Jimmy Watson

Summary

The Antihero Podcast: Episode "Jimmy Watson"

Release Date: March 8, 2025

Overview: In this gripping episode of The Antihero Podcast, hosts Brent Tucker and Tyler engage in a profound and unfiltered conversation with Jimmy Watson. Drawing from his extensive and tumultuous background as a Marine, Blackwater contractor, and Navy SEAL, Jimmy shares his harrowing experiences, struggles with the military establishment, encounters with John McAfee, and his eventual path to redemption through faith and community initiatives.

---

1. Early Life and Military Enlistment

Jimmy Watson begins by recounting his early aspiration to join the military. At just 17 years old, he was determined to become a Green Beret or SEAL. Despite lacking formal education and enlisting before the physical and intellectual demands were fully met, his relentless drive led him to join the Marine Corps.

“I was 17 years old... begged my parents... all I ever wanted to do was be a Green Beret, a major in... SEAL,” [00:00].

2. Marine Corps Service and Deployment

During his four-year active duty in the Marines, Jimmy experienced significant events, including serving on the USS Tarawa during the USS Cole bombing in Yemen. This incident deeply affected him, marking his first encounter with death and terrorism.

“...I can remember thinking, now this is going to be war three. What are we going to do about this,” [16:50].

3. Transition to Blackwater and Special Operations

After leaving active duty due to poor living conditions, Jimmy transitioned to Blackwater (now Academi) as a contractor. His time with Blackwater was marked by rigorous training, camaraderie, and rapid advancement due to his military experience.

“...they could just tell all over me, like, this guy, been there, done that,” [68:12].

Jimmy’s ambition led him to pursue Navy SEAL training. Despite skepticism from peers over his Marine and Blackwater background, he persevered through the grueling selection process.

“...if you want it bad enough, you can do anything you want,” [57:34].

4. Navy SEAL Training and Deployment

Jimmy details his experiences during SEAL training, highlighting the intense physical and mental challenges. His deployment to Afghanistan involved high-stakes missions, including securing bases and engaging in combat operations. These missions solidified his reputation as a capable leader but also took a toll on his mental health.

“...there was duties like jump at night, and then do missions after you’ve jumped with all that stuff,” [76:55].

5. Struggles with the Military Establishment

Facing conflicts with Navy command, particularly over insider trading allegations related to his crypto activities, Jimmy encountered significant obstacles. His admission of insider trading set him apart from others in similar situations, garnering both respect and disdain.

“The difference is I owned it. I started thinking about how fast a person can really, like, take all the ammunition,” [03:26].

These struggles culminated in attempts by the Navy to dishonorably discharge him, leading to a fierce battle to clear his name. This period was marked by severe stress, mental health challenges, and a near-suicide attempt.

“...I was about to be putting a... For a ward or something. I’m kind of cocky. Yeah,” [95:08].

6. Involvement with John McAfee and Legal Troubles

Post-military life led Jimmy into the world of cryptocurrency and insider trading, influenced by figures like John McAfee. His association with McAfee brought both financial gains and legal troubles, paralleling McAfee’s own contentious path.

“They charged me with the exact same crimes as McAfee, which was conspiracy, money laundering, money, wire fraud...” [123:44].

Facing potential prosecution, Jimmy fled to Medellin, Colombia, seeking to evade the FBI. His time abroad was marked by substance abuse and continued instability.

“I just bought a one way ticket out of America. And I was never going to come back,” [122:49].

7. Spiritual Awakening and Redemption

At his lowest point, grappling with legal issues and personal loss, Jimmy experienced a profound spiritual awakening. Through Operation Restore Warrior, he found solace and purpose, leading to a significant transformation in his life.

“Sometimes we have to hit the very bottom of bottoms and lows in our life, to finally come to terms of our true need for something else, a true higher power.” [123:44].

This awakening inspired him to establish Triple Hollow Pursuit in Alabama, a spiritual renewal retreat combining faith with tactical training, aimed at helping veterans and first responders find healing and purpose.

“Now I'm in Alabama as a chief instructor and developer of a tactic school where it puts God as a center,” [141:53].

8. Current Endeavors and Community Impact

Today, Jimmy focuses on mentoring others through his nonprofit, Touchpoint Nation, fostering a community of warriors who support each other’s mental and emotional well-being. His journey underscores the critical need for genuine connections and purpose-driven lives among veterans and first responders.

“I got a lot of guys come out to me and say, man, what's up with SEAL seals, man?...,” [130:41].

---

Notable Quotes:

• “Sometimes we have to hit the very bottom of bottoms and lows in our life, to finally come to terms of our true need for something else, a true higher power.” – Jimmy Watson [123:44]

• “The difference is I owned it. I started thinking about how fast a person can really, like, take all the ammunition,” – Jimmy Watson [03:26]

• “I’m about to be putting a... For a ward or something. I’m kind of cocky. Yeah,” – Jimmy Watson [95:08]

• “Now I’m in Alabama as a chief instructor and developer of a tactic school where it puts God as a center,” – Jimmy Watson [141:53]

---

Conclusion: Jimmy Watson's story is a testament to resilience and the human spirit's capacity to overcome profound adversity. From the depths of military chaos and personal turmoil to finding redemption through faith and community, his journey offers invaluable insights into the struggles and triumphs faced by those who serve. The Antihero Podcast successfully captures the essence of his experiences, providing listeners with a raw and authentic narrative of survival, regret, and ultimate redemption.

---

Note: Advertisements, intros, outros, and non-content sections from the transcript have been excluded to maintain focus on the core narrative.

Transcript

[Jimmy Watson]

And that's when I bought a one way ticket out of America. And I was never going to come back. Yeah, I plan on staying because I had plenty of money, right. I had tons of money.

[Brent Tucker]

And I'm deep, probably deeper, but I'm assuming in probably offshore accounts because at some point, yeah, there's going to.

[Jimmy Watson]

Oh, no, you're me and Jimmy here. Gd. I used USAA checking.

[Tyler]

Hold on, we're not recording. Do you want to buy a shirt to support Vill?

[Brent Tucker]

There it is.

[Tyler]

People want to see their sausage get made.

[Brent Tucker]

An appropriate level of inappropriateness. Something happens in my family tonight. The Delta horse isn't. Isn't coming to rescue my. My family.

[Jimmy Watson]

My kids.

[Brent Tucker]

Like it is first responders, you know, that are. That are going to save my. My family.

[Tyler]

They want the culture to be down. They want people to not want to be cops. And the people that do want to be cops are now walking into the job scared to do.

[Brent Tucker]

I'm gonna try to act like it didn't happen, although we. We all know it did.

[Jimmy Watson]

JV team for life. I don't mess with crypto anymore. I could.

[Brent Tucker]

All right.

[Jimmy Watson]

They were like the only, the only restrictions that you have is you can't open an exchange. Like, I have the wherewithal in knowledge and intelligence to open up an exchange. You know what I mean? Like, are you kidding me? I don't, I don't.

[Brent Tucker]

I don't know what you mean. Because you know way more than that. We do about that, unfortunately.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah.

[Tyler]

Should we get into it? Yes or no?

[Jimmy Watson]

I don't think so.

[Brent Tucker]

I mean, honestly, get right to the question.

[Jimmy Watson]

I mean, when I. Because I. Because I was basically insider trading, you know, and so I had a huge advantage over.

[Brent Tucker]

You're Dan Crenshaw.

[Jimmy Watson]

The only difference. No, hold on, hold it. The only difference with me and Dan Crenshaw is I admit to insider trading. Right.

[Brent Tucker]

Fair enough. You know, I actually respect you a lot more for that, bro.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah, I was. I, you know, my, my thing was, bro, when I was doing it, I didn't even think about it being insider trading. Because when you're doing it, like I came right from the teams, retired from the seals. Go start. This guy is kind of like my commander now, the John McAfee. And I'm like thinking outside the box. But he's like, everybody around him is doing all this trading. They're. They're trading all this Ethereum and security coins and making all this money. And it's based off of everything that he mentions on his Twitter account. Of a million people with 75% of them doing exactly what he says, it shoots up. So after 10 times of him doing this, I'm like, I'm a freaking idiot. I need to put $1,000 into. $1,000, for me, at the time was a lot of money. And so I started just putting my money into the coins that he was about to mention, and they would skyrocket. And that's what the FBI later got me on. Of course, I was picking the coins for him and all this stuff. But you just. Your. Your mind isn't in. To be fair, you know, to be fraudulent, other people have to lose money. And at the time, some did, but they were extremely. Yeah, they were nerds in their basement with five computer screens. If you were doing this game, you. You knew there was. It was a game. Everybody knew it was a game.

[Brent Tucker]

What's. What's really funny is when it made me think, like, when you owned inside trading, like. Like. No, no, no, no. The difference is I owned it. I started thinking about how fast a person can really, like, take all the ammunition. It almost doesn't matter what they did to some degree. If you just own it, like, it takes all the ammunition away.

[Jimmy Watson]

There's something.

[Tyler]

There's something that's true.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah. Because I can hate you for this, but then as soon as someone's like, yeah, I did that, like, oh, okay.

[Jimmy Watson]

No, there's something especially.

[Brent Tucker]

Especially online. Yeah, right.

[Jimmy Watson]

It.

[Brent Tucker]

Like the real, like, anger and disagreement comes when. When someone, like, you know, just refuses to. To. To admit it. When someone admits it, they're like, okay, then.

[Tyler]

Yeah, all right.

[Jimmy Watson]

That's what pissed me off about Dan Crenshaw. Not to bring up drama, old stuff. Maybe we don't even talk about this, but one thing that really made me kind of angry at that is. Is he's in a. A. A position of power in. In everything. I think you're one of your co hosts. The police officer for 24 years, he was like, man, I've been doing law enforcement for 24 years. And to deny every single allegation. I mean, the difference with me is I'll be like, yeah, that's true. Yeah, you got me there. No, I did way worse than that. You know what I mean?

[Brent Tucker]

Right. Because they're already set up for the second, you know, second and third maneuvers for, you know, after you deny it. I'm gonna get you here. I'm gonna get you here. I'm gonna get you here. And when you pull that rug from under them, like, yeah, okay, then we're all in agreeance. Like, what. What. What's it argue about? What's. I think you did inside trading. Just use this for an example. You said you did inside trading. Okay, well, I guess.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah, it's true.

[Tyler]

You got me.

[Jimmy Watson]

I know. I'm paying for it.

[Brent Tucker]

Over. I was hoping for more.

[Jimmy Watson]

I'm a piece of. That's why I'm here, guys. I want to tell you guys how much of a piece of. Yeah, this is the anti Hero podcast.

[Tyler]

You can be. You are an anti hero.

[Jimmy Watson]

That's what. That's kind of what I've advocated.

[Tyler]

You know what's funny is you're one of the only people that actually knows what an anti hero is.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah, what's up with that?

[Tyler]

I don't know. People think like, oh, they're anti heroes. Like, no, we're not anti heroes.

[Jimmy Watson]

No, we're anti. Somebody taking all the credit for it. Like Rob O'Neill when everybody in his. There was a thousand intelligence officers that deserve equal amount of credit. You know, pulling the trigger, as you know, is the easiest part of the job.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, or. Or three other teammates that were in the room with you.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah, exactly, man.

[Brent Tucker]

Give them some credit.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah, give them some credit, man. Where credit's due.

[Tyler]

All right, you guys ready?

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Tyler]

All right. Welcome back to the anti Hero Podcast. Part delta force, part street cop. All truth. I'm Tyler, owner of Refracted Wolf Apparel. Use promo code antihero and get yourself 15 off the best and outsider culture. Graphic tees, stickers, hats, flags, ranger panties, zip up hoodies and beanies. That was fast.

[Brent Tucker]

And I'm Brent Tucker, owner of first responder Cigar company and first responder Car Coffee company. Use promo code FRCC15. That's FRCC15 for 15 off the world's best coffee and cigars.

[Tyler]

That's the second time you said car company. Remember that? A long time ago. We laughed.

[Jimmy Watson]

Of course.

[Brent Tucker]

Which one do I do? Which one do I. What do I do it on?

[Tyler]

I can't remember. It was just.

[Brent Tucker]

We lost, like, right now. What would I say?

[Tyler]

First responders, car.

[Brent Tucker]

Oh, on the cigars. Yeah, yeah. I short. Okay.

[Tyler]

You never know.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, that's because I didn't go through my exercises. I didn't go through my vocal exercises. I dropped. I've dropped those. Yeah, you just became the price. Yeah. Got too cocky.

[Tyler]

And of course, this episode brought to you by Human performance. Go to HPTRT.com and put in promo code HERO and get yourself 20 off your testosterone. But that's just your initial purchase. Every single month. 20% off your TRT. But yeah, they do. They offer all kinds of things, weight loss programs and ketamine is the big one. So go to hptrt.com start your TRT journey with them. 20% off every month. If you have any questions, ask us. We'll send you their promo code Hero.

[Brent Tucker]

And don't forget our Thursday night lives every Thursday night, 8:00pm Eastern Standard Time. And also our Patreon account, or Patreon has 5 and $10 levels you can sign up for. Sign up and get behind the scenes. Additional questions, live videos, prizes, direct messages to us. The list goes on and on and on for five and ten dollars. So please, if you want to support us and get a little bit extra, please sign up for our Patreon account today. You got anything else? We'll get into it.

[Tyler]

No, I was just going to mention the fact that Jimmy's been brought up in our. In our live stre multiple times. They were like, you need Jimmy on.

[Jimmy Watson]

Get this guy on immediately. He shot Osama bin Laden. He's the one that's been. He's writing a book right now about it.

[Brent Tucker]

I know that because his name was written in my notebook that people say we don't. I don't do anything with. Yet. Yet. Here we are.

[Tyler]

You're welcome.

[Brent Tucker]

Here we are. The. If you haven't figured it out by now, with us, we have Jimmy Watson, former Marine infantryman, O3 11. After that, he went on to be a Blackwater contractor and then came back into the military and went through buds, became a seal, went over to the SDV team out there in Hawaii and much, much more. We've already, I've already had to stop him a couple times before the episode and be like, wait, save it for the perfect podcast. And a part of me didn't want to because I wanted to hear the story.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

So I'm excited to get into it. Jimmy, thanks for coming on, man. Welcome to the show.

[Jimmy Watson]

Thank you, Brent. Thank you, Tyler, very much and thanks everybody for watching right now. I know Tyler just told me before I came on, just don't admit to any crimes. And I'm like, dude, I think. I think it's too late for that. You know what I'm saying?

[Tyler]

Yeah. Clearly they don't care.

[Jimmy Watson]

They don't care. Nobody cares.

[Brent Tucker]

The. Where do we start with you? I know. I'm afraid it might end up being such a long episode and go, I wish we just started. Started here. But. But we're going to start a little bit from the beginning as. As we always do. How old were you signed up when you signed up for the infantry to be a Marine man?

[Jimmy Watson]

I was. I was 17 years old. I was. I was like 14 years old when I really wanted to go. And I begged my parents. They took me out of school. Basically a junior high dropout. Been on my own since I was 14, almost 13 or 14 years old and. But all I ever wanted to do was be a. A Green Beret, a major in, you know, for the tanks, whatever that is, you know, an Army Ranger, something, a seal. But I didn't have the physicality or the mentality or the intellectually. Intellectually, I wasn't there. You know, I wasn't picking up with the other.

[Tyler]

So you chose the Marines.

[Jimmy Watson]

So sorry, you guys. But you know, what's a good thing about being a Marine and a SEAL is like, you can basically, if people are hating on seals, they're like, those guys are wearing dresses and all this stuff. I'm like, yo, I was a Marine. If people are hating on the Marines.

[Brent Tucker]

Which they never are, to hop over.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah, I just hop over, man. Whatever.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, yeah. You know, a military chameleon.

[Tyler]

I have my cake. I'm eating it too.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

How long did you do one contract in Marines? Four years.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah.

[Tyler]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

So my DD214, by the grace of God, says eight years in the Marines, but it was only four, you know, so don't admit to anything. You know, I guess it's four years inactive on reserves. They counted. So eight years total, but really four years in the core. Four in the core, you know, G. What? Yeah, yeah. I actually enlisted before 911 happened. Really. And. And I. I told my dad, he goes, why are you joining the Marine, son? He was a Texas judge and preacher. Oh, yeah, yeah. And he. And he said, why are you joining the. I said, to go to war. I just knew that I was going to go to war. It was weird. And maybe that's our innate instinctual capacity when we're small to. To really want to be in some kind of war. Play for it, you know, play Call of Duty, whatever. But the point is, is I knew I was going to war. And then 911 happens right as I'm going through my first deployment with the Marines on the USS Tarawa.

[Brent Tucker]

I don't want to sidetrack this a whole lot, but when. When you said that, one of the first things I thought about was like, you wanted to go war. And what did you say, like, as a kid, that kind of, you know, points you towards that was it. Did you say cowboys and Indians or.

[Jimmy Watson]

Indians for, you know, we're picking up sticks and acting like it's a bazooka or a spear. You know, think of this.

[Brent Tucker]

Think of some of the. That's the last episode. We started complaining as, as we always do and be honest with you, as we should, about the lack of masculinity in this country and the effects that it has on our special operations, our military, our law enforcement. And when cowboys and Indians became a bad thing, like, you know what I mean? It is, it is a bad thing. You, you know, you no longer have kids that are. That grow up wanting to fight. Here's another one as. As simple as it is. Cops and Robbers.

[Tyler]

I was just thinking that now they're probably going to rename robbers to, like, right?

[Brent Tucker]

When, when the robbers are the, are the, are the good guys and the cops are the bad guys. Like, no one plays Cops and Robbers. Like, it's a whole culture shift. Flame me if, if you want, but hey, war isn't going away. Fighting isn't going away, but the ability and the one, you know, to fight is going away, which is going to wreak havoc in our military and our culture. And we've lost a culture of young kids that grew up wanting to fight. And some of those kids, a small percentage like you, will end up in Go Fight.

[Tyler]

But we're.

[Brent Tucker]

We're losing that. And it's. I don't know for some reason how to talk about that. Like, you mentioned it, and I was like, well, we just talked about this, this last episode and there's. I'm not. That's the reason, but that is part of it.

[Jimmy Watson]

That's a huge reason. You know, when I was a kid, that's all I wanted to do. And I know I'm not the only one, right? Like, me and my brother were throwing, you know, dirt claws at each other's face.

[Brent Tucker]

Right? How old are you?

[Jimmy Watson]

I'm 40. I'm 44 now. 44 Magnum. That's right.

[Brent Tucker]

Same age, right? That's. That's all, that's all me and Drew did in the woods was either fight each other or find someone else to fight. They're not fist fight, but, you know, like, you know, to play fight with sometimes.

[Jimmy Watson]

Well, you know, in the moms and the moms get angry at this and dads, you know, the, the left and stuff and they. So they bring their kids in and what do they do? They play Call of duty for 24 hours a day. It's deep within us to be warriors.

[Tyler]

You know, Dude, I'm like, hey, I'm like, go outside. Go find your friends. Like, get out of the house. And he's like, I would. But all they do. Like, my son loves video games, but he knows I won't. But he's like, all they play is they play on their iPads and video games. He's like, no one. The cul de sac is like, there's tumbleweeds going around it. Like, there's no kids out there. They're all inside.

[Brent Tucker]

That's crazy. I didn't think about that because when you were. I was like, yeah, good on you putting your kid outside, but you can't be the only parent pushing your kid outside, or else he has no one to play with.

[Jimmy Watson]

Exactly.

[Brent Tucker]

That's crazy. Anyway, so I. I digress. Did. Did you get to deploy with. With the Marines?

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah, I deployed twice with the Marines. Oh, nice. Once. You remember the USS Cole when he got bombed?

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, I do.

[Jimmy Watson]

And I was on the Tarwa when that happened. And so that was my first experience with death, you know, and of course, you know, not to sound sadistics or something, but I was really excited about this because it was. Because it was no war going on. It. No 911 happened. But I do think that the USS Cole being bombed in Yemen there in the Aden harbor, and we being off, like 100 miles off the coast, we did a beeline to the, to the Aden, the Gulf of Aden harbor there and started recovering the bodies out of there. And I can remember thinking, now this is going to be war three. What are we going to do about this? This is basically an attack by a terrorist organization on American soil. Yeah. It's American ship, but it's considered absolutely right. And nothing happened.

[Brent Tucker]

Well, which is crazy.

[Jimmy Watson]

Crazy. Right. And then a year later, lo and behold, I think because we didn't do anything, 911 happens, you know?

[Brent Tucker]

Right. You know, it's. What's crazy is there's some people, the 911 deniers, whatever they want to call themselves, is sure is like. Well, that was because we were looking for a reason to call to. To go to war. Right. The coal was a good. If we. We don't have to. We don't have to fly planes into. Into buildings and kill 3,000Americans to go to war. There's plenty of reasons to go to war. Yeah.

[Tyler]

I do think we dropped the ball on not. Not identifying. Well, no, they did. They knew who did it and they still. Our government failed to act on like, retaliation and war. But, you know, and Then the coal.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, yeah.

[Tyler]

And then the intelligence sharing between the ABC agencies all the way up to 911 was awful. You know, we knew. When I say we, we had. Well, I mean, you know, they had certain people knew certain things and no one put it all together.

[Brent Tucker]

And that was until the mandate. It was so bad. At some point fairly early on the G Watt, there was a mandate for everyone to start sharing information. And even with that mandate, people still didn't want to share information. It's all. It's always been a problem. It's a very selfish, selfish thing.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah. And can you imagine just being a super young boot ass Marine seeing like this hole in. On the side of the. The coal and then them, the divers dragging up these just pieces of body and they were putting them in this, you know, these black body bags and they were sunk down like this. When you carried the body bags onto the Zodiac boat and then you. We shipped it to land right there and then put it in a freezer truck. The smell and the body bags were drooping down to the ground because of the body parts. And for me, that experience just. It was just branded in my brain forever in the fact that we never did anything about was just mind blowing. But our next deployment was 9 11.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah. And where, where did I go on 9 11? I mean your first woman after 9 11.

[Jimmy Watson]

So 9 11. I was actually in Australia or Perth or, or a Darwin per. Sydney or Darwin. One of the two and one of the three. And we were drinking beers. And I remember the shore police just going around rounding up all the marines and putting them back on the ship and screaming. And I was like, hell no, we're not going to fall for this trip. Me and my buddy started fighting out with the shore police, you know.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, nice try.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah, yeah. No way. We're not believing nothing, bro. And so they, they had a. They had a. It was a really big deal for the shore police to round us up and get us on the ship. But once we got on the ship and realized what had happened, there was an old gunnery sergeant that got up in front of us and he said, gentlemen were going to war. He was drunk. Everybody was drunk.

[Tyler]

Marines are my favorite.

[Jimmy Watson]

Everybody was crying like boohooing, but it was like, we're gonna go tear their heads off.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

You know.

[Brent Tucker]

Oh, I was also thinking of the, the poor police whose job was getting brief, like, hey, you're gonna have to go all around the city. You know, these drunken marines have been terrorizing city for the last 24 hours. You're going to have to go get them all for no real good reason of sorts. Like and, and basically talk them into coming back to.

[Tyler]

You're going to need verbal judo for that.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, you're going need some verbal judo. Oh man. What a. And we're talking. How many Marines do you think they had to recall and, and get, get back to the ship?

[Jimmy Watson]

Oh, 3,000 marines.

[Brent Tucker]

Get out of here.

[Jimmy Watson]

3,000 marines.

[Brent Tucker]

Three.

[Jimmy Watson]

What a guys. Monumental task. Yeah. Me and my buddy were willing to fight it out.

[Brent Tucker]

I'm sure you weren't the only one.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah. Cuz we, you know, you're. You partying and you're like I'm not falling for nothing.

[Brent Tucker]

Right. Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

You know the worst thing they ever did was the Cinderella Libo. They used to make you get back on ship by 12 o'clock. 12 at midnight. Like that's just a breeding ground for all kinds of fights. When you get back on the ship, you get tanked for hours and then you got to get back on the ship. Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

Leave the fights out there. Don't. Don't get them all drunk to come back here and fight. Fight themselves.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah man. But they, they, they cracked the bottom of the ship open and they. I didn't realize those ships carried so much ammunition and AT4s and smoke grenades and frag grenades and just crates and crates and they drug it up from the bottom of the ship. And then basically my squad went down there. We went down there by, by four or five guys, six guys. And then we just sat there and just took as much of stuff as we could. And then we actually flew into Pakistan, which was classified for a while and then it got unclassified. And that's the base that we secured in Pakistan so that the PJs could stage forward stage so that we could start bombing the hell out of Afghanistan. And we spent 10 days there and then we went ahead and got shipped back to the ship and basically washed off. Started training really hard and getting prepared to be the first Marines to land in south of Kanahar. Was.

[Brent Tucker]

Was it PJs or. Or CCTs? Probably combat controllers. It was calling air strikes.

[Jimmy Watson]

Well, it was combat controllers and pjs.

[Brent Tucker]

Yep.

[Jimmy Watson]

The pj. That was my first time to ever interact with pj's.

[Brent Tucker]

Right. Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

JV team for life.

[Tyler]

Ghostbed sleep so good it's scary. Go to ghostbed.com forward/antihero and get 50 off. That's 5, 0% off your order. Or go to check out and use anti hero as a promo code. 50 off. 60,000 plus 5 star rating and reviews. All handcrafted here in America and Canada, I think mostly Florida, to be honest with you. So go to ghostbed.com support them. They're huge supporters of us. They're awesome. They treat us really good. So if you need any bedding, if you don't even need a bed, if you just need bedding, cool. They have the patented, they have the patented cooling technology.

[Jimmy Watson]

Nailed it.

[Brent Tucker]

Nailed it. Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

Nailed it.

[Tyler]

Go to bed.comandroid 50% off.

[Brent Tucker]

Tyler, how many critical incidents do you think we've covered so far in this podcast, man?

[Tyler]

At least five, six.

[Brent Tucker]

And they're not going to stop, you know, there's, you cannot stop them all. So they're going to happen. And you really have, you know, two charters of that. Obviously one is to stop them from happening, but since you can't stop them all from happening, you owe it to the people that you protect and depend on you to react to those situations in the most effective and efficient manner. And right now, really, whether, you know, you're a fire department, ems, law enforcement, you're stuck with essentially radios.

[Tyler]

And Apollo is the best way to manage resources during these events because it's designed by first responders for first responders.

[Brent Tucker]

It gives first responders a common operating picture which allows them to see where everybody is in real time, overlaid onto a map to see where they are. You can drop pinpoints and let them know where they need to go. And without constant talking on the radio, everybody knows where the incident is, where it's happening and where they need to be.

[Tyler]

Apollo is an app based application. This is just download and go.

[Brent Tucker]

It's an app and so it works with Androids, it works with iPhones.

[Tyler]

Apollo makes sure on the back end everything works and you can just plug and go. They handle all the licensing, all the encryption compliance, all the security. It's all handled by Apollo. It's crucial to know where everyone is and what they are doing in order to effectively control chaos in one of these, either natural disasters or shootings or anything like that.

[Brent Tucker]

So if you want to learn more about Apollo, scan the QR code and ensure your department is ready to react to any crisis in its most effective and efficient manner possible.

[Jimmy Watson]

JV Team for life the Then you.

[Brent Tucker]

Guys went into Kandahar, then we went.

[Jimmy Watson]

South of Kandahar in a, in a Camp Rhino and they had the picture on Time magazine because we had the flag kind of like Iwo Jima. It was nothing, not even a fraction of a second. Close to that. But it was like another. It was memorializing another landing. And we had the flag up at Camp Rhino, and of course, the. The AC 130s just blew it all to hell. And so my job was pretty easy just to walk through the rubble and throw grenades in the rooms and frag each other. We were fragging each other because, you know, Marines don't understand. Like, you throw a grenade in a room with a bunch of holes in it, you get blasted.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, that's. That is.

[Jimmy Watson]

I've.

[Brent Tucker]

I've seen. I've seen Green Berets do that. Not. Not necessarily, like, frag each other, but necessarily do what Marines do, but really, really close and some really bad tactics and kind of look back. At some point, you're like, what is going on here? And then as you get older and you look back and you're like, you know, you can train all you want. We don't train to that level. You know what I mean? Like, show me a training scenario where you're really like, hey, here's live grenades. Go. You know, take this building. Go. Run amok. Right? And so you're figuring all that out for the first time in. In real life, brother.

[Jimmy Watson]

And I'm telling you, I. People don't believe this when. But our debrief, right before we got on the. The Super Stallion 53s on the ship deck at 3am in the morning, right when we're about to go into Afghanistan. We have no weather intel. We don't know what's expected that will play later on in the. In the events. And we. We get there and we just. Oh, and there's a SEAL that came in. I don't. I've never seen the SEAL in my life. On this. On this ship. He comes and he has a huge. He looks like Don Shibley. You know, it could have been Don Shibley. I'm like, what the heck? And he had a big handlebar mustache. And he came in, he goes, here's your rules of engagement. He goes, kill everything. And thank God there wasn't, like, civilians where we were, or I'm afraid that it would have been super, super bad. Because as a Marine, and I love the Marines, my whole foundation is the Marine. That's my favorite. My favorite unit. Right? And. But. But, you know, we're getting these orders from a SEAL who we admire, and he's like saying, basically, shoot anything and kill anything that moves. And basically what he was saying was animals and enemy combatants. But everybody remember, if you take yourself back to that moment after 9, 11 people were pissed.

[Brent Tucker]

That's right.

[Jimmy Watson]

And there were no, like, hey, guys, remember to just be careful out there and pick out your shots carefully. It was like Marine unit, go and smash everything. We're probably going to be there for the next four years. We thought it was war three going in.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah. And it's fresh on your mind, you know, watching the towers fall over and over and over again, watching first responders dig through the rubble.

[Jimmy Watson]

Right.

[Brent Tucker]

Just. Just watching, hearing all the stories. It's just when you finally get a chance to go in there and it hasn't gotten better, you know, all this time you guys have been wanting to smash things since. Since you got brought back on the ship.

[Jimmy Watson]

Australia.

[Brent Tucker]

Right. And yeah, in fact, it only gets worse. And so for that guy to come and tell you that, again, no hit on him. But I don't think. I don't think he realizes, you know, what, just, just what you're saying, like, what that could have ended up, because these boys are ready to go.

[Jimmy Watson]

Ready to go. And I remember we landed in the first thing that I felt. I was probably like the fourth or fifth guy off the 53. Of course, the Rangers had been through there or similar areas. We always thought we were the first ones, but the rangers were there first. But we were the first Marines there. And I was probably the fourth or fifth, sixth guy that walked off that helicopter. And when I touched my knee to the ground, I remember this ice cold air hit me. And it was near late November, December. The sun's out just four hours a day. It was just barely coming across the Hindu Kush Mountains there. And then it would just disappear. And I was like, this is going to be hell. This is going to be like the frozen Chosen. We still had our regular cammies and no wormies. No, we have wormies. Some guy stole a parka from one of the Air Force chicks or something that was there that landed after us, like 10, 20 days after us, right? And we would pass that thing around and like, play betting games and stuff. And whoever could wear it for an hour. It was freezing.

[Brent Tucker]

It's hard unless you've experienced it. I feel like everyone has this to some degree in their life. And maybe I'm wrong by thinking it's so much more vivid when it comes to war. But I bet you remember exactly what the carrier deck kind of felt like that night. Like flying off. You can close your eyes, you can smell the ocean. You can hear the. The. The chopper blades. You can smell the fumes, you know, from. Although you've been. Although you've been in that scenario, let's say a hundred more times. You remember that night and what that night felt like as well as landing in Afghanistan for the first time and smelling that, that sand, that fine sand, man, whatever. You just remember the memories are vivid.

[Jimmy Watson]

I think that was part of my ptsd, if you want to call it was not like things that I saw, terrible things in war, but it was more like a grieving process of missing the brotherhood and missing those moments. And just the other day I smelled that, what do they call it, JB8 fuel or that fuel coming from a JPA and, and I smelled that in the heat wave and man, that's exactly right. Brings me back to that ship carrier deck.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

Loading on that helicopter at night. And you don't know if you're going to, you don't know what you're going into. You don't know if it's going to be a Normandy, you know, beach day landing or there's going to be nothing there. But I remember all those, the smells and everything.

[Tyler]

Yeah, it falls under the reintegration part. And a lot of people think like reintegration means like oh, when I come home I can't go into 711 without think someone's gonna kill me. But it's like everything like that, like the brotherhood, from really vague things like brotherhood all the way to specific things like the smell of the fuel and everything in between. It's like, you know, kind of like what am I, what am I now?

[Jimmy Watson]

Exactly.

[Brent Tucker]

And the purpose, you feel like you have such a purpose. You know in life everything's, everything's. The purpose is super clear. Life is actually really simple and it's just, it's just you, you and the boys doing this purpose. And when you come back, you come back to chaos. Like non war chaos isn't war. Chaos is actually coming back to the rat race of, of America. That's chaos.

[Jimmy Watson]

That's right. That's right. And so when we came back from Afghanistan, I ended up getting out of the, the Marine Corps after four just because the living conditions were just crap. You know, Garrison, in Garrison, like we, I lived in a freaking war. 2 or Korean War style flat tops and they spray painted the windows black. It was just rack, rack, rack, rack, rack. You know, cleaning your toilets with gas masks, you know, basically making mustard gas, getting hazed all the time. This was back when Hazen was real big in the Marines and blacked out the windows just to beat us and stuff. And of course I was a senior Marine now with you know, One deployment, two deployments. And when I got back, I was like, man, I guess. And I didn't see that much in Afghanistan. It wasn't as crazy and wild as I, as I really wanted to be. I wanted to fight a war hand to hand combat.

[Brent Tucker]

Most people didn't.

[Jimmy Watson]

Exactly. And so, so when I get back, I'm like, dude, screw this, I'm out. Well, that's when the big guy talk about Iraq was going on. And so, and so I was taking a big chance, but I wanted to do the seals or something like that. And so when I got out, I go, I'm at home. And of course I, I, I did it past the, the asvab. I was always a little bit under the score. I had no formal schooling and so I was always teaching myself. Right. And so it was this massive long struggle to become a seal, to actually make the scores and stuff. But during this process, I failed the ASVAB again. And I'm over there looking at my big screen TV. My dad had one of these old janky box TVs. Big screen TV.

[Tyler]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

And I see the battle of Fallujah going on and it's, and if you can imagine, I'm standing there in my, in my, in my, in my living room with a bottle of Pasano jug of wine, you know, thinking about going on Prozac. And as I'm watching my junior Marines with the thunder and third three one do house to house in Fallujah.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

And so that killed me inside. Like I just missed my opportunity of a lifetime because maybe I was a, or something, I don't know. But I just, but I hated the Marines. I did my time. I hated, I hated the lifestyle, loved the men, hated the life.

[Tyler]

That makes sense.

[Jimmy Watson]

So when I got out in, in plus when I was in, when I was in Afghanistan, I saw some CAD guys that were shipped in. Remember they got hit by like a 5000 pound bomb or something crazy. I don't know if you remember that. It was some, I think it was some Delta guys and maybe some SF guys.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, some SF guys actually.

[Jimmy Watson]

SF guys. And saw him get shipped in on the stretchers, man. I saw him catch Johnny Walker. The seals were there, probably slapping around, who knows. And, and then I saw the seals on this, this like desert cart, you know, with the bandanas and long hair and, and probably steroid out with muscle, you know, with the tats. And I thought, now that's what I want to do.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Tyler]

Best recruiting in the world. Big arms, tattoos, beard.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

Ironically, everything that they kind of let you do overseas and they. Everything. They kind of garrison is what is. Is the best recruitment is the best recruitment. So what take us from. You're watching. You're watching your guys get it on a Fallujah. And so I'd imagine the best way and quickest way to get there is at this point is probably Blackwater. But how. How'd that. How'd.

[Jimmy Watson]

Well, yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

Thing come about.

[Jimmy Watson]

So my dad. So. So I'm like, moping around and I hope this is a message for people. People watching right now. Some. Some of your awesome listeners is. Is. You know, I was down and out. I went to the wine. I started drinking heavily. But then my dad came in, the old Texas judge and preacher. He said, son, what are you doing with my wine? Put that down. I put it down. He goes, get your. Get your ass together. He goes, look at you. He goes, those are your guys fighting in Fallujah, right? He says, if you want to go to war, then go find your war. I'll never forget that. And I was like, you know what? He's right. I'm going to go take the ASAB again. Well, this time I was 1.2 points under the ASVAB. The. The mechanical math, the GT score.

[Brent Tucker]

Part of it. Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah. In this. And I'm. And I'm begging this old lady because she's marking it up with red. I can wave you by one point. And I'm talking. This is my life in front of me. And she gives me a 49. Well, you need a 50. And I begged her, and basically she refused to do it. So on my way out the door, though, I walked by a guy with the. With one of these on a Green Beret, and he had medals on his chest. And he looked. He was just like the ultimate poster guy for the Green Berets. And I guess he was a recruiter, but he was standing there waiting for his guys. And as I was walking out with my head down, he grabbed me. I'll never forget. He grabbed me on the side. And I looked at him. I said, what, man? And he said. He goes, hey, man. He goes, today wasn't your day, but perhaps tomorrow is. I said, what does that even mean, man? But I needed that male. I needed somebody I looked up to shape me and say, hey, this is your day. And so he goes, maybe not today is your day, but tomorrow is. And so he goes, you. You know what you ought to do. And I said, what? He said, you need to look at this new company. That's Called Blackwater. They're brand new. Nobody's really heard of them. And. And I said, really? He goes, yeah, you know, put your resume in there. And so I go home, and that's what I do. I put this crazy bullet. I didn't know how to do a resume. I put this bullet list of things that I've done. Ninja warrior stuff, you know, like 240 Bravo grenade, special operations with an M1 with a bayonet, you know, M16. And so they pick me up, and I go straight to Moyak, North Carolina.

[Brent Tucker]

Yep, been there. You know, it's funny. Well, actually, it's not funny at all is when you start drinking. Basically, what. What you've conceded is today's not my day, and neither is tomorrow.

[Jimmy Watson]

Dang.

[Brent Tucker]

Because when you wake up hungover and, yeah, you're. You're not. You're not. You're not attacking the next day.

[Tyler]

No, you're surviving.

[Brent Tucker]

You're surviving. The next day is going to be worse than this day is. So anytime you resort to drinking as a coping mechanism, you've conceded today's not my day, and tomorrow's not looking good either. And for that guy to grab you and say, only a sober person really can has a chance at tomorrow being your day.

[Jimmy Watson]

That's right. And that was life changing. That was one of those moments. I've had maybe four or five moments like that in my life that I could think about, and that was one of the most significant moments in my life. If that Green Beret wouldn't have grabbed me on my shoulder and said, hey, look. You know, look at me in the eyes, M.F. you know, like. Like, you know. You know, get your ass together. You know, today wasn't your day, but maybe tomorrow is. And that requires you to put down the bottle. That requires you to put down everything and go with all your heart.

[Brent Tucker]

You absolutely had. How. How was. So Moyach. Is that like a. I'd imagine. But what year is this? It was a 30404. Okay.

[Jimmy Watson]

Right when the guys got hung on the bridge in Fallujah.

[Brent Tucker]

Oh, yeah. I bet that was a. A place to be in Blackwater, you know, and in and around that. That. That community when that happened.

[Jimmy Watson]

Well, all the. All the instructors for Blackwater under Eric Prince were. Were either part of the Brimmer detail or they were part of the car's eye detail.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay.

[Jimmy Watson]

And so when they came in, most of them were Green Berets and some seals and stuff, and they were like, hey, all that. Y'all put on your resumes. I'm like, huh? What? And I'm like, sweating bullets, man. Because, you know, there's. I've been through a couple processes. Vetting process. And this is a. This is a. This is a vetting process. Basically. You better know what you put down. You better know. You better back up what you put down on that.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

And that's exactly what he told us. He goes, now get down to the range with this AK47 and do a 200 yard qual. And I've never even shot an AK. I'm like, oh, no. You know, yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

All you guys that B.S. yours, maybe. Which one y'all did that?

[Jimmy Watson]

I told everybody I was. I was smoking Taliban with their own AKs. But now I'm here.

[Tyler]

They happen to do AK, that contracting stuff. I mean, since last time I even checked last year. It is not a training thing. It's a testing thing. The rain. You got one shot, and if you don't, then you're out for sure.

[Brent Tucker]

They. They don't have. They're not the military. They don't have time to train you. Like, they're just there to. I mean, certified. Yeah. To certify you and it's a business now and send you on the way. There's no money to be made in training you.

[Jimmy Watson]

You know, and at the time, they didn't need the numbers because I. I know they reduced their. Their quality towards the end of Blackwater. I promise you that. If that's what ruined them.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Jimmy Watson]

You know.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Jimmy Watson]

But. But at the beginning, it was really selective and me just being an 0311 infantry guy, you know, But I was part of a pretty little Gucci security platoon that ran away, ran around with State platoon and Force Recon, but they. I was still just 0311 infantry. And so when I. So when we started, they were basically like, put this AK47 together that's in this box and I'm over here just faking it till I make it. I'm like looking at other guys. Okay, how do we do that? But luckily I was raised on a farm. I was raised shooting prey dogs every day. You know, I think my highest kill count was like 88 prairie dogs in one day. So I had a lot of like, that Kentucky wind is like what I.

[Tyler]

Take from this is you figured it the out.

[Jimmy Watson]

Figured it out.

[Tyler]

You figured out like, you don't always get an instruction booklet. You don't always get a road map.

[Jimmy Watson]

Like, no, you. It's called delusional confidence. You just like, you're like, you can't. You know, you just. You go in there, you figure it out, man. And that's. That's my story, you know, with. With the Blackwater. Because I. I will say that most of their tests, I think they, like, changed over time because they were hard. They were like, you know, you got to hit this mailbox with a 203 at 400 meters, and it's like high winds, like on a golf course. And, like, guys are felling all over, and I'm like, dude, I just, like a wing and a prayer. And I'm like, like. And it, like, barely made it in the circle next to this mailbox. And he's like, all right. And I'm like, geez, you know, it was. It was like that. And. But in combat, you know, you. You shoulder fire, or you. You. You. You hip fire that thing, and you just. And I just understood where that round was going to go. So I can throw them through windows easy. But in the training vetting process, I was always sketchy under that pressure, you.

[Brent Tucker]

Know, so had the. It's. Like I said, it's unlike the military. It. The. The contract side of it is so much more. Efficient's an odd word to use, but I'm using efficient in this aspect. You could be down, you know, you could deploy in the military, and you're back for a year, two years, three years, whatever, you know, whatever it is on an off cycle. That's not true when you're a contractor, because your job is to be over there. So if you want to. Were you guys doing, like 90 on, 90 off? What was. What was your rotation? So there's no, like, long wait to go to war. That's what you were hired to do. So you're going overseas?

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah, so. So when I got through the vetting process, they dropped a ton of guys. I made it through. We had two instructors per guy. We met Erik Prince there. This was when it was first starting out. So Erik Prince was there shaking our hands at every graduation. And they brought me into this room, and I somehow passed the psych test. You know what I mean? But Eric Prince called, not Erik Prince, but the recruiter called me, and I said, when do you want to go to Iraq? And I said, today. And they were like, okay, we'll fly you out of Virginia tomorrow. And so I went the very next day, sufficient to write straight with a big black bag of just all my stuff, kit and all this stuff, Rhodesian vest, and then flew straight to Amman, Jordan. And then from Amman, Jordan, I got on a little twin engine la casa. I think it's called a la Casa. Twin 80 or something. Two twin engines on a little six seater with a Blackwater pilot. And then. And I've told this story before, and guys online are like, that's no way. There was no way. Yeah, bro. Like, what am I making this up?

[Brent Tucker]

You know, one of us was there.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah, one of us is there. I got my penis calling a bell center. You didn't. You know, like, nobody believes that either. Whatever. That's. That's my. That's my battle wound in seals. But anyways, we fly in. We fly in as high. We flew in as low as you can go through the desert from Aman, Jordan, me and these. This other guy with cut on you cut on your neck here. Bryce Bryson.

[Tyler]

Oh, I saw.

[Jimmy Watson]

He's got it.

[Tyler]

He's on a documentary.

[Jimmy Watson]

Oh, yeah. He has gotten cut on.

[Tyler]

Cut. He's got cut here tattooed on his neck.

[Brent Tucker]

Who's. Who's that guy with the.

[Tyler]

I don't know.

[Brent Tucker]

Where'd he get the scar from on his neck?

[Tyler]

It's not a scar, it's a tattoo.

[Brent Tucker]

Oh, it's a tattoo?

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah, it says, the guy I flew.

[Brent Tucker]

In, it says cut here.

[Jimmy Watson]

He said cut here. Dotted line all the way around his neck.

[Tyler]

He's on a documentary about contracting. So that's the only reason why I know that I watched on it and.

[Jimmy Watson]

That'S the cat I flew in with. And I'm like, yeah, it's got.

[Brent Tucker]

I mean, it's got to feel like it's right out of a movie at, you know, at this point. Like it really has to.

[Jimmy Watson]

No, it was. It was.

[Brent Tucker]

It was surreal.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah. I call home to my mom. I said, mom, these. This is. My dream is coming true. Like, I missed the war. I went to the war in Afghanistan with the Marines, but I just. It wasn't Fallujah. And I'm sorry.

[Tyler]

Mother's dream right there, going to. I'm in the war.

[Jimmy Watson]

And she's like, you know, cell phones and sat phones can cause brain cancer. I'm like, mom, there's mortar smashing.

[Brent Tucker]

At least my concern.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah, right here.

[Brent Tucker]

It really sounds a little bit like. What's that movie with Sylvester Stallone of all the retired guys go off and. Not the disposable Expendables. Yeah, it's like the Expendables before there was the Expendables, you know, just these absolute movie characters, you know, flying in to. To do what they came here to do.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah, it was his. His Tattoo was crazy. And I'll tell you the story about him here in a minute. But we, so we took this la casa real low from the desert and then it went real high over Baghdad and then it went as high as it could. It was like anti missile maneuvers, whatever. And then he basically would fall out of the sky and like, you feel like you're going to puke. Like, it's like a rough ride. And me and the guy, we flew, we kind of twisted like this down on the Baghdad airport and you can see plumes of smoke coming out. Look like hell. And we landed and there was a Blackwater team there to pick us up. And it was pretty rogue, man. These guys had cut off long beards. You know, their, their skin looked like, you know, leather because they'd been out there in the sun so much and.

[Tyler]

We haven't received orders in two weeks.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah, do whatever that we want. And so they pick me and this guy up. We go down death road route Irish go, we, we go right into the man camp. And right when we get out of the man camp, we call it the man camp.

[Brent Tucker]

Love it.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah, I, I get out of the, the van and then he gets out me because I got out first or second, I don't remember which one. Because when I got you Baghdad, and they pointed to the guy with the cut on neck, Bryce, which I talked to him regularly now, but he, he, they, they told him Mosul, two days later, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm starting my first run out of the gate with Blackwater and I hear that this team gets just annihilated in Mosul. And it was my buddy who flew in with me with a cut on Neck. He was the only survivor in a truck that got obliterated. He was a trunk monkey because he was a new guy. That's all you do is smash him in the back, right? He got blown out the back is from what I can recall. And he got hit in his neck a massive hole. Had to do a tracheotomy later on. Messed his voice up. Really messed him up. Yeah, bad. Flew him out to Germany. 50, 50.

[Brent Tucker]

And they had to cut there.

[Jimmy Watson]

They had to literally cut there.

[Brent Tucker]

What was at that time? What, what? So it was just, it was there. It was just. He could laugh about it. Yeah, he'd laugh, you know, he'd laugh about it too. Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

Super solid guy. I talk to him really now. And as crazy as that story is, it's true. And that's what happened, man. They just put us in the trunk.

[Brent Tucker]

What was your job at that time as Blackwater? Like, what are you guys hired to do? Because it's not offensive operations per se. Everything's defensive. As a, As a contractor. Yeah. You know, defensive in a weird way. It can turn offensive, but yeah. What is your job?

[Jimmy Watson]

So what's crazy is, you know, when we. When Blackwater first started, it was a very defensive side. You're, You're. You're operating under the guise of diplomatic State Department protection. They made me a GS13, which is unbelievably high rank, just for pay issues. They gave us a black diplomatic passport, which we didn't deserve because guys started smuggling drugs and guns in the U.S. yeah. They took our black. They are diplomatic passport.

[Tyler]

So pissed off one guy had to ruin it.

[Brent Tucker]

That's right.

[Jimmy Watson]

Guys always ruin it.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

And so our. So our job was. What did they. Cause I. I can't remember. It's just. You're just basically got your blue badge on, you can carry weapons in the embassy, and you're just going back and forth with these strap hangers. Some guys got part. Put a part of teams that were actually guarding like let's say Condoleezza Rice, Dick Cheney. I was on a team that we were guarding like basically the strap hangers.

[Tyler]

So they were.

[Jimmy Watson]

Coffee.

[Tyler]

There were. So there were PSD emissions.

[Jimmy Watson]

Psd, yeah, that's right.

[Brent Tucker]

Yes. Usually went into probably two sectors like static security and mobile security was. Was. It was just kind of all mobile.

[Jimmy Watson]

All mobile.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay.

[Jimmy Watson]

And static was for the peshmurgers, I think, or whatever, the normal stay guys. And they were guarding the camp. They were guarding the static positions. And then Blackwater, which they later did a lot of static, of course, and triple canopy stuff. But it was mobile.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Jimmy Watson]

And so basically I started out as the trunk monkey. They just lay you in the back with a saw. M49 saw. And with a nut sack on it. And just laid us in the back and just told us to shut up and watch. The first run we went out. The first run we went out was we went straight out the gate and the driver just. His whole window just shattered like a spider web to boom. And a sniper round hit him right as we were going out the gate. And the guy was smoking a cigarette, never flinched, never talked about it, didn't say, whoa, that was crazy. Like just smoking cigarette. And in the debrief we got back and I'm sitting here, that's my first run out the gate.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

And I'm like, no freaking way. And that guy could care Less. He's like, oh, that was kind of crazy, smoking a cigarette, you know? So that's how it was. And so I worked my way up along every position, right and left. Door gunner.

[Brent Tucker]

Yep.

[Jimmy Watson]

Tactical commander, doing the maps, doing the routes, which I hated. You know, driver, agent in charge next to the diplomat, you know, what was the.

[Brent Tucker]

What was the rotation schedule like?

[Jimmy Watson]

So it was like you said, it was a night. It was a 90. 30. 90, 30. And. But you could choose. They started making it to where you could choose. 60. 30. So 60 days on, 30 days off. But I just stayed there, man. I made it my personal mailing address. Of course I. You know what I mean? I wasn't going home.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Jimmy Watson]

Forget that.

[Brent Tucker]

What do you. I don't think it's that. Personal question. What. What were you guys making a day at. At that time?

[Jimmy Watson]

Yes. Yeah, we were making 500 bucks a day. 550 if you were a shift leader, Team lead. But the pilots were all 1/60 pilots, and they were making. I think. I think they were making 6,000 a day as a pilot. Yeah. But they were getting smashed pretty good.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

They were getting shot every day.

[Brent Tucker]

The. When you. When you finally came home, what'd you do with all that money? I mean, you're a single guy, I'm assuming, at the time.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

You live in. Overseas. No bills. Racking. Racking it up.

[Jimmy Watson]

We were. Thought we were. Thought we were like, geez. Oh, we thought we were rolling in the G's. Like, like, well, my. My whole thing to survive there was, you know, like, I taped 500. 500 above my bed. One one, you know, five 100 bills. And so that was my motivation because sometimes they're not paying you enough. Sometimes they're paying you way too much just to sit at Sodom's palace and play the snake game on, you know?

[Brent Tucker]

But you know what I mean? You know, I do.

[Jimmy Watson]

And so, of course, I was hitting on the girls there. The. The army chicks. And we would date them and stuff because they thought we were cool. Because, you know, you're. You're different. You got beards. You don't. You don't salute to generals. That pisses them off, you know, it really pissed off a lot of people because we had no. Relatively no rules, if you think about it. Right.

[Tyler]

I like the word you chose that you would date them.

[Jimmy Watson]

We would date. Yeah.

[Tyler]

That's a nice word.

[Jimmy Watson]

I try to keep it clean.

[Brent Tucker]

Still. Gentleman.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah. I was just dating him, guys. So there was no shenanigans going on of course. And so. But what we would do would. We would. We would. I would go to their rooms. We would drink Red Bull and vodka during the day if we were off most of the time. And we would sit there and. And plan our Vegas trip. Like, we would literally go crazy. We would talk about going to Istanbul, Turkey, and then we said, no, no, no, no, no. It's. We need to go something crazy. Just do it. And we're gonna rent. We're gonna rent this penthouse at $6,000 a night between three of us, you know, because you come off a contract with. Because it wasn't just 500 a day. It was 3,000 on each day of a holiday. And then it was because guys wanted to bounce, but not me. I was there to. I wasn't there for the money, though.

[Brent Tucker]

They pay you 3,000 to be there on a holiday. Christmas, New Year's, July 4th, whatever.

[Jimmy Watson]

This. Yeah. Wow. And then. And then you got a 20 bonus on everything you made when you came home. So one time when I was really. When I was. Yeah, when I was on. When I was home for 30 days one time from Blackwater, I was about to go to the gym and I. I got this check because there was no direct deposit or anything like that. I got this check for $22,000. It was my bonus. And I just. I was. I grabbed the. The liquor and I just started partying. I didn't care about the gym at that point. What am I doing going to the gym? I'm rich. I thought it was rich. You know, I thought it was real rich. But we would go to Vegas and really get crazy.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah. What. What was your first big purchase? Do you remember? Did you make one? Or was it everything pretty short term? Like, you know, I say short term. Like Vegas is a short term thing. A lot of fun there because, you know you're going back.

[Jimmy Watson]

Go back.

[Brent Tucker]

You buy. Did you buy the big truck?

[Tyler]

I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna guess Mopar.

[Jimmy Watson]

I bought. I bought a Tesla. I bought a. The one thing, the one thing, the only thing I ever bought for myself because I was always like buying my niece all of her stuff for private school, all this stuff. But the one thing that I bought for myself, Cash, was a 78, 000 Hummer. As Sut. Remember the Hummers that were like a truck. Yeah, but it was like a truck.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

Sut version had leather seats.

[Tyler]

I should have known you were gonna get a Hummer. You're a Hummer guy, dude.

[Jimmy Watson]

And I got It.

[Brent Tucker]

I got very Hollywood of you. What I say expendables right up there. That's what they're showing up.

[Jimmy Watson]

I'll never forget. I got in the truck guys with the, with the, the car dealer guy, and he was sitting next to me. He goes, how do you like it? I said, you dang, right, I like it. And I said, not bad for a guy with a ged, huh? And he goes. And he's going, okay, whatever. And I try to put it in drive, and I couldn't put it in drive because you got to push the button. And he was looking at me, he goes, yeah, not too bad for a guy.

[Brent Tucker]

I was like, oh, man.

[Tyler]

I scored lower mechanics. I scored lower mechanics.

[Jimmy Watson]

I can't wait in life. Dang.

[Brent Tucker]

So this, I mean, you could have, you could have stayed in the Blackwater game for as long as you wanted to. The money was there. You had no ties. What was it that brought you back to the military? And let's be honest, the going back to the military after that.

[Tyler]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

There are things that I could understand that would, that would, like, want to, like, you want to get on helicopters, you want to go offensive, like, you want to. Let's also be honest, you can die for your country as a Blackwater guy and you're like, ah, he just, you know, he was there for the money, whatever. Like, it's different doing it for the military than it. Is that what brought you back?

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah, I was always, I was always. That's a great question. I was always trying to do the top tier thing and whatever thing I was doing. Right. But I didn't want to. I didn't want to go to Force Recon. I don't have no problem with Force Recon at the time, but I just, I wanted that SEAL option. Right. And when I was. And I honestly just thought Delta or CAG would just be too hard. Honestly, I. I knew the seals were tremendously hard, but I could handle that physicality. You know, I didn't know what was expected the other units, so. But when I was in Baghdad and operating on the Quick Reaction Force teams in Blackwater, often we would see, and I told you this before the show, but we would see those 160 birds go by with the Delta guys on it.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

And I think you described it. It's like kind of like ghost. Ghost men.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Jimmy Watson]

You know, just ghosted in and out. And I saw him doing all these missions and I was like, dude, I can sit here for the rest of my life and make 500 a day. But this is never going to be as cool as that. Like, I'm never going to be as cool as that. And yeah, it's a little materialistic, but I always just, I, I, it maybe was validation seeking, you know, I was, I mean, think about my path. Like Marines, Blackwater, seal, you'll see all this stuff, it's, it's, it was a lot of validation trying to prove myself to the world. And I was like, okay, if I can just be a Blackwater guy operator and a Marine, that will, that will make me a man. Okay, if I can be a SEAL now with the Marines of Blackwater, that's going to make me. Of course it doesn't work like that. It never works.

[Tyler]

Well, I mean, I think that's great that, I think that's the solution to the problem that we brought up earlier, which is today's generation. Because I think as a man, as a young man, you're two things. Your great job, maybe college degree, great job, good money, family, baseball games on Saturdays, football games on Sundays with your boys. And it repeats like that until you die. You never really have a drive to do anything special. And then there's the guys that say all that. I want to make an impact on life, my life, the world. Like I want to do something crazy and special and it could be construed as validation. But I really feel like there's just dudes like that and then there's dudes like that.

[Jimmy Watson]

JV team for life.

[Tyler]

Are you tired of using your standard issue flashlight? I know you're still using it because I was still using mine. But I have good news. We've teamed up with Cloud Defensive. The best in the game when it comes to weapons mounted and handheld lights. Go to clouddefensive.com, put in promo code antihero15 and get 15% off your entire order. Cloud Defensive pushing the boundaries and illumination. And of course we got to give a shout out to our boys in 09 holsters. Custom built ruggedized duty gear. Made in the USA for cops by cops, a Leo and veteran owned small business. They do an upgraded solutions for duty gear including cases for portable radios, body cameras, tourniquets and pretty much everything you need to carry on duty. So go to 09holsters.com and use promo code antihero10zulu9. That's antihero10z9 and get yourself 10% off your order.

[Brent Tucker]

Revenge is an act of passion.

[Tyler]

Vengeance is an act of justice.

[Jimmy Watson]

Injuries are revenged.

[Brent Tucker]

Crimes are avenged. Almost a century ago, big pharmaceutical companies re Engineered medical school curriculum and faculty with one goal.

[Jimmy Watson]

Putting profit before progress. Anyone pushing back against the medical matrix they carefully crafted was threatened, silenced, censored, financially ruined, or worse. They are the problem. We are the solution.

[Brent Tucker]

You are clear to engage with weapons. Weapons. You're clear to engage with weapons.

[Jimmy Watson]

JV team for life. Yeah, and I wanted to just. I. I honestly wanted to do. I always wanted to do something more. It wasn't. And it wasn't even for the money in Blackwater. The money was like the byproduct of being there. But I. I love just being part of a team around a bunch of cool dudes. It was a great time. And so, yeah, when I left, when I. A lot of my motivation, I was always talking about going to this Special Forces or special Operations or SEAL in Blackwater. And they were like, oh, man, you're kind of getting too old for that, Jimmy. And I know. Yeah. And I also saw that window of opportunity closing in my life, you know? You know, and in every six months that would go by or eight months, I would say, dang. If I just would have pulled the trigger on.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah. I'd be like, I could have done it again. Right?

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

And then you go buy one of the Stewie Smith's books. You know, that was before there was a million sealed books. Right. But I. I would see that book and the BUDS training book stuff, and I'd say, dang it, I could have done it again. And I had all this terrible regret, and it was so much pressure that I couldn't take anymore. I couldn't do anything else but do that.

[Brent Tucker]

Good. Good.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

Because that's, That's. That's what's going to make you successful. Like, yeah, I say it as a joke half the time. You got to want it, but it's literally that simple. Almost anything in life. Do you want it bad enough? You can. It just sounds cliche. You can do anything you want.

[Jimmy Watson]

So true.

[Brent Tucker]

If you want it bad enough and, and you needed that, you need that drive to go to a place like that. I'm sure I don't have to tell you I didn't experience it. You did. But you're in the middle of hell week. You better want it because they'll start. They'll start pulling out all your fake reasonings away if you don't really want it.

[Jimmy Watson]

Well, it's crazy you say that, because people will sometimes ask me, hey, dude, what's the secret ride? And we have a joke in the teams. Like the to passing buds is underneath this rock, and there's this massive rock on the BUDS compound. There's no way you could ever lift it. Right. Well, the. Well, the secret. I. I know the secret. And the secret is just what you hit on right here, Brent. It's. It's. You remember where you came from? You remember those sleepless nights of regret in. In. You know, because I was. I was not sleeping at night because I wanted it so bad that I couldn't do anything else, and if I didn't do it, I would end up probably ruining me.

[Brent Tucker]

Right? Yeah. So when you go, you leave Blackwater. They have any issue with you.

[Jimmy Watson]

With.

[Brent Tucker]

With you leaving? Were they still a little bit like, come on, you're leaving us? Were they all. Were they supportive of you?

[Jimmy Watson]

No, they were totally. They were totally supportive. They me out of there on a helicopter real fast because I was the team leader of the Nisar Square, the big event, Baghdad's Bloody Sunday, that crazy thing. And so I ended up being the team leader of these. Of these Quick Reaction Force teams. And I. I knew it was over for me. I knew it was over. It was ominous. There was, like, a dark presence there in. In Iraq. There was dudes getting killed and wounded all over the place, and I knew my time was up, and so I did him out of there at the last minute, you know, came home and. And of course, you know, before you pull the trigger, sometimes on certain things, it's like, there's. It's. You're on a. You're on a fine line of either. Like, for me, I'll just speak for myself. I was on a. I was always on a fine line of complete. Completely destroying myself or going for the gold and being the hero of the day in my eyes, right in my own little life. So. So here I come back from Afghanistan. I had been hit by a little fragmentation, and so I used that as an excuse for the doctor to give me pain medication, Fentanyl patches and stuff. And so I was taking that. I was drinking Jack Daniels. Some bad stuff happened over there, and so I was drowning all that stuff out. Some really, really bad stuff happened there. And. And so while I'm drowning this out, like, I tell this story often, I'm watching Finding Nemo with my niece. But you're not a good uncle. You're not a good dad. When you're like that. You may think you are. You may think you're present, but you're absolutely a joke, a coward. And you're absent from. From the situation. And that's who I was. And so I remember seeing the Finding Nemo went to a black screen. It's about a fish looking for the dad or whatever. At the very end it said, keep moving forward. And I don't know why, but just like that Green Beret grabbing me in the other scenario, just like that screen doing that, I just stood up, I flushed all my stuff and I. And I saw my life flash before my eyes. I knew that if I didn't pick up and go into full thousand percent gear for the seals, it was over for me. So I went for it.

[Tyler]

What did you. Wait, so were you always in relatively good shape, though? Did you stay in good shape your whole life?

[Jimmy Watson]

I, I trained all my life and I was. Because I was terrible at athletics. I just, I, I, dude, I had 2400 vision. I couldn't clear my left eustachia tube. The doctor said I would never become a SEAL if because my left, my left here, I couldn't clear. So I was going against all odds. I got laser surgery. You know, I failed to mention it while I was being recruited. He goes, what's those two lines around your eyes? They're perfect circular laser light. And I go, I don't know, man. Just let me in, bro. You know what I mean? And I had all these things going up against me, but I had that lion's heart like, like, like we were.

[Brent Tucker]

All meant to have the, the problem.

[Jimmy Watson]

I don't know.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, it can be a problem. The problem with guys that are cut from the, the type of cloth that, that you're cut from is they only, they only know full speed. And the problem with that is they only know full speed with everything good in their life working out, you know, making it to the Marines, going to Blackwater, going to be a seal. But it's the same thing that drives them where nothing is enough, drives them on the, on the other side. If I, I can't have, I can't have two drinks. I gotta go, I gotta go full speed. I can't, you know, I can't just have a, a Ford Ranger pickup truck. I have to have an, you know, Sut. And I say as a half joke, but it's absolutely true. And for some, I'm not, I don't. You just don't get one without, without the other. So you accept the good with the bad. And for guys like you, the ones who end up being successful somehow just have more good of that drive than bad. And it's a fine line because at some point the guys with a little more bad than Good. Can actually stay on that path for a while, but they eventually will fall off.

[Jimmy Watson]

Well, that's right. And you know, I, I do have a lot of guys come out to me and say, man, what's up with SEAL seals, man? What's wrong with them, man? They get some weird stuff when they get out. They're doing weird stuff. And I'm like, look, dude, I mean, look at the kind of person that has to join the, the SF community or the SEALs or, or a SWAT team, press whatever it is. You have to be a little off to do this stuff. You have to be a little. And I'm not saying in a bad way, but you need to be a little.

[Tyler]

You're not normal.

[Jimmy Watson]

You're not freaking normal. And you're not ever gonna fit in until you're around a group of guys like that. So when you get out, you're lost in the sauce. And it's a scary place because you're vulnerable, you're kind of fragile. You know, you don't want to mess with a fragile guy because he could go to prison for life. So. You know what I mean? It's crazy, the bipolarity of that.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, yeah. He has nothing. He has nothing to lose and a lot of violence to give.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So as long as I was in an ultra disciplined environment that was pressing me, I could really excel. You know, I was never top of my class, I was never bottom, but I was never tall. I was like ranked 40 in my business.

[Brent Tucker]

Had the SEALs view you as, as a Blackwater guy? Coming, coming over now, did they view you as like, I'd imagine at that.

[Tyler]

Time, I'd imagine you had some haters.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, I'd imagine it's heavy war time that you had some haters, but.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah, well, you would think so. I had, I had United States Marine Corps. I have United States Marine Corps tattooed across my back.

[Brent Tucker]

And so I kept thinking lower back.

[Tyler]

Lower back, lower back?

[Jimmy Watson]

No, my ass cheeks. No. What are you talking about? So when I wear my dress, when I wear my dress, everybody can see it. When I saw my. No, but, but when I, so when I, I, so when I go in, I have that against me. I'm thinking, dude, these guys are going to destroy me. A prior Marine Navy stuff. I, I got out there and I remember the first day the, the, the BUDS instructors were walking around and they, they, they, you have your back turned towards them and they do a whole. It's like everything is very symbolic and like they were walking around making fun of everybody with tattoos And I'm sitting there, these little bitty udts, you know, And I'm like, oh, God, here it goes. And I was jacked, dude. I was pretty big. They called me the USS Watson. By the end, I went in, dude. Dude, I remember. I remember one of the seals actually goes, jimmy, I heard you're a Marine, man. But. And he goes, I pray to God, I wish you, you would make the teams, but there's no way you're going to pass Buzz that big at 200.

[Tyler]

That's what we talk about all the time.

[Jimmy Watson]

He goes, you're not gonna pass. I'm sorry. I wish you would. And I. That was disappointing. I was like, I'm gonna prove you wrong. Well, these guys went around and they were making fun of tattoos. And I remember the. The Buzz instructor walked up behind me, goes, oh, my God. He goes, watson, step out. And I go, oh, dude. I was like, my life is over. Right? And they asked me, where were you? And that. That was his question. They all circled around me like this. And they. They weren't met. They weren't yelling. They just said, where were you? I told him where I was in the Marines in Blackwater. And the other. And two of them knew me from Blackwater. And so they were like. Like, hey, don't step on our dick, and we won't step on your dick. And I go, well, you're not gonna have a problem stepping on me. And they're like, get out of here, weirdo. And so. But so from that moment on, it's not like I. It's not like, you know, if you're. If you're some guy's son and he was a seal, you're gonna get jacked up.

[Tyler]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

You know, they don't pull. They don't. They don't let up on you. But it was like a level of like, we hope you make it mutual. So we're not gonna just break you in half, bro.

[Brent Tucker]

And this isn't. I don't know, it may sound it, but this is an anti SEAL thing at all. It's just the facts of the different services. Because I've said I'm a big fan of seals. They. They. They end up with a great product. And sf, it's a little different because you have Rangers, you have, you know, 82nd Airborne guys. You have 101st Airborne guys. You have a bunch of guys with, like, combat experience and came from combat units. So when you walk through the ranks of that selection process, that's. That's. In fact, that's what you hope to see when it comes to seals, they don't see a lot of the, they don't, they don't have infantry, you know, in the Navy. Like, it's, it's the Marines. So for them to walk across someone who actually had experience that they could relate to, they're like, hold on. Yeah, who's, who's, who's this new guy that, that actually has, has, has seen it before and done it?

[Jimmy Watson]

It was a huge respect. They knew me as Hoss in the Blackwater and some of them even knew me as Hoss there. Chesswick, he was a contracted seal. That was their contract. He's a BUDS instructor.

[Brent Tucker]

And, and you're a big guy. Let's be honest. It helps. I think it, it would, it would. It hurts you in the long run trying to go through high, you know, cardiovascular level exercise where your weight is doing you no favors. But as far as like that initial look, Marine Corps, that impression, that first impression is there.

[Jimmy Watson]

Well, yeah, because you hit on it, man, in, in two years or one year from that? No, about two years from then you're going to be on the same team with them. And so it makes sense. They don't want weak little dudes. And I, and I will say my experience as a Marine and Blackwater guy greatly helped me out because when I showed up as a new guy at sdv, I was automatically a team leader. They were like, you're going to be a team leader, bro. Like, because they could just tell all over me, dude, this guy, this guy. Been there, done that. When it comes to land side, it's.

[Tyler]

Good to hear that they didn't like Gatekeep the Trident. No, that's really good to hear.

[Jimmy Watson]

I was glad too. It really helped me out. But I think, I think you're absolutely screwed if you go in the seals and you don't have any experience and then you somehow make it as a young guy, which there are young guys that made it that have done real well afterwards. But if you somehow make it, you're. You're likely going to be a prima donna. You're likely going to be. What do they call it when you. It's just a bad situation. They get in trouble, they have an attitude. It's the worst ever. I've seen some terrible, huge egos because of that. Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

And I want, I know it sounds bad, but I don't want too much of that. I want a little bit of that. I want a little bit of that. Teachable. That's right. I want a Little bit of that. And in my young 20, mid 20 year old, you know, commandos, I mean, that they have to. They have to grow out. They have to grow out of that. But, man, I love that. But it's also this. As long as they walk, as long as they talk the talk and then. And then back it up by walking and walking. Use that as a. As a drive. I think the, the biggest. Because it's such a fine line. Pride. Right. Everyone looks at pride as, As a negative thing. Pride is 100% a positive thing.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

And 100% a negative thing, just by the word pride.

[Jimmy Watson]

It's.

[Brent Tucker]

It's both, but depending on the level of pride you have. You know, I don't look at pride. It goes in levels. You know, you have to have enough pride in yourself that you'll also mix with enough humility, like. Well, now I got to go to the gym and make sure I never. I never embarrass myself.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah, the one.

[Brent Tucker]

But pride's what pushes you to never embarrass yourself, you guys.

[Tyler]

I mean, it's like getting. It's like a guard dog. You can. You can teach a dog not to bite, but you can't teach a dog. So I'd rather have them ready to bite, and then I teach them reservations.

[Brent Tucker]

That's a great point. Exactly. It's easier for me to reel you back a little bit. And in this community, I never want to have a Push a guy forward. Never.

[Jimmy Watson]

No. It's over. Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

And there were guys like that, and then there's the real cocky guys. And you're right. I would rather have a guy with like, that delusional confidence and then rang him in, in the locker room, you know what I mean? Or the van, then have a guy, you know, and there was a lot of that. There was a lot of that. It's. The seals are weird, man. I. I don't know. Is it like that in. I. I'm sure Delta's quite a bit more professional at that level of tier one level.

[Brent Tucker]

Very professional.

[Jimmy Watson]

But. But, you know, it in the, in the, in the vanilla teams of the seals, it's like, man, when you show up and you got a little attitude, the one thing that scared me about the teams is like, you show up as a new guy and they didn't do anything to you, and you had. You heard all these horror stories. Of course, I was sdv. It was a much more mature mission. But, you know, there was some guys that were acting a fool as new guys and I, and we call One guy, Sea Monkey, because he would get drunk at like 2 in the afternoon. You have to carry him out of a bar, you know, Sea Monkey, bro. I name him that, actually. But Sea Monkey was getting out of control with a couple other new guys. And I kept, and I kept on saying Sea Monkey, you know, they're gonna, you know, they're, they're, they're gonna handle your ass, bro. Yeah, like, you could just see in their faces, they're just like, oh, we'll just wait till we get out. And Hunter Liggett, we're out the boonies, you know, we'll take care of all this, don't worry. And then when we got out there, these dudes had black eyes, look like raccoons walking around with, you know, big old bumps on their head, you know. Yeah, you've been hit in the face a couple times, but they got, they squirt. They have a way, the seals. And I don't know how it is now, but they have a way of squaring you away. You know, you get all that out of you.

[Brent Tucker]

You have to. Yeah, absolutely. And good on them for doing it. And that's, and that's, that's what. So people don't talk about that enough. And people think, because they think this because they don't know that seals are cowboys. And, and, and they only see the, because only bad stories sell. No one, no one wants to hear the good stories of the seals.

[Jimmy Watson]

You know what it is, though? Like, I was at a strip club back in the day and this, this, this, this. The bartender was flirting with me. I was flirting with her and she knew I was a seal and she said something about this is. I wasn't talking about seals, nothing like that. And there was a girl next to me goes, my husband's a SEAL and he's going to come over here and kick your ass. Well, we're in like, like near Coronado. Like, it's like there's only one or a couple things I could be doing there as with tattoos like this.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Jimmy Watson]

The way I do. And I remember he came up to me and he was like a one platoon chump. You know, we call him One Platoon, pump, whatever. And he came over there and he knew I was a team guy and he backed off and he was kind of shocked. My point is, is you don't see the cowboys when they're in the team. You don't see any of this crazy shenanigans. You see it when they get out. Yeah, like, I've had a lot of guys come up to me and say, man, there's. I know a SEAL and he's not like you, Jim. He's not real nice. You know, he's kind of arrogant and kind cocky. It always kind of saddens me. So he's living behind a mass deal, you know.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, you'd mentioned like the other one pump chomps like one, one platoon. I know just enough to be dangerous. But from having seals on like a career or sounds like is three platoons, right? Like when I hear people like he's on his third platoon. Is that what's. What's that, what's that definition come from? Or what's what. What causes the transition of multiple plan platoons?

[Jimmy Watson]

Well, basically like so, so you know, you got your one pump chump and that's one platoon. But then like, look, when I, here's the deal. When I got to SDV, there was a guy and he was from Seal Team 6 and he was one of the instructors there with Trade App. He was a really well known guy. Like a black eyes, you know, you're like, don't look at that guy. And he came in, he was like, hey, listen, I just want to let you guys know this right now. He goes, if I ever see you wearing a trident at the SEAL command, I'll kill you. I'll probably like literally go to prison. He goes, I, I really despise that. You better not getting tattoos of seals. You, you, you know, you're. He goes, your significant other, your loved ones, your mom and dad, they all know you're not a seal. So don't ever let me catch you being, calling yourself a SEAL till you've done six years here.

[Tyler]

Whoa.

[Jimmy Watson]

And I was like harsh. And that was probably the most demoralizing thing I've ever heard in my life. Because you just went through not only two years of like grueling training, you went through the advanced SDV school, you went through language school that they're trying to pick up the sfd, which never works. You can never cheat. Teach a SEAL how to speak another language. It's not happening. And so like all these like. And so I get to the, the SEAL command. And that was probably the most demoralizing thing a guy could ever say because he's telling me like, you're not, you're nothing, bro, until you've done six years here and don't even let me hear you call yourself a seal. And so, but that was very humbling. And we were able to tell new guys that years later. And it Was always great to tell them that because you could see that color drain from their face, and they go, dang, I haven't done anything, have I? And you're like. Like, no, you haven't, because I haven't. And I've been here a while. So you. What have you done?

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

Besides go through some. Some hard stuff.

[Brent Tucker]

That is a lot. That would. Yeah, that's. Take the win right out of your sails as a new guy. But like anything else, it takes a long time. That's right.

[Jimmy Watson]

You could.

[Brent Tucker]

You can. You could either take that, you know, and let it crush you or. Or. Challenge accepted. And I think Andy Stump said that, said something very similar when he was on here. He was like, hey, you. You don't. You don't really understand, like, what it is like to be a seal. You don't really know the job. I believe he took the. The link. Five years. Yeah, it's like five years and now. And now. Now you know what you're doing. And that's. That's true. Kind of across the board, you know, it really is. And a lot of these special jobs.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah. You know, there's levels to it, too. You know what's crazy is my buddy that had done six, seven, eight years at SB SDV, who later passed away, Brett Merrihew, he augmented SEAL Team 6. I think he augmented Red Squadron. And they had a meeting, and they said, hey, seals, circle up. And my buddy that was augmenting that team in Iraq or Afghanistan, he went to go be part of the meeting, and they said. And he closed the door on my buddy's face, and he goes. I said, SEALS only, bro. Oh. You know what I mean? So there's levels. There's always, like, another level you can go to.

[Brent Tucker]

For us, it's.

[Jimmy Watson]

You know what I mean?

[Brent Tucker]

For us, it's the term operator. I know everyone's taken the. The. The term operator and run with it, but it's. It's a very hallow, you know, term at the unit. Like, so when we say, you know, operator meeting, I won't get too specific and really hurt people's feelings. There's other people around that consider themselves operators. Yeah, but they know better not. And they'll call themselves operators outside the building. They will. They won't go to that meeting because there's. There's a. There is a. An actual meaning, you know, of the term operator and who's an operator and who's not an operator.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah, because it's. Because it's one thing to jump out of Airplanes. And then it's one thing to jump at night, and then it's another thing to jump with the whole kitchen sink and oxygen, right? And then it's a whole other level to actually do missions after you've jumped with all that stuff, you know, and do it successfully. So. You know what I mean?

[Brent Tucker]

Feels like the kitchen sometimes feels like.

[Jimmy Watson]

You'Re pulling your groin down to the ground.

[Brent Tucker]

So, you know, talk to us a little about. About SDV and. And why it was, you know, maybe its inception, its necessity, and why something like that just wasn't a part of, like, the actual SEAL teams, like, why they had to make it its own entity. Obviously. It seemed like it's important enough to be its own entity and not just a. A part of the. The numbered teams.

[Jimmy Watson]

Well, the. The story goes okay, and I hope I get this right, but there was a SEAL that actually ended up going to CIA years ago. And when he went to CIA, the CIA, he started to tell the CIA guest. He goes, hey, guys, we can do these missions that you're talking about. They're like, no, it's not possible. He goes, no, I actually know a way to do this through a vehicle known as the sdv. This all fiberglass black coffin, ran on car batteries. You're sitting on, like, 100 car batteries, as safe as that sounds.

[Brent Tucker]

And SEAL delivery vehicle.

[Jimmy Watson]

SEAL delivery vehicle.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

And you smash. You know, you. You can't talk about numbers or.

[Brent Tucker]

Or.

[Jimmy Watson]

Or the parameters of the suv, but you can smash a bunch of guys in there, and it's. It is claustrophobic as hell, and it's in. In. The whole reason for that brutal training that you're going through is to see, like, okay, this guy can last maximum six hours in. Freeze it like you're taking an ice bath, right? Six hours.

[Brent Tucker]

Him.

[Jimmy Watson]

Six hours in this coffin. And he can go in there wearing diapers, in a dry suit, you know, at a certain depth, and. And that's just to get you to the shore right over the beach, right?

[Brent Tucker]

That's not the mission that's getting you there.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah, the mish. The. It's like my buddy said, he goes, bro, I. I think you made a mistake coming to scv. He goes, our. One of our missions, we literally. And I can't talk about mission specifics, but he said, one of our training ops, he says, I'll never forget how miserable it was. He says, we got to the land, it was snowing on the beach. It was snow where. Where they landed, and they had to stash away their. Their Dry suits. And when he came back from the three, four day reconnaissance mission, he comes back to his gear and it's basically he had to unfold his dry suit. It could have been a 7 mil wetsuit, I can't remember, but who cares? He unfolded it. It's like ice. He said he had to put that back on and then go under the water after no food, four days of no sleep. You, you had to get there, by the way, six hours or what? And then he said you had to. I had to put that on the most miserable thing he's ever done. And then get. And then find the sub underneath the water that's circling around. Rendezvous, rendezvous. And then go back to the mothership underwater. That to me, bro, is like next level.

[Brent Tucker]

Like absolutely, it's. And the way you described it, it's one thing to be as miserable as possible while you're fresh going into the mission to have to again redo that on the way back.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

When you're at your least amount of sleep, least amount of calories, slightly loopy and the, and underwater is the most unforgivable world you can operate in.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah. Because you feel like you're drowning the whole time. You have a, you know, and they've had guys, dude, they had. Unfortunately they had guys. Shellenberger died right when I got there. So that really made things even worse. You know, guys drowning one every year or so. And that was scary, you know, and, and you know, Shellenberger, he had a face mask on and he was in the blacked out ocean, you know, sitting there waiting for a rendezvous. And the story goes that Schellenberg Prior Marine, really solid, solid dude, he went to do, he had some trouble with his face mask. And you're running a full face mask on your motto or mod one. And he had a full face mask on.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay.

[Jimmy Watson]

And in order to do a mass change out underwater in frigid ice cold water, you have an involuntary gasping reflex. You can't control it. So when you jump in the pool, you can never control yourself going like this. And so to combat that, to counter, to counteract that, you, you know, you clench your teeth down and go like that to stop from taking in water and dying. Well, I guess he didn't do it good enough. Off. And when he took his face mask off, that sheer cold water hit his face and he took in a bunch of water, regurgitated in the mask, took it back in and that was over.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Jimmy Watson]

And he, and they didn't even know he was dead. That's the Problem when you die in an suv, they don't even know you're gone because you're just sitting there for hours. And then they check you. That's why you're doing buddy checks all the time. Squeeze.

[Brent Tucker]

Squeeze them.

[Jimmy Watson]

And you can get kicked out of STV for not doing a buddy check if you don't squeeze me. Every couple they test you. Sometimes they're like, hey, Jimmy, go down in the training. And then, and then if they don't squeeze you, if this ship doesn't squeeze you, then he's out.

[Brent Tucker]

That's pretty much my nightmare. That's.

[Jimmy Watson]

It's terrible. And I, I don't want to, I don't want to act like I did anything. I didn't do anything sexy there, man. But, but I did a national task again. And, but I remember it was so secretive when I got to SDV and it's an all volunteer unit, you know. And I got hooked in. I had done the land side in Iraq and Afghanistan, multiple, multiple tours. And so when I got through buds, I hear about this thing, this secretive thing ran by the CIA perhaps, who knows? Okay. And in these s. And I. And I realized it was a trick later on. But these guys came in, in our class and they said, hey, if you guys want to debrief the president, if you guys want to do top secret missions, if you want, and you're going to get injured, which for a man going back to that warrior heart, you're like, oh, I want to do that. Like, oh, I'm gonna. I may die, then sign me up, you know. And so they made it sound really sexy like that. And that's how they lured me and two other guys.

[Brent Tucker]

It's funny you say that. I'm telling you, like the cultures, the cultures can produce the generations culturally can produce weaker and weaker men. But I am certain of this. There will, it'll be a smaller percentage, but there will always be a percentage of warriors in every society. And this. But then the same thing drives them. So Charlie Beckwith, before he found the Delta Force was a Green Beret in Vietnam. We had this long range reconnaissance mission that was so dangerous and risky they allowed him to run a selection just for this recce mission. It wasn't a singular mission. It was going to be, you know, mission after mission after mission. They're going to create this unit to do this. And so he put up a, a advertisement of sorts for this mission to get people to come out to the selection process. And he said, wanted generalize it, you know, green brace for a dangerous mission. Guaranteed? Yes, guaranteed. Body bag, metals or both.

[Jimmy Watson]

Dude that signed me up.

[Brent Tucker]

And after, after you put that up, the one of the guys that, you know, he was talking to about this and was, you know, kind of, you know, talking about it was like, that's a horrible recruitment poster. You'll never get anyone with that. And he had so many people try out for it, he had to run a selection process.

[Jimmy Watson]

You know, that's, that's exactly right. Shackleton of the Endurance. If you've ever seen that documentary that he, he wanted to go to Antarctica during World War I, a massive expedition, it was going to be really dangerous and he couldn't get anybody to sign up for it. So one day he puts up a poster out on the streets. He goes, you will likely not come back from this mission. You will probably die. We are only looking for men who are willing to die to do this. He had hundreds and like hundreds and hundreds of people sign up. What is that, I wonder?

[Tyler]

It's, it's toxic masculinity.

[Jimmy Watson]

Masculinity. You know.

[Brent Tucker]

How many years did you end up serving over there at, did you go to another team or did you say an stv?

[Jimmy Watson]

Here's I stayed at STV the whole time. Eight years total. A little more.

[Brent Tucker]

So you're only a SEAL for two years?

[Jimmy Watson]

I was only a SEAL for six, barely two years. You got it now with se. With SEAL terminology. Like one day I was a SEAL and I was there for eight years. That's about right man. That, no, it's about right man, but that's so humbling because the two guys that talked to me about you're not a SEAL unless you've been here for six years. And they were straight faced when they said it. He goes man, in about out he, one of my buddies, he goes, man, in like one month and three days I'm going to be able to call myself a seal. And I said, what do you mean man, you've been here for like six years. He goes, no, I've only been here for five, you know, years. And you're going, oh my God. In these national taskings, you're doing a workup for two years to try to play one play in the, in the Super Bowl. And, and it was very, very secretive place. And, and the buddies that I knew that told me that stuff, they're dead. Both of them drowned at that stv. One of them drowned in Virginia doing something else, but very similar. And it just goes to show you how, how dangerous that mission is. And but how strategically important it is, too globally. And, but when I, when I, I remember when I got there, I was really intrigued on what SDV actually does.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

And you're just, you're, you're, you're not supposed to talk about it even with your buddies. But of course, I'm sitting there in the truck with Brett Allen Maryhue, who later passed away. And I remember he, he had the, the music on. And I said, hey, bro, I said, tell me what, what are we doing here? What was your mission last year? And he looked at me and he thought about it for a while and then he turned, he turned off the music. He goes, bro, don't ever ask me that again. And he turned the music back on. And that instilled that.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Jimmy Watson]

Secretive thing in me. I was like, dang, these guys are actually down. They're not talking about what they're doing.

[Brent Tucker]

You know, I love that small conversation that I just had with you about STV, because what I knew about STV and I've been in the special operations community for 20 years.

[Jimmy Watson]

Right.

[Brent Tucker]

And I knew of them, but I didn't really know what they did, like their purpose, what they were there for. You know, I just knew just, I just knew the SDV part. And I'm a little bit, almost want to say, embarrassed that I didn't know, like how important, you know, their, their role was. Super. Yeah, like how super advanced.

[Jimmy Watson]

And we, we, we do work with other units, like the sbs, you know, sas. SBS guys. My roommate was SBS guy.

[Brent Tucker]

How are those guys? How are the sbs? Do they, do they have an sd? Do they have an sdv? Yeah, team like you, like you guys within the sbs.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah. I'll just put like this. Israelis have an sdv. I'm sure the Italian seals do. I'm sure a bunch of different usu, but I'm telling you right now, they are so far behind America because we have been. I don't know what it is. I'm not saying Americans are cut from a different cloth, but the, the type of personality, the guy that goes to stv, and then the money that's poured into stv, in the technology is so advanced now, you're still limited to your, to just the guy because it's a submersible sub. It's filling up with ice cold water. You can only be down there for your limitations until you can't even move your fingers. You can't even hold a gun. Right, Right. But it's vitally important. It's not as sexy as I, I Don't even want to, like, put off that. It's that. That. That it's that, like. Oh, man. But. But it's so strategically important. Like, one guy said. I'm not saying this, but it would probably cause World War III if. If people knew what we were doing, you know?

[Brent Tucker]

I love that. I love to hear that. And I love to hear that we're the best at it. Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

100, like, years in front of the SBS or anybody.

[Brent Tucker]

Love to hear it.

[Jimmy Watson]

Years.

[Brent Tucker]

So what. What made you get out?

[Jimmy Watson]

Well, I had a. Of course I had, you know, a diving accident. I had a major diving accident. That's not what made me get out.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay.

[Jimmy Watson]

A lot of things happen, but I retired out. I got my medical pension and all that, and good. I was able to get out after 17 and a half years in a total combined service. And. But I had an arterial gas embolism. We were doing a vbss, a visible research and Caesar on. On these ships from the stv. So we would park. We would take our gear off on a lizard line, which is really suspect, dangerous stuff. And on a breath hold. I was coming up, FSA and myself to the surface and then coming up, and we would hook and climb and take down the ship. And then we would do an iteration, jump in on a breath hold, find our gear underwater, put it back on. On the second iteration. I just woke up in my buddy's arms. And that from that point on, I was never really the same. Did you just.

[Brent Tucker]

I mean, I'm just a pretty safe assumption. Just somehow some ways end up ascending too. Too quickly for. For the age or what.

[Jimmy Watson]

I. I don't know what happened when I put on my gear. It could have been channeling of the soda sorb and I. I got a caustic. Not a caustic cocktail, but. But I. I had something happen with my rig that made me pass out. Out. I was seizing out, going to the bottom of the ocean. We weren't. We weren't tied into each other, but it was a day dive, which saved my life at night. You would have never seen me, but I bumped into my buddy who thought I was like, a shark or something. You know, it scared him, and when he saw me, it freaked him out. And so he cracked my seculars on the side of my rig, and, you know, the oxygen and it shot me to the surface like a rocket. And that's what gave me the ag.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah. Oh, that's crazy.

[Jimmy Watson]

And so I had to go to the dive chamber, man, like. Like 14 times. And I was pretty much dying. Yeah, I was, I was down, bro. I lost a lot of weight over the next two years.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, I don't get too, I guess, technical with it, but to try to explain to some of the listeners, you know, kind of what happened, hopefully I do a good job explaining. They get it is. So you're, you're on, you're on pure O2 on a rebreather. So obviously it does, does, does the boys no good to get that close to the ship and have bubbles levels coming up all the time.

[Jimmy Watson]

Right, Exactly.

[Brent Tucker]

But the negative thing about a rebreather is you can only go so deep. Like you, you know, if you're on, if you're on, if you're on pure air, you can go to 100. If you're, if you're on some, some mix, you can go deeper than that, but you're on pure O2. You can only go, make it up about 40ft. Like you. So generally speaking for the ocean, it's pretty shallow. Yeah. So there's not a. So if something happens and we saw about like an acoustic cocktail, you can have, have, you can have O2 poisoning. There's some things that can go wrong and go wrong really quick that are, that are specific to recirculating dragers and pure O2. There's really nothing you can do about that, you know, of sorts. It's just.

[Jimmy Watson]

And, and all the accidents happen from 0 to 33 ATA feet because the greatest change of pressure. This took me a while to get through my brain, my marine brain, but from 0 to 33ft of ATA is the greatest change, this change of pressure. So that's why you have all the diving accidents at like 3ft. Mine was only at like 10ft, man.

[Brent Tucker]

So I'll do. Because I'm, I'm, I'm partially as well. And the best way for someone to explain to me. So every 33ft you have a different atmosphere of, of pressure. And the reason why the first 33ft is the greatest change of atmosphere. Let's say you took a, a basketball, right, and you brought it down to 33ft, which is its first atmosphere. That basketball would deflate by half.

[Jimmy Watson]

Half.

[Brent Tucker]

So the greatest change happens in that first half. If you go to the second, absent the sphere, it'll change another half of the half.

[Jimmy Watson]

But it's.

[Brent Tucker]

That's right, but it's the half of the half. In every 33ft it'll go half of the half. So the greatest change happens in that first atmosphere of 33ft really good. Which is why all the, a lot of the accidents happen within the first 33ft. Because that's the greatest change in your general.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

And that basketball is your lungs, by the way.

[Jimmy Watson]

It's gonna explode or like it did with me. It basically just shoots air bubbles in your C5 like it did me or in your brain or whatever. An aneurysm is what it is.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Jimmy Watson]

And if you don't get treated like I. I didn't get treated over the fourth of July weekend. I was trying to tough it out. I said, nothing happened, I'm fine. And the dive medical officer that was there was Junior. The, the senior guy was on deployment on the big mothership sub and they just made a call and said, okay, go home. Well, that was a huge mistake. Yeah, I should have been chambered up. When in doubt, press out.

[Brent Tucker]

Oh, right, that's right. 60 for 61 in doubt. 60ft in depth, 60 minutes. See what happens.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah. And what's crazy about the teams is, is, is. And I know you've done a lot of combat diving stuff is you're, you're operating really shallow, you know, like you're operating just enough. You're, you're always going like this, you're always turning to your side like this. And, and you need to read ship numbers and stuff. And in dark, blacked out harbors and stuff under light. So you're always like super shallow. You're right there underneath the surface just to where they can barely see you. So that's kind of where you're operating at, you know, 20ft and up. And so that's where all the accidents happen, man.

[Brent Tucker]

So. And the horrifying. Horrifying, yeah, things that go wrong. You said that was, that was one thing, but it wasn't the thing. And it's, it's funny you mentioned that. Rarely, rarely is it any one thing, whether it's an operation that goes bad or, you know, a retirement or medical retirement. And there, there might be one big thing, but it's rarely ever just one thing.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah, that, that the reason why I got out. Yeah, well, that's right. Well, I got called in my commander's office at pretty much the height of my, when I was recovering from that, I had gone through Sniper, all this stuff, and they came in and they said, hey, Jimmy, you got 10 days. And I'm on a first name basis with this commander. Right. And I've mentioned his name before on other podcasts, but I'm not going to do it this time. But I get Called in to this office, and he says, Jimmy, you have 10 days left to get out of the Navy. And I think, man, I think I'm about to be putting a. For a ward or something. I'm kind of cocky. Yeah. I'm like. I. Look at me. I said, hey, in fact, I'm gonna put his name out there. Darren Evson. I said, darren.

[Brent Tucker]

I said, it's a good joke, Darren.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah.

[Tyler]

Let's get serious.

[Jimmy Watson]

You're. I said. I said, man, we do cookouts together and stuff. You know, he's a commander.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, but.

[Jimmy Watson]

And I'm. I've always been super respectful being a marina size. And I'm like, sir. I'm like, you got to be joking me right now. What are you talking about? Kicked out of the day? Is that even legal? Like, what do you mean? And he says, well, he said, jimmy, we got a letter from the FBI saying that you lied on your test on. When you testified at the federal court for the Blackwater guys. And they hate you, I guess, because they just wrote this letter. And I'm just blown away. Long story short, because we could probably spend a lot of time there. I told him, I ain't going nowhere, man. I looked at that. I'm not going nowhere. I looked at that patch on his arm. It said, don't tread on me.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

And I'm thinking, I have these flashbacks of the hell that it took for me to be there, you know, it was hell for me. I don't care what anybody says. For. For some guys, maybe not, but for me, I remember the pain, you know, I remember the pain train. And so I looked at him and I said, man, I'm not going nowhere, brother. And he go. And he just blew up at me. He says, no, you're getting kicked out in Two days. Well, 10 days later, you know, I. I walked by and I slapped him on the side of his. Of his dress uniform. I said, sir. He goes, oh, my God. You know, I said. I said, I'm still here. And I did that for the next two years. And I. And I fought like never before. And they can easily take your Trident, but I wasn't a piece of crap. There's no way they could.

[Brent Tucker]

Right?

[Jimmy Watson]

So. So I just. I fought it and fought it. I got a congressman involved. I got every. I got everyone involved that I could. I wrote letters to the inspector general. I wrote. I wrote complaints to the FBI because I knew that they were lying, saying that I was lying because my grand jury testimony for Blackwater was sealed, and they basically were really pissed off me because it favored the Blackwater guys. And so basically I had to dig all that stuff up over the next two years. I had to prove what they said was a lie, that they were lying. They came back with from the FBI and said that they have a wide latitude of investigative authority, meaning they can lie their butt off. Right. Anyways. And I know it's not the, the FBI person, it's. It's the people in charge often. It's never like there's some really good dudes.

[Tyler]

Never the boots on ground.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah. And so they had their agenda. They told me they were going to bury me if I didn't testify a certain way anyways. I testified the way the, the truth away. The what exactly happened there. And my truth wasn't compatible with their truth. Right. With their storyline.

[Tyler]

What kind of courts did that, did that Blackwater thing go through? Was it military courts or was it like it was.

[Jimmy Watson]

For me, it wasn't like Eddie Gallagher's case where he's facing like murder and he's going, you know, looking at Leavenworth and all this stuff where he was later found innocent. But it's in a non judicial punishment. It's like, it's like basically they just wanted me to walk. They just wanted me to leave the Navy, you know. And I remember I, I looked at the Jag after I refused to leave. They offered me an honorable discharge with all the bells and whistles, college paid. My ex wife was going to be taken care of medically. She was in a dang cast. And I, the hardest thing I ever had to do in my life was to push that piece of paper back and say honorable is not on a piece of paper. You know, you can, you can, you can have medals like a Russian general and be the biggest piece of crap in the world. You can have all the honorable discharges in the world. I have two honorable discharges. It doesn't necessarily mean I was honorable. Like I know what I did in my heart. Right. So I had to turn that down and basically I won. But it took a long time.

[Tyler]

Were they offering you retirement or just an honorable discharge?

[Jimmy Watson]

Honorable discharge.

[Tyler]

Oh yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

And keep all my benefits.

[Brent Tucker]

It's funny you mentioned, you know, Eddie Gallagher because that was the first place my mind went. But you're right, there's, there's, there's a much bigger separation in that story. Although the, the root cause is, is very, is very similar. We've had them on the podcast. Do you remember? Did you. Do you. He. I think he was actually you might know him. I think he was at sdv. Adam Schwartz, officer type, also a Marine. Do you remember that? Remember that? The podcast we did with him? Who. They tried to get him out because of COVID and then he tried to go be a. As. As the end of. Of his career. He went to go be a politician, and then they gave. They gave him a big hard time about that.

[Tyler]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

But almost the same thing. And don't get me wrong, I'm. This isn't necessarily like SEAL bashing, I assure you. This happens throughout the Special Operations Command where careerism comes in. But the. The way. I'll just say SEAL now because it's because you were a seal. Happened to you. The way the SEAL Command will roll over on their guys is just, again, because it was his story. I assure you. There'd be. We. There'd be 30 Green Berets calling us tomorrow, giving us. Is the. The same story.

[Jimmy Watson]

When. When I got reinstated.

[Brent Tucker]

Don't understand it.

[Jimmy Watson]

No. When I got reinstated, they had to apologize to me. I lost my admin board even, because the seals that were in charge of the admin board were appointed by the admiral who was trying to kick me out corruptly. I got him kicked out of the whole Navy. He was the first admiral Losi to never. And this is debatable, but he. The straw that broke the camel's back was my. My situation. It was unlawful command influence where he tried to kick a SEAL out with no cause. It ruined my. It ruined my life anyways. You know, the damage was done. I hugged my. I hung myself in a mental hospital, man, because of this stuff. No joke.

[Brent Tucker]

And what we will. And something else.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

We already the type of guys that will do this job. The type of guys that will do this job, that will run themselves ragged, that will do anything for their brothers, that we asked to go to combat time and time again or go into dark, murky waters and risk their lives. How fast we will roll over on that man and be like, ah, you're a piece of crap. Get out of here. Are you kidding me? You're not gonna. You're not gonna at least come ask me. You're not gonna fight for me. You're not gonna do anything. You're just gonna protect your career above all else, man. It's insane.

[Jimmy Watson]

And this happened so much. Mine was right before the Eddie Gallagher, but it's by the same cats, the same process like you're talking about. And when they reinstated me, I literally took my don't tread on me patch And I, and I threw it on their desk. They said, what's this? And I said, if you're wearing that, it reinstated me. I, I don't want anything to do with that. Don't tread on me. Don't be wearing that around me. You don't know anything about loyalty. I was pissed, man.

[Brent Tucker]

The irony of them wearing a don't tread on me patch only to tread.

[Jimmy Watson]

On you, I, I, it's just to save their jobs and stuff.

[Brent Tucker]

Career is, it's always careerism, always.

[Jimmy Watson]

And this happened a lot though, around Eddie Gallagher. I have a good friend, I would never say his name here, but he was getting out on an honorable discharge in the CIA. Some group came by and they, they wanted to interview him to possibly transfer over there and do some stuff. They interviewed him. Get this, this is insane. They interviewed him and asked him hypothetical questions about overseas. What would you do in this situation? Of course he answered in a way where, you know, he thought that that was the right answer. They took his stuff and turned it into the command, the jag, and they tried to put him in prison for five years. And he went through a year long battle. This is insane. He went through a year long battle and finally was able to beat the case because they interviewed every cylinder's team and they said that never happened, man. This is not a true. You asked him a hypothetical situation, but that's kind of environment that we're in and I'm glad I got out out. I couldn't take it anymore. And that's kind of the reason why I got out the.

[Brent Tucker]

Well, let's talk about your, your post SEAL life.

[Jimmy Watson]

Oh, man, here she goes. This is when Tyler said, hey man, just don't say anything that will incriminate you.

[Brent Tucker]

What you talked about was, I don't know if you were being facetious, but like the mental hospital, did you actually admit yourself?

[Jimmy Watson]

I literally, I literally during my fight against the Navy, I, I, at one point I had to go to the mental hospital and part of my fight was being in the mental hospital. I'll just say that.

[Brent Tucker]

Did they put you in there or.

[Jimmy Watson]

Myself?

[Brent Tucker]

Okay.

[Jimmy Watson]

And they, and Admiral Losi said, Admiral Losi sent two of his goons. This is how die hard. This is how die hard I was. He sent two JAG officers to come to the mental hospital and he said, Jimmy. And I'll never forget, they took me out of finger pain paint. I was, I went from being a SEAL to finger painting now in a mental hospital, bro. And they brought me out of the, the finger Painting. And they called me over there and they said, sit down. I said, no, I'll stand. I said, what do you want? My hair's out to here. I had a beard. I wasn't shaving nothing. Crazy doing burpees all day. And they said. And the jack said, well, we have a message from Admiral Losey to you. The day you step out of here, out of this mental hospital is the day you're getting dishonorably discharged. We just want to send you that message. And I'll never forget. I looked at them for a long, awkward stare, and they said, what. What are you. Are you gonna say anything? And I said. I said, yeah. Is that all? I got finger painting in five minutes. Like. Like basically telling them, do what you got to do. I. And I'm not trying to romanticize this, but I. I literally. They try to. They. They. I literally walked out of there. And they said, well, Adam Pelosi is going to take you out of here anyways. He thinks you're faking it. And, bro, I was so die hard for my cause and so messed up that I went and got on a toilet. And it's very hard to hang yourself in a mental hospital. It's very difficult. But I was so serious about my cause, House. So dead serious about it. I had pre planned this, that there was a hole in the wall above the toilet. And I took a sheet and I had knotted it in knots real tight. And when they said that, they said I was faking it. And I. And I wasn't faking my situation, man. I was so die hard that I went, I walked from there. They said, go grab your stuff. You're getting kicked out of the mental hospital. I walked straight in the back. I got on the toilet, I loaded that sucker like a magazine, the. The sheet into this little hole. And then I launched myself off the toilet, fractured my neck. In an mri. They. That I woke up and there was a nurse on my neck with her knee screaming. And the same doctor that said he was about to kick me out because I was faking it, he's crying, he's holding my neck, saying, I can't believe you just did that. I said, well, you. You shouldn't have messed with me because I was unconscious. I woke up and I had to make a statement. And I was willing to die, by the way, for that. And that's when they kept me there as long as I wanted after that, and treated me like a kid. Hey, give me my own room. Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

Ironically enough, not because they believe that no, it goes back to careerism, that they actually went to cover their aspect. Okay, hold on. This guy might actually have some problems. And if. And if we drove him to this by saying he didn't, it's going to look bad on me. So at the end of the day, even making the right choice has to do with careerism, and that it drove them to that to make the right choice.

[Jimmy Watson]

And that stuff really messed me up, guys. It really, really messed me up. And so I have a lot of empathy, sympathy, when somebody tells me that they're about to end their life. Because I've been there, man, and I. I understand. And I'll never forget I was standing on the toilet, and the. The thought went through my mind is, God, how much I want to live, but I'm willing to die right now. That's. You know, you want to live so much that you're willing to die for. Your cause is pretty. Pretty messed up.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah. I'm gonna go on a limb here. Once you finally got out, things probably didn't get. Things probably got worse before they got better.

[Jimmy Watson]

Or they basically said, look, you can go be an instructor, Jimmy, or you can. Or you can. You're not going to deploy, but you. Or you can process out, retire out medically with full bells and whistles. And I'm telling you, there was no way I could do another day in the teams, because I went from being up here, you know, thinking, with all this loyalty and brotherhood, to just, like, being like, man, I don't want to be any part of this organization where you have commanders that are willing to do. Not the regular dudes. The regular sled dogs are cool, man. Love them guys. But they were. They were saddened by it, too. They saw. And that's the damaging thing is other people see it.

[Brent Tucker]

That's right.

[Jimmy Watson]

And they go, dang, that could happen to me.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

Is that.

[Tyler]

Is this around the time you found God?

[Jimmy Watson]

No. I always tell people, I. I don't believe you can find God. He. He tracks you down like a dog and hunts you down to every dark corner in recess of this life. And that's what happened to me, man, because I got out. Sorry, I got out, and. And my boy T. Gabby called me, and he said, jimmy, man, you want to. Gonna go guard John McAfee? He's willing to pay you whatever. And I. And I said, who's John McAfee? Man, I was pretty down on my luck. And he said, because my whole career was done, you know, And. And he said, go look at your computer. Screen. You know, McAfee, the anniversary guy? And I said, yeah, sure, man. And he said, okay, stand by. He's gonna call you. And I got a call from this real raspy voice guy. He goes, you know who this is, son? And I said, I think it's Mr. John MacAfee, sir. And he says, that's right. Never forget it. I said, okay. And he says, he got right down to brass tacks. I'll never forget. He said, how much you charge? And I said, five hundred to a thousand a day. I just made that up. I said, five hundred to a thousand a day depended upon the threat. And I guess that keyed him off because he was real worried about his life. And he says, well, damn it. He spit out his scotch because later on I found out he drank scotch. That's all. No water ever. So there was water.

[Brent Tucker]

Water in the scotch.

[Jimmy Watson]

And he said. He said. He said, well, damn it. He goes, I only charge my Green Berets. They'll. They only. I only pay them 250 a day. And I. And I said, well, it's your life, sir. And, dude, I would have done it for 15, because you know me, I'm just trying to chase.

[Brent Tucker]

Right? Yeah. Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

And. And he goes, well, damn, you drive a hard burger. He goes, okay. He goes, deal. 500, but you got to be here tonight. And so I left everything because I. I needed the money. I needed something. I'm a kind of guy. I need purpose.

[Brent Tucker]

Need a purpose.

[Tyler]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

I need purpose or I don't even want to live, man. Without purpose. It's terrible. It's really, really bad thing.

[Brent Tucker]

That's the crazy thing about it, though, and I don't want to oversimplify it, but you know people, you know, that get out. Like, same thing. Like, you're looking for purpose. There's purpose all around, all around, all around. And it. And it may. There's only one John McAfee, you know, but there's. There's so many. Whether it be non profits or there's so many kids, you name it. There's so many purposes out there. Go look. You'll find one real quick.

[Jimmy Watson]

Exactly. You're only. You're only a call away. You're only that Green Beret away from grabbing you, telling you, hey, man, go do this. I mean, you're only. You're like one idea. Wait. One touch, I always say, from God. And of course, I really wasn't a big believer in God or anything at this point, but I go to John MacPhee's and that's when the wild ride begins. Like, it's like the wall. It's crazy. There, there's all this crypto trading going on. I. I don't know, it's intimidating for me not having that real solid, strong. Of course, you need to know math in the, in the seals, but, but all the candle charts, the trading, the cryptocurrency going on. These guys are making money all around me. This guy John McAfee is really mysterious. He's smart, he's, he's. He can just see right through you. I remember one of the first conversations I ever had with John is he, he brought me to the site, said, come here, son. He goes, you're different than other people that I've been around. I said, I don't know why that is, sir. He goes, I could just see it all over you. He says, sit down. And I sit down. And he looked at me dead in my eyes. And he had a way of just look piercing through your body, and it's kind of uncomfortable. But he, but I was looking at him and he says, you know what, son? He goes, you're. You're just a lost ship in the night in the darkest, blackest sea. You're just floating around and you're just lost. And, man, it triggered me. I started kind of shaking because he was so right.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Jimmy Watson]

I didn't want to say, you're a liar. How do you know?

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

And. And right before I said, how do you know? He said, how do I know? And I said, and I said, yeah, how do you know?

[Brent Tucker]

Oh, he's good.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah, he's good. He goes, because I am that lost ship. And so he kind of, he understood whether it was a manipulation tactic or whether he really was. It was like he was telling me, man, you're Jim. You're just like me. Yeah, and I can help you. And so he brought me in like a son after that and just groomed me and taught me not everything. He knows that's not possible. But he taught me about trading, cryptocurrency, white paper reading. I'd read hundreds of white papers, and I just, I found a new purpose and I started getting respect and money and he started paying me like 20, 25,000 a day sometimes from these deals that I would broker for him. And, and I was intimidated because I didn't know about negotiations and stuff. But the best negotiation is non negotiable. And so John McAfee taught me all you have to do is tell them my parameters and walk away if they Say no, there is no negotiating. So it was easy. So I got all these deals for him and. And then ended up one day he walked in and said, aren't you going to thank me? I said, thank you for what? I ate ramen noodles all day and drink water. The guards are eating lobster, you know. You know, because he was really rich and he paid his guards good and they lived like kings. And I was just. I was running his company. And he said, well, I just promoted you on Twitter to. As the CEO of my company. And I said, well, thanks a lot. You know, we were always going back and forth. But anyways, I was running his company there for a while. Then we had a big falling out. And then that's when my life went from up here making millions, literally, to just crash it again.

[Brent Tucker]

If, if I could be so bold. Maybe you don't want to talk about it, but what you said you and him had a fallen out.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

Well, like what, what it. It seems. Seems like. Yet you guys had a good relationship and good banter. You know, guys that are kind of very different, yet cut from the same cloth.

[Jimmy Watson]

Son, father relationship.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Jimmy Watson]

I, I, you know, it's kind of embarrassing to talk about because I don't know exactly what happened happened. I was. It was two in the morning and I'm running the show. I have this beautiful office overlooking the sound in Ocracoke where Blackbeard used to evade the British. Man of war ships in the shallows. Like, it's beautiful, man there at Ocracoke.

[Brent Tucker]

And I'm sorry, where's. Where's Ocracoker?

[Jimmy Watson]

It's, it's, It's North Carolina on the Outer Banks.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay.

[Jimmy Watson]

Beautiful. Kind of near Blackwater in a way.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay. All right.

[Jimmy Watson]

And it was weird to be back there, and I had this beautiful office making all this money. I was being guarded by the guards because I was with John Mac, but I was also his. His personal. He wouldn't sleep unless I was next to him and close by. And. But one night I just. I, I kind of heard this voice to, to run out of the house. I know this is insane. And it could have been because I wasn't sleeping. I was blasted. Adderall could have been like some kind of. What do they call a manic episode or something.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay.

[Jimmy Watson]

When you, when you don't sleep for days and you're taking Adderall and, And I was sleeping a little bit. It. But my point is, is I ran out with nothing. I ran out in the, in the marshes there with Nothing. And it was one of the coldest nights that I've ever had in my life. And I've been through some cold.

[Brent Tucker]

That's what I say.

[Jimmy Watson]

It's cold.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

And I was in the marsh like this. And I could hear machine guns going off like. Like. But I knew it wasn't real, but it was almost like it was on these speakers around me and I could hear the guards looking for me. And so I felt like I was in the jungle being looked for. Being. I had like, major, major PTSD weird moment. I've never heard audible sounds like that before. It was so real. And there was no way I was willing to. I was willing to die in that marsh cold rather than. Rather than be caught by these guys or whatever. The next day when I came to, I go back to the house and they're like, hey, boss man, what's up? And I. It was a walk of shame. I was so embarrassed. It's covered in mud. I had ditched my Glock, you know, I shot it a couple times because I thought it was fake. I threw it in the Marsh, came back. McAfee's trying to give me these pills that reverse somebody when they're on lsd. He always talked about him. He's trying to give me these. So I felt like at that point he had actually tested me. He had done something to my drink because one of the guys gave me a drink before. And later on, when I did LSD and went on a complete sabbatical running from the law in Thailand and all over the world, I. I remember it felt like that.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

You see what I'm saying? Because I don't know how a human being could trip that bad in a ptsd.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Jimmy Watson]

Anyways, I was out of there. I left. I didn't trust him anymore. And he even admitted to my ex wife that he was testing me or something. Weird.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

What, the weird guy? Yeah, weird. Weird.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah. I don't.

[Tyler]

I don't know what to ask.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

What do you. What do you say? Keep it going.

[Tyler]

Going.

[Jimmy Watson]

I shadow some of it. Oh, my gosh, dude.

[Tyler]

Well, so what? So you're at a low point now at all time.

[Jimmy Watson]

Low, because it was so embarrassing because I had to go to another mental hospital and. And my parents picked me up and. And I go from making these millions all proud of myself and bragging about it to my family, walking around with 20 GS in my pocket.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Jimmy Watson]

Spilling it at the airport, not even caring if it's floating around like that kind of weird. Stuff. And then I go. Then I'm back at my mom's house, man. And I'm just so embarrassed. And I'm like, like, dude, this was my big comeback. And I burn into the ground.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah. It's not lows. It's. It's the dramatic difference between the highs and. And the lows. And it goes back to, you know, the. Thankfully, you had that. But the dramatic difference of you're a seal, you know, add stv and it's taken from you, and then. Then you find your footing. I mean, how many people get a second chance to be proud at life, you know, of sorts.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

And you regain that. You're like, okay, I'm good. I'm good on only, you know, to. To end up back there again.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

I gotta imagine the emotional roller coaster just wreaks havoc on you.

[Jimmy Watson]

Well, I've never told anybody this, but. But when I ran from McAfee and then I went to this place in Virginia, my ex was super worried about me because I just bounced. And she called some of my boys that were in dev group now, okay. And they were over. They were at SEAL two six now. And so they circled around. They're armed. I'm sitting there. They don't know if I'm armed or not. But they're treating me like a human being. Like, hey, Jimmy, it's me, man. Jimmy, it's your brothers. But it was so embarrassing because they thought I was on meth or some drugs.

[Tyler]

I was about to say, I would. I would have bent money based off everything you're going on and not knowing anything. I'd be like, this guy's on drugs.

[Jimmy Watson]

And my ex told him I was on drugs. And I. And I wasn't. The problem is I wasn't. Now I was taking in copious amounts of Adderall. And there was Tom's, where I was doing drugs at McAfee for sure. But at the time, it was more like an LSD psychedelic trip.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

And I. That. I didn't know whether what was reality. Anyways, they talked me down. They talked me back into going the hospital. They were really cool, but there was three or four of them there. It was really embarrassing. The police were there. They were really cool with me. They understood my background. Nobody was mean. They just. Come on, Jimmy. That's even worse, you know? So anyway, it's better to get beanbag like that guy, you know, like the guy running around going, you know, go. Come on. You know, on tv, anyways, you know what I'm talking about?

[Tyler]

Absolutely.

[Jimmy Watson]

Looks like my dad running around out there, like. Anyways, so. So I end up going back to my parents house and my wife and my ex. That's when everything falls apart. I had this beautiful.

[Tyler]

Oh, that's when.

[Jimmy Watson]

Okay, yeah, yeah, there's a couple times. No. But I have this beautiful acreage. 15 acres in valley Center, California. My ex wife, she just. My beautiful princess that I thought we would be with for, you know, forever together. She walks out on me, kind of rightfully so. Transfers all the money, like 350 GS that I had saved just for her, transfers it all out of the bank. But I don't even care, you know, it's like I don't care about the money, you know, in weird ways. But you always say that when you. When you have the money. Right? Right when you don't have money, you're like, dude, I care about money big time. And so. So that she. She transfers all the money, man. I'm kind of. I'm pretty freaking lost. And that's when, to make a long story short, that's when John McAfee gets arrested by the FBI. And now he's skipped out of the country. He's in Spain, and they put him in some kind of Spanish prison, right?

[Tyler]

Oh, they caught him.

[Jimmy Watson]

And I know my parents say, hey, the FBI came to our house looking for you. And so, of course, being the good Samaritan that I am, I freaking bounce. You know what I mean? I'm like, no, no thanks. Already dealt with you guys before and I. Because I just knew it was over. I didn't know what they had or what, but. But I just, I. I left, man. The country.

[Tyler]

Your life could be a movie so far. Like a Leonardo DiCaprio movie as well.

[Brent Tucker]

It's like a tactical Wolf of Wall Street.

[Jimmy Watson]

It's so complex. It's weird. Like, right? Like. Like I've had to erase a lot of the stuff in my book after Tim Kennedy. I'm so pissed off. These guys, they stole my stories, man. I'm like, oh, man, I gotta erase that, I guess.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay, well, just like them though. The, the. Especially with you. The truth is good enough. Yeah, the truth is good enough.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

You got a wild story.

[Jimmy Watson]

Well, like John McAfee said, he used to have to dumb his stories down a bit just so people would believe it.

[Brent Tucker]

Oh, gosh.

[Jimmy Watson]

You know, and people would collaborate his stories and a lot of times I'd be like, like, no way. He's lying. There's no way. But a month or two later, somebody come by the house and say the exact same story.

[Brent Tucker]

And what. And what did he get in prison for? And, I mean, it was only in.

[Jimmy Watson]

Spain they arrested him for eight felonies. And the reason why I know that is when I got arrested, I can go to that here. Two years later, they. They arrested me and charged me the same exact felonies as John McAfee, which was conspiracy, money laundering money, wire fraud, cryptocurrency, touting. And the only one that I didn't get hemmed up on was tax evasion. Okay. They Al Capone him, you know, and basically what got him in so much trouble and reason goes back to me saying I didn't believe everything and it'll always come true, is he would say on his Twitter account of a million people that, hey, stop paying your taxes. What are you doing, idiots? I don't pay my taxes. And I thought, okay, that's the one lie for sure. But McAfee had a no bluff policy, you know, and he always told me, never bluff. Never bluff.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

And so. And so what came out was he literally wasn't paying his taxes and he owed millions of dollars. But to his defense, he said, I paid $80 million in taxes, Jimmy. And after that, I refused to pay anymore. Would you. How much money have you paid in taxes? I'm like, I get tax refunds, right?

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

You know?

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah. Elon Musk says that about how much taxes he's paid. And he's like, I have. Yeah. I guess he's done the math. He's like, I'm actually the. The highest tax person, like, in, you know, in the history of America.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

He's like, he's still. Wait. The joke is, I'm still waiting on my trophy. But, you know, I guess they're not going to give me one.

[Jimmy Watson]

Exactly.

[Brent Tucker]

But it's. It's insane. I know that we're going to say they're going to start talking about percentages, but at some point, $80 million, regardless of percentages, is a lot. Is a lot of money.

[Jimmy Watson]

$80 million. He got sued a bunch of times, paid tons of. He paid millions of dollars. And finally he said, I'm never going to pay another cent of getting sued. That's why I don't answer my mail. So I learned a lot of bad techniques from him. And he always told me, jimmy, just don't answer the mail. What are they going to do? How are they going to sue you? And so I stopped answering my mail. And I. Of course, that pisses the FBI off when you don't answer them.

[Tyler]

That's what Brian does with his phone. Correct, Correct.

[Jimmy Watson]

And at one point they have the.

[Brent Tucker]

Same disaster, just on much lower level.

[Jimmy Watson]

I still do that. I just don't answer. And so the last conversation, the FBI did call me at one point.

[Tyler]

You're in Spain at this point or not yet?

[Jimmy Watson]

No, when I was in California moping around there, shooting lizards off rocks with my.22, the FBI called me at one point and they said, jimmy, this the FBI? I said, yeah, right. You guys probably tell that to everybody. There's no way you could know that. Anyways, they explained to me how they had just talked to my sister and my sister told them that I told her to never talk to the cops. And so I was like, dang it, they're good. I was like, dang it. You kind of ousted me there without out telling on me, rat me out. Anyways, I got on the phone with the FBI.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

And they, they said, look, Jimmy, come on in and talk to us. All we want to do is talk to you. And I knew they already addressed John McAfee, so I said, okay. I said, when do you guys want to meet? And I, I played it off. I said, okay, I'll buy my ticket right now. I'm gonna meet you guys. And that's when I bought a one way ticket out of America. And. And I was never going to come back.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

I plan on staying because I had plenty of money.

[Brent Tucker]

Right.

[Jimmy Watson]

I had tons of money.

[Brent Tucker]

And I'm deep, probably deeper, but I'm assuming in private offshore accounts because at some point. Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

Oh, no, you're me and Jimmy here, gd. I used USAA checking. They later told me, they said, I said, guys, money laundering. I was using my USA checking. Like I'm not. Like, I'm not. Obviously not. Not that smart to money. Laundry stuff.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

You know what I mean? I got a university degree, but it took me 20 years. One credit.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, one credit.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

With the. And did you ever get on that, that plane for the, for the one way?

[Jimmy Watson]

I, I got, I got on the plane and where'd you go? I left to Colombia.

[Brent Tucker]

Okay.

[Jimmy Watson]

Medellin, Colombia.

[Brent Tucker]

And not a bad place.

[Jimmy Watson]

Been not a bad place. I stayed there and I just, I was going on three day coke binges and just. I didn't care anymore. I started to like, look up. How do you make crack out of cocaine? But I was operating too. I was like, I. I was operating at a high function. I was still working out real hard. Always. Still maintaining my discipline routine. But Living this crazy life, and really actually just that lost ship that McAfee was talking about. Hopeless. That in like you were talking about that one extreme to the next.

[Tyler]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

And.

[Tyler]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

And not caring. So I'd hang out with all these girls, wouldn't even do anything with them because I was so coked out of my mind. You know, you don't. It doesn't work like that. That. So I'd be coked out of my mind, do stuff with them. And then. And then I would be. I would be going and doing some. Some mercenary stuff here and there to El Salvador, Nicaragua, background Asia with Thailand and stuff back just to make. To pick up some extra cash here and there. And. And finally I met my girl in Spain. I met. I. I went to Spain. That's how crazy I was. I didn't care about them arresting Mac.

[Tyler]

I was gonna say, yeah, that'd be the one country I wouldn't go to.

[Jimmy Watson]

But I went selling around in Spain. I was all over the place. I went all over. And every time I was going through customs, they would pull me out of my bag and for about an hour, and then. And then I'd be sitting there in this room by myself, and I'd be like, keep it cool, Keep it cool. Keep it cool. And they. And they would come back after an hour and say, Mr. Watson, thank you so much. And I'd say, well, okay. What was that about? You know? And they'd be like, oh, nothing. Just you're. You're fine. No problems. And I was like, that's weird.

[Brent Tucker]

That's weird.

[Jimmy Watson]

You know, Go.

[Tyler]

The FBI is like, let him go.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah. And so I later find out why. And. And so I would travel the next country, and in Spain, I met my Russian wife. She would just. Had gone to Ibiza, and I was selling around. I was learning to sell. I got my level Cert. My Level 4 certification there, met her, moved to Thailand, started doing Muay Thai. Never fought Muay Thai or nothing like that. Because after I saw those guys get kicked and stuff in the face, I'm like, you know what? I'm not that tough. You know? Like, I'm kind of tough, but not that.

[Brent Tucker]

Right?

[Jimmy Watson]

Not. Kick. Kick me in the orbital bone.

[Brent Tucker]

Goes back to gotta want it. Didn't want.

[Tyler]

Didn't want that.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

And I didn't want to hurt people that bad. I had hurt people in the past, and I just don't want to hurt people anymore. So that was one of my things, too. But what.

[Brent Tucker]

Why did that.

[Jimmy Watson]

Why?

[Brent Tucker]

Unless you're Gonna hop back to it later. So why did they keep on releasing you out of secondary? Because they wanted you to keep on going to other countries where they out of customs. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

I. When I got picked up, so, so I decided to go home. Great question. When I decided to go home to see my mom. Because you know, they say every outlaw goes home and that's how they get caught. To see their mom. That's exactly what happened to me. I miss my mom. I love my family. And it was heartbreaking to you. You find yourself like, how do you find yourself from wanting to serve your country so bad to hanging yourself on a toilet to now you're in Colombia. Blasted lines all you know. And you're not doing it to party, you're doing it to kill yourself. You know, you're, you're, you're, you know, make a, make a Death Wish foundation, you know, and so, and so I'm, I, I even consider like jumping on my balcony a couple times.

[Tyler]

Sweet shirt.

[Jimmy Watson]

Death Wish Foundation.

[Brent Tucker]

And I'm assuming as a proud American who can't go back to his, his country.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah, man, you feel just completely destroyed. And I'm not, I'm not shifting responsibility off of. But if you look at it through my eyes, you know, that was never the plan. The plan was never to do insider trading. The plan was to never do crypto. I was supposed to be, I wanted to be a master chief in the seals. Like that was my. To serve out years in the teams. But it just. Life doesn't work like that. Life will take you and just all of a sudden dump you. You know, one of my buddies told me his girl walked out on him 30 minutes before new Year's this year. You know, never saw it coming, bro.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, you know, well, they say, you know, if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.

[Jimmy Watson]

Tell him your plans. And so, but God had a plan because I go home, I see my mom one last time, I buy, I get my visa to Bali in a non extradition. I'm always on the move. I'm always on the move and get my one way plane ticket to Bali. And I'm having coffee with my mom in downtown Dallas, Texas. I get coffee. And all of a sudden, man, this peace came over me. This warm peace. And I'm like, did I take any Xanax? Okay. And, and I said, I tell my mom, look, mom, I don't know who's praying for me right now, but I'm telling you, I looked her right in the face, I said, Everything's gonna be okay. But I knew I was saying bye to her for the rest of my life because I was gonna leave for good. And I still get choked up, but. But I got up off the seat and I. I started walking towards her car. And that's when all these black SUVs pulled up and just told me, get on the ground, Jim. They said, jimmy. And I said, yeah. And they just blasted me. They. They got me on the ground. Once they handcuffed me, they were cool. And then they put me in the suv, and we were there a long time. And he goes, you know what this is for, right? I said, no, of course I did. And he goes, he goes, jimmy. He goes, how many pulls can you do? I said, take these handcuffs off. I'll show you. And I was joking around with it like that, but I hurt inside, you know? But I was relieved, too, that it was over, it was done, bro. And they even sent the Dallas SWAT team in because they thought, okay, SEAL on the run. They didn't know what it was for. They just put. I guess. I guess they just put a. Some kind of red flag out on you. And they say, go pick this guy up. He's a. He's a veteran. He's armed and dangerous, you know, a flight risk. And I was flying. I wasn't armed and dangerous, but I was a flight risk. And so they, they. They put me in the fence for a little bit, and then I win my case to not be transferred upstate New York. They wanted to keep me just like McAfee. And they were. They charged me with the exact same crimes as McAfee. And so what they wanted to do was have McAfee fly from Spain while I was sitting on house arrest for the next year and a half, pre trial confinement. And they want to try us together. And that's when. This is when my story takes a turn for the best possible outcome in the world. And it really just took me getting arrested to understand this. Sometimes we. Sometimes we got to hit the very bottom of bottoms and lows and lows in our life, to finally come to terms of our true need for something else, a true higher power. And I remember just. I remember I'd cry at night on my pillow. I'd just turn and twist around like a snake because I'm facing 15 years of the feds. There's no way out of it. My lawyer's like, dude, you're going to prison, bro. With this amount of money involved, you know, they don't. They. You're going away. And then I remember I cried out to God, and in the morning, I said, jesus, if you're real, show up in my life. Because my mom always told me to cry out, Jesus, if I was dying overseas, bleeding out. And this is the one time I called out to her, and I called out to him. I said, jesus, if you're real, show up in my life the next day. Long story short, I get invited to this nonprofit, this Operation Restore Warrior at this place. Right as I get invited, John McAfee is found dead in a prison. In the Spanish prison home.

[Brent Tucker]

Yep.

[Jimmy Watson]

And the lawyer calls me and says, I don't know what this means for your case, but something. Something's happening. Well, I go to Operation Restore Warrior. Long story short, two guys pray for me. And as they're praying for me, bro, I'm not believing in anything. I. They. They kind of remind me of police officers. I love police. That's another thing. Like, I. We've worked with interagencies and the seals, all this stuff. Stuff. And here I am, like, as an outlaw, this guy with a big ankle bracelet on. And the judge barely let me out of the house for three days. And these guys start praying for. They. They ask me a bunch of questions. Kind of like this interview right now. Two guys are sitting there, and I. I skip over my story, a lot of dark spots. And one of the guys all of a sudden says, jimmy, you skipped over part of your story. Like, if one of you guys called me out right now, you skipped part of your story. You skipped part of a dark part. And I'm like. And I'm like, no, I didn't. Let's move on. And he said, no, you did. And I said, listen, man, I told you I didn't skip over part of my story. And he said, jimmy, he goes, was that was that situation at the Love Shack? And this is the nickname. Love Shack was the nickname that I called this house that I was in that I had the big office in, overlooking the sound with ochre coast boat. We called it the Love Shack because it was a mansion done over the Love Boat series. An old mansion, okay? But he called it the nickname that I called it. And I. And I looked at him, and I. Dead to rights. I said, bro, I said. I said, what'd you just say? And he said, the Love Shack or the Love Boat? And I said. I said, bro, I'm out of here. I said, I'm out. And I stood, because, you know, a real psychic stuff, you know, people pay money to. Oh, Woody, what's my. No, no. If I told you some deep, dark crap right now to either one of y'all, y'all be like, dude, get out of here. I don't want to talk to you anymore. It's too scary, too weird. So I said, okay. I said, if you know so much about me in my life, then I'm not going to have to say anything else from this point on. Let's do this right. And I sit there and I said, tell me more then, about this and Love shack ain't good enough, bro. You know?

[Brent Tucker]

And it's pretty good, though.

[Jimmy Watson]

He looks at me, dead rights, and he looks at his. His buddy and. And his buddy gives him a nod. He goes, go ahead. And he looks at me and he says, when you walk in this house, the love shack, he goes, there's a hot tub on the right side, and there's three steps that go to a door into the house. And I said. I said, that ain't good enough, bro. Tell me more. He goes, okay. He goes, there's three rooms right there. And he goes, there's a armory, a fake, like an army with a fake. With a gray metal door with a. With a fake cherry door on it. I said, so what up? Tell me more. He goes, there's an elevator next to it on the left side. And there's another cherry fake door to an elevator in the house, bro. And I said. I said, okay. And I said, tell me more, man.

[Brent Tucker]

You're a hard man to impress at this point.

[Jimmy Watson]

I'm like, tell me more, bro. Yeah, if you know so much about me, you know, here I am going to prison for life. I don't care about nothing, bro, anymore. There's nothing much that can scare me. And I said. And he goes, well, you walk up the stairs, and there's another room. Room. And all these rooms inside the room, they're. They're labeled Tahiti, Thailand, Cambodia, whatever. This in Latin longs. And he said, grid coordinates. I said, no Latin longs like, I caught him, you know, and he goes, whatever. He goes. And then you walk up another set of stairs in the last room, and there's a massive. He goes. A massive steering wheel. Ship steering wheel. There was a massive ship steering wheel above my office. And I said. I said, bro, I said, tell me more. I'm shaking mad. He says, there's a massive office, and it overlooks a sound. And when he said, sound, bro, I started breaking down. Because, you know, you won't call it that. The sound, it was very accurate. He goes, there's boats that pull up to the house. And I keep just saying, and I'm yelling at this point. They said they were scared later on because I was yelling in their face. Tell me about, you know, like a psychopath. And. And the last thing he said, man, and this is what's floored me for the rest of my life. And. And really the reason why I'm here on this podcast today is he said, as I said, tell me more, and I'm shaking. And he says, he says, have a hard time sometimes getting through this one. He said there was a path behind the house that you used to walk down at night by yourself. And I can remember being on that path and crying out to God for something. I'd look at the stars. I'd say, surely there's something out there, man. And. And when they said that, I realized that. That Jesus had been walking with me on that path. And not just that path, man, in every single dark corner of my life, doing the mercenary stuff, doing the Columbia, doing the cocaine, all over my life, all these terrible, terrible things I've done, man. Sometimes people say, I know what you did, Jimmy. You did this. And I said, no, you don't know, man. I've done way worse than that. You're. That's the PG version, Sergeant. Don't. Don't come at me unless you have something big. And. And so I later asked Dan, and I was floored. And I cried and cried and cried. After this, I said, I said, how did you know? I said, how did you know this, all this? And he said, this is what we do here. We. We asked Jesus to come in and tell us things about people. And he said, only happened twice before, like my situation, that detail. And I. I said, and later on, I asked Daniel, I said, daniel, the guy that prayed for me, I said, daniel, what was going through your head? How did you do that? And he said, well, he goes, all I know, Jimmy, is that Jesus told me to keep on answering you, keep on responding to you until you believed. And, And. And that's what it took for me, man, to believe, is I had to. I had to have. I had to. I had to have him keep going. And I wouldn't dare ask another question, guys. I would have fallen over dead if I asked one more question. After that passed path, it was like God was telling me, don't. Don't you want to go down this path? You. You want to ask one more question? And I was done. Well, and my case got dismissed. They even told me my case was Going to get dismissed.

[Brent Tucker]

I'm a sympathetic crier, so I'd, I'd ask you to hold it together.

[Tyler]

It's the cigar smoke for me.

[Jimmy Watson]

It's a cigar smoke in here, guys. We're not crying, man. I don't cry, bro.

[Brent Tucker]

It's. Oh, it's. It's. It's crazy and it's powerful because, you know, of, Of. Of all the things that you've talked about, you know, and what moves you the most, you know, and what if you really go back and think about, like, what. What matters the most? You sat there, you told us about everything you worked for in the SEAL teams and just got taken from. You didn't tear up once. You know, like every. All the bad stuff you talk about, you know, friends dying, didn't tear up once. But when it comes to life, those are life changing things. But, but John McAfee. Yeah, McAfee, you know, called you, Called you a lost ship. And, but being a lost ship was just something about being a strong man, an accomplished man. And you go all through life, but it actually gets. It only gets worse and worse and worse and worse until. And I feel like there's innate calling, you know, and all of us, and once you actually find that, you talk about purpose, like finding that real purpose, it's. It's unlike anything else. Are you talking about you can remember that your first mission, you can remember your, Your trident getting pinned. I can sit and ask you all sorts of things about you. What you remember wouldn't get you choked up once. Getting found by God, Getting found by your Lord and savior, Jesus Christ, will break you down in a heartbeat. Yeah, tell me that's not something serious, something that's not powerful, something this country needs so bad. This country is a lost ship right now. Yeah. And we used to. We. We used to not be. We were never perfect, but we're a lost ship right now.

[Jimmy Watson]

You just hit it right on the head, man. I. You know, being in the social media game, I'm sure with you guys, you. You see all the division, you see so much hate online, so many people divided, and it's really sad. And I hear a lot of debates about God too. The earth is flat or the earth is round, this and this and this in the cosmos. And God couldn't be real, or God is real in my. I, I never. I never enter into these things. Because what all I know is, I wasn't at church. I was sitting there in my most lost statement. It's the realest that ever happened to Me, man, in my life. And it's the realest thing that ever happened to me ever since then. And when I came home, the thing is, it's a perspective change. It's a perspective change. It's. He didn't have to show up and stand there and touch me. He literally. I. They. When they told me that, it changed my perception, man, so much. A mindset shift, like the ultimate mindset shift that people talk about, you know, it goes way beyond that, but it was such a shift that I stood up, brother, and it was like I had two sea bags full of bricks that I had been carrying around my whole life that had gotten used to carrying, and I didn't even know I was carrying anymore. And I dropped them off, and from that moment, I was free. And I didn't care if I went to prison. I didn't care about nothing. When I went back to house arrest, even the lights were bright. I was on. Back on house arrest. My parents thought I was absolutely lost my mind. I was so happy and so, like, I didn't care about nothing. I thought, okay, I guess I'm gonna go to prison and talk about this story. But little did I know God had a. A huge different path for me. And I know that he has a path for anybody listening here, but they just gotta crack our other heart open this much to what I just said. That testimony, that truth that God is with us no matter what.

[Brent Tucker]

How long ago was that for you?

[Jimmy Watson]

That was four years ago.

[Brent Tucker]

Four years ago. What you been up to last four years?

[Jimmy Watson]

Man, the last four years have been wild.

[Brent Tucker]

Different type of wild, but wild nonetheless.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah. After all that, you guys are like, oh.

[Brent Tucker]

Well, I went to tell those girls the good news.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah. Starting back in the drug game, everybody's like, no, no, no, no, Jimmy. No. I was like, no, no, no. What. What, the. Cut that, edit that part? No, I. After that, man, I felt like an eagle flying over the Grand Canyon. And unfortunately, it was like, a huge loss to. To hear about McAfee's news because it was like losing the dad. I love my dad. Ain't nothing like my dad, but. But. But McAfee was like this other father figure. When he died, it was super sad for me, but because of my thing happened, because the case got dismissed, I was, like, flying. And, you know, I had social media, brother. I tried social media when I got on the teams, and you're not supposed to have social media, but when I got out, I had six followers. Two were me, one was my girl, one was my mom. And a couple other poor souls. When you know, God told me that I would be a lighthouse after this big meeting with Jesus. I don't hear from God like this like, but after that meeting with Jesus, God specifically said, I said, what would you have me do now, God? I'm on house rest. He said, you'll be a lighthouse. And to my people, those exact words. Never heard anything after that. Those exact words. And I, I knew exactly what to do. I opened up a TikTok to Instagram and since then it's done extraordinarily well for, for what I consider. Well, what's the fruit of it? Well the fruit of it is so many people testimony from this story like dude, that, that really helped me out, right? And so now I've got my, my, my warrior tribe. I got a tribe, my Touchpoint nation where guys are coming in and I meet with them twice a week and I share stories of encouragement. We share the wisdom around the fireman. And now I'm in Alabama as a chief instructor and developer of a tactic school where it puts God as a center. So it's a spiritual renewal retreat but you're also getting like life saving real world tactics to go home with and with a kill house but you know, simunitions, everything. It's going to be super exciting. Our first class got filled up lightning fast and I just highly encourage anybody, any listeners out there to, to, to first get a cigar, get on that testosterone and then come over and see your man Jimmy and see what I.

[Brent Tucker]

Got going on on my social and what, what's the name of that place in Alabama again? The retreat called.

[Jimmy Watson]

It's gonna be, it's called, it's called triple hollow pursuit and it's at a beautiful hunting preserve and it's gonna be, I think there's gonna be some, some, some serious healing going there going on there. It's going to be a lot of campfire side meetings and professional cook and we've done it really, really, we've really done it up. I mean I had to move from Miami to Alabama, dude, just to do this.

[Brent Tucker]

So yeah, we talk about mental health here on the show and we definitely have a different outlook on it because the traditional look is go to a psychologist do. Let's just be how I do the beta male thing. Be vulnerable and, and it's just, and we wonder why we're having, we're not getting anywhere with it. So and so the crazy answer is well then we need more of this and more of the wrong cures can get you the same exact, you know, outcome. And I love that it. Guys need to go to other guys, girls need to go to other girls. People need to go to other people who have been there and done that before. Let me tell you, your psychologists who, who went and got a degree and is probably living a pretty good life, does not understand what you're going through. He understands it via textbook. Yeah, but that's not, that's not under, that's not understanding it.

[Tyler]

Even some religious. I don't want to guidance from, from people that are, you know, have a lot of background in religion, have been religious. They're not going to know the darkest places you've been.

[Brent Tucker]

That's right.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah. Yeah. I think there's, I always say there's two reasons why God saved me. I'm sure of it. One is because of his infinite, absolute, infinite mercy and forgiveness no matter what we've done in our life. I know that for sure because of where I came from, the darkness, the terrible stuff. Right. The second reason is I really, truly believe that God is looking for mighty men to stand up at such a time as this, when the world's like a lost ship and just speak the truth, truth about who his son really is, who he really is. And it's not the, the, the, the entity or, or what a lot of people think religion is. I call it a real relationship and I've got it wrong since then. And I've been through some trials since then and some, some ups and downs, but, but I know since then I can always fall back on that. And I remember that and it's really got me through some hard times.

[Brent Tucker]

Guys, you, what's, what's your IG handle on social media so they can get in touch with you and see what, continue to look into you, see what you're up, see what you're up to.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah, I just, I hope everybody comes on over and visits me at mighty warrior 283, my class number. So. Mighty Warrior. And basically it's Mighty Warrior because. And I would never name my social media that unless I felt like everybody was a mighty warrior. All you men out there, man, your mighty Warriors. Come out and see your man Jimmy. I'd love to, love to talk to you. I always respond on my dm, so love it.

[Brent Tucker]

Before you get out of here, have ended pretty heavy. Give the people something to chuck about. Give us a funny story. You, you should be able to go deep in your bag of experience, multiple bags, and give us a funny story.

[Jimmy Watson]

Well, I, I think I should get a Medal of valor, A valorous award in the seals for catching my penis in a bell center.

[Brent Tucker]

Oh, what?

[Jimmy Watson]

That's gonna be a story, dude. I swore that I was never gonna mention it again. Can you imagine? Can you imagine? You, you, you. Your legacy in the seals is that you caught your penis in a build center? Like, out of all the cool stuff, man, that's. That's what I'm gonna be.

[Tyler]

What was going on?

[Jimmy Watson]

Well, no, they. No, after I got it. Okay. So I was outside of the garage. Okay. It was on a beautiful day in Hawaii.

[Brent Tucker]

What?

[Jimmy Watson]

Matt Leathers had passed away, or he was actually lost, still at sea. So we were looking for him. I started to make a memorial board because, you know, when you. When you lose a guy and they can't find him his body, you don't have a coffin to slam the trident in or nothing like that, right? And so I. I am a. I'm an artist. I paint. I. I could paint his face. I could paint his. And so I painted this memorial board, and then I, you know, poured that. That thick poly, whatever it is, over it and on board. But while I was getting this ready, I was sanding out there with a big, long extension cord. And these kids are with their mom and their dad putting up groceries. I mean, those little silkies, you know, like y'all sell here. Those are cool. Go get some guys. And I'm. I'm going back and forth like this on the grinder, on the, on the. The bell saver. I had eight grit sandpaper, which saved my life. If it was any more, it would have been too smooth and it would just yanked it off. And so some guy, some. How'd you get your penis caught in the bill? Said I'm like, well, you'll never know, will you? You know what I mean? Anyways. Anyways, so I. So I'm going back and forth and something happened, but I, I, it's like I. It's like I glanced up, you know, distracted or whatever, and I got it. It went right in the backside and out this off the side, like, laffy type, you know, a mouse can go through a door crack, guys. You know what I'm saying?

[Brent Tucker]

It's possible, right?

[Jimmy Watson]

It's so. So it was stuck in there. And the only thing I can think of, like a real G, is I look over and I see these kids and I think, no, not today, brother. Not today. I'm not gonna give these kids ptsd. They're gonna go through psychotherapy for the rest of their lives because they saw this dude over there with his ranger panties on. And so the first thing I do, I turn from them. They never see me. They're just doing their groceries. Like, I'm talking, like, next door neighbors, like, right here.

[Tyler]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

I turn around and I crawl inside the garage. I shut the door with one hand, and I start to look at this thing, and it feels like it's on fire because it's clamped down on my weenie, you know, and it's hot, bro, because I've been going like this for, like an hour.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

Burning hot. Searing it. And. And I look at it, and I. You know how on Oprah Winfrey one time, I saw an interview where the guy. A tree fell on his legs, and he had to cut them both off with a little bitty because his chainsaw ran out of gas. And I always thought, how could somebody do that, like, to their own body? Well, I'm telling you, when that happens like that, like a fox with his arm, he chews it off. I would have chewed it off, brother. It being stuck in there for so long, like, stuck in there, you just want to take it off. And so at first, I yanked on it real hard, which damaged it even worse because it wasn't coming off, but it was so clamped. So I stretched it like this, and then I was like. And then my little dog is in the corner. Turkey took you? Passed away, unfortunately, recently. And I tell him, go get your mom. But he was mad at me for waterboarding before, so he didn't. So he didn't go get his mom. So he sits there. I don't blame him for that. And he's like, no, you die in here for what you did to me. And so I finally look at it, and I'm able to. It dawns on me, like, don't take it apart. I have to really go into calm mode. Like, don't panic mode. And so I undo the latch. There's a latch. And it kind of loosens it. And I just inch by inch by inch.

[Tyler]

Take your dick back.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah. By many inches came out. All right, whatever. It doesn't matter. You guys did it. You guys didn't get that, man. Whatever. So I pull it out, and I. And I go inside, and my wife's like, oh. I tell her, hey. I said, stop making cupcakes for the frg. I said, I. I literally a freaking FRG president over here, I said. I said, you know, stop what you're doing. I. I got my penis caught in a belt sander. She goes, oh, my gosh. She's got a big bun in her hair. Oh, my God. I'll get the ice. She goes, I'll get the ice. And I said, hold the patrol. I said, stop. You're not gonna get no ice. I said, get in the car and take me to the emergency room immediately. And believe it or not, she takes me to the. The. She said it looked like a black, burnt pancake cake. And. And believe it or not, she takes me to the emergency room. And I. And you know, it's bad when you refuse to go inside the emergency room. I said, no, bring him out here. Like. Like it's McDonald's or Jack of the Month, whatever. Bring him out here to the window. And so this emergency doctor comes over and he goes, oh, I heard you got your penis caught a belcher. Laughing, I said, hey, man, this ain't no time for jokes, Doc. I said, this is no joke, man. And I start shaking by then because my. It's like my. You know, it's all coming to. And in the weirdest question he asked me, he said, was it an 8 by 17 or a 3 by 32? You know, like the two weird numbers for two different bell setters. And I'm like, doc, I said, does it matter, bro? Yeah, like, who cares, man? And. And I said, why'd you ask me? He goes, because it happens often. I said, well, why do they have a hand with a red X on the sticker?

[Brent Tucker]

Hands are the problem. Hands aren't dangling down, I would assume.

[Tyler]

Yeah, yeah. There's just some things you don't do in silkies.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

It's unfortunate you got Bob Vila as your, ER doctor.

[Jimmy Watson]

No. And then I had to have major plastic reconstructive surgery.

[Brent Tucker]

Did you?

[Jimmy Watson]

40 stitches along the side, skin grab.

[Tyler]

Did it look like a pancake? Because it was flat.

[Jimmy Watson]

I don't remember it looking like a black. She said it looked like a Blackburn pancake. It. For me, it just looked melted.

[Tyler]

Oh, God.

[Jimmy Watson]

There was no. There was no hole. There was nothing there. It was just gone. Like, it was just melted over.

[Brent Tucker]

All right, now I got a couple questions.

[Tyler]

Yeah.

[Jimmy Watson]

Like, all those. It stretched it one inch. After all we were done, it used to be left to the. To the left. And then after the accident was all the way to the right, and then after it healed, it was straight in one inch.

[Tyler]

All those hairy situations that you look.

[Brent Tucker]

At that, look at the positive again. Out of all the bad situations you've been out of, now it's straight and a little bit longer.

[Tyler]

How many times in all those Wife said.

[Jimmy Watson]

My wife at the time said, thank God finally we can make love. And I said.

[Brent Tucker]

How long. If you remember, how long did it take to have sex after that? I mean, you have to have. You have to have surgeries.

[Jimmy Watson]

It was a nightmare. And I'm going to keep it light. But. But in they. When I would wake up in the middle of the night after the surgery and it looked like a mummy, he wrapped it so tight. It looked like a mummy. Like a.

[Tyler]

Like a dick mummy.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah. And. And it was so tight, I had to call him. I said, listen, you did this too tight. It's gonna fall off. Yeah, it's obviously gonna fall off. It's, like black. It's, like, too tight. And they said, no, this is just how it is. And I would wake up every single night in the middle of the night screaming. It was so hard, so it hurts so bad. You would have these. What do they call it, Prior prism or something where. Where you just get hard and it's like, it won't go away, and it's a nightmare. And I'd be thinking about all, like. I'd be like, the pain's making it better.

[Brent Tucker]

I don't know the real term. I just called it a narb. You know, the no apparent reason boner.

[Jimmy Watson]

No apparent. But like, 10 times that. And I literally. I had to take this lidocaine because there was the hose sticking out of it, too. The ure.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah, they got a pee out of it.

[Jimmy Watson]

And it's. And it's stitches inside and out. And the stitches would be stretching. When they took the gauze off, it was stretching out like this real hard. It was a nightmare.

[Brent Tucker]

Oh, well, that's one of. That's a one of one story. Yeah, we have a couple reoccurring stories. Usually has poop involved. There's a couple reoccurring stories. Yeah, that. I hope. I hope that's a. It's a one of one story.

[Jimmy Watson]

I got a fight. I got a fight with another seal because I came in the dennies. I walked in the dennies afterwards, and he. And he says, oh, I got my. I got. I got my left thigh. It's no big deal. I got my thigh caught in the bell center. We went to blows. I said, yo, bro, are you kidding me? Like, it's like this highly offensive right now. You got your thigh. We.

[Brent Tucker]

We are not the same.

[Tyler]

Yeah, maybe you'll maybe inspire other people to come out that have got their dicks caught in belt Sanders.

[Jimmy Watson]

Nobody's suing these people. And that's why they don't have a label.

[Tyler]

We want it with a cross on it.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah.

[Brent Tucker]

Yeah. Well, I can't wait for the comment section on that. And maybe we'll see some. Some supportive comments. Like, you know what? I feel like this. I. I have a second cousin that this happened to.

[Jimmy Watson]

It's.

[Brent Tucker]

It's no joke. So, yeah, I know a guy that.

[Tyler]

Might have happened to.

[Jimmy Watson]

I want people to like me, but I don't think this is helping much.

[Brent Tucker]

Chances are they didn't stick around that long.

[Jimmy Watson]

Yeah, they're. They. They missed it, bro.