Why This Deployment Made Me Leave Special Forces

About this video

Ritland’s guest, a former Green Beret, recounts combat deployments in Afghanistan where his team faced intense combat, including a mission where they lost a teammate to a booby trap and pushed through a valley undermanned. He describes transitioning to Denver Police Department, struggling with the customer-service nature of policing versus military culture, and ultimately leaving after the George Floyd riots when department leadership failed to support officers. The conversation covers combat dog operations, the transition challenges veterans face in law enforcement, and the decision to pursue independent work.

Key takeaways

• The guest recounts losing a teammate to a booby trap during an Afghanistan deployment and describes military working dog Khan as highly capable in combat operations
• According to the guest, transitioning from Green Beret to police work involved difficult cultural adjustments around rules of engagement and customer service expectations that conflicted with military training
• The guest left Denver PD after the George Floyd riots when leadership publicly investigated officers without internal communication, attributing broader policing issues to untreated PTSD and burnout rather than racism alone
• Ritland emphasizes the guest’s pattern of goal-driven decision-making throughout his life, contrasting it with safety-first approaches that rarely lead to meaningful change

Episode details: published February 19, 2026 · 173K views · 30:05 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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