ROBERT O’NEILL | Killing Osama bin Laden & The Way Forward (Ep. 286)

0:00 [MUSIC]

0:18 This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast.

0:21 I'm your host Kyle Thompson.

0:22 Let's get into it.

0:23 I guys today, I got a very special guest on the podcast.

0:25 His name is Robert O'Neill.

0:27 So Robert O'Neill is a retired Navy SEAL.

0:29 He also deployed more than a dozen times to all the places

0:32 that we were at war during his time in the United States Navy.

0:35 And also he took part in over 400 missions

0:37 across four different theaters of war.

0:40 So during his career, he was awarded two silver stars,

0:42 four bronze stars with valor, a joint service

0:45 commendation medal with valor, three presidential unit

0:47 citations, and Navy Marine Corps commendation medal with honor.

0:51 He was a member of SEAL Team 2, four in the legendary development

0:55 group, also known as DevGro, also known as SEAL Team 6.

0:58 And he was part of the mission to rescue Marquis Lutrell,

1:01 the lone survivor from Operation Red Wings.

1:03 He was also on the mission that saved Captain Richard Phillips

1:06 after he had been kidnapped by Somali pirates in 2009.

1:09 And on one of the most famous ops in United States military

1:12 history called Neptune Spear, that took place on May the 2nd

1:16 of 2011 at a compound in Abadabad, Pakistan.

1:19 He was there for that.

1:20 And on that mission, he fired the shots that

1:22 killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda,

1:25 who carried out the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

1:27 So he wrote a New York Times bestseller about his life

1:30 and military experience in 2017 called The Operator,

1:32 firing the shots that killed Osama bin Laden and my years

1:35 as a SEAL Team Warrior.

1:37 And he's also the co-author of a new book

1:38 out this week, which will surely be a bestseller.

1:41 It's called The Way Forward, Master Life's Toughest Battles

1:44 and Create Your Lasting Legacy.

1:45 And he did that with co-author in retired United States Marine

1:48 and Medal of Honor recipient Dakota Meyer.

1:50 So this was a great interview.

1:52 And it was weird leading up to this interview.

1:58 I was in my own head, am I really about to talk to this guy?

2:01 Am I about to talk to this guy that pulled the trigger

2:03 and shot a bullet into Osama bin Laden's head?

2:06 It's just a weird thing to know these people

2:09 and be connected with these people.

2:10 But in the interview, we obviously get into his upbringing.

2:13 We get into why he decided to become a Navy SEAL,

2:16 what it was like, and how does one even ascend

2:18 to being screened to be in SEAL Team Six

2:21 or the development group?

2:23 We went into some of his missions.

2:24 We talked about the mission that saved Captain Jack Phillips.

2:27 We talked about this mission that took out Osama bin Laden.

2:31 We talked about some of the infighting and jealousy

2:32 that happened after that.

2:34 We go into this code of silence.

2:35 How was he able to even write these books?

2:37 We talk about Afghanistan and the pull out.

2:39 We talk about his relationship with his father.

2:41 And really towards the end there,

2:42 we talk about his personal faith.

2:44 And we talk about how all the killing he's done

2:46 and how that all kind of weaves together to affect his brain

2:49 because there is a weight on the soul of man

2:51 that has shed so much blood, even if it's in warfare.

2:53 Guys, we get into all of that.

2:55 And I really, really enjoyed my time with him.

2:57 It was a great, great time.

2:58 I hope you guys enjoyed as much as I did,

3:00 but I'm not gonna keep him from you any longer.

3:01 So without further ado, let's get into it.

3:04 - Rob O'Neill, welcome to Undaunted Life of Man's podcast.

3:08 - Thanks for having me, Cal. Great to talk with you.

3:10 - I'm absolutely excited to have you on here.

3:11 And just so you know, we like to keep things really low key

3:14 as we start our interviews.

3:15 We'd like to just kind of ease in,

3:17 get everybody used to the person that we're talking to.

3:19 So with that in mind,

3:21 what was it like when you shot Osama bin Laden in the face?

3:25 - Well, that's kind of a lot happened in between the--

3:29 - Wait, no, I'm kidding.

3:31 There's no way we can start there, Rob.

3:33 There's absolutely no way we're gonna start there.

3:35 But don't worry, guys, we will get to it.

3:36 - You're the first one to ever start it off like that.

3:39 It's like, wow, you know.

3:40 - Because again--

3:41 - Three years of life before that.

3:43 - Bro, we gotta keep you on your toes,

3:44 but let's go ahead and get into the early part of your life.

3:47 But guys, don't worry, we will get into all that stuff

3:49 with that mission, but you were born in Butte, Montana,

3:51 and so I guess the easiest way for us to actually start

3:54 is what was it like growing up in Montana

3:56 and how much has the show "Yellowstone"

3:58 ruined your home state with tourists?

4:00 - "Yellowstone" is a fun one

4:01 because now everyone that I know

4:04 and all of their kids think they're ripped.

4:07 So they all have the dooley trucks

4:09 and I'll try to grow that awesome beard.

4:11 They all think they're the toughest guy on the planet.

4:13 We don't get me wrong, we got some tough guys in Montana

4:15 and all those cowboys are tough dudes.

4:17 It's just funny now because everyone thinks

4:19 they're part of the show.

4:20 I love the show, by the way, the show's amazing.

4:21 - Yeah, it's great.

4:22 - Yeah, it was different growing up there

4:25 because Montana's, well, Butte, Montana,

4:27 especially is kind of in a bubble

4:30 where you don't really realize that there's life out there

4:35 other than Butte, so it's sort of a,

4:38 you kind of think everyone from somewhere else

4:40 might be better than you, and it's almost like,

4:43 well, I didn't realize until I joined the Navy

4:46 that doesn't matter if you're the guy

4:48 from Long Island or Miami or Chicago.

4:50 We're all, it's all our first day

4:52 and we're all a little bit scared

4:53 and everyone's pretty much the same, which is kind of nice.

4:55 But yeah, it was nice growing up there.

4:57 I thought Butte, Montana was a big city.

4:59 I didn't realize how small it was.

5:01 I thought it was normal for people to kind of live

5:03 between hunting season and fishing season.

5:06 The best time of the year was the opening day,

5:10 a Sunday of antelope season that went all the way

5:12 through Thanksgiving for deer, elk, everything.

5:14 If you get a special permit for moose,

5:16 big horn sheep, stuff like that.

5:18 But we kind of live for that.

5:19 Go hunting early on every Sunday so you can get back

5:21 for, 'cause football starts at the NFL

5:23 gave kickoff at what 11 a.m., 11 30, mountain time.

5:28 So you try to get your hunt done

5:30 and watch football and then go to school.

5:32 And snow weeds, not uncommon to get 15 below zero

5:35 during January and it's kind of, you know,

5:38 great life, great people, really good food.

5:39 People don't realize how good the food is there,

5:41 but they also don't realize in most parts of the country

5:44 you don't put brown gravy on everything.

5:47 That's how we roll.

5:48 - Hey, I'll put it on Siri.

5:50 I don't care, I love brown gravy.

5:52 But I will say one thing that I thought was funny

5:53 when I was reading one of your books is how growing up

5:55 in Montana and seeing how cold everything was

5:57 is you weren't convinced that people were gonna be able

5:59 to get you cold during your military training.

6:02 But guess what?

6:02 I know that Buds was cold wet and sandy

6:04 and I know you've been asked about that a million times

6:06 and you detailed that very, very well

6:08 in your first book, The Operator.

6:09 So we're gonna skip over the cold wet and sandy questions,

6:12 but I do wanna always know, I always ask guys

6:14 that join the military for you individually.

6:17 Why join the United States military?

6:18 But then specifically, why did you kind of point your

6:21 direction towards the Navy SEALs?

6:22 - Well, it's all an accident.

6:24 Not necessarily an accident, but more like a game of chance.

6:27 Like one of my favorite sayings is when you make a plan,

6:32 God laughs at you because the plan's not gonna go

6:34 the way you plan it.

6:35 Life happens around you as your planning.

6:36 My entire, from maybe seventh grade on,

6:41 was to play college basketball, get an education,

6:45 probably get my business degree and then work with my father.

6:48 That's my plan.

6:49 And it just got to a point where,

6:52 and I've seen this everywhere on the country,

6:53 it doesn't matter where you're from,

6:54 people have a tendency at a certain age to say,

6:56 I just gotta get out of here.

6:58 I remember hearing a man say that in Fredericksburg, Virginia,

7:00 I heard it in San Diego and I was at a point,

7:02 I gotta get out of here.

7:03 And the fastest way for me to get out of there

7:05 without packing bags and finding a place to live

7:08 is to join the military.

7:09 And I had two guys that I grew up with,

7:12 there were two years older than me that joined the Marine Corps

7:14 and that's all they ever wanted to do.

7:16 And that was kind of neat, but to me,

7:18 the Marine Corps seemed like that's such a huge goal.

7:21 I never do that, but then when I'm in the age now,

7:24 I gotta get out of here.

7:25 The fastest way is to join the Marine Corps

7:26 and plus I wanna look like a Marine.

7:28 I just think it's cool.

7:28 The uniforms are awesome.

7:30 I saw a full metal jacket, it looks scary,

7:31 but that's what's cool.

7:33 I think from the cadence to the shooting to all that stuff,

7:36 so I went to join the Marine Corps on a whim.

7:37 And it's better to be lucky than good sometimes

7:41 because as luck would have it, the Marine wasn't there.

7:44 It's a recruiting office with Navy Marine Corps Army Air Force.

7:48 Marine wasn't there.

7:50 And the Navy guy was sitting there behind his desk

7:51 and he's wearing khakis, he's got the anchors.

7:53 And the only reason I went in there

7:56 was 'cause my two Marine friends told me

7:58 that the Marine Corps is actually part

8:00 of the department of the Navy, it's just the men's department.

8:04 Yeah, I walked in there to ask him where the Marine was.

8:06 And he said, "Why do you want the Marine?"

8:08 I said, "I wanna be a sniper."

8:09 I grew up hunting and he said,

8:10 "Look no further, we have snipers here.

8:12 "You need to become a Navy SEAL first

8:13 "and kind of brushed over that."

8:17 But I liked it and I signed the contract

8:19 and then he showed me some videos.

8:20 And we don't swim a lot in Montana.

8:23 A lot of swimming going on with seals,

8:25 but I was like, "You know what, we're gonna give this a go."

8:27 So instead of going to Paris Island,

8:29 I'm gonna go to Great Lakes, Illinois, Navy boot camp

8:32 and then hopefully Coronado.

8:34 And the only thing I did right was I had a buddy

8:37 that was in the Army that joined right out of high school

8:39 and he said, "Whatever you do, get it in writing."

8:42 And that's great advice for life, get it in writing.

8:44 And so I got in writing that I would get a chance

8:46 to go to SEAL training as opposed to the crap with,

8:50 yeah, just volunteer when you get there.

8:51 Never believe that [inaudible].

8:52 Don't ever do business on a handshake, get in writing.

8:55 - Yeah, I mean, I've heard so many horror stories

8:57 of recruiters and kind of taking advantage of kids

8:59 and you'd hate to say that someone would do something

9:01 like that, but they've got quotas,

9:02 they've got things they have to hit.

9:03 Now, just curious even real quick as you were talking,

9:05 let's say the Marine recruiter was there that day.

9:07 Do you think you would have just been fine with being a grunt?

9:11 Would you have maybe tried to go Marine Recon?

9:12 I know we can't go back in time.

9:14 - I would have tried to go recon,

9:17 but I know you have to go infantry first

9:18 and the only thing that I really wanted to do,

9:20 and again, now me knowing nothing about the Marine Corps

9:23 as far as Marines listening,

9:25 I would have wanted to get in riding Paris Island and not San Diego,

9:27 nothing against either side.

9:29 I just, I heard about the sand fleas.

9:31 I just wanted to, I know people are gonna think

9:34 I'm an idiot for saying that,

9:35 but I mean, if you're gonna do it, do it that way, I guess.

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10:05 - Hey, I can fully understand,

10:06 but you did go the seal route, obviously you got through.

10:08 And again, in your book "The Operator,"

10:10 which we talked about a little bit off air

10:11 and we'll get more to here in a second,

10:12 you go into a tremendous amount of detail

10:15 and you're upbringing kind of the story

10:16 that you just told, you know, what buds was like

10:18 and you give a really behind the scenes look

10:20 on what people are interested in, which is buds.

10:23 But eventually you became a member of the development group,

10:26 otherwise known as DevGroor, I guess colloquially known

10:28 as SEAL Team Six, but people don't really understand

10:31 in the general public, right?

10:32 They watch movies and maybe they've read some articles,

10:34 but they don't really understand what the process is like.

10:37 Now, I have a friend that was in that

10:38 and so I kind of got a little behind the scenes look

10:40 as to kind of what the screening process was like,

10:42 but I guess give us a description of what the process was

10:45 by which a seal screens for it

10:48 and makes it onto SEAL Team Six.

10:50 - Well, SEAL Team Six is at first,

10:52 at least when I went through training in 1996,

10:55 we were even told as trainees that it's gone,

10:58 like it doesn't exist.

11:00 And it turned into Naval Special Warfare Development Group,

11:02 which is they just developed their older senior guys.

11:05 So I went to SEAL Team Two, you know,

11:06 you get divided by numbers, odd numbers are in San Diego,

11:10 even numbers are Virginia Beast.

11:12 So I went to SEAL Team Two and I picked that place

11:14 because then at the time, the only real thing going on

11:18 was Bosnia and Kosovo.

11:19 And it's just a peacekeeping mission, not a lot of,

11:21 I mean, a little bit of shooting here and there, but nothing.

11:23 No war.

11:25 But I went over there, was on the East Coast,

11:28 got a hangout with SEAL Team Two, Eight

11:31 and four guys, meet him out in town, train all that stuff.

11:34 And then, you know, do a deployment.

11:35 I did, my first one was a Mark,

11:37 so I was on a Navy ship, the Mediterranean.

11:39 We did get into like little stuff here and there,

11:43 but mainly just training with allies

11:44 and you go back to Virginia Beach, do another platoon.

11:47 I ended up doing a few platoon,

11:48 then you start to realize a lot of the older guys

11:50 at SEAL Team Two that were running the workouts

11:52 would eventually go over to Dev Group

11:53 and you kind of start to get the word.

11:55 Yeah, SEAL Team Six is real and people are going there.

11:58 And you see guys go and come back and fail,

11:59 but other guys go and stay, run into them overseas

12:02 and then you kind of get after like five or six years,

12:06 you're like, okay, we can go to this place

12:07 and you just put in the proper paperwork,

12:09 get approved by your command

12:11 and then there's a screening process

12:12 with a really hard workout,

12:14 a lot of intense interviews,

12:16 psychological evaluations, a hard workout

12:18 and then that's when they decide if they bring you to

12:20 what's called Green Team

12:21 or they call it selection and training,

12:23 which is like a nine or 10 month selection course

12:25 full of all Navy SEALs.

12:28 And when I went through right around my era,

12:31 about 50% of the guys who went to Green Team

12:33 didn't make it through.

12:34 So these are approved seasoned Navy SEALs

12:38 that half of don't make it.

12:39 And it's all, you know, close quarters battle,

12:41 CQB, skydiving, military operations, urban terrain,

12:45 water stuff, boat stuff, high end diving things

12:48 and but again, CQB, CQB, CQB.

12:50 And all very, very intense tactics.

12:54 Mind games, just really hard, like 12 mile runs

13:00 followed by all day CQB, just tactics and stuff

13:05 and it's the best time of your life

13:07 but it's also the worst time of your life

13:08 'cause you have access to all the bullets you want,

13:12 all the training you want,

13:13 you fly in a private jet to different spots

13:14 but then they destroy you, these instructors destroy you

13:16 and they're just dicks.

13:17 Like I'm surprised I'm gonna work with these guys.

13:19 But again, it's a game they turn on,

13:21 they get in their head, see how you can handle pressure

13:23 and also see how well, this is great advice,

13:26 see how well you can get over it.

13:28 Whatever it is, can you get over it?

13:30 I remember, you know, like having the best runs of my life

13:33 down at Shaw's in Mississippi, you know, live fire stuff

13:36 but then screwing up once and then compounds and compounds

13:39 to the next run, they have me carrying a broom

13:41 'cause they're telling me they don't trust me with a gun.

13:43 When you get over that, just get through this run

13:46 one bite at a time.

13:47 So yeah, you get through that, it usually,

13:50 when I went through it finished in December

13:51 and then you get assigned to one of the squadrons,

13:53 I got the squadron I wanted and then I deployed one year

13:56 with my squadron a year after I checked it.

13:59 - Yeah, I think that's an interesting way

14:00 of kind of looking through all that and to be honest,

14:03 it's fun to hear you talk about that

14:06 because I talk about resilience all the time

14:08 and that's the ability to bounce back.

14:09 Everybody likes to talk about strength and strength

14:10 is fine but strength wanes over time, no matter what.

14:13 Father time is undefeated regardless of its physical strength,

14:16 mental strength or spiritual strength,

14:17 but for you, I guess even quickly with green team,

14:20 what would be a way that you would not make it

14:22 through screening 'cause I'm assuming guys aren't falling

14:24 out on the runs during this period,

14:25 but what makes it only half of the guys get through?

14:28 What are the things I would say got home?

14:30 - You can fall out of runs too, they're not time runs,

14:32 they're just kind of just dick draggers to see

14:34 if you can do it and forget the big guys who can't run

14:36 and the little guys who are pushing the big guys

14:38 and all that [inaudible], just a mind game,

14:40 but even in the screening process before you get

14:43 the actual green team, they'll hand your bio

14:46 which is a picture and a blurb about you

14:47 to guys around that are already there

14:50 and you get a thumbs up or a thumbs down from the guys

14:53 and if they know you from like you read a bar

14:55 and you're a [inaudible], now this guy's a [inaudible],

14:57 you can not make it because of that, you can screen negative

15:01 and then when you get into training safety violations

15:04 obviously anything major, they'll kick you out that day,

15:08 like I had to do take a horrible shot right past my face

15:11 one time and I looked up at one of the instructors

15:14 that I knew and he said, hey O'Neill,

15:16 I was gonna blow the whistle but I think I swallowed it

15:18 because it was so bad, who really had us leave the room

15:20 to kick him out, you never see him again.

15:22 So like I said, you can be having the best time of your life,

15:26 you screw up one major thing, you're out

15:28 and it's that simple and if it's bad enough,

15:30 you're never coming back.

15:30 I mean, sometimes they'll give you an opportunity

15:33 to try again with the next classroom

15:34 or the next year, maybe, maybe not,

15:36 but anything from like I said, knowing Navy SEALs,

15:41 anything from an alcohol related incident

15:43 to a fight out in town to either beating someone's ass

15:46 or you getting your ass beat, you're on a selection process

15:50 and they take it very serious.

15:52 But again, with Navy SEALs too, we're pretty good about,

15:55 I used to refer to us as a professional 12 year olds

15:57 'cause we'll do some good things.

15:59 - But at the same time, it's like,

16:00 you don't want somebody that's gonna be a screw up,

16:02 you don't want somebody that you can't trust,

16:03 especially if it's gonna be the sensitive missions

16:05 that you guys are on, so obviously that makes a lot of sense.

16:08 And obviously we've talked a little bit about the operator,

16:10 that was your first book, that's kind of your memoir

16:12 about your life and about some of your,

16:14 I guess things that you did in war.

16:15 And then we've got the new book out this week,

16:17 which is called The Way Forward.

16:18 And before we really get into The Way Forward,

16:20 'cause I wanna ask you obviously more about that,

16:22 there's obviously the code of silence, right?

16:24 Everybody's kind of heard of it,

16:25 the quiet professional moniker.

16:27 And as we get to the end of some of your more important missions,

16:30 we'll get more into kind of how that may be affected,

16:32 your relationship with some of the guys you thought

16:33 would be friends for the rest of your life.

16:35 But for a guy like you, I know you probably still have

16:38 that internal dissonance about like,

16:40 should I be talking about this?

16:41 Like that's not what the old guys did,

16:43 but kind of give me an idea, 'cause we're two books in now,

16:45 I'm sure it's not gonna be the last one.

16:46 How do you deal with that kind of internal dialogue

16:49 with the code of silence being real good?

16:51 - At first that's a tough one.

16:52 And now that I look back on it, it's kind of funny

16:55 because the first question that anyone asked,

16:59 including myself, when someone found out Bin Laden

17:02 was dead, the first question they asked was, who got him?

17:04 - Right.

17:05 - And so my name was being thrown around

17:06 before we even took off from Abatabad.

17:08 But what made me laugh is I talked to some of my friends

17:10 back home, and what they said,

17:12 'cause I'm kind of known as I tell stories,

17:13 I tell jokes, I'm all about morale.

17:15 And they would say, who got him?

17:16 And they'd say, oh, Neil did.

17:18 And the most common response was, oh [inaudible],

17:19 we're never gonna [inaudible] hear the end of this.

17:21 It's kind of as a joke, but yeah.

17:24 That was a lot of toothpaste that you can't get back

17:28 in the tube when that first started.

17:30 What I didn't realize the hard way too,

17:31 is that as long as you get it approved,

17:35 and you're not giving up tactics or putting anyone at risk,

17:38 you should be able to tell your story for historic sake.

17:40 I'm happy that George Washington had a biographer

17:43 when he crossed the Delaware to fight the Hessians,

17:45 the Revolutionary War.

17:45 I'm glad we know about Iwo Jima.

17:47 And I think we should know about this story.

17:48 And it's a historic moment from the intel

17:51 to the powers that made the call

17:53 to the pilots in the air crew,

17:55 to the guys that went through the house.

17:56 I mean, it is what it is.

17:57 There's a, if you go to any bookstore,

18:03 there's a huge section that says military history.

18:05 A lot of people tell their stories.

18:06 A lot of people have written books and the code of silence,

18:10 I mean, whatever, fine.

18:12 If you wanna do it, that's great.

18:14 No, the story was out there.

18:14 I thought we all should have been friends forever.

18:18 And again, what you think of me is none of my business.

18:22 And you're not gonna make everyone happy.

18:24 It is what it is.

18:25 I'm glad that some of the stories were told.

18:27 And I hope, even with that mission,

18:29 I hope everyone has the,

18:30 there's 23 different versions of what happened.

18:33 And I hope everyone tells theirs.

18:34 Right, hey, you gotta control the controllables.

18:36 And there are certain things that you can control.

18:38 You can't control what other people are gonna think.

18:39 But let's talk about the new book.

18:41 So again, out this week, the way forward master life's

18:43 toughest battles and create your lasting legacy.

18:46 So I guess give us an idea,

18:47 'cause I know a lot of the people in this audience

18:49 have read the operator.

18:50 How is this book different from your memoir?

18:52 And I guess, how did it come about for you to co-author this,

18:55 you know, with Medal of Honor recipient

18:57 and your buddy Dakota Meyer?

18:59 - We, we were speaking for the same agency.

19:02 So we got to know each other that way.

19:03 And then we, you know, through different things,

19:05 we met each other at different charity events.

19:07 And just talking about common experiences

19:11 and how a dude from Montana and a dude from Kentucky

19:14 can all of a sudden get thrust into the limelight.

19:16 And what next, what do we do now?

19:18 And we sort of talked about, I mean,

19:20 everything from, you know, people,

19:23 the further we get away from combat, the harder it is.

19:26 Because like there, me personally,

19:27 there are people that I shot before in houses that,

19:30 you know, not been long, but like, I wonder,

19:33 did we fight each other just because we were born

19:35 on different sides of the planet?

19:37 Like, if I hadn't met you in a coffee shop

19:38 somewhere else, would we have laughed together?

19:40 Like, why are we fighting?

19:41 We don't even know each other.

19:42 And, and there's kind of common, common human elements

19:47 to combat that a lot of people that, you know,

19:49 where that stupid, I like to kick doors

19:51 and shoot [inaudible] in the face.

19:52 No, you don't, 'cause you never have.

19:54 And, and just the way forward meaning,

19:56 it's almost like the thing with the code of silence,

19:59 like you should just shut up and, and live your life.

20:02 They say once a seal, always a seal.

20:03 No, I was a seal, no, I'm not.

20:06 I, I wasn't high school, but I'm not a high school student.

20:08 I wasn't college, but I'm not a college student.

20:10 I was a seal, now I'm not.

20:11 What now?

20:12 What do we do next?

20:13 Everyone has tomorrow.

20:15 Everyone also has their first day somewhere,

20:17 and everyone was scared, whether or not they admit it.

20:19 What do we do now?

20:20 Whether you're the guy in the lawn's bedroom

20:21 or the CEO of a company, we've all had the first day,

20:24 we've all been scared.

20:25 But what, what next, what's the way forward?

20:28 And that's what it's kind of about.

20:29 We tell a couple of combat stories,

20:31 but a lot of them are pre combat and post combat.

20:34 Like, I've got a story when I went hunting with,

20:37 well, even the guy that I brought up

20:40 that was in the army that told me to get it in writing,

20:42 I went hunting with him, my brother who was not a hunter,

20:44 he's a DJ and he likes to smoke weed.

20:46 Excellent story in that book, by the way,

20:48 is how, how we end up at different spots.

20:50 And, you know, we, we were in seventh grade hunting elk,

20:53 and now we're 35 years old trying to hunt white tails

20:55 in the powder river.

20:56 And, you know, Tommy shoots my brother,

20:59 Tom shoots a deer while he's wearing his pajamas

21:01 from the porch.

21:02 And it's like, Tommy, why'd you shoot that thing?

21:03 He's like, he was coming right for us, you know what I mean?

21:06 So just, you know, life lessons that life goes on.

21:11 - Yeah, absolutely.

21:12 And at some point you have to pick up

21:13 and think about your former life

21:14 and realize that there's still a you after this.

21:17 But I guess if you could encapsulate the way forward,

21:19 and we're gonna talk more about that.

21:20 I've got some quotes throughout the book

21:21 as we continue on here.

21:22 What do you want people to get out of the book?

21:24 Like, because there's gotta be a gold simmer.

21:26 What do you want people to get out of it?

21:27 - We're all similar.

21:28 We all, it's sort of like, what do you do with it?

21:31 What's your mindset?

21:33 It doesn't matter what you look like

21:34 or where you're from, you can do anything.

21:35 But don't be the victim.

21:36 Wherever you are, be there.

21:39 And you can be part of anything.

21:41 You can start stuff, you can follow stuff,

21:43 you can lead stuff.

21:44 Or you can, you know, sit on your ass and do nothing,

21:45 which a lot of people like to do.

21:47 But there is a way forward.

21:48 That's kind of what, you know.

21:49 And also, you know, it's okay to be serious,

21:53 but don't be afraid to have a good time

21:54 because when it's all said and done,

21:56 none of us are getting out of this a lot.

21:58 - Yeah, absolutely.

21:58 And guys, again, that is in the show notes.

22:00 We're gonna be talking about throughout the episode here,

22:02 but you can go and check that out

22:03 and get a copy for yourself.

22:05 But now I wanna get into a few of your missions specifically.

22:07 And I guess one that is very famous

22:09 that you were on is the mission to save

22:10 Captain Richard Phillips.

22:11 So very famous mission, not the least of which,

22:13 because Tom Hanks played Captain Phillips

22:15 in a blockbuster movie by the same name.

22:17 In the operator, you get into a lot of detail

22:19 about the mission, so I'll leave that up to you guys

22:20 to go and check that out for yourself.

22:22 But I found something interesting.

22:23 It was almost like a little bit of a throwaway section

22:25 whenever you're describing the story,

22:26 is while the three snipers were engaged

22:29 and killed the pirates on the light boat,

22:31 you were personally somewhere else on the USS Bainbridge

22:34 coming up with alternate plans

22:36 if the sniper option didn't go well, right?

22:38 - I was on the boxer, which is the flat top,

22:43 which was like the mothership.

22:46 And the Bainbridge was towing the light boat

22:51 with Captain Phillips in it.

22:53 And so on the flight over,

22:55 it was just under 16 hours.

22:58 We,

22:59 CLT of six had never done this.

23:01 We were designed to rescue hostages at sea

23:03 and we've been training on tactics since,

23:05 well, not we, but the team since like 1981.

23:09 And in that time, you would think from 1980,

23:12 1981 up until 2009, we should have thought of everything,

23:16 but we never thought of a Navy destroyer towing a lifeboat

23:20 with fully engaged.

23:23 So the easiest way to try to come up with something

23:26 is have everyone come up with something.

23:29 Everyone come up with a plan, everyone.

23:31 And we'll just look at them and we'll take the top five

23:34 and then we'll go from there.

23:36 So we came up with a couple of different plans

23:37 and the snipers were put out on the fan tail of the Bainbridge

23:40 to watch them for security,

23:42 make sure nothing unsafe happened.

23:43 So they're just watching them

23:44 and you know, there's other stuff going on

23:46 trying to negotiate the whole time

23:49 'cause we didn't go there to kill those guys.

23:50 It wasn't like the movie where we went three, two, one execute.

23:54 You know, we had the main operation center was on the box

23:57 or that's where the majority of the team was

23:59 and the snipers in a small group from our squadron

24:01 and another squadron were on the Bainbridge.

24:04 So I thought it was cool to go to the chief's mess

24:06 to get coffee and we're getting coffee

24:11 'cause we think we're gonna do one of the other missions

24:12 that we came up with and we started to get word

24:15 that they got them.

24:17 And my first reaction was got who?

24:19 - Right.

24:20 - Like we got, no, we got them.

24:22 And you know, that's not my story to tell

24:24 'cause I wasn't one of the shooters.

24:26 But yeah, I mean, it's amazing to think

24:28 that those snipers took those shots without the countdown.

24:31 And if you think about how cool it is that they were,

24:34 they were in their own beds in Virginia, four days before that.

24:37 And we hadn't done this over 25 years

24:39 and it's a long weekend on Easter.

24:41 You know, those guys could have blown it off

24:43 and said, I'll cite my guns in on Tuesday

24:45 when we come back to work, but they didn't their site.

24:46 Their guns were cited in for the most difficult shots

24:48 of their lives because that's how they are.

24:49 That's how they work.

24:50 They're just badasses.

24:52 - Yeah, I mean, hearing people describe the shots.

24:54 I mean, 'cause you've got the Bainbridge moving,

24:56 you've got the Liveboat moving, you've got an angle,

24:58 like it was not an easy shot.

25:00 - And they're towing it in too.

25:01 - Right.

25:02 So of all the other missions,

25:03 I don't know if you can actually get into this.

25:04 I don't know if this is like, you know,

25:06 any trade craft or something like that.

25:07 But of all the other alternatives,

25:09 aside from the one that y'all did,

25:10 was there one that may be stuck out as like,

25:12 okay, if that doesn't work out,

25:13 here's probably the thing that we're gonna have doing.

25:15 I thought the best idea was to give the village elders,

25:20 communications radios and to give the pirates radios

25:23 so they could talk to each other.

25:25 Tell them we're gonna bring them back

25:26 because you gotta figure that these pirates were not alcata.

25:30 These are not terrorists, they're criminals.

25:32 And they're out of cot, which is their drug.

25:36 They're seasick, they're probably hungry and thirsty.

25:38 They realize they [inaudible] up

25:40 and all they wanna do is go home.

25:42 So if we could talk to them into maybe bringing them,

25:45 you know, as the sun's going down,

25:46 bring them in inland, jam the communications

25:49 and then I'll have my team on the beach waiting for them.

25:52 Not, they don't realize it.

25:54 And we just handle it how we handle it.

25:55 Like, we probably won't even need to shoot these guys,

25:58 but if we need to, we have to drop on them.

25:59 And that to me made sense.

26:00 That's why I was very comfortable getting coffee.

26:03 - Okay, yeah, absolutely.

26:04 Well, I'm glad that that mission worked out that way.

26:06 But now we're gonna get into the mission

26:07 that obviously you're most known

26:08 for one of the most famous missions ever

26:10 and that's Operation Neptune Spear.

26:11 That is the mission that resulted

26:13 in the death of Osama bin Laden.

26:14 So if you would, I know there's a lot of detail.

26:17 You go into this and a lot of detail in the operator

26:19 and you do talk about it in the way forward a lot as well.

26:21 Get us up to speed on the unique recall of your team

26:25 back to the base because that was kind of an interesting thing

26:27 all the way up to when you were initially briefed

26:30 on the mission because there was a lot of confusion.

26:32 Hey, why are we here?

26:33 What are we doing?

26:34 There was a lot of kind of caginess going on,

26:35 but get us up to the point where you were first briefed.

26:37 - Well, we were, we had just finished the deployment

26:41 in Afghanistan.

26:42 We was running some outstations out of the main base

26:45 in Jalal about Afghanistan, like five outstations

26:47 as a senior enlisted advisor.

26:49 And we just got back.

26:51 We had our two weeks leave with our kids and everything

26:53 and then we started our work up, you know,

26:56 for the next deployment.

26:57 So the first, the first trip we used to like to do

27:02 was obviously get some training,

27:03 but also some, you know, boost morale.

27:06 Like some guys went rock climbing,

27:07 but it happened to be near Vegas.

27:09 Some guys went skydiving in Tucson

27:11 and then we went, we went diving in Miami

27:14 because, you know, you can work with some currents.

27:15 You can get some, no kidding, good diving

27:17 and good water, but then you're in Miami.

27:18 Chill out, cocktails, happy hour, all that stuff.

27:21 So we were down there just finished deployment

27:23 and we got a call, we were having drinks at Happy Hour

27:26 on the beach and my boss got a call and said,

27:28 hey, they're calling you and you and you.

27:30 We got to go back to Virginia Beach.

27:32 This is something, something's going on.

27:33 And we knew something was up because our overall

27:37 commanding officer was supposed to go diving with us

27:39 and he didn't.

27:40 He went to Washington DC, obviously he's getting brief.

27:42 We're excited 'cause the boss isn't here

27:44 where Miami is gonna be awesome.

27:45 So we got called to Virginia Beach,

27:46 some of the guys from out west got called in, you know,

27:49 in Vegas and they brought us into a room

27:53 and they wouldn't let all of the squadron

27:56 and they just brought like 28 of us in.

27:59 And the first thing they basically said was,

28:01 hey, this is real.

28:03 We found a thing and it's in a house

28:05 and it's in a bowl in a country

28:06 and you guys are gonna go get it

28:08 and you're gonna bring it back to us and show it to us.

28:11 And that was it, they wouldn't tell us what it was,

28:12 how we're getting there.

28:14 They told us that no Air Force guys were coming with us.

28:17 So if you know how to use a radio, bring it,

28:19 if you know how to be a medic, bring it

28:21 'cause we're not bringing PJs or CCT,

28:22 we just don't have the fuel for the weight.

28:25 We need all Navy SEALs.

28:27 So we didn't know what it was.

28:29 We assumed it would be Libya because Qaddafi,

28:34 Arab Spring started in Tunisia,

28:37 the uprising in Egypt and Libya.

28:39 We assumed maybe we're gonna go get him

28:41 'cause not kill him, but like grab him

28:43 because stuff's changed and maybe they wanna try

28:45 to get a brief out of him.

28:47 And then they fed us some [inaudible]

28:48 about secret communication lines in the Pacific.

28:53 It's like, that's not us.

28:55 We're not, no, come on guys.

28:56 So they're trying to think of some [inaudible] to tell us.

28:58 But they, you know, they eventually said,

29:00 get your gear ready to do this.

29:02 Here's these two platforms.

29:03 Didn't tell us what they were.

29:06 And just get your gear ready.

29:07 So we did and then they finally sent us home on a Friday B

29:09 with their kids come back on Sunday.

29:11 So we kind of figured out based on,

29:14 you know, we're gonna drive somewhere and get a brief.

29:15 They sorta said who's gonna be there?

29:17 On the drive down, we're kind of saying,

29:19 yeah, we think this has been lodding.

29:22 And we got there, that's when we met the team,

29:24 the agency team with the main woman

29:27 that was portrayed as Maya in Zero Dark Thirty.

29:30 And she, the commanding officer of SEAL Team Six came in

29:33 and he said, the reason you guys are here

29:36 is this is as close as we've ever been to Osama bin Laden.

29:39 And he handed it over to her, she came up,

29:41 she started briefing us on how she found him.

29:44 And it's like a couple hours of brief,

29:47 get up for some coffee and they brought donuts

29:48 and come back and it's almost like, look, we believe you.

29:52 - Right. - It's so smart.

29:54 I don't, I stopped following.

29:56 Like, I'm smart enough to carry a sledgehammer and a gun.

29:59 You just tell me where you want me to go

30:01 and I'll go there.

30:02 How about that?

30:03 (coughs)

30:04 But she was the first person I ever heard

30:05 to say the word Abatabad.

30:07 And hearing her say Abatabad Pakistan,

30:09 'cause I mean, I'm used to hearing towns

30:10 and villages and cities of targets,

30:12 but like I've never heard of Abatabad,

30:14 this is a real place, this is legit.

30:16 And then we started training on it.

30:17 We had a two scale model, we talked about it.

30:20 They, Admiral McCraven was running the show.

30:23 He was smart enough to let the guys on the ground

30:27 come up with the plan, which we did.

30:29 And then we worked on contingencies.

30:31 What if he does this, this, this, all this stuff?

30:33 And then we would train with helicopters on a site

30:35 that they had built, and then all day, all night,

30:38 and then we'd go back and we'd talk about it.

30:40 I mean, between games of ping pong.

30:41 And one night, one of the bosses said,

30:46 what's the worst thing that could happen?

30:48 And the youngest guy in the room said,

30:49 the helicopter could crash in the front yard.

30:52 (laughs)

30:52 And we're really saying around like, what the [inaudible], man?

30:55 Why would you even offer that right now?

30:58 But he's like, I don't know,

30:59 maybe we should talk about that for 30 seconds.

31:01 And we did, and that's what happened.

31:02 Yeah, so we trained in the spot in the East Coast.

31:04 We went out West, trained in another spot,

31:05 and the training was really,

31:07 like when they told us it was bin Laden,

31:09 there was no high fives, there was no cheering.

31:11 We kind of just looked around like,

31:12 cool, are we going now?

31:13 'Cause we're ready.

31:15 And the only reason they picked us

31:16 was because of our training cycle.

31:19 Because we were supposed to be training,

31:21 no one would notice that we're leaving the train.

31:23 There's other squadrons.

31:24 If they stopped working in Afghanistan to train,

31:27 someone would notice.

31:28 If the guys were waiting for national contingencies,

31:30 they would notice.

31:32 We're supposed to be leaving, so we did.

31:34 And we went out West, trained there,

31:36 and we're just showing the powers that be

31:37 that we are one of your options,

31:38 and here's what we can do.

31:40 And that was, and I think, I got the word,

31:42 I didn't hear it personally,

31:43 but the President Obama said,

31:45 I was never convinced bin Laden was there,

31:46 but after seeing what you're capable of,

31:48 you guys could go and find out and get out.

31:50 - That's a really great story.

31:51 And you had a lot of great quotes

31:52 that you found that President Obama said

31:53 during that time period.

31:54 But the thing that I found interesting

31:56 is you guys kind of maybe figured it out,

31:58 it was bin Laden before you were told it was bin Laden.

31:59 You do all this time training,

32:01 you're doing all these things to prepare for what you're doing.

32:03 But the thing that seemed obvious,

32:04 and you admitted this yourself,

32:06 is that you and your seal brothers

32:07 expected to die on this mission.

32:09 I mean, you guys thought,

32:10 I mean, it's saying a suicide mission

32:12 is kind of a coy way of saying it,

32:13 but you guys just assumed that this place

32:16 is gonna be, you know, set to blow.

32:18 If we go in there, he's gonna be wearing a bomb vest.

32:20 Hey, we're not gonna be able to get out alive,

32:22 and we're definitely not gonna go spend

32:23 the rest of our lives in a Pakistani prison.

32:25 But talk me through that a little bit,

32:26 because that's something that most of us like,

32:28 none of us have to think about, man, you know,

32:30 I'm probably gonna die if I record this podcast,

32:32 or try to sell this deal, or, you know, go into this working.

32:35 No one really has that as a part of their normal life.

32:37 So explain it to us who will never go through that.

32:38 - The way that we didn't say it's a suicide mission,

32:41 but the way we would talk to each other was like,

32:44 you realize this is a one-way mission.

32:46 'Cause, you know, these, the [inaudible] pilots haven't even

32:51 heard of these helicopters.

32:52 So we don't know if they work, they've never flown them.

32:55 And this is not a third rule country.

32:57 We're not, you know, they probably have Russian or Chinese-made

33:00 air defense, and a missile against a helicopter is nothing.

33:04 We don't know if it works.

33:05 There's no refueling stations on the way in.

33:10 Like, if you fly from, like, allyside over to Ramadi,

33:14 you can stop and get fuel somewhere.

33:16 You're going over into Pakistan.

33:17 You need to know how much fuel you have.

33:19 You're gonna run out.

33:21 If anyone's gonna blow himself up, hindsight being 2020,

33:24 he didn't, but if anyone, like, what just happened in Syria,

33:27 that dude blew himself up on the third floor

33:29 after a helicopter went down.

33:32 There's gonna be gunfire, no doubt about it.

33:34 And, you know, if we might, the first people to respond

33:37 are not gonna be the Pakistan military,

33:38 it's gonna be the local police.

33:40 And first of all, we don't wanna kill them

33:42 because we're in their country.

33:44 We're not a war with them.

33:45 Now, we also don't wanna surrender to them

33:47 what's it gonna come down to?

33:49 You know, I'm not gonna go to prison in Pakistan.

33:52 So these are the things that we're thinking of.

33:54 And we had to have that talk.

33:56 Why are we doing it?

33:57 And some of the stuff we came up with were, well, you know,

34:00 we're going after bin Laden

34:02 for the first Americans to fight al Qaeda.

34:04 And those were the passengers on flight 93.

34:07 And they were just going on a business trip

34:09 or going out to see a friend in California.

34:12 And the last thing they did

34:13 before they fought to the death was vote.

34:16 And that's [inaudible] America.

34:17 It's for the single mom who dropped her kids off

34:19 at elementary school on a Tuesday.

34:21 And 45 minutes later, she jumped to her death

34:23 out of a skyscraper

34:24 because that's a better alternative

34:25 than whatever is going on inside a 2,500-degree Fahrenheit,

34:28 which we'll never understand,

34:30 like physically grabbing the hand of a stranger,

34:32 looking down and making a choice.

34:36 She was never supposed to be in the fight.

34:39 That's why we're going.

34:40 And we were comfortable with that.

34:42 So it's a one-way mission, but that's a mindset.

34:43 And what was good about that was once you accept it,

34:47 then there, I mean, I'm not a believer in no fear.

34:51 I think if anyone tells you they've been to combat

34:52 and have no fear, there's a sociopath or their lying.

34:55 - Right.

34:56 - But it's okay to be afraid.

34:57 It's normal, it makes you think.

34:59 But this one was like, it wasn't even fair,

35:01 it was acceptance, I'm ready now, I'm focused.

35:04 That was the mindset.

35:04 I mean, don't get me wrong,

35:05 there were complete studs on that team

35:08 that are like, oh, we're good, it's just a longer flight.

35:09 We got this.

35:11 - Right, but again, it's good to kind of have an idea

35:13 of where you guys were, 'cause I'm sure

35:14 that had a calming effect on you as well,

35:16 because you obviously knew what the potential outcomes were

35:18 and you were comfortable with that and okay with that.

35:20 And so at this point, I think it's only, you know,

35:23 appropriate for me to kind of step away

35:24 from the mic a little bit and let you go ahead

35:26 and just describe the mission to us.

35:28 So y'all get the go ahead, we're going hot,

35:30 like we're gonna do this thing.

35:32 So describe the mission itself

35:33 and at least get us to the point where you are about

35:36 to engage the occupant of the third story of the compound,

35:39 'cause I got a quote I wanna read about that time period,

35:41 but get us all the way there.

35:42 - Well, and I just talked to one of my guys yesterday,

35:45 one of the, he was actually the sniper

35:46 that initiated the fire on the cat in Phillips thing,

35:48 he was also on the bin Laden raid.

35:49 So I'm still in touch with a lot of these guys,

35:50 but I remember seeing him too and they gave us

35:54 a final brief before we're like, we're in our gear,

35:58 we're gonna go and Adam O'Macraven had us all,

36:02 you know, he was talking to us and he said,

36:04 you know, last night I watched my favorite movie, Hoosiers.

36:09 And the best part of the movie is when the team

36:11 from Hickory is up in the state championship,

36:12 they've never been out of their town,

36:14 never seen an arena this big,

36:15 and everyone's kind of starstruck with the size of it.

36:17 And he got the shortest guy on the team

36:19 to get on the shoulders of the tallest guy,

36:21 and he put a tape measure from the rim down and said,

36:23 what's the, what's, how tall is that or whatever?

36:25 And he goes, 10 feet coach.

36:27 He goes, no, what's the distance from the back

36:28 of the rim to the freethill?

36:29 And he goes, 15 feet coach.

36:30 And coach said, these are the exact measurements

36:33 of your gym in Hickory, this is just a bigger audience.

36:36 And he goes, you guys do this every single night,

36:39 it's just a bigger audience.

36:41 And so we're leaving, so that's Mcraven's speech.

36:44 And I remember talking to him and I said, you know,

36:45 you're so busy with what's going on right now,

36:48 I really doubt you watched Hoosiers like that.

36:51 However, you were born to tell us that right now.

36:54 - Yeah.

36:55 - And then we went out, we had a fire, we took a picture,

36:58 and got on the buses, drove to the helicopters,

37:00 gave each other hugs, you know.

37:02 And it's, you know, we done it before,

37:03 but every mission's like, all right, you'll see,

37:04 whatever, now it's like, all right, man, see you,

37:06 see when we get there, we've gotten the helicopters,

37:08 and then we took off and we left.

37:10 And so we're leaving Jalalabad.

37:11 Normally when you're leaving J-Bad,

37:13 you like fly up the river, maybe it's on a bad turn left,

37:16 going to the Coringol, the Shurriak, or Pesh River Valley.

37:19 This time you go to the right and now you're flying into Pakistan.

37:22 And now you know, you hear the pilots say, okay,

37:24 we're in Pakistan, aerospace, whatever the COVID was,

37:27 now you got 90 minutes to think about getting shot down.

37:30 So this is the first step.

37:32 And, you know, it's like, I'm sitting in a folding chair,

37:36 I got Cairo right next to me at my feet,

37:39 Cheese is back here, and then I got guys over here,

37:40 and I'm just, you know, we're in tight,

37:42 but we're, guys realized that worrying about a missile

37:46 is not gonna stop a missile, so stop worrying about it.

37:48 Like if you're worrying about something in life

37:50 that your worries not helping, stop wasting your energy,

37:52 it's just, it's not gonna happen or it is.

37:54 And so I looked over, one of my guys had his headphones

37:58 and he's sleeping, and I remember looking at him thinking,

38:01 you're asleep, literally on the ride

38:04 to Osama bin Laden's front door.

38:06 And I'm thinking where it thoughts like,

38:08 A, you have ice in your veins, and B,

38:11 I see why women find you attractive.

38:13 - Man.

38:14 - So, and all I'm doing is to keep my mind off,

38:15 because you can hear the helicopter,

38:16 and you can see you guys, I'm counting,

38:18 to keep my mind occupied.

38:19 I'm, you know, you gotta watch going,

38:21 and you can hear the updates, but I'm counting,

38:24 from zero to a thousand, a thousand, a zero.

38:25 Just to sit there and, you know, whatever,

38:27 and just keeping your mind off,

38:30 and then, you know, we banked to the south

38:32 for 80 minutes in, it's kinda, it's faster.

38:34 You can feel the pilots, you know,

38:36 everything in between thinking a little bit

38:38 about your kids, to how cool the pilots are,

38:40 'cause they're just, they're getting us in there,

38:41 and this is awesome.

38:43 And then somewhere in there, when we banked to the south,

38:45 I was counting, and I don't know how I remember it,

38:47 but I can hear his voice.

38:48 I can hear George Bush's voice,

38:49 and I said, "Freedom itself was attacked this morning,

38:50 "by a faceless coward, and freedom will be defended."

38:53 And it kinda hit me, I said, "Wow, this is it,

38:57 "I'm on this mission, and we're gonna kill him."

39:00 And it's kind of like, you know,

39:01 I'm with 22 of the baddest [inaudible] in the world.

39:04 There is no way we're gonna [inaudible] this up.

39:07 So we did another thing, and then,

39:09 and I love this part, too.

39:11 About a minute out, the air crew pulls the door open.

39:14 And here's what I like about that is,

39:16 there's so many pieces of the puzzle

39:17 to get to the end result.

39:19 The air crew, they put their butts in the seats, too.

39:21 These guys, if we get shot down,

39:23 they die just as dead as we do.

39:25 They risk their lives.

39:26 Their job is to keep the air thing running,

39:27 keeping us whatever, and open in the door.

39:30 Can you imagine if two helicopters landed,

39:32 and 23 [inaudible] couldn't figure out how to open

39:34 a [inaudible] door?

39:35 They're little things, we got it open, right?

39:38 And so we look out, and I'm looking out the side

39:40 of this thing, and you can kinda look out here.

39:42 We're coming up in Bin Laden's compound.

39:43 And I know there's just from the map side,

39:45 there's a golf course.

39:46 And there's lights, and I'm thinking,

39:49 this is a resort town, this is not a war zone.

39:53 And I'm kinda smiling, this air gets smiled,

39:55 but beneath my nods, and I'm thinking,

39:57 this is some serious Navy SEAL ship we're about to do.

40:00 So, the plan was, we were in the second bird, Dash 2.

40:05 Dash 1 was gonna hover in front of his house,

40:08 in between the guest house, the main house.

40:10 Fast row, and then the snipers come down.

40:12 We're gonna let snipers, the dog, and the machine gun out,

40:15 and then we're gonna go to the rooftop,

40:16 faster up onto the roof, and then jump to his balcony.

40:20 However, we can get down there,

40:22 'cause we're assuming at this point he's gonna be up.

40:24 And there should be a window

40:25 that we might be able to shoot through.

40:27 As soon as we let our guys off,

40:28 the pilot of the first one,

40:30 realize he's getting an updraft.

40:32 And he explained to me that an inexperienced pilot

40:37 would've tried to power through whatever effect he's having,

40:39 that would've rolled it, he would've killed everyone.

40:41 But he looked in, he knew what the thing looked like.

40:44 If he can turn it and pin that tail on the fence,

40:47 he can pin it.

40:49 And that's what he did.

40:51 They've hit us off, and our pilot's gonna put us up

40:54 on the roof now, but he sees what happened,

40:56 and I don't know if they're talking, we can't hear him.

40:58 But he realized, if he can't hover, I can't hover,

41:00 so he just put us down.

41:02 And he's telling us, and we kinda realize

41:04 he's telling us to get out for whatever reason.

41:06 So we got out there, and I remember looking

41:07 at Bin Laden's house and just kinda thinking,

41:09 well, I guess we start the war from here.

41:10 We knew that there was a spot to my left,

41:15 which is the northeast corner, there's a double door.

41:17 So the breach went up there with a seven foot charge

41:19 of C6, which is a huge bomb.

41:21 It'll open everything.

41:22 He put it on there, blasted it.

41:24 There's a brick wall behind it.

41:26 And he said, "Failed breach is as bad."

41:27 And then we're like, "No, this is good."

41:29 - That means he's in there.

41:30 - That's fake door, man.

41:31 That's a fake door.

41:32 That's learning through failure, he's in there.

41:34 So then we went to, we said we're gonna blast the car port,

41:38 which would be another double door, but we know it opens,

41:39 'cause we'd seen cars coming in and out,

41:41 leads you a driveway.

41:42 And we didn't, I didn't know that helicopter crashed.

41:45 So we said, "Hey, we're gonna blast a car port."

41:48 I thought they were doing a racetrack.

41:51 I thought they were saying dash one going around,

41:54 but I think they were saying dash one going down.

41:56 And they said, "Don't blow it, we'll open it."

42:00 And the door opened and the thumb came out with a glove.

42:02 I recognize it.

42:03 Now here's a very important lesson.

42:06 Sometimes in life, it doesn't matter why you're here.

42:09 You just are.

42:11 I don't know why they're in there, but they are.

42:14 We'll talk about it later.

42:15 When I talk to football teams,

42:16 I tell them it doesn't matter why it's second and 15,

42:19 it just is.

42:20 What do we do now?

42:21 Call the play, we'll talk about it in films.

42:22 So if we live, I'll find out.

42:24 So here's how dumb I am at this point,

42:26 'cause I'll call it focus.

42:28 I walk into the main door.

42:30 There's six guys standing there

42:34 with different uniforms and American flags.

42:36 It's the flight crew.

42:37 Enough, that's six, sorry, one, two, three guys, three guys.

42:41 And they're standing there with American flags.

42:43 I looked at them and my initial thought was,

42:46 who the [inaudible] are these guys?

42:47 You don't even register.

42:50 We get inside now.

42:50 They'd been in a couple of gunfights.

42:52 The guest house, they killed a brother.

42:53 They killed a courier and his wife.

42:55 We're in a long hallway and I'm looking down

42:57 and I get into, you don't want to stand in a hallway

43:00 'cause the people start spraying, whatever.

43:01 And the guy next to me goes helicopter crash.

43:04 I don't know what he's saying.

43:05 And I look at him and I go,

43:06 "What helicopter crash?"

43:08 And 'cause I thought he meant someone,

43:10 there's two 47s behind us.

43:12 45 minutes.

43:13 And they weren't stealth so I assumed they got shot down.

43:16 And I thought I just lost 30 guys from another squadron.

43:18 I'm like, "Holy [inaudible]."

43:19 I go, "What helicopter crash?"

43:20 And he goes, "Bro, our helicopter crashed."

43:22 I think you walked right past it.

43:24 So my ass was like, "Well, I was looking this way

43:27 'cause that's been lawns house or something like that."

43:29 As we're doing this, the sniper is doing a loop

43:32 with Cairo, the dog, and I think the dog handler.

43:36 And they got to the point where the,

43:37 'cause they're trying to make sure no one runs out.

43:39 They got to the point where the tail was

43:41 and he came over the radio and said,

43:44 "All right, guys, be on alert.

43:45 "They're ready for us.

43:46 "They have a training mock-up of our super secret helicopter

43:48 "in the front yard."

43:49 And the boss said, "No [inaudible], that's ours.

43:52 "We crashed."

43:54 And he said, "Yeah, that makes a lot more sense

43:55 "than this [inaudible] I was just saying, carry on."

43:57 (laughing)

43:58 So this is the conversation that's being hacked.

44:00 So I'm watching, so I'm sort of standing back

44:04 and we're not rushing anything, and with the end

44:07 of the hallways of a breaching problem,

44:09 it's a barricaded door, and I'm watching dudes

44:11 I go through, I'm looking for bombs,

44:13 like 'cause normally they'll hang from a ceiling,

44:14 that's the thermal barric charge

44:16 is gonna bring the house down, I don't see anything.

44:17 And I'm watching dudes like move places and grab kids

44:20 and put 'em with their parents or their relatives

44:23 to make sure that 'cause the kids are scared at this point.

44:25 And I remember a brief thought of,

44:27 you know what, that's what the good guys do, right there.

44:30 Those are good guys.

44:31 The alcide is not doing that.

44:32 We do that.

44:34 So these guys are working the problem,

44:36 and the woman Maya, we'll call her that, said,

44:38 "I don't know where it is,

44:39 "but you're gonna run into a stairwell."

44:41 And when you find that stairwell,

44:44 you will run into Khalid bin Laden.

44:46 He lives on the second floor,

44:47 and that's the last line of defense.

44:50 Here's how cool she was.

44:51 She said, "And if you ace him,

44:52 "you get a shot at the big guy."

44:54 That's how she said, "No."

44:56 So they ran into him on a stairwell,

45:00 and the guy in front, he said,

45:01 "You whispered a few things to Khalid like his name,

45:03 "but come here in Urdu and I think Arabic."

45:08 And it confused Khalid,

45:08 so he presented himself with a gun, he got shot,

45:10 and that was awesome.

45:12 I remember thinking, "Nah, that's the coolest thing

45:14 "I've ever seen."

45:15 Never would have thought of that myself.

45:16 The guy's a genius.

45:17 And it was the coolest thing

45:18 I'd ever seen up until seven seconds later,

45:20 'cause we go up the second floor.

45:22 The guy split off the clear left and the right is down to him.

45:25 I'm now the number two man.

45:26 There's a guy in front of him.

45:27 He's his number one man.

45:28 He's pointing up the stairs at a curtain.

45:30 The curtain's there, people move in behind it.

45:32 He assumes that that's the suicide bombers.

45:36 Now, those are the ones.

45:37 So he starts, he doesn't know it's me,

45:38 but he knows it's his guy,

45:39 'cause I have my hand on his shoulder.

45:41 And he just starts saying,

45:42 'cause we're quiet as [inaudible].

45:43 We don't like to talk.

45:44 One of the, I hate war movies

45:46 where people start yelling, "Go, go, go."

45:47 'Cause it's true.

45:48 My supposed to go, "Here we are, here we are."

45:50 - Right.

45:50 - But he starts saying something like,

45:51 "Yeah, hey."

45:52 You know, basically he's saying,

45:54 "That's the suicide bombers, but if we go right now,

45:56 "we can beat him."

45:58 And I remember squeezing him,

45:59 and I wasn't bravery and I can close my eyes and see it.

46:02 It was not bravery.

46:03 It was more of a,

46:04 I'm tired of thinking about blowing up.

46:05 Let's get it over with, let's see what happens.

46:07 And then we went up the stairs.

46:09 - Yeah, absolutely.

46:10 And so, and then we have this part

46:11 from the way forward and man,

46:13 it's just, it's even crazy reading this out loud,

46:15 but I'll go ahead and read it.

46:16 As I pivoted into the doorway,

46:18 I could see Osama Bin Laden standing

46:19 in the dark bedroom at the foot of the bed,

46:21 a glowing presence in the ghostly hue of my goggles.

46:24 He wore robe and was taller and leaner than I expected.

46:27 He was also older and grayer than in the pictures from a decade earlier,

46:30 but he had the same mournful face and long nose.

46:33 He was standing behind one of his wives, a mall,

46:35 nearly looming over her.

46:36 I don't know if he was using her for a shield

46:38 or something else, but it didn't matter.

46:40 I shot him twice over her shoulder.

46:42 One of the shots split open his head.

46:43 After he fell to the floor,

46:44 I shot him one more time and heard him take his last breath.

46:47 Saw his tongue lull out of his mouth.

46:49 I could smell the inside of a skull

46:51 like a funky odor of an animal's entrails.

46:54 And so, obviously, those were the shots that killed the man

46:57 that was in charge of a terrorist attack

47:01 that killed thousands of Americans here on our soil.

47:03 Right before that, the guy who showed her you squeeze,

47:06 he covered up some individuals that he thought had,

47:09 you know, bomb vests on them an incredibly heroic act.

47:12 And then you take the shots that obviously killed this man.

47:15 So take us through it.

47:16 You shot Osama Bin Laden.

47:18 I said it from the beginning of the show,

47:19 but here we are 40 minutes away.

47:20 - Yeah, well, that's true.

47:21 Well, yeah, the guy in front of me did that.

47:23 He shielded, like I said, he didn't know it was me.

47:27 He knew it was one of his guys on the mission.

47:28 And, you know, I don't want to talk about him too much

47:32 'cause he is a silent professional.

47:33 But if anyone deserves a Medal of Honor, it's that guy.

47:35 I'll believe it at that.

47:36 But yeah, because he went one way and went this way.

47:38 There's Bin Laden, and like you said,

47:39 I recognize his nose.

47:40 It was in the blink of an eye.

47:42 He's not surrendering.

47:45 Had he been ideally no shirt on with his hands up,

47:49 he's getting taken down.

47:50 But because of his maneuver, he's a threat.

47:53 And I'm assuming he's gonna blow up.

47:54 So the reason, like I've heard people say,

47:57 well, you need to face a recognition.

47:59 You've never dealt with a suicide bomber I have.

48:01 And all that you need to disable them.

48:04 And that the way to do it is in here.

48:05 So shot him twice once more and then moved him all.

48:08 And I could hear him taking his last breath,

48:10 see his tongue, and I'm trying to get her out of the way.

48:13 Again, we're the good guys.

48:14 And you can sort of tell, you can sort of tell a threat.

48:17 So I'm moving her, his two-year-old son was there.

48:20 And here's the human element as a father.

48:23 This kid has nothing to do with this.

48:25 So I move him, push them back.

48:27 Other seals are coming in the room now.

48:29 Now we're realizing what we're doing.

48:32 And I'm walking back and I know we need to take the picture.

48:35 I know I need to dump some water on his face and whatever,

48:37 but I'm sort of standing there first.

48:38 And one of my guys came up to me and he,

48:40 I'm sort of standing there.

48:41 And he goes, hey, you good?

48:43 I said, no, no, what are we supposed to do now?

48:47 Kind of in the days and he laughed and he goes,

48:49 now we find the computers.

48:50 Like we do this every night.

48:51 Hundreds of times we've done this.

48:53 And I said, you're right, I'm back.

48:55 Holy [inaudible].

48:56 And he looked at me, here's how funny Navy SEALs are.

48:58 He goes, yeah, you just killed Osama bin Laden.

49:00 Your life just changed.

49:01 Now get the [inaudible] work.

49:03 - Right, and that's exactly it.

49:05 - We did and we got the pictures.

49:08 If they ever released them, I hope they do.

49:10 Those are my gloves in the picture holding his head together.

49:13 And then we went, we started putting the body in the bag.

49:16 I went down with a couple of the guys in the second floor,

49:19 just to try to gather intel.

49:21 We found so much [inaudible], we couldn't believe it.

49:23 I think it was three offices.

49:25 And I'm talking about the old school tower, home computers.

49:28 And trying to bust those up and take the hard drive.

49:32 Discs, papers, pictures, all kinds of drugs.

49:36 We didn't take the drugs.

49:37 I make a joke like, yeah, we found opium.

49:39 And I realized if I'd lose my med kit,

49:41 how much of that can I take?

49:43 - Right.

49:44 - But we found a bunch of stuff,

49:46 after we're putting it in different bags, consolidating,

49:48 I ran back upstairs and I helped the pointman and I,

49:51 and two other guys carried his body bag downstairs,

49:54 the flights of stairs, went outside.

49:57 The sniper from the Somali pirates thing that I talk about,

50:00 he's outside and we put the body bag next to him.

50:03 And we said, here's your guy.

50:04 And he goes, you're [inaudible] me?

50:05 Like no, 'cause let's get out of here.

50:07 So we go back in, we're kind of gathering guys up,

50:09 realizing that we wanted a certain amount of time on deck,

50:11 but now we need to blow up the helicopter.

50:14 So we got a breacher and one of the,

50:16 well, we brought an EOD guy with us.

50:17 I should have mentioned him before,

50:19 explosive ordnance disposal, great guy.

50:21 They're blowing this up and we're just kind of

50:23 saddling dudes up like, hey, forget the women and children,

50:27 tell them that they can't leave the house

50:28 because we have air, whatever, we gotta go.

50:30 It's time to leave now, 'cause we're,

50:32 we want it like 34 minutes, we're working on 45 minutes

50:34 right now, time to leave.

50:36 So we blew that up.

50:38 The first team took our helicopter in the body.

50:40 We took some DNA and the other Chinook came in,

50:44 picked us up.

50:46 They got guys from a different squadron on there,

50:47 which to me, again, guys who don't get credit,

50:50 is that on the Bin Laden raid,

50:51 Seal Team Six, rescue Seal Team Six,

50:52 which is cool as [inaudible].

50:54 And now we're leaving.

50:56 Like, I remember looking down,

50:57 there was a guy who can still find him on Twitter

51:00 who was tweeting, live tweeting.

51:02 And he was saying, why would they be running

51:04 training exercise on a Sunday?

51:06 I remember waiting for him, I can see him tweeting,

51:09 I can see his face lit up.

51:10 And normally on a target, like in Iraq,

51:13 if I see a guy outside with a phone,

51:15 I'm shooting him 'cause he's setting off a bomb.

51:16 But I look at this guy, I'm like, they have no idea.

51:19 They don't know over here.

51:22 So helicopter lands, we hop in.

51:23 And then we take off.

51:26 And now we're leaving.

51:28 I got guys from that squadron.

51:30 I got the sniper from Somali pirate next to me.

51:34 And the cool story about him is kind of when it,

51:37 when it set in what just happened.

51:39 When he shot, initially shot the Somali pirates,

51:43 that was the biggest mission in the history of the SEAL teams.

51:46 And there was some jealousy and stuff.

51:48 And he was trying to feel about how he did it,

51:50 and he didn't want any recognition, all this stuff.

51:51 And I would go up to him with this with Copenhagen

51:53 and say here, take Copenhagen from me, you're a hero.

51:57 Don't ever forget that, don't let him get you down.

51:58 You're a [inaudible] hero.

52:00 And now we're sitting there, the guy next to me

52:01 is from New York.

52:02 And he goes, who got him?

52:03 And I said, I think I did.

52:04 And he goes on behalf of my family.

52:05 Thank you.

52:06 And then I looked over and the sniper hands me,

52:08 his Copenhagen go here, take one of mine now,

52:10 you know what it's like to be a hero.

52:12 And it's starting to-- but we're leaving.

52:14 Now we have 90 minutes to fly.

52:19 Now they know we're here.

52:21 And they're probably scrambling F16s that we sold them

52:23 to shoot us down.

52:25 And they can.

52:26 And but worrying about that's not going to stop it.

52:28 So let's just 90 minutes, man.

52:30 If we can live 90 minutes to cross that border,

52:32 we get 50 years.

52:33 So you start to watch again, and you're just kind of sitting

52:35 there, you've got a Copenhagen in.

52:36 At this point, you're just spitting on your pants,

52:38 because whatever doesn't [inaudible] matter.

52:40 And you're looking at your watch.

52:43 It's like, well, I'm not counting, but it's been 10 minutes,

52:45 man.

52:45 All right, it's been 20 minutes.

52:47 Oh [inaudible], it's been 30 minutes.

52:48 We've got to get to 90 minutes.

52:49 It's been 40 minutes.

52:50 Now it's 50 minutes.

52:52 And I love sports analogies, because most people

52:54 can relate to the team mentality.

52:59 It's like watching a no-hitter at Fenway, top of the seventh.

53:01 And you're sitting there with your drink.

53:03 And you're like, I'm not saying anything.

53:05 I don't want to jinx it, but now it's been 60, 70 minutes.

53:08 Now it's 80 minutes.

53:09 We got 10 minutes to go.

53:11 And I was thinking about Miracle on Ice

53:13 when Team USA is beating the Russian hockey team, right?

53:15 In a game, they're supposed to lose.

53:17 But they're winning, 4 to 3.

53:19 And you can hear the nervous crowd, 10, 9.

53:22 We can still screw this up.

53:23 Come on, 6, 5.

53:24 And then the pilot came over the radio.

53:27 And pilots always have that calm voice

53:30 that people make fun of them for.

53:31 The calm voice is to keep you calm in the back.

53:33 Calm down, because at 38,000 feet, they're going to say,

53:37 well, you don't even hit that pocket of air.

53:38 Well, obviously, we've hit some weather up here.

53:41 As opposed to yelling, we're all going to die.

53:43 So he came over the radio at 85 minutes ago.

53:46 All right, gentlemen, for the first time in your lives,

53:47 you're going to be happy to hear this.

53:49 Welcome to Afghanistan.

53:52 It's like you did it.

53:52 At that point, you're basically home free.

53:55 You end up coming back and go forward.

53:58 There's a minute of--

53:59 we'll see the other helicopter left

54:01 to meet a different 47 to refuel on a mountaintop.

54:04 So now the thoughts are, OK, did they get back?

54:07 Because they're on it because we split up.

54:09 So there's that helicopter, this helicopter.

54:11 Now they're flying back, and we're flying back.

54:13 And then we land it, and then they land it.

54:14 And they're like, everyone's OK.

54:15 And it's like, you know.

54:16 And even then, though, I mean, because with the--

54:19 who did it, who gives a [inaudible] type of stuff.

54:21 But even then, I actually had a bottle of my own urine

54:25 in my pocket the whole time, because I forgot

54:27 to throw it out as I landed.

54:28 I mean, I didn't think about it.

54:30 So I'm going to throw it away in the back of the hangar,

54:32 and there's already air crew guys pointing going.

54:34 That's the guy they got him.

54:36 So people know at this point already.

54:38 And that [inaudible]'s spreading.

54:40 So that's the who got him, he got him type of [inaudible].

54:42 So that's all that stuff.

54:43 And it caused a lot of issues.

54:45 And even before we get there, there was a quote from the way

54:48 forward that I thought was really interesting.

54:49 And you didn't really elaborate on it,

54:50 so I'm going to force you to.

54:51 And here's the quote.

54:52 In a hangar at the airfield, we sorted the items

54:54 that we had collected from Bin Laden's compound.

54:56 Then wolf down sandwiches as we watch President Obama announce

54:59 Bin Laden's death live at a press conference at the White House.

55:02 As Obama talked about the mission,

55:04 Bin Laden's body lay a few feet away from me.

55:07 Body bag unzipped.

55:08 Surreal doesn't even begin to describe it.

55:10 And then you just kind of move on to start

55:12 talking about something else.

55:13 Well, I'm going to make you describe it.

55:14 What in the world was that like?

55:16 Well, it was almost--

55:19 so everybody's there, other than the woman that found him.

55:22 She got what she wanted, she left.

55:24 She's so [inaudible] cool.

55:25 That's another story.

55:26 But all the analysts now are there.

55:29 We've got all the gear laid out.

55:31 The three-letter agency guys are doing the DNA test,

55:35 the official pictures, like the-- not the autopsy,

55:37 but similar, like getting everything documented.

55:40 And they brought us breakfast.

55:42 And so guys are still in their gear, really happy.

55:45 Like, because, I mean, imagine getting reborn, right?

55:50 And we have TV on-- we're eating these sandwiches.

55:54 And word had spread.

55:55 And so like, Haralda Rivera is in a chair in the DC office.

55:59 And he's saying, not confirmed, but we think that Lon's dead.

56:03 There's a USA chant going outside the White House.

56:06 And we're still-- like, we realize this is a huge deal,

56:10 but we're still in a bubble of people that do amazing [inaudible].

56:13 So we're not grasping worldwide.

56:16 And then they said, you know, our boss is on the phone

56:19 with the White House.

56:20 And they're not getting on TV until they understand

56:23 how many people exactly were killed, who was left behind,

56:25 how was their status, Geronimo.

56:29 And then we confirmed it.

56:30 And then we're eating, and President Obama

56:33 came walking down a red carpet wearing a red tie,

56:35 just looking cool as ever.

56:37 And you know, feed from Bin Laden.

56:40 And he said, tonight I can report to the American people

56:44 and to the world the United States

56:45 conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden,

56:47 the leader of al-Qaeda.

56:49 He keeps speaking.

56:50 And I hear the President of the United States say Osama bin

56:53 Laden, I look at Osama bin Laden, and I thought to myself,

56:56 how in the hell did I get here from Butte, Montana?

57:00 Now, he's still speaking.

57:01 And now at this point, the President's still speaking.

57:03 He's happy.

57:05 You can hear guys start to sort of say, say no one was hurt.

57:09 Say no one was hurt.

57:11 Because now our families know what happened.

57:13 Exactly.

57:14 And you've got to tell them no one was hurt.

57:16 And it took them a long-- it might have been 30 seconds.

57:19 But boy, that was a painful thing.

57:21 And then that was it.

57:23 And he said it.

57:23 And then, all right, guys, let's clean up.

57:27 Get dressed.

57:27 We're going to fly home.

57:28 And so we went over to-- we knew where the CBs are,

57:31 the construction battalion, Navy CBs.

57:33 They always have good food.

57:35 They will always have beer.

57:36 I don't give a [inaudible].

57:36 What rule number one is that's where

57:38 you're going to find the great showers, the pizza,

57:40 and hopefully the scotch.

57:42 And so we did.

57:43 We went over there.

57:44 Guys cleaned up, showered up.

57:45 We had a stuff to change into.

57:47 They did have computers.

57:48 And guys were just sort of-- not really checking emails,

57:50 but just checking the internet.

57:51 And it was all over the place.

57:52 Seal Team Six kills Osama bin Laden type [inaudible].

57:55 And it's almost like, yeah, we're all happy right now.

57:57 But this is going to go badly for some of us.

58:00 Yeah.

58:00 And I mean, we've alluded to it a lot throughout the show.

58:02 And you just alluded to it again.

58:03 Almost immediately after Operation Neptune Spear,

58:05 things started to change for you in a negative way.

58:08 And you kind of saw this a little bit with the Captain

58:10 Phillips mission.

58:11 There was a little bit of infighting.

58:12 There was obviously some resentment.

58:14 There was some jealousy.

58:15 Guys that didn't get to take the shot.

58:16 Or, you know, squadrons that weren't on the mission

58:19 or other teams that didn't have anything to do with it.

58:21 Or people that were kept out of the briefing rooms

58:22 that were trying to scroll their way in.

58:24 You know, it even led to you having

58:25 to change squadrons at one point.

58:28 But you wanted to continue your career.

58:30 You didn't just want to do this mission and then bounce out.

58:33 And then again, people were throwing

58:34 the quiet professional thing in your face.

58:36 So just kind of talk through that time period,

58:37 because like, obviously you do this incredible thing,

58:40 a thing that you've said multiple times you wouldn't take

58:42 back, you wouldn't change for the world.

58:44 But now you have this issue where it's like, wait,

58:46 these are my brothers.

58:47 Why are they saying these things?

58:48 Why are they doing these things?

58:49 Even when we, before the mission,

58:52 before we even knew what was happening

58:54 and they're briefing part of a squadron

58:56 and not letting another part of a squadron in.

58:58 And we would come out and say, what are you guys doing?

59:00 And we would say, I honest to God, don't know.

59:02 And they thought we're lying to them.

59:03 That's animosity right there.

59:05 Because here, you know, if I'm a SEAL Team Six guy thinking,

59:08 I thought I was tip of the spear.

59:09 Now I'm not allowed on this part of the tip of the spear

59:11 or whatever the [inaudible].

59:12 And then even think about the squadron that was deployed.

59:15 Like when we went over there, they're already over there.

59:17 Imagine being deployed and they sent someone else over to do it.

59:21 And they were totally professional.

59:22 They welcomed us in, we played cards with them at night

59:25 and they knew we're getting it.

59:27 And they just sucked it up like true professionals.

59:29 Then you get back and it's just, I mean,

59:31 being at that level and being so close to,

59:34 because it didn't really matter who got them.

59:36 It still doesn't matter to me who got them

59:37 as long as the team got them.

59:38 But I can even relate to when I went to a different squadron,

59:42 when I was deployed to Afghanistan 10 months or so,

59:45 maybe not quite that long, after the bin Laden raid,

59:48 I watched on one of the intel feeds

59:50 as another squadron jumped into Somalia

59:52 to rescue Jessica Buchanan.

59:54 And they got an immediate gunfight,

59:56 killed like 22 terrorists, grabbed two hostages and got out.

59:58 I remember watching that and thinking,

1:00:00 why the [inaudible] are we not on that mission?

1:00:02 That jealousy, it's like, wait a minute,

1:00:03 we've been lying a couple of months ago.

1:00:06 But I can relate.

1:00:07 And then when we get back and like the secretary of defense

1:00:11 comes down to talk to us at our command

1:00:12 and we had a guy there who was a master chief,

1:00:14 wasn't on the mission, but he had been at that squatter

1:00:16 for 17 years.

1:00:17 They wouldn't let him in the briefing room.

1:00:19 It's like, guys, this is unnecessary

1:00:22 'cause people are gonna hear the story eventually.

1:00:24 And it just, the animosity's there, we were fine.

1:00:28 I mean, it's one of those things where,

1:00:30 'cause everyone's asking about it

1:00:32 and it turned into one of those who got them.

1:00:33 And like talking to your bartender,

1:00:34 well, don't tell anybody, but you know,

1:00:36 O'Neill shot a blah blah blah.

1:00:37 And then word spreads and weird stuff like we'd be at lunch

1:00:41 at a Mexican joint and all of a sudden,

1:00:43 the key to shots show up and they'll say,

1:00:44 well, this is anonymous, but you know who it's for.

1:00:46 It's like in front of my guys, it's like, come on, guys.

1:00:49 Yeah, I'm not looking for this [inaudible].

1:00:51 And then, you know, it's one of those things

1:00:54 where you can be [inaudible], but then extortion one seven

1:00:56 that he'll get shot down, we lose 31 guys.

1:00:58 And it's like, I mean, we went from the best time

1:01:01 of our life to the absolute worst,

1:01:03 planning missions to planning funerals.

1:01:05 And it just, I mean, I'm not blaming anything on that,

1:01:08 but that was the attitude, morale's an all-time low.

1:01:12 And I, like I said, I wasn't getting,

1:01:14 I did decide I was gonna go get out,

1:01:16 but I wanted to deploy one more time to prove that,

1:01:19 you know, I came in through the front door,

1:01:20 I'm leaving through the front door.

1:01:22 So we did have some meetings with some senior guys.

1:01:24 One of the master chiefs from the other squadron,

1:01:29 Silver Squadron, was a red team guy.

1:01:32 And he said, why don't you come to play with us?

1:01:33 We need a team leader, we had a guy get hurt.

1:01:35 So I did that one more time just to, you know,

1:01:39 one more time at war, you know,

1:01:40 I got to shoot more guys with the same gun that killed in London,

1:01:42 which I think is weird.

1:01:44 And then I told him him getting out.

1:01:46 And I, you know, I got out August of 2012,

1:01:49 but a little year after the raid.

1:01:51 - Yeah, but it's interesting to hear you talk about

1:01:54 that time period and how that's affected you moving forward.

1:01:57 But it seems like you've come to a certain level of peace

1:01:59 with some of those relationships

1:02:00 and some of those things that have happened.

1:02:01 And at the end of the day,

1:02:02 it goes back to something I said earlier,

1:02:03 which is control the controllables.

1:02:05 And you can't control how the people can act.

1:02:07 And so, and you get into that in the latest book as well,

1:02:09 but there are a few quotes from the way forward

1:02:12 that I went to put back to back to back here

1:02:14 because I know that my audience is going to be curious

1:02:16 about this, so I wanted to kind of throw it at you.

1:02:17 So you have this quote after you kill your first deer

1:02:20 and it's this, when I killed him,

1:02:22 my first thought was I'm in the club.

1:02:24 It was a similar feeling to when I shot my first deer.

1:02:26 I wasn't sure if I felt bad about killing my first buck,

1:02:29 but it was a rite of passage.

1:02:30 I was a hunter.

1:02:31 When I killed that man,

1:02:32 I wasn't sure if I felt bad about that either.

1:02:34 I mentally recorded the milestone and said to myself,

1:02:37 this is what I do now.

1:02:38 And then you have this quote after your last kill overseas

1:02:42 on your last deployment.

1:02:43 When it was done, I felt nothing.

1:02:46 There was no adrenaline, there was no fear,

1:02:48 killing it become routine.

1:02:49 That was the moment on that steep Afghan roadside

1:02:52 with a cigar smoldering in my mouth

1:02:53 that it became clear to me that it was my time to retire.

1:02:57 And then one last quote here in the same vein,

1:02:59 "I killed a lot of people in Iraq and Afghanistan,

1:03:02 "a lot more than the one I'm most famous for."

1:03:04 And I will tell you this,

1:03:05 being responsible for so much death is a burden

1:03:08 that I wish upon no one.

1:03:10 So those quotes in that sentiment, Rob,

1:03:13 reminded me of whenever I talked to Dakota

1:03:15 about some of these same things.

1:03:17 It reminds me when I've talked to some other friends

1:03:19 of ours that I won't mention on air here

1:03:20 that I mentioned before, but yeah, before the interview.

1:03:23 And it's the same sentiment with all of you.

1:03:26 It's not that chest beating.

1:03:27 I did this kind of the guy you mentioned earlier

1:03:29 that I love kicking doors down shooting people thing,

1:03:31 but describe that burden because this was in warfare.

1:03:36 It's not like you're killing for the mob.

1:03:38 You're not a gun for hire,

1:03:39 but it has this tremendous burden.

1:03:41 It's got to hang from your soul.

1:03:42 It just doesn't hang from your brain, right?

1:03:44 - Yeah, I mean, like we said, when we first got there

1:03:48 and a lot of the guys you mentioned too,

1:03:49 we all wanted to be a part of the club

1:03:50 because we'd heard about the guys that have been in combat

1:03:52 and we've been training for combat close to it,

1:03:54 but never in it.

1:03:55 And once you get it, now you're part of the,

1:03:57 okay, I'm part of the guys.

1:03:58 And that's what we do.

1:04:00 And you get more and you kill more people

1:04:05 and it's just, you stop counting after a while,

1:04:08 but then you get just numb to it.

1:04:11 Like I stopped getting adrenaline and gun fights.

1:04:13 Not necessarily, well, like when I'd be walking into a place

1:04:17 and all of a sudden there's gunfire,

1:04:19 all I meant was the night just got a little more exciting.

1:04:21 It wasn't like the big adrenaline rush or anything.

1:04:23 And then I realized that's complacency kills

1:04:26 and complacency is caused by success.

1:04:28 You have a tendency to say,

1:04:29 this is the way we've always done it.

1:04:31 And the unfortunate truth is a bullet

1:04:32 only needs to be right once.

1:04:34 But again, too, like the day I got out of the Navy,

1:04:37 it's not like I had severe PTSD.

1:04:39 It's when you get five years away from it.

1:04:41 And the realization it's a small world.

1:04:44 And you can, it's one thing from watching war on your TV

1:04:48 to realizing you can be there in 15 hours.

1:04:50 And then these are real people with real houses.

1:04:53 And most people in awards are just trying

1:04:54 to get on with their lives.

1:04:55 A lot of people carrying guns

1:04:56 are just trying to protect themselves.

1:04:58 They're not insurgents.

1:04:59 And they're just, they're in the middle of dealing with,

1:05:02 well, do I cooperate with the Americans

1:05:05 or do I cooperate with Al Qaeda?

1:05:07 I can't do both 'cause one of the sides is gonna kill me.

1:05:09 And just the human element.

1:05:11 Everyone thinks they're right.

1:05:16 Everything from, it's almost like now with Iraq.

1:05:19 We invaded Iraq and killed hundreds of thousands of people

1:05:22 for what?

1:05:23 Because some politician wanted to get revenge

1:05:25 'cause someone tried to kill their dad.

1:05:26 What was that all about?

1:05:29 You know, and even nowadays you'd notice the war hawks in DC,

1:05:33 man.

1:05:34 They sure love a war from the belt win.

1:05:35 They're [inaudible] Thai.

1:05:36 It really puts a human element to it.

1:05:39 It's not a game.

1:05:41 And it's just, it's a weird, that's where, you know,

1:05:44 a lot of people you notice kind of get back to their faith

1:05:46 and someone else's faith in the realization that

1:05:49 [inaudible], maybe we're all wrong and we're all right.

1:05:52 - Yeah, it's a rough thing that has to weigh on you,

1:05:55 especially in light of what we've seen,

1:05:57 especially in the news as of late and some of the issues

1:06:00 going on in the Middle East.

1:06:01 But in the way forward, you and Dakota both talk about

1:06:04 the fact that you have quite a few kills

1:06:06 and you and Dakota both of which I found interesting

1:06:09 that you both have a similar story.

1:06:11 You described seeing the face of a single combatant

1:06:14 from each of your careers.

1:06:15 Okay, so he describes that, you know, the Taliban fighter

1:06:18 that he ended up killing with Iraq.

1:06:19 And you described the face of a man from Bakubah, Iraq.

1:06:23 And so I like the way that you told the story.

1:06:25 So I'll just kind of tee you up for it.

1:06:26 So tell us about this man because of all the faces

1:06:28 you've seen, people would be like,

1:06:29 oh, he's obviously going to close his eyes at night

1:06:31 and see the face of Osama bin Laden

1:06:33 or some other high value target.

1:06:34 But it's this one man in Bakubah.

1:06:36 So tell us what happened and what wide sticks in your brain.

1:06:39 - It was the house that we hit that happened to be,

1:06:40 I mean, there was uncertainty in the house.

1:06:42 And he was the second guy, I think, I killed in the house.

1:06:46 'Cause we made an entry on this big, like open living room

1:06:51 and they had to engage the first guy in there.

1:06:53 And then I went to, some guys are clearing to my right.

1:06:56 So I'm going to the left.

1:06:57 And one of the rooms was, turned out to be a bedroom.

1:07:00 And I sort of made an entry by myself,

1:07:01 which you shouldn't do that [inaudible],

1:07:03 but some things changed.

1:07:05 And I went in and there was a dude in bed with his wife.

1:07:07 And I'm trying to make movement on him.

1:07:09 And he sort of woke up and he started like throwing kicks

1:07:14 and [inaudible].

1:07:14 And I wanted to give him the courtesy.

1:07:18 You just woke up, you're drowsy.

1:07:20 I can take a few kicks.

1:07:22 And then there's a gun next to him.

1:07:23 And I remember something like, come on, don't do it.

1:07:26 Don't do it and he went for it.

1:07:28 And then I'm looking right, I'm as close

1:07:30 as you can be to a person and then had to shoot him.

1:07:33 And then just the realization, like, you know,

1:07:34 one minute there's dude sleeping next to his wife

1:07:35 and the next minute she sees him with his face blown open.

1:07:38 And it's one of those things like, you know,

1:07:41 he went for his gun.

1:07:42 So I'm well within my rules of engagement,

1:07:43 but I wonder if there was a different way

1:07:45 we could handle that, you know?

1:07:46 And again, at the time, [inaudible] him.

1:07:48 He's al Qaeda, but now it's like, well, was he?

1:07:51 It's like, and 'cause again, it's at some point,

1:07:55 for me anyway, it was everything was America apple pie

1:07:58 defending freedom to constitution.

1:08:00 But now it's like, I mean, this guy's bedroom.

1:08:02 And you just, you want, you know, and again,

1:08:04 perfectly within my rules of engagement,

1:08:06 I never murdered anybody.

1:08:08 And everyone, like, even when I joke,

1:08:10 like everyone I killed had it coming.

1:08:12 But you just, you know, it doesn't, you know,

1:08:14 late at night when you're having a scotch at 8.30 p.m.

1:08:16 when the lights are out and it's like, hmm.

1:08:19 - Well, and you've had a lot of time to chew

1:08:21 on these things and that's what you said earlier.

1:08:23 It's not the immediacy of like, okay,

1:08:24 you're still in deployment and you're thinking about it

1:08:26 when you get back, you know, to your bed

1:08:27 or something like that.

1:08:28 But the thing that I'm curious about,

1:08:30 because you mentioned, you mentioned God in this podcast,

1:08:33 you know, you've talked about, you know, a plan.

1:08:35 I've know that you've given speeches at churches

1:08:36 even here recently and you made a nice funny comment

1:08:38 about Joel Osteen and Lamborghinis.

1:08:40 So I appreciated that.

1:08:42 I am very curious about your own personal faith here

1:08:45 because I know that there are guys that you and I both know

1:08:48 that are in that community that are very much so

1:08:50 on the agnostic atheist side.

1:08:52 They don't really care about that.

1:08:53 They don't really see God in their work.

1:08:54 And then there are other people that are incredibly,

1:08:57 incredibly devout.

1:08:58 And so in your books, you will allude to it,

1:09:00 but you don't really go into your personal faith.

1:09:02 So if you had to kind of put your flag in the ground,

1:09:04 somewhere, where are you?

1:09:06 - Well, I'm Catholic and it's funny that I like to joke

1:09:11 with people because like one of my jokes,

1:09:13 I said this in the South on an altar once.

1:09:17 They didn't go over, well, one of my jokes is,

1:09:18 you know, I was raised Catholic and I was Catholic

1:09:20 until I reached the age of reason.

1:09:23 - Oh yeah, how did you expect that to go well?

1:09:25 I mean, come on.

1:09:26 - I was messing with them.

1:09:28 No, but the point that I make too is I think that a,

1:09:32 like I said before, it's possible that as far as God goes

1:09:38 that we're all right and we're all wrong,

1:09:39 that maybe we don't possess the medical capacity

1:09:43 to understand what it is.

1:09:44 But I mean, if you look around,

1:09:45 there's no way God's not out there,

1:09:48 but it's just a question of how much interference

1:09:50 did man have with the word.

1:09:52 So like I said, I'm Catholic, I say the rosary,

1:09:56 but I'm also, I mean, Muslims know they're right

1:10:00 and Hindus know they're right,

1:10:03 Southern Baptists know they're right,

1:10:04 Catholics know they're right, maybe we're all right.

1:10:07 And I just think, you know, as opposed to killing each other

1:10:09 over some, we can't necessarily prove,

1:10:10 maybe just a little bit of understanding.

1:10:12 That's kind of where I'm at.

1:10:13 And I don't preach too much, it's more of that,

1:10:16 the more of, I think that if you're truly good

1:10:19 to one another, you're gonna be just fine.

1:10:21 - And so as a quick follow-up to that,

1:10:22 and I asked a similar question to a mutual friend of ours,

1:10:25 I keep alluding to that,

1:10:26 I sound so [inaudible] now that I hear myself saying it out loud.

1:10:28 Oh, you know all my friends that are your friends?

1:10:30 - Yeah, but it's important you say that too,

1:10:31 because if people knew here talk 'em

1:10:33 and you see these people, these complete badasses,

1:10:36 you gotta realize they're also smart, like it.

1:10:40 - Yeah, well, there are layers to people as well,

1:10:42 but so from your perspective,

1:10:45 obviously it's a little bit of a universalist

1:10:47 been in terms of like, maybe everybody's right,

1:10:49 but do you think it's knowable?

1:10:52 Which way of thinking about the spiritual world is correct?

1:10:56 Because there is a pantheon,

1:10:58 but the differences between Islam and Christianity are vast

1:11:01 because they think Jesus was a prophet

1:11:03 that didn't die on the cross, he swooned,

1:11:06 and then Christians obviously think

1:11:07 he was the resurrected savior, right?

1:11:09 And that's what I tend to believe.

1:11:10 Do you think it's actually knowable

1:11:12 or do you feel like it's all completely about faith?

1:11:14 - Well, I don't know, I mean,

1:11:15 there's probably a lot about faith,

1:11:17 because I mean, you gotta figure the, if you sit

1:11:19 with a room full of kids and you whisper in one ear

1:11:21 and you keep telling everyone it's gonna be a different

1:11:23 word by the time it gets to you,

1:11:24 you know, how the whole thing changes.

1:11:26 You know, you gotta figure a lot of scripture and stuff

1:11:29 was never written down, it was told by mouth.

1:11:31 So some of the moderate Muslims, I know said it,

1:11:34 you know, the word came here, it was bastardized by man

1:11:37 and then the prophet Muhammad fixed it or whatever.

1:11:40 But again, I don't think we're supposed to understand

1:11:43 all of it, but I mean, if your religion is based on violence,

1:11:46 you're probably working for the devil.

1:11:48 If you're not out there to kill someone based on,

1:11:51 he doesn't believe what you believe

1:11:52 so you should cut his head off, you're wrong, I would say.

1:11:55 And again, I think it's not, I'm not trying to simplify it,

1:11:58 I just think I'm trying to say it's more complex

1:11:59 and we can just nail it down, say, this is the truth.

1:12:02 Because if you look at the history of religion too,

1:12:04 some religious decisions were made based

1:12:06 on someone individual greed.

1:12:08 So it's, you know, but I think the,

1:12:10 I hope the nucleus of all of it is about peace

1:12:14 and getting along because, and the good news is too,

1:12:17 I travel a lot, I talk to a lot of people face-to-face,

1:12:19 most people are good, I've had Muslims come up to me

1:12:22 and seriously say thank you for what you did

1:12:24 because that brand of that version of Islam

1:12:28 is a stain on what Islam is.

1:12:29 So it's, I mean, most people are good,

1:12:31 most people are not like Twitter,

1:12:32 they're real really good people.

1:12:34 - Yeah, I'm sure that was a crazy compliment

1:12:36 to get from someone like that.

1:12:37 And the thing that I would encourage you to do

1:12:38 and where most of this starts for a lot of people

1:12:40 that I've had this conversation with

1:12:41 is it starts with the resurrection of Jesus.

1:12:43 Either that happened or it didn't.

1:12:44 There's no opinions on that.

1:12:45 That's either historical fact or it's not.

1:12:47 And so the further that you dive into that,

1:12:49 the further you see that the evidence for that is fairly good.

1:12:52 So to transition now a little bit Rob

1:12:54 into something a little bit different

1:12:55 because when Afghanistan fell in last year,

1:12:59 I immediately reached out to everyone I knew

1:13:02 that had any attachment to Afghanistan or the military

1:13:05 or Gold Star widows to get their thoughts on what happened.

1:13:08 And, you know, we got these kind of like small snippets

1:13:10 of time I even talked to a gal that was on the ground there

1:13:13 when Afghanistan fell Holly McKay

1:13:15 and kind of got her story.

1:13:17 But for you and a lot of your buddies,

1:13:20 you shed a lot of blood in Afghanistan.

1:13:22 You had blood shed in Afghanistan.

1:13:23 There are brothers of yours that you lost in Afghanistan

1:13:26 and you talk about it in both books.

1:13:27 You talk about on the way forward

1:13:28 that the United States is great starting wars

1:13:30 but we're really, really bad at ending them.

1:13:32 And then in the operator,

1:13:33 you talk about how most Afghans,

1:13:34 especially the tribal Afghans,

1:13:35 they don't think like we do.

1:13:37 Like they don't want our version of democracy

1:13:39 and all these different things.

1:13:40 But for you, when you saw things falling apart

1:13:43 and when you saw what happened,

1:13:45 I know you're a very outspoken political guy as well,

1:13:47 but what were your thoughts as to kind of what happened

1:13:49 when we botched Afghanistan like that?

1:13:52 - It was 100% predictable and 100% preventable.

1:13:55 You don't need, what I said in the operator was

1:13:58 we were great at starting wars.

1:14:00 The reason we lose wars is because we get politicians

1:14:02 and lawyers involved.

1:14:03 And that's the worst thing you can do ever,

1:14:04 especially getting politicians involved.

1:14:06 I can't really think of anything politicians have ever solved.

1:14:09 They're really good at making things bigger.

1:14:10 And that's about it.

1:14:11 And then obviously taking a kickback.

1:14:13 When, if we took, for example, the bin Laden team

1:14:18 and put them in a room and said,

1:14:20 come up with the worst plan possible

1:14:23 right now to get out of Afghanistan,

1:14:25 we would have come up with exactly what they did.

1:14:28 - Man, immediately give away Bagram Airfield

1:14:31 and immediately give away Jalalabad, run away,

1:14:34 get all of the military out

1:14:35 and then let the other people fend for themselves

1:14:38 and just the nonsense seeing the military has a tendency

1:14:43 to lie to each other up the chain of command.

1:14:45 I'm going to tell my boss what he wants to hear

1:14:47 so I can get promoted.

1:14:48 And so they're trying to tell them,

1:14:50 yeah, the Afghan army is ready to fight.

1:14:52 We've been training him for 20 years or whatever.

1:14:55 Anyone who worked with the Afghan army said

1:14:57 they're going to fall in three days.

1:14:59 There's no doubt about it.

1:15:00 We couldn't even get these guys to show up for work,

1:15:02 like to train because they're lazy.

1:15:06 They're in it for the money, they don't really care.

1:15:08 Their hearts not in it.

1:15:10 Whereas the Taliban, they're hearts in it.

1:15:12 And Al Qaeda, they're hearts in it

1:15:13 because they're fighting, like they said,

1:15:14 they're fighting for what they believe in.

1:15:17 And just the way they, whoever thought

1:15:19 that giving the Taliban control of external security,

1:15:22 they're going to send a suicide bomber in,

1:15:25 it's so easy for them to say,

1:15:26 oh, that wasn't us, that was Al Qaeda, that was ISIS.

1:15:29 The ISIS Al Qaeda thing in Afghanistan are the same dudes.

1:15:31 They carry a different flag.

1:15:32 It didn't change, they're just the warlords.

1:15:35 And just, the only guy that got in trouble

1:15:38 was a colonel who called them out, a stateside.

1:15:41 General, Millie didn't get in trouble,

1:15:42 they didn't come to get in trouble,

1:15:44 these horrible decisions didn't get in trouble.

1:15:45 And then we forget about it.

1:15:46 13 lives were lost in the blink of an eye,

1:15:48 preventable, predictable.

1:15:49 We could have told you that's going to happen.

1:15:51 But these people, I mean, no one's held responsible.

1:15:55 Their eyes not on the ball, they'll tell you right now

1:15:58 the first concern of national defense is climate change.

1:16:01 All right, I mean, that's how you lose the China

1:16:04 and Russia right there.

1:16:05 Well, even with that in mind, as I'm watching the military,

1:16:07 again, as a non-veteran, that's one part of my life

1:16:10 that I really wish I could go back and fix.

1:16:12 But I am where I am, this is where God has me at this time.

1:16:14 But you hear about the wokeness in the military

1:16:16 at an Air Force guy sent me an email that he got

1:16:20 from the United States military,

1:16:22 basically training them on how to put their pronouns

1:16:24 in their signature on their email.

1:16:27 There's the lowering of standards

1:16:28 for the special operators, trying to get females in

1:16:32 or trying to get a wider swath of people,

1:16:34 firing soldiers that are unvaxed.

1:16:36 Like all these different things, when I look at it,

1:16:38 I'm like, the world is better when America is strong,

1:16:41 but all the signals we're sending from our strength,

1:16:43 which is our United States military,

1:16:45 is we're really, really concerned about having, you know,

1:16:48 gender-queer, purple-headed trans people,

1:16:50 like in the military, as opposed to having

1:16:53 the most lethal military possible.

1:16:55 So what are your thoughts on that, obviously,

1:16:57 because you're at the top tier of the United States military

1:17:00 to see what it's kind of devolving to right now?

1:17:02 It shouldn't be an, the military should not be

1:17:05 an experimentation ground, which it is.

1:17:07 And they're concentrating on craft that's not important.

1:17:10 The military, one of my favorite acronyms is kiss.

1:17:13 Keep it simple, stupid.

1:17:14 And what military should be able to do

1:17:16 is shoot, move, and communicate.

1:17:18 Go in somewhere, crush things, kill people, and win.

1:17:21 And that's it, and I saw it come,

1:17:23 and when I was leaving the Navy in 2012,

1:17:27 I was in Afghanistan, I'm sitting in a room full of seals.

1:17:30 And we're watching the news, and the thing at the time

1:17:33 was repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell,

1:17:35 which isn't a big deal.

1:17:36 And we're sitting there, and they're making

1:17:38 a huge deal out of this, and we're doing training online

1:17:41 of all this, and I'm looking at my guys,

1:17:42 knowing damn well some of my guys are gay.

1:17:45 And I said, do any of you care if anyone's gay,

1:17:50 or the color of their skin?

1:17:51 And I was like, no, as long as they can live up

1:17:54 to the standards, I don't give a [inaudible].

1:17:56 No one cares.

1:17:56 It's the politicians that make it something.

1:17:58 I don't care what you look like or where you're from,

1:18:00 like I said, if we don't load the standards

1:18:02 and you can get in there, they get in there,

1:18:03 get in the fight, fine.

1:18:05 But stop throwing this nonsense.

1:18:06 They're concentrating on [inaudible], that's not important.

1:18:08 It's busy work, they're putting busy work in there,

1:18:11 and the eye is off the ball.

1:18:12 And we're gonna learn it the hard way,

1:18:13 either getting attacked through our southern border,

1:18:15 or when China decides to crush us.

1:18:18 - Yeah, it's a shocking thing to see,

1:18:20 and I hope that we can change it,

1:18:21 but you mentioned it earlier,

1:18:22 we have a lot of these higher ups,

1:18:23 a lot of these generals and things like that.

1:18:25 They keep failing upwards.

1:18:27 And then whenever they roll out of the military,

1:18:28 they roll right onto a board of directors

1:18:31 for one of these military contractors and all that.

1:18:33 It's just, it's an absolutely crazy thing,

1:18:35 and we could spend the rest of the day talking about it,

1:18:36 but I did wanna move on as we work towards the end here.

1:18:39 I wanna talk about fatherhood a little bit,

1:18:40 because that's a theme that comes

1:18:42 through a couple of your books,

1:18:43 because you personally have a very unique relationship

1:18:46 with your dad, you know, you connected over basketball,

1:18:48 and I loved how you described it in the book.

1:18:50 And in the operator, you have this quote

1:18:52 from when you were writing about your time in buds,

1:18:54 you said this, "I would never quit, I was certain of that.

1:18:58 "Everyone I knew back home told me I couldn't do it.

1:19:00 "There was no way in hell I was going to put my father's name

1:19:04 "in the line of quitters.

1:19:05 "He was the only one who believed in me."

1:19:07 And it's like, like as a father of a young son

1:19:09 and another son of a way, it's like,

1:19:11 I'm almost getting choked up even thinking about that quote,

1:19:13 but you also talked about in the operator,

1:19:15 you described calling your dad

1:19:17 right before you went on the Bin Laden mission.

1:19:19 And obviously you couldn't be like,

1:19:20 "Hey dad, this is Operation Neptune Spear.

1:19:22 "I'm gonna go try to kill the big guy."

1:19:24 Like you couldn't say anything,

1:19:25 but your dad could sense that something was a ride,

1:19:28 something was not normal.

1:19:29 He knew what you did for a living,

1:19:30 but that something was different.

1:19:32 But even after the mission, when he heard the news

1:19:34 that Bin Laden was killed, he heard it on the news,

1:19:37 like the rest of us did,

1:19:38 he could sense that you were the one

1:19:41 that took down Osama Bin Laden.

1:19:42 Again, a very interesting connection

1:19:44 between you and your dad, but for you as a father,

1:19:47 obviously you and your dad

1:19:48 spend a lot of time together growing up,

1:19:50 but with your children by virtue of your job

1:19:52 for large swaths of their life, daddy was gone.

1:19:55 Daddy was off training and doing workouts

1:19:57 and deployed and all those different things.

1:19:59 So just give me your overall thoughts on fatherhood,

1:20:02 what you took from daddy O'Neill

1:20:04 and kind of how you put that into how you are a dad today.

1:20:07 - Well, it's difficult for me now

1:20:08 because just because for security issues,

1:20:10 I have stuff in place that I can't talk about.

1:20:13 So they're not with me right now.

1:20:15 I get to see them now and then,

1:20:16 but just the awareness, the situational awareness

1:20:19 that I, for some reason had always taught my kids,

1:20:22 walking through airports.

1:20:23 I would, little things like I would hand them the tickets,

1:20:26 which when they're five years old,

1:20:27 take me to the gate, where are we going, what's the flight?

1:20:31 Teaching them how to do that.

1:20:31 So now they're able to, you know,

1:20:33 when I meet them, they fly cross country by themselves

1:20:35 and, you know, they're teenagers.

1:20:37 But just from an early age, you know,

1:20:39 the helicopter parenting is not gonna help.

1:20:42 It's okay to get dirty.

1:20:44 Sometimes it's gonna hurt.

1:20:46 You're gonna fail but learn from a stuff like that.

1:20:48 So we're there now and I'm fortunate with my girls.

1:20:51 They, for some reason, girls always love their dad.

1:20:54 So I'm rarely in a doghouse, but sometimes,

1:20:56 but yeah, just, you know, like every parent will say,

1:21:00 time flies, so take advantage of every moment with them.

1:21:03 You know, put the iPhone down and, you know,

1:21:06 teach them how to play chess or something like that.

1:21:09 Just something cool.

1:21:10 Teach them how to swim.

1:21:11 - Yeah, get engaged.

1:21:12 Well, I gotta say too, 'cause you mentioned this

1:21:14 in both books and when you read through some of your stories

1:21:17 and some of the missions and even some missions

1:21:18 that we didn't even discuss,

1:21:19 like the biggest firefight you were ever in.

1:21:20 We didn't even talk about on this show.

1:21:22 A lot of the stuff that you've done seems too good

1:21:24 to be true, like that's impossible.

1:21:26 How could that ever happen?

1:21:27 But did you really make 105 free throws in a row?

1:21:31 'Cause I think you're full of crap

1:21:32 because like I think the most I've ever done

1:21:33 was like six or seven, 105.

1:21:36 - Yeah, you know, it's funny is the only one

1:21:38 that saw it was my father and he'd lie to the death for me.

1:21:42 But no, we had a competition where when my,

1:21:46 when my basketball season ended,

1:21:49 our basketball season started 'til next season.

1:21:51 And we would play every day, two, three hours a day.

1:21:53 And the rule was we don't leave the gym

1:21:55 until one of us makes 20 in a row.

1:21:57 And so he played at the University of Montana.

1:21:59 So he's a really good basketball player.

1:22:01 So we would, you know, you start on a make

1:22:03 and then the other guy rebounds.

1:22:05 And we can't leave 'til we make one of us makes 20,

1:22:08 which was pretty easy at the time.

1:22:10 And also at the beginning of the season,

1:22:12 20 was a steak at the Derby.

1:22:14 So I make 20 free throws, leave the gym 20 for a steak.

1:22:17 But every time you get the steak, it goes up to 25.

1:22:19 And then 30, it goes up by increments of five.

1:22:20 So we could be at like 20 to leave the gym at 45 for a steak.

1:22:24 You can still leave the gym, but don't get 45.

1:22:26 But we got to a point where I want to say

1:22:28 he made 89 or 91 in a row,

1:22:31 which was the family record for like a week and a half.

1:22:33 And then the next week I made 105.

1:22:36 But it's almost one of those, you kind of get in a zone.

1:22:39 And it's like, it's like, it's like with shooting.

1:22:42 Do everything like you do anything.

1:22:43 You want to be good at something, do it 1,000 times.

1:22:45 You want to be great, do it 10,000 times.

1:22:47 So it's like bringing the pistol from your holster

1:22:49 and the same movements.

1:22:50 This one's here, you know, dribble, dribble,

1:22:51 dribble, spin, bend your knee up and out.

1:22:53 And like the argument was, do you watch the ball

1:22:56 or do you watch the rim?

1:22:57 I would always watch the rim.

1:22:58 He would always watch the ball.

1:22:59 That's just how we do it.

1:23:01 But so you just kind of get in a zone, you hit it

1:23:03 and you want to pass the guy the ball back.

1:23:05 So the lines are spinning.

1:23:07 I don't want to screw with it.

1:23:08 And you only dribble the first time and you just keeps shooting.

1:23:11 And I remember being euphoric until 105,

1:23:15 but boy, I was [inaudible] at 106 when I hit the front of him.

1:23:18 Yeah, that's what happened.

1:23:19 I'm not there now.

1:23:20 I can get 20 in a day, maybe, but...

1:23:24 - That's just crazy.

1:23:25 I'm like, what's funny about that

1:23:26 is a lot of people don't understand that.

1:23:28 That you were [inaudible] that you missed the 106 shot.

1:23:31 Dude, I totally get it.

1:23:32 It's like, you're in the zone, you just want to stay there.

1:23:34 But, you know, it was bound to stop eventually.

1:23:36 But kind of the last question of the day,

1:23:37 obviously you've got a lot of stuff

1:23:38 we've talked a lot about your career.

1:23:40 But what do you up to now aside

1:23:41 from being a best-selling author?

1:23:43 - The beer company is awesome.

1:23:45 We have a veteran owned beer company

1:23:46 called Armed Forces Brewing Company.

1:23:48 And we're coming up with a new...

1:23:50 Well, it's all based off of the military.

1:23:53 So we have the...

1:23:55 We have Cat Shot Beer for aviators off the carrier.

1:24:00 We have Jar Head Beer.

1:24:01 We have Soldier Beer for special operators.

1:24:04 We have Special Hops, which is fun.

1:24:05 So Armed Forces Brewing Company.

1:24:07 You can check it out.

1:24:08 It's got cool investment opportunities, stuff like that.

1:24:11 My apparel shop, RJ apparel.

1:24:15 Frontward Enemy is one of our keep it simple,

1:24:16 stupid mentalities where,

1:24:19 on the front of a claymore, it says Frontward Enemy.

1:24:20 Just point this at the enemy.

1:24:22 Don't point it at yourself.

1:24:23 So this is a kind of a metaphor for life.

1:24:25 You got a problem, just face it.

1:24:26 Frontward Enemy, things like that.

1:24:28 Some public speaking stuff.

1:24:30 I'm gonna start a podcast pretty soon.

1:24:33 Stuff like that.

1:24:34 So, robertjoneal.com.

1:24:35 All my speaking opportunities, stuff like that.

1:24:38 All right, and all that will be in the show notes, guys.

1:24:40 So you can check that out.

1:24:40 But we've gone everywhere in this conversation.

1:24:42 I really appreciate you getting into all the detail

1:24:44 that you did.

1:24:45 But that's all for me.

1:24:46 Is there anything else you wanna get off your chest?

1:24:47 - I appreciate it, Kyle.

1:24:48 Thank you very much.

1:24:49 - Robo Neil.

1:24:50 Thank you for coming on Undaunted Life of Man's podcast.

1:24:51 - Cool, man.

1:24:52 Thanks.

1:24:54 - There you go, guys.

1:24:54 I hope you enjoyed my interview with Robo Neil.

1:24:56 But before we let you go,

1:24:57 we are gonna do a quick resilience boost.

1:24:59 Add Undaunted Life.

1:24:59 Our mission is equipping men to push back darkness

1:25:01 with content that for just spiritual,

1:25:03 mental and physical resilience.

1:25:04 So here are the links I've got for you today.

1:25:05 I've got a link to Robert's website. So if you wanna get to him

1:25:08 via social or get him to come speak at your event,

1:25:10 all those things you can do that through the website.

1:25:12 I've also got a link to both of his books.

1:25:13 So the way forward and the operator.

1:25:15 And then we've got the Armed Forces Brewing Company

1:25:17 that he mentioned there at the end of the interview.

1:25:19 All right, guys. Thanks so much for listening to this podcast.

1:25:20 We do appreciate it wherever you're listening to this.

1:25:22 Please subscribe, rate and leave us a positive five-star review.

1:25:25 If you want me to come speak live at your event

1:25:27 or on your podcast, just shoot me an email to info@Undaunted.life.

1:25:30 That's I-N-F-O @Undaunted.life.

1:25:33 You can follow us on Instagram and TikTok

1:25:34 and like us on Facebook and check out our website

1:25:36 for everything else, including how to donate

1:25:38 to keep more content like this coming your way.

1:25:39 Just go to www.Undaunted.life.

1:25:42 And we also wanna thank the band August Burns Red

1:25:44 for allowing us to use their music for our content.

1:25:46 The music on this podcast is our song, "Cutting the Ties,"

1:25:49 which is off their 10th anniversary

1:25:50 re-recording of their album leveler.

1:25:52 The links are in the description.

1:25:54 I'm your host, Kyle Thompson.

1:25:56 Remember, keep pushing back darkness,

1:25:59 keep forging spiritual, mental and physical resilience,

1:26:03 and keep seeking the lion of Judah.

1:26:06 (upbeat music)

1:26:33 (upbeat music)