The Op That Took Down Noriega — And Unleashed Something Far Worse

About this video

A former Ranger Regiment reconnaissance team member recounts his experiences during three early-1990s operations: Panama (Operation Just Cause), Desert Storm, and Somalia. He describes his first combat experiences in Panama, witnessing the carnage of the Gulf War’s retreat route, and facing an unexpectedly determined enemy in Mogadishu. The guest reflects on how Somalia differed dramatically from previous deployments due to the Somali population’s willingness to fight and the moral dilemmas posed by human shields and child combatants.

Key takeaways

• The guest describes Panama as his first combat deployment where he experienced his first firefight with guidance from a Grenada veteran, and recalls that Panamanian forces quickly surrendered
• The guest recounts that in Desert Storm, he witnessed extensive carnage along the Kuwaiti retreat route, with bodies stacked two stories high from coalition air strikes
• The guest states he radically underestimated Somali fighters’ will to fight, describing them as willing to send everyone including women and children to combat, and recounts moral dilemmas his unit faced when confronting human shields and child combatants as young as nine years old

Episode details: published November 9, 2025 · 16.2K views · 21:41 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Stories told by Mike Ritland’s podcast guests are the guests’ own accounts, attributed to them — not independently verified. Commentary is Ritland’s, presented as his analysis.

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