This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Shawn Ryan, a retired Navy SEAL and former CIA contractor and the host of the "Shawn Ryan Show," a podcast sharing uncensored first-person stories from military veterans, law enforcement officers, and others in high-stakes careers. It has been edited for length and clarity.
One of the reasons I left the Navy SEALs after nearly six years was that I didn't get enough action.
I was very gung ho about going to war.
I'd seen combat in Haiti, Afghanistan, and Iraq, but the reality is you might re-up for another six years and spend only a small part of that in combat. The rest is training and waiting.
I also saw what 20-plus years as a SEAL will do to somebody — to their body and to their home life.
A lot of us have the same injuries and the same symptoms, like back and knee issues, PTSD, and traumatic brain injuries. Plus, pretty much everybody I knew was divorced, had been divorced, or was getting a divorce. A lot of them didn't know their kids very well.
Your platoon, your teammates, is your primary family. The families are secondary. I knew that if I stayed at the rate I was going, I would be a very lonely person come retirement.
How I became a Navy SEAL
I didn't even know what a Navy SEAL was when I decided to join the US military.
I tried the Marine Corps first. They told me I had to go infantry. Then I went to the Army, told them I wanted to be a Green Beret. They kind of laughed me out of the office.
A Navy recruiter saw me and said, "Hey, have you ever thought about the SEAL teams?" He gave me a pamphlet. That's how it started.
I went to the library and checked out every book I could find on special operations and Navy SEALs, watched all the documentaries on National Geographic and Discovery, and decided that's what I was going to do.
I didn't leave the SEALs because I was done with combat
I made it through BUD/S (Basic Underwater Demolition/SEAL) and deployed to Haiti in 2004. It was civil unrest everywhere, but our duties were reconnaissance missions that involved basically flying on a helicopter every morning over various towns to report back about the unrest.
It wasn't enough action for me and made me really hungry for more. I wanted to go to the Middle East.
In Iraq, we got sent out with conventional units that were getting hit with IEDs and ambushes. We'd go in, train them up, and then take them out on real missions and kill the guys that were killing them.
My transition to normal life was difficult
After leaving the Navy, I worked for the CIA for a while, which was similar in intensity but paid four to five times as much as I made as a SEAL.
After leaving the CIA, I moved out of the country to Colombia and got really into cocaine and alcohol. It became a vicious cycle, but eventually I climbed out of it and moved back to the US and launched the "Shawn Ryan Show," my podcast.
I wanted to document history from veterans' perspectives. I was tired of the mainstream media telling military stories wrong.
Everybody that I brought on the podcast at the beginning had been through the low points, from addictions to adrenaline, to substance abuse, to broken families, to suicide attempts. Many have also found some form of success through entrepreneurship.
We've been running the show since 2019 and are approaching our 200th episode. I've interviewed many active military members and veterans, and one thing I've learned is that people benefit from hearing their stories.
If I hadn't left the SEALs and had all the experiences I've had, I wouldn't have met my wife, created this podcast, and met the people who have become my extended family.
When people hear that someone else made it through, they start to believe that maybe they can too.
Do you have a story to share about the military? Contact the editor at jorwig@jkmperu.com.
This story was adapted from Ryan's interview for Business Insider's series, "Authorized Account." Learn more about his life before and after the Navy SEALs in the video below:
