how do the seals reconcile themselves with the fact they face
death on every operation they undertake more so than the conventional forces
is this something that is learned well first of all let me make it
perfectly clear that this is not true what is it well first of all the part
that you face death on every operation there's always a chance
but furthermore and more importantly this idea that
the seals or special operations unit face death more so than conventional
forces not true in fact in many cases
seals are safer than the conventional forces
the conventional forces are out there doing
very difficult operations that are oftentimes more dangerous i mean
even just something as simple as going on a logistics convoy
you are i mean in iraq and afghanistan you're extremely exposed in those
situations you're on the defensive because you're in a convoy you're just
waiting to get blown up and so that situation is you're you're
facing you're much you're much more exposed
in that situation doing a daytime convoy run
down ied roads than you would be if you were doing a night patrol through
the same area there's just that's just the way it is i mean there's other
operations too i mean presence patrols and census operations
there's all kinds of operations that the conventional units
do that are extremely dangerous they also oftentimes have less support
so for instance there's there's a aircraft called an ac-130 that is
just a miraculous piece of equipment just an incredible
weapon system and it's a airplane that flies around at 10 000 feet and
it can see everything because it has these incredible
incredible imagery systems on it so they can see
everything that's happening they can track they can and then they can shoot
and destroy anything they want so a lot of times the special operations
unit will have for instance something like an ac 130
supporting them you know on top of that special
operations they get really good training so you've got this
this outstanding the conventional forces often have
great training as well but sometimes they don't have the best training in the
world then you're in a you're in a seal
platoon or you're in a special operations
you know in a special forces oda you're gonna have some good training
under your belt that you've been going through for many many years so that
training makes you safer as well and you know you're gonna get oftentimes
again you're gonna get better gear in special
operations because they have a big budget for a smaller number of people
the logistical support the the flexibility that you have in special
operations is usually it's usually better and i i
mean like the logistics in the army or the marine corps is awesome
and and it definitely is better than special operations but special
operations is usually is is always supporting a much smaller unit so even
though the logistics people or systems might not be as good they're
overwhelmingly good for the small number of people that are
in special operations so um you know off
i'll just go one step further a lot of times you know in ramadi
the conventional guys they were living out in the city
they were living out in the city of ramadi after we put combat outposts in
place you know we seals would return to base after a
few days out in the field these guys stayed out there so we'd
return back and you know get it get a shower and get
some good food and relax and we had permanent guards that
kind of guarded our base with a really big perimeter so we were in a good spot
to stand down for the most part
whereas the conventional guys they're out there in ramadi they're standing
watch you know oh you know we go back and can take a break
and go on the internet when they take a break they're going into a watchtower
so i just don't i just want to make sure i make it perfectly clear
that you know the the conventionals are by no means doing anything less
risky than the special operations in fact most of the time they're doing
things that are more risky tougher missions higher risk you know
that's just the way it is so that's why you know we have
just the utmost respect and admiration for the conventional units that we work
with in ramadi and and i'll tell you the guys
that's how we feel um so now the question becomes
how do we any service member face death is the question
and again it's any service member anybody that's going to war has to
realize that there's a possibility that they could get killed
and so what do you how do you get over that for me it was
acceptance and saying to myself you know what
okay i could get killed and it could happen tonight it could happen
tomorrow it could happen in a week i don't know when it's gonna happen
but it could happen and you know what i'm not
afraid of it so if i'm afraid of it that's going to be
hard to deal with every single day the other piece of it is
you deal with it by mitigating as much risk as you possibly can okay what can
we do how can i make sure that i'm safe you know how i make sure that
i can stay as safe as possible i train hard i make sure my guys are training
hard i make sure my guys are dying dialed in
i make sure that they know what the plan is when we go out on
the battlefield that's that's what you do you mitigate as much
risk as you can and then there's areas where you can't
mitigate risk yeah there's areas where you could catch
a you could you could find an ied
you could find a bullet you could find a bomb and that's it
and you can't in my mind you can't worry about things
that you can't control so the things that you can't control
accept them and let's focus on mitigating what we
can control and i think that's probably that's what
i that's what i did when i was in those
situations and i would tell you that that's what
most of the guys that i was with had something along those lines
in their in their brains yeah that um acceptance is such a
like powerful thing like if you just accept something like okay
i'm at risk of this or i'm um like this is gonna be a terrible crude
example comparatively speaking compared to what compared to
accepting okay the risk of death let's hear it let's say
you missed is it a long example
let's say you go to work the fans wanted me to say that yeah
yeah yeah all right let's say you go to work you go to work and right when you
walk in one of your co-workers say hey man
uh john your boss is looking for you he's gonna
and you know you did something you messed it up you blew off some meeting i
don't know whatever you messed up with the clan you're like
hey man the boss is looking for you and you're like yeah so you're gonna
avoid the boss at all costs oh that's gonna make for a long day
yeah so let's say you avoid them one day the whole day boom you clocked out
you're out the next day same thing oh shoot he's looking for you even more
even more even more after a while it's gonna weigh on you and once you
just feel like uh going to get chewed out
let me just accept it and then you know you can go through with it
stress is gone yeah really yeah um um analogy accepted
yeah or like for example just kidding well if like a bully is looking for you
yeah let's go get him yeah like you know well i don't know if
you've ever been bullied in school but um like if someone's looking for you
they're mad at you or whatever and you know they're looking for you the
bully and you're like man you're avoiding them you're avoiding
them after a while you just all right i accept it
you know something's gonna have to go down i'm gonna have to experience
this confrontation yeah and really the acceptance point would be to say you
know what what's the worst thing that could happen
the worst thing could happen he beats me up i get a bloody nose i don't care
anymore right i'm going to go get it yeah
because what you're talking about really is
facing the problem which i also support you know what you got a problem whether
it's meeting with your boss or you're going to
get bullied i'm going to face that problem so that's one
piece but one thing that will help you to face the problem
is saying okay what's the worst thing that happens you know what i go into my
boss he might fire me okay if he fires me i'm
gonna have to go get a new job but that's the worst thing that's gonna
happen right what's the worst thing that
happens if i get in a fight with a bully worst thing that happens i'm gonna get a
bloody nose and we get beat up yeah but you know
what i can handle that so i'm gonna go face this issue and it's
the same thing in combat what's the worst thing that happens
worst thing that happens i'm gonna get killed okay
that happens it's over i'm good with it let's go out and face it and you know
honestly i i said it's the worst thing but honestly the the thing that guys are
usually most afraid of is having their friends get hurt yeah or their guys get
hurt that's that's the worst thing so hopefully and
then even how you said that the training helps and that seems
obvious you know but i think even that is is
that's like kind of an understated i think under
appreciated thing because you know like remember
when ufc came out and i i remember looking at being a pro
these guys are nuts to go in there to do that but once you learn
even just some jiu-jitsu just some jiu-jitsu
that what you see like them fighting in the ufc and stuff like that's
i could do that yeah you all yeah and actually that's one of the reasons why i
started i started jiu-jitsu i didn't start
jiu-jitsu so i want to be a fighter so i trained in mma first
and before training that i would have thought you're
completely insane to do that like you got to be like kind of crazy person
but once you have the training you see oh okay you know what kind of just yeah
you get the lights you see like okay i see all
this stuff you have just a just a vast
understanding rather than all you see is knuckles and blood and arms breaking and
stuff