Presentation of the colors that will be followed by the singing of the national anthem. [inaudible conversations] poco [applause] [applause] [applause] please be seated. Thank you to the West Covina High School and rotc honor guar guard. I would like to recognize some special guests with us this evening. Please welcome to members from the board of directors of the Richard Nixon foundation, john and sandy quinn. [applause] Orange County supervisor. Members of the city council including the mayor, and mark blown. [applause] Close Friends of the Richard Nixon foundation and ruth b shannon. The National Archives and Records Administration director for the Nixon Library and his associate left wallace, director of education. And our most important resource that is the envy of the other 12 president ial libraries represent 150 volunteers, thank you. [applause] the Nixon Foundation is largely supported by its members. Membership support Educational Programs and opportunities for our youth to engage in civil discourse and learning. Memberships also support special engagement to programs like this evenings events. The impact of your philanthropic support allows the foundation to continue its important work and allows resident nixon square vision, to build a lasting structure of peace and building a more just society at home, to expand in other parts of the country and the world and make differences in peoples lives. If youre not already a member, i encourage you to join us this evening. We have a membership table. You can become part of the extended nixon family. President nixon was a navy man. He was exempt from the draft of world war ii because it stated he was a cracker and he never voluntarily enlisted in the navy. He served honorably in the South Pacific command, eventually became an officer in charge in the solomon islands. While he was honorably discharged in 1946, he didnt retire from the u. S. Naval reserve until 20 years later in 1996. During which time, he served as the u. S. Congressman, u. S. Senator and Vice President of the united states. As president , Richard Nixons commitment to the u. S. Military was unwavering. Upon entering office he face the reality that young men had been shipped off by the thousands to fight in the jungles of vietnam. Facing that challenge, Richard Nixon focused on negotiating the end to american involvement in vietnam and brought our soldiers home. He negotiated the release of all pows from the prisons of North Vietnam and welcome them home in 1973. He ended the draft and instituted todays all volunteer military. Todays secretary of defense, james mattis, recently visited the Nixon Library, and from this very podium said, an enemy on 911 who thought he could scare us by hurting us, the maniacs who murdered over 3000 innocent citizens of our country and 70 other countries that day have all been taught a hard lesson by the all volunteer military that president nixon was confident could preten protect our country. Thats why the foundation is so honored today to have robert arniel as our guest. It is my pleasure to introduce the featured speaker and this evenings moderator. Robert arniel is a highly decorated combat veteran and the man who killed osama bin laden. [applause] while wearing the equipment displayed just steps from here, the equipment on display for the very first time, when neil fired the shots during the raid from his compound in pakistan on may 2, 2011. He participated in hundreds of topsecret Missions Including the rescue of captain Richard Phillips from smalley and pirates in 2009. He also rescued the loan survivor in an afghanistan raid in 2005. Following his Honorable Discharge from the navy in 2012, he can find cofounded a Nonprofit Organization that helps lead veterans into their next successful career. He will be joined on stage by rob clapper. Rob served in the army for two decades and was deployed all over the world. He received the Leadership Award for outstanding leadership throughout his career, and honor that distinguished him for more than 35000 officers. He will be joined on stage tonight with gunnar, his black lab service dog. Ladies and gentlemen, please stand and welcome robert oneil to the Richard Nixon library. [applause] [inaudible conversations] there we go. All right. The army guy needed a navy guy to do it. Im a give you guys a break. Wasnt that interesting that they introduced us to a song by kid rock. [applause] wow. What a crowd. You look really good. [laughter] its great to see so many wonderful friendly faces. Those of you who arent friendly are welcome to stand in the back. Great have you with us. We will jump in. You guys have been patient in waiting. One question every but he wants to know is how did the guy from montana and up in the navy much less having a career like you. Thats funny. Its a really interesting question because im a big believer that life is what happens around you while youre making a plan, like 95 of the stuff you worry about never happens anyway so i joined the navy because of the girl. [laughter] on accident. Its actually the first sentence in my book, the operators at about that. I had my heart broken by girl name hillary in montana and i was never going to join the military. It was a lifelong dream but i decided one day i needed to get out of town and had some friends were older than me who always wanted to be marines growing up when they graduated high school they join the marine corps the same day and every time they came home i remember looking at them thinking thats awesome, marines are tough and strong and the uniforms are incredible and i decided i wanted to join the marine corps. I went to join the marine corps and as luck would have it, because sometimes its better to be lucky than be good, but the marine recruiter was not in the office of the navy guy was. The only reason i went into the navy was because my marine friends told me something i didnt know, they actually said the marine corps is part of the department of the navy, just the mens department. [laughter] i asked where the marine was and this guy said why do you want the marine. I said i want to be a sniper. He said look no further. We have snipers right here in the navy. You have to figure, im a 19yearold kid from montana who didnt know how to swim. Theres not a lot of swimming going on. Im kind and naive. This guy is a professional recruiter. Why is he going to lie to me. [laughter] i signed up that day and then we watched the recruiting video after i signed the paperwork. When i thought man i dont know how to swim and i just joined up to be in the navy. I thought it probably wouldnt make it through the Navy Seal Training but at least its an adventure. In four years i would have see storage. I learned that 95 of the all volunteers are there because of a drill. [laughter] then i went to Field Training. Just because of that day of the girl and not knowing how to swim and 17 years later, its proof that it doesnt matter where youre from or what you look like, you can do anything you want as long as you avoid negativity, stay positive, work hard and never quit. And run away from a girl. [applause] you gotta figure out a lot of things. [applause] so you touched on it with this group, so you didnt know how to swim, that might be something you need to do for seal training. That was another interesting one. Like i said, i didnt know how to swim but i figured how hard it can be and i went to the poo pool, i played a year of basketball in montana and i didnt know any technique and im standing at the edge of the pool and im thinking its 25 meters down and back. It was fine. Everything was working out with my plan until i entered the water. [laughter] i thought man, im in a pickle. I just did to lengths and im exhausted. Thats not even 50 yards. A buddy of mine in high school, one of the few guys who swam, he swam at notre dame and he said look at me. Its great see you, but ive never seen you in the pool before. I said i just joined the navy and im going to be a seal. [laughter] and he said yeah, not like that youre not. [laughter] i signed up for the delayed entry program. My buddy mike tommy in five months how to swim. Then i went to the navy. Fastforward, made it through boot camp, got to glorias southern california. Lets talk about your first couple expenses. So every seal goes through training just south of here called basic underwater training. Its the hardest training in the world. 85 of people try out dont make it. That stuff. Its essentially, its like a beat down for eight months. It gets so hard, i can see like it was yesterday. I know i had a pass, i dont have a future, im just going to be and how. Thats all i could think about. Thats it. Thats when we started learning how to compartmentalize everything. Its not like how do i get from now to graduation. Its not like how i get these longterm goals, wake up in the morning on time and make your bed the right way. Your Little Victories. Make it to 5 00 a. M. Wor work out on time and then make it to breakfast and after lunch get to dinner and do everything you need to do to get back up and that perfectly made bed regardless of how bad your day was pretty get a fresh start tomorrow. I had an extractor say to me, when you feel like quitting, which you will, and i did every day, dont quit now. Just quit tomorrow. Little victories. All of a sudden its five days before graduation and im thinking now im going to be a navy seal. What am i supposed to do. Just Little Victories at the time. At Field Training, you thousand situps and pushups and pullups and flutter kicks. There was a generalized spot where we would get tortured. It was a mile from their to the chow hall. Every day we were running 6 miles just to eat and thats not just working out. Thats just to get to the chow hall. One of the traits thats common with navy seals is a sense of humor because it gets so bad but if you cant laugh at yourself, what kind of horrible decision, why did she dump me, why am i here. They come with a sense of humor. Thats good advice for life. Enjoy yourself every single day, smile because think about this. None of us are getting out of this alive. I dont believe in statistics, but i do believe that ten out of ten people die so enjoy yourself. We talk about a sense of humor. Clearly army guys have much better once. That a lot of times to think about jokes while were doing missions. [laughter] yeah. When you share one or two stories for you first got introduced to a sense of humor. The first time i realize theres a sense of humor aspect, they had 220 of us, navy sailors who wanted to be seals. We saw movie but we didnt know what seals training was. What we do every day, when we show up, we actually sat in a room and brought a seal instructor in to explain to us what we want to do. We learn the first day when they came in like walking on the stage and were looking at him like youre looking at me except we were terrified. This guys superman and he could kill us if he wants too. Hes the first seal we ever met. He looks like a field. Shiny boots, a blue tshirt, the guys ripped and he has tattoos down his knuckles. He is a navy seal so hes obviously ridiculously goodlooking. [laughter] he stood on the stage in silence any kind of relished the silence. And hed provoke it by saying look good today jim, not you, me. [laughter] i was up all night, i had to get my wife out of jail, she was arrested for shoplifting and we were leaving the mall together and she had her arm around me. Security thought she was trying to steal and anatomy. [laughter] what we later realized, he was messing with us. He thought he was having fun at art spence. [inaudible] i dont mean to fastforward too much but i was in a helicopter that didnt crash. [laughter] which was a good thing. We got inside the house and one of the guys from helicopter that crash said something about helicopter crashed and i said what helicopter crashed. They sent other guys in and they got shut down and they said bro, our helicopter crashed in the front yard. You walked right past it. One the snipers that had our dog was running around the entire compound to make sure there was no out. He was up at this famous spot where he could see the tale of the helicopter. He didnt know, as were having this conversation he comes over the radio and says be on alert, they are ready for us. They have a training mockup of our helicopter. [laughter] in the front yard. [laughter] you can hear the Ground Force Commander saying no you jackass, thats ours. [laughter] [inaudible] obviously Field Training is relatively long. Theres lots of upanddown throughout it, but whats the one story about never quit. Every single day, make sure you stick around. Pass or fail, whatever the test is, stick with the program. Its hard to understand. Its not like and algorithm in a sitdown type code. One of the test is simple. 250meter yard swim against the current fast. Its not simple but its simple instructions. They threw us in the deep end of the pool for 45 minutes at a time saying exhale all th the air all your long, swim hundreds of meters, they would throw stuff and you have to grab them off the bottom of your teeth. Introducing you to what its like to not be able to breathe and ask stil instill in you the panic and teach you to chill out. I found it relaxing because it was an hour a day i can hear anybody yell. 14 feet down was a rope and on the surface there will be a student and an instructor and the studer student has a rope of his own and were in the navy so we know how to tie a bunch of knots. The test is go tie a series of knots to put this rope around the next rope and. They hold her breath and swim down an instructor was down the surface with a snorkel and a mask so hes breathing and watching. You tie or not you back often you stay down there, he comes down slowly and you look at the not look at the student and you act like you never seen it before and the first one is always wrong. He comes down and looks at the not and hell say yeah thats good. Go to the surface, get one breath of air not enough time for him to tell you about not number two. Go tie a square knot. So you have another minute. The test is simple. Type five knots in a row the right way. A friend of mine was on his last attempt. They wont let you try for only a certain amount of time. If he doesnt give is not right hell never be in navy seal. Thats a lot of pressure. On his fifth not, he drowned. The instructor came down to get him and he grabbed him and he swam them up and he hopped out and rolled them over and yelling for the medic and the instructor realized it was too much time so he started cpr and we could hear him yelling come back to the light. John was out for a minute and half. He finally spit up all the water out of his lungs. The first words out of his mouth were did i pass. The instructor looked back, the color came back in his face because he gets to keep his job because he didnt kill anyone and he said yeah man, you passed. John said thank god, i finally tied the fifth not. The instructor said john, im in a great mood some to let you in on a little secret. I dont care how many knots you tied. My job is to see how far youll push yourself. You just killed yourself. You passed the god damn test. [applause] [laughter] so he graduates and goes on. Teams are divided by number. The odd number san diego. The even number are virginia. I went out there and its more training and one overseas before 911. So fastforward, 911 happene happened. Whats going through your head and you have a major career change. 911, we were all affected by it, some more than others. I was deployed a ready overseas and we thought happen. When the second plane hit the south tower didnt take 15 seconds in the room for someone to say ou osama bin laden. We knew it was al qaeda. My plan was to be in the navy for four years and then go back to montana. I met the guys and i reenlisted. I didnt want to leave them but i was young and i reenlisted. Then i found out about another seal team. We knew we would change from going to the uk to his train and special arms forces to were going to afghanistan and iraq to fight the global war on terror. Every thing changed. Went from oktoberfest. [inaudible] you had an interesting career so one of the Main Operations and missions you were a part of was the rescue of captain phillips. Whether you take everybody through how the alert. For Richard Phillips, we were actually in virginia beach, it was good friday, april 10, 2009. Thats my birthday. I was at my Daughters Tea Party at her school. She was four. We set up a buffet line and we were getting our kids easter treats. This is a school where we have marine corps parents and army parents and we were going through the buffet. As im walking back i got a message that said lets go get him now. I had a look my daughter and i and say goodbye. Thats the hardest part of combat. Getting shot at and looking your kids in the eye and realizing this is can be the last time you see each other is hard. Theres a big difference between kissing your kids good night and kissing them goodbye. I kissed her goodbye and i went to work. We had a set amount of time to get there. I had a set amount of time. I was ahead of schedule and theres a 711 outside the base where i worked and i stopped at the 711 to get as much cash as i could and a carton of cigarettes. The reason im doing this is were to be jumping near africa some point today and we might not end up where we want. If we land in an environment i might get to buy my way to safety with cash. I might be able to barter with the locals with tobacco. Im in line at the 711 to get my stuff and theres a guy in front of me, one dude who is in no hurry. He just finished the night shift doing whatever, not a care in the world and im trying to speed him up in one of the things that hes buying is the usa today in the headline of the newspaper is about the mission were trying to do any slammed it down. I remember him slamming it down any kind of ann