Navy SEAL w/ 7 Deployments | Author of Warrior to Civilian | Rob Sarver - Combat Story

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Because they were not giving usair support west of the river.
So we blew up the tubes.
We laced them with one inch on the bottomto put the dog and the explosives in.
Guys kicked on fins and just like alazy river they offset 300 meters north
and they just they came down like alazy river and skirted that 100 meters.
Took about 45 minutes.
And when they rigged it to blow,they egressed and went south.

(00:23):
And we caught them further down south.
We had, you know, position to thenorth, command and control the middle,
you know, a catch at the south.
And the guys were borderline hyperthermicafter 45 minutes over there, soaking wet.
And we set those explosives off.
As a crow flies two kilometers away at myops center, they felt the overpressure.

(00:44):
Welcome to Combat Story.
I'm Ryan Fugit, and I serve WarzoneTours as an Army Attack Helicopter Pilot
and CIA Officer over a 15 year career.
I'm fascinated by the experiencesof the elite in combat.
On this show, I interview some ofthe best to understand what combat
felt like on their front lines.
This is Combat Story.
Today, we have a fantastic combat storywith former Navy SEAL Officer Rob Sarver.

(01:09):
Rob had a bit more fun than most on hispath to becoming a SEAL, Originally with
a detour as a surface warfare officerthat he very skillfully managed to
curtail and leveraged a really interestingnetwork to get a shot at the teams.
This episode is chocked full of bothgreat stories from downrange, but also
really practical advice and explanationsfor getting ahead and succeeding.

(01:30):
much of which has been made intohis book, Warrior to Civilian, the
field manual for the hero's journey.
In this episode, Rob covers some amazingstories of ingenuity in combat, like
using inner tubes to float quietlyon an assault, to using copper wire
to make two different radio setscompatible for field use in combat.

(01:50):
And despite Rob's obvious successesfrom attending the Naval Academy.
Do his time with the SEALs, graduatingfrom Wharton, working in private equity.
He also hits on the tougher moments,covering topics of loss, fear,
desperation, losing someone onday one of a deployment, losing
very close friends from his timeat the Academy and the teams.

(02:11):
Don't worry, there are plenty oflaughs and hilarious anecdotes,
like the story behind the phrase,moderation is for cowards.
With that, please enjoy thiscombat story with Rob Sarver.
Rob, thanks so much for taking the time toshare your story with us today Yeah, ryan.
Thanks for having me.
Um, you've got for people who can'tsee who are listening You've got the

(02:34):
warrior to civilian book behind you.
You've actually got a very cool backdrop.
I gotta say Yeah warrior to civilian.
Yep, so people can see it here.
Looks like you got a hard copy comingout January 28th of 2025 depending on
when people listen to this, but as Iwas prepping for this I noticed you got
a uh, a blurb in there from Mcchrystaland I was just curious You How does one

(02:56):
go about getting on that guy's radar?
Did you know him from before,from your time with the teams?
What's the deal there?
Uh, no, no.
So to seal connections back toMcChrystal one, one is a good friend,
classmate from the Naval Academy whoactually worked for McChrystal group.
Uh, and it was the best man in my wedding.
He had the connection there.
And then, uh, commander Kirk Croninwas a 98 grad from the Academy.

(03:20):
Kind of circled back and gave theother introduction there to Stan.
But just, uh, that was an amazinginterview and it's been a, a
amazing relationship the lastthree or four years with him.
I, I can only imagine.
That's pretty cool to havehim his name on your book.
It's gotta mean a lot.
I have to imagine it, itmeans it is incredible.
And he's the one that really setthe tone for the book on, um, being

(03:42):
very practical to, to help veterans.
Yeah, I mean it's described I think inthe title as like a field manual almost.
Yes, to kind of give people thesteps that they need, right?
Yes, it is.
And everybody we've shared the book withwho's read it and they've come back.
It's like, okay, you guys hit the mark.
You guys nailed it.
This is the most practical bookthat we've read on how to get out.

(04:05):
I'm sure we'll get to it.
But did you struggle getting out?
Is that where this kind of came fromor you saw other people struggling?
I did.
It took me, if I think back, itprobably took me two years to
kind of find a baseline of normal.
And then I started going through allthose life challenges and I just, you
know, offset from my baseline, verydifferent from combat, new terrain.

(04:26):
So I had to go back and get help.
And I went through abouttwo formal programs.
And then I found a good psychiatristto kind of help me through stuff.
And then meeting Alex, he was the one thatsaw the universal themes in our lives.
Is your co author is the co author?
Yes.
Okay.
Um, so I know we'll get into a lot ofthis But I just wanted to make sure we

(04:46):
touched on obviously the book so peoplecan they can pre order it now Um in a few
different places and we'll have links inthe description Noting the backdrop you
have you've got some coins behind you.
Do you have a favorite up there?
Um, I have cia that's up there.
Nice.
Nice.
Just a shout out to you Uh numerousseal teams I think I have I do.

(05:13):
There's a bunch sitting up here.
I'd have to get up and look, but,um, Secretary of the Navy, when he
came out to my site in Afghanistan.
Wow.
And he actually wrote me a, hewrote me a personal thank you for,
uh, spending some time with him.
And then, um, uh, his name escapes meright now from Charlie Wilson's war.

(05:33):
I cannot remember he was atthe agency at the time, uh,
Vickers, Vickers is out there.
Yeah.
So we've interviewed him.
Okay.
Yes.
So Vickers came out with the secretaryof the Navy and I know his coins
floating around back there as well.
So those I think would probably be thetwo, the two that I would really cherish.
Yeah.
Maybe for people who don't know whatthat's like to have a, like a VIP at

(05:54):
that level, visiting to your site.
How stressful is it?
Like, how much does it take you outof the day to day of just operations?
It's, it's like, it's a, it'salmost a two day stand down.
I'm like, okay, he's coming.
And it's down to like, all right, allright, guys, clean up all your stuff.
Come on, let's makethis look professional.
Garrison uniforms, no torn up tops.

(06:17):
Let's do this.
Um, but actually we caused a massive stir.
So I was with sort ofWest underneath Marsoc.
And we were the only sealelement out of 12 teams.
He had Marsoc ODA.
We were the only seal teamor seal platoon, excuse me.
And he landed at camp Leatherneck.
Spent an hour on the ground withthe headshed, didn't see anybody

(06:38):
else and flew out to see us.
They were some unhappy people that hewould go all the way out to see us.
And.
I remember after, you know, spending thetime with them and he's like, okay, you
know, Lieutenant, this has been great.
You know, what can I, you know,what can I do to help you out?
Or is there anything you need?
And I was like, Hey, sir, um,when we get back, the guys really

(06:59):
don't want to shave their beards.
Can you help us out?
You even, did he evendignify that with an answer?
He did.
He laughed and he's just one ofthose, I'll see what I can do.
Not nice throw in there.
Lieutenant.
Yeah, it's great.
Uh, it's great.
Okay.
So, um, And then just one otherthing, you got a picture behind you.

(07:22):
It looks like two, two folks there.
I assume that's pretty meaningfulto you to have it up there.
It is.
So in, in the picture is, uh, atthe time, Lieutenant Dow, Lieutenant
Brennan Looney, Brennan Looney ismy roommate through SEAL training.
Also my classmate from the Naval Academy.
Unfortunately, this is the lastpicture taken of Brendan, uh, a
turnover op in 2010 in Afghanistan.

(07:44):
Uh, helicopter, you would know this.
was trying to attempt to do apinnacle landing, had a brownout.
So instead of holding steady and lettingthe dust settle, the pilot, who was
very inexperienced after the reportthat we read with pinnacle landings,
turned towards the mountain insteadof out, clipped the rotor, flipped
the bird, ejected nine, nine died.

(08:06):
Lieutenant Dow survived.
But unfortunately Brendan did not.
And just to give you an idea of that, howhard they hit the ground, uh, Brendan's
rifle where the upper and the, um, lowercome together, probably the strongest
part of the weapon right above thattricker mechanism sheared the gun in half.

(08:27):
So yeah, they were, theywere classmates of yours?
Uh, Brendan was a, Brendanwas a good classmate.
Uh, also his roommate fromthe Naval Academy, Travis
Manion, died in 2007 in Iraq.
And we buried both of them nextto each other in Arlington.
No way.
Yeah, and they're actuallyit's an amazing story.
Both of them.

(08:47):
Uh, There's a book that coloneltom manion captured with tom
saleo called brothers forever.
It's a great yes Tom saleo, Ireally like he I think also wrote
three wise men He did somewhere.
Yes, he did.
So we kind of Um, obviously have,have had that on the show as well.
Wow.
Very, very interesting.

(09:07):
So look, let's talk just briefly.
If you can give people anidea, where did you grow up?
How'd you find your way into the military?
Any crazy story from you as a kidthat was like, hey, this guy's
probably going to be a seal one day.
Oh, gosh, um, we don't have enoughtime to cover the crazy stories.
My, my parents had doubts a lot,many, many times along the way.

(09:28):
It's like, what, what the hell is goingto, this kid going to turn out to be?
Uh, so my father served asa B52 pilot for 28 years.
No way.
So back in the Cold War, it was everytwo to three years you would move.
There was no homesteading.
So I have lived in Spokane, Washington,to Florida, to the Pentagon, to

(09:49):
Richmond, Minot, North Dakota, Louisiana.
So we moved, I moved with him with mymoves in the Navy in my father's service.
I've moved 14 times.
So I, I would say, you know, Iremember maybe probably early on.
So my father did a remote tour when I wasprobably four or five to Saudi Arabia.
He was a general's aide.

(10:10):
We got to a company openfor four or five months.
Um, I, I had free reign.
So this 1984, 1985, running aroundthe base in cammies and the MPs
would try, like, try to come findme because I was, you know, Not
the safest place in the world.
Uh, that was probably maybethe start of my adventures.
And then, you know, growing up, Ithink probably every adolescent,

(10:35):
I, you know, check in the box,the things that I've done stupid.
Uh, but the real, I think the real testwas, so my father got assigned to NATO.
So I went to my last three years ofhigh school and had shaped Belgium.
Yeah, that's where I was born.
That's funny.
Okay.
Yeah.
So this is before 9 11.
Yeah.
And an interesting thing happened.

(10:56):
I was legal to drink beforeI was legal to drive.
So my, my father set me down.
He's like, okay, I guess there'sreally no way around this.
You know, let's, let'stalk about moderation.
And, um, I hadn't learned it yet from theSEAL teams that moderation is for cowards.
So I probably indulged a lot,probably too much in high school.

(11:19):
I had a ration card in high school.
I could walk down and buy hardliquor at 17, 18 with a ration
card and Cuban cigars for nothing.
And the beer is so good in Belgium.
It's, it's amazing.
I wouldn't know.
I just went to church.
Totally.
Yeah.
So that was, that was probably the,uh, not a good baseline to go into

(11:42):
military college with what, yeah.
What was the draw though for the military?
Obviously you go to the academy,like you were on a path for this.
No, you're right.
I skipped over that.
So the itch probablyreally came to fruition.
And so my father was bomb squadroncommander in, uh, Barksdale.
Yeah.
And they were doing a air for air show.

(12:02):
This is probably 1992, 93 in Louisiana.
So we go out and it was great.
I mean, my father wasa squadron commander.
I could hop in the old, uh, flightline trucks, just go around and
see all the B 52s, yeah, the A 10s.
F 15s, F 16s, but as they're standingup for the air show, getting everything

(12:23):
like over in the corner of thishangar is all the cami netting,
the old 1980s, 90s cami netting.
And there's guys in there literallyjust rubbing sticks together,
getting ready to like for their,for their display to make fire.
And it was, uh, air force specops, they're PJs and I was like,
okay, dad, what, what is that?

(12:43):
That's kind of cool.
And he, uh, kind of walked me through.
He's like, okay, they're part of,you know, special operations command.
I was like, oh, okay.
All right.
And it was right about that time.
I might be about a year ortwo off that, uh, that movie
Navy seals with Charlie Sheen.
Classic.
So that experience seeing like,okay, who are these cool guys?

(13:05):
And then seeing CharlieSheen jump off a bridge.
It's like, I can do this.
This, this is for me, I canjump off a bridge and be fine.
That, that was the edge.
And then it started more andmore, but I mean, we come up
as products of our environment.
So my high school and formative years,I spent one year in private school.

(13:26):
Cause the schools were so bad in theU S this is in Montgomery, Alabama.
And then I went overseas, uh, to NATO.
So my complete surroundingwas nothing but military.
And I think that's,yeah, that's solidified.
Okay.
I want to serve my country.
Interesting.
Just quickly with your, with your old man.
I don't, is he still alive or no?
He is.

(13:46):
Yes.
He is.
Have you all watched masters of the air?
We have not.
I've been hopefully savingthat for us to watch together.
I've heard.
It's amazing.
I'd be curious.
Yeah.
To get, uh, somebody likehim, his thoughts on that.
It's just amazing.
Some of the bombing runs theseguys did in world war two.
It's just hard to imaginewhat they went through.
Okay.

(14:06):
So you go to the academy.
Um, Yeah.
I have seen this tradition thereof these guys climbing some really
slippery statue or monument.
Yes, Herndon.
Have you done this?
I did not join my class on that.
And I had a, I had amassive chip on my shoulder.
Reason being because Iwent to VMI for a year.

(14:29):
And then I transferred.
And this was, I was at VMI whenthe last all male class was there.
Wow.
Okay.
So, uh, we had some, that's a prettygood beat downs, some pretty good,
uh, sweat parties as they call.
So coming through that, I had the chipon my shoulder kind of restarting.
I did rat year and I hadto go back and be a plea.

(14:49):
Oh yeah.
So I, I got in constant trouble.
I had not figured out how to likekind of learn the system first.
Or, or at least like, don'tbe so blatant and be an idiot.
So when I got to the end of pleabeer with Herndon, I was like, you
know, I've done two years of this.
I'm just going to sit backand watch probably the wrong.

(15:09):
I mean, looking back on it,not participating in like
helping the class that's on me.
I apologize to my classmates,but, uh, there seemed to be enough
eager people to get up there infront and climb up that thing.
Got it.
Okay.
And.
My understanding is making itinto the teams coming out of the
academy is incredibly competitive.

(15:31):
I would assume having disciplinarychallenges affects that.
And I think you end up going a differentroute before you go to the teams.
Is that right?
You're hitting on quitethe life theme here.
Yes.
My, uh, freshman year of transgressionscaught up with me pretty good.
And I had to, uh, kindlygo out to big Navy.

(15:52):
For a little bit,
I went out for a couple of yearsand I said, well, if I'm going to do
this, I'm going to go to paradise.
So I ended up in Pearl Harbor,Hawaii, which was great, but I never
realized that my stuff would bethere and I would always be gone.
So, but, uh, I was, I was fortunateenough to get a seal billet
out of my ship tour in Hawaii.

(16:14):
And I went and checkedinto buds after that.
And that was the goal, right?
It was the ultimate goal.
Yeah.
It was the ultimate goal.
When you had the big Navy.
This shit, not, maybe not decision,but you're going that path.
Was that tough for you to, to kind oftake on, or you knew that was happening?
Just given some of thosetransgressions, as you noted, I

(16:35):
knew it was there and it was coming.
And so to give you an idea of most folks,when you go to service selection, you
pick your ship, you know, it's a big deal.
You're in memorial hall and they haveall the ships up there and you walk up
and you know, all these commanders andcaptains and admirals are cheering you on.
I went up there and just stoodand they kind of like, Hey, You

(16:56):
know, Rob, what's, what's wrong?
Like, what do you want to do?
It's like, I don't even know where to go.
Like, come on guys.
Like, this is not my first choice.
And they're like, so they're out there.
I said like, Oh, this isa good ship out of here.
This is good one.
And I was like, at that moment,I was like, I'm just going to go
to Hawaii and live in paradise.
You're like, which one is going to Hawaii?
Which one in Hawaii would be good?

(17:16):
So that's how I ended up in Hawaii.
When you get to Hawaii, what is, whatis the ship that you're on and what's
your role and how, if at all, doesthis set you up for, for the teams?
It did not.
No, I did myself no favors.
So the shift was the, uh, FFG 37,the Cromwell, which I believe now

(17:38):
sits at the bottom of the ocean.
It's an old, it's an old frigate, whichthey're no longer part of the carrier
groups that took all everything off.
So they're doing drug ops.
And I think they're all phased out today.
Um, all right.
So when I showed up, I was given work,like I was given hints, like, okay, don't
tell anybody you want to be a seal, justkind of blend in, be the top performer.

(18:00):
Okay.
So I had gone to dive schooland I'd gone to jump school.
So I took, took all mypins off and I just.
Set there and, you know, um, try to playthe game, try to show up and do all this.
And I remember being down at adminone day and they were going through
my file and just perfect alignment.

(18:21):
The, uh, master arms walked by Navychief and admin was going through.
He's like, Oh, you have your, you haveyour Navy jump wings and your dive bubble.
I was like, yeah, I did those as amidshipman and just did a one eighties.
Like.
You have those qualifications.
You're not wearing your, you'retechnically out of uniform.
I'm going to report to you.
I'm like, come on, dude.

(18:42):
I mean, so I go from slick to nothing.
I show up like, uh, you know, instantrecon showing up and the ship doing a 180.
They're like, wait a minute.
How, how did you get these qualifications?
And I start walking throughlike, well, you know, I.
I did jump school.
I did dive school.
I tried out for the army's, uh, CDQC.

(19:02):
I gave up spring break to go dothat with, uh, I think it was third
bat and some, some, uh, Delta guys.
And then, you know, stories start comingout and then, uh, it did not help.
I also, you know, the constant themehere, I had not grown up and learned
push the envelope too much on theship, got in trouble, I got ranked dead

(19:26):
last among the among nine incidents.
No way.
Dead last, a guy who hada DUI was in front of me.
So I was like, okay, maybe I need torethink this whole transfer to seal thing.
Like this is, this is not looking good.
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And now back to this combat story.
Rob, how'd you dig yourself out?

(21:12):
I thank God a new CEO.
And that was it.
Like you just saw something.
So what happened was, so itwas an, it was an interesting
confluence of things that happened.
So big Navy did away with, uh, the surfacewarfare school right after graduation.
So normally you graduate, go to thatfor six months, then go to your ship.

(21:32):
So they did away with it.
So you had instancefrom the previous year.
You had the influx fromOh three coming in.
Now you had, Oh, four coming in.
So you had this deep stack.
We had like four or five extraincidents that we needed.
So I was competing.
I was kind of back at the line.
Well, these guys were so, Ihate to say this somewhere.

(21:54):
So friends, but you guys were lazy.
They were getting their SWOqualification, their ship driving pen.
At 22 to 27 months asthey're leaving the ship.
So I knocked it out in 15 months.
So that saved me a little bitwith the new CEO coming in.
And then if you remember back atthe beginning of the war, the combat

(22:16):
units were having, they were sostressed with, and they needed help.
So they're doing thisindividual augmentees.
So are, we knew our Desron or shipwas going to get pinged with one.
So I had earned the, uh, aletter accommodation from a,
um, third bat commander SF.
When I did the pre CDQCcourse at Bragg over my spring

(22:38):
break, he wrote me a letter.
I stayed in touch with him and Icalled him and I said, Hey, colonel,
at this time, now he's Siege of SodovAP in Iraq and 5th group commander.
I was like, Hey, our ship'sabout to be dinged for an IA.
If I step up and take it,can I come work for you?
And he, he said, okay, underone condition, if you don't

(22:58):
get picked up for buds.
You have to branch transfer and go SF.
And I was like, I was like, you know what?
Just get me off the ship deal.
And I say that humbly.
People who work on subs andships, my hat's off to you.
I cannot do that job.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And is that what you did?
You did an IA tour with him?
I went 06 to SijasurathAP command in Balad, Iraq.

(23:23):
To work there with them, uh, got outsidethe wire a few times, went down to
buy out, uh, Baghdad, uh, probablywent down route Irish with not knowing
too much that I should not have.
So that was, that was my first tourunder a fifth group, Sijasotif.
When I was still assigned to my ship.
Wow.
How good was it to see thewar from that perspective?

(23:45):
Like so early on, huh?
It was awesome because there was no wallat that time between JSOC and CJSOTF.
Oh, wow.
We had liaisons on both sides.
And then, you know, the, theColonel did me, TSSCI clearance.
So I got to see both of those worlds.

(24:07):
And I think it was right after I leftis when they started doing the division.
But I mean, you're talkingabout the ramp up to EJK extra
judicial killing in the civil war.
I mean, we were still taking, I think 80,90 casualties a month when I was there.
If I, if I remember, yeah.
Cause Ramadi, Ramadi 06 wasjust kind of winding down.

(24:29):
So team five came in, uh, youknow, Mike Monsoor's medal of honor
package was just being routed.
So I got there right whenall that was happening.
What a perspective, man, insteadof being on a ship somewhere.
Yes.
So I got to see that beforeI went to SEAL training.
So I was leaps and boundsahead of anybody in my class.

(24:49):
Haven't seen that.
Jeez.
Okay.
Just real quick.
Um, your ability or the, I don'tknow, the balls to call that guy.
Like, Hey, I was in a course with, youknow, with you guys for a hot second.
Can you just help me?
Is that pretty typical of your path?
And is this kind of something thatcomes up in the book and just about
like leveraging your network or.

(25:10):
I don't know.
Not everyone would do that.
No, that's a great, that's a great point.
I, in the military, let me answerthe last verse in the military.
We do talk about it.
We do not know how to leverageour network because we were so
confined to chain of command.
Yeah.
And we're so true.
We can't like, man, that admiralor that general looks God.
I'd love to go.
I would love to go sit with Stan.
Yep.

(25:30):
We don't pick the phone up and do that.
I mean, no aid wouldever let us that close.
But that's the power ofnetworking that we don't learn.
Now, I will say this, if you're in a jointenvironment or you're at a joint command,
kind of get it a little bit, but you stillhave that respect for command structure
that you don't push those limits.

(25:51):
I think, honestly, I think I waskind of at the end of my rope and
I was like, You know, he wroteme a letter of accommodation.
I'm going to, I'm going tofloat this out there and see.
And he loved it because I mean,those guys, I'll say, yeah, they
beat the hell out of me for a week.
I was the only mid shipment.
It was, it was nothing butgreen berets and Delta guys.
And they, uh, they beat me up prettygood day one, day two, but by the end

(26:15):
of the week, I hit every drill andI was in the number one swim team.
Geez.
And what, what were youworking on for that week?
Is it clearing?
Is it fighting combatives?
Is it like, what is it's a straight.
So, you know, it's PT six in themorning, uh, you know, long run, long
mile runs, calisthenics, all that.
Then you go into classroom, then youhave about three hours of pool time.

(26:38):
So 25, 25 meter underwater, you'redoing, uh, treading with bricks.
Uh, you're doing your 50 meter underwater.
Um, the worst was, Hey, they wouldset up buoys in the pool and we'd
have to swim with fins with a 16 poundweight belt around these buoys, but

(27:00):
every time we'd come up, there wasalways a guy on the pool, the hose.
And so you're trying to get air.
He just put the hose in your face.
I was like, then he, they, they callme like every name, but a white man.
And it's like, all right, this is great.
But, and then, you know,then you have an afternoon.
Afternoon class, and then you goswim in Mott Lake at Fort Bragg.

(27:21):
I'm sorry, it's not Bragg anymore,but um, you go swim a mile or, you
know, a mile and a half every day.
Jeez.
And then also, just before we jumpinto the team stuff, you mentioned
you got your Navy jump wings.
I have to admit, I did not knowthat there was a course for this.
So, I just thought folks went toBenning or what, you know, more.
I went to Benning.
Yeah, I went to Benning.
So I found another constant theme is, uh,if you tell me no, I'm going to go find

(27:46):
the window or just break down the wall.
But, um, uh, with my father'shelp, I'll be completely honest.
He helped me track down.
It's called the Navy quotamanagement office in the Pentagon.
They control all the jumpbillets for the Navy.
So when, when West point has, youknow, 200 jump billets and they
don't fill them, they kick them overto, they used to kick them over to

(28:10):
this Navy quota management office.
And then they would feel seals andEOD guys going, but if the butts
classes and EODs guys didn't line up,these billets just never got filled.
So I called every week for eight months.
I love that.
I was like, can I please get a bill?
Because when West point, if they didhave surplus, they would give, they

(28:30):
would give the Naval Academy somebills, but if you weren't in the top
200 of the class, you couldn't compete.
And I looked at that.
I was like, okay, in all fairness,there might be five guys in the top
200 that are going to go fill a jumpbillet in the military and everybody
else wants to do it for an incentive.
I get it.
But I was like, this is my mission.

(28:51):
This is what I want to do.
So I kept calling.
And then I managed to piss offthe Naval Academy again when the
professional development program.
They saw my name pop up with a billet.
Oh yeah.
I bet they were pissed andthey were like, wait a minute.
How did you get a, youdidn't do the screener.
I was like, I found the officethat controls the billets.

(29:13):
They were not happy.
I love it.
Okay.
That's awesome.
Um, what's the moment you figure outthat you've been accepted into buds?
Okay.
Yeah.
Great.
Interesting story.
So Brendan was colorblind.
So he was an Intel officer and he gotto go over and serve with Siltine 3.
So he's sitting there at Intel.

(29:35):
And at the time it was Commander Green.
I think he's a three star now.
He, um, Helped, uh, he came up to brand.
He's like, look, I love, love you.
Like it.
Would you like to come over the seals?
He's like, I'm colorblind.
So they created a, I think it wascalled an unrestricted board where they
would look at guys with colorblindnessor some other, some other issue.

(29:58):
And Brendan got picked up.
So as he was leaving Al Anbarprovince, he stopped in Balad
and stayed with me that night.
He's like, hey, bud,uh, I got an extra room.
Just come stay with me.
He stayed one night, thenhe flew out the next day.
That's when we decided to be roommates.
I was like, well, my package is in.
If I get picked up, um,I'll try to get your class.

(30:21):
So about, uh, I would sayabout three weeks later.
I found out I got picked up selected.
So I went to the ColonelCG certified commanders.
I, Hey, sir, I got picked up.
Um, you know, we had a deal.
If I got picked up, you'd let metransition out or get out of a lot.
He's like, when do you want to leave?

(30:41):
I was like, there's a bird tonight.
Damn, I'm out.
I was like, I was like, I got six weeksto get home to, um, Hawaii, sell my
place and get in class two, six, five.
Let's go.
Jeez.
How?
And so you roomed with, with Brendanand room with burning through butts.
Yes.
How important was thatto getting through it?
Like knowing a guy that closely.

(31:05):
It was awesome.
I mean, it was everything, butBrendan, Brendan was, he got
honor, man, out of our class.
Wow.
I mean, trying to, I mean, had he nothad been colorblind, he would have
gotten billed out of the Academy.
I mean, this is a guy five, 10,one 90 running five, 15 miles.
He was just a physical stud.

(31:28):
So every day I was like, youknow, I'm just, I'm going to
try to keep up with Brandon.
And that kind of got you through.
It was it?
It did.
It did.
And then very, very early on, like, sothe day before, sorry, two or three days
starting before starting first phase.
A very good friend of ours in the NavalAcademy, Casey Kimmer, called us and

(31:48):
you, I mean, this is, you know, stillflip phone error and Brendan who left
his phone in the truck, so I was the onlyone that had a cell phone on us as we
were cleaning the kind of cleaning ourbarracks to move in to start first phase.
And, um, I got this call fromCasey's like, Hey, grab Brendan
and, uh, you know, go get somegood cell service and call me back.
I'm like, okay, pull Brendan outof the parking lot and we get this

(32:10):
call from Casey and, uh, TravisMannion had just been killed in Iraq.
And that was Brendan'sroommate, the Naval Academy.
So I had never seen this done before,but, uh, right then you could, you could
see like the hair on the back of the businstructor's neck as he was coming over,
it was like, what the hell were you guysdoing standing around on a cell phone?

(32:34):
It was actually JP Dinell.
It was a good friend of mine today.
But JP was like.
What are you doing?
We walked him through the scenarioslike you're done for the day.
Get out of here.
Come back tomorrow.
Be ready.
Wow.
Oh, shit.
Okay.
So, I remember driving Brandon backto the house and, you know, the whole
night was just making phone callsto family and friends and then, but

(32:54):
we went back to Bud's the next day.
It's crazy.
Yeah.
Geez.
And that was 2007.
Did you guys go straight?
Well, I assume he wentstraight through as the honor.
We did.
We did.
I think, I don't know where the statisticsstand today, but to go straight, straight

(33:15):
through soup to nuts, no injury, norollback, it's about 11 percent chance.
It's got to be so rare.
Wow.
It is.
Okay.
I think there's, there'sdefinitely a degree of luck there.
How many guys finished with,in your class in the end?
Like.
Uh, originals 39 out of, we startedwith 210 in, in doc one 41 first phase.

(33:38):
80 starting hell week, 40, 40 completedhell week, and I think we lost one
during demo in like third phase, I think.
Okay.
So, I mean, and you'regraduating right at, I mean,
that's a high point in the war.
So are you just immediately like, Hey,you're going out to a unit at that moment?

(33:58):
Within four days, I was back in Iraq.
No way.
Yeah.
I could not.
I could not attend.
Brendan's.
So Brendan got married.
I could not attend the wedding.
I was right on a plane back over.
So this would have been oh eight.
So at the end of, um, event, the end ofAmerican sniper about, you know, Chris
Kyle, we got to team three right whensolder city was over, right when team

(34:23):
three went and just decimated solder city.
Uh, we got to team threeright at the end of that.
What?
All right.
So four days, four daysremoved from training.
Um, what's the, what's your welcomelike as the new officer to a team?
In combat, no less.

(34:43):
It was, uh, we were kind of set down andlike, Hey, you're, you're showing up on
the shoulders of giants because, you know,the, the Oh six guys coming out of Ramadi,
all these guys are still at the team.
And one of the most, I would sayone of the most kinetic, I believe
they're the most highly decorated unit.
One of the most highlydecorated teams since Vietnam.

(35:08):
Uh, I mean, something like13 purple hearts, seven
silver stars, metal of honor.
I mean, the list goes on and on and on.
So we're coming in onthe shoulders of giants.
So we were sat down and we were verysternly told this, but it was also
kind of cool because there's two otherjunior officers from two, six, four

(35:28):
that has shown up and one of them wasDan Crenshaw, Congressman Crenshaw.
So Dan and I, you know, we allkind of became friends in our
misery doing, uh, talk work andadmin work to get out to it too.
Like, uh, I don't know.
Yeah.
Well, my, my saving grace was, um, he'sactually in charge of, uh, base training

(35:49):
command now, very good friend of minefor the Naval Academy called me out to
Al Assad, went out there and he snuck myname on a force list to go off and this is
when we were looking for, uh, rat lines.
And then folks stillcoming across the border.
So we'd fly out there in the,uh, I'm trying to remember.
We took 47s out and we had the little dunebuggies and we spent three days out there.

(36:13):
Remember the old scene from spaceballs, like coming the desert,
like there's not shit out here.
Yes.
That's what it was like for three days.
Was that your first mission?
That was my, that was my first op.
Yes.
Out there combing the desert.
Yeah.
I mean, I guess uneventful, but probablyfelt pretty cool rolling out in some

(36:34):
Chinooks with dune buggies in the back.
And, oh yeah, it was awesome.
And when we came back, I thinkevery, every tire was flat.
So you can just see us just rollingoff the rolling off on the flight line.
Everybody's just looking at us.
Who the hell are these guys?
Oh God.
All right.
And is, does that become yourplatoon at that point, Robert?

(36:55):
No.
Uh, yes.
I fell underneath, uh, my buddy is anAOIC, an assistant platoon commander,
but then in between I did languageschool, which, um, which is a great story
in itself because SOCOM was spending50 million a year on interpreters and
they're like, wait a minute, GreenBerets have to learn a language.

(37:15):
Why can't everybody else?
So the fix was.
Send everybody to language school,they'll be proficient, and maybe
we can like, you know, scratch offthat line item, that 50 million.
It's not going to happen.
We can't, can't do that.
But I was in class two of like doingthis, so nothing was, nothing was formal.

(37:35):
So it was like, here, go toSan Diego State University.
Um, here you get teacher, student,or you get faculty credentials.
So you go use the gym, parking,food, whatever you want, grow
your beard out, wear civvies.
We don't want the mediato know you're there.
Okay.
Well, it just so happened the firstweek we were there was rush week.

(37:59):
So we had a great, I know, I know.
See, I don't feel likeI'm looking for trouble.
I just think it just kindof, you know, I'm the victim.
It just kind of follows me totally.
I mean, who would not go down to studentservices and try to sign up for rush week?
So as, but as we did that, um, Iguess we were flagged in the system.

(38:21):
So they called the Dean and theDean called this called war comm and
then called our command and I mean,within an hour, phones are going off.
Like get your assesback to the command now.
And we just, you know, the verbal lashingup and down, you know, you're there.
And no one's supposed to know you'rethere, you're not joining fraternities.
There's some other, there's other choicewords in there, but, um, but then after

(38:47):
that, I got, I did another augment,but this time I rolled out the door
with damn neck, so damn neck, you canthrow your name in the hat at the team.
If you'd already, if you'd alreadycompleted a deployment, which I had
with, when I showed up with team threeand they took, uh, two officers and
three enlisted guys to assign to a newsquadron that was just being stood up.

(39:10):
So I got to go do 90 days on that side on.
More or less a support role.
So I was daytime ops.
And then I had another guy who wasnighttime ops, but the beauty of that
was like, it was kind of the good deal.
Wink, wink.
You perform for us.
Hey, good dude.
We'll bring you on a coupleof ops to see what it's like.
And the one or two ops I got out onlike all shit broke loose, massive

(39:34):
gunfights at, um, good, uh, a tensecoming in and doing strafing runs with,
uh, IEDs going off, RPGs going off.
It was, and I was in the gunfightwith the commanding officer of
the new squadron, who was justlaughing at me the whole time.
Why, why was he laughing at you?

(39:54):
Well, cause I had tostay with the C2 element.
So like I was kind of restricted.
So as the, as the assault force waspushing out, he just jumped in the assault
force and kind of just looked back.
It was one of those man sucks tobe you and just kind of kept going.
Thank you, sir.
Yep.
Happy to be here.
Yeah, I'll get you back.
I'll get your backpack later.
Were they as proficient as you wouldhave expected just hitting the targets?

(40:20):
Unreal.
Yeah.
I mean, we, we did an 11 click insert.
We did an 80 man strike force going out.
That's huge, isn't it?
It was huge, but we had, but we hadthree drones, four drones in the sky.
I mean, the level of assets you get isjust, it's unparalleled to do these ops.

(40:42):
Yeah, sorry to keep going.
No, I was gonna say, so building out my,my junior officer career, like, so I'd
already seen CJ, CJ SOTUF, I'd alreadygone down to a SOTUF command, and then I
go over to JSOC to do 90 days over there.
So by time I go back.
To your point, I, so Iworked with my buddy.
Now this is rolling into 2010.

(41:04):
We had to cover down on so much.
They pulled me out and mademe a platoon commander.
So I went out to Al Qaim,which is on the Syrian border.
And I had a detachment out there bymyself, right out the gate as a new J O.
How, um, how hard is it to kind ofwin a team over as a junior officer?

(41:26):
It's, it can be tough.
It can be tough.
You really, you really have to fall inline, but you have to prove yourself.
yourself.
And I think that's, that wasprobably looking back on it.
You know, those, I don't want to sayreinforced like bad habits, but I'll
say like, Adopting the warrior ethosin everything that it was like, but I

(41:47):
still adopted all the bad habits too.
Like I didn't I had strong mentorsaround me But I just think at that
point I was just still too stubborn.
I was like, come on, dude LikeI made it through SEAL training.
I'm good And I hadn't been Ihadn't been fully knocked down yet.
Yeah I say that a lot but the older I getand I feel old as hell when I say this

(42:09):
But i'm like that person probably justhasn't been hit in the face by life yet.
Yeah, you know, yeah You Whendid you get knocked down?
Like if you think about thosetimes, is there a moment where
you did kind of get busted down?
I mean, I've had I had like theselittle, you know, touching the frying

(42:29):
pan a little bit, like actuallygetting burned, like knocked down.
I think Brendan's death was a big one.
Not invincible.
Yeah.
In September, 2000, not invincible.
And then, but after that, it'slike, it just never stopped.
You know, then I, you know, we goon my deployment in Afghanistan
in 2012 and I got lucky.

(42:51):
The XO at my command told our detailerthat I had not done my platoon commander.
They could have very easily said,yeah, yeah, Rob's done, move
him on, get him out of the team.
They said, no, he hasn't, hehasn't done his, so I got two
platoons as a platoon commander.
So I got to go back to Afghanistan.
So when Brendan died, I actuallyslipped in and took over his

(43:12):
platoon, which he would have.
No way.
Which was great.
He hadn't been there.
He would have takenthat one, that platoon.
He would have taken that platoon.
So it was, it was awesome going,working with those guys because
they had spent two years with him.
And I had known him for like nine years.
So it just immediately hit the ground.
They knew who I was.
I knew who they were.

(43:33):
That was great.
But, you know, we lost four guys onmy last platoon, my last deployment,
really five, because at my commandor my detachment EOD one Regilin
got killed the day we showed up.
No way.
And he, he, yeah, he was afriend back from the West
coast, uh, more the EOD guys.
I knew who he was, but still knew him.
Um, and then we lost, uh,Moscow, Lieutenant Moscow, EOD.

(43:58):
And then in, uh, August of 12, theRPG shoot down a, um, H 60, uh, two
Army guys died, two seals and one EOD.
You were not on that shoe town, I presume?
I I, no, I was, I was not.
That was, um, that was actually, uh.
the platoon that DanCrenshaw was assigned to.

(44:18):
And then
I think Dan had gottenblown up before that.
Uh, but it didn't, youknow, it didn't stop.
You know, I got out in 13, I hadtwo other friends die in training.
And 15, a couple otherguys that have died since.
So it, it really, once you step off thattrain, it will keep going full speed.

(44:39):
You know, that is heavy, heavy.
Um,
you know, I wonder, just looking atyour background, Rob, you know, I
saw on there, if you're comfortablewith it, I'd love to hear kind of
what went into this, um, bronze starwith Valor event, if, if you could.
If you could give us context of like,where were you at in your career, which

(45:00):
of these deployments you just kind ofalluded to and what happened on that?
Yeah.
So that was, that wasAfghanistan, uh, 2012.
So overarching, overarching.
So it was, you know, you have yoursummary of action for the single event,
which I can talk about, uh, but more,more over those nine months, we did
430 counter insurgency combat ops.

(45:22):
I was the only soft teamover there in Helmand.
They did not take a U.
S.
casualty.
I say that to the folks listening,you know, it's, we pushed, I went,
I was investigated five times.
We pushed the limits a lot, but turns outI had an enlisted guy with a law degree
and he looked at this and he kind ofinterpreted the law a little bit for us.

(45:44):
Like, Oh, okay.
I can get around the wall that way.
Um, president cars, Icame after me in 2012.
We can, we can talk about that,but, uh, you know, that, that
single incident was, um, of the.
Seven, excuse me, nine villagecontiguous villages that we oversaw.
That was our battle space.

(46:04):
We had the southern, if I remember,southern point or, um, that was
right on that Helmand River.
And what they would do is, um, insurgencywould go and what they They would attack
1 8 or 1 7 Marines to my north and south.
They very rarely would come fightme because they just, by that
point in the war, they knew don'tshoot at the guys with beards.

(46:27):
That, that was just kind ofwhat they, what they did.
So they would go shoot north andsouth of me, but they would come
through my AO and traverse the river.
So, um, I remember one particular event,um, it was south, uh, a Marine got killed,
Insurgents were egressing across theriver and you can watch them on the drone.

(46:48):
They would stash their weapons rightat this, uh, I'm gonna say a knoll, but
just several trees right around there.
They would ditch them and just basicallyput their hands up and walk away.
You can't engage them.
I, as they were traversing the river,I took control of the, uh, the drones
at the time, and I did a type two drop.

(47:10):
Got approval for people listening.
What can you just describe that?
Uh, so remote, not on the ground.
I'm actually watching a feed andI'm lining up aircraft, you know,
east to west come in, you drop, drophellfire, drop, uh, what was it?
88 millimeter rocket, if I remember.
So type two drop, not there onthe ground doing a remote feed.

(47:31):
Uh, I saw these guys traversing the river.
So I dropped it, took two of them outand I immediately get phone calls.
Okay, what are you going to dofor battle damage assessment?
By law, I'm going to put a droneup for two hours and make sure
I don't have any, uh, collateraldamage, civilian casualties.
No, no, no.
We really think you should go, uh, do BDA.
Fine.

(47:51):
Send me the helos.
I'll go west of the river,which you've never approved.
Yeah, I'll go get anothergunfight and it's one of those
like, you know, fuck you click.
Yeah.
I was like, okay.
So continuous problems afterthat, I was like, all right
guys, here's what we're doing.
Let's go down.
Let's just sniper overwatch.
Let's soften this up a little bit.

(48:13):
So we go down, sniper overwatch,um, I mean, I, we weren't even in
the house for an hour past daybreak.
And we were already getting,getting in shots, shots fired.
So we took out, I think two moreguys then, um, this is going to
be that Noel area robber coveringthat Noel, that trees is there's a

(48:34):
village to the West, but right up onthat embankment, there was this tree
line where they used to hide stuff.
And we saw guys moving withweapons at the case, uh, snipers
took the shots, took them out.
So that was two more guysdown from that location.
And I believe all this iskind of my summary of action.
So.
Back to the BV, that's this.
But I would say like the really cool thingthat happened, we actually, the SOCOM

(48:58):
historian came down after we did the op.
Um, it just continued.
They continued to shoot up the Marinesleft and, you know, north and south.
So finally, like, let's just swimacross and go blow up the tree line.
Let's just go blow up the weapons.
So I remember, because I had, I hada team of six out with the Marines

(49:20):
doing like a 900 man clearance.
And I think it was Nazari Sharif.
And so the rest of our guys, wewould, we went for a swim and it
was How far are we talking, Rob?
Like, what is this swim?
So we looked at this like, all right,how are we going to get across?
It is maybe a hundred meters across,but it's a four knot current,

(49:44):
13 feet deep, 55 degree water.
That sounds bad or not.
I can't tell if that's hypothermic,hypothermic conditions for not current.
That's fast.
Okay.
That that's moving.
So we, we looked at it.
It's like, wait a minute.
They're using inner tubes out of tires.
Let's just do the same thing.
So we took our CO2 cartridgesout of our dive tanks.

(50:07):
And our, our, uh, our lifepreservers, we got rubber inner tubes.
We went down there and cover darkness ata hundred pounds of C4 and a bomb dog.
That was the, the commandermade us take the dog.
Cause they were not giving us airsupport West of the river on the ground.
So we.
You know, blew up the tubes.

(50:27):
We laced them with a oneinch on the bottom to put the
dog and the explosives in.
Guys kicked on fins and just like a lazyriver, they offset 300 meters north and
they just, they came down like a lazyriver and skirted that hundred meters.
Took about 45 minutes and when they riggedit to blow, they egressed and went south

(50:47):
and we caught them further down south.
So we had, you know, position to thenorth, command and control the middle.
You know, a catch at the South.
Um, and the guys were borderlinehypothermic after 45 minutes
over there and soaking wet.
And we, we, we set those explosives off.

(51:09):
Why as a crow flies two kilometersaway with my ops center, they felt
the overpressure, not because ofjust the, your explosives because
of what it was blown up, basically.
Well, we were blowingup everything in there.
And I tell you what, we pacifythat area for six months
and we kind of set back.
We're like.

(51:29):
Why are we not doing more of this?
Like, why, why are we, can'twe do more offensive ops?
Like, and, but honestly, I mean, afterthat, um, I kind of got the orders to kind
of shut down where I was and they wantedto move me over and put me kind of more
on the South between Afghanistan and, uh,Pakistan to hit, uh, uh, hit a network

(51:51):
that was coming across the border there.
Okay.
So, but, um, Yeah, shortly afterthat, we turned over with the
Marines to the north with a marshlockunit and then we, we moved out.
That's creative.
And I feel like that is what you,what a lot of us would expect of

(52:13):
that special ops community, justlike coming up with something
creative to, to address a problem.
And I'm sure that comesup in your book too.
It does.
And I, and I love.
I love the, you know, Jocko talksabout his four things in combat.
And like, I went through Jocko'straining, a lot of his training cells,
but that's decentralized command.
That's giving the problem setto your folks and say, okay,

(52:34):
guys, I don't have the answer.
What do we do?
And the new guys are coming up withthis, like, let's just take intertubes.
Yeah.
Love it, dude.
Great idea.
Let's go.
Yeah.
Let's go.
And it took me two weeksto get it approved.
And we went.
Changing gears slightly here.
Yes.
You mentioned of these four peoplewho, who died, um, the first one

(52:55):
being an EOD, uh, Guy who died onthe first day of your deployment.
I think that's what I heard you say.
That was a EOD 1 Regilin.
He was assigned to a ODAelement that we relieved.
So he died at our locationthe day we got in country.
How does that impact you all?
Like seeing somebody die day one?

(53:15):
On your deployment.
It was, it was shitty.
I mean, we're on the ground.
We're getting ready to go out there.
I mean, we're, we're not even, I don'tthink we had barely changed into our
uniforms and we're already doing a heroflight ramp ceremony at Leatherneck.
And, and then we know the guytoo, who's like, okay, things are

(53:36):
not off on the right foot here.
This sucks.
Like, how do we overcome this?
And from the leader standpoint,all I could do is try to put the
first foot forward on everything.
I was like, okay, no,we're going to do this.
We're going to do this.
Nope.
We're going to push on, you know,we're going to look at, you know, we're
going to go down in these trail lines.
We're going to do this.
Like, no, we're going to, we're goingto do this, this and keep pushing

(54:00):
them until we kind of got over that.
But, you know, it did really, it gotto the point that deployment, like
it would, well, Crenshaw got blown upand then a helicopter got shot down.
I'm sorry.
We lost Lieutenant Mosko, hit anIED, then Crenshaw got blown up,
then that helicopter went down.
At the end of nine months, we,when we stepped off, and I remember

(54:23):
this very, very clearly, it wasthree days before my birthday.
And we stepped off those vehiclesat Leatherneck, it was 15, 000
troops at Leatherneck betweenBrits and Marines, roughly.
And I remember the load master forthe aircraft came up and now Benghazi
had just happened, if you remember.

(54:45):
And they're like, look, uh,you lost a pallet space.
We had nine, you're down to eight.
We got to send someother gear back with you.
Can you break your weapons downand all your comms and everything?
Can you break that downtonight and do inventory?
And we'll take it over and stageit on the runway and we'll have
you loaded out because I was setto leave in about two, three days.
I'm like, I'm on Leatherneck.

(55:06):
I mean, general order.
I only have to carry a pistol.
Yeah, sure.
Break everything down.
Um, that night was the base attack.
No.
With the 15 insurgents.
So I remember I was in one of the contextboxes that, you know, the makeshift
showers getting ready to shave thebeard off after 15 months, you know,

(55:28):
growing out in the States and beingdeployed and the rooms just rattled.
Like, okay, what was that?
You remember walking out,seeing the fireball go up.
That was, they hit the jet fuel.
That was 3000, 3000 pounds of jet fuel.
And we were about a couple ofhundred yards to 300 yards away.
And I remember, uh, the Colonel runningaround the corners, like, Rob, grab

(55:51):
your guns, grab your kit, we're goingto the airstrip and like, I can't.
Like I just did inventory, like I'vezeroed out crypto, like I can't,
and then the discussion is like,well, wait a minute, like we can't
even talk to the regular Marines.
Like no one has our crypto.
We can't talk to the Brits.
Like, what are we going to do?
I mean, at the end of theday, we watched that gunfight.

(56:13):
We watched our own aircraft,our own helicopters drop on our
own airfield for five hours.
No way.
What'd you guys do?
You, I was like, did you put the 50cows, we pulled 50 cows back up and put
them on top of the Humvees and vehicles.
But I mean, at that point in the, inthe very heated conversations after the

(56:34):
event, um, yes, we could have jockedup, put on iron sights and maybe gone
out there and try to do something.
The, uh, the armchair quarterbackhere is if you look at the inserts,
they all had on army fatigues.
And they all had beards.
So had we run around out there, not beingable to de conflict and tell people who

(56:56):
we probably would have caused more chaos.
So we, we sat down, we had a lotof talks about this afterwards that
we probably did the right thing.
Um, but it was just, it was just one ofthose things at the end of the point.
God, we've already lost so many guysand now this, and just to sit and

(57:16):
watch that, it's like, and just tosee, you know, it's, it's thousands of
people trying to solve this problem.
Like what is going on?
That's interesting.
That's a very vivid memory I have as well.
So did you ever make it toSalerno in RC East in coast?
No, no, I was in, uh, Kandaharand Helmand the whole time.

(57:36):
Okay.
So, you know, I was in there in08 and our base got attacked and
I was on QRF that night for, youknow, two Apaches just ready to go.
And usually we're launching andwe fly for 30 minutes before we
can even talk to a ground unit.
It's like so far to get outside ofour Yeah, and this is like people are

(57:57):
outside our gate now, so it's verydifferent, but we, we launch the base is
controlled by an artillery battalion orregiment, whatever, an artillery unit,
an army artillery unit, who's not usedto going outside the wire and fighting,
you You know, at close range, they'reused to drop an artillery on people.
So we take off fob chapman,which is, you know, special ops,

(58:21):
you know, agency area nearby.
Here's this going on.
They send all these guys out.
It's at night and you've got likeartillerymen Rolling around all of these
special ops guys come into the fight.
We can't talk to anyone.
It's complete chaos.
And so you're right.
I think it probably would have been evenharder to to deconflict guys like yourself

(58:43):
on that battlefield when everyone'strying to solve a problem when they've
never had to do this together before.
Uh, you're absolutely,you're, you're right.
You're absolutely right.
And I actually, uh, this is a funny story.
I had a guy, so we would go out and wewould help, we would clear some stuff at
night for the Marines that were near usto kind of help like soften some stuff up.
So they just stopped getting attacked.
And we took one of their radios.

(59:05):
Embitters don't talk to Singars.
They don't connect.
I had a guy take a plastic bottle captop and take copper wire and put it in
the cap with superglue to make a malefemale in so we could talk to the radios.
And it worked?
It worked.
It worked so well on that 900 manclearance op that I was telling you about.

(59:26):
Their radios went down.
Our guys called in air support for,I think they called in medevacs,
nine lines for, I want to say 17,four guys died on that for Marines.
I think there was another 13 casualties.
They called in on a bottle cap.
That is awesome.

(59:47):
Yeah.
My guys, my guys pulled through that day.
Was that a seal who came up with that?
Uh, no, it's one of my cryptologiststhat came up with that.
Uh, okay.
But my seal was using it outin the, out in the field.
Um, yeah.
That's some bond, bond shit right there.
This, um, so I, I want to transitionin just a second, a little bit

(01:00:12):
more to the book, but I justwanted to ask one, one last thing.
What's the closest you came to dying?
On your seven deployments.
Ooh.
Um,
other than hearing some rounds crack overmy head, I mean, no, I never hit an ID.

(01:00:35):
I had vehicles in front of me,caught, caught some shrapnel.
Um, and two of my Afghan guys wentright out the gate in front of
me in a light skinned vehicle andjust, just decimated, just ripped
through the vehicle, killed them.
Um, probably, probably small rounds,you know, just, just hearing, yeah, just
hearing, hearing the crack over the head.
Yeah.

(01:00:56):
So, I mean, that is probably the closest.
Uh, never in a helicopter crash.
I got it.
I get all my, all my friendscan say like, yep, checking.
They've got that one case of beer.
Uh, never that, um, yeah,probably probably a couple of
small, small on fire gunfights.
Yeah.
Oh, geez.
Um, Look, when we, when we look at thebook, I have to imagine just obviously

(01:01:19):
given the title and what you alluded to,as we started, it's heavily influenced
by what you experienced in the militaryand kind of like trying to draw lessons.
If you can kind of talk us throughthe book and why you wanted
to pull it together, um, it'snot a small undertaking to do.
And what some of the key storiesare that you're trying to deliver

(01:01:39):
for people, what comes to mind?
Okay.
So the, so the book came about when I wasworking in private equity in the general
council, I had helped his son transitionfrom W and L to the Naval Academy.
At this time, I was 17 yearsremoved from the administration.
So I'm like, okay, man,I'll try to help you.
And he got in.
And he's, he has sincegraduated this past year.

(01:02:01):
So I'm very proud of him.
Um, as a thank you, Alex, my coauthor,who's the general counsel said, okay,
Rob, I'm going to pull you under mywing, weekly calls, anything you want
to know about debt credit markets.
You don't have a traditionalinvestment banking background,
especially in the debt side.
I'll teach you everything.

(01:02:21):
It's like, Oh, sweet.
But those, those conversationsstarted turning to Rob, how
did you transition out of this?
Like, how did you deal with so much of allthese stories that I just told you about?
You know, these loss of friendsand going back and forth between
combat to the regular world.
And I was like, I was like, Alex,I didn't like, I thought I did.

(01:02:42):
It took me two years to find this balance.
And I had to go to like Baylor, Scottand white, go through their clinic.
I had to go through another veteranclinic to get to the end of it.
And they were like, wedon't have to do with you.
Like we can't help you anymore.
And then finding a Marine air, I'msorry, a Vietnam era psychologist
who really broke things down for me.
Cause he's been workingwith vets for 40 years.

(01:03:02):
That was really the, I finally,it was like found gold and Dr.
Glick was, is amazing.
And Alex confided to me, he's like,Rob, my wife died of cancer and I
had to raise two boys on my own.
And he went away.
We stopped talking for, you know,just moving back to normal business.
And, but he came backtwo, three weeks later.

(01:03:23):
He's like, Rob, we shouldreally write a book.
That canonizes everything that you've beenthrough, these, these lessons from combat,
this, you know, transition you go throughis like, look, there's universal themes
in my life and yours, completely differentuniverses, but the themes are the same.
You know, there's lessonslearned in success and failure.

(01:03:46):
There's trauma.
There's massive life transitionsthat we all go through.
Divorce, death.
Losing jobs and, and, andhe kind of put it together.
He said, your terrain in the military andcombat, the civilian is just as difficult.
And if you're not prepared to makethat transition and to go into that,

(01:04:08):
you are going to have massive stress.
Like 70 percent of vets haveenormous amount of stress, stress
coming out of the military.
So that, that's how the bookkind of came about, but it really
started with, let's write a memo.
He wanted to write a memo for his son.
So when his son, if hisson does 20 plus years.
You know, Alex will be in his eighties.
He wanted to havesomething to leave his son.

(01:04:30):
But then we met Stan and westarted talking to him, to
General McChrystal about this.
And he's like, okay, you got something.
Then we started talking about, um, thehero's journey with Joseph Campbell
and Homer's Odyssey and Odysseus.
And he's like, and he's like, stop,I don't do the touchy feely things,
but you're hitting on somethinghere that every veteran, every

(01:04:53):
person in the military goes through.
And that took us, we took another stepback, but we, his parting words were,
if you don't make this practical,it's not going to be worth shit.
And that set us on the, at the time, fouryears of doing the research to write it.
Jeez.
Yeah, we, well, every time, every time wewould think of something like, Ooh, let's

(01:05:15):
go find the best person we can talk toabout, uh, resumes and looking at a job.
So I knew Dr.
Josh Cotton, who worked with the Marinesand then for the Navy and the SEALs.
And he's looked at something over 300,000 resumes and he almost has it down to a
science of like where these guys will fitin from the military over to the civilian.

(01:05:36):
So we got his intake and then we starteddiving into PTSD, TBI, physical injury,
moral injury, the world of emotion.
So we wanted to go track down healers.
We wanted to track down, um,captain, uh, Bob Kaufman retired.
Oh six.
He stood up Nyko over at Walter Reed.
We wanted his take on psychedelics.

(01:05:59):
He, he kind of promotes thatand he treats folks with that.
So we wanted to get his intake, um, andthen, you know, healers, psychologists.
And then I remember we were, I ran thisby a good friend of mine, uh, Dan Knossin,
who in oh nine first op out the gate.
SEAL Team 1 is doing a turnover op.

(01:06:21):
Assault force was going, sohe took the high ground and
went right into an IED field.
Thank God, the IEDs, they wereall daisy chained together.
I think there was eight or nine of them.
The chemical reaction didn't go full, soit went low order, and it, but it still
blew off his both legs at the knees.
Guy crawled through theminefield, uh, tourniquet him.

(01:06:41):
Dan almost died.
I mean, how many surgeries this guywent through, uh, and he's just a very,
very good friend from the Naval Academy.
Bye.
In less than a year, heran a marathon on blades.
Then he goes to the Paralympicsand I think he has six medals.
Then he has two degrees fromHarvard and I'm like Okay,
Dan, I have to tell your story.

(01:07:02):
You, you don't tell your story.
I'm the president of your fan club.
I'm going to tell your story.
So we put him in the book oflike, this is, this is resilience.
This is grit.
This is what it, no matter whatyou've been through, you can still
control your own narrative, controlyour story, have closure on this,
this process and find new purpose.

(01:07:24):
And, but Dan's also the one thatsaid, Rob, you guys don't have
anything for spouses or children.
Mike, you know what, Dan, you're right.
So we went back in the book and wedove in, did another eight months of
research to write that one chapterfor spouses because, um, Ryan, you
know, this, their service is justas, yes, they sacrifice just as much.

(01:07:46):
So, um, I'm piecing this together.
What's in the book, but also wetalk about finding new purpose.
And I remember a lecture from theNaval Academy from a SEAL master chief.
He's the only enlisted guy to ever teach.
I think at the Naval Academy,uh, leadership and ethics.
And he had this vaguely from whatI remember, we pieced it together.

(01:08:07):
Like, okay, this has to beHeracles circles of concern.
And we talk about like, okay, what wouldbe a good framework for someone getting
out of the military to refine purpose?
And you have to fix yourself first.
That first ring is yourself.
If you don't fix yourself, you're notgoing to function within your family.
You're never going to be ableto be a fully contributing
member to your family unit.

(01:08:29):
And, but that's reciprocated, right?
Cause you want all those things.
Back from that family to you want safetyand trust and love and all those like if
you don't so fix yourself then family, butall every family we know that we create a
community like that is the ultimate thingwithin the community, but then you get
very grandiose when you start looking atour communities make up us as citizens.

(01:08:51):
In our country for whatreally, what we fought for.
And then if you really wantto go out, so tell me, okay,
where's my spot in the universe?
Like, what am I doing here?
If you want to go that far.
So finding purpose, we do bring in dr.
Josh Cotton, how to look fora job, how to prep resumes.
Um, and then we give all theannexes on our website for that.

(01:09:14):
That's awesome.
So that's sorry.
That is a very high level.
Yeah, great.
You, you mentioned you had to go seektreatment before pulling this together.
What was it that washindering you moving forward
or what were you dealing with?
I, I think this, the simplest way toput it that I could, you know, relate
back to everybody listening and youmight be able to relate to this too

(01:09:36):
is I compartmentalized everythingand, and dr Glick said, he's like,
okay, Rob, I work a lot with you guys.
Yeah.
You guys, I'm going to soundvery harsh for a moment.
You guys just go killsomeone and just keep moving.
He's like, you don't thinkabout anything you just did.
He's like, you're good,but you're not that good.

(01:09:57):
You cannot compartmentalizeyour life to where those things
are not going to come forward.
So you go and do these acts and thenyou try to come back and you live in
society and you realize what you've done.
You've compartmentalized this stuff.
We're just a ticking timebomb ready to go off.
All it takes is enough stress, divorce,Bench drinking, alcohol, drugs, you

(01:10:20):
know, high risk behavior, infidelity,all of these things play a part to us is
collapsing and going down that spiral.
So I think for me, it was getting out.
It was loss of identity.
It was never going andfully come to terms with.
So much loss.

(01:10:41):
I thought I had survivor's guilt.
I remember sitting in, um, I, Ikicked and argued and I finally
went to couples counselingright on the edge of my divorce.
The counselor within 10 minutesis like, Rob, you have PTSD.
It's like, I don't seea lot of military folks.

(01:11:02):
I see PTSD and civilian folks.
He put his pin down.
I was like, we, we don'treally need to talk to him.
You need to go get help.
And I walked out of there in my, um,my, my ex and, uh, my, my son's mother.
She's like, please, for, forour son, please go get help.
I was like, I'll do it.

(01:11:23):
So that was the first step.
And that's, I found aveteran's organization.
They kind of helped me managelife through my divorce and
everything going on around me.
It's.
And after 12 months, I got, it's like,okay, are we going to talk about PTSD?
Like we haven't touched that.
And they're like, no, we don'tknow what to do with you.
You're you're, you're highly resilient.
We get it.

(01:11:44):
Like you could hold a job.
Like we normally deal with folks thatare, uh, alcoholics, drugs, homeless,
these like who just need the basic steps.
Like we're just surprisedyou're functioning.
I'm like, okay, shit, great.
So who do I got to talk to you next?
And then I kind of floated around forabout another year and then I found a

(01:12:05):
Baylor Scott and White Medical Center.
They had a great programfor about 16 weeks.
I went through that.
Still had a lot of questions inmy mind, things to deal with,
like, you know, is it normal?
Like, like what, what is,what is my new normal?
Where do I find new normal?
And that's when I found Dr.
Glick and he's just like,he's like, Rob, you're good.

(01:12:26):
He's like, you just haveto face these things.
You have to understand what you've done.
Come to terms with it.
He's like, you know, ref, you canreflect, oh, just please don't dwell,
don't dwell back in these things.
Mm-hmm, . And he's like, and also you,like you have to unpack this a little bit.
Like you guys were taught justto go off and just kill and
you need to take a step back.

(01:12:47):
So,
and I'm gonna get yououtta here in just a sec.
Rob, two questions I ask everybody before.
Uh, these are quick ones.
One is, is there anything you carriedwith you when you were downrange that
had sentimental value, something,somebody had given you like a gift
or a good luck charm that you justliked having on you or nearby?

(01:13:12):
Hmm.
I never, never carried it into, nevercarried on an ops, but I had a picture of
my family and then on my last appointmentI had, um, so the jacket that Brendan
was wearing, I actually had two of those.
So when I did my augmentin 2009 at damn neck.

(01:13:32):
Uh, they gave us this jacket.
I had an extra one.
So I brought one back for him.
Um, he wore that on his last up.
So I actually broughtthat picture with me.
Wow.
So I had school.
I had, I had that with me and then thelast question that I ask everybody, you

(01:13:52):
know, across seven deployments, a lotof, a lot of kinetic activity, losing
people you care about, probably suicidesthat we haven't even talked about.
Looking back on those years,would you go back and do it again?
No heartbeat.
It is.
I mean, it is, it's the best job,but like to take all these guys that

(01:14:16):
are so driven to one purpose, youcan never replicate that ever again.
Agree.
Yeah.
Thanks so much, Rob.
Um, people can find obviously warriorto civilian January 28th, 2025.
You can pre order it now.
Uh, we'll have links in,uh, in the description here.

(01:14:37):
Where can people find you, thebook, everything online, Rob?
Uh, LinkedIn, just Rob, or I thinkit's Rob Sarver, um, Instagram, rob.
sarver.
Um, our, uh, company website isheroes, H E R O E S hyphen journey.
net.
I can be reached that way too.

(01:14:58):
Um, yeah, I think that's, that's it.
I think that's probably three good,three good avenues to track me down.
Thanks so much for the time.
This was a blast, Rob.
Yeah.
Ryan, thank you.
And thank you to your listeners.
Really appreciate it.
Yeah.
I hope you enjoyed that episode.
That one was a lot of fun from my side.
I don't know if it's a similar yeargroups for us, but what could have
been for me, if I wasn't sitting ina cockpit at some point, um, God,

(01:15:23):
such a hard life as, as a SEAL,genuinely, obviously a lot of upside.
How cool that is, but also,um, a lot of loss and just
hearing, you know, another seal.
losing, losing their legs orhelicopter crash, whatever it is.
Lots of admiration for what guyslike Rob have gone through, but

(01:15:45):
man, very interesting interview.
I thought, I'm looking forwardto getting my hands on the book.
I'm going to try to geta signed copy if I can.
Um, with that, thank you somuch for listening y'all.
Um, you can check out ournewsletter, combat story.
com slash newsletter.
Also just a couple of, uh, Listenercomments on the most recent episode
from, uh, from this one at Bradley 856.

(01:16:06):
Thank you for being a subscriber.
Um, this was of course onthe Daryl Utt interview.
Solder City, Unreal, good stuff, Daryl.
Thank you.
And then another onefrom ImmortalTiger1569.
Great episode.
Thanks for the interview.
Really appreciate it.

(01:16:27):
And then lastly, we've got one,this is from Thin blue line life.
Uh, this was on Andrew Bragg's interviewand he says, man, it was nice hearing
someone tell the story of that hellshout out from alpha company to 508.
Love hearing that.
Um, so thank you all for takingthe time to leave those comments,
connecting with us and just listening.

(01:16:48):
I know you've got a lot ofother things you could be doing.
The fact that you spend your timelistening to some of these heroes
talk about the highs and lows means aton and it's exactly why we do this.
So with that, wherever you are inthe world, Hope you have a great rest
of your day, week, weekend, whereveryou're at, and as always, stay safe.

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Navy SEAL w/ 7 Deployments | Author of Warrior to Civilian | Rob Sarver

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Navy SEAL w/ 7 Deployments | Author of Warrior to Civilian | Rob Sarver