You made it, bro.
Kyle SteinerYeah.
HostWe've been talking about this for I don't even know how long. It was definitely last year. Uh I think you you've been busy. I've been busy. You travel as much as I do. Um, so I'm glad we finally made this happen, bro. So thanks for uh thanks for travel. I know you got a lot of shit going on. So trying to carve time out, um, which I you know we were talking about last night. I think time is one of our most precious commodities, especially when you start looking at time with your kids and family. And I know you have to, you know, you something else had to give for you to be able to come here. So thanks for being here, dude. My pleasure, brother. Um, everybody out there, man. Welcome to this is gonna be a fire episode. I've been uh we've been working on this for quite a while. Um so without any ado, let's introduce you, Kyle. You get the proper introduction. Kyle Steiner's little daughter stops coloring when he comes through the door. She watches as her dad gives her mom a 15-second hug. Something he forces himself to do because standing still drives him crazy, but he knows his daughter is learning what love looks like. Every interaction matters, every moment teaches, as two sons are watching too, learning what it means to be a man from every decision their father makes. This is who Kyle Steiner is today. A husband, a father of three, a wrestling coach trying to raise sons who'll become better men than him, and a daughter who will never settle less than she deserves. He's building the operator mindset, trying to answer the question that drives him. How do you give someone the values forged in combat without the trauma that came with them? But to understand why that question matters so much, you need to know where it started. March 2008, Afghanistan's Coringall Valley. Kyle was 20 years old when he got there, a specialist with Battle Company, second of the 503rd Infantry Regiment of the 173rd Airborne Brigade Brigade at Outpost Restrepo, one of the most dangerous places on earth. 15 months, over a thousand MREs, triple basic load on every patrol, his squad crosses a bridge at first light, the ambush hits, RPG impacts, automatic weapons fire, a wall explodes next to him, shredding his face with strapnel. Then he looks up at a window across the river, a flash. That's the last thing he sees before everything goes black. His forward observer calls him KIA over the radio, dead. But he's not. He sits up. His squad, men who just watched a bullet catch him in the head, stares at him like they've seen a ghost. Two guys grab him by his armpits. Are you okay? I think so. Then run. 600 meters, full kit, enemy fire still coming to awaiting Humvee. His squad leader, Josh McDonough, my ranger, the coolest guy Kyle had ever met, touches his shoulder and says, Welcome to the first day of the rest of your life. Here's what most people don't know. Kyle Steiner wasn't a green beret yet. He'd already failed special forces selection once. He was just an immature 18 X-ray who wasn't ready. Then came Restrepo, Operation Rock Avalanche, where he stood close to Salvatore Junta when Junta earned the Medal of Honor, filling sandbags until his hands bled, learning what it meant to be part of something bigger. When he returned from that deployment, he met Julia in Florence, Italy. She looked at him and said, You need to try Special Forces again. This time he crushed it. Fifteers with seventh Special Forces Group followed. Combat diver, military free fall jump master, presidential protection details, the work nobody sees. Today, Chief Warrant Officer 2, Kyle Steiner's weak, weeks and months away from retirement, 20 years in uniform. When you ask him what matters most, he doesn't talk about the headshot or the deployments. He talks about his son's learning to persevere through failure, his daughter watching how he treats her mother, the fathers who come up to him and say, My son needs to hear this. Because Kyle realized something surviving isn't the same as having purpose. Being a warrior doesn't make you a good man. Being a good man, a present father, a devoted husband, someone who leads by example, that's the harder fight. That's the legacy that actually matters. He tells dads, if you wouldn't be proud of your son becoming exactly the man you see in the mirror, you're doing something wrong. This is his story from Korngal to fatherhood, from special forces to the wrestling mat, from survival to legacy. This is the Vanguard Wall. Please welcome today Kyle Steiner. It's kind of crazy to probably hear all that in one place.
Kyle SteinerIt is, man. That's uh you got me thinking about my daughter and stuff. That's crazy it's crazy. It's it's an honor. I'm I'm I'm humbled to be here. But man.
HostYou've got a heck of a story, man. I mean, we were talking uh last night. I know we're gonna dive into all the things. I mean, for those of you younger folks that that that don't know, uh Kyle was featured in two documentaries, one called Um The Corn Gaul, and the other one was called Restrepo. Um it was about you know this valley that we're gonna talk about later on the podcast in Afghanistan. At the time, it was the most dangerous place in the country. Uh Kyle was there for what, all over a year. I know on the podcast we've had a lot of special operations guys come on, um, but I was really interested in telling the story uh because I've had guys hit me up like, hey man, what about those of us that were there for a year? You know, we weren't special forces, and that's what was cool about the story. You later became that later, but we're gonna talk about you know what it was like when you, you know, are pretty much newer to the army. Uh, you know, we're gonna talk about successes and failures, but you know, the back half of the podcast, we're gonna really talk about what's important to you and really it's important to me as well, you know, being a father, being a husband. I know you've been through a lot with, you know, your kids, you being gone, and then and also your wife. And I know that's we talked, I think, more about that at dinner than we did all the cool guy stuff. So um, can you kind of take us, you know, a little bit uh to the beginning, you know, uh where you grew up, what your family situation was like, that kind of stuff.
Kyle SteinerYeah, so I claim Wisconsin as a grow-up point, but in reality, I was a military brat. My dad was in the army for most of my childhood. So I lived at Fort Lewis in Tacoma. That's where I went to kindergarten. I lived at Fort Bragg uh when we were down there. I went to uh elementary school on Honeycut um by the Fort Bragg Federal Credit Union. And, you know, we lived on on-post housing, so I would walk to school every day and walk home. So we moved around. He got out when I was uh, I don't know, nine or ten, I guess. And we stayed in North Carolina for a little while, then relocated back to Wisconsin. Um, he became a union electrician. We were relocated back to Wisconsin, where I'm from, you know, moved to a small town there, and uh, and that's how it came up. But, you know, I got my love for the military. My my father took me into a I think it was a CQ or a staff duty office when I was probably five or six, and he was talking to some guys, and you know, five or six year olds not paying attention. And I I walk across over to a uh a rack of pamphlets, like recruiting pamphlets, and there was there was three on there that I remember, and I still have them to this day. There were real heavy-duty pamphlets that you could they they clipped into each other, so you could unclip them and they rolled out to like nine panels, and there was an airborne one, it showed like mass tack jumps and all this stuff. There was a ranger one, and there was dudes like with their faces painted on a zodiac paddling, and there was an uh an SF one, and it was some random dude in a green ray peeling a snake, and I was like, that's it. I'm doing that. Like one day I will do that. And I had I had I still have those pamphlets, I've saved them my entire life. So early on I knew that's what I wanted to do.
HostWhat'd your dad do in the military?
Kyle SteinerUh he was an artillery uh artillery guy.
HostWhat um what was your relationship with your father like growing up?
Kyle SteinerIt was it was tense, you know. Um now being a father, I completely get it. But you know, when you're young, you're like, oh man, he's so hard on me. You know, him. It was it was tense. He was he was really, I remember making the joke, like my dad didn't like crinkly money, so he would iron his bills, you know, and I was like, that's that's squared away. Like he won, you know, he was very by the book. And you know, he was he was hard on me, he was rough on me, you know. When we moved back to Wisconsin, if I didn't shovel the snow or bringing the salt downstairs for the water softener, I'd get like kicked at three, three in the morning. I'm carrying like this 80-pound bag of salt down the stairs in my in my pajamas. It is what it is. Uh I had a lot of resentment towards him. Now, looking back on it, I can't I can't thank him enough because that those kind of things are what those discomforts, those minor discomforts are what build you. You know what I'm saying? They build you into something better. Everything can't be comfortable. So there was a real switching point in my life where I was like, oh man, he was just trying to just trying to get me to do the right thing when nobody's watching, when you know, not be lazy, not take the easy road. And and I totally get it. And yeah, I hold no ill will towards him.
HostHard times make hard men, man.
Kyle SteinerYeah, yeah. And my mom was complete opposite. My mom was, you know, I love my mother. Uh me and her have a really close special relationship, but she's got this thing where she's okay with mediocrity. Like, if you got a C on a test, she'd be like, Oh, you know, well, you tried hard. And and it went like that my whole life. And I tried started to get a lot of resentment for that way of thinking later on. Cause I'm like, no, it's not okay. It's not okay. I deserve better. I I should give more to things. Um, and that's where I really cultivated this drive in everything I do. Look for the hard road, take, take the, you know, make those decisions at the fork in the road. And uh her acceptance of mediocrity really bothered me, and it still does to this day. You know, uh, you could you could miss a practice, it's all right if you miss one. She would say things like that, and then I finally realized like it's not okay. It's not okay to do that, it's not okay to let yourself off the hook, you know, um, when no one's looking. That's when it matters the most to keep those discipline, that discipline, those standards for yourself in the dark. When nobody's keeping you accountable, you have to keep yourself accountable. So that's where that came from, really.
HostUh any brothers or sisters?
Kyle SteinerYeah, I'm the oldest of five. Oh, wow. Yeah, I'm the oldest of five. I have two brothers and two sisters. It goes me, uh girl, girl, boy, boy. I'm I'm most close with the um the oldest brother. So the the fourth in the packing order, and he's a solid dude.
HostHow uh what's the distance? Like you are you guys all close in age or uh not really.
Kyle SteinerI mean, uh I I think I'm within uh three years of my sister, five years of my other sister, no, seven years of my other sister, ten years of my brother, and I think almost 13 with my my youngest brother. So my youngest brother really we're cultivating a relationship now, but you know, I left for the military when he was six, maybe five or six. He has he has really no memory of me growing up.
HostAnd I'll I'll I would really say that you probably got a different upbringing than him, you know, with your dad still being in the military by the time they were coming around. Your your dad's out doing living a whole different life, I'm sure.
Kyle SteinerYeah, 100%. Because my parents split uh almost in sync with me joining the military after, you know, I don't know, almost 20 years of marriage, I think. And uh so the my siblings got raised by my mother. So they it's a vastly and I'm starting to learn the details of it's a vastly different upbringing than I got.
HostHow did that divorce? I mean, you're you're an adult and you're going off to live your life, but how'd that affect you?
Kyle SteinerUh it bugged me that I didn't check into it sooner. I I was like, man, you know, we've just been living this life where we eat dinner at the table together, and then all this stuff kind of crashes down. Uh the thing is, is I didn't really have time to process it because I was in the military and then going to Italy. So, you know, you're as far removed from your family. That's when cell phones were like brand new, you know. Uh, so you're as far removed from that as possible. So when I got back, the dynamic was different, and I was like, well, okay. And uh I've been gone so long that I didn't really think much of it. I just remember thinking it was strange that I didn't I didn't see the signs of that. I thought everything was good and stuff. And the further on, I didn't really understand or comprehend the second, third order effects that my siblings would go through in that situation, you know. Had I, I probably would have been a lot more attentive to them throughout that process. And I wasn't, you know, I pretty much cut contact with everybody. I was really big in in escaping the small town vibe.
HostDid you did you feel any dysfunction in your house growing up?
Kyle SteinerNot really. I mean, the normal, the normal arguments that marital couples and families have, but I didn't think it was that bad. My dad was particularly rough on me, and I could tell, you know, like any dad, uh he was frustrated, you know, with different things that I was doing and and how I was being raised, and I knew he wanted me just to become the best man I could, you know. I feel like every father, you know, he's the he's the only guy that's rooting for you in every situation, hands down, you know. He wants you to be better than him, most of it. Yeah. So they're they're rooting for you to succeed and to be the next leader in your lineage. And uh, I feel like he wanted that for me, so he really, really hammered it on ham hammered it home. And with my my brothers, I just don't think he could have done that in the split as effectively as he did with me, especially in the military, you know. When we lived at Fort Bragg, I was six, seven years old. He talks about this a lot. I would watch the the different platoons or whatever do PT in the morning before school, and I would like sit outside on the curb and watch them, you know, doing the obstacle course or running. And he said he tells this hilarious story of me watching them and then mimicking them. I picked up like a little tiny log and I was like lifting this log up and doing like presses with it. And he's like, You're out in the front while they were doing something, and you were just doing log presses to mimic them. And I was like, Cool.
HostYeah, yeah. That that actually makes a lot of sense. It's cool. Like you, you kind of, you know, you grow up in that environment and you become a product of your environment. That's why I always get frustrated when I see overweight kids because it's not their fault. Like, you know, you see a fat kid, that's a that's the parents' fault. The kids don't buy the food, the kids don't get the decision, they don't drive, and um, it's we are a product of our environment, good, bad, or indifferent.
Kyle SteinerUm, yeah, you you don't realize how impressionable they are. Everything you do, and we think our words, you know, the do as I say, not as I do world. We we think our words matter. Our words don't matter. Our kids can't hear anything we're saying, but they see everything. That's a great point, man. They log everything, you know.
HostWhat were you like as a kid?
Kyle SteinerQuiet, loud, athletic, loud, ad type of dude, uh, like we talked about last night. Like I was super, you know, I was like one of the first uh dudes on Ritalin. Um, and then uh didn't didn't like it, turned me into like a slug. Um, I ended up kind of underhandedly not taking it. And uh, but yeah, I was I was a class clown, which I get on my son about being because I know that that that leads that gives the wrong impressions, you know. You don't want people to never take you seriously. Boy who cried wolf kind of situation. And uh that bit me that bit me in the butt more than once going through life. Like I wasn't taken seriously, like ah, he's just joking, and he's a you know, and and I didn't like that. So I was a pretty loud and outgoing dude uh until I got into high school, and then I really retracted into society when I found wrestling and uh and really started getting after it.
HostTalk to me about wrestling and and kind of what that meant to you growing up. I know it's it's huge in your kids' life, and I think you told me yesterday, your kid, like he won a national title, I believe, right?
Kyle SteinerYeah, yeah, you won the USA folkstyle nationals um didn't didn't give up a point. It's huge in my life. People don't understand this. And and like we were talking about mentors outside of a family members and your father. Um, I had a coach uh when I was in high school, um, same name, no relation, Troy Steiner, and uh he was a national champion at Iowa, and uh I used to work out with him a lot, and he used to, you know, be like, well, if it hurts, you know, keep going. He drove me a lot, and wrestling was a big part of my life because I had I always wanted to be a sports star, you know. So one summer I I I practiced on this basketball hoop. I wanted to be Larry Bird so bad. And uh I go out for the basketball team and I fail. I get cut. And I was like, all right, well, you know, and I tried out for soccer and I get cut. And I was like, dang, I suck. I suck at everything. Uh, you know, just not an athletic dude, really. And then I don't know, some some guy was like, you should try wrestling, and I did, and I I was really, really good. I ended up winning the state title in North Carolina um my first year. And I was like, wow, I'm I'm pretty good at this. And all it takes is really hard work and and and aggression and dedication. And I was like, all right, this is something that I'm gonna get out of it, what I put into it, you know? And it's it's for kids, I feel like for kids now it's the purest form of accountability. You only get what you earn. You know what I'm saying? Everything. You you you're only because everything is everything's a level playing field. Your 40 time doesn't matter, you know, none of that matters. Your your raw talent is really hampered in this, we're all even. Let's see who's worked the most. You know, we've both drilled the same amount, we've both done the same amount of live matches, but let's see who really wants it, who put in the time, who did the push-ups in the morning, you know, before school. And uh, that's why I love I love my kids to do it. It really built me and going through the military, everything I've done, I always thought, like, you know, I've done harder things, like I've pushed myself harder just to be a good wrestler. Like, this isn't that bad, you know.
HostSo do you do you think wrestling, you know, as an ADD kid, uh, because look, man, I'll be perfect. My personal opinion, not backed by any medical experiences, that, you know, I think that ADD crap is stuff that we've made up because we make boys sit still in a classroom for eight hours a day, which they were never designed to do to begin with. So, do you think that that like um you know, that outlet of having wrestle, strong physical activity? I mean, you know, the discipline, do you think that helped you with all that stuff?
Kyle SteinerYeah, and you're and I agree with you. I think all these ADHD stuff, I really do think we've cultivated this into something that's way bigger than it is. Oh, yeah, man. 100%. The the idea of sitting in a classroom and not letting boys go out and explore and just burn off that energy. You know, boys have naturally a ton of energy, you know, with with the new property that we just bought with all that land, I see it. They're out there all day just running all over the place. And they're still coming in and talking about I want to do more of this and more of that. But absolutely, and and that's what it really focused and harnessed everything I could do into one thing, one simple goal. Like it took my entire world and shrunk it to a microscope, you know, and I was like, okay, this is it, and I'm gonna be amazing at this.
HostWhat was your first experience with physical confrontation or fighting, or or maybe not even that, maybe like your first wrestling match, like if you can remember that far back, or maybe just the feeling of what it was like to have that, you know, physical exertion against another human being because that would become pivotal later on in your life.
Kyle SteinerYeah, yeah. I mean, you know, when you first do a wrestling match and it's you against him as hard as you can, you're given everything you got. Um, parts of you are sore and are hurting, and you're like engaging muscles you never knew you had, but that win feeling like wrestling is a it's a it's a it's a terrible sport, like it sucks. You pretty much it's torture, but that win feeling is amazing. I remember winning and being like, okay, this is this is all the gratification I need. I don't need celebrations, I don't need anything. But the hand being raised, knowing that you completed this task over another human being, is out of this world. It's not like any other sport. Um, just and then once you go to bigger arenas, you know, you got people just cheering for you, they're all watching you. You know, in in the north, in the Midwest, where it's really big, they'll have one big light just over the mat and shut the rest of the lights in the arena off. So it's just one light over you, like a like a like a boxing ring, kind of back in the day, and it's amazing. And so having that feeling of physical exertion and being done and just being exhausted is awesome. Now, I also fought a lot in my early days. That kind of tapered out when I got really into wrestling because people just kind of knew that I was gonna kind of take you to the ground. But uh, I fought a lot, and you know it's ridiculous because I think about some of my early fights, and it was the the Don Fry just like holding each other by the shirt, just the old headlock, dude, or just hitting each other over and over again until one starts bleeding more than the other.
HostWhat uh what do you think it was? I mean, why do you think we're getting into fights? Was it a frustration thing? Did you not have an outlet or uh Yeah, I think so.
Kyle SteinerI and I was I was kind of a confrontational dude. I I I started being a comedian at other people's expenses. I wouldn't say I was a bully, but I'd be like, oh, you know, this and that. I also make fun of myself a lot, which I still do, because I think I've turned that Edward, and I think that's the best form of comedy, because if you can laugh at yourself, then don't take life too seriously, you know.
HostDo you uh do you pay attention to those signs and stuff in your own kids? No in your background?
Kyle Steiner100% because my wife has no uh really no script for how this is gonna go. You know, she grew up without a father, without brothers. It was just her, her older sister's, you know, significantly older than 20, 20 years, I think, uh, older than her. So she has no real idea of what to expect. And I'll see them do stuff, and I'm like, I did that. I did that, you know, different ticks, different, like we were talking about if they're if they're getting they've been in the house too long because you know it's bad weather or whatever. I'm like, oh man, they're getting ants.
HostIt's funny how we can see ourselves and our kids. They're like our little minis, man.
Kyle SteinerYeah, straight up minimis.
HostGood and bad.
Kyle SteinerYeah, and I'll be like, all right, this is the way you fix that. And my wife will be like, well, you know, I've I've researched this article and this article. I'm like, trust me, trust me. Like, this is I know what's I know what's happening here. Yeah, yeah.
HostThat's uh it's great. And it's and it's good, you know, the wife and the the husband and the wife sometimes can balance that out, and you know, it's why you know kids really were designed to have both parents in the house. Doesn't always work, uh but but when when it does, it's it's a it's a great balance. And you know, you've talked a lot about your wife, she's obviously a very pivotal person in your life, so it's it's cool that you guys are finding that balance um and still working through that. And I think that's super important. What uh what was high school like for you? Did you get in trouble a lot? Uh obviously you played sports and wrestled.
Kyle SteinerYeah, no, I didn't get in in trouble a whole lot. Your your normal stuff, uh uh fight fights here and there, but not too much. Um, it was funny because I was in such a such a small town that everybody everybody knew everybody and the cops knew everybody, and we were trying to get into a sporting event, and they they had closed the gate already. So me and some buddies drove over, drove over a lawn to get, and then uh there was a cop just sitting there and he arrested us, and I had wrestled earlier that night. So, hey, we got it. Sorry, you're driving on private property, we gotta book you and take you in. And as I was in, he was like, you know, empty your pockets, and I had a medal from whatever I had wrestled in and like a couple of pins. I give you a pin when you get a pin. He was like, Oh yeah, he's like, You won tonight, right? I was like, Yeah. He was like, Yeah, I came in for a minute and watched. So the dude that arrested me had just watched me wrestle, and it was just a funny thing, that's kind of how it went down. But um, you know, a couple I had a couple like petty thefts when I was really young, like a fishing lure from a from a bait shop and stuff, which is funny because later on I couldn't get arms room access because of that. You know, have a TS and they're like, No, you know, and I was like, all right, that's that's ironic.
HostDid you come? I mean, your dad was obviously a military veteran. Is that the was uh is was being a veteran was you have grandparents? Or any other family members that had served.
Kyle SteinerYeah, yeah. His dad was in the air corps in the Korean War. And then uh my mom's father was in the Marines early on, Vietnam. And uh and then he was in the army. He got out of the marines early on, and but then joined the National Guard or the Reserves and did like 30 years just always doing stuff. So it's it's got a good lineage in my in my in my family. I'm the only one to go. I don't know what the stigma has gotten around it, but I was the only one to go. But I knew right off the rip, it's probably because I was exposed to it at the bases and whatnot that I was like, this is for me, totally.
HostDid uh did your dad talk a lot about or or your family members talk about what it was like to be in the military, or was it like a quiet thing? Or was I mean obviously you're exposed to it because you're living on a military base, you're probably around military kids when you're younger. Um, but what were the conversations about the military like at home, if if you remember any of them?
Kyle SteinerUh yeah, my dad glorified it a lot. You know, he'd be like, oh, like this is this is that thing, or this is this, these are this is scuba, or this is dive. We talked about it a lot, you know, these are what the Rangers did. He talked about lineage and history a lot, and he really he enjoyed his time in the military, and I could see his passion for it. Um, I'll always, you know, I'm I'm I secretly know that he did not want to get out. Uh, but you know, he had a handful of kids and things like that in the economy, and it was the pre-war era, so I guess funding wasn't all that.
HostBack then, man, the army didn't pay you super well enough to take care of five kids.
Kyle SteinerNo, man. So I I understand it, but I know it it was something he was passionate about. Um, my my his dad died before I could really talk a whole lot about it. He died when I was like five or six, but my mom's father was very vocal about it, and it's funny because he didn't, you know, his memory was going, so he'd like tell stories, but they didn't line up and like I was here on this boat, but then we went over here, and I, you know, I was in the Philippines. I was like, what? When? Why? You know, he's like, or was I not? So I always thought it was really funny. He wanted me to be a Marine so bad. I was like, no, you know, I want something a little more specified, a little more.
HostUm, you're a little bit younger than me. Where uh where were you at when 9-11 happened and what's your memories of that event?
Kyle SteinerI was in architectural drafting class my sophomore year. It was that morning class, and I was sitting in it, probably trying to make like a cone or something on like a computer program, uh, or cylinder or something. And uh, you know, they came in and they're like, hey, stop what you're doing, and they put the TV on, you know. Actually, back then it was on like a cart. Yeah, yeah, roll it in on the cart. Yeah, like strapped to the cart. Yeah. Uh and uh and they moved in there, they turned on the news and we're like, is this really happening? And you know, the the normal thing is like, is this an accident? Oh man, that pilot sucks. And as it went on and went on, you were like, oh no. And I remember deep down being like, okay, like it's solidified now. Like this is what I have to do. I have to do this, you know. And I grew up, mind you, I grew up in a really, they say really small town, but Wisconsin is a strange place because everybody knows everybody and everybody is related, and everybody for the most part, I've never been to, don't get me wrong, I love my Wisconsin folk, but I've never been to a more disconnected place when they understand about the military and stuff. They're very um internal with what they know, what they understand, and their understanding of the outside world. I I bet you if you looked, Wisconsin has probably one of the lowest passport or other country travel rates of any state because it's just all inside. And a dude that is a popular kid in high school, it's because his family owns whatever big restaurant or whatever big shop or whatever big business in town, and they've owned it for the last hundred years, and you know that he's gonna graduate, he's the star on the football team, and he's gonna take that over. It's just that that cycle. And I wanted to get out, and I was like, this is my opportunity to leave, you know, to leave this all behind.
HostWhen uh when did you first seriously start considering joining the military?
Kyle SteinerIt had to been that week. That I was like, okay, it's done. Like I didn't, I didn't find myself, you know, I had dabbled in the in the college a little bit, and I was like, all right, um no, I'm gonna, I know exactly what I'm gonna do. You know, whether I do college first or after and college first did not work out, and then I was like, all right, we're gonna we're gonna do this full bore. So I had a job at a car wash and I started reading every book I could get my hands on from the library on special forces because that was the only frame of reference I had was like a Green Beret. And I had this like ranking system that was like, okay, I can do this and I can do this. And uh, you know, you were really filled with all those news stories of like the big soldiers in the truck by the IDs and remember, and you see the truckload of soldiers gets blown up, you're like, oh man, I'd like to be like away from that where I'm just another name in a truck. I'd rather be you know a little bit more precise with my actions and my intentions. So I was like, I have to do this. Plus, you know, it's the test, it's the test of manhood. Like, can I do this? Yeah, I can do this.
HostUm, what was the conversation like with your dad when you told him you were joining?
Kyle SteinerHe knew he he was pretty much like, yeah, I figured. He was just waiting for it, waiting for it to happen. And uh he was working in Las Vegas at the time. Um, and I I left my my mom's house. Uh he had he was traveling, travel working, and I went to stay with him in Vegas. Ended up going to a gym, being like, I'm gonna train for the military. Linking up with this like retired SEAL who was like a trainer there, and he had had he had had a brain injury from something with diving. So he his like it was a straight movie moment, his memory would like reset every now and again. He would just forget what he was saying and forget that he told me something. But he got me in really good shape, and I used to hang out with him a lot and we talk about special operations, and he thought it was super cool, and he would introduce me to other like old special ops vets in Vegas, and and um I lived in the I lived right on Tropicana Avenue by the Orleans casino. Wow, yeah. I watched the Fear Factor episode where they had to slide down the Lux store and grab the flags. I watched that live.
HostThat's wild. Yeah. What um did you graduate and go straight in the military or did you wait a little bit?
Kyle SteinerI waited a little bit. I wanted to train up, I wanted to get ready. I had been in contact with a recruiter for a couple a couple months. I tried some some college, it didn't really didn't pan out at all. And uh, so then I went to Vegas. I was like, oh, I'm gonna train up for like six months and get really good because I knew to get the 18 X-ray program, you had to you had to come you had to come hitting, you had to come clean, you know. So I I went and got my my runtime really good and all my physical.
HostCan you explain your first X-ray or somebody that I tried? Can you explain what the X 18 X-ray program is? Is it still around?
Kyle SteinerYeah, it's still around. If they've they've raised raised and lowered the standards, and then like obviously the uh the quotas, I guess, to get is smaller. From what I understand, the SEALs, I read somewhere that the SEALs, like 80% of their units are are all from the streets, they call it, or SEALs, you know.
HostDo they sign their book deal when they go to the recruiting office?
Kyle SteinerOr uh well, it's it's funny because I I know I know some SEALs, and uh, and you know, people have their opinions. You know, I won't I won't say neither here nor there, but I always made a note of this is that a SEAL that came from the regular Navy is always super proud of it. They're always like, Yeah, but I came from the fleet. And they say that to an army guy, and they're like, Yeah, but he, you know, I'm I came from the fleet.
HostAnd a fleet of aircraft?
Kyle SteinerWell, and that's the thing. You know, the Navy's got like 9,000 jobs. So when they would say that, I'm like, hey man, I don't know what that means. Like, are you in the in the basement pe peeling potatoes like Cuba Good and Jr.? You know, are you behind the big Star Wars gun on the side of a boat? Are you like scraping barnacles? Like, what do you I don't know what that means? Like, I came from the fleet.
HostMy best friend's a CW5 in the Navy. When we first met, he used to, I didn't even understand, like, you know, the their rank, you can't, it's harder for us, you know, because every other service you can tell the stripes, but the rank, man, I I'd get it screwed up all the time. And you know, he was always correcting me.
Kyle SteinerBut the X-ray program is is the from the streets to special forces. And in the early parts of the war, when they restarted it, from what I understand, they had it uh around the latter parts of Vietnam. It it ended, it came back a little bit in the late 80s, it ended, and then when the war hit, it restarted because they're like, man, we need people. But early on, it was like super stringent. You know, you had to have like an associate's degree and this and that, and you had to be like 24 and all this, all this stuff. So early on, those dudes coming in had they were just very patriotic. They had built businesses, they were lawyers, they were doctors, like, no, no, forget that. Like, I'm doing this. Um, and then over the years, they've lowered the standard, raised it up, and they've they've kind of changed things around, but it's still a pretty good program, other than having regular army knowledge of things like learning how to turn on a Humvee or just the weirdest things. Um, they're pretty good.
HostSo, in a perfect world, and you you join the 18 X-ray program, what does that look start to finish?
Kyle SteinerUh, so you you know, you go to basic training AIT airborne school, um, and I did all that. I went to basic training, it was the undergraduate. Um, you know, I loved being a soldier. Uh the four scump line, like I fit in like a round peg. I absolutely loved it. I loved knowing how to march crisp. I loved knowing my general orders. I loved my bed being made like super crisp, and I loved like having my socks rolled into the balls and being, I loved it. It was it was so much fun, you know.
HostYou probably really excelled at war and officer school.
Kyle SteinerWarren officer school was was crazy, man. But but the army, it's and then I went to airborne school and I was like super fired up because you know I'd seen Band of Brothers. I'm like, fuck, I'm gonna be, I'm gonna be that guy that jumps out of the airplane. Like, I'm gonna be in the Band of Brothers.
HostWell, we'll kind of dial in your experience, but like, so you go to uh basic training, AIT, airborne school, and then some guys come pick you up and you go over what's called SOP C1, special operations prep course.
Kyle SteinerMind you, this is outdated information. I'm not sure if it still goes this way. And then you go through it was like a three or four week prep course, and then you go to selection once they deem you ready, and then you go to SOP C2, where they teach you the army stuff that you would have learned just being around a unit for a certain amount of time, and then you start the Q course. And depending if you're an 18 Bravo Sor Weapon Sergeant or if you're an 18 Delta, a medical sergeant, you know, that could take up to three years.
HostSo it could be two to three years.
Kyle SteinerOkay, language school, depending on what you get.
HostCool. Well then we'll dive into what happened to you.
Kyle SteinerYeah.
HostSo uh talking about base training. I mean, we don't have to dive super dip, but uh, I know you were the honor graduate in basic training. Like what made you stand out? I mean, you've kind of talked a little bit about you know, standards and and how you you know try to hold yourself to a higher standard, but what what was you know basic training like in a nutshell for you? And why do you why do you think uh you became an honor graduate? Some I don't know if that's something you were fighting for, it maybe just happened naturally. Like what was it? Was it the competition or yeah?
Kyle SteinerI didn't I wasn't fighting for it until I realized that they that they were thinking about me for it. You know, I I liked knowing the serial number of my weapon, you know, they're always like, What's what's the you know, what's your fifth general order, what's the serial number of this weapon, you know, and I I I knew this stuff and I was like, Oh, I'm pretty good at this. Um, the test really came, so I got there in really good physical shape. Mind you, I had wrestled up until that point um at different levels. So when I got to the chow hall and they were like just piling on like an ice cream scooper of rice and an ice cream scooper of mashed potatoes and two pieces of white bread, I had never eaten like that. I had been very crisp on my diet, so I gained like 20 pounds of basic training because I had never eaten that amount of food. They're just shoveling it in.
HostYeah, because in wrestling, dude, you're always having to make weight, cut weight, do whatever.
Kyle SteinerYeah, I was chicken breast and salad kind of dude. And I was like, holy crap, like you want me to eat all this? Like, I don't know about this. But uh, but it was good, and then they knew I wrestled, so we had the uh like the you have like a basic training fight tournament. They teach you a little bit of commandatives and you have a fight tournament. Well, I won that, and I won that against uh against a really good friend of mine now that I still talk to. Uh and he was a big old dude, huge guy. He had played football in the Australian Football League, and I ended up beating him. Yeah, he was like a fullback or a linebacker, and he was enormous. And I was like, I don't know if I can beat him. I had gone through the little bracket and I and I ended up beating him. And uh they're like, You got you got some fighting experience? I was like, Well, I just wrestled here and there, and they're like, Okay, and then you drill sergeant, one of the drill sergeants was like a big jujitsu MMA guy. So at one time he had called me out to the middle of the the kill zone, I think, the place you couldn't candidates or recruits couldn't go. And uh him and I had a had a rolling fest, and it ended up nobody won, it ended up being like a tie, or they called it like a draw. But from that point on, I was kind of looked at favorably because I was like, Yeah, I'll go out there and roll with you.
HostYou know, I'm like in the hard 95% of basic training students would not do that.
Kyle SteinerYeah, and I'm like, Yeah, sure, I'll go out there. And ended up, it was a tough, he was he was tough. I ended up seeing him a couple times later on through my career and be like, Yeah, what's up, man? But uh yeah, him and I fought to a draw. It was probably like an eight or ten minute go, but uh he was like, Okay, and from then on I knew people kind of knew the only thing that caught me by surprise was the running because I was like, Yeah, I ran myself to I ran and trained to do a two-mile and a certain amount of time and a five mile. But back then, I don't know if it's still the same, but man, we ran all the time and like shin splints. I had never had those. I was like, This hurts! Like, what is this? You know, you running and then they put you into to groups, and if you're in the a group, but you're not that fast, you're like in the back, just praying you can stay with them.
HostAs a as a dude who grew up with a dad in the military, that's that's what my experience was too. Like, I was somewhat disappointed when I got to base training because my drill says I was like, Man, you don't yeah, like my dad used to dump water on us when we wake up. He would, we live in a two-story house, like we didn't clear our room, he'd you know throw our stuff out the window.
Kyle SteinerYeah.
HostUm, what was it like? What was your base training experience like having grown up with a dad that was in the military? Was it what you thought it would be? Was it um, I mean Yeah, it was pretty on point.
Kyle SteinerBack then, I guess it was 04-05. Uh, they were, you know, you're holding the duffel bag over your head, they were screaming at you, and I was like, okay, you know, you got the the payphone bank, and they're you know, you're on the phone, they're like screaming at you once you got a phone call, and I remember getting a radio, but it was it was what I thought it was. My dad let me watch Full Metal Jacket early in my life, so it was a little milder than I thought. I was like, oh, I was expecting to like choke, be choking myself and get slapped around, and I was like, ah, this isn't too bad. I just gotta run faster, you know. So, but other than that, it was exactly what I thought. It was it was a little milder, like the you know, in infantry, you have this like ruck up victory hill to get your blue cord, and I remember being like, this isn't that bad, this isn't that hard. Now I did realize I had weak ankles, I was constantly outward rolling my ankles. I was like, this sucks.
HostSo does everybody that joined the 18 X-ray program go through like the 11 Bravo pipeline?
Kyle SteinerOkay, yeah, because if you fail it, you know, the needs of the army, if you fail it, the needs of the army is pretty much infantry, you know, you're not gonna get another job. So and the 82nd is right down the road.
HostSo does all your cadre know you're in the 18x ray program?
Kyle SteinerOr they know, they have a file on who it is, and most of the time, a good portion of any one platoon bay, at least at that time, was 18x ray, or what they called 11x. So you had the the victor contract and a chance to try um for ranger regiment for um at uh rip at the time it was rip ranger indoctrination program, and see those dudes you kind of felt bad about it because the SFAS guys went after airborne school, you would show up and they'd be like, All right, what's up, dudes? Like, throw your stuff on this bus and come on over here, going up here. And uh the rip guys they're running too. Yeah, they made them throw their duffel bags on this truck and they're like, follow the truck. These dudes are like running in their boots with their brand new, like shiny wings, like, oh god.
HostUm what was what were you hearing in base training ART? I mean, the 0405 man, I Iraq's on and popping. Ramadi, Fallujah, um, a lot of Marine and Army units are involved. Are you guys? I mean, I'm sure you're not getting daily briefs or anything, but would were you was the drill sergeants mentioning combat and guys going to war? And was it like just very apparent? Yeah, there was a mix.
Kyle SteinerYou always you always respected the drill sergeant with the CIB. Like we had one. Um my bunk mate actually just sent me a picture of me and him from back then, but we had one. So he'd always come in and you you made sure to listen to his advice because you're like, oh, he's seen it. He's been he's been in it, you know.
HostFor the listeners out there that didn't serve a CIB is a combat infantry badge. It's what is only given to infantry folks, and it basically delineates that you've been in combat and engaged with the enemy. Uh, and you get a you wear something on your your uniform, delineate that. So it's a big, I'm sure it's a big deal, especially when you're basic training.
Kyle SteinerYeah, yeah, because he would come out and he'd get, you know, they give anecdotes and and vignettes about combat, and then they would say some things, and then if you got them mad, he they tell you how like this could get people killed, and that it's a real story. You don't know if it's a real story, but you always looked at them a little higher. And then you had a couple that didn't have it, but were trying to get it, and you're like, okay, like what's he doing? Why has he not been there? But they had their stories, but honestly, we didn't really know, you know, nobody at that time, the young guys, especially being 18, 19 years old, you didn't know the difference between Iraq and Afghanistan. You didn't know what was going on. You were like, Okay, they're they're doing some kind of fighting, you know. Yeah, um, you were just waiting to see and you wanted to be a part of it.
HostUm, airborne school, dude, what was that like? What was your first jump like?
Kyle SteinerYou know, my dad told me something uh when I left uh because he knew I had the contract. He was like, if if you or anybody else ever says you're not scared on your first jump, then you're lying. And I remember being in the door and being like, Yeah, he's right, he's totally right. Like, I'm terrified right now, but I'm excited because I knew I was like, all right, I had that image of the second episode of Band of Brothers, like when they like come out. Um, so I was really fired up and I was terrified to hit the ground because I'm like, I don't want to break my legs. And then Fryer drops fryer drop zone in um in Benning is they like they like till it so it's pretty much like landing on marshmallows, it's like the super loose dirt. So you you have to almost force yourself to do the the proper landing. You're just like you know, okay, and like they're watching, you have to do a PLF and uh uh parachute landing fall, and uh but after that I was like, okay, this isn't that bad. You know, I didn't have a hard landing, but I remember thinking, like, I am terrified to do this, and uh, but excited to be a part of the brotherhood. I was fired up, and that was you know Did you get the nerves every time you jumped?
HostBecause you jumped five times, right?
Kyle SteinerYeah, you jumped five times. Um no, the middle ones I didn't. The first one I did, and the last one, I was like, all right, this is it. But I remember thinking right before, right before, you know, the green light, I was like, even if I break my leg, I've done five, so they have to give me my wings. And I had this like image of me like in a cast getting them like we're all good.
HostThat's funny. Did anybody get injured in airborne school while you're there?
Kyle SteinerNo, we had it. We did have a girl that blew, we did the 250-foot towers. She blew into the tower and got like hung up on it. I remember that, and I remember thinking, like, oh, and it's funny because they uh that tower was like 60 years old when I went, and I didn't get to do it because there was a malfunction. So we she was like hanging there, and they're like, they got like a siren, and they're going to get things to get her down, and they're like, all right, 250-foot towers closed down, like malfunction. I'm like, my god.
HostThat's like watching somebody get stuck on a roller coaster.
Kyle SteinerI was like, oh man, yeah, poor girl. She was like five, five feet tall, you know, 100 pounds. So the wind must have just feathered her over to this thing, and she's all hung up like a like a puppet.
HostSo you're on the pipeline, man. You hit basic AIT airborne school. Now you're going to to to Sopsey. Yep. Um, and I think your instructors were the guys from you know the the triple nickel or the whole the horse soldiers from fifth group or that group of guys. Um, and then for those of you guys that don't know, the the the horse soldiers were the guys that initially went into uh to Afghanistan early on when we invaded. They wrote a book. Um I think the movie 12 Strong. Was it those same dudes?
Kyle SteinerYeah, it was a couple of those dudes, the five, the triple nickel, the five nine five, and the five seven four dudes. Uh, we had a like a sprinkling of them, and they were talked about in like hush tones. Like you were like, that's that's that's them, you know. And then a couple of the guys in the barracks would have like whatever, whatever, like he's on that mission, whatever thing. Um, like article, and he's like, That's him. And uh I remember one of them being being a diver, and uh and he was insane in insane shape. And I was like, Okay, he expects a lot of us, he's the only person to ever make us lunge a mile. Oh my god. I know that sounds horrible. Because we talked, we were talking about like what's the worst day, and I was like, Man, he made me lunge a mile one time, and I was like, I my butt and and quads had never hurt so bad in my life. I was like, What is this? But having them do there, you were like, Okay, this is the real deal. You went from basic training, seeing the guy with the CIB and have his stories, but knowing he just had a CIB. And now you have airborne wings, and you don't have a CIB, so you're like, okay, but I have airborne wings, so I'm getting there. And then you see these other guys, and you're like, whoa, and they didn't wear a whole lot of like flair. Um, I remember one of them, a warrant, and he's uh kind of a chubby dude. And uh he would come out, he was an older dude, he would come out of the shack. Mind you, Sopsey back then was in these World War II barracks, these old white Worlds, they still had like a little brick fireplace in them, and they were just ransacked over on um Fort Bragg near Pike Field. They were terrible, they were condemned shortly after. Uh, and they would come out of these old white wooden broke-down buildings, and this guy would come out every morning and look at us in formation and smoke us a little bit, but he was badged out, he looked like he was salty, had like a scar on his face, and you were like, You were just doing flutter kicks being like, I'm so so honored to have this guy yelling at me right now. He's like the coolest guy ever. Um, but Sopsi was was pretty terrible because they want to. How long is that? Sopsy was four or five weeks. It might yeah, between four and six weeks, some somewhere in there.
HostIs it like rip where you're just getting smoked?
Kyle SteinerYes, 100%. You're doing some land nav, you're learning a lot, you're going through ruck packing classes, you're going through all these different things. But I mean, it was non-stop physical uh physical activity. Like you you did, they taught you how to run with a ruck. You know, we come to find out now that's not the best best method uh for your joints and what have you, but it got me in insane shape. And then, of course, they like to smoke you if whatever infraction, but they had these pits in between the barracks that they had sandbagged off. And at first you could see them from the road, and then I guess they got some complaints that they put this fence up with the black plastic lining, and it was this mucky water that they had filled, and it was just soupy and nasty, and people would get in there and get MRSA. And uh the worst day I ever had, we had come back from dinner because we I don't know if we had like a nine o'clock or ten o'clock curfew, and I'd come back from dinner with some guys, and I was still in, I can remember the early 2000s young man dress of the cargo shorts and probably the Abercrombie shirt, and they called everybody out, and I'm in there in my civilians just in with this crap, like going in your mouth and stuff like that.
HostLike swimming in it or just getting smoked in it, just getting smoked in it.
Kyle SteinerOh, it was terrible, it smelled terrible, you know. But you know, ruck parties where you you go down to the water and you just dip your ruck over and over again to make sure it's waterproofed, and then if it wasn't you're running back with like a hundred-pound wet ball on your back, things like that. But I mean, they they really got you in shape. That's the best shape I have ever been in. Because as far as a standard of a metric, right? Your run times, your ruck times, what you can do. I was like, man, I am an animal. And I was.
HostWere they so you're going to SOPSy the special operations preparation course, right? Before you go to the special force assessment and selection. Are they giving you? I don't want to say secrets, but are they giving you kind of any indicators to help you prepare for SFAS, or were they just smoking? Shit out of you.
Kyle SteinerNo, you had, it was a really good course. You had classes. Every day there was a series of classes where it was foot care, land nav, you know, all kinds of different things on how to better prepare yourself, but it was pretty much a smoke fest. But you were getting minimal patrolling classes, um, a lot of a lot of like critical thinking stuff. But I didn't know what to make of it. I remember getting there, and you know, I've mentioned this to some guys that were there with me, and none of them remember it, other than one guy. He's like, I think I remember that, but I don't remember the name of it. But they had a rock right when you come in, and it had this like it was an oblong rock, and it had this ridiculous green face painted out with a tongue. And in order to quit, you had to kiss Mr. Yuck Yuck. It said Mr. Yucky and hold this rock over your head, this like huge rock. I was like, Ugh, I'm never doing that, you know. So I don't know how serious they took it. Obviously, they want good dudes going to the regiment, but uh, but yeah, it was a smoke fest with with some classes sprinkled in. And I've had friends have since then worked there and have told me like it's gotten a lot better as far as preparation and stuff, but yeah, a lot of land nav classes.
HostUm so how confident were you going into your first SFAS?
Kyle SteinerReally confident because I was top five in every physical event. I was just moving weight, I was I was fast, I could ruck like the wind blows. Man, I was moving out, like I was keeping, I was rucking at like a 10-minute mile, like without with ease, you know, not even not even really getting after it. And I was like, all right, I got this, I got this. I was just pretty much trotting with a ruck for extended distances or across country too. It was great. Um, fixed my ankle rolling problem. I ended up just wearing those like wrap-up braces nonstop. But uh, but I was super confident, like super confident, and I was confident throughout selection going through the first two phases. I was really, really confident because the first phase is kind of individual, so it's a lot of unknown distance rucks and runs, and you know, get put put your watch in the it was like a cheese ball bucket, uh, put your watch in the bucket, uh, follow the cones, you know, do your best. And it could be a two-mile run, a ruck, it could be a 10, a 15. You had no idea. A lot of times they'd have you like run a mile, and then you just do like a little loop, come back, put your ruck on, and then that was a longer ruck. You really didn't know what you were doing, so you had to give it your all no matter what. And I I really excelled at that. And then land nav was the next week, and the star course was really easy. I remember I messed up one of the practice lanes, and then never again. I was just point after point after point. And I was one of the first people at the the final rally point at the water point, just like got this.
HostDid you get selected at the end? No, so you made it all the through and didn't get selected? Yeah, what uh what what what happened?
Kyle SteinerSo the third week is team week, right? So team week is where you're put into teams and you're given back then. I've heard they've changed it a couple ways now, but back then they had these role players that would give you scenarios, right? And then accompanying a scenario, a mission scenario would be a physical event. So, you know, X Village needs this vehicle for defense of whatever, and it would be like a three-wheeled uh Humvee or something, you know, or like an old World War II Jeep, and then you have like some poles and some rope, and you had to figure out how to do it and move this thing. Now, mind you, you have rucks, it was it would be sandbags or ammo cans full of sand, and every day uh a leader and an assistant leader was put in, and you would just do event after event after event, you get a little bit of sleep, and you just kept doing this. Somewhere along the line, somebody had told me to keep the mood light during that time. And I was like, okay, cool. So I made it a point. I took, I logged everything out, every advice. Anybody can teach you, everybody can teach you something. Everybody. So I was like, okay, and I took advice to the heart. Granted, you know, some advice is probably better than others, but I remember somebody telling me, one of the cadres, saying, keep the mood light during that time, it's gonna get tense. You're on a team now, be a team player. So I came up with this idea to memorize like a hundred Chuck Norris jokes. Man, and and we were going through like sucky times and people were bitching. These are all like seasoned dudes, man, that have been to combat. A lot of them, the X-ray program was rather new, so there wasn't a whole lot of us. They knew who we were because we were the phys most physically fit dudes there. The regular army dudes didn't have time to train the way we did, so we would just blow past them in the physical events, but they had that look in their eye, like they had seen combat, they know what's up, and I started getting like really mean looks. I'd be like, hey, and I'd tell a joke, and they'd be like, this ain't the time, dude. And I'm like, oh man. Later on in life, and I always wondered that I'm like, I did everything right, like I did everything right. I realized the clown was coming back out of me from my childhood, and I realized that what that guy meant, and this hit me years later, was positivity. Positive, just be positive, like never be a doom and gloom dude on the team because you're just bringing everybody else on. It wasn't about making jokes because that made me sound immature, that made me sound like I wasn't focused, but it was about being a more positive player. You know, you can take looks at NBA teams or NFL teams, the guy being like, hey, we got this. Like, this isn't as bad as we think it is. You know, that's that distance is not as far as it is, you know. This isn't as heavy, guys. We got this, we're stronger, we've done other things. It was a positivity piece of advice, not a hundred Chuck Norris jokes at all. And I I got I got really hammered down because we had a guy that was Ranger tapped, and uh he'd seen some combat. He's been on like a Lurse unit or a scout unit for the 25th ID, and he hated me. And I I to this day don't know his name. I wish I could talk to him because I want to tell him what he did for me. He told me one time, he he hated being around me. He would always just tell me to shut up and go away, you know. Like he would tell me, move out and draw fire. He would say that all the time to me, and I was like, I don't know what that means.
HostThat's an old school saying. I heard that when I I came in at 96. So I might we would hear that all the time.
Kyle SteinerYeah, he'd be like, Shut up, move out and draw fire. And it's funny because uh my buddy who was in basic training with me, and then Sopsey, Matthew Williams, he was a third group dude, won the Medal of Honor. Um, he was like my only he I had a couple friends, but he'd always be like, Don't listen to him, like keep training. He was an X-ray, he'd be like, You you got this, you're doing all right. So I always remember that. I ended up meeting, he was the NCYC of a school way later on down the line when I saw him, but this was before he was awarded the Medal of Honor and whatnot. But uh, but he would always be like, He's all right, you know, you're you're doing fine, just keep doing what you're doing.
HostI was like, can we uh can we get one Chuck Norris joke, dude?
Kyle SteinerUh well I can't, you know, I can't even remember any. I can't even remember any. I'm so it's funny because I have a book. I just uh just unpacked my books and I have an entire book of them. And I was like, uh keep this for posterity, you know.
HostThat's hilarious, bro. You're gonna have to at least text me one Chuck Norris, dude. That's hilarious. We had a guy on the podcast, man, who worked for Chuck Norris and was his bodyguard, so it's just it's funny. Um, when you got non-selected, what did they tell you?
Kyle SteinerThey were really professional about it. I remember thinking, like, oh, um, it was it was heartbreaking because it was a small class of selected people, so and a bigger class you can kind of tell because you're always it's always a low number of selectees. So they'll call out names and be like leave the room or go to a different room, and you can always tell the smaller of the two groups is usually the selected group. You're like, okay. And but this was like a real even split. Like the class was like, all right, and it, you know, it might have been like 40 and 40 or 30 and 30. And I was like, oh man. I remember hearing that piece of intel, I mean, like, okay, but couldn't figure out what group I was in. And uh, yeah, you get called in and they like slide a folder and they're like, Hey, you're a 21-day non-select, um, you know, this, that, and the other. And the dude pretty much said he's like maturity, brother. He was like, You you you need to grow up in the regular army a little bit. And I got filled with a lot of a lot of rage. I was like, you know, I'm not immature. I was immature. That dude was so. 18, 19? Yeah, 19. That dude was so right. I was like, oh man. Later on, I was like, man, it's funny because selection has this thing where they say they keep their files, they've got this big like clamshell dome with just boxes of files. And to this day, I'm like, man, I wonder if I can go and see what they wrote about me during that time. I wish I could see it. You know, if I ever find a contact that it's like, yeah, I've access to that. I'm like, I want to see what they said in 2005 about me. We might have a contact for you. I want to know exactly what that file says about me because it's got to be pitiful.
HostAnd we'll go into your career, but I I'm just curious. I I have I've heard, you know, I have a lot of friends that have served in the in the regiment, and you know, it's always a mixed bag with 18x-rays. They're either, you know, really good or um they kind of lack the experience. And I'm sure you now looking back to your career and how much time you've spent at the regiment, um, it's probably a a mix. You know, I remember, you know, back in in the early 90s, you know, you I think back then, before the war, you you had to be an E5, you'd had to, you know, hit certain wickets, and a lot of it I think had to do with maturity, right? Um, do you think there's something to that? Or what was your experience with 18 x-rays later on in your SF career and your thoughts on it? Not specific people, yeah, um, but just you know, the difference between a guy coming with a little experience and a and a kid coming you know off the street going straight into special forces, because that's to be honest with you, that's a lot for an 18, 19-year-old. I mean, I think joining the military, going to an infantry and going to combat, as we're going to talk about, is a lot. But you know, that special forces and and what they do in that mindset and you know, being alone, away from the flagpole, doing very unique uh missions. I'm just curious as your thoughts. Not good, batter, indifferent, but just your thoughts.
Kyle SteinerYeah, I I've thought a lot about this because a lot of 18 x-rays have come up to me in later, later years, uh, knowing who I am and have you know, have telling me I've I've watched Restrepo and I've seen you and you inspired me to join the army and so on and so forth. Uh, but I've heard this anecdote a lot. They say, you know, I'm so glad I didn't do any time in the regular army. And I'm not offended by it, but I'm a little taken aback because I'm like, man, I had a blast in the regular army. I didn't think I would at the time after fat failing selection. But as far as the maturity goes, right, you get a mixed bag, you do, but and I think you can agree with this, life can mature people at different stages. The chronological chronological age is irrelevant, right? So a 25-year-old trust fund baby that doesn't know how to boil an egg versus the 13-year-old that's living on the streets.
HostYou know what I'm saying? Absolutely. So it's a great point.
Kyle SteinerYeah. So when you get an x-ray that's super mature, typically they've had a kind of a rougher upbringing. He's like, Yeah, dude, I've been fending for myself, you know, this, that, and the other. Um, almost always it's that way. And when you get a guy that doesn't, it's because, like, I hate to be this way, but you came from a stable home, you had both parents, you had a lot of stuff done for you, they bought your first car, things like that. You talk to an x-ray that's a that's hyper successful, and typically they're like, Man, I moved out when I was 12 and I was picking watermelons, and you're like, What? Like, yeah, I was living in a shack by the highway. Like, oh my god.
HostMost of the Rangers and the guys from CAG that have come on the podcast, like to your point, right? They had really rough childhood. So, you know, when they got to the regiment or they had to go to selection, you know, to your point, not all of them, but I would say, you know, 80% of the special operations folks we've had have had some of that in there because again, man, you come in gritty, you know, you you you've like, hey man, this isn't worse. You know, I've had guys come in like, you know, abused, uh, you know, living on the streets, and they're like, you know, they get the basic training, they get three meals, you know, clothes that fit them. So yeah, that's a great perspective. I've just I'm always curious as you know, of of people, um, you know, of people's, you know, different outlooks. Um, and I don't think there's a right answer. I think it just goes to your experience or you know, different experiences. So um, so what happens after you don't get selected?
Kyle SteinerMan, there was a there was like a rebuttal program, but it nobody ever got it. So they were like, yeah, you can apply to just go right back. And I was like trying to do this and trying to do that, and they're like, no, uh, that's not gonna work. And and I I submitted it a bunch of times, and finally I probably got yelled at by some cadre and he was like, stop it, you're going to the needs of the army. And I was like, and I got the backlog for the needs of the army was like three months, and I went into this depressive state, dude.
HostOh, so you got you you had to stay at Bragg and a call?
Kyle SteinerLike four buildings down from the guys that had just made it, so you'd see him passing by. They'd have hold like two formations, then the awaiting to go somewhere. Here, these guys were waiting to go wherever, and these guys are waiting to go to the to Sopsy 2, and you were like, Oh man, you know, and uh what was your initial enlistment for? How many years? Five. Okay, because I was sure I was gonna make it, and I was like, I'm doing this. It was five, and I think back then you had to do a five-year X-ray contract. I think you had to, because the pipeline might have been three years. So I think you had to do five. So I was like, Well, there's no getting out of this. Um, and so I started looking for second secondary and tertiary options to not make myself elite, but figure out where to go from here. And uh, but but let me backtrack. So I was in I was in these barracks for like three months, and I was just like watching movies and like laying in my bed and sleeping and not doing anything. I started eating real terrible because the the the the switch chalha was like open for us, so you'd go there and I just eat like the fast food line. And I remember getting like fatter and energy drinks were just coming out, so full throttle was the hotness. Oh, yeah. And I discovered that. Um, I discovered alcohol, even though I wasn't 21. Me and the me and the homie started doing that, got in a little trouble. I ended up buying some stolen property from a dude, I don't remember what unit he was in, but he he ended up, he was selling some stuff, and then um I got a call from the MP station when I was in line to see the Pirates of the Caribbean, the first movie, and he's like, Hey, we need to talk to you. I was like, All right, and it's funny because I to this for years I was like, I didn't even do anything. And my wife, who's now a lawyer, was like, possession is nine tenths. I'm like, damn man, you're right. So me and a couple other guys got balled up, nothing ended up ever coming of it. Um, what was it, like a PlayStation or something? It was it was an iPod, it was a Gen 1 iPod. And I was like, dude, I got an iPod. And the funny thing was it had no music on it, I didn't know how to use it, so they were like, Yeah, this is stolen. I was like, Oh man, and I gave the the MPs the dude who did it and everything, and I was like, hey, it was this guy. Like, I don't know his name, he's outside of those barracks over there. And from what I gathered, but it was funny, I had to spend three days, it was over like a three-day weekend at the MP station. It was I I it was the first and only time I've ever watched all three of uh The Lord of the Rings. That's all I did. I was like, I sat in the like little cage room watching Lord of the Rings.
HostOh, you were like in the holding cell for a whole weekend?
Kyle SteinerDude, that sucks. And uh, and it was funny because they were talking. I got a really bad, bad rep for a couple months there because a lot of people didn't hear the full story. They're like, these guys had these these dudes these four guys had like stolen these guys' stuff, and we're like, no, no, no, no, we didn't. Like, I didn't steal anything from anybody. Like, I bought a bunch of stuff, and now I'm upset that I'm out like $400 from the first iPod. They took it, and they took they took a laptop of mine. It was like the very first one I bought, it thinking it was part of it. I had bought it, and I was like, dang. But uh, so I got a bad rep that ended up following me a little bit here and there until I until I cleared my name a little bit. Nothing ever came of it. I was supposed to get a summarized article 15. Um, and then the day before I departed uh for Italy, uh, the NCOIC must have had a hard night of drinking. He's like, I can't find it. You you don't let this happen again. I was like, okay. Yeah. So I I left. No, but but I started researching units I could go to, and I found the uh 525 Lerse unit, long-range surveillance unit at Bragg. So I went down to the Lurse unit, knocked on the door, and I was like, hey, this is my situation. I want to try out, I want you to get in there. Like, okay, cool. Um, be here at this time, you know, do your PT test. I did that. They're like, all right, come over here for you know different evaluations, different games, games. And I I was set to show up a week or two later. Um, like, yeah, we'll get you over here, we'll get you a a fair a fair shake. And I was like, sick. And I went over there, and the dude at the front was like, you know, on his computer, and he was like, hey man, I'm sorry, but but you're on orders already. So in that time frame, I had come on down on orders. I was like, damn. I had come down on orders for Fort Hood, first calf. And I didn't know anything about them. All I know that I I was perturbed that their patch was so big. I was like, that thing is huge. And uh I wasn't into it. I was like, man, this sucks. Like, I don't know anything about Fort Hood, I don't want to go to Texas. I had made friends with a guy that had also failed selection for one reason or another. I don't remember his name. But he said that he was married, or he'd just gotten married, and they were expecting a baby to a woman in in the military, and she was stationed at Fort Hood, and he had just gotten orders to Italy. So he comes up to me, he's like, Do you want to go to Italy? I'm a single dude. I'm like, Yeah, yeah, I want to go to Italy. So we went in, and to this day, I I don't know why he did it, but the commander, they were like, hey, we'd like to do a 4187 switch of duty assignment, and he was like, Yeah, okay. And just did it. So in in the blink of an eye, I had lost Lurse, gone to Fort Hood, now I'm going to Italy, to Cenza Italy. And I was like, okay. And uh, and yeah, that's how it ended up. I went into that guy's office, he couldn't find my summary article 15, and he was like, Leave. And my flight left like four hours later. I was like, okay. It's awesome, dude.
HostYeah. So what was it like, man? You're a 19-year-old kid. Um, are you still kind of licking your wounds from not getting selected, or are you kind of moving forward mentally, or what's that like?
Kyle SteinerChip on my shoulder, man. And you know, I have to say, I was pretty sheltered. Wisconsin is a sheltering place. Like I was sheltered. Dudes were doing partying stuff, and they were inviting me out to parties. And I had I had been to high school parties, but I wasn't like a big party goer. In fact, it's one of the places I learned that I I think I could do SF was I had been at probably four or five parties in my high school career, and they had all gotten busted up by the cops. And I was a magnificent Ian-e'er. Like I would be just hiking through woods and like in the snow. I was like, I got this.
HostHop the fence, man. I still like to jump fences.
Kyle SteinerYeah. I was never rolled up at a party, and there was there were some bad parties I was at, and I'd just be like Ian E'ing through the woods, like trying to figure out my way back. And I was like, sick, dude, I can do it.
HostE and E, for those of you guys don't know, is escape and evasion. It's something that's big in the special operations community if we get compromised on a mission. There's like always this E and E plan. Sometimes it's part of the briefing. And so, you know, that's when you gotta like boogie out out of a you know, bad the bad lands and not get caught. So you were doing that long before you even knew what it was.
Kyle SteinerYeah, and I remember thinking one time I I came home with like, you know, up to up to shin length and like muck and mud and being like, and and hearing a bunch of kids got rolled up for underage drinking and stuff. I was like, all right, I got I got what it takes, you know. Dumb thought at the time. Um, but but yeah, as far as being in Italy, I was licking my wounds, man. I was really angry to be there, I was upset, but I'm a real like, all right, let's look to the next thing. Like it's in the past, let me see what I can keep doing. So I went there with the mindset of like, okay, I'm going to find out what the best unit is here. And are you an E2, E3? I'm an E3. I went in the Army as an E3 because I scored high enough on the PT test and so on. So we did did a bunch of classes in a little bit of college and had that. And I was like, okay. Uh and I get to Italy, and the funny, the funny story is I land in Italy and I'm in the Venice airport, like holding my bag, and I came in at a really odd hour, so like the lights were down, you know, like it was probably a really late flight, and I'm standing there, and it was like uh for 173rd or whatever, you know, report it and call this number, there was like a sign, and uh I didn't have a phone, you know, because you're in Italy, and I was like, well, all right. So I remember being real proud of this. I was like, well, I gotta figure out how to get to this place. So I like fumbled my way through talking to a taxi driver, a bus driver, and a train guy to give me a ticket to get me to the thing. And I like roll up to Caserma Ederly and like knock on the gate, and like some Italian guy like opens it up. I'm like, I have an ID card, I don't know what to do. Like, what? Like, I really don't, it's like raining on me. Like, I really I'm holding like a green duffel bag in a backpack. I'm like, I really don't know what I'm supposed to be doing here. There's nobody, the phone number, there's nobody there.
HostLike, I come in and try to call the phone number at the airport and you couldn't get a hold of me.
Kyle SteinerNobody answered it. I was like, sick. So, like, yeah, for for the better part of let's say probably four hours, I'm just like wandering around Italy on orders, but I can't figure out my way to the base. So I'm like getting on buses, looking at like the bus routes, being like, it's gotta be over here sometimes.
HostBecause everything's in Italian.
Kyle SteinerYeah, I had no idea what was going on. And I was once I got there, I was like, Hell yeah, I did that all by myself. Like, not speaking your language now.
HostRunning singleton ops long before it was cool, man.
Kyle SteinerYeah, but but it was good times. And I got there, and yeah, I was I had a chip on my shoulder.
HostBut luckily, what happens when you get there? Do you go into like a replacement battalion or like an in-processing battalion? You go straight to your unit. Did you have orders to a specific company or just the 173rd?
Kyle SteinerUh just the 173rd. No, well, second of the 503rd. Second battalion, 503rd Infantry, Parish Infantry Regiment. And uh, yeah, they put me in like this this uh in-processing unit, and I spent like two or three weeks, and somewhere along the lines in there, I was staying in like an HHC, like a headquarters, headquarters company, like barracks, and uh, and somewhere along the lines, I a guy from Scouts, second, second battalion scouts, came over and was like, Hey, we're looking for two. And there might there might have been like nine of us new privates, we're looking for two. So they gave us a PT test, and me and a buddy of mine ended up getting the highest, so we got sent to scouts, and I was like, Cool. And I went into scouts with the wrong answer. But the even my NCOs to this day from Scouts will tell you, you know, I keep in contact with some like, you were just immature, man. And I had a chip on my shoulder, I was like, Well, I just came from SFAS and I made it all the way through, and blah, blah, blah. And these are seasoned combat dudes. Yeah, bro, but you didn't get selected. I know, and I'm like, Yeah, but you're a failure. No, I'm not, you know. Uh, and those dudes were everything to me because a lot of them had the mustard stain from the jump, the 03 jump, and uh and Iraq? Yeah, the 03 jump in Iraq, which, you know, I just had this conversation the other night with a with a 10th group buddy of mine. You know, they like to clown on the 173rd for their jump, being like, we were already there and we had secured the airfield. But none of those dudes knew that. Them, them, the one say the young guys that made that jump, they're still they're still my heroes to this day. Especially there's a plaque in the brigade headquarters that has all the guys that were on that jump, and it was their sixth jump right out of school. One of them is my best friend, one of one of my best friends, and he'll tell you, he's like, We had no idea what we were getting into. Like, you had an 80-pound ruck, your weapon, all this ammo, your night vision. You were like, and he's like, really, we're sitting on the airfield for hours, and then they start playing hell's bells while you're waddling to the plane.
HostAnd those young kids, too, bro, like you know, there wasn't tons of war movies out, so yeah, you know, you're jumping out of a plane in the middle of a war, dude. In your mind, it's D-Day, bro.
Kyle SteinerYeah, they had no idea. You know, and some of the soft dudes later on, like, well, we had that cleared. They didn't know. Now you're talking to a 19-year-old that hits the ground, gets his weapon ready, gets his monocle night vision on, and he's like looking around. And the story that I've heard from my friend, he's like, and he like looked up, and there was a 10th group dude with like a bottle of coke. He's like, What's up, bro? He's like looking at him, he's like, What are you doing here? And he's like, Ah, it's all clear, man. You're good. And I'm like, What? They had no idea, you know. So um, and then the story is about obviously the first like 20 on each chalk was nixed for like some kind of high officer. So, like a lot of people are real butthurt about that. But they had headlights. We had one guy that had or they had much. And we had one guy that had two stars. He did the uh the Panama or the Grenada jump, whichever one, but he had two. They called him headlights. Yeah, first Sergeant Beson. And I remember being like that, he had like a super flat top, you know, like the major bad flat top. And I was like, He's like the coolest guy ever.
HostYou know, so you uh you get into scouts, uh, what do they got you guys doing? Or do you know you're getting deployed, or what what do you guys find out?
Kyle SteinerThere was an inkling because you everybody knew that you were doing, especially being the forward-deployed UConn unit in Italy, you were doing year on, year off. So you you got the Vacin's, what, 05? 06. Early, early 06. Okay. Um, and you knew that it was like on off, on, off, year on, year off. So you knew it was coming. And we assumed at that time, and even they were briefed, that the next one would be Iraq because their OEF six OIF OEF six was Afghanistan. So it went, it went the uh the 2003 jump in Iraq, Afghanistan. So we figured Iraq, and we were being told Iraq. Um, so we we knew it was coming. You were just like I like I said uh to Danny a while back, you know, you would you'd be in the training circles and the smoking and joking circles, and the dudes that had the CIB, the combat infantry match, they they kept it themselves. And then the guys that didn't kept over the side straight out of Band of Brothers, like a movie, and you were like, Man, I want to know what they're laughing about in that circle.
HostLike they were they were heroes, they were so there was kind of like this separation between guys that had been to combat and guys who didn't, yeah, within the infantry.
Kyle SteinerYeah, and you wanted to know what the funny thing was in their circle, and and were they kicking down any kind of knowledge, dude, or any kind of lessons learned or yeah, they were good. My scalp platoon was amazing. I you know, everything that happened to me is on me, um, and I take full responsibility. You know, I just uh I was immature. I have a couple photos, we did a couple training rotations, and then uh, you know, they I I knew they could tell something was off of me, and I knew right from the get-go that I first impressions or lasting impressions, and I knew I'd made the wrong one right off the rip. And I I had an inkling that my my time there was limited because my friend who you know didn't really have a whole lot of history, and he he uh he was much more well-liked and he was well received, and then and I was like the guy, like, man, this guy thinks he's better, or did you know he deserves more? And I was like, that's really not the case, guys. You know, I I I just kind of wanna, but deep down it was, and I know I was immature. And and my buddy uh Matthews, you know, he he still to this day is like you need he'll like say it in an apologizing way, like you needed time on the line, and I'm like, I did. I'm not blaming you. So you bounce from scouts to where so I bounced from scouts after a live fire. We had a live fire, you know, in the inventory, you do like a million dry fires, a million blank fires, and then a live fire. And uh I had been put on, I want to say it was sniper team four. I was the newest guy, and I had done a couple training rotations with him, didn't really know what was going on. They had thrown me a box of like jute and uh and uh like sandbag uh burlap and to make a ghillie suit. It was terrible. Like nobody gave me a class. They're like, oh god, I was like hot gluing stuff together. It looked like it's terrible. And uh, I'm in this like wood line with with some guys, and they got the rifle. And I remember I was like the the scope guy, I had like the spotting scope and all the different radio things, and I had like just a rucksack of of stuff, and uh you know, back then the thing that scouts to do was to make you tie everything down, so like the lens cap is tied down to the spotting scope, which is tied down to the tripod, which is tied down to your belt loop, and like everything is tied down to everything else, and like I mean, I'm talking about like minute stuff is just tied down, and you know, I get whispered to in the in the scout position, you know, you know, take this out, take this out. And I got so wrapped up in this thing, I was like hanging by trees in like a marionette, and I'm getting yelled at, and I'm like, oh my god, like I just want to do good, I'm so sorry. And a first sergeant, you know, comes up to me at the HAC company and just rips into me talking about how I'm gonna get people killed and how you know all this stuff about me. And I was like, I'm really, really not trying to mess this up. Like, I want to do good. And it's funny because you know, years later a CSM from the infantry told me, he's like, you know, Kyle, privates typically don't wake up and say, I want to be ate up today, like I want to be a turd today. They typically mess up because they don't know, or they because they were told incorrectly. It's not very often that you're like, I can't wait to mess up, you know? And I was like, man, such a good piece of advice. Cause you're right, like I wanted to do good, and I was like, what am I doing wrong? I can't do anything. I have everything tied down to everything. Belt loop, belts are tied down to everything.
HostDo you think because you didn't make a great impression that they set you up for failure?
Kyle SteinerA little bit. Yeah, I was like, they knew that that I was, I think it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. I I figured they were like, yeah, this is probably not gonna work out. And they probably put me in a little bit different positions, you know. Um, I ran to a helicopter one time with my chin strap unbuckled and just got lit up for it. Uh, we were doing EIB and I uh it was on my birthday, it was on my 20th birthday, I think. We were doing EIB and I uh didn't wash the camo from my face completely. It was like in my ear hole, you know, and I went to get an ice cream cone for my birthday, and somebody saw me and just lit me up and they had me, they like made me throw my ice cream cone away and they made me like eat my eat an MRE on the ground. I had to like put my hands behind my back and eat it with my face. And I remember being like, I joined the army, I did this to myself. This is terrible. All really good lessons now. I'm like, I get it, I get it. Uh I hold no ill will towards any of this, but yeah, I think it was a self-fulfilling prophecy.
HostAnd I it's funny how those lessons shape. I remember the first time I got to my unit out of, you know, you you get out of AIT, you go to reception, you get assigned to your unit, and I remember we had PT the next morning. I actually slept in my PTs with my shoes uh just so I could get up and get ready, and my alarm clock for some reason didn't go off. And I woke up to the first starting pounding on my door. And I got paraded in front of the entire company, got made fun of, and I had to wear a wall clock around my neck, like flavor a flavor for two weeks. And I have never been late to another thing in my entire life, dude. So it's funny how those moments early on in your career really shape, you know, one, you as a later, but two, you as a person later on.
Kyle SteinerYeah, and you know, we talked, you talked about it earlier, like inducing that discipline and that mindset without inducing the trauma. You have no trauma from wearing a clock. In fact, it's hilarious now. I think that's funny. And look what it's done for you. You've never been late again. So great lesson, great way to do it. That's hilarious. Flavor flavor.
HostYeah, yeah, yeah. Something that's still still sick. I've never I've never been late to anything.
Kyle SteinerYeah.
HostUm, so when you did they tell you, hey man, you got to get out of here, you're going to a different company. What was it like when you transition from, you know, HSC being in scouts to a regular line company?
Kyle SteinerWell, it wasn't a line company. They they were like, hey, you're going to uh you're getting transferred over to the command team's personal security attachment, which is hilarious because it took me years to realize it was kind of a punishment. I was like, oh man, I must have done good. I was I was too proud. They want me to they want me to protect the command team of the battalion? I was like, hell yeah, I'm awesome. Then I got there and like, you know that meme with like the old sergeant, the old school sergeant old school, he's like smoking a cigarette by a radio. There was a dude that was just like that, and he's like, Welcome to hell. And I was like, oh my God, what happened? And uh it turns out it had dudes that had alcohol-related incidents or fights. It was all these dudes that had gotten in trouble. I was like, oh no.
HostWhich is funny that that's who they want to protect the command.
Kyle SteinerYeah, they were like, that's what they did. They drove, so I spent the next like four months, four or five months driving around the command sergeant major who ended up giving me that piece of advice. Um, I don't think he realized it. I haven't spoken to him in years, but he was a huge influential piece in my upbringing, too, because he would just, you know, I drove him around in his Humvee at different training events, and then I would get out with him while he did key leader engagements and stuff, and I was always next to him listening to him and like in the and the colonel talk. And uh some of the things he said to me, you know, in the privacy of a vehicle or whatever was really instrumental in the way I shaped my time in the army and my interactions with other soldiers. I was like, oh yeah. Like I was saying, like, you know, you don't dudes don't wake up wanting to be fucked up, they they they want to do the right thing.
HostAny other like small tidbits that you can remember? I know it's probably a hundred years ago.
Kyle SteinerUh yeah, it was a long time ago. Uh or just maybe that overall impact.
HostLike, yeah, was it being around, I mean, because you know, the Command Sergeant Major is sitting in nothing but leadership meetings, so you're really sitting in some of these meetings. Were you just catching some of that vibe?
Kyle SteinerOr yeah, well, the thing is, is that it's funny because he I learned the delineation of bluffing, right? So, like I knew what he knew and what he didn't know, and then what he let others know that he knew or didn't know, you know. So, like uh there was a time he's like, Hey, we need to go out and see this team doing this thing, and and they were having having some problems, and you know, they looked up at him, they're like, I think the timeline was messed up, like, hey, Sergeant Major, don't you know like this is going on? He had no idea. He had he thought something completely different was going on, and he was like, Hell yeah, I do. I'm here to see what's going on with you guys. What's up with the with the boys, you know? And I saw these things, I'm like, all right. So his your ability to save face for other people, and it goes back to team weak and selection, like the ability to stay positive no matter what, to put a positive spot on it. He really taught me about AARing, about after action reviewing things, because he'd be like, Hey, you can always sustain some good things and make some things better about keeping your strengths strong and your weaknesses stronger. He he taught me how to like frame these problems. He'd be like, Yeah, they did this, but they didn't think about this, not a big deal, you know. So I got to see the command when they see it, you know, because we have this stigma of the commander being like, Well, you didn't do this right and you didn't do that right. But they want to give you a little meat on the bone to go off of every time. And it was it was awesome. I I really had a good time. I know it was like a punishment, but I really had a good time learning from them.
HostI really did it help you like mature and grow up a little bit, like as a young soldier.
Kyle SteinerYeah, it it taught me about the army. So, and those NCOs, you know, um Steve Grafton and Dave Barbarette, uh, and then later on who would become my best friend, you know, Chris Hoyt, they were all in there for whatever reason. Um, and uh they were disgruntled trying to get back to line. They'd all been combat vets. I was I was one of the only non-combat vets there, and there was just some we were general misfits, you know, the land of misfit toys, and uh, and they were always helping me out. They were giving me like regular basic soldiering classes, like a lot, you know. I remember starting the Humvee, you know, it's got the button, but you didn't learn that in basic, you didn't learn at Airmo school, and you didn't learn at Sop C. So I'm just staring at this Humvee like Yeah, because there's no key. Yeah, you have no idea what you're doing. Things like that. I always take that as an example. Things, these little tiny tasks that you don't know about, you know. Um so they really brought me up and and and got me mature. I mean, and we did a lot of immature stuff, they grew me up by way of the things I missed out on as a young man, also. So uh, but I I I got some really good friends there, you know, and uh and they got me prepared for the war. But the the first thing I was doing with the sermon major with the command team was being like, hey, when can I go to a line company? Because I knew I had trickled down to this point, like there ain't no going back to scouts, there's nothing better. I need a line company, and you know, I was begging for battle company, second or five or third, and they all knew that. I why that company? Because I was able to accompany the command team on the deployment brief. And I don't know. So you guys knew you guys knew a deployment was coming, and yeah, we we had known first it was Iraq, we had trained for Iraq, we had gone to Graf or Hohenfels, Germany. Uh, one of the bases, we had done one of those like huge wartime scenarios where the role players look like Iraqis, the village look like Iraqis, you wear the beeping miles gear, you know, the laser guns, and uh we had prep for Iraq, and then I don't know how long the the higher powers can that be could tell you, but how long after we got back, they switched it to Afghanistan. And it was a brief, and I remember it was in the theater of Italy, and uh they had platoons there, maybe it was just squalors, I don't remember, it was all lined up, and I stood in the back with the command team. I mean the command team was probably up front. I was in the back.
HostThe battalion command team?
Kyle SteinerYeah, so we we had to go there with them, and uh, I'm in the back, and he's giving briefs on everywhere at the locations and the kind of the loose mission sets that everybody would have, right? And it was like you know, you chosen company, you're gonna be here. Uh able company, you're gonna be doing this, you're gonna be on this highway, you're gonna do this. And it got into battle company, and they were doing they were doing a bi platoon. And I I don't know what it was, but the guy said, uh, talking platoon battle company, you guys are pretty much gonna go and and be bait in in the in the Corn Gold Valley. And he I remember the word bait, and I was like, bait. Oh man, like that's that's intense, dude. And uh didn't know what it meant until you got there, and you're like, oh, I see what he meant. Okay. Oh bait. Oh, yeah, bait, like like fishing bait. And uh so that that that like solidified it. Like I chosen had a good location too, as we know, you know. I mean, they Battle of Wanot, Battle of Ranch House, Battle of Bella, like they had some serious stuff, it's just not highly publicized. Um, they got in a lot of stuff, a lot of a lot of really really good men lost in that in that company too, and a lot of you know, good, courageous stories came out of that that company. But I had set I had set myself on battle company because I think my my best friend in the PSD, the colonel's driver, uh Chris Hoyt, he had already been told he was going to battle, and I I kind of wanted to like follow him. So I had made that that choice to like actively politic for battle company, most notably second platoon.
HostDid you know you were gonna get to be able to come out of your role in PSD to go to a line company? Was the sergeant major telling you that?
Kyle SteinerYeah, he was like, Yeah, just give it some time. We'll get you there, we'll get you there. And I was like, okay. And it was funny because I deployed with the PSD, and it, you know, it wasn't for very long until I got into battle company because I was like, man, nothing's happening. And um, I actually, my first two firefights uh ever, you know, I got to order my CIB uh with the battalion command team PSD. I got to order my CIB with them. Um, and the very first firefight I ever was in was on the the command team's Fob camp blessing.
HostHold that thought. Well uh so um before we dive into your deployment, let's do it. So you guys you you find out that you're you're going, so you deploy with the command team. Did you do the PDSS? Did you guys do that? Did the command team?
Kyle SteinerNo, I didn't. No.
HostSo um, so you guys, when did you guys deploy roundabout?
Kyle SteinerApril, May-ish of 07, I think. April, May, yeah, April.
HostWere you guys getting any indicator that you know the zones where you guys are going to be ploying in country were extremely hot? What was what were those previous briefs like, or if you remember, like just or or just the roundabout feeling of of going to Afghanistan, especially since you guys are kind of mentally focused. Hey, we're going to Iraq, and as you know, Iraq and Afghanistan's like, you know, just like here in the US, like the difference between the Arizona Desert and the Colorado Mountains, man.
Kyle SteinerYeah, vastly different. Um we had been getting told different things, and I had been hearing snippets and anecdotes of the command team being like, oof, you know, this platoon's gonna have it rough, or this company's gonna be, you know, in some shit here and they're they're gonna be having some trouble. And um, you didn't really pay attention to it because you couldn't make heads or tails of anybody's war story if you hadn't been there, right? You couldn't tell if they were elaborating or exaggerating or or downplaying. You were like, Oh, is it that bad? It can't be that bad. You know, everything we young guys had to go off of was documentaries and stuff hadn't come out yet. Uh none of them. So we had a great point. You had movies, you didn't really have a frame of reference. So you're like, oh, was it that bad? And they they're oh yeah.
HostYeah, because even 12 strong and all that stuff came out way later.
Kyle SteinerWay later. You had no idea what to expect, no matter how much description was, you couldn't tell. Like, are we going into you know K Song? Are we going into you know the Ardennes Forest? Like, I don't I don't understand. I don't understand what it looks like. You had a few news clippings, and mostly it was of IEDs, you know, terrible things like that. So you really didn't understand, yeah.
HostAnd I think like 05, 6, 7, man, I mean, that's still Iraq focused. You got Fallujah, Ramadi. I don't remember Afghanistan being super on the radar.
Kyle SteinerNo, and nobody wanted to go to Afghanistan because Iraq was the huge focus, WMDs, all this stuff, and you felt like you were taking a back seat in the war. You're like, oh man, we're going to the forgotten part, like nothing's gonna happen. But uh, you know, the guys that have been to the OEF six were like, no, no, no, no, there's there's things happening, it's just not publicized. Okay, I'm I'm hoping for something good. So they gave us a little bit of some tidbits. You know, I wrote, I wrote letters to my family, and I wrote letters to to, you know, I wrote my death letters and kept them on me and stuff like that, and this is what we're gonna do. But we were all really excited, man. We were young, we wanted to prove our metal, you know, our grit, and uh we were fired up to do it, man.
HostSo so you guys deploy, where did you go initially with the command team? Where was the command uh headquartered on Camp Blessing?
Kyle SteinerYeah, Camp Blessing, which is hilarious because they had a at the end, the very end of Camp Bussing, these big, huge like iron rod garage doors, and SF was in there, and it was a seventh group team, and it's a seventh group team that I now know most of them. But I remember seeing them in the chow hall there with like pistols in their belt loops, and I was like, oh my god, those are the coolest guys ever, you know?
HostWhere where was Bussing at?
Kyle SteinerUm Nangahar. Okay, yeah, and uh or Nangalam. Nangar, Nangalam. It's no yeah, over over in the east, but uh it was it was close to Jalalabad. That was like our our brigade hub, I think. And uh yeah, I stayed in these like concrete huts that they had just built. Um they had a chow hall, but it was it was on a reverse cycle, so you mostly ate MREs, and uh you went out, you got to go out a lot, you know. Um for my first few weeks, I was doing the command team was going out to check out positions, they were doing their advons slash PDSS, so you got to go and see every company. So I was going and seeing a lot of friends.
HostYou guys flying or driving?
Kyle SteinerDriving everywhere, and uh because it was all flat, other than the Corongall Valley, they would not go and see Battle Company. I never got to see Battle Company until no, you know what? I take that back. We went once to the cop to the lower part of it, but nothing high up had been built yet, so they were all staying in that lower part. But um, whether it was Hanukkah Miracle, which used to be close to Fob, Michigan, I believe, and it was on one of the highways, we would just drive around and see different people, different, you know, companies and platoons and what they were doing. And I was so jealous. I was like, man, I can't wait to get in a fight. Like, this is killing me. Um, but it was really fun because I was I was a part of a c a good good number of firefights with the command team, a good number like some IEDs, um, not one that ever hit me, but like in front of us and stuff, and you see the Afghans hit them all the time, and that was yeah, that was kind of sucky. But you know, my first firefight was with them, and and I think that my two best firefight stories ever are my first two because uh the first one I'm on Camp Blessing and we're getting mortared and shot at, and I run into this building to get my my battle gear on, my kit, and my helmet, and they shoot the generator so the lights go out, and I smoke my eye on a shelf and knock myself out cold. The whole fight happened, and I woke up with like a crusty, bloody eye and I cut, and I was like, I have a picture of it, and I was like, what happened? I missed the whole thing. That was your that was the first time you was the first time I ever had a bullet shot at me, and I completely knocked myself out cold for the entire thing. We were like, Where are you? So awesome. I was like, Oh, you're shooting this guy was running across the bottom, and I'm like, my eyes like glued shut with blood. I've got this big old cut. I'm like, I don't know what did you get shot at? Uh yeah, what happened? Uh I knocked myself. And it became a joke, it became a joke because they were like, Well, no CIV for this one for you. You didn't turn the fire on the enemy. I'm like, this is terrible. And then when I finally did get my CIV, it was hilarious. Sun was going down.
HostIs this your first actual engagement?
Kyle SteinerYeah, my first actual engagement. Sun was going down, and uh and we were with the command team, and we had had the XO at the time, who, you know, that that time was a major um and major Himes, I think. And his night vision, the sun's going down, and he had his night vision in an assault pack in the trunk. You know how the trunk, the turtleback Humvees had that trunk, and he was like, Hey, you know, Kyle, can you get the command team and Major Himes' nods out of the trunk? And I was like, sure, you know, I'm gonna do it. So I get out. There's nothing going on. So I like the guys are holding security on the turrets, and I like go around the back of the vehicle and I pop the trunk. And when I do, they light up and it starts hitting like behind me. And I'm head in the trunk, ass sticking out, like digging through these, these, uh, these like assault packs for night vision. I'm like, oh god. And I remember like hearing it and hearing it hit like the side of the vehicle and hitting the ground behind me, and I went to pull knobs and they're all tied down, like pulling bags, and I was like, God, so I'm like unclipping it, and I remember running by the command team and just like tossing them to them and like getting down in a position.
HostWhere were you guys at when this happened?
Kyle SteinerWe were going to see, I want to say it was Chosen Company near Ranch House or Bello. We were, I think that's where we were. We were somewhere doing some kind of engagement, and we were on our way back, and they were calling because something had happened with the comms window. I don't know if if they had to make make a comm shot or something, but we had called and positioned ourselves in a really odd spot now that I know a little bit more about a thing or two. Um it was like in a valley, and you could just overlook everything. It was it looked like something you would put a lodge on, like a ski lodge. And I was like, you were on this like narrow road, just looking down at the abyss and then up at the beautiful, you know, the pine-looking mountains, the Utah and Colorado mountains. And I remember like looking around me, like, hmm. And the sun was going down, so it was getting dark. I'm digging for night vision. And then just from the tree line, it just starts lighting up all over. Hitting behind us, my buddy, my buddy Chris is on the he's in the turret on the 50 cal, and he's letting loose. And I remember thinking, like, I was kind of returning fire, but I'm like, I really can't see anything, so I'm I'm like shooting in the same direction he is. I'm like, I hope, I hope there's somebody over there. And I ended up seeing a couple muzzle flashes and things like that, and be like, oh, there might be somebody over there. You didn't really see a whole lot, all you saw was the flashes, and that was typical for that part of Afghanistan. You know, it was so heavily wooded that you were like, Oh, well, I mean, I hope I'm hitting something.
HostI really was it near side or was it a far side? Were they shooting off a ridgeline?
Kyle SteinerYeah, because it kind of bowled around. So it it was kind of an L-shaped thing where it started over here and then went all the way around. And there was a you couldn't you couldn't advance on them. There was a huge gully, and we were on a road. So we were just shooting across the valley and trying to get out of there. But yeah, the very first time I returned fire started with my my ass sticking out of a uh a Humvee trunk. That's a great story.
HostHow long uh how long were you on the PSD command team before you uh got sent to Battle Company and and what happened?
Kyle SteinerUm Yeah, it was a couple of months. They uh it was it, I don't even think it was a couple months. It was uh I think, and this is weird, and I'm never gonna say this, but I don't know what happened. But we got an influx of dudes and they weren't replacing us, they were coming from the line. So I don't know what they did. I don't know if they just weren't performing up to standard or whatever, but they got sent. We got like six or seven dudes that got sent immediately, and they're like, All right, you're good to go. With me, they played.
HostOh, so they they sent dudes off the different areas back to the command team?
Kyle SteinerYeah, to to replace them, and maybe I Maybe it was a time thing, like, hey, your time is up, you've spent too much time there, now you got to do this. I don't know what it was, but they knew that I wanted to go to beat uh battle company second platoon. They played a joke on me. Uh I had cut my finger doing something, and you know, you cut like where the knuckle line is, you bleed a lot. So I went to the medic said, I'm like, hey, I need some stitches, which I did. And I was like, it was a pretty good gash. And they were like, oh man, you cut a ligament. This is a this is a funny story. He's like, You cut a ligament and it goes all the way up your arm. And I was like, What? And they're like, Yeah. And they like splintered it and then casted my arm up like this with just a finger sticking up. And I was like, What? No, like I'm not gonna be able to go to the line now. The sergeant major, the command sergeant major, and the colonel were all in up. They're like, hey, we heard about it. Sorry, like we were just about to send you to the line.
HostAnd like and your your hands like fully casted.
Kyle SteinerOh, the finger sticking up. And I was like, no. Who did that? The battalion surgeon or something? Yeah, yeah. And the whole command team, everybody was in the stroke because they knew how bad I wanted to leave. So they made this thing and they looked they kept this going for like two, three hours, and I was soaking. Like I remember crying, being like, I'm never gonna have my arms in a cast. And then I look like an idiot because I have one finger sticking up in it, too. I look like a complete idiot, you know. So, and then I don't know what it was. I think it was the colonel's like, nah, we're just kidding with you. You're going to your battle company second platoon. They're like, that's that's all fake. And I was like, and I didn't believe it. I'm like, it's fake, it's not real. They're like, no, it's just a little cut.
HostBut the cast like already hardened and everything. Oh, dude. They have to cut it off. Yeah, that's awesome.
Kyle SteinerYeah, that's so cool. It was hilarious. And I was so I remember being really mad because there's a video of me like being like, ah, and somebody had taken a video of it. But uh, I was really mad at first, and they're like, hey, you're going where you wanted to go, like you leave, you know, in a few days. I was like, okay.
HostLooking back now that you're older, you know, they must have liked you because you don't go to that lengths to play jokes on people that you don't know.
Kyle SteinerYeah, the PSD was where I got like a really clean start, and I got to learn from the ground up how to be a soldier and like do my best at things.
HostDid Chris ended up going to Battle Company, or what's your there?
Kyle SteinerHe went to Battle Company. He went, they went, we went the same exact time.
HostWell, before we dive into that, uh, because that's that's gonna be interesting. Let's take a quick break. Okay. I had a question on here that I I uh I forgot to ask you. Was there anything um kind of significant that happened in uh in Italy before you guys deployed to Afghanistan?
Kyle SteinerYeah, there was there was a couple things. Like the big thing was we ran a brigade EIB expert infantry badge, and it's like a series of like 40 tests to get an EIB, which looks similar to a CIB without a wreath. And they've recently changed it now to where if you have both the wreath on the on it, it is gold. Um that's cool. Yeah, I just got it switched out. But the EIB was something to go above your airborne wings. There was, you know, dudes either had airborne wings and a CIB or airborne wings in the 173rd. And if you had just airborne wings, they called you snow cones. Nobody wanted to be a snow cone. You wanted something, another badge to go above it because at least you weren't in the cool guy crew with the CIBs, but you were slightly more than the snow cones. So the entire brigade did it, and it I remember it being really hard. The grenades, the grenade throwing, you know, you gotta huck that thing like 35 meters into a tiny ring and then shift from a known point, call for fire. And I remember getting the little blue book of tasks and like how you do everything, and sitting and studying for hours. I I memorized it to a T, how you would do it over and over again. I remember it was like a Saturday night, I was probably we had a bathtub, so I was like sitting in the bathtub, just like reading it non-stop, just trying to figure it out, and I was like, I will get this thing. And yeah, I was one of like four or six people that got it, and I was so proud. Oh, I have a really good picture of me after the three to five second rush, low crawl lane, just covered in mud, and um, and I was I was really proud of that so that that I had that I had at least a leg up, you know. But I was never completely accepted, you know. I got I got went to we had a like a brigade formal before we left, and I kind of made an ass of myself and got like really drunk and spilled wine on my Italian date's white dress, you know, with my like arm and it's all like that kind of brought me down a couple notches, but getting my EIB was made me really proud. And and I think that's what won it over for the command team because I don't remember, but I remember one of them, I don't know what it was, but one of them said something about like you better get this, like this is it, then you know, get earn yourself a couple brownie points back. I was like, okay, say no more, like I'll get it. And I did, and uh to this day it's one of my more more proud moments of getting it in 2006.
HostYeah, so I mean super important, man. Some of those, I think it's those are younger, especially, you know, you you got kicked in the nuts not making SFAS, then you get, you know, you get kind of chucked out of scouts, and you're a dude that wants to do the right thing, and and you know, you're again, man, but there is no lack for experience sometimes. And so uh it's probably one of the things that more of a memorable because you got kicked in the teeth early on, maybe you kicked yourself in the teeth, but whatever. Um, but I feel like that story, I remember when we were kind of prepping uh and when I would listen to some of your previous stories, I think that was kind of the foundation for you to start really, you know, um changing your career, not your career path, but you know, maybe changing your own outlick or what people thought of you. It was like, hey man, this dude can can can can buckle down when he needs to, type deal.
Kyle SteinerYeah, well, you know, and we'll talk about this way later on, but like people see me or guys like me, and they're like, oh man, things have been so easy that you've just ridden to the top. Business guys say it often, you know. I just just heard heard a story about it this morning. You have to fail to succeed, and that's what builds your resilience and your grit and your perseverance through the hard times. You have to fail. And I failed and failed and failed.
HostHey, brother, there's no testimony without a test. Yeah, you have to do it. Um, I really want to paint the picture. I know we're gonna dive into Restrepo and kind of what that deployment meant, but you know, I I kind of want to just paint a little bit of picture because there are plenty of people, there's younger dudes that watch it. Yeah, you know, we're talking uh, you know, 18 years ago. So people, you know, younger kids may not even, you know, know. So um when did you first get briefed, you know, on the mission to build Fob Restrepo? So was it a Fob or a COP? It didn't matter.
Kyle SteinerOP. Yeah, we called it OP Restrepo, yeah. OP Restrepo is because cop uh double nomer was combat outpost, but ours was KOP, Corn Gull Outpost, and it was the base where the company leadership was. It was at the bottom. So most of the platoons, I don't remember Sal or some of the boroughs could probably tell you when Vegas was put in. Um I remember when they built Vimoto, which is another guy that died um from psych um from from battle company, they built that, but for the most part, dudes were doing patrols out of the cop. So when I got sent there, they were just I don't I really don't remember if Vegas was put in or not, or was beginning to be put in. I know Vimoto wasn't, but they were all at the base in these like concrete huts, you know, that had been built, um, where were several units had deployed to, but it was in a base in a safer area, you know, had they had mortar coverage, uh 155 coverage from Camp Blessing or 105 coverage or whatever. But I got there and um I spent the first couple weeks down there because Restrepo hadn't been built yet, and I still didn't fully understand hey, you know, bait, this and that. And I was like, oh, this is bait, this isn't so bad. We were getting in a couple ticks, but there was a lot of coverage, and like you knew a tick would happen. Whether or not you heard the the shots or not, um, the mortars would start going off. We had big 81 and 120 teams there, I believe. Believe we had 120. I know we had 81 teams, and uh different sizes of mortars, so you knew, and then you hear 155s come in. The scariest thing was, you know, my buddy's famous on a on a video for single shot Freddy, the the the the 80-year-old blind sniper man that would just take pop shots with a dragon off sniper rifle at us randomly, and it it would be remarkably close to you, scare the shit out of you because it would hit like Heskos and create a hole, and you know, the dust would come out, and you're like, Oh my, but then the next one will be like way off center, and uh, and we're like, what's this guy shooting at? Like he maybe shot at me. And then they had what we what I assume nowadays is like a Russian Mark 19 uh automatic grenade launcher, so you could hear this like thud thud the thud thud, knowing that an impact was coming. That was pretty scary because we were at the like in the bottom of the cereal bowl, and you're like, Oh man, like it's coming.
HostSo if you could, man, you know, going back in your mind, like you just said like a cereal bowl. Can you describe like your environment where you know, even before you guys went up to the top of the mountain, like what that was? Because I think I, you know, I just watched um Restrepo the other day and a little bit of Corn Gall. Like, you know, it's it's really hard to put it in words, but the best you can.
Kyle SteinerYeah. I mean, we continued to build stuff up, so we work. So, like that documentary, both of those documentaries are a little misleading because you'll see a part where right towards the end, we got like a little bit of a chow hall at the base of the valley at the cop, and then you hate like deep fryers and stuff, but we didn't have that for like 10 or 12 months, you know. They they started really increasing the support we got toward the end. So you see that, and you'll see you see Jones and a couple other people like hanging out in the chow hall being like, hey, you know, we've got like muffins and stuff. Um, and that was when we got to go down to the cop, but the cop was just in this bowl, it had plywood hooch for a while, and then while they they started building like the you know, the the concrete stucco kind of buildings um with the wood doors and stuff like that. We stayed in these huts and it was all they had little OPs set out everywhere, and you were always watching the wire. There's tons of sea wire, it was straight like a Vietnam camp. It was um really rudimentary. So were you guys at the base of a mountain, or were you guys further up the mountain initially? Uh we were further up the mountain, but we were like mid-level way, mid-level because there was there was some ways that went down and it cleared out to this big pan where there was uh Dangam, Marasana, Alibad, Baby all. There was like a few little villages that went down and followed the river with a trail. You could drive up to the cop and you could drive up to a certain point with those villages passing on either side of you, but then you would reach around the 6-2 grid line and you would reach the base of Kerangal, and and you really couldn't go much further, you would end up tumbling down gullies and stuff. But um, it was a major hub and a route for um transportation of lumber. And and I might be wrong about this, but to my knowledge, that's why they wanted to focus on it. Because apparently a lot of the weapons and ammunition and and and and you know war materials were being smuggled in in these lumber shipments, huge lumber shipments, like big railroad ties. And it's true because we would end up shooting at them a couple times, and you'd be like, Oh man, there's stuff in there. One would blow up randomly, like hugely, and you're like, okay, that definitely is not just wood. When you say they're bringing in lumber, are they bringing in rail cars, donkeys, trucks, like like big trucks, big, huge trucks. Yeah, just just lumber non-stop. Um, on the on, you know, how they like stack it up with the pikes on the side, and that's how it would be, you know. And I I've got a good number of firefights where we destroyed one or one broke down, and I'm like behind this huge pile of wood, um, and you know, just getting chipped woods, wood at you. But um, but yeah, it was a real I don't I couldn't tell you if it was a strategic position because I don't have a whole lot of memories actually from the base. I know there was a lot of bunker, we had built a lot of bunkers, a lot of Heskos. It was surrounded by Heskos. But again, the Heskos they came in waves. Like sometimes we we didn't have them at first, and we filled them and filled them and filled them, but a lot of bunkers.
HostUm Did you guys run any OPs farther up the mountain, like higher? Or were you guys all just co-located in that one little fire base?
Kyle SteinerOr at the cop, but there was a few that were a little bit higher here and there, and then I might be wrong. I think Vegas was being put in, and Vegas was on the other side um of the valley. You couldn't you couldn't really drive there either, I don't think, but that was really high up and it could overlook the cop, and it was on the complete opposite side of the valley as Restrepo was. And uh they were putting that in first ball team was putting uh putting that in, and uh so they had a good overwatch position, they got into a lot of a lot of good ticks too, and I think that was already put in or being put in when we got there. But yeah, I stayed at the base of the valley and really didn't know about Restrepo, and I knew because like I said, I'd only been there a couple weeks. We'd done some presence patrols, some blocking positions, a little couple ambush sites, gotten in some ticks, but nothing big. Nothing big to my knowledge, knowing what was to come. But I remember somebody saying we get shot at a lot from that hilltop, and they pointed at where Restrepo would be. I was like, oh man, and they're like, Yeah, that's like that's the danger zone. And then it might have been two or three weeks later. Uh, you know, we get we get the the warno. I remember it was the first time I'd ever gotten it, like it's written in a ranger school, ranger school format. Like, here's your warno, here's your op order. And I was like, Oh, be damn.
HostAnd uh and a warno for you guys out there, it's a warning order, it's kind of like a hey, this is coming down the pipe, be ready for this.
Kyle SteinerYeah, and and I was like, okay, and like you guys are gonna establish a site up on that mountaintop. And uh and how high are we talking about? Man, like six, eight, ten thousand feet. I think eight, eight, eight-ish, eight between eight and ten, because you couldn't like we were in we were in good shape, and like you got up there and you're like, and there were points of it. I remember my first walk, there was you know, rope tied to different rocks and trees, and just down because you were just like trying to get up this thing, but uh it was crazy, you know. And as of note, you know, backing up when I got to the cop, there were two reporters there, two females from the New York Times magazine. I think, I think I have this timeline right again. Don't hold them against me, brothers, if I if I mess up this timeline. Uh and they painted a picture of what we were doing there, and I I've never read it to this day, I can't find it, but a lot of people did read it. Um, and I remember my my then at the time company commander being very upset with the way they portrayed us, um, two female reporters, and and made asked for a lot of concessions during missions, during ops. So people didn't like it. So when um later on down the road, it ties into when Tim and Sebastian came, we didn't talk to them for a good amount of time. Like people were very like, I don't know.
HostSo these chicks had written something that made you guys that painted you guys in a bad light.
Kyle SteinerYeah, painted us in a bad light. Probably because they saw some aggression or saw some joking or saw somebody talking some some smack during a during a gunfight. I don't know. It's the it's the infantry, bro. Yeah, and it's war. Like, what do you expect? Yeah, um, but but that night, you know, when when we were set to go to Restrepo to go to that site, you know, Restrepo. So when I got there, Restrepo had already died. Restrepo died. Um, I I don't know he was a medic. I he was a medic, and I don't want to say that I I knew him well. I knew him. Um, obviously the guys from the platoon when I was in um PSD had trained with him and we were very close with him. He was a really cool guy. I ended up talking to him in the uh you have to do you know all the like shots and your checkups and stuff before you deploy. And I ended up being in the same like little group with him, going around to get your your different shots and your different blood draws and stuff and talking with him. He invited me to his party when he became a citizen. He had like a cake made when he became an American citizen. He was a really cool guy. Um he was a company medic or a battalion medic? He was a company medic that was disrode to 2nd Platoon Battle Company, and uh he was he was their guy. And the only thing I really remember about him is that he brushed his teeth constantly. Um, but and and his accent I thought was hilarious. He used to talk about this like flamenco guitar music and stuff, and he put he would always be on the steps, um, on the steps, the stoop outside of the company area. But I didn't know him very well, and I'm not gonna ever say that this is the case, but you know, he died, Fomoto died, me and Chris get sent to Second Platoon Battle Company.
HostSo, in a way, replacements, you know, I was like, oh man, and I'm not a medic, but when um when Westrepo gets formed and you guys are moving up there, is this a platoon movement or a company movement? Just a platoon movement.
Kyle SteinerThey they were, you know, we're talking my platoon sergeant Mark Patterson was kind of giving guidance, going down to McDonough, going down to a burn and me. And I had, you know, I deployed with like two duffel bags, like the standard whatever the packing list was, and they were like, take all that shit out of there, bring you know, a pair of socks, an extra t-shirt, water, ammo, and then you know how sandbags come in like a twine stack, and they were just like, You take this one, you take this one, and they would drop like a pickaxe off, you bring that, you bring that. Like, dudes had like shovels sticking out of their ruck and stuff. And I was like, and you saw it, they dropped it off, and you're like, really?
HostIt's like little rock lords from Lord of the Rings, man.
Kyle SteinerI gotta walk up there with this. Yeah, it was funny, man, because the first walk, I mean, I think like shovels were clinking and stuff, but it was a nighttime walk. We got up there, it took forever. We hadn't really dug out the roots and the different different ways of getting up and the easier, you know, uh switchback ways of trying to get up there. But man, to in my in my mind, that was like a two and a half, three and a half hour walk. And it sucked. And it was like going a couple feet, 100 feet in elevation, take a knee. You're like, oh god, and you just kept doing this. And you got up there, you know, and um we did everything by the book, initiated a rest cycle, uh, initiated it was just sandbags when we first got up there. So it was like, hey, fill these sandbags and build like a tiny little wall right here where it's open and right here where it's open. And we all kind of like huddled together like hobbits and slept all together in like a line under the You guys doing 50-50 watch, or yeah. And uh, you know, it's still that's when they talk about infantry tact, it's still the only place where you know our watch was on point, our guard position were on point, stand to every morning. Because you know, you asked me a question about when we get up in the morning, and we got up an hour before the sun and we we pulled stand to. We all got on the perimeter and pulled stand to and waited to see what was going on.
HostBut I mean was there already enemy fighting positions? Because you guys have been taking fire from up.
Kyle SteinerOh, yeah. Oh, yeah. There was dugout positions with like, you know, you dig it out, and then you put a little shelf so your bipod for a PKM and RPK could sit there, and there was brass and and links down in the holes and stuff, um, human feces, different things like that. So they had been digging those out, and it was a perfect position to shoot at the cop, um, the Kwangal outpost. It was a perfect position.
HostSo, what did that feel like knowing, like not only are you overtaking a position that your enemy is used, but you know they're not that far, right?
Kyle SteinerYeah, and I like there were two thoughts, right? Like, all right, yeah, we did this, like we took your your guys' spot. What's up? But then you were like, man, they're gonna be really mad about this, and I bet you were gonna take some heat for this. And then you start you start thinking about well, where are they gonna go now? And you're still not at the top, you're still not at the peak, right? So you're like, probably up there.
HostIs there more trails that kept going up?
Kyle SteinerLike goat trails, if you're like, Yeah, we we came to a little bit of a road where you couldn't really get trucks on if you were sneaky, like the little Afghan pickups and sedans, you could get up there, but you couldn't get a convoy up there, and they would they they kept going to other villages, whether it be east, west, um the north, and then the the peaks kept going all over the place. Now we were significantly higher up than everywhere else, so the valley to get down was hard. You'd have to, unless you took the one kind of trail all the way past the 62 grid grid line in Karangal and in Aliabad where I where I was shot. Um, but the river bisected it too.
HostSo yeah, I'm an old school NCO man, so my brain immediately goes to logistics. Like, how are you guys getting supplies, water, chow? I mean, that's an elevated position. How are you guys getting like resupplied at all?
Kyle SteinerYeah, it's just like it is in the documentary. So, you know, we went up there with what we could carry. Obviously, none of us are carrying Hesco barriers and stuff like that. No cots. So I don't remember. I'm gonna get this timeline messed up. I a certain amount of weeks and months went by, and we just slept on the ground. And you get really good at like digging your body position into some gravel and dirt and being like, this is a good outline of my body, sleeping with your helmet on because it acted as a pillow, right? So you could prop yourself up. But logistically, what they did was they would start dropping us um the the black hawks would bring us sling loads and just big nets of stuff, whether it be or pallets of stuff, Heskos. Um, we started with little little Heskos, and then we would we continually improve that thing, you know. So we get some Heskos, set them up, and this was really hard shale, you know, because we had to have them send uh like you the post hole things where you put the the putting and you're doing this breaking the shale, yeah, and you're breaking the shale with the um the pike uh to fill these things, and you're just putting these big flat pieces of shale in these Heskos. But that's how they got it to us, and it's funny because it worked for a little while, but it was everything was on an angle. So we had a lot of problems with uh slippage. Um we've we dropped more than a few things down the mountain that way. So once we got some pickets, like uh fence pickets, we picketed in a wall, um, just a picket wall where they would drop stuff and it would roll into this wall so we could keep it whether it'd be bottles of water, MREs, mostly water, MREs, and ammo that we were getting for the first couple months. It was just that.
HostUm, what was what was the initial like warno slash op order? Like, what was the mission? I mean, you guys just going up there to to set up an uh an outpost to shoot? Were you guys gonna use that as a manu a base of maneuver to go farther up the hill? What was what was the initial mission?
Kyle SteinerYeah, because it was a little bit further, I want to say south in the valley, and it was to you know push our lane of maneuverability further down because there was a point, um, I want to say it was almost in between the Aliabad Cemetery and the Car and Karengal where you couldn't go. Like you were gonna get shot at, and it was that was hostile country. You know, you started getting into um the Abascar and the Talazar Ridge areas um where a lot of special operations missions happened, and they knew it was a really highly kinetic area. So our job was just to push them back. Presence patrols, a lot of blocking positions, a lot of ambush sites, and I mean what I'm saying we're gaining just feet at a time. It's not even big because you're like, all right, we're gonna go just a little bit further that way. So that was the main mission. And like I said, I was still young, so I didn't really have a good grasp on the overall concept, but I'm like, all right, we're gonna hold this ground and we're gonna see how far we can make it in the valley, down the valley before being shot at. And I really, it really never got any further.
HostWe just I'm super curious, man. We've had a lot of guys from special operations tier one units. Um, and I know you came from that community where you're retiring from, but early on as an infantry platoon, you know, as part of a company, what kind of assets do you guys have? Are you guys getting, you know, intelligence from aerial assets? You know, are you guys, are you guys, I mean, literally just a straight up line company. You know, because drones weren't a thing back then. No. So how how are you guys getting intel or or what kind of um what kind of assets were you guys using?
Kyle SteinerI have no idea what the company area was using for intelligence assets, what the targeting officers were using to push us out. I know it wasn't much. We used a lot of what we called at the time. I forget you were an E4 at the time. Yeah. I like I'm I'm in I'm in my world of like I have guard right now. Yeah. And then we have to go to blocking position one. And so I hope I get to be on this side of the ridge because that's where we take kind of. I hope I'm not like the backside. But I didn't know a whole lot about what was going on. And to this day, I think that's still my immaturity showing through. Like, hey, my job is to do this. Here's my like lane, here's my tunnel. Make O'Burn and Mac really proud of me. Hopefully, Mark Patterson like notices that I am alive, and that's cool. But I don't I don't want to do any more or any less than that.
HostI'm just I'm cool with so was this a straight up a straight up platoon movement? It's you know, platoon serent, platoon leader, and you're platoon, and you guys all move up there. Yeah, what what was your position on the platoon?
Kyle SteinerI was a saw gunner and uh second, no first squad. Yeah.
HostSo you're full of a heavy saw. What's your basic load at that time?
Kyle SteinerMan, my basic, I think it was 1600 rounds, is what I was carrying. I was and the saw sucks, man. People will tell you like being the 240 gunner, the heavy gunner, is is is is worse because it's heavy, but it's not because A, you usually wore a rook, and um you could wrap that was so long that it was distributed differently, and then you could wrap the sling kind of around the frame of the rook. With a saw, it wasn't like that. It was much more condensed, it was on your neck, and oh, it was terrible. You kept your drums in the in the front, so you guys you walked with this hunched over way all the time. It was the saw sucks.
HostUm that thing burns through ammo quick, too.
Kyle SteinerYeah, I kept a lot, a lot of rounds on me. Yeah, I think I was running with I mean over 1600 rounds at any given time.
HostUm, after you guys get up there on that first night, you pull the watch. Uh, how long is it before you guys get your first tick or your troops in combat?
Kyle SteinerYeah, I want to say it was about a day or two that we we got. It was a day or two before they realized what we had done. And uh we got a tick from across the valley. Um, and it was a it was a short one, but we kind of figured out what we were supposed to be doing and where we were supposed to be focused on on where the fire would come from now that we're in their position. You know, once you're at the it's it's an it's learning experience every time you go to a new spot. Um and we figured out where it would be, and we were like, all right, well, this is this is kind of where I'm gonna be. And everybody kind of figured out their own spot too. Because the first time I was like running from position to position, be like, are they over here or are they over here? And a lot of dudes I think were doing the same thing. And then finally, you you like when when the when the shots popped off, you were like racing to the spots you knew had the best vanish. And like you look over there, and there was like three or four people like, God damn it. So you'd go to the next one and you're like, okay, hopefully you can get in on this good.
HostBecause everybody just wants to get some.
Kyle SteinerYeah, everybody wanted to get some. Everybody knew once the hoochas were built, everybody's trying to go to the top where the uh the L Raz like thermal thing was, and and the 240 was up there and the 50. So people were trying to do all the different things, but you kind of figured out the pecking order of where you were gonna be and what you were gonna do right off the rip.
HostHow uh how was the platoon leadership and the company leadership, just to your best recollection?
Kyle SteinerAwesome. I I I have nothing but good things to say about about our company, company commander, um Dan Herney, who's doing a really good job. Him and I still stay in contact.
HostAnd uh you could tell, man. Uh I watched the the documentary. I mean, that's a dude as a CEO. You can just see when he talks, he's seen some shit, and he wears the weight of what happened for the whole company. Yeah. See it in his face.
Kyle SteinerYeah, man. And and like a lot, it's easy it's easy for everybody to armchair quarterback leaders. And I I I I would encourage people not to do that because you you don't know how you're gonna react when you're in that position, you know. Me having stayed in for another 18, 19 years and realizing, oh my man, he had a lot on his plate, you know, realizing the push you get from higher, you know, and realizing what you can and can't shield your guys from, realizing what bothers you versus what you're okay with falling by the wayside. Yeah, he did care. And so did uh so did First Sergeant Caldwell, you know. Lamonte Caldwell is one of the best men I know. Um, I just talked to him the other day, you know, the Rattla, you know, from deep in Louisiana, and and uh you know, he he really cared about us as dudes. And as far as the platoon goes, I can't say enough good things, you know. Whether it be Kevin Rice, Matthew Simon, uh Teddy Bruno, um, you know, Elliot Alcatera, our platoon sergeant, uh Mark Patterson was like a hero to me. He was like the coolest guy ever. He was like first sergeant Lipton. He was like he was like the coolest guy ever. My yeah, I I I used to hang out with uh when I when I met my wife, this later on the road, she met him and she's like, there's just something about Mark. He's just and I was like, Yeah, you know, Chris was my best friend, he made E5 before I did, and then uh and then you know for me, you know, Josh McDonough um shaped who I am as a man a lot, and and I owe him a huge debt of gratitude for him, and then imposing things on Brendan O'Burn, who will always mean more to me than they'll ever realize, you know. Um Luke Navala, who was kind of a parallel guy to me, but he's a really wise dude, ended up being a Minnesota cop, I think. Uh and early on he was one of the guys that I used to talk to about going back to SFAS. He's like, I'm gonna do it with you. I was like, go on, let's do it. Um but uh I can't, I I have you know, there were certain things that we knew hire would ask us to do. I I I just made this comparison a while back. We had found uh, I want to say it was a 105, it might have been an 81, recoil this rifle round. It was rigged as an ID, and somebody up in the ether gave had the idea for us to carry it back in a rucksack. And uh, and I remember vividly being like, damn, dude, they're gonna make me carry that heavy thing because I'm a big dude and I could carry a lot of weight. And I was like, oh my god, don't do it. And uh and yeah, I wasn't even thinking about it possibly exploding. I was like, that thing is so heavy. Um and I remember opportunity leadership being like, we're not doing that, like absolutely not, like, no, covering us, and I was like, cool. Like I remember feeling really prideful in my leadership after that. I remember that day vividly, and I was like, sick, they care, they they can't care about us, you know.
HostHow uh was your PL new, salty?
Kyle SteinerUh so we switched it out. We had uh, you know, we had Matt Piosa, which I didn't really know all that well. Um Mike Mode uh came in, who I knew really, really well, and then Steven Gillespie and and uh Steve Gillespie. Man, I I uh he was new, um he was young, but he was intelligent about taking Mark Patterson's advice, listening to a splatoon sergeant. He was really good about that.
HostThat's what a good officer does.
Kyle SteinerYeah, yeah, I've learned that later on in life too. I was like, because any common sense guy, you know, this isn't the civil war where like the only dude that can read and or read a map is the officer. Like we're in a we're in a more modern age of intelligence, and especially in this in this time period of experience, Mark Patterson had been to war several times, and and you know, he had the wrinkles and the grizzle, and you were like this, and and and I love Steve Gillespie, you know, he was he's a great dude, and uh, but you know, he looked like he was 12, you know, he looked like me.
HostSo we just talked about on the last podcast the disparity in age from a new platoon leader to like a platoon sergeant, yeah, could be anywhere from 10 to 15 years sometimes, depending on the unit. So just the life experience alone, much less, you know, in the GWAT, you know, it's you know, I remember as I got older, you know, I got you know E78. You start looking, I'm like, man, these dudes are kids. And they they kind of are, and you know, some of them better than others, just like soldiers. We give officer shit, that's our job.
Kyle SteinerYeah.
HostUh on the enlisted side of the house. But yeah, I was just curious. I mean, September alone on that deployment, you guys got in 111 firefights. That's just one month. Walk me through like a typical day of you know of what was going on out there.
Kyle SteinerYeah, I mean, you know, it's funny. I don't know if a lot of the bros from Rufus Repo know that because I got that information. I ran into a guy who was a record keeper or something for the Department of the Army Historical Society one time. And we got to chat, and I don't know where this was, and he was like, Oh man, you were at the deployment. He's like, I was doing the doing the um you doing the logging for that, you know, in the in the archives or whatever, like the Jedi archives or something. And I was like, Oh, cool, man. And he and he started rattling off numbers, like you guys used this much ordinance this month, and you guys gotten this many uh you know initiated ticks that were called up this month and and this day. And he I remember him telling me that it was 111 in September and 14. I don't remember what he said if it was September 7th or September 9th, and I was like, really? I didn't even know. I was like, really? We weren't counting. I was like, holy crap, like I had no clue. He's like, Yeah, that was intense. He's like, You guys have a couple, I remember saying, like, you guys have a couple records for the GWAT for like confirmed ticks in a time period. And I was like, Oh, wow, um, cool, man, you know. Um, but so what was a normal day like, man?
HostMan, I I had to walk me through like just some some, or what just your best remember. We're not gonna relive like one year of firefights, it's impossible.
Kyle SteinerI have this vivid memory, dude, of I was still the saw gunner at the time, and I ended up moving up to a two or three uh grenadier and then a rifleman later on because that's how the seniority kind of thing works. But I uh I have this vivid memory. I would always you had to, I know that I'm gonna get spoken to about this, but like how often you clean your gun, how how deep you clean your gun, you want some carbon in your gun. You gotta understand, we were digging all day. There's just like dust everywhere all day. So you had to keep it relatively clean and oiled, otherwise it'd just get all like crunchy. So after a major tick, you would clean it. And I can vividly remember sitting on a bed, and O'Brien was like, You should probably wipe down the saw. We had just gotten in a tick. I mean, I think that morning started with a firefight during stand two. I'm almost positive it did. Um, most of September started with a firefight right at stand two. But I can remember having cleaned my gun so much that I was like finished and I was putting it together, and you would hear it again. You'd hear that and you would hear it hitting certain things. And most of the dudes like me would like look down the line at each other on the cots and be like, This is real. This is wait. I don't want to fire this thing again. Like, I just cleaned it, yeah. Yeah, and you'd be like, let's see if it's just like a harassing pop shot. And you were hoping that they were like, oh, they only had like seven rounds, but and then it would open up big and you're like, damn it, and you just had to go back on the Hesco, and it was just this cycle of cleaning the gun. And and then you started hoping that you were on guard during those times because those they had the big guns. You were like, Man, I hope I'm on guard. I hope I got this. And that was the only time I can remember being like, have they been shooting around this time every day? Like, sick, I have I have that I have that shift tomorrow, or I have that shift in the middle of the night. Like, all right, and you were hoping for that kind of stuff, but yeah, that entire month and that like three months of that fighting season, three to four months where it was really heavy. I mean, you just stayed busy. And I remember it being abroad because, like I said, ground sleeping in sandbags, Tejesco's and cots in the open, Tejesco's and camo nets, to then we started getting plywood and and building materials, and we built our own shacks. So we just started building these little shacks, then we had to get sandbags to line the shacks, and we built you know, ammo points and MRE points and water points. We built that entire thing from nothing, from nothing with pickaxes and shovels. And they just send us stuff and we build. They sent us stuff and we built. And so you were on the digging crew, the guard crew, or the patrol crew. Okay, and then you just rotated. That was the daily battle rhythm. That was the daily battle rhythm. And then when the when the sun went down, you did your nightly, your nightly thing, and then you had a guard rotation, which was very heavy.
HostWhat was like a nightly thing? Did you guys have like a window down? I mean, because for getting ticks every day, dude. Like I process.
Kyle SteinerYeah, each squad was different. It was a little bit, and especially once the squad started getting split up. Um well, and just speak to your squad. I mean, yeah, we would we'd have a little thing, and and Mac would bring us in, and it was always be me, O'Burn, Donahoe, and and I don't remember who else, Jason Monroe. We had a four, a four-bunk area that we had built out of wood, and it was tucked away by itself. You had to like weave through some stuff to get to it, and that was like the meeting area. So it was always on my bed. Um, the the amount of pictures I have of dudes sitting on my bed and I'm not in it, it's hilarious. Um, but he would he would go over kind of what happened and and what's going on and what we have the next day. And hey, we're on this patrol system or this patrol cycle. We're gonna do, we're doing an ambush in the vicinity of here tomorrow. Like, you know, I want you with this, I want you carrying this. And it was always pretty cool. And he'd be like, hey, and you were always hoping, like, if it was a tough mission or you were leaving wicked earlier, you're like, man, don't let me have the last guard shift, like leading into wake up. You're like, come on, and you know, it was the luck of the draw. Nobody ever bitched about it. You're like, Yeah, it is what it is, you know. Um, but we smoked a lot of cigarettes, a lot of Afghan cigarettes. Like, I would, based on the supply of cigarettes you had, I would time my guard shifts to smoke one like every like 11 minutes, so I would have enough. Like it was on a like an alarm, like a rotation.
HostWhat were you guys doing like past time, dude? Like when you weren't a tick or digging, I mean, you know, you see corn gall and restrepple. That's kind of what I really liked about that documentary as a guy who served in both pre-GWAT and the GWAT. You know, everybody, you know, hears about war, but like your deployment, for example, I think it was 16 months. And so, yeah, you're, I mean, obviously it was not a normal deployment for the army per se. You guys gotten a lot of ticks, but there's a lot of downtime, a lot of shenanigans. You know, you give we were talking about last night, man. You leave Joe to his his his senses. Joe's gonna find some shit to do, bro. Oh, yeah. What's what's some of like the funnier shenanigans stuff that you know you guys would would do to just kind of you know pastime or whatever?
Kyle SteinerYeah, you know, what went in waves because I I can't really recall a whole lot of stuff early on because it was such a a grind of digging, patrolling, guarding, sleeping. You're just tired. All you did. And and the only thing I can remember from that is rock rolling contests, and then you would you would have these, yeah, you would you would be like you'd have to clear a spot, so you dig it out with this like metal metal spike, and then we would have contests to see who could roll one down the further. And that was like huge entertainment. And we had one magazine, it was the I think it was the June 2006 issue of diesel power, and I know that's what it was, and everybody read diesel power a hundred times. Um, when dudes were sleeping on the ground, uh, because you you would able to get a little nap in here and there, you'd have these rock stacking contests and how high you could stack rocks on their on their forehead or their chest while they were like laid out. Because you guys are probably just exhausted. Exhausted. You had to find something to eat. We had the weirdest conversations. The boys just brought this up, and this is in the documentary. I completely forgot about this, but I read I read some article about Fabio and George Clooney getting into an argument, and we we wondered who would win in a fight. And it became like this huge running debate on who would win in a fist fight between those two, things like that. The and our debates went on for weeks. We talking about different stuff, but yeah, we just bullshitted. And then as the deployment went on, we started getting more. We know we got a pack of cards sent to us. Some of the helicopters would, when they would sling stuff to us, you'd they would they would pop open the door of the Blackhawk and throw out like a big satchel of books. And that was huge, man. I read, I read a lot. I read everything I could. I read, you know, the Rich Dad Poor Dad series. I read all kinds of like um historical fiction novels, anything they send out, I started reading. And then as the time went on, toward the end, you start to see like a guy playing guitar hero, Luke Navas playing guitar hero, because toward the very end, they send us a generator and gas, you know. So we had we had gas. But oh, you were on trash burning detail, shit burning detail. Like you always had something to do, you know. You always had so the the conversations were always really stupid. Every now and again they would like send us uh like a little bit of real food, but it's not real food. It was like chow hall like frozen pies. So we'd have the the young guys, he had like pie eating contests, which is absolutely disgusting considering what we were eating, that they're like trying to eat a frozen blueberry pie with their hands.
HostDude, that's hilarious. What um so walk me through like what a normal one or two days would be, uh, best of your recollection. I'm just trying to give people kind of like a taste of what you know what a day in the life of a heavily engaged infantry unit was at the height of you know the Afghan conflict.
Kyle SteinerYeah, I mean, the you know, we would we would wake up and do stand to, you had a night guard shift. I I want to say it was two hours. You had a night guard shift and you always had a day guard shift. Um even if you were on patrol, you typically got a day guard shift. It was just either before or after. Um but you get up, you eat your MRE, we ate so many MREs, you know, and then you got to know which MREs you liked, and you were talking about the trading, and you'd have like one stashed under your bed because you just we just MREs for days. Um you eat your MRE and you'd get ready to go, whether you're on patrol or you're on digging. Um digging or patrol or guard. And yeah, you you it kind of rotated in those three manners. You were you were doing one or the other. Uh toward the end, they started rotating us down to the cop for a little R and R. But so it would be two squads at a time. One would stay back and dig and guard, and one would go out and patrol. And you just rotated that.
HostWell, you guys run four squads in your platoon?
Kyle SteinerYeah.
HostUm, did anybody ever get did you guys ever get plused up at any point, or was it just your platoon there that whole time?
Kyle SteinerUh it was that it was our platoon there that whole time until right after Rock Avalanche, we got to go to a um a memorial for um for Larry Rugal and them from Rock Avalanche. So we got to go down and we actually went back to where I was PSD at Camp Blessing for uh for a couple days for like a memorial ceremony for them. And um, like I remember that we didn't have rippets up at Rostrebo, but they had them down there. So I have a pretty good uh a video and a couple pictures of us having squad rippet challenges with just stacks of them. And one would drink one, chug one, go to the back of the line and to see who would win.
HostFor those of you, and it's funny, I was just listening to uh Mike Glover and Andy Stump this morning on a podcast when I was at the gym and they were talking about rippets. And man, I lived on those. Yeah. A rip it, uh that only I think you can buy them at the dollar store now, but during the GWAP, man, I don't know how the army got the contract, but they had these energy drinks and they would come in half cans. I've never seen one since. I've never seen them at the store. But you know, if you take like a full can, like a C4 or something and cut it in half, that's you'd get pallets, and they had the sugar-free ones, and the and we would just those things were like gold too. They were hard to get, and when you got them, you would grab pallets, they would leave those things sitting in the sun or whatever, man. But they were uh it was caffeine and they were delicious, dude. I remember when the first time I found one at a dollar store, I told my wife, man, I'm like, buy all. We I think we bought all the rippets they had at the dollar store. I'm like, these, you know, they I have fond memories from those things. So it's funny you're talking about that because those are I don't know, I would imagine they were even harder to get because they're you're gonna get sling loaded and and uh they didn't get sling loaded, and if you brought them up, it'd be like two or three in one dude's rucksack that he brought for himself.
Kyle SteinerLike you couldn't get them up there. So when we went down for the memorial, that was one of the things to lighten the mood. Was we were like, You got you have how many rippets? We're like, well, like 10 pallets, and we were like, get those over here, and we just hammered. I have videos of dudes just throwing up, it was the orange ones, throwing up just orange liquid because we had drank like 19 each. Oh, that's wild, dude. It's just terribly unhealthy now that you it's funny.
HostLike when you go back and you know, you think because we don't I don't think about that stuff. I hadn't even thought about rippets and I heard it this morning uh on the on this thing, and I had you know memories of you know sneaking cases and hiding them wherever I could, man. Yeah. Um, how much sleep were you guys getting on average?
Kyle SteinerFour or five hours, four or five hours. And that's another thing we used to do. Like, it would be how creative could you wake a guy up for his guard ship? So I just sent McDonough something, and it took him a while to look at it, and he's like, oh man, and he goes the squad song. But there was like a four-month period where somebody had an iPod or something like that, and you we had rigged different charging devices for 5590 batteries that would plug in and charge different things. Um, and I want to say it was Max, it might have been O'Burns, but Goodbye Horses by Lazarus was the thing, and they would they would gently put their headphones in your ear and then blast that for it to wake you up for guard, and it rotated songs, but for a good long period, that was the song that would wake us up. And to if you ask anybody in first squad, second material, they're like, oh man, goodbye. I sent I sent a video guy dancing to that song to Mac and he's like, Oh my god. Uh but but that that kind of stuff creative. You know, later on we got a a balloon, uh water balloon launcher, you know, the kind where one guy holds one side, one hug on the other, just yanks it back, and we were just trying to hit different things in the valley, like boredom. Joe does he does what he does, you know.
HostUm, so you guys start getting ticked up pretty regularly. Did you feel your body start responding differently? I mean, I'm sure the first five, ten, you know, there's this thing. I mean, did you start getting a little bit numb? Um, or you know, was it always just the massive adrenaline dumped?
Kyle SteinerNo, uh, it depended on the tick. It depended because a lot of them looked very similar, you know. So you you do get really numb. I can remember my first couple being like, man, I'm ice cold and it's hot as hell out here, or it's cold as hell out here and I'm just burning up. But after a while, unless it was a really big one and it was a different dynamic, um, no, it became where you were like, okay. And then you be you became creative with it. Like uh, you know, McDonough had come up with this thing. We had laws. You remember the law? The light anti-tank weapon? We had a bunch of those, um, very few small D's and AT4s, different anti-tank, like two like bazooka type weapons um for them. But uh the laws we had, because they were small, compact, and lightweight. So Mac and some of the guys would tag them with paint markers. And you wanted it to be the one to carry the law. And uh he used to say that if you if if you're gonna shoot this, you must announce in your best saloon voice that you are in fact the law uh before so that and and somebody must hear you say it. So that became a running joke. Like you just randomly hear during a fight, like I am the law, like look over and it's funny because it's an anti tank weapon, so it's doing nothing against personnel across the valley, thinking about it later. But you know, different things like that that we use to pass our time, but yeah, you become numb to it. You become to like, well, let's make this one creative or let's make this one fun, or Uh, you know, you see that in the video, uh, Misha's shoes are cut. Um, he had cut his boots into like some weird bowling-looking shoes. Yeah, and we ended up fighting in different clothes, just trying to make it creative because at that point you were like, again, like, come on. You know, I'm taken back to the um the scene in Saving Private Run where the medics, like, give us, just give us a chance, you know. I'd be like, dude, just let us sleep for a day. Like, please stop shooting at us. I'm just so over this. You know, we cut out that Hesko Joe figurine out of wood and would just parade him around and wait for him to get shot at, you know, put a helmet and like a top on him, stuff like that, because it just was so regular. You were like, God, come on, man. You know, and different whether we were coming up from the draw, I think to the south, you know, we started having to put Hesko, little Hesko's in so we could bound from one to one and cover each other. Um, so we always had something to do. But, you know, I I can remember I was covering a movement. I was in the valley in this draw, facing outwards toward, I think toward Kerengal, and I had one like dip of Copenhagen left, like real American Copenhagen that I had somehow gotten. And uh, and we were we were getting shot at so much, and um I was ri returning fire trying to cover these dudes that were going in the wire, and I can remember because it was Steve Kim that was behind me um that was passing me. I was like, You're good, go. And I was covering in the straw, and I had stopped for a minute, you know, the fire, the base of fire had picked up from from Opie Restrepo, and I looked back, I was like, man, I I get a dip. So the there was a lull in fire. I was like, okay, cool, we're good. And I pulled out my dip, and right as I go to put it in, they shoot right at me and it hits this, it hits the tree. I'm at like this bifurcated tree with my foot in between it, and it shoots this bark off, and it hits my can of dip and just flips it all over my body. And I was like, Oh, you know, those kind of moments, you know.
HostUm, at what point did you realize like getting shot at every day is probably not normal?
Kyle SteinerThat's that's awesome. Awesome. We got leave. Most of us, everybody got a little like 10-day or two-week break leave at some point to go home and because with you knew we were doing over 12, so they were like, all right, you get your RR, you know, your R. And I got mine over Christmas, which is really cool because I got it a couple days after my birthday. My birthday's in December, and I was like, a couple patrols, and I was like, Man, just don't die on your birthday, you'll make it home. I knew when my leave was, and I get to uh I get to Bagram, and I think the road on there was called Disney Drive. Again, my memory's really, really bad, but uh, you know, headshot and all. But I'm on Disney Drive and I'm just dirty as hell. We are net disgusting. I mean, there was times there where we didn't, you know, we didn't change our clothes for you know two, two, three months. You only you had what you brought up, you know. Dudes weren't showering, like your your clothes were all crispy, they would like stand up on their own. So you were just nasty, man, and um like castaway nasty. And I get off the bird with a couple other dudes on leave, we're getting ready to go on leave, and they're like, we start getting yelled at at the PAX terminal about our boots having blood on them and our uniform being dirty and and all this stuff, and like you need to go buy new boots at the at the PX. And we're like, What? And like you can't do this. I didn't get stuck with this, but Misha and a couple other guys said that they got put on guard duty at Bagram and they were like, Hey, go up there and didn't give them any ammo. It was like, Well, you're gonna because you you've had to fly in with no ammo. And I was like, Yeah, go up there and stand guard. And he was like, But but what about and they're like, you don't need ammo. So he's up there with like an Afghan with an empty gun. He's like, I can't believe this, but yeah, making us making us buy new boots, get new blouses, different things, because they just weren't happy with the way we looked and the way we presented ourselves. And then I started going to like different child halls. We kind of hung out around some of the areas. Um, we were in like a big like soldier area, you know.
HostThis is before you fly out on leave.
Kyle SteinerYeah. And I remember different guys talking about different things, and it didn't really hit me until I got to Kuwait because you went from Afghanistan to Kuwait. And in Kuwait is where you also had the guys from Iraq going out on leave. So you you all came together, and uh they were talking, they they had these like smoking um shacks in the middle of the desert. You couldn't smoke near the uh near the living area or whatever. So you would go out there and everybody would just be sitting around there smoking and joking, and that's where I was sitting there and they were talking, and I vividly remember these guys. Like I said, I don't vividly remember hardly anything, hardly anything about my time. Um, it it comes in waves, but them talking about uh Men's Health magazine getting it a shop at and saying that they were, you know, kind of upset that it was a later issue. They're like, Yeah, they don't even like they don't even have like this month's issue. And I was like, What? You have something other than diesel power? What? And then uh they were asking us, and we're like, Yeah, you know, we got to drink some rippets, and they're like, Oh man, Red Bulls are so much better. Like it minds you, energy drinks were kind of new then. Yeah, yeah. And I rem I remember that somebody was like, Yeah, if the shop had has them, most of the time they're sold out, so you don't even get one before a patrol. And me and this other guy were like, What? What? But talking about the fights, they would they would talk about like oh this one time, you know, man, that was crazy. And you kind of get a sense, like, what? This one time. Then we went to a pizza hut and the incoming siren went off, and it was like, but you didn't really hear anything, and you heard this faint like pop in the background, like a boof. And uh people were holding pizzas and they like hit the floor. And me and this other dude from a shot, I want to say it was Chris, me and this other dude were like looking around and we're like, You guys okay? Had no idea what their problem was, but you realized at that point, like, man, we're fighting two different wars here. Like, I don't think you understand what we're doing. And we were we resigned to being like, eh, like they'll probably never know, and it's not worth saying anything. Um, because in our mind, at least in my mind, I can only speak for myself, but it almost sounded unrealistic. You were like, I can't tell these dudes that I'm fighting every single day, two, three, four times a day. Like, I can't tell them that that I'm building this OP. Because, like, I like I said to you last night, the only reference we had for combat was the guys that had already been. And they were really good about, like I said, the maturity about keeping us informed, but also not freaking us out or doing anything like that. So we just thought this was normal. We're like, Yeah, yeah, this must be what everybody's doing. Everybody must be filling sandbags like this, or man, this must have been what their o' their their OEF six deployment was like, or you had no idea.
HostYou knew that I had no frame of reference, too. This is your first trip.
Kyle SteinerYeah, you just assumed that Iraq, if you weren't in Iraq, you just assumed it looked like Aladdin and they were just driving around getting blown up. I had no idea, you know, but you had no frame of reference for what anybody, and I know I know that there were you know ODAs and stuff in other parts of the country getting after it. I know there was. There was there was a lot of good kinetic stuff going on, but I feel like those dudes were able to rotate back more, get an idea of what's going on, probably had a little more support. And we had a lot of support as far as firepower, but as far as like logistical support, it was like, you guys got this, you good to go?
HostYeah, you guys need an extra sleeping bag. Yeah, yeah. It's pretty, it's pretty crazy. I mean, even my brain, uh, you know, is just trying to process, you know, basically you started off at a campsite and then turned that into a you know uh an outpost. Um, and you know, a lot of people, there's not a lot of people, you know, that that had to experience that, maybe in Afghanistan. I'm sure I think the Marine, I mean somebody built it somewhere, right? So, you know, obviously you guys weren't the only ones to do that, but just kind of processing that, um, you know, it's just it's just an an interesting thought. What was it like to go home on leave, dude?
Kyle SteinerIt was crazy, man, because I didn't uh I didn't really tell a whole lot of people what was going on. Uh in fact, I don't think I talked about it at all. People were like, oh, and I think Wisconsin, like I said, being very uh detached from what happens um more globally. They were like, oh, cool, he's in the war, you know. And I I linked up with my old friends and I acted like a jackass and you know, fell in love and fell out of love and all this stuff, and you know, drank a lot. And I remember going back, but it was really surreal because I I told him nothing. I'm like, Yeah, you know, we're doing a little bit of fighting. Uh my mom didn't know what was going on. My dad probably knew I was in a little bit of stuff, but didn't really gather a whole lot. Um and uh you know, I remember thinking, like, man, I really don't want to go back.
HostYeah, that's always gonna be my next question. Man, what was it like? You know, you're a day or two out from having to go back.
Kyle SteinerYeah. What what was like, what's going through your mind? So it's funny, man. I I was in the car, my mom was taking me to the airport, and I was in the car and I was thinking, like, this can't be happening, I can't be going back out to that again. And I was like dreading it. And uh something, something hit me. I was like, I had this thought, like, maybe maybe we get in a car crash and like break my leg. Maybe that happens, and then I don't uh I just don't go back, but I'm not dead. And my honor's intact. And I remember thinking being very mad at myself for having that thought and being like, bro, the bros are waiting for you, like quit being a bitch about it. And I I there was like uh, you know, the at an airport they got the crossing lanes with the like stripes, and I remember thinking, looking at it, I'm being like, all right, when I cross that, my mind frame is back in back into combat and walking across that. It was funny because the bus was coming and I was like looking at it, like and I was like, when I cross this, like I I've given this, I've I've believed in this in the past, I'm going forward. I'm moving forward and I'm going back out to fight. And uh I was really proud of myself in that moment. I think about that specific like three-hour block of my life as being a very maturing moment, being like, the boys are relying on you, like you gotta carry your own rucksack, like you back out there.
HostUm, I have a couple different, you know, lines of questioning uh uh about um you know that deployment. Um this one kind of more leads towards adrenaline, right? Because adrenaline helps you during the fight, it helps you stay alive. The documentary, um, I don't remember if it was a Strepo or Corngal, captured you saying, you know, combat is like crack cocaine. What were you experiencing during all these, you know, kind of adrenaline dumps, firefights, etc.
Kyle SteinerYeah, it was funny because uh uh Sebastian Younger was like right in my face for that firefight. I was next to Misha, uh Pembel Belkin, and he he got the M14 for some reason for that that particular firefight. He was like trying to do sniper fire. I think he was doing a really good job at that time. I didn't know anything about anything. Uh but when you start getting shot at and it's from multiple angles, and chaos is ensuing, and then you know these like really cool guy operators that can, you know, tier one guys can probably talk a lot better to it. But I know you get like zeroed in on a muzzle flash, like everything becomes super, super clear. And it's not CQB, which you know I've done since then, where it's like right in your face and you're you're you're shooting a uh you know a three-meter or four-meter shot. It's like, is that a person? And you know, what am I shooting at? And you'll see a muzzle flash. So everything becomes super crystal clear. Everything, and you're able to like kind of lazy scan the valley and be like, oh man, there's one that he's shooting at us, and he's he's maneuvering now over there. It's really real because normally when you look out in the valley, you see nothing, you see trees. You couldn't pick out a dude to save your life. And then once it starts happening and you get ramped up, especially when bullets you start hearing the click and they start hitting Hesco, so you start seeing dust fly, you're like, okay, something happens and it must be adrenaline that clicks on, and you are able to really zero in your eyes, like eagle eye, and you're like, okay, there's a muzzle flash, there's movement, you know. It's it's funny because everything kind of lays across it, and then you just start seeing movement. You're like, oh man, oh man, there it is. And then when it comes down, you're exhausted, even if it was a 15-15-minute firefight, you're like, but he said that, and I remember being it was it was hot that day, and I was super cold after that firefight because that was a particularly good one. Misha was shooting the M14, I believe, I think. Uh, and I was probably on a rifle, maybe, maybe a no, I was on a two or three, I was shooting two or threes, which was hilarious because I pretty sure I was exceeding the max range of the thing, so it was just dropping into nothing. Um, but we ended up having we were getting such fire that we had to call in J Dams a couple of bombs. And right before he filmed that, you know, we bo doom, and you got the the residual thud, and a couple of them hit, and then uh and it was done. The firing was done. So we knew we had we'd done something, something was right, you know. 155s were coming in 120s and they were just lighting up. Uh I want to say it was nipple rock. Michelle probably say something about it. I think it was nipple rock that he was on, and uh finally it was all done, and I was just on top of the world because I was like, Yeah, we'd like we confirmed stop the firing, whether it was indirect or not. Like, so we know we took some guys out, and I had turned and looked, and Sebastian was right in my face, and then he was like, Hey, how was it? How was that? And I'm sure you know, I told you this on the phone. I said what came to mind. I had never done crack cocaine up until that point. I had never done any illegal drug up until that point. I was a very, very new guy in the world still, and I don't know why I said that because of my theatrical idea of what it was like to be on crack cocaine. And uh years later, after I met my wife, we were dating and we were watching, or it was Thanksgiving, we were watching football and I was making some some some dishes. And uh it was like tonight on nightline or dateline, you know, substance abuse and soldiers. And I like leaned over the counter, and it was it was a man and a woman speaking on like a stage, you know, how like a morning show looks, and uh she was talking about you know a lot of these combat vets are coming back and turning to substance abuse to deal with this and that, and what's the what's the way ahead, you know. You know, that's right, Bill, you know, and and some of them are really really ruining their lives, and and and combat actions are being taken for granted and this and that. And he's like, you know, that's right, Susan. Just look at this clip right here. And it's just me saying that, and it freezes on my face to like crack. And then the worst thing, he was like, You see that, Bill? Crack. And they're like, tonight at eight. And then it flashes away. I was like, oh, oh, you took that way out of context. I still haven't been able to find that. I mean, obviously, you wouldn't be able to find just an advertisement for it, but I was like, that low blow, low blow dateline.
HostDid uh when you're going through all these ticks day after day, does time like speed up? Does it really slow down? Not necessarily during the firefight, but like those days, man, that it just seemed like it was really dragging because it's just this nonstop of cortisol spikes, adrenaline dumps.
Kyle SteinerYeah, I mean, well, it it was weird when we would get a I think Brennan in the uh in the documentary says he's like, I don't like this, it's too quiet. Well, you would get these like weird two or three day gaps every now and again where nothing happened. And we're like, what's going on? That would get that was like dripping water. You were like, I know it's gonna happen soon, you know. You're just waiting for it. Yeah, you're just waiting for it. And in that same spot where the dip can hit, I remember being there another time. And you asked me about Intel assets earlier. We had a guy named Well, I don't know what what they name him. We called him Prophet, and he was uh essentially like a Sade who intercept radio communications, just uh handheld stuff by the Taliban at that time. And uh, you know, they had they thought they had good code words. He was our our main direct source of intel because we later on we had Prophet with us at all times monitoring co-located or down the hill? Toward the end, co-located. He came up and would do a lot of things with us. And I can remember one time, uh, you know, he they always said stuff like, Hey, the the flowers are moving through the valley now, and you're like, all right, man, they had all kinds of code words, and we kind of deciphered a lot of it, they're not really slick about it, but we were on a night, a night mission, and this this is what freaked me out, and I can't remember where or when this was. I want to say I was in that same draw. But Prophet was telling us what they were getting, and he was like, Hey, they're saying like I can, I'm close to the Americans, should I engage? And he keeps on going, and I can hear this as a byproduct of just being close to a squad leader or somebody, and he's like, Hey, the one guy is saying, like, I can reach out and touch the Americans, should I do it? So then it's pitch black, and we all just have the one monocle nod, and I'm just like, Yeah, like reaching in the dark, like, is that me they're talking about? And that was a real testy night, you know, things like that. So things slowed way down and they sped way up. It was just back and forth, dude. It was a slinky effect for for a year.
HostYou kind of mentioned it a little bit, but I mean, after these firefights would end, what was the come down like, dude?
Kyle SteinerHysterical. Historic, like people would you see it a little bit in the documentaries, people would start laughing and being like, You believe that? Like he was running and that happened, or this happened. He's like, Yeah, I was shooting at this, I was shooting at that. You know, I got so amped up one time, and then the homies know this story. I got so amped up one time that I'm on the Mark 19, the Automatic grenade launcher, and I'm shooting at what I think is a dude. And it's like the most clear, well uh like picture viewpoint I have of a guy in the white like jammies, the the pastune garb, and I'm just because they're fighting over there, and I'm like shooting this guy, and I'm like calling up on my little guard tower radio. I was on guard, guard tower radio. I'm like, I'm I'm trying to get this guy, he's not shooting at us, he's also not moving. He's like, and I'm like hitting real real close to him. It's like booming, booming, booming. And um, and I'm like, he's he's super ballsy. Like, I don't know, I'm getting him. And then I don't know if it was an A10 or somebody flew by and they're like, that's a flare parachute draped over a tree. I probably wasted a can of ammo on this thing.
HostYeah, I was I I mean, uh another couple things that go through my head as I'm you know listening talk about two. Well, one of the first one is were you guys wearing ear pro? Because I can't you guys had to be deaf by the end of that. Super deaf.
Kyle SteinerEverybody from there is deaf. Nobody wore ear pro. I can't imagine somebody being like, hold on a minute. You know, nobody had Pell tours back then. It wasn't a thing. You know, you had the foamies that they gave you in a little green thing, but nobody had time to put them in.
HostI got in a tick on a rooftop one time and it was like a U-shaped rooftop. And so the echoes now, I mean I couldn't hear shit for like a week, yeah. So I was just as I as I hear you guys and as I watch the documentary, I didn't see anybody wearing ear pro, and I'm sure the VA will say none of it's service connected, dude. But I was just like wondering, like, is every you guys constantly just like screaming at each other?
Kyle SteinerYeah, yeah, yeah. We shot, I don't remember who it is, but somebody shot a law inside of a room that I was in, and everything was shut. He kind of opened a window and it was uh it was one of the lumber trucks going by and he shot the law at it. But I remember being in there and it kind of being toward the back, and I looked over and he was like, you know, law or I'm law or something. And he shot it and it just blew the doors open, it blew everything, and I was like, ow! And uh that was one of the times it's like, oh, yep, it's official, it's gone. Like it's hearings gone.
HostNot service connected, I'm I'm sure. Thank you, VA. Yeah, I mean, with we were talking in the car yesterday, you know, you're you're going through your VA stuff, and they're like trying to deny your TBI, and you have to like show them a picture of your helmet of you getting shot in the head. Like, man, it's 2026. I understand some dudes have tried to make some claims, but come on, bro. Yeah, yeah, the headshot. Um Tim Harrington and Sebastian Younger. When um again, I I I I think I mentioned it early on in the podcast, but there's two full-blown documentaries on what we're talking about. I'd highly suggest you guys both watch them. They cover um the same deployment, but from different vantage points. Uh, I think the the ristrepo is kind of you know about what was going on, and I think uh corn gall is really kind of your vantage point. It's super interesting. I remember the first time I watched it, and I think I don't remember, I remembered I remembered you from the documentary when you came out uh I don't remember when I saw you on social media, but I finally, you've got like a super like big Roman soldier face, and I you you still kind of look like a little bit like then. I was like, oh, I I I remembered you from the documentary. Um and I remember watching that, just you know, I've been to Afghanistan and Iraq, just being like, man, that's that's you guys went through a lot. Um, when did the documentary crew first arrive? And and you know, uh walk me through what it was like trying to integrate. The only reason I bring this up to is my last podcast guest who was a Marine in Fallujah. They had a reporter attached to his uh his unit when they took uh Fallujah. So it's it's just a very interesting dynamic.
Kyle SteinerYeah. Yeah, so Sebastian and Tim came out, and uh by chance I hadn't met them because they came out the very out there when I got assigned to Battle Company 2nd Platoon, and it was their first pump. And there's a really funny picture of me reading a magazine in like a gator at the base of the valley, and the in the and the cop being told I'm gonna go up, and they were there already. I was like, what are these dudes doing here? And they're like, Oh, they're doing a thing called, well, they're doing a thing for Vanity Fair. Uh I said, all right, that's strange. And uh Nightline or Dateline. Nightline. And uh I said, okay. And then we talked to them a little bit, and they're like, Yeah, it's called the Valley of Death, because you know, you guys are uh you guys are using like a lot of the ordinance, a lot of the support, you guys are getting most of the ticks. And I remember thinking, and like the guys uh echoed this, they were like, is nobody else fighting? Is there like a ceasefire or something? We we didn't understand that it was just because the kinetic activity was only in our area. Um, you know, and we're like, holy, like I say in the documentary, like, did everybody just come here? Is this like the hotspot? Who knows? But he was like, Yeah, yeah. So the American wants to know about your guys' story and the valley of death and the fact that you're doing this thing. And I was like, all right. They came out, I don't remember if it was two or three weeks. I talked to him a little bit. Um, I don't know how much the guys talked to him, but I know there was some hesitancy, hesitancy in it. And uh, you know, Sebastian, I loved Tim. Tim was a solid cat. Sebastian really uh became close with with O'Brien. I love Sebastian too. You know, I've seen him a couple times since then. I keep in contact with him, but they went back and we never thought we'd hear from him again. We're like, all right, good, good for you guys, you know. Thanks for coming out. Uh hey, you know, we might be on on nightline at some point. And then then they came back a second time a couple months later, and I'm like, hey, America like really responded to this, so we're doing another one called Return to the Valley of Death, where they came back out. So they how long were they out there with you initially before they left the first time?
HostThree weeks, maybe. Oh, really? Yeah. They spent a good amount of time with us, and they released something like super quick when they got back.
Kyle SteinerYeah, it was a they were contract reporters for Vanity Fair. I still have the the Vanity Fair uh magazines because you know my family, everybody in Wisconsin bought like 10 copies, and then um, and then I have one, I have a DVD, it probably doesn't work now, it's probably scratched up, but it was the nightline, the valley of death. It was just your normal that's when the media coverage started getting big on different places, and you started seeing things fallusion that, and you were like, Oh man. So that's when it started to really ramp up, and you're like, This is happening. And um, you weren't just seeing KIA pictures on local news, you were starting to see like this is what's going on here. These people were brave enough to go and record this or interview these. People and again, we didn't have access to the news, so we didn't know how it was taken or how it was found or how they portrayed us. Um, yeah, 16 months you guys are pretty much away from the world.
HostWe had no idea what there's no TVs out on the you know, I mean there's no you guys, you guys even getting news at all?
Kyle SteinerNo, no. I remember, you know, I'm a Packer fan, a Green Bay Packer fan being from Wisconsin. Weird, I would have never guessed. I remember flying back on the plane um to to Ristrepo, and it was uh the 2007 NFC Championship game. It was Brett Favre's last game with the Packers, and the lady came up to intercom and she's like, Do you want to know the score of the game? And I didn't know that they were good that year until I got home and like, yeah, they're super good. They're like 14 and 2, they're gonna make the Super Bowl. And then they say that they lost, and I was like, It was the worst day ever. As I'm flying back to Restrepo, I was so mad. Like Brett Favre retired. I'm like, oh no. But uh, but no, Sebastian and Tim, we ended up getting really close to them. Then after that, they the America can't get enough of it. I remember they played it up a lot. America can't get enough of it, they really like it. Um uh they're really into you guys, they're really interested in your stories. Um, most notably the personal stories of you guys, because that's how they they framed it. And we're like, oh, cool, right on. They did that, and again, we were like, Yeah, we'll never hear from them again. They might have said something to the other guys, they never said anything to me, and then they came out probably a month or two later and was like, hey, we're here on our own accord. And I remember they came back a third time? Yeah, because those were just contracted things. I think they came back four four times. I think it was four times total. They came back again to get more footage. Because, like, hey, we would like to do our own thing for you guys, do a documentary of ourselves, just just oh, so the initial times that came out, those are just for like newspaper article type thing or uh a magazine. Yeah, Vanity Fair and M MBC or ABC Nightline. I don't know which one it is. Um, but yeah, that's where those were contracted. They came out from what I gather, and I don't this may or may not be true, they got a loan from National Geographic who sponsored it or whatever, and then uh they came out, you know, with all that stuff paid for and hung out with us for months on end. Two more times, I believe. Man, my memory is shot, but I think it was two more times for uh you know a month or two at a time. And by the end of it, they were like, Where are you guys going today? What are you doing today? Can I come? Yeah, let's go. I mean, most of those most of those conversations were with the platoon surrounding the platoon leader. And they're like, Hey, you guys got Tim and Sebastian today. And I'm like, Okay. And uh they were they were part of the crew, they went everywhere. The amount of times that uh you asked me a question like, did they ever fight? Do we have to protect them? Yeah, the amount of times that like I you could ask, you know, Sebastian that a hand grabbed his shoulder and moved him down on a wall or moved him out of the way or returning fire right in front of his face. And the dude, the dude had, you know, balls of steel that he was like right in your face with the camera the whole time, you know. Um, you know, Tim I he broke or really sprained. I think he broke his ankle on a mission and he walked back. And we were far away. He walked back to the thing. But they became family, they really did. They they wanted to tell our story and and they did it justice with the the documentary.
HostUm, I can't I have nothing but I want to say that's one of the first documentaries that really kind of set the tone. I mean, because there's been a ton of documentaries, but I remember that's the first one that I watched because I had friends that were uh I had a really close friend that was in the valley with you guys. Uh, it wasn't co-located with you guys, but was an Intel guy. And I remember him talking about it, and then I watched that documentary, and it was really well done. Yeah. And they obviously took some time. You could tell they cared. Uh, they captured, you know, the perfect balance between war and the funny stuff, like all the things that really happened behind the scenes that people don't talk about. Uh, it was really well made.
Kyle SteinerYeah, yeah. I mean, he we could tell they cared about us, and I think they knew that we cared about them to an extent toward the end. Like uh we would, we would, we would fuck with them, man. Um, O'Burn's favorite thing was to pretend like he was stepping over a trip. They didn't have night vision, so he would pretend that he was stepping over a tripwire, and then he'd like point to it, and they were like with their camera, and they're like, what the something? And then you could see him like yeah, like trying to. There's nothing there, and we're all like snickering.
HostYeah. Um, what was it like with them like living in and around you guys? I mean, I'm sure they had the camera, but they ever put the camera down and just be human and oh yeah.
Kyle SteinerOh yeah, they're the ones that brought us a lot of a lot of stuff here and there, you know. Um, they would bring it, you know, playing cards and dominoes and stuff like that. So they were the ones that we got, they just hung out with us and they told stories, you know. We would have these whole entire tutorials with from Tim on on how to speak British, you know. And you don't call a chick a bird, you call her or a chick, you call her a bird. That's how that's how they refer to women, and and he would just give us all these like slang terms and stuff.
HostAnd um Yeah, I'm not even familiar with Tim. I mean, I know Sebastian. Um we've talked about Sebastian's book The Tribe a lot on um on our podcast, but yeah, I'm not familiar with him at all.
Kyle SteinerTim is Tim is a solid dude. Um yeah, when he died, uh I don't remember who texted me, but somebody said, Hey, you know, Tim Tim's dead. And and I I said, What, you know, what happened to him? So from what I get, I mean he took like a mortar shell or some kind of artillery shell. He got into a fight, and I want to say it was in Libya. Um but um yeah, he he ended up bleeding out. And there's been some medical things for journalism that have come from that that I'm pretty proud of that uh I couldn't quote him, but different different first aid training and first aid kit outfitting for for non um non-combat for combat journalists, you know. Um so that's a good thing. But yeah, he died, you know, then and the last thing him and I talked about, he I went on a before I left for the Q course. Um I did like a little tour around Europe and he gave me his flat in London. He was off shooting somewhere and I stayed in his flat. Uh you know, and he's uh he's a good dude, he he's a fantastic guy. I loved him, um, and Sebastian too, you know, and they never let their feelings about the war or politics or anything that they felt get in the way of just the dudes, and they became bros, they really did. I thought, you know, I What was Tim like as a person? He was funny, man. He was kind of like, I mean, to be honest with you, he reminded me of Bear Girls. He was like a quirky dorky Englishman, and and he had these these little quirks about him, but man, he was funny. And we used to just rib him so hard, and he took it like a champ. But he he was really funny, um, a really funny too. But every time if my sons are watching Bear Girls, which I do often, his that voice, oh, I'll hear that voice and how he spoke and how he um the inflection he puts on different words, and it brings me right back to like listening to Tim tell stories.
HostAnd I'm sure that's nice, right? Because you're in the middle of the nowhere and you're with you know your friends, and at some point you guys start telling the same stories. Uh, and so it's probably nice that I just have like people come in and lighten the mood, right? Like it's you're living uh very tense days. So um thanks for sharing. It's pretty obviously that that he left a mark on you. Um what did you think when you found out they were making a documentary?
Kyle SteinerHonestly, we thought it would flop. I I I know I did, I don't know what the bros think, but they were like, We're gonna we're gonna tell your story. And and I remember Brennan being like, Yeah, whatever. Like O'Burn being like, All right, man, like we'll see. And thinking it's gonna be like some B rate, you know, like we were like, all right. And I remember them telling me something about National Geographic, and I was like, that's a pretty big station, like that, or like networked that thing. That's pretty cool. Um, but they they kept saying they were gonna do it and that they had all this stuff, and then I don't know if other guys stayed in contact with like producers and and the people that worked for uh for Sebastian. I I did not until the when right before they released it, I got an email from um from Maya, who I I guess was some kind of executive producer on it being like, Hey, this is happening. I was like, Oh man, it really is happening. Um but by that by that point I had already gone back to selection and I was almost done with the Q course by the time it came out. Actually, I I had finished the Q course. Um, so we did never think it was gonna be this big, man. We had no idea it was gonna be anywhere close to what it was. Um, I had just graduated when he flew a bunch of us out to New York um to watch the premiere in a private viewing session with our wives and stuff, and Julia came with me. And it was the first time since I had left the 173rd. I had no, I had gone to Sal's Medal of Honor ceremony in DC and seen some of them, but it was the first time um that I had seen a lot of them. And uh and we got to hang out in New York. You know, he gave us at the time Sebastian had a bar called the Half King in Manhattan, and he was like, All their all their booze is on me. Oh boy. Say less faith. He ended up saying at one point that we drank like 19k worth of booze that night. And I was like, Yeah, all right.
HostThat's what happens when you unleash an infantry unit in a bar with an open tab.
Kyle SteinerYeah, yeah, because he left it like 9-3. He's like, Oh my gosh, I'm going home, you know, he's all like you guys have fun, and we're like, For real?
HostClose that sucker down at six in the morning. Uh, what was your kind of reaction when they're they the when the title was gonna be The Valley of Death?
Kyle SteinerOh man. Well, that's what when when he said, that's what I was saying, when he said, Yeah, we're titling it the Valley of Death, I don't think he was set on that title at first, and then he came back the second time and told us that he had settled on that, and then that the that the now one he was doing was returned to the Valley of Death. We were really taken aback. I at least I was. I can't speak for the bros, but like we were like, man, there's other people that are doing stuff, you know. There's gotta be like some rangers doing some cool stuff, or somebody's like, you know, we know that tier one guys were probably in Torah War doing something around the same time, but we had such a high concentration of people that in our valley that he's like, Yeah, you guys, the big stat was that we were using like 80 or 90 percent of all ordinance drop to cover our movements.
HostThat's another thing I was, you know. I I told you earlier I had two questions. One was about your earring, the other one was like, dude, how often were you guys getting ammo resupplies? Uh, because my other part of my brain is like, man, or if you guys had an ammo house, you know, if those guys got one rocket in an ammo house with the ammo ordnance you guys were clearing, like you explode. Were you guys just getting constantly resupplied?
Kyle SteinerYeah, all the time. And and you would get it in kind of a speedball fashion a lot of times, so it would be wrapped up in a skid coat or something like that. But we ended up building like this like mecca tie temple of sandbags that came to a point and it was like six sandbags deep with our ammo like dug underground. It was huge, man. And you go down there, it was actually the coolest place when it got really hot. So you do go down there, but um, we had tons of ammo and we were getting laws and smallties and AT4s, javelins. Like, we had when the resupply came, it came hard for us because we were going through a lot of ammo, man. And and you're talking about hearing like the bombs that were dropped, man. I can I still have a piece of metal that I was sitting by a tree, and they're like, hey, you know, blah blah blah, you know, 500 pounds ADM or whatever, danger close. Yeah, I was like, uh, I don't know the FO stuff at the time. I'm an E4. I'm like, oh, danger close. He's like, brace yourself. I'm like, yeah, whatever. They they come in close all the time. And this like shard of metal, like this big, just came smoking shard of metal, just came skipping over and hit me in the calf, just lightly. And I like looked down and I was like, oh man, and I kept it. I was like, that is danger close. Oh, holy hell, okay. Did you guys have a TAC P or a JTAC with you guys?
HostOr no, we had an FO, just a just a Ford Observer, Tanner's teacher. And that too was calling all your errand. Um, what was uh what was Sebastian Younger like? I you know, I I reached out to him like six months ago. I'd love to talk to that dude. We talked about his books. I've heard him on Joe Rogan. He seems like a I know he had a death scare not that long ago. Yeah, about it. What was he like out there?
Kyle SteinerHe's a straight shooter, man. He it's funny because at certain points he would talk about it. He was, you know, at the time most soldiers were kind of right-leaning, and I'm not gonna get into politics. He was very left. He was a very left-leaning dude, but he was a very neutral guy in his reporting. And um, he was a little more serious. He was older. You could tell he was like older. Um, you know, he had kind of gotten married and had kids uh later in life, but a real serious dude, real serious about his work, but loved to joke with us. He wasn't the young, the young kind of jokester that Tim was, but just a straight shooter. Like that's the best word I can describe. A straight shooter. Everything was right on point, you know. And he always wanted to know why you were doing something. He's like, Why are we covering this area? And he'd be like, Well, because this, this, and that, you know, you heard something over here, prophet said this, and then we saw this guy moving, so it correlates that. And he always wanted to dig deeper into what we were doing, how we were feeling, you know. And and I'm taking to uh he he got the same kind of situation that he recorded me in when I said uh it's like crack okay, and he recorded my one of my best friends, um uh Dusty, and uh he was about over replacement, and he recorded him after the same kind of fight, this and that and the other. And uh he's like, Yeah, well, you know, we had been uh Dusty's talking to him, he's like, What's it like? This and that. And he's like, we had been kept going into how you're feeling. And Dusty, I was on the camera on the outside, so Dusty couldn't was like looking for answers. He was real froze up in the camera, and he was like, and he's like, Yeah, you know, it'd been quiet for a long time, and then they hit us with this, so we're looking forward to the next patrol. And he's like looking at me trying to find the words, and then he goes, We're really gonna stick it to him. Uh and he did exactly like that, and he stopped and he was like, All right, thanks, Dusty. He's like, I can't believe I just did that the 1950s, stick it to him. And I'll never forget that because he was like, Sebastian, don't put that in there, don't put it in there. He's like, I can't believe I did the arm thing and everything.
HostThat's probably hilarious, though. Um did their presence, um, you know, being there filming you guys, um, did it change kind of how you acted at all? Both on patrol and in the fob?
Kyle SteinerUm, a little bit on the fob early on. Toward the end, we didn't even care. Like they were getting not guard shifts, but they were getting like duties, like, hey, trash needs burning.
HostAnd it's like, bro, you're extra, you guys want to hang out, but you guys can do some work, there's no free lunches.
Kyle SteinerYeah, they were getting duties, they were getting you know different things, like, hey, they would hey, we need help taking this pallet of water down to the hill, like come up here and help us. They'd be in the chain of like MRE, you know, the human chain of MREs. So it didn't early on, it was a little different, and then but on patrol, yeah, you had to kind of tuck them into a little bit, and then you'd kind of like bury them down. And every now and again, Sebastian, more often than Tim, would kind of get out, I think, and with the camera and try to get in a way, and they get yelled at, like a bird be like, get the fuck out. Yeah, you're like, all right, and uh, or you know, move over there. Uh so you had to make a couple accommodations for him on patrol, but not many, not many, man.
HostYeah, you know, it it's gotta take big balls, man, for a dude to just run out there in a foreign country in a war zone, uh, and you know, integrate themselves with just a camera. They don't even have a way to defend themselves.
Kyle SteinerSo it um and at that time too, like big cameras, big things. Yeah, yeah, that's a great point.
HostUm, I interrupted you earlier, and I apologize. I've tried to not do that, but you were talking about where you were when you found out um Tim was killed in a Libya in 2011.
Kyle SteinerYeah. Yeah, I was uh 2011. I was on a team. Um I was on 786, ODA786, and uh I think we were I was just about to go to Columbia or something, and uh somebody sent me a text and it really hit me hard, you know, because it wasn't supposed to be him, you know. It wasn't supposed he was in my mind too pure of a dude. Like he he was just there to tell a story. Like he didn't the kind of the old saying, like he never did anything to anybody, you know, like this was this wasn't this wasn't supposed to be him. This wasn't supposed to happen like this, you know. It was supposed to be one of us. And uh it hit me really hard because I always thought of him as that kind of guy, the super neutral guy that was there to tell a story, bubbly dude, like I said, the bear girls type of guy that everything was posit, everything was positive with him. And uh, and I remember thinking like this shouldn't this shouldn't be right. And I remember not believing it at first, being like, no, it can't be it can't beat him. It's gotta be that's gotta be a mistake, you know. He's there's he shouldn't be dead. He's he's too pure of a guy, you know. We're all assholes, we're all drunkards and assholes and and and not the most savory of human beings. And he he was, you know, so he kind of felt really like I should have been in that spot.
HostHow did that uh how did it hit the group chat? And like what did what were guys saying?
Kyle SteinerSo at that time it was like I was still like on MySpace and like Facebook, early Facebook, and it was I didn't I don't think I was in group chats at that point yet. I still was, you know, but I think we were still on flip phones like razors at the time or something. So it was just a few phone calls from a couple different guys. I remember Luke Navala calling me and being pretty emotional about it. And I was like, Yeah, dude, I don't know what to say. I was out at um at a dinner with some people and I had to leave and just walk down the alley, like this dark alley, and talk to him for like two hours. And we we we had some talks. It's like, I don't understand. Like, why was he there? Why wasn't anybody helping him, you know? Um, so I know it hit the dudes really hard. Um, I don't know about a lot of people because I know, you know, Byrne's really close to Sebastian, and I am too, but um, I always felt a really, really special connection with him. You know, he let me stay in his flat, um, his flat. Yeah, in British, yeah, in in London. He was like, Yeah, you stay at my flat, and he told me all the places to go, and he helped me like get around England when I was traveling, you know, Liverpool to see the the Beatles uh start. And he he helped me out a lot, and him and I chatted a lot, and then uh and it was over in an instant. I hadn't spoken to him in a while, and I was like, and I felt bad about not keeping in contact with them and wondering what happened. No, but yeah, it hit a lot of dudes hard. I don't know if it hit hit him harder than me or as hard as me, but I didn't like it.
HostI don't know uh how curious as a person you are. I'm I'm always curious. Did you ever ask him like what drove him to go to a war zone, like being out there with you guys with Afghanists? Did you ever ask him or Sebastian, like, hey man, why are you guys here? What what is it?
Kyle SteinerYeah, yeah, I did. I did, in fact. And I remember I don't I'm gonna get this wrong. I don't know if it was Sebastian and Tim telling me a story about him doing an expose in Africa, like we were talking about, and being in like the back of one of those like Range Rovers and like having child soldiers like drawing them and being really scared. And they were they were really passionate about getting stories out there that other people were afraid to get out there. You know, I don't know, I'm not here to say that one reporter is brave or one isn't, and one isn't wearing a flak jacket for no reason and one is, you know, those old like things, but I am here to say like they wanted to get the story out, and you can tell. We were, I don't know about me, but some of the dudes, I don't know about some of the dudes, but I was hesitant on what they might what they might put out there. And when it came out, I don't I couldn't, there's not a dude in the platoon that's like that portrayed me wrong. I didn't, there's not a guy that says that. They're like uh he they were right on, they cared about us, they cared about our viewpoints. It was us talking mostly, them prompting us, but I don't think that any guy in my chat or or any guy from Restrepo would say that they they screwed us in their portrayal of us or what they had, you know, they left out the stick it to them thing so Dusty can stay happy and everything's good. And like they did what a good non-biased journalist does, I I think.
HostYeah, I don't know that that happens as much anymore. And the reason I asked that is I just started making documentaries. We just made our first one in November. We're hoping to make another one this summer. So it's important, I think, to understand your perspective as a guy that's on the other side of the camera, you know, where Tim and them are, um, to make sure that you know that we get it right for whatever story we're telling. So it's it's really cool uh to hear you say that. Uh before we dive in a couple other topics, uh, can we take a quick break?
Kyle SteinerYeah.
HostUm as we dive into other parts of you know that 16-month there, uh, I want to talk a little bit about the people you were with, especially your squad. Um, you know, the the documentary goes into some of that. Um, but you know, it's it, you know, it obviously the documentary is clean and cut and clipped. And uh so tell me who are your like best friend or friends uh when you're at Restrepo.
Kyle SteinerYeah, I mean, obviously the guy that was at the in the PSD with me, Chris Hoyt, um he he he did OEF six with Chosen Company and then got one over there by some way and uh ended up going to Second Platoon Battle Company with me, and him and I just were really close. We worked out together. Um he was and remains one of the the closest people to me, um, even though I haven't I haven't spoken to him in quite a while. Um I consider him you know a brother, but you know, Elliot Alcatera, who who came a little bit later on, but him and I knew each other really well. Um Dust uh Dusty Um Dustin Henry, he was a kind of a replacement, but him and I got really, really close. We worked out a lot, and then obviously my my squad, you know, Tad Donahoe. Um I lost contact with him too. I lost contact with a lot of people when I went into the ODAs and so off. And and I regret that um a lot, but I was like, hey, I was always looking forward. You know, Tad Ted went home to Reading, uh Reading, California, where he's from. Um you know, I was friends with Jason Monroe. He was in my squad, he's from Milwaukee. I think he's back there now. And uh but you know, I looked up to O'Burn and McDonough. O'Burn was my team leader in Mac, Josh McDonough, who's he's he's one of the only other ones that's still in, you know. He's uh he's down as a sergeant major of a of a basic training uh battalion, I think. One 1-5-0 brigade, I don't know. But they coincidentally the one I went to years ago. But you know, he was he was like a hero to me. And the NCOs, like I said, Mark Patterson, our pinstront, was like Yoda to me. Uh, you know, Kevin Rice, um, he was another squad leader, uh, you know, Matthew Simon, who I ended up going through Ranger School later with together, Teddy Buno. Teddy Buno was I think you know, he's an islander, and uh, you know, at certain points he carried a samurai sword in his kit on patrol. You know, we just did wacky things, man, just to pass time and stuff. But but I had a lot of friends. I mean, I consider them all brothers, um, wrong, right, or indifferent, you know. There's been some some bad blood, but I hold nothing. I I hold those men in the highest regard. You still keep in contact with any of them? Yeah. I'm gonna chat with a few of them. I see some of them come and go. Um, it's it's not just second platoon. There's a lot of dudes that were in the corngal from the other platoons because we had Fab Vomoto and and um in in Vegas. So I still keep in contact with quite a few of them. And then the ones that aren't in the chat that would would rather not be, I still ever since I decided to retire. I I kind of came out on social media um and uh I decided to be like, hey, and at first it was it was to kind of contact some people that I was trying to find. You know, I had lost phone numbers. Most of when I left, we all had Italian phones, you know. So getting the American phone numbers once everybody else rotated back was really hard. Luckily, I've had the exact same phone number since the day I came back from Italy the entire time. It's it hasn't changed. So if anybody has it, they can always call me on that one and I'll keep it open. But uh where did where's Chris Hoyt from? Do you know? Uh Butte, Montana. Is is is and I as far as I know, he went back there. The last I heard he was working on an oil. oil field or oil rig or something.
HostSomebody out here that's going to hear this podcast knows Chris Hoyt. Chris, get in get in contact with Kyle. You can his uh his his social media links will be in the description for this podcast. So find him. I know that would mean that would mean a lot to him. It would.
Kyle SteinerYeah, I mean Chris Chris was instrumental in me as development of a man. He had already had a kid, you know, he had he had a he had a kid in Montana. So he was a mature dude. He was a fit dude. I looked up to him. You know he was a he was a smart NCO. I always wondered why he got put in PSC. I know why I got put there and I know why the other two NCOs got put there. But Chris was kind of jaded about it. I think it was something with a fight or something. But he was a really good NCO. He ended up um taking over I think second squad uh later on and I I looked up to him and as I did most of the guys above me you know and and and I wasn't perfect. I messed up a lot you know there was there was times when I couldn't hack it and I'd I'd get smoked for for this that and the other and now looking back on it always warranted. And I I can I can't give those guys enough thanks for that stuff because I'm like yeah man you guys forged what I became and and they're the the foundation for what I was able to do and accomplish going forward.
HostI wouldn't be who I am without them yeah that's awesome and it's always good to you know we're older now right and now we get the benefit of having kids and I mean dude you've been in leadership positions um and you and you go back and you get to see man and you know what that's not life we don't get the benefit of doovers right but all those experiences some total of all that and the things that that we go through make us who we are today. People always ask me like you know do you have regrets? Of course we have regrets but there's not a lot of things in my life um that I would change because I think it led me to this moment being here having this podcast talking to you right and when I look at you know kind of my own path Rocky and ridgelines and whatever that led me here I'm thankful for the journey because when life's too easy you take everything for granted dude and I think you know in the short time you and I've been talking today and even yesterday and the lead up to this like that's who we are you know and it's it's cool to to see people you especially you're a very humble person um to talk about the people that impacted you because there's a lot of me me I I I people out there and we really avoid that mindset on on our channel because it's a tribe dude uh we're the sum total of the people that led us influenced us um helped us even the people that kicked us a couple times Megan you know we I still learn from the people that I didn't care for you know those I use those people for fuel for the next thing so uh tell us a little bit about uh Sal Junta before he won the Medal of Honor I know you've had some funny stories yeah man I I I you know Sal and I haven't spoken in a while and uh I talked to a lot of people that still still talk to him and hang out with him to this day and um I have nothing but the utmost respect for Sal.
Kyle SteinerI love Sal. I thought I can't and he'll tell you this he's a humble he's the humblest dude I know um you know I didn't I wasn't really close to him um when he earned his medal of honor but I know what he did and I know what the boy said about him and I know the kind of guy he was you know I had uh I had a couple heavily heavy drinking excursions with him in the past and uh I had been smoked with him both both on a mortar line um uh I think it was on a mortar line with uh sergeant staff sergeant at the time Eric Phillips and then again doing saw drum changes by Dave Barbarette and uh him and I always just we didn't go out a lot together but we knew each other and we we hung out here and there and um the funniest thing you know as I tell people is is I I was filing out from the 173rd three or four days prior to my my departure uh with my now wife and uh we she was walking around helping me get you know files signed or whatever and Sal was probably on a stoop drinking with the boys or doing I don't know what he was doing and uh I introduced you know my wife to him and I was like this is Sal so on and so forth and I didn't say anything at first and as we got to the car you know him and I were like bantering as I was walking away and I was like he's gonna win the Medal of Honor and he's like I can hear you no I'm not or something you know something like that and I was like yes you are and uh and I drove away and I was like hey man you know hit me up be a brag I'm gonna be a green bread and like you're and you're gonna win the Medal of Honor and he's like no I'm not and I like drove away and uh I remember thinking that thinking like yeah you know could happen could happen didn't give it any thought and then when he was awarded it I was like oh damn and and and you know my wife was like yeah he did he really did and I was like he did and you know I think we saw him you know flipping the coin at the Super Bowl or something and I was like there he is you know really humble dude and him and I both came from the Midwest and and I like him a lot and uh my connection with him was mostly through Dave Barbarette um who I who I respect but I love Sal. Yeah him and I I remember one heavy wine drinking night I don't remember what we were doing but I remember we we were in the same car and we were lost uh because in Italy they have these like uh you know the concrete barriers little yellow ones and we were just like lost in this thing trying to figure our way out but yeah crazy you've mentioned a couple people um on the podcast uh up to this point but is there any other people that you know had a massive influence uh on you uh from that deployment um whether it's leadership or friendship or whatever um you talked about McDonough a little bit yeah I mean Mike Mode Mike Mode was was a lieutenant and and he ended up going to another platoon but Mike Mode I just recently spoke to him and and you know I asked him a question because I remember my mind was so focused on the next the call the next ridge line but I was trying to always like gauge myself as a man I knew I was immature I knew I had a lot to learn and I remember being on rock avalanche you know the same one you know when Larry Rugal uh died and I didn't know Larry very well but uh I had run into him when I was in he was a scout when I was in Scout platoon and he was very quiet and very humble. I don't know if he was like that with everybody or I was just a new cherry but uh he was like really important to me being like wow that's what like a stoic is he was a ranger regiment guy and I was like man he's like the coolest guy ever but anyway uh I was on Rock Avalanche and I think this was the the day before he died and the day before Kevin Rice got shot and Carl Vandenberg Carl Vandenberg I went to basic training with and uh I leaned over to Mike Mode we were we drastically underestimated the cold weather gear we needed because we were going up like another two or four thousand feet elevation and it was nasty cold there. So we were sleeping two guys to a body bag we had body bags like zip up and the and the vinyl or whatever and um we zipped it up all the way and then didn't realize that our breath the condensation was dripping in our own faces but I remember leaning over to Mike Mode and being like hey is this like ranger school lieutenants were rangers and he was like what I was like is this like ranger school do you think like after I do this stuff I could be a ranger and he was like yes that's the dumbest question ever he was like this is you're gonna moonwalk through ranger school this is the stupid and he he kind of made me feel stupid and I was like I'm gonna be able to do it because this is hard. Yeah I'm gonna stick it to ranger school and uh and I I have carried that tiny note of confidence that he gave me on my shoulders years on because he told me that I could do it and I was like I can do it. And uh so Mike Mode was really instrumental. He was he was a you know I don't I don't have an opinion about lieutenants one way or the other young lieutenants as a young guy myself but he was always a really cool guy that would like talk to you and be like how's it going? What's up with you? You know he was you know go back to Band of Brothers he was the dude that was invested in who you were as a man you know and so important. Yeah and I Mike Mode was a solid cat is a s is a solid cat and um you know he just he told me he let his son watch Restrepo and and what his questions were on it and him and I had a good conversation but he I owe a lot to him too for allowing me to see the world in a bigger light and a little more clear you know as a man.
HostYeah super impactful man um kind of off topic but how many people stayed in after that deployment was there a big did you know a bunch of people get out or yeah a bunch of people got out there was a few I know that like I I can't speak for the battalion or the company but I can speak for second platoon um a couple went to be instructors a couple stayed in and did further deployments but eventually got out or went national guard um as far as I know myself and McDonough and then Mike Mode ended up being in another platoon um but he ended up going soft to uh fifth group for a little while I don't know how long he did there and then um my uh McDonough Josh he went to Ranger Regiment and did very very well um from what I understand he uh I have people that I run into Rangers that are like oh man you know Mac or Sergeant Major McDonough every like anytime I run into Rangers they know him and they know me by default and they want to know what staff Sergeant McDonough was like not command sergeant major McDonough which I find hilarious and I'm like well yeah it is funny like as we've gotten older like my friend group you know the officers I know are are oh six or soon to be generals like you know my my friends are either you know command sergeant majors are retired and it's it's funny because you know you grow up and you guys are all younger together even guys I knew at the police department now they're deputy chiefs and you're just like man the dumb shit that we did and now we're all you know you you guys are in charge of people or we became in charge of people as I was climbing the ranks yeah because you still have those memories of when you were you know doing dumber stuff when you guys were always younger so it's it's it's it's a weird thing sometimes to get older right it is it is super eerie yeah battle company had a 30% purple heart rate uh when when did your platoon take your first casualty if you remember I mean the first ones I remember while I was there obviously were Strepo had died um you know and then you know as far as further on Vomoto had died and and we had and um you know the the first casualty that that comes to my mind is is Kevin Rice and Carl Vandenberg on Rock Avalanche in that October.
Kyle SteinerYou know we had guys get Medevac for different things um but those were the big ones you know Kevin got shot in the in the belly I believe and uh and Carl got shot in the arm and and you know I was covering them in this burnt out stump when they were evaced and they had given uh Carl a fentanyl lollipop and he walked past me with his arm just gashed open looking like a holiday ham and like wrapped up and he like had it sticking out his mouth and he like smiled and like waved at me and I was like wow and uh you know Kevin had his he was bloody here and and they moved him but that was the first time that it really hit me hard because up until that point I think I was so immature and so out of touch with reality that I was like eh it can happen you know but but it's not gonna happen and then it was right on our doorstep and that's when you know Larry Rugal died and he you know he wasn't uh he wasn't in the platoon but he was part of the scout team that was attached to us and and I knew the guys that he had brought with him because they were with me in scouts and I don't know what they thought of me either way um but I knew Larry um just by you know just by chance of being in scouts and and I thought he was the coolest dude ever you know and when he when he got killed like they say in the documentary you're like man that's like one of our best because like he was it he was a ranger and he was he had tons of good deployments and you're like Larry knew what was up and um and then he died and uh it hit a lot of dudes really hard and I was like I was thinking like well man if he got swacked and Kevin Rice who I hold in the highest regard you know got hit and I was like it's coming for all of us. And you know it goes back to and I don't want to sound cheesy but it goes back to like you can't you can't operate effectively until you accept the inevitable. We really can't you know if you think there's a chance then you're not gonna give your full commitment to any one task. You have to be like well uh I guess I don't have to worry about the bullet that has my name on it. I probably should worry about the bullet that just says to whom it may concern.
HostYeah. You know that's a unique way to to put it you know I always wonder how people you know you know how do you grieve when you can't really stop fighting anyway right so it's not like I've said it multiple times on the podcast you know and I was in law enforcement for a while when a police officer dies, you know you wear bands around the badge and you get a couple weeks and you know you there you don't do that at war. There is no you know what I mean like there's no stand down for two weeks where you tell the enemy hey man we're we're in a grieving process um so it's I'm sure there's no time for grieving there you you either don't grieve or you know you try to deal with it put that in a in a in a in a tough box and deal with it you know down the road. Can you talk a little bit about Rock Avalanche what it was what it was about you know kind of what happened and and your memories from that operation?
Kyle SteinerI mean in as much as I know because again as an E4 I was like all right my ruck was packed to the brim and it was heavy and we were getting infilled in a helicopter which I thought was super cool at night and we were going to make a push uh near the Abascar Talazar Ridge lines I believe and we were gonna you know push deep into the valley um word word has it and I can't you know confirm or deny this but we were close to where the the kind of the lone survivor thing was supposed to have happened and um it's funny because I remember them finding DVDs like the anti-American propaganda DVDs but uh uh once we started getting hit you know it was it's surreal was it a full battalion movement I yeah I believe so yeah we had the whole gambit was in there I mean I I know all of Biko was in there we had um and I knew where I was supposed to be and I knew where my squad was supposed to be and where they put me and you know I'm carrying the saw which is just terrible and I'm walking up these Rocky mountains and we just kept walking and and input um in place in certain areas and kept walking and then and then one day it just lights up. Were you guys at a blocking position or yeah kind of but like a platoon blocking so we were spread way out with different squads in different places and uh it was like and I'm not going to equate this but it was it was set up kind of like um you know the Ardennes forest scene in Bandon Brothers like there was just little pockets of dudes and then every now and again somebody would come by and be like how you guys doing what do you guys see and then you kept going and you were in your like little spot like I'm good you don't see anything you know whatever and it opened up and it was kind of to my back left when it opened up and I remember being really upset because there was a lot of fighting going on there but I was covering this like valley gorge and I was like nothing's happening over here. And then I remember like looking down and be like well nobody's gonna climb up this thing like this is ridiculous. This is that's suicide you know they're obviously gonna come up the uh the easier ridge line to do it and I I heard they they broke in broke through our lines pretty good um and that's how Kevin you know got shot and they started pulling things off of them and and dudes started you know stepping up and and and saving lives and it was awesome and and then you know the birds coming in but we were up there for eight days maybe I don't I don't remember remember the the thing that hits me most about it is the the only time I'd had a death in the family was when I was on that so I didn't hear about when I came back down until I came back down but being up there you know it was it was surreal we didn't I didn't bring enough cold weather gear we were freezing I have a bunch of pictures of me just being disgustingly dirty somebody took with a point and shoot you know at one point they speed they they sent speed balls of ammo and water and I think they sent like muffins you know those like spontaneoff yeah chocolate muffins yeah and uh that thing got dropped like way off and it got got crushed and there was all these crushed muffins like rolling down the mountain and we're like no but um but yeah rock avalanche was a huge deal I I remember the company commander being really really upset that they were able to break through our lines and that Larry had died and I remember him it's in the documentary being like light him up and telling the telling the FOs and everybody said you know we're gonna push this and we're gonna do that and we're gonna maneuver on this and I was like oh man it's getting serious like but again I was so far removed from firsthand knowledge of what was happening that I was like this is my job and I'm gonna make uh O'Burn and Mac proud and I'm gonna do what I need to do you know I'm gonna be where they need me to be well I don't really know the story of Sal uh Junta's Medal of Honor uh there's been a lot of medal honors in the GWAT I've heard people talk about him Johnny Wilson was here um and I think he you know was there when one of the guys were evacued with Sal.
HostYeah they had to crack the chest I think we cut a short that went pretty far um what can you tell us about that?
Kyle SteinerSo from from here saying I you could see a little bit of what was going on on the different ridgelines if you looked back which I didn't do a whole lot because I was covering a different area but you know apparently they got a near ambush and he was you know he was at the front um or close to the front maybe a Bravo team leader so pretty much all of Alpha team was hit and and went down and he you know laid down suppressive fire and just began dragging dude back and then going back and dragging him back. And to my knowledge he took a couple rounds um to different parts of his his plate and stuff and just kept going and if you ask him about it I'm sure he'd tell you he you know he didn't invoke a deliberate thought process which I think is the right you know we we talked about this off camera dude you know I I I really feel bad for some of these medal of honor dudes you know they're out there they're doing the thing right for the brothers for the thing they signed up nobody I'm sure you know wanted to get the medal of honor did it for the medal of honor they're out there doing the thing being a courageous American like many people have done right um and then you know they get pulled off and you know almost guarded and um you know almost separated if you will you become almost property to the US government yeah I think you become I mean you become a the Captain America propaganda tool and I'm not you know say it in a political way but I know that a dude that wants to continue to operate with the boys and with the homies you know doesn't have that option anymore. Like now you're protected. You know it isn't the days of the the guy from the Pacific going you know going back up yeah you you have a a barrage of people around you at all times like making sure you're doing the right thing saying the right thing upholding the values and you know honoring the medal and everything that's been given to you and and I mean that's that's a package deal. But I I know that I would be really upset with it if it had happened earlier and they were like hey sorry dude like your operational career is done you're like you're you're nothing more than a talking piece.
HostYeah you know I'm sure it's got to be cool initially you get to throw a couple baseballs or whatever twin toss and then you're just like yo dude I just want to be a normal dude again.
Kyle SteinerWell yeah and that's why like a lot of them kind of like fade away and they just want to be left alone.
HostI completely understand it and more power to them like enjoy your privacy dude yeah we've been put in touch with a couple of medal of honor winners and that you you'd be lucky if you can even get a response from them I I don't know if the if dod keeps them from from talking I don't think I've heard too many of them talk unless it's some DOD sponsored talk for sure. Were you anywhere near him or were they on a different ridge line?
Kyle SteinerYeah different like a like an adjacent ridge line so we knew what was going on we could kind of see the the ruckus but again most of us are in the prone under the bushes and stuff so you're like what's going on I did fire a law during rock avalanche which I thought was really cool and I thought I was covering something and um I think years have wisened me up to the fact that I just fired a law to fire a law during a mission and it just sailed off into nothing.
HostWhat was it like when you found out he was getting the Medal of Honor I thought I know this dude.
Kyle SteinerYeah I was I was like super fired up and like I saved all the articles I was like I know him and at that time I still had his uh I still have his phone number but at that time you know we we still stayed in contact here and there through through Facebook and and my MySpace um back then yeah that's that's how long ago um but yeah I was like oh man it's like one of us because he was the first living recipient for a really long time you know yeah and uh and it was like yeah he's one of us that's what's up like you know and whether or not he tells you he deserves it whether or not other people tell you he deserves it I don't know that's not for me to say um it's gotta be a sense of pride though that's a guy that came from your company 100% we were like yes that's us that's our guy you know uh like the good fellas thing like he's one of us it's gonna be made you know and and and and he was you know but we also had Eric Phillips and Chosen Company and then um you know Kyle White and Ryan Pittman and and whatnot and uh you know we had uh we had a bunch of them get it you know for different for different reasons and all well deserving and I wish them the best and yeah um did you go to his White House ceremony? I did I did go to his White House ceremony uh we hung out a little bit it's funny because uh I went to basic training like I said with um Matthew Williams from third group who got the Medal of Honor and my bunkmate is really really my bunkmate from basic training is really good friends with with Matt and uh he went to Matt's ceremony which I guess all other living Medal of Honor recipients go to it. So my bunkmate sent me a picture of the three of them all flipping me the bird at Matt's Sal and I was like this guy dude but uh but I did go to Sal's it was funny because I was invited and I was like really you know I'm in soft now and I'm not too you know connected with the company anymore but they were like you gotta come and I was like okay and it was uh it was it was the best time ever like it was like kind of like a mini reunion yeah being back with with the homies um I was I was I had a green beret but I showed up and all my old NCOs were like looking at my uniform be like fixing my stuff who shined your boots I was like yeah this is I missed it you know and uh you grow up but you're still our kid bro yeah that's awesome and that's why my new style was a little bit a little bit uh in in a world that I didn't think he wanted to be in just knowing him um because he was kind of pulled away from an engagement with us you know I went to give him a hug and he had some other things on his schedule so like some some brass kind of pulled him away and he was like I'll see you tomorrow I was like man that's that's you know that sucks I'd like to have seen him a little bit more yeah but it is what it is and I got to go into the Oval Office and and you know I was near Obama when he was speaking about Sal and I was like yep everything's true.
HostOh that's cool. I I think you mentioned too uh you met like an an older dude talking about bayonet in like a Viet Card oh man what was that conversation like man well the Medal of Honor ceremony is like this huge deal where you do the White House thing where they give it to you and then you go to the Pentagon for like induction into some kind of Hall of Fame or something you go like down in the basement and there's like all the photos and everybody.
Kyle SteinerAnd then you have a a nightly dinner at the sergeant major of the army's house and that was weird man. It's like uh do I come back here? Yeah somebody's gonna see this but like he has like butlers with like tails and shrimp platters and I was like what is going on here there's like a little bit different than Sebastian's bar and this is like drink as much as you want like champagne glasses. It was like a it was like I was that the you know Batman's like Wayne's mansion, like walking. I was like, Yeah, I'll take champagne. But we were all there in uniform, and and you start pointing out the older gentleman with the medal of honor wearing it in like a suit. And you're like, Oh, what's up? And they make their way around, they give out their medal of honor coin. All the older guys have it, which I love. And uh they tell they ask you your war stories, and they're like, Oh, so you, you know, you were with Sal in Battle Company, yeah. Yes, sir, yes, sir. Like, oh, you did this and that, yes, sir. Well, and I was like, you know, sure, tell me about yourself. And this happened two or three times. Like, well, you know, I was in Kayson or Docto, and they go into this huge, unbelievable Vietnam or Mac V Sog story, and it lasts like 20 minutes. He's like, Yeah, you know, and then I was I was shot through here and I had to put my guts back here, and I was tying my foot on, and I was like, What? And then they're like, So tell me about your deployment, son. I'm like, no, I'm gonna go over here and get some shrimp. Like, I'd rather not. I now I feel like I shouldn't even be here.
HostUh Travis Mills is coming on. Uh actually, I think he's the next podcast after yours. He's Mac Vsaw guy, and yeah, you know, you talk to that dude, and they just they're laughing, and and his, you know, you know, he's telling a couple war stories, and you're like, bro, I feel like I'm watching a movie. Yeah. This is it's uh, it's cool. That generation, man, and we're really trying to trying to snag a few of them, man, before we lose them, because those stories are uh, you know, Jocko had John Strykermeyer, and they started this thing called Sogcast, where they talk, you know, it's a bunch of guys from Mac V Sog. Um, and it's really cool to hear those stories coming out because different war, not that ours was any less, but theirs was very up close and personal.
Kyle SteinerYeah, and think about it no body armor, a helmet that didn't stop rounds. Yeah, like good lord.
HostYeah, Mac V Sog at one point had a hundred percent casualty rate. Yeah, and you're just like, oh, what? Yeah, very cool. Um let's talk about uh I mean you you had a pretty uh you had a pretty traumatic event yourself uh during this deployment. Um talk a little bit about you know the the patrol, you end up getting shot. Like uh walk us through that day if you could.
Kyle SteinerYeah, it was a little bit more uh of a more higher profile mission. They had sent a guy out, and um O'Brien could tell you his name. Like he was an Irishman from Boston and he was with the asymmetric warfare group. And I remember talking to him one time, again, trying to get intel on Soft, and I was like, Hey, you know, tell me about your experience at selection. And he did this. He goes, Yeah, yeah, selection. He was an older guy, he was like, which one? Oh man, okay, well, uh, never mind. So I was like, This guy's real, like he's he's he's in it, and everybody kind of gave him shit because he he he dressed like an operator, so he went out there with like a really low viz kit and like four mags and a little like a low viz uh m4 you're like buddy, that's not even the last one. Everybody was like, hey dog, like you're gonna want like 12 more mags, and he's like, nah, I'll be all right, I'll be all right. And we're like, okay. Um, but anyway, we were going to cover something, and you had to go down to Aliabad. So you had to pass by a couple, a couple villages, and then we went up into this mountain to watch. I want to say it was until like a KLE or some kind of enemy meeting happened. And um, again, I'm up there covering down this ridgeline. Oh, so you guys are doing like an ambush? Yeah, we're waiting for something, and nothing ever came. So the sun's coming up. We had infilled at night, stayed up all night. I remember because it was one of the few nights I got to have like the thermal, and I was like sick. Like one of the Gen 130. Yeah, predator site, and I was like, awesome. And uh, and I had like a scary moment with it too, because I was doing something and like one of the I was on on the guard and one of the uh one of the rocks like moved and slipped and I fell forward or like rolled forward and it came out of my hand and started like rolling down the hill. Luckily, it had a tie down on it, but I had unclipped it, so I like stuck my hand out and grabbed the loop on the tie down. It was like dangling, and I was like, I would have been, they would have, they would have crucified me. I would have been dead, like for losing this thing. At that time in the war, those were like that, was it, you know? Yeah, so I had that thing, and I felt really cool. I was like, this I'm a cool guy now. And um, the sun's coming up, and I remember there was a big, you know, some of the other guys can probably talk more of this. There was a big fight over us ex-filling during the day. Yeah, I don't know who the fight was with, but I remember hearing a lot of people were not happy with the fact that they're like, nope, pack it up, like it didn't happen, or they moved the meeting or something. And everybody was real vigilant because you're like, oh man, we we're further now, and we infilled by foot at night. So now they're finding out that we were here all night, and you had to come back down off this mountain, cross, go into Aliabad, and then cross this bridge to the river, this like rock bridge. So we're going, and I'm not thinking anything of it. And I'm like, yeah, cool. And you come down, you're going toward the cop on the road. Now you're at the base of the valley, but you're way further down the valley, and the road from the cop leads all the way to that bridge. Um, and they had some, they had, they were gonna pick some dudes up with some humbies and take them to the cop to let them walk up the back way. But they hadn't made it all the way out, I don't think. Um, again, this this day is snippets of what I remember, but I'm coming down and I was probably a quarter to a halfway across the bridge when we started getting shot at. And they're like, oh, go, go, go. So we we came across the bridge and then button hooked right, and there was like a little stacked rock wall of shale that it bordered a cemetery with like little trees in it. And we get down and we immediately start returning fire. Well, we're catching it from like four different angles, like it's coming from all over, you know. I nipple rock, maybe to the left, but I can tell it's coming from everywhere. And there's this really distinct house on the hill right across the way, which I think we kind of passed around a trail to get onto the bridge. So I was shooting off in this direction, and the wall's like on my on my left, and I was shooting, and Misha, the RTO, Misha, um, and then Tanner is the FO and he's near me, and I don't remember who else was near me. And uh we're getting shot, and and it was just chaos. Like I was counting rounds, but I was like, all right, one, two, three, four rounds in this direction at the muzzle flashes, and then turning one, two, three, four rounds in this direction. I'm like, I just have to alternate this, like time it right, you know. Um, just trying to keep it, and I'm like, I hope somebody we get more firepower. And I heard the trucks were coming with the 50s and stuff, and then all of a sudden, you know, I remember thinking the weirdest thing because I looked into the cemetery, and you know, they just they have these like jagged pieces of shale stuck in where people were buried and they're just like carved on, and I could see them just crumbling, they were just getting hit like crazy. So all these headstones were like falling, and I was like, oh man. And I looked up and then an RPG hit, and then a a line of machine gun fire, what I assume was PKM fire, hit along the wall. And I don't know which one it was, but one of them peppered my face really bad, and it knocked me backwards, and my face was like smoky and black, and I was like, oh man, I'm bleeding. I kind of wiped the blood from my face uh a little bit, and I like sat back up, and it might have been a split second that I went to raise my gun and just looked at that house, and this is what I was talking about with the adrenaline. With the weirdest thing, I could see a figure of a man and a muzzle flash, and it was the last thing I saw. He was aiming right for my nugget, and it just went, it hit me, and I felt my head jerk back and went completely green spots for about a few seconds and it went black. And uh yeah, I didn't know what happened to this day. Misha says I was out for a couple minutes. I don't know how long I was out, but it went completely black. But I know the first thing to come back was my hearing, and it's just like it is in the movies, it's like it comes back, you know, and uh and I could hear. Um first of all, I I felt I felt them because I had leaned over, um, I had leaned down and um bled kind of on my crotch area a little bit from my face. And then I when I looked back up, so I knew I had some blood on my pants and down here, and I looked back up, and uh when I got hit and they came over, I started getting they started feeling me, feeling me. Um and uh and I remember thinking to myself, like, no, there's nothing, nothing wrong down there, but unable to speak. I was like, there's nothing going on down there. They were like checking under my kit and stuff, I I think. And then um I heard one of the two which had a radio call me up as KIA. And then you could like physically you can hear him. I could physically hear him, you know, signers hit, signers hit. Uh, and then I heard like, I don't know if it was my it was like K S, you know, KIA or something like that. And I remember thinking to myself, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, I'm not dead. But fingers can't move, can't move, can't hear anything. And then uh it's it's straight up like uh like um like Black Hawk Down, like my eyes opened up with like stuff on it, and I was like, oh man, what's going on here? And then you know, Tanner's face got in my face, and then uh and then Misha's like, oh god, and they kind of lifted me up by my armpits, and like, or I sat up, they're like, Are you guys okay? Are you okay? And I was like, I don't know, am I? And I remember slowly like being like, and then I touched my head, and it was just like this huge blast, like, you know, my Kevlar was all frayed and open. I was like, oh man, what happened? And like, brother, you just took it to the took it to the melon, and I was like, Oh, okay. And they lifted me up, and my knees were like super weak, and I was like, and I remember there was this real slowdown uh minute where I like looked around and they were talking to me, it was like going in and out, and I'm looking at these trees in the in the cemetery, and I can see the branches and the leaves like coming off of them. So they were still shooting at us, and I was like, What the fuck is going on? And somebody turned me around regressively and they're like, Are you okay? And I was like, Yeah, and they're like, Can you run? And I was like, Yeah, and like then run. And they gave me like an a horse ass slap, and I was like, uh, and I went, and I just went in the direction of the road, and they were like pointed, and I ran and ran and ran. Who were you running to? So somebody had said something about a Humvee. So I was I knew the cop was down that road, and I was just running down this road for for dear life. I I think, and um, and I got there, and then there's a really famous picture of Mac, I think was the one that escorting me, or he had come by come a little bit after that, and he was like, dude, and my face is all black and bloody, and I've got this helmet, and I take my helmet off and I'm looking at it, and it had punctured the inside of the helmet, so that was kind of open and uh I guess kind of like circled around a little bit and the inside and come out somewhere, you know, non-kinetic. And I was like, all right. Uh and Mac looked at me and he like took my shoulders and he was like, Welcome to the first day of the rest of your life, brother. And you know what the funny thing is, is that Mac always was a very, very high authority figure in my in my world. Like I saw him, I put him on a pedestal, and I always felt like after that there was like a connection that I had with him that was way deeper because he knew that I knew, like, man, like he almost lost a dude. I almost lost my life, and he was like, Welcome back. And uh I I remained really close with him because of that particular moment, that welcoming and that that that that quote stuck with me my whole life. Just him saying that to me, you know. And I have a funny picture of me like smiling. Everybody always asks, like, why are you smiling? He had just said that to me, and I'm holding my helmet, bloody black face.
HostAnd I was like, uh, yeah, it is what it is, you know. When your hearing came back, and you know, it's like that uh, you know, you're out, you're starting to come back to the world. Can you still hear the firefight going on?
Kyle SteinerOr not really when it's not processing, yeah. You I mean, I'm sure, yeah, I I couldn't hear any actual thing. I could hear like snippets of people yelling at me, and it was going, it was like wow, wow, it was coming in and out. And um, I became real quick, I was like staring at people's mouths, and like obviously their facial expressions and their gestures were like okay. Um, but yeah, like I like I told you, you know, off when we were when we were chatting, like my memory is getting so bad, and uh I have to constantly check with everybody on what really happened. And um, I don't know the science behind it. I've heard several stories about like you you tend to put yourself in the place of somebody you were watching. So if you and I were in a firefight and you were over there shooting that way, over time I'll put myself in your position because I could see you and I forget what position I was in. A lot of that's happened to me, and and dudes will be like, no, it didn't happen there, it didn't happen like this, it happened like this. I'm like, man. And it's not me trying to be intentional, like I really want to fill in these gaps.
HostSure. Your brain wants to process what happened, and you know, you can't remember, and like you're a dude that you know, uh that values like control and and and you know being tactically aware. And I'm I'm sure it's gotta be like
it's confusing because you uh, you know, you can't put the pieces together what happened to your own life, and it's a very, you know, it's very it's big incidents.
Kyle SteinerWell, yeah, and you you concrete your own truth in your mind, and then when somebody's like that didn't happen that way, it it kind of shatters your world for a minute. You're like, man, how messed up am I? So um, but that was a very, very pivotal day in my life.
HostAnd uh I remember you were telling me when you got to the aid station you asked for a cigarette, but you couldn't really smoke it because it was kind of soaked in blood. When did you realize how much you were bleeding?
Kyle SteinerUh I until then, because I I couldn't really feel it. I my face was like all numb and uh and it was it was I was bleeding from the face. And I asked, I want to say his name was Jones. He was the the the medic down there, and I said, I says, Hey man, can
I can I smoke? And he was like, Yeah. And he was like, just wait here. He like did my vitals, he's like, All right, just wait here. And they were doing prepping something in the aid station. So I like took my helmet off and like dropped it, and I like slid my back down the wall of the outside of the like the brick aid station or whatever. And I'm just sitting there and I lit this cigarette up and I like leaned my head back and I got you know two drags off it, and then I was like like really trying to hit it, and I couldn't figure out why. You know, I'm struggling. I was like, oh man. And I looked and the blood had run down my face and soaked the whole thing red. So I looked at it, and I'm just trying to drag off this like wet, bloody cigarette. I was like, damn it, you know, and I I want to say I didn't have another one. I was like, man.
HostWhat did the what did the medics tell you about your wound?
Kyle SteinerUh nothing. They like patched up my face a little bit, cleaned me off, you know. I got the iodine and they're like, did did a couple tests, like eye tests and stuff. I was like, You all right? And I was like, Yeah, like you seem to be pretty good. Not to discredit what they were doing. There's not a whole lot you can do, you know? And I was like, I think I'm good. And you know what, man? This is the this is the truth of it. I wanted to go back with the homies, like so bad. I was like, hey, can I go back up today? And they're like, no. And I was like, You sure? Because I'd really like to just go back up there. And they're like, no. And I remember kind of making a tussle about it. I was like, well, when can I go back up? They're like, just give it a minute, man. And I was like, all right. And uh, and they were like, just go go sleep in one of the the barracks rooms with the beds that you know, we had those plywood barracks with the cop. And I remember walking in there and it was empty, had a little bit of gear in there, but it was just like, you know, the Afghan like uh foam mattresses, and I like laid down in it and like laid back, and my neck hurt so bad, and uh, I had a raging headache. I remember my eyes hurting. You ever like stare at a computer for too long, and your eyes were like crusty hurting. I remember being like, ah, um, at some point, somebody came and got me. I ended up spending a day there. Somebody came and got me and made me take this random test um where they set up a computer at the cop. I remember sitting there and they're like, hey, this is gonna flash. It's a white screen with black letters, and it's gonna flash letters. Hit the spacebar for every um everything but X, except for X. And it like A, F, J. And it does that, and you're like chwck, and then an X will come up. And inevitably you were like chok chok. And you did it. And I remember thinking, like, I remember deducing, like, maybe it's a left brain, right brain thing. So I had my right hand out and I was holding it with my left hand, and I was like, maybe if I can like put my my brain halves together, I can get this right. I was messing it up so bad. I was like hitting X's, not hitting X's, hitting eight. I was like, duh. And I don't know if I was like, hey man, I don't know how I did, because it doesn't tell you how you did. And he's like, All right, thanks, we have it. I've asked people about that, and I was like, You never had a baseline for that. You don't know what my score would have been without the headshot. I don't know what it was for, and I don't know where it went. Now they have all kinds of cognitive tests. I've been I've been cognitive tested so many times because people are pretty into like the headshot survivor guy, been to TBI clinics and and and they put the like little Ghostbuster electrodes on my head to see like the waves and what connects and what doesn't, and it's always all jacked up. They're like, man. So did that 762 did it pierce the helmet? Yeah, yeah, it pierced the helmet. And so the inside of the helmet, I don't know how far it went or if it rolled off or how it went, because the inside of the helmet has it, you know, Kevlar's like layered fabric. So the blast is huge. There's a tiny hole, you can lift it up and see through the hole, and then the fabric on the inside is not ripped, but it's it's like layered open and bubbled, and then it bubbles in a line a little bit, and then there's a tiny nick on the back side here. So my best deduction based on that is that it kind of kind of went in and either circled underneath the Kevlar or just there and like came out right here toward the back of me. Yeah. So because I remember my hair was crispy up here. I remember my hair was like real crispy, and I was like, oh no. And I I did had like a buzz cut, but I was like, I got a patch. And remember thinking, like, I hope I don't have like a bald patch there forever. Um, but yeah, right where right where it pierced me. And you know, I spent like a day at the at the core at the cop sleeping on this in this bed, and I'm gonna tell you it was like one of the worst nights of sleep ever because I just stayed, I lied awake, listening to my own ears ring and my own thoughts, and there's nobody in there. And I was like, this is awesome.
HostWell, and you're used to being with people all the time. So it's like it's almost like isolation, I'm sure.
Kyle SteinerIt was just me in that room, and and it was terrible. It was like the worst 36 hours ever. I was like, Can I go back up, please? Did you have to walk all the way back up? Did someone come get you? No, I had to I had to walk all the way back up. They some of the guys came halfway, if I recall correctly, came halfway and met me like right as I left the wire. And uh, I think it was like a team or a squad. I don't know if it was my my my team or squad, but I remember, and this, you know, when people talk about dreams and and nightmares and stuff, this is one of the recurring happy dreams that I have because it always brings me to a good place. But as I came inside of the Heskos, they were all sitting on the Heskos shirt list, and as I came in the view, they're like, Yeah, they're like, you know, and that Mac had written uh written a uh he'd like tagged a tan hat with two one headshot, my my new call sign and all this stuff, and uh and he gave it to me, and and I still have it to this day. And uh, you know, they were like super fired up, and I was I was like the the star of the show for a minute, and I did nothing but dumb luck, I survived something that's P yeah, the universe saw saw fit to spare my life, and uh you know, you you kind of realize at that time that you're kind of living on borrowed time once you've looked through the window of death, you're like, Well, um you know, now I'm free. I'm free to just kind of live the way I want to live because it's it's a little bit of borrowed time, you know. And we can get into it later because like it it affected my mindset a lot going forward.
HostOh, I'm sure. Uh I I am curious, man. Uh, with as much time as you guys spent spent at Restrepo and as much combat as you guys seen. You guys ever talk about religion or you know, you're surrounded by death. Um, you know, people are getting hit, especially after rock avalanche. You guys are realizing you're not invincible. So mortality is is is in your face, whether you you know acknowledge it or not. Is that a conversation you guys ever had?
Kyle SteinerNot me specifically or personally, but I know it was had. You know, a good number of dudes kept a Bible on them or whatever. And uh, you know, there was there was dudes that me and me and Misha talked about it quite a bit, but for the most part, you know, you kind of kept to yourself. Everybody was just like, hey, you know, you believe what you believe. It was very, very professional in line with like, hey, I'm not gonna get into yours, you're not gonna get into mine. But no, you were so focused on the next step in front of you and what you had to do. Like, I when I tell you you live minute by minute, step by step, like right now as guard, right later on, I'm gonna fill that Hesko. You know, you didn't really get into the theological discussions all that much. I read a lot of books. I tried to become a millionaire, so I I read every single Rich Dad Poor Dad book in the series, which I still have to this day, like all 32 of those books. Um, you know, I I I read books on body language, I read all kinds, I was just reading whatever I could read. So I read a lot. We we would always talk about that. And then later on, you asked if we had stuff to do. When we got a generator in gas, dudes started being able to charge, they would get PSPs, um, um things like care packages wouldn't come to us, they were just care packages for anybody. But the pilots would bring them out to us and drop them off, uh, drop them off with us. We ended up getting some more magazines. Um, so that was cool. Um, and then we had other OPs that we had demand too on the way to Restrepo, OP1, um, which you know had the only the only porn magazine, uh, the Buttman, the German Buttman magazine was there. And uh, but OP1, you know, but we didn't have those discussions. Everything was really lighthearted unless it was your job. Yeah, which I mean the NCOs made it made it perfectly clear and made sure we were prepared for our job, our piece of the pie.
HostIt's fair, man. Um 16-month deployment, dude. That's long by any by any stretch of the imagination. Why why was it so long?
Kyle SteinerI have no idea. I heard it was gonna be 12, and then they were like, you're getting extended, and we thought we were gonna get extended to 18, and then to be honest, as an E4, I have no idea why they went that long. I know that there were some doing 18ers and stuff, and I was like, oh, good. And we were just hoping it wasn't that. We people like at 10 and 12, uh, 10 and 11 months were like, we're getting extended, like, we're not going home. And I think that was the higher being like, we just don't have orders yet, so let's just assume we're not going to. And that became to fruition. But there was a you know, you get caught in the in your own little world, and you just you end up believing these things that aren't true that can't be true, like we're never gonna leave. Like, they're gonna keep us here till the war's over. And we all just came to grips with it until we got like a memo, and they were like, uh, you know, three months and counting or two months in counting, uh, and and the boys would tell us the countdown, and then we were like, really? Is it really happening? And even then some of us were like, Oh, you don't believe in the plan leaving. What are they gonna do? Who are they gonna bring in to do this? Like, this is our world, we built this, you know.
HostBut um when uh when did you guys finally leave for Stropo?
Kyle SteinerMid August of 08. I want to say it was mid mid. August twelfth or fifteenth of oh eight is when we left. And and um if you watch the documentary, I was one of the last dudes, obviously, aside from the um I was like one of the rear van the la I don't know why this was, but one of the last guys to leave after the replacements had come. And uh at the very end of the documentary, you see a guy like get up with a ruck and give a peace sign in the sun. That's me. I was one of the last dudes to walk out of there. And I remember thinking like so much relief, like being ecstatic. And then the minute I walked out of the the concertina wire, the razor wire, I was instantly sad. I was like, man. It's the best and worst days of your life, bro. Yeah, yeah. I was instantly sad that I was leaving the place that we built that we bonded together, you know. Nothing, you know, a shared task and and shared carried objectives together is what bonds men, you know.
HostYeah, especially in trauma. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Um, what what was it like walking down that mountain?
Kyle SteinerIt was exciting and and strange because you what you wondered like what if this was really the end, what what was next, you know? It was you were walking into white space, you had no idea what was next in your life, and man, did we not know what was next because um we were we we assumed it was just like everything else. We still were a little hazy on if anybody else had experienced anything like this. Um, I was ecstatic, and uh, you know, the the the ecstasy grew as I got down. I'm like, ooh, I can't wait. I'm thinking about the things I'm gonna do, you know. Um, this, that, and the other. And then when we got down to the cop, they had gotten a couple computers and phones, so like the dating website at that time was hot or not. So like the dudes were like doing this. Like, oh my god. Uh, so you you kind of got ramped up for it, you know. But um, I wondered how everybody would take it, take it, uh, us coming home and then getting on the bird and flying out for the last time. You know, you could see it in the distance, and you were like, good luck to those dudes, and uh relief, but also a little bit of sadness. Uh uh, me.
HostUm you said two world series had happened while you were gone. Uh like that you were gone that long. I think there was two world series.
Kyle SteinerYeah, yeah. Something like that. There were so many things that had happened while we were gone that we had the catch-up period was insane, you know. I remember the big one was um Jessica Simpson and Nicola Shea had broken up. That was like the hotness then, you know, the chicken is tuna, tuna of the sea or chicken of the sea. And we were like, what happened here? And then um, oh yeah, um, all the all the movies that had come out, all the music that had come out, and then all the sporting events, different things. We were like, what's going on? It we were in our own world. Now, Italy buffered that because you were still far from the flagpole from America. So we went straight to Italy and we're like, you know, whatever. And we had a good amount of time before we were allowed to go on leave. Like, there was the the brigade and the battalion did it really well because I guess they knew what we had seen. We didn't really understand it, but they were like, yo, give second of the 503rd, you know, battle chosen and able, like, give them a wide berth for a while because they're gonna need to decompress. And so, like, we didn't have formations, we didn't have a whole lot to do. We were just like wandering around, mostly drinking and acting foolish tons. That's where I met my wife.
HostSo, what um so what was it like when you guys all came back? Did you guys, you know, obviously, you guys did you get piecemealed back home, or did you guys go back as a battalion?
Kyle SteinerOr yeah, we went back as a battalion on like the big, big airplane all at once, and uh it was weird, you know. We we went through Kuwait and you know, it was all like very uh left, right, left, like be in line, go here, get this, fill out this form, do this. And then we got home, and because of the amount of replacements we got, and they had done some shifting in Italy, there weren't enough barracks, so like most of the NCOs. I had made E5 the last week we were there because I asked, like, hey, can I be like frocked or promoted at at Restrepo? That would mean a lot to me, and they did it, and I was really, really happy about that. So uh they gave NCOs just hotel rooms on the Italian economy. Oh man, what a what a bad choice that was. Why man? We just we partied and partied and just it was. I mean, we I we me and any other dude I know was just non-stop drunk for days upon days.
HostWhat do you attribute that to? Just trying to process or not wanting to process?
Kyle SteinerA little bit of both. I think more not wanting to process, but I think I read an article recently that said uh, you know, women can sense confidence in men, and you're never more confident than you almost than almost dying and coming back from it. So dudes were on top of the world. Like that high was so high. You were like, I'm invincible, I'm I'm I'm Thor, you know, like you can't you can't touch me. Uh the world is my oyster, and I'm gonna make the most of it, you know, because we all almost died, you know, and and we did. We we traveled everywhere, we drank nonstop, like we were the whole thing. I remember signing my leave form, and uh granted this was I mean and and all kinds of substances, you know, were were in the mix in that time, and I was shaking. I could not sign my leave form, and they were like, Oh man, easy up on the beer. And I remember thinking, like, you know, it's beer and everything else. Um, but you know, just just being so out of control with everything that you just gave it up to the Almighty, you gave it up to the universe. You're like, Yeah, I'm alive, like nothing can break me now. And uh, we acted so foolish. When did you guys start dialing that in and realizing, like, all right, dude, this is probably not good for the the homies at at their own pace, and I think a couple of them before me, quite a few of them after me. I remember having to go and a lot of guys were getting in trouble at the time, and I was an NCO and having to go and vouch for certain dudes for getting in fights or having alcohol related incidents or missing missing formations because they're drunk, and and me being like, hey, like, I don't, you know, because we would wrote leadership rotated, so a lot of guys didn't know our our younger guys or our our platoon mates, and I'd be like, hey, this is this for this reason, and like please, you know, just you guys got new company commander, new first aren't all that when you guys got it. Yeah, and I was like, take that into consideration, please, for X, Y, or Z. And uh, we had to do that a couple times for each other, you know, and then we got new replacements, and that those poor guys got like just rocked. I mean, they were getting smoked in the in the laundry room with the dryers on and stuff, and I always felt bad about it because I was like, we're doing this because of something they couldn't control. They were born too late. Like, this is he doesn't deserve this, and and that that I understand where corrective punishment comes into play, especially in the conventional army, but it it it influenced my decision to go soft a little bit of that because we we really haste a lot of the new guys that came after that deployment, and uh in a way that I didn't think was what we should have. I mean, maybe some of it was justified. I mean, I got smoked, I missed formation a ton of times. I'm out there doing like lunges with a plate over my head, looking like an idiot in front of everybody as an NCO by senior NCOs. I mean, we all did it. We all were just I lived in a in a hotel in in downtown Vicenza for like six weeks or eight weeks, you know, and just yeah, you had your own hotel room. And you were like, I went from being this young 18, 19 year old dude that couldn't, you know, string a sentence together, I couldn't lead anybody, I didn't know where I was at any given time, to this guy. Now I'm living in my own hotel, you know, having people come and go as they please, and just drinking nonstop and doing everything else under the sun, acting really, really disgraceful. And uh, but I think I needed that. I think I needed to experience that. A lot of people experience that too late in life. They call that like your midlife crisis or whatever, where you you, you know, you go off the rails. We went off the rails early in life, at least I did. And I was like, all right, this is this is messed up. I gotta dial this in.
HostWhat was it like to actually sleep in a real bed? I mean, you go from living in like the most austere environments possible, eating food out of a bag. I mean, for those of you that have never eaten an MRE, it's fun to eat it once on a camping trip. To eat that for a year straight is it takes a toll on your body. Talk to a little bit about like what it was like when you guys started eating real food and why you guys looked the way you did on the on the Yeah, yeah.
Kyle SteinerSo I ate, I remember thinking like MREs because my dad would bring them home and I'd have one here and there. And like you said, one or two, they're good. And so when we started eating MREs, when I was with PSC, we were eating MREs, and I started marking on this little piece of cardboard how many I'd eaten, you know, the hash marks. And I have, I have it, I still have it, and I have it completely counted out to 1,244 MREs that I ate during that deployment. And I remember, and I don't have them delineated between Lurp, the long range, the cold weather white ones and the regular ones, but uh it messes your guts up bad. So as far as re-acclimating to society, a lot of people watch the documentaries and they see these interviews of us, and we're all like shiny and puffy, and like we have like acne. That's because he did those interviews right after we got back within a couple weeks, and we hadn't eaten real food. So by the like in any interview you see in me and resprebble, I am hammered, hammered drunk. And I have I'm like three triple whoppers deep, and like whatever the the restaurants they had on Italy, you know, like a Popeye's and a Burger King and and um and something like that. And we were eating that stuff and get like breaking out in hives, having acne, like getting real, not chubby, because we weren't getting fat. We were like swelling up. Our cells were just swelling up completely from eating, going from MREs for so long to this this crap, you know. Um, so whatever we when you guys see those interviews, it's terrible. But I got like terrible hives and rashes and like acne, and I was like, ugh. And um, it's funny because those interviews, everybody's always like, Man, look at you, and I'm like, you don't even want to know what I'm I'm sweating bullets right there, and I'm completely hammered. Um, trying to like string together a sentence for Sebastian and Tim. That's funny.
HostWhat um any nightmares when you guys first came back, or did you guys have any like were you as an NCO, were you seeing like uh any any signs of like stress or no?
Kyle SteinerYeah, I mean a lot of dudes, a lot of dudes were having a lot of hard uh a lot of hard times trying to acclimate back. Like you said, the bed thing, like yeah, I know at least two or three dudes that would just sleep on the floor next to their bed for quite a while. Um, I know I did for a little while, and then you I mean you drank to a point where to where you slept everywhere. I mean, we were sleeping outside of train stations before they opened up. We would go to a go to a place, try to uh try to party, miss the train, and then you're just like outside like a hobo sleeping under the yeah, and I guess once you've lived on the side of a mountain for 16 months, dude, it doesn't really bother you, right? Nope. You pull up like a cardboard box, you'd sleep at the hobos, and you were fine. It was it was the pampering that kind of weirded us out. So the food and the pampering, but yeah, dudes had dudes had nightmares, dudes had a lot of problems, dude had a lot of aggression, a lot of aggression was coming out. Um, and it was always up to one dude in the platoon that was there to kind of quell it. Nobody from uh from the outside could do it, you know.
HostSo did your platoon leadership change out like platoon starting and all that stuff too? Yeah, so everybody that you kind of had deployed with and looked up to, and those guys all moved on to other things, and yeah.
Kyle SteinerWhat was that like? It was it didn't feel the same anymore. Like they tried to do that, do it, and and it was funny because they they did it a couple times. They brought in a couple different people and then kept switching them out and a couple different, and it wasn't just like all right, one for one. It was like one comes in two, three weeks, like yeah, he's not working out. So we knew they understood it was a special dynamic, you had to get the right dude in, but it never felt the same. Once once Gillespie and and really once Mark Patterson left, it was never the same again. Mark Patterson like kept it going. I couldn't remember the last time get out of the army or ETS or no, he he PCS'd somewhere, I don't know where he went. Um, but he stayed around for a while because when I went to selection, he stayed there. He went to Rome to visit my now wife and and and hung out with her and and and they drank together and and went out. And uh, but he you know, once he left, it just wasn't the same. You just didn't have the same um the same dynamic anymore. And I can still remember the last time he put us all in the front leading rest from a window. I still I can remember it vividly. I was like, it's a it's a memory of endearment that I remember when he it was like a joke. He was like, Everybody, you know, on the ground, and we're all doing push-ups with our feet elevated, and he's like yelling from the window, and I think it was one of his last days, and it's a really good memory for me.
HostYeah. Um, what was it like when you started saying goodbye to people who were, you know, EC ETS and PCS and and like that that time that you guys spent together starts becoming a distant memory?
Kyle SteinerWeird, weird, and it and it happened, it didn't happen all at once. It was like onesies and twesdies, real intermittent. It didn't like a lot of the platoons stayed together for quite a while longer. Now, dudes mixed platoons or mixed squads again, and it ended up changing up a little bit. I I moved to a squad as a team leader over here, and I started doing this and that, but um, it really was weird seeing one dude move on and one dude move on, and a lot of dudes were like, I'm getting out of the army. So you were just waiting for their ETS. A lot of them thought they were gonna be stop lost. So luckily for me, I ended up going to selection before the majority of the platoon um kind of dissipated, and uh that's giving me a propensity now for Irish goodbyes. I didn't know because like um it it couldn't, it it it hurt me to kind of actually physically say goodbye. So I was able to just fade away.
HostIt really reminds me of the last scene from the last episode of the Band of Brothers, man. It's like this horror, like you know, you watch that series and you go through this thing with them, and then like it's the end and they're playing you know, baseball, and it's like this music playing. It's yeah, it's very interesting. When did you meet your wife?
Kyle SteinerI met my wife on on Friday the 13th in October. And um I met her. We we still hadn't started doing any kind of military platoon activities. We were still just kind of like bouncing around doing weird stuff, uh kind of partying. I mean, they gave us like six months to just act foolish, like it was weird. I ended up getting out of the hotel, getting getting uh an apartment with um Chris Hoyt and uh yeah, me and Dustin Henry and Steve Grafton, who was my NCO from the PSD, and uh ended up going to Abel Company, phenomenal NCO. Uh we decided to go to a pub crawl, you know what pub crawl is? Yeah, pub crawl. And uh in it in Italy, you could uh you'd pay like 20 euro at the door at the first location, and uh you'd get a sh you get a shot, and then you'd get to drink for free for that hour, whether it was beer, Belgian beer, or or wine or whatever. And then every hour in the hour they'd take you to another bar, you'd get a free shot at that door. And usually I had done like 50 of these things. I'd done the Coliseum one, I'd done all different ones in Naples and Milan and Venice, and we decided to go to one in Florence by the Statue of David. And uh, we had done that one before, and it usually produced a good number of young touristy girls and students, so we were like, yeah, let's do that one. And we walked into this dead bar. Now, mind you, we walked up about 20 minutes late because I don't know if you in Italy they don't have toilets in every location, they just have the footprints with the hole in the floor. Yeah, and one of the dudes really had to, really had to hit the head, but he refused to do that, so he's like, We got to find this place for the toilet. So we were like late to the start of the pub crawl because we were searching for a real toilet. And then we showed up to the pub crawl. Um, I had we walked downstairs, had our drink, the the wine was almost gone, the beer, and the only people there were three girls, and they were sitting in the back corner. Well, I wasn't interested in it. Uh they were already kind of being hit on by some regulars, and uh we walked down. Mind you, I have to preface this, which with uh a lot of us had bought Italian clothes to kind of look Italian because a lot of clubs and bars you couldn't get into dressed like an American, mostly in Milan, like the fashion capital. You had to like kind of look, I won't say metro, but so I had Dolce Ngabbana jeans that had like like silver rhinestones on the butt, and we had like flamboyant clothes. We looked ridiculous and uh ridiculous for American soldiers, you know. We walk in, and uh my wife and and her two friends are sitting in the back, and uh my friends go over and sit, like box them in, and I was like, Well, this is ridiculous. So I sat at the bar not facing them, and uh, and they were they were hitting on them. My buddy Steve had gotten in a fight the night before and just gotten rocked by the person that he to this day refers to as Bruce Leone, the Italian Bruce Lee. He had like a gash on his face. And and my wife and her friends are like, What happened to you? And he's like, I don't want to talk about it, but he's he's the greatest ever, he's a champion, yeah, you know, and uh and they're talking to her, and my wife all of a sudden she yells out something, she's like, What's with what's with your genes or something? And she's like, You're blinding me with the stupid rhinestone. She's like making fun of me, and I like look back at her and I was like, Is this is she for real? And I continue to ignore her, and she continued to like poke me from afar, and I was like, Who is this? Um, I thought nothing of it. I wasn't gonna talk to her, I wasn't gonna do anything. She ends up going upstairs, because this is in the basement, going upstairs, going outside. Um, and and Henry and Steve were like, Hey, we want you to like go with us to the next bar. And I was like, All right. So I go upstairs and I realize that there's an Italian guy that's super mad at her right now for stealing his last cigarette or something, and he's like yelling at her in Italian, and she's like really uncomfortable against the wall. And then there's two guys that were on a boat. Uh, they're in the Navy, they were uh stationed in Naples on like whatever battleship, and they're wearing. Do you remember the old like uh Kangle jumpsuits with the little Mr. Magoo fishing hats? And it's like felt, it's all one color. They both have one of those on it, and they're like aggressively hitting on her, and she's like super uncomfortable. And I like looked at her, and my buddies were like, Yeah, and I looked back at her, and I went over and I was like, Hey, we're all leaving. And I kind of put my arm around her and walked, walked her away from them. And she just kind of whispered, like, thank you. And I was like, All right, and we stopped at a cigarette machine, got some lucky strikes, and kept going. And that and that was it. Like, we we we exchanged phone numbers. Um, that was at the Michael Collins bar right near the Duomo, and uh we ended up, she was there. I found out she was there studying abroad. Uh, she she had gone to she was going to Cal Berkeley for her undergrad. She was living in Rome, and her mother was there to visit her. So I met I met her mother, and then uh we we made a date to meet up the next day. And this is when I knew something was up. I was with Dustin, and uh she's like, Yeah, I'll meet you at this place at 10. So we sit down and we're hungover, like, oh man, and uh we we ordered drinks before she got there. We had like drinks like pineapples and mangoes sticking out of it, and she was like, What is that? And we were like, Well, it's you know, it's a morning drink. And she she like looked at the guy, she's like, I'll have a Guinness. And me and Dusty were both like oh man, we look so dumb right now. But yeah, we ended up dating. She ended up coming back up to uh to Vicenza a couple times to see me, and and yeah, Swarks flew.
HostDid you ever uh did you ever share anything of what you've been through?
Kyle SteinerOr did she no, no, she knew we had been through something. She immediately fell in love with the cohort of homies. She knows everybody from Restrepo. They just made a joke on the uh, and I don't mean this to make feel make anybody feel bad, but they were just making a joke on the chat. I'm the only one still married to the one that they all knew that went to the premiere of Restrepo, that knows every single one of them. She still asked me, How is, you know, how's how's Mark? What's Misha up to? What's Rudy up to? You know, have you heard from from Walker? She knows all of them intimately because when we partied, she was there and she would bring another round of friends for, I mean, she was just trying to shove her friends. She thought, being from being born and raised in Cal Berkeley, she had no concept of the military at all. Super liberal, super hippie. Everything was like Jenny from Forrest Gump esque, you know, and like that's not who we were. But she always says, she's like, you guys were on top of the world, like you had the ultimate confidence, nothing could break you guys, and you were so fun to be around. She's like, I had never, and even she said she would bring three or four friends every weekend to meet my friends, and she's like, all of them were like, Who are these dudes? Because we had ultimate confidence, so she was just distrowing her her girlfriends to the Restrepo boys, and to this day, that makes her a great homie, yeah. She she loves the homies to this day. Um, and I'm still with her, so it through through through thick and thin. But uh, yeah, she really but we never told her about anything, she didn't really know. She had come across a couple videos on Hoyt's computer one time, and then we had pirated those propaganda videos where it shows like really bad stuff, you know, and it shows like the the Arabian sword like smashing the American flag, you know, all that kind of stuff. And she would see it and she kind of got an idea of it, but really didn't have an idea um until I brought her to the premiere of the movie.
HostWhat um when when did when did Restrepo come out?
Kyle SteinerRestrepo came out in 2010, or yeah, 10. I don't remember when in 10, but I know it came out in 10 because I had graduated the Q course, was on 786, and I went to see it as it premiered at Fort Bragg um with my wife um at the theater there, and uh I had already been in, and everybody was like, I walked in the theater and everybody knew who I was already. I guess it had they had shown some things, and like I got like the standing ovation. It was the weirdest thing ever. Um, I have one picture of me standing outside the movie poster of the theater, and then I walked in and everybody was like, Oh yeah. And then afterwards we got a standing ovation. There was Matthew Simon was there with me, and so was Lamont-Caldwell. So it was us us three in there, I think. And uh, but yeah, it came out in 2010. So, but we got to see it about six months prior when I said uh Sebastian flew us out to New York to uh to to preview it on our own private preview. A lot of dudes brought their wives, which I don't know if they're still with them or not, but Julia was the one that was with me, my wife, and and she watched it. And afterwards she's like, I had no idea. I'd like holy crap, you know, what the hell? And she always likes to say that I was holding her hand and she could feel the moments through my through my hand. I don't know if that you know holds weight, but how long did you guys date before you got married? Uh so we got together in eight and then we got married in 13. So yeah, five, five, six years.
HostHow how long how long did you stay in um in Italy before you went back to selection?
Kyle SteinerUh we got back in August. I met her in October, and I went back to selection in February of the next year, oh nine.
HostWhat was uh what was the decision point um to say, hey man, I'm I want to redo this again? What was that a conversation in your head or Yeah?
Kyle SteinerI had always thought about it, but man, we even when I met my wife, we were so dumb, man. We we just did so much uh terrible things, you know. I I like to tell people like I didn't do any substances and I really didn't drink before the army. I had to join the army to discover that stuff. We were we were rocking bad, and then one time something hit me, we were in in my kitchen in my apartment, and it was just a blur of whatever was happening, and my wife was there and she brought something up about I had a an SF crest on my bedside table that I had kept. I think my dad had given it to me, and uh she asked about it, and I was like, it's just you know something that I wanted to do years ago and I failed, and it's not worth it now because you know we're invincible and so on and so forth. But she, I don't know, you know, in a woman's intuition, she prodded me and she poked at me and she prodded and poked and was like, Well, tell me about it, this and that. And I don't know if it was the same day, but it was the same week, definitely, that we were in the like brought her to the the shop at on Italy, brought her on base, and there was a green berry there doing something, and he walked in to get like Sabaro pizza, and like the whole PX stopped what it was doing. You don't see green berries in Italy ever, and you were like, whoa, whoa, and uh everybody stopped, and I was like, that dude, that's that's the guy. Like, you know how you look at him, you're like, he knows everything, he's the coolest guy I've ever seen in my life. And I told my wife she was there, and I was like, There, that's that that crest goes to that guy, and she saw how everybody looked at him. You know, he had a ranger tab and everything, and she saw how everybody stopped what they were doing, like parted the C's for this guy, and they were like then she really hit started prodding me, you need to go again, you need to go again, like stop this, like man up and do it. And and I really knew she was she was the one for me and would always have my my interest at heart when she started doing that. And I think it was an argument, actually, brother, that she was like, You're gonna do this, and I was like, fine, I'll do it. And I submitted a packet, took a PTS, and it wasn't stellar. I probably was probably drunk, and uh, and I think I did like one or two rocks, maybe a couple runs with her, and I was like, Yeah, and I went there straight, like Rocky III, half trained, not ready to do anything. Um, but it was her that forced me to go, really forced me to try again. Were were you worried about failing again? Or not really. I went there with a no, I don't give a fuck attitude. Like I was like, they'll figure it out. Like maybe I'm not in good enough shape, but I knew the shape it took to get there, and I was like, I can muster it when I need it. Knowing what I had just been through, I was like, I can dig it out of the the trunk if I need it. And I was right, like the numbers weren't as great as they were the first time I went, but they were comparable to I was pretty high in the pecking order of everything still, but I could tell my maturity was there. I had become an NCO, I had done that deployment, and then when Team Week came around, that the week that that really screwed me over the first time. I was I was like, hey dudes, this isn't that bad because it wasn't in my mind. I was like, hey brothers, like we can do this, let's do this, let's do that. I took charge while in charge, and I I let I I was a follower when I wasn't in charge, you know. I did it the way that I think that my NCOs, Mac and O'Burn and them, would have been, I would have made them proud, you know. And I did it, and yeah, I was selected, they're like, hey, dude, you know, you did a great job, you know, you peered really high, like you you knew what you were doing, and I wasn't the move out draw fire guy.
HostYeah. Did uh did people know your experiences or did you talk about it at all?
Kyle SteinerNo, nobody had any idea what I had gone through or or anything about Restrebble because until that point, nothing was even, you know, they they they didn't put together the uh the nightline and the um the Vanity Fair articles with us yet. They hadn't made that that association. So nobody really knew, yeah, yeah, I have a deployment, like it's not a big deal. This and that, but nobody that point in the war, there's probably a lot of dudes at deployments. Yeah, and nobody even cared. They were like, Cool, man, you know, same story, different day. And uh, but I knew what I was doing, and and when I came in, some guys had heard about it. I remember in my tent, some guys had heard they're like, Oh, you were on that trip, I've heard about that trip, but nothing was confirmed. There was like, I just heard you guys were in it. I was like, Yep, yep, yep, yep, we ran it.
HostYou when you were in selection, you told a guy to quit. The cadre made you say it to his face. What happened?
Kyle SteinerI remember that. We had a there was a cadre there. I found out he's a seventh group guy. Shocking because he was Hispanic. Uh his name was JJ. And uh he was an abrasive dude. And we had a captain going through. I don't remember his name. I remember he's from the 101st. And uh he was just like a whiny bitch, and he was crying all the time, and he was making excuses a lot. I from what I remember, my friends have confirmed this, but I remember walking and I felt like just I was I was Iron Man, like you couldn't you couldn't stop me. And I remember turning my head and and going like brother, just quit. Like under my breath. So he couldn't see me, you know. And but JJ saw it. And JJ, um, who I became friends with later in the seventh group, he came over and he's like, What did you just say? And I was like, there it is. Like, I'm gonna fail now because like I'm not being a team player or whatever. And I was like, I just didn't I didn't say nothing, you know, Sergeant. He was like, No, no, no, what did you say? So I said, just quit. And he's like, Okay, I want you to turn around and say it to his face. And I was like, and I like turned around all somber and I was like, just quit. He's like, No, no, say it like a man. I said it again, he's like, yell it in his face, and I was like, you know, just quit. And he was like, Why? And I was like, because he's not cut out for it, obviously, he hasn't trained enough, like, or whatever. And this dude, like, from what I remember, he like broke down in tears and like dropped his head, and he was holding a an ammo crate, like with a rope handle, and his hands were bleeding, and he like dropped that, and he was like, and uh, and then JJ turned me around, like, good.
HostAnd I was like, Oh Did he quit?
Kyle SteinerYeah, I found out later that he uh what did the cadre later told you he was doing? He he was just like, Yeah, I remember him saying you gotta you see weakness, you pointed out. Like you it's it's he might I remember him telling me he might not because I I talked to him at a bar at brag later. He was like, he might have been a good dude, but we can't take that chance. You know, we have to know that a dude's gonna push through and commit and and endure whatever gets thrown at you to solve a problem, and we can't take the chance that he's not that guy. So you made the right call. I remember him telling me that at a bar later, and I was like, okay, right, right on, you know.
HostDid that bother you in the moment or later on that evening? That that interaction?
Kyle SteinerYeah, but I asked, I try to get social confirmation. I was asking some of the other guys, I was like, hey, was I in the wrong? And some guys were like, I don't know if I would have screamed it, but you're definitely not in the wrong. Like they're like, Man, if I could have told them to do it, you know, four or five days ago, I would have. And I was like, All right, well, I'm just making sure I'm cool. Um, but it did bother me in the moment. I felt like a real buddyfucker, you know. I was like, man, I'm not like doing what I said I was gonna do, I'm not like building up the team and being positive. Because like at this point, we had enough dudes to carry the apparatus. I was like, brother, you just need to stay off of the side and let us handle this. Like, because every time you come into the the team dynamic, we just suck even worse. Yeah.
HostUm, when they told you you were selected, how did how did it feel that time around?
Kyle SteinerIt felt really good, brother. And but but it also like it confirmed what I knew, the confidence. I was like, I figured. And and I knew what it was. It was that I I became a man, but like I be I had manned up, and but I was so on top of the world. I was so on top of the world that I didn't text my wife the entire the entire plane ride, nothing. I showed up to the back home uh and and she's like, we knew you made it, you wouldn't not text us, you know. And uh Did you go back to Italy? Yeah, I went back to Italy and told everybody. And uh, and you know, funny thing was is that it was um they had just done that that documentary, 21 Days in Hell. So it was like super publicized when everything was happening. Like a bunch of my friends were in that one. Um, so it was the one right after that one, and uh, so everybody knew what to expect, but it was being going to selection was highly publicized, so a lot of people were trying it, but not many people were making it, you know. And I had a super, super high number, if I remember correctly. And I think only like 90 of us got got picked up. I think. And then of that, like 60 of us made it through the whole pipeline.
HostWhat was it like to go back and tell the company and the guys you had just spent like all that time at war with, and you know, like what was the mood?
Kyle SteinerIt was pretty cool. I mean, they they all kind of knew that I wanted to do that really bad. I had I had probably talked about it a million times at Restrepo, you know, I'm gonna do this one day, and like I'll go back and we just wait and see. So they were like, Yeah, we figure, but I dudes were really ecstatic for me. Then they were obviously asking me what it was like, and it's like, oh, I want to go, you know, at this time, at this time, and I was like, do it, man. I I think that the SF regiment would benefit from every dude at Restrepo coming through and being in being on an ODA because you guys, we have what it takes, like we've seen it, we've done it. And uh, I really encouraged them to not as many went as I would have liked, but I really encouraged them to give it a try because it wasn't that that hard given what we had been through, and maybe I have like this weird mental way of blocking things out that are hard.
HostThat but I was like Did you ever run into guys in the regiment that you had served with in the battalion?
Kyle SteinerYeah, just just a couple, not many. There's only a few in the regiment, and then obviously McDonough's in Ranger Regiment, but yeah, nobody really came all that far into soft. And I I get it, man. They wanted a break, they wanted to take a knee, they wanted to go somewhere else with their life, and I get it. I completely no hardship. I I could earned that right, bro. Yeah, I was just so I had such a chip on my shoulder from failing once, and then knowing what I had just gone through that.
HostYeah, for you is way different, right? Like that's what you initially set out to do. And you know, you you rightfully so. I mean, by your admission, that you know it wasn't the right choice early on, and you know, that deployment, I'm sure, oh man, I couldn't imagine what it was like to work for you, dude. I mean, you had to this experience of you know, combat, but also, you know, you've mentioned you you had the opportunity to work for some really good leaders, and I'm sure that you know that affected you later on in your career and the decisions you made and how you led others and um Yeah, dude.
Kyle SteinerWell, the thing is is when I went back to seventh group, I ran into a bunch of dudes that I went to selection with the first time that had been in the seventh group from that time all my time in the 173rd, and then came back. They were like, Whoa, what's up, man? Like, we knew you'd make it eventually, like, good to see you years later. And then when they found out what I had been doing, you know, and I I got a lot of like, oh man, like sorry you didn't make it the first time. And I would sob I'm gonna stop you right there. It's the best thing that ever happened to me. Yeah, I wouldn't trade that for for anything. That was the best time of my life, and it was the most important thing in my life, and it should have happened that way. I wouldn't be in this position I am right now if it wasn't for that.
HostAnd I've talked to you, I mean, we've talked offline about you know your time as a Green Beret, uh, but I know, you know, just in my short interactions with you, like it's the time that you spent on that mountain that, you know, that's that was really important time to you. Not that your time in the regiment didn't matter, that you we're gonna go on here in a minute and talk about all the great things you did over there, but um I know that shaped you, mold you. Um, and you know, I I know there's a party that wouldn't take any of that back. Yeah. Um, so you know, it's cool. And everybody's walk is different, right? Like everybody, the guys that maybe made it the first time, that was where they were supposed to be. And you know, you you went where you're supposed to be. You'll you know, we're not God, you don't get the benefit, but maybe you being on that mountaintop saved somebody that made have gotten hurt had you not been there, right? We'll never know. But you know, the universe has a a real a real way of working all that stuff out, so it's it does, it really does, brother. What was a Q course like for you, man? I mean, we've talked a lot about it on the podcast. And you know, we'll I'm not gonna dive into every part of the Q course.
Kyle SteinerNo, yeah. I mean, the Q course, the Q course was fun, dude, because the Q course is like Ranger School and SUT, you know, Sear, Sears obviously Sear, um, but in language is language and the Bravo course is the Bravo course. But SUT, they're teaching tactics. A lot of it's uh 18 x rays that don't know anything, or soft skill guys. Then I had been doing React to Contact and Squat Attack nonstop in your sleep, yeah, and uphills and downhills. So I was like, this is easy as you know, and then people started to kind of realize who I was. Uh, it kind of got a little bit of notoriety. There's there were some things out about it. So people are like, Oh, you're the guy from and I was like, Yeah. So it kind of started to catch wind in the Q course, and it really caught fire uh toward the end of the Bravo course. But I I loved the Q course, I had a blast. That my my group of core friends are I still have them. Um a lot of them are still in seventh group. Um, you know, Julia Julia and I uh she went back to Berkeley to finish up her degree, and I lived in Bragg, and then she came out and met me. But it was fantastic, man. Sear was Seer was fantastic, it was everything I thought it would be. And I'm like, I'm on my way, you know, I'm getting goes on patrols. I had some surreal moments with some weird instructors, you know, and I was like, whatever, dude. But like like what? Uh we had a we had a funny instructor that used to he used to bring out 5W30 motor oil and tell us to pour it on the handle of our knife and then like try to draw it fast because that that particular oil has the same viscosity as blood. So when your hands are covered in blood, you'll be able to draw your knife, and we're all like, Really? Like that's super weird, man. But okay. You know, stuff like that. But I mean, me learning how to do raids and how to do ambushes, I was like, got it, check. Like, I'm in it. And a lot of people would ask me, and and even some other people would be like, is this how it's really done in combat? The dudes that knew what I had done. I'm like, yeah, yeah, for the most part. I mean, we're this is flat in pine trees, but you kind of kind of had to make do for where you're at. But I I thought it was a cakewalk for the most part. There was a couple parts we had some really good instructors, and and obviously I still wasn't the strongest runner. Um, I've never been the strongest runner, but you know, we had dudes being like, it was a tough time. It was a tough time, but worth it. I had a blast.
HostUm, graduation day, earning your green bray. You made mention that you did you didn't really feel different. Why do you think that was?
Kyle SteinerI have no idea. You think you're gonna put it on, and then a plate of armor is gonna appear over you, you know, and you're just gonna be like, and I remember being like, Am I wiser than I was yesterday? I can't, maybe I am, I don't know. But I think you know, a lot of that comes with the validation, like, yeah, I am, you know, now I have the confidence. Same thing happened when I went warrant. You know, I went warrant and I was like, do I really know as much as the warrants before me? Like they seem to know everything. And then as you become a warrant, you know, somebody asks a question and you know the answer. You're like, oh, it's this, this, and that. Like, how do I know that? You just do, you know, and you so you don't realize at the time. I felt no different. I felt even more of an imposter. And I was like, Yeah, I'm still just the dude from Restrepo, still just the E5. Now my hat's a different color, but I don't really feel a whole lot different.
HostWho was there for you at your graduation?
Kyle SteinerUh, my now wife and my my mom and my dad. Those were the two that came out.
HostSuper cool though, man. Yeah. What was it like to uh, you know, just to see your wife, man? She gave you that encouragement, you know. Maybe you would, maybe you wouldn't have, but you know, she really pushed you to go and um just knowing that you have that support, not everybody has that dude.
Kyle SteinerUm yeah, yeah, brother. My wife is my rock, and she's always been and uh the light of my world, really, because you know, I early on in our relationship, I was not a great dude, and and I've gone through my problems um back and forth, like we were talking about. Like I've been an asshat to her way more times than I'd like to admit. And uh but you know, we would get done with faces. I live with another guy in the course, and she'd show up with cheeseburgers and beer, and then we came back from Sear and she had like a sear pizza or a sear cake that she had baked for us, and we all said we were gonna buy Harleys after we graduated this year, so she had like little Harleys put on it. She was there every step of the way, encouraging me, telling me she that I could do it. And um, even now, you know, coming on a podcast, I you know I'm not uh overly confident in this kind of stuff, and I don't want to do it because I don't want to put shame to it. And she's like, You can do it. She's always in my ear, telling me what I can do, and um, she's my biggest fan. And um man, I I couldn't I couldn't imagine the world without her. Love that, bro. Love that.
HostUh assignment to seventh group. Uh, you knew you were going to seventh group. What is seventh group? Um, like what does it mean to you? Uh, you know, it's we were talking in the car yesterday, man. Uh, you know, ever since I started the podcast and I came from a different community, but you know, touch special operations quite a bit. Um, man, there's a lot of dudes like that go to the unit from seventh group. A lot of the leadership at the unit comes from seventh group. Like, yeah, made a big impact. Um, you know, you guys get to have fun in South America a lot too.
Kyle SteinerBut uh, you know, was it by choice or yeah, so it's actually that I'm gonna tell you right now is the is a series of the greatest stories ever. At Restrepo, when um after Rock Avalon's when we went down and and did the um did the memorials, we got called on a QRF to help Chosen Company. So we go out and help Chosen Company. It was the weirdest, weirdest situation ever because we had to walk for hours and I slept in this like farm pen, and then we just kept going to assist. And I don't remember if it was Ranch House or Bella, but we get there and there was an ODA there responding, and it was 782. And on that ODA was several dudes, and I remember walking in, and the firefight had kind of died down, and everything had kind of died out because the ODA had gone out to help. This is my recollection of it, and I'm like looking around, and they're like bearded guys, and I go into this child hall that we're just building for this five that we went to react to, and there's this rolled up like vinyl that they were gonna put on the floor. There's a little guy sitting on it in BDUs with a beard, and he like looks up at me, he's like, MRE. I was like, Yeah, yeah, I'll have an MRE. And uh, and I sat down and ate and just talked with him, and I was like, Man, I want to be SF. Like, you're the coolest guy ever. I thought he was an Afghan, he's actually an Iranian dude that just retired out of seventh group, but uh I was like, You're the coolest guy ever. And then I met a couple other guys, and they were all from this one.
HostWe know him. We're trying to get him on the podcast. He lives pretty close to him. I know he does.
Kyle SteinerI know exactly, and I know who he's working with. And I thought about it in the car yesterday. I was like, I wonder if I could call him. I have him on speed. I love him. Love him. He's I met him.
HostHe's like a great dude.
Kyle SteinerHe is such a good dude, man. I could I couldn't say enough good things about him. But uh, I met a couple other guys, and then fast forward to me going on leave, I'm in Jalalabad, waiting to go to Bagram to go on leave, and I'm sitting in a pack's terminal with troops pews, and I look over and there's an SF dude. He's like dusty beard, and he's everything. I'm looking at him, and I look over, and there's these two females come in in army PTs, and they move some of the pews and they turn on some music and they start dancing in coordination. And that me and this other guy, who I know is an SF guy, is like I'm looking at him and I'm looking at them, and she they stop it and they say, This is for American Idol Knight on the FOB. You could get something started at your fob if like this if you wanted to. And he looks at me and he's like, Are they retarded? And I was like, I don't know. So I got to chatting with him, find out he's on an ODA 781. So that company's in the area. Now we're gonna go back to NSF. I've passed selection. I am standing in, they're they're signing languages and and in groups, and I'm standing in, I was assigned French, so I'm standing in the French line and I'm like looking around. I'm like, oh God, I don't want to go to French. I had to pick Spanish and I look over, and it's the guy from the JBAD PAX terminal, beard shaved, and he knows a guy that I'm friends with in line, and that guy's in Spanish. And I like look at him and I was like, hey, ah, from J Bad PAX terminal. And then my buddy's like, hey, do you know him? He's my friend. And he looks at me and he's like, what language did you get? I was like, French. And he's like, Do you want to be in French? And I was like, No. He's like, Do you want to go to the third group? I was like, no. He's like, all right, hold on. And he grabbed a random dude from Spanish and just moved him to French and moved me to the Spanish line. There's a poor dude out there that was just randomly hucked over to French that's going to Africa. And he my bad, bro. And he just moved me over and I was like, sweet. It is a complete coincidence how I got into 7th because of that guy, because of that series of interactions that got me interacting with B37. So fast forward to when I get to seventh group, I'm begging, begging, begging. I'm like, hey, 3rd Battalion. Third Battalion said they want me.
HostAnd why third battalion? Because you knew guys from there.
Kyle SteinerYeah, because that's who it was. It was a B co 3rd Battalion. And I was like, at this time I had no idea of the Crifts or Sifts. I hadn't known a little bit of their existence, but I was like, whatever. B37. I know dudes over there. And uh and they I don't know who I swindled into giving me third battalion. And then I'm like, roll down third battalion. I'm like, step one done. And uh I'm talking with the sergeant major at this point. He knows who I am from the deployments. He understands, he's he's got he knows the breadth of what we've done. So he knows who I am. He's like, oh yeah, you were at Rush River. Okay, blah, blah. And I go into S1, you know, the the the uh the paperwork people, and then I'm like, hey, have you given me a company yet? And they're like, no, you got to talk to Sergeant Major, but he's leaving for Columbia to go visit the boys. Uh so you might catch him out in the parking lot. And I was like, okay, like go talk to him and see what see what he says, and we'll let you know. And I was like, all right, so I ran out of the parking lot. I run into the sergeant major. I was like, hey, Star Major. And he's like, Kyle, like I know what you want. I know you want to go to Biko. I it just might not work out. We might need guys in ACO. Let me let me think about it on this trip. And I was like, Roger, Star Major. I ran back into S1. They're like, Hey, what's Star Major tell you? Hey, man, he told me I'm going to Biko. Got him. And I end up in Biko by a series of like tall tails and like swindling my way into the place I wanted to be. Where I saw all the dudes I know, and I was like, yes, that's where I started my career. I was on 786 and 781. That's awesome.
HostYeah. I love how the world, like, you know, you know, for all the the early on in your career, you know, the kick in the teeth, like it's it's just cool to to hear the wins, you know what I mean? Sometimes we on this podcast, you know, we we don't always talk about you know all the wins, right? That's what makes a good podcast because if you know if your life's some peachy story, I don't know. It doesn't always play out good people to listen to. So, but it's cool, it's cool to hear that you you got some ones. I want to go back to the documentary, man, because we've we've you know alluded to it when it came out. Um, so you were kind of in the Q course, like towards the backside of the Q course when it came out. Um I don't want to overstate us, but but what was it like? And not from the fame perspective. Just to, you know, you went on, right? You you meet Julia, you're going on to the next thing, to your next horizon, your next ridge line. Um, and then this documentary comes out, right? And now you're, you know, reliving those experiences with these people that, you know, really obviously mean something to you. You and I have talked heavily on and off camera about it. Um, but you know, for for all the good stuff, too, was it was you know a traumatic. What's it like to go back and relive that in your um in this next phase of your life or this next chapter, and now all these guys you're serving with, because you're a humble guy, man. I mean, I I didn't drag you on this podcast, but you and I talked like even before about how, you know, we're gonna tell the story to, you know, make sure that it's it's good for the boys and you know it's it's a good look because a lot of these guys don't come out at talk, right? And so what's it like um now your life's on like display, you know, this this thing that you went through, and a lot of people don't, you know, a lot of civilians don't understand war, right? And rightfully so, bro. If you haven't gone to some crazy ass, whack ass country in the middle of nowhere and gotten shot in that and lived in a hole, uh, it's kind of hard to tell people. Yeah, because they either have look at you like you're some weird superhuman, which is not what we expect, right? And it's the overly thankful for the service, or they look at you like you're a crazy lunatic.
Kyle SteinerYeah, yeah, man. I mean, I guess to answer that, you have to answer it in phases, right? So, like when it came out there, we didn't think anything of it, and then we finally it started to blow up. You know, it was in the Oscars, it was up for an Oscar, it won an Emmy. Um, we all have an IMD page because of it. Like it says that we're an actor and we play ourselves, which is hilarious. Uh, with an Emmy award, no less. So I think it's hilarious. But when it came out, it took the army by storm and it took all the services by storm. We didn't expect that, so it really put us in a weird spot. And I did want to mention this like we became military famous, most of us real fast. Um, they started throwing showing it at 30th AG in basic training on a loop, you know, when you get your gear and stuff. And I was walking through the airport as soft later on with a beard and like really long hair, like Thor hair, and I got mobbed by these privates. And I remember like looking around, like different platoons of privates going to their units in the uniform, and I was like, What in the hell? And I went up to the drill sergeant and he like looked at me and I was like, Hey, what's what's going on here, man? And he was like, Oh man, they've seen you like nine times, dude, with their duffel bags, like waiting to get on whatever. And I was like, Oh no. So it went like that, and the bartenders would know everybody, and I had social media time. I I ended up closing it all down um pretty quick. But so you were getting noticed everywhere, everywhere, man. I mean, I did a Halo trip, a Halo workup trip in um in Elo, Arizona, and uh we decided to go out and drink for a night in um in Phoenix, and uh just some random bartender, dude. Was like, hey, dude, and then it spread like wildfire. So I would go to another bar and the bouncer would like look at my ID and be like, oh man, you the guy, dude, my brother just joined up, he saw you. I was like, oh it got so bad, dude, that I started doing the old like uh the old Aaron Rodgers thing, like, yeah, I get that a lot. I that's not me. Like, I look like the dude. Or like you uh everybody's always like, Man, you look familiar. Where'd you go to high school? I'm like, Wisconsin. And I would kind of lie about it, like, no, it's somebody else. I just was tired of it, man. And it went on and on and on like that. Um and you know, up until very, very recently, I had only only ever seen it twice. I saw it with uh Julia the first time and then the theater at Bragg, and I didn't watch it again, and then I watched uh Corn Gold one one time, and then recently the uh the Intrepid Spirit TBI TBI clinic and um and PTSD clinic made me rewatch it and and write down like my feelings. But revisiting it now is really surreal. But I did this not for any accolades or anything. I did this because A, I started, I restarted uh social media to find to be honest with you, to find Chris. Um I I I did that and to find my other friends, but more so to just re-relink up with everybody I had broken contact with over the years. And in doing that, people started like reaching out to me, being like, Are you that guy? And then I started getting like, hey man, I joined the army because of you and your and your platoon. Like, I want to say thank you. And that's what ignited it. So allowing me to pass that on to people is it's been really an honor. I hope that I can do the boys justice. I hope I don't get like called out on the chat being like you said this wrong, which I know they'll probably say some things, which is fine. I just don't ever want to do anything to dishonor them and and the homies because I have, like I said, I love them. And uh I would and that's obvious.
HostAnd I, you know, I'll I'll let a little off-camera, you know, secret, like even before we were starting this recording, dude. You know, you you were kind of nervous, and you know, you're studying. Uh, you know, I gave you a kind of a little bit of a read-ahead and you're stuck, you started making me nervous. I finally just told you, you know, like um, I was like, what is it? Uh and I asked you, I'm like, are you worried? Because I've had other people, you know, they come in here, they're telling stories about people, you know, fringe, trauma, you know, they they really want to do, um, they want to do the right thing. And I wouldn't say that I talked you into coming to the podcast, but you know, I pitched you. It was a long-form thing. But it's like I was telling you last night, I mean, we're talking to history. I mean, this, what you guys did, what happened, uh, it's part of history, and it's an honorable part of history. And, you know, look, man, we can talk about the politics or what none of that mattered on that hilltop. You were there for the boys. You've made it obvious. You and I have talked a lot off camera about, you know, the good, the bad, and the ugly. And, you know, you were there for the brotherhood. Uh, yeah, ultimately it's for the country and whatever, make Afghan a better place. But that's that's not what happens when you get stuck on a hilltop with your close friends, right? And, you know, um, you've made mention multiple times to me, uh, you know, before we recorded too, that you know, you just want to get it right and and we'll get it right, dude. And I think they'll know that. Like people know your heart. I don't think, dude, you can't remember everything that happened in 16 months. I mean, even I I haven't done a podcast, people don't even know my own story. And sometimes when I hear these podcasts, I go back in my own brain. Like, do I remember certain events? You know, can I remember what happened at this time with this or that? And it's I think anybody that expects you to have some photographic memory, it's not realistic, dude. Yeah, you know, unless you're telling tall tales, that's a whole nother story, or writing a book that, you know, of things that may or may not have happened a certain way and you're intentionally misleading people, and that's not who you are. And that's we wouldn't have had you on the podcast.
Kyle SteinerSo yeah.
HostUm, and and I'm glad, I'm glad you did, you know, and and the people that don't want to talk about it, that's that's their thing. Uh, but I think, you know, I think it is honorable, man. I think it's honorable to tell the stories, to tell the sacrifices. I've said it before on this podcast, you know, I think a soldier dies twice on the battlefield, once when they get killed, and again when nobody ever speaks their name again. And so that's why anytime we talk about anybody that somebody comes on here and talks about that that we lost, you know, if there's enough, if there's enough meat, we we make a short video to remind the world. I mean, we've had, you know, we we made a short clip uh about Bob Horgan, who's in the unit. I mean, his daughter responded to that, you know. Thank you for keeping that memory. We did it for Pat Tillman. Um, so I'm I'm glad. I'm glad that you were bold, right? I think there's a way to do it. There's a there's a way that goes into how we make it. Um, and and I'm I'm super glad you're here. And and I and you know, I can only imagine, right? Like, I don't really watch my podcast. I can't stand my voice, dude. Like, you know, it's it's weird. And there's this, my buddy was telling me the other day, it's there's this thing that happens in your jaw when you heal yourself, uh, when you're talking to yourself that it doesn't. But when you when you hear yourself on an audio or a video, it sounds different to you. So it sounds foreign. And so you're just like, ah, I'm I'm still like that. I don't listen to my own podcast, man. I I live through it, you know? And yeah, it's not like you need to watch that movie to relive you, you live with it every day. So that that makes sense to me. Uh, what was it like when the guys on your ODA and and seventh group really started figuring out like this is the dude? Did you get did you catch a lot of shit?
Kyle SteinerOr a little bit or early on, yeah.
HostI mean, uh because that culture's just not gonna let you live that time.
Kyle SteinerNo, it's it not at all, man. And and you know, I got there, it's funny because it got released within a couple weeks of me getting there, either a couple weeks before, yeah, a couple weeks before. And I show up, um, you know, and I I interviewed for the dive team, I interviewed for the DA team, and I interviewed for the Halo team, and by some luck of the draw, I got put on the 16. Great thing, but I didn't care. But I knock on the door and I get treated like the new guy. They're like, what the fuck do you want? You know, this time I'm here, like grab my packet, you know, and I had to stay in the hallway for a couple days. They're like, fill this out and closing the door. It was the old doors with like the really push-button key locks. And uh, and so I was on the outside and I was just kind of hanging out. And every now and again they'd open the door and say something to me, and I'd be like, Okay, or you know, go get this person or do this. I was like, okay. And then I don't know what was.
HostThis is not like some Hayesian shit.
Kyle SteinerYeah, it's just hanging outside the team room door, and I was like, cool. And uh it was, you know, three, four, five days into it. One of the guys opened the door and he was like, he had an article or a picture, and he's like, Is this you? I was like, Yeah. And he was like, You you were at you were Reshepo? I was like, Yeah. Like, hold on a minute, and he shut the door, and I could hear them like mumbling, and he and then he opened the door and he was like, sit down, and they made me sit down, and like no, inside of the door, inside inside. And I I finally got to go in, and I was like, Yeah, lead it, yeah, and um, and I sat there in the chair and like nobody really said anything. I got a couple like, oh, you think you're cool now, like this and that, and I was like, whatever. But uh, you know, a couple of nicer guys asked me about it, like, man, what was that like? That was crazy, and like, well, probably won't be doing that here. And I was like, all right, cool. And then as time went on, I got other hazing things where they were like, they're like, you know, you think you think you've done this stuff, and this and that. And I remember it was probably a couple months. I I ended up like talking back to one of them, and I was like, look, like I know I don't fast rope onto moving trains and all this cool guy stuff, but have you eaten MREs for 15 straight months? I remember saying, like, if you want to know about suck, I can teach you about suck. Because none of you have sucked like me. And I and I remember thinking that because I at that point I knew nobody had. I knew that there was not, I mean, very few, like the invasion guys, very few dudes had just no support, no help, no acknowledgement for a long time and just kept going. So I I kind of was like, and I was funny, I took a an article clipping of of Rostrepo and I pasted it next to another clipping of a fob in in uh in Vietnam, and they look exactly the same. And I was like, I had this game where I was like, which one's from which war? And you couldn't really tell. And I was like, exactly. I lived old school, dude, 1200 MREs. So I kind of earned my keep pretty quick with that, and they kind of figured that I had some combat experience, and it bit me in the butt later when when we were fighting for deployments later on, and and I got the whole like, yeah, man, you sit this one out, like you you got enough experience when they were trying to get dudes experienced. I was like, What? Yeah, that's not why I joined, bro.
HostYeah, I'm not the let's sit out. Yeah. Well, um, they sent you to Ranger School. Uh, how old were you when you when you went to Ranger School?
Kyle SteinerUh maybe 25 or 26. It was funny because uh my my my team sergeant at the time, uh 18 Fox, then it went on to be my team sergeant. Really good guy, one of my one of my best friends. He uh you gave him like a schools list, and uh he was a former RI and he like leans over it and he was like, I better say ranger five times. I was like, okay. And I just wrote Ranger five times. You don't be putting Halo on there, don't be putting Sniper, just put Ranger five times. I was like, okay, Rodder. Um, I ended up going to a couple schools prior to that just by chance because they opened up and I did what somebody had told me to do where I I kept a packet, a physical packet ready and a packet for every school that I could because I was a single dude. Julia was uh going to school, um, hadn't moved down yet, and I was just kind of like, well, if you like lean out the hallway and say, like, we need one for this, I was gonna be like, I got it. And I was gonna do that. I was gonna volunteer for everything I could. Um, but yeah, I went to Ranger School and it was awesome. It was 61 days. A lot of people knew me from in the in ranger school, man. Um, my ranger buddy ended up going to the unit. He was the he was like the only, he was an FO. He was an E4 FO in fourth ID, and he was the only dude to have a Ranger tab. CSM didn't have a Ranger tab in a unit, and he wanted to go SF really bad. And um he ended up going SF. I was super pumped over him. He got his Ranger tab with me, went SF, made it the Crift with me, ended up leaving and going to the unit, like really solid cat. Like I like the guy, but I still remember when he was a little E4. Like I'd be like, what was Rebo like? What's SF like? I can't wait to go. Oh, when you guys ran Ranger School, yeah, and now he's like totally seasoned in the unit, he's an awesome dude. And I'm like, I'm like what he did. I feel proud. I feel like I have a little bit to do with that. But uh, I thought Ranger School was a cakewalk, dude. I thought that was like uh so you moonwalked after, yeah. Man, I was like, man, even mountains. They were like, Oh, you're going to mountains, and I like went to got to the lawn and I was like, shut up, like, get out of here, dude. You kidding me? Uh, I I remember thinking, like, this is just remarkably easy. But I mean, you had to walk that line of doing it the ranger way, you know, and I knew that. So I was like, It's the game, man. You gotta game, and it's fine. And you know, I I I graduated and I had a really high peer rate until the very final thing. Well, I started digging into some lieutenants and some foreign foreign soldiers that were there. But yeah, everything, everything was gravy, man. I was I was true blue 61 days. I went through, and you know, I know you you want to know that I was in, I'd either just got in the mountains, and back then, I don't know if they still do this, but before each field exercise, the RIS will give you a vignette, somebody will give you a combat vignette. And uh this dude who I knew from the 163rd, but was not at Restrepo, started giving a vignette. And they started, and I don't know if he did it on purpose, and I don't know if it, you know, neither here nor there, but I from what I remember, and this is again my my memory, he was like, you know, reading his cue card and his vignette. He's like, There I was, you know, Corn Gall Valley, and he gives this whole like combat vignette to apply it to whatever we're gonna learn in range of school. And it was a vignette about Restrepo, specifically a vignette about uh, I believe it was specifically about either the patrol to go in after I got shot or before I got shot in the head or coming back out, like that one. And he's giving it, and the dude next to me is like how my you and I was like, yeah. And he was like, That's you, right? Like that this is you, this is your story. I'm like, yeah, this. And I was being blocked by some dude's head. He's like, way down, we're up in like these bleachers, and he's way down at the bottom. And he's giving it, and about three-quarters of the way, he's about 80% done with it. I like lean my head over so he can see it through the crowd. And he like looks at me and stops his speech immediately. He's like, and that's how we're gonna apply it, you know, in mountain phase of ranger school, and just stops it. And I knew that he knew, and he knew that I knew like, hey dog, that's my story. And he knew that I was in his, he didn't know I was in his class. He came over later and was like, What's up? How's it going? But it's funny, and and maybe that he just had to do that to find a vignette prop proper to assist.
HostWas it about the one you getting shot? Yeah, oh wow, yeah, and uh, I was I was like, hmm, he had to find a vignette about cover or whatever, but but uh you showed up uh to ranger school with long hair and a beard. How was that reception?
Kyle SteinerYeah, it was weird. Well, I went to pre-ranger first and they're like, you're gonna have to shave that off because I didn't know if I was gonna get in. And my team was had deployed just recently to um, they called them a rap mission, one of those missions um uh out in Ferrahat. And I was set to go on it, so I didn't know if I was gonna get in. So I I showed up wondering, I was on like a standby slot, so I wasn't gonna do this because if I wasn't gonna get in, I was gonna deploy right away. So I like showed up looking like Lieutenant Dan, dude, and like leaned into like the pre-ranger office.
HostI was like, it's the opposite of Ranger.
Kyle SteinerYeah, and I was like, hey, are we cool here? And they were like, Who the hell are you and what are you doing? And I gave them the whole speed. I'm like, hey, I'm sorry, man. Um, and they were cool with it. I was like, I'm with seventh group, my team just deployed like a week ago. I need to know if I can get in this. If I will, I'm gonna go shave this and shave this, and I'll be good to go. If not, I gotta leave. And they and they got me in, they were like, good. So I went like shaved everything off, looking like an idiot. But like the looks I got, it's funny because I had to pass by air assault school first, and they were all in formation, and I got just Were you in uniform?
HostWere you in BDUs? Yeah. Oh wow, that's funny.
Kyle SteinerUm I had a no, I had a memo.
HostYeah. Um after all you've done, you know, what did Ranger School teach you? And I'm not trying to say like you knew more than Ranger School. No, no, that's how you are. That's how you talk about it.
Kyle SteinerIt's a leadership course, dude. It teaches you how to motivate dudes, which like I think it's unique in the fact that it motivates dudes when you you don't have the intrinsic motivation. At Restrepo and at those type of places, you have the intrinsic motivation, A, because your life is really on the line, and B because your your homie's life is really on the line. You're gonna carry that rucksack because it's what has to be done. You know what I'm saying? It's absolutely what has to be done. So there's no finding the motivation or the discipline, it just has to exist, or you die. Um, you fail. Out there, it's a lot more testy, like, hey, I need you to do this, I need you to stay awake. Like we stayed awake because we were just like, what's happening? Something's happening, they can touch me, you know. Out there, it's like, oh, I'm in the mountains. So the leadership course about motivating dudes that are just so sleep deprived and slow uh so food food deprived, that is cold. That's that's what it was about, man. Learning motivating foreign soldiers, you know, that having the some of the foreign soldiers would be like, you give like give them the machine gun, they'd be like, I'm not doing that. That's enlisted man's work, like be like a foreign officer, and he'd be like, Hey, bro, like this is what's happening, you know, because the foreign they have much a much more tiered system, and he's like, bro, I'm yeah, I'm like, you're gonna carry this big ass gun, or I'm gonna put my boot in your ass. I'm gonna duct tape it to your face, yeah.
HostYou know, but motivation, getting the most other dudes. Um, I and I remember you telling me, like, you mentioned being careful to ask, like, hey, how would you do this as a ranger? Why was that important?
Kyle SteinerBecause I didn't want them thinking I didn't want to make the same mistakes I made when I first got to Italy. And I didn't want them thinking I thought I knew best, you know? And I knew that they're 100 ways to skin a cat, and I knew that an ambush up a mountain on blocking position one in the Corn Gaw Valley is different from an ambush in Southern Pines, North Carolina. It's different from you know an ambush in Vietnam. It's different, it's all different. So I was very, very careful to be like, hey man, like, you know, us in SF do it this way, but how would you do it? Kind of fluffing their ego a little bit, but also being like, really, like, what's your guys' tactic? Um, and it worked out really well for me. I ended up burrowing out with a lot of the RIs. A lot of the RIs would bring me back to the formation, be like, yo, think I'm not going to selection. And I'd always be like, send it, dude. I think you can make it. You look tough as nails. Like, let's do it, especially at Mountains. But like, you know, they would they would ban me from like being a squad leader and they'd make me like the all-time RTO. So I just had to like wander around watching lost lieutenants with my stupid radio. And they do that for a lot of SF guys that end up taking on too much work. They'll be like, hey, just stay there.
HostAnd you're like, 'cause it's just so intrinsic to yeah, you just have to do it, you know. I mean, hell, by the time you got to ranger school, dude, you'd been gut check after gut check. Yeah. At some point, you get to the point where you're like, yo, bro, I don't know if we can gut check this dude anymore.
Kyle SteinerYeah, yeah. And that and you know, and it's about a common sense, a common sense application. I remember getting a major plus because a young ranger was trying to figure out how to do a scheme maneuver and he wanted it by name by position where they were moving. And I stopped the kid and I was like, Come here. I was like, get everybody's ID card to you know the sand table. I was like, he because he was like, you know, uh PFC so-and-so is gonna move to a security position. I was like, get everybody's ID card and stick it in the sand, sticking up. And then as you brief, you're gonna move, you know, the Sergeant Cot Sergeant Steiner's gonna move here, PFC So-and-so's gonna move here. You move their ID card so they can see it, and he and he was like, That's amazing. And like the RIs were like, Who's the out of this? And I remember thinking, like, this can't be that big of a deal. Come on, man. Like, who did you learn that from? It's just it's just common sense. I remember getting briefed things and having dudes uh having we all had like when we would do rock drills, we all had our own rock. You would like paint your own rock, and it rustrepo, so you come out and you we had our little dirt area where we did stuff, and we would always move our own rock. And I remember thinking, thinking of that and being like, this is easy.
HostThat's a great idea. Uh, what was that graduation like? I mean, you know, it's uh a weight loss program.
Kyle SteinerYeah, it was awesome. I ate like a fiend, looked ridiculous. I got puffy. My uh my my now wife was there, and so was my mother and father. And and you know, I have a shirt that my dad got me in at Fort Lewis um when I was about five. And I have a picture of it, I think uh I think you have it. And it's me and I'm eating an ice cream cone. Um, I sit on a couch and it says, I'm a little ranger with a ranger tab. And I used that, I hadn't seen that in years. My my parents gave it to me, and I was like, see, it was always meant, I was always meant to do this, you know. So it was, I was ecstatic. I was so pumped to be a ranger. I was almost more pumped to be a ranger than I was to be an SF guy. And the reason is is I almost didn't go back to selection. I re-enlisted in in um in at Restrepo to go to Ranger School. I I just found the reenlistment certificate. It's it's sign, yep, rangers lead the way. Going to ranger school or any school from Italy was really hard. Plane tickets, everything. And they ended up being like, hey, it fell through. That's when I decided to drop a selection packet, also. Because I was like, man, you guys promised me ranger school. Like I re-enlisted for ranger school, you know, and you guys didn't give it to me. So it was always in the back of my mind like I have to do this.
HostHow did Ranger school compare to in your mind, like just being at Restrepo?
Kyle SteinerYeah, it was a it was a other than taking a knee a lot, I was like really perturbed by taking a knee because a lot of times at Restrepo, you couldn't take a knee because it was at an incline, so you had to like prop yourself behind a tree. Um but I I had no problems at being at Restrepo, I had no problems with the sleep deprivation, I really had no problems with the food deprivation. I was just like, hey, it's another day. My my lessons learned from my first team week and selection of being positive and moving forward and being that that positive mind for the boys. It carried a ranger school. I was like, this isn't that bad, guys. Like, we got this, we're good to go. Um, other than one lieutenant that I dug into, like everybody was like, hey, he's always in a positive frame of mind. And I'm always telling people, and I've carried this through my entire SF career. I I'll I'll crack like not a joke anymore, but like I'll make like a little funny anecdote when times are tough. Cause I'm like, you know, hey, like it could be worse. You know, we could have to be walking back, you know, because literally everything was always worse at Restrepo. You were like, God. I mean, it it snowed once one that one winter, like. A lot, and we were like, Yeah, no patrols. And then right afterwards, a sling load of snowshoes was brought to us. We're like, Oh yeah. So I always tell people, like, be in a positive frame of mind. And that and I think and I hope people will say that about me. Like, man, the dude's always positive because I'm never like a Debbie Downer. I'm like, hey, it could always be worse.
HostNot only that, it's a frame of reference, right? And it's a choice. You get to decide. I tell my kid, man. I think I just said on the last podcast too. You, you, you, I tell my kid when he wakes up. You get to decide if you want to be in a good mood, bro. Because every now and then my son will wake up, he's in a bad mood, bro. And I just like, hey man, this is a choice you're making. You don't have to be in a bad mood. You know, I understand you're tired. I'm tired too. Uh, you know, I got up at 4 30 this morning to go to the gym. I don't love getting up at 4 30. I do it because I I need to, because I won't get it done. But I could wake up in a bad mood and be a jerk to everybody or just be like, yo, man, got to get this done. So, yeah, to your point, I mean, I think like being a positive, having a positive mindset, I don't care what you're doing, man. That's a choice you get to make. Yeah. Um, and some sometimes people don't, I think sometimes people forget that. Uh, before we kind of dive into a little bit more your uh SF time and you know, your your deployments and stuff, let's take a quick break. Yeah. Kind of talking about some of you know your career in in special forces. Um where was your first deployment as a Green Bray?
Kyle SteinerIt was uh it was to the south, south portion of Columbia. It was just like kind of narcotics trip. It was cool, man. But like um I've I've since kind of lost how how it goes because they change units and the way they're structured so much and how they run missions. So, you know, it was like an anti or counterfark thing, counter narcotics thing, counter cartel thing. And what we were doing was, I mean, it was a training trip in all reality, but we were getting these rotations of dudes that were going out to do missions, coming back with their AARs, and then we were helping them target dev and then training them up for like, hey, we've got this, there's a you know, something here, and we would kind of tailor our stuff to whatever they were doing.
HostJust kind of help them with their targeting cycles and yeah, like exploitation stuff. Yeah. Um, is there is the Colombian military, are they uh their kind of special operations, counter narcotics? Is that a military or police function down there?
Kyle SteinerIt's uh it's a military function. They do have some police that run it, but for the most part, it's a military function. At that time, it was called the Bokoa. I've since been back and worked with the AFIU and and some of the real real top tier tier one units because you know when their tier one units want help, they don't we we do their their HR and DA stuff mostly, the the the Criffs and the SIFs. But um, but yeah, it's mostly a uh a military function. It's funny because I ran into some Brits and some Aussies doing some training with like parallel units and we're like oh down there all at the same time.
HostAre they are they pretty uh the Colombians? Are they pretty squared away?
Kyle SteinerYeah, yeah, they are. They're one of the more squared away units in in Southcomb. I'd say they're top two, um, for sure, especially their their tier one element. They're they take it very seriously, they're highly underfunded. And unfortunately, they're stuck in probably a put a worse political war than we are at at any given time, you know. Yeah, at any given time.
HostTrump's definitely been talking about Colombia after we uh since we've smacked Venezuela. So I'm I'm curious to see how that uh comes out in the next couple years. Um how long was that? Um we done for like six months? Yeah. Um, yeah, how did that compare to being in some foreign land?
Kyle SteinerYeah, I mean, I was like, oh, the hot jungle bugs, like big, huge butterflies, but like it wasn't anything compared to a combat trip, you know. I was like, oh, whatever. But I remember thinking, like, all right, this is what SF does, like um, you know, they this is part of what they do.
HostAnd I was like, yeah, would you guys consider that a J set?
Kyle SteinerNo, no, no. J Sets usually 30, 45, 90 days at the most. And and that's kind of for your own training, coinciding with the other the other teams. And I've done dozens of J sets to different places, but this was the first one I got to go on was considered an operational deployment. And as far as I know, only seventh at the time and first group were doing things like that where you were actively trying to change the dynamic of that country's strategy towards crime or what have you, you know, or stuff like that.
HostYeah, because I know the first group was working a lot in uh in the Philippines back when they were still hammering. They had like a real problem in the Philippines too with the terrorism stuff. And I know that South America. I spent some time at Sock South once upon a time, dude. And there was there was a lot of shit going on down there.
Kyle SteinerYeah, there's always stuff going on down there, man. I mean, yeah, think about it, there's still little little uh communist armies just like assembling in the woodline everywhere, you know. In Paraguay, we're like, oh man, I had to like Google who they were. I was like, oh my god, you know, seeing them, and they're better equipped than some of the armies.
HostYeah, and then you throw the terrorism nexus in there with our adversaries going down there to you know to sneak up. It's um Yep. Uh I think you deployed to man, Middle East, Central America, South America. What was some of your most memorable, or what was your most memorable SF deployment that you can talk about?
Kyle SteinerUm I, you know, the most memorable one I did, you know, and I did I did some intelligence work um in in Colombia and Medellin mostly. I was in pretty much lived in Medellin for pretty much the whole time, and and it was just me and a couple other guys, so slightly less than a singleton, but really interesting stuff, you know, and um just a lot of interaction with people um in the human intelligence domain, and it really opens your eyes to the dynamics of you know information operations and stuff like that. I was super pumped to be a part of it.
HostYeah, you've gotten an opportunity to really to do like full spectrum operations between you know being in the infantry, coming back doing traditional, you know, SF work and then going on to do um you know the the Intel side of it. So it's it's kind of cool that you've been able to get exposed to all these, you know, different aspects and probably really round out your career.
Kyle SteinerI think so. And people always kind of peg me for like the Bravo Smash kind of guy, even when I got first to SF, you know, when I went to 18 Fox as an intelligence turn, they're like, oh man, like you're just a Bravo, you know, and I I kept doing things like that to try and see, and and but it really gives you a wide breadth of understanding of way, way more domains of not only the the combat space, but the geopolitical space with within the globe. And it's it's it's amazing to have your eyes open up like that.
HostYou were uh you spent five years on the CRIF, the crisis response force, which I know that name's changed a couple different times. Um, you know, to the point uh what you can talk about, um, you know, what is it and what does it uh what does it do?
Kyle SteinerYeah, so you know, it started as the SIF, the uh commander's in extremist force, and for many years it spawned from Project Blue Light, which was the predecessor to the unit, you know. And uh because when the unit was being set up, they didn't have a counterterrorism force, so they they stood up Project Blue Light. Um and I I think it was Fifth Group that did it, and then uh and then each each group subsequently did it and maintained that that counterterrorism, that CT force, so it's your direct action, your house address, you stuff like that, and then uh and then they maintained it and it became the the co uh combatant commanders essentially quick reaction force. So the uh you you belong to whatever your combatant commander was. So in group, um, you were kind of tucked under them more often than not, your training guidance and stuff like that, and your deployments kind of came through them and not the normal channels of seventh group and and so on and so forth, first SFC and stuff like that. Um it was interesting because you get the training is just out of this world for the regiment. You know, I know there's a lot of tears out there, but for the regiment, I mean you get you get your training guidance from you know the big dogs themselves. So and then they come out and evaluate you on what you're doing, and you get told, you know, hey, you're messing this up or this was good. And it's really awesome. You get you get a lot of funding from different sides of the table that you know some of the some of the big dogs get that some of the white sides don't get. And um uh some of the normal ODAs kind of kind of don't get a chance to participate in some of that stuff. But in order to get into it, you know, it's a pretty lengthy process. You typically have to do a a a hefty physical event, something like a UBR or something, some road marches. Uh you have you have uh an interview. Usually they'll put your like they'll put like your picture on this whiteboard in the hallway, and then people kind of write about what they think about you or if they know you, and then uh and then and then you go through a shoot-in portion in like three weeks where the guys evaluate you, and then you go to Sephardic, which is like a school at Bragg, and uh and uh what I understand the unit vets the whole thing and then like gives them this is how you're gonna run it. So it's it comes from the best. Um, but you come back really being able to shoot fast um and accurate and make and and like process targets a lot faster. I was really proud to be a part of that unit, and you get to do a lot of cool training, like uh, you know, rural, uh you know, realistic urban training scenarios and all kinds of stuff. Um, you know, I heard they just uh they just did some training on a on a football stadium. So like you get to do some of the some of the really cool stuff.
HostAre you guys doing ruts similar to other SMUs where you're going in the cities? Yeah, that's cool.
Kyle SteinerYeah, it's really cool. You get, I mean, you you know, you're not considered part uh with them, but a lot of a lot of us, and it's an honor to be considered, you know, co-aligned with them that we we could be considered in the same in the same sentence as them, and and we like we like that. So we like the chance to be able to do some of the training and see see their side of the world's fun.
HostUm, what's that interaction like with with uh you know just working with the SMU coming from you know the GB? Is there egos involved or is it just really like you know, is it uh is it just good training?
Kyle SteinerYeah, it's always really good training. You know, we've done a couple, I've done a couple things with them and they always have really good things to say. They're always really funny. I think there's probably a little bit of animosity for from some dudes, but like I've never seen any of that, man. I wouldn't say anything bad about them. I think they're hilarious, you know. Uh the they make a joke out of like the the more funding that they get, you know. Sometimes, you know, you're you're out there like trudging through the woods or like crawling and they like roll up on the silent like Mercedes electric mini bike. You did anything? Like, where'd you get that? I've been crawling for four hours, you know. That's funny. Uh, but but no, no Anamassi. I love great training. They're always really, really, really squared away. Um, really professional dudes. And I have a lot, we have a lot of friends, you know, a lot of friends that go there. You know, I did a training with them, and one of my best friends had gone over there, and we were rotating in and out of, you know, doing doing some housework, and and uh he's he he like called out, he's like, That's the guy, that's the guy who's in Restrepo, and they wanted to talk to me. And I was like, that's me, and I was super cool. I was like, Yeah, yeah, it sucked.
HostYeah. Um, well, and a lot of those guys at the unit, man, they came from the army. Yeah. Um, so you know, they know what it's like to they know a lot of those guys came, you know, came from the big army and they know what it's like to you know to be where you came from. Are you uh uh my understanding of the Criff is you guys are you guys are on you know on on call, right?
Kyle SteinerYeah, we run the same way the SMUs do, like on a on they call it the beeper. I don't know who the last dude to have a beeper was, but they call it on a beeper and you're on a recall, and it's changed as our name has changed and as responsibility has changed over because it's gone back and forth with the wars and then and then turned off and then and then some combatant commanders wanted it turned back on. And you know, at one point we're on a two-hour recall if you're on the cycle that's up, and then sometimes you're on a six hour or twelve hour, but it changes uh from what I gathered. There, I think they're on a six again. I don't know. But um, I mean, and then you get you get the the blowout call to get ready and to go, and sometimes it's real, and sometimes it's a a rehearsal. Um, and if you had a you know, your leadership sometimes, you know, they'd call a call a rehearsal call on like Mother's Day, and you're like, come on, bro.
HostIt's like being at Restrepo again. Can you just not shoot at me just?
Kyle SteinerYeah, man, just give me a minute here, dude. The wife's mad.
HostUh, what's the fastest you've gotten on an aircraft?
Kyle SteinerUh man, it was really fast. It was, I want to say it was probably about an hour and a half, and that was for an emergency uh Secret Service augmentation. Um, that ended up, it was funny because uh got the gear ready, got everything, and it was me and like two other guys, and we got an aircraft and we flew down to Sox South. And then and then we were they're like, all right, ready to go. We picked up some other guys and we started the flight back, and then halfway through, like, hey, we gotta turn around. Uh POTUS canceled. Or and he's sending somebody else like V-posts, which we weren't gonna go on, or maybe sex date or something. So it turned around and then let it back at Sock South. They're like, all right, download all your gear. And I was like, okay. And then the dudes, the like the State Department guys are here getting out like, well, we have to go somewhere else. And they just took off and left me on the airfield with like these other guys. So I had to like, I told this like brand new guy to SO, I was like, You stay here, I have to go rent a rider truck, and we had to drive back to Florida, back to where we were up based. And I was like, damn it. But that's the fastest I got one, I got on one to not do anything to be in the air and turned around.
HostUh, without getting classified, obviously, what kind of missions does Crift do, or you know, what are any what's anything that you can talk about that you guys have done? And you know, there's tons of Instagram pictures of Crift dudes with like travel with POTUS.
Kyle SteinerYeah, most notably it's it's POTUS augmentation. We like to do that a lot. It's it's a good it's a good thing, or V POTUS augmentation. Um, I mean, you know, speak down south. Anything that's that's big name that you know that the the SMUs can't don't have the bandwidth to hold. So we did uh Olympic security when it was then the Olympics were in South America, World Cup security when it was in South America. We were all you guys doing mainly like the US side of things, like uh yeah, but you also do a lot of the infrastructure around there. But if the US was there, obviously it was a big deal. Um any of the summits down there, the G20 summits, the Burks conferences, we do security for that kind of stuff. And it's really fun to be a part of that stuff. And sometimes the SMU guys come and sometimes they don't. Um, our J sets are a little more, a little more pointed toward a crisis that may or may not be going on for that partner unit at that time. And they're like, hey, we have this problem right now. Let's get ready to uh, you know, attack this problem right now. You know, something's happening over here. So we'll analyze all their intel and be like, all right, well, this is what I would do. Let's get a little training POI set up so you can practice these things that you're gonna need in three weeks when you do this thing right now, you know. And we we work with mostly the the Criff works with their tier their tier one forces, so they're SMUs. Um, and the one in like the one in Brazil is fantastic, like as close to near peer in Southcom as I can even say is that Bappe or is that another one? Uh no, it's the um uh no, it's all good.
HostYeah, I can't remember what it's called. Actually, you know, the Bappe is the police guys, yeah. Not the army guys. The boys go to Venezuela.
Kyle SteinerUh I I've I've heard that some of them are there right now, and it's all all clear.
HostWhat uh what a what a good uh what a good trip that was, man. I'm sure that was well planned for quite a while. Yeah.
Kyle SteinerUm I mean, well executed, clean.
HostThat's gonna be uh you're gonna see that in a documentary coming up soon. Um I don't know how soon, because I don't think that's over yet. Yeah. Um but yeah, interesting. Five years is a long time, especially you know, in that type of unit. Is that normal?
Kyle SteinerUm people normally stay there that you that long or um uh well I mean it was actually it was actually closer to six years, but no, it it is it is it I say this. It used to be common. Now the rotation to be an instructor and stuff has gotten a little, it's reached out and touched some people that didn't. I was able to formulate my career in a certain way. I really dug into the like non-commissioned officer like pipeline early on and figure out what I needed to do to not move back to Fayetteville. And whether it was me, you know, going from being on the SALT Force to going to the recce teams or being an 18 Bravo, going to an 18 Fox, um, and getting different schools, changing different duties and responsibilities in order to stay there. So it's it's pretty common if you know how to work the system. I hate I hate to say that for back of a uh lack of a better No, you gotta make system work for you, bro. I wanted to stay there. My wife is a lawyer and she had been barred in Florida, and like um there was a waiting period to be barred elsewhere. So I was like, hey, if you move me, like I can't, you know, my wife won't be able to practice or or we'll be separated. So I I kind of did what I could to stay in that area and make it work.
HostI'd I would probably do the same thing, bro. Um you uh did you do time as a team sergeant?
Kyle SteinerYeah, I did I was an acting team sergeant. Um I made the E8 list, and I mean it was almost simultaneously I had dropped my warrant packet because it was will I make it, will I not make it? I really want to go warrant. Hey, this might be your last chance to go warrant. Everybody was like chirping in my ear, and um, I really wanted to be a warrant because I knew if that I had already been an acting team sergeant for uh nine months or whatever, and I was like, okay, if this goes on and I don't do this, this might be my last chance, then I'm I'm I'm relegated to a desk after this, and I can't, I don't want to do that because I still had seven, eight years left, and I was like, ooh, yeah.
HostWere you team sergeant on the Criff?
Kyle SteinerYeah. Oh, nice. We can't do that. Now, I had been actively kind of because at that time the CRIF had kind of wound down doing combat rotations, was back to cover in a lot of Central and South America. So I was really trying to get back to combat, and that was another factor because I knew I was gonna be a team sergeant in the Crift, and I knew they wouldn't move me out, and I was like, I really want to go to combat one last time. So I had gone with some other ODAs uh a few times and I was like, okay, well, um, and and it had normal, decent deployments and whatnot. Um, but I I wanted to try to get on the last train. So knowing that I didn't want to go to a desk, I wanted to stay on a team longer because it extends your team time like six years, and I was like, Yeah, I want to I want to hang out with the homies some more. Like I'm not done, I'm not done with it yet, you know. And all my friends that were on in line with me are all you know E9, CSMs and stuff like that, which is fine, you know, to each his own.
HostI just wanted to be with the bros. Did um did you get a chance to go to combat with the as a green bride? Mm-hmm.
Kyle SteinerYeah, yeah. A couple times. And and it was it was good, man. I I had one really memorable deployment. Um, and then one that was, you know, how the war like went like this, and sometimes you sometimes you hit good pockets and sometimes you didn't. I was on the dock had to go like three other times, and for one reason or another, it was like, oh hey, this doesn't need it, they don't need this, or they don't need that. They need a fox, never mind. But you know, I did go. My my most memorable deployment with uh with Seventh Group was the I want to say the 1314 one where we lived in uh a British castle, a British fort in in in Kandahar province called the May. It was like a Maywan in Maywan. You can you can Wikipedia, the the Battle of Mawan was the Afghan forces and the British forces in like the 1800s. It's it was a wicked fort. And I was super cool, big old huge like castle with like big iron rod doors, and that's where we we stayed in like jail cells uh with like blankets over the doors. It was super cool, man. And it was a really good trip. I did lose um two very, very close friends on that trip, and that that really hurt me um early on um in that trip. But all in all, really good learning experience for me learning the ropes of of what SF does in that role.
HostWere you guys doing VSO or commando, yeah?
Kyle SteinerVSO and and and we had some commandos with us, but uh mostly the VSO stuff, which I mean it was kinetic, it was kinetic as shit. But I was still really confused at the VSO mission. Like, what are we trying to do? What are we trying to accomplish here, you know? And they would rotate CSTs into us and stuff. So I spent a lot of that deployment in in study about like what is the overall aim of the VSOs? You know, because at that time too, uh SFs and CJ SOTIS were tucked under battlespace owners at that point. So now you had like a big battle space owner, and he wasn't really right on to what you were doing, and you didn't really know. Really? So you didn't fall under a soda? Uh we fell under a SODIF, but like the battle space owner would always be like, Hey, you know, this, that, and the other, you know, you're doing this, what are you doing here? I remember standing up in front of I don't know how many stars he had, and he was briefing something, and and my buddy was like, Hey, you know, we need that area for the uh for the partner force over here, and he didn't even bat. He was like, Okay, Roger, but sometimes it wasn't that amicable, you know. But we fell under a so-tiff that that at that time they were tucking us under a, I think this is right, under a total uh battle space owner, which was a conventional dude. And I just didn't know. I didn't know like what the aim of a VSO was. I understood, like, hey, we're being here, we're gonna make ourselves known, we're gonna kind of integrate into society. That doesn't work, dude.
HostYeah, for those of us uh, you know, I uh we're probably talking code, but uh, VSO is village stability operations. I mean, the general uh, you know, ODA mission uh is it's hearts and minds type things, but you know, in a in an area like Afghanistan where they're dealing with tribal differences and and you know who knows who, and then you have foreign influence, um, you know, and as the war people were I think I think come 14, people were starting to get war fatigued too.
Kyle SteinerYeah.
HostUm and you know, I know third group had a really rough year in 12. I know uh 13 or 14th, I think seventh group started ripping in. And yep. Um did you go were you guys getting ticked up a lot?
Kyle SteinerYeah, it was it was a pretty good trip. We did, we did have, I mean, it was nowhere near, I mean we're strepo stuff, but we were getting quite a bit, and uh a decent amount from what I gather from other soft deployments because that had been my first one, and I was like, okay. Um but a lot of we were in the vehicles at that time, it was the RGs too, so we were just rolling around those huge vehicles, and IDs were the big scare because Kandahar was pretty flat, you know, and then you'd cross over to into Helmand area and wash car guy area where all those poppy fields are and the the orchards where everybody was the marines were getting smoked up at. So it was definitely a testy time, and then two of my friends over on the dive team in the same company got got swacked, and they were two very good friends of mine, and and it's still you know, that you want to talk about it at all? I don't talk about it too much. I I wish I did more, you know. Um just about those dudes. I mean, I yeah, um you don't have to, yeah, you know, um Alex Viola and uh and Rich, you know, Rich um, I I just found some pictures of them too, and they run like wads, and then I don't I don't have a whole lot to do with their families, but you know, I rem we uh the pre-deployment training, uh you go to like New Mexico or wherever and you do like a big workup. Uh and me and those two dudes were left on on Rear Vaughn at Fort Bliss, I think it was. We're going to New Mexico to pick up all the gear and bring it out to the training site. And I I I ended up hanging out with them like maybe in Juarez, maybe not.
HostMaybe it's hard to remember. I mean I may I pass on Juarez, they run real close together.
Kyle Steinerhave a huge sombrero that says Warez on it. I don't know where I got it. Uh but you know they uh and then yeah they got they got killed around Thanksgiving of that year and and and that hit me hard and I was like man what are we doing? But to each his own it was a really good deployment. It taught me that side the combat side of soft and and it really opened my eyes toward toward bigger things.
HostWhat did you see like the differences maybe maybe they're obvious maybe they're not to people that are listening uh depending on their military background but um you know you had a pretty conventional but very kinetic deployment as a uh as a conventional dude um what was the difference uh and and what did you like and what what was different or maybe what did you miss? I don't know.
Kyle SteinerYeah I mean well it's funny because Restrepo was not your to your normal conventional deployment. We we had such anonymity being that far away and nobody really having eyes on us technology wasn't that big at the time so there was no tracker systems for what we were doing you know so it's the closest thing to an unconventional deployment you can get or a soft deployment while being conventional in that in that time frame. So when I got to soft they're like oh you know other guys were like we're allowed to do this or we have this amount of freedom and I was like we could do whatever we wanted at Restrepo as long as we kept working towards our our main objective but the big thing in soft was the amount of support the amount of eyes on you the amount of like hey we can't even go over there without three birds overhead Medevax you know this much as much time on station I was like really because we were just walking everywhere with nothing you know we didn't like they're like oh maybe there's an A10 we hope so soft is like hey you need they they throw the world at you which is great you know and top train dudes and they get it I just remember feeling like spoiled I was like wow you guys get this you guys that when we had a target you know whether it's looking at signal selectors like oh his phone's on I'm like what yeah yeah what you guys attract people yeah I was like you know that his phone's on I'm like wow and you're like all right we just recon by fire yeah I'm like is it like let's see hold on you know we're just or we're like sitting in a in a waste deep river waiting for them to come out of their house for you know six hours ever strep but like they're there you know and and so now they're like hey you know we've got we've got overheads telling us he's there he switched on his cell phone this person you know you're getting you're like soaking the target and I'm like wow did you really feel like at that point like man we made it I made it to the varsity yeah I was like holy crap like they they know that he's there they know that it's him you know yeah this is crazy that's awesome um yeah any anything major from those deployments or anything funny or you know just whatever uh you know there was a really big tick that that some dudes and and my team sergeant had a thing about not letting you go out um on a mission on your birthday he didn't want you to die on your birthday and it happened on my birthday and I was I remember being so mad that I couldn't help the bros and I was like trying to call assets for him and I was like oh he made you stay at the file yeah he made me and it um candy crush had just come out so I had like the for gen one iPad and I'm like sitting there watching them on the on the trackers and I'm like listening to the radio but I'm playing that and I'm like all right and then they get into a huge tick and it's a really really good tick and they save a lot of villagers. A lot of a lot of civilians ended up getting killed and and our 18 deltas should have been put in for commendations for sure was just like digging digging live people out of there and saving people really good and I was really happy for them upset that I couldn't help the bros out for that um so that's that's a part that I remember and then I had two really close calls and this is this is just hilarious because people don't believe me when I tell them like I was in an RG on that trip and you know it had those old hatches that you like move the little ball thing and you open and it's heavy as hell to get it up. So first in this was within a couple days of it of themselves I get up on the the roof the gun was jammed and I get up there and I'm fixing it and they're just hitting the side of the vehicle and for some reason I didn't register it. But I think uh my time at Restrebble and stuff he kind of made me numb to it. So they were like you could see the water bot the water jugs getting hit five gallon water cans they're spitting out water and everybody's like screaming at me I'm like what I'm just fixing the gun fast forward like three days I go to do the same thing and as I open the hatch the hatch gets shot back down and it closes on me and it hits my nugget and just kind of knocks me down into the thing and I was like oh and my head was like right in line with it and it hit and closed the hatch and I remember the dude the dudes being like you just gotta stop man because your head's obviously too big and everybody wants to shoot it. We don't know what's going on so something that what did a round hit it or something? A round hit yeah somebody shot the hatch as it was opening and it closed I hadn't gotten time you remember how they had that little hook to hook in and stay open I hadn't gotten it there. So as I was going I had it up luckily I had my helmet on but it was like and it hit the it hit the hatch that and the hatch kind of came down hit my head knocked me down into it I think I had like hit my ass on an ammo can and I was just laying there like ah and uh people were like did anybody see that because like his head we gotta he's gotta just stay in here. I got this like funny gnomer of like they're they're aiming for your head dude we don't know what you're doing. You went to a whole bunch of schools man you're ranger qualified Halo qualified combat diver qualified sniper qualified Sephardic Sephalwick probably um what was you know obviously we talked about the ranger school but what was I know I think I know the answer to this question but what was probably one of the toughest schools you went to in the regiment yeah you know dive school was terrible yeah terrible you know and uh it's an interesting story how how I got involved in dive school when I got to B37 I wanted to be a diver so bad I had heard they're the toughest I tried to ask for it in the Q course they weren't given it I wanted to be a diver just bad and uh I went and in interviewed with Mike Perez and I was like hey I want to be a diver he's like we want to have you didn't work out they didn't need a Bravo whatever um I went to 786 and then all my best friends were on the dive team I I don't know why I just got along with them the two guys uh one of the two guys I was telling you about Alex Viola he was a diver um later on um John Worka was a diver and he he he passed later on but uh I'd always wanted to be a diver. I had gone to a pre-scuba right when I got to group just for just because they were like who wants to go? You might go to scuba school you might not and I was like yeah I'll go I went and um a really good a dude I respect a lot had a lot of combat he was a diver and he was running it and he's like hey I I would bet my dive bubble that you'd pass and I I kept that with me I was like really no way so fast forward I never got to go I had different just different things getting in the way I never got to go and finally when I went to the warrant course I uh I was like yeah um I was in in a in an interview with the the the command chief warrant um of seventh group and he was like looking at his manning board and he was like I want I need divers guys warrants just don't want to go to dive school and he was like who wants to go to dive school and I was like oh here's my chance luckily the rest of the room didn't so I was the only one that even like made a peep I was like well you know and he's like ah I like it and he to he gave me like a little bet he was like if you if you win the Iron Man award at what the at the warrant course you know I'll send you plus I knew that the two dive teams that were open were in the battalion that was going to going to combat next and I was like that's my that's my end uh so I went and by the luck of the draw I won the Iron Man award which they weren't really giving out anymore because they were switching to the new PT test but I had the highest scores of everybody there and I beat a third group diver um who's now in an SMU and I'm I'm pretty pumped about that uh but I won that got back he's like all right you're good you go to dive school and I was like sick uh and I I met a friend of mine who I'd known for years he was the team started on the dive team and you know I get in the pool and the first time I was like damn I'm like 37 years old this ain't for me man I don't know if I can do this and I'm like trying to do the just the underwater 50 and I'm like coming up guppy and looking like a fool and everybody was giving me all this these tips and did you get a chance to prep it all before you went to dive school uh just a little bit a couple days and then and well no then they put me they put me through a Mac yeah they did put through a Mac I got a couple days and then a Mac which I passed the Mac what's a Mac maritime assessment course and it's just a thing that local local guys do to kind of get you ready. I did go to a free dive course um I paid for myself to go to a free dive course to learn how to kind of hold my breath and do all this stuff and it was it was glorious I loved it um so I got free dive certified and then one day my buddy my buddy Jay Jolly is uh he's the team star on the team and I'm doing the 50 and I keep popping up and he looks at me and he knows the kind of guy I am and I know the kind of guy he is he ripped me out in Afghanistan one year and great Bravo great Bravo good dude and he was like I don't know what to tell you any more than anybody else has told you just just quit being a bitch and I was like all right all right so I did the 50. I I just I just gutted through it and sent it home and I was like if I pass out I pass out and I did it and I never was not able to do it again and then I I gained a bunch of weight because I knew that chubby guys were more buoyant so I just kept my running up and I got kind of rotund so I would float and uh yeah I went through dive school it was terrible terrible I blacked out on my first uh official test my one man test blacked out woke up on the side of the pool with like the air mask the oxygen mask on it was funny because the dude kind of poked my pride a little bit he's like yeah you blacked out but I think before you blacked out you you called the out of air sign which was like the I give up and I was like no I didn't did I and he was like I I think so you kind of made a motion and then somebody else was like well maybe his arm was just floating up and I was like did I really do that did I really like give the no so the following day I was like look if this happens this happens the one man comp if it doesn't it doesn't I just need to give it up to the universe if not I get to go watch my boys play T ball like we'll see we'll see and like I just didn't even care. I was like I'll see what happens and I ended up making it to the end of that test and passing dive school but terribly hard.
HostI was like one of the slowest dudes I was like in the back of the runs we've talked to quite a few people man it's the toughest school at DOD it's terrible but how would you rank uh this is just a fun conversation how would you rank SF tie dive teams against the SEALs?
Kyle SteinerI have talked a couple to a couple different people because the Air Force the PJs and stuff they get to go to a bunch of different dive schools there used to be an LO position where a SEAL would be at Key West and a GB used to be at Buds and at the end of it if they did their LNO time they were able to go through both. I've only seen it twice where a dude has a tried and a sworn awards and a and a US Diablo I've seen it twice. And I was like huh and I have talked to one of the dudes and he was like hands down CDQC is harder and a lot of other people say that because it's not a pipeline school and you have to fit so much more into buds I think um than just diving. Yes it's diving is their main portion but they want to train you on how to do it efficiently whereas like I went with 37 dudes GBs and 14 of us pass and I was like this is terrible terrible you know I mean it's it's a smoke fest every morning it's runs for days it's like dude this sucks so bad. You're just whether or not you're in the pool with your fins just passing that brick you know it's it's nonstop smoke fest but with no air is there any like documented GB dive missions in the last like where did you hear I mean I know most of the battalions have them or actually most of the groups have them I'm just curious as I don't think so I think what I've heard and this this may be right or wrong but um a lot of it has to do with riverine stuff. They want to keep them around for riverine ops for whatever reason.
HostThat's all I guess it's probably always good to have the capability you never know we're gonna need it. The way we uh get in and out of wars you just never know where we're going next bro yeah I was glad to see we hit Venezuela because it's not at least it didn't end in stand Venezuela stand. So I'm just like man it's we need to start hitting a couple uh you know islands or something like that somewhere somewhere that's not a crap hole man yeah um uh halo school man what was that like I mean people think of Halo as like oh you're skydiving I'm like no you're skydiving with a locker uh attached to your yeah how was um how was that training and and what's that mindset like jumping at you know 30,000 feet at night with a hundred pounds of shit dude third like Halo School I was so excited to go I was like yeah I knew I was getting moved to Reci and you have to be Halo qualified to be on Reci and I was like yeah it's gonna be awesome when that door when that ramp opens up for the first time and like clouds are passing by it that was a hundred times more scary than airborne school I was like oh my oh no what have I done and you know that because you can't see through the cloud barrier.
Kyle SteinerNo I was terrified I was like holy crap what are we gonna do and and of course you know your first jump is like I don't know how long your free fall is 45 seconds or a minute and a half or something and it's over in in 10 seconds not even you know and and at the time you didn't have the the VLC the the ball throwing you had the um the wire with the handle and uh they're like hey whatever you do don't throw your handle you know you get counseled if you throw your handle we you have to put them back in yeah dude I'm like it just drifts off into nothing and I was like oh but uh yeah it was over so you have the handle and not the you have both no you don't have the back in the day you didn't have this it was just uh yeah you you traced down and it had a handle right here and you pulled it out and pulling it out exposed just a long cable that was then just flapping on your hand and you were supposed to put your hand around it. Oh you just tossed it yeah they're like don't toss your handle we need to put them back in the shoots and I was like all right you just don't know what you're doing and uh I was getting my AFF man and I'm a big dude and my sh I've had both my shoulders operated on and I remember I kind of panicked the first time because my you know my back's trashed like an old dude and I remember I first I didn't arch hard enough I couldn't find the ball behind my back and I was like yeah I had a I had a hot panic moment dude yeah you're always afraid you're gonna like tilt a little bit go into a spam but I was spinning all over the place potato chipping I got it down Pat and I I passed decently um after a while and got a lot of jumps under my boat but I did have some some really close calls during my free free fall career and you know that Halo class the banner of it if anybody goes down there it's um we got a jump during a solar eclipse so I I have a day night jump. Oh wow yeah yeah during while like the the moon was going in front of it it was super cool I bet man you had a video huh yeah I don't have a video that's some of the instructors do yeah that's cool we had a uh an AfSot guy on the pod uh podcast and he's a Halo uh free fall instructor so we we talked a little bit about it um that's a what's uh what's the what's the coolest course you went to during your time in the regiment or maybe one that you enjoyed more than other because I mean all of them seem like they're yeah they're super cool I mean a lot of them I I mean sniper school was really really cool it's sucky but between that and Sephardic I think you're learning to shoot fast with sniper school I was not a good stalker and you just start learning the the ins and outs of like field craft and like being invisible man it was it was super interesting I'm really thankful to have gone to that and become a level one sniper and um but I was not a good stalker I was getting called out like crazy I'm like I gotta figure this out dude they see me from a mile away maybe it's the fact that I have a big head I don't know you're you're like a pretty big size dude man you can't really hide behind a tree which you which pushes are moving and like oh man I look terrible but you know um you went on became an 18 Fox um which is an intelligence um well you became an intelligence sergeant and then later a warrant um how how did you like that role the intelligence sergeant I it wasn't what I thought it was gonna be at first I I grew into liking it but I I thought it was gonna be more uh adaptive thinking and it is in some ways but a lot of it is is still this is how you gain the intel this is what how you translate the intel this is how you analyze the intel it's very you know dot dot dot and um later on you kind of find your own methods but I enjoyed being being 19 Fox I really did I enjoyed doing target dev the warrant course I thought was phenomenal man the warrant course is I think I told you it's like a PhD in unconventional warfare and a lot of people don't understand that and I guess a lot of like people that want cool guy stories like SMU stories don't understand it but unconventional warfare is such a strange thing how insurgencies are built how populations are manipulated how subversion is undertaken is just so interesting to me you know I kind of like Minneapolis yeah 100% that is a case study for subversion and insurgency it's a case study and like it can be done in any form or fashion um whether you whether you're studying the American Revolution where we had what seven percent of the population behind it everybody else is a Tory like and you can make something blossom from that. And you know I I read a story about I don't remember what what regime it was in Eastern Europe but them toppling a government by frustrating a guy so much by making fun of his wife and his wife would wear like ridiculous hats and uh it was you know Bosnia-Serbia type thing but they would dress chickens up and put these hats on this chicken to make his very vain wife upset and then they would put these trash cans out and put the hat on top and put a picture of her and then they had one dollar to hit the trash can with a bat not a shot was fired nobody was ever hurt but they annoyed this this presidency so much or this this dictatorship that they caused him a regime to collapse based on just that and you know that stuff is so interesting to me because people don't understand there's always going to be a place for blowing up doors and shooting and all the violence of action there's always going to be a place for there's always going to be a place for drones and dogs and robots but when it comes down to it if if let's say that the infrastructure and the system collapsed UW is where it's at it's the person. It's the person you know the human domain is so fragile what people think you know and and how how you cultivate their thoughts and their beliefs to coalesce with what with our nation's intent is is phenomenally it's crazy.
HostYeah. And uh doing that job and understanding how unconventional warfare works do you see like things in the world in the news different?
Kyle SteinerYeah I do 100% because I can see it in phases of I'm like oh they're doing this oh they have this done I mean Robin Sage.
HostRobin Sage is a huge UW exercise it's one of the best exercises in the SF pipeline and it's an entire UW UW exercise based on completely coercing a government to do what's in the best interest of the United States or the or us you know it's crazy and you can see it it you can see it domestically and you can see it you know outside of the US Yeah I mean we there was an explosion recently at a munitions plant in Tennessee uh for sure and I think that was the only munitions plant that was uh being used to make certain rounds of being recent of Ukraine and 100% man I'm sure that's a FSB GRU hit there they hit a refinery in Houston like it's never not talked about right and you know start looking at what we've done in other countries too um and so it's it's just inverted I think once you know uh it's kind of like the jingle truck thing man I mean we got a report one time at a place I was saying in Afghanistan that our five was going to get attacked and they were going to use jingle trucks to ram the gate and so you know we get up on the roof one morning and all of a sudden like you're watching the Afghan highway. Well you're not switched on to it but now every damn every third car is a jingle truck dude but your brain wasn't switched on to look for it and then all of a sudden you become aware of it and you're like oh uh everything's a jingle truck kind of like you know once you once you see things it's hard to not see that's why I don't watch the news man because sometimes my my brain will run wild because once you know too much you know too much.
Kyle SteinerYeah it's the same reason I don't watch the news brother because you remember I mean it was a couple years ago where all the trains were derailing and stuff yeah I see that and you that was one of the main tactics in Lawrence of Arabia which is one of the first manuscripts of UW so you start thinking about this and I don't like going down that rabbit hole because I'm like well what are the odds that three trains within this vicinity just derail like are a train system that bad the uh the switching systems that those trains use to switch tracks that technology and that software came from China weird what a weird coincidence kind of like the the the the ship that hit the bridge in in Baltimore yeah that's my one major complaint about about any one population not just ours but anyone is that don't take anything at face value because there's there's always something deeper.
HostYeah what um how important um is the warrant officer on an ODA a 12 man uh team and kind of what is that role?
Kyle SteinerSo you're like the chief of staff and you're the continuity guy. So you typically you've got five six years on a team a team sergeant will switch out every 18 months to two years and the captain a year to 18 months. So you're the middleman and a lot of it has to do with their progression in training what the gaps that need filled you know stuff like that. So we've done this excellent amount of training here or there whether you're not you're focusing on let's say radiological nuclear or chemical biological you know or we just did this now we need to switch to this what are we fresh on what are we what are we not fresh on these are lessons learned oh I we've been to this place so you're a real continuity guy you're also the chief of staff so you're making sure everybody's doing what they're doing and their S functions S1 S2 you know and I really really liked it all products have to go through the warrant you're also the manager of relationships which is pretty uh pretty important because like you know I had I had this book of just business cards back in the day and then what you would do is you know hey we need to do this training this is how it's got to be this is where we got to go all right hold on let me call like all the the pilots I know hey are you doing something in this area at this time all right I know this National Guard pilot everybody was a contact for something that we could do you know whether it was mute mutually beneficial or we needed support or whatever we they needed support you know um that's why when a new pilot gets vetted in 160th you know they always they do the flight leads where he gets to do a flight lead and we get to do it exercise with him because they need a ground force just to validate that next pilot and um I loved hopping on those and be making those coordinations. Dude the warrant is the most fun job ever I had a blast doing it if I could have done that for 20 years I would have yeah um one of the things I thought that was interesting that that you said a couple things actually is you're not an email guy you're an in-person guy how does that work out balancing um you know being the in-person face but still having to do you know electronic communication in this world that we live in now I would go out of my way it's hard to balance it but I would go out of my way to make a face to face with people I really will because I really feel like a a guy is much more likely if he's gonna blow you off he won't do it in person he can't do it in person and and B You're more likely to get a genuine response from a guy over, and that's maybe points to a problem with the the newer generations of everything that's done over a phone or a tablet or something. But I would be like, like, ah, just send an email. And even the younger ass, just send an email. Like, no, I will send an email, but I will go down there in person. So he'll probably open it up while I'm standing there.
HostWhen when you when you look at communication and it's 80% non-verbal and you're sending an email, you know, message sent doesn't always mean message received, right? And you're missing a lot of that stuff. Sometimes I'll have to put, I've even put in emails before, hey man, you know, uh emails don't convey tone. I send this with a smile and a and a hug, man, because you know, you say things and we live in this world where it's quick communication. And I mean, I can't tell you how many times my wife or has sent me a text where I sent her, and it gets just totally missed because it's just a couple words, you're in a hurry, but you're missing a whole context. So to your point, like that's why we do our podcast in person, and it's our podcast isn't for everybody. A lot of people don't have the time, they want to make the time, but the connection in person versus you know online or whatever, and no shade to people that do that. There's a bunch of guys that are doing it, doing it well. Um, but that's kind of why we've done because I I I'm kind of similar to you. I value that human interaction, and it's a different conversation. Uh, you had a 06 um commander who said he'd trust you to lead his children in combat. Tell me about that and tell me about what that meant to you.
Kyle SteinerUm, I was getting letters of wreck for something uh recently, and I had a lot. I had like 30 letters of recommendation, and I reached out to him. We had been in combat together a little bit when he was a major, and uh he's a very well-respected dude in the community, and I I love him, and um, I think he's a fantastic dude, but I could not believe he wrote that about me. And uh I was expecting, you know, Kyle's a good dude, you know, blah blah blah.
HostYeah.
Kyle SteinerAnd when he wrote that, I said, man. And I him and I had been in some firefights together, so I think he knew a little bit that I I was I was serious about it and I could I could hold my own. But when he wrote that about me, I my sense of pride just boomed because I hold him in the highest regard. And uh for him to say that about me, I I I was like, well, then I I've made it, then I've I've been a good dude, a generally a good dude. You know, not not everybody's gonna say that you're you're a good dude, and not everybody's gonna like you, and that's okay. I know there's dudes out there that don't like me, but um I know I've done my best and he saw it, and for him to say that just lit my world up. I have it.
HostYeah, that's that's awesome. Um, we're gonna kind of transition into you know the next phase of your life, kind of this next chapter that you're going into. But before we we leave this chapter on to the next, is there anything about your time in the regiment or being a Green Beret, you know, kind of what it took you to get there or your teammates that you know you want to leave the audience with at all?
Kyle SteinerI mean, uh, you know, it's what my wife always talks to me about. You know, I I came to fruition and wanting to do more because of dumb luck. I survived, I saw through the window, and I was on borrowed time and I was like, well, I'm gonna make the most of it. So the adversity of me being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but having the right hand on my shoulder and surviving, it meant that it meant the world to me. And I knew I wasn't gonna waste it. So I've gone through life being like, if I have to do, I have to do this and I'm gonna give my best, you know, because I'm here to do just that. Like nothing else will suffice.
HostI got two questions. What do you say to the young kid that's listening to this that wants to go in as an 18 x-ray, maybe 18, 19 years old, like you, maybe doesn't have all the life experience. What do you say to that kid?
Kyle SteinerUm, you know, I I take a hard look at yourself and and and think, would you be value added to the regimen? I know you don't want know a lot about it, but you have to ask yourself, because I would not have been value added. And you it takes a mature man to know that. I would not have been a value added at that moment. In fact, I probably would have gotten somebody killed or myself killed. So you have to take a hard look in the mirror, you know. Would I be value added to these guys? Am I mature enough? Am I do I understand enough about the world? You know, can I make it through? Uh, just wanting to do it for the sake of doing it or for a piece of cloth or a green hat, it's not enough, you know. And that's something I learned long ago that it's not just about that. You're this isn't a video game. Like you have to be value added because your life really is irrelevant once you've crossed that that path, it's everybody else's life that's more relevant now.
HostIn that same vein, what do you tell that E5 or E6, little salty, got a little time under his belt, decide it it's uh he's ready to take the next step. Um, what do you tell him?
Kyle SteinerI do it, go for it. Like you have nothing to lose. You will, if you fail, you will know. But if you don't go, you will always wonder. And that will haunt you. The amount of dudes, it's a running joke. I mean, you know, the SMU say everybody says that, oh, I would have gone, or I was supposed to go, or I should have gone, or you know, I I got hurt.
HostLike I almost joined the military.
Kyle SteinerYeah, it's always that. If you don't try it now, you will always regret it. And we need dudes like that. When I went to jump master school, I went with a bunch of Rangers and I don't know what their deal was at regiment, but they were like, We don't like you guys. And I was like, What? And they're like, You guys don't like us either. And I was like, No, no, no, no, no, we we like you guys a lot. Like, regiment dudes are squared away. Like, we'd love to have you like you do, yeah. Like, no, no, no, we we don't like each other. Like, I don't know.
HostThat's some that's some shit Ranger first start and say because they don't want to leave good dudes at the time.
Kyle SteinerI'm like, I don't know what you're talking about because I would love to have you on my team. Same with the salty E5. Like, we we need dudes like that. We need dudes that have that grit already and that are ready for the next thing, a bigger challenge, and more responsibility.
HostReally need them. Yeah, awesome. Um, I want to talk a little bit about TBI and PTS. I don't want to skip that um as much as you've been through. Uh, you were shot in the head in 2008, 2026 now. Um, do you still suffer from like some of those symptoms, headaches, any of that kind of stuff?
Kyle SteinerYeah, I have headaches on the rig, dude. I said, I don't know what parent company owns Goody's headache powder, but they should be giving me a check for how much I how much I pound. I didn't know that was a Goody's headache powder. That's a yeah, it's like uh it's like a caffeine, ibuprofen, tylenol, aspirin mix. Wow, I don't even know that exists. It's um it tastes terrible, um, but I I take it and it gets me going. But I can I'm really good at deciphering my headaches now, whether it's a hydration headache, a caffeine headache, or yeah, because those are those are real things too. Or or it's the real deal. And I'll usually get them in the right spot. But I get them pretty regularly, man. And uh that between that and my eyes kind of messing up might might eat my hearing. But yeah, headaches are nonstop. I was gonna ask you, bro, how do you pass your hearing test? Not anymore. And the funny thing is, yeah, I don't know. We we talked about this. I had I I actually forged my hearing test in Italy to uh sure, dude, to because back then it wasn't like logged on a on an online database. So I I completely, completely had a dude like an in, like passed him a 20 and got me a passing score to be able to go to selection. And I got to selection and then I took a real test, and they're like, What the hell?
HostUh Q course, bro. It was really loud.
Kyle SteinerYeah, yeah. Nobody had any idea what happened. I actually got med-boarded for that and uh for the headshot, and then I fought it and got to stay in the regiment.
HostBut do you wish you'd done more to take care of like your hearing, or or you know, what would you have done differently now?
Kyle SteinerUh the selfish answer is yes. I wish I would have put some earplugs in, but in reality, like we were responding so fast and so hard. Like there was no there was no stuff. Hold on.
HostThey had given peltors to the infantry, dude.
Kyle SteinerYeah.
HostAlthough they should.
Kyle SteinerIt is what it is. I I uh I had my hearing my ear pro. I was at the range the other day, and I bumped my ear pro and it kind of you know made a void, and I shot one round and it hurt so bad. And I was like, how did I do this for so long?
HostJust real. I mean, I didn't do 16 months of sustained gunfights, but I've been around guns and and and a lot, man. And I I can't even go to bed without like either waves or a white noise machine, uh, just because my you know, that ringing in the ear is just nonstop.
Kyle SteinerYeah, I read lips uh really, really well because if I can't make out what they're saying, I'll look at the mouse. And I know a lot of guys get upset about it because uh some people will be like, you don't look people in the eyes. More often than not, I'm staring at a mouth.
HostYeah, we watch a lot of subtitles in our house because the low level uh for me to be able to hear is too loud for all of them. So, you know, half the time they either listen to it super loud or I read subtitles on Netflix and it sucks. Um have you been diagnosed with any kind of PTS or any of that stuff?
Kyle SteinerYeah.
HostUm do you still like how do you deal? Um and this isn't a counseling session, so I just want to, you know, how is it or what are the things that have benefited you or helped you with some of the stuff that you've dealt with?
Kyle SteinerMy wife helps me a lot. She's she's always there for me. She understands because you know, people always have I get in these like trances, um, and I don't really have traditional nightmares either. I have the you ever had like a really bad uh fever and you like hallucinate? I get in these like waves where I wake up and I'm not really awake and I'm I'm reliving any one, any one of a number of combat scenes, but I can also see my dresser in the background or my dog, and I'm like, what the hell is going on? It's happening Simo, and I'll have to snap myself out of it and be like, I'm in my bedroom. I know I'm in my bedroom, I can see my dresser, but other things are happening. So my wife is pretty good at it, man. My kids, I direct, I redirect my attention, like, like, like you said in the intro, like my wife gives me a 15-second hug every day, sometimes multiple times a day, and it I know what it does to my kids, and I know what it does to my wife, and I like it, but there's a there's a small part of me that hates it because I'm usually rushing to another task and it stops my momentum. So I'll be like, oh man. And then, you know, trying to remember what it is I'm doing. I keep myself extremely busy, dude. Extremely busy. Yeah, I have to, I cannot stop doing stuff. I have to be doing stuff, and if I'm doing something and something else catches my eye, like I told you, we just moved, I'll be doing something, and I'll see like the DVD boxes haven't been unpacked yet. So I'll be like, I gotta go do that thing and do that, or I gotta go unload the medicine cabinet and do that. I have to keep myself moving, um, whether it's projects, you know, it's that's that's how you that's how you do it. And now I'm starting to learn that, and we'll get into this later, you have to you have to find your tribe because I'm I'm losing a lot of connections and it's it's starting to bug me. And I want to keep those.
HostYeah, you know, and you said something uh to me when we were talking yesterday, and um, you know, you you've got some land and some property now, and and you're super focused on the family, and I think that's awesome, and that's how it should be. That should be the primary. But you know, Sebastian Younger wrote that book called Tribe. And you know, we we have this idea. I don't know why it is, uh, but a lot of us as we you know got along in the tooth of the mother tribes, like, man, I'm just gonna get out and we get some land, and I don't want to talk to nobody. I just I just want to, you know, raise my chickens or whatever. Um, and then the guys get out and do that, and then they they start struggling, right? And I think a big part of that is we're we were never as a tribe meant to be by ourselves, right? You know, it's the the group in Restrepo that helped you get through that deployment, or you know, your ODA, the guys on the team. And I'm not sure how we get out of the military and why we run from that, right? The thing that helped keep us alive overseas is the group, the cohesion, the unit. We get out of the military and we we we don't want that anymore. And I think I've come to think that it's not that we don't want that anymore, it's that we're leaving that and it bothers us, and that's our way of dealing with it. But, you know, I I tell people all the time, man, you know, find find your tribe. Like you just said it, you know, find find your people, whoever that is, whether it's you know, church, uh jujitsu group, wrestling group, coaching, um, you know, because I I think it's important and I know you're you're about to hit that transition period. Um, and so we we found and guys on the podcast have come and and and and talked about um how it's helped as you're starting to transition out of the military, is the military getting better about alternative therapies and helping guys, especially, you know, I I know soft probably has more than the regular military, but is there things that are available now? Because I know it's constantly changing. I've been out for a little bit.
Kyle SteinerYeah, yeah, there are. Uh they've got different programs for us to to kind of sample as you go and you kind of pick and choose what you go to. Um, I'm fortunate enough to have had enough TBI to where like a lot of those places are open to me. Um, like Nyko and all that. Yeah, Nyco and Trepid Spirit, uh those kind of TBI clinics that allow me to go there and and really dabble in a lot of the the brain mapping stuff to see what's up and help you out. You know, they play they play music and then watch your brain mapping, and you have to they'll blip the music and have it break off, and you got to kind of continue it in your mind to see if you can reconnect some of those things. But also I've done I've tried uh ketamine therapy, the stelloganglien block, nerve block for uh aggression and stuff like that. All fantastic therapies. I'm excited to keep going with them because um I can tell when they help, and and as long as it makes me a better person for my kids and my wife, and I'm just chill because there are times when I'll get like super high strung, yeah, and like I just bought a chainsaw, I'm like, I'm just gonna cut wood, uh, or whatever, but I'm really excited. But I did do ketamine, had a fantastic experience. I used it, and my wife helped me with this to kind of rewrite some of my neural pathways. She said this was possible. So to try and convince myself, like, hey, I'm not justified by being a soldier, by being a green bray, by being shot in the head. I have further uh purpose, you know, so you can kind of give yourself these affirmations. So while I was doing ketamine therapy, I had these affirmations playing with this music, trying to like get myself into the frame of mind of rewriting my psyche moving forward.
HostSo important, man. I was just reading something very recently that talked about, you know, self-talk and how it's so important and how it, you know, uh what you say to yourself can can affect outcomes, man. If you're super hard on yourself or you're super negative in general, uh, you know, you're gonna lead yourself in a negative direction. Whereas positive stuff, um, you know, it's funny, it's all the hippie shit that we used to make fun of people for. And then you start getting older, you're like, maybe we're on to something.
Kyle SteinerYeah, dude, meditating. I was like, oh man.
HostYeah, yoga, meditate. Dave Romero was on the podcast um early on, and you know, he's in all that, and it's super, super helpful, man. Um, it was really cool, and it's been really cool to learn some of that stuff myself. Uh, one of the things you talked about is, you know, your therapist made you re-watch Restrepo and write down your feelings. Um, anything crazy that came out of that?
Kyle SteinerYeah, it was really weird because I went in there and I was really on top of the world. So it wasn't a good, uh, a good insight to how I feel in the day-to-day. I was working out every day, getting ready to get out of the army. I was, I had my business, my businesses were kind of booming, and I was like, Yeah. And the the therapist was like, How are you feeling? I was like, pretty good. And and she was like taken aback. She's like, Well, I'm looking at your file and all this stuff. And she's like, I'm on top of the world right now, and things are happening. And in order to poke me, that's what she did. She's like, Well, here's what I want you to do. She knew about Restrepo, and she was like, I want you to watch this movie again. And then she gave me like the uh emotion wheel, you know, it's got like a whole bunch of colors and tons of emotions, and she's like, Study it good, and then I want you to as fast as you can, when they come to you, write down your emotions um as fast as you possibly can and uh just keep it going like that. And I said, All right, so you know, I had a good number of emotions on there, and some a bunch of doubles and triples, but what I found and what she found was that uh, you know, I really I really do miss those guys because a lot of it was endearing emotions. Like I had some sadness, I had didn't have a whole lot of fear. I was like, Yeah, I'll be back up there in a minute. Um, I had a lot of sadness and I had a lot of like, hey, I really like love loving feelings. Like I miss those dudes, I really enjoyed that time with them. Um, wondered what they're doing, you know, things like that. So they were overwhelmingly positive toward my feelings towards the guys, especially when during the joking scenes and stuff like that, and just us bullshitting and hanging around. I was like, man, that's amazing, like how that came about. Because you'd think it would be the opposite, and it wasn't.
HostThat's super cool. Um, you were part of a wearable monitor study that Sof was doing. Uh, I think they were uh they were giving you guys wearables to track cortisol. Um, what were they measuring? And and did you participate?
Kyle SteinerYeah, yeah. I had done a couple actually. They they've done whoops, they've done, I did the aura and the core ring or aura and aura, yeah. Yeah, and I did two rings, the whoop, and I did one other one. I don't remember what the other one was called. I've done a couple of them. The one had the two like silver prongs, and it was supposed to like measure whatever's coming out of your skin. And uh I mean, yeah, we the adrenaline doesn't do a whole lot because they were they had me wear it for like six weeks, and they're like, we want you to do everything you would normally do. So I did a bunch of range work, a bunch of live fires. I just tried to, I tried to cop on other team stuff, seeing like, hey, can I do this? Got on a couple uh free fall jumps. Um, you know, it wasn't like it wasn't like one of my emergency jumps that were that was terrible, but uh a couple of dives and stuff, and uh, you know, they they were like, man, you kind of like just flatline, like nothing really changes with you. And it's funny, I wore it during a youth wrestling tournament when my boys were wrestling, and I had a spike on like Saturday morning at like 9 30. And they're like, What is that? And I was like, It was a close match. It was I don't know what to say, but you know, whether it was a couple free fall jumps, a couple static line jumps, a couple dives, a lot of range time, some housework. They were like, you know, I did, I think I did the fast rope tower a couple times or rappel tower, and they were like, Yeah, you you you guys obviously have an adrenaline cortisol problem, and and you know, we need to get that sorted out.
HostWhat do you what do you mean by that? They were seeing spikes or the fact that there was no spikes?
Kyle SteinerNo, there's not a whole lot of spikes at all. So what were they saying? They were just saying that you've you've kind of over from what I understand, you've over-regulated completely your CNS and all that. And so, like, there's a lot of different things you do to kind of get your CNS back on track. Um, but like what the Celic Angling block is one of them that's supposed to like kind of reset you when you're like all amped up, but they say that you run the fight or flight thing, right? They say that you just kind of run in this zone always, kind of higher than you should always, and that's what they tell most dudes. I always imagine SMU guys are pretty high strung, and they're like, Yeah, you're just always running not in the red, but like close to it, and that maybe a defense mechanism so that when you need to go in the red, it's easier, it's not as much of a shift. Um, so they give you a lot of techniques to try and like slow down and deregulate. Um, but that's super cool.
HostI hadn't I heard of that. Uh any any techniques that uh uh have either helped or because that's new to me. I haven't heard of that.
Kyle SteinerYeah, I've been doing breathing stuff. Um, like I said, I like yoga. I read fidget uh uh yoga meditation, meditation for the fidgety skeptic.
HostMeditation for the fidgety skeptic. I've never heard of that.
Kyle SteinerYeah, it's a good book. Um, and and just getting into the fact that deregulating, so breathing in order to slow your heart rate down. I already have a really slow heart rate. Um, it's it's like wicked slow uh typically. My resting heart rate's like in the low 40s, usually. So it's like nasty low, but they're like, hey, but you're still kind of amped up. So it's funny, I can get it. I've I've done a lot of good breathing. So I love the breathing technique stuff, man. Box breathing? Yes, box breathing. Um, what kind of time frame? Um, so I'll do like if you're doing normal box breathing, I'll just do fours, but a lot of times my my exhale will be longer. So I'll I'll like to do like a like uh a four, two, six, two, four. Yeah. My Xhale, or my XL could even go to an eight or ten to where I'm really letting it out slow, and that'll slow you down quick.
HostUm, does that help you go to bed at all? Or what do you what do you do to help sleep?
Kyle SteinerI do the breathing stuff a lot. I try to get off, oh I mean, I try to get off my phone as much as possible. The blue light and all that crap is terrible. But you know, I try to really stretch it out and just like calm my mind. And I try to put myself in a frame of mind that like my happy place, my happy thoughts is what my wife says. Oh, you know, and and with that, the with the breathing, it really gets me going.
HostYeah, super interesting. Um, you've been with your wife, what, 16, 17 years? What uh what do you think the I don't know if the secret's the right word, but what do you think has been some of the ingredients to to to your marriage success um with as much as you've been gone and the uh high adrenaline, high tempo that you guys have had?
Kyle SteinerI mean, when I tell younger guys what the secret is, and this is the honesty guy's truth, I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings, but it's the it's the independence and the shared objectives, right? Like her and I, we're not overly religious, but we we knew getting into this, like, hey, there's no getting out of this now. Like we're not we're not ending this at all by any by any stretch. So you're in the we're in this for the long haul. And it's funny because a lot of people are baffled when I would deploy for long periods of time. I would talk to her once a week, once every two weeks, and I would call her and I'd be like, hey, what are you doing? And I'd kind of get like a pissy answer. She's like, What do you mean what I'm gonna do? I'm taking the kids to practice, I'm going up, I'm making dinner, like I got chili on the stove. She's like, What are you doing? And I'm like, uh just calling a talk. She's like, I don't have time to talk, I'm doing this. Very, very independent because our shared objectives is is parenting the children. So I understood that that's her thing and like it's her lane. So cool, doing it and independent. She can stand on her own. Like, she's not gonna, she plowed snow in the razor the other day and like called me and was like, Hey, how do I how do I do this? And I went through it the day I flew out here. They got they got snow. So the fact that she can stand on her own two legs, she's not helpless. And you gotta find in in our line of work a woman that doesn't lean on you for everything, right? One that can stand upright. And she's my biggest fan, and I'm her biggest fan. You know, she went to law school and she didn't think she she was good enough. And I I take this as a a personal win for me. You know, my wife went to Harvard Law School, and when she went, when we were dating, she had only had a bachelor from Cal, um, Berkeley. And I said, you know, I was thinking about I'm gonna be a Green Beret soon. Like, don't you want to do something? Like, did you have anything? She said, Well, you know, I I took the LSAT and uh I wanted to be a lawyer, but I didn't do as good on it as I wanted. So, you know, that's out the window. And I remember thinking about her pushing me to go at seven. That's where my brain went. Yeah, I was like, Well, hold on now, how'd you do on it? And she's like, I don't know, I got this score. And I was like, Is that a good score? I don't know. And she's like, it's all right, it's you know, top 10 three or five percent of the country. I was like, what does it take to get to where you want to go? She was like, top one percent. I was like, well, you need to study your ass up and do it again. Let's let's let's do this. You pushed me, let's go. And she she buckled down uh and and she went ham on it and got the top one percent in the country, got one of the highest scores on the the LSAT in the country that year, and was one of the first accepted to Harvard Law School. So when the acceptance letter came, she had applied to like 10 schools. Harvard was the first one to come, and I didn't really. Know she was applying to Harvard. She just sent some schools. She had mentioned Michigan, Penn, um, different schools like that. She had never really mentioned Harvard. Being from Wisconsin, not leaving Wisconsin with a degree, having to get it later in the military. She we get the letter and she opens it up. And I think I was gone and I came home and she's like, I've been accepted to Harvard Law School. And I might have been like, I'm sorry, what? She was like, Yeah. She's like, I don't know. I was like, what do you mean you don't know? Like, hold on a minute. Harvard's not a real place to people like me. That's like Hogwarts. You're speaking Chinese. That's not a real does that actually exist? I'm like, fuck yeah, you're going to Harvard. You got in? Like, don't even say that. Well, what about us? What about our marriage? Like, say no more. Like, we'll be fine. You go. And we were. She would go up there for a semester, come back, live with me in between, live with me in the summers. Like, it was great. Um, she met, you know, her best friend who's now married to a GB. Um, but the fact that she went there and did that and crushed it and graduated, you know, Magna Kumlade with honors and Harvard? Huh? Yeah, Harvard Law. Like, and like it's baffling to me. And she, you know, she had me read one of the questions from a practice test for that LSAT. It's all like crazy roundabout logic. Brother, I couldn't even, I was like, yo.
HostUh, where do we plant the bomb?
Kyle SteinerYeah, I was like, what is this, man? You know, and she got the top one percentile of the country in that test. So I think finding somebody that is has shared goals and will climb that ladder with you and push you, you have to be the same. You have to reciprocate stuff. When you don't have that, you breed resentment. And her and she's my biggest fan, and I'm her biggest fan. I'll be like, hey, I'll tell everybody. And and some guys, some guys take it as take it as like I'm dogging on myself. Like, oh, you need your wife to like look at this. Like, yeah, I do, brother. Like, like we were talking about like those forms. Like, I I it was an implied task. She was like, Give it to him. I'm like, hey, man, have your wife check this out. I was like, I don't know what I'm looking at. And she's like, Yeah, check the same thing with anybody else. She'd be she anything else, she'd be like, Hey, you want to look at this? Like, yeah, sure. I know what's going on. Timelines, she's like, Hey, we got a family vacation, I'll do like a con timeline. I've got it, we got this is what we're doing. She knows what I'm good at, I know what she's good at, she supports me, I support her, and we just feed off each other, and it works really well. 17 years I've been with her, and I can't imagine life without her.
HostThat's awesome, dude. And I I think I think dudes need to hear that because so often we hear, my wife doesn't, my wife can't, you know. But I I think some dudes, um, you know, they they dig their own pitfalls, right? Yeah, it's all about me and my career. And and you know, it didn't take me a long time to to realize it, but you know, we we spend a lot of time away from home doing the things we wanted to do. Boy scout trips, whatever, whatever you call it, going to war, man. It's it's fun, dude, uh, for those of us that that wanted to do that. And then the training, you know, the the the women had it the worst, dude. We get to go hang out with the boys, child's provided, you know, you're doing cool stuff. The women are stuck doing running the fort, taking the kids, to and from, um, and they they don't get the credit they deserve. So it's really cool to hear uh you not only cheer your wife on and she's cheering you, um, but just hear a good success story. There's not tons. I don't want to say there's not tons, but you know, it's divorce in our career fields have been pretty the norm, but I don't think it has to be. But I do think sometimes there isn't that uh cohesion up front with, you know, hey, this is what I'm gonna do with my career and this is what I want. And, you know, hey, what do you want? How can we meet in the middle? Some somebody's got to give, but I think, you know, I I heard this thing one time. I always thought, you know, or I you always heard people say marriage is 50-50. But actually, marriage is 100-100. If both people are given 100, you're not always gonna be at 100%. So when you're not giving your 100 and she is, you know, that's how you lift each other up. And it sounds like that's what you guys have, and it's it's really refreshing to hear, uh, to be honest with you. You guys got three kids. Uh, you talk about them all the time. They're a big part, like even on your, you know, your social media, it's a big part of your life. I think it's really cool. Um, you know, your your your sons are into wrestling, uh, you know, and you you've got this four-year-old daughter that's got you wrapped. Um, that's what happens when you have girls. Um, you you guys had uh kids a little bit later. What uh what was that thought process of you guys waiting?
Kyle SteinerYou know, we wanted to be uh mature about it. And I think that it goes into what you were saying just a moment ago. Like when you pick your spouse, and I I say pick because people you can't help who you fall in love with. No, but you can make a logical decision. Like, does this person have shared values? Are we gonna build something together that's greater than ourselves, right? And then have bring people into the world that are gonna fall underneath that tree of values and whatnot. So her and I waited a long time until my career was kind of set, and it was it was still testy at all times, but we wanted to wait. She was out of law school, we were on our way, and we're like, all right, so yeah, we waited, you know, into our 30s to have kids, which I always thought I missed out on a lot, but I don't think I have. I think now, having waited and deciding to get out of the military while they're still young. And what you to what you said, you know, I'm sure that you know, one of your questions is, you know, what made me decide to, and it's it's just what you said, like 20 years of being selfish for just you. I can't do it, I can't do it anymore. Like they they owe they are they've earned this time, you know. I it can't be all about me. How I could never live with myself if my kids graduated high school and only knew me in this life, in this light. I could never live with myself because then they'd be like, Well, he was here and then he wasn't, and now I'm 22 and I'm getting married, and I barely know him like, no way.
HostYeah, and your and and your kids don't give a shit what you did. Exactly. They all they know is you were there or you weren't. Yeah, yeah.
Kyle SteinerYou know, my kids barely know I was in a movie, and they only do it from this, you know, a couple of clowns here and there that may like, you have you seen your dad's movie? Like, he's super cool. And they're like, What's he talking about? I'm like, nothing, man. Because at 10, he's not they're not ready for it. And I would prefer it to be later down the road. They don't care, they don't care how cool how cool anything I ever did was, how cool anybody any anything anybody ever did, you know. Were you there when it mattered? And the cool thing about soft is I'll grant it, you do get a lot of days off, right? You get your four-day weekends, your i gotta, you know, you hey, I gotta, I gotta do this, but they're not always aligned with the days that matter. Yeah, and I got a might be a random, a random weekend in February, but it's not a birthday, it's not a t-ball game, and that's what really started hitting me hard.
HostYeah. Uh there was a time in my life when my my wife was quick to show pictures of all the birthday parties that I wasn't there at. So now when we we have them, I make sure I show the pictures like, hey, I I hey, I was there for these. Yeah, it's um, you know, and there comes that time where you gotta you gotta make that that that time shift, and it's good that you recognize that. Um, and you're you know, you're you're going on to that next chapter in your life. Um, you know, how do you stay present as a father with your mind in this operational mode, dude?
Kyle SteinerIt's really hard, man. But you know, and and I would say I would I would say this to all fathers or or upcoming fathers. I am a part, like we were talking yesterday, of everything they do. I want to know about their day, their sports, their interests. I'm not interested in Pokemon cards. I could care less. But if he likes it, cool, man. Tell me about it. Let's talk about it, let's dig down into it. Um, do I get mad when they're all the house? Sure. But I want to be being present means, I think it means listening, right? So, like they want a vent, man. And bedtime. We do bedtime a really weird way because a lot of people are always like, get in bed, get in bed. Mom and dad want their alone time. And we've made it a point because that's when they really need the connection with you. So we go up there and we we review their day. Hey, what did you like? What did you, what did you not like about the day? What was good, what was bad. I always ask my kids, what is what new thing did you try and fail at? Because I'm always pushing them to fail at something. I'm like, hey, what have you tried, you know, in the last couple days that you really just failed at? And we're gonna try again. And they'll be like, well, you know, tried to climb that tree out there, and it's I can't only get this far up, like, sick. Let's let's you know try it again in a couple days. So we review the day, and I'm sure that I'm listening twice as much as I'm speaking. Just tell me about what's going on in your head. And I can always tell. It was hard at first, but I can always tell when they're saying what they think I want to hear and what really is coming out of them, you know. And I'll be like, oh, still I'm gonna stop you right there. I know that's what you think dad wants to hear right now, but I want you to really just tell me what's going on, man. You know, because they'd be like, oh, you know, I just it happens a lot in the sports or chores, like I'm just frustrated with this. And I'm like, no, no, no, you know, let's dig deeper. What's really going on? Because they're gonna want to make you proud and they're gonna tell you what they think dad wants to hear.
HostYeah, and I think sometimes we have a habit of lecturing, and I've had to really break that, right? We've got all this wisdom we want to impart, we've we've had all these experiences, we want to keep them from having bad experiences. But to your point, man, sometimes they don't want to lecture, dude. There's times when they need it, but sometimes they just want dad to listen. Girls, especially, like the boys, maybe it's a little bit different, but girls, man, sometimes they just want to talk, and sometimes it's hard. I've had to, you know, check myself as well. So that's that's cool that you're hyper aware of that. There's a lot of dads out there that are learning. And I meet guys now, man, they're trying to change. Like we grew up in a different generation, you know. Yeah, our parents growing up, they were raised in a different generation, but times have changed. And if you don't, uh you know, if you're trying to raise the kids the way you were raised, that world doesn't exist anymore. And you're preparing your kids for a world that doesn't exist.
Kyle SteinerFor sure.
HostSo, you know, I remember I used to say things like, Oh, I'd be friends with my kids when they pay their own bills, and that came to bite me in the ass at some point. So um, because you want your kids to trust you when there's bad stuff, but if you're the constant disciplinarian and they're scared of you, they're not gonna tell you those things uh when it matters. And it and this becomes very apparent when they're teenagers. Um so that's that's cool.
Kyle SteinerYeah, one of the things you said, I think ultimate success is when uh your adult children want to hang out with you. Like you want to hang out with them. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
HostSo true, man. I I we were talking statistics, and I I I think it's uh I think 80% of the time you're gonna spend with your kid is before they're 13, and 90% of the time you're gonna spend with your kid is before they're 18. And so if you screw those up, you may not see your kids later on in life as much as you wanted to, right? Yeah. Um, so that's cool that you're super present about that and that you're pushing that message because I think more dudes need to hear that.
Kyle SteinerYeah, I pushed I pushed my wife to to try homeschooling for the next year because I'm like, hey, I would love to take it. And I'm taking you know lessons in this, I'm having a blast with it because the the studies are showing, man.
HostLike homeschool, you know, there was a time when like homeschool kids, that was like a weirdo thing. Yeah, you were weirdo. But now, man, like I've become hyper present of how much time is wasted at school. Big study halls and and and lunches. And look, man, I guess you need to have that stuff, but you know, you start realizing you can my my friend that was just on the podcast last week. I mean, he uh they lived on a boat for three years, and his kids are stupid smart. They would get up in the morning, get on the Starlink, knock their schoolwork out for two hours, and then go scuba diving and you know, spelunking and and history lessons all these different places. And those kids, I'll tell you, those kids, you had to force them to come back to land. They didn't know that they missed anything.
Kyle SteinerYeah, yeah, dude. It's been it's been me homeschooling in the past couple months, it's been so much fun because my oldest son now is starting to like history. He got really into John Adams because he's like, How come nobody talks about him? They talk about the other ones. I'm like, well, let's talk about it. But his his idea of the timeline of history is not really, really good yet. So he's like, How close is he to like Genghis Khan? I'm like, hold on a minute now. So I had to buy this like huge timeline, and he's talking about history. It's great, dude.
HostUm, you apply team room communication to family life. What's an example of that type of you know mindset?
Kyle SteinerWell, like accountability. A lot of it is accountability with the kids. I I do stuff with my wife. Me and my wife have really mature communication where it's like uh very short, very quick to the point of our family objectives. But as well as like when I do, when I do team room stuff, like we do we do AARs, like how was the day, what went well, what didn't go well. We live kind of like way out in the middle of nowhere. So it's like, hey, the the mailman won't bring the mail if uh this much snow is out there. And I'm like, all right. Uh so at the end of the day, we kind of come together and we do our little ARs and our little like call-out sessions. We're like, you didn't do this or I didn't do that, and we just vent a little bit. And more often than not, 90% of the time, it's nothing negative. It's like, hey, things were good. But every now and again, you'd be like, You told us both to load the dishwasher and Nick wasn't doing it. I'm like, all right, well, let's let's let's split the tax then so you don't you guys don't have to fumble through this, you know. But everything, everything as far as accountability, expectations, and your discipline, it all comes from the team room, and I think the kids are responding to it well.
HostNice, man. You co-founded uh Niceville Wrestling Academy. Um, when did you do that? And what was the thought process behind that?
Kyle SteinerI wanted to get my kids into wrestling really, really bad. They had seen a VHS of me wrestling years ago. My I don't know why my wife did this um nostalgia thing. She bought a VCR and like a Goodwill and a bunch of like the old puffy Disney movies. Remember when they came in the puffy case? Oh, yeah. And uh she was like, Yeah, and I happen to have VHS from when I wrestled, and my my son popped one in and was like, What are you doing? And I happen to be wrestling with an extremely famous wrestler now, now and he he was he f he fought um like a mixed martial artist, very, very famous guy, runs a youth academy now that they go to, but but my I I was wrestling him at the um, I think it was the 2003 regional championship or something, just getting sloshed. He ended up being a national champion uh for Missouri um twice. But my son was watching it, watching me just get housed by this dude and being like, What is that? What's going on? And I think he was like four. I was like, that's wrestling. Uh and he was like, Oh, I want to try it. I I took him out for it. He didn't like it. He wasn't good. He he didn't like it. Uh, a year went by. We were at a Packer game in Jacksonville, and I mentioned somebody mentioned something about a wrestling tournament. We went and watched it and he's like, I want to try it again. And I don't know what kind of speech I gave him in the car that day. I wish I could bottle that speech and sell it for a million dollars because he went out the next season. I think he went like 50 and five and just rocked it. He he I gave him the speech about hey, lions versus lambs. Like, we've gotta you gotta do what you gotta do. You gotta make a commitment. If you make a commitment, you go forth. It requires discipline. If it's hard, that means it's working. It's not for everybody, you know. If it was easy, everybody would do it. I do things like that. But I started the Niceville Wrestling Academy because I got him into the club there and it closed down. We had a big fight with the high school. Um, they didn't want to help us out. So me and some other guys that were really passionate about wrestling, and our kids were like, well, what are we gonna do? So we went door to door, was founded a nonprofit, and just sprang this thing from the ether into nothing. I've since handed it over to my friend uh Dadrianti, and and he runs it in in in Niceville, Florida now. But it it's a big source of pride because I got to do, I took no pay, none of us took any pay, and we just did it because we wanted to help the kids in the neighborhood. And since then, several wrestling clubs have springed up, but in Northwest Florida, it's not very big. So, but doing it, learning, learning how to start a nonprofit and just help people, learning how to source money so I can get training aids for the kids, mats and stuff. I mean, we were driving all over creation to get mats and things, and just figuring this out as we go piece by piece, fundraisers, car washes, and it it really fruitful experience that I got to do with my sons, you know, with my kids. What do you think wrestling teaches that other sports don't? Um I think that it teaches grit and perseverance and resiliency more than anything on earth. I attribute a lot of what I have become, the toughness that I've I've had forged from my basic start in wrestling, like keep going. Chop wood carry water. Like you might not see the end result, and it might be right in front of you, and it might be, you know, miles down the road, but just follow and trust the process. If somebody I saw this the other day, I was talking to my my my best friend about it. If somebody, if somebody told you that you were gonna fail 10,000 times but succeed on the next one, how quickly would you fail 10,000 times to get to 10,000 and one? And that's kind of the thing I tell to my my sons. And I I do the I do a lot of analogies with my kids and the wrestlers, and I put on the sink with a tub and I let it drip. And I'm like, that's your effort. It may not seem like much, but you just give one drop's worth of effort more than everybody else, and eventually this bucket's gonna overflow. Just all you need is one drop a day. It's the consistency to keep going. And I love how wrestling pushes that it teaches you to get off your back, like it's life's gonna knock you down. I'll go back to like the Rocky quote like night life is gonna knock you on your ass, and you've got to get up. You're gonna get beat. It's part of it. Good job. You want to find losses in that sport, you want to get your butt kicked, you want to find the competition, you know. So I think there's nothing better for boys in this day and age. I know a lot of dudes are pushing jujitsu. Um, and I would I would say that I think starting in wrestling a little earlier is better just because jujitsu is kind of a slower thing and it's more of a technical thing. When they're five and six and hyped up, man, wrestling, I'll just be like, all right, we're going live. And it's terrible technique, and they're not, you know, they're just like hugging and swinging each other around, but it's everything they would do in the house with all that pent-up energy, just as much as they want to do because they're still getting the basics down. I think wrestling is the way to go.
HostGreat analogies. Um, you mentioned the hypocrisy of demanding excellence while not being excellent. Can you elaborate on that thought process? Yeah, that's my viewpoint on youth sports, brother.
Kyle SteinerIt's like, man, I didn't realize this until I became a father, until I started running around and coaching people. And people, you know, I have kids come up to me and be like, you know, you lift weights and stuff. If you are pushing your children to be good at something or to be disciplined or to eat the broccoli and the chicken breast, and you are not leading by example, get out of fucktown, dude. Like, stop it right now. Don't tell me, don't bring your kids to extra practices and not at least display some of the intestinal fortitude and discipline that you're demanding of this 10-year-old. Do not do that because now you have put yourself in the ultimate hypocritical position and you're gonna breed resentment on you for the rest of your life. Trust me. Because if you're not doing it, they're not doing it. And that's why I stand by this. If my sons are doing push-ups, I am doing push-ups. When I was a wrestling coach, if it was like, hey, you're not listening, all right, 25 push-ups, you better believe I'm in the front lane rest doing them with them. It doesn't matter how I feel, I will do it with you. If they're running, I'm running, you know, it and anything when they when they get to any kind of adversity, it's just like any good combat leader. Don't like Dick Winter said it, don't tell them to do anything that you wouldn't do or haven't done. It's like anything you won't do, right? I will never do that. So these dads that are like, oh, he he's this and he's that and he's got to make weight, and they're just not living the example, they're talking the example. No, I I give you no validity, you know.
HostYeah, I mean, dads, to your point. I mean, I think dads demanding discipline from kids while being, you know, undisciplined. It's you know, I you see it a lot, right? And you see it in from coaches too, like coaches smoking the daylights out of their kids when we we all know that coach wouldn't be able to run around uh to do anything. Yeah I uh you know I'm I'm kind of the same way. And it goes back to something you said earlier on in this podcast. Kids aren't paying attention to what we say, they're watching what you do. I mean, my I got twins, man, and they they are super athletes. Uh and but you know, when I was deployed, my wife would get up in the morning, put them both in in car seat carriers in the living room while she did P90X because she couldn't even go to the gym because there's nobody to watch our kids. And so my kids have seen that displayed from a very young age. Um, and you know, it just goes back to your point. You know, my kids, it wasn't an option growing up, you know. We we we do hard things, we move things, um, and and kids need that. Not only do kids kids crave discipline, but they need exercise. It's it's part of it's part of their growth. Um, and so yeah, I love that. I love that philosophy. Um, how how do you want kids to learn from you as a coach?
Kyle SteinerUm, I want them to understand that winning and excellence is not an accident, it's a choice. You know, everybody there's always like, well, he's got a super fast 40, or he's the I hate the word gifted. Like you know say these people are gifted. No, it's not you're not gifted. You put in the time, you figured it out, you went through the adversity, you hit the pitfalls, you tripped up, and you kept going. You trusted the process. So I want I want kids to learn that you're gonna have bumps in the road. Trust the process and move forward. You need to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. It's as simple as that because that's what it takes. How do you teach kids resilience who haven't suffered? That's the hard part. You have to, that is the ultimate question, brother. That's what I'm searching for. You know, I talk to youth coaches across America. I try I try to figure this out because to teach resilience, you have to induce some sort of suffering. You really, you have to. There's no other way to it. If there was another way, Ranger School wouldn't be the way it is. There's no shots being fired. You know, the Q course wouldn't, there's no shots being fired, but you have to induce uh discomfort, whether that's food discomfort, sleep discomfort, cold water immersion discomfort. So we do cold plunges. Me and my eight and 10-year-old son do cold lunges. They hate it. Um, when it snows, they run outside, they're single it and they're rolling it. They saw some Dagastani wrestlers do it and they think it's really cool. But um those dudes are getting shit done too, man. So there's something to it. Man, there's something to it. We eat healthy. Do I want, you know, a Snickers bar here and there? Absolutely. Will I ever, ever tell my kids, like preach to my kids that a Snickers bar is bad and they shouldn't eat that and then eat one? No. I can't, I would never live with myself. So how do you induce it? You induce discomfort, stress, but you also you do it with them. If you're in the cold plunge with them, it's not as cold. If you're eating chicken breast and broccoli with them, it's not as cold.
HostAnd I think there's something like I've tried to really instill this in my own kids, you know, that I've I've learned to push them through their mental barriers. Small ones, you start small, cold water. Like they see me do it every day. Uh, I don't love getting in there. I force myself to do it because of the health benefits, but you know, it's much easier to ask your kid to do something that they've seen you do a bunch of times than asking your kid to do something they know you wouldn't even do, right? Exactly. Um, what's the difference between building mental toughness and traumatizing kids? Like, where do you draw that, you know, that that balance, right? Because you got to push them, especially in wrestling. It's a tough sport. Um, how do you draw the line?
Kyle SteinerIs it individual based on kids or um Yeah, I think it is individual, and I think each each kid has their own barrier, but yet well, but going back to what you said, you have to push them through a barrier. I call it the wall, and I talk to my sons about it. I'm like, all right, you've hit a wall. Now let's push it further. That wall, that wall will always be there. But if we can make the wall move further down the line, right, and you're gonna induce suffering, you know? And I do it sometimes punitively, which I don't like to do because I don't want to get them to have a bad taste in their mouth for physical fitness. And sometimes I'm like, hey, today's gonna suck. I tell them, I'm like, hey, today's gonna really suck. I'm gonna do all hundred of these burpees with you. It's gonna suck, and we're just gonna do it. And you know, it's give the best effort you can. So I'll be hey, your burpees are looking kind of sucky. And but I've learned now that my my oldest son will throw it back at me. He's like, Those burpees are look, you're sagging. Like, I am sagging. Thank you.
HostWe used to work out with our kids. It's all COVID was big. My kids were in elementary school. They were younger at the time. And I remember one time, you know, it was they'd been sitting at the house a lot, and I caught them throwing rocks at the neighbor's house. And I'm like, all right, dude, you guys are gonna get smoked for a minute. Had them do some front back goes and some burpees, and I will never forget. I I smoked them for like, I don't know, two minutes. And they were done. They're like, hey dad, can you turn some music on? And can we do that? You know, can you just design a little workout for us? So I turned some music on and they I smoked those, you know, we they worked out for another 30 minutes, you know. They they they like enjoyed it. I'll never forget that because I uh I don't put my hands on my kids, man. I I that was something that happened to me growing up, and so I found optamins. And so again, man, my kids would do burpee because I got in trouble, burpees, push-ups, you know, I figured, and then they became super good at it, and then they actually started liking doing it because it, you know, they got good at it. And um, yeah, it goes back to your point. It's I think you got to know your kids, and you know, I've got multiple kids and I gotta discipline them all different ways, and you know, I don't think there's some rule book, I think it really depends on your kids and the environment. But uh I I always love to talk about you know parenting and fatherhood because I think we're all trying to figure it out, right? We're all trying to do it a little bit better than you know than what we had growing up. And if you had a great example as a dad growing up than good, you know, a lot of us came from, I don't want to say broken homes, but you know, dad's trying to figure it out, right? And we're all trying to figure it out. And I think there's there's strength and numbers, right? And we all I tell people all the time I don't give you know marriage advice or parenting advice because I I've never been great at it, but I'll tell you everything I failed at. And then as a group, we can learn, hey, what works for you, what works for you, and you know, um, you know, unless it's like you know, hooking your kid up to a car battery, which I'm not a fan of. But you know, I mean, I think we can all learn for each other. So it's it's cool to hear your uh your your ideas and your thoughts on that. You're about to walk away from you know a 20-way 20-year career, not walk away, you're retiring, right? And I I um I think that's important. When did you finally make that decision and what was that decision point for you?
Kyle SteinerUh in 2022, I was deployed for like 253 days, um, off and on. And I think uh I think my my youngest son was five or about to be five. So the a point where they should be able to remember you. Like, yeah, you you got a newborn or a toddler, like granted, they're probably gonna kind of look at you funny when you come back, but he knew who I was, and I was still calling them on the TV. But I think I showed up maybe with a different haircut or looking a little bit different, and he's he stood behind the counter just staring at me for a while. And you know, he asked my my wife, you know, I don't want, I don't want dad to come up and read me a book or put me to bed. And it was it was heartbreaking, dude. He didn't recognize me, didn't recognize me as that figure, and it hurt my soul to the core, man. And I was like, okay, uh, as soon as I can, I'm done with this. Like, I'm not gonna have this be a lasting impression on him ever again, you know. And I've tried to, and he's and like you were saying, different kids, he's he's the he's my emotional one, so uh, like even this trip, he's like, Well, how long are you gonna be gone? And I'm like, uh, but I knew I knew from that point on that it had to end as soon as I was able to make it end.
HostUm were you ready mentally, other than your kids, man? I mean, you know, it's one thing to do it for your family, right? But when it's uh a big part of your operational identity, um, how do you how do you wrestle with that, knowing that you're on to this next phase in life?
Kyle SteinerYeah, I thought I was, I really, really thought I was. So I uh I had a little bit of a scare earlier in the year. I had a I had a tumor um right on the back of my uh back of my head, my spine, kind of where I got shot, and uh that kind of came out of nowhere, and I was like, oh man. Um so I I got that removed and uh and I was like, all right, this is starting to wind down now. I knew it, and I thought I I was getting disgruntled, my my ODA time had ended. I was about to take that desk job, and I was like, man, relegated to the desk, and it almost hit me, and then by a series of fortunate events, uh it kind of bypassed me a little bit, and I ended up going and working with the dive locker a little bit, helping guys get ready for dive school. But I knew I was ready to be done. I was like, I'm ready to leave this behind. Like, I have other things, other priorities, you know. And then I got on this fellowship, uh, you know, um, I'm in Wisconsin doing a doing a like a work release fellowship while I retire with uh mission specifically. I like how you say work release. Yeah, we're like prison. Um I'm at Mission Specific Worldwide, it's like it's a gun store in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, and uh and uh in a range, indoor range training center, it's really cool. And uh I was I've been there for since Thanksgiving, and I've been getting increasingly more down because of the tribe thing. I'm like, man, I miss the dudes. Do I miss the training? Yeah, like I it can come and go. Like I'll watch you know, Halo videos or whatever videos I have, and I'm like, oh man, sometimes you know, combat videos going through pictures and stuff, and I do miss that, but I just miss the team room banter and I can't I don't have it. I don't have the bros. I'm I'm calling dudes more than I ever called dudes while I was there because I always had it, you know. I always had that slight mildly inappropriate joke to make me chuckle from my computer, and I don't have it. So for for your question, I thought I was ready and uh it's kind of hitting me, hit me hard recently.
HostYou know, you actually already alluded to it, but um you said getting out's kind of like getting out of prison. Kind of explain that. I mean, it it is it because we've become institutionalized?
Kyle Steiner100%. It's the shit's the Shawshank thing. I told the therapist right before I got out, and and I was like, I'm really nervous because I don't really have a plan and I don't know what I'm gonna do. I know I have a lot of skills and abilities and opportunities will be open for me, but I'm gonna be standing at the at the gate of Shawshank with my suitcases when they slam it shut. Now it's hilarious because I've I've created a new analogy in my head. And it's like, we you have become such an important role. And granted, you you don't I'm not a cog in the army that makes anything run. Like removing me does not cripple the army in any way or any one person. But you become an important man, a man that knows how to get things done, a man that knows people. I know who to go to for what, I know what tactics and techniques work for what situations. And now I'm on the outside. You know, it's like, all right, well, this is that. You know, they give you a book that says how to speak civilian fluently when you get out of when you get at least when you get out of the regiment now. And it's hilarious because it's like, this means this, don't say this. This is too aggressive. And you're like, oh man, really? So yeah, it's like you probably probably couldn't get a library card if you tried. You know, you you know it's a completely different world. And I'm getting increasingly frustrated with people that are like, oh yeah, you know, I know what you're coming from. I changed careers a while back. I was a plumber and now I'm a carpenter. I'm like, no, player, like that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the only thing I've ever known. No, completely ending. Ever known. I don't know the first thing about the first thing of anything else other than this world.
HostMy second question to you would be though, who are you without that green beret?
Kyle SteinerWell, that's that's what I've boiled down. I'm I'm a father and a husband. I'm a family man. Simple as that. Like, that's I don't want to be known as anything else. And if I could be remembered for anything, it would just be an awesome father. I would love for you know, when somebody says to my sons, you know, you're just like your dad, I want that to be the greatest compliment ever. And I want to build them into the greatest generation of my legacy. So that's that's who I am. I can't I can't tell you that, well, I'm gonna be a carpenter or I'm gonna be a businessman or whatever. You know, I'm sure just like you, like you're a podcast host, but my father is way more important.
HostYeah, man, and this wasn't on the bingo card. So uh, you know, starting a podcast, and I spent my entire, you know, life. I I just came out on the internet uh probably like a year ago. Uh not came out of the closet, just came out in true day. You know, and it's it was weird, man. It was uncomfortable. Um, but you know, there's a lot of guys. Uh, we talk a lot about transition on the podcast. You know, there's this idea, um, you know, because you're not a Green Beret, you're not a Ranger, you're not the dude from a strepto. Those are things that built you. Um, but you know, you you can't spend your whole life looking. I tell people all the time, man, the rear view mirror is a lot smaller than the windshield for for a big reason, right? I think sometimes too many people spend uh time staring over their shoulder instead of looking what's forward them. And I like that about you. We were talking about a dinner last night about you know this this next phase. And I think it's normal to be. I was nervous. I mean, dude, I uh again, I transitioned out of my identity and it was really hard at first, but and there's a lot of dudes that go through it. Um, I always use the analogy you're on the party bus, hanging out with your best friends, having the best time of your life, and the bus stops, you get out in a cornfield in the middle of nowhere, and the bus keeps going, and you're like, ah, what do I do? But yeah, like everything, man, I mean, you're presented with a choice and a mindset, right? And I know, you know, we're gonna talk about your, you know, your your next phase of life now, but you know, for everybody out there listening to, you know, you you get a choice. You can sit there and and you know, man, I love to look at pictures. Um, and in my career field, pictures weren't a big thing, so I don't have tons. Uh, but you know, it's good to go down memory lane. And I had some great times, but you know, there's there's other things out there to do, and time heals things too. I think, you know, I was telling you yesterday, man, I miss a lot of the monkeys. I I don't miss the circus for for certain things, right? And being in control of where you're going and when versus somebody telling you where you're going and when, um, you know, it's it's it's much different. And your kids, you know, I was telling you, you know, there this time mattered. I didn't know when my kids were younger, especially my oldest. Um, I didn't know when she was younger that that those form those younger years were so formulative. And so I think a lot of guys, men way more than women, we kind of check out of the younger years because like, ah, you know, we'll link back up when they're 12. You know what I mean? But it's those those formulative years super matter. My oldest didn't get the best version of me, uh, and I have a much different relationship. Uh my twins, I made the transition like you did um when they were younger, and it's it's paid dividends. So good on you for realizing that. Um, you know, you cringe sometimes when when people ask service members to stand up for events. Um, I'm kind of the same. Uh what's your thought process behind that?
Kyle SteinerWell, I think uh people put too much emphasis on it, you know. Um, you know, Nick asked me some some months ago what I say when people thank me for my service, and I said I don't have an answer. I just kind of look at them blankly and uh, you know, now I just say my pleasure. I don't like to stand because I don't want people to clap for me because I I I hate that feeling. I hate that feeling so much. The whole like they like look at you and clap, you know, and uh and you know, we'd love to thank our it's just you know, I just you know what I always tell people, man, when they're like thank me, you know, thank you for your service.
HostI always like hey, thanks for paying taxes, man. We couldn't have done it without you because we're a team, you know, because it's it is it's this awkward thing, man, especially for for humble people, especially guys like you that have done a lot, um, but you didn't do it for actually it's like the Medal of Honor thing, man. Those dudes did what they did to get a medal out of it. That's what was the job, and you know, uh, I know you're a lot like me in the fact that um, you know, if we had a chance to do it all over again, we would. It was it was good times, man. They molded us and yeah, um, so yeah, I just wanted to ask that. Um, you know, the us versus them mentality with civilians, you know, I I know you have been caught in that trap. How so? And and you know, how are you how are you adjusting to that?
Kyle SteinerI'm working through it, man. I I always like to think when I'm on a plane or whatever, you see like cars driving by from a distance, you see them, and you're like, I wonder, you know, what what what worries they have, what concerns, what's what's stressing them out? I think about those things because everybody's got their own thing. There was a time, the S first is them mentality, man. I told a therapist some some months ago, she was like, Well, what what triggers you when you see civilians? And I said, uh, have you ever been to the zoo and you've seen you go to the penguin exhibit and they're not doing anything, they're all just standing there staring at you. And then as you walk by, they all just look at you. There's like rows of them. I'm like, that's what civilians look like to me. I don't see a drive, I don't see a purpose, but they probably do. They probably just weighed down by the same stuff I'm weighed down, just in a little in a different capacity. And I used to see that because we never stop. I'm just like, I gotta do this, this, and this. I'm here for this. I've got this much time to get a sandwich at this supermarket deli. Now I gotta go here, and I got this guy asking if that comes with ham or not. And I'm like, brother, we've we've been here a long time, you know. So, but he's probably got a lot of things on his mind. I just saw a recent video of people, and it it said, like, what are people in the gym for? And it had like fake bubbles, like this person just got broken up with, this person just lost a family member. You never know, you know. So I've learned to take a step back and be like, everybody's dealing with their own their own stuff right now, and I should, I should probably be cognizant of that. How do you define success outside of the military? Have you started to think about that? I have. I I mean, obviously, what we talked about with family and stuff, but man, my goal in life is to live on my 30 acres, obviously, have my tribe. I want to, I have a couple people that live in Wisconsin. I want to be able to take my family to them, have them meet a lot of my friends, but I want to wake up and do absolutely everything with my family as much as I can. I want to have animals. And if I had the means right now to wake up and feed the chickens and the goats, and I'm not talking about like a huge commercial farm, something small, like a greenhouse, you know, and uh some bees, and just do that by myself and learn how to have a beehive with my my kids and be like, hey, let's go get the honey and stuff like that. And that's what I was doing on the day today, like learning a new task, spending time every minute of time with my kids while they're not wrestling, like that is heaven for me. And I'm going to do everything in my means to make sure that that happens so that they remember that. Like, yeah, I made honey with my dad, you know, we we did this, you know, milk the cow. Like, I want that so bad. That's awesome, dude.
HostUm, what would success look like for you in like five years? Just to what, you know, is that kind of what Yeah, pretty much that.
Kyle SteinerLike, I I hope that I'm I'm able to live that life. I I want to be able to at some point um buy my wife out of being a lawyer. I would really love to do that. Like, I feel like that's the ultimate success for a man is when unless she wants to um continue doing something else. I know she she'd like to do something more passionate um than being a lawyer. So if I could buy her out of that um at some point, that would be the ultimate win for me as a husband. I'd be like, yeah, dude. I was able to buy my wife's not happiness, but freedom to do what she, because you know, like I said, she's a super hippie, super hippie. So, like, whether it's you know making weird tea concoctions or playing with crystals in the moonlight, whatever it is she's doing, whatever the flavor of the hippie day is, is uh give her the freedom to do that.
HostI'd love it. I haven't met Julia, but we already like her. You're kind of going on to this next phase of life, um, and you've been working on something uh called the operator mindset. Uh, what is it and and where did it come from?
Kyle SteinerYeah, it uh it it actually spawned from a thing. Uh a couple of kids, when when my sons were wrestling, kids, you can be a a coach and be like a freelance coach, right? On these website, on the Facebook websites and stuff. And kids started requesting me. I wore a headband when I coached my sons, so I would be referred to as the headband coach. And I overheard something one time, and it was I heard it multiple times. Dads would refer to my sons. My sons were very good in Florida here, but um a lot of a lot of fathers would refer to my sons. It's like the kids would be like, Well, why can't we do that? or they're doing that. Um, and just give you an example, uh, they do little contests during practice, and it's like if the loser does 10 push-ups, when I tell my kids, like, you're gonna let them get 10 push-ups upon you even if you win. Like, no, so they'll do it no matter what, right? Kids would question that stuff. And I heard dad starting to say, Well, like, he's different. His dad's an operator, or he's different. Like, they would make excuses because like I was built, like uh cut from a different cloth. And I it started to really get to me. And I was like, No, absolutely not. I am the the young E4 that got shot in the head and continued forward. I stumbled, I failed, I got hurt, and I continued to move forward and I trusted the process. So I started operator mindset because people kept being like, Well, he's an operator, you're different. Even my friends would be like, Well, you're you're an operator, like you, yeah, like other wrestling coaches. I'm like, No, brother, that's not the way it goes. You can be that too. It's a set of standards, it's orienting men back to the standards that were once from men, despite your title, right? So I started that and it it came with uh an online community called Operate Different. If you were ready to operate different, you know, a lot of people like to dog on the term operator, like operator this operator that. You know, it's a term for the OSS in the 50s, spawned and the Green Breaks were actually the first ones to hold it, but you operate at a different level with with uh the French resistance and the Belgian resistance and whatnot. You operate on a different plane, and men should do that, if anything, for their family, but for themselves. And that goes for everybody. That goes for a street cop, that goes for a CEO, uh C-suite businessman, right? You might be hyper successful in the outside world, but are you operating at the level you know you're capable of for your family and for everybody else, for yourself?
HostWhat is it that you're trying to give uh with this type of like you know, mindset?
Kyle SteinerYeah, I'm trying to give like calm and chaos, clarity of purpose, right? So you've got a lot of these programs that dudes like yell at you and they'll run like their bud style thing. I'm not trying to do that. I'm trying to enforce a way of leadership, leading your family family, stewardship of men, sons, daughters. Is your man or is your daughter gonna marry the kind of man that you are? Would she be proud of that? Would you be proud of that? Um, with your sons. If you look in the mirror and you're not like we talked about, if you're not happy with what you see, would you be happy with your son seeing the exact same thing? Because that's what's gonna happen, right? He's gonna follow your lead, he's not gonna listen to your words and stuff like that. Um, but I want to build self-trust, real self-trust, not hype. I'm not a hype man, you know, I'm not gonna be like, you're the greatest and this and that. So we started this program and we're kicking it off with uh with in May, we're doing a retreat. Not a retreat, it's a leadership, a leadership workshop, teamwork leadership. A lot of these programs, like you have these different things that bring normal people in and they smoke them and they do these things. I'm not aiming to do that. I'm aiming to incorporate range training, survival training, different things like that, but I want to put them in leadership roles, much like Team Week. Much of what I failed, right? I failed Team Week the first time because I was immature. I didn't know where my purpose was in that team dynamic. And a team dynamic can be anything family, community, your church, whatever, right? So I aim to just induce a little bit of stress, but put them in leadership and decision decision-making uh roles and be like, hey, you know, are you thinking about second and third order effects on subordinates, on kids, on wives, on extended family members, things like that? That's what I'm aiming to do. So yeah, I'm kicking it off with a four-day retreat. I'm coupling it with Business Sargent, which is a really cool company that I've been I've been working with a lot. They just run some business classes aimed at veterans, soft veterans, open to all veterans, but it's got a lot of soft veterans, and then they get them ready to go into uh uh the business world and kind of place they're doing placement stuff. So soft guys can go to them, take some classes on civilian business, and then go into the business world with a clear set of understanding, a clear understanding and set of uh guidelines to all right, this is what I did in the military. This is how it translates to the civilian workforce in the business world. So it's a really cool thing, but we're holding it at mission specific worldwide, which is the the company that I'm um I'm working at in Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin. And it's a range, a training area. We've got we've got uh force on force wars happening, we've got tons of range training, auto, auto fire, sniper fire. We're gonna do uh we're gonna do some survival, uh some animals and some some some meat roasts over an open flame. We're gonna do some good things. I'm gonna talk about leadership, like what it took to continue on, you know, real purpose, real man.
HostYeah, real man stuff that stuff that every man from every kind of walk of life, doesn't matter what you do, can benefit from. Um, I love that, man. Who is your ideal client or customer?
Kyle SteinerUm, I want to do that feel like I want the guys that feel like they're accomplished but know that something's missing, right? You're going to the business meetings, you have the fancy, you have the Mercedes with the G-Wagon or whatever. You probably got the the big mansion on the water, but something's missing, you know. You're not, you're not the man you want to be. Even though to the outside world, you just coin in pocket, looking good, you know, but you know there's something more, you know, you know there's something more. I'm gonna help you find what that is because I found it myself. I found it myself, and I was rebirthed to be like, all right, I know what I need to do. And I tell my sons this all the time. Like, you can nothing is written in stone about you. You can be the man you want to be. You can write your own destiny, you know what I'm saying? So you can look in the mirror and say, I want to be a more honest man, I want to be a more forthcoming man. And you can be those things. It just takes a little transform transformative uh uh thing, pillars to get good.
HostWhat might be one of the problems you're helping men interested in this type of training solve?
Kyle SteinerI want to help solve the lack of efficiency in their life. Uh, and I want to help it through self-discipline, you know. A lot of people have outside standards and outside sources of motivation and you know, different reasons to do things, but the intrinsic value is gone, you know. And that shows most notably with physical fitness and taking care of yourself, you know. And we talk about it. You can't you can't be addicted to something and then talk about the dangers of addiction. You you cannot walk that line of do as I say, not as I do. So the lack of self-discipline, finding your efficiency within yourself. And that's what I really want to find, you know, because everybody the C-suite exec can go to work because he's making $750,000 a year. Good on you, dude. Like I would do whatever for $750,000 a year, but can you do it if you were making nothing, you know? And that's where I think that's where operators really hit the nail on the head because we do this stuff for pennies.
HostYeah, and I think to, you know, to your point, uh, I think real men want to be tested, right? Like I think, you know, we got the opportunity to get tested in various capacities in our career fields, and and some people, some men haven't had that. And I think a lot of men are still craving that. You know, maybe that guy that wanted to join the military but didn't for whatever reason, right? And I think, you know, whether it's a mental test, a physical test, shooting test, you know, even just you know, some guys, some dudes, some C suite executives don't have a gut of deer, right? But it's still a very basic, manly type survival skill.
Kyle SteinerYeah, you learn a lot about yourself. And you know, when we talk about fathers and Taking the lead. Can you imagine being in a police, a police unit, or me being on a team and having that the other side of the leader, the leader that won't do the stuff and won't participate, but you have to do it. You know, do as I say, not as I do. You know, like he would have no validity in a combat in a life-saving environment. You know, he would have no validity. You'd be like, I'm not listening to this dude, I'm not following him into the fire. That's why when that 06 said that, I'm like, sick. Like he he knows I'll do it. I'll do it no matter what. Yeah.
HostUm, you mentioned bridging the gap requires finding secondary purpose when we were kind of prepping this. What does that mean? I mean, that finding that secondary purpose.
Kyle SteinerWell, I mean, nowadays everything is what we talked about, finding your tribe, but everything is uh externally motivate motivated, right? Everything is external motivation. So if you can find it in yourself to do this because you know it's what needs to be done, and it's the for the smallest change, right? Not for a million dollars, and not for the notoriety, and not for the you know, absorbing this business or making this merger happen, but you can do it because it's what needs to be done, you know? And it's this it's as simple as in a team room, most dudes, yeah, there's a there's a pecking order, but if the trash needs to be taken out, you you take out the trash, you know. Like if the toilet needs to be clean, you clean the toilet. Like, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, nothing is above you, nothing is below you. You just do what needs to be done because you know that it needs to be done.
HostYeah. And I think, you know, teamwork regardless is super important. It's something that you probably learned a lot. That's why they call it the teens. Yeah, yeah. Um, and I I think that's important um in the workplace and teaching, you know, leadership core values. That's why I really liked, you know, talking and I like this this um this thing that you're building because I I think it's applicable, right? Because whether you're leading a Fortune 500 company or you're running a shift at a fire department, like, you know, we take some of the leadership stuff that we learn in the army for granted. Yeah, there's it's so applicable uh to the civilian environment. You know, it's the same principles, right? But just a different, maybe a different outcome.
Kyle SteinerUm, yeah, and that's why veterans, soft veterans, especially do such a good job at these managerial roles of managing people and they're getting hired like you know, like crazy. Because if I can motivate you to do something when you're getting paid pennies on the dollar and you're hungry and you're cold and you're wet, you know how easy it is to motivate and to get dudes on task and on time when you're comfortable in an office? Like, come on, cake, easy day. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, and that's why they're excelling at that, because it's like, hey man, I know how to pull the best out of people when times are really hard. And let me tell you, you got a bagel guy, times are not hard.
HostYeah, that's true. What's the difference between chasing validation and building meaning?
Kyle SteinerI think chasing validation is uh external and addictive, and meaning is internal and stabilizing to your life.
HostYeah, you started to coach some pretty high success highly successful men. Um what in what have you seen that you think they struggle with the most?
Kyle SteinerI think they struggle uh they struggle with the most because they always have people around them and an audience, so it's uh internal motivation and discipline without your audience. Can you do it in the dark?
HostYeah. Um and then what is it that you're really teaching them to do? Is it problem solving, is it um motivation, resilience, or is it all of that and all those things and how they commingle?
Kyle SteinerYeah, self-commitment, decision making under stress, um, self-resilience, uh, physical readiness mostly. I mean it is the ability to make the decisions in real time and consider secondary and tertiary effects, second and third order effects on what is going on with your people and yourself, right? It's not at the expense of your people, it's not at the expense of yourself. No team in combat would operate like that, right? No team would. It's always what is for the betterment of the group, and you're gonna look out for yourself. So I think the self-accountability and the uh physical readiness is big, and then just decision making under stress.
HostWhat do you think would be some of your biggest uh things that you can teach on as far as leadership management, right? Like teaching folks that have, you know, a large company or run a shift or, you know, whatever, man. It could be a the dude that owns a plumbing company or the guy that owns a Microsoft development company. Leadership is leadership, right? I don't think some people get caught up in the differences and the different career fields, but I mean, leadership is leadership. It doesn't matter what you're doing. You could be running up a hill to take an objective, or you know, you've got to motivate a sales team to do 10% better. Um what is it that you really think that you bring to the table to teach those kind of folks on this leadership skill?
Kyle SteinerWell, I think correlating it to some mild stressors, like I said, I'm not running a BUDS program. Mild stressors incorporated with the range, incorporated with moving them around to different leadership positions and understanding what they bring to the table and what other leaders bring to the table. You can always take something from a leader. Every leader I've ever had, good, bad, or indifferent, I can take something and learn something from them. And let me tell you, dude, nothing brings out a stressor like the range, like a firearm, right? So you start inducing those stressors. And now a dude that was super confident in the boardroom is now shaken, you know, he's fumbling through his stuff. It will, it reveals all fallacies, right? Right then and there. So the range, I like to put the range in, I like to do the different drills where I'm like, all right, hey, his gun's going down, you have to pick up the fire, right? We're covering for our dudes, right? Simple as that. Top cover, you know, whether it's uh malfunction drills, that's when they get. I like to induce malfunctions and then they get all flustered, right? Granted, it's not a fastball question in a boardroom, but it'll show you something about yourself, how you react. Do you react the right way? Are you staying calm, right? Right during that time. And then we do a force-on-force exercise with smoke, bangers, everything. And I like to be like, oh, are you freaking out right now? Because think about it, you're safe. Like calm down, slow your breathing, listen to your heart rate, and make a decision and go with it. And that's the biggest killer right now is indecisiveness, right? Indecisiveness kills everybody, whether it's the smallest businessman, the largest. Not making a decision gets you killed quicker in combat than making the wrong decision.
HostI love that, man. And you're really focused on mental intelligence, emotional intelligence, physical uh readiness, and all those things combined. Um, that's pretty cool. You became a certified personal trainer uh later in your career. Why was that important to you?
Kyle SteinerI wanted to have uh a little more understanding of where where people come from. And I I love physical training. I'm working on my CSCS right now, um, but it was really important me to go out there and get that sort of certification uh certification and understand that they do a whole portion on how you talk to people to coach them the right way, whether it's um, you know, uh suck your belly button to your spine when you're squatting, things like that. And I really wanted to learn that language and learn how to get through to people because I knew I speak military and I was like, man, and they're focused on like you, you're you're you're training like uh grandma at the Planet Fitness. So it was really good, and it gave me a whole new set of verbiage to communicate goals and motivations to people, and I I loved it. I had a blast out there, and it was a really I got I got to meet up with some of my tribe, and there were some dudes out there I got to meet, I made some really good contacts out there, but it was really important for me to get that underway and and self-care. A lot of personal training is self-care, so they have like the cold tubs, they have the whole setup, and I was like, man, this is amazing. Understanding what mobility, brother. Oh, yeah, opened my eyes to mobility. I was like, I'm messing this up.
HostYeah, especially at our age, it's super important. Yeah. Um, what's the connection you've seen between physical and mental health?
Kyle SteinerMan, they are so intertwined, it's not even funny. Like, my wife knows I'm having a bad day, and she's like, Did you go to the gym? Go to the gym. She'll like take stuff out of my hand and be like, you need to get out of here and go squat now. And people will find dudes that don't work out regularly, are gonna find, yeah, they're gonna have they're gonna be sore for a week, week and a half. You know that. Everybody knows that. But once you break through that, and if you have the fortitude just to break through, break through eight days. Eight days of working out, eight days of jogging, zone two jog, easy. Break through that, and you're gonna find that, especially if you do it early, like you and I do, wicked early. My day, even though I'm tired, is so much more efficient. Yeah, man, because you start the day with a win. No matter what happens, dude. Like nobody can take that from you. 100%, dude. And I tell that to my kids like, do a task that counts as a win. You know, just like Jordan Pierce says, make your bed. Do a task that starts with a win. If you get push-ups, and so they both get out of bed and they do push-ups. And at our uh at our seminars, you know, we get up and we do some light stretching, some light PT. I'm not out there with a hose or anything yelling at anybody. We just do some things like, all right, check it out. Like, when was the last time you did 50 push-ups? All right, let's do it. And then, like, you need to congratulate yourself because you just did 50 push-ups, and that you know, next week it'll be 55, and we're gonna keep doing this.
HostYeah, love it. You mentioned, uh, where you told me um that you were drinking heavily and you quit drinking. Um, when was that and what was that kind of mental shift?
Kyle SteinerI'm gonna get a lot of flack for this, but I don't, I consider, and this is just a personal belief. I consider, I think that everybody has the intestinal fortitude to beat addiction. I really, really, really do. I think that if you want, people have done amazing things in this world over the course of human history. If you want it, if you really want to be sober, you can be sober. You know, now there are inhibitors, there are your peers, there are inhibitors for sure. I'm not doubting that, but if you want it, you will chain yourself to a closet and you will figure it out. So one day I just woke up and I was like, yeah, I'm not gonna, I'm just not gonna do this anymore. I just don't feel like doing this anymore. And plus, it was making me feel bad. I knew it was messing me up. And the same thing, and and my kids. My kids, they they have only seen me drink maybe five times. And it's usually like a social beer with the wrestling coaches. They have they have never seen me drink, and then when I just I just let it drop off, I was like, you know what? I don't need this. It's funny because I have this huge bar with all this booze from different countries, and none of it is opened, it just sits up there and I offer it to guests, but it was it wasn't hard for me because I made that choice, and I drew the line in the sand. I'm like, I'm gonna do this, and nobody's gonna stop me.
HostYeah, and it's it's really big in military culture too. So, you know, but but I find the people that would give you know you a hard time or me a hard time when I when I stop drinking as much as well, is the people that wish they had the intestinal fortitude to quit. 100% because drinking is not healthy for you. No, your I mean, it's literally, you know, your body treats it as poison. The moment you start drinking, you know, your body kind of shuts down to try to get rid of the formaldehyde or whatever it is that your liver's turning into anything into. I saw that study. Yeah, it was just like I remember, I think I saw it on Whoop, though. I got my Whoop, and um there was like a they did a study on drinking on how bad like my recovery is just horrible. Um and you know, I've I've had some medical issues in the past too. So yeah, we've I've I definitely don't drink near as much as I used to. And I don't give people that drink a hard time, but no, you know, it's becoming more and more popular because I think people are starting to realize how just how bad it is.
Kyle SteinerYeah, it's I was like, this is not doing me any favors.
HostUm, how has sobriety, you know, kind of changed you or you know, change your environment, I guess, if you will.
Kyle SteinerUh, you know, I I don't really think about it. It was always a I was always a party goer kind of guy. So I drank heavily when I was doing stuff with the boys. And then when I decided to stop, it was like, oh, and I felt that I became way more efficient because I was like, well, you know, I have no reason to sleep in. I have no reason, you know, I'm not, I don't have a hangover, I'm working out. And and honestly, it's like a it's like a snowball effect. I'm like, well, I might as well eat healthy, you know, I might as well keep doing it. And it just kept going and going and going. And I think it's the ultimate pillar of self-care. Like, once you hit that, it's all downhill from there. Then you got you got easy street. What other lifestyle changes have you made, you think? Dude, I don't eat any processed grains at all. Uh, my wife makes our sourdough um with like a 200-year-old starter, and then she only buys like non-folic acid flour from Italy. Like we do, we go really, we buy a cow every year, um, you know, no antibiotic, no growth one one cow. And we pretty much just eat beef or ruminant meat, elk, or venison or what have you. Um, we we do our farm fresh eggs, that's why we're trying to get chicken so soon. Oh, you know, but my my wife was when my kids were small, I was like, You're gonna build me warriors, and she would give them like egg yolk uh from like a sunny side up egg, and she would grate uh like liver into it when my kids were just learning to eat. And I was like, Yes, animals, you know. So we we do that, but everything from all of our medicines, it was awesome. All of our medicines, every we've gone pretty much full organic. Uh, you know, we try to we try to do the clean water, the reverse osmosis. I really try to keep keep myself in good shape. Um, I need to be there for them, you know. I'm older, they're younger, and I want to be as as prime as I can. And they will never beat me until they can beat me in anything.
HostYeah, that's the same thing. I even I'm playing checkers with my kids, dude. I I whoop them, dude. Like, you want a free handout? Wrong house, bro. Yeah, they need to learn. And they started beating me. And I remember the first time they beat me, I was like, oh, dude, they just beat me. And they're like, oh, you let me win. I'm like, I didn't let you win. Then we played again. Um, then you know, I'd beat them, and then we'd play a third game, and they would beat me. I'm like, dang, these suckers are getting good. Uh, you know, because a second place is a first loser, dude. Yeah, 100%. You're in super good shape um for 40. What do you attribute that to? I mean, obviously, we know what you're you know, your mindset, you know, what you're putting in your body. How many days a week are you training?
Kyle SteinerUsually six. I like to do at least five, uh, six if I can get it. I alternate, man. It depends on my timeline, but I love to get uh like a zone two cardio session in the morning. I and I usually do that with my kids because it's a pace that they can run also, my boys, which now they're starting to like really get fast, man. Run like a deer. And I'm like, man, it's not gonna be long before they're beating me, but I'll do that. And that's just to keep my blood sugar level stable, right? Um, I do I do a form of intermittent fasting and I I rotate on uh I like to do a fast where I do like a 24-hour fast once a week, a 36 to 48 uh once a month. And then I try to do like a four to seven day once a year where I'm just and and I'm suffering through it, and I'm like, all right, just to keep that resilience up, you know, I want to keep a little bit dis a little bit of discomfort in my life to remind me, you know, hey, I still got it. I told the I told my sons the other day they I drop him off at wrestling practice and I go to the gym for a second sesh. And when I come back, it was I think it was like 30 below zero. And I walked back in in shorts and a t-shirt. And uh I don't know, I was irritated about something, and and and uh my son was like, why do you do that? Well, when you go to the gym, you're in you know, you're in sweats and a jacket. Why do you and I say, because I'm so on top of the world after I work out that I I make that walk to the car, then I make the walk over to the wrestling area, and I do it just to know that I still can, just to know that I can still gut through this discomfort and nothing, it won't break me. I'm not gonna, people are always like, You gotta be cold. Of course I'm cold, it's 30 below zero, but I wanna know that I can still do it. And it reminds me, you like this, a small anecdote. I met this guy, and he was like, hey, you know, there was this dude in C37 years ago when they were in like Panama. I heard he went to the unit, and they're like, he lived in Panama, jungle heaven. And from Monday, Sunday night to Friday night, he slept across the street in the woods in a shelter half because he wanted to stay hard. And I was like, that's not a real story. I met that dude at a reunion some years later. Old dude, he's like, by the punch bowl, and they're like, that's him. I was like, I gotta go ask him. He'd been in the unit for like an additional 20 years, he'd retired. I'm like, I gotta ask you, man, did you really sleep in the old shelter half across? And he was like, Yeah, gotta stay hard. And dude was like 60, and I was like, man, that's David Goggins shit, bro. Yeah, he's like, you gotta stay hard. But I was like, that's crazy. No, I wouldn't go that far, but I always want to be like, hey, I can still do something that that is hard.
HostYeah, man. I think it's super important. Um, what's your you know, we've talked a lot about all the hard things you've done. What's recovery look like uh for you? Because I think it's an important part of the equation, especially as we get older.
Kyle SteinerYeah, I mean, physical recovery, I love the cold tub, I love the hot tub. We have an infrared sauna. Um, I'm looking at getting a uh not a tanning bed, but anything that provides you. Like red light? Yeah, anything that provides light because um up north in the wintertime, you just get this overcast forever. And I started being real down on myself and being like sleepy. I looked it up. The actual disorder is called sad, it's from lack of sunlight. So moving from Florida to Wisconsin, I was like, man, I'm really lethargic. It's like the sunlight. So I mean it's the same way, man. They have like it's depression. Yeah, I think it's a big thing. Yeah, I didn't think it was real, and I was like, yep, it's a real thing. But you know, mental and psychological recovery, brother. Like I go fishing with the boys. My boys love fishing, and I can sit out there all day and just listen to them. And you know, they fish for seven minutes and then they throw rocks and then they fish for 15 and then they poke frogs. But it is the best time that I have is going out there and doing that with them, is fishing with the boys.
HostLove that, man. Um, as we, you know, come come to the home stretch. Um, just have a couple, you know, just deep thought questions. You know, if you could go back and talk to your 18-year-old self, what would you say?
Kyle SteinerYou know, I've thought about this a lot, and I would tell him, keep going. I was for the love of God, don't stop. Like, you're gonna be where you want to be. You just gotta give it time, dude. Just give it time, you know, because that there was so many times where the end of the world was near for me, and I was like, I just one foot in front of the other, brother. I promise you'll you'll be there, you know.
HostUh, any regrets that you have from your career or anything you wish you'd have done differently?
Kyle SteinerNo, not really. I I I'm pretty pretty satisfied with my career. There was a lot, I I have a lot of I wouldn't say survivor's guilt, that's what they label it as, but there's there's a lot of guilt uh that runs through me from time to time, and I try to put it out of my mind. And it's because you know, I I came so close to death, and some people, you know, did die, and you always wonder, like, well, was that supposed to be me? You know, how the butterfly effect, how would the world have changed? So I think about that often, but I don't have any major regrets. I'm very happy with what I've done. Um, even though in my mind sometimes it wasn't enough. People tell you it is, they don't know. But um, I I stand on the shoulders of giants, um, just hoping to be the best man I can be. Love that, bro.
HostUh, if if you had to pick one moment that defined you and who you became, what would it be?
Kyle SteinerThe realization, you know, people expect me to say that the headshot, and that's and that's true. And whether or not I think it's a combination of of you becoming a leader in the army and then in combat, and then you becoming a father, when you realize that somebody is 100% dependent on the person you are and what you do, it's life-changing, dude. Being a father is the most amazing thing in the world. So once you realize that their entire livelihood is resting on your shoulders, you carry yourself differently. Everything you do.
HostWhat's one lesson from a strapo that you'd you'd like to leave with the audience?
Kyle SteinerYeah, I've thought about this a lot, and uh I think when I think about my homies, it's that real brotherhood isn't built in comfort, it's built in shared accountability. Shared accountability for what has to be done. And uh and that's what I owe to those guys.
HostIf you could talk to the boys from Restrepo right now, what would you tell them?
Kyle SteinerMan, I would I would thank them. I would thank the boys, all of them, for what they've done for me. Um I don't think they'll ever understand um how far they pushed me to be. You know, I was by no means the greatest dude in the platoon. Um and a lot of them will probably say the same thing, but they pushed me to be better every day. I at one point or another, I wanted to be like every single one of them in some form or fashion. Um and I walked forward every day hoping that that they were proud of what I was continuing to do because they mean the world to me. Um they literally cultivated the man I am out of clay. You know, I was immature and dumb and just really green behind the ears, and everything I am I owe to them, especially my leaders. Just love that, bro.
HostUm, if you could have dinner with one person living or dead, man, who would it be?
Kyle SteinerI think uh probably Teddy, Teddy Roosevelt. I I read a lot of his readings. It's either Teddy Roosevelt or Marcus Aurelius, because I have his readings by my by my bedside, and they were two studious dudes that believed in the accountability and the sh the purpose of a man and and how important the search for purpose was, not just finding it, but following the path. Because you know what? It might take longer for some than others, but I think there's there's value in that journey. Love that, bro.
HostUm, any closing remarks you'd like to tell your wife publicly?
Kyle SteinerUm you know, we're here, maybe we did it, and uh I wouldn't do it with anybody else.
HostLove that, dude. Your kids, man, they're young now, but you know, this this podcast will live long beyond today. What do you want to tell your boys and your daughter?
Kyle SteinerYou know, I can tell my boys to keep going. Um enjoy the journey. And and I I they know this effort. Every always give your best effort. Um the outcome is a distraction to the process. Okay, it's just there to distract you from the next step in the in your journey. And to my daughter, you know, never settle for less. You know, you're you're worth the world. Um you deserve everything, so never settle for what you don't deserve.
HostLooking back at everything, man restrepo, special forces, all of it, was it worth it? 100%.
Kyle SteinerIt's uh 100%. It's um it's been my whole life. You know, I don't know anything else, and uh I wouldn't change one minute of my my career. Not one minute. The ups and the downs, I wouldn't be sitting in this chair, I wouldn't be with with my wife, I wouldn't have my three kids. Everything has led me to this moment, and it was for a reason. So I wouldn't change one one second.
HostHey man, what an honor to sit across from you, man, to share your story. Um you know, we weren't the first podcast you did, but we we dove deep today, dude. I it this was a long podcast, man, and time stood still today for me, which doesn't always happen. Um, you know, I we we get to we got to do some podcast prep. Um I didn't get to spend tons of time with you. You were super busy, I I've been super busy. Uh, but man, what a journey uh to listen to, look, man, not just for Strepo, your whole story, what you did, what you overcame, to to listen to you talk about your teammates, the leadership, um, and for you to just be really humble, but also be vulnerable. It takes balls to to get on a YouTube channel and tell the whole world, you know, uh, your story, dude. And that's not lost on me. Uh, and I know it's not a lost on our viewers. I think we really pride ourselves on authentic content, dude. And, you know, having guys like you um just just keeps that that forward. You're an inspiration, um, and you know, your story, not not just your military story, but also, you know, what you're trying to accomplish as a dad. And um, you know, even your marriage, man, can be an example. So kudos to you, man. I I look forward to hearing your success, dude. I I know this next chapter um, you know, might a little be a little ominous, but as somebody from the outside of your life, I'm super excited for you, dude, because I I think you're, you know, there's some stuff coming on your bingo card that you probably didn't plan for that's gonna be super cool, dude. And uh I'll I'm you know it it was it was super cool to spend time with you.
Kyle SteinerIt was my pleasure, brother.
HostThanks for the opportunity. Yeah, absolutely. Hey, um, to all the listeners out there, man, we wouldn't have a podcast without you. Thanks for tuning in. Um, thanks for sticking through this whole thing. Uh, this was a very unique opportunity. Kyle's story hasn't been uh told to too many people, and there's there's um, you know, there's not a lot of people from Astrepo that are talking, but I think it was super important to document that piece of history and and what those guys did, um, the 173rd and everything they accomplished during that deployment. And then just you know, Kyle's grit and determination. Hopefully you guys got something out of this. Uh the Patreon's up and running. If you guys um are looking for a way to support our channel, um, we would love it. There's some behind-the-scenes content that'll that that are there from some of this podcast, and it's just a cool way um to support us and our work and what we're doing. It takes money to keep this thing going. Um, and believe it or not, we don't we don't make much off this podcast. Um, if you're listening on iTunes or Spotify, you could follow us. That helps us leave a comment. I read them all. Uh if you're on this on YouTube, um I we read all the comments on the main podcast, uh, and I typically respond to most of them. Uh the shorts are really hard to keep up with. But um, thanks uh thanks for tuning in and thanks for all the support, guys. Uh be safe out there. And if you can't be safe, be violent out here.