Ep. 235 - Tim Kennedy: A US Special Op's Reason for Serving - "Win Hearts and Minds"

"Have a spirit of adventure, the desire to learn something new, be an explorer and never get too comfortable." ------- "Imagine this room is filling up with poisonous gas," Tim said. He's looking straight at me. "There's two doors behind me, one window and one to either side." He points exactly where everything is, even though he's still looking straight at me. "We have several choices," he said, "I can pick the locks of one of the doors. I can break down the doors. I can smash one of the windows and we can climb out. We have three minutes until we die. What do we do?" Tim is aware of everything around him. Which is probably why I started off the podcast with: "We have nothing in common." "We're 30 seconds into the interview and we're already disagreeing," he said. It's a creative challenge to figure out how to relate with each person I meet... He's a US Army Special Forces sniper. He's been to Iraq and Afghanistan. He's an MMA fighter. And has multiple black belts. I have zero black belts. I have negative black belts. I haven't been to war. And I'm not trained to kill people. I can't shove someone without looking funny. So we have different instincts. "I remember every moment of every gunfight I've ever been in," he said. "And there are things that wake me up at night." "Like what?" "In the movies, saving your friends and killing a bad guy is a high-five moment, right? No. You just took a human life. That is something that echoes with you through eternity." He told me about the decisions he had to make every day. And how his dad's words rang in the back of his head, "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should." There were four people in Tim's unit. Each had a different job: communications, medicine, explosives, tactics. Tim was tactics. "Weapons tactic expert," that was his job title. He constantly had to assess whether or not to fire. Because the situation was never clear. Innocent people could be in the same room as the man with the machine gun. "He was shooting at my teammates. He had a machine gun in the window." And Tim didn't know what (or who else) was on the other side... Then he asked me, "Do you throw the grenade?" I didn't know. My instinct is to run. "Run? The bullets are 175 grain and travel at 2,800 feet per second. Do you run 2,800 feet per second?" He threw the grenade. "Did you ever find out what was behind that window?" "Yeah... the moment the grenade goes off and all you hear are women and children screaming and crying. I stayed up for a week with the women and kids that were in that room. We fight until the fight is over. But then we revisit and give them the best medical care that we can in the field and transport them to the best hospitals that we have access to. That's the most beautiful thing about US Army Special Forces, 'The Green Berets.' We want to do everything by, with and through the indigenous people." I can't imagine. And not being able to imagine, is what we have in common. It's when you try to find the bridge where two people can meet that I learn the most about the people around me. Here's what we talked about... Shortcuts: - [12:20] - We talked about his childhood. I wanted to know if fighting is inherent. He says it wasn't. Although, he did learn how to fight when he was young. His brother and friends always threw him in the pool. "Were you traumatized?" I asked. Tim had the mindset that he could get stronger. And he planned to throw them in the pool someday. All 9 of them. But in between sports and horsing around, Tim's Mom brought in balance. She enrolled him in piano lessons. I didn't ask if he still plays piano. I don't know if he still has this balance. But it's worthwhile to try to create it in your own life. To lose your stresses in the concentration of a new art, a new practice. [27:12] - "War is horrible. Period. It's where we see the most unimaginable... See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.