Tom Spooner on 12 Delta Force Rotations and Staying Sober

On Mike Ritland's show, former Delta Force operator Tom Spooner looks back at ten years in the unit: 12 combat rotations and about 40 months in combat, 32 of them with the unit. He explains how he stayed sober through that run and gets into the mission that affected him most.

Key points

• Combat tempo: Spooner says he started in 2002 and logged 12 combat rotations, one in Afghanistan and the rest in Iraq.
• Sobriety under fire: he credits staying sober with enabling his physical and mental performance, and says he met both support and skepticism from the unit's old guard.
• Changing the narrative: rather than confront the stigma around recovery head-on, he says he let his job performance speak for him.
• The 2006 mission: he describes a three-day operation with the 82nd Airborne that became his third mass casualty event, and says it still affects him.
• American losses: he says what stayed with him wasn't combat against the enemy but losing American lives, especially in 2005 and 2006.

Quick take

This is a candid look at what a decade of near-continuous deployment does to a person. It's worth watching if you want the human side of operator life beyond the gear and the gunfights.

Watch the full video: Mike Ritland