Remembering the Battle of Mogadishu | No Man Left Behind

My role in that battle was a team leader with one of the platoons that went in on the air assault. I went and originally on the helicopters. When you make it out of something where others didn't, you're going to spend the rest of your life thanking the people who were on your left and your right.

The way that I know to do it, since I've been given this gift of putting a camera in front of me, is I'll tell the story to whoever wants to hear it. I think anybody that's ever worn their boots—whether it's the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, or the Coast Guard—that camaraderie that you had, where there was just absolute counting on each other. The person on your left and your right are responsible for you, and you're responsible for them, and it's such an absolute, but it's so basic to the core of us as people.

When you get out of the military, I think that's the thing that you miss the most, and it takes you a long time to figure out that that's what it is you're missing. What I find amazing about it, having been telling the story for 20 years, is this story is thousands of years old. It's the same story that your grandpas would have told in World War II, uncles in Korea. My father was in Vietnam; we will tell you the same stories.

It's always about, "Man, you should have seen what he did," and "You should have seen what she did." Like, nobody's bragging about themselves, and I think the people watching these stories, who haven't been in that situation, they find it inspiring. What the battle means to you changes, and I think where I'm at in my life is it's the absolute value you, and how important you are to this person, and how important that person is to you.

If we focus everything we can and pour everything we've got into helping these people, that's how we're going to make it out. You can look back and say, is war or combat, is any of it necessary? And I don't know. But I do know this: it happens in this world; it is a reality of the world. You need people who are willing to go and do that job.

You're going to lose people if there's combat, and you better make damn sure that what you're sending them for is worth the lives that are lost. How it's changed me has changed over time, and not a day goes by where I don't, at some point, think about something with that battle. It's defined who I am.