TERRY WILSON | From Green Beret to Kingdom Man (Ep. 889)

Let's be honest, most men drift. We wake up, we scroll, we work, and then we just rinse and repeat. And we know we're softer than we should be. That's why I built the 31-day resilience reset. This is not a devotional. It is a field manual for men ready to stop drifting and start fighting back. So, for 31 days, you'll train your spirit, mind, and body with scripture, prayer, and daily challenges that forge real resilience. Go to www.undaunted.life/31. life/31day to download this resource for free. That's undaunted.life/31day. Start your reset today. This is Undaunted Life, a man's podcast. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Let's get into it. Terry, welcome to Oklahoma. How are you? >> Good, good. Glad to be here. >> Okay, if you had to guess, because we went to a Brazilian steakhouse last night. If you had to guess just how much beef, how much red meat we ate last night. Like how many ounces do you think we put down? Because they were a little slow bringing it out. So, we kept having a little bit of time to digest before they would bring it back. But like I think we ate well over a pound each. >> That's what I was thinking. If I had to guess, it was probably about a pound, I would say. >> Well, and I got to give people a peak behind the curtain. told you this should be an embarrassing story, but for whatever reason I don't think it is because when you go to a Brazilian steakhouse, like if you've never been, guys, out there in audience land, you know, you've got the little green tab, red tab, right? And so they bring out the the meat on these big skewers and as long as your tab is on green, they will keep coming to your table offering you, you know, the different meats like the pana or the, you know, the tri tip or the the fillet or the the chicken, which you got to skip. That's a pro tip. But I have literally gone to the bathroom and did a number two in the middle of a Brazilian steakhouse experience just so I could keep eating. That's like how good it was. And people are like, "That's that's embarrassing. You shouldn't tell anybody that." But I'm proud of it. It's like, "Hey, I ate probably ate like three lbs of beef that night." We weren't quite We weren't quite at that level last night, though. >> No, I don't think so. >> It could have been. >> Yeah. Always skip the salad bar also. So that's >> Yeah, that's the other thing. They got the they always have the big fancy salad bars and they always light them up to where it's almost like you're drawn towards them like you want to go over there and do all that. But no, they're trying to fill you up with bread and all that nonsense so you won't eat as much of the meat. But um what's funny is as I was thinking about this interview uh because we were hanging out last night having some cigars and doing all that. Why are either one of us friends with Chad Robo? I don't quite understand it. The guy is like a psychopath. And even recently, he decided he needed to cut off his own pinky toe. For what reason? I I can't fully surmise, but I just like I'm trying to re-evaluate my relationships in life. And like Chad's one of the ones at the top where I'm like, does this really need to continue? I just don't even understand cuz that's how you and I got connected initially is because of that psycho. >> Yeah. And I thought that was pretty uh I thought that was pretty uh pretty cool that they let him use uh the half ace blade to to cut the toe off, too. That was pretty cool. >> Well, see the thing with him is he told me because there's always something going on with his toes. I don't know what he's I don't know if he's got a fetish with his own feet or what the thing is, but like a couple years ago I was going down there to be on uh his podcast and to do some training and some stuff with him. And I get down there, he's like, "Oh man, sorry. We're not going to really be able to do any training." I'm like, "Why? What's up? You you hurt?" He's like, "Well, I just burned off all my toenails with acid." And when someone says something like that, I'm like, "All right, was this an accident? Like you you didn't mean to do that?" He's like, "No, no, no." you know, it's kind of a thing in the jiu-jitsu and MMA world. You know, if you, you know, break your toenails or if you have like fungus or blah blah blah and all that. And so, I just decided if I burn them off, I won't have to deal with that anymore. And I'm like, Chad, granted, you had been around the jiu-jitsu and MMA world a lot longer than I have, but at that time, I had been training for, I don't know, 7 years or whatever. I'm like, you are the only human being that I've heard of that has volunteered to have their toenails burned off, like permanently burned off. Like it's just like nubs. >> Yeah. >> Now on the ends of his feet. >> Yeah. I guess if that if that affected a performance, I guess that the only thing I can really think of. >> No, it doesn't affect his performance. I think he just tries to think of random things to cut off or alter on his body. It's like, bro, just get more tattoos. It's like he's got plenty of tattoos. He should probably just get into like body piercings or something like that. Like, but no, he's got to like cut stuff off. But no, like so you know, all kidding aside, you know, you and I were were brought together because of the Church of 11:22 men's worship night, right? Y >> and so Chad was speaking that night and so you were there. So I guess how did you and Chad originally get connected? How did you get connected? >> Me and Chad really kind of just got connected from the podcast, man. I went on his podcast and we just sat there. We hit it off and and from there, you know, we know um Eddie Gallagher Y >> is a good mutual friend. Eddie lives right down the road from us and we just really hit it off, man. From there. >> Yeah. I mean, cuz so Eddie and his wife have been on the show before, talked to him about their crazy situation. Like, one of the many reasons why, thank God, uh, Trump was in office or got into office was uh, him having his situation taken care of. But even just that that night that we were at the church of 11:22, you know, it's 3,000 people like the the entire, you know, San Pablo campus was full. And it was literally men's worship night. And so you got, you know, men singing at the top tops of their lungs, you know, singing to Jesus. Chad came up there and he he went even went way over time because he just kind of like felt the room and was just kind of like, "Hey, you know, he was kept telling stories and, you know, kept kind of leading people back to the gospel." But I'm even just curious for you. I mean, we're going to get into your your whole story, your military career, your upbringing and all the stuff that kind of went into that. But like that's that was weird for me to see. And I've been a I've been a Christian since the te I was a teenager and I've been in the men's ministry space for a long time. But even that, like seeing a room of thousands of men that were throwing their hands up in worship and like leaning forward, you know, they were expectant with what Chad was going to say. It's just weird. Like it's weird to experience a church like that. And so I don't know like, you know, for you if what your experience has been. >> Yeah, I hadn't I hadn't experienced anything like that before. I mean obviously so you know we've kind of talked last night kind of where my walk was and throughout the years and >> um you know I was active duty military so most of my time there was like working so you really didn't have a whole lot of outside connection really with the church or I mean some guys did me I didn't you know what I mean so uh the only guys I really were around were small group of guys that were team guys >> right >> so I had never experienced anything like that before so >> well so we were talking so we were talking last All right. So, you you served 24 years in special forces, correct? So, you were a Green Beret for 24 years. Before that, you were military police. >> And so, well, I guess how many years total would that have been as a as a Green B? >> So, I went into service um in 1999 and I got to my unit in on September 11th of 2000, one year before the towers hit. >> Okay. >> And I was a MP during that time. And I went to the Q course or selection in October of 2004. Right. Only reason why I remember that is because it was the the Cardinals were in the World Series. >> That's right. Let's go. Let's go. They got smoked by smoked by Boston Red Sox. Yeah. That was the only reason. >> Last year Boston was down 303 to the New York Yankees. Stormed back won game seven in New York. But this was the Cardinals year. Like this was peak pooh holes, Scott Roland, Jim Edmonds, Edgar Reia. and they just got dump trucked four games in a row. >> They're normally the ones that come back from behind all the time, you know, and then so like that one there, I remember the Cardinals being the World Series, being their selection and I'm like, "What's going on? >> What's going on?" >> But this is like deeply problematic. I remember I was I was in college at the time and I just remember walking around my campus in complete utter confusion after they got beat because Edgaria grounded out to uh the whoever the closer was for Boston and that broke the curse of the bambino and like you know all that all those things. Okay. So so you're you're going through selection Q course. Well I guess even to back up a little bit further. So, it's always interesting to me why people decide to go to the military because I grew up in lot in Fortzill. So, I was around a bunch of army people, but it's artillery based. So, it's, you know, kind of a little bit different. >> Some people go into the military because they have no other option, right? It's kind of like, hey, we're you're either going to you're going to go to prison eventually or you're going to go go into the military. Some people they know from like very young age like they want to they want to be a commando or they want to do something. They want to, you know, be a pilot. So, what was it for you that kind of like pointed you in that direction? So, I had some interest in there. A lot of my family had been in the military. My grandfather on my mother's side, he was in the Korean War. My grandfather on um my father's side, he was in World War II. He had some jumps during World War II. >> So, my my aunts was in the Marine Corps, my uncle was in the Marine Corps, my father was in the Army for a little bit. So, like there was a good base there. So, I was interested in it, but I never was like, "Oh, I'm going to go." >> Yeah. >> You know, um, now I came from like a low income family. So, we were in a bad situation. Me and my wife, we got married early. So, I went in the military mainly to get my family out of that environment that we're in. And like like me and my wife, like we bought our first house when we were like 18 years old. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. So, uh, you know, we had already had kids, you know, had two kids at that time. So, and I think it was about 20 years old, you know. So, like it was like, "Hey, I I I was mainly doing it to get us out of the situation that we were in." >> Okay. And so, why why army? Because usually when someone has Marine Marine Corps people in their family, it's kind of like, you know, you go Marine Corp. >> So, truthfully, man, I went to the MEP station. The MEP station is where like um or not the MEP station, went to the recruiter first. Yeah. >> And normally recruiters at that time had like the Army, Air Force, Marine Corps, like they were all in the same building, right? So when I showed up, I really didn't have like an idea which one I wanted to go to. The army guy was the one that was there. >> Okay. >> The marine and the air force guy wasn't there. So they were at work today. That day I showed up. Hey, listen. Tell me a little bit about the army. >> Yeah. >> And then kind of went in there. Okay. Looked at it. You know, at that point I I dropped out of school, so I didn't have my GED. >> So they're like, hey, man, you can't join anything. You have to get your GED, right? Um and they're like, "Hey, listen. You need to get this done. Hey, this is the library. you need to do study this book. This is where you go take the test at. So from there, I went in there and took the test, then come back and then like, okay, now you got to take your ASVAB, which is the ASVAB is like the the military placement test where like how high you you you score depending on what like job you'll end up getting. >> And so why so you were an MP first? Was that first? Yeah. >> So where I guess from that test, where on the scale is MP? So, so on the test, when you take the test, it just goes you you take an ASVAB test and you take a GT test, right? Both of these are just tests. It tells you where your like um educational skills in and your technical skills. Okay? >> Right? So, okay, hey, would you be good at, you know, a technical job? Are you going to be good at administration, you know, combat arms or whatever? Right? So, um the test that I scored, the way they they do that test is you have to score so so high for certain jobs. If you score low, then you're like, "Okay, you can't have these jobs. You can you can you you're qualified for these ones." Doesn't mean you're going to get that job. It just tells you what you're qualified for. So, when you actually go to the MEP station to where they actually put you into the army and you sign up and you raise your hand or whatever, that's where like you'll they'll say, "Okay, hey, these are the jobs are available for you or not." So, when I scored, I scored high enough to get whatever job I wanted. So I I was available for whatever job that you had in the army, but that doesn't mean you'll get it. You go to the MEP station and the >> hey, this is what's available, >> right? So, okay, you go the MP, you go the military police route. >> Yep. >> And so kind of take me through your brain, your brain space at that time cuz you're early 20s, like you're doing this for your family, right? Your brain's not even fully developed yet. You got another few years until your brain's fully developed. >> But like once you got in, like did you did you like the the MP world? Like did you think you would be doing that for a while? Did you kind of have any like aspirations beyond that at the time? >> So at that time not really. So when I man I went to the MEP station and not not even knowing what job that I really wanted. I just want to get my family out of here. This is what success looks like is is getting my family out of the location we're at. So when I showed up to the MEP station, they were like, "Hey, we got um uh a combo guy you can be." And I'm like, so only thing I knew about a combo guy is from like the war movies. like they're the guys that are getting blown up, you know what I mean? Because they have the backpack, you know what I mean? They're the ones getting shot first, you know? >> So, I'm like, "Nope, I don't want to do that." Then they're like, "Uh, infantry." And this was before the war. So, I'm like, "I don't don't want to do infantry with my horror stories I heard from there." And they just go to the motor pool, clean weapons, and that's pretty much it and train. Um, and then they offered me underwater welding, too, which truthfully is like a high high paying job. >> Okay. you know, but I was just like there again, I was trying to like I wanted some kind of like adrenaline something where I was doing and they're like uh uh I was like, "Nope, I don't want to do that." So, I was like, "Hey, listen. You have MP?" And they're like, "No, it's not available." So, I'm like, "Okay, I'm out of here." I actually left the MEP stations. I was walking out, my recruiter calls me and he's like, "Hey, listen. Uh, if you if we can give you MP, will you sign up now?" I'm like, "Yeah, sure. I'll sign up now if you can give me MP." So, I turn around, they sign me up, and then that's when I started being MP. I didn't think about uh being a Green Beret or anything until after September 11th happened. Right. When September 11th happened, I deployed to Qar, right? I was just pretty much at that point. I was there for about a year and you're just like really much pretty much just watching the gate. >> Yeah. >> At that point, like it was nothing operationally kinetic or anything like that. >> And I was watching a bunch of like soft guys. Like when I say soft, I'm talking about Ranger, Seals, uh JC Kag, like Green Berets, like coming in and out of the skiff there. And I'm like, these guys had just went to Afghanistan, like they're getting after it. And uh so I was like, man, that's where, you know, I was like kind of interested in that. And then we came back. I went back again and this time I went to Iraq as an MP and was attached to an SFODA, >> which is Green Berets, right? There's a they're a 12-man team. and I seen those guys getting after it and that's when I was like, "All right, that's what I want to do." >> Okay. So, you know, you'll have guys that like see that and they see what they think being a Green Beret is or what they think whatever special operations force that they're with or whatever. >> But like for you, when did it become like, "Okay, no, I'm like I'm done with the MP thing." Because I mean, when you're done with your your contract as MP, you could go out, you know, into the civilian world and do whatever you want. But like what was it specifically to where you just decided I'm going to at least go this route? Because I mean as we were talking last night, you weren't like vaguely interested in becoming a Green Bray. Let's see how the Q course goes. Let's see how selection goes. And you know, you know, if I if I get it, great. If not, whatever. Like you kind of burned the ships in your brain a little bit at one point. >> Yes. Whenever I decided to go like I wanted to go SF, I burned every ship that I had. >> Yeah. you know, um I think a lot of times that's why you really need to be s it's you need to have that kind of mentality whenever you're if you're going all in on something. So for me at that point, you know, the war was already going on, right? I wanted to be around the best of the best that I could be around in my career field, you know, and that's what I thought at that time was in the army. Um and then for me it was I wanted to get after it and these guys were getting after it in combat. So, like that's what I wanted to do, you know, and I knew I was going to pay it come at a cost, but that's what I wanted, so I was willing to pay it. >> And so, the the whole get after a piece because again, there's there's all kinds of different people in the military and like for a guy that's been a civ his whole life, I've never raised my right hand and, you know, swore an oath to protect this country against enemies, foreign and domestic. And so, I don't care if you're on base and you never leave the wire or if you're, you know, if you're doing capture kill every night. Like, I I have a deep level of respect for people that have served in the military. There are people that get into the military and they're like, "All right, as long as I can be safe." Like, that's their top thing. It's like, I I want to get an education. I, you know, I want the GI bill. I want the benefits. I want to walk around and have people look at me and, you know, tell me, "Thank you for your service." But they don't want to be anywhere near the anything kinetic. But like that's not that seemingly, you've already mentioned several times, that's not where you were at all. >> No, that's not where I was. I wanted to be around, like I said, the guys that were getting after it. Yeah. You know, and those guys were getting after it. So like to me it's one of those thing for me the military was kind of like you know if you look at going in any other sport you know let's say you're going into football you're in the NFL like you want to play in the Super Bowl >> you know what I mean like you want to test yourself in those kind of elements >> you know especially as that young of a man like that's what I want to do >> right >> so >> so at what point do you Okay so like cuz most people don't understand the process uh so you're a military police but you decide hey I want to go the, you know, the software route. I want to, you know, try to be a Green Bray. What does that even look like? Do you just like go tell your boss like, "Hey, I want to go try out." Like, how does that work? >> So, at that point, what you did is they had uh what they called SF recruiters. So, you went to an SF recruiter. So, recruiters just somebody who's just getting you into that pipeline of wherever you're going, whether that's the Army, the Navy, whatever. But they had SF recruiters inside the military. So, I was already in the military. I went to an SF recruiter and they're like, "Hey, listen. this is what you need to do. You got to fill out this paperwork to go, right? The unit couldn't tell you whether you could or couldn't go. They had no command and had no authority over there. And then they're like, "Hey, this is um this is how you need to train to get train up." So, they gave me a little book. They said, "Hey, listen. This is where you need to be like kind of for road marches, for PT, for running and everything else there." And then that's what I went over and then fill out my paperwork. They gave me a date and I started training. >> Okay. So, you start your training. How long is it from when you start your training before you actually start going through the process of trying to become a Green Ber? >> So that that depends truthfully. So you can go to a recruiter and sometimes recruiters be like, "Hey, I can get you on to selection next week." >> Okay. Or 30 days if you're ready, but like you have to be like physically ready too to to go to there. So I want to say I took >> I can't remember exactly. It wasn't that long. maybe 90 between 90 days and six months roughly. >> Okay. >> I didn't really have a whole lot of time, but I was in I was in pretty good shape. Like the only thing that I really didn't have at that point that I would hadn't trained up for a lot was the rocking portion. So I had to really start rucking, but I I can max my PT test. So that you know the push-up, sit-ups, the runs, all that stuff I was I was really good at. >> And so do you immediately when you basically say, "Hey, I'm ready to So do you immediately go QC course or like what >> you go to selection first. >> Okay. >> So selection would be kind of almost like let's put it to like almost like the seals buds kind of first. It's the first step to see if you are qualified to go to a Q course, right? So they they're not sending you to this huge training pipeline if you can't make it through selection. You know what I mean? >> Okay. And so I think I think at this point, you know, I don't know if anybody has ever heard about this, but Navy Seals have written a bunch of books, right? And then we've got documentaries all over the place about being cold, wet, and sandy and like, okay, go get sugar cookie. Okay, who's going to carry the boats and like people like holding up the, >> you know, the telephone polls and doing all that kind of stuff and hell week and all that. >> But generally, the public isn't as aware of what happens during selection and then on into the Q course. And so obviously like you know seals have pool comp and they've got all these different things and land nav and everything >> but like how long is selection? How many people drop out? What is it that they're putting you through? >> So obviously it's changed over the years. Um I want to say I don't know how many years or how many days it is now. I want to say it was around 21 days between 14 to 21 days selection. Yeah. Selection was >> um and they've changed that over over the years. It just um >> is it longer now? I don't I don't know what it's at right now. But so so you end you go there, you do like a PT test, which is, you know, they have you do push-ups, sit-ups, run. That was back then when I went. They the PT test has changed since that, but it's still the same concept, you know. And then from there, then you're, you know, it's a series of like physical activity and team events and uh land navigation pretty much. So they're they're trying to break you down and see what kind of team player you are. M >> so the whole point of it really in my opinion is um uh you want to get a guy to his breaking point and then pass that to see if he's going to continue on, right? Um so series of running, they're testing you and then they're also testing you to see how your physical fitness level is. They're giving you a series of psychological test to see how you are like mentally. >> Uh so they're asking you some questions there. You're gonna see you, you know, um they're going to have you write some stuff down. then they're going to send all that stuff to a shrink or whatever to see if hey if you got the mental cap capability to do it. Uh some of the events were like same thing almost like that you log PT. >> Yeah. >> Uh there's a documentary called uh I want to say it's called Two Weeks in Hell. I don't know if it's on Netflix anymore or whatever. It was like on a YouTube kind of look it up. It kind of shows it but it wasn't I I don't can't remember exactly where that aired at if that was on Discovery Channel or not. >> That kind of looked at selection. Yeah, they went they follow selection team or guys that are in selection there. >> Well, I want you brought the whole team aspect. So, this is the thing I'm curious about because >> there is a very famous Navy Seal who if you look at him you're like I want to be like that guy and you know it's you know you can probably guess who it is. >> But then when you talk to SEALs that served in and around this guy they were like this guy was never part of the team. >> He was always about himself from day one and that hurt him as a seal. Well, it's great now that he's an author and speaker, right? And he goes and yells on podcast, but he has basically zero respect for the SEAL community because they could tell from the beginning that this guy just wasn't really a team player. But there's that interesting interchange like I was watching Joby made me watch Vision Quest last night. Apparently, I was a a wrestling movie from the the 1980s or whatever. But when you think about wrestling, it is an individual team sport >> because when you are on the mat, >> your teammates cannot come and save you. like if you're getting pinned, they can't go out and help you keep your shoulder up, but you're competing for the team. Your points go to the overall team thing. And then, you know, when you go to tournaments, obviously there's a team aspect, but everything's individual as well. There's only one person that stands on top of the podium at that weight class. So, it kind of feels the same like with what y'all are doing to where they have to evaluate, hey, are you on your own solid? Are you mentally going to break when we're downrange? Are you going to physically break when we're downrange? Okay, that can only be determined like individually. But also, if you can't work in, you know, a group of 12, like if if you can't work with, you know, three or four other guys, that's just not going to work overall. I'm just wondering how do they evaluate both at the same time? >> Yeah. So, so the eventual individual just kind of what you're saying, like individual test. So, that's a the military uh or the mental like psychological test. They're going to ask you a whole bunch of questions like a psych test. Then they're going to like you're going to run for undisclosed amount of time and kind of like we talked about last night, they're just like, "All right, hey, go." >> What you were saying last night is like, "Hey, start running." And there's no how far and they would never tell you how far you were going to run. And when you were done, they didn't tell how tell you how far you ran. And so it's kind of hard to like >> So when they start off on the runs, you're in phases, >> right? So like, "Hey, come out here and meet at this time." So you don't even almost know when you're the first phase at that time because you don't know if somebody else has had went before you. And then they say, "Okay, here's the route." They'll show you the route, you know, and then they'll say, "Start following the cones." And you start running. Now you may start running and you've ran for however many miles and there's a guy at the end. You're there at the, you know, just standing out in the open and I'm like, "Oh, okay. That's at the end." And I run to you and you're like, "This isn't the end. >> Keep going. >> Keep going." So like, so there's a mental cuz you don't know. you're like, "Okay, I got to perform, but then how much do I leave in my gas tank to be able to like am I running 10 miles? Am I running three miles? Am I how far am I running?" You know, right? >> So, um so that was a big mental aspect to it. So, that's where part part of the individual like uh came out, you know. Um then you have like obstacle courses that you're doing there. They have a um thing called Nasty Nick, right? Which is just a long a couple mile obstacle course. So, you got to climb ropes, you know, go over obstacles and that. Um, the team performance stuff came down to you'll have a a group of, let's say, 12 guys and they're like, "Take all of this stuff and I need you to move it for an undisclosed amount of time. You could be moving it all day long over miles of terrain. It could be a car with no wheels, a Jeep that has >> two wheels." Yeah. It could be, you know, um, some logs, you know, uh, ammo cans that have, you know, that weigh 100 lb with some straps. You know what I mean? So, you have to move it together. So, guys will watch you and you'll see guys quit on you. >> Okay? >> You know what I mean? It's log PT cuz even though it's an individual, you're you're carrying the log, you're looking at your buddy and you can tell if one of those guys aren't carrying his weight, >> it hurts going to hurt you more. So then do you do peer evaluations at the end? Like, hey, this guy's a turd. This guy, you know what I mean, is not a team player. >> Maybe he's complaining too much. >> You know what I mean? Like all those things. >> Hey guys, real quick. You've probably heard the phrase, "Ignorance is bliss," right? Well, some of you are ignorant about where the beef that you buy at the grocery store comes from and what it took to get to you. 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Like their voluntary drops like, "Hey, I'm I'm done. I quit. I don't want to do this anymore." Or they drop by the the instructors. >> You'll see a lot of guys, a lot of the a lot of the drops are from people just quitting. >> Okay. >> Like I don't I don't know if they just don't know it's going to be difficult. Like so just like land navigation, you go out to the land navigation to where you're you're moving a long distance with uh with a heavy rock under load and it would start raining and people just quit because it rained and you're like it's crazy to think like people just break mentally or just don't think it's going to be as tough as they think it's going to be and you'll just quit. >> So like I know it's it's different and overtime but roughly during selection whenever kind of you were going through it, how many people are making it through? So, like I didn't have the numbers when I went in October 2004. Obviously, they could probably look these numbers up, but um I would there was almost 300 people and we graduated with in the double digits, but I don't know how many if it was 50 or 90 or or whatever. >> So, >> so you're losing roughly 2/3 or more uh usually three quarters. >> Usually at that point, we were losing that class. We lost quite a little bit. So what happens when So let's say let's say it had happened to you. I mean you had earned the ships and you made it through obviously >> but if you go to selection and you quit or you're dropped for whatever reason get injured >> like do you just go back to being an MP? Do you ever get the chance to try again or are they >> send they send you back home to be to whatever MOS you're in now depending on you know if you quit >> then usually they'll they'll allow you to come back depending on what situation it is. Maybe it's a medical or whatever, but if there's another thing that's called NTR, like never to return. >> Ooh. >> If they give you an NTR, then you're like, then you can't go back. Right. >> Now, what what would be the difference between, hey, you broke, you broke mentally, it was raining, you were cold, you didn't want to move the boats anymore, you didn't want to move the log anymore, but hey, we'll get you to come back versus someone where it's like, no, you're you're done forever. >> NTR is usually like uh a lot of that has to do with either you came too many times, maybe you've been there three times, you didn't make it, right? or a lot of it was um if it was very very bad like like team performance like ethical or moral issues. >> They caught you lying, cheating, stealing somebody's stuff. Like that kind of stuff would get you an NTR. >> Man, I just when you were saying that I was reminded of this documentary I was I was watching it was following these uh these seals through Buds and there was this one particular guy. It was his fourth or fifth time trying to make it through Buds and I don't think he had been rolled for injuries very I think it was he quit and I remember thinking why do they keep letting this guy come back but then the instructors were all over him because it's like there's not going to be another chance like it doesn't matter if you break your back it doesn't matter if there's an accident or something like that there's no rolling there's not another chance and like the pressure on this guy and like I should probably remember I can't remember if he made it through uh but it was just like how are they able to be given that many chances to come back and do that because at some point the instructors have they've got to know this is Green Beret material or this is not and we were even talking last night you talk about people that come into selection >> they're all world athletes like they look like they're built out of you know solid granite and then you know but they just mentally don't have what it takes so and it's all different body types all different shapes and sizes and backgrounds so it's kind of hard to predict but you would think the instructors or the commanding officers would kind of have an idea of like, all right, this person's just never going to be it. >> So, they do at this point the technology has kind of gotten crazy. Like, they will look at before you even go to the Q course now or selection. They do a series of tests like battery like they'll look at your records, they have whole different stuff and they will give you a grading scale before you even show up. Like right now, if you win a selection on the percentage chances that you are going to make it or not. So you just show up and they're going to take all your demographics and put it together and they'll go Kyle has x amount of chance to do it to make it on there because and then so now they'll take that scale because they have all this data from all these people coming in there. So they start seeing okay they see patterns right and then you have all this technology of AI everything they can put all that stuff in there and tell if this guy's going to make it or not >> and all in just a series of like tests. >> Wait do they tell you this percentage? No. Okay. just it's back and it's back in the internally they have it. So before you even start selection now now they know >> selection Q course they know like okay this percentage of this guys is going to make it this or that. But now so this is the thing where it all comes down to numbers to a certain point. So they're letting these guys go back because they have to have so many green berets. They have to have so many Navy Seals. They have to have so many because there's still operations that are happening. You know what I mean? So like that's where >> and does that bump up during wartime or do they try to keep the same amount at all times? >> No, they're it's going to change during I mean you have more com uh more like during like September 11th and everything in in Iraq and Afghanistan and Syria all this stuff exploding like so like they needed like the >> the regiment the SF regiment made a whole new battalion a fourth battalion to fill slots to because we're just doing so many operations. >> Okay. Okay. Like I said, like my my first 20 years of in SF or first 20 years in the army, I was gone almost 11. The first 20 years. Now, that wasn't all deployed. A lot of it was someone was training, TDY, all that other kind of stuff there, too. But it adds up because you have to train before you deploy, right? >> So, >> how long were your workups typically before you would deploy? >> Uh, it just depended. Some of them were like at the beginning of the war when we were like running and gunning. Mhm. >> Sometimes you maybe 6 months, 90 days and then you're deploying again. >> Okay. >> So, >> okay. So, going back to selection. So, you make it through selection. >> Y >> and then you know you make it through, you're good to go. Now, you go on to the Q course, right? >> How long? That's like two years or something right? >> Yeah. It depends on your MOS, the job you're doing. So, you go to the qualification course, you start off and um at that point you go to something that's called like small unit tactics. M >> it's kind of like a is a civilian. It's almost like a mini ranger school. So you're you're moving in the wood line, right? They're they're showing you, hey, this is what you need to do. This is tactics, you know? Um so that's what they're kind of showing you there. Um there is some portion there to where you're also doing um like some range time and that also, right? So you do small unit tactics first and then from there you do your MOS, which is what job you're going to do. And on an ODA, which is operation detachment alpha, there are you have you can do become a medic, you can become like the combo guy, the 18 echo. You can be the 18 Charlie, which is your um like your engineer, and your 18 bravo, which is throughout the Q course, right? There's also an 18 alpha, which is your um that is your like your officers go to that. So that is your your team leader. So you go to special specialized training for those MOS's. So those jobs. Then from there you're going to go to a uh SEIR course. So SEIR is where it's a um survival. >> Yeah. Survival >> survival course. >> Portrait testing like that kind of stuff. >> They put you like as a P. They're also going to tell you like, okay, hey, this is what you can and cannot eat off the land. These are the things they're the plants that are poisonous. These are the plants you can't eat. This is how you set up traps. This is how you set up snares. This is how you run like a uh a line for like where animals are are coming from. Uh they're going to teach you like, okay, hey, how do you start a fire from nothing, you know? Um and then from there, they send you off and then you're pretty much walking through the wood line and then you go into your your survival mode where you're become a prisoner of war. >> Okay. >> They touch teach you how to like kind of go from there and then you do language. So whichever the the the regiment or the SF is broken down into areas of operation. So if you look at the map of the world, then one group is responsible for a certain area of the of the world, right? So if I'm in seventh group, I'm responsible for Central and South America, right? They're going to teach they're going to send me to go speak Spanish or Portuguese, right? So like in every other area of the of the world that's in the seventh and I was in seventh group. Yeah. >> So do they do they take like your test scores and your language acumen? Does that affect which which group you end up with? So that'll that will affect it and then obviously your like your ethnicity will also because like at the end of the day if if >> it's not always the case but if I am from Central or South America you know or my family was from there or my nationality is from there then when I go there I can blend in a lot more than just me or you right >> so >> so that does have a huge portion to do with it which it should. >> Okay. And so where are the different breakdowns cuz like we were talking about uh you know Central South America, we talked about Africa yesterday. Is that like Africa and Middle East? Do they separate Africa? Like where are the different places where we focus? >> So they've changed it. So third group I want to say so I think now so back when I was in third group had Africa right? Fifth group had the Middle East. >> Um first group had Asia and then 10th group had like Europe like Europe and Russia. >> Okay. So, and that's how they broke that's how they broke it down. >> Okay. And so, here you are. We're already in post 911. You'd gone through selection. You know, you you get through the Q course. Like, is everybody in the Q course? Is everyone just chomping at the bit? Like, let's hurry up and get done with this so we can go over there cuz like there were, you know, Green Berets that were over there already fighting in Afghanistan, right? And probably at this time they're they're in Iraq as well. And so like what was kind of the feel as y'all were kind of going through the Q course getting close to where you're actually going to be in a specific ODA? >> So I don't for me I was ready to get after it. You know obviously everybody's going to have a little bit different kind of mentality but I really believe the guys who went through the Q course post 911 kind of knew what they were getting into. There's no there's no question there's no surprise you know. Uh the guys before 911, those are the some of the guys could be like, "Oh, I didn't expect this or >> Yeah, I thought we'd just be training." >> Yeah. Exactly. So, um but the guys that came in post 911, like there's no there's no like, "Oh, I wonder, you know, if I'm going to get after it or not." So, most of the guys that were there, so I had buddies that went to different groups that didn't deploy to Afghanistan or Iraq, and they went over to KAG because they're like cuz they weren't they wasn't seen at any action. So when I got to group, I I volunteered to go as soon as I got there. So I deployed like right after I got there. >> Okay. And so even a slightly different, what was it like with your family at this point? Because it's like, okay, yeah, you're married, you've got kids, >> but you're doing the Q course, you're training all the time. Like we know deployment is going to be part of this. You already mentioned the first, you know, 20 years you were gone. 11 of the 20 years, right, with, you know, all told, like how are things with the family? How was all that progressing? >> So, so my wife supported me like I I think she kind of knew like once I had something in my head like she was like I can either support him or this is you know what I mean? So she was very very very good at that you know and then so whenever I was like hey listen I want to go to go to SF like she's like okay you know like she supported me 100%. uh for that, you know, it does give the family stability because in SF wherever you're stationed at, your family usually stays, right? So they're at one location. So you're not moving around as much as you in the conventional army, >> right? You move from like one base to the next base and the next base. >> So that had a lot of benefits to, you know, your family. Um now, did I really know how often I was going to be deployed? That really didn't kind of really hit me. I really didn't see that. Did I really understand the realities of combat before I went there? Probably not. You know, you have this idea of what it looks like and you have this idea of like, okay, hey, this is how it's going to be. This is how I'm going to perform. And then you get there and you're like, oh [ __ ] these people are trying to kill me, >> right? >> You know what I mean? And then now now you're you're fighting for your life and your brother's life. So it it changes, >> you know, your kind of thought process on that. >> Okay. Well, let's go ahead and get into that. So where was your first deployment? Afghanistan. >> It was Afghanistan. Well, so I went to as in SF was uh >> So you were with MP uh you were an MP in in Iraq. In Iraq, that's right. >> So I guess you know people talk about their welcome to the NFL moment, right? And so it's like that first time they get, you know, knocked out cold or you know, whatever the thing is. That's So what was kind of your welcome to the NFL moment to where it's like, okay, we're at war and people are trying to take my head off. >> Yeah. So we were actually clearing through um in Sanangin province in Afghanistan and at that time we it was almost like a full scale operation like there's tanks this is in Afghanistan there's like tanks like we're clearing through 611 we had uh the conventional army there were clearing with the us and a couple ODAs and you're talking about as we're clearing through like a whole town and like city being empty the only people there are there are the fighters there's no women, there's no children, there's abandoning buildings, like you know, buildings are, you know, are destroyed, cars are burning, right? Cuz we're this is a full scale combat oper, you know, full scale clearing operation. And um like that was the initial time I'm like, "Oh, this is this is real." You know, we I still really haven't at that point as we're clearing, we weren't getting a whole lot of contact. And um cuz they were just kind of left, right? And I remember we were we were at the Ford line of troops. So the Ford line of troops were were kind of if you look at it to where everything else behind us was cleared. There's like no people like think of the city like no people at all in the city. It's just a ghost town, right? >> And uh and you were clearing through buildings and that and then there was another ODA that was in the for uh in front of the flat, right? >> And they were like getting it on like there were troops in contact, right? They're taking, you know, AK-47 fire, you know, uh RPG fire, um like um what do they call it? It's like a spig nine. It's kind of like our call Gustaf, right? Yeah. >> Um and then um >> it's like a recoilless >> recess rifle. Yep. >> So, they're getting after it and we're hearing them on the radio and uh uh I remember, oh man, we need to go there. We need to go there, you know, like I'm ready to get after it, you know. And uh and they would go like, they went comm's black. They're like the the hireer was like, "Hey, listen. You need to come back on on the the radio. Hey, what's going on?" And all you hear is all this gunfire on the radio. They're like, "Hey, we're troops in contact." Blah blah blah blah. And all you hear is this gunfire. And uh I'm like, "Hey, sir, we need to we need to head up there to to this this, you know, help them out or whatever." And then uh nothing happened. All day long they're after it and they're like, "Hey, you need to pull back and they just went comm black." like so they're they're not responding to like the leadership telling them to to come back >> and then then they got hit with like a spig nine and it went right through a building and went straight through their their GMV. >> Luckily there wasn't, you know, minor, you know, injuries on their part, but then they called us up. They're like, "Hey, listen. You y you all team need to go up to that to that area." And then we got up there and it was just like game on. And when I say game on, I mean engaged by AK-47s, big nines, you know, recallers, rifles, so PKMs. Well, so most people listening to this have never been shot at. They've certainly never been like in a combat zone or something like that. And so >> you'd never know how you would respond. We all think that we're going to react in a certain way, but like so for you, >> you're actually in a firefight now. Like >> how was your heart rate? How was your mental capacity? How did your training kick in? >> So training kicked in pretty training kicked in really well. So I I was really really glad for that. So training kicked in well. You return fire. So returning fire. So somebody's shooting at you, Rajie, obviously at a distance, I would say a couple hundred meters or more, right? Like it's not like in the movies to where you're like, "Oh, somebody's shooting at you 300 meters this location because they're trying not to be seen also." >> So they're hiding inside of a building and they're shooting out of a window to where you can't see. And when there's 100 windows there, well, where are they shooting at you from? Right? >> So from at that point, you're trying to get really really small behind a fire behind a machine gun, right? And then you're engaging engaging windows, you're engaging rooftops, you're engaging corners of buildings because you don't exactly see specifically where they're coming from. And then then from there, I remember the initial time being shot at, you can't tell when a round whizzes by you, it's hard to tell what direction it's coming from, right? Okay. So, if I just shot you, sat you, you know, put you in the middle of a field and there's a whole bunch of mountains around you and I shot at you, >> you're going to hear the the round come by you, right? But it's going to take a lot of times being shot at to go, "Okay, it came from that mountaintop." >> Or did it come from the mountain top behind you, >> right? Like I've seen people in combat being shot at and turn around and shoot at the wrong direction because they don't they can't they haven't been shot at enough times to where they start realizing you can tell the whiz of the round as it's flying past you to where it's coming from, >> right? >> You know what I mean? So >> Well, so and and then I'm curious because obviously you're you're deployed, you are kind of constantly in these troops and contact situations. Yeah. And then, you know, for everybody that I talked to that's been in the military, especially guys that were in special operations, at some point you're going to get your first kill. Yeah. And so, it's going to be a confirmed kill. And then >> in that moment, >> cuz we'll we'll get into your Christian faith and all that as well. So, at this at this point, you would probably say you're at least a nominal Christian >> and you're in this job where your two primary duties are kill people and break stuff. Like, that's that's kind of what what you were trained to do. So, let's talk about that that first that first kill. >> Um, for me, it it really didn't I I felt it like it was my job, like it was something that I had to do. >> Yeah. >> You know, so it really wasn't that um >> you didn't have like a moral wrestling of like, okay, is this >> I didn't have I didn't have like a moral wrestling of that thing because like it every time that you know the first initial kills like that was like they were engaging us, >> right? So to me it was like a self-defense. It was more >> there's no ambiguity. >> There's no ambiguity there. Um there was those guys are trying to kill us >> like we're trying to kill them. You know uh they engaged first and you know if I don't do anything and you're with me and you get shot and killed on you. >> I got to live with that. You know what I mean? So that's where for me it wasn't >> it wasn't it maybe sounds a little cold-hearted but it's it wasn't it didn't I didn't it didn't bother me. Well, say I mean that's basically the answer I've gotten from a lot of people whether they were Christians going into uh the military or non-Christians going in. It's like it's the same thing. It's like look if I don't engage this this target if I don't engage this person then >> the people around me could die. And like that's that's a very serious thing. And I mean well go ahead. >> Yeah. And then for that you have to look at it always explain it to in this way. It's like I chose to be here. I volunteered to go here. I volunteered to be a Green Beret. I volunteered to go through the training. I volunteered to be in this position cuz I volunteered to go to combat, right? It'd be almost kind of like going to the Super Bowl and be like, why didn't you catch that ball? Uh cuz I was afraid that No, I mean you're there to do that. So you that training kicks in and you start doing that. Now obviously that's a lot different than something as nominal as like as sports. But yeah, >> um just to try to get some like understanding I guess from viewers perspective. Well, so give the audience kind of an idea of okay, when you're on deployment, you know how long you're going to be deployed, right? It's not like a mystery typically. >> So, yes and no. So, you have a tentative timeline, but I've been on probably three deployments where there were only supposed to be x amount of months and turned into I've been on one that's only been supposed to been six six months and turned into 10 months. I've been to some that were supposed to be six months and turned into to 9 months and then 9 months turned into 12 months. So like it's not necessarily the you don't always get that. >> Okay. And so when you were in your first deployment like what were the what were kind of the missions that that you were on because there's you know there's capture kill missions and then there's you know other other missions that you're doing. So what was kind of like the main thing that you were doing? that first deployment to the Helman province um that was in 2007 2007208 time frame I want to say for that one um was mainly um movement to contact. So we would leave the fire base, we'd be in our gun trucks with our partner force and we would drive to where we knew the enemy was going to be at and then we'd be in a get in a gunfight with them. Right? That was majority of the operations. Now, we did do other operations there also, but the majority of those operations there. So, that would look like we'd show up um we would have like an overwatch position. So, that that just meant that the way that the terrain was was there at that location is there was high ground higher ground to where the the the village was, >> right? And then so you could you could see down into the to the village, right? So it's not like where you had as much um here you wouldn't be able to do that like in Oklahoma unless you took a different like area because everything's a little more flat. You know what I mean? So you could see you come from position of seeing down into the to the um buildings and then women and children would would leave the village and then that's when you knew it was like game on. So women children would leave the village then the fighting age males would come out. You'd hear them over icon which is like that's their radio >> and they would get their Allah Akbar on and then they would usually engage first usually RPGs would usually would start off their engagement PKMs AK-47s usually simultaneously and then you know it's it's a fight. So now you're returning fire. You would stay troops in contact. So you'd stay shooting each other, right? Like you'd see kind of in the movies for three or four hours or so. And then there would be a little rest in the firefight. That would be to where like um they would go to pray for some time, right? Cuz obviously they have the advantage because they're it's their place, right? So they can almost kind of dictate how much unless you start seeing enemy movement on there and where you drop on them and that. So we try to make sure that we're keeping up on that. But then then from there it would pick back up again and then we'd do that all the way till nightfall and then nightfall would hit and then we would uh engage them with like um with overhead. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> And so you mentioned movies there for a second. >> Typically the only familiarity anyone has a city has with warfare is what they see on movies or television or something like that. And so specifically, there's obviously been a lot of things that have been made about the the Giwad, the global war on terror and the different, you know, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the different places that we've been. Obviously, I think most people can tell when things are fairly sensationalized or like, okay, that that didn't really happen. They just needed a slow motion, you know, scene where this person is doing something fairly extreme. But like you know just to inform the audience, me included, what are the major differences between even the good GWAT films about like okay this is you know they their kits were good like they they talked the way we talk like but operationally what is what are what are these real combat operations like versus kind of how they've been depicted in media or entertainment. So in the media for entertainment reasons like they have to they're so you see I don't know if you've seen the movie the newest one I thought was the best it's really depicted I wouldn't say the tactics of it but depicted on um what it somewhat looks like is uh that you've seen the movie Modern Warfare with the Navy Seal guys >> was it uh >> it's like fairly new maybe >> I saw one that was called I think it was just called war or something like that uh >> but yeah it was >> is it where they were all in the the same building same getting engaged on street. >> Yeah, it was war or war warfare or something like that. But yeah, it's short. It's like 90 minutes, but like there was uh one guy got shot outside. They thought he was dead and he kind of like woke up in the middle of this whole thing. Yeah, there even guys that were part of that mission, they're like, "Dude, they did it like pretty pretty close." pretty pretty very very close to where not the tactics inside from the the NS not from the team specifically because the tactics that were done from from the team you could see a very big contrast from the team that was inside the building to the team that came >> okay >> right very big contrast in in training right the team that came broke down their leadership broke down right and it turned into chaos >> the team that came took charge they had a leader that like knew what they were doing and then they helped get those guys out of that situation, right? >> But the tactical portion, the portion to where the enemy, like you seen in that movie, how many enemy did you see during that movie? >> Yeah. I mean, there was >> not many. >> Yeah. Not very many. >> Not very very many. And they're like, "Hey, where are we getting shot at from?" And they have no clue what's going on, right? Because it was inside of a building, right? So, that was very more close to what war actually looks like when you're talking about seeing enemy. And then you may see enemy for a minute and he ran across the street, >> right? A lot of times in in the in the movies, they have to overexaggerate people standing way outside of a door so you can see them or they're like on top of a rooftop with an RPG. People don't do people don't fight like that. That would be like you doing, you know, jiu-jitsu or MMA or boxing or whatever and for movie effects, you just have your hands by your side. You're never going to fight somebody like that cuz you're going to get plummeled, right? But they need to show that oh you're getting hit, you know, or you keep your because showing a movie where where you're engaging each other and you're hitting the gloves all the time is not >> right >> is not going to be as good. That's why they made Rocky so like you're like bro there's no >> boxer that box is boxing like that. >> Hard to watch. I'll be real honest. Like it those '8s action movies and all that like those are some those are some of the worst boxing scenes. And that's the thing now is like MMA's been around for so long. Like it as we were talking on the way over here, it's kind of hard for me to watch those '8s action movies that I didn't watch when I was younger because when you watch them now, you have to suspend so much belief just to like look at that. Okay. So, you've got some differences between what is depicted? >> But I'm just I'm curious, was there a moment for you in warfare where you where you were almost disabused of a previous what? Hey, this is what I thought it would be like. Because the other thing that you'll hear people talk about, so whether you're reading a war memoir or you're watching something and all that, you can't smell what's going on. And so people are like, "Look, the smell of burning tires, the smell of a dead flesh, the smell of like open sewage, like you can't even like fully fathom what you know cuz yeah, people can assume what being hot in the desert is like and then at night time it's cold in the desert, like that kind of stuff." Afghanistan like there has a not all of Afghanistan but a lot of places that we're at has a smell of like like once you get on those off on those bases are like a burning trash. >> Yeah. >> Right. So like that's very familiar. Um like I did we there's been a lot of like IEDs where guys are getting blown up and then we did a uh where helicopter was shot down like right next to our location. So we went there and all those guys are just burning flesh. So like those things that like the smells you really can't you know unsmell like after that happened man I couldn't eat meat for probably a month. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Cuz it was the smell like the smell of it just so bad. when I mean obviously you've talked about this before. It's never fun to talk about but like take us through okay you go through training with people workups deployments >> and then you lose some guys cuz obviously especially if you're at the tip of the spear like the odds that everyone comes home like alive or un unscathed. It's it's relatively low especially considering that y'all's job was to get into gunfights and those types of things. And so just kind of take us through like what happens when you know someone is KIA or anything like that and kind of how does everyone react? How did you react? >> Yeah. So um like that's one of the things like almost kind of what we talked about the other night when we when a lot of civilians don't understand like there's a lot of emotions going on in combat, right? And then there's a lot of emotions when they come back, right? So then that's why you get a lot of veterans that get very upset, especially combat veterans, when you start talking about certain things and you start talking about combat and you start making it about me. Oh, I did this, I did that. Right? and we the other were 12 guys and one of your buddies was killed and you're like >> and you use him in your story to make yourself seem good cuz he can't counteract it >> because he can't counteract it or you're not even like you're talking about me me all the time and you're not just talking about like okay this is what we did or you know there's a right and a me personally I think there's a right and wrong way to tell war stories you know what I mean um >> but we lost our team start Mitch Young uh in uh in one of those in one of those trips right and that It was very very difficult very very difficult for the team because all the way up until then the first trip like we were taking it to the enemy right we had some a lot of lot of close calls. Um but that one you know when you lose someone that makes it even more you know real and even up to then after that you know like we've seen a lot of guys get killed but in when it's one of your brothers and one of your friends and we had guys on sister ODAS that I went to the Q course with that you know had been killed you know um that I was there when they were you know when they were killed you know that hits you but whenever whenever it becomes to an exact teammate with you it it's a whole different level of like Okay, this is, you know, because this is somebody you've been serving with like within your ODA or your team, you know. >> So, when it's someone that's on your team or ODA, I mean, so again, yeah, most people just have what's depicted in memoirs or uh movies, >> but sometimes, you know, it's been depicted or you'll even hear guys admit, hey, we got bloodthirsty. And so I remember like even there was um a mission that I'm I'm trying to I can't place it so I don't want to pretend but there was a there was a SEAL that was killed that killed and then the other guys and his team like they wanted to get out immediately and they kind of >> all I mean all the way up the chain they they did a mission they probably shouldn't have done and another one of their guys got killed because it was >> you you know you don't want to >> impugn motive but there was kind of a blood lust there was like we got to get even we got to kind of even the score so When one of your guys dies, like what happens? Do they put the entire ODA on pause for a little bit to evaluate or what? >> So, no, not normal. Wouldn't make sense. Would make sense cuz this is it's almost kind of like you look at it to where your kid's riding a bicycle or a dirt bike or whatever. He falls off and now he's a little bit scared of riding it again. You got to get back on. You got to back on the go again. Right. So, um >> you know, that's an analogy that I kind of really think a lot of us do. Same thing whenever we're jumping out of an airplane. If if your chute doesn't open or you having some kind of malfunction and you have to pull your uh reserve, they make you get right back in the bird and go back up again and do it again, >> right? They don't wait until the next jump, right? Because they don't want that on your mind like, "Oh, I'm getting ready to jump again and last time to shoot." Like had an issue with it, right? Same thing whenever we lose people, right? And um now two things happen. They to teams that I've seen. It's either kind of kind of what you talk about. They get very very aggressive. >> Yeah. >> Right. Or they internalize it and it crush and it crushes them. You know, one or two one or two things. And then as a leader, you got to evaluate, okay, where this team is. Do I need to pull them back or do is this per or are there people on a certain on a team that have you know that could have been the guy's brother? I mean, really, really close brother or issues that he's having. Maybe he's also having issues at home and this just took him over the edge. Maybe I need to pull this guy out, replace him, and put somebody else for them. Those guys can move forward. So, do I need to push him forward or pull him back? Majority in my experience, I'd rather work with guys that have to pull back than push forward. >> Okay. And even what about for you? So, you you lose a guy like how did you specifically react? >> So, for me, I I think a lot of this is a mindset thing. It's what we tell ourselves, you know what I mean? Yeah, >> if we know bad things are going to happen instead of waiting for something to happen, I always like, okay, what am I going to do if somebody shoots at me from here? What would happen if I lost my leg? What would I do? Like, where are my tourniquets at? Where am I going to do this? What happens if this guy gets taken out? So, if we're if we're doing that, I'm always thinking about like what I'm going to do if me and you are patrolling and Kyle gets shot and you're behind that you're up over there. I'm going to return fire and I'm going to run to you and get down. And I'm thinking this as I'm moving. It doesn't give me time to, oh, what would I do? I'm just going to react. So, it's not like some hero thing that I'm doing. It's just I'm training myself to react versus stop and think, right? Yeah. So, whenever something like that happened for me, I had always already kind of like, okay, this is what I'm going to do. This is how I'm going to react or whatever. So, it was it was it was very the training kind of kicked in because we still have missions and operations to do. So at the end of the day, if I don't go out on this next operation and I'm not use violence of action and another guy gets killed, I got to live with that. >> You know what I mean? So, so for me, I I looked at it that that way. >> And so, how do you maintain that mindset or that edge? Because obviously as an individual, as a human, you're going to eb and flow. You're going to have good days, bad days. You're going to be underreovered, like underslept, underfed, you know, dehydrated, like you're going to have all these different inputs. You've got a family at home. I'm sure things weren't always peachy 100% of the time and that's on the mind on your mind, front of mind or back of mind when you're going out. >> So, how did you kind of keep the first things first? Because obviously if the dryer exploded back home with your family on base and you're in Afghanistan about to go out on a mission, you can't do anything to fix it, but it could be enough of a distraction to make it dangerous for you and everybody else. >> Yes. You have to be very very you and your spouse have to your wife have to really communicate on that. My wife did a good job. I said, "Listen, when I deployed and I'm going to combat and I'm deploying like whatever problems we're having at home, I know that there not that they're not a big deal. Like, you have to handle them. You cannot be like I So, she had did a very good job >> of not a this problem or that problem or whatever because she's getting called. She's in the she was in the FRG or not in the FR, she was part of the FRG or she's she's getting called. People are getting killed. So this isn't like oh you know so and so who you know she's met his husband was killed from another team and they're getting reports on it. So like she knows what's happening now. She doesn't know like as far as as much as I'm involved or what's going on with me but she knows people from the company are getting killed. >> So you know what I mean? It's not like so if that makes sense. Well, the burden that that that has to be for her because you want to you want to be empathetic and you want to be sympathetic and you want to help somebody that just lost their their husband and then at the same time you're sitting there thinking like >> am I going to get the you know the phone call next because >> I mean gosh the worst job in the military just has to be the guy that you know they do the when they they go to the people's homes and they do the notification of death and all those types of things or you know when people for um you know taking the bodies eventually back to the families and all that like >> again having not been in the military but being so thankful for the people that have been or still are. >> Yeah. That's just so unbelievably rough. And like there's almost like this what do you do because you know anytime I've read in a book like you know my favorite book is um you know where the the book where talks about Adam Brown and uh by Eric Blim and it's called Fearless and when you read the the depictions I mean when they see the guy in their dress uniform walking up the sidewalk it's just like there's no question what's happening in this moment. But y'all are dealing with it on the very front end, right? Like you're there in the room with with your dead buddy and like I I assume that y'all do like your own like little ceremony by the bird before they're you before they're loaded up and all that kind of stuff like so I guess take us through like hey being on the front end of something like that but also when you get back experiencing that. So when Mitch was was when Mitch was killed in action, he was our team sergeant. We were still troops in contact. So we had to put him on a helicopter in um this was like on the battlefield, right? They came and picked him up and like you don't see him or have any time to like >> So y'all couldn't like even go back with him. Was so was the helicopter part of like QRF or did you call? >> So the helic medevac. So the medevac came and picked him up. the medevac takes him back to well medevac will take him back to you know wherever it's kabool or kandahar or whatever right and then we were still troops in contact there we had to we drove back from our firebase which was fire uh firebase Robinson Bob Rob to do a um service for Mitch like a you know like you see in the movies where like they put the the cross and the boots up and then the dog tags and and the rifle or whatever there, but we were still we had to do that and then come back to to Firebase Robinson to continue doing combat operations. Uh when he since he when he sent went back to the rear to do the full funeral like we you can't go back home with them. >> So how did I mean >> so you do that you do that you do that service there. Um because there's still there's a war going on. You know what I mean? >> But for you even like as a as an ODA or even as as Terry >> Yeah. like you just said bye to your buddy. Like you're processing those emotions, but then it's like, "All right, get your kit. Like, let's let's go back." >> Yeah. >> Like, you know, again, I don't I don't have a structure in my brain for that. >> You learn to compartmentalize stuff. >> That's why a lot of these guys compartmentalize it. The the problem is is nobody teaches you how to >> uncompartmental it. Yeah. >> Right. So, you compartmentalize so much that you learn to compartmentalize everything. So once you've learned to do it enough to where you're like, "Okay, hey, this is something I got to unpack and deal with at a different time, you just never unpack it." So guys are run around with 20 plus years of trauma, chaos, and everything that they're holding on to that they've compartmentalized that they've never unpacked >> and then wondering why the bomb comes off and then they're, you know, you know, veteran suic, you know, veteran suicide or or whatever other tragic thing that that happens because they get an altercation because of a somebody cut them off or whatever, you know. And I'm not saying all guys are like that. I'm just saying but you know, you guys aren't learning how to It's like you're a pressure cooker. It's like at some point you just reach that time. Yeah. >> Release. There's times. Yeah. Because there's a part of that there too. You know, now you you compartmentalize that, but then now when I'm going out and getting in combat operations again that I kind of like, okay, now it's time to get it on and now I can kind of release some of that stuff. You know what I mean? >> Right. >> Some of that um issues or whatever, anger. >> So, did you have I mean, did y'all ever have circumstances where some guys like lost it when they were still there? because we've heard the stories about guys coming home and and losing it and being violent or, you know, going crazy with with drinking or something else, but like did you have guys while on deployment, they just they got to where they couldn't handle it? >> So, I I think a lot of that has to do with the culture of your team, the leadership of your team because I didn't we didn't have that in our ODA. Like, I never seen a guy lose it. Now, I will say there were guys that that masked it maybe with alcohol like in down range. They're guys that would would find, you know, alcohol in the black market or whatever and then drank because they're trying to like get through it before, you know, obviously not on combat operations or whatever, but um like like that kind of thing, but I'd never seen any guy like, you know, maybe, you know, I may have seen some guys that would be like, "Hey, do we really need to do this operation or or you know, is this a smart one to do?" You know, like you'll have some of those rumblings or whatever and then you like, "Hey, man. This is what we're doing. suck it up. This is what we're executing, you know. >> And so what's the I'm trying to think of the the quote, isn't it? The the Green Brays are like in with and through. Is that it? >> You're talking about buy with and through. >> Buy with and through. Okay. So when when we talk about the differences in this, you know, spec ops group versus this one versus that one. Like a large part, my understanding is of what y'all do is trying to work through the local populace, you know, and local leadership wherever, you know, you're at to kind of assist as opposed to just coming in and hey, we're doing these missions and just deal with it kind of a thing. So, what kind of elements did that bring in whenever you were deployed doing these missions? >> Yeah, so there is a couple different missions. biggest is unconventional warfare that the SF is really known for because but because of GWAT and the way it was set up there wasn't a whole lot of unconventional warfare going on at that time at the beginning of the the the um the beginning of the operation but then majority of it is kind of what you're talking about by with and through which is you know with a a foreign for force and then now for that depending on who you're with you had a partner force so it' go out with a partner partner force depending on the mission you were with. A lot of these partner force were not good. They sucked. So you were doing majority of the fighting and they were just there because >> we had to have them. >> So that makes you know what I mean? Does that make sense? Like they're not fighting. They're not >> Yeah. >> You know what I mean? It was >> And then originally what they they they originally had at the beginning of the war would I would pay the partner force or somebody would pay the partner force, right? Right? So they would come up there once a month. I talk to them. But hey, listen. Boom. This is who you are. Hey, you're getting paid for this month. Now, if I'm paying you, I can be like, "Hey, I need you to go do this. Hey, you need to do that." Right? Because I'm the person paying you. Right? So, you have a lot more leverage on your partner force on what they need to do. right now. Whenever that stopped and that money started coming from the US to Afghans, from the Afghans, paying their, you know, the Afghan National Army or their as you know, whatever command, uh, commandos or whatever, then I'm not paying you anymore. They're like, no, I don't need to do that because in the day we're partners. I don't you don't work for me. >> Right. >> Right. So then that that always became an issue, too. Well, and so I' I've heard and seen a lot of stories where it's like, okay, these people operationally were dangerous because of how bad they were or how out of shape they were or they would they would run. But then I was even reminded and we talked about last night, so Raymond Ibraim uh came on the show again last year, so he's probably the foremost scholar on the planet on the warfare that's taken place between Muslims and Christians since the seventh century or whatever. And he talks about this concept of tea. And tea, it's like te Aqi ya, something like that. But tea is where you will have Muslims that are taught specifically because of the Quran and Hadith to do almost like psychological warfare against so let's say they're living in Christian Spain at the time >> to act as if they are acquiescing to culture to act as if they're an ally for the the local people or whatever. But then they are secretly plotting behind these people's backs and you hear these stories of the you know there's a turpp with a particular group and that turpp is actually al-qaeda or taliban or something like that and they end up >> accidentally blue unbluing like one of the guys or you know something like that or they're they're giving intel you know back to whatever terrorist group that they're currently fighting against. And so it's like h how in the world do you kind of go against that to where even if you're working through someone that's not even attached to you, but working with a village elder or someone locally that to your face they they seem like they're compliant and they're they're here to help, but behind the scenes that's the exact opposite. >> So this is the way you have to do it. So and before we like none none of the the partner force that we had the the Afghans like we would never give them any information on operations that we were going until >> it's time to go. >> Time to go. Yeah. Right. Hey, you're meeting at this time and then sometimes you had to do some things that were like, "Oh, we're meeting at 7 7:00 7:00 p.m. We're going to leave at 7:00 p.m. Right? Maybe you didn't leave at 7:00 p.m. that night. You showed up. Hey, we're canceling the operation. We're meeting tonight." It was not. So you're trying to >> trying to evaluate what they're going to do with that information. >> Right. So then and then from there when we left we took away all all their cell phones. They couldn't have cell phones so they couldn't communicate because that was a a valid valid threat is we come through and they already like we had lost guys because somebody was leaking information. We lost guys on on teams because of that. We had uh within the company we had guys had green on blue um because you know you start looking through it. Now, every green on blue is a little bit different or blue on green is a little bit different. There's some of them that are because it was a disrespect thing. >> They felt like they were disrespected, right? Uh some of it was because exactly what you're talking about, you know, they sympathize with that. Some of it can be because, hey, if you don't do this, we're going to kill your family at home, >> right? There's all different kind, you know, it's it's a it's people are human, so they, you know, all these different, you know, different motivations, >> motivations can can happen on that. So, um yeah, it's a very very very big threat and then the longer we went on the war, the more and more of a threat it became. >> So, a lot more often. >> Well, and I guess for you, so cuz you were a Green Beret specifically for 22 years. Is that correct? >> So, I went in selection 200. So I two 24 years I was in and then I got to I went to selection in 2004 and then I got so from I depend on what you want to want to talk about but I probably 2006 I want to say I I graduated. So that would be >> over 15 16 years I guess. Okay do the math or whatever. So you you were legitimately you got to see almost every phase of the GWAT like so very early stages through the middle surges like and all that kind of stuff toward the end. I'm curious for you because it's kind of hard whenever you're you're watching a documentary or like reading a memoir, you're kind of trying to piece together military history, the different progressions of the war as it was going on because there were different theaters of war that were going on at different times. There were different enemies. There were, hey, should we even be here? Hey, is you know, and then there's obviously like the weapons of mass destruction and was that even happening? But then when you talk to guys that were doing what you were doing, it's like, hey, there were plenty of bad guys that that needed to go down. These were people that were terrorizing the local populace. These are people that if they had a way to get to us here, >> they would absolutely take advantage of that and try to kill as many of us here before they, you know, followed through with their their jihad, >> right? Their their suicide mission. But like what would you say some of the trends were of the GWAT? maybe things that the the media or people here state side would not have picked up on like okay this is what it was like early on here's kind of how things changed here in the middle cuz again at early parts of the war the IED threat was so substantial and it was like it took us a long time to figure out how to counteract some of that you know so just trends that you saw throughout your your time >> so the progression of the Afghans were was like night and day from the beginning like when we first came out like those guys Uh, one of our guys, he took a 50 cal round and he's like smashing it on the rock on a rock and blew his like fingers off and you're like, "You got to be kidding me." So took a round and was like smashing it on the ground and then it hit the primer and blew his fingers off and you're like, "Bro, you're an idiot." >> This was This was a SF guy. >> No, Afghan guy. Afghan guy. This is the Afghan guy. Yeah. >> What was he banging on the rock for? >> I don't why doing whatever. Yeah. you know, and then then when I came back towards the end of the war, I'm like, these guys were were were flying their, you know, Russian like birds and I'm just like, so like the progression of those guys have kind of changed. And then I worked with their uh their commandos uh well their uh Kahas, which is kind of like their tier one. And I was really impressed with how well those guys operated for an Afghan Union. I was really impressed with that, you know, but the beginning I'm just like, man, these guys, you know, was, you know, pretty much goat farmers, you know, had nothing. But then that 20 plus years of war, like they've kind of went a whole different whole long way. Uh, tactically, it was a it's a it's kind of a cat and mouse game. When you look at what they were doing in in one area, it it it's it's a it's a chess game. So when I say that is like okay so if we took the high ground like kind of what we talked about before then they would ID the high ground. >> So now you got to clear the high ground or you do something else right? If you were driving on a road let's say 611 then they seen that happen and they start IDing 611 the highway. So now you got to start driving through like the poppy fields and that's what we did. We drove through the poppy fields and the poppy fields if guys don't know that's where poppy is grown where they they grow their they make their opium and then which turns into it turns it into heroin. >> So they do all all all that there and then move it from there. >> So because at that point they wouldn't do it. Now when the when the poppy was being harvested they would not fight during that time. So now I could go get caches because they don't want to fight because if they fight then they just disrupt the the poppy being harvested. They only have so much time to harvest that poppy or they're losing money. >> Yeah. >> So, there's a lot of areas that I could go to and not get shot at that I would not be able to go to before because you're like, "Oh, they're not fighting us because it's poppy season." So, then from there, then now I can do like more um like uh hitting compounds, going ID uh making uh buildings, you know, HV little more a lot more HVTs and not getting engaged before then. You know what I mean? Yeah. like recovering caches, that kind of stuff. >> So, you kind of got to see the the progression of the war. Obviously, the Afghans became forged in warfare a little bit and you kind of have some generational stuff that's also being passed down, >> but um you were still in still active duty when the pull out from Afghanistan happened. And so I'm just curious from your perspective like obviously you were still Green Beret at the time now you're retired Green Beret but from the civilian side I I just could not believe obviously the images were insane you know people falling from planes trying to get out and then you know one of the most indelible images in my brain was seeing these planes full of people that were all military age fighting males weren't a whole lot of women and children on these like these evacuation flights and things like that But you have Marines that are killed um that are during this pull out. There were a lot of things that were done. The amount of you know weapons and ammunition and different things that were left there when you see uh terrorist groups now that are walking around with our nods and you know our M4s and our plates you know they're plate carriers and and body armor and different things like that and it's just like from my perspective it's insane. But then I think about guys like you, it's like, wait a minute, we lost guys over there in that same that same area and then because of some madeup uh you know pull out date. >> We we just we just got out giving up Bram uh all those different things. And so I mean there's a whole lot that goes into it. I've talked about on the show when it was happening. But from your perspective while you were in and now while you were out like what did you think about the non-strategic pullout? So, first thing is not since Vietnam have has the U Well, not even that war. Every war except Vietnam that we've been in, we've kept US personnel there. >> Mhm. >> There's still people in there's still US bases in Germany. >> Yeah. Germany, Japan. >> Yep. Japan, Korea, right? Vietnam is like the only one we didn't use US bases there because we lost that war, right? So, at the end of the day, why would you not leave a strategic position in Bram to hold Bram, right? So strategically, right? So first thing, >> secondly, it's embarrassing because some 12-year-old playing Call of Duty could had a better pull like transitioning out plan than what these generals >> did. Like a lot of those guys that were involved in that should be should have been fired. >> Now, was that a feature or a bug though? Cuz I don't want to get off into conspiracy theory land, but some people are like, it's impossible for these human beings to have been that inept. This was a feature, not a bug. They they wanted it to be chaotic for any of reason. >> So, two things there. One >> is >> I like to think that sometimes until you've been in a room with some of these guys who are like >> actual morons. >> Actual morons. And you're like, how are you a general? Like, how are you in any leadership position? Cuz you you like to think that that they they got there, but then sometimes they've lost common sense. like they're they're not in touch with reality or it's been a long time where they actually been on the ground and understand tactics or just basic fundamentals of of operations. So that's part of it. Another part of it is that another part of it could be leadership from the White House coming down saying you will execute this and you're and now they're like what you know so now they're just like kind of like not prepared and now they have to execute something you know where they don't have time to you know prepare for it. So there's a whole bunch of different things that that happened during that time frame that I think made it even worse. >> You know what I mean? So but it was so embarrassing. It was so embarrassing like the fact that once they were given that they were given it enough time frame that they could have came up with a draw out draw down plan that would have been way more uh tactically efficient. So for me, I would have said, "Okay, listen. We are we're moving out of this base at this time frame, right? If any personnel come in there at that point as we're leaving or whatever, I'm going to bomb >> Yeah. >> the [ __ ] out of that location, >> right?" >> You know what I mean? And let them know that we mean business. So that would give you leverage as you're pulling out. They didn't do that. They just everybody just ran to Bram, you know what I mean? and then Xfilled and uh and you you did not keep any distance from the enemy as you're as you're walking yourself back. >> Well, >> excellent. >> Now, and I mean this this kind of rips the band-aid off of a bunch of different things, but the vetting process >> Yep. before a lot of these people were relocated to here and you know the SIV process and all that. I still have and I've I've had it explained to me by by friends that were part of getting people out and you know the whole nine yards. But to assume that not a single terrorist, not a single person affiliated with any type of a terrorist group, an Islamist group in the Middle East >> that is here now or somewhere else in the West because of the chaos that was happening at that time. I think it's I think it's foolish to to foolish. So >> So we lo we left Americans there, >> right? They're still there. >> There are Americans that were that were left there. They were killed because of it. And there are Americans that are still American citizens that are there. Now you can make an argument of like okay whatever but as soon as you give somebody an American citiz citizenship that argument to me is null and void you made them an American citizen right I didn't make that decision so as soon as you made them American responsibility now they're our responsibility you don't leave them there right so that's one thing whenever now the government the the administration and and that are are the ones that are responsible on where those personnel come whether they leave from Afghanistan to go to Pakistan first and they vet them through there and move them out there. But man, I'll tell you like I don't know at what point they went, but I know for a fact they brought some of those guys on military bases. I don't know how much vetting they did and they were supposed to stay there and they just left the military bases and there was no walked off >> just walked off and there's like no way to like they couldn't even keep them in there. It was like hurling cats in there. So >> yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's the thing that I again when when you listen to different people and I've seen guests on other shows talking about the number of sleeper cells that are here in this country obviously because of complete unchecked uh immigration, illegal immigration, especially during the Biden administration. Um I mean there there's no telling what type of people are here, but these are direct downstream consequences of the Giwa. And I've heard the argument before, I'm not like super sensitive to it, but I've heard the argument before of like the fact that we're there, we are creating uh we're creating future terrorist because hey, you killed my dad, you killed my uncle and all that, so I'm going to be a terrorist. But what people don't understand, the people that think that, Terry, those are people that don't understand Islam. It's like they don't hate us because we are in their country. They don't hate us because we've killed some of their family members. They hate us because they hate us. They hate us because we're the infidel. That's the difference. >> Yeah. So there is there's second third order effects what we do and and I'll tell you whenever I was serving um Mike Written had said this whenever we were I was on his podcast a couple weeks ago when I was serving I me personally I I was there serving my country I didn't really think about geopolitics or anything like that right there's a part of me that was want to get after it test myself right so I didn't think about geopolitics and why we were there and what country brought us there and what decisions politicians made to get there right didn't think really about you know, in my mind, I'm there with my brothers serving my country, right? And then if I'm over there fighting, they're not here, right? Because that's what you think at that point, right? You're trying to make some kind of, you know, sense of it, I guess, to a certain point right? But you look back in the second order order effects and where I'm at now and I'm like looking at it, you know, would if we had all of the immigration and issues in Europe and the US here if we were not there in these war in in the Middle East in these wars bringing people all these, you know what I mean? So now we're taking >> we're taking >> um not just people that are fleeing from the country, right? these ideas and this culture that does not align with ours and now they're moving into other cultures. Now we have all all these different countries. Now we're having all these issues. There's second third order of effects to everything that we do and I really don't know the answer to that. But I honestly don't see that as a reason why you don't go there to be >> I'm not saying there's a reason why I don't but we all we always have to look if you're not looking at the second third order effect right and then and then okay if I have to go to this country how can I do this with minimizing >> the second third or effect of it cuz sometimes even though you do something that's right or that's like like hey I need to do this it comes at a cost >> of course >> right and if that cost is more than what you're doing there you know what I mean you >> juice and squeeze thing is worth the squeeze. But >> I'm even been curious for you because the the pull out from Afghanistan >> became a very serious self-evaluation point for a lot of guys, especially guys from special operations because of the kinetic operations y'all were doing because of the risk that came to your lives and your families to the people that lost, you know, friends and lost brothers. As you look back on the GWAT, everyone's kind of doing this thing now where they're they're doing the whole hindsight thing and should we have ever been there to begin with and you know false opaces uh behind where why we were there military-industrial complex. Oh, we didn't accomplish what we were accomplishing. And again, you know, I'll I'll leave him nameless, but I was talking to a good buddy of mine. I won't name uh what he you know what branch he was in or whatever, >> but toward the end of his time in the military and he's he's out doing very very serious missions. you know, they're trying to take out, you know, IED makers and engineers and bomb makers and all that and here they go into these places and they're seeing banded CIA money, right? So, to where there was no question about this money came from someone in the CIA. This was not stolen. This was not confiscated from somewhere. And here they are in some house or somewhere. They're they're trying to kill these people and then they see this CIA money and they're like, "Wait a damn minute." And like again, I don't want to get into the the world of conspiracy theory and like, oh, what's, you know, how much does Rathon and how much do the Jews haven't died that are involved in all this? Like, I'm not super interested in that for this conversation. But as you look back on your time and also when you look back on the United States military for 20 years doing these types of missions, you know, it's kind of hard to even decide on what question because some people are like, "Was it worth it?" And other people are like questioning like, "Should we have ever been there? Was this just a complete waste of blood and treasure?" like how do you evaluate looking back on that time period? >> So, as I've gotten older and new things have like come to light like when we talk about conspiracy theories, right? You're like to me when people start talking about conspiracy theories. I'm like okay there there's one end to the next where you're like some of it's way crazy and some of it's like like I heard a comedian say you think that the the US or our leadership is batting a thousand. Like there's a lot of conspiracies that have like some real like because if we don't think we're being lied to >> like you you're already behind the power curve. Like we are lied to all the time. um how much and the reasons why that's up for speculations or whatever, right? Um but there's a lot of moving pieces in the background that we don't see, right? And then that's where the conspiracies come up because there's not transparency, >> you know? Um so you start looking at that and you look at your military career and you're like, man, why was I there and all that that kind of stuff. I don't try to put too much like thought into it because if you do, you can drive yourself crazy. So, for my own personal sanity, right, even though I may look back and be like, maybe I was being played, >> maybe everything wasn't on the up and up, maybe there was some other things going on there that I didn't know about, right? But I was there serving my country, I was there with the brothers that, you know, that I loved. And that's what I like to look about it. I guarantee you every person that's been in every war at some point has come back and say that after Vietnam was like, "Was that really worth it after World War II, right? Do you think people were like after World War II on both sides? Are they like >> there's still this supposed to be the war that was supposed to end all wars?" >> Sure. >> It didn't. Right. So like there's no war that we can be involved in to where you're going to come home after so many times and relook at it and be like, "Was that really worth it?" Well, Terry, look, there was there was a video last year. It was some uh some show in in the UK. It was like a morning show or whatever, and they had a World War II veteran on there that was hund and something years old. >> And they're thinking it's going to kind of be this puff piece, this Veterans Day thing. >> And the dude lamented the fact that he fought in the war because of how >> current people in Britain or in the West at large >> were acting, behavior, behaving. And he's like, I didn't fight for that and I didn't watch my friends die and I didn't come home with all these issues >> just for people to basically like, especially in Britain, hand the country over to immigrants that are not willing to assimilate to modern culture, not willing to learn the English language, you know, to make their own, you know, Muslim enclaves and all of that and then basically like try to advocate for that. And then you have, you know, the parliament and and the prime minister over there that are constantly acquiescing to to leftism and liberalism and those types of things. And he's like, I didn't I didn't fight and potent, you know, risk my life for this. And so we are still looking back on even World War II in evaluating should we have been there, you know, and you know, when another generation goes by and we don't have any of those warriors left, a lot of those conversations will will kind of cease to a degree. But I'm even, you know, curious for you when you look back on that time, is there are there certain times uh in war in your deployments where you're just like, how did God get me through that one? Like where there were super kinetic like sketchy situations to where, you know, and I feel like every guy that did a job similar to yours kind of has that story where like, man, that bullet or that IED or that bomb, that one was meant for me. >> Yeah. But for whatever reason, I'm still here. >> Yeah. So, I I have a few of those. Um I one of them we were coming in on on the base and like there was an ID ID blew up golf our whole GMV hit right in the front of our truck and I was like, man, if that would have been back just a little bit further, like we would have been done. That whole that whole vehicle would have been done. >> Um then, uh the next one was the another one that was really really real for me was um we were in Kjaki Sofa. We were doing a clearing operation and the 82nd was putting a um some troops on the other side of the Helman River. So during the day we were troops in contact and one of the guys, one of our guys got shot. US troop got shot. Um wasn't that bad. Went through like his calf and he actually stayed there for the rest of the time. They didn't medac him out. It was straight through. Um and uh which I was pretty impressed with him. He continued on and continued to fight. But when the bird was evacing out, it was it was shot down. So it was shot down from like 100 meters from from our location. >> So it was a huge ball like as soon as that the the I think it was an RPG. Report said it was a um >> what do you want to call it? Service to air missile. But to me it looked like an RPG. It was just >> they were lucky to be at one location while the Shnook flew right over them. They shot the Chinook down right as soon as it hit. It was just a huge ball of of of smoke, right, and a fireball. And then at that point, I'm just like, man, what's going on? And uh and then we went over there to recover those guys. And uh we were like troops in contact the whole time. So at that point, you're just like, man, that was >> that was close, you know. We recovered uh I say almost eight personnel bodies off there and it took us forever to find everybody and they were pretty they were really really bad shape. So yeah, that one was rough. That one was rough. >> All right. So it seems like you you've been able to kind of compartmentalize this was my job. This is what was happening when I was doing my job even afterwards. You're not looking back and like trying to do the rosecolored glasses thing or doing the Eeyore thing where everything was bad shouldn't have been there. You're not really kind of giving yourself away to that. But a through point of of all this and this goes back to the the first time that we met cuz I I remember the first time you and I really hung out. It's me, you, Robisho, Joby, Garrett Gross, Mike Dragitch, like there were some some other folks in there and we're all kind of having dinner, you know, and it wasn't like we were trading stories. We were just chatting. We were just kind of talking and it's always interesting to me when someone does the job that you do or anyone that did any type of special operations and they were also a Christian. But we were talking last night, you know, when you're a teenager, you because you got baptized a couple of different times. You went into the military being able to comfortably say, "Yeah, you can print Christian on my dog tags or whatever." Cuz you know, you have to put some sort of a preference down. >> But for you, it wasn't until the last few years, right? So, as you're transitioning out of the military now, fully transitioned out of the military, moved on in in your career to where you would say, "No, I actually have started like pursuing Jesus." Like, it's like the difference between being a nominal Christian and a disciple. But let's just kind of start all the way all the way back. So, were you raised in a Christian home? Like, is that what kind of led to let's just start there. >> No. So like uh my home with with my parents were very >> they were married young. It almost kind of like a shotgun wedding >> and uh neither one of them were Christian. So we never brought up in the faith there. They divorced very young and then as I'm kind of going on really didn't have any I say agnostic at best, you know what I mean? Like no faith whatsoever. And then uh my father started coming back into the picture when I was probably about eight to 10 years old I would say roughly because he was gone like from a toddler to when I was about between 8 and 10. Mhm. >> He was was not in my life, right? So, he started coming back into my come back into the picture and he would pick me up for some times and he would take me over to his mother's my grandmother's house and well, she was very much in the faith. So, she would when she went to church and she would take me to Sunday school again. So, that was the first time like I started like what is this? Because I hadn't seen it my whole like childhood. And at that point then um that's what I think started the initial seed. Um >> and how old would you have been around this time? >> Eight between 8 and 10 years old. Yeah, between 8 and 10 years old. >> And so was was your grandmother Catholic? >> She was you I don't even cuz I was so young at that time. I think she was Baptist. >> Okay. >> But um but I couldn't be It wasn't Catholic. It wasn't Catholicism. Um because obviously I've been to Catholicism churches now and then there. it was, you know, um very m very much um you know, either pro some kind of Protestant denomination which I I believe was uh was was Baptist. >> So that's where you kind of got you know your feet wet a little bit with kind of understanding what this is a little bit of Bible and all that. Now take us through kind of you know teenage years on into >> So from there from there whenever my when she passed away it was probably one of that was the initial time where I lost somebody that I really cared about because up until then I felt like she was the only person that really like had any interest in me being alive took any kind of interest in me. Nobody else I felt like took any kind of interest of like cared. you know what I mean? So, um, so whenever she passed, it was it was pretty it was very tough for me. And then after that, there was no more like there's no more going to church like I had kind of back into your whole kind of before I was before. Um, and now teenage years I started going to so you know where they have like this the kids youth group or whatever. Yeah. Some kid would go to youth group whatever >> but that was at that point it was just to hang out with other kids >> or oh there's some other girls there I liked. >> Yeah. >> Had nothing to do >> that was my draw in middle school was the best looking girls went to First Baptist West on Wednesday nights and that's where I needed to be. So >> So at the end of the day you're still planting seeds, right? So, there was another seed planted there and then um uh I got baptized at one of these >> these things there, right? But it was kind of one of those things. It was not, >> you know, I'll be honest. It was like other kids were doing it. Okay. Yeah, maybe I should. >> Yeah. So, you just got dunked. >> Just kind of got dunked, right? >> Um and then from there, um I went into the military after that and then started going to church like periodically. My wife started kind of falling more into the faith at that point. >> But I was a GB and I was just like I thought like we had this conversation before. I thought Christian men were weak. I thought that was a place for women. It was feminine. The churches were feminine. And I was like so I didn't I was like I didn't feel thought think I could be a warrior and a green beret, you know, at the same time, right? Or in the military right that time. So, back up a little bit. Before I went into Iraq, I went went and got baptized again. So, my grandfather at that time, who had some uh influence in me, he um was he I don't say he was I don't know. I don't know where he was very agnostic also, >> but he was brought up in a what do they call him? Almost like a missionary, I guess. He was an orphan pretty much, right? But then like, you know, he was brought up with the nuns and everything else. So I started looking at >> like a Catholic mission or something. >> Catholic mission or whatever. Right. So then at that point that's what I was talking about. I was baptized Catholic. Right. >> Right. But I went to church periodically. So that was pretty much I don't even call it really it's exactly what you're talking about. I could put it on a dog tag and that was it, you know. And then when I went to combat and that that's why the thought like hey being a warrior and a Christian did not go together. >> Well so we I I want to I want to drill down on that because I' I've said this on my show a lot but we get new viewers every week. We're very thankful for those guys. But every time I'm I'm asked, you know, to go on another show, I always kind of have to explain this. But, you know, so I become a Christian at the age of 15. That's kind of like your dividing line to where it's like, okay, you're simultaneously now trying to learn what it means to become a man and learn what it means to become a Christian in my infinite wisdom as a 15, 16, 17 year old. I just came to the conclusion that those just aren't the same thing. godly men are inside the church doing God stuff like you know touching you when they talk to you praying for you saying things like praise the Lord when it doesn't seem to make sense you know shirts tucked into their pleated khakis like that okay that's what those guys are there for those the soft guys but those are the the spiritual guys right >> and then you had the manly guys that are fighting in war working out killing animals camping surv learning how to survive like you know those types of things and I just didn't think there was any crossover then I get into my 20s you know I read John Eldridge's Wild at heart which you know is you know an incendiary book for just about everybody in the space. Reading the gospels for myself, it's like I came to the right conclusion that Jesus is not only a manly man, but he is the ma the manliest man, the God man, and that you can be tough and be a Christian at the same time. And so I was trying to like figure out how that looks. And even when I was doing some stuff with some other men's ministries, helping some stuff get off the ground, doing a lot of thinking around this, like what is my own personal philosophy, I was burdened for guys like you. Yeah. like guys like the men that you served with for guys that are wired tough but also guys that have developed their toughness and I was afraid even though the you know God saves who he wants to save and gets to him however he wants to get to him but in my understanding at the time I was like I was afraid of a Terry Wilson walking into a church >> and seeing all these doughy frumpy Mr. Rogers, you know, Ned Flanders type guys and being like, >> I don't want to do that. >> And if men don't feel appreciated, and if men don't feel like they have something to do, they will go do something else. So, if your church is very effeminite, uh the worship music bends towards the women, the the preaching style is an effeminite man giving you this message of grace, never really talking about truth. Hey, let's talk about the lamb of God. Let's never talk about the lion of Judah. A lot of men are just going to be like, "All right, so there's nothing for me to do here. Y'all can't use my verality or my my testosterone in any type of way whatsoever. Okay, I'm going to go to the range. Okay, I'm going to get ready for my next uh, you know, fantasy football draft. All right, I'll go play video games. All right, I'll go just do go do something else." And so take me through your progression in your brain as a tough guy, as a warrior, as someone who, you know, has taken life as you're trying to progress in your Christian understanding and your sanctification process. It seemed like there was a gigantic pause button that you hit to where it's like, nope, I've checked the Christian box. I got to go to war now. But, you know, when did you kind of start wrestling with this whole like, okay, I can be a warrior and I can be a Christian at the same time? >> Man, it's a it's a it was a long road. So, a couple things happened. So, specifically that portion there is I got to the other side of it. I went to to a point to where my heart got so hardened and I was such a violent like angry. And when I say a violent angry person, doesn't mean I reacted, flashed out on it, right? But >> you know what I mean? If I didn't have some kind of moral and ethical or laws around me, like I could have went back to the caveman days. Like that's my thought process, right? >> That is not healthy. That is not healthy to be like that. To be angry all the time, to be that kind of person, right? So there was the guys that had, you know, I was looking for peace, right? And and then even some of these guys that had joy, they didn't look like me, but I was like, man, they got something that I don't have. I need some of that. So that's where I kind of started looking at the the Christianity and the faith, and I'm like, man, I'm way too far on the other side. Like, I am Pharaoh with a hardened heart, and I'm like, no. You know what I mean? I was just did not want to submit to anything. Want total control over everything. And that's whenever I was like, listen, everything that I was doing here in my worldly view was not helping me get peace or joy. >> And so when when did that conviction come? >> So go back. So, um I was standing in my living or in our kitchen and uh I was getting ready to uh leave to go to work and uh I just got done going to the gym and I was drinking my coffee and I get a phone call from my uh my father-in-law and he's like, "Hey, Jacob, our oldest son, has been in a motorcycle accident." And uh he's like, "Hey, listen. Both of his legs and both of his arms are broken." And at that point, man, I just like I just crashed to the floor. Like I knew something was wrong. So, we go to the uh the emergency room. Once we get to the emergency room, this is like the beginning when COVID started. So, like everything was shut down. Like they didn't have like procedures going on and like they're still trying to figure it figure this thing out, you know, and uh there was a law enforcement officer and administrator in front of the emergency room and they're like, "Hey, man. You can't you can't go inside." And I'm like, I think you're wrong. I think I will go inside. He's like, listen. So now we're in a a shouting match. >> And he's like, if you go inside, I I'm arrested. You're arrested. I'm like, listen, you can kill me. I said, I'm going inside. Like, so it got really really heated. And luckily uh the doctor came out of the emergency room before it escalated further than what it should have than what it uh could have went. And um you know, at this whole time, my wife's crying. She's there, you know, with had met me at the emergency room. We go inside of the uh the hospital and right before we get to the emergency room, you know, the the doors that goes in there to where Jacob is, uh the doctor turns around and she's like, "Your son didn't make it." So, like at that time, like like time just stopped, you know, and um you know, we had uh we had a hard time even getting a funeral for him because it was during CO. I went through to funerals all in the area that we we we lived in and they're like, "Hey, we can't we're not going to do it." And then my wife's like, "Listen, I want a funeral for my son." And I'm like, "I'll make it happen." So, um I went to like towns around and finally found a place that, you know, where we could have a service for him. And uh and uh like that was obviously very difficult for us. It took years and years to go through that grieving process. And for me personally, I had um I didn't know how to grieve because I compartmentalized stuff so much, you know, like I was used to, you know, I understood taking life, I understood death, I understood combat, but like I never thought I'd ever have to deal with the loss of a child. Like that's something I never thought I'd have to figure out how to live after that. So fast forward my life, you know, started it was a very very like downhill spiral. Marriage was falling apart. The withdrawal from Afghanistan happened. I was probably 50 plus pounds overweight. Never been out of shape in my life, you know? Um, even as a 40year-old man, even as a team sergeant, like I was crushing dudes at 20 years old, you know what I mean? I was the strongest guy on my team at 35. So um I was probably the strongest guy in the company could arguably the battalion, you know what I mean? So I was like very very tried health and performance was very big for me and uh man I was probably about 50 lbs overweight like double chin like I did not even want to get out of bed like I had was having a very very very tough time and then uh marriage was falling apart and then finally I was like hey man I cannot like I'm about ready to lose everything you know um I came out like at this point I'm like no longer a green beret the war is over. I'm not a warrior anymore. Like I'm about ready to lose my family. I already lost my son and I'm just like my whole identity is being crushed, you know? Like who am I anymore? So I went back to kind of what I knew. I go, "Okay, listen. If if I'm going to get my life back together for my family and for my marriage, I got to get I got to get my [ __ ] together." So I started going back to the gym, started eating whole healthy foods again, learned about calories, macros, like that kind of stuff cuz I had to take the weight off. Um, and now I had a whole bunch of injuries at that time, too. So, I'm like I had to work around like working out because I had ridiculopathy really bad. The ridiculopathy is like when your arms go numb. >> So, like I had it where my arms went numb for like 10 months. >> From your neck or something? >> Yeah. From my neck. So, >> it's almost like where your arms like slept. So, like if I was holding this can like I wouldn't even be able to feel like I had a can. I had a hard time even holding a pistol. Yeah. >> So, I'm like I got to work through all this stuff. I got to figure out how do I stay in shape? How do I work out but still, you know what I mean? lose this weight and and do the things that I can do. Um, and then I'm like, "Okay, now I'm getting in shape." Simultaneously, I'm like, "Okay, now I got to figure out mentally how do I deal with this?" You know, so I started reading books on stoicism because I was really into that port that stuff. I started um uh like going to counseling myself, which, you know, I'm not a big fan of, right? I started going to marriage counseling. Me and my wife started going to marriage counseling. And um so you know I'm doing all these things that I should be doing. You know me and my wife, you know, still getting into it, right? Um almost borderline divorce. You know, we're very very close to that. And uh I'm like, "Hey, listen. You need to start seeing a counselor yourself." And then we started working to try to put the marriage back together, but I couldn't get rid of like this anger. And so all this stuff is coming together, right? Our marriage is kind of like starting to pick showing some life there. And um you know, I've led men in combat. I've led um you know, guys, you know, organizationally, administratively, but leading a family, right, a whole different ball game. >> Yeah. >> Leading your household, whole different ballgame, right? So, how am I supposed to be doing this, right? I realized doing it by an iron fist is not working for me. Doing it the way the worldly way tells you how to do it is not working for me. So, I talked to my old my my son uh Kaden and I'm like, "Hey, man." I said, "Uh, I want you to start coming to church with me." Right? He is starting um whenever they were kids, we had them go to a uh Christian school when we were in North Carolina, Fable Christian School. So, that seed was already really planted for him. So, he really he was really really more in his faith at that time whenever I started having him come to church with me than I was, right? And I'm like, "Hey, let's go find a church." So, um, we went to almost every church like in the in the neighborhood and that. And then, uh, then my daughter at that time who was in a a different relationship with another guy at that time that was not working out well, who was a total atheist, right? Um, and uh, I'm like, "Hey, listen." She started showing interest. She's like, "Hey, I want to start coming to church with y'all." Right? And uh, so it was me and my son, her, we started walking going around to church together. And then my wife eventually started coming, right? And then we found a church that we really enjoyed going to. And I'm going there every, you know, every Sunday. And I'm reading devotionals. I haven't really started getting into scripture yet, right? And I'm reading devotionals. And then my and it's helping, but it's not really it's not I'm still the same guy still, I would say. And uh my kids come back and they're like, "Hey, they're going to uh" I'm like, "Hey, where y'all going?" They're like, "Oh, we're going to small group." I'm like, "What's that?" And he's like, "Oh, it's youth thing for kids or whatever." I'm like, "They don't have they have something like that for men." And they're like, "Yeah, I think so." I'm like, "Hey, can you find me a men's group to go to?" So, I went to the men's group there and the first men's group I went to, those are the ones where I'm just like, I don't fit in here. >> Yeah. >> I'm like, this it was rough. It was very, very rough. Um >> because you have to look at it from an outside perspective. And I talk try to take this into consideration when new men come into our men's group. I'm like, where are you at in your faith? >> Mhm. >> You need to know first because you start talking about, you know, Apostle Paul and this and that and this guy has not even got to Jesus yet. All these things that you're talking about is going straight over his head, right? So, not only that though, but the guys that were there um were very I thought were very soft, no discipline at all. You know, a lot of them were overweight, you know, and um to me that means something. You know what I mean? Like not just spiritually. I don't I don't I'm not saying that you can be a physical fitness, but if you have no spiritual life, then that doesn't mean that means nothing. But we don't get to choose one or the other. >> Yep. >> Right. So, um that a lot of them were very I thought weak mentally, you know, breaking down over things and I'm just like I've been compartmentalizing for years, you know. Um so now there's a few guys there I'm like, okay, that dude's solid. That dude's solid. You know what I mean? and you could see them cuz they had the whole thing together, you know. But there's even some of those guys there, they had some peace and joy that before when you live in that lifestyle, I think that I was as a warrior at sometimes. You see that movie um what was it with Mel Gibson? Um it was a Vietnam War and they said Sar Major and the guy's walking by and he's like uh we were men. >> That's right. >> Right. So you remember Sar Major there was like any of you call me grandpa and I'm going to kick your ass or whatever. and he's like walking and then guys the guys guys were hey good morning star major he's like what's good about it >> like that was kind of my mentality man anybody that had joy or was happy [inaudible] me off >> I'm like why are you feeling so why are you why don't I have that you know it's a reflection of what I didn't have that's why I was upset you know um so so I started getting into small groups there I finally found the small group that was um that was very much um like guys that I that I'd serve with right there. So, there were more more guys that that I could relate to, right? So, I started going to that small group and then then I started getting into scripture. I was doing devotional. I'm like, "Hey, I got to get into scripture." And I really had to look at look at that. And that's kind of what we talked about last night where I really got into scripture. Um, and then I really went into um uh I started asking some of these questions. Okay? Because I was in the same spot as like how do I reach the guy? Because at some point when you start actually going from a Christian to a believer to following Jesus to now trying to be a disciple, right? How do I reach that guy that was me 3, four, five years ago, right? What questions is that guy going to have? What kind of um how do I need to act to to you know what I mean to hit that guy? So that's when I started studying other religions, kind of what we talked about uh uh yesterday. And then um then I really started studying church history like now like when did the church break you know because like the day I'm looking for the truth not my truth or whatever because if you're going to follow Jesus and you're going to be a disciple guys are going to have questions and if you're talking to somebody from a different different denomination right there are certain things that we all need to agree on right we talked about last night and there are certain things that are going to be I don't really believe in that theology or I don't understand it but it doesn't mean that we're not brothers and sisters in Christ but if I attack that one thing from from you, how am I going to be able to really build a bond or or how does that look to a non-believer? You know what I mean? Like is it really that big of a deal? There are certain things we talked about like last night. It's like it's not really that big of a deal. You know what I mean? Um so, so that's where I started like kind of asking those qu, you know, those questions and that. So, >> and so for you, would you say because there are guys in this audience right now that are going to be able to relate to a lot of what you just talked about. So, something that I realized for me is, you know, I was baptized as, you know, a kid like in sixth grade cuz we're driving home from church one day because my whole family didn't go, but my mom would take my sister and I every now and then >> and it was like, well, you think it's about time you all get baptized next week. And so, we were like, "Sure." Cuz I was like, "We'll probably go to Hardies or Carl's Jr. after." And so, that'll be worth it. So, let's go put on some clothes and get dunked and then move on. But then I had my believer's baptism as a sophomore in high school >> and I can tell that it was very different. But you know immediately when you become a Christian, receive the Holy Spirit, your sanctification journey starts right then. >> Yeah. >> But what I feel like I did is I had something that I'm just going to call delayed sanctification. >> Yeah. where, you know, I made my way through high school, get a scholarship, go to college, and I was doing kind of Christian type stuff, like I would go to church every now and then, like when I got into college, but I wasn't studying the Bible all the time, wasn't doing the men's group stuff all the time. It was all kind of like hit or miss, and that kind of carried into my early marriage years. Got married at 22 and carried in. But at some point, it's like, I got to get real about what I'm doing here. And a big wakeup call for me was uh this was a few years back. I read like 54 53 54 books for the podcast for interviews to get ready for interviews and all that. And here I am sitting there in December evaluating my year and I'm like man I'm awesome. I freaking crushed it. Look at all these books I read. And it was like God like tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Hey, uh how many books of the Bible did you read this year?" >> Yeah. And then I started thinking, I'm like, "Bro, I don't even know if I read 54 chapters of the Bible this year." And I was like, "Oh no." And that led to the forging table, which is what we do here, you know, studying books of the Bible. You know, we expand to a second show with the Daily Blade, doing daily devotionals. And so, because of my job, you know, I'm forcing myself to be in the word. But I can just see even in the last few years how my sanctification has really ramped up considerably. So, back to what I was going to ask for you. Do you feel like you became a Christian in the last like a couple you know you know a few years ago or can you point back to no I I began my sanctification journey as a young man but I my sanctification was just paused while I was doing my green beret stuff like >> so I would say my sanctification period started whenever I got baptized before I went to Iraq because I like I was still a Christian but I was one of those this is what people don't understand when you're a lukewarm Christian at that point and your sanctification's coming or you're walking through your sanctification or you're just pausing it or whatever is there's things that you do that you know are not godly and you pay the price for them through anxiety and shaming yourself and everything else because you know that you're not supposed to be doing it or you're questioning your convictions, right? So you don't get none of the benefits of being a Christian and following Christ and trying to be a disciple because you're still living in this world of like uh I'll get to that whenever because this is the thing we have this theory is that we're going to live forever. >> You know what I mean? So I'm going to live forever and so you know I'll just get to that later on down the road or when I'm 65 or when I'm on my deathb bed then I'll start following God. It doesn't it it should not be it should you should not think that way. You should be should be thinking of tomorrow's my end day like to you know what I mean to like I mean I'm not literally but you know what I mean like kind of like >> um so um so yeah so I think I really paused it but I still like had the chaplain come out like I was probably one of the only team sergeants one of the only team sergeants that had like the chaplain come out to our team and I'd be like hey listen the chapl come out here we're going to listen to what he has to say. You know what I mean? And so, um, but like I said, I was still very much living a warrior lifestyle and very much sinning daily, you know, not like, okay, I sinned, um, as a Christian or as a follower, as a believer, right? Maybe I sin with my mouth or something and then you know but I was like openly sinning on a normal on a dayto-day probably basis and be like ah this is >> this is what it this is what it is to be a a warrior green bay or whatever. So, >> so I mean you kind of have this extended, you know, riding this wave of sanctification but >> even going back to the death of your son, >> you know, almost the death of your marriage. >> Obviously, you know, people use the term soulsearching. I don't really normally like that, but it does it feels appropriate to say like you're soularching. >> You're trying to figure out what, you know, what's my meaning in this life? Um, you had that identity crisis of no longer being a Green Beret, no longer being a father to your eldest son and the the gaps you feel in your life. Any one of those things, Terry, is enough to take a guy out, right? Our mutual buddy Mike Dragage, part of the reason why he does Project Savior Outdoors is because he lost so many of his Marine brothers after they came home. We didn't lose them in war. He lost them to suicide once they got back here because something whether it was they lost their marriage, they lost a brother in combat, they came home and had no identity. They came home and they I mean quick plane ride over and it's like, "All right, you're a civilian now. Uh you're not getting shot at anymore. You're not, you know, thinking about getting blown up. You know, you have uh post-traumatic stress. You have any of these these things that go on. any one of those things is enough to take a man out and has taken men out. But here you are sitting across from me at this table. As you look back at that time, I know you can obviously see because we talked about it, you could see Christ working. You could see the Holy Spirit working through all of those circumstances, but you still have to kind of reckon with why are you still here? like what what is the purpose that God has for you to even have you on this path of not self-discovery but discovering even deeper things about him? >> Yeah. So the one thing that I h I I struggled with in my sanctification uh process was when you look at different preaching and I'm talking about preacher for pastors or whatever or people how different theology of how people think >> God's purpose for you is right I struggled with that right and I'm like okay how do I how do I what's the truth how do I sit with it right because questions that a lot of people will say well then if God's gods exist then why do bad things happen to people and good people very common question especially from atheists and and maybe non-believers or even even believers or even followers of Christ like okay hey how does this work so I really started looking at different theology and and looked at like okay what is what do people who study scripture say about this right and um this is kind of where my walk had led me that we have free will. If we didn't have free will, then we wouldn't be where we're at now. Right? You have free will to to follow Jesus Christ or to not. You have free will to do bad things or to do good things. Right? Without free will, if a guy just came out there and be everybody will be a Christian and I'll show you then >> then what are we doing? Right? So because you have free will you have to understand that you are people will do bad things right now. So whenever now when I have that portion of it and then whenever they say well miracles happen right which so now you can go well if a god if Jesus and god can make the universe make you and me make everything that we see why is it so unpredictable or un fathom that he cannot make miracles happen yes when he makes them and why he makes them and how he makes them is not for me or for you to decide or even sometimes understand, right? And I think once you get that kind of like for me, once I kind of understood that, I was okay, that makes sense to me. You know what I mean? >> Well, I mean, but Terry, you have guys that'll >> they will spend the rest of their life wrestling with stuff that is unknowable, right? And so, you and I even talked about last night, >> um, it's impossible to know for certain, right, >> for certain >> whether or not the earth is old or young. Y >> or the exact age, the exact time it started, like all those different things. But there are people whether they're young earth or old earth, they elevate their preference to primary doctrine territory because there are primary doctrines, right? You have to have the virgin birth. You have to have the godhead, father, son, and holy spirit. You have to have the crucifixion, the actual bodily death of Jesus. You have to have the actual bodily resurrection of Jesus. There are certain things that are have to, right? You you have to have these things, >> but then you start getting into secondary and tertiary doctrines and I think it's fun to discuss those things. You and I discussed some of those things with a a whiskey in one hand and a cigar in the other yesterday >> and those are fun. I think that those are valuable. I think it's it's fine to listen to, >> but people would just elevate them to a point of supremacy to where they lose sight of the gospel. they they don't even evangelize anymore because they'd rather argue about Calvinism versus Armenianism or argue about postmill versus, you know, premill or whatever. It's like, guys, we have lost the thread here. You know what I mean? >> Yeah. We we have and then that's why there's c there are certain things when people like the prosperity gospel. I don't really I don't believe that. I there's nothing that I see logically that I understand where I'm just like, okay, that makes sense. >> Or even a scriptural basis for it. >> There's not even a scriptural basis for I mean, there's so many scriptural basis that shows not, right? And there's enough things that I see that don't that don't, right? Because if that was the case, if we talk about prosperity gospel, then why do a lot of bad people have some of the most prosperity? >> Sure. >> Right. So, like at the end of the day, you know, and we look at prosperity as a different thing. It's not necessarily money based, right? Like where are you at with the Lord? Like where are you at in your marriage with your with your children and with with yourself, right? So that um now at the same token is this is another thing that I I struggled with right is is praying to think because you go to some of these men's small groups especially in a non-denominational church everybody believes something different and now if you're coming as >> it's because the church itself has no doctrine like they don't have any core beliefs in the church it's just wee come on in and have fun >> exactly right so that's where it gets you have to understand Jesus isn't weird people are weird so once you kind of start understanding that and whenever you get there and you're like somebody is saying something that you're like I don't think that's scriptural based right there's nothing I see that or maybe it's a different theology or different kind of thought process than you do right um whenever you're like when I whenever I pray for something does not mean that it's going to happen right I don't get to decide whether it happens or it doesn't happen I need to be okay with God's decision on what that You know what I mean? >> And there's a lot of people there be like, I prayed for this and I know God answered it. Well, you're not sure if God answered it or if it just h you know what I mean? >> Because for somebody who lost their child or lost a wife or a loved one, when you start saying something like that, it can be very like, okay, so why were your prayers answered and mine wasn't? >> And it certainly doesn't feel as cut and dry. And cut. I told you about Michael Leehand that was sitting in your chair not long ago. And this was a guy that was a >> a practicing theistic Satanist. And he said, "Dude, do you know that like Satan can answer prayers too? Like Satan has power. Satan can heal. Satan can grant you things because he was like, "Look, I had all kinds of stuff that Satan gave me." So there was prosperity and there was certain powers and some of his, you know, instincts were elevated significantly. And he's like, "Look, you know, I those there are things that just kind of happen and then there are things where God is in the process weaving them together. Nothing is happening outside of his purview or sovereignty. >> Yeah. >> But you're right. When someone's like, "Wait a minute. I had a seven-year-old that had cancer and and she died. You had a seven-year-old that had cancer and was miraculously healed." Yeah. >> Like >> people were praying on both sides of this ledger, but only one of the people's prayers got answered. But at the end of the day, it's like the way that you could look at it is God answered the prayers in both circumstances. But his will and his knowledge of allowing this little girl to pass and this little girl to survive, >> it's just his story and his work through that is going to be different. But try explaining that to someone that just lost their child. >> Yeah. You're not going to be explaining it to them, you know? So whenever we say these things, we just have to be very careful, I think, whenever we preach the gospel and that and understanding that just that there's some things we don't understand and and we are okay with not understanding it. You I don't know. >> Well, so no, I'm even curious for you. >> What are the things that you're wrestling with right now? Because again, we've talked a lot about and you've elucidated a lot about how you were able to compartmentalize things throughout your career >> when you were downrange like, okay, I I can deal with these things now, but I've got to go do this work now. But I think all of us that are fervently u in our sanctification process trying to become a better disciple of Jesus trying to understand scripture more we always have different things that we're wrestling with or different concepts that we're wrestling with at different times. So for you where you're at right now what are some of those things that you're wrestling with or trying to you know figure out? >> I don't know. So for so I don't have an issue with not sometimes cuz I read scripture and it says you know don't let your understanding like the tree of knowledge and the tree of of life like the end of the day like it says in scripture that you're not going to understand anything that for me to understand God sometimes is not I don't need to right so I don't have a issue like so the spiritual warfare right spiritual warfare that happens Right. Was something it was a little bit I'm like how I don't understand that cuz I can't see it. >> Mhm. >> Right. But there's certain I can't see air either. Doesn't mean it's not there. >> Yeah. >> Right. So how it works I really don't understand. I don't think none of us really understand but from what we we we uh read in in scripture. Right. Um so those are some of the things where but to me I really don't um I don't wrap myself around it. I guess if that makes sense. >> Okay. So, >> do you know what I mean? So, like All right. So, let's talk about like um >> so I know like certain certain every denomination has a little bit things some things that they they they emphasize more than other. All right. So, we'll talk about demons, right? So for me I'm like okay that's one that very very is one of the one things where I'm like okay is that somebody that is has demonic issues or is it somebody that is not taking responsibility for their self or their mil right I don't know that but doesn't mean that it doesn't happen I just don't understand >> how do you portray one from the next does that make sense you >> right so like at the end of the day it's like okay I don't have um night rate vision, but there's animals that do >> doesn't mean it doesn't happen, right? So, the spiritual warfare is something I think for people that are they're walking in their in their in their faith is very hard to understand because I don't think we none of us really do because we don't >> and I think there's an awareness thing because you know some people think there's a demon behind every bush, some people think there are two demons behind every bush and some people think demons don't exist. Yeah. >> And so regardless of whether or not you believe it, I mean, I always use gravity, right? Because we can't see gravity. We can't whatever. We can only see the the after effects of gravity. And so someone could not believe in gravity, but if they were to get on the roof of my house and say, "I'm about to uh jump to that roof or whatever," they will jump off and they will hit the ground because gravity is a real thing. >> And so I think for a lot of people, again, we we kind of will get fixated on something because we have to figure this out. We have to take this to bedrock. But I would ask someone, it's like, okay, you think there are two demons behind every bush. How does that affect how you walk out your faith today? How does that affect how you love your wife as Christ loved the church? Or if you're a gallon of this, shout out to the 5enters. Like, how does that affect how you were help made made fit for your husband? How does that help you raise up your children and the nurture and admonition of the Lord? >> Now, if you're putting on the the armor of God, the full armor of God, recognition of where the enemy is, how they act, and how they're trying to attack you. Yeah. >> that make that doable for you. So, I I guess even to to change it up. So, what do you feel like God is is teaching you right now or revealing you to you right now? Or some of the areas where you feel like um you're improving in your understanding while you're in your sanctification journey? Um I think for me like I said I there is another thing you want to because there's different things right I think you need to have a build a relationship with Jesus Christ right and so right because we talk about by having grace right so there's some scripture there's scripture that is very uh that is in there where all of you you know who say that you know me do not right I'm paraphrasing here yeah >> so okay I can have >> confess with your mouth like you will say but I cast out demons is in your name, but I did all this, but it was me. So like, so that has a lot to do with heart posture. >> So you can check the blocks on doing traditional ritualistic things. Okay, I'm supposed to do this. I'm supposed to take communion. I'm supposed to go to church. I'm supposed to do this. I'm supposed to do that. But if you don't have a heart posture to where like you're actually following Jesus Christ, you're doing all of those. >> Yeah. You're just doing stuff. >> You're just doing activity. >> Yeah. You're just doing activity, right? Um now the other thing is now do I have um I have faith, right, through grace, right? right? That I I know Jesus Christ died for me, right? So that doesn't mean that I get to come up every day and then sin over and over and over again and still not do other things by following him also, right? So like for me it's like, okay, where does where is that to me? He's showing me where I need to be, right? What things do I need to do to continue to do to follow him, pick up my cross, you know? And that's where I've really kind of looked at like the early church history, not just because there is, we talked about this yesterday, right? There's people that'll read scripture and sit here and have a conversation with you and I'm like, "What are you reading?" Cuz we're not even reading the same thing. Where do you think homosexuality is not a sin in scripture? Right? I just watched a podcast with a guy who's talking about somewhere in scripture he read that, you know, there's no no uh no nor man nor woman. We're all one in Jesus Christ. He's like, "See, God said it was all transgender." Like, where? And I'm like, "What are you talking about?" Like, "Are you that ridiculous? You're trying to bend >> the the the will of God, scripture, to your own personal bias and beliefs, right? Are you doing it intentionally? Are you that ignorant?" And I don't know. There's some people, both are bad, right? So, I think because of that, >> there is we don't throw out the baby with a bath water. I think you still have to look at the early teachings, you know what I mean, of what we were doing early in the in in church. Now, there's certain things we talk about theology, right? There's certain things, okay, we're not going to, but those are secondary and thirds. It really is not that big of a deal, right? So, that's where I'm just like, okay, where does God want me? Where do I what do I need to be? Should I be doing to follow him to disciple other people? And you know what I mean? That's where >> Well, and Terry, as we wrap up here, because because of the nature of my job, because I do this show, because I say things out of my face hole into microphones that people can listen to while they're driving down the road or at the gym or something like that. >> Like, as Joby said, he's like, "Kyle, you're you're not a you're not a pastor, but you are a prophet. Like, you are a guy that's speak not telling the future, but like you are a guy that's >> uh speaking truth into culture, like speaking literal truth to literal power. You know, I'm trying to equip men to push back darkness. And you have to do that by waiting into some dark areas, by having conversations about topics that aren't always fun by covering things that are going on in the news cycle or in culture or the the philosophical worldviews >> that are difficult for a lot of people to wrap their minds around. But it's my job to help give guys, to steal a quote from Matt Chandler, a plausibility structure in their brains for how they should react to this thing that's happening in culture or this worldview that's being propagated or whatever. So in that as well, just by virtue of you being on this show, you are going to be helping guys on their sanctification journey. You're helping to disciple guys just with your perspective and your words and your lessons. So as we kind of wind to a close to the guy that's listening to this right now >> that's maybe on the fence >> like on the fence even just about Jesus and you know ah you know he's he's God but he's also man and did he really die? And I heard some dork on a podcast say that we don't even know if this Jesus fell even actually existed. like your message to that guy, but then also your message to the guy that is at some place in his walk. Maybe he's a new Christian or maybe he's, you know, been a Christian for a long time. And I try to remind people, it's not how many years you've been a Christian, it's how many hours. Like that's a great way to think about it. >> But what is your message to the the bevy of guys that are listening to this show uh that are on either a finding their faith journey to begin with or even like a continuation journey? >> Okay. So for the guy that is maybe just because there's a lot of people that I that I talk to be like, "Yeah, I believe in God, but there's so many different religions. How do I know that Jesus Christ is is the one and the only is is the only way to God?" And I go and that's where I go, okay, so you know, have you read scripture? Have you read the Bible or anything like that? And a lot of people will say, "No." And I'm like, "Well, have you even read the gospel? Do you even understand like how it happens?" You know, obviously no. And I go, well, you have to read it first, >> right? Or understand it. And then you come out with a good, okay, is this credible or is this not credible? Right? You look at the context and everything there. If you're coming from somebody who believes in God, but saying, "Oh, there's so much different religions. Which ones do I go to?" Right? Yep. Now, go study other religions also. >> Right. We just had a conversation there the other day. Right. >> Right. without being right. So you we we talked about Islam, right? Who Muhammad married a six-year-old and wheated at 9 years old. >> Do you believe that religion is okay? >> Like like right there, I don't need to get too much further into the religion to to decide that that's not morally or ethically >> right. Right. Right. We look into Judaism, right? So you look at the Talman, there's a lot of things that are not, you know, calling us goys and not human and all these other stuff. I know there's a lot of things on social media on that right now, but to me, they do not believe in Jesus Christ, right? Does not believe as a messiah. That is not another religion, right, that were that I believe in. So you look at that and then you go into is Jesus Christ credible, right? And I believe he is. There's a lot of history. is the man who's been been written about more than anybody else. There's a lot of more theologists that they'll can give you a lot more actual historical facts that'll can tell you that this is true. People do not follow somebody to death over a lie. Right. >> Right. This is not well know then you'll get this. Well, how do you know this is true? >> For for a lie that they know is a lie. People will die for a lie all the time. That's why you have people blowing themselves up with SV vests and things like that. But if you know it's a lie, you're not going to die for it. >> You're not going to die for it. Right. So, so that's one thing there too. And then another thing is is like you said to understand the times at that time there was not a bunch of Christians. >> So they were this was the government and everybody in the world trying to come down on them. This wasn't the government telling you. So it wasn't the the higher authority trying to push this on you. This was a rebellion pretty much. >> This was a you know what I mean? Mh. >> Uh, plenty of eyewitnesses there. So, at the end of the day, what religion is the most credible, right? And if you kind of get down to that and then you let Jesus work cuz you're supposed to plant a seed. And sometimes I'll just tell guys, hey, listen, just get in there and read Psalms, you know what I mean? I'm like, get in there and just start reading the gospel, you know? Um, and then the Holy Spirit works works his magic, you know what I mean? It's not me sometimes to convince somebody where it's at, >> you know? And look, arguably right now, Terry, we talked about this la last night. >> The country that is having the biggest and fastest growing movement of of Christ is Iran. Yep. >> Where you can't street preach. There's not just Christian mega churches that are opening their doors and doing their rock concerts and then doing a big altar call at the end. >> Like there there's people you don't have copies of the Bible that you can just go and get off of a bookshelf or something like that. like we're talking about capital offenses if you are found in in possession of of these things or preaching or running an underground church. >> And yet the Holy Spirit, Jesus, is coming to Muslims in their dreams, right? And so right now in Iran, you have a lot of people that are Muslims that are experiencing a disillusionment as to over what the government and the Ayatollah is doing and killing thousands if not tens of thousands of people in the streets that are rebelling against the the government order. >> They're transferring from Muslims to being atheists and then now their mind is open to okay this Jesus fellow that's mentioned in the Quran. Yeah. that in the Quran according to the Quran didn't die on a cross he swooned and all those different things wait but he came to me in my dream and he's saying that I am the way the truth and the life and the only way to the father and the father is Yahweh not Allah and those types of things but my the thing I would do to even add to what you said is we spend all this time and all this we give all this interest and energy to things that are not knowable >> and yet there are things this message to Christians and non-Christians. There are things that are are knowable that are right here in this book that we don't spend any time with and then we're dealing with all of these other doctrines that are outside of the holy words uh and the holy scriptures and it's distracting us away from the main thing. But like I emphasize to people that aren't Christians yet, >> these things are knowable cuz I had someone who's very very important to me, someone that's very close to me did said to me the same thing that you said earlier where they're like, "Wait a minute. Hey, I believe in God. Look, I was baptized when I was a kid, like all that." And I said to this person like, "Look, even the demons believe." And they shudder. And I would say that this person even believes that Jesus was a real man that died on a cross that was resurrected, but he has yet to puo as Joby has taught a lot of people. He has yet to transfer his faith from himself for salvation. And I worked hard my whole life and I' I'm good enough and all those things. He has yet to transfer his hope for salvation from himself and his good works which are filthy rags before the Lord >> into the finished work of Jesus on the cross at Golgtha. And I just like let's focus on the things that can be known as opposed to trying to focus on really anything else. >> Yeah. Exactly. And then there's enough and this is what kind of people will read a history book about Marcus Aurelius or someone else and be like, "Oh, that really happened." And then you talk about the man that's been written about the most in history, >> right? And then they'll be like, "I don't know if I believe that." >> Right? And there's more addestation and there's more uh transcripts that say that. And then you look at someone like Julius Caesar and it's like, "Wait, wait, the first writings we have was written down hundreds of years about the Gaelic Wars and it was 100 years after." So the problem that people have that I I think is because they can't see. So what they can't see they don't understand. So then they second guess what it is there. >> Yeah. >> Right. >> But there are so much things in just I can walk outside and and see the wonders of nature and not understand it. >> God's fingerprints all over it. >> It's all over the place. And once you understand that portion of it, it's like, how can you not think that things that you do not understand happen? How can you say that like these things that were built that were made before you got here is a miracle? >> Yeah. >> That the fact that it's all coexist together is a miracle. >> And time, space, and matter had a timeless spaceless immaterial beginning. And now you want to say you want to say the the the creator who made this miracle of the air that we breathe in and the earth that we live on cannot have a virgin birth cannot walk on water. >> Come on >> now. You're not being logical in my personal opinion even though it sounds unlogical. So once you have that and you can kind of get I I personally think you can get you can get past that portion of it. Um, but a lot of people will get to God and they'll just use, "Oh, yeah, I believe there's a creator or whatever, and they'll say universe," but they won't go to the most written uh accounts in the in >> when I I'll challenge guys, Terry, cuz someone's like, "Man, I don't know that the Bible's true." I was like, "You don't have to believe it's true to read it." >> Yeah. >> Like, you don't read Harry Potter and you don't read the Hearty Boys. You don't read that thinking it's true. You just read it. And then, you know, I had a guy that just recently came into my life, very, very new Christian, had never read a gospel before, and he asked a question to me and a couple of my friends, which one should I start in? >> Now, when you look at the different gospels, you have the synoptics, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and then you have John's gospel. >> So, I'm like, okay, Matthew was written to a mainly Jewish audience by Matthew and I witness. Um, then you have Mark, which is more like the action movie of all of the gospels cuz it's really quick. It's really to the point, very short sections. Then you have Luke, the historian, very detailed accounts of everything. It's more exhaustive. And then you have John's gospel, >> which is a little bit more poetic. Uh, and I don't mean that to say it's not true, but it's like it's written in a way that's more about um really the poetic nature of who Jesus was as he was John was witnessing these things with his own eyes. >> And so it it really just depends on the person what you would suggest to them. But I told him, hey, start with Matthew because this is an eyewitness account that was written down to a Jewish audience. So there's a lot of connections to the Old Testament. So, if you're reading something like, and if you can only own one Bible, I tell people to get the ESV study Bible from Crossway. And if you're reading through Matthew, there's all these footnotes that attach to the Old Testament scriptures >> that give us the foundation. This is why you don't unhitch from the Old Testament. It gives you the foundation to why we were even looking for a savior for for why we could even look at prophecy and see that every single prophecy from the Old Testament that spoke of a messiah was fulfilled in the God man Jesus in the first century. And that that's what I just give to guys as an encouragement. Even if you don't believe it, read it as if it might be true. Yeah. >> And then just see what God does with that. >> Yeah. I a lot of people that's all you can do, you know. But um you know, Pastor Joby said something the other day which I thought was very interesting. I think with guys, it's like they have to have a need first. >> Yeah. >> You can't you can't bring a person to water who's not willing to drink, you know. So they have to have a need, a want. There's got to be something in their life that thinks that they need that, you know, and sometimes when everything's going right for somebody who's not a believer, they don't feel like they have a need. >> Yeah. The only thing they need is need. And so and and we can't always manufacture that. Sometimes it's whenever they everything comes tumbling down is whatever you have like need. And what I would say to people that are already Christians or in their sanctification or in their walk um at some point, you know, a lot of guys will ask, you know, hey, what's my purpose in life? And and what's God's purpose for me and where am I supposed to be doing and where am I supposed to be going? And I will say straight from scripture. God didn't say go out and make green berets or he didn't say go out and make doctors or lawyers. He said, "Go out and make disciples." You can disciplehip as a janitor at a high school. You can disciple doing anything that you're doing in life, right? You can disciple by just having your talking about your testimony in church or being a small group or being a greeter at your church. Like I think we all we overcomplicate like our gifts and our purpose whenever I don't think you you need to. >> Yeah. I I love that, man. It's been a great trip here to Oklahoma, but we do got to get you on an airplane and send you home before too long. But that's all for me. Is there anything else you want to get off your chest? >> No, no, man. I think it was good, man. It was a great conversation last night. We I think we solved some >> most of the world's issues. Yeah, we checked all the boxes. >> Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, it was good. And then uh and followed up today. So, it was great, man. >> All right, brother. We'll see you soon. >> All right. Perfect. >> Thank you for listening to this podcast. Wherever you're listening to this, please subscribe, rate, and leave us a positive fivestar review. If you want me to come speak live at your event or on your podcast or shoot me an email to info@undantton.life, that's info@undanton.life. Follow us on Instagram and like us on Facebook and check out our website for everything else, including how to donate to keep more content like this coming your way. Just go to www.undton.life. And as always, we want to thank the band Holy Name for allowing us to use their music for our content. The music on this podcast is their song Perpeta, which is off their self-titled debut album on Faceown Records. The links are in the description. I'm your host, Kyle Thompson. Remember, keep pushing back darkness. Keep forging spiritual, mental, and physical resilience. Keep seeking the Lion of Judah.