Tu Lam: How a Vietnamese Refugee Became a Green Beret & Call of Duty Character | Ep. 298

About this video

Mike Ritland interviews Tu Lam, a Special Forces veteran with over 23 years of service and founder of Ronin Tactics. Lam recounts his escape from Vietnam as a refugee at age three, surviving nearly 30 days adrift at sea, and growing up in Fayetteville, North Carolina around Green Berets. He explains how childhood trauma, racism, and exposure to the samurai Bushido code shaped his path to becoming a Green Beret, and describes his current daily routine centered on faith, cold exposure, meditation, and physical training as part of his healing journey.

Key takeaways

• Lam attributes his warrior calling to discovering the Bushido code as a bullied refugee child, which gave him a framework of honor and purpose that led him to embrace military discipline and pursue Special Forces
• Lam describes a disciplined morning routine starting at 3 AM involving cold plunge, grounding mat meditation, Bible listening (particularly the Sermon on the Mount), and fasted cardio—a practice he says eliminated his post-military anxiety
• Lam recounts his family’s harrowing escape from communist Vietnam in 1978 on an overcrowded fishing boat, being turned away by Malaysian Coast Guard, drifting for 30 days with people dying of starvation, and eventually reaching Indonesian refugee camps before coming to America

Episode details: published June 30, 2026 · 128.5K views · 3:51:25 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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