Ep. 30 | Real SEAL Team 6 Stories: From Mercenary Missions to 18 Months in a Serbian Prison | Dan Corbett III - Mind Body Mushroom

Episode Transcript
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(00:02):
Welcome to the Mind Body Mushroom, wherewarriors, seekers, and rebels explore the front
lines of healing.
I'm your host, Jordan Ryan.
From combat to consciousness, we dive into realstories, ancient wisdom, and the forgotten
tools that help us reclaim our minds, ourhealth, and our power.
This show is made possible by Wind and SeaCoffee, our line of adaptogen-infused coffee

(00:23):
products crafted for resilience, clarity, andperformance.
If you want to support the mission, visitwindandseacoffee.com.
My guest today is Daniel Corbett III, a manwhose life reads like a covert ops thriller,
except every word is true.
Dan is a former Navy SEAL who served with SEALTeams 5, 6, and 17.

(00:44):
He was part of DEVGRU's Red Squadron andparticipated in high-stakes missions, including
the 2009 rescue of Captain Phillips off thecoast of Somalia.
After leaving active duty, Dan entered theclandestine world of private military
contracting.
His work took him from anti-piracy operationsin Africa to intelligence gathering in the
Middle East and eventually to Belgrade, Serbia,where he was arrested in 2017 while on

(01:09):
assignment.
Accused of plotting to assassinate the Serbianpresident, he spent 18 months in a Serbian
prison before being acquitted.
Dan chronicles his incredible journey in hisbook, American Mercenary: The Riveting
High-Risk World of an Elite SEAL Team OperatorTurned Hired Gun.
It's a raw, unfiltered look at the murky worldof modern warfare and the challenges veterans

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face when transitioning to civilian life.
Dan, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me, bud.
And I appreciate the intro.
That was solid.
Yeah, man.
Everything right there.
Well, we're
gonna put
some stuff that I just didn't know.
I think I was arrested in 2018, but I'm not.
I said, I don't remember.
Exactly.
Years run together.
Yeah, it all kind of blends together.

(01:53):
Cool.
So let's start maybe back from when you joinedthe Navy.
When did you join and what was your motivation?
I joined actually when I was a junior in highschool at 17.
Motivation was someone asked me what I wasdoing after high school and I loved high

(02:17):
school.
It was great.
You know, I was having a blast.
So I didn't really think of life after and Idon't come from a family of academia, "Hey, you
need to start doing community service and applyto these colleges."
That was never even brought up.
So I really had no plan when I was 16.
So like, you know, being that young and havingthat huge lack of self-awareness, I thought

(02:41):
that was life.
I didn't think about tomorrow or next year orfive years.
I just thought this was it.
And I was like, "Oh my goodness, I need to wakeup and actually have a plan." I didn't know
what I was gonna do.
And he had this guy who asked me, he handed methe video.
It's a VHS tape.
I think it's History Channel or Nat Geo.

(03:02):
And it was like a super awesome documentary onNavy SEALs.
And I was like, that looks like a good thing.
Class 230.
No, no, no, no.
No, not that.
one.
This was a good documentary.
It was like all about like Vietnam.
Like it was put out back in the day.
It was on VHS tape.

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Like it was old.
Right, right.
And was your dad in the military?
Yeah, my dad was in the Army and he was HVAC.
I believe that's heating, ventilation and airconditioning.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Rad, so I guess it kind of ran in your family alittle bit.
You kind of saw, you know, would you consideryourself like an Army brat?

(03:45):
Or was that like an aspect of it?
Yeah.
I mean, I had that experience.
Like we traveled a bunch.
I was born in Hawaii, spent a year there, thenArizona, Texas, Germany, Northern California,
an Army brat in that sense, but I didn't growup in a household where Dad was like, you call

(04:06):
me sir and nothing crazy like that.
So Army brat as far as travel, yes.
Sure.
So then you joined, did you know you were kindof going to the BUD/S program?
I guess you kind of got Yeah.
When I saw that video, I was like, okay, cool.
Let me go to the recruiting station and startasking questions.
And at that time, no, people in the militaryknew what being a Navy SEAL was, but not a

(04:34):
whole lot of people outside of it.
Right.
And I went into the recruiting station andsaid, hey, want to be a Navy SEAL.
And they're like, sure.
So does everyone else.
Right?
And I'm like, no, I'm serious.
What steps do I need to take?
Like, how old are you?
And I told them, they're like, hey, you got ayear before you can even do a delayed entry.
Delayed entry is like you can join at 17 with asignature from your parents.

(04:58):
And then as soon as you graduate high school,you can leave.
I said, okay, so what are the steps?
Okay, are you physically fit?
Do you do drugs?
Have you been arrested?
Like none of that was an issue.
And then I said, hey, like what are the schoolsyou need?
Because it's always fluctuated.
But when I was set to go, you had to pick aregular Navy A school before going through

(05:24):
selection of BUD/S because the attrition ratewas so high.
What had been happening was before they hadthat rule in place, guys would be in the BUD/S
pipeline for like two years to make rank overjust time and then not make it through for
whatever reason and then be in the Navy likethree years with no job.
Then they'd have to send him to a regular NavyA school.

(05:48):
Like, hey, these are the 10 or 20 or howevermany rates you could pick.
So start looking at these.
Obviously the recruiter is going to try to dothe needs of the Navy.
He's like, oh man, gunner's mate.
I'm like, oh, guns sound interesting, SEAL.
And I looked it up and it's like six monthslong and it's like weapon systems on ships,
like destroyers.

(06:08):
I'm like, wait, what?
And I said, what's the shortest one?
So I just started doing more research.
So yeah, I knew I wanted to go in the Navy andgo into that program 100%.
I wanted nothing else.
I didn't want to do anything else besides that.
Oh, so you had to actually go to the A schoolbefore they sent you to BUD/S or this is

(06:29):
Yeah, so this was interesting.
Yes, so gotcha.
I knew I wanted to the way it worked, signedup, delayed entry, I picked the shortest goal
which is parachute rigger four weeks inFlorida, Pensacola.
And I was able to, I was guaranteed theopportunity to take a physical screener for

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BUD/S at boot camp, get the green checkbox, goto your A school, did four weeks in Pensacola,
took another screener test for BUD/S and then Igot my orders after A school, boom, straight to
Coronado.
That's interesting.
So when I joined, there was kind of a similardeal, but they didn't actually send you to the

(07:11):
A school.
So you DEP in and then while you're in the DEPprocess, you're kind of competing for that SEAL
contract.
And if you never got the SEAL contract, then Iguess you would go to the A school.
And so a similar deal, I had no idea like anyof these jobs, you just kind of take the
And for some reason, I picked like nuclear subsomething.

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And like, oh my God, dude.
I cannot imagine a worse situation like inretrospect than ending up on a submarine in any
capacity.
Yeah, no thanks.
Yeah, no thanks.
Anyway, so you go through school, you get toBUD/S.
Was there anything you really struggled with atBUD/S?

(08:02):
No, not really.
And I feel like a dick saying as people ask meall the time, I mean, it's not really that
hard.
The run times and the swim times, you don'teven need to be like a competitive high school
athlete to pass, right?
You just have to do it every day.
The hardest part was day one when we did ourfirst run as a class.

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And I think this is day one, week one pre-HellWeek.
We had like 270 people there, right?
And we do a four-mile timed run.
And I'm like in the front of the back third ofthe pack and I'm running and I'm like, whoa.
I'm gonna fail.

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Like I'm having an off day.
I don't know.
Maybe the distances I thought I was runningback home, getting ready, were off.
Like, this is crazy.
So far back.
I said, I ran like a crazy good time after theturnaround point and we got back to where the
instructors were.
I was like, holy shit.
These guys are fast.

(09:06):
I was like, okay.
I'm now the big fish in a big pond versus thesmall town, the small farm town I was training
in.
It was like, oh wow, that guy can run a mileunder ten minutes.
He's lightning, right?
And then you go to BUD/S and everybody's fit.
I was like, oh.

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So it was very humbling and a wake-up call.
As far as the day-to-day, I mean, it sucks.
Something being uncomfortable, I don't thinknecessarily makes it difficult, right?
Laying down isn't difficult.

(09:47):
Spray some cold water on you in the ocean, itsucks, but it's still not difficult.
It just sucks.
Totally.
It's uncomfortable.
Yeah, yeah, no, that makes a ton of sense.
I mean, it definitely, like if you kind of takeany day in isolation, it's all pretty doable,
assuming you're not getting VGE, SIPE, youknow, fucking bone, something like that.

(10:11):
I wouldn't even take each day at a time.
I take each evolution at a
time.
Right.
Right.
So wake up, what am I doing now?
I'm running to the chow hall.
What am I doing now?
I'm eating food.
What am I doing?
Like even the day can be daunting, right?
So I just look at it like, what am I doingright now?
Right.
Let's do that.
That's a good sort of like mindset for a lot ofother shit in life is sort of, you know, the

(10:37):
totality of the thing that you're trying toaccomplish can be really intimidating and
seemingly impossible, but just by kind of likewhittling it down into like the, what am I
doing this moment?
You know, they say, you know, break it intoeach meal, you know, let's get to lunch, let's
get to fucking Yeah.
Dinner, know, that that made a lot.

(10:58):
So I never really talk about my bud story, butthere's some interesting stuff that I wanna
like ask you about.
So I made it till fucking bulletproof Friday onthe third week of phase, like right before hell
week, you know, on Monday.
And the class, over the course of those weeks,your boat crews are changing as people

(11:26):
disappear.
So we get into a pipeline, and we were about todo land portage.
That's the evolution we were about to go on.
And I get to my boat, and I noticed thatthere's this dude's an officer, this dude's an
officer, this dude's an officer, and me.
So there's like five officers and myself, whichis a little unusual because usually you have

(11:52):
maybe a couple of officers in a boat crew, butthey're kind of spread out among the boats as
boat crew leaders.
And then it kind of occurred to me that theseguys in this boat crew are all savage runners,
seven-minute thirty-second mile and a half.
They've kind of stacked this "pays to be awinner" kind of situation.

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And even at this point, it still hasn'toccurred to me that this is a problem.
I'm like, yeah, I'm with a fast boat crew; thisis going to be dope.
And then, so I think I started off in the threespot, and we start moving, and we're way out in
front, and I'm like, oh, no.
This is like when it's like dawning on me.
I'm like, dude, this is gonna be rough.

(12:35):
And so we're running and at some point, Ifucking can't keep up.
I start falling out of the back.
The instructors fucking swarm over, blood inthe water.
They put me in the two spot and now I'm justlike getting crushed in this two.
And I'm kind of like hoping that like my boatcrew is gonna be like, all right, let's just

(12:55):
fucking let this dude catch his breath.
They're like not having this.
So they just keep fucking, you know, full speedahead.
And at some point, you know, I'm now aliability to the boat and they're like, stay
the fuck out.
And it kind of fucked me up for years thinkingabout this.

(13:19):
It's one of these things that plays over inyour head, what could I have done different?
Yeah, I mean, it's the worst of the worst.
You get ostracized, which is the worstpunishment ever.
Then you're getting ostracized for, I mean,guys were freak runners.
You're getting ostracized because you're notgood enough.
Right.
Right.
To them, even though they had this giant leadand they don't need to do this pace.

(13:42):
Right.
But on paper, if you just looked at it like Igot left out of the group because I'm not fast
enough.
Yeah.
Right.
If you just looked at it super plainly, yeah.
No, 100%.
And what I kind of realized that was a surpriseto me.
I guess this is what I want to ask you becauseI don't know if this was similar in your class

(14:04):
or so we had some of our cadre was from DEVGRU.
Do you know Master Chief Flash?
Did you ever work with that dude?
Yeah, I know who he is.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Cool.
So I don't know why he was in charge ofanything at first phase, but so he was kind of
our and it seemed like part of the mind gamesthat when you class up, it's like all your

(14:31):
fucking enlisted dudes that you were in bootcamp with and prep and everything.
I mean, you have this mentality of like, it'sus versus them.
Like, yeah, there's turds in the class, butlike, you know who the good guys are and we're
gonna circle the wagons and just try gettingthrough this together.
But then you get some officers that you don't,you know, you didn't go to boot camp with these
guys.
They're coming from Annapolis, you really don'tlike class up with them until maybe BO or even

(14:57):
first day of phase, I don't remember exactlywhen.
So they don't really know who you are, whatyour vibe is.
And the instructors kind of feed into this.
So they're putting, trying to have your OICsand LPOs kind of like turn on the class and
they would say shit, we'd be being surftortured.

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And they're like, we're gonna do this untilfive people quit.
And rather than being like, you, kill us then Idon't really, you'd have your LPO of the class
calling people out by name to quit.
No, that's brutal.
And they're stupid for believing that too.
Right, right.
And that's what kind of was interesting isabout the, because there wasn't a lot of like,

(15:43):
I mean, there was that kind of all throughoutthe phase, but especially as Hell Week is
starting this next week and I think there werethe little whispers in their ears like, hey,
breakout's gonna be this much easier if youguys trim the fat now.
Get rid of the people that aren't supposed tobe there.
And I'm thinking in my mind, no, you want fat.

(16:06):
It's gonna be a lot easier to kind of stay grayand stay in
the I I mean, my experience is totallydifferent.
Think maybe it's gotten that way because peopleknow too much about BUD/S.
Like we didn't know anything.
There were no books or prep or you just showedup.
So there was no like planning or if we do this,it's going to be that.

(16:29):
I worked a Hell Week as an instructor, andpeople were switching positions in boats.
That was never a thing.
Interesting.
You just got in your spot.
I was always number two on the left side.
That's it.
Why would we switch?
Oh, because this side's easier.
By how much?
Shut the fuck up and run.
Instead of doing this weird thing where you'retrying to run and switch positions, stop.

(16:51):
That's so interesting.
Stop.
What are you doing?
Just run.
Just go.
You're making guys try to gamify everything somuch now because they know they inundated all
this information and they go, okay, we're goingto figure this out now.
Sure, but you can plan it, but it's like whatTyson said, you have a plan till you're punched
in the face.
The instructors aren't going to go exactly likethat.

(17:13):
It's not going to end when you get exactly fivequitters.
So I don't know why people—I think there's toomuch information out there and the post-movies
and books and everything, and I think there's abook called Breaking BUD/S or all this shit.
So people read all these things, they try togame it, and you actually end up making it
harder for yourself than just, I'm just goingto show up and do what they say.

(17:36):
That's all we knew when I went through it, andthat's it.
So there was no weird agenda in playing areality TV show like Survivor where we're
trying to vote dudes off the island.
They were just like, I'm just going to go.
Never thought about it like that.
If you suck and you fall out, okay, whatever.
Just, I'm just going to keep going.

(17:59):
There wasn't enough information to even developplans to do this shit.
Yeah, that's such an interesting perspective.
And so anyway, I ended up failing out of BUD/S,go do my time on a ship.
I was undesignated and I kinda, we go straightto deployment, so out in the Gulf and the whole

(18:26):
time I'm thinking just like, how do I get backinto a program?
Like, maybe BUD/S, maybe EOD, you know,whatever it is, just trying to get out there.
But what I wanted to bring up about on theship, because I wanted to ask you just out of
curiosity, did you have you ever seen thoselike, I think it's called like the Sea Lion or
something like that?

(18:47):
It's like a big-ass, a really pointy nosecraft.
It kind of sits like semi-submersible.
I think those were after my time.
Okay, gotcha.
It was one of the weirdest things, and I didn'tknow if it was like a SWCC thing or if it was
like SEAL boat, but yeah, pretty interesting.
We had some team guys on the ship that wereusing this, and right, it was because it was an

(19:12):
amphib ship.
So as the boat would bounce down, there wouldbe a guy standing up with like a PlayStation
controller basically, and you'd be likepiloting it into the
Oh, wow.
Yeah, it's interesting.
That's after my time.
Yeah, interesting.
So you get through BUD/S, and was thereanything that you really enjoyed about SQT?

(19:38):
SQT was really cool.
I mean, I think we graduated my BUD/S classwith like 17 original people who started.
So it was cool.
We were living off base by then.
It was kind of more big boy roles.
Didn't make it yet, but you had a lot of weightoff your shoulders.

(20:03):
I mean, you're still being scrutinized.
You're still in a selection process, but youknow, it felt cool, I'm well on my way, right?
Like you've been invited to the next step.
Like, this is happening.
This is real.
I'm not a waterman.

(20:24):
I don't surf.
I don't like the ocean.
I respect the ocean.
The water evolutions I deal with, but it wasreally cool in SQT and especially even in third
phase in BUD/S when you actually start to pickup the commando stuff.
I think most people, when they're like, oh, Iwant to be a Navy SEAL, I think they say it

(20:46):
when they're like running around playingpaintball or like they see a cool gunfight on
TV.
I don't think when you're swimming in yourneighborhood pool and you're doing laps, you're
like, yeah, this is what being a SEAL is,right?
Like the commando stuff and we're setting uptrip wires and booby traps and shooting.
And I was like, okay, now we're doing the stuffI really find interesting also.

(21:07):
Right.
Yeah.
And that's like a, it's what, almost two yearsinto your joining and so those
are fun times.
Boot camp, A school, BUD/S, SQT, Jump, Kodiak,Alaska, yeah.
So I know you ended up at Team Five.

(21:30):
Was there something specific about Five thatyou wanted to go to?
I know that there's different cultures withinthe teams like One, Three, Five, Seven, how are
they a little different?
What was the culture like at Five compared tothe other West Coast teams?
Well, culture changes with the people at thecommand, right?

(21:50):
You don't really get to pick.
You get to write a wish list, right, whenyou're in SQT, I was like, Five, Three, Seven.
And I went that order because at the time, TeamOne was known as No Fun One.
I was like, I don't want to go there.

(22:10):
And then we would always see the Team Five guysout.
They got new buildings and now they movedagain.
But before they had these little Quonset hutsand it was kind of like a frat house and guys
were out like doing water balloon launches intothe grinder on the BUD/S students.
I'm like, oh, that's cool.
What team was that?

(22:31):
Like, oh, that's Team Five.
I'm like, okay, I'll put that down as my list.
That's cool.
So the Five building was still on thecompounds.
Like it's, you know, where like all the OneTeam One, Team Three, it's all.
Yeah but it wasn't a building it was like anold interesting airplane hangar.
That's interesting.

(22:51):
Yeah.
Interesting.
And how does like the East Coast teams kind ofcompare to the West Coast teams?
Because I've heard, you know, kind of likeproximity to the flagpole is like a thing.
You know what I No.
Okay.
No, I mean, they're exactly the same.
Just on the East Coast.

(23:12):
Right
Before 9/11, each team had a specialty.
Team 4 was South America, Team 5 was coldweather.
They had all these specialties, and I don'tknow if geographically advantageous, which

(23:32):
coast, I don't really know.
But after Iraq kicked off, we couldn't have theone West Coast team that was like the desert
team and the one East Coast team that was thedesert team just be there forever, right?
So they kind of canceled the specialty areas ofoperation and got everybody on a cycle to just

(23:53):
rotate.
So the teams are no different.
You're going to have different cultures, right?
You have a different culture from 1, 3, 5, 7and 2, 4, 8, 10.
So, but like, oh, East Coast is that, WestCoast is that, no.
Not really.
It's just a different rotation.
Interesting.
Now, did you have the desire at this time toscreen Green Team or was this something that

(24:20):
came later?
I didn't even know what it was.
Yeah.
Then when I did hear about like whispers of it,I heard like really negative stuff about it.
And then come to find out that was a guy whoscreened and didn't get picked up.
Again, funny story, was flying back from myIraq deployment.
We flew to the East Coast and did commercialair back to San Diego.

(24:43):
And I sat next to a dude that was Green Teamcadre flying out to screen DEVGRU candidates on
the West Coast.
And he's like, oh, he knew who I was when wewere talking.
And he said, why are we seeing record lownumbers for guys on the West Coast to screen?

(25:07):
And I said, well, I don't really know anythingabout this place.
Right.
I just got back from Iraq in summer of '05.
Did like 126 direct actions.
I lived in San Diego.
Yeah.
Like, what else do you want?
It wasn't like that was the only place to getwork.

(25:29):
We were getting work at SEAL Team 5.
Why would I even go live in Virginia?
Right.
And the biggest thing they were about to changewas that you don't need to PCS to start Green
Team.
They were gonna cut guys' temporary orders,collect per diem until they graduate Green Team

(25:51):
and then PCS over.
Oh, I said, if you do that, I think guys willcome.
And then when they did that, you had a lot moreguys willing to try out and not get stuck in
Virginia because they didn't make it through.
Yeah, that makes that's really interesting.
And yeah, dude, it's funny.
It's funny how even the times change that,dude, there were fucking dudes in boot camp

(26:14):
that were talking about like, so I'm gonna gohere and then I'm gonna screen Green Team and
then I'm gonna do this.
That's such
wrong mentality because like yeah, that'sinteresting.
For one, no you're not and you don't fuckingknow anything.
Right.
Two, if you have that mentality, I really don'tthink you'll get far because you need to be

(26:37):
very present and move with intent in the thingyou're doing the moment you're doing it.
And if you're so focused that I'm going go thisand then do that and do that, you're not going
to be present.
And I've even talked to Green Team cadre laterin my career when I was an instructor.
And they were telling the students, oh, we gotto get to SEAL Team 6, blah, blah.

(26:59):
I said, no, stop.
Some of my best years were at SEAL Team 5 too.
Like I had a blast there.
And I don't know telling a young guy that thatain't shit until you get to the other place is
the best thing for him.
Because I don't know if I would've enjoyed itas much if I was just so focused on this other
thing.
Interesting, interesting.
Just be good at what you do and people willfind you.

(27:22):
And you will be asked to go do stuff.
That's yeah.
Now, I want to ask you some more stuff aboutDEVGRU in a little bit, but just because we're
kind of talking about it now and comparing itto your standard SEAL teams, as a Tier 1 unit,

(27:47):
theoretically you have a much larger repertoire
of
things you could be doing like red teamingstuff or anti-nuclear, whatever.
When did you find it was mostly like justdirect action just at a higher level, you know,

(28:10):
and how did it kind of compare to what you weredoing at Team 5?
I mean there's a lot of aspects to cover.
So I think on paper it's counter-proliferationof weapons of mass destruction and hostage
rescue.
Like that's what it is.

(28:30):
And testing and evaluating tactics andequipment.
But when that's not going on and there's twohot areas to work, we're going to go work.
A lot of people say this, it's what you thoughtthe SEAL teams would be, right?

(28:51):
Because at SEAL Team 6, there are no new guys.
And if you don't keep up, you're gone.
So the level at which people can develop andlearn new processes and execute them is so
fast.

(29:12):
And I've always been a pretty quick learner.
It was very nice to be around others.
That was the norm.
And the difference was just everyone was superon top of it.
Everyone was super smart.
We had the funding to just train as much as wewanted and yeah,

(29:33):
it
was just, it different for sure.
Was it ever intimidating knowing that you couldbe kind of cut at any moment, a safety
violation here or not learning on your feetquick enough and now you're not?
No, never really thought about stuff like that.

(29:54):
And I think most people who do well don't.
Like, you know, if you're a Formula One driverand you're always thinking about crashing, I
don't think you're gonna win, right?
You'll probably end up crashing.
So I was the same way as I always doeverything.
What do you want me to do?
All right, I'll go do it.

(30:15):
I'll go do it the best way I think I know how.
And if I mess up, I'm sure you'll tell me.
Like, that's it.
When those thoughts would come up to somebodyor like, oh, I have anxiety or I'm nervous, I'd
ask people like, is that serving you in thismoment?
It's not okay, just go do your thing then.

(30:37):
Why are you thinking about it?
Is it benefiting you?
No, then what are you doing?
That's yeah, wise because there's so much inlife is kind of that way too, you know?
And not to jump around, but this is somethingthat I remember reading about in your book and
something that I also kind of struggle with islike when you were awaiting sentencing or what

(31:01):
the fuck they're gonna do with you and sort ofyou're like, I just wanna know how long I'm
gonna be here.
And then like, all right,
we're we're it's sort
of this like unknown unknowns and just kind oflike, I can't control this, but I don't I don't
have any clarity on what this is gonna go.
Like that's hard for me too.

(31:22):
It's like I could deal with good news, coulddeal with bad news, but just not knowing what
the fuck is going on is sometimes harder thanjust taking it on the chin.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's hard.
I just really stop and I go, okay, what can Icontrol?
What can I not control?

(31:42):
How am I feeling?
Okay, are these feelings serving me?
No?
Okay, then let's focus on something you cancontrol and then just move on from there.
Right.
So let's go back to maybe deployment as a TeamFive guy.
So where I guess you were going to the least,you say you're going to Iraq?

(32:06):
Yeah, we were in Baghdad, Ramadi, andHabbaniyah, summer of '05 in Iraq.
So let's see.
When did we enter?
02/2002, I guess?
That was like when, somewhere around then.
Were you involved at all with like big Ramadibattle?

(32:32):
No.
I think that was a more conventional force.
It's like Marines just going around shitstomping dudes with like APVs.
Yeah, yeah.
So what was sort of your mission set there?
Just direct actions, just doing DAs at night,yeah.
Yeah, well.

(32:52):
So you get back from your deployment, you'rekind of on your cycle.
What did you do for ProDev?
Did you go to any schools?
Yeah, I ended up, I think I ended up going toBreacher School before that deployment.

(33:14):
And then this is before jump free fall wasinvolved.
So I went to Breacher School and then a freefall.
Gotcha.
Was that breacher something that you wanted togo specifically, or was it sort of just the
needs team was?
I mean, it was weird, right?

(33:35):
Like I just like carrying a gun and shootingstuff.
Was like, I don't want to carry more shit.
But they're like, Hey dude, go to BreacherSchool.
It's okay.
So I'm happy I did.
It was cool to learn about all the explosivecharges and ways to get in and all the
different techniques.
I mean, it was good.
All these schools, besides the really tangibleskill sets you get, like, Oh, I know how to

(33:59):
make this and do that.
It makes you a better operator as a whole. As
as critical thinking and how you approachsituations, it just helps you grow holistically
as well.
So, like, I'm happy for any school I go to nowand ever, even after going to Breacher School,
I kind of looked at each school I went to withan approach of taking all aspects of the school

(34:24):
itself and applying that to me to be a betteroperator.
Yeah, right.
Were there any other schools that you reallywanted to go to?
Like kind of
I wanted to go to sniper school.
Yeah.
But so did everyone else.
So I kind of was waiting in line.
And then as soon as I got to a place ofseniority to be able to, that's when I was

(34:49):
asked to put in a package to screen for DEVGRUor something.
So at some point you deployed to thePhilippines, is that right?
Yeah, so after that first deployment, I talkedto that guy on the plane.
And then my best buddy was like, hey, I want toscreen.

(35:11):
And I said, okay, I'll screen with you.
So he goes, okay.
After we get back from the Philippines, we'llscreen.
And that's when the master chief pulled us upand he's like, yeah, I'm glad you're putting
the package in.
I really want you to do this.
It's okay, I'll do it.
So we went to the Philippines.
Fun deployment, different.
It was a little frustrating because Iraq wasstill popping off.

(35:34):
And I was a breacher, so I had a skill set too,which is another blessing and can be a curse to
having certain skills and schools under yourbelt.
I had a brown bag on my pallet to go to thePhilippines with all my desert camo stuff in
case
they needed a breacher.
Hey.

(35:55):
Yeah.
But that was gonna happen because I was taking,at the time it was called Tagalog, not
Filipino.
I was taking Tagalog lessons.
So I was like the one dude that could speakTagalog.
So there was no way they were gonna cut me.
me. You're stuck.
So yeah, I knew we were gonna screen after wegot back from the Philippines.

(36:16):
Gotcha.
Was it kind of like a FID mission out there?
Is that what Yeah, it was crazy.
They're like, Hey.
And I was out at an outstation middle ofnowhere, which was pretty badass.
It was like a castle made of cinder blocks.
And in bad guy land, we had two Humvees in thecastle and we had explosive charges to blow up
the Humvees and the castle if we got overrun.

(36:39):
No way.
We were there with SWCC boats.
Were all going to jump in the Zodiacs, drive100 meters, get on the Mark V's and bounce if
we got overrun.
No shit.
Yeah.
And there was like time cruises and everything.
So I'm like, So I'm going go house, get alltheir stuff, house, Humvee Humvee, you know,
through it all, like, how are we gonna do this?
It was like, me, two dudes, and chief.

(37:03):
That was it.
Oh, so it wasn't like a full platoon there.
No, we were out in the middle of nowhere.
Yeah.
That's wild.
And they're like, Hey, train the FilipinoMarines and SEALs out there with you on jungle
warfare.
I'm like, What do you want?
I did two weeks in Mississippi.
You've been
out the jungle.
These guys live in the jungle. In
In a coconut tree right now having a nap.

(37:25):
What do you want me to tell him?
So one of my buddies that I was in BUD/S withand then we ended up going into the recon
corpsman program, and so he's over at MARSOCand he's done some FID deployments out in the
Philippines.
Told me some crazy stories.
He was talking about like, I mean, these guyswill do like two-man patrols out.

(37:48):
This will be like the recon Marines out there.
And they'll do like two-man patrols out just inthe jungle.
And he's saying that like the ISIS guys outthere, they smoke like meth or like they do
some sort of like crazy amphetamine-type drugs,and they'll just be up all night.

(38:12):
And so the Marines were not on meth, butthey'll still be in these two-man patrols, and
they'll be awake for like two days straight,just kind of like going through the jungle.
And he was saying that like he was talking tosome of these Marines out there and they were
like, yeah, telling them stories, likematter-of-factly, like not like, it's just like
a totally normal thing to say, but that theysmoke this meth, the ISIS guys, they do magic.

(38:39):
And he's like, What do you mean they do magic?
And he's like, Yeah, no, they'll do stuff.
So he's like, You'll have them like in yourscope and you'll take a shot and you'll see
like a puff of smoke come up and then there'llbe somewhere else.
And so like they're teleporting and my buddy'slike, yeah, I mean, you've been awake for two
days.

(38:59):
But I could totally see like it gets all Heartof Darkness out there.
You're just sort of like in the jungle, nosleep, just constantly on red alert.
And then these dudes are culturally doingvarious things that everyone there is sort of
just accepting is a form of their...

(39:21):
their... And yeah, just wild dude.
their little machete things like their bolos,you know?
And everyone's stoked when they get to bloodtheir bolos on a bad guy.
But pretty wild, just a very
different.
There's a lot of jungles out there and peopledoing whatever they're doing, bro.

(39:45):
It was a cool place
to.
Did you ever experience any sort of crazy stufflike that or just stuff where you felt you
could always kind of go back and rationalize itand be like, oh, I was tired or something like
this?
But did you ever have anything that was sort oflike, if you think about it late at night every
once in a while, that's kind of weird.

(40:06):
No, man.
I mean, my stuff is pretty cut and dry, youknow, being at the command I ended up at, like
well-rested, wake up as the sun's going down.
Who's the guy?
That's the guy.
All right, cool.
Get on the helicopter and go.

(40:28):
Do what you do.
Come back and play Xbox.
Like that was it.
We weren't up for like five days on amountaintop shooting it out and getting all
delirious.
It was like, okay, do your job, come home.
Right.
That was it.
That's interesting.
So you screened Green Team.

(40:49):
I guess, how did you find that different fromBUD/S?
Like specifically as a pipeline, I guess.
Green Team was just all skill sets.
I mean, you have to be fit and run and stuff.
But the best way I describe it is in GreenTeam, you can make a Monday mistake on Monday.

(41:12):
But if you make a Monday mistake on Tuesday,you're gone because we're trying to get guys
that once they get to the team, we can try andimplement new stuff.
Guys who need to, you know, attain what we're,you know, really understand what's going on and
apply it and not hold back everyone elsebecause you're just not getting it fast enough,

(41:35):
you're gone.
So the pace at which people learn new skillsand actually know them, not like you're
cramming for a test and then the next day youregurgitate it and forget it.
I mean, actually knowing it and moving on is,that's the difference.
The speed at which guys can do that, that'swhat it is.
Interesting.
And how much of what you're, you hear sometimeslike at the highest levels, it's like complete

(42:01):
mastery of the basics.
It's like they do the fundamentals so fuckingwell that it's like that is kind of, you don't
rise to the occasion, you fall to the level ofyour training.
How much of it is it that versus how much of itis like you you're implementing novel types and

(42:24):
weapons and stuff?
No, it's super non-sexy answer.
It's just I'm just really good at doing thebasic thing.
You can start getting into, you have likesomeone who's like entry level and then like
intermediate advanced, and then you havesomeone who's an expert and then you have

(42:45):
someone who's a master at something.
And I think when you become a master atsomething, that's when you can start to say,
hey, why don't we try this?
Why don't we—what if we put my forward handgrip sideways and now I have a post on the side
of my gun for my hand?
But you don't even need to get to that level toperform well at SEAL Team Six.
You will see, like me and the way I set up mygun, it's different than a lot of other

(43:10):
people's because it works for me.
You can do stuff like that individually as longas it doesn't affect the tactics as a group,
right?
Right.
It's like, hey, Dan's really good at doing thisthing where he puts it on this shoulder and
slides on his knee and then jumps up.
It's like, well, we're not going to implementthat because that's what he can do, right?
But if you want to set your gear, that's whenyou can start messing with your gear and tiny

(43:34):
little things.
But the rest is all mastering the basics andbeing the best at interesting.
So it's maybe a little bit more rigid at yourvanilla teams in terms of
like don't get, not more rigid, you don't getthe reps.
Yeah.
My group is six dudes and we're in the killhouse.

(43:55):
Guess what?
I'm making entry as one and two men, three andfour men or like, you know, when they call one
on me, two men, like you're getting more roomentries.
When you go to do a work trip with your sisterplatoon and you know, your whole troop, you got
like 126 dudes.
So you go do kill house runs, you might get tomake one room entry in eight hours. So

(44:18):
eight hours. So you don't get the reps in, youdon't get the hours, the 10,000 hours of
neuroplasticity of like all that stuff gettingit down because you gotta wait in line.
Interesting.
Right, right.
Now the aspect of it being Development Group,you know, like something you mentioned is, you
know, developing or testing the new likeweapons and shit.

(44:43):
Was there, without going into stuff you can'ttalk about, but what type of stuff are you guys
testing?
Like just
Weapons, different manufacturers would show uslike a new sight or a new gun and like I never
really saw anything come to fruition.
A lot of the stuff is way bigger, notwaterproof, too many cables.

(45:04):
You're like, I can't even just opening the box,I can't use this.
Just like, nope.
It doesn't even pass the visual inspection,first impressions.
I'm not using that.
Mine's bigger than my plate carrier.
Get out of here, right?
I mean, that is the place.
I think there's a whole group within that groupthat really does that and I was never a part of

(45:26):
that.
Interesting.
Actually, that kind of leads into something Idid want to ask you about.
So I know you were part of Red Squadron and youkind of have like Gold Squadron, these more
like direct action, but there's, I guess, BlackSquadron, is kind of like your recce teams.
What, what is do guys want to go that way?

(45:47):
Are those typically more senior guys?
Like, what
Sort of.
of. I have no idea.
Really?
I knew it existed, but I don't even know whatthey did.
I know I didn't know anyone there.
The squadrons that are fairly isolated in theirlike.
Not by design, just by logistics because again,I'm sure they must have had specialties

(46:15):
beforehand, but it's just a rotation thing.
Just for rotation.
There's no like, oh, guys are good at this andthese guys do that.
I mean, at the squadron I was at, I didn't evensee the other troop of my squadron half the
time.
Real, just.
Because so like seeing guys from other, fromlike Blue or Gold or whatever, you would never

(46:36):
see them because you didn't even see half ofyour own dudes.
Wow.
Yeah.
Just op tempo.
They're just fucking.
Op tempo training.
Training.
Yeah.
Interesting.
Did you ever see any SARCs at DEVGRU?
I don't even know what that is.
That's the answer.
They're like the recon corpsman.

(46:57):
No, we had PJs.
Yeah, that's interesting.
PJs don't even go to SOCM or the.
Long haul.
Yeah, they have their own tier one selectionlike for good.
Gotcha.
We a.
They have tier one PJs.
Yeah.
So they're like a tier one Air Force unit thatwe pull PJs and combat controllers from that.
It's like.
That
Will come something.

(47:18):
That will come hang out before we deploy andlike jump in the kill house with us and shit
too.
So interesting.
Yeah.
Let's see.
You know, I guess we can talk about this.
I heard you say something on another podcastabout the overmatch when you're in, like, let's

(47:44):
say, Afghanistan or Iraq or whatever.
It's like going up to a drunk guy in a bar whodoesn't know that you're there and you just
kinda like cold clock.
You know?
Like, that's the level of, you know, overmatch.
You're you're trying.
You don't want it to be a fair fight.
No.
But now I'm I I don't mean now, but thinkingabout these near-peer threats, I mean, the

(48:11):
Taliban are dirt farmers in sandals, and thatnot to say that they're not serious fighters,
but like, yeah dude, they don't have NODs andyou know, ISR and all this other shit that, you
know, we have that kinda creates that dynamic.
How do you kinda see that, like, future ofwarfare, you know, when you're taking into

(48:38):
account those near-peer threats?
Near peers is loosely thrown around.
You could have near-peer technology, butdoesn't mean you know how to use it, right?
Oh, we have these things like, okay, were youin sustained combat for over ten years in two
countries?
No.

(48:58):
So cool thing you have, you don't even knowwhat you're doing.
Right?
So we'll call near-peer capabilities as far asequipment and technology.
We'll say that because I don't really thinkthere's any near peer as far as fighting actual

(49:19):
combat I think, you know, people are alreadystarting to address it having, you know,
running passive NODs by having, you know, a reddot instead of a laser that you look through on
your night vision with the raised amount.
And I think as the technology builds and statesand countries become actually near peer, I

(49:45):
think it's going to be the same as peopleholding onto nukes.
I think it's just going to be like, don't messwith us because we have this too.
So I think it might actually like really almoststop conflict.
Interesting.
Right?
Because it's like, oh, Afghanistan, sure, we'llgo stomp them.
Oh, this country, they have surface-to-airmissiles.
They have awesome defense.
They have night vision.
It's like, okay, maybe we go to thenegotiations table longer with these guys

(50:09):
before we start a bloodbath.
So I think it's gonna be more of an insurancepolicy and make people a little bit more
cautious about just going in and doingsomething.
Yeah, wow.
That's and then
if you go all the way in, it's inevitable, thenyou're just gonna have to go back to the old

(50:30):
times, right?
And just go iron sights, no radios, can't betracked, nothing can be jammed because it's
all, nothing's electronic.
Then you'd have to fight that way and go kindof backwards with technology and not rely on
it.
That's wild.
Yeah, I mean, I'm sure you probably have beenfollowing like the Ukraine conflict.

(50:54):
It's interesting seeing, it feels like everygeneration there is a conflict where like the
technology kind of advances faster than thetactics and so you end up with trench warfare
and IED drones, you know what I mean?

(51:17):
It's like World War I mixed with World War IIIand it's just a meat grinder, you know?
Yeah.
And I think even seeing that almostcrystallizes my point even more.
It's like, hey, these guys have this, we havethis.
Do we really, like we see how it's panning outnow.
Right.
Do we really want our guys to go do that shit?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Right.

(51:37):
Right.
And to your point about the tactics going back.
So it's like, okay, there's drones, right?
Like, these little, like, you know, DJI, youknow, FPV drones.
And then you have jammers to stop, then youhave jammers for the jammers, then you have
drones that are going on different wavelengths.
And I saw this video, it was basically like theRussians had set up along one of their, like,

(52:01):
routes, like their convoy routes, just a net,just a big net on top of it because it's like
you can't get the drones in.
So it's like you go to these super low-techtactics because you can overengineer stuff.
That's one thing, you know, kind of to yourpoint about, you know, pulling the stuff out of
a box when you're testing too good and like,what am I gonna do with this?

(52:23):
It seems like the U.S.
military-industrial complex is they loveoverengineering stuff.
And when you have a cost-plus model, it's like,what's the downside?
Like just make it as expensive as you can.
That makes more money for us.

(52:45):
I think a lot of overengineering is done onpurpose too so they can have a proprietary
product.
Interesting.
Ours is this, this, this, this and this.
I only need two of those things.
Don't care about the other five.
Right, right.
Let's see.
Did you guys ever kind of red team anyfacilities in the U.S.?

(53:11):
No, think that's old school.
Think maybe guys would do that.
I don't think that's the best management oftalent because like you can get some private
company to do that.
I think guys in the very way before I was evenborn, guys were doing that stuff because there

(53:32):
wasn't, I mean, was in Iraq and Afghanistanwere fully popping off.
So no one's going out like testing security inthe States.
Right, right.
Like what do we do with all this downtime?
Yeah, like what downtime?
Right, right, exactly.
So can you take me through like an interestingoperation or deployment that you did at DEVGRU?

(53:59):
Yeah, and I think I've talked about it before,but I think, you know, people say, oh, this
operation happened or this one made the news.
Like, yeah, it's very big and important on ageopolitical scale.
But there's been way crazier situations.
And one was when my buddy Will Chesney's dogtook a round.

(54:20):
Cairo, we landed, these guys were in anorchard.
We couldn't see them.
My night vision was just splashing.
I mean, my IR laser was just splashing off allthe trees in that orchard.
And Will sent Cairo in, his dog's got a littleIR beacon.
And we're getting comms like, there's dudes inthe trees, dudes in the trees.

(54:42):
I can't see them.
And we hear like a really muffled gunshot.
Will recalls the dog.
The dog runs out around and he's like limping.
He got shot through the arm and through thechest.
But when that happened, I saw a guy in the treeline 15 yards away from me.

(55:02):
Oh shit.
So I just started dumping on him and I just letmy body fall because there's a little mud wall
this high where I was standing.
So I just dropped and I just plugged away.
And then the guy went down.
But then there's all these really tall cattailsbecause it kind of went down to a little stream

(55:23):
and then back up in the orchard.
And then a dude, like five feet away, pops upout of the cattails.
And I'm like, oh!
And then one of my teammates just runs behindme and drops him.
And then during that whole time, which was likethey were already on the phone, the radio
getting Gaza back to come pick up the dog.

(55:44):
And the PJs were like, chest seal, boom, boom,boom, boom, doing old stuff.
And yeah, Cairo lived and definitely saved mylife.
So I've heard people say like, oh, militaryworking dogs, a waste of money, blah, blah,
blah.
Really?
I
mean, someone very ignorant, right?
Sure.
I'm like, ah, firsthand I've seen it work.

(56:06):
Yeah.
So I mean, was probably like, people are oh,are you ever scared?
I'm like, not really.
But that one was like, oh, that guy was closerthan I thought.
Yeah.
And did you guys have EOD guys kind of attachedto you?
Yeah.
Outside of their CQB tactics and stuff, wasthere anything that EOD was doing that was

(56:31):
maybe different at a tier one level than?
I'm sure there were.
I wouldn't know.
I'm sure there were.
But I'll tell you this, we were out somewhereand guys bring their books and they're reading
on their downtime.
And this EOD guy was reading a book and I lookover his shoulder and it's like atoms and
particles and sketches.

(56:51):
And I'm like, bro, you're like, so he wasreally into it, right?
I'm like, I'm glad you're on my team becausethat looks like a headache.
That's so funny.
Now, what's kind of your mindset?
I mean, you've been in a number of firefightsand granted, it sounds like a lot of them are
in a sort of overmatched situation, but what'skind of your mindset during these firefights

(57:13):
and how are you kind of keeping your coolapproaching this problem set?
I mean, I don't know.
I don't even think.
I don't even know what I think.
Just, I'm going to go get these guys.

(57:35):
Like, that's it.
Right?
You train so much with the same guys so much.
It's like, all right, let's go do what we do.
Okay.
It's like if you were on tour doing a set as aband, you're like, yeah, let's just go do what
we do.
And that's it.
You get done.
Hey, I could have, you know, I missed thatchord.
All right, cool.

(57:55):
But like, you're so good and you have so manyother guys with you who are so good too.
Yeah, it's like playing a video game.
Yeah, right.
The reason I'm asking is I'm trying to see, youknow, a Tier 1 dude, you know, what kind of

(58:20):
mindset could you maybe give or a tip could youimpart to just like an average person kind of
going through stressful shit in their own livesthat feels overwhelming because everyone's kind
of dealing with their own shit.
Yeah.
But we all feel overwhelmed, and what sort oftraining did you learn from training that kind

(58:44):
of helps you get through that?
So I'll work backward on that.
So training doesn't teach you how to be a NavySEAL.
Training just sees if you already have what ittakes, right?
Coming from an endurance athlete background,just disassociating and going, right?
And like almost enjoying the pain and sufferingmade it easy to get through BUD/S.

(59:07):
BUD/S doesn't teach you how to do anythingbesides dive and shoot and that.
It's too fast and too hard to sit there andteach you some mental jujitsu to make it
through BUD/S.
You have to already have it, right?
But what I tell people, which is another hugemisconception, is they go, Oh, you just

(59:28):
compartmentalize well.
I said, I don't compartmentalize anything.
I prioritize.
Right?
It's like, I'm on a mission, buddy gets shot.
I'm not compartmentalizing two things.
Like, that's different.
I gotta finish the mission.
I'm prioritizing.
Like, I need to finish this mission first tomake sure there's no more guns shooting at us,

(59:49):
then call in the bird, stop the bleeding, gethim to where he needs to go.
And then I'll address how I feel and whathappened to my buddy when he was shot.
Because I think when people compartmentalize,when you compartmentalize things, I think it's
really hard to find the key and open that boxback up.
But if you just prioritize it, say, I'll get toit.

(01:00:11):
You're just not number one on my list rightnow.
Number one on my list is win the fight.
Right.
And then number two is this, number three isthat, and then number four, check up on my boy.
Oh man, that sucked.
That's what I tell people.
I'm like, don't try to compartmentalize stuff,prioritize it.
Right?
I'm stressed out about this, this, this, this.
I said, okay, what time is it now?
Okay.
It's 3:00.

(01:00:33):
Okay, cool.
What needs to get done today?
Well, just this one thing.
Okay.
What is it?
I just go do that.
Right.
So, and that even helps literally prioritizingthings you need to do.
Yeah.
And then really being like, do you need to dothis or do you want to?
Yeah.
Yeah and like what you say, controlling thethings that you can control and learning how to

(01:00:55):
tell the difference because it can feeloverwhelming being like, oh fuck, there's so
much shit going.
But it's like, yeah, but some of that stuff isgonna go on regardless.
So what can you physically control and thenprioritizing those things, that's a really good
note.
And then you can get super pragmatic too andthey're like, who fucking cares?
It's like, how does it affect you?

(01:01:15):
Yeah.
What, let's go worst-case scenario with each ofthose things, what will happen?
I might be five minutes late to this.
Is it worth the anxiety you're giving yourselfright now?
And that's if everything goes bad.
That's gonna be the consequence.
So like, come on.
Right, right.

(01:01:36):
What stresses you out nowadays?
Does anything really kind of
No.
If someone asked me like what do I do to likedecompress?
I said don't compress.
Live a life compress-free, man.
Yeah.
You're a Zen dude.
Yeah.
I just, you know, I focus on what matters andto me what matters is my health and, you know,

(01:02:02):
family unit, and if everybody's happy andhealthy, like everything else is just in the
details.
Like, it's not really gonna bother me.
Right.
Now, did you pick up any new specialties whileyou were at DEVGRU?
Like any other new stuff?
No.
DEVGRU is so beautiful in the sense that whenyou're there, you're just on the gun.

(01:02:24):
So much so that even we have Navy SEAL corpsmenthat go to the long course and do all the
things.
When you're at SEAL Team Six, they're like,nope, no med pouch for you, no medical
equipment.
You have a gun, we just bring the PJs.
Yeah, yeah.
We got guys who are JTACs, who are whizzes withthe radios.
Nope, you're just a shooter.
We're bringing the combat controller.

(01:02:45):
So like, it's really cool.
It's like, you need to take headshots at thissize, at this distance, like that, right?
So that's all you have to focus on.
It's kind of beautiful to be able to put all ofyour energy into that one thing and not even
think about any collateral duties you have.

(01:03:06):
Yeah.
Because there are none.
A good shooter, be a good operator, that's it.
That's really interesting.
I mean, obviously, you know, it seems like youare super busy doing that, but I would have
also guessed that, you know, you're kind ofbuilding a larger repertoire of like
specialties, but it's like it seems like whenop tempo is so, so, yeah.

(01:03:30):
Wow.
Interesting.
It's turning and burning.
Turning and burning.
The specialties you're getting is just bootthere's multiple deployments on the ground.
That's
right.
Right.
Now I talked to a lot of guys, includingfriends of mine that especially actually as
breachers and shit that, you know, TBIs justthrough like overpressure and buildings and

(01:03:54):
shit like that.
Did you ever, you know, did you ever experienceany sort of injuries or TBIs, PTSD, anything
like that from your time?
No.
I mean, for one, PTSD, I had a hard time witheven believing when I was a young man because I
had to tell myself just because I feel acertain way about something, that doesn't mean

(01:04:18):
someone else does.
No matter if they sign up to do this job ornot, I have to accept the reality that not
everyone reacts the same way.
And, you know, I've recently had a conversationwith a mental health professional and it was
very awkward and kind of disappointing to hearthat person's stance, you know, I was like,
yeah, but you have trauma because anytime youthought you were gonna die.

(01:04:39):
And I'm like, who, whoever said I thought I wasgonna die?
My gunfights were like a joke.
Most of my gunfights were one way on dudes whowere sleeping.
Like, why would I think I'm gonna die?
Well, my husband was in this unit, and they didthis, and they were on the top of a ridge for
three days.
I'm like, yeah, that's true for him.

(01:05:00):
That's not for me.
And yeah, I'd probably be fucking havingnightmares too if that was my situation, but it
never was.
Right.
And no, sure, I guess you're just—and theresponse was, you just must be the perfect
operator.
I'm like, what?
To be that close-minded as a professional.
Like saying it's like, you know, you say, oh, Ilike horror movies and the blood and gore

(01:05:24):
doesn't scare me.
And I go, oh, it scares me.
It has to scare you too.
It has to.
It's like, doesn't.
Like, oh, I'm sure it doesn't.
And you're like, no, it really doesn't.
It's a movie.
And me, I go, this is my job.
I signed up to be a gunfighter, and wegunfight.
Bullets go both ways.
If you get me, you get me.
You're not gonna get me.

(01:05:45):
I'm gonna get you.
But if you get me, get me.
Like, that's it.
You might get my friend.
And that's it.
It's very, very simple, very pragmatic approachto what I signed up to do.
And like I said, in the beginning, I was like,bro, what did you think we were gonna go do?
Yeah.
What did you think this was, right?
I've eaten a blast before pretty bad.

(01:06:05):
It ricocheted down a stairwell and like, we setthe charge off and like my nose just started
bleeding. I
like, but what happened?
And no shots were fired.
We made entry and stuff.
And the way the building is an apartmentbuilding in Iraq and the explosive shock must
have like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, wham.
And I was like,
Ugh.
But yeah, I did all my cognitive and recall andfortunately no TBI stuff, that's the only time

(01:06:36):
I've eaten a charge.
Boom, I was like, geez.
Interesting.
Now how hard was the transition coming out ofthe military, I guess, in general?
That's pretty tough for a lot of people.
Yeah.
I mean, I didn't really transition, right?

(01:06:57):
I didn't transition light because I went intocontracting.
Sure.
Right?
It wasn't like, boom, briefcase and I show upat USPS or whatever, right?
I didn't do that.
So like me, I'm not the best guy to ask becauseI call a spade a spade.
I didn't really transition, I just didsomething else that was kind of the same.

(01:07:19):
But at the same time, you know, it was a loteasier for me and I think guys who have trouble
transitioning developed some sort of identityto their job while in the military where like I
knew who I was at 16.
I was good with chicks.
I had the beard in high school.

(01:07:41):
Like I was a great athlete, very confident.
And I thought being a SEAL would be a cool job,not a cool identity.
And I always held onto that.
I did admit it rubbed a lot of people the wrongway in certain teams.
You're not, you have your hat on flat.
I'm like, I'm a Raiders fan.
This is where I wear my hat.

(01:08:01):
You know, like you need to wear it like this.
And I'm like, we're not even at work.
So I never drank the Kool-Aid at all.
It did kind of ruffle some feathers, but at thesame time, I never lost myself or my identity
the whole time I was in.
So when I got out, I was still me.
Did you find that Kool-Aid aspect was more atDEVGRU than the vanilla teams or?

(01:08:30):
No, I think it's everywhere, I think.
And I saw it as Kool-Aid because I knew who Iwas.
When you don't know who you are, you don'treally see it as Kool-Aid.
You're just like, Oh, this is what we do.
This is who I am now.
It's culture.
I'm like, Yeah, this is my job.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's a good point.

(01:08:50):
So you wanna talk a little bit about kind ofhow you transitioned into the mercenary side of
things?
Yeah.
So first I was like, Oh, contract gig, easymoney.
I'll do some anti-piracy stuff where you justkind of ride the ships and make sure no pirates
come.
Never saw a pirate.
Very boring.
My ego was kind of getting hurt because I sawdudes that were like, you know, way less

(01:09:15):
capable than me.
And they were the team leaders getting paidmore than me.
And I wasn't doing anything.
I mean, good on them, making the money,whatever.
But like me, I was like, I can do so much more.
What am I doing?
I was kind of like going in and out of like, doI join back up?
Do I go to SEAL Team 17?
I don't know.
So I ended up going to SEAL Team 17, and I wasreally kind of ashamed because I've seen so

(01:09:40):
many guys get out and then be like, I'm goingto go do this, this, and this.
And you see them two years later putting theircamouflage uniform back on and coming back.
Like, what happened?
Like, oh, I missed the brotherhood, right, orwhatever.
And I was like, shit.
So joined the reserves because I was like, thisisn't for me.
At least the reserves is like I felt like itwas like more guys my age, more capable to do

(01:10:07):
stuff.
And it was a decent paycheck if you can get onorders to do something.
And I played the get on orders, go to languageschool, get on orders, go to that language
school.
You can only do that so much until the teamruns out of money and then, or the Navy, you
know, runs out of money or you run out of daysto go on orders through the reserves, you know,

(01:10:28):
it's a whole big thing.
And then I got a call about actually doing likesome more dynamic stuff in the private side.
I said, oh, this sounds like a good use of myskills, right?
So that's how I kind of fell into that.
Gotcha.
Now,
so I've read your book and I've also kind ofresearched a little bit online and just

(01:10:51):
regarding some of the contracting companies, Idon't know, I know you use like pseudonyms for
people in the book, but you can kind of, youknow, a Google search or two, you can kind of
piece together some of these things.
Are you comfortable if I use names of people ordo you want me to just kind of

(01:11:14):
We'll leave them nameless.
Okay, all right, yeah.
Yeah.
You got it.
So you're working for this company and withthis guy that I believe maybe approached you in
San Diego or something like that.
So I want to talk a little bit about that.
Yeah, so I got called to go do something and Ididn't really like the first meeting I had with

(01:11:38):
a guy I knew throughout the teams.
And then things really dried up at SEAL Team 17and I got a call.
I called him back and like, "Hey, tell yourboss I want to meet him." So met this older
dude, foreign accent, hardcore, smart, and heput his money where his mouth was and two weeks

(01:12:00):
later we were overseas working.
Do you know or think this dude is, so the wholeworld of private military contracting, you're
kind of moving into like, yes, it's similarskill sets of what you're doing, but it also,

(01:12:23):
you're now entering this world of likeplausible deniability, state actors using
cutouts for proxy type stuff.
Do you ever feel like maybe you were a pawn ina weird way to some like bigger nation states

(01:12:43):
that are utilizing PMCs for other stuff?
Yeah, I think until you're in office making thedecisions, I mean, you can think you're a queen
or a knight or a rook, but you're still a pieceon the board.
Right?
When you're receiving checks versus cuttingchecks, I think you're still a piece on the

(01:13:06):
board, pawn or be any other piece.
So I mean, I'm like, yeah, I know what this is.
I know I'm being used for my time and whateverI'm doing and I'm getting paid for it.
Like I knew and I was comfortable with it forsure.
Yeah, yeah.
So really kind of just staying focused on like,hey, you know, what's my job?

(01:13:27):
Am I cool with the moral aspect of what it isthat I'm because yeah, it's interesting
thinking about like, okay, a guy that may beworking, well, probably former intel with
another nation-state working as a U.S.-basedmilitary contractor on behalf of Emirati

(01:13:54):
patrons, just kind of like, it just seems likea murky world and a lot of kind of maybe like a
legal nightmare.
Yeah.
I mean, it's murky even when you're active dutymilitary and trying to share information with
government agencies that are overseas with you.

(01:14:14):
It's like, well, we're gonna do this, but youcan't go and do that because we have a guy here
and we got a call from Northern Virginia, andyou're like, what?
So I mean, all of it's murky.
Yeah.
Now you kind of mentioned in the book thatthere was a big disparity between the caliber
of your teammates sometimes at these, you know,within these PMCs.

(01:14:39):
Could you
talk about that a little bit?
Yeah.
So, you know, the first job I went on, youknow, I didn't choose the team.
You know, when you put together something youwant to go do that isn't vanilla, hey, we're
gonna get paid $200 a day to be gate guards orto do some benign task.

(01:15:01):
And you go, hey, this is kind of gray.
So boom, you lose a lot of guys there.
It's kind of gray.
It's in country X, then you lose even moreguys, right?
Then like, oh, the pay's only going to be this,then you lose even more guys.
So yeah, you want to have all these great guys.

(01:15:21):
I talk to these people all the time.
I know people who own companies like, hey, Iwant to hire like finance or commercial real
estate, like big corporations.
Go, I want to hire all these SEAL Team 6 guysand Delta Force guys and tell them they can
start off making like $65,000 a year.
I'm like, dude, those guys, and they have tomove to Iowa.
I'm like, okay, by nature of what you're askingfor, they're going to be older.

(01:15:42):
They then need higher probability of havingkids and a mortgage and a partner and already
making double that.
Like, what are you talking about?
Right?
So you want to have skilled individuals to dowhatever it is you're planning to do, but then
at the same time you have to stay in budget.

(01:16:02):
Like
Right.
Right.
You're gonna kind of get what you get.
Yeah.
No, that's pretty interesting.
Were you ever worried that you were maybe beingused by unsavory actors for political or
personal rivalries?

(01:16:24):
Was that something you thought about or worriedabout at all?
Because even when Iraq and Afghanistan poppedoff, before we started vetting intel across all
the people gathering intel, I'd be like, hey,this guy's a bad guy.
He's a terrorist.
And then, you know, a unit would go do a hit onthe guy and you find out the guy who went and

(01:16:45):
said his neighbor was a terrorist actuallystole his goat three years ago.
And you're like, okay.
So, no.
And you know, if I ever did, you would just sayno.
And that's what people don't realize.
Like, mercenary, no morals, only money.
You don't care what you do and who you do itto.

(01:17:06):
I'm like, maybe someone, but not me.
In the military, you can't say
nothing.
Yeah.
And you're like, dude, I think this is just afarming village.
No, these are all bad guys.
You're like, okay, I'm not going to lose sleepover it.
I'm still going to go do my job.
Yeah.
But I can't say no.
Right.
When you work for yourself, you answer toyourself, then you go, I ain't doing that.

(01:17:29):
No way, bro.
I'm gonna act like I didn't even hear you saythat.
Yeah, that's really interesting.
One interesting detail or I guess likesomething that I was thinking about when I was
reading your book, which by the way, why don'tyou go ahead and plug it really quick because I
also read it through your audiobook and the

(01:17:52):
voices, which was really cool. Yeah,
cool. Yeah, it hurt too doing the voices, man.
Had to like drink tea and honey and all thatstuff.
No, it's fun to do.
American Mercenary, you can find it on Amazon,Barnes & Noble, anywhere you can buy books.
Cool.
Well, what I thought was interesting was thedetails about how you're sizing people up,

(01:18:19):
you're taking account of smaller details aboutwhat people are wearing.
Can you talk a little bit about that?
Because it's you
know, people are like, oh, I want to do that.
I want to do this.
I'm a this, I'm a that.
I'm like, okay, well, you need to be a this ora that and have that really awesome background
in case you actually need to go do something.
You need to have that.

(01:18:39):
But like, if you're six foot five or four foottwo, I can't use you because you're too big or
too small.
If you're super jacked, I can't use you.
If you're super skinny, I can't use you.
If you have neck tattoos, maybe.
But you need to be just a person in a country.

(01:19:01):
Okay.
And I'm pretty lucky.
If I go to Greece, people talk to me in Greek.
If I go to Israel, people talk to me in Hebrew.
When I go to Iraq, people speak to me inArabic.
So I have that really, maybe technically, aU.S.
fan.
Yeah, like, yeah, okay, you could be.
I don't know.

(01:19:21):
So like that helps.
And then, you know, it's more of like the softskills, like, can you elicit information from
people?
Can you figure out, you know, that guy's taxbracket by looking at him by the way he acts or
like, is that watch stolen and he lives in ashitty house and he's living off credit cards?

(01:19:46):
Like you need to be able to do that so you knowwho to talk to so you don't waste your time,
right?
Right.
So yeah, like all the different perfumes,colognes, designer this, designer that, you can
see, you know, kind of who's who and measurepeople up that way.
Yeah, yeah, that's something that I think aboutjust in like the real world context is what

(01:20:15):
signals are you putting out and how are otherpeople perceiving those details?
And you kind of got to look the part in waysthen be aware of how you're being looked at by
those details.
Yeah, I mean, it depends on what you're tryingto accomplish, right?
And obviously we see it everywhere.
When people try too hard, it's like you mightas well tell people you're homeless.

(01:20:40):
We can see through your facade.
Like just stop.
At some point, and maybe this is in Serbia,which we will kind of transition to, but there
was a woman that you, I believe if I'mremembering these details correctly, you kind
of referred to her as like a Jessica Rabbittype person.

(01:21:03):
She's got the cigarette holder and
like oh, the whole nine yards, man.
Can you talk about her?
I wanted to ask you more about her because shewas a very, she was kind of a minor player.
Yeah.
She's kind of known in that region as the QueenMama San.

(01:21:23):
She was a professional and then started beingan agent for other young professionals.
And she knows all the stars and actors andathletes who indulge in the services of ladies
of the night.
And I figured she'd be a good place to startfor some intel.

(01:21:45):
Interesting.
So was she involved in intelligence or was shekind of more so on
Yeah, in her, I mean, what do you mean inintelligence?
I mean, you have someone who runs everyprostitute in three countries to all the
high-net-worth people.
To me, that's priceless intelligence.

(01:22:07):
Yeah.
I wouldn't say in any official capacity, butlike street, that's a gold mine.
Yeah, no, really.
And what was her role?
So you were trying to find information aboutyour target in Serbia.
Was that kind of
Yeah, wanted to know if this guy, you know,used her services.

(01:22:31):
And unfortunately, the answer was no.
Okay.
Let's see.
Okay.
So do you want to just kind of talk throughwhat happened?
Like, let's just kind of walk through.
So you get to Serbia and you know, for peoplewho aren't aware of like what, why you're even

(01:22:52):
in Serbia, do you want to just kind of
walk Yeah.
So it's a good job trying to find dirt on afinancier.
Nothing crazy.
Just trying to pin this guy down and see ifhe's doing stuff that isn't very kosher, right?
And I'm meeting people.
I'm trying to find connections to this guy andwhere he works.

(01:23:15):
And one night I was at a friend's house source.
I was getting he knew a lot of people, I didn'task him a bunch of questions.
We were at his house.
He's going to have some people over, have aparty.
And one of the people I wanted to really talkto because I found out they worked at this
guy's office.
He took a phone call, went out while I wasthere.

(01:23:37):
And I was like, okay, that's weird.
And then he was gone for a while.
And then like an hour later, the front dooropens.
He flies on the ground handcuffed.
I get handcuffed, gun to my head.
I'm like, what?
And I really thought it was a prank because theuniforms look so cheap and the badges look
cheap.
I was like, what?
Party City cops.

(01:23:58):
Yeah.
And for real.
I was like, okay, so I have a gun to my head.
They're yelling at me in Serbian.
I don't speak any Serbian at this time.
I'm like, what?
Zima speak English?
Then their eyes just were like, an American,what are you doing here?
And it, it was kind of sad.
Like the disposition was, why would an Americancome to our shitty country?

(01:24:20):
You must be doing something bad.
I'm like, bro, your country's kind of awesome.
What are you talking about?
But the kid was a hunter, and he had a safe,and he had a bunch of guns, which were
registered because he's a hunter.
And they're like, oh, you like guns?
I'm like, as much as the next guy?
I don't know.
You know, they were just kind of asking methese questions and kind of accusatory, where's

(01:24:44):
your path?
like, Do you have a passport?
I'm like, of course I have a passport.
Where is it right here?
And I'm like, hey, am I under arrest?
Like you are now.
I'm like, okay, fine.
So I was like, okay, this is going to go 24hours tops.
And I'm out of here.

(01:25:04):
Me and the kid, the guy's house I was at, weget loaded up in a cop car.
And then there's two other guys in the back ofanother cop car who I've never seen, right?
So they all go to the jail, the police station,sorry, the police station.
And over the course of a couple of days, I'minterrogated.

(01:25:24):
You're here to kill the president.
I'm like, what?
Just bananas, right?
And I'm like, what are you talking about?
And there was a cop there, big dude.
He's like, after the second iteration with me,he closed the door.
He's like, I believe you.
But just so you know, the newspaper's alreadyrunning with this.

(01:25:44):
And it's gonna be a really shitty uphill battlefor you, but stand by, buddy.
It's gonna suck.
I'm like, whatever.
So I get interrogated and then I getinterrogated a third time by organized crime
detectives because there's four peoplearrested.
More than three is organized crime.
So now I'm in an organized crime case.

(01:26:07):
And the translator that was there tried to readme my charges, didn't speak any English.
This is like a scene from a comedy.
It was just ridiculous, right?
I'm like, it's all bullshit.
I ain't signing that.
Whatever.
Over the next couple of days, it was from thereto the courthouse, make statements, show up to

(01:26:33):
the Central Zatvor or CZ, the main prison therein Belgrade, get in process.
And I'm just like, what is going on this wholetime?
Finally get a lawyer.
State Department comes to see me after like amonth and they're no help.
Yeah, and then over from January to April, Iwas held there.

(01:26:59):
Then we go to a very informal court whereeveryone makes their statements.
That lady was like, you're good to go.
I said, cool.
Go back.
Prison guards come like, hey, you call me out.
I'm like, yeah, I'm packing my bags.
Like, no, go see your lawyer.
Lawyer's like, yeah, man.
I got, I don't know what to say.

(01:27:20):
But when we left, she got a phone call and thevoice on the other side of the line said, the
American will be charged for something.
Okay.
So from April to November, I sat with noofficial charges, which legally they have to
charge you within six months.
And then in that time, in June or July, mylawyer was gunned down and assassinated in the

(01:27:44):
streets of Belgrade.
And I found that out because the next morningthey bust open my cell room door and they turn
on the TV and they searched my room.
They thought I had ordered the hit from a cellphone I had and why would I kill my own lawyer?
I don't know.
But the newspapers ran with it.
And yeah, anytime my lawyer tried to get melike on house arrest or something, there'd be a

(01:28:08):
front page article about me being the mostdangerous man ever to be in Serbia.
They just ran.
They just ran with nonsense stories.
So no, trial by media was well underway beforemy court even started 11 months later.
Wow.
Now, did you think that, you know, inretrospect, like you're honestly just like

(01:28:32):
wrong place, wrong time and then someone ranwith it or do you think that at all this was
like maybe a setup in a weird way and they wereto-
because I found out what happened.
The kid I was with went to go buy drugs.
The drug dealer he went to go buy drugs from,his dad was arrested the month before for

(01:28:56):
selling drugs.
And they were listening to that kid's phone.
Took kid at the kid's house.
Was at took him back to his house and saw anAmerican there.
They asked me what I do.
I said, what's your job?
I'm the private military contractor.
I'm not gonna lie.
And they just went, let's run with it.
And it was an election year for the currentpresident.

(01:29:16):
I don't know if he's still president right now.
They have really big protests going on rightnow.
So
Yeah.
Do you have any insight as to like maybe whokilled your lawyer and what that was about?
My lawyer was the biggest defense lawyer inlike he, my, my, that lawyer who was
assassinated was Slobodan Milošević's lawyer.

(01:29:41):
He's like a monster or something?
No, he was the president that bombed Kosovo.
Oh.
Or no, we bombed Kosovo, yeah, or we bombedthem. He
bombed them. He was like, I mean, my defenselawyer was like the best defense lawyer, mafia,
politician.
So like, I'm sure he's made a lot of a lot ofenemies.
Yeah.

(01:30:01):
Yeah, interesting.
Now let's see, since you're kind of familiarwith the shadowy world of PMCs as well as kind
of like tier one operations, regarding the warin Ukraine and the fact that it kind of is this

(01:30:22):
like proxy war, what role do you see tier oneunits kind of because I'm sure Ukraine has, you
know, like their SBU and some, you know, assetsout there as well as Russia.
What do you think those units are doingthroughout this war?

(01:30:45):
I think they're both getting reality checks ofwhat they're actually capable of.
I don't think it's a proxy war.
I think Russia and Ukraine are fighting eachother.
I mean, now we have third state actors, NorthKoreans over there, but Russia is fighting
Ukraine, Ukraine's fighting Russia.

(01:31:07):
I mean, I have no idea.
Weird to me.
Like, obviously Russia was the aggressor, butlike Ukraine isn't an angel either.
And like there's corruption like crazy oneither side.
So I'm just kind of like, what are we guysdoing?
I think it's sad that a bunch of young dudesare getting killed and deserting and recruiting

(01:31:32):
from prisons.
I don't know if these videos are true, but likekidnapping dudes into servitude, like straight
up being Shanghaied to go fight.
Like that's sad.
Yeah.
Besides that, that's all I feel about that.
Like it's sad.
I joined to go fight.
Right.
So like, I couldn't imagine being like, get ina van.
You're you're going.

(01:31:53):
Yeah.
Right into the meat grinder.
Yeah.
Do you know how close maybe like Serbian andRussian politics are?
Like
Yeah.
So so Serbia is in a really strange spot.
They're really centrally located and everyonearound them is NATO or EU or something.

(01:32:14):
There's some affiliation.
Then you have Russia, and they're like, Oh,Russia, big brother, big brother.
But the president, Vučić, who I was there tokill, I mean, look, everyone when I was in
prison, everyone hated him.
But he's in a hard spot.
He's in the middle, no affiliation with EU orUN or whatever, NATO, whatever.

(01:32:40):
And Russia is the only other, like, standalonecountry.
And they have this weird thing like, oh,Russia's our big brother.
Russia's our big brother.
But, like, they haven't given them money.
And Russia doesn't give a shit about Serbia.
And not to talk shit on Serbia, but it's tiny.
Population's like 5 million people, right?
They just don't.

(01:33:02):
The only reason I think Russia's playing nicewith Serbia and like, okay, little brother,
patting him on the head and giving him the Xboxcontroller that isn't on, right?
Like, yeah, yeah.
Just because they don't want more militarybases than NATO closer to them.
And that's the only reason why.
Yeah, yeah.

(01:33:22):
Yeah, it's really interesting.
Just that whole, like, Balkan region is, youknow, this kind of Cold War hangover, you know?
Well then you had the fall of Yugoslavia,right?
Right, right, right.
And then, you know, intervention in Kosovo.

(01:33:42):
Kosovo, no comment on that.
Right, right.
Just a lot of stuff that happens kind of behindthe scenes and hangovers from past wars that
kind of just, and you just happen to kind offind yourself right in the middle of it.

(01:34:03):
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's wild, dude.
So do you wanna talk about maybe kind of theculmination of this situation?
I don't wanna spoil too much from the book.
People No, yeah.
I mean, the culmination was this.
I found myself in a shitty situation and I caneither go victim mentality, poor me, or I go,

(01:34:23):
in the end, I got on a plane.
I'm there.
I'm in here now.
This is all on me.
What's my highest priority?
Get out of here.
Right?
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
Can I make court dates come faster?
No.
Can I make a judge want to take my case?
No.
What can I do?

(01:34:44):
I can read.
I can get better at chess and I can learnSerbian.
Done.
That's what I'm gonna do.
I'm gonna work out.
Boom.
That's what I'm gonna do.
And I just did that.
Right.
And then after about like three months in, I'dbe laying in bed and like, I think just not
having my phone or any outside connection tothe world, you kind of have your thoughts.

(01:35:07):
And at first I was like, oh man, some of thatstuff is unsavory, being mean to a friend and
never apologizing, just weird random stuff.
I said, you know what, let's dig into this.
And I compare it to when if you go to a yogaclass, you're like, of all the things that
stress you out this week and breathe in,breathe out.
I did that every night for two to four hours inbed for probably 15 months.

(01:35:32):
And I started with my earliest memory, my firstmemory.
Wow.
I kind of went, the first bad one was me inGermany as a playground hiding this kid's
glasses in the sand and him like crying andcouldn't find it.
And his dad being like standing over me like, Isaw what you did.
Now go get the glasses.

(01:35:53):
Know, was like, oh man, that messed up.
You know, I felt kind of bad.
But I was just being a kid that it would be afunny prank and this kid's crying.
Now his dad's, his dad was scolding him formisplacing his stuff and someone being able to
get it.
I'm like, oh geez.
So I just thought about every little thing.
And I was like, I'm going to forgive myself forthe things, the things that you don't even

(01:36:13):
think about.
And I don't think I ever would have thoughtabout if I was still plugged in and talking to
people and you live in modern life.
And I was like, okay.
And then I saw it not as a scary thing, butsomething I looked forward to each night.
And each time, I'd feel a little bit lighter, alittle bit more forgiven.

(01:36:36):
But then I had to remember all the good thingsI've done too, right?
It's very easy to be like, oh, I did all thismessed up stuff, right?
Say, I'm not, okay, am I a good person?
I've done some good things.
So I got to, I'm happy I had that opportunity,I guess, in a weird sense to really focus on me
and not in a selfish way, I'm going to focus onme, but like let's do a deep dive audit on like

(01:37:03):
everything, literally everything.
And yeah, I'm glad I took advantage of the, youknow, I started, you know, like I said, three
months in.
So I'm glad I took advantage of those 15 monthsof like really digging into as much as I can
remember every little thing I've ever done.

(01:37:23):
Wow.
That's wild.
Is there anything that you were most proudabout from your entire career, life?
Yeah,
and I think it won't be it catches a lot ofpeople off guard.

(01:37:43):
The thing I'm most proud about is when you'reyoung and you're an operator and you're good,
it's really cool to hear people say, Oh, you'reso good.
Which in the SEAL teams, no one really says,but like, he's good.
But when I went back to teach students at SQT,when I was fortunate enough to be teamed up
with a bunch of other guys who had just leftSEAL Team Six, and we were the SQT CQC cadre.

(01:38:10):
So all we did was teach room clearing.
And the thing I'm most proud of is when aplatoon chief would be like, yo, man, my guys
are so good in the kill house.
And they all said like, you were their favoriteinstructor, and you guys did such a great job
putting them through.
Like, that's what means the most.

(01:38:31):
I'm the most proud of it.
It's like, yeah, I did all this cool stuff, butlike, I'm gonna get old and there's still young
men out there doing the thing.
Being able to train them and give back and hearthe results from their leadership.
Because like, that's probably the best feelingI've had in the teams for sure.
Interesting.

(01:38:53):
Are you a spiritual guy or religious in anyway?
Yeah, I'm kind of on a, not weird, I'm on apath right now.
I think I am.
I mean, I believe in me.
I believe in love, and I'm coming around toreligion.

(01:39:16):
I think I was like a pretty devout atheist fora very long time, but I'm slowly trying to be
open to the things I see and have seen anddidn't wanna see.
Like, no, that's not, that's just coincidenceor that's explainable.

(01:39:37):
But I'm like, maybe there is something.
So I've definitely let my guard down as far asletting religion into my life, but I just, I'm
tiptoeing into it.
Yeah, so let me just double-click on thatbecause that's kind of interesting.
What is something like that that you're like,oh, that's explainable, or you would have

(01:40:00):
thought that's explainable, but maybe issomething?
You know, like asking for a sign and the TVglitches for no reason.
All
had someone pass recently, and I opened my cardoor and a white dove feather went between the
crack of my door, missed my hair, and landed onmy car seat.
Interesting.
And I'm like, what?

(01:40:21):
Yeah.
It's not even like, you know, I was like, andI'm a man of science.
I'm like, white dove migration and overstate inthis region and this month, no, it's not for
another two months.
I'm like, what?
So like, you know, just little tiny things likethat.
Yeah.
That's really interesting.
What do you do now to kind of stay healthy,safe?

(01:40:44):
I run.
I run, baby.
Two years ago, I ruptured my Achilles and Iwasn't able to run for a long time.
And it really made me sad.
So I run as much as I can.
I work out, but I don't do weights because Iend up always hurting myself.
So all I do is calisthenics and running.
And that's it, man.
If I can get a good run-in and it's like reallyhot outside, I'm like high on life the rest of

(01:41:10):
the day.
Yeah.
What are you looking forward to professionally?
Like what's kind of the next chapter?
Yeah.
So, my book came out and that has been fun andI've been doing podcasts and stuff.
I'm developing an app right now.
What kind of app?
So, it's a creative writing app with yourfriends.

(01:41:32):
Really?
Yeah.
So that's interesting.
Yeah, we're wrapping that up and then a studiojust optioned my book for a TV show, so sitting
down with my showrunner and, you know, helpingout write the pilot and pitching the pilot.

(01:41:53):
So that's like all super recent, like hittingthose milestones.
So we'll, we'll, should hear back from thestudio in the next week or so and see if they
want to order the series, maybe two seasons, Idon't know.
So we'll see, right?
Then, you know, I'm learning this all as I go,but like once that happens and they order a

(01:42:13):
writer's room for three or four months andwrite a season.
So yeah, that's pretty much it, man.
I teach shooting here and there out in Arizona,but it's gonna be 110 soon.
So like not too many takers.
But yeah, I think, you know, my biggest outletfor my brain is just running and being creative

(01:42:38):
and like writing, you know, helping with thescreenplay and like developing my app.
Like that's like full maxing out my creativeside.
So it makes me very happy, like mentallystimulated.
That's awesome.
And the contracting world, are you still kindof dipping your toe in there?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, I will.
But I mean, I have the luxury of saying like,yeah, I'll take a look at it if you cut the

(01:43:05):
time in half and double the price.
Because I don't, I'm not like, call someoneelse.
In like the corporate sphere?
No, I mean, do.
I speak at events.
I spoke at an event last week, but as far as anine-to-five corporate for me, no.
I've thought about it because these projectsI'm doing are very big, long, slow, stop, go,

(01:43:32):
stop, go.
Right.
And I'm like, man, I could, I could go makesome, you know, make a little bit extra bucks
and go learn a new skill.
I sat, I really sat down and I really thoughtabout this like two weeks ago.
I'm like, no, you know, I could be home withthe dogs.
I need to work out.
And like, if that means I'm not eating ribeyesevery night, like, that's fine.

(01:43:57):
Right?
I can manage that.
Yeah.
Or like, only doing three trips to San Diegothis year?
Okay.
So, I'm like, you know, I had 18 months of timekind of just plucked from me.
So my time is so valuable to me that like I'mwilling to live a not-so-luxurious life just to

(01:44:23):
keep my time mine.
Totally bro.
Yeah, that's big.
You kind of realize it's so easy to kind oflook at compensation as a form of money and
something you can like quantify, but thefreedom, like literal freedom, also just like

(01:44:47):
agency over the decisions that you make in yourown life is priceless and I think something
that people don't give enough value to in a lotof ways.
Yeah, no, I was just saying that it's somethingthat isn't valued as much as people because you

(01:45:09):
can't count it.
But your time is like, it's one of those thingsno matter if you're a peasant or a billionaire,
you're all kind of given roughly the sameamount of time.
So what are you going to do to make thosemoments count?
Yeah.
And I tell people too, oh, you'd make moremoney if you do this.
You can make I'm like, dude, if that was mygoal, I would have never joined the military.

(01:45:31):
That's right.
So no one does it to get rich.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Well, has been great, Dan.
Yeah, man.
This is fun.
Thank you.
Yeah, of course, bro.
Thank you for being so generous with your time.
You want to plug your book just one more timejust so people know how to buy it?
Yeah.
American Mercenary, Barnes & Noble, Amazon.

(01:45:56):
And I did the reading.
So if you want to hear my sweet voice for ninehours, do the audiobook.
It's good.
I mean, the book's good in general, but theaudiobook is actually really cool too.
You could be a, whatever they call those guys,a narrator.
Voice actor.
Yeah, yeah.

(01:46:16):
It's impressive.
But cool.
Alright, guys.
This has been the Mind Body Mushroom brought toyou by Wind and Sea Coffee.
Dan, I'm gonna send you some.
Yeah.
We got mushroom-infused coffee, and I'll sendyou a little thank you package.
So I'll get your address and everything when wesign off.
But thank you again.
This has been awesome.

(01:46:37):
And see you later, bro.
Alright, bud.
Awesome.

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Ep. 30 | Real SEAL Team 6 Stories: From Mercenary Missions to 18 Months in a Serbian Prison | Dan Corbett III

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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;}Ep. 30 | Real SEAL Team 6 Stories: From Mercenary Missions to 18 Months in a Serbian Prison | Dan Corbett III