← WETSU: a BattleshipNJ Podcast
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- [00:00]
Bill Brown
Foreign.
- [00:09]
Marshall Spivak
Man your battle stations. Welcome to wetsu, a Battleship New Jersey podcast. My name is Marshall Spivak and I'm honored and privileged to be the CEO of the Battleship New Jersey Museum of Memorial and the host of this podcast. We're joined today by a very special guest on board the Battleship New Jersey, Bill Brown. Bill served honorably in the United States Navy in 1990s and 2000s, graduating from Bud's Class 231 and serving on SEAL Team 8, including a deployment to Iraq. After retiring from the Navy, he went to Rutgers University and Law School and he served as president of the Veterans Alumni of Rutgers University. He's now a partner at the Parlatore Law Firm. His partner, Tim, is also a retired Navy Surface Warfare Officer and even got married right here on the Battleship New Jersey. Last but certainly not least, Bill is the founder, event chair and lead SEAL for the New York City SEAL Swim. Bill, welcome to the podcast and thanks very much for being here.
- [01:06]
Bill Brown
Marcel, it's an honor to be here and thank you for teaching our youth and about the Battleship New Jersey, the most decorated battleship in American history. Teaching our youth about patriotism, I think that's extremely important. Endeavors and briefing.
- [01:20]
Marshall Spivak
Thank you. That's exactly why we do what we do here. You joined the Navy, you went through buds, your Navy seal, first and foremost, thank you for your service between TV shows, movies. You know, BUDS gets a lot of, a lot of hype and a lot of screen time, but you are someone who lived it. Can you tell us your biggest takeaways and what it was like for you?
- [01:48]
Bill Brown
Yeah, my biggest takeaway is what one is the guys I serve with. Without a doubt. I think that's the greatest gift from being in the SEAL community. Really raised my expectations and boundaries that I had set for myself. Number one, gave me responsibility. Number two, I got to see the world. And number three, you know, when you work with a lot of talented and dedicated, you know, people, similar to kind of being in law school or at a really good law firm, it's absolutely gone. There's a certain stress to it. But at the same time, that stress is a gift because it's going to mold you and it's going to change you in real positive ways. So 100%, that's the greatest takeaway to being a SEAL. Another beautiful thing is the truth is I. I've seen some horror and the truth is I have helped hold some people, some terrorists can. So that is a beautiful thing and, and I'm very grateful, 100%.
- [03:01]
Marshall Spivak
Bill, you joined SEAL Team 8 prior to the attack on 9 11? Where were you when you heard the news? How quickly did you know we were about to go to war? And sort of. How did you sort of switch that mindset from, you know, we are under attack or at war from, you know, being. Joining. Joining the Navy, joining the SEAL community when, you know, we were at a time of peace?
- [03:25]
Bill Brown
It's kind of funny sometimes how fate kind of guides you. I was kind of born with a cleft palate, so I was kind of really. And even now, normally, and depending on the atmosphere, pretty low profile. My biggest fear was reading out loud in class and when I was going through training and SEAL qualification training. And then once I got into my SEAL team and I was going through some training there, they saw that I was kind of low profile a little bit. And one of the things they did was they actually made me a calm guy. And all my platoons, I was a comm guy. And to be sincere with you, the biggest weapon is the radio because no matter what the situation is, you know, you're calling in bigger weapons, you're calling for extracts. Like, you're giving intel, you're getting intel. And so one of the things that forced me to do is, number one, was before any training exercise or any op, there's always a complaint. And so initially I would have, at preset, I'd have to know the training exercise or the OP pretty thoroughly because I have to brief the different phases of the complaints to everybody. A lot of. A lot of tough, Tough love there. And the second thing was that I actually, afterwards, I had to give a debrief too. And it's kind of interesting because that type of similar experience later on in life. When I became a veterans advocate at an undergrad at Rutgers and I founded Veterans for Education, there used to be a state senator who became a congressman named John Adler. And me and John Adler became friends. And he was. He was a. He was a proponent of veterans. And, you know, there's a few times I got to appear on some press conferences with him. And that had an impact on me too, because that made me more comfortable in front of cameras. And one of the things I learned, and it's similar to being an attorney, is if I know the facts and I believe in it, I normally don't have a hard time expressing myself, but that started when I was a young SEAL and I was actually going through training for some outdated technology where we used to basically be kind of like Morse code, send out blueprints for floor plans, for different buildings, different structures. And I was going through that course and all the other comm guys in my seal team at Seal Team 8, a lot of the younger guys like me, we were in a similar type of course and a room similar to, to this, which is, it's pretty amazing where we are right now on the battleship New Jersey. But so I was going through that course and back then the guys did, a lot of the seals had beepers and I was, I was what you would call fng a new guy and, and I was with some other new guys in a course and the, in the instructors there, their beepers went off and then they came back and they told us to go to our platoon huts. Now each SEAL team is divided into, has a various number of platoons and we all have our little area, our space and we call that a platoon hut. So we went up, I went up to my platoon hut. And the way the SEAL workups are is the older guys come home, they'll either go to schools or they'll go on vacation. The younger guys, the new guys like me, we're not going on vacation. We're trying to pick up as many qualifications as we can. So we're taking various courses. I was taking this kind of comms course. So I go up there, there's a couple other new guys like me and then there's two older guys there and the, they got the TV on and you see that the, one of the planes hit one of the towers and we're all like. And then when, with the second one hit, there was no doubt that our life had changed. And of course the older guys, their beaver started going off and so it was, yeah, that was a life changing moment.
- [07:28]
Marshall Spivak
Well, we certainly appreciate good, good comms guys here on the battleship. You mentioned calling in for, you know, for the bigger guns and that was very often what happened here on the battleship. Weather isn't Marines in the jungle in Vietnam or you know, in, in Beirut. When the battleship was stationed off Beirut in Lebanon during the civil war there, that was very often getting those calls and delivering that firepower that was from the 16 inch guns and the 5 inch mounts. That was very often, you know, a big part of what the battleship did in combat. So we, we certainly appreciate good, good comms guys. Prior, after 9 11, you participated in a JTAC warm up bombing exercise of Navy air assets in Albania. This was right before the shock and awe campaign. Can you tell us sort of what you, what you witnessed there? What was that like? And if for whatever your Role in that was.
- [08:29]
Bill Brown
Sure, sure. So that was during my first SEAL deployment. And one of the things initially what we were doing is we were doing our primary objective was something they call VBSS visit board searching seas. And at the time they had a. Basically an embargo against Iraq. So different cargo ships going from A to B that got targeted. We would search and board. And so that was kind of the primary thing that we were doing out there. And we were basically hovering around the Mediterranean. And I was, we were working off a ship that's now decommissioned called the USS LaSalle. And it was basically, it was a command ship and it was like a, I believe an LSU that had been severely upgraded where the back that would, the backless ship that would go into the water was actually welded shut and it was actually command center. It was kind of interesting because some of the things that happened there. But they, they, they flew me on, on a helicopter to a aircraft carrier and then another helicopter and I met with, I got with some other SEAL communicators and that one of my calls at that time is I was a joint terminal air air control which basically. And I was a forward air ground controller and I was a spec op spotter. So I had basically, I was trained to call in airstrikes and Navy gunfire as well. But they flew us out to a bombing range and for about two weeks we were camped out there and they had some other seals like me and basically what they were doing, what I consider myself there was I was almost like a pitcher that's getting ready to go in like the warm up catcher that's warming up that pitcher. And so basically we're keeping these, these Navy air assets and these pilots warmed up and they would come in and they do live runs and, and some hot runs on this bombing range in Albania. And it was kind of interesting to be there because they had a lot of these like World War II pill boxes and things like that there. So assert there was some history there. But yeah, and I one of the things that was interesting after that because we spent about two weeks there tents doing that and they would come periodically and then what happened was I wounded up finding myself back in the USS LaSalle. And one of the things there that was kind of neat was right when shock and all happened. The battle group that we were with, I was a SEAL so I could go up on the deck and no one was going to bother bother us. And so I'm up on a deck and they were shooting these tomahawks into Iraq and One of the kind of cool things about it was the first part. It's all you can see. It reminds me of like shooting up a flare. You could see it. And it was kind of neat because they would shoot and then I could what. And I could see as like the ships next to me as the one that would shoot, let's say this one shot all of a sudden the one. The other ships by it were kind of. Because of the aftershock. It would kind of go back a little bit and it was kind of neat. And then they were like, they were like tagging like. And it was kind of cool because then I could go downstairs to this just joint command center that they had and they had all these screens up there. And it's something you would think kind of out of a movie.
- [12:05]
Marshall Spivak
Yeah.
- [12:06]
Bill Brown
And I could see where they were slack in different military targets, especially in Baghdad. And later on when I, when I, when I was in Iraq, I got to see like, they hit it pretty hard. And I think a lot of people, if you ever seen old, like black and white pictures of like burnout Berlin.
- [12:27]
Marshall Spivak
Yeah.
- [12:28]
Bill Brown
Or Frank, you know, Frankfurt. That's what it looked. That's what it looked like. Where you would have like the steel frames and the concrete behind it and a lot of rubble to some pretty massive buildings. And. And so I saw that in Baghdad and I spent some time in the job later on and that got hit pretty hard too.
- [12:47]
Marshall Spivak
You mentioned the La Salle, which I looked up and actually happened to be the flagship of the US 6 fleet at the time that you were on there. So as you were saying, a lot of command, probably some admirals and stuff on board, mentioned an aircraft carrier. You know, we're here on the battleship. What, what did you enjoy, not enjoy about any of your time in the Navy, having served on surface ships.
- [13:14]
Bill Brown
But, you know, one of the things right away that I never realized what real hard work was when I saw those sailors and guys in the hours in the engine room that would literally sometimes not see the light of day for a long time. And they're working like 12 hour shifts. Some of them are sharing racks and they are working. And so the number one thing, and I think that's a great skill set for men and women who join the military, especially if they're going to Navy. You're going to learn how to work. And I think that's one of the great things because it builds this sense of work ethic that you just become accustomed to. So one, I had a great deal, so there was no like bs, these men and women, they were young sailors, man, but they were busting their ass hard all the time, so I had a great deal of respect for them. The other things, it's, you know, it's a city. It's like a floating city out there. And I know like the first time I was an aircraft carrier, you know, I was a young, aggressive, you know, cocky seal, harmonious aircraft carrier. And we just got off, you know, we just landed and I like just start walking and then like, like, I don't know, 50 people start screaming at me because in the aircraft carry, like, you can't mess around. They got a catapult system, right. Like you can get decapitated real fast. And so, you know, I, one of the other things I realize is like, listen and follow directions real fast. And I think that's the right way to be.
- [14:53]
Marshall Spivak
Yeah, I mean, that perfectly describes the name of this podcast, wetsu, which was the motto of Captain Tucker, our last CEO. We eat this stuff up. Or something more vulgar than that. You know, doing hard work and doing it with a smile on your face certainly fits the bill of what you, you just said and certainly of being a Navy SEAL and of, of your community. You got your racing. You did a stint as part of the Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister's protective security detail.
- [15:25]
Bill Brown
That's right.
- [15:26]
Marshall Spivak
At that time, correct me if I'm wrong, seals were in charge of a lot of productive details for some of the top leaders of Iraq after the invasion and when the transitional coalition government was coming together. Was that something you were expecting to do before you got there? Did you enjoy it? And sort of, what was sort of the day in the life of protecting a, somebody of that magnitude in, in a war zone, and you previously said, you know, and trying to, to do it while you're always on the ax. Right. So yeah, I'd love to just hear, hear about that.
- [16:05]
Bill Brown
Well, the first part is they don't tell you right off where you're going. You got, you kind of figure it out by the different type of training you're going through. Like first, all of a sudden we're doing a lot of desert warfare, trading and like out, you know, in different places and in deserts. And then the next thing happens is, you know, we're doing some training for, they call it psd, Personal Security detail. And it's pretty high speed intensive type of stuff. Things that would likely be, you know, Secret Service agents might go through and, you know, you're learning how to do. They call it offensive driving and things like that, and so you, they don't tell you per se, but, you know, you figure it out. And so you figure it out. You know, we kind of, we kind of figured out. And then they basically, shortly before you, you know, you deploy, they kind of tell you, you know, who you're being assigned to. The other thing was that's even a quicker pickup because the SEAL community is really small and we have friends all over. We knew that seals refer to themselves as team. We knew that team guys guarded the top four dignitaries in Iraq and Afghanistan during that time. So we pretty much kind of honed in on what was going on. But one of the things was it's different. Seals were better when we're, we feel better, but we're offensive. When you're out hunting bad guys, like that's, that's what gets me excited, right when, when you're basically trying to reduce risk in a extremely high risk environment. You know, you're on the X, you're a big target, so you're, your situation, it's, it's, it's much different. I think it's a, it's a, it's a higher threshold. And so for us, you know, that's, that's really what it was about. One was he understood that you, your, your mission, when you would think it, we, I was a teammate guy and in the spec ops community they kind of referred to us as vanilla seals. And then they would refer to like the Team six guys or Delta Force guys as like team Tier one, you know, operators. But this was absolutely a tier one op. When you think about how important it was to protect foreign dignitaries at the time when they were trying to reestablish an interim government. Right. And so one was I, I think we all understood the importance of the miss. Two was I think for me to be sincere, there was an internal struggle. I didn't, I didn't necessarily sign up to basically be, put my life on the line for an Iraqi politician. Sure. One of the things about our guy that we had, Bern Hampson Law, was he, you know, he was a Curtis guy. He was an out of, he was hiding out in London for a while, came back. He was an intellectual. Now we all talk, right? And so we knew kind of like the, the bio and the background of, of everybody who was a dignitary that we regarded. And so some of the guys we had zero respect for, for, at least for me personally, I kind of respected what this guy was about. He was an intellectual that was really trying to, in my opinion, make a better Difference. And there were times when like, you know, a lot of times some of the things that were made it a difficult situation is he would put himself and I would think a little more out at risk than he, he should. And one, you know, he tried to visit different reconstruction projects. He tried to visit real like leaders out there, very involved people in the oil and petroleum industry and they have little militias in different cities over there and in some cities, several. And so it's kind of reminds me of like gang warfare. It's real tribalism. And so, you know, you go to a different neighborhood things, the atmosphere can change very quickly. And the area we were at, it was, it was semi protected. There was a checkpoint by this militia. It was still in an urban area in Baghdad. And instead of us rolling deep with our convoy, the guy wants to get out and walk. And it's, you know, we didn't clear any of these buildings and you know, it's. But he wanted to make a statement, you know, to these, these key players in, you know, the huge cornerstone industry over there that basically in my opinion he was kind of indicating that he was his own man. But he absolutely put himself at risk. And he put himself at risk too. I remember a couple times where he'd have almost like, reminds me of like a Chris Christie town hall where you'd have a room full of people who had a lot of concerns and a security aspect. It made it pretty difficult because this a lot different high risk atmosphere than New Jersey that was, you know, I'm.
- [21:37]
Marshall Spivak
Assuming at that time, unlike a secret service detail or something like you're not doing advanced work, you don't have guys out out before you get there.
- [21:46]
Bill Brown
Well, it depends. Try to do advanced work all the time. And I was RNs end up reconnaissance, surveillance. And I was, I did several of those RNs and I remember had a debate, one of these kind of militia guys and it was in Simo or Iraq, I might be mistaken. But what happened was this guy is saying, and this is just me and a couple other guys, we got an interpreter and basically you got a warlord. And he said, I got security, I got security, don't worry. I said no, we have, I didn't say this because I was, I was just a shooter. But you know, the guy that was representing us, he's like, no, we got security, you know, and basically he's saying, no, you know, we're SEALs, we're going to protect the principal and that's it. You're not giving it over to anybody because that's our mentality. But. So we had to go through different various spots, and it became very clear who had security, because I. I would say it's probably like, maybe 10 miles. I don't know if it's 10 miles, but in some areas, we had to cross a little bit of desert to get to some other area. And I'd say, like, every. I don't know, quarter mile, maybe less than that, he would have two guys with machine guns on each side of the road the entire route. And it became very clear who had. Who had security. It guy was a midlisted warlord. And I had. There was different times. I remember, like, in the job, how I was doing the rns, and in this case, I was working with another seal, a renowned SEAL within the community named Steven Red Bell. And for a while, he had the most confirmed sniper kills. But he was a Sioux Indian, so he kind of looked. He could kind of pass on a quick glance. And we weren't wearing military. U.S. military gear. Right. I'm. I'm pretty, you know, white, proud American, you know, and so one of the things that happened was another Melissa, basically the. At the time, the governor, he basically had a convoy, and in a Toyota in front of us, they had a bunch of guys with a case and a loudspeaker. And so. And then we're in the second vehicle, and we got two Iraqi nationals that don't speak English that well in front. And it was weird because they. This was Najaf. If you're a Shiite Muslim, Najaf, it's a very holy city for you, and it's not too far from Iran. It's in southern Iraq. And if you're a Shiite Muslim, you want to be buried there. And this is in 2004. Shortly thereafter, there was a huge firefight with the Metakar Al Sadar army. And basically he ran inside the Ali Aman shrine and hit out. And so our guy wants to meet with Al Stadi, who's like, the big religious leader for the Shiite Muslims and the de facto real ruler for Shiite Muslims in Iraq. So he wants to meet with them. And one of the things we were doing was we were scouting out the different areas and trying to determine what our route was. And so they. They. I. I can't believe we agreed to this, but they agreed that we couldn't bring long rifles. So I can't bring a long rifle. I'm in there, and one of the things. Don't butcher animals right off the side of the road. And there's A. And I remember we're stopped at this, like this circle and they're. They're butchering some animals and there's a crowd of people. And then they see me, right, because the, you know, the winners are down. And so, like, it's a sketch moment, you know, and I. I had a grenade, you know, and I kind of just flashed my grenade like this to the crowd and I kind of just let them know, like, it's not going to go good. And what happened is the guys, the guys in the front, they got their AKs and they start shooting up in the air and they, you know, making a bunch of noise clearing out the crowd. And so that's like one of the things we did with that rns and what we were doing there is we're basically getting GPS spots of coordinates in case later on. And we get rolled up. And then later after that, when we came back, the mayor of Najaf actually had him had it. He kind of respected me and Redmond so much that he actually had a meal with us. And I got the picture. I got the Mariner job at the time, me. And what people can't see in the picture is I actually got a grenade in my pistol each leg. And I know at one point the passenger guy in that car, he holstered. He holstered around and I. And it wouldn't have went good for him if he tried to turn around. But I mean, there were that. There are a couple incidents like that where you're like way out when you're a seal, like way out there. And I had a couple of those type of situations. But later on I did an RNS with the Marines there because they had a FOB outside there. And that's another type of. I'm not going to go too much into what happened here, but the way the Iraqis, the deputy prime minister and his crew is they basically. We coordinated a route in different individuals they were supposed to meet with. Well, what happened is all of a sudden they change it up. And so I'm running a cure, a quick reactionary force with a bunch of Marines. And one of the things I'm trying to do is I'm. I'm not trying to have a big footprint. So I'm. I'm off at, you know, a couple blocks away, right. But I would stage my. And one of the things that they're. At one point, you know, because, you know, we got our PSD guys there, I'd go advance to the next point. But once they started changing the. The order around shuffling the deck. What I had to do is I basically I, I said, all right, where is, where predominantly are the majority of our spots. And I kind of positioned myself as in like a spoke with wheel in the center. All right. And that way I, you know, I can't. Because you can't keep playing catch up there because one of the things people don't realize is there was a huge, huge battle there. And one of the things the insurgents did is they would make all this rubble and they, and like debris and they block up these roads. And we were using a GPS GPS system at the time called Falcon View. Now sometimes we would have AC1-30s guiding us overhead. At this particular day we did. And so we're kind of going blind off Falcon View. But you can't go, you can't really read Falcon View because it's, it's not giving you up to date information like this. This road is barricaded up. You can't go. And that's, and that's a sketchy situation because what happens is that's a prime spot to get ambushed. So. And sometimes you had to, you had to almost like pick up basketball. You had to make decisions the best tackle decisions you can at certain times. But so that kind of explains some of the, the, you know, the complications with doing PSD at a high level and in such a high risk atmosphere. But one of the things the SEAL teams did is they realized that one of the things it's almost like, it's almost like recess is they would, they would let us kind of move us in and work. I did a lot of ops where I actually, I worked with other units like the Army. You know, I worked actually I did some stuff with the Japanese, I did some stuff with the, I think it was in Norwegians, like other outfits and I, you know, and so that you'd wind up doing snatch and grab operations where you grab high ranking surgeons or you did. I did some sniper ops. Not that I was a sniper, but because I was a JTAC and I was a breacher. And so it made me, he made me valuable in those, on those operations. You know, just on that side of.
- [29:49]
Marshall Spivak
Things, you just mentioned it. Some of the other missions that you, you participated in during your time in Iraq, Anything in particular that stands out to you?
- [30:01]
Bill Brown
Well, I was a, I was a first responder to two suicide bombings shortly thereafter. When I was In Iraq in 2004, the first time the Green Zone got hit, you were going to the Steel Dragon, which is a Ford on Burning Base that got hit. And I was actually, me and another team guy were trying to intercept this second suicide bomber who bypassed the hospital in one high order in a bazaar. And so that shook me up a little bit. But what I saw there was horror. The closest level, you know, and so that I didn't know about the ins and outs of the political things, but I did, I did know that there was real evil there and that needed to be, that needed to be checked. And so I was, I was, I felt honored to participate in some of those sniper and snatching grab ups and literally, you know, grabbing these guys out in the middle of the night. You know, they got the weapons caches. There's no doubt they're bad guys. Zip, tied them up, master them up, stack them head to toe in the back of Humphrey, drop them off to the CIA like. So I felt, I felt proud and I'm honored to, you know, to have participated in some of those deck of.
- [31:17]
Marshall Spivak
Cards back in the day. Right, with the names and the faces. Yeah, yeah, I remember.
- [31:22]
Bill Brown
I didn't, I didn't have the chance to take out any of those guys. I was on a. We were on. Basically we got stood down and do a hit on Z Cowie. And one of the things that happened was it was the first time we were going to do a date, a daytime op like that. And actually one of the things that happened here was I was pretty excited about it because I knew it would have been historical operation. There was a compound and they had some UAVs doing wagon wheels overhead. And it was definitely bad guys on site. See, 100%. But their go criteria was a little odd because the go go criteria was basically they stated that they knew it was a cow because he would arrive in a convoy. White Suburbans. I thought that would be really odd because that's just like, hey, like please come and get me type of signal. But we were all geared up to go and I was fired up for it. But actually we were kind of in my platoon, we were kind of circled up, kind of talking about, you know, hashing it out, like, you know, what we would do. And one of the things, and I was a breacher too, so one of the things we were talking about was we knew there was bad guys on scene. And a lot of these compounds and buildings in the Middle east, they have these walls in front of and then a lot of times they have these double like doors that you could get in. And so a lot of our Humvees, we'd have tires up front and we just ran through. But most of the time, actually I never did an op like that. But some work, the stuff that I did, basically we stopped like a little up the block and then roll it. And one of the things that would happen was the talk wise, we would do a diversionary charge. And so we would hit a charge in the back and then we would have these little ladders and come over there, basically the wall. And I, and I. There was a guy in my, my platoon who was a Marine. And then after 911 came in, became the SEAL. And he was, he, he worked. He, he was an investment banker. So this. He had, he had his. He was a server guy and he had Kurds. And one of the things he did, because it's one thing to, when you're with a bunch of guys who want to, want to get at it, to kind of put like a, hey, like that, when a reconsidered type of flag up 100% takes courage. And he, one of the things he said, he said, hey, if we go over this wall, some of us are going to get pinged. And I was, I, I supported the other side and I was wrong. And this is just a verbal thing. And I was like, I was like, hey, we got a C130 up ahead. We're going to do the version each arch. He's like, no, he's like, we're all geared up like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. You got your vest, I got a big radio on my back. He's like, not all of us can. Some of us are going to get shot coming out. And he is right. And so, like, I don't know if that's the reason why the, we winded up getting stand down or not up or not, but we definitely reconsidered how we were going to insert. And that was because somebody had the courage to stand up and say, hey, hold on a minute, something's wrong. And that had an impact on me. I think, I think that had a big impact on me. And I think, you know, also the fact that I was unsuccessful in intercepting that second suicide bomber, I think that had a big impact on me. And why sometimes I feel compelled to kind of stand up.
- [34:51]
Marshall Spivak
I appreciate you, you sharing that. You know, you, you got out of the Navy, you went to, to college law school, you started a veterans alumni group, Veterans for Education. As you mentioned before, your motto is. And send the signature of every email. If veterans don't look out for each other, no one will. Part of the thing that we're doing here on this podcast, aside from talking to individuals associated with the battleship, former crew members, etc. Is you know, to try to highlight some of our active duty military leadership in the state as well as leaders in our veterans community. I want to talk about one thing in particular. You, you ran 65 miles in between two Rutgers campuses, the New Brunswick campus and the Newark campus. And at that time your veterans education, Veterans for education group and you, you renamed it Jeremy from Cherry Hill. Marine Lance Corporate was killed by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan. You got to know him as a Rucker student. I knew him growing up. His brother Ben actually serves on our crew here as our collections manager and our crew curatorial department. Can you tell us why you're on the 65 miles and some of the significance, what you place significance on in terms of veterans helping other veterans and why that's important.
- [36:18]
Bill Brown
Right. Well, I founded the Veterans for Education group. I think it's important to do the best I can. To be accurate, there was a Rutgers Marine Vietnam veteran named Bill Mead who founded the Veterans alumni of Rutgers University, who I later on became president. Regarding the run for the 65 mile run through Rutgers Camden and Rutgers New Brunswick. I had the honor to serve with David Goggins who was a famous seal. I'm in both of his books extensively. In the book Can't Hurt Me, even a chapter about titled Taken Souls. We went through heli together. We actually did our first direct action mission in Iraq. It was me, Dave and another renowned co named Mikel Vega. He's an actor. He's been like GI Joe, Transformers. He actually led the prayer. So David Goggins. I got out, I was having a tough transist, had a real hard time getting a job. I wanted one of the things that the Navy taught me, really good work ethics. So I just didn't feel right not doing anything. So I, I kind of started going to school and for a short period of my life I fell in love with learning. While I was doing that, I got involved in veterans advocacy. Some of that was had a big influence. John Adler actually organized a congressional debate between John Adler and his congressional opponent, Michael Myers.
- [37:48]
Marshall Spivak
Chris Myers, yep.
- [37:50]
Bill Brown
Who was a Navy veteran and executive director at Lockheed Moore before a huge scandal. But one of the things, that's where.
- [37:57]
Marshall Spivak
We met for the first time. You mentioned John Adler, the late John Adler, who was a mentor of mine as well. Never forget when I met you, actually John was having a town hall and all of a sudden there was a bunch of guys in suits and ties who walked around right towards the back of the room, very quiet, didn't say a word. And we all turn around like, who are these guys? And you know, it was very clear you were, you were all military, military guys. But sorry, sorry, I differed. But I wanted to mention that he.
- [38:28]
Bill Brown
Was a, he was a great guy. And you know, that advocacy was really kind of influenced by some of the stuff when I was a seal because like I remember like the CIA coming in late at night and all of a sudden, you know, I had to get the dpm and the bodyguards for the CIA were previous team guys, you know, and you know, seeing how those guys operate and even some of the things we did and some of the individuals we tried to take off the chessboard were decision makers and force multipliers, in my opinion. And so with my advocacy, that's one of the things I always tried to ambush decision makers. And you know, John Adler was at a bfw, campaigning, got a bunch of veterans. He's kind of in my environment a little bit and I ambushed him and he kind of, he took it well. But yeah, so with the former governor.
- [39:18]
Marshall Spivak
Maybe not so much.
- [39:19]
Bill Brown
Well, you know, the same thing with him. You know, we talk about the battleship. The battleship is, you know, it was out there. It was a force. It was a force and it was, it was supporting, you know, other Navy military service personnel. Like it was going out there to, to, to change things and set a precedence. And I think sometimes, sometimes that's what good men and women have to do. So even the same thing when, when I sniped out Chris Christie, like I did research on him, I knew that if I had a good feeling that if he called on me and I, I had a feeling he would because the Republican Party in Burlington at the time did not like me. And I, you know, I figured he, he might just bite the bait. So. But in my, in my point with the 65 mile run, what. When you serve with guys like David Goggins, and by the way, Chris Kyle is in my boat crew too. So imagine Chris Kyle and David Goggins in your boat crew going through some of the hardest military training in the world. Like if you're around those type of individuals, it's 100% going to change your disposition and outlook in life.
- [40:30]
Marshall Spivak
Would think so.
- [40:31]
Bill Brown
And so I saw that David Goggins did this ultrason run in Badwater, California and it feels like Death Valley. And one of the things I thought was, and when, when I served with David Gogich, he wasn't thin, thin like ultrasound run. He looked Like a NFL linebacker, like. And so one of the things that happened was I saw what he did, how he ran like this 100, I think it's 160 mile run. And the beautiful part was he raised money for the time for a group called the Wounded Warriors Foundation. And so I was moved by that. And so I wasn't the athlete. I'm not a bad athlete, but I wasn't, you know, there's different levels to everything. I wasn't the athlete that, that, that, that Goggins is. But I figured if I trained my ass off, like. And the whole thing about people who don't, aren't from Jersey might not realize that sometimes north people from North Jersey or central Jersey kind of have like this air of like arrogance about tourists. People from South Jersey. I knew the decision makers were in New Brunswick regarding Rutgers, regarding my veterans advocacy. So I figured I'd try to connect it and with the, you know, you look at like Gandhi, he had his marts to the sea for salt. You look at Martin Luther King, he has march on Wasati. So like physical feats and advocacy can go together. And so that's what I did. I had another veteran named Effort Gonzalez, Iraq veteran. So, yeah, it was a kick, I think, I think it was the first time that people kind of, it was kind of neat because I actually invited Adler to that as well. And I think that's really where I developed a friendship with him.
- [42:16]
Marshall Spivak
A lot is obviously going on in the world since 2001. You know, the SEAL community that you've talked about, our special operations community, have really truly been the tip of the sphere. Now there are conflicts across multiple continents, obviously the war, the Russian invasion of Ukraine. You know, in one theater then you've got the Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and another, and in the third you've got, you know, the Chinese continued aggression towards Taiwan. And our global force structure continues to evolve. You've been in the Navy, you've served in Special Operations. You know, things are the, the threats, I guess, that you, that we're dealing with now as a country and as a military are maybe just a little bit different than the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan. What's your feeling on sort of the future of the Navy itself as we continue to face sort of different kinds of threats that we face, you know, maybe in the last 20 years or so?
- [43:20]
Bill Brown
Well, number one, when I think about the Navy, you think about the majority of the planet Earth's populations are correspondingly in proximity, very close to water, to large bodies of water. About the impact of maritime commercial traffic. It's huge use. So I think it's, it's vital that the Navy continues to evolve and play a big part now I think the Navy, when I think the Navy, I think of the New Jersey battleship and what it's done. It's presented an image of strength and resolve and you know it's been in over 19 battles. It's been in the battle like Liatet Golf, the largest Navy battle in history. Battle Philippines, another huge battle. And so it's, it's had a huge impact. You think about from Lebanon, you think about the Persian Gulf, think about Vietnam. I first read about the New Jersey battleship and a book called Men with Green Faces and it talked about seals in Vietnam, Conan Tornabu guys, gun support. And so it's played a big impact. And then I think about, I think about well, Teddy Roosevelt and his white fleet and he had 16 battleships and he basically sent an image of strength.
- [44:47]
Marshall Spivak
First USS New Jersey at BB16 was a part of Teddy Roosevelt's great white fleet. Yep.
- [44:53]
Bill Brown
A lot of history and I think we've, we've made a mistake to realize that. The truth is I believe you're more likely to have peace when good men and women in democratic governments have strength. And I think when you show. In my opinion, I think they withdraw in Afghanistan where you left Bagram Air Base fall first. And the way it happened I, I think it sent a really bad signal. I thought it sent a really bad signal when in the Persian Gulf. I think it was in 2015 when there was Navy. Two Navy ribs were taken by Iran and they surrendered. I thought that was a bad signal. I thought we set a really bad signal when we basically lifted the restrictions on Iran and the sanctions on Iran and now they were able to generate substantial capital to basically promote the proxies. And so I think, I think we made a lot of big mistakes regarding our foreign policy. One of the things now, and I think it actually probably started when you think about the USS New Jersey. I think the first time we made a big mistake was after the, the bombings in the Lebanon and Beirut and the embassy and the Marine barracks that we had lost like over 300 US service personnel and we winded up pulling out and, and that's where Hezbollah kind of winded up gaining control.
- [46:31]
Marshall Spivak
We lost the chief here on board during the barracks bombing. We had an Etc. Michael Georginski who was. Who went over on land to help the Marines with some of their electronic equipment and he ended up being there for too long and Missed the last hop back to the ship, said, oh, I'll just sleep over and I'll come back in the morning. Well, the next morning was when the barracks blew up. So we, we, we lost one of our chiefs during that.
- [47:00]
Bill Brown
Well, you know, I, Israel recently held one of the masterminds accountable, Abraham Egal in September of this year. And so I think that unfortunately, sometimes good men, good women, good nations have to do a hard thing. I don't think it's not academic to realize this. I believe in peace. I believe in the right to free speech. I believe that good men and women should be against war. But I also believe that there's a time for war and unfortunately we live in very turbulent times and I don't, I think the right way forward is this peace through strength. And I think that's the example the US New Jersey set. And I'm hoping that's the example that, you know, I think that's the right way to move forward.
- [47:56]
Marshall Spivak
You piece through strength. I mean when you talk about the battleship New Jersey, we were recommissioned for the fourth and final time as part of Ronald Reagan's 600 ship Navy. His vision for a 600 ship Navy. Obviously, as you mentioned, the battleship served off the coast of Lebanon. She was on station for 191 straight days. But when the battle, the battleship pulled up off the coast for the very first time within 24 hours there was a ceasefire. They Commandant of the Marine PX Kelly said at the time, there are, there is no weapon system in the world that comes even close to the visible symbol of enormous power represented by the battleship. Now we're sitting on the battleship. There's obviously no more battleships, you know, still in the active fleet. But it was a deterrence to our enemies. What can the United States do to, you know, I mentioned just the three different conflicts but you know, there are other ones happening around the globe and I'm sure that will to come with sort of that in mind. What can, what can we be doing as a country, as a military, as a navy, to sort of better prepare ourselves for those conflicts to come and to really show that level of deterrence and that level of capability that will make China think twice before, you know, looking to invade Taiwan or the next, you know, hopefully never again. October 7th or Russia invading Ukraine or something similar to that.
- [49:30]
Bill Brown
Well, you know, one of the reasons I think we were so successful in World War II was timing the timing in when we entered at the time, you know, Germany's no is facing a very staunch Russian USSR opponent. The Japanese were kind of overextended, and I think so timing is important. I think the building of coalitions is extremely important. I think it's been pretty successful in Ukraine. I think supporting our allies is important. I think that's, to an extent, been successful in Israel. Sharing intelligence. The other. One of the big issues, I think, within our own nation is academia, as I think in my experience at Rutgers, I found that there was, you know, it wasn't a small crowd, in my opinion, that had a. In my, you know, a misplaced perspective on honorable military service. And even in the professional corporate world and in legal communities, I think it's that way. And even in the political social class, you don't see a lot of veterans there and underrepresented. How many? I don't know, too many lawyer partners in big firms in New Jersey that are veterans or judges that are veterans or even elected officials that are veterans that have honorably served their country. And I think it's. There's like a stigma to honorable military service. And one of the things. So I think that's something that has to. Has to be addressed. I'm trying to address it. I think the other thing is the real importance of technology. You know, the state of our. You look at how. You look at what's playing out in being out in. In the Middle east, you know, the use of drone warfare as cyber warfare AI very scary. And so I think it's extremely important that we really invest in. In technology. And one of the other things I've seen is the things that concerned me with COVID was the fact I looked at the recent successful, brilliant ops within. Against the leaders of Hezbollah with the. With the cell phone, with the beepers.
- [51:58]
Marshall Spivak
Yep, absolutely.
- [52:00]
Bill Brown
And so they got into their supply lines. And then when I looked at what happened with COVID and I looked at, you know, a lot of the medications, and I realized that China has a huge, you know, they're really portrayed in our supply lines to a part. To a point where I think it really endangers national security. And so I think that. I think that's really tightening up our supply lines is extremely important. I think, look, when you let spy balloons travel across the entire country and you shoot them down once they get in Atlantic, I think that sends the wrong signal. I think, you know, sometimes it's not wrong to stand up and hold up. But also I think it's important to realize, look, we. We can't overextend ourselves. I think a lot of times we overextend ourselves and we get involved in things maybe we shouldn't get involved in. And I think it's a lot. I think we, our success rates probably better when we kind of follow the Iranian model. Let's use other entities like we're using in Ukraine or Israel and let's support those entities if at all possible, you know, instead of having this huge American footprint.
- [53:19]
Marshall Spivak
I mentioned earlier in the, in the intro when I was talking about your bio about your role with the New York City SEAL swim. And so I just wanted to share a little bit, have you share a little bit about it. Appreciate you inviting me. This last year, unfortunately I had a family commute and I wasn't able to come. But I'm very much looking forward to taking you up on it in 2025. Can you just tell us a little bit about what it is and how you got this idea and pulled off this really tremendous event with, you know, not just Navy seals, but first responders, other military veterans, just, you know, folks who, who believe in the cause, who, who decide to swim with you. Can you just tell us a little bit about the event and how it sort of all came together and if you have any sort of plans for 2025.
- [54:08]
Bill Brown
So first I want to thank you and your family for all you do for veterans even before the battleship and thank you for all your, your leadership up to Battleship New Jersey Regarding the New York City seals. I believe in adventure therapy. Like I, I like to send the message of veterans out there kicking ass names and having a good time. I think, I think we're all better that way. And that kind of reminds me, I remember when I met with Richard McCormick after an incident that happened at Rutgers where they basically denied my free speech at the college Ave campus during an interview and I military were protested at the Vietnam War. He had the decency to come meet with me and, and my, my biggest proposal to him is like hey, look how the NCAA did it. NCAAP did it with a lot of struggling African minorities and increasing their enrollment and graduation rates. Like they showed them how value valuable education was. The actively sought to recruit them and that's really what I try to do with veterans. Like I work more veterans in college when I was a big veterans advocate at Rutgers. That's really what veterans and internships and businesses now on the other side for the seal, the seal community is a different, different animal than other veterans. Like we're very aggressive or high energy and it's a beautiful thing when it's focused in the right, the right direction and so that, and we love events like being a seal of like, you get addicted to like adrenaline rushes. And so one of the. And we're really good when we come together. And so I figured, you know what, what's cooler than swimming to the Statue of Liberty? Doing 100 push ups, 22 pull ups out of our nation's freedoms and civil liberties. Swimming to ellis island, doing 100 push ups, 22 pull ups. Honor all the men and women came in country for a better life. Celebrate our nation's diversity. Swim to South CO Marina in lower Manhattan, grab a bunch of American flags, hold them real high and then run into the World Trade center, do 100 plus up 22 pull ups to honor all those lost in 9 11. I knew, I knew when I put it out there because I call it the SEAL mafia and you know, I knew when I put it out there, I wouldn't have a hard time. And it's just when you have really good men and women with you, it's just easy to have victory after victory. And, and so I'm very grateful. We raised a lot of money in the Navy SEAL Foundation. Now I'm very proud to partner with them. Millions of dollars. And we sent a real positive patriotic message of unity that I think our whole country needs to say some. Yeah, I'm proud of it.
- [57:00]
Marshall Spivak
You don't have it. I'm assuming you don't have a date yet for 2020, but probably a little bit too early to start reading tide charts and currents and stuff.
- [57:07]
Bill Brown
Yeah, well, you know, you're so right. So I. Navy SEAL foundation and Liberty State park and so many other entities would love for me to square down right now. Right. But you're, you're right. Everything depends on the tides and currents. And right now the estimated ties and currents are just not that accurate right now. So I, I try to make it as. So I try to make it the anniversary of extortion. 17. We lost a lot of seals that day. August 6th. You know, that's actually 2001. That's actually one of the. Actually 2011. That's actually one of the cool things we did on the battleship.
- [57:41]
Marshall Spivak
I was going to ask you about that.
- [57:43]
Bill Brown
Yep. And in 2020 and 21, we came here and we, me and a bunch of seals and we did a shot off the guns. There was a famous SEAL named Steven Topaz, we call him Turbo. He lost his leg in Afghan Afghanistan and he actually shot the, shot the gun. You guys let him pull the trigger. But we read the names off of all the fault and because we actually started at Rutgers Camden at the Jeremy Cain Memorial and because I wanted to give him some love because you know we read his name with them. But that was a beautiful thing too. But yeah, I can't give you the date right now just because it's. Everything is dependent on the ties and turns. But it'll, it'll be a Saturday, you know, one of the Saturdays in August if possible. The closest I can get to August 6th.
- [58:36]
Marshall Spivak
We look forward to helping you promote that going forward. Certainly a worthy cause. Bill, I appreciate you you coming on. Appreciate you coming back to the battleship. It's always great to, to see you. Anything else you want to add before we close this?
- [58:54]
Bill Brown
Yeah, something else did really cool that you guys that you helped me with more so was when I was the president of the veterans alumni of Rutgers University we would have these cool Army Navy Watts parties here on the battleship New Jersey. Everybody had a great time and also we honored a gold star here named Jessica Trent who lost her father on 9 11. We did a push up salute for her and so we with your help was able to do some good. I'm very grateful.
- [59:22]
Marshall Spivak
Bill, again, thank you for coming over to the battleship. It's good to see you. Thank you for your service and thank you for your continued advocacy for our veterans community. Because I think you're 100% right. If veterans are not going to look out for each other, then who's going to? But we here at the battleship, that's certainly our central mission and making sure that we do continue that education that you talked about, that patriotic education. And we make sure we remind people about the men and women who serve our country and who certainly have served here right on the USS New Jersey. So thank you very much.
- [60:00]
Bill Brown
Thank you Mars.