In honor of Veterans Day, Megyn ended Monday’s show by paying tribute to the men and women who have served our country. “It is an important time to take a moment and just remember the sacrifice that our veterans have made for us,” she said.
Megyn has long-maintained that her interviews with veterans are among her most memorable and that is what she thinks back to on days like today. “We do a lot of interviews with veterans, and I am thinking of guys like Shawn Ryan who talked to us in May about his experience and just the trauma it can cause,” she shared. “I feel like the least the country can do on a day like this is stop and think about them – just because we have moved on from the wars doesn’t mean the wars have moved on from these guys who served us.”
In addition to her interview with Ryan, which you can watch in episode 802, Megyn also recalled her poignant conversations with retired Navy SEALs Marcus and Morgan Luttrell and Rob O’Neill.
Marcus and Morgan Luttrell
Back in episode 149 in August 2021 Megyn sat down with twin brothers and retired Navy SEALs Marcus and Morgan Luttrell. Marcus’ story of survival is detailed in the bestselling book and feature film Lone Survivor, but Morgan shared a lesser known story about what it was like to learn his brother had been found alive after being missing for six days in wake of a deadly Taliban ambush.
As Morgan explained, there were some 40 SEALs out looking for Marcus and his team when he was found. Morgan and his family piled “shoulder to shoulder” into his father’s “little bitty” bedroom when the phone rang. At first, they feared the worst because his dad answered “yes, sir,” “roger that,” and “understood” as he hung his head on the phone. “Everybody was crying around,” he recalled. “I’m sitting there staring at him.” But then the literal thumbs up came that Marcus was okay.
Soon after, someone went outside to alert the crowd that had gathered that Marcus was found alive. “I mean, it sounded like the Super Bowl,” Morgan said. But even amidst the joy there was still pain. “All my friends and family were celebrating the fact that they found my brother,” he shared. “But all the SEALs, Marines, Army, and everybody that started to come out and spend time with us, we were still very stoic because we’re down men.”
Marcus was the only survivor of the attack that killed three Navy SEALs. “Marcus Luttrell is always very clear that he wants the three guys who died in the mission with him… to be mentioned, so we salute today Lieutenant Michael Murphy and Petty Officers Danny Dietz and Matt Axelson and many others who died trying to find him.”
Rob O’Neill
Megyn also played a piece from her interview with Rob O’Neill, the U.S. Navy SEAL who shot Osama bin Laden. The two spoke back in episode 109 in May 2021 when The Megyn Kelly Show was an audio-only podcast, and Megyn said it remains “my favorite interview I have ever done.”
O’Neill shared a chilling story about the conversation he and his teammates had before deploying on that historic mission. As they prepared to leave, he said someone raised a question. “One of my guys said – because we accepted death, we’re gonna die – he said, ‘Don’t take this the wrong way because I’m 100 percent going… I just need to say it out loud: If we know we’re going to die, why are we going,’” he recalled.
That led to a powerful conversation amongst the group:
“We said, ‘Okay, well, we’re not going after bin Laden for the fame or the reward or the bravado. We are going after Osama bin Laden for the single mom who dropped her kids off at elementary school on a Tuesday, and 45 minutes later she jumped to her death out of a skyscraper because that was a better alternative than whatever the hell was going on inside at 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit. And her last gesture of human decency was holding her skirt as she jumped out of a building and murdered herself. She was never supposed to be in the fight. We’re supposed to be in the fight. That’s why we’re going.’”
Megyn said she still “gets emotional” listening back to that clip. “When you listen to that you just remember how small your whole life is, however big you may think it is,” she said. “The amount of sacrifice these guys go through, not just while they’re over there seeing their friends die and losing limbs too many times, but then when they come back and the readjustment.”
Ultimately, Megyn said it provides an important lesson in perspective. “Those are just a couple of examples of our best and bravest,” she concluded. “Those are the guys we think of today and try to remember how humble we must be when we think about our own lives.”
You can check out Megyn’s full analysis by tuning in to episode 941 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.