it seems like coming from poland coming from not having food from being in prison from all these things that are going on it seems like when you get to america you’ve just got this this like drive just to live and make things happen and you’re going a free fall and you get it done in four days and then i’m gonna become a jump master and you’re working as hard as you can it’s like you have this open freeway in front of you you can be whatever you are able to be you know i can’t say whatever you want to be because i want to be astronomer i’m 60 years old i ain’t going to be asking about that with me but but but you can be whatever you are able to be there is nothing to stop you like different countries what’s your background who is your mom did you do are you communist or are you belong to socialist party so we can help you but if you know that you cannot be in these positions you cannot go to to college even if you don’t have you are not part of the socialist youth organization so so for me yeah it was like the entire world open i could be whatever i was able to be and there was nothing stopping me so even more even more makes me uh that stick to my word i want to be the best citizens i want to make this country the best it can be and and contribute to it so that’s where the first person work him out and i just became u s citizen at the time so i was like okay i can’t build the jobs for these people i’m not rich enough i don’t have resources but i can fight for them so this is my country i’m going to go and sign up i had no idea how to do it i remember in post office i seen those draft cards sometimes that you you fill it up so i say i went up there i filled it up i sent it out i packed my [ __ ] i was living with other skydivers at the time so they said what was going on where are you going i said i’m going to war i just sent out my papers and this is this is the first gulf war right so it’s 1991 yes the first gulf war kicks off yes you want to go fight i don’t so you go down to the post office grab the uh what’s that thing called the the selective service [Music] so well nothing happens the guy’s like drago you know i don’t think that’s the right way to do it but man there’s a war going on up there i say yeah yeah i mean you have to help this i came here with nothing and everything i have i altered america to this country i need to do something and the best way i can do is going to fight for my country so yeah that’s uh i’m waiting on the vendor simulator sorry but this selective service doesn’t apply to you you’re too old so i was already 31 at the time going 32 and so i say i find my i will find my way into that war so somebody said hey why don’t you go to recruiting of recruiting office as a sure i went to the uh army for in poland army is everything yes this is like army are you talking about army air forces for me at that time was everything was army so good to army say okay this is me i would like to join military i would like to go to war it’s like okay what do you want to do or say a fight there’s like no no like a jobs or something you have any skills i say no not really but i would doubt do whatever you tell me to do you know i just want to go to war hour when the war is over i will go back to my normal life but i i think just for the duration of the war i would like to join the military they say okay well let me see that look at my documents they tell me what to bring so i bring all that stuff they did all the all the work say so okay so we put you as a infantryman i think it was infantry man and stuff and i say absolutely thank you so much i’m ready to go anytime and then as seals show up in our drop zone they were doing demonstration jump uh leapfrogs in uh in memphis so we started talking about it we jump few times together and said they’re such a cool guys you know and uh so they um yeah it’s like but you know before they join the army why don’t you try the navy just go and ask recruiters about seals i was like seals what’s the seals yeah but the navy these cool guys knows i’m jumping they call themselves seals so i’ll just go and ask hey i went the next door i said like i’m applying here for army and they have all my paperwork but i met some friends who told me to ask about the navy and the i’m just asking about the navy who those friends are so like they’re current themselves seals oh yeah yeah you know you can be a ceo it’s like but you need to get those paperwork from these guys we put you in the navy and you’re okay then then we’ll just put you in the navy you will be a seal then i say okay so i went down next door hey everybody i’m going there so can i have it they were pissed they did not like it but so anyway i got my paperwork i show up up there and they look through my papers and they’re like eventually well you know what we can guarantee you the seal the dice there was a different program at the time that we cannot guarantee to you because you are way too old you are even too old to qualify for the sales but if you sign this paper here you join you go to bootcamp that will make you a zero that’s not no doubt about it oh yeah so i said sure you know that’s enough i say okay but they said but now before you become a ceo you need to get a job you have to select the job in the navy at that time there was no cl rating you remember that there was a you you go to bootcamp you get the eight uh go to a school get the job in the navy and then you go to if you like you you are assigned to go to seal training so i said well i don’t know much what i want to do i’m parachuting something with how about being parachute regular cause it sounds good to me i have no idea what it was it stuck me in this field for like as a e5 for years later but i said like okay so yeah absolutely yeah make me serious and make me a at that time i was dating a girl too so they say okay but if you want to go to that school to pr school you will have to leave this week you will have to leave on a thursday we’ll put you in the delay entry program and i think you’ll be sworn on thursday you will leave on friday i believe that’s i think it was like sure notice so i call my girlfriend hey we need to get murdered right now because i’m going to the navy i’m just like what i said i’m leaving to the navy i’m leaving this for this weekend so we went to the judge we got like the stand we got married very quick and uh then i show up on the debt got sworn in and thursday i left to boot camp and didn’t become that there was like no intention to make me a ceo but you know for that time i didn’t really care i just wanted to join military i want to contribute to the effort i am american i want to fight for my country so whether being the parachute trigger whatever i just made the best out of it but it says the opportunity shows up i say why not to be a seal now i want i try it and i did i passed all the tests so that was in boot camp and both they do that they do that day where they go okay if you want to try for seals you need to go take the test right now yeah there is a there is like a day that actually there are different jobs i think there’s people that are coming and telling about their jobs so there are sales eod motivators show up and he talked about i just couldn’t sit in this [ __ ] chat just get out just hey yeah yeah i want to go um so and now you’re are you 32 years old at this point at this point 32 years old i think what the f what the hell kind of physical conditioning did you do throughout your life to get to get there and be in like good enough shape because they don’t even let guys go to buds when they’re 27 or 28 or something i don’t know i guess i gotta beat up a lot i just got conditioned did you did you work were you working out this whole time not really i didn’t know how i didn’t know that the physical uh demands of the seal teams at the time are just like they just in life what about just in life like in like when you were when you were working in that freaking song boxing taekwondo yeah that’s that’s that was just basically what dude you’re a mutant you’re a freaking mutant uh well i just can’t consider myself like that you know i was able to and you know the test is really not that difficult to pass yeah there is still it’s still something but yeah preparing fail but yeah so so so just so people know what you’re talking about you say the test isn’t that hard to pass the bait the seal test that we used to get to get a chance to go to seal training was like i think it was you had to do it’s some minuscule it’s like 50 push-ups in two minutes 50 sit-ups in two minutes yeah eleven eight pull-ups ten pull-ups eleven eleven pull-ups and then a mile and a half run in a 11-30 and a mile and a 500-yard swim or something like that my struggle was with the swim which i couldn’t swim very well so uh but i took it i got it you know i passed it so i’m so happy i’m like oh yeah this is so cool and then i [ __ ] got the kidney stone a kidney stone yeah well that’s right because you’re a freaking old man yeah yeah yeah so the kidney stone and and i remember they that was so freaking painful i mean i never wasn’t i was never beat up so hard that was so painful like this but uh that was so painful that i remember they gave me that medicine i think it was demoral it’s like didn’t work at all i said i need something stronger because i i just i’m i’m i’m about to go crazy i’m okay that pain is so so hot so they give me a morphine just like one away but i remember this funny thing because the first time in this room i had no idea what it was i was lying in the bunk in the boot camp and that’s just this pain came in i just fell off the bed and so they turned the lights on and within like three minutes i had this pool of sweat right under my nose all dripping i’m on my force this medic comes hey are you okay it’s like [ __ ] do i look a cave to you can’t move so they got me the hospital i passed that but that was not the worst thing there was things they told me well you know you’re going through this medical thing we’re about to give you the medical examination for seals but you have just had a kidney stone you have to wait the air it’s like [ __ ] but you know my mindset was i want to fight the war in any capacity you know i’m i’m honored that i have that privilege to go and fight for america so for me this really matters so i said that’s that’s okay and so then i went to a school and the a school i met uh resident peace uh blessed barrios i don’t know if you knew him but so les barrios uh he was a motivator in millington when i was going to the my parachuting school i said look i passed the test um i think i can easily pass it again but i had this kidney stone and i cannot i just want to be a seal so there’s any way maybe there’s some maybe paperwork can be done we just say a paperwork yeah i think you can just go get your medical record from your uh from your medical office bring it here we’ll take a look at it so i ran up there and said what magic he will come up with i’m sure there’s some paragraph or some regulation that will allow bypass the stupid kidney stone so i brought this record and said that’s right right there right there and it’s like okay i just i want you to leave the room here i’ll be i’ll just call you in a second and i could hear rip so he comes back so the kidney stone uh where is that i was like right oh so he likes i don’t see any i said i don’t see any either you sure he had the kidney stone it’s like you know maybe not maybe i didn’t okay well you didn’t so and i graduated uh from a school in millington i think won the second top you know everything that from bootcamp i graduated top recruit in this whole batch i was there i got a military excellence award i was like the first very first recruit actually uh that who the top recruit from that badge graduating high school i graduated the second with the second highest score so i i had things going on for me and then i was waiting for my orders he said okay i send it out for it hopefully it gets approved and sure three months later got my orders too bad so that that’s the rest of this rest of it is the history you show up at buds what was uh what was there any major challenges for you was like you said you were not not a great swimmer how were you on the rest of the water stuff well the the the the problem was that i could swim only on one side and i never swim with the mask on so you know they dump in the pool and say i want you to swim here there’s a side stroke side stroke this is how you do it and but you’ll be swimming all the styles that will tell you to do it and i was kind of okay with it but when they push them put the mask on after the first couple laps i thought i’ll pass out i mean i was like hyperventilating i was blacking out i see the black spots in front of myself i’m about to die here but that’s like if i stop they kick me out so i ain’t stopping i see i know that if i pass out they will rescue me that’s those guys everywhere they tell us that we are safe so we are safe so you know i was blacking out like who fell about to black out having these black spots but become easier and easier but i think by the time like the next hour i was like [ __ ] they ain’t that bad so what is it just like some weird like claustrophobic thing on your face or something like that no it couldn’t breathe to my nose and i couldn’t breathe now how to breathe through my every time i to get breath i’ve sucked water with it so i think i i i was breathing water and air at the time and i was coughing i was suffocating i was i was basically drowning i feel like i’m driving and uh it’s just i say i’m not going to quit but i’ll just pass out and see what will happen if i have to but um i didn’t pass out and i got better actually by the time there was a fourth phase there was a preface when before you close up for the for the serial training so by the time we graduate from the fourth phase move into our single class the instructors asked me to demonstrate the new guys how to swim the side stroke so i became really good i was never a fat swimmer but i was strong swimmer i could swim forever and you didn’t you didn’t come up with any injuries or anything being a 33 year old guy going through buds uh not at that time the the worst thing is always tired i was looking at this young guys like hey let’s go to the bar it was like dude i can hardly move i can’t go to the bar i’ll still make it out to the bar here and there but there was just like really painful for me because uh again i was not the intensity of it it’s not just the one time because like one time like the seal training i think most of the people that one day can check out he may survive but it over and over and over it just wears your body wears you down and eventually some people quit so that was the most difficult for me because uh i’m did not recover as fast being 32 years old as uh as other guys so what was your first were your first orders what team did you get i get to see your team two and uh actually they they uh i wanted to go to sierra team four because they i don’t want to be called i know cl2 at them at the time operate the the north part and the of the europe and in europe in general so i say i just want to go to like team four but friend of mine says like no no dude you with your language with your police russian and you i speak japanese too so uh with with your languages you’ll be good asset in this european team and stuff so i kind of like put the switched it from the team four to team two and put in four seconds and just like god please don’t put me in sdvs uh i just for some reason i don’t know i was i was not maybe that technical person at the time and the challenge is to be as the operator is twice as it is twice it’s got to be a seal but you have to have that expertise with this mini subs and with the the operation of it that for me i felt was overwhelmed by that what you need to know to be good operator in the sdv teams so um so i i chose two and i got my orders to cl team too went to boot uh went to jam school uh did you did you go to fort benning yes for me it was kind of fun time because uh you know like when i was growing up i was poor i never had a chance to go to like a disneyland or this type of thing i could watch over the fence how children were playing around it but i couldn’t afford it so when i got into this tower i was like holy [ __ ] this is like a disneyland you know so i didn’t care what the position they wanted me to jump but i just like running out of it and yeah that’s uh they kind of didn’t like it but they uh but they are very rigid so i remember through those that i had a lot of fun too because that was i think you went through the same thing yeah so there is uh the fort benning so you still next to each other shoulder shoulders so close that basically you just cannot even move and then you just go to your line you grab the line they drag you just do the p alive i could never do that plf right i was always scared of plfs so uh but anyway i found out that if you like tip one of them from one end it’s like a domino effect they would just totally fall down they would save them and that was actually i thought it was it was amusing it’s like that’s pretty cool you know you tip one a little bit and the last guy just plops down um but my issue was that uh i don’t like prfs so so just so everyone knows a plf is a parachute landing fall and it’s a technique that you get taught for static line jumping where it’s supposed to minimize your injuries because you keep your feet and knees together and you hit like you kind of like roll you sort of roll when you hit and you keep your arms kind of tucked in and it’s supposed to prevent you from getting injured because when you’re on a when you’re on one of those parachutes you’re still coming down really fast it’s not like what you see in the movies when guys can kind of come down on a free-fall parachute and they flare and they just kind of kind of tiptoe away from it you hit pretty hard especially if you’re a heavier guy the heavier you are the harder you’re going to hit so they try and teach and plus the army’s working with hundreds and hundreds of people getting thrown out of that thing getting thrown out of an aircraft every day so they try and teach the most simple way that they can teach hundreds and hundreds of of people how to fall without getting hurt now i also was not good at the plf yeah screw the [ __ ] out of me so i tried one time and just popped my shoulder and i like [ __ ] doing it anymore so every time i jump i just stood up i just i it was not a big deal because i heard hundreds of giants at the time so i just jumped out just really landed just stand up and i was like so there’s like there’s they had those those black black hats they had those tubes plf private pli fpl if i want to see ply i was like roger dead and this jacket i might throw my parachute and just roll on the ground you know they don’t hurt i didn’t want to come over so so that they they knew from me from not listening too good yeah those plrs they were killing me so i didn’t do them i avoided them
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