you know, there's some luck, there's some whatever. Right. I just feel very blessed. So.

[Sean Ryan]

That's cool, man. Yeah. Thank you.

[Eric Frohart]

She's. Yeah, we beat the odds for sure.

[Sean Ryan]

I'll say.

[Eric Frohart]

I look at photos now from. We used to have parties in Virginia Beach. Like we would have like a Thanksgiving party or just a summer pool party with like teammates. And like, we could have a Thanksgiving party there because a lot of people didn't have family there. Right. So you'd have a friendsgiving kind of thing. And I look at my wife was good about. Let's get a photo. Let's get a photo. And like, we would take a. There might be like four to six couples in a photo. And like now, I mean, I look back on them and there's some of those photos where either all the husbands are dead or they're divorced. You know what I mean?

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Eric Frohart]

So anyway, I feel very blessed, very fortunate. And we got, let's see, we got engaged. We got engaged in October of 02. And we thought, we thought that. We thought we'd get married next summer, like so summer of 03. But then I found out about the. That we were going to deploy early because of the Iraq invasion and we were going to be deploying in like January. So we're engaged in October. I'm going to be deploying in January. And I just, we just decided to get married before I deployed.

[Sean Ryan]

Right.

[Eric Frohart]

So we had like a six weak engagement and we didn't have.

[Sean Ryan]

Holy.

[Eric Frohart]

So some people thought she was pregnant because it was like. That seems a little rushed. But I was like, babe, don't you want to be able to shop at the, you know, the, the PX or don't you want that insurance? Right. And it just made sense. So we just. We got married in Vail on Pearl Harbor Day. I was in my Navy uniform.

[Sean Ryan]

Beautiful. So.

[Eric Frohart]

And, and to, to I guess take a quick rewind, get a sip of water a second. Right before that I lost my kidney right before.

[Sean Ryan]

Oh, okay. Right, right after sniper school.

[Eric Frohart]

It was right after sniper school and

[Sean Ryan]

during,

[Eric Frohart]

Excuse me, land warfare, we went to Fort Chaffee. And we had, you know, at team five, the first platoon, we went to Nyland for land warfare, like everyone does for some reason. We went to Fort Chaffee for land warfare in my second platoon. And we were just starting our week of iads. And that's for your audience. Like, these moving and shooting drills. And, like, the first night, like, I got the pain, it came and it. It had a tendency of just going away within one or two days. But this time it was like, I had this pain for four days straight. Like, it wasn't that whatever stone was in there was not passing. And I was, like, doing, like, iads during the day and sometimes at night, and I'm just curled up in a ball and getting super dehydrated. And, you know, I'm like, I'm just kind of sucking it up because I'm usually like, these episodes would go away within a day, maybe day and a half. But this time it's like three days, then four days, it's not stopping. And I'm telling my OIC and the corpsman, and finally, like, my OIC guy named Clint Bruce, he's like, man, you can't keep doing this. And his dad is a. Or, sorry, his guess it would be his stepfather was a urologist in town. And he takes me to see a urologist in town, his stepfather. I get an X ray with contrast. That's different. Right? Like, the first time I had gotten this contrast, and he happens to be a urologist. He's like, you're. There's scar tissue in your ureter, and you have a giant kidney stone stuck in your ureter. That's the two again. The tube between the kidney and the bladder. And so they give me this, like, I guess it's a sound wave surgery, you know, and they blast it. Yeah, they put you under. They blast you with these sound waves. And they also put a stent in there, which, like, a tube between the. And I was out. I was out during that. But, like, I woke up and I had. I was kind of black and blue here. Like, it does feel like you're getting, like, punched a bit, like, just from the sound waves. And I had, you know, gotten rid of the pieces of the stone, and I had a tube between my bladder and here. And they're like, well, maybe you shouldn't finish land warfare. Let's go back to Balboa. So I flew back to Balboa, and under the premise that they were going to, like, fix my ureter, like, get rid of the scar tissue and then they went in to go do that like a week or whatever later. And then when they got in there, they just looked at my, my kidney at that point was just a water balloon. Like it was not working.

[Sean Ryan]

So

[Eric Frohart]

like it was like an eight hour surgery because it was so full. They didn't want it to break because it's, you know, it would go septic sepsis. And normally you can take a kidney out, like if they. Someone donates or what, it's like a small whatever. And I have a scar from like almost from like 12 o' clock to 9 o'. Clock.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Eric Frohart]

Because it was this. And the doctor's like, yeah, we almost had to take a rib out, like, because it was just this distended, this distended, like water balloon, right? So I wake up, you know, eight hours later. My poor fiance at the time had just spent eight hours in Balboa thinking I was going to have a 90 minute surgery. And she's like engaged to me. And I just remember, like all of a sudden I wake up and they explained to me what happened. Like, well, you lost a kidney. And I'm like, well, what does that mean? Basically it means you're out of the military. Like you, everything's wavable, but like in the, in soft, like that's kind of one. They don't like to wave, right?

[Sean Ryan]

And

[Eric Frohart]

the corpsman, one of the corpsmen from like the med department at Team five, like did some research, shows up at the hospital and gives me a waiver. They find a waiver I can sign to stay in the military. And I am like high on morphine, but I don't even read this thing. He's like, if you sign this, you can stay in the military. If you don't, you're going to get medically discharged. And I had done one deployment and I had done all this work and basically finished my second workup and I wanted to deploy again. I didn't want to get out, right? I didn't care that I would get a medical retirement. I wanted to, wanted to deploy, right? So I signed my waiver and never had one of those attacks again, right? Because that kidney was gone, that ureter was gone. And I was engaged when the surgery happened, I healed. We had our wedding in December. And then I think I deployed it like a couple weeks later, either in the middle of January or the end of January for nine and a half months.

[Sean Ryan]

Where did you deploy to?

[Eric Frohart]

So for that one, we went to Okinawa, which I was so upset. Like, I wanted to go to Iraq Or Afghanistan. We ended up going like, we ended up going to Okie and we were gonna, so we were gonna split, like we were gonna start there and then swap someone out in Iraq because of the op tempo and then something to do with, you know, airfare and not airfare, but, but like airflow getting people in and out and like. Nah, just stay. But on that deployment, I had a lot of, I mean, we had a, it was a great group of guys

[Sean Ryan]

and

[Eric Frohart]

we had a lot of fun. Got to finally, you know, I went to, I would, I would get my share of Iraq and Afghanistan later. So it was nice to. I went to like, we went to Thailand, the Philippines and Australia and got to do, you know, some of that stuff.

[Sean Ryan]

Were you, were you honest questioner? Were you actually able to enjoy that, knowing what was going on in Afghanistan and Iraq?

[Eric Frohart]

Not as much as I otherwise would have.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Eric Frohart]

Because I had that fomo, right. And I, I didn't know that I would get my feel of that later. Right. I was just like this, I'm not here for that. I'm here for that. So. No, no, to answer your question, no.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Eric Frohart]

But I mean, in hindsight, you know, Australia was awesome. I, I don't need to go back to Thailand, but I would go to Australia. Right. It was, it was, it was great. And I had good time with the guys and I stayed late on that deployment. Reason I got home late was the, the platoon that was relieving us was down a sniper and one of us needed to stay and I volunteered to stay. So I ended up doing about a month extra with, I think it was hotel platoon. And you know, I got, I became close with like Bill Mulder and Scotty Wirtz and JMO and some other guys, so.

[Sean Ryan]

Right on.

[Eric Frohart]

Anyway, wasn't. Wasn't quite as cool as I was hoping, but, you know, yeah, what happened for a reason.

[Sean Ryan]

And so what happened? You come back and screen for the development group.

[Eric Frohart]

So I, I had missed screening for the, what would have been 04 because I, I could have gone. I would have had time to go to 04. But screening was when that screening was during my surgery.

[Sean Ryan]

Gotcha.

[Eric Frohart]

It was like a week after my surgery and I was cut from here to here. I couldn't do anything, let alone the sit ups. You know, my abs are still growing back together. So yes, I ended up coming home from my second second platoon. I did the, you know, the screening. There wasn't going to be enough time to do another full workup and deployment, so I went to trade At Gotcha and

[Sean Ryan]

traded as the training cell for Naval Special Warfare for those listening.

[Eric Frohart]

And it was awesome. Like, it really was cool. Like I had. So I actually did not yet have my orders, but I. They gave me a. They let me go to trade at assaults, which was great. Like I'm getting to help teach CQB and you know, getting to go on trips where we are meeting with the east coast trade at and some dev group guys to deconflict the how. How CQB is being taught. And then. I got like in a year and a half I went to Shaws like seven times. So that didn't hurt for. For when I did go to I'll bet. You know, I'll bet selection. So I would have. I mean I would have loved to have gone sooner, but like I had a great time. I had a great time going to. Going to trade it and doing like the Shaws trips and then a mount trip to Fort Knox and then we were doing back then even go plats, gas and oil platforms, you know, oil rigs. Taking those down. We were teaching. We would teach the west coast platoons how to take down an oil rig. And I had spent weeks living in the Gulf of Thailand, like taking down oil rigs on my previous deployment. And then we were teaching VBSS still, right? Or like underway shipboarding. And like I was one of the two people in the whole trade at that had ever climbed a ship on a real shipboarding right on. So it was cool, right? I enjoyed it. No, no regrets about that. It was fun and the travel, you know. And like my wife and I like, it was kind of good for me to go to like get like some technically some shore duty before going to dev group and getting on all, you know, getting on that op tempo. Um, and it was hard. Like our first year of marriage. Like I was deployed nine and a half months. I set up.

[Sean Ryan]

That's crazy.

[Eric Frohart]

I set a pretty low bar. That's the secret. That's the secret. Set a low bar the first year.

[Sean Ryan]

Right on. On that note, let's take a break.

[Eric Frohart]

Let's do it.

[Sean Ryan]

When we come back, we'll pick up a development group. I need you to stop what you're doing for a second and really listen. If someone relies on your income and you don't have life insurance yet, this needs to move to the top of your list. I've had to think about that myself. Making sure my family isn't left, dealing with everything if something happens to me. Fabric by Gerber Life is term. Life insurance you can get done today. Made for busy parents like you, all online on your schedule. Right from your couch, you could be covered in under 10 minutes, often with no health exam required. If you've got kids, especially if you're young and healthy, this is when locking in a lower rate actually matters. And Fabric has flexible, high quality policies that fit your family and your budget. Even something like a million dollars in coverage for less than a dollar a day or more or less, depending on your needs. They've also partnered with Gerber Life, which has been trusted by families for decades. And Fabric gives you more than just a policy. Things like free digital wills and tools to plan ahead for your kids. All right, from your phone, Join the thousands of parents who trust Fabric to help protect their family. Apply today in just [e-mail] Sean meetfabric.com Sean and use my link so they know I sent you. M e-eetfabric.com Sean Policies issued by Western Southern Life Assurance Company not available in certain states. Prices subject to underwriting and health questions. Want to stay up to date on all things srs? You bet your ass you do. Our newsletter brings you the latest SRS news and critical updates. Get instant alerts on the newest episodes. Never miss a beat. Exclusive intel briefs from counterterrorism expert Sarah Adams. You've seen her many times on the show. She's going to give unfiltered insights on global terrorist activity for Patreon exclusives. You're going to get epic range days with me and damn near every guest that's come in the studio. You're also going to get behind the scenes content and guest updates. You're going to get first dibs on new merch drops and limited edition items that will never be sold again. Plus exclusive offers from our partners you won't find anywhere else. So subscribe to the Vigilance Elite newsletter right now. All right, Eric, we're back from the break. We're going to get into development group now. How many deployments do you have with them? Lost count?

[Eric Frohart]

No, it wasn't like that many. I'm just trying to make sure I'm counting them correctly. Four.

[Sean Ryan]

Right on.

[Eric Frohart]

Yep. And I had so two at Team five. One of which was like nine and a half months. And I went through my training. I finished, you know, after, after trade at went to the east coast, went to Dev Group, went to Gold Squadron. They had just renamed it from Gold Team to Squadron.

[Sean Ryan]

Oh, that was an official thing.

[Eric Frohart]

I didn't realize that used to be teams Then they became official Navy commands and they renamed them squadrons.

[Sean Ryan]

Right on.

[Eric Frohart]

And that's when that happened when I got there. And. Which is the funny. So now I have a. I am by no means a plank owner, but I have a big, big, huge certificate and plaque. Framed plaque with the coins as a gold squadron plank owner.

[Sean Ryan]

Oh, right.

[Eric Frohart]

Because I was. I was there when they became. Went from teams to squadrons.

[Sean Ryan]

That's cool. So that's cool.

[Eric Frohart]

Obviously, it, you know, it was long. It was around well before me, and we'll be around long after, but yeah, and I, let's see, moved out there, technically.

[Sean Ryan]

What were some of the first. First things you noticed that were different between Dev Group and Seal Team 5?

[Eric Frohart]

You know, there was a. Well, for starters, I mean, you're starting all over again, right? You show up at a team, like you show up at Seal Team 5. I showed up at Seal Team 5. You're a brand new guy. And now I've done two platoons, you know, I'm a department head, right? And now I'm gonna leave all that to go start all over. You know what I mean? So there's a lot of, you know, there's a lot of similarities. There was. But there was definitely something very different about it.

[Sean Ryan]

I mean, man, I've been there. I'm just walking in the damn compound. It's like, holy.

[Eric Frohart]

Well, as much get your own fucking

[Sean Ryan]

shooting range, you got a gym that takes you up to altitude, dude, it's like everything you could possibly imagine. Whereas everybody else is traveling all over the country, and I know you guys are too, but it's appeared to me, it's like, well, I don't know why the. These guys are traveling all the damn time. It's all. Literally everything is right here.

[Eric Frohart]

They have a climbing wall. They have altitude simulator. They have all, you know, you know, I. It was very interesting. Like, once, you know, once you're there and you're kind of through training and whatever, I could just keep my guns in my cage. Like, I didn't have to go sign, like get the ordinance rep to sign them out of the armory to go train with them and turn them right away in. I could keep my guns in my cage. I could take them. I could go to the range anytime I wanted. I could shoot. I cleaned my own guns once a month or whatever. When they did, they had to do an official weapons inventory. Then it had to go back in the cage. They would get eyes on. Then you could take it back and just go, like, keep all your gear in your Cage and go train with it.

[Sean Ryan]

Nice.

[Eric Frohart]

It was interesting though. Like when I first got.

[Sean Ryan]

It probably doesn't mean to anybody else,

[Eric Frohart]

but it's, it's a big deal.

[Sean Ryan]

But it is a big deal.

[Eric Frohart]

It's a big deal. Like it was like when I was at Seal Team 5, it was so hard to go train. Like if you got to go to a range, it was, it was on a trip.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Eric Frohart]

You weren't doing it there.

[Sean Ryan]

Right.

[Eric Frohart]

So for starters, the like the first thing that stood out to me and this was like, like when I got there and like I moved there in 04 and started to like hang out and I was going to go through training in 05 and like, like guys are a little older because they've done at least two rotations. Obviously there was the grooming standards, you know, back then, like, back then it was a significant difference. Like long hair, beards, everything. And you couldn't have that at, you know, Team five or other teams. And just. Yeah, the, the command itself, like was this kind of Death Star type area, like with all these buildings and all these training facilities and like these like just the, the meeting rooms. Just everything was. You just had more, right? And you had like way more gear. The amount of gear that you get it even as a, even, even when you get your gear for like Green Team, it's just like, whoa, this is way nicer than the stuff I had at Team five and this is what they're giving me for training, you know. And then you just kept getting more. You kept getting more. It's just insane, right? The amount of. Just the gear and the other thing and I don't know, I haven't really rehearsed what to say about this. But you gotta be there at Dev Group. Like you're gonna have to be there five plus years more, probably more than that and have done multiple, you know, five plus deployments, probably more before. You're in charge of a six man team.

[Sean Ryan]

No shit.

[Eric Frohart]

That's generally how it works.

[Sean Ryan]

I've never heard anybody say that.

[Eric Frohart]

So you like. It is so like. And when you go through your selection, Most people are E5s or E6s and then all of a sudden you're on a six man assault team of one E6 with a bunch of V7s. Like it's just more senior, right? And just more mature. Just been around longer. So yeah, it's, it's just. And there's just this different kind of attitude. You know, you can just, I don't know, more certainly in some ways More mature, you know, because obviously they're just older, right. I would say a couple of things that really stood out to me. So when I was new at a Team Seal Team 5, like, I knew that. Well, I felt like if I wanted to. I wanted to be the best teammate I could be. And so part of that meant being as good at my craft as possible. Like, how good can Just being a good shooter, you know, being able to shoot, move, communicate, doing all the. All the component skills of being an operator, right? But then also being a good teammate, right. And helping people out and, you know, helping other departments out. Like, it. I've always believed it's. It's not good enough to be good at your job. Like, do you make other people better? And I. I learned that in. I learned that in football. I. It got emphasized at Team five, right. And it. You know something? I watched other people do it at Dev group, right? So as good as. As good as you can be at your. At your craft, that is how you make the team better. But it's also not good enough just to be really good. You have to, like, help other people. And that's being a teammate, being selfless, being humble, and then being a better leader. Right? And that starts by, like, being a really good follower because you can't expect other people to follow you someday if you haven't. If you weren't willing to, like, follow what your boss told you to do. Right? And I found that the skills were all very similar. You just had to do them, like, sharper, maybe a little faster, a little better. Like, you had to do everything a little bit better, right? As it came to shooting or parachuting or whatever. Higher, Higher expectation.

[Sean Ryan]

And

[Eric Frohart]

I would also say that at the command at Dev Group, Like, you don't buy a spot there, you rent it. And that rent is due daily, if that makes sense.

[Sean Ryan]

Makes sense.

[Eric Frohart]

So it's kind of like we've all heard, I will earn my trident every day. Like, true, to an extent. But they're specifically like, they are having. They're having a new group come up every year with a draft, essentially. And there's people that want your spot and people that make it there. They get kicked out every year, just, you know, shooting a hostage in training or whatever. Like, not, I don't know, like there's a. Like, safety violations or kill house violations or whatever. People that make it there are regularly booted for performance or usually it's safety, if that makes sense. So. And I found that honestly, like, the, like, the really the best of the best were both, like, they're obviously competent at their, at their job, but they're humble. And obsessed. So humble enough to not rely on my, on the fact that I just shot this six plate drill faster than anyone else. Like, humble enough to realize, like, I need to still get better. Right? Or humble enough to know that no matter how good I am at this, like, like, even though the bad guy doesn't train as hard as me, he could still get lucky. One RPG hits a helicopter.

[Sean Ryan]

When you're saying the best of the best, I mean, you are the best of the best. When you get over there, are you saying the best of the best at that particular command?

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah. Like you, like I would look around and like, you know, you would just see like the people that I looked up the most to as operators. Like they were humble and obsessed at the same time. Like we had a strong belief that you don't rise to the occasion, you fall to your level of preparation. And I feel like humility precedes that level of preparation. Like you have to be humble to realize you still need to keep training. The person who's not humble thinks they've made it, they don't need to train. Or another way to think about it. The humble operator is more inclined not only to not think like, oh, I'm not any better, so I need to train, but also I'm not any better than my teammate. So I'm going to go like, it's time to like, whatever, clean the high bay or take out the trash. Like that level of selflessness, like humility. The humility enough to like, like help each other out.

[Sean Ryan]

Gotcha.

[Eric Frohart]

And then obsessed with the, the craft, I guess you'd say.

[Sean Ryan]

Did you notice these things immediately?

[Eric Frohart]

I don't think I was mature enough to notice them immediately.

[Sean Ryan]

How old were you when you got over there, when you got in at what, 21.

[Eric Frohart]

20.

[Sean Ryan]

22nd deployment. 22nd birthday on your first deployment.

[Eric Frohart]

So I would have been 25.

[Sean Ryan]

25.

[Eric Frohart]

I mean, not, I think it was 26. So still pretty young, is that right? 25. So. Still pretty young. But like, you know, I didn't have the maturity now that I have now, you know, and I would just look back and I can look back with the benefit of hindsight. Like at the, the good operators were humble and obsessed.

[Sean Ryan]

Right.

[Eric Frohart]

Always prepared, always helping other people. Right. And having like seasoned operators help you out as a new guy there or whatever the case may be. So I mean, it's the same job, it's just doing it to a different Level maybe so a level of humility and obsession with just being really, really good at it. You know what I mean? Which is that obsession I did and it, you know, it gets, you have to, you have to really. Obsession is a double edged sword. Like if you obsess over everything, then pretty soon you'll run out of bandwidth, right? If you are as obsessed with, you know, how you make your morning coffee with as how you would, I don't know, clean your gun or sharpen your blade or whatever. Like pretty soon you're going to run out of energy. So you had to be super careful. It's like beware of how much of the things you obsess over because it'll, you only have so much bandwidth, right. And it was, it was very hard for. So we had a, we had a kid in. Our first, first kid we had while I was going through training there and my son and then had him in September. Then I finished training and deployed right away.

[Sean Ryan]

Holy.

[Eric Frohart]

And my wife, I swear like I think I was gone on average 300 days a year there something like 280 to 300.

[Sean Ryan]

That's a lot of time we met

[Eric Frohart]

my, my poor wife was pregnant or nursing the whole time we were there. We had three kids, right, While I was there from essentially we had moved there in the end of 04 and left there at the end of 09, beginning of 2010, we had three kids and it was. My kids were young enough to where they don't remember me being gone for birthdays like on deployments or work trips. So. And I've, you know, since had, you know, a lot of friends who've, you know, had kids at the same time that ended up staying there longer and like their kids would for sure have memories of them being gone over Christmas and stuff like that. So it got it definitely. I, I saw it getting harder and harder to be a, you know, to be a good husband and father and a SEAL at the same time. Now I, I think you can and I think I did a pretty good job of balancing that at that time. Like when I was, when I was home from being on a trip, like work hard, get my work done. But like I wasn't going out on weeknights in Virginia Beach. I was coming home and then when we'd go on the road I would go out with guys, right. But I would not let that in any way like affect how hard I worked at, at work or how hard I trained. Like I trained as hard as I trained as hard as anyone. Like we'd a friend of mine and I, like, we would. We would do these like, Friday morning workouts, like, where we had this rule like you had to be like, completely fasted. And this was before people were really fasting for like, longevity and stuff like that. But we would do like a really long ruck on the soft sand, followed by like some sort of body armor, like push up, pull up, sit up thing. Followed by like an operator standards handgun and rifle test.

[Sean Ryan]

Nice.

[Eric Frohart]

Followed literally by like chess. Just to like, you're so depleted after all that the only thing you were allowed were, was like, electrolytes. Right. And so we would like, do stuff like that, maybe some grappling, you know, stuff like that.

[Sean Ryan]

So. Right on.

[Eric Frohart]

But I. I can also say, like, my wife and I have now been married 24 years and I also got medically retired from that command that, you know, a lot of people do get divorced from. So, you know, maybe that was God's plan. Like, that I would get, you know, that I would get hurt in combat and the kidney thing would come back to bite me and I would get kicked out of the Navy. So, like, that's kind of the way I. I kind of think about it.

[Sean Ryan]

Interesting.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

Let's get into some deployment stuff.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

Where was your first deployment to

[Eric Frohart]

Iraq? There. When I was there, I would say mostly went to Iraq. I did go to Afghanistan. Two good, two good war stories for you. One one takes place on Super Bowl Sunday, 2008. So I'd been there for a little while, and this is in Iraq. We didn't think we'd have a mission that night because it was Super Bowl Sunday. And our pilots, TF160 said the helicopters were down for maintenance. They also wanted to watch the Super Bowl. But then we found out there's an HVT in our aor. Sorry, High value target area of responsibility. And we had to go out and do a capture kill mission. So we go out on this mission and we're going to. This guy is. He's in one of three buildings. So we split the. The troop into three, you know, small assault teams to go assault three different buildings simultaneously. So we keep the element of surprise, right, because they're all like 100 yards apart. And as Eddie and Dom's unit is getting close to their building. So I'm already, I'm already in front of the building that I will soon be leading a team through the door, right. And I got my, I got my gun on that door, right. It's pitch black. We're going to be taking this building. Eddie and Dom's team goes past us and they're going to go set up on this building and on their. I think they barely get there. They're almost there, and somehow they get made. And it was. There was a little moon out that night, but somehow someone saw them and people started, like, running out of that building, trying to get close to them and blow themselves up. They had suicide vests. Now, intel had told us there'd be suicide vests on this whole target set, but, I mean, there ends up being like 15 people wearing suicide vests.

[Sean Ryan]

Holy shit. They were legitimately. They were running at. Were they detonating themselves?

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah. So they were running at the other element, the other assault team, because they knew the gig was up. So they were just trying to get as close as possible to them. And they were all running. Like, back then, the. The initiators were on the shoulders. So if they went like this, they could still blow themselves up, right? They knew that because they knew that the, like, we would have. The interpreter would tell them to come out and put their hands up and put them like that, and then they could reach, like, almost like a rip cord right there. Does that make sense? So they would run out of this building at Eddie and Dom's group, and something like three or four of them just blew up, right? And so I'm. I'm sitting there holding this door. I'm holding this door, and I just hear gunfire. Boom, more gunfire. Boom, more gunfire. Like it's three or four times, right? And it's shaking the ground. Like, these are like big S vests. And across, you know, the. That team leader comes across the radio and he's like, shots fired, shots fired. Suicide vests. Be careful. And like, I remember, like, I literally, before that moment, I literally had thought, like, we had got into position early. Most of the time, the mission goes as planned. Like, you go in, you capture, you kill the guy, whatever it is. You get home. I'm like, we're going to be back for halftime. And obviously we weren't. So they didn't. They end up eventually taking that target down. And now, you know, I'm holding on a door, like maybe from here to the, you know, that engine block. And then a guy comes out of that door and he's. He's got a suicide vest and he's got an ak. He can't see me, but I'm like, this far away. Like, obviously I have to engage him. He's already too close. And there's another teammate of Mine right there. Like, that's even closer. Like, if he blows himself, like, we. We could just die right now. Especially if he had shrapnel on it. Even worse would be to let him go back in there, because we have to go in there and find, you know, the. The leader, and that could be him. But, like, as, you know, like, a suicide vest inside is much worse than a suicide vest outside just because of the reverberation or the concussion factor. So I.

[Sean Ryan]

How could you tell he was wearing a suicide vest?

[Eric Frohart]

Well, he had a big vest on, and four people had just blown themselves up, so I assumed. I assumed it was an S vest. And we were told. We were briefed. We knew that the target line that we were chasing was mostly foreigners, obviously not Iraqis at all. They're from all over. But they had come together under the Al Qaeda banner to fight and fight Americans there in Iraq. And this group in particular was known, like, they were not going to surrender and they were not going to get taken alive. So they wore suicide vests, and they all had AKs.

[Sean Ryan]

Right.

[Eric Frohart]

And so he had what to me. And we found out after I shot him it was a suicide vest. But I'm like, well, it is a vest. And they just blew themselves up. It could be. Right.

[Sean Ryan]

I was just trying to get you to describe what it looks like for the audience.

[Eric Frohart]

Oh, yeah. So he had.

[Sean Ryan]

Not questioning your judgment.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah, yeah. No, he had, like, his man jammies on. And then it didn't look like an assault vest. You know what I mean? It had like that. And it's not like you can see the wires on the thing from your. But it looks different than. It's not like a. I'll date myself here, like in a Blackhawk assault vest. Remember those? Oh, yeah, right. Which we bought with our own money. No. So I end up. And we were, you know, at that time, it was like, hey, if suicide vests are even on the menu, it's all headshots because you don't want it to, you know, blow up just by. So I got him. And then at this point, you know, they've heard us in that building. They've heard me shoot this guy. There's still another target to prosecute. We still have to take my building down. And we're like, hey. Like, as you know, we need speed, surprise, violence of action. So we needed some momentum. Let's. So I'm. I was standing over, like, behind a wall. I jumped that wall, and I'm like, hey, we're assaulting this target. Run into that. And I. I kind of. And he's in the doorway, so I have to straddle him, right? And he's wearing an unexploded suicide vest. And I'm straddling him. And, like, ping the. There's a corner fed room. So I'm ping that room, and I don't see anyone in there. And I'm. From the corner. I'm like, I'm good. I'm going to get. I'm going to get through this room. All the other bad guys are, like, probably, like, in the main room, right? And I had. I could clear most of that. I mean, you can clear most this room from that door, right? Corner bedroom. And I clear it, but I couldn't see all the way down this wall, you know, And. And I didn't realize. So there was someone in there, and he was barricaded.

[Sean Ryan]

Oh. So

[Eric Frohart]

I sneak. I'm. And I'm still like, they know we're around, but I wasn't going to just take it dynamically at this point. We're not doing a hostage rescue. So I kind of sneak through the doorway, and my first step in that doorway, all hell breaks loose. And I am, you know, three yards away from. Four yards away from a guy who's behind a barricade and he's spraying me. And I'm like, I'm in the doorway, right? And it felt like, you know, it felt like minutes. Obviously it wasn't. But I do remember having this feeling, like, how did I. Like, how did I get here? Like, I'm gonna die in Iraq on Super Bowl Sunday. Like, I should be. I literally had this, like, thought, like, I should be at home watching super bowl with cold, hot pizza and cold beer. You know what I mean? And now I'm here in Iraq doing this. But then I also had this, like, moment where I heard the first three or four shots, but then I didn't hear anything. Like, it's like my hearing shut off, and all I saw was the muzzle flash. And, like, I've later read about when people get put in those circumstances, like, they will lose one or two of their senses to, like, focus all their energy on another sense. Like, maybe their sense of touch, right? And I felt like I lost my sense of hearing. And my adrenaline was like. Like, all of that was focused into my fine motor skill, like, of running down my wall and shooting back. And, like, that's all I did. Ran down my wall and shot back, and he missed me. And I got him, right? And. And I got, you know, I've said it before. We don't rise to the occasion. We fall to our level of training. And before, you know, we had. Before that point, have had been in gunfights, but nothing like that. Close and personal and that consequential where it's. You know, it's almost me to you. And he's shoot. He's got the first three or four shots with an ak, right?

[Sean Ryan]

Shit.

[Eric Frohart]

And we found out later that before that happened, he tried blowing his suicide vest up, but it failed. His cap failed. So not only does his cap fail and that vest not blow up, when I walk through the door, he misses me. I'm run. And I'm. I mean, I'm telling you, I'm running pretty fast down my wall, and I got him. So I ran down my wall. I shot him while moving, you know, in this region. Not here to not blow up his vest. And, you know, it's better to be lucky than good. And, you know, that's a very hard shot to make. But that. That's like table stakes when you're at deaf group, you know what I mean? Being able to move down a wall and quickly shoot someone in the head while with nods, right? So that's what I did.

[Sean Ryan]

And

[Eric Frohart]

I come out of that. Like, I come out of that room, and I come out of that room, and I just remember, like, you know, you're always kind of patting yourself for a bullet hole because you might not feel it in the moment. So I come out of that room, and I'm like this. And I'm crushing my legs, and I literally go like. And my buddy sees me do this on nods. I totally forget doing it, but I'm like, this safe. And my. My buddy's sitting there because, you know, we have such a sick sense of humor, right? And he's just, like, dying. He's like, bro, I can't believe you did that. And I didn't even. It didn't even dawn on me, right? Like, so that was like. I mean, I was elated, obviously, I was happy to still be alive, but, like, oh, I got that guy. He didn't get me. Like, you get that kind of adrenaline. And then probably, I don't know, less than five minutes later, Mike and Nate get shot. Well, four other guys get shot. Two of them die. Mike Coke gets, like, shot through the ear hole. Nate under the armpit, right through the heart. And they were in a similar room with a sandbag shooter, but there were two of them or more. And, you know, two guys got shot in the courtyard. Mike and Nate got shot going through the door. And now. Now we have whatever, four guys shot. Sorry, I heard a buzz. We have four guys shot. And, you know, two are. We don't know they're dead right away. But I spent. You know, I like that night. I, like. I shot all my. All the bullets I had remaining, just trying to help, you know, we were recovering bodies and Mike and Nates. And I remember putting, like, putting Mike into the bag and zipping it up, putting them on the helicopter. And then, you know, we came back, we went back to our base, and they were obviously dead. And we were going to have had a little Irish wake that morning and that next night. I think Eddie may have mentioned this opinion, like, three nights later when the building blew up. Well, between. Between when. When Mike and Nate died and when Louis. The front died, there was a point where Louis came up to me, and Louis, he kind of knew. He knew I was a Christian. He knew I was a believer. And, you know, I would say things like blessing and things like that, and I would. I would say that I went to church and things like that, but I wasn't, like, truly living out my faith, you know, like, walking the walk as I should. And. And he was just asking me. He was kind of, like, beating around the bush, just asking me what I believed and why. And. And it was more discussions, huh?

[Sean Ryan]

I always think those are the best discussions.

[Eric Frohart]

And I. And, like, I was not at that moment. It wasn't like I wasn't ashamed, but I was. I was afraid. And I was afraid because, like, the Bible says to always be able to, you know, give a reason for the hope that you have, right? And what you believe and why. But I was, like, so worried about sharing my faith because I didn't have all the answers, right? I wanted to be an act. Like, I was overthinking it. I wanted to be an expert. Well, what about this and what about that? And what, like, know the Bible before I would share it? You know what I mean? Like, overthinking it. And I didn't. I kind of just changed the subject because I didn't have all the answers. And I've, you know, I've had a pastor since tell me, like, in those instances, we don't need to be lawyers. We need to be witnesses, like, which is a really good way of thinking about it. We don't need to be experts. We are experts on our own lives. And if we are. If we have a relationship with Jesus and how things have changed because of that, we are experts on how that has helped us or whatever. And I didn't want to share it because I didn't, like, you know, I didn't have. Think I had the words. You know what I mean? I was thinking I needed to be an expert, not just a witness. And I didn't have the, like, the courage to just talk about my faith like I do now. And here he is kind of searching, like, beating around the bush. And really he was going to ask me. He's like, well, why do good people like Mike and Nate die? And like, the bad people not which I still don't have the answer for, right? But I'm sitting there and, you know, of all the. Of all the regrets I have, I like today, these. Now every morning I spend time praying, reading the Bible and journaling. And I've been doing that for, whatever, 10 years. It makes every day better. It doesn't make every day easier. There's still plenty of hard things. It just makes me handle hard things better. It makes me sharper at work no matter what I'm doing. It helps my workouts. It helps every aspect of my life. I spend an hour a day in the morning, first thing, giving God the first hour of my day. Time in prayer, time in the Word, and time journaling and stillness and solitude and silence, like, from five to six or six to whatever it is. And I've literally found it helps every aspect of my life. In fact, if anyone is like, well, what would you do? Like. Like, do that for a month and get back to me and you don't have to do a full hour, right? If. I swear, if I would have done that in the teams, and I've talked to my teammates about six, some teammates about this. Like, man, if we would have done that, like, I swear I would have been a better seal, right? I would have been like, just because I feel like things are just more clear to me. I'm. I have more. I have more energy from it. You feel like you're losing an hour of sleep, but that period of time where you're just waiting on the Lord each morning, like, gives you this strength. Long story short, I, at that age in my life, I wasn't afraid to run into a room full of Al Qaeda for the flag that I wore on my shoulder, but I was afraid to share my faith for that cross I wore underneath my body armor.

[Sean Ryan]

That's interesting. I get it. I know what you mean. But a couple of things. First, being, I mean, now that you're deeper in your faith, isn't it weird that that's how we, you know, when the, when the discussion happens and I still think about it and I still. I still, you know, my mind switches and goes back to this too, but. Because we don't know anything else but, you know, this world. But I mean, if you're a true believer, I mean, that's the ultimate goal, right? To cross over. And we always. We always talk about it as if it's a. It's. If it's a tragedy. If it's a tragedy. Because. Because that's what we see. We see tragedy. We see fatherless kids.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

You know, gold star wives. And it's a mess. But, you know, the reality of it is. It's. It's that. That that's the reward. That's the ultimate goal. That's where we go. That's home. Yeah. You know, and. And it's. I mean, just looking around at people, you know, and everybody's got their. Everybody's suffering. I think there's very few people that are genuine, Which is. It's interesting, you know, how we perceive it. And, and, you know, it's funny, I was just talking to our mutual friend who protects my family, and I think we were talking about it this morning, and I don't even know why it came up, but I was just like, man, I just. I was like, it's so weird now, man. Like, I never gave a shit about dying. It never. It never really. I mean, I didn't want to die. It's not like I had a death wish, but it just didn't really bother me that much. But I didn't have kids. I didn't have a wife.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

And even when I did get married, I mean, it wasn't until I real. Until I had kids that now I'm scared. I'm scared to death to die and leave them here in this up world.

[Eric Frohart]

Sure.

[Sean Ryan]

You know what I mean? With no guys, you're not afraid of

[Eric Frohart]

death for your own sake. You're just afraid of leaving them behind.

[Sean Ryan]

That's it, man.

[Eric Frohart]

That's it.

[Sean Ryan]

That's the only.

[Eric Frohart]

I get that.

[Sean Ryan]

That's my only tie.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

What about you? I mean, you know, but you had kids and I didn't have kids. While I was doing this.

[Eric Frohart]

I had kids. So that. The day that happened, I had two kids. I had kids my whole time at Dev Group, man.

[Sean Ryan]

Dude, that is crazy.

[Eric Frohart]

I had the. I called my wife. I mean, this was a few years before that. I was in Afghanistan. I called my wife on a SAT for Phone. She was just going to get an ultrasound with a friend because I wasn't there to find out the sex of a baby that we were having. I get her on the SAP phone. She's like, we're having a girl. We agree on the name over the SAP phone right there. It's a girl. We're going to name her Daisy. She just graduated high school. Anyway, that night I go on a mission and I am between three different Taliban compounds. And I had helped lead a group into this area. And we get pinned down from three buildings and we're in the middle of this in, like the Helmand Province. It's like a bowling alley. It's flat. And I cannot. I can't figure out. I'm towards the front. I'm like, well, which one of these buildings is shooting at us? And I'm, you know, there's three of them. And like, we found out later, it's all of them. But I'm trying to. I'm trying to help coordinate an airstrike because they're like shooting here and here and there. And so I get up on my knee to, like, get a better view, and a bullet whizzes by my hair, my head, and cuts off a chunk of hair. I had longer hair.

[Sean Ryan]

Get the fuck out of here. Are you serious?

[Eric Frohart]

I had longer hair than this. It's sticking out of my helmet. I lose a chunk of hair from like an AK round, right? And I had just like, not five hours before that, I'd been on a sad phone with my wife and I, we're having a girl. Like, I almost didn't meet her, right? And I was like, that night on that helicopter ride home, I was a little bit, like almost nauseous, like dry heaving. A little bit like, because I almost. I mean, that was close.

[Sean Ryan]

You weren't like, all right, not the hair's off limits.

[Eric Frohart]

But I almost, like, you know, I'm like I'm inches away from, you know, that or whatever. And there were. There was, you know, other close calls I had. Like, there was also a time, like, I would sit there. I would sit there on a helicopter flight and I would. I would always say if we had a 60 minute flight, I'd say a 40 minute prayer. And then I would. Then I would rehearse the op in my head. Kind of like Michael Jordan rehearsing a game in his head. Like, I did that on every helicopter flight. And I would. I would say, like, I did say God, like, if there's any. I know there's non Believers on my team. And if there are, like, I would happily die instead of them. I would just want them to, you know, live longer, to find their faith. But I still wasn't always, like, sharing my faith with them. I mean, I had a. There were two nights in. In Iraq where I volunteered to go into a. Instead of sending a full team in, like, I went in with an. Just an EOD guy to clear a building that we thought was rigged to explode. Holy. I had two kids, but I was comfortable with it because I knew where I was going if something would happen, and I didn't know if other people did. Now, that's very selfish. Like, I don't. Babe, if you're watching this, I'm sorry. I. So that I did. I think I did that twice in Iraq, but that was after. And that was after the building blew up when Louis died. So it was possible, but I didn't. I don't know. I don't know. To answer your question, now I'm kind of rambling. I. I do fear leaving them behind. I just hope, you know, now they're old enough that, you know, I've, like, either taught them or showed them enough. You know what I mean? But there will never be enough time. You know what I mean?

[Sean Ryan]

I do. I think I know what struck up the conversation this morning. My uncle just died a couple days ago.

[Eric Frohart]

Oh, I'm sorry.

[Sean Ryan]

At my parents 50th wedding anniversary.

[Eric Frohart]

Sorry for that, man.

[Sean Ryan]

Thank you. But he. He died on a fishing trip with his son. And. And my brother. And. Yeah. And. And he. He. He was. He was like, on my brother's ass to get that fishing charter going. They hadn't seen each other in a long time. The whole family was there except me, unfortunately.

[Eric Frohart]

Oh, man.

[Sean Ryan]

And he got in the water to cool off and died right there on the water. Peaceful death with his son, who had been struggling for a long time. Finally got it together. They're getting along and sad, but at the same time, I hope I go like that. Yeah. You know what I mean?

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah. We just don't know how long we get.

[Sean Ryan]

You don't. And. But I think, you know, I just hope I can see my kids flourishing and not worry and just know, like, they're gonna be all right. And if that happens, I'm good.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah. Those are lofty goals. Basic ones, simple ones.

[Sean Ryan]

Died having a good time with his son on a fishing trip.

[Eric Frohart]

You know, I. I say, like, I thank God every morning. Like, I thank God for everything I have, but I start by thanking him for the fact that I woke up like, God, I don't deserve a day you give me. Thank you for this one. Show me what to do and show me how to do it and. Or strengthen me for whatever BS is coming my way because I can't do it on loan. And I think that. I mean, I believe that's so true. So we just, you know, we don't know.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah. You know, I'll tell you another thing that kind of. It always catches my gold team. Like, I don't know, like, what. What the. What the. What the. The culture of each team is within development group.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

But just something that I've picked up from the outside is mad. Like, the gold team has a lot of righteous warriors for Christ coming out of there, a lot more than any of the other teams that I've noticed. And what's really odd is it's a cross, a crusader, you know, it's. And I've talked about this. I've talked about it, I think, with Eddie. I don't know who all I've talked about it with, but every time I bring it up, they're like, I never thought of that. And I'm like, how the. Did you not think of that, man? Like, strong faith coming out of that squadron?

[Eric Frohart]

And I think there's, you know, I have friends from all of them and I have met friends in all of them that have as strong a faith. And all of us, though, from my vintage, we would all agree, like, we just wish we were all, in that time, a little more open about it, even to the point of having, like, Bible studies and stuff together versus, like. And now we're, you know, now we're definitely more. Now we're all, you know, more open about it. But it's my only regret that. And, you know, I. Back to Louie, I was like, I didn't share my faith with him or just having, like, what I believed and why and, like, why I have hope for the future. Just because, like, no matter how bad all of this goes, like, even if I get a hundred years, right, get eternity in heaven, like, and it's going to be better than I can imagine. Even if I would say something like that, right? Because I believe in Jesus. I didn't. And he, like, died two nights later. And two nights later I was standing, like, I had just led our team up to a window, sorry, up to a building, and I was again the lead guy, the point man. So I was going to lead us through that door, and I stopped because there was a window here. And I Had to pan through that window. Then there were guys in there waiting for us, so I engaged them through the window. The rest of the team goes past, or they were already past, and they're setting up on the door. And I'm like, you know, 10ft from the door at this point. And then I just remember, like. And Eddie wasn't even supposed to be there. He's supposed to be back over there getting ready to support with eod, but then at the last minute, he kind of bumped up and not Eddie. I'm sorry, Louie. And then all of a sudden, the whole. When the building blew up, I literally thought. I literally thought our. Our breacher threw, like, some top secret grenade in there because the whole building blew up. And I was like, what kind of grenade was that? Because the last thing I remember before passing out, because I was by the window, which saved me. I. The overpressure of being next to the window blew me, you know, whatever, 30ft away from the building or however far. But it blew me enough to where I bounced off the next building or the wall, right? So it blew me away from that window. I bounced off this compound wall over here. And then when I came to all of that assault team, my assault team had been, you know, crushed. And that's when Louis died, like, and he got basically where he was. There was a thick concrete roof, like a carport, like they have over there. That whole thing fell on him. And then other people, like our dog handler, he had, like, double compound femur fracture, two thigh bones sticking out. We had another guy who had, like, a full pelvic fracture and then a couple of broken arms and a broken leg. They were all. And like, I'm the only one who didn't get hurt. But, I mean, I got a concussion. I got blown away from the building because of the. And I was the first guy, like, I would be the first guy in, but I stopped, and I was engaging other bad guys through a window. And then I got blown away from the window. And that's. That's like two nights, three nights after you know, the Super Bowl Sunday. And I'll just never, like. So I get medevaced because I. I was so. My bell was rung so hard that I couldn't stand up. Like, I had that much of a concussion. And I had played high school football and one year of college football, so I knew. I know concussions, right? But I was like, man. And I was nauseous. So I get medevaced. I have to get a CAT scan. They say I'm Fine. And I'm fine. I feel fine. But, like, now my entire assault team gets sent home, like, from one houseborn ied. And then Eddie dies. Sorry, not Eddie. I keep saying that. Louie, forgive me, Eddie, I did not mean your name. But Louis dies, and it was just nights after, you know, Mike and Nate. So how are you handling that at the time? You know, I didn't. At the time. I just. You. You know, like, compartmentalized it. Yeah, Predator, I don't got time to bleed type deal. And then honestly, like, I. That whole deployment was so busy, like, it was like a couple nights later, we're operating again. They'd flown in guys to replace the rest of my team, and we're out back, back in the ground, you know, chasing bad guys. Didn't have time to deal with it, really.

[Sean Ryan]

And

[Eric Frohart]

it wasn't until later when I just realized, like, the thing that I. And I. I will say I don't have this. I mean, we all have whatever PTSD or whatever they call it now. I. I hear about people that struggle to fall asleep and, you know, have brain fog and all the operator syndrome stuff, and I. I have none of it. Like, I don't even have nightmares about what I saw or what I did. And I attribute that to my faith. Like, I have none of that. I only have regrets of, like, not being willing to share my faith. Right? And certainly I know there are. You know, I have my share of medical issues, right? And I probably have, you know, brain issues from. Not just that one. I mean, I was IED three times. That was the one big one. But then there's all the grenades and just, you know, shooting a little gun inside of a kill house. All of those things add up. I found out later that even you can get, like, brain issues from too many parachute jumps. Just that opening shock, right?

[Sean Ryan]

Oh, shit.

[Eric Frohart]

Especially like the. The. The parachutes we had, which were for, like, for higher altitude, so they have less porosity so they can open quicker at altitude. That means if you prep when you train lower, they open harder, if that makes any sense. So just all those things can lead to different brain. Whatever lesions or whatever they get now. But I don't. Like, I saw really bad things. I was put in situations where I had to, you know, it was me or them. And I. I don't know. I sleep fine. I fall asleep. Like, the only time I don't sleep fine is when I have, like, stuff going on at work. And I wake up at 2 in the morning, take a leak, and then my brain Starts to roll, right. Like, I'm sure we all get that, but I am, you know, when I got out of the military, I tried, you know, I never did a lot. I never did drugs or anything, but I, you know, I lost myself in work. I lost myself in hobbies or working out or the outdoors even. You know, I drank quite a bit, but never like, you know, I always, I could never drink more than two nights in a row. Gives me a headache. But nothing ever like fills the, like fills the God sized hole or the God shaped hole that you have other than like that time spent in prayer and in reading the Bible and journaling. And I attribute that to my relatively well, you know, adapt being adapted from all the things I got to see and do. So I don't know. And maybe that's not the case, but that's what I believe. So. And then I had a.

[Sean Ryan]

You ever think about why you were spared those two times in a row? And I'm sure there's a lot of others. I think you're doing the thing that you need to be doing.

[Eric Frohart]

I think about that all the time.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah, me too.

[Eric Frohart]

I wonder, I kind of wonder like, was I, was I spared to have the, the next kid? Like so that. Or am I, was I spared to go like, am I, am I fulfilling my calling and purpose? That's always the, that's always the question.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Eric Frohart]

You know what I mean? And that's something I ask God every day. So I, I don't know the answer to that.

[Sean Ryan]

It's a good question to ask.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah, I think it's a good, like it's a good question to ask all the time and keeps you kind of at least like having something to aim at, you know what I mean?

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Eric Frohart]

And I had like, I had a great, like the Navy, as hard as the Navy is and certainly the hard as it is to be at that team, like that team has been just defi described as like a burning Ferris wheel. Like, you get on it, you know, it's on fire and it's, you're going to get burnt and you're going to get ground out and spit out the other end. But you like, you still want on. On it, you know what I mean? But as hard as the Navy was and like all the things that happened to me in the Navy, like, it gave me more than it took, you know, like, so I don't have any, like, I don't regret doing that.

[Sean Ryan]

Why did you wind up leaving?

[Eric Frohart]

So I got medically retired because of my kidney and so I had lost. If we can rewind back to 02 when I lost my kidney and I'm on a hospital bed and I signed a waiver to stay in the military. I didn't know that that was a non deployable waiver waiver. Are you serious? I immediately deployed right after it.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Eric Frohart]

And then I did four more at Dev Group. And it wasn't until I got hurt in combat that the Bureau of Navy Medicine found out because they had to sign off on my purple heart. And they showed up at the command. The Bureau of Navy Medicine shows up at Dev Group at the command and says, where is this Frohart? And my boss, it's like, well, what do you mean? Why? Like it says here that he got injured in Iraq and he is being awarded a purple Heart. How is that possible? He's like, well, what do you mean? He was over there and he got house. He got blown up in an IED and the Bureau of Navy Medicine.

[Sean Ryan]

How's this possible? You're at fucking Dev Group, dipshit.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

How do you think it's possible?

[Eric Frohart]

Bureau of Navy, Bureau of Navy Medicine goes, well, he signed a waiver to stay in the military back in O2 and he hasn't. He was not supposed to deploy since that. And it. That's how wires get crossed and bureaucracies have no idea. Like, can you imagine?

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Eric Frohart]

So that I signed a waiver just to stay in under the caveat that I couldn't deploy. And then I just. I didn't know that. I was also high on morphine when I signed this waiver. And no one, like, I never read it. I, like, never. And I just kept going, wow, wow. It finally caught up with me. Right.

[Sean Ryan]

Five deployments later, they tell you, yeah, yeah, no more. Huh.

[Eric Frohart]

Huh.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow. Wow. Were you pissed?

[Eric Frohart]

So I was upset. Like, I was like, I actually fought it for a little bit and then I had to go get a med board and the med board came back and said, yeah, you, like, you can't keep going. They said, you could have shore duty. You could. And they actually, they even offered to let me stay at the command. Like I could work, you know, in a training role with the like the sniper guys or whatever. I would have taken that offer If I had 15 in and I only needed like five more. But at this point, I am almost like to 12 years. And I didn't want to do 10 years teaching people and not going. Like, if I can't go and go at the highest level, then I won out and I got out I had six months. They gave me six months because that was my eaoa.

[Sean Ryan]

Six months.

[Eric Frohart]

EAOS was six months. So I got out. Like I got catapulted not only out of the Navy, but like I was up to that point. Like by the time my med board finished, I was training with the squadron, getting ready to deploy. I found out holy. I found out weeks before a deployment I was not going to be allowed to go. And then I had, and I had planned on, you know how it works. I was going to go on that deployment and reenlist because then I get my reenlistment bonus tax free. And instead of reenlisting In December of 09, like that was my EAOS and it just, it expired. So I found out in July of 06 that like I found out before that about that they weren't going to let me. But that's when my med board finalized and then by Deci, not July of 06, but sorry 09. And then by December of 09 I was out of the Navy. So I had a no shore duty, no transition time. You know how you sometimes get a, a shore duty job or a, like you can go network and find your next thing. So now I'm just. But I knew I needed to like if I'm getting out, I needed to leave Virginia Beach. So we left Virginia Beach.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow, you left that fast.

[Eric Frohart]

And it was as hard as it was to join the Navy and become a seal, it was like harder to leave.

[Sean Ryan]

No idea what you're going to do.

[Eric Frohart]

So it was the hardest period of my life, you know, and I've had kidney stones in hell week and I've been in hospitals from getting blown up and I've lost teammates and all like all those things. But that period of time, those first couple years post Navy where like you get out and like I didn't know, like I didn't know my purpose anymore. I didn't have a way to make a living. Like I couldn't find a job so I had to like just start one. Like. I didn't have my team around me, the camaraderie with my teammates. And then most of all, like I like incorrectly, my identity was wrapped up in that trident, like all of ours. I was singularly focused on one thing and that was being a Navy seal. And that was taken from me. And that is how I defined myself. Like I was a SEAL first, then a husband, a father and a Christian and all these other monikers, right? But like I was. My self worth came from my profession. You Know what I mean? And then, and I used to be able to say like, oh, what do you do for a living? I'm a Navy seal. And that meant something. And then all of a sudden I'm just, you know, another dad at Target buying diapers. So I lost, I lost all those things and, and it was super, super hard. But then I just kind of found like, you know, I gotta. My purpose now is to be a good husband and father.

[Sean Ryan]

How long did that take you to find?

[Eric Frohart]

Took a couple years.

[Sean Ryan]

How did you find it? Most people never do.

[Eric Frohart]

Back to my. I met some guys in Denver and they like, it was this faith based business networking group, very similar to like YPO or yeo. And this group, we all, we had these forums of like six or whatever guys. And you know, there was this phrase called abiding, which is like remaining close. And we were always like talking about like, well, how much time did you spend abiding today? And for us that was like made tactical as in reading the Bible, praying and like writing down some thoughts.

[Sean Ryan]

Right.

[Eric Frohart]

And I, that was the way for me. So it was within, I want to say, in like 11 or probably 2012. And I had gotten out at the beginning of 2010. Right. And starting in 2012, I started to like read the Bible and well, pray and read the Bible and just write a few thoughts in my journal and like get out of my head and onto paper and then just trying it for a month. I did it for a month. A month became two, two months became a year. And I've been doing it ever since. Wow. And as I was telling the other guy earlier on, like, I have, I want to say it was 2012 was the first year I read the Bible cover to cover. And now I've done it probably every year since just reading the Bible all the way through. Now there was a year, one year where I just did the Old Testament and one year where I just did the New Testament and went a little like deeper on it. But for the, like, for the most part that is the, that's what has helped me the most. That time that I spend in the Word and spend praying and journaling. And then when I finish that, then I do my morning workout, part of which is a walk and I pray half of that walk. So I know. How do you pray? Yeah. What's that?

[Sean Ryan]

How do you pray?

[Eric Frohart]

Oh, I have like, like, are you talking? Yeah, just in my conversation, quietly in my head, like, you know, I like, I have a prayer that I do early, like, you know, about faith and hope and love and trusting God and thanking him for things and then asking for forgiveness and then embracing my weakness, my brokenness and my neediness. Like I do all that. And then when I go on a walking prayer, I call it, I just start by thanking him for all the things. So it starts, I'm like, God, thank you for my relationship with you. Please help make me a better Christian. Help me grow closer with you. Then I go, you know, in order, Leah, the kids, my parents and siblings, my in laws, my extended family, my friends, my co workers, teammates, past and present. I thank God for, you know, our country. And I ask, you know, and I'm thanking and asking for help, right? Start with, start by thanking. And then I ask for help

[Sean Ryan]

so

[Eric Frohart]

that I will be better in all these, all these ways. And then I even, you know, I, I thank him for the church and then asked me to like, help me to be, you know, better, better brother of my brothers and sisters in Christ. Thank him for my country, you know, I pray that more people would know and love you and have a relationship with you and then be with our leaders. Give them wisdom and discernment. I have this whole, it would take a while. And then I thank him for my health and then for work. And then I ask him, like, show me what you would have me do. Thank him for every dollar he's given me for our house. Just help me to be a better steward of that money and a better steward of our house. And then even like hobbies and fitness and I just kind of go like while I'm walking or rucking or whatever and I just like, I don't know, I, I leave those things and I'm like, I go to work and I have so much energy until like 2 or 3pm I stop and I have a snack and then I like, I, I have energy all day until about, you know, seven o', clock, have dinner and then I finally wind down. But it gives, I would say, like to anyone watching this, like, it sounds like a lot, but it is. If it takes an hour to do that, it's worth seven hours of energy, right? It, the, whatever you think the sacrifice is. If I only can give them, let's say it's 10 minutes. I, I believe that the payoff is more than three times what I put towards it, if that makes sense.

[Sean Ryan]

So, yeah, makes sense. I've never thought of it like that.

[Eric Frohart]

It feels like a sacrifice at the time, but it is. The energy you put forth pales in comparison to, you know, the energy and the Strength you get from it.

[Sean Ryan]

That's interesting. I'm gonna have to try that.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah, please do. I will give it a month. Tell me how it goes. I will.

[Sean Ryan]

Let's take a quick break. It. See you later. Building. What do you think, Sean? We're high.

[Eric Frohart]

Hi, diva. It's Rachel and Jordan.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah, hi. Quick question.

[Eric Frohart]

Why are you not spending your Venmo balance?

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah, we're concerned you can, like, buy stuff with it. You love buying stuff and earn cash

[Eric Frohart]

back on eligible purchases.

[Sean Ryan]

You love purchasing eligible things.

[Eric Frohart]

So the money your friend sent you yesterday, that's today's ramen or rideshare or eye patches.

[Sean Ryan]

The skincare kind, not the pyro kind.

[Eric Frohart]

Spend with Venmo and you can earn cash back with Venmo stash. Venmo stash bundle terms and exclusions.

[Sean Ryan]

Supply makes $100 cash back per month. See terms at Venmo Me Terms, Idaho.

[Eric Frohart]

Verification required to use a Venmo balance.

[Sean Ryan]

This episode is brought to you by Versed. Guys wear that. Guys wear this. Father's Day. Versed has something for dads who can activate vacation mode anytime, anywhere. The Versed Resort Collection. Versatile enough for a tropical getaway or a well earned staycation. For dads who turn a grill into a buffet with the click of the tongs. A backyard into a water park with just a sprinkler. And are definitely not asleep on the couch. They're resting their eyes. Versed fit for dads only at Dicks. So we. We're transitioning into your civilian life.

[Eric Frohart]

Yep.

[Sean Ryan]

Coming from Dev group. But one thing that we forgot to cover is lead climber.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

And how you got into that.

[Eric Frohart]

So I mentioned, like, in the military, like on a SEAL team, as you know, and for your audience's sake, everyone does a little bit of everything. We all cross train, we can shoot. You know, we all know how to navigate. We all know medicine. We all know how to use a radio, like. And then there's specialties. We all can breach a door, but there are breachers. Right. And a couple of different things. Like, there was a time I was a point man, which is like a lead navigator slash. You know, you had to be able to navigate the team to a thing, to a target, and then a sniper, which everyone knows what that is. And then a lead climber. And a lead climber would just be someone who would, you know, as I mentioned, on the boat, like on the shipboardings, I would be the first guy up a ladder. I could set the ladder better and then get everyone else up it In Iraq and Afghanistan it might be a, a compound wall or something like that. Usually it's not that, you know, it's not quite that epic. But I showed up at, when I got into finish my training and I was at, you know, Gold Team squadron and me and the other new guy in my little assault team, like my team leader looked at us and the other guy was bigger and he said, you're going to be a reacher. And then he looked at me and he said how many pull ups can you do? And I was like, I don't know, like 30 or whatever it was. He's like, well then you're going to be a climber. And I had never climbed in my like besides the, the lead climbing I had done at Seal Team 5 on the side of a ship. And so long story short, I get voluntold into being a lead climber and we do a climbing trip to Red Rocks which is outside of Las Vegas. So I get four days of climbing on real rock at Red Rocks followed by four days of climbing real rock somewhere else. So now I have, imagine this, I have eight days of rock climbing under my experience on like in harness on real rock. Like not counting like a trip to a rock climbing wall, right. But like real rock. And like the group of lead climbers, the one guy decides we're going to go climb El Cap, right. Which is a 2500 foot wall.

[Sean Ryan]

Holy.

[Eric Frohart]

And, and I'm like, like what? And so long story short, I end up, I find myself in Yosemite national park and we're going to climb El Capita. So the ninth time in my life that I've ever even worn a sit harness is a training day on El Cap.

[Sean Ryan]

Holy shit.

[Eric Frohart]

The tenth time in my life that I wear it on real, on real rock is day one on El Cap. Day one.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Eric Frohart]

And we climb it in three days. Spending two nights on portal edges on the side of it. The last night on the top finish the climb off the back side, you kind of walk then rappel walk. There's like a down climb with couple, couple 100 foot repels and like El Cap the way we did it because we're not like able to climb it all in one day. So we have like haul bags with portaledges which are cots that you sleep on.

[Sean Ryan]

Interesting.

[Eric Frohart]

Two gallons of water a day. All your ropes, all your food, your mountain house meals and like you're carrying each. Each of us had 100 pounds of gear to start. So you, and you're not climbing with all that. That's on an anchor, but you would climb and then you build an anchor and you pulley that stuff up. And so you climb a few pitches each day. You make it as far as you can. Then you get as far as you safely can get with the light still, with the sun still out. And then you bust out this portal edge which is a cot that you put together and strap it to the side of the rock. And the first night on El Cap, I think it was like 800ft off the ground or something like that. But I was also six. It was steeper than vertical. So I was six foot away from the wall. So it was at a spot where there's an overhang and my. The rope hangs down and my cot is like. So I'm like 800ft off the ground and 6ft away from the wall and it's just spinning in the wind and I'm sleeping on this thing. And we finish that climb and come around the backside and sure, like. And I didn't know who this guy was at the time, but in the meadow, I think it's called Tuolumne Meadows or whatever, there is a young Alex Honhold looking up at El Cap. And some of the guys were like climbing dorks. Some of the guys at Gold were into climb. I was, I was not a climbing dork. Like I didn't have the rock climbing magazines and all the, you know, all that junk and they're like, that's Alex Honnold. He's the next big deal, right? Like, we would have never known he was going to climb El Cap without a rope, you know, a few years later. Well, many years later. But anyway, I went from no rock climbing to a couple of like rock climbing trips. This was like. So I like, I found out I was going to be a rock climber in 2006 and we climbed El Cap in oh seven. So anyway, it was a pretty steep. Dude, that's a steep learning curve. But we finished that. And you know one of the lead climbers, guy named Heath, Heath Robinson, who died in extortion. And I obviously knew all those guys really well. Heath mentioned like he was the driving force behind El Cap. And we finished that climb and he's like, I'm not gonna do, you know, we're not doing any more walls. We're gonna go do mountains. So then we went and did Denali, which no one said we would ever get it done. But he sold the trip and made it happen. So we did Denali and then like the next one he handed it over. To Rob. Rob Reeves, who also died in extortion. And he led the trip for Aconcagua. So Denali being the highest peak in North America, Aconcagua the highest peak in South America. And that just kind of brings it full circle to, you know, now climbing Kilimanjaro for a different reason, but one of the seven summits.

[Sean Ryan]

Damn, that is cool, man.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah, it was voluntold into being a lead climber.

[Sean Ryan]

Right on. Damn, that is cool. Yeah. I can't imagine sleeping on a cot that's spinning around in the wind at whatever thousands of feet you are at.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah, well, I mean, just, it's so. No, like, to me, like, climbing El Cap a wall like that, like, that's scarier than jumping out of an airplane for me. Like, I don't know why. Like, it just. You had the one rope.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Eric Frohart]

And your world is that one rope. And everything you do is that, like, bubble. Like, it's so consequential. You know what I mean? I'll. I'll happily go do another, like, mountain climbing thing. Like, mountaineering. I don't. I don't see myself climbing another 2,000 foot rock wall.

[Sean Ryan]

Holy.

[Eric Frohart]

Not after all the close calls.

[Sean Ryan]

Damn. So how are you back to kind of your transition? How are you integrating in with the family after that pace?

[Eric Frohart]

Well, it's. So I had gotten good. Changing quickly from, you know, warrior to husband and father, really. Right. I could. I could reintegrate very quickly. And it was because, like, you had to, like, at. At the command, I would go. There were no decompression stops back then. You would come home. Like, I. In 06, I did a mission on the last night of a deployment, finished that mission. We had gotten in a gunfight on that mission, finished that mission, came back to the base. I didn't have time to wash my cammies, threw everything in a bag. Didn't have time to clean my gun or anything. Threw my. My clothes in a bag, my gun in a box. We flew out of that base, you know, without being too specific. Refueled in Ramstein, and I was in Virginia beach at a Panera holding my kid 36 hours later.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Eric Frohart]

After. Holy. Literally after a gunpipe. And it was just kind of like, it was kind of a trip. Right. I was like. But the hardest part was when I never got to go back. Like, when I never got to turn on warrior mode again. And then it was like, as far as reintegrating into the family, I just, you know, had to, you know, have my quiet time in the Morning, you know, my time in prayer, my time in the word, a little bit of journaling.

[Sean Ryan]

And you started that immediately.

[Eric Frohart]

Probably, you know, one and a half to two years after I got out.

[Sean Ryan]

Okay.

[Eric Frohart]

And then. But the other thing is when I immediately got out, like I also went 18 months without having a paycheck. So I just didn't have time to think. Like it was like this consulting or this doing that or like teaching this class or I briefly did like adjunct instructor with Mid south or security consulting or whatever. Eventually we, you know, bought a gun range, but like I just didn't have time to wallow.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Eric Frohart]

You know what I mean?

[Sean Ryan]

Yep.

[Eric Frohart]

And now I like sometimes we have time to think and overthink and like. Just kind of, I guess wallows the word, you know, brood on something and not just like go out there and do it. And I didn't have that luxury. Like I, like, I got out no college degree, didn't have a job lined up and you know, had three kids and groceries to buy. And then, you know, then we had a fourth kid because we're smart.

[Sean Ryan]

But then you became an entrepreneur.

[Eric Frohart]

Yep, yep.

[Sean Ryan]

What was your first venture?

[Eric Frohart]

So I first did just some security consulting and that led us to doing some present corporate presentations and that kind of segued into, you know, we were teaching this guy how to shoot and we took him to a gun range in Denver and they wouldn't let us rapid fire and they wouldn't let us draw from a holster. And as you and I know, like if you're gonna, if you're gonna shoot a gun for self defense, you need to know how to draw from a holster and you might need to shoot more than one shot every five seconds. So we were like, this is no way to train. And he was just like, he's very wealthy guy and awesome business mentor of ours from, from Denver. Ended up being one of our investors. He just said, well, why don't you guys raise money and buy a gun range? Like if this, if you can't train correctly here. And at the time Denver had like two, maybe three gun ranges. They all sucked. He's like, why don't you just either build one or make one. So you know, there was a problem to solve and he helped us find an answer. So we actually found some people. We raised money, bought a gun range and owned and ran a gun range. And it was, you know, firearms training and then a gun store and then lanes for rent, kind of a, a three legged stool. Right. And I did that, we did that for a While together, me and my business partner and after a few years, stepped down from the day to day. And then I went and ran a. A fitness organization called Strong First, Most notably known for their, like, kettlebell training. And this was Pavel's company, and he's the guy who brought. Who introduced the kettlebell to the West. So he's the reason there's a kettlebell in every gym now.

[Sean Ryan]

Right on.

[Eric Frohart]

So I had met him at Dev Group, because when you're a Dev Group, you bring in the experts for everything. And we brought him in to teach us how to kettlebell once. And I stayed in touch with him. And I had used. I had used the kettlebell, like, to help get me ready for deployments and for Denali and Akankagua and everything, right. I combine like, kettlebell with a little bit of body weight and cardio. I still do it to this day. Right. And so I. I'm a believer of it. And then he was asking me to help him find his next CEO. And I was in that. At that point, I was in that, like, habit of, you know, reading the Bible, praying, and then taking a. Then I had added a lunchtime walk with a little quick prayer. So I'm on my lunchtime walk with a prayer, and like, I just heard God say, well, you should apply for the job working for Pavel. And then I went and did that for about three years. And I got to. That was a great job. And I was, you know, really, it was blessing to work with and for Pavel. And I had, you know, the gun range I had. We had anywhere from 40 to 50 employees at the peak. But I was also like, my business partner. And I like, we, you know, we just, like, it needed one captain. That, that ship needed one captain. And then also I just felt like I'm always trapped to this facility. Like, I can't, like, if I go on vacation, I can't work from vacation. You know what I mean? And then I started working for Strong first and I was working remotely back in 2014, before that was a thing because our. Our team, our US Team was everywhere from Pittsburgh to Venice beach and everywhere in between. And then our global team, we had instructors in 30 some countries we were doing events in. We had 4,000 instructors in 30 some countries doing events on almost 50.

[Sean Ryan]

Good.

[Eric Frohart]

Almost every continent, not Antarctica. And basically, I worked at the. I. I led the headquarters group and like a senior group of instructors, and we were having. Licensing the material to be taught in other countries and continents and stuff like that. So. And I was. There was no, zoom. Back then it was called gotomeeting. And there was, you know, obviously cell phones, but like very early, like, you know, very good experience for me, kind of leading a geographically distributed team. Did that for three years. And then I went, I went to work for. I had helped the NRA rewrite some of its concealed carry curriculum just as a. One of my side gigs. And in so doing, I was talking to one of the leaders there and he basically hired me to run NRA's education and training. So I left the fitness organization and then went to work for NRA headquarters. And I was living in Denver, but like, I had to commute to Denver, you know, to Fairfax via Dulles. Oh, yeah. So that was going. I did that for three years. It was going okay. I mean, it wasn't without its drama, right? Just the politics of it all. And I was working on the ops side. Like, it's training. It should be free from bureaucracy, not free from bureau, but free from politics. But like, there is a lot of politics there just because it attracts politicians. You know what I mean? Also, I was like never going to, I was never going to play the game the way it needed. I was only going to do the job, not play the game. So I was kind of doomed. And if I was going to like to do the job the way it needed to be done, like, at some point I needed to move there and we were living in Denver and I wasn't going to move my family to Virginia. Like, yeah, I, we've. I didn't want to go back. Right. And I loved Denver up until Covid, but I, I loved what I, you know, I loved that job. I enjoyed it. But, you know, it was time to move on. So I did that until 2020. And then in 2020 I just started to do consulting. And that kind of bounced me around a little bit again, like when you get out, you just find a way or you make one. And we're good at hustling and learning and problem solving and communicating and all those skills. And I have since I worked at a beverage company for a while. I saw that we had a CBD gummy. We had a CBD drink, we had a bottled water, we had an energy drink. Then I was a consultant. I worked at an energy company that does like, natural gas fired plants and like solar and even battery plants. Just helping with culture and ops. And then I was even helping some of the developers there just as a, like, not a lead developer, but I would help lead developers write the resume. It's just well, it's just like, you know, find a way or make one.

[Sean Ryan]

Right.

[Eric Frohart]

Which is, you know, eventually I, I had also always been doing a lot of speaking. It's always been a passion of mine. And I started doing that in 2012. And there have been years where I've done like 10 or 12 events and there's years when I've done like two or three. But I just enjoy just sharing my story. And then like I have the 12 years in, but then now it's like 14 or more. Well, now 15 out.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Eric Frohart]

And I kind of merge the. Hey, this worked in the teams, doesn't work out here. I've seen, I have seen how different they are and not everything is the same. Right. And I found ways to like kind of tie in things that work in the teams in the sealed teams and work on the outside. And mostly that's what I, what I talk about when I speak. And it's typically like elite teams, aspects of an elite team, or how a small team or an outnumbered team can get big results, or it's basic leadership or teamwork. And that's on the corporate side. And then once in a while I get an opportunity to go just speak with a sports team or a couple of weeks ago, like a big men's ministry group. So that's kind of the, the side gig now.

[Sean Ryan]

Right on. Men's ministry group. That's the side gig.

[Eric Frohart]

No speaking, speaking, day job. I have a great job working for. It's called Goldenrod Companies and they are a real estate, I would say real estate development and investment organization company in Omaha. They have offices, let's see, we have offices in Atlanta and Dallas and Omaha and then I think some in Tulsa and opening new spots. But he basically, it's a founder led organization. He has a family office, which we would call it a headquarters group in our vernacular. So under his headquarters group there are, let's say six portfolio companies, separate companies, all doing different things, but they all fit within the real estate, you know, world. Right. And I don't know much about real estate investment or development or legal or finance or insurance or like even has construction companies. Those, all those things are happening. I'm just helping standardize operations and culture. So I don't do any of the things they do. Right. I just help standardize the culture and the ops. You know, think of that as a horizontal going across those verticals.

[Sean Ryan]

Right on.

[Eric Frohart]

So which is a good fit when you have a side gig of also doing speaking gigs because you're talking mostly about culture and Teamwork and building, like, building those things.

[Sean Ryan]

So.

[Eric Frohart]

Fits pretty nicely.

[Sean Ryan]

What I mean, as you know, a lot of guys struggle with finding the next purpose, the next thing. You know, what. What kind of advice do you have for the next generation who's separating right now, getting out, looking for the next thing, thinking that nothing's going to measure up to what they did before.

[Eric Frohart]

Man, the first thing I would say is, I think it's, oh, if you have the. And I didn't have this. I didn't have this luxury. But if you have, like, it is. If you can take a beat, take a minute and just get. That could be a month, could be two months. Like, just have a little bit of time to, like, unwrap. Right. I didn't get that. But then the next thing I would say is, like, your first job, getting out of the military might not be your ultimate thing. Like, just take a base hit. You can't, like, it's a good point. Get the. Get the base hit. And, you know, Jordan Peterson had this. He had this thing about having an aim, right? Where you have an aim, you have something you're aiming at, and it might be on top of this hill and you're walking towards that, but as you. As you get higher towards it, like, your aperture opens and, like, you see more or you realize, like, oh, I don't. That's not my goal anymore. But because you took a step forward, like, you're moving towards it. If you hadn't have moved towards it, you would have been down here still planning about it.

[Sean Ryan]

Yep.

[Eric Frohart]

Right. And I think, like, too many people are stuck down here planning about, like, what to do next. Like, find that, like, base hit it. It does not have to be like, the end all.

[Sean Ryan]

Be all.

[Eric Frohart]

No, but you're on your way towards it. Like, A, you'll either get there and realize, that's not what I want to do, or B, like something else. Some opportunity will open en route. Right. Like the. Like the. My job now. I went and met with the founder of this company and the cfo, and I was just going there to think I was interviewing to do another speaking gig. Are you? And then he just asked, well, would you come help us with our, you know, our culture and our operations? You just don't know. Right. And I. I enjoy doing that sort of thing. It fits well with, like, it fits well for me with doing my, you know, the speaking that I do about teamwork and leadership and elite performance and all that. So, you know, you just. You just don't know. I. I Would say, like, to keep it simple, like, take a break. That's fine. Don't make it too long, and then get a base hit.

[Sean Ryan]

Good advice. Yeah, good advice. You know, at the beginning of the interview, you had mentioned something about. I don't know a better way to say it, but you had mentioned something about that the service. The service. Your time in the SEAL teams, your time at development group was for selfish reasons.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah. Yep.

[Sean Ryan]

And that you wanted to circle back on that. I was curious where you were going with that. I think I know, but I'm. I'm curious.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah, it all changed, like, so I joined, you know, chip on my shoulder. I'm gonna prove people wrong. I can do it. You know, we all. And we all kind of had that. I'm assuming, like, I want to go prove, you know, this is, like, that's one of the reasons I did it. It's supposed to be the hardest training in the military.

[Sean Ryan]

Right.

[Eric Frohart]

And then, you know, 9, 11 happened, and I found myself, you know, in a position to, you know, do something about it. It. Right. Or just to be in a position to, like, serve my country. So it changed from that selfish pursuit to that more like pursuit of service and sacrifice, which I think happens a lot.

[Sean Ryan]

Yep. Yep. Well, Eric, we're wrapping up the interview.

[Eric Frohart]

2.

[Sean Ryan]

You want to end this thing with a prayer?

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah, let's do it.

[Sean Ryan]

Let's do it.

[Eric Frohart]

Let's do it.

[Sean Ryan]

You want to lead it?

[Eric Frohart]

Sure.

[Sean Ryan]

All right.

[Eric Frohart]

God, I just thank you for this opportunity today. I pray that you would continue to watch over and bless Sean and his family and his team and all of the Sean Ryan Show. Continue to help them make the impact

[Sean Ryan]

they are,

[Eric Frohart]

not just for their guests, but for all of the people that get to watch this show, Lord. And I pray that I pray that the things said here in this building that you have blessed would be pleasing to you and would make an impact for your kingdom. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.

[Sean Ryan]

Amen.

[Eric Frohart]

Gentlemen.

[Sean Ryan]

It was an honor, man.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah. No, thank you, bro.

[Sean Ryan]

Thank you.

[Eric Frohart]

Hopefully I wasn't rambling too long.

[Sean Ryan]

No, it was awesome. It was awesome. Let's go blow some up.

[Eric Frohart]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

No matter where you're watching the Sean Ryan show from, if you get anything out of this at all, anything, please, like, comment and subscribe. And most importantly, share this everywhere you possibly can. And if you're feeling extra generous, head to Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review.