Shawn Ryan Show #1 Green Beret Mike Glover

I've been dying to ask you this question you got out September 3rd 2001 a week later September 11 happens the towers go down what is the first thing that went through your head if you have one piece of advice for the kid aspiring to be an SF operator selection isn't an assessment of what you're actually doing I want to take a call and you take calls on your podcast that's getting calls cable are used son-of-a-bitch it was from an operation where they had killed this bad guy and they took his leg it's official we're up and running this is episode zero zero one I want to personally welcome everyone to the Shawn Ryan show our first guest today is Mike Glover is a badass operator a former Green Beret we've worked together known each other for a long time I asked him some really tough questions that I think you guys are really gonna like if you're watching this on YouTube and you want to listen please head over to iTunes hit the subscribe button give us a rating we want to make this motherfucker go apeshit alright without further ado welcome to the show Mike Glover all right Mike welcome to my show how do you like Tennessee I love it man it's beautiful thanks for having me out here it's amazing I've never been here never I don't think I've ever been to Tennessee I've been to the border with North Carolina and Tennessee doing some cross border ops cross border ops behind friendly lines red it's beautiful man I love it thank you for having me yeah it's been a pleasure man I've had a really good fucking time since you've been up here and it's great catching up with you you know the last time I saw you we were in Yemen and getting shot at we didn't really get to know each other out there and and started listening her podcasts and we kind of kept in touch a little bit maybe once or twice a year but we got a lot of shit in common man I mean showed up and the first thing we did is go look for some treasures at the antique shops yeah I didn't realize how much we had in common you know you're obviously half Japanese I'm half Korean so get the Asian thing in common I'm also a big antique er I've always been I don't know if isolationist is part of the what we have in common but I'm about off-grid living just getting away from people and yeah man it was it was Yemen and you had that assassination attempt it was a pretty big deal getting shot up and weak you are after you and it was a good day I mean it was a good day that you didn't get hurt came back good day to get compromised but yeah that was that was a weird trip but well we're out of that now and and you're here and yeah you know we got we were talking about isolating ourselves and I I mean I think a lot of us do that one thing I also noticed is how giving you are and right now you got a toy drive going on so for any of you guys out there that want to donate Mike's got a toy drive I want to bring this up now so I don't forget but I think that's just really fucking cool that that you do those kind of things and and you are constantly giving back and that's cool man we always try to give back any way we can I mean we've probably given in excess of fifty thousand dollars last year the charities 250 thousand dollars mm-hmm charities - men and women who have died in the line of service whether that's police military first responders a lot of it we don't even advertise that we do it but we leverage the community that we have and crowd source from like-minded people who want to help people out and yeah I know you've done that before but it's it's a huge thing for us in every holiday season we'd like to do the toys it's the one instance you know I'm not a big materialistic kind of person mm-hmm but if a kid who's in a bad situation which we all have seen that or experience it ourselves if that could bring a little joy during the holiday season which is a tough time for a lot of families then you know so be it will raise a whole bunch of toys and give them to less fortunate people that's awesome well when's the deadline to get the toys - honestly there is no deadline I'll hand-deliver myself if people want to donate toys they could send them to our address it's on fill cross or bubble comm as long as it's before Christmas and then after the fact it just stay tuned to the channels because we're always doing some right on man well speaking at Christmas what is the one thing you want this year more than anything you know I'm it's the first time I'm it's not the first time but it's solidified now it's the first time where I'm good man I don't want anything you don't want anything I've got everything you have everything look my favorite some of my favorite things to do are the freest things to do okay picking up rocks I I rock hound so if I see cool rocks I pick them up and I put them on my shelf well you did steal a big bag of mushrooms from my property down there I harvest mushroom that's the best Oh a bag of turkey tail mushrooms from your yard oh that makes it through the airport I'm gonna try to fly with it well you'll see the only they could do is the rest of me well speaking of Christmas I even though you don't want anything I got you a little gift here okay any guesses go ahead what do you get this is a box of Milk Duds is it is it is it it's something man this is a lot of weight I don't know okay now all right open up all right we're going up motherfucker up here we go is it gonna punch me in the face now not a dick in the box or anything man look at you hey I should have guessed just just a little something for the ride home thanks man yeah this is ten more pounds I don't need that's gonna be on my ass Paz is awesome thank you you're welcome I saw you carry I'm pretty pleased so I figured I'd get you you know I do I absolutely do a bigger pack for them these will not be donated I'll be I'll selfishly take these gummy bears and Milk Duds right on well let's just do a quick overview of you know how you grew up and then we'll get into your military career a little bit and then I really am excited to talk about field craft but you know where did you grow up what was your family life like do you have any brothers and sisters so I was born in military installation in California Fort Ord California my dad had already been in the military for a year or two and I was born in a military family my dad was in the army my uncle was in the Navy I have a great-great grandfather who was a general in the Civil War it's always been part of our DNA melissa's you had a grandfather in the Civil War yeah a Confederate a grandfather general hood no shit yeah he was he was a boss he made general at the age of 37 he lost his leg and Gettysburg lost his arm and another battle he was a boss he he went to West Point he was known as a battlefield general like he was the guy that did a lot of ops and he looks batshit crazy if you see him online he looks he looks like a boss but you know you had a pretty sad story he he eventually died and then all of his kids were basically harvested out and the adoption system holy shit but my family um on my dad's side the white side all grew up in Atlanta Georgia and we grew up in a rural South I mean my my family's from Georgia and they all migrated migrated crossed the border into Florida and you know I grew up in Daytona Beach Florida for the most part and I say for the most part because I was all over the place I live my first four years in life in Germany where we were stationed my mom and dad separated when I was about four or five she went to North Carolina my dad went to Florida and so I spent time between Florida and North Carolina with two separated parents kind of just living life growing up I had a good upbringing we were poor as shit remember not even a one year I couldn't even afford my mom couldn't afford to buy me shoes so I wore flip-flops the entire school year my mom didn't even have a car growing up we walked everywhere it's so you know sad stories of you know my life was hard I walked to the grocery store and we had to walk miles to get groceries and it's stereotypical in American society but it was true we just didn't have a lot my dad was bouncing around from apartment complexes to trailers I remember when I was 15 years old laying in my bedroom in my mobile home and being able to touch all the walls with my arms and legs that's how small it was Wow so yeah it didn't have much but we were we were rich because we didn't feel like we were poor all love and muck my dad's a real loving guy and he tucked me in every night he read me bedtime stories he told me he loved me he was empathetic he was a real compassionate and humble person and growing up with that was real impactful because I understood what emotional intelligence was he was dumb when it came to women he was a womanizer made a lot of fucking mistakes like most men do my mom was a disciplinary you know she she ruled with a kung fu grip yeah she used to beat my ass and I needed that I needed the balance of both yeah to be able to be successful and luckily for me I just had good parents and a really decent upbringing so yeah lived that way until I eventually ran away when I was 16 years old and I wrote my grandma letter cuz I was living with her at the time where did you run to down the road okay I did that too like a couple miles but I lived I actually lived in a motel for on and off for almost a year what kind of was it like it was a hotel hey by the our motel basically but you weren't having any fun in there were eeeh it sucked it was a little shit motel and I thought I was living baller life because I was living on my own but it was it sucked I you know I never forget like I was leaving the motel to go to work and it was too far to ride a bike because it was it was like 12 miles away and so I decided to start taking the bus but I had to wake up like an hour early and I was getting on the sidewalk to get on the bus stop and this is just me being sixteen living on my own wearing my little getup for the job I had and a jeep drove by full of like teenage kids and they'd throw a Wendy's flurry or whatever the frosty and it hit me in the chest and exploded all over me holy shit and I remember like I got hit with it and I just continued to walk and I just sat on a park bench you know the bus stop bench just waiting for the bus like holy fuck man people suck yeah and it just was like man this is my life now um so I knew I had to do something different and so I did I joined I joined the army at the age of 17 you joined the army at the age of 17 yep no shit where did you enlist I listed in Jacksonville Florida in the infantry did you have any at 17 years old you signed for you so my grandmother signed for me to go in the military because she was melody and so do you did did you have any guidance or did you just I mean that's what you knew you wanted to do and you just made it happen you just went there you didn't talk to anybody it was just you and the recruiter or did you have a mentor I don't really have a mentor I had you know I had some decent recruiters they weren't the best but I knew about the military I mean I played army with my cousin's growing up my entire life like if you were to ask back then even as kids who was the most likely go in the military I mean I slept with a Glock BB gun underneath my pillow I planned complex raids and operations as a child so I already knew in fact I made my dad a bet that I was going to go into Special Forces I think I was 10 years old I was interested in the Navy I was interested in Green Berets and I asked him obviously being biased who was the best and he said Green Berets and so I said I want to be that and I bet him actually buy him a mp5 you bet him an mp5 I said if I get in you're gonna give me an mp5 SD because I was fascinated with guns I had I read about guns and and had magazines and books and I always say yeah he still owes me an mp5 SD I was just gonna ask whatever is it up he'd have to sell was mobile home to get well yeah those are pretty one of those like 25 grand at least at least you know that's a good bet though an mp5 nice salsa you still want one you could have said that and you know maybe it would have shown up for Christmas that would see ya if I can get him mp5 SD I've actually tried I've reached out to Cole I need an SD maybe we could do a little barter here I even I don't I don't even need the SD model if you're listening to this look I don't need the tax stamp I don't want the drama just give me the standard model right on and it like the in with the special selector switch yeah yeah right on yeah with the ziplock bag would you rather have an mp5 or an mp7 honestly because I'm warm nostalgic in old-school I'll do the mp5 all right all right like MP sevens don't impress me a minute's it looks cool cuz you guys made it look cool but outside of that I've shot them and used them in combat and they're not that exciting you have used those in combat yeah I've carried in p5 you don't like it or I've carried it p7 I've met I've never killed a bad guy with one I carried it on like PSD other stuff because they concealed a lot better obviously than an m4 but the units in Special Operations units that I've been in guys don't you typically run them no shit I've heard guys rave about him well the Navy's big bottom you know entire organizations and troops are using those and I'm sure that's for a good reason yeah I mean I do think that would have been the perfect weapon for what me and you were doing together 100% like a lot better than what we were using 100% I agree with that I was wondering why we didn't have those available and it is pretty fucking cool looking Johnny absolutely you know that's half of it right but all right so 17 join the military go to Infantry and how was that was it everything you had hoped and dreamed it's funny because I remember the first I went to Fort Benning Georgia infantry basic training and I joined with an 11 x-ray option 40 Ranger contract which means that in basic training I would be plucked after AIT advanced individual training and then I would go to Ranger Regiment and so that was the plan yeah and you know the option 40 contract contract guarantees you a Ranger slot like the the Ranger instructors are going to come pick you up and you're gonna go to Ranger Battalion I didn't think basic training was hard I thought it was easy as a 17 year old with a myriad of life experiences that were a little bit more difficult than most it wasn't hard for me I mean I'm I remember distinctly because I was a squad leader in basic training either threatening or punching or like checking dudes grown men who were crying who wanted to kill themselves who wanted to get you know leave get back to their girlfriends or the wives and thinking to myself like holy crap man this is like at the time 15 weeks of your life and you guys can't suck it up to to do a job to get trained up in the military and so I band together with a whole bunch of dudes that were just solid dudes that eventually went into Special Operations for the most part but wasn't what was unfortunate is I got selected to be 11 hotel well I mean what is analemma no time it's like basically it's an infantryman who drives who rolls in a Humvee so you learn heavy weapons like 50 Cal the tow missile system and in your consider anti-tank and I actually liked it cuz I oh man I get I don't have to walk I mean I can have like I'm a mobility extra because I learned the GM V or the Humvee at the time and I thought it was real cool except that when they selected us they did it randomly I mean they said hey you guys are Braavos which is just basic infantry you guys are Charlie's which is mortarman and you guys are hotels which is heavy weapons and then when the recruiter or the Ranger instructors came to pick us up I was you know I was fabric last-gasp dude I was just like what the fuck's going on like why am I not getting picked up and they said well there's no 11 hotels and Ranger Regiment which I was like okay that's not my problem well it was my problem and so I didn't get to go to Ranger Regiment like I was supposed to I still have the contract option 11 x-ray option 40 and that was just their way of downsizing I mean I'm assuming incentivizing people and then I basically training basically fucking them and they told me I couldn't go and I didn't have any other options shit so I picked up the phone and called my uncle at the time who was a SAR major in the infantry and said hey I don't know what's going on but this has happened and within I would say 48 hours they changed my MOS to 11 Bravo in basic training which is basic infantrymen okay and from 11 hotel which is now my primary and my secondaries ulema hotel and they said we're gonna send you to a unit called the old guard the third Infantry Regiment and when you get there gonna put a 4187 to go to Ranger Regiment I didn't even know what the hell the old guard was the third Infantry Regiment I didn't had no idea when saw the recruiter a civilian came in and crossed out 11 Hotel wrote 11 Bravo put his initials and I was like damn it's that easy and then I went and went an in process the third Infantry Regiment in Fort Myer Virginia hmm I mean that had to be fucking gut-wrenching too I mean your dream was become a ranger at that time correct and they just fucking yanked it right out from underneath you yeah and I mean how long I mean did you mope around about it or did you say fuck it this is my new direction and I'm gonna kick its ass so I knew I knew I had a timeline where you know 4187 back in the day was the way in which you submitted paperwork to transfer units and it worked typically it didn't work for me long story short but I knew when I got there as an e-1 that I had number one my uncle had been in the old guard he had been a tomb guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier so I had big shoes to fill and so when I showed up I was all about the grind man I didn't show up I didn't show up day one in the military to you know to hang out with chicks to get drunk at bars and to fuck off my entire objective was to go in Special Operations and I didn't give a fuck about anything else so when I showed up I went to work I immediately as a private got my expert infantry badge which is pretty rare zappy v1 in fact when I tried out to get my experience your badge me and my platoon leader were the only ones in my platoon that got our expert infantry badges which is basically a test a common core tasks and they assess you and then do ruck march and all this stuff when I got back from that I went to Airborne School what year is this roughly 97 okay when I got back from that I went to Ranger School everybody that you're going to Ranger School was like fuck yeah I'm going to Ranger School I just distinctly remember being different than everybody else I was around Friday night dudes were shotgun and Coors lights in the barracks I was putting on a rucksack to go out and that's no exaggeration like and I didn't falter I don't I don't think I ever once in that unit drink at all no shit so you're about what 18 at this time 18 and you didn't get any of the pressure none and they gave me a hard time and I was like fuck you I'm not interested that's impressive um so when they were gone out getting wasted they would see me rocking across the Potomac River going to Georgetown carrying a rucksack and I went to Ranger school as an 18 year old graduated as a 19 year old went straight through no issues got back and then I assessed it's a selection process to become a guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier which to this day is the hardest thing that I've ever done that training to become a tomb guard took me nine months holy shit to earn my tomb identification badge which uh which I have and I could I spent the rest of that time guarding the tomb of the unknowns which is great because I didn't have to fucking deal with people were dumbasses I kind of got to do my own thing and yeah I I finished up my victory time as a tomb guard trainer I trained two tomb guards for a year no shit so so you you became obviously you know the best at that with I I find that impressive that you your primary focus was to get into Special Operations yet you still took that job sounds like extremely seriously as you know I mean it's a fucking honor to you know even see that but I mean that's doing something that you weren't so don doing and kicking its ass I mean that was pretty pretty fuckin commendable yeah I didn't have a choice in it so the the path the Army's like that it's a big institution so you don't have a lot of choice a lot of opportunity and so my idea was if I you know given what I was given I have a choice in which to be successful and at that time be all I could be in the army so I chose that Wow so moving forward well moving forward I actually had a break in service and decided to get the fuck out what day did you get out September 3rd of 2001 I've been dying to ask you this question you got out September 3rd 2001 a week later September 11 happens the towers go down what is the first thing that went through your head knowing you know your primary mission was or your primary goal was to become a green beret and special operations kicking fucking doors and going to combat that whole lifestyle and then you immediately know we're at war yeah it was uh and you're not in it the biggest kick in that balls that I've ever had because I mean backing up a little bit I had the option to reenlist obviously I was on retentions radar for like hey this guy's an Airborne Ranger qualified dude he's an e5 I made I made sergeant when I was 20 years old and so I was a team leader in the infantry had good in suey ours and so it's like hey man this guy is a good guy we're gonna keep in the military but I told them that I want Sniper school and I want halo school in route to 18th Airborne Corps verse or long-range reconnaissance or Ranger Battalion and I was adamant about that I actually went into a SART Mader's office who was the Military District of Washington so he's a command sergeant major he knew my uncle and he said Mike what can I give you to stay in I said this is the things that I want and he goes which I found him later I found out later is true Halo or freefall school it's not a ring Lisbon option and it's not back then you know you didn't have a lot of incentive for staying in so they used to give you schools to stay in mm-hmm and I said so our major we can make it an option right that's because that's what I want is I Mike I can't do that for you I mean I'll call and I'll try and he did but it's not an option so a CSM even can't make it an option and so I said okay that's that's my I gave the options on the table and they decided not to facilitate what I wanted as a dream and so I decided to get out I had a buddy who Rhian listed with me that I went to Ranger School with or rien listed without me and he went to 3rd Ranger Battalion he jumped into Afghanistan on October 19th 2001 and so the moment it happened I was actually in college and I had gotten out of the military obviously but I had transitioned into the National Guard component okay so I'm sitting in a child Hall at Fayetteville Technical Community College getting my associates degree so I could further my education and saw the events happen I did some crazy shit man I immediately started making phone calls I went home I packed a duffel bag of my equipment I had threw my battle dress uniforms my camo uniforms in the the washer and then dried them and was making calls like what are we doing here what's happening and I was at the time I was in xxx heavy armor separate separate Brigade and I was in the Scout platoon and I was a team leader so I had a little miniscule position that could affect something but I knew we were going to war so I had a choice to make which is real easy which was I'm going back in the fucking military yeah so on September 12th like 0 9:00 in the morning I'm making phone calls to get back in I mean that had to be like at the exact same time that's happening two completely separate emotions one you know tragedy we'd just been attacked and a lot of people died on the other hand you know what that what comes after and everything you've ever wanted to do sand she said you were 10 years old becomes a reality and you're not there I mean that had to be it was one more overpowering than the other yeah it was I mean I felt for the people obviously but I knew that I was in a unique position to make a difference in the fight mm-hm cuz I was at I was an NCO I mean I was a noncommissioned officer and I knew that there was an opportunity for me to get in the military and and fight and get some vengeance and that's what I wanted to do I joined the army to fight mmm the reason I got out because there was no fight to be had if there was a war if there was something going on I would have been in it yeah you know I I think something important to note is the biological instinct in men most men the men I associate with to fight mm-hmm I mean I it's not it's it's to fight each other in training because that's what we do as kids we fight and we we grow up in those environments where we're displaying our masculinity and there's a whole bunch of psychological and physiological things that are associated with that and I don't think we grow out of that we grow up and we want to fight and defend that's what men do and so it definitely was part of my character and my DNA and I don't think it was fake I think it was something very real and I wanted to fight so I had to go back in how did you get back in it was a battle because the army didn't really know how to handle a whole bunch of dudes who were prior service guys that wanted to go back is there a lot of guys I wanted to Co yeah there was a lot of guys there in that time period a lot of people who were prior service who had gotten out I mean even older guys who had gotten out wanted to come back in and serve so I had to go through the whole process again which was holy shit I had to go through MEPs you know as an e5 going back through MEPs you know the whole duck walk thing all that stuff I had to go back through all that to get back in and they had a program which is kind of similar to what's called 18x right now where you can come in off the streets and try out for selection and if you make it though send you to Special Forces training if you don't you simply just go back to your sister unit or if you don't have a unit whatever your job is they'll find a job for you and in that position now how old are you at this point at this point I'm 21 years old you're 21 years old yeah you just saw the towers come down yeah and the only thing on your mind is I gotta fucking get back in there yep yeah shit I mean wow that's I mean that's that's a lot of courage I was young yeah that's a lot of courage so he got back in yep I get back in and got the opportunity to go to selection and I did that in 2002 and I was successful and were you where were you adding the mix where would you say you were top of the class middle I was probably about middle of the class which is where I wanted to be I had always been told and grew up you know obviously going to Ranger School where I I didn't want to be the spotlight ranger mm-hmm I wanted to be the gray man yeah and so I wanted to be somewhere in the middle not standing out for the wrong reasons or even necessarily the right reasons I just wanted to be middle-of-the-pack I'm a really good Rucker I could I can carry a ruck really well and I remember even intentionally slowing down on rucks just so I wasn't advanced that's the first person running different story with my size I'm not the best runner but I'm a decent runner probably middle of the pack and so when I when I got selected I had confidence that was probably gonna get selected I didn't prepare I prepared as much as I could but my feet were hammered dog shit I mean my feet were just jacked up what is there anything about so selection is what you have to go through to become a SF guy in a green beret for those of you that don't know but was there one thing that you just really dreaded about selection like for example when I went to buds the first thing that I was really worried about was the 50 meter underwater swim I didn't know if I could make it and I was gonna pass out trying but that was the first hurdle that I was like shit man I hope I make this is that was there a specific event that you knew about in selection that you were dreading yeah it's weird but I was actually dreading the obstacle course the nasty Nick no shit yeah I just you know what I had I had an aversion to Heights you know when I first went to the military and what I would I recognized a lot and a lot of time was I wasn't scared of heights I just didn't have confidence in my physical ability so when I developed my physical ability to push and pull my body weight I had confidence going over an obstacle so it was less about Heights and more about my abilities to carry my own weight so if you're you know I'm carrying a you know I'm climbing a 40-foot Tower or obstacle course then I would have confidence because I knew I could secure myself or you know not shake and potentially go to muscle failure and fall so I was out kept thinking about that I remember thinking about that but then when I did it it's called a nasty Nick which is named after Colonel Nick row of Vietnam error veteran who started a lot of things that Camp McCall at the training facility I didn't have a hard time I just I got through it there's a lot easier than I thought it taught it'd be my feet again we're torn up and I had to suck it up but at all in all it was a fairly decent experience one piece of advice I mean I know you get a ton of dm's if you have one piece of advice for the kid aspiring to be an SF operator what would it be one piece one piece of B what selection isn't an assessment of what you're actually doing it's an assessment of what you did prior to doing what you're doing meaning if you show up and you do a 12-mile er and your feet fall apart well your feet fall apart but it's because you didn't prepare three months or six months prior and condition yourself so the only thing they're doing is assessing you it's kind of like us for contracting where they're just assessing your resume they're not training you so show up prepared and ready to assess not show up and have some expectation that you're going to get trained and build up to it you better be ready to perform that's not advice I'd say the exact same thing so you graduate selection where you go next so immediately I we we go straight into the qualification course and start training and they identify what our MOS or jobs speciality is gonna be and they make me a a 18 Bravo which is a Special Forces weapons guy weapons sergeant is the title which is an expert in in weapons so that's the pipeline that I started which you know small unit tactics culmination and Robin sage sere school high-risk a language school unconventional warfare training the list goes on what was your favorite what was your favorite I don't even know what the hell to call it John phase yeah my favorite phase and or or genre was unconventional warfare I mean I unconventional warfare I didn't know how they were gonna teach us unconventional warfare but when they taught us and then we went into Robin sage which is a pretty famous or known at least field training exercise where you assimilate and you know build an auxilary underground network of guerrilla fighters train with him and then operate with him it was super interesting that I mean to jump into behind enemy lines into this town and interact with chicken farmers and you know gas station clerks was pretty awesome this is what fascinates me about the Green Berets is that you guys can go in and such small teams and create an entire fucking army and and do it so efficiently and you know when in our rap was fast forward just a little bit for a second in Iraq when I was with the SEAL Teams we had to have a for the most part almost every op we did we had to have an Iraqi face and the mission became fit which is you know training our counterparts we had no fucking clue what the hell we were doing were seals were Salters and we can't even take care of three guys yeah the correct way because we've never been showing how wasn't our mission and then you guys are out there and it's the opposite there might be three of you in a whole army of people and I mean how do you how do you even fucking start how do you recruit how do you start that how do you gain the confidence and be able to trust a local national yeah it's a process for sure I mean there's a there's a deliberate process behind it it's never done like willy-nilly you go in there and you have a plan on building rapport assessing recruiting vetting and that process is pretty complex it involves biometrics it involves genealogy it involves test evaluations psychological evaluations it's a pretty drawn-out process and yeah it's it was sorry is there like a specific profile you're looking to start with or know it for sure its mission dependent right it because one mission you know if it's a 1208 you're looking for counterterrorism guys who are kicking in doors and shooting bad guys in the face is different than if looking for you know assessing and recruiting patrol officers who are gonna be interacting with the local populace you know they're not gonna be assaulters so there is a tactic behind it and then they teach us those tactics and when they when we go into it's super interesting because when you go into Robin sage they they hire up for that are military cadets West pointers like all these young impressionable minds that want to be you and then you have to start them from scratch you know they don't have a big background in it you have to get them online you have to build rapport you have to break bread it's super interesting man what a lot of people peep a lot of people don't realize which I didn't realize until I was in is foreign internal defense or even counterterrorism foreign internal defense which is FID it's not just a training mission but a means to access and placement to that environment so before the the Vietnam War started we were in Vietnam Green Berets were training the Vietnamese we exfilled Ho Chi Minh and and trained that guy before he went in obviously took over so it is an opportunity for us to do other things and now that bilat mission bilateral mission which is you and a host nation force is how you conduct operations because now you can't do it without it because you can't you can go in there as a unilateral package and if you don't have a strategy behind that you're gonna go in and kick a dude's door in kill a bunch of bad guys displace the environment and cause a whole bunch of issues you have to have some host nation force to be able to you know strategically win that victory okay I want to I want to touch more on this but will wait until your first deployment so back to selection yeah for everything was Robin sage so how long is selection and did you finish it without any any hiccups yes so selection is obviously the four s PHA s Special Forces assessment and selection is the first thing and then you go into the pipeline which is known as the queue course or the qualification course and that includes all the different phases and now I didn't have a hard time with anything I I you know without sounding egotistical about it I just got through it no shit first time every time first time every time that I didn't have any issues that the hardest thing for me was learning a foreign language and I learned French it took me four four months to par Lilu francais or whatever you higher said it was hard because I had I knew how to speak or I know how to read and write Korean which is completely different obviously than in French different different backgrounds and bases but yeah that was difficult for me to be doing patrolling and small unit tactics and all this high speed stuff and then sit in a classroom for four months and learn a foreign language that was the hardest part but I got through that as well so you went you already knew Korean but they send you yeah to learn French I was I was a french-speaking Asian dude that deployed in the Middle East for the most most of my crew a really good-looking Asian dude well thanks man appreciate you so are you I like my cabin and like three people I know that's all but all right so you go where did you after the Q course it's it's a cool little story but when I join when I went into SF they give you orders based off a paragraph in line which is just a way in which you identify what group or what battalion they're basically a it's basically a number that assigns you to a paragraph in line that specifically points you to a direction of a unit and I knew I knew I was going to 3rd Special Forces Group which is the group that I wanted to go to because they were the group that was going to war and it was right down the road right down the road from my training I went into that group and started looking at battalions at the time three first second and third Battalion I wanted to know who was the best battalion I went into first Battalion kind of poked my head in looked at their little display cases and stuff went over to the third Battalion did the same and then I went went into second battalion in 2nd battalions motto at the time I think it's still the motto was we do bad things to bad people nice and it had the the harley-davidson outlined kind of thing with we do bad things to bad people bush hogs 2nd battalion and I walked in there and in a trophy case they had this leg it was a it was a wooden leg sitting in the display case with a shoe on it and it would I thought it was a guy's leg that is served in the unit and I got closer and it was like a it was a it was a peg leg basically I said well that's weird and next to it was like a 5x7 picture of a terrorist laying a pile of blood with a whole bunch of Special Operations guys standing around him holy shit and it was from an operation where they had killed this bad guy and they took his leg and then they put the leg on display from this bad guy cuz he had been known as like one leg Willy or whatever the hell is with HVT Omar one leg Willy so they took his leg and they put in display in the in the the foyer of the battalion and I said to myself this is the battalion I need to be in i Don the battalion son traitors door and I said sir major my name is Staff Sergeant Mike Glover I want to be in your unit I want to serve and go to war with you guys and if you know Special Forces and maybe this is part of you guys too if you want something done you have to go out and get it so me asking him to be serving as a battalion he said why what would make me want to have you served my time and I told him I was high speed I was motivated I was wanted to go kill bad guys that's good enough shook my hand handed me over to his personnel person gamee appointed subject and paragraph in line to go straight to his battalion I got assigned to Charlie Company which was going to war soon immediately in processed and went straight to war that takes a lot of balls to knock on the door as a fucking new guy and say hey I want in I want to go with you I mean as a leader if I had that happen to me I probably would have just alone would have been enough and be like I know how much fucking balls it takes to come and pound on this fucking door and walk past my wooden leg that I took off that guy yeah and and you got what you wanted that's fucking awesome so worthy where the boys pretty accepting when he showed up they were I mean they knew we were going to war soon so they didn't have a lot of time to fuck with me you know special forces if you show weakness on a detachment if you are fucked up if you're running your mouth if you're saying dumb shit there is a likelihood that you potentially are gonna get messed with I came in hard-charging squared away kept my mouth shut I knew the game mm-hmm I mean I played that game as a tomb guard candidate for nine months keep your fucking mouth shut do your job go home repeat so when I got to the team I didn't have a hard time integrating and nobody really fuck with me because they knew I wasn't a shitbag I was there to work were you drinking at that time no I never straight laced I never drank alcohol ate sugar for the most part or ate like shit my entire 20s never Wow never now a lot of teams would probably actually frown upon that they they did I mean some guys did and I didn't care I I was raised this way with my mom where I don't care about what the fuck you think about me I'm just trying to do me yeah more conserved concern with bettering myself than what your perception is of me is and I knew there was a right answer and a wrong answer and for me being in Special Operations the right answer was conditioning my mind my body and trying to be the best I could I thought alcohol was the liability and it it still is I've seen it destroy teams I seen it destroy relationships it's fucked up a lot of people my mom my family has their own had their own issues with booze and in some ways so I I didn't want anything to fucking do with it Wow I mean that's it's almost part of the culture in a unit like that and as a young new guy what are you maybe 22 23 at this time yeah at the time of after the Q course cuz it was two years I was damn near 25 showing up to a team who's already been to war and back they invite you to go have a beer with them and welcome you to the team and you say I don't drink I mean that's hard to do that's real hard to do well I had you know was it for religious reasons it wasn't for you 9 ideology it was because I was always training to do something mmm-hmm so physically I was always in some prep phase so they would ask me why aren't you drinking well because I'm running tomorrow morning or I'm doing a Rupp tomorrow morning what do you mean you're rocking we're marette war we're in Afghanistan you're gonna ruck like yes because I'm again taking my life that I had prepared my entire life for basically seriously you know and that bugged a lot of people man I got a lot of hate for it but you know you want to be an alcoholic you want to drink alcohol and be a fuck up go fuck yourself yeah I'll be here ruck in and taking care of my body and myself and yeah now I drink occasionally I won't drink more than a couple beers that's my limit yeah because I just don't like alcohol but I like the social interaction I like the taste of an IPA but it's not something that I need and it's definitely not something that I use when I was in the military you show up to third group and how long are you there before deployment two weeks two weeks I'm there two weeks before we deployed so you didn't even have fucking time to get to know the team before you're in it well I barely got like my issue of equipment before we ripped out and headed to war Wow and the team didn't even ever really have time to see if you were a good fit they didn't at all holy shit it was and and on top of that the senior cuz we we operate in Tucson a detachment there's another 18 Bravo who's gonna be my senior he even got hurt or injured so he couldn't deploy so I was gonna be the Bravo which is a big responsibility in a firebase in Afghanistan I slide into the number one slot as a new guy yeah I'm in charge of base security base defense tactics weapons and we were going to war you're going on your first deployment yeah my guys had already ripped out and they you know they had already sent the PD SS the pre deployment site survey guys and so they were just turning and burning coming back picking up the main body so when I got there was a rush to get everything packed guys didn't want to be in the team room because they want to spend it with family and then when I hit the ground I mean I was running we immediately deployed to Afghanistan how many guys are on your team roughly well I think at that time maybe 10 10 dude yeah we're most attachments are light by nature of guys coming and going and like I said my 18 Bravo's senior was got was in surgery so he had to get a surgery recover and so we deployed that year to Afghanistan with uh a little bit of a light package what year this is so five early Oh five so that's a hot year mm-hmm now are you doing are you running ended yeah part of the job is running an ended I mean when I reported as as an 18 Bravo I was in charge of about 144 Afghan commandos holy shit so there are ten got there's ten SF guys no running a hundred and forty four man army yeah and basically I was the commander of them so I was in charge of all of them as a new guy as a new guy holy shit I'll never forget he said hey your guys are formed up waiting on you they waiting on me yeah you're the a-team Bravo get up there and be their commander because everybody else had other stuff to worry about you know I mean the 18 Charlie's had to run the fire base which is a full-time job of the you know base security in the actual physical structure the generators the water system everything the commo base defense there are more guys are your living conditions like shit I mean tents living on a cot living on a cot surrounded by stacked sandbags and a concrete ish just a mud mud hut okay on the second floor of a little structure so your way the fuck out there and like at your own fire base there's no px nothing there's no chow hall nothing none of that shit are you a local food a lot of the time we were or Murr might or MRE I mean we were the furthest northern firebase on that on the border with Pakistan and we had really not a lot of support I mean the closest support was j-bad which is still hours away I mean if something went bad so how trained up you show up in country you're looking you're looking now the commander of a hundred and forty-four Afghan force how well are they trained did you did you guys was there like a changeover from another another team or are you starting from scratch now some of them were trained up by prior Oda zanuck first group was there before us before that there was another third group team and so they had a little bit of training but that's I mean man when you're talking about Afghans in a rural province province of Afghanistan that have no education have no aptitude don't know how to read right yeah I mean it's it's all relative I mean if there's one thing they're good at its jumping jacks it's jumping jacks you ain't climbing mountains climbing mountains and flip-flops at jumping jacks that's our forte you've seen that video right of it yeah okay yeah but so they're pretty green I mean so you take over and I'm getting a little ahead of myself but I'm assuming the first thing you want to do is figure out what they're actually capable of doing yeah you have to no matter what the condition or the situation when you come into a new firebase or or fall into new ended you got a venom you got to put them through some kind of process to be able to see what their current capability is we did that it wasn't much so we started from scratch Wow we were doing small unit tactics every single day I was doing small unit tactics with him every single day that we weren't operating and this would be the force not only this is before Afghan commando units Afghan border police Afghan National Police this is before all that so they didn't have a job their job for us were they were Afghan commandos working for Special Forces guys we paid them directly cash so these were our first line of defense and QRF if anything went wrong so you show up in country you got to get to know these guys you got to train them you got to figure out what their capabilities are you got to improve those how long do you have before boots on the ground first operation well I mean again that's that's relative as well because when you infill went to a remote fire base the one we're at in the middle of nowhere was surrounded by high ground there was just a couple Americans and in the middle of the Wild West hmm so we were getting rocketed we were getting reports of attacks and all these things that were happening so we were in it we were in the thick of it already but the I mean we didn't have any time it was immediate I think we went on an OP two days three days after we hit the ground immediately went and did a link-up with one of the you know Afghan you know seniors were Afghan elders in a village and that's a movement to contact I mean you're just rolling and hoping you're not gonna get blown up hope when you're not gonna get in a tick with the guys that you haven't vetted yet holy shit we're talking two fucking days two days and you're out the door with them a lot of men yeah we had no choice how did that go it went uneventful we had activity but nothing significant happened luckily for us and we just started building more rapport with them vetting them training them and improved our situation over time so you're out you meet the village elder you come back you debrief are you happy with what you've just been handed with the hundred and forty-four guys are you going holy shit we have got a lot of work to do no I I will say there's some just a little bit of forward history on the guys that I trained those same guys that I trained had worked with special operations including special missions unit from the Navy okay prior to working with us so there was some good dudes and when I left that firebase a guy by the name of Rob Miller ripped into that firebase and was with those guys as an 18 Bravo from third Special Forces Group when he was killed and earned the Medal of Honor posthumously of course and those men those Afghans that were with him were the Afghans that I trained that were trained prior and so they were squared away I mean they had heart they were disciplined they wanted it man they crossed with him yeah I was impressed a good example was they instinct instinctively knew when you're or if there was a potential significant act gonna happen call it sig Act and they would immediately get to the high ground and they were good about displacing themselves and then talking to the local community because you have to understand that these people lived in that same community so they knew everybody around them and they didn't want to be the guy that failed their mission and got an American killed so they had buy-in so yeah I was impressed with them we had a lot of work to do obviously but they had a good base and all the guys and nursed and province that I operate with that were Afghan in the village of an array and Asadabad and barrack out all great great men did you how long did you spend with this team so that particular trip was nine months in Afghanistan and that team I spent a year and some change with him I mean nine months is a long time to get to know somebody I mean people get married in less time and less time than that do you did you develop more than a professional relationship with them or was it always just you're the commander and they're the they're the John Dee's or they're your guys did you did you get close you keep in touch yeah I didn't keep in touch with a lot of them because I knew we were gonna leave and it would be difficult to retain that I try to get close to him but I knew there was a line mm-hmm what I didn't want is to compromise the mission or the rapport building from another detachment that came in there because you know how it works they just the button gets reset every time an attachment comes through there people try to reinvent the will and I I heard years later than asking about me when I was coming back which is unfortunate because we should have went back we should have had continuity and stayed with those specific you know Afghan ease for a longer period of time because I think that's how ultimately you win is when you you have men that you build these relationships with and they're more loyal to you because you've built the rapport that's necessary I mean it's unfortunate but it's also got to be a good I mean that's got to feel pretty fucking cool that they're still asking about you years later after several teams have come in and left you must have made a hell of an impression on those guys yeah I wanted to I'm not I'm a kind of guy where I'm not afraid to build rapport I've smoked cigarettes in Afghanistan with them I hated it but I knew that was part of their culture I drank tea with them in smoke cigarettes sitting on mats like a bunch of schoolgirls talking about you know politics and the military and their families like Afghan men do I mean that's what they do so I socialize with them I hung out with them I did a lot of laughs and then joking with them but I knew the line because I still wanted them to respect me as a commander so when I asked them to potentially sacrifice their life because they had an assault a bunker or do something that might take their life I wanted them to do it and so I kind of knew the psychology of it I was just big into that so I had my limits with it with them but yeah they're the greatest I mean partnered forces that I've worked with in Afghanistan Iraq Libya etc I've met some really good people did you if you did you have an engagement other than base defense or like getting rocketed or the base getting attacked did you have any engagements outside of the firebase we had a few yeah had a few significant events happen we got in a little tick in the coach of alle a little gun fight we brought in a TENS we brought in the Marines we lost mh-47 it was shot down or not shot down it was crashed down they it had a catastrophic failure and crashed so whatever a hundred million dollar helicopter image 47 the battalion commander for one sixtieth was on that bird so it was a big big operation and so yeah we did we didn't get in engagements most of our actions most of our activity was in the firebase getting shot at getting rocketed and then responding to those rockets and responding to that those attacks how was cuz base engagements are a hell of a lot different than outside of it when you're on a mission a lot you know base defenses on let's I mean usually it's pretty locked down to a tee and everybody knows exactly what they're doing it's when everybody has to find cover and fucking communicate and I mean we don't have to go into details on that but when you got back were you impressed with how they performed and I mean it's always a shit show you know when when you get contacted outside of the base so were you impressed with their performance yeah I didn't have a problem with my guys performances they did well typically all the time operating through language barriers that's another story the lulls and time there's a whole bunch of mm-hmm a whole bunch of logistical things also I mean my guys didn't run radios who run Icom radios because local traffic we couldn't we couldn't give out a hundred embittered radios during an OP of the crypto 2 with crypto and everything else so there were challenges we we did a lot of basic 7-8 small unit tactics in order to accomplish a lot of objectives using flares using smoke oh shit he's a hidden arm stuck in Vietnam oh yeah tactics yeah it was we were big on that that's how we did most of our stuff we did most of our I did most of my commanding and controlling of my ended via hand and arm signals no shit you know and we had SOPs for smoke for shifting with fire all that kind of stuff so it was back to Vietnam I mean it's back to basics Wow what are these guys carrying do they have nods to helmets at this time in the war no not snow helmet we eventually evolved into that but we we were straight a K 47s in flip-flops I mean it was my car guys didn't even have uniforms they're rolling around and whatever we can get them I actually exploited a program that was a nonprofit that was providing clothes and tolet tree items to soldiers overseas and got this nonprofit to send me helicopters full of equipment to be able to outfit my Afghans with just close with just toothbrushes because they didn't have it and we weren't paying for it so what they needed stuff I mean it's so funny seeing these these dudes run around harley-davidson shirts and flannel jackets and USA ball caps but we had to do what we had to do are there any field craft survival cats over there now I hope so man they're better fucking I've seen them they're their own SF guys but right on what would you say one of your first lessons learned after your first combat deployment maybe your first engagement maybe his first base defense I don't know what was the first the first thing that you realized holy shit we need to we need to make some changes or or you know I mean yeah the first lesson major lesson learned I had a major one I mean I almost had a look as an 18 Bravo was in charge of the base defense plan I made it I wrote it I rehearsed it with the guys I implemented it and I would die on that you know that's so it was a it was a huge responsibility and I fucked it up from the get-go I had senior guys that had been to war prior to that you know when I was in the queue course they were doing in invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan we had guys on my own my own in my a company that were killed the trip prior in Afghanistan so we were vetted you know we had a good detachment they let me run with the base defense plan and I did it and made a lot of mistakes I mean I fucked a lot of stuff up one thing that distinctly remember was I had a base defense plan to be prepared for an indirect attack that turned into a direct or more complex attack cuz that's how you do it you ready you you prepped the objective you get everybody's heads down and then you do a direct assault and get inside the firebase and start killing people from the bad guys perspective shit today fucking get in no they didn't get in for this particular one but they what they were doing was hitting us with one of seven rockets 107 millimeter rockets air stabilize themselves so they have basically a mechanism to stabilize their trajectory so they won't go ass over in and just frappe into the rocks they'll stabilize and it will send it on a trajectory and you could aim them off of a rock it got shot it got aimed and those things they have hundreds of meters a kill radius on the back end of those 107 million rockets and they were hitting our base like our small little base there were rockets that were landing in our fire base we had one that destroyed our one of our fuel refueling points I had an SOP to get my guys out of their bunks get their kid on and get on the rooftops to defend against a direct assault well the problem is and I didn't learn this until the hard ways you get up on top of a rooftop when I want a seven millimeter Rockets coming in you are putting your guys lives at risk and I got to a rooftop with my 18 charlie we were engaging I was engaging the point of origin which I saw where the Rockets were landed with a 240 Bravo I couldn't affect that area was thinking about traversing a 120 mortar and as I was about to get off the roof a 107 came over me and my charlie and hit the fuel point and almost killed us I mean if we were on the the back end of that when I said a millimeter rocket it would it would have ripped us in half and they were known for killing people because the shrapnel everything else is devastating so the biggest mistake I made was thinking that doctrinally there was a tactic that needed to be implemented the right answer was to keep my guys inside their bunks at least for a period of time and reinforced the positions with armoured vehicles which we had a couple of GM V's and and then respond that way put my Afghans on the wall have them defend the base but don't risk putting guys on the rooftop where they could easily be taken out I mean obviously 107 is not forgiving and no matter what situation you're in you get hit directly in a vehicle in a building with 107 it's gonna be a bad day so you finish that deployment you come home what's next I get back from that deployment and Iraq was was getting bad and I wanted to go to school so I went to put my name in the Hat to go to Sephardic safar Tech which is Special Forces advance target reconnaissance target acquisition interdiction exploitation a whole bunch of words and an acronym that doesn't even look look right it's a fart aook whatever people call it Sephardic and it's our CQB advanced schoolhouse for hostage rescue for direct action for vehicle interdiction we learned all that stuff there it's a I believe in 8 weeks cool maybe 9 weeks so it's pretty long and it it is the minimum qualification that you need to serve in a commanders and extremists force which there's one of those per group which is a reinforced cop that's designed to conduct hostage rescue and crisis response across the world how much CQB do you have what's your background in CQB before you show up to that school what is a basic kind of mold for an SF guy usually at the team level you learn in so it's called cephalic you learn basic CQB sometimes it's strong wall I think at that time it was probably strong wall real basic CQB you don't learn points of domination you don't learn hostage rescue considerations maybe a little bit but it's not there's not a lot of it okay so at the at the basic team level if you don't have a Sephardic qualified guy you might not know a lot you might think you know a lot but you really don't and and I thought I knew a lot but I didn't know anything I showed up and didn't know shit about CQB until I got there I knew how to shoot I was a decent shooter with pistol and carbine but I didn't know much after that school let's fast forward the next deployment did you utilize that a lot or was it back to what you were doing before no it was in fact I was in Charlie Company second Battalion the SIF was Bravo Company second Battalion one company does he made it per group so they were right next door so I used to see those dudes come in and had longer hair that cooler uniforms they had better guns and I wanted to be in the SIF at that time you had to have two years team time to even think about going in the SIF but I had a real good rapport with my company sarn't major and he went next door to take the SIF so he was the he was my son major he became the SIF sarn't major and you know long story short I wasn't supposed to go SIF as a new guy with only a year it's unchanged on a team but I went to sephardic and came recommended out of Sephardic and so they pulled me over I mean I wasn't supposed to deploy to Afghanistan for another year but I went next door and I was in Iraq a month later I mean out of safari guide from that trip I came back I went straight to Sephardic which is two months I had 30 days and I was straight back in Iraq so you did a nine-month deployment come back for more plead 90 days yeah the two months of that is training becoming an assaulter at the highest level and then you redeploy yep we deployed to Iraq for counterterrorism mission which is all CQB did you have any job remarried at the time at the time I was married but always married young and didn't I mean to be honest absolutely secondary of the mission we barely knew each other I mean on the ground I had a couple months with her so it was it was turning to burn in fact I had a hasty marriage because I had saw some dudes get killed killed our trip you know operation I was part of Operation Red Wing that trip and we had a couple other Chinooks that were down we had guys that we lost in the company so it was a bad trip it was a bad year a lot of Americans were killed that year it's a fucking small world you know the fact that you were there I came there right after that which means we were there at the same time and as we talked a couple days ago you you met my fucking best friend who just passed away yeah yeah it's fucking crazy you know this world is a small world man but so you did utilize sorry sidetracked there but so you did utilize that school on that next deploy every operation I'm sure I explode lis breached every other target every other night we went out every night sometimes twice a night going after bad guys and it was it was a real active campaign it was us and I believe SIL team eight and we did joint ops where I was like I like to sift guys and five sills and we went out with our ended and conducted counterterrorism missions what do you think of working with the seals my first impression of them weren't great because we had a few interactions with them where I never forget you know at the time I was believed stolen e6 I hadn't made e7 yet but I had combat rotation behind me and I was on my second deployment and had been in training for years had been in the military in the infantry and so I had a background I'll never forget one of the young sills being told by one of my guys who was a senior guy oh my god I was the most junior guy in the syph ass if a commanders and extremist forces filled with the most senior guys in the group I think my detachment years later everybody made master sergeant the same time mom like an entire senior team with guys with multiple deployments I had the least amount of combat guys on average had three or four rotations and this is early G wat he said hey maybe you should hang out with these guys cuz you know we could do some cross training and maybe teach you guys some things and he said what could your guys possibly teach mine you gotta be shitting me he said that and and I was humbled to the fact that a lot of my own guys were so senior and already legends in the community there was a race already stories about him and so I paid attention and and we had a lot of experiences like that with the young seals but some of them a lot of them work I mean Jeremy wise who eventually went to work for the CIA and he was he was killed unfortunately in a suicide bombing he was there he was great a couple guys that are now in other special missions units were working with me and they were great so I didn't have a horrible experience but it was different I mean a young seal coming out of training 21 22 and even at that time I was 26 yeah at the time so it was different but we got along good I mean we didn't have problems with operating with them and we had a lot of action we had a lot of fun that rotation what is your next assignment Sara that you're at third group you go to the stuff what comes next another another rotation in the and thus if I mean the sift is a grime mm-hmm I did three sift rotations that Iraq back to back going to war coming back going to war coming back going to war coming back I eventually moved up into reconnaissance and Special Operations and became a sniper went to Sniper school with a free fall school and started specializing my efforts on long on the long gun so between unilateral operations which is working with Task Force the Joint Task Force I think at the time we were working with Tom ditomasso who's a famous Blackhawk down batoon leader and he was a special missions unit commander we operated under him and under task force 16 which is Stanley McChrystal is big you know kill capture conglomerate of the best units in the world we are part of that effort when we went out and crushed bad guys for years I mean it was a it was a good run of killing a whole bunch of bad guys yeah so I did that for three rotations in a row then I did go to selection just call it West Virginia selection to assess for use of sock I served in US Army Special Operations Command and a couple of positions which was are the rest of you that don't know use the sock is an operational unit at the highest level yeah Tier one at this point yeah yeah and really once you get there I mean you've just become the most elite warfighter in the world yeah how do you feel well I don't know if I was one of the most elite war fighters in the world I never looked at myself that way everybody else does yeah yeah I had I had some good experiences and some bad ones look Special Operations is a great comedian to be part of but it's a community of the most alpha males on the planet I did have a bad interaction with my time in that organization with a couple characters that were it was a personality conflict and it's the first time in my career that I felt like a key in my chest I had anxiety where I was like man what what the fuck is going on here I don't typically tell that story because the nature of the nature of the the organization but I had a bad I didn't have a bad run I recovered from it and but yeah it was that unit that organization all special missions units or operating at the speed of war mm-hmm which is which is a lot different when you have to deal with bureaucracy and bullshit yeah I mean it seems like the higher you go and operational units like that the more fucking dramatic the guys can get that's hundred percent true the guys are the guys that I worked with were amazing I mean I worked with a lot of great guys and I just got my peepee spanked I got in trouble there nothing crazy was it just personality calm it was a personality conflict I mean a pistol wrong dude off and you know I learned a lot of lessons from it but I had a good time in that that organization got to see got to operate and got to do a lot of cool shit that I never would have done otherwise and it was a real cool learning opportunity so much so that I got promoted at such a young age that you know I made I ate at the age of 30 am I'm a master Sauron at 30 and promoted the last guy on the promotion list in that organization so you know I was like a point they they'd promote us in like point what not in the whole number so I was like there's 160 on that list that year I was one 59.7 know the list and so I made Master Sergeant while I was there and I had a choice I can go back and retrain and and and do the job for the next 10 years or I could do what a lot of guys do when they make master Sauron and become a team sergeant which for me was the pinnacle of a career in Special Operations to be the team daddy to be the team sarn't was huge so sarn't major bob Irby who is a legend in Special Operations he's known by everybody he's man he's got probably more operational time than anybody in Special Forces Command he he heard about me and another guy I can't mention his name but he heard about us and he asked us if we would leave the organization for an opportunity to stand up a new commanders and extremists force from scratch meaning there was no commanders and extremist force for the continent of Africa and he asked us if we would like to stand it up which meant obviously working with Joint Special Operations Command we had relationships built rapport built we had experienced was specifically reconnaissance special reconnaissance snipers freefall operations so we said yes and we were given we were given everything we needed to be successful unlimited budget we got to pick hire and fire our guys damn and it was a huge amazing opportunity to do that to start a mission from nothing or there's no nobody in the company and then build it up from scratch and we did that you've got a hell of a career man I mean holy shit and then till to watch your face when I tell you or when I ask you what does it feel like to be one of the most elite war fighters and the fucking world and watch her face be taken back like oh I don't consider myself to be that yeah I mean it's it's it's it's I mean a lot of guys do that I think it's engrained into everybody and it's I mean I can see how uncomfortable you were when I just fucking said that but it is the truth I mean there are not very many people that get to that level and with that much combat and I mean that's fucking impressive man yeah thanks man so you leave there and then what happens so I leave and start grinding to build up this unit hire and fire a couple guys and build up a skill set for special reconnaissance in the continent of Africa to be able to respond to crisis that potentially happened and there was no there was no at the time organization that was covering down on Africa because it used to be third groups responsibility but because of the war we had a change in hands and changing responsibilities so we stood it up there was a grind we got validated by a Special Operations Command and that was ironically enough September 1st of 2012 we got validated and a week later or September 11th Benghazi happens mm-hmm I had already been notified prior to Benghazi happening that my team and myself was going to be the first guys into Libya to run what's called a 12 wait program which is a congressionally mandated counterterrorism program to counter al Qaeda which therein lies the Bene therein lies the point which is before September 11th 2012 I had already been identified we're gonna go in there stand up a counterterrorism force to counter al Qaeda so it's often been said that hey doll there was no threats there there was threats there was bombings there were shootings there was a tax on on the UN foreign nationals ambassador embassy staff so I was getting all those Intel sitreps before that happened and then obviously that happened and it changed everything where were you when that happened ironically enough I was back in a special missions units compound doing a cross talk brief with basically a key leader engagement with the team lead from Team Libya that had been designated and me and the other guy from my unit because we were former unit members of that unit we were there doing a crosstalk I'll never forget I went I went there and met up with the j-3 which is a at the time a colonel and he told me last night this just happened and this is what's going on and so I I stayed an extra few days to assess the situation and to get tied in because at that point it was my units responsibility to react and respond outside of obviously the primary main effort that unit that I was ends responsibility of responding to that crisis so was this happening was Benghazi happening real time when he found out yes yeah was happening real time it had it had it was a hat it was still active and it was still happening and I was watching on ISR things things unfolding Jesus Christ yeah is this what ultimately led you to separate yeah so that's exactly right long story short I deployed to Libya soon after that and stood up a 12 away program and we had all the right things done to go after the guys that were responsible for the killing of the four personnel that were killed in Benghazi you know ambassador Stevens Smith and then Glen Doherty and Tyrone woods so we went there I was deployed there for over six months I busted my ass and tried everything I could to kill or capture those guys with obviously other Special Operations units that were there another one other special operation unit that was there and we offered up a full platter kill capture bilateral mission unilateral mission whatever you want we'll do and we were told that the political climate wouldn't allow for it so we're not going to do anything ma'am and so let's just say I was disgruntled when I came back I had a lieutenant colonel that I was co-located with that was a reserve officer from AFRICOM who was a fucking piece of shit who was drinking every night getting drunk who didn't give a fuck about the mission who was making excuses every single day about not wanting to work not wanting to do the OP and so when I get back I said go fuck yourself you know I know I know how fucking tough that can be I mean I didn't I didn't watch I didn't we didn't have red feet or anything like that but to watch an event going down I mean that's one of the most when you know you can fucking help it's one of the most helpless feelings in the fucking world and I've experienced that as well we were working with a foreign counterpart and should have been on that fucking up but we weren't and there helos went down and we listened to the entire thing on the fucking radio and and then we saw him when they got back and I mean and the event that you had just you know stay on the sidelines for us I mean I could see how you give me that disgruntled I mean you got out with 18 fucking yeah two years to retirement yep yeah I got back I did get recruited by the CIA at the time they recruited me for a job and I had finished my college degree my bachelor's degree the year prior to that so that was a prerequisite to become a staffer for them I came back with the anticipation of doing that job but the sequester happened which was a stoploss on all or a hiring freeze on all jobs so I wasn't able to do that job which kind of fuck me up you know I was prepared to do that so I transitioned off active duty and then went into the National Guard component where I took a team in Texas a nineteen Special Forces Group and was just waiting on the word waiting on the opportunity let's rewind a little bit here so you look you separate from the army finish your degree how long do you go from your last day in the military to CIA so the contracting side mm-hmm six months Ed's it six months yeah six months did you even want to give being a civilian a shot or you just couldn't wait to get back over well my anticipation at that time was I only wanted to do one other job and that was to be a paramilitary operations officer for the CIA okay that's it the first casualty of the war of the global war on terror was Michael span and he was a former Marine officer and a member of that job in position so I wanted to do that I was ready to hang up my life meaning my personal life and everything else to just stay at war yeah because that's what I wanted and I was chasing the rainbow a lot of guys I mean yeah I was I was there in Libya seeing those dudes operate ins like you know what man I want to be part of that I these guys are squared away they don't seem to be dealing with a whole bunch of bullshit and that's what I'm gonna do if I can't kill bad guys in Special Operations then I'll get out and kill bad guys somewhere else and that's that was what my thoughts were at the time that's funny how that mindset just goes across the board today that's one of the reasons I wanted to go and not a whole lot of people actually know that about you I'm really in tune with your following on Instagram I'm really in tune with your YouTube and in your eight social media channels that you have under fieldcraft plus your personal and you never fucking bring that up not a whole lot of people know that you jumped over to CIA and then which is where where we met yeah so and I'm really curious to hear what you have to say what was your first impression I mean you go through training let's breeze through that but you show up in country your first deployment with the agency what what's your first impression so the reason I did that job is they gave me that job as an interim from my staff position which would have been paramilitary operations guy so I I did that job thinking it was a temporary thing thinking it was only going to be a rotation or two until I got the call when I showed up I realized really fast that all the things that I had thought about the those positions and then the the pot of gold at the end of that rainbow didn't exist and they were dealing with shit just as much as I was and so I started realizing that the job I was in wasn't that bad in fact it was pretty decent I mean it's it you know without getting into too many details it there was an operational relevancy to it which made me feel good about what I did for a living good pay good experiences and not a lot of bullshit I mean are you kind of change your scale of bullshit when you go there right but I just came off active duty where I dealt with a lot of bullshit so it wasn't that bad and so for the first time I think I was pretty happy with what I was doing the operation ops tempo was was decent and the rotation schedule was good were you out a flagpole I wasn't oh you went okay I went straight to Yemen okay yeah where we met where we met yeah so that was your first appointment yeah so Wow what was your impression of the guys of me what was your impression of me you know what's craziest people ask me that obviously a lot of special operations guys asked me that the best dudes I've ever met have been in that job because one because I know because of the vetting process that they're the best shooters in the world mm-hmm even better than my standards and Special Operations yeah I mean I've shot what the best shooters in the world and Special Operations that I get to this job and I was super impressed by the standards the shooting qual is the hardest shooting qual in the government there's no doubt about it because I've been to the firearms instructor development course I can't Perry to a vet the hardest and most difficult courses outside of the US Marshal side of the US Marshal Service the Air Marshal Service it was it is the most difficult law so having that confidence that these guys are vetted qualified to be where they're at and that the myriad of backgrounds and experiences are brought together I thought it was real cool man yeah I was super impressed you're always going to have a dude here and there but for the direct hires that I operate it with the independent country there's nothing bad I could say about any of them you know some some of them were quirky and weird just like we all are yeah but operationally was their operations wise the best I've ever worked with well that's cool to hear did you find it one of the biggest struggles that I've did I had working there was the integration of tactics all because you're working with all the best units from all the militant from all Special Operations everybody has their way of doing shit everybody thinks their way is the best some guys like myself can shut the fuck up and learn new ways and realize hey you know this is what we have to do and this is I mean we have to be uniform if we're going to work together and then there's you know the other crowd that they can't let go of you know they're specific or they're unit specific tactics where did you fall in that spectrum I try to strike a good balance I did have recent jihad experience and tactics and you know how that is the the further displaced you get from the war there's a whole bunch of different time because that change so I was heard you know when I brought up things but I true but I also try to be very careful about it one being a new guy but to understanding that as long as the tactics worked there could be a different way to skin the cat I mean there were things that I didn't necessarily agree with but there are going to be different viewpoints and tactics but if it works and doesn't violate security I'm okay with that so I had a better easier time and like I said I needed that job yeah I'd gone I was transitioning you know obviously off the active duty I needed that job and I needed I needed to be in a good place in that position I had just made sergeant major and 19 Special Forces Group so going back home I had responsibilities and so I just couldn't get caught up in any bullshit I there was drama like there is anywhere else I just go to my room you know you are a room Hobbit yeah stay in my room you did a lot of squats that shrub I literally saw your butt rising yeah oh yeah week after week two to four hours of squats a day I had a nice ass after yeah a real nice one man well I don't know I mean that's cool though because I mean honestly most guys in that outfit don't have near the fucking experience that you've brought to the table I mean you just were just in an hour went over your you know breeze through your military career and I mean holy shit dude that's a lot of fucking trigger time that's a lot of deployments and that's a that's a shit ton of experience I mean you named all the major schools I think you left out J Tech which we had talked about earlier I mean it's got to be hard to bite your tongue with certain things and anyways that yeah how many how long were you over there yeah agency I did a total of seven trips 6.5 because my last trip wasn't a full trip okay so I think before we met I did one maybe one rotation before that maybe it's hard to piece together yeah I did yeah so I did total 6.5 and my last trip was early 2016 and again I don't advertise that experience but I was going deploying back into war zones between my trips with the CIA so I was going downrange coming back going straight on a deployment with my teeth group holy shit coming right back in and so it became redundant and it became a pretty overwhelming to get anything accomplished ins and civilian life all right Mike so we covered all your operational career up to this point and I want to kind of wrap that up because I'd like to move along with Phil Crafton and transitioning and and what you're up to now but before we do I want to take a call and you take calls in your podcast that's good calls so I met this kid maybe three years ago and he was a fucking soup sandwich showed up to one of my training courses had the fucking Delta beard had all the fucking tactical shit didn't know how to use any of it fucking completely unsure of himself just living in a total fantasy land and he started training with me more and more and more and became really interested in actually doing the fucking job instead of looking the part and I know you get blown up on the IG and so do i with DMS all the time with people who want to do it well this fucking guy actually is doing it he wasn't signed up and I was waiting for his a selection date and I'm super fucking proud of him I nicknamed him Keebler like boo boo they like Keebler the elf because he used to have this stupid fucking beard but those cookies are delicious too they're so good I know right so good so I'm gonna give him a call he's got a question for you about going through selection I think or and something with the National Guard so there we go kay blur you son of a bitch in a factory a pot still pot factory you're in my podcast and I got Mike Glover here I know you got up question for them you don't have that stupid fucking beard still do you right on well hey let's hear your question people are just interested hearing you know what the life is like inside of like nineteenth and twentieth group as far as contract work goes working for the GRS while being in National Guard SF if you have any information on that what just so happens that do it looks like you're in luck Keibler yeah so I obviously did that for a living where I was doing contracting and then coming back and operating that 19th group I was in charlie 119 and I had a good start major I had a good company commander but I was also a team sergeant in that company before I made sergeant major so the the time period in which I was a team sergeant I had stood up a team from scratch I we didn't have a detachment when I rolled in there I got to handpick some guys and put him on my detachment and found that you know operating overseas no matter what your position was was commonplace in in those guard units I mean you're gonna have a lot of guys that contract up he'll half the guys that work in 19th Group more than likely contract now would that being said depending on who your client is or who you contract for is gonna determine whether or not it's okay most of the time I would say 99% of the time it's fine there's no issues with it because again you're not doing you're not doing anything during the year besides the one week in a month and you know as long as you could try to make the two weeks a year that's fine a good company and special forces will work with you via the beat operation sergeant so if the b-team ops guy is switched on which mine was he's super squared away he facilitated guys who missed their two week two weeks a year annual training and that was okay he just made up for it by sending him to school by making them do details at the schoolhouse or at the the unit and so it's not an issue I mean it's just what happens I think a lot of people don't understand this about the guard component of SF it's a it's a secret and it's one of the best-kept secrets and special operations and I'll just leave it at that it's a great organization to work for I had a good time does that answer your question yeah if you're if you're a guard guy and you go to sodic you go to Sniper school for example that counts is all your time because your activated obviously so just going to a school or going to some training on your off time I was very proactive when I came back for a contract trip I would show up and be on the clock and hanging out fixing stuff in the team room training guys that showed up new so there's always something that you could do to make up for the time on the back end and at the end of the day it's not that big of a deal you're if you have a federal government position or job contractor or not you're pretty secure in your position the guard can't really fuck with you alright Kevlar what are you doing today why the fuck aren't you at work aren't you lucky oh yeah I remember that compound that's all it's changed a bit since I've been there yeah alright keeps good luck yep talk to you soon if you don't make it don't ever fucking call me again I'm just kidding I'm just kidding but seriously not all right all right so that was keyboard yeah it's a good question man so we're out of the combat stuff we're out of the military and the operational units you're done with your last CIA deployment and now it's time to start transitioning which everyone I know in Special Operations dreads the transition how was yours oh man it was bad it wasn't good I mean I I made a lot of mistakes I had a hard time could you sleep nope no sleep anxiety waking up all the time in the middle of the night looking out the windows staring all from the sky in tears not really understanding what the fuck's going on with me trying to get through the VA process and get some help which was failing not having a job and just trying to grind it on my own failed relationships I mean the list goes on it was I was a fucked up experience yeah it's always it's always I've never heard of one that went smoothly yeah if somebody said yeah my transition was just super easy it's no problem I'll be super suspect that person yeah is there one thing that kind of gave you gave you I mean I don't really know how dark it got we did have a conversation and you'd told me I kind of shared my experience with you one when I tried to commit suicide and then you had a similar experience yeah I had a night where you know I was prescribed ambien I was drinking alcohol and I had a pistol in my hand and you know the best way to this the best way describe to me my own thoughts was the fact that you know in in our career fields our job is to be an asset to our team to our unit to our country and we take out liabilities we kill bad guys that don't deserve to be on the planet and that's what we do I mean there's no if ands or buts about it like you're a trained killer that's what you do in Special Operations mhm if you don't understand that you shouldn't be attempting to be in Special Operations or be in it and so we're used to taking out bad guys mm-hmm and I looked at myself at that point in my life as a bad guy I had made some rat really bad personal decisions that affected my relationships to those closest to me I had you know isolated myself I was an active-duty Master Sergeant at the tip of the spear having a decent family life and now I was sleeping on an air mattress and a fucking apartment by myself mm-hmm I had spent that time period nobody wanted to be around me including my own family I spent Christmas all of Christmas and all in New Year's by myself inside the support meant drinking and I was at a loss man isolated completely I sell phone calls nobody even wanted to be close to me nobody reached out to me I was completely by myself had they reached out to you do you think you were even prepared to take any it's probably not no probably not we're fine with most guys see that as a weakness yeah which is fucking sad but yeah I fell asleep drunk with a pistol in my hand and a bottle of wine in another hand on the floor of my shitty apartment in Texas any idea what pulled you through that to be honest not really I don't know I think I just got through it because I didn't have the courage to kill myself I had nothing to do with empathy or compassion for others I didn't kill myself because I felt for other people and they how they would live without me kind of shit I I didn't want to be alive I just didn't have the fucking ball also do it then and you know what what did did help me is it was a struggle I mean to breathe I was breathe like I was taking one breath at a time just to get through the moment and I was researching all the stuff on depression and anxiety and I read something that said that yoga helped a lot there was a yoga studio a mile down the road dad did 90-minute hot yoga and I was like fuckin you know what what else do I have to lose I've lost everything let me just try and so I went to a yoga class and it did help me like I did yoga I sweated my ass off and walked away from that experience going man this actually helped me a little bit no shit and just in increments small increments one day at a time I started to pull myself out of it I still had epic failed relationships you know I want to blame my crazy-ass ex-girlfriends for a lot of stuff and they were crazy in a lot of ways most of them are most of more especially the hotter ones but it was me I was fucked up man you know I made things that you know civilians aren't prepared with the capacity to even understand what's happening to them when you lose your shit or your temper flares or you punch a hole through a wall or you just do stupid shit and say stupid shit that there's no context for them so it all comes across as crazy there's no empathy I never got a bath you for my ex-girlfriend she never said I'm so sorry that you had to go through this cuz she didn't even understand it yeah so I want to point the finger be like fuck you for not having empathy for me but fuck me for just being a dick yeah but again it's not our fault it in a way I mean I think we should take personal responsibility for things that we do wrong but there's no mechanism or even understanding back then at least of what the fuck's happening to this guy you know he's an elite special operations guy it was everything going for him and he's falling apart and I simply just started to realize that like when you take a dog of war and you let him off the leash and he bites and he attacks and he has one condition which is operating at the speed of war then when you come home you can't expect him to sit on your fucking lap and be a house dog so there is a a new reconditioning that needs to take place and it's a process people who don't understand as spouses that there is a process it's a failed expectation you'll fucking lose every time and that process might not ever go away yeah you know I hate the spouses that make themselves feel like victims because of what they're they're veterans going through everybody goes through trauma and some some form or fashion but I don't want that to define who I am at my core because I know I'm a good man at my core but I know I've made a lot of poor decisions based on the trauma that I've experienced that have experienced yeah and so it's a daily fucking effort and campaign just to make sure that I stay squared away I think a little big struggle too is you know there's a lot of things going on during especially at the beginning of a transition and I think one of the first things that sets in for guys I know one of the first things that said in for me was it's when you've realized you're just a fucking human you know I mean it's you're not a god anymore when you're at the seal team when you're at you know you know the SF team when you're when you're at the agency I mean you have this this sense of like who you are and you're unstoppable and all the shit that you've been through and all the operations you've gone on the gunfights everything you're I mean you're at the pinnacle of it all and then when you come out you'd realize you're just as fucking human as every other motherfucker walking around this earth and that is very humbling did you I mean did you feel that absolutely okay one society's not prepared for us no they don't they don't know how to they don't know how to deal with us just like they didn't with max I saw guys in Vietnam after Vietnam or post even World War two a lot of men that come back from special operations and have these experiences can't replicate that in civilian life so there is a complex where we think regards because we're identified as operator were identified as sniper identified as all these high-speed things that are relevant in our communities but irrelevant in society you want to assimilate in civil society no one gives a fuck that you're a sniper in fact in civil society you're a liability mm-hmm because you're fucking crazy or sorry you went to war man that must have been a tragic thing and so they're definitely not prepared and I don't think we are taught that to reassimilate we have to Rio Dental I'm purposely in the military was killing bad guys that's the only driving purpose that I had I woke up every morning even as a leader in Special Operations if I don't kill bad guys I'm a failure it whether that's kinetic proxy directly killing bad guys was my job yeah how does that translate into the civilian sector you know not very well it doesn't every well but so something pulled you through all this but before we get to that I have another question that I want to ask you would you want after everything you've been through I know you wouldn't have changed a thing so I'm not going to ask you that but you do realize now the toll that it took on on your personal life and and you as a person what would you do if your son told you he wanted to become a green beret would you be for it I would support him but I would try to convince him otherwise I don't think I had expectations of how it was gonna be and then I experienced it and the toll that it's taking long-term I would never take that back for myself mm-hmm because I earned that mmm good batter and different I earned it but looking at the full process and journey and the toll it takes I wouldn't want to do that to his family I wouldn't want to do that to his loved ones his family his friends to his mom I would try to convince him otherwise because one some people think it's their only option but to there's nobility in it some people think that selfless service and sacrifice is the noble cause and that's okay I get that get selfless sacrifice but there's so many other things that are broader where you could affect change and have a greater impact outside of the military I I didn't realize that until recently until doing what I'm doing now and I realized that I probably couldn't do what I do now if you weren't a seal when I was in green beret nobody give a fuck mm-hmm but because we are it's set a foundation so I don't know I'm torn with that but more than likely not it's a tough call I want my kids coding at the age of five I want them to be minute entrepreneurs by the age of ten because I know that entrepreneurship because I grew up in it entrepreneurship is the only single way to a means of controlling your own destiny literally now that figuratively now like I got this now you got a boss you don't got shit interesting I think most guys are the same you know they I think they would say the same thing I would and the shitty thing is everyone I know in that community is stubborn as a son-of-a-bitch and nobody is gonna fuckin talk him out of it but I just was curious you know I have an expectation my son will go tell me to fuck myself good and I'm okay with that you know I wouldn't fight him on it is what I mean yeah I wouldn't there is no contingencies for me and there's no resentment for me you do what you gotta do son do you but let me give you the advice and you could take the advice or you could flush it down the shitter or the real you know I mean when I talk to younger the younger generation that's coming up and and and they want to do that I make sure they do realize as much as possible what the other side looks like it's not all the fucking glory that there everybody thinks it's not like it's not like Hollywood depicts yeah not at all but alright enough about that so fieldcraft survival you guys fucking do all kinds of stuff I've seen fieldcraft talk about the keto diet I've seen him talk about Brazilian jiu-jitsu grappling tactics shooting obviously survival over land mobility am I am I missing anything here there's my 1000 there but I mean it's it's impressive that you're in all these different spaces and ER and how many people you're impacting what was the what was the kind of the first what was the first space that you entered in and feel trapped and why did you do that it was survival as the modern survival as I define it which is being prepared for a modern world you know bushcraft is is really interesting and really cool but it's the E and the pace plan of contingencies it's the emergency if you're running you know I always tell people if you're rubbing sticks together Nick in the woods you fucked some stuff up you've taken ten steps prior to that and fucked it up so in modern survival we focus on the core principles of modern survival and beginning in the beginning it was I've been to every sere school in the military I've been to peacetime attention I've been to covert comms I've been to restraint defeat I've been to high-risk two versions of high-risk I've been to the the agency's sere school so I have a good understanding of the doctrine and then the training methodology behind it and figured I would make a kit survival kit that allows you to survive for 72 hours because that's the period of time in which the average catastrophe unfolds were whether it's being displaced from her urban to a rural environment getting out of a bad natural catastrophe surviving in a period of time that's that's usually around 72 hours so I made a survival kit starting out and then we started doing modern survival training courses that focused on the psychology no shit instead of focused on just a skillset psychology so much more important to understand and understanding how it works meaning how resiliency works how survival works and so I started study in case studies on why people live and why people die and formulated a training plan based off of that and then you know stood up Phil craft survival under and under that methodology when and I know we didn't talk for after that diploma in Yemen we didn't we didn't keep in touch at all we didn't really get close that deployment or anything and then I'm going through my transition and I see him I'm watching fox news and all of a sudden I see fucking Mike Glover pop up on fox news and I didn't even know your real name at that point doc I was like holy shit I know this fucking guy and that's I looked you up you know and I saw a field craft and I started personal and I was like holy shit then I started following him more and more and one of the things that I really like about what you guys are doing in the tactical space is you just fucking have this way keeping it real and there's not and you keep the the tough-guy bullshit attitude out of it which makes for the perfect learning environment but you keep everything very realistic you're not out there fucking dancing around like an idiot you're focused on shit that works and that can be that can be kind of tricky in this space because everybody's looking for the circus the ship that looks cool and you've created a successful training business without ever getting involved in that shit how did you do that you know what it is is it's kind of what I've done my entire life where I'm not worried about popularity I don't give a fuck about flashy shit I just don't care I've never been that way I grew up poor and I didn't have a desire to pretend like I was rich so I didn't look at what most kids look at on social media which is popularity mm-hmm they look at likes for example likes is not a metric to success it's a metric to popularity there are two different distinct things I'd rather have a hundred likes on a post from a hundred people who are willing to train and read my content and take things seriously in survival and preparedness then have 25,000 likes of a bunch of nerds just geeking the fuck out over a picture of something that looks tacticool yeah I never give a fuck about that and I also don't give a fuck about teaching people things that are unrealistic I know statistically that cardiovascular disease and cancer killed more people than anything on the planet so yeah you're less likely to be in a gunfight gunfight so maybe instead of focusing on running and gunning unrealistically on a flat range shooting still on paper I'll instead focus on the basic skill sets of gun handling skills and safety and the fundamentals of marksmanship because I want to make sure the guy or gal who leaves my course could draw their pistol safely and engage a threat realistically then fucking run around with a pro mask on looking like a fucking operator when you've never operated a day in your life I hate I'm not a fan of that yes I'm not a fan of it because at the truth and core of it we all have choices and options and I get the customers gonna go where they want to go but like I said I have my tribe and people who follow us and people who buy shit and train shit I'm good with that I I'm not interested in being the fucking the Walmart tactician not interested at all I mean that's cool because you're also at the same time you're you're looking for a particular customer client student whatever you want to call it just by saying that and I think that drives a lot of the I call them the end of the world fantasy people to the other they don't want to do the fundamentals they don't a lot of them you know they just want to come out there and get a fucking picture of them wearing a bunch of shit that they don't know how to use and they don't want to put the time and the effort in to actually become efficient with their equipment and how long did it take you to kind of like figure that out who I mean when you jump into the tactical space you get all kinds of you get all kinds of people who want to train you got the the guy that just wants to protect his family in church you got the all the way to the opposite who's secretly fantasizing that he's going to be shooting zombies on his fucking rooftop how did you figure it well I'm gonna take you to figure out what all the different profiles that want training in this space why new the way I would attract the right people was by doing what we do which is being real which is which is having realistic expectations of training and not trying to build a business off of a gimmick everybody everybody nowadays come to the table on a business plan with a gimmick and my mom raised me in business to understand that hard work discipline and your ethic is what's gonna get you to the top and maybe that's one slow step at a time but that scale was more optimal for me because it doesn't deviate for my values so just putting out that would attract the right people when it has thus far we've got we've grown slowly over the last few years but I'm okay with that man I'm okay with slow growth yeah a lot of these kids are living in fantasy world because they want to be some money I feel sorry for them they want to be something significant and so they use their social media to to virtue signal to the world that there's something they're not it's called emulation it's what emulators do it's what we did just in a different way I mean I used to read Mac these saag books sniper books from John plaster Carlos Hathcock all those guys and when I read those books I went in the woods and I pretended but I did that when I was a kid not a fucking adult and these guys are fucking grown-ass men LARPing on social media without the deliberate plan to do something significant yeah I always tell these kids who asked for advice I'm okay with giving you advice I'll give you free advice all day as long as it means something at the end of the day not just you perpetuating a feeling because you tell your friends at the bar that yeah you're trying trying out for Special Operations and then two years later you're still sitting on your ass cubical your authenticity really comes through on your lives and and everything else and I think a lot of people are really really drawn to that especially nowadays more than ever with all the the phony shit on social media and I mean all of your branches of filled crap just seem to be growing very steadily what's next next for us is partnerships with good companies that represent preparedness and survival I mean we all have different genres you know whether it's 511 tactical or BCM people have their narrow few fields of fire but we want to partner with good businesses and develop better equipment that helps people survive there's a whole bunch of deficiencies in the game because a lot of companies are focused on the wrong priorities in my opinion I agree with the Zohan we're gonna fix we're gonna try our best to fix those and they continue doing media man I love the media thing like you do I mean this being your first podcast I love podcasts because it gives opportunity to hear a long-form version of somebody's experiences instead of clickbait and so I'm more interested in doing versions of that instead of doing shorter versions of clickbait I do have a plan to write a book I've written four chapters of it it's probably one of the hardest things I've done technically looking for a publisher or an agent to get that knocked out because I realize I'm a good creative writer but in 300 word anchor make sounds to graham and not in a 250 page book on my on mindset or or survival so yeah man we just will continue to grind we got mobility coming out i Overland training comm is a domain that I've license from Overland journal and expedition portal who are the OGS and bosses and Overland so if you guys want to do Overland training with us over LAN training calm and we got a whole bunch of shit going on we're training all over the United States I'll be in Texas in January my guys will be in Kyle being California in January and I'm all over the place man it's a it's a grind that I'm in love with it's something that I'm passionate about and I've been in it for four years and it's it's just something that I'm prepared to to maintain I'm in it for the marathon the 50k or the 100k I'm not in this for sucking a wind sprint I heard you say I heard you say on another podcast that you never made it about money and I have not heard very many people in business say that and I always say that too which is another one of the similarities that when you came up here do you think that really helped you with your business by not making it about money and making it about growing yeah yeah 100% we all we all have our incentives and it really shapes your behavior and your pattern of life if money you know I love these people come out say money is not important to me and they fly in g6 is they buy Lambos and show the world they have Ferraris and and and materialistic shit I don't fucking care about any of that I really don't I have a couple sentimental things that are more likely rocks and war memorabilia but that could burn to the ground I care more about people yeah and it's not a pitch I've always been that way I've always been in the military willing to sacrifice my time my efforts and potentially my life for people so coming out of the military that didn't change for me I didn't you know some people I've seen I've seen this happen it's directly affected me where motherfuckers come out and they get a little taste of what they think is popularity and it changes who the fuck they are yeah that never interested me because I'm not I never cared about popularity I played a high school football I was a popular kid in school but I didn't give a fuck and so I didn't I didn't my ego on my on my shoulder so when I make it about people it changes the the priorities whereby the bottom line for me isn't the profit margin the bottom line is taking care of people and by default and this isn't I mean you could look at in books as a marketing tactic or a business tactic but it has to be genuine and so when I make it about people people take care of our company people buy our swag they tend to attend our training because they believe in the mission because I've made it about the mission and not about a bottom line in marketing I see good companies doing great things and then charging people fuck man five hundred dollars for a bag like what they what are you what are you even doing hmm I remember I dropped my one of my mobility bags and I sold it for 200 bucks it cost me 60 750 to make that margin is low in textiles I mean it's low after all the shipping receiving the all the labor the overhead in the building electricity etc you're looking at an additional bag of 50% profit margin dude that's no money to be made you know people bitched about it and people complain so I'll lower the price I even had that thing for 99 bucks just because I knew I wanted to make people happy now that's my downfall - yeah my downfall is I'm not always looking at the numbers when in business you should be you should be looking at the numbers you should be paying attention to the numbers but incentive wise what should drive your behavior and we should drive your your business should be for the right reasons and that for me as people in field craft you guys it seems like you guys do a lot of prepping and our masters of it and I don't know about you but a lot of the clients that I've had think that there might be something they need to prepare for so I don't know about field craft but I have a feeling water our clientele are very similar because we both realists and I would say the majority of my clients not all of them but the majority of them think that they need to be prepared for something and you guys are big in the prepping world as well they think something might happen not necessarily the end of the world but they just want to be ready in case of a natural disaster an EFP there's a thousand different scenarios what would you say for somebody that's completely green they don't know how to shoot they don't own a gun they don't have food storage anything what would you say the number one priority would be where do they start the number one priority for me is personal defense because you know the first principle of patrolling is security and if you can't secure yourself you can't secure your family you can't take you can't defend your life you can't defend your family's life so I would say it starts with a personal decision to buy a firearm learn how to utilize a firearm and carry that firearm daily what firearm would you suggest starting with pistol or rifle I think universally you know I carry different guns for different reasons but universally a Glock 19 is probably the staple concealed carry pistol in contracting we carry Glock 17s typically but Glock 19's it's the right frame size for most it's the right size frame for concealment it has the most accessories per gun in the industry it's a good platform it's reasonably reasonably priced and I've used a Glock 19 when the military got him in Special Operations and I've seen him I've seen him throughout my motor career and I've never seen one fail so a single action only Glock my team is the start point I would definitely agree with that it's like the Toyota Corolla man guns yeah absolutely just never fucking die yeah right and then so next would be so you would say pistol and then move on to rifle no the next priority for me is med med med absolutely 30,000 people year die in vehicle accidents I wonder how many of those could have been prevented I mean 400 idiots a year follow their treestands and hunting and break their legs and do dumb shit so we're prone to accidents were prone to trauma and I've I've treated trauma in real life I save people's lives with tourniquets tourniquet which is a twenty nine ninety nine dollar piece of equipment from North American Rescue which we sell on our website at Philco survival comm is the number one piece of equipment that in med that you need to carry stopped in an extremity wound a traumatic bleed from a femoral or brachial artery is as life-saving if you don't do that you simply just go to sleep and die are you guys teaching meds we absolutely do yeah we teach teachable C tactical combat casualty care which we were required by our contract to train we teach a course certified teachable C course through na MT this the the certification on tactical med training trauma training I just taught a CPR lifesaver course my tribe Expo recently so we we frequently teach med and I expect that if in contracting in austere environments we were required to carry a tourniquet based on our own understanding of what we could run into that a civilian should do the same whether that's in your inside your waistband because we do so inside the waistband tourniquet holder or that's inside of a bag or inside your vehicle somewhere within arm's reach where if you're experiencing trauma you could save your life interesting would so number three what would the number three thing be we got pistol we got med if we're talking about equipment specific things that you need to carry the next piece of equipment would be the way in which you carry it which would be a the bag and what you carry a lot of people don't think about it but the extension of your capability of what you can carry on your person is limited you can only fit so much shit in your pockets in your pants and if you have a bag with meaning it every day carry bag that might be your purse your murse your European man satchel it sets you up for an extended capacity that's how we look at vehicles I mean if I have a med kit in my back pocket that's a minimalist you know low vis med kit why won't my fucking car to be an ambulance I want there to be enough met equipment to treat my family myself and then you upgrade that to your house as well I want a damn hospital at my house so having the ability to carry all their stuff is super important and in that bag I would definitely include a survival kit a modern survival kit that that has the staples of survival including the ability to contain water purify water start a fire signal communicate potentially saat iridium VHF UHF the list goes on gummy bears gummy bears at a you know that are fat free to have lots of carbs lots of sugars lots of calories their survival bears so what we call their survival bears yeah well Mike I know you got a flight to catch so I'm gonna wrap this up but I just want to say man I'm I had a great fucking time you came up and I didn't I didn't know how this was gonna go we hadn't seen each other in six seven years and I mean I think we think very parallel on a lot of things and and it was a great time when made some great content I can't thank you enough for coming up here and it's been awesome watching you grow and watching fieldcraft grow and I I can't wait to see what comes in the so thank you for coming out thanks for having me man I'm looking forward to hearing your podcast and seeing what you guys have in the future I mean you you're you're one of three YouTube channels that I watch the other two or mushroom YouTube channels foraging for mushrooms you do love some mushrooms I love them hello and so yeah man I appreciate you guys having me out and you know open your doors to me and and it's rare for me like you to get out and when I do go out it's only for specific reasons or specific people and you guys are some really good people doing some really good stuff and I look forward to doing more with you thank you yeah I hope we can do this again sometime real quick before we hang this up where can we find you we're all over social media obviously Phil craft survival fit Phil craft mobility Phil craft survival Mike dot a dot Glover on my personal Phil craft survival comm overlay on training comm if you if you need to find us just google us you'll you'll find us we have a podcast on iTunes called the Phil craft survival podcast and we also have a podcast called the modern mindset 365 podcast which is all about mindset so yeah definitely hit us up and look us up you heard it look him up I think you should open another profile called Magic Mike but Magic Mike I like that you know that's a good one but all right thanks again man and we'll see you guys soon we go to jet to the airport cool thanks guys

Channel: Vigilance Elite

Views: 2,179,892

Keywords: shawn ryan show, vigilance elite, shawn ryan, mike glover, green beret, green berets, navy seal, navy seals, mike glover green beret, fieldcraft survival, special operations, u.s. army special forces, cia contractor, shawn ryan podcast, storytime, vigilance elite story time, vigilance elite podcast, delta force, cag, shawn ryan mike glover, mike glover shawn ryan, mike glover podcast, green beret interview, special forces podcast, the shawn ryan show, mike glover interview

Id: ZBYC7QnHrQA

Length: 152min 24sec (9144 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 24 2019