This Green Beret brought 4,000 soldiers home. Then fought to keep his daughter alive.
The Sean Berg interview on Heroic Stories
When Sean Berg talks, you listen. Not because he commands it, but because every word carries the weight of ten combat deployments, 30 years of service in Army Special Forces.
A recently retired Special Forces colonel and a diaconate candidate in the Diocese of Honolulu, Sean is not your average war hero. His story spans continents, battlefields, hospital wards, and the battleground of the human soul.
“I’m going to tell you a story about a man you’ve never heard of,” Sean told me. It was 2008 in eastern Afghanistan, in a volatile area called the Tagab Valley—a micro-Fallujah where bullets outnumbered prayers. Sean was in command of six Special Forces teams. When one of his most elite squads came under fire, he got the call every commander dreads: “Troops in contact. Two eagles down.”
One of those eagles was Staff Sergeant Andre—a dual citizen who had given up his South African passport for top secret clearance. Sean described him as one of the only men in the company who could outpace him on a run.
But that day, Andre took a PKM machine gun round under his armpit—a place no body armor covers. It was 50/50 whether he’d live the night. Sean made it to the hospital. Andre was unrecognizable—ashen, tubed, clinging to life. “He should’ve been dead. But he wasn’t. And he fought like hell.”
Twenty-six surgeries later, Andre came back. Not just alive—but unbroken. “The sheer refusal to give in. The reliance on brotherhood. He came back and wanted to run with me again—arm paralyzed, but heart on fire.”
After 30 years of war, Sean thought he’d seen the worst. He was wrong. Back home in Hawaii, one of his teenage daughters spiraled. Depression, substance abuse, self-harm... Sean came home from a trip to find out she had attempted suicide. And one day, was trying again.
“I blew through two locked doors and restrained my daughter to keep her alive. My kids had seen me wear the Green Beret. That day, they saw Green Beret Dad.”
What they didn’t see—what Sean could barely admit—was the soul-crushing fear inside. “I went to bed every night wondering: is tonight the night I lose her?”
The deeper truth emerged later. While Sean was deployed, his daughter had been raped by a middle school peer. And she had carried it all in silence.
“I couldn’t protect her. All the tools I had as a soldier were useless. I had to get help.” He and his wife spent their life savings on treatment. And his daughter—like Andre—fought her way back.
After a lifetime of answering the call, another one came. The military offered Sean command of a high-stakes operation in the most contested region on Earth: Taiwan. He’d earn prestige and awards if he pulled it off. But he knew what it would cost.
He sat with the decision. Weighed every angle. And chose his family. “I turned it down. Flatlined my career. I’m okay with that. Because I didn’t lose my marriage.”
Sometimes the most heroic act isn’t charging a hill. It’s staying home. Now, Sean’s mission is you.
Today, Sean is in formation for the diaconate. He speaks to men across Hawaii. He leads men’s fitness groups. He preaches a faith of fire and tenacity.
He’s lost nine brothers to suicide after they returned home. “When men lose their sense of mission, they collapse. Live with purpose, discipline, and gratitude. Don’t wait to be ready. Show up now.”
He trains men not just in the gym, but in the soul. Not just to be Catholic—but to be men that other men want to become.