Sean Keane Special Forces CSM, Combat Diver, Ranger School | Tier1 Podcast

Summary

Tier1 Podcast — "Sean Keane Special Forces CSM, Combat Diver, Ranger School"

Host: Brent Tucker
Guest: Sean Keane, Retired Command Sergeant Major
Date: July 20, 2026
Summary compiled by: Tier1 Podcast Summarizer

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Episode Overview

This episode features a deep-dive conversation between host Brent Tucker—a former Delta Force operator—and his old boss and mentor, Sean Keane, retired Command Sergeant Major with over 30 years of Special Forces service. The episode explores Sean’s unique trajectory from a military family to SF at a young age, hard schools (Combat Diver, Ranger), elite team culture, leadership wisdom, historic missions, post-retirement reinvention, and the real character of Special Operations. True to Tier1’s style, the episode blends tactical insight, serious reflections, and dark-humor-filled war stories.

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1. What Makes a Great Team?

[01:45–09:27]

• Team Culture:
  • Brent and Sean reminisce about ODA "dive team" culture—family-like, but high in standards.
  • You have to "shift gears" between being the boss and a friend, but “it’s just business” when needed.
  • Quote (Sean, 05:14):

    "At the end of the day, though, we’re best friends. But if you’re not pulling your weight, I will also remind you that I’m your boss."

• Swagger vs. Substance:
  • Sean drove his men to carry themselves with “swagger”—earned confidence, not arrogance.
  • Brent credits this push (“we’re the best, but prove it on the ground”) as formative for his career.
  • Quote (Brent, 06:40):

    "That type of swagger is worth nothing if you can’t back it up."

• Recruiting the Best:
  • The dive team never lacked for talent; “quality draws quality.”
  • Brent’s own journey: “I wanted to be on that team, and I’ll do what it takes to get there.”

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2. Keane’s Path to Special Forces

[09:27–23:08]

• Military Legacy:
  • Sean’s father: Irish immigrant, 37 years service, retired Colonel; family deeply military.
• REP63 Pipeline (Early SF Younger Recruits):
  • Sean joined through a predecessor to the famous 18X-Ray program, going straight from basic to SF selection at age 18, when most SFers were much older.
  • The weight of maturity: “Did you feel pressure being so young?”—“No one expected me to pass!” (14:14–14:49)
• Selection Hardship:
  • Broke his foot two miles into the infamous 30-mile event—still finished and was selected.
  • Moment (Sean, 17:21):

    “I had to find a new way to walk to finish this thing out, because I wasn’t about to go back to this damn thing again.”

• SF Training and Team Assignment:
  • Went through the Q Course (Weapons Sergeant, 18B), language school (Spanish), and SERE.
  • Graduated at age 20–21:

    “They wouldn’t let me walk across the stage—had to pin the next fake rank on me.” (25:36)

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3. Early Hard Schools: Combat Diver & Ranger

[26:45–45:41]

• Combat Diver:
  • Assigned straight to a dive team; failed the notorious seven-minute weight-belt swim on his first attempt, then obsessively trained and passed next class.
  • Brent’s own struggle with the swim & “last-attempt” pass.
  • Lesson: Real failure, real comeback.
  • Quote (Sean, 33:43):

    “If you don’t make something and say, ‘I’ll go back another time,’... you’re not going back.”

• Timing & Knock Out Challenges Early:
  • Complete hard schools before “life’s bandwidth gets stolen” (marriage, kids, seniority).
  • Quote (Sean, 36:42):

    “There’s a window of opportunity... If you’re going to go do it, go do it now.”

• Ranger School:
  • Chose to attend because “tab looks really good”—but also, his mentors set that example.
  • Highlights backwards perspective: SF before Ranger is tough, as you “get treated like a private after already being a leader.”
  • Recycled in Mountain Phase due to a missing radio man (“his guy was asleep”).
  • Would he have gone back if failed? Unsure—but the weight of long schools is real.

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4. Leadership: Building and Spreading Elite Team Culture

[45:47–81:03]

• Old-School vs. GWOT Era:
  • Pre-9/11 Army had “good guys” but were “playing Army” in some ways; GWOT shifted everything and demanded real standards.
• Team Sergeant Philosophy:
  • Sean balanced letting his men “get after it” (aggressive operations) with training, logistics, and contingency planning.
  • Emphasis on the broad skillset: “It’s not just CQB—true Special Ops is the rest: ASO, plainclothes, logistics, intelligence.”
• Company Sergeant Major:
  • Moved up to CSM to “take the 1:5 swagger to the company level”—injected high standards, culture, and expectation into multiple teams.
  • Results: 12 company members (majority operators) selected for Delta.
  • Quote (Brent, 80:19):

    “There was a time the unit asked—what is going on with 320? Why are they sending us the highest rate of graduates?”

  • Importance of “good guys” not just staying on teams, but moving up to leadership:

    “If good guys don’t leave to take leadership, someone who shouldn’t gets in.”

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5. Memorable Missions & Operational Insights

[67:33–75:25]

• Company-Wide Hit (Iraq):
  • Rare, simultaneous five-ODA raid operation (“Malawala"):
    • Focused on finance & ledgers (“money can’t be replaced as easy as people”).
    • Smart, less “sexy” targeting that disrupted enemy funding.
  • Special Operations is more than CQB: “True SOF is what happens before and after the breach.”
• Aggressive Ops and Training:
  • ODA conducted both kinetic and non-kinetic missions—training hard, working out constantly, rehearsing contingency plans, always ready to react (QRF).
  • Quote (Brent, 74:51):

    “Anytime we put guys out there to let it all hang out... when they called and were compromised, we were in those vehicles in minutes.”

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6. Higher Leadership – Battling Politics, Preserving Standards

[88:14–97:25]

• The Lonely Top:
  • Battalion CSM can mean isolation—surrounded by a staff (not always as driven as team NCOs), more bureaucracy, “minions” and politics.
  • Fights weren’t just tactical but administrative: readiness, deployment prioritization, bureaucratic roadblocks.
• Gut of the NCO Corps:
  • Brent and Sean lament the loss of the strong advising NCO:

    “Too many times the officer acts as ‘the boss’—the CSM just does his bidding, not advising him.”

  • Best leaders: “No light between us”—unity when exiting the room, even if opinions differ behind closed doors.

Notable Quote (Sean, 95:32):

“The NCO is the greatest advisor a commander’s ever going to have.”

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7. Wild Stories, Hollywood, and Warriors' Humor

[53:36–66:51, 121:59–125:42]

• Military Adviser in “We Were Soldiers”:
  • Sean trained actors (including Mel Gibson’s sons) for the Vietnam epic; taught patrol formations, call for fire (“No, you just say, ‘this is me, drop bombs over here!’”).
  • Ended up as a background extra—rejected for looking “twelve” in Vietnam fatigues.
  • Humorous Mel Gibson “fixes his shoulder” story:

    “He straddled me on the ground... Mel is a very, very stinky man.” (63:18)

• Off-the-Wall Team Shenanigans:
  • Brent shopping for Hawaiian shirts in an enemy master bedroom during SSE ("What do you think, blue or red?") [124:55].
  • Mark’s kit soaked in working dog pee just before a launch—“full testosterone attack dog piss” [122:56].
  • Relentless teasing, relentless standards.

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8. GWOT’s End, The Soleimani Strike, and Last-Stand Leadership

[97:25–108:24]

• Baghdad Embassy Uprising, 2020:
  • Sean’s role during the militia mob; prepping fighting positions with staff, hoarding ammo and food as “Combat Task Force Hippo.”
  • Final defense preparations: zip lines for casualties, color-coded positions (Aussies used blue/orange, Sean preferred, “Give me a clock!”).
  • True reality of chaos not seen on the news—scrambling logistics, running out of grenades and 50-cal, even taping up his own busted ankle.
• Dark Combat Humor:
  • “Why are we wearing headlamps?”—“So I can find your body.”
  • Recounts someone crying at the prospect: “There’s no crying in combat!” (108:15)

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9. Life After Special Operations – Reinvention and Purpose

[109:23–120:05]

• Retirement and Purpose:
  • Sean struggled at first—thinking “raising his son” would be his new mission, then realized he needed something that was his own.
  • Found a new calling: launching a boutique Mezcal brand, “Okan Agave.” Story echoes SF: “Unconventional,” artisanal, standards-driven. Lived with his maestro in Mexico, “scooping horseshit as an apprentice.”
  • Quote (Sean, 112:42):

    “You never know where life’s gonna take you—you can leave as a two-star SEL, then be scooping horseshit.”

• Hustle, Humility, and the Power of Relationships:
  • Built the brand from scratch—every role, every relationship counts; “no one’s coming to rescue you, you have to do the work.”
  • Acknowledges that the “veteran story” helps open doors, but product has to stand on its own.
• Project Highlight:
  • Special edition "Robin Sage" Mezcal—collab with Green Beret Foundation; only 250 bottles, each with a handmade leather pouch (118:24).

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10. Reflections & Takeaways

• Standards are everything: Whether in the Q Course, on a dive team, or making Mezcal.
• Mentorship and Humility:
  • Admire the greats, walk their path, but always be willing to start at the bottom again.
• Leadership Lessons:
  • Be yourself—own the truth, be straight with your people, both in support and in critique.
• Always improve your “fighting position”—and enjoy the ride.

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Notable & Memorable Quotes

• On separating business and friendship:

  “You always did the best job of changing gears. I don’t think I saw anyone walk that line as good as you did.” (Brent, 03:34)

• On team culture:

  “You got to be able to shift gears like that because they’re your teammates... But you got to be able to adjust quickly to have a drink with the guys.” (Sean, 04:03)

• On leadership progression:

  “You have to know when you’re holding people up—you’ve got to move forward or get out.” (Sean, 78:05)

• Ultimate operator advice:

  “Amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics.” (Scotty/Sean, recurring)

• On life after SOF:

  “What you did for 31 years doesn’t define you...you’re constantly redefining yourself.” (Sean, 114:01)

• On shenanigans:

  “I need you in the master bedroom—blue Hawaiian or red? What do you think?” (Brent, 125:07)

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Memorable Moments & Timestamps

• Weight-belt swim humility: 29:38–33:14
• Ranger school “recycle” for a sleeping radio man: 47:48
• Mel Gibson shoulder “fix” story: 63:17–64:32
• Embassy defense & “Combat Hippo” prep: 98:02–104:31
• Robin Sage Mezcal project reveal: 118:24
• Funny “shopping in the enemy’s closet” story: 124:55

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Important Segments (Timestamps)

• The importance of team culture: 01:45–06:49
• Keane’s upbringing, REP63, Q Course: 09:27–26:16
• Combat Diver & Ranger School lessons: 29:38–45:41
• Discussion of combat, team genetics, and operations: 67:33–77:22
• Life after service (Mezcal, reinvention): 109:23–121:56
• Classic war stories, humor, and “final” tales: 121:59–125:42

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Final Thoughts

This episode offers a rare look at both the inner workings of Green Beret culture and the deeply human elements—humor, heartbreak, reinvention—of life at the tip of the spear. Whether you seek hard-won leadership wisdom, the realities of elite military life, or simply great stories, this conversation delivers with heart, grit, and honesty.

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Transcript

[A]

Welcome back to the Tier One podcast. I'm your host, Brent Tucker, owner of FRCC. That's First Responder Coffee, Cigar and Bourbon Company. Go to FRCC shop and use promo code TIER1 to get 15 off the world's best coffee, cigars and bourbon.

[B]

And I'm Drew Tucker, expert of tape guns at First Responder Coffee, Cigar Cast Company. See us at FRCC Shop. I invite you guys to join our Patreon. It's brought to you by Cobalt Kinetics. As a Patreon member, you'll have behind the scene access to exclusive content. There's a fitness forum, there's a weapons forum, and in that weapons forum, there's a Cobalt Kinetics weapon expert ready to answer all your weapons questions. So join the Patreon today.

[A]

And as always, this episode is brought to you by Human Performance TRT. Go to hp-trt.com and use promo code TIER1 to get 20% off all of your testosterone and peptide needs. Don't wait any longer to get in the best shape of your life. Let's do it, Drew.

[B]

For the special forces.

[A]

Ready? Welcome to the tier one podcast. This is amazing.

[B]

Dude, check this out.

[A]

And with us today, we have my old friend and former boss and former two level up boss. You're almost my three level up boss, but had I stayed a little longer. Sean Keane, retired Command Sergeant Major Sean Keane. Over 30 years of special operations service, and he happened to be my first team sergeant in Special Forces. Known Shawn a long time. Welcome to the show, Sean.

[B]

Oh, man, Brent, it's great to be here. Always an honor to be around you. And we're gonna try our best not to laugh ourselves to death and silly. The silly things of life.

[A]

That's what the live will be for. And I, And I know stories are gonna come up here, but we'll, We'll. We'll. We'll try to keep it together. You know, I try to separate the silliness of the live and, and the recordings and try to keep that more professional.

[B]

Then I will do my best to be professional.

[A]

You will? I'll. I'll take that attempted effort, but you've always. You've always done a good job of knowing when to be professional. And that's, and that is something that, That I learned from you. I. I got a chance to tell you this before and I'll tell it to you again. It's. It's weird. Maybe not weird. It's. It's unique how everyone shapes you in a. In a different way. And, and for you it was definitely. You always did the best job of changing gears. And not everyone can do this. You change gears from, hey, I can be your friend. Like, we. I can be your boss and your friend. But you. But you. You separated those out.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Real quick. Like, you could be. You could be my boss and only my boss, and. And friendship mattered little to nothing. Just to be, quite frankly, at some point, like, hey, this is just business right now. And then there was other times, like, hey, we're. We're off. We're all friends right now. I mean, I'm still your boss. Like, we're not gonna. It was just. It was a unique line that you walked that I don't think, as I continued on for years, that I don't think I saw anyone walk that line as good as you did.

[B]

It's unfortunate because in, you know, our line of work, you really. You had to be able to shift gears like that because you're. They're your teammates. You know, it's your. When you're in the position of command or leadership, you got to make those decisions. But a lot of times those decisions are working through your team guys and talking about the kind of conversation before you make the end call. But again, you've got to be able to adjust quickly to have a drink with the guys. I've seen leadership where they, like, you know, well, I can't drink with the boys. My guess, you're not part of the team. Then you got to be able to

[A]

drink with the guys, you know, And I think the. The oda, the dive team, that you were the team sergeant of the culture from that team. And it's something I talk about a lot and something I would have never fully understood. You just. You just know you're a part of a good team, but you don't really know why you're a part of a good team. In the moment, as a new E6 guy on the team, and it's the culture, it's the professionalism of standards mixed in with the friendship says, hey, this is more than just a team. At the end of the day, though, like, we're best friends. We're. We're a family, and we have each other's back. Like a family. It's us against the world. But at the same time, if you're not pulling your weight, I will also remind you that. That I'm your boss.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And. And it's just business.

[B]

But like you just said there, man, you Even command levels move. Command levels, man. It's. Everybody looks at special operations that are all gonna be the same. The team's gonna be the same yada, yada kind of thing. And they're not. You know, there's different energy, different vibes on different teams and different places you go. And it's, it's rare, to be honest with you, rare to have a team that is that sinked in, to be perfectly sinked in. You're. Most of the time, you don't have teams or that synced in.

[A]

You know, there's swagger. Whatever you want to call it is. Is big. It's big in special operations. And one thing before we get into your story, but just kind of the step back and just kind of view you as, as, as my boss and as. And as a man. You did a great job of pushing us to walk with swagger. Like, hey, you're on a combat dive team. You're on the best team in this company that I know for sure. We're the best team in that company, and we're probably the best team in sf. We just haven't seen them all yet, but. We just haven't seen them all yet. But yeah, there's a little bit of humility. Maybe there's one better out there. But yeah, we just haven't. We just haven't had a chance to beat them yet. And that was really the, you know, over the top swagger that you wanted us to have. But that type of swagger is, Is worth nothing if, if you didn't back it up.

[B]

Exactly.

[A]

And you always wanted us to walk around like, like we were the best, but you made sure that will. That you could back it up.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And that's. And again, it's just something that, that, that drove me like the, the, the rest of my career to have this, this type of swagger, but again, not, not this shallow type that no one respects. If you can't back it up, that, that type of swagger is annoying. And don't get me wrong, we had, we had plenty of people that thought we were annoying just because we thought we were better than them. And, and that's okay. We kind of were. And if you didn't like it, beat us at something.

[B]

That was it. That was always thing. If you can beat us, you're fine, but don't do.

[A]

Yeah, right.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And that's where the humility comes. And guess what? If you could beat us, it's not no time to be a sore loser. Whose fault is it, you know, if we lost, it's our fault.

[B]

And that swagger is what got Me into. Not my personal swagger, but the swagger of two individuals that I've met that really got me into Special Forces, you know, was Ray and Scotty. The first time I met those two guys was that I've never seen. So with that swagger, but with the competence and confidence to follow behind it. And. And it was like, I don't know who those guys are, but that's. That's what I want to go do. That's the spot.

[A]

You know, also dive team guys.

[B]

Also dive. My team sergeant and my team commander later on, I think.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

It's also the perfect segue in. And right after this, we'll. We'll take that. But, you know, actually called you my first team sergeant. That's technically not true. I went to another team initially, and that type of confidence, you can call it swagger, you can call whatever you want. It's really the confidence. And the short time I was on another team, I happened to think that I was one of the best guys in the Q course, But I didn't think that for no reason. I worked really hard to earn that and show everyone that. That. That I am one of the best guys in the Q course. So when I showed up to a 320, I was. I was happy to be a new guy. I mean, I didn't come in with a. A lot of, you know, put me on the best team. I'm. You know, I'm one of the. I'm your. I'm one of your best new guys. It's not what it was, but I saw the dive team and just the way they carried themselves. The confidence, the competence.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

All together. And I said, that's. I gotta. I gotta be on that team. And we never had a recruiting problem on the dive team. Everyone wanted to come work with us in a truck. Good guys attract good guys, and that's exactly it, man.

[B]

That's exactly what you say there. Quality draws quality.

[A]

Yeah. You didn't even know who I was.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's not like you came up. It's not like you came up to me like, brent, you want to be part of the dive team? You had no idea who was. I wanted to be a part of the dive team, and I'll do what it takes to get there.

[B]

I really thought your story would be, like, I approached you to ask you to come to dive.

[A]

That's. That's how that story's gonna go in my head.

[B]

I need to find his bread. I've heard of this guy.

[A]

When I write A book. That's how the stories go down. Don't get me wrong, when you write a book, apparently all bets are off. So with all that being said, what, what got, what got you into Special Forces? I mean, of course there was. And there's a military history there with your family as well.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, the military family. So, you know, my dad did, did 37 years in. He's. His story is, is probably, you know, much greater than my story when it comes to the American story. You know, he, he left Ireland, what, at 14 years old. Left school, you know, to work in the mills in Ireland and England. Sixteen years old, came to America, got it, you know, got his high school diploma in the Air Force. First in two years in the Air Force, Got his high school diploma, then got out for a bit. Then Vietnam was kicking up, so he joined the army, you know, and he's actually retired a full bird colonel. Was enlisted first, went to ocs. He's in the OCS hall of fame. Three tours, Vietnam, you know, got his undergrad from University of Tampa and then he's got his master's from fit from, from a 14 year old who left school, left house, left school in Ireland to work in the mills. That's crazy.

[A]

Is it too late to get him in here?

[B]

No.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

He's still alive. Yeah.

[A]

Like instead of you, I said, we're going to keep recording professional. And look, and I, and I started it. That's on me. I apologize, Sean.

[B]

I fell for it. My age right there.

[A]

Sick balls. No, that, that is, it's, it's, it's amazing. Like, it really is. It's, it's crazy that you spent over 30 years in the service and you still, you didn't serve the longest, you know, of your film. Your dad's still going to look at you and be like, well, son, 137.

[B]

37, buddy. My brother did, did 20. He's Apache pilot. Flew upon a bit too. Yeah. So it's interesting. But the interesting thing too, it wasn't like a you're going in the military. It was just one of those things that just, just naturally took its way. And I think I was a late bloomer because when I graduated high school, man, I didn't even go to my high school graduation because we had to go to the basic training to infantry school in Benning. But it was just kind of one of those things. You find yourself a late bloomer in life going through these things and you slowly grow and you find your, you get your traction later on in life. You know, and that was kind of what I was, you know, because I was 120 pounds, graduated high school, I went to selection, I was like 125, 130 pounds, man. My rucksacks weighted much as me times.

[A]

Yeah, I mean, let's. And there's a little bit more to that. I want to dig into that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

What, what year are you going to Special Forces Selection? What year is this? 91 in 1991.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And it's another decade, really, before the true 18x ray program comes about, which kind of puts young, fresh blood into sf, which people can say is a good thing, people can say is a bad thing. Both of them, ironically enough, would be right. Yeah, there's. But the Guard was always doing an 18x ray program, if you will. I believe it was called REP 60, REP 63. And so you're part of the REP 63 program where you could go straight from basic training to selection, essentially. Right. Right into the pipeline through 20th Special Forces Group. Correct.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And you're 18.

[B]

I was 18 at the time, yeah. Going to almost 1918. Yeah.

[A]

And in 1991, the average age of the green of a Green Beret was a few years older than it is now because the 18x Ray program, a lot of 30 year olds, 33 year olds not going through the Q course, but average age on an oda, which means the average age in the Q course was a few years older as well.

[B]

So you got to remember right in the beginning, to get in that stuff, you had to have four years military experience before you even go to selection. And that's where the REP63 program overcame that. So what they were. The army was doing, looking at, they're looking at the Navy and the Marines and all them going, hey, there's kids come right out of high school going to the SEAL program, buds, whatever kind of thing. And the army was like, hey, we probably need to look at this kind of thing. But there was a significant reason why too. The, the SFODA is designed for a little more maturity and because of the missions they're doing kind of piece, you know, so. But like you said, there's positive negatives to both.

[A]

Could you feel the weight of that? I mean, don't get me wrong, it's a. You're pro, you're 18 years old. You. I don't expect you to have a whole lot of maturity at the same time. They're expecting you to have. Yeah, maturity. So did you have the situational or the awareness to go, hey, I I have to act a certain way. I have to act different. Was there any pressures you feel like it was on you being so young, or you're like, hey, there's no pressure because no one expects me to pass.

[B]

Exactly. This kid ain't gonna pass. Go back to the joke was that you have a note from your mom, you come here. That was always a joke, but, you know, that was always my. My whole career was that way. Like, you're too young to be a CSM or you're too young to be a sarm. You know, the whole career was that way kind of thing. And I was like, well, I met the standards, and so I guess it's okay. But, yeah, there was always a weight. But I think there was a couple of things, you know, I didn't have any scars on me, you know, say, training scars or any scars behind me kind of thing, which can make a big deal on things. People don't understand what I mean, if you go to combat diver school, they want you to come clean. They don't want you to come Patty qualified. They want you to come clean because they want to train you.

[A]

Right? Yeah.

[B]

So when I was going through selection, they kind of looked at me that way. But when I went through selection, man, I had. My mentors were guys from Ranger Battalion. I had a guy from. Guy from the seals, he didn't make it selection, and had a bunch of different guys were my mentors. And that was. They. They took me under their wings, you know, and guided me and. And gave me. They didn't give it to me, but, you know, they. They assisted me on, hey, this is the best way to rock and this. This kind of thing, and adjusted, you know, so it was how you carried yourself. If they. If you were humble and your tent was clean and pure, then I think that they saw that and go, hey, this guy. Let's get him through.

[A]

Yeah, and I've seen that before. I know exactly what you're talking about. Those guys aren't the type of guys who'll just go up to someone random and be like, hey, let me invest some. Some time into you.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

They're also not the. When you get to know them, they're not the hard asses that you. You think they are either. They're just reserved men.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But if they see someone that's putting in the effort, that their time is worth their time and energy is worth putting into someone, not something you have to show. Yeah, they. They will help you out.

[B]

I think a big thing helped me out too. Was. Was growing up in the military, so I already had military bearing. I understood the military kind of thing. So if I was just coming out of the streets and have any kind of background, you know, growing up that way, I think it would have been a different story. You know, I knew when to be the gray man. I knew it to be quiet and listen up kind of thing, you know, and understand how to get information and ranks and all that kind of stuff. So I knew all that walking in, you know.

[A]

Did you. Did you make a selection your very first try?

[B]

I did. I broke my foot in the last 30 mile or two miles into it. Snapped my. My sec. Broke my second and third metatarsal on my left foot.

[A]

Two miles into it.

[B]

Not two miles left, two miles into it. Yeah, but I was lucky because. And I say that because there are guys breaking feet, you know, days prior that they're done. There's no way you're making it right. You can't survive that long, you know, if you're in the last event, you know, it's like, what is it they call, you know, was it unknown, time, unknown distance kind of thing? But you Knew was about 30 miles, you know, you just got to give it your go, but you just find a new way to walk. And that was what I did. I had to find a new way to walk to finish this thing out, because I wasn't about to go back to this thing. I was like, I'm not gonna go back to this damn thing again. And then when I finished, I remember last night, I told you, I called my date. They put a pink cast on me. It was pink, bright pink cast on me. And I called my dad up and I was like, dad, I didn't get selected yet. I said, I made it through. And my dad was like, you did. I was like, thanks, dad.

[A]

You did. I lost that bet, dad.

[B]

But it was an interesting time too, when you went through selection back then, because you went back, it was back in the old World War II barracks, and they brought you into this old church. It was all blacked out windows. And they brought. I mean, back then, I can't remember any candidates. You start off, but you lost a good 80% of the candidates were gone. You know, and when we were sitting in there, they had everybody stand up and they say, hey, when we call your number, move to the back of the room at the back door. So you don't know if you're a go or no go. Getting cold out. And so they stood up and had my cast on and Everybody moved out and guys were left. Goes gentlemen, you, you're welcome to Special Forces. You're moving on the pipeline kind of thing. And it was like, pretty, pretty cool,

[A]

you know, it's got to be a good feeling.

[B]

It was a good feeling, man. Yeah. It's just a young age like that, it's.

[A]

Even at a young age, I'm sure you understood. It's like, it's like anything else. Take this in. Enjoy it. Yeah, but, but we got. There's a. The Q course is a long course. You've just, you've just got the opportunity now. Yeah, but it's far from over to obtain a green beret. Here at the Tier 1 podcast, we're excited to have Tasty gains as a sponsor. A company with values that aligns with ours. I take their products every day, three times a day. And if it wasn't a product that I didn't take personally and believe in and a company with integrity, then they wouldn't be sponsors on this show. Creatine helps the body produce more ATP, which is an energy molecule that your entire body runs on. It helps improve your physical and mental performance in all aspects of life. Let's be honest, creatine powder sucks to take every day. With the creatine gummies, you can take them with you anywhere and they taste great. Every batch is third party tested, so you know, you're getting exactly what you pay for. Go to tastygains.com and enter the promo code, tier one. That's T I E R, the number one. And get 20% off your order.

[B]

And that's where, you know, if you, you follow in life with me anyways, even to my. What I currently do, people are like, you should be excited about this. I don't get excited about it. You know, I don't. It's, you know, because you don't do that. You know, you don't think about the end. You don't think about graduation. You don't think of any of that. You just think about the next step or next meal and you're kind of moving Ford because you've seen it too many times. You get excited about something, next thing I know, guess what?

[A]

It's taken away.

[B]

Yep. Taken away like that, you know.

[A]

Did it delay you into phase two, your foot?

[B]

Yeah, I did. It delayed me six months or so. I still had to go to. Still go to airborne school, so I think I went to airborne school next and then went to the queue if I'm right, order wise. Okay. But yeah, so I had to heal up the foot and then go to the airborne school. And then. And airborne school was like. Back then, it was like, it was. You fell out of shape. It's like I was trying to get in shape for the Q course. And so at night you had to break off and prepare yourself, rucking and doing all your stuff, ready for it, you know.

[A]

Yeah. We've said it before on, on the podcast, and it's. It's not disrespectful to, To, To. To anyone else or airborne people at all. It's just that it's. It's two different roads in a military career.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And. And certain people that are going to the 82nd Airborne or an. Or an airborne unit, Airborne school is a big deal to them as. As it should be. It's something that not a lot of people get to go to.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But when it's just one part of your pipeline, there's other things that, that you want to do. You don't have the same outlook, you know, on it. And it's not the. It's not the same experience because like you said, like, you're preparing for something. I hate to say bigger, but that's. That's the reality of. Is a much smaller group of people that are going to do that. And so.

[B]

And you. And you.

[A]

It's just part of the process. Check this box. I got to get back to doing what I want to do.

[B]

And you meet those people along the way that are on the same and same route as you, and you kind of find each other in there. You know, it's like three or four of you kind of thing, and you stick with those guys and you're like, hey, we're gonna go ruck. We're doing this. And we're all preparing for the stuff. Same thing. You know, whether everybody else is taking off doing something, your. Your day is not over. Your day is just beginning to train for what you're. What's up coming, you know?

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. The. You went to phase two, so phase one, we'll call Selection.

[B]

Yeah. It was different way back then. Yes. They didn't even call. It wasn't. It was. You went to Selection, then you went to phase one, phase two, and phase three. Okay, back in the queue.

[A]

So we'll just call it Small unit tactics.

[B]

Was.

[A]

Was the next. The next phase of training.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Which is really SF's version of. Of Ranger school. It's slightly shorter, but the same principles.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

As a. As again, as a young man, that is. You're expected to go into leader, it's one thing to go into selection because everything's pretty much an individual event. There's a couple, you know, outliers to that. But now in Sut, you're an 18 year old with no background like everyone else in there.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you're expected to lead patrols, raids, ambushes, OP orders. It's. That is when it becomes a lot for a young man without a military background per se.

[B]

There's no doubt about that. The weight of there comes on you because now you're trying to like, you know, you look at the Ranger handbook and you're going through all the, you know, the warnos and warning orders and all that kind of stuff and trying to get a clear understanding of all this.

[A]

Right.

[B]

When everybody walking in there is usually know from Ranger battalion or something, infantry background, much more than I have.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Because I went to infantry school, basic training doesn't mean I'm truly an infantryman right. At that point. And these guys all have that walking into it. But then again, goes right back to man, I have Nate and a bunch of guys on there, man, frame battalion. They. They took me under their wings and said, this is like you said, this guy's worth investing in. And we'll teach him and instruct him and guide him along the way.

[A]

You know, this is for people who haven't been through, you know, all, all the courses and you've been through almost all of them. Is that the mil, whether you, whether you've had that background or not, the common denominator really is this is are you trainable? Because they're not going to ask you to do anything they haven't taught you. Now, they may not have.

[B]

Absolutely.

[A]

They may not have went over it a whole lot of times. So you better be a quick learner because they told you. Did you pick it up and can you apply it?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And that's, and that's what you were able to do as, as a young man?

[B]

I was. Was always have a question. What was that? They give you answer. Kind of go do what the instructor told you or do it do you Feels right.

[A]

Right.

[B]

All right. Right.

[A]

Yeah. They put it out once in the class. May not even remind you again, you know, and tell you, oh, we put it out once already. Let me tell you again, we don't have time for that. We're going to cover a lot of, a lot of. We have to continue to move forward. So we can't keep reminding you about the past.

[B]

You know, you're going to be the liability Obviously

[A]

you went on from SUT to be an 18 bravo.

[B]

Yeah. Once the 18 bravo.

[A]

What is an 18 bravo is the weapons.

[B]

Weapons sergeant kind of piece. So, you know, one of the biggest things, because I was actually 11 Charlie, so I was a infantry mortarman. That's what I went to school specifically to go to be an 18 Bravo. Because that's one of the main mortars and FDC and all this stuff is one of the difficult things.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So was the understanding when I went to the Q course to have that and. Which was so funny. When I was in a Q course. We're working on motors. My dad was up there in Bragg for some reason doing some meetings. And he decided to swing on by the old Q course there and invited him. And they didn't realize it was my dad and they invited him. And he's walking around. I was like, looked up, there's my dad walking around. You know, he's talking to him about mortars and level the bubble, you know, that kind of stuff. You know, and it was just kind of funny. I was like, he has. He's got his tanker. His tanker boots on. His uniform.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

I was like, right on that. Yeah.

[A]

That's awesome.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You went on and of course. And we'll just fast forward this a little bit. Of course you want to. Robin Sage. Language. What language did you get?

[B]

Spanish. Imagine that now.

[A]

Yeah. And then, no doubt, you were the war baby. And. And seer.

[B]

Yeah, I was. That was the war baby. And everything I did. That was the war baby. Everything I did. Yeah.

[A]

So when you put your green beret on.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

How old are you?

[B]

So this is the funny part. When we walked on stage back then too, you were limited. I think you could only allow two or three family members into the chapel. And then you walk across stage. And I was an E4. E3. E4. And they wouldn't let me walk across the stage. They had a pin. A fake. The other next rank on me. I think they pinned like a corporal on me or something to walk across the stage. Cause I didn't have it kind of thing. Except that you are not walking across that stage. And so. Walking across the stage of that. Yeah.

[A]

So we 19.

[B]

No. And I graduated 22. Course now I've been 20. Yeah. Since.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah, I've been 20. Almost 21.

[A]

All right.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So we'll. We'll guess. We'll guess 20. Were you not drinking age when you got your green break? Would you remember that?

[B]

I think I turned 21 right at the end of Course, yeah.

[A]

All right.

[B]

Yeah. Because I was drinking up in Bragg and my birthday happened. He was like, don't tell them your birthday is what?

[A]

Actually. Okay. And so what do you remember what year you graduated the Q course? Now we're mid-90s. Early early to mid-90s.

[B]

Early 90s.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

92. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

And, and you go to, you go to 20th group. Yeah, I know you go, you go to Ranger school. Not down the road, long after.

[B]

Went to combat diver school first.

[A]

Did you go to dive school first?

[B]

Yeah, dive school first and then ranger school?

[A]

Yeah, let's, let's, let's talk about combat dive school. Did you go right to a dive team?

[B]

I did. I went right to 1:5, matter of fact, and trained on that. Yeah. And.

[A]

And of course, the audience we served together. Scotty that he's talking about is a legend in 20th group. He's been there for a long, long time along with Ray. Something tells me because you had met Scotty before, it was a. Did you know you were going to 15 already? Would you show up with those orders to 1 5?

[B]

I think so. I think I asked for it kind of thing. I really wanted to be on the dive team and I think that's what happened. I don't, I don't remember. It's been a while, so I'm trying to figure out what I rolled into it. It was pretty much a 15 at that point, you know, so again, yeah, we. Matter of fact, when I first went in, before I even went to the basic training or anything, I was with those guys and we're. I wanted an exercise with them and they're out doing some raid or something and I was just, you know, I hadn't been in the military whatsoever yet, you know, long hair, Shawn, like I am now. And I remember coming out of there, we found a dead body and it was kind of like, this is so cool. This guy's find dead bodies, man, already. We're only training, man. But I would end up on their team and I can't remember how I ended up on their team. Requested that. Yeah.

[A]

So you go to 1 5. I just want to know as a young guy, when do you think? Because I only know the Sean who had successfully, in my eyes, had successfully done everything.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, is, is an absolute PT stud. Can do 30 pull ups. It's the. I've been there, done that.

[B]

42.

[A]

40. Sorry, 42 pull ups. I've been there, I've done that. But I'm not risking my laurels. I Will I will continue to do that. That's the Sean that, that the only Sean I knew. When you're showing up, you haven't failed at anything yet. You're 21, you're, you're just going. Do you have the confidence yet? Is it starting to build or are you still just not sure of yourself how far you can go?

[B]

The confidence is definitely building, but you're still, you know, everybody still looks at you like a 12 year old kid, you know.

[A]

Right.

[B]

Yeah. And that's, and that's the hardest thing when you're trying to overcome this. When you go to certain meetings, you're like, hey, everybody looks like a 12 year old kid kind of piece, you know, and still moving up my ranks when I walked in, you know, and longer hair and like a 12 year old kid. And I mean I've got like no hair on my ass, so it's like a 12 year old boy, you know, the same way all my whole career, you know that you've been in the shower.

[A]

It's a dive team.

[B]

But, but yeah, so you're, you're still, you're walking in, think that you can do anything kind of piece, you know, but dive school humbled me a little bit. Yeah.

[A]

What happened on, on your first go around the dive school?

[B]

My first go around a dive school was the weight belt swim. Got me. I had trained up for it and I realized I didn't train correctly kind of thing. And I ended up like the weight belt swim was like seven minutes and you're getting fractions added on, so I end up being like 20, 21 minutes on that weight belt swim. And it was finally they, they could tell I was not holding, holding air much anymore and I was down and they pulled me out of the pool and said, time to go home.

[A]

I, I can relate to that. The, the weight belt swim was my nemesis. Was my absolute nemesis. And this is a little bit more of a, you know, contra controversial conversational podcast and be more conversational with you because we have so much history. I think I've told you this story before. The weight belt swim wasn't my friend in dive school. I passed it on. That's very last attempt.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And, and where they said, hey, if you guys don't pass, you already failed the official first one. If you don't pass this one, you're out. It was one of the few times Bob Keller came up and gave me a, a pep talk. He's like, you better pass this weight belt swim. He was my roommate, but he needed Me for my brains. Because he needed to. He needed me to make sure that, that the, the. The paperwork part I could help him with. But anyway, I digress. I knew I was going to be a problem. My very first weight belt. Swim with your teammate, Rick. We'll just say his first name. Rick.

[B]

Rick.

[A]

Both of our teammates.

[B]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[A]

Takes me to the pool one day because he's like, you want to be. You want to be on the dive team? I. I do. He's like, let's. Let's go to the pool. And so we go to the pool. He hands me a weight belt. And his instructions are basically this. Here's the weight belt. Put it in, put it on. Here's flippers. Put them on. Swim in circles for seven minutes. And I was like, okay, I got this.

[B]

Easy.

[A]

I don't know how long it was. I can tell you what it wasn't. And that's seven minutes, Sean. I come back to the side of the pool completely out of breath, getting ready to go under with my. My last energy to make it to the side of the pool completely out of breath. I'm panting. And he comes over and he kneels down and he gets right in front of me. He goes, that wasn't seven minutes.

[B]

That's awesome.

[A]

And I knew from there on out, this is gonna be the way he felt was going to be a problem. So, yeah, I get that.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

So how. How was that dealing with. Again, in a weird way, you should have had failure before that to some degree. Like, the odds say you should have had failure before that. But. But your preparation and your ability kept you from that. What was it like coming. Coming back from that, having to. To deal with that?

[B]

You know, some people it's either you take go left or right. Right. So it was like I said, hey, I'm going to go back and train hard for this. You know, I know what I need to do now, specifically, because you didn't really have a whole lot of guidance. You did. I went to Prescouba and all that kind of stuff. But my pre scuba on day we started with five guys. Started on day three. I was the only one left. You know, I still have another week and a half left of myself. And I was like, ah, this sucks, because they're all on me. You couldn't. You couldn't get away with anything. You know, they're on top of you constantly. And I was like, God. And so. But yeah, that was the kind of point, like, I realized that, hey, man, it just. It takes more than what you think you need to get back. And so I just trained my ass, you know, And Dave, he knows that because he was in the pool watching me and he saw, he saw the, the change in me, you know, a couple other guys did too, going, you know, time to get. Be serious about this and, and train hard for what you're doing kind of thing, you know.

[A]

How long did it take you to go back to dive school?

[B]

It was the next class. Class after.

[A]

That's awesome.

[B]

Yep. Turned around after a class and got back down there and got on it.

[A]

And that's, that's how it's done. Yeah, you go right back as, as soon as, as soon as I want. Some could say as soon as you can. I kind of like to say as soon as you should, because there's no reason to go back to the next class if you're not ready. But for people who don't make something like, all right, well, I'll go back another time. And it's six months a year, you're not going back.

[B]

And we had what I think 63 guys went and 17 finished in my class. So finally I went back that class. But I remember the first dive school, the first one I remember doing the hands out of water, tread water, you know, that basic test. You know, they start going through, you know, some tests and there was a big old pipe hitting dude from cag, big old legs, and he failed it. And I was like, I'm screwed. I'm screwed.

[A]

It's. It's so true. It's. Everything is. You know, when you go through these special operation gates, whether it be the Q course and dive school, ranger school, there's always someone bigger than you. There's always someone with a better pedigree than you. Always.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And when, and when those men don't make it, it's. You look internally and you're like, if he didn't make it, how, how, how am I supposed to make it? There's always that, that internal struggle that everyone has to deal with.

[B]

It is. But as you get, as you go through more of these courses, you start to realize too, as you see those guys getting weaker and you go past them, you kind of suck that energy off them, absorb that energy off them kind of thing, you know, and you, you learned as you push forward and in time, that actually drives you more, you know, like, okay, now I got to make it, you know, get through this crap, you know.

[A]

Absolutely. The. When you're younger, it's a lot harder, but, you know, even I don't think it ever fully goes away. You deal with it more or it bubbles up and then. And you at least have now the, the experience behind you and more than that, the preparation behind you to suppress that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Because you always have that, that self doubt that, that pops up. Just when you have that behind you, as you get a little older, you can, you can quickly push it out and be like, no, I don't have to entertain that now.

[B]

But it's, it's also entertaining. You know, when I did all those things, those majority of those things, I was single, I wasn't married, didn't have any kids and stuff. I got it all done when I was young kind of thing. And you see a lot of guys who are, you know, engaged or married or something, and you can see how it starts to wear and it's like there's a window of opportunity and it could be the wife is good with it at first, and guess what, halfway through, the wife ain't cool with it anymore kind of thing. You know, you're already gone. Your training's taking all this time and you'll see that. And it's so important, as we find later on in deployments, is that, you know, you got to make sure everything's good back at Household six kind of thing before you push forward too.

[A]

Yeah, I love that. That, that was really your very next advanced course, and we're about to talk about Ranger school here in a second. Is that you just talked about. It was, you get married, you get rank, there's. There's a lot of things people don't realize that start stealing your bandwidth and it becomes, it becomes harder and harder and harder to do the things that you want to do and that you wanted to accomplish.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so you have to knock out as many hard schools as early as possible because you think that window is always there, but you don't know when that window closes.

[B]

Yep. And that's where like you always say, man, it's all about timing and windows, man. You're just going to realize if you're going to go do it, go do it now. And I hear guys come back and, well, I'm going to put it off a little bit and be like, don't do it, because you don't, you don't know. You know, it's like the whole saying, I've got a good plan to execute today, it's better than a perfect plan tomorrow, because tomorrow can go away, you've got to execute now kind of thing.

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

That's just how it is, man. You know, but you're right. The weight, the weight. As you gain rank and life on you, the weight comes more and more in your shoulders. And that weight holds you down from good or bad from going to what you want to go next, you know, at school or something like that. It takes a while to get through and that. And these schools are not necessarily Ranger school, combat diver school kind of, but like the Q course or going to OTC or something like that. That's a lifestyle, right? It's not just a school. I got an extra badge kind of thing. It is a lifestyle change. And guys who don't make it, their life is no longer going the path they thought they are taking another path. And it's, it's a unique and it's a weight on you that people don't realize. When you're younger, you don't really realize that weight so much, but as you get older, that weight a lot more.

[A]

Yeah, I love that you went to, to Ranger school. There's, there's generally two types of, of people in SF when it comes to their view on Ranger school. There's, there's the, the ones who want to continue to go to range school and continue to challenge. And you're like. And they say, hey, I, I want to, I want to do everything. And I get that. I, I side on, on that camp for like mentality purposes.

[B]

Right.

[A]

And there's the other, there's the other side of the camp that goes. I have a lot of other things to do other than Ranger school. Like. Yeah, Sodic. Being sniper qualified would be more important. That dive school, Halo, all these advanced schools are more important. And to steal a line from. I wish I could remember who, who told me this the first time. But why, why would I go to. Why would you go to high school when I've already been to college?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And, and I get that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So what drove you to go to Ranger school?

[B]

Tab looks really good on your shoulder.

[A]

I already know it because I've worked with him for a long time. Looking cool has always been important to Sean. And you know what? That is important.

[B]

The tower power.

[A]

That is important. How you look. How you look is important. How your team looks is important. You know, you say it as kind of a joke.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But it's also absolutely true.

[B]

But it comes right back to the first two people I met. They were both SF Ranger combat divers, you know, and that stood in my mind. That's where I needed to be. That would. That defined to me, that defined the level I wanted to be at, like those guys were kind of thing, you know, and that's why I wanted to get Ranger school.

[A]

Do you think to some degree those schools separated them as, as, as men or, you know, to you as a younger, as a younger man, like, these are great men, and as far as I can tell, this is the path they took. So if I want to be a great man and be like them, I need to take the same path that essentially what you're saying.

[B]

I think no matter what, subconsciously that's true. You see that you meet people and that's where like, mentorship in life comes through, right? You meet certain people and that, that guides you to where you want to go. You're going to meet a seal. You want to go to SEAL team, you're going to meet Green Ray, you want to go green. Bray want to see a Delta, go to Delta guy. And that's just kind of Rangers the same idea. It depends on the people you meet. If that guy's a true asshole, you know, you're not going that way. I remember admiral. Not Williams, McRaven. I was sitting down. Admiral Craven, he was a SOCOM commander at the time. And we're down in Hondo and we're hanging out and he, he, he goes, sean, you know why, you know why I didn't become a Green Beret? And I go, no, sir, I didn't. And he goes, because my sister was dating a Green Beret. And I hated that. So that's why I became a seal. Right on.

[A]

There's a lot of truth.

[B]

Right on. Right on.

[A]

Yeah, absolutely. I will tell you this, and I think you'll agree with it. Just statistically, of course, there's a, there's a lot of absolute dud Green Berets that went to mountain teams. Never went to, you know, never went to a cool guy school after that. And they were great shooters and they were, they were heroes and in combat. But I will tell you this. If you give me, if you give me 12 guys that all 12 of these guys are Special Forces, Ranger school, combat divers. And put them on one team and you give another guy of just, just the, the minimal amount of requirements overall, statistically and generally speaking, that team over there is, is going to be the better team. And I don't, I don't, and I don't think it'll even be close, but it's, it's not the Ranger school or the dive school that made them better. And you already know the answer. What, what. Why is it that, that Generally speaking, they're going to be better on that. Well, that's where you're going to put your money.

[B]

What is going to be really? Because the drive they have and it's the humbleness and just intense everything they're trying to do. And people have a tendency of, oh, I've made it here, I'm good. It goes, no, no, no, that's just. You just got in. You know, you have to completely like, it's always improving your fighting position kind of concept. Right? Yeah. You should always look at how do I improve myself? What school. And it's not for you, it's for the team, you know, and people get upset sometimes, talk about, hey, man, go to hazmat. Like, what do you mean go to hazmat course telling you right now you need a HAZMAT guy on your team. And if you're not HAZMAT qualified, guess what? You're not going on that bird or something's not going on. Another team's got to get it kind of thing. It's those little things people understand. But it's always trying to improve your fighting position. If you think, oh, I'm done with the Q course. Nah, you know, it continues. That's just the beginning of the courses. You need to get stacked on you.

[A]

Yeah, I knew that was going to be. Knew that was going to be your answer because you taught me how to think like that. But it's true, Sean, unfortunately, you get to take the credit for a lot of good qualities about me. There's some people who don't like me as much and think I'm a not anymore. But at times thought I was. Thought I was a little bit of a prima donna. You have to take credit for that too.

[B]

Trust me, there are plenty of people, even through other csm, still thought I was kind of an. But if I was an to you, you probably deserved it.

[A]

I. I already know that.

[B]

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

Same thing here. I had a. Even when I was at the unit at times, whether it be a support guy or another operator, remembered me as a safari constructor. And you either really liked me as a. As a safari constructor or you did not like me as a safari constructor. And I was okay with that because if you didn't like me, then you didn't meet a standard. And, and I doesn't mean unnecessarily that I'm going to be like, overly mean to you, but I'm not going to treat you and pretend like you met a standard that. That you did not meet. I'm just willing to let you know that and, and, and other men aren't. And shame on them because they'll say that behind your back. You're just mad at me because I'm willing to treat you how. How I think about you.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And for what I believe to be good reasons.

[B]

And that's the key thing with all the. Whatever courses we're going to, man. The standards are the standards all the time. And that's where you want it, you know, and it's, it's. In a world like today, it's difficult to see those standards start shifting here in places. You know. But it's simple rule here. The standards just meet the standards, you know, and then go above. Beyond the standards, you know, if you want to go to a different team, you can. But here's the standard, here's the standards for generally you're coming out here. And here's the standards for our team. You know, here's. Figure it out. You know.

[A]

Luckily I never had to put this into practice, but I know it at this point in my life, at some point in dive school, pool phase, I thought about quitting. I really did.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I said to myself, I really hope I pass this school because I will never come back to this school. When you're in the thick of it, you know, it's an emotional time. I don't know if I would. If I would have. I'd like to think that I would have, but I don't know for a fact.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So even though you did do that and you've proven that you'll take that challenge and you'll go back, my question is really about Ranger school as well. Let's. Let's put you all the way in Florida phase or somewhere deep in that school. That's a much longer school, much longer commitment. Although you passed it first. First time. Go on. Everything correct.

[B]

Well, I got recycled rangers in mountain

[A]

face and Mountain Face.

[B]

Yeah. And Mountain face stayed up Mountain face. Yeah. That blueberry banana blueberry pancakes twice kind of thing.

[A]

If you'd have failed Ranger school, would you have gone back?

[B]

I wouldn't. I'm not sure. I wouldn't even approach that subject right now. I would it. Depending how. Where you were when you.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

When. When you failed or something kind of thing, you know. Yeah, but it's like, it's. I went to Ranger School was 82 days and you did a pre Ranger prior kind of thing. And I was, I lost. I was like 5% body fat and I lost 22 goddamn pounds of Ranger school. You know, my mom didn't even recognize me. The problem with. With Ranger school because I did it backwards, right? I mean, you should have gone to Ranger school before you went to sf. Really should have, you know, because like you said, you're going to Ranger school, and you're like, well, why don't we do this? And this. Your mind is trying to figure things out. Coming from sf, Your mentality is different. Right, right. And Ranger school is like, you get up that rock, Ranger. Like, let me just go around the rock. It's easy to go around the rock, you know, I said mentality. So you have to get over this mentality that, hey, you're treated like a private, get back to being a private, you know, even go. Even though you got all the stuff underneath your belt already, you're back to a private and you'll lead guys. Because the distinct difference really, in Ranger school and going to selection, going to selection and Q course and all that stuff, those guys are there for a lifetime change. It is something completely different. A lot of guys went Ranger school, were going for Ranger tab. And you have people from all mixed community, you know, and you got to deal with different mentalities. They don't have the same mentality you have, you know, and so you're dealing with that piece. But you really got to the end in Florida phase was when I really got. They let me loose a little bit and let me go a little more unconventional and do the things with the ambushes and raids, and we were a little. Just kind of piece. But what was nice about Ranger school is that I went. When we got to Florida phase, I did all of. Even the mountain phase, I did all of the river crossings and stuff, you know, tied a rope up kind of piece. And the guys on the side, a lot of them didn't make it or whether I school with me. And so I'd go over there, sit the rope up, you know, and then I have a stickers bar with them, kind of thing, hook it up, you know, the instructors. Yeah.

[A]

Oh, really?

[B]

Yeah, yeah. You know, so it was like. It was like, hey, I remember you from dive school. Yeah, yeah, go that, you know.

[A]

Yeah. You'll take that?

[B]

Yeah, I'll take that for sure, you know, but yeah, it was different. It's a different mentality and it's something. It's like, man, it's 82 days long and you recycle, you know, and it's like, man, it's taking forever. And the problem with what recycle is. It may not be your fault. You've got a compass man who puts you in the wrong spot. But guess what?

[A]

You're the leader Falls on you.

[B]

And I remember exactly where I got my recycle. I was the platoon sergeant, and we were in a patrol base, a patrol halt, security halt and checking map. Leader was checking the map or something, and then we rolled out. Get a head count. Everybody out. Count everybody out. And I stop. I say, we're missing someone. I said, I get. Get a positive headcount. Okay, we're missing one person. Go back. Found them sleeping against a tree. The reason that I failed, it was my radio, man. It was asleep, down, out. So they gave me a no go. That was my no go. Wow. Yeah, that's a.

[A]

That's a tough, tough one.

[B]

So it may always be on you, my friend.

[A]

Yeah, absolutely.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Doing a little bit backwards while you were telling that story, it reminded me of how you showed up to Ranger school. Not as smooth as maybe you'd want to show up to Ranger school in hindsight. How'd that go?

[B]

That went well. The orders said you had to be there by a minimum time. Why would I want to be there three hours ahead of time? You show up the last minute kind of thing. And I think it was me and Mark. We stopped and had a steak, had a beer, you know, chilled out. And we rolled up there, and we rolled into the barracks there, and they're all sitting on the ground, and the ri. Was there. And he looks at us and he goes, who you guys are? We're, you know, so and so and so and so. And he goes, you better get your ass. He starts yelling at us. He goes, you're not in the team room anymore. Get down and get your shit. Get back up here. Like, oh, no, man.

[A]

But, you know, that's exactly why you don't show up three. Three hours early as well.

[B]

Right?

[A]

They were going to treat you any better three hours before that.

[B]

Yeah, man. Yeah. That was a rude awakening. Me and Mark walking to that one.

[A]

Speaking of Ranger school, I did not get to go to Ranger school. I went to pre Ranger.

[B]

You did?

[A]

And then I had to wait for orders to go to Ranger school. We ended up going to combat. Then I went back to otc. Just that we had talked about windows close. You don't know when that window is going to close. But I argued with you. I don't know if you remember this.

[B]

I remember.

[A]

Okay. I said, we both have different stories of this, so I don't have to go to pre Ranger. I'd like to go to. I said, I want to go to Ranger school, Sean.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you said, well, all right, we'll go get a pre Ranger date. I said, well, I don't have to go to pre arranger. It's not a prerequisite. I would like to go straight to Ranger school. And you, do you remember what you told me? You said, you're going to, you're going to pre Ranger, Brent. And I said, why?

[B]

I think probably said, because I went to pre range.

[A]

That's exactly, that's exactly your answer. And that's in a weird way, I always respected you for that because it goes back to other people will give you a softer answer when you know the real answer is if you'd have told me a different answer because it's good for you, I'd have walked away from that and I'd have gone, he's making me go. Because he went, exactly. But you at least had had the decency, whether I want to hear it or not, and said, oh, Brent, I'll tell you why you're going. Because I went to pre Ranger. So you're going to pre Ranger. And it's really hard to argue that at the same time as well.

[B]

That's it. Yeah, get it man, because I went and did it. You're going to go do it. You're going to suck like I sucked.

[A]

If you've ever been to any of my tactical training classes, then you know how adamant I am about the use of white light and the importance of a quality high powered tactical light. That's why I use cloud defensive tac lights. You can't hit what you can't see and neither can the bad guys. Clearly identify your target and simultaneously overwhelm his vision with hundreds and even thousands of lumens. Get serious about defending yourself and your family. Go to clouddefensive.com and use promo code tier one to get 30% off your order. That's right, 30%. You won't find a better light than this and you won't find a better deal than this. So you got to see a lot of the military before 9 11. Then you got to see the whole GWAT. You know, you were a young team guy early on the G. What and then served really at the highest levels as a senior enlisted advisor to star level counterparts. At the end separating the the 90s army to the GWAT. Is it, is it your opinion that the 90s army was still a good army or do you think we were to some degree just playing army at the same time. What do you think the culture was for that?

[B]

I think there's a little more, if you go a little further back than that from when I wanted first in. Right. You still had a lot of guys from the 80s. You know, those guys from the 80s, they did, you know, some were old school, like barely hanging on. Vietnam guys, something like that maybe, you know, but they had served their time. But a lot of those guys, it's like they weren't. They weren't ready. They weren't designed for. To go to what we were doing. And so you didn't see a lot of those guys move forward. They were like cutting away kind of thing. So you started having seen the young guys or the guys that were older than me that had gone through the Q course and all that stuff in the 90s or. But they came from like Ranger Town and never traded the Marine Corps or something like that. So they had experience. Those guys were the guys moving forward, you know, and so that was the change mentality. So you saw most of those guys go into it kind of piece, and it was. It was. It was definitely interesting. Like you said it was to suddenly, hey, man, we're going to war. Because at that time I had like 11 years in. And so it was kind of those things. You can make a decision. You stay in there getting out.

[A]

Right.

[B]

You know, because you did FIDs, you did little things around the area with, you know, not a huge amount of things going on kind of thing, but it was. But then when 911 happened, that changed everything. It was like the Olympics, man. You're going to Olympics now. You're going. You know, why would you get out?

[A]

Everything just got real.

[B]

Yeah, you're trained for this, you know, and that was the perspective mentality, was, when. When are we going? Let's go now.

[A]

You know, before 911 hit, which is obviously now your priorities change. You had a real unique part of your career. We spent a little bit of time in la. Correct. Or that. Or that area.

[B]

Yeah. San Francisco. But for the. You talk about the movie.

[A]

Yes, yes, yes, I am.

[B]

Yeah. Right. Actually, matter of fact, before 911 happened, that was the. Roughly, the summer prior. So summer of 2001 was that we were filming. We were soldiers up in. In Fort God, man. 10 California. I can't remember name top my head now. But we were shooting. All the Vietnam scenes were shot there. So we got. I got pulled into that.

[A]

How'd you get connected with that?

[B]

Through my. If I remember right through my brother had a Friend. And he was asking, he said, hey, my, my brother is this, this. And he goes, really haven't come out, like talk to him kind of piece. And so I went out there and he said, hey man, we'd love to bring you on, you know, love your, your background experience, love to bring you on. And so that's where he tied me into it kind of thing. And so once I then got into the film part of it, they, before Mel Gibson and all of them came out, we were training the, I was training like the lost platoon guys, not the main actors guys, but the guys around them kind of thing on like patrol based activities, you know, when you're attacked in a patrol base, all that kind of stuff like that. And that was. So my intent was just to do like a military advising kind of piece.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And, and then they asked would I be an extra kind of piece. And they, they came up to me and goes, hey Sean, we would love to you to be the platoon sergeant, but you look like you're 12 and in Vietnam they didn't have 12 year old. I said, got it, got it, got it. Reoccurring theme for you keeps on going, man. Just keeps on going.

[A]

You know, you can't put that Hollywood magic on me and make me look

[B]

a little bit older.

[A]

Come on, guys.

[B]

Yeah, but yeah, it was a good experience. I mean it was a, an interesting experience. So, you know, with Mel Gibson, Sam Elliott, Barry Pepper.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Trained our Mel Gibson's twin boys, you know, how to, how to run with them, carry a weapon and all that kind of stuff and a bunch of stuff like that. So it was really neat to be interesting to be on the set. Yeah, the Hollywood said. But it was also very, you know, because you weren't, your intent wasn't to go to Hollywood, so you just kind of having a fun time, you know, where everybody else there, their intent was go to Hollywood. So you know, they're, they're sucking up the bosses and all this kind of stuff and a lot of shenanigans going on. Yeah, they're just trying to get their piece in Hollywood, you know. Yeah. But it was interesting to see all that and the money they spent and all that too. But it was good. It was neat.

[A]

It was a great movie. Yeah, the book was even better. The book, I read that book for us all.

[B]

The movie, at the end of the movie, they, they messed up. They didn't follow the book though, if I were right. They had the helicopters come in and destroy everybody.

[A]

We had the Hollywood ending.

[B]

Yeah, it was Hollywood ending.

[A]

It seemed to be pretty historically, I can't remember the exact of it, but it seemed to when I watched it. The book was fresh in my mind. Yeah, it seemed me pretty accurate until the Hollywood ending, but I get it. That's. That's Hollywood.

[B]

Yeah, it was Hollywood, you know, and it was interesting to see when I was teaching them how to do, you know, patrolling, you know, hey, wedge formation, stuff like that. I remember sergeant Major from the book, what's his name and wrote the book with him. He was out there and they're like, hey, we didn't did wedge formations. It was always ducks in a row, you know, so you readjusted everything. And I was teaching him call for fire because we didn't do that call like that because we, I was doing modern day call fire. He's like, no, this is you, this is me. Drop bombs over here kind of thing, you know. All right, shift gears.

[A]

It's funny that that's what he told you, you know, that was, that was the reality in combat.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And at the time you were schoolhouse trained.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So in the schoolhouse, what movement type or formation did we use going, you know, to the objective?

[B]

The schoolhouse was basically a wedge formation. And if it was at night or something, you would rotate into rangers in a file kind of piece. Yeah, but it's all just rain dependent. Yeah.

[A]

Right. And so you were given the, the right answer for what, you know, had, had. We move from HLZ to the objective in Afghanistan.

[B]

Oh, you are. No, no wedge formation. It was just get to the objective and you file. Right. You can.

[A]

I think it's so funny to some degree, wars change of sorts, but the reality of war, there's a lot of things that are, that are still very similar.

[B]

Yeah. And that's true, that is when you get to your, your school training. But that's what school training is to do, right. Is, is to give you that 80 solution. Right. And then when you get to the ground is to adjust what you need to adjust. And over time that 20 adjust. And that's what you did overseas. And that was some of the hardest thing for me was that and probably fast forward a little too much this one. But when you moved, when I moved from a team to sergeant major was it was, it was more difficult to watch that bird on the big tv. The drones, you know, coming in on satellite watching and that bird hovering there or something, man, you're like, hey man, get the guys off the bird. Get them off the bird. You know, you're a floating bus right now. And you're ready for an RPG to hit you kind of thing, you know, and.

[A]

And you know that because you, because you've been on the bird. You've been on the bird.

[B]

You're not thinking that in the bird. You know, you got to get the ground.

[A]

You know, it is. It is kind of funny you think that because. And you're saying all that when you're on the bird. Although what you just said, I never got that high and to watch, you know, so like, as. As, you know, leadership, my men, like, this is what's happening. I left at a team level. But if you. If you'd have asked me, hey, what's. What's one of the most dangerous parts of. Of of the operation, I'd tell you. Well, yeah, it infills when you're most vulnerable. Vulnerable. But when you're doing it in the bird, all you're thinking about is the next steps. Yes, get me on the ground. But you're thinking, you know, you're looking out the window. Where am I? Okay, this is how we're going to move. Everything's starting to line up what I think it is, but now that we're here, do I. Do I know where I'm at on the ground? What's the breach point like? You think about everything else.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But when you get to watch it from leadership, from that. Those aren't. Those aren't your. Your thoughts. It's the guys and the birds thoughts. You get to really focus on what's. What is wrong right now.

[B]

Right. And you're right, you know, the team. The team is very focused on internal training or internal turn comms right now at that point, talking to each other and hearing some. But you know, when you're back at that command level, man, you know, things that are going wrong, the team doesn't realize, you know, they're not in harm's way. But hey, hey, we lost a drone or we're doing this kind of thing, and you don't report that back to the team, hey, man, they got to focus on a mission to get ready to hit kind of thing, you know, and you start seeing all this stuff and the stuff you didn't realize before, you know, you start seeing that whole amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics.

[A]

Right thing.

[B]

It's truly what it takes to make that team hit that ground, you know?

[A]

Yep. You know, Scotty told me that.

[B]

Yeah, that is an old.

[A]

Was the first one that I heard that I'm sure. Yeah, he stole it from someone else too. But I always credit it to him. He's the first one that told me that.

[B]

I can't say it was Napoleon or Patton, but there's actually, again, who it was on top of my head. Yeah.

[A]

But now that we're talking about infills, I'm sitting here talking to you, of course, my mind races to different missions that we were on in Afghanistan and Iraq. And as soon as you started talking about, like, as you're landing, you know, there's. There's things going over the headset and there's something my mind rushed back to that I haven't thought of in a long time. Do you remember as soon as we landed and started to depart, you would. You would say something to the dive team as. As we ran off the bird? Do you remember what it is?

[B]

I do not remember this. Don't this up. Don't embarrass me.

[A]

You know what? You. Would you say it as a joke because you've said that before, Jess. You'd never.

[B]

You would.

[A]

You would never say that on the objective because you knew what we were capable of.

[B]

I can't remember what I said, man.

[A]

Sharks in the water.

[B]

Oh, that's right. Sharks in the water.

[A]

Yeah, man.

[B]

It's been a minute.

[A]

Yeah, I always remember that. Coming. Coming over the headset. Sharks in the water. Which is great because it goes back to the mentality that you wanted us to have.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

When we. When we hit that ground, that we were the most dangerous people there. We've trained and proven it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Go out there and act like sharks in the water.

[B]

Yeah, I totally forgot about that, dude. Yeah. Crazy. I forgot about that.

[A]

Oh, yeah. Back to the movie. I did want to ask you one question. Did. Did. Did you. You got some interaction with. With Mel Gibson.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Correct. He treats you. He treats you good. Did he know you were a Green Beret?

[B]

No, he didn't think he did. But we had a. So work on the set. We worked quite a bit with him piece, and we actually had a. I didn't know how old he was, and we had a joke going on things. He had to figure out a group of us hanging out kind of thing where I get a bet on how old he was. And at the time, I think he was like 45 or 43 or something like that. And if you ever get close to Mel, he's. He's got a lot of scars from. I guess he got jumped when he was in Australia a long time ago. So he's got some scars on his neck and so forth that you don't really? See, she looks a little older. Okay.

[A]

By a group of kangaroos, I'm assuming.

[B]

Kangaroos, probably, yeah. You know, they know how to do it. And he. He came up and he's asked, what you guys doing? He goes, hey, I bet how old you were? And he goes, well, I said, his age, like 43, 45. And he goes, how old are you? And everybody else is like, you know, 46, 48. But said Keenan said you were 55. And so he. He plays a lot of practical jokes kind of thing on film. But that night we're working out, and it was just. He was. It was just him and his. Say, his caddy, his. His sport guy, generally speaking, you know, runs around with him. And it was. Me and my buddy were in there kind of working out together, and we were talking about back when he was in Benning for training people like that, you know, and he's just. And he noticed my shoulder was messed up. And he's asking me, you know, what do you throw your shoulder? I said, well, I kind of heard a little while ago it seems a bad place. He goes, let me. I've been through a lot of physical fitness, you know, you know, physicians and all that kind of stuff. I can fix this. Let me take a look at it kind of thing. And he rolls.

[A]

Is going to fix your shoulder?

[B]

Oh, yeah, Mel, guess he's going to fix my shoulder here. And I'm kind of like, oh, man, he's trying to get back at me. And so he rolls up my. I had my Ringer sweatshirt, matter of fact. And he rolls up behind my shoulders, and he's kind of pushing on my shoulder. And Mel is a very. He's got a lot of bo. He's a stinky man. And so he's leaning against me, right? And he's trying to pop my shoulder against the wall. And I was like, no, no, let's do this. Get on the ground. You know, I'm gonna do the same thing. I'm gonna put the. Wrap my. Put the sweatshirt between your shoulder blades. And then what he does, he straddles me now. So now he's sitting on top of me. And my friend I was with, he's like, oh, Jesus, no, Sean, don't do this. So Mel gets to straddle me on the ground, right? And he puts his. His arms on my shoulders. Because when I say three, drop your arms, and I'm gonna push down on your shoulders.

[A]

Okay?

[B]

Okay. So one, two, three drops. And he begins to, like, pounce up and down. I mean, he does like three or four times and he goes, how does it feel? I go, it's fixed. We're good, we're good. Get this guy off me. Get it open. This guy off me, man. Yeah. So we're working with Milk. Whatever. Sam Elliott was really cool. I like working Sam. Sam was. He never took his stuff off. He played the characters through and through. Other actors, they all took their gear off when, you know, in between set, he always kept that stuff on, you know, know. It was pretty solid.

[A]

Dude, I think that's awesome. Yeah, it's. Again, you've, you've lived, you've lived the full life, Sean. And we haven't even gotten to. Into. Into combat yet. You've lived a full life.

[B]

This is why it goes three hours, right?

[A]

Yeah, I know, I know. And I, I am watching the time, so we're going to fast forward a little bit. Of course, like you, you went into combat as, as a younger guy before I went there before, while I was still in the Q course. That's. Yeah, those, those orders is what, is what got me to the Q course. You guys go to combat.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

For that team. I want to say, for the first time. Or was that for the first time for you as well? The 2003 time frame?

[B]

First time. Yeah. With the team.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

And. And we'll just kind of go over this because I want to, I want to go over to Iraq.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Real quick. But that's. We've said it before in the podcast. Um, I was lucky enough to, to get to combat in 05 with a team that had been once or certain guys on the team multiple times and, and not. They haven't figured everything out right. But they. Those first trips, people don't realize how much we were still figuring out in combat.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I'm certain that was the way how it was for you guys as well.

[B]

It was. You're, you're. Because you're now in a. Obviously the desert terrain you're in. Everything, you know, it changed everything, you know, of how you move vehicle wise and all that kind of stuff. So you were. And guys were coming back. Every time a guy would come in out of the field or something, we would talk about, talk to each other about getting, you know, ttps and hey, change this up. Work with this. Works better this way. It really came down to back just to basic fundamentals. Anything you thought was fancy, you need to get rid of it and keep the fundamentals of firefighting, you know, because those days we were pushing out, you know, Two weeks at a time. And it was like, it reminded me of the Rhodesian rangers out of South Africa kind of piece, man. You would go two weeks, you know, and you, you're working on a 5W man, you know, and you're just looking for bad guys and you're just dirty and nasty and you're sleeping in the field and you're finding huts and you're sleeping in them and just doing stuff and come back and you do like, you know, refit for like a week and then you push back out on an operational piece, you know. But you were obviously, everything you did and everything was a boneyard there. So you would find vehicles and you would take parts from those vehicles to make your vehicle better. And we could cut up any vehicle we want at that point. And we had them gutted and had all your rucks and stuff hanging off of them and moving across kind of thing. And it was like a whole Desert Fox kind of piece, you know.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And it was, it was, it was fantastic days. And you kind of looked at that, you know, because as wars go on, politics play a role and politics getting more and more roles, the years go on kind of piece. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

And then by the time I meet up with you, I had done a rotation in Afghanistan. I strapped, strapped hang with a. Another team to go to Afghanistan. And while I'm in Afghanistan, I get a message from our company and said, hey, we're spinning up. We're going to Iraq. Do you want to meet us over there as a single Green Beret? Yeah, absolutely. And so I missed the train up with you guys and I met you guys in country. Hadn't been in country very long.

[B]

No.

[A]

But one thing I want to talk about, I fell into something that was. Ended up my very first mission with you guys was something really unique and I didn't, I don't know if I've seen it since. I know it's happened since, but it's so rare to get one of these in sf.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And that was a company wide hit.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

That's almost unheard of. To send five ODAs out simultaneously to, to hit, to hit targets under, under one operation. That's right. And we're staying in Saddam's palace.

[B]

Yep, Staying Saddam's palace.

[A]

And that's, and that's. I, I'd met you before, before I left. I knew who you were. We were far from, from friends.

[B]

I mean.

[A]

All right, I think I told you this story. The, the first person I saw was your Ranger school buddy. You said his first name Already?

[B]

Yep.

[A]

Mark.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

I was in their vehicle first, moving. Moving to Saddam's palace. And he goes, Because I had already gone with them to South America and had a relationship with that team. And he goes, hey, if you want, I mean, we got your stuff ready. You can just. You can just come with us. And I said, well, I'm supposed. I'm supposed to go to 1 5. He's like, oh, yeah, you can. But if you want to stay with us, like, just, you know, you're your own man. If you want to come with us, I'll. I'll, I'll. I'll hash that out.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You want to talk about putting a new guy in a predicament, having. He was a very senior guy.

[B]

He's a team commander, too.

[A]

He's a team commander saying, no, just come with us. You like us, right? Like, we had a good time in South America. Why don't you just stay with us? And having to say, no, I really want to go to that team that I. That I don't know. Yeah, but I knew. But I knew I wanted to be on that team and, and had to disappoint him and say, you really. All right, you don't have to, like, that's. But that's what you want to do.

[B]

And, yeah, that's what Mark came from that team.

[A]

Came from that team.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so that's. That was my first night in Iraq. I met you guys at Saddam's palace. And we did a. We did a. I barely knew the plan, and. And we took off and hit several targets as a company Malha walla.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And that the, The. Even though it wasn't, you know, the. The sexiest of missions, a firefight type missions. Do you remember the, you know, the, the reason for that mission and, and the, and the aftermath of that mission?

[B]

I do. So it was. The malawala was generally. It was kind of follow the money kind of piece. You know, you're looking for the ledgers, and the ledgers kind of dictate where the money went and who got the money across Europe kind of piece.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And so that's what we're after and part of that whole operation. And like, I don't even know. You always talk. Sometimes you kind of wonder how my crossing the line on clearance wise kind of thing. Don't know what it is a long time ago now, so you assume it's. It's probably coming on. But we would do hits in order, and we would secure the objective, secure the bad guy. But what was going on Was there was a secondary thing going on tracking wise. So we would take the bad guy out and then we release everybody for particular reasons in order to be able to follow them and see how they're moving and who they're talking to at that point kind of piece. And that's where we shut down all of generally the money laundering, the money, moving through Europe for all these terrorist training camps and all that kind of stuff for a short period because you know they always, they're come back, right?

[A]

That was, that was the first time I really got to see the other side of special Operations, which there's, there's always the cool side, right, of firefights, high value targets. But high value targets, leadership can be replaced a lot easier than money can and wars stop when the funding stops.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And to see, to see us go after what, what was intellectually a much better target set and the, and the secondary and tertiary effects of what we did that day far outweighed fighting in the streets of, of Iraq.

[B]

And that's, that's the thing that people don't. I think that's what happened with the generations of war of, of of you know, SF and Rangers and well, it's mainly SF and Delta kind of thing. Primarily SF I think really comes down to it is that CQB hitting hard targets with that. That's just a small part Special operations. Truly what you really look at, look at the, in depth of what these guys go, they gotta go in. It's doing the CTR stuff, it's doing the plain close stuff, it's doing all the Blackbird stuff. And that truly is special operations kind of thing. Everybody does CQB. Now there are people who are very good at cqb. That is their job, hostage rescue kind of stuff. But everybody does CQB be, Everybody wants to go do that, but they don't realize that all the other real true special operations stuff and that goes back to the OSS days and all that kind of stuff, you know, that's true special operations. So that's where the term operator comes from, was the OSSA's, you know, War Two thing.

[A]

And, and you were a very aggressive team sergeant, which is why I, I wanted to go to that team. I knew, I assumed, but it was a, it was a safe assumption based off your personality that we were, we were going to get after it. But that, that was something else that you were very good at as a team sergeant and say yes we can. We will hit targets and we will kick down doors and that is that Is a piece of it.

[B]

That's right.

[A]

But our ASO cell, our intel cell, you also gave us a lot of. Of leeway and allowed us to do a lot of special operations things, plain clothes.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you. You did a very good job holistically, as an oda, saying, we're going to do everything well. Not we're gonna do this, we're gonna do everything well.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And we're still gonna. Not a lot of teams trained in country. Sometimes it's just go time we train. We trained really hard in country as well. We worked out really hard. We. Those were not. They were fun trips, but they were long days of either hitting targets, continue to train, hit targets, or get in better physical shape.

[B]

As it goes back to the thing. Always proving your fighting position. Right. You should be. If you're not in targets, you're training, you know, especially medical. Wise man. I was like, hey, driver down. You know what you. Stuff like that is you got to get on because it's easy to get lost, you know, and all the stuff. And suddenly when something really goes bad like that is, hey, we got to get back on it kind of thing. If you don't train for it and maintain that training, it's just, you know, even though you're in war, you still got to maintain some training going on. You got to do your ncrs. You got to.

[A]

Yeah, well, not just that. I mean, you say that a little bit in. Jess. There's something else that. That I remember that. That you did really well, that I think people with. With swagger and an overconfidence can. Can overlook. And that's the. We got it. Don't worry about the contingencies. We got it. Don't worry. We're gonna put these snipers and they're gonna. They're gonna hang it all out there. But this is the qrf. We've seen it a bunch. But the QRF isn't really the QRF because you have over overconfidence in your guys or your abilities. Anytime we put guys out there to let it all hang out. As annoying as it is for the US Back in the rear, when they called and they're compromised. Yeah. And they did. We were in those vehicles in minutes, and we went and got our guys.

[B]

Yep. That's true.

[A]

We were always prepared for everything.

[B]

That's just kind of the whole thing manages, you know, once you come back, you're resetting. Right. It's just always being ready to go when it's time to go, and that's. And Then that came later on with my leadership wise too. It came back to look into those teams. Who are the teams ready to go? And it came down if they can handle the small details, they can handle the big problems kind of thing in the details, and that's where the people don't understand that too, is that there are certain teams you let go because you're not worried about their fire and forget they're going to handle themselves. You trust them, they know what they're going to do. And there's other teams you kind of keep closer to the flagpole kind of piece, you know, like, but, you know, 15 was always that team like, man, fire and forget.

[A]

They're gonna go get, make it done fire and forget. Those guys, the Halo team. Let's, let's, let's, let's, let's keep them a little low. Not our Halo team per se. Just any particular Halo team that wasn't, that wasn't putting an ODA number to it.

[B]

Oh, man, calls about this later, guys mocking us.

[A]

So we went from that deployment, you know, deployments down the road, you and you, you continued to move up. Now you look like you're 14.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you're, and you're, and you're a company sergeant major. Yeah. And in charge. In charge of six. We had six ODAs at that time, and now we're back in Afghanistan. Some people are going to say you gave us the commando mission because we were your favorite. But, but we know 100. We earned that mission because we were the best. I, I know that. I do. I, I, I know you wanted to give us that mission, and I know you would not have given us that mission if we weren't the best.

[B]

And that, that's exactly it, man. There's no doubt about it. You know, of course you want to get your team, you know, if the team wasn't worthy of it because it came down to it, you would embarrass me, you know, and I want you to embarrass me, you know, but, but it did come down to it. It's like the team earned it maybe. Like, oh, it's your old team goes now, man, a team during it, man, they are still, they're still that same team. They're out there driving or they're hard and they want to get at it and, but they want to get at it in a smart way. They're not going to do stupid things, you know, they're going to make those right decision when the right decision has to be made.

[A]

And in 20th group, it is unique. You can't, you can't really force anyone to promote to some degree. And what I mean by that is it's a good thing, it's a bad thing. We've had team sergeants have been team sergeants for five years, six years, seven years, eight years. I don't think it's out of the realm of possible. We've had some long tenured team sergeants for sure without having to put an exact number to it. I believe you could have been a team sergeant continuing to our next Afghanistan rotation, but you decided to move up. Obviously that gave Rick an opportunity to be team sergeant. But why, why did you want to be. Whether you wanted. Why. I don't want to put words, you know, and say that you wanted to be the company sergeant Major. Maybe you did, maybe you didn't. Why take the next step when you could have stayed on the team and had fun is what I'm saying. I don't, I don't mean that to sound bad, but I think you understand the question I'm asking you.

[B]

I do. And there's kind of two reasons. You, you have to know when you're holding people up, you know, you've got to move forward or get out kind of thing. Yeah, I could have had fun. You could have left you stay in the team, but it was time to allow the other guys to move up. You don't want to be that guy on the team too long because, you know, see, what is it, you know, you want to burn out or fade away kind of thing. Right. You know, kind of, you know, and it's the same. It was that time. So the opportunity came up and in my mind is the next step for me to take the swagger of 1:5, take it to the next level, to try to create more swagger across the company. Swagger. That was the kind of, the key to how do we go and build from there, you know?

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

So that's where, that's where my decision came to that piece.

[A]

It's. There are people that complain about leadership, and it kills me. I go around the country, you know, training SWAT teams now. Yeah. And, and I get it. But to some degree, my answer is always this with, if you can, you can complain about leadership or you can become leadership. And I don't know who the next company sergeant major would have been that you were in contention with if you didn't put, you know.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

If you didn't put your hat in the ring, I don't know who it would have Been we as a company were very happy because you were unknown quantity.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But we're glad you did it because you could have just stayed keeping 15 good. And like I said, but now you can affect six different teams. And if good guys don't leave to take next leadership positions, then who's going to.

[B]

Someone who's not good. Yeah.

[A]

Someone who usually it's someone who shouldn't. Usually it's someone who's chasing leadership and power rather than reluctantly saying, someone's got to do it, I'll do it. And I respected you a lot for that as well. And when you say you took the culture of 1:5 and you brought it to the company, I don't have to remind you, but the stats absolutely prove that that National Guard company sent five or six operators to the Delta Force in a matter of. A matter of a couple years.

[B]

12.

[A]

How many?

[B]

We sent 12 guys.

[A]

12 guys through a. Now, some of them went to support positions.

[B]

Some of the supporters.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But the majority of them went.

[B]

Majority became operators.

[A]

Became operators. We. There was a time the unit asked us and they said, hey, what is going on with a 320? Why, why. Why have they sent us the. Not just the most amount of people, but the highest rate? It's not. It's one thing to send a lot of people, but you sent 30 guys.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And so we were playing with the numbers a little bit.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I think everyone we sent. Except one that I can think of, I'll tell you his name.

[B]

Another one. Yeah.

[A]

Neil would say Neil's for one. But one or two. Didn't. Didn't get a job at the unit.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Which is just insane numbers. It's insane numbers. And not to just sit here, continue to flatter you. But that's. Those are. That's statistics.

[B]

You know, we were pretty happy with that. Like I said we would. They'd call us and get a, you know, hey, can we send down a recruiter to talk to you guys personally kind of thing down there, kind of thing. Right. Sure can. Yeah.

[A]

You know, at some point we're like, you can't have all my good guys.

[B]

Still got some deployments coming up, guys, you know. Right. Appreciate calling, but. Come on. But actually, I would catch shit for that later on too, from higher commands. Hey, man, you're pushing guys out of the unit and go, well, they're, they're going a good place, man. So.

[A]

I know. Good.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And I appreciate that you. You supported me as. As much as anyone could have supported me for. To take my Next step. I always say there's people who give people a hard time just overtly. And there's people who give people a hard time, more covertly, if you will, where they just shame them into staying and be like, yeah, you should probably do that. But, you know, we got one more trip, and I'd really like you on this next trip. And you don't know when that window is going to close. Yep, I wanted to go. And. And you. You did everything in your power to allow me to be ready to go and allow me to go when I wanted to go.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Otherwise, said you don't know when that. When that window closes.

[B]

Y. So thank you, man. It's all about windows, man.

[A]

Appreciate you for that. From the. The Company Sergeant Major side, just one more story I just want to share with you. It's. You come on on target with us once, and of course, we always wanted you out on target, but. But you. You knew better, and you did the right thing and. And you rarely came out on target with us, but it's still your job to come out on target every now and again and see what's going on for yourself. And you came out. Of course, we were all looking a little bit. Because the dynamics of this is a little different.

[B]

Operation Grinch.

[A]

Yes. Not only are you the boss, the Company Sergeant Major, but in this dynamic, you're a guest on this mission. And who's really running the mission is the team sergeant. Yet this also used to be your team. And you were the team sergeant of this mission, and you're the company Sergeant Major. And we're all deep down kind of looking like, all right, this is gonna be fun. Cause Sean's our boy. So glad he's here. How's this gonna work out?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And what was one of the first things you told Rick when you hit the ground or maybe even before you left?

[B]

I can't even remember, man.

[A]

It was the talk that you said, hey, I just wanna let you know, this is. This is my role here.

[B]

Yeah, it's your team. I'm just, you know, I'm a guy in the background, manager, team running kind of thing, you know, until I tell you not to. I didn't say that. I didn't say that.

[A]

Yeah, but you did. You. You again, it just. It just goes to your character. You let us run amok on that mission, and even though you were the boss and you could have pulled any string you wanted to in any time, you were. You were just a. You were just a great. Where do you need me? Guys.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And it's always weird. At that time, I was a senior guy on the team, but I knew if I, if I needed you to pull security over there, that, hey, then Sean, just go pull security over there. And that was, that was really cool to see you adapt to that.

[B]

It was that mission. I remember once we hit, you know, you guys doing your thing and I always, the problem is too, you know, you, adventure off, you get caught up in the moment. The next thing I know, I'm like three or four buildings away with some rando and I got to get back to you guys. Like, I have a goddamn starter made it. And I remember when we, we hunkered down for the night, I went to sleep and I woke up the next morning and apparently there was a gunfight. We had an AC130 drop. And I didn't hear any of this stuff. I was out hear any of that, man. The C130 did a low resupply drop for you guys. And I was like, I didn't hear any of that, Stone. I was out.

[A]

That was the mission. That was a really cool mission that as we're getting as the helos are, are inbound from a pretty far away distance, but they're, they're coming, they're like 30 minutes away. And we get last second intel given to us and like, hey, just so you know, there's a high value target. Yep, like a kilometer away from you guys, like right now. And it, it was a hard decision because you can go when the hilos are inbound. Like, it's a lot to push them away. Like you're, you're continuing to go this, maybe that's just something we go for and do for another day, but yeah, that, that isn't, that is an option to do that. But Rick, who, who is the new team sergeant, looked at it, called the boys in, said, hey, this is, I was the echo. So I had the, the combo. So I got, I got the information first. And of course, you know me, I'm always like, we can do it, we can do it, we can do it. And Rick, and Rick was really good about. He was very even keel. He's like, yeah, I know you, you say we can do it, Brent, but can we really do it? Hold on, give me a second. And we, you know, the. We, we talked him into it to some degree, but he said yes because he knew we could do it. And we did. We did an all out sprint for about three quarters of a mile with a skeleton crew and went and hit that target grabbed the guy. By the time we got back, sprinting back another three quarters of a mile in full kit and, and the, and the birds were coming in, just about ready to flare.

[B]

Yep.

[A]

And we get everybody in there and we hit, we hit that bird completely, completely, completely exhausted, tired really.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But, but we could do it. And, and we did it. And it's not to boost our own self, you know, but we could do that. We could physically do that because we've proven we can do that and that's the type of physical condition we, we were in and could do. And I don't think every team could have done that or should have done that.

[B]

No, I agree. Yeah. And it's, the problem is time is ticking. Right. So it's like, don't hesitate. If you're going to do it, do it right. Go. You know, you know?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You got the right people in the team to make a right decision. Go. You know, pick your fastest guys, enough guys for your security and hit the target, man. Go. Yeah.

[A]

Yeah, I, I do believe I did a lot of time sensitive targets, you know, later on that was my job. That has got to be to this day the, the from flash to bang.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

The quickest we've ever got. Intel beta player to hit a target and came back. There's no way you could do it faster than that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

After that I ended up leaving and, and going to the unit. But you, you continued after that. You didn't stop at company sergeant major. You went to go be the battalion sergeant major for 20th group. How, how different was that? Because I feel like when at the, at a company level you're still with, you're kind of still with the boys, do you feel like that's when the, the politics really hit hard and you really feel separated at a battalion level?

[B]

Yes. The beginning of it, you do because you don't have necessarily the, the say, the quality of people, but there's, I mean, a lot of good people up there, man. But you just don't have necessarily the same people you've been working with kind of thing. And their mentality may be a little different than your mentality kind of piece, you know, so. And leadership always changes, man. You have, no matter what you do, people like, oh, I had a bad tour, a bad leadership man. Everybody has one dude, you know, doesn't mean get out. You just, you know you're going to have good ones. He's got to rotate through it and so you're going to have those issues. So when you got to Battalion, you know, it was a little different, you know, from the former CSM and me coming in, you know, so he, to be honest, he still had some of his. His almost minions that say up there kind of thing.

[A]

Right.

[B]

You know, that I had to kind of deal with. Kind of. Because it seemed like they were undermining me at times things, you know, and it's like, you know, and that wasn't what I was trying to do, you know, so it was.

[A]

I don't mean it in the literal sense, but. But at some point, is that. Does it start. Does it start feeling lonely? It. I mean, like, lonely because you're not surrounded by your boys. You're not surrounded by five or six team sergeants you can depend on.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Do you feel like it's. It starts to feel a little more. A little more lonely at the top?

[B]

It does. A little more lonely at top. You know, and like I said, you don't have the guys you're used to counting on or, you know, their thought process, you know, what fire forget kind of thing, you know, and you're suddenly a battalion level. And a lot of guys, the battalion levels are. Be honest with you. Guys that weren't doing well at teams or something, so now they're at the battalion level pulling a staff position or something like that.

[A]

Right.

[B]

You know, and so you got to go deal with that. Not all of them like that. We got a good guys up there too. But there are definitely a sprinkling of people that they have their own agenda, let's say, and their agenda is sometimes undermining your agenda. And you're the CSM kind of thing, you know, and it's kind of like this is getting annoying. Yeah.

[A]

Is there something you remember fighting with or pushing hard at battalion when you're like, I. I had no. Or. Or something you had to deal with that was like this. All right, this is new to battalion level. I don't even know this was as important as it was. Or. I can't believe I'm having to fight this fight. This. This. This should be easier at a company level or team sergeant level. I didn't even know these. These were the fights that. That are being had.

[B]

I'm sure they were. I'm just trying to think of what. What they were. But you start seeing a lot more because like I said, as the wars went on, it was more politics now. Right. So now it was a who's going to get the next deployment, who's going to next fight, and what it takes to get that next Fight kind of thing, you know, and that was always some kind of a weird thing, you know, but it always came back to. And then we mentioned earlier, because it's about the details. If the battalion and so forth can handle the details, you know, then you can handle the big things, you know, handle the little things. You can handle the big things. And start to see that when all the numbers come across from across all the companies and teams, you know, what they're missing, what's ready to go kind of thing, it's like, man, we've got to get this right. Because a lot of people were just going, hey, we just need to take care of the big things, you know, all these little things, admin things mainly that if these aren't right, you know, we're not moving forward. You know, that team is not moving forward kind of thing. And so trying to get on people going, what's going on with this? You know, and there's almost so much pressure you can put on people, you know, it's like, hey, and do the right thing without being an asshole. It's like, hey, we need to, we need to turn this up. You need to get this right or you're not going, your team's not going. You know, let's say we have like, I don't know, making something up right now. Hey, we have four teams going. We have six teams. You know, you're going to take the four teams that are dialed in and you start seeing all of back to amateurs talk tactics, professional stock logistics. You see much more that level, you know, understanding that kind of piece. What people don't understand is that so one third is the operator, two thirds are the supporting elements. And you have great supporting elements, but you can't do anything without that supporting animal. That operator cannot get to the ground and hit the objective without air. That two thirds, that element to help them out to get that objective, man. And luckily we had some. We get some great, great, great support guys, you know.

[A]

Yeah, we did.

[B]

I hate calm support guys. You know, they're. But they're, they're a support guy at the special opera SF level. That's. That's huge, you know. Yeah. Did a great job. You know, I could munford all those guys, man. Just did great jobs. But that was one thing you really saw more. You really had to dial in it what it took logistically to make things

[A]

happen at, at the end of your battalion. Sergeant Major time. Battalion command Sergeant Major time was, was there. Was there a time? You're like, maybe this is it. For me I've, I have the time I might retire or did you know you wanted to continue doing more things. You still had the fire there to, to move up and do more.

[B]

Yeah, the fire was still there and their positions were starting to move as you. Later on I would realize when I was so I was with the Rear Admiral Williams so I was his SEL in the Iraq Syria piece at the end 1920 and I was having a great conversation with him. He really wanted to pick up nsw, be the commander for NSW as a two star billet, you know. But everything especially at that command levels now, especially when you get that 06 and above, you start to realize that it's all about windows and timing and they look at the csm sels at that level and the generals at that level that they're all the same. Doesn't matter what you've done, you're all the same. So if you're taking, if you're in position over here and opposition of that, guess what, someone else is getting it. You're missing that slot. And that was kind of a hard reality because I saw leadership that no, they're not all the same. Not at all. No, they're not. Not at all. That one, two star should not be commanding, you know, guys on the ground, stuff like that. But they don't look at that level kind of thing, you know and that was kind of a, kind of heartbreaking in a little way. You know they weren't looking for, not even the right person. They're just looking, hey, he fits the, he fits the mold, put him in, you know, kind of thing. And I was like it's kind of disappointing to see that at certain levels.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

But they're always pretty good at having a, if you had a questionable commander, you had a good SEL or vice versa, you know. So it was kind of the yin and yang always kind of worked out well to be able to support each other and. But you saw, that's when you saw higher levels.

[A]

I understand why they do that and in my career that was, that was done to me and, and it's, I understand again, I understand why they do that but it's really not fair to the strong nco.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

To be paired up with a weaker counterpart. On paper it sounds really good but if, if there's a slight differentiate. Yeah, if there's a slight difference. Difference.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Between the two you can, those two can work together.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But if you have a really strong counterpart and a really weak counterpart, you're actually just. It's really just a recipe for disaster. And that's when people start moving offices and not talking to each other. And it's because you can't. It's. It's. It's very difficult. It's very difficult.

[B]

It is mostly when I had the command team, like most of the commanders I worked with very. Were very approachable and worked well with me, generally speaking. Had a few that were questionable. But a lot of a conversation we had was that when him and I went to the commander and I went to a room, no matter what a decision went to, you know, we would come out, there'd be no light between us. You know, we would stick with that decision kind of thing. Walking out. And that was key, you know, even though there was a few times that got changed a few times. And I was just like, we talked about this. I don't understand why something's changing now. You know, it's his prerogative as the commander to do that.

[A]

You know, there's been a culture shift throughout the years of. Of the G. W.A.T. and there was a lot of good shifts. There's a lot of good shifts tactically, There's a lot of good shifts culturally that, hey, we're not playing army anymore. You better be. You better be ready to get called up.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But I don't know when the shift exactly changed, to put a finger on it, but I know you saw it as well, and the NCO Corps got gutted a little bit as far as who they are and what they bring as a counterpart. What I mean by that is I've seen just too many times the officer walk around as he's the boss and he's the man, and it's almost like his sergeant major counterpart was just there to just do his bidding rather than to advise him.

[B]

And that's true. And that really comes back to that commander. And when I went to a meeting, whatever it was, with the kind of terrorism guys in Iraq, kind of peace me and the commander, I was always there. You know, he would make sure that I was there every time with him. I saw other ones at higher levels that CSM or SEL was sitting out there in the lobby while he was in there talking that his counterpart commander inside there. And I was like that. And that is. That's on the fault of that commander. He should be like, he needs to be in here. Especially just this one too. Too much. That guy. He was. He was actually former 5th Group Commander, 5th Group, CSM. And that guy had a world of knowledge, you know, and you Wanted that guy in that room because he had been through this so many times and that 12 star that had him sitting at the lobby and I was just like, that is the wrong answer.

[A]

Right.

[B]

That guy needs to be in that room with you because he has so much history on the ground in this country that that guy did not. He may had experience in the air.

[A]

Right.

[B]

That guy. So it was interesting to see that. But you're right. They were gutting it and not taking advantage for what it should be. The, the, the greatest asset to any commander is the sel. That is the greatest advisor he's going to have.

[A]

Yeah. So at the end of your career, the combat operations in Iraq have changed. Of course, ISIS is now the focus. It's more of a northern focus. There's not a lot of combat operations offensively going on in Baghdad. It's just changed. Generally speaking. That doesn't mean everything was safe there all the time. I think the Soleimani airstrike stirred up some things for you while, while you were there. Yeah, tell me about that one.

[B]

So that was. Man, that's a whole. I think it's a whole podcast in that one. It was interesting to see at the end of the careers, obviously, when you get command levels, you're. You get bored at times. You know, the boys are out running. You know, you want to be outrun a little bit and it gets kind of boring at times. You're just still overseeing everything kind of thing. Go to cool meetings, do this and this, you know. But when what happened was that what led up to actually with the embassy attack in Baghdad during that time period was that we had one of my interpreter, one of our terps got killed from a bombing, not a bombing, but a rocket attack on one of the bases in Iraq. And they've been leading up this. We've been getting a lot of rockets, a lot of stuff going on, kind of piece of. So we. I flew down to. Back down to Kuwait to do the ramp service, but I knew that night we were going to do a hit on the border of Iraq and Syria, one of the camps there. So. But once that hit, I said I knew we had to get back. Once I got back that next morning was that's when Qatar, Hezbollah, I went to the roof. Matter of fact, I had my Marine on. The Marine comm guy on the roof. He's like, hey, csm, something weird's going on up here, you know. So we rolled up to the top of their roof, the blue dome up there. And man. So there's a, there's a separation between the dod, Department of Defense and Department of State. Right. It's a single road, right. You have the embassy over here and you got the government over here, but that road is blocked off. Only people can ride with our DOS or DOD going back and forth kind of piece. But I get up to the roof and I look over and I see a caravan of Qatar Hezbollah flags and AK47 vehicles coming right down that road. And I was like, yeah. And I'm sitting up there, this is my secondary you know, kind of thing. And it's. The distance was very short, you know, but they came in, they, they attacked the US Embassy at that point. But it was, it wasn't like they weren't shooting. There's all Molotov cocktails, rocks, all that kind of stuff a lot had going on. They weren't going against the DoD side, they're going against the DoS side. So we had to get everybody out of there. We're getting the ambassador out and there's all kinds of stuff going on. Get Exfield and everybody out of there and just kept rolling, rolling on. But there was a lot of, a lot of senior Iraqis in that crowd that government wise that were throwing rocks to are part of that crowd kind of piece, you know, and that elevated to say to a point where the, you know, potus, you know, number one target was Soleimani. Yeah. So that, and a couple of nights into it, trying to think, I got bit by the dog. Leading up to that, I had to get rabies shots trying to get everybody out. It was a whole, there's a lot of stories from that whole time period. Coalition stealing food from inside the compounds. It was just ridiculous. It was an absolutely shit show. But we were maintaining our part kind of piece, you know, and. But then when the Soleimani piece happened, you know, that night, that evening, because POTUS exit. Hey, got number one target executed. Number one target, Portis was. Solomon was executed that early that morning. And then that just changed. Like we're waiting for the ballistic missile attack, ground assault, you know, it really led into a lot more than I'm saying on this thing. But it was a huge amount of 82nd came in. Remember that? They brought the deployed 82nd in. Next thing you know I got a platoon of 82nd guys. What do I put you guys kind of thing. So I literally went from the CSM SEL position to I'm a platoon start again, you know, and running these guys around looking for fighting positions and setting, getting ready for the Big fight kind of thing, too. Yeah, yeah.

[A]

So it's crazy because during that time frame, the only thing you hear about is the Soleimani strike, which was great. Should have. Should have happened a long time ago. That guy's. That guy had it coming for a while. We just love him or hate him, but we finally just had a president in charge that had the guts to do what needed to be done on that one. But I don't think anyone heard other than a couple. A couple random retaliatory strikes back that didn't really do much damage. And, And I get it on the news, that's about all that's worth reporting to them. But the ground truth and the chaos that followed is. Was just. Yeah, quite different.

[B]

It was quite, quite different, man. They had seven sorties of ballistic missiles. You know, it was. It was game on at that point, you know, and so I remember. So we, we had. I had stayed on. So the commander asked me if I would stay on to get everybody out and then to do the final, you know, elimination of the building kind of thing. And that biggest thing was post security, get everybody out of here, fly them out, and then we would figure out our own way out kind of thing. So we held. I held 20 guys back up. I asked them to volunteer. They all volunteer to stay. There weren't very many soft guys because there weren't any soft guys in there. It was all staff, generally speaking, you know.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So this is all maybe had like four or five soft guys, and the rest were all staff, you know, and. But good staff, man. I had. My. My Jag was there. He was on the roof ready to go, and just all were there. But yeah, once we got everybody out of there, people don't realize we call ourselves Combat Task Force Combat Hippo. That was our call sign. I was like, you know, why not? I remember we're cooking steaks, you know, and we found some beers, and we knew that, hey, this is about to get it on. We're the last 20 left. And. And the objective was too, is like. And obviously a lot more happened in between. I mean, when people were getting birds, we took all their ammo. They're only allowed to leave one mag a piece because we didn't have hardly any ammo. Our. Our. Our 50 cals had two cans. Our Mark 19s had two cans. We had no grease for the Mark 19s. We had to get our guys got grease off the vehicles to use for the rail system to the mark 19s. People don't realize how down. So we kept everybody's ammunition. We kept all the food and water. We gathered up in a central location. We looked for all granola bars, all waters, all that stuff. Some people left. They had to leave all their stuff so that we had something to survive on because there was nothing coming in.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

You know, so we had to collect all that stuff up. We had moved all of the. Even prior to this, man, we had set up all the. The ammo cans, you know, with loaded magazines, grenades, all this stuff in central locations so you can get to them. They were locking them up because they were afraid that Joe Soldier would take the grenades and stuff. And so I was like, it kind of ruins the point if you're locking them up. I can't get to them to be able to get the gunfight, you know?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And we had to cut the rails on top of the top of the building because to get our wounded off the top, we couldn't get them down with the rails, so we had to cut all the rails short in order to carry those guys down.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And we were even setting up a zip line so we could hook the guys in the bags and zip them down. When it came down to it, you know, it was all preparation for this shit show that was about to happen.

[A]

You think those guys that. That. That mob, that Hezbollah mob that was, you know, coming down and destroying things, you think if they knew how. What a weak target that. That you guys were.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You. You think they. They would have. They would have pushed harder on you?

[B]

I think they would have. I think they would have turned and maybe moved that direction. They don't realize that. I mean, even the coalition we had there, man, it was just. It was. It was just. Like I said, man, it was. When you see it and you're like, you can't believe what's going on, like, even stealing of the food and stuff, you're like, this is ridiculous. You know, we had to have the base commander. He was actually an SF guy, a colonel, you know, he had to put guards on the food so people weren't stealing the food, you know, and our location is secure and different, you know, still on the main Triangle Base, but we're secured. Special op compound kind of thing, you know, headquarters, you know, and it was so. To see this stuff and. But the funny part was you were like, well, how are you getting out of there? How's your 20 guys getting out? So I separate 20 people. Say I can get 20 people in a CH47, or I can divide it up into, like, you know, how many people can get a helicopter? Always one more. One more. That's right.

[A]

Oh, while you're telling that story, just, it just reminds me of the same story you said earlier about you're in the team, you ain't the team room anymore. And now, now you're up here dealing with all this outside of, of your normal known environment, and you got to think to yourself, I'm not in the team room anymore.

[B]

And, and it was, it was funny because we had, you know, the Australians, their soft guys are with us too, and staff, you know, and they're really good dudes, but they're. How they set things up were different than we, right? So I said, hey, get to the roof. Go ahead and set up fighting positions, 12 o', clock, 6 o'. Clock. You know, wheel, you know, you know, like a patrol base kind of thing. You know, I get up there and they're, and I, I didn't say that to them. I should have given better guides. I get up there and they're all colors. Like, there's different colors around. Like, I don't know what's going on here. He goes, well, this is the color blue. This is. Well, like, no, no, no, we need 12 o'. Clock. I don't want colors. I just need to know a clockwise.

[A]

Now we got to remember what colors in what direction, you know, but.

[B]

And that was kind of. And then, you know, just, we actually had to go through too, with, I took actually my, my, the boat guy, Naval special warfare boat guy. He was really good on weapons. And I had him pull up and I had to teach, have him to teach people on the 240, the mark 1950 CAL. A quick overview to get these guys dialed in. If they had to take over that weapon. You need to know what you're doing kind of thing, you know.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So. But it was, it was very, very interesting time period, you know. And then I had, I busted my ankle really bad, so I had to tape it up. And so when it was all said and done, you know, I, I, you know, 24 hours later, whenever went down, you know, I was sitting in, in Kuwait in Starbucks having a star. You know, I got a coffee and I'm still nasty and I've got tape wrapped around my foot. And some officers come looking at me like, you know, like, what are you doing? So you said, get the away.

[A]

Not now, buddy.

[B]

Not right now, man.

[A]

Well, at, at it, at least nobody cried.

[B]

Well, that's not true. Yeah. And it was, it goes back to that mentality, you know, when you're used to around a bunch of meat eater team guys. You know, there's no question about what's going on, right? Things got to get done. You're not worried about the stuff. But I remember when the first sort of ballistic missiles were coming in, we had people in the center of the building down below, kind of in this grave, this built up building, concrete building, and, and I said, hey, one minute out, I said, I said, turn your headlamps on so we can find your bodies. And his girl started crying.

[A]

There's no crying in combat.

[B]

I remember someone asking me that, why are we wearing headlamps? So I can find your body.

[A]

I love it. Sean, as, as I've stated earlier is one of the things I always appreciated about you. You, whether you like what you say or not, you just, you tell the truth. You're straight. You're a straight shooter. Well, after, after 31 years of service, you finally decide to retire. And you, we always, for all of us have, who have retired, we've all found the same thing is you're never going, you're, you're not going to replace it. You're not going to replace it. Those memories are memories and they'll always be fond memories and always be appreciative of it. But life goes on. There's the next chapter of life. Get busy. Do something. Find. I think of the word I'm looking for. So I did this out.

[B]

Find your purpose.

[A]

Yeah, that's a big word.

[B]

Purpose.

[A]

Yeah, find your purpose in life. How did, how did, how did you do that?

[B]

You know, that was kind of the. So when I retired, it was, you know, hey, I was, I was still with my first wife. Still am. And I had children late, so I had my son, he was six, you know, so it was kind of those things you're like, well, do you want to. There was an opportunity to go to D.C. and continue on, but the wife was going to be like, no, you're going to be a geo Bachelor in D.C. because I'm not leaving the beaches kind of thing, you know, and I understand. So it was 31 years. Like, you know what it's, look for your windows, look for your timing, timing's right kind of thing. And when I got out, I thought, you know, hey man, my purpose was going to be, you know, my son, you know, and raise him and so forth, like that kind of piece. But you realize that that can't be your sole purpose. Your son is going to start growing on his own and building his own way. You can give him guidance, you know, he's got school. So I ran a little political thing, running for little beach town mayor, didn't win kind of thing. But really where I found. Where I found purpose, where I found. And to me, it's all about indicators. Things show and things happen for reasons kind of thing. And I had gotten bourbons. I drank a lot of bourbons, a lot of IPAs and stuff. And I started to shift gears because I wanted to be able to spend more time surfing, skating, working out my son kind of thing. I still wanted a good drink. End of the day, I switched over to agave spirits. I started focus on tequila. I came to find a tequila as more of a false positive. What I mean by that, to be a cult tequila, you only have to have 51% agave. All the rest can be mixed out. You can add those and sugar, stuff like that.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Then one day, they say Mezcal found me, and I dove pretty hard into what's called Mezcal. There was a lot of. There's a lot of indicators, like I said, came to me. If you go and look to a bar, you'll see all these shiny tequilas and stuff like that in agave side of the house, you know, but in the back, there's that unconventional guy. There's that special operator kind of thing hidden back there. And that was always to me. And that. That just kind of brought more attention to me. With Mezcal, I dove more into it, the complexity of it, the purity of it, 100% agave, and just kind of fell more and more in love with it. And then I ended up going down to Mexico before I really started the brand. And it's kind of like that SF way. I went and met a maestro, Mescalero, who's now my maestro. So he's my master, my teacher. And I saw how they'd done it, how they did it all by hand. There was no shortcuts. The standards were the standards all the time. And that just. That was fine. That was my final piece right there. That did it. There's no machines, nothing. And I was like, man, this is where I need to be. So I made good rapport with the maestro. And the. He said to me, he goes, if you really want to understand Mezcal, come live with me and my family, and I will teach you artisanal Mezcal. And at the time, my friend was down there, and he says, man, that has never been offered to anyone, let alone gringo. Right? Yeah. And he says, you should do that. Six months later, I would find myself immersed in the culture of Zapoteco culture and Mitla Mexico, building my brand by working, literally, scooping horseshit as an apprentice. You went from that, that two star, one star, two star level sel, and now you're scooping horseshit back in. It shows you you never know where life's going to take you, you know?

[A]

Yeah, I love that about you because that's something else. I'm glad you, you, you brought that up and pouring that out. So many people leave the military, they don't, they don't want, they want to find a purpose, but they're not willing to do what it takes to do it. You left as a high, very high ranking special operations command sergeant major. I left as a Delta Force operator. You don't. At the end, some people will, some people will. But it depends what you want to do. It doesn't mean you're just going to jump right over into the equivalent of what you spent 30 years doing. Why would you. If you're going to start a business and you want it to survive, it has. It's going to start at a, at a lower level and you're going to do everything. You don't have all these assistants anymore. No one works for you. You're the social media manager. You're, you're, you're the, you're this, you're the cfo. You're the cfo, you're the CEO. You're, you're, you're everything for this company. And they're just not willing to, to do what it takes and humble yourself, to start it all over to, to grow again.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And you did that.

[B]

I tell you one of the, the. When I retired, I was approached. You were at my retirement. I was approached by a friend, my brother's wife, and she said something to me. She goes, you know, what you did for 31 years doesn't define you. And I was insulted at the time. I go like, yeah, it does. I've done all this stuff. It defines me. It was three or four years later, now that I'm doing this, that it didn't define me. Because you're constantly redefining yourself. You're not rebuilding yourself, you're just redefining yourself. You're taking everything you've done in your career, you know, your lifetime to build that. What is that going to be, that next level. You're redefining yourself. So even when I'm down there, I know my long hair and stuff, I still surf and all that. Kind of stuff. But it's out there. Like you said, the only way your brand is going to move is if you push it. Ain't nobody coming to rescue, man. You got to go out there and do it. You got to make everything happen if you want it to survive.

[A]

Luckily, I don't have to anymore.

[B]

But

[A]

in our first year, first two years of frcc, I'm at farmers markets pedaling bags of coffee and be like, hey, here's our story. Here's what we do. Here's why we do it. And you have to or else. Or else your business will die on the vine if you're not willing to hustle and do anything to keep it alive. The no one remembers. Everyone knows now who Black Rifle is. It's so funny talking to those guys now where there were days when they first got their online store and they would just wait and watch to see if an order came through.

[B]

Get excited. Yeah.

[A]

They always see the end result. They have no idea what, what it took to, to get there. Years and years and years of hard work.

[B]

And it's, you know, it's, it's. And as you listen to talk more business people too, it really comes down to it's. It's relationships, man.

[A]

Isn't that the truth?

[B]

The relationships.

[A]

You build it.

[B]

Yeah. Relationships you have built over all your time and all that stuff. But the relationships can get you in a door. But you still got to prove yourself when you walk in that door. And I do it every time I'm Mezcal, I get in there and I prove myself. And like we're in like 45 locations now and building slowly, slow and steady. Because like I said, it's just you, you know, Right. It's just you. You got to get up in the morning, you got to plan your stuff out. If you want it to succeed, you. You have to be on it. You have to be on that pedal.

[A]

But even though you have to humble yourself a little bit and do those things, the truth is it's. And in a good way, it's not an even playing field. If anyone else wanted to start this with no story, they have a huge uphill battle to start. Yeah, those that 31 years of service, it's not all for nothing. You have an amazing story. People are still very appreciative of vets. And if I know if I want to go get a bottle of Mezcal and there's a random one and one that's veteran, owned by a retired command sergeant major, I'm picking that one. All Day long. And you earned that. You did. So you still the opportunities you will have, opportunities that the others don't have because you earned it. I do believe that. And those relationships that you've had or will have an opportunity to have because of what you earned.

[B]

That's true. I tell you, when I first started doing this, I really kept the military behind, quiet. And the, the reason being I, I treated the Mezcals. My Okanagave is one of my children. You know, it can't ride on what I did. Yeah, I can help it push forward relationships, but it has to, has to ride on its own. It has to grow on its own kind of piece because I can only take it. So my career can only take you so far. It has to grow beyond that kind of piece. So I kind of even on the bottle that has, you know, it has the SF crest and a dagger hidden in there kind of thing, you know, that was my, obviously my nod to special operations kind of thing. But I needed it to, to be able to grow on its own, not to be able to ride. And what I did in life, you

[A]

know, of course a balance.

[B]

It is a balance.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Of course you want to push it now and, but now as that grows more you find you always go back to what you know and the people are going to support you are the military guys and all that kind of stuff you do. At first you're trying to be quite a bit. The next thing you know, they're very supportive and like, you know, you're right. You take care of your own kind of thing. It comes back to it, you know. So it's been, it's been a heck of a ride. We've only been in the States a year, maybe a year and four months actually in the States and Mezcal itself. And then we have.

[A]

What you got there?

[B]

This right here, this is for you, my friend. This is a very special batch. I only made 250. Made 250 for America's birthday. But it's in collaboration with the Green Bray Foundation. It's a special batch. It's called Robin Sage. Yep. And it's a. It went through six months to make this happen.

[A]

Made from the tears of QCOR students.

[B]

I've collected them all. That's why I only have 250 bottles. But yeah, it's been like I said, six months to get all this leather pouches made in Mexico, everything designed. It's in collaboration with the Green Beret Foundation. You know, we get the pouch to you and it's it's pure leather, made in Mexico. But, you know, they get all this approved and done, people. Again, it goes right back. People don't understand that. Amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics to make this happen, you know, and get in the States. And the funny part was we released it at Soft Week in Tampa, you know, a month or so ago. Saw you there, and we had to do it. We're going to release it at Halo happy hour. Right. I had six months to make this happen. Right. And at 5:59. It launched at 6:00pm At 5:59pm the bottle showed up at the Halo hat. We finally got it in country and showed up and we're there last. Literally last minute, man.

[A]

Yeah, why not?

[B]

Why? It's like six months. It's always going to be the last time, you know, but yeah, we only made 250. Once they're gone, they're gone. And it's. And a portion of the proceeds goes back to the Green Brain Foundation. Take care of those who took care of you. You know, that was a key thing. So thank you, Brent, being a teammate and proud of you and what you've done and moving forward with Tier one. And I'm glad you could humor me by bringing me on the show.

[A]

Trust. Unfortunately, you got the. The younger version of me, so I, I got. I got more from you than you got from me. I guarantee you that. Sean. That's awesome. Where. Where, where can they. Where can they get this?

[B]

So you can get it right now you can only get it online. It's on okahanagave.com.

[A]

all right.

[B]

And there's a. Actually, we'll put the.

[A]

The.

[B]

The link in the description there in the side that you find is actually a. Where I wrote about why it is and what it took to get this kind of build a bottle up and then you kind of order it from down. Actually the. My. The place that my online ordering is actually here near Orlando kind of piece. And they push. Actually I visit them today, so they push it out from there.

[A]

How many. How many different flavors or bottles do you have?

[B]

So of the Robin Sage, only one. It's an ensemble of an espadine and a havali, but normally. Okay. On agave I have four. I have. What's it Angustifolio espadine. Again, a lot of people may not know these Mezcal is with tequila, you can only have one agave, blue agave and most of most tequilas. Not all of them. They're getting better now, are all industrial now. You have A lot of good small batch stuff being built old school style. But with Mezcal, I have over 20 agave plants I play with and they all distinctly different tastes. Okay. And what it is is open tub fermentation. That means once we crush it with the tone of the horse, we put it in the tub and add the water, spring water. It's a natural fermentation from the air. It gives natural fermentation. Whereas tequila, you have a foreign yeast like a champagne or sake yeast. A lot of time you use the fermentation from the air. So you're tasting the true agave and you're tasting the true fermentation from the area.

[A]

Well, I feel a taste testing coming on the garage and we'll find out what cigar it pairs well with here in just a little bit. And that way we can be, we can be in the. The right state of mind for the live. That's, that's, that's coming up. Before, before I let you go though, you do owe me one thing. And that's a funny story.

[B]

Okay, I'll tell you a funny story.

[A]

That was quick.

[B]

Yeah, I got this was coming. We got plenty of funny stories. I remember in, was it 10, 11, Afghanistan, your team was getting ready to push on a. We had a trigger base con up and you guys are getting ready to release on it. And you guys were in the planning bay and had all your kit all laid out kind of thing. When people don't see it, they seem sexy kind of. You know, guys are sleeping in the hallways because you're waiting for this thing to get launched. You know, birds are ready, they're not spun up yet until it gets triggered. And, and every time I'd walk in the room, the whole room would get quiet. You know, they'll look at me like, you're getting ready, we ready. I'm like, you know, hey guys, you know, update, blah, blah kind of thing. But there was an attack dog. You know, an attack dog is full of testosterone, man. It isn't a bomb sniffing dog, ain't a drug dog. It is an attack dog. And I remember went into you guys and I said, hey, it's time to get it on. You guys. Like, yes, get it on, get it. Well, Mark, the dog had pissed all over Mark's kit.

[A]

That's right. I remember that.

[B]

This is full testosterone attack dog piss, okay? And Mark throws it on and he's

[A]

like, what the hell?

[B]

Sweat is just reeking a piss. It's like, it's time to go, buddy. We're getting on the bird.

[A]

Hey, you can have different uniforms. Let me tell you what, you got one kid, you got one, you got one plate carrier for the most part that you take the battle with you.

[B]

And when he came back, cuz I had to go cuz man I was running. Every time I running it would hit and waft up my face the whole time.

[A]

The objectives man, and, and it couldn't have happened to a better person

[B]

cuz

[A]

Mark, Mark doesn't deal with that as, as well. He gets really frustrated at things but

[B]

God, so funny man.

[A]

That's a random one. When you started in I thought you're going to tell embarrassing story about me. But that was, that was a great one. I forgot about even when you started telling it, I didn't know what story you're telling and I completely forgot about the, the working dog Mark's kit.

[B]

I will tell one more. I'll tell Brent Tucker's Brent one, why not? This is one of my favorite ones. This is directly involved with me in this one. We hit a target outside of Baiji and we were doing sse, so sensitive site exploitation kind of piece, getting all the intel, yada yada kind of thing, collecting stuff. And you only have a certain amount of time you want to be on the ground and get out of there kind of piece. And I was on the far side of the compound and we had clear compound. We cleared that time and obviously sse. And I hear Brent comes over to the comms, he's like Sean, where are you? I was like, I'm over to far side, whatever. And I goes, I need you generally in the master bedroom, the far side. I go okay. And it sounded desperate and he needed me now so I hauled ass. When you're hauling ass man, there's all everywhere man. So you can't like just run down a hallway kind of thing. You know, you're trying to get to the far side. And I get to the far side of the compound and you know, I get to the room and I'm. I'm not sure what's going on. So kind of I'm pieing the door, I get up to the door and I'm pining the door coming around. And then there's Brent on the far side and he's got the dresser open in the closet and he's got, he's got two shirts and he's got like, I think it was a red Hawaiian shirt and a blue Hawaiian shirt. And he goes, what do you think? This one or this one? It was the bad guy's. Shirts

[A]

shopping in his closet.

[B]

I said. I said, I. I like the blue one because I'm taking the red one.

[A]

I remember that one. Oh, the shenanigans, they're. They're after. After Target Secure. The shenanigans on 15 were epic. They were epic. It was always. It was when it was go time, we were serious as can be, but when it was. But when it's time to have fun, no one had more fun than us. At the same time, no one took. No one took their job more serious than us. No one had more fun than us.

[B]

Work hard and play hard.

[A]

That's right. Sean, thank you so much for coming on. And now we got a live to get ready for.

[B]

Right on.

[A]

All right, let's do it. Thanks, guys.