← The Shawn Ryan Show
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- [00:00]
Chris Fetus
Foreign.
- [00:08]
Sean Ryan
Welcome to the show, man.
- [00:10]
Chris Fetus
Thank you for having me.
- [00:11]
Sean Ryan
It's an honor to have you here.
- [00:13]
Chris Fetus
It's an honor to be here, really.
- [00:14]
Sean Ryan
I've been waiting a long time for this, man, a really long time. And. And we got a lot to cover. I think it's going to be a really heavy episode, and I think it's going to impact thousands, if not millions of lives. And so I'm really excited about this. And, you know, we had a conversation on the phone about a operation you were on, and sounds like it was maybe, probably, definitely one of the most significant events of your life. And that really impacted me as well, the way you described it. And. And actually, I was hoping you wouldn't get pissed at me, but I brought it up in the Jordan Peterson podcast and. Because it was very real, very heavy. And, and. And I pray for you a lot. So. But. But anyways, I'm. It's gonna be a fantastic interview. And once again, man, I'm honored to have you here.
- [01:23]
Chris Fetus
So thank you. I'm not pissed at all. I'm grateful. And I need to go catch up, and I didn't catch that. But now I need to go. All good.
- [01:31]
Sean Ryan
All good. I thought maybe somebody would hear it, be like he's talking about Chris, but. Yeah, but everybody starts with an introduction. Chris Fetus, you're a former Navy SEAL, a member of SEAL Team 6, officially known as Naval Special Warfare Development Group NSWDG. You were deployed around the world to fight America's enemies and defend freedom. On your last mission, you were involved in a hostage rescue mission that changed your life forever. You are credited with a 900 yard sniper shot on an enemy in a mountainous region of Somalia. Incredible. You are a contractor for the Sensitive Activities Division of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. For six years, you were responsible for assessing, planning, and executing sensitive capabilities to support Special Operation forces operations globally. Post military, you became the founder and CEO of Be Free Ice Cream, where the meaning came from, a discovery that true personal freedom comes only from the clarification of one's mind to realize happiness as a choice. Incredible. And most importantly, you are a father to two sons and a husband. And I hope we talk a lot about fatherhood, too.
- [02:56]
Chris Fetus
I'd love to.
- [02:57]
Sean Ryan
So I got a Patreon account. Those are our top supporters of the Sean Ryan show. A lot of them have been here since the very beginning when I was doing this in my attic, and. And one of the things I do is I give them the opportunity to ask each guest a question. And, man, you had Some really, really good questions come up. So I picked two of them. First one is from a fellow SOF guy, and his name's Paul. So after almost 30 years on active duty, 20 years in SOFIA, I honestly don't know how I'll handle working in a civilian workforce. Can you tell us three things that surprised you, maybe that you simply did not expect about your transition back into the world and how you handled those things?
- [03:54]
Chris Fetus
Absolutely. One thing that surprised me was how much about myself I did not even know or understand, like, to the core, with my identity as Special Forces guy, as seal, and how much effort it was going to take for me to learn that. That's one.
- [04:18]
Sean Ryan
What did you. What did. When did you realize that you didn't really know who you were?
- [04:25]
Chris Fetus
I think that I realized it. You know, that's hard to put a finger on because it was almost like a collective knowing all of a sudden. But it only came the day that I was almost at rock bottom, that I was at rock bottom, that I realized, holy shit, I can just make a decision right now, right? And just the collective memory of the first couple of years of being out, just, like, knowing that I wasn't what I was supposed to be, right? And that I was not even close to figuring that out. Like, it just felt like it was getting worse over time. And it was. So there wasn't really like a pinpoint moment, but, you know, there was things I was doing. There was, you know, in my marriage with my kids, and there was the addictions that I had just, you know, compounded on each other. You know, it has a compounding effect that I think that once you sense that you've lost your purpose of what you were, you can feel those a lot more now because there's not some outlet for it at work anymore. And that's when it got bad. So I'd say within the first year or two, the first two years, because I was focused on my new job and what I was doing. And I was really confused about that, to be honest with you, too. I learned pretty quickly that that job. And it wasn't that job specifically, I have anything against it was just that I knew I wasn't doing what I was supposed to be doing. And that's a really shitty feeling and trying to go. You just feel lost. So what am I supposed to be doing?
- [06:20]
Sean Ryan
You know what I think, man? After interviewing, I don't know how many of us types, but having gone through it myself and talking to gents like you, I think what happens is you change As a human. And it's almost like you're under a fucking spell when you're in. When you're in a unit like that. I mean, I know you probably don't want to talk about this, but I'm going to. But the hate that comes from the community, I mean, that's not. When you're out, you know, that's not like normal, you know, to have those type of feelings. And it's just a glimpse into, like, how. How dark it can be in the community. And when you. And then. And then when you're in it with the. With the. You know, with the depression and the anxiety and the like, just all this shit, you know what I mean? And when you come out, if you make it out, unfortunately, we have to say it like that because so many of our friends are killing themselves. It's like. It's like this transition to morph back into yourself, what you are, who you truly are, what you're supposed to be. And I think for the guys that do make it back and find their way back to themselves of what they were before they went in, it's a stronger. It's a. I don't even want to say hardened, because if you find yourself out of that falls away that hardness. And that's what I think it is.
- [08:10]
Chris Fetus
That morphing back into yourself. I think what I've learned is that the consequences of doing that are gonna make people mad and angry because you now. It's almost seen as a false betrayal, in my opinion. Like, you're betraying the code. And I've moved past this, so I don't dwell on it too much anymore. But it used to bother me a lot because I really think that that dark, dark side of this brotherhood, which is a beautiful thing, but also has. This is connected to the veteran suicide problem, because I. Maybe we'll get into this. But I remember the thoughts, the very specific thoughts that I was having in my moment, right? And going. It's very. It's a lot simpler than I think that we really think the actual specific thoughts that are going through our head at that moment. And whatever the buildup was to get to that moment, it's different for everybody. We have different addictions. We have different coping mechanisms for what we feel. But what I know is that for most of us, there's no betrayal going on. Most of us who are doing our lives, especially the guys that figure this out and turn and make a decision, the right path, right? And don't give up, are doing it respectfully, not Disrespectfully, the programming we get in the code is that once you're done living your life by that code, you can't. I couldn't conceive that any SEAL or guys in a unit could then go out in the world and live their life by any other code but that. And then we sort of connect it to integrity or like whatever the words might be. But that code, it has to be that way for it to work right? But it's like a little bubble of a reality in this whole world of infinite reality and the paths you can go on and the things you can do. And that little bubble of reality is also part of the whole overarching story. So how do you tell if you want to? And then there's the judgment of that in the first place. Well, why does he have to tell? I know why. You know, I've done a lot of work to figure out why I need to do anything. And not enough time to explain to every single person still within that code on why. And it might be a waste of time because they won't understand, right? Some of them might. But that's what it is in my opinion. And I think about the solutions towards that. And it's really. Solutions are more conceptual to me. It's just finding some way which is happening actually. So I'm very grateful. Where no change happens until a leader can validate that the change is acceptable, right? So some guy, some captain, whatever, until they decide, hey, I gotta do my fit reps, I gotta make. I gotta become an admiral someday and go. This is a big problem that this veteran suicide thing that for sure this code in this place is part of that story of what gets to that. So what can we do that's not going to. They're so afraid of doing anything because they're so afraid that it's gonna SAP bandwidth from the mission, right? Or the operating. But I think that the hate stuff actually uses more manpower and bandwidth than the solution which would just be in my mind some. We figure out some really hard problems that. That plays.
- [12:21]
Sean Ryan
That's a damn good point. I've not thought of that. The bandwidth thing.
- [12:25]
Chris Fetus
Can we figure out like scheduling and things like scheduling in some things or just even infusing some level of acceptability for these. For what guys are gonna do when they're done, right? And maybe even some kind of rule set besides just it being this free floating sort of non acceptance thing like that. If you do or say anything that anybody knows about, like what what are we supposed to do go to some ranch and live. Yeah, the quiet, professional thing is what they attach it to. But you're quiet professional there. You have to be.
- [13:13]
Sean Ryan
Right.
- [13:15]
Chris Fetus
When I'm now in my life, I'm not that doing that anymore. I have other things to do, you know, and it's not a disrespect thing. It's just. It doesn't apply anymore. Right. Respectfully not. I promise you, no guy you talk to, their intention is to go, like, fuck them. And I'm gonna go do this because of that. Like, they're not. They're just trying their best. They're just doing their best.
- [13:47]
Sean Ryan
It's a fight for survival.
- [13:48]
Chris Fetus
But those experiences. Yes, sir, those experiences are very. They're profound experiences to each person. Like, the special part of Special Forces to me is our little hearts inside of each one of our guys. Each one of, like, the individuality of the guy next to you. We always say that, you know, the capabilities, the cool stuff, the night vision goggles, the guns, the support, the money, all the stuff is cool. And I don't want to make anybody mad, but the special part of Special Forces is the guys, the individual person. Right? Like, not the call sign part, the once we light cigarettes on a quiet target, we start calling each other by our names part, you know, and we know a little bit about, you know, the closest guys anyways, where they grew up from, what their childhood was like. And they're all similar stories.
- [14:46]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [14:47]
Chris Fetus
You know, the thing they. I know that they've studied with psychologists at different units and they've been doing this for a while probably. I mean, at least since I was there, over a decade ago, 20 years too. I think that they started to. We're trying to figure out, what is that thing? What's the thread that's in common between us guys that causes us to get through those selections without quitting. Right. And just keep driving through all the suffering and have that. It's not just this, oh, it's mental fortitude, you know, is that we all experience some sort of adverse childhood thing, some trauma, some. Some hardship, something. Right. That instead of. Some people would go become drug addicts or, you know, some level of coping for that, whatever was missing, you know, And I could go through a whole list of that stuff instead. Decided to just go do shit and never quit. Right. And my opinion about that is it has a little connection to validation as well.
- [16:01]
Sean Ryan
Right.
- [16:01]
Chris Fetus
Because our reputation is. That's all it is. We just need constant validation from each other in order for our reputation to be good. Right. And we fall outside of that. That's the most stressful thing. That's even more stressful if you ever get labeled. You know that that's worse than if I'm getting shot at by a pkm.
- [16:24]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [16:24]
Chris Fetus
You know that guy? Yeah. So. And you need to have little moments where you something up and for a little while you might be that guy and you're like, that's the worst feeling ever. I got to get out of this, you know, at any cost. You know, I'll do anything for validation to be out of this. Be in the good in the green.
- [16:41]
Sean Ryan
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- [19:10]
Chris Fetus
And then it's a long answer to that question. But when you get out, you don't have that there anymore. Where do you get the validation from? You've got to figure out how to self validate. You got to go clear all of the reasons why you needed that in the first place.
- [19:27]
Sean Ryan
You have to reinvent. Yeah, that's what you have to do. You have to reinvent.
- [19:32]
Chris Fetus
For me, going back to myself like you said was all the way back to my 7 year old self before things start to happen for you, you know, start to realize that it's hard or traumatic or whatever. The, whatever the memories that, you know, each one of us knows are in there that have been causing us all of this stress through our lives.
- [19:57]
Sean Ryan
It's a good answer. One more Stephen Casey, what advice do you have for exiting military members whose skill set, slash area of military service diverges widely from their passion and which may take time to develop?
- [20:19]
Chris Fetus
Suggestions on what to do if your skill set is way outside of your passion?
- [20:24]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [20:28]
Chris Fetus
Do the skill set. You got to do what's available to you and you got to have a job, you know, you gotta work that. I experienced this, you know, start making moves towards the thing that you're passionate about. You know, you gotta stop wasting time. And so some people are gonna get angry about this, but I didn't have time anymore to watch four hours of a football game and memorize all the statistics about some player and what college they went to. So that when we're all gathered around for fantasy football, you're like, man, that guy really knows his shit. One day I realized he knows his shit and it's a waste of time for me because I gotta be making ice cream flavors and giving it to people to taste it and tell me what they think. And that was the moves I was making in the background. You know, going to ice cream school at Penn State before I ever started my job. I didn't know why, I didn't even. I think my wife was probably pissed. You're gonna spend how much to go to this fucking school and you haven't even started your job yet, so. But I'm glad I did. But my point is, start making moves towards the thing you're passionate about.
- [21:43]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [21:44]
Chris Fetus
And if you don't know what that is, you know, instead of wasting time going out drinking or like whatever the things are that, you know you're wasting time, you just know what, you just know what they are. A lot of times they're related to your addictions, you know, and start figuring out what you like to really do. It could be very simple.
- [22:08]
Sean Ryan
Yeah, that's. I mean, I didn't know what the fuck I like to do, you know, I did all kinds of shit. I sure as hell didn't think I was gonna like sitting down, talking to people for six hours. Cause I don't like talking to people outside of the show anyways. I'm just a. I'm an introvert. And, you know, But I mean, I think you just gotta. One. One. You gotta close that door. That's what I think. You have to close that door because you are leaving a community that doesn't want you to leave and that you're passionate about. Like, nobody in saf, probably even in the military, especially in combat arms, is not passionate about their. What the. What they're doing and the people that they're with. And when that's over, you have to shut that door and tune that out. It's done. You're never going back. It's not going to happen. You know, And. And if you're like me, and I'm sure you and a lot of the other gents that have been in here, I mean, that's all you had time for, man, is to pour your heart and soul into your unit, into war, fighting, into building that camaraderie and culture and just being a fucking warrior. And so you don't know what you like to do because that's been 100% of your dedication and mindset and everything goes into that. And so when you get out, you got to try everything, man. You got to. I mean, you just have to. Have to keep bouncing around until you feel good. And then when you feel good, you're probably onto something.
- [23:49]
Chris Fetus
That's right.
- [23:49]
Sean Ryan
And it becomes. When you find something and it becomes your new most important thing in life other than your family. That's it. So dive in.
- [24:01]
Chris Fetus
Yeah. It doesn't matter how much you have to do it, you know, that you got it. You know, because there's people I've heard go, oh, man, I like to make these duck collar things and. But Then I started selling them and I didn't like it anymore. Cause I had to do work and I'm like, do you really love it though?
- [24:19]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [24:20]
Chris Fetus
You know, get through a couple years until you can get somebody to help make those things. Will you love it then? And think in the future, you know, there's gonna be a day where I'm not running this ice cream machine all day, you know, and once you get there, it's like, yep, worth it. It's only to me, it's a couple years. You know, commit to a couple, two, three years or something. Did you have deep and meaningful conversations with teammates on deployments ever with guys you knew?
- [24:53]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [24:54]
Chris Fetus
Like some in depth ones to like, you remember some details about some of your teammates.
- [24:59]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [25:01]
Chris Fetus
And then just remember there's always. Wasn't there always a guy playing a guitar around the fire or. There was one guy, I had an EOD guy that as soon as we got back from the mission, we'd do our. We do team family movie time. We'd go watch Band of Brothers together. I'd get some ice cream, but he would always be in his hooch with a beat maker making little beats, you know.
- [25:24]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [25:25]
Chris Fetus
And that's what they love doing. So then when they get out and they go, what do I do? Wasn't there something you did?
- [25:33]
Sean Ryan
Good point.
- [25:34]
Chris Fetus
You know, going, some people, it's. Maybe not. Maybe we were playing video games every waking moment between. Or whatever. But there was probably something, you know, whatever it was, you know, went on long runs or even after a long mission. I knew guys were like, you're still going on miles of a run. You love running. You know, maybe you designed some shoes or something.
- [25:56]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [25:56]
Chris Fetus
You know, for that. I don't know. But that's my point is start making moves towards that. Figuring it out what you like doing and then imagining yourself. Because longest time, you can't. Your ego with that team connection is like, I can't imagine I did all this stuff, you know, I can't imagine sitting in a little ice cream truck going, hey, you know, ding, ding, ding, ding. But start to, you know, until you can imagine yourself doing that, you know.
- [26:27]
Sean Ryan
Great advice, man. Well, let's get into the interview first. One last thing. Everybody gets a gift. Even you, Chris. I guess we're gonna be competitors in the sweets business.
- [26:39]
Chris Fetus
Yeah. I'm gonna put these in some ice cream, see what happens.
- [26:43]
Sean Ryan
Hell yeah. Do it.
- [26:45]
Chris Fetus
Do it.
- [26:46]
Sean Ryan
Vigilance Elite Gummy Bears. Legal in all 50 states. Made in the USA. You're not gonna get Any weird feelings, if you have any.
- [26:55]
Chris Fetus
Yeah. So I'm very curious on how you got these made. And they're really good. I've had them before.
- [27:04]
Sean Ryan
Oh, thank you. I'll tell you offline. But, Chris, I want to get into. I want to get into your story, and let's do. I know we have a lot of rabbit holes to go down, and I want to hit every one of them. So. But let's start at childhood. Where did you grow up?
- [27:26]
Chris Fetus
So I was born in Austin, Texas. My real father was Mexican. My mother is half Japanese and half Irish. Caucasian.
- [27:40]
Sean Ryan
No shit. I'm a quarter Japanese, too.
- [27:42]
Chris Fetus
Come on, man. Cool. I didn't know that.
- [27:45]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [27:46]
Chris Fetus
Yeah. Cool. I used to be embarrassed about it a little bit, trying to fit into school. And I looked a lot more Asian when I was a kid than I think I do now. Now I'm very proud of it. Very, very proud of it. My grandmother immigrated here. My grandfather met her while he was on tour for Vietnam and he was in Okinawa. And they've been the core of the whole family, right? And we moved around a lot. So my real father was an abusive alcoholic, physically abusive alcoholic to my mother.
- [28:32]
Sean Ryan
Did you see any of that?
- [28:34]
Chris Fetus
So what I realized is, with children and even pertaining to some of the stuff that's going on with children these days, is that you remember everything. It's imprinted, right up to a certain, you know, like, age. I don't think I remember much from like, three or four maybe, but I didn't think I remember much from four or five. And then I realized one day that I do, right? So I've got imprints in my memory of my real father. His face and for sure, his energy and what it looked and what it felt like to me that I've only been able to get to actually recently, like, in the last, you know, decade of my life. But because you block him, right, if it doesn't feel good. So, you know, memories of violence, of him beating my mom and, you know, she was working three jobs to support us. She was a seamstress for a long time. And just remembering the faces of just different women that were not my mom, you know, coming over.
- [29:46]
Sean Ryan
Damn.
- [29:47]
Chris Fetus
Like, I remember that shit, right? So when we are going about our. The environment we create for our kids and whatever all these parents are doing is like, I think there might be a little bit of an assumption that, like, oh, they're just not gonna remember all of this because they're kids, you know, but it's all in there so that you Know, realizing that that was my real father. And then in the future, seeing some of those things coming out of me was a big kind of awakening moment, right, to realize, what age did he leave? So my mom finally divorced him. You know, I try to talk to her about it. I think it's a traumatizing thing for her as well, obviously. And my grandfather's a really strong man. He passed away a couple years ago in my mom's home. I was there during his hospice. He was an orphan himself, so he experienced a really tough childhood. Him and his brother were orphans. Their parents abandoned them, and then they grew up with, you know, a couple different foster parents, but they both became very successful. They both. You know, he spent a long career in the. In the army. He was. He retired as a colonel, did two tours of Vietnam, and then when he got out, he started. Worked his way up through a company called Airframe that manufactured and sold airplane parts and components to Japanese companies. And he became fluent in Japanese. So when that was all going on with my mom, I believe that there was some influence from him to go, I need you to leave this guy. Right? And almost, I don't know if there was ever an ultimatum, but she finally made the right decision and divorced him.
- [31:41]
Sean Ryan
How old were you?
- [31:43]
Chris Fetus
I'm not quite sure. I think I was about five. Almost six years old, maybe.
- [31:49]
Sean Ryan
Shit. So you do have memories back to that young.
- [31:52]
Chris Fetus
Yes, absolutely. And they're very specific little memories, you know, like, what's your first memory? You know what I mean? That's hard for people to think right in the moment. But if you sit down, you meditate, maybe you think about it, you can go back, like, oh, yeah. And, you know, there's a memory I had from when I was probably five years old or four years old that I slipped on, like, a slippery concrete, bonked my head. And I must have gotten knocked out because the next thing I saw was my mom's face. I remember that. You know, and there's another memory before that where I was getting, like, I was playing in an ant pile. I might have been four years old during this time. And I got covered in fire ants and I was screaming, and, you know, my mom grabbed me and threw me in a bathtub to drown all the ants. And, you know, those get imprinted because they're sensational memories, you know, outside of your everyday playing as a kid. But I also have those memories about my father and him. The way he grabbed me to talk to me, to, like, you know, I just have memories of him sitting Next to me, you know, he had a thick mustache. And the energy that I remember was not good. You know, that biological connection between a father and son, I felt, I don't think was there. Right. Because when you're drowned in your addictions, when you're, you know, when you're. That it's blocking you, you know. And then I saw this in Afghanistan, you know, with different. I kind of correlate it together because I go, how. And it even relates to the story is how some fathers don't have that for some reason, Whatever it is, whether it's the ideology that they're practicing, you know, where we know in that. Some of that terrorist culture, some of that Taliban, you know, and different types of those, you know, extremist cultures. Like, what I witnessed was. And from talking and eating with Afghans is that the wife and the son or any children are servants to the man. And that's their role. You know, not like here, in a healthy father, son relationship where you go, they're not my servants. I respect them. You know, they're people with choices and, you know, made a decision to try my best to create the best environment for them. And even that's not gonna be perfect. There's gonna be some resentment about something, you know, but you just try your best. And so I think that goes missing in today's society sometimes to go to realize, like, you do what I say, cause I told you so, or any level past that. But do you.
- [34:47]
Sean Ryan
Do you have siblings?
- [34:48]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, I have two sisters. One's my half sister from my stepfather, who the next part of my childhood is that my mother met him and remarried. And thank God, because he's a good man. And I didn't know that growing up, we were at ends. You know, I said and did things like, you're not my father. When I got angry as a teenager. And I go back to that now. And, like, I want to apologize. I have apologized for that. Because everything that he did, he's a very quiet guy, very stoic. He grew up on a farm also with a very difficult childhood, but at least was able to make a decision. You know, how do you take. I have so much more respect for stepfathers that actually take on or adopt, you know, someone's kids that aren't theirs for the woman that they love. Cause that's a hard thing to do, to be a father without that biological connection, you know, but, you know, to teach them how to ride a bike, to teach them. So I didn't realize until I became really out of The SEAL teams that I received, all of that, even if it seemed like I wasn't listening, you know? Cause I was a little shit. I was a rebellious little shit, and. But I'm so grateful because it all went in there.
- [36:13]
Sean Ryan
Yeah, man, that's. I don't think much about that, but, I mean, actually, I do. My little. My little brother has a stepson, and he does. He's a fucking amazing dad. And I see him doing all that stuff, you know, with. He has his biological son, and I commend him all the time, man, you are changing that kid's life for the better. And, like, I don't know if I could ever rise to that occasion.
- [36:51]
Chris Fetus
It's hard to do, especially when they're pushing back on it all, when it doesn't seem like they're getting it, you know?
- [36:56]
Sean Ryan
He can definitely be a challenge, but I want to go back. What about your other sister? Is she biological?
- [37:05]
Chris Fetus
Yes. And so 100% her, yeah. My biological sister Courtney. She was an amazing person, one of the most kind souls. And, you know, one memory I have is my mother being pregnant with her, so I must have been. We're only a couple years apart, so two, three years old. I remember something about her getting hurt while she was pregnant with her and then asking. I ask my mother these questions later in childhood. She'll start to ask, you know, she told me, you started to ask these questions, you know, because I didn't know my stepfather was not my father for a while, until you get to seven, eight, whatever age. Maybe before that, you start to go, hey, you know, is that. You know, you start asking questions because I remember somebody else, you know, but, yeah, he. My. My real father kicked her down the stairs one. One day in an argument while she was pregnant with my sister, and she fell down a flight of, like, went down a flight of stairs in front of the apartment. And so. And I think about my mother, like, if I could just go back as myself now to that and fucking, you know, my future self, just go grab that motherfucker, you know? Because what happens when we. Trauma turns us into something that we aren't really any of us ever are to start with, when we're children now, you go so far, you know, you still can always come back. It's never too late. In my opinion. It doesn't matter like, how far it goes. The deepest, darkest serial killers, pedophiles, all these fucking people going on can still make a choice. But in this life, you still. Whatever boundaries and lines you cross, you still have to Live with and deal with the consequences of what you did, right? And I never felt like he ever got to do that. You know, maybe part of the consequence of it was the suffering that people like that have every day. You know, the self hate, the just the muck is part of it because they're not happy. You know, some of these politicians, some of these people, they're not. You can just see it. You can just see the bags in their eyes. You know, you like look at this George Soros dude and you're like just committed to evil, right? And some of them, it shows, you know, it doesn't look like a healthy 80 year old, whatever he is, dude looks like a demon. And then there's others that appear or look healthy. And that's the most sinister of them, right?
- [39:55]
Sean Ryan
So.
- [39:55]
Chris Fetus
But my point about my dad is that, you know, some of my family on that side, he actually died early somehow in 2009. And my mom found out about it and I asked him questions, you know, how'd he die? You know, I still don't. Not very clear. I think it was some medical issue, whether it was a leg or something, like some weird thing. But my side of the family, the Mexican side of the family, tried to contact me after. And I just. Because of that, what I just said I had, I just didn't have any interest. And my real father was my father, right? So it would have been a disservice in my mind to go explore that. And I just didn't have the intuition or the need to go explore that. And my Japanese side of the family, my grandparents and my father, I had everything I needed, right? And so the energy of them contacting me just didn't feel right. My intuition was kicking off, like there's some reason behind this, whether it's money or something they've heard about me. I did, you know, I've been a seal for a while and so I just pushed it. I just didn't do it, you know.
- [41:10]
Sean Ryan
Do you believe in generational trauma?
- [41:13]
Chris Fetus
Yes, absolutely. Because. And I don't think that it's as genetically predisposed as we might think it is. Addictive traits and things like that, you know, maybe a little bit. What I think is that generational trauma is because the traumatized, you have kids now, you're responsible for the environment you create for them. And if you haven't healed that shit and you haven't returned to what you really are, your real, you know, the soul that's inside of all of us when we're children and Back to the fucking George Soros thing. You're like, he was just a 5 year old kid once and no matter what his environment was, he was just playing, just doing his job as a kid. Wholesome, innocent, whatever the environments were to then make him what he is now. He hasn't made a decision to change that for his own kids, right? And I guarantee you now they're all fucked up too. So that's a choice that any one person can make. But you gotta like, you can't see through the veil of that conflict and trauma. And it's bullshit. I call it bullshit. It's just the easiest way for me to explain it is stuff and it's just piled on top of us over time to where that soul right here and here is just covered in bullshit. And you can't. How do you see through? You gotta. It's like being stuck in mud or quicksand. And the decision is, it's like a shovel. You gotta do work every day to get it down, at least to where you can see something, you know, it doesn't have to be perfect.
- [43:04]
Sean Ryan
What kind of work? I know what you're talking about, but a lot of people aren't going to know what you're talking about. So what kind of work are you talking about?
- [43:12]
Chris Fetus
To find a way. And there's different ways of experience. Plant medicines for sure work for me. There's other ways. Native Americans do sweat lodges, you know, ancient people did different things. Rites of passages to becoming a man, you know. But the point being, some way for you to just stop and realize. I feel like I'm full of shit, right? And for me, when I got out of the military, it was like I couldn't figure it out. When I talked to my wife, you know, when I was fucking things up constantly, it was like I just crying with her. Like I just feel this creature inside of me, right? Just this like little dark creature. And you know, that's just how I visualized it. But one identifying that and then going, what caused this? Because I think that every one of us in the world, you know, from the very healthy of us all the way to, you know, the bent over fentanyl addict, you know, in San Diego. The memory, the very specific memory of what somebody did to you or what happened to you, whether it was a collective over time or a very specific thing, or a whole bunch of very specific things, but you know, you know what it is, you know, and you just, you don't want to admit to yourself, you know, that it's that that started it. Whatever the trauma is, whatever the things, you know what I mean? And it's different for everybody. But going then to that thing and spending time, like, looking at it, we don't want to, but just fucking something to put your head in place to then not just look at it, but go, like, all around it and go figure out, like, yeah, that memory. That's it. You know, for me, for example, there was one in, like, sexual stuff's embarrassing for everybody to talk about. That's why it's one of the most sinister addictions in my opinion. Compared to, like, you can say all day long, like, I'm a drug addict. I'm like, alcoholic. I beat my wife. I do this really hard for people. But it's also ironic because there's so much sexuality bullshit going on right now. It's all focused on that all the time of, like, constantly having to prove or portray or, you know, explain. Your sexuality hasn't even now gone to the extent of just displaying it openly in an effort to make it feel normal. Because your subconscious, your ego is like, you know already it's inappropriate. You know, some of these things you see, like, I can't. And I have no judgment against anybody's sexualities, but I'm from California. I can't take my kids to San Francisco during Gay Pride month because. And it's not because of the sexuality. It's because of all the traumatic sexual shit they're going to see, you know, out in public. And it's just not okay. But it's also not going, like, anything against your sexuality. It's just, you know. But for me, just as a. Because it's hard to talk about, I'm going to use it as an example. One of my earliest traumas was, you know, my mom was working a lot. My dad. So that's part of the childhood story. My dad was in the Air Force. So then when she remarried, I became a military kid. So I'll go back to that. We moved around a lot, and that became another kind of trauma. Super cool, but also a little bit of a trauma. Big, A big trauma. But back to that thing, you know, I had a good childhood after my mom got married. I really feel overall, like, man, I had a great childhood, but there was these little things because they were just doing their best. He was working, she's working. And I had freedom around the neighborhood. We lived in Japan at the time, got stationed there. Super cool. We lived there for four years. But I had free floating rain around the whole neighborhood as a six year old, right? So I was friends with this other six year old and there was a specific few days where we ended up in his house down the road. But he had older siblings, 12, 13, 14, whose parents were also gone all the time and they were watching porn in the living room. So now I go here, I'm a six year old. And they, you know how, you know, I see it with kids now? They influence each other. They go, hey, they think it's a good idea to take the six year old to go like, look at this. And you're like. And I'm sitting there looking at this scene that I remember the very, this is what I'm saying with you know what it is. I remember the very specific things that I was watching in that scene, not knowing what the fuck they were to go, I don't know what it is, but it's fascinating in some way. It's like this, like something I, you know, and then all of a sudden you're a six year old kid. Trauma, right, Affects the rest of the path of your life with this sexual bullshit, right, that you saw too soon because you don't even need to be thinking about it until your body matures into that which was the original purpose for sex in the first place is to reproduce. And like, you know, yeah, it feels good, whatever. We figure that out. That's an intimacy thing. But not as 6 year old. You're supposed to be playing, you know, you're supposed to be looking at bugs and coloring, you know. So in one of my plant medicine experiences, I was able to go back to this very closely and like almost float around it like a spirit and go, holy shit. I'm looking at my face, I'm going around looking at my reaction to it and crying for myself to go, what? Like, you know, just want to pull him out of there and fucking stop it, right? So. But it went on for a couple of different days we were in there and that became a porn addiction for later, okay? And I'm not embarrassed to say, really, because I know how many fucking people in America are addicted to porn. If you watch it every day or even every week, you got some sort of some level of addiction. You know, there's a spectrum for different addictions. And now when I think about it, I go, fuck. One of the worst things we could have ever done as a society. And it just gradually happened, just like everything else does, just like AI, just all the things the Internet, we create, it can't figure out or agree to how to use it. The Right way or how to kind of regulate it so it's healthy, right? And then it just explodes into this infinite realm of deviant, dark shit. We all know what's in there and we can be embarrassed to say like, oh, I can say what's in there? And you go like, wow, are you watching? You know, right? Because if you look at any of those fucking videos and like any of them, there's millions of views, you know, more than the Sean Ryan show, you know, so I know it's a collective and it's global at this point. You can just go in there and click, yeah, I'm 18. Some 10 year old can do that. How soon do they get these things now? They have them when they're children. I know everybody's not going in there and being responsible to block that stuff. Promise you they're looking at it and creating these little traumas that they don't even realize. And now we have exploded into this generation, these generations of sexually addicted people. And dude, some of the most brave people I've ever seen doing some shit are like ex porn stars. There's this one guy, I don't remember his name, but he's now an advocate against it and how toxic and terrible it is.
- [51:01]
Sean Ryan
No kidding.
- [51:02]
Chris Fetus
I don't know about him, he's a big Christian. I can't remember his name right now, but he was a very famous porn star. And now imagine that's all recorded. It's all in there. You can always go back to that. So talk about, you know, you do clear some shit, you do heal, you do find a way to move forward and. But it's recorded. It's still, it's. It talk about like your past coming back to haunt you. It's. It's every day for that guy. But he still is telling the truth. And God, that must be. It would be so interesting to talk to him.
- [51:33]
Sean Ryan
I'll find him.
- [51:34]
Chris Fetus
He's in. He goes, yeah, he's a, he's a. He's a big Christian. His family looks amazing and healthy. He's made a decision, you know, but my point back to that is that was one of my traumas. And I always knew it was there and what it was. I just always avoided that it was connected to anything that I was doing. Habits wise or addictions wise or, you know, and then we go into a culture like the teams and you know, we almost. We don't encourage addictions, but it's like, hey man, it's okay. Like we're all. It's a safe Environment sometimes, you know.
- [52:10]
Sean Ryan
I would say we encourage addictions.
- [52:12]
Chris Fetus
Yeah.
- [52:13]
Sean Ryan
I think that comes. Look, maybe things have changed. I remember being shamed for not drinking because I don't want to drink. I remember being told, if you don't drink, we're not going to trust you. I remember being handed sleeping pills and Adderall and opiates and all the shit, you know what I mean? I think that addiction is very much encouraged within the teams. It's just under the radar.
- [52:37]
Chris Fetus
Yeah. It's a secret code thing and, you.
- [52:41]
Sean Ryan
Know, they'll blast you for those addictions and they'll punish you for those addictions.
- [52:46]
Chris Fetus
Yeah. Then you get a DUI and you're like.
- [52:47]
Sean Ryan
And then they'll go do the exact same thing.
- [52:50]
Chris Fetus
Yeah. So it's a toxic loop. Part of the thing you asked me earlier is what's the solution? I'm like, how do you change culture? You know, shaming and guilting is not going to change it. So if you have a commander, somebody that's like, you know, zero tolerance shit doesn't work. You know, it's just some level of acceptability for the guys that do want to fit in, desperately want to fit in, they have to. That don't want to participate, you know.
- [53:22]
Sean Ryan
Have you thought about how the culture changes a lot?
- [53:27]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, it definitely changes with the ebbs and flow of like operation, tempo and combat, I think feels like it's getting. It gets more toxic when you're not busy, you know, because in between all that shit, you've got camaraderie. You guys are out having to trust each other every night, you know. So I talked about this the other day with my kids baseball team. We just merged two travel baseball teams from two teams. And we had this like separation of parents and kids going like, we're better, they're better, we should play this. And finally I was like, God damn it. We're all on the same team and we're all trying our best, you know, and it's that, you know, concept of acceptability, you know, and just stopping with the bullshit so much. Like we're supposed to be focusing on a mission and we have, get this, we do all this bullshit stuff like, you know, the fitting in part and the reputation bar is really, really, really hard and hard thing to change. But I think that it's happening naturally because you can't deny how good it works to optimize guys. And they're starting to do it. You know, there's like this program called Virginia Human Performance where they actually can now go do this once a year. And it's a whole collection of modalities and providers and things to sort of set you back on the path of health and optimization, which doesn't include alcohol and cheating on your wife and fucking porn and whatever the fuck else you do. You get off all that shit for four weeks. You go back, you're optimized, man, that's awesome. And then you integrate that and like, that's a good one.
- [55:13]
Sean Ryan
That's within the. That's within the teams.
- [55:15]
Chris Fetus
Yeah.
- [55:15]
Sean Ryan
Oh, that's great to hear.
- [55:16]
Chris Fetus
So.
- [55:17]
Sean Ryan
So they are making steps.
- [55:19]
Chris Fetus
Yeah. But I can imagine how hard it was for them to accept that guys are gonna go spend four weeks to do this. And then teammates not judge them and go, well, he's gonna go, you know, like, he's gonna go ride horses in Montana for fucking five days instead of go to Shaw's for the 25th time. Like, he doesn't know the drills. He can just go to the kill house all day and get, you know, for a week and do those. So I think it's starting to happen. Or the acceptability part of it is happening. So you're like, you're not shaming the guys that are drinking or doing those things, but they're being more okay with you not participating to go, hey, we just jumped all day. It's stressful as fuck. You want to release all that stress, but you go out drinking all night, you're going to feel like shit the next morning. And then just compounds over the trip. And then you're like, oh, when I get home, I'll fucking fix. You know, I'll catch up when I get home. But you never do because you get home, gotta be in the killhouse all day. You're breaching, never catches up until you're done with your career and your testosterone is zero. And you're just. Addictions have destroyed your body, you know, so I'm happy to see that that's starting to happen, man.
- [56:29]
Sean Ryan
That's great to hear. When did that get implemented?
- [56:32]
Chris Fetus
I think it's been pretty recent. Like the last few years. I just got into it. It's been eight years. I've always been meaning to go and I've just been on my path of self discovery.
- [56:45]
Sean Ryan
Nice.
- [56:46]
Chris Fetus
So I finally got in. I'm doing it right now, actually.
- [56:48]
Sean Ryan
Oh, really?
- [56:49]
Chris Fetus
Yeah.
- [56:50]
Sean Ryan
Good for you.
- [56:50]
Chris Fetus
My second week. I had to, you know, get my food and my workouts for this couple of days while I'm here and.
- [56:57]
Sean Ryan
Right on, man.
- [56:58]
Chris Fetus
It's awesome.
- [56:59]
Sean Ryan
Right on. Yeah. I feel like, it's. It has to be attraction rather than promotion.
- [57:07]
Chris Fetus
Yeah.
- [57:07]
Sean Ryan
Can't be shoving it down people's throat. You just have to get solid, solid, solid guys that the rest look up to to just. Just be the example without promoting it. Just. Just be. People start following suit.
- [57:26]
Chris Fetus
Absolutely. But they see people, they look up to being optimized. Like, fuck, I gotta do that too.
- [57:32]
Sean Ryan
Yeah. Back to your childhood.
- [57:36]
Chris Fetus
Yeah. So my father was in the Air Force, and we started moving around every two to four years. That was awesome. Lots of cool, different experiences. But then I developed this problem with validation. One, because my stepfather, doing the best he could, but it's not the same as. It's not quite the same. He's doing the best he could, you know, but he's also a very stoic guy. Right. So maybe part of the traumas I resented, like, boys. Boys especially. I got two boys, I don't know, have experience with daughters, so I can't speak to it much. But aside from nurturing for mom, they need validation from dad every day, right? So there's a bucket to fill every day. And it doesn't mean, like, oh, I gotta be at the baseball games, every single one of them in the bucket. That's not what does it. It's not time around where, you know, because if I could be at those things and I could just be doing this, and he does something and he looks over to see if I saw it, and I miss it. The bucket goes down. Your dad's not really there. But now what's happening is that I'm paying attention, right? And maybe between stuff, I do some work shit or whatever and make my ice cream posts, but they do something and just for that split second, they look over and you're like. It's just a signal, you know, I saw. You know, and their bucket fills all the way up for that day. It just took that split second. So if I'm consistent with that, I can feel it in them that they're okay week to week, you know? And when I start to be unbalanced because of my own addictions, because my habits or whatever comes back during stress, then that's the sign, you know, time to balance myself back. Because I just fucking missed this week. And he's acting up now. He's talking back. He's not listening to mom, you know, And I can just. You just can see how it works. So the decision to get out of the Navy was right for me, and it was because of them, which I can get to that after the childhood. But Fuck. I'm so grateful to myself. Just five, six, you know, eight years ago to one make the decision to get out. But then working towards understanding that for the next few years, you know, I'm so thankful that I decided to do that.
- [60:10]
Sean Ryan
How was this is interesting because I moved around a lot as a kid too. Every two to three years, I can't even count how many different places I lived in. Yeah, but you consider that trauma.
- [60:23]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, because I never thought about the.
- [60:26]
Sean Ryan
Constant validation because you have to re establish yourself every time you show up.
- [60:30]
Chris Fetus
That's right. So I show up and I got so tired of, I'm the new kid. You go into the classroom, I remember all those memories of, you know, you know, the new kid, spitballs come flying your way, you know, or the teacher goes, welcome, Chris, fetus, whatever. And they're like, ha, ha ha, make fun of your name, whatever. All the little things kids do, they don't. You know what I mean? It's not bullying. It's just kids, you know, but when you do that over and over again, and then you do whatever you got to do to fit in, you, mom, can you buy me these clothes? Can I do my hair this way? You know what I mean? Can I do this, can I do that? You make some friends and then, boom, you got to go, you cry, you leave your friends, you work so hard to fit in with, get to the next school, new kid again, same thing. So now I think back, like, dude, how many times did I change and conform myself to go fit into? And it was so different every time. It was Japan to South Carolina, to South Carolina. And then when you show up, they're gonna make fun of what you look like because of where you just came from. They're not used to seeing it. They're not unaccustomed. And then you gotta change that to be more normal. Right? So, you know, in South Carolina, I got made fun of a lot for the Asian shit. Like, you know, just remember memories of kids like, eh, you know, hoy, hoi, hoi. And it's so funny now. I wish I could go back to some of those people and go, where are you at now? What are you doing, man? You know, and that's fucking crazy, man.
- [62:01]
Sean Ryan
I got the exact same shit. They called me a chink all the time. I'm like, I'm fucking Japanese.
- [62:05]
Chris Fetus
Fuck off. Yeah, yeah. These words like, thanks, thank you for that. Yeah. You know, and doing that, then it was, you know, North Carolina, and then it was, we got to California, and then by the Time we got to California, Monterey, beautiful place. I loved it there because my grandparents were there. You know, my grand. My father found a way to get stationed there as a recruiter and just kept extending it because my mom just, just we were happy there. You know, he didn't want to do that but sacrifice. So he was teaching me a lesson about sacrifice without even teaching me anything. He just did it, you know. Like I knew he loved being an F16 mechanic, but he was doing this recruiting job so we could stay there and visit. I was always at my grandparents house in Pebble Beach. The best memories. But then I was also in this school with different crowds of people and gangs and different stuff going on and same thing trying to fit in with somebody. You know, now you're a teenager and it gets even harsher, right? Trying to fit in. And so, you know, I made some friends, got one of those friends I still keep in touch with. Filipino guy, good friend of mine. We don't talk too often but he's off living his life. But I think about him a lot and yeah, then I sort of started to attach where I'm from to there. So when people say where you're from, I don't have time to explain all that other stuff. I go, I went to high school there, I graduated there. You know, I'm from Monterey, California and it was my favorite memory, my favorite place, right? So you know, my dad used to have tickets for recruits to go watch Giants games in San Francisco and they never took them up on it. So we were always going to watch games. So that's how I became a Giants fan. Those games were awesome. I love going and eating popcorn and ice cream, watching baseball games. But I realized later, after my whole career was over, that the original reason 911 happened. So my parents moved one more time after that. It was their last station before they retired and they ended up in back to North Carolina. So I stayed when they moved, I tried to live off on my own. I was bouncing around people's houses, you know, trying to knock out some community college classes, but really I was just fucking around. I was going to parties, I was going to raves. I was like trying to fit in, you know, had a girlfriend that was really bad cheating on me all the time. So I was learning that lesson too. Like that's normal in a relationship and just a pretty toxic lifestyle with no purpose. And so, you know, my grandparents sensed that in me and my grandmother really cried for me one day and was like, you're not good here, you know, and I was getting sick all the time and she was taking care of me. So she said, you should go back home for a couple years. And I was like, okay. So went back to North Carolina for a couple years, felt better because I was living at home again, you know. And then 911 happened when I was about 19.
- [65:35]
Sean Ryan
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- [67:59]
Chris Fetus
So I was randomly working, like at a bank as a teller and bouncing around different jobs, watching this thing on TV while I was working. People coming in, just distraught, going like, what the hell is happening? That's where I was at. And I remember thinking, I don't know what, why I feel this, but I want to go join the military. Because now I know there was no way for me to have any more validation. I wasn't in school anymore. I was like just doing random things and I was like, man, when we were teenagers, I remember this group of friends, we were always talking about Navy seals. I didn't know what it was. Never saw Navy seals the movie, never read a book. I just went, I remember we talked about that one time. So I'm gonna go to the office. So I ended up moving back to California first just to go explore, you know, just to move out again, you know, same thing. I was living with some friends and I started training, just running and doing push ups and all the things. Then I started to read like, what did it, what, what I need to do to get in that book. Warrior Elite came out and that's the one thing I read. And so I just went for it. I went to the office, hey, I want to be a seal. They laughed at me. They're like, you need to pick a job too. You know, it's like cool, whatever that one, you know, they're like, you sure that's what you're going to be doing? You know? And dude, every selection so far has been that you sure, like, you're not gonna make it, you know, you wanna start a business, it's gonna be hard. You're not gonna, I don't think you know what you're getting into, you know, and it just happens over and over again. I actually enjoy it now. So, hey, I'm gonna have an actual ice cream brand in store someday. You know, I love those reactions. So I get this sealed contract, I go to Bud's, get through now I'm in the SEAL teams. And then realized later, after my career, holy shit, I didn't go to serve my country. It developed into that for sure now. For sure. You know, I serve my country, I serve the guys next to me. Service of others is part of my purpose. But I realized that the truth was I did that for validation. I wanted to go be part of something that I knew was like the most, the highest level of validation. If you can get through. And it was like this. There was always this concept, like this conceptual dream to go. If I make it, I made it. You know, now I'm in this world of validation. I'm accepted for good. You know, I don't have to keep doing it over and over again. Well, that's not true. You do have to keep seeking. Yeah, but it worked. You know, I found my place in the SEAL teams. You know, I kind of figured out, you know, what I was good at. I. I'm grateful that. And I don't mean this in any kind of arrogance or ego way, but I was never the best guy. But I was able to make it through every hard course, every selection, SEAL Team six selection, all that stuff on the first try.
- [71:23]
Sean Ryan
Damn.
- [71:23]
Chris Fetus
So I'm proud of that. And now I know why I originally did it. But now I can also, you know, appreciate all of my experiences and even the bad ones. I'm not coping with them anymore and, like, trying to forget them. I actually can remember more about them now after having found a way to just clear all that bullshit, you know.
- [71:49]
Sean Ryan
Off before we go into your career as an operator, I want to rewind. And he had said something. You'd said something about when you found out that your stepdad wasn't your real dad. How did you. What was that conversation like?
- [72:09]
Chris Fetus
I think it was. I don't really remember what age, but I just. I think it was like six or seven. Just having that conversation with my mom and her sort of breaking it to us like, this is not your real father. Right. And this is not, you know, my younger sister was born then. She's your half sister. And having to explain that truth must have been really hard for her. But, you know, if you ever talk to your kids when they're younger, too, they kind of, like, it's hard to go too in depth because they just kind of listen and go, yeah, yeah, you know, it's hard to go. How do you really feel about it, though? You know, Like, I don't know, you know, can I go play? And it was kind of like that. I think. So. It develops over time into more of an understanding of what was going on, you know, and knowing now that my mom just tried her was just trying her best. She was just doing her best. So any resentments I had afterwards, like, oh, you know, I got accepted into some colleges. I couldn't go. We didn't have the money. You know, the validation thing. Oh, my dad wasn't my real dad, but I didn't get enough like validation from a father that I needed. All those resentments went away once I realized myself again and that they were just doing the best they could and they were good parents.
- [73:37]
Sean Ryan
You know, it's a dilemma that I have not explored on the show before. And so I'm very curious and I think there's a lot of good pieces of advice that could come out of this for kids and stepdads, you know. And so I mean, it sounds like you regret, you know, all the times that you kind of threw that in your dad's face. Absolutely not being your biological dad. I mean, what do you have to say to kids? Cause I mean, divorce is higher than ever now.
- [74:14]
Chris Fetus
Divorce is.
- [74:15]
Sean Ryan
Especially in our own community.
- [74:17]
Chris Fetus
Yeah. It's so common, so traumatic, so hard.
- [74:23]
Sean Ryan
What do you have to say to kids that are, that are in that situation, that use that.
- [74:30]
Chris Fetus
I think that the best thing I can say is just it's hard, but if you even sense that your parents are doing the right thing. So like, you want to go do this thing, you want to go to this party and your dad's like, no, there's danger there. And he tries to stop you and you get mad. You know, if you. I want, I wish that they could just kind of sit down and go, are my parents good people? If they're good people, that's all it takes. Now it's like you're going to go through hardships, you're going to fight, you're going to battle, but at least know that they're just doing their best with what they have. Right? Because there's always even healthy families, you know. Oh, you know, my sister was always the favorite of the family. She could do no wrong, you know, and just realizing that like that might not be true, it's just you have a defense mechanism and it might be true. You know, there's some parents that seem healthy and some families that seem healthy and even some in my own family that I've recognized my in laws family and my family, that you could still, you could be seemingly a good father and go, hey, if I am making my two sons or either one of them and not the other especially compete or like they have to prove something, they have to earn my love. That's not, that's gonna turn into something. Right? Especially if you're not telling them that they have it or they, you know, I'm trying my best to tell mine. What I've realized is like, you know, we're struggling with baseball things, you know, hey, be aggressive, you know, and then I Have my other son who's overly aggressive. And I'm like, relax a little. And it's awesome. They're so good, both of them. But I gotta tell them in between. Cause I get amped up. I'm like, God, don't. You know, it's like, I can't tell him, like, don't be a pussy. But I'm like, here's how you're aggressive. You can use dark thoughts sometimes. You can pretend, you know, And I'm like, I just. We've gotten to that, where I'm like, how do I get him to be aggressive? Like, pretend like he's got a French bulldog that sleeps on him. Pretend somebody's going to, like, take him. And the only way to save him is for you to, like, throw the pitch as hard as you can. Just go for it and not care. And now he is. He's like throwing faster. Now. Let that go. Because those are dark thoughts. But that's what you're supposed to use that part of your ego for. For good. Like to help, to protect, you know, but being careful to go as often as possible. No matter what we do. My love for you is infinite. And it's already there. Like, you already get that just from being born. You're born into it, you know, it's like nepotism for love, not money. You're born into. Not yet, but the love is just. It's just there. I love you. It's infinite. You don't have to ever earn that shit, you know, you're everything I need you to be. Whether you become a janitor or a major league baseball player, it's there. I feel like that's working a little bit.
- [77:54]
Sean Ryan
Good.
- [77:55]
Chris Fetus
No, good. So that's. That would be. My advice to those kids, is like, you know, and if you're not. If you don't feel that that's true from your parents, maybe don't be afraid to ask them, hey, dad, do you love me already? You know? Or do I gotta do this shit? Do I gotta become a lawyer and a doctor like my brother? Or, like, do I gotta become an athlete, a tennis player, whatever, to get that love, you know, so.
- [78:25]
Sean Ryan
Makes a lot of sense. What about. And I know, you know, the roles are kind of reversed, but, you know, how would your. How would your dad react when you would. When you would say those things?
- [78:39]
Chris Fetus
My dad, when I apologize and I went through this, you know, this was after my first ibogaine experience that just worked for me to open up my heart to go, look at all this Stuff. Right. Meditation now works for me. There's other ways therapy works for people, you know, different things. But when I went and had that conversation with him, it was the first time he ever cried really hard. First time he ever cried that I remember, you know, and it was over the phone, so I could even. I couldn't even tell he was crying, but I could hear in his voice, like he said, you know, I appreciate that, son. And it was in his voice. So I know. I know it was the right thing to do to. To make him understand that.
- [79:31]
Sean Ryan
How would he react when he would say that?
- [79:33]
Chris Fetus
I mean, how would he react, kid?
- [79:35]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [79:36]
Chris Fetus
Oh.
- [79:39]
Sean Ryan
How could he have reacted?
- [79:40]
Chris Fetus
I think if I asked him as a kid, he would have answered me and said, I think he would have said yes. He would have said, I'm talking about my stepfather. Father.
- [79:48]
Sean Ryan
That's what I'm talking about too.
- [79:50]
Chris Fetus
My.
- [79:52]
Sean Ryan
What I'm asking is how would your stepdad react when you would throw it in his face that it wasn't. That he wasn't.
- [79:58]
Chris Fetus
Oh, when I threw it in his face, I think that it was super anger. It was very. Those were bad fights, you know, like trying his best not to get physical with me and, you know, really anger, you know, and understandably, because he was trying his best, and here I am entitled to it, going, like, if he wasn't there, who knows what the fuck would have happened to me, you know, where I'd be.
- [80:24]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [80:26]
Chris Fetus
They say addictive personalities, but I don't think there's addictive personalities. I think it's based on your environment and what you. The amount or, like, the level of bullshit you have to cope with so that it becomes your default. It becomes your default in the future for when you have problems or stress. You go to an addiction.
- [80:48]
Sean Ryan
Of course. Let's take a break, and then when we come back, we'll. We'll get into your military career. I know everybody out there has to be just as frustrated as I am when it comes to the BS and the rhetoric that the mainstream media continuously tries to force feed us. And I also know how frustrating it can be to try to find some type of a reliable news source. It's getting really hard to find the truth and what's going on in the country and in the world. And so one thing we've done here at Shawn Ryan show is we are developing our newsletter. And the first contributor to the newsletter that we have is a woman, former CIA targeter. Some of you may know her as Sarah Adams, call sign Superbad. She's made two different appearances here on the Sean Ryan show. And some of the stuff that she has uncovered and broke on this show is just absolutely mind blowing. And so I've asked her if she would contribute to the newsletter and give us a weekly intelligence brief. So it's gonna be all things terrorists. How terrorists are coming up through the southern border, how they're entering the country, how they're traveling, what these different terrorist organizations throughout the world are up to. And here's the best part. The newsletter is actually free. We're not gonna spam you. It's about one newsletter a week, maybe two if we release two shows. The only other thing that's gonna be in there besides the intel brief is if we have a new product or something like that. But like I said, it's a free CIA intelligence brief. Sign up link's in the description or in the comments. We'll see you in the newsletter. All right, Chris, we're back from the break. We're getting into your military career. 911 just happened. And you went to the recruiter. Going to Bud's.
- [82:50]
Chris Fetus
Yep, I went to the recruiter. You know, those guys. I don't know if they ever take anybody seriously, but for sure was rough going through there, you know, hey. Trying to convince me otherwise, but. So I took a. You know, back then, it was like, you. If you make it through buds, you get $2,000. So, you know, and I was broke. So I was like, yes. You know, that's another. That was another motivation for it. I want that $2,000. Then I would have had $4,000 in my bank account, because I did. Because after I finished, there was a guy who got orders to the east coast that really wanted to be with his brother on the west coast. And he traded me. And I was like, is it worth $2,000? And he was like, yeah. And, yeah, we swapped orders. Nice. Yeah. So, yeah, I went to boot camp in Virginia beach, so the other side of, you know, the base from Dev Group, and did some training. We were waking up early in the mornings doing some of that training, you know, with the guys that were gonna go to the program. Then I get over to Bud's, I check in, and it's just game time from there. So my mental state really was just. I knew I wasn't gonna quit anything because I needed that. I needed that acceptance and that validation so bad that I would. I would, you know, die for it. Right. So that's strong. Who.
- [84:23]
Sean Ryan
Who were you? This is. It's just strange because we have a Lot of similarities. And that's the only reason I made it through, was validation for my dad and from my dad. But who, who were you seeking validation from?
- [84:45]
Chris Fetus
From my imagination of just anything. Somebody important.
- [84:50]
Sean Ryan
Your ego?
- [84:51]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, absolutely.
- [84:52]
Sean Ryan
It's 100% ego.
- [84:53]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, absolutely.
- [84:54]
Sean Ryan
Okay.
- [84:55]
Chris Fetus
Yeah. And, you know, maybe some of my authentic self that I just didn't understand yet then too. Cause I was lacking that, right? I didn't understand that at the time. I just knew for some reason. I know I'm not gonna quit. I don't know how I know. I just know I didn't read into what was coming up each day. I didn't know I wanted to. I prefer just minimizing the anxiety about some hard thing I have to do, even now, today, you know, and just do as much preparation as I can for it. Right. But not anticipate it so much. Like, man, that 50 meter underwater swim's coming up in five weeks now. I got five weeks of stress and anxiety to think about, right? I know it's sometime coming, so I'm just gonna. Just gonna practice it when we're supposed to be, right? So that's kind of how I operated in buds. And it did me pretty, pretty well. You know, like all those hard things, they're scary. You know, standing with your back to the pool, hearing guys going, getting yelled at to get in, get in, do that underwater flip and just start cruising across, hoping you get, you know, you get to the back to the side.
- [86:10]
Sean Ryan
The 50 meter.
- [86:11]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, that was one of the scarier ones, right?
- [86:13]
Sean Ryan
Did you know any of the evolutions that I mean, before you went in?
- [86:17]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, because as we started to go through our indocs and, you know, preparing for first phase, guys are talking.
- [86:23]
Sean Ryan
So what were you worried about? You read the Warrior Elite too?
- [86:29]
Chris Fetus
Yeah. Yeah. So some of that was in there.
- [86:31]
Sean Ryan
Book.
- [86:32]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, I read that, but I wasn't going back to it each day.
- [86:35]
Sean Ryan
Gotcha.
- [86:35]
Chris Fetus
I had. I just didn't have anything. So. Yeah, I just remember going through it. I had to stay in the barracks for the first three, two or three weeks before first phase actually started. And they move you into the main side to where the Bud students live. And it was all surrounded by the guys who quit. So they're all going out every night. They're all talking about it, you know, like. And they're playing that whole game of like, hey, welcome to the barracks, new guy. And you're like, these guys all quit. You know, what are they making me scared and nervous about the shit they quit. They quit for. So that actually fueled me a little bit. It's like that's how I knew I was coming, you know. And I was like, well, I'm just not going to quit. So. Yeah, then we got moved over, got into my class. Yeah, honestly, I remember it, it was a good memory up until third phase. In third phase I struggled because I had this little fuck up and it almost caused me to fail out. What was it, you know when you're doing the push ups or the pull ups to go into the chow hall to eat, you gotta do 50 push ups. You gotta do a bunch of pull ups weight in those rubber magazines. Well, one of the days I was the last dude and to be honest with you, I knew. So I didn't have any magazines in the pouches. So I was light, nice. So I go, man, do I go stop somebody? And I don't want to. Honestly, I didn't want to go feel an accident. Yeah, I didn't want to go feel the embarrassment and get yelled at for breaking away. To go, hey guys. Because I was the last day everybody ran inside. Now it's just three instructors waiting for me to do my damn strict pull ups. And I didn't want in that moment to go, hey guys, I didn't let me, I need some magazines. And then them whole all break out.
- [88:35]
Sean Ryan
To what the fuck?
- [88:36]
Chris Fetus
And just send me to the ocean and all the shit you're going to have to do for anything. So I just went, fuck, I'm just going to get up there and do them and hope they don't, you know. And so I went up and instructor, I don't know exactly who he was, is like fetus, stop. And I'm like, stop hanging. Fuck. How many magazines you got in your pouch? And then in that moment, I made the wrong decision. Instead of saying, I have none. I was like, I got six, you know. And he was like, get off the bars. And I'm like, fuck, show me. I show him. They're not there. And he's like, you motherfucker, you're fucked. You know. And it turned into a nightmare for a couple weeks while I was the dude, oh man, you know, carrying the giant trident and the huge helmet thing, you know, and sleeping on the beach, you know, and you're already smoked. And so I started to fuck up other things cause I was smoked, you know, There was another guy that was with me, but he ended up getting, you know, dropped. He just. Cause he just, he wasn't gonna quit, but he just could not perform close to good enough. So they eventually like, hey, we just gotta let him go. Stop fucking with him. So I had all that fear, like, fuck, I'm gonna be. I'm there now, you know? So every day, the extra shit I had to do, I was like, I just remember how low energy. Like, dude, I had nothing, you know, on some of those days. And so we had big things to do on some of those days that I had that going on. Like, this monster mash kind of thing around the island. Remember where you, like, do the oak horse around the island? Go to a shooting range, shoot. I was like, so smoked, I didn't remember the brief. I was probably doing this during the brief. And they were like, hey, when you get to the range, pick a number. That's the lane you shoot in. So when I got there, I was like, fuck, I don't know which lane I'm supposed to shoot in. So I go, okay, God, please let me pick the right one. I just lay down, start shooting. Ends up being somebody else's lane. So he had double shots on his target. So we get through the whole thing. I finish it, I get a decent time for how smoked I was. And then we go back through the brief, and they're going through the shots, and now we're sitting in class, and they're like, hey, something weird happened. And I'm like, God, I know it's me, you know?
- [90:54]
Sean Ryan
Oh, man.
- [90:55]
Chris Fetus
And they're like, mechling, why did you shoot six shots on your thing instead of three? And it was like, what? You know, I didn't, you know? And I'm like, that was me, you know, I. And they're like, fittest, you know, what the fuck? You can't get it together, dude. You know? And I'm like, dude, I'm just not gonna make it, you know? So I just. I tried my best to keep plugging away. I think what happened was they finally let me out of that, or, you know, to rest up with the other guys a little bit and kind of give me the talk. Like, hey, you need to show us something this next week, because, you know, we're keeping you because we talk to everybody. And there was only, like, 13 guys from my original hell week finishing. They were in that class still. And we had, like, 45 dudes. They all rolled into our class.
- [91:50]
Sean Ryan
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- [94:11]
Chris Fetus
So it kind of took over our class and there were some really good dudes, like really high performing dudes, right? So I used to get first on the O course all the time and I went to third, you know, and things like that. But they talked to, I think the, specifically the 13 guys said, hey, what do you guys think about this guy? And they were all my bros and we all went through hell week together, you know, and they looked out for me.
- [94:41]
Sean Ryan
Nice.
- [94:42]
Chris Fetus
So they came through and they're like, you got to keep this guy. So they kept me and then I finished. Damn, it was hard. It was a rough time.
- [94:50]
Sean Ryan
How did it feel when you graduated.
- [94:52]
Chris Fetus
I felt pretty guilty. I didn't know if I belonged there. I felt a little bit of imposter syndrome. But one of the instructors, who I honestly didn't think liked me very much anyways was like, hey, I just want to say this. Everybody that finished this shit deserves to be here. And so that kind of cleared it for me, you know, because I had some guys for sure in that class that were like, hey, this fucking guy doesn't deserve to be here. You know, that rolled in or whatever. But all 13 of those guys that I originally started with didn't think that. So that's all I needed, you know.
- [95:22]
Sean Ryan
That's cool, man.
- [95:24]
Chris Fetus
We started calling ourselves the Pure Bloods after that.
- [95:28]
Sean Ryan
Nice.
- [95:29]
Chris Fetus
So we still have that. The guy I ended up working my contracting job for was one of those 13 guys that started his business after his enlistments as a SEAL and we were at Team 10 together. So I ended up working for him as a contractor.
- [95:44]
Sean Ryan
Nice.
- [95:44]
Chris Fetus
He's still running that. Very successful.
- [95:46]
Sean Ryan
Where did you head to after that? What team?
- [95:50]
Chris Fetus
I went to Team 10 after switching orders and getting my couple of grand. And I don't know why I wanted to be on the East Coast. I just did. You know, I had. I was just over bouncing around California, you know, I had some inkling that Deb Groot was a thing. I didn't know much about it, but selection was in my mind. And I was like, if this selection is going to be anything harder than Bud's, I want to make it as like, I just struggled through this fucking third phase. I want to make it as comfortable as possible and not have to be like, living in a barracks and stuff, you know? And so I was like, maybe I'll get a house I can afford soon, you know.
- [96:35]
Sean Ryan
You were thinking that right out of Bud's.
- [96:37]
Chris Fetus
Yeah. I knew I wanted a family.
- [96:40]
Sean Ryan
Wow. You know, so you were thinking about a family going into the SEAL teams.
- [96:44]
Chris Fetus
Yeah. And I didn't know when or I just wasn't like a very specific name. It was just like, I know I want to have a family for sure. You know, and so it just seemed like the east coast environment was better suited for that. So I was just thinking, in the future.
- [96:59]
Sean Ryan
Gotcha.
- [97:02]
Chris Fetus
And that worked out. It was the right decision for sure. So, you know, with all the stuff that happened in between, it still worked out. You know, we're really happy. We've got everything we need to be happy. I've got my business there now.
- [97:19]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [97:20]
Chris Fetus
You know, so it's. It was the right decision. And Then it actually. It did make selection for Dev Group. Great. You know, it was a couple minutes. Well, 30 minutes. I had a commute across town, but I was there and I saw how hard it was for those guys from the west coast to, you know, be living in barracks just, you know, for that time. It's so hard going through that.
- [97:43]
Sean Ryan
Wow, you were really looking ahead. I wasn't looking that far in.
- [97:47]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, but I still am, but.
- [97:52]
Sean Ryan
So you go to Team 10. What year is this roughly?
- [97:56]
Chris Fetus
I got to Team 10 in 2000, the end of 2005. And then we started that. I had a whole full workup. There was a lot of challenges there.
- [98:05]
Sean Ryan
So you showed up pretty much right after Red Wings.
- [98:08]
Chris Fetus
Correct. Those guys were on their way back from that. When I was at the team doing new guy stuff, waiting and. Yeah, and my first platoon and my first deployment was one of the most intense and profound deployments I ever had with a really great, you know, two platoons of guys and what I believe to be the best SEAL leader and operator that I ever was anywhere around. Some of the things that he was and did specifically for me, too. He might have saved my career. I got in trouble right off the bat, doing too much, trying to get validation by acting up, you know, and he must have seen something. The way he described it to me was like, hey, I'm gonna. I'm pulling you out of this jail cell, right? And you owe the man. But there's something. You got that. That's what I want you to do and not this shit.
- [99:12]
Sean Ryan
What did you do?
- [99:17]
Chris Fetus
One of the first trips we went on was diving in. Well, first we had a jump trip in Destin, Florida, and I got arrested right off the bat from. In a bar fight for just nothing except for guys looking at us from across the bar. You know, that night, that football player from the Cowboys, Jason Witten, it was his birthday and he was celebrating with people, same night. And so we were drinking with them and having fun. And then it ended up in this bar fight thing where one of my buddies looked out for me. I was gonna get sucker punched. He ended up going to jail. So now. And he was a new guy. All the new guys are now in trouble right on the first trip because of me. So platoon chief, he's the guy I'm talking about. Best SEAL I've ever, ever known. I was like, you guys are now in the spotlight, so you better do the training. And not even a single guys do anything else, you're fucked. Right? So we were okay, and I did the wrong thing. They asked me like, hey, how'd this happen? I didn't take the blame for it. I didn't say, hey. It all started because of my fault. It was like, oh, hey, we got into a bar fight and then, you know, my buddy came across and knocked this guy out that was gonna sucker punch me. So it just. It wasn't. It was not the right level of accountability. It wasn't enough accountability. It wasn't the right accountability for that right off the bat. So I had problems already. So we go to the next place, Key West. We're diving. I'm out at the bar with another new guy. That guy ended up quitting after this because of the hazing and the shit we had to deal with. Just got so bad. He quit. He quit? Yeah, he turned in the bird. Holy shit.
- [101:05]
Sean Ryan
I don't think I've ever even heard of that.
- [101:07]
Chris Fetus
And then I went through captain's mass by myself, you know, first thing you know, as a new guy. And so we're there in a bar fight. I'm hanging out with him. We get in a fight about some girls and we decide to run and try to get to the water and swim around to the barracks. And dude, cops were chasing us around Key west for like over an hour, jumping fences and, you know, trying to block us on streets. And it was like a full blown chase and locking down of Key West, Florida. So one cop, like one of those fences that sticks up with the. With the sharp wire, like, jabbed it into his leg trying to catch me flying over a fence. Eventually we got rolled up and I'm in jail, so it was. It was terrible. So I'm sitting there like, oh, my God, I'm done. This is done. I did. I just did too much. I didn't, you know, I was just like, acting out too much. Glad I changed that. Especially for selection for Team 6, which was a lot smoother. So I wish that would change. To meditate, optimize your performance. Breathe. You know what I mean? Optimize. You know, be the best operator you can possibly be. Right? Yep. So platoon chief comes in, he's like, hey, that's what I was talking about. Hey, I'm gonna. I'm gonna get you out of here. We know these guys, but you're. You're gonna have a hard workup. We got a long workup still. We still got.
- [102:57]
Sean Ryan
Is this in jail?
- [102:58]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, he's talking to me in jail.
- [103:00]
Sean Ryan
While you're in the cell?
- [103:01]
Chris Fetus
Yeah.
- [103:02]
Sean Ryan
Incredible.
- [103:03]
Chris Fetus
He comes into my cell and he has this Talk with me. Come to Jesus. And he's like, anybody else would be losing their bird right now, right? This is not. This is unheard of to get in trouble like this, this fast. He's like, but we know the police chief and they've had this. And he's like, this is the worst one they've had for a while. And some grown ass men for the next foreseen future and other teams too are not gonna be able to go out after work. And they're like, they're not gonna be happy with you. Cause they're gonna know why. You're the guy who caused that. So for what I understand, like a year, guys couldn't go out in Key west after work. So needless to say, my platoon hated me. Yeah, so. So it was the opposite effect. What that happened for me though was that I kicked in. I had to go to fucking Captain's Mass. It was terrible. It was embarrassing. The other guy quit, turned in his bird, and I'm like, all right, new guy, they better show us something this next 13 months. So we go to land warfare. We start going on trips. I'm getting rolled up in the middle of the night, taped up, you know, and having to figure my way out of it, get back, try to sleep at all. Usually not. And then going to do work all day, right. But what that did for me was it kicked me into kick, kicked me into gear, kicked me into something like, dude, I gotta perform, I gotta do twice as much as anybody else. And so I did. I started waking up early. I just wouldn't go to sleep. Getting stuff ready, helping everybody in every department out with anything I could, doing the training, just fucking everything I could think of, you know. And you know that 13 months went by. Over time, guys started to trust me again. I would go out with them and stuff, but I wasn't messing around, you know, they started to accept me back into the circle.
- [105:13]
Sean Ryan
How long did that take?
- [105:14]
Chris Fetus
It's about 13 months.
- [105:16]
Sean Ryan
It took 13 months?
- [105:17]
Chris Fetus
Yeah. Just all the trips you go on through workups, that's a long fucking time.
- [105:23]
Sean Ryan
For a team to be hating your guts.
- [105:25]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, it was a long time to be trying my best to do twice as much effort than other guys. But that's not to say that I outperformed anybody. We had some really good dudes. Other new guys I was with were just amazing guys. Still best friends with a couple of them. So we go on deployment and that's where I really make up for it.
- [105:52]
Sean Ryan
What do you think that they saw.
- [105:53]
Chris Fetus
In you I don't know. My wife's told me this before. I have a way of connecting with people. Sometimes I don't even realize it. And maybe those guys felt how important they were to me or at least their validation. Well, for me, it was the validation I needed from them. Right. And maybe they felt something. I don't know.
- [106:25]
Sean Ryan
You never asked them?
- [106:26]
Chris Fetus
No, I don't think I ever. I never asked them. Yeah, I never asked him. Maybe something I need to go do. But, you know, we went on deployment, and I really. I was a jtac, and we had a lot of really hairy operations. A lot of. Couple of times I went, you know, we. Winchester and AC130 and, you know, lots of different.
- [106:52]
Sean Ryan
Winchester means out of ammunition for the civilians listening. And could you describe what a JTAC is?
- [107:00]
Chris Fetus
Joint Terminal Air Control. So you're. Essentially. We don't have Air force guys and CCTs, combat controllers in the teams. Right. So we are the JTACs organically. So on missions, we control the aircraft, right. To include the surveillance, like everything they can see with their. Their pods. And then you got to know all of the weapons you got in every stack and how to order those guys in an efficient way so that when something goes south, you can get.
- [107:34]
Sean Ryan
You.
- [107:35]
Chris Fetus
Know, you can get guns down on bad guys as quickly as possible so that we can either get out of there or continue the mission. So that. That became my specialty during that time. I ended up going to sniper school after that. But for that deployment, you know, I was like a roof team guy, like our version of a recce team for the first quarter of the deployment and then got switched on to be the jtac. And I just. I feel like I had this talent for it that they trusted because I stayed that. And I got a lot of experience doing it, and I enjoyed it. You know, might have been like one of those communication things. Like, I enjoy communication now. So I got a Bronze Star for a couple. Like, I. It was for really, the collective operating as a JTAC that I got that for my first Bronze Star. So the guys used to make fun of me. The gun case that I had been issued, whoever had it before me in the teams was named Billy. So it was on there. And, you know, you don't get to know a new guy's name so quickly, so everybody assumed that was my name for a while. And there's still some guys out there that still just know me as Bronze Star Billy. So it was kind of a joke that actually Nick check started who Ended up, you know, he was on that deployment often the. The navigator in our Humvee in the front seat while I was the JTAC in the backseat. And then fast forward in the future, he. We ended up at Denver together in different teams, but during that time, he's the guy who nicknamed me that. So we came back from that deployment. I came back as a Bronze Star, Billy, and I kind of recovered my reputation and was validated for the indefinite future. And it was, like, really one of the best feelings I ever had in the teams.
- [109:50]
Sean Ryan
Nice.
- [109:50]
Chris Fetus
You know, and some really hard things happened on that deployment, too. We lost Jason Lewis in an ied. I was the JTAC for that. I performed the medevac. That actually ties into a story that I meant to talk about with this helo pilot dude. Just one of the most incredible heroes of anything I've experienced in my operating that night.
- [110:16]
Sean Ryan
You didn't tell us where you deployed to.
- [110:18]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, so this was in Baghdad and all around. So we were almost exclusively operating in Solder City. Really hairy nightly operations every night, sometimes six nights a week. And then occasionally we'd go out to other areas like Bacaba or Alamara for operations, but we were pretty focused on that during that deployment.
- [110:40]
Sean Ryan
What kind of operations?
- [110:43]
Chris Fetus
Counterterrorist operations. Just going out after DA's sniper. All DAs. All DAs. So my first deployment was just purely DAs. Every night, we had the luxury of being able to utilize the 160th helo squadron with some of the dead group guys that were down the street for Task Force 17. They kind of opened it up to the teams because there was just so many bad guys in the networks and so much to do. I think that there's. They kind of trusted the teams, the east coast teams at that time to conduct DAs, you know, using their assets and stuff for that deployment. So it was like a. It was a special deployment for us. Yeah.
- [111:42]
Sean Ryan
Let's talk about your. Let's just talk about what it was like for you on your first kinetic operation.
- [111:51]
Chris Fetus
Kinetic being a JTAC or Kinetic shooting? Just any.
- [111:55]
Sean Ryan
Whichever came first.
- [111:56]
Chris Fetus
Yeah. So the very first night was kinetic. We went out on our first OP after turning over, and at that point, I was in the back of a Humvee. I'm an assaulter, and we go out for a guy, and I end up switching into the driver's seat after the op. So the OP was pretty quiet, but lots of. There's always shooting on the way in and the way out, just both for the bad guys to sort of recce where we're at. So they would, you know, shoot up in the air just to kind of, like, identify where we're at in the town, right to each other. So that was an experience like, oh, shoot. You know, they're not shooting at us, but they are. You know, they're shooting, and it's the first time sort of hearing it. So, yeah. And that target was pretty quiet. But on the way out, we for sure caught some shots off of roof towards the Humvees and stuff. And we're like, oh, shit. You know, and then by the third night, you know, on our way in, we're driving really fast, and on those infills, you know, there's a couple IEDs going off that just miss and like, oh, shit. So now every time we're driving, I'm looking at trash. I'm looking at everything going like, man, any of this shit can explode at any time. You're just kind of sitting in there going, like, let's fucking get there. Hopefully we don't blow up. And it's just a really strange feeling as a new guy on my first. You know, when we land that plane to get on deployment and you come off that airplane, that air is just so pungent, filled with just smoke and whatever the smells are and the humidity of it, the heat of it, and you're like, wow, I'm in a whole different world right now, you know? And so that's. It only took two, three missions to just kind of get used to that, you know, kind of a little bit of a shock, you know, to go, all right, we're in it. You know, because when you go into training and all that, you're just visualizing it. You're just imagining it. And then you get there and you're in it, and you're like, wow, okay, I'm in it. Just. There's nothing else to do. Just trying to focus on what you're doing, you know? So it was only a matter of time before we got hit by an id. I think collectively, we had a little bit of an ego as a team, like, oh, hey, these motherfuckers keep missing. They can't get us. A little bit of arrogance going on, you know, and that. That got shut down real quick when we caught a flat tire on the way back one night. And, you know, instead of. You can go back and forth with the men in the arena stuff and armchair quarterbacking, but we. Instead of pulling off, holding security and trying to fix that thing, we just rolled with it. But we were so slow. We were rolling so slow. So the vehicle in front of me made a turn, right turn onto one of the main streets to get back to, you know, the little sort of highway going back, you know, out of Solder City. And an EFP blew up an explosively formed penetrator copper plate, which they had started using recently. It sort of blasts this shaped charge towards you, so it's not like a blast from underneath like a traditional ied, but it forms these. The copper breaks up and it's so hot they turn into little plasma bullets and it just melts through everything like Swiss cheese, you know, even vehicle armor and people. So they caught that. Four guys in the back of the Humvee got killed, including Jason Lewis was the seal. Ended up naming Camp Lewis after him. Combat cameraman and sorry, three guys, combat cameraman and a TSC guy, technical surveillance guy. And then one terp was back there. But he survived everything. So the turret gunner, his, his gun got completely sheared off the barrel. And a chunk of the barrel I think went essentially either a piece of plasma or that chunk went through Jason Lewis chest. And so one of my first experiences doing this medevac was assessing what was going on. And that was hard seeing those guys. So Bobby the comic cameraman was still alive essentially, but he was bent over because his face was just splayed open with blood coming out and him trying to breathe. So when we eventually got the medevac, he didn't make it on the 20 or 25 minute ride back to biop to the medics on our medevac. So those were the, he was him. And those guys were the first to go on the first load because the driver of that vehicle got a piece of that plasma lodged into his leg, like right onto a nerve. And I think that it cauterized the nerve. So his leg actually survived for a while after that. But he badass just continued to drive. He didn't swap out. He said, fuck it, I'm driving, right. So we get off the X, I'm dropping, you know, 40 mic mics and 105s on bad guys shooting at us from rooftops on our way out. And I start working on medevac. We've got two Apaches overhead. We get to this little Marine outpost in the middle of Solder City that just like, dude, I can't even imagine their experience daily just getting rockets and just all kinds of shit at them and they're just hunkered down, holding this, manning this post. Damn right. And we get inside of that and my platoon chief's calling out what's going on. Got Nick check up up in my vehicle, navigating us, you know, to get there with the. You know, the downed vehicle sort of hobbling, right? And we get in there, everybody gets out. We get the guys laid out. I'm getting a medevac ready. It lands, gets those guys, and I'm looking, I see, you know, I can see Jason Lewis there, and I can see the dirt on the other side of his chest, right? Just this big hole. And I'm just trying my best to get a nine line going. Like, hey, we've got two that are done, and one guy still alive. Critical, right? So he's the priority. And the second bird gets the other two guys. Now, the incredible thing is we still got one guy fucked up with that thing lodged in his. In his leg. And, like, we're so nervous, like, if it moves and he bleeds out of the artery, you know, so trying to keep him stable. And then we gotta wait for the birds, right? And we're taking fire, we're shooting. We got fucking RPGs. People are seeing. And so there's a fight going on while we're doing this medevac. So these two Apaches come over, and I just remember thinking, fuck, I don't know if this is doable or anything, but I start calling, hey, guys, we got one guy who needs to get out of here before this thing. He might save his leg and his life, right? Can you guys. And I just remember my platoon chief was, like, super into helicopters. So he always said, like, hey, study them. You know, they might have capabilities you don't think of often. So I said, hey, what are the chances you guys can get the co pilot out on the wing to clip in and get him inside in the seat and medevac him to buy out right now? And they were like, Apache. Yeah, and Apache. And they're like, oh, hey, we could do that. So I'm like, all right, cool.
- [120:35]
Sean Ryan
We're.
- [120:35]
Chris Fetus
We're going to try to call out if we see anything, you know, like one of y'all one of you guys, you know, do a tight circle so you can fucking put guns on anybody while the other one's landing, right? And we got an AC132 and let's do this. So you start getting it ready, and they. They go, hey, we need a second to go call this and get. Get, you know, an approval. So he was like, okay, cool, I'm waiting. He goes off a few seconds later, comes back on the horn, he's like, they're saying we can't. They're saying we can't do it. And I'm like, fuck. Okay, okay. So a few more seconds goes by. He comes back on the horn, calls me, hey, fuck it. We're gonna do it. I was like, okay, all right, let's do it. So we do it. The first attempt goes bad because somebody calls out an rpg. So they come down, rpg, and they peel off. I'm like, fuck. All right. It was a false alarm. Somebody thought there was an RPG because there had been some flying around. So cool. Come back around. They come back around. They get down. They do it. They get him in there, and they fly him back.
- [121:44]
Sean Ryan
Holy. Are you.
- [121:45]
Chris Fetus
And they save his leg and his life.
- [121:47]
Sean Ryan
So they land, open the hatch. The co pilot gets out. This dude climbs in there with some.
- [121:55]
Chris Fetus
Stuck in his leg, and then he clips in and sits on the wing, and he.
- [122:00]
Sean Ryan
He sat on the wing?
- [122:01]
Chris Fetus
Yeah.
- [122:03]
Sean Ryan
Do you have any pictures of this video?
- [122:06]
Chris Fetus
No. And actually, probably should go back and look. I don't even know if there's a step there. Like, there, you know, like a little bird or anything. I think he just sat on the fucking wing.
- [122:16]
Sean Ryan
Whoa.
- [122:17]
Chris Fetus
Yeah. And so I wish I kept in touch with these guys. I didn't if they're out there. But what happened was he got reprimanded after that for disobeying the order.
- [122:28]
Sean Ryan
Right.
- [122:28]
Chris Fetus
Insubordination. So now we're like, hey, they call us. We go through the rest of the next couple nights because we got. Well, the next night, we got to stay there, and we got to get all these trucks back. So we leave. We're gonna leave the next day. Snipers are making sure our route is clear, so we're doing watches, making sure Nobody's putting down IEDs. There was actually a couple guys. I can't remember if they got shot or not or engaged. But we get back safe. You know, we're. You can imagine during watch, we're all down there. We just lost all these guys. It was one of the more difficult moments, looking at each other's faces, trying to figure out what we're supposed to be doing, how we're supposed to be feeling, and really just, like, sitting there, you know, waiting. So snipers are doing overwatch, gets quiet. We get out of there the next night, we get home, go into the talk and find out these guys are getting reprimanded. So we're like, God damn it, dude. That sucks. You know, I think some of our leadership probably did Some work on that. I'm not sure. But what ended up happening was somebody on their end of their chain of command said, what the fuck? These guys are heroes, right? And these big awards, you got a Silver Star for it. Nice. So in these big awards, you end up getting a Silver Star. From what I understand, these big awards, like, those are the moments that those happen in, but if it goes wrong, then it's like, well, you fucked up, you know, so. But it takes certain people to make that decision in those moments, and that's where those. Those things happen, I think. So I believe you end up getting a Silver Star.
- [124:11]
Sean Ryan
One, something tells me that you're going to hear from those guys after this. And two, riding on the wing of an Apache out of battles, that's got to be like riding a fucking unicorn with wings out of that.
- [124:26]
Chris Fetus
Yeah.
- [124:27]
Sean Ryan
Like what? Yeah, but. Wow. How did. I'm curious, how did the. How did you deal with the loss? How did the team deal with the loss?
- [124:38]
Chris Fetus
Very hard. Very hard. You know, I got this huge tattoo on my back for that ended up becoming like the. The emblem, sort of the symbol of our platoon, of our troop, and a bunch of. A couple of. Some of the other guys, one of the platoon commanders, even guys on the next rotation after that deployment, you know, getting that in his memory. And so that symbol's still there. Everyone knows what year and what operation it came from and who it was for. So there was some legacy there on that, and I'm happy about that. So. But it was. It was tough for a few years. It still is tough for a couple of the guys that I know were a lot closer to him than I was as a new guy. I was too busy focusing on getting myself out of trouble to sort of get close to guys, you know, I was just.
- [125:32]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [125:33]
Chris Fetus
So, you know, I didn't have the. As deep of a connection with him as some of the guys did. Still affected me, especially seeing him, seeing him there like that. And, you know, he was a mentor. He was a great guy to all. He was one of the guys that was really great with all the new guys. And his kids are grown now. I see them around, you know.
- [126:01]
Sean Ryan
Really?
- [126:02]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, I see his wife around. I know his wife.
- [126:05]
Sean Ryan
Do you interact with him?
- [126:06]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, yeah. Not the kids as much, but for sure. His wife, I see her, you know, see her around. I'm still in that. In that community there with my business and everything. So. Yeah, one of my first. That was the first deployment.
- [126:27]
Sean Ryan
Geez, that's heavy.
- [126:30]
Chris Fetus
Yeah.
- [126:31]
Sean Ryan
Wow. How long was it after the. How long was it after that operation that you guys went back out?
- [126:39]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, like a couple. Couple nights. They gave us a night off. Hey, you guys need to take a night off? Of course, we're all doing heavy drinking, you know, shenanigans around the camp. One of the new guys I'm friends with still thought it would be a good idea to do these, like, baked bean mortars on the officers doors because they thought we could get away with it in that moment. And we did. So they set up these little poles and we had these fucking endless baked beans. I don't know why they kept coming, but like, dude, we couldn't eat enough baked beans and turn them and sort of get them on the duct tape into the poles and then get, you know, from the campfire, like a little torch and just create pressure behind the can to the point that they exploded and then blasted onto the little hooch doors of the. The headshed. The. Yeah. So the next day, like, all right, guys, you're not gonna get away with this anymore. We had to spray those doors off, but there was just baked beans blasted on everybody's doors, you know, like, let him get it out, you know. Wow.
- [127:55]
Sean Ryan
Nice.
- [127:55]
Chris Fetus
Yeah. So I think the next night after the baked beans, we were out again, you know. Damn.
- [128:02]
Sean Ryan
Anything else significant on that deployment that you want to talk about?
- [128:05]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, the last mission on that deployment, I was doing a turnover with some team. Two guys. One guy ended up being in their JTAG end, ended up being in Silver, and my team at Denver with me. And it was a hairy night. We were just walking our way into target, and there was this tree line, this big, thick tree line. This is supposed to be sort of an easier target, you know. Hey, easier target. It's gonna be pretty easy. Of course it wasn't. So we go and they had a sniper nest somewhere around those trees. And we're just walking. We can't see anything. I'm talking, you know, I can't see anything in the trees or, hey, check those trees out, you know? Cause we gotta get. We gotta go through those trees to get to the target right on the other side where the town was. So we're out in the open and all of a sudden a crack, right? A crack. And we're like, what was that? Everyone kind of takes a knee and someone comes over the radio and is like, hey, I don't remember. His call sign were like, ben just got shot in the chest. But actually, I think it wasn't the first shot. There was a couple shots and Then like a pause and then another shot. And that's when it came over. Because we had all gotten down after the first couple. So he had gotten down, and wherever it was coming from, we're facing it. His plates are here, And a shot comes in and goes, like, at this angle, over top of the plates as he's laying down and goes out the back. So he's shot in the chest. And one of my best friends now, I was the best man at his wedding. Was the. Was the guy next to him. He was a corpsman. And he starts reporting immediately. Like, fuck, we gotta. We gotta get a medevac now. So we start it, and then we just start getting lit up from the trees, from all over, like, multiple spots, and it's just like, dude. And so now we're on the ground. Like, my head sideways, because I can just. You know, when the rounds are going off, you can hear gunfire. But with some experience, you know, if they're close to you or not, and whether you need to get down or not. And they're snapping over our heads, you can hear that snap. And so, you know they're hitting, right? And you can. Now we're starting. Now they're hitting the ground.
- [130:17]
Sean Ryan
Like, fuck.
- [130:18]
Chris Fetus
Now it's really hairy. It's hitting the ground all around. Everybody between. Between our steps. And so we're on the ground, and they're like, get some fires down. So I'm like, fucking pop that thing up. And I'm like, hey, we're already ready. I'm already preset on those. Cause I just felt weird about that tree line. And they're like. I'm like, hey, the fastest way to do this is. You see where we're at with the strobes. Can you confirm that? Yes. All right, now I got a laser. Hey, they're coming from all over there. They're like, yeah, we're already on it. We're ready to shoot. We're ready to shoot. I'm like, all right, just confirm. You confirm the bad guys by sparkling them right now. So that's where they flash that IR light. I'm like, all right, you're on the right spot. Clear, hot. And they just. The AC130 just starts dropping. Just smoking these guys. And we're like, all right, as soon as they start landing, we're bounding back. So now the teams start bounding their guys back. And then the same time, I got medevat helos coming in from the other direction. I'm talking to. And that Corman is now running off to the side of the firefight where we're all sort of bounding back, right in front of the tree line, just directly back. So I'm feeding off of my. He actually was the RXO at the time. Great, awesome guy. And he's like, he knows I'm talking, so he's like, I can't pay attention to the gunshots. And I'm just going off of him. He's like, we're up and I follow him. We run up, we run. He's like, when he goes down, I go down and I'm dropping, dropping, dropping. Now we got the Apaches involved. They're like, hey, there's more. There's more nests over here to the north that we can see. Those guys are moving around now. They're like setting up and they're moving. We can fire on them right now. Rockets. I'm like, cool, sparkle, clear, hot, right? And I'm just controlling, trying to visualize the best I can, this whole situation. And it's clean. We're. We smoked all those guys.
- [132:17]
Sean Ryan
Wow.
- [132:18]
Chris Fetus
And we finally get back, there's like this ditch and we kind of get back in the ditch. Now we're calling the X fill at the same time as the medevac. The medevac comes during that fighter fight. And they don't know what's going on. They start flying right through or all this shit's coming down. And so that was one moment where I was like, hey, everyone aboard. Everybody stop. We stop all fires for a few seconds. I go, you guys need to turn. Just take a 90, just take a 30 degree right turn. So they do, and then they fly out of it and over to the guy's buzzsaw. The buzz saw is that Kim Light, where we're spinning it around, right? And they land perfectly on that. They get on, those two are gone to the hospital. And now we're back at the ditch calling for xfil. And we get out of there, everybody's fine. After that, he ends up being fine. You know, he had some complications with his chest for a few years, but he healed up pretty good, I think. And he's still kicking around Virginia Beach.
- [133:15]
Sean Ryan
Good deal.
- [133:15]
Chris Fetus
You know, I haven't seen him in some years, but we're still. I know we're still friends, you know?
- [133:19]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [133:20]
Chris Fetus
And that was the last. So that was the last one. We get back to the hooches and I talked to their JTAC guy, who ends up being later, one of my teammates in the team. All right, that's the turnover, bro. Holy shit.
- [133:33]
Sean Ryan
That's a hell of a turnover, Rob. Wow.
- [133:35]
Chris Fetus
Yeah.
- [133:35]
Sean Ryan
Yeah. Had you. Had you shot anybody? Had you killed anybody with a rifle or with.
- [133:47]
Chris Fetus
I had one on the roof team for a teammate of mine. He was climbing up and these guys woke up, started pointing their guns around. I had to shoot that guy.
- [133:59]
Sean Ryan
Was that your first kill?
- [134:00]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, yeah, that was actually. It wasn't a kill actually. That was a hard time for me. Besides the JTAC ones, that guy ended up like just. He ended up being paralyzed and then later he did. I believe he died later. Like some time later. Like I don't know when, you know, Like, I don't even know if it was during that deployment. I was kind of using one of our translators to kind of update me, but he found some way to find out like this guy wasn't dead. So we had. We ended up fucking taking him with us after that because he was still breathing. So we dropped him at the biob hospital and they. I think they essentially recovered him. So it was just a guy on target that woke up and started pointing towards one of our roof team guys. That guy ended up passing away in the future. He went to Dev Rub also and he passed away from a brain tumor, unfortunately, which I've got my opinions about that stuff too, on how. Why so many young guys are developing brain tumors after that. And I think it's just. I think it's talking with EOD guys and understanding the levels of radiation out of those jammers that we were sitting next to for all those hours, all the time in order to block those signals was just vibrating through our brains.
- [135:34]
Sean Ryan
Right.
- [135:36]
Chris Fetus
And the ones that I trust the most believe that it has something to do with it. So I hope that somebody can look into it a little more these days because there shouldn't be 30 and 40 year old dudes popping brain tumors suddenly and passing away. Another guy in my team that happened to. And within a year of finding out when he was clear before that passed away. So. Damn, it hurts a lot to think about those guys with brain tumors.
- [136:08]
Sean Ryan
Yeah, yeah, that and that stuff scares the hell out of me.
- [136:15]
Chris Fetus
Yeah. Yeah. I was like, was the juice ever worth the squeeze for how many preventative stuff? And I think about it now with the active shooters, you know, things and, and the hesitant hesitancy to prepare or, or prevent, especially when it comes to money, we're like, we got to spend how much on, you know, a couple of guards or, you know, some, some ballistic capability that, you know, or something, just whatever training for sure. Training, active shooter training, all these good things, all these, these. These guys out are doing, these companies that. But there's hesitancy to fund it because if you prevent something, there's no evidence that you prevented it. Just nothing happens. So it's just a hard thing to prove to people. So it's a similar thing as, like, did those Jammers, how many IEDs did they actually stop? We don't know. Because if it was a preventative measure that worked, then just nothing happened, you know, and then trying our best to prove that it did work, you know, but there's so many of these brain tumors from guys that, you know, he was a turret gunner, and that antenna was right there. You know, the rest of us inside might have been a little bit more protected, but that thing's like. If you can see the diagrams for the frequencies and radiation these things put out, it's fucking not good to sit next to for hours every night.
- [137:50]
Sean Ryan
I've not heard that one, but it makes a hell of a lot of sense. Damn. Well, Chris, where I was going with this is I just want to ask you the difference, you know, I want to ask you the difference of what it feels like to kill via communication with an Apache or a C130 or whatever versus pulling the trigger.
- [138:21]
Chris Fetus
It's completely different, in my opinion. It's. It's not the same as doing it up close and personal. But all, you know, the times that I did do it and I got a lot more at Dev Group than I. Than I did in the team, I didn't think about that so much. And so when guys talk about this question, I understand when they say, I didn't think much about it because we intentionally are desensitized to it. We're more attuned with the actual identification of the target and who it is. Is it a man, male, Is he armed? Is he not armed? Or whatever? Than taking the life itself? Because to be honest with you, the taking the life itself thing is another. It falls, it aligns again with that validation thing it did for me anyways, where it was like, I didn't think too much about it because if I was the guy that got the kill that night, it was like. Felt good. It's like, your buddies are like, cool, this guy, we can trust this guy to do his job, you know, and not be affected by it too much. And the same sort of theme comes out of it. The more guys that I study and the more guys that I think about and look at, you know, I think about these Things now that I have the space to do it, that's now where it kind of comes back to go. Those moments I can now go back to just the same way I did with my childhood memories. And now go sort of analyze it and just try my best to see the truth in every one of those moments, you know, for what it was. And then with no other goal than just understanding it the best that I could for me.
- [140:11]
Sean Ryan
Do you remember all of them?
- [140:15]
Chris Fetus
Some of them were a blur, especially if it was during, like, a firefight. But the ones that were close up, you know, I've got some sniper ones. I think about them sometimes. But, you know, in war, you know, they're trying to kill you and you're trying to kill them. And so I think less about it than I do with the last mission that I did and who I killed. That's the one that I think about. The ones with men were. Men, were fighters. You know, there may or may not be some mutual respect as fighters for sure. These ones that are going on, like these Hamas guys in Palestine and Israel, like, man, the whole world is on fire about Israel right now because of the collateral damages. And like, how do you fight a war? How would you fight a war if the bad guys just say it was in your neighborhood or your community in the future or something, some war, they're there to kill you. And instead of fighting from what we do in the military, an outpost, a planning center or whatever, you go there, you put your uniform on. You go fight, put your uniform on. So we can tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys and civilians. And you assume that the good guys or the bad guys, they have some level of moral compass, right? We don't train to kill anybody other than the bad guy that we're after. Collateral damage is just. It's a hellish thing. It's part of war. But now pretend that the enemy, or even pretend that you are the one doing it, that you go, I'm gonna take advantage of the moral compass of those guys. And I'm just gonna go. I'm gonna shoot the rockets and missiles from my backyard and then go inside where my family is and then go, we're good. Fuck them because they have morals and they're not gonna. They're not gonna. They're not gonna kill me here. Cause I got my wife and my kids and my family. And then, Dan, it just. You can even escalate it to go now. I can even go do atrocities now. You know, we can go do an attack in their territory and go door to door like they did, you know, raping and pillaging and just the horrific things that everybody wants to deny actually happened. Take the hostages, all this stuff, and then bring them back over and we're good again because we built all these tunnels under the hospital and the hospital's functioning. That's fine. We want that to be that way because it's a deterrence for us. It's a capability. And then now when you know your enemy, who you see as your enemy is now attacking you and killing you and having all this collateral damage is like you're choosing the battleground there, you know, and it's such a hard problem to think about, you know, and I hope there's some better solution, something that they can figure out, but we're not there experiencing that shit, you know, and they're having to make decisions on some of these high level Hamas guys that are using, intentionally using civilians as cover, as a capability, a deterrence capability on purpose. Right. And then it's just a terrible way to fight war, you know, and you know, extremist Al Qaeda does it. Terrorists tend to do it. You know, it's not even, in my opinion, guerrilla warfare really. You know, it's kind of a newer concept maybe I'm not even sure if that happened in Vietnam or not. I need to read more. But it's happening right now and we've faced it too, and we try our best and then we change our roes to the point where now we're in danger because as the war evolved, we lost the ability to the point where it became, hey, you guys aren't even gonna do any shooting until somebody's already shooting at you and you're like, that means some of us can get killed before we even engage. That's a hard problem to have, especially if that's happened.
- [144:47]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [144:48]
Chris Fetus
Now there's families out there. Like, they couldn't engage those guys because they weren't allowed to until they were getting shot at. So just hard things to think about outside of more than just Pearl Palestine, you know, Israel and, you know, the things that we attach to sensationalism, we see it on the screen, you know, and some of those people that are attaching to those causes I think is more related to their own validation. Like they might be lacking something in their own life that goes further than just this thing. And then every time something happens, people in their environment are now attached to these protests and these things and everybody wants to feel like they are part of something important. So they go Demonstrate. They go do it. Without even really understanding what it's about or what they're doing. They just go, yeah, like. And validation from all the other people that are doing it in their environment. So it's like whatever's the most accessible thing in your environment to attach to as a cause. Doesn't matter if it's bad or toxic or terrible or evil or good. You go do it. I think for some of the same reasons that I talking about with this. This lack of purpose and validation that we all need.
- [146:14]
Sean Ryan
Yeah, that's a good point. You know, the Israel stuff, it's a. It's extremely complicated, you know, but there are. I don't know if you know this, but I have some friends that were there and they. One of which I'm pretty sure we both know probably very well, but they were actually gonna flood those tunnels. Did you know about this?
- [146:48]
Chris Fetus
Not yet. No.
- [146:49]
Sean Ryan
They were gonna pump some massive like, ship pump. They were gonna not shit ship, like S H I P. Shit pump would suck. Yeah, that would have been better. But they were gonna flood all those tunnels and drown those Hamas guys.
- [147:08]
Chris Fetus
That would be more of a.
- [147:10]
Sean Ryan
They wouldn't do it. They wouldn't do it.
- [147:13]
Chris Fetus
Why wouldn't they do it?
- [147:15]
Sean Ryan
I don't know.
- [147:17]
Chris Fetus
Because, see, it's. It's at least like, it's at least to know that they're at least mindful. I think, and truly believe that the Israelis are doing their best to think of ways to target the bad guys without the collateral damage. And sometimes they have to make hard decisions, but at least that is more direct towards the enemy than going through whatever's on top that they. That they're fighting under the hospital or the school or the house or whatever, you know, I mean, do you know.
- [147:49]
Sean Ryan
How many of those bad guys that would have drowned out?
- [147:54]
Chris Fetus
I can imagine it must be like an ant farm down there.
- [147:56]
Sean Ryan
Would have been. Would have been perfect targeting.
- [147:59]
Chris Fetus
Yeah.
- [147:59]
Sean Ryan
And they didn't do it. And sometimes that makes me wonder, you know, why? Like, why wouldn't. Why wouldn't you do that? Sometimes it's such a simple plan too.
- [148:09]
Chris Fetus
Yeah. Like what gets in between the decision. And this is where it gets difficult in war, when social opinions and the energy of the social environment affects leaders decision making on what they do or not. We've seen it, see it every time, you know, Vietnam and, you know, touchy.
- [148:33]
Sean Ryan
Touchy, touchy subject and complicated war. As if any. Any war is not complicated. But so you come back to the States.
- [148:47]
Chris Fetus
Come back to the States, you know, you Just remind me with a shit tunnel thing, though, if I can interject a quick story that's actually more on the lighter side. I saved somebody's life on that deployment in a way that you wouldn't think. You'll know, too. So we're coming back from one of those targets. This is, like, later on in the deployment, too. And. And this is one of my buddies. He's got, like, sensitive skin, you know, he gets, like, rashes easy or whatever. I don't know. And we're walking back from a target in Iraq, and out there in the open, I don't know if you ever experienced this, but those, like, ditches sort of carved out that go from the shithole of every house in the whole town. They all go out somewhere out into the open to the main ship, and then they collect into a big pool, right? And there's. We were walking through one of these collections, and there's, like, different ones, and we're just navigating our way through. But you don't know, because over time, like at night, especially on night vision goggles, they collect, they crust over, and they just look like regular dirt. So at this point, quiet target, we're walking out to the helos. A lot of distance between each guy because, you know, they're just spaced out. The guys in front of them would have never known that this happened. But I'm the guy behind him, so I was there. He just steps into one of these pools of just shit quicksand. And then, like, goes, oh. Oh, shoot. And then, no big deal, but then. And it's like he's in it. And it's now rapidly going, you know, oh, it's no big deal. Now I can get out. But then as I approach, I can hear his breathing is so loud, like. And it's like water coming up, you know? And he's starting to freak out now because he can't get out. And I'm going, oh, shit. This is, like, kind of serious. So I, like, fucking run up there. I'm like, like, hey, you all right, dude? And he's like, you know? And I'm like, fuck, are you sinking? So I just. I grab my helo lanyard and I kind of just go. And I'm like, grab it, you know? And I'm pulling him through this sludge, you know, this nasty. And it's just black all the way down.
- [151:09]
Sean Ryan
Oh, man, it's shit nice.
- [151:11]
Chris Fetus
And I get him crawled out, and I'm like, oh, my God, that sucks, dude. He's like, oh, thank you thought I was going underneath that shit.
- [151:21]
Sean Ryan
Oh, my God.
- [151:23]
Chris Fetus
Yeah. And we get up, he's got now this long walk, and I'm like, all right, just. I'm gonna stay closer to you, but, you know, get behind me because you smell, you know. So we patrol back. He's gotta get on the Hilo, ride all the way back. It's a long ride. It's just. And he's just had this like full body, nasty skin rash for like some weeks after that.
- [151:46]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [151:47]
Chris Fetus
But then it was funny because.
- [151:48]
Sean Ryan
Did you nickname him hepatitis?
- [151:50]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, he did, I think. Holy. Something like that. So I ended up in the team with him at DEV Group 2.
- [152:01]
Sean Ryan
Nice.
- [152:02]
Chris Fetus
We're still. Still friends, but it was funny because we'll joke with our wives and stuff like, hey, he saved his life one time. You know, like, I did save somebody's life.
- [152:14]
Sean Ryan
Oh, man.
- [152:15]
Chris Fetus
Yeah. So fast forward to the, you know, after that deployment.
- [152:22]
Sean Ryan
Did you do another deployment?
- [152:24]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, I did a. An augment. I was an Augment JTAC for Dev Group. That was a great deployment. A lot of operations happened, a lot of JTAC work. And the guy that I was with was such a great guy, such a. Such a legend of a dude, in my opinion, that he was like, you know, you should come over, you should screen. So I didn't have any intention then to do it, but we got back and then I screened. So between that screening, it's about a year process or whatever you screen, you know, you get then either yes or no to go to the actual selection, you know, a year or so later or whatever your timing is. And in between that, I had a deployment. Second one was to Europe, and I was, you know, doing training exercises for different types of units, partner forces in all over Africa, to include a lead vehicle type security detail for the Secret Service for Obama's visit to Ghana when he became president. So that was actually pretty cool.
- [153:31]
Sean Ryan
Really?
- [153:32]
Chris Fetus
Yeah. He was bouncing around different places doing speeches and talks. And coincidentally, I didn't meet my wife. We were dating and we weren't married yet. Years later, one of our family members, one of her cousin's husband, is a retired Secret Service guy, was on that detail. And we realized we were working together there. And I'm like, how do I recognize you at the Christmas, the family Christmas.
- [154:03]
Sean Ryan
That's your wife's brother.
- [154:06]
Chris Fetus
My wife's cousin's husband. So my cousin in law and I ended up staying with them for a while when I was doing my contracting work. I had to stay up in D.C. for a little While so they housed me. But it was just funny because I was at this Christmas party for my wife, who wasn't my wife yet. We're just girlfriend and boyfriend. And go, how do I recognize you, dude? A couple years ago I was on a security detail that you guys, you seals came along and he was the guy in charge of, you know, organizing like their convoy. You know, it was just a crazy coincidence, but that was a good, that was a good time on that, on that deployment was kind of the highlight of that deployment. I just didn't, you know, we were training. So. Yeah, you know, one thing cool that happened was I've googled this since then. Cause I wasn't sure. Was Obama a smoker? And it's all over the Internet. He was, he self admitted, you know, like, hey, I had to get rid of that addiction, you know, for stress, but. Cause it was kind of a shock to see that when we were in the hotel, we're in the same hotel as these guys were hanging out. He's coming down with his detail, going out to the balcony like every five minutes to smoke, you know, like he was a chain smoker.
- [155:19]
Sean Ryan
No. Yeah, I didn't know that. I didn't know that.
- [155:23]
Chris Fetus
Yeah. So. So that was that deployment.
- [155:26]
Sean Ryan
So you. So you met your wife at team 10?
- [155:28]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, I came back from that first deployment. I met her right after that.
- [155:32]
Sean Ryan
How'd you guys meet?
- [155:34]
Chris Fetus
Through a mutual friend that just randomly invited me out. I was living in my own condo by myself and invited me out to dinner. I think it was sort of a little bit of a matchmaking kind of thing. But I showed up not ready. I didn't shave, I didn't get dressed up, nothing. Didn't really know she was going to be there. Hey. She goes to the restroom. I said, hey, you didn't tell me this beautiful woman was going to be here. And he was like, well, she said the same thing about you when you went to the restroom, so she probably should exchange numbers. So we did and started dating. And she became my soulmate. She was already that, but she became my wife.
- [156:09]
Sean Ryan
What. What was. What caught you? What was it?
- [156:15]
Chris Fetus
I just. I don't know. Her, the energy about her. She's just like a clean soul. She's just so pure and wholesome and just amazing. I don't know. She just. I just knew. I don't know.
- [156:31]
Sean Ryan
So you guys were together for the, for the duration of your career after that?
- [156:35]
Chris Fetus
Yeah. You know, and just like anyone who've gone through a lot of hard times, a lot of things. Everything. And that's strength. When they don't. Just like when we don't quit, we don't give up and they don't on us, and they see something, you know, just the same way. I think that, like, you asked me what the guys felt, maybe my platoon, she was like, dude, you just sometimes feel something about somebody. And she. She did that and she helped. She. She. She stuck with that for a really long time. A really long time. And I'm grateful. I'm so, you know, I'm so grateful because here we are, you know.
- [157:13]
Sean Ryan
How long have you guys been married?
- [157:15]
Chris Fetus
Going on 13 years.
- [157:17]
Sean Ryan
Nice. Congrats. Congratulations.
- [157:20]
Chris Fetus
Thank you.
- [157:21]
Sean Ryan
Not too many people make it out of the teams without a divorce.
- [157:25]
Chris Fetus
It's hard, you know, it's hard and it's just like anything else, like, takes a lot of work. Don't give up, don't quit, you know?
- [157:34]
Sean Ryan
Did you have kids when you were in the teams or did you wait till after?
- [157:38]
Chris Fetus
We had our kids. Right. As I was. I was a new guy at Dev Group when we had our first.
- [157:47]
Sean Ryan
No kidding.
- [157:49]
Chris Fetus
Yeah.
- [157:49]
Sean Ryan
And so they lived through some of it too.
- [157:52]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, that's. They're the reason I got out. Yeah.
- [157:58]
Sean Ryan
So how long did you guys date before you got married?
- [158:01]
Chris Fetus
It was about 3ish years.
- [158:03]
Sean Ryan
How'd you propose to her?
- [158:06]
Chris Fetus
I took her to this spot in pebble beach just off my grandfather's house. You could walk over to Spanish Bay on Pebble beach where he retired. And she loves doing fun things. You know, she's all about that. So, hey, we got to get up early one morning, like 6am but she's not a morning person, so she was like, ugh. Like, we have to because we gotta go see the whales. The whales migrate through to see their spouts, and it's like. It's awesome. Right? And that was my only excuse to get to go over there. So it had to be in the morning because that was the only time I knew that you can catch him, you know. So I convince her. We go over there and like around like 7 or 7 or 8am I proposed to her at my little spot just overlooking. It's called the Never Ending Sea or the Endless Sea, where waves kind of crash from all different directions into one spot. And it's just this crazy spot, you know, that tourists can kind of go look at and stuff. And a little ways down from that, there's this little quiet old bench that I used to just go sit at, you know, growing up. So took her there and that's where I did it. She said yes, so.
- [159:28]
Sean Ryan
Nice.
- [159:29]
Chris Fetus
That's good.
- [159:30]
Sean Ryan
Nice. Well, we haven't got to it yet, but I'm sure you and your wife have been through a whole slew of. Of downward spirals and. And all the things that come with being in the teams, but. But you made it. And so I want to ask you what. What do you think the secret to a successful marriage is.
- [159:58]
Chris Fetus
Dude? Just collectively, I think about the whole story, and it's just keeping. It's so hard. Even now when we get disconnected, we have, you know, understanding each other's love language for sure. And then if it's not the same one, just learning how to be okay with doing things for the person towards what they need that, you know, like, for her, it's like acts of service. So the more chores I do, the more getting the kids where they need to be, all that stuff. She loves that. You know, for me, it's like affection and connection and intimacy, you know, so you go through times where it's so busy. You're like, man, we're so busy, so chaotic, and we don't put any effort towards giving them what they need. You start to blame each other to go, oh, I don't feel. I feel disconnected. And it's. And then, well, I feel disconnected because you haven't been doing these things, and you're like, all right, well, we gotta reset that and then try our best to sustain it over time. But there's always going to be times where it gets off balance. You just got to just, like your soul, you got to bring it back. You know, you start doing. Start getting stressed out. Because it's what I want. It's what I'm asking for. I want the business, you know, I want my kids to thrive. They're busy. They're not sitting around. They're always busy. And that's dress. So you want that, but that means you got to put in work in between that with each other also as much as you can. And especially when you start to feel that, you know, when. You know, when it's going on, you know, it's like I'm starting to feel, like, resentment or anger even just a little bit. You're like, hey. And being able to talk straightforward about it, like, here's why I feel this. And it's, you know, trying your best not to just, like, blame the other person. We definitely figured out nighttime's not the best time to do that. You're tired, you know, you just want to go to sleep. You're exhausted. The morning is a lot better for that.
- [161:58]
Sean Ryan
Great advice. Well, Chris, let's, we'll take a break. When we come back, we'll. We'll get into your time at Dev Group.
- [162:05]
Chris Fetus
All right, perfect.
- [162:10]
Sean Ryan
I'd like to invite you to gain access to an exclusive experience on Vigilance Lead Patreon. Our patrons are the driving force behind the success of this show, and their support allows us to keep doing what we do. Depending on the tier you choose, you'll get access to benefits like behind the scenes footage before each interview, early access to episodes, end of the month live, zoom calls with me, exclusive merch and more. Join us and become a patron starting at just $5 a month by visiting patreon.com vigilance elite. That's patreon.com vigilance elite. All right, Chris, we're back from the break. Just met your wife and got your backstory with her, at least how you guys met. And so now we're moving into your journey over to development group.
- [163:07]
Chris Fetus
Right. So come back from that deployment. It's time to go right into selection prep. So right around that time, the human performance sort of aspect of sort of concepts started to come about. So I was lucky enough to get into some programming where we could get prepared for the selection and then sort of be rested, you know, for a week or so and then peaking a couple weeks into the selection. So I'm grateful for that because the guys that did that with me from Team 10, we all did pretty well through the physical test and all the first week type physical stuff.
- [163:48]
Sean Ryan
Right.
- [163:48]
Chris Fetus
Performance wise, overall selection for me was it was a much smoother ride than Bud's was, especially because of that stuff that happened. But, you know, same thing. Lucky enough I got through. It was really hard, honestly difficult in totally different ways than buds. You know, the physical part is there. You're doing some crazy things. I mean, there was one day we, we did this. You run seven miles at a seven minute pace, you know, with one of the cadre to the Mississippi River. Swim across that motherfucker with logs and just current crazy with a swim, buddy. And wow, get across having drifted down like a mile or so. Run back up, do it again on the way back. And you know, I think they stopped doing it after that. I got one of the last ones. It's one of those.
- [164:44]
Sean Ryan
Sounds like an.
- [164:47]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, it's, it's, it's not, it's not very safe. They've got safety boats in, but it was as safe as they could make it. Just like swimming around the island in shark territory.
- [164:56]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [164:56]
Chris Fetus
You know.
- [164:57]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [164:59]
Chris Fetus
Just, you gotta find the balance with hard enough things, you know.
- [165:02]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [165:03]
Chris Fetus
And somebody not getting eaten alive by a great white shark. So.
- [165:06]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [165:07]
Chris Fetus
So then seven miles back. So that was probably the hardest day for me. That's when I started. I was so depleted that day, my legs started cramping and I got to a point where, like, guys in my team were carrying me back to the house because I couldn't even stand up. They were so cramped, you know, it was super painful. So a couple of the cadre were having fun with me. They're carrying me, firing me, carrying me. You know what I mean? It was a good time. So, you know, the hardest part of that selection being the first six weeks of assault. All CQB based stuff is really intense and very, very detail oriented, you know, with the goal of figuring out, you know, pliability and trainability, you know, like, here's the rule set for this day with all of the stressors, and then the next day it all changes and you got. You still, no matter what, only have a chance or two to make the same mistake, you know, and if you make the same mistake over consecutive days, you know, that Friday that they're doing their assessments, you're out, you know, and if the mistake's too bad, on any given day, you're out. So high stress. But I really, I did enjoy that. I made some really good friends during that time that we, you know, we all change through the team, you know, and that lifestyle and the intensity of those, that mission set and the time commitment it takes, you know, just to wear you.
- [166:43]
Sean Ryan
A lot of guys that I've interviewed from, a lot of your guys that I've interviewed say that green team is harder than buds, was tougher than buds. Would you. Would you agree with that statement?
- [167:06]
Chris Fetus
It's harder in totally different ways. They're both really hard. And I also don't want to take away from, you know, how hard BUDS is, you know, that people have gone through. It's a really profound experience. But I say it is harder only because there's such a smaller spectrum of mistakes before you can get out. Right. So you're always within that tiny little sliver of a, of a mistake spectrum before you're out, you're done, you know. And so with all the stressors involved in your life and everything going on, it's like really hard to stay inside of that. It's like there's a tiny ball moving back and forth. You're like, whoa, whoa. It's like a level. It feels like it's a level and if it gets where the bubble gets outside, you're out. There's no other chance.
- [167:54]
Sean Ryan
Gotcha.
- [167:56]
Chris Fetus
So the mistake spectrum I think in buds is a little more lenient because you don't know anything yet. You just got to not quit. It's really hard physically. But even third phase when we're learning our skills, I had a hard time. So it's not to take anything away from that. It's just that level is very fine with selection and green team has to be that way. Yeah. But I'm grateful I got through.
- [168:22]
Sean Ryan
What's the retention like in training?
- [168:26]
Chris Fetus
I think it's comparatively a little higher retention for that because you know, you start with less guys. So we started with around 60 guys or so and you finish with 20 something or no shit.
- [168:38]
Sean Ryan
It's that much. You lose that many dudes?
- [168:40]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And it's also hard because you're competing with other seals that are experienced, you know.
- [168:49]
Sean Ryan
What are the phases?
- [168:53]
Chris Fetus
There's no phased numbers but it's, you know, assault is all cqb. That's the first part. And our bread and butter is that. So if bread and butter for like the Delta guys is a land warfare navigation stuff and all the stressors that go with that, that's ours. And then a couple locations for that, you know, Mississippi being one and middle of the summer. That shit's hard. You know, sleeping with brown. Brown recluses.
- [169:24]
Sean Ryan
Nice.
- [169:24]
Chris Fetus
In the, in the, in the barracks, you know.
- [169:26]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [169:27]
Chris Fetus
Trying not to get bit by spiders. I had my roommate and was like a sleepwalker. So that was a little stressor for me too because you wake up in the middle of night sometimes with full blown sense, you know. And one night he woke up in the middle of the night. He must have been thinking about spiders and he was like, ah, there's a spider, there's a spider. And he's like eyes closed but sitting straight up. And he ended up going to Red Squadron but. And then I woke up startled like where the fuck is it? Where the fuck is it? And only to like fucking. Now he's just sitting there quiet to realize that he's not even awake. I go, go back to sleep. You know, every spider trap in that house was full of. There's just legs everywhere.
- [170:13]
Sean Ryan
Oh damn.
- [170:14]
Chris Fetus
They were full of brown recluse spiders. There's a, there's a. You know. I hope they fix that problem. Damn. I don't know how many people have been bit, but. So anyways, you lose the majority of the guys in that first six weeks. That's like the, the kind of hell week, per se of selection.
- [170:35]
Sean Ryan
Is there any diving?
- [170:37]
Chris Fetus
No diving. No diving. Not at least when I was there. You kind of do that with your team. But then we have our land warfare, which is a lot of helo based work. Getting used to all different types of helos and all the etiquette and procedures that go with getting all of that stuff to a lot finer detail than ever before. Really. You know, all kinds of scenarios with those things on different types of terrain and buildings and different things. And jumping after that, that's probably the first or second most challenging in my opinion, because it's just so dangerous. There's so much focus, you know, all the way from getting your shit on, knowing the plan, getting on, and it's just one after the other after the other after the other after the other and trying to stay on point all day with that and not make not just small mistakes, but, you know, how jumping goes major, man.
- [171:39]
Sean Ryan
I don't know. I've not done, I've not done anything like that. I've. Yeah, I've jumped out of planes, but not to the extent that you have. So like, can you go into a little more detail on like, why that's so challenging?
- [171:53]
Chris Fetus
It's just, you know, I ended up being a tandem bundle guy later, so I became an air subject matter expert also on top of my recce sniper specialty, which is my primary. But the detail of the gear, everything from your handles to your like, malfunction procedures, you know, you gotta memorize what to do in every little thing that could go wrong with a parachute. Right. It could mean that the difference between life and death in those moments. And so it's just, it's at night, the jumps are, you know, most of them, or at least a good majority of them are on night vision goggles. And so I hadn't experienced that much before, not at all. I haven't done any night vision jumps before that. A lot harder when you can't see the other guys, you know, until the very end, you know, and we're jumping through weather and sometimes it's like, dude, I don't even know if I'm the right place. And then right before you land, you kind of see, oh, there they are, or you're in it, you know, and do your best to land together.
- [173:00]
Sean Ryan
So are you navigating up there?
- [173:02]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, you're navigating. You got your attack board, you know.
- [173:06]
Sean Ryan
What'S it look like?
- [173:08]
Chris Fetus
Just A little plastic, hard plastic plate that goes into the Velcro and ties in and then a flat part that goes out, like, looks like a little breakfast table. And it's got, you know, a compass and whatever device, whether it's a GPS or, you know, we use our phone devices or whatever tablets on there and Kim Light. And that's it. You're driving with this thing. You're using your eyes too, and all of your senses, and you're just. It's just like. It just takes a lot of focus for a really long amount of time. So it's just pretty draining when you're doing it over and over and over again every day. You know, starting from before the sun comes up to the sun goes down. It's just, it's taxing. But also you get so good at it. So by the time we get out of that, you're just really good at it, just from all the repetition of it, you know. And, you know, jumping like that on real world missions is just. It's so difficult already. You've got environmentals, you've got wind, you've got weather, you know, and so everybody's skill set has to be at least to a baseline level in order to trust, you know, that we're gonna succeed on the mission. If somebody's not gonna fly off and this shit still happens.
- [174:31]
Sean Ryan
Like, how much. How much airtime is it, dude?
- [174:35]
Chris Fetus
I don't know. It's gotta be a lot of hours. Like, hours and hours.
- [174:40]
Sean Ryan
I mean, let's. I don't mean like altogether. I mean, like when you jump out and you're navigating into a target, like.
- [174:51]
Chris Fetus
Yeah. It just depends on what's the longest.
- [174:53]
Sean Ryan
One you've been on in the air, from out of the plane to landing.
- [174:59]
Chris Fetus
I mean, we've done some really high, high, high ones in training, but real world, typically it's gonna be just a few minutes.
- [175:05]
Sean Ryan
How high?
- [175:06]
Chris Fetus
15, 15,000ft. You know, something. Something like that. And there's some other higher capabilities, but that's a different.
- [175:17]
Sean Ryan
Got it.
- [175:18]
Chris Fetus
Sort of came to.
- [175:19]
Sean Ryan
So you've jumped in on. On a, On a real world op.
- [175:22]
Chris Fetus
I did. So you go through all that and then the story of that op was pretty. It's kind of funny how I ended up being there. I wasn't supposed to be there, but it was the last thing and, you know, so I had the opportunity to do a tandem jump into a hostage rescue. So it's pretty epic, you know, but it also changed my life.
- [175:49]
Sean Ryan
Yeah, well, we'll get there. We'll get there. So you made it through green team first time?
- [175:56]
Chris Fetus
Yep. Correct. You know, I had a rough time in assault for a little while, but I pulled it together. It's kind of that, it's part of it, you know, hey, no matter how good you are, if you're the top or bottom guy, there's going to be stressors that they put on there just to see what happens, see how you react. And if you snowball, you're not going to make it. If you can bring yourself back enough, then that's what they want. And then the adaptability piece to be able to change to different tactics that we come up with based on things that happen and that can be very immediate. We come back from a deployment or even during the deployment, we go, man, this is happening. How do we, what do we do? Change it? You know, you don't have to wait for some approval, you know, and then if we write it into doctrine, that trickles down into the, into the teams and becomes doctrine, you know, so that's the, that's the glorious and cool part of development group, in my opinion.
- [176:55]
Sean Ryan
How do you, how do you get, I mean, how do you know what squadron you're going to? Is it, is it a, is it a dream sheet like coming out of.
- [177:03]
Chris Fetus
Buds, or is it, it's a draft, like a true draft. A list of names with performance evaluations on it. And then each team gets an order of the draft based off of the previous year, just like in sports. And there's also, you know, some influences on, who knows the guy, you know, he might be sort of a known, at least, you know, reputation wise by other guys, maybe even guys that preceded him, you know, from their previous team. Like that's what happened with me. I ended up in a team where had a bunch of guys from team 10. It was awesome.
- [177:38]
Sean Ryan
Right on. Do you know what, do people know what round they got picked?
- [177:43]
Chris Fetus
I think you can find that out later. I don't ever remember caring much about that. I was just happy enough to get, you know, to finish and get on a good team. But I mean, I think you can go dig and find into that. But it's kind of like, you know, I don't know if it's unnecessary, but it's like, yeah, you know, just, just wasn't something I thought about. I mean, I think you can probably, you can go, if you know anybody that was cadre or you go back to it like, hey, where did I rank? You know, it's not hard to see those rankings, is it true that they.
- [178:19]
Sean Ryan
Put a list of names or a photo of every guy that's screening up and they do a yes, no, yes, no.
- [178:26]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, yeah. There's like a picture and then you kind of vote. Okay, you can put a vote. And you know, once you, you know, or an operator invented into the team, you, you know, you do that every year as well.
- [178:42]
Sean Ryan
What do you think about that?
- [178:43]
Chris Fetus
And I don't know, I think that there's certain things there that need to be the way that they are. Cause they work, you know, and then there's other things that I've, you know, I've obviously learned through my life that I hope change or continue to change. And that's more culture related, but those kind of things, I think that's, you know, I change what works.
- [179:06]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [179:07]
Chris Fetus
So, you know, and if I didn't know a guy or anything about him, I just. You don't have to vote. You just go. You don't have to say good or bad. Just go move on to the next guy, you know.
- [179:17]
Sean Ryan
Do they want an explanation for why somebody would say yes or no?
- [179:21]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, I think that that's invited. If you've got an explanation about something, you should put it in there. Okay. And there's been some occasions where that was a little detrimental in the future to not do that. And, you know, not necessarily guys that slipped through their cracks per se, but a little couple, you know, some red flags that should have been at least talked about, you know, to work on with, you know, things that you can develop in a guy. Just, you know, you don't have to be legends. When we come through selection, you have some space to develop. Just like the G League and the NBA or whatever it's called. You know, I think that's legit. You know, you reach a baseline, you know, in selection, that's it's enough to get you through. And then of course, you have guys that are well beyond that. And that's. That's where you go, you know.
- [180:16]
Sean Ryan
Where did you go?
- [180:19]
Chris Fetus
I think I was somewhere. I've always been in the middle.
- [180:21]
Sean Ryan
I mean, squadron wise. Oh, excuse me.
- [180:24]
Chris Fetus
Silver.
- [180:25]
Sean Ryan
Silver, yeah. What was it like checking into Silver? Silver was new, right?
- [180:31]
Chris Fetus
It was newer.
- [180:32]
Sean Ryan
Sort of newer. Yeah.
- [180:33]
Chris Fetus
It was only got commissioned only a few years before I. Before I got there. Yeah. So it was great. I knew a lot of guys in there because they were my mentors and peers from Team 10 and it felt very welcoming. The personality of that team was the right team for me, I felt.
- [180:57]
Sean Ryan
Were they. I mean, describe. Well, let Me go back for just a second. What. What's it like graduating green team?
- [181:08]
Chris Fetus
It's. It's awesome. I mean, it's like.
- [181:10]
Sean Ryan
It's.
- [181:11]
Chris Fetus
It's just such a release of energy, you know. And some of the later things that you do are sort of gentlemen courses. You start, you know, you're learning some cool things, you're doing some surveillance stuff and you know, a little bit more of the trips are a little bit more fun and. And not so taxing. So you get, you know, a little bit of a phase to kind of get ready to go check in and do all your things. Because that can be intense. You got so much stuff to do, got all kinds of gear to get, got all the fucking. And you gotta start. And you get in and you start running immediately. So. And it's fast. You know, you get there and it's getting the kill house and it's fast. You're like, holy shit. You know, and it just must. It must feel like what an athlete feels like going to a pro team, you know, that has some little bit of development to do and is like, it happens quick because you gotta keep up.
- [182:05]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [182:05]
Chris Fetus
And it's fast.
- [182:08]
Sean Ryan
Were they welcoming?
- [182:10]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, definitely different kind of vibe than going to the teams where it's like, okay, new guy, you know, like, yeah, you're a new guy. But it's a little like. I don't know how to explain it, but they're just a little bit more maturity about it.
- [182:27]
Sean Ryan
Like less of a thing being a new guy over there.
- [182:29]
Chris Fetus
More. Yeah, a little bit like you already know.
- [182:31]
Sean Ryan
And get them. Get him up to speed.
- [182:33]
Chris Fetus
Yes, you kind of already know, but it's just more important to get him up to speed.
- [182:37]
Sean Ryan
Cool.
- [182:37]
Chris Fetus
Yeah. To get him integrated and functioning in the team immediately.
- [182:42]
Sean Ryan
So the goal is not to humiliate you.
- [182:44]
Chris Fetus
No, that's. I didn't experience. I think it was just that part of it is just non existent. In my opinion. There. There's no time for that.
- [182:51]
Sean Ryan
That's cool. That's cool. So what did you. I know you're a sniper. When did that. You're on the recce team, correct?
- [183:05]
Chris Fetus
Yeah. So typically you got to spend a couple rotations as an assaulter before the recce team selects you. In is the way that I experienced it. So after my first deployment with them, I was interested in that and I had some really good experienced snipers that were cool with it. So they brought me in and that became my specialty.
- [183:34]
Sean Ryan
Let's talk about your first deployment with Silver. How long were you there? Before the deployment, it was a lot.
- [183:43]
Chris Fetus
Quicker rotation, so it was probably about eight months from what I remember. It's a little bit of a blur, but it was about eight months. I won't get too much into the details of the, the cycle, but it's like a lot quicker. What we used to call ProDev and CitX, all the pre deployment stuff is only like really like four month increments. So it's a year instead of 18 months. It's not nearly as long and wherever you fall into that timing. So. Yep. And then deployment was Afghanistan.
- [184:26]
Sean Ryan
How did the, how was the deployment? Was it.
- [184:29]
Chris Fetus
It was good. It was a good steady pace of operations. By that time we started to have to use some of the trained up partner forces a little bit more. You know, that whole thing started with like the ERU in Iraq training them, not necessarily having to bring them on operations to gradually over time, the whole Afghanistan war, war evolution was like, all right, we're gonna start turning this over to them to fight for their own country and you guys gotta start taking these guys. So we ended up having to work a few of them in and you know, just navigate around that whole problem of bringing in guys that aren't at your level, trying to teach them or whatever.
- [185:19]
Sean Ryan
No shit. You guys were running around. I didn't, I did not know that that was happening over there.
- [185:24]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, we would put them in different orders of patrol and you know, over the years, this is not my first deployment, but maybe by like my third, you know, we're going like, hey, all right, certain targets, they're going to go try to do it. Gotcha. But it, that was just such a messy thing, you know, because your operations are so precise and you're now like, it's like, you know, we're, we're say we're on a high level, not high level, but we're on a grown up, an adult basketball team. And now they're like, hey, you gotta actually try to win the championship. But you gotta bring these kids, your kids, and try to figure out, you know, you're like, all right guys, we got two kids. How do we win this championship? But maybe that's a bad analogy, but it just got frustrating over time as the war evolved to go, guys, this.
- [186:10]
Sean Ryan
Is like, it makes you less official. I get it.
- [186:13]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, get it.
- [186:14]
Sean Ryan
1.
- [186:14]
Chris Fetus
And there's more danger involved with it. And they don't understand when shit happens, who's to blame when bad happens. And you're like, dude, we're trying our best to follow these rules. And play by these guys start to get frustrated over time and go like, man, this is bullshit. And you know, the, the roes, over time got so restricted, you know, because of the political climate around the war, that they were like, hey, it's win hearts and minds time. And officers actually, you know, pretending to believe all of that and even over there to convince us. Yeah, everybody I think, experienced that.
- [186:50]
Sean Ryan
I did not, I didn't know that.
- [186:52]
Chris Fetus
Yeah. So over time it just became that, you know, I knew of quite a few guys that got out because they were like, I just don't want to operate like that. And then other guys, you stay more positive and you know, like, just do the best you can. And I want to say that from that second deployment or so, for me, around 2012, every deployment after that was partner force. You got to bring them, you got to, you know, and it's not easy to operate like that. Not because we didn't want to. We want to, you know, do our best. But you're like, God, it's hard to do your job when you got to bring these other guys that are just not even close, you know, and also kind of sort of report on it to go, hey, we want to make ourselves look good, you know, to everybody that's looking at us. And so we go, hey, how are the guys doing? They're great. They're, they're, you know, they're close to being seals. Fuck. They're not close. They fucking put their, they don't even use their night vision goggles because they're uncomfortable. They don't understand the, and just drilling with them and spending all this time. It distracts you from operating, from training yourself, you know, and yeah, it helps, you know, to go be a cadre in selection. You're actually become better probably from instructing other, you know, high level guys. But now you go down levels and you're gonna lose, you're losing something from just sort of bringing your level down to go train these guys on basics that we're actually gonna go operate with.
- [188:31]
Sean Ryan
It's like none of it's like being on a fucking Ducati and then going back to training wheels on a. Yeah.
- [188:38]
Chris Fetus
Not like, I don't mean it in an ego arrogant kind of way, but yeah, it feels like that. It's like, man gotta go, you know, teach him how to ride a bicycle when we're on Ducatis.
- [188:51]
Sean Ryan
Yeah, it doesn't make sense to me. I mean, we just talked about your green team and how rigorous it was and how like, you know, how the level, you know, you described it like a level. The bubble gets out and you're gone. And then, and then you deploy and you got these guys that, I mean, they probably wouldn't even be seals.
- [189:17]
Chris Fetus
Yeah. Now it's tough to go back and think about that too and not hold resentment for how the whole whole thing with Afghanistan evolved. And then we saw what happened with everything and the whole exfil of Afghanistan shit show and then just going like, man, how long were their intentions, you know, to restrict how we operate in order to get this done and then not, you know, feel like the force was misused and this and that and you don't have time to think about it when you're doing it. You're like, there's a mission and we do the mission. It's my job. So you don't really. I didn't really have time to think about any of that until I was done. And then now I go back and think about it and just try my best not to hold anger and resentment for it. But when I see some of these stories, especially with the xville and guys like, you know, you had on here, Andrew, I'm like, fuck, dude, you've got so many guys coming on here. Shows like this and other awesome shows just didn't want to just tell the truth in things. It was like as a society, I'm like, fuck, we've moved so far away from being okay with the truth. Right. To a point that like, everything just feels like there's bullshit piled on top of it. And we just want to see just the baseline of truth so we can make decisions on how to do things better, you know, and get better and go, man, that happened. But next war, can we learn from it this time it didn't work in Vietnam, didn't work in other wars, didn't work in Iraq, didn't work in Afghanistan. Are we going to do it again where we have some conflict that we don't Just when you commit to war, yes, war is hell. And so if they're committing to it with this willy nilly kind of we're going to go to war, but pretty quickly not going to finish the job and it's going to turn into something else, you know, especially driven by societal pressure and politics and everything. And it's like, dude, once that happens, now you just start thinking about all the lives of 2000 or so guys and the situations, you know, and thinking back to buddies you lost and things that happened, you know, and the way that they exfil to go Fuck, man. Did they really? And then they stand up sometimes and go, we love our military. And like, do you. Do you really think about it in depth, you know, or is it just a game? You know, and if it's. War is not a game. So if you commit to it, like, fuck, let's just finish the job as quickly as possible to minimize now death on both sides for an extended amount of time in the future. Right. But that's what people don't understand too. And they go ceasefire and this and that and. And no war. You're like, well, there's a reason for.
- [192:07]
Sean Ryan
Why do you think that was?
- [192:10]
Chris Fetus
Why what was?
- [192:11]
Sean Ryan
Why do you think that war went the way it did? I mean, it was fucking balls to the wall at the beginning.
- [192:18]
Chris Fetus
Yeah.
- [192:18]
Sean Ryan
And then you saw the ROE start changing and then it got to the point where it's like, what? Why are we even here? You're chopping these guys legs out and you're essentially giving you. Not essentially, you are 100% giving the enemy an advantage by slapping these roes on us.
- [192:41]
Chris Fetus
Now you're playing around. Yeah. You're like, hey, here's an advantage. We're gonna show up and see how it goes.
- [192:47]
Sean Ryan
Do you have any theories?
- [192:48]
Chris Fetus
I don't know. Yeah, I've got different theories, but it's almost just overarching where it's like the, the country as a whole, when we have attachments to. We have so many distracting attachments from the truth and reality and things, you know, everything from just pressure in your. And like a normal average person's life. Just the pressure, right, to go to school, work, you know, now you've got a family, you got whatever, all your responsibilities. It gets stressful, you know, you might feel shitty, you might be coping with shit. We were talking about trauma. You've got your things and you feel it's fucking hard. And then now we've got so many other distractions on top of that. The attachment to celebrity is a thing. That is a thing for me. So now we have celebrities with opinions. And it sounds like an excuse or something small, but I think it's actually having a way bigger effect than any of us want to admit. Where we go, this celebrity doesn't like the war and they start to speak out again. And now this is the societal pressure. The buildup of social opinion now starts to affect high level leaders and politicians to now go, hey, we're killing them good. Like, we're getting this war, we're getting this job done, like effectively, but. Or it's too Effective. So let's still do it, but, you know, diet down a little bit, like, take it easier on the bad guys. And you're like, we're talking about fucking war. What do you mean, take it easier on the bad guys? How? Well, this is how we're gonna start making the roes stricter to the point of absurdity, actually, over time to where now it's like, okay, now the mission is just win hearts and minds. And you're like, oh, my God, how do we. How do we. Now we gotta pretend to believe in that and do our jobs at the same time and mitigate risk. Guys still get killed because of the mitigating of the risk, and it just gets watered down. And war fighters, you know, if that's your role, if you do that, if you're a warrior, just fucking doesn't work that way. Well, you know, and it's hard to say and hard for people to understand that, like, the best way for war is as quickly and as efficiently as possible with the intention of minimizing collateral damage. Yeah, it's a very specific, ancient thing, you know, that you want to fucking draw it out. And then now everybody perceives that we lost. Like, we didn't fucking lose, man. I don't. Like, yeah, maybe we. You can. The perspective could be that we lost, but I don't. Dude, I saw what we were like. Did more enemy get killed than good guys? A lot more. I think so. I don't know what the metric is for that, but however disillusioned we might get, I refuse to believe that we lost any fucking war. We just. We did it to our. We do it to ourselves with just how we extend it, you know?
- [196:01]
Sean Ryan
I don't know, man. I got some little bit different opinion on that than you, but, yeah, that's okay. I just. I guess you can't.
- [196:12]
Chris Fetus
Well, that's from a war fighter's perspective. Yeah, it's sort of an overarching force.
- [196:17]
Sean Ryan
You know, I'm really scared what's coming, you know, I mean, because we had a handle on it, in my opinion. I don't think we can say that we won that war. I think.
- [196:31]
Chris Fetus
Yes. No, I don't think we won that war.
- [196:32]
Sean Ryan
We definitely killed more bad guys than they did of us. And. But, you know, the thing is.
- [196:47]
Chris Fetus
I mean, man, we left everything that it's. It's worse off now than we ever started.
- [196:52]
Sean Ryan
That's kind of what I'm getting at.
- [196:53]
Chris Fetus
And the fact that. Sorry, go ahead.
- [196:55]
Sean Ryan
The fact that it's worse off. It is Worse off now than when we entered. And the fact that now there are 21 different terrorist organizations all convoluted together.
- [197:08]
Chris Fetus
Yeah.
- [197:09]
Sean Ryan
You know, and coming up through our southern border that we're funding. We are funding. I mean that is a, that's pretty devastating. I mean they have definitely strengthened in a very short amount of time. And we're going to feel it here, we are going to feel it in this country.
- [197:31]
Chris Fetus
You know, we're being forced.
- [197:33]
Sean Ryan
Because we didn't finish the job.
- [197:35]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, yeah. And we're being forced to. I don't know how to explain that. It's like we're being forced to just like be okay with. You're being forced to live our lives on a four year cycle because it's all election based, two and four year cycles. So every decision I see being made for some of these things is based off of whatever effect, you know, government, politicians thinks things, thinks they're gonna have within the next two to four years and nothing beyond that, you know, like think further than that with just my fucking ice cream, you know, and the consequences are just piling up rapidly. Right. And they're just, just more and more and more and more bullshit piling up so that you can, you know, we can win something in two or four years. That pile of bullshit's gonna take decades to fix. Even if we could at least reach a level of enough bullshit being cleared away to actually agree to talk about any of it. Can't even discuss at this point, you know, like an argument between two people. What are we arguing about? We gotta at least agree to the thing we're arguing about and a little bit of the truth behind it, whatever the topic is. Before we can even get close to making a decision on how to get better, you know, while satisfying both of our needs. We just, we're so far from that and it's just in the meantime all the danger and all the shit just keeps stacking up.
- [199:16]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [199:16]
Chris Fetus
And then we're gonna see it, you know, with some attack or some bullshit and everyone's going to be all surprised.
- [199:24]
Sean Ryan
We already saw it. We saw it in Israel. We saw it at that Russian mall. We've seen it happen here before. You know, they, they came out with a report. Do you know who Sarah Adams is, by chance?
- [199:37]
Chris Fetus
Yeah. Oh yeah, say again, say the Ascari Media.
- [199:44]
Sean Ryan
Yes, that's her.
- [199:45]
Chris Fetus
Woman. Yeah, yeah, a lot of stuff she talked about.
- [199:50]
Sean Ryan
There's this book that came out. It's almost more like a report. I wish I, Scott Mann told me about it in his interview that we just released. So anybody listening, they can go back to get that. But they are predicting Al Qaeda terrorist networks are predicting. They're saying that the casualties that we will feel will be 50 to 60,000. 50 to 60,000 casualties when they decide to make their move. In our home front.
- [200:20]
Chris Fetus
It's a large scale and we all sound like kooks and conspiracy theorists until it happens. And it's like, well, prevention. There's a lot of shit being prevented.
- [200:31]
Sean Ryan
It's not kooks and conspiracy theorists. We are funding Taliban.
- [200:35]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, proving it.
- [200:36]
Sean Ryan
We, we proved it on the show. 911 was a $500,000 budget. Government already came out after we broke the news right here in this fucking room that they accidentally, accidentally sent $239 million to the fucking Taliban. But we know it's more like close to a billion a year, you know, that's going to these NGOs and being funneled back to the end. We know that they're producing passports. I've talked about this a million times. But we know they're producing passports. Send them into South Central America. They're funneling up through the southern border.
- [201:16]
Chris Fetus
Like it's. It all circles back to the same truth. And it doesn't matter. The more and more people you have that are experts with some real world experience in these things, like actual part of their life, whether it's their job or whatever they do, coming onto stuff like this with the courage to talk about it and people still, you know, some people want to go, that's not the truth. That screen with the CNN and FOX and that stuff, that's the truth. And you know, the movie I saw, it says, based on a true story. Why didn't they make that about that if it's true? You're like, I witnessed this in my life. Right? Go. The stuff you're talking about being true is like a movie based on a true story that's not even close to the truth, that's exaggerated for entertainment. Like, dude, that's why now, finally, the good thing is they're starting to realize how stupid it is and go on like the Washington Post or something. I saw the other day shows like the Sean Ryan show or now people are turning to those for their information, you know, instead of mainstream media. And you're like, thank God they're waking up to it. But, you know, it's like right at the last minute before this election.
- [202:35]
Sean Ryan
Yeah, yeah, but. Well, Chris, let's move into. Let's move into your final op. Are you ready?
- [202:45]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, yeah. I'm ready.
- [202:46]
Sean Ryan
I know this is heavy for you.
- [202:48]
Chris Fetus
Thank you. So it started actually kind of a cool story. Wasn't supposed to be there. So I made a decision to get out. When I was in the middle of my previous deployment in Somalia. I was a team leader at this outstation and we were pretty remote out there. We're doing some cool shit. We stayed up in the mountain for 22 days. That's where the 900 yard shot happened. On a, on a big ambush.
- [203:18]
Sean Ryan
Oh yeah, tell that. We got to hear that one. Sorry, we got to hear that one first.
- [203:23]
Chris Fetus
We. It was outside of our normal operation deck, but these isis, Somalia Sl, Al Shabaab terrorists had gone up into this little oasis of a village up in the mountain. It was like had, it was nice, it had a waterfall, date trees, it was really green, you know, just in the middle of a desert with nothing else. And so, you know, some people have been living in this village for decades and this place since has become sort of a safe haven for bad guys to go. Almost like a vacation. So spot or something because it's nice up there. So these, these guys decided to just go, take it over. So they go up and essentially kill all the villagers and you know, you know, move them out of there. Just essentially take over this spot. Like, cool, it's ours now. We're gonna relax here. And it was such a profound sort of wrongdoing that we got approved to go up there and clear them out. So we go through, we go up there. It was a long planning process to get it all. I mean we were getting like Humvees from Dermo and repurposing them and getting them ready and going up there and training, you know, for a long time. And we went up there and you know, we had partner force vehicles in front of us and you know, we anticipated an ambush and then there was this big ambush to get up there was on these like really tight switchbacks. So they're taking a lot of time. And so, you know, IEDs were placed up there and you know, one of the partner force trucks got blown up and flipped over. So we've got now our team, corpsmen and medics and stuff over there working on those guys. And we're stuck on this switchback, just getting lit up from RPGs and PKM and AK from somewhere. And some of them are like, where are these coming from? So we, but we, you know, we had some turret guns, we had some 40 mic mike guns up on the Humvees that were just super powerful. You know, weapons. So we were able to suppress that, you know, pretty comfortably. But while that was all going on, we're still getting all these pop shots on the trucks from. And the guy's like, where is this from? So I'm like, fuck. I hop out of my. We're stuck. We're not moving right now. So I guys are just staying inside. Cause you can see them landing around us. So I. I. And there's this big mountain. There's this big, like, ridge off to my left side. And we're driving up around the switchbacks. So I go, man, I go. And I just happen to always carry my.300 win mag. And I used to get made fun of for carrying up in the mountains. Cause it's just huge. So I had other buddies of mine, like, God damn it. That fucking thing seems bonking me in the helmet and shit. And I'm like, well, walk away from me somewhere. You know, I'm carrying this thing. And actually there was another OP where I used it. And, you know, we killed some bad guys that were launching mortars on us, you know, four of them. And then I'm like, I'm the guy who got to go do that because I had the long gun, you know, so it was always worth it to me, hucking that thing around. This is my favorite gun. 300 win mag. And so I pull that thing out of the back of the truck. I get it kind of set up. I had a big pouch full of rounds. And I go get under the hood of the thing, and I got my. We've got a turret gunner up there, another guy that passed away from a brain tumor after I got out. And so. But at that time, he was up there on the turret, and we had suppressed a fire. There wasn't much going on anymore except for these guys shooting pop shots. And I thought it might be from up there, 900 yards up on this ledge. So I get out and go, hey, dude, Zach, can you spot me? You know, I'm shoot. I'm look up there. So I look up there. I go, there's six guys up there. I can see their little heads. And they're like, shooting AKs over at us. Not very effective, though. It's still landing around us, but it's 900 yards away. Our AKs, you know, and I'm like, all right, dude. I'm start shooting back. So I start loading rounds, and I'm like, if I miss over the top, it's just a little. Just little, you know, heads. And so I'm like, and they're going to snap over, and those guys, they're going to go off, right? And, like, that's fine. Maybe that'll work. But instead I start, like, I'm going to take my first shot and intentionally kind of miss a little bit low so I can mark it on the rocks. And by the way that wind. The wind was blowing towards them, that they might not have heard that, you know, so. So that's what I did. And then I would kind of zero it in and then shoot at one of them. And then they'd all duck back, and I'd be like, you know, hey, did I get him? You know, and he's like, no, I don't think so. So I kind of was like, all right, well, that's suppressed. They're good. But then every time they came back and started shooting more, so. So I just keep doing my best, and, you know, then eventually he's like, you. You got that dude, you know? You got that dude, you know, and, you know, I don't like. I don't like the language sometimes out of ego, to go like the pink, you know, mist or whatever. But that was the. The sort of. He thought he saw that. I was like, okay, well, fuck, I'm looking. Are they coming back? He's like, no, they're not coming back this time. So they. And then they. So they stopped. So I didn't know. We didn't know, really. So I put the gun away. We start get everybody kind of wrapped up. Those guys survived in that truck. So the IED was in this plastic jug, and it went low order, so it didn't explode all the way. So we get back in, we move into the camp, we take it over, Take over some buildings, make it our jock. And then we spend the next 22 days doing little operations like sniper ops up there, trying to get the bad guys. We're having mortar fights and stuff like that. And then eventually get enough of them to where, hey, now we're going to introduce those villagers back up into there. And so we start doing that. That was an awesome time. They were, like, so happy. They kind of started moving back in. And then the partner force kind of took over that space spot for the next few years. I think I heard that eventually got taken back over, but I'm not sure about that.
- [209:56]
Sean Ryan
Damn.
- [209:57]
Chris Fetus
So we did some good for a short amount of time at least. Nice. And we came back down there, and that was that deployment. So the way that that was confirmed was that, you know, you can. You can capture with Your isr, Like, some of their chatter on radios, and they're chattering about, hey, there's a sniper. When we're in the firefight, shooting at us later on that night, we're listening to Terps, like, hey, I've been listening, and they're talking about going up there and getting. What's his name, that sniper shot, you know, like. So we're watching them. They. They go up there and they get this guy and they drag him down. And that's kind of a confirmation. Damn. You know, and so, you know, had a really awesome platoon chief then was like, dude, I'm gonna write this up. You know, it's pretty. It's pretty cool. So I'm gonna write it up. So he did that, and that's how I got that one.
- [210:49]
Sean Ryan
Fucking A, man. That's cool.
- [210:53]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, it was one of the cooler experiences. So, yeah. Where were we before that story?
- [211:03]
Sean Ryan
We're moving into your last stop.
- [211:05]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, so we move in. I'm at that. In between those missions at that outstation, and my kids are three and four, my two boys. And I'm having a hard time getting them to FaceTime with me because my wife says, hey, Braddock, my older son, he's starting to understand what's going on. Like, you're not here and you want to talk to him, but he's mad and he doesn't want to talk to you. And until you're back. Oh, man. And so how's that feel, dude? It broke my heart. And I couldn't get him on unless he was crying. So he tried a couple times. I'm like, dude, I don't. He's so mad and he was crying, you know, I don't wanna talk to you until you're here, you know, like, with me. Oh, man. So, yeah, that broke my heart. And I realized what I was gonna be missing, you know? Cause I was only 14, I was only 12, 13 years in with the intention to go all the way to 20, which meant I was going to be working my way all the way up through the team, you know. And by that time, it was my turn to be a team leader, which is really kind of a. Not the pinnacle, but a really big milestone as an operator, in my opinion, to get to. I always wanted to get to that. So I stopped telling her, hey, just don't. Just don't get him on there, you know, And I'm gonna get out. And she's like, you're gonna get out? I'm like, yeah, fuck it. I'm get Out. So I kind of started thinking about that decision, wasn't too serious about it. Still had a few more weeks left at the outstation. And then started doing some research in my off time about fatherhood. And then it became pretty apparent to me. And I don't even know where I got this from, but it just seemed like I was reading it over and over again that as a father to sons, the most important time to imprint those validation things that we're talking about and dad being there essentially is between the ages of 8 and 12. So I was like, all right, I can get out and I can make that still, you know, so that was really my deciding factor. And then as I kind of got closer to that decision, started to announce the team, like, hey guys, I'm getting out. And it was like, I know it's bad timing. I'm supposed to be a team leader right when we get back. And we had some great leadership then. And then our master chief was like, hey, dude, there's never a good time, so, you know, we're going to take care of you. And, you know, he got me into the Nico clinic and stuff, sort of organized. And then we came back from deployment. That next three months over the summer was my terminal leave. So we got back, I started my terminal leave. I started turning my things in. I don't know what. Oh, I did one more trip just to stay current, just in case. And it was a jump trip because I was a jump guy. And one thing about being a jump guy, I was never great at it. I. I ended up going to the tandem bundle school because when my first son was being born, we were short that qual and I was so like, the whole validation thing was like, man, they're going on deployment and there's an opportunity to jump in this course. It was the hardest course outside of any selection for me. It was anyways because my son was supposed to be due at any point during that three weeks. And it's intense. So I was fucking shit up. I was distracted. I was thinking about my son being born. I had this instructor that was a legend of a dude, you know, and I was in the green course. So it was the Delta course, and I was the only dev group guy. And, you know, the whole thing from him was like, you're going to be the best dude in this course. And I was like, okay. You know, and then I was the. I was the worst guy in the course, you know. But that's where I made some really lifelong Delta buddy, Delta friends. One guy specifically he really pushed me through that course and I'm eternally grateful for it because I got through and I probably shouldn't have. You know, they were really patient with me. And, you know, since then, after that, I practiced a lot and got good at it, you know. So then I started to enjoy it, right? A little bit at least. So we fast forward now to this. I go on the trip, I go do my tams, my bundles, stay current, you know, my last hoorah with the team and we get right back from that trip, I start turning all my shit in except for all my stuff we're going to do, you know, because now we're on standby. We're on our. We're responsible for the hostage rescues if anything comes about. So I leave those, I just take them home instead of my locker and I turn everything in except for my primary guns and my night vision, my favorite night vision goggles out of all the ones that we get. And that was it. And I was like, cool. Just in the team room doing emails and wrapping my shit up, you know, trying to get a resume together, trying to like, I had a job opportunity, so I was going to go for that and contracting with my, my buddy's company I mentioned earlier and just chilling now. And one day I'm in there, they spin up and I'm like, fuck, of course, you know, the day I decided to get out, you know, and I missed the hostage rescue, you know, so I'm in there. But because of some different circumstances, you know, there was no clue that there was going to be anything. And we had guys doing some different kind of cool training stuff. They had to get done a lot of the recce guys and planners for, you know, when we have that, we're typically the guys that plan, you know, routes and jumps and different things like that, right? So I had a really. Had a platoon chief that, you know, like, not everybody liked, but I had some kind of connection with him. I thought he was a really intelligent dude. I think his intelligence was underrated. And so he, I was like, hey, hey, I'm going to. I'm going to head out and go for a run around my neighborhood. I'm kind of also, like depressed because I don't get to go do this thing, you know. He's like, okay, so I go running, get done running, get back to my house, look at my phone. There's a bunch of texts from him. I'm like, oh, shit. So I call him, hey, what's going on? He's like, hey, we got Some guys in different places trying to get back. But we could really use, you know, some planning help if you want to help plan this thing. I was like, yeah. And then just kind of joking around, you know? I'm like, hey, if I plan, do I get to go? I'm on terminal leave. Of course I don't get to go, you know, but he goes, hey, yeah, hold on a second. So puts the phone down for a second, couple minutes, comes back, he's like, yeah, you can go. Like, holy shit. All right, how long do I have to get there? You got all your shit ready? Yeah, you probably better get here in, like, 45 minutes, you know, if you're gonna make this bird. So I'm like, oh, shit. So that's how much time I had to throw all my shit in the truck and tell my wife, hey, I'm gonna go do this thing. Are you okay with it? She's like, holy shit. We got through all of this. Yeah. I'm not gonna stop you from doing this one thing, but it's kind of that whole, like, Team America thing, like, just don't die, you know? So I'm like, okay, I won't, you know, try my best and love you, you know, and squeeze the boys and go. And so now that's how I ended up on the mission. So we fly over there, and you can find this in the news and shit. There was a hiccup with the staff for Obama, informing him that we were in the air, ready to jump when we got there. And so it got pushed 24 hours because he was asleep in Martha's Vineyard, from what I understand. I don't know the details of that. I know there's a bunch of shit that I probably have no fucking clue how it works, you know? And we come down, we push to the next night, and then we go. So I'm up there, I got a tandem medic on me, and I'm the point man for the op, you know, And I've got three other guys, too, usually a team of four and up to the point. Anyways, so everything goes well, we jump. Great landing. We get on this target, it's four. This is the news, too. Two professors that were kidnapped from the University of Kabul days before. One was Australian, one was American. Kevin King and Timothy Weeks. And found out that they're here, right? Probably being moved around different compounds on their way to across the border in Pakistan. And, you know, the network of dudes that do, you know, the most deviant shit with the Taliban, it's Those guys, right? Suicide bombers, you know, you know, just all the, all the worst shit you can think of that happens, you know, chopping off heads and whatever other kind of shit. I think that honestly actually was more in Iraq, but I don't know. So it's those guys, right? And so we're expecting some, we're expecting a hard fight maybe. And we all know if you have any experience with these guys in Afghanistan, with all the suicide bombs, the house born IEDs, all the shit where you like go really deliberate with when we go to these compounds we're looking for, I mean it's slow cqb. We're looking and we're looking at every threshold for wires, for different. You know, there's even started using, you know, motion sensors and you know, you know, light sensor, like photosensitive bulbs, you know, and pillows and shit like that to just blow, right? And there's so many ops where that happens, right? So it's, it's high tension and we're expecting this shit. And we get down and they're at a, they're at a compound, right? Got a long walk in, everything goes well. And then we get to, you know, we see some, some movement around, some guys that seem to have RPGs, motorcycles moving around. And then what I believe was going on based off of what, what happened was that that was just normal shit going on because we were able to get all the way up to the target, sneaking up and get up on top and get ready without anybody knowing anything, right? But there were a couple of noises, you know, that we made. The way that I go back to thinking about what actually happened on this op have a lot to do with, you know, Kevin King never spoke much about it after. Maybe he's super traumatized by it, maybe he's living his life, whatever. But Timothy Weeks did speak up on it a bunch in a bunch of different interviews and news outlets. And you know, I was in my contracting work after this hop and eventually they, they were cut a deal to be turned over and traded. And with the release of Anasa Kani, which is, you know, the leader and a couple of other guys. And once that happened pretty quickly it went around even in the news like a little write up that he had of like what he thought happened on those different ops, because there was a couple attempts, couple of failed attempts. And I pieced it together over time what I thought really happened, right? And so different roes for a hostage rescue, totally different. And every operator really understands like pretty in depth like what those are you have to, right? You really talk about it because the mission is the hostages. And on a hostage rescue, it's so hard to talk about, especially with people that don't understand war and those things. Because one of only a couple things is gonna happen. They're gonna kill the hostages if they know that you're there, which has happened. And that's a really hard thing for operators to deal with after. And. Or you're gonna rescue the hostages and kill all the bad guys. Great, you know, or the good guys might accidentally kill the hostage while they're doing the operation. That's happened before too. That's hard. So as an operator, you go through your decision making matrix to go, you're like, hey, my decision making has to be very precise here, right? And this is where even more so than any other time, or like, there's no room for this soul, I think, in those. And that's a sacrifice that warriors have to make, in my opinion, to do what they do sometimes. And that's where the detachment from that is so hard afterwards to come back to, because you've just moments of detachment from that for so long over time, you know, and in history, some have been able to figure that to stay attached and connected to that soul while they're doing it. But that just wasn't the case for where I was at, right? And what the guys around me were at and why it's so hard right now. Guys coming out. So we get up, I'm the first guy to touch the target. I climb up, sneak up to the roof, my spot. And my job is to. To protect the assaulters, right? And see what they can't see. So we have another team coming around on the other side, a little delayed because they went a different way. We weren't sure if we had been, you know, compromised at all yet. My opinion is we still weren't. So they climb up, they get set, they get ready. And in the meantime, I'm looking over down here and there's five people sleeping in the courtyard. But we knew that. And on the way, trying to figure out who they are or what they are, making sure none of them are the hostages, right? And that there's a lot that goes into that identification, you know, hair color, skin color, you know, what do they look like? Is there any chance that they're. They used to dress them up like in burkas, you know, so that we'd think that they were women, right. So there wasn't any of that. They're all males. And through a process of that, you know, getting to 100% clarity that, like, none of them are the hostages. But at the same time, you know, going, hey, the roe the intel is saying that who these guys are and what networks they're part of, when they know we're here, they might blow up the whole fucking thing in themselves. They're willing to do that, right? And all of us, and we've experienced that before, or they're gonna fucking spray something from under, you know, from their little sleeping nest. And in my job, yeah, we're on a mission. The hostages are the most important. But if I hesitate in a decision, dude, I've gone through this so much, and I'm gonna try my best here because I went through a whole process for years of making sure I'm not justifying, but justifying and, like, going back and forth with my ego, just trying to understand this thing. But also for so many years, I was just coping with it, with addictions and drinking my face off and just being lost with that new trauma, right? And figuring out the decision I made was the right one. Because the decision I made was, we're going to kill these five males, right? And eliminate any risk to those assaulters. Because if one gets hit, because I hesitated on that decision then I know their wives, I know a bunch of them, you know, they're all around our community, you know, and fuck, that's my. That's my job, right? So then I started to eventually separate this into a duty decision and a soul decision, right? So when the breach goes off, I'm eliminating those five. So I. And I did, right? Thinking back now, there were some things that happened outside that I. There were some loud noises, some things, some. Some mistakes that I think may have spooked those guys into stomping those hostages down into a tunnel system down below. Because when a couple years later, when they got turned over, that reading the thing that he wrote was like, hey, the first time I woke up in the middle of the night to getting kicked down a fucking hidden tunnel and was like knocked out and came back to. And then as soon as I came back to, there was a loud explosion, which is the breach from what I think. And so it wasn't like hours or days. It could have been seconds that we missed those guys, right? Maybe, maybe not. So the breach goes off. The assaulters come in, they get into a fight with a couple of the couple of guys, eliminate them. And we're waiting to hear that. Got him. You know, in that room, the beds are still warm. There's still food from whenever before, you know, exercise, bike, whatever. And hey, they're not here. And that's when essentially like, okay, we're going to clear this whole village now, which we did. And we've got other compounds we're looking at to, you know, to go look at, to go do. And as I'm doing my job, hopping from roof to roof, covering my guys, I'm going like, this rush of just sort of stress comes over me because now it's soul time, right? What I didn't know. What I don't. What I think I didn't know. I still go through this to go, did I know? Did I not know in that moment that two out of the five males were kids? So in the moment, it doesn't affect me too much. It's my job. You know, we wrap up that target, we get back, it's a failed hostage rescue. The team discusses, like we always do. We go, hey, anybody have any issues with everything that went down tonight, raise your hand. No. Even the guy who, I told you, the platoon chief was like, man, I'm. Well, I brought it up because I didn't, you know, hey, I don't know. I think I, you know, I know I did the right thing duty wise, but something in here is fucking me up right now, right? And I'm, you know, I'm good. He's like, you good? I'm like, I'm good. But I don't know what to say. What I. What I feel is like, hey, you did the right thing with that. You know, when you breach in Afghanistan, it's a blind assault. There's fucking dust. Like those guys clearance was like. You can't even see your hand in front of you. So imagine that, you know, hey, feeling your way into bad guys, you know, and making sure they're not the hostage. So that was that. The last I ever talked about it with anybody. The craziest thing was those guys got extended for a month to do more operations around this. Rangers get involved. Other guys get involved in like, all right, guys, I gotta go start my job in a fucking week and get back in time for it. So I fly back and no shit, like two days later, I'm up in D.C. in this office at Dittra with a fucking suit and a tie, thinking about these kids and just trying to figure the shit out but not understanding how. And I'm in this fucking office. I'm supposed to be getting read ons and badges and shit. And I've got this. There's this fucking, you Know, guy who's the boss or whatever, the program manager, and he's like, fucking eating Twinkies and shit all over his desk. And I'm like, hey, sir, what am I supposed to be? What do I need to do here? And he's like, fucking, what the. What are you talking about? Get your ass over to the fucking brief you're supposed to be in. And I'm like, okay, you know, dick. You know, and then I go do my best to figure out what the fuck I'm supposed to be doing in that. In that job. The first couple of weeks, you know, just feeling lost, like, what the fuck am I doing? You know? And, you know, over time, I got into the swing of it, and it was really. Actually a really good experience doing that work. It's just, you know, as I process through this and went through this whole phase of just these years of just fucking figuring myself out, just getting the bullshit, shoveling the bullshit out as much as I could while still adding more, not being able to figure out why I couldn't get it off. And, you know, one day I had the ibogaine experience that cleared that. That helped me understand a little bit better and some other things that I did as well. And then like, fuck, finally I figured out how to start leveling it out to a point where I had enough clarity in my own self to go back to that moment and now look at it instead of fucking hiding from it, which I was doing for years. And every time I wanted to think about it, I would just go fucking get drunk, you know, And I got to this point just a few years ago. I'm eight years out now, and maybe four years ago was rock bottom, where this thing, plus the childhood and all the shit I was doing outside of what I really wanted to be right, which was just good. I fucking. You know, I had this friend in my neighborhood take his own life just in the little lake across from my front porch, and used to go to that spot just because it made me feel good. I just, like, take a paddleboard over there and I would just kind of lay there where he'd took his life and go, fuck. I, like, feel something here. And then every time I leave this spot, I don't feel anything. And because of that, eventually I started to About a year of this seed being planted and growing in my head to where, like, man, I can just fucking. I'm a burden on everybody. I'm yelling at my kids. I'm a horrible husband. I'm addicted to everything. I can't Figure this shit out with these kids. So, you know, one day I found myself just playing slack site squeeze. You know the drill when you're fucking dry firing, but with one in the tube. And then that was the moment. I'm like, what the. I didn't even really realize I was doing it. I was just thinking. And then I now think back to go, thank God I wasn't drinking a bunch there. Because I think that in those moments, in that critical moment, which is the veteran suicide, like, critical moment that I think about a lot is a lot simpler than what I think we all think it is, because there's very specific thoughts going on in that moment, right? This guy, you know, this couple of guys or my team thinks I'm a shitbag or something. Like, I had another friend take his own life, and he was at that outstation with me, and he got sent home because he was. Became a really bad alcoholic. Then he was a great operator before, and then he turned into this, and he started getting bounced around teams. But, you know, they. They got it to where he could, like, survive through it. And he got to retire. And then right after he retired, he took his own life. And for him, it was a little different. It was like, dude, that whole bullshit of, like, if a guy's not performing for Whatever the reason is in that moment, when you guys start to. When we start to jump on it and be like, that's a fucking. Dude's a shitbag. And you just betray him after everything, all the good he was in those hard moments, like, that's the shit guys are thinking about, right? So there's a much better way to do that shit. And I even participated in some of it with a different guy we got rid of is like, we're hard motherfuckers, but we don't have to play that game. When it gets to that we can get rid of a dude for not performing or put him somewhere where he can get a little bit better, right? Take a break or whatever it is without going, huh? He's gonna. And fucking jump on that and be like, shit. You know? Cause once that label happens, that's a betrayal. And fast forward to later. That critical moment, those little memories, like, those are what they're thinking about, what we're thinking about in my. What I think. So that was the rock bottom moment. The only thing that made me fucking stop in that fucking moment and paddleboard back to my house was. It was at nighttime. I knew my family was eating dinner, and I started thinking about my son. And the whole Reason why I got out was for them. And that brought me back a little bit to go, like, fuck, even if I'm a shit father, they still believe there's something in me. That thing that some people can feel or see, like my wife did. She was still doing it in that moment, even though it wasn't me. She knew. They fucking know there's something more, right? And there's a chance to get back to that before they give up. I went back, and a couple days later, the wife of my friend that took his life there just randomly called me. And she was like, how you doing? You know? And I was like, fuck, not good. And she goes, oh, shit, let me come over and talk to you. And I was like, yeah, that'd be awesome, you know, because I knew what she must. What she had gone through with her husbands taking his life and how that was a whole process. She figured something out because she was not. She was something better after that, after some years. And so she's the one who introduced me into the medicine. So I went. I was like, dude, I'll do anything. I don't care what it is. I'll go. And I'm. Yeah, I was scared, but I was, like, willing to do. To try anything. And so I went, that we can go through that hole is a whole nother discussion. But it just completely opened up my heart to seeing through all this bullshit that was on top to go, fuck, you can just make a choice. So I made a choice, and pretty quickly I was able to get rid of all that bullshit, just shoveling it out to where it was, like, pretty much empty. And now I was just in full clarity to now go back to that, to that night and go, fuck, why did that happen? How did that happen? So then I was able to go pick it apart and go, hey, I did what I think is the right thing in duty, right? Because I know how the universe works. If I didn't do that, we'd have all gotten blown up or somebody would have gotten shot. And now I'd be dealing with that, right? We're not here. But also saying maybe that wouldn't have happened. Because if that's a little bit of a justification for it, then fine. But you know how the universe works, you know? And so now going to separate duty completely from it, to go for my soul, it was not the right answer. So I know that. And so now what I do is I've spent so much time now, instead of forgetting about those kids, thinking about them, and trying to place myself in Their childhood reality where it doesn't matter what your environment is if you're the children of a terrorist in your role as a servant to the father, or maybe he wasn't in that. I don't fucking know. But your job is to just. Is to play, you know, and learn and absorb everything. So it, it, it makes me. It forces me to. To attach it to what's happening with children now and all the of that. And like, just trying to. I want to just shake some people up to go, look, you're your own stuff, right? That you're. You're. Now, you know, you want people to think you're a good person, right? We all do, most of us. Some people have gotten to a point where they don't give a fuck, right? I want you to think I'm a good person so bad that I'll seek validation, you know, I'll do virtue signaling to show you how good I am, which now I'll use my children to show you. Look, especially the sexuality thing. It's so dangerously evil underneath it all. But I don't also want to shame and guilt, those kind of parents that are doing that, right? Because they might not fucking. Even when you're not clear, you're not even aware of your own behavior sometimes, right? So they don't even fucking know. They think it's the right thing to go. Look, we let them, you know, I don't want to get into it too much, but like a boy, maybe he wants to be a girl, and we kind of push that a little bit or vice versa, because we need to show that we're good, inclusive, diversive people. And the truth, what I know is. The truth of what I know is if I teach my kids kindness, that shit's all included in kindness, you know, inclusion, there are all these things, right? It's all underneath kindness. But you also teach them boundaries to protect themselves. And with children, they don't have boundaries. They don't know what that means. So they're going to absorb and sponge and take everything because guess what? They just want your validation. So you might be like, hey, children, what do you think about this? Or that topic in front of another adult? And like, they're going to say what you want them to because they want. Their goal is your validation and nurturing for mom. And they're going to do whatever they need to do to get that. No matter how wrong or evil or anything it might be, right? So I just go through all of that over time. It's always connected to these kids. At a point where I want to forget them. And I don't know how best to explain this, but I actually find myself thinking about it so much that it's like a little. It's like a. It's some form of love for them, you know, like. And what is there? Dude, this is the hardest thing, you know, I believe that this is an experience. And just like, if you're religious. I'm not even religious, but I see all these themes through every, every religious text that I've ever read. I try to read all of them. This is a body, right, that contains a soul. And death is just a transition into the next experience, whatever it might be. But that's the thing we're always fussing about and arguing about, like, you know, what is reincarnation? What is all, you know, and literally fighting wars with each other about our different beliefs, about. About something we can't know here yet, you know, and so I find myself thinking about where they're at, you know, Same way I think about my grandfather before he passed away. Some of the last words he said to me, I was able to sit by him next to the bed and talk. I was like, dude, grandpa want to say things, but I don't know how. He's like, you can say whatever you want, you know. And I was like, well, here's what I want to say. You've been such a mentor to me. Everything I've done, you've given me the validation. You've been so proud of me, you know? He was so proud that I made it to Seal Team 6 and I wanted to do this ice cream thing next so he could see didn't happen in time. But the thing I wanted to say, I was like, whatever you're feeling, you know, like, I can imagine that you must be going through your whole life as an experience and even to include things you might not have resolved with some of your sons, because there were some tensions, there's some things going on, you know, family things that always exist. And I was like, but what I think is that deep down inside you, to the core of your soul, what you really are is just little boy Jack, seven year old. That's what I visualize as the most authentic, the most real version of me that I ever was before anything happened to me, before any of those traumas, those conflicts, those things. And so going into myself was like a hostage rescue to grab that little boy and bring him back through all that fucking bullshit. So those kids now I think about and I. I don't want to forget them.
- [247:20]
Sean Ryan
Damn. Gross. You know when we spoke the first time, you had mentioned dreams. Can you talk about those dreams?
- [247:38]
Chris Fetus
Yeah. So for a long time, you know, like I said, like coping, we talk about ptsd, you know, in the teams and soft. I like to use that word because just like other words, society, we attach too much stigma to those words. So it's like PTSD is like this thing no one wants to have. Because we know that if you're labeled with it or attached to it, no matter how many, how, how anonymous they make the reporting system of it, or whatever you do with a psychologist or whatever, you're not gonna. I'm not going to. Because I want to be operational. That's my mission. So I like to call it coping instead. We all cope with it in different ways that we, in our culture, we make. Just like in society, we make certain things socially acceptable, anything but, you know, encourage each other to change our lifestyles, do something healthy, you know, because it doesn't fit in the culture. And that's the thing. Like, culture is such a powerful thing. So my coping with it was. I was like trying my best to forget it. And then I was having these fucking night non stop nightmares. And it was, it was tough for my wife because it'd be like I'd be stuck in the dream and making these strange noises because I knew I was in a dream and I was trying to get out of it. So. Because I didn't want to look at that, these kids. And like the hardest part is like, I know the image of what it looked like. Like even, even one of them kind of like got up a little bit and like there's bullets through them and then kind of like laid back down. And this shit tormented me in the dreams that every time he got up, it was like my younger, for some reason, my younger son's face. So then I developed this fucking belief that if anything traumatic happens to either one of them through their lives, it's because of me. And I was like, that's the message I was getting. And then I was like doing. I was like essentially shooting my own. And I think the reason it was him is because he's a little bit more of the adventurous. Like, he just goes for it. It's actually awesome now. Like he just, he probably has fear, but he doesn't care about the fear, you know. And then my older son is more analytical, things out a little bit more. And there's gonna be good things and bad things for both of those traits. But I love both of Them equally as much, but for some reason it was him because he's probably more likely to get into danger faster. Like, if any. Like, I don't even want to say this because I don't want them to become seals. But he'll be the one if. You know. I think so. After the Abigail and those went away, they did go migraines.
- [251:00]
Sean Ryan
Do you think those kids have ever tried to make contact with you talking.
- [251:05]
Chris Fetus
About the ones here? No. They're all like you talking about on the operation. Yeah, no, I. Those, they're. I can't. Oh, I see what you're saying. Sorry. No, haven't. That's a good point. I might need to pay more attention.
- [251:26]
Sean Ryan
You think you're opened up enough for that?
- [251:29]
Chris Fetus
Maybe. You know, one thing I think about is. Sorry, I misunderstood that for a second. I haven't gotten to a lot of the other war stuff much and. I don't know, sometimes I go, oh, it just didn't affect me much. I don't think so. I think that there's a psychological toll on everything that happens. Every little thing. Now, if you choose. If you're a guy that chooses to go, hey, I'm good, didn't bother me much. And you hold it and you don't talk about it and you go on your. You know, it's like, be with my grandfather. I wish he told me more, but he just doesn't talk about it like, okay, that's just how grandpa is. That's okay. You know. But then there's us guys that wanna. I wanna. I wanna tell them I want them to. I want them to feel, you know, something like they want to. I think that, you know, my kids, they both my boys. I think they. They want to. So I decide now to go to it. Instead of the effects that that shit's having on me when I try to forget it. But, you know, as far as the. You know, I meditate a lot. I've gone through some really intense meditation training and I've got some more to do. Some teachers get a lot of visions out of those when you get far enough and deep enough. And I might not have been paying attention to what you just asked, you know, so maybe the next time I do that, or even some, you know, plant medicine ceremony or something that maybe I'll lay that down as an intention to go. Hey, if there's anything for me to receive from them, I'm open.
- [253:16]
Sean Ryan
Did you know Gabe McCarty?
- [253:18]
Chris Fetus
No. Thank you.
- [253:19]
Sean Ryan
So he was a team 10?
- [253:21]
Chris Fetus
No, I didn't know him.
- [253:23]
Sean Ryan
But I've told this before, but I'm gonna tell you because I know that contacts me all the time. And I'll tell you one example. That's his flag up there. But.
- [253:43]
Chris Fetus
The Red Wing.
- [253:44]
Sean Ryan
Yep. Like, he. Well, that was Josh Harris's flag. But Gabe was Josh's best friend. And Gabe cared about three things. He was. He became really bad heroin addict. And when he knew things were getting super dicey, he would give me that flag, those rounds, and I told you where those came from. And his dad, his grandpa's firefighter helmet, because that's just the only three things he fucking cared about. And he passed away several years ago, but I've had a lot of encounters with him. And I'll tell you, the last one that I had was, you know, I've never told anybody this, or I have not said this on the show, but those rounds are from the Red Wings Birds that Went down and.
- [254:57]
Chris Fetus
Well, I'm honored for you to tell me.
- [255:01]
Sean Ryan
A Ranger that was on the recovery op at the crash site gave those rounds to him and said that those were the only things that didn't burn up in the crash site. So he snapped off a round for every guy that died on that op and brought him home. And he just had him in a little fucking shave kit, and he would give them to me if he thought he was gonna check out. I'll probably give him to a museum or something when I feel the time's right. But before he died, he would come over to my house all the time and tell me that he was gonna start a Wounded warriors hockey team sponsored by the NHL. Completely jumped out. And you've seen what that looks like. And a lot of people listening have seen what that looks like. It's not a fucking pretty sight. And, you know, I dedicated several years of my life to getting. Trying to make him better and had some successes, but ultimately it didn't work out, obviously. But he would tell me, I'm gonna. Yeah, the Florida Panthers NHL team, they're gonna sponsor me. And I'd be like, okay, Gabe, I hope you're right, man. And when they found him, when he died, the Florida Panthers NHL team decided they were gonna sponsor him. And so they went to his house to tell him that they were going to fund his team and be the sponsor. And he was. He had overdosed and was on the floor. Fast forward. They still stood the team up. They still funded the team. His name's on all the jerseys. And I got one of the first jerseys ever made, and they won the fucking national championships, the very first year. And then I told you I went to Vienna and I did that Massoud interview.
- [257:19]
Chris Fetus
Yeah.
- [257:21]
Sean Ryan
And we were the first ones to report that. And I got super fucking paranoid for protection. And I got a little too far in front of my skis and. And started hiring personal protection for my family. And fucking Taliban's called me out on X several times because of. Because we're fucking with our funding. And we came home from that Vienna trip, and I had that jersey framed. It's the first thing you see when you walk in the door. Right next to the American flag. Huge. Probably weighs 30 pounds. It's been hanging there ever since I got this stuff, which has been about three years now. And we got back and that. That frame was. It had fallen off the wall, and it was on the ground. It should have broke because of how heavy it is. Not a crack in the glass, not a. The frame. Still nothing. Perfect condition. And we walk in. This is the day after we got back from Vienna. And I'm like, nobody here could have taken it because the whole team went to Vienna with me except my assistant. And she wouldn't have done it. But I asked her, I said, hey, did you. What's this? And she's like, I like that. When I came in, nobody else was here, like I said. And so, like, all day, that was in my mind as I'm here working. And then the team left, and then everybody in the buildings left, and I was the last car in the parking lot. And I'm pacing around, and I just. I just thought. Because, like I said, Gabe had made contact several times before. And I'm, like, pacing around, and I'm like, fuck, man. Like, what. What are you trying to tell me, man? And do I need to, like, fucking move? Do I need. What? Do I need to hire more protection? Like, what do I need to do? What are you telling me? And I go home and I tell my wife, Katie. I'm like, man, the weirdest fucking thing. Like, that. That frame's been up there. It's been on the wall for three years. Never taken it off. Like. And then I come home from Vienna, I'm super paranoid. And the frame's down, and I feel like Gabe's trying to tell me something. And Katie goes, the hockey jersey. And I'm like, yeah. And she goes, sean, the Florida Panthers just won the fucking Stanley Cup. And I was like, what? She's like, the Florida Panthers just won the Stanley Cup. And I was like, holy. And then I looked at my watch and the date was June 28th.
- [260:34]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, the day.
- [260:35]
Sean Ryan
June 28th's the anniversary to Red Wings, which was a massive part of Gabe's life because those were his guys, that was his platoon, and I just fucking lost it. But that's too many coincidences to. To be anything else. And then I thought, that fucker isn't trying to warn me anything. He's just going, he's celebrating. No, you fucking idiot. I'm not trying to warn you of anything. You're not that damn important. The fucking Panthers won the Stanley cup and it's just June 28th. And I just want your attention and. But there's signs, man. There's always signs.
- [261:14]
Chris Fetus
There's some coincidences, but there's also a lot of not coincidences. You've had enough experts on here that do things, you know that, dude, I mean, we might to believe there's not something. Dude, over time, it's in every text, every Bible. We're more than this, what's in front of us and signals and messages can get through from here to there to wherever we exist outside of or inside of what this is. So really my opinion is that it's like a low. I don't want to offend anybody, but it's a low intelligence. It's of low intelligence for me, for somebody I think like an atheist or something or somebody that just doesn't believe there's anything else but this because there's just too much evidence. Like the evidence is you.
- [262:23]
Sean Ryan
It's gotta be harder to. It's gotta be harder to not believe than it is to believe.
- [262:29]
Chris Fetus
I think so, like.
- [262:30]
Sean Ryan
But the only reason I'm kinda bringing this up right now, man, is for me, I think life is all about love and forgiveness and those kids souls are somewhere. And I could see it all over you that you want to know that you've been forgiven and you love those kids. And I mean, you can see that you're so genuine about it. Maybe they will make contact. Maybe they're trying to.
- [263:16]
Chris Fetus
I think they are me.
- [263:17]
Sean Ryan
You know, maybe that's the we're all connected, the sign that you need to know that they're good with it, bud. Thanks for sharing that.
- [263:30]
Chris Fetus
Well, thank you for that.
- [263:32]
Sean Ryan
You want to take a break? Yeah, let's take a break. Thank you for listening to the Shawn Ryan show. If you haven't already, please take a minute, head over to itunes and leave the Sean Ryan Show a review. We read every review that comes through and we really appreciate the support. Thank you. Let's get back to the show. All right, Chris, we're back from the break. We're gonna lighten it up a little bit, but I do, man, thank you for. For toughing it out with that. And just from our discussion downstairs, I'm glad that was therapeutic for you.
- [264:19]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, I appreciate it. I'm grateful for the moment.
- [264:23]
Sean Ryan
But let's move into. We covered a little bit of kind of what it was like getting out, I think, at the very beginning, actually. But I did want to ask about. I mean, how. When did you tell your wife about that stuff?
- [264:46]
Chris Fetus
I don't. You know, it's kind of a blur. I don't think I really talked. Still haven't talked much. You know, she knows that that was one of the things really, you know, affecting me. But we never really got into the deep details of it, But I think it might have been a couple of years after.
- [265:05]
Sean Ryan
It took years.
- [265:06]
Chris Fetus
I think it was a couple of years. Yeah, I think it was a couple of years.
- [265:11]
Sean Ryan
Can I ask how she received it?
- [265:14]
Chris Fetus
I think she received it the best she could. You know, she's really good about receiving those things. But I know that, you know, people. It's. Sometimes, you know, they're thinking about how do I react to it, you know, and you're like, you don't have to react to it, you know, But I think that she took it and really, deeply cares about me, you know, and I can feel that. And I can also know she doesn't have to say anything. You know, I can feel how much she cares when I tell her those things, even in silence, you know, you can see it in her eyes. So I think she just worried, you know, she wanted. Her goal and intention was she wanted me back, you know, or she wanted all of me, maybe even, you know, feeling like she hadn't ever had all of me, you know, a full presence of me and who I am, you know, minus all that bullshit. And so it was a really glorious moment of. To finally reach that person that I wanted to become for her, for myself, you know, for everything, for the business, you know, that wasn't gonna work until I became the person that I needed to become to deserve to walk through those doors.
- [266:38]
Sean Ryan
Do you think your kids will watch this?
- [266:41]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, I think they'll watch it. And, you know, one, I'm grateful for more than just, you know, you calling me up to come on the show. I mean, it's also, to me, it feels like this opportunity from God, Certain moments in your life that you get. And for me, I think, into the future is I can imagine them when I'm older, you know, if I get there, looking back to this and going, man, this is a marker for how I feel right now, you know, while this stuff is all still fresh and I'm still, you know, a little young and they're, you know, to. They're still young, you know, they're still boys. And so it's. Technology's cool in some ways like that. Yeah. You know, so now they have it.
- [267:31]
Sean Ryan
I mean, it's. Do you think you'll watch it with them?
- [267:35]
Chris Fetus
Yeah. Yeah.
- [267:37]
Sean Ryan
Have they ever heard any of this?
- [267:39]
Chris Fetus
No.
- [267:41]
Sean Ryan
What do you think they'll react? What do you think their reaction will be?
- [267:45]
Chris Fetus
I don't know. I think that I'm clear enough and honest with them enough about as much as I possibly can that I can go, hey, you guys, don't. You don't have to react to this, but you can tell me how you feel, you know, And I know that that's gonna evolve and change as they grow. So now it'll be interesting for me to see how it evolves with them.
- [268:06]
Sean Ryan
I love these, man. It's like a legacy piece, you know, Your family will watch this for generations. Yeah, it's really. It's really cool. And it's. I don't know, it's just. I think for a lot of the guys that come in here that do a life story like that, and it's. And they. They get vulnerable and deep and open doors that don't rarely get opened. I mean, I just. I'm thankful to be able to do it, and I just. Man, it's just. It's important, man. I always wonder what it's like, you know, to watch. Watch something like this as a family when it's about you and. But. But what are, you know, what was it like for you to get home and. Cause you decided to leave because of your sons.
- [269:04]
Chris Fetus
Yeah.
- [269:05]
Sean Ryan
And your wife and. So how did that reintegration go?
- [269:10]
Chris Fetus
It was hard. You know, it took me some time doing that job and trying to figure out why not only did I not feel better, but increasingly worse over time. And so, you know, once I finally figured out that that is correlated to understanding your purpose, you know, and sometimes when I say finding your purpose, a lot of people, I think they don't know, like, what does that mean, your purpose? You know, and you might not figure it out until you just start doing shit, you know, until you start being like, dude, I don't like what I'm doing right now, so how do I get out of this. How do I start making moves towards something that I know that I like? And then the more you do it, you know, it starts to build and grow. And then you can kind of start figuring out, like, well, my purpose isn't to make ice cream. You know, it's not your job or where you live, because guys will get out, and I'm just gonna move to some beautiful ranch and Montana, and everything's gonna be fine. You're like, no. You know, unless you have something, you're gonna. You know, it's not just what you're gonna do. It's. If I make ice cream, that's just my medium. It's. I. Part of my purpose is to serve. To serve others. Once I figured out how to serve myself so that I can be more available to serve others, it's not a narcissistic or selfish thing. It's a. It's a generous thing in that. In that way, to serve others. You know, I did it. Something inclined me to go do that in the military, and I didn't even know why, you know, so it wasn't just for validation. It was because part of my purpose is to serve, right? So now I just. I just get to feed people ice cream and watch them smile, and it fucking. There's no toxicity. There's no ulterior motives, no agenda or anything behind it. It's just fucking ice cream. Want to make you feel good, you know, for a short amount of time, you know? Or your purpose might be to create. Dude, the paintings, the. You know, I've got a creative mind, too, so part of my purpose is to create, you know, a mother's purpose is to create and just those kinds of words. It's so hard with words because so much behind everything, we try to just try to find the best combination of words to describe, you know, what you feel, which is everything. If what we are and what we feel is every grain of sand on earth, right, Even under the ocean, then words is like a sprinkle of sand in your hand, and you're trying to use those to tell everybody about all of the sand, you know, so it's hard. Some people are really good at it with their vocabulary, you know, their vocabulary is better, you know, than others. And so you just try your best. But that's what I'm saying with purpose. It's like. It's more aligned with not your fucking title, your. You know, I am a mother with ADHD that, you know, is a teacher and does. And all this stack of. And my sexuality is this. This. This not saying anything about sexuality. That's fine. I'm saying that that's not what you are. That's just one tiny little aspect of part of what you are, you know, so the purpose thing is it's a more literal thing, like, what do you do and why? You know, what do you want to do? I want to paint. Or maybe your purpose is to create. Go do something. See if you love it, you know, and makes a move towards that. Or, you know, maybe it's to teach. And you're. If you're a teacher and you love. Have you ever seen a teacher that loves being a teacher, no matter how stressful it is? Have you ever had one of those teachers and you're like, that was a good one. I remember she cared. I could feel that she cared about us all. And that shit's stressful because there's other teachers that hate it, and they might be convincing themselves that that's their purpose. My purpose is to teach. And they force it, force it, force it. But why are you so miserable? Doing it might not be, you know, and then you're afraid to let that go, you know, and move into something else that might be more aligned with your purpose. So it's that.
- [273:23]
Sean Ryan
I think a big hurdle for a lot of people, too, not just guys getting out, is limitations. And, you know, I don't believe there are limitations anymore. I used to think there were limitations, and then. And then I realized when you do find your passion, there's literally no fucking limitations. The only limitations there are are the limitations that you put on yourself. And what I notice is that most people look for the limitations as an excuse to not excel and succeed, not even realizing that they're fucking doing it.
- [274:01]
Chris Fetus
Yeah. And you might have to do some shit in the meantime. That's not a limitation. That's just what you got to do. You got to have some money, got to put food on the table. You do those things and you just fucking get through it. But if you can commit a couple years, you know, it's worth it.
- [274:19]
Sean Ryan
Yeah. Yeah. You know, and usually we go pretty in depth on the transition, but it got so heavy there. I think we need to. We need to pull out of. Pull out of the darkness. But I do want to ask you another thing, and I know you already said it, and I feel the same way, but, you know, with everything that you've been through and everything you've experienced and everything that you thought the SEAL teams was going to be, you've been through the transition. We've both lost. I've lost more people than I can count to suicide. Way more to suicide than I have in combat. And, you know, with everything that you know now. And your sons are gonna look at your career eventually, if they haven't already, and they're gonna probably want to do something like that to impress you. What would you want? Your kids, your sons in the SEAL teams.
- [275:25]
Chris Fetus
I don't want them. And I've told them this, and my wife, because there's just. There were so many close calls, and it's just now I'm a father now I know there's danger. I'm okay with danger. This brings me back, too, to so many. Every time somebody was lost. It's like I go back now to those memories where I wasn't really paying close enough attention to the fathers, now that I'm a father, or even the mothers too, of how overwhelming that feels when that happens to them. It's like. It's just. It's like the toad. It's like the toad, but worse. More overwhelming than the toad. You know, if you've ever experienced Fabiomyo dmt, I think that losing a child as a parent might be more overwhelming than that or equally, fuck. Now I think about their faces and I missed some of that, you know, in those moments. But now I think back and go, fuck.
- [276:27]
Sean Ryan
That was.
- [276:29]
Chris Fetus
It's no small thing. And so I don't want to feel that. But. But if they are gonna go, I gotta support them so that now the support is at least they're gonna be the safest as possible because they have that validation, have that support, you know, where I'm not. I don't want them thinking about tension with dad or their validation for anything. If they're gonna do that, you know, I want them to optimize and just make the smartest decisions possible and hopefully a little luck in there from God too.
- [277:07]
Sean Ryan
You got into some. Sounds like you got into some interesting contract work.
- [277:12]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, I did. It was interesting. I didn't enjoy it much, but it was interesting.
- [277:17]
Sean Ryan
What's the extraterrestrial stuff? I'm dying here.
- [277:20]
Chris Fetus
I didn't work on anything with extraterrestrials, but, you know, you've got access to lots of programs and different email systems and different things and for sure, there was a time where some traffic went around with. Regarding. You know, they've talked about this plenty too, and it's out there. You can look this right up, that there's a task force, you know, there's a task force responsible for Collecting the data around all the UFOs that pilots are seeing. Right. And you can. You have pilot buddies? I got a lot of them. There's an air base there, oceana. Lots of F18 friends. They see this shit all the time.
- [278:09]
Sean Ryan
Do they really?
- [278:10]
Chris Fetus
Yeah.
- [278:10]
Sean Ryan
What are they seeing? Anything in particular?
- [278:13]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, the same little. The Tic Tac thing, shiny shape that zips around in these different, you know, experiences with their. With their pods or just with their eyes. And it all, you know, it seems to be that same shape, you know, over and over again as people have seen it, off of ships, off of naval ships, in their pods and out of their windows. And it's not, you know, it's. Now it's at the point where there's no. It's no longer like, hey, you know, don't speak up about anything because you're gonna feel, you know, we're gonna embarrass you. It's like, ha, ha, you saw something. You know, like, no, now it's been enough that they're like, yeah, I saw a couple today. Oh, shit. Yeah, saw one last week. You know. Damn. Just trying to keep, you know, you know, record them snapshots or whatever and enter it into this, you know, into the database of evidence of UAPs. So, you know, they're having hearings about it, Congressional hearings and different talks about it. And, like, it's just true at this point. There's no conspiracy theory around it. There's things going on, including. And that's. That's just one of them.
- [279:21]
Sean Ryan
What do you think it is you think about this stuff?
- [279:24]
Chris Fetus
I do, and it's tough to talk about because when I say I think into the future, I also go into the far future and the far past and go all the way into, you know, physics. And I've read a couple of Stephen Hawking's books and things, and different folks like that, and astrophysicists. I just, like, love watching that stuff. And I love, like, all of the, you know, ancient aliens and everything on the stuff I watch. If I do watch something and it's just too apparent that 1. Physics. And all of these researchers and scientists are telling us that time is not linear out there. It's based on gravity. So if time is not linear, then in different places, the past, present and future could all be existing at the same time. Or, you know, and in spirituality, I think that a lot of monks, a lot of people that. That practice meditation, spirituality believe that too. Which means your childhood and being an old man is happening already right now. You just only can experience this moment in this time, right? But five seconds from now, if I move this bottle, that's the future. And if I make that decision right now, then I can see the future. It's going to move, right? Nothing's gonna change that. Maybe some, you know, boom, that moment exists at the same time, as I was just saying that in five seconds, that's gonna move. So I do think about it, and if that's the case, you know, I also think about technology and AI we're battling about how to use it, what to use it, and I think that it's inevitable that we're going to. We're already starting to integrate AI consciousness into our consciousness in different ways. Whether it's a chip or whatever. Like it's going to start with your iPhone is just now implanted. You don't have to do anything. You just go, you know, and do shit. And it'll evolve from there and to the point where now we can access artificial intelligence in combination with our own intelligence, and maybe that becomes the next species of humans, because it's going to evolve. We've already had several species of humans. It just makes sense, based off of the evidence that already exists, that we're going to evolve into another type of human. We're going to. Unless we destroy ourselves, you know, but so just. Just like, if you ask me if I believe in aliens or extraterrestrials or any wording or language around that, to me it's a. It's. It's unintelligent to think otherwise because I can only base it off of my own experience so far, which is being alive. So there's no belief that I can have. There's no evidence to prove otherwise, that there is life because I'm alive. I've never experienced nothing. You know, so when Stephen Hawking is like, he's a genius with what he was doing with physics and theories, but he's not an idiot. But sometimes, like, he's also kind of an idiot because he was an atheist. So how do you do all that and then believe once we die here? There's just nothing.
- [282:34]
Sean Ryan
A lot of those guys believe that.
- [282:37]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, it doesn't make sense based off of the evidence.
- [282:40]
Sean Ryan
I don't think so either. With the AI thing. I just interviewed. Do you know who Andrew Huberman is? Yeah, by chance, I just interviewed him two days ago.
- [282:51]
Chris Fetus
Oh, that's awesome.
- [282:52]
Sean Ryan
And I asked him if he knew anything. Super cool guy and like, way cool. And no, I was asking him about Neuralink. I was like, do you know, because he's a neuroscientist. And I was like, do you know anything about neural link? And so do you know that this. Do you know that's going to help blind people see?
- [283:11]
Chris Fetus
That's incredible.
- [283:12]
Sean Ryan
So here's how this. I'm going to totally this up and I apologize. But.
- [283:18]
Chris Fetus
Or layman's trying to, basically.
- [283:19]
Sean Ryan
Yeah, here's how I describe it. But so basically, whatever. They implant something to your eye and it goes to a chip, and then the chip goes to your brain or something. And so basically it's a. It's a. What did he call it? He said it's. Oh, it's a digital. It gives a digital signal to the chip and then the chip turns it into an electrical signal that goes to the brain. And people are starting to be able to see, like shapes and different shades of gray and that it will eventually be just like what me and you are sitting here looking at.
- [284:06]
Chris Fetus
Yeah.
- [284:07]
Sean Ryan
And. And it got into this discussion and I was like. I said. He started going on and that it will soon be possible that you can kind of like stimulate different sections of the brain when it comes to touch and all these. All the senses. And so I asked him, I said, so are you telling me that it's possible to project 100% false reality into somebody's brain and them not even realizing if we can experience touch, vision, taste, everything, emotion, you know, through these fucking chips.
- [284:53]
Chris Fetus
I mean, there's like layers of matrixes that could be.
- [284:57]
Sean Ryan
That could mean that we're in a simulation right now. Right now. And that simulation is a sim.
- [285:03]
Chris Fetus
That's right.
- [285:04]
Sean Ryan
You don't know it's never ending. And.
- [285:07]
Chris Fetus
But to not be able to speculate about it because of people who want to be ignorant about it and shut it down with conspiracy theory or whatever is like now we don't even get a chance to have fun and even talk about it.
- [285:16]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [285:17]
Chris Fetus
To not believe in it, to be honest with you, is boring. Yeah, like, how fucking boring? So, but, you know, people ask, think there's aliens, you know, and stigma attached to that word too, because of Hollywood has fucked it up, you know. But everything we've created in Hollywood is based off of something we saw here. A dragon is a lizard and a bird, you know, and you just. I go into it and think, dude, we're just accustomed to everything. You become accustomed to everything. So an octopus looks like crazy, but we're just accustomed to it. It's been here ever since I was born and I learned what it is, you know, or Giraffe has this fucking. If I saw that. If we didn't know what that was and we weren't accustomed to it and we saw it on Saturn, we'd be like, look, there's these creatures with these necks that reach up so they can eat shit that's high up, you know, and they have spots like fucking alien. And why is it so out of reach? It's like we're so fixated on what it might look like. And like, just like humans, once you realize in yourself that it doesn't fucking matter what I look like, you have like so much more freedom in your life and now you can be done with all the costume shit all the time, you know, and, yeah, have a little personal style or whatever. But it's like, same thing with aliens is like, I don't give a fuck what they look like. I just want to know if it's what it feels and, you know, how it communicates and it's level of awareness and consciousness, you know, it's more interesting to me than just shutting it down or arguing about what it would look like.
- [286:57]
Sean Ryan
What do you think it is? How deep do you think into this stuff?
- [287:04]
Chris Fetus
Pretty deep, you know, And I actually, you know, I enjoy my medicine ceremonies too, when I. I might now I'm at the point now where they're just fun, beautiful. I have some intentions for it. The trauma dark shit is I've gone through all that and it's usually not that, you know, anymore. I've gone through so many repetitions of that now. It's like, hey, my intention now is just feel gratitude, you know, and, you know, have a. Have a good experience. And it always is that. And then at the same time then I go, hey, I want to receive some signals that help me understand what consciousness might be like elsewhere. Because what I always get in those is that we're all connected in consciousness. And then we might all be from the same source of consciousness, whatever that is. If it's God, to me, if God, then. And not even in a religious way, it's just, you know, there is something more than what's in front of us. And whatever it is, including vacuums of nothingness, you know, or whatever we were before. The Big Bang theory is also part of it. You know, any of those periods of nothingness or voids is also part of God. So it's everything. God is everything, right? So God, love, right? Different words for that, you know, joy, pure joy are here or up here in the spectrum of consciousness and suffering. Evil, dark, you know, Shit. Satan is down here in the bottom part of the spectrum, and that's infinite. And everything in between is where we all choose to exist. And it's just an infinite circle of consciousness with those things being on the outer spectrum of it.
- [288:54]
Sean Ryan
Do you think we have a collective consciousness?
- [288:56]
Chris Fetus
Yeah.
- [288:57]
Sean Ryan
Or is it specific to the individual collective.
- [289:00]
Chris Fetus
And we're all just little branches of the same consciousness of God, in my opinion. And that evolves over time. My understanding of it so hard to explain with words. I really want to improve my vocabulary.
- [289:15]
Sean Ryan
Do you think that. Do you think UFOs, extraterrestrials, could be some kind of a projection of a collective consciousness?
- [289:25]
Chris Fetus
Yeah.
- [289:26]
Sean Ryan
I mean, maybe a spiritual entity.
- [289:33]
Chris Fetus
Spiritual entities. That's hard to explain because it's the different variations of spirituality. Vice science. That people want to separate. Right. But in a lot of ways, it's very similar language around the same concepts. Right. And if it's inevitable that I believe that we're gonna integrate and become another species of humans. Right. Then inevitably we're gonna figure out how to harness gravity. And maybe we've already done that, because out there where you can harness gravity and we learn that time's not linear. Now we can sort of bounce around and probe ourselves. So maybe we're probing ourselves with these little things. Um.
- [290:22]
Sean Ryan
That's an interesting perspective I've not thought of.
- [290:28]
Chris Fetus
Yeah. And maybe we found. Now we can expand. That's what Elon Musk is doing. He's. He's. He's an explorer. His purpose is to explore. So in the meantime, he's down here being Batman. Thank God we've got a guy like that, you know, that's not fucking an evil billionaire. You know, like Soros, he's like the arch enemy of Batman, you know? Musk.
- [290:53]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [290:53]
Chris Fetus
And God, I hope we get more of them, you know, but his purpose, I think, is to explore, is doing it. Saw the fucking thing land in the chopsticks the other day. Fucking amazing. And as we evolve, we're going to reach places outside our solar system eventually, and we're going to find something, and then we're going to meet them and find out that their consciousness is from the same source as our consciousness, but we just look different. And then we're going to become accustomed to each other. And then the next thing you know, it's going to be a fucking Star wars bar. Why isn't everybody freaking out about each other? Because they are accustomed to each other.
- [291:38]
Sean Ryan
Yeah. You know, I don't know. I love thinking about this shit. It's you know, I mean, we could go on all day about this, and it'll turn into a whole nother episode. But let's get to. Let's get to ice cream. Where did the passion for ice cream come from?
- [292:00]
Chris Fetus
That came from childhood, so we went through all that. But, you know, from the point that my stepfather came about, I had a great childhood still. You know, I still perceive that I had a wonderful childhood. My mom, you know, she's. She's heaven of a mom, you know, and, you know, she did everything. They did everything they could. They provided everything they could. And one year, I got a. You know, I was always in the kitchen with my grandmother and my mom, so I cook a lot. You know, I have the creative mind, and I. You know, I love to, like, make wontons and different stuff for when friends come over, and it's been great for the cafe. So now the ice cream cafe is more than that now. Now it's a legitimate bakery. I've got two chefs. They're wonderful. They're just. They're my heroes with this, and we're gonna go so far with this, and they're gonna reach all their dreams, too. You know, pastry chef and chef couple, and they. They're awesome. It's different.
- [293:02]
Sean Ryan
They're a couple.
- [293:03]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, they're a couple.
- [293:04]
Sean Ryan
No kidding.
- [293:05]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, they met in culinary school.
- [293:07]
Sean Ryan
Damn, that's cool.
- [293:08]
Chris Fetus
When I was selling ice cream out of my garage, struggling to make brownies and shit, because I didn't. I'm not good at baking. They had just moved here recently from up north to get out of the kind of hustle and bustle of that stuff. Started working down here at some restaurants, and they hit me up. They saw my earlier Instagram, said, hey, are you looking? You need some help with baked goods? I was like, absolutely. And once I started sourcing it from them, I started really, holy shit. She can do anything. And she can. She can. It's so. So it's just. It's just. It's amazing. So now fast forward everything that goes in the ice cream. Plus now we've got the bakery part of it with all the pastries. We've got a. It's a bakery creamery where we. I do all the formulas, he does all the spinning and flavoring, and coffee shop, coffee house with some really good baristas, and it's been working out really well.
- [293:53]
Sean Ryan
Nice.
- [293:54]
Chris Fetus
But it all started back in childhood when I was just cooking, you know, playing around, and ice cream was just my favorite. My favorite thing. So fascinated with ice Cream became fascinated with how it's made. You know, fast forward. On only one or two of my deployments, I took a machine and messed around with making ice cream out there, but I didn't know how to formulate or anything. So it was kind of a mess. But it was fun. I honestly, my creative outlet, I sort of suppressed a little bit out of, you know, that need for validation going, this isn't cool, man. This is gonna be, you know, they're gonna perceive this as, you know, weird or strange. So I kind of like, just wasn't creative for all those years, you know, I just kind of like, hid it away, you know. So once I got out, I had that job. But a year, not a year. But as soon as I decided to get out, I started looking into how do I learn how to make formulas for ice cream? Cause I know there's something with that that I want to do. So I started making moves before I was even ever out. Right when I was at that out station making that decision. You know, there's this 150-year-old ice cream school at Penn State that's been there, that's pretty renowned for it. Like Ben and Jerry's, I think went there. Couple other big, big company founders to learn how to make ice cream. And so I went there. I signed up for it. My wife's like, you're going to spend this much money on what? Go to college? So it's a short course. It's a food sciences course there. You get full semester credits for this. This thing. You go around the dairies, you formulate ice cream, you do tests, you got to do it on paper. Just like sniper school and pass the test. You gotta pass. You know, you don't just get through. And also learning the business side of things. They've got all kinds of cool keynote speakers and people coming in from big companies and small shops. And it's for everybody from the beginner to somebody that's building a fucking ice cream factory. So great experience. And then I went right into my job and kind of forgot about it for a while. So as I evolved through that transition and sort of self transformation, I started to feel good enough to go, man, I can visualize myself doing something with ice cream. So. And then Covid happened. That's where I really started making ice cream in the kitchen. I kind of converted our kids baby playroom into a little ice cream lab, started testing out samples, created my chocolate flavor that my wife loves, and it's still that formula. And eventually Covid cleared up. I Had time then to get on YouTube, start learning how to make a business plan. And it's. It was a joke at first, you know, but you'd laugh at it if I showed you my. Hey, Chris's idea and all the things I went through, you know, with the whole branding of it and the naming and everything.
- [296:40]
Sean Ryan
Still have it?
- [296:41]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, still have it.
- [296:42]
Sean Ryan
Nice.
- [296:43]
Chris Fetus
Definitely. I've shown it to a couple people and, you know, I'm like, see, I told you. Laugh, you know, and.
- [296:49]
Sean Ryan
Can we put it up on screen?
- [296:50]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, he could.
- [296:51]
Sean Ryan
Let's do it. Send us a picture. We'll put it up.
- [296:54]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, I'll send you. I'll pull it up. It's funny. It just looks like a little cheesy PowerPoint and, you know, now it's a thing I can pitch to any bank, to anywhere, you know, and it's. It's nice. It's a full model for the next three, five, ten years that, you know, is modular. We can pull things out of it and go, hey, what's the next shop look like? What's the warehouse for? For pints to go in a store look like when it's time for that, you know. You know, I'm going to need some logistics for when it's time to start getting ice cream, you know, into a store and stuff like that. So right now we're just focused on the headquarters and getting everything we can possibly do out of there. And then, you know, sometime after next summer, probably start looking at the next location.
- [297:39]
Sean Ryan
Nice. And you brought some?
- [297:40]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, brought some.
- [297:42]
Sean Ryan
I'm always ready for ice cream, man.
- [297:45]
Chris Fetus
See, hopefully they're softened up a little bit, but we'll see. If not, we'll. All right. Dark matter. It's my wife's favorite chocolate of all time. Might need to wait a little bit. It's pretty, pretty.
- [297:58]
Sean Ryan
Oh, all right, all right.
- [298:04]
Chris Fetus
Oh, sorry. Let's switch. This one that I wanted to try.
- [298:06]
Sean Ryan
Sea salt and salt the album. All right.
- [298:15]
Chris Fetus
Then I got a little fun flavor. My chef came up with everything Everything bagel, cream cheese with crunchy croissant pie. That was yours. It's pretty hard. Holy shit. That one's probably the best seller. One of the best sellers.
- [298:43]
Sean Ryan
Dude, Tim, you gotta try this shit. This is amazing. You want some?
- [298:51]
Chris Fetus
Yeah. All right, then, Tim, you gotta tell me what you think about this Everything bagel flavor. I mean, it's really weird, but it's really good.
- [299:09]
Sean Ryan
Tim, you can't block the cameras. This is going on. This is going on. What is that? Everything bagel?
- [299:19]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, it's like we were messing around with it one day, and we're like, hey, let's do a. Let's try some savory things. And, you know, dude, I did a hot ribeye steak with this, and I put a scoop right on the hot ribeye, and it just, like, melted into it like a butter, and it was delicious. But it's also just good to. It's kind of like a. I don't know how to explain. You won't crush this, you know, for movie time on the couch, but you can eat a scoop of it after dinner, and it's delicious.
- [299:44]
Sean Ryan
Let me try this one. Let me try that. You put this on a steak?
- [299:48]
Chris Fetus
Yeah. I mean, it's kind of like. It's kind of like butter. It's dairy. But just now that you have everything. Bagel croissant with cream cheese flavor with scallion cream cheese flavor in your mind. Now try this. Oh, my gosh.
- [300:14]
Sean Ryan
Whoa. Yeah. Dude, it tastes just like it. Like, identical.
- [300:27]
Chris Fetus
It's interesting, right?
- [300:29]
Sean Ryan
I love it. What else you got?
- [300:33]
Chris Fetus
Dark matter here. This is my wife's crack. When I'll be at the shop working, she'll always, you know, she'll always make me bring her home a scoop of this. It's Dutch cocoa. Dutch processed dark chocolate ice cream with dark chocolate chips that we grind up.
- [300:53]
Sean Ryan
How many flavors do you guys have?
- [300:55]
Chris Fetus
I think that doing the drops that we were doing before we had the cafe, we probably got a couple hundred. But it's gotten now to a point where, dude, when I first started making it, I was like, man, what flavors I'm gonna do? I don't know. It was strawberry season, so I got some strawberries from the farms right down the road, and that was my first ice cream drop. Just, hey. I announce it on Instagram. I hype it up. I make it, you know, however many. I thought I could sell, like, 50 pints and schedule pickups through DMs, and that's how I was doing it for like, a year or so, and people were coming to my house to pick it up, and it got pretty popular. I figured out I was pretty good with the social media part of it. It was just fun for me, and that's kind of how the story develops. Fast forward to the chefs coming on board. I started outsourcing it so it got easier, and I would go pick up the baked goods from her, chop it up, throw it in the flavors, come up with flavors just based off of how I felt and moods, and it started to flow, and then Fast forward a year and a half or so. I said, hey guys, I want to get this more serious. Let's move this into, you know, a commercial kitchen. So we did and we struggled through finding the right one. We had to move in and out of one that was hard. And then we found one that worked really well for another year or so. And then I intended on us. We'd meet up a couple times a week, make up to 150, 200pints of ice cream, drop it. Sometimes they'd sell out, sometimes they wouldn't. So we then we'd put the some of them in freezers in different locations and we had multiple pickup locations to cover different towns. And so it kind of grew and started having a business and I found a better software system for organizing those. I didn't have to use a spreadsheet for pickups all the time. It just kind of did it for me. And people were picking up ice cream.
- [302:54]
Sean Ryan
I love these stories, man. So you literally started this out of your garage and now.
- [302:58]
Chris Fetus
Yeah.
- [302:59]
Sean Ryan
Seeing pictures of your place looks beautiful.
- [303:01]
Chris Fetus
Thank you.
- [303:02]
Sean Ryan
It looks like the nicest ice cream store I've ever seen in my entire life. But it, it's not even a joke. I'm being serious. We'll put overlay photos up right now while we're talking. But yeah, but I love these stories, man. I just love organically grown business. It's just pure entrepreneurship, creativity. And you've developed something out of thin air. It's amazing. Yeah, but what do you think, what do you think your hang ups are going to be.
- [303:36]
Chris Fetus
You know, cost right now you start doing business. So, you know, I found, you know, I thought we were going to be doing this for a couple more years. And then an opportunity for this space popped up and I just knew it was the right spot. Everything about it was right. I could afford it. And the area that it's in is not typical there. And this landlord, he gave me a chance, so he gave me a chance. My best friend in Chicago helped me. He's a business guy. That's huge because he's in the logistics business. So knowing the long term goal, he was like, hey, he committed to jumping in and that's not easy to do. You know, he's already busy as so our families are friends, we're tight. He's my best friend. We built this thing last year and it was hard. A lot of things, a lot of delays happened, a lot of struggles. Got through it opened the doors and it was like before I opened the doors, it was Just nightmares of, like, total failure and everything. I've committed up to that. All of our money, our home equity, you know, to make this beautiful shop that I had in my mind for years.
- [304:44]
Sean Ryan
You dumped everything into it.
- [304:46]
Chris Fetus
Yeah.
- [304:46]
Sean Ryan
That's awesome.
- [304:47]
Chris Fetus
Yeah. And so then we opened the doors, and it just. It hit right from day one. And I was on my knees at home, just thanking God, you know, hey, it's working. And then it kept working, you know, and the cold months slow down, you know, certain days, Monday, Wednesday. That's typical for everybody. But now we're gonna start having some lunch menu items. My shit. The chef is just a genius back there. He just. I don't even. We don't have to meet about things to make. They just. And it. That was the. The beauty of working with. With them, too, for two whole years is, like, the trust and everything was already there for that. That part of it, you know? But they came along. They had to trust me to get this thing open, and I had to trust them that they were gonna, you know, be committed to the dream, which is gonna lead to more dreams for them, you know, and, you know, them knowing my full intention is to. Is to help them to that through me. And it's just. It's working out. There's hard things, you know, going on. The hardest struggle is probably the culture of it all, you know, assuring that the customer experience when I'm not there is similar to when I'm there. And, you know, you can't get anybody to care about as much as you, but for sure, they do. You know, but now it's everybody else. My manager, you know, does. And now it's the teenagers, and they're awesome. They're all kicking ass. Nice. And it's just keeping all of us aligned into that culture and brand of, like. Of what, you know, what it needs to feel like for us and for the customers. And so that's the challenge I learned immediately. And then, of course, like, costs are expensive when you get going, and you got to find ways really quickly to bring those down.
- [306:31]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [306:32]
Chris Fetus
So that's what we're doing, but I think we'll, you know, get those things fixed pretty quickly. And we still got more things to add. I still got to get merch online. I got a lot of cool ideas for that coming. T shirts, hats, all kinds of cool, nice. Shipping the ice cream, you know, so we'll get back into these drops where we go hype up special flavor, you know, like once a month, limited supplies, you know, sells out, sells out. We're not making that flavor again, you know, and start shipping it at least regionally, you know, probably east coast at first. This was a good test to get. To get this here.
- [307:08]
Sean Ryan
Don't forget to put Tennessee on that list.
- [307:10]
Chris Fetus
Yeah.
- [307:10]
Sean Ryan
Where are you guys going to be? And I mean, where do you. What do you see this developing into? Do you think you'll franchise or you're going to keep it?
- [307:17]
Chris Fetus
I don't know about franchising, but for sure, I'm already looking at. I'm already looking at the next location for. I want to. We know we need to get the data for a full spring and summer. That's the best months for ice cream stuff. But, you know, the stuff the chefs are doing for the cold months with pastries and our coffee is great too, you know, so we didn't just add those things to make more money. Like, you know, I really got the right people in it. And we're doing our best at all of those things at the same time. And it seems to be working, I think customers, especially locally. Dude, we have such a good local following of people that have been buying it since day one, you know, and also now regulars and people just coming in. And our community in that southern Virginia beach area is like. It's just been. God, it's like the best.
- [308:04]
Sean Ryan
That's awesome.
- [308:05]
Chris Fetus
So I think within five years, we'll have multiple stores is my plan. And we'll be ready to start looking at, you know, building a warehouse and a continuous freezer system or something to start getting some pints and a couple other ideas I have into a store.
- [308:21]
Sean Ryan
Like distribution.
- [308:22]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, like a Publix. Start locally, you know, pitch it in. My. My partner will probably activate for that because he's a logistics guy. And then we'll start figuring out how to get ice cream in stores. That's the goal. And that's the longer 10 year sort of goal.
- [308:38]
Sean Ryan
Well, there's gonna be potentially millions of people listening to this or watching. Is there anything you want to throw out into the world that you might need to help accelerate your business or anything at all? I'm just curious. You never know who's listening, man. Yeah, you never know.
- [308:57]
Chris Fetus
You know, I've met some cool people, but I'm just. The thing about ice cream too, people always say is like, hey, there's so much ice cream around. How are you gonna. There's so much doubt. So much doubt. You know, how are you gonna make money in ice cream? There's so much. There's so many brand like that's with anything that you do in a business, you can't. I had to not think about that and go, no one can do it the way you're gonna do it. You know, Got your style. There's so many coffee shops, they're all going to be a little different.
- [309:22]
Sean Ryan
Limitations, dude.
- [309:23]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, don't create limitations. Just try to break through those. And so, you know, I've met, met some really cool people already. But my opinion, like, I respect everybody's ice cream. So anybody that wants to give me any advice from any of those companies or any of Those, you know, CEOs and owners about stuff to. Based off of what I just said, like, hey, here's something they learned or something that would be super valuable. But also, you know, like I said, we're, we are going to start, we're going to become a brand of ice cream, right? So, you know, I'm going to need, I'm going to need some distribution, you know, and some logistics for that. So it'd probably be good to start talking to some of those people soon.
- [310:03]
Sean Ryan
Right on, man. Well, I mean, I got to hand it to you, dude. You're, you're creative, you're branding your creative, your page. Like it's just everything, your marketing, it's all top notch. The ice cream is a level above all of that. So at least stuff that I've tasted. So, I mean, I think you're going to be very successful and I, I hope you are.
- [310:31]
Chris Fetus
Thank you.
- [310:31]
Sean Ryan
You already are. But.
- [310:40]
Chris Fetus
Now it's Sal.
- [310:44]
Sean Ryan
Well, Chris, winding up the show here, but I know you had a specific ending that you wanted to end with.
- [310:54]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, a little gift, A little gift of mine. It's very simple. There's so much bullshit going on and having to figure out each one of us. How do you do it? Like, how do you. Day to day, there's so much, so many boundaries being broken from, you know, you know, from there's. It's the battle, the never ending ancient battle between good and evil going on right now. You can feel it. This election's coming up. It's like, dude, the information. So in my job there's a lot of. I didn't like it because it was all based on military deception, information, operations. I know how that works. You know, it's an operation and it's working against people. So, you know, it's a machine. You hate this guy, you hate Trump, right? Can you really explain why? Can anyone really explain why they're gonna say things that they've been getting fed for years? And years and years, and you say shit through the screens. So often we know from research that people will start to believe that. Right? And vice versa. Same thing, you know, it's not an operation, I think, in defense of it, but you start finding, you know, the good guys start doing the same kind of thing. Like, hey, here's some information about, you know, the Harris campaign or whatever. And it's like, dude, just outside of all the bullshit, really, it is the battle between good and evil. So you know what's good, and you know it's evil. And you might be sort of attached to, like one little topic, one thing, you know, abortion or the transgender issue or, like the border, like, whatever it is. But, dude, if you. If we can just see past that, stuff's all important. But right now, it's all underneath a grander importance of good and evil going on. And it's happened over and over again over time, right? Some of the same patterns. So my opinion is that understanding and misunderstanding is like at a max right now. And if people change their minds to the good side, the right thing to do is not go, ha, I told you so. You know what I mean? All that time in shame and guilt, it's like, just let that shit go. And welcome. Welcome to the good side. The side of good, you know, forgiven for the side of evil, depending on what you did to. You gotta, you know, deal with the consequences of certain shit and certain actions. But welcome to the good guy side. It's okay that you change your mind, you know?
- [313:37]
Sean Ryan
Yeah.
- [313:38]
Chris Fetus
But the only way to change people's mind is not this fucking constant. Just not gonna work, right? So this is something I learned in meditation training. It's called a tonglen exercise. Probably take three minutes, three, four, five minutes. It's a meditation, and it's my way of sort of proving what might work for changing your mind as a little gift, because I know you're into that a little bit little meditation stuff, bringing the nervous system down, which is the goal of my shop. Part of the brand. Come inside. Don't care who you are, don't care what you did right now. Fucking bring your nervous system down. Get some sweets, get some ice cream, get some good shit. Bring it down. Enjoy yourself. Chill, right? And then when you're ready, go back out into the bullshit of the world. Like, that's the brand of the cafe.
- [314:30]
Sean Ryan
That's cool, man.
- [314:32]
Chris Fetus
So I'm scraping this. I'm just gonna talk you through it. Just close your eyes and breathe. That's all you gotta do. Just focus on breathing, breath in, breath out. As you're breathing, just imagine the perfect beach for yourself. Could be one that you've been to before, maybe you haven't. Whatever it is, it's a perfect day on this beach. The temperature of the air is perfect. You start walking down towards the water. For my beach, it's a dune. I come down through the cattails, feeling those cattails between my fingers, walking down the sand, feel the grains of the sand between my toes, start making my way into the water. The water is the perfect temperature. As I continue down into the water, I'm breathing, I get waist deep. And when I start to get stomach deep, I stop there and breathe. And as I feel the ebbs and flow of the waves against my body and the ocean supporting my weight, I look out into the distance. It's a beautiful sky, it's a beautiful horizon. I notice where the color of the water meets the color of the sky and I just breathe. Now I'm going to slowly turn towards the beach and I'm looking at a beach and there's somebody there. This is somebody that you love, somebody that you really love. Could be yourself, could be your mother, your son. Just somebody you really love deeply. For me, it's myself, my seven year old self. And I'm just there playing, just watching myself play as I take the next few breaths. When I inhale, I'm going to inhale all of the stuff, all of the suffering, all of the bad experiences, any trauma, any ignorance, and I'm just going to breathe it in in the form of black smoke through the air into my lung. Gonna sacrifice myself for just a moment to absorb all of this dark smoke. And then as I exhale, I'm gonna breathe it out through my fingertips, out all of my pores and into the ocean. Mother Earth is just there to absorb all that shit from us. I'm just gonna do this for the next couple breaths. Now when I'm ready, I'm going to turn back towards the horizon. I'm just going to breathe a couple of breaths, look at the horizon again and I'm gonna turn back to the beach again. This time there's somebody there that you despise. You might even hate them, maybe they hate you. Somebody right now in your life that you despise and that despises you. Same thing. Every breath in you're going to breathe in in the form of black smoke. All of the ignorance out of them, all of the what you know has caused all of that ignorance, all of the trauma, back to Their own childhood, all of the things, all of the bullshit that they just can't understand how to cut through right now, right? And they're taking it out on everybody else around them and themselves. Just gonna breathe all that shit in. You're just gonna breathe it out into the ocean. As you know, this is the only way that you have any chance of changing anybody's mind. They feel some validation for why they ended up that way somehow. Whether it's your energy, whenever you communicate, this person or not, it's a choice they have to make. And when you're ready, turn back to the horizon. And you're going to look at the beautiful horizon again. Now you slowly turn back to the beach. Now, every person, every person on the planet, every creature, every animal is there on the beach. And you're gonna do the same thing. Breathe all that black smoke out of everybody, through yourself and out into the ocean. Now, when you're ready, you can start making your way back into the beach. There's nobody there now. It's just you and your perfect beach. You feel the water lower as you walk out. You feel the warm sun hit, you start to warm your body, immediately make your way back up the sand, back up the dune. Now you're walking off into your life, back into a normal day. When you're ready, you can open your eyes and come out. That's it.
- [321:40]
Sean Ryan
Nice.
- [321:41]
Chris Fetus
So hard to do. So hard to do when we're doing this every day, all the time. But that's not to say that you can't have boundaries, right? But the more that I think that, the easier it is to deal with the bullshit, people's bullshit, and hope that more people can change their mind and not feel some kind of shame and guilt about it and not change their mind just because they've been. They've been doing it for so long. Like, man, I voted for them. I did this. I can't. I'm going to look dumb, you know? It's okay. Just change your mind. All right. So.
- [322:19]
Sean Ryan
That was awesome. Thank you. And damn crisp. That was. That was a hell of an interview, man. Been through a lot and.
- [322:33]
Chris Fetus
Yeah, I had a good time. Yeah, that's good.
- [322:34]
Sean Ryan
And I just gotta. Like to see you pull through all that. I mean, that's a miracle, man. And I just wanna say it was an honor to interview you and keep an eye out for those signals.
- [322:52]
Chris Fetus
Yes, sir. Yep. I'm grateful. Thank you. Thank you for the moments to be able to do that.
- [322:57]
Sean Ryan
Thank you, Billy. I wish you the best of luck.
- [323:00]
Chris Fetus
Thank you.
- [323:00]
Sean Ryan
God bless.
- [323:01]
Chris Fetus
God bless you. Hi, I'm Joe Sal Sehai, host of the Stacking Benjamins podcast. Every week we talk to experts about saving, investing, personal finance, trends, crypto. Can't do it.
- [323:25]
Sean Ryan
You could have done all that research, all the breadcrumbs, and thought, this company's never going bankrupt.
- [323:29]
Chris Fetus
Foiled again. You never knew personal finance could be this fun.
- [323:33]
Sean Ryan
Throwing down the gauntlet, bringing it today.
- [323:36]
Chris Fetus
I'm only going to be off by six figures instead of seven. Every boy has a dream, Doc.
- [323:41]
Sean Ryan
Every boy has a dream for sure.
- [323:43]
Chris Fetus
Stacking Benjamin's. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.