Murph: The Protector Page #5

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than his brother John.

So when he went into college

at 18 or 19,

John was eight or nine.

And he used to bring John

up to school with him

for about a week at a time.

And I would say to him,

"Why would you have

an eight-year-old with you?"

And he'd say,

"Because he's a chick magnet."

A lot of the times he was referred to

as Murph and that was...

he even tried to get that to stick

with us as his nickname.

Mike was very superstitious.

It was incredible.

Whenever it came to sport...

not so much in life, but in athletics.

And he would wear the same shirt

to play football in

without washing it.

That was him.

That's what he would do.

And he would say, "Well, if someone's

gonna have to tackle me,

they're gonna have to

get through the stink."

And so from that day forward,

he was known as Stinky

among our tight group of friends.

He really did love Penn State.

He had really good friends.

He had his home friends.

And everybody always

kept up with each other.

What more could you ask for?

He was happy.

I wasn't quite sure what his path was

gonna be when he went to Penn State,

but it was something

that was in his heart

and something

that he wanted to pursue.

And, you know,

I was very proud of him.

The kid was smarter

and more well-read

than anyone would ever know,

because it's not something

that he talked about or let on.

He was a prolific reader,

you know.

He read everything

that he could get his hands on.

But on his list of reading material

he said,

"Look, if you want to get me

something for Christmas,

there's this great book

I'd like called

"The Bear On the Other Side

of the Mountain,"

or "The Bear Over the Mountain."

We didn't put any stock...

it kind of... whew... over our heads.

Afterwards we find out,

"The Bear Over the Mountain"

was a story about the Russian

invasion into Afghanistan.

And it was almost like a clue

that we didn't pick up.

I thought he was gonna go

to law school, just because.

As far as we knew,

he was always gonna go to law school.

He had all these accolades,

the grades.

His dad's a lawyer.

That's what his dad wanted him to do.

And Mike, he had the grades.

To my knowledge, got into

U Penn Law School, Tennessee Law.

He didn't really,

like, talk about it much.

He started taking it to the next level.

He started training,

just because

he wanted to be in top shape

before he did it.

So clearly he was getting

prepared for something.

The SEALs... this is crazy,

you know.

It's like the elite of the elite.

And I didn't really, truly believe

that he was gonna do it.

Michael turns to me

and says, "Dad,"

he said, "you know,

we've been talking

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