How Navy SEAL Trevor Thompson Made a Difference in the World

So when you do return, how long did you serve for? Nine years. Nine years. And when you made the decision to get out, what was that decision based on? So I never really wanted to do the Navy as a full-time career my entire life. You know, do 20 years and get out and collect the pension. The war was starting to, at the time, slow down-ish for op tempo, like how quickly guys are going overseas and the amount of action they're seeing. The way I saw it was it's like training for a fight that you never do. I didn't want that to be my life. And I was 28. You know, I'm like, you know what? Let me make some phone calls and see how guys are feeling about stuff overseas. And because I was on the jump team at the time. Right. So I had like, I didn't quite have my finger on the pulse of what was happening at the team. So I made some calls and those guys are like, yeah, man, if there's nothing really tying you down like a kid or a huge amount of debt or a lifelong dream of this being your Navy SEAL for 20 years. You know, and you want to do other stuff with your life? It might be a good time to do it, dude. And I'm happy I did. I got out with all my fingers and toes. And I'm glad that I was able to leave on really good terms and feel really happy about what I did. Because I feel like we were making a difference. When you say that, like what made you feel like you were making a difference? The things I know that we got to participate in, the places we were and the guys that we removed from the battle space captured or killed were fucking shitheads that were using women and children as targets and were causing terror. When you say terrorist, people have this disassociated view of that now, right? Yeah, just thrown across the newspapers. They were causing terror. I don't think people quite like, you know, the coronavirus stuff is coming out now or when a bomb goes off somewhere or there's a mass shooting. Imagine if that's your your entire life. Yeah, you're walking around town and that's what's going on every damn day. It's not your fault. It's just some guy that's deciding that's their their job in life is to ruin yours. And we were removing them. So I feel like we were doing a good thing.