LC18: SOCS James Hatch

good morning everybody thank you all for showing up I hope everyone had a great time last night and got to experience downtown Annapolis to its fullest extent this morning we're gonna kick it off with senior chief Jimmy hatch I wrote a few things down that I was gonna you know introduce him with but I just don't do him justice I've known him for a few years now met him out in Arizona and got to stay in touch with him he's now come to the Naval Academy a few times to share all his little nuggets of wisdom and I'm gonna let him talk about him he's I can't do him any justice so please welcome senior chief Jimmy hatch [Applause] this mic working can you hear me yeah appreciate it this is Mina Mina is my kind of support dog and she's been trained to attack anybody whose cell phone goes off just when you know that right off the bat cool you know off off so I'll say a little bit about myself before I get started I joined the military when I was 17 years old I spent 25 years and 11 months in the military and I had a really good time I have a master's degree in cussing which is inappropriate here so I want you guys to know my struggle while I'm up here okay yeah I am extremely honored to be here for a lot of reasons but the one that I want to make clear is that the military was my family and I learned some of the things that people from regular families would normally learn I learned in the military and I learned about different cultures within the United States and throughout the world I learned about different people and I found even in all the combat I was involved with and then the craziness that no matter where you're at no matter what the shape of the roof of your churches no matter what you like to eat for dinner the music you listen to we're all a lot more similar than we are different and every time I get to come here meet new people it just confirms my ideas I was a seal as mentioned I'm the only seal that didn't shoot Osama bin Laden but I'm not the only one that didn't write a book and that's gonna be published in May and it's really this story that I'm getting ready to tell you all the action man's stuff the chest-beating stuff all that stuff is really for a certain type of audience that I don't really care to talk to so if you want to hear that kind of stuff I'm probably not gonna give it to you today there's definitely combat and action man stuff but I'm gonna lean on the human things that I learned and I saw in really extreme circumstances so the point of this speech is to let you know that we all have to kind of rely on each other and that everybody in here is a candidate to be someone who needs help given the right circumstances and everybody in here is a candidate to help somebody else out and you don't have to have lift through gunfights and been shot in the leg or been blown out to be capable of either of those things right I call this touching the dragon which is coincidentally the name of my book I coined the phrase while I was in a mental hospital and I'll get to that May 2010 I walked into my office I grabbed a Glock a 45 caliber pistol I walked out next to my trash cans because I didn't want to make a Bess I put the gun in my mouth and I didn't pull the trigger because I don't know why I know how to use guns if I don't wanted have been dead I would have I would have been dead my wife took the gun away from me and at that point I started a different journey in life but let's get there 2009 I went on a mission to rescue a hostage a volunteer hostage named Bowe Bergdahl he decided to leave his base and for whatever reason and I was part of a small mission a special missions unit that was predominantly busy with what we call capture kill missions or hostage rescue missions hostage rescue missions are really tough I was a middle manager so I had been in for a long time so it just made sense that I was in charge of a few people the ground force commander was a was a guy who graduated from this school very good guy I had a senior enlisted over me and then I had about eight people that were directly under my supervision we took off it was not the kind of night that we would have liked to have gone out in fact we cancelled a mission to capture a guy who was a very bad guy we'd cancelled a mission that night because the circumstances were horrible and I'll just use the word environmental we would like to set the stage it was an away game for us every time right we weren't working in our neighborhood we were working in the bad guys neighborhoods so we wanted to try to help ourselves out by picking the nights where the weather and the illumination things like that would help us out well it was really bad this night but it was the only time that we'd gotten enough intel on where this sergeant Bergdahl then private first class Bergdahl where he was so because he was an American and because we're Americans and because he's got a mom we knew that he'd walked off but there was a little bit of complaining but it wasn't ever anything like we're not gonna go do it because he's an American right I don't want to see him get his head cut off on YouTube right so we got on the helicopters and we flew in to get him and it was ugly fight as soon as we got near the target we started getting shot at pretty badly we got off things went sideways I got shot in the leg and people had to save my life right so how did I get here I went through SEAL training the first time in 1986 I was in buds class 141 ten minutes into hell week and if you don't know what hell week is it's like what it sounds it starts on a Sunday night and gets over on Friday you don't really sleep much and they they just keep you running around and put you in the ocean and make you cold and you have to lift things and carry boats and do all kinds of stupid things and it's designed to weed people out well ten minutes into hell week my first time the biggest guy in my class got up and he had done the Ironman this dude was huge he was like six three he was just muscles mannequin swim he was an insane athlete he got up and he quit and how do you quit in SEAL training you get up and there's a bell wherever you go there's this Bell right you have to ring the bell right so he got up and rang the bell and I was like if that guy has no business here I sure as hell don't have any business here and I wasn't the only one thinking that there were like ten of us and we all got up and immediately quit which was stupid in about an hour I figured out that I'd made a really bad mistake but the Navy saw fit to help me learn character so they sent me to a ship and no offense but a ship to me I don't know why people go on cruises I don't get it I spent a lot of time on ships and ships are like Jail except you can drown for me that's just how I looked at it no offense no offense no offense I know where I'm at if you want to fight you got to fight mean it too so just just be careful so I went to this went to the ship I worked for some really tough people they kicked me in the butt a lot and I needed it I did some deployments and then I went to SEAL training again and I didn't realize how elite I was but I was giving this speech a couple of years ago and a friend of mine was the guy in charge of SEAL training and he was there and he told me later you know Jimmy they're talking about not letting people who've quit go back to Budds because only 8% of people who quit and go back make it through so I wish I would have just made it the first time I'm not really that elite I just barely suffered through the second time it was really cool I really felt good that I had actually like accomplished that SEAL training is a big deal but it isn't anything like combat right so I did some time in SEAL team 8 and then I tried out for a special missions unit and then I had to go through another six months of training which was really tough it was tougher than buds in my opinion because they put you under a lot of stress physically and then they asked you to do some very tough decision making with a gun in the dark and make sure that you are what's called a discriminating shooter which is why hostage rescue missions are so tough you can't just shoot everybody you got to figure out who's who in the zoo and not shoot the people you're trying to help or the innocent people shoot the ones that are shooting at you and that's kind of tough but that training set us up for success for that I when I got to that special missions unit I ran into what I had always dreamed being a seal was supposed to be like we were given the resources the leadership was in place there was no fail missions we just didn't fail we were given everything that the nation had to offer the best equipment the best resources with regard to air assets we had when we went on missions we had a stack we called it a stack we had gunships we had jet aircraft carrying big bombs we had Predator drones we had all the things we needed to be safe in a really dangerous area I'm really glad I went through all that I did about 150 missions that was my last one and when I got hurt I immediately went into a screaming mode which is not cool the bullet went through my oh let me talk you through that those details are important I guess so I was with eight guys when we got off the helicopters there were so many people moving in so many different directions that I had to split up my crew and when I did I picked the guy with the dog because previously on other deployments I had been a dog handler and this was this dogs first gunfight and his handlers first gunfight dog's name was Remco and I took one other shooter the other guys I sent to an area where there was a little more activity so we got to a spot where there was a big ditch and we couldn't see really well and I saw shapes in this ditch and so I said hey man send the dog over there and let's see what's going on with those shapes we'd been shot at we'd actually shot some people already so you know we were a pretty spun up dog went over there and he wouldn't engage these figures in the ditch that were lying still I told the dog handler give him the bike command so he gave him the command and this is a distance from about me to the flag this is about how far away we are I said hey man give him the bike commands so the dog went in and he went to the biggest shape in the ditch and he nipped at it what was a child they were all children actually and he picked the biggest one was a young woman probably 14 years old with her was a three year old and a four year old I'm guessing they're ages so I went over there figured out that they weren't bad guys I picked the little boy and the little girl up I made him hold hands I walked him out in the center of this field I went back to get the young woman who was so scared that she was tucked into a fetal position I can't imagine what was going on you know she bombs going off people shooting each other planes flying around people screaming and then a dog bites her wasn't her night you know so she couldn't move so I picked her up and I threw over on my shoulder and I took her out in the center of the field where I had put those two little ones and I through with your chem-lights infrared chem lights around her and I got on the radio and I told the gunship a man over the command that I said listen those are these I just marked this spot as fielder's our kids kids yeah so as soon as I did that I looked up and I saw some very big figures moving about 400 meters away and they were clearly carrying some some stuff and I couldn't didn't really have a good visual on them I kept my eye on them myself and the other two guys and the dog we got together and lined up and then they those figures disappeared and when they disappeared in my mind I thought okay let's just wait and see if they start moving again but you can't wait very long in those situations in my opinion being aggressive especially in gun fights and life in general really when you let other people make the decision about the outcome of this of the situation that you're in then you get to live with that outcome if you make the choices in a gunfight you force them to live with your choices so we waited for a few seconds I didn't see him get up and we had to find him in a hostage rescue mission you have to eat meaning you have to cover ground you have to discover where people are and what's going on so we stood up we started moving towards them we put the dog again the dog's name was Remco out in front of us he was about for me to Mina in front of us and we were walking towards where I had last seen the shapes and we got about to where that podium is away that's about where Remco was he took two rounds in the head with an ak-47 boom boom and it blew him backwards I was about this far away I started shooting the guy who had shot the dog and I took a step I remember screaming get the dog back and his buddy was next to him about where the Marine Corps flag is and he started spraying and they were in a ditch and we couldn't see him the dog did see him I saw his tail go up and his ears go up he smelled them he knew we were getting close and so we knew we were getting close but his buddy panicked like they always do whenever I hear people talk about the cunning up Qaeda or Taliban fighters I laugh they suck they really do honestly they always panic he panicked and just sprayed fully automatic and as I stepped down on this leg the bullet went through it and blew my femur like this and it flew me in the air boom I landed on the ground this far away from him and I started screaming and because the guy had just ran out of ammunition he started throwing grenades and my the guys that were with me the guy who just watched his dog died and the other shooter they took care of him I took a little while but I screamed a lot and I was worse than useless I was actually a hazard because when you're screaming all the bad guys have to do is kind of put the gun in that direction and pull the trigger and they were bad guys everywhere so at that point two guys heard me screaming on the radio and I call him the fly fisherman mechanic I made that out kanva anybody I'm 50 years old I'm cool I found out canva and I can make these little graphics right isn't that cool that's kind of cool right like there's no question fly fisherman the mechanic right they had both been to this Army Special Forces medic school and had they not I would not be here that you had to cover ground open ground in that gun fight to get to me one guy actually had to shoot people and I remember hearing him coming we used suppressors on our guns and I heard him I heard him shooting people as he was coming towards us so they got there the other shooter that was with me had to get the medivac on its way a fly-fishermen the camp and the mechanic took over stopping me from bleeding to death and we had some words with each other they told me to shut up I told him they couldn't talk to me like that I'd been shot they punched me and pushed me and stuffed bandages in my leg and I didn't suffer it very well the helicopters came in I asked the guy who was the fly fisherman I asked him to come with me because there wasn't a medic medic on the helos and I knew I was still bleed pretty hard so he flew to the field hospital with me the last thing I remember I was laying I walked in a pogo stick tit on this leg into the little field hospital bright lights there were two people there with big scissors they cut everything I had on and I was completely naked they threw me on a big stainless steel table was freezing in there I start getting a little hazy and I raised my hand and I yelled the fly fisherman's name I'm like hey he comes over and I said tell people not to laugh at my junk it's cold in here and the doctor she looked at me and took the mask and just chance it over my face shut up so that's the last thing that I remember from my last mission the fly fisherman the mechanic are gonna come in to play again so at the point where I had become wounded I was then a spectator right I was useless and I got to watch the people around me save me and that was initially I didn't understand that I was going to be doing that for a long time it was the gunfight that sat in my head and because I could no longer be an action man and I lived on this train where I was deploying and when I came home I was training to deploy again and we just kept going we call a speeding train I was on the train I'd have to think about things I didn't let any of the bad things that I had experienced catch up to me because I didn't have time for it I had to keep going right I do speeches for police departments and and veterans groups and this is not an uncommon phenomenon right people see ugly things all the time but because their work keeps them busy they never really are forced to take an inventory of how that affects their soul right so I end up getting medevac'd to Germany then to Bethesda Naval Medical Center and I spent a lot of time looking at the ceiling and all of the things that I had experienced as an action man those things started to come back and on top of all of it was the huge weight that I felt like I had failed on my last mission because at the point I got hurt that changed the dynamic they had to get the screaming bloody guy out of there right so it slowed things down and we all know the story of sergeant Bergdahl's he spent five years as a as a volunteer in my opinion prisoner of war I personally believe that the kid was there I I don't think he was very far from where I got hurt actually but in my opinion that mission was a failure and true or not I felt for a long time that I was the cause of its failure so it's just a laser pointer yeah so some of the things that weighed on me I was a dog handler I mentioned that's a picture of me and a buddy of mine and my dog spike dogs like to stick their head out the window in the car same on helicopters we were coming back from a mission in in Ramadi in Iraq one day and that we're sitting in the helicopter that's the ropes we used to go on the job and we hooked him back up and we're on our way home spike was killed on a mission in 2006 December 23rd which is the day before Christmas Eve and the reason that's a big deal to me is because I had to call my wife on Christmas Eve and tell her that I had killed spike spike was sent to punish a jihadi and I put some rounds into the jihadi and one of those rounds went through that human and into spike and it killed him it hurt but I hadn't laid in a hospital room looking at the ceiling with narcotics running through my veins I hadn't thought about it that much it weighed on me very heavily this is a picture of what was left of the helicopter that the rescue team that went in to get the lone survivor experienced I was part of the crew there were some Rangers and a group from my unit that went in to try to recover those guys and that experience those charred bodies the ugliness of that it had a big effect on me and I didn't realize it because I was still on the train but again laying there looking at the ceiling I had time to think about all that stuff that's the flag at half-mast in Iraq the day that spike was killed that is the dog that was killed in front of me the night that I got wounded that's his handler who forgave me and didn't forgive himself he's he's still going through those challenges I felt guilty that I wasn't quicker the night that that dog got killed because I couldn't see those guys and you can't just shoot blindly when you're on a hostage rescue mission or any other mission really for that matter but I just never forgave myself for that dog dying this is another dog that I worked his name was Toby violence was his religion and he was the head rabbi he got he got killed biting a guy with a suicide vest and saving a lot of lives the guy blew himself up he was not with me at the time he's with another handler that's my that's my leg denied that well when I got back here to Bethesda they basically had to rebuild my leg and all of those things were crushing on my psyche as I endured them and I I had this thing right like I wanted to be the successful wounded vet you know the guy that oh wow he got hurt but man he sure is tough and he's just smiling and happy and positive and it was just complete again I told you I have a master's degree in cussing so I got to choose a different word for the one that I want to say it was complete crap right in my in my heart I was crushed and I felt like a failure and I felt useless I felt like my purpose in life was done and I didn't really need to be here because I was just wasting oxygen the best Master Chief ever worked for said in life you're either an asset or a liability to your family to your team to the people you work with whatever your one or the other and I felt like I was a complete liability I felt like I had absolutely nothing to offer so that led me down a path and we meet these guys again this is the part where the point I told you about earlier comes into play nobody [Music] nobody was obligated to help me right but I ended up in my driveway with the gun in my mouth my wife took the gun away from me she called my unit and they said listen you need to call the police because we can't get there quick enough and right now he is dangerous so she called the police told him what was going on told him my background and then told me they were coming I thought wow this is cool I like violence and these guys probably want to have some of that and I'm your huckleberry right even though I was gimping around I couldn't really walk very fast I thought well maybe these guys will have the ability to put a bullet in my head because I didn't have the courage to do it right so these guys come over I'll never forget it man I was really messed up I was really high on drugs and I've been washing him down with stole EES bad idea kids bad idea I expected him to be tough guy with me and they they weren't they call it the police call it verbal judo next thing I know we're sitting on my porch talking about the baseball and my buddies show up from my unit and they take me to the Naval Hospital where they talked me into admitting myself into the psych ward so I used to be a team leader and a really high speed unit and I was an action man and I was I just lived life really full right now I'm sitting in this psych ward in purple pajamas with a towel this big so I can't hang myself right and I'm at the lowest point I can even imagine and my buddies from my unit much to my chagrin they came to see me and in the SEAL Teams the only time we wore uniforms was if somebody died and you were going to their funeral or if some bigwig was coming to give somebody a medal and the boss wanted us to look good all right it was a pain but to come see me in the hospital people had to put their uniforms on and I was really embarrassed but that's where touching the dragon started my psyche from my unit he came and he made me go through it's anybody heard of cognitive behavioral therapy right so essentially what he made me do was go through each and every instance some of those were in those pictures there were other ones that I haven't talked about but for example the night that I got hurt I felt like I'd made some mistakes and I couldn't forgive myself so he made me go through and write the whole situation out and then he made me do it again hey I want you to write about the smells I want you to write about what you heard I want more detail he made me do it over and over and over and I didn't want to think about it that's touching the dragon for me additionally I had friends that weren't Sykes just my buddies who were knuckle draggers like me they came to see me and I was embarrassed but they came anyway they didn't care these are guys that I was in gunfights with that I love and I was proud to be with and I've been to barbecues at their houses and I didn't want him to see me like this you know but they didn't care and this is an important thing if you don't remember anything I talked about in a speech remember this one day to my buddies came and they brought some skydiving magazines I'm a big skydiver still I still like skydiving and they were sliding the magazines across the table to me and I was grabbing it and one of the people that worked in the psychiatric ward came over and said sir I have to take that magazine away from you and I said why and he said well there's staples in it and you could hurt somebody with us and I said if you think I need staples to kill everybody in this place you're the one that's crazy don't do that don't do that ever don't threaten the staff in the psychiatric ward huh you get to do what's called a penalty lap right you get to stay like an extra week and do more art therapy and get a shot that makes you're not even able to really walk fast you kind of walk like this don't do that okay if you don't remember anything else just don't threaten the staff in the psych ward cool while I was in there at Portsmouth Naval Hospital my psych the fly fisherman and the mechanic and the leadership from my unit many of whom came to this place to get educated we're trying to figure out what to do with me the people at the psychiatric ward were a little bit I think intimidated by me maybe because I threatened to kill him but they didn't feel like they had the tools there to help me so people got together talked to some of the army leadership in the Special Operations community and they sent me to a civilian place where I spent a little over four months when it was time for me to be released from Portsmouth Naval Hospital guess who came to get me yeah the fly fisherman same guy who rode the helicopter to the medevac the medevac with me to get me to the field hospital and you don't get medals for taking your body to a psych hospital there's no honor in it it's just because you love each other right it's because you care we get to this psych hospital well we flew commercially we get to the airport we ran a car we drive up to this place I have my little duffel bag with my stuff in it and this lady's going through it like I'm some kind of a heroin dealer or something you know like looking at mine checking on my toothbrush and all this stuff and I looked at the fly-fishermen I said hey man I'm I'm not doing this I'm running I'm not I'm not doing this and he said well listen man you can't really run anymore which is true but he didn't have to tell me that and he said and you need to do this you need to do this for yourself you need to do it for your family and you need to do it for the rest of us that are coming down the tracks and he was right but at that time all I knew is that this guide saved my life and once people save your life you know I'm a couple things one you can't disrespect them and two you got to live your life full because they risk theirs so you could have one right which is why I'm standing here today so I said okay I went into this little hospital thinking locate civilians what do they know about me I've been through so much I'm most you know I'm this guy who's meeting gunfights and been blown up and I've seen all this ugliness well it was a it was a it was really a blessing for me that I went to this civilian hospital because I learned a very good point and this is exactly how I learned it we were in a group session right so men and women and this was probably after I'd been in there about a month and we were talking I can't even remember the exact subject but it's basically touching the dragon' things in your life that made you get to the point where you who now are in this hospital the things that really were difficult for you there was a woman sitting across in the group she's probably 30 years old and she said she was crying a little bit she said when on Christmas Eve when I was 11 years old two of my uncles raped me in front of my dad they were drunk exactly so here I am mr. Action Man got shot in the leg on a mission doing what I love to do and had volunteered to do with people that I loved and I'm feeling sorry for myself what does this young woman think every year hey Merry Christmas what does that mean to her and here she was man in there like Mike Tyson swinging trying to get through it trying to push through it touching the dragon she was getting it and that changed she kicked me in the chest and I thank her every single day man I've never seen her again I don't remember her name amazing it gave me perspective I would not have gotten that sitting in a group of tough guys like myself right that was the biggest blessing I had in my dragon touching adventure I got out of that hospital I came home well before I got out of the hospital the mechanic came to visit me and they took me to lunch and I was I always had this thing when we were overseas the vehicles we had the windshields had to be like spotless because you know you're you're looking through those toilet paper tubes his night vision and if there's like things on the window it's really a it's just a bother so he comes down to take me to lunch and I get in the car with him the rental car and there's the bugs all over the windshield I'm like he goes I know I'll clean the windshield so I got out of the hospital I got out of the Navy I retired I didn't really know what to do with myself I went to the police department where the guys had coming to my house and I said hey listen my name is Jimmy hatch I was a dog guy on the SEAL Teams and I'd like to help you guys out and they're like oh yeah we know who you are but they'd let me help him they let me help their k9 guys they kind of put me under their arm and they said hey you know great so I wore the bite suit can't move really fast but I can take some hits from a dog I like it I like violence and that's like controlled violence it's really cool and while I was there one of the dogs needed a medical procedure that the city said we can't pay for it the cop who was the handler for that dog was despondent and I said man I got him I gotta help him out somehow so I took a picture of me and Spike my first dog that picture and which is by the way the cover of the book that's coming out the I made I've made friends with a 12 year old who knew how to do Photoshop and we made and we made this logo and I put the logo on some sweatshirts and I got on Facebook and I said hey I'm selling these to make money for a dog that needs a surgery turns out people really like dogs and I made a lot of money and I could pay for that dog to get the surgery that it needed and for the officer to drive you had to go to NC State great college you had to go to NC State because they have a great veterinary program and they did the surgery had money left over and I realized that I had my mission so I started this thing called Spike's canine fund and each one of these stars is represents a dog that I was with that was killed in combat again that's a picture of me and spike I started giving speeches like this I actually went up and gave a speech to the Boston Fire Department and after I left there I got a message from the guy who had invited me to speak and he said two of the guys in there got up and and asked to go get help after you left ask their boss and I was like awesome and he said you should write a book so I did I got this friend he went to Harvard and Oxford and he's won like these essay contests and he's a really good writer I did stuff in crayon and he help me write this book and it's essentially the story that I just told you there's a little more detail here and there my friend is brilliant the book is really good it's gonna be released in May and I'll be famous for a few minutes which will be cool because it will help me make money to do this and hopefully the book helps people realize that even if you have been through the best training the military can give you you're still gonna suffer and you're still gonna need help and you're still going to need to help each other out that's my point but I think I make my best money when I answer questions so if you don't mind ask away you can ask me anything if it's something that's classified that might put my buddies in danger I probably won't answer it I'd rather get shot again and talk about politics but hell if that's what you want to talk about we'll do it honestly you can ask me anything you can ask me about the SEAL Teams you can ask me about psychiatric hospitals you can ask me about dogs anything yes sir I said I'm sorry we still we still are a little bit I still feel bad around and we have we were both at the trial when sergeant Bergdahl had his trial his court-martial down at Fort Bragg and he doesn't he doesn't hold anything against me and I don't hold anything against him I just feel bad and we both just agree that it was a tragic thing that answer it come on and you know what if you got a question that's going through your head you're not really sure that it's a good one ask it anyway because I promise you it in the after party when we get done people somebody's gonna come up to me and ask it yes well the question is what do I think should be done because this is something that's rather common with service members truth is it's common in the world it's common in society suicides across the board are are up in a big way I think the most important thing that I can say to that is it's easy to say I love you right it's entirely different to say hey man I think you need some help that's love we say stigma I call that cowardice that's really what it is I was afraid to tell people that I was really hurting I have been afraid in the past not anymore I promise to go to my buddies and say hey man you're coming to work and I can your breathing's ooh I can tell you're still liquored up what's going on right because I didn't want to you know I didn't want to make anybody uncomfortable that's all that is stigma equals cowardice right so I think it's just a matter of being invested in other people's lives and I think for me because I learned the hard way and that's the only way I can learn really is had those people not shown me that they loved me I don't know that I ever would have gotten to a point where I thought I actually had something to offer so sometimes I think in depression at least with me it's so selfish all you can see is yourself and the things that you've failed at and oh woe is me but you you don't know that at the time because that's it's so it's it's horrible having somebody come in and punt puncture that little sphere of hate that you're kind of wallowing in is really important I just think it's a matter of being invested in the people that you are with really invested not like Instagram friends yes sir how do I maintain resiliency resiliency is probably the most overused word in the English language right now but I'm trying to think of a better one I think I'll use courage how do I have a courage to say hey man I'm gonna keep going right I think for me it's twofold I'm really lucky because I had people risk their lives to save mine and so I have a little bit of a responsibility right but the truth is I believe all of us probably can reflect and say man there have been people in my life that extended themselves to help me get to where I'm at and because they have done that I have an obligation to do something with what I've been given it so I still struggle man I still struggle I struggle I was sitting here talking to my young hosts about how I got to kind of get up here and throw my guts out I call it wearing my ass for a hat you know I talk about all the silly things that I did I cussed dang it's it's hard and it takes its takes it out of me a little bit you know but I kind of have to it really was a very difficult thing for my family my wife was had to be strong during all of my deployments and then the aftermath of me getting wounded and after I got myself to a point where I was where she felt confident that I could conduct myself like a decent human being she broke down man and she started having panic attacks and it she was so strong but it crushed her and I had to help her a little bit using the tools that I had learned through the help she'd given me and others it was very difficult and the guilt that I felt for creating that situation was significant as well but I couldn't I had to put that in the back seat while we figured out how to help each other you know and that's an ongoing process as is any relationship but when you go through those types of things together it creates a super strong bond it just takes a lot of work it's hard so after I got out of the military I we always have dogs I have four dogs right now it's a bit excessive or whatever we always have a dog from the shelter and we have a 14 year old Min Pin that was found walking the road blind and deaf and so he's like my little dude you know and and we have a french bulldog which is a complete pain in the rear and I love her but man they're a problem and then Mina so I got Mina because I wanted to have a work dog around me because I couldn't move fast and I was really worried about protecting my family but what she did actually was kind of saved me because I talked about being a depressed and completely self-absorbed but with a dog you can't she needs to eat and she needs to be you know she needs to have some activity in her life and she needs some training a dog like that so I had to teach her how to bite people when the cell phones went off right so it got me out of myself she's super smart she's jumped out of the airplane with me I think eight or nine times to help develop better gear for that kind of stuff she sits up on the stage and waits for somebody's cellphone to go off she's great she saved me a little bit dogs have saved me a lot of different ways does that answer it yes sir so I'm gonna try to answer it clearly I don't I really struggled with the bergdahl the whole experience but I came to a point where I realized that I didn't have all the facts and I know the Intel that we had that led us up to going on that mission and what I had experienced through that Intel was horrible he was not being treated very well and I'm not the judge I'm not the Jag I didn't get to see all of the documentation and all of the conversations and all of the proof in that case so I do trust the justice system I don't know what the long-term effects of that will be I don't think anybody in their right mind thinks that it's okay to walk off I remember I did an interview with Anderson Cooper about this before the trial and I said you know listen if I'm if I go get drunk right and I Drive my car and do the side of a of a family you know van and I I I kill a couple of kids but in the accident I get paralyzed does that mean I don't have to go to trial and stand accountable for my actions you know it doesn't I still have to do that he went to trial and you know at this point they've decided to give me a dishonorable discharge and we'll see what happens you know I I could hold that anger and it would it would be a big mistake so I just do what I can all right I hang out with Mina and I write books what was the second part of your question yeah I don't know what the precedent is I'm sure that I'm sure that it has created some conversations I don't know what that I don't know what the precedent will be yep that's good that's a good question man I think because of experiences like mine within my unit and other service members in units like mine I think we have actually gotten to a point now in fact I know it where my buddies have said to me now it's no big deal if we say hey man I'm gonna go and see the psych when they come back from deployment they just do it voluntarily they check in that's the key sitting at the bar with your buddies drinking beers and telling each other how cool you are that's not really a good way to solve stuff you got to kind of touch that dragon as you go right and I think that's become a little bit more acceptable in the military at least in the high-end units that have to continually keep pushing and I think it just needs to work its way through society in general you know I'm not trying to get more Sykes more jobs but honestly I think that's the key is as you go through life and experience difficulties and you will finding somebody to touch the dragon with that keeps you honest right you're really good friends tell you things you don't want to hear sometimes same with a good psyche my my social worker for the VA was a navy cook she got out she went she used her GI Bill and she's now a social worker a licensed social worker her name's Paul I call her st. Paula she was a navy cook I was a big tough Navy SEAL I go to her and she keeps me honest and I still I saw her last week I'll probably go see her this week I think that's what you got to do man whoever it is it doesn't necessarily have to be a social worker or a doctor but somebody that's a pro that's not gonna that's not going to be su or let you be s yourself I think that the first part of that that's a great question the first part of it is especially as a leader I think creating a culture of transparency is the most important thing we were really good at that operationally so when we would go out on missions we would come back and we have a you know post-op debrief and we were ruthless even if the mission was successful we could be faster we could be more efficient we could use less resources we were ruthless with one another transparent yeah nobody was sitting around hey good job good job we never did that I think if we applied that across the board like hey let's be ruthless with each other you all right you're showing up to work a little late you're isolating yourself you do want to be a part of the crew your works tapering off you know there's all kinds of little signs you can tell when you get to know people and that's in if you go to this if you're gonna be an officer in the military that's your job well at least part of it is to know your crew right I think the best interventions if you have that level of transparency where people can say hey man I'm not feeling it something's going on you don't know what's going on in somebody else's life I think about that all the time in traffic man I used to be a serious road rage er what you don't know what's going on with that person that just didn't signal before they switch lanes or whatever you know it's the same in life and you know you don't know what's going on in somebody's life you might think you do but you don't I think also getting past the stigma or the cowardice of making people experience discomfort hey now let's sit down I mean do it in a professional way right like hey come on let's let's sit down and chat I'm seeing this is everything all right like if people genuinely believe that you really care that's a big deal does that answer it for me the mission and I wish I would have been able to adopt this to the rest of my life and I think I've been trying to do that sense but the missions the biggest motivator for me obviously I wanted to do the mission I wanted to protect our nation I believe in it I did not want to let my brother's down I did not want to be the weak link in the chain and I didn't I couldn't really transition with that attitude to the civilian world it took me a little while to get there but now I feel the same way I think the most precious resource any of you have is your time and if I am wasting your time I'm the weak link I'm standing up here right in my mouth and I want it to be beneficial to you whatever you endeavor to be successful at you don't want to be the weak link and you want to be an asset not a liability that's my motivation that was my motivation on the mission sets that I was involved with does that answer it I want to hear for some more ladies you guys always ask better questions come on come on I see it back there there you go [Music] I think that the most important thing that you can do regardless of what your career choice is is to care about the people that you're with and if you do that and there's that transparency that we talked about like hey man cuz listen let's be honest today when we're going home somebody in here I'll be texting and now she's gonna slam their car into something the airbags you're gonna come out you're gonna go to the hospital I'm not saying that will happen I hope it doesn't happen but what I'm saying is the likelihood something can go sideways in somebody's life very quickly is high and it's just a matter of time honestly and there's probably people in this room right now that are going through really heavy things and it's probably true of the group that you roll with so being there and being real is the most important thing I didn't think that I knew that there were things wrong with me but that made me feel and maybe it's because of my ego and because of the background you know where I was this action man who'd been through all this stuff stuff I just didn't want anybody to know it and that's what I that's how I isolated and you're not going person and you're happy that that can change really quickly I think can with any of us and that's where you can be the person that steps in or if you're the person that's hurtin you might be before you get to the point where it's becoming totally destructive you might be able to say man I need some help I need to grab somebody and say hey I just I need to one of the questions that I think kind of comes along with what you're saying is is it real is it not real when you incentivize mental illness you're going to have people who will manipulate that situation but the truth is we can't second-guess that because it's too dangerous right and I don't that's a really difficult problem that somebody that doesn't use crayons like me can probably help us solve they have those awesome good thank you you're a brave soul what are you gonna do it yourself when you grow up good for you thank you I don't know that I'm really qualified to answer that I don't understand the systems well enough but I can say that the civilian system is what was what I needed I didn't need to be in the room with other vets with big egos what you know were you were thing what badges did you have I needed to be with the woman who said what she said that changed my life right so I think when we stop and this is this is dangerous territory here but I'm gonna say it when we stop creating this shiny almost celebrity image of the military which people are committed to leaving their families and going to fight and do difficult things but they're gonna have problems and the people in civilian world have problems and we all got to kind of work together I guess that's where I'm going with that right everybody wants to see the vet out there I've actually gone into events and people are disappointed because they thought I had a prosthetic leg right oh you didn't lose your leg no right but you know where I'm going with that right like oh the military and oh there's thank you for your service and you know which is awesome but I mean we're all just people and that's coming from a guy who went through when I was in the military for almost 26 years I'm not saying that I didn't deserve a pat on the back hey good job man we just hang it out for our country that's cool but I think when we take when we kind of level the playing field hey we're all human beings I got shot in the leg that 30 year old woman was 11 years old when she was you know assaulted by family members I mean do we want to play that competition on who's got it harder and everybody's got it hard you know set the stage while I was in the the initial psychiatric center where I had made the threats they were working on what they were gonna do with me set the stage for that I was in a controlled environment so that I couldn't really hurt myself they were forcing me to touch the dragon and they set the stage for the intervention so to speak I think you know the more people you can get on board the better it makes sense we good Evan do I need to shut up yeah one more question yeah [Music] I think that that is a really good question and I think the way it worked the reason that it worked with us is that we all knew that we all made mistakes and if I were to criticize someone especially my wife right like that's bravery right there buddy if I would I would come to that discussion with an example of where I did something similar so that there's no way that she could think that I'm judging her that I got a gavel and you're bad because this no I've been there and it didn't work out for me and that's why right I think just being humble in our little ruthless debriefs everybody in there had messed up and we all knew that if we hadn't messed up yet there was a good chance that we would and that's where we got to bring this up is that a good enough answer okay I guess we're good hey thank you very much for your time I appreciate it

Channel: United States Naval Academy Leadership Conference

Views: 8,164

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Id: 2HiSj_T4z6k

Length: 61min 50sec (3710 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 04 2018