#189 Thomas "Drago" Dzieran - Navy SEAL / The Terrorist Terrorizer

Summary

Shawn Ryan Show Episode #189: Thomas "Drago" Dzieran - Navy SEAL / The Terrorist Terrorizer

Host: Shawn Ryan
Guest: Thomas "Drago" Dzieran
Release Date: April 7, 2025

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Introduction

In episode #189 of the Shawn Ryan Show, host Shawn Ryan welcomes Thomas "Drago" Dzieran, a retired U.S. Navy SEAL with a compelling and transformative life story. Drago shares his journey from being a political prisoner in communist Poland to becoming a decorated Navy SEAL in the United States. Throughout the episode, they explore themes of resilience, freedom, and the enduring spirit of a warrior.

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Early Life in Poland

[04:22] Drago:
"I came to America not knowing English, having no money. I attended Phoenix, took German coins in my pocket and a bag of clothes."

Drago was born in 1960 in Poland, a nation scarred by the aftermath of World War II. Growing up under communist rule, he experienced firsthand the brutality and oppression of a totalitarian socialist state. His father, a high-ranking communist official, abandoned the family when Drago was 16, leaving him and his siblings to fend for themselves alongside their devout Catholic mother.

[06:02] Host Shawn Ryan:
"Thomas Drago Jaran, you're a Polish-born warrior who grew up under communist rule... and became a retired U.S. Navy SEAL. Tell us about your early experiences."

Drago reminisces about the harsh realities of his childhood, from societal violence to the scarcity of basic necessities. These formative years instilled in him a sense of strength and self-reliance that would later define his military career.

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Imprisonment and Anti-Communist Activities

[08:00] Drago:
"I was involved in the Solidarity trade union movement in Poland during the 1980s... We were striving to subdue the socialist takeover through martial law."

Drago was an active participant in the Solidarity movement, which aimed to challenge the communist regime in Poland. His activism led to his arrest and imprisonment, where he endured harsh conditions and witnessed the systemic oppression of his homeland.

[25:30] Drago:
"After John Paul II's visit in 1978, people started organizing... We were eventually sentenced to three years in prison for our dissent."

During his time as a political prisoner, Drago engaged in underground resistance, producing and distributing leaflets that opposed the socialist state. His unwavering commitment to freedom and human rights earned him respect among his peers but also subjected him to severe punishment.

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Immigration to the United States

[78:50] Drago:
"I decided it was time to leave... I went to the U.S. Embassy, asked for help, and was granted political refugee status."

At 24, after enduring years of oppression and witnessing his father's demise at the hands of the communist regime, Drago sought refuge in the United States. Armed with nothing but a bag of clothes and a desire for freedom, he embarked on a challenging journey to a new life.

[84:10] Host Shawn Ryan:
"How was it transitioning from Poland to America with no family, no money, and no English?"

Drago describes the initial struggles of adapting to a foreign culture, learning English, and finding employment. His determination and the support from American friends played a crucial role in his successful assimilation.

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Joining the Navy SEALs

[132:30] Drago:
"I joined the Navy to serve America during the First Persian War... Even though I was over the age limit, I persevered and was granted a waiver."

Driven by a sense of duty and the desire to contribute to his adopted homeland, Drago enlisted in the U.S. Navy. Despite being older than the typical recruit, his exceptional performance in boot camp earned him a spot in the elite Navy SEAL training program.

[155:00] Drago:
"I graduated as the number one recruit from boot camp... This was the beginning of my journey as a Navy SEAL."

Drago's rigorous training honed his physical and mental resilience, preparing him for the challenges ahead. His proficiency in multiple languages, including Russian and Japanese, further enhanced his value in multinational operations.

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Combat in Iraq

[224:11] Drago:
"In Iraq, we conducted over a hundred direct action missions within the first year... My Bronze Star was awarded for subduing an insurgent without collateral damage."

During his first deployment to Iraq, Drago was involved in numerous high-stakes operations aimed at dismantling terrorist networks. His ability to navigate complex combat scenarios with precision and restraint earned him commendations and deep respect from his peers.

Notable Quote:
[231:53] Drago:
"Killing never affected me because I did what was right for America. We were prepared for everything and acted with purpose."

Drago emphasizes the importance of mission focus and the ethical considerations that guided his actions in the field, ensuring that civilian lives were spared whenever possible.

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Personal Life and Marriage

[286:03] Drago:
"In 2007, I met my wife Rachel through a serendipitous encounter at SEAL training... Our marriage is built on faith, respect, and mutual support."

After years of intense service, Drago found balance in his personal life. His marriage to Rachel, an Air Force Academy graduate, provided a grounding influence and a source of strength beyond the battlefield.

[286:50] Drago:
"Understanding and being reasonable, loving, and respecting each other have been key to our successful marriage."

Their relationship exemplifies the integration of discipline and compassion, fostering a supportive environment for their four children.

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Reflections and Closing Thoughts

[297:39] Drago:
"We are not just part of a machine; we are individual human beings with our own stories and struggles. America has changed me, made me a better person, and I aim to inspire others to recognize the beauty and strength of this nation."

Drago reflects on his journey, from the oppressive regime of his youth to the freedoms he enjoys today. He stresses the importance of forgiveness, resilience, and the pursuit of personal and national integrity.

[298:48] Host Shawn Ryan:
"Thank you, Drago, for sharing your incredible story. Your journey is a testament to the human spirit and the pursuit of freedom."

[299:00] Drago:
"It's been an honor to share my story. I hope it inspires others to appreciate and protect the freedoms we have."

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Conclusion

Thomas "Drago" Dzieran's story is one of extraordinary resilience and unwavering dedication to freedom. From surviving political imprisonment in Poland to earning the Bronze Star as a Navy SEAL in Iraq, Drago exemplifies the spirit of a true warrior. His experiences underscore the profound impact of personal sacrifice and the enduring quest for liberty.

Notable Quotes:

• Drago at [94:50]:
  "Forgiving someone frees you from the chains of hate."

• Drago at [145:58]:
  "American flag encompasses everything good, and I want people to see me as an American, not just a Navy SEAL."

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This episode offers a deep dive into the life of a man who has navigated through extreme adversity to serve his country with distinction. Drago's insights provide invaluable lessons on strength, perseverance, and the true meaning of freedom.

Transcript

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

It's tourney time. And with FanDuel's dog of the day, you could get a daily profit boost during the college conference championships to bet on any underdog. So get ready to celebrate some upsets. No one saw that coming except for me, baby. 21 plus in President select states opt in required minimum 100 eyes required bonus issued is non withdrawable profit boost tokens restriction supply including token expiration and max wager amount. See [e-mail] Gambling problem. Call 1-800-GAMBLER when our 50s opened on the Humvees. Holy. That was like whole hell broke loose. I could shoot the guy, but he was not armed. As I'm working with the guy, the cow comes in. Hey, Drago. In to stop the grom guy. Grom element that's moving on the backyard and there are three guys in ambush lanes. I'm going to knock his front teeth out and I'm going to make a necklace out of it. So actually I walk up to him, I very carefully lift his upper lip and just drove his two front teeth in. Just pulled them out.

[Sean Ryan]

Did that affect you at all?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Uh, no.

[Sean Ryan]

No. Killing never affected you. Drago, welcome to the show.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Thank you for the invitation. It's an honor to be here, brother.

[Sean Ryan]

It's an honor to have you. So we have a ton of mutual friends and I've, I've heard about you since I was in the seal teams and you just have a phenomenal reputation and I can't believe we have not cross paths until today.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Well, you know, I was watching you and I watch your channel, I'm subscribed to your channel. But I never thought, you know, some small guy, a little guy like me will show up over here because, you know, the guests that you have, those are like world class leaders, world class people. So I never, never even thought about it and here I. Here I am. So I guess miracles happen. Thank you brother for invitation.

[Sean Ryan]

I would disagree with you. You're definitely not a small guy.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

So physically back and you're still 65 years old, but still holding.

[Sean Ryan]

My 65?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yeah, I'm 65.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow. Well, you know, I mean, this is how the show started. You know what I mean? Was, was. Don't. Nobody's a small guy, you know that we have on it. Some people don't have the exposure that, that, that I think that they should have. And you know, when I started this, that's, that's how, that's how I wanted it to be. I wanted to get guys that have and Women, you know, that have had phenomenal careers and very interesting life stories and have been through a lot of, just a lot of everything, operated at the highest level, traumatic experiences and how they got out of those. Because I think, you know, somebody like yourself, that brings a lot of hope and, and I mean, we're both very aware of what's going on in the veteran community right now. You know, I think we're up to what, 40 veterans a day commit suicide. And I think that, you know, this show and getting stories out like yours, it puts it on display and it brings veterans from all walks an example. And it just proves that there's a way out of that. Out of that, Ruth, you know, in that gap from service into finding success in the civilian world, and that they're not the only ones that are going through that kind of experience. There's a lot of us, and I'm one of them. And I know you're one of them.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

One of them.

[Sean Ryan]

And pretty much everybody we've ever had on this show from a military standpoint is also one of them. And so I've been, you know, I saw when your book came out, and I've been kind of watching you from, from afar on social media. And I just, I think you're a great person. And so it's an honor for me to have you here as well.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Thank you very much. It's great to hear it. I appreciate your kind words. Just regular person. I'm American, so I want to be like you guys. And that's what drives me.

[Sean Ryan]

You are like us because you are one of us.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

I'm one. Right? I'm American. Yes.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah. What I'm. Before we get. When did you come?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

I came in 1984.

[Sean Ryan]

How old were you?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

I was 24 years old. So I was leaving Poland. I left prison when I was 23 years old. And then I came to US embassy, I asked for help, and I was given status of political refugee and flown to the United States when I started my life. The funny thing is, I came to America not knowing English, having no money. I had attend Phoenix, German coin in my pocket and bag of clothes.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow. Well, we'll get super in depth on that. But to start off, everybody gets an introduction here and a gift. You know, you got a gift coming if you watch the show. But Thomas Drago Jaran, you're a Polish born warrior who grew up under communist rule. You spent two years in jail as a political prisoner for standing up to a regime that tried to silence you with censorship and oppression. Russian you came to America in 1984 and became a U.S. citizen in 1991. You're a retired U.S. navy SEAL who served with SEAL Team 2 and SEAL Team 4, running over 100 direct action missions. And Iraq is a lead breacher. You are a recipient of the Bronze Star with V for Balor. You are the founder of the Navy SEAL Fund, Giving back to the Brotherhood and Connect Zing, a platform fighting for free speech. You're the author of the book the Pledge to America. You're a husband to Rachel, who is an Air Force Academy graduate, father of four, and most importantly, a Christian and devout Catholic.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

And American.

[Sean Ryan]

And American. And American. So everybody kicks it off with a gift. So those are Vigilance Elite Gummy Bears.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Thank you, brother.

[Sean Ryan]

Made here in the USA by Americans.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

You mind if I just open it now? It's all about sweets. You know, like my. I have embargo on sugar and sweet things at home, but since my wife is not here.

[Sean Ryan]

What do you think?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Oh, I love it.

[Sean Ryan]

Perfect. And then since I found out you're a Catholic, I wanted to give you this so that. Do you know Dom Razzo? He was at. He was at 2. He's my generation.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

I know the name. I cannot connect with the face yet.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah, he's.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

I know what it is, brother. Thank you.

[Sean Ryan]

You're welcome.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yes, he's a seal.

[Sean Ryan]

And he. He has these warriors rosaries made and. And he gave me one a long time ago. And I carry it everywhere with me for protection. I have mine in my pocket right here.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

It is beautiful, but thank you. But it's also very important. Important for me. For me has extra meaning, too. So I really appreciate it.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah. You know, I think that just, you know, I grew up Catholic, then I kind of fell out of it, you know, in the SEAL teams, I think most people did, and then kind of found faith again a couple years ago. And I'll tell you one thing, I just think the Catholic religion has it right when it comes to protection and talking about demonic entities and all of that kind of stuff, so I carry mine everywhere I go, but. Yes, but. So I wanted you to have one.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Thank you. I appreciate the brother.

[Sean Ryan]

Dom's been. Dom's been a mentor of mine when it comes to Dom. Yeah, Dom, I know.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

We talking about. Okay. Okay, I got it now. Sorry.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yes. Yes.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah, Dom.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Hi, Dom. I mean, I. Yeah, I just like. If you hear it. Yes, I know. I know who he is. Yes.

[Sean Ryan]

Cool. And so before we get to in the weeds on the interview, which I can't wait, I haven't a subscription account on Patreon. And we've built it into one hell of a community. I think we're at about 60 something thousand members now. But you know, when I was telling you and your wife downstairs, I started this in my attic and it was to basically shine a light on veterans who've just, who have done amazing things and are doing amazing things now. And back then when I was in my attic, nobody wanted to touch me, nobody wanted to fund anything, advertise with me. And so I needed some income to grow this. And so I started a community on Patreon. And that community has just carried me all the way from the attic of my house to the amazing team that I have today, to this studio that we're in now. And now we're building a 7,000 square foot studio out in the woods. And, and those. That community has just always supported me and always supported our guests as well. And so one of the things that we do is we offer our Tier 3 members the opportunity to ask each and every guest a question. And you had quite a few questions. Okay, so this is from Eric Alger. Do you see any parallels between the tactics used by the communist regime in Poland and what's happening in the US today? And then there's a follow on. And more importantly, how can the average American recognize and push back before it's too late?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Thank you. That's very important question. I'm glad somebody asked it. So yes, not right now at this point, but in previous administration there was a lot of things that to me seems like deja vu from socialist state run by communists. I'm saying socialist state. Poland was never communist country. People need to understand it. Neither was Soviet Union communist country nor any country behind Iron Curtain was ever communist country. They were socialist state, very dangerous, totalitarian socialist states. But they were run by communists. It is, we used to, we say, right, there's communist state, communist communist country. But in reality they were socialist state. That's why that distinction now that is being made that communism was bad, but socialism is good, is very dangerous distinction. And yes, there are many things that happen in the last, I would say four years were very, very disturbing for me and I talked to my wife about it quite often. So we agree that something needs to change because we're going to fail. Like Europe fell, the Western Europe right now into depravity and perversion.

[Sean Ryan]

What are some of the things that stick out to you that you.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yeah, censorship is the first one, is the big one. It is Easy to explain for people who censor that. The government doesn't censor you. It's just private organization like Facebook when I was heavily censored like LinkedIn. I'm still being heavily censored, but the problem with it is that they are being coerced by the government. And this is the very disturbing stuff. I'm running my own social media platform and definitely I censor people posting anti American posts. I don't want them here and they are faster than lightning gone from my platform. But I think that that censorship is very dangerous. Branding political opponents as criminals, as terrorists is very dangerous. This is the same thing. Exactly what I experienced in a socialist Poland run by communism, by communists like my father. So the censorship also denigrating moral values, denigrating patriotism, denigrating the family values. It is important for socialist state to take control of people. But it reminds me the same thing that happened in Poland when I was growing up. There is another thing too I would like to mention. In America, people do not understand very well concept of desensitization.

[Sean Ryan]

Desensitization.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Desensitization, yeah. Oh, I could be a president. President Biden. So I'm getting better. But anyway, so they do not understand the concept of desensitization and normalization of evil. And that's what it is. So first you talk about it, you give the different names, which is benign. And then you enforce and normalize the evil and the entire process. I'll give you example with walk. Walk? Yes. What is walk? Or if you talk to somebody and tell them that the teacher is walk a little bit walk. It's not really alarming. It's just like maybe a little bit strange guy or woman. But if you look behind that word, what it represents, what this word walk is hiding the depravity and perversion. That whole process takes different meaning for most of the people. It's different. When you hear my teacher, oh, the teacher is a little bit woke, but the teacher is pervert. That definitely perks your attention and say, maybe I don't want to send my children to this class. So this type of techniques is not well known and described here in the United States because people were never exposed to evil, of socialism and communism on mass scale. And let's hope it will never happen. But so those are the things when I talk. The censorship, branding political opponents as criminals and terrorists, attack on moral values, family values, and most important, faith. These things that happened the last four years were very disturbing for me because I knew where it was. I knew what can happen if it continues.

[Sean Ryan]

So yeah, you know, I think the other question that Eric had was, you know, how can the average American push back before it's too late?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

There's many ways to do it. One of them, we are the for socialists, for the evil. We, me, you, we are a lost generation. We are all, we don't change. They attack our children and this is what they are after it. So today, nowadays, after seeing what is happening in our schools, it is no longer enough for parents to ask child, hey, how was your school today? Oh, mom, dad, it was really good. Okay, go play. You need to be inquisitive. You need to find out what the child is being taught, what is being done to him. And you know, they are great schools in America, but also they are perverted schools. You need to intervene. And this is why there is such a big push from the evil side to get control of our children. So we need to take this control back. And if school doesn't let you change the curriculum or pervert the teacher, you need to do it on your own. You need to teach your own children. I'm homeschooling my children after I found out that school was teaching 73 genders and other perverted way of thinking to my kids. So we pulled the kids out of the school. Not everybody has that has meaning, have meanings. Not everybody has meanings to homeschool their kids. People have to make a living, they have to work and they work hard. At least you can come back home. Instead of spending time drinking beer, maybe you should spend time with your child, ask him what he's doing and correct what school did wrong to your child. This is important. We cannot, we don't need to concentrate on ourselves. We know our moral values are pretty much at this age immutable, but our kids are very vulnerable and we need to be that example for our kids and stand up to the depravity and perversion thrown our kids in some of our schools.

[Sean Ryan]

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[Thomas Drago Jaran]

So we'll live that. We will live through it. Those people live through it. They've seen the dangers, they've seen the results of such depravity like communism and socialism. So they do shun warnings. But again, the censorship with today's technology and government coercion takes its toll. So people don't hear about it and don't know about it. So yes, we need to be more proactive and especially with our children.

[Sean Ryan]

Thank you for that. So Eric's a huge fan. The Guy that asked the question, Eric Alger. So if it's okay with you, I'm going to have you sign this at the end of the interview.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

I'll be honored to do so.

[Sean Ryan]

We're going to send it to him. I'm sure he would love that. So. All right, let's get into the interview. So, born in 1960, growing up in communist or socialist at that time?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Well, we call it communist. It's commonly known communist. There's a technicality here and people need to understand, understand what we call communist states behind iron Curtain. Those are socialist states run by mostly by communists. We can call it communist state. I call it do sometimes.

[Sean Ryan]

What was it like growing up in, in Poland?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Well, first thing to realize is that in 1960s when I was born, it was only 15 years from the Second World War. So the entire generation of people who went through the brutality to the Holocaust to experience war personally live in dead societies in Europe. I'm talking in Poland, even more so because Poland lost around 6 million people. There's 1/5 of population during Second World War murdered by Germans. And that was very, I would say they were dangerous time. I don't have a bad memory. I have more nostalgia, nostalgic feelings to this time when I grew up. But I remember now from the perspective of being American, living here in peaceful society. I remember how and I realized how sometimes depravity was taking over. The brutality was taking over. People were ready to fight on the, on the moment notice. I mean here you look somebody in the eyes and say hey, hello and say hello. In Poland they would say what the fuck are you looking at? That was the times that the typical reaction would be. And so fightings, beating people on the streets was nothing unusual. It was frowned upon nobody like brutal, vulgar people. But it was very common to the point that when there was a fight on the street and usually you can go in town and you can see two, three fights as you go through the town. People learn to just across the street, they didn't even bother to call police. So it will later play a role in my upbringing when I get a little bit older. But 1960s was very, very brutal time for Poland. There was the big transition from the wartime brutality experience society to peaceful, more peaceful society. And it was also hindered by the socialist and communist ideology that the transition was not very smooth in Poland. And also talking about it, I experienced both worlds living as a privileged kid when my father, who was a high ranking communist and government official, so up to seven years old when I was Growing up with him being at home, then when he left, and the poverty, the lifestyle that I experienced for the next decade is nothing unusual in Poland, but for me was a stark difference. And then I was sent to my father when I was, I believe, 16 years old.

[Sean Ryan]

Why did your father leave?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Well, my father was communist. He was entrenched into their ideology. And my mom going to church with us was not acceptable to him. There was two things. One was a fear that he can lose his career as a communist and as a member of Polish government. At the time, it was frowned upon going to church, especially having family and kids going to church.

[Sean Ryan]

Why was it frowned upon to go to church?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Because church is very dangerous. The faith is very dangerous for socialist state. Faith gives you roots, a moral basis that are basically immutable, that you have that morals that communists can't, most likely can't change. So this is something that the first attacks in the communist state was on faith, usually and children. And this is why they try to eliminate this. And faith is dangerous concept for communist and socialists. And you will see that if you read the history of socialist states. The first attack usually happened on people's faith and their families.

[Sean Ryan]

I think we saw some of that here.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yes, we did. In the last four years especially, there was something very disturbing for me and we need to be aware of it.

[Sean Ryan]

How did your father leave?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Well, he decided it's very dangerous for him for his career to stay at home with mom, who was devoted Catholic. My entire family, even his own mother, they were Catholics and they didn't approve what he was doing. I'll tell you later when we get to it. So he decided that that's not his way of living. He wants to make career as a politician. He wants to make career as a communist. And when I was seven years old, he decided to leave and he just took off, leaving us, me and my two siblings. So it was three of us and my mom.

[Sean Ryan]

So he abandoned his three kids and his wife?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yes, yes, he did. As a communist. He died as a communist 2021. When I went to visit, his views did not change. He would be ready to murder people on the spot if they were opposed socialism and communism. But I will talk about it too. We get to it. His view was very extreme when you get to know him. But when you didn't know him, you would think there's a great older man, is somebody you would like to have for the neighbor. Very well spoken, very commanding, Polish language, extremely well, because that was his major in university. So very nice man. Until you start probing his views and his internal thinking that become very disturbing. That's somebody you would not want to have as a neighbor.

[Sean Ryan]

So growing up, if he grew up as a peasant, as a Catholic or a believer.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yes.

[Sean Ryan]

I mean, what was it that got into him that changed his entire view? Do you know?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

It's hard to guess, but this is my understanding of it. So he grew up in peasant family, very poor. And what he was offered by the communist state is, hey, we make you somebody, we make you somebody big and you can progress with us, but you need to discard the faith into discard all the attachments that are superstitious. They call it superstition. So you need to be free man. They call it free man. So to accept socialism and communism, his ideology. And they were like helping him along the way. He was very smart, so he's doing very well. He was doing very well at school. And eventually they grabbed hold of him and he, like many other Poles, gave in. He gave up his faith, his moral, under his moral views and accepted so called relative morality. This is another term that is not very well, not very popular here and not very well understood yet. So he subscribed to so called relative morality. And that's where things start changing. That's where people that when he become the person he was later in his life.

[Sean Ryan]

What was it like for you when he left?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

So there was dramatic change right away. In the first place, what did he say to you? He didn't say nothing. He just didn't show up.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

So, yeah, we didn't know where he was. Mom tried to hide it from us. And at that time in Poland there was also stigma for people who were divorced, especially for the kids. They had a special name for divorcees. So I remember parents saying, hi, these kids are divorcees, I want to play with them. The parents got divorced, stay away from them. So I remember that and that was very for me, I learned to cope with it. But at the time, I see the kids didn't want to play with us. So that was kind of the way it was, you know, that was the reality. And I didn't know any other so and so. I mean, but also life was different too because from abundance of everything, from the legal protection, because you know, when I was kid, I burned the wheat field by accident. We were playing with fire, baking something in the fire in the middle of the wheat field. So we burned the entire wheat field. So of course the neighbor comes in and because I was living, living on the outskirts of little town Jiral Nagura, that was established in 1200 year 1200. So those beautiful town. So I burned the Whitfield. So when a neighbor came to complain about it, my father said, just chase him out and say, look, you cause problems, you'll have a secret police coming and talking to you. And actually, they did send the goons from the secret police to explain this guy that we are pretty much untouchable. So just leave it and plow the field again. This is how bad it was. But I didn't know anything about it. It was just my father was trying to, I guess, protect his family. The way it is happening in socialist, totalitarian states. You know, you don't agree with. I have more power. If you don't agree with me, I will send the police on you. And you get either arrested, killed, or disappear. So there was nothing uncommon.

[Sean Ryan]

Interesting.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

But then it changed when he left. So I had no protection. If we did something wrong, we should get punished for it. And my mom would never agree with it. My mom was always. And it was the biggest fight between my mom, who was devout Catholic, and my father, who was totally opposed to any type of faith. He only believed in the party and communist ideology that was his God. So there was always fights. And I remember the time, it was before my sister was born. So I had to be at least three years, maybe around four years old. But I vividly remember that my grandmother from my maternal side came to visit us. And of course, she was even more devout. She was like, I would say, total fanatic and total zeal. But, you know, this is how they survived the Second World War. This is what helped my grandmother and her children. My mom survived the Second World War. So when she came in, she chased us, all of us, to church. We are going to church someday. So my father, I still remember standing in front of the door with hand outstretched and say, no, kids, not going to church. And you are not going to church. Because if somebody sees you or kids, I'm gonna lose my career. I'm going to lose my job. You aren't going to church. So my grandmother went outside. We were living on the first floor. My mom passed me like a football through the window. So I thought it was fun. I was like, whoa, you know, let's play. And then my mom left. We did went to church, but my father eventually learned to tolerate it. But he was always on the edge, was always nervous, always wanting us to stop going to church. He called the religion a superstition. And also he used the technique that I see being applied Here very often. Basically he was trying to find some articles, some quasi scientific articles like okay, we just find out new things about Jesus. Let's see what's the. If Jesus was real, you know it can pick your curiosity especially if you angsty reading and it's like totally anti faith article or book. So my father was bringing it up and just try to either shove it for us to read or try to read it to us against protests of my mother. But this is the technique they used to wow. To actually remove people from faith and change their beliefs.

[Sean Ryan]

How many? So you had two siblings?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Two siblings. My younger brother and younger sister. My sister still lives in Poland. Actually I. I visited her not too long time ago when I went to as I was testifying. But we're going to come back to it in, in the criminal case in Poland against a judge who actually sentenced me to prison time.

[Sean Ryan]

Where's your brother?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

My brother lives here. He's here in the States. He owns his business. He runs his great business. He's doing well and he's doing good. I don't really have much contact with him.

[Sean Ryan]

Were you. So you're not close with her brother?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

No, no, I'm close with him. I'm closer with you guys, with people like you, with fellow teammates. They are my brothers. As a person living in the States.

[Sean Ryan]

Were you close with your siblings growing up?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yes.

[Sean Ryan]

What would you guys do? Did you guys have any fun or was it.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yes, I've had a lot of fun. You know the, the nice thing about it at that time we did not have, we did not have the direct strict supervision of our parents. Kids used to play like I was what, six years old and I was going to kindergarten by myself. I was working like the. Around the school, going over the. The major street. Actually one of my little friends was killed on that street by the, by the motorcycle. But we are, we're doing ourselves so we had like house shoes in one hand, holding hands with my brother and just walking to the kindergarten. There was maybe like quarter mile and through the woods. Not to the woods but through the like different small streets. Mom told us how to across the street you look left, you look right, there's nothing happen. You just go fairly fast through the street but don't run. And then we did six years old play. As long as we're back at home before dark, we're fine. So we were roaming the city. We're just sometimes we find ourselves like a mile, two miles away from the home, God knows where, running some streets and just exploring so that was cool, playing with fire. We like to bake things in fire, potatoes and stuff. This is how I burn the wheatfield by accident. But that time his father was still with us. After he left, I wouldn't get away with it. So that was the. I have a fond memory. I was poor, but I didn't know that was poor. I thought that was just normal. This is how everybody lived. And I didn't see at that time they noticed the richer kids or kids of Communist Party members that I noticed later in the elementary school that sort of.

[Sean Ryan]

How did your family make money after your father left?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

My mom was a teacher, so she had a little salary. It was not much, and it was not enough to. Was enough to buy food if she was quick enough in the morning to stay in line to buy bread if she was a little bit late. By the time she made to the end of the line, there was no bread. So we didn't eat. But again, it was really not a big deal. It's just. Well, we don't have bread today. Okay. Do we have bread from yesterday or something? No, we don't. All right, so maybe some potatoes. So mama always tried to make something out, but sometimes we went hungry to school and there was really nothing there. When I was in elementary school, I learned how to help myself and actually feed myself. But it's like, I'm not very proud of it now, but at the time, basically I was extorting. Extorting sandwiches from the kids of the Communist Party members.

[Sean Ryan]

So how would you do that?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Well, I just beat them up and I told them, you give me the sandwich. But I remember, you know, in Poland the time, like, people don't want to be seen as poor, right? So a lot of us, like, including me, like my. My sandwich, if mom got the bread very often was a little bit water, sprinkle on it and sprinkle sugar if it was good. We have a butter of those butter, a little bit sugar if the sugar was put together. And so, like, I don't want people to see it because I see some of the kids eating this. But big buns, you know, with ham, with tomatoes, mayonnaise, salt. I mean, there was like, today I'm just looking at this, like, I would eat one too. So this is something that I've seen it. I didn't want them to see that having, like, bread and little bit sugar on it. So it is another technique too. Like take a tea and like, pour the tea on the bread, put some sugar on it. I still like that. And so we are eating the corners. Like, I don't want to buy to see that. I have like that nothing sandwich, nothing. And most of the kids did too. I didn't notice that. But then I was. When I started feeding myself of the Communist Party torps little kids then. Then, yeah, I notice other kids doing the same things that I did. And there's a story like, it still touches my heart, you know, when I. When I talk about it. Because the first one I remember, I seen the kid, like little fat kid with a big bun with his like with everything on it. If you had the sandwich today, you would say, damn, that looks really good. So I say I woke up to him and just like took it from his hand. Just rip it half you can have and just eat it. Like, wow, this is good. He was about to cry up there, but like, hey, listen, little shit. Tomorrow you bring two sandwiches like this because how old?

[Sean Ryan]

So you grew up.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

I was 7 years old at the time.

[Sean Ryan]

You grew up fighting for food?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

I grew up fighting. Well, I didn't have to. If my mom find out what I did, I would be spanked. I would be spanked so hard I would be able to sit on my ass. But I had to hide it from her. She would not tolerate it. But yeah, but you know, I was hungry. So I figured out these people, the party members, kids, they have everything you can tell them the way they dress, the way they carry themselves, the way what they and what they eat the most important. So I figured I will just help myself. He has so much. He has abundance of the bread. So I'm sure he will money if I eat half of it. So yeah, I woke up to him and he says, I told him that if you don't bring tomorrow two sandwiches, you won't have a sandwich because I will eat entire sandwich today. I just ate half. Well, he brought the two sandwiches. He found me himself and just gave it to me. So from then on, it came to the point that I had to tell.

[Sean Ryan]

Him that started at seven years old.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Seven years old, yes. Well, and then so I started noticing other kids doing the same thing. And there was a kid in my class, the first grade, who we call him all kinds of names. This guy was smaller than the rest. We torment this guy. We're talking about bullying. And so it's brutal. Like you have no empathy. At least I did not have any empathy for bullying. To the kids that were bullied, it changed. So one day, so he was like the black sheep in the class. Nobody wanted to talk to him, even those poor kids, other poor kids, they call him all kinds of names. So one day I was just coming back from school and I had to travel across town. Had to take a bus, then another bus and to travel home. And I don't know, that was, I think, second grade when I noticed that and my bus took off. I was too. I was late. So I started walking home. And this kid is walking and he's already scared because now I'm walking behind him. And. And, you know, we. We determined on him. But I said, like, well, you know what? Hey, what's up? I was. Where are. Do you live somewhere here? You don't wait on the bus? I say, no, I'm living like maybe like quarter mile from here on the. Say, wow, cool. So let's. Let's go. Let's start talking to him and find out that he's just trying to survive with his mom. He doesn't have a father. And my curiosity, pig. I said, hey, can I just. Where do you live? This building. Once we made to his place, he said, I'm going right here, so let me see how you live. I was curious. So, okay, so walk in, like one room, like half the size of this room here. There's table. There is one chair and one bed. That's it. And the sink. Sink like you see in the janitorial closet. There's deep sink when you keep them up and stuff. And on the table, dirty table, there was a full can of cigarette butts. So I say, oh, okay. Well, I see one bed. Where do you sleep? I say, I sleep with my mom because we cannot afford another bed. So, you know, this is something that still touches me because this guy was. We gave him so much hell. And then I say, okay, so what do you eat? I see one chair. I said, I eat on my mom's lap. So then he says. I say, okay, well, where's your toilet? We have a toilet outside. So where do you keep your food? I don't see any food. Well, we eat every day, the food. So we don't have any. We don't have any reserves. We don't have any leftovers. So I say, hmm, okay, so this is actually when. So then I think it was the second grade or something changed. And I say, okay, well, I hook you up. So then I went to another kid who I knew has, like, the same type of sandwiches. You can tell these kids that there is better. They have better food. So I got to say, hey, look, tomorrow you bring two sandwiches. One for yourself, one for this kid. So he mowed off to me and I just beat him up and dragged him in the toilet up there. Because in Poland during the breaks, all the kids walk on the hallway, just they have to walk. So I drag him in the toilet and just beat the shit out of him and say, tomorrow we'll bring the two sandwiches. And he did. So I said, wow, that worked. So I gave him the sandwich. I said, look, from now on he will bring you the sandwich. If he does not, you let me know because I'm going to give you half of his sandwich or just entire sandwich to you. He was very grateful. Say, well, I don't know why she do it? And then, you know, I didn't let other kids to touch him. I didn't let other kids to bully him anymore. And it changed. So from then on, I think I look at the kids a little bit differently than until this time.

[Sean Ryan]

And that was in second grade.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

There was a second grade. Yeah, but I was pretty violent too, from the beginning as well. I remember in the first grade when we first class up, our class become like when you go to your first grade. So they divide you, okay, you class A, you'll be with this group. You'll be with this group, class B and C. So one of my friends from kindergarten said, this girl has a crush on you. I think she's your girlfriend. I got so mad, but not but at the girl I went to. The girl just kicked her as hard as I could. She fell down. They took her to the nurse room. And this is another lesson that I learned very quick. So she came back all crying to class this first time in the class in our lives. Her name was Bogusa and she's crying at the bench. And I was like being somewhat callous until my mom walked in. She was a teacher at that school. So she just looked around the class, look at me and say, who did you hurt? And the entire class like, that's a dead girl right there. So I was pulled from the bench by the ear. Because there's a method in Poland at the time walk in the middle of the class. My pants were dropped and I was being spunk so hard for so long time until I broke down, started crying. When I started crying, she said, okay, now put your pants up and go out there and apologize. So I did when I apologize and then I got spanked again when I get home. So a bit more explanation why don't do that? I never did again. And that worked.

[Sean Ryan]

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[Thomas Drago Jaran]

There was things that the times that I still remember still affect me sometimes. And the second grade later we moved when I was living away from that school so I had to take the bus to school. This is where my father was already gone. So the kids start picking on me on the way to school. Usually not because it's early in the morning on the way back from school. I get my ass kicked sometimes by the older kids. They just thought it's funny to beat up on me. So I feel like, okay, I don't have a father, so I don't have an older brother to go and stand up for me. I just have to handle my own. So what I did, I went find like a rebar. Maybe there's that big rebar. And I start carrying it with me. I was carrying in my book case. When they on the way back, I could expect they would harass me. They would try to kick my ass. So I had this thing with me in my briefcase and I knew they were walking. This group of kids is walking behind me. So I walk into. In Poland, those buildings that were like fairly new buildings at the time. You have a stairways. You walk into the stairways, you go up and then you walk to your apartments. So I just walk in the stairways. I just wait with this think in it. As soon as first kid walked in, I hope he's alive today. But anyway, so that was it. And so I knocked him out. Yeah, the blood was everywhere. I remember that. And then the other kids ran away. And the next day the repeats itself. The guy was okay, I guess, because he show up with the head band aid. So same thing happens again. So I just walk into the. I see these kids walking and making those warrior grunts. So I walk into the stairways, just wait until they walk in. I got two of them this time, so they left me along. After that they decide, well, we're gonna find another victim. But what they taught me is that violence works. Violence always works. And if it didn't work for you, means you didn't apply enough of it. So that's the. That was my lessons, I think the first lessons from my childhood that you just have to be violent to accomplish things and that if you can't, that violence works and you just need to apply it in the right place. Wow. So. But I was what, eight years old? Nine years old. Those are the first lessons in my life. But society was brutal at the time. It's not excuse. I get a lot of flag now in today's society when I talk about it in Poland. There were podcasts in Poland that I went to and people are very disturbed that how kid like this, 8 years old almost kill somebody that is so violent. Where they don't understand that there were different times. But the way I look at it today is this is good. The Polish society is different. They don't tolerate violence. You know, my mom wouldn't tolerate either, but there were things that she did. And that was my upbringing. And when I see today people complaining about this and pointing out how bad and evil it is, I agree with them. But I'm also kind of happy that they can speak to it, that they can verbalize this. And that is they don't afraid to speak that there's a government goon somewhere behind them looking to how to put them to jail or how to persecute them. They can speak their mind and their minds they don't have to agree with me. And very often they don't. And I'm kind of happy about it because that Polish society is slowly changing. More like in America, where we can speak, we don't have to look over our shoulder. Well, maybe not the last administration, but we don't have to look on our shoulder. I tell you, you know what? Even the last administration, I never felt that I'm saying something can put me to prison, to jail. You know, I can say something, I can lose my job, but I'm not. Because being the. I never put myself in that situation, but I never worry about being.

[Sean Ryan]

What would get you thrown in jail in Poland for.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Well, you could stay in line for bread like my mom. And you complain that, let's say there's never enough food for people here. What this government is doing? Well, if there was a neighbor who next to you or somebody who knew who you were and overheard it and he was working for secret police or he was a snitch, you could get arrested. There was nothing unusual that police show up on your doorstep. They took you on the police station and said, hey, tell us about your comments here in the Breadline or tell about your comments you made at your work about disparaging Communist party members. So in my book, actually I described the case when one of my fellow political prisoners was testifying in his defense. His defense was not a defense, it was offense. It was actually laying straight truth to the judge and judge. Eventually I remember judge asking, well, but this is offending the party member. Do you think it is right? So you can see the way the socialist state work up there so you could put you to jail. Then that was people who were afraid the most to get on the political list in Poland. Because once you find yourself there, you had always. You are always that troublemaker, the anti socialist, anti communist.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Take it.

[Sean Ryan]

You know, you had mentioned people disappearing, being murdered by the. Sounds like the state. Did you witness any of that growing.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Up Even today, even today they are still looking for the mass graves of some of Polish heroes who were executed by socialist state. Just I think recently they found the grave of big Polish hero Rotmich Pilecki, Captain Pilecki, the man who volunteered to go to be locked up in Auschwitz, so he can write reports what's going on up there? And then he escaped after a while. But those reports went to the west on Churchill desk. So they knew what was going on in those prison camps. So this guy later fought in Warsaw uprising in 1944. He became a hero in Poland. So after communists took over, he was promptly arrested and executed, sentenced to death and executed like many, many people. And his grave was never found, I believe until recently. But there are still people that are missing and their graves are being found in the prison yards, digged in somewhere in some conspicuous forests in places. So people are still looking. And there's an IPN organization in Poland, the government organization Institute of Polish remembrance, where they pursue still the searching for Polish heroes who disappeared under communist regime. So there was nothing uncommon to disappear. And also please remember that every communist system, whether in Poland as a socialist system, whether in Poland, whether in East Germany, Romania, Czechoslovakia, those almost given every four or five years the upheavals. So in Poland it was 1956, 1919 68, 1970, 1976, the people went on the streets and there were more. The protesters, they were brand insurrectionists, bandits, terrorists and shot at. So every so many years these upheavals happens. And every time that happens, the new crew comes in and say, okay, socialism is great. These people just didn't know how to social, how to work in socialism system. So we're going to replace. And sometimes that government before was either killed or imprisoned as well. And the new crew come in to build the better, the real socialism. And it repeats itself every so many years. And every time the new crew, the new gang came in, the socialist gang came in and they were telling people that, that we will do it the socialism the right way, we will build socialism the right way. You know, you never hear in. And there's another thing people need to know. They were not communist states. They didn't even pretend to build communist states. Even in Soviet Union. You can see if you read their literature from that time, they all were building socialism, not communication. Communism is the way my father explained to me, is just a stepping stone to further societal development into communism. But you cannot omit a socialist. Socialism is very necessary step. So that's how it happened. And you mentioned about the ask me about the parallels. I've seen a lot of parallels in the last administration that were very dangerous and I was, I was afraid.

[Sean Ryan]

Are you familiar, I'm just curious, Sidetracker, are you familiar what's going on in Romania? Have you been following that at all?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yes. The USAID with European Union disbanded election. They, they, they removed the candidate. This is what I'm saying. The European Union reminds me more of the Soviet Union right now than. Than with totalitarian control than the European Union at its inception. I mean look at it. People are getting arrested in European Union for Facebook posts and there's not like, well, maybe somewhere you heard about. It's documented. You can see even on the videos. There's video when police coming in arrest people for Facebook posts. Let's say in Great Britain. The decay of that society is immense and I don't know how long it will last, but seems like the days of European Union are numbered. I think that's maybe not that good. But you see what happened in Romania, you see what happened in Georgia, you see what the assassination attempt in Slovakia when the President Fico Prime Minister Fico barely survived. And same thing in 2014 in Ukraine. So the US USAID and there's another organization to working hand to hand with it, I think emd that did a lot of harm to people trying to subdue them and convert them into the compliant masses.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah, yeah. Sounds like it's on the cusp of. I went over to Romania to interview Colleen Georgescu. He had a commanding lead in the, in the election and they froze the election.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

And then I guess they unfroze it and they just pulled him. Yeah, he's not running anymore. They just completely pulled him.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

This is what I called like here people don't hear this term. We call it socialist elections. Socialist elections are elections where communists and socialists always win. So there's a socialist election and all the mechanisms behind it. If you would accuse, let's say in Poland, it was the same mechanism. You cannot vote somebody who you really thought could be good person or politician. You are voting for people that they told you to vote. And the mechanism was set up this way that no matter what, that person would win elections. If you notice in Eastern Europe, first thing they did when socialists grabbed the power was start changing the rules and laws to give them the advantage and give them the opportunity to falsify election even if they have to stay at power because they know after four or five years of that socialist communist ideology, people had enough. They did not want any of that and any of these Marxist goons. And in Poland when I was growing, growing up, I remember people would hang those Marxists from the latter posts if they could get away with it. This is how much hate it was. But there's always segment of the society like my father that go along and try to stay afloat. And they will, they will do whatever it needs to take to stay in the control and control the society. Because we need to notice that most of the atrocities committed in Poland were not committed by Russians, were committed by Poles. They were trained in Soviet Union by and not necessarily Russians. They were different nationalities. Ukrainians there were Belarusians who, who were in Soviet part of the Soviet Union at the time, who trained and who installed that type of the government in Poland at the time. So in Poland, the most atrocities that happened were committed by Polish communists and Poles. The Soviet Union the most. I think no other nation experienced the atrocities and danger of communism socialism more than Russians. They were the biggest victims of that system. So there was no Poles murdering Russians. There were no Ukrainians murdering Russians. There were Russians killing Russians because evil ideology will do it to you. This is when you subscribe to so called relative morality and this is what you become part of the system that will actually twist you into this type of behavior, this type of morality. So that's very dangerous.

[Sean Ryan]

So when did you get sent back to your father?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

I think I was 16 years old at the time. I was still at the eighth grade of elementary school. But my mama just could not afford to feed three kids. So he said, you are the oldest one, so we can go send you that. And I didn't really want to go, but I had no choice. The funny thing is father came, picked me up and we traveled from my city lots to after all the court proceedings were done, to his apartment in Warsaw. I remember his wife opened the door, he said, okay, so he'll be living with us from now on. I can remember the screech like, what are you talking about? Nobody's going to live here with us. So the tension already started. It was not very pleasant walking to the house and you see this weird woman screaming and yelling. But I had no choice, so I stayed there and she had the son, so she was giving me a hard time. So I was beating up her son and it was kind of like equalizing. The more I get punishment from her, the more I beat up that other kid. And eventually I had had enough and they had enough too. So they kicked me back to my mother. There was one year, but also I could See at the time, my father's mental state and his values system. His value system, like I say mentioned earlier here, when you seen him, you would think, wow, this was a nice clean man, well spoken and educated man. Somebody like would be great to have as a neighbor. But when I started talking to him, I remember I had a conversation at the time that he says, I ask him, you know what if people were resisting socialism and communism? There are some people who will not buy into it. I don't buy into it. Or he says, well, we have a methods to convince people, we will make them do that. But if that doesn't work, we have presence. So what if the president doesn't worry if he still don't change him? Well, the socialism is such a great system that is worth the sacrifice. So we just eliminate physically these people. That way they don't interfere with us implementing such a great system for everybody. Once people get into the socialist system, they will love it. We just need to eliminate people who oppose it because they derail our efforts. So he wouldn't mind these people being killed. And also what I didn't know at the time, my father was responsible for censorship in Poland at the time he was a minister of Art Culture. Art and culture in Poland. He was a director of the department for Theaters, movies and libraries. So if you wrote the book that my father did not like, your book never showed up. Not only that, if that book was skeptical of socialism and communism, none of your books were ever showed up. And if you argue about it, you could end up in prison. So movies, somebody pointed out not too long time ago, older person, that do you know that your father was responsible for censoring the very popular comedy that was in Poland at the time, samisfoi. It was named like all hours translation. He was responsible for removing parts of that movie. And he was arguing with the director that this does not support the socialist point of view. It opposes what we would say, the nice transition to socialism, communist society. So we need to cut this, this. And just told the people where to cut that movie and they had to comply. I didn't know about that movie. I knew that he was censoring things, censoring books, censoring artists. So a lot of the things that happened in Poland at the time, in post war era was you either could adopt the art and people to socialism or you eliminate it. So there were statues that socialists, the communists like my father decided they do not support the communist narrative, the ideology. Why don't you just destroy them, remove it so people don't know about it or change the meaning of it. Knowing that Autor had creating the. Let's say that painting had this on his mind. Well, kill the author and explain people what really we think that picture means. So that was just normal methods. And if you were not in line with the socialist state, the terror state, you are canceled. So it's not much different that could happen today. That happened today under last administration. So I'm talking about last administration. I know we're going to get a lot of flack for it. And I think the YouTube may flag this interview. But I don't know. Bottom line is that a lot of the things that happen in Poland, like you asked me earlier, was like deja vu from. I could extrapolate on what is happening in the United States under last administration. The difference is this, that America was built by free, strong people. The culture of freedom, the understanding of freedom and the yearning for freedom is so strong that it's not as easy to subdue and change and derail it. So people survived that four years and now you can see what is happening. People are raising up, I would say standing up again against some of the methods used by the previous administration. And they have to, because if we fail, we have no place to go.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow. How often would your dad and you have these conversations?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Quite often, because I wasn't a good student. So always to get him off my back, whether I didn't do the homework or the homework was bad. I asked these questions and we started arguing about it and I just rolled him up. But it also allowed me to understand a little bit more the way he thinks. And it was scary thoughts at the end. The guy has no scruples in implementing the ideology that he was subscribing to. And he want everybody to subscribe. If you didn't, he will force you to do it or he will eliminate you so you don't derail other people from it. It's very dangerous. But this is how they operated at the time. You could lose your job and you will not be able to find your job. You could not open your business, you couldn't attend the college. Matter of fact, the education was a very big thing for communists and control of the students. So to get to college, if you were not a member of youth socialist organization, your chances were smaller to get into university that somebody who was activists and openly. How to say it? Virtue signaling that he's a communist and pro communist. So these people were sought after and they were given priority to join the universities. There were also People who did get into universities being opposed to communist system. But they were very rare and few in between. So they control everything and they control from the schools. It happened to me, you know, when I was in fifth grade. I remember this was the time. Fifth grade is the time when kids in Poland had to start learning Russian language. It become part like math, Polish, physics, mathematics. You had to learn also Russian. So me not being the greatest student, I get pissed off because I hardly have a time and the ability to do homework from these math, physics, the Polish language, and now it's Russian. So I just don't like it. And I piped up at the school, I said, why do they teach us the Russian language? We don't speak Polish very well yet. And on the top of it is a language of occupier. My grandmother always called the Russians occupiers at the time. So I didn't think much of it. There was nothing political at the time about it. But the repercussions were because the teacher walked right away to my bench and grabbed me by my ear and holding my ear through the whole hallway, took me to principal's office, explained what happened. The principal got on the phone and called police. So the police came, but on the way to school, they stopped by Mama.

[Sean Ryan]

This is fifth grade.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Fifth grade, yes. So fifth grade is like 12, I guess, something like that. Yeah. So they. They detained my mother. They brought her with them. So there was two secret police. There was two police in uniform. There was four of them. My mom was sitting in the middle, I guess, in this small car. They were driving. So they came, they started yelling at us, you know, and they told my mom very straight, if you don't instill more love to socialism in your kids, we're going to take them away. We will educate them the right way and you know, don't do it. There won't be any warning if we run across that similar situation, similar situation like this, you're as a parent, your parenting will be done. My mom cried. I cried because I didn't know why my mom was crying. I was a little scared. But, you know, being kid, I really didn't still conceptualize what was really happening until later. My mom explained to me. But this is something that from then on, my mom was always before I was going to school, say, do not talk politics at school. Do not. Because they want to harm our family. Do not talk politics. And that was before we were leaving the school in the morning to school in the morning. Every time I heard this, just that reminder it tells you the fear people were living in of the totalitarian socialist state. And I was not the exception. I mean, all my friends were giving the same advice as when I talked to them. They said, well, my mom told me not to talk about politics because it's dangerous. So yeah, that's happened.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow. You know, you see a lot of that going on on the west coast right now with, with that. And I mean, Washington, you know, if, if you don't subscribe to the, to the gender confusion stuff that's going on right now, then the state will come in, take your kids.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

That's your kids. Yes. And also the cases where actually kids were being converted in their gender.

[Sean Ryan]

That's what I'm talking about.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yeah. Behind parents back. The parents even didn't know about it. So. And I'm aware of the case where a girl, where the boy was transitioned behind parents back and eventually committed suicide. Because of all the things. You know, this is something that is very tragic, but I think we need to stand up to it. We need to understand what is going on. We need to understand that normalization of depravity, especially if you have a therapist that are not allowed to treat mental illness because is politically incorrect and you can lose your license, it tells you how far some of the groups in our society have fallen. That's pure evil. This is what I'm talking about. This is not the struggle between Republicans and Democrats. Really there are good people on both sides. This is struggle. Evil against good, good against evil. And evil is not intellectual concept. It's not something you just think about. Evil is real and we face real dangerous times right now because seem like sometimes the evil side, the evil has upper hand. But you know, I'm looking with hope and I understand that this is not going to take roots in America. American side is much stronger than that. You can throw these things on some people, some weaker people will cave in, but America and American people will not. That freedom on which America was born, from which was born, the quest for freedom, quest for the being strong, independent, is much stronger than evil. We will win. America will win.

[Sean Ryan]

So when you moved in with your father and his, was it his wife?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yeah, I already learned my techniques too. How to extort sandwiches. By this time I was extorting wines, wine and drinks from other kids at school. Well, it didn't start this way. I just didn't know much better. I was doing boxing at the time. I was training box and I decided to. I remember one time on the football field, soccer field, there was some Little kid making a little kid. Not really little kid, but he was like at my age making fun of girls. So I was trying to be like a tough guy, hog up and just knock him out. But, well, I didn't know the guy was part of the gang at school. And in Warsaw they had those gangs. So I then they surrounded me and said, okay, well we just hit our guy, so we're gonna go and we need to talk. Well, I didn't wait. I just knocked another one. So that just put them on the back foot. But then they say, okay, now to mend our case, we cause you any problems, you just bring us a bottle of wine. So I say, a bottle of wine? I just knock on the next one of you. You're not going to get shit from me. But then I was thinking like that kind of work, like I used to do with sandwiches. So maybe I should talk to them. So I did get them wine. I did get them wine. And then we started extorting wine from other kids. So that was the. Again, violence works. It didn't work for you, means you didn't apply. Enough of has no place in American society. I had to be open about it and I have to state it openly. It wouldn't work here. America is different. But at that time it worked for me.

[Sean Ryan]

So it lasted with your dad for about a year and then you got sent back at what age? 17 now?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yeah, that was like 17 going. Yeah, 17 years old. Yes. Before I get back to my mom, I finished my regular elementary school and the high school that I went to was very sought after. Only kids with the best grades could get to it. My grades was like the worst of the worst. But I had a father call me his father. So just take one visit at school and I stim. I was greeting like a hero at school. Just come on in, pick your class, you know, what do you like to do? And so, and so. So I was treated like very well. But again didn't last long because eventually his wife got tired of me. His kids got a lot of bumps and black eyes many times. So they just sent me home. And then I started my life back again with my mom.

[Sean Ryan]

How was it starting your life back again with your mom?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Well, there was again I have found the memories of my childhood. So today when I look at it back, yeah, it was poor, it was violent. But when I also I had the nostalgia for it. So when I came back home, I didn't go back to do boxing. My home at that time was in Jelo Nagura a small town. So I didn't go back to the boxing because the first karate Kyokushin Kyokushinkai was born in Jelangura in the town. So I said I need to get to it. But because you have to be 18 to join. I took my school ID and I scraped the date and I changed my date one year earlier. So I was actually 18. So I didn't tell my mom about it because my mom was very strict about these, these things. And I said, I told my mom that I want to go there, but we couldn't afford it. So she. But she said this. If you stop drinking and stop smoking as I was drinking smoker. If you stop drinking and smoking and use. I see your try to pay for your training, I will help you. So the. Then I was selling the. What do you call it? Like papers. You get the papers you like. Recycling. I was doing the recycling and I was just getting money for it. You could do it in Poland. It took a lot of stuff to carry, heavy stuff to make meaningful money. But I learned I can steal the newspapers, the stack of newspapers, because in the morning, it was like 6, 5 o'clock in the morning. They were. There was no electronics at the time, there was no Internet. So they just throw those newspapers by the places where they were being sold. So I just wait until the guy left and just grab a couple of these bags, each one maybe like five, six kilograms. That's a lot of heavy weight. And I just ran away with it. I hid in my basement and after two, three days I just ran up to the place where they were buying the recycling and just started making money just to supplement my. My karate training. And it worked. My mom seen it as she seen that I tried. I stopped drinking, I stopped smoking. And just like this, just one day I stopped and started doing karate. Kikushinkai. It was, it was fun. I mean that was something that I very found memories of it. And that's how my life moved.

[Sean Ryan]

And then you found yourself in prison.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

I found myself in prison after that was 1978. And that was when John Paul II Pope came to Poland. And at that time when you were watching on official TV his interaction with people, you would think, yeah, just the way that was explained by communists was one. The crazy guy in a funny dress showed up and few people show up to talk to him. And when the TV shows, yeah, a few people here, a few people there, but even more protesters like, yeah, the Pope is bad. And that was the communist propaganda. If you look today. And some of the pictures on Internet, there were masses, there were, if not millions, there were hundreds of thousands of people coming to meet the Pope. But you wouldn't know it from official press, from fake news media in Poland at the time, the impression was there's nobody interested in just funny dude in the white skirt. That's the way how it was explained. But that was very meaningful for Polish nation because no matter, by this time, no matter what the famous media say, people do not believe that if they say this is white, people usually comment that it's got to be black because the communists say it's white. But people had the chance to gather together in those meetings where thousands of us show up to meet the Pope. And they had the chance to see that there's not only few of them, there's most of them. There is entire society that opposing that depravity and that socialist terror. And they start talking, they start dreaming again. And the words that I still remember the Pope said was, don't be afraid, stand up, get up your knees. Fight for your rights. Don't be afraid. This is why what the vice president, J.D. vance, when he say the same thing to European Marxist goons in that room during that visit, he was not speaking to those turds and baboons sitting there, he was speaking to people in European Union. Stand up, fight for your rights. Don't let these goons and baboons bully you. So that's those words what the JD Vice President JD Vance said resonated with me and still resonate.

[Sean Ryan]

What was it that got you in prison?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

So after John Paul II visit in 1978, people started actually organizing. They say, you know what, he's right. We don't need to live on our knees. It's time to get up. It's time to fight for our rights. We don't need to be afraid. And they start organizing groups in the different places and eventually they decide, well, you know, why don't we just legalize our organization as a trade union? Because mostly there were workplaces, factories. So let's organize and let's legalize. Let's just say fuck the communism, let's make the organization independent from Communist party. And they did. So they start building slowly and of course that. But it was a price to pay too. The persecution, the prison times. Sometimes people were beaten to death or suicided. So that's. But that was the price worth to pay.

[Sean Ryan]

What do you mean suicided?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Well, for example, I'll give you a student, I think it was 1978, his name was Pierce. So he was active in opposition, working, trying to. He was a student. So he was found dead. And official cause of that, he followed the stairs. So there's many cases like this. So they were not afraid to go and kill people. Just like my father would do it if he had opportunity or if he was required to do it. I have no doubt that he would. If he wouldn't do it himself, he would find somebody to do it. So that was normal. But people start organizing. And in 1980, finally people had so enough of the socialist state. They started doing strikes. They went on strikes here, there in Gdansky. And eventually the entire economy started collapsing. So communist government at the time in socialist Poland say okay, let's go get some agreement, let's just do something, something. Let's try to work it out so you guys can go to work. And we try to change the socialism on being more humane. We now know how to fix the socialism. We make socialism better now like every six years. So people say, well no, not really, that we need to be recognized as a trade union's Solidarity. They call themselves Solidarity. So that trade union was born. Eventually the government had to give in and approve. It was the first organization in the entire Warsaw Pact that was totally independent from communist party. That was the first one. It was the first break that was kicked out from the communist terror wall. Poland did it and eventually the entire wall crumbled. So yeah, so this is how it started. But they never give up. They start making lists of people inconvenient to socialist state. And eventually in December 13, 1980, they imposed martial law. So at midnight they start mass arrests. People from the list. There were secret police, army involved, the regular police. They were raiding apartments across entire Poland, arresting people and detaining them. That was at midnight. I remember I was at the Solidarity headquarters at the time the trade union movement, which turned into the social movement. I was on the phone with friends with Austria and at midnight just click, everything is gone. I didn't think much of it because communist socialist equipment didn't work well anyway. So it was like, well another I call him maybe later. And then people start coming into our building headquarters say, hey, my son was arrested or my father and my mother were arrested. Sometimes they were arresting people, leaving kids in the apartments with no supervision. So that was very really bad because all the telephones, radio, everything was cut at midnight sort of people died. People have a heart attack or emergency. They had no means to get help. And people were shoved into the back in their apartments. You could not be on the street past certain time, if you were, you could be arrested, and you were most likely arrested. And this is where I got even more involved. This is where I started getting involved in underground structures and building the resistance to communist takeover through martial law of entire Poland. And, yeah, there was a lot of people arrested. A lot of people were shot and killed, but they were able to subdue the society yet for some time. And this is where I got involved and I started building the structures. Eventually we got caught. We started printing a bulletin.

[Sean Ryan]

A bulletin?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

A bulletin, yes. It was behind the censorship of official fake news media. So they basically challenged them. They were saying one thing, but what we're doing, basically collecting the names of people who were arrested, detained, sent to internment camps, and what happened to them, the court cases. So they. This is what we're printing. It was very dangerous for communist state. Anything beyond what they can't censor is perceived by socialists as very dangerous to their. Detrimental to their power. So, of course, they track us down. And I got arrested, and I call it bulletin. They call it newspaper, but it was just a leaflet. It was a leaflet with two. I think two pages maybe. But it was dangerous enough to give me three years prison sentence.

[Sean Ryan]

How did they arrest you?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

They arrested me when I came on the Point because we didn't know much about how underground works and how to protect ourselves. So we printed out and just went on the street and were giving to the people. So they. They track us down, say, okay, these guys are passing those illegal newspapers. So I guess they follow us. And I walked to the Point because we're supposed to print the next batch of the newspaper then. And as I sing, as I knock on the door, I was just like, people. I hear people running from upstairs, from downstairs. The door is open. With the gun in my face, it's like, whoa, okay. So, okay, they throw me on the ground, and after a few kicks, they handcuffed me and they dragged me by my feet to the apartment. They shut the door and they were waiting. They were hoping that somebody else will show up. And so one of those Secret Service goons, he was sitting in the chair like, I sit right here, but he put me in front of it and said, put his feet on me. And just. I was working as a footstool for his feet for quite a few hours. And then nobody showed up because it was only us. So they took me back to. They took me to political. Not political. They took me to secret police headquarters in my city. That was my first really stand with the communism. And Prison.

[Sean Ryan]

And you were there for three years?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

No, I was there for less than 10 because there was amnesty. So after around a year and a half they kind of started releasing us right before the second visit of Pope to Poland. He demanded that before he visits Poland they need to instill amnesty for political prisoners. So they slowly start releasing them.

[Sean Ryan]

What was, what was it like in prison?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Well, there was like I didn't have no problems. I just. If I had to beat somebody up, I did. I didn't have scruples about it. But I remember the first one. Even when I was arrested. They put me into this holding tank with other prisoners. And this is normal technique of secret police. They will keep you not freezing, but they keep you cold. They will not keep you starving, but they will keep you hungry. So they slowly they will break down your resistance. That way you are easier to fall down. And they. So I remember they throw me like 2:00 in the morning, was dark, no windows. So I just like didn't know even where to go. Somebody said just go along the wall, find an empty spot, sit down, sleep, you. We're gonna figure it out tomorrow. I said, okay. So we got up tomorrow in the morning and this big dude comes up and says, hey, I didn't eat fat enough. So I'm going to eat your breakfast today. You are well fed. I guess you just came back from outside. I'm going to eat your breakfast today. So I didn't have much experience with prison time. So I figured out I just knock him out and just assert myself that nobody's going to eat my breakfast. So I knocked him out, but I have to. So he was laying there and I was like thinking like, well I'm going to knock his front teeth out and I'm going to make a necklace out of it. So actually I woke up to him, I like very carefully lift his upper lip and just drove his two front teeth in, just pulled them out and well, I got caught with them I think in the next prison time because when they transferred me to Agriel prison, this is where they started searching us much better. And they found my teeth. So I'm sorry I don't have my necklace but that was the. But you know, like it never bothered me. Nobody never bothered me with taking my breakfast. It would be very unlikely in prison that somebody like real prisoner would just go and try to take your breakfast. There was some punk who think he's somebody, but he was threatening. Yeah, when you go to real prison, I'm going to pass to these Guys and they're gonna fuck you up. I was like, all right, you say it again, I'm going to knock your bottom teeth out. You want that? He let me along. So then I was transferred to. Eventually when they finished with me, they transferred me to this intermediate prison where I was waiting for my sentencing. And then after that they took me to political prisoner prison. Political prison on the Russian border in city Khrubyshu. That's where the pictures in my book and on my websites are from. Because when I visit that prison in 2022, I had the chance actually to go inside and tour the place where I spent my time as a prisoner.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow. What was it like in that prison? Was there. Was there like a re education program or anything?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

That was. But it was not official re education program. So from intermediate prison I was transferred to the. After sentencing to that political prisoner. But then they kept. There was known one of the harshest prisons in Poland. This is where they keep political prisoners. They were. Kept them all over Poland. But it was like the most known harsh prison. And then they. So this is where I met people, professors, engineers, people with a statue that accomplished something in their life, and even politicians. So that was very educational for me. It stopped being. I didn't think about it as the punishment. It was more like education education for me. I learned about the real history of Poland that was. And I learned how twisted the official history of Poland was. So that was how that helped me. This is the way. This is what shaped me in the big part to who I am today. So I made a lot of brave people. When I was sitting in prison, I didn't have a family. I didn't have a wife or kids. And now we have kids, so we know how it is. I understand how it was difficult for all those engineers, all those professors who never had contact with prison and law enforcement, suddenly being on the receiving end, sitting in prison and worrying about their wives, their kids, and still not giving up, still fighting the system, even from prison. For me, that was inspiration. So, yeah, I was so inspired that eventually the prison administration sent a letter to my mother that basically come and help out because I'm not following the rules and my behavior is highly negative, not up to standard socialist regulations and stuff. So I still have it. I need to find it, because we just found it maybe like a year ago. And I said, okay, I'm going to keep it. And I put it somewhere in the safe place where. I don't know where the safe place is now, but I have that letter from Prison administration to my mom, calling her and asking to influence me, come here and talk to me. So it was funny because they got extra visit from my mom. I didn't expect that get a visit once a month. And suddenly my mom showed us, hey, you need to go and visit mom. So my mom, she started crying and say, well, I'm very proud of you. I said, well, I'm sure you are, but what's up? She said, well, this. And she just pulled this letter up. So I'm very proud, twice as proud now. So keep doing what you're doing, don't give in. So yeah, and then we were actually start fighting back. I remember we went on the hunger strike. So we're like for, I don't remember, three weeks or months where we didn't refuse to eat. We were trying to. It started from beatings. So one of the political, some of the political prisoners got beat up by guards. So we're not hunger strike. But then we say, okay, well we are ready for like eight, nine days. So why don't we just attach the request for. For status of political prisoner. We are political prisoners, so let's fight for that. So now. So we wrote the letter to administration that the strike will continue until we receive that, until we receive the status of political prisoner. And they start breaking our strike, starting with the older, more sick prisoners. Some professors were taken to the room and say, like the way by the Polish regulation at the time, they have to feed you forcefully feed you after I think two weeks. So they start that. The way they do it is the big pipe, looks like a vacuum pipe, a little bit smaller, corrugated pipe, and the funnel on the end. So they handcuff you to the chair, they took this pipe and they shove the thing up your, up to your stomach. And then they have a big, what they call it, like big thing where they cook stuff like a yellow goo and they just put it into your stomach. So what they did is like with older people, they say, look, there's nobody here. It's just you and us. So instead of us shoving this thick, big pipe in your stomach, why don't you just take this little cap so I won't have to put it in. Just drink it. People who, some of the older people say, well, this is very painful. So, well, I just drink it here. I'm still on strike. So usually they don't even let them finish that drink because as soon as he grabbed that cap, put in his mouth and make two, three sips of it, say, okay, now you are not on hunger strike, you feed yourself, your hunger strike is over. And in transport to different prison or different pavilion or whatever, they just start separating these people. So a lot of people went this way. They were like treated this way. But eventually the letter from the. From church, from Catholic church in Poland came in. Guys, you will not get statistics status of political prisoner. You can accomplish other things, but there's not. You need to stop that because you are wasting yourself. There were people taken to hospitals, to emergency rooms because of that. And that's how we. Eventually the strike is over. We will stop the hunger strike.

[Sean Ryan]

Well, what were you guys. How would the hunger strike have worked if they were censored? If they were censoring all the media, how would anybody know you guys were on the.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Well, we have a. The priest that was coming to. They were allowed once a week on Sundays the priest to come in. And the friend who was passing him the information was a friend of mine, who we are still friends. And that's how the information was getting out.

[Sean Ryan]

So they would leak it to a priest and then the priest would disseminate.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

It through the church to the church and pass it to the pass to underground. Because Poland at the time already had pretty strong underground structures. They were eventually infiltrated by the secret police. But they were working, they were still effective. So they were being spread out through alternate media. So basically the fake news media, of course we know what to expect. But there were still bulletins like mine. They were being printed and disseminated to people or being just left thrown the street here so people could pick it up and read it. And that's. Things spread like wife wildfire. But also, you know, there's another.

[Sean Ryan]

What would the consequences be if they.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Caught you with it?

[Sean Ryan]

No, no, no, no. What would the consequences be for the government if people knew that? I mean, they're already arresting. They shut down communications at midnight that day.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Right.

[Sean Ryan]

And did mass arrests.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Right.

[Sean Ryan]

And so what I guess what I'm asking is what would the. What would the consequences have been for the government had the. When the church would leak out that there was a hunger strike other than just a bunch of.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Not so much within the country, but outside the western media. Yes. The Radio Free Europe, Voice of America, your Voice of America is in my life plays a very instrumental role because the things that I started learning about the communist regime, about the real history of Poland started with the Voice of America, where it was transmitted to Poland with real true information. What was happening in Poland, what was the real Polish history was very interesting, but it Was illegal to listen to it. So they did not want this information, Governor to leak outside. Beside, the sanction against communist government by President Reagan was playing big role and eventually collapse of the communism and socialism in Poland. But yeah, there were repercussions. They were afraid and they had enough. People were fighting them on every steps they could. Maybe not physically, but intellectually, they call it. In Poland, it was coined the name internal immigration. So basically, people were shutting themselves down away from the government, not cooperating with them. And the entire economy was going to shit. And so they did not want that. Eventually they realized that they cannot this minority. You wouldn't know listening to the fake news media, but that minority cannot rule over the majority. That people were realizing there's more and more of them versus the small group of elites, socialist elites in Poland. So yeah, they were afraid, they didn't want that. And then eventually that thing collapsed.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow, so you were part of the collapse?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

I was part of the collapse. Well, by this time I was already in Poland, but it totally collapsed I believe 1987. This is where the transition from communist from the totalitarian system happened to towards democracy. By this time I was already living my American dream in America.

[Sean Ryan]

And how did you get out of prison? So it was the Pope.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Honestly, the Pope was coming in and they started releasing political prisoners. So after coming out, it's actually funny story, because I was arrested in the wintertime. So all the clothes I had was just winter. Big old coat, you know, big boots that the strings were already broken. The hat, the ball, I mean, the cab. And I remember they let me out and they say, okay, this is your clothes now. There's a ticket for to your city and buy get out. So when I left, I was. I looked like a bum, you know. So I remember I was walking like showing my shoes because they were falling. They have strings in it. So until I get to the town, I had to walk from prison maybe like three miles to town to get the train. And they changed the train. So yeah, I do look like a bum. And people like, look at this guy. No, there's a bomb. In Poland, it was normal for people. Even if they went to take trash out, they wanted to look good, they wanted to dress. They just dressed themselves so they look decent. There was not like sweatpants or something. Just I do it now, right? But at that time, you always put something some nice clothes whenever you were outside. Like for me, I remember I had a special clothes for the Sundays to go to church. So like a church clothes that I was not allowed to wear at home or anywhere else except going to church because it was special occasion. So people there, so seeing me as a bomb walking this shoes, anti shoes, you know, big jacket in the, in, in the summertime is. Was, I think outside for a lot of Polish people there. So. Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

Where did you go? Do you want? Do you want?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

I walked to the train station. Then I took the train to my city. And there was no cell phones at the time, so like my mom didn't even know anything. And yeah, I just took the. I didn't have the money to pay for the bus ticket. So from the train station I just took part of it, started walking, but it was so unpleasant that eventually illegally jump on that bus and say like two, three stops. I just went and then I walked back home and that was it. So my mom was very happy. She couldn't believe, you know, my siblings too. But yeah, that was it. And now I thought, okay, so now I'm done with prison. What's next? So try to find a job, try to do something, try to set my life again. And so of course I resume training the taekwondo and kickboxing. I switch Kyokushinkai to take one though, because I like it better. I like the people there, they have a similar mentality to mine. They didn't mind to fight. They like to fight. They like to fight on the streets. So there was just like a. More like a good group of people, you know, there's less sport, more fights. And so when I wouldn't try to resume my life, but then coming out from the trainings, very often I, I had the police car or sometimes civilian cars pulled in, get handcuffed, thrown in the car, drove around the town for a few hours, sometimes drove outside the town and drop. Or usually they drop me off outside of town and then I had to walk back home. But it was not so much to terrorize me. They knew they cannot terrorize me, but there was to terrorize people around me. I said, yeah, you know what, don't do that, don't be, hang out with this guy. And eventually at daytime was, okay, I can take a bus or something and go back home. But at night when the bus is not working, sometimes I had to work four or five miles to home. So eventually I decided one day I may not come back from those excursions. It's time to go, time to leave. And I went to US Embassy, asked for help. I went to US Ambassador because at that time America was. It always is, but it's that beacon of freedom this is where people look up to. I remember dreaming, like, why Poland cannot be like America, you know. And what happened too, when I was going to this very exclusive school in Warsaw that my father set it up for me, I had to travel, change the buses. And the change. The bus was. The stop was by the US Embassy. So I remember I loved just to go out there because at that time they had those glass displays where they have pictures from America. There were information America. So I remember even before the Marshall, even before I got political, I just love to look at it and see, wow. You know, I love to dream. So sometimes it was so nice that I remember missing the bus, you know, I said, fuck this bus. You know, I just want to read this. So I did read that and I was always fascinated. I like to pick through the fence and see the big, powerful, beautiful cars. I was like, my this is the country. Those are the free people. Why aren't we that today those glass displays are taken down for security reason, I guess. And I still. When I went last time I've seen, I went up there because for me it's very nostalgic. But yeah, that was gone.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow. And so you got. You put in.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

And yeah, I told them what happened and I say, I would like to just. I would like to escape Poland. I would like. I need help. They, you know, I didn't even the wildest dream, I think they would allow me to come and live in America. It was just like, well, but I have to try. So I went to ask and I want to find out. They asked for documents and all that stuff. I did and I got within, I think, very short time, documents stating that, yes, the visa will be granted to me when I get Polish passport. So basically that was normal procedure at the time. A lot of political refugees came to this way, either to America or different countries. My choice was always America. So once I got that promise, I could apply with that I could apply for passport. Otherwise you cannot get the passport in Poland. So with this I applied for passport. The passport was given to me and I got the visa, got the green card. And actually i94, that was the first attempt, first document which was later exchanged for green card. Eventually I became US citizen. But yeah, so this is where my journey became. There's one thing I would like to mention too. During martial law, when everything was banned, like the Solidarity insignia, Solidarity like lapel pants, they were just forbidden. You could not wear it. So people start wearing American flag as a resistance, as a Soviet, we are free. We want to be Free. So I remember that. So we all had the American flags. Communists got tired of it. I remember my city because martial law, they had the roadblocks. So once every while they stop bus or something, everybody has to disembark. They were checking documents. And so if they found the solidarity trade union pain, you could get beat up and hold your ass to jail. But with American flag, they just could not really do that much. At least they did not to the point because I remember with the time that I got stopped on the checkpoint, when they pull us out, they rip our flags, American flags off and they stormed them in the ground. So the funny thing, it's not funny, but so we're back on the bus and then the guy, as the bus was moving, the guy said, yeah, you, we're gonna get more, we're gonna buy more American flags. And when they stopped the bus, they pull everybody out and they grabbed. I think, I don't think it was the guy who mouth off to them there was. They just picked the first guy they could easier grab. They grab him, they drag him and they drag him to the police van while beating him with those rubber sticks all the way on the way to it. So now you can leave. So we're like, okay, well maybe we don't say anything, we just buy new American flags. So yeah, that American flag was always for us, for many of us, that beacon of freedom that the drive. And then I came to live here.

[Sean Ryan]

Did any of your siblings or your mother come with you?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

No, no, they stay that time they stayed there. And my sister is still there. She's still. She's living her own life. She has her own business now. And they have peaceful, nice life. So they enjoy it. And I'm here. When I was leaving Poland, I was saying goodbye to Poland forever. I didn't. I had my passport. Passport. I'm going to post on my website, my passport is only one way. So it's just stabbing it. You can cross Polish border one time only. So I say, well, that's it.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

And yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

Was it hard to say goodbye?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Well, I was anxious. Not really that much. But it was more difficult for my family, my mom, because they. The way we understood, we're never gonna see each other. So for me it was like, well, you know, I had to go because if I don't, then I may not last long. And yeah, I remember I just like had a bag of my clothes and I had the $20 because you had to have a $20. And I walk up to the plane and left that was it.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

So yeah, that's how my journey started. The funny thing is that I always was dreaming about having a tape recorder. Like a little tiny tape recorder. Never had one. So I said, well, you know What? I have $20 in Germany because I flew to Germany, stay in Germany for like three weeks and so I go and buy me one. So the old 20 I spent on the tape recorder. So when I landed in New York, I had only 10. The change that I got for the tape recorder was 10. Phoenix. So this is like I think 5 cents those German coin. So that's, that's how I landed in New York. Bag of clothes and I didn't speak English.

[Sean Ryan]

Let's take a quick break.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

When we come back, we'll get into.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

The U.S. yeah, that's, that's the, you know, you can cut out from it whatever you want to cut out.

[Sean Ryan]

But we're not cutting anything. Yeah, that's, that's. Wow.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Well, you know what? Like my story, whether in the book or told here, I don't want people see as a word, the guy just came and bitch about the socialism and communism. We all know the communist bad. I want them to this to be a prism, a land so they can see America maybe from different vantage point because I see very often people, especially the young, younger generation educated with this anti American universities, they hate us outright hate America, you know. And so I want them to see the America through, I would say different eyes, you know, different, different vantage points. So maybe they can change their mind because you know, that's. I tell you, some of the hate towards America have seen from our own citizens. I didn't see the terrorists we were hunting in the Middle East. So that's what is disturbing for me. Not all, but I did run across people with so much hate towards America, our own citizens. And this is a product of these universities, these anti American universities, this Marxist with a Marxist communist band and communist professors and teachers. So geez. Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

Well, you did a damn good job painting that picture.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

What's that?

[Sean Ryan]

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[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yes. Well, you know, this. I was a bad student because I think that I didn't like to learn. And that was my. I think maybe my personal challenge to stay focused on something, and especially something that I didn't like to do it. I like to play soccer. I like to kickbox. I like to fight. So I did. I didn't have. I was not the best student. But, yeah, this, like, software engineering is fascinating. It's like having a puzzle, and you solve the puzzle and. And it trains your brain to. To memorize things, to remember things, and using the tools. It is fascinating. It's a. And you build things. You know, it's just like you are the designer. And software engineering is more like an art than it's a science, but it's also big art involved in it because you can solve the problem. It's about solving the problems. And you can solve the problems in so many ways, so many different things you can do to accomplish your task. It's fantastic. I love it. I mean, this is something that was very fascinating to me. Matter of fact, the way I started it was in the SEAL teams. So I was the only SEAL who. Having a cruise box with guns, have another cruise box with books and another one with full computer. There were no laptops at the time. Maybe there were, but I couldn't afford one. So I had a big monitor, big computer keyboard, mouse, and I traveled with it. If we deployed to. Like when we deployed to Germany or to Bosnia, I had that all shebang with me. Matter of fact, when we came back from deployment, we're carrying guns back into the SEAL teams. So we picked the case with the guns with the guy just carried in that and pick my case to get to my cage and say, what the fuck is in this box? Do you have a gans in it or something? I say, no, it's just my laptop and my books. Because there was no Internet at the time, so I had to have a book. So I carry books with me.

[Sean Ryan]

Damn.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

But I love it. It's fascinating world.

[Sean Ryan]

And then we had a conversation, too. We have to get this about Taekwondo. And I was talking about Palmer Lucky's cameras. And then somehow that morphed. Or a helmet. And then somehow that morphed into. Oh, yeah, morphed into cameras. And then Basically, you guys critiquing yourself on the street, right?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

We're talking about the cameras. Yes. When I was growing up, there was no cameras. You can have a camera, maybe like the one with this little crank on it. And it was hard to get. Like, I never had one, and I didn't know even anybody who had one. So for us to progress in that, in the fighting, in the kickboxing, in Taekwondo, we just need to critique each other. So, matter of fact, this is why I switched from karate Kyokushinkai to Taekwondo at the time. It's not like this today. I know. I don't want to offend anybody who is practicing taekwondo today in Poland today. Taekwondo is very inclusive to all kinds of people in this very, very, I would say civilized is very, not only educational but also very healthy. But at that time, though, we just decided to, especially when our teacher from Laos claim and was telling us that, you know, fight on the ring is one thing, it's fairly safe, but you need to be good. You want to be good fighter, you need to fight on the street. Well, he didn't have to say twice to us that we're just like, okay, right on, let's do it. So the way we did it, it was just pick the people on the street who looked more rough or like trying to. Somebody who was willing to fight. And it was not difficult to find people like this in Poland at the time. So we go. And the way we did it is like, okay, so I'm going to go first. I'm going to beat up this guy, and you guys will watch. This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to use this technique, this technique, this technique. And you grade me. Basically, they were. They were the cameras of our. The eyes of my fellow buddies from Taekwondo. They were the cameras of our times. So, you know, you got there, you use your technique, you beat the guy up. And again, I'm not proud of it today, but I have to say, crooked, cruelly, but that was the way I live the life at the time. So. And you critic me. And, and so after the fight was over, the guy was laying unconscious. The guys come in and say, okay, well, you miss your technique right there. You could emphasize a little bit more that kick was not very strong or you missed the guy here where you could actually do more damage or do this, this. So that was our techniques, and that's, that's how we. We got really good at it. We got really good at it to the point that we didn't look For a single people anymore. We just wanted like, let's challenge ourselves, let's just beat two people at the time. So sometimes it was difficult to find like a group of people to beat up. So if we found one, usually it was like whoever called first was able to beat them up. Sometimes it was so hard to tell because we were like, yeah, the mind, the mind. We had to draw the straws who would be beating them up. And this is how we practice. So we just walk up to the guy who started the fight. And in Poland again, it was not very difficult to do it because almost everybody was fighting everywhere. And then we practice our technique or two, three guys. And there was become more actually interesting than beating just one guy. It was very simple thing, but now we have two or three guys. And now, now you can show your art. I would say you can show your way of how you master your techniques, your reaction time and all that stuff. So that was very interesting. And some of them, you know, like, we didn't know, we didn't pick people who. Because you couldn't know if the guys to beat up were martial artists too or not. But we did. We just like taking chances. And sometimes the guy had actually martial art training was more boxer or wrestler. So they were hard to beat up sometimes, you know, sometimes like you have two, three guys and one of them is like, you know, is not really reacting to your punches. You have to actually strain yourself to knock the guy out. But that was our training, that was our, the cameras were our eyes and the review was our critique how the fight went. Wow, that was, you know what again.

[Sean Ryan]

Whose idea was the safety pin?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

I don't know where it came from, but. Oh yeah, that was. Came from, you know, when you fight, when you were fighting in Poland. When I was fighting in Poland, I, you know, I, I learned very quickly that. And I'm sure you experienced that when you start a fight, the guy gets beware and say, okay, I had enough, thank you, you better let me walk away, I'm fine. That's very dangerous thing to do. What I learned very quickly because usually the guy recover and attack you again or come back with his friends. So then you have a fight on your hands or even more people to beat up. So when we fight, when you used to fight there, we used to fight until the guy stopped moving. So it's not that, hey, I had enough, enough, enough. No, no, no. You don't tell me to end when I end the fight. I will tell you when I end the fight. Most likely you Will just be moving again. So you just beat the guy until he doesn't move right now he falls down, doesn't move. But then we find out and it happened to me actually that one of the guys I think at the thong fell in and he was already getting turning blue. And I panic. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what happened. And there was, thanks God there was a nurse and said give me a safety pen, give me a safety somebody's safety pen. So somebody pulls her safety pen and she kind of like hook his tongue and pull it out or into the side was good and say, you know if something like this happened, you know you need to make sure that his tongue doesn't. That person tongues doesn't fall in. So I, I said well that's pretty cool. But you know like if, if you need to run and what do you do? Well I guess you take the safety and pin his tongue to his lower lip and that he will leave too. So this is how we started doing it. And sometimes police in Poland at that time seldom intervene. People were so used to violence there that if there was a fight on the street then you could see two, three fights. When you walk through town. Usually people just across the street go around you and keep walking down. It's not my business. Two people, three people are fighting. Let them fight it out, let them duke it out and just move on. But sometimes when police was coming then you have to leave unconscious guy on the street. So we learned very quickly that the best way is just to use the safety pen, pull his tongue out, pin it to the lower lip, rolling to the side and just leave him there. And he will leave. He's not going to die. So that was kind of like a technique that we learned very quickly and it's effective. It's life saving technique I think. Last one I applied in Horton Plaza in San Diego. Already being a seal, I have to.

[Sean Ryan]

Say I've never, it never occurred to be the pinup guy's tongue to his lip after I beat him up so.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

It doesn't jump to death. I didn't think either until this guy almost died on my eyes. So that's, I learned there's a safer way. I treat the safety pin as a safety depth. You know, you just ensure the guy doesn't die, that he's fairly safe, that his tongue pain to them to his lower lip. It's not going to hurt him. You know, he wake up and I, I never had a. Never had anybody complain about well maybe they never. They never saw the after. But it was effective. Hundred percent, I guess. So that worked. Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

So let's get to. So you came to America, you had.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

$20 in Germany, in Germany on the table, tiny table.

[Sean Ryan]

You bought the tape recorder. So you had, I think you said 5 cents.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

So Phoenix is like a German mark has 100 Phoenix. So I had the 5 Phoenix in my pocket. Bag of clothes from like old clothes from 1970s or whatever my mom could, you know, prepare for me. So I had a sweater. I think I still have it till today, somewhere in the closet because I didn't want to throw it away with my mom. Made by his hand. By her hands. So that's. Yeah, that's how I came to America. Knowing nothing, knowing no English, only knowing that America is a free country. The people are living free here. And I can live as a free man here on this land and hopefully one day become American citizen if I'm good enough.

[Sean Ryan]

Where do you go? No family, no money, no English, nowhere to live.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

People were waiting for me, actually. So when I came in, because I came legally, they organized like an apartment for me. They organized the first, helped me find the first job. You know, I didn't complain or how could I complain. I got the job as a janitor. And I was happy as I can be, Sean. I could pay for my own apartment, my own money. I didn't have to borrow the money. I could buy my food, you know. And I was living in apartment with air conditioning, with, you know, telephone. There was something unusual in Poland and air conditioning. I only. I didn't even know how it works. I never, I never seen air conditioning. I heard about the acclimatizations in apartments. But having apartment with air conditioning, good God, I felt like a king. You know, there was a project. There was like. Apartment was like $180 a month. And there was a bunch of. A lot of crimes, drugs and prostitution. But who cares, you know, I had my own apartment and I could afford it, I could live in it. And then, you know, so my goal become now to learn English and to get different job, get better job and to start English because I was working as a janitor. So really, you know, physical work. So I had a. Cartoons in my back pocket. So I had a map in one hand. It's like, Jane loves Joe, Joe loves Jane. You know, I was just mapping the floors and that's like, okay, so I need to memorize that. So this is how I learn, basically how I learned English at the time. And this is why My grammar sometimes is still like, the offends of Rachel, my wife. She's like, hey, you don't say it this way. You have to say it certain way. But, yeah, this is how I started. This is how I learn English. Eventually I improve and I went to school. But that was my first beginning, I tell you, the patience of American friends who helped me, who set me my life here. I mean, it's so incredible, Sean. I offended so many people unintentionally, not even knowing about it. I remember I was invited by the church after the mass on Sunday in the room, so the parishioners can meet this new Polish immigrant and stuff, and I can mingle with those great people, great American friends. So I walk into the room and the pastor came with a big plate of cookies. And just like, so happy. Everybody is, like, smiling and happy. So I took this cookie, and Polish language is not such sound like th. So somebody advised me to use F, like, thank you. That came out like you. And that's when I took this cookie and I could. I knew that I say something wrong, because right there I had hear the gasps like, everybody. So I'm holding this cookie, and it's like, what the hell did I say wrong? I say, thank you. Manado was a fuck you. So. But there's like, older gentlemen came out and say, look, what he's trying to say is he looks at me and say, thank you. So I'm like, yes, that's what I'm trying to say. So. So, you know, like, the things like this, the Borat moments, I was invited to party, like, swimming, swim, swimming pool, family party from the parishioners, and they have a grill set up and everything. So, of course, I want to represent myself the best I could and, you know, be that good American I want to be. I just want to look good there. So I went and I found the skimpiest, the shortest shorts I could find. I would. You would call it banana hammock, I guess, today. And I thought, this is really cool. I will look really good. I think these people admire me, you know, that's like, I really represent myself well. So as soon as I walk into that pool, I can see a whistle and people being ushered out of the swimming pool in the. Behind the building somewhere. And somebody calls me, say, hey, come on. Here, we have a shorts for you. So they took me to the room, they gave me big shorts. Oh, I didn't. I didn't argue. I just like, yes, sir. Yes, sir. You know, in Poland at the time, in 1980s the shorts like we wear today, only fat people and old people were. So there was no. If somebody's seen you in those shorts, they would think that you are just like weird guy. So everybody was there. The skimpiest, the shortest, the smallest, the, the, the, the swimming trunks, the better. So I was, I just didn't know. And another thing too, like, I remember first few days I was staying with older family parishioners in the church. So they. Sometimes they give me a ride around the Memphis. And I was trying. And they give me a dictionary. First dictionary. I have it today with their corrections on it. I have it in my home actually I'm going to post on my website. So I was trying to tell them, impress them that I'm learning English, I'm using this dictionary. So as we drive, I'm looking to say this is house. It's like, yeah, yes, good, you know, this is man, this is woman, you know, and just like reading and trying to find out what it means. And they were pretty happy until we came and I see the black guy walking on the street and find out what is the black guy. Okay, this is a nice. That ugly world. I was not the ugly. It was the ugly world. You know, there's something there very offensive to I guess anybody to me too. But at the time I didn't know. And they almost wrecked the car. This woman jumped out, say, where did you. She's yelling me, I don't understand what. She takes this dictionary from me and slowly. This is bad. No, no, no.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

And she scratched that word and wrote black men. I say, I say black men. This is black man. And you know, it was at the last thing on my mind or in my heart we to offend an American or anybody, especially American, especially friends. So I just didn't know any better. So as you can see my progressing through my learning how to live in American society, I took its toll on me too. Because I was trying to be so good and sometimes it just backfired at me. But there was never intentional mistake. Maybe, maybe one. When eventually I got the job as a sub mechanic. That's a story just in itself how I got the job. And then so the mechanic, the shop foreign invited me to say, hey, let's have a steaks today. There'll be a couple other mechanics coming, so let's go have a party. Say party. Yes. So show up. And he gave me a steak. Sean, that was the first, first time in my life I seen that one big piece of meat in one, in one piece. So I'm looking at it. There's like, I think five or six of them. But I'm so. I like Jim by this time I spoke a little bit English, so it's like an entire town is coming here to the party or what? He say, no, no, it's just. So are you telling me I can eat the whole steak? In Poland, when you had the meat, you slice it like a razor blade. And you use the meat, at least in my home, not to feel yourself use the meat for the taste, but you fill yourself with potatoes or bread. So I'm just like, how beating entire. It was the first time I had an entire big chunk, like a brick of meat in my life. So I was so grateful to him. So they knew I was doing kickboxing earlier, and they said, well, show us something. You know, something. Show us something. You know, we have a few beers. I say, okay, I'll show you. I'll show you the basic punch, what I like to punch people with. And can I punch this wall? He said, yeah, sure. I thought it was a concrete wall. In Poland, the walls are concrete. All those concrete plates. Sandwald on this wall, boom. But there was a freaking dry sheet wall. So my fist went through one wall and went out in his bedroom on the other side. That was embarrassing. I would say, dude, I am so. Jim, I am so, so sorry. I didn't mean to destroy your house. I just wanted to. To show you now that the punch. I didn't think there's. I thought there was a concrete wall and they thought it was funny, so. But I said, I'm going to go and fix it. But I said, no, no, no, that was fine. I will keep it for a while. So I have a story to tell. So. Yeah, so the things like that were a little bit different. How old were you when you came to the U.S. 24.

[Sean Ryan]

24.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Not 23. Going 24.

[Sean Ryan]

How long did it take you to learn English?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

I'm still learning English.

[Sean Ryan]

Enough to be able to communicate.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yeah, but communicate. I think it took me maybe to be fairly efficient to convey my thoughts. I think maybe six months, seven months. But please remember, I had to do it on my own. So the bad is easier to learn the right way than learn the bad way and then correct this. So I still make a lot of mistakes when I speak and. Which is obvious to people around. Maybe not for me so much, but my wife always says, like, well, you know, just. You're just funny. So I'm not going to correct you because. Sounds good. Sounds. Sounds Funny. So keep going. So yeah, she's. She. She domesticated me. So I'm like fully. I. Well, I consider myself now fully domesticated. She always, when you ask her, she will tell you that I'm still project under construction. So I still have edges to polish. But I'm working on it.

[Sean Ryan]

So where did you go from New York?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

From New York I went to Memphis. So Memphis, Tennessee. This is where I started my American dream. And again, this is something that I always say it. I would never succeed, maybe not the way I succeeded. If not American people, if not American culture, if not the help I got from people who didn't know me from Adam. There were people coming to my apartment. I had no furniture. So I was thinking, wow, this is my apartment. It's great. I can sleep on the floor. No, they brought me a bed, they brought me a shelves. Everything that I had in this apartment, I got from my American friends. They were coming to me bringing me clothes. Because the clothes that I had from like from 70s and really wasn't, didn't fit. I wouldn't fit between people. So they were bringing me clothes, they were bringing me food because, you know, I think I had like $20 a week left after I pay my bills to buy food. So they were just checking my fridge. They're just coming in saying, hey, you know what? I think you need this. Let me bring you some hamburger meat. Let me bring you a cereal. Well, with cereal itself, this is something that I never seen it before in my life. And then when I was taken first time to shopping, to grocery shopping, for me it was like going from the normal world into sci fi fiction into science fiction movie, right inside it. I've seen so many things I never seen in my life and happened. I was on the aisle with the cereal box. I didn't know what it was, but it looks. This boxes look so nice, so good that I slowed it on my whole card with the boxes. My American friends who helped me with the shopping, they were just laughing. Say that dude. Like, okay, if you want it. Yeah, you got it. So I just load my whole shopping cart with the cereal. I was eating the cereal for a year later, but I learned to like it. So my favorite was the Krispies. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that. And then that one and the chocolate one. So there was like milk with it. I love that.

[Sean Ryan]

How did you wind up at Memphis?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Well, when I came to. My journey started in Warsaw, through Germany. In Germany, the political refugees, they had a center there. They're just only for political refugees. Where we spend time waiting for sponsor or somebody to help us assimilate in American society. So we had people from State Department coming in through these three weeks telling about America, you know, what to expect in America, how to leave, what's the best way to go about things, what do we need to do when we arrive to America? So there was a great help. I was like sponge, trying to soak all the information, information. And then I remember I was calling the office and say, do I have any preferences where I would like to settle down in America? I say my preferences is to settle down in America. I don't care when. But if you ask, because I was speaking Polish, if you ask, I would like to go somewhere where it's hot. Like hot, hot. I'm tired of being called. In Poland, we didn't have a good clothes. I was always freezing. So I'm like, I'm so sick and tired. Being cold put me somewhere where it's hot. So it's like, well, what do you think about Memphis, Tennessee? So they took me to the map, showed me the map. Do you know anything about Memphis, Tennessee? Well, I know, I knew that Elvis Presley was from Memphis, Tennessee. So I told him, ah, I know Elvis Presley is from Tennessee. Yeah, great, you know it, but it's really hot up there. I said, yeah, it's very hot. I said, sign me up, I'm in. And they shipped me off to New York, to Memphis. This is where I started my life. Got my first job as a janitor, then as a partsman, then as a mechanic. You know, there's funny things like I, I didn't have. I never had a car. I didn't even know in Poland. Anybody? Any. I did not have a friend in Poland who owned the car. So. But those are European cars. Would you like. Can you work on European cars? Absolutely, yes. So they got me on the interview. There was a Schilling company with the Schilling, the Porsche, Saab and Audi. So the Porsche guy come in, said, well, it's kind of expensive car. The guy doesn't speak English, know nothing about cars. So maybe we just set it, maybe not today. So then the Audi mechanic came in the same thing. And then we're waiting for the sub mechanic to come in and I hear this big sound, roar of the Harley Davidson just running next to the. In the garage up there. The guy looking like a Sasquatch Maybe looks like 7ft tall, walks in. I say, hey, so that guy. Yeah, a sub. I said, yeah, he looked at Tim Presley was a service Manager at the time. I still remember his name. He looks at Tim and the manager said, I need a slave. Sign him up. And here we are. So we become the really good friends, if not the best friends. He told me everything about cars. I need to know. I was clueless. I had no idea. So he told me everything. Thing about Sab, I became a really good mechanic. To the point even Mercedes came later and asked me if I want to work for them. So this guy. There's the guy who invited me for the steak party when I broke his house with my fist. But so he. I remember trying to learn English. My English was still very difficult. I said, jim, I have idea you gonna read me the manuals and I will record you. I can listen to it. I thought he would kill me. It's like, what did you just say? I'm going to read you like a mama story to children. I read you the. And on the top of the sub manual, I said, yeah. He said, yeah. I was thinking for a, okay, but if you tell somebody, I kill you. So I still have a James recording somewhere there. Because what helped me, I was explaining to him that if I read the words and I'm listening at the same time, it's easier for me to understand what it is. And also I'm learning English at the same time. So this is the guy, half gangster, the guy who just wouldn't mind to go and just kill you if he had to and become like my bigger brother, helping me out. So there's many things that happen later in my life that would not happen if not this guy. You know, I owe this guy so much. We lost contact after I left for the Navy. But if he is there, if he's listening up there, you know, Jimbo, I remember.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow. Yeah, that's cool, man. It wouldn't surprise me if he's listening, was that. It would not surprise me if he's listening.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yeah, hopefully. Or maybe he. I know he had a son too. So there's great people. I owe them so much. I owe Jimbo my. I think the way my career moved on in America is because this guy. So, yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

Where did you go from mechanics from.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

From Memphis straight to the Navy.

[Sean Ryan]

How did the Navy pop on your radar?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Well, you see, by this time, I already became US Citizen and I was living my American dream. I had everything I wanted. I was skydiving, even. I was teaching skydiving. I was teaching aff. I was AFF Jam Master. So I was living my life out. And then the war broke out. The First Persian War. So I said, I am American and I have such a great life. So what can I do for my American friends, for America? I think I can serve in the war. I remember this funny thing because I decided to join the military. I didn't know Navy from Army. For me, it was military, was military. Army was everything. So I was just one day in the post office and I see this. What do you call the draft cards where everybody needs to fill up for the high school kids. So I say, oh, wow. I mean, they are recruiting people, even from post offices. I fill it up. I sign up for the army. The war is on. They're going to get me soon. So I fill it up, mailed it off, came back to my apartment. I was living with some other skydivers, and I start packing myself. I said, like, what are you doing? You cannot just move out. You know, we have a contract here that we had to pay the rent and stuff. No, no, no. I say, I'm not moving out yet, but I'm packing myself because I'm going to war. I'm going to war to fight for America. And it was like, wait a minute, we didn't know anything. How did you sign it up? I say, I went to the post office, I filled it up, I sent it off, and I'm just waiting for them to just come and get me. Harry said, right now, that doesn't work like that. You need to go actually assign to recruiting office office. And actually, the letter came in that, well, thank you, but no thank you. You are not required to fill this card. You are already too old for that. So I was like 32 at the time. So I say, okay, well, the war is going on and I want to pay my freedom back. So I want to help and support my country, my America. So I went to the army recruiting office and I said, hey, this is who I am. This is what happened to me. This is why I'm here. And I want to join military. I want to go to war. So it's like, where would you. Okay, well, sure. There's only uni. Preferences. Preferences. Where would you like to serve? I said, well, whoever goes first in combat, sign me up. I had no idea. But it's like, sign me up. Whatever, go, go. I want to go to war, fight on behalf of America and American people. So they're like, okay, infantry. I said, right on. I don't know what infantry is, but if you say so, sign me up. So they proceeded with the paperwork and everything. And that was pretty close to Everything being completed. And then Navy seals showed up in Memphis. Leapfrogs. They were doing some demo jumps. So they came to our drop zone to do some jumps. I started talking to them. And I still remember a guy who. I know him as Tim O'Hara. He was a firefighter in San Diego. So he's the guy I talked to. And he was just. I was, like, fascinated. He was a really good skydiver. So we did many jumps together also with his guys. And he just talked me and said, look, you want to go on seals because you want to skydive, right? In army, you want to be skydiving, but you like skydiving to combat parachute jams and stuff. Why don't you go join Navy SEALs? Like, I didn't know what the SEALs were. For me, it was not important to be a seal, was important to serve America. So I said, okay, so. But I had to go to army guys and tell them, like, all this work you did for me, I'm sorry, but I'm going next door. So they. It was awkward because I made friends with them, but I said, well, okay, I'll do it. I want to join the Navy. So I went and grabbed the paper, went up there, and they finish it up. And they were fair with me because they say, okay, you are 32, going 33. So you are not eligible for SEAL program because you are too old. The cut of age is 28. But if you sign this paper, you go to bootcamp, they make a SEAL out of you. You know, you look strong guy, so they're going to make a SEAL out of you. I said, okay, again, my goal was not to join Navy seals. My goal was to go join America in the war and support. So I say, yeah, that's fine. If not, just, I will serve whatever. America needs me because that was my idea. I didn't know where to go, so. So I signed it up and they told me, okay, we'll be fair with you. If you go as a undesignated, the Navy will put you scraping decks. Or we do something that you might not like, why don't you go pick the job in the Navy? So after boot camp, you go to your A school, and then you go in their SEAL training, you fall out. I couldn't go in SEAL training at the time, but they didn't tell me that. So you go to SEAL training, you fall out, you fall back on your job. So you don't go scraping decks. You'll be doing whatever the Navy trained you to do. So I Say, okay, so what's the best job? I say, well, you like skydiving, right? I say, yes, parachute rigger. I say, okay, sign me up parachute rigger. And so. But they say, okay, if you want to go parachute rigger, you will have to leave. So we will proceed doing the paperwork maybe like three weeks later. They come your month later, say, okay. To be a parachute drinker, there's two options now. You can go to boot camp, like next week, and right after the bootcamp, your a school starts, the parachute drinking school. Or you have to wait, like, four or five months, and then whatever the next parachute rigging school is to coordinate it with you going to boot camp and to school. So I was thinking, like, the world may end by this time, so sign me up for the closest one. I called my girlfriend. I said, hey, look, I'm leaving next. Next week. I'm. I'm joining the Navy. I'm leaving next week. She's like, what? I said, yeah, let's get married. So. So we just got. We ran. That was a Monday, I think Tuesday. We ran like, in the afternoon after her work to the. To the office in Memphis. We found the judge who was already leaving, but I think we look so desperate. Okay, let me go sign you up. So he married us. And then I went on. I think on Friday I went to depp into dep. Then I was sworn in, and I think Saturday and Sunday I flew. They flew me and a few other guys from Memphis to Great Lakes to Illinois. That's how my adventure started. So that's. That's my beginning of my Navy. Time and again, I just wanted to serve. It didn't matter where I served. I would say my idea was to serve where America needs me. That's whatever they. I can be useful. And, And. But I passed the. The. The test, the SEAL test.

[Sean Ryan]

So they did let you try out?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

They let me try, yes. Yes. But they say that I will have to ask for the waiver for my age. And this is where I met in boot camp. But then I had a kidney stone, so they say, okay, now. And I still have this document today that does not disqualify me from serial training from the program. But I have to wait for at least a year or two before I can reapply again because the kidneys turn my recurrence. I have the document at home. And then. So I say, okay, what is that? It's not a big deal. I just want to serve. And so I've graduated from bootcamp as a number one recruit. I'm very proud of it because, you know, like, my English was still not perfect and. But I always. I excel in the, like, academics. I excel in the pt. I excel in about everything I did. So I was selected to be the number one graduating recruit from the entire batch. So I got the military Excellence award from boot camp. I'm very proud of it. And then I had a good instructors, too. So then I went to a school, and this is where I met Jason Cabell, my friend of mine, really good friend of mine. We later met in Iraq, in Baghdad, doing combat together. So, like, I couldn't swim very well because I never seen the ocean. I've never seen the sea, he says, but he was so sure he's going to make. And he couldn't swim. He swim even worse than I do. So he was like, very. For me, it was inspirational because, look, this guy is struggling to just stay on the surface, and he's going to be a seal. So I'm going to make it, too. So we were having that. We tried to swim, and I was that stuff. We got better. Of course, he went to bats. I had to wait for my orders first. But even before I wait for my orders, I went in Millington in the A school. I found the SEAL motivator was Les Barrios. Rest in peace, brother. And I went to him, I said, look, I have a document. I would like to be a SEAL if possible. But my documents, my medical record says I had a kidney stone, so I cannot apply for the program for like year or two years. And he looked at me and said, okay, well, can you pass the test? I said, yeah, I passed the test. Bring me your documents. At that time, there was no electronic document. So he wrote me the check. I ran with it to medical, got my medical record, came to him. I said, okay, here it is. So, okay, step outside. As I step outside and just listen. All right, come on in. So look, he's sitting at his desk. It's like, look, I looked through your medical record. I really can't find anything about a kidney stone. Can you help me find it? I say, yeah, it's right here. So we look and say, no, it's not here. He looks at me and say, are you sure you had the kidney stone? And by this time I like, I'm sure I didn't. Okay, that's good enough. So, yeah, they put me on hold after the graduate. I also graduate, I think one on the top on the class. So then I was waiting for the waivers, and I think the waiver was granted to me because I excel in everything I did. I did so well. And I think they seen that maybe this guy, because of his age, maybe his age will not inhibit him a lot, but we give him a chance. So eventually, after like maybe two months being on hold in the. In the A school, I got my orders to bat. I called Jason Cabana, said, brother, I'm coming after you. He gave me a tape. I still remember the tape. I still have it at home. The tape that he gave me, it was like a cassette we used to play. So I was just playing it on the. On the. On the road road, because I was driving to California, to San Diego. So that's how my Navy career started and how my SEAL career started.

[Sean Ryan]

Did you have any idea what a SEAL was at that time?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

No.

[Sean Ryan]

Other than skydivers, no.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Except them. Well, they show me the video in the recruiting station. I say, wow, this is really cool, but what's the difference between army and. I was like, that looked like an army to me. But, you know, it was. Was a uni that this guy recommended to me. And if I could get up there is fine. But again, that was not the driving. That's what motivated me to join the Navy. So for me, it was not really that important. But my imagine the way I imagine SEAL training was there would be a prison. So I couldn't think of any other way. Those are Special Forces. So they will lock you up there in some camp, and you will be just going through all these evolutions. You'll be going through all the training, totally isolated from people. That was my imagination. And I was thinking like, well, you know, I'm married now, so it'll be kind of sad for my wife, but, well, I survived communist prison. At least here they don't try to kill you, right? They just try to make you better. And like in communist prison. So I say, I'll be fine. Well, as you know, is not dead. There is no prison, actually. You have enough freedom. They give you enough rope so you can hang yourself if you are not careful with what you do in baths. You just have to manage not only the training, but you need to manage yourself as well. So I remember a lot of guys going out and partying and drinking, and I would love to do it too. And I did sometimes, too. But for me, it was more often was Ben Gay, you know, rubbing on my muscles and like, oh, God, I need to survive. Tomorrow will be maybe better. Tomorrow I feel better. Let's hope so. So, like, as they were drinking, I Was robbing the Ben gay in myself, trying to bring myself better in the bed and trying to go to bed early. But it helped. You know, I did very well. You know, it's like never. I was rolled back only in the. At the beginning of the first phase because I get infection in my leg. I got MRSA on the back of my. So swollen so bad that I. I couldn't put my pants on. So actually I had to cut my pants to go to medical. But I figured out this, okay, I'm not going to tell them anything. I just go through the rest of this week. It was like two more days with the leg like this. On Friday, right after they shut down the evolutions, I ran up to Balboa to hospital, let them fix it. So I will have three days basically to heal and I should be okay. Well, didn't work that way. I went up there, they did cut this big piece, the big white piece out of it and it was thick like my pinky and my leg was coming down a little bit. I could put my pants on. So. But then in the morning, Monday morning when I was driving to Basa swallow again. So I had no choice, but I had to go to our medical in baths and tell them what happened. So what I find out is Balboa just. They cut this out and just let me go instead of irrigating it for maybe like an hour. And that's what they did. They actually gave me antibiotics. They put me on the gurney and they put the IV into my. In that big hole in my leg and they keep irrigating for like two, three hours. And like my legs, the swelling came out and everything was good. So they banded my legs and I came back, said, we have to roll you. I said, you can't roll me. I said, no, we have to. We have a mat flats where we are going to. You cannot go with leg like this. And the heroic necks. You cannot go to hell with a leg like this. So I was really like broken, you know, I was like, holy. And I don't want to be rolled. I say, please let me stay in the class. So I think those Instructor Graves. No, Instructor Fitz Henry, he says, like, okay, if you can run here 5 sprint around 5 times around this thing, am I keeping the class? So I say, right on, you know, so but I had to still get a cut on my pants because, you know, I had to. I couldn't put them on. And I ran. I ran to all these fives and stuff. I said, can I stay? It's like nope, 185. So there was from 184, right the beginning before the mud floods, I got rolled to 185. I had to start again. But it allowed me to heal my leg. I don't think I would be able to. I would make through hell week with this big open wound on my leg with infection in my leg and like swollen like the elephant leg.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

So yeah, so there was, that was my, my first phase.

[Sean Ryan]

And what did you think, what did you think of buds? Did you find it difficult being from your.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

I found it physically very difficult, but I didn't find it mentally difficult because maybe when I, when I came to baths I. I was thinking that this is going to be hell. That in is in the hell that this is going to be extremely. And it was physically but mentally, like for some reason the instructors yelling, calling names and all that stuff didn't face me. I kind of expected it. I thought that this is actually, I thought it was funny because like I didn't do anything. I yelled for nothing. So I didn't show it to instructors. That I think is funny. I took everything seriously. When they say drop down down, I didn't question it. So I dropped down and pushed it out. Whatever I was told to do. And I did, I think very well. Actually one of the instructor, instructor time that just looked me, I said drop down 50. So I just. 50. I think it was the first phase. So the first phase you don't do 50. But so I did it. I sent up, oh yeah, I stood the crowner. He just looked and said, well, you know what? I think I like you get the out of here. Go back in the crowd in the class. So. And then in the hell week, you remember that there's a time after maybe two, three days when they get you together and they ask you okay, tell me why you come. You come here to bats. And I just have to tell them. So I hear guys, well, I came here to try to be the best. I'm here to. And I will try to finish this training, give my best. And so. And so and so when they asked me, I say, fuck. I didn't come here to try. I came here to become a sale. And either my body will break down or you kick me out, but I will come out of this as I will graduate from this program. I didn't came here to try. I mean, I didn't come here to try. They got mad, but I know they liked it because I can see them like right on. And then, you know, there's a lot of things like this with the knives. You know, we had these knife inspections. So they always called me because my knife, you know, it was like cheesy knife, but fairly cheap. And they got the. We had to maintain them very well. I could put my knife just the edge, like on my hand, on my arm and just let it slide. It would shave your hand. They were that sharp. So they were calling me sometimes to demonstrate to other classes how, you know, how to maintain the equipment. Also on the swim, remember I. I couldn't swim very well. Neither was Jason Cabell. And not only that, I couldn't swim very well. I could swim only on one side, the side stroke. So then on the top of it, they put the mask on me. I have never swim with mask in my life. This is the real thing. I. I thought I would drown because I remember I was swimming. I couldn't breathe. My. The mask close my nose, and I was. I was breathing as much water, I think as much air. And when I came out of that pool after the first few swims, my belly was so big that just. I could feel water sloshing in it. And there were times, I remember I was swimming, I was like, I'm about to pass out. I have so much water in my lungs and I have black spots in my eyes. But that's like, if I stop, they will kick me out. So I know they are watching. They are instructors there. If I pass out, I'm not going to die. So I was just like, you have to trust them and slowly become easier and easier. By the end of my. That was in the fourth phase of the pre. Phase when they. When we finished, I was asked actually to demonstrate the new guys coming into the training how to do the side stroke. So I was very proud of it.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow. Wow.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

So, yeah, and Jason Cabar, too. He became a really good swimmer. We. We are still friends, so we talk to each other and. Great guy. Was very inspir. Inspirational. Inspirational for me. So. Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

So you. You graduated buds at age 33?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yes.

[Sean Ryan]

Is that correct?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Going 33? Yes. And we're checking to Team and March 2000. March 1993, Seal Team 2.

[Sean Ryan]

Well, not very many people get their buds in their 30s.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

No, I think there is very few people that made it. I think I'm one of that few that not only made through buds that are made through the SEAL teams into the SEAL teams. Because, as you know, very often people who made through bats, they still don't cut. And they are either removed from SQT or Today, before it was STT or they were being removed while in the platoon, either pre workup or during the event after the deployments, like, well, you are, you are not the guy, so you need to leave. And I have friends that came with me or after me who made two bots to that selection check into the teams and they were sent to the fleet. So that was not easy for me being old because especially with my English too, I need to say that. But at that time, I was still at the stage that when you talked to me, I had to translate myself in Polish before I speak to you. I had to translate on English. But I guess I did it so fast. I was able to do it so fast that people seldom notice that the issues show up in CQB where you have to be on your feet, you have to be very fast. And that's when I really start occurring to me that I need to improve my English. I need to get better with my English. Matter of fact, when I came back from the first deployment, you know, when you come back from deployment, you pick the schools. I want to be a sniper, I want to go to diving schools, jumping school, I want to be instructor here, there. Well, for me, I didn't have a choice. I was sent to English 101 school right away. So like the guys who are leaving, hey, we are going to the sniper school. We're going dragons. I was walking to the center up there. It's like English 101. But it helped me. It did make the big difference and allow me actually to be successful in my career.

[Sean Ryan]

How were you greeted @ Seal Team 2 when you showed up?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

I think like most of the guys, I was beat up, pretty much not beat up. But I remember I didn't even make out of the building. So we checked the quarter deck. I checked in the with Master Chief, I think with xo and I was told to later go to the supply, get my gear. So as soon as I walk out in the building, the big courtyard in the SEAL team too, those are the guys waiting over there. I say, okay, yeah, new fng, hop on the bars. I already knew, you know, that's like, you don't argue with these old seals. You just do what they say. So I jump on the bars, the pull ups, sit ups. Basically I did the whole pt, the PT test that we do every year. And then they didn't want to because my uniform was the nicest uniform I could have. Chain Seal Team 2. I press it, I just pick every little things, make sure that it's so perfect. So after this force PT on the concrete that looked like a like shit. It was really bad, you know, the stored up sweaty dirty dust everywhere. And you know, my nice shoes scuffed. And so they didn't want to walk me through quarterdeck because they was frowned upon. So they took me to the back gate. They woke me up when we started 3 miles run. And I said, okay, now you run. You have. We'll see your time what you have. So now you see the dude with the torn up uniform holding his hat to his head, running like crazy on the on base because it was on on the on. There was not in the team. It was in the base outside the SEAL teams. So I'm sure people were thinking what this crazy guy? What happened to this guy here? So I did that three miles around, came back, they say, okay, I go continue with your stuff now. So I went to supply, got my gun and the guns, got my, all my weapons and everything. The, that's the, the all the gear that I needed. I was assigned the cage in Seal Team 2 and I moved my stuff there. And as my career, my adventure with SEAL team started. So that was my welcome to SEAL teams. And you know, very often those other new guys too, a lot of our new guys. And one day they say, okay guys, you are invited for Friday kegger at that time in Seal Team 2 and all the Seal teams I think Friday and ended at noon. So by the and after PT you just clean your gear, clean yourself and you can go home. Except in sea alternative you're required to attend the kegger. So keg of beer was waiting the high bay. So they say are you guys invited for the kegger today Friday? Me and other new guys like dude. So I think they like us, you know, they invite us to have a part to party with them, to mingle with these old guys, these old experience sales. So I was so excited. I think we all were. But as soon as we walk in, you know, we get jumped, taped a little bit, kicked and beat up, hang on the chains and just like bats upside down pull up on the. To the roof of the high bay while these guys were drinking. So they were drinking, laughing. We just were hanging like a butts all taped up. Once every while they roll us down on the chains. The chains they had the dragger bag, you know, the bike from the diving rig with the pipe. So here new guy, stick in your mouth and see mouth. They put the beer in it and just squeeze and so go everywhere. All right, drink enough. Let's go back to rest. So that was our first days in the. In the teams today it doesn't happen. At least we're not to that extent because of this frown upon. But at that time there was like regular welcome to SEAL teams. And I didn't mind it. I mean it was okay. I've seen worse.

[Sean Ryan]

So where was your first deployment?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

First deployment we deployed to there was in the. When the Bosnia happened, we deployed to Italy and that was the same time when our pilot got shut down. So my platoon was one of the platoons that were flying over the Adriatic close to the. If we could locate him, we could pick him up. So we're searching for him. The other unit actually was tasked with recovering him, but we were on standby ready to recover him. That was my first deployment. So we were normally we deployed to microhanish in England, in Great Britain, but this deployment was to. They put us in Italy. So this is where we stayed throughout the first deployment. Again, we didn't find the guide or somebody else pull our pilot out. But I'm proud of participating in these efforts.

[Sean Ryan]

Were you upset that you missed the war?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Well, at this time my concern was that I'm serving America. I'm doing good things for America and the war. Yeah, I wish I could get on it. It was kind of too late. So. You know what I learned later too. If you chase the war, you will never find the war will find you. Just like happened to me later. But I was happy where I was. You know, my idea was to join the military for the time of war. And I had such a great life that after the war I would come back and I will resume my life. But then the life that I started in the Navy was even was so fascinating that I never left. I left 20 years later. So I was not upset. But I wish I met that war. I wish I went to that war, but I missed it.

[Sean Ryan]

And how was your wife? Did she follow you through all this?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

What's that?

[Sean Ryan]

Your wife?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

My wife, yes. Yeah. So that marriage didn't last long. See the way as you know, our schedule is constantly on the road. You're constantly somewhere. The thing is, what I learned to understand is as we do not have that routine because our life change every month, every two months, you go do something else. Our spouses usually stay in the same place. They have the same routine. They go to the same places and eventually they meet somebody they are interested in. And very often that marriage ends this way. So I didn't understand at that time. I was really Upset, but that's what eventually happened. So we did get eventual divorce. And that's actually what it was later in the SEAL teams when I came back from my deployment and the thing fell apart. But.

[Sean Ryan]

Well, we'll get there.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

When was. Where were you when September 11th happened?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

When September 11th happened, I was on the. In the gym and SEAL Team 2 were working out. I still vividly remember that somebody came in and say, hey, guys, I just. I just came back from quarterdeck. The airplane hit one of the twin towers. So like most of us, well, some pilot of small airplane got lost and killed himself. So sad. But let's go to work out. And then the other guy comes down. Other guys. There is those big jetliner that hit the towers and something is going on. So we left the gym, went to quarter deck and SEAL Team two, we're watching. I was actually watching when these bastards around the second airplane flew the second airplane to another second tower. I was watching it. I knew we're gonna be hunting these scumbags. I knew that their time is up and we'll be killing them hopefully soon. I was watching that and it's still very vivid in my memory. Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

What were the prelim conversations that were happening after that at the SEAL team.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Time to start killing these bastards? You know, SEAL teams, I think is that the attitude is a bit different. And when I went to Iraq, especially after what I've witnessed, what I seen on September 11, I did not go there to win hearts and minds. Fuck their hearts and their minds. I want them to kill them, to kill the terrorists. That's all I was thinking. Kill as many as many you can. The only regret I have from Iraq, we didn't kill enough of them because. And I'm taking it very seriously because even today, decades after the war, what happened there, I still question myself. What if we get that son of the. If we kill this bastard, if we didn't get him, let him get away. If we kill the son of the bitch, maybe one of my brothers, our brothers would come back home, whether it was Army, Marines or the Navy, you know, that's for us. They're all brothers and we are in that fight together. So sometimes I dwell on it. Maybe if we could kill the bastards, get rid of them, then there would be some of our brothers would come back. Because I believe that the best way to win war on terror is to terrorize the terrorists. I am terrorist terrorizer. I have no qualms dealing with these scumbags. You cannot reason with terrorists. You just have to kill them and get rid of them. And that was my attitude when I went to Iraq to fight on behalf of America and American people.

[Sean Ryan]

And so how long was it, how long was it after September 11th that you.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Well, so the west coast was already in the war, right? They were fighting, I think, I don't know when the invasion happened, like March or something. 2003 in Iraq, something. At the beginning of the year, we deploy my platoon, SEAL platoon deployed to central South America at the time. So we're working there in the middle of deployment. I get a call say, hey, Drago, this is. There is a Polish unit, SF unit operating with seals in Baghdad. And I think we need you there. We want you to go and help us out, coordinate that stuff with them. So you pack your stuff. You are three months into deployment, I think so you're gonna. For three months. So keep up the six month cycle and then you can come, you come back and start your regular workup with your new platoon and stuff. So in the middle of the platoon, in middle of deployment, you know, you can imagine the guys being pissed off because we are aggressive guys. We like type A personalities. So everybody wants to get into the war, everybody wants to fight the war. So when they find out that I'm just only I'm leaving to Baghdad, they were, Gregory, I want to go there too. What the hell? How did you pull this off, you know? Well, I didn't just ask. I was ordered to go there. But they all wanted to go. They, they. I don't know a SEAL who would not want to go to war.

[Sean Ryan]

Me neither.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

So. So I know they were. They were kind of like pissed off, but the good way, you know, they were very supportive. And then. So I left after the three months in deployment. For the three months. And that was. We were very busy. We're busy every single night pretty much. And then when the three months came in, like, I don't hear anything from my command. And I was calling sometimes. Rob O'Neill were really good friends and we did entire platoon with Jacko together. That was the second platoon. And then the platoon I'm talking right now is my third platoon. So I called him and say, hey, Rob, just tell the command I'm here, I'm doing fine, I don't need anything. He said, yeah, I got you, Drago. But then three months pass, I don't hear from my command anything. They asked me if I would extend my stay in Baghdad. The west coast guys. I say, absolutely, yes, sign me up. I don't want to go back. So then I call Rob O'Neill. I say, hey, Rob, I'm still here. Just don't tell them anything. Just keep it quiet. I'm still here in Baghdad. So he said, I ride on Dragon. So once every while, I call Rob O'Neill and I write him notes. Hey, I'm still here. I'm doing good. Don't tell them anything. Don't tell them I'm here. And so there's like, from these three months down to five, six, seven, eight, nine months. And I think I would stay there longer, but my NVGS broke. So I had to count the command for new NVGs, and they got me. They said, hey, where are you at? I said, I'm Baghdad. How long? Or like almost a year on deployment?

[Sean Ryan]

Well, hold on. So you went to. You deployed to Iraq in 2003.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

With who with? I deployed by myself. They sent me there to. To work with the Seal Team 5 to help coordinate Seal Team 5, the missions between Seal Team 5 and GROM. But we skipped the one platoon because there was a platoon with Jaco that I did before, right before that. So there was the platoon to Middle East 2. There was a First Silt II Strike Platoon. And this is the time when we hijacked the Russian tanker, the Volganft in year 2000. So there was a. There was a very good platoon. So it was jackal and one second. So that was my first. That was my fourth platoon. I think it's getting mixed up. So first was. The first was to Italy when the O'Grady got shut down. The second one was to Bosnia. Third one was with Jaco. Okay, so the third one was with Jaco. So with the. That after the first platoon, I deployed to you. We deployed to Yugoslavia, to Bosnia. This is where I met the strongest guy I think I ever met in serial teams. There was a guy who, when we went to Frenchies, to Lorien to train with the Frenchies, what an ugly guys. So Chris, he put like so many plates on their bar to do the bench press. He bent that bar. The. The plates start falling off. So the French got all pissed off that we intentionally are destroying their equipment. Another Rob just was doing the military presses, like £225 or something. I mean, we were strong. We're big. And these little Frenchie guys, they look like the ballerinas. They have those spandex little pants. Well, you. Yeah, I mean. And you know, the nasty part of it is that when the. On the pep billet, we had the French officer with us and SEAL team too. And we just tried to help him and cater to him the best we could get him, the best trips, best per diem and all that stuff. So when we. He left to France and then maybe like six months later when we deploy to Bosnia, we actually decided to have some exercise with the French guys where this guy was stationed. So we called these guys, hey, we're coming. You know, are you excited? You know, we're gonna see your old friends. It's like, okay, yeah, just come on in and click. We show up in Lorient, the gate of their things. It was a winter time. It's sleeping, raining. We sit in our bags and our, you know, gear for like three hours before the bastard showed up. And he showed up not to welcome us. He showed up and say, all right, I know you guys, I know you seals. If you up any of our equipment, you're not gonna leave this base until you pay for all the broken equipment that you break. Was like, that's a nice welcome. And then they didn't want to work with us. You know, they, they like, but, you know, work with us. I mean, look at these guys. They were like 110lb ballerinas. And they did actually wear the spandex or his tight pants. So I say, just give them the tutu and you have a perfect ballet. So, yeah. And then we walk into their gym and they have those like jumping jugs, you know, their weights. Like what they were using was like five pounder and six pounders. And we have one of the strongest guy in the SEAL teams, Chris. And he walks in, he breaks their freaking equipment. They get even more pissed off. They didn't want to jump with us. We didn't do anything with these guys. And so they, they didn't really like. I guess they didn't like us. And we stopped liking them too, because I say, I remember one of the guys asked Chris, Chris Strub. I can say his name because I asked him for permission for, for it. So again, that was one of the strongest, strongest team guy I met, I have met and also he create the programs for us how to get big and strong. By the time we finished that deployment where entire platoon was over 200 pounds each. So that was Chris's big contribution to make us stronger and better. So they just. We just couldn't get along, I guess, very well. And one of these guys asked Chris, well, you are so big. Can you run? Unlike you, we don't run away from the battlefield. So we know I don't have to run that fast. But I can beat you up. Okay. Okay. Okay. And then, you know, we had a international incident. Two of them actually. So first one, we're going to send Maurits to do some exercise there in Switzerland. So we decided we'll fly C130 and we jump on the lake in St. Moritz, this big frozen lake. And it was pretty beautiful because the C130 was flying below the top of the two mountains on both sides and right in the middle of it. So when we jump out of it, we have maybe five, six second delay. We could see the mountains just going on both sides in free fall. And then we open parachutes. Well, we didn't know. And we decided to get a shortcut instead of ferrying our ammunition through the convoy to the roads from Germany to Switzerland and say, well, the hell with it. We just loaded up our guns, we put the ammo in the, in the Brooks ax and we jump in. So we did. And there was a bunch of civilians on this lake walking, you know, doing that. There were like a trails made up on this lake on the ice. So. So we basically jump right into the civilian population and they look at us. So we just unload the gun, you pull the, you know, unload the guns, make safe. And they seen it. Well, it turned out to be that you are not allowed to bring in Switzerland guns and ammo in the same place, especially loaded guns. So I think we're the first troops since second World War that landed in Switzerland with loaded guns. So this was like, all right, I know my platinum hatch and it will do a lot of explanation to do. But then we go to, we are invited to. It was the time when Switzerland was accused of stealing gold from Holocaust victims. And there was even lawsuit going filed because of that. Try to recover the gold that supposedly Swedes, Swiss stole from Jewish people and Holocaust victim. But we were invited to dinner up there. We already got over the jumping into the St. Moritz, into St. Moritz with loaded guns. So we got over. We barely got over with that. We are invited to dinner now. So they went like a top of the mountain. So we go on this little trail train, like a choo choo thing and go straight up. So we go up there. We are the best restaurant supposedly in St. Moritz. And the guy who was guiding us says, hey, so this is Chef so and so. He's such a great chef known in the entire world. And he has like five golden spoons here. Chef, can you go run up, bring the spoon? Like I never held the gold thing, maybe ring, but entire Spoon of gold. And I've hold my life. So I was like, holy shit. This heavy, solid. Wow. You know, I can brag about it. I was holding the gold spoon in my hand. So when the spoon went around everybody until it went to Chris, the strongest guy, he look at this, say like w. Chef. So how many you thinking that God of yours, how many Jewish teeth went into that spoon? That was like. I got quiet. The guy woke up, took the spoon, he left. We never seen the guy again. We're just ushered out very quickly out of the restaurant, go down and we never were allowed to go to the restaurant again.

[Sean Ryan]

Holy shit.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

But you know what? This, that was legitimate, I guess, legitimate questions. I believe in my opinion the gold that the Swiss were stealing, that Holocaust victims gold and they were benefiting over the second world War. So the guy had the balls to ask about it. But you can cut it out if you think it's controversial. But that really happened. So there was like. Well, we were all stunned. But like. Well, you know, he's right. There's a legitimate question. Yeah, because that basically that gold that in my opinion was stolen by Switzerland from Holocaust victims.

[Sean Ryan]

That's interesting. I didn't. Yeah, I don't know much about that.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Well, there's a. Actually there was a lawsuit filed by. I think by people trying to recover the gold. I don't know. I think there was came to some agreement, but you can google it up. I. I read about it just not too long time ago as well. There was a time, but I remember there was very common to hear these accusations in 1979. 1978. 19. I'm sorry, 1998 time frame. So yeah, that's.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow, I had no idea. I don't know anything about that. That's. Yeah, yeah, you know, it's just. It was asking a question.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yeah, he was just asking the question. Because these people, they suffer so much the Holocaust, it's hard to imagine for people. But there's millions people that were murdered just for being who they were. This is something that could only happen in socialist state. Please remember that Germany was socialist state. Adolf Hitler was socialist. So we're talking about national socialism. But you know, whatever flavor of socialism, Matthias, they all have many things in common. As we talked earlier, the censorship, persecution of political opponents, jailing political opponents. And those are the hallmarks of socialist state.

[Sean Ryan]

So was your Iraq deployment the first time you saw actual combat?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yeah, that was the first time I seen the combat.

[Sean Ryan]

And so let's talk about that. So you'd done four deployments and then you finally go to Iraq to see actual combats.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yes, we've seen a little bit of. In Bosnia, not so much combat, but we've seen the war scene. We've seen some of the atrocities committed there in Bosnia. We hijacked the Russian tanker. And that time there was like a. Holy shit. The super mission, you know, like today is really not a big deal. But at the time, you know, to go and do VBSs on the Russian tanker was really.

[Sean Ryan]

Let's talk about that then, because.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Oh, that's. That's the Russian tanker. Yeah, that was actually funny. So there was the Jaco's platoon. Jaco and Mr. Queen F. This was field team two.

[Sean Ryan]

I didn't realize Jocko was ever on the East Coast.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Oh, yeah, he was my aoic.

[Sean Ryan]

I've never met him.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

This platoon. Yeah. Oh, I tell you, it is great. Guy is a great leader.

[Sean Ryan]

That's what I hear.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yes. Yes. I was honored to serve under his command. Very aggressive guy. We love that. So when we got the permission to take down the entire tanker, you know, there's always competition between the team guys, right? And there's one squad, another squad was like, oh, yeah, we are better. No, we are better. So my squad was taking it down because we had like three Russian speakers. I speak Russian. I speak Russian, Polish and Japanese, but so I.

[Sean Ryan]

You speak Japanese?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yes.

[Sean Ryan]

Where did you learn Japanese?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

When I was doing kickboxing and I figured out then karate. Karate, Kush. Some of those commands. I said, well, I can understand the commands, but why don't just learn the Japanese? And it happened that my mom, she was a teacher. She had a PhD professor from Hokkaido University working with her, doing some study on Polish educational system. So I connected with him and he was teaching me Japanese. I was very proficient with Japanese. Actually. I was guiding Japanese students around my city a lot, especially those new who came. I did not speak. Speak Polish, so I was able to help. You know, I forgot now. It's like 40 years now, but I forgot a lot. Not everything, but. So I was a Russian speaker. We had Rob, who was a Russian speaker, and our OIC, Mr. Queen, F grade officer, he was the Russian speaker. So he had three Russian speakers in the initial assault. And the problem was that they already knew. They were looking at them.

[Sean Ryan]

What was it? Well, hold on. What was the tanker?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Bolgoneft, I think volgonev. 142. You can Google it up. It's online, as a matter of fact. We are in balaclavas, but there's Picture of me standing on the bridge on the Volgoneft.

[Sean Ryan]

What were you taking the tanker down for?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

They were smuggling oil from Iraq illegally. There was a Russian tanker who smuggled oil. So we're tasked to take it down, but they knew it already. We're on the Monterey, I think, forget, forget frigate. Frigate. And I like the captain, he is like, okay, I was told by command that we cannot come closer to the ship than like a maybe mile. So but if you want, if you, if you want to get closer to it, I come close because they told me mile. But I can measure that mile with my own stick. So he just put almost next to them. So we look at them and say, yeah, there's a bunch of younger guys and there were some women. But the concern was because this is a Russian tanker and the Russian flag and young people who might try to resist. So Navy has their own boarding teams. They could do really easy. But because the concern that maybe a firefight can ensue, we're going to take it down. And another thing too is they already knew that we were looking at them. So they were skirting the territorial waters of other countries. Basically. They could just turn left or right, whatever, get into territorial waters. We couldn't get them. We would have to jump off the ship. Not to cause the international incidents. No foreign fighter, foreign, foreign forces invading or getting into another country. So we had to be quick. And I remember 2 o'clock in the night, Rob O'Neill came. He Wake me up, say, dude, let's go, we need to go get dressed. So it's like, I think it was nine of us was Jacko was one of them. Mr. Fiona. We just got like a 18. And it's not like the other guys were not team. Everybody was 18. But they just pick us up on the like what we can do and stuff. So we flew over it. We fast rope on the tanker. We got this tanker down under, I think two minutes if not the minute. And they were, yeah, they were already turning into the territorial water. So we just had to go and learn how to turn it over. I have a cool picture with me at the, actually at the helm steering that tanker. And we did, we turned it over and then we searched the shape of course, make sure there's no weapons left or anything. And this is where the, the competition between the team guys and the, the squads come in. So we took down the target, the target. We now we need to change because after we were changing like every six hours or every eight hours, whatever the shift was. So we said, okay, let's go. Bring the other squad. The other guys came in, we pack, we left. The other guys came in, we are going to change them. So we are going there and it's like, dude, you just leave all the guns, all the weapons there. You didn't search the ship very well. And you can hear this. They have a big bug and clinking, clunking in it. So, like, well, what did we miss? You know, that not really good. Doesn't look good. And so we look into the back. It's like freaking spoons, forks and butter knives. I was like, dude, that's not the weapon. Well, it can be used as a weapon. Your squad didn't do that. Well, because that could be used as a weapon. Even the butter knife. It's like, come on. All right, so just whatever. But Jaco staying on the. On the bridge, the guy is still clunking that weapon. He takes the binoculars. Oh, cool. Guys, you stole the butter knives. But. But what about those axes hanging on the doors up there? Did you mind to take them? It's like. So we go and change and the first thing, Russians are pissed. You know, they were very. They were good people. I think they were just good people. They were thieves. They were smoking oil, but they were. So they. They are pissed. They were compliant, but when we come back, they're pissed. So, like, what's going on? We want our forks and knives and spoons back. I was like, why, why do you. We need to eat. Well, eat with your hands. Can you eat with your hands? We speak in Russia. They didn't speak English. And they say, well, we would, but we don't have teeth. And just like pull out. It's like they had no teeth. There was like, if you put all the teeth together from that crew, I don't think you would have one full set. So I talked to Jack. I explained to you what happened. He said I was getting the knives back and their forks and their spoons. So we called back, the boat came in and just. We held the big bag with their spoons and they were happy. Like they can be. There were no issues with them whatsoever.

[Sean Ryan]

How many of them were there?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

I think maybe like 15 or 16, something like that. It was not that. Not that many. And then I had the argument with the.

[Sean Ryan]

How did you board the ship?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

We fast rope on it, so. And I thought it was planned already because I was the aerobics guy. So I was told to rehearse. Guys on the very tall, fast roping. So we're using the 120 foot rope in Bahrain. I think we're in Bahrain at the time. We're using 120 foot rope just to practice the fast roping right on the mark. And the hills were practicing it too. So that was already a plan. I think ahead. They knew this ship would come out of Iraq with the Iraqi oil and we'll try to intercept it. So we practiced that and then that was easy. We just at 2 o'clock in the morning, rolled in over the ship, throw the ropes and just slide down. That was pretty cool at the time.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah, right on.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

That was pretty cool op.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah. You know, I never did any VBSs in the SEAL teams. Just one training op. That's it.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yeah. Yeah. So that's for us. It was at that time it was a big deal because we did such small one. We did got couple of daos with there. They were smuggling maybe something. We didn't bother with that but take down the big tanker and the Russian flag or something. So we did that. We didn't torment the crew and the crew was not really. They did what they had to do, but they were not cowering or anything. They were just like normal people.

[Sean Ryan]

Let's take another quick break. When we come back, we'll pick back up in Iraq. I'd like to invite you to gain access to an exclusive experience on Vigilance Elite. 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. 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, Drago, we're back from the break. Let's pick up to your first deployment to Iraq where you saw a lot of combat, it sounds like. So you went from South America to Iraq to be a liaison with Seal Team 5 for the Polish GROM.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Correct.

[Sean Ryan]

And so one a lot of questions, but I just. Let's start with what was it like for you to go to combat and to be a liaison with the Polish grom. Being Polish.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yeah. Well, for me, first, first thing I didn't know was the GROM war. I was told there was police special forces. And when I checked in Baghdad, I had a brief from my commanders and they were kind of a little bit standoffish who said, we don't know who these guys are. And they briefed me on what's expected, what we need to do. But then I was thinking like, the best way to find out is just to go on the hub with them and do it, work with them. But I was like, well, we don't know these guys that well. You know, we cannot risk your life because you know how it is. It gets dicey, you know, in those missions sometimes, especially the assaults and direct action mission. And I understand that because if something was to happen to me while I'm working with grom, there could be some repercussions to my commanders too, that they allow these things to happen. But I was able to convince them, I said, like, no, if we want to be effective, I mean, we need to cooperate closely. But I need to be with them too as well. So they allow me to for maybe like first three missions. And then it was like, oh, I would say, yeah, these guys are great. Okay, yeah, do it. You know, that's fine. Let's coordinate, let's do. We start doing assaults together. So very often if we needed more people, we bring the grown guys. If GROM guys need more people, he used us on the salt. And then one night we did the set up the perimeter and GROM was doing assault, I was doing it. And then next day was the vice versa. The GROM was doing perimeter and we were doing assaults. So for me it was pretty great. I was like double dipping on the missions and I was, I loved it. So how were they?

[Sean Ryan]

Did they operate the same as we did?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

They operate pretty much the same way. We find out that they're tactical tactics are good, their weapons are pretty much the same. Their manufacturer of their M4 was different at the time and they had some issues in the desert environment with it. But there was just, I think something minor. It was not disabled to them. We didn't know, we didn't really register it. And they were quick too. Their assault techniques were very fast. And I would say, I don't say brutal, but these guys are consuming professionals. They don't tolerate any deviation from their SOPs unless there's some flexibility is needed to save lives or to accomplish the mission. But otherwise they are well Trained. And again, like I say, they are fast. The funny thing is sometimes when we snatch the bandits terrorists, we had to get them with us. So if we got the call and it happened that hey, we have bad guys moving on the location, you need to bail out into, stop what you're doing, get out. So to evacuate. Sometimes once they handcuff the guy, we handcuff the guys. So when we walk them down the stairs, grom them, just toss them through the window. The other guys were waiting, they caught them, throw them on the Humvee and here we go. So the other guys were asking sometimes why they eat so fast. I say because they don't around. They're just like when they, when they have a terrorist in their hands. They just. The guy is just flying out of the window to. Into a gring hands and they put him on the Humvee and they are ready to go. So that was kind of surprise for me too because I didn't expect them to be so well trained and so well coordinated. Their assaults were working just like ours, you know, very similar, if not the same tactics because they learned from the same people. So they, they had the exposure. Also more exposure to SAS and German special forces. But this was not, that was, that was good because we can actually benefit from their experience as they were benefiting from our experience. It was a mutual, I think cooperation and work on accomplishing the mission. So our missions were together.

[Sean Ryan]

Interesting. Yeah. Never. I never got to work with them. But when I was contracting for CIA, I saw them, they were co located to an adjacent forward operating base and those guys were busy, they were going out.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

They loved it. Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

Several times a night they had these dune buggy looking things and they were just tearing it up. Yeah, but. And made me extremely jealous to watch. But I was like, oh man. Yeah. So they, what about their like team dynamic? Do they have a good camaraderie and same like ours?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

That's very similar. Yeah, they, they are very close with each other, I would say because they are way smaller than us. They are very close. They, they. These guys know each other better than they know their family members. Just like us too, you know. So yeah, that's that. There was a very, not only educational for me, I think for all of us to work with them. It was also very pleasant, very nice to work with them doing the assaults, take down the targets. We really enjoy working together. And it was getting to the point even that some of our guys were coming in and said hey Drago, can you help me? Can you talk To GROM guys so I can do assault with them. And just so I can put my record that I did work with grom. I did the direct action missions with them. So, yeah, I think they didn't have a problem with them because they trusted us. So we have quite a few guys going on targets with them if they wanted to. And I have quite a few pictures of it too, as well from our guys working together with grow.

[Sean Ryan]

Did they speak English at that time?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

They did not. Today there's a requirement you cannot be in the GROM without speaking English. So they are very proficient. I would say some of them speak better English than I do because there's a requirement as they go to regular schools. And besides the training day, everybody had to learn English. Besides, in Poland now, English is very popular. Like before, everybody had to know Russian. Like in my case, we had to learn Russian. Today, nobody forced people to learn English, but people want to learn English because it's so productive, because it is so empowering.

[Sean Ryan]

What were the. I mean, I'm just curious. What were your conversations with them? I mean, did you have conversations?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Well, there was very technical ones because, you know, doing the. The assault mission with the direct action mission in within the foreign unit could be very dangerous. So we did rehearse things. You know, I had to learn their way of communication, their tactics, because I speak Polish. Then there was no issue to learn that stuff. But the first conversation was just, yeah, incorporate me into their structures. And that was. Yeah, that was a little bit intense. But they were great guys, so they were very helpful. A lot of fun, too. A lot of laughing because my Polish was very rusty at the time. Things that I still do say, Things that means totally different things than I intend to say. But at that time, yeah, so they were very helpful. But then we start drinking together. We started having a party together too. Whenever there was a chance it was a bit low if we could. And this is how we create that bonds that persist even today between those team guys who work with GROM or even those who didn't. But heard about our missions with Grome. That big friendship continue too. They still come here sometimes to states when we go up there. They are always helpful, try to help you and accommodate our guys. So the friendship that we create on the battlefield continues and still is. We are very close.

[Sean Ryan]

I mean, you had not been back to Poland since you left, correct?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yes.

[Sean Ryan]

So did you have a lot of questions about?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

I did. Yes, I did. I was asking them about stuff. Well, I did. When I went to with my Seal platoon in 1995 for brief couple days, three days visit in Gdask. We didn't work with Grome. We don't. We work with their commandos from Formosa. You need. And so I kind of like that scene. For me, it was surreal because I left as a felon, a criminal, and then I was greeted as a hero in Poland when I came back. You know, maybe as a hero, but I was greeted as a valuable, respectable person. That was very kind of different for me, that first visit and then. But yeah, that was a very short visit. So the first longer visit was later on when I retired from the Navy.

[Sean Ryan]

So, I mean, did they have questions for you about what your childhood was like in prison?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

You know, for them, the more significant thing was that I was part of the Solidarity trade union movement in Poland, 1980s. For them, big deal was that I participated in. Under underground structures and I resist communism. For them was very fascinating that I spent time in prison fighting for Polish freedom. So they were very respectful of that. But otherwise there was a lot of questions about America. How was the life? How did the people. How did it happen that I succeed? I became who. Who I am and where some people were not that successful. And so there was a lot of questions that I had to answer about America, about my life in America and about my America.

[Sean Ryan]

Did they have. I mean, I bet there was a lot of chatter back and forth about did you. Were you very curious about what Poland was like now or did you at that time?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

I was curious because, again, remember they were part of the Warsaw Pact. They were opposing us NATO. So they were trained to fight us. And suddenly here we are working very close. I think we were so close with them. I don't remember in combat working any other forces from different countries working that close with us with seals as Polish GROM did. So that's. They earned a lot of respect in our community, but also I believe we earn a lot of respect for them. For them was curious, you know, how the foreigner like me can come. Somebody like me can come to America and join the more secret forces, the tip of the spear that America has. So the. They were. Yeah, they were a little bit fascinated by this. How is it possible? We know in our unions, the foreigners cannot serve. You have to be US Citizen. You have to have access to secret clearance. You have to have a secret clearance to serve in SEAL teams. So that's something that for them was very fascinating. How did I pull it off? I said, dude, this is America. You can be whatever you are able to Be, there's nothing holding, holding you back. And if you can't do this or that, there's no politicians that are saying that you can't in America. There is nobody there say, holding you back and say, you can't do that. As long as it is legal, as long as this is something that is beneficial, hopefully it's beneficial for the country, for America and for other people. You are encouraged to succeed and people will help you to succeed. This is the big difference between other countries. This is what I want to. They want people to use this book as that vantage point to see how different we are that the America that was built on goodness, on personal freedom, on being strong and independent, and on the faith that make America so great. And this also rolls into the way people in America treat other people with compassion, with help. And I experience every single one of this. So yeah. Do you think they were fascinated by this?

[Sean Ryan]

Did any of them want to come over?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yeah, some of them did.

[Sean Ryan]

No kidding.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Asking about, hey, can I be a seal? I said, well, why would you want to be a seal? You are the one, the top tier of the Special Forces. And but you know, somebody was asking that say, is it possible? Because this is something.

[Sean Ryan]

What did they say when you asked why was that? What did you, what did they tell you?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

They say, because seals have the reputation they have because we are the best. I didn't inquire too much into it, but some of them were like, hey, if I could do it again, I would just do what you just did. I say, well, you know, I didn't do it because I, I did it because I left Poland, because I had to leave Poland. But you don't have to leave Poland. There's no reason for you to do it. I joined the military because I had to my debt of freedom that I had to pay back. But you don't have to do it. You're living in the free country.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow. Wow.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

So that's what I told myself when I came to America and that's what I follow with today. That's my pledge to America and American people.

[Sean Ryan]

So let's talk to, let's talk about. So you got to Iraq, you start seeing real combat. What was your first engagement in Iraq?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

I think first we did snatch couple of the guys in the high riser. So we did breach. We get the guys out of the. We are so quick that they had no chance to, to, to, to, to do anything. So yeah, we got them. And this is where I learned that not everything that we learned in the Breaching school actually works like that. Some of the breaching charters, for example, I don't want to go into details here, but not very effective or were outright dangerous, not so much to us, but to people on target. We found out that most of these targets were hitting. They were terrorists hiding behind women and children. And they tend to put them next to front door or somewhere close so they can have a route of escape while we stumble over their family members. And breaching the way we used to do was very, could be potentially life threatening to people there. And we had to change. As a matter of fact, we had the army guys in charge of the theater, I think they call us to scale down a little bit with the breaching because they don't want civilians to get hurt. So we had to actually change some of the methods we were doing, make it safer for them, but also for us. But also the breaching charges that actually I was instrumental in developing it and make that charge available to all of us. And that was widely used later by SIL teams in Baghdad and in Iraq. So that was pretty good stuff. I remember I was breaching the steel door with the woman we didn't know at that time yet, but she was maybe like 3ft, 2ft away from the steel door. And I bridged the steel door, went inside, she was uninjured. Well, we trampled over her because she got scared and fall down on the floor as we rush into the apartment to that house. We trampled her a little bit, but otherwise she was untouched. If I use any of the other chargers that we used to train with, I would kill that woman. So for me, this, it means a lot too that I contribute not only to killing these people, but the bad guys, but also to saving those lives that were innocent on target.

[Sean Ryan]

What was the, what was the daily life routine? There were you guys going out all the time.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

We became vampires. But also the way I look at it is like a customer service, like a government customer service. But you know, my customers, our customers were always wrong and we got to kill them. So that's kind of good things. But the life was we wake up in the maybe 3:00, sometimes 4:00 in the afternoon, get ready, rehearse what we need to rehearse, plan for the mission at 2:00 in the morning, 3:00 in the morning, we staggered the time. We didn't use the same time we got in the humvees, we wrote to the target or close to the target, we move on it. And we either snatch or kill the bad guys and then move out before they could catch us. The thing is that at that time we didn't have armored vehicles, so we were exposed to the IEDs very much and also to the enemy. So we actually had to remove the doors from our Humvees. So we had a couple few guys on the back and our seats were facing outwards. We installed the skids on the side of the car outside. So we're sitting facing outside with the guns. We actually look like a porcupine. Each time we was looking like a porcupine. I have like 17 hours video from my helmet camera from those DAs. So this is something that when I'm looking now, it's just. It's incredible how we could get away with stuff that, you know, today as the battlefield requirements and the tactics change, may not be able to do so. But at the time we are. We were sometimes we were just lucky to do it.

[Sean Ryan]

What was the first stop where you killed an enemy combatant?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

That was. We breached. We breached the. Those two apartments next to each other and we breached one, the other guy. Those two doors were breached. The one guy was kind of jumped away. The holes pre made in the opposite wall in the long hallway. And when we went in, just like it just happened. The guy was just standing next to me. So the. Another one was in the Humvee. We were driving, I think we were riding back to base and there was a vehicle came in and just like trying to pull next to us, pull next to us. And he just didn't want to stop, didn't want to back out. And that was kind of suspicious at the time. It was, I think like 3:00, 4:00 in the morning on the way back. No, I'm sorry. We're just driving on another mission too because we were hitting multiple targets at the time. So I just have to stop him and I stopped the guy. So.

[Sean Ryan]

Did that affect you at all?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

No, no.

[Sean Ryan]

Killing never affected you?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Not really. Because I did what was right for America and I. We were all prepared. I never seen in Iraq anything that I was not prepared to see. I never did in Iraq. Anything I was not prepared to do by US Navy. So not really. That didn't bother me at all. I wish I could kill more of them because like I say earlier, if we, if they. If that one that got away, maybe we were able to kill him. Some of our brothers would come back to come back home. Maybe there was that guy who got one of us. So that, that weighs in me sometimes. At night, I think about those who get away and I would like to kill.

[Sean Ryan]

So you guys were doing multiple targets a night?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yes, sometimes. Sometimes at night, sometimes daytime. Hitting daytime targets too? It depends, you know, like we, our missions were. Were dictated by the circumstances. So if we need to get somebody, it was the only chance to get him at daytime. We did that daytime. He didn't get the guy. We prefer nights. Of course, most of our missions were at night, but there was nothing unusual to do something in daytime. If we had to do it, we were prepared for either way.

[Sean Ryan]

You guys did over a hundred direct actions in what amount of time?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

What's that?

[Sean Ryan]

What about a time?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Well, the time frame.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Well, that was within the first year in Iraq.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Most of it.

[Sean Ryan]

What was your bronze Star for?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

On target. It was a hand to hand combat with. With the insurgent. And we needed this guy, we needed this guy alive. So I was able to go and basically kick his ass back and attack him and take him out.

[Sean Ryan]

Can you be a little more descriptive?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yeah, with. I don't want to go into too much details because, you know, the, the today's environment. But basically he tried to first try to move away. We need to go stop him. And I was on the way. So when he rushed through me, he didn't, he didn't make it. And he ended up actually tried to do it again. And he was pretty aggressive. So the easiest way was to kill the guy. But we needed this guy. So I was able to go take him down and eventually, yeah, puma him a little bit and handcuff him and bring him down. So. Yeah, that was the guy.

[Sean Ryan]

What? Who was it?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

That was. I don't remember who he was. But we have the list of the guys that was. There were so many of them. I just don't remember this particular guy, who he was. I remember I see his face, I see his. You know, I still vividly remember that. But yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

How did you get him down?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

With my fists, with my legs and my gun. So I didn't have to. I didn't want to shoot him because again, that was not the guy I wanted to shoot. But it came to the. To the. Yeah, to the hand to hand combat. So this is what my bronze star actually says, that what happened. That describes that.

[Sean Ryan]

Drago, welcome back.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Nice to be back.

[Sean Ryan]

But man, I was hoping you would come back. I mean, one of the hardest parts about interviewing special ops guys that have done just phenomenal stuff is trying to break through the humility. Nobody wants to talk about the Veracity of what they've done in combat. And we very lightly breezed over your Bronze Star. And then I was hoping I would get a call from you saying hey, we should probably go into a little bit more detail on that. And I know it's hard to break through the humility, but at the same time, I mean it's important, it's important that people understand what the sacrifices that were made over there are and what it's like. And so I just want to say I really appreciate you coming back to, to give us the full scoop on what happened that day with your Bronze Star valor.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yeah, thank you. This is something that. The way I see it is the stories are being said. Some of the stories are being said quite often and that makes almost desensitize people to what we go through. We are just human beings just like anybody else. But people listening to these stories, listening, watching these movies, they don't see us as human beings often. Not everybody they see. Often see us as just a little part of the machine. If you fall out, you fall. That just. Well, just expect it. Let's get another guy. And that's what I think is important, that our society doesn't see us that way. We are all individual people. We are all human beings. And everybody that falls is those hero. They shouldn't be seen as just little pieces of the machine that can be easily replaced. So I was never. Yeah, I try not to talk a lot about these stuffs and nobody ever asked me about it.

[Sean Ryan]

It's important, you know, it's. It's important. It's documenting history, you know. And I don't think anybody sees any of the guys that I bring in here is just part of the machine or invincible. Because we do, you know, we start at childhood and go all the way through the career and then the pitfalls afterwards. And we did that with you. And I do it with everybody too. And the reason I do that is to humanize, you know.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

To humanize, yeah, it's very important who.

[Sean Ryan]

I'm speaking to and to humanize them in front of the audience. And so. But let's, let's go in. Let's just start at the very beginning.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yeah, that was the fact that I remember that, you know, I did so many of these DAs that they got 20 years later, they all get blurred up. This one kind of sticks out because as we. So we move out like we always work. We try to work. We did some daytime missions too, but we try to avoid. So at night the cow came in. We had to get the guy. He was like one of the leaders in financiers, I believe, who. We don't want to kill him. We just need this guy. So we came to the set point and then.

[Sean Ryan]

Was this a capture kill?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

It was capture kill, yes, yes, yes, Preferably capture. But, you know, like, we never had this type of priorities that you cannot kill the guy. You have to capture him. That's very dangerous concept. But so for us was, you know, like, if we can, we try to capture the guy. But we really tried. So we came to the set point, we disembark and patrol towards the target. And as we patrol, we made maybe like 20, 30 yards from the where we're supposed to cross over the fence. Then the whole hell broke loose. And that was just like the bullets were flying everywhere. And you know how it is that you don't. In urban environment, it's kind of sometimes difficult pinpoint where the. Where the sheds are coming from. Especially here, from behind you in front the sides. And then you don't see muzzle flash. If you see muzzle flash, yeah, you know where. Where this coming from. But. So we just hang it for a second on the side of the fence. And like, we're not gonna be waiting here forever. It's time to go. So we just move along that fence. A few hours back, we put the ladders while we. Why this all the shit is going on. We cross that thing. We approached the doors. I breached the door. We blew the door up.

[Sean Ryan]

What'd you breach it with?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

What's that?

[Sean Ryan]

What did you breach it with? Explosives.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Explosives? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we breached with explosives. At the time, most of our breaches were with explosives. You know, it gives us that extra couple seconds when the enemy is disoriented where their terrors are disoriented so we can take the advantage of it. So it was preferable entry method for us. And then. So as we breach, we enter the house. It's pretty big house. And we kind of knew the how it is set up because we have the intel know what to expect inside, even inside. And there was like. As we entered, it was like short hallway. Then it was like maybe two feet to the right. And there was a wall up. So you can see the wall. The guy was standing behind the door when I blew the door. So he just backed out basically to throw him off a little bit, but he was still on his feet. So there I was coming into the house as the second guy. So the guy went left, I went right and up this guy. So he's Doing nothing, just standing there. He's. He's. He's blind from the flush. And so I throw him on the ground, I bag him and tag him, and then I move on to the.

[Sean Ryan]

What do you mean, bag him and tag him?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Well, just basically make him ready to be. Move out.

[Sean Ryan]

And what does that entail for the audience? I know what that means, but what does.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Oh, okay, so basically subdued the guy, handcuff the guy. You know, you can say bag and tag. Basically kill the guy, put in the body bag, and move him away. But that's not what I mean. I guess just, you know, throw him on the ground, handcuff him, get the guy ready to be moved out. So we did that. I joined the guys, including the house. And the shed is still going on outside. So when I. We walked to the second floor, I don't remember it was two or three floors. I think it was two floors, but it was a big house. So as we cleared the rooms on one of the room as we enter it, that was a crazy. I think the craziest thing. One of the craziest, crazier thing that I remember. The guy just charges at full speed. And I don't know if he's trying to charge me or he's just trying to run away from that room. Anyway, he just bumps into me, so throws him on the ground. He drops the gun. So now I look at this guy. He has no gun. The room is pretty much clear. So as I'm getting this guy now, he jumps back again, kicking, screaming, and punching. So as the fight is going on, I'm getting the cow. Well, I could shoot the guy, but he was not armed. So really there was no need to shoot the guy. And as I'm working with the guy, the cow comes in. Hey, Drago. In to stop the grom element that's moving on the backyard. And there are three guys in ambush lane. So tell them, stop them. Tell them to wait. The Hilo is coming to lase them, put the laser beam on them so the guys know where they are. So I'm here trying to get this guy compliant and the same time speaking on the radio. So I'm. I put my gun at the time kind of to the side. I had another guy in the room too, but he was busy, still doing his stuff. So. And at the same time, I'm talking to. On the radio to Polish guys in Polish. Don't move on that backyard. Just hold on. The Hilo is coming, and I will get you there to. They will let you Know where the guys are. So they stop and at the same time. And the bullets are flying into the room through the windows too. So I remember I had, like, two of them came, and you don't hear the. There's not a whistling like you can see on the movies. There's just a crack, and there's just the impact on the wall. So. And then the grom guys is calling me too, telling me that, hey, we are moving on this. On. We see these guys now we know where they are. There's element maneuvering to the side, so taking the crossfires from the side. And then. So then I relay this to our guys while I'm bagging the guy. So eventually, yeah, I bag him, tag him. There was the guy, but I don't know which guy it was the one that we're after. But I think we're after all of them. So I think we hold, like, from this target, maybe like four guys or five guys we left. I think some guys there, they were, like, pulling on important. But anyway, the cow came in high. We need to move out because I think there is a group of guys coming on us. You know, we have a limited number of people, so we are not set up to run a gun for like an hour.

[Sean Ryan]

It's very surgical.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yeah, very surgical. So we just grabbed the guys, whoever we had, and bailed out and left the whole. Nobody.

[Sean Ryan]

The whole neighborhood.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

The whole neighborhood, yeah, because the guy was very important. So they had the. He had a setup. He had, like, security set up inside the house and outside the house in the perimeter. The perimeter was the one that opened up on us. And our external security actually was duking it out with them, took care of them at the same time while we were clearing the house and bugging. Tagging the bad guys in the house. So, yeah, we got them. And like I said, nobody got hurt. Those Iraqis in Abu. They pretty quickly realized that's not a good idea, so we got them too. And that was, you know, that was memorable. But it was like one of many those missions that they. You do it for so long time that it is. It became like almost like a normal thing. But it's not the most memorable mission like that, the most, like, impactful on me mission that I did.

[Sean Ryan]

So when did you find out? Well, what was it like leaving before we get there? What was it like leaving with the whole neighborhood shooting at you guys?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Well, that was pretty. Pretty dicey because at that time, like, when we were leaving the house, there was still shit going on. But as we Were leaving by the time everything was suppressed. So there was not so much. There was pot shots here and there. You can see, you can hear the bullets cracks, you can hear bullets cracking here and there, but there was no intensity. That was at the beginning. Was at the beginning. Especially when our 50s open on the Humvees. Holy shit. That was like whole hell broke loose. This is where we are breaching the door at the same time. So yeah, that was, that was, yeah, I remember that. I just never pay attention to like each particular mission. For me you asked me the one what's that?

[Sean Ryan]

It all blends into one.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

All blends into one. Especially if you do it for so long. And another thing, like I say, the thing more impactful for me was the one time where in the house, clearing the house. And I was on the left side of the hallway. There was a guy on my right on the other side of the hallway. And you can see commotion in the end of the hallway. Hallway. It's like maybe 30, 40, 30ft maybe. It's pretty long hallway in the dark. And you can see the commotion. You can see like feet coming out and then coming out. You can see like half dresses and then you see the gun and then the people come out and you can hear the guys just like, hey, drop the gun, drop the gun. Those Iraqis, I don't think they understood what he's, what he was, what they were, what we were saying. Besides he was so stressed out. When I look at this, this is like old man, an old woman, he's holding her hand, he's walking with this gun and pissing himself at the same time. He looked like to me 80 years old guy. And I can hear that. So I had a guy on the top, had a guy low on the opposite corner. And the guy who came low later, I could almost hear the click. I just didn't want the guy to get killed. So I just say I got it, I got it. And I stepped in front of these guys barrels because I could walk on my side. I just didn't want them to shoot this old man. So I walk up there, I walked to this guy. I had my. Usually that's very short and forced. So as I was walking up to this guy, I am in his heart. I mean I would just pull like if he would just try to do something because he was holding the guns, he didn't aim at me. He was maybe like little bit, a little bit down. So I woke up to him. I took this gun away from him. And then. So when we Took the guy with us. It was one of the guys we needed. We went after. So when we were leaving, his old wife came up to me and say, like, thank you very much for not killing us. Because I told him to put the gun away. But he was. He thought that this may be some insurgents or some people got to kill him. So thank you for not killing him.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

And I got a lot of flack from our guys too, because, you know, think about it for a second. That was kind of selfish on me, but I just did not want this guy to get killed because those very quickly point out to me on the debrief, what if this guy were just there and there was other guys just waiting in the dark hallway where you can't see it. We had a flashlight too. So we hear the commotion with the flashlight, we see the gun. Right. And that you were right in front of our guns, we wouldn't be able to do anything. You can't do it. I understand. I agree with them. It was not tactically those people. Wrong thing to do. I don't know.

[Sean Ryan]

You felt it.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

I just felt it. I just felt I don't want this guy to get shot. His old wife, you know, they hold their hands each other. This guy is just barely walking. They have still those house shoes, those flip flops on. And then. Yeah, and he's holding this gun and shaking like this. And I remember you can see the dark spot on his pajamas. And I think he still had this funny hat with this little funny ball, you know, just like you see in the cartoons. So, yeah, that sticks out to me for two reasons. One's that, yeah, maybe what I did was wrong because it could endanger me and maybe other guys in the house. I just did not want this guy to get shot. And I think I was afraid he was about to be shot and, you know, this woman standing by him.

[Sean Ryan]

Wow.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

So, yeah, that was very. That was very impactful on me. I know it was brave per se. It was stupid, but it was just. I just felt it was the right thing to do, you know, if I could get shot, because you know that these guys are not worrying about this stuff. If there was somebody there, there was many times they just shoot their own people just to get to you so there wouldn't be any hesitation. And yeah, I agreed with the guys that, yeah, I was on the wrong. But it was.

[Sean Ryan]

I mean, I think it was brave. I mean, you know, maybe you weren't thinking about it at the time, but I mean, not only getting shot by your own Guys because everybody's hyped up.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

I know I wouldn't. Maybe when the firefight start, maybe they would have to fire above me. But I trusted these guys.

[Sean Ryan]

There's also the possibility that the, that the man would have had a suicide vest on.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

True. You know and, but you know, I didn't think about it. I just see this lost old grandma, grandpa working with the gun, scared shitless. So.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

And. And you know, he didn't drop the gun. It was the cows being made. I don't know if he understood English. No, he didn't actually because we. We talked to him later before we took him and he could barely speak English, but his wife spoke English English, so. Wow. By the way, they were so scared they wouldn't be able to put a reward up there and they were working on our guns, so.

[Sean Ryan]

So when you got back from the, from the mission.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

When did you find out who it was that you had pucked.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

We already knew who this guy was. I just don't remember. There was the guy who. He was one of the like big financiers of those IEDs and, and those terror groups in Baghdad. So he knew a lot. So in the house, like we didn't know who is who at the time. So we tried to bag everybody and bring in whoever we had there. He was identified later. But you know, like with the names, I knew their names because we had to learn for the mission. So you can call. It was just like normal for me. But now 20 years later there were so many of these Muhammad's that.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Don't remember.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah. What did the. I'm just curious, do you know, do you remember what the write up says?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Not really. I never. I know what it says but it's like. I don't dwell on it, you know. So it says nice. I think something I'm sure nice. I read it. It's just like. Yeah. You know, I'm sure somebody else could say it with much better eloquent in much better eloquent way. I'm still better with bullets than words. So for me to come and speak about anything is pretty scary. I think one of the bravest thing I have done being just be able to go and face the camera and microphones and speak. But I'm better with bullets. So you know, maybe somebody else can tell the story better. But it is what it is, you know, we are human beings, we are not robots. We are just the people.

[Sean Ryan]

And how long, how many times did you go to Iraq?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

I went there three times back to back. So I spent the year first on first deployment. Came back, it was another SEAL team coming out, and they were slated to work with GROM as well. So I asked them if they can just take me for. I just wanted to go back and if they can take me with them. They say, yeah, sure, absolutely. So that's supposed to be like two weeks. Just the fam. Let them help them settle down with grom. But then like four months later, it's like my team is calling and saying, hey, Drago, intercom back because we are about to deploy after these guys. There was the time when the entire SEAL team was deploying. So they say, you need to come back second back and then one back with my platoon again. The missions changed, the tactics changed at the time. So we were tasked with protecting Iraqi politicians. So my platoon had one of those big weeks Iraqi that were protected. I think there was PSD mission mostly, although wherever I could. I was just trying to get away from babysitting the old grown man. Old grown fat man and try to get on the DA mission. So I was still able to do that. And some people accuse me even now, that I was just doing my own DA missions on my own. But it was not really that much on my own. But I was trying to get as much into those missions as possible. But I paid the price for it too, with being a breacher. The injuries that we sustained that we didn't know at the time of how dangerous it can be. So that was when on the first deployment, I think I started feeling first symptoms, first things. But like I say, I was afraid to say anything because I didn't want to be pulled out of the missions.

[Sean Ryan]

So what were the symptoms? What were you feeling?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

First was I was not able to read. So what I found out that I was trying to read, but I couldn't concentrate on the text. Seems like that thing was jumping. And so I figured it out that maybe this is because the lightning, because we were living in the tents outside was very hard and bright, very hot and bright. So most of our activities during the where we sleep or eat was in the tents or inside. So I said, well, maybe I just my vision is bad because the dark environment. But then I noticed that I cannot read even if I can follow the letters because I forgot if I read the paragraph, I forget what it was paragraph about by the time I finished it. So that was kind of weird. And so sometimes it took me an hour to get to the page. So that was odd. But I didn't make much of It I kind of brushed it off. I still was strong. I was thinking for clear, I just couldn't read. So there's no big deal. It's not like I have to read some manuals to terrorists, right. So I was fine. And then the balance issues start showing up that much later. And the sleep disturbance, so that was an irritability too as well. So that's when I start thinking that something is not quite right then. Yeah, but you know, we were like sometimes 5ft, 6ft from the breaching charge. And besides me as a Britisher, I learned very quick in Iraq to calculate the charge and standoff distance for my team, for my guys, by the manual, by the book. But I also did another calculation just for me. If I can't get in the COVID was the minimum there is that I can still bridge the door without injuring myself. It happened to me not once, but there's one very dramatic time where we actually were assaulting the target. We see, we get the intel photo, intel pictures. So we look at it from our best ability. This is what we make. We're gonna go assault these doors. This is how it's going to go. And this is where we stag our guys as a breacher. I had to brief it before the mission to our guys. And we did. We had a secondary entry point. We had all that stuff pretty much ready to go. And the picture shows this empty space maybe like that wide between the concrete wall and the building itself. And then there's a corner here where this just walks straight to the door. So I say, well I'm gonna stack the guys right there. The way I breathe, I'm gonna go to the door and blast the door, go inside. Standard missionary. We did tens, hundreds of them. And that one time we didn't know that from the pictures, but that space was filled with rubbles. There was just enough space to stack the guys and there was no space for me. So we go. I already kind of see something is not right here. So I go with the security to the door place, the church. We're going back. The guys go in, but there's no place to me. So I was like climb the wall. It's maybe like 6, 7ft tall. We found a way later to do something similar. I can talk about it, but that point was like infeasible. If we linger, the longer we linger, the bigger chance that they will be alert and somebody gets killed. So yeah, so I just, it's no big deal. I mean I knew the distance was still safe for me. So I got on my knees, I put the gun in front of my face, I cooled up and blast the charge and so yeah, it stunned me a little bit but I described it in the book but it's not maybe as dramatic as it is in the book. I did have my nose a bit bleed, my ear did, but it was not like I was gushing blood or anything, it was just, I was a little bit stunned but not enough not to participate in the assault. So I still catch up on the train, on the back of the train and we did assault, we got, we took the target down, we got the guy. So yeah, that was. But these things repeating over and over and over. When you stay in close proximity to the bridge it will affect you eventually. And at that time there was very little known about this. Matter of fact when the eventually I became SEAL instructor in baths but I still have this issue with reading, with sleeping. So I talked to our. What do you do? You just go to your family? My family at that time was seals. I didn't have another family. So say hey, what happened? Do I have this? I wake up every 2 o'clock in the morning and stuff. So we're like well maybe you were drinking too much. No, I was not drinking. And this happens every day. 2:00 in the morning, I'm wide awake or maybe this. So finally we agreed there was a ghost, the apartment was haunted and there's a ghost ghost up there and the ghost is waking me up. So that was a conclusion. So then I realized that I'm scared of ghosts, I need to find different apartment because I don't want to be scared sleeping at night that some ghost comes here to scare the hell out of me. So I didn't find an apartment. So finally I resigned myself to living with the ghost which eventually turned out to be a tbi, the traumatic brain injury that caused me react that way. So that tells you how little we we knew at the time. It's not the case today. We know we are acutely aware the danger and the damage that those explosions cause. But at the time it was not that. The funny thing is that I think the NSW came out to conclusion the biggest damage occurs during the breaching course because people are exposed to those breaching charges constantly, day in, day out. Well that is just baby walk next to what we did in Iraq. When you just have these things going multiple times every night and it's not just for like two weeks, three weeks or for the month you spend a year doing it, eventually you start feeling it so that's what happened to me. I don't complain. I would do it again if I had to do it. But at least now we know what it is and we can actually do something about it. And not the only one who suffer from this. You talk to any breacher? I think they even come with the term breacher brain right now. That's something like this. That's what they call it. But again, I don't complain. This is not complain. It's just the fact maybe somebody who suffers it can recognize the symptoms and things and get himself help. That's. That's what I'm saying.

[Sean Ryan]

So after all your Iraq tours, you went to BUDS to be an instructor?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yes, well, I had a slated. My orders were to bridging school to be instructor, but I already knew that something was wrong with me. Even shooting guns next to my head caused like the headache for a day. So I asked if I could change my orders, go somewhere where I'm not exposed. And the break from the noise from explosions, from the shock waves, and they said, well, why don't you try buds? This BCL instructor? I said, sure. But then the problem was I already had my orders cut, so I had to actually call. I went behind the back a little bit, and the chief, one of the chiefs, he passed away today. He was in Millington. He became the detailer Wellington. So I call him and say, look, this is what happened to me. This is what I want to do. This want to change, and I need your help. So within like a month, I got the change of orders and he called me, say, dude, I got you. You're going to bud. So that's how I end up in SEAL training.

[Sean Ryan]

How did you like your bud, Stewart?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

It was relaxing, you know, it was fun to. I kind of. I miss the combat. I miss the engagements in Iraq that you don't have it here. But what helped me get through this assignment was understanding that I might be saving lives. I might be making these people as good as possible. So when they go to combat, they, they will be extremely effective. They will be mentally prepared. And those who could not achieve that type of readiness, they would be removed from the SEAL training. So I was pretty harsh, but I was very fair. Instructors, from what I was told by fellow students who today are very successful SEALs, some of them already retired from SEAL teams. But I have a fond memory of the young guys going through bats. Matter of fact, it's very. I tell you, this is very humbling experience because the way when we go through baths is most of at least for me, it was a blur. You just go do. Every day you do something, you just try to survive a day just to the next day, from meal to meal, from hour to hour, and it just goes quick. You just, it's like almost you walk in the room, you get like kicking the balls few times, then kicking the ass out of the door, and you don't. Well, now you are the one who is actually doing this to these kids, who is demanding from these kids that sacrifice that pain. And it is very, again, very humbling because you see these young kids and they don't quit. They just keep going no matter what you throw at them. Some of them falter, some of them quit, some of them get injured and being removed. Most of the people I notice in baths, they don't resign, they don't quit, they get injured, they get removed from the training. But seeing these guys and you could not make them quit, no matter what. Some of them, it makes you think that, yeah, America is safe.

[Sean Ryan]

When did you, what year did you retire?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

I retired 2011. So by this time I met my wife.

[Sean Ryan]

How did you meet her?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Well, that was a story too itself because so I was in baths, I didn't have a family at the time. And finally I came to realizations, like in a year and a half I'm retiring, I have no family, so I have to find me a wife. So it was not that easy because like, you know, with my English, my, my, the way I was, I guess I was not very attractive guy. So I asked for my friends and no, my teammates, and they said, okay, Drago, the best way to do it is go online, you find yourself a chick, and if you like her, you're gonna marry her. I said, sounds good, so let's do it. So I had incidents. I mean, I had those misfires, what I would say. So there was a girl I was courting for a long time and eventually we agreed to meet and then. And we scheduled to meet first time in the coffee shop, like say for her place. And it was a lunchtime. Good God, it was the place where there was a bunch of like executive chicks were coming in, like very super nice place, bunch of offices around. I didn't think much of it, but these girls who I look at the picture was so beautiful. I said, I'm going to go and pretend I'm smarter than I am. So I took the book. I couldn't still read it, but I just pretend I was reading so I look smart. And then she's coming and, and so every girl, those girls are coming. I said, this is answer. I just try to get myself bigger and look better. And then there's none of these girls. So I find like, well, it's almost like 10 minutes late. Maybe she won't show up. And then I see the girl walking, but she had to like walk sideways through the door. So I said, that's not. That's not. Cannot be her. So I just like sitting up there and just look at the book that I brought to make myself look smarter. And all these nice, good looking chicks that line up next to my table. And she's coming and coming. I see the big sh. Shadow comes up. It's like, are you Thomas Drago? It's like, yeah. How do you know me? It's like, who are you? I'm Wendy, whatever the name was. We talk about it. I was like, damn. And all these chicks, I can see already, they smirk on their face like, dude, what? You got yourself into it. And. And then so I said, well, Wendy, just have a seat, sit down. And I'm thinking like, fuck. I mean, how do I make it look like a business meeting so these chicks are not laughing at me? And so I say, so, Wendy, tell me, so talking about your company, how many employees do you have? You know, how many people do you manage? She just look at me like an idiot. It's like, we're supposed to have a date, not talk about my job. And so this guy just laughing out loud. It's like, dude, he just so like, okay, all right, date, okay, let's make it a day. And so we talked for a while and I just wanted to end this thing. It was so humiliating. And then she was so loud, you know, and she was like, oh, you're so beautiful. I was like, damn, just go. And she. So we go back, I say, could you give me a ride? I have a car on the other side of the mall and those in San Diego. I was like, yeah, okay, I'll give you a ride. So we go to my Jeep. My Jeep is not even the lift. It's just like had bigger tires at the time. And she cannot get into the Jeep. She's like trying to push herself back, but the doors are too narrow for her. She tries to pull the leg with her hands put in the Jeep and hopefully I can push her in it. But that didn't work. She almost fell down. And I was like, I'm getting ready. Like, what the hell? I got myself into it. And then she said, well, I just walk. I said, yeah, thank you. Just go. And she left. She called me and hey, it was a great date, you know you. Do you want to meet again? Let's have a date again. I was like, listen, Wendy, first of all, you misrepresent yourself. We could be friends if you didn't lie. You know, I don't mind be friend with you if you are honest, but you send me all these pictures of some other chicks pretending that this is you, and then you show up and look like a Jabba the Hat and that's not you who the. And so. And I don't want to be rude to her, but I had to tell her I'm not interested in any dates with her. So I told her that. And then, you know, as instructors in poolcom, you remember we spend like almost all day in the water testing students. So we have students who are broke dicks, the guys who have some injuries. So they cater to us. So they like, if you have a phone call, they say in Ctrlto Drago, you have a phone call here, give me the phone. So you're still in the pool. You eat in the pool. It's like all day for these two days of pool comp. And one of the guys in Cudrago, we have a call message here. I say, okay, bring me the phone. Phone. So he brings the phone. I can see his face. Like by this time I was dating Rachel already. So I will come back to it, how we met and this. So I'm looking, I see the tits. So I was like, what the hell is that? So I call Rachel. So Rachel, don't send your naked breast here. The students are looking. Every time they pick the phone, they see this. It's like, who states are you having the. Receiving the messages from? Then I look and say, oh, that's not the Rachel that's there was that. So that was that fat chick calling me about the. Trying to send me the message. So I, I say, call her, tell her delete her. They tell her not to call you again. So I call her, say, don't call me anymore and don't, don't send those some naked pictures of you. I say, oh yeah, I'm so sorry, my boyfriend is right above your name. And I just by accident send you my naked picture. I was like, yeah, right on. You know, just stop lying. Just don't call me anymore. So you know, I, I had the problems like this. So then when I met Rachel online, so I see this chick, I was like, holy, I'm in love with that one. So you Know I tried to win to her. She did nothing. Nothing going to her again, nothing. Settled. To the guys. Hi. Who do I talk to? I talk to my family, team guys, sales. What do I do? How can I get her interested in me? So one of the guys look at the profiles. First of all, first thing, get yourself some few years off. So make yourself like maybe eight years younger. Okay, eight years younger. Then write her some nice letter or I, I really can't. Can you help me? So this is how it started. So then I had the team guys writing the love letters for me so I can send it to her. She was writing back to me and actually she liked actually the letters. So we continue this way because with my English, I am proficient with it, I'm proficient in combat, but I'm not really proficient in those lovey dovey things that, you know, like robots. Yeah, romancing, especially romancing online, you know. So that's something that I had. I turned to my fellow teammates and so like she wrote me a letter. Whoever I could find, say, hey, write me the response. Write me some nice love letter. So type very quick something in and send it back. And it continued. It worked. So then eventually the guys got tired. So Drago, we don't use so many of these love letters now. You can make any letter out of it, just copy and paste. So I say, okay, I'll try. I was nervous, so I did that. And her profile disappeared from those American singles website. I remember still. So her profile disappeared. It's like, oh, damn, I was so ready. I was writing the emails. Well, team guys were writing the emails. I was reading her emails. So those kind of like I was falling in love. And then her profile disappeared. So I was like, call one of the guys and say, hey, help me out with this. This is the email I sent to her. And I think maybe she doesn't want to communicate with me anymore. She just look at this like, yeah, dude, that's fucked up. I think this is why. So I was mopping for a few days and I was still checking online. She showed up again and I was like, I just need to, I need to, I need to talk to her. I need to tell her maybe that letter that I wrote because, because of my English. So, so she needs to just. I need to talk to her. So eventually I coerced her to call me and she called me on the private lines so that she answered. So we talked for a while and say, hey, wait a minute. So let me get it straight, you are not on drugs. You're not drunk. When you write to me, you just don't speak English. It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it. You know, that's it. So we start talking on the phone. And that's. Eventually I asked her to come and visit me in San Diego. She did come. And this is where I find.

[Sean Ryan]

Where was she?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Was that.

[Sean Ryan]

Where was she?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

She was living in Ohio, in Dayton, where I was living. So I flew her to San Diego. And there's funny story, actually, because after the bad experience with these chicks that they were not who they told me they are, I asked a team guy, hey, can you go with me? If this is another Jabba they had. If this is another person that I'm not really lied to me. I need you to bail me out. I will run. And you tell her that I was called for just some combat mission in Iraq. Whatever. Just tell her something. So we both are waiting, and here she is going down the escalator. He recognized actually her first. He said, dude, is that chick. I said, yeah, did you just rob the cradle, dude, she's decades younger than you are. How did you pull it off? I said, well, you wrote the love letters, and now you lie about my age at work. So here we go. Say, okay, Drago, you got it. You're on your own. She's hot. And he just left. And I was, remember, so nervous because, you know, I had all this with my emails. When I just wrote the email, it was really like, not up to speed up to her standards. Now I supposed to go and talk to her in person. I was very nervous. So when she came out, I was like to be like super gentleman, just like very stiff and saying, hi, Rachel, I am Drago. And she just look at me, say, yeah, cool. But, you know, I didn't fly 2,000 miles to shake your hand. Give me a hug. I was like, holy. So I give her the big Drago hug. And then I remember. So we start talking, you know, but she stepped back, say, wait a minute, I think I know you. It's like, you know, for team guys to meet the girl who you don't recognize. And she says she knows you. The first thing through my mind was, what did I do to her? When? But they say, yeah, you know what? When you were in the haps training, you are the new guy in your platoon with your group of guys, you and the haps training. And this is where I met you first time. I remember you for your accent and the belligerence. I say belligerence? Yeah, because, you know like in the haps, training. Training is the high. You know what it is, right? There's the chamber ride. When they ride you to like 20,000ft, the air pressure. And then so you can recognize if you have a problem, let's say if equipment malfunctions in the real life in airplane, you can recognize because you learn the chamber, what your symptoms are, how you will react. Then you have a few seconds actually to remedy the situation or step away from the ramp in the airplane. And so we're sitting there and they took us up. Rachel was in the chamber, actually. And when they asked who wants to be volunteered to demonstrate the hypoxia, I mean, the lack of oxygen. So like every other. I was a new guy. So, like that guy right there, it's like, okay, so they told me they drove us up to 25,000ft. I took my mask and then I had to do those toys, you know, like, throw the square peg into square in the ball, square dragged things. They signed my name and stuff. And these guys started egging me, like, say, yeah, you can, blah, blah, blah. And I got mad and I was like, I was threatening to kill everybody of them in the chamber. I'm going to kill you. I'm going to this and this and this. And then, you know, I passed out. So they just put the oxygen mask on me very quick. And other guys were on the mask. So I didn't know who was saying this, but they're just saying, you know, Drago, you know, you're gonna pass out. You're gonna do this. You know, I was getting mad. And so when I came to the crew in that center, they were. They were excited. They were like, dude, this is awesome. Well, we have example of almost every symptom of that. Hypoxia, right? Hypoxia.

[Sean Ryan]

Hypoxia, yeah.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

But we never had the belligerence. Now we just recorded your belligerence. So this is great educational video. So I'm floating somewhere there being as the education, educational aid to show people what the belligerence look like. So she remembered me from there and she remind me this. And then we walked to the car. I was very nervous. I could. Couldn't talk to. Hardly could talk to her from the being scared. And so. But I had a flower. I had a flower in my Jeep because I say, if the Jabba the Hat shows up, I will run and I'll just give the flower, throw it away. But in this case, I was so nervous. So I grabbed this flower and I said, hey, this is for You. It was like a gray paper wrapped up. And I just. I was so nervous. I didn't overwrap it. I still have it upside down. Just give it to her here. She just looked at me. What's this? I was like, flower. So she took this, like, okay, hold on one second. Hold on a second. She told me to wait. She unwrapped it, throw the paper thing, flip it upside down. She grabbed. She grabbed my hand. She went, okay, try it again. I was like, okay, here. So that was my. My first. You know, I tell you now, I was more scared at the time that I was before the assault, before the entering on target, because that was so unusual for me. That was so foreign and scary. But. So, yeah, that was like a pretty scary experience. But it's how I met my wife. And then we started dating each other. She was coming to visit me, I was coming to visit, to visit, visit her. And eventually, yeah, we got married and we have. I consider myself fully domesticated now. That is what she. But if you ask her, she say, well, yeah, but I'm still the project under construction. I'm still being domesticated. So she's making me better person every time. So, yeah, that's. That's how it works. But I still have my pitfalls with English. It seems like, you know, so 40 years. But things that I sometimes say or the way I pronounce things still get me in trouble sometimes. So I remember I asked her sometimes one time that. To feast me a dessert. I said, well, what would you like for dessert? I said, well, no, I want to eat Kimberly. I was like, I see her there, like terror in her eyes, like, who is Kimberly? I say, who is Kimberly? You know the desert we had in the restaurant two days ago or so? Like, you mean Kimberly? It's like, yeah, that's what I say. No, you say, kimberly, you don't eat Kimberly. So. So, you know, I still get that shit. I'm better now, but she's still working on me. She said, I'm the project under construction. So now we have two kids together. 15 years, 16 years old. Or beautiful girl, very smart. And I could not beat her in chess game since she was, I think eight years old. I still can't. I think she's the only person who checkmate me maybe five or six moves. So I'm not bad player. But I cannot beat this girl. And I have a son, he's doing gymnastics. He's 15 years old. So. And we have also from our previous marriages, the oldest son, Adam, my oldest Son, he lives in Tennessee. He's running his own detailing business. My other son, Blake is actually a student. He was Marine. He spent one year in Afghanistan. He's working now. He's studying electrical engineering in Ohio University. And I have a younger son too who is still active duty Coast Guard. So I'm very proud of my kids.

[Sean Ryan]

How long have you been married?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Oh, that's dangerous. Now I'm getting trouble because now she's down there listening. Yeah, she's down and listen. And then she listened then to the podcast. Then I get myself in trouble. Those are the most kind of dangerous questions for me. But I think since 2007. So we got married in August 18th, a kind of funny story because August 18th is the presumed date when battle of thermopylae started. When 300 Spartans with 5,000 other Greeks defend the Greece against 250,000 Persians. So that's presumed date when the battle started. And this is my date of when we got married. And then the place we got married is Leonidas, like the name of the Spartan king.

[Sean Ryan]

Oh, wow. Wow.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yeah. Also when we got engaged was another story too because I'm kind of turtle died. I'm kind of like a. I'm not very big into this nice, nice things because I don't know how to do these things. So I asked the guys, what would you do? How can I. How could we have the best engagement? Dude, you need to go to Cancun. You need to go there, get the restaurant, make it big. I said, dude, I don't have the money for that. I just have barely money to buy the ring. So I was thinking, I say what I'm going to do is I'm going to invite her on the range to Nyland and let her shoot every gun that we have. And the last gun M48 will be MK48 will be. When she opened the tray, there's going to be a ring hanging down and there's going to be a piece of paper like marry me so that I jeaned it up myself. So I said, I see a way to get getting and ask girlfriend to marry. So I brought it to Ireland. She had no idea. Then we had to prepare the range. So with the guys, we. I put her in the room. I'm still amazed that she didn't complain or anything. There was one old shooting magazine. There was nothing there, you know, like nylon up there. There's really no place to leave. And she's sitting in this room while we are setting up the gas, like M4, you know, and this and this and this. Almost every gun that we had, every type of gun, we had inventory. We signed up, line up online. Then I brought her in, you know, just. I have actually video of it. I'm going to post it on my website one day. So she goes from to gun to gun and shoots. And actually she should. She. The M4. She shoot pretty good. You know, that was like all on target. My heart skipped a bit. Skipped the did. And so we go from gun to gun. And the last gun, when she opened the tray, I'm like next to her and she sees the ring and then this piece of paper say, marry me. And I was right there. I said, would you marry me? Say yes.

[Sean Ryan]

Beautiful.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yep. So there was a zero way to get married. And I got away, you know, like I didn't have the money. So it turned out to be not very expensive, impressive way, but was very memorable way was very memorable for her. So. Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

So you remember 2007.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

So that's what, 2007, 20, 17 and 18 years.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah, 18 years.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

Congratulations.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

It went so fast. It went so, so fast. You know, it's just the time goes by here I'm running and gunning, kicking doors in and suddenly here I'm. I'm being married, taking care of the kids and enjoying my American dream.

[Sean Ryan]

So what's your secret to a successful marriage?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

To successful marriage. I think understanding and being reasonable and being loving and being accept that she's another human being that needs respect as well. And we just enjoy our lives together. You know, this is something that the longer it takes, the better it is. Seems like we fought tooth to the nail at the beginning and now we just, we really don't. We have a. We mesh so well together that, you know, I think that's a love. So, yeah, that's pretty much my story. Again, I'm telling it. I'm telling this because I want people to see the beautiful America, the America greatness, how unique country it is, how powerful it is. And sometimes it is hard to see if you sit in the trenches, if you are part of it, but when you have a chance to step aside, take a different vantage point, you can see how beautiful country we have.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah, that's some positivity we don't hear very often here.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yes. You know, there's another fact is that I live as a free man. I can live as a free man only because the founding fathers. Because the ideals the founding fathers were fighting for and the ideas that have been carried to this day by American people, by Americans like you, like other Americans.

[Sean Ryan]

Thank you. I saw that. Did you do an ibogaine treatment?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yes, I did. I've done it. But you know, like some people say how great experience they had. For me, it was not. It was really nightmare. I didn't meet, like some people. I didn't meet Jesus. I met. I met demons. And it really scared the hell out of me. But. Yeah, but it also changed me. I remember after this treatment, I called my wife and I say, well, because she always say, like, she doesn't like when I'm being called Drago. So Drago is gone, you know, that's. You are Thomas. And she did say like, that we're going to like Drago in the cage. And you are Thomas from now on. Sure. My wife, you know, she's the boss or whatever you say. And. But then I calculated from there, after the abogain treatment, I was coming back. I said, look, I buried Drago in the desert, you know, in the abogain there. Thomas is coming back.

[Sean Ryan]

Did you get any benefits out of that with the tb?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

I stopped drinking immediately. And there's another thing too, it's difficult sometimes to admit. I think even more difficult is to notice, is that, that you are. You can be alcoholic. And for me, it was like I had to drink, but I didn't feel like I had to. I said, well, this is such a cool things. Have a few shots here, you know, a few shots there, and I can stop anytime. I just don't stop it today, I stop it tomorrow. But tomorrow say, well, you know what? Let's just. I'll take a couple more shots and I'll be fine. I'll just stop it tomorrow. I can't stop it. It's very easy. I just told myself I'm not drinking. And it continues. And I couldn't stop. So I came back without drinking. I don't drink. I don't have to drink now. I can have a glass of wine with my wife if I need to, but there's nothing that compels me to drink. I start sleeping better. And also the peace that came in with, I would say, the acceptance of who you are, where you are, and also. But that's not just the abogain. I think the faith and God plays big role in my life right now. And this only thanks to Rachel, to my wife. So. Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

Did your faith strengthen after the ibogaine?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yes, definitely. Yes. And, you know, this may be a. I don't think she gets mad about her, but we read books like On Faith every Night before we go to sleep. So sometimes, most of the time she's reading and sometimes, Aya said, because of my English, let me try to read this. But mostly she's reading and, you know, it's so peaceful that she's like, well, you're not listening. You are falling asleep. Because, you know, when I snuggle up, she started reading. It's like, hey, you know what? I'm just like fading away. But yeah, so yes, definitely, yes. And the faith plays big role in our life. And I think this is also another reason why my marriage is so successful. There's two things, actually. The faith that we both share and her emotional intelligence. That's something that. How to say the right way. She knows like if I am angry or there's some. Some emotions online, she can disarm me. So this is something that, you know, is. Is great. I mean, I love the life, but I think we together work as a team greatly. And that's. There's. I credit the abogain treatment with in big part for what happened there. And I think it's important that we pursue it because as a veteran, I know that different people react to different things. The different things will help me, may not help you, or may not help somebody else. This is why we cannot restrict people to only want cookie cutter treatment. If you have, let's say TBI or PTSD or whatever, that this is what we're gonna do to you, it might turn out. And I witnessed that things didn't work for some guys, but they found relief and help doing different things. So the abogain, I think is important that we continue with it and try to allow or bring it allow people to get this treatment in the United States so they don't have to travel to Mexico like I to or to other places.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah, yeah, I hope that happens. We. We have the secretary of the VA coming on soon and that's a big discussion I'm going to have with him.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Nice. We need that, I think, because it is very powerful. And I was very skeptical initially from a friend of mine, another team guy called me, say Drago, I need to tell you something. And the guy is just as a knuckle dragger as somebody can be. You don't want to fight this guy. You don't want to. This guy is just a badass dude. He calls me and say, drago, I need to tell you I met Jesus. I was like, what? I talked to Jesus, man. I was like, Rachel, get Navy SEALs found ready. I think we have another going out of rails. I think that we have a guy, he will need help. And then I talked to him, and that changed my life too. So we talked quite some time and he explained me what it was. I didn't know anything about abogain at the time or ayahuasca. And eventually another friend of mine rest in. In a piece, Dan Cirillo. Taco, he called me, said. How did he say it? He said, drago, you need to go. I mean, if you don't go, I'm going to kidnap you. You need to go to this treatment and you are coming with me. So he took his time, from his work, from his family, just to help me get to Mexico and get this treatment. So, yeah, I owe him a lot too, man.

[Sean Ryan]

He was a good friend of mine. He was a good friend of mine. Yes, he was. For a while there, he was my only friend here. And then. And then he died of a heart attack on the range, very young, with his son, but on a hunting trip.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

On a hunting trip, yeah. He was doing things for other people. Yeah. When he died.

[Sean Ryan]

Awesome human.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yes.

[Sean Ryan]

And I just. I never served with him, but I did.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

And that was a warrior, A true warrior.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah. Yeah, I miss him.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yeah, me too. I'm missing to miss many guys. You know, there's something that I think we last for, you know, it's almost like a survival guilt, you know, like why I survived, why me, not him, why he got, why he was killed, not me. We asked those questions, and I think we always ask until we die, you know, but that's the faith, you know, that's how the life goes.

[Sean Ryan]

He was a big part of me finding my faith. Yes, he was. I had a.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

He helped many guys.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah, he's a great guy, man. And.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

But this is about the teams, you know, what people don't understand. And. And I. I watch some of the programs, some podcasts too, with fellow team guys, and this always ends up pretty heavy, you know, but people. So people tend to forget that we are normal people, you know, we just do our job. Sometimes that's the way I look at ourselves is like, we are not sheep dogs. There's other people capable of doing it. We are wolves, and we hunt wolves. Sometimes nations need monsters to fight other monsters because this is the only way we can fight those monsters. So I think sometimes we have to become those monsters to protect our society. Right? So that's. That's the way I look at it. And yeah, that's. Sometimes that's life, you know, and we all knew what we are getting into getting SEAL teams with us. We, and we all were ready to do what needs to be done to protect our citizens, to protect America. And I'm proud of it.

[Sean Ryan]

Well, I'm proud to know you, man. I think that's. I think that's the perfect way to end this. And I just want to say, Thomas, it was an honor to interview you and just get to know you. And like I said, I've just heard so much about you and, and your reputation speaks for itself. And so I just. I'm really thankful we met.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Thank you so much. But I'm just a product of SEAL teams. I always wanted to be like you guys. I wanted us to keep up with you guys. So I'm nothing special. I'm not different than you. I'm no different than anybody else. So I'm just one of the community members. I'm one of the SEALs, former retired SEALs now. But we are all the same. We are from the same cloth and we did the same job. So it was an honor to be here. I thank you for the invitation. But it gave me also the opportunity to maybe make people pause and look at America from different vantage point, look at how great America is and is worth protecting.

[Sean Ryan]

All right. Drago, you got an update on the judge that prosecuted you in Poland?

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yeah, I was sentenced to three years of prison time. And what happened at the time, there was nothing unusual because those so called activist judges, they work for the party. They didn't openly work for the party, but they were. They did what the political party told them to do. They were just doing their bidding in the society. And so I was not the only one. There was like thousands of people sentenced by these activists judges to prison time. Some of them were sentenced to death. Especially people coming back from the second World War who experienced the Western freedom, who experienced the Western way of life. The communists in Poland didn't like my father, they did not want these people there. So from the very beginning they were finding cases to murder them, to kill them, to put them in prison. For example, the top scoring ace of Polish air force fighting in battle of Britain, he was arrested very quickly after he returned to Poland and sentenced to death. His death sentence was commuted to life in prison. Then I think he was let go after 10 years in prison. Time of prison, Tamer? 15 years in prison. No, I don't remember how many years, but he spent few years in prison and on the death row too. He was lucky because many of those people were executed very often just outside the prison cell with the shot in the back of his neck. So that's what happened. And those are so these activist judges, you would never think, you would never think that something will ever happen to them. They were the masters of life and death for so many Poles. But the night 2024, I got the call to if I could come to Warsaw and testify in the case of one of such judges. It happened to be the same judge who sentenced also me to present time. So yes, I did, absolutely. So me and Rachel flew to Warsaw and the guy, the judge was charged with communist crimes, crimes against humanity, crimes against Polish nation and judicial terror, judicial terrorism. That's what they did, those activist judges. So it was surreal but also like bittersweet because when I walk in with my wife in this courtroom, you know, I had my American flag and I was like, you can't do anything to me anymore. But it's not. Poland is different now. Poland is very, how to say, they're law abiding citizens, they go by the law, but they want to protect themselves from totalitarian systems like communism, socialism, Nazism. They don't, Poles don't want it there, they experience it already. So there is actually constitution, a Polish constitution. I believe I forgot which point it is that prohibits promotion of totalitarian ideologies in Poland. You can't do it. So yeah, so I went to Warsaw and I testify against this judge. Although, you know, this guy, I don't know what age he is now, maybe like 8 years old. And it is, it was 40 years ago. So I would never cross, it would never cross my mind the judge who was sentencing me to prison time, he will be prosecuted for judicial terror. And he will be, I will be testifying in his case also. I learned that I was tortured. The beatings in prison, beatings from the police, I never considered a torture. I thought it just normal. This is how things works. You get caught, they will be beating you up. But now when testifying, that was classified actually as a torture. So that's something else that down on me when I went like a year ago, when I went year ago to Warsaw. So I asked also I testified in the court. My wife was there too, Rachel, and she was very proud of me. We both had the American flags, you know, sitting in this courtroom. But I asked for not putting this guy in prison. I appear, I ask judge to, you know, no matter what they're going to do, there is no need to put eight years men in prison. He asked me if I have some against this guy still, if I have some feelings and Some anger against this guy. And I say no. 40 years in America changed me. You know, I am different person than I used to be when I was. When I came to America. So, you know, forgiving. I think I learned too, in America, you know, if you can forgive somebody, you leave that hate or you leave that. That part, it become part of your life. Destroying your life. We just, you know, like following the God Jesus teachings, you know, you need to forget. You may disagree, you might not with the sinner, but you don't condemn the sinner, you condemn the sin. And that's what I ask, you know, condemn his. What he did. But as a human being, you know, in his age, really, there is no. I think there will be. There is no. I forgave him, so there's no need to put him in prison. So I don't know what happened. And I didn't follow up on it. I'm just like, for me, I learned how to forgive, and that's. America changed me.

[Sean Ryan]

A lot of people need to learn how to forgive.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

We know if you don't, that things go with you wherever you go, you don't leave as a free. Good man. Good man. Being free. You have this thing on the. On your shoulder. So if we can learn how to forget, how to forgive people. But how to forgive, I think we are better people. America made me a better person.

[Sean Ryan]

When you forgive, you free yourself.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yeah. You know, you also. You asked me about what I feel when I. I killed a guy. Oh, by the way, I was thinking about it too. This. I get so mixed up. The first guy that I killed was the guy in the car who following us. He was just. He just pulled from behind the corner. I was in the last car. It was so fast. Then as he was coming at the. You know, like, I was in. I think I was on 50, so I was on the last car. He pulled out next to that. He was coming to our right. And I see with the. Under the. With the flashlight, I mean, with the lights that we have, but also the street lights. There's a guy on the right sitting with the ak. Sitting with ak. So ed was like surreal. It's like, what is he thinking? I mean, we can just obliterate these guys. But anyway, so he started pulling in. My concern was that if he has. If this ID vbid, we can all get hurt. So I didn't think much. It was. She was. It was almost so close. I just pulled the pistol. I killed the guy in the. On the right seat with the gun, and I shot the driver. So they went to, they hit the, the light pole. The kind of funny things is like, so we're driving much of it. I said, okay, guys, gone. And I got a call from the front, from the oic, say hey, do I hear some shots being fired? What's going on guys? Everything is okay? I said, yeah, I just stopped the guy. He was just coming, he was, he was coming on us. So I stopped the car. He said, okay, no problem, no question asked because we are actually driving, I think from. No, we were driving to the mission. So yeah, we didn't want any interruption. Say, oh yeah, let's see what happened to this guy. There's no time for it. You just take care of the business and move on. So. Yeah, but the thing is, what you asked me earlier too, I was thinking about it, about that, the feelings of it. I was never like a feeling touchy guy. For me there was no. I say like I didn't feel anything. I didn't because I was thinking about it. I see myself more as a technical person. So for me the dwelling on it was more like, what could I do better? How could I kill him better? More efficient way. Not like, oh my God, he's dead. Now that you know. My priority was always life, American citizens, the well being of America. Any foreign entity has no value to me, I must say. No value. It comes second, you know, like I'm not so eloquent. But yeah, the American life will come before any foreign life. Number one priority is number one priority. America and American citizens.

[Sean Ryan]

Well, Drago, thank you again for coming back and setting that record straight and being open and vulnerable and you know, it'll act for a better words or better. It'll act for better words. You know, setting humility aside for the, for the full story. I really appreciate it.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Yeah, it was kind of difficult. Again, like I said, we're talking about these often and people watch all these movies, they stop seeing as a human beings. They see us more like the just part of that machine that if you just broke and something happens, you just bring another one. You, you people, some people almost expect you to be hurt and replace with somebody else. So that's something that maybe I don't like people to see. This is why like I don't wear the trident. I already mentioned about it earlier, I wear American flag because American flag encompasses the trident and everything that is good. And I want, when people see me to think about me as American and not the Navy seals. I'm no longer Navy SEAL now, of course, you know, I lived that life for 20 years. I loved it. But now I am just American. There's no hyphen in front of this American.

[Sean Ryan]

Thank you.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Thank you. NBA veteran Jim Jackson takes you on the court. You get a chance to dig into my 14 year career in the NBA, but also get the input from the people that will be joining. Charles Barkley. I'm excited to be on your podcast, man.

[Sean Ryan]

It's an honor.

[Thomas Drago Jaran]

Spike Lee, entrepreneur, filmmaker, Academy Award winner, Nixon. Now you see, I got you. But also how sports, brings life, passion, music, all of this together. The Jim Jackson show, part of the Rich Eisen Podcast Network. Follow and listen on your favorite platform.