#235 John "Tig" Tiegen - 13th Anniversary of the Benghazi Attacks

27:11The building's still there, but obviously he's not. But that's where, again, he'd try to, that's when things would happen, mainly there. So I'd try to not go, but again, sitting there telling you, don't tell your parents or I'm going to kill you, kill them. So you don't tell them why you don't want to go. So sometimes you still had to go. Shit, dude. So. And physical abuse. Mm-hmm. Fucking A, man. There's people that have had worse than me. But that's probably why I was so kind of protective, I guess, and violent growing up. Who were you protective of? Just other friends, other people being picked on and bullied and stuff like that.

27:58Did your mom have any idea that this was going on? No, but I do. So when she finally, when everything kind of did get out in the open, the cops are calling and all that. Um, I do remember when, when I think I was, I took off, when was this? I might've been like an eighth grade or something by now. You know, as a kid, we don't really have a curfew or anything. And I think I was out and I remember coming back and I was coming in through the garage and usually they're up and partying almost all the time. So they're up, I remember, I just, I don't know why they were talking about it, but I know my sister was there talking to my mom about it.

28:38And, you know, she was kind of, you know, because I was getting in a lot of trouble. And my sister was probably, you know, trying to explain to my mom, I was like, well, it's probably this stuff. You probably need to go see somebody. And I just remember her sitting there saying he needed to quit using this as an excuse and just get over it. Your mom said that? Mm-hmm. Of course, they didn't know I was out there. And then I was just like, I just kind of said, fuck this. And I just took off and went to my best friend's house and just stayed there for a few days. Jeez. Are you close with your mom now?

29:11No, I really haven't talked to her since like 2004 or 2005.

29:22Why did you quit talking to her? That's another story.

29:28So I had a stepdaughter. I'm on my second marriage, but my previous wife had a stepdaughter. and she was getting into a lot of trouble and just kind of doing her own thing for the most part. And we were disciplining her and came to a point, I think her mom was actually, she was in Kuwait at this time. And so I was kind of at home and we're getting ready to go back to Kuwait. Cause I think I came back to pick her up to bring her back to Kuwait. It was something like that. And well, she was constantly running away and stuff like that. And one time she just kind of disappeared. So we're calling, calling, you know, calling my younger sister and my mom, trying to figure out where she might be, calling her friends.

30:14Well, got a hold of her friends, and her friends were saying that my sister was picking her up from school every day. This is why her grades were failing. So he called her and said, do you know where she is? And she's like, oh, I haven't heard from her, yada, yada, yada. Well, me and my buddy went over there at night and just kind of went around her house because we just kind of assumed that's probably where she was. Sure enough, we heard her voice in there. And so we called the cops. Cops came. I just remember my mom coming in. She didn't say hi or nothing to me and my buddy at all. And the cops just sitting there as we're talking, explaining what was happening.

30:53And my mom just comes walking by really fast. And the cop's like, who's that? And that's my mom. She's not even going to say anything. probably because she knew she was there. She had been gone for like a week now. We've been trying to look for her. Well, obviously, cops get involved. Child Protective Service gets involved. They start talking to her. Next thing you know, I'm being looked at for molesting stepdaughter. What? So they had convinced her that if she told them that I was touching her, that she could leave and come live with them. And that's when I was like, fuck you, I'm done talking with you guys.

31:42Because that does more than what they think they thought it would do. Because that destroys somebody's life. this is when again i was getting ready to actually start working with uh the blackwater and all that doing all my background you get something like that you're done jeez so how would you internalize all the abuse as a kid

32:08um it's just kind of one of those things that you can't control it you know one thing i knew It wasn't my fault. So I was never, I never had that, never felt anything like that. My thing was just like, where was the protection that you're supposed to have? Where are all the adults, you know, especially after when they let the dude off? And I was just like, this is just fucked up. You know, it was just, this is when I kind of knew like I had to be my own protector. And pretty much from that moment on, I was. When did you realize it was wrong? When my cousin yanked me out of the car. I think I kind of knew because I didn't want to go anymore.

32:48But again, I didn't know what to do, what to say to anybody. So I think during that time, I think I knew it was wrong. Why did your cousin yank you out of the car? He was two years older than I was. I think he's just kind of like, yeah, fuck you. Plus he's kind of part Indian, so he has that mentality. Damn, man. Damn. So where I'm kind of going with this is there are a lot of kids out there that go through this. I have no idea how many, but it's an overwhelming amount. And, I mean, one is too many. What advice do you have for kids that are dealing with this right now?

33:31Find somebody to help you until you do, honestly. If you don't trust your parents, again, you can call 911 and you can tell them. Find somebody. Damn, man. But a lot of the problem is there's so many people that cry wolf out there that it hurts the true people. It really does. Yeah. Yeah. So again, just because somebody's, I guess, you don't like them, don't do that shit to them either because it destroys their lives.

34:04Man, I'm sorry I had to go through that. I mean, I would like to change things, but it also made me who I am, so it's kind of hard to say would you. Yeah. You know, because I may have went a whole other direction and did something else, and so. Damn. Would you talk about it with your siblings? Any of the abuse? Mm-mm. Sexual or physical? No, we talked about getting beat by our stepdads and stuff. You know, he was an asshole. Did you ever stand up to him? No. I know I didn't. I think my brother might have, but then he just beat you harder. That's all he would do. I mean, we're kids. The size difference, you know, it's amazing.

34:53You ain't know how much you can do about it. I know my mom tried to stand up for us a couple times, but I know he put her in the hospital a few times, throwing down the stairs and all that stuff, you know, separating her shoulder and all that. Shit, man. You witnessed all that? Mm-hmm.

35:14That's heavy stuff, dude. Yeah, foster homes ain't that great either. Same thing. They're very abusive. You've been in foster homes? Yeah. How did you wind up in a foster home? Mainly, I think the babysitter once left us. That's when I was in first grade, around first grade. And again, we were asshole kids, man. We were intense. You know, no discipline, no supervision. and she couldn't deal with us no more, so she called the cops. My mom, again, she was at the bar. Nobody could get a hold of her, so the cops came and got us. Fost her home for about a week for that one. Again, they were just, again, kind of same thing.

35:55Very abusive physically. And then the second one was physically and sexually again. So the worst one, though, is that one. My mom was in the hospital. I don't remember exactly what for, but I remember them walking us there so we could see her from the hospital room, which was kind of cool, I guess, as a kid. Walking back, I didn't have any shoes, and I stubbed my toe, and I ripped it open pretty good. It was pretty gnarly. Screaming, crying. Couldn't walk. So they were nice at that time, but then we got into the house. They beat the shit out of me because I was crying. Damn, man. Yeah. That's a rough childhood.

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38:14What got you interested in the military? Was it an escape? Well, again, I think I already kind of had it from the recruiting station. You know, just kind of seeing them, you know, compared to my own family life, seeing how they portrayed themselves, I guess. Yeah. And that's kind of what I wanted. But again, how I kept wanting to do it from pretty much, you know, you're looking like second, third grade timeframe when this is going on. And then still wanting to do it, you know, all through all the other stuff. I think I just always wanted, you know, I did like a lot of reports in high school on Vietnam War and stuff like that.

38:52Did a lot of look into that and how they fought and stuff. It just always intrigued me. Did you, I mean, what's your relationship like with your dad now? Is it non-existent? No, so he actually lived with me for a long time. And he was actually watching one of our house when we were overseas doing a lot of contract work and stuff like that. But then I got divorced in 2023, and then he's kind of out on his own now. So pretty much about, like, 2006 till 2023 he lived with us. So I had a, you know, property out down in Pueblo County. It had an in-law house. That's kind of where he stayed. So he kind of watched, you know, with the cattle and stuff like that while I was gone.

39:43And, you know, so he did some help around the house or around the property. How do you think that abuse has affected, if it has, your adulthood? I'm pretty sure it has in one way or another. I mean. I don't see how it couldn't. Yeah, I mean, I don't think I have that. My wife would probably say the romantic lovey-lovey thing. Pretty rough on the edges for the most part. but definitely don't trust. I don't know a whole lot of trust. In anybody? Not really. I mean, I trust her and my kids. But it's just been so in betrayal, it's been there forever. Even one of my other, I would say the second stepdad, so when you're a kid, you get a job.

40:36You can't open a bank account. you have to have a cosigner. So he was a cosigner on the account. And I started work when I was like 15, when he first, when he could like 15 or 14. And so I was just saving up money and I'm making a lot of money, but I was saving up. I think I was supposed to have like four to$6 ,000 in the account. And, uh, I was probably the only kid in ninth grade that had a car, but I went to go cause the battery dies. I went to go buy a battery and I kept getting denied. So I called the bank. There was no money in it. He stole all my money.

41:15No. Damn, dude. So my boss actually, he would just cash my checks for me and just give me cash. I quit my bank accounts until I could actually get my own account.

41:30What are your relationships like with the rest of your siblings? um we talk here and there but they don't my like i don't talk to my younger sister she was part of the whole uh problem with the stepdaughter um my older one she lives in ohio and then my brother he works for the post office so he's always working it's kind of like somebody in the military just never see him but you know just kind of like with oz and tonto we just kind of talk every now and then hit each other up yeah yeah do you guys talk about what happened nowadays days no i think we did once we my brother when uh we were drunk it's usually when you're drinking talk about it man i hate hearing this shit

42:22didn't expect that did you found it all found it all and i'm glad we went there so thank you again my thing is so i used to kind of keep almost everything to myself but you always hear like you know you got to tell your story because you know somebody else is probably going through it they're going through something worse they don't know how to deal with it don't know what to do especially with kids yeah you know so my biggest thing that you know my best thing to do is tell it because more kids might hear it because of who I am and more getting likely to finally say something is happening and it shouldn't be happening.

43:00So it's really, it's better for them. I mean, for me, healing, it doesn't really heal me at all. It's just, it is what it is. There ain't nothing I can do about it. Can't change it. I dealt with it. It is what it is again, but it's for me letting kids know, or even adults know, like, again, it's not your fault. At least I did know that growing up i knew it wasn't my fault but talk about it get it out otherwise that that demon is just going to destroy you and for kids find somebody to protect you talk tell somebody it's happening there's nothing wrong with you it ain't you know just make it in stop it by telling somebody what were your grandparents like um my my grandpa this is a generational thing that's going to get in yet?

43:48I don't think so. I mean, I don't really, I mean, my grandpa, World War II vet, my grandma, they were just stubborn, stubborn people. That's on my mom's side. I didn't really know my grandma on my dad's side. I knew my grandpa. He was a Christian guy the whole time, you know, that I've known him or knew him. My grandpa, he was just a stubborn old guy, you know, just a mean, grumpy guy. Sounds like my grandpa. Yeah. This dude, oh my God. I don't know how he lived as long as he did either. He was in so many accidents. He fell down. So he worked at Quaker in Iowa. He fell down an elevator shaft down like all the pipes down below.

44:32I think like four stories. Lived, walked out. They got in a major car crash. Again, metal just wrapped around him, lived, walked out. This dude would not die.

44:48I remember when I stayed there one summer. What was it? I was listening to, I think I wanted to, I was watching a TV show. He wanted to listen to music, so he would turn his shit up. I would turn the TV up. He would tell my grandma, go tell that little, I could hear him, go tell that little shit to turn that off and get outside. He was, but he was, I mean, he was a, he was a happy guy. But no, I mean, that's never, they were just kind of mean. They were never abusive. they're just you know discipline i would say old school yeah just old school you know the reason i was bringing that up as you know you see a lot of families if that's what you want to call it but um you know this gets carried on from generation to generation to generation it becomes like a generational curse yeah in fact i got um somebody on my team uh has been through a lot of that kind of stuff sounds like a very similar situation and so you know what i want to ask and i always commend him because i know where he came from and you know i guess i can't i can't say i know where he came from and and know what it's like to go through that because i didn't i didn't i was fortunate i didn't have to go through that but i always tell him how proud of him i am that that he broke the curse and that his kids are his kid is uh is is doing awesome and won't have to experience any of that it's not i think for a lot of people that do it that's their a lot of their fear i think so what i want to ask is and that's why i was asking about your brothers and sisters too to see if they were able to break that and so with you i just want to ask What does it feel like to break that in the family lineage?

46:39I mean, knowing my kids, it feels great knowing my kids that have to go through that. I mean, it's something that I'm glad they never have to experience. But a lot of times when you do break it, if you never talk to them about it, they can come right back. So I think that's all. it sucks to have to talk about it, but talking to your kids about it, even if you, because you don't know if they're going through it or not. I guarantee my mom had no idea, obviously. So I think having those conversations with your kids and letting them know, like, hey, people shouldn't be touching you here, touching there.

47:16And if they say don't tell anybody, you better tell somebody. Regardless if they threaten your life or someone else's life, because they can't do nothing to you. I guarantee it. They can't. it's just an empty threat, especially no one I know now. Man. Scary shit, man. Scary shit. Yeah, because the moment law enforcement gets involved in the scene, it's not a Hollywood movie. They're done. I mean, they may get away with it, but you're going to be pulled away from that environment completely. Yeah. So either way, you're still protected. Yeah. Man. Well, once again, man, I just thank you for going into that because I think it's important to talk about for the upcoming generations.

48:01Oh, yeah. And it seems to be happening more and more and more as time goes on, or at least it's exposed a lot more. Well, it goes back to, like I was saying, the accountability. They think people cannot be – there's no rehab for that. They should never see daylight ever again when they do that. Yeah. That's the problem. I'm with you.

48:30So let's get into the military stuff. When did you join? So I decided to join the Marine Corps when I saw Full Metal Jacket. So I think I was, what, 89 or something like that when that popped out. So I knew I was going to join. I still kind of was going to do the Army. but being the hoodlum that I was I saw that I was like you know I need more of that I knew it so I'm talking about the boot camp scene not the after I actually I don't really watch the whole combat part I just like the boot camp and it's awesome maybe I'll see if I can find it but I got a picture of my kid now I still watch it down downstairs watching it and it just kind of started my son literally stood there during the whole entire boot camp part of the movie and was just watching then i stopped it just before uh uh gomer freaking whacked himself so i was like okay you know how'd you like it he said that was cool i'm like see oh shit um so i ended up doing the delayed entry program uh in the marine corps you don't go to boot camp but it does kind of help towards promotion so i did a you kind of sign a thing saying you're going to do it and you have to go through like the weekend stuff.

49:49So that kind of helped me stay out of trouble. And then, yeah, then November of 95, I went to boot camp. And I'm going to tell anybody, if you cherish holidays, don't go to boot camp during holidays. It'll ruin it for you. I used to love Christmas. No, I was just kind of like, eh. Our Christmas tree was a red lens flashlight in the tree. Nice. And we had to sing old Christmas tree to it.

50:20So boot camp was, I thought it was easy, man. I mean, if you're physically fit, to me, it was a cakewalk. I mean, I didn't mind getting yelled at. I got slammed a few times, but I just giggle. Just like, this is awesome. What did it feel like to get the hell out of your family predicament? So I kind of left when I was in ninth grade. I moved in with my best friend's girlfriend's parents. So I was, actually, I was, when I got my job after my dad, my stepdad, stole that crap from me, I kind of just said, I'm done, and I left. Moved in with a stripper when I was 16. What? Yeah. How did you meet a stripper at 16?

51:02One of my mom's friends. Was your mom a stripper? No. I don't know how they met. I think it was over drugs. Holy shit. So moved in there with them and then with her. And it was all normal at first, and then it turned to more of a relationship. But then I ended up moving out and actually moved into the back of the restaurant that I was working at. So I had a bed back there, and I would just go there and I'd sleep. Did that for a while, and then I moved in with my best friend's parents, his girlfriend's parents. So you met a stripper who was a friend of your mom's and moved in with her. Yeah. She tried to, yeah, she called the cops on her and tried to get her for all kinds of stuff.

51:53But again, like statutory rape is what it was. But nothing was actually happening at that time anyways. I just wanted to get the hell out of that place. You know, she had already had drug raids done on her and stuff like that. So I just had to get out of there. So, yeah. How old was the stripper? 24. And this turned into a relationship? Yeah. I mean, what's going on in the house that you're living in when you're living with a stripper? What do you mean? I mean, is it like, what the hell was happening? Did they come home and there's a party every night? No, actually, she didn't throw any parties in her house at all in the apartment.

52:35She never had any. They're always across the hall. So you just go over there, hang out with those guys more than anything. Jeez, dude. Yeah. But no, I mean, it was, again, it was just a good way to get out. Actually, one of my best friends ended up moving in there too as well for a while. Yeah, it was a weird upbringing, but. Why did you leave there? It just wasn't very good, you know. I don't really know how to explain it, but it just kind of, I think it was more of the relationship side of it where, again, you couldn't go out and she was going out kind of a thing. And then I noticed she had drugs.

53:19Again, I just hated the drugs scene just because of my parents. So I was like, I'll screw this. And I moved out. My boss, again, he said, you can go stay back here in the storage area. I mean, put your bed, put outside a bed, a dresser, everything back there. Man. I just take a shower at school until I moved in with my best friend's parents. And then I was really jacked up. And my junior year, and I was playing football, you know, staying with them, I had a third degree separation on my shoulder and I had to have surgery. Well, it came to a point where they actually had to go and yell at my mom because obviously they don't really have custody over me.

54:03So she had to sign the paperwork for me to actually get the surgery done. So here I am. I have my bones sticking up like this for about three months, and I'm in a sling. And I finally got the surgery done. But, yeah, they had to force her to sign the paperwork for me to get the surgery. How the hell did you find Christianity through all of that? I think it started as a kid. We always went to church and stuff like that. So I always liked the music. It was just weird. All this is going on, and you guys are going to church? My parents, not really. It was mainly my grandma. God, I can't remember that.

54:44And then some other people in the family, some of the older ones, they would take us to church and stuff like that. So we're on welfare, so if we wanted Christmas, Thanksgiving, and all that stuff, we always went to the church to go get food, go get presents and stuff like that, and see Santa Claus. It was always at the church. That's where we got stuff from. So, damn, Teg.

55:12But, you know, I always believed in God and Jesus, always didn't really understand it. Got baptized as a kid. The second time I did it, I did it because of a girl.

55:26Man, I just, whatever it's worth, man, I'm just really proud of you and getting out of that shit. I mean, a lot of people never make it out of that. I think I had one. So getting a lot of trouble. I had to go see counselors and crap. I remember my mom was inside. This was before they had the white noise machine outside the counselor's office. I remember the office building was, it was on Academy. I think I remember exactly which building it was, but it was actually right next to the recruiting, the Marine recruiting station I ended up going to. But I was sitting outside the office. My brother and my sister, we're all always in trouble.

56:08So, again, it was just that family, you know, just getting in trouble constantly. I won't tell their stories, but I was there, and I remember, you know, my mom talking about it. It was really not in a good way, and then the counselor just said, you know, talking about me, he's like, you know, he's going to end up just like them. He's going to be in jail. He's not going to amount to anything. And that's what I just kind of sat there, heard that, and I got up and I left. I never went back there, but I was like, fuck you. You're going to tell me who I am and what I'm going to do. So that was probably part of the motivation.

56:42But I still got in trouble, but I also kind of knew that fine line of what you could do and what you shouldn't do. How do you think you learned that? Just from other people around you, what kind of, you know, the crap they got into, you know, what would happen to them. So I just learned, like, you can only push things so far. like i never like gotten to you know robberies and stuff like that um you know i was just i don't know what it just popped in my head so in iowa when uh just when it was before i got into first grade we had moved to this new house from the other one uh there were that i had the babysitter at i would sneak out like at midnight before first grade and i learned how to first grade.

57:33Before first grade and we lived next to a college so a bunch of you know apartments and stuff like that. A lot of people didn't lock their cars back then. So I'd open the car that's still all the change. I did this for a while and probably I think was about the second month because I wasn't smart enough I'd probably do it like you know almost like every weekend like every Sunday I think is what it was or something like it was consistent. Well these college kids decided to hold a sting on me i think they caught me like at three in the morning

58:09what do you do to a pre-first grader that's uh they can change out of your car oh my god so they they grab me right i'm just like i'm just a little shit i'm just like let me go i'm cussing up a storm and this and that what are you like six oh yeah probably five dude and uh they're just like what the hell are you then one in here you know tell us the truth we're the one stealing we already called the cops and like you know we'll help you out i'm like yeah i've been the one doing it's like why are you doing it well i want to eat because again we a lot of times we didn't that was usually we go to the grocery store and still and still food from the produce section And, you know, we got kicked out of Hy-Vee a lot just because we'd sit there and eat.

58:52At least I did. Especially the strawberries were good. But, man, they're just looking at him like, are you serious? Like, yeah, just, you know, usually I just go buy food with it. So the cops got there. They said, oh, no, he wasn't. They told him that I was out wandering around. They didn't tell me. They told me don't ever do this again. And I didn't. Damn, Ted. But, no, the cops got me. They brought me back to the house. I learned a lot pretty good My mom And the stepdad Like what the hell are you doing What's going on I just started wanting to go for a walk So I got my ass beat But not as bad Just a couple spankings A couple slaps Not the normal beating So it wasn't too bad

59:41I forgot what I was talking about before that But no I just I don't know That just kind of made me Oh, yeah. So I didn't, like, it wasn't no Grand Theft Auto. I didn't do no armed robberies. Didn't, you know, kind of quit stealing after I left Iowa. You know, we used to break into people's houses and garages and steal stuff. But kind of, again, went to Colorado, stopped doing that stuff. Mainly for me, it was just a lot of fights. That was really it. It was about the only biggest thing I was. Because once I, especially when I started working, I was more about making money than doing anything else.

1:00:17I mean, hell, I was 14. I had a Mustang II I bought for$300. The only thing I had to do was put new tires on it and traded that and got an 84 Blazer. You know, it's always, you know, from a kid, I was working. I was always trying to make money. You know, even mowing lawns, I always try to figure out how to make money. Usually that's how you bought your toys, especially G.I. Joes. So I always worked for everything that I had. Nothing was really given, even during Christmas and all that crap. Damn, man. So you were surviving from a very early age. Jeez. All right, let's go back to the Marine Corps.

1:01:04Yeah, so I went to boot camp. It was fun. I enjoyed it. To me, it wasn't hard, but we had 84 recruits and only two drill instructors. So we got away with everything. I mean, normally it wouldn't be that way. It would normally be like 50. But Bill Clinton had a shutdown during that time, so everybody got backlogged. So anyways, got in there, wanted to do infantry. It was just a bullet catcher. Picked up rank pretty fast because, again, I just knew what I wanted to do. I enjoyed that stuff. You excelled at this. Yeah. You know, became an infantry squad leader. You know, became sergeant within like three years.

1:01:44So I was a squad leader within two years. What was it like for you? I mean, let me rephrase that. How close were you with your guys in the Marine Corps? I think for the most part, we were fairly close. I mean, obviously, you had to separate the rank for the most part. You know, you kind of did, kind of didn't. sometimes i i think it's more hurtful to a unit than it is helpful but a lot of guys can't keep that separation of the rank you get too buddy buddy and that's where they want that because they're like i don't really gotta listen to he's my best bud even though he's your squad leader yeah so that's kind of the separation but the most part i think you know we'd always hang out we'd do things what we could but my biggest thing you know was again doing a lot of things i did in school, the wars and all that, reading it with a lot of the problem was, was the guys, the junior guys didn't know what to do if the squad leader got whacked or the platoon sergeant got whacked.

1:02:47So when I went in, my goal was to make sure like my team leaders knew what a platoon sergeant's job was. So they always knew like ranks above them. And I told them, you, you got to tell your guys what your job is and what my job is kind of thing. Cause again, war happens, people die. If you don't know how to handle things and move step up, it makes, you might not know everything, but it starts guiding them in the right direction. So I always made sure, you know, that, yeah, they knew other people's jobs, even radios. Even on the Marine Corps, we saw a radio like maybe once in four years. Of course, that was back in the 90s.

1:03:25Now, I think everyone has a radio. but me being a leader is just making sure that they're, that your juniors are capable of doing your job and somebody else's job above you. That's what a leader does. It doesn't make, doesn't, you don't stand there and just be like, Oh, I'm the all powerful. Like, no, they need to be able to step up and take your spot if something happens. So I enjoyed it. I mean, it was a lot of fun. I've, they kind of made me the remedial guy cause I was kind of, I was an asshole. It wasn't nice. But so, like, all the guys who would fell PT, I was the one they'd send to in the whole platoon.

1:04:00It was fun. What did the stability feel like? I mean, coming from an environment like that and to— Oh, the consistency was awesome. I enjoyed it. It was way better. So, I mean, I was in 29 Palms, so that part kind of sucked. But I didn't really—it doesn't bother me too much because I already had a vehicle. If you didn't have a vehicle, it really sucked. so i don't know if you know where 29 palms is but it's it's a miserable base but training been there training is awesome you can't get any more better training everything's live fire nice yeah so a lot of well a lot of guys that come from like pendleton and other locations they end up whacking other guys because they're not used to adjusting fire and again it's all live fire so you know it was cool be able to call you know mortars we have to actually i got to call on a Cobra one time.

1:04:50You usually don't get to do that as a squad leader. Yeah. But out there, it's different. It was really cool. Did you deploy with the Marine Corps? No, we just did. I just did deployments. Well, I did, but not to combat. I did Okinawa, Thailand, Tinian, and Guam. That was it. That was just all peacetime stuff. How long were you in the Marine Corps? Four years. Four years? Yeah, I was going to re-up. and I was going to do MSG duty. I didn't want to do boot camp crap, but I didn't want to be a general instructor. Even though it was fun, I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to do recruiting duty because I would come home and I would do recruiting duty so you can stay home longer.

1:05:31So I wanted to do MSG duty. Well, I went to the school and about a month into it, then you go in because you do all the psyche eval stuff and then they're looking at everything over. It's a three-month school. Go down, I have my interview, and, you know, they're bringing up things. You know, again, protecting people for the most part. Well, I put one kid in the hospital for about three days, and I think it was my junior year or senior year. But then they asked me, okay, what happened? I told them, well, the guy punched a kid in a wheelchair. and you know he was like some like number one wrestler or something in colorado at the time and you know nobody wanted to step up to him but my was i'm just like no nobody's gonna hit a kid in a wheelchair you know and i'm the name the kid's name was richie you know he's kind of like he didn't really move himself either you know he kind of could and stuff so even from junior high i'd push him around to his classrooms if i saw him anybody picked on him i would dump him nobody what he picked on him like that, but like this guy did.

1:06:38And so my buddy's like, dude, there's no way this guy punched him. And he's like, he's right over there. He's like, you go ask him if he says something, I'm going to floor him. And I remember my buddy Josh asking him, hey, I heard you punched Richie in the chest, and he started laughing. He said, hell yeah, I did, and I just blacked out. Yeah. And I guess for what they said, it took 10 teachers to pull me off of him. Good for you. So they brought that up, and then they brought up my childhood thing with the guy molesting me. So they actually used that against me to kick me out of the MSG school.

1:07:17Are you fucking serious? Mm-hmm. That's when I was like, that's when I said, fuck this, I'm leaving the Corps.

1:07:26Holy shit. Why the fuck would they use that against you? I have no idea. How did they find out about it? Because it was in the police records. because even though it's your kid, but they can look all the way back. Shit, man. Yep. So you felt betrayed again. Mm-hmm. And you got out. Yep. And then once she knew, well, that kicked me out. Because what they said, they said, you need to go see a shrink and get this dealt with before you can go over there. I'm like, deal with what? It's not my fucking problem. It's not my fault. and I said, fuck this. So then I got shipped back to my unit. My ex found out.

1:08:10She got a hold of me and then I was in Okinawa. And then I came back and we got married.

1:08:19Shit, man. So you left all that stability for what felt like a betrayal again. And then what did you do from there? Well, I got out. um went up she got stationed in washington she was in the army she had joined and uh so i was stationed in washington i tried to be i tried to do the whole uh dependent thing tried for about two months i couldn't dude i had to work i was i was like man i'm gonna go to subway i gotta go do something and finally i just went into heating air conditioning actually started off as a gas piper so just you know doing gas lines and stuff like that and then 9-11 hit um i remember you know getting ready to go to work and watching you know hearing about the first plane and watching the second plane i just looked looked at her said we're going to war this is an attack and uh so i told uh um i called my boss or my boss said hey i'm not coming in i'm in the recruiting station.

1:09:25So I went through recruiting. Of course, they were pissed. They're like, oh, this ain't no big deal. I was like, you guys have no idea what's going on, do you? So I went there, and I'm talking with them, and they just kind of look at me. I already had a 10 % disability rating. They're like, we ain't going to need you. We don't need no broke. I get it. They're like, we don't need no broke dick. We're going to have so many people join us. I was like, man, that's fucked up. So whatever, I went back. and she ended up getting orders to go to Kuwait, move back to Colorado. This I didn't really know about contracting yet.

1:10:01So I actually started going to school for heating and air conditioning. The money was good. I mean, I was making between$5 ,000 to$1 ,000 a day. So it really wasn't money. It was really why I did the job. But I just hated it. I mean, it just felt like something was missing. I'd just be pissed off every day at work. like you work your own pace so it ain't like i had so many things because you got paid by the job whatever you got done is what you got paid for so when she was over there she found out about contracting and that's when uh and then uh my didn't i she came back in uh 2003 i think early but i still had to finish my school still wanted to finish it and then she went and then i stayed And then once I graduated, I went over in July 2003 to Kuwait for my first contracting.

1:10:54And I was only making 13 bucks an hour. What was the first contract? Doing the gate guard stuff for Camp Doha. I got in a lot of trouble there too. What kind of trouble? Well, you'd have guys coming back. You'd have dudes coming from Iraq, from the combat zone. You could see their combat units. They're coming down just for like R &R. Well, if you didn't have some kind of thing, piece of paper from some colonel or something saying, you know, you're allowed to come on the base, they wouldn't let you on. So I'm just like, you know, these dudes are driving, you know, from there to here. I'm like, and you see your highest ranking individuals here and I'd tell them what's going on.

1:11:37I just let them on. I just say, you know, you're going to have a big issue getting off if you don't get this. They probably won't let you off. but have a good time and I was like just please do me a favor just don't tell them who let you on because I won't be able to do it for anybody else well they finally figured it out right on man so so they put me out they took me off gate put me interior stuff and it was just like like whatever but to me it was just bullshit it was like these are coming you guys are here in Kuwait you can go out in town at the freaking mall and hang out these guys are coming from a combat zone you can't let them come here and hang out do some r &r for a day like screw that yeah so yeah so where do you go from there um that's when uh you started looking at the contracts that are going on again you're looking oh three to oh four you know that's when blackwater really blew up with the the four guys who got dragged and hung on the bridge and stuff like that and so trying to find companies that reliable contract companies because there are so many fly-by-night ones i mean ones that would actually they do drive-bys on military bases i don't know if you heard about that stuff yeah some of these contracts i mean americans doing it's like what are you guys doing so what do you mean drive-by yeah like going by military and shooting at them are you serious when the hell was this happening oh like the 0405 like really the wild west stuff holy shit yeah it was stupid man so a lot of it's just like so you had to be careful um there's one that i know what a couple of the guys that i was doing security with one of them was named little he actually ended up going with blackwater but um but he was going to go in there and do security work and i was like dude you're not you don't have enough training for that you know you're going from an admin guy in the army to doing psd work over there and only going to give you a two-week train up now him and his own team i'm getting whacked like a month in damn um but it was some of the other ones again they're paying you like 90 grand like for a month two months at a time but some of them they're not even going there with real guns they're going like broomsticks painted as guns and all kinds so you got to be very careful yeah i remember i mean i fell into one of those not quite that that bad but uh i remember my first contract was this one with armor group did you ever hear armor group was that uk yeah i lasted about two weeks there and i was like get me the fuck out of here now and um and then and and then i wound up getting picked up for you know for the oga program but but geez dude yeah so ended up going with uh blackwater put my resume in just before my, because I could have left earlier.

1:14:35I mean, a lot of guys, they would break their contract. But again, to me, you sign up for something, you finish it. So I just finished it out, went home, went to the training after July. So sometime after July in 04 or something like that, I went to BW, didn't know who I was going to be working for. You know, you just, Blackwater just picks you up, you know, and then did the training. And next thing you know, I'm overseas doing work. What contract was this? This agency. This was GRS? Nope, COBRA. COBRA? So I didn't know about GRS at the time. Because you're supposed to, so yeah, so I went there and then they kind of, they were talking about it, you know, like, I was like, what was this GRS thing?

1:15:19They're like, oh, you know, they're doing like the mobile stuff. I'm like, okay. so i get over to um uh afghanistan and that's when you know you start learning things and you know knowing what's going on and i actually end up getting airport duty i didn't really say a whole lot was going on out there but there's some fun transfers going on but so we actually got it was a benefit to me so we would actually do some escorts for some of the agency personnel as cobras even though you're not supposed to because they're they're going we're going out the airport so they would just kind of jump in with us we do you know we still had to do the sdrs there and back and stuff like that so i got to know the town as as a cobra normally those guys don't see anything but to and from the airport well when somebody says you can't do something i'm gonna say well i'm approving wrong so every time i would come i'd go to the the tl for the grs here's my resume this is my background it's like dude you have to be of eight years sf like I can do better.

1:16:20I can do what you guys can do. So, 07, they finally said, all right, go and do it. Because I got tired of it. I mean, I was coming in all the time. I was like, I can drive around, right? So, I mean, but I had in the Marine Corps, I went to urban warfare. So, I was an urban warfare instructor and stuff like that. That's like my highest speed thing I did. And I was the assault climber. So, you'd set up the lanes for battalions and climb cliffs and stuff like that at night. So I had some specialized, but nothing like SF guys. But anyways, so we went to Blackwater. I did, I think at the time, it was like a four-month train up.

1:16:59Yeah. Real quick, I just want to educate the audience. So when we're talking about, back in those days, I don't know, it might still be like this. There was the COBRA contract and the CAPO contract under the OGA umbrella, other government agency, which is the CIA contract. And so the COBRA sector is basically a static security base. You're assigned to a specific base and you do all the perimeter and internals for that specific location. And with that being said, before we move on to the CAPO program, let's take a quick break.

1:17:51all right tag we're back from the break we're getting ready you just got picked up for the capo program the mobile mobile program uh at the agency so it wasn't it wasn't really smooth because this was like oh seven and uh i had lasik done when i was in 2002 two my eyesight was like really good like 2015 vision so we start going through it start doing all the track i can't remember exactly the how did it the flow but i think we did like the house stuff with the qualification at the last week of it and everything else like the shooting so i was doing really good and all that was passing you know the hardest one i don't know if you remember was the uh the 25 yard shot concealed four seconds two shots that was a kind of a pain i was never really good with pistol but i was good enough to pass dude i'm just i just want to hear your whole training experience because and i don't want to diminish anything that you've done or any conventional guys at all but i mean i came out of the seal teams and i had maybe about a year ish break where i tried to do some business stuff and failed miserably and then wound up at that shitty armor group one and then wound up getting picked up but i thought that that training package i think i think it was about a month long then yeah it was tough right around the same time frame because i left in 06 so it was 07 08 maybe that i got in there yeah and um that was fucking tough dude those drills walls were stiff.

1:19:30Yeah. And. The timing, holy crap. Working with new people, working with other branches that did things different. I mean, that was, that was challenging coming from where I came from with all that training. And so for you, I mean, what did you think of that? I mean, for me, it was, I guess maybe just being molded by the core. You just kind of adapt and just do it. Is this how they want it done? I just do it that way. Because I think even that night, I think even like Roan and Jack kind of went back to their SEAL stuff. Just kind of like because they were moving on the side of me going down. It was a little bit different than what we were.

1:20:10But I just started kind of flowing with them. They started flowing with me. And then they kind of broke off and did their thing together, which, again, I still think is what Roan was 20-year SEAL. So I think you're still going to go back to some of that stuff. but you still have i think since you know the training of it is so long you all have a base to fall back on so you kind of have an idea what the guys to the left and right are going to do so i think that's what helpful but you know me doing like the vehicles and stuff like that i mean that was all new but um you know who jake banta is yeah so i met him doing cobra so i had a little bit of insight on a lot of what grs was doing the training wise so he kind of told me okay if you're gonna go do this here here take this go practice this stuff so i had 40 acres i had more gun range so i did a lot of practicing in fact you know you got paid pretty good but ammo is a lot cheaper than too so i had a bunch of ammo i was just training every day getting my speed up getting all that doing my pistols so when i went there i already had an idea i pretty much knew what they were going to do except for vehicles cqb i wasn't worried about because you know that was a month-long train up i did just in the marine corps for cqb um so that for me that was easy it's just i just couldn't shoot everybody like i did in the marine corps so you know then the the hooded box drill that was freaking epic yeah that was fun i did enjoy that part yeah i thought that that was a really good exercise that was that was what did you find to be the most challenging um i think dealing with the staffers other than that i mean the training um just trying to remember all the all the stuff so fast and you know just the the wording on you know the vehicles you know content just getting that knowing what to do how to protect the package and stuff like that that was kind of the hardest stuff um because a lot of that stuff kept changing from class to class for the most part you know tie them to you don't tie to them keep you know and then the the deeter thing was kind of a pain in the ass yeah but it is what it is um so we get to the final and my eyes started going bad like i woke up and i couldn't like see that glass right that the uh your water bottle right there Oh, shit.

1:22:41I was like, holy crap. So I went into the eye doctor and paid like 500 bucks to get a prescription right away. So I could see. So I went through it, got it going. Next morning, changed. So every day I had to keep going back to the eye doctor to pass. And then finally my eyes, I don't know, about a month later finally settled down. And so I kind of fought with that all the way up through, even through Benghazi. my eyeballs, but I could always make sure I could see and stuff like that. So I ended up getting like the hard, soft contact lenses and that really. So I wore contacts over there quite a bit.

1:23:18But it was that week. I don't know what was going on, but come to find out, sorry, and I think it was 2017, about three months before I had to have transplants in my eyes, I had cornicosis. What is that? Deterioration of your cornea. So I had to get Intax, and there was something else. I forgot exactly what it was. So they take these two plastic things, and they reshape your eye. So both my eyes got these plastic things in them. And then they put some other drop in there, hardens up your lens and stuff like that. My eyes just kept fluctuating, and finally my right eye really started getting bad again.

1:24:08And then they went in, my right eye is an artificial lens. Damn. So the fact that I could even still see, even the eye doctor, you know, they put, I guess they're doing like, oh, they did a whole study on me in the eye doctor school. No. In the eye doctor school. I had like. School of optometry. Yeah, that one. I had like seven different surgeries on them. So. How many people made it through your vetting? Do you remember? Or was it TDC? It was TDC. I think only one person didn't pass. No shit? Yeah. Damn, when I went through, there was only about three or four of us that made it through. Yeah.

1:24:52And everybody else failed. It wasn't very bad. I think it was only like five of us anyways. Oh, okay. Yeah. Wow. So I almost failed because they gave me a mask where I couldn't wear my glasses. so when I was going in, they had the package dressed almost exactly like the aggressor, so I went in the room. I was a 50-50 shot, and I ended up shooting the package, but I remember luckily the other guys backed me up, and they said he kept asking you guys for a mask for his glasses, so they didn't send me home. I had to go back through it one more time, so I got one more chance to go through it, and they said, you better make it 100 % clean, talking about tense dude yeah like now the eyes are just on me yeah so but i ended up making it through clean and it was a they they they ran me through the ringer on nose man because again they're like you can't shoot the package yeah i mean there's no second chance you're done yeah that's i think you're the only person i heard that got a second chance at that who was it uh i want I think it was Dusty was doing the train up.

1:26:05I remember him. Oh, yeah. He was running me. What the fuck? I was like, dude. And all the other guys stepped up, said, hey, he asked you for it. It wouldn't fit. Damn. Well, what did you think of the job when you got over there? Pretty boring. Where did you go? Actually, so my first two trips were actually in Iraq. Okay. the first one was the VVIP and then I was at the villa the villa was just dumb no I think I might have did three trips two trips were at the villa it was just dumb I didn't do anything it was just going to the gym I did like a midnight shift just in case the chief of station woke up in the middle of the night and somebody had to take him but they wouldn't call me anyways they were just the other guy so I was just like whatever so but you know it was uh we had a couple rocket attacks i remember uh it was july and uh not again it's only i don't think any of the uh grs guys knew i was even there as grs honestly because i was just go hang out the cobra guys because they're you know they're the cool guy crew i was just you know anyways so i remember being in the gym and they're getting we're getting hit and you know you go into the bunker and i heard this one and just come and you you knew it hit so i could i come out of the bunker and you know their staff's like get it back in here i was like you know whatever so i go out and you can see went went down ended up hitting um one of the trailers and it's still smoky still all that crap so i start yelling anybody in there anybody in there start going in and end up being uh i forgot what company he worked for now but he ended up having a piece of shrapnel just sticking out of his chest.

1:27:53So I kind of grabbed him. He was trying to find his way out, but, I mean, it jacked up the whole front. There was no stairs, no nothing, no more. So I pulled him out, got him out, and I set him down. I was like, hey, is there anyone else in there? I said, just kind of sit down and relax. I didn't want to lay him down, so I sat him. I said, don't move. Stay here. Is anyone else in there? He's just kind of like, you know, his bell was wrong. You know, he got two pods attached. So I go back in there and I start yelling, hey, anybody in here? Go back, the other one, anyone in here? Nobody was in there.

1:28:22So I go back out. Dude's gone. And I'm thinking, oh, shit. So I'm like, now I'm looking for this guy. He's got this piece of shrapnel stuck it out. And then go around the corner and actually a couple of the GRS guys are headed that way and got a hold of him and sat him down. So I'm just kind of standing there, you know, kind of watching. You know, you just kind of like, you know, kind of listen to everything going on. Already knew the trailer was kind of clear. That was the only one that got hit. and I don't want to say his name I remember him looking up you get GRS you get the hell out of here I went back to the gym starting working out again so it was funny that I went to go back to do the recall and he was there he's like were you GRS he's like he remembered me some dude just standing there he's like were you GRS why didn't you say something I didn't need to.

1:29:15You already, he already had him. The medical kit was, I just, what else am I going to do? Jeez. So, and then, uh, then at the, again, didn't do anything there. Then over at the VVIP, really didn't do anything there either. What's the VVIP? It was just like the, uh, just part of the airport where they would fly in and fly out and stuff. Oh, okay. But we would just run people to the airport. I mean, we do some of what they call black ops. First time I've learned about what actual black ops are. I was like, oh, okay. Anyways, that's the only thing we did out of there. And, uh, but I, one of the, they called it the white house.

1:29:59It was where, where they did a lot of the, you know, really say what they did in there, but a lot of explosives were in there. Well, one of the guys was in there welding and a spark hit one of the RPG G blankets and just, so we went over there. We had to get that guy out. And really that was about the biggest thing, but I was over at the, I mean, he got jacked up. He was not the front of him, but the whole backside of him just got cooked. Damn. Yeah. So he was, he was pretty jacked up. Got him out of there. But what was that one GB base, Eagle base? So I was, I was there doing, I think I get it in Iraq.

1:30:41I got to get all the shit details. I mean, I was the only non-SF guy there. So, like, you know, this is Antig, whatever. So, I got to work out, you know, with those guys quite a bit. And that's when I, I can't remember his name, but what'd they call him, the Wolf of Baghdad? That one tank commander, Marine? I don't know. We have to look him. So, I was there on watch that night. It was kind of cool because they had to be on the radio. I kind of help because sometimes their comms wouldn't be all that great, so we'd kind of transmit it if they couldn't hear. Well, I was there that night when he was in the lead, and he and him getting whacked, one of the GB guys.

1:31:25And so that was, you know, he was a pretty well-known Marine at the time. And that was like when I first, when they were like saying, oh, he was a Marine, but I knew where he was working at. But when I saw it in the paper, it didn't say anything about what he was. I was like, okay, this is how they're doing this stuff. Gotcha. So it was kind of a weird. Yeah. Like, oh, okay. So that's when I finally, I kind of, my wife at the time didn't know who I was working for. You didn't tell your wife? Mm-mm. But after I saw that, that's why I said, I'm going to tell her. Just because. What'd she say? She's like, oh, okay.

1:32:07You know, no big deal. You doing what for the CA? All right, whatever. I'm going to go play tennis. Yeah. So, no, that was, yeah. So that was an experience. But, again, those two trips, I was just like, this is so stupid. Then I got sent to Afghanistan for the first time as GRS. And, again, I'd been in Afghanistan for a couple years now, you know. So I knew the area. So when you get there, the newer guys, usually they have to go out, you know, they're driving around knowing the town. My hardest thing was knowing the street names, the circles and all that stuff. But I got it fairly quick. And I remember, I don't really say who it was again.

1:32:50I don't like putting names out there. But you're not supposed to be playing a lot of Call of Duty. You know you play a lot of Call of Duty. He was GRS. So I was in, I'm sitting there playing. He comes in. He's like, what the fuck, Tig? What are you doing? What, you think you know the roads now? I'm like, yeah. It's only been like a week and a half. Like, that's it. You're doing your test now. If you fail, you're out. Okay. Went in. He tried to get me. He tried to stump me as best he could.

1:33:20Because he didn't realize. I think he had just kind of shown up. But that was when I was over in. Actually, I started going to Herat. I did a lot in Herat. So I don't think he. I got a feeling I know who that was. Yeah. Heavy cop. Yeah. He was second on my list. Yeah.

1:33:43So anyway, so he goes, he's like, how the hell do you know the city so well? I was like, I've been doing this since 04 out here. Oh.

1:33:54I was like, you know, I knew the damn city pretty good. I just didn't really know the names and the circles. I just knew how to get around. So the hardest part for me was just knowing the names and the circles. so how long were you you went direct right you you so i didn't go direct um until actually it was like mid 2011 so i was over in uh pakistan when the constant got attacked there and uh i guess from from that one uh a couple other guys that were like high in the food chain for GRS that were direct or whatever. Saw my actions there that day, and that's when they said they want me to go and do direct.

1:34:40What happened that day? The consulate got attacked. Nothing really major happened. It was a dude came in with a car bomb initially, blew up. Then there was a second one that came in. I think six attackers came out, and they were just kind of shooting in the air. So we're inside the consulate and trying to figure out, okay, we're trying to get a hold of the State Department guys. Hey, what's going on? What do you see on your cameras? They told us post one had been already breached. And we're like, that's serious. So they're already inside the compound. So me and the other guy, you know, our gear was technically in our vehicle.

1:35:19That's where we just left it, you know. After that day, we never left our stuff in the vehicles no more. So we ended up rounding up our own, some other body armor, another weapon system. Then we go out. They haven't even breached the freaking outer perimeter yet. So we come out of the door like we're ready to shoot. They're like, well, they're talking about bad intel. Holy crap, guys. So he goes to the front. I go to the back. They're just kind of shooting up. We're being told that the attackers, they're in police and military attire. so I got the back corner of the consulate and it's pretty close to some other buildings and I'm seeing dudes running around and cops and military uniform left and right am I going these are bad guys they're not I mean they're not looking up I mean they got their guns but they're moving people so we're just kind of standing there and uh there's a big ass tree so we couldn't engage um the uh there's a couple ds agents that was up there I think there was two DS agents up there with me and the other guy, and then a couple more on one of the other buildings.

1:36:22I think there's only like three buildings at the consulate, maybe two. But then probably about five minutes into this thing, just they lit off like 1 ,500 pounds of TNT. Collapsed the building. Dude, it was pretty crazy. And then they asked me if I got knocked out or not i remember getting up off the ground but i don't remember if i was knocked out or not uh i just remember a guy got smacked by one of those the big ac panels and uh yeah that was other than that that's really all that happened to me body parts from these guys are flying all over the place the funniest one actually is two well maybe not funny but it is funny one of the dudes got you know the fences had the the gaps in them one of the dudes body was just like impelled the other guy had his upper torso finger in his nose and it was just kind of funny yeah that's all they always are is finger in the nose

1:37:19but i mean that that was really it that happened but after that i guess they didn't get you don't hesitate i guess they're like oh you're right and go to direct and that's kind of when i went to direct where did you go when you did you go right to libya no um i pretty much went back to pack went there a couple more times and then uh then it was over to libya so from there we flew flew in flew into maghazi that evening and actually we started driving with the chief of station from benghazi when we landed up to tripoli so we stopped in mistrada stayed the night you know i've never really knew anything about tripoli except for freaking the marine course song, you know, so we're just kind of driving, uh, taking turns, you know, through that hotel.

1:38:09I don't think anybody slept. You know, it's just a hotel. It ain't like it's a safe location. Yeah. You're just trusting the locals, man. So, you know, we did the fire watch thing and, uh, yeah, get up to Tripoli. Um, we stayed in like another hotel. Then we opened up a compound. You opened it. Yeah. I didn't realize that. Yeah. So the agency was there first. Actually, we went to the old embassy, went around there, and I picked up a couple of the security procedure books that they left behind. It says classified on it. Whatever. I picked them up, made sure I brought them back. I don't know how.

1:38:54Everything was still in them. I guess they couldn't read English. So I brought those back to our compound. But now then stayed there. They found a, yeah, then helped open up the embassy. Then I left. And after, then I went back. When I came back, that's when I went back down to Benghazi, which is good because I don't like the flagpole. So at the time, it wasn't the flagpole because there was only four of us that did all the GRS guys that went up there. Then as I was leaving, two more guys came in because they were getting ready to open up the, I actually got to walk through the other, the permanent CIA annex.

1:39:35And again, I think it was like eight houses, all had pools. I mean, it was nice. So that's the one that they aired on TV saying it was the embassy that they broke into. They're jumping off the balcony into the pool. That was the agency's compound. Interesting. I never went over there. Yeah, it was nice. I heard it was. But yeah, then I went down there and yep. did a lot of stuff down there. They went down and we did one of the yellow cake sites, I guess, for Gaddafi where you had a bunch of the nuclear crap down there. Other than that, we did some runs to I don't think I'm going to say Bernd, I don't remember, but the city close to Egypt.

1:40:18I can't remember the name of it now. But other than that, it was pretty relaxed. I mean, even in Tripoli, didn't really get too many stink eyes like you did in other places, but Benghazi was different, man. They'd come and shake your hand. Like, thanks for your help. Thanks for getting them out. If you're in a coffee shop or getting food, somebody would probably try to buy it for you. No kidding. It was weird. They were very grateful. So definitely a different environment than anywhere else I've been. How long were you there before that happened? So the first two trips, the first trip was three months, and then the second one was two months.

1:41:03Then my twins were born premature, so that kind of pulled me out early. So if it wasn't for that, I probably wouldn't have been in Benghazi when 9-11 happened. So I was on my fourth trip down there when 9-11 hit. And that last time, I mean, it was fairly quiet for the most part. I think Iran had just kidnapped a few people at that time. But a lot of some politicians, you know, they're trying to kill them. It was the first election in like 30 years. The police chiefs, I think a couple of police chiefs got whacked when I was there. Other than that, I mean, threat towards us really wasn't there. But Bob, you know, it was just, I don't know.

1:41:48So it's hard to explain how, what, yeah, it's just hard to explain Bob. Just very risk adverse and really, I don't think he understood our capabilities. Can you tell the audience who Bob was? So Bob was the chief of base in Benghazi. The head guy. Yeah, the head guy. So, well, in Benghazi, then he had the chief of station, which oversees the whole country. But yeah, he was the head guy in Benghazi at the time. And, you know, when I talked about earlier about the, even before the consulate, do you remember when the British ambassador got attacked? No. So he got attacked in between one of my trips.

1:42:29And again, Bob was there, but a different team leader. And Bob told him, no, you can't go. And the team leader at that time told him to pound sand and they left. And there's the only reason why one of the security guys even survived. Because they were able to render him medical aid. Right on. And there was a time when we had the deputy chief and a linguist. They were probably almost about an hour away from us, and they got hemmed up at a checkpoint. And we're like, you know, we need to get over there, get in the area. We don't go in there guns blazing. It's just you don't do that. It's just in case something goes south out there at the checkpoint, we can help intervene.

1:43:09He wouldn't even let us leave the compound to go help to get in the area. That's just the type of person he was. Man. So, again, for like the stand-down order, it was just him. And, well, there's more to it now than I know of thanks to Sarah.

1:43:26Did you know Sarah when you were over there? Oh, yeah. Worked with her in a few other places. She likes getting people whacked. Yeah, she does. She's really good at it. She still likes getting people whacked. I see people trying to go after her, especially on X and stuff. Oh, you're fake. Like, dude, she's far from that. And I worked with her in a lot of different places. We got some people whacked. We just brought her on the team. Yeah. Did she tell you that? Uh-uh. Yeah, I'm pretty excited about it. We've gotten pretty tight ever since that first interview. She's freaking, she knows what she's talking about.

1:44:00Yeah, she does, man. She does. That's awesome. Yeah, I'm really excited about it. So you've worked with her several times in different locations. Where else did you work with her at?

1:44:15mainly in Pech. I think that was my funnest place. Why do you say that? Oh, man, because we got some HVTs whacked in that place. Nice. And what's cool, a lot of the places you go, they don't tell you about what you're doing, why you're doing it for the most part. They're like, oh, yeah, we're going after this guy. This is how we're going to do it. This is what, you know, I need you to take this, do this. So you got more involved in actually getting these dudes whacked. it was it was awesome nice so i think it was it was like you're always working i mean it was it was always work you liked working oh yeah it was great you didn't like the flagpole booze booze cruises no time just goes by too slow yeah i didn't like that either i like to work yeah so that's what you're over there for man over there to work get things done you know i remember We almost got killed at a restaurant, but an asset called about a half hour before the meet and said, it's an ambush.

1:45:16They're going to kill you when you're there. So we pulled. We still went and did counter surveillance. And sure as shit, they pulled in there and went in. But their lead guy, they're stupid because they all got out of the Haji van. And they're standing there. And the one guy walked in and walked out. and he could tell he was throwing his hands up, and they got back in and they left. There were six of them, all AKs, Haji'd out. Well, let's get into the night of the September 11th. You ready? What day is that?

1:45:56Yeah. What do you want to know, the short version or the long version? The long version.

1:46:05So, well, Sarah was there, and actually I was doing this one, kind of like gathering stuff. She showed me how to use this, one of the equipments, and I ended up actually having that there when we went. I took the deputy, the chief of base, deputy chief of base, and another case officer that morning over to a meeting with the local intel service, which was the first time they ever met them, and it was the first time they ever been to this location. would actually happen to be right across the street from the consulate on the second floor. And so I had this thing, you know, it was running, you know, collecting all the data, people are on their phone and stuff.

1:46:41And, you know, and I actually, I took it in the office with me because I went upstairs and just kind of, because I just want to see what they could see. And I'm just remembering red flags going off. Like they have this thing right across the street. They can see inside the company, you can see everything. I was like, this is just weird. And, you know, I sat there for a little bit, then I went outside. because the vehicle was just out in the parking lot, unsecured for the most part. So I didn't want to leave it alone. I was the only one. So I went back out there, kind of hung out in the vehicle, just watching the door and watching, you know, whatever you could.

1:47:15Well, they come out and they're talking and, you know, and we're like, hey, you need to take us over to the consulate. It's like, okay, no problem. And as we're going, I come to find out that they got intel that there was going to be an attack on a government facility that day. So the ambassador was there. He just got in there the night before. So it was kind of like to inform him. This was early morning still. I think it was even before breakfast. It was pretty early. Go over there, let him know just in case he was going to plan on doing any more off-base because I think Roan and Jack had a movement with him that day because we were augmenting our security.

1:47:57We shut everything down so we could help them on their moves. So I think that kind of shut one of his moves off that was supposed to be off base. So I kind of come back and, you know, I take that thing that I had, and I was like, that's probably pretty good. And I downloaded it all into a USB drive. And I put it in my locker waiting for Sarah to come back because it was, you know, that's the targeting package kind of a thing. So anyways, not thinking of it. Rest of the day goes by normal. I think Oz was the only one who had a movement that day besides me with the female case officer. And it was like some kind of meeting she couldn't cancel.

1:48:38And the next morning, me and Rome were supposed to be part of the detail that took the ambassador to the Persian oil golf company. And when Rome was talking with them and they're like, well, we're just going to let the local driver drive us. Do the route. We're like, no, we're not. so I was like I think I know exactly what they're talking about you know because again I've been there longer I've droned you know and actually I think I did a meet there once but anyway so I went there we found exactly where I was at we did a couple routes kind of checking um like checkpoints or block roads because they were still kind of doing each neighborhood had its own little click so we're trying to make sure which neighborhood we could flow through nice we figured it out on our way back.

1:49:22Rowan calls the DS agent. He says, hey, we got the route. Do you want us to stop by now and we can go over it? Or do you want to wait till the morning? Because we're like, we're not, the driver is not going to dictate how we're going to go. I mean, you got an HVT with you and you're going to let a local? Like, oh, hell no. So they said, nah, we'll just wait till tomorrow. And we were driving by the consulate and, you know, it's nice and quiet and nobody's out in the road. There was no big protest. and you're looking between 839 or something like that. We go back. We get to the team room. Team leader hushes in there and kind of let him know what's going to happen because we were probably going to leave early so we can go and explain to them our route and time it and all that stuff so that they know where we're going in case something happens.

1:50:11I go to bed. They're still up there jibber-jabbering. um jack he's on the on the computer talking skyping with his wife and you know he just found out that uh he his wife was pregnant i think with the third kid and you know i'm just kind of getting undressed and next thing you know here hey all grs to the team room just that call this is from hushes on the radio there's kind of like okay so i just kind of get out of bed, you know, go to put my flip-flops on and like, I need all GRs to the team room now. So I start moving a little bit quicker. Hey, Jack, I'll go figure out what's going on. Go out there.

1:50:51And so I'm in building four. Then you have building three, which is the command post. And you have building one or building two, which is Tonto and OD's house. and then building one, which is actually where Oz was staying, which was the chow hall. That was in the very front of the compound or the front gate, I guess you could say. You can hear gunfire going off, stuff like that. You can hear a couple explosions, but it's Benghazi. There's a wedding hall. I'm trying to tell people the wedding hall right there. You'd hear people gun, you know, they'd shoot stuff off. Then he comes up to me and says, hey, we need to get ready to roll.

1:51:29The consulate's been overrun. A lot of people kind of, they don't understand, like they think it's being attacked. No, he's saying it's been overrun. So that means they're already in the compound by the time we get the call. Inside the gates. Inside the gates. So that's how fast it happened. So I run back, tell Jack, we get our stuff on, we come out. Tonto and OD, they were the QRF, so they're dressed, ready to go. And I think Roan grabbed one of the vehicles and Tonto grabbed the other one. And so they were already staged by the time me and Jack finally came out. And that's when I overheard, you know, how many tackers are there.

1:52:09They're saying anywhere between 50 to 150. So they start all over the place. And I'm thinking, you know, we got an M4. So I ran into the team room. I grabbed a grenade launcher and the belt-fed machine gun, brought them out, you know, started doing function checks on that, went in the vehicle. I'm in the backseat. Rowan's the driver. Jack is the passenger. or just kind of checking, checking the trigger, making sure I know which way's safe, which way's not safe, then checking the gain launch and checking the trigger.

1:52:40And we're just kind of still sitting there, and it's like going, these guys, they're digging in. They're going to get the initiative. We're going to lose it. So I get out of the vehicle, and I remember it's Bob Hush and the deputy chief of base. They're all on the front porch. And I was out on the passenger side. And I said, hey, you know, we got to get over there. We got to get over there now. We're losing the initiative. It's going to take us a lot harder to get onto this compound and arrest you these guys. And Bob goes, no, stand down. You need to wait. I'm like, what the fuck? What the fuck are we waiting for?

1:53:15You know, there's nothing to wait for. We need to get over there. And he's like, we need to come up with the plan. We can't come up with the plan fucking sitting here. We got to come up with the plan with our eyes on the target. There's nothing we can do from here. We know the layout of the compound. And that's when Hush goes, TIG, you know, shut up, get back in the car. So fine, I get back in and, you know, it's armored. So they couldn't hear what's going on. I closed the door and I got out. I said, hey, Bob just told us to stand down. And you could just tell right then. They're like, he's not going to let you go.

1:53:47That's what it meant. Well, what Sarah and what OD would have been doing throughout the years is he is actually digging into actually what happened more than the investigation. Well, weeks prior to the attack, 17 Feb, I told Bob, the commander, I told Bob that if something ever happened, they were never going to show up. That night, Bob actually got a hold of him before he told me to stand down that they weren't going to show up. That's why we were told to stand down. And then for them to sit and say, oh, there's no evidence of a stand-down order, what the hell is that? But again, how can you rely on, it's a hostage rescue is what it is.

1:54:27You're going to send 17 Feb in there, which is worse than sending the Boy Scouts in to do a hostage rescue. Some of these guys watching the State Department train don't even know how to reload a freaking rifle. So it's like we are the only, like in the movie, we are the only help that they had. We're the only support that could have made a difference. And that stand-down order is a 1 % guarantee is why Ambassador Stephen and Sean Smith didn't make it. They're dead because of that stand-down order. Damn, man. Well, people say, well, how do you know that for a fact? Well, they would have been engaging with us instead of setting the buildings on fire.

1:55:06They died of smoke inhalation. They didn't die from blunt force trauma, a gunshot. They died from the smoke from the fire. so so we end up you know it came down to I think it was Alec on the radio the State Department guy said if you guys don't get here now we're all gonna fucking die and that was it Rowan just put it in drive we started driving Hush gets on the radio wait wait wait I'm coming we were leaving his ass we were done waiting we were done asking for permission and Hush is the team leader just for the audience Hush is the team leader for the GR The terrorist unit in Benghazi. And his name's not classified because it's in the Congress congressional.

1:55:53It's a call sign anyways. Yeah. So we leave. We get over there. I immediately engage with the grenade launcher. Fired three rounds, which that disperses the attackers, which has allowed us to move on to the compound. Who did you fire them at? The attackers. So they were way out of range from the grenade launcher, but it's still, they didn't, I think they may have thought it was mortars coming in. They don't, you know, from what I heard, they had no idea what it was because they'd never been shot at like that with something like that before. It was just a 40 Mike Mikes. So they dispersed. I went back to the vehicle, put the grenade launcher in because I had no sling for it.

1:56:36Normally I had to attach, just those things, you know, you do your own debrief for yourself, right? I should attach it right back to the gun. So it was what happened. Normally it was attached to one of the rifles, but we had a temporary team leader that came in and took him off, took it off the rifle. Cause he's like, well, nobody else can use it. Just grab the damn gun that's had it. It doesn't matter. Anyways, so I put it in there. Otherwise, I'd have had it with me too the whole night. But grabbed the belt fed and then Roan and Jack just followed me. We went down the road. Paused just outside because, again, we haven't really heard from State Department yet.

1:57:14I just kind of got on because now we're on the same channel as them. I got on the radio just to let them know, hey, we are coming on. Kind of like, hey, don't shoot us. so when i said that roan and roan got up and just started taking off jack got up moved in as i was starting to follow behind him because you know the agency we have all the high tech gear right you know we got the throat things the the brain things that feed the radio right

1:57:40no we have the stool we have the old school clip-ons worse than freaking law enforcement so i'm trying to clip this radio back on my gear because for a whole lot of speed so they're running in front of me. Next thing you know, I started getting shot at. So I dropped down. The militiamen that were with us, well, actually at that corner when we showed up, they actually followed us down. I didn't realize that at first. They opened up on fire on whoever's firing at me because I was kind of looking down. So I didn't know where the gunfire came from. So I dropped. Well, while they were firing, I was able to move up to a Jersey barrier, get the machine gun up.

1:58:13And I was getting ready to start to put my nods back. I was ready to put my nods down when some local just walks out of the darkness, hands up, 17 Feb, don't shoot, don't shoot. It's just like, where the fuck did this guy just come from? You know, again, I don't know, no uniform, no nothing. So he could have been the one shooting, I have no idea. So I look at the guy next to me, the little Haji guy, you know, he looks at me, and he just kind of shrugs. I'm like, okay, whatever, I don't derka derka. So I just kind of got up, moved to the compound, Um, and, uh, first thing you see is the main village is engulfed in flames, black smoke coming out.

1:58:52Uh, the building off to the right, which ended up being the 17th Feb Martyrs Brigade. That was the, that was the QRF that the state department was relying on in case something happened. So they had four guys that stayed there. Um, but from what I heard, they actually, those four guys actually did shoot back a little bit before they took off. So from what I heard, they actually did try to fight. I don't know for sure. But anyways, that building was completely engulfed. And I just kept, you know, going as I'm going forward, there's a guy walking from that building. And I don't know, you know, who's all in the State Department compound.

1:59:26No weapon, no nothing. Just walking, you know, flip-flops, white shirt, just nonchalant. I'm just like, this is so freaking, had this out here just happened. Oh, and before we got down there all the way, we had a local who came out of his house and was, had his cell phone in his hand and was yelling at us in Durka Durka. we're just looking at, we're like telling them, get back, get back. And finally we just had to keep going. So that guy's shooting at us, this guy here. I'm like, what the hell? It's just some weird stuff. So you can't just shoot anybody. We're not cops. We just don't shoot anybody.

2:00:04Just kidding. So I go up and I hear banging going on. I don't know where anybody's really at. So now I'm out here by myself. Some local dude behind me, I'm watching him, just making sure he doesn't pull anything. He never did. They had a horseshoe fighting position, so I go up there and I'm just sitting there, just assessing, listening to sounds, watching this big orchard area that's all pitch black. I go to put my NVGs on. I couldn't because some of the spotlights were shining up high, so it just floods them out. The night vision goggles are pretty much worthless. Maybe if I had your super secret, you know, 10 goggle ones, it would have been better, but.

2:00:50Doubt it. But, so I'm sitting there getting no communication on the radio. Next thing I know, I hear a vehicle starting up. I'm thinking like, what the fuck? Oh, so many stealing a, they're all up armored. You know, they don't have any like we did, you know, up unarmored. So I'm thinking, oh yeah, I got a belt fed machine gun. I got it up armored. Oh, I'm going to shoot the shit out of this car. Right? So I can see it. It's coming down the road. The lights are off. There's no lights on it. So I'm thinking, oh yeah, they're trying to be sneaky or something. So I come out from the side of the sandbag and I kind of got it up.

2:01:26Vehicle comes, it turns. Dude, I got the slack coming out of this freaking saw. And I'm like, oh, it's going to be awesome. And the next thing you know, I see dude lean forward and it ended up being Dave Ubin, State Department guy. I was like, oh, you got to be kidding me. I mean, how many people get to blast a government vehicle and not get in trouble? Dude, I was like, yeah. So, yeah. So that didn't happen. And then they backed up. I moved up, kind of followed them because I didn't know what the hell was going on. I mean, no comms whatsoever going on. And that's when I ended up linking up on the road.

2:02:06He was standing up on the front porch. And I kind of talking with him. And he's like, yeah, they don't know where the ambassador is. And I kind of look over off to my right and there's a, they have one guy laying there. And then Jack's kind of over the top, you know, kneeling down over him. Looked like he was trying to provide first aid. And I go, you know who that is? Is it one of ours? He says, I have no idea. And I was like, well, hopefully it's one of theirs. You know, and then like, um, kind of goes like, well, I guess we got to clear this area now. And that was like the main villa area. And I mean, it was huge inside.

2:02:36So we kind of move in pitch dark, hotter than, hotter than hell. I mean, it was so freaking hot. It's kind of like being a, um, like just like a major bonfire, but being right next to it the whole time. That's what, I mean, it was just intense heat. Um, moved, couldn't see anything, you know, flashlight made it even worse. So you're just kind of going by feel. I go in, um, I think three times I went in and out. I don't know if, I don't know if Rome never came back out that many times, but last time I went in, I was like, okay, I'm just going to, cause I had a kind of the layout cause I'd been there a few times already.

2:03:10So I just went to where I knew where the safe room door was. It was kind of like the outer door was open, but the bars were closed. And I yelled for Chris three, I think twice as loud as I could. And actually somebody named Chris outside, I could hear where it's coming from. He's like, oh, I'm out here. That's not, you know, Stevens. So I start moving back out. I get out. And, you know, just that shouting, you know, taking those breaths and shouting, I'm, I took in so much fricking smoke. So I'm hacking. Then I hear Ron, he's inside saying, I'm lost. I can't find my way out. I'm lost. So I go back in and we just did a little Marco Polo thing and got him.

2:03:52Then we kind of just moved out. And they're, they're still going in and out of the safe. Cause when we come out, the safe rooms like right here and the, you know, they're still kind of going in and out of that room. and that's when Tonto gets on the radio and says, hey, we're getting ready to jump the back gate. So myself and Roan, we moved from there over to the road that separated the two compounds and started putting security up there. I remember Roan coming up and said, hey, thanks. I hope things are saving my life. And I'm like, well, I hope we can all make this out alive. It was kind of like something like that.

2:04:29Because initially I didn't tell anybody about the Roan incident because to me that was just, who would believe it anyways? Well, I guess Ron ended up telling Oz about it because when I told the story to the author, he's like, well, what about this? I was like, how the hell do you know about that? But to me it was like putting stuff in that to where it's only my word versus a guy who's not even here. So I was just kind of like, well, I'm not putting that in there. But anyways, so they end up jumping over. but unfortunately when nothing really major happened but from it but the locals that went with Tonto and them didn't want to jump the back gate so they had Tonto open up the back gate Tonto said hey you know when you come in close the back gate well they didn't so we went over there cleared the other side came back I started searching in the safe room didn't really know the layout of the safe room whatsoever I kind of went in there a couple times trying to get the blast the blast shield things open so we can open up more windows to flood the smoke out so we can search easier.

2:05:35Because honestly, I didn't even think we'd get a follow-on attack. I figured that would have been kind of it. Like, you know, again, thinking 17 Feb's going to show up, the police are going to show up, they're going to lock this place down, right? He just had a U.S., he said an embassy, regardless of U.S. or not, but an embassy, a foreign embassy in your country just got attacked. In my mind, you're going to shut this city down, right? So I wasn't honestly realizing I wasn't thinking too much about a fall on attack. So went in a couple times, kind of came back out. Hushed at the time. I think it was like the third time I came back out.

2:06:09Well, the first time I went in, I smashed my night vision goggles. Because, again, they're up here. Not thinking about it, just trying to go into this window. Freaking smashed. Shattered them. So lost those. Jacked my neck up. But came back out and he's kind of, you know, he had all the State Department guys and they're gathering up trying to figure out what they're going to do. He's getting them in the vehicle. He's kind of like, I get on the radio and say, hey, I'm going to go in one more time. And he says, no, I'll just stand by, you know, I think because we're probably going to evacuate or something.

2:06:44I just said, you know, fuck this. You know, I took my helmet off, took my body armor off, grabbed my flashlight, put my weapon down. finally learned what I was taught in elementary school get on your freaking belly get on your belly if there's a fire it works I mean I could see I mean it wasn't it was only like this much but I could see pretty far I could see the other doors I crawled went into out of that room went into the bathroom looked around the shower the tub looked into the other room looked under the bed you know felt on top of the bed there was a couple cabinets open just in case they went into it in the closet.

2:07:19Then as I was coming out, an RPG smacked the wall of the room I was in. That was loud. And that's what started the second attack on the consulate. And it was pretty much just kind of kitty corners. It's like the door was here. The other safe room door where I was at was like over here. So I just kind of got up and just ran that way, jumped out, put my gear back on. Then I peeked around the corner to see where the fight was coming from and it was coming towards the back gate. there was a ladder that went up to the roof, got up on the roof, and just let everybody know, hey, I'm on the roof just in case something happened.

2:07:56I got shot. They'd only have to go searching for me. So I start moving to where the fire was coming from. They all have like the three-foot walls around the top, so it's pretty easy to move up. As I came up, the guy who was shooting an RPG was coming, came back into the front of the gate and getting ready to launch. I just did about a 10, 15 round volley of fire. He drops and all the fire stopped. Oz and who else got to see it? Oz and actually Hush said that I guess that volley of fire that I did nailed the RPG and actually did a whole ramble thing, went off in a 90 degree angle. So that's how good a shot I am.

2:08:35I can hit an RPG fly through the air.

2:08:41So that stops. you know, everybody kind of starts coming up on the roof because we're still trying to figure out what we're going to do. The State Department guys, one thing that kind of irritated me was while the attack started, Tonto went and got behind their vehicle for, you know, protection. It's an up-armored vehicle. Well, they actually honked a horn so they can get him off the vehicle so they could take off. So, again, this is their compound. They didn't even think of jumping out and helping us defend their compound. They took off. Jeez. So they leave. They end up going the wrong way. They got ambushed.

2:09:19I mean, they made it to our compound, but they got followed all the way to our compound. We were still there. Nobody still, they didn't know if the ambassador was kidnapped. They took off on foot. No idea if he was still in the building. So again, we had no idea. So we're just trying to figure out what we're going to do. Then they got word from the drone that came overhead. that there's about 100, 150 people moving towards us. So, again, we had like six of us, linguists that looked like a turtle because of the body armor and the helmet were just way too big for them. And then two, three dozen unknown people with us, some in uniform, some not, some in shorts, some with guns, some with no guns.

2:10:04It was just weird, man. So it was just like one of those moments that, you know, they made the call, we got to go. So we all get down. We loaded up Sean's body into our vehicle. State department guys left him with us. So we had, Roan was driving. It was Hush, Jack, the linguist, Tonto, myself, OD, and Sean's body in the back. So we go, we pull out. We go back the way we came in. The other vehicle that we had, we had to leap. we left it because the three of us went on foot. So that vehicle got stayed. But that's also where the grenade launcher was. So if you watch the damn movie, I didn't lose a grenade launcher.

2:10:47That was bullshit. I knew exactly where it was. But there was like, again, dozens or so people around the vehicle. We had no idea who they were. You know, they could have been part of the attack. So instead of us breaking seal, potentially all getting killed right there because they had, you know, gun trucks with discus mounted to them. There's nothing we can do with that. So we just kept going. Right on by them. Like we're just neighbors. What's going through your head when they tell you 100 to 150 people are moving towards you? It's like, oh, that's a lot of people. You know, you're just like hoping they don't hit you.

2:11:23I mean, one thing I've learned, though, is what I try to tell people is they're shooting at you. You're probably not going to get hit. It's the ones that are shooting at somebody else is the ones that are going to hit you. because I really rarely see them just kind of shoot like we do. They kind of do the whole spray prey thing. So we get back to our compound, we dismount, and we get attacked probably within about an hour. What's the discussion like when you get back to your compound? Really wasn't. It was just we just dismounted and kind of went to pre-designated positions to defend the compound, you know, especially since they just came back and tried to hit us.

2:12:02you know well they're coming back for a third time at the consulate so it's like there's no this is gonna be a long night so we just got out we just kind of jack went uh he was already there so he had the state department guys when he got there he put he put one on each of the buildings besides building one um the two other guys one of the guys got pretty jacked up from smoke inhalation that was with the ambassador um and sean smith he's you know he made it out alive um but then the other i don't know why the other guy didn't come out but anyways so there were uh three state department guys up on the roofs we had four local guards and then we had two uh um spose with us as well so they were like they did all like the gate stuff and uh the monitoring of the the cameras so they were kind of so the base was kind of secure for the most part um but we just kind of went and filled those gaps i went to tower two daz went to tower three ron and went to building three jack four and od and um tonto went to building two so we can kind of cover the zombie lands what we called it that's where we kind of figured because the other one was just chuck points coming up that road i mean you didn't have to be in the front to really take care of that i mean it's just really easy so but i ended up moving from tower two to tower three and during this move is when we got attacked i was actually carrying water to oz uh when something came over the wall probably exploded about 25 feet from me something like that was pretty close didn't get hit by nothing but dropped the water kind of like trying to protect myself and i'm pat you know gunfire is going on but i'm just adrenaline's rushing you and sometimes you know you're hit so i'm just checking myself saying okay i'm not hit uh get up in there you know and just start returning fire lasted you know felt like forever but probably like five ten minutes um you know maybe 20, 15 attackers, you know, but unlike the movie, they had a lot of concealment.

2:14:00So a lot of times you can only see the flashes. They're just, again, they're just shooting through shrubs. They're not in front of it. They're behind it. So even the night vision, you couldn't see them. So, you know, we didn't have the cool infrared crap, just night vision.

2:14:21and repelled that one. And that was probably about, I think they said like 1.30 in the morning or something like that, 1, 1.30. That's about the time they found the ambassador's body. He was inside the consulate in his room is where they found him. And the locals didn't know who he was, but the neighbor was there. When he saw him, he actually grabbed him. and I got to see the actual camera footage from a cell phone. You could see it in his eyes. He was already gone. He wasn't alive. But from the moment he grabbed the ambassador, dragged him up, threw him in his car, took him to the hospital, pretty much the camera was just almost on his face the whole time.

2:15:01I mean, it was moving around. But, yeah, that whole – there's a lot of things that people said, that he was raped, mutilated, and tortured. That never happened to him. That's all bullshit. None of that stuff ever happened. And that's one other thing that kind of forced us into the book is that stuff never got corrected.

2:15:20So anyway, so they found him about that time, but it wasn't verified until about three in the morning that it was actually him when we got the pictures of him in the video. So as we're sitting there, we heard that the team from Tripoli had just landed at the airport, but the militia that was supposed to show up didn't show up yet. and this is when we got the second attack is about three in the morning now um same same same type of attack when rpg started come over the back of the wall there was a car that actually that pulled up yeah i wasn't in the tower i was actually talking with the tl um at the time and because what i was trying to do because they uh they had everybody else kind of go into the rooms and get into personal belongings so i was like if we're going to evacuate we need to get our own stuff so i went and got my stuff and i was kind of talking with the tl at the time and that's when i knew about the ambassador and all that stuff and that's and then a car somehow got towards the back gate where the jersey berries were so i couldn't get two was about 50 yards or something like that um dude gets out uh sees him he goes to go throw something oz drops him and that's when the rpg flies over and i head back over to the tower engaged that's when i end up getting uh some guys moved around the from the they flanked us that's the only maneuver they did you know so i end up getting shot in the side plate stopped it still hurts let me tell you it still hurts um now unlike the movie i didn't lay down and sit there for five minutes like a little baby you know it kind of buckled me put my hand up underneath making sure i didn't fill a hole i mean it was wet because i'm freaking sweating if i didn't feel no hole but it hurt felt like i was still shot didn't fill a hole and i just got back in it um then uh ended up checking myself after you know after it was done making sure it wasn't actually shot but um in that firefight probably lasted a little bit longer it was probably double the double the guys that showed up uh but i think tonto and od and even the camera guys said they could see them you know some dudes crawling on their hands some people getting dragged out so we were hitting them but and it was pretty quiet the team from Tripoli the militia showed up Tonto moved from building 2 over to building 1 to guide the men and that's where the whole laser I lasered two guys it wasn't to identify them as targets it was to let them know that they were my target if they keep coming closer I'm going to shoot you and then Tonto used because that was just a a live laser let them know like you need to get walking this way because they had no guns but we had uh again the sheep herders they were still coming dude it was weird they were still coming showing up and herding the damn sheep are you serious dude it was so weird while all this is going on yeah man yeah i know so anyway so top to moved up he did the lasso thing so they can kind of they had our coordinates but just to guide them in a little bit better so he was just lassoing I'm in with the IR.

2:18:26So that's where that whole, we're lasering targets. No, we weren't. Anyways, so they come in, they get there. They go in, the team from Tripoli and the militia commander go into the compound and go to the, you know, inside the command post. Why they let this militia guy in there, I don't know. But anyways, then Bob, you know, he knew that Rowan was there. I guess they worked in the teams together and stuff like that. and said, hey, you know, where he's at. And, you know, so he went up. Ron was introducing him to Dave Ubin and Oz and kind of, I guess, explained what was going on when what I heard was sounding like a mortar going off.

2:19:09It's kind of like that, you know, it's kind of hard to explain to people. When you're next to it, it's really loud. When you're not, you can kind of tell what it is, especially when you're in infantry. You do a lot of mortars. And I'm getting ready to click the radio. when Tonto gets on and beats me to it. Hey, I think I just heard a mortar and he wants to hear that. And I key the radio. I said, yeah, and that's when the round hits. And it hit probably 25, I would say, yards west and 25 yards north from building C. Small arms fire opened up at the same time. Then those guys opened up. So I just kind of look and I see the explosion.

2:19:48So I go back to my area just in case. Because, again, you're waiting for more attacks. Like, you know, you got to trust the guys. They trust me to watch that side. So then I hear another one going off. Don't ask me how I can hear these things. But that one comes in. It hits, kind of tags the top of the wall, but blows up on the other side. So, you know, I'm looking at the explosion. That ended up taking out Dave Ubin because he had taken his helmet off, and he got a bunch of shrapnel to the forehead, so that dropped him. And then I heard another round going off. And to me, from my angle, that one hits here, that one hits here.

2:20:23I'm thinking, because they want to come to this area, they're trying to take out the tower. So I jump out of the tower and I start moving back to what we call the prison gym. And the round comes and it hits the top of the building. And I guess two more hit right behind it. And, you know, everything just goes quiet. So I'm looking at the building. I'm like, holy shit. So I get on the radio immediately. They say, hey, you guys up on building three. You guys okay? Hush gets on the radio and says, yeah, we're okay in here. I'm like, you shut the fuck up. I'm talking about the guys on top of the building.

2:20:56Jack gets on the radio. He's over on building four, which is closest to building three. He says, hey, Tig, I got no movement. I can't see anybody moving. So I start sprinting over there. Start going up the ladder. Again, with the small arms, the wall doesn't go all the way up. So as I start getting the crest of the wall, I'm checking my six. And, you know, as much as I can, I still go fast. And then I just kind of jump over. Over here on the left-hand side is one guy. He's got his pistol out. So I start talking to him immediately. Say, you know, hey, man, you can be okay. You know, stay calm. I got you, got you.

2:21:34Had my, actually ended up having Oz's go bag instead of mine because mine got left in the vehicle over at the consulate. I didn't lose that either. He got left in the vehicle. So I start going through Oz's stuff, trying to figure out where his tourniquets are and stuff like that because Jack, Ubin, his left leg, left arm almost completely servled off. I mean, it was just shredded. So if you actually watch the movie and they show Oz's arm and stuff, that's what Dave Ubin's leg and arm looked like. It was just shredded. So I go for his leg first, start getting it on, you know, and then before I started this, I got on the radio and said, hey, guys, I got men down.

2:22:14I need help up here. Then I started going to work, finding things, and got the tourniquet on him. I got the second tourniquet on. I'm trying to look him over. It's still dark out, and it's kind of like the blue light kind of a thing, so it's not light enough to really see, but you can kind of see shadows. So I'm trying to look at him as close as I can without busting the flashlight out because those are pretty accurate freaking mortar. So there's got to be a spotter somewhere. So for your audience, again, a spotter is somebody who sees what we call a splash, which is the impact. And then they tell the mortar team how to adjust.

2:22:47So that's what I was afraid of. So they see movement, they're going to relaunch them or something. So I have no idea why they stopped. So I look them over as best I can. I said, all right, right now is the best I can do. I got to, because I know there's dudes with other stuff got to be blown up. and grab my stuff, get on the radio, say, hey, I got guys down, I need help. I go to turn, that's when Dave said, hey, give me back my gun. I'm thinking, oh, fuck. You're always taught don't give somebody back, especially when they give back their gun when their bell's been rung that bad. But I also thought it might help keep him calm and stop and give him something else to think about besides going into shock.

2:23:27So I just unloaded it, took the mag out, racked the round out, and just handed it back to him. I doubt he realized I did it because, you know, it's still dark. I mean, I had my back turned towards him. But to me, again, it was just that try to keep him calm kind of a thing. So I got up, started moving across. There was one guy just laying flat in the middle of the building, not moving. Keep moving. There's like a – we had a little water tower thing. Water, I mean, you can just hear it flowing. I didn't know what it was at first. But I could see somebody kind of laying against the wall, moving.

2:24:01Somebody else was laying down in the fetal position, but it went straight to the guy that was moving. Ended up being Oz. He's just kind of sitting there. I think he saw me coming, and he had his tourniquet out. I think he was starting to do it for himself, but I think he saw him. He's like, I'll just let him put it on. Oz is kind of lazy. I mean, you interviewed him. You kind of know.

2:24:22So he's just kind of, you know, just like bouncing his wrist up and down. He's like, hey, Tigg, check this out. Like literally, I mean, it's kind of limp. it's pretty jacked up but he's just like hey i think it's messed up like yeah quit playing with they're gonna make it even worse man stop and he's like yeah but look you know it's just it's just one of those moments and uh i ended up just last time get on the radio said i got guys down i need help and that's when od gets on the radio says hey if nobody's going gonna go over there and help i'm gonna get off this damn roof and do it myself that's when i hear hush get on the radio again and says no just stay where you're at we're on our way.

2:24:58Not that they're coming up, I guess they're just now leaving the building. So I get the tourniquet on Oz, I get him up, say, hey, can you walk to the ladder by yourself? And he's kind of like, you know, he's seeing Rome kind of right there next to him. He's like, well, I guess I got no choice. And so I kind of guide him a little bit just to make sure he didn't like collapse, I guess, you know, because, you know, they got to be, that brain's got to be wrong pretty bad. So he moves on. He was able to walk. I go over to the third guy, which ended up being Roan. Flipped him over onto his back. Checked for a pulse.

2:25:33Never got a pulse, but his throat moved. So, you know, for me, adrenaline could have been pumping. I don't really know. So I kind of sat for a second, another second. Didn't feel anything. Ripped off his body armor. Lifted up his shirt. You know, tried to do a look, listen, feel. Again, couldn't really see too much, but I was at least trying to see if I could hear or feel a breath. Couldn't feel anything, and that's at that point, I was like, okay, I got to break out the flashlight. Got the flashlight, checked his pupils, no dilation. So right there I kind of knew he was gone. And then with Oz, he was just going down the ladder.

2:26:10One of the Delta Force guys was just up there, and I was like, Oz is going to go down there. They're going to start screaming because Rome was our lematic on the base. So I just got on the radio and said, hey, everybody, Ron's gone. Went over to the fourth individual and rolled him over. And initially when I saw him, again, it was still kind of dark. I thought it was Jack. Like the process of everything really quick. But I'm like, oh, wait a second. No. Because I was just talking to Jack. He's over on that building. But did the same process to him. Did a pulse check, look, listen, feel. people dilation, there was nothing.

2:26:50But this time after I'd finished this, I could hear, um, I don't know if it was a team leader or was the country team leader, but they're like, Hey, we got to hurry up and get off the building. We got to hurry up and get down. So this time, you know, the whole time I've been up there, there was no fire, you know, no shooting going on, no, nothing. In my mind though, I'm just like, at this point, um, there's no rush. Mortars keep coming in and we're all dead. these buildings are not designed to handle freaking mortar strikes. And, you know, it was by the grace of God that that building even stood by getting those 381 millimeter mortars they say got hit by.

2:27:26I mean, that's insane. But where it hit was directly because the walls over there, they were like, you know, about a foot and a half concrete walls. And that's where the mortars hit right in a row on those walls. I think that's the only reason why it stood. Wow. So I went over, you know, again, they're like, hurry up, we need to get off. I saw them. They kind of, they had Dave Ubin, you know, the Delta Force guys. And again, about the only thing they really did was they built the backpack, kind of human backpack to get Dave Ubin off the roof. So they got him down and I'm just collecting the weapon systems.

2:28:02I'm going over, went over to Roan and grabbed his guns, checking his pockets for like wallet or anything, just in case we had to leave him. Because it may have happened, right? So then before I left, I knelt down, said a prayer over him, went over to Bub at the time. Again, I didn't know who the hell he was, never worked with him. But again, same thing, checking his pocket, checking for wallets, case wedding ring, didn't know, trying to check as much gear as I could, said the prayer over him. Then I got down. This time they're just getting a stretcher around for Dave Ubin. so I go in I drop all the weapons off I go back Ozzy they got him laying on the ground so I'm stepping over him they're cutting his clothes off I go straight to the back which ended up being our our medical room I guess it was the kitchen but it was our medical room and I'm trying to open up the blast doors that way they could bring him in through the back versus the front because he was jacked up you know avoid the the staffers from seeing it I guess from seeing him couldn't and get the doors open and got up like a fraction of the way.

2:29:09And it was just too, I mean, that, those borders jacked it up. So I go and I just grabbed three, four more tourniquets and I got my pocket, put them in the backpack, start walking back around.

2:29:25And two other GRS guys actually ended up having Dave Ubin and they were walking in front and passing by the two Delta Force guys. Again, at the time, I didn't know, I didn't know, I thought they were just GRS guys they're like hey where are you going so i'm gonna go back towards the tower and watch that sector and they're like oh you can't do that too dangerous i'm like what the fuck you mean i can't do that i've been up there all fucking nice not too so we're like having a shouting match that's when the country team leader comes out he's like what the hell's going on he's like i need to go over there and watch the fucking sector because it's unprotected and delta force guy's like oh it's too dangerous you can't go over there i'm just like fuck this this is stupid and then that's when Teamler just said, just go right here, just stand by right here.

2:30:06I'm just like, again, I got walls higher than the ceiling in here, and I'm like going, this whole freaking area now is completely fucking unprotected. When did the Delta Force guys show up? Just before the mortars hit. How did they get there? With the team from Tripoli.

2:30:27So we're just kind of, I'm just like, this is fucking stupid. I mean, this is the dumbest security position ever because people would be literally sneaking up to our wall right now and coming in. I wouldn't even, we wouldn't even know it. All of our cameras got shot out in that whole corner. All of our lights got shot out. So it's completely unprotected. You know, Boone might be able to see some of it over there. But again, he still had a bunch of shrub. He had a bunch of, again, sheet pins. They could be sneaking up on us and all kinds of shit. It's just like, this is so stupid. But then I think one of the case officers got a hold of another unit that was down there, and they had about 300 strong gun trucks, all that stuff.

2:31:09They showed up, again, I think 7.38 in the morning, something like that. And that's when the – again, I'm just standing there like, this is so freaking stupid. And the two Delta Force guys come back, said, hey, we got to get the guys off the roof. And I'm like, okay, we, you know, there's a, we got a toe strap that we use to pull the tires. And as we're walking and telling them we can, I can go get it. We can lower them down. I'm like, oh, don't worry about it. We got this. So we just need you to come and pull security for us. So I go and I start going up the ladder. Pull security, right? Like, no, what are you doing?

2:31:41Just stay down here and wait. So you want me to pull security for you while you're up on the roof while I'm down here. And I got a wall that's like 10 feet from me. this is fucking again this is like this is stupid so they're up on the ladder and i'm just kind of sitting there again like this is so freaking dumb and in my mind i'm thinking okay they're gonna you know probably do the whole back backpack thing you know bring the guys down because we got time now we have we have like three a 300 man militia surrounding our compound they got gun trucks they're in uniform they're very well organized very well structured so you know again we had time they lower them down and next thing i know you know as i'm sitting here i'm getting up i'm looking this way back this way again it's another like a shed so all i can really do is look forward but even in front of me i got a big ass generator house so i really can't see shit and uh next thing i know i see a body get put up on top of the the ledge and you know i'm still probably I don't know, a good three feet, you know, from outside the ledge.

2:32:50And next thing I know, they just push him off. He comes down right next to me, smacks. I can hear the shoulder crunch, his head hit. And then you can see where he ran into the, because we had like really thick kind of rose bushes. He kind of sliced his stomach open a little bit and that ended up being bub. And I'm just like, holy shit, I can't, they just did this. and then you know i'm still standing there and i going i know it's fucking coming next you know the first one was kind of a shock the other one was just fucking miserable and again you just hear him come down smack you know you can hear the shoulder hit and then the head hits and again in my mind at least try to lower them down by their hands something let them drop but just to shove them off like that was fucking disgusting um and then you know what they told the the the roan's wife and everybody's family was oh we got them off respectfully that's not respect that was that was a fucking disgrace um you know you need nothing you could do about it it was done so a couple of the guys came around i ended up grabbing um bub's arms and one of the other G-RS guy grabbed his legs, carried him around, got him up on the bed.

2:34:17And I know the – well, we'll go back to a little bit more because about the fight that we had sitting there. They're saying that I lied about what they did. They're saying, again, they're trying to tell everybody that they got him off dignified and all that crap. They're trying to say that the Delta Fort – I hate bashing on guys, kind of like those dudes. They kind of started this whole thing again. But they got an award saying they went up on the roof under fire and all this shit. There was no fire. I was the first one up on the damn roof. They got an award for that? They got the second highest award, both of them.

2:34:53Second highest. For going up on a roof. Yep. And getting Dave Ubin off. That's all they did. And throwing Ronan Bub off. You know what? So when they came out and started attacking me, saying, we lied about that. That I lied about it. Oh, I was pissed. So I started going through all the congressional reports. Well, there's actually another eyewitness proving that they threw the bodies off the roof in that report. Because he saw it through the back door. He talks about it in Congress. So now they're actually trying to get upgraded to the Medal of Honor as well. They're trying to upgrade that to the Medal of Honor?

2:35:32Yep. for showing up late. And again, reading through his congressional report, they waited two to three minutes after the mortars hit to even come out. Dude, I was up on that fucking roof in like 30 seconds.

2:35:52So anyways, if you guys, yeah, there was a whole fight. I mean, you know about that big fight. And I was pissed. I was going off. Yeah. They were trying to slander, saying that, you know, anyways so just get him get him up on and then uh me and jack were supposed to be the drivers for the flatbed well he he kind of he kind of came obviously he heard about rome but again he didn't know anything about bub either and i guess he worked with bub in the team so he was on they're on the same team together and he saw him and i just saw him go white he was just kind of like holy shit so he kind of got in the driver's seat and just kind of sat there and i looked he's like dude you want me to drive he's like yeah so we kind of swapped um we covered up we covered them up with sheets the best we could um so we ended up going out everybody else is like they're all in these sedans and shit all these fast freaking vehicles and we got this hodgy flatbed two mile an hour truck and we're fucking just trying i'm trying to drive this damn thing you know we went the long route we went through the city which ended up being 13 miles but i just remember the militia coming up next to us like on the main highway they're like like the cars were gone we're like back me and jack is back by ourselves with two militia trucks and i'm like i'm going as fast as i could in this damn thing you know so i'm just like fuck we're gonna get hit going to the airport so we finally we finally catch up while they're still sitting at the gate trying to get in.

2:37:27Well, the militia controlling the airport didn't like the militia that was escorting us. A lot of people don't understand is that militia that showed up that actually rescued us from that attack in the compound was Gaddafi's military.

2:37:42So they didn't even know, again, our intel service didn't even know they were there. Had no idea. Jeez. So we finally get in there. We pull up to the bird that Bub had come down in on and state department guys start loading all their uh equipment that they pulled out of the consulate start getting loaded up actually i went on the bird and i took my body arm because my side was killing me just kind of took it off came back so i thought we're all going to get on this bird and uh end up well i did it so my body armor left with without me so again one of those other things I'll never do again. But so we get everybody on all the non-essentials and Oz, he, he kind of gets, he was being, I think he might have the picture of it.

2:38:35And I think I found it at one point. Anyways, he's in the back of the truck laying down, kind of bandaged up a little bit. I think one of the militiamans took, took a picture of it. But anyways, so very expensive jet, very nice jet. It had a stewardess, very nice cabinets. And so when Oz starts walking up to get up onto the plane, you know, she's standing there and just kind of looking at him and just eyes get wide. Next to know she takes off. You know, I'm kind of standing with Oz and just kind of like, I don't know what's going on, you know. And I kind of, I turned and started doing something else.

2:39:08I guess Oz, because he was going up on the, he was just kind of going up there. And what happened, she ran to the back to get a bunch of towels to come up. Oz, you know, he tells it. He's like, well, I thought she, you know, okay. I'm still got, you know, a bunch of pot marks all over. I'm bleeding kind of all over these little holes. And he's kind of thinking like, okay, he's going to wrap him up and cover him up. Nope. She started covering up all the seats and the floor and stuff and all these towels. So he wouldn't drip blood everywhere.

2:39:38So I was just kind of like, well, if you think I'm bad, just wait till the next guy comes on. And they end up having to like rip the cabinets out of this plane so they can get Dave Ubin in. Because again, he's on the stretcher and stuff. So they end up getting him in, getting him on the plane. They bolt the plane up. About five minutes later, the door comes flying back open. Dude, the pilot jumps out. He's running all over the bottom of the plane. We're just like, what the hell is going on? Well, you know everybody that works in a high threat environment has to qualify with a pistol. You know, they got to carry a gun, right?

2:40:11Doesn't mean they're technically qualified. Well, the maintenance guy pulled the trigger while he was on the plane, fired the gun. So now they're looking for this bullet. But as the pilot's out there looking for it, they found it. It actually, right where the seat post is, it hit right there and just stopped. There's that gap like this. The bullet would have went left or right. It would never took off. and they said that when they finally got up the Tripoli that if Dave Uvin had been another 10-15 minutes he'd have been dead just because of so much blood loss they couldn't stop the bleeding because again stopped a lot with the arm I think they ended up adding another tourniquet to his arm because it wouldn't stop but then he just had again he was just blistered all over the place so getting one of those god things man so we stayed back We had the two Delta Force guys with us, a country team leader, our team leader, a linguist, Jack, Tonto, OD, and one State Department guy.

2:41:23Yeah, so there's nine of us that stayed back. So as we're sitting there, the plane had taken off. You know, then the militia, they started coming over. They wanted, you know, what are we going to do with the vehicles? We started divvying out the vehicles. and I'm looking at the back of the bed and I'm like, I thought there was three guys. You know, we got our two guys. Where's the other guy at? And I started looking and I'm thinking, holy shit, they left Sean's body in the fucking car. So I see the SUV starting to pull away and I'm just fucking running for this SUV. And the blonde Air Delta guy, I think that was the Marine.

2:41:59And he's just like, dude, this Sean didn't help me get Sean's body. So we had to start, you know, luckily I stopped him. Otherwise, we would have not had Sean's body with us. So he ended up getting Sean's body, grabbed it. You got it? Yeah. He ended up getting it out and getting it onto the flatbed. Again, I don't know why. It's just like we're doing the whole State Department's job, you know. But luckily, I was in mind to actually, like, think. Otherwise, who knows what would have happened. so after the vehicles left the the commander came up from that from that militia and said hey we can go get your we can go and recover the ambassador's body they had the numbers and they had the fire power because at the time there's on saras rias that was actually commandeering that hospital because that's where we were sending them to so the militia commander he went uh took about 45 minutes or so came back we stopped the vehicle you know kind of away from us myself that same dealt the force guy and tonto walked up you know looked the ambassador over just lift up his shirt just make sure there's no incisions or anything like that so again that's how i know for a fact he wasn't tortured or mutilated and you know he wasn't raped so he still you know so always his belt buckle was over well yeah i mean surprised the belt buckle was not backwards who knows i mean shit happens in combat but you know again i went over that morning and saw him and he was wearing the exact same uh suit you know he had the same suit pants and you know he had the white undershirt so he never had he never got out of his work clothes so we brought him over got him onto the flatbed and then that's when you know i don't know about 10 o 'clock that that morning a libyan c-130 He landed, pulled off to the side.

2:43:46The team leader and the country team leader and the linguist went over there and I guess talked him into flying us out of there. Because at the time, we had no idea. We had no idea if we're going to have to drive up or wait here, that bird's going to turn around and come back and pick us up. Nobody really knew. So one thing was fun. The airport was open. So we're sitting out there. We got belt feds. You know, it was kind of, I still had, you know, our guns were there, just not my body armor. You know, the airport planes are landing. We're just kind of sitting out there, big militia group standing out there.

2:44:21People are just kind of looking out. It was just, it was just so real, man. Just like, holy, like going on. Like that's life, man. So we take off. We land in, I think it was like taking off. That's when everything started hitting me. Kind of like, okay, we're kind of safe. And then to me, it was just replaying them getting thrown off the roof over and over. And that's what fucked me up. Yeah, I talked to Tonto and Oz about it. And they said that that really, really haunts you. Yeah. So, yeah, we landed, got them off. And then that's when we put them on the plane. We had their arms, so their arms were kind of stuck.

2:45:06I think Tonto talks about it. We had to snap them. to get them to lay down and put them in the body bags and stuff. It was just one of those things you're not really thinking about at the time, honestly, the rig and mortars. And so that, you know, that was pretty shitty. But, you know, at least we got them home. There's a lot of guys that didn't make it back home. So then we get to the annex, the CIA compound. We pull in. The road is just lined with luggage. I'm just like what the fuck is going on well they pulled everybody from the embassy and told them all to pack up so all their luggage was outside waiting to get evacuated so we go in we get debriefed we tell them you know our side what happened all this crap and uh you know to me I didn't really talk about the standout order because that was just more of an internal thing anyways you know but the more you know about things you're just like you motherfucker but anyways so we go back and we kind of go, we get a little bit of lunch, take a little nap.

2:46:11I think that's when Hush kind of came around, got us and, hey, you guys are going to evacuate. We're like, why? Why don't we just fucking stay here? Now they're going to send you guys back home. Makes no fucking sense. You're better off standing here just in case something happens protecting the compound, you know. Like, okay, whatever. So we ended up borrowing because, you know, my shit was all tore up, blood everywhere. so I ended up borrowing clothes from everybody else and get there we get flown into Tripoli we get flown into Tripoli General Ham was there, he greets us off the bird and we go in, USO's there they have all kinds of stuff for us but we got the whole entire embassy which I don't know, like 100 something freaking people and remember they had all their stuff but we didn't even have our backpacks we didn't have time to grab it so we ain't got shit except for the clothes that we're wearing and uh they you know they start you know because i guess they didn't want to like let people know who we were or anything like that even the state department guys that were they were kind of sitting with us not even with the state department and you know they said okay come up you know grab the stuff that you need you know and you know just take what you need to do.

2:47:26By the time the guys were actually in Benghazi, everything was gone. All the embassy staffers fucking took everything. Clothes, socks, underwear, toiletry, everything was gone. When we walk up, you could tell like, oh, you guys are the ones that were down there, huh? Like, yeah. So they ended up giving us like each of like, like$500 credit cards, you know, but that wasn't the point. I was like, holy, you guys got all your shit. And they literally, I mean, pants, socks, underwear, shoes. They fucking took it all. It was like, you motherfuckers. That's the State Department for you, though. So we wake up.

2:48:15The State Department security guys, they were pretty much ordered to go talk to the FBI. We were asked if we wanted to go talk to the FBI. to us why there was no for us i mean it was it was an attack on a it is what it is i mean it was an attack how is this an fbi investigation we're in a you know a high threat environment not really technically a war zone but it's a war zone what's the fbi gonna do so we never talked to the fbi there um they kept us there until after they brought um the guys home the moment the ceremony was over with they came down said you guys can go home but you got to buy your own ticket

2:48:55so we were able to finally leave the following day flew to dc saved there for about three days debrief twice saw the medical because my lungs were just cooked from uh smoke fire and i think it was about a week after that when i finally was able to finally go home so about a total week before I actually made it home home. So that's the story. How were you greeted at HQ? Pretty good. They're, I mean, yeah, it was a pretty good greeting at that time. And they were showing us around. I think they had, no, not at that time. It was the second time I came back. I mean, I had no negativity really from them until, I think, until Tonto started the rumors about him doing a book, him and Oz.

2:49:44That's when the treatment got a little bit different, but I wasn't part of it initially. I didn't even know they were doing it, because I went back two more times. So, I mean, you do it for long enough, there's a lot of little scrapples you kind of get involved with. That's the one that everybody knows about.

2:50:07So did these Delta guys, did they see it was over when they showed up? Yeah. Was it all the way over? I mean, they were there when the mortars hit, but that was it. They didn't come out. They didn't shoot a gun. They didn't fire. They were never out in the open under fire. Nothing.

2:50:27And they got the second highest award. Yep. For Army and Marines. What is the Navy Star, I think, or something like that? Navy Cross? Navy Cross, yeah.

2:50:41And they're going to be upgraded to the Medal of Honor? Yep, I read it. Yep, they're trying to get upgraded to the Medal of Honor. Which, to me, it's just a slap in the face. It's a disgrace to that award. So I'm doing my best to fight it, but again, it's healing. I mean, I've even told a couple of the Medal of Honor recipients, It's like, this is, it degrades what the purpose of it is. What do they say? They can't really do anything. It's up to some committee and crap, which again, you try to get a hold of, try to email, nothing. So, and it goes like, if those guys get that award, I'll never be able to look at them in a honor the same way ever again.

2:51:23Because I'll be thinking the same thing. Like, you didn't fucking earn that.

2:51:30and people came after you for this? Yeah, I mean, I had the other Delta Force podcast came at me. Some other journalist that does Fox News came at me for it, saying that we lied because they're saying, the Delta Force guys are saying that I lied, that they got them down respectfully. They were up on the roof under fire, all this horse shit.

2:51:57Again, I was up there. I was going to a third individual, put on two tourniquets, looked one over, put it on another tourniquet, looked one over, getting him up, moving him, going to the third individual before anybody got up on the roof.

2:52:13So, I mean, I was up there for a while.

2:52:19Did they stop coming after you? I haven't heard anything yet, but, I mean, it could just block me again. I only saw it like at last, it was again, it was on Fox News. I was scrolling through it. I was like saying that we fabricated the book. The book was full. I was like, what the hell is this? And that's what I read. A Delta Force guy saying this and this. And I was like, oh, hell no. So I kind of went in, went at them. And, you know, they're trying to say, you know, we put this out there. Nobody reached out. Well, actually, they talked about on the show how Boone's team, and they laughed it off.

2:52:55although he tried to reach out. Again, it was just a bunch of horse shit. All they do is try to tear guys down. I mean, you got other operators trying to tear other operators apart, which is horse shit, in my opinion. If somebody says over-exaggerate something, I don't really care. But again, if you're going to sit there and tell me that I lied about it, I'm going to have a big problem with it. So again, I went through. That's a lot of congressional hearing stuff to read through. Again, found his statement contradicts what he says, even in his own freaking citation that he was given. What he testifies in Congress contradicts his own citation.

2:53:37And then this other guy, again, he says, why contact the Special Forces Operations Command within 24 hours? And he said, no, his awards are good. Nobody's going to get back to you that fast, period. Who was that? I forgot what the guy's name is. He's like the big – I guess he does more sports crap, but he's buddies with the Delta Force guys that do that podcast. This is the anti-hero podcast. Yeah, but it's the other guy that they use, I think, too, also. This is some kind of big podcaster as well. I can't remember his guy's name. So far, when I did my whole – I did a whole video on it and stuff.

2:54:21If even Roan's mom got a hold of me because she heard about it, she's all hell no. Because she did her own investigation into shit. So she knows the truth. Because I told her, they were telling her that they got Roan off respectfully. So when we got a fake award from the agency, they came up to me and they're like, hey, you remember when we were under fire up on the roof? No. They tried to tell you that - We were under fire on the roof. They basically manipulate you into saying that they were under fire on the rooftop. Yeah, and then Rowan's wife wanted to talk to me, but I couldn't talk to her at that time because I was still dealing with them getting fucking tossed off the damn roof.

2:55:02How am I going to tell the wife that? But I guess they had already told her that they got them off respectfully. Who are these guys? Do you have their names? No, I don't. Right off the head. Their wards are public.

2:55:18so

2:55:22it's it's it's it's disgusting so but you know we did get a really good coffee coaster award from the agency oh what a coffee coaster but we got an award that's probably about as big as this maybe maybe bigger they gave it to the cook and the maintenance guy and the staffers too you know with this podcast coming out about all these guys i mean there's a there's it's fucking it's tricky you know and and um one of them that just got hammered when he came in here and over embellished lied about his entire fucking service record and i think that's disgusting and it takes it takes away it does from people like you and every other person that's come in here and sat across me and documented their service, what they were a part of, historic events like Benghazi, and that takes away from the story.

2:56:24And I can appreciate that. You know, at the same time, if you don't have your fucking facts straight,

2:56:34people commit suicide over this shit. Yeah. They commit suicide over this shit. That's crazy. And it is...

2:56:49It's destroying lives. Yeah, it destroys the whole community. It does a lot of damage. And at the same time, some of the records needed to be set straight. No, I agree. But you have to be very fucking careful when you broach these type of topics. Because if you do it wrong... Yeah. You are the fucking problem. Yep. Kind of what they did to me. Do you have anything to say to them? No, I think I've kind of already have. And they're like, well, you can come on the podcast. Like, why would I come on to your podcast when you couldn't have the balls to reach out to me initially and ask me? They didn't even reach out to you?

2:57:35No, none of them did. I'm easy to get a hold of. I'm pretty much a public figure. So for them to have an excuse that we couldn't bullshit. Shit. They did this. They did this. I didn't. So I don't think I saw what they did until like April. And they did it like in November of last year. I had no idea until I saw that guy's report on Fox News. Why do you think the journalist targeted you? Where did this stem from? So I went after him. Because he, again, he slandered me on Fox News. So I came after him. And then that's when the other podcast popped in. And so I was actually doing both at the same time.

2:58:19I'm very, I won't, yeah, I won't back down. I really don't care. Good for you. So I went at them. Yeah. And I, you know, obviously their community came at me and I just fired right back. Fuck you. Who's their community? Whoever watches the podcast. Yeah, they have some other Delta people or what? Other Delta Force guys that came at me. And again, I kind of threw their whole, the whole model back at them and, you know, forgot exactly what their motto is. But then some other guys like, well, you can't be using that. You're not this. Like, I'm not saying I'm not, that's their motto is like, you know, their own motto is like, you know, don't go after your own brothers.

2:58:56But what are they? That's their whole podcast.

2:59:02So, yeah, there are some other people in their community. Not, not a lot, but again, whatever. I'll stand. I know where I stand. Good for you, man.

2:59:16Why do you think these guys are chasing this award anyways? Most guys. I don't know. I didn't know they even had the second highest award until this. I had no idea what they got. Like, whatever. What is the claim in the award?

2:59:33They rendered aid under fire. And the biggest one, again, the rendered aid under fire. and they escorted unarmed civilians to safety. Both of those, that's all a lie. They didn't render aid under fire. Yeah, they rendered aid, but they never even escorted any. All of us were armed. I mean, we're all agency personnel. Then State Department. In a high threat environment, every one of us were armed.

3:00:01But for me, I mean, it's the whole rendering aid under fire crap. No, you didn't. because even if you rendered aid afterwards, it definitely wasn't under fire. And all three of you guys have the same story because I talked to all three about it. Well, again, if you read the book, how we did the book, none of us ever talked to each other. That's the thing about that book. We never talked to each other. We never discussed anything, never had a chance to because I went back to work. I think maybe Oz and Tonto did, but even then I don't know how much they would have. So when I said, yeah, I'll finally do it, the authors, what he wanted us to do was just tape record what we saw, what we did, and send it to them.

3:00:50Again, Jack is over here. Tonto's in it. Again, I never talked to Jack, Tonto, or O.D. until after I sent my recordings in for the book. So what he did, he took all our recordings and just meshed them together. And that's how he came up with the book. This is probably one of the most factual books that I know of you could have done between five people.

3:01:16Why do you think some of the guys never went public? Jack is still working. He's still doing it. He's still working? He's still doing it. Not for the agency or anything like that. But plus he has a little like small mom and pop kind of a business. So he just kind of wanted to keep that out. But yeah, he still does high security stuff in the States. his seals are just nuts, man. He just liked to keep working.

3:01:43So, yeah, that's why he didn't. And then Boone, he finally came out. Yeah. I think he was just stuck in the closet, lost the key or something. I don't know. He didn't want to revisit it. Yeah. But I think he went, he was working too. He was still doing stuff as well. And I think that's why. Yeah, I met him in Yemen. So, but yeah, I mean, initially I was, I wasn't going to come out public either. Why not? Just didn't really want to deal with it. I kind of wanted to work still too. I would say I kind of got talked into it by the author. Because I was kind of like in every major portion of it, but also I was the one that got told to stand down.

3:02:31So it's kind of like it's going to be their word. They did kind of attack us, but not as hard as we thought. But he was like, if you don't, it's going to be kind of like they're going to have to use your word to defend themselves versus you coming out and being able to defend it directly. So it was like the day before, it was like I had to tell him yes or no. How long did you take off before you went back to work? It took me about six months to heal up. What was it like going back to work?

3:03:08Pretty normal. I mean, I went back and then actually did a video testified in front of the Senate committee, which was weird because they actually, when I was testifying to tell us, they actually had Bob and Hush on the video conference. So it was just kind of, I don't know, it was just weird. They had those two on the conference call? Mm-hmm. How was that? So they would answer, I could tell they would hurry up and answer questions that I was probably going to say different to. And I just sat there. I was like, whatever. Especially the stand down order. Bob answered that one really quick. And then.

3:03:46What did he say? He pretty much said, well, I don't remember if there was this. It was probably because I was waiting for support. Yeah, that's what it was. That's not really what I said. Or if I did, I didn't mean it that way. And then when I went and testified in front of Congress, Hush answered it really quick. Because when I went and testified, I was with Hush. And again, I'm just kind of like, they don't, yeah. And I'm not the type of person, like, if you don't ask me, I'm not going to answer for you, kind of a thing. I mean, is it a big deal? I mean, it's a big deal because two people got died from it.

3:04:23Because you had somebody who was in the, actually both of them. If Hush didn't know, I don't know if he knew or not that 75 wasn't coming at that time. But, I mean, his decision to make us wait when he knew nobody was coming got two people killed directly. So, again, at the time, I think that's why they were doing what they were doing because, again, he was retiring, he was a 30-year agency guy, and everybody was trying to cover their own asses for the mistakes that were made. and again instead of holding people accountable they got promoted I mean they all the team leader Hush and Bob the country team leader they all got the Intel star

3:05:17and if people don't know that's equivalent to the model of honor they didn't give us shit

3:05:26and we don't do it for that but again it just goes back to like a slap in the face yeah

3:05:38it definitely goes to show you what this is actually all about maybe it's just that's all it was it was just them them covering up each other's asses that's why you watch you know Don Bangino and what is the post Like the shit that I've seen I'll never forget Like this country is fucked That's kind of what I got From that Just because of the corruption

3:06:07I'm sorry man How are you doing today? I'm good You know Got you know Got divorced and got remarried You know did a 180 lady um again she's a very religious christian lady um but she's been really good she's been helping me quite a bit you know dealing with a lot of different things because you know what i was going through you know pretty much like in 2020 kind of started my own divorce path and it just kind of really taken a more of a big shitter and then you know 2023 found her when i was running for mayor the first time and just kind of turned everything around. How did you meet her? She did an interview with me.

3:06:56She did an interview with you? Yeah. So she's got her version of how it happened. I got my real version of how it happened.

3:07:06So, again, I jumped in the mayor race in 23, like, last minute. I mean, I didn't really know what else. I just wanted to throw a wrench in the system and just try to get things actually done. And I don't like, I don't bullshit. I'm just going to be direct. I don't like, if I don't really know something, I'm going to tell you, I'm not going to like a lot of these, when I was up there, when I, when I started doing the interviews or the panels, whatever, their answers started changing to what my answers were. It was like, you motherfuckers. They're all like all these politicians. They just, they're all fluff.

3:07:36They, they changed their answers for the audience. I don't change for anybody. I don't really care. But anyway, so I was doing my coming out of the closet launch, and she found out about it. Normally she wouldn't show up to the local races and stuff like that, but she got hit up by three people, and so she finally came, and then my manager, yeah, I guess my manager kind of hit her up to do an interview with me, and then we kind of did our interview, and then she started stalking me. She won't say it, but that's the truth. So she started coming in, doing some training. So I was doing a training also at DCF Guns.

3:08:16And she was actually going over to another Magnum that was there. She was there. And then she canceled that membership, joined DCF. And then, you know, we kind of started talking a little bit more. And she'd use excuses like, hey, the security team at Karis Bible College wants to meet you. I mean, they did, but it was her just stalking me is what it was. and then we just kind of kept on from there and then eventually we had lunch and just kind of kept going. Yeah, and then once I got married, she stopped training. So that's how I know she was stalking me. Right on, man. Well, no, that's kind of how we met.

3:08:54I mean, it was, yeah, she's been a big blessing. Good for you, man. It was probably actually, I don't know if we go on to the music stuff yet, but kind of started pushing that stuff out yeah let's take a break real quick

3:09:25all right tag we're back from the break and we're getting ready to get into life after contracting. But, you know, one of the things, I don't know if you've watched any of these, but, you know, one of the things I like to do is talk about, you know, kind of all the struggles that veterans and contractors have coming home, how to fit back in with society. Most of us, it's not a positive story, you know, and being through something like what you went through in Bugazzi, I mean, how did that affect your home life and reintegration?

3:10:03How was it coming home? I mean, you had seven-month-old twins. I mean, it was nice because I was able to see them. I mean, we were talking about a little bit on the break, but, you know, it was a first time having kids and dealing with something like that. So, you know, when I remember just being in the back of the car, my biggest thing is like you start going back home normally never you just deal with it you know you don't i never thought about home this time it's just kind of like holy crap i might never see the kids again they never knew who i was you know never get to see them growing up that shit starts playing in your head were you thinking about that that night yeah i mean again sitting in that car just waiting to roll and it's just like now you gotta squash it out you know you gotta stay focused because you know again having kids for the first time it was just it It was weird.

3:10:49It was different. But, you know, once we started actually rolling, it kind of went. And then when I was in the tower, like during the intervals, you know, your mind starts going back home sometimes. And just like you try to get it out. That way you can just focus. Because, you know, if your mind's wandering, something comes up on you, man, that's bad. So I'm just trying to stay focused on it. But, you know, coming back home. Real quick, I want to ask one other thing. Yep. What prayers did you say over Bubz and Rome? So I wrote it down. Kind of when we were doing the book, I did write it, but I didn't say what it was because at the time, to me, it just felt like it was just something that was between me, them, and God.

3:11:38But it was, you know, Lord, watch over our fallen warriors, for they have made the ultimate sacrifice. um guide them guide them to guide them to your side and help your angels ensure that no more fall tonight because again we had now we just lost four um and then um and i don't know like perbatim right off the top of my head but and it was a watch over their families for what they're going to experience and, you know, just what they're going to face, just the turmoil they're going to go through. And my thing was just trying to guide them, you know, back with as much light as possible so they can heal fast and go forward.

3:12:25Because, again, Roan, he just found out also that he was just having a kid. So that's kind of some of the stuff that was going through my head was just the stuff that their family's going to have to deal with back home. you know because you know to me i think somebody somebody dying is not and to me is not really a sad thing because they're actually going home we're we're all the way from home i'm ready to go home you know um you know but when the time is the time and so but for me it's just the the turmoil that we kind of deal with when we do lose people so for them it's not sad you know because, again, they're gone, they're home.

3:13:08But for us, again, we're just kind of dealing with how do we move on from saying so. When I was kind of thinking about us just being protected because I didn't know what was going to happen. And just for the family, me having kids, knowing he was just getting ready to have a kid and stuff like that. Again, said the same thing over Bub, but didn't know him, but still the same mindset. Yeah, man. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah. So, again, just listen to people. Again, the wife kind of drives certain things out that I usually wouldn't talk about. But, again, it goes back to, like, just stuff like that may help somebody.

3:13:48If it only helps one person, that's enough. Yeah. So. Do you think about them a lot? Yeah, I would say so. So, but again, it's, you know, when I do my speaking events and, you know, saying their names, for me, it just, it keeps them going forward. It keeps them alive. You know, they always say, you know, you've only truly forgotten when your name's spoken for the final time. Were you close with Tyrone? No. Yeah, just, he was that normal, I would say, for, everybody calls him Master Chief, but to me, he's like a gunny. He just had that gunny attitude, you know, always had a coffee. so I can only relate to as a Marine Corps side.

3:14:32But no, he was always cool laid back. We talked a lot about cows. I had cattle at the time and stuff. They were actually going to buy some beef from me. But again, 30 days, you kind of get to know people, but not really. Again, my background, I'm very kind of still – I'm more open now, but even back then I was more kind of quiet, standoffish, didn't trust anybody. Well, I think we've established why. So, like me getting to know people, it takes a lot. So what were your struggles coming back?

3:15:09I never had nightmares. I did have a hard time sleeping and getting a pretty good, I think I had actually had the TBI from the one in Pesh, that attack. Again, never seek medical attention for that whatsoever, but I felt weird after that one. But this one, I think just being around the explosion so close to him and just consistent more, I just couldn't sleep. Again, didn't have nightmares or nothing like that. So for me, it was just kind of just getting medical issues taken care of because I couldn't go to the VA for it because we were contractors at the time. And technically, they didn't want you going to VA because it was still classified.

3:15:49So they picked a doctor that you went and saw. So just dealing with that, I mean, I had all kinds of weird stuff. Like, dude, my body would just swell up, kind of like I had diabetes or something. It was just weird. Like, I couldn't wear watches or nothing because my wedding ring couldn't wear because my whole body would just swell up. Like, just weird. Just at random? Mm-hmm. What was it from? Did they figure it out? They didn't figure it out. They kind of gave up pretty much. Were you boozing? Nope. Drugs? Nope. Nothing? Nope. That is almost unheard of. Yeah, it was weird, man. But then the VA, they gave me some kind of, they did give me like a sleeping pill, but it was like a psychotic sleeping pill.

3:16:37And that's when I actually started dreaming. And I was dreaming about Benghazi, but it never happened the way. Like one time I was climbing through freaking rafters with Roan and even Oz. I'm like, Oz, what the fuck is going on? We never climbed to a rafter. Oz wasn't even here, you know, kind of thing. And he was there, but he wasn't like over at the consulate and stuff. And again, just weird scenarios that were going on, but it was all in Benghazi. And then the last one was, I don't know how my kids showed up. When my kids showed up, I ended up chopping their heads off. What? And that was the last time I took it.

3:17:10I woke up and said, fuck this. I never took any sleeping aid ever again. Shit. So, again, I think a lot of veterans, they sit there and they say they have this kind of stuff, but they keep taking it. Because you do sleep. I mean, I was sleeping. Yeah. But I was like, fuck this. It ain't worth it. So I've never took anything for sleep since. And then it was just that. I mean, just weird medical problems. Actually, I got a thing called relapsing polychondritis, which they don't even know where it comes from. Only like 10 American, 10 people in our country even have it. So it's an autoimmune that attacks your cartilage.

3:17:55And usually it's already attacked my ears. The next is usually the nose. Then after that, it goes for your sosophagus. That's when you die. But they say within about 10 years, if you're still alive, you'll be good. I got another five years because that was diagnosed in 2020. Jeez. So for me coming back, it wasn't really difficult. I didn't really have a hard time. Again, for me, honestly, for the whole thing, it was just hearing them getting tossed off that roof. Honestly, I don't have everything. That's the hardest thing for me.

3:18:37No depression, suicide attempts, nothing? Nope. I'm pretty sure I had some depression. I mean, kind of quit doing what I wanted to do. We got pretty much screwed over on the book and movie deal. How'd you get screwed over on the book? Well, we had no residuals from book sales or movie or anything. Is that from them or is that the agency intervening? I do. We don't know. According to them, the book didn't sell enough. The movie didn't make enough. So we don't get shit. Number one New York Times bestseller. It's right on the fucking cover. Yep. According to them, nope. It's one of the only movies I've ever watched that has to do with what we used to do.

3:19:23Well, dude, if you look at the reviews, it's got like 15 ,000 reviews. It's still almost five stars. But no, the actors, they're making a shit ton of money from it. We don't make – it's just how we got screwed over. I guess the same people that helped us do the book kind of did the movie as well. and we kind of thought we had everything covered in there. But, again, just, you know, liberal Hollywood fucked us over. Remember, we didn't do it for the money. It's good that the story's out there. It's permanent. You can't change it. But, yeah, a lot of people think, oh, you get, you know, well, they call it blood money, but even if it, whatever, we don't get anything from it.

3:20:04Unless we sell it, unless you buy it from us directly, we don't get anything. That's a shame. you guys were involved with the making of the movie though correct yep how involved

3:20:21so once you do the movie or they're going to do it you have to sign your life rights so they're only going to do so much because they have 100 % control so I like to laugh because anyways because I stand my ground on shit I don't care anyways so So, you know, we went in, we talked to Michael Bay. They gave us like the movie script the day before. I don't know how to read a movie script. I don't, you know, I'm reading this stuff and I'm like, I don't know what the hell they're even talking about. You know, because they're talking to that. Because again, they're leading up to it. And I'm like, yeah, whatever.

3:20:55I'm not going to be able to read this the whole night before. We're just going to see him tomorrow. We're going to walk through it, talk through it. So we did. We walked through things. They showed me, you know, what the set was going to look like. I'm like, yeah, this set's not right. So the movie set for the annex, dude, it's pretty accurate. I mean, that's probably 99 % accurate. I was like, well, there's trees here. It's like we're not doing that, dude. But for the most part, the annex was pretty good. The consulate, it was pretty far off. But, again, you got to deal with the layout of the land and stuff like that.

3:21:30So when we're there, we got to go on set for 10 days.

3:21:40And I was sitting there. They were doing the attack scene. So it was kind of cool to watch. But again, I don't really know, because they're doing the same thing for an hour straight. I don't know how people do it. But anyways, and Michael Bay, as they're filming, whatever, they're doing the whole action. He comes walking up, and he says, hey, so you got shot? And again, like, yeah, I got shot. Where'd you get shot? I got shot in the side. He goes, okay, you're going to get shot in the chest. Okay, whatever. You know, so it's just things like that that you just really can't control. But so they did it all.

3:22:14And then I think I went home and then Jack calls me. And he's saying, hey, I just found out that they're not going to put you up on the roof. I'm like, what do you mean? so it's just going to be me up on the roof and i'm like no that ain't going to happen it's like and they're and they're not showing that the delta force guys threw them off the roof and i said well if they're not going to put me on the roof and show the truth i don't want nothing to do with it you can tell them all the fuck off so next thing you know uh i think i forgot who like the producer guy calls he says hey you know we This is why I'm like, I really don't care why.

3:22:55If I'm not on the roof and you're not showing what they did, you can fuck off and I hung up on them. Michael Bay calls, said the same thing to him. And then finally the president, President Paramount, whatever dude's name was at the time, called and I hung up on him. I don't really care. I will not be on, if you don't put me on the roof, don't show what they actually did. You can all fuck off. Well, they fixed it. That's what I mean. It goes back to like, I really don't care. It's like there's a certain ground where people just need to stand and they didn't do it. Then I just wouldn't promote the movie.

3:23:28I wouldn't want nothing to do with it. Good for you, man. So even more now that we didn't, we don't really get anything from it, but it was just about, you know, like you need to show what really happens. And a lot of things in Hollywood, like Michael Bay is like, well, we're doing it this way because we need to have more action. I'm sorry. I didn't know you were, I didn't know we didn't have enough action for everybody. Like, holy shit. so yeah it's just but i mean they did a good job with it it honored the four guys and that was their biggest thing they left politics out of it that was our another goal with the book and the movie we didn't want politics in it because their politics were not involved when we're in the middle of the fight politics came from politicians we didn't we didn't invite the politics into this it was everyone else that did it so again we get you know we're doing the book tour and all this even the movie, we'd get hit up, you know, bashed by the left a lot.

3:24:21So, you know, all you're doing is because it's political, you did that. And, like, what the fuck are you guys talking about? It was like, we're not going to watch it. It's like they don't even give the book or the movie a time because they think it's political. There's nothing political in the book or in the movie, but that's their mindset. And, you know, I remember we got this old lady one time, we were in Boulder, and she came at us saying, I can't believe you guys left the ambassador to die. You just abandoned him. And I'm just like, he wasn't our job. We risk our lives to go and save them.

3:24:54It's like a lot of people don't even know what happened, but yet you get yelled at. You know, you get like degraded for something you had no control over. What the fuck, man? Yeah. The book tour was interesting.

3:25:12Sounds like it. So, but no, I mean, again, coming back home to me, the hardest thing was just getting the medical treatment.

3:25:23And then trying to do speaking events. Because again, I was a quiet guy. You met Boone, right? Mm-hmm. Met him several times. I was quieter than he was. Are you serious? Mm-hmm. That dude does not talk. Yeah. Wow.

3:25:44So, yeah. So, again, it took me a while. I mean, the first six months, I think Tonto answered every question that was asked to me.

3:25:56So, I think I've come out of my shell quite a bit. Well, you've got to if you're going to run for mayor. Right? You better start talking. I'll probably still not be a typical politician. God, I hope not. We got way too many of those. Yeah, I mean, you know, then I get involved in a lot of these other veteran organizations and foundations, and I think that helped quite a bit, you know, because then you're not focusing on yourself. You're kind of helping other guys, and it kind of helps you at the same time. But then you do got some guys. I mean, I still – I did a couple, like with SAW, a special – or Save a Warrior, you know, went to their retreatment.

3:26:43So I did my own things as well as helping other guys. Because, again, you want to sit there as a vet and say, oh, you need to go do this. But if you don't do it yourself, you're kind of doing everyone else a disservice. You're being dishonest. Yeah. So you still, I mean, if you're going to be part of it, you're still going to help fix yourself. Otherwise, you know, you see guys that take their own lives and stuff like that. Because, you know, was that one, I think his name was Jocko. he was a pretty good vet that was like in the whole 22 kind of thing helping guys out constantly the next thing you know he's gone and just like again if you're gonna seeing other people help i think it's been for me it helps me knowing that i kind of helped them in a way who's this i mean i know jaco but it's a different it was a different one though not the one again he was from Texas.

3:27:33For some reason, that's the name that's coming in my head, though. There's been a lot. Yeah, I know. There's been a lot of them. It's sad. Some of it, I don't always think it's combat-related. I think it's home life-related. They just don't know how to deal with that portion of it. Yeah. At least that's what I've kind of seen. I think sometimes, not to go off on the spouses, but again, I think sometimes the spouses aren't truthful what happens inside their family life, which, again, keeps this thing going forward without actually being able to truly fix it. That's my opinion. Just because I've been around it so much and I see so much stuff.

3:28:14Yeah, guys suffer. They see things, but I think a lot of it's just that stress of the home life, and that's what gets to them. Yeah, yeah. Did you deal with any type of survivor's guilt or anything like that? No. because my mindset kind of goes down like we all knew what we're getting into. We all knew what we wanted to do, and we volunteered to go there. We'd always want everybody to come home when we can, but also I think it goes back to like we didn't have that solid brotherhood either. Like I'm not, again, like I don't want active duty guys to say, oh, you know, kind of fuck you. Well, you know, we weren't there for a year, four years, five years, six years together, you know, 30 days.

3:28:58you know you didn't have time to build that kind of camaraderie so it's a little bit different um but i mean you still hit you regardless yeah i mean you're still you're still a brotherhood you want to fight for each other you're americans you're fighting for the same thing um but you know i just don't want to take that away from other guys that have that and that's not what i'm saying just we didn't have that ability to build that type but you also got to remember y 'all signed up for that job. Death comes with it. It's just, it sucks. But having a survivor guilt, I mean, if you passed, would you want him doing the same thing you're doing?

3:29:40For me, it's more about doing better or keep going. I have a thing that always says always move forward because if you digress versus progress, it does them a disservice. It dishonors their sacrifice in my mind. So, I mean, it's just trying to keep on doing it. I mean, you're always going to have failures. I mean, you're always going to, you know, it's not every day, every day is perfect, you know. But it's just trying to do your best, you know, to honor them by doing better. Keep going forward. Make things better for our country. Make their sacrifice mean something.

3:30:20What advice do you have for guys getting out, coming home for today? Have a plan. A lot of guys you talk to, they get out, they're like, I don't even know what the hell I'm going to do. If you don't know, don't get out. That's the worst thing you can do. Have something in mind to go and do.

3:30:44That's what I hear the most out of a lot of guys, even retired guys. but they don't have to worry about income but they're just kind of like I don't even know what to do it's like you knew you were getting out at least a year before you got out you have to start planning for something don't go to college go to trade school just if you don't have an actual skill I started in HVAC it was all hands on labor stuff but I'm not a college kid so I went to trade school but you learn the job you want to know versus, you know, a lot of college, you got to take 20, 30 other courses and it costs you an extra 200 grand.

3:31:25It doesn't have nothing to do with what you want to learn. But for guys, just have a plan, man. Don't just get out. That's the dumbest thing you can do. If you don't have a plan, you better stay in.

3:31:40Because that's my opinion. I think that's good advice. So you're running for mayor in Colorado Springs. What prompted that? I love chaos.

3:31:56No, so, you know. It stemmed initially from 2020, but yeah, from 2020. So that's why I kind of jumped in in 2023. I was very vocal in 2020. I hated the shutdowns. I hated that stupid socialism, lockdown, just infringement crap. It pissed me off. So I did a lot of things in Colorado trying to tell business, just open up. They can't shut you up. And they can't. They can't shut you all down. They can't. Otherwise, they destroy the whole entire city anyways. So I did things up in Denver, pissed off the police up there. One time he called me a stupid, selfish bastard because I was up there. I think I had like 4 ,000-something people show up, a bunch of dudes on motorcycles.

3:32:41I mean, it was a bike ride from all four corners of Colorado. It was pretty cool. and uh because for me for the government to tell us that we can't do something is bullshit we tell the government what it can't do it doesn't tell us what we can't do so i started really pushing back on that and uh you know cops arresting parents in parks with their kids yeah no oh hell no to me that's that you as a cop you should retire you need to throw away that badge because you're a disgrace i'm with you on that one man i can't i can't listen to another person

3:33:20that's just saying, I'm just doing my job. Oh, no, yeah. Then fucking quit. Yep, I'm on 100%. And get a new job. Your job season, well, that's just, if you're just falling on an oars when you can just go enjoy prison the rest of your life, in my opinion, because you're violating somebody else's rights. That's how I am. I'll back the blue, but again, that doesn't, your, yeah, your lack of knowledge does not supersede my freedoms. Yeah. So then, you know, 23 came around. I was starting a new job because I got tired of, like, traveling so much. And I was taking lunch. And I saw on the news, you know, you have, like, so long to sign up and then so much longer to get the signature you need to run for mayor.

3:34:09I think I had, like, two days to get my packet in. And then I had like two weeks to get my signatures. It was right before SHOT Show. I was like, shit, I'll just do it. So I got up, went down to the, again, I had no idea what I was going to do. I was just going to do it. Went down there, got the packet, came back, had a friend come over, filled out the paperwork, finished it that night, turned it back, turned it in the next morning. Got my stuff to go get my signatures. You know, the 200, you had to get 200 signatures. And then I had to come to SHOT Show. So they're doing that. I got like 200 signatures the first weekend when I was gone.

3:34:46Came back, got another 200, turned it in that Monday. And then I got on the ballot, and then they tried to remove me from the ballot. Why'd they try to remove you from the ballot? Because supposedly two people came in to the administration and said I didn't live in Colorado Springs. So I asked them, so who are my accusers? Apparently you can't face your accusers in those incidents. People can just accuse you, whatever. So I had to prove that I lived in Colorado Springs for over a year. It wasn't hard. Seems pretty easy. Yeah, but I'm just like, this is stupid. And then they tried to fight me on putting John Tigtigan on the ballot.

3:35:22I'm like, well, that's a trademark name. I can put it. Actually, I can put anything I want on the ballot. So I got to fight. It was everything I did in the first round was a fight. So anyway, so I got on. You know, I think it panicked a little bit of the other. it's a bipartisan supposedly or not a yeah it's um unaffiliated run but i think i still think the democrats kind of freaked out and they saw me jump on and i think it went up to like a million dollar race i raised like i raised like 20 grand you know but again i knew i didn't have a chance that wasn't the point the point was to do what i did um and this time i'm doing it again for the same reason again my goal is the mayor can only do so much i think people need to realize that which you know when i was running the questions they're asking you even from the media the mayor doesn't have no control over you know so that's the hard part for me was trying to figure out what what can the mayor actually because i'm not a politician they're never wanting to do it and now i'm just like screw it i'm gonna do it now you can piss me off but you know they're asking things like a mayor can't control that's more like a city council or that's the county commissioners It's just like, what's wrong with you people?

3:36:34So, but I want to give more control back to the people, back to the community, and even back to the police. Because if you look and see what happens around this country, especially with police chiefs and certain mayors, they'll tie the hands of cops and they can't do anything with criminals. They can't do anything. Again, like this mayor, he's tying our police chief's hands. I've realized he wants to admit it or not, because I know people too. They won't, he won't allow the local law enforcement to work with federal agents to wrap up these criminals, these illegals. To me, it's like, no, they're one police.

3:37:09The number one job is to protect the community. Anyone who's violating our community need to be wrapped up. And again, if they're here illegally, they violated it. So my, my goal in a way, I don't know, again, still looking into things, but trying to make it to where, even though the mayor may still pick the police chief, he can't dictate what he does. Like as long as he's within the Constitution, the mayor has no control. You shouldn't have to control that police chief, just like the sheriff. You can't control the sheriff. But people say, well, you need to be able to make sure your town's taken care of.

3:37:40It's like as long as you put in there, he has to abide by the U.S. Constitution, the state constitution. That's all he needs to do. That's what you should be doing anyways. The mayor shouldn't be stopping, shouldn't be hindering, shouldn't be influencing, shouldn't be doing a damn thing with law enforcement. So, again, it's just like the president kind of having control over the FBI and having them do a raid on a former president because he wants to. That's bullshit. You shouldn't have that type of control because that's what happens. You know, you had the – during 2020, you had the Seattle police pulled completely out and he had a nation of Chaz show up.

3:38:18You know, it was like, no, they're there to protect the community. The mayor should not be telling that police chief to pull. the police should be doing their damn job protecting the community and then you know just the infrastructure and all that stuff and yeah it's i mean i got i got a little ways to go but i got two years to prep and i already i have like eight issues i'm looking into that people complain about but so well i'm sure you're gonna do well so i'm excited to see how it goes you know So people say, well, it should be easy. It's a military town. But yeah, we have five military bases.

3:38:56But again, the military don't vote. Well, they vote, but not for Colorado Springs. They vote for the state they come from. That's the problem. Yeah, it's a military town. Make an announcement and get them to register. Right. I know when I ran the first time, I think it was about 100 people came up and said, I'm voting for the first time ever because you're running. Good. That felt pretty good. I'll bet it does. What's your wife think about you getting into politics?

3:39:28So, she was actually, she was going to run for a seat. No kidding. She would have won. I mean, she would have smoked anybody that was going to run against her. I mean, she's been involved in the political community across the whole state for about five years now. She helps organize churches and stuff to kind of get more involved in politics because they've been too scared. They don't realize the rules and stuff. It's a big voting block. Oh, yeah. It's huge. Actually, I'm doing it. Well, I'll get into that. So she's been involved with that, and she got asked to do that. And I was like, well, cool, because I'm going to run for mayor.

3:40:03I'll win mayor. You'll be up there with good powerhouse. But then she's kind of like, yeah, I'd rather just stay home, and I'll just help you. Because I get it. I mean, that would cause a little bit of a separation between us, her doing that, me doing this. so she's like and plus you know she you know she does a lot a lot of prayer praying and stuff and she's like it never came to me to actually do it it was more of my decision and it's not something that god's leading me to so i'm stepping back i'm not gonna do it so now she's just pretty much like just gonna help me do it and she's actually going to business school right now too so right on man yeah she's a she's a blessing i got a good feeling about this yeah i think it's gonna to be strong.

3:40:46I think you're going to get it. Yeah. Now I'll have a team. I mean, we're getting a solid team because it's not just about the one person. The one, to me, the mayor is just a leader. Everybody else does the work. It's just making sure that everybody does what the constituents want. Where nowadays it kind of seems like politicians, they get in there and then just kind of do what they want. Yeah. Sure as hell does seem like that, doesn't it? On both sides. Yep. It's a fucking disaster. Because they want to please everybody. You're not there to please everybody. It's favors. Yeah. So just get there, do what needs to be done and what should be done.

3:41:22And what the voters want is what they get. Yeah. So. We'll tell you, we're wrapping up the interview, but you know, out there we were talking about your son or your kids, twins.

3:41:39And just want to see if you have anything you want to say to them. never give up always push forward life's hard sometimes you get knocked down just always got to get back up well dude I wish you the best of luck man and I just want to say thank you for coming well thank you man appreciate it it was an honor truly oh my god cheers

3:42:12Thank you.