Combat Story (Ep 21) Eddie Penney - Navy SEAL | DEVGRU | Marine | Entrepreneur

and i'll never forget i was walking around the back and this dude pops up he was on the roof pops out kind of slings his weapon his ak-47 over and i'm at the low ready and i'm looking at this long wall except there's doorways i'm thinking about this i just seen this dude out of my peripheral went through the night vision and i just one shot dropped him headshot and i just kept marching on welcome to combat story i'm ryan fugit and i serve war zone tours as an army attack helicopter pilot and cia officer over a 15-year career i'm fascinated by the experiences of the elite in combat on this show i interview some of the best to understand what combat felt like on their front lines this is combat story today we hear the incredible combat story of elite tier 1 operator eddie penny eddie was a marine navy seal and seal team 2 and a member of the storied seal team 6 or naval special warfare development group this is an incredible inside look at the mind perseverance experience and journey of those who serve at the very tip of the spear including the moments that seemingly broke eddie and made him who he is today since retiring from the military eddie founded and runs the contingent group which provides risk mitigation services and executive protection he also created the unafraid mindset and has an app called the den where people can gather to share inspirational stories and seek motivation from others you'll be excited to learn that eddie is releasing a book with keith wood about eddie's experiences that's sure to be a phenomenal read eddie is an inspiration in the way he approaches his life the way he recovered from some of the dark places many of us can relate to and the way he forms meaningful connections with others this is one of my favorite interviews and i hope you enjoy his stories as much as i did eddie thanks for taking the time to share your story today absolutely thanks for having me on yeah no problem so i've done a lot of research on you just from some of the other um the other interviews you've done and it's it's really amazing the journey you've had and it seems like at least from the time you got into the military and i know we'll dive into this there's been like climbing the ladder over and over to the kind of to the elite in in many people's eyes i was wondering if you could take us back to you as a kid if there was that ambition inside you there or if you developed it later what like what was the younger eddie like oh gosh he was a pain in the butt that's what he was um yeah i i guess you don't you know it's funny because i've done a few podcasts and this kind of comes up and you know talk about motivation mindset because i'm huge in that uh and obviously the career path um yeah it definitely started when i was a child but you know you don't realize it i guess until you look back you're like i guess i've always been this this way jacked up or or whatever you know how i'm wired i know but i always wanted to just i always wanted to be a part of something like i was going to be a part of a team i wanted to be the best on that team um just to like just i always strive to be the best i mean just um and i failed short 99 out of 100 times but but i tried to you know there's always a better better kid in baseball or football basketball god when you talk about basketball uh what it was soccer whatever it was but i tried to do i really did try to do my best um why i don't know i would imagine you know my upbringing with my parents uh my idols is like you know bo jackson was a huge aisle for me you know just him playing baseball and uh bo knows yeah i had all his posters posters the half royals have raiders had all that had all his rookie cards and glass cases like i was just i was such a fan would buy all his shoes all that stuff i was that kid uh so he was just like a mentor i'm like man he can do that he can do two sports like some guys are kicking butt and one sport this dude's over here like doing it in two like that's so cool uh so i guess it's just the drive but it was always you know military related like i'd always put on you know cammies or get all black and then go outside depending on and i i just i i did another podcast uh last night um what was last night wednesday it was tuesday and um and we were talking about i was like yeah i would just get dressed up and i'd be sneaking around like dipping into people's pools and then coming to go underwater come out the other side sneaking in there and looking in their windows and you know i say that i'm like dude that's peeping tom that's sick you pervert like it wasn't like i was looking for i was young it wasn't like i was looking for something um you know on that level i just just thought i was training i thought because i would see a movie you know with some with arnold or stallone and or van damme and just i would go do those crazy things and make ghillie suits and they had no clue what i was doing no no clue whatsoever i you know it just got it just yeah i'd always wanted to be the best i guess the real real time i decide kind of realized that um is i joined that when i was in eighth eighth grade i told him i was i played football probably from as well as young as i could until about eight eighth grade and then freshman year started and it was like high school and i told my dad i'm like man these these guys are these kids are huge like i i did puberty until probably you know way after high school like i was definitely in the in the military when i did and i was like i'm quitting and he's like no you can't quit and i was like no i'm i'm quitting so uh that was like the first time i quit and i mean for for i'm glad i did because i'm not huge you know put up like you don't quit you don't quit you keep going but i joined the swim team and i jumped in and swam 25 yards which i was like i can swim and i was breathing so freaking hard i felt the needles in my lungs uh which would become a very very very familiar feel for my chosen career path uh but i just i was like man i want to get better than this i want to get i want to get better i want to get better so i just stayed and then i started going i did it for my freshman year and moved my software that i started doing two a days uh swam in the summer i just kept working my way up and i got pretty pretty good i mean not like take state or go to state level but like that divisional uh in ohio which is ohio is a faster stage for swimming and um it was just good you know i had some good friends that kind of motivated me to do it i just i loved it and then that just kind of led into the military and then i was like this isn't working for me i want the next step okay uh this is great but is there a higher as you say the ladder is there another ring to go up absolutely so like let's keep going let's keep going until we can't go any further which means your body breaks and you're like crap this hurts how how hard was the decision to to stop playing football i mean i know it's at a young age eighth grade but um yeah you know that could be tough yeah it was hard especially like when my really good friends are on the team like yeah dude don't don't do it and i i just something in me was just like no no i no because i i played seventh and eighth grade year and really kind of sat the bench i maybe played one or two or maybe a half dozen plays a game i was like dude this is just you know it's awesome to practice get in shape and hit people and all that stuff but you know i want to i wanted to be that though jackson right to run whatever it was because both post perfect can do anything so i just that wasn't yeah it just wasn't me man i was a small guy i didn't understand like you know i i'd get the ball i'd catch a pass like i was a tight end i'd run and i would just get tackled i went didn't understand like juking or trying to get away i just it didn't set into my brain for some reason uh so yeah i was just but yeah the decision was hard and a friend said hey i want to try this one team and it just kind of helped out so i moved from one group of friends not that i left them or you know there was any animosity or anything and just moved over attempted to another you know the swimmer group which uh that's where i stayed for my whole high school career until senior year man when was the first time you picked up a weapon it's kind of an odd switch here but i'm just curious if if that was early on for you you're talking about building you know like making your own ghillie suits and yeah this well since we're on that this would probably surprise you not i i had a bb gun and i would shoot squirrels and birds apologize uh animal lovers i love animals too but uh you know i had a boy at a young age i just thought it was the thing to do or i could put up a target shoot cans all that stuff but never i remember my i went down to florida right outside of pensacola and family down there and we would stay there for i think every summer we went down there and i would get the little 22 or the bb gun and go out back and have some big old squirrels back there because that that's some land and we shoot those but never deer hunted never went to like a i think i went to a range maybe once with my buddies dad who was a cop to shoot at a barrel with some handguns and some other things i think i did like one shot and he's holding it i mean so really i didn't even shoot it but really the first time i shot shot was in the marine corps in boot camp man yeah it is weird right you're like you want all this but you know nothing about any kind of weapon so did you um one more question about your childhood were you into wrestling or anything or was it purely it was football and swimming and then some pickup sports on the side it it actually started i went to i don't know when it was it was after i can't remember when wrestling starts i tried wrestling and i did it for a week and then that weekend i went with some buddies i met them up at our local gym and we were playing basketball and i twisted my ankle so i was like in a cast so i by wrestling i just didn't wrestle anymore and that was yeah no short-lived question short very short level you describe like uh all right in football you you know you don't have the moves to juke or that sort of thing but i'm imagining like the work that you did in the marines and then with with the teams um i mean you've got combatives the hand-to-hand side the martial arts that i'm sure you picked up the fighting later on right yeah yeah did you just develop the technique for that the hard way i guess i just didn't i mean maybe it was like i would just freeze you know the deer the headlights uh yeah i was just young you know yeah i mean when i got older i understood the juking it just i didn't have this the speed as these other kids i mean freaking freak of natures i pretty sure every one of them was on performance hands enhancing drugs or something or i just not that bad which is probably the truth uh but yeah yeah it's definitely changed i have very good balance now in coordination uh so it's i mean i play you know when i a couple years ago before you know some crazy injuries suddenly play football or smear the queer we've heard that one yeah um yeah there was no problem like messing around like that so yeah i don't know i couldn't just came later on huh i guess so man interesting slow learner and could you just talk a little bit about your folks and the environment you grew up in um you were saying like you know you had this don't quit mentality but obviously your dad was supportive of your decisions you know what what were they like and then how did you find your way into the military uh they were they were very good parents very cool they they got divorced when i was probably seven eight ish time frame and uh it was the classic you know go to your father every other weekend maybe a dinner on wednesday of the week or whatever but most of times with my mom and she was she was awesome but i you know it she you know we'd go bowling and just you would do normal go to the movies normal normal stuff i guess growing up um but i i think really the clique that kind of said hey this is where you want to go here's where your passion starts is honestly when i would be with my dad we'd watch football um and we would watch movies just combat movies like rambo um total recall you know every van damme movie bonds we would watch all the bonds all the time and it never got old it still does not get old to this day so um yeah we just did that would just speed my mind in in a good way i think um so it just goes to say you know you learn what you see and what you're around and you know you're you're the um the subject of what you you know succumbed to but uh yeah that's where it started and then i was like okay i'm gonna do like when i was in in high school you know there was that brief moment where i was like i want to go to college and just swim i want to get better at swimming i want to do this and and just see what happens but it was really just kind of uh i'm with the swim team that's what they were all going to do so maybe i'll just do the same thing but then i just you know i just didn't i was like nah i really think the military kind of went back and forth and then my coach who i really looked up to passed away at the end of my junior year right be of the beginning of senior year and i went to the first practice where he was not there i jumped in the water i swam down and back maybe maybe a couple times i think honestly i think i did the warm-up and i got out and i said i'm done i stopped swimming i i had no motivation uh it is this dude was a mentor and i know we have to do things for ourselves and not other people but i i had no drive i had nothing the coach called my mom my mom came in came in i was like i don't want to do this i'm done i mean usually i get in the pool like warm up all right dude let's go sprints distance put on the buckets surgical tubing what a medicine ball like what is it let's go let's go let's go i was so amped and ready to go for an awesome workout and just push myself and breathe so hard with those those needles nailed the lungs right i had nothing i was deflated i was done um and i a lot of a tribute to you know my coach larry lyons pass it away because he was such a huge mentor and i know it affected other people but they you know they hung in there to the thing and i somewhere in there i just kind of decided you know the military is probably going to be my thing screw this i don't want to do that and then i didn't know what branch of service to go to so i would i went to all the recruiters besides the coast guard uh went to all the recruiters every pamphlet they had and just kind of looked at the pictures and look at all their special forces stuff and it was really coming down to uh the rangers and the seal teams and then i had a buddy that i swam with who graduated the year before me yes before me so he was a senior when i was a junior and he was going he graduated marine corps uh in paris island south carolina so his family because we were really good friends like hey eddie you want to go down to his graduation i was like absolutely i would love to check it out like good job buddy you know be there for him uh and marines like i thought about the marines but i'm like you know i you know i just i don't think so so i went down there just saw the obstacle course and i think like the boxing bugle sticks they were doing the marching which is so horrible to do uh and i just i kind of fell in love like i'm more than the marines i'm gonna be marine i'm going to be a marine because just seeing him like known him before and then seeing this product afterwards i was like he was just more mature like just crisp and i was like man smelled like amazing aqua velva that's like dude you are perfect who did it back then yeah that's the thing that was issued aqua velvet was issued um so so yeah i went back and i signed up for the marines pretty much i think maybe a month or two later had my parents i was i was 17 at the time 19th birthday was in marine corps boot camp actually i had to have my parents sign uh to give my life away to good old uncle sam they did they you know they obviously questioned me day in day out um constantly and which you know which they should uh because you're 17. you're you're a kid you don't know anything you think you do but you're just a kid um doesn't mean you all have great knowledge you can do great things but i mean we just got the facts on that so did that and you know the rest is history he went to the marines and did that i was like i just want to do infantry because that's i think that's the first people that go in if there's any kind of combat and after i took my ass back the dude's like so you went in trails like that that's all i want he's like good because that's all you're probably gonna get i was like stop no way i asked well i guess wasn't the greatest or something come on it worked out it worked out hey could i jump back to larry lyons your coach that you mentioned right so i may have lost track of time what year were you at school when that happened i graduated 96 so i think he passed away like 94.95 time frame yeah and so that hit you hard you're saying like that that that took me out it took me out i just uh the dude was such a motivational piece of my life like just the things he said the way he treated you he just pushed you man he was like the dude was he would just have these little quotes i'll never forget one he's like take care of the little things and the big things will take care of himself i'm like no way like he just he was amazing i mean just like he was just a good motivational person i mean he he did stuff with the olympics uh with the us swim team i'm not sure if it was like nationals or but he was i mean he was he was up there he was he was no joke he put out a couple olympia olympians so uh he was a real deal real deal yeah so did you take oh yeah go ahead no no you're good guys i was just gonna say like were there certain things you took from him when you were leading later on that you kind of borrowed absolutely i i think about i actually have on my phone every like his memorial when he passed it pops up and it just like kind of takes me back oh man yes i mean he was that big i mean that i put him on my calendar so every year i make sure that i just think about it kind of reflect back on it's just something for me because i've got i've got it for a lot of the boys and the phone and stuff like that um because we say that never forgotten and i really hold that dear um so yeah yes absolutely it just he had so many and i'm definitely not where he was in my mind and maybe someone would think differently but i tell you what he was like he was a great mentor and just a great all-around man family life professional life as a friend as a coach as a mentor like he was very well-rounded of just being awesome would he get in the pool and take you guys to school basically yeah he was older he wear those pants kind of pulled up tucked in collared shirt but i mean he just didn't mess with larry he didn't mess with coach lyons no that's awesome yeah all right so so you go into the marines um yeah if you could talk through just what what that initial stage was like for you and then where in your mind you circle back to this uh seal decision uh so you know boot camp was awesome i went after boot camp uh i went to and i and i i i we have a book coming out we actually just finished it last week it's kind of the tale it started with uh mike ritland's podcast it got a lot of good ratings a lot of people a lot of good feedback on it so we're like dude let's a lot of people said why don't we turn this into a book and then a good friend of mine that was also writers like eddie that you want to do this i was like let's do it so that's hopefully coming out by the end of summer so this is your book eddie you're saying yeah yes but but my buddy keith wood he's the writer because if i did it they would seriously be in cram and uh it would it would people wouldn't understand it like who was this flintstone character so he's he's the one that puts the words i just tell the stories and he puts him into his magical words uh so i definitely gotta give him like the credit because he's an amazing writer um so we did that totally lost so you were talking about for one thing that stuck with me is you saying like how much you love boot camp which i don't know how many people come out of the marine corps boot camp are like that was a great time right there yeah i liked it i i hated it the first couple weeks you know you get to a new area i mean you were you're in the military you know you worked with uh other other agency slash units you you know the deal uh this first couple weeks you know you're like kind of like walking on eggshells who do i talk to who do i not talk to how do i act i'll be myself yet so um so it's like it's just better you know first come away from home mom and dad's not there you know i don't have my little special pillow in my little room with my little desk and my little desk lamp and i still have that stuff and you got these dudes just screaming at you and you're in alphabetical order and talk about feeling like a freaking machine my gosh but but i understand the process i understand the process now uh but it was it was awesome i'll never and the reason why i say this i can i can attribute this to one specific event that's the reason why i brought up the book is because this was a this is a whole chapter in the book is we went to we were drilling and you got to keep your rifle and you i'm sure you've heard the sand fleas on paris island they kind of they're horrible and that that's actually that's not a conspiracy that's actually a fact uh they they just they just kind of give me your skin at the most inopportune time and they just start gnawing on you it's like dude get off me and so you're trying to like wipe it off without people seeing you or the drill instructor catching you and i and i thought that i developed a tactic to kind of like move my hand up my body and kind of brush away whatever whatever was gone on my arm and that's what happened i was brushing away one it was on my right arm i'll never forget it inside the right full of right shoulder arms and it was on my arm so the rifle could kind of block my arm to go up and i thought i knew where all the drill instructors were because there's i think three of them out there they just circle you like little vultures big vultures excuse me and i move my arm up and all i hear i hear the worst thing you can possibly hear in boot camp your freaking name recruit penny yeah and i'm like oh boy you fall out so i you know i get out and then i just follow this drill instructor to the infamous sand pits that are spread out through uh throughout the base and it's just me and this dude is he starts beating me down not physically but i mean but physically push-ups uh jumping jacks oversized circle hubs uh sit-ups sprints uh eight-count bodybuilders any mountain climbers you know anything that's just the most miserable thing you know you're hot you're sweating the sand sticking to you sun's beating down and you've got this dude just yelling at you and you're like okay i want to go home um and this is this is probably this has got to be the first first half of boot camp and this is i'll never forget he just made he made me there was like a building or a shack or something behind like behind me that he would make me run runs like all right you got 20 seconds to run and like there's no way i would be able to run and come back and stand attention right in front of him in 20 seconds and he knew that and i knew that but you know you still got to try so i did that in you know 20 21 2010 then you're finally there you know they they they're the masters they know the games and they kept doing it over and over and he's like oh you can't do that all right let's do 19. and just like just freaking just nailing you and it's just and we wonder why we have ptsd like and uh dude he broke me down i i was sweating so bad and i started tearing up and i started crying right in front of this dude i'm trying to like please god have this uh you know my sweat take away these tears so this this monster of a drill instructor which he's probably like only five seven but super yolked i mean his freaking rolled up candies like tourniquets on his arms and veins popping out like no joke uh and and he knew it he's like go do it again it just and he did it again and i started getting pissed i mean i got so freaking mad i wanted to swing as hard as i could there's two problems with that one i could not lift my arms two that dude would have jacked my world up no no question about it you just would have jacked me up and you knew that and i knew that but he kept doing it and they're just there was a switch in me man it was just like i i i believe that i've switched from boy to man when that happened and it was the most crazy experiment screw this and then like i literally said all right bring it do it again do it again i'd like go like i wouldn't say go but i was like if my whole demeanor changed i wouldn't do it again i didn't make the time i kept doing it i kept doing it i got this burst of adrenaline it was crazy and i'm like and he he stopped me and he goes do you understand why we do discipline and he explains like when we're in combat i'm relying on you you will be relying on me we we have to be disciplined in the things we do and of course it's just this little baby sand flea but it is a um just an example of how we need to follow discipline and it stuck with me and keeping me down that dude made me a man right then and there for i mean we were out there for hours i mean it wasn't like a i mean the dude beat me down and he beat me down hard but he made he did something so good and he knew it he knew it he did his job it was awesome that's an awesome story so so eddie when you're if you could think back to that was the idea in your mind like the switch was it i'm gonna prove this guy wrong or like i'm better than this it was it was not i'm gonna prove this guy wrong it was i'm gonna i'm gonna prove myself wrong like no you don't feel sorry for yourself you're not you don't have that option in life you're not going to have that option if this is the the career choice you wanted you wanted this not to have all these internal conversations and it's just like and i and i learned right then and there like bring it bring it on bring it on whatever you got you will not break me down that it started there which was it was it was such a blessing for for when i switched over to the seal teams i mean buds i was like dude you ain't breaking me like i have that like you are not breaking me i'm i'm sure a lot of those men especially the ones that made it through had that had that switch somewhere in there uh and i'm sure if you interview dudes that have been the buzz there's got to be there's got to be a moment i would imagine there's like this this moment that they could be like i'll tell you exactly when it happened so it was it was dude it was such it was awesome like it sucks don't get me wrong i hated every second of it but soon as that switch happened i i mean it was really like come on it was like i was just hit with adrenaline every type of awesome drug there possibly is to get your heart rate going and just ready to rock and dude that's what i did do you i mean you've got kids you've trained other people is there a way to train that into somebody or does it just have to happen internally i think it has to i think you can put them in situation scenarios and give examples i personally believe that i think a um a neuro doctor or whatever they're called would probably be better at this than i would but you know i think it's it's an internal choice i i really think it's a mindset switch uh if you if you're like dude you ain't breaking me down he ain't breaking me down we start developing these excuses i i did it i did it for football i did it for swimming i mean and there's probably another laundry list of them um i think we all have had those situations and those times we did that but um no i really think it's a mindset thing and i think it's a choice like hey no you're not you're not going to entice me with a warm shower and a steak dinner oh that sounds amazing i'll have it after a week like you know what i mean it's like you make that freaking choice like dude no you're not breaking me i won't happen i'm not gonna let the demons come in and try to talk me out of it you know we do it all the time i'm sure we've all been somewhere like hey dude do this drug or hey cheat on your significant other or do then we said hell no i mean some of us fall for i felt i've fallen for it before you know and throughout my life uh i'm proud to say not anymore like stiff on that [ __ ] but um but but it's a choice it's a freaking choice i i don't see the difference you know it's that mindset like i will not do it because you know it's the reward right you get the consequence of the reward what do you want what's it worth for you what's your passion what's your purpose you know how great is it that that guy took the time to do that with you you know like it probably would have been easier to just yell on your face and then walk up walk away you know but right i i've wondered about this many times like did he just not like me and just wanted to beat me down or did he want to prove a point or did it start like i just don't like this dude because because it wasn't the first time i've been caught and everyone was caught itching or moving or trying to shake out their legs i mean like dude we're about to pass out out here and they know that they've been through it uh or did it switch over to like i just want to beat this dude to learn lessons to okay wait a second we're getting somewhere so i don't know i have i thought i've thought about looking this dude up before i know man i would love to hear that but he had the last name martinez and man there's a lot of them in the military god or did he just see something in you you know like this guy is better than what he's putting out here i don't know but whatever he did i i i owe him a i owe him a nice steak dinner i'll tell you yeah oh that's awesome what a great story i can't thank that guy enough man he did some good stuff so how long were you in the marines before you said you know what this is fun but i want something else i'd say probably about the two and a half year mark i was like i'm done with this and the reason that was is when i was at the school of infantry in camp geiger just outside of lejeune the armpit of the world i like to call it um we like it's a non-deployable unit so i wasn't like i wanted to go on ships and go see cool countries and like if there was ever any kind of conflict i wanted to be there i wanted to be that first dude on the ground i don't really understand you know the spec ops world besides you know what i'd see in the military or excuse me what i've seen in on tv or whatever in movies uh so i just wanted to be in the fight man i really just wanted to be the fight if there's an enemy i want to be there with it i feel like i have i have tom's disease terrified of missing stuff like i i just want to be there like i just have to be there um hold up eddie do you say that because you don't want to say fomo isn't that what most people say fear missing out they they say that i always i was always i've heard that my girlfriend actually told me that i've always been taught uh terrified of missing [ __ ] that's what i've always been better that's better all right sorry about that no no i've heard the other one but you know what i mean yeah it's like why didn't you go home at midnight and stay out till two in the morning because you thought you're gonna miss a good time or something that happened to me all the time and what year are we talking so this this is late 90s right like 911 hasn't happened yet no 911 did not happen so it was 96 to 2000 i was on the marines okay so about 98.99 i was like i'm done with this i was like i want something okay so here we go uh so what when i was in i was like i started there was a cyber school is in there's a cyber school at quantico virginia right where i was stationed and i would see the guys in their ghillie suits taking them back to childhood right they're they're rifles and like just all bowflash and just looking awesome like freaking cool just looking sweet so i was like man so i went to my higher ups i'm like i want to go to sniper school can i please go to sniper school they're like well you're we we have in the marine corps you had three uh shooting badges based on how you shoot at the rifle range you have marksman which is the lowest sharpshooter which is the middle and then you have expert which is the highest i was a marksman uh so i went i i was like can you plea i was like just please make it happen so i can go to sniper school they're like hey we'll send you the rifle range to do another qual course and you got to get expert like that's just the rules i was like i understand uh so i i did what i could to like work on my side alignment side picture my natural respiratory paws bone support muscle relaxation all the stuff they teach you at the fundamentals of shooting and uh and i went to the it went to the rifle range and i did the qual course and i was like destroying it and i i missed rifle expert by one point by one point so i go back to my command i was like please let me go again so they let me go back again a few months later i missed it again by one point i'm not making this up by the way one point i was like okay i was like let's make a deal you let me go one more time this is the third time and usually you're not supposed to go i think it's once a year but you can do every six months like eddie you're not supposed to do i think i was a corp all the time corporal penny you're not supposed to do that i was like yeah i got that can we just like go talk to my buddy that was uh working at cyber schools i came here can you please like do something so i got in to go again and i miss it again by one point i'm not i can't make this up man it was three times i went to that freaking rifle range and i met i mean i was devastated i was back to larry lyons mode of like what dude what the what what is going on and it just kind of deflated me again and i was like all right man i'm done with the military i'm getting out and this is probably two two and a half three year mark i was like i'm just gonna get out i'm gonna go back to cincinnati i'm going to be a cop i'll make nothing wrong with being a cop i'm like i'll just i'll just try that uh so i started reaching out researching what i need to do for that whole thing and then not even maybe a month later i was like screw this i'm going to go to buds i'm going to go to buds so i went to i talked to some marines i'm like because they used to have a program where you could just like swap right over and if you don't make it early this is what i was told at least uh you could if you don't make it you just come back to the marines i was like let's go back to the like the navy or something that's fine because i don't want to be in the regular navy on the ship like painting things and swapping decks so but that that wasn't the case i guess that was the way it was before my time so you had to be completely out of the marines and have to sign a four-year contract with the navy and i had it in my contract so i did that i had in my contract that i would go to this transition i'd have to do boot camp go to this transition transitioning processing units take all my stuff to from the marines to the navy to switch it over and then at the time uh the seo community did not have its own rates like its own job so i had to pick another job and i asked recruiter like what's similar to like an infantry they're like oh yeah gunner's mate that's that's probably the closest thing i was like okay it's got guns in it that's got to be cool and dude it's like electronics it sucks it's nothing not i mean nothing i was like but you had to do you had to have a job before you went to buds so i did that six-month school went to buds and it just i didn't worry about it i had a lot of i wouldn't say naysayers like are you sure about this you know you could get injured like only 20 or 30 make it i'm like man i have done my freaking homework like i have studied i have one of this since i was a kid and when i went out there it was just it was on and i remember when i checked in i checked into because we had in doc before bud started us five weeks and it's like from five or six in the morning until like noon or one and all you do is they work you out and they kind of like teach you about not tying a little bit just basic stuff before you actually per actual bud starts and i was checking into my uh uniform and i had the the navy uses ribbons to show the shooting badge or whatever and so my head the like the middle one because i got sharp shooter because i missed it by one point for expert and he looked at my chest he's like marines i was like i was like yes drills what are they call them i think i just said yes sir i can't remember what i said or whatever we call them and uh he goes he's like we'll make that an expert he's like just watch and i and i remember that dude saying that it was so impactful so impactful i was like dude that is freaking cool i mean you know because that guy could have been like i mean the typical military would just like i make fun of you i mean i've been guilty of it doing it to other people it happens to me uh but he was like we'll change that i'll never forget that and the dude was right um and i don't know just i guess more clicking happened when we did you know shooting on the range at freaking um in third phase uh we did land warfare we're actually putting rounds on range but dude there's no problem i was just drone at all now it was i mean not tripping at all but like i was kicking butt so told your slow learner god i had a moment like that as well i would never compare it to the life of a seal but i was in one of my first units as an aviator and the ladder you want to climb is to become a pilot in command so you're responsible for the aircraft it takes a while to get there and i remember my we had an xo coming into the unit a major when i was a lieutenant or yeah i thought i was lieutenant and he called and he's like who is this it's like oh it's lieutenant fugit it's like all right um are you a pc yet it was the first time i'd ever talked to him like i he didn't even say hello he's like are you a pc you pilot in command no you got six months and then and then like we would then talk about what else is going on you know but it was very much like i'm going to help you get there get your [ __ ] gear that's cool and i'm supporting you know like it was one of those moments to me that i remember that kind of support it kind of shows you because i'm sure you can remember uh definitely more older military it's kind of like just yelling at you you need to do this it's not really like a mentoring kind of thing it's like it's like it's like raising a kid right how do i expect my kid to do better if i don't show them how to do things like teach them to lead them like hey bro here's how we set the table and i physically show you how to do it versus like hey man figure it out like go do it which i which i used to do all the time i figure it out but it's like hey man this is how we do it put your plate here put our forks and knives over here spoons which i'm totally jacked up because i don't understand the endicott thing yeah um and you know we put here make sure you get napkins for everyone make sure you know we open the door for the ladies we say hi we say thank you we say yes sir yes ma'am all that stuff but they they they pick it up by watching you by watching us doing the right thing and i and that was one thing that i picked up is like because these guys would demonstrate you know shooting or whatever it might be or how to you know work an explosive and that would show you everything it wasn't like hey do this or hey watch this video from some some dude in the classroom they would show you right there what to do they'd walk you through it step by step they would walk around like if you messed up hey no no do this not this that would be like you idiot you like and it it's like it was kind of an eye opener marines was more like do this like you know it's just this this hierarchy of rank such a big thing uh and i just yeah there's no there's no place with that when i'm putting a blasting cap on a piece of c4 sorry [Laughter] hey so you can't believe everything you read online but i i think i saw that you were in one of the most interesting places when 9 11 happened right so you were in training is that you were at buds can you just talk about that for a minute eddie i mean i'm sure you've had to tell the story many times but it seems like a pretty incredible place to have gotten that news yeah i believe i was second phase probably the first or second it was definitely the beginning of second phase i believe yeah i believe so and i remember walking into the chow hall uh it was morning time and because we're west coast so that those planes hit like eight or nine in the morning and then obviously that's we were just getting our breakfast and i remember putting my plate down and kind of like looking around you always like just kind of get your situation awareness right things you pick up when you just get yelled at and beat down all the [ __ ] time and i went to go i was about to go sit down and like i just noticed people were kind of stopping and we had tvs up in the um after hell week they'll turn the tvs on like for news and stuff like that and they were showing you know what was happening um with the whole 911 events and i was like what's going on you know we're like what's happening what's happening what's happening like i can see instructors on the phone texting people one of our instructors actually had i believe his wife was a flight atter she was a stewardess that was on a flight to new york uh so he was kind of like getting the you know the information on on that stuff and we kind of figured out we had you know we kind of figured out during breakfast we're like eating like just glued to the tv seeing what was going on and all of us are like i wonder if they'll push us through training that's all we're i mean like it's horrible what happened uh but we're like dude does this like what obviously this means like some kind of war something's about to get like it's just it's inevitable and uh i remember like they gonna push us through and then later that day when they got some more information so they could tell us like all right training i mean we we looked at training as serious we we did but when 9 11 happened it kind of kind of leveled up a little bit you know what i mean it was like dude we just got nailed right here um if we just take away all conspiracies and or facts whatever whatever they mean by to the higher beings that knows the actual true true uh americans died it was horrible uh in you know there was a particular party that took credit for it so yeah it was it was on and like leveled it up like dude things are about to get really weird really quick and it's gonna you know it's there's me bullets downrange and those bullets are gonna be coming for us so uh it was i was excited because i i didn't you know we don't do this to like just do it to train like there like there's got to be an end game there's got to be a goal you're training to go to the show you've heard that right we want to be there we want to go do it we want to put what we've learned our knowledge to in the face of danger and take it to them to protect our freaking americans back here in our homeland like that's that's the name of the game if you want to break it down everyone say that that's really the gist of it um so yeah it got real real quick i mean it got real training changed i think the demeanor of the instructors changed they were very professional but uh it just there's a little tweaking there it was definitely like there's a little tweaking because those dudes were gonna go back to the team right they were dying to go to the team oh yeah yeah yeah yeah that's there's a very small percentage that try to dodge that deployment bill at place but uh everyone's itching to go you don't yeah you don't go through that [ __ ] and volunteer keep volunteering to just try to go to try to go to get over there i mean that's that's where you wanted to be that's since i was a kid like being on the back and i and i knew nothing about it i didn't know what it was like to have a round come by your head you know you didn't know that what's what's what's it like when incoming rounds come near you it sucks that's what it is uh but you didn't you didn't think about that right because they never died in the movies just the bad news i know so so eddie i want to jump to your first combat experience but i want to ask you real quick before you got into that you so you get through buds you're on your way to the teams you're back in chicago and something happens so i'm i'm curious yes yeah so after sqt i went to seal team two and it was my first workout before our first deployment um and i couldn't pass that rating test because remember i told you you had to go be a different i got to be a gunners mate well you have to take tests in the navy and it's not like we're in the seal community so that like that's all being fed that's all i'm learning and they had no like course for the seal community so i had to go back and study for gunner's mate but i failed the test like two times and then i was like hey i need to go back up to my a school because they you can do like they can teach you more stuff like on a like shove information down your throat and they have like a training lab and stuff so a friend of mine went up there and we did that and then one night we went out to dinner just outside of the base maybe maybe two miles right outside the base and uh i was we were wearing i was wearing a collared shirt you know some nice slacks just because we you know we thought we were cool guys because we were team guys and uh we go out there and didn't talk to anybody in this there's a lot of military guys some dudes in their uniform and didn't talk to anybody and my buddy and i were going out because we drove up there with his car and this dude followed us out and he was kind of talking smack i was like dude like this guy he was a smaller guy i was like i'm gonna beat your ass and uh and i didn't want to get in a fight like i didn't want to get in trouble because it's gonna get back to my command and like they they give us the you know your your travel brief or your safety brief or like don't do this or else brief and um and the duke kind of like grabbed my arm and i kind of threw him off intentionally trying to hit him in the in the face with an elbow as well and kind of like shrugged him off and soon as i did that the dude backed up in these three it was two or three almost three three suburban slash yukon vehicles pull up and all doors opened up and dudes just started rushing out and all i had time to think about was oh [ __ ] and the next time the next thing i remember i woke up pulling glass out of my face my ankle was fractured my face was swollen broken nose my body had a broken eye sockets his nose was broken he lost a tooth i mean they just supposedly from bystanders and the cops they were beating us they were kicking us in the face i mean we were out like dude out got hit with they had bottles uh beating us with those um but we didn't die thank god but lesson learned man lesson freaking what's funny about that it's chicago right we know the gun balls there my buddy had a gun and uh he didn't bring it he's like should i bring i was like man i was like let's not let's not do that so we kept it in the room so i i really wonder what would happen if he had that on him like yeah i'm sure those dudes and come to find out it was a gang those dudes guaranteed were packing they would have pulled out knives it probably would have been so it's kind of like one of those which i'm very pro-gun just don't throw that out there obviously uh but yeah hey dude we got jacked up i mean hard i remember we got back because we drove from virginia beach and cincinnati is on the way from chicago is like on that route so we would swing into cincinnati stay with my parents or my mom and my stepdad and uh on the way back they had to like blend up everything and we had to like sip on it because we were so freaking our faces were so swollen like i wasn't as bad as my buddy but dude he had to like sip everything for probably about a week like he couldn't move like his jaw was like we got we got we got our butts it was a good learning experience and then and then you eventually passed this uh this course yes i passed the course but not from that time that i went to study it was another time she was like dude sit in here here's your book freaking pass this test yes and then literally probably a year after that they switched the rates to seals have their own rates so you know it was i was like are you freaking kidding me like you got cross trained it was a good opportunity getting ranked was hard cause when i left the marines like when i was about to leave i got promoted to e5 when i went to the navy i went back down to e3 if i make buds i get e4 so which i got obviously and then i was trying to get my e5 back uh it just took freaking forever i was like an e4 for life i'm sure you've heard that before before and i it was dude it just wasn't working out for me but i didn't care it wasn't about the money yeah it was about the job it was about the passion it really i did not care because they the recruiters even said like hey you just picked up e5 like is that going to change things i was like absolutely not i don't care yeah like let's go so take me forward to the first time you're in combat if you can just like you're probably still in e4 i'm guessing from the way what country are you in if you can share and then uh yeah it would have been iraq it would have been iraq and i would the first the first contact i was actually being shot at like direct fire was afghanistan my first one was incoming fire uh random straight shots nothing too crazy my first deployment my first like gun fight gun fight and it really wasn't even a gun fight was my second appointment with still team two as a dude was we were coming back down this valley with a bunch of humvees and we stopped and the tree line to our level we were kind of driving down to our left started to open up a small on fires maybe just a couple aks or whatever they were shooting at us uh hit one one we had afghan national whatever guard or national or whatever like whatever they called with us he got hit and then i was up on the turret course helmet off you know not paying i mean just kind of relaxing because it was like a three-day thing that we were spending the night over the field and like nothing happened nothing happened so like we're like oh we're almost home right the classic yeah that's where we pulled my 240 golf swung it around to the tree line and just made sure our guys were out and started spraying the crap out of that freaking thing and then we maneuvered up to high ground uh didn't hit anything did anything at all but like got just put down some cover fire and then my my first like shooting shooting like taking out bad guys wasn't until i got to the development group really right so so i don't i think many people would listen to this and say how how did you go through two deployments with a seal team and not have like some crazy shootout is that trust thomas i was thinking the same thing yeah i mean there was there were some guys like our snipers got some got some kills and it was really a time it's a it's a timing thing right place my time i'm sure you can appreciate that uh yeah but it wasn't until i got to the development group where where that stuff kind of became a nightly weekly thing it's just gonna happen it's gonna like we don't go for we're not going for the bad guys or we're going for the bad bad guys like they fight back um there is a huge huge difference and that's not to take away from the numbered or regular seal teams before you get to you know the tier one level uh whatsoever because they're they're amazing it's just there's better gear better money better technology at that and which leads to better training and better assets um when you get to that you know that tier one level uh but yeah but it really didn't like turn into like the movies that i've referenced many times until i got to development group and that's when i really like okay this is what i freaking signed up for and then it became my crack oh man all right there's a lot to unpack just just quickly though like you've watched all these movies growing up you know like you're in the marines nothing happened 911 takes place you're in buds the first time though i guess it's iraq when you're actually on a mission even if nothing happened like in your mind were you thinking all right finally i'm here this is the real deal yes absolutely i uh which is also in the book we just did we just did it uh i'll i can i can i can go pretty much play by play from when that door opened and we did our you know our direct action into this house i was the first dude in and uh this guy in white man jammies um everything looks black white as you know in night vision but after white lights came on i guess he was a white man jeremy uh he came at us he was just screaming like this i could see his hands he wasn't wearing anything there was no one around him behind him i think the family's from the back rooms and he just started charging and i kind of dropped my weapon i didn't muzzle strike i just dropped the weapon and literally kind of grabbed his throat and underneath his arm and kind of choked slammed him uh down i think there was a piece of furniture there and i just detained him put some put you know put flex cuffs on them gave them to our handlers in the back and then got back in the train and started clearing the building but it was awesome like talk about a freaking rush dude it was a freaking rush like after that like every direct action any kind of like raid or you know cqb type scenario i would always try to be the first one in the door because i was a breach or so i put the explosive on and this might be a serious issue i should talk to somebody about but i would love to blow it in like as the explosions go and kind of walk into the explosion like with the debris still going the smokes go on and then lasers coming out and chaos just mass chaos and kind of it was like it wasn't a game but it's like okay in my mind that's one thing where my mind really clicked in that's where i mean i can go into a room with crazy stuff going on bad guys good guys hostage whatever it is and i i just i can process that very well and make my movements where i need to put rounds when i needed without i mean it really became second nature with follow-on deployments and it just it was beautiful i mean i'm not i'm not tooting my horn like i told you i'm a very slow learner that for some reason that cqb world just clicked for me i mean it clicked was there you know some of the other guys i talked to were in the tier one units and just the the other seal teams would talk about like the psychological aspect and training that's developed like was that part of it for you or was it this might just be instinct no absolutely we were when i got to team two my uh troop chief and my platoon chief were both from development group they were taking a break they came down and they brought their tactics with them and fed it to us so i i mean we had a leg up we could tell the difference between us versus other platoons that did not have that we were so fortunate so yes i believe it was the training the way they taught us because they taught us like they were teaching this that they were teaching at development group they brought it to us and they they gave it to us i mean why would you not do that we just didn't have you know the best of uh maybe the best of boxes we still have great optics and i mean we're still the still teams you know we still had a good pot of money to get good gear and all that stuff but um yeah great mentors great mentors great leaders great training and i just would i just would suck it up um from those guys they were so aggressive they were so deliberate they were just um like ballerinas going through a house taking out targets it was beautiful to watch damn it was like i want to be you actually that's right yeah that leads into a question and again i'm sure you've had this a lot but to get to that level are you are you tapped for that or do you volunteer to go in does somebody say hey you should go look at development group or so you you've got to get you have to request and then they got to give you their ominous dominance like okay you can go screen so once you get that you go to uh you go to go over there to selection development group selection and then you do it's a six month course like another buds on steroids but it's all like real world stuff so it's like halo hey ho uh cqb is a big one and they do that first because they weed out a lot of people through that because a lot of guys uh have you know bad no shoot shoot scenarios don't do well blue on blues uh you know what training not not live fire and if they're not picking it up like it's it's cool to make mistakes just don't keep making them you know let's say for the same thing i mean guys would just freeze up because you know you're you're put on they put it on you they're in the rafters they're in your face and like when you when we start it you've got to um they're like all right we're going we're going 25 percent fast like so you would literally walk through the door and it started with pistols and go super so like you would present you would check your corner bring it back and you this is how fast you would go you would go so slow and i'm like this is tier one but there's a there's a method to the madness and uh and then they pick it up and then all of a sudden before you know what you're doing you're in the room it's out you're just like oh knocking it out but uh just all dude the training cadre is phenomenal these guys have been there they've done that they've seen it and they they they share their wisdom and um that's really amazing it really is the wisdom that that's filtered down through that uh through that unit that makes it so good i mean the people aren't like oh hey rookie or hey new guys there is none of that it's like hey we're here professionals we're going to we're going to fight you know you want deployment especially with what we've experienced the last couple decades brown's going on range rounds going down range and pretty pretty much every time you know unfortunately we lose a guy or two sometimes we lose a whole troop so it just um it just depends but but we know the reality of it so all the [ __ ] big navy stuff like all you have to go do this leadership course stuff that like we're getting leadership man we are getting real leadership with rounds being shot at us by real warriors that are you know that are making those freaking decisions when it really matters not when they're sitting in a classroom or something like that not that there's nothing wrong with leadership traits but but that's the real deal that is the real deal that was that's what our job was for that was what we were there for what we trained for so man just uh those guys they're studs dude they're they're all studs like very good dudes now does is this a misconception i would imagine most of the people who are in the seal teams want to go on to seal team six is it does everybody not try to apply for that or some people are just they don't not everyone applies not everyone wants to do it and i and to this day i don't know why i i just i think some guys um they want they want something to put on their resume to be honest with you um a lot of guys that's i mean they told me the guy i honestly just owned this because afterwards i had this job lined up and that was just one of the resume fillers man which is kind of crazy kind of kind of crazy yeah i just don't know i could do all that and not want to go to the tip i i don't know but hey man everyone's got their own thing no no totally yeah so just one of mine what is the if you if you're looking at a at a couple guys who are who are in the other seal teams like what is it that sets you apart like what is that intangible that you have that gets you to that next level because i'm sure the washout rate is high getting into it it's very high i think it's higher than buds actually um it would have to be higher than buds i i don't i don't know i don't i don't know i i really i mean you know buds is don't quit and don't get hurt i mean really it kind of comes down to that it really does there's not too much tactical tactical technical stuff that you need to do um operational wise know selection for development group is totally different like how do you operate are you a good operator do you can you do this are you reliable are you watching your buddy you know how's your medical how's your shooting how's all your different skills your demo how are you working as a team are you aggressive do you know when to throttle back so all these things are kind of being watched and you're and you're graded every week they pull you in and they counsel you here's how you're doing here's how you're not doing here's what we need to see improvement with hey keeping it up you're awesome you're leading well you know it just depends um yeah so yeah i i don't know it's totally different world totally different world totally different world jesus well i i want to dig into this this phrase that you have where it was like it became like crack so if you could if you could take us to you know as much as you can say of just like a standard mission that you might run in development group you know no places or names or anything like that yeah but uh you usually i mean tactics change throughout the conflicts and and the battles and the wars just because enemies you know pick up on what you're doing and then we kind of we switch it up i'm sure you're very familiar with that flying and all that stuff you gotta you gotta maybe you're flying low okay now we're going high now we're going daytime night time uh you gotta switch it up and um typical mission you know you're you're getting dropped off you know way out here and then you would walk into your target area whatever that be a building field whatever wherever the bad guys are you would set up on them and you know we would decide to call out with our interpreters or to go in quietly depending on you know outside ambient noise like dogs centuries that would kind of so you would kind of have to flex and just kind of you know maneuver based on what you're given which you didn't know what you were given um and then you would go you know it would either be a capture kill mission or a kill capture it just depends on who it was what they did what they had their possession what they were capable of what they were known for doing um so and then you would just act accordingly based off of what you're presented you know usually it was they shot back and usually we would drop them and we would go home and be like well it's a good one and we're still here all right cheers in if i i don't know what's coming out in the book but i'm sure there are stories from there what what comes to mind is one of the more difficult or dangerous missions that you were on and how did that go down oh well about 50 about i know i i mean how do you choose like um i'd say that probably the most difficult one was my second to last deployment was in afghanistan and we were it was another offset we offset but the way the map was showing and what we were picking up uh the terrain was definitely different when we got on the ground versus what we thought it was and i mean it was i mean we thought it was going to be definitely rugged to go over you know mountains in um in afghanistan and it was supposed to be i think a four or five hour hike which wasn't a big deal not a big deal and then you know you get to target before daylight take out your secure the target and then we get extracted before you know the sun comes up or right when the sun comes up and um bro that terrain was gnarly i mean it was three points of contact trying to get over with your gun your nods you got all your gear on people we were carrying ladders all our dimmer demo medical equipment communicate i mean you know you know what we need to carry uh three points of contact or else you're like you know you're you're going you're going bye-bye uh it was dude it was so freaking rough it was to a point where like because we would not carry a lot of food and water for this very reason like we were just we had it pretty good how it was going to be but man we were eating all our bars we were eating drinking our water we were kind of like if guy had more water they were giving it out to the people um and some guys were getting ivs to like to stay in the fight because they were like it was it was a nut kicker like it really sucked and then we finally got to where went over this ridge or slash mountain slash mount everest k2 whatever it was and uh but you look at the daytime it's like really that was it but dude i tell you what man with all your gear on and plates and ammo and crap man it sucked and um we right it was we probably had like maybe an hour before dark or before light started coming up and we're like do we make do we make uh that call like okay we're going to pull out it's going to get too late because it was a i believe it was a school that was taken over to take it over by over it was a dozen or two of um fighters they kicked the kid they kicked all the school people out and they just kind of took over this facility and they were doing other things in there so we snuck up we're like all right let's do like we're here everyone was good finish their ivs like just sucked down the ivs i mean just right like just get that get that hydration in there as best we could we did we could and then you know i mean dudes are driving i was dragging i was in good shape i mean it was definitely a bigger dude you know but uh we were dragging hard and you know you get on target and then there's there's that switch and there's that training this there's a reason why they put you through this [ __ ] and say you don't quit you're you you can do more you're they teach you about your human body and how amazing we are and i'll never forget i was walking around the back and i mean i would bro i was exhausted but when i was like um when we were a target dude it was like nothing happened and this dude pops up he was on the roof pops out kind of slings his weapon his ak-47 over and i'm at the low ready and i'm looking at this long wall except there's doorways i'm thinking about this i just see this dude out of my peripheral but through the night vision and i just one shot dropped them headshot dropped like a noodle which you you you know that they're a bad guy or that they're dead when they drop like a noodle a wet noodle and i just kept marching on and like i mean we got we got we got a good uh fight we had the the fighting lasted well into the morning for a couple hours uh it took a while to get them all we had to call in um a lot of air support because they were i mean i remember one time it was probably one of the few where i was laying on the ground kind of like in an open field i had very little cover and i was like man what i would do to be a piece of paper right now i just like get down as low as because these rounds were just zipping over your head i mean it was dude it was crazy and then we just would do our training like hey peel left put down rounds rounds rounds by one guy takes off and then you just kind of peel on out just to get to safety and then we um finally dropped a lot of bombs spent the u.s government spent a lot of money on that one sort of sorry the taxpayers did yeah sorry geez all right yeah that was probably the the hairy one of the hairiest ones i mean there's definitely been others i was like holy crap dude like that that sucked but that was definitely one that kind of popped up right there i i wanted to ask about that one in uh i think that you you mentioned in mosul perhaps were around nearby oh yeah that was that was deployment one it was probably my first month or two in country in the combat zone and we were walking to the chow hall you know nothing nothing i mean there was incoming fire i mean my first first time a mortar i think was a mortar a rocket came in and exploded probably within 100 or 200 yards of me i was like oh my god like i thought it was war war freaking three but it was just you know and then like you're jumping for cover and the people that have been there for a while like look at this guy this guy the seal guy so do you know who i am i like covered up your stuff and uh so it was kind of like it didn't matter because you you can i'm sure as you know you can't hide from it you can you know where you go to jump in might be where the thing's landing you just it's you know it's roll the dice but we're walking to the chow hall and there's like a roundabout you know how you can kind of pull in you know drop off your people and then kind of pull out there's a roundabout right by the entry and in the roundabout you usually there's like a fountain there's concrete this particular roundabout was just sand just sand like just groomed sand raped sand uh some poor guy that was got in trouble in the military probably raked it probably raped it for every hour on the hour probably marine so which is why i left and we were walking there was three of us and you just hear it coming in and it hits and this dirt from this roundabout just spits up and uh it was it had to be within 10 yards of us if that if that i mean that's that's but that's that's giving it some some distance but dude it was just sticking out of the freaking roundabout right next to us and we kind of just stood there and we looked at each other and we're like and we all have just like no expression no expression and we're like holy [ __ ] and they're like all right we got to get somebody in here and then like by that time like eod was coming up like the other reaction the base reaction force is doing it and we just walked in and had our dinner they all said oh my god dude like i was like and i wasn't a i wasn't a man of faith at that time but i remember thinking like uh i don't know if i said thank you god uh but i said thank you to i mean i was like whole lee crap like insane man in freaking sane so i'm glad you brought that up the man of faith peace i think i read and again please correct me if this is inaccurate um that there was a time where you kind of had like you're i think stacking up on a door and you had a premonition that something was going to happen kind of moved away i don't know if that was faith-based i think you found that later but i thought yeah i did find that it was that it was um it was in iraq and i was a lot of guys got jacked up that one we were on a um we lost two dudes two two good guys the week the week before this night so and it was my first experience and losing buddies like being right there and seeing the their bodies you know riddled with bullet holes and craziness so so that was a definitely experience they said this is a week later and uh we were calling this fan this we were on the same network and they were they used suicide suicide vests all the time they like i we watched one that same night that we lost two guys i saw a dude blow himself up with his kids and his wife's wife's and kids right there i watched that thing just push the roof lifted off of the building no remorse i remember i could just i could see through the door the dude was with with his shirt was off and he had one of those suicide belts went around and his kids are right there kids are right there freaking blew himself up and all them it was it was so these are these these are your enemy right there they don't care it's a very it's a very hard enemy to tackle that don't that doesn't value life and doesn't care if they lose theirs they just want their ideals out there uh so that's who we were going after so we knew so we started we were calling out people like hey come out here we're not coming in we would try to get as many people out then we would send the dog in search with our cameras and stuff like that to see to make sure everyone was out and we started stacking like things it was getting kind of crazy trying to get people out it started getting a little chaotic i think one dude got dropped at the door uh for looks like they were coordinating something he had a weapon and um we had dudes stacked on one side of the door and then my and i was like i called over the radio because i took over team leader that night because my team leader was sick so i i stepped in for that op and i called my buddy over the radio uh louis defront i said hey louie buddy like hey move up there and uh help those guys you know get the the women and the children out there and make sure they're all clean and all that stuff he's like you got a buddy and jump he hopped over the wall right to this big old pylon that was holding up this overhang uh by the front door it was getting kind of kind of crazy and he started getting bogged down so i was like i was like hey buddy i'm coming up to you so i went up to him right behind him and i was on his shoulder and when i'm up there you you don't want to be you know just like you're flying you probably want to be right next to each other if something happens you know two people are getting taken out versus one or kilo plane whatever it is and um i was like dude there's a lot of like one grenade comes out like we're a lot of us are going down so i was like hey dude there's too many people out here i'm gonna i'm going back around the wall he's like i got a brother he's like i got a bro and i remember being on his arm and i love you dude just because i mean that's just like you know the military like standard thing like love you dude just like i got you buddy you're my man and uh he goes love you too and i just peeled out and i because it like i had this feeling dude there's too many and just like it stopped me in my tracks because like i told you i i have to be i have tom's disease i have to be the first dude through that door if anyone's shooting dudes i want to be him i want to put my hands on him i want to jack him up like i want to be that guy um so maybe i have some internal issues i need to work out but i don't know so i just remember that feeling and it was crazy because the first time i was like i wouldn't say retreating i was like no this doesn't make sense i'm going to peel back and it could be maturity so i peeled back as soon as i wrapped this wall that was maybe 20 25 not gonna be that much maybe maybe 15 20 yards from the front door as soon as i wrapped that boom the house exploded the team that was stacked up in the wall were covered in rubble i mean five dudes got medevacs out that slab that pylon he was on just fell on louie uh crushed his body he he he died he lost his life right there i remember reaching under the rubble because i and because i remember like when the explosion went off i got hit in the back of the head with some rubble like bricks were hitting me thinking out of the helmet didn't do anything weird but it was like slow motion was like matrix and uh once the kind of dust settled you kind of gather what the hell just happened i wrapped around to go back in the courtyard and stop to kind of like process let the dust settle a little bit and like i felt some of my foot and it was uh diego our dog was biting my foot he was covered in rubble the only thing that was sticking out was his mouth and my foot just happened to be right where his mouth was so he's gnawing on that because he didn't know what to do so i i saw it was him or a dog and ripped my foot out unfortunately took out a couple teeth with that one uh but i ran right to where i thought louie was he was not where i left him and i saw the slab and one of my other teammates was working like moving out the rubble so i started getting down there because i mean dude the house was pretty much flat like everyone was done and uh started pulling out that i remember grabbing his leg like you good buddy like no response and just trying to pull him out and i remember feeling his body it was like it was like touching jello his he had no bone structure i i i don't know the results of the autopsy but i would imagine that his every bone in his body got shattered i mean it was like jello like it was no it was it was insane never felt a body like that and um and that one that one really that one really got me um i i still i've been choked up right now uh that one chokes me up right there because i you know you know we hear about survivor's guilt and that that for me that's that's my um that's the thorn in my side that's because i told him to go up there i mean just thinking i was doing my job and i and i replay that all the time i'm like man if i didn't say that if i just if i just want to shut if i just sort of shut up and listen to that team you know i'm just trying to help help those guys out and then i you know i go into why the hell did i leave him why i was right there what made me and then that kind of leads to my faith thing um not to say that louis was not a man of faith or any of that stuff but but i you know some things are not left for us to even know about or try to explain and uh chalk that up to be one of them it's just i i don't know man i don't know just like i look back and i know that that's just wasn't my time i don't know why i don't know why it just wasn't my time yeah goddamn that's that's been a rough one man i mean i'm this is years ago 2009 you know over a decade and it's still it still gets me man you still gets me still gets me jesus well look i don't want to take your whole day and i want to get into the work you've done recently and um i hope one day you know you might let me talk to you again maybe after the book comes out um to cover some more ground but uh i do want to ask just about this comment you made earlier that this combat this environment became like crack when did that sink into you i i think after i think after my first kill you know i i felt i felt accomplished i felt a sense of pride not that like oh cool let's go kill dude just like dude the way i viewed it and you know because you you see what some of what these dudes do and knowing that you're ridding these guys off the face of the earth so they can't beat the [ __ ] out of kids they can't mutilate women they can't kill fellow americans they can't do that stuff and um it it just it just gave me a sense of pride and you know i was put in the position we were put in a position to man i was with uh it was like a nightly thing taking out dudes and it just became a crack if i went on the knob and i didn't shoot somebody i thought i failed i i thought it was a freaking failure i mean i didn't really think i was a failure i'm like man that sucks i wish we had another target to do uh and i and i felt so accomplished when i would get one then i would like okay i want two hopefully you can get two tonight that was like okay i want to get three and then i remember i got three in a row and like in like a 30 second time frame i was like man this is like a perfect op so it's just like that's why i say it's like crack it was like a drug it really was like a drug um and it wasn't like hey let's go out and just kill people and that these are guys that verify we would go on the missions and then we go get the bad dudes and they're bad they fought back they fought back they blew themselves up i mean we have our casualties improvement so did you have to like desensitize yourself from that eventually or was it was there some breakdown that took place that prevented that from being your mindset i think decent that's that's that's comical that we we say that yeah that's not even a term huh because because how do you do that how do you do that you know what i mean sorry for my dog in the background no i can't even hear it no i'm just asking like because you don't obviously you don't seem like you have that mindset anymore right so like at some point right how does it separate from i think i mean i had i had i had some dark seasons i say seasons because i would be in a bad season come out of it and think things are good and then i'm right back down on the back down the hole drinking popping pills womanizing i mean you name you name the drug whatever it was so uh really my i attribute to me getting out of that and kind of seeing it for it was is is christ i mean that is what i would would break it down to is 100 christ does i i still do i still deal with it today it's not as bad i've learned to get choked up right now i learned to open up and deal with my emotions because it was always like dude just suck it in and keep doing time to feel like you lose your buddy you went time you got to pick them up throw them over and you got to get out of there before you die like you don't have time you can't you don't have time to mourn because tomorrow night you got to do the same damn thing you don't have time for it you know it's um you know i i want to say program but in a sense you're programmed and i don't think the guys that are training you and the ones that are receiving their training realize that that's what's happening i don't think there's like secret code like hey do we need to make sure that they don't feel it it just happens uh because you just don't have time you know you're you know you get you get the title right the seal title and uh i i always looked at it as like oh my god you know they're so freaking so cool and you kind of get it it does take a little bit of your identity and getting that out and realize hey dude i'm just a human i'm just a dude had some cool training got a got a title from it not a big deal but i'm still eddie but uh dude there's some baggage that came from it and i've got i have had horrible relationships from that i've messed up with my children many times anger depression i've had pistols in my hand a pistol in my hand one time that's in the book um dark times man very very dark times but but at the end of the day you know i learn from that stuff and i'm able to talk to other dudes that and that go through that crap because it's not it's not fun times i'm sure i would imagine you've had some of this um if not a lot a lot of it uh yourself and you i'm sure you know a plethora of dudes that have the same but but dude it's a process i don't i don't know i don't know what it looks like in 10 years i would i think i mean i believe i'm getting better my kids tell me dad you're i mean when your kids tell your calm down and you know and like they've never seen you with um you know the woman i'm with now like it's totally different like i respect her i i look at you know before it was kind of like okay you know i'm supposed to do this because american society i'm supposed to have a wife and it was kind of like routine you know i'll settle because i'm supposed to do this and that's not to take away from those women or anything like that but um yeah i was in a dark place man i was confused i was confused boy and uh and christ kind of started ironing out some wrinkles and i tell you what that iron's been on for quite time and there's still a [ __ ] ton of wrinkles it's fact it's fast so true it's very true it's uh and a lot of guys you know you know this world they don't like to admit it they think you know it puts on the [ __ ] uh title and it dude no it's your human being bro you gotta let that stuff out when i when i started realizing it and i remember breaking down and do when i broke down the first time i broke down for probably about a day or two and it was it sucked i'm like man i'm the weakest little bee in the world uh but dude it was so relieving at the same time it felt so good and i do it quite often i watch a freaking movie a disney movie or something i'm freaking crying over here on the couch like what is wrong with me but you gotta know eddie it's so important for somebody like you who is in the tier one unit to admit that that happened you know like yeah yeah it's no good for people like me like i spoke to this guy who was a 160th little bird pilot to me that's like our yes you know as far out as you can get um and he had the same problems and it means a lot to hear it good i'm glad because uh it was it was it was hard to do it the first but like man it's real like we always appreciate real people do we not transparent people the ones that gonna give you the truth not tell you what you want to hear and um yeah it's it's just good to be training you know what you know what's so cool about it is you don't gotta lie you don't gotta hide [ __ ] yeah just you don't have your skeletons in the closet anymore it's good it's nice but they're dudes there's still those problems i'm sure you're dealing with them as well yeah we'll deal with it dude it sucks it never goes away i think it doesn't it's just like okay how do i maintain it how do i effectively deal with it by bringing in more chaos to my work to my family to my home life and to other people my friends and how can i be a positive influence for others you know so let's let's jump then to contingent group the work you do now like and is that the emblem on your hat no this is my little unafraid thing that i that i do my little motivational thing that's totally totally separate it's just different all right well let's talk about both of those if you got you got the top well or or pick one but like i'd love to hear about where it came from yeah the unafraid thing is uh it honestly came i i sent this another last spot the podcast this week as i was driving down the road uh and skillet came on and uh i'm just not sure if you're familiar with skillet they have a song called lions and they have a verse in there um i think it's part of their course which says i am not afraid and it just hit me it's like a fr unafraid unafraid unafraid unafraid unafraid and you know in like in the christian world you know the big thing is like okay what's your word for the year what's going to be your one word like wisdom family love whatever whatever it is um you know patience and you know i did that for a while like man i should be doing all of them all the time as best i can but for some reason i'm unafraid you just stuck with me and and i can i can't remember if it was pre-covered i'm pretty sure it was but i remember thinking just like from people on social media like seeing things like and you'd hear people say i i can't do that oh i could never do that oh dude that's so tough i could never do that i remember hearing that a lot i'm like why what makes you different than the guys that have done it or the girls that have done it there is no difference you you are beautifully made by the creator you you're human we are freaking awesome why there's no we shouldn't be saying we can't we should we shouldn't be saying we can't um and and then so many people are afraid of failure they will put their they won't go in the uh i'm feeling uncomfortable zone at all and you know it's just risks they won't they won't take the risk because they're afraid to be the failure man that's where you learn that's where you grow um and i guess i just kind of got annoyed with it and just and maybe and of course we have we come from a different world where you know you know bullets fly and you know wisdom kind of means hey you want to breathe tomorrow or not uh where it kind of takes a little different meaning there or a different twist uh but it's just like man a lot of a lot of people don't don't understand it they're they're happy in their little bubble and maybe maybe that's their thing and but but a lot of them you can just see there's something in them that just wants to come out and they they're afraid to take that first step because they're not looking at step one they're looking at step like 54. they're like oh i got to do this business to this like dude no you work on step number one work on step number one get there and then guess what we'll do step number two so on and so forth and i think a lot of people just they're just afraid they got the failure they don't have a mindset back to the mindset thing they don't which is a choice like if somebody wants to be a doctor okay what's your step one you need this okay go do it go do it yeah well i don't have the funds or okay how do you know you don't have the funds have you researched people that can give grants have you done that have you done all that stuff have you looked at whatever it is you know what it means just like okay what have you done or is this just something you fabricated in your mind so and and so is it a like a mantra that or is it a community bro it's just a word so i made so i did the heart and mind like it's a heart you know having your passion hearts got to be into it then you're the brain half of the brain is your mindset and uh i started so on there's eddiepinny.com is where i'm gonna start pushing the books that are coming out and we got some gear on there and we we have a thing we we we've started but we're not pushing yet it's called the den and i started it's just like for guys to go in there like if they wanted to see workouts or they could post their own workouts or they need motivation or they want to just post about faith or military stuff or stuff for dads because i was a single dad for 10 years and like raised my kids like stuff for dads uh their stuff for women uh just like category so instead of like scrolling through all your freaking media you can go in there uh and again there's like there's not a lot of members i try to put up stuff here and there but i really have not been focusing on it because the book has kind of taken over uh but it's just because a lot of people are shy back to that they're afraid to put it out there like hey i'm you know i'm overweight and i want to lose x amount of pounds to feel better they're afraid to put that out there and that's kind of like i wouldn't say your safe place but like a place you can do that and you're gonna get that motivation you're gonna get that um that support and that's what that's kind of like the whole the whole thing forward it's gonna get pushed it's gonna grow yeah uh for sure but but right now it's kind of like on idle we're just kind of letting some books get ready to where it needs to go and certain things but uh and they can go on there like if you want to do speeches or stuff i like speaking and stuff like that i don't do too many of them but um just stuff like stuff like that that's that's kind of working very cool very cool one of my little projects one of my many like i know so that's really what i wanted to get to i want to hear about like and by the way you got this other company and you you know like you've got this initiative the book which i've heard books are almost impossible to write so how are you juggling all this but i'd love to hear about the work at contingent group so contender group is something i started when i got custody of my children when i was still in the military i moved out to oklahoma i was working out of dallas but i had a big region i bought all of oklahoma and all of north uh texas and we would just get guys ready for buds uh swic air rescue eod and there's one more a missing one navy diver so all the special programs of the navy and you would put them through workouts and you would start the weed out process there because it was because it's x amount of dollars to get this the kid yeah processed and to their school and you know day one or day two they're washing out so you know the military's lasting so much dollars our taxpayer dollars so like hey let's do this make this position we'll put a coordinator and mentor in these different regions i think there's like 28 or something uh don't quote me on that but it's around that number and you you're in charge of like college kids kids in high school that are wanting to go to the military and you put them through workouts and you talk to them and you make sure they're good and just kind of motivate them and a lot of dudes wash out right there before they even get to school and a lot of dudes go and they don't make it and some you know i put through that got them to the navy and they're in the teams right now uh so so we did that and then at the time you know you get off the train of operating because you're going from operating to going overseas slaying dudes rescuing the princess only if that was true uh and then becoming single dad of three kids one of what two two two daughters one is a a boy in diapers at 10 months old talk about a freaking mind blow i was like a diaper how do i mom but my mom was there thank god she helped me uh the first couple weeks to get things going learning about day care school work uh and my unit and development group was really cool i missed the deployment and that's where another buddy passed on that deployment um and then i took a couple months and learned to become a dad while i was in they just kind of like took me away left me i would go in once in a while i think i i was able to take french for six months just because i had to do something and uh yeah i just holy crap that that's been the hardest thing i've ever done is being a dad yeah that was one of the questions engaging yes but uh i started sorry nope go for it eddie so i so when i moved out to oklahoma to do that position i i uh a friend of mine that i was in team two with he's like hey man you want to do some executive protection just come on as a contract we'll pay x amount of dollars a day i was like you'll do what i was like absolutely i'm there and uh so i made arrangements for my time at the time my fiance watched my kids and then i went and did whatever duration i went uh and which was to france because i had that french thank god nice and then did that and then um i was like i can see i see potential for a company and not just through executive protection so it started out as executive protection but then it kind of morphed into intelligence gathering monitoring money tracking uh any uh developing security like systems not like an alarm system or a like the everything that all the components of security from training to you know your alarms to where you drive how your itinerary is planned where you stay where your office building overseas how it's located how are you moving your employees all that so we like big corporate security stuff that's kind of like the um the bread and butter of it now but it's definitely morphed and it uh it seems to morph every year and i'm very thankful for that got a very good network good people that have just been there to you know contribute i got some good intel guys because that's not that's not my thing um i'm the door kicker uh so got some really good dudes that have worked with some of the agencies um you know doing that job and um other parts so it's been fun man it's been cool it's been eye-opening uh so i think i and i'm very passionate about it kind of makes me feel like i'm kind of in the teams that's great civilian world but now it's kind of like all right it's book time i think yeah like try to pour back some wisdom i guess and uh don't do this because i was an idiot so so i i got just two more questions for you eddie it's two that i try to ask everybody um one is when you're on missions was there something that you carried with you that had like sentimental value or good luck for you or that was given to you by somebody um my biggest thing that i always carried was probably it was nothing really sentimental i would i had uh you know our velcro american flag patches my american flag patch everywhere with me i still have it on my gear out actually outside the garage uh it it was my there's a 3x5 red white and blue yellow gold trim american flag i mean it is definitely tethered looking now it's not nice and crisp but that and i would always i would a lot of times i would have an american flag in my bags i would take american flags carry them on alms and then give them to family members and friends uh but i would take i would take things on deployments like things on my daughters where my kids would give me i would take them and they would be in my room i have uh actually right here this uh oh if you can see it on this stein right here there's a uh orange and black it's like just yarn white yarn with orange and black like noodles you know those noodles they just like kids put around it yep and uh it's orange blacks i i love the bengals until the nfl got stupid then i don't watch them anymore um but i i've taken that on every single deployment and it's it's sitting right here and my oldest daughter made that for me so yeah that's uh that's about every every single deployment it goes in my bag it stays with me it gets it gets hung up right on my bed uh so maybe maybe that's my good luck right there yeah very cool and then just the last question and especially for you you i mean you've been through a lot you've lost more than most we didn't even talk about extortion 17 in that that role but the people you've lost would you go back and do all of that again 100 i wouldn't change the damn thing man i wouldn't change change damn thing but obviously i would uh want certain people to be here that aren't here anymore but um oh that's a touchy spot um but no no i have um i have a lot of regrets on personal side that i wish i could change but as again failing and learning and trying not to make those mistakes again uh but on the career side absolutely not i would uh i would have done the rings first i think it matured me i i also think i would have been ready for buds at 17. uh that i mean that breaking point might have got me to ring the bell but i don't know it's just uh my path was my path uh but no i have no regrets whatsoever not not one not one yes oh that's so cool so this has been so fun for me eddie i'm really looking forward to the book it's a good podcast so am i yeah no i'm sure i'm sure you're just like god get that thing out of here so oh my god yeah dude but uh we'll have all the the links to the den it sounds like sounds like a really cool initiative the gear i'm gonna go and get me some of that as well um so yeah i'm really really excited to see what what comes next uh thanks for the time yeah dude i really appreciate a good good pass yeah podcasting great questions man really good questions you got me you got me tearing up that's always good

Channel: Combat Story

Views: 221,330

Rating: 4.9318237 out of 5

Keywords: Delta Force, The Unit, Special Forces, Special Operations Forces, Delta, Squadron, Operator, Todd Opalski, Citadel, The Citadel, Force Recon, Marine Recon, Scout Sniper, Marine Scout Sniper, Marine Sniper, Marine Corps, The Marine Corps, Devil Dogs, NCO, Non-Commissioned Officer, Ranger School, Ranger, Iraq, Afghanistan, CIA, paramilitary, 1st SFOD, Strategic Outcomes, navy, SEAL, TFBlue, SEALTeam2, DEVGRU, developmentgroup, sealteamsix, unafraid, extortion17

Id: rou0mVXyzBY

Length: 98min 48sec (5928 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 18 2021