Join us on this episode of Veteran Led as we sit down with Ryan Hendrickson, a former Green Beret and author of Tip of the Spear. After surviving a near-fatal IED explosion in Afghanistan, Ryan returned to combat after 27 surgeries and earned the Silver Star. After retiring from military service, Ryan embarked on a new mission: clearing landmines in war-torn areas like Ukraine. Hear his inspiring journey from soldier to humanitarian, and learn how his organization, Tip of the Spear Landmine Removal, is making a difference. Don’t miss this episode about resilience, leadership, and the drive to protect innocent lives.
Learn more about Tip of the Spear Landmine Removal and how you can support their efforts at landmineremoval.org.
Ryan Hendrickson: The one thing that I take away from that fight and that mission is we were willing to give up our own lives to make sure no one got left behind, Afghan or American. Nobody got left behind. And we did. We got them all back.
John Berry: Welcome to Veteran Led. Today’s guest is former Green Beret Special Forces soldier, Ryan Hendrickson, author of Tip of the Spear. Welcome to the show, Ryan.
Ryan Hendrickson: Yeah, I appreciate it, man. It’s great being back. Great seeing you again.
John Berry: Great seeing you. For those of you who don’t know, tomorrow, Ryan and I are walking 50 miles together for the 50 Mile March to prevent Veteran suicide and homelessness. Ryan, let’s dive right in. Let’s go to the mission that changed your life.
Ryan Hendrickson: September 12th, 2010. That’s my new birthday. It’s my alive day. We had kicked off the mission September 11th, a historic day for the United States, and we were doing an entire valley clearance of the Chutu River Valley. We’re moving up to the first set of compounds. It’s about midnight, one o’clock in the morning, so now it’s September 12th. My mission, or I guess my first part of the mission, was to clear that first compound so we can get the command and control in there. Suspected up to 1,500 fighters, but that could be Afghan math, who knows? We had attached with us Afghan militias. At this time, we were doing village stability operations. It’s training, devising, assisting, force multiplying our Afghan counterparts. We had militiamen from the Chutu River Valley. I turned around to tell the guys like we rehearsed through our interpreters, “Okay, just like we rehearsed, we need to go. We need to take down this first compound.” Turned around and said, “Alright, guys. Let’s go. It’s time to go. Nobody’s moving. Alright. Hey, Nick.” That was our terp’s name. “Nick, tell them. Let’s go, man. We planned all this. This is what’s going to happen.”
Ryan Hendrickson: Let’s go. They said it’s too dangerous.
John Berry: And just to give some context, you are an 18 Charlie, which means what?
Ryan Hendrickson: Engineer. Not a smart engineer, but an engineer. You’re the engineer that’s responsible for clearing the booby traps, the mines, everything that’s going to be out there.
John Berry: Correct. And so Nick is the interpreter, and you’re talking to the Afghan forces, Hey, we’re going to clear this building. Yep.
Ryan Hendrickson: And so as I’m telling them, “Hey, I understand it’s dangerous. That’s why we’re here. Some of you guys are from this village, and you can’t even get into it because of the Taliban.” It’s like, I got it. Okay, let’s go. They’re like, no, no, no. They said, “You’re better trained. You should go first.” It’s like, well, yeah, of course. If this was Texas, yeah, I would. But this is Afghanistan, and this is actually your village. So let’s do this. I said, no. So I turned around to tell my counterpart because we were broken up into different teams. Our ODA, we had A group up north, two Americans and about 15 Afghans. And then mine was to clear the first three compounds. We had a group near the Helmand River clearing out a trench line there. I turned around to tell my counterparts, “Hey, man, they’re not moving. They don’t want to go. They’re scared.” He grabs me by the shoulder and he said, “Hey, Ryan, get Nick away from that compound.” “What are you talking about?” I turned back around and our interpreter had run down like Afghan Rambo into a mined area and was trying to wave these guys down there.
Ryan Hendrickson: Still noise and light discipline, even though everyone knew the Taliban, or the Taliban all knew we were there. We heard it on ICOM chatter, but he’s trying to wave them down there. He was our only terp. If we can’t communicate with our partner force, then there’s nothing you can do because they are just militiamen. I moved down to the compound, and he’s at the breachway or the door. He’s like, come on, trying to be quiet about it, but trying to wave them down there. I grabbed them by the shoulder and said my choice words to them. But then, Hey, you need to move back to Lance right now. So you never want to have your back or your sides exposed to the unknown. Inside the compound was unknown. We had no idea. And we can only assume that Taliban were in there waiting. So I turned back into the breachway so I can cover his movement back, and I saw something move in the corner. And adrenaline spiked through the roof. I was, Okay, we’re about ready to get it on. I’m going to kill this dude, whoever is in there. I took a step, really dumb move, but I took a step inside the breachway to see what was moving in the corner of the compound, and boom.
Ryan Hendrickson: I had stepped on a Pressure Plate IED that was in the breachway or the doorway of this compound. What’s really weird is we had dealt with quite a few people that have stepped on IEDs building up to this mission, and it’s loud and it’s confusing and everything like that. But when you step on one yourself, I don’t really know how sound works, but it just sounded like a loud pop to me because I was right in the middle of it. But friends said it just rocked the valley and everything like that. But to me, it just sounded like a loud pop, and it didn’t hurt right away. And so I was laying on the ground and I was trying to figure out what happened. But the initial thing was I couldn’t breathe. The amount of dust and the ammonia in the air from the explosives, HME. I couldn’t breathe, so I kept trying to get up, and I couldn’t stand up. So I was like, alright, I need to cool, calm down, control my breathing. I don’t know if that was an RPG, recoilless. I don’t know what happened, but it doesn’t hurt.
Ryan Hendrickson: And that’s on the movies or guys that I’ve seen previously step on IEDs, they hit it, loud explosion. A couple of seconds later, you start hearing the screams and stuff like that. But it didn’t hurt. So I was like, I don’t know what happened, but I couldn’t see anything. So it’s about 2 a.m. at this point, and I’m looking down at my leg, and it just starts to clear a little bit. And I’m looking down, and my boot was at a 90-degree angle to my leg. I was thinking, I was like, That’s really weird. Now, Oregon education here, not the smartest guy in the room. I’m looking down and I was like, “Why is my boot…?” I didn’t take off. It just wasn’t computing to me because it’s very hard to prepare yourself to step on an IED. Like, aha, I knew it. I stepped on it. Your brain doesn’t react like that because it’s a pretty dramatic event.
Ryan Hendrickson: And so dust clears a little bit more. And I grab from behind my knee and I pick my right leg up, and I see these two curly white objects sticking out of my pant leg. Again, I was like, That’s really weird. I wonder what that is. And when I figured out that that was my tib and my fib, then the pain hit me. And holy cow, I don’t even know how to explain it. People say, felt like I got hit by a Mack Truck or something like that. I’ve never been hit by a Mack Truck, but I don’t know how to explain that pain. It was out-of-body pain experience. And so then I was like, “Oh, man, I’m hit, I’m hit, I’m hit.” And as I’m laying there, I looked back towards the other American back there. Afghans aren’t moving. Nick’s on the ground because he got leveled with some of the overpressure, I would assume, or whatnot, or maybe shock, or heard the explosion and just hit the deck. I don’t know. But I saw Nick on the ground, and I kept yelling back. I was like, “Hey, I’m hit.” Lance yelled.
Ryan Hendrickson: He’s like, “Don’t move.” I was like, “Well, where do you think I’m going to go, man? I can’t move.” He’s like, “Don’t move, Ryan. We’re going to try and get to you. So get the tourniquet off. And I start to put the tourniquet on my leg. Well, we had prepared for 72 hours without resupply. So your cargo pockets are full of stuff and everything. So I’m trying to put this tourniquet on. I’m trying to I’m trying to break it down. I’m going into shock at this point because I keep looking down at the injury. If anybody gets injured like that, don’t look at it. It’s horrible. And I just keep trying to tighten this thing down. And so then the calls come over the radio. It was like, Hey, did Ryan breach the wall early? I thought we were supposed to breach at this time. And what’s the explosion? And stuff like that. And then IED, IED, IED. I remember looking back and he’s like, Don’t move. We’re going to get to you, but I’m in a minefield at this point. Or maybe not a minefield, but IEDs are everywhere. For me, it felt like hours, but this is minutes.
Ryan Hendrickson: For me, I’m just laying there, and I remember I kept looking back, and I could see the commotion of everything, but everybody kept feeling further and further away. I remember I was seeing it wasn’t a huge pool, but I was just seeing the blood just pool up underneath my leg, and I’d crank down a little bit on the tourniquet. Then finally, I just laid my head back, and I was like, I’m going to die here today. It was a very real moment when you accept it. Somebody may say, Oh, so you gave up. Maybe I did. I don’t know. But I just remember looking back and I was like, Yeah, I’m going to die here today. Then I thought, “You know what? I’m tired. Just going to close my eyes.” I don’t know how long after that, but slap. I got slapped right across the face. George had made it down to me and he’s, “Stay awake, stay awake,” and slap, slap. And I was like, “Quit hitting me. It hurts.” And he goes, “Really? That? Okay.” So team had made it down to me, cleared an area to go to work on me. Well, at that same point in time, the Taliban heard the explosion, did their hideous celebration music over the ICOM.
Ryan Hendrickson: I could hear it. We killed the Americans and all this other stuff. But there’s more Americans. We need to ambush them now. The Taliban know very well we can’t drop bombs on them if they close the distance with us because you’re going to be dropping on yourself.
Ryan Hendrickson: They’re rushing to get to our location. Then all of a sudden it becomes like, Hey, ACE wrap this, get another tourniquet on. We got to move. Okay, we need medevac. We need a helicopter here now. No. They said, There’s RPGs. We’re watching these guys move. You need to move them a klick out. We can’t land right there. You’re going to lose a helicopter if we land right there. So amongst all this chaos and everything like that, Kyle, a guy on my team, people are…it’s like, “Hey, let’s get him moved out of here,” and everything like that. He just grabs me, picks me up, fireman carrying. I’m 210 pounds, and we start to move. And it was so painful. But yeah, we obviously, taking some breaks. It’s hard to carry a 210-pound guy in very rough terrain for a klick. But yeah, got me back to where a helicopter could land, and then that also created distance with the Taliban. And then next thing you know, there’s air weapons platforms coming in. Bombs are dropping, A-10s are doing runs. And I was on my way to the first roll facility, which was Tarinkot on my way to then Kabul, Landstuhl, and then finally, Brooke Army Medical Center, about two weeks later.
John Berry: And when you get there, you’re faced with a difficult question from the doctor. The doctor says, “Look, you’re probably going to lose your leg.” We’ve got a what percent chance of saving it?
Ryan Hendrickson: 10 to 15.
John Berry: 10 to 15. You decide that you’re going to take the shot and go for it. And he basically tells you, this is experimental. We don’t know, but we think we can do it. And you believe in him. And then how many surgeries later?
Ryan Hendrickson: Twenty-seven.
John Berry: Twenty-seven surgeries later, you’re actually able to get back into service. How long was that recovery period before you went back to Afghanistan for the first time?
Ryan Hendrickson: So from when I got to Brooke Army Medical Center, all the surgeries, because I also got blown up at a very good time. If you want to get blown up, when I got blown up was a great time to do it, because they were going through this limb salvage thing where they were trying to save limbs instead of just chopping. The IED that I stepped on, there’s different R.E. factors to explosives. So TNT, dynamite, it’s more of a pushing, and that will just mangle everything. C-4 is more like a cutting charge. You can cut steel with it and everything. So the IED that I stepped on, it was a really good…it shot straight up through my foot and exited out at my calf. So they amputate a lot for tissue damage. Although I had some significant tissue damage, there also was a chance that it’s like, “Hey, this is the worst leg that we’re going to try and save. But there’s a lot of research that can go into this. And if it works, it can help a lot of people. And so, and if it doesn’t work, well, you didn’t really have a leg anyways.”
Ryan Hendrickson: We’ll just cut it off, throw a prosthetic on it, and you’ll be on your way. So I said, Yeah, I’ll do it. And 27 surgeries later, and then about–I got there in September. I was cleared to go back to my unit in November of 2011. And then when I got back to my unit, I’m non-deployable and all this other stuff. I had been medically retired, but then I was retained with a waiver, a Continue on Active Duty waiver. My unit had left back for the next deployment to Afghanistan. I got blown up in my first year as a Green Beret, so nobody knew me in 7th Group. I went through the THOR3 program, and it’s basically return to the fight or return to war or something like that. If you get cleared through the THOR3 program, then you’re good to go back. For people that are listening, it’s not just combat injuries. Guys break legs on jumps, someone gets hurt, something like that. You have to go through this program to be cleared to go back to an ODA. So I went through the program. Very tough, very tough, but I got cleared.
Ryan Hendrickson: The group surgeon signed off that I was cleared to deploy. And so, yeah, in March of 2012, jumped on a C-17 and made my way back to Afghanistan.
John Berry: And it was not a warm reception? No.
Ryan Hendrickson: When I showed back up, number one, the Company Sergeant Major was…a lot of colorful questions. The biggest one is, “What are you doing here? How are you even here? You’re not on the pool.” I was like, “Well, I got the waiver and group surgeon signed off on and everything like that.” Alright, you’re going to work in the talk. You’re not even supposed to be here. I don’t know what strings you pulled. I was like, Sergeant Major, I’m a Green Beret. Hey, I figured it out. And he’s like, Alright, you’re going to work in the talk. Well, the Command Sergeant Major, who had visited me in the hospital numerous times, he had made me a promise. He said, If you get cleared to deploy, I’ll send you back to war. 2012 was a pretty bad year. A lot of guys were getting injured, a lot of 18 Charlies. There was a team that needed an 18 Charlie in a little place called Panjwayi District, Kandahar Province, one of the worst areas I’ve ever been to in my entire life. IEDs everywhere. He said, “I hope you’re ready for this because I’m sending you to the worst place in Afghanistan right now.”
Ryan Hendrickson: This was even before the Bales Massacre, where he shot a bunch of civilians in the villages and everything like that. It just got worse after that. But he said, “I hope you’re ready for this because I’m sending you to Panjwayi District, Kandahar Province. And this is 2012. And so, yeah, it’s like, yeah, I made it back. Here you go. Careful what you wish for.
John Berry: And let’s go to that one mission. There’s a mission where you…and I know you’re a very humble person. You don’t like to talk about this, but you earned the Silver Star after you come back, after having a limb blown off and reattached. And this is a great story because a lot of us, we can’t even fathom coming back. And you come back and you find yourself in another scary situation. So take us through that.
Ryan Hendrickson: So after the 2012 mission, I just became that guy in 7th Group where they’re like, “Yeah, it’s Ryan. Well, it says he’s non-deployable. No, no, no. He’s fine.” The group surgeon signs off on. He’s good. So 2016, another company needed an 18 Charlie. And so I volunteered to go. And we were going to be doing a major clearance operation in Baghlan Province. The mission in Baghlan Province was this was a staging area for suicide bombers on Kabul. And so we were going to clear this area out. The Afghans have been trying to clear it out for years, and they were just getting their asses kicked every time they went into this area. So now we’re going to come in. And the infield, we infield, not disguised as Afghan commandos, but we were in their Humvees and everything like that to not tip our hat to the Taliban that Americans were on the ground. You start shooting at us. We’re going to drop every single bit of ordinance that’s in Afghanistan on you, and then we’re going to clear the area.
Ryan Hendrickson: We infill in. Again, it’s night time, and we’re under NODs. We go from mounted vehicles to dismounted foot.
Ryan Hendrickson: Our first objective we have to clear is this orchard by compound number one. Anybody that’s Afghanistan knows orchards are very scary. It’s bad news. My job as the 18 Charlie, and the Afghans that I had with me, we had four Afghans with me. We have detectors, and we clear the route for the assaulters. So we’re up in the front. As we start to make our movement, again, it’s probably 1:00 a.m. As we start to make our movement into the orchard, we’re, I don’t know, maybe 100 feet into it. And all of a sudden, I hear this loud pop, and everybody hits deck. Sniper fire, no idea, but nothing happens after that. There’s no continuation of fire or anything. It’s just one loud pop. And Bez Mula, the guy right in front of me, he’s trying to untangle himself out of this wire. And so we looked over, red lighted it, and we had hit a trip wire wall charge.
Ryan Hendrickson: And the charge in the wall was like, imagine a coffee can full of nails and bolts and everything like that in C-4. And the blasting cap went off, but the charge didn’t go off. It low ordered.
Ryan Hendrickson: And so it’s like, whew. So pick yourself up off the ground, like, alright, guys. Wow, this is bad. We’re right just in the beginning of the orchard. Move another, I don’t know, probably 50 to 100 feet. And I see this movement in compound number one. And there’s two figures that ran across the open area. And so we get down trying to figure it out. And next thing you know, I saw this burst of fire come out of the compound wall, and it’s about 20 meters from us. And it’s this flame that just shot out of this wall. And then all the zip and the cracks and the rounds coming in, it was a PKM. And then the entire wall opened up with this muzzle flashes. We had walked into an ambush, and they had cut us off the clearance element. They had cut us off from the assaulters. They had the assaulters like in L-shaped. They were hitting them from one side, and they had us pinned down in this orchard.
Ryan Hendrickson: And so as the fight’s dragging on, I remember the JTAC’s calling to me. He’s like, “Hey, give me something. I can’t see you.”
Ryan Hendrickson: And the aircraft’s overhead and everything like that. And so, ICOM chatter came over that they could see me. I had a flashing…they said a flashing head. Well, I had an IR strobe on my helmet because I was the lead element. Well, if they could see my IR strobe, they had night vision. Bad news. And so, we’re talking about this for a long period of time, but this was minutes. But we were pinned down in a complex ambush for over five minutes. And then the decision was made, we have to drop on that compound, and this is danger close. I’m 20 meters from the compound, and they’re going to drop a 500 pounder on it. And so I remember JTAC came over the radio and it’s chaos. I’m trying to communicate with him. We’re firing back at them. It’s a firefight. But he’s like, Hey, man, we got to drop. And so I’m…yeah. Get down, stay as low as you can.
John Berry: Nobody asked for your input at this point. You didn’t say, “Hey, we’re about 20 meters away.” It was coming, and you just accepted it?
Ryan Hendrickson: Well, the JTAC had heroically, our Combat Controller, like a stud. But he had maneuvered through fire to get eyes on. Because it was danger close, we had to get this…I don’t know the exact approval, I know it’s a General’s approval for a strike that close. This is five minutes, six minutes. That’s a long time when you’re taking a sustained amount of fire like that and RPGs and everything like that. So the strike was approved, and he was like, “Hey, get down. Stay as low as you can. Good luck. Good luck.” You say that at the Blackjack table. You don’t say that. I’ll never forget that. He said, “Good luck, man.” And I heard the aircraft overhead. It came in. It was weapons release, weapons release. And I just I put my face as deep into that little dirt trail we were on as I could. I just buried my face into it and boom. And when that 500 pounder hit, at first I thought it was 250 pound.
Ryan Hendrickson: And no, they told me later it was a 500 pounder. But when that 500 pounder hit, I just remember looking up and I could see parts of the compound that were flying over us, tree branches, everything.
Ryan Hendrickson: I could just see it all flying over us. But, and my biggest concern at that point was some big piece, some big chunk of that mud hut compound was going to land on me, break my back or something like that. I remember just seeing all this debris flying over us. Then I can hear the echoing in my mic, “Ryan, Ryan, Ryan.” And I’m trying…I just can’t quite respond because you’re in a little bit of shock. That’s a 500-pound bomb. And so I finally toggled my mic and it’s like, I’m good, I’m good, I’m good. It’s Ryan. Move back, move back. And I remember trying to stand up, and I kept falling over. It’s like a fish out of water. Just kept falling over, trying to stand up again, falling over. My Afghan counterparts, they’re doing the same thing. We’re just trying to move back because they’re going to drop again. And now we need to create distance because you don’t want to eat two 500 pounders that close.
Ryan Hendrickson: You’re going to have scrambled egg brains. Made it back, and we dropped again. That was the first 2 hours of a 18-hour sustained firefight. We went, cleared the compound, killed quite a few of them.
Ryan Hendrickson: And then, Alright, now everyone’s good. Alright, let’s take a breather, get some water. Okay, close call. Alright, now we need to continue the mission. So the mission was to clear out this village. And so after that, we just started going through our clearance operations, taking fire every now and then, but nothing, nothing crazy. It was more like, “Hey, don’t forget, we’re still here, fire.” But man, the amount of IEDs in this village. I blew up 17 myself, and then my Afghan counterparts, over 50 just in this village alone. Fighting trenches, bunkers, everything. They were dug in because, again, the Taliban had been fighting the Afghan forces here for years, and the Afghans had never been able to get a foothold in there. So as we’re moving through the village, now it’s probably about 3 p.m., and we get to our LOA. This is as far as we’re going to go.
Ryan Hendrickson: Alright, so get to the end of the village. We’ve cleared it. Now it’s time to move back. There was a conversation had about holding some of the compounds, the Afghans holding some of the compounds and or anything like that, and we’re starting to make our movement back.
Ryan Hendrickson: All of a sudden, the entire tree line, almost a U-shape around us, compounds all around us, everything erupts and just this sustained amount of fire.
John Berry: So you think you’re caught in a U-shaped ambush at this point?
Ryan Hendrickson: Yeah. RPGs, PKMs, and snipers. Now we’re in a really, really bad fight. Guys went for cover, and now we’re trying to fire. And so myself and my buddy, Franky, we were, again, 18 Charlies, we’re at the very front, so we’re in this ditch. I could look up the road and I could see some of our Afghan counterparts on the road dead. It’s like, Okay, past this, that’s where we’re taking fire from there, and RPGs are coming in from over here. We’re starting to get our situational awareness around. Then you hear that dreaded sound: mortar release. And it’s like, boom. So they shot far. And then the next one, they shot near. So then what do you do if you’re a good mortar team? You split the difference, right? We’re in the middle of the difference, and it’s time to move. We got to get back. So there was a group of Afghans that were cut off, and so ran across the road.
Ryan Hendrickson: They wouldn’t get out of the ditch. Rounds are coming in. So I just grabbed this dude by his hair. We’re going now. Pulled him the ditch, the others come with him. We start to low-crawl through the ditch until we can get to a point to where we can duck walk.
Ryan Hendrickson: Remember when you go through MEPS and they’re like, “Do the duck walk”? This shows that you’re capable. Well, we did it. We ducked, walked through this keeping our heads low because there was also snipers in the area. We get back to our first…we had to set up a medical evacuation point or the first place to start to treat the casualties. We’re bringing in…we had two wounded Afghans with us, gunshot wounds. We’re bringing them in. Then next thing, the courtyard where we have guys that are getting treated, you start to see those dust crickets pop up from rounds hitting in the courtyard. Now they’re on the other side of our medical, of our triage point, our stability point or whatever. Now they’re on the other side of it, and rounds are coming in. We got to pick up the casualties, the KIAs, and we got to move, too. We got to establish another stability point, and we can’t get helicopters in. We have no air support at this time.
Ryan Hendrickson: The aircraft are doing show of force, but they can’t drop. It’s like, Why can’t you drop? They said, “Because they’re in your lines.” It’s like, “What?”
Ryan Hendrickson: It’s like, “Yeah, we don’t know who’s who.” Doing show of forces, doing gun runs that aren’t just to create some more chaos so the Taliban was maybe thinking like, “Oh, wow, they’re hitting us with something or another.” No, they were in our lines. So now we’re fighting within 5 to 10 meters, and we can’t drop. And we can’t bring in helicopters to get our wounded out. And we also have American wounded. And that was one.
John Berry: You got Taliban fighters 5 to 10 meters away from you.
Ryan Hendrickson: Yeah, all in protected. Because this entire village was one big fighting position. They had tunnels. They had defensive fighting positions all set up, and they could tunnel between compounds and just pop up, and then they can hit us from one compound, go to another one, pop up, hit us from another one. It was really hard to track down where we were taking the fire from, but it was a lot of sustained fire. I’ll never forget the radio calls are coming in, people trying to get situational awareness, and then you hear, break, break, break, break, Eagle Down, Eagle Down, Eagle Down, another American hit. Now we got four Americans that have been shot.
Ryan Hendrickson: We are bringing in the Afghan casualties, and so we get another stabilization point. We’ve created enough distance to now the Apaches, we’re starting to do some work, and then now we can start to drop some bombs. It’s like 45 minutes into this firefight before we get the first bombs on target. But then the dust off comes in, medevac helicopter, and we start to load up the critical and getting them out. And then, so now it’s like, Okay, we’re starting to get some rhythm going on here. We’re dropping. We’re getting the wounded out, and now we need to do men, weapons, and equipment. We need to get out of here. And so we’re doing the head count and everything like that, and we’re still missing four guys–Afghans. A group of us went back to the last stabilization point, and we had found one of the Afghans. He was killed at the corner there. Okay, now we’re missing three. Then we found another one.
Ryan Hendrickson: The Afghans had brought one of them back, and we didn’t know about it. He was dead. But they said, Okay, here’s the other guy. Okay, now we’re missing two.
Ryan Hendrickson: We’re missing my buddy Abe, who’s an Afghan, and the Afghan Commando Sergeant Major. Where’s the last time you saw them? At the very front, when the fight first started. It’s like, this isn’t good. I think Abe is in the ditch at the very front, 500 meters away from where we’re at right now. It’s like, “Well, we got to go back and get him.” No one gets left behind. We set up a little group of us, myself, a JTAC, and a couple of others, and we said, Hey, we’re going to go and get a…it’s like, well, we can’t just run up there. We just came from that area, and we’re going to get killed. So our JTAC comes up. He gets on the radio with the Apaches, and it was a movie. The Apaches were going to fly down because it was up this road that was separating the village. The Apaches were going to do gun runs down this road, and we are going to take off running as they are doing their gun run.
Ryan Hendrickson: Hollywood. Yeah, Hollywood. And I was like, “This is, this is insane. Cool. Let’s do it”. So it’s like, alright, guys, we got one chance at this because they’re running low on fuel.
Ryan Hendrickson: So Apaches came in, opened up with their cannons, and we jumped out of the ditch and just took off up that road to get to the last place where we saw Abe.
John Berry: So this isn’t a bunch of IMT-ing. You’re not getting to, I’m up, he sees me, I’m down. You’re going 500 meters full sprint.
Ryan Hendrickson: We’re running, running as fast as we can. There’s no time to IMT. So we take off up the road and we get to the the bridge where we took the initial contact from. And I looked in the ditch and there’s Abe and the Commander Sergeant Major were, and they were both dead. But we found them. The ditch they were in was like six…it was six foot deep, and it had about a foot of standing water in it. And taking a body that is covered in blood, very slick, trying to pull him out of a muddy ditch to the road so we can actually start to move back. It’s insane how hard that is. But we got them both out of the ditch, and now it’s time to move back. We’re still getting covering fire from the aircraft. Move back. Now we have the whole team. All men are accounted for. No one got left behind. And so that fight was the biggest of my life. I’ve never been in a fight like that before.
Ryan Hendrickson: Yes, lots of people have experiences like that, but that was my experience. And the one thing that I take away from that fight and that mission is we were willing to give up our own lives to make sure no one got left behind, Afghan or American.
Ryan Hendrickson: Nobody got left behind. And we did–we got them all back.
John Berry: At that point, you could have stopped. Shortly after your military service ends, you could have said, “You know what? I did my duty. No one was left behind.” But instead, you decide, “I’m going to Ukraine after the fight.” He starts there to continue to serve and to continue to put yourself in that situation where people need you to have that super level of accountability to make sure no one gets left behind. So let’s talk about that. What triggered your decision to go to Ukraine to help?
Ryan Hendrickson: So my decision to go to Ukraine was after I retired out of the Army in 2020. I went back to Afghanistan as a contractor. I was a Counter Threat Advisor. And when we closed down Afghanistan, I left Afghanistan in 2021, about a month before the full withdrawal. And when we closed down Afghanistan, I was in some really dark places. The main question was, what was it all for? Soon after that, February 2022, everybody’s watching on their TVs, the Russians initiate the full scale invasion of Ukraine. I remember thinking, I wonder if I could help. I wonder if there’s anything I can do. No, probably not. But it just kept nagging at me. As the days go on and I continue to watch this unfold on TV, I just said, “You know what? I’m going to try and do something. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I’m going to do something.” I quit my job and I went over to help evacuate Ukrainian civilians that were in the areas.
Ryan Hendrickson: At that point in time, it was the suburbs of Kyiv–Bucha in European–and we were going to evacuate civilians. And go from there.
Ryan Hendrickson: I quit my job, put everything on hold, and headed over to Ukraine. From March of ’22 to when I left in May, the majority of our job was evacuating civilians, or as the Russians started to move east, we were bringing in medical supplies, food, helping people out. Well, at that same time, Ukrainians started to come back to their homes. As they were coming back to their homes, they started to hit landmines. We call them leave behinds, but landmines, anti-personnel, anti-vehicle landmines, and the casualties are starting to get pretty high. My job in Special Forces as an 18 Charlie, I was pretty familiar with landmines and IEDs because, as we talked about earlier, clearance operations and clearing them. So the Ukrainians’ answer for it in the very beginning was they were putting together these untrained Sapper teams that were basically going to be removing mines so civilians weren’t getting killed. I started training these guys and helping them out because they needed it. And same thing we did with the Afghans, train, advise, assist, force, multiply.
Ryan Hendrickson: And so we started training them. And this sense of purpose that I got from it and the fulfillment that I got from just helping people, I decided, I’m going to make this my life’s calling.
Ryan Hendrickson: We started up the 501(c)(3), Tip of the Spear Landmine Removal. I’m not really good with names. So I was like, I have a book, Tip of the Spear. We’ll name it Tip of the Spear. That’s good branding.
John Berry: That’s good branding.
Ryan Hendrickson: Yeah. And I’ve gone back seven more trips. I just returned home three weeks ago from the last one. And we go over there, we train our Ukrainian partners up. And for demining operations, we equip them, we raise money, we bring over demining equipment, detectors, and stuff like that, and we help them out. And it’s just clearing these areas for the innocent that are caught in the middle of the whole thing. You got two governments duking it out, but there’s a population of people that are just caught in the middle, and their lives are getting completely destroyed by these landmines and these hidden killers, these indiscriminate killers under the ground, because landmines are indiscriminate killers. They don’t care who you are.
John Berry: Well, and what I learned when I deployed to Bosnia in ’99 was that long after the fighting is done, those landmines will still be there to injure and kill innocent people. And in fact, I can remember we called them UXO. So before we even heard of IEDs, back in the night, before we went to Iraq, this was back in ’99, we’re talking about UXO and running into minefields. We’re scared, and they’re supposed to stay on the roads. Do not go off the roads because we don’t know where the minefields are. And there would be kids, adults getting blown up because of these landmine left out. So the real danger here is not just the immediate danger to the people in Ukraine and in that area. But after this war is over, those landmines will still be there unless someone like you goes in there and clears them. So it’s a great humanitarian mission. It’s not just about fighting a war. It’s about protecting lives long after that war is done.
John Berry: And it’s a great, great mission. For people who want to support your mission to remove landmines, where can they go to learn more about Tip of the Spear Landmine Removal?
Certainly! Here’s the transcript with the requested formatting:
Ryan Hendrickson: Bestway is LandMineRemoval.org. That’s our website, and it has all the links to our social media, all the content that we do. I’m very visible with what we do in Ukraine because people donate money to us, and donors need to know what their funds are doing. They need to see where their money is going to and the people that that money is helping. And so landmineremoval.org is basically the launch pad for all of our social media, where you can donate if you want to, or you can just follow along. But landmineremoval.org.
John Berry: Now we get to the part of the show where we talk about the AAR, the After Action Review, the good and the bad. I’d like to hear from you about the best example of leadership, and three, if you want, three great examples of leadership that you observed or learned about when you served either in Ukraine or when you served as a Special Forces soldier.
Ryan Hendrickson: I can tell you one example that encompasses probably the epitome of leadership, and that is a leader that leads by example and from the front. And so a lot of people will say, “Well, yeah, I’ve heard that before. Everybody says that.” But it’s true, because especially in the military, when you have a leader that is saying, “Hey, I need you guys to do this or that.” You either know that he’s done it himself because he’s led by example, or he said, “Hey, I need you guys to do this. We’re going at it together.” The leader brings you into the mission. It makes you a part of it. And what I mean by that is it’s easy to tell somebody, “Walk over there.” “Okay, why?” “Just do it”. “Okay”. But when you tell somebody, I need you to walk over there, and this is the reason why you’re walking over there. These are the effects that are going to be had by you walking over there.
Ryan Hendrickson: And this is what we hope to accomplish by you walking over there. And this is your part of the overall mission—success and failure—if you’re not able to walk over there.
Ryan Hendrickson: And so you bring that person completely into the mission. They understand their role, and they understand how important they are to that mission. And a great leader will bring the lowest level person all the way up to understanding the full impact that they have on that mission. For example, I need you. Here’s your sectors of fire. This is what I need you to do. And so you can sit behind that machine gun and be like, I guess anything that moves in here is this is what my job is. But when that soldier has been brought into the overall mission, they understand this is why I have these sectors of fire. This is what we’re hoping to achieve with this mission. Here are the second and the third order of effects of this, and this is what can happen if I don’t control this sector. Now they’re brought into the mission. The leader has made that person a part of the mission. They’re just not following orders. They understand the full ramifications of their duties and their role for that mission.
Ryan Hendrickson: To me, that’s one, two, and three of a great leader. That’s the three examples I have, even though I only said one, but that is the example.
John Berry: Okay, now let’s talk about the bad examples.
Ryan Hendrickson: Bad leadership trait number one is not investing into—not making the subordinates invested into the overall mission or what we’re doing. It’s just, I told you to do this, so do it. That’d be bad leadership number one. The second trait is the leader that does not lead by example. This is another one that quite a few people can probably look back at some point in their life when they were a subordinate to somebody and be like, Wow, you tell me to do all this, but yet you’re not doing it. It’s do what I say, not as I do. And so they don’t lead by example. The key to getting subordinates or troops under your command to want to be invested in that mission and following orders and stuff like that. Yeah, you’re going to follow orders because you’re in the military. But to invest in that mission, to make them invested in that mission, then they have to be a part of it. Another thing is they have to know that that leader is asking them to do something that he fully knows the ramifications of and the impacts of it, and he’s probably done it himself.
Ryan Hendrickson: And so leading by example or not. And so bad leadership trait number 2 is not leading by example. Do what I say not as I do. And then number 3, digging pretty deep for this one, but I would say number 3 would be the toxic leader, the leader that leads out of fear. And so leadership, yeah, there’s the old saying, it’s very lonely at the top. And there’s truth to that. But the leader that leads out of fear, the toxicity in the workplace that’s created from that. That would actually probably be the number one bad leadership trait with the other two, falling in behind it. But leading out of fear or aggression or intimidation. That’s a good word for it. Leading that way. Everybody can see that the reason why that leader resorts to those tactics, whether it’s intimidation or fear or whatnot, is because they don’t actually know what they’re doing. And so now all of a sudden, the other two traits that I talked about come full in.
Ryan Hendrickson: I’m not investing in the mission. You don’t know what you’re doing, and you don’t lead by example.
John Berry: Ryan, thank you so much today for sharing your story on Veteran Led. Looking forward to walking those 50 miles with you tomorrow.
Ryan Hendrickson: Yeah, no, this is awesome. Love being here. And yeah, the 50 miles, it’s going to hurt, but it’s for a great cause, amazing cause, and it’s needed now more than ever. Veterans Mental Health. So again, appreciate you having me. And yeah, we’ll get ready to left, right, left for 50 miles.
John Berry: And it’s going to be hard to quit, right? I can’t be the guy who quits when you’re the guy that lost the leg, the guy that reattached, right? So for a lot of us, we talk about mental toughness. And this is really, as you know, at some point, it’s all up here.
Ryan Hendrickson: Yeah. No, it definitely is. It’s the barriers you put up in your own mind and challenging yourself for a good cause, like Veterans’ mental health, Veterans’ homelessness. But getting to challenge yourself and break through those barriers, it’s perfect. Yeah, it’s going to be a great day. It’s going to hurt, but it’s going to be great.
John Berry: And one great part about this, this is the story I have to tell, was that Ryan, we were talking. I said, “Hey, are you going to do this 50 Mile March?” He said, “I don’t know. I just got back. I’m doing this thing in Colorado. I’d have to come in, fly that night over.” And it didn’t make sense. And I had broke six ribs, a clavicle, and a punctured lung in a mountain bike accident. I’m thinking, Yeah, this isn’t the right time. And then two weeks ago, Ryan texted me, I’ll do it if you do it. And it’s that great peer pressure from having great friends that push us to be better than we are. I think great leaders take us to places we would never go alone.
Ryan Hendrickson: Absolutely. But great leaders also take you to those places by leading the way. That’s leadership. If someone says, Hey, we’re going to do this together, or I’m asking you to do this because I’ve done it or I’m going to do it with you. And it’s easy to follow that leadership. And you said, alright, I’m going to do it. And then me, I was like, Crap, now I really have to do it.
John Berry: Because I thought you talked me into it. Well, leadership by example, either way.
Ryan Hendrickson: Yeah, absolutely. I’m excited. Definitely excited. And we’re in our tribe. Veterans, we’re a tribe mentality. We’re amongst our tribe, so it’s going to be great.
John Berry: Thank you for joining us today on Veteran Led, where we pursue our mission of promoting Veteran leadership in business, strengthening the Veteran community and getting Veterans all of the benefits that they earn. If you know a leader who should be on the Veteran Led podcast, report to our online community by searching @VeteranLed on your favorite social channels and posting in the comments. We want to hear how your military challenges prepared you to lead your industry or community, and we will let the world know. And of course, hit subscribe and join me next time on Veteran Led.
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