Interviewer Brent (2:06)

Yeah.

Ex-Blackwater Contractor Jimmy Ryan (2:07)

You know, play on your little Nokia phone, the Snake game and just chill with the girls and drink. Sometimes, you know, they can't pay you a million dollars if you can't spend it the next day.

Interviewer Brent (2:16)

That's right. Because you're dead. Not the truth. So what, what was it about that? Because it seems like a A pretty good life. You're making good money you're wearing want to be at yet. You'd have to correct me if I'm wrong, but it wasn't enough because something made you rejoin and go to the seals, right?

Ex-Blackwater Contractor Jimmy Ryan (2:35)

Right. Well, I, I, I checked the freaking box in Blackwater for, for combat. I didn't have to prove myself to and what I mean by prove myself. Proving yourself doesn't necessarily have to be to other people. Proving yourself to me was like, no, do I have what it takes to step in the octagon and go all, all rounds and become a champion? And for me, that okay, am, am I a coward or, or am I, do I really have what it takes in battle to stick it out? And, and I, and I shined in that area in combat. So that made me feel like I had a superpower over all the, the smart kids. Okay, I may not be the smartest guy, but I'm gonna outshine him in balls and encourage in combat. So I had this big card and so I was real comfortable in war. And then I was dating a girl at the time who really said, jimmy, you know, you're an intellectual, you know, and she was a real smart girl. And I was like, nah, you got the wrong guy. I'm just a monkey, you know, but, but she said, no, you know, you, you need to work on these skills though. So she started teaching me how to write reports and how to write up my own men for medals. And so here I am in charge of a 30 man assault team. Not assaulters, like, like, you know, assaulters, of course, but assault team is in a quick reaction force in, in Blackwater which we called, you know, the QRF or Tactical Support Team and down and dirty man, in, in, in the war. But while we were doing that, as you know, we just talked about it's not enough. Right. And you see those little glimpse of hopes. I, I would see cag.

Interviewer Brent (4:11)

Yeah.

Ex-Blackwater Contractor Jimmy Ryan (4:12)

Operating in and out. They, you could see the little blackbirds.

Interviewer Brent (4:15)

Yeah.

Ex-Blackwater Contractor Jimmy Ryan (4:15)

And they, they would, that what, it wasn't seals. And because I, of course we work sometimes with the seals with their PSD teams with, can't remember the Bremer detail and, and the, the President at the time. But, but we, I would see these, the CAG operators and they're on the skids going in and out. And I was like, okay, there's this, this, this is badass, right? This is enough to. You could die and say, okay, I did some cool, but then there's that.

Interviewer Brent (4:41)

Yeah.

Ex-Blackwater Contractor Jimmy Ryan (4:41)

And, and I want to be. I want to do more than this. And they even had some elite like polarized with all these weird different names for guys that were being selected out of Blackwater to go do CIA OGA stuff.

Interviewer Brent (4:55)

Okay.

Ex-Blackwater Contractor Jimmy Ryan (4:56)

And I was, I was looking at that, but that didn't sound like my cup of tea, right? So I was like, I got to, I gotta go for that dream to do the. That type of thing.

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Interviewer Brent (6:03)

For those QRF teams, who, who would you guys QRF for? Right, the military, other PSD elements. You're QRfing yourselves. Who are you guys curfing?

Ex-Blackwater Contractor Jimmy Ryan (6:15)

QRF and ourselves as, as the primary duty. But as in everything. The war was new. It was developing all the time. And so we just developed into this 91 1ambulance ambulance force almost within the green zone. We were going around collecting body parts and from the rocket attacks, saving civilians, saving Iraqis contractors in the green zone at night, washing out the trucks of the blood and the pressure hoses, taking him to the hospital. And then we would get them prepped for the morning and then we would go on the real missions during the day and we would. And I think Eric Prince said it the best. He came and talked to us one day. He would visit the man camp every once in a while and he says, you know, I just had this, this. He went to this gala, this dinner where the Marine Corps general was in the army general. And they came and personally thanked, according to Prince, Eric Prince, they came and personally thanked him because they said, you know, you know, you guys, the, your quick reaction forces, part of the red cell are the ones that, that will go no matter what. We don't have to ask permission. So we were going and saving National Guard teams. We. I don't remember ever coming and rescuing a marine team. I don't remember them ever calling them all this. But we would go, even if we weren't invited. We would hear of a team. You know, we would hear of a team. We would hear of a team. Hey, man, we got a flat tire. We would overhear it. We would monitor the radios. Yeah, hey, they got a flat tire. If they're there for more than five minutes, let's start strolling over.

Interviewer Brent (7:45)

Right?

Ex-Blackwater Contractor Jimmy Ryan (7:46)

Because if, you know, if you're anywhere sitting in Baghdad, Iraq, they're moving on, you know, 4 to 08, you know, for five minutes or more, you're get your ass getting shot.

Interviewer Brent (7:54)

It's just a matter of time. Absolutely. I love that, and I love that story about it, because I don't. I don't know if. If you realized it or not, but. And I'm. I'm sure you've seen this, and you probably hate it. The idea of what mercenaries are and what they're doing over. And if. And it's Hollywood, I get it. But people take that Hollywood and they take it too far. Sometimes you look what. What a mercenary does during war, and it's just. It's ridiculous. It always paints him in a bad picture. Oh, it always paints with some cowboy that disregards all the rules and kill civilians at, you know, at will. And then they'll cover it up. Just horrible things. Everything you just described was amazing things and positive things that our contractors were doing over there.

Ex-Blackwater Contractor Jimmy Ryan (8:44)

Yeah. And what's crazy, Brent, is these guys literally were in the army Rangers in the Marines, like, days before Blackwater. And then they just. They basically put off. Took off the uniform.

Interviewer Brent (8:57)

Right.

Ex-Blackwater Contractor Jimmy Ryan (8:57)

You know, transfer to the same weapons, same kit. And now we're. And now we're just compiled on these teams called Raven, or Templar. Templar Knights, whatever you want to call it.

Interviewer Brent (9:07)

Right. Yeah, exactly. It's. It's not like they recruited criminals that were on a. That fresh out of jail. Okay. You want to come do criminal stuff over here? You recruited people, and you had to have a good. A good record when you got. You had to have, of course, a good. A good discharge when. When you got out. Yeah.

Ex-Blackwater Contractor Jimmy Ryan (9:29)

You had to have psychological examination, honorable discharge.

Interviewer Brent (9:32)

Right. So it's not like they were. They were good rangers when they were in, but then they just turned into bad guys.

Ex-Blackwater Contractor Jimmy Ryan (9:38)

People watch way too much Netflix. Yeah.

Interviewer Brent (9:40)

Yeah. So that's. I'm. I'm really glad you shared those stories, because I just wanted to spell those rumors because I'm not saying every American is good, but let me tell you. Let me tell you. America as a whole, and it's populace as a whole and our military and everything that connects to our military, including contractors who are former military. When they went overseas, 99.999% of them were good people and acted accordingly. Even in war.

Ex-Blackwater Contractor Jimmy Ryan (10:10)

Even in war. And there was no look when I was team leader and I even caught a guy. I caught a guy once, he was talking about. He was mad about a situation, so he's like, I'm gonna go smoke those. He said that. I said, hey, you're window. Or. Oh. He said like, window. You get a plane ticket tomorrow and your window are all like, if I hear anything else like that in this team, it's all, you're getting kicked out. So when we were accused of that later on, it really. It triggers you because you're like, that's. That wasn't me, man. I wasn't there to kill civilians. I wasn't this rogue guy. I literally would have done it for free. Brent.

Interviewer Brent (10:43)

Yeah. At one point, even with that story, you know, someone might go, aha. Look like there was someone there that just wanted to do it. But two things just want to point out to everyone that just heard that story. One, that's an emotional reaction, and that is understandable. It is very different between your initial emotional reaction of having to bury a dead teammate or hearing over the radio all these Americans that got ambushed and killed and. And you weren't able to do something about it and feeling like you should have and someone's going to have to pay the price. That's an emotional reaction completely. Okay.

Ex-Blackwater Contractor Jimmy Ryan (11:21)

Yeah.

Interviewer Brent (11:21)

But that's the response to emotional reaction where someone with a level head goes, hold on. Let's, you know, we. Let's look at the bigger picture here. And that's what happened in that.

Ex-Blackwater Contractor Jimmy Ryan (11:33)

In. That's the difference I saw in a lot of guys, Brent. You had the guys that were there, their buddy gets killed and they go, I'm going to get these. And then you have that.

Commercial Narrator 2 (11:43)

You.

Ex-Blackwater Contractor Jimmy Ryan (11:43)

Then you drink a little bit, you have some cigarettes, and you're like, okay. The next day you're like, okay, I'm not going to go bl. You know, go gun. Gun blazings on the. On the local football team in Iraq.

Interviewer Brent (11:52)

Right?

Ex-Blackwater Contractor Jimmy Ryan (11:53)

I'm going to. I'm going to. I'm. But I'm going to take it to the enemy.

Interviewer Brent (11:56)

That's right.

Ex-Blackwater Contractor Jimmy Ryan (11:56)

Right. Yeah. And so you. You did See a lot of that, those, those emotions come up, some, some tears and stuff, man out there, when a war, when a fellow warrior dies and you see that and, and you're covered in his blood and you have to visit him in the, his buddies in the hospital, whoever's in your team in the hospital, which we did a lot, A lot of my time in Blackwater was going back and forth to the Baghdad hospital visiting guys that were destroyed. And so you get anger. But for me, man, I always looked at it as a very even fight as far as like, you know, you know, I'm in his backyard. I would do the same thing if, if you were in my backyard, we would be making improvised explosives. If we didn't have a lot of the military capabilities and they were in our country, Americans would do some effed up stuff to defense. Can you imagine?

Interviewer Brent (12:47)

That's right. And you're absolutely right. And I had, I had the same, the same view.

Ex-Blackwater Contractor Jimmy Ryan (12:51)

Very like it was either me or him.

Interviewer Brent (12:53)

That's right.

Ex-Blackwater Contractor Jimmy Ryan (12:54)

No, no anger. No anger.

Interviewer Brent (12:56)

Yeah. The. So when, when you, you leave and it's, and it's, and it's with one goal in mind to go to the seals. You didn't leave to figure out life. Was there a little bit of that in between that and SEAL team, there was a reason.

Ex-Blackwater Contractor Jimmy Ryan (13:09)

Well, there, there, you know, in, unfortunately in my life and I really believe that God does this to me because I'm so damn stubborn. I will stay somewhere until I like go bankrupt, until I die, until I go to prison. I have to be forced out of situations. And I think we have a clip later on we're going to show. But, but there's a, a mat. There's. Our helicopters were getting shot down like every week. We had a, a Huey go down with a, with one of our awesome Blackwater pilots. My buddy was in there. It got rolled up. I sent, I was injured by a grenade. I sent a part of our element, our quick reaction force immediately there thinking they're going to die.

Interviewer Brent (13:51)

Yeah.

Ex-Blackwater Contractor Jimmy Ryan (13:52)

They come back from that. And then the next day is the, the infamous Baghdad's Bloody Sunday Nisar Square, which I'm the team leader of, which I, which I find myself having to make a call that would change the lives of many people, including myself, including imprisonment of others, until Trump pardoned them because the DOJ vehemently went after him. So that event with the shrapnel in my leg, I, they said, jimmy Ryan

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