Mike Drop

Major James Capers ran 50 missions in Vietnam as a Force Recon Marine — combat swims in shark-infested waters, a POW rescue that earned him his first Purple Heart and Bronze Star, and a four-day battle that left him wounded with his legs broken and his dog dead. He was one of the few African Americans in Force Recon, and fought his way into Combat Swimmer school when the commanding officer tried to send him home before he even started. He spent three months at Khe Sanh facing a Chinese division, and when the helicopter finally came in on his bloodiest mission, he put every man on board and stayed on the ground alone. President Trump called him personally to invite him to the White House to receive the Medal of Honor. In this episode, Major Capers walks through the missions and what it cost him to bring everybody home.

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Major James Capers led a four day mission in Vietnam that should have killed him. His unit was inserted, took heavy contact, and fought through the night with everything they had. He was wounded, his dog was killed, and when the helicopter finally came in to pull them out, he told the crew to take his men and leave him behind. President Trump signed a bill awarding him the Medal of Honor for what he did on that trail, outnumbered and outgunned, refusing to abandon a single Marine no matter the cost. In this episode, Major Capers sits down to walk through the mission, the decisions made under fire, and what it actually means to bring every man home when everything around you is falling apart.

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Retired Army Sergeant Major and Green Beret Terry Wilson closes out a conversation that covers everything from geopolitics to personal redemption. Terry and Mike dig into the Venezuela raid, the consistency problem with U.S. foreign policy, and whether fighting an ideology like Islamic extremism is even winnable. Then it gets personal — Terry reflects on rebuilding his marriage, watching his kids move forward after losing their brother, and how faith, not discipline alone, became the foundation that finally held.

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Retired Army Sergeant Major and Green Beret Terry Wilson returns for Part 2 with some of the rawest conversation yet. From witnessing a Chinook go down in flames in Afghanistan to losing his son in 2020, Terry opens up about the grief he buried for years — and what it finally took to break him open. A brutally honest look at rock bottom, rebuilding, and the unlikely path that brought him back.

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Retired Army Sergeant Major and Green Beret Terry Wilson spent 24 years in uniform with the 7th Special Forces Group, racking up 11 combat deployments and nearly 11 years total downrange. He is now the CEO of Tactical Edge Coaching and Consulting, where he works with high performance men to become better leaders in all aspects of their life.

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Retired Marine Force Recon Gunnery Sergeant Ryan Kuperus closes out his conversation with Mike Ritland with the kind of honesty that makes people uncomfortable — and that's exactly the point. From a brutally candid take on the "silent professional" myth and what weak leadership actually looks like, to a raw account of his ibogaine experience in Mexico and what it revealed about his relationship with his kids, Kuperus doesn't hold back. He also weighs in on Iran, Israel, the Epstein files, and why he thinks the Monroe Doctrine is the only foreign policy that makes sense. And after nearly losing everything to a court-martial he should never have faced, he found his next mission: The Reason Outdoors, a nonprofit using hunting and the backcountry to pull veterans back from the edge — one hunt at a time.

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Retired Marine Force Recon Gunnery Sergeant Ryan Kuperus returns for part two with some of the most harrowing combat accounts you'll hear. From a near-fatal friendly fire incident involving Cobra attack helicopters, to navigating an IED-saturated district center while rescuing a shattered sniper team, Kuperus pulls no punches on what it actually costs when leadership fails on the ground. He also recounts the operation that quietly identified a Taliban shadow governor in northern Helmand — the kind of mission that rarely gets told. The conversation shifts into a candid reckoning with the military's promotion system, the compounding damage of poor senior leadership, and why the men who fight hardest are often the ones the institution fails most.

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Ryan Kuperus is a retired Marine Gunnery Sergeant with 17+ years in infantry, recon, and Force Recon. Medically retired after multiple combat deployments and enough kinetic stories to fill a book. From leading teams in Now Zad to pulling his own guys out of multiple IED strikes, this one gets raw fast. We talk leadership failures in combat, hunting, ibogaine, and why the system chews up warriors.

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Former SAS operator Phil Singleton reflects on life after the Regiment. He shares his candid thoughts on the Falklands War, his decision to leave the SAS, and the remarkable journey that followed — from bodyguard work in Saudi Arabia to becoming a U.S. citizen, training American law enforcement with Heckler & Koch, and building his own international tactical training company. Now in his 70s, Phil offers unfiltered perspectives on geopolitics, Britain’s direction, America’s strengths, and the simple “Rastafarian lifestyle” he lives today. This episode closes with honest wisdom, humor, and hard-earned life lessons from a true warrior and veteran.

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Former British SAS operator Phil Singleton shares hard-earned insights from his distinguished career. He offers a firsthand account of the 1980 Iranian Embassy Siege in London, detailing the planning, explosive entry, chaotic assault amid fire, and the realities of hostage rescue. Singleton also reflects on his experiences during The Troubles in Northern Ireland, the rigorous SAS selection process, endurance testing, and other deployments including Belize, Brunei, and the Falklands. With candid perspectives on leadership, adaptability, counter-terrorism, and the human side of elite operations, this conversation delivers unfiltered veteran insight and operational history.

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