Dive Deep with US Navy SEAL Commander and Robotics Pioneer Doug Horner

Transcript

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Hello and welcome to the season three premiere episode of no Wrong Choices, a podcast about the adventures of life that explores the career journeys of successful and interesting people.

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I'm Larry Samuels, soon to be joined by the other fellas, tushar Saxena and Larry Shay.

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I want to start off today by thanking everybody who has come along on our journey to date.

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Our podcast is growing beyond our expectations, which has really been great, and y'all are making that happen for us, so thank you.

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Thank you so much For those who might be joining us for the first time and for anyone else who hasn't done this yet.

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Please support us by following no Wrong Choices on your podcasting platform of choice and by giving us a five star rating.

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This episode features retired US Navy SEAL and the current chairman of the Undersea Warfare Academic Group at the Naval Post Graduate School, doug Horner.

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This should be a fascinating discussion.

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Larry Shay, why don't you lead us into this one?

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You set a mouthful if titles have anything to do with it.

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Yeah, this is a guy who we're super excited to talk to because he doesn't just have one area of expertise, he has a couple, and they're both top level.

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Fascinating things, fascinating careers, right?

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I mean people spend their whole life in the military.

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He's a Navy SEAL.

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People spend their whole life in robotics.

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He specializes in underwater robotics and other fascinating things.

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So you're talking about a guy who is super physical to be a SEAL, super smart to be a SEAL and then uber smart to be in the world of robotics.

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This is someone I want to meet.

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This is someone I want to find out how they got to where they are, and someone who's at the top of a lot of fields.

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So fascinating to talk to.

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Doug Horner.

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So there's a couple things that we're going to talk about here.

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Is that one?

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We're going to have the opportunity to talk with someone in the special operators field, right?

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So these are like the elite of the elite when it comes to warriors in our military.

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But it's not just that.

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When you look at this guy's resume and you see that this man is now involved in the idea of robotics and artificial intelligence and machine learning, well, he's on the cutting edge, the absolute cutting edge of the future of the military.

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So it's not simply what he did as a warrior, he continues to be a warrior and taking that idea of what is warfare into the future, and that is fascinating beyond belief.

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That's sci-fi stuff.

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Yeah, I mean he's got a 30 plus year perspective.

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That began in the field in the most advanced of ways and now he's literally creating the future of robotics for the military in a way.

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So with that, this should be absolutely fascinating.

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Here is Doug Horner Now joining.

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No wrong choices is the retired US Navy SEAL and current chairman of the Undersea Warfare Academic Group at the Naval Post Graduate School, Doug Horner.

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Doug, thank you so much for joining us.

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You're welcome.

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I said so eloquently.

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It's the second time as well.

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Well, it's very funny.

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I was going to say it took me so long to get that out of my mouth.

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What does that actually mean?

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What is your role?

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My role at the post graduate school.

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There's a curriculum that is called the Undersea Warfare Academic Group, and so what happens is students come typically submariners, but also a variety of students from different warfare specialties.

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They come to this curriculum that's known as Undersea Warfare and they get to choose between 10 different curriculum programs master's programs at the post graduate school.

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It includes stuff like mechanical engineering, physics and electrical engineering, and then they add to that courses that are associated with Undersea Warfare, so sonar, tactical oceanography, which deals with the very interesting space of the ocean, and robotics, and so I'm kind of in charge of that.

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You sound like you have the coolest job ever.

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Okay, so I love this job.

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It's a great job.

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It sounds great and first of all it might be a bit insulting but, like you know, like Hunt for Red October is one of my favorite movies in those Tom Clancy books and a lot of what you're saying sounds a great deal of like what obviously, like those books were about.

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There was a book that's one of my favorites.

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It's about the Silent Service.

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It's about the Silent Service, submarine Service and a great deal of those, a great deal of the tales of submariners and you know the great tales during the Cold War, et cetera.

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So it just sounds like one of the best jobs ever.

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I think you're talking about Blind Man's Bluff, aren't?

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you.

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Yes, blind Man's Bluff.

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Thank you for reminding me.

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Oh, my God, that's one of my favorite books.

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One of my favorite books.

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So let me get back to my original question, which was as a younger man.

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So you obviously are an unbelievably smart person.

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This is not this is without doubt Were you always into?

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Were you always into, let's say, tinkering with you know, whether it be robotics or just tinkering in general?

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And you wanted to be, you wanted to be, you wanted to have, like that, an athletic background and you wanted to have a background of you know, I want to do something more with my life and then incorporate that into my future.

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Or was it just that, look, I kind of need, I just love to tinker with stuff and then I'll find my way later on.

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Yeah, so there's small elements of each of those.

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But I wasn't really like a mechanical kid growing up, but I did like take apart a telephone.

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I was super interested in those dial up telephones and you know how they worked.

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And so my mom gave me a telephone and said have at it.

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And I, you know, obviously I still remember that.

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But you know, growing up I didn't matriculate towards engineering.

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My undergraduate was at Boston University in mathematics and a second degree in economics and I was thinking business and I went from there over into an investment company called Colonial Mutual Funds in Boston and did sales for them for three years.

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So I didn't start off with the idea that I would be ending up where I'm at right now.

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It's been kind of a strange, fun progression.

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And that's a good thing, right, because sometimes that rounds us out and makes us who we are.

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I do want to go back to the beginning, though, because you know, this is a show about the genesis of where our dreams come from and achieving them, and I think it's important to kind of go back and talk a little bit about.

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Before you know it sounds like you had both, you know a mind for becoming a Navy SEAL, and there had to be some physical ability.

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So take me back to the beginning, obviously, what kind of led you down to the SEAL path?

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You could tell that story in your own way, but also the physical aspect of it, because you know, just in preparing for this interview, to read what it takes to be a Navy SEAL is just superhuman.

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So, just, I want to start from the beginning, maybe to when you were a child or a teenager.

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What have you?

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And, in your own way, just tell your story about how you went on that path.

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Yeah, I think it starts with all the time that I spent in or near the water, and so for years I grew up in a place called Lewisboro, new York, and our mom would drop us off at the pool and I would spend my summers swimming and playing ping pong and playing a little bit of tennis in there as well, and I just really enjoyed that, had great friends set and did that for probably five or six years growing up, and so that transitioned over into becoming a competitive swimmer and as a competitive swimmer through high school I graduated as an all state swimmer and then that kind of got me into collegiate sports with swimming again.

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But I didn't do it very long because I was so burned out by that time.

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Anybody that's a swimmer knows that you put so much time in the water to be good, and I wasn't that good.

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So the rewards from coming from swimming.

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You know I wasn't winning races, so I was looking for something to something else to do and I found water polo and so the combination of yeah.

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so for me the combination of swimming and the physicality that's associated and the competition that's associated with a team sport in the water was really transformative for me.

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I really enjoyed that.

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I became president of that club and we traveled around New England playing all kinds of teams and having just a great time, and that has stayed with me over the years.

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Wow, that's really really cool.

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So post college, you get into finance and you're working a few years out.

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When did you start to get the bug and start to think about, you know, pivoting, transitioning?

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Where did the whole SEAL idea come from it?

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came about because of the economic realities of a crash in 88.

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So I was working for again that company, colonial Mutual Funds, and a great company to work for, and I was doing something known as bank sales, so trying to get banks to sell our group of mutual funds.

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And that was based on the Glass-Steevill Act.

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That was new legislation that allowed the flexibility of banks to go ahead and sell mutual funds.

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And so I went from Boston and moved down to Tampa.

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But it was tough going.

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It was a new marketplace and I was making a lot of money as a 24 year old.

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But I also kind of was like, hey, I could be doing this 20 years from now.

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Is this really what you want to be doing with your life?

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And so, you know, I was looking inward and started, and I think Top Gun was out at that point in time.

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I was like, man, that looks pretty good.

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It seems like a place where I could learn some leadership skills and some life skills.

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And so I went into the recruiter and I said what do you got?

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And he said and he took a look at what I've done in the past, right, and saw the water polo stuff and said, hey, I want you to watch this tape.

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And he showed me this seal UDT tape and I was like holy smokes.

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They were doing scuba, right, and there was no bubbles coming out of their scuba rig.

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I was like how in the world are they doing that?

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And I was hooked.

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So that was the naval recruiter.

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Yeah, the naval recruiter in Boston and I had three choices.

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I had to take a battery test and I said I want to be a seal first, and then the second one was an EOD explosive ordinance disposal officer, and the third one would have been a diver a Navy diver by far.

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I also talked to some other folks that were seals and I was all over it.

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I thought this was the best way to live my best life.

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So how does that work?

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Like I'm imagining you're a naval recruiter and people walking off the street all the time saying, hey, I'd like to be a seal.

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That sounds really cool.

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Like how do they know to take you seriously versus somebody else that passes through?

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I don't think they do.

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They just were desperate at that point in time.

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You got to understand this.

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This is like before.

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They couldn't have been that desperate.

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Come on, this is a very average student at a good college, but not a great college.

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But the demand to be a seal at that point in time, when we're talking 88, was not like it is today.

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I don't think that I would get into the seal program today given my academic performance and my athletic performance.

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The level has just increased so high the bar is high.

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So I want to ask you a couple of things here.

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Now one when you were still doing your finance work, were you still involved in water polo at that point?

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Yeah, I would still play a little bit with some masters teams.

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And I could hear how much water polo and you even said like water polo as it's, as a team sport was very influential on you.

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What were some of the things that you gained from from water polo and just, let's say, team sports or being part of a team in general?

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Obviously, being just a swimmer itself, it's a very individualistic sport.

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It's all about you competing against others or even competing against just the clock for the most part, but obviously with water polo you have to rely on others.

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What were some of those things that you pulled away?

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from that.

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So the first thing that you come away with it is a sense of Toughness, right, because you get there is the above water game and there's the underwater game and you can get a lot.

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You could get away with a lot under the waters if you knew how to play correctly, right.

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So there's a physicality that was associated with it.

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That was a lot different from anything that I'd done in in swimming before.

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The second thing was, you know, the reliance on your team and the, the, the kind of person that a water polo, that people gravitated towards, that played water polo, was the kind of person that I kind of wanted to hang out with.

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They were fun people, right and how did that then carry over to you saying, okay, I can take some of these.

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Or did it even, let's say, like when you were thinking about it, you so I did you say, some of the Some of these skills that I had I did in with water polo, they could carry over into my training as a seal, or did that even come into mind?

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It really didn't come into mind.

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I think it was one of the reasons why you maybe the recruiter thought of you know, putting me into Into the seal application process.

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The thing that, more than anything, that I would like to share is that at that point in the time of my life I felt like I I had a confidence, but it was an unrealized confidence.

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I didn't feel I felt like I could be a leader of people, but I didn't know how.

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And In comparison to the jobs that I had, I had the confidence that I could do a better job, but I wanted to fill myself out in life experiences, to do more than just say I thought I could do it right.

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Does that make sense?

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Yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah, and you said that before that you were looking inward, you know.

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So you were looking for a way to harness that leadership ability and, from what it sounds like to us, the seals just seemed like a perfect way for you to Fulfill that inward goal of becoming a leader.

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Is that right?

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Is that?

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It did it just fit the bill?

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It was just all of a sudden like boom, this is perfect, just what I need, yeah.

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Yeah, and the other thing that really it was the notion of service right and in the for the nation that that really was kind of missing within business and for me that really was a Strong reason to go there because I was taking a pay cut of more than half Right right and, and so I was going from you know a nice style of living to to something that definitely took me down a step and but it was worth it as far as I was concerned at that point in time in my life.

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So how, how difficult was that?

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Reflection though.

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I mean, was this a series of you walking into the office in the next few hours?

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You're on a plane to get trained, or did you take a couple of weeks and figure out?

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Yeah, this is really gonna be the best thing for me, because it's gonna make make sure that I'm Taking care of that fulfillment aspect of things.

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Yeah, what happened was is that I left the job and I actually traveled in Europe for six weeks.

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And, yeah, I went to Ireland on my own Ireland all the way down to to Germany and Greece, and while I was there, I found out that I got into the program.

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Oh wow in In Greece did you find?

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Out, because that's a beautiful place to find out.

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Yes, yes, to celebrate.

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Yes, absolutely awesome.

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And how do you find out?

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So you're in Greece.

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Did they send a telegram like how does that work?

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They call my parents and I said he's got to come home.

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Oh, that's great Wow.

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So how long?

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Before that from that point was it before training started?

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So the first thing that you do is you go to officer can at school, officer can't schools in Newport, rhode Island, and I reported I think it was on the 25th or 26, right after Thanksgiving of November 1988, and that's then for three or four months and then I go straight, went straight out from there to Coronado, california, for basic underwater demolition school.

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So when you get out to California, you know I think of the the great story when you start college they say take a look to your left, take a look to your right.

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Those two people will not be standing there at the end.

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Well, I think, with the, the Buds program, that that it's a legendary thing that that people don't make it through.

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How many people did you start with?

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Yeah, 103 and graduated.

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We officially graduated with I think it's 40, some number Approximately.

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Wow it was also one of the things that the number of your, of the guys that you started with, that you finished with was 20, approximately 20, and the rest of the other 20 were guys that rolled into the class Because they had previously been injured and classed up with, in my case, class 163.

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Oh, wow, that's amazing that many injuries.

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Because that many injuries?

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Because you have to remember it's the toughest sport on earth, essentially right.

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I mean you are training to become, you know super human, super human.

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Yeah, destruction proof really.

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I mean, from what, what I've read?

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the thing I'd share with you guys is it's not during buds, it's actually after buds that you really learn your craft, and it becomes Harder.

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I mean, that's a wicket that you have to pass through, but that's just really the beginning.

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So take us through training.

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You know what is that process, what are those days, what are you learning like it.

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Can you sort of take us through that journey?

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Yeah, absolutely.

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So you get there and you have about six weeks.

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There's three phases.

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Okay, there is.

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You wait until you class up.

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So that was about again Don't quote me on exact time frames and dates, but this is the general feel for it.

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You wait to your class up, then you class up and be part of this group of a hundred guys and and then and you get ready through physical training on To be part of that class.

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Once you get part of that class, you go through three phases.

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There is the first phase, which gets you ready for hell week.

00:19:31.490 --> 00:19:49.301
Where in hell week you are, you're tested to your limits and part of that testing is staying up for four nights in hell week and Then after that, after you get through hell week, you go through.

00:19:49.301 --> 00:20:01.970
Let's see, there's a land warfare phase and there's also a diving phase, and For the land warfare phase they take you out to a place called San Clemente Island.

00:20:01.970 --> 00:20:12.208
You do small arms training and also demolitions, underwater demolitions, and then for diving you get qualified.

00:20:12.208 --> 00:20:26.240
You start with open circuit and then you transition over into a closed circuit, which was that difference between scuba and no bubbles bubbles versus no bubbles so you can become a tactical combat Diver.

00:20:26.560 --> 00:20:26.782
All right.

00:20:26.782 --> 00:20:33.284
So just, but just so that we can explain to folks when we keep sick We've mentioned the word a couple of times bud school, what that really?

00:20:33.284 --> 00:20:35.309
But what that really means is basic underwater demolition, seal training.

00:20:35.309 --> 00:20:36.763
So that's where it buds comes from.

00:20:36.763 --> 00:20:42.809
So, okay, so now you've done, you've done, let's say that's why, that's what six weeks you said.

00:20:44.695 --> 00:20:49.089
So the the total time for buds is is approximately eight months.

00:20:49.089 --> 00:20:49.250
Oh wow.

00:20:51.095 --> 00:20:52.157
Okay, wow, geez, all right, so.

00:20:52.157 --> 00:20:56.230
So that's eight months of just what seems to be intensive training at this point.

00:20:58.435 --> 00:20:59.720
It is, but you get.

00:20:59.720 --> 00:21:09.141
So for me, the mindset was is If I don't make it through here, they're gonna have to take me out in a body bag, and the sounds kind of extreme right there.

00:21:09.141 --> 00:21:16.663
But you kind of kind of have that mentality when you go in because otherwise you're gonna wring out, and that's not that.

00:21:16.702 --> 00:21:23.049
That leads me right to my next question All right, so I think a lot of us have seen kind of movies about seals and seal training.

00:21:23.049 --> 00:21:26.343
Is that true?

00:21:26.343 --> 00:21:27.950
The idea of the bell to ring out?

00:21:27.950 --> 00:21:31.289
Yes, that's absolutely true, absolutely true.

00:21:31.289 --> 00:21:43.780
And I'm assuming that you have seen other guy, other other candidates in there who you would say are probably just as superhuman as you or you know you would.

00:21:43.780 --> 00:21:48.577
You would think, and they ring out and you and you're probably your joy drops, I'm assuming.

00:21:49.319 --> 00:21:52.368
Yeah yeah, and not superhuman, obviously it's.

00:21:52.388 --> 00:22:00.390
It's it's Persistence and it's over overcoming adversity as you look back and and you compare yourself to the others.

00:22:00.390 --> 00:22:09.367
Was there something Different about you in eight Lee that you think helped get you through this process?

00:22:09.387 --> 00:22:23.878
Yeah, if I'm being honest with you, it's that I'm not great at anything, but I'm really good at a lot of things, and so when, when you are in the top 20% of a lot of things, then you gravitate overall to being good.

00:22:24.309 --> 00:22:34.432
I you just made my my hair stand on end with that kind of stuff, man, because what you're doing, I mean there must have been, and Help me, help me understand it.

00:22:34.432 --> 00:22:38.246
There must have been days where you're like I can't do this anymore.

00:22:38.246 --> 00:22:42.845
So how did you push through?

00:22:42.845 --> 00:22:43.847
What was that mental struggle like?

00:22:43.847 --> 00:22:46.134
Or were you always just Going to go into the end?

00:22:46.134 --> 00:22:46.496
That was it.

00:22:46.496 --> 00:22:49.065
I mean you said bring you out in a body bag.

00:22:49.065 --> 00:22:54.818
There's things called drownproofing, somebody is trying to drown you, you know, and you have to like, not drown.

00:22:54.818 --> 00:22:57.049
Basically, you've won if you don't drown.

00:22:57.049 --> 00:22:58.694
What was the mental part?

00:22:58.694 --> 00:23:02.029
And I know it could be very sensitive and I'm not trying to make light of it.

00:23:02.029 --> 00:23:04.619
So, please, like, help us understand, because it's a special person that I'm not trying to make light of it.

00:23:04.619 --> 00:23:09.079
Understand, because it's a special person that goes through this.

00:23:10.049 --> 00:23:17.814
It's funny that you bring that up, because I failed the first drownproofing so I had to go through a second time, and so the first.

00:23:17.814 --> 00:23:18.737
What do they do they?

00:23:18.737 --> 00:23:22.750
They have you in a pool and they have you in open, in open circuit.

00:23:22.750 --> 00:23:27.601
Uh, so scuba, and they take they your mask.

00:23:27.601 --> 00:23:46.795
They take your mask off, they take what is an octopus rig which is connected on both sides of the tank, and they bring it over your head and they tie it in a knot and then they toss you around a little bit and then you've got to untie the knot and bring it back over the top of your head and start breathing again, and I couldn't get the knot out.

00:23:46.795 --> 00:23:52.644
I had gotten to my limit the first time and so so you had to under water when that happened.

00:23:53.230 --> 00:23:57.055
Obviously right, yeah, you've got to be comfortable in the water, oh my God.

00:23:59.273 --> 00:24:03.733
And so the second time I trained and trained and trained and there was.

00:24:03.733 --> 00:24:15.298
For me it was kind of a strange part in aspect of my life because there was just no way that I was not going to not make it.

00:24:15.298 --> 00:24:22.601
I didn't want to live with myself if I didn't make it, and that's for those folks that don't make it through.

00:24:22.601 --> 00:24:24.414
It's not a reflection on that person either.

00:24:24.414 --> 00:24:25.900
I don't want to make that quick.

00:24:26.029 --> 00:24:26.673
So when do you know?

00:24:26.673 --> 00:24:31.998
You made it Like what is that moment, what is that last step where you know?

00:24:32.078 --> 00:24:32.640
you've made it.

00:24:32.640 --> 00:24:38.660
I mean when you're walking across the stage and you get your orders to your next command.

00:24:39.009 --> 00:24:56.098
But is there a moment where you're walking out of a drill, out of a test, out of a water, where you've just kind of left it all on the field and you recognize that you've crossed the finish line, where it's really not until your score comes in and you get your certification.

00:24:56.329 --> 00:24:58.865
So you get all these scores as you're going along.

00:24:58.865 --> 00:25:03.650
So you know how you're doing, but you never know when you're going to get injured.

00:25:03.650 --> 00:25:09.748
You never know when you're going to get a fracture, a shin splints, to the point where you can't run anymore.

00:25:09.748 --> 00:25:12.230
So it's always a process.

00:25:12.230 --> 00:25:14.329
You don't want to take anything for granted.

00:25:15.137 --> 00:25:16.329
And then what are the emotions afterwards?

00:25:16.329 --> 00:25:25.329
I think about all those people who were messing with you throughout the process and making it hard, etc.

00:25:25.329 --> 00:25:30.329
I mean, you recognize why you're doing it, but are there any hard feelings afterwards?

00:25:30.329 --> 00:25:32.269
Do you leave that behind?

00:25:32.269 --> 00:25:34.839
What are the emotions after you've finished?

00:25:35.329 --> 00:25:43.056
So you don't have any animosity towards your instructors I didn't.

00:25:43.056 --> 00:25:59.329
They were terrific and they're just trying to teach you the lessons that you need to learn when you get into serious circumstances and how do you be a leader, and so, in a sense, that's what I was kind of looking for.

00:25:59.329 --> 00:26:04.701
It was the first step along that path, and so they were tremendous.

00:26:04.701 --> 00:26:08.317
Of course, I was proud.

00:26:08.317 --> 00:26:11.329
I was proud of myself, and that doesn't go away.

00:26:11.329 --> 00:26:13.329
I still look back on that right now as we're talking.

00:26:13.329 --> 00:26:18.309
I'm extremely proud of my performance during that time frame, as well as you should be.

00:26:18.431 --> 00:26:22.623
You talked about injury before and guys that get injured and you said about 20 rejoined your group.

00:26:22.623 --> 00:26:27.329
How does the injury thing work, because it's such a big part of this.

00:26:27.329 --> 00:26:31.615
Can you step away, rehab the injury, jump back in right where you were?

00:26:31.615 --> 00:26:32.616
Is there a waiting list?

00:26:32.616 --> 00:26:33.538
How does that end?

00:26:33.538 --> 00:26:35.163
You just get a year and then that's it.

00:26:35.163 --> 00:26:35.624
You're done.

00:26:37.037 --> 00:26:38.229
So you know this is back in the day.

00:26:38.229 --> 00:26:40.674
This is 30 years ago.

00:26:41.115 --> 00:26:42.720
So I don't know, it may be different today, sure.

00:26:43.060 --> 00:26:52.136
Yeah, exactly, but back in the day what happened is, if you've made it through Hell Week, then you could class up and you got injured.

00:26:52.136 --> 00:26:54.176
You could then pick up another class.

00:26:54.176 --> 00:27:00.477
If you didn't make it through Hell Week or you got injured before Hell Week, then you would have to go through that first phase all over again.

00:27:00.477 --> 00:27:11.778
Right, and so those three phases the initial phase, the diving phase and land warfare is that you would then class up at one of those.

00:27:11.778 --> 00:27:12.700
Does that make sense?

00:27:13.039 --> 00:27:13.240
Yeah.

00:27:13.361 --> 00:27:13.520
Yep.

00:27:13.740 --> 00:27:14.082
Sure yeah.

00:27:14.082 --> 00:27:18.336
So what was your first assignment coming out of?

00:27:18.336 --> 00:27:19.471
Coming out of Bud's, yeah?

00:27:19.491 --> 00:27:20.743
1989.

00:27:20.743 --> 00:27:43.800
And I got assigned to SEAL Team 4, which was my first choice, and that is they had an area of operations of the Southern Command which, if you guys remember, was when the invasion of Panama happened, and with Noriega Yep, then Panamanian general Noriega, and so I thought that was the best place to go at that point in time.

00:27:44.973 --> 00:27:47.169
So, okay, we're entering the tricky part of the interview.

00:27:49.315 --> 00:27:50.818
Let's talk about it for a second.

00:27:50.818 --> 00:27:51.359
Yeah.

00:27:52.329 --> 00:27:58.146
You were a SEAL, for you helped me with the number of 10, 11 years, yeah, 12 years, 12 years.

00:27:58.146 --> 00:27:59.329
I'm sure there are things you could talk about.

00:27:59.329 --> 00:28:01.477
I'm sure there are things that you can't talk about.

00:28:01.477 --> 00:28:04.298
We certainly are not going to know the difference.

00:28:04.298 --> 00:28:09.309
So we want to go as far as we can without you breaking protocol.

00:28:09.309 --> 00:28:13.604
So what were some of those missions that you're super proud of?

00:28:13.604 --> 00:28:17.655
If you could talk about them or be vague, but what did you do in that?

00:28:17.695 --> 00:28:17.915
time.

00:28:17.915 --> 00:28:18.617
What's an example?

00:28:18.637 --> 00:28:22.718
Yeah, 12 years Tell us a little bit about that.

00:28:23.811 --> 00:28:25.156
I'll give you three snapshots.

00:28:25.156 --> 00:28:33.721
The first one is the time that I spent down in South America, and so there I was as an officer.

00:28:33.721 --> 00:28:44.182
I was assistant officer in charge and then also eventually an officer in charge of a platoon, and that means of 16 guys that deployed together.

00:28:45.032 --> 00:28:45.555
What was your rank.

00:28:46.611 --> 00:28:47.957
My highest rank was a commander.

00:28:47.957 --> 00:28:56.641
I attained that after I left the SEALs as a reservist, as an active duty SEAL, my highest rank was a lieutenant commander, which is an 04.

00:28:56.641 --> 00:29:11.663
So for the first five years I was deploying down to South America to places like Columbia and Honduras and stationed in Panama right on the Panama Canal, which was amazing.

00:29:11.663 --> 00:29:38.019
And then doing counter narcotics training with partner nations like Columbia and going into those areas, remote areas like the Putamayo River down in Columbia, which is between the border of Columbia and Ecuador, and seeing that beauty and seeing how the countries worked, being able to get fluent in Spanish was a really terrific time.

00:29:38.631 --> 00:29:43.862
The next phase that I'll mention is 97 through 99.

00:29:43.862 --> 00:29:48.861
And there I got qualified as a SEAL delivery vehicle pilot.

00:29:48.861 --> 00:30:07.959
So I don't know if you guys are familiar with, but the SEAL delivery vehicle is a wet submarine and it comes out of the back of a what's known as a dry dock shelter on the top of a submarine and you go and do naval special warfare missions from there.

00:30:07.959 --> 00:30:09.863
Interesting so, oh boy.

00:30:09.863 --> 00:30:16.083
So being a pilot and doing things like just looking at the dry dock shelter out the back and seeing.

00:30:16.083 --> 00:30:36.882
You know, we used to do training in a place called Vieques in Puerto Rico and looking out the back of the proverbial submarine garage and seeing the bioluminescence coming off of the back of the submarine propeller with a hundred foot visibility was just absolutely amazing, wow.

00:30:37.830 --> 00:30:38.070
Oh my.

00:30:38.172 --> 00:30:38.471
God.

00:30:39.394 --> 00:30:40.355
Okay, that's two.

00:30:40.355 --> 00:30:41.037
You have a third.

00:30:41.679 --> 00:30:42.881
Yeah, persian Gulf.

00:30:42.881 --> 00:31:12.797
There I was the task unit commander, so in charge of about 21 or 22 guys on an aircraft carrier and that was the USS Roosevelt and we went over to Bosnia through the Mediterranean and then through into the Gulf Persian Gulf where we were doing, you know, operations there, and that was extremely rewarding as well.

00:31:13.618 --> 00:31:15.532
Yeah, I'm sure I mean all of these things.

00:31:15.532 --> 00:31:18.101
It sounds like I mean you are a pilot.

00:31:18.101 --> 00:31:23.329
I mean you're doing various functions in those three snapshots too, which is what I find most fascinating.

00:31:23.329 --> 00:31:25.758
So what kinds of things?

00:31:25.758 --> 00:31:29.329
Don't even talk about mission exactly, but what kinds of things did they have you doing?

00:31:29.329 --> 00:31:32.329
Were you going behind enemy lines?

00:31:32.329 --> 00:31:34.317
Of course you're driving vehicles.

00:31:34.317 --> 00:31:41.941
You're in a sub vehicle with the sub single man, like, are you like going in and like going under and jumping on land?

00:31:42.221 --> 00:31:45.329
essentially, yeah, let me give you an example.

00:31:45.329 --> 00:32:03.791
One of the things in the Persian Gulf that we used to do is something called visit, board search and seizure, and what we would do is take over a ship, a cargo ship, and the way that we would do that is, at night, by fast roping from helicopters onto the back of the moving cargo ship.

00:32:04.534 --> 00:32:05.115
Oh, my God.

00:32:05.724 --> 00:32:07.652
That's like we would have weapons.

00:32:07.652 --> 00:32:08.173
We would have.

00:32:09.547 --> 00:32:12.292
I was going to avoid saying that's like the movies, but that's like the movies.

00:32:13.695 --> 00:32:14.436
It was crazy.

00:32:14.436 --> 00:32:15.969
Yeah that's crazy Fun simultaneous.

00:32:16.885 --> 00:32:20.756
Yeah, I'll bet and you have to at some point.

00:32:20.756 --> 00:32:24.146
I mean, I Kate Harpen on this point, but I'm going to do it again At some point.

00:32:24.146 --> 00:32:28.868
You're like staring into the abyss on the back of some vehicle about to jump into God knows where.

00:32:28.868 --> 00:32:31.836
You must have said am I making good life choices right now?

00:32:35.126 --> 00:32:40.393
Actually, that really is a really good question because, like you, have to be a little bit crazy to do this job.

00:32:41.045 --> 00:32:41.667
I don't think so.

00:32:41.667 --> 00:32:51.416
I think more than anything when I hear you guys say that is the the, the thing that that I think about is you know, Lord, just let me get it right.

00:32:51.416 --> 00:32:53.069
I mean, that's yeah, there you go.

00:32:55.345 --> 00:33:05.707
So you know, tushar asked a very good setup question for for where my, my, my mind was going, which is you know what is the lifestyle of a Navy SEAL Meaning?

00:33:05.707 --> 00:33:14.317
You're going off on these missions, you're living in different parts of the world, you're giving all of yourself to your country and to a cause.

00:33:14.317 --> 00:33:20.664
Can you have a normal life, like how much notice do you have before a mission?

00:33:20.664 --> 00:33:21.951
How long are missions?

00:33:21.951 --> 00:33:23.865
Can you date as a Navy SEAL?

00:33:23.865 --> 00:33:26.113
Like, what is the lifestyle of a SEAL?

00:33:26.384 --> 00:33:28.851
So what tends to happen is is you get assigned to.

00:33:28.851 --> 00:33:31.116
This is again old information.

00:33:31.116 --> 00:34:05.538
Okay, it's not organized the way it is now, but from my standpoint, my historical basis is that you would get assigned to a platoon and that platoon would have somewhere like an 18 month workup where you would do all this training in submarine operations, in air operations like halo, high altitude, low opening land warfare, all these different components in order to qualify the platoon to be able to be, to deploy and be a capable unit.

00:34:05.538 --> 00:34:18.788
Then you would deploy for six months and then you'd come back and you'd stand down for a while and then you'd repeat that process, especially for enlisted and for officers.

00:34:18.788 --> 00:34:33.217
You typically stay at a command for, you know, two to three years and then you move to a different command to try and check off a lot of your responsibilities as you matriculate and become a more senior officer.

00:34:33.565 --> 00:34:39.311
So do you still consider yourself at this point now, retired so many years, still a member of the special operators community?

00:34:39.311 --> 00:34:41.204
Like, are you still very welcomed in?

00:34:41.204 --> 00:34:42.965
And I mean, obviously, look, you're teaching it.

00:34:42.965 --> 00:34:58.931
We were teaching at the War College in California, but you're and I wouldn't say buts, it's wrong for me to use the word, but in this case because you are still obviously teaching in the Submariner community but in this sense, like, do you still consider yourself part of that special operators community as well?

00:34:59.271 --> 00:35:07.164
Absolutely, but I don't make you know I'm not in contact with everybody as maybe I could be.

00:35:07.164 --> 00:35:09.885
There's a little bit of separation that has happened over the years.

00:35:09.885 --> 00:35:19.193
You don't, you know, hang out with as many of your buds as you want to, so there is a little bit of a separation.

00:35:20.237 --> 00:35:20.659
Why is that?

00:35:23.431 --> 00:35:26.583
The responsibilities associated with, you know, having a family, raising the family.

00:35:26.583 --> 00:35:28.762
Sure, your priorities change a little bit.

00:35:30.391 --> 00:35:39.164
So to that point, doug, when you talk about priorities changing, how do you know it's time to pivot away from being active and to pivot towards something else?

00:35:39.164 --> 00:35:42.820
Does that moment reveal itself to you?

00:35:42.820 --> 00:35:43.644
Yeah, yeah.

00:35:45.635 --> 00:36:10.644
So let's see, in 1995, after five years at SEAL Team 4, I came to the Naval Post Graduate School in Monterey and met my wife then, julie Franson, and spent two great years here and then we left and we always thought that we kind of wanted to come back here and maybe raise a family.

00:36:10.644 --> 00:36:30.121
And so then fast forward to 1999 and after the Persian Gulf, with the Task Unit Commander is, I did a job in Washington DC at Naval Sea Systems Command and knew at that point in time that we just wanted to transition back.

00:36:30.121 --> 00:36:38.835
It was too hard on us in our particular relationship to spend the kind of time apart that we knew we would if I continued to be a SEAL.

00:36:41.351 --> 00:36:43.621
So were you married as a SEAL?

00:36:43.621 --> 00:36:46.724
Yes, and what was that like for her?

00:36:46.724 --> 00:36:50.141
Meaning you're going off on a mission.

00:36:50.141 --> 00:36:53.715
Are you going to come back Like what was that like for her?

00:36:54.416 --> 00:36:54.938
It was tough.

00:36:54.938 --> 00:36:56.543
It was tough, it was tough.

00:36:56.543 --> 00:36:59.434
You'd have to talk to her about that, but it's.

00:36:59.434 --> 00:37:06.494
You know, the not knowing and not being able to discuss stuff was always difficult.

00:37:07.155 --> 00:37:08.298
How old were you at that point?

00:37:09.547 --> 00:37:17.724
Let's see in 32, which, when I got married, so I have to think this is an issue with a lot of your colleagues too.

00:37:17.724 --> 00:37:21.704
I mean, everybody you know, I would think, goes through this in one form or another.

00:37:21.704 --> 00:37:24.635
We all have relationships in our life, whatever they might be.

00:37:24.635 --> 00:37:34.503

Dive Deep with US Navy SEAL Commander and Robotics Pioneer Doug Horner

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