# Clip 040 | Foreign Commando Courses | Delta Force Operator Tom Satterly

An episode of [Former Action Guys Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1475060182), 15 Aug 2024, 11 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/61032381/foreign_commando_courses_delta_force_operator_tom_satterly_01.mp3

Tom Satterly retired as a Delta Force Operator but began his Army career as an engineer stationed in Europe. Tom took advantage of opportunities to attend commando courses hosted by both the French and German militaries. Hear the entire conversation on Ep. 176 available now on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts or ad free on Patreon. Support the show: https://patreon.com/formeractionguys https://jcramergraphics.com https://ANGLICOshop.com Tom's Links https://linktr.ee/allsecure

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Whatever you want to do, just ask, Like if you
[0:02] Speaker 1: ask and they say yes, then we do it. If
[0:04] Speaker 1: they say no, then we don't do it. You know, like,
[0:06] Speaker 1: don't don't be afraid to ask for whatever. You know,
[0:09] Speaker 1: this weird whatever seems like weird specialized training that why
[0:11] Speaker 1: would you guys do that? Who cares? If you want
[0:13] Speaker 1: to do it and you can justify it why you're
[0:15] Speaker 1: doing it, then ask and it could happen.
[0:19] Speaker 2: It's it's it's a testament to great leadership or even
[0:22] Speaker 2: good leadership. All you have to just be okay, to
[0:24] Speaker 2: be okay and try a little bit, and you'll turn
[0:26] Speaker 2: guys onto things that they would have never done which
[0:28] Speaker 2: could improve them.
[0:29] Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. I mean he got to go to
[0:31] Speaker 1: the French commando school. Like what was for you? What
[0:34] Speaker 1: was what was the best thing about going to that course?
[0:37] Speaker 2: It was so unique to me that we did weird
[0:41] Speaker 2: shit that I ended up doing the rest of my career.
[0:43] Speaker 2: Like it was nothing but to do it for the
[0:44] Speaker 2: first time, Like, okay, line up and you're like in
[0:47] Speaker 2: the push up position and we're all lined up, like
[0:50] Speaker 2: ten guys lined up along this trench and here comes
[0:52] Speaker 2: a tank.
[0:53] Speaker 3: They're gonna they gotta.
[0:54] Speaker 2: Drive over you, right, So they're teaching us how to
[0:56] Speaker 2: put sticky bombs on the underneath of tanks like trench warfare.
[0:58] Speaker 2: I'm like, what are we doing? And so this tank
[1:01] Speaker 2: comes up and as you're laying on the ground, you
[1:03] Speaker 2: lift up one hand, touch the tread and then roll
[1:05] Speaker 2: underneath the tank.
[1:06] Speaker 3: As it drives over you.
[1:07] Speaker 2: And I'm like, all right. It was just kind of
[1:08] Speaker 2: confidence building that I didn't get crushed by a tank.
[1:11] Speaker 2: And then they lead you over to this obstacle course,
[1:13] Speaker 2: which half of it's underwater, you know, and you pop
[1:16] Speaker 2: up underneath some of some of the concertina wire that's
[1:19] Speaker 2: on top of the water. You pop up for rare
[1:20] Speaker 2: and there's the French commando instructor peeing in the water.
[1:23] Speaker 1: Lad.
[1:24] Speaker 2: I'm like, what's going on here? And then it's back
[1:27] Speaker 2: to the obstacle course from tree to tree, where you're
[1:29] Speaker 2: jumping such a distance that you wouldn't make it, but
[1:32] Speaker 2: it's lower so as you fall, you go further and
[1:35] Speaker 2: you're like, I'll never make that, and you end up
[1:37] Speaker 2: jumping and make it. It built a lot of confidence
[1:40] Speaker 2: for me and showed me that you could do a
[1:42] Speaker 2: lot of different things that you think your body can't do,
[1:47] Speaker 2: you know. I mean, we got driven across the schools.
[1:50] Speaker 2: It's French commando school, but it's in Germany.
[1:52] Speaker 3: It's weird.
[1:52] Speaker 2: It's right on the French German line in Breezeak Germany.
[1:56] Speaker 2: And they drove us across into France and put us
[1:58] Speaker 2: in a castle like potato sack pants and they took
[2:01] Speaker 2: our shoe strings away out of our boots and we
[2:03] Speaker 2: had brown T shirts and that was it.
[2:04] Speaker 3: And we were like it was.
[2:05] Speaker 2: Our E and E and we were supposed to like
[2:08] Speaker 2: follow an E and E plan and get recaptured and
[2:11] Speaker 2: detained and tortured and then sent on our way again.
[2:13] Speaker 2: But we kind of our group. I watched our route
[2:17] Speaker 2: as we drove across. I'm like, okay, straight left, straight
[2:19] Speaker 2: left me, you know, I was trying to remember. And
[2:21] Speaker 2: by the time we got there, we're in the basement
[2:24] Speaker 2: of this castle. You know, there's no light. And he
[2:26] Speaker 2: gave us like three matches and a note. We finally got.
[2:30] Speaker 2: We burnt the three matches up. They didn't work. Somebody
[2:31] Speaker 2: finally opens the door because we're standing in the dark
[2:33] Speaker 2: for an hour and nowhere to go. I mean, it's
[2:34] Speaker 2: pitch black all our matches are broken. We don't know
[2:37] Speaker 2: what to do. He finally opens the door and says
[2:39] Speaker 2: something in French. Shines a light. We read it, and
[2:41] Speaker 2: it's like, you need to go to this point. And
[2:43] Speaker 2: so we figured out how to get out of this basement,
[2:45] Speaker 2: out of this castle, and we ended up running across
[2:48] Speaker 2: the international border a branch to Germany and just kind
[2:51] Speaker 2: of watching it and timing it and then took off
[2:52] Speaker 2: running up into a vineyard, people chasing us, and we
[2:55] Speaker 2: made it back to the barracks by like midnight, one
[2:58] Speaker 2: in the morning, and nobody else got back to three
[3:00] Speaker 2: pm the next day because they all got detained and
[3:02] Speaker 2: rolled up and they got transport across the Rhine River
[3:05] Speaker 2: in a zodiac boat. But we missed all that because
[3:08] Speaker 2: we just kind of improvised, but still passed because we
[3:10] Speaker 2: made it back. You do what you're supposed to do, yeah,
[3:13] Speaker 2: And it kind of taught me, you know, things aren't
[3:15] Speaker 2: always as they seem. Think outside the box and you
[3:17] Speaker 2: can get shit done.
[3:19] Speaker 1: Yeah for sure. Now you went to the US Ranger school,
[3:23] Speaker 1: right have you been? No, you never went to the.
[3:25] Speaker 2: UF I know I get that a lot. Hey ranger, buddy,
[3:28] Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm not a ranger, man, I'm gonna get
[3:30] Speaker 2: called out for false you know bullshit here that I'm not.
[3:32] Speaker 2: I've never said so. No, I never went to the
[3:34] Speaker 2: US Ranger School.
[3:36] Speaker 1: Wow, that was crazy.
[3:37] Speaker 3: I was offered to go.
[3:39] Speaker 2: But I'd already I was already in the unit, I
[3:40] Speaker 2: already been to SF and I was already in E
[3:43] Speaker 2: six maybe e seven. I'm like, you know, and a
[3:45] Speaker 2: couple of guys had win as he ates and they're like, oh,
[3:47] Speaker 2: you know, Greg went, he's the oldest guy to ever
[3:49] Speaker 2: go to Ranger School, and I go, I don't care.
[3:50] Speaker 2: He also flew in the back of a B fifty two.
[3:52] Speaker 2: I don't want to go to Ranger School anymore. It's
[3:55] Speaker 2: like I don't need the leadership. I don't need the patrolling.
[3:57] Speaker 2: I don't want to get screamed at by some guy
[3:59] Speaker 2: who's just gonna fuck with me for you know, four weeks.
[4:01] Speaker 2: So I just I kept declining it, like, no, thanks man,
[4:04] Speaker 2: I know.
[4:05] Speaker 1: Thank you, no need. Well that's crazy. Well I was
[4:07] Speaker 1: gonna ask you to compare it to the German Rader School,
[4:09] Speaker 1: but I just can't really do that.
[4:10] Speaker 3: It's probably a lot harder, I.
[4:12] Speaker 2: Think, so it's you know, I think it's longer.
[4:18] Speaker 1: Three months, isn't the American Ranger School three months?
[4:20] Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean mine was about a Mine was a
[4:22] Speaker 2: month ish, a little over a month, and it was
[4:24] Speaker 2: more of a raids and it wasn't like a leadership school,
[4:29] Speaker 2: especially for me. I'm the only got to spoke English
[4:31] Speaker 2: in the thing, and so it was difficult for that.
[4:33] Speaker 2: But they had a lot of things like you didn't
[4:35] Speaker 2: eat unless you did the raid, the or the ambush correctly.
[4:38] Speaker 2: If you did it incorrectly, the vehicle just kept driving
[4:40] Speaker 2: and that was your food and your supplies, and you
[4:42] Speaker 2: didn't do it right, you didn't have anything. So it
[4:45] Speaker 2: taught us to make sure things went down right, you know,
[4:48] Speaker 2: and to have a backup plan. But it I don't,
[4:51] Speaker 2: you know, I honestly can't compare because I wasn't. But
[4:54] Speaker 2: for what I've heard, it's it's it's not as hard,
[4:56] Speaker 2: it's not as intense.
[4:58] Speaker 1: Was there any like any kind of pressure for you
[5:01] Speaker 1: to do well because you were the only American in
[5:03] Speaker 1: the course?
[5:04] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, because my my translator failed like on day three.
[5:08] Speaker 2: They sent a translator with me and he failed out
[5:10] Speaker 2: on day three. Nice, it's like well, I went to
[5:12] Speaker 2: this this selection to get to this course, and now
[5:15] Speaker 2: you get to come, you know, just on your own
[5:17] Speaker 2: because I can't speak German good enough. And then he
[5:19] Speaker 2: fell out on day three. So I had a breakdown
[5:22] Speaker 2: in the middle of that thing. Just sitting around trying
[5:24] Speaker 2: to crack a joke was how I got through stress,
[5:26] Speaker 2: you know. And I'm lonely and I can't communicate with
[5:30] Speaker 2: anyone other than just staring at them, you know, and
[5:32] Speaker 2: they're having fun talking to German when we're when in downtime,
[5:35] Speaker 2: and and I was just like, cracked a joke one
[5:38] Speaker 2: day out a patrol base and everybody just stared at me,
[5:40] Speaker 2: and I started crying. I was like, I'm just gonna
[5:42] Speaker 2: go out here and shine my boots and pull security
[5:44] Speaker 2: or some shit, man, because I got to get my
[5:46] Speaker 2: shit together. So it was a lot of alone time
[5:49] Speaker 2: for me that I think it helped me grow while
[5:52] Speaker 2: it was destroying me at the same time. But it was, Uh,
[5:57] Speaker 2: it taught me a lot, man, that's for sure. And
[5:59] Speaker 2: it taught me a lot of what I could do,
[6:01] Speaker 2: you know, without with the absence of communication, at least
[6:04] Speaker 2: verbal communication.
[6:06] Speaker 1: How about how did it how did it kind of
[6:09] Speaker 1: like shape your perspective of our partner nations, you know,
[6:12] Speaker 1: these of these other like the Germans and the French
[6:14] Speaker 1: militaries and stuff like that.
[6:17] Speaker 2: I gained more respect than I had as a kid.
[6:19] Speaker 2: You know, we're America.
[6:20] Speaker 3: We're the best.
[6:20] Speaker 2: We do everything the best. And then I saw that
[6:22] Speaker 2: these guys were really good at things. You know, did
[6:25] Speaker 2: they get the equipment we have?
[6:26] Speaker 3: No?
[6:26] Speaker 2: Do they get the money in the training we have?
[6:28] Speaker 1: No?
[6:28] Speaker 2: I mean, obviously we're pretty rich in that manner. But
[6:32] Speaker 2: they tried, you know, they they tried, and they and
[6:35] Speaker 2: they may do with what they had.
[6:36] Speaker 3: And it was it was weird as well, Like you get.
[6:38] Speaker 2: Your little lunch box at French commandos school and there's
[6:41] Speaker 2: some pat and there's some cheese, and there's some French
[6:44] Speaker 2: bread and a warm beer in a box of three
[6:46] Speaker 2: cigarettes and the matches. I'm like, they still send out
[6:49] Speaker 2: cigarettes and matches and beer in an MRI box. You know,
[6:52] Speaker 2: It's it's just weird to me at the the different
[6:55] Speaker 2: cultures that I had zero, you know, access to growing
[6:59] Speaker 2: up in Indiana, and then boom here i am in
[7:01] Speaker 2: Germany and I'm I'm at eighteen, I'm at a bar
[7:04] Speaker 2: at a club drinking beer because you're old enough to
[7:06] Speaker 2: put it on the bar. And then I'm off in
[7:07] Speaker 2: French commandal school where they give you beer and cigarettes.
[7:10] Speaker 2: I'm like, man, I don't know how they can be
[7:12] Speaker 2: half as good because we get yelled at for cigarettes
[7:15] Speaker 2: half the time, so that you know, they had a
[7:17] Speaker 2: lot of skills. But again, when you're young and you're looking,
[7:20] Speaker 2: you're like, we're the best anyway. Yeah, so I had
[7:23] Speaker 2: that attitude going for me, for sure.
[7:25] Speaker 1: It's crazy, like, you know, to come back around to
[7:28] Speaker 1: the whole Indiana thing, like you're out here doing all
[7:30] Speaker 1: these wild things, and your buddies that you probably knew
[7:32] Speaker 1: from high school that are still in Indiana have no idea,
[7:35] Speaker 1: you know, and you're it's just such a it's such
[7:38] Speaker 1: a split in like life pass.
[7:39] Speaker 2: You know, it's weird to see I left, I left Indiana,
[7:45] Speaker 2: and twenty five years later I retired.
[7:49] Speaker 3: I had been around the world.
[7:50] Speaker 2: I'd been in combat around the world. I had done
[7:52] Speaker 2: things around the world that nobody knows about that almost
[7:55] Speaker 2: died doing, and you know, and that, and I met
[7:58] Speaker 2: so many different people at different levels. And then you
[8:00] Speaker 2: come back and you talk to your friends and you're like, oh, man,
[8:03] Speaker 2: you just you know, it's like a loss of connection
[8:08] Speaker 2: that you've grown so much and they haven't because they've
[8:10] Speaker 2: stayed stagnant in the same location. Yet they think they're
[8:16] Speaker 2: just as enlightened. Right, Everybody thinks they know what's going
[8:20] Speaker 2: on everywhere. And then when you go out and you
[8:22] Speaker 2: go around the world and you do so much stuff
[8:23] Speaker 2: and you come back to someone who hasn't traveled the
[8:25] Speaker 2: world or even left a state, it's like, man, there's
[8:29] Speaker 2: a big difference. Now. You know, it's hard to stay
[8:32] Speaker 2: connected to people that haven't seen as much as you've seen, yeah,
[8:37] Speaker 2: for sure, and don't understand what you understand. And they're
[8:40] Speaker 2: very adamant in their ways, but you've seen that that's
[8:44] Speaker 2: not necessarily true what you're screaming at about, you know.
[8:46] Speaker 2: So it's kind of like a lot of growth that
[8:48] Speaker 2: your friends don't get to go through that I went through.
[8:50] Speaker 3: That kind of separates and it's.
[8:51] Speaker 1: Said I've always you know, I've always said on the podcast,
[8:55] Speaker 1: one of the greatest things about the military is the
[8:58] Speaker 1: exposure you get to different diferent cultures, not only from
[9:01] Speaker 1: traveling around the world and stuff, but just from people
[9:03] Speaker 1: in your own platoon, you know the thought processes of
[9:06] Speaker 1: people that are coming from all corners of the country.
[9:09] Speaker 1: Plus I don't know if you ever served with foreigners
[9:11] Speaker 1: within your within in the American military, but we had
[9:13] Speaker 1: foreign guys in the Marines that we worked with, and
[9:16] Speaker 1: it was, like, I don't know, it's just different when
[9:19] Speaker 1: you've gone to like Afghanistan and you see what it
[9:21] Speaker 1: looks like, or you've gone to Saudi Arabia and you
[9:24] Speaker 1: know what the vibe is there, and then you hear
[9:27] Speaker 1: someone on TV talk about it that's never even left
[9:29] Speaker 1: the country, where you hear one of your friends talk
[9:31] Speaker 1: about it that's never left, and you're like, what are
[9:33] Speaker 1: you even saying right now? Bro? Like that's not even
[9:35] Speaker 1: like reality, you know. And yeah, And I will also
[9:38] Speaker 1: say that me traveling to some of these places also
[9:40] Speaker 1: doesn't mean that I'm an expert in any of these
[9:42] Speaker 1: places either. It's just that I've been exposed to some
[9:44] Speaker 1: differences that other people may not have.
[9:46] Speaker 2: You're a little more enlightened, you're you're more exposed, you
[9:49] Speaker 2: have more experience. Therefore you are more well rounded. Doesn't
[9:53] Speaker 2: mean you know everything. Nobody knows everything you know. I
[9:55] Speaker 2: wish I knew everything, then it might be boring. But
[9:58] Speaker 2: going off and seeing the world and you hear a
[10:01] Speaker 2: lot of things about the militaries, racist, the military is divided,
[10:04] Speaker 2: The military is this, And I'm like, the military is
[10:06] Speaker 2: a slice of the world, man, it's a.
[10:08] Speaker 3: Slice of society. Society is divided.
[10:10] Speaker 2: Military is probably, if you ask me, is less racist,
[10:13] Speaker 2: less divided because we're all joined together and struggle. No
[10:16] Speaker 2: one cares what color struggle is, man, No one cares.
[10:19] Speaker 2: How when that drill starts screaming at you and they're
[10:21] Speaker 2: gonna come kill you, nobody cares. You join together, you
[10:24] Speaker 2: work together, and you figure it out. The skin color
[10:26] Speaker 2: doesn't matter, where you come from, doesn't matter.
[10:28] Speaker 3: So it's just all that. Yeah, people are oh.
[10:30] Speaker 2: The military is this, And then I'm like, you know,
[10:31] Speaker 2: the military is hard.
[10:32] Speaker 3: Because it's a tough job.
[10:33] Speaker 2: But they grow, they develop a bond and you can't
[10:37] Speaker 2: break that. You know, after that at all, you won't
[10:39] Speaker 2: bet to break it.

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