Seal Team 6 interviews (DEVGRU)

The operations community is tasked with only the most difficult and dangerous missions. The subject featured in the following interview operated within this community and acted as a consultant in the development of Medal of Honor. His identity has been hidden for security reasons. I'm a guy with a Special Forces background. I've been serving in my country for over 15 years, when certain things come on the table and certain things need to be done, 100 of the guys you work with can see that and say I'm the answer to that. problem, I always knew I wanted something different, I wanted to follow my own path, blaze my own path, I would just call it destiny, I wouldn't want to do anything else, I always like to refer to the guys in our community that the candle just shines brighter there is nothing that is going to satisfy this person the person wants to keep pushing to grow and evolve as a warrior it is a wolf pack mentality you have a lot of type A personalities who tend to want to be the best they can be you will smell the week and if you don't continue the rhythm of the group then you don't belong at all, there comes a time when you need to flip the switch and flip the switch it's the game, that's when the wolves are released there are times when all over the field and things can be surreal You have to be absolutely focused You have to have your A-game absolutely all the time When you're off the field You're on an operation The operation is the focus We're at war What are you willing to do?

Someone asked me what I do, I help people when I'm on an operator, I'm not thinking about anything about uh, home is home, what's the job. in front of you, that's the only thing that matters at that point, guys are always going to modify the gear any way they want obviously, but no one is going to dictate how you carry your magazines, what holster you use, the bottom line is the results. if you're in a d.a and you're and you're kicking in doors and all you're thinking about is jk6 give him the squeeze and do your job once you're in the door you're thinking about shots, he bought shots in shots and don't shoot, don't shoot, If everyone is standing then we are ready, let's tackle the next problem.

All the men around you have the utmost confidence in you to do your job and at the same time you have to do your job because they expect your mission to be successful, you can bet there are a dozen lessons learned that you took home. Success within the brotherhood is defined as taking care of your brothers, that is the bottom line. Everyone returns home. I had a teacher. I met him in high school reading about history and I remember telling him because he was kind of smart and I told him I didn't want to read about anyone else, I want to do history, I want to do it, the count of the character traits that a level 1 guy needs to possess obviously the physique, he has to be in good shape, he doesn't have to be the strongest guy, but he has to be the guy who probably has a much higher than average intelligence, they have to be smart guys in the big army you are more like a hammer it's a big instrument when you start talking about the top-level elements it's much more of a scalpel approach you're trying to do something very surgical you're trying to do things with the greatest precision element that you can use and a lot of times it can be just one operator level one without saying what he had to do to get to that point to be able to go through that door and be able to face a guy with a gun who wants to kill him and is going to try with a very surgical method to apply the very precise amount of damage to the bad guys without inflicting any harm on any hostages who may be there, you are risking your life to save someone else's life.

He is doing it at great risk not only to himself but also to his

team

mates. I would rather take a bullet myself than do something stupid that resulted in one of my friends getting shot. I wish the general public could understand what kids don't do. what they do operationally but what they sacrifice for years and years and years to be the guy who is at the tip of the spear for me. I'm not a very social person, to be honest, ask my wife. Don't know. He considers a lot of people friends, but if you're an innocent person who's in danger, we wanted to be the guys that came and tried to do everything we could to stop the bully.

Some people have this Hollywood image of what an operator is, in fact. More than just a soldier. I knew that some people at EA were interested in working with a specific group of people. They really wanted an authentic feel for what was happening in the game and how they were going to build it. It was important to get involved because this game will come out one way or another if I'm a part of it. At least I have something to say about the way the community is represented. I was asked to see some of the images and comment. the weapons that come with some of the tactics I see it as an opportunity to do the right thing and let them see the operator for who he is.

I think they have done their homework. I think it will be a completely new experience. You say what the kids would like, how they would act, there are definitely some elements of humor, there are some elements of absolute seriousness, there are also aspects of personality that we can inject into the game, you know, to give it a little more flavor, but realistic flavor. we're going to need a bigger ship if I told the story or talked about something half an hour later I could see the results of what I said on the screen make noise the games that are currently available at least the What I've seen, nothing pretends to be in a real failure, it's the human side that they are bringing to the soldier and giving him respect, people will have a different realistic feeling from the guys who are operating at those levels.

I think they have gone to the limit. extra effort trying to figure it out, we've made some recommendations, some solid recommendations based on things they had in the original story, they are extremely responsive to everything we've asked of them, they've gone above and beyond by taking into account what we're saying we can influencing and making sure things are shown in the right way and not misrepresented. I want people to come away with an honest feeling of what it's like to be out there and do some of those things. We have a voice and a vote. We keep it very real and they respect the fact that we have sacrificed a lot of our lives to become who we are and we can help them understand what it is about that is happening there.

I first became interested in joining the military about six months after high school, I spent four years with the rangers and heard about this unit, what prompted me to join that unit was the challenge that any level one unit or elite unit operates. at that high level, everyone's superstars and those units. It pushes you harder I was a

team

offender the roles of a team offender are somewhat complex there is a lot of energy and explosives and they are very dangerous let me be honest with you everyone likes to blow things up your job is much more than just putting a charge in a door and simply hit the clacker and detonate the charge, you have to achieve that balance between entering and safeguarding your team and also the hostages that are inside the building and there are many unknowns that are always on the minds of the preachers.

I make the right decision. I would always look at missions to see what I was being asked to do and make modifications to my equipment. We were about to develop and make innovations. Everything comes together. War is the mother of invention my wife was home she was eight and a half months pregnant when I got home you bet all I said to her oh baby all I thought was that you were fine but that's not the truth the truth It's just that I was worried my boys I was worried about making the right decisions she was in good hands with other people the best way I could help her was by taking care of me we have been married 22 years I have never told her that you hear a lot people talk about mentality combat, is what distinguishes, I think, special operations people from others, it is really the mentality that they have, it is not just being physically strong, physically fast, it is not even being intelligent, it is a combination of attributes, being comprehensive and be willing to accept. a calculated risk the tenacity to not give up I'm not thinking about whether I've been a good boy and I'm not going to go to heaven you're right and you know you can do what you're doing you're going to be tasked with doing, you have to be able to go from sitting with your friends drinking a beer 24 hours later being somewhere in the world and now, suddenly, someone expects you to mount an assault, big things depend on your actions. everything when i was in high school i was in english class or something was getting me in trouble at the library the teacher made me go get a book i found a book about navy frogmen that seemed like the coolest thing you could ever do. do after that I got pretty hooked in the middle of a gunfight you're so flooded with adrenaline so busy thinking about what you have to be doing but you can't feel anything the truth of the matter at least for me is that you're too busy to be afraid, I I would say that the way you learn to control adrenaline is simply through training - you will do something in training a million times, so the day you do it there will automatically be several times a month where we would do jumps starting at midnight you jump like four times a night four times a day you've done more in that not even a full day yet than most people would ever dream of doing to you in their entire life that was nothing it just becomes What doesn't everyone do?

No matter how crazy this situation is, no matter how bad things are going, it doesn't really affect you, it doesn't really group you together, you're still mentally free, you still have enough hard drive space here to solve the problem. You know that you can do things that no one else can do and for you it is something normal. As I grew on the teams, I understood that it all started with me and became about us. When I became an officer, I understood. I was a mentor to all these young people. The best advice I have been given as a leader was from the master chief.

Make sure you take some guys who have problems because you will never understand how to lead and you will never understand what leadership is. It's until you have to lead someone who needs leadership and I took that into account and when I selected people I had some troublemakers. I want the people below me to be like the people I admired who were above me so they could navigate their careers and pass them on to the next generation. We are unique because we have a job and that job may not be popular, but it is a human activity that has been with us since the beginning of time and will continue. be with us until we cease to exist there are guys who like war and are good at it there is no such thing as utopia there are evil people in the world and we have to deal with them comfortably you