Ep. 9 • Ivan Krusic - SpecWar Heritage And The Stories Behind The Legends.
Release Date: 05/15/2025
Ep. 12 • Cody Shea - 🔥 Firefighting: The Family Business.
Liberty Risk
In this episode we dive into the world of First Responders with Firefighter Cody Shea. Cody comes from a long line of fire fighters. His parents met in the Fire Academy in ’84 and Cody grew up in Tacoma Washington hearing the stories of First Responder life in Seattle; calls responding to famous musicians OD’ing, even the details of Kurt Cobain’s suicide were a part of his life from an early age. He founded a skateboard company in his 20’s but eventually found himself pulled back to his fire fighting roots and started his 5 year journey of getting signed on to the Fire Department. This...
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Ep. 11 • Taylor Cavanaugh - Be The Main Character of Your Own Life.
Liberty Risk
Taylor Cavanaugh is the only known person to be a Navy SEAL, and also join the French Foreign Legion. His story is unique, but the man himself has always been a Main Character, and we're excited to bring you this conversation. Growing up in San Diego, Taylor Cavanough has been walking the line between 2 worlds and living a life of extremities even as a youth. In this episode we dive into some of his backstory, growing up around strip clubs, and doing steroids on trips to Mexico before football practice, all before he was even able to drive. Stepping away from that life and choosing a new path...
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Ep. 10 • Billy Helmers - A Steady Hand Through Rough Seas. 🔱
Liberty Risk
Billy Helmers has been a steady hand helping to guide NSW for 20+ years, in this episode we dive into a lifetime of overcoming challenges, and navigating storms, both literal and figurative. From the oil fields of West Texas to the shores of Coronado, Billy grew up riding bulls, but he never expected to become a SEAL, he just wanted a way out of the small town life he left behind. Traveling the country and jumping into stadiums filled with thousands of people as part of the iconic Leap Frogs (Navy parachute team), Billy learned to party with the best of them, but also learned temperance and...
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Ep. 9 • Ivan Krusic - SpecWar Heritage And The Stories Behind The Legends.
Liberty Risk
With a 25 year career in NSW spanning everything from SDV’s to platoons on both East & West coasts and multiple tours as an Instructor, Ivan Krusic has seen a lot of history unfold in the SpecWar community, and he’s been an active part of it as well. In this episode we dive into some of the legendary stories in our community, and uncover what really happened by hearing it first hand from guys who were there. With his father fighting in WW2 for Yugoslavia, Ivan’s family has a long history of military service. We touch on Ivan’s upbringing in northern California, and the teenage...
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Ep. 8 • Mitch Aguiar - Navy SEAL, to MMA Fighter, to Entrepreneur. Leveling Up Authenticity.
Liberty Risk
In this episode, Ryan and Nick sit down with Mitch Aguiar—a former SEAL who turned his passion for fighting into a pro MMA career, and then leveraged that into building the Smashin’ Frog empire. From pushing a lawn mower in 5th grade for ice cream money, to chartering jets and leading companies, Mitch shares some raw stories of triumph and failure with a healthy mix of brutal honesty and humor. We cover everything from the real perception of SEALs, to Instagram illusions, the challenges of business leadership, and why ice cream trucks are the gateway to philanthropy. Of course we have many...
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Ep. 7 • Dave "Gut" Gutierez - Frogman Legends, Legacy & Origin Stories
Liberty Risk
Liberty Risk Episode 7 with Dave “Gut” Gutierez If you’re a West Coast Teamguy, no doubt you’ve heard of Dave “Gut” Gutierez, he’s been famous in our community for a variety of reasons, but mostly because of his huge…. PERSONALITY. You’ll see what we mean when you listen to this episode. As a brother, as a friend, mentor, Teammate, Instructor, or family man, Dave has been many things to many people over the years, and we’re fortunate to be able to share some of these stories with you. From joining the Navy in 1989 to completing 13 deployments and retiring in...
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Ep. 6 • Tim Speer - From The Brig to Fatherhood, Finding a Way Forward.
Liberty Risk
On this episode of Liberty Risk, Ryan & Nick sit down for a wild ride with fellow Former SEAL, Tim Speer. Tim & Nick went to high school together so we start by diving into his early days growing up as a trouble maker, run ins with the law and how focusing on athletics got him through high school while dealing with turmoil & sleeping on friends couches. Tim talks about almost not even being allowed into the military because of his previous trouble with the law, as well as a misunderstanding about old medical records. But also how we found a creative way around the roadblocks to...
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Ep. 5 • Sean Stokes - Military, Moonshine, Strippers, And The Art of "Getting Away With It".
Liberty Risk
We split our sit down with Sean into 2 episodes, this is the second half. In this episode we discuss the highly successful tactics recruiters use to get young men to commit significant portions of their lives to doing dangerous activities (hint: it involves hot women). Why San Diego is sometimes referred to as “Man Diego”, better bring your A game. The crew tries smelling salts, which leads to a story about a neighbor making moonshine in his bathtub (or maybe it was just rubbing alcohol), and how Ryan’s roommate picked a fight with the moonshine and lost. Twice. What our home bar looked...
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EP. 4 • Sean Stokes - The Earnest Hemingway of The Teams.
Liberty Risk
From East Coast to West Coast, Submarines to SEAL Teams, scuba adventures to skydiving mishaps, and a 1.9 High School GPA to finishing a rigorous degree program from Columbia University, this man has lived a lot of life. In this episode, Sean Stokes walks us through his early adventures starting with learning his recruiter was full of shit, to spending time in the Naval Submarine fleet and ultimately finding his way to the Teams. A continuing theme in his life is identifying a weakness, then focusing and working on it until it becomes a strength. From being traumatically injured skydiving...
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Ep. 3 • A Peek Behind The Hollywood Curtain, And How Humor Helps in Dealing With a Heavy Deployment, And The Aftermath at Home.
Liberty Risk
Episode 3: All 3 first episodes were filmed back to back, so the boys are starting to get a little sloppy by this point, now we’re getting to the real stuff! 🥃 Kevin & Nick talk about what it's like behind the scenes of hollywood and dealing with big personalities. The technical accuracy of different tactical films, which ones are legit, and the details of what makes them legit. An examle of mutual support between different branches overseas to allow a team to get retribution for a fallen comrade. Collecting war trophies, some people collect ear necklaces, some collect hundreds of...
info_outlineWith a 25 year career in NSW spanning everything from SDV’s to platoons on both East & West coasts and multiple tours as an Instructor, Ivan Krusic has seen a lot of history unfold in the SpecWar community, and he’s been an active part of it as well.
In this episode we dive into some of the legendary stories in our community, and uncover what really happened by hearing it first hand from guys who were there.
With his father fighting in WW2 for Yugoslavia, Ivan’s family has a long history of military service. We touch on Ivan’s upbringing in northern California, and the teenage adventures that eventually brought him to the Navy, and what drew him to the SEAL Teams in particular.
There are so many stories and wild characters to go through this episode feels like a Quintin Tarantino film, here are a couple highlights:
• The origins of the different hand to hand fighting systems SpecWar has used over the years, which ones worked for bar fights and which ones didn’t.
• The backstory behind what later became a legendary, decades long rivalry between SEAL Platoons and top level pro MMA fighters in a specific NorCal town.
• Can body parts be racist?
• The “crab pot mentality” and knowing where to draw the line with “friends”.
• A very deep side conversation with Billy Helmers about love, acceptance, marriage, and managing loss.
• How a SEAL platoon made the front page of the papers for burning down a California town (on accident).
• What holds SpecOps guys, pro athletes, doctors, pilots and other high level performers back from achieving success in other fields.
• How the SpecWar leadership felt about an Instructor pulling up in a Lambo.
• The crew shares their unfiltered thoughts on Chris Beck and other Teamguys in drag.
• Calling Post Malone.
Guest charity highlight:
✖️ Rockin' With The SEALs (Website) - https://rockinwiththeseals.org/
✖️ Rockin' With The SEALs (Instagram) - https://www.instagram.com/rockinwiththeseals/
Liberty Risk Podcast Sponsored by:
✖️ Industry Threadworks - https://www.industrythreadworks.com/pages/manufacturing-new
✖️ Archive 3PL - https://archive3pl.com/
✖️ Krupto Strategic Media - https://kruptostrategicmedia.com/
✖️ K-Squared Advising - https://www.k-squared.cc/