Staying Faithful in the FBI | Interview with Clay Hicks

In this episode, Brody sits down with former FBI agent Clay Hicks, whose journey runs from small-town Arkansas to the depths of a Navy submarine and the battlefields of Afghanistan. 

Through stories of submarine crises, evidence gathering under fire, and quiet moments of conviction in unlikely places, Clay reflects on what it means to lead with steadiness, hold to ethics when the lines blur, and live out faith when the stakes are highest. It’s a conversation about calling, character, and the cost of courage in real life.

Too Far Gone? A Story of Tragedy, Hope, and Redemption

Marriage Conference

Please leave a review on Apple or Spotify to help improve No Sanity Required and help others grow in their faith.

Click here to get our Colossians Bible study.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Series Setup
• 1:16 Arkansas Roots And Family Law Enforcement
• 4:10 Clinton Mansion Anecdote And Early Influence
• 6:56 Calling, Maturity, And College Faith
• 9:15 Navy Nuclear Track And OCS
• 12:17 Power School Grind And Church Commitment
• 15:20 Submarine Life, Tactics, And Qualifying
• 18:28 Sixty Days At Half A Knot Near Shore
• 23:20 Reactor Scare And Calm Leadership
• 26:00 Transition Thinking And God’s Sovereignty
• 28:05 Meeting Brenda And Family Foundations
• 30:05 Choosing Federal Law Enforcement
• 32:05 9/11 Hiring Surge And Academy
• 35:10 Why FBI Embedded With Special Operations
• 39:20 Building On-Target Evidence Programs
• 42:18 Training, CQB Realities, And Constraints
• 45:10 Adam Brown Stories And Character
• 49:16 Warfighters, Humanity, And Accountability
• 51:12 Gospel Conversations Under Fire
• 55:10 Hostage Rescue Helicopter Tactics Tale
• 57:36 Families, Faithfulness, And Future Episodes
• 1:01:20 Closing And Listener Support

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Happy Monday, everybody. Welcome back to NSR. I'm so glad you guys are able to tune in. I think I mentioned previously that we would be dropping Clay Hicks interviews. He's a former FBI agent. Um, and it's actually kind of funny. We recorded the first episode this summer when Clay came up as a chaperone with his church. I want to say it was like week seven or eight of camp. So it was like June or July, something like that. Um, but we held on to those episodes because we knew we wanted to do a part two, and we wanted to drop them back to back. So I appreciate Clay's patience. He's probably been wondering when is the episode dropping? Um, but him and Brenda, his wife, came up here for the marriage conference, which was uh last weekend, and we recorded a part two and possibly three. We talked for a long time and they were sharing some crazy stuff, some crazy stories. So I'm excited for you guys to hear those parts of the interview. Uh, but this is the part one. This is just Clay's background and his story. Really cool guy, really faithful guy. Um, but yeah, I'm really excited for you guys to hear this. So welcome to No Sanity Required.

SPEAKER_01: 1:16

Welcome to No Sanity Required from the Ministry of Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters, a podcast about the Bible, culture, and stories from around the globe.

SPEAKER_05: 1:26

Uh let's so I want to start by um talking about your you grew up in Arkansas, which did, which Adam Brown said you could put a dome over Arkansas and she could survive. She don't need anything else. That is 100% true.

SPEAKER_03: 1:40

That is 100% true. But you couldn't have a navy and you're a navy guy. If if you're in the dome, you don't need a navy. Let's build the dome. That's it. That's it. Yeah, the uh the all the stuff in the north where I grew up, I grew up in the mountains. So when I'm down here, it feels like home to me. The mountains, uh, the um Ozark Mountains look very much like the Appalachians and the Blue Ridge and all that kind of stuff. Um, so mountains just kind of call my name, but you know, roughly the northern half of the state um is much like this, and then the southern half is just flat as it can be. Um, and that's where, and to tell you just sort of how isolated I grew up in the northern northern part of Arkansas, I didn't even know that the southern part down in Stuttgart, and by the way, in Arkansas, it's Stuttgart. In Germany, it's Stuttgart. In in Arkansas, it's Stuttgart.

SPEAKER_05: 2:32

Oh, I've been there, I've been duck hunting Stuttgart twice.

SPEAKER_03: 2:35

I didn't know that like the duck hunting mecca of the world is in southern Arkansas. Oh, yeah, buddy. So, you know, we hunted, we hunted deer and turkey and squirrels and whatever else. But uh yeah, so yeah, but it's it's it's almost like two different states. Is there's a huge variation of weather and geography and all kinds of stuff. Um so Adam, Adam's 100% right. It's uh it's a it's an interesting place. Um, you know, it'll be it'll be snowing four, six, eight inches snow up in up around Harrison or where I'm actually from is Valley Springs. There's a little map dot. And when I say map dot, I mean you can see the coming and going signs with one look on the highway. And uh um, but it can be snow up there and then it can be 70 degrees in southern Arkansas.

SPEAKER_05: 3:21

That's what North Carolina is like that, but it goes east-west, so there's not a big variation in in temperature unless you're getting real high elevations like up around Boone or up in Nanahala here, it'll be cold and snowy and and not elsewhere. But Arkansas is where North Carolina goes like this, you go mountains to sea, and it's super flat on the east, and mountain culture is different. But if you turn that north-south, I didn't think of that. You got a drastic difference, and it's it. Yeah. And your dad was a state trooper. Yeah, grandfather too. Hey, wait, didn't you tell me? Okay, did you tell me your dad was connected to Clinton? He was in Clinton's because in that okay, what the Secret Service does for the president, the highway patrol does for governors. Correct, correct.

SPEAKER_03: 4:04

Yeah, a lot of times. And each state's a little different, but yeah. Didn't he? Wasn't he connected to the oh man. So, so on on day one, right, they get elected, and it was they got elected. Right. Bill, it was they got elected, right? Day one, they're moving in, trucks are there, the whole thing, right? And um carrying stuff in. And my dad was part of governor security, and so um, which was a uh uh kind of a subdivision of of the Arkansas State Police, that capital security, governor security, and various other things. And so he was working there, he was assigned there, and uh worked for a couple of different governors, and uh yeah, so they they moved in on day one, and he wanted to kind of get everything done, get everybody out the door, and then get the the governor's grounds back to sort of normal state of affairs. And so he walked out there and grabbed a couple of boxes, walked in, um, walked up to Hillary and said, uh, Mrs. Clinton, where where would you like these boxes? Shoved her finger in his face and said, My name is Hillary Rodham. Don't call me Mrs. Clinton, and don't you ever forget it. So that's uh this is day one. They don't know each other from Adam, right?

SPEAKER_05: 5:23

And so uh She's talking to the guy that's gonna be handling security. Correct, correct. The people who is a duly sworn officer, trained, like this is not a mall cop. No offense, no offense to the mall cops listening.

SPEAKER_03: 5:38

But true, true. And um, so uh, you know, the day goes on, he just puts the boxes down right there, and he's like, you know, I need to I need to back up because I should probably not say anything right now. And uh restraint. Restraint. Yep, yep. Discretion's a better part of valor, right? Better part of valor, yep. And uh so he uh he move he goes on about his day. A little later in the day, um, they're having some friends over, just come over, have some dinner, hang out, whatever. And uh they they come, you know, they're they're cleared through the through the uh security gates, they come to the front door, knock or something like that. Bill Clinton's standing near the door, and he opens the door. Hey guys, come on in, you know, and how's that? She comes and finds my dad. He's back, he's back where they're supposed to be in their little you know, command center thing for the governor's mansion. And uh he come or she comes and finds my dad and just reads him the riot act about how the governor of the state of Arkansas should not have to answer his own front door. Uh and and that, you know, it was just just an insult to him. And it wasn't long after that till uh it was obvious that they the two of them were not gonna see eye to eye. And uh she she made some calls and uh and it wasn't long before he got transferred. Which which which he says in the end was probably a really good thing for everybody. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 7:06

Hey, you I don't know that's bragging rights. I got fired by Hillary Clinton. That's bragging rights. I guess I guess I mean to to think because the flip of the flip side of that would be, oh man, she loved me. I was her favorite well, what kind of dude are you if you can't make that woman mad, something's wrong. Um so then you you didn't go into law enforcement initially, but I'm assuming with your dad, you know, growing up as son of a state trooper, even going into military service, which is what you initially did, which I want to talk a little bit about what you did there. Um, I mean you grew up wanting to do something in the in that line of work.

SPEAKER_03: 7:46

Yeah, I was in I was interested in it, but it it's interesting, you know, uh some of the stuff that y'all talk about here all the time is is specifically with um young people transitioning from those teen years into the early um early adulthood years, is there's there's a transition, right? There's maturing and there's you know, like Paul says, like leaving the the childish things behind and now now moving on to to grown-up type stuff. Um and so I was a very different person. You know, there are people who move into early adulthood and then they just sort of become a more mature version of themselves. I became a radically different person between, let's say, 18 and we'll call it 30, right? Um, much of that through the military service and all that kind of stuff. But I was I was not drawn to sort of the hoo-yah professions um nearly as much. So I had some academic ability, right? I was at Redneck Kid in northern Arkansas, and I'm just as comfortable uh, you know, sitting on the porch with some dudes with no teeth and overalls and cutting wood as I am, you know, sitting in a in somewhere in Washington, D.C. Actually, I'm more comfortable on the front porch, actually. But but I had some academic ability and so applied myself and uh worked hard, uh, went to the University of Arkansas and uh got a degree in mechanical engineering. And so I was going to be an engineer. Uh initially, I was gonna be an F-18 pilot. Like this was my desire. I knew that from age 11 before Top Gun, before all of that, right? I knew I knew that's what I wanted to do. Whole series of things of the Lord uh saying yes and no to various things and directing my life uh as he sovereignly does, and um found out during the Clinton years uh that there was a drawdown. And so because I was I didn't I chose not to go to the Naval Academy or do Naval ROTC because they didn't have that at the University of Arkansas, um I uh was eventually did well in academics and then kind of got uh recruited by the Navy nuclear recruiters. And so so they came knocking and um and I decided, you know what, I I do want to do something like this. But it was a little bit because the the nuclear program within the Navy uh was more uh there was a little there were some academics to it. Um, and I thought, you know what, even if I don't like it, I'm gonna I'm signing up for five years and you know I'm young, I can do anything for five years. And um any anyway, that that's kind of how that eventually transitioned. And I went to Officer Candid school uh in Penskola, Florida with Marine Corps drill instructors and all that good stuff.

SPEAKER_05: 10:42

And uh and so when you go that route, more more academics. I mean, you're the first part. So after OCS, are you going to like a nuclear college or school? Or what's that training look like? Yeah. That was probably brutal.

SPEAKER_03: 10:57

It looks like a kick in the face for a year straight, is what it looks like.

SPEAKER_05: 11:00

Um frying your brain every day.

SPEAKER_03: 11:03

Yeah, so I was one of the not the last class, but one of the last classes to go through Navy Nuclear Power School in um in Orlando, Florida, before they moved it up to Charleston, South Carolina. And so I went through and it was it was about a hundred hours a week. Um I went in, you know, I got there right around seven in the morning, and I left around 10 or 11 at night every single day of the week, Monday through Friday. Saturday I was there for about eight hours, and then I held off Sunday morning for for I was just bound and determined, pass or fail, I was gonna hold Sunday morning to stay in involved in in church. Even though I was you know only gonna be there for six months at a whack, I I knew I need to stay uh to connected with the body.

SPEAKER_05: 11:51

Because you you followed the Lord at a young age.

SPEAKER_03: 11:55

I did. I did.

SPEAKER_05: 11:56

Through college, you were a Christian, you were living out of Christian faith.

SPEAKER_03: 11:59

Yep, yep. And um, so was involved with Baptist Student Union then. I think they call it something else now. Now they call it BCM. Yeah, yeah. Baptist collegiate ministry, maybe. And um so was and was very thankful for that. And so my the component of my testimony, and obviously we don't have any of these conversations without glorifying the Lord, but um my walk, especially through the college years, was one of um blessing to be in and around those who would drive me toward the Lord, drive me towards Christ. Um and so was was kind of the first place um that I got exposed to the ability to teach. So I kind of learned that I had I had that ability um and enjoyed it, enjoyed studying, enjoyed asking the why questions when you're reading through scripture. Um like you were talking about this morning in your sermon, you know, about when you come to something in the Bible where it has ends with a question mark, pause and answer it. Why? Why is it what does it say? And so um, but anyway, so I I was I was very blessed to be around a lot of people that pushed me as a young man towards the Lord. Um my mom and dad became believers when I was oh probably around four, maybe three or four, something like that. And um, and then I followed the Lord a number, you know, not too long after, the few years after that. Um I remember it uh going and talking to Dr. W. O. Vaught in his in his church office, first bat or sorry, Emmanuel Baptist in Little Rock, Arkansas, um, with his blue carpet. I can visualize it as as just as I'm sitting right here. And so my dad wanted, he was a young believer at the time, and he even then he wanted to make sure that I wasn't making a decision just because it was the you know, make my dad proud, or it was the quote unquote right thing to do, but that it was real. And so anyway, yeah, so so you know, made my way through college, went to officer camp school, got into um naval nuclear power, and and I gotta be honest, man, I hated that six months. It it was a it was a master's degree in six months. And you know, there was there was no life, there was no, like it was all this and nothing else. And um, but that was part of it was part of the process. They wanted to see uh, you know, there's there's this whole accession process where you you go in and in order to get into this program, and I still think they do it this way. I'm I I can't swear to it, it's been a long time, obviously, but um so this is in 1994. Um you know, the that you do on you all your own paper stuff, you get selected to kind of move on in the process, and uh they bring you to Washington, D.C. And at the time, Naval Reactors was in Crystal City. Uh, it's since moved out to the Navy Yard. Um, but uh which was an interesting story because in the FBI I uh I ended up going to that that uh that scene where the guy uh was active shooter in the Navy Yard. Oh yeah. So it was interesting. It was interesting standing in uh Nav C you know, Admiral's office, having just broken his door open. Uh you know, and it just kind of a circle of events, you know, many years earlier. I I interviewed before, you know, Naval Reactors Admiral. But anyway, that's sorry, I'm getting off track. That is wild to think about. Yeah, yeah, we can talk about it. It was it was it was a it was a day for sure. Um but uh but yeah, they'd bring you to Washington, D.C. You know, you're you're 20, 21 years old, whatever, you know, just whatever tiny little bit of life experience you have at the time, which is not much. And uh, you know, I'd done well in college and and so made the cut and was able to go. And so they interview you, uh, you go before these engineers, and every topic in your entire college catalog is fair game. I don't care if it was an economics class or uh thermodynamics two or a calculus three or differential. Yeah, I did when I took those classes.

SPEAKER_05: 16:20

Um oh, wait a minute.

SPEAKER_03: 16:22

Um anyway. But um, but yeah, you you go and um and all of this, I'm saying all this not to not to you know throw out the the cool guy stuff, but it all of this, the Lord was walking me through things. He had gifted me in certain ways, and it wasn't because I was I was anything, and that that that you know, I mean as Paul said, you know, I and Apollos are nothing, right? In the same way, um it was because there were people in those environments who needed to hear the gospel. And the Lord had sovereignly said, All right, you're gonna be one of those people that are with them uh to be in places that are harder to reach for for most people. They just don't have, you know, they just don't meet people like that for the most part. And so, yeah, so go through, you know, go through the nuclear power program, uh, then you go to prototype and you spend another six months uh and it's rotating shift work every week you change. And so by the end of all that, I had lost 30 pounds. I'd have 30 pounds to lose. I was in shape.

SPEAKER_05: 17:28

Are you 6'4?

SPEAKER_03: 17:29

Yeah. And you had you had gotten skinny. It was skinny, yeah. I wasn't lean and in shape, I was skinny. And uh um, but got done, went to subschool and in Groton, Connecticut, which was great. That was the first time where the tactics really came out. And the whole nuclear program for me was sort of a hurdle I needed to get over because I wanted to drive the submarine. I wanted to be officer of the deck, do the tactics, do the warfare, you know, stuff. The nuclear stuff was it was okay. But at the end of the day, I mean, let's be honest, uh, it's a fancy way to boil water. It's a hot rock. Okay. Now it's lots of complexities and lots of difficulties, and you know, it's it's high technology, but at the end of the day, the reactor just sort of sits there and boils water. Um, but it's necessary and it's allowed, it's allowed the submarine force to be a truly global blue water, you know, asset. But um, but anyway, uh got to that.

SPEAKER_05: 18:25

So you want to go drive submarines at 6'4.

SPEAKER_03: 18:29

Yeah, it maybe not the best choice uh as far as how I'm built. Um, but uh yeah, so you know, you lay in a in a rack, they that's what they call the the bunks on on a on a ship. You lay in the rack, and it's uh it's uh it's you know, I'm 6'4, and I think the the rack was maybe 6'2, maybe 6'3. So I couldn't even like lay with legs straight out. Fortunately, I sleep on my side, so it wasn't a huge thing. But it I if I laid on my back, I had my right arm would fall off. It was it was just that narrow. And so I had to interlock my fingers just to hold my arms kind of up. So it was to this day, if I turn over in bed, I still do a three-point turn. Hips, knees, shoulders. So you turn over in place.

SPEAKER_05: 19:16

Did you like when you would go get an Iraq, was it like a short sleep? Or you didn't have an eight-hour night? Oh no. It was like always short, right?

SPEAKER_03: 19:25

Yeah, yeah. So, so especially for the first year on board the sub, your your whole goal in life is to qualify, to eventually work through all the different qualifications so that you eventually get your warfare pin, your what they call your dolphins, right? And so uh it takes roughly a year, some people a little shorter, some people a little longer, but but you know, and there is huge pressure on you from everybody, captain on down, fellow junior officers, because if you're not qualified, you're taking up air and food and not able to fill the watch bill and not able to provide, you know, for the and help with the work that's necessary.

SPEAKER_05: 20:04

So once you're once you're qualified, you're on the sub, how long do y'all like when you go out, how long you stay underwater? I've asked you this before, but I want people to hear this.

SPEAKER_03: 20:12

Was it I mean it's it's different, right? If you're talking about ballistic missile subs, you know, the guy the big long ones that carry all the missiles, you know, that kind of stuff, you know, they may be they may be out for somewhere between depending back at that time they didn't they didn't do any port visits. So it was like 70 days plus or minus. Um and then if you were a fast boat, you might hit some ports depending on what your responsibility was on deployment. But if you were on certain deployments, um it might be 90 days. Underwater. Underwater. No sign.

SPEAKER_05: 20:47

Okay, we got time for a story. You told us you told me a story one time, and I don't remember. I just remember kind of the the basic idea where y'all spent days seeing how close you could get to a port. Can you tell that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's one of the craziest stories I've ever heard.

SPEAKER_03: 21:06

So, yeah, I mean, I'm I'm not obviously not going to say where it was. Right, right, right, right.

SPEAKER_05: 21:10

You told me because I have clearance.

SPEAKER_03: 21:11

Yeah, I don't know where it was.

SPEAKER_05: 21:13

He didn't tell me that.

SPEAKER_03: 21:14

Um so we were tasked, uh, we were on we were on deployment, and uh we I was newly qualified. I had just gotten my dolphins. I received my dolphins on the on a um on the um port kind of uh out on the dock, really. Uh cap assembled everybody, awarded me my dolphins, because I'd I'd done everything to be qualified uh on a dock in La Modelena, Italy. And so that's where a sub tender sits and takes care of a lot of the subs in the med. And so um we got underway and we're med is Mediterranean.

SPEAKER_05: 21:56

That's what a sub guys say. But for you civilians.

SPEAKER_03: 22:02

Uh but but we were on, we were, we got going on our on our um what we were supposed to do. We're supposed to engage and do some exercises and do different things. And so uh it was one of my first solo mid watches as the officer of the deck. And so the officer of the deck, if you're not familiar, is the guy who is the captain's direct representative, signs in the book, and the ship is is his, right? He he is responsible for the everything that goes on on the ship. He's driving the ship, he's giving, he's giving commands and what happens and all that kind of stuff. You're the captain's direct representative. Obviously, the captain's always the captain, he he will always be in charge. Okay um but when he's in Iraq, he's he can't be on the con at all times, right? So anyway, so that was what I was doing, and it was mid-watch, and we went to Periscope Depth uh to receive our our message traffic, right? Because you gotta put the little antenna up, receive your satellite downlink and your message traffic and all that kind of stuff. And um, and then the radioman at the time, it's all way more updated these days, but at the time, you know, we bring you a clipboard of all the printed out messages, and you would flip through them and see if there was anything urgent that you needed the radioman to take it to the captain now, wake him up in the middle of the night, he needs to know about this now. So I'm flipping through, flipping through, flipping through, and I see uh flash traffic, a message, um, and it's it's an urgent uh redeployment of our sub and where we were now receiving mission tasking. And so I'm like, Yep, Captain's gotta know that. And so, you know, I'm I made a read through all the rest of it, got it, and um send it to him, he gets it, we rack out the nav that' what you call getting somebody out of the rack, you rack them out. You know, we racked out the nav and the navigator, and he came in and we then plotted how we were gonna change where we were going to get to where we were supposed to go. So it took us took us a couple of days to get there because we were we were a ways away. And um, so eventually we get on station where we're supposed to be. And um, you know, if you've read any of the submarine books or seen any of the stories or whatever, um, you know, there are there are certain authorities given and taskings given by the National Security Council and all of the leadership of the U.S. Navy uh when they're gonna go do things um that are politically sensitive, let's say, right? And so uh this was gonna be one of those things. And um so we have our brief, and this is real world. I mean, it's it's it's you know quite possible we're gonna have to uh we're gonna get shot at and have to return, fire. I mean, what we're doing at the time. And so anyway, we uh we get on station and we start, we we recognize this is gonna be a long-term surveillance of what's happening here. And so we start walking our way towards the coast, getting closer and closer, and we're going incredibly slow. We actually trimmed out, and by trim on a submarine, you move water around to balance and and adjust buoyancy and all kinds of different things. And we trimmed out the ship such that we could go half a knot, which is like not even walking speed, um, through the water and maintain certain collection capabilities during that time.

SPEAKER_05: 25:35

And um You're moving through the water about like this.

SPEAKER_03: 25:39

Yeah. In a in a massive space, three hundred three hundred and sixty-foot ship. Dang, okay. Yeah. And so um that 360-foot ship comes in later with the uh with the the training, almost training accident we had that I've told y'all about. So um but we're we're on station and we're getting close, really close. And so on the midwatch, on a number of mid watches, I would actually watch dudes through the periscope. We had night vision capabilities on the periscope, and I'd watch dudes um, you know, come out on the dock and smoke cigarettes and do different things, and they had no idea we were there. Right. I mean, we've got a 350, 60 foot ship, whatever. And you're watching a guy on the dock light up a cigarette. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 26:28

And how moving at that half knot speed, how long did you move at that speed as you were getting close to that place? Uh we did that for 60 days. For sixty days inching towards this shoreline of this enemy threat, whatever. Yeah. Dang.

SPEAKER_03: 26:50

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and so so one uh one of the things uh that happened while we were doing that, so uh a nuclear reactor, especially a naval nuclear, well, all of them really, but a naval nuclear reactor uh has things called control rods, right? And it's not that's not anything special. That that most all nuclear reactors have those. Um and so they're basically made out of various materials, you know, that absorb neutrons. And neutrons are sort of lifeblood of a of a of a nuclear reaction for a nuclear power. And so uh they use them, depending on what they're how the reactor is designed, they use the control rods for various different purposes. One of which, though, is to completely shut the reactor down. And so if you ever hear the term scram the reactor, if you ever heard that on a movie or something, what that is is that comes from the University of Chicago, where they first built where they built one of the first reactors. Uh and they recognized they needed a way to control the reaction. Uh, and so they created these control rods, and this is this is before they understood radioactivity and contamination and you know radiation sickness and all that kind of stuff. And so they had a dude that would climb up on top of this bl these blocks of things they were using for shielding and everything, and there was a rope tied to the control rods. And so, in order to drop those control rods into the reactor core to shut down the reaction, you had to take an axe and cut that rope, right? So that they drop. And so his title was the safety control rod axe man scram.

SPEAKER_05: 28:34

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_03: 28:35

And that's where that that's where that's where the word came from. That's where that word comes from. And so anyway, so so uh what you can what can also happen is there can be a malfunction where one of those rods drops on its own, but only one or two or whatever, but but usually it's one. Well, when that happens, um it's it it doesn't completely shut down the reaction, but it does it. You you have very, very stringent power uh limitations and all kinds of different stuff. And so you basically have to shut the reactor down. Well, that happened to us as we were really close. And so now we're on what's called the EPM, which is the electric propulsion motor. It runs off the battery, it's just a big motor. It's a backup motor. It's a backup, yep, it's a backup. And so uh we're running on EPM because you need a little speed to keep yourself uh to keep yourself, you know, buoyant and control how so all your control surfaces, you know, rudder and everything else, has an effect. Um and it's like a regular boat on the on the top. If you're not moving, you're just drifting. You're dri you're you can do the rudder all you want, and it's not gonna do anything. Uh and so yeah, so so that happened to us, and we're drifting, of course, towards land, right? And we're running out of electrical power. So I was the officer of the deck. Captain was in on the con, obviously. Uh, and the engineer, the uh electrical guy came in, the chief in charge of uh of the electrical uh capabilities on the boat. He's like uh Captain asked him, he's like, Chief, how how long do we have left? And he said, Uh sir, we have we have about 20 minutes left on EPM power, and then we'll have nothing. We'll just be a bobber. And uh so Captain said, Chief, I know you always save a little for yourself. How much do we really have? And he's like, actually, Captain, I'm being honest, we have 20 minutes. And so we're drifting. I mean, you know, and this is this is gonna be a real problem. So not only will there be damage to the ship if you you know you hit rocks and and you know, whatever, uh, or wherever it is we drift, maybe we drift into that dock, you know. Well, who knows? Um, but it's gonna be an international incident, right? It's gonna be a problem. And uh so we uh we're drifting, and I to this day I remember him and uh the captain uh cool as a cucumber, not a bee to sweat and uh strong believer, strong believer. I learned I got I had a better relationship with him or a different relationship with him when we actually began attending the same church uh in Fredericksburg and uh we met. So um the guy was a tactician and um he didn't he didn't flinch. And uh so eventually the guys in the back fixed the problem, got the reactor back up, and uh best thing in the world, if you're the officer of the deck, when you hear them come across uh come across the uh communication system, you know, and say uh say uh you know reactor reactor power restored, you know, no no propulsion limits. And so he captain looked at me, he's like, All right, Mr. Hicks, take us back out. And uh so then out we go, you know, we and then we just kept going on station, doing our thing. Wow and uh but yeah, it was I learned a lot from that scenario watching people. I was a young guy, right? I was I was 26 and I was the officer of the deck. Uh you got a billion dollar submarine and 140 or 50 people on board, and and dang, how close did you get to that?

SPEAKER_05: 32:32

Like the dock, how close were you to it?

SPEAKER_03: 32:35

I don't I think we were away from the dock, but I mean we were we were hundreds of yards.

SPEAKER_05: 32:41

I mean you're in their back pocket, you're yeah, you're in their living room, yeah, yeah. Yeah dang man. Oh, it's crazy. And then uh you you stayed in the Navy for eight years? Eight years, yep. And it w your transition out of the Navy, because I want to talk about what that transition looked like. Did you know I want to get out of this to go into the FBI? Or I didn't. Or were you just kind of like, my time here, I feel like it's it, I don't want to do a career, I'm gonna wrap it up, but I'm not sure what's next. Yeah. So the FBI came afterwards, yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 33:16

So so this is this is something that uh that I learned, you know, a lot of people I think these days, and I think we've even received some some teaching that I don't think I'd agree with, that that the Lord is gonna somehow kind of give you the bright shining light of what you're supposed to do next all the time, right? And um, you know, and people one of the things that comes out of that is that sometimes, you know, people get so bound up in their decision making that they're they're so afraid to do something that that they think might violate the the will of the Lord that they end up making no decision, right? Analysis paralysis, yes, is what we call that. Yes. And so what what I think that that that mindset, that thinking, uh fails to take into account is that that they believe in the sovereignty of God over all things, right? The earth, creation, other people, you know, friends, enemies, whatever, but they fail to take into account that God is also sovereign over you and your decisions. And so if there's an A or B you know decision to be made, if we go before Him in um in faith and in honoring Him, asking Him, recognizing and desiring to be faithful to Him, He's He's sovereign over us, whether we do that or or not, right? And so those paths uh are if He chooses to alter them, he will simply alter them, right? And that's really what happened to me is that I wanted, I knew I didn't want to stay, there was a whole list of reasons I didn't want to stay in the submarine service. So I actually tried to lateral transfer to naval intelligence. Because it's like, all right, I'll take, I'll take the warfare qualification experience and understanding that I have, and I'll take it to the Intel side of things and the intelligence side of things. They love warfare-qualified people coming over because they they have an understanding of what type of intelligence is useful on the other end and what type isn't. And so I actually tried to lateral transfer twice, and the naval intelligence crew, you know, section was like, yeah, absolutely, we want you. The submarine side said, uh, nope, we have uh we have spent too much money training you and you don't get to move over there. I said, Well, but I'm gonna get out anyway, right? So I'm leaving the submarine service for the reasons I'm leaving, and it's either leave the Navy or take what I've learned and and whatever I've accomplished and go over to the Intel side and be of service there. And they had the rules, and I said, All right. So um I actually I was sitting around funny how many decisions are made around a fire. I was sitting around a fire back at back in my dad's house, and we had been married and and um kids um we had one at the time. And when did y'all when did you meet your wife? When did you meet Brenda? So we met in May of May? May of ninety seven.

SPEAKER_05: 36:16

So you were Navy then, not college just was in the Navy.

SPEAKER_03: 36:19

Correct. Yeah, so I I graduated subschool and was assigned to Norfolk Naval Base. Okay. She had been there for several years already.

SPEAKER_05: 36:26

You're a Virginia girl. But you were just there looking for clay. You were looking for your knot and shining armor.

SPEAKER_03: 36:35

Unfortunately, she got me. Um, but yeah, we met, we met uh at uh First Baptist um Norfolk. Okay, huge, at the time they had this huge singles group, and um and they would meet, you know, meet on Sunday morning, we break up in different Sunday school groups, and then every Sunday afternoon we go out to 80th Street there at Virginia Beach, we play volleyball, and we'd end up at people's apartments hanging out and just just doing whatever we were doing, you know. Okay. And so that's how we met.

SPEAKER_05: 37:03

So by this point then, y'all been married, had a kid, had your first.

SPEAKER_03: 37:07

Yeah, and so I'm sitting there and my dad's asking me, he's like, Hey, what so what do you what do you think? What's what's your plans? I said, I mean, I don't know. And uh, you know, kind of got him caught up on everything. And he's like, Well, what do you what type of stuff do you want to do? And so, you know, remember, I'm I'm sort of the redneck kid who loves being in the woods and running to chainsaw and hunting and all that kind of stuff, but also I had this sort of academic side to me, so I uh kind of had a foot in both worlds. And um so he started asking some questions. He's like, Well, what you know what it sounds like because I wanted to use my my hands and my body and my mind. They're gonna do both. And um he asked me, he's like, Well, it almost sounds like you you would be a fit for law enforcement. And I told him, I said, I, you know, I don't, I don't want to, I just don't want to do, I don't want to chase drunks and rights tickets and all that stuff. I'm not not at all dogging that. Obviously, my my dad, you know, faithful service there, my grandfather was saying. You just don't want to do it. It's just it just what I wasn't what I wanted to do. And he's like, no, no, no, I'm not talking about that. He's like, I'm talking about federal law enforcement, you know, whether it's DEA or ATF or you know, CBP or FBI or whatever. And uh so I uh I said, well, I I don't know. I mean, I've not really even looked into it all that much. And I I had heard his stories growing up of working with FBI, working with ATF and DEA and everybody else. I I'd heard his story. So I knew generally what they did, but I didn't, I just didn't really fully understand. And so anyway, went through kind of a bunch of research at the time and figured out that that based on what the FBI did, all its sort of broad authorities, that that was something I I would be interested in. And so applied, um, and they had at the time, and I think it's it's different now, but it's a little bit similar. You apply and you go through this phase one, phase two kind of process. And phase one was at the time a written test, and then your actual application. Who are you, what have you done, all that kind of stuff. And so the FBI all almost always, especially for agents, wants you to come to the table having already done something. They want you to bring some kind of skill, some kind of experience to the Bureau to better the Bureau. And so um, you know, I had done that, I'd been I'd been in the Navy, been an officer in the Navy, so brought that, applied, uh, and um I was scheduled to take my phase one test, and then a hiring freeze hit. And this was in I don't know, it was late summer, I think it was, something like that, of 01. Well, September rolls around, September 11th happens, right? September 11th, 2001. I we were actually in Arkansas at the time. We we haul back, you know, for for various responsibilities that that happened for that. Uh and then December 2001 rolls around, and the FBI now has kind of done its initial investigation. There's a whole lot of stuff still left to do, but they start pulling back and they start hiring. The hiring machine happens. And um, so December I get a call. Hey, you've been deemed most competitive, is one of the kind of categories they had at the time. And uh, we want you to come in and uh, you know, continue on with the process. Yep, I want to do that. So over the next several months, I go through phase one and phase two. And if anybody out there is familiar with the FBI's hiring process, that is lightning fast. I mean, like there are people that it takes years to get through this process. Um, but this is the post-9-11. You know, I was a 9-11 baby, you know, as uh as uh as the FBI goes. And so um make it through the process, and I'm in the academy by August. Dang. And so Allison, right, is born in June. Yep. So Allison, my daughter, from she's a swog, she's a swole vet. Yes, she is, yes, she is. Um I get um, you know, we she had just been born a couple of months before, actually a month and a half before. We go out to move everybody out to Tucson, sell the house, all that kind of stuff. I get out of the Navy July 31st, and I am homeless and jobless, but driving across the country to get to Tucson, which is where her parents, uh Brenda's parents were, and they were gonna stay there while I was in the academy. And I didn't even have my letter yet. I I'm pretty sure it was coming, but I didn't have it in hand. So sure enough, I got it. I show up at the academy uh August 11th of 2002, and um at kind of the FBI career begins.

SPEAKER_05: 42:01

And so what I'd like to talk about, and by the way, we've already Clay's already agreed we're gonna do future episodes with Clay and probably get some of his family on. Um his daughter Allison uh served at Slow for quite a while and been super faithful. And but uh what I want to talk about is it what I've learned in over the years of talking to you, I didn't realize how involved the FBI was in GWAT. So in the global war on terror, you I'd like to talk about the the your career pretty early took you on deployments in the special operations community as an FBI agent. And those stories are awesome. Those stories are awesome. And so you briefly, you gave me the short version last night, and I and I think I got it. If you could talk about how was it that you as an FBI agent ended up deploying with dev group and well, ended up deploying with elite special operations units that we don't have to name from the military side, because you're no longer military, you're federal law enforcement, but you're deploying to work alongside of special operations.

SPEAKER_03: 43:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05: 43:18

And why was that? And that I thought that was super interesting.

SPEAKER_03: 43:22

Yeah, and and and obviously there's there's some of it that you know can't be talked about, but but broadly, we can talk about the the sort of the broad um involvement. So in essence, 9-11 was a was a game changer for for any of you know a hundred different reasons. But one of it was, or one of the reasons was we, the US government, big we, were now facing an enemy that was not uh that was not a nation state, right? So there was there was not a declaration of war from one nation state onto another nation state. You're talking about non-state actors who have no borders, they have no affiliation, they have no nothing. They they've committed themselves to obviously Al-Qaeda at the time, and then that you know morphs into a lot of different versions of the Al-Qaeda, you've got Chechens and then you've got Arabs.

SPEAKER_05: 44:21

Yes. It is just very diverse.

SPEAKER_03: 44:23

Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so you bring in, you know, all kinds of different people. And and the problem is that you, you know, 9-11 was obviously a relatively small group of people that affected that, but they had this whole uh support structure behind them who not only did that, but were constantly planning and recruiting and uh gaining resources and all these different things over the course of years uh in order to affect any and all kinds of terrorist operations. And they had certain religious goals, certain political goals, certain financial goals. I mean, if anybody tells you that, you know, they were uh purely interested in religious or or or uh you know political goals, it's it's a farce. Like they they raised money like nobody's business and um through all kinds of different, very standard criminal type stuff as well. And so um, yeah, so so the way that that happened or the reason that that that's important is now you have a terrorist attack inside our country perpetrated by people who are in the United States legally, in essence, US persons, right? For certain, I mean that's a big thing right now with all the Ice RAIDs and HSI and all that kind of stuff, right? And so that's that's a big topic right now. But but they were in essence US persons. And so the the big question was how many other people are inside the United States as either U.S. citizens or US persons under under legal definition uh that we need to be really concerned about, we don't know about, and we need to, we need to, you know, the FBI and and the broader government needs to do something about. Well, when you now have the military going after Al-Qaeda and Afghanistan and various places around the world, um what happens if you receive information while you're there, either through an interrogation or you find it on target somewhere or whatever, you know, collect it through various technical means, whatever the case is, uh, where you you receive information that is US person or US citizen, um the source of it is them.

SPEAKER_05: 46:41

So, okay, so for instance, uh an SF team or a SEAL team or group from Delta, they go on target, they run an op, they go into a compound, they get in a gunfight, and they need to identify these people that they either kill or capture, and then figure out who they are. Do they have associations within the United States? Have they been to the U.S.? Are they people that have traveled legally into the U.S.? We got to figure all that out because we're in Afghanistan fighting these bad guys that are that are somehow connected. And so now you've got an SF team or or a group of Delta guys that are like, okay, we got this person, we'll grab their laptop, we'll grab here's here's a couple flip phones, um, fingerprint at that point. Sure. We'll fingerprint them, and then let's go, but then they don't like, okay, we got all this stuff, but now what? We go hand it to an FBI guy that's back at the base. Right.

SPEAKER_03: 47:42

So yeah, we had people, you know, who I say we, the FBI had people who were stationed uh in Bagram, you know, in its early days as it grew, and then certainly out of the embassy in Kabul um for many of these sort of liaison type uh responsibilities. And so one of the programs that the FBI has is called the LEAGAT program, legal attache. So most everybody in the embassy is is some sort of attache, your military attache, you know, various, you know, economics and political and all kinds of different things. And so uh so they were called the legal attache, and that was already in existence, been existence for a long time, various embassies around the world. And their main job is to essentially uh enable investigations that are happening from field offices and headquarters and everything else in the United States that have an element in a foreign country. And so their job is to liaison with uh local law enforcement, federal law enforcement in that intelligence community organizations in that country uh in order to help facilitate all of that. So we had guys in Kabul, we had guys, like I said, in Bagram and various different places. And so the relationship sort of begins by you know, they bring back a you know a Santa Claus bag full of stuff and they dump it on the table for the Intel guys to go through, and the Intel guys are like, okay, who do I attribute this phone to, or this computer to or this you know, notebook to, or whatever, whatever it was? Who is this guy you guys snatched up and brought in? What's his name? What is you know, what are his affiliations, all these things. And so it it's or or the guy's dead. Or the guy's dead. And now you can't get that information from him. Sure. So now we're collecting DNA and we're running it through the DNA uh databases and all kinds of stuff. Yeah, absolutely. So it was a whole myriad of things. But all of that was was very nascent in the very beginning, right? I mean, they were the the desire in in initially was to for you know the various elements to go into Afghanistan and do their best to like cut the head off of Al-Qaeda right out of the gate. And you know, you can listen to the stories of people who are way closer to it than I ever was, you know, out of Torabora and all of that kind of stuff. You know, I'm not gonna pretend to know the details there. Um but um but that was the initial goal, but it turned into a obviously a much more protracted uh engagement that went for you know a couple decades. And so we got involved in that by helping to train these guys how to collect, how to uh you know, pull this information in and keep it segregated and how to how to attribute it to a person on target if you could, um, and for a number of reasons. Number one, for the intelligence value of it, but also were there any follow-on investigations, right? Because if you go through the dude's notebook or his phone or whatever it is, and he's got a he's got a you know a North Carolina area code phone number in there, why? You know, is that just his buddy who he knew from long ago who just happens to be in the U.S. Well, you gotta answer that question. Who is he, right? And so the military is prohibited from doing there's certain there's a whole list and sets of rules of what they can and they can't do and all that kind of stuff, but there's a line eventually that they have to go, hey FBI, take this because we're we've run up against our legal authority. Uh and so that happened, that's what kind of got developed more broadly in the early part. But eventually, as we're training, you know, our the guys that I knew at the time were training those those you know um special ops dudes of of really all stripes, whether it was SF or it was Rangers or you know SEALs or whoever else, they were training those guys to do that. And eventually the guys are like, you know what? We are task saturated, man. We only, as an SF team, for example, maybe you got 12, maybe you got 13 guys, and you you've taken down a target. I don't I don't have people to spare to go do all this stuff. So eventually the conversation morphs from training us to do it to can you guys just come out on target with us? Right? And as you can imagine, that was a huge decision point for the FBI.

SPEAKER_05: 52:07

Because they're saying we're gonna take an agent, he's gonna go with a Delta team, a SEAL team on an op, on target, so that when we kill or capture people, you're the guy then that rolls in and starts gathering that information from that person.

SPEAKER_03: 52:25

Yeah, and and the reason being, you know, if you're the if you're the special ops dude and I'm the FBI guy, we go in and we and and and you collect a bunch of stuff. If that eventually comes to uh a prosecution in the United States or in a court anywhere, you, the special ops guy, have to go and testify. And that's obviously we don't want that. We don't want that. We don't want that, right? So But we're good with an FBI agent going on. That's why we exist, right? We do stuff like that. And and so essentially what we did was we created a program. And when I say we, I mean a lot of uh I walked into an already created program, so I give give credit to the guys that built this program. But we, the FBI, helped create a process where what we do all the time, which is search warrants, we take all of that capability and what we've learned and how to do a search warrant efficiently and all that kind of stuff, and then cut out all of the fluff and be left with the really nuts and bolts of how to do it in an in order to feed the intelligence cycle. And so that's essentially what our role was to go out and manage that capability with them on target. And so, you know, uh they they were, you know, it was their job to do the to do the special ops stuff, and it was our job to do this other stuff. Um, but the the vast, vast majority of the people that they put on target with them, as you can imagine, if you go out with these guys, you you can't just stumble over rocks and they have to help you all the time.

SPEAKER_05: 54:04

You have to be able to operate with them.

SPEAKER_03: 54:05

Yeah, you know, and and nobody's nobody's claiming that we were doing the same thing they were doing at the level they were doing it, right? We we had our capabilities and and and you know, they began to pick people from the bureau who had the right background and the right experience and training. And so because of because of a lot of the tactical experience I had in the background uh of the FBI, I was one of the guys chosen. I I didn't have anything super special or whatever. I was just a vetted person who had the right skills.

SPEAKER_05: 54:34

And um because in another uh we won't cover this today, but the next episode, I want to talk about your stateside FBI career, but it there was a lot of tactical activity there. I mean, you're going down, you're training with dev group guys on CQB, you're using y'all are going down and they're cross-training you on uh house clearing and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_03: 54:54

I mean it's uh Yeah, so they they didn't train us, they're not they weren't permitted to train us, but they're watching they were allowed to facilitate our our training and everything.

SPEAKER_05: 55:06

So you're training yourselves they have you're doing an internal training at their facility, and then you can compare notes and learn things from them.

SPEAKER_03: 55:12

Yeah, yeah. And you know, some of the times it it it you know goes off into personal conversations, and you just sit down and you kind of back of the napkin, like, hey, how would you solve this?

SPEAKER_05: 55:22

You know, like like the um frag grenade story. You tell that so Adam Brown, one of my favorite books is the the it's just the gospel story of a guy named Adam Brown. I think the book's called Fearless, isn't it? Fearless. Adam Brown was a dude that was with Dev Group, the SEAL Team Six guy, but and he got killed in action. But he has a really cool gospel story because he came out of drug addiction, and then it's an amazing book. Uh, it's not a first military book, it's first, it's a it's a gospel story. And uh, but anyway, you you worked with Adam, y'all are friends, you knew Adam, and so and he's crazy, and it comes through in the book, but there's a funny story. He was nut. There's a funny story from one of those trainings that you told last night sitting around the fire.

SPEAKER_03: 56:04

Yeah, so so we were we were training in various places, and and um Adam, again, they they were they were not allowed to train us, and they weren't. Uh it was just sort of a a a partnership and a facilitation type of thing. And um so we were having some conversations and uh about you know the results of because I was leading the team when we were doing the training, and I was uh asking him to set up certain things for me in the in the house, and you know, we were working our guys through sort of a train-up cycle where you know, starting simple and and growing and adding complexity to various problem sets and everything. And um so I asked him to set up a you know a particularly uh gnarly one, like a complex one. And I wanted to, you know, we had been training for a long time, and I wanted to see how the guys were thinking, if they could think through the problem set. And um, because that's uh that is unfortunately a misnomer that a lot of guys or a lot of people have that they think that uh anybody that's in the tactical realm, you know, whether it's law enforcement or military or special ops or whatever, you know, is just a big monkey, you know, carrying a carrying an explosive charge or a breaching tool or you know, kick door in and smash everything, right? It's kind of like Hulk Smash type stuff. Um, you know, and are there people who are like that? There are. Uh, but a but a good tactical person, whether again, whether civilian or military or whatever, is is first a thinker. Right? You you never there's a saying, I was a breacher, and there was a saying that you never breach an open door. And the idea is think first, check the knob, might be open. Oh, right? Yeah, don't don't be stupid and go, you know, go, you know, full-blown hulk on something that you can just open the door. Um, and so, you know, a a good a good uh person in this realm uh is a thinker first. And so anyway, we're we're going through this and we're we're working through. So Adam is is just kind of acting as our uh what they call an RSO or range safety officer, and he's just helping set things up. And so we're having some conversations. We get done with this, the guys do a good job, and I'm debriefing, and I asked Adam, I'm like, hey man, did you I know you're not you're not training us in anything, but I I'd be I'd be interested to hear your your thoughts. Did you see anything that I missed? And we talked about what we did well, what we didn't do well, all that kind of stuff. And uh he said, uh, well, and this just kind of shows you the difference in mindset and why there are different groups, why the why Dev Group or anybody else doesn't do law enforcement, right? They have their realm, we have our realm. And yes, there's overlap, but they're not the same. Um, and so um he said, he said, well, you know, that that particular intersection where you had five threats all at once, he said, uh, he's like, you know, what you can do is you can pitch a frag into the first two and uh grenade. A grenade, yeah, frag grenade into the first two, and uh and and that'll take away, you know, the two, those two threats, and now you just got three to deal with. And I said, I said, Adam, um did you just say pitch a frag grenade? And he said, uh he's like, Yeah, yeah. I said, Adam, brother, we don't we don't carry frag grenades. And uh and he said, Oh, we got we got truckloads of them, you know. I'm like, no, Adam, you you don't understand. Uh and I said, I said, uh, I said, you you live in Virginia Beach, right? Yeah. You watch Wavy TV 10 news, right? Yeah. It's a local local station there. And he I said, Do you see the Virginia Beach police station? Department blowing up houses like right out of the gate. And he's like, uh, no, I don't. I was like, well, there's a reason for that, man. Like, we have the constitution. Like, we we people there, there's the fourth amendment. Like, I can't just go blow up somebody's house because it's convenient for me, right? It makes my job a little safer, you know?

SPEAKER_02: 1:00:21

And uh he's like, whoa, he's like, you guys, you do CQB without frag grenades.

SPEAKER_03: 1:00:28

You see his brain frying a little bit. And I'm like, yeah, man, like, like all law enforcement does. Like, we we can't pitch frag grenades in the house, houses of you know, American people. And uh he's like, wow, he's like, your job's way harder than ours. I'm like, I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't I don't have to, you know, halo in and you know worry about the the Mongolian horde coming across the mountain at me, you know, if I stay too long. So uh yeah, I don't I don't know that. But yeah, Adam, Adam was a great dude. He was a great dude, complicated dude, uh struggled in a lot of ways throughout his life, um, both pre and post becoming a believer, um, but was, you know, by all accounts uh a lover of Jesus. And and I mean there's story after story, and I know it to be true, you know, where he'd be out doing what those guys do, you know, in the middle of the night, nods on, you know, super cool. And during the day, he'd be distributing the shoes to the kids, Afghan kids, that he uh had called back to Atlantic Shores Baptist Church where he went in Virginia Beach and had them send him shoes. And so he was he was a he was a man, you know, you guys speak about manhood and biblical manhood and all that kind of stuff. He was a man. Uh there are videos I've seen of him uh that he showed me and other people showed me that um you know he'd be skipping down the street with his kids. I mean like full-blown skip, right? Because it made his kids laugh. He didn't give one whit that he was this big, you know, dev group operator or whatever, and he had some kind of you know, whatever to maintain.

SPEAKER_05: 1:02:16

I think I told you I met, I won't say his name, but the Lord recently crossed my path with a dev group guy that was a really close personal friend of Adam's and was on the op when Adam got killed, was one of the guys that was working on him when they're trying to. If I remember in the book, they're trying to move him up terraces, a lot of terraces over there, yeah, while he's bleeding out, and they're trying to, yeah. And um that was a fascinating conversation to talk to that guy. Um, but the thing I asked him to verify was did he have on his Superman underwear? And he did. He's like, Yeah, man, we're cutting his stuff off. He's shot up. I think he got stitched up the side with an AK and like, yeah, and he's got his Superman underwear. I guess he'd wear those on Target. Yeah, Superman underwear. It's awesome. Yeah, yeah. Um that book.

SPEAKER_03: 1:03:06

One of his last words, from what I understand from talking to the guys that were there, um, was you know, they they communicate over the radio of what's happening and you know what uh what threats need to be dealt with for whatever reason, and and it goes out, and one of his final words was I got it. And that was just his his thing. Right. And I mean that's just the attitude a lot of those guys is uh they have committed themselves to this life. And um, you know, I mean, is you know, I you and I talked about this. Uh uh, you know, I've known a lot of those guys, and and at the end of the day, you know, we we unfortunately bec fortunately or unfortunately, most people don't know people like that. And unfortunately, what we end up seeing is just the book versions or the movie versions or the whatever, right? And um and man, at the end of the day, they're people. They're just people, right? They yeah, they got skills, yeah, they can do some pretty cool stuff, but they are people, right? And they were pe they are people, like you said this morning in your sermon, uh, that who will stand before God and give an account. The same as uh a little old lady who lived in a tiny town in wherever and lived her life. The account is the same, right? The Lord is not impressed with your standing, right? Even though we might be in various things. Um, but you know, we can talk about today or some other time. But there that I've had some opportunities, some unique opportunities in the middle of a firefight to present the gospel to people.

SPEAKER_05: 1:04:40

And that's that's where I want to land this episode. Um, so yes, that's a perfect segue. I you saying that, it always makes me think these guys kind of have the same aura as professional athletes. Yeah, yes, there's always a lot of comparisons of that. And you think um don't matter if you win Super Bowls or championships, you're gonna stand before the Lord and give an account for what you did with what he gave you. And um and it's appointed under man wants to die. And I believe Adam Brown's death was appointed, you know, somehow, somehow that works into the sovereign hand of God. He's the one that stood up, ran across that wall, got in that tree or whatever, trying to deal with the threat. No, and there's a good chance I'm gonna ready to get shot. And he just went. But at the end of the day, he stands before the Lord under the blood of Jesus.

SPEAKER_03: 1:05:27

So there are a number of guys that I I never I didn't know them. I knew I knew guys that were around them, but there are guys online right now, um, some of the former dev group guys that are, you know, kind of doing some of the podcast stuff, um, who are now believers because of Adam. Wow.

SPEAKER_05: 1:05:44

Wow. Yeah, so let's let's shift into that. Let's talk about that. Like, because you know, we're first and foremost a podcast about the Bible, gospel stories. I mean, you know NSR, you know SWO. You're as you and your family are as relationally invested in this ministry as anybody. You have a daughter that we mentioned earlier, Allison, who's served faithfully here, not just at SWO, but in our Pinwell Tutoring program, has been really deep into some situations and there's deep partnership. And so I I love sitting around the fire. I know where your heart is before the Lord. And so we have first this strong brotherhood in Christ. So then when we get around the fire, we don't always have to talk about Jesus. We can spend three hours of me saying, tell another story, tell another story. And I do want to tell more of those as we have you come back. Um and I do there's one story I want to end with today that that you've told. But before we get to that, I'd like to shift towards how did you use, and I mean, there was your work that was stateside and your work that was downrange when you were deployed. So maybe for today we go there, what you mentioned a while ago. Talk about how you used those situations and moments and relationships to just faithfully carry the gospel, which is a reminder that Jesus puts people in every line of work in every field, and there's a remnant that he's dispersing into the dark places. And so what were some of those experiences like?

SPEAKER_03: 1:07:19

Yeah. So um, for the vast majority of my adult life, I have either been the only Christian wherever I was, or or maybe one other, you know, that that was off to the side somewhere. Um and it didn't take long as a young adult into my late 20s, you know, to realize that um I am not special. I'm not here because I'm special. I'm not here because the Lord looked down and went, oh, you know, I could really use him. He's got all these talents, right? Because I don't. All right. I'm just I'm just some redneck kid from northern Arkansas that had a little bit of ability that that the Lord gave me. I didn't develop this ability. But at the end of the day, our job, right? People always talk about sort of what they what they want to know, the hidden will of God. What's the will of God for my life? What's the will of God for my life? Well, the will of God for your life is spelled out quite clearly, right? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus was very clear about that. All the rest of the law and prophets hang on those those two. And so that is God's will for your life. The hidden part is the hidden part. Roll with it, right? The Lord is sovereign, he will direct your paths. And um I I began to learn that more and more the older I got. And and the when you know, my time in the Navy, obviously, you're down there on a sub and you're in this, you know, tin can for you know maybe a couple of months or 30 days or whatever it is, and there is opportunity. You want to talk about people watching you? No, you don't get watched any closer than living with people. Literally, you know, I'm sleeping, you know, beside guys, and they're two feet from me, right? And and we're eating together, we're working together, and we're sleeping together, and we're hanging out in a wardroom and watching movies or talking or whatever, you know. And um and so the idea or the under not the idea, but the understanding grew over time that my job is not to be a naval officer. My job is not to be uh an FBI agent. Yeah, those are the things that that that the Lord has placed me in. Got it. My job is to glorify Christ here, right? And to and to have conversations and do what I can to bring them to Christ as well, right? The Lord saves, it is his it he is sovereign over salvation just like he's sovereign over the universe. Uh, but it is my job by commandment of the Master Himself that I am to speak the name of Christ and glorify him in everything and in every way. And so, you know, did I do that perfectly or effectively? Not a chance, not a chance. Blew so many opportunities, you know. Um but all the while the Lord was faithful in my weakness, in my failings. And he will bring who he will bring to his salvation. But but my role was to live in a way first and foremost that honored him and to proclaim his name um without shame, right? You're talking about this morning. Um and so that was that was really where I where where you know if anybody knew me across those times, uh and at this point in my life, I honestly don't care so much that they think that I was good at this or that or the other. Of course, I want to do th do the job in a way that honors the Lord, of course. But at the really what I want to know is is did I did I honor the Lord in front of them? Right. And so that kind of came about, you know, talking about the story that you that you uh referenced. That came about uh and really kind of came to a head in a situation that I there's no way you could predict it, right? I'm literally sitting in, you can look it up. So if you you know on YouTube, the Marines go into Marja in Afghanistan, the Hellman province of Afghanistan, in uh, I forget what month it was, maybe August or September, something like that of 09. Well, we had been there, we I was attached to to a special ops element. We had been there, uh, there were three different special ops groups, four actually special ops groups that were kind of came together with a whole bunch of different assets, and we went into a place uh that hadn't been gone into in a long time. And it was an IED factory, it was it was uh a money uh generating place for opium and heroin and all kinds of stuff. And so we spent five days uh basically fighting it out there. Um and during one of those days, um, there were guys that I had been talking to on the team that I was embedded with, and um, you know, just trying to be faithful and and and live in front of them, you know, and there were things that they were doing uh that I needed to say, amen, I'm a part of that, you know, as far as just sort of faithfulness to your wife, various different things. And so um that carried weight, and people began to notice things that that I didn't even really know they were noticing. And uh this kind of came to a head with one of the guys um where I'm sitting in the middle of this fight. It's a gunfight. This is a gunfight. And I mean in the middle of this in the middle of a gunfight. Yeah, I mean, there's we're getting shot at with AKs and PKM.

SPEAKER_05: 1:13:22

We're gonna talk about Jesus.

SPEAKER_03: 1:13:23

And and uh, you know, there were several RPGs that went over. There was some there was some mortar fire and some different things, you know, and um and and and this story is not about the Huya. The Huyah is irrelevant. Right, right. And so um It's not irrelevant, it's pretty cool. But but I know what you're saying. Well, but it I mean it has something to do with the story because I'm sitting there talking to him, and he is, I mean, he is the stereotypical image of what you would think of of you know some Studley special ops dude. I mean, he's got arms the size of a cannon, you know, and they're taste added up to his neck, big full-blown man beard down to the middle of his chest, you know, and he is a he is a you know, he's a dude. Yeah, I mean, as as the Brits might stay, he say, he is a right stud. And um, so we're talking, and we had been talking, and um, you know, I was I was really kind of coming to the culmination and said, hey man, what if if you if you and I died right now, and I was able to point to to an RPG trail that went right over our heads. Yeah, I'm not right over, I don't make it sound more. You can see it though. Well, I can see it. And I was able to point to that and say, that RPG right there, it lands right in the middle of us, and it kills both of us instantly. You don't even get an opportunity to think. Do you meet the Lord of the universe um as his friend, as his child, or as his enemy? What is it? Because because you don't know the day of your death, right? And as you mentioned earlier, it's appointed a man wants to die and then judgment. And so, so what is what is your standing before the Lord? And so it was it was that kind of stuff, and it by that time in my life I'd I'd I'd really fully, fully, more fully realized I was here to glorify the Lord. I wasn't here to do stuff, even if it was cool guy stuff and it was fun, it was awesome, and all that kind of stuff, which you know, there were a lot that was a lot of good things. But at the end of the day, I'm not gonna stand before the Lord and He's gonna ask me, Hey, so tell me about all the cool things you did as an FBI agent, right? My life doesn't impress him in the slightest. Uh my job is did I live a life that glorified him and obeyed his commands? Right, Jesus said, If you love me, you will obey my commands. And and did I do that, right? And so that that particular time talking to him, and he eventually becomes a believer, right? And so um, you know, that that was that was of all the stuff uh that happened in Afghanistan, uh, that is the part I'm most happy about. Yeah, you know, and and you know, and at the end of the day, I mean anybody listening to this or whatever, honestly, it man, it doesn't matter what job you have or what your profession is and everything, we got to get away from this world's garbage uh message that says you are this and you're only this, right? But this guy, this guy, we're gonna raise him up on a pedestal, or he's whatever, right? Fill in the blank. And we we we fail to understand again, as you mentioned this morning, you addressed a lot of this stuff, and a lot of this stuff comes out of Romans, obviously, and Romans eight is really sort of a pinnacle of that. But you know, you move into Romans 9 and he and and Paul starts asking the question, you're like, Who are you to question to question the Lord? Right? And and and he's he's he's referencing the fact that that uh whatever the Lord values, that's what we're to value. Right? And and you know, the Bible many, many times throughout scripture talks about him raising up kings and taking them down, raising up nations and taking them down. They're they are they're raised up and they're taken down like he puts on a robe. It's nothing. It's nothing. Um, and so really gaining a better and better, and obviously I'm still like everybody else, I'm still scratching and clawing to understand, but gaining a better understanding of the sovereignty and the overarching magnificence of the great God that we serve. Yeah, buddy. Um takes a lot of that stuff that people elevate and turn into really super cool guys stuff. And hey man, I mean, you hear some of the stories from these guys, and they're super cool. Like they do some crazy stuff. But at the end of the day, they're just they're people. They're people, they're people who need the Lord, need salvation, uh, in the exact same way as every single other person who has ever lived on the face of this planet.

SPEAKER_05: 1:18:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03: 1:18:20

Man, that's good.

SPEAKER_05: 1:18:22

I want to stop right there, but I want a bonus story. So the one story you told about a certain group of operators who will be unnamed, um, and a certain group of tier one helicopter pilots who will be unnamed doing those hostage extract uh maneuvers out of a car. Can you tell that?

SPEAKER_03: 1:18:46

Yeah, it's it, you know, it's it's not my story, it's a buddy of mine's story. Um, but these are guys you worked alongside of as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And uh so so they were they were doing some some you know some different stuff together and uh uh this is years ago now. And um, you know, there they're any number of of problem sets that you have to address and be planned for and ready for, you know, and then there's there's things that you just have to make decisions on the fly about, um, because you can't plan for everything. Um and so that's why they pick thinkers, you know. But anyway, so so they were doing uh some some hostage rescue type training. Um and the particular scenario is you know, if you've got uh a hostage being driven down the road um in a car, how do you engage that car with filled with hostage takers and a hostage, right? Because if it's just bad guys, you can you can you know eat it up with a machine gun, you know, uh one of those um um Dylan mini arrow, you know, cannons and everything, just chew the thing to pieces if it's just a bunch of bad guys, launch a missile at it. I mean, there's a lot of different things the military has and it's it's arsenal. Um but if you got a hostage in there, you can't do that, right? Those things, those things are off the table. How do you then rescue this hostage and not get a bunch of operators shot, and most importantly, not get your get your hostage shot or or blown up or whatever else. And so anyway, they uh they put him, he was an FBI guy, they put him as the hostage. And he was in the back middle kind of seat of this vehicle that they were in. And uh so they had dudes that were in some little birds, I think it were little birds at the time. Um, and uh they would fly above, right? Because you can't fly down low because you'd be seen, and then and then you know, now your hostage has a potential of being hurt or killed. And so they they like flew above this thing and essentially just nosed those little birds straight over and dropped down. And, you know, one would be on the side, one would be, you know, behind, and all these different things. And by the time the first thing anybody knew is that uh little little semination paint pellets, you know, that you shoot in training, are hitting the side of the driver's window, taking him out, and then the guy in the front as well. So these guys are notionally killed.

SPEAKER_05: 1:21:22

From a helicopter, from a little bird.

SPEAKER_03: 1:21:24

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, these guys, look, as much as I just said that, you know, they'll stand before God and God won't be oppressed. I'm impressed. I'm impressed. Right. They do some, they do pretty, pretty, pretty wicked stuff. And um, but anyway, you know, before anybody knows anything, these guys are notionally killed. And so the vehicle, you know, rolls to a stop. And and but at the same time, there's another bird that drops down right behind. Dudes jump off on the back of the vehicle, all the back glass explodes all at once. And my buddy said, I didn't know what was happening, I just kind of felt the car jolt and everything. And he said, All the glass around me explodes. And he said, Before I knew it, I was getting yoked right out of the back windshield, thrown on a helicopter, and we were off. And he said, It happened so fast, I just I didn't even know what to think. And uh he said, he said, I looked at one of the dudes on on the helicopter, one of the guys that grabbed me and threw me in, one of the operators. And the guy looked at him and he said, We're pretty good at this.

SPEAKER_05: 1:22:32

So anyway, it's uh it's you know that, ladies and gentlemen, is why we celebrate Freedom Friday at SWO, which is what today is, and that's why we say America. It's good, it's good to be an American. Listen, I'm proud to be an American. I'm thankful that a sovereign God made me an American, but I'm proud of it. I ain't no shame. I'm a I'm I'm proud and I'm I'm thankful. Um so the next time we we get together, I've got notes already made. I really want to get into some of the psychological side of some stuff we've talked about even last night with the bell curve of of of fear and response and and because I think there's some cool spiritual application to that. Yeah, for sure. For now, what I'd like to do is go eat. I'm gonna buy lunch. I'm all about eating. I'm hungry. And uh man, I'm so glad you came on here. When I asked Allison probably a month ago, hey, when when your folks are down, you think your dad'll let me interview him for NSR? She said, Oh yeah, absolutely. Clay is a master storyteller, and I I've set for hours and I love I'm a storyteller, and so but it is rare that I get together with someone and I don't tell stories, I just listen. You're one of the guys, you Hank, Hank Parker Jr., who you know Hank tells the best stories. Hank's a phenomenal storyteller, and he's been on NSR. But you but that's two people that when I get together with y'all, and I just three or four other guys in my life that I'm just like, uh, I'm gonna shut up and listen. And it is so enjoyable. Um, but most important, you're a brother in Christ. And yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_03: 1:24:06

I'm just grateful. So well, hopefully next time we'll also be able to talk a little bit about um, you know, maybe have Brenda and Allison on talking about because there's a whole other side of this, right? Yeah, that's what I want to do. Yes, there's a whole there's a whole family side of this that that is that is a lot, you know. Everybody gets the the glam and the glory, and they get books written about them and they get on pod pack podcasts and all that jazz. Um, but there is there is a harder job.

SPEAKER_05: 1:24:32

Yes. Yeah. My little has always said the people she's most impressed with is the wives of men who deploy, who stay faithful, who stay in the fight spiritually. And I do I I want to have them on because I just recently we've got an episode that we recently recorded and filmed. Um I don't know which episode here will come out first, but of of a first responder and and the crisis in their marriage, and that wife's faithfulness is what saved that marriage. And um it shouldn't have it she saved it. I mean, God through her her faithfulness to the Lord drove her faithfulness to her husband. And see, I definitely want to highlight that because I think I think that's a message that doesn't get shared because all those guys that get that get heroized and glorified, and we they are heroes, we should celebrate them, but almost to a man, they've been through divorce, sometimes multiple divorces, marriages don't last, families disintegrate because of what this job demands. And in order for it to succeed, it takes a a wife who is committed to the gospel and to the the sacred covenant of marriage, as well as a husband who is. So yes, I want to do that. Absolutely. Uh, this Lord will and if if God tarries and we, you know, the Bible says, don't say we're gonna do this, we're gonna do that. Say if the Lord wills, we will. If the Lord wills, uh allows us to be here and healthy, this will be the first of many and multiple uh episodes we'll have you on. So we'll have them on. It'll be awesome. So all right, appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:26:06

Thanks for listening to No Sanity Required. Please take a moment to subscribe and leave a rating. It really helps. Visit us at swoutfitters.com to see all of our programming and resources. And we'll see you next week on No Sanity Required.