#298 Jason Magnavice - SEAL Team 6 Red Squadron Operator

Summary

The Shawn Ryan Show #298: Jason Magnavice – SEAL Team 6 Red Squadron Operator

Podcast: The Shawn Ryan Show
Host: Shawn Ryan
Guest: Jason “JMags” Magnavice
Date: April 23, 2026
Duration: ~2 hours (main content summarized; advertisements omitted)

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Episode Overview

This episode features Jason Magnavice, a 26-year Navy SEAL veteran, who served with SEAL Team 2 and the legendary SEAL Team 6 (DEVGRU/Red Squadron). Jason shares a candid, wide-ranging account of his life, career, leadership lessons, the realities of special operations, the toll of war on families, and his post-military journey.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Early Life, Family, and Inspiration

• Growing up in Waterbury, Connecticut:
  Jason describes a childhood of outdoor adventure, sports, and strong familial bonds influenced by a Jehovah’s Witness mother and a Vietnam veteran father.
  “My grandfather...would take me hiking all the time, point out poison ivy, and show me how to make little spears with a folding knife.” (13:41)

• Religious Upbringing and Influence:
  Raised Jehovah’s Witness, Jason reflects on the community’s strict customs and impact on family life:
  “It’s rough growing up as a Jehovah’s Witness. Going to church three times a week...wearing a suit all the time. Don’t celebrate any holidays.” (15:19)

• Inspiration to Join the SEALs:

  • Early fascination sparked by watching First Blood and hearing about UDTS/SEALS from his father.
  • “I wanted to be a SEAL since I was 10...that image you get in your head at 10 years old...leaves a big mark on your brain.” (27:49)

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2. Path to the SEAL Teams

• Enlistment & Training:

  • Joined Navy after high school; initial resistance from parents.
  • Survived BUD/S by embracing the mental game:
    “BUD/S pissed me off...I never thought about quitting, I was just mad all the time...If you get past the PST, stay healthy and deal with the mind games, you’ll be fine.” (30:16; 31:24)

• SEAL Team 2 & Hazing Culture:

  • Eight years at Team 2, including early deployments to Bosnia, Kosovo, and Norway.
  • Describes “old school” hazing and camaraderie:
    “You’re smart if you sneak out when you get secured on Friday...There was a keg in the locker room...You do not want to be a new guy hanging around.” (40:06)

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3. Leadership & Philosophy

• Defining Leadership Moments:

  • Strongly influenced by respected leaders, especially one nicknamed “Crazy Horse.”
    “He was a humble guy...He wasn’t afraid to ask a question, to delegate to people better at certain things; that’s what really made me respect leadership.” (10:21)
  • Cautions that arrogance can poison special units, as he observed in early DEVGRU.

• Advice to Young Operators:

  • “The biggest thing is not letting your teammates down...Brotherhood, you definitely see from the beginning once you’re in.” (52:00)
  • “Compartmentalize. Keep busy. If you dwell on it, it does you no good.” (106:33)

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4. DEVGRU: Green Team, 9/11, and Early Deployments

• Green Team (DEVGRU selection):

  • More cerebral and skills-focused than BUD/S; much higher emphasis on safety and advanced tactics.
  • “You can’t go one degree off heading when you exit the plane...the biggest thing is safety violations get people shaken from there.” (67:19)

• September 11, 2001—The Turning Point:

  • Jason completed Green Team as 9/11 unfolded.
  • The unit was immediately tasked for global operations:
    “We were walking across the compound when the first plane hit. Our skipper called a meeting...and it was exciting. We knew shit’s about to get real.” (69:09)

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5. Afghanistan, Operation Anaconda, and Kinetic Combat

• First Combat Deployments:

  • Describes living out of a backpack, eating MREs, and being loaned out as an assault/sniper team just before Operation Anaconda (Roberts Ridge, March 2002).
  • “We were on the bridge, calling in CAS for a week...when Neil Roberts and Fifi Chappie were lost.” (72:21)
  • First time calling in lethal airstrikes:
    “It felt successful. It felt good. It was just work—what it’s about.” (77:32)

• Impact of Combat Loss:

  • The shock of losing teammates, especially in high-profile events, forced new realities for families and the command:
    “Our command didn’t know how to deal with that...when we got out of the field, our comm guy threw us two iridium phones, ‘Call home now.’ The wife network is losing their mind.” (78:02)
  • Compartmentalization as a survival mechanism.

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6. Iraq & High-Tempo Special Operations

• “The type of ops every team guy wanted”:

  • Four deployments to Iraq with Red Squadron (2003–2004 onward).
  • Describes nightly raids, direct action missions, and the intensity of joint operations with other U.S. SOF units. “Just going after bad dudes from all over. Some nights one target, some nights five—depending on what intel came off previous ones.” (87:48)

• Close Combat and Its Aftermath:

  • Vivid stories of rooftop firefights, ambushes, and life-and-death split-second decisions.
  • On his first kill:
    “You compartmentalize that too. You’re covering your guys, protecting them. You just don’t think about the action you just did.” (89:59)

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7. The Toll of War: Family, Divorce, and Mental Health

• Family Strain:

  • Marriage impacted by operational tempo, compartmentalization, and changes noticed by his wife post-deployment.
  • “Me being gone, and just...my wife said when I got back from Afghanistan, something changed. I was still me...but she saw a side that changed.” (100:12)

• Divorce as a "Team Guy Statistic":

  • “90% success rate at getting divorced.” (99:22)

• Mental Health & Coping:

  • Admits to some TBI but attributes survival to keeping busy:
    “I like shooting, cars, motorcycles. When I got back from Afghanistan, I rebuilt a ’93 Mustang...that’s how I dealt with it.” (106:33)
  • “A stagnant mind is not something that’s good.” (107:00)

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8. Transition to Pilot and Civilian Life

• Navy’s Aviation Unit:

  • Selected for DEVGRU’s small aviation detachment.
  • “It was a great skill...not a great place to go back then; you didn’t want to be flying in the States while your buddies were out doing work overseas.” (96:52)
  • Ferried gear, weapons, and occasionally supported sensitive ops stateside.

• Becoming a Civilian Pilot:

  • After retiring in 2019, stepped into private aviation—flying Gulfstreams and other aircraft.
  • “I was ready at that time...I have a replaced shoulder, my knee, my back’s jacked up...it took a toll, mentally and physically.” (117:07)

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9. Reflection on Legacy and Current Life

• Leadership and Peer Bonds:

  • “I miss the boys. I miss the fellas. But when I really think, do I miss it that much? Not really. I miss the cool things, but I was ready.” (117:07)

• Grandfatherhood:

  • “I don’t see them as often, but when I do, it’s cool...I spoil them when I see them.” (120:04)

• No Book, No Social Media:

  • “Nothing to sell. Did I write that?” (03:49)
  • Chose privacy and personal integrity over public fame.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “BUD/S pissed me off...I never thought about quitting, I was just mad all the time.” (30:16)
• “I was raised Jehovah’s Witness—three times a week at the Kingdom Hall, suit and tie, no holidays.” (15:19)
• “You miss the biggest thing when you leave: the boys.” (60:16)
• “The biggest threat on the battlefield now: drones. It’s a whole different battlefield.” (45:06)
• “After losing Neil (Roberts), the network of wives back home lost their minds—command learned a lot about how to communicate.” (78:02)
• “Compartmentalize. You can’t let that distraction get in your way, or you’ll let your boys down.” (88:57)
• “A stagnant mind is not something that's good.” (107:00)
• “I miss the boys. I miss the fellas. But, do I really miss it that much? Not really.” (117:07)

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Important Timestamps

• Early life, family roots: 13:23–17:00
• Leadership. “Crazy Horse” lesson: 10:21
• DEVGRU Green Team, 9/11 response: 63:22–69:53
• Operation Anaconda/Roberts Ridge: 72:21–78:02
• Reflections on killing & war: 89:30–90:34
• Mental health & coping post-war: 105:49–107:00
• Transition to pilot/civilian life: 116:21–117:07

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Additional Insights

• On changing warfare:
  Jason is notably impressed and concerned by the rapid development and proliferation of drones in modern conflict, especially as seen in Ukraine (42:04–46:10).

• On humility and candidness:
  Jason is approachable, honest, and occasionally self-deprecating—a refreshing break from action-hero narratives.

• On mentorship and legacy:
  Enjoyed giving back as a SEAL recruiter and takes pride in supporting the next generation, though critical of flaws in the system.

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Conclusion

This episode offers a frank, grounded, and deeply human portrait of a Navy SEAL’s journey—from impressionable youth, through elite special missions, to the bittersweet peace (and challenges) of civilian life. Jason’s insights on leadership, the reality of combat, and long-term sacrifice provide invaluable perspective for veterans, service-minded civilians, and anyone interested in the untold realities behind the SEAL mystique.

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(End of summary)

Transcript

[Sean Ryan]

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[Jason Magnavice]

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[Jason Magnavice]

And when it's go time, your 11.3-inch

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[Bethenny Frankel]

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[Sean Ryan]

Have you seen this show before?

[Jason Magnavice]

Yes, I watched one of this.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Oh, okay.

[Jason Magnavice]

Your buddies DJ.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

You watch DJs?

[Jason Magnavice]

Well, I knew DJ when he was a kid.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah, I saw that.

[Jason Magnavice]

I did a freaking. I did a platoon with his dad. He was my. His dad was actually my platoon Chief. I knew DJ when he was 13 or 14 just to go hang out with his parents. They'd always, you know, they have a big deer roast. You know, we'd go hunting and eat some venison, tell stories. His dad was one of the most incredible storytellers. Very still is animated, huh?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Still is, right?

[Sean Ryan]

You still talk to him?

[Jason Magnavice]

No.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

No. Are you buddies with dj?

[Jason Magnavice]

Dj? I shoot him a text every now and then. Like, I went to Virginia beach about a year ago to go through a. Like, a workout program there. Vhb, it's called Very. It's an awesome program. And then we were going to link up then, but our schedules didn't ever seem to. All right, on to add up.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Right on.

[Sean Ryan]

Well, let me start you off.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

With an introduction. You ready?

[Jason Magnavice]

I'm ready.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

All right.

[Sean Ryan]

Jason Magnavice, JMAGs retired Navy SEAL with over 26 years in the community. Eight years at SEAL Team 2. 15 years years at JSOC, Joint Special Operations Command Dev Group which led to earning your airline transport pilot certificate and

[Co-host/Interviewer]

numerous FAA aviation qualifications.

[Sean Ryan]

Served as a tactical communicator, sniper lead jumper and team leader. Completed four deployments to Operation Enduring Freedom. Completed four deployments to Operation Iraqi Freedom. Closed out your career as the coordinator

[Co-host/Interviewer]

for recruiting candidates for naval special warfare.

[Sean Ryan]

Senior listed advisor for the only enlisted aviat aviation unit unit in the Department of Defense. Currently an airline pilot flying a Gulf stream for a private family. Holding a 6767 type rating at a major freight carrier. Raised with a Jehovah witness mother and a Vietnam vet father. Most importantly, you are the father of one daughter and the grandfather of two boys.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

No social media, no book, nothing to sell.

[Jason Magnavice]

Nothing to sell. Did I write that? I did, right?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah, I found that out.

[Sean Ryan]

But. But. Well, since you're new to media, I

[Co-host/Interviewer]

thought we'd kick it off with something real easy. Thank you.

[Sean Ryan]

Super easy to talk about everyday.

[Jason Magnavice]

Carry me. I got a 365 Legion AXG.

[Sean Ryan]

You got a 365 Legion?

[Jason Magnavice]

Yes.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Nice. Nice. What do you carry? What else do you carry?

[Jason Magnavice]

Actually I just picked up a staccato

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Nice two days ago. Nice.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

You like it?

[Jason Magnavice]

It's a little Gucci, you know what I mean? But it's. It shoots like a dream. It's heavy. It's an xc but it was one made our community actually got. It's got like little bone frog on the side American flag on it. That's kind of why. And it got a pretty good deal for a staccato.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Nice.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah, it's a. It's a cool gun.

[Sean Ryan]

So what would you carry?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

What would you carry when you were a pilot in the development group?

[Jason Magnavice]

Nothing.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Nothing.

[Jason Magnavice]

Oh no, we. We flew pretty much in the States. That's pretty much it. Yeah. Flying our bosses around, gear to and from, you know, certain places. That's pretty much it. Yeah. We didn't carry no firearms.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Right on. What would you carry if you were doing some Blow pro stuff over a dev group? Talk about pistol.

[Sean Ryan]

What's in your go bag?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Any cool devices you may have had?

[Jason Magnavice]

We pretty much carried the 226 back then before they transit in the big. The. The H A k. Was it Mark 21? The 45. Holy.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

You guys were using those?

[Jason Magnavice]

A couple. A couple guys carried Them? Yeah, just for the suppressed value of some of them. In a Ruger Mark III, I've got a Mark IV. But we carry the one, the self suppressed Ruger to.22 self with a little hush puppy. Yeah, for shooting out street lights and stuff like that.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Nice, nice. Anything else? What kind of medical.

[Jason Magnavice]

Let's block it. That's it. We had PJs that did all that stuff.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

What kind of long rifle were you using?

[Jason Magnavice]

We. I had a SR25K. I like the 308. It was a shorter SR. 25 and 300 win mag. Was like the laser beam back then. And now everybody I know is shooting 6, 5 Creedmoor. All that other stuff and.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah. What's your favorite round?

[Jason Magnavice]

I like 308 and 300 win mag.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

You like 308? 300. Do you like 300 blackout?

[Jason Magnavice]

I got a Daniel offense PDW actually. That's pretty sweet.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah, no shit.

[Jason Magnavice]

But every time you squeeze off it's like there's five bucks. Five bucks, five bucks, five bucks. You know what I mean?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

Well, I got you a present.

[Jason Magnavice]

Would you give me.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Do you want to see it?

[Jason Magnavice]

Sure.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

All right.

[Sean Ryan]

It's a bag of Gummy bears. Vigilance League Gummy Bears. See, I do have shit to sell

[Jason Magnavice]

like Gummy bears, but.

[Sean Ryan]

But that's a bag of Vigilance League Gummy Bears. Made in the USA, legal in all 50 states. So you can fly home.

[Jason Magnavice]

Am I going to pop positive if I take these with anything?

[Sean Ryan]

You might pop positive for sugar and red dye and that's about it. And I did get you one other present too. Since we're talking about weapons and.

[Jason Magnavice]

Oh yeah. This is a story behind guns and everyday carry. Oh no way.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah, man. Have you seen these?

[Sean Ryan]

This is that a signal for.

[Jason Magnavice]

Rather. This is.

[Sean Ryan]

No, this is.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

This is.

[Sean Ryan]

This came out after the Rattler.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

This is better than the Rattler. My.

[Sean Ryan]

My opinion, but this is the Sig MCX spear. And so this is. They're replacing all of the.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Supposedly they're replacing all the military rifles with a 6.5. Excuse me? Yeah, six point shit. Now there's so many rounds coming out I can't fucking keep Track. It's either 6.5 or 6.8.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah, you start talking, start talking guns.

[Sean Ryan]

But. But this one. So they got a 556 version, a

[Co-host/Interviewer]

300 blackout version and a 6 point

[Sean Ryan]

whatever version and they put their new optics on the top of them for you.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

This is like. You can't even get these yet. Barely. And then.

[Sean Ryan]

Are you Familiar with Silencer Shop?

[Jason Magnavice]

Yes, I just. I just picked up a couple hux rich cans, a 556 and a 308.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

No.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

Well, Sig was ecstatic that you were

[Co-host/Interviewer]

coming on the show. I told Jason. I got a buddy over there, Jason, he runs the marketing over there, and he was there.

[Jason Magnavice]

It's a great place. They're a great company.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Have you been out there?

[Jason Magnavice]

Yes, we went out there for an event for the foundation.

[Sean Ryan]

Oh, nice.

[Jason Magnavice]

Like two Octobers ago. Yeah, it was. It was a good time. A lot of good people at that place. A lot of good people.

[Sean Ryan]

Nice. Well, and then Silencer Shop.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

There you go. Silencer Shop got word that you were coming on.

[Sean Ryan]

And, you know, I don't know, I guess you'd already have experience with them, but, you know, you put in, once

[Co-host/Interviewer]

you get signed up with them, they make it super easy. They do all the paperwork for you. You go to a gun shop that's got Silencer Shop kiosks in there, and it just makes it super simple. And then the other thing they do is they also fight for basically gun rights, you know, especially obviously, suppressors. So awesome company. But told them you were coming on, too, and they wanted to throw a can on there. So that's yours.

[Jason Magnavice]

I'm extremely honored.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Have fun.

[Jason Magnavice]

Thank you very much. I will. I will. We got a little. A little place lampas in Texas that we do some blinking at.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Nice.

[Sean Ryan]

Nice.

[Jason Magnavice]

Try to eradicate the hog population out there because they get out of control.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

I hear that could be pretty challenging.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yes, but from a helicopter, it's entertaining.

[Sean Ryan]

Nice. Well, maybe we'll break that in later.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

We got a range out back, so

[Jason Magnavice]

thank you very much. You're welcome. Thank you.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

You're welcome.

[Sean Ryan]

And then one more thing to crank

[Co-host/Interviewer]

out before we get into the. To the real interview. So I have a Patreon account, and it's a community that we've built. And so they're the reason that I get to be here with you today and do these interviews.

[Sean Ryan]

So they get the opportunity to ask every single guest a question. And this is from Rex Herman. What was the moment in your career that changed the way you think about leadership the most?

[Jason Magnavice]

The moment when. Well, I've worked for some incredible people, enlisted guys, and like, when I first got to the command, I'll just call this guy Crazy Horse. He was one of the best leaders I ever worked for. You know, a humble guy that didn't think he knew everything all the time. And if he had any. Any questions, that's like who I wanted to be. Like, we respected him. He was a hard worker. He led by example. But he wasn't hard headed. Right. He was just, hey, if he had a que. He wasn't afraid to ask a question. He wasn't afraid to delegate. Other people that he knew were better at certain things that he wasn't. And that's what, what really made me respect leadership a lot from him.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Right on.

[Jason Magnavice]

And a few other people.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

What date, what year did you get to the command?

[Jason Magnavice]

2001.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Holy.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

And you left in 2019.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

I think you told me before we started.

[Jason Magnavice]

16.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

2016. Holy shit.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

15 fucking years over there.

[Jason Magnavice]

I went over there for a break too.

[Sean Ryan]

I, I saw that, I saw that in your outline. You wanted a break and then decided to scream for dev group pre 9 11.

[Jason Magnavice]

I wanted a break. I was tired of doing 6 month deployments when I was a little creek. And I did winter warfare platoons too. So it was a long workup. You know, some of the deployments were over six months, six, seven months. And my daughter was born what year? 97. And I was gone a lot and we weren't really working that much. A little stuff in Bosnia, Kosovo. That's pretty much. Yeah, that was our work schedule back then. I'm like, hey hon, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna screen for date because a bunch of my buddies are going over there too. A whole bunch of my buddies from two are going over there. Like I'm gonna screen. And some of the guys are, you know, pretty set in their ways that want. That are like team two, you know what I mean? They were, some didn't want to go over there. They didn't want to go through the challenge of the selection process again. And I could get it, I could understand it. So some of them were trying to talk me out of it, but I'm like, nah, dude, I'm not gonna be home. You know what I mean? I'll be home for three months at a time.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

You thought you were at home.

[Jason Magnavice]

This is. I got out of the selection process green team in September of 2001.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Holy.

[Jason Magnavice]

And I remember walking across the compound when we were talking about the planes hitting the towers. And the first thought was, man, ATC must have screwed that up. Then when the second one hit the tower. Yeah, we, they took our whole class into a briefing room. Our skipper came in, gave us the brief and we're like, oh boy. Excited. Yeah, excited because we knew we're going to be busy. But you know, the families it took a. The families were like, our guys are going to be gone for. For quite a bit.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

And we were damn, man. We were damn.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yep.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Well, I know you've had one hell of a career, but let's start prior to the career. All right. Where'd you grow up?

[Jason Magnavice]

Waterbury, Connecticut.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

What were you into?

[Jason Magnavice]

I was into bikes, baseball and football pretty much that's it. Yeah.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

What about when you were littler?

[Sean Ryan]

Anytime in the woods?

[Jason Magnavice]

Oh, yeah. Well, my grandfather. So that's. Yeah. Getting back to the. Yeah. By the way, I got a gift for you. We'll get that down the road, but, yeah. My grandfather taught my mom's dad. He was a Korean War guy. He from Kentucky. Big backwoods guy. He taught me. We'd go hiking all the time where we used to live by a reservoir in Waterbury, Connecticut. Yeah. He'd take me on hikes, point out, like, poison ivy, poison oak. Showed me how to make little spears with his little folding knife. And then we climbed this mountain. He called it Jason's Mountain. Yeah, it was pretty good upbringing, Me. And my dad also taught me a lot growing up. He was kind of a stickler for baseball and football and pretty stern when it came to that stuff, too.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Oh, really? Serious.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah. Right on.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yep. What did your dad do?

[Jason Magnavice]

My dad, he worked. Well, when he got out of the Navy, he started. He worked for a cargo company as a supervisor for transportation, and then he actually retired from the state of Connecticut working as a transportation supervisor for the state.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

What about your mom?

[Jason Magnavice]

She pretty much stay home mom or most of her life. I got a sister I'm four years older than and a brother I'm ten years older than.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Okay, so you're the oldest?

[Jason Magnavice]

Yes.

[Sean Ryan]

And your mom was a.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Is. Is or was. Was Jehovah's Witness. Yes, we have. We have a prior Jehovah's Witness working here.

[Jason Magnavice]

Great people, aren't they?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah. Awesome human being. He's editing the show right now, but

[Jason Magnavice]

is he still boy?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

He's got some stories.

[Jason Magnavice]

Oh, yeah, it's rough. It's rough growing up as a kid, being a Jehovah's Witness.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

They stole his kid from him. They did, yeah. Yeah. Well, I guess I can't say they stole his kid from him, but they. It's a. It's a custody battle. And, like, the whole. They're all going against him. It's wild.

[Jason Magnavice]

The religion did. Yeah. Really?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah. Well, I'm sure I'll tell you about it after.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah. That's crazy.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

You had a good experience.

[Jason Magnavice]

No, It's hard to explain. So my mom had me when she was. This is a funny story. My dad got drafted. He was 20.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Your dad got drafted?

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah, he got drafted. He was supposed to go to pbr. Then he volunteered for submarines because it was also sub trainings in Groton, Connecticut to this at the sub base there. So it's convenient. And before he got. Yeah. So my parents are married in May and my mom was Little Miss Goody. Awesome. I love her to death. Little Miss Goody Two shoe. I'm like my. You. You were born on say a certain date in October and my birthdays two weeks later. So she turned 18 and I was born two weeks later. Wow. Yeah, they're still married. Wow.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah, that's cool.

[Jason Magnavice]

But when my dad was deployed, you know, and some of his sub trips and stuff like that, Jehovah's Witnesses, you know, they go door to door on Saturdays or throughout the week. And they kind of pulled her into it and because she was probably pretty easy to influence her to have, you know, like a congregation of people like minded. And they do got their great. They're incredible human beings for the most part. You know, everybody's got their.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

I can't argue that apple. Everyone I've met, they've been super nice.

[Jason Magnavice]

But then, you know, going to church three times a week or the Kingdom hall, that's what they call, you know, the. The church where they go having to wear a suit, which I still to this day, I don't like wearing a suit. Get dressed up in a little suit, little tie. Go to Bible study once a week, like a Tuesday nights, you go to church Wednesday, Sunday, for an hour and a half. Yeah, it was. Oh, and you don't celebrate any holidays?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

That's what I was gonna. You don't celebrate birthday, Christmas, anything.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah. But if you dig deep into. Hey, I'm not promoting them. I'm not sending anything. But they do. Like when you go to a normal church, you have your pastor or priest up there, right. They just talk off the cuff. They just give you, you know, with a lot of their knowledge, which I think they gain internally as themselves.

[Sean Ryan]

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[Co-host/Interviewer]

See you later. Building. What do you think, Sean?

[Sean Ryan]

We're high.

[Jason Magnavice]

Jehovah's Witnesses. All they do is read from the Bible. That's it. You know, from Genesis, Revelation. Their viewpoints are pretty good. Why you know celebrate certain holidays. Yeah, it makes sense. But it's tough when you're a kid. You know, all your buddies are celebrating.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Why don't they celebrate?

[Jason Magnavice]

How does it make sense? There's a reason in the Bible for like start off with Halloween. Right. That's obviously a pretty evil.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah, that's a holiday.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah. Satanic Christmas. Jesus was born December 25th. Historians know that. Right. So. But it's just convenience. I think holidays of convenience. Easter. Which I heard. Did you have a conversation with somebody talking about this? The weird star alignment that's gonna be happening in a couple weeks?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah. Woody. Oh, you know what?

[Sean Ryan]

You know you.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

How do you know about that?

[Jason Magnavice]

Did you watch that episode I got crazy family member. No. Somebody. My mom. My mother in law sent me that. I think my mother in law sent me that.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

No shit.

[Jason Magnavice]

Because she's into the. Yeah, she's really like off the cuff stuff. I'm like, ma, you gotta calm down with this stuff. She reads some, sends us some stuff like here we go. The banks are all gonna explode. This is gonna happen. You know what I mean?

[Sean Ryan]

Like that sounds like here.

[Jason Magnavice]

That's why I try to stay away from it. I just try to do my own thing. You know what I mean? To stay busy. But yeah. Get getting back to the holidays. Yeah. Easter, Christmas.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

This guy.

[Sean Ryan]

Let's.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

So. Yeah. What you're talking about. This guy said the second comings happen in Easter 2026. So I'm excited.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah, we'll see what happens.

[Jason Magnavice]

You got to be ready for it. About a week away any day and getting.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

I'm ready.

[Jason Magnavice]

And getting back to that religion. Getting back to the Jehovah's Witnesses. Man, did they believe in. You know Armageddon is going to eventually happen. All outlining revelations, all the, all the you see going on in the world right now. S. God is like. It's what it says. You know what I mean? People just take it for granted. Oh, just ho home. You know what I mean? It's starting in Iran. Yeah. It's kind of. There's certain signs.

[Sean Ryan]

It's wild.

[Jason Magnavice]

But you got to have. Hey, you got to have faith. You know what I mean? And be ready for it. That's the big thing.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah. What, what, what got your mom out of it? When did she leave?

[Jason Magnavice]

When I joined the military.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Really?

[Jason Magnavice]

I'll get back. Yeah. So I graduated High School 17 and I couldn't. They wouldn't. My parents wanted to sign a waiver for me. My dad wanted me to go in as an officer. So he's like, Jay, give me a year of college. And I hated school. Like I told getting back to the store, I wanted to be a SEAL since I was 10. Like 1982 when I saw the first Rambo movie.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Nice.

[Jason Magnavice]

But yeah, when I joined the military, she stopped going to the Kingdom hall, stopped going to church and she kind of let it. And then my sister had kids and then. Oh, they started celebrating Christmas and everything. Yes.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Is your dad a Christian?

[Jason Magnavice]

He's proud of. He was raised Protestant, but yeah, he believes in God, but really non denominational, I guess.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Gotcha. So he, he, he grew up celebrating Christmas?

[Jason Magnavice]

Yes.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

And then you guys did not celebrate anything?

[Jason Magnavice]

Yep. He just went along for the ride to keep my mom happy. Yeah.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Do you celebrate Christmas now?

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah, yeah, I do. Yes, I do.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Man, that's crazy. That's just weird to me.

[Jason Magnavice]

It's weird. And then just.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Jason Magnavice]

You know, everybody talking about yeah, growing. It's a weird. Hey. But they have like. Hey, they stand behind their faith. You know what I mean? They really, they're really sticklers for it. Go door to door spreading the word. It's. I've let him in all the time when I was in Virginia Beach. I don't see them too much in host. I don't see many going door to door there. But yeah, let him in and talk with them, you know. And Give them my viewpoints. And like when they don't believe in really serving, you know, a particular government or country, they believe you should just serve God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, all that.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

You're making this sound really good, huh?

[Jason Magnavice]

It's no. If there was one true. Yeah, I think that's one of the truest because I've been around at all. I've heard it all from Catholicism to. Are you any denomination?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

I guess I, I consider myself Catholic.

[Jason Magnavice]

Okay.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

I consider myself Catholic. But I bounce back and forth between that and non denominational because. And I'll tell you why I think that the Catholics have the spiritual warfare stuff down better than anybody else. I think they really understand what's going on, you know, in the other realm.

[Jason Magnavice]

And.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

But I think that the Catholics don't do the best job of teaching about the life of Jesus and the Bible and non denominational churches do a much, much better job of it. And so, you know, I grew up Catholic and then left right around when I joined the SEAL teams. Didn't come back to Christianity for

[Sean Ryan]

I

[Co-host/Interviewer]

guess I found faith about two, three years ago and and so really dove into the non denominational stuff to learn about Christ and the Bible and all that stuff. And then actually through the show interviewing all these exorcists and, and stuff like that, it kind of got me back into. I'm really interested in spiritual warfare in that realm.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah, there's a whole different. Yeah, there's definitely a whole different realm I believe in too. Definitely.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Jason Magnavice]

But like my first time going to Italy, like I walked in the Vatican, I was like, this place is pretty cool. But it's very materialistic. Right, Very materialistic. Which a lot of stuff in the

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Bible sounds a lot like the Pharisees.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yes.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah, I'm with you.

[Sean Ryan]

I totally.

[Jason Magnavice]

And then how do you. In celibacy, I'm like, is it really say anywhere in the Bible to be. I mean God wouldn't have made a woman for out of his own image that he created. He wouldn't made it.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Jason Magnavice]

He wouldn't have brought even right if.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Jason Magnavice]

Down the road you got to be. Hey, you got to be celibate. You can't procreate. It makes. And I'm not too sure the real reason behind it. I've heard a bunch of theories about keeping, you know, certain sex of the. The Catholic Church within each other. You know, I'm not too sure how. Where that really came from.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

I don't know either.

[Jason Magnavice]

But it's just weird. Yeah, it's once again like you said, I think you just got to have faith in whatever you believe in. Because there's some weird. Yeah, I mean, there's some weird stuff going on.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

There's definitely some weird shit going on in the world, but. So you wanted to be a SEAL? Since 11 years old. Spent a lot of time out in the woods carving spears, making weapons.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah. Well, my dad. That's why I brought this for you. It's a movie prop, but I saw the first Rambo at 10. Jehovah's Witness kid my dad takes me to see because he heard about this movie at work or something. He takes me to see First Blood, right. Rated our movie 1982. 83 came out, I think 82. And I was like, holy cow. I'm like, that is. I mean, that image you get in your head at 10 years old, too. Like that just being in the woods. The freaking blade that he had. You know what I mean? This ain't the Jimmy Lyle one. Jimmy Lyle made dark. I saw Knife Smith. He passed away a while ago. But I was intrigued. And my dad's like, yeah, Green Berets, like they say in a movie or then or somebody. Those guys are real badasses. My dad's like, I worked with, you know, these guys called, you know, udts and seals back in the South China Sea and submarines. He did a couple. A few things with them. And I always loved the water, too. And, you know, that image of coming out of the water with. Oh, yeah, you know, all kitted up. It's. When you're impressionable at that age, it's. It leaves a big mark on your brain.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

And.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah, when I was in middle school, like, Jay, what do you want to do when you grow? I want to join the Navy. I want to. Nobody knew in the 80s what the freak of Seal was to, like 1990 when. Well, when Marcinko wrote the book Rogue Warrior or whatever. And then in 1990 when the seals movie came out with Charlie Sheen or whatever, and I thought that was pretty cool. Like, again, I was impressionable. 17 years old and. Yep. When I wanted to be a team guy, since, yeah, I was a young kid.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Damn.

[Jason Magnavice]

But I couldn't. I graduated high school, my dad wouldn't sign a waiver for me. Like I said, I was 17. No, I want you to go and be an officer. No, it's not. I don't like college. You know, I didn't like school at that time. And I turned 18 and joined. Back then. It was on delayed entry program. I was talking to my recruiter the whole time I was in college. And he's like the one recruiter that didn't lie to you. Right? Like they always say recruiters, bullshit. And he was a quartermaster rating on the submarine. And back then they had the dive fairer program, which you join, but as a non rate. You go to boot camp, pass a screening test, go to buds, and then if you fail, if you make it through, you get a rating. But if you don't make it through buds, it's not like nowadays where you could say, I'm emotionally distraught. And they let you out of the Navy if you didn't go to buds, you're like, chipping paint and, you know, swabbing decks as a non rate in a fleet, which is not good. And my recruiters, like, Jay, the odds of you making it through BUDS are very small. He goes, you're going to want to have. If it falls through, you're going to want to have a good rate in the Navy. So I'm a qm. It's a pretty decent rate. And I just think I wanted the shortest A school, you know, the shortest school you go to for rating. And back then I think it was Singleman was three weeks and QM was six weeks. So, yep, sign me up and. Yeah, boot camp, base school in Orlando, then straight to buds.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Right on. What'd you think of buds? Hold on, let me back up. What did your parents think when you got in?

[Jason Magnavice]

I. I didn't think. They thought that I would make it through buds, but that was a great thing. When it came to graduation, they. They weren't happy. They weren't happy, but they knew I wanted to do it. And when I. Yeah, when I turned 18, I mean, I signed the line. Yep, Right on.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

They got over it, though.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah. Yeah, they did. Yeah.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

So what did you think of buds? You get there?

[Jason Magnavice]

Well, hindsight's always 2020 when it comes to buds, right? I got there in the.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

You're 18, right?

[Jason Magnavice]

Yep. Just get ready to turn 19. And I got there in August, right, when a bunch of. We had like 12 officers in our BUDS class, mostly all academy guys. We had two Air Force Academy guys, too. It was a good group of dudes, hard chargers, you know what I mean? And. But back then, you're just young and dumb, man. You just. BUDS pissed me off while I was there. Like, I never thought about quitting. I was just mad all the time, going through buds, jogging into the compound. We first got there, yelling, getting step. Everybody getting like, dude, shut the. They're gonna drop A drop. I told you. Stop. We getting yelled at by not only our own. Our own O's, but by the instructors of buds, like constantly. But it was. It's a big mind game, like they say. Like when I was doing the coordinator thing out of San Antonio, kids would ask, what's the. I'm like, dude, it's a, it's. If you get past the PST and just stay healthy, you know, and deal with the mind games and buds, you're going to be fine.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah. As you know, it's a big, a lot of. A lot of mind games.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Did you have any hang ups?

[Jason Magnavice]

No, nothing when we got to the. What's that stuff? Guys who get tbi. The side of their knee, whatever. Not tbi.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Oh yeah,

[Jason Magnavice]

that little tendon. I always thought it was until I got to San Clemente island and I could barely bend my, my leg. But yeah, I made it. Ended up gutting it through. But no, I forget what it's called. Yeah, your tibial band. Yeah, something like that. But yeah, that was the one time I really got freaking. Pretty much, I guess you'd say, hung up.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

That's it though.

[Jason Magnavice]

Time runs a couple times in the old course.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yep.

[Jason Magnavice]

I remember getting hammered once for that. Trying to taunt him, the rope swing instructor yelling at me. I, I said a really bad word to him and sure enough, he had duty that night in the grinder and like the whole 1008 count. Bodybuilders. Just the mental part too. Just staying healthy was, was the key. Being smart, you know what I mean? And not doing anything like stupid or. Yeah, staying healthy was the biggest in being cold, wet and sandy all the time. You just got to get used to it. You got it.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

What did you, what did your parents think when you hit graduation?

[Jason Magnavice]

They were proud. Yeah, my parents never fly either. Their home bodies, they. They don't fly anywhere. And they flew out to Cal, to California, to San Diego, came out to Coronado. Yeah, they were proud still. Yeah, I gotta find some of those pictures. Back then, before the digital times, how did that feel?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Totally against you joining the military.

[Jason Magnavice]

But then I was, I was happy that they were happy that, you know, I actually made it through. And I got pretty fortunate with the same class. But then we had to go to jump school right after that, airborne and that was freaking. Throwing a bunch of gung ho, young Navy dudes into a pretty regimented army school in Fort Benning. We got in a lot of trouble there. We got a couple guys got sent back to the. But back then it was like, all right, we'll send you back and in a couple weeks.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

What'd you get sent back for? When we went.

[Jason Magnavice]

I didn't get sent back. A couple of my buddies did for just. Yeah. Running in formation. With each. Running around the formation, we jump into freaking water before we did a pst. Just being, you know, cocky. Yeah. It's kind of. You look back at it now and you're. It's kind of like. Yeah, we were pretty dumb.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah, we. We weren't even that bad. And they just kept picking on us, and. You know what I mean? The. The army cadre just kept picking on us. So.

[Sean Ryan]

So one of our guys, you know,

[Co-host/Interviewer]

they make you do watch and out. Yeah. You know, at the barracks. And so a really good friend of mine, he's. He's. He's passed away now. His name's Kyle Paulson. Name was Kyle Paulson. He. He posted all his guys up there. Like, he's like, you go watch that door. You go watch that door. You watch the front door. You watch the back door. I'll be right back. Went in to the sergeant major's desk and took a huge shit.

[Sean Ryan]

Took a huge shit right on his fucking desk.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

And, you know, the watch goes all night.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

And so the next morning, like, we're all out there standing.

[Jason Magnavice]

And you knew you were getting blamed. You knew you were gonna get blamed. I know, right?

[Sean Ryan]

Well, none of us even fucking knew. And we're just.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

He didn't tell.

[Sean Ryan]

He didn't tell the guys that he had posted up on the doors. He didn't tell any of the other guys that were coming in from buds. You know, we're all in the same

[Co-host/Interviewer]

BUDS class, and we're standing out there in formation the next morning, and this guy was just a total. It was just like, dude, we're not even doing anything. You're being a fucking asshole to us for no reason. And he comes out, he's like,

[Jason Magnavice]

these you seals?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

And we're all like, what the hell?

[Jason Magnavice]

Who on my desk? That's me. Starts his thing.

[Sean Ryan]

Starts the buster with who on my desk? And, dude, it was just.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

It was.

[Jason Magnavice]

I mean, did he ever get caught or did he. Anybody read him out?

[Sean Ryan]

No, no, he told us that night,

[Co-host/Interviewer]

but now none of us wrote that. It's hilarious. So, yeah, just. Just the visualization of that having to scrape off of his desk.

[Jason Magnavice]

Dude, that's freaking disgusting.

[Sean Ryan]

Yeah, I know.

[Jason Magnavice]

It is.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

It's also hilarious, though.

[Sean Ryan]

But, yeah.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah. Anyways.

[Jason Magnavice]

And you knew you were gonna get blamed for it anyway. Because yeah, they always. Those freaking Navy guys. Because I think we had a couple EOD guys there too. But yeah, we got blamed for pretty much, you know, we, you know the 32 foot tower.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Oh yeah.

[Jason Magnavice]

Well like the second class is the E5s were in charge of the little hill. You jump off the 32 foot tower, you hooked up the little D rings, you do your four count and get down. We had this big dead blackbird on top of the. And we thought it was going to go up to our black hat. Our black hat. Our instructor was a cool dude. He jumped into Panama freaking. He had his little freaking mustard stain on his airborne wings. So he was in the 75th Ranger Regiment too. So he had a little bit of animosity from the other instructors looking at him. But he was real cool to us into the future team guys that just got out of buds but we thought he was going to be up there. And they switched sides. But we took this blackbird, shoved its head. It was. Somehow it died up on the freaking hill. We shoved the head in the D ring. So when the runners come down like they hook the little rope up to the D ring and they're bringing, they're running and this bird, it wasn't small. It's like flopping like this. So the instructor nonchalantly crabs, he just yells everybody drop. And it was a different guy. And we got. Yeah, they well tried to hammer us. We were. We just keep doing push ups because that's all we've been doing our whole lives. Well up to that point. And yeah, he was. He took everybody off the hill. We had hammered us for a good hour. And, and the poor other people up on a hill that were just going through airborne, we're like. They had to pay the price for our stupidity, you know what I mean?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Oh dude.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah. That was. Yeah. Interesting times back in a long time ago, man.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Good times. Good times, good memories.

[Jason Magnavice]

But definitely.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

So where do you go from jump school?

[Jason Magnavice]

Team two.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Team two.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yep.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

What was the reputation of team two back?

[Jason Magnavice]

Oh my Team one and team two. Man. The SEAL team shoe they called it. It was. Yeah. You don't want to be a new guy hanging around in the locker room in the cage area on a Friday, put it that way. Yeah, hazing was pretty, pretty common.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Did you get it?

[Jason Magnavice]

Pretty fun. Oh yeah.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Give me a good hazing story. They don't do this shit anymore.

[Jason Magnavice]

No, dude, I was at. When I made third class and got my bird, we were at Fort Pickett in, in Virginia and my dude, my first Platoon, they all went. We all went to captain's Mass after deployment for a hazing incident that was actually an accident, but it went to the wrong people. But anyway, yeah, I'm talking if you try to fight back at all, because I was a pretty good scrapper back then. Now it's all. It's all over. When somebody's got your balls in their hand and freak. They're twisting, man, and you're getting. You're getting tied up or zip tied and getting dragged out, freaking shaving your balls, hot sauce in the balls, getting hit with paddles. Yeah, it was. It's stupid, right?

[Sean Ryan]

But it's all fun and games until

[Co-host/Interviewer]

you're tied naked to a spine board hanging upside down from an elevator shaft and they're shooting simulation rounds at dress.

[Sean Ryan]

And then tape your head up and

[Co-host/Interviewer]

put a little pinhole in your mouth and throw you in the showers.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah, like waterboarding. Welcome to team two. They're like, waterboarding, like, what, you did that all the time, man.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Jason Magnavice]

Drop a rag on your face while you're hanging upside down, and then as soon as you take an inhale, somebody's blowing cigar smoke in your face. Yeah, like, that's not.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

That's not torture whiskey down your throat.

[Jason Magnavice]

Oh. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, it was stupid. I mean, back then it was just like. And then once you actually, you got your.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Dude, there were, like, no rules when you were in.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah, well, that's why you were. I mean, like, no rules. You were smart. When you got secured on Friday, we would sneak out through the locker room, jump the back over by STV and get to your car. You park down the road. So you want to get freaking guys would have. Yeah. Keg in the locker room. You know, a Friday and freaking. Where the new guys at, you know, want to be around, man.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Did you carry that forward?

[Jason Magnavice]

No, I did not. I. No, can't say that I did. I wasn't big into it. I wasn't really big into. No, I thought it was stupid when it happened to me, so I'm like, why would I want to do that?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

But.

[Jason Magnavice]

But when you were a new guy and after you got hazed and they. If somebody else was going to get hazed, they made you. Like me and my buddy John, we were to take down guys, like the. The most dangerous part of hazing, somebody that doesn't want to be hazed. Right. You got to go in and grab them while everybody else tries to control them, tie them up, do whatever. And then I just. Yeah, it wasn't for Me? Really? Yeah.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah. Well, how did it feel checking into team two after Buds?

[Jason Magnavice]

A lot of pride. A lot of pride in team two because, you know, they had a reputation. I kind of wanted to go to four because I like South Americ jungle type stuff, which come to find out the older I got, I really don't like the jungle that much. There's a lot of history there, you know what I mean? When you walk across that quarter deck and then. But you're still. You still got to go through STT and then SEAL tactical training back then before they. They stopped doing that and made it all go on in Coronado. But yeah, STT was. It was fun and challenging. I mean, the summertime in Virginia at A.P. hill, very hot. And then that's where you try to start, you know, building your reputation too, because nobody really cares who you are until you get. You check into your team and then you start training and that's all. Shooting, moving, communicating. Really, really big back then. Still is. It still is, but now, you know, you know, you got a little. A lot more to worry about with drones and stuff like that.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah. Yeah. Actually, yesterday we brought these. Were you involved in. Were drones big. When you left?

[Jason Magnavice]

They were just coming in. They were just being teeny quite a bit. Now it's like. It's one of the deadliest things in the battlefield, obviously.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Dude. Holy. I did this. I did this little. We made a piece of content yesterday. We brought these drone operators from Ukraine down.

[Jason Magnavice]

Oh, that's. Yeah, those guys know what they're doing, dude.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Holy shit. So they. They kind of briefed us up on everything they're doing. I had. I had never. I've never seen it on. The closest thing to drone warfare I've seen is a fucking Predator overhead.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yep.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

You know, but none of these, like, FPV drones or anything. So we go. We

[Jason Magnavice]

brought them on.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

On. This property's over 100 acres. They gave us, you know, hey, this is the. This is the drones. These are the capabilities. These are these type of drones. And they're like, all right, go hide. We'll give you a head start. And then they're sending the drones after you.

[Jason Magnavice]

And you can't. Dude.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Holy. You can't hear where the they're at?

[Jason Magnavice]

Nope.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

You. I mean, like, it sounds like they're right above you and they're over there, and it's impossible to get the. Away from those.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah, I've.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

I took some shots at one just for the hell. I just wanted to see what the side picture was like and there's no way in hell. Yeah. I mean you're basically trying to hit a 4 inch dot.

[Jason Magnavice]

They just came out with a particular ammunition. I read somewhere for drones that you could shoot out like a 5.56 or whatever too. And it still seems like pretty hokey to me because it shoots in a pattern. The one round splits in like four little rounds for sure. Yeah. Even if you try to jam them, you know what I mean? I think they still already pre programmed for what they're going to do, where they're going to go. And the tethered ones are the big problem too.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah. Well, I mean once they, once you're identified, you're.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Because I mean I like, I just had a pistol with me and I was like, you know, just, just for the hell of it, I was like, I just want to see. I just want to put myself in the scenario and actually take it seriously. And you know, I was like listening to their tactics and at the beginning on how they find people and all the different capabilities and what the weaknesses are. So I was trying to utilize some of that stuff and. But once once they're on you, you're, you're done. Like it doesn't, doesn't. If you, if you shoot one down, there's just going to be a swarm

[Jason Magnavice]

of them coming, 20 more of them. Yeah.

[Sean Ryan]

And they were even saying that you

[Co-host/Interviewer]

can have one on station or more than one on station and have the same pilot control in multiples. So you could, you know, fly 10 damn drones and have nine on station and just up that one went down, another one switch to the next one, you know what I mean? And they're already hovering on station, just waiting for it.

[Jason Magnavice]

Waiting to bounce.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Jason Magnavice]

I was like, this is, that's nuts. You're a shotgun. Even a shotgun, you know, you don't even have that many shells to go through, you know what I mean? Maybe it hit one, but by that time you got one coming behind you too. It's, it's a whole. Yeah. Different battlefield. Like we always say. Like getting back to the STT thing, that's where they really teach you well, the diving and then shoot move and communicate. And now you got to really stay low, move with discretion and definitely have somebody watching your 6 or somebody that's going to. Yeah. Because the drones are the biggest. I mean for what I'm hearing now and all this stuff because I've been out of the game for a while and then talking to people that are, that know a lot about it, it's yeah, it's a different battlefield. Definitely.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

It's pretty wild.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yep.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

It's pretty wild.

[Jason Magnavice]

Because as you said. Yeah. Back then in, you know, the beginning of. And all we had were predators. Draco is up there. And now they're. They're kind of outdated.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah. I mean, these things. One of them was like, that big.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Said it can go 300km an hour. I think it's crazy.

[Jason Magnavice]

That's insane.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

But I actually. I could be off on that. But anyways, back to you.

[Jason Magnavice]

Back to me.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Stt.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yep. AP Hill, then the diving, and then, yep, got my first platoon.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

How was that?

[Jason Magnavice]

It was actually a pretty good deal because they usually don't give, like, new guys out of STT back. But like I said, winter warfare platoons. Right. So we go to Alaska, do telemark skiing. You learn how to live out of a backpack for freaking almost 11 days unsupported. And so I got into a winter warfare platoon and great, great people in there. My first, the dive buddy was Tommy Valentine, who unfortunately passed away quite a time back in a jumping accident in Arizona or. Yeah. But, yeah, he was my first swim buddy. He was a freaking stud, all in all the time. Awesome. Awesome, dude. I learned a lot. You're pretty much trying to gather, trying to see, like we talked about earlier, like, hey, who do I want to. Who do I want to be? Like, you know what I mean? And, yeah, Val was definitely one of those guys. He led by example. Hardcore super incredible combat diver, too. And, like, we take that for granted nowadays, right. How much water's in the desert. But, yeah, super squared away. Pretty much everything you did.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Where was your deployment?

[Jason Magnavice]

We went to our first trip. Well, they moved the command. Well, not the command, the unit from Scotland. Yeah. We moved on over to Italy. Brindisi, the heel of the boot, because we were staged there just to go over back and forth to Bosnia to Serie or Kosovo or whatever, just to work with other little units over there. Really weren't doing much as far as combat. Wise and teammate did a couple ship takedowns in the Adriatic around that time to force the embargo. Like I said, this is back in the 90s. And then we went to Norway, which was a blast.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

I've heard. Those are awesome.

[Jason Magnavice]

We went there for a month, and, yeah, the funny thing is I go. I'm raised my whole life, right. Thinking I'm Polish and Lithuanian. My first trip to Norway, I get there, we're talking to the Marine Jaegers. They're like their version of great, incredible people. They're like, are you Scandinavian? Are you like Norwegian? Like, you got a big head. You kind of like, you look like us. And I'm like, no, dude, I'm not. No, I'm. I'm like Polish and freaking. I think Lithuanian, you know. But back then, sure enough, I get my freaking. The 23 or whatever. The DNA check done, comes back, hey, you're 80. It's like 78 from in like in Norway. That area likes right over there kind of a little bit to the uk. And my mom is also the same. Like my dad is heavy. My dad. No, he is. But yeah, he don't have any. Like, I don't have anything that my dad has in him from his DNA. It's weird. Well, like the ethnicity traits or whatever you want to call them.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Jason Magnavice]

But going back to the first trip to Norway and they like, dude, are you, are you Norwegian? I'm like, nah, like, you look like you could be. You know what I mean? They were like. I said, this is back in 93, 94. And like, nope, Yep, sure enough I am. But Norway was a blast, man. A lot of skiing. Those guys are born with freaking skis on their feet. I mean, jump turning with 80 pound rucks on them with telly skis on. You're like, holy cow. We're just too busy picking ourselves up off the snow. You know what I mean?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah. Damn. Damn. What was going on?

[Sean Ryan]

I mean, I. I know what was

[Co-host/Interviewer]

going on, but what did you wind up going to Bosnia?

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah, we go to Sarajevo, hang out there. Actually, that's where I started. Made a couple of good friends with a couple ccts combat controllers over there from. Yeah, we just drive around to various like safe houses there, hang out there, bring them food and stuff and come back. It was a lot of, A lot of driving around. Not too much.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

What was the point?

[Jason Magnavice]

What was the mission back then? Right? We. It's funny how America goes to one extremes. We were protecting Muslims from getting killed by Christians. Right. The Serbs and all that. And I really wasn't clear what the mission was over there. I really, it was just. Sounds like every war going after.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

I'm not really sure what the.

[Jason Magnavice]

Well, going after Piffwicks and like the person wanted for war crimes or whatever, like these generals that were in charge of the mass freaking graves and stuff and killing just in like towns of people, you know what I mean?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah, but that was very like genocide going on.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah, a lot of genocide.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yep.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah. Humanity could be evil at times, man.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

So what I'm just curious. I Mean, this was. I don't want to relate our experiences, but this sounds similar to when I joined. What was your impression of the SEAL teams? Were you fired up? Were you disappointed? I mean, you got this all came off of Rambo in 1982.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yes, it did. It did.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

You're not doing Rambo stuff? No. Yeah, not yet.

[Jason Magnavice]

I think I was just along for the ride, like, waiting for something to happen. You know what I mean? And the training was fun, but we made. Obviously, you know, we make things that people pay to do for fun suck. Like jumping, like, dude, oh, we'll go skydiving. Like, dude, I don't care if I ever see a rig again. You know, diving, like, oh, there's nothing fun staring at a compass board, freaking depth gauge, and a stopwatch for freaking two hours underwater and freezing your ass off. Right. But you learn a lot, and you want to be good at it.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Jason Magnavice]

Right. You don't want to be subpar, especially. The biggest thing is not letting your teammates down. I think that was so the brotherhood, you know, you definitely see from the beginning once you're in, once you get kind of established in your role and you build that trust. But as far as being bored. Yeah, it was as far as, like, not actually doing what you're training to do. I think that's kind of what was going on in the past couple years, too, as well, with guys just getting bored and one day and just, you know. But you got to be careful you ask for, too. You got to be careful. You ask for. So you.

[Sean Ryan]

You spent some time.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

How long were you a team, too, before you decided?

[Jason Magnavice]

Eight years. Oh, eight years. Yeah. There's something. Glad you brought that up. Something that's not on that piece of paper right there. So I got out in 98. For eight months. I got out. I was going to be a U.S. marshal. A couple of my buddies from Team 4 already went over and doing it. I went through the whole process, got out, moved to Connecticut, moved back home because I thought I was going to work out of New Haven. Guy I went to high school with is a marshal. As a. He was the head marshal at the time. A guy went to high school with his dad's best friend. So he's like, come up. Yeah, come up here. You move up here. And I'm waiting to hear back from the marshal service about when I'm going to Glencoe, you know, to start up school down here at Fleet Sea, whatever. And then I get a letter back then. This is before emails and all that. We're Sorry to tell you that you're no longer considered for. And I went through the interview, I went through the, like, you're going to

[Sean Ryan]

the fucking SEAL teams, become a marshal.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

And then they denied you.

[Jason Magnavice]

But.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Can I rewind for a minute?

[Sean Ryan]

Why did you want to leave the

[Co-host/Interviewer]

SEAL teams and become a U.S. marshal?

[Jason Magnavice]

My daughter was born. I didn't want to deploy anymore for no reason. Just what we were talking about earlier as far as, like, you know, being bored, where it really wasn't anything going on. And I thought it would be cool, you know what I mean? And just talking to other buddies too, like, hey, it's better than being an FBI agent because you don't got as much red tape to cut if you want to do this is back then, you know? Yeah. And I got the. Said, you're no longer being considered for the position. And I called up one of my buddies. He's like, yeah, dude, it's a whole. They're doing a whole scrub there. It was at that time, it was kind of like, because I look the way I am and who I am, who I am, I wasn't going through with that class. I'll just leave it at that. So I'm like, shit, what am I going to do? Like, I got a newborn and my buddy's like, hey, the federal prison's hiring in Danbury, Connecticut. And I'm like, what? It'd be a. Be a freaking CEO, right? And so I go. I go interview for that job 23, 24 years old. And I'm like, yeah, I guess I could do it. And it just went from male prison to female prison. Medium security Federal Correctional Institution in Danbury, Connecticut. And they're like, dude, you sure you want this job? Like, I need something, man. Start off as a GS7 or GS8, whatever. I'm like, I just got out of the Navy. I got a buddy of mine who was also in my first platoon. He got out. This is where I'm going with this. He moved to Florida to be an emt. And we talked back and forth. He's like. He's like this, I'm going back in the Navy. And back then. So this is. I don't know where I'm going with this, but anyway, I worked in a. I go to. I go to Glencoe for the training down in Florida at Fleet, see where they train the federal COs. And there was. That was a fun. Only one. One other dude knew what I did prior. Like, I just kept it on the down low. He was a Marine and we both worked at the same prison, but we both went to training together. And when you're down there, you shoot, like, a Ruger 9 millimeter, the old freaking AR15s, and a shotgun, a pump shotgun. And yeah, it was. It was a good time. It was a pretty. The shotgun story. I gotta tell it, though. That's when. So this. You line up in, like, a couple lines when you're shooting everything else. You're online, a shotgun, you're getting, like, a. Two lines. Because I think. I don't know, I wanted to save money for shells or it's just something. And it was like a Remington 870, I think, pretty. A basic pump gun. And there was a lady, a D A agent that was an instructor there, right? And I'm just having a good. I'm like, dude, I'm like, why this is going to be funny? So. Because she's, like, milking everybody through it, like, hey, this is what you do. Like, you put one in the chamber this way, and then you load it like that. And she's like, all right, be careful. It kicks a little, right? And I get up there, I'm like. I'm like, dude, I'm acting like I'm all nervous. And. And he was trying not to laugh, right? And she's like, hey, just relax. Just relax. And like, dude, I mean, John Shaw taught us how to shoot shotguns. You know what I mean? I grabbed the shell, I go put it in backwards. You know, the brass facing that? She's like, no, no, no, no, no. It goes. I drop it.

[Sean Ryan]

You did this shit on purpose.

[Jason Magnavice]

I drop. I drop it. And then I'm. I load up. And she's like, okay, be careful. You know, it kicks a little. And, like, the way they're showing how to shoot, like, boom. So give it back to her. She called me a. And the guy behind me was laughing, like, dude, I just wanted to have fun with it. And one of our. One of our instructors, like, he. He started laughing his freaking ass off because it was. It was a pretty. The way it went down, you had to be there to see it.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

It was pretty obvious.

[Jason Magnavice]

She was like, just be careful. Like, yeah, no, I'm a little nervous.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

That's awesome.

[Jason Magnavice]

But, yeah, I did that for eight months. Found out my buddy went back in the Navy. And I'm like, dude, I. I can't do this anymore. So I called up. I'll call him Mad Dog. A lot of people are gonna know who he is. And he was working another great guy, another great role model. Growing up taught me how to ski, actually. Well, growing up in the teams. And I'm like, hey, are you taking? I'm like, can I go back? And he goes, I knew you'd be calling back. I knew you'd be calling back. Like, are they taking? He's like, yeah, you got to go see your recruiter. I'm like, what? I just can't. He goes, yeah, you got to go see a recruiter. This is before, so was actually a race. I was still a quartermaster, so I went to the same recruiting office I went in. Freaking, dude. Ten years ago when I first started talking to him when I was in middle, in high school. And obviously the same recruiters aren't in there. And like, hey, I want to go back to the Navy. But they called it a nav vet. Like, I'm a nav vet. I want to go back. I'm like, what'd you do? I was like, I'm a quartermaster. I think it was second class. And he gets up, he calls a detailer. He's like, no, they're not. No, they're not taking you back. I said by. And he sees 5326 and, dude, I'm wearing. I'm wearing Tevas torn shorts and like freaking a beat up T shirt. And he's like, you're a seal. He goes, oh, yeah, they're taking you guys back. And that was another little journey. So I had to go Back to the MEPs, the military entrance processing station up in Springfield, the same one I went to before. And my recruiter drove me up. Well, the recruiter I was working with, I had to do the duck walk, go through the whole physical again to get in there. And then when we're standing there swearing, I'm like talking to this kid, hey, what are you going to the Navy for? He goes, I think I'm gonna go to buds, you know, I want to be a seal. I'm like, I heard that's tough as, man. Like, it's. It's a pretty. It's a pretty hard, you know, line of work to choose. And my recruiter's like, jay, leave him alone. Like, don't be in it. I said, we'll talk about it afterwards. So it was going through the whole recruiting thing again. Going through the whole damn freaking. Yep. I came in two weeks later. I was in a platoon with DJ's dad, my platoon chief. Yep.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

How was that?

[Jason Magnavice]

It was good. It was a fun. It was a good time. It was good just getting there. It was good getting Back in, man, it was just good getting, being around, you know, going to work, I'm not saying going to work at FCI for like eight months and then having that broken service and then realizing, you know, how much you do miss, like, the biggest thing you miss when you leave are the guys right with the boy. So getting back in RA into another winter warfare platoon. Yeah, right on. It was. And then, yeah, two years later, I screened for Damn that for dev group.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Well, before we dive into dev group, let's take a quick break. All right, perfect.

[Sean Ryan]

If you've ever hired somebody like I'm in the middle of doing right now, you know, this can be extremely overwhelming. You put a job posting out and the next thing you know, you have

[Co-host/Interviewer]

2,000 resumes all wanting to be the next producer.

[Sean Ryan]

Well, if you're hiring, here's the good news. You can now review all these resumes and applicants faster, thanks to ZipRecruiter. ZipRecruiter has a new feature that instantly shows you the most interested quality candidates first. And today you can try it for free at ziprecruiter.com SRS what I really like is it cuts through the noise. Their matching technology brings the right people to you faster. And with this new feature, the candidates who are actually interested rise to the top. You're not wasting time guessing. You're getting straight to the people who want the job. And you even get a better sense of who they are because candidates can tell you in their own words why they're interested. Cut through the standard and get to the standouts with ZipRecruiter. Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day. And now you can try it for [e-mail] SRS that ZipRecruiter.com SRS meet your match on ZipRecruiter.

[Bethenny Frankel]

Hi, I'm Sarah Adams, the host of Vigilance Elite's the Watch Floor, where we highlight what matters. It became a permissive state, explain to you why it matters, and then aim to leave you feeling better informed than you were before you hit play. Terrorists, hostile intelligence agencies, organized crime, not everything is urgent, but this show will focus on what is need to know, not just what is nice to know.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Foreign.

[Sean Ryan]

Jason, we're back from the break

[Co-host/Interviewer]

we left off at. You took a quick. You took a. You took another break from the SEAL teams, became a correctional officer, went back to team two for about another two years. And now you're. Sounds like you're getting Ready to scream for development group, also known as SEAL Team Six.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yes, I, I wanted to go over there to take a break, so.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

You wanted to go over there to take a break?

[Jason Magnavice]

Yes.

[Sean Ryan]

Did you tell them that in your screening?

[Jason Magnavice]

No, just. No. I wanted to go over there to stop because my daughter once again was young. I was never home. Just wanted to stop with a six month appointments and I'm like, you go over over there. I had a bunch of my buddies went over there and they're like, it's great. You know, you hang around for three months just carrying a beeper on you back then. And then you train, you do some very specialized training, you know, for another three months you get to go to schools you wanted to go like civilian schools, great shooting schools, you know, lock pick and all that stuff and at a very high level. And then you train with your team back then or squadron now for another three months. So you're home quite a bit, except for when you're picking and choosing what training you want to go do. And this is what you were told? Yeah, this is pre 9 11.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah, yep.

[Jason Magnavice]

And I, I finished a training program there in September 2001. And.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah, well, hold on, let's talk about the screening.

[Jason Magnavice]

The green team. Yeah, it's definitely more cerebral than like you would say like in buds is as far as the shoot and move and communicating part of it.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

I mean, when you got in, when you got, you know, went through, went through green tea. I mean, I'm not a dev group guy, so I can't talk, but I know what I saw when I was in and I got out in 2006 and they went from running one green team a year to run a two green team a years and it seemed like the majority made it through green team. I think it was a completely different scenario when you got in because there was nothing going on. Retention was probably really good. Yeah, guys weren't dying, so there wasn't really much to fill. So it was really, really hard to get in there.

[Jason Magnavice]

Harder.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Probably should shut my mouth because I'm not one of them.

[Jason Magnavice]

No, no, but I get your point. Even when I went over here to screen when I said I was like, I wasn't impressed by the attitudes of some of the guys over, you know what I mean? They're like more high and mighty than you were, you know what I mean? We have guys coming over there that were, that have done real world shipboardings, you know what I mean? Real world operations either. Bosnia, Kosovo. And we knew that the guys at the command really weren't doing anything except hanging around to maybe go grab a person wanted for crime. And that was the big thing. Or you know, take down a ship that gets hijacked or whatever. And I wasn't impressed by the attitude because they were like, oh, look at this new guy. You wear your blues when you go over there to screen and do your interview and all that stuff. And it was just like they're arrogant dudes. Pompous and arrogant. And you could then even after green team, you could kind of see why they are. Because you do get some pretty good training, like really good training and. But as you said once again, there's, there wasn't much going on. And then 911 happened and they weren't

[Co-host/Interviewer]

taking anybody though, were they? I mean they were taking like very few people before September 11th.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah, it's a good old boy network, you know what I mean? They go around, they ask everybody you work with and you dump a tunes with. And if you don't, if you don't like somebody, I just give a reason why. Because there are a lot of great guys that don't come over to the command because they just don't want to deal with the. You know what I mean? Back then. And then when we got busy and started growing. Yeah, that's when they were. Because we were gone. I mean, quite a bit. Yeah, the three caller teams were. Yeah, four months. Four months, Four months. You know, then you rotate every four months.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

How was green team?

[Jason Magnavice]

It was, it was challenging. Safety is a big thing there in doing things at a, at a very high level. You know, being able to shoot well, it's a big thing. Safety violations I said is the biggest thing that gets people shaking from there. Not being able to think, shooting an unknown instead of, you know, what you're supposed to do in the house. That was the, I think the most challenging part for people going through the training. Jumping. They take that at a very high level too. Can't go one degree off heading when you exit the plane. You gotta be able to fly a tight formation under canopy and everything. The diving was pretty at a high level because you're not just in piers anymore, you're diving as a whole group, so.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Oh no.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah, with a little pole.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah, right, right, right on. So you get through green team, where do you go from there?

[Jason Magnavice]

I went right into a squadron and then. Well, a team back then. And then we, we punched out to Afghanistan.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Which squadron?

[Jason Magnavice]

Red.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Red squadron. Is that where you met this?

[Jason Magnavice]

Huh? I met him a few years after that when he came there? Yes.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Okay, yep. Red Squadron.

[Jason Magnavice]

And you graduated. It was Red Team. It was Red Team back then. And then they started calling squadrons to meet up with our army counterparts at cag because they were squadrons. So they're like, hey, we team anymore and just make it squadrons for the higher ups at JSOC to make it easier for them.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

And so you graduated Green team right before September 11th?

[Jason Magnavice]

Right during.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Right during.

[Jason Magnavice]

We were going, we were walking across the compound when the first plane hit. And I remember one of my buddies comes out of the locker room. He's like, dude, you hear what happened? And that's when we had just like, phones weren't that big back then either. We were just watching the news inside the team room or inside our training room. And then another plane hit. Then our skippers like called a meeting for all the cadre and all the class and kind of gave a lowdown on what's going down. And that's when he said, there's another plane they're tracking down right now after one hit the Pentagon. And yeah, it was kind of. It was exciting. It was an exciting time, I think. But then it was, you know, this is shit's about ready to get real.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

What's your wife think?

[Jason Magnavice]

She was worried, obviously. All the wives were. Yeah, that first deployment wasn't really good for the LIFE network. Yeah. When we first, when we first punched out over there.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

So you. Hold on, hold on. So you get done with Green Team, what, and then you go right to Red Team? Right to Afghanistan?

[Jason Magnavice]

Yes, yep. Well, we had a few weeks in between and we were working on stuff that we might be doing over there as far as insertion techniques, like jumping, how we're going to work, freaking getting our gear set up. Because it was a first move for, I mean, I mean, going to Afghanistan. Right. It just, it just kicked off and we wanted to be sure.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Were you the first squadron to go?

[Jason Magnavice]

No, no. Second.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

What were you guys doing? What was the mission gonna be?

[Jason Magnavice]

Hunting down. Hunting down Bin Laden was the big one, obviously when he first got over there, looking for him all over his, his network of people and. Yeah, just trying to find him. And that was our big mission when we first went over there.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Well, let's talk about flying in there. I mean, you just had what roughly a 10 year career at Seal Team 2? Yeah.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yep. Eight.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Eight years. Eight years at Seal Team 2 with a eight month break. You joined the SEAL Teams because of Rambo in 1982?

[Jason Magnavice]

Yep.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

And now you're stepping foot in a country that Just where a terracel is that just hit the twin towers. The Pentagon.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah, yeah, we flew over there. That was freaking entertaining too. The crew that I was with, the team, the boat crew, and like a little squad, you call it pretty. In the teams we moved around. We call ourselves the Orphans. We moved around from. We landed, we got in Kandahar, and then we went to a couple other small towns. We were living out of a backpack, eating MREs for almost four months.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Holy.

[Jason Magnavice]

And then, yeah, just standing by, trying to get. Develop intelligence to actually track down people in this network. And then we. They had a big. A big military offensive. Operation Anaconda happened during our first pump over there where we lost Neil Roberts, Fifi Chappie, the controller and yeah, that was.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

You were there for that?

[Jason Magnavice]

I was one. We were on the other bridge. Yeah.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Holy shit. Let's go into that.

[Jason Magnavice]

Well, getting into that was even funny because my chief, my boker leader, call him Crazy Horse, he's like, jay, are you still up on your JTAC stuff? And because he comes out of a meeting, right? And we're just messing with our gear. Like I said, we were moving everywhere. And he wanted to know if I was still could use because I was a communicator too, as well in my platoons. I've done. And I'm like, yeah. He goes, dude, you know how to use like 117 foxtrot? Yeah. I'm like, why? We had no idea what was going on. He goes, I'm trying to get us some work. We were an assault team. We weren't a recce team, but they wanted to put up. They're like, well, we got snipers in here. We get with 10 inch barrels too. It was stupid, but it was two hours. You got two hours. Go do your radio checks, meet up with Al, who was our freaking. Our comm support guy. Not a team guy, but very smart guy. Incredible guy. And get a DMC125 satellite antenna, the Donkey Dick UHF. I'm like, two hours. And then we got to pack out rucks for. We think we're gonna be out there seven to 10 days. And guys weren't really sure, like how to pack out a winter ruck because it was freaking cold and we were at 10,000ft most, not between nine and 10,000ft. So yeah, we're doing. I'm doing radio checks as we're getting on to freaking 47 to go in. I'm like, oh, the back of the. Wait a second.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

They're sending a fucking assault team in to do sniper work with 2 hours of prep time.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yes. It was just. It was one of those things, hey, it's better. Let's go do something instead of not doing anything. Right. And yeah, we inserted up on this point. It was. Jumped off the rampant ass, set up our freaking op site as TF Mountain. It was the 82nd, 101st Airborne as they were moving to clear out this valley. And we just called in Cass for a week. And then one night, that March 4th anniversary just passed. That was. Yeah. When Neil and his team, with Slavy and a couple other guys, that's when they inserted and got lit up and where Fifi fell off and ended up dying.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

I just interviewed Pete Blaber about this.

[Jason Magnavice]

Oh, I think he. He was. Yeah, he was out there as part of. Didn't he write a book?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

He did, yeah, he did. Yep. He was with the Delta unit. That was there before. How do you feel about that now?

[Jason Magnavice]

I thought it was. We helped out a lot. We did. I mean, we supported, you know, the big movement with TF Mountain or whatever. The hundred. Yeah, those guys. And it was. I didn't feel good when, you know, we found out that Fifi passed away. You know, all of our cast went to them, and then we kind of. Yeah, we took it out in the Taliban the next day, put it that way, just with more casts and. Yeah.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Were you the one calling the cast in?

[Jason Magnavice]

Yes.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

How did that feel?

[Jason Magnavice]

It was.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

I mean, you're on your first operation that's gone kinetic, I'm assuming.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yes. Well, big time kinetic. Yeah.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah. There's a huge operation of. Cut your teeth on, dude.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah. In a condo. Yeah, we're calling. We had shoot, B52s, B1s, 18s, 15s. Yeah.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Do you remember the first cast you called where you killed somebody?

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah, it was right there with B52s on A. On a discus site, actually.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Can you describe.

[Jason Magnavice]

We had short. We had shorty rifles, too, which was. Yeah. Our post op debrief on that was. All right, we do this again, we got to do it a lot better.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

But can you describe your first cast?

[Jason Magnavice]

It was pretty. It was actually, I mean, pretty dramatic. I mean, as far as what a B52 could drop, you know what I mean? And pretty accurate, too. I mean, describing everything.

[Sean Ryan]

What were you hitting?

[Jason Magnavice]

It was a disciposition in the town that was a good maybe 2,3000 meters from us and. But we'd see these guys come up, start lighting up the 101st, 82nd. We. We had them all graded out. Already and we were doing this with a GPS and a range finder back and forth. There's a lot. Yeah, there's a lot better ways to do it nowadays, but it was super accurate. As soon as you give, you know, the modified nylon to the pilot or the controller up there in the B52, they. They programmed where the JDM's gonna go and yeah, took it out. Then freaking four hours later, another guy would come out of the. There was a big cave system, it's called the Whale. And yeah, the guys would just come. Come out of that and just like refill the roll and just keep doing it. They were like little ants, you know what I mean? It was.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

How did it feel to. For your first gas?

[Jason Magnavice]

I felt successful. It felt good. It was just work, you know what I mean? It's just pretty much what it's about. That's it.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

How many bombs do you think you dropped?

[Jason Magnavice]

Oh my goodness. That was a long time ago. A lot. That's all I know. A lot. Yeah, I gotta read, I gotta read the post op we. We did. It was. Yeah. A pretty good amount of munitions, I'll bet. Yep.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

What was the sentiment like after Neil died?

[Jason Magnavice]

Oh, revenge, I think. You know what I mean? And yeah, that whole thing. Yeah, was. I mean, it was tough too because the guys that I was with, the other four dudes that knew him really well, I knew him from two. Then he, he came over to the command before I did and the two guys that I were with were really good buddies of him. And when we, when his call sign came back that that's who fell off the helicopter. They're like. And at this time. Yeah, getting back to the wives being home at this time, we. We didn't even talk. Yeah, we didn't even. We haven't talked to anybody for like almost a month from home. So they were kind of worried. And then that hit the news and our command did not know how to deal with that. They were hearing about Neil before the command told anybody. And that when we got out of the field. I'll never forget Al, like I said, our comm guy, when we get out and we're going in the Gardez mud pit and he, he's throwing his two iridium phones. He's like, call home. Like they call home now. The wife network is losing their freaking mind. So that was a big lesson learned too for the command. After. Yeah, after Fifi passed.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

What came after that deployment?

[Jason Magnavice]

Well, during that deployment we did another good little Wolverine, which was a good, A good little operation and ended up working out perfectly. We're going after Zawa, Harry and his bodyguards. And that was perfect L shape. Once again, the orphans had to run around with a perfect good L shape ambush set up with 247s and Zawahiri wasn't there. But yeah, we got the mission accomplished as far as dealing with the detail.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

What was that mission about? Going after, going after their bodyguards.

[Jason Magnavice]

Bin Laden's. We thought he was going to be with him too. And the intel wasn't that great.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Where was that at?

[Jason Magnavice]

Right outside of Gardez.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Do you want to describe it? What was your role in that assaulter?

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah, it was. We rolled up on in the 47s and like a L shaped ambush. They said they had score. Oh, this is a funny story. Well, not funny. They said they had squirters up on another ridgeline and like somebody that they thought was fleeing from part of that motorcade that we ambushed and we.

[Sean Ryan]

Wait, you ambushed a motorcade?

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah. How'd you do that with two 47s? Okay, we caught him right when they were doing the little traverse up the timing in the TF160th. Guys are freaking awesome, man. They're. Yeah. The way it was set up Too in the LZs, the landing zones they put them on, it just happened to be perfect. And the guys that we were going after didn't even, I don't even think they knew it. They started shooting and bailing out of the vehicle, but. But a vehicle. There's three of them. But after that it was over. Then we went after Squirters and it was just a farmer in the field and I was the first one off the ramp. I'll never forget. I got my two buddies standing next to me in the skies. We get back into 47, take off, they go land. We're right next to where the guy, the crew chief's yelling at us, where this guy's at. I get off, I look at him and he's got his hands in. So I'm thinking, okay, maybe he's got a suicide vest on it. That's fast. And he's walking, he keeps walking towards us. And my buddy next to me, he's like, dude. I'm like, dude, don't. Once again, this is where you got to be a thinker, right? You just don't like blast somebody to freaking do it. So I let three rounds rip by his feet and he falls over on his back like a freaking upside down turtle. Hands in. Here we go, zip tie him and My buddy was just getting ready to drill him. He was just a farmer out there, a goat herder, you know what I mean? And we took him down, dropped him off after we found out who he was and. But that made me feel really good, you know what I mean? Because it could have gone another way, which would have been, hey, that's the fog of war. But yeah, that was something I remember really good about. I mean, specifically about that, that I was comfortable with at that time.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Right on.

[Sean Ryan]

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[Co-host/Interviewer]

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[Co-host/Interviewer]

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[Jason Magnavice]

It.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

You guys are busy.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah, but it was a lot of sitting around waiting, you know what I mean? Like waiting to do something, getting approval to do something. And then yeah, we went through three times. Wasn't really that busy. I was going to go to the training cell until one of my chiefs said, dude, you want to go to Iraq? And like yes, I want to go to Iraq because I just, I've heard the stories from Green or it's everything a team guy wants to do. Get up at night, eat dinner for breakfast and then walk out to the birds. Go do your work, come back and do it again. Maybe all night, but yeah, ABRAC was I Think with every team guy at that time, the type of operations they wanted to do, just going out and getting busy.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Oh, what year was this?

[Jason Magnavice]

2003 and 4.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Same squadron?

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah. Yep. Yeah, we sent a couple other guys. We would do the cross breeding like we sent a couple guys from our. I think even this did it from the newer guys actually to go work with cag, with Delta Force guys. And then we do it back and forth and we took a lot of lessons learned to. And brought that into our, into our training in our SOPs, the way we operated, coming from each side. Like, you ever remember doing a hot hallway in, in training? Oh, yeah, right. That's one of the stupidest things you could do, right? Just eggs run all the way down there instead of, you know, maybe crashing or throwing the grade. And we learned that lesson the hard way from a couple squadron guys in the army.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

No. So did you augment over there?

[Jason Magnavice]

No, no, no, no.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

You went over there with the, with Dev or.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yes. Yep.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

How was it? Was it what it was cracked up to be?

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah, it was. It was an. Yeah, we were busy, you know, but it was everything like I said earlier that you kind of want, yeah, man, hey, just load up, come up with a game plan. It got to the point like the first couple times when you're planning to go, you know, go to work. It's. You overthink things a little bit too much until. And you get like a little bit nervous and. But then when you. Once you keep doing it more and more and more, it's. It just becomes second nature. Like you could go, all right, we gotta go take this down and free. Our officers wouldn't even come in there. They let the team leaders figure out, okay, yeah, I got the white side again, you got the green side, blue side, whatever, boom, just go to work. But it was great. Then walk out to the Little Birds or 60s 47s. And the targets would change all the time depending on the intel and what we had, what we had going on over there. Just going after you guys.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Going after.

[Jason Magnavice]

Just going after bad guys. Just going after. Yeah, just bad dudes. Shit that were coming over from different places to different, you know, different countries. And not only just in Iraq itself.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

How many targets are you guys hitting a night?

[Jason Magnavice]

It would depend on the follow ons. Some nights one, some nights, five. It just depended on what we got off one target, if we even landed on the right building and. Or if they move somewhere else. And that's where the ISR assets were great too, helping us out. And Getting back to, we were talking about the drone war. Now that with drone warfare, it'd probably be so much easier to actually pinpoint and not mistakenly hit targets. You know what I mean?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah, Yeah. I mean, what did you. So now you're doing close quarters combat. Lots of action. You got a wife, a kid at home. What's going through your head during all this?

[Jason Magnavice]

You don't even think about them. They're. Yeah. If you can't let that distraction get in your way, you know, that's where people make mistakes. Like, when you leave home, it's. Yeah, it's all right. As soon as that gate closes, you walk in, they're like, yeah, if you. If you think about that, you're gonna let your boys down. You know what I mean?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Compartmentalize it.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yep. You could compartmentalize it. Just like you do losing a teammate. You gotta compartmentalize it and put it in the cupboard and try not to let it peek itself out. Keep. Keep the COVID closed.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

What about the cadence? Cadence of ops. Are you keeping up?

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

You feel good about it?

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah. It was back in that time. It was what. What we wanted to do, like, what we were trained to do. But the cadence was there, definitely. Yeah.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Do you remember your first kill?

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah, it was on a rooftop. I mean, I don't want to talk about that, but, yeah, it was. Yeah, it was. Because we were a recky team. We climb up buildings and. Yeah, I don't know if that was my first one. Once again, you compartmentalize that too. Be a guy with a gun on the roof, sneaking over the side as our assault team was coming up. Yeah, we'd like to climb buildings. They're equi guys.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Did the killing bother you?

[Jason Magnavice]

No. No. I mean, of course it's gonna bother you if you sit back and, like, think about it. Right. But no, I mean, it was. It just. That's work. And you're doing it to save. If you put it in their mindset and like, hey, I'm protecting my guys right now. And that's pretty much what we did a lot of as a recce team. Yeah, I'm covering my guys, protecting them. And that's. You don't. You just don't think about. Yeah. The actual action that you just did.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Anything else you want to talk about on that deployment?

[Jason Magnavice]

They all kind of blend together. Oh, get into. Yeah, I want to talk about one good buddy of mine. I could say his name. He'll know. One of the best operators I ever worked with. And we were on the roof this is actually a pretty funny story. I told you it was carrying an SR25K and this was supposed to be like a can and like a little. It was going to be almost like a dog and pony op because we were doing a turnover with another color team coming in. This was like our last stop before we went back to the States. And it's going to be super easy, right? We walk in once again, we climb a building. There's no cover in the building. It's a flat mud roof. Stupid idea, right? Stupid idea to climb this building. We got rangers coming down the other side of this canal covered in elephant grass that we're going to take out. We'll take out a tent close by. Not take it out, just go in there and see who the heck was in there. So we climb up the building, we're laying there. Then we start getting lit up by a building that come to find out was 300 yards away. We start getting lit up from a PKM on top of a freaking car. It looked like it was like a black Mercedes. Then a guy comes out of a, a house behind us. It starts lighting us up and we're like, what the. This was supposed to be easier than this. And we're on a roof like sucking mud. My buddy's standing up, looking through his nods, I'm like, dude, what are you doing man? Fearless. And he worked with CAG for a little bit too. They loved him over there. Like, get the down, man. And he's like, dude, is that. What is that? Meanwhile, I'm fishing for my inline, for my scope, my night vision, for the scope I was carrying. And he's still standing up, he's looking. And I put the M line. He thought I had my 556, my recce M4 when I had the 308 and I couldn't see behind, I couldn't really pick out what was going on because there's a big light behind the car where the guy was shooting with pkm. And I'm like, well, I wonder how far that is. And I carry the rifle doped in at 300. So I know my holds for 100 to 500. It's a short barreled 308. Take the shot, the light goes poof. And I'm, I'm like, oh, this happened in seconds. Like, dude, they're at 300 yards, right? As I'm transitioning down to the guy shooting a PKM who I hit in the shoulder, by the way. I'm not too proud about it because all I saw was flip flops. I come to find out they all duck behind the car and they. And I'm like, oh, I carry a mag of AP rounds right here too. And they're ducking behind the car. So I fishtail. It's got a big ass piece of breaker tape on it. I put it in my first round hits like 20 yards in front of the car. It was. But then I worked it up to the car and then, yeah, we took care of business. Come to find out the next day after our turnover, the next night, the people we were turning over with blue, they went in and said, yeah, like how do you guys see. See that? Well, at night time, shooting and all that. And yeah, we did a pretty good job. Yeah, but that mission was supposed to be like freaking just go in, gather some intel and leave. And that's not the way it worked out.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Damn. Damn. How many times did you go over there?

[Bethenny Frankel]

Four.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Four times.

[Jason Magnavice]

And I left. Yeah. Then we started working out of Ramadi. We started doing transitioning a lot more around instead of being an Ellis. Yeah. We moved all over the place. Then we went to when it really started getting entertaining, when we brought our forces up just north of Baghdad to Bacopa. And they weren't used, the bad guys weren't used to having people come in at night and do operations up there. And that's right when I got the call to get back to the beach to start flight training for the aviation unit that we have.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

No shit. So what is the aviation unit and how did that pop on your radar?

[Jason Magnavice]

A bunch of my buddies went over to fly over there and well, I got a funny story about that. So my first time back from my first pump in OEF back home, you know, basket league for two weeks. And my chief, my boku leader, he's like, jay, you gotta escort the weapons out the Shaws gun box. I'm like, all right, how do I do that? I'm still a new guy. We just got back from our first trip, our first deployment, the one we talked about earlier. And he's like, go over to the airport to Norfolk International on the General on the. The other side of the airport. This is back in 2002, 2003. Right. And you're gonna see a gate. Go up to that gate, ring the buzzer, whatever. So I drive there, govy pickup truck, weapons in the back. And I see this big dude wearing a polo shirt, khaki pants, he's waving me up, back up. Throw the guns in the Caravan C208, little turboprop for a four hour flight to Memphis. So we take off and this dude's asking me all kinds of questions about the deployment. Like hey, about Robert's Ridge, what's going on? And I think he's just like some normal dude, right? I'm total oblivious. I'm like, dude, are you a team guy? He's like, fuck yeah I am. And he ended up down the road. He was a master chief on freaking Neptune Spear and the bin Laden up. He's always trying to get back to freaking big guy. I'm trying to get back to the, to blue, you know what I mean? And I can't right now. And I'm like, dude, wait, you wait. You're freaking flying an airplane like you're a team God pilot right now flying me to freaking Memphis. So that's when I'm like, well this is pretty freaking cool. Kind of scary, but pretty cool, you know. And yeah. Come to find out that program was developed back in the beginning just to learn how to steal airplanes. If you had to do it. If you're.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Man, I remember hearing about that. I didn't know it was still going on.

[Jason Magnavice]

I had no clue at the time either. Apparently. Yeah, I didn't know anything about it and then come find out. Yeah, it's a, it's kind of where they sent people that they really didn't want to. It wasn't a good thing to go to, but it was a great trade, a great skill to have. Right. They send you to civilian flight school. You, you get your, all your pilot licenses, even CFI flight instructor licenses, and then you just pass it on.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Why do you say it's not a good place to go?

[Jason Magnavice]

Well, back then it wasn't because we were at war and you don't want to be a team guy flying around the United States while your buddies are off, you know, doing work overseas.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

So is that, is that what you do?

[Jason Magnavice]

Well, I was burnt. That was the first time. Oh, you're talking about flying around in the state. Yeah, that's. Yep. You just, you don't deploy at that time. Oh yeah, well, they just spend a bunch of money for you to go to go to the school. And they, they do utilize you to a certain extent pretty well.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

How do they utilize you?

[Jason Magnavice]

Flying gear, flying equipment around. Just like it makes the process of moving like weapons from one place to another place easy. And there's one little special program we, we have for our bigger bird, our bigger plane that we have there, the 1900, which is used for. Yeah, a Lot of special stuff as far. But in the United States, nothing crazy interesting.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Is it, I mean, is it still like that?

[Jason Magnavice]

I think so. I haven't been back there in a little bit. It's been a couple years.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

How many people are involved in that?

[Jason Magnavice]

Eight.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

That's it?

[Jason Magnavice]

Eight to ten. Yeah, it's a good, It's a close knit unit too. It's. I don't know how much we're talking about it, but what

[Sean Ryan]

I mean, we

[Co-host/Interviewer]

talked about you wanted a break to be with your daughter. How old is your daughter at this point?

[Jason Magnavice]

That's 2000.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

13. 13 years old. Was that the big reason you wanted to do it?

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah. And just get a break from. Yeah. Just kind of getting, you know, the same routine every four months, every eight months, you know. Yeah. And, and also building that skill because when, when I went over there, they're like, hey, you're never going to, you're not going to make master chief if you don't, you don't take a certain leadership position as a troop chief. And I'm like, no, I'd rather get my pilot trade, you know, than have to worry about making E9, you know, so. And it turned out to be a smart move and also being home a little bit more. But you do go to flight school for like almost eight months in Florida, so it's a lot of back and forth.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

How did it feel being home after all that?

[Jason Magnavice]

It felt good. It felt good. And we got divorced, of course.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Get divorced?

[Jason Magnavice]

Oh yeah. Yep. Yeah, we'll be separated for like three or four years and then tried it again and then nope, it just didn't work out.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Sorry.

[Jason Magnavice]

Typical, typical story about teen guys.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Jason Magnavice]

90 success rate at getting divorced.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Are you close with your daughter?

[Jason Magnavice]

Yes, I try to be closer. We had her little problems when she was like a younger, in her teens, you know what I mean? And when me and her mom were separated, it was kind of. She could pick and choose who she wanted to see. Me and her mom really didn't have a ugly divorce at all. We just said, hey, what do you want? But when she was going through that age. Yeah, she was a typical teenage girl. And plus I was flying a lot. I was just learning to fly and. Yeah. But I'm pretty close to her. Yeah, she lives in Virginia beach right now.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

So you got divorced after the break?

[Jason Magnavice]

Yes.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

What led to that, do you think?

[Jason Magnavice]

Me being gone, I think. And then also just. Yeah, just my wife, she said that when I got back from my first trip to Afghanistan, like something changed yeah,

[Co-host/Interviewer]

I'll bet it did.

[Jason Magnavice]

And blame like I'm still me. You know what I mean? Because we compartmentalize. No, there's something different, like. Nah, I'm good. You know what I mean? You know how we are, our community, like we would just ignore it and just keep rolling. And some people close to you actually see the changes that you choose to ignore happening, I think. And I think that's what led to pretty much. Yeah. She was just. Yeah.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Is there anything you would change?

[Jason Magnavice]

Anything I would change?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Jason Magnavice]

No, nothing. Nothing. I wouldn't change anything.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

How long after you took the break did you wind up getting divorced? When I took a break.

[Jason Magnavice]

Well, we were separated for three years anyway. And then so it was probably five, six years we got divorced. Yeah. Like in 2015. Yeah.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Did you feel different when you were coming home from Iraq?

[Jason Magnavice]

No, I just worn out.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Did you notice any changes?

[Jason Magnavice]

I didn't. It was. She might have noticed.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah. Looking back, do you notice any changes?

[Jason Magnavice]

Well, hindsight's always 20 20, right? So I think. Yeah, they're probably. Yeah, maybe I was a little more cold more when I got home. You know what I mean? More. I sound like a psychiatrist now, but I want to say not as caring but not as emotional, I guess. So that's. I guess that's a side of me she saw that changed pretty much.

[Sean Ryan]

Let's talk about something that actually brings a lot of stress this time of year.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Banking.

[Sean Ryan]

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a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking Services A secured Chime Visa credit card and MyPay line of credit provided by the Bancor Bank N.A. or Stride Bank N.A. myPay eligibility requirements app and credit limit ranges $20 to $500. Optional services and products may have fees or charges. See chime.com feesinfo advertised annual percentage yield with Chime+status only. Otherwise 1.00% APY applies. No min balance required. Chime card on time payment history may have a positive impact on your credit score. Results may vary. See chime.com for details and applicable terms. Your next chapter in healthcare starts at Carrington College's School of Nursing in Portland. Join us for our open house on Tuesday, January 13th from 4 to 7pm you'll tour our campus, see live demos, meet instructors and learn about our Associate Degree in Nursing program that prepares you to become a registered nurse. Take the first step toward your nursing career. Save your spot [e-mail] events. For information on program outcomes, visit carrington.edu sci.

[Bethenny Frankel]

This is Bethany Frankel from Just Be with Bethany Frankel. Listen, I have a bone to pick with these dog food brands calling themselves Fresh, Natural, Healthy. Sounds great, but a lot of these quote unquote fresh dog foods in your fridge are not even 100% human grade. Which is why feed your babies just food for dogs. It's good enough for Biggie and Smalls, my precious babies. So it's good enough for your babies. 100% human grade. Real ingredients Beef, sweet potatoes, green beans. Delicious. These are foods that you would want to eat, not that the babies would ever share. Just food for dogs is the number one vet recommended fresh dog food backed by over a decade of research. No marketing fluff. My dogs lose their minds at dinner. They run to the bowl tags wagging paws, tapping full Broadway performance every single night. So I do care about the food I feed Biggie and Smalls. So go to justfood for dogs.com for 50% off your first box. No code, no gimmicks, just real fresh food.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

So you. Do you feel like that you had any pts, tbi?

[Jason Magnavice]

No, I did have tbi. And I had to go through that with the faa too. That's another story. But no, not really any ptsd. I think we're good at compartmentalizing, you know, certain days, like March 4th, like we talked about August 6th. Extortion. 17. Yeah. There's certain times where you, like, has it been that long? You know, and I like, you miss those dudes too. So it's kind of. But then you just move on, right? Because if you dwell on it, it does you no good at all.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Jason Magnavice]

You're staring in the bottom of a freaking vodka bottle or something. You know what I mean?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

How do you deal with it now?

[Jason Magnavice]

Just compartmentalize it. Stay busy. Stay busy.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Compartmentalize.

[Jason Magnavice]

I like shooting. You know what I mean? I'm in a Cars. Motorcycle. That's what I did when I would come back from my deployments. I rebuilt a 93 Mustang in my garage. That was the way I. I dealt with it. Like I got back from my first pump in. In Afghanistan, Go out in the garage, work in the car. And motorcycles, I like motorcycles a lot. That's how I deal with it. Keep busy. Because if you. A stagnant mind is not something that's good.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah. What kind of motorcycle do you have?

[Jason Magnavice]

Ducati?

[Sean Ryan]

No, not a Harley.

[Jason Magnavice]

It's a V4, actually.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Right on, man. A

[Jason Magnavice]

no Harley, you know, Italiano. It's Italian.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Right on. So what do you.

[Sean Ryan]

I mean, what did you think of the aviation unit?

[Jason Magnavice]

It was good. It was monotonous, you know what I mean? But it was. You learned a lot. Freak. A lot of times you're on call. Like, I remember tonight, Adam Brown. I was flying when Adam Brown was killed. And yeah, we were on standby then and my wife knew his wife from doing. She would do her hair, actually. And then I got a phone call from our command at like. Yeah, 11 o'.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Clock.

[Jason Magnavice]

Hey, you gotta fly to Arkansas Hot Springs. I'm like. My wife heard it on the phone and she's. What? I'm like, yeah. No, I don't know. She goes, that's where so and so lives. And at times like that, that's hard too. Flying a keiko team out to tell. You know, to tell the family. And this is like, shoot, right before. The year before extortion. So. But other than that, yeah, the aviation unit was. It was a learning experience, put it that way. And it sets you up for the future, too. For if you want to stay with the flying part.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

And you did.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah, till I went to. When I did my last three years at the recruiting district, I wasn't flying much at all there. But when I got out, I had an opportunity to freaking jump right back into it again.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

How was the recruiting duty?

[Jason Magnavice]

Oh, man. Dealing with recruiters was how the.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

You did that?

[Jason Magnavice]

When I first went in there, I told him I had very little respect for that. Anybody that could sit behind a desk in the military for a career and have a rating of a Navy counselor, and then I think it should be a civilian position, personally. Because they want, like, our job there is to give them quality. All they care about is quantity. Right? And you're. And you're screwing with young kids, like, futures and lives. And I was glad I went there with the rank that I had as a senior chief because I don't see how, like, a second class of E5 could go do that job, because they would just get stepped on as far as, hey, keep giving us bodies. You know what I mean? Like, we're not going to just sign somebody off. That's how that job got created in our community, when they made so an actual job. Seal, eod, diver, rescue swimmer.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Jason Magnavice]

In swic, they recruiters would just, you know, pencil whip their PST scores, and then they sent them up to boot camp where they already spent money on getting this guy up there going through boot camp. And they bombed the pst. Like, why are you sending these guys to us? You know? And that's where they put in the shit screen at the recruiting level so they would have more qualified candidates go up there. And it was cool, like, going out the way it came in, you know, talking to kids, answering their silly little questions about buds, and training all the book writers, books that I may have read. One or two. Do you know about this guy? But it was a rewarding job. It was rewarding. Even though I think, like, maybe five kids. I said they made it through buds, but in three years.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Right on. So why did you. What. What led from the aviation unit to the recruitering?

[Jason Magnavice]

I wanted to move to Texas.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Why did you want to move to Texas?

[Jason Magnavice]

Because I like. I used to like it when we trained on there in the 90s. We train at Fort Hood, go visit Austin back when it was a nice, sleepy college town. It's not anymore, but I just like the weather there. It does get hot, though, and the people, the culture. When I was there and it worked out, I didn't even know that job was a job. I called up my detailer, and he told me that there's a recruiting job in San Antonio, like, working there. And, like, I don't want to be a recruiter. He goes, no, no, it's a coordinator. I never even heard about it before. Once again. And you work with a civilian counterpart that works for Academy. It's like a contractor. So there's two of you. And I had no zero shore duty. As far as every command I was at, I was always on, like, sea duty, deploy whenever I want. He's like, dude, I'll hook you up with. With this job. And that's what made me go to Texas. So I like anywhere. San Antonio, Houston, Dallas. And it covers a humongous district in Texas. San Antonio all the way up to the northwest, all the way down to the southeast. It's huge. A lot of driving. But like I said, it was rewarding. It was rewarding.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

I mean, what was it like for you to just totally punch out of that command, out of SEAL team?

[Jason Magnavice]

That was kind of relieving. No, it was kind of relieving, yeah. It was good just to. Yeah. Move on and think about the next chapter.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

You were done.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah, it was. Yeah. And things started to slow down, too, a little bit, but. And losing friends. And, like, when extortion 17 got shot down, man, I was sitting. I actually flew up to Boston to pick guys up that were training up there, and I'm sitting behind a home plate at Fenway park because I was only one of the top Red Sox Patriot fans that everybody knew that was up there. They had tickets. So I'm sitting behind home plate, and my phone. It was actually best. My phone vibrates. And, like, he's a 2 troop. I'm like, who? Like, 2 troop. Like, what? It's not sinking in. And that was when. That was August 6th, when freaking Extortion 17 got shot down with quite a few of our friends on there. But then. Yeah. And that was right around the time I was like, I just wanted to, you know, move on and do a more cushier job.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

You're ready.

[Jason Magnavice]

And the divorce. Just wanted to get away from, you know, the area, Hampton Roads area, and start out. Start out new. And I had a new girlfriend, too, who's now my wife.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Well, congratulations.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

How'd you meet her?

[Jason Magnavice]

That is another interesting story. So before all the book writers, right at our command, we'd have people come down. We knew people in the aviation. This is when I was flying. We knew people in the aviation community. Like higher ups, like some of the guys that founded NetJets. Just through doing our recurrent training in LaGuardia Airport. So we'd bring them down for visits. They visit the command. I'll never forget one time we're walking around the command, getting them a tour of a room, kind of like, you know, the team room, and then going downstairs showing this monument we're getting built. And one of the head guys of United Technologies, Pratt Whitney, he's like, well, when's it going to be done? And we're like, well, we don't know. We need like 25,000. Whenever operations guys is telling them this. And he turns around to his assistant and whipped out one of those big, like, notebook checkbooks and writes it. And here it's covered. So through that, he was good buddies with my current wife's best friend's dad. So we met up through that meeting right there. And then it just. Kind of A long story short, my wife's gonna be pissed, but her best friend died. And then we. I called her just to say, hey, I'm sorry about it. And then we linked up that way.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Gotcha.

[Jason Magnavice]

But through that meeting that happened at the command, of course, it was. They got to shoot like freaking 50 cals. The Ma Deuce, they got shoot grenade launchers. They had a blast. And now they don't do that anymore. I can't even get on the command anymore because of the notoriety. But they were very happy. And yeah, it was a pretty cool. The way that went down with, you know, taking care of the memorial that they were building for the command. Just this one guy writing a check. It was pretty. It impressed me too. And they were happy with their experience there.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Right on. What was it like for you, separating out of the Navy? You're. I mean, it sounds like you're 100 ready.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah. Yep. Well, I was offered a job to actually fly by a great company out of California, Solaris Aviation. And I thought they were rolling the dice with me too, as well, because it's flying a jet. And all I have been flying is turbo props. Twin turbo props. It's like a jet with a prop on it. Anyway, so the CEO there gave me the opportunity to. He's like, dude, I gotta give you a job right now in Van Nuys or Teeterboro. I'm like, no, I'm not leaving Texas. If something pops up in Texas, let me know. Like, two weeks before I retired, a golf stream job popped up, and I got to freaking go to initial training for it. And it was a little bit easier than flying a prop. Things just move a little bit quicker. And then I rolled right into that.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

You like flying a Gulf Stream?

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah, it's. It's a gorgeous airplane. It's a gorgeous plane. All the golf streams are. We fly a 550, though. It's a beautiful airplane.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Right on, man.

[Jason Magnavice]

And then it started. Yep, I did that and then flew for another guy out of Austin. Single turbo prop, a PC12, which is a gorgeous plane.

[Sean Ryan]

They're.

[Jason Magnavice]

They're incredible. And the guy was one of the best guys I ever flew for in my life. Then I got hired by big freight company and did that for a little bit and kind of taking a break and just working with my buddy out of North Carolina.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Right on, man. How do you.

[Sean Ryan]

I mean, how long. So you got out in 20?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

19.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yes. Retired.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Do you miss it?

[Jason Magnavice]

I miss the boys. I miss the fellas. You know what I mean? I do. But when I think back, do I really miss it that much? Not really. I mean, I miss some of the cool things we did, you know? But I was ready at that time. I'm gonna be. I have a replaced shoulder, my knee, my back's jacked up. Freaking. Yeah, it's. It took a toll. You know what I mean? And mentally, it takes a toll on you. Yeah, it takes a toll.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Jason Magnavice]

Especially with the faa. It takes a toll.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

What do you mean by that?

[Jason Magnavice]

We went to Isle of Man. I got back, and I'm trying to help other people out with this, right? I got back from Isle of Man, going through mail, went there for the TT races, the motorcycle races there. It's freaking incredible. Incredible experience in itself. But I'm going through the mail, and I go, oh. I never get a letter from the faa. Open it up like, hey, we see your disabled vet. I'm like, yeah, and you got to tell us everything that. That's on your VA letter. And I'm like, well, when I take my physical every six months, I check off, like, the stuff that bothers. I didn't even know about half the stuff that's. That was on my VA letter. And I read it like, oh, oh, oh. Because it's kind of like a blanket one we had. Yeah. Long story. So I go through everything that's on there, like, got tbi, ptsd, this, sleep apnea, all this other stuff, and I gotta go get it taken care of. So I see a great doctor in Savannah, Georgia. He has me go through everything. I go through all the testing, smoke it. I mean, my brain is like fried, going through the neuropsych testing. And then I end up answering questions to a bunch of other guys that are disabled, vets that are pilots that are going through the same thing. But a lot of these guys, they keep trying to push for more disability, right. But they don't report it to the faa. We check everything off every six months when we get our flight physicals through our docs and there's a box in there, are you disabled? Boom. You check it and you get fill out. You put in everything you have and you're good to go. Some guys are lying. They got in trouble, they got caught. And what's weird is they're worried about some of the veterans, right, that are, that are on there. And you can walk around a flight operations area and see like a 5 foot 4, 350 pound man pilot walking around. Like, I'd be worried about that guy more than be worried about, you know, having a vet flying an airplane.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah. What do you think they're worried about vets flying airplanes?

[Jason Magnavice]

I don't know. Well, disabled vets.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Yeah. Interesting.

[Jason Magnavice]

Well, some. I mean, there are some crazy people out there, not even vets, you know what I mean? That do stupid. So.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

So you're a grandpa now?

[Jason Magnavice]

Yep.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

How's that?

[Jason Magnavice]

I don't see them that often, but when I do, it's cool. The one, the littlest one, Braxton, he's a, he's a terror and yeah, tophers are. They're both good kids. They're good kids. They're crazy. They're good, right? Yeah, it was weird. That wasn't planned either, so. Yeah, right on. Yeah, they're. They're good kids. I spoil them when I see them, you know what I mean? That's pretty much what you get. I'm looking forward to getting them out in Texas, do some shooting. I already bought them like a little 22, little tomcat, whatever.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Nice.

[Jason Magnavice]

The little can on it. Yeah.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Nice.

[Jason Magnavice]

I'm looking forward to that.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Maybe you can get him behind that 300 black out there.

[Jason Magnavice]

Yeah, a couple, in a couple more years. I don't want to give it to Braxton. He might turn around and shoot me with it.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Oh, man. You want to go break that thing in? Well, before we do, what do you got coming up next? Anything? Anything?

[Jason Magnavice]

This was a no. This is a big step for me, I tell you that. Coming in here talking to you. Thanks for the opportunity.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

My pleasure, Jason.

[Jason Magnavice]

I got recurrent training next week, so that's my next big step.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Right on, man. Well, I wish you the best of luck.

[Jason Magnavice]

Thank you.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Thank you, man. Cheers.

[Jason Magnavice]

Thanks.

[Sean Ryan]

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

[Bethenny Frankel]

This is Bethenny Frankel from Just Be with Bethenny Frankel. Listen, I have a bone to pick with these dog food brands calling themselves fresh, natural, healthy. Sounds great, but a lot of these quote unquote fresh dog foods in your fridge are not even 100% human grade. Which is why feed your babies just food for dogs. It's good enough for Biggie and Smalls, my precious babies. So it's good enough for your babies. 100% human grade. Real ingredients. Beef, sweet potatoes, green beans. Delicious. These are foods that you would want to eat, not that the babies would ever share. Just food for dogs is the number one vet recommended fresh dog food backed by over a decade of research. No marketing fluff. My dogs lose their minds at dinner. They run to the bowl tags, wagging paws, tapping full Broadway performance every single night. So I do care about the food I feed Biggie and Smalls. So go to justfoodfordogs.com for 50% off your first box. No code, no gimmicks, just real fresh food.