Jariko Denman: Retired Army Ranger, Senior Content Production Manager at Black Rifle Coffee Company
Nov 02, 2022, 10:00 AM
From 15+ years as an Army Ranger to deploying in Iraq and Afghanistan 15 times, to becoming a film military advisor, and now Senior Content Production Manager at Black Rifle Coffee Company, this week’s Team Never Quit Podcast guest, Jariko Denman, has lived a very interesting life.
After 54 months of combat experience as part of a Joint Special Operations Task Force, Jariko speaks with Marcus about what it was like to be on the ground at HKIA during the American withdrawal from Afghanistan. While he has retired from active duty, Jariko still leads quite an adventure, such as joining with a team of guys who will be skydiving in each of the seven continents over seven days.
After 54 months of combat experience as part of a Joint Special Operations Task Force, Jariko speaks with Marcus about what it was like to be on the ground at HKIA during the American withdrawal from Afghanistan. While he has retired from active duty, Jariko still leads quite an adventure, such as joining with a team of guys who will be skydiving in each of the seven continents over seven days.
In this episode you will hear:
- Wherever something’s happening, I just don’t want to miss out.
- As a retired guy, I have a lot of freedom.
- My dad talked to me like a drill sergeant would talk to you, so I had a certain amount of bandwidth.
- Ranger school sucks, but it’s kind of a speed bump – you just gotta do this to move to the next level.
- In a 90-day rotation, we’d do 120 raids. We’re locusts. We just come in and destroy.
- When I got out, I never really decided to do anything. I just rode the wave.
- As a technical advisor for film, I have the freedom to say, “Screw your movie. I’m not gonna be a part of it.”
- If there were 2 job offers and 1 was a rad action movie and 1 was a true story, I’d do the rad action movie because it’s more fun. A true story takes the creativity out of it.
- I didn’t plan on going to Afghanistan for the shit show withdrawal.
- My function turned into me getting to the gate and plucking as many people out as I could.
- I had to ask myself: What am I doing here?” Being there in a whole different context was so weird.
- Coming up soon, me and a team of guys are skydiving in each of the seven continents in seven days.