#8 Eddie Gallagher - Retired Navy SEAL Tried for Murder
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Welcome back to the Sean Ryan Show. This is the final episode of 2020. And what a hell of a year that's been, huh? Right? Yeah, I think we can all agree on that. To kick things off, once again, thank you for the massive influx of Patreons we've had coming to Patreon. If you're looking for tactical training, if you're new at the game and you're just trying to learn how to use your new piece,

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One word. It's not that hard. We'll link it below. That helps us out, gets the show out to where it needs to go so that everybody can hear it. I mean, the shit that we saw in that deployment... What is some of the shit that you saw? We're trying to recce a spot, and I look over, and they had kids' heads, little kids' heads on the spikes.

There was dead bodies all over the place. We had our terp blown in half. I got pulled into the Mass Chief of Trade at and said, "Hey, you're under investigation." They went and raided my house. He went to fight, you know, for our country to prevent people from terrorizing, you know, members of the United States. And then they take him and they lock him up on American soil, and then they lay siege to his home and terrorize his wife and his children.

It's pretty sick. My oldest son opens up the door. They're all screaming at him. They're pointing rifles at my children, and they're saying, "Put your hands up." Eight years old with a gun in your face. Yeah. There's, like, two other people with rifles, and they're-- like, the lasers are right on us. So you wound up not guilty. Yep. And-- and what-- what-- what did that-- I mean, bro, the courtroom erupted. Our next guest...

is a former Navy SEAL. He was a sniper. He's a medic. He's a breacher. And he was also tried for murder, only to be found innocent. He's the most controversial Navy SEAL of our times. He's all over the news. He needs no introduction. Without further ado, please welcome 008, Mr. Eddie Gallagher. Mr. Eddie Gallagher, welcome to Tennessee.

Thank you for having me. It's awesome to be here. Yeah, man, it's a pleasure to have you. So just a quick introduction, you know. So you are probably, I would say it's a good chance, you are the most controversial name in SEAL team history, actually, without a doubt. And, you know, you've been through hell and back. You've had teammates, you know, betray you.

He went to court, you know, and wound up not guilty. And, you know, another reason that I think you're so controversial is President Trump stepped in to your case not once but twice, and that has not happened twice.

since I think Richard Nixon. The Melee Massacre. Yeah, 1968. And, you know, with the election cycle and how divided the country is right now, it puts you in the limelight even more than you probably wanted to be. Yeah. So we're going to talk about all that. But first, it is December, and I give everybody a gift. Yes.

This is the main reason I came out here. That's what I'm saying, dude. We give some good presents. Oh, my man. I appreciate it. Any guesses? Could it be squishy? Soft and squishy guys? It might be. It might be. I'll ruin the box. Ed Calderon took the last one. He's the first guest to ever take the present box. Oh, I'm nice. It's nice. So we got the updated version. Oh, sick. Heck yeah.

Brand new hat. That's what I'm talking about. So that, you know, Eddie, you are a sniper. You're a medic. You're a SEAL. You're a breacher. But if there's one thing you are not, it's a fucking escape artist. So I got you an extra handcuff key, a saw blade that will go through metal.

And there's also a get out of jail free card in there from Monopoly. So, you know. You know what? My wife will appreciate that for sure. Keep that in handy. You might need to use that sometime. Never out of the realm. Yeah. Possibility. Nice. This is it right here. That's what I'm saying. This is what I was waiting for.

I should have sent you some of those in prison, but it didn't happen yet. Dude, I appreciate that, brother. Yeah, my pleasure. I'll be rocking this hat today. So moving on, you just wrote a book. It's not out yet. I think you said it's still under review. Under DOD review. It should be releasing soon. The Man in the Arena, From Fighting ISIS to Fighting for Your Own Freedom. And I can't wait to read it.

I want to hit some of the topics. I'm hoping that you'll bring some stuff up that's exclusive this podcast that's in that book. But when's the release date on that? So right now, like you just said, it's a DOD review. It's out of our hands of when they're going to be done with it. They've had it for about two and a half months. I'm being optimistic and saying I'm giving it about two more months. So I'm hoping that the release date will sometime be in first quarter of 2021, hopefully, you

March, you know, April, but we'll we'll constantly put updates out. But right now it's on preorder. You can preorder it and it comes with a preorder bundle. You go to Eddie Gallagher book dot com and with the preorder bundle, you'll get a challenge coin and a note from myself and Andrea, my wife.

Then you also get the book a month early before it's actually out before everybody else and it'll be signed by both myself my wife awesome, yeah, I pre-ordered one and I can't wait to get it if you could just tell the people over at you know The Pentagon or whoever's reviewing it to hurry the fuck up. That would be great I'll drop your name over there. I'll speed up the process right off but

You know, your career in the SEAL teams, to be honest with you, seems like up until the very last part, like a fucking dream career. I think you did eight deployments, a shit ton of combat time, a lot of trigger time. And I don't want to spend too long on your childhood or anything. Actually, I'd rather breeze through that. You have some really good podcasts out there already. So I just want to start off with...

SEAL Team 7 Alpha Platoon, your last deployment. And, you know, from what I understand, you have a handful of combat deployments before you ever even showed up there. You have multiple awards with valor, which for you civilians, that means...

combat trigger time, which you were awarded for. You're a sniper. You're a breacher. You're a medic. You got Sailor of the Year, which is a very high honor. That means you're the highest or the best SEAL at the SEAL Team. Was that at SEAL Team 7? I got Sailor of the Year for all the West Coast. Oh, shit. That's a huge deal. Wow. You got your own parking spot.

Yeah, I got a funny story about that too, which, well, we can get into later. But yeah, I definitely got my own parking spot. And honestly, I don't know how I made Group 1 Sailor of the Year. But, you know, somehow I got picked for it. You know, I had my best friend was my platoon chief at the time. So he did a good write-up for me, which is how I think it got pushed through. But yeah. Oh, whatever. You got it, man. That's cool. And, you know...

Am I missing anything? Oh, yeah. You were rated the number one platoon chief, Team 7. And you took the worst rated platoon and made it into the most effective, best, highest rated platoon in Team 7 in, what, a year, year and a half? Yeah. So, and you were only able to bring one guy with you. I remember you saying...

You know, you wanted to stack the deck and you were trying to bring some friendlies over and to a team that was complaining about weak leadership. And you were told you were only allowed to bring one guy with you. And so let's kick it off from there. SEAL Team 7, Alpha Platoon, you're taking Platoon Chief, getting ready to lead these men into Mosul. Yep. And...

their prior deployment, they were bitching about weak leadership and now they have you with, with a magnitude of fucking combat experience. Yeah. So I, uh, was just coming off, um, a rotation out at, uh, the Cree crisis response element, which was a new AE. I just picked up chief and, um, I was given the opportunity to do a platoon chief for the next rotation. Um,

The master chief of the team told me he was going to, I was in Charlie platoon at the time and he was going to take me out of Charlie and put me in charge of alpha platoon. The word around, or everybody knew that alpha team didn't do alpha platoon. Didn't do so hot. The last rotation. Nobody really knew, knew why. I mean, I didn't know any of those guys, but that was pretty much just the word that was put out. And it showed, you know, when you, when you saw those guys perform, you know,

So once I was given the opportunity to go over to alpha You know, I didn't I went over there with no preconceived notions. I wasn't going there like okay You guys are a bunch of turds or whatever. It was everyone starting off on a clean slate because I didn't know anybody So I took over I sort of entered that platoon pretty slow. I'm sort of feeling it out and

the as you know like so when you come back from deployment you're in professional development phase that's where everybody goes off to their specialty schools um so the platoon is never really fully together until you start uh ul to your workup um but while i while during pro dev um i came up with a training schedule um where we we were going to work on the basics two three times a week um and i didn't care if the whole platoon was there or not and i was like well you know

do it with what we got right now. And then this guy's filtering and come back from schools. I'll just, you know, enter the training. Um, it was not nothing sexy about the training. It was all just basic, um, stuff on it, you know, patrolling posts, pre pre-op assault procedures. Um, you know, two, four man room entries, uh, starting at basics going through, um, just getting used to each other, building some cohesion and seeing how everybody walks. Yep. And, um,

The older, the third platooners at the time, I think, thought that they were too good for, you know, that I was taking up their time by doing this basic training. And there was, I didn't know at the time, but there was definitely a lot of grumbling from these third platooners, which is about, there's probably four of them. So let's just take...

Let's just take all the stuff that you learned about them afterwards and just like first impression how to go. Okay, first impression. And actually one question I do have is you hit a crossroads before you took platoon chief, if I understand correctly. And you were going to go back to green team to screen to go over to become an operator at dev group. Yeah.

Or the other option was to take your platoon chief slot and you chose your platoon chief slot. Did you know the platoon you were going to take over before you made that decision? No, you didn't. No, I had called up my buddies over at development group, you know, told them my situation, what my options were. I still wanted to go over there. My goal was to go screen.

um they gave me the advice or like no take the platoon chief spot um you know i don't think there was much going on or they weren't doing much at the time um and i had i was pretty long in the tooth when it came to my uh years in service i think i was at 16 and a half years at that point i had been putting off doing picking up chief or

uh taking any leadership roles just because i wanted to maintain just be a shooter i'm a door kicker but um you know my time my time had come and they were like no you're gonna do you know your next stop is a leadership role uh so i i decided to take that um

You know, but with the the downfall was once you do your platoon chief, you can't screen to go over there. I mean, that's like a hard, fast rule. So that was a huge decision for me at that point. But, you know, I made the best one, I think, for and it was also good. I made a decision for my family as well. I didn't want to my wife, you know, Andrea would do whatever I chose to do, but I knew she did not want to move to Virginia Beach. So that was that was a big factor in there, too.

Even after you found out which platoon you were taking over? Yeah, so I had no qualms at all about taking over that platoon. I learned early on that I'm not going to listen to

rumors or whatever of people's reputations or platoons reputation. Um, I was like, you know what, I'll go in there. I mean, they're all team guys. Um, and I'll see what I got. Like I said, everybody started off on a clean slate. Um, and honestly, they were a bunch of good, like good dudes, good operators. Um, you know, after we, uh,

Started training together and what I what I came to found out is like their last leadership and I'm not Talking bad about them at all. But I mean, I think it was pretty lax There wasn't a lot of effort put Into getting better at your skill craft. It was just like go through the motions and then we'll go on deployment Which to me that's not you know, we should always be striving to be better and When you start doing that by working on the basics of your craft and then go from there. Yeah

So that's like the mentality I came in with. I was like, hey, we're just going to start from the bottom, work our way up. And especially when you have, we had about four new guys, two JOs, and then two enlisted new guys. And, you know, you're only as good as your slowest guys. So I was like, hey, we got to bring these guys up to speed as well. There was only four new guys in the whole town. Yeah, and that's the least amount I've had in JVC.

My other platoons. Well, so why were these guys rated the lowest or the worst platoon at team seven when you showed up what they told me when I What the platoon told me? After I got to know them a little bit cuz I wasn't I wasn't gonna like pick like pick out on me Like why are you guys already last but you know, eventually it started coming out and a lot of it was What they told me was due to their leadership They blamed it on their LPO their chief and their OIC

Saying that, you know, none of them got along and that they didn't have good command and control. And, you know, it all went downhill from there, I guess. Were their tactics savvy? Yeah, I mean, they weren't they weren't bad at all. And that's what I came to found out. I was like, as soon as we started, you know, working from ground up, I was like, these guys are good to go. You know, they just I think they just needed to.

have somebody there that's like, this is what our job is, this is what entails, and we're going to work at this. And by the time we had started to work up, you know, a big example of it is we started to work up, our first block was CQC. And usually what trade at the guys who run CQC will say is like, you know, the first platoon to come through from a team is usually sort of a mess because they have, you know, they're sort of figuring it out.

Real quick, CQC is close quarters combat. So CQC is when you see a team of operators kick a door in and flood a structure. So just for that. Yep.

so yeah trade at they you know they usually and i saw it too like you know your platoon isn't fully there yet you know they're they're still getting used to working together um i wanted to cut that out by making sure we busted our aster on pro dev when we showed up we were pretty much a cohesive tight unit at that point and it showed you know trade that told me they're like you guys look like you've been working together for

you know, two years, like this is, this is the best we've seen the platoon come for your first block. Shit. Really? Yeah. So you like, which was awesome. I mean, it was the hard work paid off. And I think the guys, you know, whether if they were bitching about it or not, finally saw that they're like, Oh, we're actually doing awesome this time. You know, and that, that continued all the way through ULT. So how long is pro dev nowadays?

ProDev is it fluctuates but usually that's still around the six month five to six month mark From the time you get back from deployment to where you LT starts. So in six months and and you LT or ProDev The guys aren't even all together so you took a team who's not even all together until until the actual workup started and they're already fucking going from the worst platoon to

To getting higher. Operating at the highest level at that particular team. Yeah, they're getting high remarks from trade at which I don't think they were used to from their last, you know, last go. So they were, you know, they were all riding pretty high, I think, and feeling good, which they should. You know, they put in the work. Big thing I did during pro dev is I took the new guys and I had them go watch a team going through CQC or and I'd have them come back.

And I was like, you guys are putting us through CQC. You're in the rafters and you're going to critique all the older guys as they go through. You know, I had them take notes of everything that trade it was putting out. And I think that was a huge, huge thing. I mean, some of the older guys didn't like it at first because they were like, you know, why are these new guys critiquing us? But it built confidence in the new guys. I think that's how they they got up to speed real quick. And it also humbled us.

Which, you know, I told him, I was like, you can critique me. You know, the OIC, the chief, everybody down. I was like, there's no rank here. This is about our craft. So, you know, if you see something, say something. And we'll fix it. So it humbled everybody. You know, guys that thought they were

you know, above it all. Um, and then it also brought the newer guys up. Yeah. I mean, fuck you. That's goddamn. That's good. Cool. Uh, you just crush the egos. Yeah. And right at the very beginning. And that's what, yeah, I think that's huge is take ego out of the equation and it's, uh, you know, you'll flow better for sure. Yeah. Yeah.

So, uh, yeah, we went through workup. We're fine. Um, workups about six months. Um, and we had no, no issues during any of that. And I think, you know, you had your kind of minor bumps. Uh, I remember one of the, uh, JOs got a safety violation or a couple of safety violations, which is not out of the norm. You know, we, we pushed the envelope in training, uh,

But I started noticing like he get the safety violation and was very like, I'm not signing that. This isn't right. I shouldn't get that, which I'd never seen before. You know, usually you get handed something by trade. You're like, Roger that. Sign it and move on. So that was sort of like a first indicator of, OK, you know.

the attitudes I was dealing with, but you know, I pulled him aside, gave him a talking to, and was like, you're signing this and move on. It doesn't, this has nothing to do with you as an operator. Like as long as you don't make the same mistake, we'll be fine. You know? And so he did reluctantly, but, uh, there was definitely a little bit of attitude there. Um, but I, you know, I didn't think anything of it. Uh, and, uh, we, we ended up finishing workup, um, uh,

we knew from the get-go or i knew from the get-go that i wanted to go deploy to missoula um when did the team find out the end of end of workup i believe is when they officially were like this is where you're going um it's it was it's pre-designated beforehand like this is where you know this troop's going to san con this troop's going to guam but that can change at any time so if a

troop is messing up or a platoon is messing up and they're like okay we're not sending you guys to the hot spot like we'll send somebody no another platoon that's got their shit wired tight um we're going to send them there instead so i mean your your place can go at any time yeah it's sort of you know it's competition based which i think the way it should be yeah well i mean that's a pretty fucking good spot to go at that time yeah i had done my homework um

I had one of my best friends was actually out there in Missoula at the time from Team 5. So I was keeping in pretty good comms with him, sort of getting a read on like how it was going to be, you know, by the time it was going to be our time to deploy. And it was looking good. You know, they...

They hadn't started clearing Missoula yet until the very end of their Team 5's deployment, and they managed to push through the east side. And we were going to come in and take the whole west side, which was all urban and pretty massive. So it was definitely what we were wanting. I mean, was the team pretty fired up about it?

You mean the platoon? Yeah. Yeah, the platoon. I mean, everybody was on board. And I let that know as soon as I took over that that was my intention, was like, we will go to the hotspot, wherever that's at. Like, that's my goal. I plan on being the best platoon here, going to the best spot on deployment, and having a good deployment. And everybody was on board, you know. Yeah, I mean, I would think they'd be pretty fucking stoked to have

you know, they have weak leadership supposedly. And, and then, and then you come in a shit hot operator with a fucking metric shit ton of combat experience to take it over. They were ranked the worst platoon. Now they're the best platoon. And, uh, you're going to do exactly what you signed up for, which sounds like, you know, it's another dream deployment. Yeah. It should be. Any team guy should be chomping at the bit to, uh, go on a deployment like that. Um,

so yeah we got uh we did we got picked to go um exactly where we wanted to go which was awesome it was our ourselves and another uh golf platoon which they were from another troop they paired us together and we were going to fall under marsok because they had uh control at that point um so we were just gonna fall under them and operate under uh marsok um

So we started before we deployed, I started, you know, communicating with the guys over at MARSOC, just seeing how they were going to operate. And so we just have a good working relationship with them. And it turned out that the X or the CO that was going to be out there was actually when I was with the Marines was one of my XO. So we knew each other. No shit. Yeah. It was a small world. That definitely helped out a bit. Oh, big time. And he was, this guy's an awesome, probably one of the best guys.

dudes I've ever been around in the military. I mean, I, I pretty much idolized them when I was 20 years old, you know, with the Marines, just a stud. Uh, but yeah, we, um, ended up getting, you know, getting to go where we wanted to. Uh, everything was fine. No, no issues. Um, I think, you know, it was the typical issues near the end of, um, with, you know, uh, not ULT, but with the next one, uh, sit, sit.

Near the end, I think you get a bunch of guys constantly working together for a year and a half. There's going to be little gripes here and there. I started noticing some of the guys bitching about my OIC, that he talks too much during debriefs or this just nitpicky little stuff, which I wish I would have nipped in the butt right there. But I just took it as guys just bitching. Yeah.

But then we got on deployment and we hit the ground running. You know, I, the, we landed in Erbil and ended up going to, we split, the platoon split, went to the Mosul Dam House. And then I forget the, we ended up going to this mansion. I think it was in Sheikhan.

And, um, that's where team five had been operating out of their whole deployment. But when we landed, we found out that we weren't even going to be, they're like, nope, you guys are going living in Missoula at a fob and, uh, operating out of there. Like right in the middle of Missoula. It's right on the outskirts. Yeah. I mean, so we, we drove out to that fob to sort of, uh, get, get our eyes on it and see what gear we needed to bring. And yeah, it was literally on the outskirts of, I mean, they were getting mortared, um,

You know, you could see the city, you know, burning and getting bombed, which, you know, not too far away. Yeah. So it was, yeah, it was pretty close. Shitty living conditions. They pretty much just took over some houses and made it into a fob. No, no real security. I mean, there was some, but it was, it was just, you know, pretty shitty living and just no showers. No, you know, we had two portageons between,

you know, three platoons and a whole admin unit out there. Um, but that's, you know, that's what I expected. I was like, that's whatever, this is what we got to live in. Yeah. I mean, that shit sucks unless you're fucking getting to do what you want to do. And then it doesn't matter. Exactly. Yeah. And it was, I was like, yeah, this is fine. Um, we ended up moving, you know, into the house, uh,

That we were going to live in. And it was, it was shitty. It was like some squatters had been living there for me. There was feces everywhere. So we cleaned that out and I could tell, um, some of the guys were like, what the fuck? Like pissed that we were living in conditions like that. Uh, but it was like, this is, this is the way it is, you know? Um, and it's not like conditions that we haven't worked in, in the past, you know, doing VSO and all that stuff like that. Um,

We definitely hit the ground running, but it was like a huge learning curve. We were doing AAA, which is advised assist in a company, which I had never done before in that capacity. We got introduced to our partner force pretty much the night before we went out. What were they like? They were ERD, Emergency Response Division, ERD.

They were a pretty they're a pretty massive partner force. I don't know the remember the exact number Iraqis Yeah, they were Iraqis, but they were not vetted So there was a mixed mash of Iraqis with a lot of Iranian influence Oh shit, so we were told you know to keep eyes in the back of your head the whole time You know, you can't really trust them fully but honestly like I met their leadership and they

I was fine. It was good to go. They were all about getting after it. Um, they're, they were motivated to go clear, um, which is, wasn't, I wasn't used to seeing that. And, you know, I think a lot of times your partner forces, you sort of got to work, uh, work at it to get them to, to work. These guys were ready to go. Um, we were told pretty much, you know, you're going to go out with them and advise and assist in the company. And that was pretty much like it. And you're like, okay, uh,

And we were also told we were not going to be allowed within 800 meters of the front line, of front line trace of where they were. How many of these guys were there? ERD, probably five, 600. Five or 600? Mm-hmm. And how many of you guys are there? Well, just our platoon was 24. And then we had two other platoons there. Oh, you split them in half? Yeah. So each of us, each platoon had their own platoon.

Iraqi officer, which whatever rank they wanted to give themselves. But we would coordinate with them. And then they would tell the guys in the front lines, like who were actually the ones clearing houses and pushing through the city of like, hey, this is where you should go or this is what you should be doing. Holy shit, dude. I was expecting you to say like 20, 30 guys. Five or 600 fucking. And that's, you know, I could be like strong over.

estimating that by just by a little bit, but you know, it was hundreds of them. Uh, so you weren't really like with the actual guys themselves on the front lines. You were back with the, whatever the liaison they had with you. Um, and our, our main mission was,

was to go out there and support them through the air. We all carried ATACs on us, and we could, you know, the ERD, like one out of every five of them had a beacon on them that we could follow them on, see them on our ATACs and know their positions. You know, so we'd be like, okay, that fire team's there, this fire team's there. Not that that worked all the time. So an ATAC, can you describe that for us?

An ATAC is pretty much just like a handheld device. It looks like an iPhone. And it pretty much gives you a clear picture of the battlefield. And you can have your position, your friendly positions on there, and also the allies or the partner force that you're with. You can track them. So that way, when you're dropping bombs or making movements, you're...

There's a clear. Yeah. Um, it's like real time. Yeah. Real time. Like drone feed looks like, right? Yeah. I didn't have that shit when I was on. No, that's all. That's the first time we, we used it as well. Uh, but we were, we, we boned up on it pretty good before we, uh, got out there. So each, pretty much each operator had one, um, and the platoon and ATAC, uh,

So the first, like I said, the first couple of weeks were like a learning curve. We, I would brief the CO Marsock every, each night, like this is where I'm going tomorrow. They would approve it as long as it was like 800 meters behind the front line. And then we would, I would usually pick a secondary and tertiary spot just in case that didn't work out. But the first couple of weeks we went out there and we,

It was a it was a crazy sight. It reminded me of like something out of Braveheart to where we got out there. The Iraqis hadn't started clearing yet. They were like lined up in a line, vehicles, tanks, tanks.

And then I'll, you know, mortars were just like coming in from ISIS, just landing all over the place. And, uh, it was like, okay, what's the game plan here? And they were like, go. And they just started driving into the city and, you know, IDs going off and you're just sort of watching it. Holy shit. And you're just like, okay, this is pretty, pretty legit. Yeah. Um, but then, uh, what we came to find out is, you know, we would set up in this position, um,

And at first I had the whole platoon out, you know, so we were going out with six Matt V's and we'd all set up in this position. And, you know, there was mortars going off everywhere and ISIS would fly drones over. And so they would they flew a drone over your position. They would just get your grid. And next thing you know, mortars are coming in, you know, near you. So.

Myself and my OIC Jake Porter, we decided, we're like, you know what, this doesn't make any sense to have the whole platoon out here. We have too much of a big footprint here and somebody's going to get hit with a mortar one day if we just have everybody go out. So we decided to split the platoon up. I would send...

I'd sent half platoon back to the mansion and Mosul dam house so they could just chill, rest and refit for a week. And then I kept half platoon out with us and they would rotate week on week off. So that way guys were able to go back and get a break. And, you know, we're getting a fresh set of guys every other week that were ready to go. Real quick, just kind of like paint the picture a little bit. Do you have an estimation of how many ISIS fighters were killed?

And Mosul at that time? Thousands. Thousands? I would say, I mean, they were, yeah. I mean, it was, so Mosul was like, I don't know, three or four times the size of San Diego. Yeah. So, I mean, they had years, like three or four years to fortify that place, waiting for exactly what was going on, which is us trying to come in there. So they, I mean, it was pretty crazy to watch. They had intricate tunnels dug out.

All over the city that went for miles. Holy shit. They had, I've never seen so many IEDs in all my deployments. I mean, they had them everywhere. Every parked vehicle, you might as well, like it was a V-Bid. They had it ready to blow. They had V-Bids staged, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of V-Bids staged all throughout the city. Holy shit. We would push through.

And we usually around noon, we called it V-Bid Palooza. They would just start coming out of the woodwork and you just see them blowing up left and right. And, you know, maybe like 10, 12 a day you would watch go off. What were they targeting? So they would target the partner forces. So as the partner forces are clearing through, ISIS has, you know, it was like drone wars in the air. There was drones all over the place and they would,

Have a guy sitting in the V-bed, which he is welded in there. He might have been in there for days just waiting. And then they activate them through comms or like turn your car on. And this guy can't half the time. They can't see, you know, everything is looks like a Mad Max vehicle. They have plates welded onto every every piece of the car. And so they're directing them through comms, you know, back up.

Go forward, take a right. You know, they're going slow. And then they'd be like, okay, put your foot on the gas and now blow yourself up. And they'd, you know, target, you know, they'd be guiding them into wherever the partner forces were or us if they saw us. We came pretty close to one. Had one go off about 20 yards from us. Damn, these guys got pretty high tech.

Yeah. It was definitely a new environment for me because it was definitely like a 360 and you're looking up in the air and not only down at the ground for IEDs, but now you're looking up in the air for drones because as soon as a drone flies over, you're like, okay, here come the mortars or they have our position. So it was different. Yeah. But it was something that we just adapted to along the way. And

That's when, uh, after about two weeks of doing the rigmarole of going out there, picking a spot, getting mortared, you know, drone would fly over. We would take mortars until we're like, okay, this isn't safe anymore. We're going back. Uh, it became pretty frustrating because it didn't feel like we were making that big of a dent, uh, or having that big of an impact. Um, at that time, all we were doing was just launching a Puma and reporting enemy movement. Yeah.

So me and the OIC talked and I was like, hey, I'm pretty frustrated with the way things are going. He was too. I was like, let's take more of an offensive posture here. I was like, this is what let's split the group up and we go out. I was like, we'll go pick our spot and then we'll go recce a good building that we can get into and that we were able to engage from. And so he was like, yep.

that sounds like a good idea how were you working were you so we would go out to our spot designated spot and then i would take myself uh probably three other dudes from platoon along with um maybe three or four partner force guys that i thought were good to go um and we would go on a little patrol not too far from you know the spot where we're at you know we'd probably you know two 300 meters

On foot? Were you guys garmed up like the locals? No, there was no reason. Or were you kitted out? No, we were kitted out. Patrolling just like, you know, in the open. It was daylight. But we were pretty far like behind the front lines. So we're still 800 meters. So it's not, we weren't going into enemy territory. But you always, there's always that chance. Yeah. Because the front lines would fluctuate, you know. Yeah. Isis might take a huge step forward.

forward one night and we show up the next day and be like, holy shit, we just lost all this ground overnight. Yeah. So you said, and there's fucking thousands of them throughout the city. So it'd be nothing for, you know, somebody to fucking skate by. Exactly. I mean, and that's the other thing is when we drove in every day,

There was, I mean, hordes, hordes of women and children and men leaving, fleeing the city. So we're literally driving through hundreds and hundreds of people, you know, and you don't know which one who's ISIS and who's not. It was, it was chaos. But yeah, so we started splitting up the element, like the elements. So I would take a rec element up, pick a good spot that had good advantage point of the battlefield and,

come back, grab all the weapons, Gustavs, Javelins, whatever else we needed, and then we would just set up an OP in there for the day. It ended up working out really well. We started seeing really good effects from doing that. The partner forces were loving it because we were actually engaging with them with our organic weapons, not just the air.

And what I came to realize is the partner forces would clear to a certain point until, and if they were taking, you know, gunfire, then they would just stop. And they're like, we're not moving until something, they would just be like, blow this whole block up, drop bombs on it, which we're not, you know, like we're not doing that. But they're like, well, then we're not moving. And so what I found out as I go up,

Like, okay, where are you taking sniper fire from? They're like, oh, that building. You know, I'm like, okay, cool. Look at it. Like, all right, third level. Like, yeah, jab, you know, shoot a javelin at it. We jab it.

And they would all start cheering and start clearing. Right on. So Javelin's a kind of, it's a missile launcher for those of you that don't know. Yeah. So they're asking, so your partner force, your men are taking, they're getting engaged, they're getting shot at, they're getting fucking blown up. They're asking you to blow up a city block and you say no, which, so you're showing restraint there. Oh yeah. Somebody that's a, you know.

Accused of being a merciless killer. Your guys are getting fucking killed and you're telling them that you can't, you can't do what they want you to do because innocent people are going to fucking die. Exactly. Yeah. So, yeah. But once we were able to engage with the javelins, which are, you know, pretty precise and accurate, they, they loved it and they would just start moving forward. So that's how we sort of kept them going every day.

And the, you know, the command, the Marsat command was like loving it. And, you know, we'd come back and they're like, you guys are kicking ass. Like, this is, this is great. You know? And the fact that we were requesting to go out, not requesting, but we were like, we're going out every day. We could have taken, so we had three platoons and we could have worked in shifts to where you'd have, we'll go out one day, two days off. But me and my OIC were like, no, we want to go out every day. This is,

a golden egg of a deployment. Yeah. We want to get every, every little bit out of it. We can. So you were tight with, with your OIC. Oh yeah. Yeah. I mean, him had a really, really good relationship. Um, just an awesome dude, really good officer, but also he was not, uh,

how to say this politely, like not like every other O where he thinks, you know, like I'm, I'm the officer and I'm in charge. Like he really, like we bounce stuff off each other and he listened to me on a lot of things and was like, okay, you know, he's receptive. Yes. Big time. And so, yeah, we, that was, that was, thank God me and him got along. And I think that's what really like,

Helped us move forward to that deployment because we were on the same page the whole time the so we started implementing those tactics, you know breaking up and doing the recce recce piece and We started getting deeper into the city And it got a little more hairier the deeper we got in the front line like I talked about earlier started really getting skewed a lot because

The closer we got to old Mosul, which is the little, little city inside of Mosul, which is like a, the oldest city there is there. Um, you know, it's from biblical times. Yeah. They had that place locked down. Like that was their ISIS is like called like the beehive, you know? And so when we started bumping up against that, that's when the partner forces were like, we're getting, I mean, they were getting swacked left and right. Um, uh,

So it, and it got a little hairy for us sometimes too. We had our, uh, we had our Terp was, um, blown in half or, uh, by a, some kind of rocket that was shot at us. Um, and, uh, it just got, it started getting a little too, too dangerous, I guess. Um, and we made the command, made the call. Marsoc was like, okay, we're going to switch, uh,

um fobs and we're gonna go all the way to the north end of missoula and start cleaning from that way um because either like the partner forces aren't gonna they're not going any farther um yeah so was it just uh was it just team seven alpha platoon and it was our sock and uh team seven golf platoon so that's what maybe like 50 fucking people well you also have um that's the you also had uh

other partner forces out there, dude, it was, it was a hodgepodge of, so we had ERD, um, which we were partnered up with. You had, um, Oh, I forget the name of the other one. It was like, uh, yeah, I forget their name, but they were actually a vetted group, um, which, um,

NSW was in charge of so there was another platoon Bravo platoon, but they were working under a whole different They were working under NSW. So they were taking a whole different section of Mosul. So you got to think like, you know There's the whole west side of Mosul. I mean, it's massive So you had Bravo platoon working with their partner force here us on the other side working with ours and then you had a contingent of like other random Iraqi

forces like fed poll which is their police unit i guess they're also clearing so what ended up happening is we're clearing through and we just started converging on each other um how was the communication it was good like with bravo we we would you know talk to them while we're out there and we're like hey this is you know this is where we are this is where you guys are cool there was never any problem between american forces now with the

partner forces like fed pole ERD and Whoever Bravo was with I forget their name that got super hairy You know our golf platoon got lit up pretty bad by a fed pole just driving in one day The whole other Humvee started getting shot at You know, we'd have green on blues almost Every other day like not an actual green on black they weren't shooting us, but they would shoot at us because it was just

It was hard. You could try to mitigate it as much as you can, but eventually, you know, once we started conversing with each other, it got real pretty hairy. So that's, I think, the decision to move to the north was a good one because it sort of opened it back up again. So we packed up within 48 hours and moved to the north side of Mosul and started clearing from there.

That is actually the first day the first day we started clearing from there is the day of the the incident That became so famous We we you know, it's SOP. We had a pre designated spot well, we went out and we were actually a lot closer that day to the enemy than we had been it was probably probably like

300, 400 yards from them, from this village that they were. There was this little village or town or whatever you want to call it right before you get into the main urban part of Mosul that we had to go through. And we were told that ISIS was, you know, they've been using that village and they were all in there. And sure enough, we showed up that morning, probably around 6, 6.37 in the morning.

um, picked a pretty good spot behind some walls where the, uh, Matt V's that the turrets could see right over the wall. And yeah, it was like a Turkey shoot. They were, I mean, they were all out in the open, just walking back and forth between huts. Yeah. Um, we waited, we sat there and watched them probably for about 10, 15 minutes waiting for the

our partner force to start actually clearing through, um, which, you know, typical Iraqi fashion, they were just taking their time. Um, so we decided like, all right, we're just going to start engaging. And we probably engaged these guys for an hour. Um, I mean, it was, it was awesome. Everybody, you know, fifties were going off snipers, jabs, um,

And we pretty much decimated most of the guys in there, that village, before ERD started clearing. No shit. Yeah. How many guys do you think there were in there? In that village total, probably 60, maybe. 60 guys, and how many of you Americans? There was, at the time...

Probably like 13 or 14 of us. And the partner force was lollygagging ass around. Yeah, they were just back there waiting, you know, as we're engaging. How much do you think you thinned them out before they got there? Oh, big time. We thinned out most of them before they even started clearing. And we let them know. I think that's what they were waiting for, you know. We finally were like, hey. I want you guys to do all the dirty work. Yeah. Which is fine. We were like, yeah. Fuck it, we'll do it. Yeah. This is...

Thanks. Yeah. Uh, but they, they started clearing through, um, really had no issues. Um, because everybody was pretty much dead. Um, I mean, do you think you guys killed what? 75% of them, 80%. I'd probably say 80% or even higher, maybe 90% of them. Cause they really had no, they, they went through that village pretty quick. Um, we had a hellfire at a couple of buildings. Um,

And actually, one of the buildings that we hell-fired is where they dragged this ISIS fighter out of the partner force as they cleared through, dragged him out, and brought him back to us. And that's where the whole debacle happened. Yeah, you know, I know I said we weren't going to talk about the...

the controversy, but you know, I don't understand. I watched this documentary called the Gallagher effect and, uh, put out by somebody on the New York times and they basically paint this fucking ISIS fighter, like some little innocent little fucking kid. Yeah. And you know, one thing I just don't understand how half of the nation can be so up in arms, even if you did stab the fucking kid, you know, to death. I mean, it's,

here's a journalist ripping you apart when 2014 they've got journalists on getting bad TV, getting their heads like literally sawed off on fucking television. And then they paint this fucking kid. Like he's some little innocent, the poor little ISIS kid. Yeah. It's pretty disgusting. They put people in cages and burn them alive. Oh yeah. You know, I mean the shit that we saw in that deployment to not to like,

whatever sidetrack but dude I haven't seen anything like that in any of my other deployments you know you always see like the atrocities of war and stuff you know innocent people get killed it's just that's war you know civilian casualties on both sides what are some of the shit that you saw that these guys were doing I think one of the first things I saw going through we ended up

pushing into this neighborhood and We were driving through and they had a like a playground in the middle of these like apartments and they had like this fence going around it and I remember getting out and like walking up look rip trying to recce a spot and I look over and they had kids heads little kids heads on the spikes just sit there and women to

There was dead bodies all over the place. So I don't like... It's hard to even...

put like, I tell people that and they're like, oh yeah, but like, no, they, nobody was cleaning up the dead as we were pushing through. So there was, you just like walking over either piles of bodies that they just pile up or they were just scattered through the streets. Fuck man. Um, so they were cutting little kids heads off and sticking them on a fucking pole. Yeah. Um, and then at certain points we would be, uh,

in certain areas where there was like a field or some kind of open space between us and ISIS, you know, and it'd be, they'd probably be like 800,000 meters away. And, um, they would send hordes of, uh, women and kids running over the, through the field towards us. And then just mow them down halfway. Cause they were trying to draw us out or our partner force out to the open to come help them. Um, which, um,

A couple of times they succeeded, you know, the partner forces, they would try and run out and help these, you know, women and kids. And then they ended up getting smoked too. But yet again, you held restraint. Yeah. It's well, there's nothing I mean, and it's, you know, it's one thing to like,

Talk about it or, you know, like, you know, I see it's funny to see like reports on Mosul now or they do like these documentaries and they do like, oh, there was horrific stuff that happened, but they don't go into detail about like what actual horrific things they were doing. And it's another thing to actually be there and see it going on. Yeah. And that's tough, man. I mean, it does. It's emotion gets involved. You know, you're just like, how can people be doing this to you?

And you can't fucking do anything. Yeah, you can't. You just sit there and you're like, okay, well, we'll wait until we can push forward. They would also, they were using ROEs against us. They would chain civilians into buildings, you know, chain them along the walls inside and they would put

silhouettes on the roof of like with weapons. So then ISR would see it and be like, Oh, there's two dudes down there. And we'd ended up dropping on the building and then they would come out and use that as propaganda against us. Like, Oh, you see what they just did? You know, it was one big, like evil game they were playing. That's hard to do, man, to watch people get mowed down. I mean, yeah, it sucks. So yeah, it's, it's crazy to think, you know,

After this whole thing and like how much the medium half the meteor most of it tried to empathize with this Isis fighter and you know, I think NPR just recently when they sent a team out to Iraq and They interviewed this Isis fighters family They found him and they were like, you know trying to be sympathetic and even the Isis fighters dad and the interview which I was watching it was like I

Yeah, he joined ISIS. I told him not to. Like, that's it. You know, it's pretty black and white. Yeah. But yeah, to see like you were talking about, to see the media just try and twist it. Well, I'm just trying to show like you want to talk about fucking restraint. You know, that's hard to watch. And I mean, I can relate to it. One of my biggest regrets is I was sitting in a sniper hide and

We were supposed to be killing anybody that blew up a fucking convoy and it was in front, I was set up in front of a school with my partner and we were all gillied up and these kids fucking came down and got out of school. They were probably about 10, 12 fucking years old and pulled out a cell phone and, you know, we fucking called it in and they were like, don't fucking do anything.

And, you know, that sounds weird. Like, oh, who gives a shit? They had a cell phone. Well, back in 04, 05, nobody had fucking cell phones unless they were getting ready to call something that was going to detonate a bomb. And sure as shit, you know, I saw a fucking convoy get blown up and didn't do anything about it. And that's that's what I don't think people get is like they think civilians maybe think war is black and white. It's gray. It's all gray.

That's where you have to live. And you gotta make decisions in that gray. It's nothing like you'd see guys on this deployment or even Afghanistan guys with ICOM or whatever. That's considered a weapon because they're communicating. But then it's on you as a shooter to make that choice. Like, okay,

Is this guy actually doing something on that ICOM or is he just somebody else? And sometimes that decision, you know, it can be right or wrong. But as long as you can live with it, I think, and do it a better night knowing that you did the right thing, then you should be fine. Yeah. So, yeah, going back to this, they brought the ISIS fighter in. They brought him to you or you went to him? No, they brought him to us. Okay. And it was very, like...

confusing and chaotic when they brought him back um the i was actually in another spot so i had moved once they had cleared to that village i had uh moved my vehicle and another one um to the flank sort of set up like a nail to cover them as they went through um so i was probably like 400 yards away from the main element and uh it came over the radio that

Hey, I think they have an ISIS fighter here. I was like, all right, check. I was like, well, they're done clearing. I was like, we'll come back there. Went back and, you know, walked up. There's a crowd around him. A lot of guys from my platoon and a lot of Iraqis were around this guy. Walked up and he looked like he was on death's door. Just out of it. And I was like, hey, get the med bag and we'll start treating this dude.

And I wasn't to be clear, like I didn't give a shit whether this guy lived or died. Yeah. It was more of like, this guy's here. What are we doing? You know, I, I can't just execute this guy. That's not the right. I mean, you know, I, I would have, it didn't, it wouldn't have mattered to me, but I was like, get the med bag and we'll work on him until he dies. Um,

And that's pretty much it. Did you come over comms and say, everybody stand off? He's mine. No, you didn't. No. I like, I said something to the effect of like, yeah, just keep them there and we'll come back. Okay. Um, the, yeah, that whole thing, they bake somehow coordinated to three of them and came up with that same line. Um, but then it was just whatever. They're ridiculous. The, it was like two or three of the guys, uh,

In trial said, you know, like, oh, he said this, but then even their buddies were like, oh, I didn't hear him say that. So it's, it's all convoluted. Um, but I did say, you know, hold them there. We're coming back. Um, cause I wanted to see what we had. Uh, the guy was pretty much on death's door. So I got a med bag, uh, walked up and, um, I started assessing him. Uh,

The Iraqi general was actually putting him back on the, they brought him on a hood of a Humvee and they were throwing him back on the hood of the Humvee. Just like willy nilly. I was like, hey, we'll treat him. We'll take care of him. He's like, okay. Left him there. I assessed him. He had been, like he had either a shrapnel or a gunshot wound to the left leg. And he definitely, he wasn't breathing properly. So I did a crike.

Criked him. Criked him, no issues. Got misting in the tube. And then by that point, two of the other medics in my platoon had come over and started assisting. Real quick, just for the audience and the listeners, a crike is when you cut a hole in somebody's neck so that they can breathe. Yeah. And, you know, and when I was kind of doing my research,

And they said that you had stabbed this kid to death, this poor little ISIS young boy. They said you stabbed him to death. And then I found out that you criked him. And I was wondering if they spun that because it would technically— No, they didn't use that. No, they legitimately—Craig Miller, who was my LPO—

Lied and said, I legitimately took my knife out and started just going to town on this guy's neck in front of everybody, which is a complete lie. I cracked him and then the two other medics were there. I just got up and we at that point, the Iraqi partner force was like all circled around us.

And I looked up and they had phones. So I went and got the general and I was like, hey, back these guys up and get them out of here and tell them stop taking pictures of us because they were infamous for they would take pictures of everything over there. And we were like, hey, we don't want we didn't want to be any of the pictures. So he did. So he was like, you know, back off.

clear everybody out. I went back and at that point they had already done, uh, two chest tubes on them. Uh, one was jacked up on the right side. They messed that one up, but on the left they got a chest tube in them and, um, they just started doing other procedures on them. So at this point he was pretty much like a live tissue lab. Um, and so guys were, who were interested in becoming a medic. One of the new guys came up and we're like, yeah, go ahead and do an IO. Like it's pretty much like a pig lab at this point. Um,

And no, there's no issues on what was going on. Like nobody was like, Hey, this is, you know, I'm bothered by this. Everyone was on board. Um, and, uh, the, one of the new guys started giving him a interosseous, um, in the chest plate, um, to try and get some fluids in them. They tried to give him an IV. He had no veins. So they went IO.

And at that point I had walked away again, went and talked to the OIC. He was just like, what's going on with that guy? I'm like, he's, he's done. You know, he'll be dead here or he is dead already. And he's like, okay. He was, you know, busy talking to the JTAC at that point. And there was nothing going on at this point. So I think that's another thing. There was no firefight. It was pretty much they had cleared through that village and it was, they were done for the day. So I had walked back and I,

Corey Scott, who was at the head of the patient or the ISIS fighter, not the patient, but he was like, yeah, he's done. He's dead. I was like, OK, are you sure? He's like, yeah. I was like, OK, got on my knees. I flicked him in the eye. No response. I think I gave him like a sternal or a side rub. Nothing. And then this is where the story becomes what it became is I took my knife out.

I just like poked him in the side. Didn't break any skin. Jabbed him. No response. Put it back. And that was it. So the reason he's doing that for the listeners is it's just, you're just confirming that he's dead. Yeah. You know, a sternum rub. Somebody's going to, they're going to move an eye tap. You're going to see fucking their eyeball move.

you know, and same with a knife there, you're going to get some kind of a reaction kind of response. So, yeah, I did, you know, three different things and I just wanted to make sure this dude was dead and we're not like leaving this guy barely, barely breathing. Uh, so yeah, he was done and that was, uh, pretty much it. We, um, you know, all got up and, uh, I requested, we actually requested to go back to base because we were sitting around doing nothing. Um,

We were told to stay out there for the remainder to like a couple more hours just to see if the partner force would clear anymore. But we, we knew the partner force enough by then that we were like, they're not, they're not moving the rest of the day. They're done. Um, but we stayed out there and, uh, that's when, uh, you know, board team guys, um, we're all sitting around, they started messing with the body, which would, I mean, it was no, nobody was thinking anything of it at the time. Yeah.

My OIC came up and was like, hey, since we have time, we're not doing anything. Do you want to reenlist? Because I was planning on reenlisting that deployment at some point. And I just like other deployments I've been on, I'd reenlist. I'd reenlist it out in the field. So I was like, yeah, let's we do it now. We got time. So we did a short little reenlistment ceremony, not over the body, not like.

The body wasn't even part of it. It was in the vicinity along with three other bodies that were off to the left we were at. I mean, that sounds like there's fucking bodies everywhere in the entire city. So what the hell are you even going to have re-enlist out there where there's not a fucking body? Yeah, it wasn't like, yeah, the body wasn't even an issue or a thought in the re-enlistment thing. So I re-enlisted and got done with that and...

guys started coming down and they were taking pictures they were doing stupid pictures with the body um you know onesie twosies coming down just pretty much fucking off yeah um you know didn't think anything of it at the time and then i even went over there and took a couple pictures with them just fucking around um and uh the started a couple of guys started flying the drone they were playing games like seeing how low they get you know drone to the body and

bounce it up and down and all, all this saying it right now sounds pretty fucked up. But at the time it's like, nobody, you know, we were just like, whatever, we're just waiting here. I think what people don't fucking understand is, is no human is supposed to experience this kind of shit. Yeah. And when the, when that shit becomes the fucking daily norm, uh,

Yeah, you don't think anything of it. You know, it's hard to explain to people like you're in a completely different mindset over there. You know, well, what people don't understand, too, is the fucking comedy. Like, yeah. And, you know, that's how we go to a firehouse, go to a police station, go to a fucking SEAL team, go to a Marine base when when humans die.

Deal with tragedy tragedy on on a regular basis the only fucking coping mechanism that you have is humor Yeah, and that humor gets fucking dark, but the important thing is you're finding Something you know what I mean to to to kind of keep your fucking mind going exactly yeah If you can't laugh about it, then you know have fun while you're in chaos, then you're gonna be pretty miserable. Oh

So yeah, guys were fucking off and then it was time to go home. You know, we went back to base. I went and came back, debriefed the day. The body wasn't brought up during the debrief, you know. And then I went and got a workout, did a little workout. And after the workout, I walked into a meeting that was going on with the LPO and everybody below.

Every you've got Reno real quiet when I walked in and I was like, what's going on? What's up? Nothing was said everyone sort of like dispersed. Well, then Corey Scott came up to me after I'd walked out and he was like, hey There's guys have some issues with the pictures that we're all taking today. I was like, okay What's the problem? They're like well some of the guys

Or scared that, you know, they're going to get in trouble for taking pictures or that they're going to be out there. And I was like, all right, well, then just delete them. I'm like, it's a pretty simple solution. He was like, all right. So he walked off. Then Craig Miller, my LPL came to my room and pretty much emphasized the same thing to me. Like, hey, some of the guys have issues with the pictures. And I was like, all right. I was like, bring all the senior E6s in. I brought him in and I was like,

What's the issue here? Same thing was brought up, but the pictures and there was a TC burn who was one of the medics had a helmet cam on, you know, during the whole thing. I was like, okay. I was like, so I don't understand what you guys are stressing about. It's like, don't, you know, show the pictures anywhere or delete them.

We came to agreement and it was like just delete, you know I was like you guys have issues then delete it delete everything and we'll move on I'm like nothing was done wrong But like you guys think you're gonna get in trouble or stressing about it then delete everything. They're like, okay The problem is some of the other guys didn't want to delete them. They were like, I'm not I don't have a problem with this at all but

You know, I thought the issue was resolved. It was, everyone was like, went on their merry way and I'm like, okay, it wasn't brought up ever again. Did you think anything, you know, anything of it? No. With the team cohesion or these guys didn't like you or? I already knew at that point, I was pretty well aware that two of the guys didn't like me, Dylan DeLay and Dalton Tolbert. They, I could just tell from body language and the way they like, you know, interacted with me that,

They didn't like me, but you know, in all honesty, I didn't really like them too much, but it was, this was a job. I'm like, you know, we have a job to do. I'm not going to let a personal things get in the way here. Uh, but I could tell you that they didn't, there was something about me. They didn't like, you know, um, you could just, you know, you walk into a room and you're like, all right, what's going on here. Um, but, uh, I think at that point, because, uh,

I don't know if that was what fractured or whatever, but the pictures or anything like that was never brought up again, you know, the rest of the deployment. I think what started happening is, you know, we kept working and it got busier. You know, we were going out all the time and I had one of the guys in my platoon come up to me and was like, "Hey, I think we're working too much. You know, we're tired." And I was like, "Okay."

Let's have another meeting. And I want to hear it, you know, and the, the, I pulled the senior sixes again. And, and the complaints I heard from that meeting were, I don't have time to work out, you know, the workloads too much, you know, or it was, it was,

Sort of petty complaints to me where I'm like, dude, this is a deployment. And not only that, I have you guys on a week on week off rotation. I'm like, you're getting a whole week back R and R. I'm like myself, the OIC have been, are staying here the whole time and we're not complaining or whatever. I'm like, the workload is not going to change. And I just let them know that it's like, we're going to be going out. I'm like, you guys have a week off.

To go back and rest and refit and come back out, there should be no excuses. They didn't take that, I don't think, too well. Didn't say anything to my face, but I could tell they were like, okay, our complaints didn't get us anywhere. Dalton Tolbert was screening to go to Green Team when we got back. So he came up to me and was like, I'm pissed because I don't have enough time to work out to get ready for Green Team. I was like, okay. I literally was like, I will...

I understand. I completely understood. I was like, you know, it's a big thing. Um, I was like, I'll take you off some of the, the ops. So you have time. Uh, he's like, okay. So I took him off, you know, the next two days of ops. And it was just like, Hey, you got, you can chill and work out. I came back the next day and then he was pissed that I took him off the ops and that I was saying I was punishing him. Uh,

And at that point, I didn't know what to say to him. I'm like, dude, you just told me that you didn't want to go out. I'm trying to help you out to go work out. And now you're saying I'm punishing you. I was like, I can't. Where's where's the you know, where when are you going to be content? You know, like that's that's just the kind of attitude I was sort of trying to deal with. And honestly, like as a leader, I was having a hard time with it as far as I've never been around guys who were complaining about going out into combat or.

Like actually getting to do the job. So, I mean, I don't know if I dealt with it in the right way. I didn't, I didn't know how to deal with it. I was just like this, we're going to keep going. Mission first, you know,

I mean, what the fuck are you supposed to do? Tell the United States of America, hey, we're not going to take Mosul because we need to fucking work out, guys. Yeah. My butt's starting to sag a little bit. Yeah. But honestly, that was like the dilemma I was in to where I didn't know what to do as far as – I had called my SEA.

I'm like, dude, these guys are fucking bitching, you know, about this. And he was just like, tell him to stop being a bunch of pussies. You know, I was like, all right, exactly. So I'm I'm doing the right thing. But yeah, I think from that meeting on, it just started, you know, fracturing. I think guys were these guys that were saying they were tired and didn't want to go out. They started really being a toxic person.

And started trying to get the rest of the platoon, you know, to go against me. But it was all, this is all done behind the scenes. I had no idea, like,

Any of this was really going on until after the fact. How early was this in the deployment? This was probably four months in. Was it a six-month deployment? Seven. Seven months. It was six months of straight work. And then the last month we had nothing because Missoula was clear. So which was good. It was like, to me, I took that as a month of like decompression before you go home, which I told the guys, I'm like, dude, this take this month to like,

Work on yourself. Get ready to go home. You know, this is, it was a busy deployment. But yeah, it was, it was six months of straight work. So around the fourth month, I think, is when the guys really started. Not, not, not the whole platoon. I'm talking like. That's when you start picking it up. Picking up the signs. Yeah, these four guys were really working to.

you know, turn the platoon against me. Were they all on the same team? You said you'd broken the team up into two. Yeah, so these guys were all on the same team, same group, all lived together in the same room. So they had plenty of time to conspire. Commiserate. Yeah, you know, the head train that goes on, you know. And it was probably around the fifth month is when I really, the end of the fifth month is when I really like,

Found out just how bad it had gotten. I was living with, so I roomed with the OIC and one of the JOs. I asked to use the JO's phone one day to call back to the Shacon house to have them bring up some gear, whatever, when they came and rotated out. He was like, threw me his phone.

And I looked at it, you know, pulled up who I was going to call and a text thread came up and I saw my name like all through it. So naturally I was like, what's this? Started reading it. And this guy was like, we're fucking sick of working for Eddie. He's going to get one of us killed. Like he's making us go out too much. He's too aggressive. Like just a list of complaints. This guy was, you know, and just talking shit. So I read that and I was like,

What the fuck is this? I mean, it sort of took me by surprise. Yeah. I pulled the J-O in. I was like, dude, what is this? And he, you know, pretty much got white. It's like, oh, I don't want it. I don't have anything to do with it. And I was like, well, obviously they're texting you these things. I'm like, so you knew this was like there's some discontent going on. I'm like, why don't you just bring it to me? And he completely, you know, I don't want anything to do with it. So I decided to...

Didn't know what to do. I was pretty pissed So I you know when worked out and thought about it and I was like, you know what? I'll just remove this this guy sent him to another platoon and you know rotate him out with another guy that wants to be here and I had guys the whole deployment calling me knocking down the door trying to get you know augment us because we were doing the most work and

Uh, so I called back and let him know. I'm like, Hey man, uh, pack your shit. You know, I'm going to send you over to Delta. I'm going to get somebody else over here. Take your spot. That didn't go over well. That turned, it ended up being like he was pissed. Uh, so I had one final meeting with the E6 is the day, the next day. Uh, my OIC calmed me down. Um, was like, dude, I know you're pissed. Just let's all go talk and hash this out, which was the right call. So we drove, we actually drove,

called off an op or like going out so we could settle this drama. And, uh, I drove, we drove up to the, uh, Shaycon house and, um, I pull up there and it's all the accusers. So it's Craig Miller, delay Dalton, uh, Corey Scott, and, uh, this other guy who I won't, I won't mention because he's still active duty and he actually did the right thing. Um,

I went and talked to him. I walked in the house. They were all standing there looking at me. And I was like, call the guy into a room and sat him down and was like, hey, let's motions off the table or try. And I was like, let's just talk and hash this out. What's going on? Like, I was like, I don't understand why, you know, your complaints or like what the issue is here.

And we had a good conversation for about 10, 15 minutes. And what it came down to was, you know, the guys were what he was telling me is the guys were rotating back for rest and refit for a week. And then they were commiserating and creating this hate circle. And it was all, you know, everything was my fault. It was all directed at you? Yeah.

Which I completely understood. I was like, dude, that's not my first rodeo. I make usually when guys get tired or whatever, leadership gets blamed for something. You know, they want to point the finger at a bitch about something, which is completely normal. So, you know, we talked about it and he came, you know, he was like, dude, I realize what, you know, we're working, we're working ourselves up here. And, you know, I explained some tactical things I was doing.

to him and he was like no that does make sense I'm like this is why we're doing this he was like no I got it and that was the end of it I was like dude let's just finish this deployment out I did tell him I was like dude you are gonna like do some shit duty for a week because you're texting the J.O. here talking shit about your chief I was like so I had him doing like supply runs for a week you know but that was it

Were they pissed at the OIC at all? So while I was in this meeting with this guy, my OIC was out with the rest of the guys, and I guess they were all trying to get him to turn on me. They were like, you know, he's... They told him I was manipulating him, that he's not really in charge, that I am. I mean, this is coming from E5, E6 is to, you know, an officer. Jake...

Immediately chewed all them out told him you know shut the fuck up That you know he had we had a good working relationship that I'm you know and that he was pretty pissed that they were they were pulling this like mutinous type crap and he was He put him in their place. I didn't I wasn't there to witness it, but I heard about it Which is I mean I respect Jake for doing that you know for standing up And so I came out

after that i after that meeting and uh pretty much pulled the rest of the guys in i told them to go ahead and get everything out i was like get it off your chest i was like what else i'm like why are you guys so fucking angry um and then it came out uh delay was like we heard you call you called us a bunch of pussies and you called us cowards and uh i was like yeah i did say that they're like yeah well we're fucking pissed about it um

And this is where they told me they're like, we've all been together for three. This is our third platoon. You're the new guy. Like whatever we like we're together. And they said that straight to my face. So as like, as a chief, I was like, I was pretty worn out by this point. Dealing with the drama, dealing with this petty shit that I didn't think I'd have to deal with on a deployment. I just looked at it and I was like, you know what, man? I was like,

I apologize. I'm like, I apologize for calling you guys pussies and cowards. All right. I was like, let's just get over this crap and move. I was like, if that's what you guys are really mad about, then let's just move on and finish this deployment out strong. You know, we've had a good deployment. We're being very successful. I was like, this is all this is doing is just dragging us down. This little petty thing we got going on. They all agreed. They're like, yeah, you're right. Okay. We shook hands. I'm like, all right, we'll move on.

Unfortunately, I moved on or tried to and they kept their little circle going, which culminated to when we came back from deployment. And that's when I found out that they were still spreading little rumors about me. I had I had gone home on the first flight on deployment as well, which wasn't easy call.

There was, you know, you usually rotate out three different flights. Um, and then usually the chief is supposed to stay to the end, do turnover, and go out on the last flight. I had, uh, some personal problems at home with, uh, my kids. Um, Andrew was having a rough time. Um, and, uh, to be honest, I was fucking over being around some of these guys. So, um,

She has Andrea had never asked me to come home once early from a deployment. I don't know what was going on, but she was like, I'd really appreciate it if you got home, you know, quicker or sooner. And so I made the call. I called my mass chief and was like, dude, this is what's going on. He's like, yeah, no worries. Go home on the first flight. He's, you know, everything's good to go. So when I left on that first flight,

These guys really turned it on because I was no longer there and started going to the OIC and like really trying to hammer home, like, dude, fuck him. Like, you know, he was manipulating you the whole time, the whole thing all over again. Yeah. How did you find that out? My OIC told me he, he came back on the third flight and he was like, Hey man. And he pulled me aside or we just talked and he was like, dude, this is what these guys were doing.

Uh, he was like, they were even, so my wife had taken a picture of me and my kids, like, you know, reuniting deployment, reuniting, whatever, you know, hugging each other, posted it. I mean, they were using those pictures, like, look, he's home with his family and we're not like, he shouldn't be home, like using all this crap to stir things up. Um, luckily my OIC, he told me, he was like, I, they had me going for a second. Uh, but he's like, this isn't right. You know, this, none of this.

It's all bullshit. So that's when, and I had also heard, I got back on the first flight and nobody was really back at the team just yet. You know, guys were still coming in from everywhere they were deployed. So there was like handfuls of guys back and I had a couple guys come up to me and they were like, hey man, like there's a couple of dudes in your platoon who were saying some shit about you. And I was like, well, what are they saying? You know, he's like, well, they said that you're,

"Tactically unsound, you're too aggressive, that you're dangerous." And all that, I was like, "Okay, you know." Yeah. You've already been fucking proven time and time again. Yeah. But then they were like, "They also said you're a thief." And that's when I was like, "What?" And they're like, "Oh yeah, they said you were stealing from everybody." That set me off to where I was like, "I've never been called a thief before, nor did I steal from anybody." I was like, "So this needs to be addressed."

And I'd heard it from probably two or three people, different people at that point. So once the whole platoon was back, I called them in for a meeting. Myself, OIC, everybody. I was like, dude, came in. And you got to think like more than half the platoon has no clue that any of this drama is going on. Maybe if they do, they don't think it's as bad as it is. So, you know, the whole platoon is in there sort of like, what's this meeting about? I was like, hey, ranks are off.

I was like, I want to know, like, what's going on here. Like, what? I was like, I've been called, you know, told him everything that I'd heard. And I was like, I've been called a thief. I was like, I want to know right now what I stole from somebody. I was like, because I've never stolen anything from anybody. And I was like, so if I somehow did, I want to either fix it or if it's rumors that you guys are starting, I want to squash it.

Nobody said a word for about two minutes. And I told him, I was like, listen, I've already heard it enough times. Let's just get it out. Dalton Tolbert was like, okay, well, you stole a Red Bull out of a refrigerator six months ago. And I looked at him and I was like, what? And he was like, yeah, you stole somebody's Red Bull six months ago. A Red Bull? Yeah. I was like out of the platoon fridge.

And I didn't know what to say to that. And I was like, dude, I don't know if I took somebody's Red Bull or not six months ago out of the platoon fridge where everybody goes in and just grabs whatever. But I was like, tell me that's not why you guys are calling me a thief. He's like, well, that caused a huge issue. I was like, OK. Well, I was like, I can't either confirm nor deny if I took a Red Bull or not. I don't remember.

I was like, please tell me there's something else. You have something more concrete that you guys are calling me a thief on. Um, he, uh, was the Tom McNeil, who was the jail that I live with the whole deployment. Um, he didn't say anything, but Dalton Tolbert again was like, you didn't pay somebody for a haircut. You got it. Didn't pay somebody back for a haircut that they paid for. I got one hair, one haircut, that deployment near the end. And Tom McNeil paid for it. Cause me and him went together.

So I looked at Tom and I was like, hey, he's right. I didn't pay you back for the haircut. I was like, I'll go get the money out of the ATM. Tom's like, no, no, no, it's not a big deal. I don't care. I was like, well, obviously you do if this guy's talking for you. You know, this has been talked about before. It must be an issue. I was like, tell me there's something else. And there was nothing. Craig Miller said he stated that I stole his sunglasses and I was like, I don't have them. And he's like, well, I have them back now.

And so I was like, well, how did I steal them? And he's like, well, I wrote it on the board that somebody stole them. And all of a sudden they appeared the next day. I was like, so you're putting that on me. And he was like, yeah. I was like, well, I, I didn't steal a man, you know? And that was pretty much the end of that meeting where I was like, dude, you guys need to cut this shit out. Like stop spreading this. I was like, I don't know what's gotten into you. And I told them, I was like, you guys need to decompress. I'm like, it was a hectic deployment. You guys need to go chill out.

take whatever this two weeks of leave block leave you have and just you know i was like i mean to talk to somebody talk to somebody but i was like this isn't gonna this isn't gonna help anybody you guys keep spreading this hate um they all were like you know the rest of the platoon i think was confused on what was going they were just like what the fuck but these guys you know some of them nodded their head like okay we get it but dalton tolbert

He was like staring daggers at me when I said this. And so I looked at him and I was like, or I was like, we can go to the fight room, which is that trade at. And I was like, and let's just fight it out. I was like, if you guys, I'm like, you guys don't like me. I don't fucking like you personally. I was like, ranks are off. I was like, we can just go get it out that way and then go on our merry way. If that's where you guys want to go.

I was like, I'll fight every one of you one after the other and I was like and you'll kick my ass But I was like, I think it'll Will feel better at the end Nobody said a word, you know, don't just like look down at the ground. I was like, alright then I don't want to hear shit and I was like I'm still your chief and if you guys need help with anything and I did help them Wow within the next duty stations, you know, it's like I'm not holding anything personal here I was like but

Did tell Craig and then I was like, dude, I'm not like your buddy I was like, especially after this you guys accused me of all the shit and spread lies about me Like we're not hanging out or anything But uh, I will help you out in your career if you need help going to your next station or assignment that uh, they went from that meeting and went into the command and told them like Dalton and Craig that I had threatened to assault them and

Um, I was threatening their lives because I invited them to go to the fight room and, uh, settle it that way. And that's where, I mean, they, they started from there. And then the, the escalation of allegations started. I mean, it went from that. I was too dangerous, you know, blah, blah, blah, all the other crap with the tactics. Then after, you know, he's a thief and then it escalated to now he's like trying to come after us, which wasn't.

Far from the truth. I wasn't even thinking about them. The command actually, when Craig and them came up to them and started giving them these complaints, they were like, hey, he's too dangerous. His tactics are this and this. So the command was like, okay, well, give me some of the tactics he was doing. I think this was my TU commander. I was like, all right, what was he doing that was so dangerous? Give me an example. They're like, oh, he used us as bait. He was trying to get us killed. So like...

I was like, okay, well then give me an example. And this is the example, the example they gave me like, well, we were on a roof getting shot at by a sniper and he had one of us put our helmet on a stick and put it up at a, over the wall. So we could see where the fire was coming from. And they were like, yeah, that's been a tactic that's been used forever. Like, did they make you put your own grape up there? Like your own head? And he's like, no. And he was like,

Well, what's the issue? So they really had no, like they were coming with these complaints with no, nothing to back them up. And they were just, I mean, the more they tried to explain it, the dumber they sounded. And the command just told them the same thing I did. Like, it sounds like you guys need to go decompress. Like, it sounds like, you know, you guys need to go chill. They were like, well, he's a thief. And then my two commanders, like, what was he stealing? And they're like, oh, he took power bars out of a care package that wasn't his.

And I think my two commanders like this all seems pretty petty. And if you take that up with the chiefs mess, then like if you, you know, which they never did because it was all BS. But they came back three different times to my two commander with the same complaints. And I think my two commander got fed up and was like, listen, is there something valid here? Why do you guys keep coming back and saying stuff like did this? Did he do any low act violations or anything like that?

No, they denied it three different times. They're like, no, nothing like that. And he's like, well, then if there's nothing like that, then go fucking decompress. Like he got number one chief out of the team. He's, you know, doing Marslock had nothing but good things to say about him. Like, we don't understand why you guys are coming with this BS unless there's something valid. And, uh, they got pretty frustrated at that, I guess. Um, and they, uh,

about four months later is when they came back and they're like oh we have something like four fucking months yeah and uh they and what we came to find out is you know afterwards they were conspiring over text messages like figuring out a plan like i mean you could see it in other text messages like we need to make sure our stories water tight so no one could poke holes in it like this and this there would be having little meetings you know uh

And that's when, yeah, for about four months later, Craig Miller went to the TU commander again, who was now, he was at a different command. So everybody was probably scattered around. Yeah, everybody was scattered off, you know, to different commands. And that's when, yeah, he came to them and was like, okay, we have something. And he was like, what is it? And he's like, oh, he stabbed a prisoner. My TU commander was like, okay, well, we're going to route this up. Are you sure? You know, like, yeah.

And that's where it, I mean, it skyrocketed from there. It's like they, they went and reported it to these guys went and reported to NCIS, uh, called NCIS themselves and told them that I had murdered an ISIS prisoner. And that's when it just went off the rails. Uh, you know, NCIS got involved. This guy, agent Warpinski, who was the lead agent. You couldn't have put a worse actor in this whole situation. I mean, he, uh, he pretty much came, uh,

Just to give you like an example context the first interview he did like hadn't even done started investigating the case He brings in Craig Miller And the first thing he says is this is a black and white open and shut case. We already know we got him So go ahead and say whatever and you guys aren't gonna get in trouble for anything that you did So it was like gave these guys carte blanche to just spew out whatever they wanted. Yeah, I

So basically what Wapinski did is he formed a prosecution and then did the investigation, you know, did it completely backwards. Before we go on with that, just heading back. Yeah. When you took that platoon over, you had one guy that you brought in, which sounded like he was your boy, your right-hand man, your LPO. And he got transferred to another platoon because that chief...

Got shot in the chest, correct? Yes. Did he live? He did. Yeah, dude. Uh, he's like, has an animal that got shot in the chest. Yeah. Big old Indian. Um, is that when you started to see maybe the wheels fall off? And that's a good point, man. Um, I'm glad you brought that up. So I, I did have Craig Miller was not my LPO, um, during workup or any of that. I had, uh, this other guy who was, was my right hand man. Awesome. Awesome guy. Awesome operator. Um,

And he picked up chief right before we deployed. Um, but, uh, he, you know, the, the team or the command was like, he's going to stay with your platoon. Cause usually like if someone picks up chief, they're not going to have two chiefs in the same platoon. They'll move him somewhere else. Um, at least that that's the way they did it on the West coast for a little bit. Um,

But they were like yeah, he's gonna stay as your LPO the whole deployment, you know, which I was thankful for I mean that guy he was an awesome LPO Just had a good good read on the dudes and he would also come to me if there was anything like right away like hey man guys are Bitching about this or they're wondering about this and we would address it, you know But yeah about month and a half into deployment Bravo platoon. Yeah, their chief got shot in the chest and they

or needing a chief. So I sent my LPO over there. Were they in Mosul too? Yeah. So my LPO went over there and that's when Craig Miller had stepped up as LPO. And that is actually where I think things started going down because Craig was,

Best were like really good buddies with all the other senior e6s I think he found he found it difficult to detach himself as an LPO and not just like a front peer, you know, yeah it was the guys were coming to him with complaints or and whether they were petty or not and he was Instead of like coming to me and being like hey, he was keeping it to himself and sort of just encouraging it, you know Yeah, and all that was you know after the fact obviously and

that I found most of this out or I had, you know, an idea, some of it was going on, but not to the extent of confirmation. No, no, I wasn't really worried about digging into it. I was focused on just going out. I mean, that's, that's the one, uh, one of the downfalls I'll say like that I, that happened to me, my OIC both admitted it to the platoon. Like, you know, we were too focused, mission focused and just like worried about going out every day. And, um,

we apologize if we didn't, we weren't like focused on how you guys were doing, I guess, you know, it was, it could have done a better job at that. But that's, yeah, that's just my, where my mindset was at the time. So we're getting ready to take a break before we head into the NCIS investigation and, and in the courts and everything. But I do have two questions. And one is, do you get personal satisfaction out of,

Killing the enemy and to do you respect the enemy? I respect the enemy for sure I mean, I respect they especially Isis going through that I mean they were I mean the I respected their will I respect their will to fight I respect how there you want to talk about loyalty Yeah, that's a fucking loyal bunch right there and they're willing to die for their own

how, however fucked up it is. It's to me, it's impressive to watch guys blow themselves up on a daily basis off, off an idea, you know? Uh, do I get personal satisfaction? I don't know how to answer that without sounding like a psychopath, but like, or however I was painted. Cause now I, I find it hard nowadays to answer questions like that because of just how I was painted. But yes, I get personal satisfaction of taking evil off this earth. Um,

i would say that's a valid answer yeah i do i don't know anybody that i've worked with or myself that doesn't yeah and you know i respect the out of them too i hate them i hate them but you know when you get down to it it's another man that's yeah standing up for what he believes in which to be honest with you is more than you can say about

99% of the people who live in this fucking country. That's the truth right there. Yeah, and that's that's where that level of respect comes in for them You know because at least they're standing they're standing up for something Yeah, it might be on the wrong side at least they're doing it and you know if if you would ask me that question Before all this mess I would have probably been like fuck. Yeah, like I get complete satisfaction out of it Which I do

But I think just because of the rigmarole, everything I went through now, it's like now you have to be political. Yeah. Not even like political, but also like just the judgment, you know, like I was or I've been painted as this war criminal psychopath. So therefore, I'm always like, well, if I answer it truthfully, then people are like, oh, you are a fucking crazy bastard. It's like I'm I'm not. But yeah, I do get personal satisfaction. I've taken evil off this earth and killing the enemy.

just like a firefighter gets personal satisfaction about putting out fires. You know, it's, it's my job. Well, thanks for the honesty on that note. Let's take a fucking break. All right. Well, my fires kind of suck, but my gummy bears don't head over to vigilance lead.com. Buy yourself a bag of gummy bears. And if your fires suck to get yourself a vigilance lead beanie, keep those grapes warm. Enjoy the show.

Alright, so we're back from the break, and she just had a hellacious deployment, and your task unit commander told the boys to get a hold of NCIS. So just rewind it real quick. This shit is just blowing my mind that from the era that I was in and every other guy that sat in that fucking chair across from me,

This would have been a dream deployment. So it's, it's, it's, um, you know, for whatever it's worth, I would have loved to have been in a fucking platoon like that, doing that mission. And, uh, everyone that I know from what you're saying in your account would have given anything to been a part of that. So, um, I mean, that was some shit, man. Yeah. It was an awesome deployment. Um,

Probably one of my better ones for sure. Like just action wise and work wise. And, you know, that's what I had. I had told these guys, you know, that same pretty much speech. I was like, you know, guys will give their right not right now to be where you're at. You know, and you guys are sitting here bitching and complaining about going out too much. Yeah. Like.

That's ridiculous. That's interesting. Is that, is that still team wide now? Is that like how the community is? No. Okay. Heck no. No. Well, that's good to know. No. And that's, I want, you know, I made sure I, I try to get that point across. Like the first interview I did, like the actions of,

These four to five individuals do not in any way, like replicate what the feelings are in the community as a whole. I mean, most of the guys that are out there, just like you and I would, we're banging down the door trying to get in on that deployment. Everybody wants to get in the fight. Everybody wants to go on the hot deployments or the good ones. Um, I just think these four individuals, you know, they're just, it's just a different, different breed of, uh,

And I'll tell you this, like I've tried to wrap my head around it. Like how did these guys like get to this point and how, why did they go to this level to like come at me? And I'll never be able to figure it out. And honestly, like I can come up with, try and come up with as many excuses as possible for them or like, Oh, maybe it's because they were tired or they were this or that and everything that they did, nothing justifies their actions at all. And it's not,

It's not in my DNA, or I'm sure it's not in your DNA to ever pull some shit like this where you're like, oh, I don't like this person. So therefore, I'm just going to do stuff to take him down and possibly send him away for life. Yeah. Especially another teammate. Yeah. Well, moving on.

What happens when they tell the boys, contact NCIS? So they were pulled... I think they were pulled into a little meeting. And they were pretty much told, like, if you guys want to move forward with this, here's the number to NCIS. And so these guys contacted NCIS. My TU commander went and reported it up the chain of command that this was told to him. They... The head shed...

above him, which was at group one, I think it was a group one JAG told him, is there anybody willing to come forward and say they saw this? Um, he said, yeah, I don't know. Um, went back and he's like, are you guys willing to come forward? Um, and at that time, not all of them were, uh, they weren't on board. Craig Miller was like, well, I'll come forward and say it. Um, but they were like, we need, you know, if this really happened, we need more people to come forward. Uh,

They, you know, they got, I think, so at that, at that same time when the, the command JAG was telling them to come forward, they were already talking to NCIS as well. So it was like this discombobulated who reported what, you know, and I think that became a whole nother piece of drama later on, which they tried to charge my TU commander with obstruction of justice or hiding it, whatever, not reporting it.

Um, which is he did. Um, but once they, they called NCIS themselves and were like, you know, we have this case or whatever. Um, that's when it started, it went off the rails. Um, I was pulled in around that time and told that I was under investigation. Um, officially, uh, I came out on the command, uh, whatever you call it. Um, the blotter, uh,

Whatever it goes out to all of NSW and it said that I was being investigated for laws of armed conflict Is that is that how you found out I was pulled into the Master Chief's office? This is actually I got pulled into the master chief of trade at he He's out now, but he pulled me in and said hey you're under investigation For low-ac violations. I asked him

What were what is it like? What's the low-ac violation? He's like he told me he couldn't tell me he couldn't talk to me about it Wasn't I you know, he's like I'm not gonna talk to you about it. I know I asked him what I should do I was like I've never been in a situation like this and he was like nothing I can't tell you anything which was pretty disappointing but then One thing I'll remember he said to me before I left his office is he looked me straight in the eye and he said if

If you did what they're saying that you did, you need to come out and fess up to it now and own up to it. And I was like, I don't even know what you're saying I did. He's like, you know what it is and you need to fess up to it. And that's when I shut the door to his office and told him, I was like, dude, I'd been on, I knew this master chief. I'd been on ops with him before. I'd seen him pull some sway lay shit. And I was like, you know,

I've never judged you or anybody else for their actions. And I appreciate if you didn't judge me, especially when I don't even know what's going on right now. And I'd appreciate some help, you know. But if you don't have anything helpful to say, then just shut the fuck up. Like, don't talk to me then, you know. So I walked out of there and that's when I went to my buddy, another operator, and asked him what I should do. And he gave me the name of his lawyer.

who I contacted. He told me I should contact him just in case this thing went off the rails, which it did. Uh, but yeah, I called him and just sort of had them set up on the side, um, waiting to see if anything happened. Damn. Yeah. Um, the, um, once I, so once I got told I was put under investigation, I was immediately started. I got pulled out of, um, I was the SCA senior enlisted advisor over at Salk, um, urban combat trade. And I got pulled from that position, uh,

thrown into an office with no job, no responsibility, just told to come report each day. That lasted for about a month. And they pulled me from there and sent me to supply across the street where there's no SEALs. There's one SEAL master chief in charge, but the rest are, you know, support and admin guys. And that's when I, I mean, I had already known it was like, this isn't going well, but then once

you sort of get pulled away from the teams in general and thrown in a supply. You're like, okay, this is, this is where they send the shit birds. Um, so from there I, I went to talk to the group on master chief. Um, I want, I want to know what was going on. Um, which was Steve Ward at the time, uh, that he refused to talk to me, but I went over there on my own and sort of forced a meeting with him. Um, it was like, Hey, he said the same, same line to me. I'm not going to talk to you about anything. Um,

you know, don't bring up anything to me. And all I told him was like, the stuff that's being said isn't true. Um, that I suggest they did some internal investigation of their own before they further this. Uh, and I thought I told him this will be the biggest black guy in the community. If he keeps progressing this way. Are these guys, did you have personal relationships with all these guys or? I knew. So I knew, uh,

uh you talking about the master chiefs yeah i knew them yeah like i didn't uh i hadn't done platoons with them or anything but small community like you know them they knew who i was too uh you know there was nothing personal like where they would have something against me or i had something against them like not that i know of anyways but it was definitely weird the way that everybody sort of you know hands off like you're on your own

I got told by a man, another master chief that I was pretty much, I had to look at it as I was on an Island all by myself. And I had to swim my way back. If I wanted to come back, no one was going to help me. Uh, and that's after I heard that, that was like the honest truth. And I was like, okay. Um, and I was like, I'll swim my way back then. Uh, damn. Yeah. So it was, it was pretty, uh, disheartening. Um,

You knew it was NCIS at this point? Oh, I dealt with NCIS in the past. I mean, and this is what's funny is, like, I was brought up in the teams. Obviously, it was like day one shit. Like, don't trust NCIS. They're, you know, they're always out to bag a seal. They're always trying to find something to take a seal down. And they actually...

My first platoon, when I was a new guy, they took my platoon chief off of deployment. Just came up, swooped him halfway through, and he was gone for some BS that didn't even happen. But I had dealt with them very minimally, just like in that case. And then nothing like this, though. So when I knew they were involved, I had no idea just...

how fucked up those guys were. Like what a clown show, um, they were, you know, and I pretty much, you know, got firsthand experience just seeing how they operated. And when they, uh, well, I'll get to the point where they, they raided my house, but yeah, they, they pretty much, um, they started the investigation, uh, I think in late April of, uh, 2018. And, um,

I had no idea just how extensive they were investigating. Like, all I was told was I was under investigation. No one had ever come and talked to me. This is like... So this is like a year after the actual... Yeah. After the... After the deployment. The kid. Yeah, the kid. That was May of 2017, correct? Mm-hmm. So this is about a year later. You know, I obviously was told I was under investigation, but no one was saying a word to me. And I was sitting in supply for...

however long, a month, month and a half, no job. I'd show up and there was nothing for me to do. So I took it upon myself at that point. I was like, okay, well,

i'll just start prepping for retirement or like maybe i'll get out i don't know so i i started taking classes on a transition i went to the honor foundation which is like a transition type program to just see what's like out there in the civilian world and prep you uh i started putting in for uh intrepid spear which is like a branch off of nico um for um tbi and everything else like that i had uh been recommended to go after that deployment

I'd been, you know, taking enough blasts at that point that they were like, hey, you know, just get checked out. And that's pretty much protocol now. Like before you retire, it's like I want to go get checked out and not, you know, get a full head to body scan or head to toe scan. Because as we know, during our career, I don't report anything. I didn't, you know, you suck everything up. And my medical record was pretty thin. So I started all that process while I was in supply and it was tough.

Still nobody, you know, nobody was blocking me from doing that. But nobody was saying it to me either. And around June, I get a phone call at home from somebody at supply, one of the chiefs that worked there. And he had told me that the XO wanted to speak to me the following morning. XO was a SEAL and that I hadn't met with him yet. And he just wanted to have a face-to-face with me since I was attached there, which made sense to me. I was like, okay, you know.

Whatever. Got up the next morning, went there, showed up, you know, his office 15 minutes prior in uniform and knocked on his door. And he cracked it open, looked at me, told me to wait a second, shut the door. And then about a minute later, he opened it and there was probably five to six NCIS agents in there. I walked in and they, you know, flashed their badge.

Told me that they were going to take me to for some interrogation, question me. And they started, you know, pulling everything out of my pockets. At the time, I didn't, you know, I played it cool. I was just like, you know, I was pretty pissed. But I knew if I had reacted in any negative way, it wasn't going to look good. So I was like, OK, just like compliant.

But what pissed me off is they handcuffed me for not. And I was like, why do I need to be handcuffed? I'm going there like, oh, it's protocol. It's not protocol. You know, they handcuffed me and paraded me around in front of the whole supply command. Damn. You know, for a shame factor, because when somebody sees you in handcuffs, you're like, oh, this guy did something. Had you done any research on what on what you should be doing to prepare for?

What might happen? All the investigation. Um, all I knew was, I mean, what I had been told since day one, like I want my lawyer, you know, I'm like, I'm not talking to him, uh, one bit, but other than that, no, I hadn't done anything else. Um, you know, the lawyers that I had on standby, there was nothing like nothing was being told to me at the time. So there was really nothing to go on. It was like, I just know I'm under investigation and they were like, okay, well, we'll just see where this leads. Uh,

It could go nowhere or, you know, it could go the way it went. And once they, they pulled me, they drove me across to 32nd street, which is another Navy base there across the bay in Coronado, which is where the NCIS little headquarters is. And they, they brought me in there and put me in a major base in San Diego, right? Yeah. They put me in an interrogation room, just like something you see out of the movies, you know, had the little see-through glass thing there. And yeah,

they sat me down, tried to be all buddy, buddy with me. Like, Hey man, like we're just, you know, we've heard some things and, uh, you're being, you know, just accused. And this was the first time I heard, um, you're being accused of murder. And I knew better than to, I wasn't even going to start having a conversation with them. I just was, and I was polite to him. I wasn't a dick. I was like, Hey, I even said that. I was like, I don't want to be a dick to you guys, but, uh,

Want my lawyer like before I say anything and they were like, oh, okay I was like, you know, can I call him, you know, can I call him they had my phone? They're like, yeah, just give us his and give us his number and we'll call him I gave it to him. They both walked out shut the door and that was it for seven hours No one came back. I think twice somebody knocked Oh cracked it open to see if I needed a piss and

But, um... Seven hours? Seven hours from, well, I'd say like, yeah, 8.30 in the morning till 4 or 5 in the afternoon. I don't, I can't remember exactly when they let me out. And they told you you were being charged for murder? They didn't tell me I was being charged with anything. They just said that I had been accused. Accused of murder? Yeah, of murder. For...

Did you have any idea what for? They said it was on the prior deployment, that Mosul deployment. And that's it. That's all they really said to me. And then once I told them I wanted my lawyer, they left. When they told you that and they told you it was the last deployment, did you have... I mean, it sounds like you guys got a shit ton of trigger time. Yeah. Is there any specific incident that came to mind? No, and that was sort of like the scary part of it was, you know,

I think you kill enough individuals, you know, unemployment, you can be like, well, this could be any one thing. You're not saying that we murdered anybody, but you know, you don't know. You don't know what, what's being said. I had heard enough rumors up to that point. And I heard some, I mean, the teams is like one big selling circle. So I had guys obviously come up to me like, oh, these guys are, we heard this. I mean, I heard, they heard I was stomping babies out. It was like, it went from like the most,

craziest rumors to the most like mundane. I mean, that's why, you know, Andrea coined the term. I think it was like from Red Bulls to war crimes, you know, it was, it was everything that and everything in between. And, uh, so I, I had no real concept of like, or idea what they were actually saying I did, you know, or what scenario that I was supposedly involved in. Um, uh, so once, uh,

They locked me in there. They kept me in that room. You know, I had no idea what was going on. But while I was in that room, they went and raided my house. They raided my cage, my car, which was at the team. They went to everything. And they also they sent a, I don't even 20 to 30 man SWAT team to my house. And the crazy this is the crazy thing is when they were taking me over to that interrogation room.

I asked them, I was in the back of the car handcuffed and like, how long is this going to take? And they were like, why? I'm like, because my wife's not home. She's at a lunch or like a brunch with a friend. And I was like, my oldest son is leaving and I need to be back by, I think it was like one o'clock. Cause my youngest son's there. I specifically remember this as those two looked at each other, like, and they were like, Oh no, yeah, we'll, we'll get you out. You'll be done by then. I was like, okay, well, as I'm being, you know, I'm in that office with no phone and

wondering like what my kids are gonna do they were actually raiding my house during that time they my youngest son was downstairs watching TV my oldest was still in bed how old he had just turned 18 and your youngest 8 years old at the time the way

They both like have described to me what happened is, you know, my my youngest was watching TV. We have a big window that looks out into the street in our living room. He looked out the window and saw guys with automatic weapons coming up to the house in it like a train. You know, he had said he saw a guy in the window, I think, with a gun, which he's eight years old. He ran upstairs, got my oldest son, woke him up.

And it was like there's guys with guns outside my oldest son Don't get the fuck out of his room or you know, it was like whatever you thought he was just being kooky And he started crying. I was like no there's guys with guns You go look so my oldest son walked downstairs and he said he could see somebody out of the window and when he opened the door

There was a guy on his knees with a gun to him, pointed at him. And then two guys with their guns pointed at his head. The eight year old? No, this is my 18 year old and my eight year old standing behind him crying. They're yelling at my oldest son to get his hands up, which he did. And then they were like, we need to come outside now. You know, this is all my oldest son is like, doesn't know what's going on.

He calmly was like, well, can I put my hands down to open the door? And they didn't know what to do. He said they just sat there like trying to figure out how to how to actually conduct a fucking raid or. So these guys know they were. This is the first house they ever raided. Yeah. You know, and the crazy part is, is they these are all NCIS agents. They had an FBI agent somewhere in the mix.

Because they wouldn't they would not be able to conduct that raid without an adult there present. So that's what they used. Like they had an FBI guy there like being like, oh, I'm overseeing this. But that's I mean, that goes to show you anything. These guys can't even conduct raids without an adult present. So they don't do anything stupid. They ended up pulling my kids out in the middle of the street in their underwear.

Um, by this time the neighbors, you know, are all looking out, seeing this go on. They have my whole street, every avenue to my street barricaded off. Um, you know, it looked like I was a cartel member. Um, so they yanked an eight year old kid out of your house at gunpoint and threw his ass in the front yard in his underwear for everybody to see. Yeah. And left him there for a while. Um,

And just they started to lay siege to my house. Now, my wife is Andrea. She's down the street, probably like two miles at a breakfast place having brunch with a friend. She gets a phone call from my daughter, who my daughter was in Ohio at the time with her biological dad. And one of the neighbors had called my daughter a girl.

That was our neighbor and was like, your brothers are outside with guns pointed at their heads in their underwear. Like, and there's people all over the streets with guns. Holy shit. So my daughter was like, calls my wife and she's like, I just got a call from so-and-so and this is what's going on. And, you know, all this is probably like crazy. They're just like, what? So my wife...

Gets up and she's like, I got to go. Um, races, try to race his home. Um, and she said that she tried to pull up in our neighborhood and everything was blocked off. She somehow got a call from one of the NCIS agents and she was like, I'm, I'm coming home. And they were, they opened it up and let her through. Um, she parked and then they immediately started interrogating my wife. It brought her into a van, I think. Um,

And just started asking her all sorts of questions, you know. And you had no idea this shit was going on? I had no idea that any of this was going on. My, I think it was my youngest son, asked one of the NCIS agents why they were there. And they pretty much said, he's, your dad's a murderer. Or he's being, like, told the kids that I'm being...

like charge the murders pretty much telling my kids i'm a murderer which is insane to me why you would tell somebody's kids that when you don't have anything you know at that point and then um you know my wife pretty much told him to screw off in some form or fashion was just like i'm i have nothing to say to you uh and then she went in and watched them pretty much take everything out of my house uh you know took all my kids electronic equipment took anything they could and

Damn. Um, they found going through my garage, just like any other team guys garage. I have all my kit bags and shit in there. So they were pulling out, I, you know, magazines that are high capacity magazines for California and pretty much being like, Oh, got them on this. Uh, I had a, this is actually pretty funny. I had a, um, uh,

dummy grenade of the blue body in one of my kit bags. Yeah. They called EOD and said I had a live grenade in my house. So EOD, I guess, rolls up to my house and come to find out it's literally a dummy grenade. And they're like, this is, you know, just to give you an idea how incompetent these fucking guys are. You know, the best thing I think I heard my wife say is when they were, you know, they'd been there for hours and she's just like watching them go through all of our shit and take it.

And she told me, she's like, they all look like it was just a bunch of beta male, like dudes, like just, you could tell like these fucking guys have no idea what they're doing. And one of them came up to her and I don't know if he put his hand on her shoulder, like did something. It was like, this must be really hard for you. What's going on right now? And I guess she told me, she looked at him and she's like,

You have no fucking clue what we go through in this community. She's like, you think this is fucking hard? She's like, you're out of your mind. Like, get the fuck, hurry, get your shit, get the fuck out. You know? So they, you know, dispersed. I have no clue that this is going on. I get, they come back in the interrogation room finally. And they're like, Hey, all right, you can go at this point. I'm like, just fucking more than out just from sitting there for so long, wondering what's going on. I come out.

They had my phone and they're like, we're keeping your phone. I was like, all right. And they're like, do you? I said, can I call my lawyer? I think it was either my lawyer or my wife. And they're like, oh, yeah. They gave me my phone. I put the code in and then they yanked it out of my hand. Like, you can't have it. And that's how they got into my phone. And right before I left the NCIS office, one of the agents, this little turd,

uh, Brian Frank, he actually testified at my trial. He's in there all kitted up. It looks like he's like this little kid playing airsoft. He looks right at me and he's like, Hey, when I was walking, he's like, I saw your wife today. And I turned and looked at him like, what? And he's like, yeah, I saw her. And I didn't, I was like, okay, like, what the fuck are you talking about? I just walked out. Like little did I know, you know, until I got home that they had,

pretty much laid siege to my house. So they're fucking taunting you. Yeah. Everything they did was to taunt me and try and get me to do something so they can be like, we got him. I mean, it was at that point I had no idea, but it became more evident as this whole nightmare went on. But, um, uh, I got home and that's when, you know, my wife and kids were in the living room just like, what the fuck? And, uh, yeah, that's when we knew I was like, did this, his, uh,

gotten real, you know, like what is going on. Um, I went into the command the next day, furious, um, when demanded to talk to the group on mass chief again. Um, usually we take phone calls on the show, but, uh, this time we happen to have your son and your wife here. And so I'm going to bring them on and we're going to get their firsthand account of the raid. Okay.

So Ryan, do you remember when the police came to your house? I did. I forgot what day it was. It was on a weekend. It was like a Saturday. And my dad was gone at work and my mom was at a photo shoot. And my sister was in Ohio. I was with my brother. And I was watching TV and I heard a pounding on the door. And someone was like yelling, get out.

So I opened the curtain and there's a ton of people with guns outside. How many people? There was about 15 people. 15 people? And there was like cars blocking the entrance to the, like, cause it was a three street and they were blocking the entrance. Like it was our house that was blocked. Like we couldn't get out.

How old were you?

eight or seven and so I walk outside and there's people like there's a guy camped with a shotgun like by the side and then there's like two other people with rifles and they're like the lasers are like right on us they had their lasers shining on you and they were like decked out with armor and stuff and there's like a guy with a thing like to knock down our door and um we these people made us go in a car

And we waited for like 30 minutes and they were in our house, like taking everything. And there's people everywhere. What did they do when you opened the door or they opened the door? My brother did. And what happened when they, when the door opened? There was like five, like all, everyone's yelling, like get out of the house, get out of the house. And yeah. Were they pointing their guns? Yes. At you? Where were they pointing? There's people behind the cars and stuff. What about the guys in the door?

Um, they were, like, less than a foot away, and, like, the gun was, like, right at my head. So it was really close. So you were eight years old, and you had a whole team pointing a gun at your face in your underwear? Yes. And they made you go outside in your underwear? Yeah. Did they hold a gun on you while you were in the front yard in your underwear? Um, there was a couple people that were, but most of them went inside to go inspect the house and, like,

They were moving all the furniture and like they didn't like it was dumb. Were they asking you questions? No, I think they were asking my brother questions. And then we sat in the car for about 30 minutes. And since my sister was in Ohio, my her friend, she was calling her and calling her and texting her that like there's a SWAT team at my house and we're in a car. And my mom didn't know what was going on.

My dad, he was somewhere, and he wasn't able to contact us or anything. Do you think they knew that your dad wasn't home? No, they knew. They did know. Yeah, they knew that. I don't know what was happening, but all I knew was they knew—

He wasn't home, and they were trying to scare us. And they wanted him to do something. I don't know. Did they scare you? Yeah, I was scared. I'll bet. Eight years old with a gun in your face. Yeah. And your underwear. Well, thanks for sharing, Ryan. I appreciate it. Mm-hmm.

Well, thanks for coming on, Andrea. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me. So we just got your son's account of the NCIS raid. And I just wanted to get kind of where you were, what it felt like, what it was like when you showed up at home to see your eight-year-old son.

And your 18-year-old son in the front lawn with their underwear on at gunpoint by the NCIS. Yeah. So it was June 20th, 2018. And unbeknownst to us, our house had been being cased for weeks by NCIS. And...

We actually had a neighbor that was working in tandem with NCIS. I think he thought he was some type of Matt Damon informant type character from the movie. So he had started to report our movements and report different things, and he had also informed them that we were going to be moving. So...

NCIS had been watching us, watching our movements. And so that day I had left the house. I was leaving to go to meetings and I had work meetings. Eddie had already left to go to work. And it just seemed like a normal day. We left the boys at home. Trevin was still asleep, who was our 18-year-old at the time. Ryan would have been eight. And so he was at home. He was up. He was just like watching cartoons.

And I went to my first meeting, and it was actually with a girlfriend. Since we were leaving, we were kind of having one last little get-together. And I was at the table, and my daughter had called me, but my daughter was not home. My daughter was actually in Ohio, and she called me asking where I was. And I was like, I'm with my friend. Like, what's going on? And she sounded very worried.

And she's like, mom, she's like, the neighbor girl just called me. There's police everywhere. And the boys are outside of the house. Like they're in their underwear. And I'm like, what are you talking about? So I just like got up, left the table, jumped in my car. And as I'm driving, I'm trying to like call my neighbor. And it just kept on going to voicemail and voicemail and voicemail. And finally, by the fourth time, I think I called the

she picked up the phone screaming. And so my neighbor, my next door neighbor is on the phone screaming. And she's like, they've got your kids. They've got your dogs. They're everywhere. And I'm like, who is this? Who is it? And she's like screaming on the phone saying, this is their mother. This is their mother. And I'm hearing someone screaming back at her saying, get off the phone, get off the phone, get back in your house. So I'm in full like

What is going on? Freaking out. What did you think? Do you have any idea? No, I had no idea. It was what it was? Well, we lived in Point Loma, which is kind of like Point Loma military housing. We lived at the village at NTC. So it's kind of like a thoroughfare between like Rosecrans, which is a very busy street, and also Harbor. And we have a lot of homeless. So in my mind, I'm like, is there like a homeless person or a bum like in my garage or something? Like, what are they doing? I didn't know it was even NCIS.

I had no clue. Once I found out what was going on, I got another call from a blocked number. And the woman was like, we are from NCIS.

We're at your home. Tell us what kind of car you're driving. They had the streets barricaded. They had the streets barricaded. They had people in full militia riot gear. They had people staged and set up like they're going to war. And so when I come through, there's like seven to eight black, you know, armored vehicles in front of my home.

And there's people just like spurting out everywhere, out of my garage, out of my front door. And my son had only turned 18 two to three weeks prior, which they also knew. And so they took advantage of the fact that Eddie was gone, I was not there, and they gained entry through an 18-year-old that just woke up. So when I got to the home, they actually pulled me into a vehicle and started to question me. But what I found out later was that

Eddie had already been apprehended. He was at work. They came, they got him, and they threw him in a room for seven hours. They denied him legal counsel. So there was no Navy SEAL threat there. So you didn't need to lay siege to my house with two children in it in that fashion. Why do you think they showed so much force for an eight-year-old? To terrorize us and intimidate us and to convince people that...

You know, we did something wrong. And that's exactly what happened. That's it worked because you don't go to that level. And then people just were like, oh, my gosh, it has you got you guys had to have done something. Yeah. And so it worked. So they had Eddie. He did not know the whole day what was going on. He did not know that our home was being raided.

So if you think of the psychological warfare that they started at that moment to entrap him in an office building and then basically did not tell him all day what they were doing,

It was just a form of psychological warfare on him because he went to fight, you know, for our country to prevent people from terrorizing, you know, members of the United States. And then they take him and they lock him up on American soil. And then they lay siege to his home and terrorize his wife and his children on his own land. I mean, it's.

It's pretty sick what they did. So that was Eddie's story, what was happening to him while this was happening to us. But what I found out later from the boys was that Ryan was actually sitting kind of in a chair like this watching TV and looks out the window and sees people with guns and like battering rams lining up at our door. And you can imagine an eight-year-old, he starts freaking out. He runs upstairs. He tells my son who's in bed asleep at this point,

that there's people with guns at the door. And so my oldest is just like, dude, what are you talking about? He's thinking it's maybe neighborhood kids with Nerf guns or something and Ryan's being Ryan. But then Ryan starts to break down in tears. And so my son gets up obviously and is like, okay. They walk downstairs. My oldest son opens up the door. And so there's a main door and there's a screen door.

And they're all screaming at him. They're pointing rifles at my children. And they're saying, put your hands up. And they're also simultaneously saying, open up the door. So if you can imagine the level of Bush League that this operation is,

So my son's like, do you want me to put my hands up or do you want me to open the door? And they're like, do you give us permission to enter, put your hands up? And so he basically gets pulled out into the street along with my son and their underwear. And they're just paraded right into the, you know, middle of our housing complex. And then they all just rush in. And that was the start of a seven hour raid on our home. I just want to, you know, I'm sorry that you and your family had to go through that. And I just...

I want to tell you, you are a strong, motivated, effective, and just amazing human being. Thank you. I mean, the campaign that you started from scratch and what it turned into, I mean, if it wasn't for you, then you'd still be in there.

i mean what an example you've said and uh hell of a job so thank you yeah thank you for coming on i appreciate it all right so you're going to talk to the master chief at the command after your house just got real so i went in um demand to talk to him he came over to supply um sat down with me and another master chief that was in charge of supply and uh

I was like, you know, I was pissed. I was like, my house just got raided. My kids were pulled out of gunpoint yesterday. What the hell's going on? Why aren't you guys like at this point? I was beyond. I think I was beyond frustrated because nobody had been talking to me at this point. Now my family was getting they involved my family and started, you know, to put my family to shit, which I don't. I have a line that everybody knows. No, you can mess with me all you want. Like, you know.

Might fight back on my non or no, but you mess with my family like that's it You know and that was pretty much well known through everybody that knew me in the community like that's when my family's wouldn't matter to me the most so I was I was definitely beyond pissed off the group on mass chief Steve Ward told me that he's like denied knowing anything about it, which is bullshit and then he

Told me that if I had any issues with it, that I should go talk to a chaplain. And that was the only thing advice he gave. I was like, that's what you have to say to me right now is that I can go talk to a chaplain about what's going on. He was like, yeah. And he's like, oh, and one more thing. And he slid a piece of paper across the table. I had picked up E8 or got selected for E8. And he was like, you're not going to pick up E8. We're going to hold it off until this whole thing.

investigation is over with um and they're like he had me sign it and at that i wish at this point i didn't sign that but i didn't give a shit at that point i was like i don't care it's like here yeah um and that was it he left um and i think you know as you can expect that raid spread like wildfire through the community oh yeah you know and of course the the dummy grenade they found in my garage got

Spent they found five hand grenades and blah blah blah like just escalates as the telephone game passes through the teams Did you have any friends at this point? Yeah, I mean I had I had my button You know my brothers my teammates that I was talking to but it's very hard, you know, what can they do? Yeah, they're they're almost like dude. This is fucked up and they're Anybody that I talked to that I was what I was going through automatically got scared themselves and they were like, dude, I

What are they going to do to me? You know, if I, you know, step in and say something, it's, that's how they drive fear into you, especially with raiding your house like that. I mean, that, what that does is there was no reason they, they could, they could have easily walked up, knocked on the door and got the same job done. They did it for that reason because they want to put shame onto you. They want, and it worked. The neighbors, our neighbors were like,

Because we went and asked them afterwards, like, hey, did you happen to videotape any of that? And they were like, we're not, like, they don't come and do that to you unless you did something. Yeah. So it worked. And then it also, well, they do it to drive your family apart, too. They hope that, you know, they cause enough stress onto your wife or onto yourself that you guys start going at each other. And then one of you flips on each other, starts, you know.

doesn't help out but you know obviously that didn't work with us but um that's i've seen that happen enough heard enough stories that happened enough times when i was in the brig that i mean it's all for a purpose of why they do those things um but yeah at that point you know i had talked to my buddies about it and they were all just like dude they had no advice or anything they were just like dude this is fucked up just like you know we were thinking um

But that was pretty much the deciding point for me that I was getting out. I'm like, I'm getting out, you know, um, you know, I felt that point betrayed, uh, just sort of just left hung out to dry. Um, I had a couple of buddies that were master chiefs at that point that were told me exact thing. They're like, they are railroading you. Um, like this is what's happening. They're just hanging you out to dry. Uh,

Why do you think they're... I think it was to protect... Well, what it comes down to is they're protecting the institution, right? The NSW. Anything that's brought out in the public arena or in the media that is bad against NSW, they would rather just dispose of whatever that problem is than actually put up with it and fight back. You know, because they don't want any stains...

At all. And that's, I mean, that's due to the fact of how big NSW has gotten over the years with all the success that we've had. I think they, you know, a lot with success comes with, comes, uh,

Public scrutiny. Yeah, you know so any little thing that happens, you know anything that says seal on it gets Pointed back to NSW and they're like, oh, what's this? So obviously if there's a murder They're like we're just gonna fucking hang this guy out to dry instead of actually looking into this because this looks bad on the institution Yeah, that's and that's a sad part. I mean, it's a sad reality of what I found out, you know, it's

There's a difference between expendable and disposable. I know I'm expendable. That's part of the job. But I'm not fucking disposable. You can't just throw me away because you feel like this might look bad on you or your career. Picking up three stars. So I think that was a big driving force of why the headshed, like Group One or the Admiral, really didn't look... They never talked to me once. Still haven't.

I'll never talk to those guys and why they came down on me so hard. Um, you know, they were just like, we're just going to make an example out of this guy. And that's it. At that point I was getting, you know, I decided to get out. Uh, we had already bought a place, a house in Florida. Um, so I moved my family down, down there, uh, I think like two weeks after the raid drove across country, uh,

Move them in. And then the plan was I was going to come back to San Diego and geo batch until my retirement date and just fly back and forth and just finish out my career. They waited. NCIS waited until I came back from Florida, got back to San Diego and I got accepted into the TBI treatment center, which is a intrepid spear started going to that. I was in about the beginning of September and I,

Was going through that. Nothing was being said to me still. Just doing my thing. And then on September 11th, my old SEA, Brian Alzawi and two MAs showed up to the Intrepid Center and told me that they were going to take me away, that they were ordered to take me away to the brig. Shit. I was like in shock. I was like, why? They couldn't tell me why. They're like, we don't know. They're like the admiral.

Admiral Green and Commodore Rosenblum just signed off on it and they want us to take you there. And, you know, at that point, I remember looking at... I was in the room with three of them. And I did think for a second, I was like, I'm about to start fighting right now. Like, this is... You know, I was going through all sorts of scenarios in my head. But I decided again to remain calm. I was like, you know, doing anything stupid is not going to help the situation. I let them handcuff me and put me in a van.

Um, and the two MAs drove me to the brig. Um, I had no idea where the rig was. I thought it was something on a ship still. Uh, I was like, where are you guys taking me? Um, it was to, uh, Miramar, uh, Marine Corps Air Station. They had a pretty, those two guys had a pretty good idea of, well, they were, what they were telling me was they're like, oh, you'll be out in a week. You'll be out of the brig in a week. And I was like, well, how does this, how am I going to get out in a week? And they're like, oh, they have a hearing.

For everybody that goes in there their first week and they that decides whether or not you should stay in there or be let out. I was like, OK, either way, I was I was like I was like in survival mode at that point. I was like, I don't know what the fuck's going on. They took me first before we went to the brig. We went to a medical place on Miramar to make sure I was healthy enough to get put in the brig. They did a full checkup on me.

Um, so I'm sitting in handcuffs in the medical place with families, everyone staring at me. Um, and, uh, they did the full checkup and then took me to the brig. And as soon as I got in the brig is when I was like, dude, what the fuck? Like there was probably eight to 10 guards who met me, just me for intake. They all treated me like I was Jason Bourne. Um, each of them were like posted up, um,

Like every time I moved, like I was about to do something. Um, the first thing I, I got chat when I was getting checked in, they ask you, do you know what you're in for in here for or why you're here? And I, at the time I was like, sort of jokingly, I was like killing ISIS and they were like, yeah. And I was like, okay. Like I was joking, but like, no, that's why you're here. Um, and, uh, that was all that was said to me.

I got told the CEO of the break came down, told me, um, that, you know, it doesn't, she saw my service record or whatever. And she's like, it doesn't matter in here. Um, you're not technically a prisoner, but you will be treated of how you, you will be treated as good as you treat the guards. I'm like, okay. I was, you know, I told her, I was like, ma'am, I'm not here to cause any trouble. I,

I should be getting out of here in like three days. This is a big mistake. Like whatever's going on here. They threw me in solitary confinement right off the bat for three days. Why? Just to get in your fucking head? Yeah. Put me in there. I wasn't allowed out of that cell for three days. Not even, I think they let me shower once. But every time they moved me at that point, they shackled my arms and legs.

So it was like, uh, you know, even from my cell, my solitary cell to the shower was probably 10 feet and they'd have to shock me on like, take me down there, put me in there. It was your seal. Yeah. And that's all what it came down to. Um, I finally got that little hearing that they were talking about, uh, about six days in. And that's when I knew that I was fucked. Um,

Because I really had no at this point. I have no clue what's going on You know, I'm just sort of trying to figure it out as I go They have this hearing my lawyer one of the lawyer that I had on standby showed up and That's when I first saw the prosecution and they had the NCIS agent come or Pinsky and

And literally I went in there and the pro they have a, uh, it's not a judge. They just appoint some officer on base to come in and act as the judge. And he just decides whether you stay or can get out. Um, the prosecution got up and pretty much let loose a flurry of just crazy allegations for about 10 minutes. They called me, uh,

They called me everything from a murderer, a drug mule. They said I beat my wife. That I'm a danger to my kids. I'm a fake Christian. A fake Christian? Yep. They said that, oh, he goes to church, but he really doesn't practice what he... Like, making crazy statements like that. That's... And I'm telling you, I sat there listening to this. How the fuck is that even relevant? They brought up all sorts of, like, shit. Because all they were trying to do was...

like taint my, who I am as a person, I guess, which it would, that was probably one of the craziest moments, just hearing them say this shit. And I can't like not allowed to say anything back. The lawyer that I had at the time wasn't stopping them from saying it. He was just like, like, it's like, he'd heard this all before, you know, then the, uh,

NCIS agent got up and said his whole piece was like pretty much just regurgitated whatever this you know the prosecution said said that I you know murdered you know this ISIS fighter they had the picture at that time they're like here it is look at him you know and then the main reason why they kept me in is because the second prosecutor got up and pretty much went over every qualification I had

Every school that I'd been to everything I'd done in my career, but used it as like it's a bet like against me It's a bad thing and that was why they could not in good conscious Let me out because at any moment I could do anything You know, I could escape to somewhere and disappear. It will point to the Andrea find out that you were in prison Probably the second day or maybe that night. I I

I, you're allowed one five minute phone call, which they weren't even going to give me. But I, uh, luckily I remembered it in my cell and I was like, Hey, I want to call. Uh, I called my lawyer, um, told him what happened. And I told him to call my wife and let her know. Um, so I think they, they killed, they might've called her that first night, uh, second day. But, uh, my lawyer told me right off the bat, he was like, there's no, there's no, uh, bail system in the, uh,

uniform code of military justice so he's like you're not unless they let you out and you're not getting out and that's pretty much after that hearing that we had they deemed that I was too dangerous to let out oh and one other thing this is so one of the guys in my platoon Josh brands one of the accusers was my neighbor he lived four houses down from me

Had no idea this guy was even like really involved with the other accusers in my platoon. He was, I didn't even give him any thought, you know, and I, I even saw him all the time and just give him like a head nod, like what's up. He was staking my house out for NCIS the whole time. For NCIS. So he was pretty much a volunteer NCIS agent. So he was feeding them information about,

letting him know my whereabouts, you know, when I worked out, when I did what. And he also, so they got him to write a letter, which they read off at that hearing, saying that I was stalking him, that I walked my dogs past his house every day and was scaring his family. So that was like a huge factor. They were like, oh, and he's stalking

one of the guys on the splatoon, which was complete. Like I, when I read that letter, when we were in that hearing, I'm like, that was like another punch in the face. Like what? Like this dude's I'm stalking him. Like, you know, I had no idea this guy was involved. Um, but yeah, that was, that was it. And like, you're not, you're not leaving, um, until your court date, which was, which was undetermined at the time. I hadn't even been charged with anything yet. So I just sat there,

I sat in the brig for about two months at that point. Not so you, when you're in the brig, you can't, all the phone calls are recorded. There's, they have two prison phones there that you split between 60 people. You're not allowed on the phones until after 5 p.m. to like 9 p.m. If you want to use a phone, it costs a butt ton of money.

It's some ridiculous, like every minute, some ridiculous charge. And all the phone calls are recorded. And NCIS comes in weekly and takes all my calls there or whoever they're investigating and listens to them. So, you know, I was told right away, don't say anything over the phone. When you talk to your family, don't talk about the case because they'll just, they'll pick apart any little thing you say and try to use it. So, I mean, phone calls were pretty rough, like back and forth, just because at that point,

There's only so much you could talk about without it like coming back to like the nightmare. So we it was uh, it was tough To be able to sort of communicate what was going on because Andrea started fighting back right when they threw me in there is when she Pretty much was like fuck this and she started the grassroots campaign to like put the truth out about what was going on Yeah, she wrote a letter to the community Asking for help from everybody did she get any?

She did. She go off behind the scenes, like people that were like, dude, we want to help. But when it came down to like help from foundations, nothing, nothing. They were like, nope. How were people helping? People. I mean, it was all my boys that I'd.

You know, probably platoons, whatever, reached out and they're like, dude, we'll write character witness, whatever you need. Character witness statements, this and this. What else can I do? But at that point, I mean, there's not there wasn't a lot guys could do except write character witness statement or but she or, you know, go around trying to advocate in some way, which is difficult to do. But she was just more calling it out like.

There's like they threw him away in prison for not like he wasn't doing anything, you know, which is the truth. Like I wasn't a threat to anybody. And she was just like, let him out so he can be with his family and defend himself against this. And they just ignored her completely. The command did. So she started she started the grassroots campaign on her own, decided she has to.

She has a background in marketing and business and stuff, you know, doing stuff with helping spouses get businesses off the ground. And she just took the tools of what she knew from that and was like, I'm applying it to this and pretty much started a, you know, started an Instagram page and all that to like,

get the word out about what's going on and throughout the process i mean she gained quite a following yeah a lot of people which is it was amazing to see um but i had no real idea that all that was going on you know like i knew she was doing certain things but certain things couldn't be said over the phone um damn i guess you know i remember when that was all going on and

Damn to think that you had no fucking clue in there, you know, how big it had gotten and all the news stories and everything. I mean, yeah, it was, uh, it was a shock when I got out. Like I had seen, I knew she was going, she went on the news eventually. Um, and we had one TV in there in the, uh, in the pod and you're only allowed to watch CNN in there. Uh,

I think they do that for like torture purposes, but it's, if you had a cool guard, what you could get him to change the channel. Um, so I think once I, you know, I knew she was going to be on. So like I begged one of the guards, I'm like, dude. And so he turned it, you know, and I got to watch her on Fox news. Uh, but I had no real idea. Like, I don't think I could grasp how big it had gotten until I got out. Yeah. And I was like, Holy shit. She did a hell of a job. Yeah, dude. She's a hell of a job.

Yeah, she's the hero. Her and my brother both. My brother is also another one that's, dude, he, both of them, the dynamic duo, are two heroes in my book. They dropped everything and just worked their asses off to get the truth out. But yeah, like, so when I was about two months in is when I finally got the charges. So these are your charges right here, the first three of them. Specification, premeditated murder.

and that Chief Special Warfare Operator Edward R. Gallagher, U.S. Navy, Naval Special Warfare Group 1, on active duty, did at or near Mosul, Iraq, on about 3 May 2017, with premeditation, murder a wounded male under the care of the said SOC Gallagher by means of stabbing him in the neck and body with a knife.

When you showed up and that ISIS fighter was laying there, did you have any fucking idea this shit was going to come out like this? No. Not a million years. Not one bit. And then basically it goes on to you murdered an old man, you murdered a young girl. But these, there was one that was in Afghanistan, if I remember correctly.

That wasn't a charge. They were looking to charge me with throw that on there. But they again, that was all on hearsay from the accusers who weren't even in the teams at the time that went down. Wow. Yeah. And then there's there's actually, I think, eight pages of this. Everything from murder to murder.

little bottle of tramadol that they found. Yeah. But yeah, they throw. So pretty much the way it works for which I, you know, we found out the military judicial system is they have the main charge, which is premeditated murder. And then they can get just a laundry list of other charges. And it's like spaghetti. They just throw it all at the wall and they'll just see what sticks. None of it has to have any merit. They'll just charge you with it.

And be like, okay, we'll see which ones we can get them. So the more charges they have on you, then when you go to court, the more likely they are to get you on something. Did all the charges come at once? Or did they just keep adding more and more and more? They added the two murder charges, the extra ones, the old man and the little girl, at my Article 32. So...

To explain that, the Article 32 is like a civilian equivalent of a grand jury, just with the military. So you go up there, the prosecution presents their case or what they have at the time, and then the judge rules whether to proceed with those to court-martial or not, or some other form of punishment or whatever else. While at that Article 32, they were presenting evidence

All the other charges are trying to, you know, get them to go to court-martial. They had the NSA agent take the stand again and just regurgitate everything. We requested that the accusers come and take the stand on my Article 32 because we were like, we want to hear it from them. Because I, as I said then, I said the whole time, I'm like, these guys are lying. Did you know how many people? At that point, yeah. I knew who...

Who the... I had already read. I got a binder full of evidence. So I got to read all their NCIS interviews. I got to watch their NCIS videos. I knew everything that they had said. And I was like... I knew I was like, they're fucking lying. And they have lied...

You could tell that they had tried to like get a story together. But then once they got separated into little interrogation rooms, NCIS, they couldn't keep their stories the same. So there were so many discrepancies and big ones that.

That's why I was like, I want them to take the stand right now, which the judge and the prosecution denied. They're like, oh, there's no need for them to come up here and say anything. The NCIS agent is just regurgitating what they said. So that's good enough. Interesting. Going back to the the old man and the girl. So is that just hearsay? Because I couldn't find a whole lot of. Yeah. So this is information. This is what happened. Yeah.

And you got to like bear with me on this because it sounds as stupid as it sounds. Josh friends during his NCIS interview told agent where Pinsky that he had seen a little girl get shot, which we also, you know, kids get shot that deployment, but, and that he thought ISIS had done it, but now he thinks that I did it. And so agent where Pinsky is like, well, did you see him do it? And he's like, no, I wasn't in the same building as him.

but so-and-so another guy in my platoon told me he saw eddie do it and he'll so they called that person in and that person's like i have no idea what you're talking about i never said that once and i never saw eddie shoot any little kids so what they did is they took so-and-so's testimony and just hit it and they were like just gave him josh renzes straight up straight up hit it um

Didn't fit the agenda. Nope. And they did. That's the common theme throughout my whole thing is they had they hid every piece of evidence that would have been like, this is all bullshit. They just if it didn't fit their agenda or the prosecution, they just tried to bury it somewhere. So that little girl got thrown on. Oh, this is the other thing that's just going to blow your mind. So the old man.

Um, is actually has some truth to it. Uh, but look, a guy from my platoon came and testified, um, at my trial and was like, I was with him. And that was, that was an actual shithead that he shot, not an old man. Um, and it was a justified shooting. And he even said he had an argument afterwards with one of the accusers that day.

When that accuser tried to be like, oh, I think that guy was unarmed. And he was like, no, he was armed. I was there with him. You know, watched the whole thing. And that's got pretty much thrown out. But the judge at my article 32 ruled that the two murder charges, the little girl and the old man, should not go to court-martial. He was like, there's, and he even said, he's like, there's not enough evidence here. This is all off hearsay. Little did I know that the judge really has no evidence.

control of what goes to court-martial the command Commodore Rosenblum Overturned the judge's ruling was like no you keep those charges on there. Holy shit So my own command was like even though there's no evidence here. Just keep them on there And so that's how I went to court-martial with those three three murder charges now are these videos of these guys their interviews with NCIS

Are these the same ones that the New York Times got their hands on? Yeah, but they spliced them up. How did they get their hands on those? Because... I mean, it sounds like it's, you know, such a sensitive investigation. So who the fuck released that to the New York Times? The prosecution and Warcom. Why did they do that? To paint me in a bad light, to help win over...

For exactly the reason that we're here talking about it. So this doesn't fucking make sense to me because you have what sounds like almost an entire fucking community saying that you're guilty of murder, murdering an ISIS fighter, which makes no fucking sense to me. And a...

little girl and an old man and then a whole list of you know, yes a misdemeanor bullshit charges it sounds like I don't understand the in in in you say that they were coming at you hard because they You know, they wanted to protect the institution. Yeah, so they wanted to protect the institution we get they leak the fucking videos to the New York Times which is

Because now the entire fucking world knows. Yeah. Because at that time, so they didn't leak all that information out at first. It wasn't until my wife started really fighting back and getting a bunch of people, you know, behind us that now I think the command felt like, okay, there's, we're losing this battle. Let's,

pull this number right here. And the prosecution, the prosecution was leaking stuff to the media from the get-go. We tried to call them out on it two to three times during our motions hearings. Like it was, it was so blatant and so bad that the media was putting out evidence or like before we even got it. So yeah. So we would be like, how is it?

that this is being printed in the newspaper last night and we haven't gotten this evidence yet. And this is how they investigate things in the judicial system there with the military. The judge will be like, okay, yeah, that is disheartening to hear that this is happening. Prosecution, we want you to look into this and see who's doing it. Prosecution comes back the next day like, we looked into it. We don't know who's doing it. It's not us. And that's it. That's it? Move on. Yeah.

And so that, that was happening over and over. Um, they, you know, they leaked everything to do exactly what, what was done to slander me in the media. Cause it, it'll drive, you know, when they go to the court martial, the jury will be tainted already. Everyone's going to have a preconceived notion, you know, that I'm, I'm guilty and that just helps them win their case. Uh,

So, yeah, I mean, that was that was going on pretty much the whole time. But I had again, I'm locked up. I am not seeing any of these crazy articles that are coming out. I'm just hearing about them from my brother or my wife over the phone or like people that came and visited me would say, you know, there's pretty shitty articles coming out about you and it's it's not good. Yeah. I had no idea what like what really was being said. But yeah, you got you got to think, too, man, like.

they added those. So they didn't have those old man and the woman on there at first. Okay. But they had the, they had the, the NCIS interviews where all that shit was said. They added those two on because they were getting the same reaction out of everybody that you just gave. Like he murdered an ISIS fighter. Like who fucking cares? Yeah. They're like, okay, we're not winning people over like that. What are the two most, uh, you know, um,

Controversial things we can get him. He murdered an old old man, and this is the best thing I ever I murdered an old man on Father's Day That's what they were putting out It was Father's Day when I murdered this old man, and then I murdered a little girl that right there drive some emotion I mean even if I heard like somebody killed a little kid I'd be like - but the fuck you know that's no that's messed up So they knew like that would drive people to be like this dude is a monster this dude is crazy and

And, you know, it just went from there. And they just continue to smear me, you know, every chance they got. And it was all just like false misinformation that was being put out. You know, I try to explain it to people. Like my case is sort of like almost like a false rape case to where it's like a girl comes in and is like, oh, I got raped last night. But when really she just had sex with a dude that made a mistake.

It does that dude is screwed no matter what just that one allegation is like even if he's found innocent at the end but it sounds like Throughout NSW throughout the entire community I've heard you say that you know they were they were Counseling guys for wearing the free Eddie shirts anybody that talked about it. I was gonna get counseled I mean

That was an active campaign. Big time, like straight up legitimate active campaign. The Commodore. Oh, here's, oh, this is another story. Um, my mom and dad, um, flew from Maryland out to see me, to visit me. And when I was locked up, uh, I think like the first month I was in there, you know, came in and saw me at visitation on the weekend. Um,

They didn't know what to do. They were like distraught. My dad is a retired Lieutenant Colonel. He was like, well, I want to go talk to your command. Find out what the fuck's going on. And I was like, yeah, go, you know, go ahead. They went to group one, waited there for, you know, they got there at six in the morning, waited until the Commodore came in. The Commodore refused to speak to them and Mass Chief Ward,

And the Command JAG talked to them. And this is the exact words that were told to them. They told my mom and dad, if you knew what we knew about your son, you'd want him locked up for life. And they just left him with that. Didn't tell him anything else. Like, who the fuck...

Would say that to somebody's parents, you know, even if, even if you had all the evidence and you knew like he's guilty, why would you put somebody's parent, like say a statement like that to somebody's parents? You know, it's, but they had nothing and they were just actively trying to screw me. This is where, this is the other crazy thing is the Commodore was going around, went around to each team while I was locked up and had all calls and

With every seal each command and I was told this but through month by multiple seals from each team It's the same speech he gave that I was guilty that nobody should better support me Nobody should support me and this is the worst This is a kicker that he'd seen the video of me doing said act and that I was it showed I was guilty No shit. He said that to each command to it. So now you got to think man like I

I mean, that's not only is that unlawful command influence, but you are straight line to everybody. And, uh, you know, there, there was that, this video, the rumor of the video was what really turned, you know, made everybody question like, Oh, is there a video? Like, does it show it? No, there was no, this is the video where, where I come up and I just roll it over. That's it.

Like that's the only video. But he lied. So that video was not allowed to be shown to anybody at the time because it was part of evidence. Right. There was I forget what the word is for it where you can't show the evidence. Did the video really shut off? Had you ever seen that video? I saw it was part of T.C. Burns helmet cam.

I mean, I saw the video once the evidence was presented to me. You never saw it before then? No, not really. I never paid really any attention to it. I knew TC had his helmet cam on and that was like the big discussion. Uh, what it was like, Hey, just if it bothers you, delete it or whatever, you know, the pictures. But this is what's funny is there is a full length video of everything that happened that whole day. I mean, he had his helmet came on the whole day. Um,

It just so happened to show just me coming up and then shutting off and doesn't show anybody else. Now, TC's one, he was one of the, like, he, like, got in with the accusers. And he pretty much gave up everything to NCIS. Like, oh, here's everything right here. So they either spliced it up or, like, cut it off at certain points so it didn't show anybody else, you know, doing any medical treatment or anything like that. I mean, it's, and that's the big question. Everyone's like, well, why does the video shut off?

Or stop I'm like ask the accusers that ask NCIS that I wish it would show the whole thing like it would vindicate me even more but they Deleted it and there was there is deleted actual deleted files of that video which we brought up in trial like Why are these I mean they're there, but why are they gone? Why can't we watch them? What did happen after you were there? You know obviously because you're in the video what happened after that camera shut off is that when you cracked them?

Yeah, I was starting to. So that camera shut off right when I was doing my initial assessment of him. And then I pretty much cracked him after that. And then all the other treatments that were done, which TC did the chest tube and everything else that was done to him. It would have just shown that we pretty much medically treated him to death. There are some pretty controversial texts that you sent, and I'm just going to read them. I've got a cool story for you.

When I get back, I got my knife skills on. And then another text thread that says, good story behind this, got them with my hunting knife. Now, I did listen to you say that those were...

There was a whole nother thread that they basically cherry picked a couple of things out. What else was in that thread? So the knife skills and just the knife thing. So the one was like, got him a cool story behind this, got him a hunting knife. That was to one of my best friends, another team guy. He would...

you know text we could text back and forth while around deployment the whole time and uh he would you know check in periodically uh like how's deployment going what's going on there is it you know and i was like dude this appointment's awesome like giving them updates um just like this is a pretty epic one uh and that day was uh i figured it was like two or three days after the incident uh my dog guy who was in the platoon sent me

He sent me that picture of me with him, you know, posing with the body and the knife as like I'm talking to my best friend and I was like, oh shit. And that's why I just sent him that like cool story behind this one. Got him like a joke. And he was like, it's a joking thing, which to this, I mean, that is the, that right there was the worst and best piece of evidence the prosecution had. Really? It was obviously the worst because it doesn't look good. It's like,

well here it is right here but if you go ahead and zoom in and really inspect that picture yeah there's no blood anywhere on me there's no blood on the knife they did a dna test everything on that knife nothing came back um except that it had been touched at some iraqi like it had been touched by an iraqi at some point which is like yeah it was we were in iraq for seven months yeah so like when it came down to it they were like dude there's

Yeah, that text was stupid to send. They tested the shit out of the knife. Oh, dude, nonstop. And they came... It was nothing. Why was the knife out? Did you cut his clothes off or...? That was the one I jabbed him with to see if he had any stimuli left in him or was alive. And then it was just a stupid... I posed for a stupid picture, you know? It was like just being whatever. The person you sent that to, did they...

Bring him in? No. Didn't even talk to him once. They didn't even talk to him? No. Never called him. Never. I mean, that's because they knew, like, if you...

One of my lawyers went through this in the trial. If you go ahead and look at the rest of the text thread, it's not... There's no admitting to a murder here or being like, oh, it's just a series of bullshit jokes of just dark humor. I get it. We talked about it earlier. You don't have to answer this, but who'd you send the text to? Oh, he's active duty. Roger that. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Well, so that shit got thrown out then. Yeah. The, uh, which ones though? The text. It got read. I mean, they got read in my trial. No, it was, I mean, it's all, I mean, it's definitely, it doesn't look good. It doesn't make me look good. Uh, so yeah, they kept that and they kept, I mean, they would keep reading those in the trial and like, you know, look what he said. Um, but it's like, I mean, like, dude, you could go through, um,

Take any team guy's phone every text message he sent and you can pick you can charge anybody with you know with anything You know not making excuses for you can take anybody's fucking phone in the whole world and they'll find something a charger exactly So yeah those I mean like I said those were the best and worst piece of evidence That the prosecution had the time and believe me I was shit in my pants. I was like dude I was like why did I send like I?

If I could just go back in time and just not, you know, do that. But it happened. You know, it actually ended up being good for us because it was like, dude, look at the picture. And this is where Craig Miller's lies, like, got the best of him. He, during his NCIS interviews, had said that I had, you know, stabbed him. It was either by the collarbone or the neck.

Maybe like once or twice. Never mentioned seeing any blood or anything like that. It was just like, oh, he just stabbed him. Well, when he gets to trial, he goes on the stand and completely changes. He's like, oh, I saw him. He knelt over him, started jamming the knife into his neck, and the knife started pumping out of the prisoner's blood or prisoner's neck like a baby vomit. It looked like baby vomit coming out of his neck.

When he said that and I was just sitting there listening to him and I was like, you're done. Like you just fucked yourself because not only is that not true, but now that, I mean, you can go ahead and look at my clothes on the pictures. Like if it was really pumping out and I'm sitting there, I'd have blood all over me. Yeah. And you know, because I already, you know, none of that was true. I was, I think that really, he fucked himself pretty good on that one. Um, but he, you know, that's what those guys, they got up there. A lot of them got up there and,

tried to either overemphasize her story or change it up a little bit, you know, and it just... Did the fighter even have that much blood on him? He had a pool of blood, like, right over his right shoulder, right here. And that's what they were saying is that came from the neck wound or whatever. But in reality, if you look at it, the messed up chest tube that was done, you can see...

I think this is what I think where it came from is that it was bleeding out and was just going under his armpit and pulling up there. Oh, because they had a failed attempt? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So they went to the other side? Yeah. All right. Because it wasn't, that blood's not there from the crike. It was a clean crike. No. So that's the only way I can see that blood being pulled up there. But of course, you know, they were trying to say it was from

Me stabbing him in the neck, but this is the other thing so there's three guys that only said they saw me stab him at first So one said I stabbed him in the neck one said I stabbed him in the ribs And then the other one said I stabbed him both like but they all had different versions of where I had stabbed him or not and in the end only one of those Craig Miller was the only one who went up there and the other two were like

No, we were. This isn't true. And they refused to testify. I had one of the guys when I was in prison came and visited me. One of the accusers. And I sat down with him and he straight up told me. He was like, this is all a lie. This got out of our hands. And we don't know what to do. And I'm sorry this happened to you. One of the accusers came to visit you in prison. And fucking told you.

That this was all a lie. And he was sorry. Yeah. Yeah. What, I mean, what, what the fuck was your reaction to that? Um, at that point, uh, I looked at him and was like, I, I mean, I was like, dude, I appreciate at that point. I was like, dude, I appreciate you like coming in here and letting, you know, Stan being a man and letting your telling the truth.

I was like, but he straight up told me he was like, dude, I the NCIS is now hasn't trapped everybody that's involved. Like, well, if you go back on your story, we're going to throw you in prison. So he was like, I don't know what to do. I told him, I was like, dude, I can't tell you what to do because I'm in here. But I was like, you know, I'm going to be going away for life. It's like this is fucked up. But I stood up and I looked at him. I was like, I forgive you. And I hugged him.

and went back to my cell and then um he left and then about you hugged him yeah i didn't know like i was you gotta think man like at that point i already knew these guys were you know were lying and i had sort of i had a moment when i was in the in the break we can go over to where i just got levity and like i was good but uh after he came in um

I hugged him. I was like, I forgive you. And then about two and a half weeks later, another one showed up. Same. I don't know what to do. This has all gotten out of hand. Same thing, man. I hugged him. I was like, dude, I forgive you guys, man. I told him, I was like, just think about my family. What they're going through. They were like, we're going to try and

make this right. Uh, but I was like, I was like, don't tell me any, like, I don't want to hear what you're going to do or not do. I was like, Morty enough shit as it is. I don't need to hear anything. Uh, or what, what you guys are doing with, I mean, you guys started this mess. So, uh, but that was, I mean, that those were two crucial moments for me. Cause I mean, I was like, fuck. I mean, did that feel, did it feel good? It did. Uh,

You know, it's so when I was, when I was locked up, man, like I, the first probably two months I was fucking having, it was bad. I was just losing my mind. I mean, I wasn't like out in the open, losing my mind so everybody could see it, but I would sit in my cell and just like, you know, I was like in my own head freaking out. I couldn't control the situation, you know, just like any operator you want to be able to have control and like be able to fix any problem or deal with it and,

There was nothing I could do, man. Like I was literally helpless. I wasn't in control of anything. And then I had a pretty eye-opening conversation with my wife on the phone where at that point I still thought, I still thought there was some hope that the command was like going to come through for me. You know, like, dude, this is how brainwashed I was. Or you can call it, you know, loyalty to a fault where I was like,

There's no fucking way they're doing this to me. Like I couldn't process it. And my wife, she was like, I want you to listen to me real closely. She's like, I sat there and waited for you the past how many years while you deployed over and over. You left us over and over. You constantly told us you were doing a righteous thing and we believed in you. And that's why we stuck around and waited for you every time to come back.

We put up with everything the team says thrown at us because you told us it was the right thing to do. And we believe in you. She's like, no, I want you to listen to me. She's like, the command is against you. She's like, no one's coming to get you. You don't have any control. You are, you know, you're on, all you have is me and your brother and whoever, you know, a couple of people that are here fighting for you. She's like, you need to get that out of your head right now that anybody's coming to help you from the command. And after that conversation, um,

I like, it was hard to hear, you know, and I went back to my cell and sat there for a little bit. And, uh, I got down on my hands and knees, man. And I like talk to God out loud and was just like, take this from me. Like, like I, you know, I can't deal with it. No. And I just like, you're in control and whatever happens happens. Like it's, this is in your hands. Um, you know, I pretty much was just like, that's it. And I'll tell you what, man, like I got up, walked out of my cell and I felt like,

Like the weight of the world was off my shoulders. And I was like, and that's not to say it was like on easy street the rest of the time, but like that right there. I mean, you know, and I would talk to God every night and just be like, dude, help me to get through tomorrow. You know? And he did. It was, it's like, I physically felt it. It was, it was pretty insane. So I think by the time those guys had come and like, and I think that was God, you know, they came and they were like,

Straight up. Like we lied. Uh, I, that at that point I was like, dude, I can't like sit here and get angry anymore. You know, I was fucking wore out. Uh, but I was like, dude, thank God that they've come to their senses, you know?

You were in prison for nine months, right? Mm-hmm. What did your... I mean, I'm assuming you told your attorneys or you told Andrea, you know, that you had two of the accusers come up and, you know... Yeah. Come clean. What did the attorneys say? My... I had... I think I had my old attorneys at that point, and they were like, well, they were like, you shouldn't trust them. Like, this is how...

I was being told that they were still working for NCIS and they were just really just trying to get stuff out of me, which I didn't believe. I was like, that doesn't, I just didn't believe that that's what they were doing. But that's what my old set of lawyers were trying to tell me. But then once my new set of lawyers came on, they were like, what the fuck? Okay. And they ended up talking to them, talking to those, those two. And one of them was Corey Scott who went and fessed up to the murder.

If I remember correctly, you did say that a lot of the prison guards were kind of coached by NCIS to try to get you to snap. What kind of shit were they doing? So, yeah, they were told. So it was, I didn't know what was happening at first, but like anytime somebody visited me, anytime I had like any kind of interaction where I had to speak through somebody through a glass or whatever, I would get strip searched.

like butt naked you know lift up your nutsack do all this crap and i thought that was like okay they don't do that to everybody that's so they were doing that to me a bunch at first um and then they would randomly i'd be sitting down um they just randomly get up search me um then go toss my cell um uh they were constantly fucking with me uh with my visitation they would

They wouldn't let me have visitation sometimes or tell me like certain people weren't allowed to visit me. And it became pretty evident, like the other prisoners were actually like, dude, they are we haven't seen this, like they're messing with you. And I was like, all right. Well, one of the guards finally came up to me. There's a couple of cool there. There's there were some cool guards in there that were definitely like, this is bullshit that you're in here. But they were like, hey, man, you're NCIS.

They were like somebody some enlisted guy from your command was in here and they're telling they're having Me every the guards have a meeting every morning before they go on shift and they're like make him snap today keep fucking with him until he does something and Once he told me that I was like, I was laughing. I mean, there's nothing nothing in that brig is scary I mean, yeah, there's a bunch of fucking putsy e5, you know kids

So I was like, dude, all right. And I just treated it as a game. I was like, every time they would do something, you know, I had this one time, this gunny sergeant who was an MA. He like stripped me naked and then was having me do stupid shit. Like pick up your boots. Now do this. Now bend over and do this as I'm naked. And I'm looking at him like, bro, like what's, I know what you're doing, man. Like, let's just give it a rest. And he was like,

You know, you got all up my face like fuck you mean what I'm doing and like are you getting smart? And I was like, dude, I just smile. I was just like hey man. Thanks for your thanks for your service, but you know great job on the volunteer your contribution and Just walked out. That's all you could really do. Yeah, just keep it to yourself because that's that's what they wanted They wanted me to do something they even had The prosecution was getting other prisoners and

to try and befriend me or, you know, get me to say stuff to take lesser sentences for them. So like, if you get Eddie to say something, we'll cut your sentence in half or we'll do this. I mean that it was pretty rampant. And you know, the other prisoners were coming up and telling me these things and all of it is like, you would think like this shit's illegal. Yeah. No, I mean, I brought it up to my lawyers. My lawyers brought it up in court and it's like, yeah. Okay. Move on.

How did you wind up getting the new lawyers? That's another, like, act of God is, you know, Bernie Kerik? Yeah. So Bernie Kerik, who I didn't know, read one of those smear articles about me and literally was like, something doesn't seem right here. He made some phone calls down to, I think, the Pentagon, some SEALs that were working there, and was like,

What do you know about this guy, Eddie? What's going on with this? And they told him that they didn't hadn't worked me personally, but that I had a very good reputation from what they've heard and that this doesn't seem right either. And that there's something fishy going like they just were like, there's something's not right about this. So he ended up.

connecting with my wife and reached out and was like, if there's anything you need, um, let me know. Um, and he started asking questions about the legal team that we had at the time. And he was like, what are they doing for you? Tell me what they're, you know, what's their plan of action, which they had none. And, uh, it wasn't probably until a couple months down the road from when Bernie initially had contacted my wife that we were fine. Like my war, Andrea was like, we're, we gotta get rid of these guys. And Bernie's like, I have, uh,

uh, my lawyer standing by ready to like help you guys out. Um, Tim parlatory. And that's who, this is, it's so nutty. Cause I didn't, didn't know Tim. Um, at that point, all I was doing was just listening to Andrea. She was like, if she was like, this is the best route. I'm like, then do it done. You know? So she's like, I talked to this guy, Tim. Um, he seems like a legit lawyer. She's like, I think we should hire him. I was like, yeah,

okay. Uh, I talked to the guy, talked to him on the phone for five minutes and he was like, I'm coming up there to see you. He was, he's from New York. Um, I, after I had fired Phil or no, I fired Colby, um, first and I kept Phil Stackhouse on, um, just for some continuity because he had already been on the case. Tim flew out and, uh,

First time I saw him, it was definitely not what I was expecting. He was, you know, you hear a New York lawyer, like, you know, expecting like this high, you know, high power suit, high power tie walking in. But Tim is like just this big old, it looks like a football player, just massive dude. He used to be in the Navy. He was an officer in the Navy. And that was it, man. He, it was like a 180. Like as soon as he took over, it was crazy.

Dude, he knew more about the case after taking it from 48 hours than my two other lawyers did. And they'd been on it for five months. He was, it was insane to watch. And then to go to the courtroom with him, like the first courtroom appearance I had with him was like, holy shit. I have a lawyer. Like he was fighting back, like calling the prosecution out and everything. Uh, I mean, it was awesome. You know, he, it's, uh,

That was definitely like some divine intervention. And then, um, Mark Mukasey, uh, was my lawyer I had and that, uh, he was one of, he's, he is one of the president Trump's lawyers. Um, but he had nothing to do with anything. He knew Bernie Carrick, um,

You know I grew up knowing Bernie and was just talking to him one night and was like dude I saw this what's up with this Navy SEAL? Being like this doesn't just looks fucked up and Bernie's like dude. I'm helping them and He said he's like cool tell them I'll offer my services like if they need help because this is jacked up and of course once that was like told to me like hey this guy

Mark B. Casey said he'd help you. And he's one of Trump's lawyers. I'm like, well, yeah. Like, why wouldn't I want, you know, that? So I ended up hiring him as well. And dude, it was, it was definitely like an awesome dream team that I had. Um, at what point did Trump get involved for the first time? The first time, uh, he got involved was, uh, when I was locked up the, um, uh,

My wife and brother had hooked up with Congressman Duncan Hunter and Congressman Ralph Norman. And they obviously my wife had been on Fox and Friends a couple of times at that point or once. And she knew that that's the president watches that religiously every day. So she was pretty much got on there and was like, this is what's going on. And I think that got his attention. And then, yeah.

You know, he didn't do anything at first, but then we got over 50 congressmen to sign a petition or whatever saying to let me out of pretrial confinement so I could properly defend myself. Well, goddamn, I'm glad he didn't label that portion fake news. Yeah. Yeah. So, like, all he did is, which that was a crazy day. Like, I got told, and by this point,

we had a lot of people promise stuff that just didn't want to come. It wasn't coming through, you know, it was definitely an emotional rollercoaster of like, Oh, this is, this person's getting involved. You know, we've been told the president was going to get involved like four times at that point. You know, it was,

It was always like a crapshoot. And I wasn't putting, you know, I knew my wife was doing a lot of work, but I wasn't getting my hopes up to just be like. The president of the United States has your back. Yeah. Yeah. Seems far-fetched. Yeah. And so like I walk, I was walking to chow lunch and one of the guards, the female guards walked by me and she was like, give me a weird look. And I was like, what's up? And she's like, are you, you're getting out today? And I was like,

No. And she's like, well, the president just tweeted about you on TV and said that you're leaving. And I was like, are you serious? She's like, yeah. So by the end of that day, man, they they fucking came in. They were like, prisoner Gallagher, stand up like you're out of here. And I so this is the this is the crazy part. All he tweeted was to get me out. He's like, get him out of confinement so he can properly defend himself for trial. Didn't say like.

He's guilty or not guilty. He just said because of his prior service, he, you know, he has a right to a fair trial to a fair trial. The command Rosenblum, I get let out of the brig, like not even let out. I'm like checking out. They sent an MA down there and pretty much took me from the brig and then threw me in a barracks room with like restriction on steroids. I wasn't allowed out of the room.

I wasn't allowed a TV. I wasn't, I was not anything. I was like, I was still in the brig, still had to be in the same uniform and I had to get escorted if I wanted to go eat. Cuffed and everything? No, no cuffs. That was the one, like I just, but I just sat, you know, sat in that room for an extra month and a half. So it was nine months in prison? It was, no, it was seven and a half months in prison and then a month and a half in this room. But the judge ended up

Adding that onto my confused like you guys he pretty much told the command He was like what you guys are doing to him is confinement just like the break like so he just added that on him I he's like he's pretty much served nine months in the brig from because it was ridiculous I mean the command my my family would try and come visit me. This is when I was in the barracks they would command would deny them like my wife and kids and

I'm like, no, you can't see him unless we say you can during these hours. So it was pretty much like I was still locked up. Just now it was almost I don't want to say worse, but it was like I was by myself in a room. Now I wasn't seeing anybody. You know, they had a guard on post outside my door at all times. Yeah, it was it was just stupid. Talk about the phone call.

From the president. No, they brought you a phone to make a call that had no service. Oh, yeah, so We threw we had to throw we had to put together a complaint when we back to court saying that What the Commodore and the Admiral were doing to me was tan amount to confinement and that I still I basically they weren't following the president's orders I still wasn't allowed to talk to my legal team. I still I had no

No communication with anybody, so therefore, how could I properly defend myself? So the judge told the prosecution, like, he said, I'm not ordering you to do this because I can't, but I suggest you guys get him a phone so he can contact his lawyers. And so the command shows up about a week later, took their time, and they're like, here, here's your phone. It was like some, you know, 1994, like,

Samsung that had no service they locked I could only call my lawyer and my wife and I think my brother You know, I wasn't out of dial anything else out, but it which didn't matter because the phone had no service so they gave that she the command jag gave that to me and then they gave me a laptop with no internet and

No, nothing. And they're like, you can't have this laptop in your room. We're going to, they locked it in another room in the barracks. So if I wanted to go use it to go look at any evidence, I had to have whoever they had from the command watching me, standing over me, watching or like watching me do this, which is a violation in itself. You know, I'm looking at my own trial stuff. Like, yeah.

So we brought that up to them after they gave me the phone. I brought it up to the command, actually the JAG that gave it to me. I was like, hey, my phone doesn't have any service. And she just looked at me and she's like, too bad and walked off. I mean, they knew what they were doing. They were just, I mean, they were blocking me from being able to defend myself at every turn. And it wasn't until the prosecution finally got caught cheating and spying is where it

I was let out of confinement. That was the judge's remedy. So they, the, as soon as Tim and Mark and all them got together as a legal team, the prosecution sent them an email. This is a Chaz Plack was a prosecutor. And on that email, it was just some random email too. It wasn't nothing of like significant importance, but on there was a tracking beacon at the bottom. It's like an embedded virus,

And luckily my Tim, my lawyer caught it because he had a case two cases ago that dealt with the same thing. And he saw it and he emailed back and was like, tell me this isn't what I think it is. And got no response from the prosecutor. He was like, dude, they looked into it, found out it was spyware. Like they sent them spyware. So that became a whole nother like side issue of my trial. So then we had to bring that up like.

This is violating, I don't know how many of my rights. Was that, so that beacon, was that an attempted breach? Yeah. Or did they breach? No, they didn't. So if he would have clicked on that beacon, it would have been a full breach. What did the beacon look like? It was the symbol for the RSL, the command that the prosecution falls under. It's their symbol. Okay.

But there's something like about it that Tim was like, this isn't right. And yeah, it turned out the prosecutor sent that beacon to my whole legal team, including all my civilian lawyers, the lawyers that were representing my OIC, the Navy Times, because the Navy Times had just started writing articles that were actually looking good for me because that the Navy Times was,

uh, his name is Carl prime. It was right now, the articles, he started doing some digging of his own into what was going on and started finding out the truth. Like this is, these dudes are fucking lying. And he started writing articles that, you know, insinuating or saying like, Hey man, this is maybe this isn't what we think it is. And the prosecution didn't like that. Um, so they sent them a tracking beacon as well. So that's to the media. Now we're violating the media's rights. Um, so it became a real big deal. Um,

And we thought that, I mean, it was a good chance the case was going to be thrown out over that because in a civilian court, it would have been thrown out hands down. But their remedy was they, and this was a complete surprise. This was pretty much an awesome day. We went in just to talk about the spying caper and all that stuff. And at the end of the, that day, the judge said,

like so nonchalantly was just like, all right. Um, you know, due to the fact that I think you violated some of his rights, I'm just, I'm letting Eddie Gallagher go free or out of confinement. And it was like, I couldn't, I was like, what the fuck? And my wife was like, and she like jumped up screaming, like, you know, and that was it. I got to go be with my family until trial. Um, which trial was like, I think at that point a month off. Um,

But that was a big day, like just to be able to go see my wife and kids. I went and flew home, you know, for like two days and then came back and all we did was prep for trial from that point on. So you go to trial and you need to explain to all of America how an entire fucking SEAL team, actually an entire SEAL community has turned against you and you need to prove your innocence. Yeah.

I mean, were you ready to do that? At that point, were you confident that? Yeah. Uh, I mean, I had confidence in my legal team. Uh, you know, I knew, I knew what they had, they had done their due diligence. I mean, they worked their asses off all the way up till trial preparing for it. Um, and I, like, I knew the,

I had the truth on my side. That's what I was like, dude, I have God and the truth on my side and I'm going into it with that mindset. And, uh, cause at that point so much corrupt shit had happened. I was like, I would definitely wasn't putting any faith in the justice system or like that they were going to do right by me. So I just had to have faith, you know, in God that it was going to work out. And then I trusted God.

My legal team, I had full trust in them. And so we went into it with that attitude. I mean, it was like we were every day I went to trial was like going into like an almost like an op. How many days was the trial? Oh, it was like two and a half weeks. Two and a half weeks every day? Yeah, it was it was nuts. You know, it's not like anything you see.

out of a few good men or rules of engagement like the the courtroom's not you know made of rich mahogany wood and like it's dude it's a piece of courtroom like shitty carpeting like nothing there's barely any room for uh people in the back and they fill those seats with media those are the first people that fled in and then any supporters i had were told to like wait outside or you know

They put it like an extra room for them somewhere else. I mean, I barely thank God they let my mom and dad and wife in there and my brother. But, uh, dude, it was, it's a circus. Um, you know, the media was there. It was, you know, I'd pull in every morning, uh, with, with Andrea and my brother. And that's, they're like little vultures, man. They're waiting and they come up to the car and they're all around you. And you just got to like open the door. And I just would, uh,

Walk in the courtroom, you know, they're shouting all sorts of questions at you. Um, but once I, you know, once you're in the courtroom, it's like game on. Uh, and I just kept a straight face the whole time. I wouldn't look at the jury, the jury. So juries, you know, we started off the first day with jury selection, which is a whole process. I had no idea how like intricate it was. Um,

They have like 20 jurors showed up at first. And you can, so in the military justice system, there's no like, not everybody has to vote the same. You know, like in the civilian world, like everyone has to be not guilty or guilty. It's not that way in the military justice system. It can be like, you know, five people voted guilty, four people voted not guilty. Therefore, he's guilty. Yeah.

There was a seal on the jury. Yep. Did you know him? Yeah, that's yeah. He so he was one of the jury. So there's three seals originally on the jury. But one of them who I knew it was smart enough to be like, get me the fuck out of here. He came up with some excuse and, you know, I'm doing something classified. So he got off. The other two were from Warcom. One of them

Said right away like they had to fill out answers on a paper that he thought I was guilty and that's what he would find me So they were like, all right, you're gone Straight up lied. They asked him if he knew me. He said nope He'd been to my house five times. I know I know him. I know his wife or his ex-wife and He lied and said that he had never

Talked to me. He said he uh, I think he said that he saw me in the gym one time or whatever That was it. Is this is this fucking yeah, I mean he's the dude's been at my house. It was crazy, dude he uh, like straight up lied and was like no, I don't know so When he did that we had to go back and so we had to deliberate on who to pick you know, like who we're gonna kick off and

That was like a big point of contention because I went back and like the dude's fucking lying. But then they were like, Oh, is he lying to like help you? And I was like, it doesn't. And we came up with the, we're like, it doesn't matter. Like we have to have integrity and we got to kick them off. But the problem was we went back and the number of the jurors that we wanted was seven. That's like my lawyers were like, we have to have seven jurors. It's whatever lawyer math they have.

And we started kicking. So I kicked all the officers off. I was like, get rid of them. Except that we kept one Navy officer. And by the time we got down to like, we were at seven jurors. And my legal team was like, just leave him on. And we were like, dude, what the fuck? And they're like, we're not going to six. Like he's staying. So we left him. And then come to find out, he was actively trying to find, like get everybody to find me guilty. Yeah.

So I had six Marines on the jury and they were all like, this is all bullshit. Like they, cause I guess after the trial, my, my lawyers and the prosecution go back there and talk to the jury to think, to get like, what were you guys thinking? And the Marines were just like, dude, everybody was lying. Like, there's no way. And, uh, it was like, no, like,

I think he's, you know, he said something to my lawyers like, dude, I think that guy tried to find you guilty. And I didn't believe it at first either. I was like, no fucking way until this idiot did a whole post on Facebook the next day. Like a fucking rant on Facebook about how I was really guilty. But this and this and this and posted it on. Yep. Posted that shit on that right there. I was like, yeah.

I was like, first off, dude, like, you have to be a complete fucking moron to... You were on the jury and now you're posting shit on social media, like... And second, I'm like, dude, you lied. And I didn't, you know... I didn't say anything about it, but now I'm like, dude... And there's enough... I've had enough people talk to him after the fact. And there... I mean, I've had two guys who were, like, good buddies with him. And they're like, dude, fuck that guy. Like, after I talked to him, he's completely...

He was at Warcom and he'd been tainted. I mean, they were like, he's guilty. They were, you know, they were telling everybody that. And, uh, God damn. Yeah, dude, it gets, it's nasty. It's like, and that's, that's the crazy part. Yeah. And so, um, holy shit. So God damn. That's, that's wow. Yeah. It's, it's wild. It gets the level of like corruption and like just, um,

nasty the stuff that people that were tainted you know it's i would never believe it unless fucking hey man so what what was the turning point in court i mean i know it but yeah uh i think you know the turning point court for the media and everybody else was you know obviously cory scott um who was the one of the prosecutor's main witnesses that you know he was gonna get up there and

you know, what the prosecution thought was like, he was going to get up there and be like, Oh, you know, he stabbed him. Um, he got up there and completely was like, no, I'm the one who killed him. Uh, but, uh, you know, that was like the big, Oh shit moment, you know, everybody talks about, but to me that wasn't the, the whole trial was a turning point for me. What, uh, well, I mean, you didn't know he was going to do that. So then do you,

I would love to see your facial expression when he gets on the stand and says, I'm the one that fucking killed him. I can tell you I look just like this. You didn't make a freaking move because I, at that point, there had been so much shit that had gone on in this case, like ups and downs and twists. And like, to me, when he said that, I mean, I was like, oh shit. But I was like, here's another monkey wrench. Like, where's this going to go? You know?

And it went exactly the way I thought like they didn't care that he said that they were like we're still Charging him with pretty like it was like yep. We'll just dismiss him You know after he got it when he said that the prosecution got up and just straight attacked him and was like you're a liar you lied and then they would all they did was attack him with every other witness like Corey Scott's a liar and So it's like dude. That was your main witness. Yeah, I

you know, I, that definitely was a turning point in the case for the prosecution. And I'm sure the jury, they were probably like, dude, these prosecutors are so fucked up. Uh, but to me it was like watching every, every one of those dudes get up on the stand was, it couldn't have gone any better. Yeah. I mean, I knew they were fucked up. Like I knew they had told so many lies, but dude, I, it was even worse than I thought. Watch them get up there. Um,

Craig Miller was probably Craig Miller to me was a big turning point. He, he wasn't, he just complete moron. Uh, got like, like we, I talked about before, changed the whole story about blood spurting out. Um, then he was making up lies that didn't even happen. Like it was not about that day. Um, he was talking about blowing down a wall, which that never like didn't even exist. Uh,

He even said that he had put hands on the Isis dude and like was kicking him down that never happened I mean it was it was really odd the shit that they were like lying about they really had no no Relevance to charging me yeah But I think they had told so many lies at that point that they either they thought some of it was the truth Or they just couldn't keep up And it showed I mean even the media

They were sitting in the back, like, especially when Craig Miller was testifying. And they were, first off, they were like, how is this guy a Navy SEAL? Like, he's an idiot. And they're like, how do the prosecutors even call this guy up? It was that bad. Wow. He got flustered. Finally, my lawyer was asking him enough questions. Then he all of a sudden got the case of, he got a case of amnesia and then all of a sudden couldn't remember anything, you know.

Um, and it's the same with, uh, every other dude that, you know, delay and Tolbert, there are two stories about shooting the old man. They didn't match up at all. Um, they were talking about the same guy, but there was like one guy fired, you know, said they fired warning shots. One said they didn't, uh, you know, it was just this disconvobulated mess. Um, your, uh, many documentary that, uh, your buddy at the New York times made, uh, he's,

He said, well, for starters, did was Andrea and Ryan and your other sons, did they go every day to court? No. Did they really just show up the one day? Was that just a coincidence? That was. Yeah. And that's. Yeah. I mean, I'll give it to The New York Times and them for trying to put that together. But yeah, we my. So I had all three of my kids were there. Yeah.

At the Airbnb that we were using as when the trial went on and, uh, you know, we were coming back every day. And of course that's all that was being talked about back there. My family was staying there. And so my two older kids, Trevor and Ava, um, they were like, Hey, can we go? And I was like, I have no problem with you going, you know, and we both like, if you guys want to go. Um, so they, that's how they showed up that day. Um, like had nothing to do with, uh,

Cory Scott or what was said that day. I just happened to fall on that day But I mean, that's the that's the first question the media asked when we came out of walking out of court that day Andy Dyer from the Union 10-year Union Tribune Instead of like the big bombshell that somebody else just admitted to the murder his his question was how could we in good conscience take our two kids to a trial that shows dead bodies and

Like there's pictures of dead bodies in there and you're gonna let your kids watch that. And I wasn't allowed to talk, you know, but dude, Andrea lit him up. Like it was, it was awesome. She was just like, you know, we don't hide our kids from evil. We don't hide them from what their dad does. And, you know, that's the, that's the question you have. Yeah. It was, they were, they would try and pick at anything. Yeah. Try and demonize you. So he wound up not guilty. Yeah.

Yep. And, and what, what, what did that mean? That, uh, you still have the, uh, stone cold stare when you heard that? No, I think, uh, well, it's hard to explain that moment. Um, cause it would, it was just, uh, it was crazy. Yeah. You know, they, we closed our case, uh, you know, prosecution went, closed our case, defense went and closed our case. And they were like, all right, you know,

jury's going to deliberate um it took them about a day and a half um that was crazy day like just waiting um for them to come back and uh yeah when they finally did it was it was like hey the jury's got their decision it was real quick got into the courtroom they really didn't yeah it didn't hit me until like i was like sitting there waiting for them to come out i was like

This is it. You know, like, oh shit. Yeah. Bad man. Fuck. Yeah. They called him in and then you stand up at attention as they come in. I'm just staring straight ahead. Um, and it's like no time wasted. They're like, read them off. And, uh, the crazy part is they don't read, they weren't reading the charges. Like,

you know, for premeditated murder for this, it was like charge one specification too. So I had no idea like which ones they were talking about. So they were like, not guilty, not guilty, not guilty, not guilty. So there was that one. And I remember it's like, as they were reading them off, I wasn't even hearing it. I mean, my heart was like, felt like it was coming out of my chest and it was just like, you know, ringing in my ears. Uh, and, uh, once they got done reading them, uh,

I was like, fuck, like, which one was I guilty of? And my, Tim, my lawyer grabbed me and he was like, it's the picture, you know, and like hugged me. And dude, it was like, bro, the courtroom erupted. I mean, everybody was crying. It was pretty nuts. It was, I mean, you saw a team, I mean, team guys flowing in, just balling, like grabbing me. It was pretty epic. Like,

I was, I think I was just like in shock, you know, people just like grabbed me, like hugging me. And, uh, you know, my wife was crying. Everybody was bawling. My lawyers, all my lawyers are crying. Just, I think everybody was so happy, you know, cause like everybody had put so much like time and effort and just, you know, people believed in that case. Like it was, it meant a lot to them. Yeah. So yeah, it was, it was nuts. Uh, and then, uh, yeah, I went right from there.

Went and got sleeved up. I went right. I drove right to the tattoo parlor It was uh, and of course the media turned that one into a heyday, you know said something like Navy SEAL gets acquitted and goes right to getting alcohol and tattoos or something It was like some crazy article they wrote but what'd you get I had so I had no tattoos Got all through my whole career. So the first one I got was uh well actually

First one I got, you know Mike Martin? Yeah. So he, you know, he passed away during my whole thing. But he snuck in when I was in the barracks room. I mean, confined. He came in on a Saturday and snuck in with a silencer tattoo gun and tattooed my bone frog on my back and then my wife's name right there. And then after my trial. Oh, shit. Yeah. Fucking badass. Oh, yeah. It was...

He's such an awesome guy. Um, and, uh, yeah, after the tattoo, I, the first thing I got was my wife's eyes with like the flag wrapped around it. And then pretty much this whole arm is dedicated to my wife and then my kids. That's awesome. Yeah. It was, uh, you know, I never like thought about getting tattoos or like, it was always, I was like, there's gotta be something, you know, that has to have like real meaning behind it. And that was it for me. I'm like, dude, if this isn't it, then what is, uh, so yeah, when, uh,

Did that, you know, I had the I had to go back for my sentencing for the picture, which they threw the book at me big time. I think I'm the first person ever to get sentenced to a court martial for taking a picture. But, yeah, they they pretty much turn that into, you know, they try to turn that into a war crime. Yeah. Which it's not, you know, it's not I don't think it's in good taste, but it's not a war crime. Other that, if that's the case, then.

There's been tons of war criminals in the military since the beginning of the, you know, camera. Yeah. You know, it's, but whatever, you know, they wanted to get their pound of flesh out of me. I think the Navy was definitely, they were pissed, embarrassed. And then they came at you again. Then did not stop. Yeah. I, after the trial, I went back to work.

thinking like just like i talked about that mass chief had said you swam your way back and i thought that's what i had done i went through the gauntlet it was like i'm back showed up i was like ready to go back to work they were like you're banned they banned me from all the teams uh the bases and they stuck me in supply down at another base again um and they said uh

you know it was the same deal like report there every morning um i wasn't allowed to put in my retirement because the punishment for uh my court martial hadn't like been officially gone through yet they had to wait for like some admiral signature which they said could take months so i just had to show up and not do anything uh and so all i did at that point i was like i'm going i had so much leave uh

I never took it. So I was like, I'm just going on. I would, I would go back to Florida and spend time with my family and then come back, you know, every two weeks, come back and be like, okay, what's, you know, what's going on. It was, they were blocked. They were completely blocking me from getting anything done. I was not allowed to go to, I was still, I still belong to trade it, but I wasn't allowed to go there. So all of my paperwork, everything I needed was there and, but I wasn't allowed to access it. So it,

It was just a stupid game that they were playing with me. The command would toy with me. Like, the group on mass chief would be like, oh, we need you to move all your stuff out of your cage into this connex box. And then next week, oh, move it out of that connex box over here. Like, it was just stupid stuff. And, you know, I was pissed. But my lawyer and a couple other people advised me. They were like, do not do anything. Like, if they're fucking with you, just let them fuck with you. Like,

Don't give them any reason to come after you anymore. So I played it cool the whole time. And then that's when I got the phone call from the president. I was coming back from Florida, back to San Diego. And I landed in San Diego and I got a call from my lawyer saying, hey, if there's a weird phone number that comes up, pick it up.

And, uh, it's like, why? And he's like, just do it. And it's like, all right. And sure enough, it was one, I think I said it was from Egypt. And so I picked it up and yeah, it was the president of the United States and the vice president, um, on the phone. And, uh, they, he called and was like, listen, uh,

I'm calling to tell you that you're, I'm going to let you retire. You're going to retire as a chief with everything that you've earned over the past 20 years. Because the punishment they had tried to give me is I was going to retire as a E1. An E1? Yeah. And that's what I don't think anybody really knows is because they had thrown the book at me and they sentenced me to four months in the brig, which I'd already served almost triple that or four.

Over twice that. But because you get that four months, that's automatic reduction to E1. And so I would have, it would have been like 20 years never existed. Yeah. So he was like, that's not happening. I'm letting you retire as a chief and with everything that you've earned, you know, and then he talked to me about, I mean, this, he knew more about my case than anyone.

I think most people like he knew all the intricacies of everything that had happened. Um, all the crap the prosecution had pulled. I mean, he was disgusted by it and he was like, you know, he's like, we don't treat our war fighters like this. He's like, this is not, not all I'm president. You know? And he's like, we don't throw away our war fighters. Uh, and he's like, so I'm going to, you know, thank you for your service and I'm going to let you out with, or let you get out with everything that you earned. Um, and then he,

You know, really made a bunch of remarks about my wife, how amazing she is and how she's a reason that he was even involved. That he was like, she's a remarkable person to watch fight. You know, I forget what he said. He said, you know, she stands. She's a good salesman. She stands by her product. And she's like, that product is you. You know, and so...

Talk to him and both the vice president. Just I I was, you know, in shock. I mean, what are you going to say? Yeah. I just sat there and listened to them and thanked them over and over. And yeah. So they were going to pull your seal. Try it. Well, that's so after I get off the phone with them, I go into work the next day and I go right to trade it where I'm banned from. I drive right on. I'm like, dude, fuck this.

I walk in and I'm like, Hey, I want my paper. Like all I, all I wanted was my paperwork to put my retirement in, which they were not giving me. I go up to the third deck, walk into the admin and, uh, it would, you would have thought I walked in with a shotgun. I mean, it was all the admin people in there and they all like stop what they're doing. And we're like, Oh my gosh. And I literally was like, Hey, I just need this, this, and this. And,

I'll be out of here, you know, and they're like, oh, you know, they're all helpful. They're like definitely and the mass chief of trade it comes walking out sees me and It was so awkward. He was like, oh what's up? And I was like, hey, how's it going? He's like and then he walks back in his office and shuts the door and I'm like, okay comes out about 30 seconds later completely different demeanor like boat up and

gets in my face and is like who gave you authority to even come in here like you're not like just being a complete douchebag and he's like you're not allowed in here i don't know what you think you you know what makes you think you can walk up in here and i just turned and looked at him was like you know he because he said who gave you the authority to come here and i looked at him i was like the president united states when he called me yesterday i was like get the fuck out of my face he looked

His face was like, he like walked back into his office. And I like, I had it at that point. I was like, dude, fuck you. Fuck all of you guys. I was like, in my paperwork. I mean, the admin people were cool. I had no problem with them, but just him. And then the CEO of trade that comes walking out. This is literally this happened. I turned, he comes walking out of his office, looks at me.

And then goes back in his office and shuts the door. Like these are grown ass Navy SEALs that we're talking about here. And I'm like, dude, are we like, really? You know, but either way I left there. I didn't go back. I just got everything I needed. And I go back to supply to put in for retirement and I get notified by group one. They call me. They're like, oh yeah, you're not. You can't put that in because now we're going to take you to China review board and we're pulling your bird.

Man, they just wouldn't fucking let her to go. You couldn't make it up. I literally sat down with the group on Master Chief and had to have like I tried to have like this heart to heart talk with him. I'm like, dude, I get it. You guys are coming after me. Like I'm public. And number one, I was like, but you know what this looks like? Like the president just said I could retire and just let me go.

And now you're coming after me again. I was like, this looks like you're giving the middle finger to the president of the United States. And I was like, you do understand that? And he was like, no, no, no, that's not what we're doing. I was like, okay. I'm like, that's what it's going to look like. But I welcomed, they were like, we're going to go to the Trident Review Board. And I welcomed it.

I was like, fine. I was like, I'll go. I was like, because that is the first and only time you guys have ever offered to hear my side of the story. And if it has to be in front of a Trident Review Board and I'm able to talk to a bunch of senior enlisted and give my side, I welcome it. I was like, even though I already know there's a predetermined outcome that you guys are going to pull my burden. But if that's what it takes, you know, and I went and reviewed. So when you have a Trident Review Board,

You can go and review the evidence beforehand to see what they're going to bring up. And I was going to trial all over again. I mean, it literally was like I had never been in trial. They were just like all the charges again, which I was like, OK. But literally the next day, the president steps in again and tweets. I wake up to a tweet that said you will not be taking his trident.

get back to work dude I mean and so I walk into work the next day and I'm like you know what are you gonna do now you know what's and they told me they were like oh no we're still pulling your trident and I was like okay you know I don't know where this is going but it's like it's not gonna end I mean you're going up against the president yeah which I

That's on you, you know, but they, they never ended up doing it. They tried. And we ended up fighting back pretty hard to where they, they were going to take my Trident, my TU commander's Trident, my OIC's Trident. Anybody that testified on my behalf, they were just going to pull their Tridents, but they ended, it all ended up getting dropped. Wow. Yeah. But it was like that to the very last day when I got my retirement ID, just constant, constant.

Trying to like target me in some way man. That is fucking sad, dude Yeah, it was super sad and the sad part is like watching the guys in the community Who were not you know, they were all coming up to me like to this bullshit, you know Like they were all on my side, but they it was a very like looking over your shoulder type of yeah and it's uh

Yeah, it was pretty bad. I mean, Admiral Green, he's gone, you know, out of that seat now. But, dude, he... I mean, they got rid of the Secretary of the Navy over this. Yeah, well, that was another... So I think I got hammered pretty good because I spoke out against Admiral Green, right? When I was on active duty, people were like...

I mean, even other seals were like, oh, you shouldn't have done that. That's whatever. I don't know what the conduct I'm becoming or, you know, at that point I had, I mean, they had done so much stuff to me. I was like, dude, I don't give a fuck anymore. Uh, and, uh, Fox news was like, asked me to come out. I was like, done. And I flew out over the weekend, flew in on like a Saturday. And, um,

I was fired up. I was like ready to start putting people on blast. And my lawyer was like, don't do it. Don't mention anybody's name because you're still in active duty and they can still charge you. But when I went in there, I had evidence. I had already evidence that the secretary of the Navy was meddling in my case. I had an email.

that somebody gave me that he was, he, he personally was reached out to organizations and told them not to support me. Which why is the secretary of Navy reaching that low into something? Wow. But I put, went, I went on Fox news and I put that on blast. I was like this, this, and this, I put out my breeze name on blast. I was like, dude, I don't care. And then within three hours after the interview, the secretary was relieved.

Uh, which I'm not saying it was because I went on there, but I think, you know, maybe it might've had a little something to do with it. Yeah. Uh, so, I mean, and then he got caught going behind the secretary of defense's back. Yeah. So he didn't do himself any favors before we, uh, you know, close the book on this, this chapter.

I do have one question and you were going to get a silver star for that deployment. Do you know what that was for? Yeah. I mean, I saw the, so the way it was explained to me, this is, I didn't know I was being put in for it. Silver star. Well, the silver star, for those of you that don't know, is the third, the third from the top,

Yeah. Best combat award you can get. It's a... Yeah. I mean, it's a big deal for guys. You know, get them. And I had no idea that I was being put in for one until we got back from that deployment. And the only way I found out was because one of these junior guys said it. They were like, oh, well, you got put in for a silver star. And I was like, what? And so I went and talked to

my OIC and, uh, T-Commander like, yeah, we ran it up. We recommend you for one. And, uh, it was for, um, the first day was for multiple acts, um, because they changed and I can't keep up with the award system, but they changed it from doing one act valorous act to multiple acts. And then now they changed, then they changed it back to just one act again. Um, the writeup I got for it was, um,

We were in a position and we started getting shot at pretty good, shot up. We had taken PKM and all sorts of fire. And I had requested the MAPVs to pull up on this bridge and light up where we were getting shot from. They wouldn't do it because they were like, we're taking fire.

So I ran, I ran down, I was at the third story of a building, but it was like open. I was running down through bullet fire, whatever, sprinted across the field, which this is, I'm just reading this from the writeup. It all, you know, to me, I'm like, I don't, uh, it doesn't sound as crazy, but like I, uh, yeah, I jumped across, I ran across the field, jumped in the Mavie, pulled it up onto the bridge, hammered down on that building. That was where we were taking fire from. And then, uh,

Got out, ran across the field again, taking fire, grabbed the javelin, went up, ran up to the third deck again, and then engaged and smashed the enemy position. And the fire subsued or whatever. Jesus, dude. All by yourself? Yeah. Holy fuck. But, dude, it sounds like... Believe me, to me, it wasn't that crazy. You know, it was like... But that was like the one write-up they did it for. Wow.

And whatever it, when I got my, that was the funny thing. When I got my award, finally, when I could retire, I was like, you know, processing it through with the admin guys and the admin guys like, dude, I've never seen this before. And I was like, what? And he's like, come look at this. They had whited out the silver star and wrote bronze with V and pen. Are you kidding me? I still have it. And I'm like,

At that point, I was like, dude, I don't even care. Like, I don't care. Like, I think, you know, wars are here and are there, man. I think there's people that get them that don't deserve them. And I think there's people that don't get them that do deserve them. And it's a cross in between. So I don't put any, like, whatever. Well, just for reference, I think it's Medal of Honor, Navy Cross, Silver Star. Yeah. So pretty big fucking deal, man. But...

You know, well, let's take a break. Yeah. There's a lot of people looking for land these days as we continue to lose our freedoms. So we're on our way to look at a piece of property out in the middle of nowhere. And this particular piece only sits on an acre and a half, I believe, 1.5 acres.

All right, Eddie, we just got back from the break and I just wanted to bring up, we were talking about the book on the break and that QR code thing you were talking about, I think is amazing. I've never seen that in a book. And if you don't mind, just,

And a brief description, like give everybody a rundown of what that's going to be like in the book. Yeah. So the way I wrote the book is obviously it's from my point of view of everything that happened. I have, you know, chapters in there from my wife, my brother, and I think my lawyers have a chapter in there. There's a couple of other people that were involved.

But obviously the book is from my point of view. I wrote it in such a way that the reader can see everything that my family went through and then everything that happened at the trial. But it's going to be, it's up on the reader. I wanted to write it in such a fashion that the reader can make his decision at the end, whether they think I'm guilty or not, or what decision they would make if they were the jury.

So the only way I could do that is I put, you know, to do it honestly and not just from my side, I put QR codes in the book. So as you're reading it, like if you're reading about the trial and you're like, OK, I'm

you don't believe like certain things i'm putting in there or you want to know more you can click on the qr code and you can listen to all the trial audio um you can listen to uh or watch all the ncis videos um and you can see it all like i'm not hiding anything it's uh you know i'm putting everything out there and so by the end of the book you can make your decision on what you would what you would

find me as a jury member. That's amazing. Yeah, I tried to write it in that fashion. I can't wait to get my hands on it. And like the cute, the fact that you put the original court audio in there and by just by scanning the QR code. So it's like, oh, if you don't believe me, then. Yeah, I want to be as transparent as possible. You know, there was enough

you know, during my whole trial and everything else. I mean, the media put out enough stuff that was completely bias against me and they spliced, you know, certain things to make me look evil. And I'm like, I'm not going to do that. I mean, yeah, there's going to be things in that QR code that don't make me look good because they, you know, they dug through my life. But I don't,

you know, I'm not going to, I don't have anything to hide. You know, I'm not a angel. You know, I'm trying to be a good person, but I'll just put everything out in the open. Yeah. Well, moving forward, this will be the last segment. I just want to talk about kind of your transition, which, holy shit, man. I can't even fucking imagine what that was like.

Most guys just have to, not just have to, but dealing with the post-traumatic stress and trying to figure out what the fuck you're going to do and not being able to feed the addiction to the adrenaline and all that shit coming into play on top of what you were dealing with. It's amazing. It's a miracle that you got through it and that you're still sitting here.

And then after that, we'll talk about what you're doing now with the Pipehitter Foundation, which I think is fucking amazing. So you did eight deployments, and just your last deployment, you saw more shit than most people will ever see in a lifetime.

And even more than a lot of other operators in one deployment. And, you know, kind of talking with you online, you had brought up that there were other deployments that were, there was more action. And, you know, you saw a lot of death. You saw a lot of traumatic shit. I'm sure you've lost more friends than you can count.

You have killed a lot of bad, bad guys. So what about guys that you've saved from being a medic? Yeah, I mean, we just I mean, just this last appointment, the one I was on, our EOD guy got shot. You know, he was up on the rooftop setting up some charges for some loopholes and.

you know, one random shot rang out, um, tagged him in the leg and, uh, we managed to pull him down, uh, myself and another medic worked on him. Uh, you know, he, he's actually back operating, um, now, um, just good dude. But yeah, we, you know, ended up working on him, um, and having to buddy carry him back to, uh, you know, the, um, rally point, which we had stayed pre-staged, uh,

But I mean, that's, you know, on other prior deployments, you know, you work on guys or partner forces all the time, whether they're, you know, shot or, I mean, most time I've worked on a lot of partner force guys that have been, you know, blown up or shot up pretty good. It just comes with the job of being a medic and it's just, you know, one of the qualifications. How many guys do you think, how many men do you think are still alive because of

the fact that you patched them up um counting team guys or and all of them any human life that you i would say probably like 20 to 25 maybe um just that's what i can think of the top of my head um yeah you're thinking you know we also take care of you know when we were doing vso uh those stability operations on afghanistan you're taking care of the villagers nearby we do like med caps bring them in and you know the

They don't have the stable environment we have here. So, you know, they're bringing you these kids that are, you know, got dragged. I remember this one kid got dragged by a horse, you know. He had to be like five or six years old and they brought him in. I mean, his whole scalp was gone, peeled off. We worked on him, ended up medevacking him and saving him. And just there's, that's, you know, that's the one part of going over there, you know, taking the war aspect out of it.

you know, when you start helping the actual civilians over there and they're, you know, they're stuck in a war zone that they're not, you know, taking part in it, but they're just stuck there and helping them out definitely gives you like, you know, a feeling of satisfaction or gratification. Like you're, you're actually doing some good, you know, amidst all the violence and everything else, like being able to take care of like, you know,

Some female or even like, you know, pregnant women over there, they came and saw us and we'd help them out. But just being able to like take care of them and send them on their way, you know, do as best you can. It makes you feel good. Yeah. Like you're doing something good in the world. Have you ever thought about the fucking magnitude of the fact that there's, you just estimated 20,

20 guys that you saved and I'm and it's more than that because you just brought up a med cap but in combat There's 20 human beings walking on this fucking earth that wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you being there That's pretty like amazing shit. Yeah, it's uh, I mean you never think of it like that You're just you're just doing your job. Yeah that's part of what you know being a medic it's just

Helping other people out. But yeah, it's when you take a step back like you just did and look at it in the big picture. It's it's pretty awesome feeling, you know. Yeah, it's pretty fucking amazing, dude. Yeah. But well, did you did you even have time to, I mean, deal with that?

No. Post-traumatic stress? No. While all the other shit was going on in court and with the NCIS? Not at all. And it was pretty crazy because, you know, I was at that TBI clinic trying to get, you know, that intrepid spear getting worked on. You know, I had multiple, I've had multiple concussions, you know, throughout my career and, you

When I got there, I hadn't reported a lot of them or some of them were just half-assed reported. And so when they really started digging deep into everything that's been going on, it was pretty eye-opening to be like, oh, shit, this is what I've done to my brain. And then they bring back the scan and show you like this is what part of your brain looks like from all the blasts.

It's pretty eye opening, but, you know, I didn't have any I got pulled out of that clinic and thrown in prison. So I didn't have any real time to like treat myself or take care of myself. And I remember going, you know, while I was locked up, I had buddies visiting me and other team guys and they they were constantly, you know, checking up on me and being like, are you OK? And I didn't.

you know, like any typical team guy, I'm like, I'm fucking fine. You know, um, I'm good. And I was, I was good at the time cause I was in fight mode. Um, you know, during that whole process, I think my, I was just focused on like fighting, you know, for my freedom and getting out. Um, I really wasn't worried about any other, the ramifications. Um, and it, it really didn't hit me until, uh, I got out. Um, you know,

Even the last day, you know, I think I was telling you about it at dinner last night. You know, I hadn't during that whole time. I didn't I hadn't processed everything that was going on. It was just every day was a fight. And the day that I went and got my retire, my ID, retired ID, you know, I was by myself. It was very just like went in. They were like, here it is. And you're gone. You know, thanks for coming out.

I went back to my truck. I just sat there and I let it I mean, I just started balling By myself and my truck. It was it was like everything just started dumping out of me and I was it was more of a bittersweet Because I didn't I didn't want to get out, you know, that's I that job. I love that job I mean it was my religion for 20 years and to

Leave like that was not the way that I had ever pictured it or planned it But it was also like I was glad it was over. You know, I was glad I was going back to my family I started a new chapter But once I got home, I was probably I was good for a couple months I think you know just sort of selling it's like the I guess the honeymoon phase of getting out but once I started writing the book it I

Everything sort of came crashing down on me. I went to like some pretty dark spaces, you know, just going rehashing everything that had gone on. I hadn't, you know, taken the time to sort of unravel everything that had happened to me and my family. So once I started rehashing everything and having to like really dig, you know, go into the details, everything that happened. And it was so much that I couldn't even remember half the shit. Yeah.

went on but uh you know i was getting i got angry um i think that's the only emotion i had for a while was just like anger and frustration um you know my andrea saw my wife saw my kids saw it uh you know i'd come down from working on the book and i'd just be in a dark space uh wouldn't talk to anybody um and you know thank god i have i'm telling the only reason i'm halfway like

Good now is because my wife You know, she's my rock and she's like she told me she's like, you know You need to deal with whatever's going on and she's like it's not just with the book or what happened It's like your career, you know everything that's you know, you've been through and because I think when you're going through You know, I try to explain to people how it is, you know in the teams or it's like you're on a train going 120 miles an hour all the time and

any traumatic event that happens, whether you lose, you know, a teammate or, you know, something else, you see some atrocities, it just goes in the caboose. You don't even, you're like, yep, throw it back there and just keep going. Well, once that 120 mile train stops, guess where that caboose is coming? It's going to come crashing right into you. So that ended up happening. So I went, you know, Andrew and I talked and

I focused on... The focus was just doing the book, but it was also taking this year to get treatment and really fix myself and make myself a better person to be around. And that's the right thing to do. She sent us a... Andrea sent us a list of the treatments that you went through, and that's a pretty fucking extensive, long list. Yeah, I mean, I feel...

Dude, I feel blessed that I even got to go to those treatments, you know, and it was through the, you know, Seal Future Foundation. Those guys reached out to me right away and they were like, listen, whatever you need, hit us up. I went and got all my blood work done right off the bat. And that was a pretty, another eye-opening thing when they came back and told me, you know, everything that I was low in, my body had stopped.

you know, they're like, yeah, you're, if your brain's not working properly, the rest of your body's going to pay for it. And, um, so I was low on a lot of stuff. They hooked me up with, uh, a lot of like supplements, um, got me on a TRT, which are my testosterone was low. Uh, and then, um, I went and did a HBOT treatment, which is, uh, the, um, I forget the, what HBOT stands for, uh,

But pretty much you go into a, it's like going down in depth. You're going into the dive chamber. The hyperbaric chamber? Yeah, hyperbaric chamber. And they take you down. And I did about 65 treatments of that.

Did you find that effective? I did. You know, it's not the end-all be-all, but I definitely felt better afterwards. I wasn't feeling the effects during it. That was sort of frustrating, but about two weeks after, it felt like a fog had been lifted a little bit. So the science behind that, correct me if I'm wrong, is they take you down to depth because the blasts have kind of

loosened up the membrane on your brain correct yeah and so basically when they go down to depth in the in the hyperbaric chamber there it's it's compressing that all back together i think that's kind of like in uh in dummy terms scientific as we're gonna get in dummy terms uh i can't explain it any better than that either like it's yeah it pretty much helps you uh it's supposed to heal your brain they've been they've been doing it for years with uh

NFL players and they're just now seeing that this treatment is doing wonders for guys that are coming out of our profession who've taken multiple concussions or like they call them little mini concussions over and over. And they're seeing a lot of good effects from it. I recently just got actually my dad is a.

you know, retired Lieutenant Colonel, he was a desert storm. Um, and you know, he was, I actually got him to go down and do it and like seeing, I mean the big change when he got done with it as well. I mean, it's, you can see the, they had the positive changes and the effects that it has on, on people. Um, so it, I definitely got a lot out of that. Um, and then I, you know, dealing with, I still had this like,

weight on me. Uh, it felt like, you know, or I would still go into these dark, you know, just places or just angry. Um, and I couldn't figure out, you know, I knew it was going on. Um, and I'll tell you like, that's having podcasts like this or any other seals are doing podcasts. They, when they have their guests on and guys talk about the stuff they go through and they're vulnerable and able to be like, Hey, this is what I went through. And, uh,

Helps like it helped me a lot to be able to listen to those guys because I'm like, okay I'm not the only one feeling like this and then It just gave me the self-awareness to be like I need if I need to do something about it and I'm just not gonna sit here and Be angry and miserable. Yeah, I'm like I wanted I want to change, you know, I want to be different So I went I did this pretty not invasive but uh

It was different plant medicine. It's called Ibogaine. Is this when you went to Mexico? Yeah. So it's through the vet program and it's Amber and Marcus Capone run it. And they flew me out to Mexico and you take this Ibogaine. It's just a pretty powerful hallucinogenic drug.

Kind of like ayahuasca. Is this like, is this psilocybin? No. Okay. So this Ibogaine comes from like a tree bark. It's, I think, and I don't want to mess this up. I think if they said South America, which, you know, certain tribes use it as like a rite of passage when they're here, you know, they take it and like to become a man or like to find your purpose. Yeah.

but, uh, they've come to find out that this medicine is like, they also used it to treat, um, addicts. Um, so they use it for heroin addiction, any kind of addiction they were using to treat patients and they were finding that it was working. Um, and then they started to now treat vets, you know, guys who have massive, you know, TBIs or PTSD, uh,

Or, and which also we know comes along with addiction problems, you know, alcohol abuse, pills, everything else. And they're, I mean, they're finding out like it's doing wonders. It's almost like, you know, a game changer for a lot of guys. So I had talked to a couple of buddies that had already done it. You know, they sort of explained it to me, but even when you haven't done it and you have, you know, people explain to you, you're like, I was still, I was nervous about it. But Andrew and I talked about it and we,

She was on board, you know, and so I went down there and, uh, yeah, it was, it was a game changer for me. Um, it, it, um, what's the process like down there? So they, you go down there, um, you just go to this house and they have, uh, doctors on, you know, there, um, they have like this nurse or, and she's also a shaman, uh,

She prepares the medicine. They, you know, everything is done with like reverence. They're very professional about it. They have people watching you 24-7 while you're on it. They hook you up with EKGs just so they can monitor you. How do you take it? It's in capsule form. How long does it last? 10 hours. 10 hours? Yeah, and it's intense. It's super intense. You...

So what we did is, and actually it was on your last podcast. He sort of taught it pretty much exactly how he said it. You go in there, you write your intentions of what you want to get out of it. You know, I, so I wrote down like, you know, I just want to be happy again. I want to feel like innocent again. Like, you know, sort of, I look at my kid, you know, Ryan, who's

I see him. He's just an awesome kid laughing and just happy. I was like, dude, I want to feel like that again, you know, and not have this burden or whatever you want to call this weight on me. And I wrote it down on a piece of paper and then you throw it in the fire and then you take the medicine and they lead you upstairs to a room with beds. You just lay down on the bed. You put a one of those eye covering sleep masks on.

And you just wait until it kicks in. How long does it take? Mine took a while to kick in. So I was there with three other guys. Are you guys all in the same room? Yeah. So we're all on beds and everyone's in there sort of monitoring us. They play like, you know, real chill music. And I mean, everything is like to make you comfortable. But those guys, I can hear that they kicked in, like some of them are throwing up.

Um, cause that's sometimes what happens. Uh, so I was getting pretty frustrated. I was like, dude, you know, did I get a bad dose or what's going on? But then, uh, yeah, all of a sudden it's like ringing or buzzing started happening. And it's, and I could feel it come up the back of my spine. And like, it feels like the back of your brain is just explodes. And you are, it was like 10 hours of like, I got, went into space. Um,

you know, I was like actually like in space around me, I could see the stars and you actually feel like you're there, you know, it's like, this is actually going on. Um, but what's crazy about the medicine is you're, I could literally, if I wanted to take my eye mask off, I'd know where, like, I'd be conscious to be like, okay, I'm in this room, you know, but then I'd go back to it. I'm back to, you know, in space, but, uh,

you know it was it really it started off super intense at first i felt like the bed was trying to like buck me off and like it was flying all over the room but uh i just remained calm and like worked on my breathing um just to like chill and then pretty much i watched a whole reel of my life um i watched myself being born uh watched myself as a child growing up all the way uh you know i forget how far it went but um

It what it did for me is, you know, it just made me really appreciate, you know, what I had, which was my family. And just I mean, stuff that I think I was like overlooking, you know, because of the everything that had happened. And it just you know, I came out of it like that's with this like weight off me and just like a feeling of peace. And it just gave me like a foundation to continue.

you know if i start feeling a certain way i can bring myself back to that place uh a lot easier than i could have before the medicine damn when did uh so you're basically you were accessing memories that you hadn't accessed oh yeah it was insane and then this is this will trip you out like this this is hard to explain to people so i mean it sounds crazy but uh i was watching so you're watching it's almost like a old film of yourself and then at some point during it

I started, I was watching my dad as a little child and like him growing up and then how, you know, him with his dad. And it was, I mean, but it was like, actually you're like, dude, this is actual foot. Like, holy shit. But it was like, I was accessing my dad's memories, um, which sounds insane. Um, and I know like, you know, people listening, like what the frick, but I mean, I, I,

It was nuts. Well, you know, I did some research on this shit and we're not shit, but this stuff is like psilocybin in particular. And, and I can't remember the exact percentages, but I think they say you can only access 10% of your brain or human beings can only access 10 or 20% of their brain. It's a small amount. And when the psilocybin or hallucinogenic takes effect, it like literally unlocks the rest of your brain, which is,

gives you access to all these memories and is the way I kind of understood it. But yeah, it's that's pretty much how it felt like it just act like the rest of your brain has woken up and it just starts bringing back or you start seeing all these memories that you don't even know you had. I mean, stuff when I was little. I mean, there were there actual memories, but like, you know, when I was four years old, like walking into the store with my mom, like holding her hand or it was actual like I was watching that go on.

It was pretty crazy. Was it first person or was it like you were watching? No, it's like you're watching. It's like right in front of you and you're watching like old film. You can see yourself? Yeah. So I'm seeing myself and whoever's with me through it. And then it was like if you wanted to stay on a certain memory and be like, okay, I want to dive into this and see what you could do that. But it was almost like...

Like if I didn't want to, I was like, oh, I don't need to see that. I can just scroll through my, you know, to the next film. It was, it was crazy. Wow. And then each, the film that I was seeing, which was gnarly, and I didn't think about this till afterwards, it all had burnt marks. Like, like it had been singed around the end, ends of the film. And I think that was, you know, cause part of the intentions, you know, cause we threw in the fire and it was like showing me, you know, this is what you wanted to get out of this. And this is why we're showing you this.

so it's damn it's you know the way they they do it it's not and that's you know i think people if certain people are like oh i don't know about that like they treat that medicine with such reverence and they do it in such a professional manner i mean that's how guys are getting a lot out of it it's not guys aren't just going down there to take this and be like oh i'm tripping out like it's done for a certain uh purpose you know yeah to help guys heal and then you

After you take that, you do another drug called 5-MeO-DMT, which is actually pretty crazy. It's poison from a toad. So they have you smoke that, and that is supposed to, they call it the handshake. So when you do the Ibogaine, it pretty much shows you everything that, you know, you want to get treated or worked on, right? So you come out of that like, okay, I just got shown all this stuff, and you're trying to process it.

Then you, when you do the five AMU DMT, it's like a handshake. Like you're like, oh my gosh. Okay. Now I understand, you know, um, it sort of like releases everything. And I, like, I got out of that. Like I had a lot of, uh, obviously, you know, anger and, uh, you know, I was holding on to, you know, even the guys that these accusers, you know, that was, you know, I was angry about that. Um, and, uh,

You know, it's one thing just, you know, I was like, I forgive, you know, some of those guys. And, but, you know, the human nature in me, I was still holding on to some, some stuff. And it just, it gave me the realization, like I came out of it and I'm like, you know what? Like, there's no reason to be like me being angry at those dudes or like, you know, had this hate. Like all it's doing is hurting me. You're right. Like,

Those dudes, I mean, they proved exactly what they were. You know, I had called them cowards on deployment because they had acted like it. And I think they proved to the world exactly what they were. And, you know, I've been asked like, oh, you know, if you saw one of them, what would you do? And I'm like, nothing. I was like, there's nothing worse that can be done to those guys than what they did to themselves. So this treatment puts you at peace with all that shit.

I would say like not, and I'm not going to say like 100% because, you know, if I, depending on what mood I'm in and if something was brought up, you know, I might start getting a little irritated by it. But it gave me the tools to like realize like that's happening and be like, you know what, that none of that matters. So when you said you took the second drug and it just released everything, it released what? Like the emotion or things just made sense? Yeah.

It's hard to explain. So you, uh, when you take that, the, uh, or the, uh, five MEO DMT, you inhale it in for, I think, 10 seconds and hold it for 10 and let it out. And you, you know, they have you on a bed and you literally fall back into the bed. But when, after you take the drug, it's, you don't feel like you don't hit the bed. You just keep falling and you're just going, it's a,

It's a pretty scary feeling, but they, you know, they prep you beforehand. I'm like, Hey, just trust it. Uh, don't, you know, try not to fight it. Just, they tell you just to let go. And so that's, I mean, I did exactly that. I just let go and it, you keep falling, but eventually it brings you to this, this place, uh,

where it's hard to explain. Like I saw it was like these pink and blue hues and it was just like you feel nothing but love. Like it's like the most intense love you can feel. And you're it's in the way I can explain it because I'm a believer and I, you know, believe in God and Christ. Like I feel like it brings you closer to God and Christ. Like you feel like his love and just how much he loves you and everybody else. And you're just like,

It just helped me come to a realization like, dude, all this baggage and all this crap that I'm holding on to or that's bothering me, like none of that matters. Like, it's fine. You know, you're going to be OK. And you have all these people that love you. Like I have my wife, my kids, you know, all my teammates, my friends, like you have all of this. So why are you focused on everything else? Like be appreciative of everything that you have in front of you. And so that's what it is.

That's what it did for me, you know, and I think it for it for each different person It does something different depending on what your intentions are going into it. That's fucking amazing Yeah, it's uh, it was it was a game changer and then um, I went to After that I was you know good and then I went to another um retreat which is almost a similar feeling but no No drugs or anything. It was uh called operational restored warrior. Um

They take you up to the mountains in Colorado. There's probably, and you don't, they don't tell you anything about it before you go. They're just, again, like, just trust it. So I went up there for four days and you are pretty much at this, you're at a ranch. It's like pretty desolate, nothing around. And it's all very spiritual based. And they, they, you know, have you go over everything. It's, it's all veterans who, who,

Are not doing too hot. Uh, well, I mean, I felt when I went there, I was like, dude, I'm doing pretty decent compared to some of these guys I'm here with. Uh, but they pretty much heal guys there spiritually. Um, you know, they,

And it's not what like, you know, they're not like, oh, Jesus, God is what, you know, it's very it's based around, you know, God and Jesus. And but it's it's almost like you're in a spiritual battle constantly. And that's like they explained to you, like, you know, the negativity that we have or especially with, you know, us when we get out and we feel like, you know, there's voices in your head that are telling you like, you know, to get pissed off at certain things like that's all negative.

you know, whether you want to call it the devil or like, he's trying to get in your head. He wants you to be in like this negative space. Like that's where he wants you. And then they give you the tools to be like, you know, that's not, that's not where I'm supposed to be. Um, you know, I'm better than that. And they give you the tools to fight back against that. And, you know, it was, it did a lot. I mean, that, that was a big, big thing for me too. I came out of there feeling a lot better. Um, and then my wife actually did one for, um, they do one for, uh,

Female vets as well. And then spouses. So Andrea went just recently and she came back in the same thing. She was like, it was amazing. Wow. So it was really cool. Do you think it has to do a lot with just being

I mean, I'm assuming there's no phones, there's no fucking social media, text, phone calls, anything from the outside world. It's just you and, you know, nature that God created without any of those. Oh, that definitely has a lot to do with it. I mean, it's the same thing with the Ibogaine, too. They take everything away from you, so you have not, like, there's no distractions at all. And I think, I mean, that's the...

both those treatments that's sort of the hard thing to overcome because you at the end of them everybody's feeling like i feel awesome you know i'm ready to go back into the world and like start crushing it uh but i think the reality is you got to know like hey you're going back to pretty much what america like or not america but uh

You're going back to the world back to social media back to you know the news back to all the negative information That's just constantly being pushed at us And I think you just got to know before you do that like hey, you know These things are out there and there's some there's stuff every day. That's gonna try and take you down Let's try and get you in a negative mindset And you just got to be self-aware to be like, okay I shouldn't be watching this or I shouldn't be reading these comments. No, it's not doing anything for me you know and

You know, I think that's always going to be a struggle to try and, you know, to fight against. But as long as you're self-aware and you have the tools to be like, okay, this shouldn't be bothering me or I'm not going to let this bother me right now. That's what those places give you. And I think...

I mean, that's, I think it'll help tons of guys if, you know, I think that's what guys should be going through. You know, I'm all about the plant medicine, especially as you know, you know, the VA and

Big pharma that's I won't even fucking go to the VA. Yeah, they just want to shove pills down your throat and you know be like Oh, then of course once that pill starts having bad effects They just add more pills on to fight those effects and before you know it, you know guys are on like 15 different medications Then they wonder why guys are blowing their brains out, you know, they're like, oh it's like dude because all that shit It's all one big money-making process for them Yeah, yeah

you know, this, this plant medicine, if it, if it's as like invasive as people want to think it is, or not invasive, but, uh, sort of out of the ordinary, uh, and just, but if it's getting guys off pills, off alcohol, off, you know, helping them out, I'm all about it. I mean, I've seen the positive effects of it, uh, on hundreds of guys. So I know it's working.

You know, back to the VA, I mean, I hate to go down a negative road when we're trying to be positive here, but, you know, it just fucking makes sense for them to over-medicate because the minute a veteran drops dead, guess what? That's more money in USG's fucking bank account. And so it is not in their best interest to give veterans the care that they fucking need. Nor does, you know...

Sorry, but I don't think the majority of America gives a fuck. You know, we've the VA has been fucked up forever. Yeah, it will always be fucked up. It's never it's never, you know, a top discussion in politics. And and so I fucking refuse to go. Yeah, I don't. I went there when I got out. I went and checked into the one near me just to like register and.

And I'll tell you what, like the people that work there, like the lady I talked to, nothing against her at all. Like she's like super nice and was like, okay. And she, this, it was the crazy part is when she started going through my record and she stopped and just like, they're not used to dealing with soft individuals at all. And she was like, oh my gosh, like I haven't seen something like this in a long time. And I'm like, to me, I'm like, well, that's,

Me and all my friends are just, you know, that's all we're used to being around here. Like there's nothing out of the ordinary, but they don't know how to treat individuals that come out of the soft community and like what they've seen or like what they've dealt with. And the first thing they do is just like, oh, take these. You must be depressed. Take these antidepressants or like because you tell them like how you're feeling or like what symptoms and.

It's, you know, it's all because of TBI or stuff like that, but they automatically start treating it for, oh, you must be depressed or you must have this. And that's when they start putting you on these medications. You know, they tried to give me give me some and I was like, no, I don't want any pills. And they almost in a way try and force you like, why don't you want these pills? Like.

You should be taking them. You should be on this. And I mean, I had to they were calling me a couple of times like, do you want them? Do you want us to send you them? And I'm like, no, no. You know, why are you trying to push this on me? And then when they ask you what you're doing. So she was like, what are you doing? If you're not taking pills, what are you doing to help? And I'm like, you know, plant medicine. I was like, I'll smoke some weed, you know, something. And they're completely against all that. You know, they're like, oh, well, you know.

that's uh but if you're if you're doing that then we can't help you yeah like okay well then that's the why i'm doing it so you yeah i'm telling you this is helping me and you're fucking telling me it's not helping me and you want to give me yeah it's like it's backwards you know um but yeah i mean that's i'm i'm glad and i think that's why these foundations like seal future foundation um

Navy SEALs fund like this. Well, these are the ones that I know because coming from the SEAL community, I mean, they have really taken an interest in forming an alliance to help because they're seeing that, you know, guys aren't getting the help they need when they get out. And so that's their main mission is to help guys when they get out and get them back on their feet mentally. What's the name of that organization? It's the Navy SEAL or not. No, not Navy SEAL Foundation.

Seal future foundation still future foundation. It's run by Johnny Wilson. Okay Awesome guy. I went to buzz with him He's that's his mission in life is to help guys when they get out and to get them back on their feet mentally and physically and spiritually And so I mean I think he started off that foundation to help get guys jobs when they get out But what he found out is I mean you can take you know

the best operator and when he gets out and be like get him a job at golden sacks or something you know he he's still not going to be doing good you know nothing you have to treat you know you have to fix yourself before you can start moving on that's what they're finding out so it's good you said you smoke weed sometimes yeah how much does that help uh it helps big time like you know if it's

If I start feeling anxiety and it's crazy, like the little things that will set me off or like get my anxiety going, which it's almost frustrating to where I'm like, why am I feeling like this over, you know, this little thing right now? Like it's working me up. It'll help me, you know, just bring me back down to level and be like, everything's good. You know, and I don't you know, you're not smoking it. And I think there's a big misconception on that.

the whole, you know, marijuana and they've done so much forward progress on that now. Like they have certain things where you can take it and you're not high. You're not like, Oh, you know, but you're just calm and relaxed and it's, you know, just helps you sort of, uh, you know, even out. Yeah. So yeah, I'm, I'm all about it. I'd say the same thing, man. I, um, when I started, when I used to live in Florida and it was legal there, I, I,

It took my doctor forever, my doctor outside of the VA to talk me into doing it. And, uh, you know, I was like, I'm not doing this shit. This is, you know, I need to fucking stay on task. And, and then, and then, uh, I finally tried it and it was like fucking life changing for me. And, uh,

It's funny, like I didn't, you know, I started doing it like Andrea. She knew, you know, that I was going to try it, but that's how I knew that it was helping because she was like, I noticed a difference, like you're more chill, you know, and I'm like, good, then it's working. Yeah. I wish, you know, I'm a conservative, I don't, whatever, but that's one thing I can't fucking stand about the right side is they're so anti-

marijuana and it's like if you fucking assholes would you know come out of washington and actually do some research and talk to you know the some of the guys that are doing this and how it's helping them maybe you would change your fucking mind yeah i think yeah that's and there's also a big push against it because big pharma runs everything you know and they're that's why they don't want to legalize it because they know it'll get people off pills yeah

Yeah. Anyways, but man, it sounds like you were extremely proactive coming out and getting yourself up to par before. Not that you didn't hit a fucking all time low when you're in prison, but I mean.

You know, the fact that you hit the ground running, it was like, all right, that's done. I mean, did Andrea push you to start going to these programs? Oh, yeah. She pretty much put the orders down right when I got out. Like, you're not doing anything this year. Like, I don't... Because I was already like, all right, what am I going to do next? Like, get a job, do, you know, whatever. I was going to plan on contracting. I mean, that was my next...

Go to before, like all that mess happened, I was already on my way to, you know, do what you would, what you have done. Um, and, uh, that was a no go now because obviously my face has been plastered everywhere. So she was just like, that's it. Like you're, you need to chill out. Um, and she knew it was going to be rough for me. You know, um, she was like,

you know, I'd be, I'd be chewing the carpet after a month of being in the house, which did happen. Uh, but it was, we were both on board with, you know, like, all right, let's just get these treatments done this year. Let's focus on fixing you. And then we can move on. 2021 will be more like, what are we going to do? You know, our ventures. Uh, and I'm glad, you know, I'm glad I did it. Uh, you know, it was stubborn at times, uh, for sure gave her a hard time about it, but, uh,

I'll tell you what, man, and like I said before, it was from listening to podcasts like yours or other guys. When guys come on and start talking about their issues, it was almost like I recce'd it before I got out. I was like, okay, this is what I should be looking out for. Eventually, I'd start feeling that way or have the same...

Issues as some what these guys are talking about so I knew right then I was like, okay This is you know, I those guys had talked about the dark road They went all the way down to where you know, they had a gun in their mouth I'm like, I don't want to get to that point, you know Like I could and it's very easy just like I could go to that point real quick if I just like keep on this negative mindset and just be pissed off and then you know, I don't want that, you know, I have Look at my kids and my wife. I'm like, I don't they don't deserve that they put up with I

you know, 20 years of service, me being gone all the time, and, you know, losing friends who are like my kids' uncles, like, you know, watching them get put in the ground. Like, they've been through enough to where I'm like, they don't need to deal with me when I get out and all the problems that now are happening. So I was like, I need to fix myself quick just so I can be a good husband and father and move on. Fuck, man. Well, it looks like it's working. I mean...

So far it's, it's going all right. I mean, but it doesn't end. And that's the, I think that's the other thing is like the, the problems aren't, they don't go away. You know, it's not like you're fixed and, you know, our job has, you know, consequences and those will be with you for the rest of your life. But just as long as you find tools, how to deal with them, you know, but they're, they're never going to go away. Yeah. But as long as you can, yeah.

find ways to deal with them and get through it. I think that's the key. - Yeah, you know, being through everything you've been through and just the fact that you said, you know, that the fucking job has lifelong consequences.

You have a son who obviously really, really loves his dad and looks up to you a lot, which is really cool to see. And we kind of talked a little bit, and it sounds like he either wants to join the military and kind of go down the path that his dad did or go to space. Would you want Ryan joining the military and going down your path? Yeah, if that's the—I mean, it's—

It's not what I want. But if that's what he wanted, I'd be behind him 100%. You know, I treated like my dad treated with me. Like he was never, you know, pushed me to join. But my family has a very, like everybody has, most of the males have served in the military. And usually they were careerists. So I think, you know, I ended up joining just, it was tough.

whether it's genetics or whatever, like I just pushed myself towards that path without my dad or anybody. I actually went and did it without telling anyone. With Ryan, you know, yeah, he wants to be a SEAL. That's all he's grown up with since he was a baby. You know, he's been, he hung out at the teams as a child nonstop. I would take him into work all the time. He loved being around the guys. He has definitely definite attitude for it. Yeah.

Unfortunately. But yeah, he, if he wanted to do that, I'd be 100% behind him. You know, and I, I've told people this, like, you know, I know the consequences of the job and I'm hoping, you know, maybe by the time he joins, they'll have it figured out to where they can mitigate some of the stuff that we went through. Just as far as like the, the, all the blasts you take during training and all that. But then again, I don't think there's a, there's a way around a lot of that. Yeah.

Yeah, I'd be 100% behind him, man, if that's what he wanted. I'd rather him go to space, though, for sure. Keep him on the astronaut path. But yeah, I have nothing against kids. I mean, I wouldn't give back my 20 years for nothing, you know, despite the last two years. It's like I said before, that was just a few bad, you know, bad actors in the whole big scheme of the military. So, you know.

I'm proud of my service. You know, I'm glad I did it. I got to be around what I think are the greatest individuals I'll ever be meet on this earth. Just guys that are there's something to be said, like to be around guys like that, that just you're constantly striving to be better. You're constantly striving to be as good as a guy next to you. Yeah. And whether you know it or not, he's doing the same thing. He's trying to strive to be as good as you. And you're constantly I mean, it's hard to find that anywhere else. Yeah.

It's hard to find anybody that'll just do their fucking job. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, it's, yeah, to answer your question, yeah, I would have no problems with him joining at all. Right on, man.

So what are you doing now? Tell us about the Pipehitter Foundation and how it started, where it's at, where it's going. Yep. So we have the, so right now, you know, the book is finished. It's in DOD review. And then the big project we've been working on all year is the Pipehitter Foundation. We got that up and running in April or May. And it was been slow going due to the vid this year, but yeah,

We decided to start it pretty much near the end. I mean, we had talked about like, we got to do something because after we saw behind this curtain that we didn't know existed, which was the military justice system, if you want to call it that, you know, I saw a bunch of guys when I was locked up who shouldn't be there. Granted, there are guys that belong in there for sure, but there's a,

a number of dudes, I mean, a lot larger than people would like to hear about that just got caught up in the system and are being unjustly incarcerated due to the corruptness of how the system entraps people. And it's not talked about, you know, it's sort of hidden. Nobody really knows about it. So when I was going through and when I was actually locked up, you know, we came to the realization like, okay, this is,

This happened to us, you know, for a reason. Like, we didn't understand what at first until we started seeing I started seeing other people, these kids in my position that don't have any help. They didn't have the help that I had. I didn't have an Andrea Gallagher or Sean Gallagher, you know, my brother, you

to get behind them or a family to get behind them and fight for them you know a lot of people don't have that they're not as lucky or as blessed uh and so we're like you know what we need to we need to be that for the you know these people um so that's the purpose of the foundation uh is we pretty much raise money um and then people can go to our site and fill out a grant application

And we tell them to be as thorough as possible about their case, about what they're going through. And I have an awesome board, board members. I have, you know, Rob O'Donnell's a prior law enforcement. Awesome. Mark New Casey's on there, one of my lawyers. I have another team guy on there, Carl Higbee, Joni Marquez, and Tommy, who worked for Congressman Duncan Hunter.

And as a board, we review each case once a month. We take all the cases, review them, and then we decide, yay or nay, like we're going to help these people. And once we are like, yep, we'll do it. And then we'll we end up, you know, talking to the individual and seeing what they need. And what we provide is if they need money for their legal defense, you know, provide that or we provide.

know how stressful it is going through something like that. So provide emergency relief funds for their family. Because, you know, when you're going through a stressful situation like that, you know, you're paying for lawyers. You're also, you know, it causes all this undue stress in the family. So we sort of try and take

some of that away, um, and just so they can get through it. And then we also, uh, we'll do advocacy, um, if they want it, you know, some people obviously like, no, I don't want my name anymore. Like, okay. You know, but if people want to be advocated for and like, Hey, do you want, do you want us to help get the word out about what's going on with you? Then we'll do that for them as well. Um, and then we, you know, we help active duty, um,

law enforcement and first responders. Uh, shit, man. How long have you, how long have you been doing that? Uh, we, so, uh, we got our nonprofit approved in like April or may, and we've pretty much been helping guys and girls, um, probably for three months now. Holy shit. So we're, are you, uh, how's funding so far? It's been rough, uh, obviously due to this year, you know, doing some fundraising, but, uh,

You know, it comes in every once in a while. I mean, we obviously because of the COVID or you can't go do a lot of fundraising, stuff like that. But we, you know, we put out mailers and, you know, the people that are generous and, you know, just the patriots of this country will donate whatever they can. And every little bit helps.

So, and that money is going directly. I mean, we're helping people out now. So once we receive that money, it's going to a family or a service member or an officer right away to help them out. But yeah, we're hoping next year, you know, we'll start being able to build more of a base of funds and start being able to help more people. That's solid, man. Yeah, it's good. And that's, dude, that's super gratifying, you know,

Getting the nonprofit started and all that, I had nothing to do with that. There was a lot of administrative shit that I can't even handle. So like Andrea and the board, we have Dina Cruden, who's also the executive director. She's amazing. They pretty much got everything going.

got everything approved. And then, you know, once we started actually helping people and, you know, having guys call me and being like, dude, I just got, you know, whatever thousand dollar grant from you guys. And you have no idea like how much I needed that at this time, like that right there. I'm like, dude, that's, that's why we're doing this. That's awesome. So it's, yeah, it's good. It's a, and it gives us a purpose, you know, it gives me a purpose, which is,

I think one of the number one things that's hard to find once you get out is trying to find another purpose to, like, how you can serve. Yeah. Luckily, you know, we have this, so... Do you have any idea how many guys are out there that are in the middle of a situation like yours? There's, off the top of my head right now, I can, you know, I can come up with, like, eight. Eight? How do you decipher whether...

Because potentially you could be, if you made a wrong decision, you could be helping somebody that, you know, is an actual fucking criminal. So how do you, I mean, you said your lawyer's on there. Yeah. How do you kind of determine? So that's why we ask people when they fill out the grant to be as thorough as possible, like with everything. And if they fill out a grant and there's,

you know we'll look through it pretty you know in detail and we're like all right there's some information missing here and we'll reach out back and like hey you know can you fill out some more just because so we can get sort of an idea um most of the time you know you can tell when someone's getting screwed or someone's getting fucked like and there is always that chance you know you're like okay we're gonna help this person maybe they are guilty but uh

You know, if I, if we're, if we're looking at a person's case and this is just my, from my point of view, when I'm looking at it, I look at how they're being treated through the process. And if I, you know, start seeing the same things that was done to me or I've seen done to other guys, um, and just the, in the unjust way they do things, I'm like right away, I'm like, okay, guilty or not guilty. This person's not getting due process at all. Like,

He hasn't even, he or she hasn't even had a chance to like speak out or say their side. They're just automatically guilty until proven innocent. You're helping them get the right to a free trial. Yeah. I'm helping them get, and that's the thing. Like we, you know, if it ends up being like, okay, we help this person, they go to trial and they're found guilty. Well, okay. You know, but I did my due diligence to help that person and like take the stress off them and their family until that point, you know? Um,

You know, I'm not a jury member. We're not that's we're not there to like say whether you're guilty or not guilty. We're just here to help you through the process and just take as much stress off you as possible and, you know, help you actually. The only rights that you have during a situation like that are the ones that you can afford. Yeah. Service members and law enforcement don't make enough money to buy, you know, to hire lawyers.

good attorneys. So we're, that's where we come in and we're like, Hey, we'll help you fund so you can have, have a good attorney and, uh, actually have a fighting chance. That's fucking awesome, dude. Yeah. It's, it's a, definitely a gap that's missing in, you know, helping or service. I'm glad that we're feeling it. Yeah. I mean, I didn't, you know, had it not been for what you went through, I mean, I don't, I don't think anybody would know.

No, you know, and that's the other reason we started it to, you know, the amount of people that got behind myself and my family during my whole thing, like the the patriots that got behind us. And I mean, I had people reach out, you know, left and right. Like, you know, we're supporting you, whatever we can do. I mean, people I don't know any of these people. These are from all over the country. I mean, that right there. I'm like, we.

we have to give back you know we we got all this support from all these people we have to give something back i mean we can't just like okay yeah we're done like thanks it's like no that's not how it works it's you pay it forward you know um so like i feel i almost feel like it's our duty to be um to be doing this yeah so on top of the non-profit what what do you see yourself doing in the next five years and what are you hoping to accomplish and

Um, so I actually, I recently, uh, I think it was like about a month and a half ago, two months ago, I, um, went out with, uh, TSI, the shooting Institute, um, just volunteered to come along and help, uh, teach. They, they did a trip where they went and taught, uh, some, uh, SWAT guys. And I think some, uh, air force guys out in Texas. So I tagged along on that just, um, to see how I would like it or see how it would feel. And I, uh,

Like I loved teaching. I love teaching those guys, you know, tactics. I just felt like I was at home, you know, again, doing it. So I think I'm, I'm looking to do something like that next year. I want to do it locally where I live and just be able to instruct and shooting and hopefully tactics, you know, if I can get a kill house nearby, do some training like that. That's, that's,

in the infancy stages right now, but I, that's what I plan on, uh, hopefully doing next year. Um, and I also, I hooked up with, um, a company precision tactical. Uh, they make, you know, all sorts of firearms. Um, and they, uh, just awesome individuals. Um, and they built, so they built a gun, uh, around me. They let me pick out all the parts, you know, just exactly how I would want to, how I'd want to have it. And they, uh, we're going to be selling those, um, here soon. Um,

So we'll see how that goes. Right on. Yeah. You got a picture of it? Yeah, I do. Cool. We'll post it up top. I appreciate that. Yeah, man. Yeah. Well, good luck with teaching. There is definitely no shortage of people wanting tactical training with the current state of the country right now. I can fucking guarantee you that shit. I'll be picking your brain for sure. So, but yeah.

Well, man, I kind of want to wrap this thing up. It's been a long podcast and it has been a fucking honor having you sit across from me and share your experience and everything. And you've already answered this, but I want to properly ask you, even though I already know the answer, but with all the shit that you've been through and what seemed to be the entire community trying to ruin your very existence for doing what America asked you to do,

Would you fucking do it all over again? In a heartbeat. Yeah. I, I love that job. That was, it's hard to like, that's all I ever wanted to do. You know, once I got, got into the teams, that was it, man. I get to, I loved every bit of it. And I don't have like when you say like, you know, the entire community, like it's not the, you know, the entire community wasn't against me. It was, it,

Just some individuals in the command, like the guys themselves, man, like, you know, they I knew most of them had my back, you know, they they couldn't come out and say it right right then. But I've had enough phone calls from guys, you know, congratulate me and just that they were supporting me the whole time. And, you know, the teams are made up from the enlisted. The enlisted is what makes the teams, the guys, the shooters, you know, in the platoons, not the.

Not the head shed, not the guys in charge of Warcom. You know, they might make the decisions, but they'll never be able to change how the culture, you know, they can try as much as they want. But team guys are team guys. And as long as we have them in the platoons, it'll stay similar to why we you and I joined. Yeah. Well, I just want to say, man, once again, it's been a fucking honor having you here. And I can't fucking imagine.

what that felt like to go through all that. And, um, and it's just really awesome to see where you're at now and see you doing well and, and, uh, and helping the next guys to help, helping the next generation coming out. And, and, and it's just a solid motherfucker, dude. I appreciate it. You are too, man. I'm glad I came out here. It's an honor to be out here. And like your podcast is, is exceptional and I'm glad I got to be on it. Thank you.