Jonathan Harmon: U.S. Air Force PJ Opens Up On Operation Redwing & What It Took To Save Marcus Luttrell (Part 2)

The Team Never Quit podcast is sponsored by Navy Federal Credit Union. Partner up with Navy Federal to pay down credit card debt. You can learn more at navyfederal.org. I think the American public would find it completely fascinating to what efforts our government will go to to bring their people home. Never Quit Great Go. All right everybody welcome back to the TNG Podcast. I'm your host Marcus LaTrell. Every week it's my job to fire you up to ignite the legend inside of you and to push you to your greatness. Join me every week as I take you into my briefing room with some of the most hard charge on people on the planet. They're going to show you how to embrace the stuff the life, keep you the values of working your ass off, and charge through whatever life throws at you. This is the Team Never Quit Podcast. Go buckle up, buttercup. What's going on everybody and welcome back to another episode of the Team Never Quit Podcast. Thank you guys for listening in each week as we really appreciate each and every one of you. And if you enjoy listening to these episodes please make sure to give this a thumbs up or subscribe wherever you get your podcast. So last week I mentioned that we were going to push the second half of Jonathan Harman's episode today and that is exactly what we're going to do. So with that being said I know if I already talked about it and this episode is awesome so let's get right to it. With a whole bunch of Americans that you know their plans changed dramatically that night. A lot of families and so we had some things we needed to do. So we coordinated with the task force and our PJ team there. We sent some folks up to the mountain and we sent some folks to look over the ambush site and then we sent some folks to the crash site. So you're saying by air by air they're looking by any means that's no. Well yes by air in the like as it's occurring because you know if you've got the 47 receil going. Yeah the 47 is responding and because it's responding other people now or their game on. Right so they're looking. So you have eight tens flying and they're looking. They're squawking. You've got a patchy's flying. They're looking. Covers right there. And you know you and so there's this you know like at some point it's it's just open kimono like we don't care about you know noise signatures and in radios and all that kind of it's bring our people home right it's it's wide open there's no secrets anymore. So that's kind of the environment that we transition from from a special operations clandestine surveillance and reconnaissance to it's wide open. Let's get all our people back. That's the freaking fight. I mean like we try to do all this sexy underground black cops kind of stuff man but when that one went down is like hey you all some we'll bring it and everybody showed up. I have a side question which wasn't um this wasn't discovered until like two weeks later when they found Matt Axelson's body it they found it far away from the um from where they were where they were all fighting and and where uh Mike and Danny had died and it they had gotten separated from an RPG blast kind of off of the yeah he went one way Marcus went the other. It is thought or rumor talked about that Axe actually lived through that blast longer than what we thought what Marcus thought you know Marcus thought he's gotta be dead and he he's going the opposite way then Matt went but because of where he was found and I think if I remember correctly and I might not be and if I'm not I'm extremely sorry to whoever would be mad at this information but um from what I was told and when I remember he had made it close to a village like another village and ended up being shot and killed and then a villager had like took his body even further away and buried it. Did you get any beacons from him or was it just from Marcus? So you know that's a great question Mel um and I had to be real careful here because you know um there's a lot of the the short story is we don't know okay um that's that's the right answer uh there's there's so many opinions um you have people that piece things together and they may be maybe completely right but we have no way to validate it and I think that's where the the questions come about a lot of this circumstances the best record we have is of Marcus's memory. One of the things that many Americans don't know is that the uh our enemy did a phenomenal job of recovering their own remains um and you could you know like we had there's a ton of stories out there of guys you know uh shooting up a whole bunch of bad guys and go out there to recover recover the bodies you know over distance and it's like they're all gone where'd they go you know it's somehow or another they were able to you know get them off the final mountain and carry them away yeah we do the same thing you know so could it be possible that his remains removed you know uh maybe as a result of them trying to get to his equipment or something it's possible is it possible that he made his way there um and eventually succumbed to his wounds right that's possible too um so I think from a rescue perspective uh we tend to shy away from speculation um there are times when we arrive on a scene and it's it's it's the evidence supports the fact they were still alive um we had a we had an aircraft crash in the in Hindu Kush uh a uh other governmental agency bird um and they were absolutely convinced that everybody was killed in the crash but then when our PJs got up to the side of the mountain up in the snow we found guys with cigarette butts lined up as they were you know waiting to be rescued and they just you know we didn't get there in time so this is very very difficult stories to hear you know from the families so we tend to be like pretty factual when we speak about things like this and Mel I just I can't answer yeah and it's not that it would change anything it's just that you know line of curiosity like what when you hear different people's perspective oh you won't know like how to get away over there yeah it's like how you know was he being tracked too because that was something I've always wondered and never knew and I am very close to the widows um so it it's a not I didn't know them I met Marcus five years after um Operation Red Wing happened um so but I feel like I know them yeah because I you feel the pain feel their pain and I truly love the women yeah um we named our son acts after Maddoxlson so it was born Mikey's birthday yeah wow yeah there's there's a lot of no pressure yeah so how about that huh I mean we we love these men and the women the families that are behind them so um I always just have that curiosity um just talking to different people that had a piece of the puzzle of whether it was rescue or um that was you know there's so many people that were involved in this mission in different um aspects whether it was flying a bird or on the ground taking intel or whatever there's so many different people the world becomes pretty small yeah after the operation I'll share this with you male after the operation to recover the remains uh I was in the tactical operation center for the PJs uh in Afghanistan and uh it was with Marcus um you remember when we met of course you do I mean uh uh yeah I think so I don't know if you remember I was in the bus right when I got the plane yeah you're in there right yeah that's what I thought I must have looked worse than I thought because I remember that girl crying real bad at the at the ramp and then we had the we walked down to the bus I wanted to ask if I was hungry or the skipper did hold on y'all are skipping up yeah yeah we're skipping so uh what I was gonna say is that um the PJs that were involved in the recovery operation there's a lot of things that we did um to support Marcus while he was evading um you know we got in the report we got into the kind of locate um the next phase is support we uh we dropped resupply bundles all over the side of the mountain in a specialized pattern that was one of the things that I came up with was uh you know the pattern to use and how the dispersion pattern and all that uh so the guys dropped that on my order um and then uh there were some other things we did with your radio um remember you know to kind of you know try to find you my intel and then try to do the best I could uh follow the rules oh you felt you yeah I was just yeah if there's ever you know if we ever get uh maybe one of the great things is that uh I in the course of preparing for this um I had someone suggest that I I ride it all down and then pass it through some uh you know the J.P.R.A. and see if I can get some of this released because um I think the American public would find it completely fascinating um how what to what efforts um our government will go to to bring their people who's the best yeah you were sitting through the radio oh you know can't even believe what you were doing yeah you just can't even believe that you come up with ideas there's there so you can't even possibly think of I can't get into it because I you know I don't even know the existence of one of them showed up and I was like I think I understand yeah and I would do something and it would work and I'd be like and then I'd do something else and it wouldn't and then it was getting weird yeah so the support um face um kicks in a whole bunch of different uh ways um you know support can come in many ways right so um a lot of them could be moral support so we can't necessarily get you out but we can communicate with you and let you know you're not alone right we've got an eye on you and it's uh that's the biggest thing I was like I once I knew that sucker had a eyeball on me I was like come on yeah it's just a matter of time yeah it's like oh my boys got me now yeah once they I knew they saw me and where I was that's that's what changes your team guy and how did you know that what moment was that well I got something yeah I got a little gift showed up so can you say that can you say what was I know but what was the gift it was a gift so I'm gonna say okay so so part of um you know there's there's various different mechanisms that we employ um you know it could very well be let's give you a great example um what if you have the ability to we knew that there was a television you know close by you know and uh you're held in a foreign country it could be so much as just a message on the television see an American flag you know and somebody saying you know we miss you can't wait for you to come home you know that kind of a thing and that could build something that somebody else overlooked yeah completely yeah and there's you know the this discrete method of communication is employed by our adversaries as well um and so you know we have a trade craft and you know we have skill craft and a bunch of other things that are mechanisms that we employ to this day so um some of them are so effective that we continue to use them and so we don't want to give away any of that yeah I don't definitely don't want to be the cause of giving away any secretive information that can help somebody else all right so just think about all of Americans think about people who play in the military I'm only using it like this for a reason yeah about the stuff you come up with in your head we actually get a chance to do it yeah well I think that also shows to to our American any American if you're ever in a situation and you see some little slight hint that you're like that a sign yeah so that's on it it may actually be a sign you know I think this will resonate with mostly uh everyone and if you can think of the worst day of your entire life and how despondent you can be that's everyday and captivity that's everyday you don't know if you're going to live five more minutes you don't you have no control over any and and and so any anything whatsoever is a morale boost like freedom and uh it it it is so powerful and it can steal the resolve of your ability to maintain professionalism you know and courage in an environment where most people will quit right and I mean like there is a point in captivity where we all will quit you know or we'll die and so it's a matter of your ability to resist that temptation to quit and endure and so Marcus represents something that is unique in the sense of his isolation you know we we have very few POWs coming out of these wars and so what we didn't have we we had some captives in Iraq but we didn't have a like I think Marcus might be one of the only ones that had a full evasion then he was held by partisans you know and so was he a POW technically he wasn't held by the adversary so no but was he free no he wasn't either so he was isolated and so there's a lot of things that legally legally that that plays into and so what his actions are and our actions like there's some you know some rules to play by there so did the Pepsi bottle come from you I'm just kidding no no that was not a gift that was that was not a gift yeah for anyone who's read everyone knows that's a running joke I can't believe it I'll have a Pepsi yeah right where are you Pepsi I know what the hell for anyone to read the guy just had to bang that frickin bottle yeah that that became a campaign a few years later Bucky uh Bhutto Steve Bhutto's General Bhutto now he put together a campaign financed by our local bar uh there in all you need called the moth and uh I think he got together like 3000 water bottles and put straps on him and everything and try to fly him in and drop him to your to the folks that helped you um wow yeah I was a whole campaign I would throw that thing off the mountain and show back up that's what I'm saying was it the gift yeah no I mean I guess it was water in it but I mean the water itself I'm still paying for that you know I'm trying to kill me yeah now that I think about it well you did a good job you did a good job of of doing some other things we'll get to but um I want to do finish this piece up when I was there uh the PJs came in from the bird after recovering the last of the remains and uh I have it takes a lot to beat a PJ down uh we're fairly resilient and the face of this PJ our team leader came he comes to the door and I I I I'm pretty sure it was Scott Duffman uh who's deceased now but um I looked him in the eye and I said how you doing and he looked at me he said sir if you to climb that mountain it told me to climb the mountain one more time I would have quit and that's the only time in my entire career I ever heard a PJ mentioned quitting the only time that's how much of an effort it was to locate your teammates I heard a seal senior chief say the same thing he's like if I could I can't get out of here no but I I would quit yeah but you even if you quit you still got to get the hell out of there yeah so you can you might as well stay you got you can't do it yeah I mean it traps you in there we all got trapped on that bro it was uh you know for those that don't know what scree is like in that kind of an environment it's like uh it's almost like quicksand and you can't in the angle of attack that you guys were at um it's just like it it's perfect storm uh it's the worst perfect storm driving and everything would go wrong and then the what you want you guys you know they had an elevated position on you and so from that point I mean if anybody you know you ever been skiing uh in Colorado or something you know or maybe seen some really uh you know rugged mountains that's what we're talking about we're talking about the Hindu Kush like the most rugged mountains in the world Alexander quit there yeah right yeah there you go he even he was like no yeah this is uh no not gonna happen yeah so we wound up in that had to take a helicopter in there so this support phase um last it for a while because you were um held you were isolated for a while and so we brought a lot of resources to bear um to try to support you while you were in captivity um part of that support was to reduce or dissuade the enemy from gaining entry yeah um that's a good job on that yeah so one of the targets I think your primary target he uh he he um he disappeared yep uh through an air strike and then um so after that air strike uh there was some other bad guys around yeah and they came to visit him and find out what happened to his house and they they ended up um dying in the subsequent air strike um which was you know anybody would come anywhere in there me y'all'd get rid of yeah yeah that's pretty cool well not everyone uh there's a couple you know what I mean though yeah there's a couple guys I can handle the rest I just can't handle that the big part yeah that that's kind of like uh um the navy had done the same thing uh the Air Force and the Navy have a long running uh relationship going all the way back to bat 21 at least that as far as I know and so uh I see oh Hamilton uh bat 21 was uh downed in uh northern Vietnam and uh he was rescued by Navy SEAL Norris yeah and uh when the Congressional Medal of Honor for it I saw the movie when I was a kid and growing up you know in that environment I swore if I had ever get a chance to pay the Navy back I would true story I swore on my life that guy helped bring me up Tommy him and monkey really yeah okay so the crazy thing is after this whole event happened I had long hair and I needed uh not that it's not long now but I needed to get back in regs uh so I went to go get a haircut and Tucson Arizona and I showed up at this barbershop I'd never seen before uh jeans barbershop and it turns out that uh when I went I went in there's this memorabilia like some old worn out combat boots and aviation boots and uh a stick you know like the the top of the stick out of an airplane a helmet and some other crap and uh this is all beat down terrible stuff is terrible condition and I was like man yeah that's that looks well worn that almost looks like hmm what is this poster bat 21 so I sit down and I'm like hey uh you know anything about this guy he's like oh yes I see a helmet since my best friend I'm like really he goes yeah so I sit there and he goes hey you know what what do you do I'm like oh you know I do this thing in the Air Force and blah blah he's like oh really he's like have you done anything cool and I was like uh well as a matter of fact I just got involved in this mission and uh yeah we pulled this navy seal out of Afghanistan he's like no shit so he leaves he comes back hands me a golf club number one driver out of i seal Hamilton's golf bag he had just passed away and left his golf clubs which if you know anything about his rescue that's how he affected his rescue because he had a radio that was in the clear a PRC 90 yeah and he would tell the aircraft above him hey I'm like at Hickam yeah hole eight dog leg right yeah it's cool when our guys do that yeah like you'll hear guys talking about football teams or golf references everyone's like how do you guys get trained up with like some of that stuff we wing it yeah yeah yeah that is crazy yeah but the foreigners don't understand that no no understand that language they'll they'll brief themselves and come up on everything we do tactical wise and then that's what we'll hit them with that football play yeah we'll kill them yeah yeah that's crazy pure American talk so um that support face the recovery face uh is fairly straightforward you you know have told the story over and over again well real quick I do a motion um did you get intel from the marine base that uh note from Marcus had been delivered so I did gloss over a couple things uh we didn't talk about it so the map that I mentioned that I created um I gave it to my boss and I said hey I think this is what I have um and he's like okay cool yep for sure that's uh I need you to come talk to somebody so I have no at that point you know I'm a kind of a my familiarity with special operations is just kind of like a you know um I understood a aspect of our special operations forces but I didn't understand the full um all the components and I was not read into that uh that program um so uh I ended up going up into the old man said called a battle cab right so three star general up there is he's in charge of all the air forces stuff but off the side of his little private uh you know is another private room there's a couple of them you know one of them would be like other governmental agency folks and then there'd be these other guys and uh you know when you knock on their door and they go who is it you know like you're like oh these guys clearly have an attitude you know like get away from here I'm gonna shoot through the door right you know like okay and uh so you know uh Bucky introduces me um to these guys and uh Bucky's like hey Jay show him what you got and I'm like and he's kind of excited because you know he knows what we have um and he knows he he's aware of what's going on so he's literally watching kind of history happen and he's he knows it he's aware so I hand the my map off and I'm like hey you know um and they they're looking at and they're like what am I looking at I'm like well this is what I have and I think I've got this and it looks like I have a single radio uh which would indicate a single survivor and um you have it it's I have a hack here I have a hack here and I have a hack here so this is time to distance I think they're moving in this general direction and then if we give them this much time I think we can predict that they're gonna be here and they were like hold on a second open up a flatbed scanner and electrons happen and uh there's a red phone picks up there's no dialing I'm like yeah yeah red phone pick up the bad phone yeah it's me I just sent to you uh huh yeah I'll get out on an airplane you're going to have Afghanistan okay so summer is finally here and let's face it it's the hardest time to keep up with our wellness routines between all the long travel days and late nights our sleep schedule gets disrupted which usually leads to stress but fear not because I have got the secret weapon just for you thanks to nextivo naturals and their cutting edge smartsorb technology your cbd experience is about to be unmatched so I've been incorporating the nextivo naturals into my daily routine and the results have been astonishing I felt less stressed I sleep better my favorite part about it is taking it after a workout and the recovery has been out of this world it's a legitimate game changer and unlike most other cbd companies nextivo tests their product multiple times to ensure that you get 100% of what's on the label that's something that you don't see too often which I love so why settle for anything less and upgrade to the experts in cbd nextivo naturals and as a special treat for our listeners they are offering an exclusive discount just go to nextivo.com slash tnq and you can get an incredible 20% off your first order of 40 dollars or more that's n-e-x-t-e-v-o.com slash tnq this summer prioritize your well-being with smarter cbd from nextivo naturals don't miss out on this fantastic offer and go visit nextivo.com slash tnq to claim your discount today so seize the summer make it the season of wellness with nextivo naturals I'm like oh okay where were you I was in all you need cutter okay uh so uh uh and apparently the two paths that the note there wasn't enough really to launch anything on the note right because there's uh they're like verification of written language like oh we got a handwriting analysis uh Marcus you know like where we got to hold this up and you got to that takes time to validate so it could be anyone writing a note my name is Marcus the trail you know he could be dead and they could be a it could be a spoof it could be a trap so there's all this you know everybody's second guessing it right um the Marines are the kind of people that are like I don't give a damn here's how this goes down if they're good or bad they're coming home with us that's how that's how Jessica Lynch is 507th and those guys got recovered because that's the marine mentality and you know what they're absolutely right um I'll give it to how many there are like where do you at you know what and that's that's why we have different components of the services um the army loves to plan uh and the man they are master planners um MD MP you know a military decision making process uh we've inherited that uh the air forces you know of course everybody is a part of the joint force right and how do you spell joint ARMY right so yeah um so but I think effectively if I'm not mistaken uh my timeline serves me correct the two validated one another so we have now a location and we have confirmation we have a proof of life right and so we have we have some radio information that we get we've got no kidding like okay I've got this piece together and that's what uh let me put me on an air plane to Afghanistan uh prior to that before we I left to go um I was involved in the planning and the approval process to getting our air force rescue assets from Kandahar all the way to Bogrum in position for his recovery so what we were looking for the trigger for that launch was physical possession so if I'm not mistaken the timing works out is to I got on an air plane as Travis was coming into you okay so I arrive in Afghanistan and I get hey we've got all the remains check we've got physical possession of the survivor check um and the J3 at the time was like I walk in um and he's like they're like hey here he is right here and so the J3 turns around he's like how in the did you get this I have all the pipes bent to me and I was like uh sir well I don't know if you have all the pipes you know and uh so and and he ended up putting me with their intel folks um and we piece together everything and I kind of demonstrated them hey here's maybe some additional techniques uh but then you know it wasn't very long and we we sent up the aircraft the uh air force rescue guys to come and get you which is a whole other level of effort right I mean that hey that's like that was something different yeah um and that's something that we earned uh flying in and out of the Hindi Kush so for those that don't know or may not be familiar we stripped that aircraft down there was nothing nothing that wasn't necessary yeah we were able to have um spanky oh yeah uh pilot one of the pilots on that aircraft that the helicopter that came in and pulled him out yeah yeah he explained how they had to like dump fuel and just really strip the yeah land at three o'clock in the morning yeah you know media or high air density altitude all that kind of thing yeah so that um that kind of operation is an extremist uh but we do have um we we've done it before um that's how we land on sun and mountain recover the uh the guys from the um aircraft crash you know uh anaconda too right uh anaconda as well and a myriad is like a one wheel kind of hover thing yep yep so um the recovery the the rescue I I like to call it a recovery right um not of remains but of a person because rescue would imply that we're rescue you from our friendly forces that's not necessarily a case if you were already rescued by Travis in his team so this is more of a transfer um certainly high risk uh but the idea is to get you to friendly control yeah and that was the most sketch thing you've ever seen yeah weather and ever the I mean just it was on yeah that's uh I wish uh you know if if anyone were to kind of get an idea of what that looked like I you know I apologize I haven't seen the movie so I don't know what's chronicled in the movie but if you want to see a movie about what weather looks like uh you might want to watch uh one of his other movies which uh was the perfect storm yeah and that uh that's a chronicle of one of our other rescue crews so that's one of the things about Loan Survivor the movie that wasn't and I think it was because of I don't know Pete would have to explain that but I think it was because of like timing and money budget and all that kind of stuff but it showed like a clear day and in the middle of the day yeah so that wasn't necessarily accurate oh yeah yeah which is the worst because that was the because that was such a cool piece to but there were so many awesome things that you know when I tell the story you you over tell it you know what we didn't do that I've got I've got one for you sitting here thinking about it we rolled a helicopter down the side of Mount Hood and trying to perform a rescue we lost lift and uh one of our cease our helicopters that aircraft was rebuilt and put back into service and I wouldn't be surprised if it was actually in the air the day that you were rescued uh but if anybody wants to see the danger like what we're really talking about here you can find that on YouTube so go take a look for that yeah Mount Hood rescue so the airport was gonna fly that freaking um the weather was insane that night and that's why it took a couple of days to get in because the weather was just so bad they can bring that helicopter I mean the mountain was sliding off the mountain oh yeah oh it was epic yeah you have like lightning strikes and the earth shakes and things slide okay so we know that part just from spanking and Travis let's talk about when the moment he meets you so I think the first thing is we get you in and you need to get some you need to get a full blown medical evaluation food you want to talk through some of it well where were you so I had flown in as I mentioned and we ended up I think it was in the bus and then we ended up in some kind of a debriefing room which I had to wait for you to write what base oh I'm sorry so we're in Bogrum okay I'd already landed and got on a transfer to another plane they'd hit me in a gurney and and then they landed the ramp came down there was a myriad of buses that's where I got picked up then we went to that conference remember they're holding me up straight me naked that that's where all that happened right who right I can't I can't say I was there for that you didn't see them naked yeah I remember I had to remember trying to find the guys and I was there before the shower and the food and the priests and all that yeah they took me straight into that for so I was there what I remember is you needed to be take a process through all of that I was then I disengaged with you and I was there for your initial debrief if you recall with a sear specialist intel so we had that we we call phase one reintegration and so that information that we got from you was where are where was the last known coordinates right can you show us on a map can you see why would that be a conflict so I must be missing something somewhere because if we're asking you confirmation of where everything is then we hadn't received we hadn't gotten everybody off the mountain so I've got to get some so Matt oxen wasn't he wasn't recovered he wasn't recovered and told I think July 14 it was a few weeks so that's yeah okay okay okay yeah I was still in I remember because I was keeping you updated in Germany back in there and kept dropping in and my platoon came in from my rack to do the sea the sea saw inside of that mountain and then couldn't we didn't find acts for a while I had been moved we went to Germany yeah remember that and then we landed there and that's when you started doing your deal yeah well I I was doing my deal before we got there so one of the things that oh yeah yeah so we I listened to you debrief the sear specialist and you gave like hey I've used these mechanisms I remember that they were like hey did you do this and I was like no I did this and they were like we teach not to do that like man I don't have I didn't have any idea I didn't know so so in that debrief yeah when those debriefs what we don't do is we don't tell the survivor that he did something wrong right we don't do that we want to know what you did we want to hear the story clean all the way through from front to back and then we just encapsulate that we pull out whatever we need to yeah to make sure that if there's anything that any mechanism that needs to be reset anything that needs to be burned that kind of stuff but then the intel that initial cut from intel goes out right and that's like the in everybody in the theater at that point that has a clearance and need to know they get that and they're like oh okay well that's what happened all this other rumor that's occurring you know in the news cycle and all that stuff oh sure but they can squash is that it does yeah everybody then calms down yeah that's right okay so that puts a big chill on everything um then uh what we did is we you threw us some curveballs so typically we want to get you we want to the the the doctrine tells us to remove you from the sights and sounds of battle as soon as possible so bringing you to bogram was part of that but how do you do that if the you know you're getting mortar you know and the enemy is threatening to attack and all this other kind of stuff like where it can isolate you but that's not very helpful either um so the idea was the idea is to get you to launch tool you know it's kind of quickly as possible but you're wanting to be part of the ramp ceremony changed everything we hadn't processed a operator that's right ever like not maybe saw it since Vietnam or maybe the first call for I can't I can't recall ever seeing any debriefs of an operator right and so those likely had happened but maybe South America or something like that some other uh AO but that got you know that got caught quashed and so we don't we don't really get a chance to internalize that in our training so Marcus was like look I'm not leaving here until him you know until the ceremony is over which gave me some extra time it also gave other people extra time to think about it and it's my understanding that the there was uh some people in the navy that were deeply concerned about this mission failure right and that's what they were calling it and the thing that was premature right so I mean yeah we have seals that are dead but do we know everything right clearly not and you know we have one guy for sure we don't know where the other guy is thank you for reminding me about that um and now is not the time to start trying to figure finger point right so some some people uh can can get carried away with wanting to know you know things and can use their rank and we know this so that's one thing we do share um in the training process so what we do is we um we have a senior ranking officer that takes charge of it and that was not me um that was Doc Dickens how about that guy yeah I still talk to him so Doc Dickens uh is one of those few individuals I've ever I've been around some fairly smart people they're way smarter than me and uh you know I get a contact tie you know think maybe I'm smart sometimes but Doc Dickens brings it to a whole other level he will convince you that you are Superman dude he's got this smile he's real and I can't explain it who cares man if you don't tell me you're the smartest version of yourself you're the you're the the most passionate person of yourself you're the fullest expression of yourself um I've ever experienced and I'm a faithful person and I mean I go to church every week you know and I I'm every day I'm praying uh multiple times a day and I I will tell you that I've never experienced anything quite like being around that man how about that and I'm a freaking guy man and so he wouldn't let me go down he wouldn't let me get down to myself no and uh and so being part of this whole process we we were on a journey with him so I did some things to facilitate um and I I did I made some leadership decisions but um I feel like that if there was a a father figure for all of us it was him um and he he he cleared some paths for us and offered some suggestions at key moments that allowed us to make some decisions to you know um but one of the things that I did we we meshed well because um he didn't come from the background that I did so when I said hey I'm concerned about this that was a tip off for him and he was able then to help me kind of work through hey what's the next step and I would just I had the confidence to make those decisions as a young officer and um so um we had gotten word that there was a uh uh a senior ranking naval officer um that wanted to talk to Marcus and generally speaking uh we try to avoid having interrogative type questioning uh going on while we're trying to perform this reintegration it's not helpful um and it puts the survivor in a defensive posture and um a lot of times we lose his fidelity because they they shut down and they don't want to talk about things they become afraid but we want the fullest expression of the story right so that we can get it all documented down and we can learn from it for others can learn so um we try to keep the two separate and there's a time in a place for an investigation and it's likely not right exactly now we can wait a week or a day or something like that and so we were you know that that rumor um that we had somebody coming in kind of put a little bit of pressure on us um to make sure that we were staying true to Marcus and preserving you know his one one of the things that he wanted to do is participate in this ceremony and uh or ceremonies and uh they're all on that thing yeah and uh you know one has to consider the gravity of the circumstances the single largest loss of life in the history of the United States Navy seals just happened um and you know to come in and and ask for an explanation right away is maybe not the time maybe we need to take a little bit of time to grieve and maybe that's the best most charitable way of saying it now I don't know I never met any senior ranking naval officer that was on his way to come talk to Marcus but I trusted the rumor was likely true I never met anyone um but uh once Marcus once we got through the ramp ceremony then it was time to get him out of country we needed to get him to Germany and uh you know during the course of conversation during the course of training um I had this mental map this mental image that um there was an agency that was responsible for that um and I could give him a call and they would make certain arrangements happen and we could get Marcus to Germany this is when Dell is with you too yeah yeah yeah so we pick a couple people key people to go through the reintegration thing so we asked Marcus hey who's your best but he's like well you know there's this guy back and it wasn't like hey I'm digging that the bottom of the barrel trying to find that one-eyed fish no it was Dell it's Dell's name came up immediately about that dude and uh so we went and found Dell we got him to pack his trash and he's gonna get on an airplane come to Germany with us and he was like what what are you talking about like I'm I'm ready to get in the fight like what what's going on here and we're like yeah I mean it's part of the particular anyone else was dead yeah so I mean that you know there was a muscle there wasn't many many it was left yeah he got yeah and he he never left your side yeah never left your side you'll give him you know he had a hospital bed beside I felt so bad for him I was like I apologize bro I'm sorry you got to yeah he was a trooper well I mean yeah if you if you think about what you're called to do um most people think like you're trained to be a seal you're gonna be pulling triggers that's gonna be your contribution um not always you're gonna save lives too and sometimes they may be your best friend so yeah man and uh so we I ended up calling the back home to the combined ear operations center and asking for us you know the C17 and I got turned down and uh so nobody had any ear lift and it was time to get Marcus out of town he was he was ready to go um and he needed to get to some more significant medical care right he's he's his health was declining and this is a whole other level like this is a very deep concern to us because you can put him on antibiotics and you can try to you know tend to his wounds and stuff like that but he needs to get to bright lights and cold steel like you know um and get to you know more significant care that it not that they didn't care for him but um these kinds of injuries take time to heal and this isn't this is these are traumatic injuries and they're likely a disease process a medical issue going on simultaneously and so really you need a staff and you're talking about like the severe dysentery that was going on yeah yeah yeah yeah well you know and you did a couple things that didn't help right so swallowing all that too yeah yeah yeah yeah I did that for sure man so um I don't know if we can get into it but um you you did some interesting things while you were uh you know um held in captivity um to kind of help uh establish a posture right um I recall one of them is of giving ripuel uh to your medicine can you believe that and then hey man oh doctor look I have to take these kids up every day to come back in they're like they're great man because I wouldn't take it because I had all these injuries so I still had I had my morphine we all carried ripuel in our pocket because we never knew we're going to have a mission draw that was the thing back there was a thing and I mean you know a fedra that's that's a medic yeah yeah that's what was in there so you know when you open the bottle yeah yeah man it smells like smells like victory that's right it's like victory I feel like I'm winning already are you feeling a little disconnected from the things you learned back in school wondering if it was even worth it well I've got good news for you and it's never too late to dive deeper and gain a more meaningful understanding of the world that we live in Hillsdale College can provide you with that opportunity with subjects like history economics literature and the meaning of the US Constitution they offer courses that dive into those topics that actually affect our daily lives and even if you have learned these subjects before a bit of a refresher never heard anybody Hillsdale College has been the beacon of education since 1844 committed to providing an education rooted in faith freedom and character and here's the best part they've made some of their core campus classes available for free online yeah I said it for free and whether you want to explore the depths of the US Constitution or study the works of CS Lewis and even unraveling the complexities of world war too there's so many different subjects that you can dive into and Hillsdale College is here to guide you through all of it over three million people have already taken this online course and now it's your turn so go check out some of these 39 free courses to choose from and they're also self-paced online courses that are easy to follow you can start whenever wherever you want with no long-term commitment required so go right now to Hillsdale.edu slash TNQ to enroll there's no cost and it's easy to get started that's Hillsdale.edu slash TNQ to register Hillsdale.edu slash TNQ they put that opium patty in his mouth oh that's when they go to work on me yeah oh really yeah they actually put when um they go to dive drummers that's sorrow do they that's just a different type of tube they comes out of a little pack you put it in there it's like a skull bandit that's what I thought it was like laid me out yeah I had a couple of my all the rumor is there's there's been a few guys and a few guys that are like hey let me have some of that you know I'm around I'm out of two you know they put it in taking out for a little while wake up and like oh shit I better hope I don't get a piss test over those are games that those are funniest oh they did it wasn't they love that oh they love that those some hard dudes man yeah for sure yeah sure you don't yeah um so one of the other things that Marcus had done uh to kind of create this idea that he was sick right I think there was a at one point you kind of told them you're needed you were a diet again so in order to face the injury he ate a bunch of chew which made him sick and he's throwing up and everything and you know the course he's carrying on and whatnot and they're like he is sick you know let's go and then what happened take me to hospital yeah it was my biggest thing and I was like can you give me the hospital they try to take me the car remember they blew the car up and I was just every time I tried to do something it would kind of there would always be this roadblock and then that was my and then they'd show up with these needles fullest I was like what is that you're like no like you're taking on these drugs and I was just like what the Marcus like at the time he's like you know um he's trying to get kind of get a feel for like hey man did I do this right today is wrong and uh he's like yo man I feel really bad because I'm pretty sure that shit got packed over the mountains you know insulin got packed over the mountains on a mule so probably some people died like getting that to me and and you know like can you tell me is everybody okay and I'm like yeah in STR like nothing significant to report here like I don't forget him I was like this it was like this is important stuff I hope you know you don't need to because I don't want to take it either yeah I was like you know there's somebody needs that more than me no no you're good yeah all right oh my gosh so um they were great taking care of me yeah part of the the whole thing about building rapport was so fascinating and I don't know if this translated it either but the prayer beads the the cap and the gown the manjamis yeah those were all gifts given to you as you built rapport and trust and these were not lightly given to be given the clothing from the village elder is a personification of being him himself given the beads uh is a a whole like it's it's a bone of feed ease being passed you know like uh as Catholics uh Catholics have prayer beads monks uh you know uh hindies whatever they have we have various different instruments from their culture um this is a um a translation and I think that uh and I don't know if this was talked about but your adherence to your faith in captivity was unique among all stories I've ever heard um your rediscovery of your faith and prayers that you learned as a child um while you were isolated further how about that it didn't come out to lay isolated me I've forgotten that I knew him yeah and I mean like you were you were preparing for death yeah because oh yeah yeah that's exactly what that was yeah and you thought okay this is it there put me in the hole that I'm going to beat I'm going to die in and so this was the point of self-reflection where you made you reconciled yeah I wrote it on the wall card in there God will you carved across in the wall and you were like okay here are these childhood I couldn't remember them up until this very moment but these were gifts given to me I've rediscovered in captivity I have freaking teenagers in the adolescence that's how I built that I started with the kids yeah of course and then I worked my way up throughout the day and the adults had come in there and by the time we were laughing and giggling and then they would they would come because you know how they pray yeah yep everybody vervently yeah time to get down to time I was like okay now what and things she told me was in and I assumed this to be true but you said that you were very very clear that you were not going to pray to their gods but you're going to pray to your gods but you were praying with them I was praying with them yeah that was the whole head at St. Chris for a moment that because they would teach the first day I had that rifle leave and over there and the little kid walks up and he's teaching me their prayer one of the opening phrase of it I still I recognize it now all right and then I was like okay so I'd start saying that thought they thought that was funny because I would start saying by prayer when they were just as like kind of a sing along yeah I was doing whatever I could man I was just this is a very delicate subject for for many Americans right so it's important that Americans understand that building rapport in captivity is one of the it's a it's a duty and so if you if you pull the John Wayne Act you're going to get tortured and killed yeah but if you build rapport and you might as well some crap on the floor yeah there's an old city right winning room yeah yeah I think there's just a general show of respect to like if when we went to Japan and we went to we saw the temple in um it right there in Tokyo when we walked up we were very respectful do I believe in all of that no that's not my belief but we respected it we respect the said like no women at some point where I couldn't cross through so I didn't go I mean you're very respectful if I'm walking into a synagogue or wherever it is we're always going to be respectful of other people's faiths um just like if a Baptist comes to a Catholic church they're not going to chew gum and you know whatever in well if you walk in there with your the how you study like whatever your philosophy is and how you practice it like your stuff doesn't stink and you're going in there yeah that's not first of all it doesn't even say to do that um it tells you to do the opposite of that right to respect and love I mean it says in the beginning well uh so if you're going to love your neighbor like you love yourself you're in your neighbor's house man you better think about that so I try to not not to wait into those um arguments oh yeah discussions because I'm just talking about them and they're trying to make a point and but I'll be eating somebody yeah no I just and he got off the subject but I was just it interested me when you said that because yes building rapport in any and every way is super important and what Marcus did what he was able to gain not only trust but almost respect with the village I still have it yeah yeah and that's so no I mean there's some things here I mean maybe we can throw out on the table um that are incredibly unique to this um this event Marcus is a painted man I mean when you come down to like Muslims and tattoos and sex that's big deal right I've almost got my ass thrown out yeah I mean there are so many taboo subjects that we teach you absolutely never ever discuss he did he rewrote single handedly rewrote a lot of our resistance posture um training because we were finding a different kind of enemy that we didn't write manuals for the manuals that we had that he you know would have received training in uh or had his peers receive training in and he you know got biosmosis um those were all written for a formal combatant so a near peer engagement like you would have you know the axis versus the allies you know the North Koreans versus the South Koreans North Vietnamese versus South this was a very different kind of war this counterinsurgency operation um we didn't have a playbook and furthermore hostage is was not something that we had a really strong playbook for and we certainly of that those that were educated with the playbook we had those were very highly specialized individuals um and that was that that was some very secretive type of of training now today every single airman is trained on hostage as a very different set of rules um if you are in peacetime governmental like you you're held by a foreign country and they are not openly declared war against America that's a different um way to act and behave you don't yeah it's sort of like this um if I'm in held in captivity um and I kill the guard right would I go to jail yeah you would you should wait to your government negotiate your release right so this is not wartime and so Marcus had to extrapolate you know with what he had he had to work through it and one of the things that he did um was he didn't pull the John Wayne which is human nature especially for men our age you grow up watching dirty Harry Callahan and you know it's all I watch yeah yeah me too you might have hanged it up like this yeah you know um you've got Charles Bronson out there um Stallone um you know and sports man that's all the male real models right so you know there's this toxic masculinity out there it says hey you know you need to buck up you know and and and be John Wayne you know yeah you know you know and and all of a sudden Marcus finds himself in this thing and he's like yeah um these guys are again I'm gonna make these guys my friends and I'm gonna they were John Wayne's I got put in a room full of freaking John Wayne so there you go so then so then what to what benefit is it that you gonna challenge them in their own village as the alpha male right that's not what you're called to do you're called to survive right I couldn't walk or anything I was been running my mouth yeah then I just been some punk yeah because you want to speak the language to be a punk everyone knows what that looks like the aggression level did you win who's a Rowan Marcus knows he is the alpha male yeah I'm a can be jogging me a punk to me and I run my mouth did you did you ever tell the story of your attempted escape that didn't work it there's so much stuff that I did and then bust me and I'd be like yeah I'm behind a kid kid zone at some time I'm like you know they got would get mad and they would smack me especially when I would know when I'd live and they teach me something and I'd reach out for something and then be like I because they started to like me I mean we got a relationship I mean the first women would show their face to me oh wow at the end that's how I knew yeah because they would start to feed me and then they would check on me and that's a big and I yeah that whole doctor always show to them I think that got me a long way to I was always yes sir oh I'd try to stand up when the elder would come in I knew who he was so I'd always make a big point to try to get up and he saw he would be like you know he'd be like I any kind of do that number they do and then they would laugh at me because I would fall down sometimes and then eventually they saw what I was trying to do but I just kept trying and I would fail all the time I can't believe they kept me they said I mean I even I think I laughed about it's like man you don't need to get rid of my ass dude because I mean I ain't mean nothing but then when that Jay damn came down I was like I'm sorry man I don't I didn't know yeah you wouldn't know I wouldn't know and I didn't know about a lot of that stuff so they would ask me and sometimes I'd snicker they're like hey man the boys whipped our ass yeah they do that I'm like oh I'm sorry yeah you know it's good to be a bull in a china cabinet too so I can't imagine all the things he broke well you know that that's it there's an endearing aspect to that right because you know you're in their house and they're like oh you know dirty American and they're there stereotype and you know just as badly as we tend to do and so Marcus comes in and he dispels a lot of that you know with humility and there's a lot to be said about about being humble because guess what people are more receptive to your language we're finding out that you're you can be more lethal that way too and that's why women make great you know the best too so that's a great point I try and make it what you just said is an absolute fact that's why there's a damn lethal yeah that's a gift a tool whatever you want to call it man yeah there's a lot of you know and there's some lessons learned there that you know have been applied and I think we're seeing a lot more women in these pivotal roles you know of course we've learned a lot of lessons in the Air Force we have some incredible aviators and other women leaders we've had mix alley who the problem is they just want to see them and probably want to know that they're there we we have them there's yeah almost badass operators are women we just keep them top secret I got a chance to work with one who was I think one of the first that went through the OTC at Delta yeah man we got them and my word she's in you know like we talk about wasps early in the conversation that's another trailblazer right there that's exactly what that is yeah I mean just like ours roll like something new comes online and then it gets it gets used and it goes to something that we they do that too yeah so did Searschool change after Marcus yeah so after we got done I wrote after we got in Germany I should probably mention part of the the reintegration I ended up we were we were kind of we were without an airplane so we were all in the bus down by the airfield because there's time to go and I had no no plan my plan my plan was not working so I stopped by we we parked out in the parking lot for the airfield building right and they had a security gate and all that stuff and I went in and there was a whole bunch of people waiting to leave Afghanistan it's like a long line of people always waiting to leave so we're looking for any kind of space whatsoever because their orders are expired this time for them to go you know that and sometimes they wait there for weeks trying to get out so and we've got you know we've got Marcus and two Sears two Sears psychologists myself Marcus and Dell right so I go in there and I'm like hey I'm this guy you know I'm kind of special and I need a favor and they're like piss off and I'm like no I don't think you get it I'm this guy I'm special and I need a favor and they're like no I don't think you get it piss off and I was like okay do you have a room and they're like well what's room going to do I'm going to give you the same answer I'm like hmm let's go into another room I opened up a brief case pulled out a non-disclosure and I said sign that and they're like I'm never I what is this and I'm like just sign it it's a non-disclosure you're not going to be able to tell anybody what you just what I'm telling you right now so they sign it I put it back in the briefcase and I'm like okay I'm special I need an airplane yeah and they're like oh okay uh well I'll let you out on the airfield there's no there's no airplanes but you can go out on the airfield like okay thank you so I got on the airplane are we getting that I get in the little jingle bus we drive out to the airfield and we're parking there and I'm watching the C17 get loaded up and all these people are getting in the belly of the airplane and I look over and there's a guy standing up the wing and I'm like I'll be right back so I jump out I go over to the guy and I'm like hey you the pilot he's like yes I am I'm like hi my name is Jay I'm in the Air Force and I need a favor from another airman and he's like what kind of favor you need and I'm like hmm I had precious cargo then I need to get to Germany which is where you're going and I need you to take myself and the guys in that van over there and get us over there and I can't tell you who we are with the rest of us I can tell you but the guy that I'm asking like I have somebody that I need to transfer and he's like well who is this guy I'm like he's an American and he goes oh yeah no problem so they put Marcus on the flight deck in the in their bunk well this is when it got cool is when we started moving me like this because I didn't have my name ID all that had been erased and then there was a film crew on the bird that's the reason there was a big problem getting me on there HBO right no so so they there was a 60 minutes film crew that had been in country and they had been done they had done filming they're doing an expose and when Marcus's event happened they like did everything to stay in country they're like we've got to get the story and everything and you you weren't aware of it at the time I don't think we told you until after we got there but doc the two docs like we sat in the aircraft intermixed with those what on the wall I remember hearing that but you remember telling me that yeah and I come on yeah I stuck me up in the pilot's cockpit up in the bidding up oh he he came so we we we came in the back there it's that they were looking for Marcus and they're like it could be him it could be him right so we had Marcus come in the crew door while the rest of them were loading up and I was like literally waiting for the exact right timing to go now get him in so he gets up and he goes in there and he gets into you know it's a bunk so there's like the best yeah so he racks out right it was the best they chase me up that's a chocolate chip cookie's man he made I'll never forget that he's here for us come on out it was so good yeah surprise you didn't hit the milkshake machine it was great I remember looking down and at the pilot and he was sleeping sitting up again and because no that's big deal yeah you want your pies to have rest he's like bro yeah he was real cool to me yeah I don't even remember who he was no I don't either he was a he was a he was a captain at the time yeah and uh great dudes yeah and so I'd go up and check on him is he still sleepy I still sleep okay cool and so we wrote in that thing and uh you know workhorse it's so live I mean there's still stuff going on we're trying to still maintain communication fine if they got axe so we're going back I'm contacting you know hey and I'm talking also to the that's right because the mission's still going the mission is still going after I'm rescued in the hospital there's still people on the ground yeah right they're trying to find the recovery goes for weeks yeah the recovery effort is still going on so I'm coordinating with them you're asking you because one of the things that you're asked I mean very first question you asked is where's my brother is he okay right I know forget that right out of calling yeah and then uh you know the next question is where are my teammates right are they okay like did you get them and uh so this is really really tough because like how do you parse that out in a way that's digestible but factual you can't like sugarcoat something to a seal he's just going to spit it out it needs to have like fully salted but it needs to be chewy too like he's got to be a licky chewy there and it just sucks delivering bad news so you know like he didn't get bad news until much later you know and you know the course that I think I might have been the one to deliver it if I'm not mistaken I might have been the one that told you that your your teammates were we're gone and um so uh we were in flight in Germany you know going on a way to Germany first the review said you're still looking for yeah for for X yeah yeah so um you know the you know this sort of like how do you how do you we haven't given up hope but it doesn't look but we're still looking for you know the kind of that um you know and so what I'm communicating with the guys back in Germany uh over the aircraft and uh it gives you know uh I have a sear specialist waiting waiting to to uh to receive us now the whole team that's there in Germany is gone they're off on a boondoggle they're doing free fall jumps in like I think a Holland or in some place like that Belgium and so we got this one guy who was on his way the Tour de France to watch the mountain that was going on I forgot yeah so you got you know and he's like I got my whole I got tickets my whole family's packed in the car like what do you mean I gotta like and they're like I remember hearing that so he gets a tour to France and I didn't hear yeah and he and he was like I talked to him this morning I call him his first time I've talked to him and I don't know maybe 10 years or so and uh and you know he was like wait a minute tell me again what's going on and there's some Lieutenant Colonel in the line he's like yeah you know the this a reintegration thing I don't know it's just I don't know they're guys are calling they're saying something it doesn't sound like a big deal I mean maybe you could still go whatever and he's like yeah there's no such thing as a reintegration coming to launch tool that's not big like uh no I got it thanks appreciate it dummy you know and uh so um before we we left um I had contacted our my community and I told him I was like hey listen I have this thing going on there's this checklist right I'm gonna take like imagine it's a tree of all these people you're gonna contact this is like it was a media frenzy a circus for Jessica Lynch and the 507 there were people the international press was like trying to beat the gates down there are people everywhere trying to take pictures and all that stuff it was like she like showed up on a balcony waving and I get it was it was it was it was crazy I remember that I stayed in her room mm-hmm that doc says like oh yeah in the pediatric ward that's where they hid me right and he's like that's the balcony where she did all that's where I woke up so the guys that actually uh did that reintegration while she was there they wrote a bunch of reports and those reports were just like four eyes only like internally like hey let's we ever do this let's not do this or let's do that I was one of the first people to read that because I was involved in it and so I helped draft a lot of it because I had to ask the questions because having been a part of it you know it's always good to have that third party right to say like hey well when you do this did you do this what was the other thing well I'm like oh that's right and so that's why it's always good to have somebody on the outside so with Marcus coming in um we were sitting out by in the thing and we were getting ready to get on the airplane and that's when I turned around I said Marcus do you know who I am and he goes you're the fucking man I said no Marcus you're the man okay so let's be clear I said I have a question to ask you and I'm not good I want you to think about this do you want to continue to operate or do you want to be a hero I'll never get that hmm and he thinks about it and he goes fuck man I want to operate and I was like okay and that was the fork in the road that we needed and so at that point what I did is I just started lopping off limbs of our checklist and I was like I don't need dip dip dip dip dip dip dip dip we're gonna we're gonna shrink this thing way way down and we're gonna we're gonna hold hold hold and then we're gonna release and the way it worked out is we went through the all the debriefing the tactical debriefing yeah he went through all the medical stuff and everything else and guess what on the other side of it we ended up going to the bx and he could walk and amongst every no one had any idea who he was and we got him clothing we got him good chow you know and he was able to like decompress outside of the hospital and when we had people like you know trying to kind of figure out a way to get in you know like just to peep on him you know and so that was pretty we had security setup on both ends but inevitably there'd always be somebody that was kind of oh you know I'm here to do house nope my signature was so low that when we would move you the press wouldn't look over that way because we'd always have like a distraction yeah we always something going on to recognize autonomously and it's pretty cool it was it was it was great and what what that translated to was a natural decompression where he had his friend by his side and it was like the doors open to the jail and it's no longer a jail it's a hospital and it's I'm here for care and I'm just another patient and like he had an entire wing you know which is all completely locked down and so you you know like and we have guys that are injured that are coming in out of the eater you know significant injuries and so they're in another wing and and it didn't worked out great eventually it worked out so well that we were able to go downtown and we went to a Thai restaurant how long we all in Germany for I want to say was it wasn't it wasn't quite two weeks almost two weeks yeah I think in like maybe 10 days or something like that I had all the dates in there all the you know stuff logged but I I lost it in a crash hard drive crash but it was there at the Thai restaurant that we all got together and we had a beer and this is the glass that I had you had one just like it and I don't know you've probably lost yours by now it's somewhere in the vault somewhere in the vault but this I've kept with me it's gone all of the world with me wow and so I was I gave up drinking a couple years ago but I gave up drinking for you know other reasons not health wise and so I'm ready to have a drink whenever you are but yeah maybe I'll have some sweet tea I'll make you some sweet tea and all righty yeah we'll drink some of that after after we went and had dinner that night we had a couple photos taken and those maybe the only photos that we have ever had together and that might be the only photos that we had with Doc Dickens as well Delipente has him and I I don't know where he is I'd love to have him and I I maybe did my best to brow beat him and say listen if I don't get these I'm gonna find you I'm gonna kill you and I probably didn't follow through on that but he's hard to kill we'll find a no I know it's out there though yeah especially that one when we're at the at the Porsche dealership now I've got the one I got the one at the Porsche dealership that's uh it's that's a whole other story so Marcus uh one of the other things you know I mentioned this about him uh not wanting to quit so there's always another follow-on mission so Marcus in going through all of this it's kind of coming it's he's reconciling with everything and he's like man you know what I I could really do I could really do with some team time I need my boys around me I want to I want to I want to be back in the environment and so we drove him to Stuttgart and I think it was team two that was in town at the time and uh so we went to the we went to the team and I think Doc and I pitched in we bought a bunch of pizzas and uh so you came in and we had pizzas with the team and they had absolutely no idea who Marcus was and and I'll be damned uh neither Doc nor I was gonna tell him either um the idea was to make it as as organic as possible and of course uh did they give him the stink eye yes they did it was a bunch of young whippersnippers in there they were like yeah yeah they looked at him like who are you you know you are you even a seal uh it was it was it was it was crazy uh at least that's how I remember it um and Marcus was amazing uh while he was there they he ended up befriending him uh and and it I don't know if he ever told him um never well while we were there um we we needed some we needed some airfare and we needed somebody to run interference uh because as we understood it this kind of like this roadshow was getting tracked down and there were people there wanting to have some answers and so their commander uh we Doc Dickens and I talked to their commander we impressed upon him rather seriously that he needed to interject himself um and interrupt what was uh transpiring and you know he he dug in and said no and uh I did my best and then Doc Dickens gave him the old uh as best as he could as an oh six you know hey look if there was every time in your life that you were gonna do something right this is now pick up the damn phone and he he decided not to um I don't know uh the inner workings of the Navy but my understanding is is that it's 200 years of tradition unhindered by progress so so what were you trying to get him to do well that's a whole other story and I I probably uh it would be for maybe another time uh but the the idea is to um you know protect Marcus um and in the legacy uh and likely get him home uh and get his family taken care of so in the middle of all to this we haven't really talked about your family being back here your brother um and they told it it's taken on them um that's totally different story too yeah it really is um and so part of the reintegration as I mentioned earlier is like hey reintegrating to the unit which we talked about reintegrating with your family and most people don't know that the Navy um I tried like the Dickens to get a joint agency into see your family and debrief them on exactly what's about to happen but they didn't have it was fourth of July weekend uh and they didn't have a field team so to speak so my understanding is the Navy took care of it themselves they sent some guys to your parents house um and they did their best to debrief debrief them on what was happening as best they could and uh I don't know how much of the information that I was getting that I was transmitting was getting back to them um it wasn't something that I was keeping track of but we generally do um so the idea would be that you know um Marcus had complete uh if I recall there was a period of time when we were like we didn't encourage you to call um because we were getting your story down and recording everything and all that and it was a really trying I got that too I was like Roger that I remember yeah when you recall the story and we we dove into some really finite detail which is well above and beyond what we did in Afghanistan um that can trigger a whole lot of a flood of memories and emotions and I was deeply concerned about this process until doc I had my own issues and so I I'm talking to doc Dickens about it um from a previous deployment and he said he told me about a store kind of a story about our Rucksack and he said Jay what's the first thing you do when you come off a mission like I dumped my Ruck he goes yeah what do you do after that I'm like I reconstitute it and he goes are you doing that and I was like no so this side six stuff like does so so logical you're like oh yeah I'm like I'm like that's why you like some kind of doctor yeah yeah oh man but I mean all the all the psychological baggage that we pack and this this is what I tried to explain I explained to Janine after when we met is that like you we are trained to compartmentalize everything and so every every deployment every adverse adversity we face we compartmentalize and then we move to the next phase the next chapter whatever it's like it's a win it's a loss whatever it's it's tallied right and we just keep moving and doc was like no that's actually good for training bad for longevity so longevity you need to take it and dump it out empty it out completely then put the stuff that you need back in there the stuff that you don't need you need to throw that away right that's worthless wrappers and stuff like that that creates a parasitic drag on you and it becomes exponential over the course of a career right and I think that's where we have a big gap between operators who are who have resilient you know and those that don't because they don't receive that you know where are you going to get that are you going to get that from a you know civilian psychologist likely not you know there's a lot that's been learned and it's been shared within their community but that's I remember Doc talking to me you could tell the book was out the door right oh yeah yeah that's why I was working from a big brother kind of perspective you sure good looking to you know I told you okay okay so let's let's tell the audience let's fill them in right so did you ever see the series the unit on TV okay so the unit is about Delta Force right so there is a guy that's in the series he's an actor and he plays a psychologist he's a black man okay he Doc the real person is more jacked and way more handsome like he's not an actor but no they could no like so where is he now oh he's outside of DC right I think so he's probably yeah we need to find him now yeah yeah he's incredible and he is I don't know how many lives he's calling Doc Dickens yeah yeah yeah he's got that is that guy yeah everybody got this so he has a pee tape on him yeah who got a sign to me has the most unique personalities and background I mean all of them every single one of them hit from him on down man so we go visit the seal team and then we're we're finishing up and you know I'm like hey Marcus is there anything anywhere else you want to go and he's like now man I'm good man he's like you know what what do you guys want to do you guys have done everything for me why don't what do you want to do what do you want to do Jay we're you know and I was like oh no come on please and he's like no no seriously seriously I would be curious what would you want to do and I'm like well I mean since you was asking I have this thing about Porsche's I've you know loaned a whole bunch of them I got a couple in part in the garage I would love to go I mean we're here in stew car let's go to the Porsche factory go to the show in Florian and see what that's like so he's like shit let's do it so we jumped in the van we cruised over there it was right right around the corner and we jumped out and man we went through that place and it was it's like you want to race car museum it's so amazing and I was like in I was on cloud nine I'm here with Marcus and I'm here with my my pet passion or whatever at the time and I snapped a photo of him I I I broke my own protocol in the sense of like you know you don't as you know when you're running an op like this you don't you know do that but I felt like if I didn't capture at least one image I was I was so I captured I think I have two I have and I found one recently but the other one I've got a dig for I have one with you and Doc and the intel guy and Dell didn't come with us for this I think he went I don't know if he went back to Afghanistan okay and Burke came in we're leaving yeah and then so I took that photo and then shortly thereafter we went back and then you eventually made it to you got on an aircraft I was knowing that hole so trying to get home was difficult yeah we got an aircraft for you and let's tell a little a couple little bits left on the story so we're leaving I'm getting I'm putting you in the van you're about to go to the airport to get to the to get on the aircraft and we're walking through the parking lot and I asked you I said Marcus do you know what PJs do when we bury one of our friends and you're like no and I said do you guys have any traditions in the seals and you're like I don't know I don't think so and I told him the story about how PJs put their flash yeah and I reached in my pocket and I pulled out my flash and he looks at me and he's like god damn it he reached in his pocket he pulled out his trident and we exchanged right there and I said Marcus I don't know when and I don't know where but you'll know the time when to put my flash on which coffin because you're going to get an opportunity and teach teach everybody what you know what you've learned and so that was to me one of the there was one other artifact that you gave me and you gave me your dad's frogman pin I still have it and I wore it inside of my beret for the rest of my career it's hanging on my wall at home you can you have it back if you want but you might have to come to come to Arizona to get we went to get we down the autobahn too yes we did yes I do okay yeah man and then getting home because I got stranded in San Antonio but Senator picked me up and threw me on his private plane I had that was in DC or Virginia or Maryland one of the two and then we were from there that's right that's right that's right so I called my name or ID and then who y'all passed me off to didn't here's the cool part and this is why this was the most clandestine operation ever executed is because there was no formal anything before we made a movement we showed up asked for permission or please or we just did it and then then they wrote it up we were ahead of the write-ups which was which made it gave us trouble but that's why we were so fast and yeah so slow as smooth and smooth as fast and that's the whole thing that that's that's exactly how we operated we didn't we didn't bother we learned early on that asking permission wasn't going to work we just show up and go so I employed the very first thing I ever learned from seals right that's big for forgiveness yeah he asked for permission he already matter of fact yes when you show up you're like hey I'm pretty sure that they might forgive me for this so I'm gonna go and do it 100% that that's a real thing for me yeah that's for us yeah that's a real thing yeah yeah you're gonna hate me but I've already made me for a while I'm doing it man please yeah but that was amazing and to hear you know and see there was a couple of times I've seen you you know throughout the years popping up on the radar and and you know giving back you know in different ways and it was really an eye opener for me to hear that you started the never the exos legal fund yes the legal fund so for those that are in the audience I actually ended up going through the legal fund and many many PJs have and controllers too because it's close to herlbert right so we can be based we can go TDY from herlbert to there and the Air Force will let us do that so I feel like and I've met others I met Delta guys I've met other seals we can all go there it's like a joint it's a tackle thing it's it's for those of you who don't know about this thing like it is a worthy we keep it hidden too yeah it's definitely a little we'll keep it hidden but I don't advertise it yeah I wouldn't have known it if I hadn't walked through your garage and seen the check yeah buddy's got it you got to hear about through the boys or the girls yeah one of the two yeah somebody's been in this word amount not talked about a whole lot but ego fund has put so many people back together you saved my life yeah yeah me too it's I mean it because I got sent there just like everything else and then when it works for me I'm like well my boys loved this and then his brother when his brother was in a helicopter and that helicopter cross I was there getting fixed up when my brother got a helicopter crash so I had to go to Virginia to get him and then we went together in 2008 and broke his his pockets he's all buses I can never say that before he's freaking he's all but he should just go for it's a classics yeah he went to ego fund to get fixed up no kidding yeah so you got some back rubs and milkshakes over there best woo man I think I was pretty much told he'll go all my stories well thank you for sharing everything and I as Marcus's wife I love hearing everyone's perspective of what happened on their end from I mean red wing is tragedy it really is it's there's no other way to say it it was incredible tragedy because a lot of incredible things happened from that there are a lot of you know even the relationships that we have with the families like there are bonds that were created after that like they're we were with how about being the hardest thing I ever had to do yeah but but from that tragedy some incredible things have happened and just hearing everybody's stories to me it's just puts the puzzle all together and I love hearing that and thank you for sharing it because it's not easy to that was a traumatic time for everybody involved so thank you you bet you if I could add a couple things one is I forgot to mention about the reintegration process where it was born so the discovery of it was actually the Faulkland Wars so the British Empire at the time this is like in the what the 90s or something like that 80s they didn't have the resources to fly all their people home so they put them in boats and they and they actually ferried them back and they ended up stopping in like Spain or something like that ended up getting back from Argentina and the incidence rate of post-traumatic stress was almost zero for a protracted campaign and what we found was is that those the time to distance the ability for the survivors those that the the combatants to decompress with one another was a direct it was a contributing factor so sure I get that that's interesting if you ever see the movie I don't I don't espouse this but the movie The Hurt Locker there's one scene in it that resonates with me and that's when he comes home and he's standing in the supermarket I told we all been there yeah man the supermarket see whoever wrote that up did a great job yeah that's that's that's an experience exactly what that's like the supermarket scene from that movie is the best yep yeah and then lastly I have a favorite ask well I have a I have a question to ask to you do you happen to know who the patron saint of POW's is no his name is Saint Francis of a cc well I know who he is but I didn't know that he covered down on that do you know why he's the patron saint of POW's no because before he was a saint he was a POW he's the only one that survived really yes I carry him around my wallet Marcus I said my rosary and everything was delivered from Francis so I but I didn't know that so I even study the saints like hardcore yeah I did really study for his confirmation I mean all of them Saint Peter but I you know I yeah but um I Francis was my man and well I tell you why because of the warrior part because he was a badass so he was captured yeah and along with his friends he watched the rest of his friends die in captivity the only reason why he was kept alive and given any food at all was because his family was rich and so when they finally bargained for his release he came home and rejected his parents their wealth and rejected their lifestyle and everything it and obviously he was suffering from post-traumatic stress and he had a best friend that stuck with him and you're probably familiar with the story of him stripping off all of his clothes yeah and renouncing like becoming taking a valve extreme poverty right and uh his first protégé was his best friend his best friend was like hey I'm not even I'm not even part of this church thing but I love you and I'm not gonna ever leave your side and so I'm I'll be I'll I'm gonna do all this with you and that's what started the Francis can order but without St. Clair there'd be no St. Francis right and so I went through the St. Francis of a sissy retreat in Scottsdale it is led by a two-tour Franciscan priest who'd been in Fallujah twice four times marine marine he is a little bitty guy that is hard as woodpecker lips sure yeah and uh he's the only guy that would beat me on a run that I'm aware of when I was an actor I didn't even know who he was he whipped my ass in Okinawa um and I tried to reel him in man but I just couldn't anyways he makes a retreat a pilgrimage to a sissy what do you think about taking Travis and a couple of your friends and we do a little film crew and we make a pilgrimage documentary and we give it back to this to the military or even to the Catholic Church but we know I do something like that bro I got nothing but time now oh do you really turns out ID2 I just quit my job you know that Amazon we're out of a job you know so our chosen profession's gone we're in this part of our life I mean whatever you want to do you know it's kind so that's Marcus for many years after so I got med boarded I couldn't stay in all guys I got I got beat to the hell I almost got yeah that's the only reason why I even got a chance to stay in the military for any time longer was through exos or API but this is exactly what it was designed for yeah and they were literally like I was the oldest guy it was the ACC air combat command test case and they're like why is this guy going he's sold yeah and they're like if we can make this guy you know turn him in a Steve Austin you know six million dollars that's what we're trying to do there right and when those older guys they're not going to go out they're going to go back in yeah and then I came out of there and I was smoking the young kids and I like kicking footballs and shit and they're like what places on how how and the hell did this just happen and they're like okay but I think you're correct the it would likely be next year because they've got one cute up they're leaving here shortly but for many years I struggled with this mental I struggled with something I can only describe as I needed greenery and I can't I can't it was it was like a wound that I could not heal and I couldn't describe it I lacked the words but it was something that now I can tell you was in my soul and I went through intensive therapy and in the course of the therapy it hit me that it likely has something to do with a wound a moral wound somewhere along the line that I picked up and I've suppressed I inherited or something but it almost feels as though like I want to return to the garden you know my original state of grace and I'm absolutely certain I'm telling you this I believe with all my heart that Francis of Assisi that is why he had the bond with nature is he was looking to to heal from his captivity and his the way to do it was through the garden the nature yeah through animals and plants and things like that is what this place is yeah and that's what I've been trying to I've been not we're on the path for as well well thank you so much for coming on and telling your story and it's really incredible here so I've never heard of it yeah this is freaking overview man yeah believe it yeah that was awesome awesome yeah thank you guys for listening in another week and we'll see you next week if you did like this episode please give it a thumbs up