Triple 7: They Said it Couldn't Be Done

The talk show that's getting you talking.

You're with Brian Kilmeade. In 2023, a group of special operations veterans set out on an unprecedented journey skydiving into all seven continents within seven days. I constantly remember the people that we were jumping for gave up their today and every one of their tomorrows so we could be out here doing stuff like this. So that's just a excerpt from a brand new documentary that's out that screens this weekend called Triple Seven.

They said it couldn't be done. And the people that did it amongst them are Mike Cirelli, Dan Myrick and Mike Barker. Three friends served in the military and are still serving this country and setting a great example. Welcome, guys. Great to see you. Good to be here. All right. First off, this is the safest the studio has ever been.

I feel as though if anything happens, I'm going to be OK. And I'll give one correction. This is Glenn Cowen. Glenn Cowen, our Canadian special operator that was on the trip. I apologize. Right. OK. No, all good.

Glenn Cowen. My fault. Probably be better served having boots here. Yes. OK. I'm just fixing that right now for the West Coast.

When we delay it, we show it out there. So first off, can you go over your military backgrounds? When did you start serving? You want to start, Mike?

I did. So, yeah, Glenn Cowen, I'm a Canadian component to the team. I served 20 years in the Canadian Armed Forces. I was a light infantry officer. And the majority of my career I spent with Canada's National Mission Unit, which is equivalent to sort of the top tier U.S. tier one special operations units. Mike?

Also 20 years United States. Started out in the Marine Corps as a recon Marine and scout sniper. Switched over to the SEAL teams and served a good portion of time in JSOC before I retired. I served 35 years in the film business. So you shot this?

I shot it. I'm the filmmaker, yeah, behind these guys. Whose idea was it? Mike's, actually. It was, he put it all together. How'd you guys meet? How'd you pick him out?

Grinder. I'm joking. We met through a mutual friend, Christian. That's a Chinese app, by the way. It is, yes.

So please, it's not safe. No, we met through a mutual friend, Christian Krempel, who's also in the entertainment industry. He was tied into the special operations community.

I had this idea and we wanted to film it. And Dan came into the picture. All right. So Dan, we appreciate you being here. You can bring us through from the civilian aspect where I could probably relate to best. So what was the mission? The mission was to jump seven continents in seven days with a view of raising $7 million for a charity called Folds of Honor, where we could contribute that capital back to the children and families of fallen special operators.

And you know, there's such an effective organization with Dan Rooney. They started, you got, you understand their mission. So you wanted to give back. So tell me how you charted this out. You said, Mike, you said that Glenn is the one who charted most of it out?

Were you just being funny or is it? He actually saved the day. So Glenn did help substantially with his company, One9. But we all planned this. The thing is the triple seven, seven continents, seven days, seven skydives has been a sort of war within the international skydiving community that no one's been able to pull off. So nine special operations veterans said, why not?

Let's give it a shot. And we ended up pulling it off, setting four world records in the process. And we did it in six days, six hours and six minutes. Private flights.

No, we did it all commercial with the exception of one leg, which is where we had the hiccup in Miami. But what you got to understand and what your audience needs to understand is what makes special operations special. It's not better. It's not elite. It's doing basic stuff really, really well and being brilliant at the basics. And resourcefulness?

Resourcefulness, but also planning, contingency planning and supporting planning. So, yeah, this was a seven day trip. This was 18 months of planning, preparation and logistics leading up to seven days and sort of thought through every contingency, every sort of every bit of deconfliction we could do ahead of time so that it was as smooth as possible because there's things we can't control are always going to be that fog of war.

So tell me the seven cities. So we started in Antarctica, then on to Santiago, Chile, Miami, Barcelona, Cairo, Egypt, Abu Dhabi and UAE and then Perth, Australia. So that the biggest thing that I think happened was for the first time in history, all aircraft were grounded. We still don't know exactly what went wrong, but all aircraft are grounded.

How did that affect you guys? So it's not the only time in history. It happened one other time in sort of the last 30 or 40 years, and that was on 9-11 when the FAA kind of canceled all air traffic over continental North America. We were flying from Santiago, Chile, on jump two to Miami. It was a red eye flight. I think we were the last flight to land in Miami. And as we kind of were getting ourselves sorted at the Miami airport to head to the drop zone, our phone started to explode with text saying your flights have been canceled, your flights have been canceled. And we were doing this deliberately commercially so we could push as much capital back to Folds of Honor as opposed to just to save money, just to save. Well, not to save money to give them more money, right?

No, I know to save money in order to donate more. So what it turned out was was a ground stop notice to airmen that all air traffic in the U.S. was shut down. We don't know why. You know, there's, you know, systems glitch cyber.

Who knows what what might have happened? But it led to a huge hiccup. And what we ended up doing was very rapidly planning our jump, moving to the drop zone while kind of canvassing our networks to try to salvage and get ourselves back on time. And the only way we could get back on time was through the use of private aircraft.

And so, you know, we got some some great Americans, some great Canadians stepped up and found us very quickly a G5 that we were able to charter very rapidly, still de-conflict the NOTAM issues, get our jump off, get to the an executive airport near Miami and get airborne on a private aircraft. So just I think it speaks to the resiliency, the agility, the ability to pivot. And Dan, when you find out these these the fights are shut down, do you just break out your camera again, start rolling? Yeah, I mean, you know, it's a mixed bag because it's a very difficult logistical challenge. But at the same time, it's good drama. So storytellers like good drama and conflict. But watching these guys overcome and solve the problem in real time was one of the highlights of the movie and was was, you know, a real honor to kind of witness.

Right. How did doing Blair Witch prepare for this? Unpredictability is certainly we were shooting Blair a lot, improvise and in real time.

And this is very much the same way, even more compressed. We shot this in in five days overall. And we didn't have a lot of time to sit down and do interviews and really think things through from the production standpoint, because the whole point was just to kind of keep keep the flow going. So they were miked up the whole time? Most of the time.

Yeah. But we were following them. We had my crew, me on camera, as well as Kevin Burke was one of our cameramen as well.

We're constantly following these guys. And it wasn't a lot of rest and a lot of airplane flights and coming on and off of customs and that sort of thing. So combined with the jump footage, which is all very dynamic.

So it's it's it's it was quite, quite the undertaking. I mean, not only you get there, you got to jump, too. I mean, I know it's easy for you guys, but is it when you're jumping? It's like the easy part jumping out of the plane. This was a logistical puzzle nobody had solved. So the jumping actually was the easy part. However, with the sleep deprivation and we had Woop, you know, the the wearable human performance device, we were all wearing those.

Woop was one of the sponsors. And you saw a degradation in performance as we got further into the trip. So that increases the risk profile that, you know, somebody's just head is not in the game. They didn't recover. And it's a testament to these guys, because, Brian, at the end of the day, we do understand sleep deprivation well in special operations. But you cannot train to sleep deprivation. You just have to power through. But you can recognize that you've had this feeling before, I guess, because I live my life in sleep deprivation. That's true.

But I don't jump out of airplanes. By the way, we're telling you about this movie because it's coming out this Saturday's documentary. It's called LegacyExpositions.com. Go to the site right now. You can find theaters and you can buy tickets in New York City, in Tampa, in Austin, in Dallas. We just launched in Dallas.

And we're privileged to be on in Austin, too, and Los Angeles. The theatrical release is Memorial Day. But you can see it this Saturday, right? In New York. Yes.

Only in New York. Are tickets available? Tickets are available on LegacyExpositions.com and the screeners will be in select theaters from May 31st until July 4th. OK, and it's only going to be theaters.

Will it ever go online? Here's the ultimate goal. We want to continue to tell the stories of guys like Glenn and in our fallen through these adventure expeditions. And so ultimately, we're looking for the right production studio to partner with us to keep this going.

But if this ends up on a Netflix or Amazon, which also raises more money for Folds of Honor, that's the ultimate goal. Right. Who do you keep in mind when you're jumping, Glenn? I know you got to focus on everything, but do you think about the guys you serve with? Is it possible not to?

Yeah, no. And that was the women. And that was the whole point of the trip. We dedicated each jump to a fallen that was special to each one of us. I dedicated mine to a young man named Master Corporal Byron Greff, who is the last Canadian that was killed in Afghanistan. And, you know, he's got a pretty tragic story in the sense that he went home on holidays to to see the birth of his his daughter. And on his way back in Afghanistan, he was doing a logistical road move and he got hit with a big IED.

Will you? That was 2011. Well, so. So, yeah, I mean, we're always thinking we're always kind of preparing and sort of focusing. We do a lot of visualization even before things like an easy jump. But this was grounded in, you know, the memory of our fallen. And I think Dan does a great job in sort of portraying sort of, you know, each jump and the dedications we made and not only telling our stories, but we tell the story of of a fallen service member in the context of each of the continent jumps that we did. Well, and what about you, Mike? I jumped in honor of Michael Mansour, who jumped on her grenade three feet from me and saved my life as well as another seal.

We explained that again. He jumped on a grenade, jumped on a grenade. Yes, he was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, born and raised in Southern California.

Lebanese Catholic family, just a wonderful individual. And I will say this. You know, we are in a time where military recruitment is at is at an all time low. We do hope that the younger generation sees this and sees guys like Glenn and what they've become because of their military service.

And if it, let's say, motivates one person to join the military, then that is a total success. Well, yeah. Glenn Cowan is here. Mike Cirelli is here. And we also have Dan Myrick, who is a who's pioneered a lot in cinema.

He does documentaries and he was on for the right. Dan, what's your takeaway? What was your perception going in? I know you're ready for anything, but what is your takeaway when it was over? And they asked you and a friend walked up to you and said, how was your last how was this mission for you?

How was this production? Would you tell them? To not take your freedom for granted. I mean, these guys toe the line. These guys are have given up the ultimate sacrifice.

Their families have given up the ultimate sacrifice. And what they do allows me to be a filmmaker. And so I think it's important not only for myself on a personal level, but people that watch the film just have an understanding. This isn't a political subject.

It has nothing to do with what side of the aisle you're on. These guys are fighting for our freedom on our liberties on a daily basis. And it's something we shouldn't take for granted. And that's what I hope to take away is.

Yeah, I'm sure it will be. The one thing that gets me when it comes to recruiting, are we even trying? When's the last time we saw a good ad on television? When's the last time we saw being all you can be? Remember how great those ads were growing up in high school? You thought it was great. I'm like, this is gonna be a lot of fun.

We don't see any of those ads anymore. You put together like highlights of you guys have someone like you staring to the camera, talking about your service, the people you made, the friends you made, how it changed you as a person, how you came in, how you got out. Don't you think that would be the best story?

And I could see you walking on a college campus and saying, not many people know, but two years ago I was in Ramadi, you know, but it changed me. And those are the types of things that would sell the military. Don't you think? Are we even trying to do that? Well, I'll tell you what, you look at the World War Two generation, they were shaped by military service and then they came back and grew this economy into what we have today. I call this what what you're referring to is outcome based recruiting. Show what Glenn has become because of 20 years in military service, the professionalism, the discipline, the accountability, the drive, the person it makes you. But, you know, Hollywood at the end of the day is the greatest recruitment tool that the military has, say for what it is. However, military, or I'm sorry, Hollywood has slowly been been depicting veterans and all these these flicks as these broken characters. And I'll tell you what, you know, if we're broken, I'll tell you this, you can't break what's already broken. These guys, Glenn has one of the largest defense funds in Canada.

All the guys in this film have started businesses after multiple combat deployments in 20 years in the military. We're not broken. And this narrative is starting to really, I'll just say it, piss us off. No one pushes back, push back an organization away. I mean, that's just it.

Glenn, your thoughts? We're focused collectively. And again, I'm from Canada. I give a different perspective.

We have our own weird idiosyncrasies up there. But the theme is the same. And we're focused on the wrong things. Don't reduce standards to try to increase recruitment. Raise standards. People want to be challenged. The young men and women that are going to join the military and fight the future wars, they're going to do it because they want to challenge. They're going to do it because they want to show up and they want to serve. Don't reduce the standard.

All you're going to do is ruin it for everybody. Increase that standard. I come back to one of the best recruiting slogans that I've ever heard. It's a British Royal Marine that says 99% need not apply. That's the mindset we should have as we're looking to recruit. And I would guarantee you we will increase recruiting across the board if you come up with a slogan like that. I think it was Woody Allen who said, I would never want to belong to a club that would have me as a member. That's the opposite of what you're saying.

It's like, hey, if you tell someone they can't get in, they're going to want to get in if they're made of the right stuff. Hey, I want to just, can we take a short break and come back? I have a couple of minutes on the other side.

I do want to talk about what's happening over in Rafa and what you thought. All right. By the way, go get tickets to the Legacy Expeditions.

Go to LegacyExpeditions.com. Find your theater, buy your tickets. New York City, Tampa, Austin, Dallas, Los Angeles, a perfect way.

Theatrical release is Memorial Day weekend, which is, believe it or not, just a couple of weeks away. Don't move. Daily analysis and news. He is hot. I am Mike. Actually, my name is Chad.

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Welcome back. It's my privilege to have with us still Glenn Cowan, Canadian, but he's still a great guy. And he's and he's a fantastic American.

I'm going to see what I can do to get you citizenship, if you promise to defect. Mike Cirelli is here, too. And Mike is one of our great guests. And Dan Myrick is the producer of a brand new documentary. It is going to be out. It is going to be out officially with the theatrical release on Memorial Day, but it's called Triple Seven. They said it couldn't be done going through seven continents, jumping through seven continents in one hundred and sixty eight hours skydiving.

So it's as hard as it sounds. Guys, just a few more minutes. Everyone's focused on Rafa. People who have never been there, which is ninety nine point nine percent of human beings. Do you believe the IDF has to go in there if they want to defeat Hamas?

Because we hear that we gave them other suggestions. The Biden administration. Mike, begin. So Rafa is a very, you know, urbanized area with over one million people include the tunnel system. It's a very complex problem. Netanyahu was clear from the start that the objective here is the eradication of Hamas and the recovery of the hostages. They say eight thousand left two battalions. And I want Americans to put this into context.

If somebody came into your home, murdered half your family, took your daughter, you would do anything that was required to protect your family and get your loved ones back. What is shocking is that the Biden administration is saying, hey, we stand with Israel, but in the other side of the mouth is now withholding weapons that could possibly be utilized in in Rafa. So it's an inconsistent message. And at this point, you know, I think it said it on Fox and Friends a few weeks ago.

Netanyahu probably looks at Biden, says feckless, and we're going to do what we need to do to defend our nation and get our hostages back. And that's the bottom line. Glenn, do you have a do you have a sense of what those men will be face and women will be facing? Yeah, I mean, it is.

Should they go in? It is perhaps one of the more complicated military problems, let alone the religious, political, geographical and everything else on the back. And speaking very objectively, just as a military operation, if you have an enemy and you want to kill the enemy, there's only one way to do it. And that is to put men and women face to face with them and you kill them.

And that's it. So if you want to hold ground, you have to be on the ground. You know, in traditional infantry doctrine, the infantry is the only organization that can hold ground. You can't do it from the air.

You can't do it from the sea. You have to have people there physically holding that. And the IDF knows that, don't they? I mean, that is very military doctrine 101. You have to go in and muck it out. So if this is the objective they want, they have to go in.

Dan, 15 seconds. Why should we go see your documentary? I think it's good for America.

And I think every American should go see it. Triple seven. They said it couldn't be done. These guys did it.

LegacyExpeditions.com, New York City, Tampa, Austin, Dallas, Los Angeles. It'll be out there for everyone Memorial Day. Thanks so much, guys. Thanks, Brian. Thank you.