Old Ranger New Dad
Most young men are Not Incapable.
They’re drifting.
Old Ranger New Dad is for the young man who knows he is capable of more but feels stuck, distracted, undisciplined, or without direction.
Hosted by former Army Ranger Seth Ryan, this podcast is built to help young men take control of their time, strengthen their discipline, build real purpose, and become the man their future family is counting on!
This is not feel-good motivation.
This is not empty self-help.
This is Personal Standard Development.
Through hard-earned lessons from combat, fatherhood, law enforcement, leadership, faith, discipline, and life experience, Seth speaks directly to the young man who is ready to stop drifting and start building a life that actually means something.
Most men won’t choose this path.
But the ones who do will build something different.
Your future is being shaped by how you use your time.
Use it wisely!
Spring 2003. While the world watched tanks roll toward Baghdad, about forty Americans were already inside northern Iraq — dressed like Kurds, sitting on promises of money, weapons, and air support that never arrived, and expected to open a second front alongside Peshmerga fighters the United States had already abandoned three times in twenty years.
LTC (Ret.) Mark Grdovic was the battalion operations officer who planned that campaign and lived it. Twenty-three years in the Army, nineteen as a Special Forces officer with 10th Group, twice an instructor in the Special Forces Qualification Course. His book, THOSE WHO FACE DEATH: The Untold Story of Special Forces and the Iraqi Kurdish Resistance, isn't a memoir. It's the full account of a campaign almost nobody has heard of, from one of the only two men who saw the whole thing from planning through execution.
This one runs long because it earns it:
- Why our surrender leaflets failed — ”polite” Arabic that read as an insult, and the one wrong word that made Iraqi units bury their jets
- Loudspeakers playing tank noises on a hilltop, and the fill-in-the-blank ”telemarketer letter” sent to Iraqi generals
- The single order that turned thousands of professional Iraqi officers into the insurgency we spent the next eight years fighting
- A Green Beret captain who stopped a Peshmerga commander from shooting prisoners — without threatening him once
- Three SF weapons sergeants in a straight-up duel with an Iraqi mortar crew, and what winning it bought them
- Why a twelve-man team can live inside a hostile city and survive, and it has nothing to do with walls or drones
- Taking Kirkuk with almost nobody, then using the press to convince a city of 600,000 that five thousand paratroopers had shown up
Two very different careers in the same war. Mark is a Green Beret officer. Ryno was a Ranger forward observer with 1st Batt. They don't always land in the same place, and the conversation is better for it.
If you're a young man looking for direction and you're not sure the military is it — this one is for you. That's why we're both here.
GET THE BOOK: Those Who Face Death — hardcover, paperback, Kindle, and audiobook narrated by Mark. More at markgrdovic.com
CHAPTERSÂ
00:00 Cold openÂ
01:30 Meet LTC (Ret.) Mark GrdovicÂ
05:00 Ryno's road: Marines, 9/11, and a contract he didn't understandÂ
07:51 A book at fifteen that pointed Mark toward Special ForcesÂ
14:18 The Kurdish word that turned Green Berets into eighth gradersÂ
17:35 Rangers, SEALs, Special Forces: what each is actually forÂ
24:55 Discipline when nobody is standing on your left or rightÂ
26:54 Robin Sage for real: prisoners shot at the front lineÂ
34:47 El Salvador and the case for staying engagedÂ
38:26 An American flag pressed against a car windowÂ
45:29 Kirkuk: liberation, parade flags, and lying to the pressÂ
51:56 PSYOP done badly — the surrender message nobody acceptedÂ
57:46 Tank noises, telemarketer letters, ”your officers have left”Â
1:04:30 Broken-down tanks and the general's missing helmetÂ
1:13:03 Building the ICTF and the Iraqi commandos from scratchÂ
1:16:55 The Baghdad church hostage rescue they ran without usÂ
1:26:26 AKs, negligent discharges, and a body rolled in a rugÂ
1:33:25 The loaded Saddam pistol pointed at everyone in the roomÂ
1:44:57 Katyusha rockets and the skill nobody should have to learnÂ
1:51:33 Three NCOs versus an enemy mortar crewÂ
1:58:52 ”The next time we meet, it will not be as friends”Â
2:03:14 How we built the insurgency that fought usÂ
2:10:03 The secret sauce: why the neighborhood decides if you liveÂ
2:14:33 Con men in brand-new BDUs and the ”Free Iraqi Forces”Â
2:29:40 Walking off the field in the fourth quarterÂ
2:35:40 Turning the power back on
Old Ranger, New Dad — hosted by Ryno. Former Marine infantry, then 75th Ranger Regiment, 1st Ranger Battalion, 4 combat tours.Â
Now a dad trying to hand the next generation the map nobody gave me.
New episodes on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.
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Podcast Details
Most young men are not incapable.
They're drifting.
They know they are capable of more, but they lack direction. They're distracted, discouraged, and unsure of what steps to take next. They want discipline, purpose, confidence, a strong marriage someday, and a family worth leading—but nobody is showing them how to build the foundation required to get there.
Old Ranger New Dad was created for those young men.
Hosted by former Army Ranger, Marine, law enforcement officer, recruiter, and father Seth Ryan, this podcast delivers hard-earned lessons from a lifetime spent in demanding environments where excuses carried consequences and standards mattered.
Each episode is designed to help you take control of your time, develop discipline, strengthen your faith, improve your decision-making, and build the habits that shape strong husbands, fathers, and leaders.
You'll hear conversations with military veterans, first responders, physicians, entrepreneurs, authors, faith leaders, and high performers who have learned difficult lessons through experience—not theory.
This isn't a podcast built on empty motivation, feel-good advice, or quick fixes.
It's built on responsibility, accountability, and the understanding that your future is being shaped by the choices you make today.
Whether we're discussing manhood, marriage, fatherhood, leadership, mental health, discipline, faith, fitness, overcoming adversity, or navigating life's hardest seasons, every episode is designed to help you stop drifting and start building.
Most people won't choose this path.
But the ones who do will build something different.
Your future family is counting on the man you become today.
Let's get to work.
E-mail:Â Â OldRangerNewDad@Gmail.com
About the host
Seth Ryan
My name is Seth Ryan, and my life has taken me through some unusual paths that
have shaped who I am today. And that hasn’t changed at all.
I first enlisted in the United States Marine Corps Reserve as an infantryman heavy
weapons specialist in 1999. After 9/11/2001, I re-enlisted to go active-duty service in the
U.S. Army and served in the 75th Ranger Regiment, completing 4 combat tours (OEF & OIF)
before leaving the military as a Ranger Non-Commissioned Officer and Team Leader.
After my military service, I spent more than five years working in law enforcement (as a
Patrolman) and then in corrections (with the Federal Bureau of Prisons) before entering the oil
fields. I worked in Oklahoma and Texas supervising drilling and measurement
operations for Schlumberger. After the huge oil field crash (at the end of 2014) I was
eventually laid-off, where I went back to school to focus on my master’s degree. During
that period I worked in executive protection for the billionaire oil-field tycoons at their
headquarters office in Oklahoma City. I completed my master’s degree in business
management, and moved to Tampa, Florida, where I live today.
My wife & I learned that IVF would be the only option for us to have children, so I applied
to Triple Canopy and was offered a position as a PSS at the Baghdad Embassy. Due to
my location and current position in recruiting, I was then hired to be Triple Canopy’s
Southeast United States Regional Recruiter. My task was to recruit teammates to go to
Iraq with me. I was very successful as a fully-remote HTP (high threat protection) recruiter. In
August of 2019, I transitioned over to go through TC’s Bodyguard School for
Department of State. I deployed to Baghdad and was primarily assigned to the Ambassador’s
Personal Protection Detail through 2021 when mass lay-offs swept up anyone who had options.
I worked at Quiet Professionals LLC for Andy Wilson as a recruiter for special SOCOM contracts
until being promoted to head the marketing department for QP’s 3 different companies. Mass lay-offs
came with a huge contract loss (half of the company’s annual revenue) just after the birth of our son,
and our first attempt with IVF.
I’m now a 1099 contractor / ‘CPTED practitioner’ (Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design)
and have been doing that for a couple of years while podcasting full-time.
My original podcast, School to Embassy Project, was focused on finding solutions to in-school shootings.
But after all social media platforms buried me deep, deep underneath all the algorithms,
I was forced to rebrand. My current/ongoing podcast is “Old Ranger New Dad” and does not have a niche.
I speak about many issues regarding the future generation of the young men in our nation and seek to provide
them with a road map to navigate around life’s pitfalls. I share hard-earned lessons from military service,
fatherhood, faith, leadership, and life experience.
My mission is simple:
Help young men stop drifting, take control of their time, and build themselves into the
husbands, fathers, and leaders, their future families, and our nation, are counting on.
