Clint Emerson how to handle stress, how to get out of dangerous situations and how to be Awesome.

hello everyone this is your favorite show and today we have a special guest Clint Emerson he's a retirement - retired Navy SEAL so tell us a little bit about yourself from the very beginning from the very beginning it's a long time ago it's 46 years ago Wow you look really good cold water cold water cold saltwater you know how many women are listening to you right now and they're like what people think people forget that cold water especially this the Pacific right here is fifty five degrees roughly all year-round and if you look at what the NFL does for recovering athletes it's 55 degrees for 15 minutes a day going icy water right to vaso constrictor and all of a sudden everything stays healthy right so there's something be said for that yeah cold water and so a career being a Navy Seal you're in the cold water a lot I grew up overseas and Saudi then I came back to the States for high school I always wanted to be a seal so when I was almost done with my college degree I went ahead and signed the dotted line went into the Navy and then you go to boot camp then you go to when I was in you go to an a school which is your specialty just in case you don't make it through SEAL training you actually have a job in the Navy to do when you finish out your contract that's very smart now you can go to boot camp and go straight to SEAL training whereas you couldn't do that before it's only way I went through my a school was corpsman which is a medic in the Navy then I went to SEAL training which is known as buds basic underwater demolition SEAL training I got done with that I went to SEAL Team 3 I was there for about half my career then I went to the west or the East Coast and DC for the rest of my career retired in 2015 and here we are today today is a very different world from 2015 you know for so many different events worldwide and in America but so what does a retired name he'll do once you retire what happens well I think some guys go and do contract work and kind of continue that same path you know carrying a gun body armor night vision you know it's almost like a lifestyle a really hard to get out of it and yeah yeah and I think a lot of guys feel like their skills really aren't really needed anywhere else but there when the reality is now you learn a lot when you're in the military that you just don't realize sometimes as valuable outside of like combat and shooting and blowing things up I mean that's all fun too by the way so for some guys they yeah I stick with it it's not just about continuing the lifestyle sometimes it's because it's fun and you get paid to do it you know so you you can't find a job you know anywhere like that where you can kill people blow things up and get paid that's right yeah we just don't have this like heavy burden of actually killing somebody we do exact same thing in Hollywood in California in here it's fake blood yeah it's fake what but I have another question for you so what was the most valuable thing that you've learned that you are you still using today as a Navy SEAL um there's probably a couple of things probably the biggest one is kind of that no quit attitude right you never give up never stop never quit so I think you know it starts day one in the military definitely when you get to buds or SEAL training you in your mind it's like I'm not going to quit I'm not going to quit and then I think every time you throughout an entire career there's a start line there's a finish line hundreds of times in that career and the more you start and finish start and finish all of these things some of that is training some of that is combat some of that is you know education but you're starting and stopping and starting and finishing all of these big big events or big goals it becomes addictive and so then when you get out now it's all about okay I'm going to start a project and then I'm gonna get to the finish line and I'm gonna make sure that project is got quality to it and it's done right I'm not gonna half-ass it so I think that's probably the biggest attribution that applies to the outside world is you know if you're gonna start something finish it and sometimes you start at the finish line you work your way backwards to determine all the milestones now you can take it one step at a time and make sure you do a good job it's amazing there's no really good to get out of it it's not bad yeah keeps things moving - but you said interesting thing it's a dictum you said yeah so do you think well addiction all kinds of addiction is kind of bad sometimes do you think that it could be bad because you're now you're addicted that you know you constantly need to be moving and if you don't finish something in like I can tell you right now from my experience right I have started things that I haven't finished and I'm actually happy that I didn't because something is there not to complete your life but as it just as just as a stepping stone you know so things I didn't finish actually contributed to better things that I ended up doing in my life so do you think that it could backfire these 82 - that no I have to finish this oh yeah no I don't think you know well I don't know so it backfiring the other piece of the equation is being able to adapt to any kind of change so you know in evolving is a big deal because if you just stay stuck in that same regiment or whatever it is then it over time it doesn't really work for you as well as it did at the beginning you know right whether it's working out or eating you know it's all the same it's if you just stick with the same exact thing it's probably not going to do you any good a year later you got to adapt and evolve and I feel like it's the same thing with a project you know you're gonna run into obstacles and that obstacle might say go left instead of right but you're going to adapt to it you're gonna keep on going until you get to whatever that new finish line is anyway yeah so what you're saying is have a goal and whatever way gets you there you be yeah yeah because you know for us there's a saying that hey you know a plan is great until the first shot is fired yeah the plan goes out the window yeah so that's that adaptability piece you can have a plan and you can be written in concrete but it doesn't really mean anything until you really get started now you know all right this is working or it's not working and if it's not working well then you know is there always a plan B in Navy SEALs world or even Plan C maybe yeah there is we have primary secondary tertiary things that we think about okay if you know we we do plan that kind of stuff out pretty well it can go as even as far as let's say we have four helicopters we're going to use to carry all the troops we know we have what's called a bump plan right and we know the extent of how far can we push the bump plan before the mission is basically canceled right so let's say you got four helicopters helicopter one decides to have engine problems and we're an hour when we're from when we're supposed to take off well we know we can take all those guys and distribute them evenly into those three helicopters then we go all right what if two helicopters decide to have engine problems well we know we can probably fit most the guys but then we know that a number of guys in certain amount of equipments going to stay behind can we still complete the mission yes and but that is our limit so you know you know exactly you know when to shift to another night you're just okay there's another night and a lot of those variables isn't because of us you're relying on other things right and so when you have to rely on others well then there's gonna be all kinds of things you have to plan for that you're normally wouldn't if it's just you eliminate everything that could be your own error and then whatever happens you react to it right mm-hmm that's right it's a really good way to live yeah so what would you say you know many people know about Navy SEALs but they don't really know what they do like we've heard of them we know that you know there some kind of branch or group or some people don't even know what they are but like what distinguishes you from rest of the military and why you are the way you are good question so navy seals the seal is an acronym that's why it's all capitalized and it's sea air and land which means we have the ability to operate from multiple environments so whether it's infiltration it means we can come across a beach swim across a beach we can come across the beach on jet boats we can come from the air which is usually skydiving helicopters fast-roping repelling all that kind of stuff or we come from land so that's you know everything from carrying a bunch of gear on your back and literally hiking across difficult terrain or we have really great vehicles where we can just drive in and hit a target so it's also also the environments in which we can operate in so it's infiltration sea air and land but we also operate in all those areas too so out at sea that means you know we can take down big tanker type vessels right a lot of times we we can take down a gas oil platform we dive right we can dive into an enemy harbour and take out you know enemy ships so very very maritime centric is like where our roots are but over the years and since we've started a lot of these campaigns we've become very good at the land piece right so counterterrorism has made us good at you know going over all of these different terrains in order to get to a bad guys cave a bad guys Hut and so when you look at the different mission sets it's everything from hostage rescue to counterterrorism to all of the maritime operations I mean you name it we are very much a what we call a plug-and-play talented you'll need yes yeah it's very plug-and-play to no matter what it is usually we just say yes and then we figure it out well what about the Intel that let's say you said where we we get everywhere so where do you get the Intel from well a lot of times it comes from all the connaissez missions and things like that like going out and you know seeing the Intel comes from actually verifying something right or the word yeah so do Navy SEALs do that or do you just get the Intel and you're like okay this is what we need to do so who's the upper yeah it depends yeah right that's one of those depends questions so we're our big bread-and-butter missions is our NS which is you know reconnaissance surveillance and then direct action which is just hitting targets right so but intelligence comes from the icy world which is the intelligence community and so you could be doing operations where intelligence came from any any of the military intelligence branches or the ones you always hear about could be CIA NSA I mean heck even FBI if they get if they get word about something bad happening overseas then Delta is a sherry to nca cuz I know they have a right I had the know in this age I know they don't really leg each other no that's true they definitely they I think they I think they work better together these days than they used to yeah and isn't that better yeah major institutions working together rather than you know being enemies but very competitive yeah yeah so a lot of young guys are watching you now and I'm sure that many of their dreams are like you know oh I want to be Navy SEAL I want to do these I want to do that so what is what does it take to be a Navy SEAL and tell us a little bit about training because people think that it's it's not that hard or they can handle it or you know if my neighbor it can be in a military I can be a Navy SEAL or something like that so give us a very realistic description what it is I'd like to meet the ones that think it's not that hard but but the thing is is you got to sign your dotted line you got to sign the dotted line and then you get to go but I mean it's been labeled the you know the hardest in all military training and I I would agree with it only because if you look at what you're doing day in and day out for six months straight minimum you don't find that anywhere else in any other special operation groups most of their training is not as long right so right off the bat we beat them on time and then when you look at what they do day to day it's nowhere near what I would call the kind of torture that we put ourselves through so you know the daily the daily is you're waking up it no I think heck if I remember right it's like 4:00 a.m. before you leave your room it has to be inspection ready and that means everything is perfect in your room then you'll all get together as a class and you'll go to the grinder the grinder is this big concrete zone that's surrounded by buds instructor offices and that grinder becomes your home for the next six months right you know and so you will always start there and usually end your day there and so it starts with instructors surrounding you fire hoses cold water and they literally are hammering you while they're also telling you to do certain things you know you're there to do exercises but inevitably that exercise session turns into just getting beat right by and you're always wet cold and Sandy they make sure you're constantly wet constantly cold you're here in California a lot of people have never been here think it's sunny and nice and warm all year round but they have no idea that just the other night you know it's 37 degrees out right so and you're having to deal with that in that environment peace along with everything that the instructors are putting you through and I think that's the key to like having a class like mine that started with a hundred and eighty guys and six months later there's 27 of us left right so people quit and they quit really quickly once you mix both the environment and then the kinds of things that they have you do together so being cold wet and Sandy just stinks right you know what most people will just want to walk around like this because they don't want their cold wet sandy clothing touching them but you're not allowed to just be careful like that or have caution when you walk I mean you're having to perform tasks that they're giving you you're usually doing in first phase you're doing anytime they tell you to drop you have to do I think it's 40 push-ups and you're doing that it's hard he's not so bad for you but you're doing yeah but you're doing that you're doing that hundreds of times a day okay every addition every instructor that walks past you is gonna go drop no matter what you're doing right so just enjoy eating still push-ups so just just in push-ups alone you're doing easily hundreds if not a thousand a day right most awkward rope you ever had Oh cord like you're doing something into a trap oh you know there's these outdoor sort of bathrooms they have these help if you hear the instructors phone they say drop they'll do it on purpose so that you're dropping on certain floors so yeah it's kind of a game for them but so that I'm telling you that because that's just push-ups that's just when you happen to pass by an instructor while you're running to chow or you're doing something they can tell you to drop and in first phase it's forty and as you get through other phases the number goes up fifty or whatever I can't remember by the time you get to third phase you're doing a lot of push-ups person per set and then the other thing running two meals right you run as a class to go eat so it's roughly two miles right there's it two miles it's two miles to the chow hall mm-hmm okay so today you're running two miles there and you know you're going to run two miles back and you're doing that three times a day so Justin push-ups and Justin running you can do the math it's a large now that's not including your four mile timed run okay and that's done on a beach with boots and pants on no shorts no tennis shoes right you're doing two mile ocean swims and that's two nautical miles okay that's not statute miles then you're doing a time to o course then you're doing all of these other tasks that they give you so by the time you put it together I mean it is you know did you do that like what everyday you don't do that every day you're doing a time you're doing a timed evolution every day so one day it's the run next day it's the swim next day it's the o course and it's just you don't really have personal life you know constantly in action right and by the time you're done with the day you're just done you just pass out just wake up and it starts all over again and that's the other reason why people quit because they're just like holy crap I got to do this again tomorrow so I understand why people quit I would quit too yeah definitely but why do people stay these are really tough or really dumb right and that well I mean yeah III think it's a well the thing is honestly like toughness only comes like these kind of toughness comes for a reason right what's your motivation like it's definitely you're not a millionaire right out of this nobody is no no Navy SEAL is a millionaire out of this so what is your motivation to drop everything do this is it patriotism I don't know yeah for me it was passion you know it's something I always wanted to do since I was a kid and I've kind of always been a little bit of an underdog and so you know quitting wasn't an option and I learned very quickly that you just have to look at it task to task if you tried to look at it as like you know you want you're trying to see the finish line then that can be a little overwhelming right especially day one knowing you've got another hundred and let's say you know 79 days left of this that's a little overwhelming for some people so you end up just looking at it okay I'm gonna go from task one to task two to task three four or five and before you know it it's the end of the day and then you just start over the next day and do it again for me it was all about passion is all about just wanting to be wanting to be a seal what a job itself sure he said like I was an underdog right and you want it is it fair to say that you wanted to prove that you could be tougher than most people think and you could be stronger than those people who made you feel like an underdog is it fair to say that you because you felt like an underdog you were like I'm gonna prove you how much of an underdog I heard yeah I think most underdogs get into a habit of proving themselves over and over and over and yeah I mean a lot of it I think for most guys going in you're really proving to yourself not to really I didn't think about anybody else and you're going through that you're thinking about okay I just want to get done with this particular obstacle task whatever it is standing in front of you and move on to the next one as quickly as possible but it was all about proving to myself that I could actually you know get through this at the end of the day because it was driven by passion yeah at the end of the day the biggest competitor is yourself right yeah I think so and that's and that's a becomes a common theme for a lot of guys that you're you're you compete with yourself knowing that you're gonna you're also competing with the guys around you you know the man you are yeah yeah of course we're all competing against each other but usually your biggest adversary is yourself and most people no matter what they do in life either you know they let themselves you know fail or they let themselves succeed what is one story that's kind of hilarious very funny that happened to you as a Navy SEAL and the only can could happen to a Navy SEAL oh I think that funny is there's a bunch of funny stuff pry the one story that people like to hear is the hazing right in the SEAL community it's a big no-no now but back in the day when was in hazing was used either either in celebration or as a corrective tool right so if someone's getting married has a birthday whatever they're getting hazed if someone is not performing than or they have a safety issue then you haze them to get them back on track right so as a new guy when you show up to a SEAL team and your get your Trident and all that you're gonna get hazed and so it was me and another guy to new guys were in our platoon we're at a shooting school and we're sitting in the armory cleaning our weapons after a day's work and we realized that were the only two standing in there and it kind of got quiet more like where is everybody and right as we noticed the door opens and in runs the rest of the platoon they got there but you know backlot you know the ninja hoods on and they're ready to they're dressed ready to fight right and so of course like a good new guy you put up a good fight knowing you're gonna lose they tackled both of us they stripped us both down naked they put us into the 69 position okay they had my face basically my nose tucked around and in his butt hole and then his nose was tucked around and in my butt hole and then they tape you together right like you're talking probably 10 to 20 rolls of duct tape right and then it's not over okay it's freezing cold outside and they take what's called a mini blasting machine all right and a mini blasting machine and you may use these in Hollywood where you crank it it creates an electrical vault and then our electrical current and then that current travels down a wire and causes explosives to go off right it's a non electric way of detonating explosives so they take the leads right positive negative leads and they tape them to my butt cheeks and then they tape another set of leads to his butt cheeks and keep in mind our face is in the butt cheeks Wow then they wind him up and then it releases the shock which causes the butt cheeks to clamp every time Wow oh and it's both of us doing at the same time which is a pure entertainment right when you think it's over somehow they dig they dig in between our bodies right I think through the tape and stuff and they find our penises Hey they grab the penises and then they pour Tabasco sauce down your pee hole Oh have you ever had that happen no I imagine now for the next week every time you pee no matter what you do your room because it burns the crap out of you right and it burns the inside your urethra for about a week straight every time that's just mean so that's just the beginning it went on all night but there you get that's it gives you a taste Wow the kind of fun and sick twisted it's not really fun I don't I didn't get the fun part the best part is knowing that one now we're officially part of this group right because that's your welcome a little sadistic the big takeaway here is that if you don't get hazed that means no one really cared about you and I mean to haze you to take that it's time its energy I mean elementary school like when girls get like like guys because they're bored the other way around yeah to a certain degree I mean imagine if if no one took the time to do anything it usually means they don't give a yeah yeah yeah so it was a you know at the end you know number one we're part of the team now number two we get to do this to the next set of new guys so for then the rest of your career you're you're dealing it out Wow I did not expect that this military do the same thing either other it's a kind of it's a if it's still if hazing still goes on it's very hush-hush because it's you're not supposed to do it anymore you had a bunch of people that when they got hazed they went and got attorneys and so because they were that though they hurt me or they hurt my feelings or whatever I mean it could be mentally devastating for somebody who's not ready for these kind of you know they but somebody who's brand-new and things that's a serious business and you know has like some expectations it I could see why it could mentally be devastating not physically but mentally I mean yeah but then that proves they don't they don't belong in the environment yeah move on don't go get an attorney and ruin it for everybody else that's what I did they ruined it for everybody else hazing is good it has its place and that's a caveat that you got to do it safely you can't you know you can't obviously in danger over yeah yeah you don't want to hurt anybody to kill anybody so what's the can you tell me about the situation when you saw that oh my gosh I could die here like something that went terribly wrong and it was not supposed to let's not put the blame on anyone just the situation where you were like okay this could be my last night yeah there I mean after 20 years is a couple of different events like that the one that probably stands out the most that was very odd you don't expect was I was in a country driving back from an embassy and it was right the Arab Spring had just kicked in and I took a right-hand turn and all of a sudden I was surrounded by you know a thousand angry protesters right and and during all of that you know Western countries and or in Western citizens visiting any of those countries got the brunt of it right so before you know it my car you know is basically going from right wheels to left wheels right we left we I mean they were shaking it violently yeah and you're thinking yourself wait a minute after all the crap I've been through I'm gonna get torn apart by a bunch of angry people and I didn't have I you know I had a pistol on me you don't have any friends with you with guns it's just me and anyone from these protesters could have it gotten to oh they did yeah there was guys with rifles so you debate in your mind like well what's the right answer to this you know I'm not gonna pull my gun because then I'm definitely gonna end up shot but it was definitely a moment where I was like holy you know it's a different kind of fear you through your job you're gonna be there's things to be fearful of and it's normal and it's fear that keeps you in check it's fear that keeps you safe it's it's fear that keeps you alive a lot of times too but this is a different kind this is like and your destiny is left in the fate of these people but something good came out of it is I saw one young man standing like at the front right corner of my vehicle and he he had what I call sympathetic eyes like it was almost like he felt sorry for me is what his eyes were saying and so I was like I took advantage I said hey do you know an international symbol for you want to make some money you know and he went okay and I said okay you come over here and he happened to have an ak-47 so I said come over to the passenger side and you know you get in and so he went over there and he put his back to the passenger door and then he lifted his rifle up and started pointing at everybody and they backed away long enough so he could get in then I told him all right now point that gun at the windshield and if you need to fire you go ahead and fire right so he pointed at the windshield you know and took it off safe and sure enough everybody moved so you could tell once again that society was trained to know that anybody with a gun who points in your direction is probably going to pull the trigger because they they moved whereas in this country you point a gun it you know if cops point their guns at people crowds of protesters in this country don't run away they dare them I come yes let's see what yeah but in that country it spread like they everybody ran which allowed me to get speed and get going and get out of there and then basically took a left-hand turn got about two blocks to a gas station I gave him his money he got out and two blocks away you would have never known that anything was going on in that country it was quiet the birds were chirping everything was normal you're looking around like wow just two blocks away is the difference between sometimes life and death right I mean but uh yeah that was a different kind of situation that caught caught me off guard for sure it's a pretty interesting story so look for sympathetic eyes right to execute that plan without actual you know having it done by yourself I would be like yeah I don't think anyone would get in my car and like point the gun at their own people like what does that say about you as I understand it was part of the yeah yeah yeah and he just turned what he just knew that I think what to him I don't know what was running through his mind but what I saw was I hey you know I was not the target of their anyway he didn't kill you did he recognize the fact that I was just happened to be the innocent bystander that took the wrong turn and so he helped me you know it I mean he knew that late this guy has nothing to do with this this whole Arab Spring stuff he wants to make money yeah so would you say well you don't have to answer this question at all if you don't want to but have you killed anyone and if you did how did that affect you yeah of course over 20 years and a lot of you know my first part of the career was combat stuff and the other half was more you know cloak-and-dagger or I guess you could say but yeah I mean we we I say we because when you say kill someone it's a group effort a lot of times and the situations I was in where it's more combat related true combat going in to a target to kill a terrorist is much different than being part of conventional forces and going through different cities and engaging targets because I can be looking through my sights to shoot someone at the same time my buddy is and there's no way of knowing whose bullet got there first right so is that have we killed people yes no I say no you know your bullets hit them but it's more about there's a distinguishing difference where if you hear someone say I've killed 56 people or I they better be a sniper because that's where you get that connect that confirmation is a little more different than right then on a battlefield where we're all shooting at the same objectives or the same bad guys and so it's very difficult to rack up a number or say I've killed X amount of people or anything of that sort unless of course it's a one-on-one environment in a room in a building than you know but my experience was at the beginning of the Iraq war when we were just cruising through there was no basis we're sleeping underneath our Humvees we were getting ambushed we were shooting bad guys or you know so yeah and then the aftermath of that like you're asking it's different for every guy I think some guys you know depending on that situation that environment and how they deal with it you know I think it's different for me you know and I think for the guys I worked with those those people out there that you shoot are no different than the paper targets that you trained on all the way up to that moment right you're shooting paper it does but it's paper it's plastids it's all these targets that look like people and you train that way so much that when it's time to actually shoot you're just that's that's almost you know they're people I mean we're not dumb but your training is what it takes over and kicks in yeah and that's what get you through it do you think you trick yourself to look at that much paper because if you did not if you understand that somebody's bad that somebody's brighter than I'm taking you know away from them and he understands that he's fighting for right thing just like I understand I'm fighting for right things and who knows who's really right I mean in politics is really messed up so if you think if you mentally look at someone like that's another human being that could be me you know or there's someone somebody oh no it what a baby that's the differences it would have been me it would have been my buddy Yeah right if you just stand there and do nothing then you're gonna get shot I mean you are in someone else's country so they're not gonna sit there and just go hey what's up come on over with your tanks and everything else you've got but hey yeah I mean so it's either them or us in that moment and so you know you're gonna choose to shoot you know and that's what you're there to do that's your job and you know as crazy as it sounds for for SEALs and for other professional soldiers the pinnacle of their career is war in combat it's it's the opposite of almost every other occupation on the planet right for us and for them it's war right yeah if it's there they're they're just wearing a different uniform but the pinnacle to their career is combat to put all that training make it yeah into something that so that your career has meaning so that your there's some kind of you're satisfied right it's a satisfaction to have trained trained trained and then actually been able to implement all those years of training to do something that is for the greater good of your country regardless of whether people think it was right or if it was wrong you are a professional soldier and your job is to do what's for the greater good of your country how do you know though that's the thing this is kind of a very politically charged question and you pick your side go for it yeah keep hearing this I'm gonna put it on silent for you so you just said we are in someone else's country yeah so why do you think that like that's right at all to be in someone else's country and and directly challenge their whatever it is right like what do you think that it's right for America to be in Iran to be in Syria to be or in Iraq because I my personal opinion is live this country's to deal with there she is all right so I don't like you have to look at if America is a brand-new country compared to Europe and many other countries informed way later so we don't know what's gonna happen in 400 years what conditions we gonna be in so god forbid it's messy for us I doubt that self respected Americans would like England coming in and dictating how he gonna be so what would you say to that oh well number one a lot of what we and what I was part of was basically heading things off at the pass right so it's better to go over there and do what needs to be done than wait for it to come to us right no one wants the Brits showing up and the Brits did show up one time and they got their asses handed to so and that's where you know we live the way we live now but it's far better to face evil overseas than wait for it to come over here because if you look at any of the one any of the countries you just mentioned the they're led by very extreme dictators that fall back on their religion in order to make the bad decisions that they make on a daily you look at all the country histories including Russia it's it doesn't have a future do you think that America is using an excuse to you know oh it's eventually going to come to us before it gets to you it's gonna get to everyone because America is so damn far away it's gonna get to Italy it's gonna get to France it's gonna get to I don't see these countries saying like oh my gosh let's kill them or let's go in and like mess it up before they miss Asif you know what I mean so I mean why I'm thinking that is that a fake threat that's what I'm trying to get to know you think it's a real threat I mean look you're talking about dictators who have put the fear of God into their own people I'll give you a little story that most people never heard going into Iraq every single soldier had a gas mask epi and atropine you know what that's all for right yeah for biochem all those different kinds of warfare right which the dictator was saying he did not have but yet all of his military is carrying it okay so when you ask them why are you carrying a gas mask epi and atropine do you think the United States is gonna use that stuff against you and they're like no no Saddam Saddam only use it against us so you have a dictator saying he has stuff that he's going to use his people certainly believe that he's going to use it they're carrying all the stuff necessary to defeat it just in case they get gassed and at that point in time you realize you did the right thing whether or not he has it or not because you're liberating a bunch of people from the fear of a dictator who had killed hundreds of thousands of Kurds and North No we represent we represent that job you're when you sign the dotted line it's not like it's a choice you're you're going and doing what you're told to do as a soldier yeah of course yeah but again by the way I enjoyed every minute of it yeah no that's like I was kicking in please don't send me to war no no I that's not what I'm doing but as I be honest with you I'll never join military I love hard stuff I love you know the sports I love the the training of military all that I love the toughness I'm a daughter of detective like I love that stuff I'll never join the military because of the same reasons you're talking right now because they are teaching you to obey the orders now we're not very good at because I have my own judgment and when I see for example that this is serious problem and some people want you there some people don't it's like if I don't want you in my house why are you coming in and trying to save me I said hey I'm with a violent husband he beats me up and all that right and you're my neighbor and you're like I want to save you a woman I want to get you out I'm saying I don't want your saving right I mean leave me let me alone let me settle I can handle myself like why are you intruding you know what I mean yeah not like let's be honest we we care about our own nation artist first then we care about others right I mean if it was the opposite it's a problem I mean I I care about Americans first and I care about let's say other people right so let's not pretend that we care about Syrians more than we care about Americans so it brings me to my original pushing what the hell are we doing there we care about us you know they don't want us to get involved yet we are still carrying out someone's orders to get involved and killing so many Americans in there why these guys could have bright futures here wives children was our problem who has signed their job to us why are we policing the world you know Europe doesn't seem to agree so I that's just one thing that I wanted to get your take on is as a soldier I understand your perspective you're like this is my orders Lizzy this is what I'm gonna do but do you have a question that's what I'm asking oh well yeah I think the seal community probably questions more than any other community in the military because we have a kind of a rogue maverick culture where we do kind of we definitely stress and test our leadership regularly we and we used to haze them too which was but uh we don't get the prize that's probably not going on any longer but uh my guess cuz things have changed but a majority of what we're doing it it is unfortunately put out by the media which means there'll they only know what they can figure out on their own they don't know really what's going on unless they've been there what's going on you tell me no I mean you're talking twenty years of stuff but and overall I never once went somewhere and said to myself oh we're here for the wrong reasons not ones and I'm a very logical like hmm you know sensible person you know and I'm far from brainwashed you'll never find a seal that's like brainwash like like you hear about certain soldiers is gonna do what I need to do it I don't care that's not it's not the case I mean we are we are called thinking shooters for a reason right we think and through everything we do and we're not just pulling the trigger to pull the trigger to have fun well no because every time you go in all of them are just so correct and right yeah really they have been yeah that's the thing is it's uh the media likes to take whatever and twist it apart but you but they the media also tends to forget that there is an order in which we've always done things so if you look through the reels there's always years of diplomacy long before there was ever a shot fire and that's what politicians exist for is diplomacy right and when that doesn't work well then there's sanctions and they're sanctions against that country right and then sanctions go go go and then those don't work where are the sanctions for the journalists they got killed a shock to you so what I guess I want to blow when it comes a Saudi I'll agree with you a hundred percent against Saudi but yeah we've never gone to war with them and that's probably there's all kinds of different political reasons we can disagree on things that's the I feel like debate is the best when we disagree and we should now argue but can we come to the agreement that at the end money means more than human life that's why we are not sanctioning Saudis that's we are so good with Saudis because money means more than human lies you know I don't know what the real strategic there's always something strategic yeah so for Saudi that it is a great piece of real estate for military operations all right they spend a lot of money on US defence systems you know and they they have been an ally in that region for a very long time do I agree with like how they roll no I think you know they have been proven to finance acts of terror they have been you know definitely the the evil out there that we certainly haven't acknowledged no matter what they do you just had Saudi hackers hacking Twitter to figure out you know the username accounts and locations of people who have vocalized things against the Prince you've had you know obviously the assassination of journalists you've had the Saudis involved in all kinds of crap and they get away with it yeah which I don't like them I'm not a I'm not a fan of Saudi and I think they are truly the the real evil over there but and but you know there's reasons there's reasons that are beyond me I don't know why we don't you know drop a hammer on them maybe one day yeah who knows why Saudi gets a pass I don't know it seems to be I always feel like it what people don't know is that every time you show you know royalty and a US president all hanging out together and showing this alliance what people forget is that al Qaeda and terrorism was born out of the relationship between the royal family and the West and that they and and most people don't know that al Qaeda and a lot of people in Saudi hate the royal family right they they there is acts of terrorism inside Saudi on a regular basis that you never hear about because yes royal family so for us and if you want to really kind of reduce terrorism at least just a it will only be a fraction but at least a little bit its top televising the alliance between Saudi and the US because all it does is get most of those very extreme radical Muslims fired up because it's like oh here we go again making deals we need to kill somebody we need to make a statement yeah so if you kind of reduce all of the publicity of all that you know it'll help a little bit it'll help a little bit I think it helped yeah I want to get into more of a funny note here huh so how's dating life when you're a Navy SEAL hello or a married life because some are married right and they're like I mean I would not want to be a man you know a wife of a Navy SEAL I would be like you know you're here or you're out well so I've been married and how many times now I'm divorced oh no what one marriage one divorce we call them practice wives right everyone yeah you got a practice okay yeah no yet so you get the one you knock it out you learn you do it you get all your your rights and your wrongs figured out then you know yeah it's usually because it's usually because like me get married you know too soon too early too young I was like 21 was like 21 22 oh right so they don't I don't think anybody's getting married anymore but so you know I was married for 14 years the career plus a lot of my bad decisions definitely ended the marriage I was the one that kind of the divorce and she was like yes yeah she she she wasn't excited about it but I think as time went by she has now realized it was probably the better thing you know you're either you either work together or you don't and I feel like a lot of people stay together just because well we've been in it this long or oh we've got kids and the reality is is that a kid raised in two happy homes is better than a being raised in one unhappy home and once parents that are unhappily married realized that and they get that division and they get their own place and they create two happy environments the kids will grow up just fine yeah it's the kids that are raised by parents that hate each other that usually have problems later on in life you know but anyway we we got divorced and it was before I got out long before I got of the Navy and uh and then dating life I mean yeah I mean it's been you know it's been 50/50 there's like some good some crazy yeah he was the crazy example like I would say so how do Navy SEALs date at all like most of the time you are isolated with other dudes like you know you're used to searching lifestyle that's what I'm saying you're not like your usual like in here California guy who goes out and like parties every night and things like that so how do you even approach the bar do you use tinder like well I you know I can't speak for all the other guys yeah I mean when you are hanging out as a group of guys in your room in the world you certainly take time to go out to the bars so and usually if you have a group of seals walk into a bar by the end of the night you're taking the place over or you're getting in a fight or you're walking out with you know yes yeah so I mean I think that's kind of a given so there is some traditional go to the bar you see somebody who like and you know you that's all that kind of stuff but these days yeah I think that you know there's apps I don't personally use dating apps I've got you know social media it has tends to lead to the girlfriends that I have had some were introduced by other friends you know so buddies that I've got will say hey meet so-and-so and interestingly enough is the girls that been introduced to by my friends have somehow been the ones I've had the biggest issues with Wow yeah and then with one of them I said hey so did you know she was crazy and he was like oh yeah we all knew she was crazy but why who are we to ruin what could potentially be a great relationship so we didn't want to like put that in your mind that she's crazy and I was kind of like dude you you can tell me when someone's so yeah that was crazy people make a positive yeah it didn't work out that way she liked to throw things and break things yeah yeah so as we're wrapping up I'd only want to know this is like the biggest thing when it gets there for me nutrition yes so I can't imagine that the routine you described to me right running get two to two miles to eat and then two miles back and then more miles somewhere in between and all that I mean what type of nutrition supports that it's like everything everything I mean you're young is everything right you're young I mean you're everyone who goes to that kind of training they're young and you're burning so much that you literally can eat everything and you're still gonna be just fine right I mean I I always tell people you get people that go into buds big come out very trim down and guys that go in little come out mid you know they come out bigger so buds is the ultimate equalizer but I was one of those skinny kids that went in and came out you know 20 pounds of muscle on the back end in six months and you're not really paying attention to what you eat you're just eating to dry and everything it's all fuel to get through the next day and you're eating the three meals that during the day but usually you end up eating a fourth meal and maybe even a fifth at night so your load what is the mail like the protein like a chicken well then there was whatever I mean yeah you gotta remember that when I went through the theory was that you know you eat pasta the night before and somehow that's gonna give you the energy today right like part you carb up the night before you never hear that anymore obviously because we know that complex carbohydrates you know especially before you go to bed at night isn't a good idea that's back when you know you had people like Lance Armstrong saying that's what he did spaghetti night before the race and when you're a little kid you know playing football it's eat spaghetti before you play your big game the next day but yeah it was just different then and but you're burned so the nutrition through buds that's different than like okay now later on in life where you're not working out 12 hours a day you know the main now it's you know you're lucky to get in an hour to these days because when you're out you're you know things like even once you become a seal the first three hours of your day is fitness and then your job is very physical right but then you get out now it's like okay you really have to watch what you eat because you're so used to just being a garbage disposal knowing that you're gonna earn it all yes the job yeah so now I a lot better yeah I think books and not just one so could you tell us what are those books their names and which one is your favorite and why okay so I've got the hundred deadly skill series which is only two books right now with a third one on the way and those are those are books that are Illustrated and give the average citizen skills they can use survive different kinds of crisises or survive against bad guys those books have everything from restraint defeat you know how to get out of handcuffs how to get out of if your zip tied if your taped you name it it also gives you a lot of kind of offense defensive type skills those are a lot of fun because they're Illustrated it makes it easy for people to learn [Music] like it's I feel like it right and if you're in California or New York yeah yeah so it's those or I guess they're kind of categorized as survival books but they're very urban they're not like you know how to go out and start a fire or anything they did really well you know they hit the New York Times list and then that led to the publisher asking me to write a memoir and so like every seal you know he wrote a memoir about my my life but I kept that book very raw very truthful and very human so it has I talk about as many bad decisions if not more bad decisions in that book as good decisions because I feel like people learn they'll learn more from a bad decision that someone talks about far more than to learn from a good one and bad decisions make for great stories where is what's the worst decision you made that you could tell me right now don't give everything away from the book but something that you regret something that we all have our worst regrets in our head almost every time so what is yours probably you know being married and then getting distracted by other women certainly was a problem and personal stuff so I talked about getting involved with someone and then her husband wanted to come kill me and it turned into it where you had what two federal agencies and three law enforcement agencies involved and the whole ordeal and I do regret it I mean it caused my ex-wife all kinds of stress and grief she didn't need and it was all because of my bad decisions but like they say bad decisions make them are eight stories yeah so what about the the you were talking about the book and the third one is on the way so what is the third one third one is another hundred deli skills except it's gonna be all combatives the memoir is called the right kind of crazy which kind of alludes to just all the crazy craziness that you gotta have to do what we do but it just has to be the right kind you don't want the wrong time yeah so just to put you on spot right now if I was in the situation even in this room right now that somebody is trying to kill me I wanna get out well what would be my best choice like you teach people those skills right yeah if we look around this room right now what's my best resolve is that can I jump out of the window well I mean I'm someone's so number one is like right off the bat you need time you go into any new environment you want to do a quick survey right so you're observing everything from the exits you can see in the exits you cannot see for this room we know there's really only one way in one way out and yeah we're on the 14th floor which does us no good for escaping out the windows and there's no rooms adjoining on either side which can also be an out if you need to like some hotel rooms so with this one it zips right off the bat I mean someone's kicking your door in ideally well ideally you barricade first right you want to you want to deny them access so you're taking this furniture you're putting it against the door but instead of what most people think using stack things up you're gonna go linear and we're gonna stack this couch is gonna go in front of the door then another kind of couch and you can extend the furniture across the room to these walls or this window so this wall window becomes your brace right your doorstop is the opposing wall right making sense yeah that door is never opening and now you can sit in here and take your time call nine-one-one have a full conversation they're not getting in the door let's see I can't because there are lots of give different cases where girls are kidnapped in a place without a phone without and let's say they do barricade and then I have to look for the justified because that's the only thing I have watched like what would be the best tool when I have just walls and the lamp and the cow which like movies dismantle the couch yeah yeah no if standoff is always your goal right you don't ever want to get entangled and intertwined with someone so any kind of standoff weapon and these are gonna be improvised so the pole of this right if I keep it from forward to keep distance between me and that person and that's a good thing the odds are they're gonna get in tight on you you know because all fights 95% of fights end up on the ground so that's where more closed end type improvised it could be the pen that is in every hotel room you know they give you writing pens that pen you know you're stabbing throats to having them on the I stab them wherever you can you know this room has glass let's see that glass tabletop right there you're gonna use that over his head breaks you've got another pointy sharp objects I mean a lot of times you have a lot of weapons around you it's just a matter of identifying identity so what you're talking about is hey you're surprised and completely caught off guard exactly but if you're doing it right you're never caught off guard well you're identifying these things ahead of time so that you know oh yeah I can use this I can use the furniture as a barricade I know I can use a pair of scissors to stab them in the face though the goal is it create create that pain so that then you can get away and you can escape right so for this room if he comes that you want if he's gonna charge you and he's coming all the way in you redirect his momentum across the room so now you can go out the door so what would you say so many people give you address right oh like stab you with a pen or whatever but sometimes you don't really know how stronger they can be because you can stab them in the neck and in a wrong place and I can still retaliate no you're cut so is that like right advice if I wanted to make so you teach my girlfriend like only if you ever get kidnapped the neck I know is that this likes more like a dado and seeing that the eyes better than a net there is no right or wrong when it comes to what you're doing remember the goal is to inflict pain mm-hmm so that you can get out of the grasp of someone and pain is whatever it takes you know if that means you got to grab them by the balls and do so right I mean it's whatever it takes to create the pain and and then but there are times when you have to temporarily surrender right if you're taking severe blows to the head you're outnumbered you're outgunned then that might be a point when you go okay okay okay okay because the last thing you want to do is get knocked unconscious yeah and then now you have no control so by temporarily going okay okay take me you can now systematically start going alright I'm gonna let them take me for now because I don't want to get knocked out I don't want to die yeah and then you're gonna figure out your escape and then doing that there's a third there's a lot of things I teach on how to do that to successfully but the goal in your book as well yeah it's all in the books I think so but the goal is never let yourself get to the first stop right yeah the first stop is when the real restraints go on when it can get serious right so always a fifty Shades of Grey so thank you so much before we rip off I want to hear your opinion about something that is very common PTSD in military so some people think it's not even real it's it's crazy there are people who are talking about oh that that is not real like that she's not real but I totally disagree I've seen soldiers who are severely affected and have PTSD so how really it is for Navy SEALs and did you ever experience it yeah so I mean kind of going to the beginning and what you're talking about is I was one of those guys when I was in that thought that PTSD and all that was just a crutch right it was just a way to get the VA to give them a check every month and then once I got out it was until I got out that I started having my own issues and started realizing oh this stuff is actually real and the way that I kind of compare it now is to when you're when you're in a job that's going 120 miles an hour and it comes to a complete stop all the baggage comes forward and hits you in the back of the head and so you have no other choice that other than to face it yeah and so for me it was the same right I'm going nonstop I had buddies died and left and right and you compartmentalize all of it you put it away I mean I went to one one memorial service and it was only because my buddy was going and it was in passing where I was like yeah I guess I'll go but I didn't go to any of the others and you're talking 20 plus guys that you know over that career that I Eve like I'm not going to that and now you know being years out you realize man maybe I should have gone maybe I should have you know paid respects maybe I should have done these things but more than that you end up remembering things that I didn't even remember I was telling I was telling someone yesterday about we were in a perimeter and you know there was guys there was Marines asleep you know sleeping side by side by side between two vehicles and in the middle of the night they decided to move some of the track type vehicles you know like tanks and stuff and they didn't know that there was Marines asleep on the ground and they ended up running over in the middle of the night while these guys were asleep right and I was the medic who had to kind of help this situation and it was one of the most awful and that day I'd pulled Marines off the front line who are dead and but I had forgotten about that moment right I just completely blocked it all out until one probably two years after I had retired I was on a run and remembered it and it hit me like a freight train like I stopped and I had like all kinds of emotional issues to the point where I took a knee in the middle of my run I was running in my neighborhood and cars were stopping asking me if I was okay kind of thing I mean it just really init it so it was one of those moments and that I realize you know that is real and everybody has different ways of dealing with it and then the biggest piece though is how do you you can't get rid of memories so you just figure out you either talk through it so you tell stories all the time so that becomes almost neutral in your mind counselling of course well you're never gonna block them out people people I think feel like guys that are always trying to block it out they're the ones with the bigger issue right you gotta eventually face it and then just go all right you know it's something that I experienced it sucked and you just got to talk about it so therapy helps you think oh yeah maybe you're have you tried it yourself oh yeah I went through a whole yeah they they'll pay for you to go through some great stuff and they expose what's cool about the system that they have in places they'll expose you everything to art therapy imagine a bunch of seals in a room painting pictures and then they had music therapy a bunch of seals or bongos going through them you know so then you end up finding the therapy therapy that works and you go okay this one works for me the drums the drums didn't work we're all looking at each other like what the yoga together and you know guy's balls are hanging out of their shorts and you're like this I can't take this serious but yeah it's uh everybody finds their way and then you just kind of get through it and you realize you know what yeah I experienced a bunch of good good stuff a bunch of bad stuff and in the end you're gonna be fine you know just a lot of guys I think let alcohol and drugs and other things kind of get in the middle of that you know that good and the bad and you just got to kind of embrace it all and move on yeah you have to move on yeah yep well that's our podcast today if you had a chance to do it again or pick a different profession would you do it again or pick a different profession no I'll do it really oh yeah yeah thank you so much and check out his book it's amazing two of them thank you yeah no problem thank you if you lie to that video and you want to see more content like that hit the subscribe button and don't forget the notification well

Channel: DARE2KNOW

Views: 8,398

Rating: 4.8341012 out of 5

Keywords: Army, SEAL, SEALS, NAVY, Navyseals, USarmy, Marines, Brave, Flag, Patriotism, Nationalism, Nation, Unites States, BRAVO, ECHO, DELTA, Foxtrot, Airforceone, Plane, Helicopter, Armyman, Whitehouse, Delta, Fight, war, army, abuse, crazy, guns, Bullets, @podcast, @clintemerson, @mikedrop, @jockopodcast, ClintEmerson

Id: FZrqRRupl6I

Length: 71min 6sec (4266 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 24 2020