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- [00:00]
Brent Tucker
You want to know what's funny? What? He didn't jump into Robin Sage.
- [00:04]
Tyler
No way, Brent. No way.
- [00:08]
Brent Tucker
It's all a lie.
- [00:09]
Tyler
No, I was reading it going, he's right.
- [00:13]
Brent Tucker
He's right.
- [00:13]
Tyler
This whole paragraph is very vivid.
- [00:15]
Brent Tucker
Yeah, they. They. They were supposed to. They had an aircraft problem. They had. And they get. They got driven into Robin Sage.
- [00:22]
Tyler
Tim Kennedy.
- [00:25]
Brent Tucker
It's just the most weird thing to lie about. It's the most weird thing to lie about. Hold on.
- [00:31]
Tyler
We're not. Do you want to buy a shirt to support military nets? People want to see their sausage get made.
- [00:38]
Brent Tucker
An appropriate level of inappropriateness. Something happens in my family tonight. The adult divorce isn't coming to rescue my. My family, my kids, like it is. First responders that are. That are going to save my family.
- [00:50]
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 the job.
- [01:05]
Brent Tucker
I'm gonna try to act like it didn't happen, although we. We all know it did.
- [01:08]
Tyler
JV team for life. Welcome back to the Anti Hero podcast. Part Delta Force, part street cop. All truth. I'm Tyler, owner of Counterculture, Inc. Go to countercultureincthreads.com Save15 when you use promo code anti hero and get the best encounter culture. Graphic tees, stickers, team rooms, flags, hats, ranger panties, hoodies. We got everything. Counterculture Inc. Threads.com use promo code ANTIHERO. Save 15%.
- [01:39]
Brent Tucker
And I'm Bryn Tucker, owner of First Responder Cigar Company, Coffee Company and now Cask Company, FRCC. Use the promo code FRCC15. That's FRCC1 5. To get 15% off the world's best coffee, cigars and bourbon, go to www.frcc.shop.
- [02:04]
Tyler
And of course, this episode is brought to you by Human performance. Go to hp-trt.com use promo code HERO and save 20% not only off your initial purchase of testosterone, but every single month after that. You'll save 20% if you enter in promo code hero. And if you've gotten your blood drawn within the last six months, you can go to hp-trt.com and and upload that data and they'll waive the lab costs. So HPTRD.com use promo code HERO and save 20% on your testosterone.
- [02:40]
Brent Tucker
And of course, don't forget about our Patreon if you'd like to continue supporting us. Patreon is the way to do it, and we support you back with discounts through all of our sponsors, including behind the scenes footage. Also the ability to DM us directly. Gun forums, fitness forums, journal forms, you name it. The Patreon is a great place to be. It keeps, literally keeps the lights on, the rent paid around here. And of course, Thursday night lives for the boys. Every Thursday night, 8pm Eastern time, until we decide to call it until whenever. It goes longer and longer and gets better and better. So don't forget that our Patreon knew.
- [03:22]
Tyler
About this episode before it dropped.
- [03:24]
Brent Tucker
That's right, the go. It's been, it's been a hot minute and I think everyone's kind of been waiting on us to, to drop another episode. We've, we've kind of, we've teased it. The, the reality is I didn't really intend, or I shouldn't say intend. I should, I should really say I didn't. I didn't want to do another episode. In a perfect world, you know, the first episode dropped eight months ago. @ this point, roughly, it's about right. And it actually, it, it caught fire like in the veteran world. But we got a lot of pushback on that first Tim Kennedy episode and we got a lot of, you're a hater. We got a lot of how dare you tear down veterans.
- [04:19]
Tyler
Yeah.
- [04:20]
Brent Tucker
And the veteran community themselves saw, saw it, agreed with it, like, oh my gosh, I didn't know how bad it was and it immediately had an effect to some degree. And I really thought Tim would, would have seen that, made an apology corrected, and it'd be over. I mean, that was really, you know, my intent and best case scenario and what I'd hope for. But as, as we know, he made a really bad apology that he dropped on, on, on YouTube and then he doubled down and you know, oddly enough, and thank you to the veteran, you know, podcasting community and news communities that also picked up this story and continued running with it. And then what kept this thing alive was to some degree like SF meme pages just would not let it go. And they found out more things and more things and more things about the chapter of the book that we covered about the Afghanistan evacuation, the Bronsar with valor, the fake injuries, all that. Now we had a small army of people kind of researching the corners of the Internet on our behalf and came up with way more information than we ever could have. And eventually to catch you guys up, of course, I don't think there's any need to catch anyone up at this point. You know, he, he gets investigated by the Maryland National Guard, he's You know, there's some sort of investigation going on with, with whether it be USASAK or swic, United States Army. And it forces him to come out and finally make another half hearted apology where he at least admits that he doesn't have a Bronze Sour of Valor. Even though before that he said, I never said I had a bronze Tower of Valor. And it's been proven time and time again since then that he has had a bronze Tower of Valor forces him to do another bad apology. How he accidentally may have mistakenly misrepresented his military career, but still doesn't really give an apology. But that apology at least admitting that he did something wrong for the first time sent the news organizations.
- [06:45]
Tyler
Yeah.
- [06:45]
Brent Tucker
Into a frenzy.
- [06:47]
Tyler
You think it was smart on his part? Well, I think he should have done for real, but that half ass apology didn't do him any good.
- [06:54]
Brent Tucker
I think he ended up getting almost the same amount of scrutiny on a half ass apology as if he would have on a real apology. Because Yahoo, Business Insider, tmz, I mean, you name every MMA and sports magazine basically ran with it. And it's like Tim Kennedy admits to stolen valor. So if, if you're going to take that type of, that type of hit, go ahead and apologize, get it all over with.
- [07:20]
Tyler
Yeah.
- [07:20]
Brent Tucker
And then you wouldn't have to rip.
- [07:22]
Tyler
That band aid off, Tim.
- [07:23]
Brent Tucker
Right. And if you'd have done it eight months ago when we told him at the very end of the episode and said, hey, come clean, this will all be over. It'd be all I do. I think eight months later, if he'd have done that, it all been over.
- [07:35]
Tyler
Yeah.
- [07:35]
Brent Tucker
Like, it's like people have a short memory. But he refused to do it.
- [07:39]
Tyler
He offered him multiple times to come on the show.
- [07:42]
Brent Tucker
Not only did he refuse to do it, one of the real reasons that I decided to do another episode is because he pivoted. He pivoted outside the tactical community after episode, he was no longer welcome in the tactical world. You know, all of his tactical sponsors dropped him and so he moved over to the political world. So. And that I think is was a very selfish move on his part. He is, he is now latching on to people and to good people. Not everyone in D.C. is bad. There are some people in D.C. doing good things and trying and now they don't know any better because they're not attached to the tactical world and doesn't.
- [08:27]
Tyler
Seem like they're attached to any world or have anybody working for them that's attached to the real world there.
- [08:32]
Brent Tucker
I'm sure by now they, they've, they haven't. They have an inkling of what's going on. And Tim selfishly attached himself to them for, for recognition. And it kind of pull him out of this, this slump that is in because he just won't take responsibility for it. He's just going to transition. And I think him transitioning to DC is one of the more dangerous things he can do. If he won't apologize fully and he won't fully come clean, I think we have enough people like that in dc. I don't think we need another person like that in dc. And so here we are doing another episode basically exposing why we cannot have people like that pivoting into politics or getting an appointed position with real power. We can't have people with real power that, that don't have integrity if we can't. And this isn't. I'll do my best to go this whole episode without name calling or doing anything unprofessional, just saying the facts. And that's not a. I don't believe that's a mean thing that I'm saying. It's just a fact of the matter.
- [09:41]
Tyler
Yeah. You have a right to elect and determine who represents you. That's the beauty. That's the beautiful thing about this country.
- [09:48]
Brent Tucker
Yeah. And, but that's. And in some aspect, if he's going for an appointed position, which, you know, I've heard he has lobbied for that an appointed position doesn't even get voted in. He can just use his relationships in D.C. to get into powerful places. And so here we go again with, with another episode that, like I said, the first, the first one we covered, only covered one chapter in the book is AFGH Withdrawal. That was absolutely the, that's why we led with it. It was the most damaging. There's just a ton. But it wasn't. It wasn't all. And this episode, you'll see, we're going to cover a lot more of the book and, and cover a lot more topics. So we're going to cover his whole earlier career, going all the way back to the firefighter, emt, cop Q course, sniper school, his deployment to Iraq and the Afghanistan evacuation. So we're gonna cover a lot of ground. I tried my best not to pick any, like, nitpicky, like, topics to make sure that they were. Because if, if, if we wanted to go with just lies that didn't happen, we'd be here all day. So we have to decide, you know, what's, what's, what's worth covering. And I think we've, I think we've done a good job of it.
- [11:08]
Tyler
I think it's important to point out that it's not only is it the veteran community that was made, I don't want to say made a fool by Tim because they weren't, but it's also the first responder community. It's just in the book at a different part.
- [11:22]
Brent Tucker
Right? Yeah. And it's, it's, it's part. I think, I think people feel the same way I do, you know, and that you do. It's, it's part infuriating and it is part disappointing. Like there. I have no ill will towards the guy. This, this isn't personal, but, but I really hope this is the last episode that we have to do. And you know, the, the momentum when all those stories finally came out, it's, it's. I don't need this. We. We don't need this. But a lot of people finally came back to us and like, hey, we said some mean things about you. We thought you did it for the wrong reasons. Come to find out, everything you guys said, everything you guys said was right and we were wrong the whole time.
- [12:13]
Tyler
And it's an astounding amount of people.
- [12:16]
Brent Tucker
And, and I'm not.
- [12:18]
Tyler
And the ones that didn't come to us, at least on their, on their platform said, hey man, you know, he's gonna have to face this. I saw a lot of that, a lot of his connections that not necessarily going to come to us, but they did in a way distance themselves from defending him.
- [12:34]
Brent Tucker
And I've taken some, some personal phone calls of people that defended Tim publicly that, that were his friends and to apologize about that, their personal phone calls, doesn't matter who they are. But you know, I, at first I was a little upset just, you know, just to be upfront with you because like we proved it. Like, why are you still defending this guy? Yeah, it took me a little bit to realize, like, you know what? I'd probably do the same thing if I knew this, If I knew a person for a long time and I only knew him in this light, in this aspect, and he was only good to me and had no reason to think otherwise. There's a chance maybe I would blindly defend my friend and, and them, they're human like anyone else. Eventually, if it doesn't go away, it didn't go away for a reason. And if only more information got brought to light, it's probably worse than I thought. And they eventually were like, you know what? I Don't think I can defend them blindly forever. Let me look into this. And they did. And I, and I give them a lot of credit for it. And I appreciate that. And so here we go again. What is truly round two of this? All right, let's. When I reread a few things and looked at a few things in a different light, there's one thing that actually stuck out to me about the book, and it's the very beginning of the book and the dedication of the book. So let's read that.
- [14:11]
Tyler
This book is dedicated to the men and women we have lost in the 20 years war. In particular, I would like to dedicate it to the 660 special operations personnel we lost and the last 13 US military personnel we lost at the Hamid Karzai International Airport on 26th August, 2021. I will spend the rest of my days trying to be worthy of your sacrifice.
- [14:36]
Brent Tucker
And as I was before this episode, thumbing through the book, I think that's the first time I read the dedication actually, and it jumped out to me. He said he was going to, he purposely said, like, I'm going to spend the rest of my life, like, dedicating. Read the words again the very end.
- [14:56]
Tyler
I will spend the rest of my days trying to be worthy of your sacrifice.
- [15:01]
Brent Tucker
The, the, the book wasn't published yet. Like, you can see like that, like whether it's, it's, it's ingenuous or, or what, like he really wants to be. You could have started by rewriting the book at that point and not writing a book if that you're going to dedicate your life to being worthy of those type of people. And then page after page after page behind that type of dedication to be an embellishment or a complete lie. And I just, I think that's wildly inappropriate. I think it's wildly ironic. And I think if, if I were to ask Tim, like, hey, what, what do you think about people that, that lie for, for money and fame? I'd be interested to hear his answer. But Joe Rogan actually beat me to the question. Let's, let's, let's see what, what Tim's answer was when Joe asked him this question. When you find out that someone's lying about the motivation for profit and that.
- [16:09]
C
There'S nothing worse than somebody that lies for the benefit. Benefit of themselves. But when you're lying so that you can put money in your pocket at the expense of human life, I hope you burn in hell forever.
- [16:20]
Brent Tucker
It's a dark lie.
- [16:21]
Tyler
Well, it's foreshadowing career.
- [16:25]
Brent Tucker
Don't be so hard on yourself. I love, I love the honesty and I, and you know, I bet he, he feels that way, except he hasn't seen it through the, the lens of Tim. That's that that interview was 11 years ago and that's exactly what, what you did ever since that interview. And guess what? I absolutely mean this. I, I won't take your own st. I don't think you should burn in hell over it. Your words, not mine. We'll pick up where we left off on, on our. Really on our first episode, which it absolutely could be a redemption story. No one had. No one has to burn in hell. No one has to burn in hell. It can be a redemption story. So let's, let's get into it. I picked the. I like, I'm always a fan of going chronological. I didn't want to go from least offense to worst offense. I just always like going chronological. There were several things before this I could have picked out, but again, in the sake of being nitpicky, I didn't. And even. Although this one we're not going to start out with the most damaging one. So don't, don't worry. Hang on, there's more. I think it's, I think it sets the pace because it's early on in his life and it's first responder associated and he, you know, he talks a lot about first responders. He's a proud former first responder, but no one really knows what he did as a first responder. So I thought us as, as a first responder related podcast. You were a first responder? My whole brand supports first responders. Well, let's see what Tim did as a first responder. His first job was, was a, was an EMT. And in October 22, 1999, he responds to a horrible, truly horrible car crash. I looked it up and I was like, well, if this happened, 14 passengers were in this van, seven of them died. I was like this would have made the news. And it sure did. This absolutely happened and Tim responded to it and as a 19 year old kid that's, it's tough.
- [18:39]
Tyler
Like it is enough of a story right there.
- [18:41]
Brent Tucker
It's an. Is. Isn't that the, the, the, the reoccurring theme here? Like it was enough of the story that really one of the worst car accidents probably happened in the area for decades. You responded to. The only thing you had to do is tell the story right. But though that, that's the backdrop of, of the story again, it was a. The van was. Was a. A church van. Kind of middle of the night.
- [19:09]
Tyler
It.
- [19:09]
Brent Tucker
It runs off the road really for. For no real reason that. That I could find out. Maybe someone fell asleep at the wheel. It. It turns over. It's on its side, and they're responding to it. So let's. Let's pick it up. In his book of him responding to this car accident.
- [19:25]
Tyler
I just turned 19 years old, and while I've been on a few calls already, nothing up to this point would prepare me for what I'm about to see. As I step off the truck and my boots hit the ground, I can already taste the dust. Continuing the horror movie motif, the things that immediately catch my eyes are the hymnals being gently blown toward me across the ground. I can smell the burning fuel of the vehicle interlaced with dust. I also smell the burning weeds near the van and the acrid smell of blood, urine, and feces. I now hear the wailing of people in pain, seemingly coming from everywhere. I realized quickly, several people have been thrown from the vehicle. The whales are not screams. When people are screaming, they have their facilities, excuse me, their faculties, and are generally aware of acute pain and injury. Whales are worse. They come from a deeper place inside a person that they happen when one's body is so broken it cannot muster a scream or even a full breath. And those wails and moans flood my senses, freezing me where I stand again. I was just 19. I hear Tom finishing up on the radio. Send everyone, he says. The radio operator understands and confirms. Tom places the radio back in its proper place and hops out of the truck. And as he strides past me, says, pick one. That's something my teenage brain can't understand. I move toward the whale that sounds closest. Tom moves elsewhere. Anthony and Star have already disappeared in the night. As I sprint into the dust storm, I suddenly realized it is a miracle we did not hit any of the bodies driving in.
- [21:02]
Brent Tucker
Well, I'll. And I'll let you know as. As bad as this scene is, and the scene is bad, we'll find out here in a second. It's. It's not a miracle that they didn't. That they didn't run into bodies on the way in, and I'll explain that here in a second. There's a very good. There's a very good reason why you didn't run into bodies on the way in.
- [21:20]
Tyler
JV Team for life.
- [21:22]
Brent Tucker
Tyler, how many critical incidents do you think we've covered so far in this podcast, man? At least Five, six, and, and they're not going to stop, you know, there's you, 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.
- [22:04]
Tyler
And Apollo is the best way to manage resources during these events because it's designed by first responders for first responders.
- [22:12]
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 they, and where they need to be.
- [22:37]
Tyler
Apollo's an app based application. This is just download and go.
- [22:41]
Brent Tucker
It's an app and so it works with Androids, it works with iPhones.
- [22:45]
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 and war of these either natural disasters or shootings or anything like that.
- [23:07]
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.
- [23:18]
Tyler
Ooh, the boys over at Ghostbed did it again. They lowered everything on their website more than half the cost. Now you're going to get even more savings because they took each item, they lowered it more than half, and then they're still given anti hero 10% off. So it used to be 50% off and then they were like, hey, we're just going to cut our prices down. So now when you go on the website Anti Hero promo code, Anti Hero will give you 10% off ridiculously reduced prices@ghostbed.com so go to ghostped.com forward/antihero and get 10% off the extremely reduced prices. These guys are awesome. These guys have been, they were our first sponsor. I talk with them all the time. They're big supporters in what we do, what we stand for. Just like all the other podcasts that they, that they help out and they support. If it's. If you got to replace a mattress in the house, if you got to buy new sheets, if you got to buy a new pillow, go with Ghostbed because you're gonna save money. And they help us out so much. They're part of the Anti Hero family, just like me and just like you are. Ghostbed.com Anti Hero or use promo code antihero at checkout and get 10% off your order. As you guys know, we drink way too many energy drinks on the Anti Hero podcast. That's why we partnered with Tasty gains. In this one container of 30 gummies is over a hundred cans of pre workout. This is our new replacement for energy drinks. It's a lot more convenient. Obviously energy drinks, you have to keep cold. They taste like warm. I keep these in my gym bag and in my, my, my duffel at work with all my meals in it. And it's just, I mean it's bright colors. You see it, you take it right before your workout. It's perfect. These things taste like candy, so be careful. Listen guys, we wouldn't be suggesting things that we don't recommend and take ourselves. Like the creatine gummies. No one really knows how creatine works. It's the most confusing thing in the world. But yet it's the safest supplement to take and the most effective supplement. Creatine helps your endurance levels and it helps traumatically with recovery. Creatine though is powdery and tastes like and is really annoying to when you're loading it and have to do all this stuff and mix it in your water and then of course, if your water is not warm then it doesn't mix well. These things are the definition of convenience right there. Bright colors. Put them in your gym bag, put them in your lunchbox. Creatine gummies. This one's blue raspberry. I prefer the, my favorite's the strawberry creamsicle. These are a no brainer. Tasty Gains is a no brainer. Pre workout and creatine. The things you need to lift and get big. Go to tastygains.com use promo code antihero and get 20 off your order. JV team for life. Bodies are everywhere. Blood is everywhere. Bibles lay strewn across the ground. Hymnals and evangelical pamphlets flow across the fallen ground. Excuse me. Across the fallen and into the night. Beyond my vision, one man is wondering is wandering the scene in shock. Anthony tends to him. I arrive at the first body splayed across the road. He is a mess. His entire body is covered in so much blood. I can't make out all the wounds. And I start running through my memorized checklist for trauma assessment and begin to administer care. I'm working on the body for maybe two minutes and I feel someone hovering over me. I look back over my shoulder just as Tom grabs it. Hey, Tim, let's go find someone else, okay? I cannot comprehend what he's saying. I keep working. I have to save this one. He squeezes my shoulder again. I need you to find someone else this time. I get up and wander into the night, confused. I look back and see that Tom has left that person as well. It didn't make sense. I have watched too many television shows where things always work out the way they should. Tom knew that. Tom knew what I didn't know yet. There was no way we could bring that guy back. And there were a lot more victims that needed us. Then something snaps me out of that thought. I hear a sound that is different from the rest. It isn't a whale. It's crying, but not high pitched crying. It's the kind of guttural hiccuping crying that every parent knows. It probably started as a high pitched scream, but has faded as the lungs have gotten weaker and weaker. Oh my God. That's a kid. I run to the sound. But the rule is that you have to care for people as you find them. And as I begin to move in that direction, I come upon a dozen more bodies scattered across the pavement and in the grass and in the median. This is my first mass casualty event. And I freeze again.
- [27:57]
Brent Tucker
Something that's just a little unusual about the numbers. Fourteen people were in the. We're in the van. Although it's. It's a classic case of don't worry, even though I'm dissecting this. We're. We're not dissecting reality here. Let's just. Let's live in pretend in Tim's pretended world for a second, he said he just basically walked by a dozen. A dozen bodies. There's only four.
- [28:25]
Tyler
There's.
- [28:25]
Brent Tucker
There's 14 people in. In this van. And Tim, you walk by 12 out of 14. That's. That's insane. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like for you to walk by 12 bodies. I mean, there's 40 around here. But you wouldn't. You wouldn't walk by 12 bodies when there's only 14 unseen. Yeah, you'd be working on bodies.
- [28:46]
Tyler
And when bodies are. I mean, it's. These are small details, but if you've ever worked a crash like this there, there absolutely was 14 bodies out there. But they're not in a, you know, a 20 foot radius. They're all over the place. You really can't walk a scene and, and from one point to another really and see 12 out of 14 because the, the violent way that they're thrown from the car, they go far.
- [29:16]
Brent Tucker
Yeah. And it's again, it's small but like these are things that I start listening to story and it makes me, and it just makes me want to reach out to people and, and find out more. Just give me a little bit of things that jump out to me and why I decide to make certain. The calls that I make between the.
- [29:35]
Tyler
Sights of the wounded and the dead near me, the cries piercing the night and my desire to find this kid at all costs. I've lost the ability to process all the information. All of these people are depending on us and I am overwhelmed. I don't know enough. I can't partition my brain and I and do a real assessment. I am in lizard brain react to the stimulus mode. Thank God for Tom. Tom sprints around the scene quickly triaging victims and telling star Anthony and me exactly what we need to do for each one and in which, in order and in which order. Up until this point in my life, I thought I understood excellence. Tom showed me I did not. Not blood, not screams, not the ticking clock reminding us that lives are hanging to the balance blur. Tom's vision of what needs to be done, he is unrelenting. He also knows the skill levels of his team. He knows who can handle what. He knows I am a total newbie and to expect me to save the hardest cases. He knows I am a total newbie and to expect me to save the hardest cases is a bridge too far. The calculus this man is processing by the second in order to maximize the number of lives saved is astounding. I want to be like Tom, but I don't have anything that he has because I haven't earned it. I don't have the reps, I don't have the training. I have not sacrificed the time and effort necessary to make what he possesses mine. And I already hate that. That statement alone right there should tell you a lot about Tim Kennedy. He's frustrated in the fact that he can't be like Tom, who has put in the time to perfect his craft. Satisfied that he has this situation under reasonable control, Tom gives me a task up to my skill level as an emt. Tim, go find the kid. He quickly commands. He doesn't need to Say it twice. I run off in the direction of the crying after what seems like a lifetime, but it's probably one or two minutes. I literally stumble on her. She's beautiful, maybe four or five years old. A tiny little thing. So perfect, but so very broken. I take a sharp breath. It's going to be okay, I tell her, trying to convince both of us that it was true. It needs to be okay. My initial assessment is grim. She has a broken pelvis, four broken limbs, probably multiple ruptured organs and massive hemorrhaging. She is going to die. She's here. I yell. But I realize Tom Way is already here. Find someone else. I've got her, he says. Fear grips me. He said basically the same thing when he left. The first guy I found. I take a couple steps away and look back. He isn't leaving. He's working on her. Thank God. Tom thinks she can. She still has a chance. The next patient I move to is a woman. Her leg looks like we gave a toddler a Gumby toy and let him just bend the craziest way possible. Her leg is literally an S. Her arm is backwards. Smell dominates the moment. California has beautiful smells and soils it always. This is one that's that fluff. It always smells fresh. I can pick up California dirt blindfolded and know it. The smell of that soil mixed with gas, bile, blood and urine and feces is another scar I carry that will never heal. Twenty years later, all I have to do is think about this day and the smell fills my mind again with a vengeance. Even if I am halfway around the world, it's forever part of me. We still can't see. We're using sound and and feel to find the injured. Anthony runs back to the truck and shuts it off so we can at least hear better. The night becomes a blur and I.
- [33:08]
Brent Tucker
Hate to interrupt you.
- [33:08]
Tyler
Oh yeah.
- [33:09]
Brent Tucker
But something just hit me. I'd like to use your intimate background as a first responder who's showed up to car crashes. Do you normally find victims by feel and sound? Or do you have. What's those new inventions? Not that I thought this was written.
- [33:30]
Tyler
Before flashlights came out. Maybe the story took place before flashlights.
- [33:34]
Brent Tucker
That's what I was thinking of. What? Why wouldn't you use your flashlight?
- [33:38]
Tyler
Never. Every first responder has a flashlight. Firefighters have them on their. Their bunkhouse gear. You can always see it hanging. I've. You'd never. Even if you're a day shift cop, you might have to go into a structure that's completely Black. You never go anywhere without a light. I've never done anything in my military or law enforcement career without a flashlight. I think what he's doing is he's taking lingo and things from the fire world, like a structure fire, where you really are using feel and you're using all these other senses besides sight. And I think he's just trying to put that in there.
- [34:13]
Brent Tucker
I know again, it may sound like we're being a little nitpicky right now about little things, but don't worry, I'll tell you why all these things are. Are important.
- [34:24]
Tyler
The night becomes a blur, challenging the boundary of every skill I possess. I plug holes, I apply tourniquets. I brace broken limbs. I put people on stretchers and apply neck braces. It's four guys trying to save 14 lives.
- [34:38]
Brent Tucker
So the initial four guys, which he's a part of, are trying to save everyone. Make a note of that. Keep going.
- [34:45]
Tyler
An ambulance arrives. Now there's seven of us. A second fire truck arrives. With it comes a godsend. Captain Keith Agson. He's 6, 4, and £300, with a booming voice. And as soon as he is on the ground, everything gets better.
- [35:01]
Brent Tucker
Well, everything did get better when Keith Agson got on the ground. That part is true, because I talked to Keith and everything got better when Keith got on the ground, because he was the first one on the ground.
- [35:17]
Tyler
Imagine that.
- [35:18]
Brent Tucker
He was the very first one on scene. And when I asked about, you know, Tim being first on scene and. And talking about, like, think about it for a second. And so I said, so Tim wasn't first on scene. I was like, well, how do you know? And that's when he's like, well, I know who's first on scene, so how do you know? He goes, because I was. I was first on scene. So think about trying to use my words without. Yeah, I don't want to be unprofessional, but think about the level. Insert whatever word you want to use here. The level of narcissism, derangement. I don't know the word I want to use.
- [36:03]
Tyler
It's derangement.
- [36:04]
Brent Tucker
It's the details to give details about being the first on scene. The dust, the wailing of people describing it to a very, very minute detail that you would think the only one who could know these things would be the first people on scene. Wheels of the tires slowly turning like it's.
- [36:25]
Tyler
Well, he says, I mean, again, every. Everybody's been a. First responders go to tens of thousands of different calls, probably in Their career, probably not that much, but a lot. And we all go to different types of call and not every call is the same. But I've never been to a mass casualty event or a car accident or any type of situation where people are dead and recognize the smell of urine and fecal matter. I've just. It's never happened to me. I've never heard anybody. I think you're in such go mode that you don't stop and smell the roses. That's not something you do.
- [36:57]
Brent Tucker
And so it goes into great, great detail about being first on scene, only to find out that you couldn't be searching for people in, in the dark like your first on scene. And maybe you didn't have a flashlight because all that isn't true. You weren't first on scene. And to not give the appropriate credit to the people that were first on scene is, is a, is a really, is a really jerk move, to be honest. The people who show up first and, and set up the cordon and set up the triage and they're like, hey, we have to find out, we have to find out how to fix this while it's at its worst, which is the no information. No, no. Step by step of sorts. Like when you arrive after that, things are already starting, are starting to flesh out and you just kind of plug yourself where, where you're needed. So instead of giving the, the first responders who responded first credit, he makes up this story that he was first on scene and had to go by body to body to body. And Tom has to go, don't work on this person. Go somewhere else. I talked to Tom. I said, tom, do you remember this? Tom said, I'll never forget was a horrible scene. And I hate that Tim had to deal with that. The story was good enough. That was a horror, horrible, horrible thing that that young man had to deal with. But why didn't you give credit to the. Where credit was due? And don't act like you had to go from body to body to body and Tom had to tell you, not this one, not this one. Tom was like, no, but by the time we got there, there are already people there. Yes, there were 14 people and, and there were still help needed. But I plugged into the first person I saw. He goes, tom says, if I remember correctly, he goes, it was, it was a while ago. He goes, tim and another guy plugged in on, on, on one girl that, that needed help. And they worked on that girl, put her in the habit on the ambulance and she survived. So tell that story, Tim. Tell. Tell the story. That, that, that's a great story. That's a great story. But this massive, this massive, great, detailed first on scene having to decide who to work on and, and who not just isn't true. And that's from the people on the scene. You weren't first on scene. And, and all these, you know, egregious details just aren't true. Now if he had told the truth again, I bet there were still some, Some, some details that, that weren't very pretty. But you didn't. So I can't even give you credit for, for what you did. You know what I mean? Like, I want to, but that's not what you said happened.
- [39:41]
Tyler
I mean, and the details, these details are so important because I mean, even something as silly as calling the chief £300, oh, so out of. Completely unnecessary.
- [39:53]
Brent Tucker
So that was a conversation we had before this. Oddly enough, he was more upset. Not that his first. First on scene, you know, moniker was taken from him. He was super upset. He goes, he goes, brett, I'm, I'm. I'm six four, but let me tell you, I've never been £300 in my life. Like, I, like, I'm no fat ass. He's like, that guy called me 300 pounds. Like, he's, he's super upset at Till. And so he's like. And I didn't read the book. I just read that yo. That, that excerpt that was like, that was enough. I didn't want to, I didn't. I didn't want to read anymore. You know, it's all lie. But talk about another unnecessary lie to give people motivation.
- [40:35]
Tyler
Most unnecessary lie.
- [40:37]
Brent Tucker
The most. And he was fat.
- [40:39]
Tyler
There's.
- [40:40]
Brent Tucker
There's. There's some bad lies in this book that might be top five most unnecessary lies that are. The dude fat.
- [40:47]
Tyler
The, the ACU is being the best.
- [40:48]
Brent Tucker
Uniform that, that goes in the list as well. So he goes, he goes from being an emt, and this, this story is, is both. It's first because it's chronological, but we could have, we could have went with a, with another story chronologically. But to me, it just starts. It just starts out how, how bad the embellishment and how far back it goes. I mean, in fact, I could go further back in the book with other embellishments, but, you know, it was, it. It was nitpicky and super short. So we'll start there. Because that embellishment also kind of meets the threshold. You know, to me that it's just. I still can't believe he didn't give credit where credit was due and that he embellished his whole first. First on scene bypassing dead bodies.
- [41:35]
Tyler
It's.
- [41:36]
Brent Tucker
It's crazy. And again, reoccurring theme was where it upsets me because the truth was. Was good enough. So he goes from being an emt, he goes to firefighter school, gets a certification as a firefighter, and he gets fired. And he's open about this. In the book he talks about being fired as a firefighter. So let's, let's go. Let's go through his firefighter career and as he mentions the guy and he says I won't name his name. His name. His name's Mike McCain. I talked to Mike as well and said this guy is the guy who fired me is what he says in the book. But he won't name his name because he thinks so little of this guy.
- [42:22]
Tyler
Or that people might reach out and get the. The true story.
- [42:24]
Brent Tucker
Yeah. Well, apparently has no problem naming real names. He does it throughout the book. I don't. I guess he just doesn't want to make him famous. I guess he really did not like this guy. But here are the three reasons that will save you. You don't have to read the book. Don't worry. We're here for you. Here are the three reasons Tim Kennedy was fired from being a firefighter and his. And his three strikes you're out policy that he said Mike McCain had. Here's strike one that started the ball rolling of his short firefighter career.
- [42:56]
Tyler
Yeah. So Tim, this.
- [42:58]
Brent Tucker
This is the man with a knife incident, we'll call it. Go ahead. Yeah.
- [43:02]
Tyler
So I'm just getting back to my apartment after a workout at the pit when my pager goes off. I'm off duty, but I look anyway. It's a medical call for a potential suicide victim. I see the address. It's right next door. Given that the incident is happening inside my apartment complex, I walk over to see if there's anyone that needs help. As I walk up, I see the fire truck parked out front. I wave. Some firefighters are getting. Are setting up a staging area to provide any aid. Once the police have the all give the all clear, they're going about their business oblivious to the apparent danger that is happening inside the building. Right after I see them, I see a police officer. She is the first officer on scene and she is tiny. I identify myself and ask if there's anything I can do to help. She explains there is a man inside who may be armed with a knife, threatening to kill himself as the only officer present. She is going to go in alone. I look at her again. 110 pounds soaking wet. I look at myself. 220 pounds riddled with muscle, trained in MMA, Jiu Jitsu, stick fighting and knife fighting and sword fighting. I was literally just sparring with Chuck Liddell. This is a no brainer. It is dumb for a 110 pound woman to walk into the house alone. Frankly, it would have been dumb for me to walk into the house alone. Or anyone. No one should ever walk into a dynamic and dangerous situation without backup. One of the things my dad always hit home with us is that you never know what can happen and when it happens, it happens faster and more violently than you expect. Hey, do you want me to go in with you until the other cops show up? I ask. I see her bathed in relief the second I suggest it. If you don't mind. That would be amazing. She replies. Of course, I know you'd do the same for me. I say in my best team player voice. We walk to the door of the apartment and knock. Go away. Comes from the man's voice inside. The officer reaches for the door handle and is open. Sir, we're coming in. She shouts. As we enter the room we see a thin, average sized man with brown hair. He is holding a knife and is clearly under duress. How's it going sir? She asks. Hey man, I'm Tim, I chime in. He looks back and forth to both of us. I don't need you here. You need to leave me alone. He says this, but he says it without the gusto of a man truly committed to what he's saying and my expert opinion. Experts in quotation marks in his book. He doesn't want to kill himself. He's just having a bad day. While the officer uses her soothing feminine voice to calm him down, I slowly close the distance. She does a phenomenal job and in no time he isn't even looking at me. I pick my moment and lunge forward, grabbing his wrist. The second I make contact, he drops the knife. He absolutely does not want to hurt me. When I am sure of this, I slowly walk him to the police officer who gently cuffs him. It's going to be okay man, I assure him. And with that we begin to leave. What a day. And to think I almost didn't respond to this. As we exit the door and hand the man over to the police who have now arrived on scene, I notice my fire chief is now here. In fact, there is a crowd of firefighters and Police officers present. I see him walking over to me. I expect he's going to pat me on the back for a job well done. Why the fuck is one of my firefighters walking out of a building with someone in handcuffs? He barks. I quickly begin to explain the situation to him and I'm cut off. I could smell the alcohol on his breath. Do you think I give a fuck? Firefighters do not detain people. We do not wrestle knives away. That is not our fucking job. If you want to be a cop so badly, you should go to the fucking police academy and be a fucking cop. Yes, dickhead, I know. I plan to go to the police academy the second I turn 21, you piece of shit. Justin Down. Huh?
- [46:49]
Brent Tucker
So, yeah, we, we, we. We've heard stories of Tim dressing down his superiors before Travis Warlock and that ended up not, not being the case.
- [47:00]
Tyler
Turned out not to be true.
- [47:02]
Brent Tucker
Apparently he's, he's been doing it or, or fake doing it his, his whole life. I go over this because I just, yeah, I want to say like the things that stand out to me and require me to like some things don't, don't sound right about the story and makes me want to reach out and verify things. This is just opinion based. These are just the red flags and it's. The firefighters show up first. Generally speak. What's the joke? What are the firefighters called? They're called first responders.
- [47:37]
Tyler
No. And we bust their balls. But it's really because the cops are already out. That's why they're always on scene first.
- [47:43]
Brent Tucker
Right. They're already on patrol. They're already out. They're not at a stagnant station that they have to get ready, half load up a truck, have to get out there. So the firefighters show up first and then, and then this one female shows up first.
- [47:57]
Tyler
Yeah.
- [47:57]
Brent Tucker
That's odd to me. Not the least of, of, of of the oddness about this being that only in Tim Kennedy's life does an armed man show up basically that in need of help next door to him in his own apartment complex. What are the chances.
- [48:12]
Tyler
Convenient.
- [48:13]
Brent Tucker
When you're Tim Kennedy. Yeah. When you're Tim Kennedy who, who lives, who lives with danger his whole life according to his book. It's, it's just, it's just another day of, of being Tim.
- [48:24]
Tyler
This story, although 20 this is probably takes place over 20 years ago. So this female officer is probably retired by now. So I can't really give my opinion on how a suicidal person would be helped today because it's nothing like this that being said, police work was a little bit more cowboy back then, so I can't discredit the story. However, I can say that it's very fortunate for Tim's story that he's able to be the knight in shining armor for this little petite woman. You know, it's just kind of like even if it happened and they were like, you know, his co writers, like, so what about this guy, this cop actually change it to a female change. Maybe look better.
- [49:00]
Brent Tucker
Well, or how about this? When, when, when they get the guy and he's escorting him out, I don't know why the, the cop isn't escorting him out regardless that he shows up to a crowd of cops. Crowd of cops and firefighters outside. So you're telling me that that female cop gets on scene first and the rest of the cops that show up on scene just wait like a, like, like a, like a welcoming parade to Tim Kennedy? Makes no sense. Now if they're out, if there's a crowd of cops out there, that means there would have been a crowd of cops in the room with like, they'd have went to the room.
- [49:41]
Tyler
You would know that there's a cop alone in a room with somebody with a knife. You're not just walking up there, you're running up there and you're pushing. And obviously, we know firefighters do wait for the scene to be cleared for multiple reasons. One of them is safety. Law enforcement's a lot more trained professionally in their job to disarm or use force against people. Right. But there's also a liability if you're a firefighter. The only way you can put hands on somebody is if anybody in the world could do it. You're not allowed to go detain people. You're not allowed to put your hands on people unless it's the same reason why Joe Schmo on the side of the road can do it. If it's at the public's, for public safety reasons. You just walking down the road can put your hands on somebody because you could justify, I had to put my hands on him. He's going to hurt people or himself. But they're not, they're not like legally allowed to do some of the things that cops are allowed to do because they're sworn law enforcement.
- [50:40]
Brent Tucker
And, and although everything we're talking about right now is opinion based and it's. This doesn't make sense. This doesn't make sense. We're telling you all this because these are the reasons I decided to drill down on this. Like, this is what's making me question this story. And so when I Talked to Mike McCain, who, who fired Tim, who, it's his three strike policy, I said this was strike one. This was the reason. This is one of the reasons you fired him. Do you remember this story? And he says no, never, never heard this story in my life. Don't. Don't remember it. I would ease any. He goes, I'd remember that. Like that's. I remember that. He's like to my knowledge, never happened. And so I said okay to strike two. We go, yeah.
- [51:29]
Tyler
So it kind of his. This part of the book just runs right into a scene. Almost like a lot of the introduction of it was cut. But he's at a. He's at a. It looks like again another traffic crash, that it's now off a ravine. Yep, the victim in the car. I look over the edge of the smash car. It's beat to fuck. We were first on the scene, but the second engine has since arrived and the five other firefighters are all exited. Breaking out all kinds of ropes and pulleys and shit to do a technical repel into the ravine to safely get the driver out. The ledge isn't that steep and what they are doing seems dumb and a waste of time. I climb like this all, all the time by myself. Hell, I climbed shit like this all the time when I was 10 years old. It's only a few months after I get yelled at for the first time of violating the rules. So there is a voice in the back of my head warning me that I should just wait for the guys. The voice gets interrupted. I hear crying down below. I look at them. They're busy laying shit out on the road and arguing the merits of different anchor points. They're discussing who will rappel down in what order. While they're doing that, I walk around the vehicle, grab a Halligan tool and start climbing down the ravine. It took me less than a minute to scale down the 40ft. When I get to the bottom, I see that there is a middle aged woman inside. I can tell she has a broken femur and she is bleeding profusely from the leg. There is no time to wait for the other guys. The door is busted in so I use a Halligan to pop it open and use my gorilla strength to rip it out the rest of the way. Mind you, he is dead serious when he gives himself. I undo her seatbelt and pull her out of the vehicle, laying her on a ledge a little away from the car. I immediately apply pressure to the wound to slow the bleeding. Luckily she reacts well to the pressure and there is only a trickling coming out from either of my either side of my hands. I look up. They are all setting up their contraption. She 100% would have bled out if I hadn't come down. We're going to need a splint and a tourniquet. I yell up. They look down. They see me. At this distance, I can't see their glares, but I can definitely feel them. A few minutes later, they rappelled down what can only be described as part of a child's playground. One would think they were scaling K2. I kind of chuckled to myself because it all seems so ridiculous watching them. Three of them arrive with a stretcher, a tourniquet and a splint. In no time they do their thing and she is strapped to the stretcher and ready to head back to the top using a winch and intricate system of pulleys. Props to the team because as humorous as it was watching them climb down, they did a good job setting this up. I grab the bottom of the stretcher and climb up as the guys who are strapped into the lines grab the top and either side up is obviously a little harder than down. But in three minutes we're back on the road and the patient is safe. The ambulance is already here and as soon as a patient is disconnected from our line, the paramedics take it. In less than a minute she is safely in the back of the ambulance as it pulls away to take her to the hospital. Great job guys. I say with a smile on my face. They aren't super smiley. In return, I ruined their dopey ropey game of fun and they are mad at me.
- [54:48]
Brent Tucker
Those stupid veteran firefighters who.
- [54:51]
Tyler
Why would they do that? Who gives a fuck? If I hadn't gone down there, she would be dead. We return to the station. The fire chief is waiting for me. He is not pleased. Did you go down a fucking ravine without safety equipment? He bellows. Well, I wouldn't call it a ravine, more like a tiny hill. But yes, I climbed down myself, I replied. Did someone tell you to do that, Kennedy? He asked, knowing the answer no. But she would have bled out if I hadn't gone down there. The ropes were taking forever. I fire back. And what if you had slipped and fell and broken your own fucking leg? Then you'd be a fucking bleeding out and you would have been a fucking liability to the team. Then what? He asks. I know he's not expecting an answer, but clearly I needed to respond to Provide context. First of all, I'm not drunk or fat, so I wouldn't fall down. Second, everyone is just mad because I didn't get to save the day using their fancy ropes. How is he gonna come back from that one? I was written up a second time.
- [55:51]
Brent Tucker
This. So what's, there's a theme here now, right? He gets rid of the first time. Why does he get rid of the first time? He's a hero because he's too aggressive and he's a hero. He's, he's too good. Like, he's, he's too much for other people to, to, to accept. So here we go again. Strike two. He's too good, he's too aggressive, he knows too much. Again, we're going to go through a bunch of opinion based things based on what he wrote. But don't worry if you think we're being nitpicky about the story. Wait. There's a reason why nothing kind of matters. So he's the most junior guy there. If the senior guys are setting up equipment, you don't think those firefighters know if they can go down and save a life or not? Like, they're just, they're just scared to go down and save a life that needs, that needs saving right now. That. This is why he doesn't, I think, understand. He's building up these stories about himself. He's putting other people down. That's what he's doing.
- [56:51]
Tyler
He's calling him cowards without directly calling.
- [56:53]
Brent Tucker
He's calling them cowards. If these guys decided to set up ropes, it's because they needed ropes. And you kind of can't have it both ways in your story. You can't call it a child's playground and call it like rolling hills, but then say like, you scaled the cliff. Yeah, which one is it? Are you scaling a cliff or is it rolling hills? And if it's rolling hills, you don't think those firefighters would have just walked down there with you? It's just, it's crazy. And to think that these firefighters would be mad. Let's, let's, let's, let's, let's play in this and pretend a world again. You think these firefighters would be mad that you ended up being right and that you saved someone's life and that they're like, how dare you save someone's life. We were wrong and you saved someone's life. That you're going to get written open, written up over that. And then once again, there he is dressing him down as fat and drunk. How Long do you think he'd have been. You think there'd have been a strike three if he'd have called his fire chief drunk and fat? No, no, no. The same way he didn't. Same way. He never said anything to Travis. He didn't say anything to this guy. How do I know? Because I talked to him and I asked him about this and he goes, said the same thing. He goes, oh, I'd have remembered that, dude. No, he never talked to me like that nor like Woody, would he? That's where I got the.
- [58:22]
Tyler
You wouldn't even be a strike three.
- [58:24]
Brent Tucker
That's why I got the. You would need a strike three quote from. He goes, I don't remember anything like that because I don't remember. Like I would really. That's a, that's a pretty significant, you know, he goes thing for our station to, to react to. Like I would remember that because I don't. Because I don't. I don't remember. I don't recall it at all. I said, okay. And so I said, but wait, there's more. Hopefully we go one for three here, see if we can remember strike three.
- [58:56]
Tyler
So strike three is a structure fire, which I'm not even kidding is every firefighters like bread and butter. This is their favorite call JV team for life. What if you could delay your next two mortgage payments? That's right. Imagine putting those two payments in your pocket and finally getting a little breathing room. It's possible. When you call American Financing today, if you're feeling stretched by everyday expenses, groceries, gas, bills piling up, you're not alone. We've all been there. Most Americans are putting these expenses on credit cards and there doesn't seem to be a way out. American Financing can show you how to use your home's equity to pay off that debt. You need to call American financing today before you get to a point where you can't make those payments. Their salary based mortgage consultants are helping homeowners just like you restructure their loans. And consultants consolidate debt, all without upfront fees. And their customers are saving an average of 800amonth. That's like a ten thousand dollar raise. It's fast, it's simple and it could save your budget this summer. Call now before it's too late. 866-889-8121. That's 866-889-8121 or visit american financing.nethero. what's up guys? So we teamed up with Gogo panels, the best in the game when it comes to setting up your vendor booth. I was here last year, exactly a year ago, and I saw one of the vendors had a booth like this, and I was like, I have to see what they got. I went and looked at the thing and it said go go panels. I went and checked it out. Holy you. If you have any type of vendor booth setup, you, you need to go with gogo panels. And I'm not even just saying that. I promise you. I tried everything. I tried tables, I tried the big greats that you guys probably remember. My looked like a flea market, right? I go to gogopanels.com the best customer service. I talked one on one with them. They made sure I knew how to do everything. Although it's super simple, this is just plug and play. It's like a giant set for children. You just put it in the connectors. There's no screwing, there's no hammering, there's no nothing. And it sets up. There's no stands. And the whole goal of this is to build a store. You want to build a store for people to come into. And I've literally built a store with gogo panels. So, guys, I know all you guys have companies just like me. If you're doing vending, considering gogo panels as your go to for your vendor setup, JV team for life. I can already feel the heat of the fire raging through the house in front of me. I am on the hose. Allen linear is right behind me. The twins are behind him. Anthony Stornetta is way back, constantly clearing the hose over obstacles as we push forward. As we are inside the archway of the front door, I feel myself baking. Even under oxygen with a mask on. Nothing prepares you for the oppressive sweltering heat that is a house fire. Hot air moves just like ocean water. It finds the slightest crack, the most minute crevice, the tiniest imperfection, and floods it. The heat hit my neck and ears and I felt it dry my eyes as the seal of my mask was the slightest bit off. Adjusting the mask to fix the problem, I push forward, almost at a jog. This is the second time he mentions he pushed forward. I can see the heart of the fire. I watch it licking the ceiling and crawling up the banister. It's beautiful and evil at the same time for it to die. Oh, it's beautiful and evil and it is time for it to die. I open my hose wide and revel in the hiss of cold water hitting the wood, creating steam, but delivering the first death blow to the blaze. Excitement and adrenaline roll right through Me. And I push deeper and faster into the house. Third time he mentions him driving forward, dragging Anthony with me. Every once in a while, a droplet of water, now boiling, hits the back of my neck. It hurts, but I push forward. Number four.
- [63:03]
Brent Tucker
Did he forget to put his protective gear on? Why is boiling water hitting his neck? Yeah.
- [63:08]
Tyler
I don't go.
- [63:10]
Brent Tucker
Board shorts and a face mask. What are we doing here?
- [63:12]
Tyler
He wore his firefighting polo.
- [63:14]
Brent Tucker
Yeah.
- [63:15]
Tyler
In addition to the hiss of the wood, I also hear a strange popping sound as the water penetrates the wood. There's something incredibly fulfilling about it. Every one of my senses is working overtime. I feel Alan, my team leader, pull on my back. I ignore it. The fire is shrinking rapidly as I pour thousands of gallons of water into this home. I'm not backing out now. I only have to retake the ground, only to have to retake the ground again if we let the fire spread back here. The popping is coming faster and more frequently now. It must be, because the wood is even hotter. I drive forward number five into the final room even more aggressively. I watch pieces of wood disappear as my stream of water hits them, reducing the ash they have now become into wet soot. The popping sounds like popcorn. At this point, the pulling on my back is more insistent and more urgent. Why is Alan being such a pussy? Let's get this done. I say it until the fire in my quadrant is. I stay with it until the fire in my quadrant is dead. He killed the fire. At some point, the pulling stopped. I'm happy Alan finally found his balls and let me do my job. I keep hitting the burnout walls and floors with water, making sure that they don't reignite. Finally, when I am certain I have done my duty, I. I began to walk back. I didn't realize at the time, but as I was backing out, I noticed we moved almost through the entire length of the house. I did even more than I thought. As I looked at all I had conquered, I felt completely vindicated. I beat that fire. When we hit that night air, my neck feels cold, almost frigid. But then I feel a stinging sensation. Maybe I got hit with more water droplets than I thought. It felt like a bad sunburn already. What the fuck was that? Tim Allen yells at me as he rips his mask and helmet off. Before I can answer, I see him. He looks like shit. Any exposed skin he has is red as fuck. As his helmet comes off, his neck looks like a red ring, almost like he had a choker on it. He rips his gloves and jacket off. They are soaking with near boiling water. And his arms and hands are red. He is pissed. The other guys look equally as pissed. When I tell you to back the fuck off, you need to back the fuck off. You were spraying us with boiling water the whole time because you pushed too hard too fast and we already were burned to shit. And we're all burned to shit. And you also almost killed yourself. Look at you. Look at your fucking mask and helmet. He yelled. I have no idea what he's talking about. But. But to humor him, I pull off my helmet. As it comes off, my hand bangs against the mask that separates oxygen from fire. Only now do I see what he was trying to tell me inside. My helmet was melting. It was literally on fire and I had no idea. The edges are melted. It is now an odd shape. Worst of all, though, the quarter inch mask shield had melted to less than a millimeter. It was like the top of a perfectly scorched creme brulee. It looked perfectly fine and stable, but the slightest touch and it fell apart. I had no strength at all. It had no strength at all. That popping sound wasn't wood. It was bubbles forming in my helmet and mask that were popping as it melted. Allen was watching my safety gear bubble and disintegrate and he was trying to save me. If that mask had failed inside, I would have passed out instantly. My face would have been burned. They would have had to drag me out. I would have been a huge fucking liability. For once, I had nothing to say. I loaded my gear into the truck and stripped down to my waist, realizing my whole body was covered in soot. I was written up again. Third strike. I'm out.
- [67:07]
Brent Tucker
The. When I. When I talked to him about this one, he said, he goes, we didn't have a lot of structure fires. He goes, I remember them all, especially the short period of time that Tim was here. He goes, he's like, just like the other ones don't remember it. He's like, I just don't remember it.
- [67:31]
Tyler
Remember Tim's story?
- [67:32]
Brent Tucker
Yeah. He's like, it's not what happened. He's like, I would have known about that. So at least he didn't have to dress down his fire chief during this one in his story. So save that. And the overarching theme of this, which is. And I do believe, I believe he. I believe he has like character development going on rather than just telling a true story. I believe he has character development happening and great writing. You know what? If, if this was a fiction, I'm telling you, great fiction book. Great.
- [68:09]
Tyler
He could be a writer.
- [68:11]
Brent Tucker
Well, Nick is a writer. That's who wrote it.
- [68:16]
Tyler
But you're right, he's trying to kind of like Tom Cruise and Top Gun. He's trying to be maverick.
- [68:21]
Brent Tucker
Yeah, you're dangerous.
- [68:23]
Tyler
But he's dangerous because he saves lives.
- [68:25]
Brent Tucker
He's. He's too aggressive. No one's as. No one is as aggressive as him. And even at a young age, he's just always been that guy. He's always been the man. And anyone who's, who's been around people that are fired and don't understand why they, why they were fired. Trust me, everyone that worked with you knew why you were fired, knew that you were dangerous. Not dangerous in an aggressive way. And in a way that you're doing things and you don't know what you're doing. It's much different to be. When you're heroic, that means you're taking risks that you understand and you choose to do it anyway. That's what bravery is. If you're taking risks that you don't understand, there's no bravery in that. You're stupid. You're just out there making dumb decisions. Then it'll get you fired. And so there's, There is a reason why Tim had a very short firefighting career. And if you think his firefighting career was short, we're going to move over to his law enforcement career. Which.
- [69:38]
Tyler
What career?
- [69:41]
Brent Tucker
Which. That is the appropriate question.
- [69:44]
Tyler
We talked about this earlier. Tim can't just be the ufc, Green Beret, Special Forces guy. Like, he has to come in and now take first responders roles for them too. Like, I was a cop. I was a cop for almost 10 years. Like Tim, you weren't a cop. Stop.
- [69:58]
Brent Tucker
Says it at the very beginning of his book. I was an emt, firefighter cop, you know, goes through all of his list of accomplishments. Well, here's the extent of his law enforcement career. He went to the police academy, and according to his book, at some point, I just have to question everything at this point, he gets into a fight, gets into a fight for the right reasons because someone was throwing a rock at him and his friends. And so he runs down the car and he beats the guys up. And the guys that he beats up is a powerful person in, in, in, in the area and basically hits him with a felony charge. The felony charge eventually gets dropped. But because he had a felony charge on his record, nobody would, nobody would hire him. So he never worked for a single police department. And so can you Say you, you were a cop if you never worked for a police department.
- [70:57]
Tyler
No, you can maybe say you were state certified. Like the state blessed you off if an agency was willing to hire you and risk their reputation in training you to become a cop. But I mean, states do that all the time. There's all kinds of police academies you can go to and they'll tell you like, there's no guarantee you're going to get hired, but you can go through the academy if you want.
- [71:21]
Brent Tucker
That's right. There's a lot of people that, that didn't even put in an application. Are those people cops? Because he went the police academy. Drew had a great analogy of it that's like going to, to like theological. Going to seminary, never being a pastor, never being, never giving a sermon from the pulpit and saying, yeah, I was a pastor. Just, just because you went to seminary doesn't make you a pastor.
- [71:49]
Tyler
You learn if you could you learn how to be one if you wanted to.
- [71:52]
Brent Tucker
Right? Same thing. You got a, you got a certificate that allows you to be one. But if you didn't do the job once, you weren't. So, so we talk about him being a cop at the very beginning that's he was never a cop. And for, yeah, he, and he, he alludes to that. He's always very gray with his words and but when he says, you know, my background, first responder cop this, that you were never a cop. So I don't even really have a, A, a category for this or a section story to put this. Yeah, this is a fun story. Yeah, it's just a fun story. So he was never a cop. So his, which leads us to the next part of his book where everything's going wrong. His life, you know, he's fired as a firefighter. He can't become a cop. He thinks he has HIV from. He has two different women pregnant. Like the, the, the, the character's arc is at, is, is at a low point. And this story in particular always intrigued me because it's one of the hardest stories to, to prove or disprove and I think I'll find a way to disprove it by Tim's own mouth and, and some other and some other ways. And the story I'm talking about is his dip into the ocean story. And even though Jocko pulled down his podcast, which says a lot. Which says a lot, Jocko pulled down his podcast of, of Tim Kennedy, I, thanks to Reddit, I can, I was able to still find it. So let's see what let's see what Jocko has to say about this part of Tim's story.
- [73:44]
C
There is not like this linear line of where's depression, where's suicide, where's mental health? You know, what you have here is, you know, an early 20 year old boy who has made a bunch of bad decisions and he feels hopeless. And you know, I didn't know what to do, I didn't know where to go next. And I'm doing something that is very, very dumb and dangerous and could be the end of my life. But I didn't have an intent like that. I'm not trying to kill myself. You know, like there's, there's no cognitive, there's way more efficient ways than swimming out into the ocean. I definitely kept swimming. And this is, that's a big takeaway. That is you know, not at the.
- [74:24]
Tyler
End of the book.
- [74:25]
C
There's not that adage that's oh, here's what you should take away from this is I kept swimming. You know, I was, my balls were essentially up inside my body as I frozen to death. And I. It still doesn't make sense. The Coast Guard said that somebody called. This is pre dawn, this is pre cell phone. There's no way that any of the houses along Morro Bay on the north side of the breakers on the north side of the rock could have seen me. And there was nobody in the park parking lot when I got in the water. So I'm not saying there was like a divine intervention, but doesn't make any sense how somebody called the Coast Guard station said they saw a young man take his clothes off and swim into the ocean. You know, as a my open water swim time, I get 28, 30 minute mile. So an hour into this from the time the Coast Guard said.
- [75:16]
Brent Tucker
So just real quick and, and we'll overlay it with the book. And this isn't the smoking gun here, but in the book he says an old lady calls. I don't know how he knows that that's an old lady. But let's set, let's set some preface here that he'll say a little bit later that will really make this a crazy story. He's already admitted nobody can see him. Like it make no sense. This was, he'll say later he'll talk about it was a moonless and starless night. It's before the sun comes up. So. And it's heavy fog. So you tell me if, if this is before the sun comes up. Still dark, moonless, starless, deep fog. No one, no one's up. No one can. He already admits no one can see you. No one's in the parking lot. So even. Even he admits. This is a crazy story. Yeah, it is a crazy story. Who. Who saw you? And just because you see someone going to the ocean for a swim, who's calling the Coast Guard over that? Yeah, like it's. It's the beginning of it already. How'd they even see you? Fog, Moonless, starless. Makes no sense. They can see you. Makes no sense that they would. They would just call the Coast Guard. Why is an old. Why is it. Why is. The old lady's first. First thought is not to call the police, not to call 91 1. To call the Coast Guard themselves. I just thought was odd. I've never thought about calling the Coast Guard when. When I thought someone was in trouble at the beach. Yeah, but that's. That's where it starts. It only gets worse from here.
- [76:59]
C
They got the call to the time that they found me. I've been swimming for just over an hour. So I'm two miles out into the fog, two miles out past. Past the rock. And a really cool thing I discovered when I went to the Coast Guard station and they throw the door open like, we're listening to Joe Rogan's podcast. Listening about this right here. They have a logbook and one of the most darkest, hardest moments of my life. I'm a single log tag and a date time group. Like time date, Captain Boat remarks.
- [77:38]
Tyler
That's it.
- [77:40]
Brent Tucker
That's. Goes back to. Only in Tim Kennedy's life does a guy with a knife next door in the same apartment complex, you know, happen. Only in Tim Kennedy's life does he show up to the Coast Guard station and they're watching Joe Rogan and him talk about this exact moment, the exact moment he walks into the Coast Guard station.
- [78:04]
Tyler
Crazy.
- [78:05]
Brent Tucker
It's. It's crazy. He talks about the logbook that he could physically open and read and go down and see what happened. Well, there is a Coast Guard station at Morro Bay, and they weren't hard to find, and they weren't hard to call. And you know what? Doesn't have a logbook at the Coast Guard station. Said that. Weird.
- [78:29]
Tyler
The Coast Guard doesn't have a.
- [78:30]
Brent Tucker
The Coast Guard. That's right. You think you got it.
- [78:33]
Tyler
I get it.
- [78:34]
Brent Tucker
They're like, no, we don't. This. This isn't the 1980s. Things have been digital for a long time. So you're telling me in the. The mid-2000s, the Coast Guard was relying on A leather bound book of, of saves that, that they had on the counter to, to log their, their rescues. What? Yeah. So I, I asked, I asked him, I said, you know, how long have you been here? Can you ask someone who's been here a long time? Maybe they converted from the 1800s to the 2000s and went computerized and they're like no one here has ever, ever heard of, of, of a like physical log logbook like that. Like everything's on, on online. Just another part was like, okay, it's not, not just another, another thing. Here's another thing that's crazy. I'm not saying that he can't. He is a professional athlete. I did triathlons for him to swim a 25, 30 minute mile for, for two miles for, for an hour straight and he's in 50 degree water. It's what he said. I looked it up and, and, and he's from there. He, he knows how cold the water is. For him to be in that water, he says in the book for hours. I'm not going to fall on that sword. He says here an hour says in this book hours. Those are, those are a little bit irrelevant to me. But a naked person with low body fat, 50 degree water, not definitely not an ideal situation. We'll just leave her that. Anyone, anyone else who's been in that scenario knows that's cold. That's. It's not a recipe for survival but, but not hanging my hat on that one. Keep going.
- [80:20]
C
What could have been me dying, what, what became like a moment where I start to make, start to make right decisions is a single line written in pencil in a logbook in a Coast Guard shop.
- [80:33]
Brent Tucker
Wild.
- [80:38]
C
Down to that.
- [80:40]
Brent Tucker
Cool. And that, that could have been it too.
- [80:43]
Tyler
Yeah.
- [80:43]
C
That last remark line, you know, pulled an idiot out of the water was pulled a dead body out of the water. Yeah, that's it. The only difference.
- [80:52]
Brent Tucker
And you know, look, divine intervention or whatever you ever tried to recover a single swimmer at sea on a foggy night two miles out the ocean. Here's where Jocko's not dumb. You know, Jocko's not dumb. I mean he's, he's, he's Tim's friend. But Jocko's like this, this is crazy. And Jocko's a seal, so he knows about foggy waters, recovering people trying to find alone like he's on, he's, he's understanding this story and going hold on. And this, and this is where Jacob actually does a good job throughout this part asking. He's not questioning the story, which he should be, but you can tell, like, through. Through that lens, is like, okay, this makes sense. Yeah, Jocko gets it. Keep going.
- [81:40]
C
Ocean crazy.
- [81:41]
Brent Tucker
That is not like you plan to do that. You got an IR strobe. You have to go white strobe. You have to freaking swing your chem light above your head. Like, it's hard.
- [81:49]
C
If they had thermal, they didn't. I mean, if they didn't have thermal, that's a miracle.
- [81:55]
Brent Tucker
And if you told me, if I got a call that, hey, some idiot got naked and started swimming out to sea, I'd be looking 300 yards out.
- [82:03]
C
Yeah, maybe.
- [82:05]
Brent Tucker
Maybe 500 yards out. Maybe a thousand at the most. There's no way someone's going to be too much. Like, that's crazy that they found you.
- [82:14]
C
Dense fog. Dense fog. So dense. He's not picking the south side of the rock where the breakers are in the entrance to Morrow Bay. There's a foghorn. I couldn't hear the foghorn.
- [82:24]
Brent Tucker
So. So Jocko's. No, you can hear that Jocko's getting it. He's like, hold on. If this was. If this was a lone seal in the middle of an ocean with no IR cam light to break, no visible strobe, no IR strobe, these conditions. He's like, this is an impossible. And he says, you see the word this is impossible. Yes, you're right, Jocko. This is impossible. Yet, thank you for at least, you know, recognizing that. But Jocko continues to. Continues to let him go, which I'm glad he did that for miles.
- [83:02]
C
The fog is so dense and it was padding sound. I couldn't hear the waves. You know, it does really weird things to light. There is barely any light at this point. No starlight, no moonlight. I'm just. I've just been swimming for an hour, and when this boat rolls up, I think I'm losing my sanity because I.
- [83:20]
Tyler
Hear.
- [83:22]
C
They just have an idol. And it's cruising and the captain has his feet hanging over the front of the boat. And he's just, like sitting there with his feet and he's like, hey, what are you doing? I'm swimming.
- [83:32]
Brent Tucker
He sounds like the coolest dude.
- [83:34]
Tyler
So cool.
- [83:34]
Brent Tucker
He's, like, making fun of you, right?
- [83:36]
Tyler
Yeah.
- [83:36]
C
What are you doing? I'm swimming. No, you know, like, even now, even. Even. Even currently, you're like this. That was the first indication to him that he was going to take a different approach, I think. And then he's like, so, what's going on? And I give him a Summary of what's happening. And he's just like, yeah, I was thinking about pulling you out of the water, but maybe just stay in the drink. He says this to me, okay, all.
- [84:03]
Brent Tucker
Right, there'll be more about this. Let's continue to paint a picture of ridiculousness. Says he finds him. He's been swimming for an hour, Finds him in an hour. Let's, let's just go through the motions here for a second. Not that I believe a woman saw him in a moonless, starless night. Not that I believe that a woman called directly to the Coast Guard. You guys understand? And starting to piece this together, the amount of time it would take for that to happen, for the Coast Guard to care enough to put a boat in the water over this, to move a boat over that location, and then to find them, it would take hours for this to happen. Even if the boat was there and even if the boat found them, it would take hours for the boat to do a methodical search to find this person. So it continues to be a miracle that everything lined up and essentially the boat would have had to drive right to his location. For, for this, the boat would have already been launched and moved right to his location for this to even be feasible. And then you find a guy two miles out from shore and 50 degree water. What do you think the Coast Guard's first, first thing they're doing to this guy is removing him from the water. Removing him from the water. You damn right that's exactly what they're going to do. But no, this Coast Guard guy is. Has his feet dangling off the boat during the search.
- [85:35]
Tyler
It's those details.
- [85:37]
Brent Tucker
And then starts a conversation with this guy in the water and once. And just wants to continue to let him be in the water for five or ten minutes before you can't have that conversation in the boat. Like you, you, you were sent out to rescue this guy, and now he's gonna have a conversation with him. And it's an odd conversation. Let's, let's continue. This.
- [85:59]
C
Man, it's cold.
- [86:01]
Tyler
It's cold.
- [86:02]
C
He's like, I see that. And then he doesn't help me. He throws a cargo net down the side of that ship and he makes me clamber up the side of that boat with my. I mean, I couldn't use my fingers. I couldn't feel anything. You know, an hour and 50, 52, 53 degree water. Also, like, I had to have kept swimming pretty actively to not be hypothermic. You know, you have a minute, you know, of kind of like active use. 10 minutes of use of your fingers, digits. And then an hour is kind of the threshold where you start losing control of your body.
- [86:33]
Tyler
And.
- [86:34]
C
And I was at that threshold. And he throws a cargo net over the side of the boat. Climb up. You know, I'm not helping you.
- [86:41]
Brent Tucker
You.
- [86:41]
C
You did this. You get out.
- [86:43]
Brent Tucker
Show me.
- [86:43]
C
Show me Coast Guard. He didn't say anything. Besides, there's not going to be somebody to do this again. It's all he said. 20 minute boat ride back in. Had to go back all the way around the rock, come back into the bay, and then go to the Coast Guard station dock. Not a word.
- [86:57]
Tyler
Just sat there and then.
- [87:00]
Brent Tucker
What'd they do with you?
- [87:01]
Tyler
Nothing.
- [87:03]
C
He asked if I was good. I had to walk from the Coast Guard station back to my car at the Rock. It's about a mile.
- [87:11]
Brent Tucker
Did you feel.
- [87:13]
C
What were you thinking every step? I was trying to.
- [87:16]
Brent Tucker
Did he give you clothes?
- [87:19]
C
I had a blanket.
- [87:20]
Brent Tucker
I had a wool. That's right. You say one of those Old Navy wool.
- [87:23]
Tyler
Yeah.
- [87:23]
C
It's like green.
- [87:24]
Brent Tucker
Yeah.
- [87:24]
C
And it is. I mean, it's sandpaper.
- [87:26]
Tyler
Yeah.
- [87:26]
C
Is that. What is that? They not have real blankets in the Navy?
- [87:30]
Tyler
Well, I don't know what they have now, but.
- [87:32]
Brent Tucker
All right, let's go. Let's go over this for a second. So he rescues a guy who's essentially suicidal and admittingly suicidal.
- [87:40]
Tyler
On the brink of death.
- [87:42]
Brent Tucker
On the. On the brink of death. Doesn't help him get back up. Makes him climb up a cargo net to get up. I'm pretty sure there's. I was on a dive team. There's easier ways to get on the boat. But this. This ghost coat, this Coast Guard dude's hard. If he's real and takes him. Takes them back to. To the Coast Guard station, does no sort of evaluation on them. Does no sorts of. Let me feed you. Let me help you. Let me give you some clothes. Let me. Let's just. Let's just be a normal human here. Let me give you over. You've had a hard day. Let me give you a ride back to your car. What do they do? They let them keep the blanket and basically tell him leave and walks naked, barefoot a mile back to his car. Doesn't seem like normal protocol to me. Wasn't in the Coast Guard. But that's not where it gets weird. What I always. What do I always say about lies, Tyler?
- [88:43]
Tyler
They're hard to keep track of.
- [88:45]
Brent Tucker
So when he's in this podcast, and I believe safe to assume he Wasn't ready for those questions. And so he gets off script. When you're on a podcast, usually you give a little less detail than the book, because the book, like I said, the book's hundreds and hundreds of pages. You can tell all the details you want. Podcasts are limited time frame. We say that all the time. Go to page 97 on his book and. And read about. Oh, by the way, once that they skipped there. But while he's in the boat, like, the Coast Guard guy starts making fun of his dick. I just don't. I don't. I don't see a professional military treating a guy that way and then making fun of his dick as well. Like, and it goes back to. He's trying to tell this. This story, right? And he's trying. It's an entertaining story. But what he's actually doing, if this was real, was making the Coast Guard look like a bunch of jackasses. If. If the Coast Guard finds you, they'll make you climb into their own boat. They'll do almost nothing to make you warm. They'll make fun of your dick. And when they get you back to the Coast Guard station, they're gonna make you walk naked with a crappy blanket, barefoot back to your car. Is that the Coast Guard we have? Because that's the Coast Guard Tim Kennedy just explained. Yeah, but what does he say in his book happened?
- [90:10]
Tyler
Do you want me to read the dick part?
- [90:12]
Brent Tucker
No, you don't have to read the dick part. I just. How does. Where does. Once he gets in the boat, where does the Coast Guard take him?
- [90:20]
Tyler
He brings me to shore. I get my clothes, and I dress. It takes me forever. My arms will not work. He makes sure I get to my car, that it starts, and then he leaves.
- [90:32]
Brent Tucker
What?
- [90:33]
Tyler
Wow. That must have been the other time.
- [90:35]
Brent Tucker
Must be. No.
- [90:35]
Tyler
Yeah.
- [90:36]
Brent Tucker
So in his book, he doesn't go back to the Coast Guard station. They take him right back to shore. They drop them off at shore. He gets dressed, goes back to his car, and they wait there the whole time to make sure he's good. And then. And then they drive off to do more Coast Guard.
- [90:54]
Tyler
And here's the thing. There. There's a lie right there. Because what, he can't fall into one and go, oh, I was. I was scrambled. He had all the time in the world and the rewrites and the revisions to make sure that this in the book was accurate. He then can't say, well, on Jocko, I misspoke, because he went into detail about the sandpaper. Felt Towel, which again, that is those crazy details that he uses to sell lies. However, he used it to sell a lie that's contradictory to the details of the book.
- [91:28]
Brent Tucker
Right. And you can tell, like, Jocko, I hope, gets to hear this episode and someone sends it to him like, they're talking about you. And he gets. And he has this moment where he even goes. He is. He's gonna have two reactions to this is, I knew he was lying the whole time because none of it made sense. Or he's gonna go, damn. Like, I, I should have known better. Like, all the clues were there. And I was like, that's crazy. But because they're friends, when a, you know, he, Jocko, doesn't expect a good friend of his, which is Tim Kennedy, who he's never had a bad interaction with, would never expect him to come onto his podcast and lie. He wouldn't expect it. But all the clues are there. And he's gonna go back and look at this and be like, oh, man, all the clues were there and I didn't pick it up. Or maybe he's already done that and that's why the episodes got taken down.
- [92:17]
Tyler
Yeah. I mean, and that's such a, that right there, that's the really, the only thing in this story that is cold proof that that's a lie. But it's such a minute detail. If you read this book, if he was coming on my podcast and I read the book, I'm not going to remember or care. I get my clothes, I dress. It takes me forever. He makes sure I get to my car. You're not going to remember that.
- [92:39]
Brent Tucker
And what's crazy is during that podcast, Jocko has the book. Jocko read the book and he's asking questions about the book. So he's hearing his story and he literally has the book in front of him and he's reading the book. At some point, he's got to look at the, at the ending of the book story, what he just heard and went, oh, that's, that's, that's different.
- [93:00]
Tyler
Let's move on.
- [93:01]
Brent Tucker
Yeah, yeah, let's, let's, let's. Let me, let me help you help you, and we'll, we'll go move on to a different story.
- [93:08]
Tyler
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- [93:35]
Brent Tucker
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- [94:16]
Tyler
They call it care, but it's predatory.
- [94:18]
Brent Tucker
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- [95:06]
Tyler
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 Anti Hero 10 Zulu 9 that's Anti Hero 10 Z9 and get yourself 10% off your order. JV team for life.
- [95:42]
Brent Tucker
He's again it's. It's crazy. It's just an absolute. I can't, I can't call it a lie but I said the Coast Guard station verified that I just. There is no book. His own words have drastic different stories and anytime I'm not talking about minute that's a thing. We can all agree that's a pretty big difference in the stories that if I had nothing else to you know to talk about if we just went right to the end of the story regardless of any story that ended that different, you know. Well it's a lie. Yeah that's. And that's. And that's what they do. Moving on. There's a lot of questionable things he talks about and once we're going to move on to his military career going into, going into, into the army going to the Q course there's a lot of controversy about him saying when he. When he joined when he said he joined. You know how long it took him. We're not, I'm not going to get into specifics of that. He says some weird things in the selection that not a single person VW voluntarily withdraw in his selection class because they were so hard. That's. That's not that. That just can't be true. It's not a selection class. It's ever been put on by special Forces. They didn't have vws. But this is where it just. The way he talks about his is schooling and the Q course is just weird to me. It's a, it's a weird flex. And start at. He talks about selection. Go to page 114 and let's, let's see what, what he has to say about special Forces selection.
- [97:28]
Tyler
The cadre hid in the woods trying to catch people that try to run on the roads. But rather they then fear it. I prepared for it. I hid my roster number and moved quickly. When one did see me, they would shout hey you stop. And I would take off. Sprinting people are fundamentally lazy, so most of them didn't even chase me. The one that did wasn't fat as fast as I am. And I didn't really want to fight through bramble and thorn and didn't really want to fight through bramble and storms. I saved hours by cheating on those roads, as did all my friends.
- [98:05]
Brent Tucker
You and all your friends cheated during selection and even use the words I cheated. That's crazy to me. It's so weird that you're going to write in your book you're a proud cheater of selection, which basically means you weren't good enough to do it the right way like the rest of us. Besides being a weird flex about openly cheating to get through selection and not doing it the right way with, with integrity. He's, he's just, he gives more like odd lies like. So you're telling me. Don't get me wrong, yes, there are people who ran the roads and got away with it for short, for short distances. But there's cadre all over that place looking for cheaters. And if a cadre cheat catches or finds you doing this, you're going to tell me he's just going to give up that a Green Beret who's there to make sure only other Green Berets get this election is scared of running through the bush after you. And let's take it another step deeper. You have. What he's talking about is land. He's talking about land navigation. And so Going from point to point, you know, on a map, finding another point, you know, getting that point, getting another grid coordinate, going to another, you know, point on the map and going back and forth. You do this a lot in selection, and you do it with a 50 to 60 pound rucksack on. Now let's add that on. You're faster than Green Beret cadre at selection, and you have a 50 to 60 pound rucksack on your back, and you can still outrun them. That's amazing.
- [99:45]
Tyler
Yeah, I mean, he just like he does everything else. I was never in the Green Berets, and I know a lot of Green Berets, so I. It doesn't discredit them in my eyes, but if I was a civilian, I'd be like, man, this. Green Berets get lazy once they have the green. Yeah, those guys don't care about accountability at all.
- [100:01]
Brent Tucker
And he's trying to paint a picture that he basically outsmarted selection. But again, what you really did was show that Green Berets selection is full of a bunch of dummies who can let a new guy completely outsmart them and that they're too low, lazy, and slow to catch anyone that they do find breaking the rules. What a horrible way to paint a picture of the Special Forces selection process. Just, it's that one. That one as a Green Beret. I mean, that one. That one really gets me. That one works me up a little bit. But we're not done here. Let's go the. To Robin Sage, which is another course and selection. It's a unconventional warfare portion of it. And let's go to page 127 where Tim Kennedy, they. They do an airborne jump into Robin Sage. And so this is how he kicks off Robin Sage.
- [101:00]
Tyler
They actually call your. Your sixth jump a cherry blast. I'm getting mine at Robin Sage, as is most my team. Everyone is fired up and ready to go, which is awesome. Well, everyone except the captain. His wife just gave birth, so he got a special permission to miss training, which is fine, because officers rarely make things better.
- [101:20]
Brent Tucker
All right, I got to stop him there. There goes bashing officers again. Just. Why does he always have to bash officers? I worked with great officers in Special Forces, but besides that, it's a. It's a. It's a. It's an odd lie, but it goes into another really odd lie, is that his sixth jump happens in Robin Sage. He would have went to airborne school after basic training. So Robin Sage is probably a year from basic training because he would have Gone to selection, he'd have gone to phase two. He'd have gone to the 18 Bravo.
- [101:51]
Tyler
Course every 90 days.
- [101:53]
Brent Tucker
He'd had to jump every 90 days. The Q course makes you jump? Yeah, I jumped several times in Q just for pay. They were always slick jumps just to keep you on status.
- [102:04]
Tyler
Oh, yeah. I guess if people don't know if you're on air, if you were airborne qualified and on airborne status, you have to jump every three months to. To make. To stay airborne qualified to get that.
- [102:14]
Brent Tucker
Right. And if he didn't jump for a year until this starts, what, you wouldn't have been able to jump into Robin Sage? Yeah. And so just that is this isn't your sixth jump. But that's okay. But let's. So let's talk about his jump into Robin Sage.
- [102:29]
Tyler
Military jumps are weird. They sound fun, but they never are. You're carrying 120 to 140, £40 between your legs, so you have to waddle everywhere. They always take forever to load up. And by the time you're jumping, you need to piss so bad you don't care how you get to the ground. And there's also the danger of having so many people in the air at once. Specifically, a static line can hit you in the arm and rip your bicep on the way out. If the guy in front of you is lazy, a guy can steal your air by moving below you. You can bounce off the side of the plane if you exit poorly, and of course, your chute might not open. The jump master stands up and gives us a command to stand up. We all do. Then he gives us the command to hook up. We connect our static lines to the wire running the length of the plane and make sure it is secure. If it comes undone, our chute will not get pulled from our backs and it will not deploy. He then opens the door and looks out, visually inspecting the drop zone and landmarks leading up to it. He has a small window of time to put us out of the plane, and so we land in the right spot. One minute. He shouts. We echo him. Thirty seconds, he shouts. We echo again. Our eyes are now transfixed on the light at the door. It is currently red. It changes to green.
- [103:41]
Brent Tucker
Go.
- [103:41]
Tyler
He shouts. One after another, we exit the plane. My turn comes, and without hesitation, I step out into the breeze. 1001,1 or 1000 2003. I feel the pull of the parachute and breathe a sigh of relief. If you get to 4,000, that means your parachute didn't open and you need to pull your Reserve. I look up to check to make sure my chute is finally open and there are no issues. Good to go now. I look around to make sure that there aren't any assholes getting too close to me. Also good. I aim myself in the general direction of where we are trying to land and watch the horizon. It's always beautiful up here. The world feels small and there is no sound but the wind whistling past your ears. There isn't a lot of time to enjoy that however, as the ground is coming in close and I still have 140 pounds of rucksack between my legs. I will have to drop that about 50ft before I hit the ground so it separates from me and I don't land on it. I estimate my altitude 200ft. 100ft. 50ft. I release the ruck and I hear it hit the ground as I prepare for my parachute landing fall a PLF. PLFs aren't the sexy walk offs you see in the civilian shoots. You basically keep your feet and knees pressed together and then eat. There's a whole skill to it. But it always hurts and you always land like you weigh a thousand pounds. This time is not any different. But I don't feel any injuries. I disconnect my chute, roll it up, collect my rucksack, unpack my weapon and start moving to the link up point. Point. Robin Sage has begun.
- [105:20]
Brent Tucker
So you're airborne. You know what write sounds like when they write something? He actually does a beautiful job of describing an airborne jump. I mean that's how a jump goes. I mean as always, vivid, like vivid over explanation. You want to know what's funny? What? He didn't jump into Robin Sage.
- [105:46]
Tyler
No way, Brent. No way.
- [105:50]
Brent Tucker
It's all a lie.
- [105:51]
Tyler
No, I was reading it going, he's right.
- [105:55]
Brent Tucker
He's right.
- [105:56]
Tyler
This whole paragraph is very vivid.
- [105:57]
Brent Tucker
Yeah, they, they. They were supposed to. They had an aircraft problem. They had and they get. They got driven into Robin Sage.
- [106:05]
Tyler
Tim Kennedy.
- [106:07]
Brent Tucker
It's just the most weird thing to lie about. It's the most weird thing to lie about. Here's what's even funnier about that. The truth. What actually is a better story. So Tim, I'll help you out. From a guy who was on your Robin Sage team. So they had to have a, a truck take him to their infill point and then you. They're supposed to ruck in and, and they were supposed to get to their final point and the, the cadre give. Gave the truck driver the infill and the end and that was of of their. Of their points. And the truck driver got confused and instead of dropping them off at the infill point, he dropped them off basically at the end of their route. So everyone, everyone, Robin Sage remembers their infill because infill sucks. He's talking about 120 pound rucksack. That's how. That's. That is how much your ruck weighs going into Robin Sage. It's painful and you walk in all night long. Everyone remembers your Robin Sage infill. It's horrible. It is a. It is a crucifix of will. It's the heaviest rock I've ever probably carried for that. For that distance. And I did a lot. And, and it's even crazier that they actually missed that that opportunity because the truck driver got confused and shortened their their route. Which is a funny story. Like you want to tell a funny story? Tell that funny story.
- [107:42]
Tyler
Yeah.
- [107:43]
Brent Tucker
Instead he talks about jumping into Robin Sage. That never even happened.
- [107:47]
Tyler
God, that's crazy.
- [107:49]
Brent Tucker
That is. That is pretty crazy. There's some continuing into his. His Robin Sage fiasco. Let's go to page 127.
- [108:05]
Tyler
When the Week of training nears its end, the Cadre show up in the middle of the night to blow us out of our G base and disrupt all of our planning. I'm 100% sure this is their favorite night of the exercise. They have hundreds of artillery simulations and training grenades and their plan is to surprise us when we are least prepared and just start ruining our world. So we have to flee and leave equipment and intelligence behind. They forgot however that we are 18x rays are dirty rotten cheaters. We are not supposed to have cell phones, but we smuggled several in. Plus we have friends who were hurt and assigned support duty inside the Cadre's talk. For some reason the Cadre trust them. This is super dumb. They have been acquiring information and sending it to us via text message the entire time. So we know that the G base blowout is coming tonight at 2am.
- [108:56]
Brent Tucker
Once again, super proud of being a cheater. Weird flex. Just a weird flex goes on to say like yeah, we have friends that were like inside the Cadres talk that were. That were hurt or awaiting training and that for some weird reason they trusted him. So Tim, you're telling me you smuggled phones into an exercise which a. They may have still a really bad call. Your Green Beret is on the line. Like this is your last thing before you get a Green Beret and that you're willing to bring in a Cell phone and chance that maybe the, the guy on his Robin Sage team was like. Like during the field exercise, like, I, I didn't, I didn't see any cell phones. Not saying they didn't have them because I just didn't see them. But now you're telling me this cadre is going to look at the hurt guy in the building, be like, I don't know why I'm telling you this, but we're going to blow your friends out at 2am out of, you know, out of there with, with, with Mark with mock artillery rounds. Just want you to know that. Okay. And then go on his way like, that's what.
- [110:02]
Tyler
And you. I mean, I don't know. I don't know. I can't say I wasn't there, obviously, but I can fucking guarantee you that some guy that's waiting to get back into it is not going to ruin his chance.
- [110:12]
Brent Tucker
Oh, that's a good point. Right? Not only you not going to ruin your, like, your chance. That guy who's hoping to get another shot at it or is. He's going to ruin his chance too. He's not doing real well if he's in there. And it's just, it's crazy. I was like, hey, and these are things you don't forget if you were part of this team. You're like, hey, like, you, you bring the team in and you're like, even if he doesn't know there's a cell phone, they're gonna be like, hey, we, we know the cadger are going to blow us out tonight, so have your stuff ready. And like, we're, we're going to. He says they had all the heavy stuff packed. They even left like fake intel behind. And, and they're like, they were ready for it again. They outsmarted the cadre by cheating. I was like, do you remember that? He's like, he goes, you right, I would absolutely. Like, that's, that's a pretty, It's a pretty special thing to have insight into what's going on. You don't forget that. He's like. He goes, I actually don't even remember getting blown out of our G base in Robin Sage. And when he said that, I said, you know what? We got blown out of our base a lot during, during small unit tactics. He's like, I don't remember getting blown out of our G base. Not saying it's impossible. No one ever gets blown on the G base. But what I'm questioning is he's, he's. He's Cut. He's. He's caught here in a. In a weird thing. This is either true and you're a massive cheater and liar and need to have your tab pulled because you've cheated all. All along the process of getting your Green Beret, or it's all a fabrication. And I. I don't know which one's worse, and I don't know which one's worse. I lean towards fabrication because the other guys in your team don't. Don't even remember this happening. So.
- [111:58]
Tyler
So it's like, why you lie about cheating and you lie about killing innocent civilization? Like, why do you lie about these things? Lie about committing war crimes.
- [112:07]
Brent Tucker
He's lied about committing war crimes. He's lied about killing women and children. So, like, so for anyone, if this is the first episode, go watch. Go back and watch the last one and you'll understand if this is the first time you heard this or heard us saying this. Like, well, like, why would he lie? Well, let. Let us show you other reasons that we've proven he's lied about. He's. He's not done with his shenanigans and Robin Sage. Go to page 128.
- [112:34]
Tyler
My favorite moment of the entire course is when we are assigned the final sabotage mission. The Cadre give us an operation window to perform the sabotage. They are not supposed to operate outside of that window. The site we are to sabotage is opposing forces. Op 4 base that is off to the side of the path. The Cadre pull up to this to observe in their own vehicles, which they park to find few hundred meters away. Their vehicles were strictly off limits. We knew from our guy on the inside when the OP4 was arriving to man this base, and as such, we ignored the time window and the rules of engagement. The night before, we sneaked into the base that would be hitting tomorrow. We would be hitting tomorrow. And siphoned out the gas of the generators, leaving just enough for maybe 10 to 15 minutes tops. We knew they just filled them yesterday and would not be thinking about fuel when the time actually hits. They aren't dressed. We aren't dressed as normal. We go in full MacGyver Ninja mode. We cover our faces and hands with axle grease and cover our uniforms in charcoal. We are as black as night and there isn't a lot of illumination from the moon there. We are completely blacked out, waiting. The OP4 turn the generators on to light up the night so we are easy to spot. We see the Cadre standing around bullshitting, waiting for the mission to go off. We wait. The time is on our side. The generators start to cough and one by one they go dark. We move, but not to hit the OP4. We move the vehicles, we steal everything that isn't bolted to the ground. And even then, we check the bolts to see if they are loose. We were on the objective for a total of six minutes. No one saw or heard any of us. The next morning, the Cadre show up, part pissed, part amused. I am wearing a black diamond headlamp that belongs to one of them. When they arrive, we would like all of our shit back, including but not limited to my black diamond headlamp. He says, looking at his headlamp on my head. Our Sunto watches a Casio G shock watch, our surefire flashlights, our beef jerky food dip, and the teddy bear that belongs to one of our kids. He finishes with a look of bemused judgment. This will have to be negotiated, my team says to him. Indeed it will, I add, smirking.
- [114:53]
Brent Tucker
Oh, this one's my favorite one actually. So for people who haven't been to Robin Sage, it is a. It is a like, at times, like low vis, very creative exercise. In order for that to happen, they give you very strict movement time windows because they want to make sure they know when you're gone, when you're here. We've had people killed at Robin Sage. That's. That's a whole long story, but it's. But that's true. And so they're very, very definitive about control. You can't have guys with fake guns just moving around. And there's several teams like in this area. You know, they're all working independently, but you can't have just guys with guns, M4s, like rolling around looking like a roving gang and not having some sort of oversight on this. A good way to get kicked out of Robin Sage would be to, I don't know, leave your G base the night before the mission just to go do these shenanigans. This alone would get you kicked out of Robin Sage. Your team leader, your. The whole team. Like your team leader would lose his opportunity being a Green Beret because this happened under your watch. Like it's, it's so dangerous one and so unheard of that anyone would be like, yeah, I'm willing to lose the Green Beret. I've worked so hard to get just. We can go f with the. The Cadre just right off the bat. You're either wildly retarded and don't deserve the Green Beret. Or, or it's a lie. Part of the things I have to address. Charcoal and axle grease. What is this, the dirty Dozen? Like, what are you doing? How about the face paint you brought to the exercise? You brought face paint? I guarantee you they brought face paint. Why are you putting axle grease on your hands and face? Just use the face paint that's in your 120 pound rucksack. So we'll just go ahead. I'm going to go on a limb. I wasn't there. We're going to go on a limb. Call that lie number one. The and instead of messing and doing your job, which is what you're there to do, like the sabotage mission, you're like, all right, we're going to go out the night before completely unauthorized. But when we go do this, we're not going to do it. So we can make our sabotage mission even better. What we're going to do is as students, we're going to go steal from the cadre. This will be funny. Yeah. And the things they steal are G shock watches, a suunto watch. Where do you think their watches were on their hands? You think the watches were pretty important to the cadre at the time because they're looking for hit times, they're looking for exfil times to do the ar also.
- [117:53]
Tyler
They, Tim doesn't value this, but they probably value their flashlights.
- [117:57]
Brent Tucker
It's. It's at the dark, they steal flashlights. Where do you think their flashlights were?
- [118:01]
Tyler
Autumn.
- [118:01]
Brent Tucker
Autumn. Like it's, it's at night. Like are so everything they need to be a cadre and to do their. They got to do their job. You. They left in the truck during hit time and you stole it from them, including a teddy bear. Like one of their kids teddy bears. And then let me tell you, these Green Beret cadre, they're not your friends. They're there to make hardened Green Berets. This is during wartime, mind you. Like, you know, I mean, this is. There are two wars going on at this time, Afghanistan and Iraq. I won the Q course just a few years before. Tim. They were very, very serious about their jobs because you might go to one of their teams or one of their buddies teams, and they, and they owe it to their friends to ensure that combat ready Green Berets make it to this course. They take the job very, very serious. And so instead of doing their job, this sabotage mission, they decided to screw with the cadre. And the cadre is going to come in the next day and be like, you got it. All right, guys. You got us. You guys are so smart. You're so good. You're so quick. Just give us back. Just give us back our stuff and we'll be good. And then you can sass them back and be like, that'll have to be negotiated. And, and they're good with it. That's. That's one of his.
- [119:25]
Tyler
He makes it sound like capture the flag in summer camp. That's what he makes it sound like.
- [119:30]
Brent Tucker
Absolutely.
- [119:30]
Tyler
You beat the cadre at summer camp.
- [119:32]
Brent Tucker
Yeah. That's exact. That Right. That's not what this is. This is. This is a very serious war game that the green brace play. And they consider everything as real, as close to real as they can make this. That's exactly. That's why Robin Sage is so great. It's why everyone remembers Robin Sage. Why Robin Sage is so important. And you're treating this like summer camp. Capture the flag and the cadre find it amusing. Get out of here. I could just. You, I, I, I don't say this lightly, but if this, if these are your lies or what you did. Either way, you didn't deserve to be a Green Beret. Pull your tab. Pull your tab. This is, this is, this is absolutely insane. And they haven't done it yet. And I don't have a lot of. I don't have a lot of confidence that the army is going to do the right thing. But we're. Don't worry. Our. Our case for this isn't done. That's just, that's just Robin Sage. The last thing he has to do is go to seer. And so let's talk about his seer experience. Page 130 and seer while you're looking up that viewing. It's. It's survive, escape, resist and evade. It's an exercise that all Green Berets have to go to for.
- [120:57]
Tyler
For.
- [120:57]
Brent Tucker
For that type of survival resistance evasion training.
- [121:01]
Tyler
We came out here before the course started and buried meals ready to eat. They buried MREs at various places along the course. I hid enough MREs so that our 12 person team should have two meals per day. That's a glorious 5,000 calories per man. And it nullifies the purpose of the entire invasion lane. But it cheating us. Cheating got us this far and we are not quitting it. Now my goal isn't just to graduate sear school, but to graduate as the fattest sear squad in the history of the entire school. When our 12 man group clears the tree line is no longer visible to the cadre. I plot course to My first hidden bundle of joy under this giant log. We move or we move out at a good clip, and in less than an hour, we are there. I dig out our MREs. I still remember exactly where it was. 2251 meters from an intersection at the edge of the drop zone under a fallen tree. Fifteen years later, I think I could still navigate to that exact spot.
- [122:00]
Brent Tucker
That's so crazy that you either have zero confidence in your abilities, which means you don't deserve to be a Green Beret and to pass this course, or you're just another proud cheater and you're going to bury MRE instead of doing the right thing. So either a liar or you have no integrity. Either way, you're backed into a corner. It's not a cool story. It's not a cool story, Tim, don't put that in your book.
- [122:31]
Tyler
I mean, maybe. Maybe from campfire, a beer and another Green Beret, dude.
- [122:38]
Brent Tucker
Right? Oh, for sure. So I'm not saying stories like this don't exist, but I will say this from talking to a Seer cadre, I posed this to a Seer cadre goes, well, here's part of the problem with that story. He goes, different teams get different evasion lanes. He goes, and we don't assign teams to their evasion lanes until that part of Seer, like, you get like a training block is like the very first week of it, then the evasion block and the pow block. Yeah. He's like, so how would you know your team is in that evasion lane is like that. That makes. He is like, so that makes no sense to me. And it goes, plus, I'm a. I'm a Seer instructor. He goes, that we'll figure out this later. It'd be one thing if you got away with it and no one knew. Just let's just pretend somehow you're lucky enough to put it somewhere close enough that you could get to it. Later on the book, he talks about how they got caught. I don't want to disclose too much. Anyway, it becomes a very big deal in Cyr that some cheating has gone on and they have to see who did it and they kind of lie their way out of it and get away with it. He goes, here's my bigger problem. If they got caught doing it, like, I would know about it because that would be a huge, huge story about, you know, that'd be a Seer cadre, like, full and training thing. And. And it'd be. It'd be part of us to. To go There and make sure that, you know, this, this. This never happens again.
- [124:17]
Tyler
Yeah.
- [124:18]
Brent Tucker
So if anyone ever got away with it and didn't get caught. Maybe, Maybe. But to get caught like they did, but they just outsmarted the cadre again and got away with would be. It would change the way they did Seer to ensure that there are no loopholes and that this never happens again.
- [124:35]
Tyler
It would be very memorable.
- [124:37]
Brent Tucker
Very memorable. And it'd be memorable to the whole class. And for classes after that. Let's go to page. What page number is that?
- [124:48]
Tyler
That was 1:30.
- [124:50]
Brent Tucker
Let's go to 131.
- [124:52]
Tyler
We avoid capture for the entire seven days, which is a huge win.
- [124:57]
Brent Tucker
It's. It would be a huge win if you were there for seven days, Seer. Evasion's three days long. Keep going. So that's a lie. Three days is what you get.
- [125:05]
Tyler
Once we arrive, they immediately start beating the crap out of us. And you need to understand, while they aren't trying to murder us, this isn't light slapping. They beat you up pretty damn good. As soon as a pain infliction kicks off, guess who starts singing like a canary and rats us the fuck out? Mr. Honest Air Force. And I'm a caveat. The guy, the Air Force guy he's talking about was the one that said, hey, Tim, I think this is integrity violation for the MREs.
- [125:31]
Brent Tucker
So there's absolutely. So there's an Air Force guy on his evasion team. I called many, like, well, not as many Green Berets as I could. I caught a lot of Green Berets. So I was like, okay, this is for starters. Sears school at Camp McCall is very focus. It's there for Special Forces. It's run by SWIC. It's there for Special Forces. 98 of the guys that go through during this time were. Were Green Berets and just Green Berets. There's a few people that also get slots to this school. It's usually like a standby slot. So if they don't fill up the school, they'll. They'll make sure some slots are used. And it goes to the 160th. So, like the 160th. Crew chiefs and. And gunners like those. Those guys will be able to go to our Seer. I'm. I'm not. I'm not saying, like, just dogmatically that this didn't happen, but just right off the bat, the chance of an Air Force guy being in your. In your evasion team is.000,001 never heard of it. So I don't even know what. What an Air Force guy is doing in. In your Sear School anyway. But this supposed Air Force guy. Let's say somehow this gets through. You're telling me this Air Force guy is the only one with integrity because he. And according to his story, when he pulls him out they all sardine. He's like, this isn't right. I'm not doing it. I won't eat. I won't eat your cheating food. So you're telling me out of all these Green Berets on the only person with integrity is the Air Force guy. Get out of here. Sounds like the only future Green Beret part of the group was. Was the Air Force guy. If. If he was there. And then he blames him for singing like a canary for having continuous integrity and telling the truth. And it's just he'll go on to say since that's. So that's how the cadre ended up finding out about this because the Air Force guy tells on him and now he goes in the book to say hey, Cyr just got real for us because we have to maintain this lie and use these SEER techniques that they just taught us to get away with this real life lie. Talk to other guys that were in that seer course. I didn't talk to anyone on his SEER evasion team. But other guys, again, if they're all getting hammered for this event, the whole Sear school, like all your Green Beret buddies would have known. They'd be like, oh man. Like they're really like this is a. It's a big story. Like it just doesn't go on unheard of or unnoticed. And everyone I talked to that Seer class was like news to me. News to me. Never. Never heard it. So. And I probably spoke too soon because before that I was like, you don't deserve your Green bear. You haven't. So you cheated in Selection, you cheated in Robin Sage and now you cheated in Cyr. And you think you deserve your Green Beret. I'll let. I'll pull a Jameson Travels. What do you think about that?
- [128:44]
Tyler
What do you think about that?
- [128:45]
Brent Tucker
Leave a comment. The. That that sums up his. His. His Q course debacle. I'm going to stay in training even though this happens after. After his Iraq deployment. The just going to stay in. In training mode here in a second we're going to talk about his. His sniper school experience. This one. This one gets me. Go to page 181. 181. And let's talk about Tim and, and, and sniper school while you're looking at that. Another one of Tim's lies. This I can't confirm, but Tim said it, so sure, for whatever reason, I'll give it to you. In his rebuttal, he's like, I never failed sniper school. The only time I failed, failed sniper school was when I failed to shoot in because I wanted to go get married.
- [129:37]
Tyler
I remember this.
- [129:38]
Brent Tucker
So although we haven't really caught you telling the truth a whole lot, against my better judgment, I'm going to give you that. So that's one time he failed sniper school intentionally, but he fails to. He omits that. That. But that's not the only time you went to sniper school and failed. You went to Sodic after that again, and you failed the very first stress shoot, which is a week in to the course. You failed it. You don't just fail, you failed it. You get a retest. And you failed that one too. You always get a retest. And he'll get a retest here in this story. And he failed that too. What's supposed to happen and is when you fail soda, you have to sit out a class before coming to another class. They want like a cool down period. Seventh group calls and says, hey, we really want Tim to get. He's a SIF guy. We really want Tim to get into Sodic. Will you bend the rules and allow him to roll into the very next course? Very good friend of mine, I know this is a true story, was running Sodic at the time, takes his phone call and goes, well, the rule is he has to sit out of class. Those are the rules. And group is like, hey, but we're asking you, will you please let him into the very next course? My buddy, against his better judgment, but he thinks himself and says, hey, at the end of the day, my job is to produce snipers for the regiment. If they're asking me, like there's no real reason, like he needs to sit out another one other than rules. Rules and other guys had to do it, so he should have done it. He says, all right, I will let him come back to sniper school a third time, but I assure you I'll let him back in. But he has to earn it. So I will be watching him. Won't do anything, we won't do anything bad to him. But I, but I'm not going to give it to him. Like, I'll let him back in, but he has to pass it. I'll be watching. And they said that's fair. That's a fair deal. He regrets making that deal, but that's how so he's back at Sodic now for the third time. Failed it twice. One he admits to, one he doesn't, but I know. And now he's back in Sodic again. Let's pick up this story page 181.
- [131:54]
Tyler
In sodic, you pass or fail as a team, not as an individual. I have the highest individual score in the class.
- [132:02]
Brent Tucker
Sorry, just blurted out that's a lie. Go ahead.
- [132:06]
Tyler
My partner has the lowest. He's a great guy, but he is absolutely not a natural sniper, doesn't have the right temperature temperament to train himself to be one, and is dealing with some post traumatic stress in 2008. These things are not talked about in the way they are to be later. So he likely is in a very bad place, worrying about some people thinking he is weak. With the additional stress of the schoolhouse stacked on top of that, we walk, crawl and drag ourselves into position inch by inch, quietly, over a matter of hours. I have an easy shot ahead of me. I can virtually hit this blindfold. I call the shot, meaning I tell him we're taking it, and as for a read, meaning he estimates the range and reports the wind speed and direction. He takes a moment and gives me the read. I look at him. It's a terrible read. I know it's not completely wrong. The range is long and he has called the win in exactly the wrong direction. If I fail to hit the target, we fail. I cannot take the shot without that read. I whisper. Hey brother, can you check that again? I think the wind is the wrong direction. His eyes fidget. He looks at the target and looks at me and says, you're right, I'm freaking the fuck out. He stands up and walks away, announcing to the cadre he is quitting sniper school while simultaneously giving up our position. What in the actual fuck just happened? The cadre are about as shocked as I am, but are also greatly amused. Whereas I am not. Looks like you fail your partner quit, Kennedy. Hell no, Sergeant, I replied. I'm not quitting. I still have a shot to take. They mess with me for a while, taunting me for running my partner out of the course. I am the last guy left to shoot. When I'm done, everyone gets to go home for the day. Everyone else has passed and they're all sitting in the bleachers watching and waiting. Finally, given that we are at an impasse, one of the cadre walks off the bleachers, off to the Bleachers. Does anyone want a spot for Kennedy? There are two caveats. I'm only giving you one round to hit the target, and I get to pick it. And I get to pick it. Given those conditions, who wants Kennedy's pass? Fail to be your on your shoulders. I scan the bleachers. I know my chances are not good. Who would want to do that? But I don't wait long. A burly Asian on the far left side stands up immediately. Picture the Batman costume, but Asian. And that's basically Mike Glover. This dude isn't worried at all. He walks over like he's about to choose a salad dressing at the salad bar. Not making the decision that will affect whether I pass or fail. What if I put my graduation on the line, Glover? What if I put your graduation on the line, Glover? The sergeant asks. I'm making the same decision. Sergeant Glover responds.
- [134:45]
Brent Tucker
That's a crazy story. And it's just that. It's a story.
- [134:50]
Tyler
Not true.
- [134:52]
Brent Tucker
No, it's not true, but it's. This is one of those ones. Wait. Wait till you find out about this. It's worse than not true. This is gonna. This is a hard one to unpack, because unless you've been to sniper school, I'm gonna try to do my best job to. To. To. To relay. He does a very confusing job of telling the story. I'll tell you why the first thing he says that's a lie. He goes, sniper school is not an individual event. It's a team event. Nope. Sniper school is an individual event. I was gonna say it's an absolutely individual event. You stalk by yourself.
- [135:25]
Tyler
The most individual event, it's.
- [135:27]
Brent Tucker
Yeah, you shoot. I'm not saying you shoot by yourself. You have a spotter. But when you shoot with your spotter, you're the shooter. It's your grade. And then. Then he will have his opportunity to shoot, and then you will spot for him. It is your grade. You don't pass as a team or fail as a team because you're going to different teams. You're not a sniper team that came from an oda. So you can't have one guy that's worthy of it, another guy that passed because one guy's really good, and then end up having a bad sniper and a good sniper go to two different teams. Like, it's. It's insane. Of course it's an individual event. What he's talking about, what he's describing is stocking up to a target, which is called the stock lane, like your classic. You're in A ghillie suit and you crawl, you know, slow as you can. And undetected, you have to take a shot at. At. At a guy that's just sitting there in the field. But the shot is a fake shot. It's a blank, because you can't take a real live shot at the guy. What you're really getting graded on is stalking. Not. Not your shot. Yeah. So for him to say this is a team event. The stocking is an. Is. Is an individual event. Now let me take a. Let me take a step back. Could somehow at some point during any time, did they have a team stock in sodic? I didn't go to every sodic class, so maybe they did. But traditionally it's a.
- [136:56]
Tyler
It's.
- [136:57]
Brent Tucker
It's. It's an individual event, as it should be. I don't even know how you could have do it as as a team for sodic. Sodic is a pretty. I hate to say it. I don't. I say like, easy course. It's not a physically demanding course. Like the no one quits sodic. Nobody quit sodic. Why would you quit sodic? Like, you just. You shoot and if you don't meet the score, it's a little stressful if you feel like you're not doing well. But nobody just quit sodic. These guys are Green Berets. So I like. I know, like Marine sniper schools like a rite of passage and they treat them like crap. You know, maybe someone quits that. This isn't that. You've already done the hard stuff. They're here to make sure you can shoot. So to say this guy is. Is just mentally weak and quits. He doesn't say it in the book, but he does say it another podcast. I know the guy he's talking about. The guy's name is Bradley Keys. Go back and go back to the beginning of that and read how flattering. And on page 181, how unflattering. He talks about Bradley Keys and why he's the best sniper shot. The best sniper in the school, which is a lie. And that Bradley Keys is the worst sniper in the school. And these are the reasons.
- [138:13]
Tyler
Just remind people, I have the highest individual score in the class. My partner is the lowest. He's a great guy, but he is absolutely not a natural sniper, doesn't have the right temperament to train himself to be one, and is dealing with post traumatic stress.
- [138:28]
Brent Tucker
What a crappy thing to say about a guy. And then to say that a guy quit. You want to know what happened to Bradley Keys. You think, you think he quit? You think a green Bray quit sniper school?
- [138:39]
Tyler
It doesn't sound like it.
- [138:40]
Brent Tucker
No, he didn't quit sniper school. He grit. He graduated that sniper school. But here's the reason you want to know. You want to. What happened when I tried to reach out to Bradley Keys to see what really happened in this story?
- [138:54]
Tyler
Oh, God, don't tell me. The same MO as all the stories.
- [138:58]
Brent Tucker
What do you think happened to Bradley Keys?
- [139:01]
Tyler
Is he not with us anymore?
- [139:02]
Brent Tucker
He died in a training HALO accident.
- [139:06]
Tyler
I mean, how did I get. I mean, I'm not. I'm just saying I. I went to there. I went to that because of all of his stories. Can't be.
- [139:14]
Brent Tucker
Or there's no rebuttal to it.
- [139:16]
Tyler
Yeah, the other person can't.
- [139:18]
Brent Tucker
So it gets weirder. So when he talks about the stock lane and then having to take this really long shot, I have to explain to you, you can't take an 800 meter shot in the stock lane because that means you'd be eight football fields away from your target. If you tried to take a shot that far, you'd fail. They force you to stalk close within 300 meters. Usually that way it forces you to be close to force you to not to prove that you can move undetected. So him taking, saying he's taking an 800 meter shot in the stalking lane is a lie. You would fail it. Him giving a win call during the stalking lane is no. 1. You wouldn't give a win called in the stock lane. You shoot a blank. You shoot a blank round. So the guys who are looking for you can at least hear it like it's a real shot and see if they can find where you're at. So it's a blank shot when you're done stalking. And, and if you're lucky enough to not be seen after the blank shot, the cadre comes up and he does a laser range finder to see how far away you are from target. And then they move back to the, the, the sniper range, the live fire range, and they recreate the shot at the distance that you were. And then that's how you get your shooting score. So here's where it gets weird. You would think it was. Well then he just, he just mixed it up and there. He just fast forwarded it from the stalking lane to, to the live fire shoot. But you can't do a live fire shoot at 800 meters. You can't do it. You would, you would, you would fail if that was, if that was Your recreating recreation shot, it wouldn't be because you'd failed.
- [141:01]
Tyler
Yeah.
- [141:01]
Brent Tucker
So. And then when you really know what happened, it makes more sense. Tim failed the unknown distance shoot, which is where you don't know the distance of the targets. You have to mill it. You have to figure it out. And that is him and Bradley Keys would have done that together. They, they failed it. And so when you get, when you get a reshoot, Tim was the shooter. Tim failed. When you get a reshoot. So you can't blame it on your spotter. They give you another person to shoot with. And so my buddy was in charge of the school at the time, says they picked Mike Glover to be his spotter because Mike was, was his team was doing really well. He goes, if I remember right, he was like, his team was the best team. So that's how I know Tim wasn't. And Tim, you couldn't have been the best because you've. This is your third time and you're still failing events. So they fail. He failed it. They told Mike Glover, hey, you're going to have to be his spotter and you have to redo the whole course of fire. You don't. When you fail, when you fail, I believe there's 20 targets for, for that event. You don't just go pick one target.
- [142:24]
Tyler
Yeah.
- [142:24]
Brent Tucker
And. Right. And the cadre sure as hell doesn't get to pick the target for you. And you go, well, okay, here's the retest. I'm gonna give you one bullet. I'm gonna pick the farthest one, and I'm gonna randomly pick a guy. And if you, and if you pass, you pass. And if you fail, you're both out. It's just a crazy lie of a story. And there's hints of truth to the story. Yes, Mike Glover helped him pass because he failed. And you know, and Mike Glover did help him do that. That's. That. That part is, is true. Mike didn't raise his hand in some Batman moment. He didn't. Mike Keys didn't stand up in the middle of the stock lane and quit. It's just a real, real embarrassing story, to be honest with you.
- [143:09]
Tyler
Did. Did Mike Keys pass away?
- [143:11]
Brent Tucker
I'm sorry? Bradley Keys.
- [143:12]
Tyler
Bradley Keys, did he pass away before or after the was written?
- [143:17]
Brent Tucker
Bradley Keys. I've pulled his obituary up here. He died December 13, 2012, so way before this. In fact, I knew something was amiss when I went to his obituary. And in his military education includes US Army Airborne War Leaders Corps, Special Forces qualification course, Jump Master course, Special Forces Advanced Urban Combat Course. Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape. Special Operations Target Interdiction Course. That's what SODIC stands for. Even in his obituary, it says he was a SODIC graduate.
- [143:58]
Tyler
So Tim Kennedy wrote this book and made him sound like that after he had died.
- [144:05]
Brent Tucker
Correct.
- [144:06]
Tyler
God, man, what a. There's a low and then there's a low.
- [144:11]
Brent Tucker
That's.
- [144:12]
Tyler
Oh, that's.
- [144:12]
Brent Tucker
That's a tough one, that one. Really, that's. That's. That's a tough one. And to stay professional, let's move on to Iraq because that one, that one gets me. He goes on and does his first tour in Iraq. Let's talk about some of the Sephardic stuff. That's, that's also an issue. And I have to explain this to people because Tim uses people's lack of knowledge of special operations to kind of get away with things. He says he went to Sephardic before, and Sephardic is the advanced CQB school that sift teams have to go to in order for them to operate on sift teams. Okay, so he's going to his. He's being assigned to a sift team, but he's not Sephardic qualified. Happens all the time. That's not, that's not unusual. So the SIF team was covering down on South America. That's what seventh group does. Well, they're there in case of an emergency and, and strategically they don't want to let the SIF leave. That's why this is 2006 Iraq. And the SIF team hasn't been to combat yet. They haven't been to combat yet. And it's one of the Most lethal teams 7th group has because they're tied to South America. So they can't chance something going wrong in South America and the SIF team not be there. They're very tied into a region. So the plan was, hey, let's get these guys combat experience. And so what they did was we're going to take another SF company and we're going to put the whole company through Sephardic and we're going to get them, put this in quotation marks, qualified. So that way when the real SIF company goes to Iraq, the fill in a SIF company can maintain the same capabilities while they're gone. That was the deal that was bartered. But here's a problem. Sephardic has like, has an attrition like not everyone passes Sephardic. So they couldn't chance half the company not making it, not having enough people to do the mission. So what they did was they did an. On an ungraded Sephardic and they shortened it. So they shortened it and basically no one failed. So it was just, it wasn't, it was more of like a certificate of completion than it was a certificate of, of graduation. They. So that's what Tim went to. And what that meant was because he wasn't Sephardic qualified. True Sephardic qualified. When he goes to Iraq, he's not allowed his team. John McPhee doesn't even let him in the house. He can't assault a single target. Does he go on target? Yes, but he's a blocking position. He stays outside the building and protects the guy's back while the men go in there and clear the rest of the building. And when it's clear, Tim is allowed to come in the building. Once, once the men clear the building. That's, that's a little bit of a boring story to some people. That'll clear up some other things to some vets. That's a really important part because there's, there's a lot of stories he tells that he could not have done because he was not an assaulter. He was not qualified be an assaulter.
- [147:40]
Tyler
Well, how that's impossible because the next chapter in his book, he talks about he hunted Zar Cowi.
- [147:45]
Brent Tucker
Yeah. From, from the outside of buildings. He hunted Zarawi. So hopefully he met him in the street.
- [147:53]
C
Having anybody that was working for the American government, Zar Cowi, having his henchmen, like, they'd drill their hands to the wall, they're cut off their eyelids, and then they'd rape their family in front of them before they killed them. And you'd walk in, in you'd find this raped and murdered family with this dude's hands drilled to the wall. Like, this is peak war. Did you see that?
- [148:11]
Tyler
Yeah.
- [148:12]
Brent Tucker
You walked in on that.
- [148:13]
C
We, we, we found every kind of imaginable horror that you could tell.
- [148:24]
Tyler
He lied right there because he wasn't ready for that question.
- [148:26]
Brent Tucker
He wasn't ready for that question.
- [148:27]
Tyler
Think about the answer.
- [148:28]
Brent Tucker
Hey, I, I, I love giving Sean Ryan credit because we're hard on him every now and again. Great question, Sean. Like, hold on. You saw that? Because that's a crazy story. Like, it was more than Sean could, could, could, could fathom. And he's like, yeah, I saw that. And he, he, he presses him, he presses him again about that. Keep going.
- [148:52]
C
Terrorists due to, to civilians. We, we, we found.
- [148:57]
Brent Tucker
Let's rewind, let's re Let's.
- [149:00]
C
I want to go right into that. First time you saw that, what is the op?
- [149:05]
Brent Tucker
Just everything from the.
- [149:07]
C
From the. From the insertion to walking in that room. It's funny. Full, full circle. I was in Israel just this recent October, and we're into some of the.
- [149:20]
Brent Tucker
All right, real quick. So he is not ready for this. It wasn't in the book, so this isn't rehearsed.
- [149:28]
Tyler
Yeah.
- [149:28]
Brent Tucker
So when he's asked to go into details about it, what's the first story he tells? I was in Israel. Watch this stalling tactic that he uses when Sean catches him completely by surprise by asking him to drill down in this lie. Go ahead.
- [149:47]
C
Which is adjacent to Gaza. And seeing the same things that I saw back 18, 17 years earlier in Iraq. The inhumane, barbaric things that these radical extremists do are just inhuman. And I think that's the point, is they want to show that anybody that does anything to support not Sharia law, not these radical ideas, isn't human.
- [150:16]
Brent Tucker
Right.
- [150:16]
C
They're infidels, so they can do anything they want to them.
- [150:21]
Brent Tucker
On y. Think about it.
- [150:24]
Tyler
This is.
- [150:25]
Brent Tucker
Yeah, this is.
- [150:25]
C
What month is this? This is early 2006.
- [150:28]
Brent Tucker
Didn't ask you what month it was. Yeah.
- [150:32]
C
Or going to what we thought was a VBIED target. And Al Oliveira was like, the point guy. And we do a call out initially. So you set up like an L shaped ambush on the outside of the house. And this is. This was early tactics of the. For 2006, 2005, 2006. Not a lot of. Only special operations units were still combat arms were still doing hard knocks.
- [151:01]
Brent Tucker
There's no Kamala Harris. Yeah. Anything but the word salad.
- [151:05]
C
Dynamic entries. We're doing as deliberate as we possibly can. After some houses get blown up and there's booby traps and bombs. So we're trying to do call outs, and we're doing a call out of a target. And when we finally go to assault and clear the building as we come in through the front door and you find a couple of kids that had been raped and murdered, your brain doesn't process it. You know, you can't.
- [151:35]
Tyler
I can't remember nothing.
- [151:38]
C
You're planning what you're gonna see, but the last thing you plan on seeing is, you know, dead kids in a corner. And I have a really good memory, and I journaled the whole entire time that I was deployed in all my deployments.
- [151:56]
Brent Tucker
Okay. Okay.
- [151:58]
Tyler
So he's able. He's able to use like he's dealing with it. Telling the Story, like, the pauses. If you told a story like that, he's able to use to. To, you know, so that one's a.
- [152:10]
Brent Tucker
Crazy one to me. Right. I try not to. Try not to insert, like, too much about my own past about this, other than experience. But the truth is, I've been to all three combat theaters multiple times. Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. I've seen a lot. And if I didn't see it, I know someone who saw something crazy. And so I just. I haven't heard a lot of new stories. You know, that's. And when I heard that, I was like, I've never heard that. That's a crazy story. I've never seen that. None of my friends have ever seen anything like that. That's straight out of the movies. Straight out of the movies. And I'm not saying that they haven't done terrible things, but for whatever reason, we just. Like, that's crazy to stumble upon that. So that was one of the things I wanted to ask his teammate. And I was like, gosh, I gotta ask you this. Like, did this happen? I read through it. He's like, same thing as it always. Sigh. No, that never happened. Gosh, that never happened. I was like, is there a story close to that? Maybe he's exaggerating. He's like, nothing like that ever happened on target. He goes. He goes, I'm. I'm reaching here. Yes. We had an interpreter that. That got tortured and killed, like, when he went on. When he went on leave. I've heard that. I've heard those stories before. They happen. He's like. And maybe, like, he took that tortured story and, like, brought it into a mission. I was like, ah, I mean, I get it. Like you. I asked you to try to connect it, but I'm not. That's crazy. But is. It's what he does. He tells these bombastic stories as truth to try to convey the message. What he's really just trying to tell you is how evil Al Qaeda was and how evil Zarqawi was. There's plenty of real stories that you could use to convey that, that are the truth. But he has to convey he wasn't there, but he wasn't there. And he also talks about, like, they were clearing the house. You weren't clearing the house, Tim. You weren't so far. You weren't so far. To qualified.
- [154:34]
Tyler
Yeah.
- [154:34]
Brent Tucker
So even if this did happen, you didn't see it, that they would had to come out from the house and tell you about it. But the guys that went in the House never saw it. Because this never happened.
- [154:45]
Tyler
Because this never happened.
- [154:46]
Brent Tucker
I don't think so. The. So let's move on. On his first kill.
- [154:53]
C
144, 50 do a dynamic entry of a house. And as we're approaching the front door, the front door is open, opened, and a man is standing, a military age man is standing there. There is an AK on the other side of. So there's a T intersection of a hallway that is from the main entry of the room. I'm stacked on the right hand side behind the owl.
- [155:18]
Brent Tucker
All right, pause.
- [155:19]
C
He and I are on the right hand side.
- [155:20]
Brent Tucker
It's just, it's just weird to me because maybe, maybe you can hear it or conceptualize it different. Opens the door to a T intersection hallway. What. What door to a house goes to into a. And there's a T intersection hallway. And again like there's like, that's not like glaring. It's just an odd thing to me. And I was just like, that's okay.
- [155:45]
C
All right, we'll keep going inside the stack. The other side of the stack is on the left. And we're kind of like have cross coverage inside of this door. So like once the number man goes, number one man goes you, you, you kind of just follow taking opposing directions. And from the right hand side of the door, we could see the gun and we could see the guy. From the left hand side of the door, you could only see the guy, but you couldn't see the gun. So owl and the translator, they're yelling to this guy to get on the ground, get on the ground, get on the ground. And the guy goes to grab the gun and the right stack shoots him. And military age man on target as he's trying to grab a weapon and he literally falls on top of the gun.
- [156:30]
Brent Tucker
Sure, let's. Let's read. So they're, they're split stack on the door, two on the right, two on the left. The two guys on the right can see him and the gun. The two guys on the left can only see the guy. Okay. That's what he, he says in this. Just put a pause in that for a second. And now go to the book, page 147 to 148.
- [156:59]
Tyler
The four of us walk to the front door as Dave Fredericks, Ben Rios, Mario Montes and many via labos.
- [157:06]
Brent Tucker
And real quick, I'm pretty sure they don't appreciate their names being used in the book.
- [157:10]
Tyler
First and last.
- [157:11]
Brent Tucker
Yeah.
- [157:12]
Tyler
Move to the back door through the sheep's pen. The rest of the guys Are either hitting the other buildings or covering the windows of ours in case the guys try to squirt out. We're set. The number one man, Al pulls the door open and I as the two men throw a flashbang. John as the three man covers the door with away with his rifle and in case, in case someone tries to take a shot at me or Al as we do our jobs. Bam. The flashbang goes off. We flow into the room one behind the other. We see a guy sprint past the door. Our Terp yells for the Wait, hold on.
- [157:46]
Brent Tucker
And the Sean Ryan show. They were split stack on the door and they were calling him to. To stop and they shot him from the doorway. Now they're, they're inside the house. They, they. They float in the house.
- [158:04]
Tyler
Now it's hard for him to keep track. Brent.
- [158:06]
Brent Tucker
Okay, well that's just. That's different. Okay, but go ahead.
- [158:09]
Tyler
No. Our Terp yells. Our Terp yells for the guy to get on the ground over and over again. The guy is not going to the ground. He is defiant. My red dot is on his chest as our Owls and Johns. He takes a breath and makes an athletic movement away from us. I hear Al switch his weapon from safe to semi. It's such a small sound, the tiny click of metal on metal. But all veterans know what that sound means. Go time. You can always hear it through flashbangs, through grenades, through artillery. That little click engages the mechanism in your brain that tells you this event is now real. My eyes see where this man is going and my brain slowly passes that message to my body. He grabs an AK47 and starts to spin it towards us. Somewhere between the time he grabs for the gun and the time he turns toward us with it, I move my weapon to. Excuse me. I move my weapon to semi, as does John. By the time the man's gun gets 2/3 around a half circle from where he grabbed it to where is pointing at Al. Al squeezes off one to two rounds. Milliseconds later, I double tap the guy. John shoots at almost the same time I do also double tapping. The guy falls to the ground lifeless. There are five, maybe six holes stacked on top of each other through his heart. To be honest, if you don't look carefully, it looks like one bullet wound. I just killed. For the first time though, I think Al's rounds get the actual credit. But at that moment, I'm actually impressed on how good we are.
- [159:39]
Brent Tucker
Good news, Tim. You don't have to worry about that wasn't your first kill because you Weren't in the house.
- [159:44]
Tyler
Oh, man.
- [159:45]
Brent Tucker
I mean, I don't know how else to say that, you know, so. So let's. Let's go back for a second in the interview. They were outside the house. Split stack. One stack could see them, him and the gun. One can only see him. He makes a movement for the gun and they mow him down and he falls on the gun. Is that. Is that what he said? Is that what he said on Sean Ryan and this. They're inside the house and they wait all the way until he picks up the gun and he's turning around and then gets mowed down. Those are two different stories. And it's not like. Here's another thing, the split stack thing is just as crazy because for three guys to shoot him. He says, like me, John and camera. The third guy's name basically stack bullets. It looks like one. One bullet hole if you're outside the building. You ever tried to get three guys outside of a door shooting into one door in Kit.
- [160:48]
Tyler
Yeah.
- [160:48]
Brent Tucker
Large men. That ain't happening. No, not happening. I. I can pick this apart 17 different ways, but I don't think I have to because the only thing I have to say is it didn't happen this way because Tim wasn't allowed to be on the assault. He wasn't Sephardic qualified. What he did with Steele's story. This story absolutely happened and there was a 156 investigation about it. The, the problem is you are allowed to have an AK47 in Iraq. You could have one personal like home protection weapon. And I don't want to get in the details about it, but it. And what really happened, because I don't know, only the team knows, but a 156 was happened. You know, happened. And what they were upset about was it's an investigation. It's a formal investigation that's probably happening to Tim right now. And, and what they're saying is, well, if he's allowed to have that weapon, if he did, if he didn't reach for that weapon, like he's good. And so they were trying to figure out was it a weapon he was supposed to have, was a. Was it a justified kill, that he was moving with intent, like things like that. So the 156 happened and this story happened just wasn't. Wasn't your first kill, Tim, and you weren't there or you weren't close to there, but the, the next one, which is. Don't worry, it gets crazier from there. The night Zarkawi dies is an epic night in Tim's mind. Let's go to 158 to 150.
- [162:26]
Tyler
We roll out with all the ammo that we can possibly pack on the trucks. We are not going out for just any mission. In the words of William Wallace from the movie Braveheart, we're going to pick a fight. And we do. All of us, all night. The more fights we get in, the more Al Qaeda resources are leveraged to try and save these assholes and the more bad guys come out of the woodwork. It's awesome. Target one is a letdown. It's a giant house in downtown Baghdad that looks like it's to be going to be packed to the gills with baddies. We're approaching it to the syrup. I know what that word is.
- [162:57]
Brent Tucker
Surreptitious.
- [162:59]
Tyler
Surreptitious. Let's do a surreptitious entry because we believe there is a 30% chance he is here. So we're all blacked out, silent, moving under night vision, throwing ladders over walls and even ninja crawling up to this bad boy. Then we hit it all at once and find nothing. No furniture, no people, completely fucking empty. No worries though because we still had five other name targets to hit. CAG had more luck in their first hit and the radio was hopping. Everyone was on the net. Company commander Major Jimmy Hester and Sergeant Major Oquendo are even out that night. Things are happening so fast and reported so quickly it sounds like they are speaking in tongues on the net on targets. Our targets keep changing throughout the night. ICTF gets intel from the interrogation that this other, this other house is a high priority. So CAG flexes to that house and we flex to the target CAG was going to hit. To this day, that night is still one of the wildest nights of my life. It is like the world's most dangerous fourth of July. Everyone is shooting. We even hear a Bradley fighting vehicle kicking off with the main 25 millimeter cannon. The targets are all close enough to here and even the rounds hitting the buildings. All of Baghdad is being lit up. For the rest of the night we are a nonstop gunfight. I have no idea how many times I've reloaded my rifle. I have no idea how many times I refreshed all my mags from the go bags I pre packed before the mission. I have no idea how many men we killed that night. I just didn't have time to think about it.
- [164:31]
Brent Tucker
Good news, Tim. I can. I can help with. With your memory. You changed mag zero time that night. You went to your go Bag for extra mags. Zero times that night. And you killed zero people that night. So let me, let me, let me help put a number to it. Just like when he's like, what do you say? I have countless deployments. I can put a number to that, too. One Afghanistan, one to Iraq. He just has a problem with large numbers. But that's. Don't worry. We're here to help.
- [165:04]
Tyler
I just know the sound it makes when it kills a man.
- [165:08]
Brent Tucker
The thought that that was a massive, massive, like, type of, of operation that night and just things were going like. He's trying to replay this. Wasn't Blackhawk Down. Wasn't Blackhawk down there. There was a bomb dropped on Zarqawi. CAG went out there to do a BDA on it and came back. It was, it was that, that, that was how Zarqy died. It's well documented how Zarqawi died. You want to know, you want to know where Tim was once our cowie died?
- [165:41]
Tyler
Where?
- [165:43]
Brent Tucker
At the base. Didn't even leave the wire. Dual source reported from, from, from teammates and other Sith guys. And here's a quote. I asked him, I asked him specifically if they were out that night as part of the op or maybe even on a different objective. He said no. All we did was have QRF ready and an assault force ready in case things popped off. And when they announced they had PID and were going to drop, the squadron went out and recovered the body. We were just curef and a ready force, but never left the wire that night.
- [166:18]
Tyler
That's from Tim's mouth.
- [166:20]
Brent Tucker
No, that's not. That's, that's from a seventh group mouth. So. And that was. That's the second time that, that I heard that. So it's not just one guy told me me be pretty wild to be that wrong. But that's the same story someone else told me. So that's why I can be so over the top with how many guys he killed that night and how many times he reloaded his mask. That's how I know the exact number. The exact number is zero. This, this episode's been been. Been long enough. We haven't even gotten to the Afghan evacuation, which, which I int hours of lies. And that's what it was. I, I, I've, I've tried to maintain what we always want to do, which is be professional, calling people out, holding people accountable, but being professional about it. I would almost say this, this episode is even more important because it continues to show. Hey, it's not just what we uncovered the first time, it's so much more.
- [167:16]
Tyler
Everything.
- [167:17]
Brent Tucker
It's a lifelong. It's a career long and life long of embellishment and lies. And the Maryland National Guard is doing an investigation right now to say, hey, what are we going to do with this guy? Swick, who has the power of pulling tabs, is better be doing an investigation right now of what are we going to do about this guy. The army better be doing an investigation right now because everyone knows it's been all over the news and now we're here to give you the evacuation and we'll get into that next week, that it has ties to the military. You can't be a Green Beret, a current Green Beret of the National Guard, and willingly and purposely bypass military checkpoints because you deem who gets to come in this base and who doesn't. So that still has weight to that investigation, but we're uncovering more lies and more integrity violations from a guy who's really. Who's supposed to be the spokesman for the National Guard. He's used as a spokesman for Special Forces. Is this your spokesman? United States army swic, Maryland National Guard. Is this your spokesman? Is this guy worthy of putting a Green Beret on his head? Is he worthy of putting a long tab on his shoulder? Swick, how can you punish anyone right now who's done anything wrong when you have this guy that's done as as much damage to our reputation as Green Berets as he. As he's done? How can you punish any Green Beret right now as long as this guy goes unpunished? If I was under any sort of investigation, a SWIC or getting. Or getting a dui like, whoa, don't worry about that. Well, this guy's done all of this and, and he's gone unchecked. So how could you punish me? Like, it's. It's insane. I just. And I mean this. And guess what? I don't have to do the Afghanistan evacuation.
- [169:23]
Tyler
I don't.
- [169:24]
Brent Tucker
The same thing still applies. Tim. We can continue doing this dance. You can come clean. You can come clean about everything we've covered now in two podcasts. You can come clean about the. The Afghan evacuation before we cover it. You can actually apologize about things before you get put into a corner. Come completely clean and people will forget this. People will accept you. It doesn't. It doesn't have. It doesn't have to be this way. It really doesn't.
- [169:56]
Tyler
You got a week to do it, though.
- [169:57]
Brent Tucker
But it does have to be this way if nothing changes. If nothing changes. We have an obligation to continue pressing as long as there's things that need to be said. And there's been no change of heart and no change of course over it.
- [170:13]
Tyler
We'll pay for your plane ticket.