Military Heroes John McPhee and Jason Redman - Megyn Kelly's "Double Feature" of Fascinating Interviews

25:59I passed. Yeah. So that was you in special forces trying to make it under Delta force, which is yet another sort of next elite level. But in my day, you didn't know what Delta force was. Like if someone went there is a black hole, you just never seen them again. You didn't even know they were alive. You know what I mean? So why'd you do it? Why'd you show up at 6am? What else was I going to do?

26:23Sometimes I do my best work hungover. What's How hard was the tryout? So first off, it ain't easy. I'm going to say that. But at the same time, it was fucking great, man. They leave you alone. You walk through the mountains. Like, yeah, yeah, I'm here. You got to go like, I don't know, like you have maps. You ever see like the big forestry maps? I'm already sweating. That's making me nervous. I know. It's probably the worst thing you want to hear. I would never make it. But like you'd have maps and they're like this big. And like the guy would give you a point and you'd be like, wait. wait and you're like you got like five of these and you're like i gotta go like three of these maps today man you know what i mean and then nightmare yeah and then you just go and then this i mean maybe they knew even before bin laden knew where you were gonna wind up but that was perfect training for what ultimately would be asked of you yeah 100 i was ready were you in delta force when 9-11 happened yeah okay so you're doing your training what still down in savannah uh i was at bragg fort bragg okay and then uh well 9 11 i was trying to skydive to go to uh free fall jump master school teach people to skydive of course you were that's what i do so what happened on 9 11 were you what was your reaction to that day well the first plane i was like like it looked like a little plane crashed in you know we didn't know some drunken idiot in his little plane crashed in, right?

27:50And then the second was like, oh shit. And then we were grounded and that was it. Then you knew it was like something bad. You knew, but unlike the rest of us, you actually are going to have to answer the call. I mean, is that exciting? Is it nerve wracking? Is it everything? It's a lot of things, but I would say this is, I was too far in not to go. You know what I mean? I was excited, I was nervous. I say this all the time. People are going to have thousands of emotions today, right? It's just how people work. You'll have a thousand emotions. Don't let it stop on the bad ones, you know what I mean?

28:29I know what you mean, but it's harder to do than actually it sounds. Maybe, I don't know. People get stuck. They get stuck in sort of obsessive thinking, especially if their life might be on the line. Yeah, people get stuck. So how do you rejigger that? if that's you and you get stuck on something. Smack them in the back of the head. Sometimes you need that. You know what I mean? Sometimes I need that. You know what I mean? Snap them out of it. So what was the first word you had that you were getting deployed and to where? Well, there's a lot of things happening between 9-11 and before we deployed.

29:04I think the original plan is we were supposed to save some hostages in Kabul. And then we ended up doing the Tora Bora thing. So what we trained for and what happened were completely different animals. You know what I mean? Do you know why? That's the way that cookie crumbles. You know what I mean? Just follow what they tell you. Let's go. You know what I mean? You're not in charge. Someone else is making the calls. You just got to do your best when the time comes. Was Tora Bora then the first place you went? Yeah, Tora Bora. Wow. Yeah. All right. Tell us about that. Tell us what was that? How did that just describe you?

29:39because I've heard you talk about it, Sean Ryan. It sounds like you were looking for bin Laden. Yeah, so yeah, we were looking for bin Laden. The Tora Bora was like a stronghold for bin Laden, Al-Qaeda, whatever they would call themselves, right? And the Russians could never get in there, right? And I think somebody, I don't know who said it, but it took 10 of us 10 days. To do what? to get everybody out of those mountains. Either kill them or have them come out and surrender. But it took 10 of us 10 days. The Russians never took it. They had 10 ,000 soldiers, you know? So how'd we do that? We bombed the shit out of those guys.

30:22You know what I mean? Thanks to all your explosives training? No, it was more like Air Force stuff. You know what I mean? Unfortunately, not my, I mean, if I had to blow them up one at a time, like that would be awesome. But we bombed them. So it was more of an Air Force thing. We had a call on the radio for a bomb. Was that deployment, that moment when you showed up in Tora Bora the first time, you ever killed a man? Yeah. Yeah, war. Like, let's go. We killed hundreds of people on the first day. I can't tell you how many people died. You know what I mean? They're just everywhere. Side of the mountains.

30:58And then sometimes guys get blowed up. There's only pieces. You know what I mean? And they'd just be on the side of the mountain. Like, what do you do? Well, how does that affect you at all as a man or is it just, no, I'm a soldier? I mean, you know, I'll tell you this. You want to come to a gunfight and you end up dead, it's your fault. You know what I mean? They started it. Well, and it's the Delta Force. You're going to die. It's not going to be a good look for you. You know what I mean? So, yeah, I just felt like all those guys needed to die. Like, they're evil. You know what I mean? Like, it's evil to just, like, you know, Afghanistan in general.

31:45It's like biblical times with trucks and cell phones. Like, they do fucked up shit. You know what I mean? So, there's no doubt in my mind that these guys needed to die. You know? Were they connected to bin Laden? Yeah, all his, like, inner guys. You know what I mean? Yeah. So in 10 days, you managed to route out this mountain area that nobody else had gotten to, the Russians included. And then what? Well, bin Laden wrote a death letter. He wrote a death letter. It's on the internet. But he wrote a letter. He thought he was going to die. Is this the one where he was, this is a different letter from the one that the morons were circulating on TikTok about a year and a half ago saying, this is amazing.

32:27He's so smart. He's got such good reasons for attacking us. I don't know. That happened. I don't know. Yeah. You really wouldn't. You should stay off the internet and you should not get to know Gen Z. I don't think you'll be happy. I don't do any social media. Well, so what happened? Because you didn't find Bin Laden there, but you found all of his henchmen. Yeah. You killed him. Yeah. And then are you like done? Because Bin Laden's still out there. A fucking ceasefire. A fucking ceasefire. Someone called a ceasefire. And I would also say there's a couple of helicopters flew over the battlefield, which I still to this day don't know who they were.

33:01Oh, you think he was escaping? I look at it this way. If the first 10 days of the war, 10 guys kill bin Laden, where's the war on terror at? Oh, this is interesting. The checkbook would have never got open. Oh, that's really interesting. That's what I think. So you're pretty cynical about our military industrial complex. I wouldn't say cynical. like i mean i enjoyed my time i love grenades you know what i mean uh but uh i do think like the rug was pulled out from under us well i mean it definitely was at the end but we're are you talking about right here right now when you're trying to find him you don't think that the military brass wanted you to find him they wanted it to go on and on no i think someone else intervened and put him in hiding.

33:56Someone who owned helicopters. Regular people own helicopters. Who owns helicopters? You know what I mean? And then how come I've never heard about this anywhere else? I don't know. No one wants to talk about this. I know, right? See what I'm saying? Are you talking about, like I say, the military-industrial complex, like one of these big contractors, or are you talking about us? Us, us. I don't know. I mean, you can make your own guesses. You know what I'm saying? But I would say this is like, okay, where's the story between where he lived in Pakistan and Tora Bora? Where's that story also, by the way?

34:31I want to know that story. Do we know? I have no idea. You? No. You ever heard anything? No. We need just like these JFK files. Let's go. You know what I mean? You actually have a shot at it right now with this administration. Well, there you go. You talk, you know these guys. I got a friend over at the Pentagon. There you go. Maybe we can get to the bottom of that. There you go. Well, that's, I mean, unfortunately and totally understandably, so many of our veterans are asking these questions now, including Sean. I've talked to him at length about his questions about who are the good guys. Oh, we're not.

35:05I don't think we are at all. I don't think we're good friends. Why? I think we deal on a short timeline, a four-year timeline, and I think everyone else has been in charge for 50 years. You know what I mean? And they've seen us flip-flop back and forth and we pull, we push, we tug a war with the rope. It never ends out good. We're not good friends. And then as soon as you don't do what we want, we're going to chuck you under the bus and move the fuck on. You know what I mean? Give me an example. I don't know. Tons of stuff. You know what I mean? I'm giving you an example right now. Where are these helicopters at?

35:45Where's the story of bin Laden from Abbottabad? That's where the officers are trained in Pakistan. Interesting, right? And how did he get out of Afghanistan? He's on dialysis. You mean this guy walked over 14 ,000-foot mountains in the snow with his little woolen blanket and his dialysis machine but left all his people behind? You know what I'm saying? Yeah. But I think George Bush said that are alive, and I think the Pentagon was risk adverse. And I think that's where the disconnect was at that time. But I think someone else stepped in and took bin Laden into hiding. And when we found him in 2010, I'm trying to remember my exact time.

36:39It was 2011. I was on maternity leave with my daughter. It was an election year. so you think that was by design yeah yeah they were yeah he was more useful he was more useful dead Obama needed to get re-elected it's time and so allowed surprise allowed him to be killed yeah so is that just your gut having been in the army for 20 years or hell yeah I mean that's like that's the worst possible like take on our commander in chief and what they might do like in danger continue a war where guys are getting killed their limbs blown off what to improve your so you can get the election under your belt it's just so it's the way it works oh my god it's just so horrible to even consider i mean it's the way it works well if i had been over there and seeing my guys blown up, I think I'd be very angry if, if I believe this, I'd be very fucking pissed off.

37:39Are you angry? I mean, believing this, I mean, being angry, wouldn't get me a cup of coffee. You know what I'm saying? I know, but either you feel it or you don't, if you, you know, um, I look at it this way. I had a great time. I did everything I could. Uh, I did as much as I could every time I could. And I always try to do the right thing. At the same time, I can't control everything. You know what I mean? And then does it make me mad? Sure. Do I hate that the politicians disagree on something and it costs your son his life, right? Like ridiculous, right? But at the same time, I was having the time of my life, so I wasn't questioning shit.

38:28You know, anytime you drink from the bottle of hindsight, everything gets clearer. You know what I mean? But at the time, like I didn't question it. I just want to, I was on to the next, like, uh, war was my life, you know, and I was good at it and I saved lives. I saved a ton of lives in war. Um, all those things combined kept me back coming back to it, whether it's right, wrong, indifferent, like, uh, these are things that I can't control. oh, so why even dwell on it? You know what I mean? It's almost, and then you'll get stuck in there. It's muddy water. You'll get stuck, it's quicksand. You'll sink in it.

39:06Like, why this? Why that? Like, why ask why? You haven't been through therapy. This is just your own thinking. I don't go to therapy. No, I assume. You know a therapist? I do. I actually know a really good one, but I don't think you need him. I don't think so. You've got your head on your shoulders. I try. That's life therapy right there. I don't know. somehow you managed to get a really clear view on all of this. But so many guys I've talked to them come back traumatized. Well, I call it the last chapter. They're stuck in the last chapter. You know what I mean? They can't get out of that chapter.

39:44But what really happens is the story's not over. You know what I mean? I mean, I was under the age of 40 doing all that stuff. Well, I got a lot more years. Like, so your life never gets better. You're never going to enjoy anything again. Like get out of that chapter, right? And write a new chapter. Is it the, in part, like the adrenaline rush that you miss? Like it's tough to recreate that in civilian life. Yeah. It's more than the adrenaline rush. You know what I mean? It's so much more. I mean, when you're really good at something, it's all you want to do. And when you know guys are really good at something, you could save lives by sending guys that are really, really good at this.

40:30You know what I mean? So I think it's just one of those things where it's a calling and it's not really your choice. You know what I mean? But at the same time, it's a choice you got to make. When were you in Tora Bora? I don't know, December of 90, or no, 01. And then you went back, right? Yeah, I went back to Tora Bora, yeah. When did you go back? Just a few months later in 2002, I went back. And was that your solo? Mm-hmm. How did you wind up solo in Tora Bora? Pretty easy. I needed Pop-Tarts. Okay, I heard that you mentioned this on Sean Ryan. Yeah, I was getting Pop-Tarts. So I need to clarify this.

41:14You wanted the Pop-Tarts and there was something else. What was the other thing? Beef jerky? Beef jerky. Okay, you needed this. So you convinced them to send you on some mission back to like the chow hall to get the stuff? I just told my boss like, hey, are we doing anything tonight? I'll schedule the helicopter and I'll go to the chow hall. I'll have our guy fill our truck. Okay. Then I got lost. What happened? You never went back with the pop tarts and the beef jerky? I did. Weeks later. But it seemed like you got sucked into this unit that had the good food. Yeah. And then you were off to the races.

41:45Well, it was where everyone was. It was where all the guys were. You know what I mean? Okay. First off, the Defo, when they deploy, like they have beef jerky. They have - The Defo? The Defo. What's that? Delta Force. Delta Force, the Defo. Defo. The Defo. I was going to say, Diva. I'm like, who was he? But anyway, like you're the highest army unit. You have beef jerky. You have Pop-Tarts. You have, you know what I mean? Like stuff army guys like might see once a month. We should be getting every day. Yeah, like they're serving cappuccinos. Yeah, and then like the food is really good because we have our own cooks and they care about what you eat.

42:24You know what I mean? So it's good. It's the army system, but it's within the army system, which makes it a little better, right? So I was just going to go get some Pop-Tarts and really it's just a resupply run. So I drive my Toyota truck on a helicopter. They fly me to Bagram and then one of the commanders, the guy that wrote Kill Bin Laden, was like, hey, what are you doing? And I'm like, I'm stealing pop. Right. I'm here for food. Yeah. And he was like, you want to go on a mission? And I was like, yeah. I was like, well, you got to call my boss. And he's like, okay, I'll call him. And he did.

42:57And then I was like, what is it? You know what I mean? They're like, we want you to go out alone. And I'm like, this sounds risky. Okay. Just happened. Like you were just there getting the pop tarts and they were like, you know, you'd be good for this. Yeah. Wow. And this is what kind of you wanted to do anyway. Be on your own, make your own decisions. Oh, I didn't know if I wanted to, like never thought about it before then, but it turns out something I do well. So what was the mission? Why did you have to go out by yourself? Why couldn't you have others? Well, this goes back to the politics of it is the general at the time wouldn't let us.

43:33To do it, to hit a target in Afghanistan, we needed US eyes on. Make sense? so how do you get usis on you have to send out reconnaissance guys and that's what i did right uh and then um but you can't no one can leave the wire what's the wire the perimeter the base you can't so so that's so the general's like no one can leave the base but you got to launch reconnaissance to get usis on someone's gonna have to leave the base someone's gonna have to leave the base and that was you was there another guy or is it just you well the only reason they sent me is they uh They kept me in because I was coming from one base to another and outstation to a major base.

44:15Yeah. I was in transit. So they just kept me in transit for weeks. Yeah. You're like, who knows? We have no idea where John is. So basically they had a lie about what I was doing. You just stood really on a search for that beef jerky. Right? You're not giving up. No. The guys back at the original place were probably like, where the hell are the Pop-Tarts? They were in my truck. So, okay. They get them later. So then how long is this solo mission back through Tora Bora? Probably took me 10 days-ish. Why are you going back there when we already blew up the people? Well, the last guy to supposedly help bin Laden out of the valley just came back from Pakistan with him and his sons.

44:55With bin Laden and his sons or with his own? No, his own sons. Like supposedly during the Battle of Tora Bora, because he lived near there, he was the facilitator of getting people in and out of there. Okay. So we wanted to kill him or we wanted to capture him? We wanted to capture him because we thought maybe he brought bin Laden out of there. Okay. So the last lead for bin Laden was this guy because we have everybody else, all his people, his bodyguard, his cook, his everybody. So do they tell you where you're going? And then it's just up to you to get yourself there? Yeah. Did they show you that spot on the map?

45:33I got it. And you're like, I got to figure this out. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So they're like, we believe we know where he is. Yeah. Now good luck to you. Yeah. Go find him. I did. How? Pretty simple. It's only one valley. And there's only, you know what I mean? I had already been there. That's one of the things. All right. So I kind of knew the area. I knew the terrain, right? And it's like, oh, I knew that. Are there bad guys trying to kill you everywhere? Everywhere. Yeah. So how do you get past them? Bad guys, like in checkpoints? Yeah. You act like a retard. Like an American though, right? They knew you were an American?

46:08No. They thought you were one of them? Yeah. What? Yeah. How's that possible? You're as pasty as I am. I have a big, because of Russians raped people, people look like me in Afghanistan, lots of them. Oh, wow. I didn't think of that. Yeah. So you would act like a local and like a nutcase and they'd let you walk right by? Mm-hmm. All the time. What would acting like a nutcase look like? Well, so like this guy, the first time it happened to me, this guy like jams his AK in my chest and is like, like I'm supposed to say something. And I just figured if I speak American right now, I'm dead. That's it.

46:47You know what I mean? So I figured, well, I'll act like a retard. And I figured, okay, how would a retarded guy sound? first off it'd be volume 11 so loud you don't even want to listen and then it'd be mongoloid stuff so I was just kind of like and the guy's like move along did you have your AK? did he know that? so he knew like it's not unusual to be armed there even if you're not everybody's armed that's incredible so you find the destination and did you get eyes on the guy? Yeah. Videotaped too. And that's, that was the mission. Not don't take him out. Don't try to kidnap him. Just tell us if he in fact is there.

47:35So now you got the evidence. Was that a moment? Like when you saw him, you're like, holy shit. Did you know it was him first of all, or you just could, it could be some rando. Well, when I was, um, I was in a truck, I said with a bunch of people, no one knows I'm American. I had, as we drove by, I put my video camera under my arm and I video camera the house and like dude was on the front porch luckily. So you got a good shot of him. All of it. Yeah. All of it. Got everything I needed. Are you sure? Cause I would imagine in the moment I've been sort of not in this circumstance, but I've not long ago did this undercover video of somebody.

48:10And I was like, Oh, I hope I got the shot. You don't know until you can go check it later. But this is a very important shot to get. Dude was on the porch. It was perfect. You knew you had it. Yeah. Did you recognize him? No, I didn't know. Okay. I didn't know. You found out later that you did, in fact, get the guy. Yeah, correct. So then did we get him? Yeah. Okay. And do you think it was instrumental in getting us to bin Laden? No. It wasn't? It was not. Madam CIA analyst, whose name we still don't know, was not using that particular information and figuring out where bin Laden was? I don't know what any of that means, but it did not help.

48:52He had no idea. Okay. All right. So what does that mean for you? Anything? Did that make you feel disappointed about it? Well, I always thought, well, I thought at the time, like, A, they were going to find out he was like dead in a cave later. You know what I mean? I just figured we blew him the smithereens. It might be hard to find the parts. You know what I mean? So, and then I figured one day the truth will come out. And I kind of always knew that. Well, when you heard about the raid and you saw Barack Obama on television that night, what was your reaction? I thought it was great. You did?

49:26Yeah. I thought it was great. I mean, for whatever reason Obama had, I thought it was great. And then I can tell you this, if I was commander in chief, the minute I heard that, I'd be like, go smoke that fool now. You know what I mean? Yep. End of discussion.

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50:27Whether you're interested in a rapidly growing field like cybersecurity, business, nursing, or any of Purdue Global's other 170 programs, earning the credentials you need may be faster than you think. Try our experience calculator to see if you could be eligible for course credit. And start your comeback today at purdueglobal.edu. Rob O 'Neill was our first Memorial Day in-depth interview back when we launched the show. We didn't even have video yet. It would have been Memorial Day of 2021 right after the show launched. And that story was just unbelievable just to hear it told firsthand. He's controversial now.

51:04Some people don't think he should have said it was him, blah, blah, blah. What do you think? steals you know what i mean it's always fucking drama with those guys you know what i'm saying i adore him i really admire him so deeply i yeah i'm not buying into any of that drama all right so now it wasn't done like you're not done the war's still going on and then you wind up going to iraq yeah and i think that was like the you know we're they were gearing up you know what i mean we're we're trying to do this they were gearing up for iraq i mean that's a nightmare like when you look back on that one what do you think iraq yeah i loved iraq what no one says that why i don't know i mean you're out of their mind you have an interesting take on it and i i love to hear your take on saddam hussein because you're making some good points i hadn't considered saddam man like we should have left him we should have killed his bastard sons and told him play along or you're next.

52:00Uday and Kuse. Yeah, them dudes needed to go. But he was kind of a fan of the Christians. He was. He was. His inner circle was all Christians. The people that touched his food, washed his butt, like all Christian, all inner circle. And it's because of the martyr thing. You know, if you're a Muslim, you kill yourself. You're a martyr. You go to heaven. You know what I mean? As a Christian, you kill yourself. You go to hell. So he surrounded himself and put up with the Christians. That's why Iraq was actually pretty Western even back then, because he allowed Christians to have their own areas, do their own things, right?

52:39And then ISIS allows none of that, you know what I mean? Yep, and then we had to mess with it. So did you, you did go on a mission where you tried to get him. Tell me again what it was. It was like a woman, his affair partner's husband. Yeah. is we rolled up everybody that met Saddam you know what I mean and we used to say look we're in the army like you know our intelligence agencies they give polygraphs and they determine their rating as sources and like they'd be like this is an unreliable source you know what I'm saying and we'd be like I'm in the army I'm pulling every thread let's go I don't care and we'd go check it out anyway most of the time they were wrong yeah what a shock go figure

53:29Saddam had like a favorite sex lady I never even heard of this I heard you say it in Sean Reggie because she was not hot yeah like I don't know what they got going who knows what she was doing behind closed doors there's no talent she must have been a real pro you know what I mean that's all I could think she had to know something about something you would think like, I don't know, like you would just assume she would be attractive. I don't know. I didn't know what to assume. You kind of would. Everyone pictures the affair partner as somebody who's very hot. The wife could maybe or maybe not. None of that happened in here.

54:04I mean, maybe he had some hot ones. I didn't see them. Yeah, different taste. Maybe she had a routine. We have no idea. She obviously had something. Okay. So, but it wasn't her you were looking for. It was her husband. She was married. We were, we couldn't get to her because it's hard to get to women in Iraq. So we had to get to the husband. See what I'm saying? And what information could we get from the husband? I don't know. Maybe Saddam kind of, you know, was honey potted a little bit. He told his favorite honey pot, I don't know, something, you know? And as an army guy, not an intel guy, I'm like, let's go.

54:41Let's look into this. I'll do it. Yeah, I don't care. And do we get him? Yeah, we got him. Yeah. Did he know anything? Yeah, they didn't know shit. you know what I mean like they didn't know shit uh but we did get them and uh yeah it was okay this is this is kind of legendary but um I was across the street in a minivan and I was kind of watching this shop um I had two Iraqi guys that I would use um and then I had the assault force kind of park on the corner close to the shop and then uh enough time went by we're just waiting and waiting i told my guys to start fighting in front of the store if too much time went by so they start a fist fight in front of the store uh and then people come out like what's going on out front of the store and the dude came out and literally put his back to like the van door of the assault force and I'm like yo open the door it's that dude right there and they grabbed him and then it was over and people were like looking for him no one even knew he was everyone had been watching the fight wow and then later my boss was like man we're so lucky that dude started the fight I was like I was like that was our guys I what is luck I was trying to speed this up a little bit you know what I mean yeah it's hot in the back of the van so you don't have to do the interrogation or you do um i've done a lot of them okay they don't always send in like the dark arts guys from the cia to do that crap like that's that's us too uh those guys are chump change you know what i mean they're to gitmo only yeah okay yeah so how do you make a guy like that talk and by the way easy how do you communicate with one another you have a translator there yeah you gotta have a terp people to speak the language but uh yeah what do you mean easy how is it easy Everybody talks.

56:32They do? Oh, are you kidding me? You torture them? What do you do? You don't got to do shit. It's easy. What? Yeah, fear and common sense is a powerful tool. You know what I mean? Most of the time, like, what? Okay, think about this. Okay, this is every human being. This is me. This is you. Look, there's stuff that you're going to die with that you ain't telling no one about. Everybody does that. Right? Does that make sense to you? I don't know. I'm kind of an open book. But okay, yes. I am too, but there's secrets people keep to their grave, right? That's basically what I'm saying, right? And then there's other shit like, what's your cousin's car look like that you just ain't holding?

57:12It ain't worth getting beat over. It ain't worth fighting over. Like, it's a little white car. This is a small point of order, but did he know that the wife was having an affair with Saddam Hussein? The entire time. He did. What do you do? Was he okay with it? I'm just kind of curious what the sex dynamic is there. I would imagine he felt lucky to be alive every day. Right. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, he'd be a very easy guy to get rid of, and then you could have the side piece whenever you wanted it. But I guess he could anyway, so what's the point of killing the husband? I don't know. So he gave up whatever info, and did we find Saddam Hussein after that?

57:51Shortly after that. Yeah, we were, look, we had to run all the, look, manhunting is like a sweater. when like you have a yarn on a sweater, you pull it, right? One of those threads is going to, the arm's going to come off. One of those threads, you pull it out forever. It doesn't do nothing. You know what I mean? So we're going to pull every thread. This is the process. Yeah. So when you, was that the biggest thing that you did while you were in Iraq? Would you say like the most serious thing? No. No. What else did you do? Zarqawi was serious days. Oh my God. That was dark. That was the dark stuff.

58:25You were over there with all the beheadings and all that. Oh my God. I mean, does that scare you? You're only a man. You're a man. I mean, I don't know. I wasn't really scared, but, uh, I did get a sword off as our cow we truck. That was like a Roman short sword. And I'm like, there's pictures. I mean, I got my shirt off. I'm like, uh, I don't know if you ever seen this, but, uh, I wanted to, I would have cut one of their heads off. You know what I mean? Like, but, um, no, it didn't scare me. You know, uh, Zarkawi was a bully and he liked to pick on the weak. He didn't want to pick on us. You know what I mean?

59:00And then, you know, yeah, the Zarkawi days were great. Foreign fighters was great. I mean, I don't know. I loved it all. But like the foreign fighters, like you just show up in front of the house, have my guy get on the bullhorn. They'd start shooting. We'd level the house, you know, like those days were great. I mean, I think those days were great because that's when the military finally let us take the gloves off and be like, okay, you guys do this your way. What year is this now? 06, 07? Yeah, Zarqawi was 06. You know what I mean? But they'd finally start to let the gloves come off. I think we were throttled a lot through a lot of stuff.

59:45But I feel like through the Zarqawi days, no one gave a shit how we were getting it done. You know what I mean? So how long were you over there? Or how many deployments do you have? I think I got 10. And then, like, I got a bunch of, like, the surge and the stay lates and shit like that. You went back and back? Yeah. 10 deployments? Yeah. And then as a SARM major, I spent a lot of time there. But it didn't really count as a deployment. I was back and forth. Oh, wow. So then what? Like, how does it end for you? know. I don't know. They just send you back home before the fight is done or did you fight all the way to the end of the?

1:00:20No, I was a SAR major. I retired in 11. You're getting older. Yeah. They don't let you serve forever really, right? Oh man, you're only young so long, you know, but I'll tell you what, with stem cells and shit, I could have stayed another 10 years if modern science was hitting. It's so interesting to talk to you and hear you talk about how fun it was because it It seems like the hell of war and the trauma that guys have the PTSD, but there's something about like, what is it? Is it working with your comrades in arms? Is it like doing the thing that you've been told to do and you're really good at it and you love that?

1:00:52Is it all like, what is that? What is fun? I mean, uh, why be ashamed of trying your best no matter what that is, I think. Right. Uh, And I think that's really what it boils down to. I mean, yeah, I could be ashamed. Did a lot of people die? Yeah, a lot of people died. Why would you be ashamed? Some of the wrong people die? Sure. You know what I mean? Did innocent people die? Sure. But like this is war. And essentially war is you kill the bad guy and break his shit. So he can't use that shit against you. If I was told to go do that, why am I the bad guy in this? I'm not. You know what I mean? I'm just doing my best on a daily basis, you know?

1:01:36And then at the end of the day, I always seen it as I'm in the army, I take orders, let's go. And a lot of times I like those orders, you know what I mean? What was the brotherhood dynamic? Oh, man, you would think, it's kind of interesting. You would think the brotherhood would have been strong, but like the war, like, builds bonds. You can't get anywhere else, I guess. You know what I mean? like uh you'd think like there's always a brotherhood right well we talk about the brotherhood but we just joked about seal drama you know what i'm saying uh so having said that uh i think there's like guys that i'm like i was in combat with that we have a bond um i think there's certain people i have bonds with over different stuff but i think that bond the brotherhood is, is just, you know, the experiencing, uh, the best and worst of humanity at the same time.

1:02:37And when your life is on the line, it just adds, I don't know, so much more to it. I would think like you're risking it all together and any one of you might not be there the next night. Yeah. I mean, I always say like, I, I always say, well, I said this to my guys too, but I, We all gave Uncle Sam a blank check. Get ready. Don't be mad if it gets cash. But don't be mad for somebody when their check is cash because they died doing what they loved. Can't be mad at that either. Were there any women in your unit?

1:03:12Maybe. You're not allowed to tell me? I don't know. Can women be rangers? I don't know. That's a good question. I think so these days. I don't know. I don't know how it works. Did you ever have to deal with that dynamic out in the field? Like men and women serving together? Yeah. It just seems so weird to me. I don't know. I know nothing. I think women have very niche roles and can have very niche roles. I've worked with women. I've had women partners. They were great. But I think there's a role for them, and they're not like the one you send, you know, get Zarqawi, right? There's other stuff they do.

1:03:54So, yes, we have women, always have women. I mean, I think there's more women on the planet than men. I don't know why this shows up. Well, I'm curious about, I'm back to your dating life now. Like, can you meet a woman somehow? Or you're like, how do you fall in love? How do you like? Man, I'll tell you this is I started out married at 9-11. I've been divorced several times. It's a hard life, you know. I don't think, I think it's a hard life because no one understands, like, your level of commitment. And I say that in a way, like, So you're choosing something that might cause your death over and over.

1:04:36People don't see that as rational, but they don't understand. You know what I mean? So I would say this is like being married was like being in prison. You could call home and you ain't going there anytime soon. You know what I mean? That's just how it works. What do you mean? I don't think I get it. That's how marriage works in the army. Like when you deployed a war, you could call home, you get your one phone call. I mean, actually call home. Yeah. Yeah. Call home like once a week or something. You're not going to be together a whole lot. Yeah. But you ain't going home. Yeah. You know what I mean?

1:05:08And that's tough on anybody. I would say this. Only guys that had perfect relationships, their marriages survived the war. Wow. You know what I mean? And I'd say the bulk of guys end up divorced. Do you have kids? I do. How old are they? I stopped keeping track when they turned over 21. How many kids do you have? I have two. Okay. Yeah. Are they good? Yeah, they're good. They're good. They're good people. Are they going into the military at all? My son was in the army and works for the army now. Okay. So when it all, when it ends, you know, Iraq eventually ends, Afghanistan ended disastrously and recently.

1:05:48Jason Redman:Yeah. Is that a moment for reflection on what it meant? what role you played, whether it was worth it, or no? Is it just, I'm a soldier, I did my job, next chapter? Well, it wasn't worth it. I mean, everyone can see that, right? It's not just me. I don't think it was worth it at all. I had a great time. I would say none of it was really worth it in a strategic sense, in a tactical sense. You know what I mean? Like, honestly, but the reality is, is like, oh man, I had the time of my life and I would want anyone to know, Like people like to thank me for my service and it's like I did whatever the fuck I wanted.

1:06:28I don't actually need any thanks. You know what I mean? Like a kid who was like a cook getting mortared in fucking wherever in Iraq nightly, that kid needs to be thanked. Like I was just doing what I do. Well, how do you reconcile it with stories like Marcus Luttrell and what happened to him? And he's definitely got some lasting PTSD from that. It's been a rough ride back home. Yeah, I don't even get that. I was out alone all the time. I was out alone in Afghanistan. I don't get how being the lone survivor, I just don't understand that story only because I was out alone all the time. It didn't happen to me.

1:07:09You know what I mean? Because of the decisions I make on the ground. Well, you're not blaming him. I'm not blaming him. I'm just saying that's so foreign to me, I don't even understand it. Because I can tell you this, the Taliban could come after me, there'd be a whole lot of dead bodies for sure. And I'm just one person. I believe that. Imagine if there was two or three of me, bring them. I mean, that's one of the worst stories of the war and what he went through is just awful. And it's not just him. You know, was it last year? No, it was two years ago. We talked to Dakota Meyer. He's doing great now.

1:07:46But, you know, he came back, he was awarded the Medal of Honor and wanted to kill himself. Like he, there are tough, tough guys. These are not weak men who they don't process it the way you do. I think if you could somehow teach this, it would be extremely valuable, right? I could teach anybody this. I feel like anybody could use this. People who have different traumas. It would start by me locking you in a room and beating you first. Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. I know exactly. I might sign up for that. I think people would. Don't touch the moneymaker. No, of course. Of course. No bruises, no marks.

1:08:23I'm a pro. I've done a bunch of interrogations. I got this. I mean, is there some sort of toughen you up, John Camp? No. There isn't. I mean, the shirt, what does it read? Team SOB. Yeah. I called you tough SOB. Same thing. Thank you. So this is not something I can sign up for or I can go learn skills. I don't have any classes like this. Oh, that's too bad. Maybe I should. You're missing an opportunity. Leadership, right? Right. Leadership. Can it be taught? I think so. I think so. Most of my guys, if my guys killed somebody, I brought them all in a room. I made everyone have a drink. I made sure I told them they did exactly right.

1:09:03This was expected of them. This is your job. Someone should thank you. And I think if all that happens on the spot, you're less likely to carry the guilt with you later. So I believe a lot of this is framed up poorly a long time ago. And then I believe guys ride the hall pass for a long time. And I call the hall pass booze. But some people do drugs. Some people do. I don't know what people do. But for me, my hall pass was booze. You know what I mean? And then. Still drink or no more? Well, I'm training for Worlds right now. So I am currently not drinking. Worlds in what? Jiu-jitsu. Oh, wow. All you ex-military guys do jujitsu.

1:09:48Why is that? I don't know. Jujitsu, it's an hour of my day where I don't have to look at the phone. Sometimes there's minutes where someone's actually choking the living shit out of me. So I hear. And the stubborn side of me is like, I'm not giving it to them. You know what I mean? Isn't it involuntary? No. What? No. When they choke you out? No. Yeah. No. It's not involuntary? Uh-uh. Okay, I got to learn those moves. If you make me give it to you, I'll give it to you. Otherwise, you could choke the shit out of me and I'll just ride it. But when I'm in real survival mode, someone puts me in trouble.

1:10:26I got to think about what's next, my leverage, my everything, control my breathing, my heart rate. I call that real survival mode. I'm so thankful for that. It's a clarity of some type. You know what I mean? Envious of it. Yes, I hear you. So it's like, you know how like people talk about runners high, like, you know, I do cardio. It doesn't make me high ever. I've always hated it. But like jujitsu is, I don't know, sometimes when I'm in real survival, I don't got to think about my phone. I don't got to think about my life. Are you always going against somebody who knows what they're doing? Is it usually an instructor or another like participant in class?

1:11:06Because I travel, I hit, I think, 28, 30 different dojos a year. I just walk in and - Why do you worry about like outmatching somebody to the point where you're going to hurt them and get sued? No, I'm not going to hurt anybody. Cause permanent damage. No. I'm a recovering lawyer. This is how I think about these things. Oh, no, not at all. It's jujitsu. Like, look, this is unarmed - There's no hurting somebody? There's hurting somebody. I'm not going to, well, yeah, but - You stop, is it like - Yeah, as you get better at it, right? Like this is the point of submission. If you thought I was going to hurt you, you could tap.

1:11:40Okay. So that's your escape button. That's like the safe gesture. Don't hurt me anymore, please. I've had enough. Yeah, you just tap. So what are you doing now? I'm training for worlds, cutting weight right now. What are you doing for money? Oh, I teach people to shoot. Okay. Oh, yeah, because you were a sniper. I was, yeah. We didn't even go over that. No, no, no. Yeah, yeah. How many guns do you own? Seriously? I couldn't count. More or less than J.D. Vance's mamaw had in her house when she... I don't even know how many of that is. I think it was 19. Oh, yeah. I don't want to admit to anything.

1:12:19You know what I mean? Where are you living? I live in Raleigh, North Carolina. No, where specifically? Give us the street address. No, I'm only kidding. So you settled in the warmth? Well, I live near Fort Bragg still. Okay. You know what I mean? And you work with them and do you do anything? I don't do anything in Fort Bragg. I try not to. What do you do for fun? Like, how do you let your hair down? I do jujitsu. I off-road with my buddies. I got one of them side-by-side off-road vehicles. Yeah, I do that. Because this guy who goes in the side one, put on a little white scarf and a little leather helmet.

1:12:54He'll get it muddy. You know what I mean? I wouldn't bring white on these trips. But yeah, we normally off-road in the Arizona mountains yearly. Yeah, we go to this place, Crown King, oldest bar. There's no dirt. It's all dirt roads, no pavement. Stay up there in cabins. And it's kind of like, I don't know. We off-road, we drive. I eat cheeseburgers and I drink whiskey. And then - Sounds right on brand. I do that all weekend. I don't shower either. I don't even care. Let's go. We're four-wheeling. Okay. So you shower, just not on this particular trip. Yeah. But I four-wheel, man. And I, you know, and then I just, I love teaching people to shoot.

1:13:37It's kind of like the thing I'm really good at. Wow. Yeah. What do you think? I know you're not, you don't really watch the news. Do you follow politics at all? Like, what do you think of Trump? What do you think of Pete Hexeth as the top guy at Pentagon? Yeah. Well, first off, talk to Pete. I need one of these Pentagon jobs. Tell me I shouldn't be. I will. The deputy of special operations. Is that what you would like? Hell yeah. Let's go. I'll make a call. Oh man. But look, I like Trump I like Vance I like Pete I like what they're doing And like What can I say? I think they make good inherent decisions Like for long term Which we're not really used to here You know what I mean?

1:14:23But I think they're all good I don't watch the news or nothing But I think they're good so far I thought Trump made great policies last time You know what I mean? Have you seen enough of Pete to know what you like about him? Oh, man, I got a ton of buddies that know Pete. Like, everybody loves Pete. You know what I mean? Like, that's all I needed to hear. And, you know, like the Pentagon, we ain't won a war lately. And, you know, these generals will be like, oh, well, he was just lower enlisted saying that. But, like, yo, I watched you guys every day make fucked up decisions. I'd try to tell you and you'd be mad at me.

1:15:02You know what I mean? Like, not that I was always right, but like sometimes you're wrong also. And it's the, I think it's the hubris of the Pentagon that needs to be taken down a few notches. You know what I mean? Yeah. And like, anyway, yeah. So I would happily serve this country and make everything better. You know what I mean? That's awesome. We need guys like you raising your hands. Thanks. Well, I love that you came in to tell us your story. Thank you. You're such an interesting man. I love everything about you. What a character you are. Thank you. I hope we can find a way to get you back serving.

1:15:36Let's go. Let's go. Let's call Pete. Pete, where you at? Let's call DJT and see if he's got something for you. Call him right now. Get him on the line. I'm in. Whether you want to hear it or not, thank you for your service. You're welcome. It's a pleasure to meet you. Thank you. Yeah. All the best to you. Didn't I tell you? He's unbelievable. What a guy. John McPhee. Thank you once again. And, you know, it's just incredible the stuff that our troops go through and the different mindsets that they develop along the way. Right. It's our honor to talk to him. It's our honor to talk to all of our troops who have served in battle.

1:16:09And if you're into what you heard today, you should go back and listen to the earlier Memorial Day shows that we've done since we launched. The first one was in 2021. And that was Rob O 'Neill. We've done Marcus Luttrell. We've done Dakota Meyer, recipient of the Medal of Honor. It's just these guys are they're living life around us. They're kind of back to normal to the extent one can be with having these incredible backgrounds. So it's well worth our time to take a moment to learn from them and remember what they and our other troops have done for us while we've been sitting at home in our air conditioning, right?

1:16:42So that's what today is all about, especially honoring the fallen. We do that here. Thank them and their families for their service. Want a$1 ,000 weight loss medication for$50? It all starts with Roe's free GLP-1 insurance check. Just upload your insurance card to see if you have coverage, then relax. Over 200 ,000 people have qualified for a$50 copay through Rowe. Go to row.co slash health. Half of patients have a$50 per month copay or less for medication, plus$145 monthly Rowe membership fee. Deductible costs may apply and final cost varies by insurance plan. For safety information about GLP-1 medications, including boxed warning, go to row.co slash safety, Rx only.

1:17:20Life experience is an excellent teacher. It's time you get the recognition you deserve for those hard-earned lessons. Purdue Global values the experience working adults bring to the table. Whether you're interested in a rapidly growing field like cybersecurity, business, nursing, or any of Purdue Global's other 170 programs, earning the credentials you need may be faster than you think. Try our experience calculator to see if you could be eligible for course credit. And start your comeback today at purdueglobal.edu. We want to bring you the story of a remarkable veteran who stared death in the face and lived to share his incredible lessons on leadership, bravery, and how to overcome any obstacle, no matter how devastating it may feel in the moment.

1:18:11Lieutenant Jason C. Redmond joins us now.

1:18:19Jason Redman:So, Jay, welcome to the show. Megan, honored to be on. Happy Memorial Day, everyone. Oh, gosh, to you too. It's so great to talk to you and to see you again. Do you remember when we met? Absolutely. Navy SEAL Foundation dinner in New York many years ago when you were still working with Bill Hammer. Exactly right. And I never forgot you. I've talked about you to basically every Navy SEAL who's come on this show. and talked about you with Leif Babin and his wife, Jenna Lee, and all these people. And just have been thinking about you because your story was so incredible. And back then, it was still pretty close in time to when you first were injured.

1:19:00You know, that was what, like 2010? I'm trying to think of the year.

1:19:05Jason Redman:2007. So I think I was still active duty. I think I still was trying to get back operational when I went to that dinner because I didn't retire until 2013. Yeah, I remember that. And it was like, just your whole story was so incredible. And of course, I've met so many people over the years. And I've met a lot of vets too, veterans and active duty. And honestly, I can count on one hand the number of people who really stand out to me where I'm like, you've got to hear this story. And you're one of them. So I'm truly honored to have you on here and to be having this discussion with you today. Great to see you.

1:19:39Jason Redman:Likewise. Thank you. Okay. So you grow up, you, from a very early age, I think it's fair to say, I mean, like, well before you actually signed up for the Navy at age 17, had your eye. Was it on the Navy in particular or just the military? It was both. The Navy kind of came about a little bit later. I mean, still young. I think it was about 15. I mean, from a very young age. My parents tell me when I was about three years old, I always just talked about service space and what I like to call in American society protectors. And I was always interested in, you know, that protector mindset. When I was three years old, I wanted to be a firefighter.

1:20:21Jason Redman:That, as I got a little bit older, my grandfather was a decorated B-24 pilot. You know, I had learned about him and my great uncle, along with my grandfather on both sides, served in World War II. uh my dad had been an army veteran serving during the vietnam war and had been a paratrooper and jump master and rigger and that's where uh he had encountered seals for the first time and started learning more about special operations started learning more you know i was kind of of the gi joe era so uh gi joe was cool to me and definitely the um the special operations guys within the GI Joe universe.

1:21:05Jason Redman:And it was about the time when I was maybe 14 that my dad said, Hey, you should look into the Navy SEALs. Having spent some time in the Virgin Islands, I was pretty strong in the water. And he said, Hey, these guys are tough. They're some of the best. He said, you know how to swim. He said, you're a little crazy. You should check them out. They'd be perfect for you. And he was right. I don't know what it was. And I'm not the, I'm not probably the likely candidate that most people would think of. You know, I think when people think of Navy SEALs, you know, they see a picture of Jocko and Jocko looks like he's chiseled out of granite, you know, and he is the Hollywood version of a SEAL.

1:21:44Jason Redman:And I like to joke, but I'm not. I was like five foot, nothing, especially at that age. I was probably, I don't even think I had hit five foot back then. I was probably 95 pounds when I decided that's what I want to do. and everybody was like, there's no way you'll ever make it. And I don't know, that just created fuel to my fire. And I just said, this is what I'm going to do and set my sights on it and started training. And the rest obviously leading up to joining the Navy when I was 17 on, amazingly enough, coincidentally, September 11th, 1992 is the day I joined the Navy when I was still a senior in high school.

1:22:24You are the guy who says, say, I can't say, I can't like, there's no better fuel for your fire than those, than, than those, than that message.

1:22:35Jason Redman:It's a fact. And, and, you know, and that's a good thing. I've come to learn as I get older, there's a balance there. You know, you've got to balance reality with where we're at. Because when I was younger, man, that was the catalyst. I mean, I would do just about anything if you told me, Hey, you can't do that. I mean, I just had to prove. And I think some of that, who knows, had to do it. Maybe I was a smaller guy, so I felt like I had to prove that I was big enough or whatever to do it. But I tell you, back then, it was definitely a fuel that enabled me to make it through training and to overcome a lot of the impossible odds.

1:23:09Jason Redman:As a matter of fact, I was told right from the very beginning when I went to the recruiting station in Lumberton, North Carolina, where I was living at the time, and I walked in that door, probably the first time I might have been 15, probably 15 and a half, basically. And I walked in that door and I said, hey, I want to join the Navy and I want to be a SEAL. And boy, they took one look at me, this five foot nothing, you know, runt. And they were like, you'll never make it as a SEAL. And they basically, the recruiter chased me out of the office. And of course, that didn't deter me. I came back and he would chase me out again.

1:23:48Jason Redman:And multiple times that happened. And funny story, I almost went and joined the Army because I got frustrated that they wouldn't let me, you know, that this guy wouldn't even give me the time of day. So I almost joined the Army to become a Ranger. And I ended up failing the airborne physical because they said, oh, you can't equalize because I had ruptured my eardrum when I was a kid. And when I, you know, thankfully, my dad had been in the military. He said, well, why don't we go send you to a specialist? and they can, because I knew I could equalize. I had dove, I had done all these things. And sure enough, I went to a specialist.

1:24:26Jason Redman:By the time that it all transpired, I try and explain to everybody, you know, everything happens for a reason. And by the time this had transpired, there was a new recruiter in the recruiting office in Lumberton, North Carolina, Henry Horn, who I got to link up with last year after all this time and thank him in person. But Henry Horn was the new recruiter. And he said, hey, you want to be a SEAL? come on, man. And he helped me get into the Navy. He put me on the path to become a SEAL. And I got to give a lot of credit to Henry for that. He must be so proud of being that guy in your life and the life of the service industry in our country.

1:25:05Can I ask you how, so when you actually did sign up, because I understand you officially were allowed to join when you were 17. So what was your physical stature then? Because it's interesting to me. You always do think of these guys being bigger and you do picture like a jocko going in there and them being like, right this way, sir. Yes. Duh. Of course we belong together.

1:25:25Jason Redman:So I probably hit somewhat of a growth spurt in, you know, my, my junior, senior year, but I was, I was definitely not that big. I mean, even, even today, you know, I'm five, eight and about 170 pounds. So I'm on the, the average seal. A lot of people don't know though, the average seal is only about 5 '10 and 180 pounds. This Hollywood version of the Arnold Schwarzenegger type just is not necessarily the case. I mean, SEALs typically are lean, muscled, and usually they'll have a larger upper body because they have strong muscular endurance strength from the gear we have to carry and our ability to have to do a lot of activities with our body weight and gear.

1:26:09Jason Redman:So your ability to pull yourself up a ladder, your ability to pull yourself up onto a rooftop, any of these different things are marked by what we have to do, especially when you're going through training. So yeah, when I went through training, I think I was probably 5 '7". I might have grown one more inch. And I started training at 18. So I was 18 years old. I was 5 '7". And I think I checked into BUDS at about 135. So I was one of the lightest guys in the class. That's inspirational, though. There are probably a lot of guys out there thinking, oh, my gosh, maybe I too could be a SEAL. Yeah, oh, 100%.

1:26:45Jason Redman:And I'm not one of the smallest. I mean, believe it or not, like I said, I'm on the smaller end of the spectrum. But we've had SEALs. I think the smallest I ever heard was about 5 '2". And obviously, we've had great big, huge guys. It's not normal. The big guys really have a hard time making it through training. The amount of pounding on their joints ends up breaking them for the hundreds and hundreds of miles that you run and the amount of body weight strength, endurance you have to have to be able to do 20, 30 pull-ups, to be able to do 50 dips, to be able to do hundreds and hundreds of push-ups.

1:27:20Jason Redman:It's really hard on big guys' joints. My little guy, my nine-year-old was listening to me prepare for you. And we were talking all about the SEALs and training. And he wanted to know if they make you do one-handed push-ups. Do they make you do any of those? Yes. And I actually, when I broke my arm in training and I had to do a lot of one-arm push-ups because just because I had broken my arm did not mean that I wasn't still getting yelled at and dropped to do push-ups and do things. Wow. Wow. Wow. So that's so good, you know, but I think you tell me, but it seems like whatever the height, whatever the stature, the number one thing, the reason you made it as a SEAL was that attitude.

1:28:02It's that attitude. like that just never say die, I will not quit. There's something different in the guys who make it through as SEALs versus everybody else because they have that thing that just it will not let them quit.

1:28:16Jason Redman:That's right. I think there are two things that enable individuals into special operations. Number one, that we like to call it the no quit gene. I mean, the Navy has spent millions and millions of dollars trying to figure out how do they increase the number of graduates from SEAL training and all these things they've done going all the way back to World War II when they started training, really the attrition rate has stayed roughly the same. It has been around 75%. So 75 % of the people that start training do not graduate. We often talk about it's the no quit gene. Everybody gets pushed to the point.

1:28:56Jason Redman:Everyone has a breaking point. And in SEAL training, they push you to that point and they teach you how to grind through it and keep going. Your brain will tell you you have to stop. Your brain will tell you if I don't keep going, I'm going to die. But the reality is your body can keep going almost 10 times further beyond that. And so it's the ability to endure. That gets you through training. But the other thing that I think special operations guys, they have the ability to process massive amounts of information in a very chaotic environment and make rapid decisions. And there's a lot of people that can't do that.

1:29:32Jason Redman:I mean, when we send guys into, you know, imagine a hostage rescue scenario where they're now having to make entry into a room where there are bad guys in the room that are shooting that shoe, you very quickly have to assess that situation, identify who's bad, who's good, who do I need to shoot, who do I not need to shoot, who do I need to protect, and all of that's happening in milliseconds. And there are definitely guys that make it through training. Unfortunately, they don't have the ability to process that information at that rate. And sometimes they end up going away just because of that.

1:30:05Jason Redman:So it's those two things that I think truly make excellent special operations people. They make great seals. It kind of reminds me of, I was talking one time to the coach, the head coach of the Minnesota Vikings. And he was saying when he recruits quarterbacks, He does need, you know, an agile, you know, guy who can actually complete the plays and knows how to throw the football and has sort of a physics, a basic knowledge of physics and instinctual knowledge of physics. But he was saying some of the guys can't remember the playbook. They don't remember everything that's in there and when to call which play, depending on how the guys line up in the field.

1:30:44Far less dangerous, obviously, than what you do. But it was kind of a similar thing where it's not enough to have the physical capabilities. there has to be this mental thing that you either have or you don't have. And if you don't have it, it's as much of a deal breaker as not having the physical strength.

1:31:00Jason Redman:Absolutely. And sometimes it will become the deal breaker. I mean, you know, there are a lot of guys out there that are strong. I mean, I mean, a lot of individuals who will say to me, oh, you know, they're anywhere from professional athletes to, believe it or not, I meet a lot of high level business individuals in the financial market that will say to me, I definitely could have been a SEAL. And, you know, I laugh at, A, the arrogance of that statement, but, and maybe, maybe they do have a little bit of the financial, I mean, the physical ability, but do you have the ability to process information and continue to execute when you're in the middle of a firefighter after you've, you know, flown in, taken fire, maybe you've jumped in and now you're patrolling long ways.

1:31:42Jason Redman:Maybe you've been in a firefighter, you feel where you even get to the target building. Now you're in the target, you know, You're in a firefight. You have people that are wounded. Now you're trying to move people out. Now you've got civilians you're trying to take care of along with your wounded while things are still blowing up around you and you've still got to process all this. I mean, that was all stuff that I experienced in my career. And there are some people that can do that. And unfortunately, there's a lot more that can't. They just high pressure environments. They shut down. Professional sports is the same.

1:32:14Jason Redman:you put people off and talk about the, you know, the high level games, you know, like the Super Bowl or the NCAA championship games and how some of the players just can't manage that stress and that overwhelming pressure. Yeah. You can see it when people choke. I mean, in sports, we have an opportunity to see it in a way we don't in military where you can see who's a choker and who's not, who performs at that high level in the most stressful of circumstances and who doesn't. Now, wait, this is a stupid question, but I have to ask it. So are you telling me that even in my own exercise life, which I will grant you is more limited than it ought to be, when I am doing the jumping jacks and I am so burned and my legs are on fire and I'm like, I've got to take the next eight out and I've just got to like bend down for the next eight.

1:33:01I'll come back after an eight beat pause. Are you telling me I can just keep going? Are you telling me that like, if I would just get mentally tougher, I can do it straight through. Just keep freaking pushing.

1:33:14Jason Redman:Absolutely. Believe it or not, most people could, if you had the fortitude and the ability to endure the pain and the discomfort, you could probably push yourself right to death. You could jumping jack yourself to death. It would take a long time. There'd be all kinds of alarm bells going off in your brain probably days before you got there. Um, but it is amazing the resiliency of, of this amazing machine we walk around in. Um, and unfortunately in this day and age, we are not, we're not building that much in our people. We are not, um, we're getting softer as a generation. And, you know, every Monday I put out a leadership and resilience video, I call it Monday muster.

1:34:05Jason Redman:And this last Monday, it was exactly about that. I just finished reading this book called Kingdom of Ice by Hampton Sides. And it is about the trek to the North Pole in, I believe, 1779. And absolutely amazing. I read that story and the level of heroism and the level of pain and discomfort and frozen temperatures all the time that those guys had to deal with. I consider myself a fairly tough guy. And I remember reading it thinking, man, how would I have fared in this? so fast forward to today um we don't have to do a lot of things that really push us people have to do hard things in order to build grit and resilience so i really encourage those of you that may be watching you've got to push your kids to do hard things you have to do hard things you have to encourage your family to do hard things otherwise we just get softer and softer and we'll just you know it's human nature we want to be comfortable everybody including me i mean we all I want to be comfortable, but grit.

1:35:05Jason Redman:And I like to tell people the overcome mindset is not something you can just flip a switch and say, oh, I have to be tough right now. So let me throw my little switch and now I'll be tough. It's built doing hard things. And if you don't do hard things, you will never be able to throw that switch when you really need to. It reminds me, your story about your book reminds me of one time I was skiing at this very posh ski resort with my husband and my brother-in-law, some others. and just like a downpour of snow came right on top of us. Just this huge snowstorm dumped on us and it came fast. And so before we knew it, the snow was up above our knees.

1:35:43You could barely see in front of you. And I said to my brother-in-law, Ken, I feel like Shackleton. And he said, except with no hardship. Yeah. That's exactly right. where they've got the ski butlers who are going to take off the, the boots when you get back to the resort. Oh, poor me.

1:36:04Jason Redman:And they warm your boots. I mean, I love the resorts like that. We love to ski. So anything like that, I'm all about, but yeah, I hate the cold now. And, um, that expedition, I mean, you are, you are in SEAL training. It is the one common thing. You are wet, cold, covered in sand. So I despise the cold. Um, And I just think about these guys. These guys were literally cutting frostbite out of their feet. I mean, that's how insane the conditions were and how hard and then continuing to go. I mean, there are other people that'd be like, oh, I'm I'm I'm now an invalid. There's no way I can get bored.

1:36:44Jason Redman:But literally, it wasn't until like bones were exposed where they weren't able to walk at all. I was just fascinated with this story and the level of grit and resilience. And society, we may never get back to that. I mean, thankfully or hopefully, we live in a day and day. We are. We are. Thanks to people like you. This is what our children need to be watching and listening to. Guys like you with that same messaging. I'd like to say it's still the military writ large. notwithstanding Millie and some of these other guys and the messaging from them. But that's what I have my kids listen to. I don't want them listening to you're weak.

1:37:22We lean into your weaknesses. Everyone's sick. Everyone's depressed. Everyone's near suicidal. You know, here's another poll to confirm all that. Here, go back on social media to make yourself feel better slash worse. They need to be watching your Insta, Jocko's, all these guys who have been through it about just grit and mental toughness because it is a skill. Like you were saying, it's a skill and you have to practice it.

1:37:44Jason Redman:yeah absolutely and that's what a lot of people don't uh i love the fact when people read my book and they don't really know my story what's out there is hey this guy got all shot up and he wrote that sign on the door and he's this top seal but they don't realize is there's a huge part of the story that most people don't know until they read my book and that's that i failed as a young leader and i'll be honest it was that journey building myself back up against really hard odds that really built the overcome mindset and all the leadership things that I talk about today. And, you know, Megan, you nailed it.

1:38:19Jason Redman:Right now in this country, you know, I joke with people about, you know, we're still in the midst of a pandemic. And people go, COVID? And I'm like, no, the pandemic is the victim mindset. There is a large swath of society that is being convinced you are a victim. You know, there are, you know, political leaders that want to convince you, regardless of your race, creed, color, demographic, gender, gender persuasion, religion, religious affiliation, I don't care what it is. They want to convince you you're a victim, and that there's no way you can save yourself, only someone else have to save you, or oftentimes it's only the government can save you, which is scary and a dangerous thought in itself.

1:39:04Jason Redman:uh i everything i teach on is on self-leadership you have the power to drive forward and create change in your life and uh and it is the exact opposite of this victim mindset but it is pervasive it is pervasive across social media it is pervasive oftentimes in the media uh and we've got to break this i mean america was built on these on functions of um resilience and grit and self-leadership. These individuals that came across here to this country and said, hey, we're going to figure out how to overcome and we're going to figure out how to make our way. Right now, we're not there. Even in the military right now, there's this idea about individualism.

1:39:49Jason Redman:I believe in self-leadership, but you have to be part of something bigger. A military unit is working together. It's a whole bunch of leaders who create this unified organism, if you will, that does incredible things. So fascinating to watch and a little sad. I hope that we can wake up. You know, there is, you know, I learned the hard way about individualism because when I was, when I got myself in trouble as a leader, it was about me. I was selfish and I was focused on me and I wasn't focused outward. And I think there's a lot of that going on in our country right now. You got to take care of yourself, but how does that impact?

1:40:28Jason Redman:How do you set the example for your staff, your employees, your children, your spouse, your family, your community? You know, we need more leadership and we need more grit. I'm Serena Williams, and I'm healthier on Rho. I've lost 34 pounds in a year with GLP-1's diet and exercise. On Rho, you can access GLP-1 options, including the first FDA-approved GLP-1 pill for weight loss. Go to roe.co slash journey to see if you qualify. 14 to 20 % average weight loss in one year in non-diabetics with obesity or overweight with a weight-related medical condition versus 2.2 % to 3.1 % in placebo R. RX only.

1:41:08To stay informed about serious side effects, go to rowe.co slash safety. Life experience is an excellent teacher. It's time you get the recognition you deserve for those hard-earned lessons. Purdue Global values the experience working adults bring to the table. Whether you're interested in a rapidly growing field like cybersecurity, business, nursing, or any of Purdue Global's other 170 programs, earning the credentials you need may be faster than you think. Try our experience calculator to see if you could be eligible for course credit and start your comeback today at PurdueGlobal.edu. How do we even still have a military given this mindset amongst the Gen Zers?

1:41:50Do you think today's guys are coming into the military with this victim mentality and then it gets sort of beaten out of them? Or do you think it just naturally attracts the minority amongst that generation that doesn't have the victim mentality and that's what they're doing there?

1:42:08Jason Redman:I think there's still a lot of individuals that are coming into the military who have that grit and resiliency and want to be part of specific units and certain things. I think the problem is there are parts of the military that are becoming a little bit of a social experiment. Like, hey, you know, I'm conservative, but I probably have a little more liberal views when it comes to social norms. Like, I don't care if you're gay. But in the military, there's no room for individualism. You're in the military. We all have to fight together. race creed color democrat gender gender persuading none of that matters in the military if you want to do that in your off time that's fine you can embrace that but as a military we are a unit that must work together and there is not time or or all of that's going to distract if we're so focused on a certain segment or demographic of society that we need to i don't know highlight or promote everybody in the military when I was in, we all wore the same uniform.

1:43:15Jason Redman:We didn't highlight anyone. And it was amazing to me. And just, you know, the guys across the different platoons that I worked, they were different race creeds, some were religious, some were Christians, some were atheists. You know, few other religions that were out there, but it didn't matter. What mattered was our ability to execute the mission and you could depend on that person. And I think the military deeply needs to get back to understanding that and understand that the purpose of the military is to protect our country, to protect and defend the United States of America, which should be the same mission for any country that's out there.

1:43:56Jason Redman:And it's not on highlighting whatever is going on in society out there. Those are political aims. The military should always be apolitical with a singularity of focus, which is to protect and defend our nation against all enemies. You know, this is, you correct me if I'm wrong, but this is why the focus by Milley on having you guys learn about white rage or Austin defending, handing out Kendi to the troops is so problematic. It's not just a distraction from what you need to be focusing on, which I believe it is. it's divisive. It's kind of sending exactly the opposite of the message you need to ingrain in order to be an effective soldier, right?

1:44:47Or frog, like you, frog man, you, all the messaging is forget that stuff. That stuff is not relevant to us here.

1:44:57Jason Redman:No, a thousand percent. And I mean, it's the same thing in the military as it's happening in our country. I've talked about this. A lot of political leaders are doing things that are just abiding us as a nation, and they want to focus on specific segments of time. Slavery happened. It was a terrible thing. But there is no country in the past 250 years that has made more advances in trying to create equality. I mean, it has been a slow process, obviously. But there have been leaders who saw this is wrong. We need to fix this. And this idea suddenly that, you know, these different initiatives that are out there, you know, that focus on America was built on racism.

1:45:43Jason Redman:I don't think this is true. We're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. And there's a lot of incredible things that have occurred. And when we start to talk about the level of success of the American dream, it has been all race, creed, and colors. It's been there. There are more millionaires in the world that have come out of the United States of America than any other nation on earth. And they're all race, color, and genders. You know, and there are some people that would try and say, well, white males are the majority. Well, maybe that's true right now. But instead of trying to create division, why are we not looking for ways, you know, two wrongs don't make a right.

1:46:23Jason Redman:To continue to create division, especially in the military, you're creating individuals now. You're creating separation. You're creating a line of distrust. you're creating potentially even a level of hatred, which is not going to further that unit. It's all about culture. It's all about trust. It's all about respect for each other, that we are equal warriors that are trying to get out there and make something happen. It should be the same in this country. So it's disheartening to me. And it's crazy to me because I think back to Martin Luther King's speech when he said, you know, I had a dream that one day men will be judged by the content of their character, not by the caliber of their skin.

1:46:57Jason Redman:Yet our political messaging right now is we want to judge individuals by the color of their skin. That's terrible, man. We're all human. We need to, we are, in my opinion, moving backwards. We're moving backwards, both in the military and both as a nation. And that's sad to me because I have worked with everyone, you know, everyone. When I, when I lived in the Virgin Islands, um, I was the only white kid in my class, but I didn't notice that. I didn't care. They were all my friends. and we're becoming the society that wants to focus so much on race. I hate the fact that every single form I fill out today is like, well, what race are you?

1:47:39Jason Redman:We should eradicate that. And it should just say, are you an American? If you're an American, if you're an American citizen, that's what you are. I think the only things that maybe they still have that on is potentially medical documents because there is some linkage, of course, to race and nationality. and hopefully they can help prevent that. Anything else that should go away because it's just used as a method to divide us. And that should not be the case, man. Our leadership should be looking at how to unite us. And right now, all I see is political leadership who's continuing to divide us.

1:48:14Jason Redman:And it's happening in the military too, which is super, super dangerous.

1:48:23All right, let's talk about your experience and sort of get the audience through what it was like for you. So you, as I understand it, September 11th, 1992, joined the Navy. Is that right? September 11th, 1992.

1:48:36Jason Redman:That's right. Little did you know, I mean, you know, what, nine years later, what was going to be happening in this country for guys in the military in particular. So you go to boot camp, you do BUDS training. That was January of 1995. I know that this is like small ball for SEALs guys to talk about BUDS training, but everybody else loves hearing about it. So can you just give us a couple of examples? I was just listening to these guys talk about, like your friend Leif and Jocko, they were on a podcast talking about how like, it's bullshit to talk about BUDS, like talk about combat. The only people who want to talk about BUDS are people who never actually went to combat after BUDS.

1:49:12And that's the highlight of their Navy career. But give me a minute on it because I think my sons will enjoy it. And I think a lot of people love hearing about just what we put you guys through in order to call yourself a SEAL?

1:49:23Jason Redman:Yeah, training is hard. I mean, there's no doubt about it, but at the flip side of that coin, I kind of knew what I was getting myself into. I had researched. I actually served with one of the East Coast SEAL units before I went out to BUDS. I had a pretty good idea of what I was getting myself into. And it is unequivocally hard. Training's broken into three different parts. First phase is designed to weed people out. It is designed to be as hard as possible, physically hard as possible. And so it's massive amounts of physical exercises and evolutions that are pushing you out of your comfort zone into that zone of discomfort and pain and forcing you to come to grips with your brain is telling you you have to stop, but your body can keep going.

1:50:14Jason Redman:that culminates with Hell Week. And Hell Week is probably considered to be one of the toughest blocks of training in the U.S. military. Some say in a lot of our even global military units. And Hell Week is exactly that. It's a week long, goes from Sunday to Friday. And during that week, you will get maybe on average two to three hours of sleep. You are constantly wet, coated in sand. You're carrying the boat around on top of your head everywhere you go. it's not uncommon for guys to chafe holes inside their uh inside their legs or inside their armpits or rub the hair off their head it's not uncommon for your toenails and fingernails to fall off during hell week um it's also not uncommon to hallucinate during hell week i remember um when i went through hell week um a couple of things that stand out um And I remember, one, I was in the, I was, boat crews go by height.

1:51:14Jason Redman:So the tallest boat crews are in boat crew one. Those are the studs. And in our class, I remember boat crew one, won everything leading up to Hell Week. They were the beasts. And we got into Hell Week. And on Tuesday night, I was in the shortest boat crew, by the way, which is called the Smurf crew. So for those of you that enjoy that, complete with a little smurf on the front of your boat. So and I remember like the boat crew one were like, God, you know, we were like, those guys win everything. You know, they just dominated. And on Tuesday night of hell week, which is one of the hardest evolutions that culminates on Tuesday night, everybody in boat crew one quit that night except one guy.

1:51:59Jason Redman:And it made me realize they're human too. every single person out there that is like oh that guy's got it all figured out like they never have any doubts that's bs everyone has doubts everyone has you know their hang-ups and issues the difference between successful people is they continue to drive forward uh besides those doubts and man when those guys quit i was like i got this wow driving forward um why'd they quit it it's hard it's miserable it's you have to dig deep within yourself and the evolution we were doing is something called steel piers um and what they do is um you know they have a like a fire hose that they're misting you it's it's at night in san diego bay i went through hell week of march so the temperature was probably in the low 50s um the water temp i would imagine was probably in maybe high 50s and uh uh and it was a large floating steel pier and uh you you were forced to remove all your clothing and fold it up you were just wearing a small pair of shorts that was it and they would you were with your swim buddy in these little metal i don't know they were probably like three by three foot squares and the whole class is spread out with their swim buddy and you would have to fold your clothes up and the instructors would say place your you know pants folded up in the northwest corner and none of us had a compass and you've already been awake for like 48 hours so you're like it's nighttime so you're like which way is northwest so everybody would try and figure out which way was northwest and the class would come to a conclusion this is northwest and and you know you'd mess it up and then you'd get yelled at and they'd force you to lay down on the cold steel and they'd spray you with water until you were shaken enough and at some point they'd scream at you to get up and jump in the water and uh and i remember we'd all run over to the edge and it was like your body was telling you to go but your brain would like slam on the brakes and it was so funny you'd watch everybody i remember this in my mind everybody would get up to the edge of the pier and like come to this stop and be like and then you just have to force yourself into the water and the instructors would like throw your clothes and your boots into the water, which, you know, you're in the, you're in the bay.

1:54:21Jason Redman:So now you're having to dive down in the darkness and find your stuff. And, and this went on for hours, probably four or five hours. Um, and, and, um, I remember when guys quit, they, they, the steel pier was down below the concrete pier, which was up above where the vans were parked up there. And there's a method to the madness. I mean, a lot of what SEAL training, special operations training is, it's psychological. SEAL training is not, you don't accomplish SEAL training through this. It's accomplished through this and through this, your ability to find it within your heart and to think through the problems.

1:55:03Jason Redman:So when guys would quit, they would be given a blanket and a hot cup of coffee or cocoa. And they would go sit in the van that was, had the heater on. And you would see them up there sitting in that van, drinking with their blanket on all warm, looking down on you while you're getting your butt kicked. And it was so easy to say, man, all I have to do is say I quit and I can go sit in that warmth. And that's, man, that's like life. How often do we find these moments like, man, all I have to do is get a little further. And I try to explain to people, keep pushing. You never know. It's always darkest before the dawn.

1:55:40Jason Redman:And, um, so anyways, that's what happened to boat crew one. All of them, I think, got caught up in it and, uh, and they quit during that evolution. So I remember on Thursday or on Wednesday night, I was hallucinating. We were doing an evolution called around the world where you row your boats around uh coronado island and um so now you've been awake for what 96 hours at least and it's very common for guys start hallucinating and i was i was seeing fences chain link fences out in the middle of the ocean and i'd tell the guys we got a turn we're gonna hit this fence uh i was seeing concrete walls that i was trying to steer around um i was hearing voices out in the middle.

1:56:26Jason Redman:My buddy, he was telling me he saw a witch standing out in the water. And he told himself, okay, that's not there. So I'm just going to look away. And when I look back, it's going to be gone. And when he looked back, she was still there. So he was like, guys, we got to row faster. This witch is going to get us. Is it just from lack of sleep? Is that what's causing the hallucinations? Yeah. Yeah. Lack of sleep, man. It is amazing. People really underestimate sleep and how good sleep is for you and how bad it is for you when you don't sleep, how bad your brain starts to break down and your decision-making becomes poor.

1:57:07Jason Redman:And yeah, even before you're starting to hallucinate. I was just talking to a doctor about this and we were talking about how, you know, some people, they get up at the crack of dawn, pre-crack of dawn to work out. and that's fine as long as you've built in enough sleep prior to that point that you've gotten a good night. You know, did you get your seven hours or did you get four hours so that you could get up at 4 a.m.? And he was saying they're completely missing the point because sleep is as important as exercise and nutrition to your overall wellness, your mental wellness, your brain function, your heart function, all of it.

1:57:38And so unless you can get the seven hours before you get up at four, it doesn't make much sense to do that just so you can work out. You need both. You need sleep.

1:57:49Jason Redman:A thousand percent. And this is something that I really had to come to grips with. I mean, I teach something called the Pentagon at peak performance and the base level is physical leadership. And sleep is a big component of that. My whole life I've gotten up early, but I wasn't getting the, I need, I know my body, I need a minimum six hours. Seven is ideal for me to optimize. And I wasn't getting that I was running, you know, I got to get up at 530 every single morning. And in the last year, my cortisol levels were high, I was having, you know, some of these health issues. And I, I said, Okay, I'm going to force myself to get more sleep.

1:58:30Jason Redman:And it has reset a lot of things, people just underestimate the power of sleep, especially, I mean, people in the business world are guys who think they're really tough. And they'll say to me, hey, I get by on four hours sleep a night. And I'm like, awesome, man. Congratulations. You are chronically fatigued and nowhere near the optimal self you could be. And you'll be dead soon. I mean, really, it shortens lifespan. So it's really, you can't sacrifice sleep, but work out and eat healthy. That's just dumb, dumb strategy. All right. So you're in the Navy. 9-11 happens. You are deployed in Afghanistan, right?

1:59:08In Afghanistan as an officer in 2004. Is that correct?

1:59:15Jason Redman:I commissioned in 2004. We went to Afghanistan in 2005. Okay. And this is where you, I think it's fair to say, would face this major leadership challenge that you referenced earlier in which you feel you fell down on the job. So tell us what happened. there's a little bit of a perfect storm um so i came into the navy in 1992 into a peacetime military and there's a you know there's a big difference in a peacetime military and a wartime military um i try to you know you nailed it when you said when you signed up on 9-11 you had no clue what was coming and that is a fact and i try and explain that to younger guys and gals in the military, you never know when something's going to happen.

2:00:00Jason Redman:None of us saw 9-11 happening. We went from total peacetime to total wartime. Within, I think, two or three years, all of the SEAL teams were 100 % combat experienced. And that was one of the goals, obviously. So I actually started school in the summer of 2001. And 9-11 happened, obviously, in September. Myself and a couple of my teammates that were at school together tried to get out of the program like hey we know we're going to war get us out you know let us go back to a platoon and one of our most respected leaders who had helped me get commissioned I remember prophetically said Red this war is going to go on for decades he's like go back to school you will get your chance so while I was at school the community obviously was going off to war in both Iraq and Afghanistan and one of the things that occurred was typically the military bases, tactics and strategies off the last sustained combat.

2:01:03Jason Redman:And the SEAL team based a lot of our tactics off Vietnam. That was the last time we had seen years of combat. Well, when we got over to Iraq and Afghanistan, we quickly realized a lot of those old tactics used in the jungles and the Mekong Delta and the swamps in Vietnam didn't necessarily apply quite as well in the mountains, in the urban and desert environments, not only technology advanced for vehicles. So the bottom line, our tactics changed pretty drastically. So here I was, this ex-enlisted guy who thought I was like God's gift to leadership. Ego and arrogance kind of got the best of me.

2:01:40Jason Redman:And I came back when I got commissioned in 2004 thinking, man, I'm the man. I know everything. I'm going to step back. I'm going to be like patent reincarnated or something. And, uh, that really wasn't the case. Uh, I step back in and, and technically I was probably one of the more inexperienced guys because I didn't have combat experience and probably, um, 60 % of our platoon at that point definitely did. And instead of humbling myself and saying, and not only that, all our tactics had changed. So instead of humbling myself and saying to the guys, the young, younger guys who might've been more experienced.

2:02:15Jason Redman:Hey man, I don't know how to do this. I made the mistake as a young leader saying, oh, I'm a leader. Like it's a sign of weakness. If I say, I don't know how to do this, which is a fallacy. It's, it's wrong. But in doing that, I, I started to damage my credibility as a leader. Well, um, that was hurting me. Uh, so when I recognized it was hurting me, so then what was the next thing I did, well, I started, I recognized that I was damaging my credibility. I was stepping on my toes, uh, not keeping up like I should be. And I started drinking away my stress. Um, so then I became known as a drunk on top of everything else.

2:02:57Jason Redman:Um, fast forward, deployed Afghanistan in 2005 and the very first mission, um, We were getting ready to transition over. So Operation Red Wings was our troop. Lieutenant Commander Eric Christensen was my boss. A lot of the guys that you will read about that were shot down on the helicopter. And that Red Wings is the lone survivor story for those that may be familiar with that. If you've seen that movie or watched or read Marcus's book. We had him on the show last August with his brother. It was just an incredibly compelling episode. So they know the story. Okay, so I was a part of the troop. Our sister platoon was a platoon that was on the helicopter for Red Wing that was shot down.

2:03:47Jason Redman:We were getting ready to fly to Afghanistan to turn over with those guys that following week. I think we were set to fly like right after the 4th of July. And of course, on June 28th, the helicopter was shot down. So this was our first introduction to combat. That's when I first I met Marcus at the hospital in Lonstadt, Germany. We stood watch on Mike Murphy and Danny Dietz's bodies. They had not recovered Matt Axelson yet. Flew to Afghanistan and the recovery was underway. And that's how our deployment started. So here I was, this knucklehead young officer who was stepping on his toes, who now, you know, got to combat.

2:04:32Jason Redman:And I wanted to prove myself, you know, hey, Red Wings happened. You know, we want payback, which is OK. That's fine. But there is a balance as a leader. We have to, you know, it should be the mission, then the men or the team that you're working with. And you're last on the equation. Unfortunately, I inverted that. And, you know, how do I make myself look like, you know, a great leader and a great hero? And I mean, I continue to make mistakes culminating with a bad call on a mission in September of that deployment. The GLP-1 pill you've been waiting for is now on row. Yep, it's finally here with the same clinically proven ingredient now in a pill and now on row.

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2:06:42Jason Redman:that call um really did damage to my my reputation um i am very fortunate that no one was uh injured or killed because of that call but what it did kill was my professional reputation by the time i got back out of that valley the guys were like get rid of that guy um they were calling me rambo Red, which that is not a compliment, you know, for those who think Rambo is really cool. It's a cool movie. It doesn't apply in the military. It's kind of what we talked about before. There's no room for individualism, especially a leader who is, um, made decisions based on his glory. And that was, I saw, I wanted to get in the fight and I saw an opportunity and I took it.

2:07:27Jason Redman:And I am very fortunate that, that no one was killed because of my decision making. So that started a whole new journey because there were guys who said, kick that guy out. And it was the lowest point I've ever hit in my life. I went and had to stand in front of my commanding officer and explain my actions. And I'll never forget, there were guys in that room that were like, get rid of this guy. He's going to get people killed. and um and my commanding officer told me to go back to my room and he would let me know the next morning uh what his decision was and i went back to my room and uh and i almost killed myself i put a gun in my mouth and i started to pull the trigger um but fortunately i think god intervening i looked i i just right about time i did it looked across um at the desk and there was a picture of my wife and kids and, you know, just this voice was like, what are you doing?

2:08:27Jason Redman:You know, what are you doing? What, what, what impact are you going to leave behind on them? And, uh, I remember I, I put my gun away. I went and sought out special operations chaplain and talked to him. We talked a lot and he said, no matter what happens, you know, if they take your trident or if they kick you out, then, you know, you've got to figure out what the path forward is, but never forget for every DN moment in your life, there becomes a new beginning. It's up to you what you do with that new beginning. This is a big part of what I talk on. It's a part of my TED talk that I talk on. It's a part of what I speak on.

2:09:00Jason Redman:And he was absolutely right. And thankfully, credit to my commanding officer who did not kick me out, even though he absolutely could have. As a matter of fact, I'm actually surprised he didn't. I mean, here's a guy who's grieving from the loss of 11 teammates only a couple months earlier. He didn't get to go home. He didn't get to go to the memorial ceremony. We had to stay and continue the mission. So and now he's got this knucklehead ensign who's making bad calls. And I think it would have been super easy for him to say, I don't have time to deal with this, nor do I nor do I have the emotional capacity to deal with this.

2:09:37Jason Redman:But he didn't. He said, you know what, Red, you've done some good things. I believe in you. I'm going to give you a second chance. And he he did. I mean, there was some punishment that came along with it. Any awards I was supposed to get, they were tracked. I had to sign an unofficial letter of reprimand that was held in the commanding officer's safe. And if I had messed up again, that letter would have gone into my permanent officer record, which would have ended my career. And I got sent to U.S. Army Ranger School, which is probably one of the best things that could have happened to me. I mean, it's pretty cool.

2:10:13I mean, to learn how to be a ranger and develop all those skills too. But you emerged out of that with a whole new set of leadership skills.

2:10:21Jason Redman:I did. Ranger school, I'd love to tell people that when I walked out of the office in Afghanistan, after getting that second chance, I was immediately like, yes, I'm going to recreate myself. But sometimes in this life, our new beginnings take time. and uh and you know i talk about this victim mindset i i had a little bit of the victim mindset i i was seeing myself as a victim that the guys threw me under the bus and i hadn't come to grips yet with you know the only person that put himself there was me my poor decision making and really selfishly viewing looking more at myself and not outward at the at the team and the mission and the impacts of that and thankfully it was at ranger school that i really started to figure that out.

2:11:08Jason Redman:You know, kind of an interesting side note, in ranger school, I screwed up. I failed the land nap test. And SEALs are a little bit of anomaly. We don't go through ranger school that often. And you know, there's that great professional rivalry between the Army and the Navy. And a lot of the rangers, I don't think, liked me very much. So they let me know it and gave me a lot of grief about being there. And when I failed the land nav course, man, they laid into me. They, I'm sorry, land navigation. This is, um, orienting with a compass to figure out where you're going in the woods in the dark and all that.

2:11:47Jason Redman:And, um, and the ranger school land nav course is pretty long. You started in the middle of the night and I had taught land nav once again, ego and arrogance. I thought I'll crush this course. And I didn't, I failed it. I missed a point. Um, and the instructors were totally heckling me. And in the moment I allowed my emotions to get the best of me. And I basically told those instructors what I thought of them. And they said, are you quitting? And I said, yeah, I'm out of here. Um, it's the only thing I've ever quit in my life. Um, and, um, so I had to go meet with the Ranger Colonel and, uh, and the Ranger Colonel listened and he said, I think you should talk to one of your SEAL teammates.

2:12:26Jason Redman:And I'll be honest, I was utterly ashamed and embarrassed. And I was like, I don't want to talk to anyone. You know, I just want to crawl under a rock. And like, I guess this is the end of my military career. And he said, Hey, I'm friends with a, uh, the guy's name is Colonel. He was Colonel KK Chin back then. He retired a two-star general and I have become friends with him because he really amazing guy, amazing leader. He saved my career. And he ended up calling one of our most respected, uh, seal leaders who happened to be a mentor of mine who had helped me get commissioned. And he put me on the phone with him.

2:13:00Jason Redman:And I remember telling him this whole story, how, you know, I ended up there and he said, Red, I know all about what happened with you. Did you ever think that you're, you're seeing this as punishment? He said, did you ever think you might learn something from this? And I said, no. Um, and, and then I told him, I said, but sir, no one's ever going to follow me again. man, I've made too many mistakes. I don't think I can recover from this. And then he gave me the foundational level of everything that I teach in leadership. Now he said, red people will follow you. If you give them a reason to that's it, that's all leadership is.

2:13:32Jason Redman:He said, I don't care how bad you've messed up. It's human nature that if someone is on the winning team, if someone is leading a team, a community, a company to success, and they're a pretty good person, you know, despite any mistakes they made in their past, it's human nature. We're going to follow them. We want we all want to be on the winning team. He said, so go back to Ranger school, crush it, come back and give the guys a reason to follow you. And I was like, Roger that. I hung up the phone and I looked at the Ranger colonel and I said, will you put me back in my class? And he said, no, you quit.

2:14:03Jason Redman:You get to go sit in Ranger school jail for a month and you'll class up with the next class. So for a month, I walked around Fort Benning picking up trash. and it was probably the best thing that ever could have happened to me because it finally humbled me and it gave me a lot of time to think about I was the problem. I was the problem and it was my lack of my own self-leadership, selfish leadership that put me there and it really changed everything. I created a new, you know, my three rules of leadership that I now teach and that enabled me to drive forward, graduate Ranger School and slowly over the next couple of years build back my credibility as a leader.

2:14:45This is what is so extraordinary about our military and some of the leaders who are in it. They somehow know when it's time to temper that extreme discipline and harsh, unforgiving training with mercy and inspiration and encouragement. The best leaders do. I mean, that's just a gift when you have a guy like that above you, who knows you, and knows what you need in the moment, whether it's a kick in the pants or a lift. I love that story, and I love knowing that there are guys like that out there training the next generation of warriors, and that you're out there using these same skills to help civilians to try to get through just life with some of these lessons they apply.

2:15:30Jason Redman:And our military. I mean, I frequently speak to the military. I've been fortunate enough to speak almost all the service academies. West Point, all you have to do is call me. I will come speak for you guys anytime. Yes, and it's amazing. It's so beautiful there. You should go. I know. I want to. You know, I mean, I speak Army. I wear the Ranger tab. I speak Army. Yeah, exactly right. Well, thank you for sharing that with me. That's like with all of us. That's a very moving story. That could be the most moving story of the exchange we have. I feel like I learned so much already, and we haven't even gotten to the apex of everything that you've gone through.

2:16:04I do, before we get to your injury and what happened, can we just spend a minute on Erica? Because she's a huge part of your story. And we kind of glanced by on my wife and my kids. By the way, when you told me about that moment when you were feeling like you might take your own life, and God stepped in and stopped you, I completely believe that was an angel. That was an angel was sent to you to stop you in the same way I talked to Dakota Meyer last Memorial Day. And he talked about the same thing. It was back when he got stateside again now for him. And he actually tried, he pulled the trigger.

2:16:36He had the gun, pulled the trigger, and an angel had taken the bullets out of the gun. He thought it was loaded. Which is, I feel like so many of you guys go through these massive travails and emotional traumas, whether it's while you're serving or the buildup to the serving, or just you're so hard on yourself and you're so used to being able to do everything at a high level, right? And then when you have a failure, that's when you really get tested. And I just think every once in a while, you need an angel to come help you. And I agree with you that God plays a role. So I'm glad you had your faith to get you through.

2:17:12All right. So Erica, just to rewind now, because we're in 2005, I think, when you did Army Ranger School and you had all that happen to you. But five years earlier, you'd been out on the town. What town were you in? this back stateside, right?

2:17:26Jason Redman:Louisville, Kentucky. Louisville, Kentucky. And you guys were out a bunch of you and you decided that night, for whatever reason, you're going to pretend that you were all there as boxers, that you were there for some big boxing match. And you see this stunning blonde with a thousand watt smile from across the room. And I mean, man, did you woo her your lines? I mean, that they, they will live in infamy, but I just, so tell us how you managed woo this amazing woman into having a drink with you? Well, she ditched me at first. So once again, you know, tell me I can't do something. And I hung out with the guys a little more.

2:18:05Jason Redman:And it was a great big place for any of you that are familiar with Louisville, Kentucky. It was the Phoenix Hill Tavern, which is a, you know, it's a huge warehouse type bar. I had like, I don't know, three levels, six or seven bars in it. And I'd gone upstairs at some point. and I looked across the upstairs bar area and she was kind of across the room standing on top of this, I don't know, elevated structure. And there was a guy talking to her and she just looked miserable. Like, I wish this guy would leave. And I was like, yes, here's my chance. So I went up and I kind of jumped up on the platform with her.

2:18:45Jason Redman:And she seemed rather shocked and the guy seemed rather perturbed. But I just kind of ignored him. And finally, he got the message and left. And I don't know, we just hit it off. There was kind of a natural chemistry that we talked from that point forward through the rest of the night and ended up linking up with her the next day for a barbecue, which is kind of a funny story because she didn't mention that she had a young son. He was four months old or six months old at that time. And literally we opened the door and she like hands him to me. Here, hold, awesome.

2:19:29Jason Redman:And then she's like, hey, by the way, we have a new grill. So can you put the grill together? So yeah, that was kind of our first date. I put this grill together for a barbecue. Get him trained early. I like this girl. This is how it's going to be. You're going to help me with my son. You're going to put my grill together and I'm going to do things for you too. So yeah, I remember I read from your book, your opening line was, hi, I'm Jay. How are you doing? Can I buy you a drink? I cringed at my lack of wit and charm and the weakest pickup line ever. What the hell? That's the best I've got. But you know what?

2:20:04That's really all it takes. Any like faux attempt to be overly clever is usually seen right through. So I think, you know, you did the right thing, obviously, because it all worked out. So you wound up getting married. You married Erica. And you had two additional children, two daughters. So those are the three kids and the wife and the family that you referenced when the times were tough. And she's still with us. I mean, she's still with you. And we'll get to all of that. But I love the story of Erica. So now we're post-Ranger school. And you got to go back out there. And it was May of 2007 that you were deployed to Fallujah.

2:20:43Iraq. And oh my God, can I tell you, Jay, whenever I even hear Fallujah, I brace myself. It's just like all the stories are awful. They're just all awful. They're terrible. Just so many bad things happened there. And it just seems like it went so poorly and it was so incredibly violent and dark. And our guys were just overwhelmed time after time and kept fighting and the sacrificing. So it's already a trigger, I think, for a lot of people who covered the news, you know, as I was doing at that time, never mind the guys who actually lived it. So you knew going over there at that point, high, high levels of danger here, yes?

2:21:25Jason Redman:yeah absolutely i mean we the the um jaco's deployment was uh 2006 prior to us operating out of ramadi and a lot of the guys who are operating prior to us all fallujah ramadi and haven here the big cities in the ambar province and um a lot of the fighting had intensified in 06 and 07 really heavily. The second big battle, a large battle occurred in Belusia in 06. The Anbar Awakening had occurred, so a lot of the local tribal sheikhs had finally, I think, had enough. Whereas before, they weren't really cooperating much with the coalition forces, the American government, and the American military machine.

2:22:15Jason Redman:I think finally they said, if we don't cooperate with them, we're never going to be able to get our country back. So what started to happen was in 06 and 07, they started feeding us real intelligence, which enabled us to really start going after al-Qaeda and insurgent leadership. So I will say as SEALs, even though we knew it was a high level of danger, it also was everything we had ever trained to. You know, at the pinnacle of special operations is direct action missions to take out, you know, mid-level and high-level enemy leaders and then probably hostage rescue type operations. And, you know, we got exposed to a lot of direct action going to those leaders, but also even at one point trying to rescue an army soldier and a Marine.

2:23:06Jason Redman:And I just those moments stood out in my mind, like how amazing it was that I was part of a unit that had trained to the level that these were the things that we could do. So we had a lot of close calls on that deployment. But it also I was with one of the best troops I've ever been a part of. It gave me an opportunity to grow as a leader and learn and really put a lot of the new leadership things that I had incorporated in my life, starting a ranger school on this very intense combat deployment. you were second in command yes okay and you'd been over there for quite a few months when I think it was September rolled around and you were out on such a mission as you just described trying to take down this relatively high level leader and you've been given some intel about where you could find him and you guys moved in to do exactly that and what happened uh to make a long story short we walked into a very well executed ambush um the the initial building we took down they were not there but we found a lot of signs that someone had recently been there while we were um collecting intelligence and we had found iud making components and we were going to blow all that stuff up our snipers saw a bunch of activity on another building about 150 yards away.

2:24:34Jason Redman:So my boss had me take about nine members of my team, myself and eight other members, seven SEALs and our interpreter, and move on this other building where we had seen individuals come out of the front door and run across the street into this vegetation. What we didn't know was our number one al-Qaeda leader for the Anbar province, he had been in our original building we were in and he had moved to that building and he had he had about a 15-man security detail that they had set up an ambush line in the vegetation across the street and those individuals we saw go out the door were the last part of his security detail that were part of that ambush line and uh and my team and i walked unfortunately right into that ambush.

2:25:27Jason Redman:I mean, we knew that there was enemy. We had air assets overhead. We had the Air Force AC-130 gunship that we were talking to and, hey, can you see weapons? They couldn't see anything. So, you know, and we had seen this before. We weren't just walking blindly. I mean, we had seen cases where the enemy would hide, not recognizing, you know, the technology and things like that. Um, so unfortunately, yeah, we walked into a very well executed ambush. Uh, my, my medic was initially hit, taken around directly below the knee. Um, and then, uh, one of our other guys, Maddie ran forward, grabbed our medic, started to drag him back.

2:26:12Jason Redman:Maddie was shot up the right side, two rounds in his leg, one in his arms, still managed strong enough to pull himself and uh and loop back to back to the tire behind us there was like a large tractor tire nothing but thousands of yards of empty iraqi desert and there was kind of a large john deere style tractor tire and then there was a tree maybe i don't know 10 yards away from that tractor tire and dj fell back to the tree everybody else was behind the tractor i was still out front at this point I was trying to lay down fire when both machine guns turned on me and I was stitched across the body armor.

2:26:52Jason Redman:I took two rounds in the left elbow, which I thought shot my arm off in the moment. I took rounds off my gun, rounds off my helmet. I had my left night vision tube shot off. I took rounds off my right side plate, turned to try and move back to the guys. And it was at this point that I caught a round in the face. It hit me right in front of the ear, traveled through my face, exited the right side of my nose, took off most of my nose, blew out my right cheekbone, what was left of the cheek, broke and kicked out to the right. The bullet traveled right under my eye, vaporized my oracle to floor, broke all the bones above my eye.

2:27:28Jason Redman:I fell in this newfound hole in my face. It broke the head of my jaw and shattered my jaw to my chin. And it knocked me out. The guys saw me fall and initially thought I was dead. Thankfully, you know, a tribute to the SEAL teams and how we train, we don't leave anybody behind. And they could have easily said, Red's dead, let's continue to try and fall back or whatever we can do. But I was, you know, pinned down probably 15 yards in front of them while this literal gunfight was happening directly over me. When I came to, I realized I was still in this gunfight. I realized that I was totally unable to do anything.

2:28:09Jason Redman:And thankfully, my team lead, Jay, who combat experience, what we call a JTAC, he is trained to coordinate airstrikes from aircraft to the ground. And And Jay coordinated and said, hey, to the AC-130, we need an immediate fire mission. And unfortunately, we were so close. I was only 45 feet from the machine gun that had me pinned down. And that's well, well, well within danger close parameters. And the gunship said, no way we can bring this. We're going to kill you guys if we do. And so they said, hey, you need to figure out a way to fall back. So gunfight went on for another five minutes or so.

2:28:56Jason Redman:The entire gunfight lasted about 35 to 40 minutes. Jay called for another one. They said no. On the third attempt, probably after 15 minutes, he basically said, hey, look, you know, if you don't bring in this fire mission, there's not going to be anybody left. You know, I got people critically wounded. We're running out of ammo. Like, you have to bring in this fire mission. It was at that point they basically put the onus on him. They made him give his JTAC designator number, meaning the training that our joint tactical air controllers go through that basically say they have the ability to do this job.

2:29:32Jason Redman:They understand all the ordinance. They understand all the danger close parameters. And they made him read off his JTAC number or give his JTAC number that basically said, you're acknowledging that we may potentially kill you if we bring this strike in. and um and jay did an amazing job coordinating that um i remember him calling out to me incoming and um the aircraft flies at a pretty high altitude you can hear the gun go off and then there's a delay probably five or six seconds before the rounds hit the ground and i remember hearing the you know of the gun up overhead and the enemy was still firing so machine guns churning away and all of a sudden you know explosions incurred in front of us and blew up over us and all of a sudden that that gun went cold that machine gun in front of me that had me pinned down went cold and i heard the enemy like crying out um to allah allah allah akbar and i remember thinking to myself stand by man like here he comes and sure enough next rounds came in which took him out, took other enemy out.

2:30:40Jason Redman:Jay came forward at this point, grabbed me, got me back to the tire, got a tourniquet on me. I owe my life to him. And we ended up calling in, I think, eight or nine more fire missions before we were able to bring in the medevac to get us out of there. Oh, my God. What's Jay's full name?

2:31:05Jason Redman:um i think it's okay for it to be out there so jay ali awesome i was with him this weekend and this was a conversation we had so this is kind of the first time but he told me he's okay with being out there more before i had not we had not talked about it or i had not given his name but i mean what it what i i owe my life to him i i love that man uh and all my teammates i owe my life to my teammates and that gunship. I mean, you know, people want to say, oh, you're so tough, you know, maybe, but I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for those guys. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for that gunship up overhead.

2:31:41Jason Redman:And that's what frustrates me with the military right now, with this focus on individualism, like it is the team effort. It is all different, you know, it's all of us together from different backgrounds and different demographics and different race and creeds and all these different things that, that come together for a very unified mission. In this case, that mission was to make sure that we all came home alive or at a minimum, you know, if I had died, they would have brought, you know, hopefully my body home to, to Erica and the kids. But thankfully, you know, I, I was able to hang on and they did a great job fighting in that gunship.

2:32:21So, um, rightfully so, um, the gunship was decorated.

2:32:26Jason Redman:I don't feel like our guys were decorated enough. I am going to come back around. It's something I've been talking about with them about resubmitting them for, um, uh, award reviews, but, um, but I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for those guys. We took some hits obviously, but we didn't lose a single guy and the other guys did. There was no one. The enemy leader got away. He got away long before this gunfight ever occurred. They came out in the ambush. He managed to sneak out the back of the house, but everybody that engaged us, there was no one left to go home and talk about it. He got away, but not for long.

2:33:07Jason Redman:Not for long. Another team ended up about four months later finishing the job. Good. We got him. We got him eventually. So you, what, next thing you know, you wake up where? They take you to the hospital. And it's an incredible story, you sort of coming back to consciousness and starting to process what's happened to you. yeah so they initially um normally head injuries go to balad but i was still critical they flew me directly to baghdad um got to baghdad and i'll be honest i don't i don't think i thought i was going to make it um but thankfully you know and this is a shout out to the amazing military medical teams and the trauma surgeons a lot of people don't know that the greatest advances in trauma medicine are made in war.

2:34:00Jason Redman:And it's incredible. There are a lot of civilian trauma doctors and orthopedic surgeons and all kinds of anesthesiologists that volunteer to go over to the war zone in these dangerous places. And literally some of the best and the brightest doctors in the world end up coming and helping to save our wounded. And they're so good. I knew that if you made it to the hospital with a pulse, you had a 90 % chance of making it home alive. And I hung on to that fact like a lifeline as I flew that medevac helicopter and drifted in and out of consciousness. So I got there, they saved me. I remember waking up and I was so elated to know that I was still alive.

2:34:42Jason Redman:I also was fascinated because I thought my arm had been shot off. And I remember learning that I still had an arm, gravely damaged. Later, they would talk about amputating it and they would keep it. But in the beginning, I was I was happy for that. And I remember my commanding officer and my command master chief were there in the hospital as I woke up. And I remember going to talk and I couldn't talk. And the nurse said, hey, you know, Lieutenant, you're you're you're traped. You know, you're you're messed up. You're wired shut and you're tricked. You're not going to be able to talk. So I said, OK, give me a piece of paper.

2:35:20Jason Redman:And I wrote down three questions. I said, I said, are my guys OK? And they told me that that Luke and Matt were out of surgery and that they were going to be OK. And I said, OK, has my wife been notified? And that's a that's a funny story or kind of a crazy story in itself. But at this point, she had been notified, although my commanding officer did not know my mental state. And that was a real concern of theirs with this head injury. They didn't know the angle of the bullet. They only knew I had been shot in the face. So they didn't know if I did survive, what level of mental, did I have a major traumatic brain injury or anything like that.

2:36:02Jason Redman:So he would later call her after this and let her know I was doing okay. So that was the second question. and the third question i don't know why i asked this i said do i still look pretty and uh and they told me no they told me no that getting shot in the face would probably be an improvement and it actually was uh i used to have like a big old tom cruise nose so two facts jay and i were actually joking about this that i had a big old tom cruise nose that i had broken and uh i had a deviated septum that right before that deployment i had gone to see about surgery to fix it and they told me I would be down for like two months.

2:36:38Jason Redman:I was like, I'll wait till after deployment. And then obviously they shot my nose off. So I got a brand new nose. Thanks. So if you've ever wondered about where your tax dollars go, this one made a difference. I have to tell you, I've been looking at you and I've been looking at your before pictures and you actually are better looking now. Your nose is obviously a little crooked, but you just look like a little bit more grizzly. I don't like the long hair and the beard and like the eyebrows. Something's working about it. You looked a little bit more clean cut before. And this look is a little bit better for like the Navy SEAL who served the car.

2:37:17I'm digging it. So I think, I'm sure Erica backs me up on this, but I think you look amazing.

2:37:22Jason Redman:She likes the longer hair and the beard. Thank you, Megan Kelly. I appreciate that. Yeah, it's working for you. It's working for you. I mean, there were easier ways of getting there, but yeah, you managed to find your way through. So can we talk about the time you talked, you first, the first thing you said to Erica when you talked to her, because it's sort of to, it evidences your mental state. And while some people thought it was a little surprising, it's a great story about how you telegraphed to her. You were fine. Yeah. So, um, so I went from Baghdad where they stabilized and saved my life to Balad.

2:37:54Jason Redman:And then they moved me to Germany. It was in Germany. I had some more stabilization surgeries and one of my teammates flew with me and I obviously I could not talk. So Erica had not, and I had not talked at all. She was trying to get everything taken care of with the kids. And she knew they had told her approximately when I would get to Bethesda. So she was trying to get ready for that. And so my teammate who was there with me was like, do you want to call Erica? And I said, yes, let's do this. I said, you know, you talk to her, I'll write down what to say to her. And so I don't remember the first couple of things.

2:38:34Jason Redman:Might have been, hey, babe, I got, I'm sure you've heard, I got all banged up. And the second thing I said, but my Wang's okay. And, you know, and military members will fully understand this because, you know, as service members, unfortunately with IEDs and everything else, I mean, that is a fear, you know, obviously. and it was kind of a running joke. So when I told her that, it let her know immediately that he's okay. His sense of humor is still intact. So. As is the Wang. So good news on multiple fronts. Absolutely. I love this too. This is from your book. When you were talking to Gil, who was the one who was answering the questions for you, your wife has been notified.

2:39:24I spoke to her myself. I try to not. I want to thank him, but the trach and my wire jaw preclude that. Gil then adds in response to your third question. And the guys wanted me to tell you, you never look pretty. It's great. It feels good to be insulted at certain low points in your life. It's actually a pick me up.

2:39:43Jason Redman:It's one of the things I miss the most now that I'm out of the military, especially this day and age where we've created, once again, the victim mindset. You know, oh, my God, if you say this about me, I must be insulted, even though half the time people say things that are unjust. Oh, my God, how dare you joke about, I don't know, anything today. And in the SEAL teams, there's nothing off limits. I mean, we would poke fun at anything and everything, including when I was injured. I got I mean, one of the guys showed up in the hospital, I'm wired shut with my face blown out and he showed up with beef jerky.

2:40:19Jason Redman:So, I mean, that's the type of humor. And I mean, you know, this life is too short to take yourself that seriously. And that's, I've missed that the most. Yeah. Yeah. I can see why. So you, I mean, we're not going to go through it all, but you did. You, what, 39 surgeries? Yeah, 40 when it's all said and done. Although Erica, also known as the long-haired admiral, tells me that the last two don't count because they were kidney stone surgeries. But I'm like, I've had 40 surgeries since I was wounded. I mean, was that, not to ask like another dumb question, but like, was that traumatic? Like a surgery of any kind, I haven't just had C-sections, but I mean, it's traumatic.

2:41:05And just that alone, nevermind after a massive injury on a battlefield and, you know, the emotional trauma of all that, like, how did you handle that many times in and under the knife?

2:41:18Jason Redman:so it's interesting i mean you know i tell people once again a lot of people assume that my battlefield injuries were like the worst thing that ever happened to me but that failure as a leader you know god works in mysterious ways it prepared me to deal with all this adversity that journey back having to take small incremental steps to build back my credibility and reputation the leadership lessons that I had built in myself. And when I was in the hospital, I told myself, hey man, this is no different from that journey. Now it's a medical journey. I said, this is medical BUDS, which BUDS is the acronym for SEAL training, Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL training.

2:41:57Jason Redman:I said, this is medical BUDS. You know, you don't have to like it, but you have to do it and we have to go. And I wanted to be operational again. So I knew I had to go through all these surgeries if I even remotely had a chance at doing that. Um, so every surgery, the doctors used to laugh because literally I would be in the, um, post-op and one of my very first questions after they would tell me how the surgery went would be, I'd write out, when can we schedule the next one? Let's get it on the schedule now. Um, cause I wanted to just, you know, churn and burn. I wanted to try and recover as quickly as I could, um, which ended up to, you know, battlefield injuries really dirty.

2:42:40Jason Redman:I had a lot of infection problems. There were a lot of setbacks. I mean, it ended up taking almost four years to put me back together. Well, I've gotten ahead of myself because immediately post the massive injury before the 39, 40 surgeries, I'm kind of with Erica. I don't think we can call them. I don't think we can count the stones. You posted the infamous sign, The sign, the famous sign, not infamous. That can note something bad. And that's how you came to be so memorable in my own life. Hearing that story after meeting you when your face was still pretty banged up was just incredible. I mean, it was a true inspiration to me as a human, and it's inspired countless numbers of others since then.

2:43:26So just set the stage for, we're going to read it, but just set the stage for where you were and what made you realize you needed to post a sign like the one we're going to discuss?

2:43:40Jason Redman:So I'd probably only been in the hospital about a week, seven days, give or take. And I will admit I struggled a little bit in the beginning. I think there's this big spike of elation, like I survived. And then the reality kind of set in that I am really messed up. um doctors were telling me it was going to be months to put at a minimum um or let me rephrase that doctors were telling me it was going to be years to put me back together whereas i thought it'd only take a few months um the prognosis was not good my my elbow was totally destroyed i had no use in my left hand there was massive nerve damage obviously the massive amount of of damage to my face.

2:44:23Jason Redman:And I just, I was kind of struggling. I felt like a monster. You know, I was really scared. Before I saw Erica the first time, I was really scared. She is a rock star. That's how she earned her name, the long haired Admiral. I mean, she didn't bat an eye. So I had her, but I was kind of struggling with where do I go from here? How do I overcome this? You know, pain and I'm disfigured. I felt like I'd be a monster for the rest of my life. And, uh, and I had some individuals that came into the room and we, we had a short conversation and then I guess I maybe was drifting off and they were talking amongst themselves.

2:45:05Jason Redman:And if any of you have been in that, you know, that in between awake and you're not quite asleep, you can still hear the sounds, the TVs. Yeah. And I caught bits and pieces of their conversation. And I don't fault them. There are some people that are like, how rude, how could they have that conversation in your room? Military hospital is a really hard place to be during a time of war. There are young men and women that are blown apart, missing limbs, traumatic brain injuries. It is very overwhelming to see this many young people. And they were there and I think they were caught up in this. and they started having a conversation about what a shame, what a pity.

2:45:45Jason Redman:We send these young men and women off to war and they come home broken and battered. They'll never be the same. And then they left. And Erica had gone down to get a cup of coffee or something. So I was in my room by myself just thinking about this. It kind of woke me up and I was both angry and like, is that going to be me? Am I going to be this broken veteran? that is never successful again? Am I going to be like Lieutenant Dan from the movie Forrest Gump? The beginning of the movie, hookers and booze, Lieutenant Dan, not you've got new legs, Lieutenant Dan. And I wrestled with it for a few minutes, and then I went back to everything that I had been through.

2:46:31Jason Redman:And what I try to explain to people is that the victim mindset focuses on all the negativity. It focuses on it's unfair. I'm never going to be better. We focus on the immediate here and now, not recognizing that the greatest gift you have in this life is you have a choice. No one forces you to lay there and feel sorry for yourself. I don't care what situation you're in. As long as your brain is still working, you have free will and you have the ability to decide how you're going to handle this situation no matter how bad and uncomfortable and unpleasant it may be and it was in that moment when erica walked back into the room i said never again that is never going to happen again from this point forward i will never feel sorry for myself again and i will not allow anybody else to come in this room and feel sorry for me and i asked her for my pen and paper and i wrote out this sign and it said, attention to all who enter here.

2:47:28Jason Redman:If you're coming in this room with sadness or sorrow, go elsewhere. The wounds I received, I got in a job that I love, doing it for people that I love, defending the freedom of a country I deeply love. I will make a full recovery. What is full? That's the absolute utmost physically. I have the ability to recover it. And I'm gonna push that about 20 % further through sheer mental tenacity. This room you're about to enter is a room of fun, optimism, and intense rapid regroup. If you are not prepared for that, and we signed it, the management, and the original sign was put on a regular piece of paper that I'd been writing on.

2:48:02Jason Redman:But later, Erica went and bought that large orange-red piece of poster paper, and we transcribed it word for word, put it on the door. A teammate tacked his tried and into it, and a New York firefighter wrote a blog about it, and it went viral. It went all over the place. It was all over the news. To date, you know, it has been written about in multiple books. Secretary Robert Gates wrote about it. First Lady Michelle Obama wrote about it twice in her book, Becoming Michelle, sent me a handwritten note on how much it moved her. And it is now an invitation to the White House to meet President Bush, who signed it.

2:48:40Jason Redman:And we had it framed and dedicated. I didn't feel like it was mine. I felt like it belonged to the hospital and the other wounded warriors. And it now hangs in Walter Reed in the middle of the wounded ward and continues to motivate and inspire other wounded warriors. And now it's been amazing. I mean, I don't know, hundreds of thousands of people who have written me and said, hey, I put your sign on the door. I have cancer. I've been injured or my kid has been injured or my kid has cancer. You know, thank you. So you just never know the power of positivity and choosing to drive forward despite the hardship and adversity we face.

2:49:14Jason Redman:And that's what that sign is. People will follow if you give them something to follow. Like who knew that maybe your most important role in these conflicts would be helping severely wounded guys coming back with no hope understand that there was a way out. and it began with attitude and the decisions about how you'd handle what happened to you and who would have access to you in this, your most vulnerable time, right? I mean, I'm sure we have no idea the number of people you've helped, even outside the military, as you point out, people in cancer wards who read that message and remind themselves, I have a choice here and the choice I make really could be the difference between life and death.

2:50:02It really could.

2:50:06Jason Redman:Well, and to lift up those around you, that was one of my big goals. Like I wanted to set the example for my kids. I wanted to set the example for Erica. I wanted to set the example for other wounded warriors around me. And I think that's such a powerful thing because you can't, we may not be able to change the situation we're in. um you know we've got to navigate through that we've got to navigate through the pain and the misery and all the things that work but we we definitely can change we can be what i like to say it's one of the shirts we created be the light in the darkness be the light you know in those dark times um so many people are waiting for someone else to come save them or someone else to help them well you do it you know you do it you be the light man and it'll help it helps with your mindset.

2:50:52Jason Redman:You start pouring some positivity into yourself. It's amazing how much it makes an impact. I try to explain to people that's part of the overcome mindset. And you may not be able to get back what you've lost. I meet so many people who that's what their focus is. Like, I want back my health, or I want back my relationship, or I want back my business, or whatever it is I've lost. And that may not be the case. But a willingness to drive forward, you're going to take that the end moment and create a new beginning.

2:51:28I read in your book about how it was when you saw Erica for the first time post-injury. And it was actually kind of shocking because you were writing about how, unfortunately, there are a lot of cases where the wife or the girlfriend comes in and sees the severely injured soldier and pieces right out of there. I mean, that's horrifying. So there was, you know, in the back of your head, some concern, you know, given how badly injured you were in the face and so on. And obviously what was going to be ahead of you guys? Is she going to stick with me? And Erica was solid. The long-haired admiral came through.

2:52:01She came through huge. It wasn't a thing. But I know you were worried about, you said, don't bring the kids right away. Like, I don't want them to see me like this. So how was it? Because obviously when you first saw your kids, you didn't look like you look now. You definitely looked closer to right after the injuries. So how did they handle that? Good.

2:52:22Jason Redman:And a lot of that I got to, you know, Eric and I were really locked on. I mean, I think that's one of the, as a couple, your ability to be unified in your decision making. And, you know, her and I discussed how would we handle this? You know, it's been something that's been a common theme throughout our marriage. so much so. 99 % of, first off, SEALs have almost a 90 % divorce rate. Special operations, pretty close. Guys who are wounded have almost a 99%. It's just very hard on families to sustain these type of injuries. And Eric and I talked, okay, well, how are we going to manage this? One of the things we said, and we were fortunate enough to have family to help, we weren't going to change the kids' schedules.

2:53:13Jason Redman:The kids' schedules were going to stay the same. We had family that came in. If they had dance and soccer and school, they were going to be there. So they would be home. Erica stayed up at the hospital on the weekends. Family would bring, not in the beginning. I didn't see the kids for probably three weeks. And there were several things that I told, I said I wanted. One, I was really, some of the original pictures are not out there. I think if you dig deep enough, there's some surgical journals that have pictures of me in it. But my head swelled almost to like the size of a basketball. I looked pretty grotesque.

2:53:55Jason Redman:Stitches just stretched on my face. And I told Erica, I didn't want the kids to see me until they had done some more surgeries and some of the swelling had gone down. And I was in ICU at the beginning. I also did not want them to come into the room. I wanted to walk into the room where the kids were. I wanted it to be like a family room and I wanted to walk in. So that was my goal to get well enough and strong enough that I could get up and walk into the room. So that took about three weeks. And then the other thing, erica was super smart uh she uh she knew the kids wanted different toys that they had talked about i mean it's now september so she went and uh you know normally they would have had to wait till christmas but she went and bought my son wanted a um a nintendo ds uh one of the girls wanted a baby doll.

2:54:50Jason Redman:I can't remember what the other, what Sierra wanted. But Erica went and bought those things for them and that had me give them to them in the room that I walked into with them. So, and I tell you what, that I learned over the next couple of years, people often talk about unconditional love. And I think, I think you can build unconditional love with your spouse, but you learn what unconditional love is through your children. Your children have unconditional love for their parents, especially when they're young. You are their world. And even though I looked messed up, my kids love me. And there was a lot of healing that occurred over those couple of years, especially with my youngest daughter, because my middle daughter and my son, they went back to school by the time I got home.

2:55:43Jason Redman:But my youngest, she was only three. so she was home with me and she became and i had not been around her whole life and she became my little buddy she would climb into bed with me as i recovered and we'd watch cartoons and um and man i think that was very healing for me i needed that because i was so worried about would my kids be afraid of me and the way i look and you know they just i'll never forget i went to pick my kids up at school one day and my daughter was like five she's in kindergarten. Somebody was like, what happened to your dad? And my daughter, matter of fact, was like, he got shot off.

2:56:20Jason Redman:He got all shot off. He's fine though. You know what I mean? Just a tender of a five-year-old. Yeah. You know, especially when they're young, they have that healing power and there is something almost angelic about them in moments. And I really believe it's like, someone said it to me this way and it made sense. they're closer to the other side than we are. They're still closer to the other side. And I think they still have that sort of halo effect around them and on us. There is something sort of magical about really young kids when you're down, you're blue, you're struggling. And I'm so glad that was, you're so lucky to have your three-year-old with you during those moments.

2:57:02I'm sure she was a healing bomb. The rock star, Erica, too. Those are all great stories about her. And I'm so glad. Thank God this doesn't end with, and she just left. You're still together. You're still, right? The family's still intact.

2:57:18Jason Redman:Yeah, I mean, I got it. I mean, and such a credit to her. You know, she became my best nurse. Even though I had nurse, in-home nurses in between surgeries, you know, for the first eight or nine months, I was a mess. I'm in a wheelchair. I've got metal hardware coming out of my arm, what's called an external fixator. I was trached for seven months and two days. They were feeding me through a stomach tube. Erica was doing those things. She was helping to clean my trach. She's grinding up meds and grinding up food so that I could eat. And I recognized the burden. I mean, I became like a fourth child to her to take care of me.

2:57:55Jason Redman:And I'm just so thankful how strong she was because never once did she ever say, why did you do this to us? Why did you pick this job that this happened? Because that would have been devastating. And if she thought it, she never said it. So, man, she is a leader in herself. And we're an amazing team. Really excited right now. We are working on we're almost done with a relationship book called Invincible Marriage. because it's a question so many people have. How did you do it? You guys made it through a special operations career. You made it through wounding. We've run a business together. We've had business failures together.

2:58:35Jason Redman:We have three amazing kids. So yeah, I'm really excited to get that book out there and hopefully help others build a strong, invincible marriage also. Oh my gosh. You both are welcome on the show when it hits. I would love to help you promote that. I feel like everybody will buy that. That's such a great... I mean, think of how we tell ourselves, we outside of your marriage, tell ourselves, oh, this was really hard. Oh, he didn't empty the dishwasher. Oh, it's annoying. You know, he didn't show me enough emotional availability. This is what, you know, you hear. My God, you don't even understand what the challenges are.

2:59:08I had no idea about the divorce rate amongst the wounded. I want to ask you in the time we have left, I would be remiss if I skipped the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan because everyone who served there, like yourself, had some thoughts on it. And some had some real trauma when it happened and just sort of the abandonment of it, of the translators. You mentioned that was one of the guys with you in Iraq when you got hurt. How did you process that whole thing?

2:59:38Jason Redman:Well, I got involved as much as I could. I think that's going to be viewed, and in my opinion, probably one of the greatest failures. I think the way we withdrew from Iraq was poorly done, which, in my opinion, directly led to the creation of ISIS in Iraq. And then we repeated the exact same thing, except at an exponential scale in Afghanistan. And in Afghanistan, I think we had done so much of a better job, you know, helping the people. There were so many people that had embraced this newfound freedom apart from the rule of the Taliban. I mean, there were women in leadership position. There were women in political positions.

3:00:22Jason Redman:There were women leaders in the military. uh commerce was starting to grow and thrive in afghanistan again and we had basically convinced these people like hey a free democratic afghanistan is a is a real thing and and um yeah when we pulled out of there in the way that we did i mean just i i i don't understand um I don't know. I mean, you can't tell me that there weren't senior political leaders who were saying this is not going to end well. Why we didn't maintain forces in Bagram. We knew Bagram. Bagram was protected. How did we ever agree to allow the Taliban to provide some level of security?

3:01:09Jason Redman:How did we ever, you know, who in their right mind allowed this to occur with, you know, American citizens that were left behind? I mean, trying to get people in the Karzai airport. That's how I got involved. Lieutenant Colonel Scott Mann had created a group to try and help. He wanted to get his interpreter out. And there were a lot of special operations guys, Chad Robichaw, Tim Kennedy. A lot of these guys did amazing things. I ended up working with Scott. And we were trying to get people out of Afghanistan. And we saw firsthand the chaos and the disorganization and the mass confusion by the U.S.

3:01:46Jason Redman:government. you know, the focus began and became, we're just going to get the military out and ignoring all these U.S. citizens. And most importantly, the individuals who had been processed, Afghans who had sacrificed their lives to protect us and work with us, who had lost family members and risked their lives, who had been told, you're going to get a special immigrant visa and you're going to be able to come to the United States when all of this was transpiring that the Taliban was going to take back over, which I had issues with in the first place. Why did we turn the country back over to the exact same terrorist group that we were fighting against for 20 years?

3:02:27Jason Redman:I mean, it's mind-blowing. Mind-blowing. It's infuriating. And I think it will impact our national security election abilities for decades to come. Because who in their right mind is going to want to work with America and risk their lives to help us collect intelligence when they're going to go, I'm not going to work with you guys. If anything goes wrong, you're just going to sell me out to dry and I'm going to be killed. We sent such a negative message across the world. I think it was such a poor display of leadership. I think it was just straight up anti-American. It was traumatic for so many guys who served.

3:03:08What was I there for? What did my friends die for? What, you know, what did I, I mean, you were in Iraq, but same similar question. Like, what did I get blown up for? What, you know, what? We just tucked tail and ran at the end. I don't know. I still think the way I process it from over here, you guys kept us safe for 20 years. You know, remember how afraid we were after 9-11, we were going to get attacked again, kept us safe for 20 years. And we're still safe. We're still safe because of what you did over there. It was not all for naught, though it was terribly, terribly handled. And even before the withdrawal, there was a lot of criticism to be leveled, but the withdrawal was just a stain on our leadership, not on our guys.

3:03:49Jason Redman:No, and I would say, I mean, I never once have ever thought, oh my God, what a waste. I mean, you know, the mission that we did was, you know, we helped a lot of people. We definitely got rid of a lot of very bad people who, given the opportunity, would gladly do bad things here in our own country. and even in other countries abroad. So yeah, I definitely tell fellow veterans, don't ever think that what we did absolutely made a difference. It's unfortunate the way it ended, but I'm proud of the time that I had to serve over there and hopefully make a small difference in Afghanistan and Iraq. And beyond, beyond.

3:04:26So now how old are you?

3:04:30Jason Redman:I turn 48 next week. Oh, you're still a spring chicken. You're a young guy. You got it, Erica. You got your three kids. Yeah. And your career is as a motivational speaker, as an author. How's that going? Are you paying the bills with that? You feel like things are going well? They are. I mean, the demand is high. I mean, I think the message I deliver is very needed. And I think companies recognize that. I mean, a combination of coming out of the COVID era and also into just society as a whole. My message is on self-leadership. How do we lead ourselves to be successful? How do we build better teams?

3:05:16Jason Redman:How do we build more positive culture within companies? And then how do we find balance in this crazy world that we're living in? And then all about the resilience and grit. I teach something called getting off the X. It's one of the foundational principles in my overcome book. Um, I'm now teaching the appointment for life program, which is a structured process of building long-term goal setting and understanding based on your values, what your mission or purpose is in this life with kind of a special operations twist. And then of course we have, uh, the relationship book coming and then something I've started working on.

3:05:51Jason Redman:We just concluded our most recent Overcome and Survive workshop. A lot of my teammates have a lot of experience, and they are training law enforcement and national organizations, military organizations, and tactical abilities. But I keep meeting average everyday Americans who are like, I'm scared for the future. Like, I wish I knew how to better defend myself in this dangerous world where every time we turn around, there's a mass shooting or God forbid something happened to my family. How do I, how do I, you know, save them? How do I know basic first aid or, you know, God forbid society, you know, collapsed or at least we lost power.

3:06:30If I take this course, you're not going to throw me in the ocean and hose me down with a hose and tell me to find Northwest.

3:06:36Jason Redman:No, no, there's not. As a matter of fact, it was funny. People signing up for the course. I had to put it right on the website, overcomeandsurvive.com. We do not yell at you. You're not. We want to take the average everyday American and make them better. That's it. And to give them a basic level of preparation so that they can overcome and survive if something bad happens. And I've really enjoyed that. I've met people from all across this country who have come to these courses. And I'm doing it with some of my former teammates, with Jay and some of the guys who were in the gunfight with me. and it's pretty neat to be able to say, you know, out of this, we're able to teach you this so that hopefully you can protect your family.

3:07:18It keeps the brotherhood connected. That's so important for you guys. I know there's such a unique bond and if you don't nurture it, maybe you lose it and it just becomes a memory, which is not okay. I want to tell our audience that the book that talks about Jay's experience is called The Trident and then you heard him reference his second book, which is called Overcome, Crush Adversity. with Leadership Techniques of America's Toughest Warriors. And we will look forward to the third book, which is the relationship one. And we'll have you back on for that. Lieutenant Jason Redman, I'm moved. I'm inspired.

3:07:52I'm excited for what comes next in your life and to read your next writing. And I just wish all my best to you and your family. I know my audience is joining me right now in thanking you, thanking you, thanking you so much for your service, your sacrifice, that of your family as well. They do the same in their own ways. and we appreciate you. God bless you.

3:08:12Jason Redman:My honor. Thank you. Oh, such an inspiring guest. He's amazing, isn't he? Go to jasonredman.com to find out much, much more about Jason, about his books, about his courses, everything, everything Jason Redman. Well worth your time. Today, I join you in remembering all of the men and women who have served our country and also thinking of and thanking our current military members serving today. Hi, I'm Angie Hicks, co-founder of Angie. One thing I've learned is that you buy a house, but you make it a home. For decades, Angie's helped millions of homeowners hire skilled pros for the projects that matter.

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