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Mike Drop

Green Beret to Night Stalker: Surviving the Dark Side of Special Operations | Ep. 264 | Pt. 1

Mike Drop

Mike Ritland

Society & Culture, Personal Journals, Documentary, Politics, News

4.9 • 6.3K Ratings

🗓️ 4 November 2025

⏱️ 81 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Join host Mike Ritland on Mike Drop Podcast for an unflinching conversation with Nick O'Kelly, a retired Green Beret turned Night Stalkers Black Hawk pilot from the elite 160th SOAR. From the high-stakes chaos of his first combat insertion—where a last-second sharp turn into a dusty, high-speed landing pushed the limits of control—to the invisible war he fought against crippling suicidal ideation that began in flight school, Nick pulls no punches. His debut book Stigma, releasing October 21st, exposes the raw truth behind mental health struggles in special operations. Nick traces his path from a strict Christian upbringing in Washington state, through SF selection and Okinawa deployments, to mastering aviation amid family pressures and a newborn son. He shares the culture shock of warrant officer training, the adrenaline of Everest Base Camp treks, and the surreal focus of flying tier-one operators under fire. Faith, perfectionism, and Vince Lombardi's pursuit of excellence weave through his story of resilience. As Covid extended his final deployment, knee surgery grounded him and forced a reckoning with anxiety, panic disorders, and systemic failures in military mental health care. Nick's journey from zombie-like survival to revival highlights the cost of silence—and the power of speaking out. Essential listening for anyone in high-performance worlds. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

It's one of those things that the world around you kind of stops.

0:04.0

So I was flying with my co-pilot was a senior, but how we were landing required me to be on the flight controls.

0:12.0

So the last maybe five minutes or something, the videos are going nuts, everything's going nuts.

0:17.0

And as it gets closer, I don't know what happened, but the last 30 seconds the flight lead makes a pretty abrupt turn.

0:23.6

And at the last minute I had to, like we're basically a flight of four just going, you know, at a sharp turn.

0:30.6

As we're making our approach, as we're landing.

0:33.6

So we're coming in for the landing and it was going to be dusty. And we're coming

0:38.5

in a lot hotter than we were supposed to. And we come down and we hit the ground and we

0:43.3

actually had a little like forward roll which is ground upon in the dust for sure because

0:47.6

if you hit you know any bumps or whatever, anything that you didn't see in the dust, like you

0:52.2

don't know what you're going to hit. Are there any missions that you flew on that you can kind of share?

0:59.0

Were there any hairy missions?

1:01.0

Um, there was one that was hairy. It was.

1:06.0

I have four dogs and they've eaten all types of different food and we recently found

1:20.2

team dog like believe this spring so we've been on it for a year.

1:25.7

Seeger was on it first and Tiller was on it

1:28.3

and then we put the Goldens on it.

1:30.3

And I mean, all the dogs eat less food.

1:32.3

The dogs' coats are way better.

1:35.3

Everything about team dog is, I mean, I'm very impressed.

1:39.3

My dog trainer Justin Allen, he uses it on all like 60 dogs that are there for training.

1:48.7

He's tried every single food in the game too.

...

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