February 17, 2024 • 56 mins
Rick is a Silver Star recipient for his leadership during the Battle of Mogadishu, popularized in the Hollywood hit Black Hawk Down, and was a prominent member of SEAL Team TWO and SEAL Team Six. He continues to serve the SEALs as Chief Operating Officer of the National Navy UDT-SEAL Museum.
Frogman Stories is a collection of events in and around SEAL Teams over the course of 45 years. It shows an authentic portrayal of how things get done in SEAL Teams and the silent trials that forge these extraordinary men into fearsome warriors. Rick captures the memorable lessons on life and leadership that only a true SEAL who has seen it all can share.
Get your copy of Frogman Stories: https://amzn.to/49jquUL
Learn more about Navy Seal Museum:
Website - https://www.navysealmuseum.org/
Join the SOFREP Book Club here: https://sofrep.com/book-club
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Lute force. If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough.
You're listening to Software Radio, Special Operations, Military Nails and
straight talk with the guys in the community.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Hey, what's going on? It is rad with another awesome
episode of soft Rep Radio just like the shirt. If
you're watching, says soft Rep Special Operation Forces Report. And today,
besides the book club that I'm going to tell you about,
go check out our book club softwap dot com book
hyphen Club. Get into the books. We might have our
next guest book in the library of book clubs if
(00:56):
he'll allow us, and that is Rick Kaiser, Master Chief
Underwater Demolition Team Navy Seal Frogman. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Well, thank you very much. It's my pleasure.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
The book has been a is you know, it's kind
of a controversial thing in the seal world to write
a book, right, so not all of my friends even
know I wrote a book, which is good.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Well, it's called Frogman Stories, And I'm sure there has
to be something that, you know, inspires the youth of
yesterday to be the Frogman of today. You know, whether
it's boy you know Jacques Cousteau, right, you know, talking
about his underwater adventures and you know or twenty thousan
leagues under the sea. You know what's under the sea, right,
(01:42):
And and there you go. What how old were you?
Let me ask you this, let's get right into that.
How old were you when you decided you wanted to
join the military.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
I was born raised in south of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and
I think I always had to fascination with the water
in the ocean, and like you were talking about with JOCKU,
I mean, I loved watching the undersea world of Jack Bustow,
and I thought my best way to get to that
would be joining the Navy.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
So I was sixteen actually when I went into the Naval.
Speaker 4 (02:11):
Navy recruiter's office and thought that I wanted to join
going to submarines and be a sub mariner. And on
his desk he had a little pamphlet, this is back
in the seventies, late seventies, a little pamphlet on navy seals.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
And I had never even heard of that before, right, And.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
It was about five pages, and it had just pictures
of seals doing seal things, right, shooting and jumping and
diving and doing all this cool stuff. And I was like, oh,
that's what I want to do. So I took the
pamphlet home. I thought about it for a couple of
days and went back to the recruiter and said, this
is what I wanted to do.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Sign me up.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Was there an indoctrination class or did you go straight
from like basic training into the you know.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Back when I did it.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
It's a lot different now, but when I did it,
as I joined the Navy, you go to boot camp.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
I went to Orlando, Florida, and then.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
I went to like a school, which is the Navy's
basic training to learn a skill. So if I failed
to become a seal, which seventy percent do, I could
go to the fleet and use my trade that I
had learned at a school to you know, serve the Navy.
So I went to my case, I went to Whole Technician,
a school in Philadelphia which was basically learned to how
(03:30):
of weld and firefight and stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
And then I went from there to Buds. So it
took me about, I don't.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
Know, six months from the time I joined did boot
camp a school before I got the Buds.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
What advice do you have to my young listener, who's
you know, deciding that this is there. They want to
go there, but you know they might deal with like
being homesick at boot camp. What did you ever experience
like that loss of like where am I? What am
I doing here with myself?
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Oh? I sure did. I mean, I think everybody, especially
on the first day.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
You know, I've never even been on an airplane before,
you know, and they flew me from Milwaukee to Orlando,
and so that was, you know, the first shock when
your ears don't clear because you're not sure what you're
doing on the plane, and then you get in there
and then you're just you know, proceed to get yelled
at by the instructors and you know, get a haircut
(04:24):
and everything else. So it's a shock. And yeah, so
I think I built that in the first, you know,
a day or two, and then it's you're pretty busy
after that and you stop feeling.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Sorry for yourself.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
And their main goal is to make sure that every
minute of your day is filled with something right, so
you're not bored and you're not lonely, and you don't
want to quit.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
You want to sleep. When you sleep, you're like not
staying awake. You're like, I'm out exactly exactly well that
I love to hear that and my listener out there.
You know, if you're on the fence about, you know,
taking the next step, you should just go to your
career counselor at your local recruiting station and you talk
to them and see if it is the next step.
Where you might see a pamphlet. You might have thought
(05:05):
one thing, and then you see the pamphlet and think
another thing. You're like, hey, now there's nothing wrong with
getting welding trade firefighting trade. In need of the Navy
sounds omnious. It's like, oh, no, I'm going to do
a laundry all day as in need of the Navy,
but you know, hey, no needs to go ahead.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
So I run the Navy Seal Museum in Fort Pierce, Florida,
and in San Diego. I advise young people every day
because they don't have a lot of contact with military people,
especially not so much in San Diego because I think
that is the world's largest military community, believe it or not.
But Betrad, like Fort Pierce or the other places we
(05:43):
traveled for fundraising, they don't have that contact with military
folks and they don't even know what to ask, right,
So we kind of walk them through it. And I
think the favorite thing I.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
Do is like immediately if mom and dad walk in
with the young man or woman, I kick him out
of the office and say, yeah, Mom, Dad, see you,
you're out.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
You know, I want to talk one on one.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
Because I don't want them asking me questions for their kid,
right because they're about to make a big decision and
I don't want either one of those two in there.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
You know.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
Of course they're going to have a part of it
when it's time, but not when they're you know, asking
questions and they want to do this and that. I'll
do that separately for them, but not that that really
tells me whether the the young person is ready, you know.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Is when they're ready, when they say they're like, hey,
what's up Mom, Dad, I'll be right back. Yeah, yeah,
let me talk to him. Yeah, I'll be right back. No,
I'll be right back. You guys hang on, Yeah, you
know that, young man, No, I feel you. And uh,
I remember when I went in through my recruiting to
the Air Force, and I know, thanks for not holding
that over on me. He said, this is your choice.
You're choosing to do this. I'm not forcing you to
choose this. You're choosing this exactly right, choosing this, Yeah,
(06:53):
you can't. You can't be forced, right, And that's that's
what happened with like say, you know, conscriptions and forced
you know, service into a nation, Like say, nothing wrong
with South Korea, but you have forced military Israel, you
have forced military. Other countries. You have forced military in America,
we have the draft. We register for selective service as
(07:13):
an eighteen year old man. Right, and has that crossed over?
Do you think to man anger?
Speaker 4 (07:19):
I mean, I know this is old school thinking, but
I believe that a mandatory service of some sort for
the country is a good thing. It doesn't have to
be in the military, it can be something else.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Correct.
Speaker 4 (07:32):
The places I've gone that I've seen this, I think
they're better off for it because everybody has the same
kind of knowledge base across the country, right, because they've
all served in some way, so they all have that
connection exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Like look at Israel right now, Right, they have a
big protest before they were attacked about their government. And
when the government realized that everybody protesting them were all.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Veterans, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
They're like, oh, oh oh wait, who's protesting us exactly
seventeen through forty year olds. Is that what you just said? Okay,
so so I mean that really that's that's a real
thing to think about, right, because you have everybody all
like minded. They're like, hey, we've all you know, learned
how to do certain things. March a certain way. Now
when you march to a certain drum, you know, you
(08:18):
learn these secrets of training and you know getting through
it and just you know, closing your eyes and be
able to capture some sleep. So let me just jump
into hell week with your or something in buds, how
did you cope with you know, the stresses that your
instructors were specifically putting onto you, right, which you've probably
put onto others during training. As that instructor, what is
(08:39):
it that helps you close your eyes to get that
like combat wink out there?
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Well, buds instructors, that's basic.
Speaker 4 (08:47):
Underwater demolition field team instructors are very good at what
they do, and they and their main purpose in life
is to get you to quit training because they want
you to quit training in that combat, right, So they
have very devious ways of playing with your mind that
you have to figure out yourself that that's all it
(09:07):
is is a mind game or else, so you will quit.
And like I said, we lose seventy percent of our
initial candidates anyway, so that that's how effective they are.
So I think once I figured out that, you know,
they weren't going to take my birthday away, my mom
still loved me, right, you know, they weren't going to
(09:27):
kill me supposedly, then it just becomes a matter of
running it out until that evolution is done. So I
tell people it's kind of like being an alcoholic, right,
you got to take one day at a time, But
when you're at buds, it's like one minute at a
time to make it through that evolution and then you
get ready for the next one and then the next one.
(09:48):
That's kind of how it is. And if you don't,
if you start thinking about, oh man, I have months.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Of this work. Was there somebody that stood out that
was a teammate with you, that went through with you,
that helped pulled you through any tough spots that you.
Speaker 4 (10:02):
Yeah, I think, you know, I had some really good
friends and one of whom just passed his name was
Willie Hines. Really awesome steel, way too smart to be
a Navy seal though he basically got out of the
Navy and became a geneticist for agriculture companies.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
So, like anyway, this is the kind.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
Of guy that but you know, you can tell right
away at buds who the guys are probably going to
make it and the ones that aren't, you know, just
by their man the way they handle themselves. They go
the extra mile to take care of stuff, whether it
be stupid stuff like cleaning your room to whatever, taking
care of your equipment and not blowing it off.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
You know.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Wow, So you've been in for a minute, right, You
were in during like the seventies through the two thousands,
so you saw.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Yeah, it was thirty four.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
I did thirty four years, so that was there for
a lot of different things.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
And you know what, I didn't even like read off
your creds. You know, we just jumped into to Rick
and Rad chatting about you know, how did you what
were you doing at sixteen years old? Let me just
read some of Rick's some credits, some key features. If
you don't mind, let me brag about you for a
little bit. Okay, so our guest Rick today. Rick received
the Silver Star for valor during the Battle of Mogadishu,
(11:13):
which is Blackhawk Down, which was made into a movie, etc.
We've seen it. He served at Seal Team six from
nineteen eighty five through twenty twelve, acting as Sniper Explosives Expert,
lead Training, chief Sniper Team Leader, and Deputy Operations Officer.
He is now Chief Operating Officer of the National Navy
UDT Seal Museum. Real quick about the author, though, I
(11:36):
want to be cause he's got his book and I
just want to read this blurb. It's great, You're great.
Rick Kaiser served his country between nineteen seventy nine and
twenty thirteen as a prominent member of Seal Team two
and Seal Team six. He received the Silver Star for
his leadership in the Battle of Mogadishu that are known
as black Hawk Down. He continues to serve as I mentioned,
as a Chief Operating Officer of the National Navy UDT
(11:56):
Seal Museum for both Fort Pierce, Florida and San Diego, California,
with the same resolve that made him effective in the teams.
Rick lives with his wife Barbara in Vero Beach, Florida,
and we got to give her a shout out because
period in the story.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Yes, happy way, happy life.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
You're right exactly exactly, and so so you come to
us with a lot of experience, world knowledge. I feel
like you're almost dad to me, Like I see you and.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
I just.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
I don't know. I was born in seventy seven, Dad, So.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
I got to tell you.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
The military, you know, it was thirty four years of it.
I do miss it. I missed aspects of it. I
missed the teamwork, I missed the mission laser focus, I.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Missed the guys. You know, I'll never being a team
like that again.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
But I'm still serving with as part of the museum
because we do so much more than a museum, right,
So a museum bunch of things, but our museum.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
We take care of our families.
Speaker 4 (13:01):
We have a memorial, we honor our following, we preserve
our history and heritage, and basically we are in a
position now especially to help the future of this country
because a lot of the things that we stand for
on our courage, commitment, sacrifice is not taught today in
schools and U it's we're the last We're the last
(13:23):
line of defense for any young person that wants to
come learn about military service. And you know what this
country's all about.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Yeah, and you can go in there and talk with
yourself or any of the curators who on site and
just ask questions. I'm sure you have other volunteers who
have served or that are giving their explanations. Okay, I
got to put it together like this, there's the Punk
Rocky Museum in Las Vegas. Okay, all right, and No
Effects created the punk rock Museum. And he's got like
guys from the Vandals given tours, and guys from all
(13:54):
the punk bands given tours. You know, you might never
know who's going to be given a tour. Is that
kind of the same thought. When you're at the UDT,
you might be talking to someone like yourself who's you know,
You're just like, Hi, how you doing. I'm going to
talk to you about this Zodiac boat.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
So normally most of our volunteers are veterans, not necessarily
Navy seals, but they have to, you know, have served.
That's bonus because they know the language, they know what
people like to hear. And then we do have a
number of seals that have retired in the area that
actually come to volunteer at the museum. To do that,
it's yeah, right, and then depending on if we have
(14:30):
large groups or not. I'll get out there and they
give a tour or the rest of the rest of
the team.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Yeah, yeah, they'll bring out master Chief. Do you still
have coffee? They still coffee that you still have like a.
Speaker 4 (14:45):
Yeah, I don't you know what if I don't know
what it was like an air Force, But in the Navy,
you don't leave her a coffee cup laying around, especially
in the steal team because you know, nasty stuff can
happen to that.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Oh no, I've seen Flight of the It's got to
be similar to that.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
It is, it is they put worse but worse.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Oh man, oh man. Now with you going into black
Hawk Down. A friend of mine he was there as well.
He was a colonel, Colonel Danny McKnight.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Yeah. So Danny live me here in Florida.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Yeah, right, and uh still talk with his daughter Pam
and all these guys, you know, and everything. And he
does airsoft war games on a large scale, or was
doing them for many years from like two thousand and
one till about maybe three years ago COVID hit, you know,
And he was the alpha commander, so I would work
underneath him as his lieutenant and then he'd had we'd
have a platoon. I'd have a whole thirty six man
platoon and there'd be like five or six of us,
(15:42):
and we'd be having briefs with him and he'd be like, well,
rac what we're gonna do here is like you know,
we're gonna do this and do that and do this,
and what do you want to do? And I'm like, uh,
you're the planner, He's like, but you're the fighter, you know.
So I really liked that he was able to kind
of like let the leash off of us and to
trust his guys that he really didn't know even an
aerosoft wargans to come up with a game plan. Right.
(16:05):
As a master chief, you're supposed to work with the
officer right in the team, right behind the scenes. You know,
the officers really looking to you for that experience and
that knowledge. What are you looking for from him? In reverse?
What's that?
Speaker 4 (16:19):
Well, the way it works in a seal team is
the senior list of guys. Master chief in my case
was is the tactical leader of any mission. Right, So
if you're going to take down a building, it's the
master chief's job to plan that.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
How we're exactly we're going to do this, right.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
It's the officer, the seal officer's job to coordinate how
you get in the air, assets that are above you,
and the communications with other forces.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
That's that's his job.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
And those two have to work together at all times
or it all falls apart.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Just falls apart. So there's there's this unspoken like we're
going to get along. We have to yes, yeah, yeah,
your opinion matters, scourge, and your opinion matters as a
master chief when it comes to you get briefed and
what the what's going down, and they listen to what
you're saying and then they'll they'll chew that up and
talk to the officer, et cetera. I just want to
(17:15):
let my listen know that, you know, it's a team
effort in all all aspects. You guys are always on
the You probably go by first names on the teams, right, well,
you know when we're.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
On missions or we usually use code uh code words
you know, like problem zero one, you know means you
know the officer in charge. But just to keep it
so if you're on the radio, everybody understands who you're
talking to and it's not like, hey, Rick, how you doing,
you know. You know, so that's kind of how it
(17:46):
works on a combat mission.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Yeah. I just know growing up with the s F
team around my dad and the guys was like, hey Jack,
He's like, hey, uh Rick, that's different.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
Yeah, if you're in the team room, absolutely, that's yeah,
that's a whole different. But I still, you know, I
could never. I would never actually call my boss by
his first name ever. I just wouldn't do it. I
just it's been ingrained to me since I joined the Navy,
and and it's just easier for me to go sir
or captain or you know, and.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
They're cool with that. They'll take that name. Yeah, that's cool,
that's their name, major, general, colonel, sir, Yeah, that's name, dude, sir,
let's go sir major.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
Yeah, there's certain you know, there's a lot of people
I don't even know their first.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Name, you know, yeah, because their name was captain or
their name was admiral.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Right, the longest time, my dad was sergeant first class.
I was like, yeah, I wish your name our sergeant
first class, honey, junior sergeant first class sound good?
Speaker 3 (18:42):
I still work for.
Speaker 4 (18:44):
When I first joined the teams, I went to seald
team too, And my first CEO, or one of my
first CEOs was the name. It was Cat Brick Willard.
And then I worked for him again as my boss
at the Field Team six, and then I worked for
him again as he's the chairman of our board of
directors for the museum. So like, I can't get rid
of this guy. Yeah, they've been where you or bore
him for thirty years, right, for forty years now, it's awesome.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Yeah, a little bit, a little bit of a time there,
a little friendship. Okay, my laugh is there, But I'm
thinking about Blackhawk down and operations Nottan Serpent and you
got what was your job? I know your seal, but
what were you guys doing there? We all hear about
the Rangers, right, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
It was it was my sniper team went in there
with the army basically, and the thought process at the
time was there was always a lot of headbutting and
competition between us and our army counterparts.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
So the uh offser in charge, General Garrison.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
Decided to put a baby Seal element within that unit
to try to preach that gap, right, to try and
get us to all work together.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
And that's why we were there.
Speaker 4 (19:54):
I mean, of course it was only four of us
and you know, one hundred of them, but you know,
we we figured out out and you know, we did
our job, and I think at the end of the day,
you know, we respected them and they respected us.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Were you a part of that what they call the
Mogadishue mile We, Yeah, sure was.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
I wasn't running the whole way, but I was certainly
part of it, picking people up as we went.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
We went to the soccer stadium and.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
That's when it was like, everybody needs to go back
to the soccer stadium and fall back, right, you had recovered?
Can you tell us a little bit ahead?
Speaker 4 (20:31):
Yeah, So, you know what I tell people when I
talk about Mogadishu is that that was the day that
the Somalis decided to fight.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
That's basically what it was.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
We saw footage of you know, truckloads of fighters coming
in with guns that we saw after the battle, right,
but you know, we were wondering where all these people
were coming from, and they were being shipped in from
all over the city to come and fight us, and
probably most of them didn't care or they didn't really
want to fight, And it was just one of the
things to do.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
Right.
Speaker 4 (21:03):
So, anyway, as the day progressed and we actually went
in for this, I actually went in for the third
time to go and rescue some of the guys that
were stuck in the city. When everybody was recovered and
the sun started coming up, we started getting a lot
more small arms fire, obviously because.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
You know, they could see us.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
We're the only ones that hit the night vision, and
they basically said, hey, let's go, let's get the hell
out of here before you know, before it gets you know.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
Like the day before. Right.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
So when that happened, everybody just you know, cranked up
their humbes and whatever they were on and headed towards
the soccer stadium.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
And unfortunately, some people.
Speaker 4 (21:43):
Got left behind in that mad dash to get the
hell out of the town. And so we went picked
up some people and along the way once we realized
what was happening.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Just a lot of bounding and overwatches that what you
were doing, I mean, was your thought process, like we
got no.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
It's kind of a it was a joint with units
that had never trained together. Right, So you had Tenth
Mount Division, you had you know, the Rangers, you had
the seals, you had RMYSF. So you had all that
and none of us that actually worked together.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
The communications was.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
Pretty poor between the different units as far as you
know who's in charge, who's doing what? You know, ask
the recipe for disaster, you know, and that's basically what happened,
but luckily didn't prove to be a disaster. Because most
people are good runners. When you're getting you become a
good runner.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
You guys have horse ties. You guys are trained to
taper your legs by my friend, I tell you what.
You guys are runners, runners and runners. So that makes
sense when you watch the movie Black Hawk Down and
you see every ounce of energy given to combat, but
yet they still have to just go one more mile
running with you know, their friends and their gear and
(22:53):
they're slodging along and they're just making it happen. It
kind of shows you the resolve, you know, that training
and kick in and push you through. Like you said,
I think maybe you said everybody can do it, it's
just seventy percent of them wash out of it kind
of attitude if they just know that it's about the
next minute and just moving forward, right yepro.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
So it was when we did get to the stadium.
Speaker 4 (23:14):
It was kind of like a surreal environment if you
can imagine, all the helicopters were in the center, you know,
take metavacking people out because of the original you know,
one hundred people that went in there. We lost you know,
eighteen of them that were kise and you know a
good seventy of them were wounded, so luckily unscathed. They
(23:35):
just sat in the in the bleachers right with two
of my other seal friends if one of them had
been shot, and one of the Pakistani soldiers came by
and gave us some soup, and it was just like
a surreal This guy's like here you go, and we're like,
thank you very much, as we're watching all this carnage
in front of us, wondering for when it was our
time to get out of there.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
And finally we got.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
A helicopter and flew back to the base and they
basically said, and you know, reload, we're getting ready to.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
Go back out again.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
And that's you know exactly how it is when you're
going through BUDGS training. You think it's over and then
they say, oh, we were going to do one more
mile or we're gonna do you know.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
We're gonna take the pillow out from your head exactly.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
And that's how they break people.
Speaker 4 (24:17):
But if you're ready for it, in which we you
know we were, it's just another another day.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
You're like, oh, we're spinning up, let's go. That's just
what we do. And so you're already psychologically built. Yeah,
your instructors legoed your brain together.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
See, I've been boxing for you know, about eight months now,
but probably about two hundred days in that eight months
I've gone, and so I feel that all of a sudden,
I get this brain fog at the bag. My coach
will be like two three two three five four five
slip slip pop, you know what. I'm like, Okay, I
get the first three sets down and I'll forget and
they'll say it to me and I'm like, oh ba bam,
right back to it. And I was like, oh, you
(24:56):
got my dog whistle coach. Oh you you know. He's like,
that's why I would be in your corner. He's like,
because if I saw you freeze up, I would just
tell you what you need and boom you get it done.
And I was like, oh yeah, dude, program me unlock
that character inside of me sir, that is right, and
that's what happened with you. Your instructors knew the character
(25:17):
that you were, and they unlocked you and all of
your special powers like some crazy video game character. You
get the sniper platform, you get the cool skins, you
get all the cool beer, you get the accessories. You know,
you have all the download ble content. Immediately, it's like,
oh and a satellite phone.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
All that stuff comes at a price.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
I know it comes at a price. And you know,
and if my listener wants to know what price that is,
go talk to a Navy recruiter or your local career
counselor and find out what that price is, because I
promise you it's a blank check of you.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Okay, So that's so thank you for.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
What I would say to any young person is they
can't go wrong. Though cannot go wrong by joining the military.
You don't have to be a seal, you don't have
to join the Navy. You can do anything. There's so
many opportunities out there. It's heartbreaking to see that they're
having trouble recruiting young young people.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
But why does that surprise you?
Speaker 4 (26:11):
After things like you know, the pullout in Afghanistan, or
you know some of the stuff crazy stuff that's going.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Like holding promotions hostage over officers who have earned the
right to move up in their life, no matter what
side of the aisle. Like And I know during George
Washington days, Congress was always like, you know, holding things
over his head, and there's always a battle between you know,
executive branch, legislative branch, all these different branches. But you know,
at the end of the day, when I was talking
to a major general, I asked him, how did you
(26:39):
transition all the paperwork from George W. Bush to President
Obama without having like any type of political bias. And
he's like, well, Rad, it doesn't matter who I vote
for because it says US Navy, US Army, US Marines,
US Air Force on our name tapes, and so first
and foremost at US. And so he's like, you know,
you know, it may not be my guy in the race,
(27:00):
but he's my guy now. And so here's the book
of stuff that he was supposed to focus on, et cetera.
You know, these are the.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
Most important things. That's the way it has to work.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
And I love that sentiment of like it's the US,
We're the us, right, Like we're supposed to have a
difference of opinions. We're just normal human beings and we
have thoughts. But at the end of the day, we're
all under the same umbrella of the red, white, and
blue or those stars and stripes. And I'm a big
believer in just like we just need one flag in America.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
No, I agree with it.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
And mean, you think those people that are being the
Americans being held and guys right now care who the
president is.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
No, you just want to get rescued.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
They don't correct, No, and they do need to be rescued.
And again with Gaza, right and and so I would
like free Palestinian people not under oppression, and I would
like free people in the world not under oppression. Let
me just put that out there, right. I'm not saying
one way or the other. I just think that, you know,
Israel has a right to defend itself from hostile acts.
(27:56):
And I also think that some of the people in
you know, Palestine don't want to be a part of
the hostile acts, but they're like caught in the middle
of it all. And you know, the media likes to
like let us know who those people are. It's usually
women and children right that are just constantly being attacked
and there's no one that can verify it. And there's
no one that can't verify it. It's just like this
(28:16):
omnious The media tells us what's up. So yes, free
the hostages. If there's a ceasefire happening right now in
Gaza and we're coming to a ceasefire, the hostages need
to be a part of that ceasefire. Like, if there's
an agreement, please just release them so that it can stop.
Speaker 4 (28:32):
I agree, get them out, That's what I'm saying. Can
you imagine those poor people what they're going through. I mean,
they're scarred for life.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
You know. I've seen some that have gone to the
media after they got out and they're just like, you know,
let us just go, like, just let them go home,
Like this isn't worth it. You know, it's not worth it.
And if Hamas leadership really thinks it's worth it, wow,
you're losing, like twenty e lost twenty five thousand civilian
people and your whole entire city is gone, right is
it really worth it? Right? And I guess that's for
(29:03):
those to decide. But again, when I mentioned earlier that
the veterans over there were the ones protesting net and Yahoo.
That's true. There was a huge uprising until this kicked
off and he was they were asking him to be removed,
and they're still asking for him to be removed. So
on both sides of the fence, what do you think
about that?
Speaker 3 (29:19):
You know, I don't really have an opinion on their politics.
Speaker 4 (29:22):
I was surprised that more of the Israeli citizens, you know,
don't have guns. I guess that was the surprising thing
to me, because most of them are veterans to train, right,
but there is just not in their culture.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
To have a gun in now.
Speaker 4 (29:38):
And that's really what allowed Amas to come in there
and kill so many and take so many hostage because
they didn't have any way to defend themselves.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
So just a thought for everybody in this country, you know.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Yeah, and for people to kind of blame their politicians like, oh,
well it took four hours or however many hours from
them to respond, or you know, et cetera. Why they
allow it to come into the Iron Dome in the
first place. I mean, you know, I'm just a pundit.
I'm just the back armchair quarterbacking just like everybody else.
Right now. I'm not on the ground, I'm just saying
what I'm hearing, right. I see people who are non
(30:12):
Jewish wholly advocating for the whole culture of like this
needs to stop, right, and they've just it's just taken
over for them, right, they just have such a faith
a faith and wanted to see Israel free and Gaza
and Israeli's the hostage is freed. I just want to
see that too, you know, Is that what you want
to see also?
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Of course, yeah, yeah, of course I don't see that.
I don't see it happening anytime soon.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
But what if they're not, though, what if the hostages
for the you know, have met their fate. What if
that's the situation. What's the thoughts of a maybe seal?
Speaker 4 (30:47):
I mean, it would be a terrible thing if it
was one of my family members in there. But I
also understand exactly what the thought process is. If they
don't stand up and do something now, it's not gonna
it's going to end eventually, right And if they don't
get their goals accomplished, then it's going to happen again.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
So I understand both sides of this. There's aye you.
Speaker 4 (31:12):
Never win winters of war, right, I mean like Somalia
for example, there's we're still fighting in Somalia.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
We still had US troops in Somalia.
Speaker 4 (31:20):
So what did we accomplish you know, thirty years ago.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
Nothing?
Speaker 2 (31:26):
So it's still going on. Yeah, the car market still
thrives with sixty dollars plato aks. Absolutely, sixty thousand in
the US, though I don't understand. Okay, sixty thousand dollars
for the same ak in the US is sixty bucks
into the car market.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
Yeah, crazy, absolutely, it is.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
It is. It's just it's just it's crazy. And then
we have all these other actors that are trying to
get into like the shipping lanes. And we just lost
two seals recently that had tried to board or whatever
the case was with the vessel in the Red Sea,
and you know they've met their fate according to.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
Yeah, I'll step into that one.
Speaker 4 (32:08):
You know, when we do shipboarding, it's probably one of
the most dangerous things you can do. It's at night
usually you know, it depends on the sea state and
how safe it is, but normally there's some sort of
sea state. So when you come up along a bigger
ship with a small boat. I mean, the small boat
is next to that and it's moving like this, and
(32:28):
the big ship doesn't move, and you have to There's
so many things that can go wrong. It's just incredible.
And I've seen many of my friends get popped off
a ladder. It doesn't matter how strong you are or
your technique. If the boat decides to go down, well,
you're on the ladder and it catches on that ladder,
you're off that ladder, and you better hope you don't
(32:51):
hit something on the way down, like your other teammate
or the boat. And then once you hit the water,
if you're still conscious, you have to you know, get
your stuff off, get to the surface.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
And unfortunately those two guys didn't make it.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
No, and uh, those guys would have been outfitted probably
in like some type of device that they could have
pulled the cord and ripped their putting off of style
equipment train with that.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
We train that all the time.
Speaker 4 (33:17):
You know, they do buoyancy testing, so you jump into
the pool and make sure that you know, if you
go to the bottom you're too heavy, you need to
change something up. And they have floatation devices obviously on
them also, so I guess We'll just never know what happened.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
You Like, even the plates are cut in a swimmer fashion.
They're called swimmer cut plates for the plates, so you
guys can have the movement of the freedom. There's just
a lot of technical stuff that goes into a Navy
Seals kit to help them be the best and be successful.
And these guys probably wouldn't have taken the task of
boarding if it was not if it wasn't worth it. Right,
(33:53):
they can stay.
Speaker 4 (33:54):
Right, right, No, I mean the team, even though we
lost two guys, completed the mission right, and they took
them and sure enough, there was a bunch of arms
on it that were being transported to I can't remember
right the story where it.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Was being warheads, I think is what it was. I
think there was some warheads.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
They completed the mission, but it was a big it
was a great cost unfortunately.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Yeah, and uh and uh, you know, rest easy for
those guys and their family. Sorry for the loss and
the community. You know, it hit hard. And I know
software has a lot of family like.
Speaker 4 (34:26):
Yep, so we'll be adding their names on the We
have a Navy Seat of memorial at our museum and
four peers Memorial Day and it's a great ceremony. Guest speakers,
all the family members will show up and we will
unveil the names at the memorial.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
That's very kind and very thoughtful and just a legacy
to keep their names always out there, hundred percent top
of mind. You know, been to plenty of funerals and
the only thing we want to see is the photos
and just like the memories and so keeping the name alive,
you know, that's very cool. I do want my own pyramid.
I'm not trying to piggyback off on that, but you
(35:06):
know we do. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (35:07):
So the book was I mean one of the reasons
I wrote the book was so I could promote the museum, right,
that's my job, that's my mission. So and so far
as it's helped a lot, you know. So I've had
a lot of new people that are learning about the
museum and what we do, and it's been it's been.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
Wild, right, stories that you can tell in the museum, bro,
I mean the stories that can come out of the
just whatever canvas strap is attached to somebody's chest rigging there.
If I go in there, I would just stare at
the buckles. I'd be like, what here? Were those buckles?
Are those two thousand and three? So what was he
doing in Khaki two thousand and three with black buckles?
You know. There's just like the small little things in
(35:47):
my mind, you know. And so where can we Is
there a website that I could have put in?
Speaker 4 (35:52):
Yeah, at www dot Navy Seal Museums dot org and
the Florida to say the California site is coming online.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
It'll be opened by the next end of this year.
Speaker 4 (36:06):
Fort Pierces the museum has been open since nineteen eighty five, right,
So we've been around in Florida because Fort Pierce is
the birthplace of the Navy Seal just so you know,
so a lot of the first thing people ask me
is why in the world is the Navy.
Speaker 3 (36:21):
Seal Museum in Fort Pierce, Florida.
Speaker 4 (36:23):
Well, eighty years ago the original frogmen trained to take
the beaches in Normandy, Great and four Piers and that's
why we're there. So the museum is actually on the
Navy base that existed back those eighty years ago in
World War Two.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
So that that's all.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
Tied to guess well, you know, I have to just
give my dad a shout out again. The one thing
that always eluded him. On his uniform was a combat
diver badge. That was the one thing that he I'm
just not green bray enough because he was a young
man diving. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
Do you really deserve a combat diving badge for diving
in Key West?
Speaker 3 (37:02):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Yeah? Really really, he just wanted to have that scuba ahead.
I think with the the I.
Speaker 4 (37:07):
Mean even in the dead of night, the water is
so clear you can see exactly what you're doing from
the moon or whatever.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
But he was a young boy that dived Lake Michigan
off of a tugboat down to tugboats when he was
like sixteen, and then he joined in seventeen the Navy,
and then he went from the he does. He's from
Two Rivers if you know Wisconsin. He's from Two Rivers, Wisconsin. Yeah,
which means that I'm kind of from Two Rivers Wisconsin.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (37:34):
Well I'm from I think I'm from Florida now because
I'm not going any further north because I'm not going
in the snow, never shoveling a driveway again.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
Never. So that's why I'm a Floridian now.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
So I guess I am a Utahn. Let me be,
let me let me. Just listen to what you say,
like snowboard three to four times. In fact, it's snowing
and it's a powder day today, and you're that important
to me.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
Okay, I just want you to As you hang up,
you can go go do.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Your wife's right here, like what she's like here, put
your goggles on, let's go. Yeah. See and that's a
healthy relationship. See. What do you do to to wind down?
Do you do you surf? Being in Florida? What is
it that's helping you other than the museum? I know
you're curating.
Speaker 4 (38:21):
I wish I was coordinated enough to surf. My my
son is an excellent surfer. But uh, what I do
to Uh? I still have my same routine that I
did when in the sealed teams. I usually work out
every morning, something swimming or running. And I mean, being
in Florida, it's easy to do that because it's very
seldom that is bad.
Speaker 3 (38:40):
Enough that you can't do that, right, So that's that's
what I usually do.
Speaker 4 (38:44):
And then uh, and then working at the museum, voting
the mud m and uh and everything else that we
do keeps me, keeps me busy. And then opening the
new one in San Diego. That keeps me really busy,
So it is on my toes.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Do you go to the VA? Are you using the
VA after service?
Speaker 4 (39:05):
I haven't had a great experience with the VA, so
I try not. I try to avoid it when I
when I do.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Is it because they tell you what you don't want
to hear, or is it because they don't get you
in for six months?
Speaker 4 (39:17):
Yeah, the ladder, you know, if they get you in,
they don't. There's communications, At least in my experience, the
communications is very poor. They'll set you up and with
an appointment and then you'll get a postcard in the
mail saying your appointment that tomorrow, and you're like, well.
Speaker 3 (39:32):
Hey, I got you know, I have my life, I
have to work.
Speaker 4 (39:35):
And you know, and then you try to call and
there's no answer, and it's just, you know, it's just
easier for me to not do it, to not see.
Speaker 3 (39:43):
I'm very fortunate that I don't have to depend on.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
It right right, And I keep trying to advocate for
my younger guys to take care of themselves now because
when they're older, it's going to be harder for their
significant other to push them around the VA, you know,
Like now, my mom pushed my dad into their sixties,
you know, and like he was just getting wheeled and
she was doing all of it and carrying the bags
(40:06):
and taking him to his appointments. While I was growing
my life as the son with a new wife and kids.
Mom was just taking dad. We didn't think twice. It's like, oh,
mom's a dad at the VA, at the VA, at
the va, the VA. So I just wanted to find out,
you know, your thoughts on your experience go to the VA,
just so my listener can.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
Yeah, yeah, I know, like I said, some people have
nothing but glowing reports.
Speaker 4 (40:25):
I just I didn't. I wasn't one of those guys.
And I, like I said, I'm fortunately I don't have to.
Speaker 3 (40:30):
Exactly and I don't do it.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
That's that's it. That's it. That's wanted to find out. Now,
what story do you want to tell me?
Speaker 3 (40:39):
What story?
Speaker 2 (40:40):
Yeah? I have frog Man stories, Okay.
Speaker 3 (40:44):
I'll tell you.
Speaker 4 (40:48):
You know, the while you're going through training, everybody has
got a story, right, everybody's got a story. And if
you didn't think about quitting while you're going through hell week,
you're not telling you truth, right. So I guess my
story on that was you know, it was a Wednesday night,
you know, halfway through hell week. I feed you four
(41:09):
times a day. You know, you got to keep that
energy going because you're going all the time with very
little or no sleep for the week. And so that
you go to the chow hall and they turn the
temperature up right, so it was probably you know, high
eighties inside the chow hall, and you just gorge yourself
with as much food as you can and then they
tell you to have to go to sleep, right, So
(41:31):
within like minutes, everybody's every everyone's asleep, right. And then
they come busted and of course you all and ask
you we told you not to go to sleep and now.
Speaker 3 (41:41):
You will pay the price for this, and blah blah blah.
Speaker 4 (41:44):
And at that moment, I thought to myself, what in
the world am I doing here?
Speaker 3 (41:50):
You know, it's like what is going on?
Speaker 4 (41:53):
And I kind of just followed with the group and
we got in line and they put us all in
the ocean, and it was cold out, and I think
that the jolt and the shock and the cold water woke.
Speaker 3 (42:03):
Me up and really saved me.
Speaker 4 (42:05):
So they saved me unintentionally that night by waking me
up in the cold water.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
You're gonna take you?
Speaker 3 (42:14):
Yeah? Warm, you know I woke up after that and
never thought about it again.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
Wow that yeah, because like you said, everybody it goes
to their head, right, it's like, so what am I doing?
Speaker 3 (42:26):
Half exactly why this is not fun?
Speaker 2 (42:30):
But then it turned into fun? Can you tell us that?
Speaker 3 (42:33):
You know? What? A lot of it?
Speaker 4 (42:35):
You know? And obviously when we tell stories the book,
it's mostly funny, happy stories, right, It's not bad stories
or shoot them up stories.
Speaker 3 (42:45):
It's just about funny things that happened to me throughout
my career in the seal team.
Speaker 4 (42:49):
So for the most part, you know, with with you
and your buddies, it's fun, right.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
All you get to shoot, right, that's yeah?
Speaker 3 (42:58):
Yeah, all that's is really great.
Speaker 4 (43:01):
Like I said, it comes out of price, and then
you pay the price, but then you keep having the fun.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
You should have a shirt that says it comes at
a price. Rick says, it comes at a price. Everything,
everything comes at a price. I'm gonna I'm gonna keep
that I become better people when I interview better people,
it comes at a price, right.
Speaker 4 (43:23):
Like married, for example, that's your wife, Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
Hundred percent. Oh jeez, we've been together twenty five years,
married twenty three so and now forty six. So that
gives you an age. In Utah, we get young, dude.
We're like, if you're not a grandma by twenty five
year old, you know, it's like, yeah, we get married
young here. Kids are young here, kids have kids young here. Yeah.
Like my mom was a grandma at thirty six. Yeah, right,
(43:52):
and my brother was already nineteen, so it's clear, right,
So just young families here. That's how it is.
Speaker 3 (43:58):
You joined the Air Force, what well.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
I grew up outside of Hill Air Force Base, and
so I would see, you know, my dad was stationed
here from California with the nineteenth Group. We left Cali,
came here in eighty three. He got stationed at Camp
Williams with the Green Berets in eighty one, and then
we finally showed up in eighty three during the Great
Flood of Utah when it was all flooded. And then
I've just grown up with F sixteen's flying over. I
(44:20):
literally lived under the flight path and we'd see like
the B one bomber with its swoop wings always taken
off and my dad would be like, I wonder where
that gasoline dissipates too, you know. And I was like,
what do you mean? I didn't understand. But they were
trying to figure out why all the ladies in the
church ward were coming down with like multiple sclerosis, including
my mom, And so they were trying to think if
(44:41):
it was something to do with like the fuel from
underneath the flight path for all our lives living underneath
there for so many years had just come down into
the breathing air. They're just trying to figure out why
a lot of ladies were getting MS in the ward,
different doctors. So, but yeah, blue beret man, it was
the blue beret that taunted me. My dad worked one.
I was a young kid, young, dumb and full of
(45:03):
all the things they say, And uh yeah, I said,
I wanted a blue one.
Speaker 4 (45:08):
I have a good uh Air Force military police story.
So we were in Herbert in Florida in the Panandle
and we were doing some training out on out on
the base there, and nobody had ever told us about
you know, you have I don't know what they call it,
but it's like we call it like the red line
of death that's throughout the line around these aircraft, like
(45:29):
if you cross over it all of a sudden, there's
like alert yeh, yes exactly.
Speaker 3 (45:34):
So we were like all geared up, right.
Speaker 4 (45:37):
It was aulpus six of us and we were just
walking to the aircraft and we weren't paying attention.
Speaker 3 (45:41):
We just was doing a.
Speaker 4 (45:41):
Bee line to the aircraft that we were going to
get on, and uh we crossed another line for another
aircraft and all of a sudden, everybody starts coming in
and we had all our ship on us too, so
we're like going, well, you know what's going on?
Speaker 3 (45:55):
Right? All these guys are coming at us with guns.
We have guns, and it's like.
Speaker 4 (45:59):
This stand up and then they start yelling as to
get outside the line.
Speaker 3 (46:02):
Right, We're like, what about it was? We didn't you know,
we didn't see any damn line and we.
Speaker 4 (46:09):
Were finally, you know, everything settled down and then we
got a lesson and air Force etiquette as far as
don't cross this line. We're like, okay, we didn't even
know it was what it was, right, So anyway, that's
that's my Air Force security story, you.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
Know, that's it. That's it. Yeah, no, and uh, I
mean growing up military brat right outside of base, we
skateboarded the base. It was always skating. It's like, this
is my base, bro, you can't stop me. I have
an ID card, you know. And so they we'd be
skating in like some fuel dump where they have like
the pylons that go on the jets, you know that
they would feel fuel. But to us, it had like
(46:48):
this embankment area that we could just like come up
and do like a kick, flip or whatever on it.
And it was just the best. Security forces rolls up like,
you guys can't be in here. We're like military IDs. Yeah, exactly.
You know, how do you stop Iron Eagle bro? You
know the kid lives on base man, you know.
Speaker 3 (47:10):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
Plus, my dad was Army, so there was one up
on that as an army kids. I was like, air Force,
this is an army, I d you know.
Speaker 3 (47:18):
It's like exactly, I don't know any better.
Speaker 2 (47:21):
I don't know any better. And then the moment I
joined and flew out on my first airplane was the
time I joined was the first time I flew on
and United and they put a skate park at the base.
I was like, what now that I'm leaving, now there's
a skate park. I'm like, you guys, that's supposed to
be done when we were skating it. So they put
a skate park at hill because of all of us
(47:41):
skating everywhere. The parents were like, where's our kids supposed
to skate?
Speaker 4 (47:45):
Huh huh their kids.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
The power of killed power parents, Right.
Speaker 3 (47:52):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (47:53):
I would have killed for a skate park for my son.
You know, I ended up building a number of half bights, right, so.
Speaker 3 (47:59):
You know, yes I do. Yes, a little skater, little
skater freaks.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
Yeah, that's us. You can't stop us. I'm gonna skate
your flight line. And the cool thing is they knew,
they probably knew. It's who we were. You know, we
were always around just causing trouble on the on the base.
That's us, either at the pool or skateboarding, or at
the movie theater, whatever it was, you know, just going
up there. But those are good times. Love your dad always,
Thanks for the good times, you know, Yeah, exactly. And uh,
(48:27):
you know, did you have family that served as well?
Did you mention that my father served.
Speaker 4 (48:33):
He was in the Army Reserve and my uncle was
an Army Air Corps fact World War Two later or not.
Speaker 3 (48:40):
He actually served at the Nuremberg.
Speaker 4 (48:42):
Trials of all things, and then my other uncle was
an Air Force guy, so yeah, there's an air Force
in the family. And that was it, and then you know,
the next couple of generations. I think I was probably
the only one that joined. To be honest with you,
I don't I have to. That's a good question. I'd
have to think about it. But I think I am the.
Speaker 2 (49:01):
Only one any of your lineage take off to the service.
Speaker 4 (49:06):
No, no, I think they saw enough of the military.
My son said, Dad, No, not for me. I'm not
doing that.
Speaker 3 (49:14):
I can't blame it.
Speaker 4 (49:15):
We grew up his whole life, you know, around it,
and it wasn't pleasant.
Speaker 3 (49:19):
And my daughter, she's just not made. That's it's not
her choice.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (49:24):
Anyway, God bless them.
Speaker 4 (49:25):
They're both successful, you know, citizens earning their own way.
Speaker 3 (49:29):
They're off the you know, dad's paycheck.
Speaker 2 (49:32):
And they cut the cord. The biblical cord has been severed.
Speaker 4 (49:35):
Yeah that was said a long time. But yeah, the money.
You know, I always felt guilty and say.
Speaker 3 (49:42):
I'll pay for this. I'll say for that.
Speaker 4 (49:44):
And then finally they're like, you don't have to keep
doing this, Dad, And I'm like, thank you.
Speaker 3 (49:50):
Is that success? Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (49:52):
Yeah, it is, you know I'm the same way. I'm like, oh,
I got this kid, Kid, I'm like, why can't you
put five ten dollars in the gas tank? You use
the car and they bring it back with a light on,
and I'm like, kill it up. We got to break
that now. Okay, I got a ten bucks, Sydney. I
know you're working hard as a hostess, dear, okay, at
a barbecue place, but just ten bucks in the tank
goes a long way with that. Okay, come on, now,
(50:15):
at least two gallons at least, yeah, really, really, at
least two gallons, not yellow. I mean, you know, it's like, oh, hey,
you know, hook me up with twenty bucks and I'll
PayPal you back. I'm like, you have a job, but
I'm a sucker for the for the girls, for the
boy too. I got three.
Speaker 3 (50:32):
Kids, oh of course, you know, of course.
Speaker 2 (50:35):
And the wife.
Speaker 4 (50:36):
Kid's actually married a coastguard guy.
Speaker 3 (50:39):
Oh and he's their station in Miami.
Speaker 4 (50:43):
And then my son works up at Jacksonville, So there
are both ends of the state of Florida.
Speaker 3 (50:48):
So it's like hours of driving each you know, right,
But at least we're.
Speaker 2 (50:52):
Yeah, that's that's cool, that's cool. You guys, are all say,
I just interviewed your congressman rees maybe like within the
last six months. He's also Green Beret.
Speaker 3 (51:01):
Oh yeah, yeah, Brian Matt, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (51:03):
I just interviewed him. I had him on and we
talked a little bit.
Speaker 3 (51:06):
Yeah, he's actually our congressman for our museum district.
Speaker 2 (51:10):
Oh is that right? Yeah? Really nice dude, I know
very well. Yeah, really nice guy. Talked about Green Berets,
you know, of course I did. Yes, can't help that conversation, bro,
But you know, I have a friend who's a Green Beret,
and that's cool and all. But what's cooler is he
played for West Point and so like the Green Beret.
I'm like, I've met him so many times. But you
played for West Point football, bro, you know, like there's
(51:32):
a thing. Yeah. So what's what's your plans? You have
Frogman Stories Part two, three four? Thinking about what are
you going to do?
Speaker 3 (51:40):
Oh? I haven't even thought about that.
Speaker 4 (51:42):
My mind mission right now is to complete the San
Diego Museum, which is taking all my time and effort
because we got a lot of money to raise, We
got a lot of planning to do as far as
what we're going to offer there, and then I have
to keep Fort Pierce, you know, at a.
Speaker 3 (51:58):
High standard for bilding there too.
Speaker 4 (52:01):
We're developing a new building the host artifacts because the
history of the Seals is not over right. So it's
like we have to keep expanding and changing. Is that
everything's still going right. It's not like a typical museum,
you know, like World War two, like from this time,
this time the seals are from you know, nineteen forty
(52:22):
two till who knows.
Speaker 3 (52:25):
So that's my job. That keeps me busy enough.
Speaker 2 (52:28):
What can I do to help you and your mission?
Speaker 3 (52:31):
I think you've been promoting.
Speaker 4 (52:33):
Then Avco Museum tell people that are here in Florida
please come visit or just go visit the website. I
think we have a lot of great things on their
historical picture of archive from like I said, world War
two all in the way to the present days. We
have a lot of things going around all over the country,
so we can't make it to Florida. We have things
in Colorado coming up, we have things in Texas, and.
Speaker 3 (52:56):
It's all on the web over yeah, all.
Speaker 2 (52:59):
In and we will have that so that it's a
hyperlink on the softwap dot com website and wherever we
post this up, my guy Anton producer, He'll make sure
that that's all put in there so that you can
just click on it if you guys want to learn more,
or if you're listening and you just want to scroll
over and just go check out the UDT Museum. It's
the Navy Seal Museum dot org. And uh, you know,
(53:20):
retired Master Chief reminds me of Henry Rawlins. Rick bro
so cool?
Speaker 3 (53:27):
Get my hair colored?
Speaker 2 (53:29):
I guess a little bit, a little bit, a little bit.
Now you're way cool man. I feel like some dogtown
z boy action coming from you. I know you're in Florida,
but I just get this like so cow vibe from you.
And and maybe it's the Wisconsin in you.
Speaker 3 (53:41):
Bro.
Speaker 2 (53:42):
I really appreciate you being on the show. Did you
ever go to Manaswan? Did you ever go there?
Speaker 3 (53:46):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (53:47):
Did you ever eat at a place called phil Rhors Burgers?
Speaker 3 (53:50):
Oh? Oh that was.
Speaker 2 (53:51):
My dad's cousins. He made like these little twenty five
cent hamburgers with smash and you buy like a bag
of them. I just wondered, just giving him a shout out. No, well,
listen on behalf of Brandon Webb, my boss former sniper
instructor for the Sales Steal Team too. I think as
a matter of fact, he was a part of that.
I just want to say thanks for allowing me to
interview with you. You've been a wonderful guest, and I
(54:14):
know there's so many stories that we can just open
cans of worms with, but I really am grateful for
your time today. I know you're super inundated with the
museum and getting that up and going, and your resolve
is just steadfast, and I'm happy you're in charge. So
thank you for taking the time to speak to me
and my guests and my listener and the viewers. And
you have a great face for TV.
Speaker 3 (54:35):
Oh thank you.
Speaker 2 (54:36):
Yes, yeah, man, you give a good face. Paint on
right there and just like right back at it, dude,
I love it. So do you have any thing to say?
Speaker 3 (54:45):
No, I'm very appreciative. Thank you for your time.
Speaker 4 (54:48):
You know, get out there, come visit us at the museum,
check us out on your website. And you know, one
thing I did fail to mention is we're building a
monument in Normandy, France that'll be dedicated to end of
May in honor of the original frogmen that took out
the obstacles on the beaches in Normandy, and it's a
wonderful thing. A partnership with our friends in France and
(55:11):
obviously the family members of the that are still living
of the frogmen that did that, and d days. Because
it's the eightieth anniversary coming up, it's going to be wonderful.
Speaker 2 (55:20):
Yeah, those beach had didn't clear themselves. Did they know
those Bengalores had to move up? Huh? Alpha one is
not clear. Say again, alpha one is not clear. Hey
real quick before I wrap you up. Are their donations
being accepted to the museum to help it get in?
Speaker 4 (55:37):
Yeah, it's all on the website. Everything's on the website.
We have everything from uh, we have think called tried
now that it's a respite house for for our vets
that want to come here and visit the Florida Museum
free of charge. We have a canine program where we
get dogs to you know, people that are struggling.
Speaker 3 (55:57):
We have big scholarship program.
Speaker 4 (56:00):
Last year we gave out over a half a million
dollars in scholarships.
Speaker 3 (56:03):
So yes, and we have the mind me. We have
everything going on. It's it's it's great. It's keeping me busy.
Speaker 2 (56:09):
Then we will we will blast it out on all
of our social media and this will go up. And
I'm really grateful to have you on the show and
again on behalf of brand new web. Everyone here a
soft rep and our merch store. Don't forget to go
shop the merch store because we need you to buy
that stuff so I can keep the fireplace going. I
want to say thank you to Master Chief Rick Kaiser
and his awesomeness. Simple put it that way. Thank you, hey,
(56:33):
thanks for choosing to raise your hand and serve our
nation and do your job well. Miskar you are.
Speaker 3 (56:38):
Today and thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (56:40):
And with that said, this is rad say and peace
Speaker 1 (56:47):
Us been listening to self Reporadia
Lute force. If it doesn't work, you're just not using enough.
You're listening to Software Radio, Special Operations, Military Nails and
straight talk with the guys in the community.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Hey, what's going on? It is rad with another awesome
episode of soft Rep Radio just like the shirt. If
you're watching, says soft Rep Special Operation Forces Report. And today,
besides the book club that I'm going to tell you about,
go check out our book club softwap dot com book
hyphen Club. Get into the books. We might have our
next guest book in the library of book clubs if
(00:56):
he'll allow us, and that is Rick Kaiser, Master Chief
Underwater Demolition Team Navy Seal Frogman. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (01:06):
Well, thank you very much. It's my pleasure.
Speaker 4 (01:08):
The book has been a is you know, it's kind
of a controversial thing in the seal world to write
a book, right, so not all of my friends even
know I wrote a book, which is good.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Well, it's called Frogman Stories, And I'm sure there has
to be something that, you know, inspires the youth of
yesterday to be the Frogman of today. You know, whether
it's boy you know Jacques Cousteau, right, you know, talking
about his underwater adventures and you know or twenty thousan
leagues under the sea. You know what's under the sea, right,
(01:42):
And and there you go. What how old were you?
Let me ask you this, let's get right into that.
How old were you when you decided you wanted to
join the military.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
I was born raised in south of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and
I think I always had to fascination with the water
in the ocean, and like you were talking about with JOCKU,
I mean, I loved watching the undersea world of Jack Bustow,
and I thought my best way to get to that
would be joining the Navy.
Speaker 3 (02:08):
So I was sixteen actually when I went into the Naval.
Speaker 4 (02:11):
Navy recruiter's office and thought that I wanted to join
going to submarines and be a sub mariner. And on
his desk he had a little pamphlet, this is back
in the seventies, late seventies, a little pamphlet on navy seals.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
And I had never even heard of that before, right, And.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
It was about five pages, and it had just pictures
of seals doing seal things, right, shooting and jumping and
diving and doing all this cool stuff. And I was like, oh,
that's what I want to do. So I took the
pamphlet home. I thought about it for a couple of
days and went back to the recruiter and said, this
is what I wanted to do.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Sign me up.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Was there an indoctrination class or did you go straight
from like basic training into the you know.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Back when I did it.
Speaker 4 (02:58):
It's a lot different now, but when I did it,
as I joined the Navy, you go to boot camp.
Speaker 3 (03:02):
I went to Orlando, Florida, and then.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
I went to like a school, which is the Navy's
basic training to learn a skill. So if I failed
to become a seal, which seventy percent do, I could
go to the fleet and use my trade that I
had learned at a school to you know, serve the Navy.
So I went to my case, I went to Whole Technician,
a school in Philadelphia which was basically learned to how
(03:30):
of weld and firefight and stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
And then I went from there to Buds. So it
took me about, I don't.
Speaker 4 (03:36):
Know, six months from the time I joined did boot
camp a school before I got the Buds.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
What advice do you have to my young listener, who's
you know, deciding that this is there. They want to
go there, but you know they might deal with like
being homesick at boot camp. What did you ever experience
like that loss of like where am I? What am
I doing here with myself?
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Oh? I sure did. I mean, I think everybody, especially
on the first day.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
You know, I've never even been on an airplane before,
you know, and they flew me from Milwaukee to Orlando,
and so that was, you know, the first shock when
your ears don't clear because you're not sure what you're
doing on the plane, and then you get in there
and then you're just you know, proceed to get yelled
at by the instructors and you know, get a haircut
(04:24):
and everything else. So it's a shock. And yeah, so
I think I built that in the first, you know,
a day or two, and then it's you're pretty busy
after that and you stop feeling.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Sorry for yourself.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
And their main goal is to make sure that every
minute of your day is filled with something right, so
you're not bored and you're not lonely, and you don't
want to quit.
Speaker 2 (04:45):
You want to sleep. When you sleep, you're like not
staying awake. You're like, I'm out exactly exactly well that
I love to hear that and my listener out there.
You know, if you're on the fence about, you know,
taking the next step, you should just go to your
career counselor at your local recruiting station and you talk
to them and see if it is the next step.
Where you might see a pamphlet. You might have thought
(05:05):
one thing, and then you see the pamphlet and think
another thing. You're like, hey, now there's nothing wrong with
getting welding trade firefighting trade. In need of the Navy
sounds omnious. It's like, oh, no, I'm going to do
a laundry all day as in need of the Navy,
but you know, hey, no needs to go ahead.
Speaker 3 (05:22):
So I run the Navy Seal Museum in Fort Pierce, Florida,
and in San Diego. I advise young people every day
because they don't have a lot of contact with military people,
especially not so much in San Diego because I think
that is the world's largest military community, believe it or not.
But Betrad, like Fort Pierce or the other places we
(05:43):
traveled for fundraising, they don't have that contact with military
folks and they don't even know what to ask, right,
So we kind of walk them through it. And I
think the favorite thing I.
Speaker 4 (05:54):
Do is like immediately if mom and dad walk in
with the young man or woman, I kick him out
of the office and say, yeah, Mom, Dad, see you,
you're out.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
You know, I want to talk one on one.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
Because I don't want them asking me questions for their kid,
right because they're about to make a big decision and
I don't want either one of those two in there.
Speaker 3 (06:15):
You know.
Speaker 4 (06:15):
Of course they're going to have a part of it
when it's time, but not when they're you know, asking
questions and they want to do this and that. I'll
do that separately for them, but not that that really
tells me whether the the young person is ready, you know.
Speaker 2 (06:29):
Is when they're ready, when they say they're like, hey,
what's up Mom, Dad, I'll be right back. Yeah, yeah,
let me talk to him. Yeah, I'll be right back. No,
I'll be right back. You guys hang on, Yeah, you
know that, young man, No, I feel you. And uh,
I remember when I went in through my recruiting to
the Air Force, and I know, thanks for not holding
that over on me. He said, this is your choice.
You're choosing to do this. I'm not forcing you to
choose this. You're choosing this exactly right, choosing this, Yeah,
(06:53):
you can't. You can't be forced, right, And that's that's
what happened with like say, you know, conscriptions and forced
you know, service into a nation, Like say, nothing wrong
with South Korea, but you have forced military Israel, you
have forced military. Other countries. You have forced military in America,
we have the draft. We register for selective service as
(07:13):
an eighteen year old man. Right, and has that crossed over?
Do you think to man anger?
Speaker 4 (07:19):
I mean, I know this is old school thinking, but
I believe that a mandatory service of some sort for
the country is a good thing. It doesn't have to
be in the military, it can be something else.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Correct.
Speaker 4 (07:32):
The places I've gone that I've seen this, I think
they're better off for it because everybody has the same
kind of knowledge base across the country, right, because they've
all served in some way, so they all have that
connection exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:46):
Like look at Israel right now, Right, they have a
big protest before they were attacked about their government. And
when the government realized that everybody protesting them were all.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Veterans, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
They're like, oh, oh oh wait, who's protesting us exactly
seventeen through forty year olds. Is that what you just said? Okay,
so so I mean that really that's that's a real
thing to think about, right, because you have everybody all
like minded. They're like, hey, we've all you know, learned
how to do certain things. March a certain way. Now
when you march to a certain drum, you know, you
(08:18):
learn these secrets of training and you know getting through
it and just you know, closing your eyes and be
able to capture some sleep. So let me just jump
into hell week with your or something in buds, how
did you cope with you know, the stresses that your
instructors were specifically putting onto you, right, which you've probably
put onto others during training. As that instructor, what is
(08:39):
it that helps you close your eyes to get that
like combat wink out there?
Speaker 3 (08:44):
Well, buds instructors, that's basic.
Speaker 4 (08:47):
Underwater demolition field team instructors are very good at what
they do, and they and their main purpose in life
is to get you to quit training because they want
you to quit training in that combat, right, So they
have very devious ways of playing with your mind that
you have to figure out yourself that that's all it
(09:07):
is is a mind game or else, so you will quit.
And like I said, we lose seventy percent of our
initial candidates anyway, so that that's how effective they are.
So I think once I figured out that, you know,
they weren't going to take my birthday away, my mom
still loved me, right, you know, they weren't going to
(09:27):
kill me supposedly, then it just becomes a matter of
running it out until that evolution is done. So I
tell people it's kind of like being an alcoholic, right,
you got to take one day at a time, But
when you're at buds, it's like one minute at a
time to make it through that evolution and then you
get ready for the next one and then the next one.
(09:48):
That's kind of how it is. And if you don't,
if you start thinking about, oh man, I have months.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Of this work. Was there somebody that stood out that
was a teammate with you, that went through with you,
that helped pulled you through any tough spots that you.
Speaker 4 (10:02):
Yeah, I think, you know, I had some really good
friends and one of whom just passed his name was
Willie Hines. Really awesome steel, way too smart to be
a Navy seal though he basically got out of the
Navy and became a geneticist for agriculture companies.
Speaker 3 (10:16):
So, like anyway, this is the kind.
Speaker 4 (10:18):
Of guy that but you know, you can tell right
away at buds who the guys are probably going to
make it and the ones that aren't, you know, just
by their man the way they handle themselves. They go
the extra mile to take care of stuff, whether it
be stupid stuff like cleaning your room to whatever, taking
care of your equipment and not blowing it off.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
You know.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Wow, So you've been in for a minute, right, You
were in during like the seventies through the two thousands,
so you saw.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Yeah, it was thirty four.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
I did thirty four years, so that was there for
a lot of different things.
Speaker 2 (10:52):
And you know what, I didn't even like read off
your creds. You know, we just jumped into to Rick
and Rad chatting about you know, how did you what
were you doing at sixteen years old? Let me just
read some of Rick's some credits, some key features. If
you don't mind, let me brag about you for a
little bit. Okay, so our guest Rick today. Rick received
the Silver Star for valor during the Battle of Mogadishu,
(11:13):
which is Blackhawk Down, which was made into a movie, etc.
We've seen it. He served at Seal Team six from
nineteen eighty five through twenty twelve, acting as Sniper Explosives Expert,
lead Training, chief Sniper Team Leader, and Deputy Operations Officer.
He is now Chief Operating Officer of the National Navy
UDT Seal Museum. Real quick about the author, though, I
(11:36):
want to be cause he's got his book and I
just want to read this blurb. It's great, You're great.
Rick Kaiser served his country between nineteen seventy nine and
twenty thirteen as a prominent member of Seal Team two
and Seal Team six. He received the Silver Star for
his leadership in the Battle of Mogadishu that are known
as black Hawk Down. He continues to serve as I mentioned,
as a Chief Operating Officer of the National Navy UDT
(11:56):
Seal Museum for both Fort Pierce, Florida and San Diego, California,
with the same resolve that made him effective in the teams.
Rick lives with his wife Barbara in Vero Beach, Florida,
and we got to give her a shout out because
period in the story.
Speaker 3 (12:11):
Yes, happy way, happy life.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
You're right exactly exactly, and so so you come to
us with a lot of experience, world knowledge. I feel
like you're almost dad to me, Like I see you and.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
I just.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
I don't know. I was born in seventy seven, Dad, So.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
I got to tell you.
Speaker 4 (12:35):
The military, you know, it was thirty four years of it.
I do miss it. I missed aspects of it. I
missed the teamwork, I missed the mission laser focus, I.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Missed the guys. You know, I'll never being a team
like that again.
Speaker 4 (12:50):
But I'm still serving with as part of the museum
because we do so much more than a museum, right,
So a museum bunch of things, but our museum.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
We take care of our families.
Speaker 4 (13:01):
We have a memorial, we honor our following, we preserve
our history and heritage, and basically we are in a
position now especially to help the future of this country
because a lot of the things that we stand for
on our courage, commitment, sacrifice is not taught today in
schools and U it's we're the last We're the last
(13:23):
line of defense for any young person that wants to
come learn about military service. And you know what this
country's all about.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Yeah, and you can go in there and talk with
yourself or any of the curators who on site and
just ask questions. I'm sure you have other volunteers who
have served or that are giving their explanations. Okay, I
got to put it together like this, there's the Punk
Rocky Museum in Las Vegas. Okay, all right, and No
Effects created the punk rock Museum. And he's got like
guys from the Vandals given tours, and guys from all
(13:54):
the punk bands given tours. You know, you might never
know who's going to be given a tour. Is that
kind of the same thought. When you're at the UDT,
you might be talking to someone like yourself who's you know,
You're just like, Hi, how you doing. I'm going to
talk to you about this Zodiac boat.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
So normally most of our volunteers are veterans, not necessarily
Navy seals, but they have to, you know, have served.
That's bonus because they know the language, they know what
people like to hear. And then we do have a
number of seals that have retired in the area that
actually come to volunteer at the museum. To do that,
it's yeah, right, and then depending on if we have
(14:30):
large groups or not. I'll get out there and they
give a tour or the rest of the rest of
the team.
Speaker 2 (14:37):
Yeah, yeah, they'll bring out master Chief. Do you still
have coffee? They still coffee that you still have like a.
Speaker 4 (14:45):
Yeah, I don't you know what if I don't know
what it was like an air Force, But in the Navy,
you don't leave her a coffee cup laying around, especially
in the steal team because you know, nasty stuff can
happen to that.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
Oh no, I've seen Flight of the It's got to
be similar to that.
Speaker 3 (15:02):
It is, it is they put worse but worse.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Oh man, oh man. Now with you going into black
Hawk Down. A friend of mine he was there as well.
He was a colonel, Colonel Danny McKnight.
Speaker 3 (15:16):
Yeah. So Danny live me here in Florida.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
Yeah, right, and uh still talk with his daughter Pam
and all these guys, you know, and everything. And he
does airsoft war games on a large scale, or was
doing them for many years from like two thousand and
one till about maybe three years ago COVID hit, you know,
And he was the alpha commander, so I would work
underneath him as his lieutenant and then he'd had we'd
have a platoon. I'd have a whole thirty six man
platoon and there'd be like five or six of us,
(15:42):
and we'd be having briefs with him and he'd be like, well,
rac what we're gonna do here is like you know,
we're gonna do this and do that and do this,
and what do you want to do? And I'm like, uh,
you're the planner, He's like, but you're the fighter, you know.
So I really liked that he was able to kind
of like let the leash off of us and to
trust his guys that he really didn't know even an
aerosoft wargans to come up with a game plan. Right.
(16:05):
As a master chief, you're supposed to work with the
officer right in the team, right behind the scenes. You know,
the officers really looking to you for that experience and
that knowledge. What are you looking for from him? In reverse?
What's that?
Speaker 4 (16:19):
Well, the way it works in a seal team is
the senior list of guys. Master chief in my case
was is the tactical leader of any mission. Right, So
if you're going to take down a building, it's the
master chief's job to plan that.
Speaker 3 (16:35):
How we're exactly we're going to do this, right.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
It's the officer, the seal officer's job to coordinate how
you get in the air, assets that are above you,
and the communications with other forces.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
That's that's his job.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
And those two have to work together at all times
or it all falls apart.
Speaker 2 (16:54):
Just falls apart. So there's there's this unspoken like we're
going to get along. We have to yes, yeah, yeah,
your opinion matters, scourge, and your opinion matters as a
master chief when it comes to you get briefed and
what the what's going down, and they listen to what
you're saying and then they'll they'll chew that up and
talk to the officer, et cetera. I just want to
(17:15):
let my listen know that, you know, it's a team
effort in all all aspects. You guys are always on
the You probably go by first names on the teams, right, well,
you know when we're.
Speaker 4 (17:26):
On missions or we usually use code uh code words
you know, like problem zero one, you know means you
know the officer in charge. But just to keep it
so if you're on the radio, everybody understands who you're
talking to and it's not like, hey, Rick, how you doing,
you know. You know, so that's kind of how it
(17:46):
works on a combat mission.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
Yeah. I just know growing up with the s F
team around my dad and the guys was like, hey Jack,
He's like, hey, uh Rick, that's different.
Speaker 4 (17:56):
Yeah, if you're in the team room, absolutely, that's yeah,
that's a whole different. But I still, you know, I
could never. I would never actually call my boss by
his first name ever. I just wouldn't do it. I
just it's been ingrained to me since I joined the Navy,
and and it's just easier for me to go sir
or captain or you know, and.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
They're cool with that. They'll take that name. Yeah, that's cool,
that's their name, major, general, colonel, sir, Yeah, that's name, dude, sir,
let's go sir major.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
Yeah, there's certain you know, there's a lot of people
I don't even know their first.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Name, you know, yeah, because their name was captain or
their name was admiral.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
Right, the longest time, my dad was sergeant first class.
I was like, yeah, I wish your name our sergeant
first class, honey, junior sergeant first class sound good?
Speaker 3 (18:42):
I still work for.
Speaker 4 (18:44):
When I first joined the teams, I went to seald
team too, And my first CEO, or one of my
first CEOs was the name. It was Cat Brick Willard.
And then I worked for him again as my boss
at the Field Team six, and then I worked for
him again as he's the chairman of our board of
directors for the museum. So like, I can't get rid
of this guy. Yeah, they've been where you or bore
him for thirty years, right, for forty years now, it's awesome.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
Yeah, a little bit, a little bit of a time there,
a little friendship. Okay, my laugh is there, But I'm
thinking about Blackhawk down and operations Nottan Serpent and you
got what was your job? I know your seal, but
what were you guys doing there? We all hear about
the Rangers, right, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (19:25):
It was it was my sniper team went in there
with the army basically, and the thought process at the
time was there was always a lot of headbutting and
competition between us and our army counterparts.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
So the uh offser in charge, General Garrison.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
Decided to put a baby Seal element within that unit
to try to preach that gap, right, to try and
get us to all work together.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
And that's why we were there.
Speaker 4 (19:54):
I mean, of course it was only four of us
and you know, one hundred of them, but you know,
we we figured out out and you know, we did
our job, and I think at the end of the day,
you know, we respected them and they respected us.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Were you a part of that what they call the
Mogadishue mile We, Yeah, sure was.
Speaker 4 (20:13):
I wasn't running the whole way, but I was certainly
part of it, picking people up as we went.
Speaker 3 (20:20):
We went to the soccer stadium and.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
That's when it was like, everybody needs to go back
to the soccer stadium and fall back, right, you had recovered?
Can you tell us a little bit ahead?
Speaker 4 (20:31):
Yeah, So, you know what I tell people when I
talk about Mogadishu is that that was the day that
the Somalis decided to fight.
Speaker 3 (20:39):
That's basically what it was.
Speaker 4 (20:42):
We saw footage of you know, truckloads of fighters coming
in with guns that we saw after the battle, right,
but you know, we were wondering where all these people
were coming from, and they were being shipped in from
all over the city to come and fight us, and
probably most of them didn't care or they didn't really
want to fight, And it was just one of the
things to do.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
Right.
Speaker 4 (21:03):
So, anyway, as the day progressed and we actually went
in for this, I actually went in for the third
time to go and rescue some of the guys that
were stuck in the city. When everybody was recovered and
the sun started coming up, we started getting a lot
more small arms fire, obviously because.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
You know, they could see us.
Speaker 4 (21:22):
We're the only ones that hit the night vision, and
they basically said, hey, let's go, let's get the hell
out of here before you know, before it gets you know.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
Like the day before. Right.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
So when that happened, everybody just you know, cranked up
their humbes and whatever they were on and headed towards
the soccer stadium.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
And unfortunately, some people.
Speaker 4 (21:43):
Got left behind in that mad dash to get the
hell out of the town. And so we went picked
up some people and along the way once we realized
what was happening.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
Just a lot of bounding and overwatches that what you
were doing, I mean, was your thought process, like we
got no.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
It's kind of a it was a joint with units
that had never trained together. Right, So you had Tenth
Mount Division, you had you know, the Rangers, you had
the seals, you had RMYSF. So you had all that
and none of us that actually worked together.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
The communications was.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
Pretty poor between the different units as far as you
know who's in charge, who's doing what? You know, ask
the recipe for disaster, you know, and that's basically what happened,
but luckily didn't prove to be a disaster. Because most
people are good runners. When you're getting you become a
good runner.
Speaker 2 (22:33):
You guys have horse ties. You guys are trained to
taper your legs by my friend, I tell you what.
You guys are runners, runners and runners. So that makes
sense when you watch the movie Black Hawk Down and
you see every ounce of energy given to combat, but
yet they still have to just go one more mile
running with you know, their friends and their gear and
(22:53):
they're slodging along and they're just making it happen. It
kind of shows you the resolve, you know, that training
and kick in and push you through. Like you said,
I think maybe you said everybody can do it, it's
just seventy percent of them wash out of it kind
of attitude if they just know that it's about the
next minute and just moving forward, right yepro.
Speaker 3 (23:12):
So it was when we did get to the stadium.
Speaker 4 (23:14):
It was kind of like a surreal environment if you
can imagine, all the helicopters were in the center, you know,
take metavacking people out because of the original you know,
one hundred people that went in there. We lost you know,
eighteen of them that were kise and you know a
good seventy of them were wounded, so luckily unscathed. They
(23:35):
just sat in the in the bleachers right with two
of my other seal friends if one of them had
been shot, and one of the Pakistani soldiers came by
and gave us some soup, and it was just like
a surreal This guy's like here you go, and we're like,
thank you very much, as we're watching all this carnage
in front of us, wondering for when it was our
time to get out of there.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
And finally we got.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
A helicopter and flew back to the base and they
basically said, and you know, reload, we're getting ready to.
Speaker 3 (24:01):
Go back out again.
Speaker 4 (24:02):
And that's you know exactly how it is when you're
going through BUDGS training. You think it's over and then
they say, oh, we were going to do one more
mile or we're gonna do you know.
Speaker 2 (24:12):
We're gonna take the pillow out from your head exactly.
Speaker 3 (24:15):
And that's how they break people.
Speaker 4 (24:17):
But if you're ready for it, in which we you
know we were, it's just another another day.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
You're like, oh, we're spinning up, let's go. That's just
what we do. And so you're already psychologically built. Yeah,
your instructors legoed your brain together.
Speaker 3 (24:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
See, I've been boxing for you know, about eight months now,
but probably about two hundred days in that eight months
I've gone, and so I feel that all of a sudden,
I get this brain fog at the bag. My coach
will be like two three two three five four five
slip slip pop, you know what. I'm like, Okay, I
get the first three sets down and I'll forget and
they'll say it to me and I'm like, oh ba bam,
right back to it. And I was like, oh, you
(24:56):
got my dog whistle coach. Oh you you know. He's like,
that's why I would be in your corner. He's like,
because if I saw you freeze up, I would just
tell you what you need and boom you get it done.
And I was like, oh yeah, dude, program me unlock
that character inside of me sir, that is right, and
that's what happened with you. Your instructors knew the character
(25:17):
that you were, and they unlocked you and all of
your special powers like some crazy video game character. You
get the sniper platform, you get the cool skins, you
get all the cool beer, you get the accessories. You know,
you have all the download ble content. Immediately, it's like,
oh and a satellite phone.
Speaker 3 (25:33):
All that stuff comes at a price.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
I know it comes at a price. And you know,
and if my listener wants to know what price that is,
go talk to a Navy recruiter or your local career
counselor and find out what that price is, because I
promise you it's a blank check of you.
Speaker 3 (25:48):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
Okay, So that's so thank you for.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
What I would say to any young person is they
can't go wrong. Though cannot go wrong by joining the military.
You don't have to be a seal, you don't have
to join the Navy. You can do anything. There's so
many opportunities out there. It's heartbreaking to see that they're
having trouble recruiting young young people.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
But why does that surprise you?
Speaker 4 (26:11):
After things like you know, the pullout in Afghanistan, or
you know some of the stuff crazy stuff that's going.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Like holding promotions hostage over officers who have earned the
right to move up in their life, no matter what
side of the aisle. Like And I know during George
Washington days, Congress was always like, you know, holding things
over his head, and there's always a battle between you know,
executive branch, legislative branch, all these different branches. But you know,
at the end of the day, when I was talking
to a major general, I asked him, how did you
(26:39):
transition all the paperwork from George W. Bush to President
Obama without having like any type of political bias. And
he's like, well, Rad, it doesn't matter who I vote
for because it says US Navy, US Army, US Marines,
US Air Force on our name tapes, and so first
and foremost at US. And so he's like, you know,
you know, it may not be my guy in the race,
(27:00):
but he's my guy now. And so here's the book
of stuff that he was supposed to focus on, et cetera.
You know, these are the.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
Most important things. That's the way it has to work.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
And I love that sentiment of like it's the US,
We're the us, right, Like we're supposed to have a
difference of opinions. We're just normal human beings and we
have thoughts. But at the end of the day, we're
all under the same umbrella of the red, white, and
blue or those stars and stripes. And I'm a big
believer in just like we just need one flag in America.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
No, I agree with it.
Speaker 4 (27:28):
And mean, you think those people that are being the
Americans being held and guys right now care who the
president is.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
No, you just want to get rescued.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
They don't correct, No, and they do need to be rescued.
And again with Gaza, right and and so I would
like free Palestinian people not under oppression, and I would
like free people in the world not under oppression. Let
me just put that out there, right. I'm not saying
one way or the other. I just think that, you know,
Israel has a right to defend itself from hostile acts.
(27:56):
And I also think that some of the people in
you know, Palestine don't want to be a part of
the hostile acts, but they're like caught in the middle
of it all. And you know, the media likes to
like let us know who those people are. It's usually
women and children right that are just constantly being attacked
and there's no one that can verify it. And there's
no one that can't verify it. It's just like this
(28:16):
omnious The media tells us what's up. So yes, free
the hostages. If there's a ceasefire happening right now in
Gaza and we're coming to a ceasefire, the hostages need
to be a part of that ceasefire. Like, if there's
an agreement, please just release them so that it can stop.
Speaker 4 (28:32):
I agree, get them out, That's what I'm saying. Can
you imagine those poor people what they're going through. I mean,
they're scarred for life.
Speaker 2 (28:40):
You know. I've seen some that have gone to the
media after they got out and they're just like, you know,
let us just go, like, just let them go home,
Like this isn't worth it. You know, it's not worth it.
And if Hamas leadership really thinks it's worth it, wow,
you're losing, like twenty e lost twenty five thousand civilian
people and your whole entire city is gone, right is
it really worth it? Right? And I guess that's for
(29:03):
those to decide. But again, when I mentioned earlier that
the veterans over there were the ones protesting net and Yahoo.
That's true. There was a huge uprising until this kicked
off and he was they were asking him to be removed,
and they're still asking for him to be removed. So
on both sides of the fence, what do you think
about that?
Speaker 3 (29:19):
You know, I don't really have an opinion on their politics.
Speaker 4 (29:22):
I was surprised that more of the Israeli citizens, you know,
don't have guns. I guess that was the surprising thing
to me, because most of them are veterans to train, right,
but there is just not in their culture.
Speaker 3 (29:36):
To have a gun in now.
Speaker 4 (29:38):
And that's really what allowed Amas to come in there
and kill so many and take so many hostage because
they didn't have any way to defend themselves.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
So just a thought for everybody in this country, you know.
Speaker 2 (29:51):
Yeah, and for people to kind of blame their politicians like, oh,
well it took four hours or however many hours from
them to respond, or you know, et cetera. Why they
allow it to come into the Iron Dome in the
first place. I mean, you know, I'm just a pundit.
I'm just the back armchair quarterbacking just like everybody else.
Right now. I'm not on the ground, I'm just saying
what I'm hearing, right. I see people who are non
(30:12):
Jewish wholly advocating for the whole culture of like this
needs to stop, right, and they've just it's just taken
over for them, right, they just have such a faith
a faith and wanted to see Israel free and Gaza
and Israeli's the hostage is freed. I just want to
see that too, you know, Is that what you want
to see also?
Speaker 3 (30:30):
Of course, yeah, yeah, of course I don't see that.
I don't see it happening anytime soon.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
But what if they're not, though, what if the hostages
for the you know, have met their fate. What if
that's the situation. What's the thoughts of a maybe seal?
Speaker 4 (30:47):
I mean, it would be a terrible thing if it
was one of my family members in there. But I
also understand exactly what the thought process is. If they
don't stand up and do something now, it's not gonna
it's going to end eventually, right And if they don't
get their goals accomplished, then it's going to happen again.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
So I understand both sides of this. There's aye you.
Speaker 4 (31:12):
Never win winters of war, right, I mean like Somalia
for example, there's we're still fighting in Somalia.
Speaker 3 (31:18):
We still had US troops in Somalia.
Speaker 4 (31:20):
So what did we accomplish you know, thirty years ago.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
Nothing?
Speaker 2 (31:26):
So it's still going on. Yeah, the car market still
thrives with sixty dollars plato aks. Absolutely, sixty thousand in
the US, though I don't understand. Okay, sixty thousand dollars
for the same ak in the US is sixty bucks
into the car market.
Speaker 3 (31:42):
Yeah, crazy, absolutely, it is.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
It is. It's just it's just it's crazy. And then
we have all these other actors that are trying to
get into like the shipping lanes. And we just lost
two seals recently that had tried to board or whatever
the case was with the vessel in the Red Sea,
and you know they've met their fate according to.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
Yeah, I'll step into that one.
Speaker 4 (32:08):
You know, when we do shipboarding, it's probably one of
the most dangerous things you can do. It's at night
usually you know, it depends on the sea state and
how safe it is, but normally there's some sort of
sea state. So when you come up along a bigger
ship with a small boat. I mean, the small boat
is next to that and it's moving like this, and
(32:28):
the big ship doesn't move, and you have to There's
so many things that can go wrong. It's just incredible.
And I've seen many of my friends get popped off
a ladder. It doesn't matter how strong you are or
your technique. If the boat decides to go down, well,
you're on the ladder and it catches on that ladder,
you're off that ladder, and you better hope you don't
(32:51):
hit something on the way down, like your other teammate
or the boat. And then once you hit the water,
if you're still conscious, you have to you know, get
your stuff off, get to the surface.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
And unfortunately those two guys didn't make it.
Speaker 2 (33:04):
No, and uh, those guys would have been outfitted probably
in like some type of device that they could have
pulled the cord and ripped their putting off of style
equipment train with that.
Speaker 3 (33:15):
We train that all the time.
Speaker 4 (33:17):
You know, they do buoyancy testing, so you jump into
the pool and make sure that you know, if you
go to the bottom you're too heavy, you need to
change something up. And they have floatation devices obviously on
them also, so I guess We'll just never know what happened.
Speaker 2 (33:32):
You Like, even the plates are cut in a swimmer fashion.
They're called swimmer cut plates for the plates, so you
guys can have the movement of the freedom. There's just
a lot of technical stuff that goes into a Navy
Seals kit to help them be the best and be successful.
And these guys probably wouldn't have taken the task of
boarding if it was not if it wasn't worth it. Right,
(33:53):
they can stay.
Speaker 4 (33:54):
Right, right, No, I mean the team, even though we
lost two guys, completed the mission right, and they took
them and sure enough, there was a bunch of arms
on it that were being transported to I can't remember
right the story where it.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Was being warheads, I think is what it was. I
think there was some warheads.
Speaker 4 (34:11):
They completed the mission, but it was a big it
was a great cost unfortunately.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Yeah, and uh and uh, you know, rest easy for
those guys and their family. Sorry for the loss and
the community. You know, it hit hard. And I know
software has a lot of family like.
Speaker 4 (34:26):
Yep, so we'll be adding their names on the We
have a Navy Seat of memorial at our museum and
four peers Memorial Day and it's a great ceremony. Guest speakers,
all the family members will show up and we will
unveil the names at the memorial.
Speaker 2 (34:44):
That's very kind and very thoughtful and just a legacy
to keep their names always out there, hundred percent top
of mind. You know, been to plenty of funerals and
the only thing we want to see is the photos
and just like the memories and so keeping the name alive,
you know, that's very cool. I do want my own pyramid.
I'm not trying to piggyback off on that, but you
(35:06):
know we do. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (35:07):
So the book was I mean one of the reasons
I wrote the book was so I could promote the museum, right,
that's my job, that's my mission. So and so far
as it's helped a lot, you know. So I've had
a lot of new people that are learning about the
museum and what we do, and it's been it's been.
Speaker 2 (35:26):
Wild, right, stories that you can tell in the museum, bro,
I mean the stories that can come out of the
just whatever canvas strap is attached to somebody's chest rigging there.
If I go in there, I would just stare at
the buckles. I'd be like, what here? Were those buckles?
Are those two thousand and three? So what was he
doing in Khaki two thousand and three with black buckles?
You know. There's just like the small little things in
(35:47):
my mind, you know. And so where can we Is
there a website that I could have put in?
Speaker 4 (35:52):
Yeah, at www dot Navy Seal Museums dot org and
the Florida to say the California site is coming online.
Speaker 3 (36:02):
It'll be opened by the next end of this year.
Speaker 4 (36:06):
Fort Pierces the museum has been open since nineteen eighty five, right,
So we've been around in Florida because Fort Pierce is
the birthplace of the Navy Seal just so you know,
so a lot of the first thing people ask me
is why in the world is the Navy.
Speaker 3 (36:21):
Seal Museum in Fort Pierce, Florida.
Speaker 4 (36:23):
Well, eighty years ago the original frogmen trained to take
the beaches in Normandy, Great and four Piers and that's
why we're there. So the museum is actually on the
Navy base that existed back those eighty years ago in
World War Two.
Speaker 3 (36:39):
So that that's all.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
Tied to guess well, you know, I have to just
give my dad a shout out again. The one thing
that always eluded him. On his uniform was a combat
diver badge. That was the one thing that he I'm
just not green bray enough because he was a young
man diving. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (36:58):
Do you really deserve a combat diving badge for diving
in Key West?
Speaker 3 (37:02):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Yeah? Really really, he just wanted to have that scuba ahead.
I think with the the I.
Speaker 4 (37:07):
Mean even in the dead of night, the water is
so clear you can see exactly what you're doing from
the moon or whatever.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
But he was a young boy that dived Lake Michigan
off of a tugboat down to tugboats when he was
like sixteen, and then he joined in seventeen the Navy,
and then he went from the he does. He's from
Two Rivers if you know Wisconsin. He's from Two Rivers, Wisconsin. Yeah,
which means that I'm kind of from Two Rivers Wisconsin.
Speaker 3 (37:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (37:34):
Well I'm from I think I'm from Florida now because
I'm not going any further north because I'm not going
in the snow, never shoveling a driveway again.
Speaker 3 (37:43):
Never. So that's why I'm a Floridian now.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
So I guess I am a Utahn. Let me be,
let me let me. Just listen to what you say,
like snowboard three to four times. In fact, it's snowing
and it's a powder day today, and you're that important
to me.
Speaker 3 (37:58):
Okay, I just want you to As you hang up,
you can go go do.
Speaker 2 (38:02):
Your wife's right here, like what she's like here, put
your goggles on, let's go. Yeah. See and that's a
healthy relationship. See. What do you do to to wind down?
Do you do you surf? Being in Florida? What is
it that's helping you other than the museum? I know
you're curating.
Speaker 4 (38:21):
I wish I was coordinated enough to surf. My my
son is an excellent surfer. But uh, what I do
to Uh? I still have my same routine that I
did when in the sealed teams. I usually work out
every morning, something swimming or running. And I mean, being
in Florida, it's easy to do that because it's very
seldom that is bad.
Speaker 3 (38:40):
Enough that you can't do that, right, So that's that's
what I usually do.
Speaker 4 (38:44):
And then uh, and then working at the museum, voting
the mud m and uh and everything else that we
do keeps me, keeps me busy. And then opening the
new one in San Diego. That keeps me really busy,
So it is on my toes.
Speaker 2 (39:01):
Do you go to the VA? Are you using the
VA after service?
Speaker 4 (39:05):
I haven't had a great experience with the VA, so
I try not. I try to avoid it when I
when I do.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Is it because they tell you what you don't want
to hear, or is it because they don't get you
in for six months?
Speaker 4 (39:17):
Yeah, the ladder, you know, if they get you in,
they don't. There's communications, At least in my experience, the
communications is very poor. They'll set you up and with
an appointment and then you'll get a postcard in the
mail saying your appointment that tomorrow, and you're like, well.
Speaker 3 (39:32):
Hey, I got you know, I have my life, I
have to work.
Speaker 4 (39:35):
And you know, and then you try to call and
there's no answer, and it's just, you know, it's just
easier for me to not do it, to not see.
Speaker 3 (39:43):
I'm very fortunate that I don't have to depend on.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
It right right, And I keep trying to advocate for
my younger guys to take care of themselves now because
when they're older, it's going to be harder for their
significant other to push them around the VA, you know,
Like now, my mom pushed my dad into their sixties,
you know, and like he was just getting wheeled and
she was doing all of it and carrying the bags
(40:06):
and taking him to his appointments. While I was growing
my life as the son with a new wife and kids.
Mom was just taking dad. We didn't think twice. It's like, oh,
mom's a dad at the VA, at the VA, at
the va, the VA. So I just wanted to find out,
you know, your thoughts on your experience go to the VA,
just so my listener can.
Speaker 3 (40:21):
Yeah, yeah, I know, like I said, some people have
nothing but glowing reports.
Speaker 4 (40:25):
I just I didn't. I wasn't one of those guys.
And I, like I said, I'm fortunately I don't have to.
Speaker 3 (40:30):
Exactly and I don't do it.
Speaker 2 (40:32):
That's that's it. That's it. That's wanted to find out. Now,
what story do you want to tell me?
Speaker 3 (40:39):
What story?
Speaker 2 (40:40):
Yeah? I have frog Man stories, Okay.
Speaker 3 (40:44):
I'll tell you.
Speaker 4 (40:48):
You know, the while you're going through training, everybody has
got a story, right, everybody's got a story. And if
you didn't think about quitting while you're going through hell week,
you're not telling you truth, right. So I guess my
story on that was you know, it was a Wednesday night,
you know, halfway through hell week. I feed you four
(41:09):
times a day. You know, you got to keep that
energy going because you're going all the time with very
little or no sleep for the week. And so that
you go to the chow hall and they turn the
temperature up right, so it was probably you know, high
eighties inside the chow hall, and you just gorge yourself
with as much food as you can and then they
tell you to have to go to sleep, right, So
(41:31):
within like minutes, everybody's every everyone's asleep, right. And then
they come busted and of course you all and ask
you we told you not to go to sleep and now.
Speaker 3 (41:41):
You will pay the price for this, and blah blah blah.
Speaker 4 (41:44):
And at that moment, I thought to myself, what in
the world am I doing here?
Speaker 3 (41:50):
You know, it's like what is going on?
Speaker 4 (41:53):
And I kind of just followed with the group and
we got in line and they put us all in
the ocean, and it was cold out, and I think
that the jolt and the shock and the cold water woke.
Speaker 3 (42:03):
Me up and really saved me.
Speaker 4 (42:05):
So they saved me unintentionally that night by waking me
up in the cold water.
Speaker 2 (42:12):
You're gonna take you?
Speaker 3 (42:14):
Yeah? Warm, you know I woke up after that and
never thought about it again.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
Wow that yeah, because like you said, everybody it goes
to their head, right, it's like, so what am I doing?
Speaker 3 (42:26):
Half exactly why this is not fun?
Speaker 2 (42:30):
But then it turned into fun? Can you tell us that?
Speaker 3 (42:33):
You know? What? A lot of it?
Speaker 4 (42:35):
You know? And obviously when we tell stories the book,
it's mostly funny, happy stories, right, It's not bad stories
or shoot them up stories.
Speaker 3 (42:45):
It's just about funny things that happened to me throughout
my career in the seal team.
Speaker 4 (42:49):
So for the most part, you know, with with you
and your buddies, it's fun, right.
Speaker 2 (42:56):
All you get to shoot, right, that's yeah?
Speaker 3 (42:58):
Yeah, all that's is really great.
Speaker 4 (43:01):
Like I said, it comes out of price, and then
you pay the price, but then you keep having the fun.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
You should have a shirt that says it comes at
a price. Rick says, it comes at a price. Everything,
everything comes at a price. I'm gonna I'm gonna keep
that I become better people when I interview better people,
it comes at a price, right.
Speaker 4 (43:23):
Like married, for example, that's your wife, Oh yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
Hundred percent. Oh jeez, we've been together twenty five years,
married twenty three so and now forty six. So that
gives you an age. In Utah, we get young, dude.
We're like, if you're not a grandma by twenty five
year old, you know, it's like, yeah, we get married
young here. Kids are young here, kids have kids young here. Yeah.
Like my mom was a grandma at thirty six. Yeah, right,
(43:52):
and my brother was already nineteen, so it's clear, right,
So just young families here. That's how it is.
Speaker 3 (43:58):
You joined the Air Force, what well.
Speaker 2 (44:00):
I grew up outside of Hill Air Force Base, and
so I would see, you know, my dad was stationed
here from California with the nineteenth Group. We left Cali,
came here in eighty three. He got stationed at Camp
Williams with the Green Berets in eighty one, and then
we finally showed up in eighty three during the Great
Flood of Utah when it was all flooded. And then
I've just grown up with F sixteen's flying over. I
(44:20):
literally lived under the flight path and we'd see like
the B one bomber with its swoop wings always taken
off and my dad would be like, I wonder where
that gasoline dissipates too, you know. And I was like,
what do you mean? I didn't understand. But they were
trying to figure out why all the ladies in the
church ward were coming down with like multiple sclerosis, including
my mom, And so they were trying to think if
(44:41):
it was something to do with like the fuel from
underneath the flight path for all our lives living underneath
there for so many years had just come down into
the breathing air. They're just trying to figure out why
a lot of ladies were getting MS in the ward,
different doctors. So, but yeah, blue beret man, it was
the blue beret that taunted me. My dad worked one.
I was a young kid, young, dumb and full of
(45:03):
all the things they say, And uh yeah, I said,
I wanted a blue one.
Speaker 4 (45:08):
I have a good uh Air Force military police story.
So we were in Herbert in Florida in the Panandle
and we were doing some training out on out on
the base there, and nobody had ever told us about
you know, you have I don't know what they call it,
but it's like we call it like the red line
of death that's throughout the line around these aircraft, like
(45:29):
if you cross over it all of a sudden, there's
like alert yeh, yes exactly.
Speaker 3 (45:34):
So we were like all geared up, right.
Speaker 4 (45:37):
It was aulpus six of us and we were just
walking to the aircraft and we weren't paying attention.
Speaker 3 (45:41):
We just was doing a.
Speaker 4 (45:41):
Bee line to the aircraft that we were going to
get on, and uh we crossed another line for another
aircraft and all of a sudden, everybody starts coming in
and we had all our ship on us too, so
we're like going, well, you know what's going on?
Speaker 3 (45:55):
Right? All these guys are coming at us with guns.
We have guns, and it's like.
Speaker 4 (45:59):
This stand up and then they start yelling as to
get outside the line.
Speaker 3 (46:02):
Right, We're like, what about it was? We didn't you know,
we didn't see any damn line and we.
Speaker 4 (46:09):
Were finally, you know, everything settled down and then we
got a lesson and air Force etiquette as far as
don't cross this line. We're like, okay, we didn't even
know it was what it was, right, So anyway, that's
that's my Air Force security story, you.
Speaker 2 (46:26):
Know, that's it. That's it. Yeah, no, and uh, I
mean growing up military brat right outside of base, we
skateboarded the base. It was always skating. It's like, this
is my base, bro, you can't stop me. I have
an ID card, you know. And so they we'd be
skating in like some fuel dump where they have like
the pylons that go on the jets, you know that
they would feel fuel. But to us, it had like
(46:48):
this embankment area that we could just like come up
and do like a kick, flip or whatever on it.
And it was just the best. Security forces rolls up like,
you guys can't be in here. We're like military IDs. Yeah, exactly.
You know, how do you stop Iron Eagle bro? You
know the kid lives on base man, you know.
Speaker 3 (47:10):
Exactly.
Speaker 2 (47:11):
Plus, my dad was Army, so there was one up
on that as an army kids. I was like, air Force,
this is an army, I d you know.
Speaker 3 (47:18):
It's like exactly, I don't know any better.
Speaker 2 (47:21):
I don't know any better. And then the moment I
joined and flew out on my first airplane was the
time I joined was the first time I flew on
and United and they put a skate park at the base.
I was like, what now that I'm leaving, now there's
a skate park. I'm like, you guys, that's supposed to
be done when we were skating it. So they put
a skate park at hill because of all of us
(47:41):
skating everywhere. The parents were like, where's our kids supposed
to skate?
Speaker 4 (47:45):
Huh huh their kids.
Speaker 2 (47:49):
The power of killed power parents, Right.
Speaker 3 (47:52):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (47:53):
I would have killed for a skate park for my son.
You know, I ended up building a number of half bights, right, so.
Speaker 3 (47:59):
You know, yes I do. Yes, a little skater, little
skater freaks.
Speaker 2 (48:04):
Yeah, that's us. You can't stop us. I'm gonna skate
your flight line. And the cool thing is they knew,
they probably knew. It's who we were. You know, we
were always around just causing trouble on the on the base.
That's us, either at the pool or skateboarding, or at
the movie theater, whatever it was, you know, just going
up there. But those are good times. Love your dad always,
Thanks for the good times, you know, Yeah, exactly. And uh,
(48:27):
you know, did you have family that served as well?
Did you mention that my father served.
Speaker 4 (48:33):
He was in the Army Reserve and my uncle was
an Army Air Corps fact World War Two later or not.
Speaker 3 (48:40):
He actually served at the Nuremberg.
Speaker 4 (48:42):
Trials of all things, and then my other uncle was
an Air Force guy, so yeah, there's an air Force
in the family. And that was it, and then you know,
the next couple of generations. I think I was probably
the only one that joined. To be honest with you,
I don't I have to. That's a good question. I'd
have to think about it. But I think I am the.
Speaker 2 (49:01):
Only one any of your lineage take off to the service.
Speaker 4 (49:06):
No, no, I think they saw enough of the military.
My son said, Dad, No, not for me. I'm not
doing that.
Speaker 3 (49:14):
I can't blame it.
Speaker 4 (49:15):
We grew up his whole life, you know, around it,
and it wasn't pleasant.
Speaker 3 (49:19):
And my daughter, she's just not made. That's it's not
her choice.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (49:24):
Anyway, God bless them.
Speaker 4 (49:25):
They're both successful, you know, citizens earning their own way.
Speaker 3 (49:29):
They're off the you know, dad's paycheck.
Speaker 2 (49:32):
And they cut the cord. The biblical cord has been severed.
Speaker 4 (49:35):
Yeah that was said a long time. But yeah, the money.
You know, I always felt guilty and say.
Speaker 3 (49:42):
I'll pay for this. I'll say for that.
Speaker 4 (49:44):
And then finally they're like, you don't have to keep
doing this, Dad, And I'm like, thank you.
Speaker 3 (49:50):
Is that success? Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (49:52):
Yeah, it is, you know I'm the same way. I'm like, oh,
I got this kid, Kid, I'm like, why can't you
put five ten dollars in the gas tank? You use
the car and they bring it back with a light on,
and I'm like, kill it up. We got to break
that now. Okay, I got a ten bucks, Sydney. I
know you're working hard as a hostess, dear, okay, at
a barbecue place, but just ten bucks in the tank
goes a long way with that. Okay, come on, now,
(50:15):
at least two gallons at least, yeah, really, really, at
least two gallons, not yellow. I mean, you know, it's like, oh, hey,
you know, hook me up with twenty bucks and I'll
PayPal you back. I'm like, you have a job, but
I'm a sucker for the for the girls, for the
boy too. I got three.
Speaker 3 (50:32):
Kids, oh of course, you know, of course.
Speaker 2 (50:35):
And the wife.
Speaker 4 (50:36):
Kid's actually married a coastguard guy.
Speaker 3 (50:39):
Oh and he's their station in Miami.
Speaker 4 (50:43):
And then my son works up at Jacksonville, So there
are both ends of the state of Florida.
Speaker 3 (50:48):
So it's like hours of driving each you know, right,
But at least we're.
Speaker 2 (50:52):
Yeah, that's that's cool, that's cool. You guys, are all say,
I just interviewed your congressman rees maybe like within the
last six months. He's also Green Beret.
Speaker 3 (51:01):
Oh yeah, yeah, Brian Matt, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (51:03):
I just interviewed him. I had him on and we
talked a little bit.
Speaker 3 (51:06):
Yeah, he's actually our congressman for our museum district.
Speaker 2 (51:10):
Oh is that right? Yeah? Really nice dude, I know
very well. Yeah, really nice guy. Talked about Green Berets,
you know, of course I did. Yes, can't help that conversation, bro,
But you know, I have a friend who's a Green Beret,
and that's cool and all. But what's cooler is he
played for West Point and so like the Green Beret.
I'm like, I've met him so many times. But you
played for West Point football, bro, you know, like there's
(51:32):
a thing. Yeah. So what's what's your plans? You have
Frogman Stories Part two, three four? Thinking about what are
you going to do?
Speaker 3 (51:40):
Oh? I haven't even thought about that.
Speaker 4 (51:42):
My mind mission right now is to complete the San
Diego Museum, which is taking all my time and effort
because we got a lot of money to raise, We
got a lot of planning to do as far as
what we're going to offer there, and then I have
to keep Fort Pierce, you know, at a.
Speaker 3 (51:58):
High standard for bilding there too.
Speaker 4 (52:01):
We're developing a new building the host artifacts because the
history of the Seals is not over right. So it's
like we have to keep expanding and changing. Is that
everything's still going right. It's not like a typical museum,
you know, like World War two, like from this time,
this time the seals are from you know, nineteen forty
(52:22):
two till who knows.
Speaker 3 (52:25):
So that's my job. That keeps me busy enough.
Speaker 2 (52:28):
What can I do to help you and your mission?
Speaker 3 (52:31):
I think you've been promoting.
Speaker 4 (52:33):
Then Avco Museum tell people that are here in Florida
please come visit or just go visit the website. I
think we have a lot of great things on their
historical picture of archive from like I said, world War
two all in the way to the present days. We
have a lot of things going around all over the country,
so we can't make it to Florida. We have things
in Colorado coming up, we have things in Texas, and.
Speaker 3 (52:56):
It's all on the web over yeah, all.
Speaker 2 (52:59):
In and we will have that so that it's a
hyperlink on the softwap dot com website and wherever we
post this up, my guy Anton producer, He'll make sure
that that's all put in there so that you can
just click on it if you guys want to learn more,
or if you're listening and you just want to scroll
over and just go check out the UDT Museum. It's
the Navy Seal Museum dot org. And uh, you know,
(53:20):
retired Master Chief reminds me of Henry Rawlins. Rick bro
so cool?
Speaker 3 (53:27):
Get my hair colored?
Speaker 2 (53:29):
I guess a little bit, a little bit, a little bit.
Now you're way cool man. I feel like some dogtown
z boy action coming from you. I know you're in Florida,
but I just get this like so cow vibe from you.
And and maybe it's the Wisconsin in you.
Speaker 3 (53:41):
Bro.
Speaker 2 (53:42):
I really appreciate you being on the show. Did you
ever go to Manaswan? Did you ever go there?
Speaker 3 (53:46):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (53:47):
Did you ever eat at a place called phil Rhors Burgers?
Speaker 3 (53:50):
Oh? Oh that was.
Speaker 2 (53:51):
My dad's cousins. He made like these little twenty five
cent hamburgers with smash and you buy like a bag
of them. I just wondered, just giving him a shout out. No, well,
listen on behalf of Brandon Webb, my boss former sniper
instructor for the Sales Steal Team too. I think as
a matter of fact, he was a part of that.
I just want to say thanks for allowing me to
interview with you. You've been a wonderful guest, and I
(54:14):
know there's so many stories that we can just open
cans of worms with, but I really am grateful for
your time today. I know you're super inundated with the
museum and getting that up and going, and your resolve
is just steadfast, and I'm happy you're in charge. So
thank you for taking the time to speak to me
and my guests and my listener and the viewers. And
you have a great face for TV.
Speaker 3 (54:35):
Oh thank you.
Speaker 2 (54:36):
Yes, yeah, man, you give a good face. Paint on
right there and just like right back at it, dude,
I love it. So do you have any thing to say?
Speaker 3 (54:45):
No, I'm very appreciative. Thank you for your time.
Speaker 4 (54:48):
You know, get out there, come visit us at the museum,
check us out on your website. And you know, one
thing I did fail to mention is we're building a
monument in Normandy, France that'll be dedicated to end of
May in honor of the original frogmen that took out
the obstacles on the beaches in Normandy, and it's a
wonderful thing. A partnership with our friends in France and
(55:11):
obviously the family members of the that are still living
of the frogmen that did that, and d days. Because
it's the eightieth anniversary coming up, it's going to be wonderful.
Speaker 2 (55:20):
Yeah, those beach had didn't clear themselves. Did they know
those Bengalores had to move up? Huh? Alpha one is
not clear. Say again, alpha one is not clear. Hey
real quick before I wrap you up. Are their donations
being accepted to the museum to help it get in?
Speaker 4 (55:37):
Yeah, it's all on the website. Everything's on the website.
We have everything from uh, we have think called tried
now that it's a respite house for for our vets
that want to come here and visit the Florida Museum
free of charge. We have a canine program where we
get dogs to you know, people that are struggling.
Speaker 3 (55:57):
We have big scholarship program.
Speaker 4 (56:00):
Last year we gave out over a half a million
dollars in scholarships.
Speaker 3 (56:03):
So yes, and we have the mind me. We have
everything going on. It's it's it's great. It's keeping me busy.
Speaker 2 (56:09):
Then we will we will blast it out on all
of our social media and this will go up. And
I'm really grateful to have you on the show and
again on behalf of brand new web. Everyone here a
soft rep and our merch store. Don't forget to go
shop the merch store because we need you to buy
that stuff so I can keep the fireplace going. I
want to say thank you to Master Chief Rick Kaiser
and his awesomeness. Simple put it that way. Thank you, hey,
(56:33):
thanks for choosing to raise your hand and serve our
nation and do your job well. Miskar you are.
Speaker 3 (56:38):
Today and thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (56:40):
And with that said, this is rad say and peace
Speaker 1 (56:47):
Us been listening to self Reporadia
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