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
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