Try That in a Small Town Podcast
In 2023, Jason Aldean's groundbreaking song and video "Try That In A Small Town" resonated with a resurgence of conservative values in America. The writers of the song, Kurt, Neil, Tully, and Kelley, took the opportunity to launch the Try That In A Small Town Podcast. This platform allows them to reveal the true inspiration behind the song and discuss the importance of common-sense values. With a lineup of influential guests, the hosts will entertain you with the stories behind their music, while also addressing challenging topics affecting our communities and country.
Try That in a Small Town Podcast
Dude, You Shot Osama: How One SEAL Changed History w/The Operator, Rob O'Neill :: Ep 72 Try That in a Small Town Podcast
What drives someone to board a helicopter on what might be a one-way mission to take down the world's most wanted terrorist? In this gripping conversation with Navy SEAL Rob O'Neill, we dive deep into the mind of the man who killed Osama bin Laden and explore the extraordinary journey that led him there.
Rob's story begins unexpectedly in Butte, Montana, where a chance encounter with a Navy recruiter – and the absence of the Marine recruiter he'd actually come to see – set him on a path that would ultimately change history. With disarming honesty and unexpected humor, he reveals how he joined the Navy without even knowing how to swim properly, a decision that would lead him through the world's most grueling military training and eventually to SEAL Team 6.
The psychological framework that carried Rob through countless missions resonates far beyond military applications. "Long-term goals are achieved through short-term goals," he explains, breaking down how SEALs compartmentalize seemingly impossible challenges. His philosophy on quitting – "Never quit right now. That's emotion. Quit tomorrow" – offers profound wisdom for anyone facing adversity.
The heart of our conversation centers on the bin Laden raid – the 90-minute helicopter flight into Pakistan, the crash landing that threatened to derail the mission, and those fateful moments face-to-face with America's most notorious enemy. Rob's vivid recounting places you right beside him in that compound, experiencing the controlled chaos and split-second decisions that changed history.
What stays with you longest isn't the tactical details, but the humanity behind the mission. These weren't supermen, but ordinary Americans with extraordinary training, willing to sacrifice everything not for glory, but for the victims of 9/11 who never chose to be in the fight. As Rob poignantly reflects, "We're going for the single mom who jumped to her death out of a skyscraper because that's a better alternative than whatever was happening at 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit."
Listen now to hear one of the most consequential military operations in American history told by the man who lived it. Then ask yourself: What challenges in your own life might benefit from a SEAL's mindset?
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But most honors fade. You know like, if it's something in most occupations, things that we do, you know like somebody might come up to us and say say hey, you got any hits out anything on the charts? Said, said no. Said have you had anything in a while? So I'll have that. You know, try that in small town thing. They say well, that's a couple of years ago, right. I said yeah, I mean it's been. You're like, oh Mike, drop Done.
Speaker 4:My buddy, Dakota Meyer, who's a Marine medal of honor recipient. Uh, one of the best things I heard him say was uh, I never want another nine 11, but I wish we could have another nine 12. Uh just just cause.
Speaker 4:I mean there's a lot. There's something a lot more important than arguing stupid politics the realization that I mean we had members of both sides of the aisle singing God Bless America on the steps of the Capitol on 9-11 or 9-12, and they're certainly not going to do that right now, and that's a shame. I tell my daughters I've got well. Three of them are in college. One of them is an 18-month-old. She doesn't understand. But the three that are in college, I remind them about life's choices that if that Marine recruiter wasn't at Arby's at 1130 on a Wednesday, you wouldn't be alive because I would have joined the Marine.
Speaker 4:Corps and it didn't happen, and that's God's plan. My plan was different. The Try that in a Small Town podcast begins now.
Speaker 6:Welcome back to the Try that in a Small Town podcast Coming to you from the Patriot Mobile Studios, powered by eSpaces. We're here, we got TK Kalo Thrash. I'm Kurt. Today is going to be cool. I know we say that all the time. I promise you today we mean it. Yeah, we mean it, we really mean it. Today we have Navy SEAL Rob o'neill with us. Rob uh has a pretty incredible history, part of which includes uh killing osama bin laden, who yeah yeah, exactly no seriously.
Speaker 6:I mean, that's not something that you can say just hearing you say he's coming on our show I know. He's also been involved in quite a number of other missions which I hope we get a chance to talk about, but you had actually made the connection right.
Speaker 5:How'd you make the connection?
Speaker 7:Actually, obviously I've been interested, I've always had a big interest in in in the seals and the delta force and what the special forces do and rangers and everybody. They're incredible what they do and so I've always been really interested in it and we've had, like you know, jason redmond on the show is an incredible navy seal. We've been fortunate enough to meet some great members of the seal community and they've always been incredible to us and so I've obviously watched a lot of Rob's stuff and the story and so I actually just reached out and just reached out to him and messaged him on Instagram.
Speaker 1:So just cold. He hadn't come to any of your shows, or anything.
Speaker 7:No, I just messaged cold, an alden corneal shows or anything. No, I just this was cold and then his uh, I believe his uh, um, his sister, I think, reached out to responded back. That's unbelievable and, um, that's amazing. And so, yeah, it was uh, really incredible. They, they big fans of the podcast and stuff too. They watched that and or she had, and I get that, yeah, yeah anyway, but it was pretty, but it but it was. It was still, though, he, rob, gets asked to do this stuff every day.
Speaker 6:Oh yeah, you know, so he didn't have to do it, and absolutely and I mean literally was just watching him two nights ago on the new netflix documentary which, uh, america's manhunt killing Osama bin Laden. It's a whole new thing he's featured prominently in the whole thing going through.
Speaker 7:It's pretty incredible. I'm going to check that out.
Speaker 5:I'm so thankful he agreed to come on here.
Speaker 7:I mean, there's a lot of other things he can be doing, I know it and it's his anniversary, so his wife already hates us, which is getting in line with the other wives.
Speaker 1:I think I would kind of be.
Speaker 1:Just if I'm him, I would just be driving around town, stopping at red lights, rolling my window down, looking over and said do you know, I killed something I thought you did that too anyway, like hey did y'all know I wrote, try that, yes what you do when you, when you have a hit or something you know you, you go up to a red light and you look over and you think, man, if they knew that I was one of the guys that wrote Try this Ball Town, they would, I mean, should I bless them? Should I say anything? Should?
Speaker 5:I bless it gets you a free McDonald's number two.
Speaker 1:It's fun making fun of yourself.
Speaker 6:Oh my gosh, let's not wait any longer, let's get to Rob. Rob, thanks for coming on with us, brother.
Speaker 4:Yeah of course, thanks for having me. I'm a little late, a week late, but thanks for the invite.
Speaker 7:Yeah, go ahead bud. No, I was going to say you're from Butte Montana, is that right?
Speaker 4:Yeah, butte, montana.
Speaker 7:Lived there for the first 19 years of my life and then joined the Navy on accident. So we used to play a club called the Butte Depot. Is that still there?
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, the Depot's still there, absolutely. I like that place too. It's a good spot for whatever it is you're into. How long ago were you guys there?
Speaker 7:That was in the early days, like when, I think Hicktown was out, so it would have been 2004, 2005, 2006, somewhere in there. I think Hicktown was out, so it would have been 04, 05, 06, somewhere in there. I think we did it for a couple years. We did it back to back. It was one of her favorite places to go. It was great, great parties after.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it was a good spot. Butte Montana is a really good spot too. It's really good food up there. The portion size is not conducive to a good diet and we can put gravy on everything, but it's really good, really good place, great people. And no, you know, no sure I love, I love going back home any chance I get to butte america well, you said you joined the navy by accident.
Speaker 6:I guess we're gonna have to lead with that?
Speaker 4:yes well it was. It was one of those things. Even after I joined the the navy, I realized that, uh, most the majority of the all-volunteer military is there because they got dumped by somebody, by a girl or a guy, whatever it is. And I got dumped by a girl. I was in college, living my life's plan, and the whole thing is if you ever want to make God laugh, tell him what your plan is. I was going to play basketball, get an MBA and work for my father and a bad relationship got dumped, and it was just time to leave Butte Montana, and the easiest way to leave is to join the Marine Corps.
Speaker 4:I had two buddies that joined the Marine Corps, ben and Jim, that were two years older than me. They always wanted to be Marines and every time they came home when I was still in high school, they looked like Marines. I was still, you know, not 21, but I'd see them out in bars. They look like tough guys, because in Butte Montana it doesn't really matter. And so I just you know, I saw their uniforms. I want to be a Marine. I'd seen full metal jackets. I kind of basically know what a Marine is, and so I went to join the Marine Corps. There's a spot right there in downtown and all the recruiting offices are right there and I went to join the marine corps and his luck would have it. Uh, the marine recruiter was not in the office, the navy guy was. And I went to see the navy guy just because my two buddies that were marines. They told me a joke, but it got me into the navy office. They said the marine corps is actually part of the department of the navy, it's just the men's department.
Speaker 4:I went in there to ask him. I was like if anyone's going to know where the Marine is, the Navy will. So I said where's the Marine? He said why do you want the Marine? I said I grew up hunting. I want to be a sniper and Marines have the best snipers in the world. And he said look no further, we have snipers in the Navy. And he kind of added you got to become a seal first, no big deal, and then after that we'll send you to sniper school. He brushed over the seal thing. I didn't know what that was and I didn't know how to swim either. But this guy I was looking at him, you know thinking. I'm 19 years old, I'm kind of naive, but here's a professional recruiter. Why is he going to lie to me? And I signed not knowing how to swim, and it just I signed not knowing how to swim, and that's how it started.
Speaker 4:Hold on, you legit.
Speaker 6:I'm sorry. I was going to say you legit didn't know how to swim or you weren't like a competitive swimmer.
Speaker 4:Well, I could keep myself alive because I'd been fishing. We'd go to Georgetown Lake but I didn't know any strokes at all. I mean, even the first time after I signed, obviously there was some swimming. So I figured, all right, I still have my. I was playing college basketball at Montana tech, which is right there in Butte, and I still had my student ID and they have a pool. So I'm like I'll just sneak in there, cause I've got a. I've got a couple like four months until I have to leave, so I'll swim every day and I mean it's a 25 meter pool, so I'll swim 25 down, 25 back. I'll probably swim a thousand meters and like gauge it from there.
Speaker 4:And everything was working okay with that plan until I actually entered the water. And that's when the problem started and I was exhausted without even getting the length of the pool. I'm like man, I'm in a pickle. I just signed a contract with the government and I can't swim. And one of my buddies who actually went on to swim at Notre Dame, he came in to work out and he said, don't take this the wrong way, I love seeing you here. I've just never seen you in a pool before, what gives? And I said, oh, I joined the Navy yesterday. I'm going to be a SEAL. He said, no, you're not. And he taught me the breaststroke and the sidestroke. And I was proficient enough that when I got to Navy boot camp I could pass the test that could get you orders to go to SEAL training Not a hard test, but going from not being able to swim to doing that. It was a 500-yard swim to qualify. So I did get there.
Speaker 4:But I'm a big believer in the butterfly effect too. This is how crazy life works. Like the smallest decision you make, even if it's like 3% off of your path in 30 years, that's going to be drastic, good or bad, and that's the butterfly effect. And I tell my daughters I've got well. Three of them are in college. One of them's 18 months old. She doesn't understand. But the three that are in college, I remind them about life choices that if that Marine recruiter wasn't at Arby's at 1130 on a Wednesday, you wouldn't be alive because I would have joined the Marine Corps and it didn't happen, and that's God's plan.
Speaker 4:My plan was different.
Speaker 7:So what year was that that you enlisted?
Speaker 4:1996. Okay, so I left from there and went to great, great lakes, illinois. In january I joined in 95.
Speaker 7:I shipped out in january 96 okay, so you join up and go in the navy. So how long before that you you start doing the seal training and get into that program? Is it was because it wasn't right away, right?
Speaker 4:No, well it was. It was right. After bootcamp I the. The one good piece of advice I got at that point in my life was get it in writing, because I did have a buddy that I graduated high school with it, joined the army to be a ranger. But he didn't get it in writing and the recruiter just said just said you can volunteer when you get there, which is a lie. And so I got it in writing that I would get an attempt actually three attempts to get into SEAL training and I got the. I'd passed the test to get in, which is not hard I mean it doesn't seem hard but two out of 500 guys that tried out didn't pass that test in boot camp, which is crazy. But it's like a 500-yard swim, a mile and a half run, a couple push-ups, sit-ups and pull-ups. But I finished that.
Speaker 4:I went to a quick A school, and an A school is just your job or your rate in the Navy. You could be a boasters mate or a corpsman or a quartermaster, signalman, whatever. And I got air crew survival equipment men which is fancy for how to use a sewing machine. I was taught by Marines how to sew for two weeks in Millington, tennessee and then I shipped out to San Diego and I started SEAL training. So I joined in January 28th 96, and I was in Coronado in mid-April to class up for SEAL training basic underwater demolition, seal training, class 208. And I got there and that's when I realized I have no idea what I just literally jumped into with both feet. But I got good advice from some instructors there. You know I listened to in between all the ass chewings and the beatings and all the stuff that they will give you a little bit of advice, with the realization that maybe in the unlikely event, as they say it, that you make it through training, I might have to work with you. So they do want good people.
Speaker 7:So hell week is what you're. You know, that's I mean.
Speaker 4:I've always had this. Hell week is famous, but it's not the hardest part, it's just. People hear about hell week just because the name's cool and because you're awake from Sunday to Friday without sleeping. But I mean, even that was a mindset, because they taught early on through negative reinforcement that long-term goals are achieved through short-term goals. That you know, if you look like and I've said this before, it's been quoted quite a bit not my quote, but it was told me that at SEAL training I know you've read the books, you've seen the movies. Regardless of what you've been told, this course is not impossible. People graduate. You need to realize that. Look at me, I'm living proof. This is an instructor saying to me I'm never going to ask you to do anything impossible, but I will make you do something very hard, followed by something very hard, followed immediately by something harder, day after day after day, for nine straight months, eight straight months, whatever. That sounds like a lot, but don't think about it that way. Don't think about graduation day. That's not how you achieve a long-term goal.
Speaker 4:Here's how you get through SEAL training Wake up in the morning on time, make your bed the right way and then brush your teeth. That's three wins. You just started your early day with three victories, not bad. Make it to the, the 4 am workout, actually. Uh, and as I'm beating you, don't think about the pain. Concentrate on your next goal in life, which is breakfast. After breakfast, your next goal in life is lunch after lunch, your next goal in life is making it to dinner and after dinner, do everything you need to do to get back inside that perfectly made bed and because you took the time for yourself in the morning to make your bed the right way, regardless of how bad today was and it will will be bad, tomorrow is a clean slate. Tomorrow is a fresh start and when you feel like quitting, which you will do not. Quit right now, never quit right now. That's emotion. Quit tomorrow. If you can keep quitting tomorrow, you can do anything.
Speaker 5:Wow that's good. That's amazing. I'm making notes. I'm making notes, rob. Could you repeat that please?
Speaker 4:I mean that's not even SEAL training, that's life advice. And before Hell Week, on the Sunday, right before we started, the same instructor. He said you're about to go to war for the first time and the enemy is all your doubts, all your fears and everyone you know back home that told you you weren't good enough to do this. Keep your head down, keep moving forward and you'll be fine.
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Speaker 1:forward slash smalltown to get a free month of service when you use the offer code smalltown or call 972 patriot rob, you may not be able to tell I'm not sure what clarity you have seeing us, but I'm a military man myself and uh, it wasn't a seal, it was a regular army, you know infantry, fort benning and all that. But it was interesting when you said, uh, you joined by accident or like people are running from stuff or you get broke up with. Because for me, I'd went to UTC for supposedly a whole semester but I only went for two weeks. But I went to school the whole half a semester and spent my dad's money. But I was playing pool up in the rec hall and gambling and stuff, and so I knew I was going to get in real trouble. So I had to find a clean way out some way that he wouldn't get so mad at me. So that, mixed with watching Rambo first blood.
Speaker 1:I went and joined the army because of that and so I wouldn't get in trouble.
Speaker 4:And I didn't get in trouble, but once I got there I was like I'm not a regular, but I should've gotten in trouble, you know, cause that's a lot. Yeah, you know what that's. That's so cool. And I'm not even talking about seal training. But the first day of boot camp or basic training, um, I realized that it doesn't matter what you look like or where you're from. We're pretty much the same and one thing we all agree on right now and this is dudes from south central los angeles and long island and south florida all we agree on is we both, we've all made a horrible decision and we're all terrified. But once you like, but, you also learn. You can get used to anything and you learn.
Speaker 4:I learned personally in the navy how to ask questions and, uh, once you get in the groove and get used to being somewhere, man, it's even right now with, with, with, with kids, I'm not sure what to do in life. There's an option right now they can get you on a bus, three hots and a cot, and it's a great. I've been if I went through jump school at Fort Benning. I've worked with the Army quite a bit Any of the branch. I don't have any experience with Space Force, but I mean, that's just. It forces you with lack of a better term forces you to man the fuck up, and you know your mom's not here anymore, so what are you going to do? It wasn't for politics, or why did we invade Iraq. It's for the dude next to me, it's for the guy in front of me, and I don't need to worry about what's behind me because there's a guy defending me.
Speaker 1:It's like you can do that right now.
Speaker 4:It's awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great. Yeah, it helped me. I needed it, so that's really good.
Speaker 4:It's a wake up. I I you know I I'm not a big believer in the draft or conscription, but a lot, of, a lot of this younger generation could use two years in the army. That's, that's exactly what cause.
Speaker 1:That's the exact extent I had. I don't know if they have two years anymore, but it's kind of a college buddy program or whatever. And I went home with a buddy of mine who I thought was the toughest guy in my town and I've learned that he was not. You know, because people break just in regular basic training, not SEAL training or Ranger or Delta Force, just regular basic training. You have guys there that are jacked and they're crying at night in their bed because they made a huge mistake and they can't get out of it.
Speaker 1:You know it's nuts.
Speaker 4:Yeah. And again, that's when the short-term goals come. You know, try to get some sleep. And even in the boot camp or basic training movies they don't get it right. You're not waking up at 5. You're up at about 2. Try to get some sleep, get a meal and get to know your buddies. But even though, being the tough guy right now too, when people say would you do it again, I'm like no, not a chance. No, but I know it's, it is, it is. It is cool to see that. And again, until I tell people that get to get into hard training like seals or Rangers or whatever, um, just because you think someone's tougher than you, doesn't mean they are. And if they quit, don't get emotional and think, well, he's so tough that I can't make it bullshit, you can make it, he quit, that's his problem, that's, that's just I.
Speaker 4:I I got a buddy of mine, tom satterley, who was at delta force and uh, he joined before me. Uh, he joined because he was going to a john cougar melon camp concert in indiana and his buddy had joined and he goes, hey, pull over real quick, I'm gonna join the army too. And he, like, joined, uh, to be a mechanic. And then his first real mission in combat was blackhawk down with delta and he's like he's saying I, I love these young kids saying I just just want to get some. Everybody wants to get some. Until you're getting some, you're like I don't want to get no more. Wow, I mean, it's an option for anyone. I'm joking. If I had to do it again, I would tell younger Rob O'Neill get straight A's, go to the academy and learn how to fly something cool, because being in a swamp with your friends looks great on a poster.
Speaker 7:It kind of sucks to be there, right? So you graduate, obviously seals and and how, how long before you get your like first assignment, like what is that? Like you know? So you graduate and that's gotta be a huge achievement. Obviously it is a huge achievement and you're feeling, are you waiting for what's next?
Speaker 4:you know well it was. It was I graduated in december of. 90, was 97 96. I graduated december 96, so obviously before 9-11, and there weren't any wars on the horizon, like the cold war was over, the the berlin wall was down. All we had was bosnia, um, and so, uh, the east coast seal teams, mainly seal team two, were assigned there. So. So I was like you know, I'm going to try to get SEAL Team 2, which I did and maybe I get to Bosnia, and then it's like you know, I'll do my four years and then I'll go back to Butte, montana and tell my story at Maloney's Bar or whatever.
Speaker 4:And so the assignments weren't really there, it was mainly just training with allies in case of a war and for contingency. So we spent a lot of time in Europe, a lot of time training with the special boat service, the SBS, the Brits, the German, german comp swimmers, the Norwegian Jaegers, things like that. But we're just training, we get a job here and there. I you know we did get to Kosovo, some stuff in Liberia, but that was pretty much it. And and I I mean it was intimidating at first because I didn't know what navy seals did, but I mean there just wasn't a lot going on and there were guys here and there that did get some and they were just legends. There were guys, navy seals, that were assigned in somalia with uh, with delta and the rangers. They got some stuff and you know, here and there, but rarely was there any shooting.
Speaker 4:And then I actually just finished like a 40-day stint in kosovo, uh, I think I got back to Germany where we were staging on September 10th 2001. And we'd gotten our gear obviously turned over, ready to rock and roll again and I'm up at the operations center. And then they went to breaking news and a plane just hit the North Tower and they were saying, yeah, a small plane just hit the tower and we're like it's a pretty big building, it's a big hole. And then the second plane hit. We're like, well, life as we know it just changed. So before I mean it was intimidating to go to SEAL Team 2, but I didn't even know what I was getting into.
Speaker 7:Then I kind of saw it, and then 9-11, it's like, well, you know they trained me to fight, and that's a whole other round of training to go to SEAL Team 6. Is that correct or am I wrong about that?
Speaker 4:Yeah, yes, it's not really well-known either. It's not in the movies and there's a lot of prerequisites to get there. You need to, I think a minimum of five years at a SEAL Team with a minimum of two overseas deployments. I did eight years and did four deployments and then I and what you have to do is you have to apply, get approved by your team and the way the teams are broke up, or it's simple, the even numbers on the East Coast, odd numbers on the West Coast. So you get approved by them, take a difficult screening test, which is a long open water swim, a long run for time, a lot of pull-ups, a lot of push-ups like that, and then something as simple as they'll take your picture and hand it around to guys that are already there and they simply give you a thumbs up or a thumbs down and too many thumbs down, you're not even welcome. Then you have to pass an oral board, which is like a really bad job interview. Then they give you the psychiatrist for a while for the psychological evaluation, and I finished a lot of tests and they were so weird. I asked the psychiatrist what was the point of the test and she said oh, we're not trying to figure out if you're crazy. We're trying to figure out which flavor of crazy you are for placement and then, if they like you, you do another really hard physical test and then they invite you to a nine month selection course which is longer than SEAL training, but I thought it was harder.
Speaker 4:But it's different because now it's not a group of sailors who want to become seals, these are experienced Navy seals trying to get to the tier one level. So they, they, there's tests in in a very advanced, high altitude, high opening jumps, nighttime jumps in stacks, formations. Uh hey, those that go about, you know, jump out of a plane, go 11 miles to a spot that no one's seen before except on a map. Very difficult. Guys get hurt there. They'll get performance dropped. There's a lot of safety issues. I mean there's a lot of technique and stuff you need to follow for skydiving. If you're proving you're unsafe, they're going to kick you out.
Speaker 4:Close quarters battle, which is the SWAT team style entrance you see on action movies, when guys come in quickly and clear a room, that's where we lose most of the guys. The entire course is based on that and just moves from environment to environment, because for us combat comes down to an entry point, a door on a house, a hatch on a ship or a cave, and so we just they come up with situations that are really really fast and there's no solution. But they want to see how you handle a problem with no solution and then, over and over, punishing you for mistakes you didn't make, to see how you handle making a mistake that everyone knows you didn't make, because what they're teaching you is again, extreme negative reinforcement and extreme stress. We just punished you for a mistake that you didn't make. Can you get over it? And the point of the whole thing which again is great advice for life, whatever it is right now, that's bothering you, get over it. That's it. I mean they're keeping it simple. And then we, you know this course, this nine month course, full of Navy SEALs, half of the guys don't make it, and that's it. I mean they're keeping it simple. And then we, you know it's a.
Speaker 4:This course, this nine month course, full of Navy SEALs, half of the guys don't make it, and that's saying something like it's a. It's a very, very hard course. It's the hardest selection course in the world, and I mean it's even to the point where there are Navy SEALs that are very experienced, that won't even try out. Because when you try out, you're taking the uh, the insignia for Naval Special Warfare, that a warfare pin that you wear tried as a Navy SEAL. You're taking that and you're betting it that I'm going to make it to SEAL Team 6 or I'm going to be the guy that tried and failed, and that's a big move and there are guys that failed and you're known as that forever. Or you make it and then, once you get there, you get the big time missions. These are the best special operators in the world and it's, but it was it's. It's cool because of the mindset.
Speaker 4:What I loved about it. I woke up excited because every single day I get to go to a place and work with people who were better than me and that's how every guy felt and nobody tried to undermine each other for a promotion. If, like, if somebody was out shooting me uh, be it on a static range or a shoot and maneuver or whatever instead of calling them out or saying they, they cheated, it's like I want to find out what. What time does he wake up? What type of a workout does he do? Does he work out before he goes to the range or after. What's his sleeping habits? How does he eat? Go up to hey, you move this pouch from here to here. What's the thought? You? You took off the leg strap for your drop holes or you put it on your hip or you move it to your chest. What? What's your thinking behind that? I want to. I want to get better and I want to be able to teach my guys who are coming up behind me to get better too. How are you doing it? So, really, really, really unique spot.
Speaker 4:I mean even to the point where, when we first went, when we first went to Iraq for combat cause, we'd been to Afghanistan and then we got into Iraq. That was, that was the all over the news. How dangerous. I mean. It was dangerous Vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices, house-borne IEDs, suicide bombers, gunfights. But when we got there at SEAL Team 6, the first few missions, first few gunfights, I was looking at guys like, are we missing something? Because this is really easy and we are crushing this enemy, did they send us somewhere else? That's how good the guys were, it was just cool somewhere else? That's how good the guys were, and that's I mean, it was just cool. Like we we would. We got to a point where we were changing tactics the entire way, going quiet, not talking, no, just all night vision, no lights. We we had this thing called counting coup that we got from some.
Speaker 4:You know, being from Montana, I'm familiar with some native American, the warriors for bin laden's house. Uh, they used to do something where they would touch the enemy and compete for how many of the enemy can you touch while they're sleeping and leave without hurting them. And so we would do that and we would sneak in and I mean some of the some of the most fun. I hadn't come and talk about adrenaline. When you're breaking into houses, hunting people is adrenaline. And you go up to the, these scary terrorists or whatever, and I would test them for a suicide vest, like put a finger down their chest. If there is one, you deal with it. If there isn't, the fun part is you get to wake them up and what I would do is I'd put my finger on their lips and just go, shh and they would wake up and I would watch America's most hardened enemies.
Speaker 6:completely shit their pants oh my god, that's amazing.
Speaker 4:You know there's such, I mean that we kind of jumped we kind of jumped from bryce and gravy and boot camp to hunting al-qaeda with our hands. But kind of a lot went on in between there too.
Speaker 5:I gotta know how much, how much. How much gun training, ballistics knowledge or whatever before you enlisted did you have before you went in? How much did you learn once you got in? I?
Speaker 4:learned a ton. When I got there I was shooting a .300 Winchester Magnum growing up. Well, when I got into high school for elk and moose and bears and caribou and I was familiar with it but I didn't For some reason, you know, it was before Al Gore invented the Internet, so I'm not looking stuff up and wind charts. It didn't seem, you know, because it didn't occur to me that like if you put a rifle in a vice here and if you shoot it and drop a bullet at the same time, unless it's going up they're going to hit the ground at the same time. So you got to learn your, your uh uh calculations how the wind affects
Speaker 4:it. Um, I, I, I, you know I would. I would practice on milk cartons when I was hunting. But then I realized, you know, you could get a much tighter group of much, much more consistency, the differences between uh uh precision and accuracy, stuff like that. Um, and you know I did go to sniper school before my first deployment. So technically the recruiter didn't lie to me, they did send me to sniper school.
Speaker 5:You already knew, I learned to breathe and you already knew all that stuff yes, sort of.
Speaker 4:But I mean little little things like, uh, if you're shooting a, uh, hunting rifle, a sniper rifle, the limit, the amount of um touch you have on it, like, if you can, you know you're going to need your cheek. Well, but then you don't need your whole hand on there, you don't need your whole finger, you want the pad of your finger. I learned about follow through. After you shoot, you want to keep it there back on your target. Let it go to a follow through. Stuff like that, um and and.
Speaker 4:Where I learned most about ballistics was not shooting, it was from spotting. That's the know, the distance, and you're spotting for your buddy and you know you're making the call, you're both kind of, but you don't have range finders. You're doing mil dots, you're doing measurements and then adding up the math and then when your buddy shoots, it's your job to follow the trace and see where it goes. The issue is if your calculation is wrong, it goes high or low. You got to know and you got to have him adjust with his holds.
Speaker 4:And the pressure now is on the spotter, because if the shooter fails because the spotter screwed up, the spotter's not getting fired, the shooter is and you're kicked out of the course. I mean it's crazy. That's different ways of pressure they put on you and then you got to redo it and then your buddy spots for you, you, and hopefully he does a good job and hopefully you didn't fail him. But I learned I learned a lot more um becoming a sniper than I knew growing up. Because I mean, and again, if you hit a milk carton at 300 yards, great, you're going to kill an elk, but I want it tighter than that.
Speaker 6:The whole aim small, miss, small thing, yep, wow you know I was going to say, rob, there's such a fascination, including for me, with military movies, and you've actually been, your team has been the subject of quite a few of them, including Lone Survivor, captain Phillips, zero, dark Thirty, of course, which just from a movie perspective first, and, believe me, we want to dive into some of those operations, but from a movie perspective, which one of those did you think, or have you seen them? Which one did you think was?
Speaker 4:done well.
Speaker 4:I think they were all done well. I think Lone Survivor was excellent because it shows a gunfight and how fast it happens and I've never been shot, but just how how quick and violent and permanent it can be. My only complaint about lone survivor was the mountains in the movie weren't steep enough because they filmed it in new mexico, not in the western himalayas in afghanistan, which is the scariest environment imaginable. Um, that, you know. That great movie, captain Phillips, was awesome. What I loved about that was after the snipers took the shots to rescue him, all they showed was the snipers putting their bipods up and leaving, not saying a word, which is accurate, because that's how cool. I wasn't one of the snipers on that mission, but that was just the way they responded. I remember I talked to actually one of the guys who was in my wedding who was the lead sniper on that. That, just the way they responded. I remember I talked to one actually one of the guys who was in my wedding who was the lead sniper on that that initiated the fire. This is before the bin Laden raid and I talked to him and said you realize that you just performed the most historic mission in SEAL team history and his response to me was cool, can we go home? That's just how awesome he was. And then zero, dark 30 was fantastic.
Speaker 4:Um, because it it sort of showed the woman who. Well, it didn't. Sort of it showed the woman who found him and as far as I know, that was accurate as hell, because that's what she was like. It was a team of women that found bin laden, but there was one in particular. There was a hundred percent sure and nobody really wanted to to bet on her. They would say 80%, maybe 75%. She'd say 100%, we'd finished training for the Bin Laden raid and we would finish 10, 12-hour day. And we're talking around a two-scale model about the perfect plan and we'd get done with that long, long day. And she'd say all right, guys, osama Bin Laden right now is on the third floor of this building. I don't understand why we're not going right now. Sleep well.
Speaker 6:See you tomorrow. So they did a good job with that.
Speaker 4:Oh, she knew. I mean, she convinced us. I was 100% sure he was on the third floor of that building. So great movie. And they did a really good job with the. I could pick apart tactics all day long. They had to Hollywood it up a little bit, but the actors were great, anything. Chris Pratt's and I'm a big fan of and they like. My only issue is they didn't have big enough tattoos. They had little fake tattoos and they were throwing horseshoes and pop collars. We didn't pull that shit either.
Speaker 6:Well, that's amazing. And also, I just tell you, turn me on to your feature pretty prominently in the new netflix saying the american manhunt, uh, osama bin laden, which I thought was actually pretty well done, um, taking us through that whole mission. Which so back me up just a little bit and maybe for our viewers how long before you went that night did you know about mission and when did you know that it was to get bin Laden?
Speaker 4:Well, we knew about three weeks that was bin Laden three weeks before they had when they first told us because we had just finished a rotation in Afghanistan. And what we do after you know, you come back from war, you get some time with your family and then you start training again. So we were off on you. We had after war. We give ourselves good deal trips, like I took my crew to miami for diving and we're doing diving, we're doing tactics for how to hit a mothership in somalia, but then we're on south beach at night, like you know good deal.
Speaker 4:Some guys were rock climbing but it happened to be in las vegas, like they're having a good time, and they recalled, um, some senior guys, like about 28 of us, uh, back from the trips and then up to Virginia Beach and the way it started. This is about three weeks before the mission. They said this is not a drill, this is real, this is not an exercise. We found a thing and this thing is in a house and this house is in a bowl in these mountains and this bowl is in a country and you guys are going to go grab this thing and you, you're going to bring it to us and show us, wow, and we're sitting there and we've been, you know, the most experienced guys at the command, and we're like, okay, cool, I mean, what is the thing? Well, we can't tell you. Okay, well, where's this bull? Which mountains? Can't tell you, okay, which? How are we getting there? Can't tell you, like, how much air support do we have? None, like, well, that's an answer, so that's a positive no air support. Don't know what it is, don't know where we're going, okay.
Speaker 4:And then they slowly let it out. Then they brought us down to a place in North Carolina, the super secret base, and we walked in there and the commanding officer of SEAL Team 6, with the woman that Maya was after, and he said to us the reason you guys are here, this is as close as we've ever been to Osama bin Laden. And that was cool, because I'm with guys that have been to war with a whole bunch. And just look at it, like there was no cheering and high fives, it was just a room full of professionals. And I remember one guy goes cool, are we going right now? Like we don't need to train for this, we're ready? Meaning need to train for this, we're ready. And uh, meaning everything's ready, the, the gears packed, the guns are sighted and we'll go right now, but they wanted us to, uh, not not for us, but we.
Speaker 4:They wanted us to show the powers that be that we were capable, because there was a couple different options and, uh, you know, there was like they had an option of one super secret bomb. They could shoot at the pacer. They called him in the yard. Uh, which is never going to work, because it just doesn't. Explosions never work the way they're supposed to.
Speaker 4:Uh, they said the air force could hit them with jdams, which are joint direct action munitions, 2 000 pound bombs, but they needed like 22 of them, which you're never. You know, you're going to kill a bunch of neighbors. You're never going to know if he was there. They actually said to us a group of shooters um, we could do a multilateral, multilateral mission with the pakistani military, and every dude in the room's like yeah, okay, you tell the pac mail that we're going after bin lad. You will literally never hear from him again. And then they said, oh, there's you guys and, and and that's the one that we thought was good. And um, they didn't want to tell us because what they president obama didn't even know about the helicopters they were going to send us in on. We didn't know about them either until they sent us out to I can't say where, but it was out in Nevada.
Speaker 4:And they showed us the super helicopter, but so we knew the whole way and it was just. I mean, just the difficult part was saying goodbye to the families, because we're going on a mission, but it's a one-way mission. We're not coming back. There's no refueling stations into Abbottabad, pakistan. These pilots have been I mean, we have the four best pilots in the world but they've only been flying these helos for a week and a half and we don't know if they work. We don't know if they defeat radar.
Speaker 4:This is first world defense, a 90-minute flight in. We're going to get shot down. When we get there, there will be a gunfight. If anyone's going to blow himself up, kill himself, his entire family and everyone in the house, it's bin laden. And the one thing people didn't think about is we're going to run out of fuel. Um, we can't refuel. I don't want to kill pakistani police because the, even though their version of west point was a mile away, it's not going to be the west point cadets that show up, it's going to be the local police. I'm in their country. I don't want to kill police who have the night shift. So we're going to have to negotiate or something, or maybe we can fly back out but we run out of fuel. We got to run over the Hindu Kush mountains. We're going to end up living our short lives in a Pakistani prison. It's a one-way mission.
Speaker 4:We were so convinced the guy that led me up the last set we were down to two guys, the last set of stairs and it wasn't wasn't drawn up that way. Just again, god has a plan for you. That was just our plan. Before we left, he said look, don't take this the wrong way. I'm going a hundred percent. I just need to say it out loud.
Speaker 4:If we know we're going to die, why are we going, which is a fair question, and we talked about that every night. We talked about that every night. We're not going for fame. We're probably never going to see the reward money, but we are going for the first Americans to fight al-Qaeda toe-to-toe to the death, and those are the passengers on United 93 on 9-11. We're going for the single mom who dropped her kids off at elementary school on a Tuesday morning and then an hour later she jumped to her death out of a skyscraper. Because that's a better alternative than whatever the hell's going on in windows on the world at 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit. That we'll never know, and you know. This woman looked down and made a choice, maybe grabbed a stranger's hand and her last gesture of human decency was holding her skirt down as she killed herself. She wasn't supposed to do that. They weren't supposed to be in the fight. We're supposed to be in the fight and that's why we're going oh, it's amazing.
Speaker 5:I was thinking about that.
Speaker 6:You know you're talking about. One thing I learned about that mission was that the helicopters, yeah, had never been used, right as far as if, uh, they could go past radar. So you're flying into pakistan and you don't know whether they're going to detect the helicopters or not, right, no, that, no, that's crazy to me.
Speaker 4:Well, I mean, they'd been used against our radar at the super secret training site and they defeated them, which is good. But again, we don't know what they have and we could get shot down. But again, learning stuff in training and all the drills, all the stress is that if you're worried about something that your worry is not going to affect, you're just wasting your energy. You need to take a deep breath and realize your worry is not helping it. So stop worrying. And so what I was doing was counting. I was sitting on a trifold hunting chair next to Cairo, the dog and his handler, cheese, was next to me and I was counting just to keep keep my.
Speaker 4:I learned as a sniper when you're watching something, because being a sniper is boring, uh. And I learned to count just to keep my mind occupied. And, uh, I'm looking around the helicopter seeing the I've been to war with these guys forever and I so I wanted to see what my cool friends were doing to keep their mind off it. And I looked down and one of my dudes actually put his headphones on. He was listening to music, music, and he fell asleep. And I'm looking at my buddy and I remember these thoughts just as vivid as ever. I'm like you're asleep literally on the ride to Osama bin Laden's house, like you have ice in your veins, and I actually understand why women find you attractive, that's just awesome.
Speaker 1:That was going to be one of my questions. I guess you answered it.
Speaker 5:I was like that was going to be one of my questions. I guess you answered it. One of my questions was what, and if you were listening to anything on the helicopter ride over. I mean just for a pregame.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I honestly was listening to. There's a song called Red Nation by the Game and Lil Wayne and he talks about blood on the floor, throwing blood in the blood in the air, blood on the ground. I killed satan and we were red squadron. It's red nation. It's time to kill satan and it's a badass song. And I listened to that and on the way out, um cheese, the guy that was, uh, handling the dog cairo he had handled, he listened, he had a playlist and he handled other dogs and one of his dogs was killed, um, on a mission, and he said he couldn't listen to this song ever again because it was playing when the dog died, when he was right now, but on this one he listened to it and it was a great day to be alive by travis tritt and I told, I told travis that too and just said thanks for being a part of american history, brother, that's awesome that is
Speaker 7:awesome yeah so that's crazy. So you're heading over there. You're at middle of the night, right in when you, when you headed for the mission, you said how long was it? 90 minutes flight. Is that what you?
Speaker 4:said, yeah, 90 minute flight in, and then we wanted to be on the ground for um 32 minutes and we ended up being there for 47 minutes just because, uh, we started finding so much stuff there that we couldn't leave. And then we you know, it's like we got to go plus, we had to blow up a helicopter that crashed, landed in the front yard and we had to call in another helicopter well, that's I was gonna ask.
Speaker 6:So there's two helicopters going in Right and one of them crashes right as it's about to land, and I mean so yeah, obviously you got to be prepared for anything. You guys train for crazy scenarios. Was there a scenario that you trained for, if that situation?
Speaker 4:happened. That was actually funny because we, when we were, when I said we would would, we would train all day on a site that looked like his house, and then we got done, we would talk. Someone had built a to-scale model of his house. So we talk about it, whatever. And one night the boss very tired, I don't know this guy worked on no sleep, he, we, we came up with the perfect plan, we had the best tactical minds around. And, uh, we had it, we rehearsed it and then one night the boss said what's the worst thing that could happen? And the youngest guy in the room said well, the helicopter could crash in the front yard. We're all like what the fuck man, why would you bring that car on? No, and uh, he's. And he like backpedaled, he's like I don't know. Maybe we should talk about that for 30 seconds. And that's exactly what happened. But we were able to take that um, potentially catastrophic event and turn it into something great Again, because our perfect plan didn't come to fruition.
Speaker 4:It was our preparation to get there, and the way the preparation works is don't talk yourself into an ass whipping, don't overcomplicate everything when I get asked, I mean you keep it simple If you want to be fast? Slow down, man, stop doing so much. When people said, hey, that was a big compound, how did you guys clear it? And I said well, if the guy in front of me went left, I went right and we did that over and over and over. That's it. And I would tell guys in training stop yelling about everything. Look, you don't need to yell fire in the hole because it sounds cool. If you see someone put a bomb on a door, assume it's going to blow up soon. When you turn a corner and point up, I don't want to hear you yell stairwell.
Speaker 4:I'm going to assume it's either a stairwell or you just ran into a 15-foot Al-Qaeda guy and we got a problem either way. So just calm down, take a wrap-off. Slow down, slow is smooth, smooth is fast. That's it. But we did have the plan for everything. But here's a.
Speaker 4:Here's a really cool part about how that administration did not get political with this at all and they get shit. Obviously, obama and hillary clinton were there, but so was secretary gates. He was a republican. Um, here's how it was just the right thing to do, because if, if we screw that up which we almost did, ob Obama's not getting a second term. It's just that simple. He didn't make a political decision. He did what was right.
Speaker 4:The coolest thing about it is I wasn't there for this, but I was told the conversation happened when our plan was presented 23 minutes on the ground and blah, blah, blah, and then we get back to. We might negotiate or we're going to need someone to go to Islamabad and talk to whatever. And I guess Obama heard our plan and he looked at the secretary. It was interesting. He looked at the secretary of the Air Force and said what do you need to rain hell on Pakistan? My guys aren't surrendering to anybody, which I thought was like that is some South Side Chicago politics. So that's what we were able to build it up.
Speaker 4:So we got a guerrilla package. We got two more Chinooks, which are the dual prop helicopters, and they flew in 45 minutes behind us and set up on a mountaintop, so they're above everyone. But in case we need an immediate reaction force, they can come in, which we did. We had a quick reaction force full of Rangers right on the border, two more Chinooks full of Rangers and then another two chinooks at a different forward operating base full of rangers. And my experience in gunfights is, when you get in a fight and you really need help, there is nothing better than getting a shit ton of army rangers because it's about to go down and you are going to win hey, so I gotta ask you this because you've mentioned a couple times about that operation that it was like a one-way mission.
Speaker 6:So you're going through it, you get bin Laden. You now have to well, I guess you're gathering information from the hard drives, computers. You're trying to get all that. You're getting back to the helicopter. At what point do you think we might actually get out of this? And I know the bride you have to go through pakistani airspace 90 minutes to get back, so even that was tenuous.
Speaker 4:at what point are you saying, hey, we might make it back, it's it's one of those things where, uh, now they know we're here, um, we know they have f-16s because we sold them to them, because they're our allies, but they'll shoot us down, um, but worrying about getting shot I mean a jet against the helicopters, not even a fair fight, uh, but worrying about them is not going to stop them. So I'm I'm literally sitting next to, uh, the sniper that rescued richard phillips. That's how small that team is. He's there for this. We got rescued by another group from SEAL Team 6, which no one ever talks about, because another helicopter with SEALs came in.
Speaker 4:The guy next to me was from Manhattan and he asked the question. Every Navy SEAL asked, even the guys in the house when it happened who got him? And I said I did. And he said, on behalf of my family, thank you. And I was like, okay, that's dope, that's deep, I don't need that shit.
Speaker 4:And we're leaving, we have to get out, we have to fly 90 minutes to live. But I don't want to think about that because I don't want to get my hopes up because we could get shot down. So I'm just going to start my watch and I'm going to look at it. I'm just going to watch the and they can hear that we're not in a stealth helicopter anymore. This is a loud flying school bus. And we got to live for 90 minutes. That's all we got. If we can live for 90 minutes across the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan, we get 50 more years. I get to see my daughters again. But we just took off and it's oh shit. It's been 10 minutes, okay, and you can hear it, the pilot's up. It's been 20 minutes, okay. We got to get to 90, 30 minutes. Now it's 40, 50 minutes, got to get to 90, 60, 70 minutes and now you're starting to.
Speaker 4:And then I love sports analogies because I think you're better off in life playing team sports, because you realize your team. If it doesn't matter who gets the glory, the team wins. That's all that matters. So I started thinking. Living in New York, I started thinking about a no-hitter at Yankee Stadium, top of the seventh, where I don't want to say anything, I don't want to jinx it 80. It's been 80 minutes.
Speaker 4:Then I started thinking about the greatest event in the history of, I think, all sports was the 1980 Winter Olympics, when USA Hockey was playing. The greatest hockey team ever assembled the Soviet Union who hadn't lost a game since, like the 50s, and they'd won every gold medal. They're winning games by 10 goals and this team of American college kids has absolutely no business being on the ice. But now they're winning. It's 4-3 in the third, and you can hear the crowd 10, 9. We could still screw this up, but 6, third, and you can hear the crowd 10, nine. We could still screw this up at six, five. And then the pilot came over the radio, as cool as pilots do, and said all right, gentlemen, for the first time in your lives, you're going to be happy to hear this. Welcome to Afghanistan.
Speaker 6:And I and man.
Speaker 7:This is so. This is such an incredible this is such an incredible for us to talk to you. It's so honored and I got to ask you and I know you've talked about it over and over again but can you talk about those moments like leading up, right before you got them, and the moment right after when you realized you got them and how that looked to you?
Speaker 4:Yeah, the woman. See, because the first helicopter crashed in the front yard, we got out outside of the compound, outside the walls. My team was supposed to drop off snipers and go to the roof, but our pilot saw them crash, so we were put out there. We had to figure out a way to get in. So by the time I got in the house, I just had a front row seat to watch my guys work in a house that could blow up at any moment, to watch my guys work in a house that could blow up at any moment. And I remember, look, you know I got to and I tell people this too I've gotten to a room, because I hope you're never in this situation. But if you find yourself in a gunfight in a house, get out of the hallway. That's just good business, trust me on that. So I'm in this room and I'm kind of peeking out watching my guys, and they're not. They could die at any second, but that's not stopping them. They're not freaking out. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. They're doing breaching in order. They're checking the door, kicking the door, mechanical breach, explosive breach, entering, finding people and moving.
Speaker 4:And the woman that found bin Laden said I know you don't want me to tell you what it looks like in the house because I don't know, but I will tell you this. There's going to the second floor. You're going to run into Khalid bin Laden. He's 20 years old. That's his last line of defense. Here's how cool this woman was. She said, and if you can ace him you get a shot at the big guy, which is cool. So we got to that spot and he was there and the stairs went up and kind of came back and he was there and he jumped back behind his banister. And now there's like seven guys in front of me and I'm looking at the point man and I know that he and another grown man are both armed and they want to kill each other. And normally in an urban environment I'm going to grab a few dudes and back them off, because when you're fighting up he could throw stuff down. I don't want them to blow up, but we're all going to die anyway. So I'm like like I'm just gonna watch. I gotta see how this goes down. I wish I had popcorn. This is so badass.
Speaker 4:And instead of pinning the corner, going quick he he was so smart tactically he thought he learned how to say uh, come here, come here in urdu and arabic, because he knew if he was the guy that ran into khalid, he could whisper khalid, come here, khalid, come here in two different languages, that that Khalid spoke and he said that, whispered it and Khalid leaned over the banister and went what, wow, wow. And I was like that's, that was the most sound tactical move I'd ever seen and that was the coolest thing I'd ever seen, until about nine seconds later when I ran into Bin Laden. But we, uh, we got up the um the stairs to the second and that's when everyone kind of separated because there's still unknowns, there's different hallways and rooms and unknown people and you don't want to move before you have it secure, so they're securing this. And then there's one guy now in front of me pointing up and there's a curtain at the top of the last set of stairs and I'm the number two man right behind him and his job is to look up and my job is to not control him but to let him know, just through positive contact, that I'm there and my job is to look for guys. And I want, I want four dudes before we go up there, because ben lon's going to be up there. I'll take two, though. And I got nobody. There's no one there.
Speaker 4:And he just started talking didn't know it was me, knew it was one of his guys and he said, hey, we got to go, we got to go. And he said something like, all right, we're going. And um, I I remember taking my last breath and well, it was actually my last joke. I was ever going to tell because we're going to blow up up there. And, uh, because he, what he said to me in the story that I remember was hey man, we gotta go. And he goes. Hey, man, these bitches is getting truculent. And I remember my last joke because I consider myself a good storyteller. This is my last joke in life. I whispered before I squeezed him on the shoulder. I don't think that word means what you think it means. And then it was like and it wasn't bravery on me, it was like we're going to die now and I'm tired of thinking about blowing up Go.
Speaker 4:And I squeezed him and he went up the stairs and he moved the curtain and he ran into some people he thought were suicide bombers. So he jumped on him. Uh, and what he did, right there was he's absorbing the blast. So the guy behind him can get a shot, and which to me is medal of honor material. And he jumped on him and because he, like I said he went left, I went right and because I went right, because he did that, there's osama bin laden standing there three feet away and he's kind of holding amal, his, his wife, kind of holding her. I could have touched him and it was very fast. He was taller than I thought, taller than me, skinnier, I remember he was really skinny and his beard was gray and I saw his nose. Though that's his nose, that's him, he's a threat, he's not surrendering.
Speaker 4:I had to take him out. So I assumed he had a suicide vest on. And the way you handle it like because I take some shit for shooting him in the face, but because they're like you got to identify I'm like, well, you've obviously never dealt with a suicide bomber. I have, and I've seen him clack off and it's loud, it's scary, it's fast and permanent. So I shot him in the face twice and once more on the floor and then I moved them all out of the way and and then I I like to talk about the humanity of stuff because you know, for the seals going in there. These aren't break glass in case of war guys. These are dudes, cut their own lawn and and live paycheck to paycheck wondering how they can afford the mortgage. And most people in a combat zone are not combatants, they're just there and they're just trying to get on with their lives.
Speaker 4:So as I'm moving a mall, bin lan's dead. I can hear him taking his last breath. I look down. His two-year-old son, hussein, was there and I'm a father and I look down at this kid and my thought was not for my safety, it was this poor kid has nothing to do with this. So I pick him up and move him and I'm going over to take a picture. I got to get a picture of his face and the other SEALs are now coming in the room and one of my guys looks at me and goes, hey, are you good? Because I'm kind of just standing there. And I go yeah, what do we do now? And he laughs and he goes now we find the computers, man, we do this every night, come on hundreds of times. And I said, yeah, you're right, I'm back, holy shit. And he said to me yeah, you just killed Osama. And so we went over, got a picture and then started looking for stuff. We we found about three offices on the second floor.
Speaker 4:We had to put him in a body bag, carry him out and then, looking at the watch, it's like, okay, um, we got to blow up that helicopter. We got to. We didn't have our air force guys with us, our combat controllers, who do all the radio stuff, so we know how to do it, but we're not as sharp as the air force guys. So if someone start calling in that helicopter, someone get outside and put some thermal barric charges on that hell of the other helicopter, we gotta, let's get the fuck out of here, we gotta. And then they get like, round up all the people. And it was standard. You got to tell the uh through, we're lucky. We had a guy that spoke arabic and we're just telling them uh, you know, don't leave the house. Even after we leave, you wait in here till the sun comes up and the pakistanis will come in here. If you come outside, we have planes up top that'll blow you up, which is a lie, but it keeps them safe. Fine, and um, put the body outside.
Speaker 4:The first team grabbed his body, got him on our helicopter that we flew in on.
Speaker 4:They went to a mountaintop to refuel with one of the chinooks and then we called in the other chinook and it came to get us and then, uh, we hopped on and and I just again I got to reiterate the bravery of that's those are more pilots, more air crew and more SEALs. They put their butts on the seats and they could have got shot down and their families would have missed them as much as they miss us. I got in the room with Kilbin London because the guy in front of me but there were so many heroes involved with that the pilots deserve all the credit. The air crew guy that brought us in. His job was to make sure that the thing could fly and the door could open when we landed because he knew how to open the door. Could you imagine if we couldn't figure out how to open the door? Like you got two helicopters full of assholes that can't get out. There's so much heroism involved with this mission and a lot of guys don't get credit for it.
Speaker 7:That's so amazing. And you've been on the other side of that, right In Operation Red wing would, were you, or am I wrong that?
Speaker 4:you were part of the rescue mission. For, yeah, I was, I was, uh, I actually I, uh, I was one of the guys. I saw the, a lot of those guys, right before they died. I was one of the last guys to see some of those guys alive. Uh, they had already inserted the snipers up in the coringal valley, which is basically the most dangerous place in the world, and I was talking to the guys that were going to do the raid. So I, my buddy, dan healy, who died on the plane I went to sniper school with him and he's from new hampshire.
Speaker 4:So we we were on this base in jalalabad in a tent and we were talking about sam adams beer and, uh, I tried we don't be another guy from team six tried to get on the mission and our command in bogram said now there's no one from SEAL Team 6 getting on those helicopters because there's missiles, we know it, and they're going to get shot down if something goes sideways, which I didn't believe. And then we told them to have a good fight. I was living in a safe house in Jalalabad, afghanistan, which is nuts. If you were there today, that's a very dangerous place too, but we had a kick-ass little place with a mini pool and we could watch the shield every day. But then, uh, you know, we were outside, uh, when sun came up and a ranger came out and said hey, your boys just got fucked up and we got to go up there and they're not going to fly us, so go find vehicles or find whatever. And we're going to walk. And so we commandeered vehicles, everything from humvees to high locks and some donkeys, and we tried to find as much box water and shit and drove them till we couldn't drive any further than we walked up, uh, basically to 10 000 feet in 100 degree weather, um, humidity, just miserable. And we were looking for the crash site, looking for marcus latrell, looking for matt axelson, because I we'd known at that point that danny deets and and murphy mike murphy, lieutenant medal of honor recipient were dead. So we went to find axelson and latrell. We were up there for a long time.
Speaker 4:Um, they did fly guys in from my squadron to the crash site. We went back down, did run into some taliban guys and we got to use a10s for the first time on them and I never I did it in training, but not in combat. Uh, an a10 is basically a gun as long as your house. That the air. The army brought to the air force and said make this fly. And they did, and it's. It sounds. It sounds like a dragon. It's the one that shoots like I don't know 4 000 rounds a minute. Uh, and it just it's a, it's an. If you haven't seen an a10 when we're done with this, go online and and a10 videos, you won't believe it. So we uh called some of them and we got.
Speaker 4:We went back down to a safe house in asada bed at Afghanistan and then a guy came up with a note from Marcus with his name and his social security and it was like well, we got to go up there now. And so we turn. We were awake for about three days. Um, it's just a terrible. I mean, this is like going back to the 10th century too. It's it's. It's a different world. These are different people that I don't know how they survive up there.
Speaker 4:But we were up on top of a mountain looking for Marcus and I remember looking at my guys and saying, after being awake for three days and we're popping pills to stay awake and whatnot, I said this is why training is so hard, because if we were going to quit right now. Where are we going to go? There's nowhere to go, we're just here. And I guess, when you look back, that's why the instructors are so hard on you, because maybe one day we'll be up on a on a mountaintop in one of those valleys and I, I can't have you thinking about quitting.
Speaker 4:Even when we, uh, we, we, we found out Marcus was, it was up one more Ridge and then down the Hill. And one of my guys just stopped and said, uh, I don't think I can go any. Just tell marcus's mom that, uh, we were. We were so close to getting them but we couldn't because you got tired and he goes, you're right, you're right. And he stood up and I go do me a favor, tell me that exact speech in three seconds, because I don't think I can go any further. And we just kept going. And then we got we're on our way down and some, some badass rangers flew in and grabbed him. And then it's like, okay, they got him. Like well, shit, now where do we go? We're're just here, son of a bitch. It's not like the movie ends and the credits roll, it's like now you've got to get out, right.
Speaker 1:Well, it's just amazing because you know, just sitting here and listening to you, I'm just thankful for guys like you, as I'm sure everybody is. But most honors fade. You know, like, if it's something in most occupations, things that we do, you know like somebody might come up to us and say say hey, you got any hits out anything on the charts. I said no. I said if you had anything in while, so I'll have that. You know, try that in small town thing. They say well, that's a couple of years ago, right. I said yeah, I mean it's been a minute, but anything like that.
Speaker 3:But you can say hey, I shot mic drop done you know that honor stays forever it's just uh, it's just amazing it.
Speaker 4:It is, I mean, it's an incredible honor. I was honored to be a part of that team and honored to follow the guy in front of me up the stairs and just just to be there and and, uh, I mean just the pilots to get us there unbelievable that, uh, yeah, I mean, I mean I'm, I'm never getting rid of it. I even you know we all get haters online and they're like hey, I'm rob o'Neill, I won't stop talking about Bin Laden. And my response is stop asking.
Speaker 6:I'll never talk about it again, so people ask me.
Speaker 4:It's like you got to imagine being me. Every single dude I meet ever anywhere asks me about Bin Laden. I went to the bank and I went to the post office today and I think I told the bin laden story four different times yeah, wow.
Speaker 7:You know what though it's?
Speaker 4:it's but it's. But it's cool being in new york, because new york is awesome, yeah it'd be fun but for but for us?
Speaker 7:no, but seriously for us and, and you know we've been fortunate enough to know a lot of great seals, just like yourself, like they, they've always come out to a lot of shows. And we go to, uh, virginia beach and we, they always come out. We go to san diego and it's it's our favorite. Like jason redmond's, a good buddy of ours, he's come out and he's awesome he's awesome.
Speaker 4:That dude is incredible.
Speaker 7:He's incredible and his family and it. For us it's the least we can do, you know, but it is. For us it is good to hear about it, even though you know maybe you're it is good to hear about it, even though you know maybe you supposed to talk about it or not supposed to talk about it, whatever. Like it's one of those things in our country and our history that it does mean a lot for us to to kind of hear what it was like you know what I mean Like from you and those guys there.
Speaker 4:No, I appreciate it. I really appreciate that too. Thank you, and I was just making light of it too. I have a tendency to do there. No, I appreciate it. I really appreciate that too. Thank you, and I was just making light of it too. I have a tendency to do that. No, it's I mean again.
Speaker 4:Well, even when I got back from the, I mean my name dropped as soon as it happened. Like you don't keep that a secret. Everyone was talking about it, but I told my kids. So one of my daughters was seven years old. My daughter was seven years old, not allowed to talk about it ever Still doesn't. And we were sitting on. It was seven days or something after the mission. We're sitting on our couch watching TV and obviously they're all talking about Bin Laden, whatever we had on one of the cable news networks and they said, all right, right now we're taking viewer email the coolest story of where you were when you found out Bin Laden was dead and we'll put you on the air. And my daughter goes oh, my God, dad, you got to email him. Just tell him you were in his bedroom. That's amazing. I thought you so funny.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I would use that for the rest of my life to even in comedy things. I'd be laying in bed and to say, well, maybe you want to make some sweet love and goes, no, not, not tonight. And I'm like you do realize I killed many blood. I mean there's so many opportunities for it, you know, and I mean, if you're 90 years old, I'd be using that, just just I'm gonna, I'm gonna have to my wife's kind of over it already yeah that happens with all of our wives yeah yeah um
Speaker 4:man, what's funny too is that. What was funny too is uh, I'll hear someone. Someone will tell me a story about some dude that was lying about being the guy that killed in a bar. I'm like, well, did it work good for him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, uh that, that song, uh, I'm sure you're familiar with it. Uh, daryl worley, have you forgotten, do you? You heard that?
Speaker 1:song I know it's an older song I think I was looking that up today that should be played every, every morning for everyone who wakes up yeah, and it's just great, uh, as a wind varble and daryl worley, right that, wrote that, and uh, and just reading those lyrics and everything, especially for you guys, you know, listen to something like that. Yeah and um, they say don't worry about uh, uh, ben lyden have have you forgotten? And it's just so cool for a songwriter.
Speaker 1:But one of the first things you think is that's the best rhyme I think I've ever. Because I guarantee you, if you plug that into Rhyme Zone, bin Laden doesn't pop up no, it doesn't part of the algorithm, doesn't want to come well.
Speaker 4:I mean even saying that, though, my buddy, dakota Meyer, who's a Marine Medal of Honor recipient. One of the best things I heard him say was I never want another 9-11, but I wish we could have another 9-12. Just because, I mean, there's something a lot more important than arguing about stupid politics the realization that I mean we had members of both sides of the aisle singing God Bless America on the steps of the Capitol on 9-11 or 9-12., and they're certainly not going to do that right now, and that's a shame. Yeah, agreed 100%.
Speaker 6:Hey, before we let you go, we have to ask you this. The NFL season is upon us. First of all, how are your Redsk redskins? I guess commander is going to be, and second of all, are you in the camp of trying to get the redskins name back?
Speaker 4:yes yes, I uh, I actually, I, um, I do not believe in boycotting anything. I I mean, I don't let politics get in the way of my ice cream, but with with the Commanders, it's like losing a family member. There's no love there. I've been a Redskins fan my entire life and they took that away and it's like I want to see them do well, and I'd love to see the Commanders win a Super Bowl. It's not the same feeling as it was when Mark Rippon won it, or with Joe Theismann or Doug Williams or all the great Redskins before. I'd like to see him win, but I like fantasy football now because at least I can cheer for something. I think the only people who have it worse than me is how Cleveland snuck the Guardians overnight.
Speaker 6:Dude Guardians is the worst name that has ever been given to a team.
Speaker 4:Great Indians see that coming man and the Indians man. I mean Charlie Sheen, who played in the best Navy SEAL movie ever, was also the best pitcher for the Indians ever. They took that away from everybody.
Speaker 5:I'll never not call them Redskins Ever.
Speaker 4:I had a solution. All they had to do was put a potato on the helmet. Boom, you're the Redskins again.
Speaker 1:That's pretty good, that just happened.
Speaker 6:That's pretty good. Hey, we got to get you out to a show sometime.
Speaker 4:Come hang out, I'd love to I would love to, and I promise from now on I will be on time for everything.
Speaker 7:We can't thank you enough.
Speaker 5:It was worth the wait bro.
Speaker 7:Thank you so much, Rob. Thank you and happy anniversary today, right.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we've been married eight years now. She's wonderful. She's downstairs waiting on me. I hope that steak and lobster she better be preparing.
Speaker 6:Good luck with that.
Speaker 4:And I also hope you didn't hear me say that.
Speaker 1:Make sure you tell her the story again tonight.
Speaker 4:That'll be real special oh yeah, yeah, oh, there's going to be some Bin Laden lovemaking tonight. It's going to be the. You know I'll come out of the bathroom like straight up Donald Duck, in no pants but just a shirt saying where you been Laden.
Speaker 6:And on that Rob, seriously it's been an honor.
Speaker 3:We appreciate you spending time with us. Man, I don't even know what to say.
Speaker 6:It. I appreciate you spending time with us. Man, I don't even know what to say. It's beyond comprehension what he and those guys do. First of all, I'm like jacked up.
Speaker 1:I am too. That's the most jacked up I've been after any podcast. Like we don't know what to say Is it too late to join at 60?
Speaker 5:It is Maybe so.
Speaker 1:I can't enlist right now.
Speaker 6:You might be able to be an ice agent but it'd take a while you know, just inspiring, it's, it's beyond inspiring and you listen, it's kind of weird. I do want to ask every question because you know, we just have that thirst for that knowledge and then you kind of felt weird. But it's like just hearing him take us through the hallways or walking up and then turning right and then bin laden's three feet from his face. Yeah, I mean that it takes my breath away listening to the whole thing and he's taking a lot of shit for talking about it, hadn't he?
Speaker 5:yeah, I think so and I think, I think that the world needs to know every detail of that stuff. He did it for all of us, they do it for all of us. I love being able to hear every single detail. A hundred percent About what those guys have to go through.
Speaker 6:And Tully alluded to that and saying that to him, and I thought that was great because I agree it's like I know there are sometimes conversations that they're maybe not supposed to have post those operations.
Speaker 7:but I'm with you and especially that one well, yeah this is the mastermind of 9-11, yeah, and what he did to our bin laden did, and I think he's done us all a service. But I personally feel that way, by just letting us into the, what it looked like, how it happened, because, yeah, because it means a lot like to the, to the country and and all of us, I, I, I'm with you. I'm sure that you know, in those circles it's, it's touchy, but I'm, I'm grateful for him to tell a story because it's nice to be able to hear it, and to hear it from him personally is like a really cool.
Speaker 5:You could feel it yeah while I was in the stairwell, you could feel it.
Speaker 7:Yeah right and how grateful he is for the pilots and for his brothers with him and for the Rangers and for everybody that was. You know the other SEAL Team 6-7 getting their back. You know that was. You know the other seal team sticks out getting their back.
Speaker 6:You know, it's, uh, it's, yeah, it was great, that's a great point he was. He was quick to make sure, even when we were praising him, that he was quick to praise everybody else on the mission, down to everybody the guy that opened the door, you know oh, yeah, yeah, because, like I said, any of those guys could have died, their helicopter could have got shut down. They've got families too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I mean everybody. It's just crazy. The excitement that he told the story with it's almost euphoric, and I can imagine too if you were there and you made it back. Part of it is just the excitement that you did that and you made it back to your family.
Speaker 5:As many times as he's told it, yeah, yeah, and it's still the adrenaline is still there, yeah, but I think he knows it means something.
Speaker 7:I think he can tell that, Like, if you know, people want to hear it from him and I think that's a good thing, especially in this scenario. Mm-hmm, you know we should care. You know we should care. Yeah, you know what I mean. That's the problem. Like we should want to know and be have an idea of how it happened and who who killed them. And it's nice to hear it from the guy who did it, you know, and everybody that was there with them, you know it was an honor to have him.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it was a hundred percent.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I had a funny bit I was going to open up with, but it didn't work out.
Speaker 6:What was it? You weren't going to show up at the work on us.
Speaker 1:Well, because he said you know, he was going to do this about 10 days ago and he forgot or, you know, had something. So I was going to open up with something like so you call yourself a Navy SEAL, huh, you know where, you're, on time and every mission is super important and never leave a man behind.
Speaker 1:And you left us behind here for 10 days stuck with unlimited amounts of food and water and still weren't even man enough to come and face us. You're resuming here, but it just didn't feel right for the comedy You'll get a little later.
Speaker 7:You want to open up with that?
Speaker 1:against American Hero.
Speaker 7:Yeah, I know right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just once he came on, it was like, yeah, I'm going to scroll down Note number two.
Speaker 7:We probably felt comfortable service man to service man.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because we are, you know, not quite equals, but it's pretty close. You know, just regular infantry and SEAL Team 6. No, it's not even close.
Speaker 6:You know, speaking of that, though we've talked about this before, but you being in the service yet the on-time thing escapes you.
Speaker 1:Well now, that's a good observation. I'll take that. But I wasn't really late. I hadn't been late yet. I haven't delayed a podcast yet, so that's one thing I haven't done.
Speaker 6:You are right.
Speaker 5:I am late. For the pro-rights you are dangerously close, I know and I'm getting what does dangerously mean in that situation. Are we going to fire K-Lo if he's like a? Minute late. It's like a minute late. It's like we're gonna. We're gonna take a vote if you're in, or out anymore.
Speaker 6:It's like you're right. We should give you credit where credit's due. You have not actually held up the beginning.
Speaker 1:You haven't yet, that's true, not yet out of 70 episodes.
Speaker 5:Wow, we're coming that far, yeah right, this will, yeah, but what our listeners don't know, you're such a people, pleaser I know it really rubs.
Speaker 1:It's a.
Speaker 5:It's a real dilemma, you're very militant about a lot of things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yes, it is a conundrum, it is it is um, but you know, and my mom uh listens to this and she always hates when I say it but I, I was raised late. I mean, we were late everywhere you know, oh really.
Speaker 5:So you're gonna, you're gonna blame you, going to blame your mom. No, I'm not blaming her. That's a new twist.
Speaker 1:She had Mom. I love you. Rob O'Neill's not blaming his mom. Mom, you're the best. I love you very much, but no we were late.
Speaker 6:Part of your family culture is being late.
Speaker 1:And some people like I think when you grew up, you were never late for anything, right, so yeah? And you're always on time, always so, but I don't know if that has anything to do with it or not. But um, that's because I care what people think. I do care, but um I always I always underestimate how long it's going to take me to get somewhere, like and you know, I'm 57. It seems you'd learn it, yeah, but anyway go work on it.
Speaker 5:That's a whole podcast. That's a whole. That's a whole another podcast, that's a whole another podcast.
Speaker 6:It really is, uh. No, we're very, very thankful, uh for rob coming on. That was an honor of honors. Yes, it was absolutely incredible.
Speaker 1:If you guys liked it, make sure you leave some comments, uh, for us, and there better be a lot, because if you're anything like us we were just uh, I don't even know if they had the cameras on us while he was talking, but most of us just like slack job, we're like I'm telling you, we're sitting here and neil and I were talking he's like he, we're watching him, you know, on the monitor, and every now and then I'd remind myself, said, oh, we're doing a podcast. But I was, I was watching a movie, I was, so I watched it.
Speaker 5:I was right there with her. It was was amazing.
Speaker 7:I can't believe we're hearing this story. What they do is so incredible, every aspect of it. The training to that point, getting on the helicopter when you know you probably won't come back, the whole thought process, the taxing thoughts while you're trying to keep like he said it was counting. How do you keep your head together to do your job when you get there? Then one helicopter crashes and you got to change the plan it's a lot like you right before we go on stage.
Speaker 5:You know I'm saying I mean yeah it's just like that it's, or the life-threatening situations that you have like when y'all, when you guys exit the dressing room I mean, what if my amp goes out? What if my ear in ears quit working? And the life-threatening situation of people throwing stuff at you while you're playing. I mean I can relate, I can totally relate.
Speaker 1:When I felt a little bit small and guilty is like when he was talking about you know, they've completed that mission and it's 90 minutes until they get to safe air, right, and it's 20 minutes and then I just got to get to 90 and and so on. I'm sitting there thinking how many times I've complained on a commercial flight, like it's like, oh my god, another hour and a half in the air, I can't take this, but I'm not no wi-fi, but I'm not worried about getting shot at.
Speaker 5:We bitch about a lot of things, so it's just it's just that they're I.
Speaker 1:I'm thankful that there's guys like him, so guys like me can complain about a commercial flight and thankful that the helicopter pilots aren't late like you. Right Like Rob will beep.
Speaker 7:I don't know, I got a late start. Well, we'll be there.
Speaker 6:We'll be in Pakistan in I don't know, 30.
Speaker 5:I don't think I was going to wait for close. Thank goodness you didn't go to flight school. There would have been more accountability.
Speaker 1:I tried to go to flight school. I'm glad you didn't. No, not flight school, jump school, little difference. Thank you for your service regardless. Thank you very much. You still get credit for that. Thank you for your service.
Speaker 7:Absolutely. So that's, why you get that slack with being late.
Speaker 1:I'm working on it.
Speaker 5:No, you're not that's a freaking lie back to Rob we gotta go.
Speaker 6:We do want to thank everybody for listening. We want to thank Patriot Mobile, we want to thank eSpaces, we want to thank Original Glory and seriously leave us some comments, because I think we're going to get some good ones this week. Um also download. Also. Follow us on x. Follow us on where else? Insta tiktok yeah, can you believe we're on tiktok, isn't that? What is tiktok? What is TikTok? Okay, just follow us on. Tiktok For TK. Kayla Crash Curdue, call me whatever you want, this is the Try that in a Small Town podcast.