SEAL Team 6 Leaves a Man Behind | Rob Harrison | Ep. 354

And had always had the military and mind specifically the Air Force, based on some family lineage folks that had also served, and I ended up deciding I came up with this awesome plan. I was like, all right, well, I'm going to party my first semester, and I know that I need to have a three point oh, So I'll squeak by the first semester and then I'll pull a four point zero on the second one after I get it all out of my system and everything will

be good. But there was this fine print in my in my scholarship, and I needed to maintain a three point oh for each portion of the academic year. And so I got the regret to inform you, mister Harrison, but we're going to have to pull your academic scholarship. So I had to tuck my tail between my legs, go back home to Mom and dad, fess up to them what had happened. And my dad said, well, what

are you going to do about it? So I decided not to put that burden on anybody else and said, well, I think I'm going to go talk to the Air Force recruiter. And he said, I think that's a good idea.

What do you mean, uh, you know, study foreign language? He said, well, you you know you qualify for this test. You've you've done it, you passed it. You could go do that. And I was like, I don't think so, so I went in open electronics and uh, in week five back then in Air Force basic training, they gave you your job assignments, and I grew up, you know, having family connections to the Air Force that had served in

earlier generations. I knew enough about that, and thanks to the Discovery Channel's Wings you know episodes way back when, I knew enough about the Air Force to know that to be a missile maintenance guy in the bottom of a silo was not a garden spot, right, And so I raised my hand in the middle of week five of basic training and said, somebody said that I could

be a linguist. And I passed for this test and so forth, and the guy stopped and he said, anybody else take that test, And somebody caught on to what was going on and they raised their hand. A side door opened up, an in service recruiter came and rescued this for a few hours out of basic training. We went down a side hallway into a private room, sign new contracts, got a coke and a smile, and became, you know, contracted to become an airborne photological linguist.

just shia two years in the initial accession pipeline. I made it to my first duty station at off At Air Force Base outside of Omaha, Nebraska, in a little town called Bellevue.

if you will. So back and forth to the sandbox.

personality sticks out. His name is James Patterson O'Brien and uh, and if you could imagine, he's from Boston, and uh, he's got family members that were cops and firemen and probably one that was a priest. But Obe, as they called him, he was an intimidating fellow because he had this cool specter patch and he was wearing all of the subdued patches and my aircrew patches all look like a bright shining rainbow compared to his, and he's he looks at me and gives me this stern, you know,

evil look. He's like what are you a fucking dizzo? And I had to look at my supervisor at the time. I'm like, what is he talking about? Is I don't speak that. He's like, well, you had asked, you know, could you ever go down and and do our do our job in Florida? And he's like, that's what he's talking about. Oh so I was a wee can fly on gunships. And so at that point it dawned on me on my very first deployment that I was not in the airframe that I was most suited for. You know,

the the rivid joint was was cool. I like to say, it can spy on the devil and talk to God. There's enough Wisban gadgetry on this aircraft to handle all of today's work. And you have a twelve way adjustable captain's chair, you know, like all kinds of comfort on

this aircraft. So anyway, I find out on that very first deployment that I can go work with Air Force Special Operations and from you know, that planet a seed, and so I had to figure out like, okay, how do you chart that path, what do you have to do, what do you how do you qualify to get considered to go and do that sort of work. So fast forward, that's what I did, And by two thousand I had done a number of deployments around the world and and

I went down to do assess assessment for what we called Commando Look, And that was so that I could become an intel professional, support and Air Force special operations on their various airframes, whether it was AC one thirty gunships, MC one thirty talents, they had fifty three payblows and then ultimately they ended up Osprey's and so on. I got a chance to do and fly all of those.

upon you for tasking and that sort of thing. Right, so you you you basically trioge based on prioritization, you know, so preservation of the platform itself comes first and foremost, and then then going after whatever national requirements might be tasked to you.

when the Heinen Island incident happened. And and I had several mentors that were part of the repatriation process and and so forth. But yeah, that that was an interesting story. Uh, maybe one for another episode. Yeah, there's a there's a lot of opinions out there on yeah, and whether or not landing at Heinen Island is the right call under the circumstances.

and then you know you're executing your mission. Uh, you know, depending on the ao R. I've done everything from off the off the coast of the Chatka Peninsula to you know, in the in the Pacific theater, whether it be you know, North Korea, China, across the Middle East. Most of my deployments and the rest of my formative years were on the APSOX side, So majority of my time was spent deploy into Iraq, Afghanistan, Horn of Africa, that sort of thing.

for Rob. He's like and then I just started laughing, you know, and I was like, well, what was so funny? I was like, because the psych doc said the same thing when I assessed. So I just laughed at all of them, said you just let another one of me, and they give the chief.

at Herlbert. And what's it like for you when you first show up there?

Air Force special operations platforms and so on. I had several guys, one of my mentors, a buddy named Ted Gambogi, another guy named Shane Kimmitt. You know, we lost Shane in O two and an aircraft accident in Roosevelt Roads. But those guys kind of helped steer me, you know, down the successful path of how to navigate from the traditional strategic IR platform down to the soft side and you know, how to operate in the weeds and uh and do you know how do you fit in within

that crew? And and it really you know, boiled down to airmanship and and learning learning your airframe, learning your craft, and being able to mix and mingle with whether it be a special operations airlift mission or strike or cast platform or rescue, you know, with the rotary lift, you

name it. So they helped me navigate it. Jack was one of my primary instructors and uh and I leaned on him heavily because in the late nineties, Jack and another guy named John Scott had been in some key missions over in Bosnia and Serbia, and Jack specifically he was he was the dizzo on the Paveloat mission that flew in to rest to you at the time, that

was Lieutenant Colonel Goldfiend. He was a squadron commander. I think of the triple Nickel, the five fifty fifth out of Aviano, if I have all that historically out theurate and when Goldfiend grew went on to become the chiefest staff of the Air Force. That night he described it as he said, it was his least proud moment when he successfully intercepted an SA three missile, meaning he got

shot down. So anyway, Jack and the crew get the payblows, get tasked to go and recover those guys recover him. And if you can imagine like where his AT six team gets shot down, like it's in a heavily defended air defense serfs to air missile type environment. So Jack as an intel capability on the pablows. It helps them navigate through low level terrain masking, threat avoidance, threat warning,

that sort of thing. These guys literally fly the gauntlet in order to go and pick up Goldfen and Goldfien you know, lives and becomes to the capabilities of Air Force Special Operations and specifically the ones we call the steel Horse the payblows.

tasking flowing and that sort of thing. So our unit immediately starts spinning people up on additional airframes so that you can maximize you know, support and you know, expand capability and so on. They build out the deployment team. And there's a handful of people that know this story. But Rick, Cops, if you're listening, I apologize for what

I'm about to say. Sorry, not sorry. They were building out the initial deployment team and I wasn't on the list, and I was recently, you know, like I was the guy who had just assessed into the unit, but I was the one who had most recent you know experience in our intel mission in that AOO and so our guys were looking at the seasoned folks and Rick Cox's name was on the list as one of our folks

and he was out in the Pacific Theater. And as they're going around the room with the initial deployment plan, fella name, he become Colonel sip the Captain Sippowitz, big tall, athletic dude, grizzled jaw. You know, he just sitting there stone stone cold, you know, killer planning, you know, the the deployment operation for for our mission set. And he does the around the room and I'm like, yep, new guy here. I got a question and I made my pitch.

I was like, I'm the most recent I'm newly qualified on this, but I've got recent experience in this ar. I've been busting my ass and my name's not on that list that I want. I want that changed. And he stops and he listens, goes around the rooms. A whole bunch of people said thumbs up. He's like, all right, Cox is out, Harrison, you're in and Uh, and that story has come back, especially after I had made a chief.

He's like, I remember the day when you and Uh, and it was, you know, just a moment where open mouths get fed you you you speak up. And in this case, I had had reason too. And man if I hadn't done that, I wouldn't have made the initial deployment, and things hadn't wouldn't have unfolded the way they did in my crew. And well, anyway, sorry, not something.

you want to keep away from kids. Opens up like so, and the way it locks is very interesting, and you can change the combination by the way, so you have these actuators on the side, and in this case for demonstration purposes, the code is to hold down the index finger and pointer finger and then come over and there's a thumb.

in front as much as he possibly could. I had the fortune of being on the very first AC one thirty that crossed into Afghanistan airspace after nine to eleven, and then that led to that initial mission at Gecko and Rhino, which was the airfield seizure that the Rangers had taken over what became Rhino at Camp Rhino, I think is what the Marines called it. They once they took over from the Rangers and to all the Marines,

the Rangers were there first. Then Gecko was Mulla Omar's palace, and that night that was a huge joint Special operations mission, tons of rotary wing aircraft, fixed wing. I remember charging at the border and we had we had three gunships and three talents his sixty one thirties line of breast trying to hit tankers as we're pressing in, and the tanker crews were hilarious because they're like, no, this tale nuver is supposed to be behind this tanker and we're like, dude,

we don't give a shit, just give us gas. And so they gave us gas and we pressed on because they were about to screw up time zone target. So anyway we push in the airborn mission commander is Pete Blaber. He's on board the aircraft that I'm on, and yeah it was wild.

the F thirty five. Like you know, nothing will ever you know, purposely specifically be able to replace what the A ten Warthog could do, just like nothing would ever be able to specifically replace what an ac Win thirty can do. I could there be something, Yeah, but I'm I'm your typical you know. Uh, I'm a I'm a soft guy at heart, you know. So what do we do? We think outside the box? I could come up with a number of Barnapkin ideas on how we could do that,

but I don't know. I think there are certain platforms that always be near and dear and sentimental. So I would I'd vote to keep it around as long as you can, because I mean, look at look at what's going on in Iran and Israel right now. If if Israel is able to you know, establish you know, air superiority, well now you have the ability to penetrate with those platforms that weren't initially designed to penetrate.

and two. So just chronologically, you've gone through you know, Pobbo has fallen, Kandahar has fallen, the North has fallen, the al Qaeda fighters and Taliban had moved to Tora Bora, and we've gone through the winter time where they've kind of retreated into their high ground if you will, basically pages out of the playbook that they had used against the Russians in the eighties. Ironically, that was required reading

for us as we were going in. I remember books, you know, showing up by the case for the bear went over the mountain and the other side of the mountain. So it was eighties, uh, you know, war story perspectives, one from you know, Russian commanders and others from commanders of the muja haden, So we obviously cared what the other side of the mountain looked like, and what was unfolding in Operation at Anaconda was exactly what we anticipated based on how they had behaved against the Russians in

the eighties. So the mission brief is that this is the spring offensive. It's brief as hammer and Anvil. You're gonna have special operations, uh overwatch, calling in fire support. You're gonna have uh soft working with indigenous pushing up against the anvil that is a conventional force. And it's all gonna happen right there in the Shaykope Valley for anybody that follows the you know, Afghan you know, uh critical battles and stuff. The the nearest town that would

be significant is that of Marzak. You know, the there's uh, there's areas like the the safe houses up in Gardez, you know, the some of the forces had come out of barroom down to this area. But anyway, Operation Anaconda

is going to be the kickoff of all of that. Ironically, the very first night of Anaconda gets delayed with weather and so forth, and then once we start to move you know, American forces into position, it becomes immediately obvious that the enemy is already there and they already have a foothold in the high ground. We essentially don't have

enough dedicated close air support on station. During the very first night of operation Anaconda, which causes a shuffle of the scheduling plan for the next night, and then we just basically saturated. So we've got three gunships coming out of the north, out of Uzbekistan, We've got three gunships

coming out of Mesira. Six birds on station staggered over the period of darkness to make sure that there's plenty of cast to go around, and not to mention, you know, the platforms that were well beyond you know, just the AC one thirties, you had other fixed wing capabilities in the area as well. For our specific mission, when Robert's Ridge is unfolding, we are the emergency on call cast platform.

We don't have a dedicated customer that night. Our goal is to basically take off, fly right through Afghanistan airspace, immediately hit a tanker in Pakistan, top off our tanks, and then just stand by for any emergency that may pop up. While that happens. One of our sister ships a nail a nail flight, I think it was Nail to zero. They were originally tasked for the Maco infill via the Razor elements, so Razor was the image forty seven. Some of your listeners the audience may be familiar with

Alan Mack. He's the chief worn officer that was pilot and Razors zero three. He's the guy who's taking in the seal team that is Maco three zero and their combat controller is MAKEO three zero Charlie John Chapman. We are on tanker while NAIL is supposed to be covering that infill. Well, there's a series of delays, some of its maintenance related, and then meanwhile Coust Airfield comes under attack.

So since the infield that that NAIL is supposed to cover is delayed, Airborne Command and Control decides to re roll the NAIL element to cover the troops in contact situation that erupts at Coust. And when this is going on, we're literally flying right by that airspace and we even come up on the radio going, hey, they've got a dedicated mission. You're sure you don't want us to cover that troops in contact since we're the emergency on call platform.

They're like, nope, nope, Nail's got it. The other guys are delayed, You guys proceed a tanker and don't mess up the tanker flow. So we set to the ar track for air refueling. We we we're topping off our tanks when all of a sudden you hear may day, may a made a any grim any nail. This is Maco three zero, Charlie. And when you hear that, you know, everybody's you know, quiet as you know. You can hear a pin drop on the aircraft, believe it or not.

We're we're in the middle, like the one point thirty gets heavy behind a tanker and we have to execute what they call it toboggan. So you're descending with the tanker in order to maintain air speed and stay connected, all while this Mayday call is going on. So pilot's talking to the engineer. I'm getting a location of a down to aircraft over some special equipment that I have

on board. They they execute an emergency breakaway from the tanker, and I passed the coordinates of the of the down to aircraft and the source of where you know, John Chapman's on the radio, and we just make a b line to their to their location sensors to those specific coordinates, and we just fly straight there and establish an orbit over what is now downed Razor zero three in the valley just north of their original infilid position that was at toccer Gar at the mountain top.

And so we hadn't even established a full orbit, but we just slide immediately slew the sensor to the mountaintop. That's where we see an active IR strobe and an individual laid out on the mountaintop. We've got a sister ship, another grim element that picks up an orbit around the helicopter and then we just slid our orbit over to the mountain. So there's there's two specter gunships in neighboring orbits covering the helicopter's crash site and the original infill location.

So we're eyes on the infill location and we are Grim three to two.

happened in that immediate aftermath. I was not specifically there, but I've spoken to one of my mentors was the intel guy that was that was supporting those airframes out of Uzbekistan, and he literally debriefed those crews. And so the story is that that Fifi fell out of that helicopter, he got jostled loose as they had positioned getting ready

for the info. So the team is up and they're they're positioning towards the ramp and then once they're coming in, the enemy activity is seen by the crew of the helicopter and they start taking enemy fire. They wave off of the infill and that's when Roberts gets knocked loose, and the the forty seven gunner that was there, it would have been a crew chief in the back. He's the tail gunner, if you will, That's what we would

have called him in the Air Force. But he said that that when Fifi fell, it was happening in slow motion and all I could see was him smiling back up at him. And so there's there's different accounts on how exactly that fall happens. And I'll save part of that story for Frank Daily since he was the one

who debriefed those guys. But anyway, the gunner, the crew chief had fallen, Fifi's involved in helping recover that guy, and then Fifi falls after all of that, and the story is that that Fifi survived that fall, and Fifi's seen engage in the enemy, but that footage was out there and then that footage got scrapped like it got. I don't know, I don't know what the circumstances are, but I remember I remember seeing Fifi fight against the enemy out there. And this is all before, like before

our gunship. When I say I saw it, it was after the fact. I had seen video of this, but I haven't seen it since. And so our perspective when all this unfolds, that helicopter is now limped off north of the valley. Interesting stories from Alan mack on on how that happens. Amazing airmanship involved all the way around

on that crew. Well, by the time we see what's going on, we've put eyes on based on Chappe's direction, Petty Officer Roberts is laid out with an active IR strobe and we see him just laid out stationary on top of the mountain. Upon further inspection, our sensors can see what turns out to be footpads, and it looks it looks like if you were to do an exploit, like a spliced view of an ant hill, it's like

you could see the little foot footpads. And the difference is because the heat of the of the melted snow where they've been walking back and forth versus the cold of the snow top, you know, mountain, and so you've got the hot spot of Robert's body, you've got dark, dark, what I call rat lines for the foot pads, and then all of a sudden, the enemy just come out of the woodwork and they just surround him. So at that point the strob is extinguished. We don't know the

fate of Roberts. We have to assume that we have that we're dealing with the potential survivor. Next thing, you know, Roberts is positioned up against the area that they called

the boulder, and so that's the big rock outcrop. So if you're if you're looking up slope where where the teams would have infilled to the top of that mountain and been fighting uphill towards bunk what was known as Bunker one and Bunker two, the rock out crop, the boulder, is that that big rock structure that's up there kind of center mass.

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ships so that they have self recovery capability. But they had two distinct teams and two separate infill locations that they were working. But zero four is not going to come home until they've you know, gotten words on zero three. So he's orbiting in what we would describe as a black hole, you know, away from populated areas, but he's terrain massed from a line of sight on the on the radios with his teammate ers zero three, who's now crashed.

So zero four's talking to us, We're talking to zero three and we're giving them an update and Chappie as three zero Charlie is is coordinating you know, the pickup. And there's an interesting storyline there because you can look at some of the videos and Slab says that he ended up having a mission change and now his mission became to rest that air crew and as a teammates, as a soft team on a helicopter that crashes. Unless you literally gather those guys and you expill on the

ground away from that, you're not rescuing anybody. You're being rescued unless you're the combat controller who is trained to coordinate rescue assets coming in and doing that sort of thing. So Chappie is three zero, Charlie is the one who actually coordinates via Grim three two two Razor zero four to come in and pick them up, and then they reconstitute at the safehouse, figure out their plan of attack, and then they come back to the top of the

mountain to recover Roberts. So there's videos out there. It's part of the growing false narrative that the Navy pushed with Gritzlovinski and one of those elements of what I would consider stolen Valor. You know, John's the one who affected the rescue of that crew, but the people that did the rescuing were Raizor zero four. So anyway, so at splitting heres, but I think it detracts from the credibility of Slab and the rest of the drama that goes on with all of this.

armchair quarterback it. I would tell you that the fracture side event that happened the night before, while it was in the mind of the crew, this crew was seasoned, professional enough to put that piece aside and deal with the situation at hand. And the fratricite event from the night before did not, you know, actually impact. Like the

reason why we didn't shoot. We didn't shoot free assault fires because we didn't know for sure the status of Roberts and he was literally danger close and by a definition, there was nobody there that could give us the authority to fire our munitions right there danger close proximity when when he wasn't in comms given us the authorization because he was the one in harm's way.

There were ideas of laying down fire on the far side of the ridge and walking them up towards the fighter positions and then keeping our fire on the other side of the boulder that them would have shielded Petty

Officer Roberts. So there were a number of tactical you know, considerations that were that were given that ultimately, like they wanted pre assault fires, we didn't give them as a result of, you know, not knowing the fate of robertson again danger close sure, and then we were identifying the spot that we wanted them to infill to and the idea was that they would come in, get on the ground, established two way coms with us, and then they would

talk us onto targets and then we would establish their position on the mountain. Well, I think the tactical debate and and this is you know, to put words in the in the mouth of the team leader, you know, And and maybe it's not even that I've seen interviews and heard his his take on it, but they didn't want to fight uphill. Uh. There was a sense of urgency.

They had a teammate that was down. They wanted to get right back to the X, and so the normal consideration of either doing an offset or landing where we had marked for them didn't make tactical sense to them, and so they chose to blow right through our spot and then infield literally right back on the X. Caught us by surprise because we were literally lazing where we wanted them to go right and then they blew right

through it. And I remember, you know, us talking about it because you know, somebody's like, hey, keep eyes on on this, keep marking the LZ, and we're like, they're already back on the on the X. They already hit the ground, and some of the crew that didn't have eyes on the sensors that was them catching up on the reality of what was going on. So it happened pretty quick.

everything else. And so Chapman's on point going up the slope as the rest of the team gets gets together to include Slab and they form a little circle some folks WO call it a wagon wheel, and Chappy's slightly upslope from them, so he's he's between their formation and Bunker one, closest to the most formidable threat, which is Bunker one at this moment, right, and then they start taking fire from three different directions and all hell breaks.

and this is access to people who had done the analysis, other seals that had analyzed it, others Air Force Special Tactics, folks that had looked at it what you had with you had two different thoughts and trains of thought, the move to contact and then those that didn't. And there there was a difference in training of tactics that was

going on within that community. According to Eric Demming, he had explained it to me as the close quarters defense guys that school of thought moved to contact and then whatever this other variation of training tactics was, they didn't do it the same way. And so John goes towards the gun and is attack the attacker. You've got to go through the ambush, as it was explained to me, He's doing that, and a wedge never forms behind him. Instead,

they're breaking off into two man fire teams. So the only person that actually follows behind Chappie is Slab himself. Because two guys are covering down slope. Two guys are going towards what if we just consider their infill point and look up the mountain, I'll just say left and right. Two guys go over to the left of the boulder, and then that would put Chapman on point. Slab a good distance behind him going towards Bunker one, and Chappy is the one, who is you know, laying hate to

Bunker one, eliminates Bunker one. Eventually Slab catches up to him, but it's after Chappi's eliminated that threat, he's gone through a magazine or two. He he literally goes inside that bunker and you know, eliminates him at point blank range. And then after all of that, after he's gone in and come out on the other side, that's when Slab finally closes that distance and he fires some confirmatory shots

into the bunker. And then Slab and Chappier both than engaging what we call Bunker two that's higher above that, and it's actually a bigger threat. It was just it

was masked by the tree and the rock there. So Chappy's on the far right, and then Slab is approaching Bunker two between the boulder and the tree that is right there at Bunker one, so he's got some cover and concealment, but they are both in the fray and they're both trying to direct fires at Bunker two, and that's when Chappie sustains a mortal wound, gets taken out of the fight incapacitated, and ultimately Slab believes he's killed, and then he ends up breaking contact from the bunker

two engagement, coming up with a different plan. You can see that unfold on the video. There's a gunner that climbs up on top of the rock. Enemy frags the top of the grenade, the top of that rock with the grenade. The gunner falls down, and then shortly thereafter slabs assessing the situation, and the team makes a collective decision to tactically retreat. They throw some smoke grenades to

cover their movement, and they break contact. And all of this is unfolding before our eyes, and we do not have two way radio contact with the team at.

zero is together except for petty Officer Roberts. The radio call comes across and it is it's now slab on the radio and it is, hey, Grim, this is Maco three zero. We are no longer on top of the mountain. Got troops down possible, KA need fire on tops now. And it's a it's an unconventional nine line, is what he's telling us. Right, we know where they are. We've

got a strobe on their main element. As you can imagine, you get on top of an objective, if everybody has their strobe emitting, then it presents confusion for sensors that are out there. So there'll be like one main guy that keeps a strobe on for the team. And then everybody else has the other marketing, you know, capabilities, and

we can see who's who. I will see that we momentarily lost eyes on what would have been Chappy when he sustains that that initial mortal wound and is incapacitated because when they break contact, Chappie's kind of under the cover of the branches of that tree next to Bunker one, and we think that that whole team is together, and when he says possible Kia, we assume that he's talking about Petty Officer Roberts, right, because they were literally right

next to Roberts up against that boulder, and so like we're literally seeing them right next to each other. So you know, the only thing that seems to make sense is that. But again you assume, right, So we didn't. You know, ttpees have sinse evolved and we're way more deliberate about, you know, number of personnel that go on an objective and calling out all of those those key elements of information so that you keep tabs on all the right stuff. But at that moment, no, we didn't know.

And he calls for fire and we immediately start trying to put down rounds well onside on board the gunship, we're trying to shoot with the forty millimeter bofors and

on the specter we call that gun five. There's a gun malfunction with gun five. The gunners have to take that down, so we switch over primary weapon to gun six, the one oh five howitzer. The we had proximity rounds loaded in the one oh five, so the gunners have to do a round change because that proximity round the

way that thing's gonna work, it's gonna spin up. And when it the way the fuse works on that thing, after it gets so many feet above the ground, it's gonna air burst and it's gonna shrapnel.

the one oh five. The infrared sensors primary on that gun. The TV sensor. He can see all light level TV. So think of this like an MVG capability. He can see the ambient light that's magnified sixty somewhat thousand times that of what it actually is. So he's looking for light sources. And a gunship's tactics will end up being where, you know, if one sensor's firing, another sensor will always be primary on the friendlies, so that sensor is the

TV Chris. Chris is primary on the friendlies, So he's scanning back and forth where the IR is engaging and where the friendlies have egress too, and that way we can keep tabs on what's going on, and then he

can also look for light emissions around where we're actually engaging. Well, it's in that moment of those initial rounds that we put down that are all one oh five on those known fighting positions up around the higher terrain elevation that Chris says, Hey, FOCO, that's the fire control officer that's in charge of the sensors that are actually doing the shooting. He's like, hey, Folco, I've got another strobe up here.

He's like, but this one doesn't look like the others I've got like the main element of friendlies are here, and I got this other strobe here. And so as a crew they start to deconflict like what they're actually seeing, what we're seeing doesn't match what we just heard from

slab is Maco three zero. And then before you ever get a chance to really communicate that particular fog and friction, the enemy starts lobbing mortars in on top of the LZ and they're walking them close to where the make up element is, so you're onto the next closest alligator to the boat. So we saw that strobe come active, and I've seen it. I saw it in real time. I saw it better, you know, in the aftermath of all the analysis. Well you see Chappie literally crawl back

into Bunker one at that point. And so what makes sense to me is that his strobe looks different either a because he was using a different, different strobe, like maybe a backup strobe. We had little little ir Firefly as we called him, that stuck on the end of nine volt batteries. If it wasn't that, if if he was used in the same exact strobe, then perhaps it was the the disbursement of light based on the tree canopy or the any covering that would have been over

the bunker area. So anyway, there was a distinct, you know, light emission difference when you're looking at those from the from the footage, and then we're literally going after, you know, the mortar situation and trying to cover the team's movement and they're moving further from down the mountain at this point. And we'd never come back to the idea of there being one of their original team that went back after

Roberts being left up there. We never knew that they left a teammate behind, but we did see that stroke come active, and that was the the aha moment. But you're now covering the movement of the team, you're onto something else. You don't have radio coms with anybody else up there, and the sun's coming up and Command and Control is ordering us off station, you name it. It's like Murphy had a party up there that night.

There wasn't believed to be certain serfs to air missile threats in the AOH in that area of operations at the time, and the gunship stayed in daylight to help out some marines that needed close air support lo and behold shoulder launched serfs to airmen, you know, missile manpad Man portable air defense system gets launched up at them and it takes out Spirit zero three and kills the crew.

So that is, you know, it's one of those things like when you go through gunship training, when you go through any of our formal training, it's they have a Spirit zero three award in the formal schoolhouse, you know, for that top student and that sort of thing. So like you know this story. If you fly gunships, so everybody knows, don't fly during day daylight at this point time. So anyway, they're they're literally ordering this off station. Sun's

coming up. It is, you know, past that moment of what we call beginning morning nautical twilight, so it's when you can first start to distinct, you know, daylight from from darkness. Type of deal we had. We had shut off a couple of UH commandic control radios because we didn't like what we were hearing from them, and they were kind of muddy, muddying up the airwaves from our perspective, so you know, we didn't like being told to go home.

So from a from a cruise standpoint, we had all checked in nose to tail on call at the direction of the pilot, like, hey, we know what's going on here, Uh stay or go? Everybody check in and and it was unanimous from UH from nose to tail that we wanted to stay and not leave those guys behind. Mhm.

twister five to one and five to two. Gave them the lowdown, gave them that last known position of Roberts in that bunker where we had seen the strobe, gave them the last known position of the main Maco element, told them what was going on, told you know, hey,

it's hot, don't go back up there. And then in that fog and friction, none of that information makes it to the QRF, the Quick Reaction Force helicopters that are raisor zero one and zero two, with the Ranger elements that are coming in to help build those guys out. They do a seventeen plus hour stand. At this point We've recovered up in Uzbekistan, so I'm not there for the rest of that battle, but it was a significant one and the Rangers saved the day.

And then the competing theory was that it was red on red as an enemy fighting enemy in broad daylight in close quarters, shooting each other in the face, right, that one that one does not hold water. Yeah, and that that continues to be part of the counter narrative that the Navy pushed the whole time so that they didn't have to face the music. That Chapman survived. He was unfortunately left now at the time, in real time,

like they didn't know. I believe that they they assumed that he was taken out.

strobe in the midst of all that. Like, there's so many things that could be hot washed and debriefed and everybody could learn and be better and be stronger the next day for it, if people would have the integrity to just own your mistake and accept it and make yourself and your organization, your unit bigger, better, faster, stronger tomorrow.

mistakes happen all the time. It's horrible. We try to mitigate it, but they happen, and the civilians won't. The civilians often won't get that, they don't understand how those things happen. And also if there's there's you know, punitive

stuff going on. But I thought what was really interesting with this is you told us something that we had never heard before, that that this looks like or I don't want to say it, well to me, I'll say, to me, it looks like it was a cover up from the very beginning, because you said that that Deak group actually sent people up to confiscate the video.

authority they cited. But yeah, at that point we fell subordinate to what would have been Task Force Dagger, and then you know, there's a there's a handful of elements. I don't want to mistate anything, but I went I was part of everything from TIF Sword to DAG to support in k Bar and somewhere in there t F eleven showed up. So there's a there's a whole you know, change of like who's running what show.

of the significance of what had happened. So that stuff had transited via email over a server that was deployed with this we called it the Terror Server. Well, in

the end they confiscated the cd ROMs. What they didn't realize is that the packets of information that transited over that Terror server still resided on the Terra server itself. They just happened to be partitioned into two thousand little chunks. So in the end, during the Air Force research they pieced all of that together complainte with all the correct timestamps.

I know the individual that did it, Jackie, did a hell of a job on that one, between her and Frank Daily, the analysts that was there at the time and started out as the initial analyst to do the research for John Chapman's Medal of Honor. What would have been the it was like a higher valor review board or something valor decoration board or something that was commissioned by the Air Force Special Operations Command based on guidance from the Secretary of the Air Force.

I don't know what he's doing with the tapes at that point, but they have to get immediately triaged, right, So they had to transmit stuff. They got that piece done before the men in black showed up and confiscated

what was believed to be the only copy. So when when that colonel showed up and said give me the tapes, we had deplaned and there were a couple of us from the tach crew who had met up underneath the left wing, and that's where we're having that initial conversation of Chris is like from the TV center, He's like, there was somebody still up there when we left. He's like, we left somebody alive fighting on top of that mountain. He was still up there, So that thought is in

our mind. But at the same time, we just landed, were imdiately going into crew rest, and you're going to fly the next day to cover the next group of guys that need your help. So the debrief is somewhat hasty. It's done. They've got the tapes, they'll triage it. We give them what we can from an intelligence standpoint, and then we're onto the next mission. So this thing essentially like when they show up and they say give me the tapes, like that thing is put to rest. It's

put to bed until you know. Service secretaries say, hey, what about how come you know? The question was what does it take to win the Medal of Honor? I think is the quote from the article from the Secretary of the Air Force at the time. Because there is a ton of significant valor stories, especially out of the Air Force Special Tactics community, I could think of a handful that should be on a list for consideration for Medal of Honor upgrade. But Chapman's story resonated with those

that recalled it. It was the strongest case for evidence for an upgrade. And then with the ability to piece meal all of the two thousand chunks of the original footage back together, then they were able to make the case. And then it only got stronger from there. There's a number of elements of analysis that went into to all of this, from the imagery analysis to the medical forensics, you name it. It goes further.

roll back to this. So from that deployment, which was about roughly a six month deployment, you then go relanguage, right, yeah, and then and then and you get involved with MC twelve project.

working with a lot of full motion video. Essentially, we're the find and fix to find in all the bad guys that are out there. So we were we were building this UH, this capability. As a seasoned operator on one side, I was asked to help stand that up. So we had one hundred new airmen that showed up in this flavor over the span of about a year year and a half. Hell I probably personally trained about

fifty five of the first one hundred. But we built out this capability to do this new mission set and that led to me getting selected to help. They called it normalizing the MC twelve platform. So MC twelve was berthed out of a contingency need and they were trying to expand this same mission of precision geolocation matched with full motion video sensors to conventional forces beyond just that of a traditional soft customer. And so while that was being done, it was all done as a pickup game.

So the capability is literally bought and fielded. Within six months, it rivaled out of the P fifty one Mustang. This thing got all kinds of accolades over the year. How they even competed for the what they call the Collier Trophy. It's a National Aeronautic Association, So think of the mars Lander and Felix Bombgardner, who you know, parachuted from outer space. We were competing against the likes of those platforms for the most significant contribution to aviation, all based on the

speed and scope of the Project Liberty. So anyway, when they do that mission, that mission is birth from idea. It's being fielded by the Mississippi Air National Guard, my home state, and then everybody basically goes down to Mississippi, gets trained up on the aircraft, gets qualified, and then goes forward and operates them. You know, whether it's in Iraq or Afghanistan or wherever they happen to be poor

deployed to at the time. This is the capabilities fielded around nine and so by eleven the Air Force is said, Okay, we're no longer going to make this just a pickup game. We want them to have a traditional you know, host wing that owns that mission. And they decide to make the ninth Reconaissance Wing at Beal Air Force Base out in north of Sacramento, California, the home station for it. So I get I get tasked to go out there, stand up a unit of intelligence operators that we're going

to operate the back of it. And yeah, the rest was history. Spent three years with that mission based on prior experiences, you know, kind of hand picked for it, grew a capability with some some awesome young airmen. They really kicked butt. And then after three years of that, I got brought back down to our parent ISR group, you know, an echelon above the squadrons as an op

superintendent and then eventually made chief out of there. And that's when I got that's in that fourteen to sixteen time period where I was brought onto the Chapman you know, research project.

I was in in the hangar when they recited the Ranger Creed got to listen to all of the stanzas and we sat out there and did the honor guide on with our head lamps as we repatriated his body via Humby on to a C seventeen and he was flown back Stateside fast forward. I was on a on a mission in the Horn of Africa. So most people know about the Marisk, the Marisk Alabama. After that, there was the there was a blue water yacht that had

been pirated. I was I was overhead that aftermath, and that one was a mess, uh not the way things typically go down. And there's some there's some his some historical you know seal you know information that that coincides with how the Alabama went down and then what happened with the Blue Water Yacht incident, and so the Seals had basically been put on a leash. And so the a hostage piracy recovery type of mission, the way you would typically think it would unfold, did not unfold the

way you would have expected. During that Blue Water Yacht deal, they had been handcuffed so bad that essentially they they had coaxed the head pirate off of the boat, brought him on board a naval warship and he was going to you know, negotiate, you know, the the transaction for payment and all that kind of stuff. Well, obviously once we had him in our custody, they weren't going to

let him go. And so then you had a bunch of idiots, idiot pirates that are left and they all flip out and in broad daylight, the assault takes place. Everybody dies. It was it was horrible, but I was I was overhead that one. That that one just sucked. But if you if you think about the storylines that go along with with some of the the narratives that get spun out of some of the Seal war stories.

I'm not saying the entire community is tainted, but when we look at the Chapman incident and how all of that stuff unfolded, you look back, who has the high ground here and that is the Air Force, Okay, because when it comes to seals and stories, you know, off the battlefield. Dude, we could sit here and have a three hour episode going through just stuff over the last twenty years. Yeah, Like I remember going through a Joint

Special Operations Senior Listed Academy. Votel was the commander at SOCOM at the time, and one of the biggest things that we were hitting. This is in the late fifteen time period, and we were still hitting on that incident where they had fragged the hostage with the grenade and they had lied about using grenades on the objective, and everything was about the integrity and why it was important to own your mistakes and to fess up and so forth. And we're coming out of all of that and it's

like nobody he ever learns anything. All they do is just create another false narrative, pinna metal on somebody and move on and just can continue this legend. It's I find it distasteful. I don't think it does them any real honor. I would love to respect the Trident, but right now there's a handful that just tarnished the shit out of it for me.

Code over Country. But anyway, that was it was dubbed a success from a leadership standpoint in internal to like Socom channels, I don't think that everybody was in agreement and how that mission unfolded, and so when the Blue Water Yacht piece happened, they were literally handcuffed. So like, nothing about that unfolded the way you would have imagined the recovery of a pirated vessel. Yeah, like when when do we move on that?

entered under the circumstances. I don't think it would have mattered, you know, whose flag of waters they were in. We were going to get it one way or the other. But none, none of that ever unfolded the way you would have imagined, you know, without getting into specific TTPs, it just none of it made sense. Yeah, and then in the end it ends up being broad daylight. Everybody dies, So that is obviously not a success.

to win the Medal of Honor? And the Secretary Air Force like, that's a good question, and can we review axe valor that our airmen and airwomen have performed, you know, during the g WATT and see if there's anything that would qualify. Yep.

So when the Air Force did their initial look, they had a shortlist, but at the top of their short list was that of John Chapman and the story of Roberts Ridge. So it worked in the Air Force's favor that, you know, they still had that Terra server thanks to Frank Daily. The funny story he told me was the young analyst that was with him was like, hey, those guys came and confiscated the videos. I just found all these clips on the Terra server. Do you want me

to go ahead and delete those? He's like, no, no, do not save that. And so if it hadn't been for Frank, that stuff could have been lost and never recovered. But I in the midst of all of this, once we really picked up steam and we had already briefed a Mako element. This is like September of sixteen, But between then and eighteen, when the when the final you know, like valor boards are being done at a four star level and so forth. Before it goes to the sect death.

All of a sudden, an unmarked envelope shows up, and inside the double wrapped package are the original classified, handwritten marked CDs in Frank Daly's handwriting, because he's the one who had had marked those original CDs from the original deployment.

make sure that we got all of it, and they sent it to us, and finally we had everything to include the original gunship footage that showed our conversation on board and the second strobe and him getting in. And then oh, by the way, now you had all the rest of the predator footage and all of the rest of those clips that have been pieced together. So it made for an air tight case, especially with all of

the imagery analysis that went into it. There's a guy I don't talk about him because he's still working certain mission. But when they went in they did the imagery analysis on this. They mapped this thing down to the to the nats ass like you could, you know, basically, put a pin drop anywhere on that mountain. You could put me in a laying, prone, kneeling, standing, tall, crouch, whatever, and you could look around and give me three hundred and sixty what my specific field of view was from

that point on the mountain. And they did that over the entire area. And that's how we knew that there were inconsistencies in some of the seals narrative on Hey, I looked and saw the rise and fall of a laser. I could see him. I verified, I crawled right over the top of him.

the far side. Anyway, none of the stuff matched Air Forces research is airtight. The crazy part was the Navy leadership. You know, I'm kind of getting off script, you know, as far as time and order of all of this. But lo and behold, we briefed make the surviving members of Maco three zero and what would have been DEV Group's commander at the time, Captain Jeremy Williams. We briefed them in a DC facility in September of sixteen, and

they had their intel guy, Commander Heartwell. I always get the dude's name mixed up, but they had their intel guy in the room as we're briefing all of them our findings. And I say this because later on Heartwell is the one who shows up at all the valor boards with this other version of events. And this is the Navy's version of events, not like what all the research actually showed. And so they constantly say that John died within the first three minutes, and they still stick

to that story today. So there's a full of people working on their own documentary all funded by Seal money whatever it is, They still stick to that slabs at current accounts still says that John died right beside me and the initial assault. Well, no, he didn't, you know one, because you were never right beside him anyway, you know. But nevertheless, John was the one who went and did all that stuff. And then by the time he's killed,

it's after the element has broken contact. John is still up and up around Bunker one and the QRF is inbound, and he knows that if he doesn't put down suppressive fire after being up there for an hour and twenty minutes by himself, if he doesn't do that, then the helicopter is going to suffer the same fate that they did when they came in.

then Chapman, and then red On Red. I didn't believe the like we knew after the fact that the predator could confirm based on the sawing motion that they could see that they called. They would have told you right then and there. If we had been in direct comms with them, they would have told us right then and there that that Roberts had been killed already, we didn't

know for sure. We weren't in comms with them. So there were people out there that knew that Roberts had been killed at that point, that he moved his body and propped him up by the by the boulder there.

final brief to Secretary of Defense Mattis that he asked, what the view that, what's the prevailing view of others, what's the leading competing theory. They explained that, and Mattis is like, yeah, I don't buy.

there's there's different ways that that can happen. The operational authority can do that from theater and submit and cover everybody, or if it doesn't happen in time, then it comes to light later. Now you're you're geographically separated, you're with your administrative chain of command versus the operational one that you were attached to. And yeah, I think that absolutely plays a part in this.

teams and elements. Right. So when we're going through the the information process, the boarding process, that initial brief in September of sixteen, I'm talking with what would have been the twenty fourth sole commander, so he owned those respective special tactics airmen. And as we go in, you know, you've got the medical professional, You've got the imagery and analyst. You've got Jay Hill, who was on an adjacent mountain who heard Chappie come up on the radio ass three zero.

Charlie knew him, personally, recognizes radio etiquette, recognize his voice, tried to talk to him but never had positive two A coms. But he heard Chappy and it was after the gunship had departed, but before the QRF had showed up. So between that and me are articulating the eyewitness testimony from our video that's literally playing showing Chappie's strobe illuminate and crawl into the bunker and recounting the audio that is showing Chris explaining to the folk, O, hey, I've

got a second strobe. This doesn't look like the others and then they hear the rest of that mortar come in, like, you can't refute.

don't back down. Yeah, And I'm like, yeah, you know, you don't have to tell me that, Colonel, Like I got you. I knew exactly what was going on in the situation that we were walking into because you knew that there was pushback already. And literally in that meeting, that's the moment where Slab changed his story because he went from the rise and fall of a laser on

the chest, so literally it was. You remember the baseball drug scenario where Rafael Paul Merrow says I did not use performance in Andy, I did not use steroids Before Congress, Slab has a moment like that and says, I crawled right over the top of Jump right, And we're literally showing in the video that has all of the breadcrumb data showing like we've gone back and established the order

in which they exited. We have signed an IR signature to each individual, and we can follow them chain of custody greater than ninety percent chance of accuracy based on the totality of all that information, And we can literally see the area where Slab says I crawled right over him, like, no, you didn't. You crawled over You crawled over Roberts right. And you guys still say that y'all never saw Roberts right. You were right on top of Roberts at the boulder.

and Chappie's on the right of that tree. But we also dropped breadcrumbs there and showed Slab his what his field of view would have been, like we could literally spin him around, like the entire area was scanned to include under the tree, like you could see, this is what the canopy was, this is where your terrain was,

this is what you could see. And if if Chappie had fallen and he was laying out prone the way you described, you literally can't see him from where you said he could right right, And so anyway, his story changed in that briefing at that moment said he crawled right over the top of Chappie. The only person he crawled over the top of was petty Officer Roberts.

ninetieth Intelligence Squadron. That was freaking cool. And the reason is is that that's the birthplace of Airborne I s R. From a modern standpoint. Now, I got a former commander who's a historian bona fide, he's a professor. He would tell you that the birthplace of Airborne I s R Started in the European theater. There's he's he's absolutely true. I'm not going to argue with him. But as far as the Air Force specific units that we support with the RC one thirty five, there's a mission that used

to be the Combat Apple. That's what they came and grew into the RC one thirty five that we know today. And it was stood up by a gentleman by the name of Doyle Larson. Most of the folks in the in the ISR community like know who this is from an Air Force perspective. Our buildings named after him. I got to go out there, was there during that unit's fiftieth anniversary. I know that doesn't seem like much. We just celebrated the Army as two hundred and fiftieth, but hey,

you know, give us a break. The Air Force is still young. But our squadron had turned fifty. Out there, I got a chance to be part of that unit while we were doing what we call the pivot to the Pacific, so iron was flowing from the Central you know, theaters over the Middle East away from Central Command back or to what is now Indo pe com Our unit.

They covered everything from the summit in Singapore, you know where Trump met with the leader in North Korea, to the Olympics and then help we uh, we would help take care of the South China Sea, you know, with the Chinese like to to expand their their their maritime claims a little bit further than what it is internationally recognized.

so on. So that was a pretty sweet moment to be able to do that at the end. And then you know, to have had this is around the time period, you know, some eighteen is when August of eighteen is when Chapman has awarded his Medal of Honor. I got a chance to attend that at the White House as a as a guest and member of the research team.

Then I had reassigned there at the end of eighteen to sixteenth Air Force, so I was you know, home was and Antonio and then yeah, towards the end of the IG tour, you know, you do your best to you know, speak up for airman, hold people accountable when when necessary, and just make sure that mission has executed the way it should be.

other extra person in the room is Commander Hartwell. At the end of that meeting, we're getting ready to shuffle out the door and Jeremy Williams is sitting right next to He's standing next to Slab close to the exit. He just looks over at Slily's like, huh, maybe we should look at upgrading yours. This is September of sixteen. By December of sixteen, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mavis makes a trip out to dam Neck. Britt Slavinski in

his own words in an interview, I've got clips. Hopefully I'll get this to D and y'all can get these uploaded. But Britt describes the first time that he was informed that he was going to be receiving the Medal of Honor, and that's when the second MAV shows up in September or December of sixteen and makes the announcement to their home unit at Damn Neck and BRIT's not even like he's out of the service at this point. He was brought back as a guest under the rules of somebody

else's award. And then oh, by the way, the secon NAB makes that announcement, so you don't go from September of sixteen, Captain Jeremy Williams saying maybe we should look it upgrading yours to sect navs showing up within ninety days, right, Like, medals of honor do not happen that fast, especially ones that are from events that are you know, what would that have been sixteen? Go back to two that would have been fourteen years old.

and look at the footage. Tell me who eliminated Bunker one?

of Honor, and it is what it is. But then fast forward to after all of this and the you know, the museum, and then they just take a big dump all over the guy again.

who's who's in the lead. Like the Army runs one, the Navy runs one, the Air Force runs one.

a good culture, a good team. The mission near as sexy is what it used to be, sure, But but you're around good people, so that I can deal with.

get too far into that. Where where you will find me is uh with individuals like y'all that that have the ability to use your platform for for those of us interested in speaking truth to power, And for that I say thank you for the bottom of my heart. What uh. I'm sure many people have have mentioned this to you on the side, but I'd like to say

it here. The initial the initial damn it. I just I just had a senior moment when we what the hell do you call that thing that people sign like an AFFI, David, the one the one that you started, Dave.

we had all moved on. I didn't realize that Slab had landed like keyboard positions and that he was involved such in such a high manner with the Medal of Honor Museum, not to mention the Congressional Medal of Honor Society. And then then I start looking based off of what Laurie's post was, and I was like, son of a gun,

I could I was. I could not believe that they were literally going out there and sticking to the false narrative that they used to try to subvert Chapman's metal upgrade to begin with.

can't wait until that story becomes more broadly understood. You know, there are efforts underway to do all of that, but you just like you have to take with a grain of salt. And I hate to say this because it then tarnishes the rest of the good seals that are out there. But if you hear a story about Seals and heroics, you might want to consider that like a barroom legend, you know, you know those stories where you just have to have ten percent truth and then it

makes for a great story. There's too many of those that are out there, especially of late and all of that stuff ties right back to the specific personality that was Tim Zamanski And then you can follow the lineage down with key leaders. Wyman Howard is one of them. He's the guy that they called Hatchetman, documented in Matt Cole's book. You know, I don't have to go any further, but how he connects to the Chapman Medal of Honor upgrade. When the Seals went down the road of their false narrative,

they went and recreated their own videos. Well, guess where Wyman Howard was assigned while that was going on. He was the DOO of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. So if you want to recreate footage, if you want to recreate anything like the same people that mapped that mountaintop and did everything that I was telling you that we could do. He was the DOO, a general officer at

that premier agency. All while this was going on with the Medal of Honor upgrade and the board and the seal false narrative and the subversion efforts.

his suit on but but open collar, no tie. He strutted into that damn hangar. You would have thought it was Tom Brady like just swagger and I don't like not a I don't think that he just exuded arrogance. I'm not saying that, but just like you were looking at a dude that you knew was a significant individual and he just had that executive presence about him, that that was what my personal experience, you know, being at least in the same hangar within you know, throwing distance

of of the guy. But but it wasn't until I, like I knew, I know folks that work with him directly. Yeah, I've heard good stories, I've read bad.

Howard was the GEO, the director of Operations at the National GEO Special Intelligence Agency. At that same time, Jeremy Williams had cleaned up to the DEV Group position. So he's the CEO at DEV Group and the Commander of

Naval Special Warfare is Tim Zemanski. So how do you go from slab medal of honor from September of sixteen to SECT now making the announcement in December of sixteen, because Zemansky was sitting on that and had it ready ready to go with no new information, nothing to expand beyond the basis of his Navy cross unless we add in that, Hey, I rescued the aircrew. Hey, I was

in combat for fourteen hours. Well, like, dude, they were in combat for like ten minutes and they broke contact and they were they weren't engaged, you know, like after they broke contact. Now did he have wounded? Like? Was there a huge pray initially absolutely won't take anything away from it, but look at the basis of his of his medal of Honor, and I can poke holes in it left and right.

All right, How does a guy go into a three star joint command his position, whether it's command or a senior staff position that's at a three star level. How do you do that in a joint environment knowing full well that you subverted an Air Force teammates medal of honor upgrade based on a bullshit false narrative. And so, to take this further, the cryptic message is when I say that the Navy had every bit of the Air Force information, it wasn't just because the Air Force was

willing to share it with them. All right, there was a moment when Jeremy Williams deliberately took the information right and I just I'll leave it at that. But there are specific people that know exactly what happened, and that man continues to go unanswered because he was in some significant places also in twenty eleven. So he's got a permanent get out of jail free card for some of his own command and his team's you know actions, it's bullshit.

People need to hold these guys accountable and and yeah, I'm not in a position to change it, but I am in a position to speak out.

boots on ground. If you listen to if you've read any of Blabor's books, that's one of the consistent themes that he espouses in his book The Mission to Men and Me. He always gives credence to the men on the ground. He always his lesson is listened to the boots on the ground. So I think there's elements where the technology will never completely and totally replace that level of situational awareness, but absolutely it enhances as long as it's not abused or misused.

But happen to be able to speak truth to power when it counted for that matter, and uh, you know, damn a seal false narrative. You want to tell lies in front of general officers, I'm gonna call you out, Commander Heartwell.

There was confusion amongst the audiences out there, and so what I would what I wanted to relay was a thank you for what you did with your original petition, but if there's any way that you can spark interest towards the one that's tied towards Paulina Luna and having Congress take a look at this event itself.

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