#313 Eric Frohardt - DEVGRU Gold Squadron Sniper and Assaulter

Where this was said

Growing Up on an Iowa Hog Farm

At 16:10 · chapter starts 15:23

Frohardt paints a vivid picture of rural Iowa life: a small town, a nurse mother whose calm was infectious, and a mountain of a father whose energy and work ethic were equally influential. The Frohardt farm ran corn, soybeans, and hogs — up to 800 acres — but it was the year-round hog operation that consumed his childhood. Farrow-to-finish hog farming, he explains, is relentless and thankless: no glamorous Yellowstone narrative, just dirty, low-margin labor. Yet he wouldn't trade it. The farm installed accountability (if the pen was left open and hogs escaped, you owned it), physical toughness, and the ability to work through discomfort — all of which he would later draw on in BUD/S. His father, who could still beat him in a 40-yard dash at graduation and couldn't fit his finger through a Glock trigger guard, was simultaneously terrifying and nurturing.