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Ep 111 | Don Stevens – Security Forces, Combat Control, Burn the Ships, PTSD

November 6, 2023 By Thad Forester

Don Stevens is one of those rare operators who retrained into the Air Force combat control (CCT) pipeline at the age of 32, after being in security forces. This required uncommon humility since leadership said, “What are we gonna do with a MSgt. who doesn’t know squat (many different strong words could be inserted here)?”

Even though I’ve had several CCT’s on this show, we haven’t talked much about their humanitarian roles. Don tells us how he got a team ready to deploy to Haiti in less than 4 hours, when the earthquake in 2010 happened.

Stevens provides advice to new guys entering the CCT pipeline, why PTSD doesn’t have to be a big deal, and shared the scariest thing he’s ever done. Hint, it wasn’t in Afghanistan or Africa.

You can also learn more about Don as the co-founder of FoxTrot 3.

Mentioned in this episode:

Thai Soccer Team Rescue

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Filed Under: Patriot to the Core Tagged With: afghanistan, burn the ships, cct, combat control, death, death notification, foxtrot3, humility, iraq, ptsd, regret

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