LT Jason C. Redman
U.S.Navy – Naval Special Warfare
ST 4, ST 10, DEVGRU
Central America, South America, Iraq, Afghanistan
1992-2013
U.S.Navy – Naval Special Warfare
ST 4, ST 10, DEVGRU
Central America, South America, Iraq, Afghanistan
1992-2013
“You know how hard it is to become a SEAL and then to be told you don’t measure up. To be told you’re dangerous. To be told you don’t deserve to wear that emblem”.
Jason Redman’s military career in the SEAL Teams is marked by incredible highs and crushing lows. It can be summarized with five words: Potential, Ego, Arrogance, Rock-Bottom and Redemption. In the end, SEALS don’t quit and neither did Jason. This is the story of his journey and his persistence.
Jason Redman was born in May 1975 in the small Ohio town of Mount Vernon and grew up in the even smaller town of Coshocton. Jason grew up with an older half-sister, a younger half-brother and a younger biological sister. He came from a family with a military background. His paternal grandfather was a B-24 pilot, who flew 25 missions and earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and seven air medals. Although his grandfather died before he was born, he grew up listening to stories about him.
His maternal grandfather was born and raised in France and fought for the French during WWII. Jason recalled listening to his stories during his childhood. His dad served in the Army for four years during the Vietnam War. He was a parachute rigger and airborne instructor at Fort Campbell in Kentucky.
Jason grew up hearing about the adventures of being in the military and by the time he was 11 years old he decided that was the path he would take. “I was committed. It’s all I wanted to do. It’s all I talked about”. Initially he wanted to be a pilot and when Top Gun came out in 1986, he thought, “I wanna be Maverick”. There was also competition from G.I. Joe at that time.
Jason’s parent’s divorced when he was three and he spent his youth shuttling between his mother and father. Initially his parents lived near each other in Ohio, but his mother moved to the Virgin Islands where Jason learned to be comfortable in the water. When category 5 Hurricane Hugo hit the island in 1989, Jason’s mother sent him back to the states before the storm hit.
There wasn’t much information available on the SEALS during the ‘80s. “We didn’t have internet back then”. Jason’s father had met some SEALS during their airborne instruction, and he told Jason, ‘if you’re interested in Special Operations, there’s a group of guys in the Navy, they’re called SEALS’. He told Jason they were involved in the most secretive missions, they were considered to be among the toughest Special Operators, and their training was considered the toughest. As luck would have it, a man in Jason’s church had accumulated a lot of books about the SEALS and loaned them to Jason. He also found a book in a little rural North Carolina truck stop about UDT/SEAL Operations in Vietnam.
During his high school years, he was living in rural North Carolina, and he attended Lumberton High School. When Jason turned 14 years of age, he decided he wanted to be a SEAL and thought he should start working out and exercising. He decided to try out for the football team, but at 95 pounds and only five feet tall, it was going to be a rough season. “I just got crushed but it taught me how to be tough. It taught me how to be part of a team. It taught me how to deal with disappointment because I didn’t play much. It introduced me to working out”.
Jason also went out for the wrestling team. “It’s a great sport. It’s a mental sport”. Unfortunately for Jason, Vincent Crump and his brother were state champs in an around the 119 lbs. weight class, which is where Jason wrestled. “They would just mop the floor with me, but I learned a lot once again. You learn how to take a beating, and it makes you resilient”. Jason did not project the physique that comes to most people’s minds when they think of a SEAL. “So, of course, people said you’ll never make it…which just drove me, I’ll show you”.
When Jason turned 16 years old, he went into the Lumberton Navy recruiting station and said he wanted to be a SEAL. Barney Castle was the recruiting leading petty officer and a crusty old Sea Dog covered in tattoos. He decided Jason wasn’t SEAL material “and he chased me out of the office multiple times”. Jason decided he would join the Army instead and become a Ranger or a Green Beret. When he took the physical, he failed due to a ruptured ear drum. When he was younger, he ruptured his ear drum, and it was reconstructed and still had signs of scar tissue. The concern was he would not be able to equalize with changes in pressure during diving and parachuting.
Jason knew this wasn’t true because he had done so much diving in the Virgin Islands, he knew he could equalize. Jason and his father went to an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist and after some additional testing the doctor agreed to write a letter saying his ears were fine. When Jason returned to the Army recruiting office to show them his letter, he noticed Barney Castle was no longer in the Navy recruiting office. Jason went in to see the new recruiter, Henry Horne. Henry said, “you want to be a SEAL. Let me help you”. It is often said one man can make a difference and Henry Horne did. Jason enlisted in the delayed entry program on September 11th, 1992. He finished high school in June of 1993 and in Aug Jason headed to bootcamp in Orlando, Florida.
Jason breezed through bootcamp and qualified for SEAL training, also known as BUDS (Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL Training). While he was waiting for SEAL Training to begin, he attended Naval Intelligence School in Virginia Beach in October 1993 and continued training for BUDS. Jason, not thinking about the possible ramifications, decided to buy himself a motorcycle “A Tom Cruise crotch rocket, like in Top Gun”. The inevitable happened and Jason wrecked the bike and broke his shoulder. His entry into BUDS was delayed five months. In January of 1995 Jason joined BUDS Class 200 which started with 148 candidates. 19 finished. Jason made it through Phase 1 and Hell Week. At the beginning of Phase 2 he developed a bad case of tendonitis in his feet. He was rolled back to Class 201.
While waiting for Class 201 to begin Jason decided to go to Tiajuana and go on a drinking binge. That resulted in a drunken incident doing flips of a pier which led to a broken arm. He told the instructors he was rock climbing and fell. “I don’t think they really believed the story, but thankfully they believed it enough to allow me to roll”. Jason got out of his cast and had only three weeks to get ready for BUDS.
BUDS is considered to be among the toughest military training programs in the world if not the toughest. The first phase is physical conditioning. The men are organized into teams and are challenged physically with ever increasing numbers of various calisthenics (pushups, flutter kicks, burpees, etc.), swimming and running. The instructors put as much mental strain as possible on the candidates while they are physically exhausted and sleep deprived. “On day one they just drop the hammer on you. It was amazing to me how many guys quit in the first week”. “It’s designed to be really hard. It’s designed to be a kick in the skull…but I don’t ever remember thinking…I can’t do this”.
The sixth week of training is the infamous Hell Week. For five days the men are subjected to surf torture, running with a boat on their head or carrying a log the size of a telephone pole, all while constantly wet and coated in sand and getting almost zero sleep. The average student in Hell Week will only get 3 hours of sleep in the grueling almost 6 day or 144 hour evolution. Everyone needs to work together because if the team fails everyone fails and is rewarded with extra running or exercise. Here the SEALs say, ‘it pays to be a winner’.
Phase Two is Combat Diving in a pool where the men must prove competency in being buoyant, holding their breath, floating, treading water and ‘pool competency or pool comp’. They also learn the physics of diving and learn to be safe divers. All of this is done under constant mental stress. Water is the great equalizer, and it causes many candidates to quit. This phase is looking for candidates that can learn to feel comfortable in the water in life threatening situations. The final culmination of basic dive training is Pool Comp. “It is basically getting beat up by two instructors under the water with all your scuba gear on. The instructors slam you off the bottom, hit you, rip off all your gear, turn off your air supply and then leave you alone to fix yourself. You must get your air turned back on and fix your gear in a very sequential order or you fail. Go to the surface, and you fail”. Four fails and you are “rolled back” to the next class. “Me and my swim buddy, we got it on the fourth try. It’s pretty nerve wracking”.
Quitting is a big part of BUDS. The exhaustion, mental pressure and the relentless verbal barrage by the instructors is designed to drive candidates to their breaking point. The average BUDS class graduates less than 25%. What drives people to quit? “Probably the combination of cold and discomfort. You’re constantly cold and constantly coated in sand. The combination of the two just wear you out”. BUDS is also designed to build teamwork. It’s designed to get you to lean on each other. Jason observed that quitting is not sudden, it’s a process. Candidates quit mentally before they physically quit and the instructors key in on that. When they see it, they totally attack the candidate. “Either that person will fix themselves and get back with the team or that person will quit”.
When someone quits, they must walk to the front of the class and ring a bell three times. They are then placed in a truck, taken away and reassigned based on the needs of the Navy.
Phase Three is Land Warfare Training and focuses on mastering basic weapons, demolition land navigation, marksmanship and small team tactics. Part of the training is conducted on San Clemente Island off the coast of San Diego. “There is a whole lot of learning. The pressure is still there. The instructors are still applying pressure. You are more immune to it at that point. You’ve endured so much for so long”.
Having completed BUDS the next training was Army Airborne School. Jason completed that training and received orders to SEAL Team 4. It was 1996 and when he reached the Teams Jason still had a six-month probationary period where he went through intense SEAL tactical training. “If BUDS is like high school, SEAL tactical training is college. The goal is when you graduate, you’re assigned to a platoon, and you have a baseline level you can train with in the platoon”.
At that time each Team was focused on a particular area of the world. Team 4 was focused on Central and South America. After intensive jungle warfare training Jason deployed multiple times to Central and South America. They were based out of Panama but did missions to many other Central and South American countries, primarily focused on training the local forces on drug interdiction.
Jason returned to the U.S. in the fall of 1999 and was assigned to be an instructor with the SEAL Team 4 Training Department. Much of their training was based out of Fort Knox, near Louisville, Kentucky. He taught reconnaissance, marksmanship, communications and SERE (survival, evasion, resistance, escape). “You gotta do a stint in training because they want the guys who have (experience) and are current…” to do the training.
Jason was performing well and was ranked fairly high among his peers and the Training Officer recommended he apply for a commission. Jason thought he would rather be in a platoon doing missions, but he had recently met Erica Schwarzer in Louisville and the couple was dating and marriage looked to be on the horizon. Jason thought becoming an officer would help his career and his family. He applied to a program the Navy offered, Seaman to Admiral. The Navy would send him to college and then Jason would return to the Teams as an officer.
He applied and was an alternate on his first try. Jason worked on several areas to make his profile stronger and on his second try he was accepted to Old Dominion University (ODU) in Virginia. The Chiefs at SEAL Team 4 didn’t recommend Jason for a commission but his Commanding Officer pushed for Jason to receive a commission.
Jason was a strong performer, but he was developing a reputation for being arrogant and over emotional. An early example of this behavior was as he was preparing to leave for ODU. Jason had created a risk assessment tool called CVORTTEXX that is still used to this day across all of Special Operations and Federal Agencies. Jason was told he would receive an award, and he was surprised to see that the level of award was higher than someone his rank would receive. On the day the award was presented he learned the award had been downgraded. Jason was furious. Later in the Admin Department, as he was processing out of the Team 4, the Yeoman processing his paperwork said, ‘too bad your award was downgraded’. Jason snapped, threw the award at him and buried him in expletives. Word travels fast and Jason found himself in front of the Commanding Officer apologizing. “Guys remember that and they’re like, you’re a knucklehead”. “You’ve got to manage your emotions. But I had these 5% moments where I would lose sight of that and do something erratic or stupid”.
Three significant events happened during his time at ODU. The couple had two daughters. The other was 9/11. Jason had an early morning English class and at the end of class he met his friend and fellow SEAL Bobby Ramirez in the Student Center. Jason and Bobby had served together at SEAL Team 4 and they had become close friends. Together in the student center they watched the terrorist attacks unfold. Jason, like many other SEALS wanted to get into the fight immediately after 9/11. Two days later he went to see his Commanding Officer, who he apologized to no so long ago. Jason said we wanted out of school and to come back to the Teams. Very prophetically, his commanding officer said, ‘go back to school. Train to be a good leader. I guarantee you’ll get your opportunity. This war will go on for decades’.
Jason and Erica were married and had a son when Jason entered ODU in late 2001. Jason was a business management major and “I crushed it in college”. He checked into the ROTC unit where he volunteered for every leadership opportunity that came along. He worked his way thought the ranks until he was Battalion Commanding Officer in his last semester. He also organized a run to raise awareness of the roughly 700 service members that died in Iraq and Afghanistan. They ran a total of 740 miles holding an American Flag the entire way. “So, I definitely thought I was the man…ready to go back to the SEAL Teams and crush it”. Jason graduated in 2004, was commissioned an officer and assigned to SEAL Team 10.
His good friend from the Teams, Mike McGreevy was the Officer in Charge (OIC) of Echo Platoon, and when Jason graduated Mike asked Jason if he wanted to be his assistant OIC. Jason accepted the offer and the next three or four months were uneventful. Around this time the SEAL Teams had reassessed how they would cover the theaters of operation around the world. They were transitioning from covering a specific area of the world to a strategy where everyone would get combat experience. It was decided that Jason would move over to Foxtrot Platoon because the OIC was very junior and the Senior Chief Petty Officer was bullheaded. The idea was Jason would be able to balance out the two. “It didn’t work that way. The Chief and I butted heads pretty hard from the beginning and that created a ton of friction. That became a problem for me I didn’t manage very well.”
Jason had always excelled at just about everything he did. However, while he was at ODU the SEAL Teams discovered that the tactics they used in Vietnam were not working on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq. The tactical handbook was completely rewritten. Jason had expected to walk back into the Teams and pick up where he left off. That was not the case because of the significant change in tactics. “Instead of humbling myself…my ego got in the way”. Jason started stepping on toes and making mistakes. Coupled with public confrontations with the Senior Chief and excessive drinking Jason’s career began a downward spiral.
His platoon deployed to Germany in April of 2005 and Echo Platoon deployed to Afghanistan. The plan was three months later Foxtrot would replace Echo in-country. In June of 2005 Foxtrot was gearing up to replace Echo when Operation Redwings happened. Operation Redwings was a four-man SEAL reconnaissance mission that was compromised. A gunfight ensued and the four SEALS were seriously outmanned. A Quick Reaction Force (QRF) was spun up and they departed on two helicopters. One helicopter was hit with an RPG and everyone on board was killed. These events were the basis for the movie “Lone Survivor”. Seven members of Echo platoon were killed in the QRF mission including Mike McGreevy.
When the bodies of the SEALS were recovered, they were returned to Germany and Jason and some of the men from Foxtrot stood Honor Guard while the regular Honor Guard had lunch. Days later, Jason and the rest of his troop would fly to Afghanistan. The body of Matt Axelson would be the last to be recovered 3 days after they arrived. The following day there was a ramp ceremony where the flag draped coffins were loaded onto a plane to be returned to the U.S. “All of the troops line the tarmac behind the plane as the coffins are loaded onto the plane for the Honor flight home”. “A very somber ceremony…it was the greatest loss of life the SEAL Teams had sustained at one time since WWII”.
Once the Redwings memorial was complete, Foxtrot Platoon was anxious to get revenge on the enemy, but the tempo was slow at first. They submitted multiple mission packages, but all were decline. Finally, they received approval to kill or capture a Taliban Commander responsible for launching rockets into the Bagram Base and was also involved in a number of other attacks. This was a night mission and took place roughly two miles from Bagram. The operation involved two Blackhawk helicopters and the SEALS fast roped directly onto the target. “The guy ended up being there and we wrapped him up and a bunch of associates”. The Team found explosives and bomb making equipment as they expected. There were ten prisoners taken by helicopter back to Bagram.
When the villagers awoke, they were unhappy the Americans showed up in the middle of the night unannounced. An angry mob marched to Bagram. The Taliban Commander was friends with Hamid Karzi, the acting President of Afghanistan at the time. Karzi ultimately demanded he be released. “Politics won” although he was clearly a bad guy. To add insult to injury, there was a miscommunication within the chain of command, and the General in command was furious he had not been consulted prior to the mission being launched.
This was going to put Jason’s team on the shelf again and frustrate the men because they all wanted to be in the fight. Sometime later, the Team was eating lunch in the mess hall next to the General who ordered Foxtrot to stand down. Jason’s teammates goaded him into speaking to the General and request that they be allowed to get back into the fight. Jason took the bait and as soon as he finished speaking to the General, he knew he put his foot in his mouth. “Once again, I hurt my reputation” and it was another example of erratic decision making.
Several weeks later Foxtrot was sent to Helmand Province where there was a lot of Taliban activity and no political pressures. Jason recalled executing 15 or more missions. “These were large operations over thousands of yards”. The SEALS were in numerous fire fights, but Jason was not. Although he did shoot rockets into cave complexes. “According to the Battle Damage Assessments we got back, we smoke checked hundreds of fighters who were probably hidden in those caves. A rocket fired into a cave does a lot of damage with the over pressure”.
On September 23rd Foxtrot was tasked with an operation to eliminate the enemy in a heavily Taliban controlled valley. “Anytime U.S. aircraft flew over this valley, they were getting shot at by the Taliban”. Foxtrot would join forces with a Canadian Special Forces unit. Part of the troops would lock down the high ground while the rest of the troop would push through the valley and destroy the enemy. “I was on the high ground with a sniper team, machine gunner and a Javelin team. A Javelin is a shoulder fired precision guided missile. Jason also provided radio communication relays back to the command center. The high ground was so high, radio transmission from the bottom of the valley to the command center was impossible without a relay.
They engaged with the enemy throughout the day but had a hard extract time due to air asset limitations operating in the area. Jason had told his sniper team and Javelin teams to fall back leaving just him and a machine gunner. Jason’s OIC radioed for reinforcements and Jason saw this as his opportunity to show what he could do in a firefight and help the guys in the valley. He radioed the Ground Command team and spoke with the Chief he had been butting heads with. Jason told him he was going down to support the OIC. The Chief said no, but Jason went anyway. He and his machine gunner worked their way into the valley past a series of caves.
Jason lost communications on the way down into the valley. When they reached the bottom of the valley they picked-up radio communications from the troops on the ground. The troop commander “was breathing fire into the radio”. He told Jason that he needed to get out of the valley because they had been trying to call in a close air support mission, but they couldn’t because they didn’t know where Jason and his machine gunner were. “When we do that, we need to know where everyone is at all times, so we don’t kill our own people”.
Jason and his machine gunner climbed back up the side of the valley and the close air support mission was called in and the enemy was killed. They were able to medevac a wounded Afghan solider, but due to the airflow limitations, the SEALS were unable to be extracted for three days. It was a long three days with the other SEALs giving Jason the cold shoulder and he earned the nickname Rambo Red. “That was not a compliment. SEAL Teams are about teamwork and Rambo is not”. Although he recognized this wasn’t a great tactical decision on his part and that he could have gotten himself and the machine gunner killed as they passed the caves on the way down into the valley, he still was not accepting responsibility for his actions. He instead chose to be the victim.
Jason’s XO told him he would be flown back to Bagram to meet with his Commanding Officer (CO). It was now setting in that he had stepped on a lot of toes, not shown proper leadership on numerous occasions, was abusing alcohol and had generally pissed off most everyone. The night before his meeting with the CO he sat alone in his room and contemplated being dismissed from the Navy. He had reached a new low point as he stared at a picture of his wife and children with his gun in his mouth. Jason heard a voice that he believes was God saying, “what are you doing”? That was enough to make him realize he needed help, and he went to see the Special Forces Chaplain.
Jason told his story his story to the Chaplain and told him he was contemplating suicide. The Chaplain pointed out that he hadn’t had his meeting and there was no decision made on his fate. He told Jason he thought it was premature to take his life. He suggested he wait and see what the final decision was and then come back to see him the following day.
Perhaps God was keeping watch on Jason because the CO didn’t dismiss him from the Navy. “A lot of guys really pressured him to kick me out…but he believed in me and thought I had the ability to be a good leader”. The CO told Jason he needed to be more humble and have a greater appreciation for leadership and tactical decision making. He thought Ranger School would be the best way for Jason to learn that. Ranger school is primarily a leadership school, but it also teaches the candidates how to operate in small teams and the tactics necessary to succeed in close combat situations. Candidates are placed in situations that will test each soldier’s physical and mental limits. Decision making is tested while being sleep deprived, food deprived and in challenging physical environments. Some people believe it rivals BUDS as the toughest training in the miliary.
Initially Jason was relieved that he slipped what could have been a knockout punch but soon his attitude soured, and he was back to playing the victim. He reported to Ranger School in February bitter and with a bad attitude. Three days into training he failed Land Navigation. There is a healthy rivalry between the SEALS and Rangers, and the Ranger instructors gave him a lot of razzing about failing. That was just enough to trigger Jason’s temper, and he blurted out, “I quit”! The instructors sent him to see the Command Sergeant Major (CSM).
Jason realized he had just committed a mortal sin. “In the SEAL Teams, quitting is unacceptable. You can never quit”. By the time he met with the CSM he was back to playing the victim. The CSM who told him he needed to see Commanding Officer, Colonel K.K. Chin. Once again, God seemed to have his hand on the tiller and Colonel Chin told Jason he wanted him to speak to someone in the SEAL community before he made a final decision. He picked up the phone and dialed Captain Pete Van Hooser. Pete had an incredible reputation in the SEAL community. Earlier in his career, Jason had an outburst related to a Navy award being downgraded and had to apologize to Van Hooser. Captain Van Hooser also recommended Jason for the Officer’s program at ODU over the objections of the Team Chief’s mess.
This would mark the lowest point in Jason’s career and his conversation with Captain Van Hooser not only saved his career but what he said and how he said it, finally got Jason’s lightbulb to turn on. Pete said, ‘Red, I know what happened in Afghanistan. Do you honestly think Ranger School is a punishment? You don’t think you could learn something there? You need to go back to Ranger school and finish it. If you come home, I’m going to have you out of the Navy in a week. What will that do for your family’?
Jason replied, “Sir, I don’t think I can recover from this. I’ve messed up too much. The guys will never follow me”. Captain Van Hooser then synthesized the theory of Leadership into a few prophetic words, ‘Red, listen to me. People will follow you if you give them a reason to. That’s all leadership is. I don’t care how bad you’ve messed up; people will follow success. Come back to the SEAL Teams and give the guys a reason to follow you.’
Pete’s words seemed to penetrate Red’s fog. Perhaps it was the specific words, perhaps it was the respect Red had for Pete or perhaps it was a combination. After a month of picking up trash while he was in ‘Ranger Jail’, Red went back to Ranger School and “crushed it”. “I had a new zeal to be humble and learn and do well”. “I had gotten into a rhythm; I had lost the bitterness and the anger and developed a sense of humor”. After the two months of Ranger School Red returned to the Teams a humbler leader.
Jason returned to SEAL Team 10 and his career took off. His new OIC was a great leader and mentor for Jason. He told Red he knew what happened in Afghanistan and he didn’t care. His concern was moving forward. He was going to give Jason the opportunity to lead and earn back the respect of the men. Red performed well and when he did screw up, he owned his mistakes and focused on not making them again. When it came time to deploy Jason could feel the support of the guys behind him.
Just before the Team was to deploy to Iraq, Jason came down with colitis and couldn’t deploy until the infection was completely cleared up. With his new mindset Red stayed upbeat and kept in communication with his guys on the ground in Iraq. He kept lists of the supplies they needed and took a pallet of those supplies for the guys when he left for Iraq. When the Team arrived, they immediately were in firefights. The operating tempo was frenetic, and the Team took some early losses and casualties.
Red landed in Iraq in May of 2007, and he headed to Fallujah, in central Iraq to hook up with his team. Their area of operation was Al Karmah just northeast of Fallujah, an Al Qaeda stronghold. This was door-to-door urban combat. Technology provides some advantages but “house to house fighting is very rudimentary, which is how Al Qaeda and the Taliban” were able to put up a resistance to the coalition forces. “Where we dominated the battle space is our air capabilities…sensor technologies…gunships and bombs…it makes the difference on the battlefield”.
“Anybody with a gun can fight back against somebody else with a gun.”
Red and the Team were going on nightly missions. “The night was our friend”. SEALS train extensively in how to enter and clear buildings and rooms. They generally don’t have intelligence providing the layouts of the particular structures they will enter prior to the mission, and they train for that. However, their methodology and extensive training as a team allow them “to maximize coverage and minimize the threat to ourselves and maximize how quickly we can acquire targets inside the room”.
“It was a high tempo deployment. It was everything you ever dreamed of as a SEAL”. Red left his problems in the past and got into a rhythm, much like a pitcher in baseball who is retiring the opposing batters three up and three down. “The guys were like, Red’s doing a good job and if you weren’t they let you know”. Red would ultimately participate in over 40 direct action missions in Iraq.
On June 21st the team went out on a night mission to take down a very complicated compound with three separate structures. They formed three assault teams and Jason led one of the teams. Jason’s team attacked a structure with two enemy fighters on the roof. They were dropping grenades on the SEALS below and they incurred minor wounds, but their Iraqi interpreter took the brunt of a grenade blast and was bleeding out on the porch. To complicate the situation there were 11 women and children sleeping outside as Iraqi’s are known to do in the hot weather. Now the SEALS were responsible for their safety. After clearing the bottom floor, their focus shifted to the roof. DJ Shipley and another SEAL made entry onto the roof where they found “two bad guys” with a machine gun. DJ caught them off guard and the machine gun was not manned. One of them shot Shipley in the chest but a spare magazine in his body armor stopped the bullet. They fell back and the enemy fighters opened fire with the machine gun.
Another building in the compound had shooters on the roof and Jason wanted to call in Navy gunship helicopters for a fire mission, but he could not get a full head count. One man was missing. Jason realized where he was, and he instructed his men to provide covering fire while he ran over 60 yards through heavy enemy fire to find his man. Having confirmed his location, Jason ran the 60 yards back to their original target. The air mission was successful and that building, and the enemy fighters were destroyed.
The remaining problem was the fighters on the roof with the machine gun and grenades. Red asked one of the young boys in the group of Iraqi’s, who was approximately 15 years old, if he knew the fighters on the roof. The boy said yes. The SEALS instructed the boy to go up to the roof and tell the fighters to lay down their weapons or the SEALS would kill them. The stairway went up several steps to a landing and them made a turn to another set of stairs to the roof. The boy went up the stairs and stepped onto the first landing. Before he could take another step “they cut him in half with the machine gun”.
Realizing they could not get to the roof, Red decided they would make the 60-yard run to the house he had been at before and then call in an air mission on the machine gun. This would involve taking the now 10 Iraqi’s, ranging in age from 80-year-old woman to a six-month-old baby. The SEALS would have to carry the wounded interpreter. They conducted a bounding maneuver where one team concentrates heavy gun fire on the roof while the other team moves and then they reverse roles. They made it across the 60 yards unscathed and then called in an AC 130 gunship to rain down lead on the rooftop. It was an amazing site to watch as the top of the building turned into a ball of flames from a series of secondary explosions, likely from suicide vests or a large grenade cache. The mission was complete, and Red flew in the medevac helicopter back to the base with the wounded.
The old Jason Redman, the younger, immature Jason Redman would have said take the stairwell rather than recognized it would have been a suicide mission. Later at the debrief the men let Red know he did a good job. The Executive Officer also called Red into his office to tell him he did a good job. “That was a turning point for me…I did it”.
“We had a lot of close calls on that deployment”. In August with the deployment drawing to a close they began to plan to return to the states. Jason had performed well, and his career was back on track. For his next position he requested to screen for DEVGRU, the SEALS Tier One asset. The selection process is very difficult, and candidates needed the approval of both their teammates and their Commanding Officer. Jason got the thumbs up to screen for DEVGRU.
On September 12th, 2007, approximately three weeks from heading home, the Team received a direct-action mission to kill or capture the number one Al Qaeda fighter in the Anbar Province. He was responsible for the death of SEAL Clark Swindler. They knew he traveled with a large security entourage, and they were trained to set off their suicide vests to protect their boss. The mission plans were prepared, and they moved out on what they knew could be a very tough fight.
They arrived at the target around 3am and took the target building with no resistance. It was obvious people had just been there. They searched the house and found a cache of weapons, explosives and IED making components. The Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) specialists were preparing to blow up the cache when they received word that five individuals just ran into dense vegetation. Jason led a team of Eight SEALS and their interpreter to walk down the five individuals. Running from a house at 3am into dense vegetation was a sign they were likely up to no good. The darkness and the denseness of the vegetation created a situation where the SEALS became separated and unaware of each other’s location. This could lead to a friendly fire incident.
Jason realized they had been separated and gave directions over the radio to try and reconnect. He was in communication with a gunship overhead who could see the individuals in the field, but they could not see any weapons or any other potential enemy fighters. Jason stepped out of the vegetation and into a vast open desert. The last man to step out was their medic “and he literally stepped on an enemy fighter and the guy rolled over and tried to engage him and shot him. The SEALS had walked into an ambush. There were 15 enemy fighters who opened fire with two PKM machine guns. Two SEALS were wounded immediately.
There were thousands of yards of empty desert with one tree nearby. Near the tree was an old large tractor tire. The men tried to take cover by the tire while Red was trying to lay down fire for his men when both machine guns turned on him. “I got caught across the body armor, two rounds in the elbow, rounds off my helmet, rounds off my gun, the left night vision tube shot off”. As Jason turned to run he was shot in the side of his face. The bullet hit him in front of his ear and traveled through his face. It tore off his nose, broke all of the bones above his eye and shattered his jaw. Jason went down and was unconscious. His men thought he was dead. After about 10 minutes he regained consciousness, and the firefight was still going. Jason was only 45 feet from the enemy machine gun. He was bleeding out, getting cold and on the verge of shock and then death. There are no atheists in a foxhole and Red asked God for his help. Suddenly he felt a surge of energy and then his only focus was to “stay awake to stay alive”.
Red was able to contact his team leader who was surprised he was alive. He told Red they could not get a fire mission because they were too close to the enemy, or in military parlance, danger close. When troops are danger close air missions are not cleared because there is an extremely high likelihood killing U.S. forces. On their third request they advised the gunship that three guys were bleeding out, they were running out of ammo and if they didn’t bring in an air strike they would all be killed. With incredible precision the gunship rounds impacted the ground immediately in front of Jason and the explosion went right over the top of him. A short while later the machine gun was quiet, and Red could hear an enemy fighter screaming in pain and yelling for Allah. Allah did not come but the gunship made another pass and then silence fell over the battlefield.
Despite Jason’s injuries, he was able to walk to the medevac helicopter. He recalled walking with his head down because the blood was pouring from his face. He could not feel his arm and was convinced it had been shot off. It was a 10-minute. high speed ride to Baghdad. The helicopter was configured for two wounded but there were three and they couldn’t close the doors. The air rushing through the helicopter created a fine mist of blood that cover the inside of the helicopter and everyone on board.
Jason was loaded onto a cart and transported to the OR. He recalled riding on the cart and passing under a bridge where he noticed “a dude standing on top of the bridge smoking a cigarette looking down on me as I went under the bridge”. Perhaps that was once again God. He takes all forms. Red made it to the Operating Room (OR) just within the ‘Golden Hour’. The Golden Hour is when the likelihood of survival is the highest.
In the OR the nurses were cutting off his clothing when they found one grenade still attached to his belt. Immediately the nurse yelled bomb and the room emptied. The grenade was quickly removed, and the doctors went to work. When he woke up Jason found he was unable to talk due to a tracheotomy and his jaw was wired shut. He asked for paper and scribbled three questions: 1) were his men ok, 2) had his wife been notified and 3) was he still pretty. Two affirmative answers and in true SEAL humor he was told his injuries would be an improvement.
His next stop was Balad where all head injuries were sent. He was then flown to Germany where he had additional stabilizing surgeries. In Germany Red called his wife. He wrote on paper what he wanted to say and one of the guys read it to Erica.
Within 4 days of being shot Jason was back in the states at Walter Reed Medical Center. Jason had still not seen what he looked like and as he rode from the airport to Walter Reed, he was terrified of how Erica would react when she saw him. “She walked straight in, walked right up to me, she pushed the tubes out of the way and kissed me right on the lips and said, ‘we’re going to be ok’”. Erica immediately took control of the situation and earned her nickname, ‘The Longhaired Admiral’.
A hard road lay ahead. Initially Jason struggled. He was angry he had gotten his career back on track and now had this major setback. He was also second guessing how he handled the events leading up to the ambush. The more mature and seasoned Jason Redman started thinking about all of the lessons he learned over the past few years. “You can’t sit here and feel sorry for yourself. What is this accomplishing?”
While at Walter Reed, Jason had some visitors who thought he was asleep and began talking about what a shame it was about his injuries. From that moment on Red decided he would not feel sorry for himself and would not allow anyone else to feel sorry for him. He told Erica no one was allowed into his room if they were going to feel sorry for him. This led to him creating a sign for his door which went on to take on a life of its own. It read as follows:
Attention all that enter here:
If you are coming into this room with sorrow or to feel sorry for my wounds go elsewhere. The wounds I received I got in a job I love, doing it for people I Iove, defending the freedom of a country I deeply love. I am incredibly tough and will make a full recovery. What is full? That is the absolute utmost physically my body has the ability to recover. Then I will push that about 20% further through sheer mental tenacity. This room you are about to enter is a room of fun, optimism and intense rapid regrowth. If you are not prepared for that go elsewhere.
The Management.
The sign was intended to set a tone for Jason, but it has gone on to become an inspiration for many other injured war fighters and it is now a plaque in the Walter Reed Medical Center Wounded Warrior Ward.
When Jason went home Erica was his nurse dealing with all of the tubes and changing his dressings. His tracheotomy was in place for 7 months and two days. For all that time Erica cleaned the mucous which constantly clogged the tube. “It takes a unique breed of woman to be married to SOF guys”.
Over the next four years Red had about 40 surgeries. Although his medical team thought he needed to have his arm amputated, his doctor who was a former SEAL said no. He would fix it. Jason’s nose had been completely shot off, so rebuilding his nose was a major focus. The first two attempts failed and then Red was referred to Dr. Robert Walton and Dr. Edwardo Rodriguez, a world-renowned Oral and Maxillofacial surgeon. He told Red he worked on several Delta Force operators and showed him photos of the results. Red had found the right doctor.
When Red was on his feet, he was allowed to go back to the Teams and work with DEVGRU doing special projects. He continued to rehab and get his injured arm to the point he could be an operator in the Teams. Limitations on the movement were just too great to overcome despite his herculean efforts. Red was permitted to stay on at DEVGRU and finish out his 20-year career with the Navy.
Since leaving the Navy Jason has written books about his time in the Teams and the principals of leadership. In his writing and speaking he has been very open and candid about his shortcomings and mistakes. “Leadership is not a perfect road. You’re gonna fuck up. I don’t care who you are”. He founded a not-for-profit and has a motivational speaking business. He continues to swim, lift weights and looks like he could complete BUDS today.
Jason and Erica are happily married with three children and their dog Karmah, named after the town in Iraq, where he was injured. They have also written a book about the strength of their relationship.
Jason, the entire nation thanks you for all that you and your family have sacrificed and all that you have endured. God acts in mysterious ways and perhaps your role now is to provide hope to all of us who have failed and fear the future is without redemption. A truly noble cause.
“I’m living proof that it’s not too late to come back from any failure you’re ever in”.
Jason Redman’s military career in the SEAL Teams is marked by incredible highs and crushing lows. It can be summarized with five words: Potential, Ego, Arrogance, Rock-Bottom and Redemption. In the end, SEALS don’t quit and neither did Jason. This is the story of his journey and his persistence.
Jason Redman was born in May 1975 in the small Ohio town of Mount Vernon and grew up in the even smaller town of Coshocton. Jason grew up with an older half-sister, a younger half-brother and a younger biological sister. He came from a family with a military background. His paternal grandfather was a B-24 pilot, who flew 25 missions and earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and seven air medals. Although his grandfather died before he was born, he grew up listening to stories about him.
His maternal grandfather was born and raised in France and fought for the French during WWII. Jason recalled listening to his stories during his childhood. His dad served in the Army for four years during the Vietnam War. He was a parachute rigger and airborne instructor at Fort Campbell in Kentucky.
Jason grew up hearing about the adventures of being in the military and by the time he was 11 years old he decided that was the path he would take. “I was committed. It’s all I wanted to do. It’s all I talked about”. Initially he wanted to be a pilot and when Top Gun came out in 1986, he thought, “I wanna be Maverick”. There was also competition from G.I. Joe at that time.
Jason’s parent’s divorced when he was three and he spent his youth shuttling between his mother and father. Initially his parents lived near each other in Ohio, but his mother moved to the Virgin Islands where Jason learned to be comfortable in the water. When category 5 Hurricane Hugo hit the island in 1989, Jason’s mother sent him back to the states before the storm hit.
There wasn’t much information available on the SEALS during the ‘80s. “We didn’t have internet back then”. Jason’s father had met some SEALS during their airborne instruction, and he told Jason, ‘if you’re interested in Special Operations, there’s a group of guys in the Navy, they’re called SEALS’. He told Jason they were involved in the most secretive missions, they were considered to be among the toughest Special Operators, and their training was considered the toughest. As luck would have it, a man in Jason’s church had accumulated a lot of books about the SEALS and loaned them to Jason. He also found a book in a little rural North Carolina truck stop about UDT/SEAL Operations in Vietnam.
During his high school years, he was living in rural North Carolina, and he attended Lumberton High School. When Jason turned 14 years of age, he decided he wanted to be a SEAL and thought he should start working out and exercising. He decided to try out for the football team, but at 95 pounds and only five feet tall, it was going to be a rough season. “I just got crushed but it taught me how to be tough. It taught me how to be part of a team. It taught me how to deal with disappointment because I didn’t play much. It introduced me to working out”.
Jason also went out for the wrestling team. “It’s a great sport. It’s a mental sport”. Unfortunately for Jason, Vincent Crump and his brother were state champs in an around the 119 lbs. weight class, which is where Jason wrestled. “They would just mop the floor with me, but I learned a lot once again. You learn how to take a beating, and it makes you resilient”. Jason did not project the physique that comes to most people’s minds when they think of a SEAL. “So, of course, people said you’ll never make it…which just drove me, I’ll show you”.
When Jason turned 16 years old, he went into the Lumberton Navy recruiting station and said he wanted to be a SEAL. Barney Castle was the recruiting leading petty officer and a crusty old Sea Dog covered in tattoos. He decided Jason wasn’t SEAL material “and he chased me out of the office multiple times”. Jason decided he would join the Army instead and become a Ranger or a Green Beret. When he took the physical, he failed due to a ruptured ear drum. When he was younger, he ruptured his ear drum, and it was reconstructed and still had signs of scar tissue. The concern was he would not be able to equalize with changes in pressure during diving and parachuting.
Jason knew this wasn’t true because he had done so much diving in the Virgin Islands, he knew he could equalize. Jason and his father went to an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist and after some additional testing the doctor agreed to write a letter saying his ears were fine. When Jason returned to the Army recruiting office to show them his letter, he noticed Barney Castle was no longer in the Navy recruiting office. Jason went in to see the new recruiter, Henry Horne. Henry said, “you want to be a SEAL. Let me help you”. It is often said one man can make a difference and Henry Horne did. Jason enlisted in the delayed entry program on September 11th, 1992. He finished high school in June of 1993 and in Aug Jason headed to bootcamp in Orlando, Florida.
Jason breezed through bootcamp and qualified for SEAL training, also known as BUDS (Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL Training). While he was waiting for SEAL Training to begin, he attended Naval Intelligence School in Virginia Beach in October 1993 and continued training for BUDS. Jason, not thinking about the possible ramifications, decided to buy himself a motorcycle “A Tom Cruise crotch rocket, like in Top Gun”. The inevitable happened and Jason wrecked the bike and broke his shoulder. His entry into BUDS was delayed five months. In January of 1995 Jason joined BUDS Class 200 which started with 148 candidates. 19 finished. Jason made it through Phase 1 and Hell Week. At the beginning of Phase 2 he developed a bad case of tendonitis in his feet. He was rolled back to Class 201.
While waiting for Class 201 to begin Jason decided to go to Tiajuana and go on a drinking binge. That resulted in a drunken incident doing flips of a pier which led to a broken arm. He told the instructors he was rock climbing and fell. “I don’t think they really believed the story, but thankfully they believed it enough to allow me to roll”. Jason got out of his cast and had only three weeks to get ready for BUDS.
BUDS is considered to be among the toughest military training programs in the world if not the toughest. The first phase is physical conditioning. The men are organized into teams and are challenged physically with ever increasing numbers of various calisthenics (pushups, flutter kicks, burpees, etc.), swimming and running. The instructors put as much mental strain as possible on the candidates while they are physically exhausted and sleep deprived. “On day one they just drop the hammer on you. It was amazing to me how many guys quit in the first week”. “It’s designed to be really hard. It’s designed to be a kick in the skull…but I don’t ever remember thinking…I can’t do this”.
The sixth week of training is the infamous Hell Week. For five days the men are subjected to surf torture, running with a boat on their head or carrying a log the size of a telephone pole, all while constantly wet and coated in sand and getting almost zero sleep. The average student in Hell Week will only get 3 hours of sleep in the grueling almost 6 day or 144 hour evolution. Everyone needs to work together because if the team fails everyone fails and is rewarded with extra running or exercise. Here the SEALs say, ‘it pays to be a winner’.
Phase Two is Combat Diving in a pool where the men must prove competency in being buoyant, holding their breath, floating, treading water and ‘pool competency or pool comp’. They also learn the physics of diving and learn to be safe divers. All of this is done under constant mental stress. Water is the great equalizer, and it causes many candidates to quit. This phase is looking for candidates that can learn to feel comfortable in the water in life threatening situations. The final culmination of basic dive training is Pool Comp. “It is basically getting beat up by two instructors under the water with all your scuba gear on. The instructors slam you off the bottom, hit you, rip off all your gear, turn off your air supply and then leave you alone to fix yourself. You must get your air turned back on and fix your gear in a very sequential order or you fail. Go to the surface, and you fail”. Four fails and you are “rolled back” to the next class. “Me and my swim buddy, we got it on the fourth try. It’s pretty nerve wracking”.
Quitting is a big part of BUDS. The exhaustion, mental pressure and the relentless verbal barrage by the instructors is designed to drive candidates to their breaking point. The average BUDS class graduates less than 25%. What drives people to quit? “Probably the combination of cold and discomfort. You’re constantly cold and constantly coated in sand. The combination of the two just wear you out”. BUDS is also designed to build teamwork. It’s designed to get you to lean on each other. Jason observed that quitting is not sudden, it’s a process. Candidates quit mentally before they physically quit and the instructors key in on that. When they see it, they totally attack the candidate. “Either that person will fix themselves and get back with the team or that person will quit”.
When someone quits, they must walk to the front of the class and ring a bell three times. They are then placed in a truck, taken away and reassigned based on the needs of the Navy.
Phase Three is Land Warfare Training and focuses on mastering basic weapons, demolition land navigation, marksmanship and small team tactics. Part of the training is conducted on San Clemente Island off the coast of San Diego. “There is a whole lot of learning. The pressure is still there. The instructors are still applying pressure. You are more immune to it at that point. You’ve endured so much for so long”.
Having completed BUDS the next training was Army Airborne School. Jason completed that training and received orders to SEAL Team 4. It was 1996 and when he reached the Teams Jason still had a six-month probationary period where he went through intense SEAL tactical training. “If BUDS is like high school, SEAL tactical training is college. The goal is when you graduate, you’re assigned to a platoon, and you have a baseline level you can train with in the platoon”.
At that time each Team was focused on a particular area of the world. Team 4 was focused on Central and South America. After intensive jungle warfare training Jason deployed multiple times to Central and South America. They were based out of Panama but did missions to many other Central and South American countries, primarily focused on training the local forces on drug interdiction.
Jason returned to the U.S. in the fall of 1999 and was assigned to be an instructor with the SEAL Team 4 Training Department. Much of their training was based out of Fort Knox, near Louisville, Kentucky. He taught reconnaissance, marksmanship, communications and SERE (survival, evasion, resistance, escape). “You gotta do a stint in training because they want the guys who have (experience) and are current…” to do the training.
Jason was performing well and was ranked fairly high among his peers and the Training Officer recommended he apply for a commission. Jason thought he would rather be in a platoon doing missions, but he had recently met Erica Schwarzer in Louisville and the couple was dating and marriage looked to be on the horizon. Jason thought becoming an officer would help his career and his family. He applied to a program the Navy offered, Seaman to Admiral. The Navy would send him to college and then Jason would return to the Teams as an officer.
He applied and was an alternate on his first try. Jason worked on several areas to make his profile stronger and on his second try he was accepted to Old Dominion University (ODU) in Virginia. The Chiefs at SEAL Team 4 didn’t recommend Jason for a commission but his Commanding Officer pushed for Jason to receive a commission.
Jason was a strong performer, but he was developing a reputation for being arrogant and over emotional. An early example of this behavior was as he was preparing to leave for ODU. Jason had created a risk assessment tool called CVORTTEXX that is still used to this day across all of Special Operations and Federal Agencies. Jason was told he would receive an award, and he was surprised to see that the level of award was higher than someone his rank would receive. On the day the award was presented he learned the award had been downgraded. Jason was furious. Later in the Admin Department, as he was processing out of the Team 4, the Yeoman processing his paperwork said, ‘too bad your award was downgraded’. Jason snapped, threw the award at him and buried him in expletives. Word travels fast and Jason found himself in front of the Commanding Officer apologizing. “Guys remember that and they’re like, you’re a knucklehead”. “You’ve got to manage your emotions. But I had these 5% moments where I would lose sight of that and do something erratic or stupid”.
Three significant events happened during his time at ODU. The couple had two daughters. The other was 9/11. Jason had an early morning English class and at the end of class he met his friend and fellow SEAL Bobby Ramirez in the Student Center. Jason and Bobby had served together at SEAL Team 4 and they had become close friends. Together in the student center they watched the terrorist attacks unfold. Jason, like many other SEALS wanted to get into the fight immediately after 9/11. Two days later he went to see his Commanding Officer, who he apologized to no so long ago. Jason said we wanted out of school and to come back to the Teams. Very prophetically, his commanding officer said, ‘go back to school. Train to be a good leader. I guarantee you’ll get your opportunity. This war will go on for decades’.
Jason and Erica were married and had a son when Jason entered ODU in late 2001. Jason was a business management major and “I crushed it in college”. He checked into the ROTC unit where he volunteered for every leadership opportunity that came along. He worked his way thought the ranks until he was Battalion Commanding Officer in his last semester. He also organized a run to raise awareness of the roughly 700 service members that died in Iraq and Afghanistan. They ran a total of 740 miles holding an American Flag the entire way. “So, I definitely thought I was the man…ready to go back to the SEAL Teams and crush it”. Jason graduated in 2004, was commissioned an officer and assigned to SEAL Team 10.
His good friend from the Teams, Mike McGreevy was the Officer in Charge (OIC) of Echo Platoon, and when Jason graduated Mike asked Jason if he wanted to be his assistant OIC. Jason accepted the offer and the next three or four months were uneventful. Around this time the SEAL Teams had reassessed how they would cover the theaters of operation around the world. They were transitioning from covering a specific area of the world to a strategy where everyone would get combat experience. It was decided that Jason would move over to Foxtrot Platoon because the OIC was very junior and the Senior Chief Petty Officer was bullheaded. The idea was Jason would be able to balance out the two. “It didn’t work that way. The Chief and I butted heads pretty hard from the beginning and that created a ton of friction. That became a problem for me I didn’t manage very well.”
Jason had always excelled at just about everything he did. However, while he was at ODU the SEAL Teams discovered that the tactics they used in Vietnam were not working on the battlefields of Afghanistan and Iraq. The tactical handbook was completely rewritten. Jason had expected to walk back into the Teams and pick up where he left off. That was not the case because of the significant change in tactics. “Instead of humbling myself…my ego got in the way”. Jason started stepping on toes and making mistakes. Coupled with public confrontations with the Senior Chief and excessive drinking Jason’s career began a downward spiral.
His platoon deployed to Germany in April of 2005 and Echo Platoon deployed to Afghanistan. The plan was three months later Foxtrot would replace Echo in-country. In June of 2005 Foxtrot was gearing up to replace Echo when Operation Redwings happened. Operation Redwings was a four-man SEAL reconnaissance mission that was compromised. A gunfight ensued and the four SEALS were seriously outmanned. A Quick Reaction Force (QRF) was spun up and they departed on two helicopters. One helicopter was hit with an RPG and everyone on board was killed. These events were the basis for the movie “Lone Survivor”. Seven members of Echo platoon were killed in the QRF mission including Mike McGreevy.
When the bodies of the SEALS were recovered, they were returned to Germany and Jason and some of the men from Foxtrot stood Honor Guard while the regular Honor Guard had lunch. Days later, Jason and the rest of his troop would fly to Afghanistan. The body of Matt Axelson would be the last to be recovered 3 days after they arrived. The following day there was a ramp ceremony where the flag draped coffins were loaded onto a plane to be returned to the U.S. “All of the troops line the tarmac behind the plane as the coffins are loaded onto the plane for the Honor flight home”. “A very somber ceremony…it was the greatest loss of life the SEAL Teams had sustained at one time since WWII”.
Once the Redwings memorial was complete, Foxtrot Platoon was anxious to get revenge on the enemy, but the tempo was slow at first. They submitted multiple mission packages, but all were decline. Finally, they received approval to kill or capture a Taliban Commander responsible for launching rockets into the Bagram Base and was also involved in a number of other attacks. This was a night mission and took place roughly two miles from Bagram. The operation involved two Blackhawk helicopters and the SEALS fast roped directly onto the target. “The guy ended up being there and we wrapped him up and a bunch of associates”. The Team found explosives and bomb making equipment as they expected. There were ten prisoners taken by helicopter back to Bagram.
When the villagers awoke, they were unhappy the Americans showed up in the middle of the night unannounced. An angry mob marched to Bagram. The Taliban Commander was friends with Hamid Karzi, the acting President of Afghanistan at the time. Karzi ultimately demanded he be released. “Politics won” although he was clearly a bad guy. To add insult to injury, there was a miscommunication within the chain of command, and the General in command was furious he had not been consulted prior to the mission being launched.
This was going to put Jason’s team on the shelf again and frustrate the men because they all wanted to be in the fight. Sometime later, the Team was eating lunch in the mess hall next to the General who ordered Foxtrot to stand down. Jason’s teammates goaded him into speaking to the General and request that they be allowed to get back into the fight. Jason took the bait and as soon as he finished speaking to the General, he knew he put his foot in his mouth. “Once again, I hurt my reputation” and it was another example of erratic decision making.
Several weeks later Foxtrot was sent to Helmand Province where there was a lot of Taliban activity and no political pressures. Jason recalled executing 15 or more missions. “These were large operations over thousands of yards”. The SEALS were in numerous fire fights, but Jason was not. Although he did shoot rockets into cave complexes. “According to the Battle Damage Assessments we got back, we smoke checked hundreds of fighters who were probably hidden in those caves. A rocket fired into a cave does a lot of damage with the over pressure”.
On September 23rd Foxtrot was tasked with an operation to eliminate the enemy in a heavily Taliban controlled valley. “Anytime U.S. aircraft flew over this valley, they were getting shot at by the Taliban”. Foxtrot would join forces with a Canadian Special Forces unit. Part of the troops would lock down the high ground while the rest of the troop would push through the valley and destroy the enemy. “I was on the high ground with a sniper team, machine gunner and a Javelin team. A Javelin is a shoulder fired precision guided missile. Jason also provided radio communication relays back to the command center. The high ground was so high, radio transmission from the bottom of the valley to the command center was impossible without a relay.
They engaged with the enemy throughout the day but had a hard extract time due to air asset limitations operating in the area. Jason had told his sniper team and Javelin teams to fall back leaving just him and a machine gunner. Jason’s OIC radioed for reinforcements and Jason saw this as his opportunity to show what he could do in a firefight and help the guys in the valley. He radioed the Ground Command team and spoke with the Chief he had been butting heads with. Jason told him he was going down to support the OIC. The Chief said no, but Jason went anyway. He and his machine gunner worked their way into the valley past a series of caves.
Jason lost communications on the way down into the valley. When they reached the bottom of the valley they picked-up radio communications from the troops on the ground. The troop commander “was breathing fire into the radio”. He told Jason that he needed to get out of the valley because they had been trying to call in a close air support mission, but they couldn’t because they didn’t know where Jason and his machine gunner were. “When we do that, we need to know where everyone is at all times, so we don’t kill our own people”.
Jason and his machine gunner climbed back up the side of the valley and the close air support mission was called in and the enemy was killed. They were able to medevac a wounded Afghan solider, but due to the airflow limitations, the SEALS were unable to be extracted for three days. It was a long three days with the other SEALs giving Jason the cold shoulder and he earned the nickname Rambo Red. “That was not a compliment. SEAL Teams are about teamwork and Rambo is not”. Although he recognized this wasn’t a great tactical decision on his part and that he could have gotten himself and the machine gunner killed as they passed the caves on the way down into the valley, he still was not accepting responsibility for his actions. He instead chose to be the victim.
Jason’s XO told him he would be flown back to Bagram to meet with his Commanding Officer (CO). It was now setting in that he had stepped on a lot of toes, not shown proper leadership on numerous occasions, was abusing alcohol and had generally pissed off most everyone. The night before his meeting with the CO he sat alone in his room and contemplated being dismissed from the Navy. He had reached a new low point as he stared at a picture of his wife and children with his gun in his mouth. Jason heard a voice that he believes was God saying, “what are you doing”? That was enough to make him realize he needed help, and he went to see the Special Forces Chaplain.
Jason told his story his story to the Chaplain and told him he was contemplating suicide. The Chaplain pointed out that he hadn’t had his meeting and there was no decision made on his fate. He told Jason he thought it was premature to take his life. He suggested he wait and see what the final decision was and then come back to see him the following day.
Perhaps God was keeping watch on Jason because the CO didn’t dismiss him from the Navy. “A lot of guys really pressured him to kick me out…but he believed in me and thought I had the ability to be a good leader”. The CO told Jason he needed to be more humble and have a greater appreciation for leadership and tactical decision making. He thought Ranger School would be the best way for Jason to learn that. Ranger school is primarily a leadership school, but it also teaches the candidates how to operate in small teams and the tactics necessary to succeed in close combat situations. Candidates are placed in situations that will test each soldier’s physical and mental limits. Decision making is tested while being sleep deprived, food deprived and in challenging physical environments. Some people believe it rivals BUDS as the toughest training in the miliary.
Initially Jason was relieved that he slipped what could have been a knockout punch but soon his attitude soured, and he was back to playing the victim. He reported to Ranger School in February bitter and with a bad attitude. Three days into training he failed Land Navigation. There is a healthy rivalry between the SEALS and Rangers, and the Ranger instructors gave him a lot of razzing about failing. That was just enough to trigger Jason’s temper, and he blurted out, “I quit”! The instructors sent him to see the Command Sergeant Major (CSM).
Jason realized he had just committed a mortal sin. “In the SEAL Teams, quitting is unacceptable. You can never quit”. By the time he met with the CSM he was back to playing the victim. The CSM who told him he needed to see Commanding Officer, Colonel K.K. Chin. Once again, God seemed to have his hand on the tiller and Colonel Chin told Jason he wanted him to speak to someone in the SEAL community before he made a final decision. He picked up the phone and dialed Captain Pete Van Hooser. Pete had an incredible reputation in the SEAL community. Earlier in his career, Jason had an outburst related to a Navy award being downgraded and had to apologize to Van Hooser. Captain Van Hooser also recommended Jason for the Officer’s program at ODU over the objections of the Team Chief’s mess.
This would mark the lowest point in Jason’s career and his conversation with Captain Van Hooser not only saved his career but what he said and how he said it, finally got Jason’s lightbulb to turn on. Pete said, ‘Red, I know what happened in Afghanistan. Do you honestly think Ranger School is a punishment? You don’t think you could learn something there? You need to go back to Ranger school and finish it. If you come home, I’m going to have you out of the Navy in a week. What will that do for your family’?
Jason replied, “Sir, I don’t think I can recover from this. I’ve messed up too much. The guys will never follow me”. Captain Van Hooser then synthesized the theory of Leadership into a few prophetic words, ‘Red, listen to me. People will follow you if you give them a reason to. That’s all leadership is. I don’t care how bad you’ve messed up; people will follow success. Come back to the SEAL Teams and give the guys a reason to follow you.’
Pete’s words seemed to penetrate Red’s fog. Perhaps it was the specific words, perhaps it was the respect Red had for Pete or perhaps it was a combination. After a month of picking up trash while he was in ‘Ranger Jail’, Red went back to Ranger School and “crushed it”. “I had a new zeal to be humble and learn and do well”. “I had gotten into a rhythm; I had lost the bitterness and the anger and developed a sense of humor”. After the two months of Ranger School Red returned to the Teams a humbler leader.
Jason returned to SEAL Team 10 and his career took off. His new OIC was a great leader and mentor for Jason. He told Red he knew what happened in Afghanistan and he didn’t care. His concern was moving forward. He was going to give Jason the opportunity to lead and earn back the respect of the men. Red performed well and when he did screw up, he owned his mistakes and focused on not making them again. When it came time to deploy Jason could feel the support of the guys behind him.
Just before the Team was to deploy to Iraq, Jason came down with colitis and couldn’t deploy until the infection was completely cleared up. With his new mindset Red stayed upbeat and kept in communication with his guys on the ground in Iraq. He kept lists of the supplies they needed and took a pallet of those supplies for the guys when he left for Iraq. When the Team arrived, they immediately were in firefights. The operating tempo was frenetic, and the Team took some early losses and casualties.
Red landed in Iraq in May of 2007, and he headed to Fallujah, in central Iraq to hook up with his team. Their area of operation was Al Karmah just northeast of Fallujah, an Al Qaeda stronghold. This was door-to-door urban combat. Technology provides some advantages but “house to house fighting is very rudimentary, which is how Al Qaeda and the Taliban” were able to put up a resistance to the coalition forces. “Where we dominated the battle space is our air capabilities…sensor technologies…gunships and bombs…it makes the difference on the battlefield”.
“Anybody with a gun can fight back against somebody else with a gun.”
Red and the Team were going on nightly missions. “The night was our friend”. SEALS train extensively in how to enter and clear buildings and rooms. They generally don’t have intelligence providing the layouts of the particular structures they will enter prior to the mission, and they train for that. However, their methodology and extensive training as a team allow them “to maximize coverage and minimize the threat to ourselves and maximize how quickly we can acquire targets inside the room”.
“It was a high tempo deployment. It was everything you ever dreamed of as a SEAL”. Red left his problems in the past and got into a rhythm, much like a pitcher in baseball who is retiring the opposing batters three up and three down. “The guys were like, Red’s doing a good job and if you weren’t they let you know”. Red would ultimately participate in over 40 direct action missions in Iraq.
On June 21st the team went out on a night mission to take down a very complicated compound with three separate structures. They formed three assault teams and Jason led one of the teams. Jason’s team attacked a structure with two enemy fighters on the roof. They were dropping grenades on the SEALS below and they incurred minor wounds, but their Iraqi interpreter took the brunt of a grenade blast and was bleeding out on the porch. To complicate the situation there were 11 women and children sleeping outside as Iraqi’s are known to do in the hot weather. Now the SEALS were responsible for their safety. After clearing the bottom floor, their focus shifted to the roof. DJ Shipley and another SEAL made entry onto the roof where they found “two bad guys” with a machine gun. DJ caught them off guard and the machine gun was not manned. One of them shot Shipley in the chest but a spare magazine in his body armor stopped the bullet. They fell back and the enemy fighters opened fire with the machine gun.
Another building in the compound had shooters on the roof and Jason wanted to call in Navy gunship helicopters for a fire mission, but he could not get a full head count. One man was missing. Jason realized where he was, and he instructed his men to provide covering fire while he ran over 60 yards through heavy enemy fire to find his man. Having confirmed his location, Jason ran the 60 yards back to their original target. The air mission was successful and that building, and the enemy fighters were destroyed.
The remaining problem was the fighters on the roof with the machine gun and grenades. Red asked one of the young boys in the group of Iraqi’s, who was approximately 15 years old, if he knew the fighters on the roof. The boy said yes. The SEALS instructed the boy to go up to the roof and tell the fighters to lay down their weapons or the SEALS would kill them. The stairway went up several steps to a landing and them made a turn to another set of stairs to the roof. The boy went up the stairs and stepped onto the first landing. Before he could take another step “they cut him in half with the machine gun”.
Realizing they could not get to the roof, Red decided they would make the 60-yard run to the house he had been at before and then call in an air mission on the machine gun. This would involve taking the now 10 Iraqi’s, ranging in age from 80-year-old woman to a six-month-old baby. The SEALS would have to carry the wounded interpreter. They conducted a bounding maneuver where one team concentrates heavy gun fire on the roof while the other team moves and then they reverse roles. They made it across the 60 yards unscathed and then called in an AC 130 gunship to rain down lead on the rooftop. It was an amazing site to watch as the top of the building turned into a ball of flames from a series of secondary explosions, likely from suicide vests or a large grenade cache. The mission was complete, and Red flew in the medevac helicopter back to the base with the wounded.
The old Jason Redman, the younger, immature Jason Redman would have said take the stairwell rather than recognized it would have been a suicide mission. Later at the debrief the men let Red know he did a good job. The Executive Officer also called Red into his office to tell him he did a good job. “That was a turning point for me…I did it”.
“We had a lot of close calls on that deployment”. In August with the deployment drawing to a close they began to plan to return to the states. Jason had performed well, and his career was back on track. For his next position he requested to screen for DEVGRU, the SEALS Tier One asset. The selection process is very difficult, and candidates needed the approval of both their teammates and their Commanding Officer. Jason got the thumbs up to screen for DEVGRU.
On September 12th, 2007, approximately three weeks from heading home, the Team received a direct-action mission to kill or capture the number one Al Qaeda fighter in the Anbar Province. He was responsible for the death of SEAL Clark Swindler. They knew he traveled with a large security entourage, and they were trained to set off their suicide vests to protect their boss. The mission plans were prepared, and they moved out on what they knew could be a very tough fight.
They arrived at the target around 3am and took the target building with no resistance. It was obvious people had just been there. They searched the house and found a cache of weapons, explosives and IED making components. The Explosive Ordinance Disposal (EOD) specialists were preparing to blow up the cache when they received word that five individuals just ran into dense vegetation. Jason led a team of Eight SEALS and their interpreter to walk down the five individuals. Running from a house at 3am into dense vegetation was a sign they were likely up to no good. The darkness and the denseness of the vegetation created a situation where the SEALS became separated and unaware of each other’s location. This could lead to a friendly fire incident.
Jason realized they had been separated and gave directions over the radio to try and reconnect. He was in communication with a gunship overhead who could see the individuals in the field, but they could not see any weapons or any other potential enemy fighters. Jason stepped out of the vegetation and into a vast open desert. The last man to step out was their medic “and he literally stepped on an enemy fighter and the guy rolled over and tried to engage him and shot him. The SEALS had walked into an ambush. There were 15 enemy fighters who opened fire with two PKM machine guns. Two SEALS were wounded immediately.
There were thousands of yards of empty desert with one tree nearby. Near the tree was an old large tractor tire. The men tried to take cover by the tire while Red was trying to lay down fire for his men when both machine guns turned on him. “I got caught across the body armor, two rounds in the elbow, rounds off my helmet, rounds off my gun, the left night vision tube shot off”. As Jason turned to run he was shot in the side of his face. The bullet hit him in front of his ear and traveled through his face. It tore off his nose, broke all of the bones above his eye and shattered his jaw. Jason went down and was unconscious. His men thought he was dead. After about 10 minutes he regained consciousness, and the firefight was still going. Jason was only 45 feet from the enemy machine gun. He was bleeding out, getting cold and on the verge of shock and then death. There are no atheists in a foxhole and Red asked God for his help. Suddenly he felt a surge of energy and then his only focus was to “stay awake to stay alive”.
Red was able to contact his team leader who was surprised he was alive. He told Red they could not get a fire mission because they were too close to the enemy, or in military parlance, danger close. When troops are danger close air missions are not cleared because there is an extremely high likelihood killing U.S. forces. On their third request they advised the gunship that three guys were bleeding out, they were running out of ammo and if they didn’t bring in an air strike they would all be killed. With incredible precision the gunship rounds impacted the ground immediately in front of Jason and the explosion went right over the top of him. A short while later the machine gun was quiet, and Red could hear an enemy fighter screaming in pain and yelling for Allah. Allah did not come but the gunship made another pass and then silence fell over the battlefield.
Despite Jason’s injuries, he was able to walk to the medevac helicopter. He recalled walking with his head down because the blood was pouring from his face. He could not feel his arm and was convinced it had been shot off. It was a 10-minute. high speed ride to Baghdad. The helicopter was configured for two wounded but there were three and they couldn’t close the doors. The air rushing through the helicopter created a fine mist of blood that cover the inside of the helicopter and everyone on board.
Jason was loaded onto a cart and transported to the OR. He recalled riding on the cart and passing under a bridge where he noticed “a dude standing on top of the bridge smoking a cigarette looking down on me as I went under the bridge”. Perhaps that was once again God. He takes all forms. Red made it to the Operating Room (OR) just within the ‘Golden Hour’. The Golden Hour is when the likelihood of survival is the highest.
In the OR the nurses were cutting off his clothing when they found one grenade still attached to his belt. Immediately the nurse yelled bomb and the room emptied. The grenade was quickly removed, and the doctors went to work. When he woke up Jason found he was unable to talk due to a tracheotomy and his jaw was wired shut. He asked for paper and scribbled three questions: 1) were his men ok, 2) had his wife been notified and 3) was he still pretty. Two affirmative answers and in true SEAL humor he was told his injuries would be an improvement.
His next stop was Balad where all head injuries were sent. He was then flown to Germany where he had additional stabilizing surgeries. In Germany Red called his wife. He wrote on paper what he wanted to say and one of the guys read it to Erica.
Within 4 days of being shot Jason was back in the states at Walter Reed Medical Center. Jason had still not seen what he looked like and as he rode from the airport to Walter Reed, he was terrified of how Erica would react when she saw him. “She walked straight in, walked right up to me, she pushed the tubes out of the way and kissed me right on the lips and said, ‘we’re going to be ok’”. Erica immediately took control of the situation and earned her nickname, ‘The Longhaired Admiral’.
A hard road lay ahead. Initially Jason struggled. He was angry he had gotten his career back on track and now had this major setback. He was also second guessing how he handled the events leading up to the ambush. The more mature and seasoned Jason Redman started thinking about all of the lessons he learned over the past few years. “You can’t sit here and feel sorry for yourself. What is this accomplishing?”
While at Walter Reed, Jason had some visitors who thought he was asleep and began talking about what a shame it was about his injuries. From that moment on Red decided he would not feel sorry for himself and would not allow anyone else to feel sorry for him. He told Erica no one was allowed into his room if they were going to feel sorry for him. This led to him creating a sign for his door which went on to take on a life of its own. It read as follows:
Attention all that enter here:
If you are coming into this room with sorrow or to feel sorry for my wounds go elsewhere. The wounds I received I got in a job I love, doing it for people I Iove, defending the freedom of a country I deeply love. I am incredibly tough and will make a full recovery. What is full? That is the absolute utmost physically my body has the ability to recover. Then I will push that about 20% further through sheer mental tenacity. This room you are about to enter is a room of fun, optimism and intense rapid regrowth. If you are not prepared for that go elsewhere.
The Management.
The sign was intended to set a tone for Jason, but it has gone on to become an inspiration for many other injured war fighters and it is now a plaque in the Walter Reed Medical Center Wounded Warrior Ward.
When Jason went home Erica was his nurse dealing with all of the tubes and changing his dressings. His tracheotomy was in place for 7 months and two days. For all that time Erica cleaned the mucous which constantly clogged the tube. “It takes a unique breed of woman to be married to SOF guys”.
Over the next four years Red had about 40 surgeries. Although his medical team thought he needed to have his arm amputated, his doctor who was a former SEAL said no. He would fix it. Jason’s nose had been completely shot off, so rebuilding his nose was a major focus. The first two attempts failed and then Red was referred to Dr. Robert Walton and Dr. Edwardo Rodriguez, a world-renowned Oral and Maxillofacial surgeon. He told Red he worked on several Delta Force operators and showed him photos of the results. Red had found the right doctor.
When Red was on his feet, he was allowed to go back to the Teams and work with DEVGRU doing special projects. He continued to rehab and get his injured arm to the point he could be an operator in the Teams. Limitations on the movement were just too great to overcome despite his herculean efforts. Red was permitted to stay on at DEVGRU and finish out his 20-year career with the Navy.
Since leaving the Navy Jason has written books about his time in the Teams and the principals of leadership. In his writing and speaking he has been very open and candid about his shortcomings and mistakes. “Leadership is not a perfect road. You’re gonna fuck up. I don’t care who you are”. He founded a not-for-profit and has a motivational speaking business. He continues to swim, lift weights and looks like he could complete BUDS today.
Jason and Erica are happily married with three children and their dog Karmah, named after the town in Iraq, where he was injured. They have also written a book about the strength of their relationship.
Jason, the entire nation thanks you for all that you and your family have sacrificed and all that you have endured. God acts in mysterious ways and perhaps your role now is to provide hope to all of us who have failed and fear the future is without redemption. A truly noble cause.
“I’m living proof that it’s not too late to come back from any failure you’re ever in”.