Mike Drop

Former F-15E Strike Eagle combat pilot and U.S. Air Force Thunderbird number two Ryan Bodenheimer — founder and host of Max Afterburner — joins me exactly 25 years after 9/11, the day that sparked his entire career. We cover his 70 combat missions and 300 combat hours in Afghanistan, a near air-to-air engagement with an Iranian jet, losing his best friend in pilot training, a hypoxia incident that...

Former Diplomatic Security Service special agent and attorney Ryan Dalton joins Mike to discuss his career investigating human trafficking, protecting U.S. officials overseas, and his investigation into Jeffrey Epstein. Ryan explains why, after reviewing released Epstein files, prison records, and other anomalies surrounding August 2019, he believes the evidence raises the possibility that Epstein...

Retired Secret Service Special Agent Darin Kinder recounts surviving 9/11 from inside the World Trade Center, entering the North Tower to help people evacuate, and escaping the collapse of the South Tower. He also shares stories from his 25-year career, including counterterrorism work with the New York Joint Terrorism Task Force, protecting President George W. Bush, and how those experiences ultim...

Former Navy SEAL Jonathan Wilson sits down with Mike Ritland to share his path from getting kicked out of the Naval Academy to fighting his way into the SEAL Teams and deploying to Iraq. He opens up about combat, taking a life, rediscovering his faith, the toll his career took on his family, his own struggles after service, and the mission that ultimately led him to help other veterans navigate tr...

Air Force Special Operations JTAC veteran Conan Higgins joins the show to break down what a Joint Terminal Attack Controller actually does on the battlefield—and why he believes air power could have changed the outcome of missions like Operation Red Wings. Conan deployed to Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Philippines, earning two Bronze Stars for combat action, while simultaneously serving as a Washing...

In the final part of this conversation, Tony Mayne shares the story he says he's never told publicly before—the loss of his soldier Hing Shaw to an IED, and the impossible decisions made in the seconds and hours that followed. Tony also opens up about being forced out by a medical board, the fight to stay in uniform, and the calling that led him to build Ranger transition and ministry programs...

In Part 2, former Army Ranger Tony Mayne takes us deep into the objective and execution of the Haditha Dam mission—one of the most heavily defended objectives of the early Iraq War. Tony details the harrowing overnight drive through the desert, the ambush that nearly cost his team everything, and the unique cooperation between Rangers and Delta Force on the ground. From there, the conversation fol...

Retired Major Tony Mayne joins the podcast to walk through 12 years in U.S. Special Operations Command, including nine years in the 75th Ranger Regiment's 3rd Battalion, where he took part in the regiment's historic combat parachute assault into Afghanistan after 9/11 and later jumped into Iraq — completing eight combat deployments in support of the Global War on Terror and earning inducti...

In the final part of this conversation, Mike Sarraille recounts the base attack in Jalalabad where he served as Joint Strike Force commander, dismantles the conspiracy theories surrounding Extortion 17, and shares the story of Guardian dog Bart's final act protecting his handler Jet Li. He then breaks down his transition out of the military, the founding of Talent War Group, and his current ro...

Part 2 of this conversation with Mike Sarraille picks up inside the deployments that followed Ramadi, including the chaotic quick-reaction mission into Sadr City alongside a hastily assembled team from two different SEAL platoons. Mike breaks down the brotherhood built with Army infantry on the ground, the Sunni Awakening, and why he believes the Iraq War was ultimately a policy mistake despite th...

Mike Sarraille breaks down his path from getting kicked out of college to Force Recon to Navy SEAL to DEVGRU. He talks Delta vs DEVGRU, deploying to Ramadi with Task Unit Bruiser, and standing three feet from Michael Monsoor the day he died saving his team. Also covers DEVGRU selection and why he thinks the Iran conflict is repeating Iraq's mistakes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit pod...

In the final part of this Mike Drop conversation, Prime Hall traces his path from military transition into deep psychological healing. He details his first 5-MeO-DMT experience, a profound "hard reset" that showed him both the devastating and the redemptive paths his life could take, and how it launched an unexpected connection to Mike Tyson and Tyson Ranch. Prime opens up about the harder...

Prime Hall returns for Part 2 of this Mike Drop conversation, taking listeners deep into his time as a Marine Raider deployed to Helmand Province, Afghanistan. He recounts the brutal June 14th, 2012 ambush where two of his closest teammates were shot, the insider attack that nearly killed him weeks later, and the invisible wounds—traumatic brain injury, hearing damage, and psychological toll—that...

Mike Ritland sits down with Prime Hall — former Marine Raider, Marine Corps water survival instructor, co-founder of Deep End Fitness and Operation Resilience, founder of the Underwater Torpedo League, and recipient of the Purple Heart, Combat Action Ribbon, Bronze Star, and Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal. Prime is also the author of "Permission to Heal: Redefining Strength for Warri...

In the final part, Mike LeBlanc explains why Ukraine has become a real-time preview of future warfare, where robots and drones now do most of the fighting and over 80% of incoming Russian drones are stopped before impact. He breaks down the political reasons Russia hasn't crushed Ukraine, the underexplored frontier of subsurface warfare exposed by Iran, and why he believes autonomy—not new wea...

In Part 2, Mike LeBlanc details how a chance call pulled him away from a private equity offer and into Silicon Valley, where he co-founded Cobalt Robotics before launching Foundation Future Industries. He walks through the brutal early days of building a robotics startup, a company crisis over fabricated sales contracts that forced him to overhaul the business, and the pivot into humanoid robots f...

Former Marine Corps officer, Harvard Business School graduate, and entrepreneur Mike LeBlanc spent 13 years in the Marine Corps, including back-to-back deployments advising Afghan forces, service with First Recon, a joint special operations task force in Bahrain, and a Pentagon role evaluating emerging military technology. After leaving active service, he founded Cobalt Robotics and later co-found...

In the final part of this conversation, Major John Spencer breaks down the discipline he's built his career on: urban warfare. He explains why cities are the most complex environment any military can fight in, why the U.S. lacks real expertise in fighting underground, and how history's most costly urban battles keep repeating the same avoidable mistakes. He closes by discussing what he see...

Major John Spencer is a retired U.S. Army officer who served 25 years in uniform, including two combat tours in Iraq as an infantry platoon leader and later as a company commander during the Battle of Sadr City. In this part 2, he describes taking command of a company hours after it was devastated by an Iranian-backed rocket attack, and explains how he rebuilt a broken, stop-lossed unit into one o...

Major John Spencer is a retired U.S. Army officer with more than 25 years of service and is widely recognized as one of the world’s leading experts on urban warfare. In this conversation, he breaks down the conflict with Iran, challenges popular predictions about escalation, and explains why war remains inherently human, political, and unpredictable. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcast...

In the final part of this conversation, Derek Janisch talks about rebuilding his life after prison — reconnecting with his ex-wife in Hawaii, moving back to California, and starting over as a father, husband, and businessman. The conversation closes with a deep dive into faith, free will, and how his time in jail shaped a worldview built on second chances. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit p...

Derek Janisch spent a decade in the SEAL Teams, deploying to Afghanistan and the Philippines, before his life came apart at home. In this part 2, he talks openly about the affair that ended his marriage, the arrests that followed, and the night on a Humboldt County cannabis farm when a dispute over money ended with him being shot in the chest. It's a raw look at what happens when a warrior&#39...

Derek Janisch took PKM and RPG fire in Afghanistan and walked away alive. Years later on a California cannabis farm, an argument over $3,000 put a bullet in his chest. In this episode he breaks down both nights, the firefight that should have killed him and the one that almost did, plus the recovery, the scar people mistake for a war wound, and how he ended up back in California teaching shooting...

In the final part of this conversation, Nic McKinley traces his path from private personal recovery work to founding DeliverFund, and delivers a hard-hitting breakdown of the forces enabling child trafficking in America today. He names Roblox CEO David Baszucki's own words on predators and minors, connects the Epstein files to a broader pattern of political silence, and lays out the exact mech...

In the final part of this conversation, Nic McKinley traces his path from private personal recovery work to founding DeliverFund, and delivers a hard-hitting breakdown of the forces enabling child trafficking in America today. He names Roblox CEO David Baszucki's own words on predators and minors, connects the Epstein files to a broader pattern of political silence, and lays out the exact mechanic...