What do you see in your mind as kind of the first high impact event that's not someone else dying? Like that your body is starting to take a toll. I had a lot of emotional stuff happen to me in that second deployment. You know, my idol, Matty Roberts, I've talked about him a couple times.

I really, really hung on to that dude. Like he was my true north. He was the guy. And when he got shot up, when you see it happen, you know, his arm shot off. It flipped around his shoulder. It looked like his arm was completely gone. My fingers are inside his arm.

We're trying to solve this thing. They're shooting at us from really, really close proximity. And I think it still has a record. I have to ask Jay Redman, but I think that was the closest call for fire mission the entire Iraq war. Like inside 15 meters. I mean, Cordy Mike, my AC-130 gunship.

I mean, it was on top of you. A bell-fed machine gun just chewing us up. Everybody shot up except for me and one other guy. And we're all crowded behind this tractor tire. Just, you felt like a victim. And at one point, right when the initial contact happened, I sprinted to a tree and got a piece of cover.

So there's me, three guys that are all shot up, and one other guy who's behind this tractor tire. And I'm screaming at him, like, hey, I've got an out. Come over here. And he screams out in Black Hawk Down, like, nope. Come to me. And you're looking back at it.

You can see all the muzzle flash. And just the way it happened, you had blue forces or friendlies that were in behind him. So you couldn't shoot into this veg line because you knew there were friendlies that were back there. So you're in this weird dance where I can't do anything.

Like, I felt helpless. You know, I'm getting rounds poured all over me. And at a certain point, you just go, I'd rather run back into the front of this thing and get killed with all of them than be the lone survivor. I don't want to walk through this. I don't want to live with this survivor's guilt.

I'd rather just run back up and let's just catch it and be done with it. And I ran right back into the center of it and dropped down behind that tire and started working all the guys back and, you know, putting on tourniquets and quick clot. And, you know, all the stuff.

When I came back from that, I was mentally scarred for the rest of my life. And I just never, ever processed it. I just blocked it off. Because it was so close? I think because it was the first time I felt helpless. Like, I was just waiting to die.

Right? Like, the guy that I looked up that I wanted to be like, like, he was a physical representation of what I thought the essence of being a Navy SEAL was. And he's dying in my arms. And I can't shoot back. I mean, we're hunkered down in rounds. We're just skipping all over you.

And you're just, if that JTAC wouldn't have called in a fire mission, we'd all be dead. I mean, it's only a matter of time before he stands up and just realizes he can just walk us down. I mean, there's no alum. Night vision's all messed up at this point.

I mean, everything that could have went wrong went wrong. And now we're inside of 10 meters getting pounded by a belt-fed machine gun. You can't move. And it was the first time in my life I truly felt helpless. And everything worked out. Everybody ended up surviving it. We got him in the helicopter and did all that.

I just think I never got an opportunity to ever talk about it. And when I went back home, you know, you're taking a shower. The showers in Iraq aren't the best, as you can imagine. And I'm standing here in ankle-deep sludge water that's just filled with blood. I mean, it's all in my mouth.

It's all over my hair. I remember taking the shower and just seeing it all and not knowing if he lived or not and thinking, do I want to be washing this off? Because if they call me in 20 minutes and tell me he's dead, this is the last piece of him I have.

So I saved the camis. I saved the boot. I saved the shirts. I saved everything I wore. I shoved it all in the bag, and I kept it in case he died. But it was hard, man. Like, the back of that helicopter looked like Black Hawk Down. Just blowout kits and tourniquets and magazines and rounds all over.

And just the most blood I've ever seen. And you're just slipping and sliding in it, just like out of the movies. And it's not. It's dudes you've wrapped your arms around and told you I've loved you a hundred times. You're like, this is not what I thought it was going to be like.

I didn't think this was going to be like this. I didn't. Because I'd never seen it. My dad has never been through that. None of his friends ever went through that. Now I am this 20-year-old kid, and this is what I'm living with. And it was hard. Because you've got to walk back in the culture of the SEAL teams.

We're not talking about that. Nobody's ever addressing that. When you see him, you know, you always make a joke. Like, hey, could you scream any louder? Like, I'm surprised we all didn't get killed by how loud you were yelling. You always make a joke about it. It wasn't a joke, man.

I was traumatized. Like, I worship that guy. And to see the reality. Like, he's not Superman, and neither am I. Fortunately for me, he did the most heroic thing I've ever seen. And that moment has stuck with me forever. When that initial contact happened, everybody got shot, including him.

And he stood back up and ran forward and grabbed our corpsman, who was all shot up, and started dragging him back. And I watched it happen. Gets shot again, and it spins him. Drops him on the floor, and he gets right back up. Picks him up again. Gets shot.

Arm spins over his shoulder. Keeps dragging him back. Gets shot again. Hits the ground. Gets back up. Keeps dragging him. It's like, at no point was he ever going to leave that dude. Could he have? Yeah. He could have ran the dough behind that tractor tire and sent me out there to go fetch him.

He was so committed to the process of, I am never going to leave you. If he would have took one right in the head, and he would have died right then, he would have never batted an eye about it. If he would have known the outcome, he would have went anyway.

And that part has stuck me the entire time. Like, a true believer will go further than anyone else in the moment of total duress, because they're conditioned to it. He's already made up in his mind, how far are you willing to go? The entire way right now. I'm just looking for an opportunity to prove it.

And that was his moment to prove it. And he proved it to everybody. And still to this day, I mean, probably still my biggest inspiration in the entire teams is Matt Roberts. Unbelievable human. I'm trying to get emotional, but yeah. Just an amazing human. . you