Quote · The Shawn Ryan Show
#313 Eric Frohardt - DEVGRU Gold Squadron Sniper and Assaulter
Where this was said
Louis Safran, the IED, and the Regret That Still Haunts Him
At 3:02:10 · chapter starts 2:53:20
Between two devastating nights — the Super Bowl Sunday deaths and the IED that would come — Louis Safran approached Frohardt. He beat around the bush, searching, Frohardt says, for answers about why good men like Mike and Nate die while bad men don't. Frohardt knew what Louis was really asking. But he was afraid. He didn't have all the theological answers, and he thought he needed to. He changed the subject. Two nights later, Frohardt was leading his team to a building when he stopped to engage fighters through a window — a split-second tactical decision that saved his life. The building detonated. Safran, who had moved up at the last minute, was crushed under a concrete roof. Others suffered double compound femur fractures, full pelvic fractures, broken limbs. Frohardt was blown 30 feet by the window's overpressure, bounced off a compound wall, and came to with a severe concussion. His regret — not speaking about faith with Safran — became the catalyst for his entire spiritual transformation.
Three nights after two teammates died, Louis Safran beat around the bush asking Frohardt about faith. Frohardt changed the subject — he didn't have all the answers yet. Two nights later, the building blew up. Safran was killed. Frohardt was blown 30 feet clear by the window's overpressure and survived.
Three nights after the Super Bowl Sunday firefight, a house-borne IED obliterated Frohardt's entire assault team; Frohardt survived only because he was next to a window, which blew him away from the explosion.
Five hours after learning via sat phone from Helmand Province that his wife was expecting a girl — they named her Daisy on the call — an AK round cut a chunk of hair from Frohardt's head. He nearly dry-heaved on the helicopter ride home.
In Afghanistan's Helmand Province, pinned down between three Taliban compounds, an AK round cut off a chunk of Frohardt's hair — hours after he had learned over a sat phone that his wife was pregnant with their daughter Daisy.
Frohardt signed a waiver to stay in the military after losing a kidney — a non-deployable waiver he never read — then completed five deployments before Navy Medicine caught up with him.
After losing a kidney, Frohardt signed a waiver to stay in the military — while high on morphine and without reading it. The waiver barred him from deploying. He deployed five more times. Navy Medicine only found out when they had to sign off on his Purple Heart.
