Hey guys, it's Jack. I just wanted to talk to you today about a way that you can help support the podcast if you're not already to support the channel is to become a Patreon member. So we have Patreon memberships that start at just five dollars a month, and when you sign up, you get access to all of our episodes add free. That's the big bonus for
that. I mean, we also do some Patreon bonus episodes for our subscribers, but this is the biggest and best way that you can support the Teamhouse channel and podcast if you'd like to, and we really appreciate that, So go and check us out at patreon dot com. Slash The Teamhouse, Special Operations, cobert Os ASB and I The Team House with Your Hopes, Jack Murphy and David bark. Hey, everyone, welcome to the episode two hundred and eighty seven of The Team House. I'm Jack here with Dave and our
guest on tonight's show. We're really happy to have here in studio, Dave Fielding. He's the author of Into the Darkness. Dave served in First Special Forces Group and then he went on to be an Army intelligence officer. All kinds of fun stories and some not so fun, but also a lot of good ones. So thank you for coming in. Man. We're really happy to have you here tonight. Thank you so much for having me. Guys, Like, seriously, this is this is a really big opportunity. See
that. That's how heavy the book is. It might be thin, but you know it's knocking stuff over the way it is knocked over our coffee. Yeah, exactly, can't do that. But no, seriously, really great to be here, and just thank you so much for having me and help me get that message out there. Well. And I mean you went above and beyond too by comparison to some of our other guests. I mean I got pages of handwritten notes that you gave me with little pps and wee weis
drawn in the margins. Now I'm just kidding about that part. But uh so let's let's jump into it man and start. You want to do the ad up first, Okay? All right, Hey, so our sponsor tonight, uh Private Internet Access VPN p I a VPN. If you guys aren't using a VPN by now, I don't know what to tell you. Not only are VPNs good for conducting criminal activity, which none of you should be doing. But they're also good for protecting your private your privacy and your online
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protect your information. So so check about PIVPN and back to you, Jack and Dave and me so also Dave. So let's let's jump a little bit into where you know, we'll start your story from the beginning actually going way back to your grandpa. And I know he had an interesting military history. I mean, can you tell us a little bit about your family history.
Absolutely, I'd love to. Uh So. My grandfather originally emigrated over from Great Britain when he was about four years old and settled in the Boston area. We come from a long line of bricklayers from Birmingham area, which is I like to joke with my father and say that we're really good at manual labor. I kind of transcended, it transcends well into special operations, you know. But so but his story begins in the sometime in the nineteen thirties.
He joins the Marine Corps and he was first airborne Marine Group. He was a tail gunner on the back of the plane and he served in the Philippines. But at that time around by the time he got out, the America was the only only it was going to war to help out World War two. So he went up to Canada and enlisted in the Royal Air Force at the time, and they because of his airborne, his Marine Corps airborne experience, they made him an officer and he was a navigator on a Lancaster
airplane. And so it's kind of cool because he was in one of the first special operation units that the British had. He was in the Pathfinder Group. So their job was they would fly far ahead of all the bombers and basically paint the targets for the bombers behind them, find the factories, find you know, the sensitive sites, the heavy water factories, all these things, you know, thousands of bombers to come in and drop arms on.
He was shot down in February nineteen forty four and he was the only man that survived. He saved his own life by parachuting out of the plane. But to make matters worse and the madness that happened, he lost his boots. His boots got blown off, and so he's running around evading capture for about two weeks. Where was this that he got shot down? I think it was on he was coming back. He was on return from a mission
from Frankfurt is where I think is where he got shot down. I don't know where he ended up on the map of Germany, to be honest, but I behind enemy lines, definitely behind enemy lines, Like yeah, And it was kind of cool because, like one of the stories that he told my father and my father told me was when he was evading, he came up to a bridge and there was like some a German century and he sat
there and waited. He's like, I know, this guy's got to take a piss at some point, and it's just it's just kind of funny, like you know, in the moment, like you know, to see that thinking, to hear that thinking, right, and then later in life, you know, going through se your school and all the other stuff, and the Special Forces qualification course, it's you know, to hear you know,
think of those things too. You know, learning from him, but he ends up getting captured and then they he did a death march through I think they were bringing him to stalog loof three when they marched him, and what kept him going was he saw a horse and buggy carriage, but the horses were long gone, but it was two. It was an older woman and a man frozen to death in it. And he just said, oh,
I'm gonna keep moving man, I gotta keep moving, right. And by the time he showed up to stalog three, uh, they put him right in the infirmary because they were gonna amputate his legs due to frostbite. Luckily, the German doctor just saved his legs. But also while he was in the infirmary, the Great Escape happened. And so afterwards, while he was recovering, he was helping working on the second set of tunnels. So his job was he'd be sitting in his little chair, can't move and he would
close the book and they would stop working on the tunnels. Right, So it's really so he helped out with the Steacraft. Yeah, so he helped out the Steve the Queen movie. So if you've seen the Steven, some of these things that you know, a lot of those are his stories too, and later on he was a pow for eighteen months when he was in that camp. But you know, it's it's funny. I look at him and thank god they never took his legs. They saved his legs as he
run. He was running marathons well into his sixties. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Jack Fielding, the tough, tough dude. You know, yeah,
when when your grandpa was liberated from the camp. I'm interested in kind of how that took place because I recently read Sage's memoir, who was in the OSS and one of the founders the Daddy's of Special Forces, and he actually fell in with the Soviets. The Soviets were moving in and he ended up with this bizarre journey through Soviet Russia and eventually getting out through Odessa.
What was your grandpa's experience, Like, I know that I don't know all the details, but I know he was he was liberated by the Russians, and then that that story kind of got lost towards the EBB and flow of time. You know, Yeah, but I wonder if he crossed paths with
Jerry, And you know, it's they're all so similar. M yeah, I know, and it's like it's it's so crazy because you know, it was at first, at first my grandmother got a letter that he was k I A. And then three four, six months, like I don't know how long, but it was several months later of Red Cross, he got a red she got a Red Cross message that he was alive. So keep to mind that he was all his family was back in Boston, nass while you know, he was serving in the in the in the British Mility or
the RAF, the Royal Air Force. So you know, it was like obviously it was probably how do we track this person out? So terrible. I mean imagine thinking your husband's dead for three months and yeah yeah, and then all of a sudden, out of no, you know, he's alive. Like I mean, it's I mean, thank god he is. I want to be here today. Yeah right, wow. So your your grandpa, I mean probably he went through Odessa also to get out of there and
get repatriated, I would imagine. But what was then the rest of like your family history from then on, I mean obviously your parents and then you come along. Yeah, yeah, definitely. So it was it was really interesting because you know, my grandfather, he when he was raising my dad, he would bring him up to the White Mountains in New Hampshire and you know, do tough hikes, do stuff outside, very outdoorsy, you know type stuff, and so it was it kind of almost became came like a
family rite of passage, so to speak. And so I definitely remember the first hard thing that I did, you know, growing up with tales of my grandfather, because he passed away when I was very young, like two or three, and so everything I you know, it's all living through you know, word of malt through my father and his brothers and sisters and stuff
like that. And so but I remember I was, you know, living like it was a larger than life legacy for me, and it was important to me to sort of he was always a role model for me, even in death. I mean, he was such a strong figure at that absolutely, and it's like just the story I told you, it's like holy crap, you know, but he you know, you take my father up in
the White Mountains. And so my father made it a point when I was very young to take me up there, and I remember we did Mount Lafayette, which is about a nine mile loop and I was like eight, I think I was eight years old, eight years old, and I had my little eastpac backpack on and uh and I had Tiva shoes on. Not exactly something that you want to be doing a long hike in the White Mountains,
but it was in the summertime. But we got to the top and the weather got bad and we got caught in a miststorm and I had no idea wasn't any danger at all, but like, you know, my father's behind me, and he's like he's hanging on the backpack and like hanging on a dear life while like I'm trying not to blow off the ridge, right, and I'm like this is fun. Yeah, you know. So but you know at the time, I was like like flapping in the wind, like yeah, wait. But you know, I was like, I'm finishing this
hike, you know, eight year old me. He's like, I'm finishing this hike. I'm doing it for Grandpa, you know, and it's like and so it was his legacy was made me always wanted to do hard things, you know, reach for the stars, you know kind of, and it kind of led me into going into boy Scouts. I found you know, I found out. I was like, oh, wait, you guys go hike in the mountains and you guys camp at elevation and all this other stuff. So I not becoming an eagle scout, but it was really good
for me. I remember the first overnight I did and boy Scouts, I was like twelve eleven or twelve was winter survival, right, and probably I think like a lot of the the character building that happened that night was being prepared, you know, with the right gear. Pretty much everyone heard my teeth chattering like across a woodline. Yeah, you know, I didn't have a ground pad, didn't have an it didn't have a winter bag, yeah, winter sleeping bag. And so I was like, oh, I'm never
getting caught my pants down again. So it was a lot of doing these these things like and and just going up to the White Mountains all the time and having these challenging experiences, you know, in thinking about, you know, what my grandfather stood for and how he was as an individual, you know, and it kind of shaped who I am, yeah, you know, and shaped kind of this sort of mentality of like you know, what's reach you know, let's do hard things, you know, hard things build
character. And yeah, so it was like pretty cool and yeah that led I mean at a certain point in your life as a young man, you have what exactly was it a summer camp at Norwich? Oh, thank you for bringing that up. So it was a weekend camparee they had at Norch University. So Norch University is a military college up in Vermont, and it is not known for its acceptance rate. It's known for its attrition rate.
And you know they'll take you as you are, right, but it's very difficult to want to stay there, you know, for you not only you're dealing with adjusting, you know, to be you know, in a in a military environment doing cadet land stuff, but also adjusting to the weather up there too. You know, it's like negative thirty in the month of January typically. And but so I was on this when I was in my boy Scout troupe. I went to a camparee and I remember the the early in
the morning, five am. They wake us up with the howitzer and the cadets are screaming and yelling. They're like get out of bed, get the fuck out of bed, right, and they're like kicking the tents and they're playing Hell's Bells from ac DC and on the loud speaker, and they're yelling at us, and in the midst of all the chaos, I'm looking around with this huge smile on my face, like this is fucking awesome. And I remember later on, I'm like, is this how it is every day?
They're like yeah, And I'll just say this, it was the only college I applied to. Was it like that every day? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, it was like that every day. And and god forbid, if you left your door unlocked to your room, you know, you come back with you know everything, we call it, you get it hurricaned, you know, turn upside down. So you know, it was it definitely prepared me for, you know, a life in the military, because you know, by the time I, you know, fast years later, I
met basic training. There's the penises. I knew they would be in here. Yeah, P and I, No, there's three of them, and there's there's stuff shooting. Yeah, I think P and I is the And then you, uh, you get corrupted at a certain point by Master Sergeant Shane Bailey. I love Master and Shane Bailey corrupted in a good way, very good corruption. So here's another mentor or another role model to to to
live up to. And uh. So I was a freshman at Norwich and I was like second semester and I go to my biology class and no one sat next to this guy. And he's in BDUs. This is back when he still wore BDU's right before the ECUs and stuff like that. And he had his power tower right you know, long tab Special Forces Ranger Airborne. And no one else sat next to him, and I was like, all right, cool, I'll sit next to him. And so I sit down next to him and I look at him and go special Forces, huh pretty
bad as I didn't know what to say. You know, I'm like eighteen nineteen years old. I'm trying to build report this guy. I have no idea, but so me and him end up being he's like my lab partner, you know, my buddy through biology. I remember we were sitting there. I was trying to use a scalpel and he pulls out his gerber right and he flicked, you know, flick of the wrist. He starts dissecting that frog like a like a surgeon. I don't know if he was an
eighteen delta or not but hilarious. But he's just who he was. Yeah, And he was in a five to one for a long time Fifth Group guy, and then he retired in two thousand and seven and then went on. I think he's a he's a game warning now enjoying like cool, solid, awesome dude. But every single one of us that was at Norwich at that time frame that was exposed to him, we all ended up becoming Green Berace in one shape or the other. I think there was a guy I
went to selection with just happenstance ran into that. I went to Norwich with, you know, same class here, found out that there, you know, and it was it was really funny because I was just running into guys from Norwich, and you know, we all signed up for the same thing. You know, we wanted to be like shame man, you know, like just cool, calm and collective under an old sarge who knows everything about
everything, right, one of those kind of guys. Absolutely, yeah, very like very quiet, you know, e pity me quiet professional this guy and and so, and you know, coming from Fifth Group, you know at that time, you know he's done multiple tours over in Afghanistan and probably Iraq at the same time. So it's just he was a real deal and
we were all like, I want to be you, you know. Okay, So then then you fucked up and you went into the civilian life and came and hung out here in New York City, uh, living your bohemian lifestyle. You heard it was all hookers and blow and you were in. Yeah, it's like, oh man, I'm in you know, no, but yeah, that was it. I I did fuck up, you know, and I think of like, so I had some friends much older than me, you know, I knew since I was a very young kid.
And they were working in Manhattan. One was working in finance, the other was working in tech advertising, tech type stuff. And they're like, Dave, what are you doing? Like the war is going to be over by the time you get over there, right, They like, just come to
New York make some money. And I was like all right, And like I was coming down here to visit them, and I was like, all right, this is cool, you know, going down drinking and uh, you know East Village all that stuff, like even when I was in college,
coming down there and visit them. So I was like, all right, maybe I'll try it so my friend he got me a job at an advertising agency, night agency, and I was working on I was a project manager and I was working on like Stay Later nine West Mark Girl makeup, like you know what I mean. I'm doing like the stuff that changes,
stuff that changes lives. And I'm like, you come from doing hard stuff in Norwich hard, you know, hard stuff in high school, all that stuff to this right, and I think, like the Facebook was starting to become a thing then. And so around that time, I was working for about a year year and a half, and all my buddies were graduating eye Infantry Officer basic course, graduating range of school and taking platoons and going to Iraq and Afghanistan. And I'm like, I'm doing makeup and women's shoes,
like you know what I mean. And it was a good job, I can't knock it, but it wasn't true to who I was. And you know where I realized that was. I went down to ground zero. I wasn't too far from ground zero from where my office was, but I went down there and it was still two giant holes in the ground and they had the they had the chain link fence around the tarp around it and you can kind of peering there and pulling it up, but the whole sight of the
whole thing I started. I just broke down, broke down, and I had a friend she was like, are you okay, Pat, you know, and and me like, you know, trying not to cry and everything and doing like you know, was quintessential masculine moves, you know, which we'll get into later, you know, as we talk about this book and everything. But I went home that night and I looked at myself in the mirror, and I was like, what the fuck are we doing here,
dude? What do we do? This isn't true to who we are, Like you're you're a fucking fielding man, you know, think about your grandfather, right, And and I remember I bought Chosen Soldier by Dick Couch and Masters a Chaos by Linda Robinson, and I was like all right. And then that's how I found out about the eighteen X ray program. I was like, all right, fuck this, I'm doing it. And then I quit my job. I started pting a lot, doing you know, rocking.
But you know, I went down to the recruitment office and I said, give me a fucking eighteen X ray contract. I will not take anything else. Like I was like, okay, cool right here. Yeah, you know, whereas like people going there like I don't know what I'm doing in my life, Like you know, I was at that point. I was twenty four years old, you know, a lot older being eighteen an old man. Yeah, yeah, totally, and I was like, no, this is what I wanted do, Like, this is where I know
I belong. So for the folks out there who don't know, the eighteen X ray program is, you know, like the RASP program or the I can't remember the name of the contract, but anyway, what it allows is for recruits to go to the Army sign a contract and it puts you into the Special Forces pipeline and if you pass all the training, you go right into Special Forces. So you go to Infantry Basic Training, Airborne School, the beloved SOPSY course to prepare you for SFAs, and then to Special Forces
selection. Well, now you're in the military. I mean, what's it like for you? I mean, did you enjoy it? Was it what you wanted it to be? Definitely was. Yeah. It was the thing that blew my mind is that I came from working eighty one hundred hour weeks. And granted, we're you know, in training a lot, and you know it's a grind, but I was like, oh crap, I get weekends off, not answering emails. I don't have clients bother me. I
don't, you know. And it's like you're cut loose on Friday, you know, after training, you know, if you're not like in a small unit tactics or see your school or any of that. But like you're free to your own advices. And I was like, oh wow, this is
great. And so for me it was. I mean, granted, there was a lot of a lot of fun, fun, interesting things that happened, you know, it was, you know, like the stuff I did at Norwich, you know when they were cadet, you know, cadets messing with you as a recruit at Norwich completely fails in comparison to what Special Forces is like. But what year did you go to SAPSEA and selection twenty ten?
Okay? And I think I was in this October class of twenty ten, which was great because it wasn't too hot, it wasn't too cold, but I still had a cross scuba road quite a bit turned the land a star course, but I think probably, you know, come to think of it, a lot of the we were messed with so much as X rays that when the Act of duty guys that got selected showed up to training, you know, they were expecting more of a like a regular army experience,
like they're gonna show up, they give them their hours and and et cetera. No gang, this is Special Forces. And I remember one of my favorite moments in the Q course was you go to something called Common Leader Training, which was like back back in the day, it was like uh e
five course. It became the Warrior Leaders Course course, and then Advanced Leaders course and then who knows, they probably the alphabet soup of acronyms, but yeah, and so it was I remember we were at that that w l C a l C mix they call c LT, and really in reality it was Selection Part two. And and this time we had active duty guys with us, you know, because mostly it was just all of our X ray
buddies. We were all together, and you know, a couple of active duty guys that were with us, and and they had no idea what they were in for, you know, So we show up to Camp McCall, you know, we do a layout on in the airfield and then we do what is called the trail tears, and yeah, you're walking with all your ship and the active duty guys are going there's no way they can do this, and like we're all like, oh but wait, it's gonna get worse.
Guice, you don't know. And then I remember a good buddy of mine, nor friend, he was ahead of me in the Q course, Frank Armison. He saw me doing the Burpie mile around the call with our gear right, and so we were like, you had to throw your gear, do a burpie long jump, pick up your gear, throw your gearn a burpee pump jump. And it was really funny at the at the end of that, Eli Monroe, he was a third group team sergeant, great fucking dude, right, Southern gentleman too, you know, thick draw and
thick cent, our ass accent. He pulled us in. He's like, oh, y'all think this is over. I was like, we have a swamp rock tonight, gentlemen. And I'm like and it reminded me when I was a kid, and you know, being in boy Scouts and doing hard things. When the going got tough, I just doubled down and with a big old shitty ing grin on my face, right, And so I was like, all right, sweet, I'm gonna survive this, you know.
And that was like kind of the eternal dialogue I had in myself. So all the active duty guys are going, no way, they can't do that. There's so many there's only so many hours in the day they can fuck with us. There's no way they have to give us sleep, blah blah blah. And I'm just kind of sitting there like, Okay, denial is a hell of a drug. Yeah, exactly, all right, you stick with that. And so we're in these like shitty trailers they have us in.
It's just like assholes and elbows in there, right, and you got two bunks wallwock or everything, right. I remember I went back. I like stracked my rock man, you know, had forty five dry in it, water tight, you know, or as best waterproof as possible, and no shit. Like around twelve, right after midnight, Eli Monroe kicks in the back door of this trailer and he's dreaming, this is fucking happening.
It's fucking happen. And I remember he pointed at me because I had I was just laughing, right, and he's like, what the fuck are you laughing at? And he's like kicking kids bunks right, and he's like get it. Fifteen minutes outside forty five dry and the active duty kids that weren't prepared, they were like fuck fuck fuck right, And I just jumped up, threw my stuff on, put my rock, you know, check out
my other buddies. It's like, you're good, good to good, all right, cool, And we were outside and uh and it was we lost a lot of dudes. Yeah, we lost a lot of dudes that night, I'll say that. And it was just so funny. Before we even started the ruck, they took us a little pond and it was like they
were all baped. They would check our rock first for weight, and then they would daptize us in the pond and then we'd be we'd started the ruck soaking what And you just can't help but laugh of how bad the situation is. Yeah, you're just like the only way out, the only way out is through many and that is probably one, you know, one of my core memories from the Q course. And you uh were the honor grad from the eighteen ECHO course the Special Forces Communications sergeant training, tell us about,
you know, you get assigned to first Group ODAE. Tell us about your first real Special Forces experience, showing up on your team, meeting your team sergeant. So I didn't even my first experience. I was still at BRAG at the time, and it was I want to say, September fifth, September fifth, twenty twelve, and I'm just sitting waiting around for orders,
right or I had my orders to go to Oke. But you know, when you go outside the US, there's all these wickets, you have to meet, paperwork, you're you know, bureaucracy wise, right, So I was like doing all that to try to get out, get out there. I have an email from the ODA eleven eleven team sergeant and he says, hey, we just lost a dude, Kia September first. You're coming this
team, you better be fucking ready, dude. Right, Well, he didn't say dude, that's a very bostome thing, but like, you know, and I remember I was sitting in I was sitting in the barracks and I got that email and I was like, oh god, I went out and I ran five miles. I ran down our dents. You know.
It was about like two and a half out two and a half back, and I like ran my ass off, right, you know, I was like, holy shit, and you know the gentleman was Staff Star Jeremy Border and I had no idea but the oda that I was going to just got off the commando mission in Afghanistan. And so for I'm sure you guys had had people on here and for the audience, is that doing the commando mission in Afghanistan? That was some real shit. You know, you were you
were on four or five you know, four day off cycles. You're going out doing a raid, resetting, getting reinserted, doing another raid, you know, doing s s all that other stuff, right, and just stops, you know, ops keep on rolling. They did that for six months, and Jeremy was the heart of the team. He really was the heart of team. He was the eighteen Bravo. But really he was the kind of you know, the shadow government of the team. Not that he was
he was. Yeah, you know, all the guys listening and respected him, and it's it's really it's really amazing because you know, you think like rank has anything to do with it, you know, him being a staff sergeant, but no, he was just a very competent warrior, very competent his craft, you know in terms of you know, leading that team from the you know, being the eighteen Bravo weapons and tactics, dodent, the commit you know, direct action raids, you know. So it's uh,
you know, he was a driving force of the team. And so I showed up to the ODA, and I showed up to the first battalion with like there was like fifteen of us bucks Sergeant Cherry eighteen x ray. It's just the you know, lower than ponds come right, and you know, you just got to keep your mouth shut and just pray to you know, be good at your job. And that's it, right, You're there to
learn. And so the Q course is humbling enough as it is. Going to a team is even more humbling because now I'm with warriors, not just warriors you know that are far removed guys that are hot out of theater right still dealing with the loss of a great friend loss. And and it was you know for us, luckily, you know, they all understand we were new guys, and so you know, they took us all under our wing. But you know, for the most part, like a few months after
that what. We lost a lot of senior guys and then you know it was up to us, you know, all the new guys on the team. But I had I like to eate equate my leadership at the time to the Big Three and the Celtics you know ray L and KG and Paul Pierce like that in the day, you know, so you know throw you know, the Boston roots thing. But you know, our warrant, our team leader and our team sergeant were fucking awesome dudes at that time, and they
understood. They were like and they were all, you know, multiple combat deployments. They knew what we needed to do to be great. And the good thing about where we were at is that we didn't have any bad habits. You know, it was only up from there and and so it you know, we had a you know, growing into this role and and watching me go from new guy to senior guy. Because I remember the first as soon as I showed up, I was like slated to go to training.
They sent me to a sawt and I was like, huh and that was a that was a kick in the nuts. Do you want to do you want to tell people what a saw is? Uh, it's uh, a saw. It is like basically advanced WRECKI course, it's an advanced reconnaissance course, right, teaches you a lot of exposes you to a lot of tools of the trade. You know, how do you get cold target reconnaissance?
You know through you know, different means, and so you do a lot of like urban hindsight, urban hindsights, you know, moving you know, moving in an urban environment, blending in. So it was a very cool course for me to get exposed to early on. But uh, it was very neat because then I remember we go to Talisman Saber and we were the pilot team. So Talisman Saber is a big exercise that happens in Australia every year, and we was for us. It was an unconventional warfare exercise and
my team was tasked to be the pilot team. So we had to do split team offs and then we would infill and for us, we were infilling
the outback. But this is what I love about this. The story is that we're sitting in the team room and guys were talking about punting koalas right, and my team, you know, my grizzled teams Arge and Russ Banister, he turns around and he's like he's like, oh yeah, He's like, you know what that Kuala has focus and determination, right, and it's like he wasn't fucking kidding, right, and you want to talk like so
we in Phil, we you know, we do our job. We get the follow on Oda's and and you know we're all high five and on the X split team ops and you know we're X fillin. Our half of the team's X Villain and and russes with me and the warrant our warrant officer Cliff right and and I guess we were kind of the more chill half of the team, you know, because they were the old timers, whereas the other half of the team had the team leader, and you know he was a
hard charger, right, So you know, but we're X Villain. And I remember the eighteen Bravo he's coming up on the on a creek. Oh wait, I got a caveat this we before we even started the exercise, the sas, the Australian Sas, they give us a brief and they're going through all the floor and fun right because everything is poisonous there, Everything is
poisonous. For these are the plants that can kill you. The faun is that these are all the animals, right, And Russ is sitting in front of us, and we're kind of all like sitting back and like this essays. Guy is like, yeah, you don't want to get bit by this bugger. You're fucked right. And and here was the thing. Most of the stuff would kill you in fifteen minutes and mat of fact was forty five minutes out. Yeah, So like it was like the real thing was don't
get bit, right or don't get hurt. And I remember he pulls up this slide and it was this monstrosity and he's like, this is the bird eating spider. And Russ he turns around, looks at us, he goes,
motherfucker, is I told you bird eating spider? And I remember, you know, we're X fillin and we we were on foot and we had to like meet make our link up point to get picked up and you know, end of exercise or whatever, and we're Russ's thing was like, we're not getting wet whatever we do, right, And you know this was his like last year on a team, you know, right, and you know salty yeah, yeah, retirement type of ship. So it's just like you
know, we're all like yeah, like yes, russ Ussan. That was our nickname from Russ Sussan, right, And and so we're going through this dry river bed and we're trying to find it like good pot part to jump across, and and no ship like the SAS is like there's no crocs that far inland and now back where we were, okay, all right, dude, Yeah I took that word too strongly. But I'm in the back, I'm rear security, and we're in a file. We find this like perfectly
opportune spot to jump across. Well, just so happens that the entirety of nature is also crossing that spot, so it attracts and predators yea, and no shit, Like you know, it's at night time and I got my nods on and like I see this thing like straight out of National Geographic like just start coming like here's us rustle and the leaves and it comes up and it was like a leather bag floating coming up. And the point man is Greg and I'm like Greg crok and he turns around he goes what I'm like,
crook fucking crock it out. And before I knew it. He was behind me. And then Russ is like, let's get the fuck out of here, right, we ran and just a bunch of city slickers, dude, like you know, and we didn't you know, we didn't have any We didn't even have sim rounds. You know. We're busting through the outback with like you know, wild boar, crocodiles, yeah, and goddamn bird eating spiders which deserve to be shot on site, you know, like and
with nothing. And I remember me and the senior Charlie, we take point and we're coming up on you know, we move around, get up, we're going through some brush getting out of there, and uh some pheasants just like get startled and go and see Charlie falls ass over tea kettle on me
and everyone in the back is like what the fuck was that? Right, and we're just super spooked and like it was just so damn funny man, you know, and and just ship like that like you can't, you know, you really can't make up, and like I love I love ship like that on an od a man, Like you know, it's you're all just going through that. It doesn't matter how, you know, how grizz how much of a grizzle combat veteran you are. Yeah, you know, we
all have our limitations, you know. And it's like it's not even that, it's just like anything in that in that in that bush could kill you. Yeah. Yeah, So let's let's talk about oe F P. And as I'm reading this, you know Danny Pomona, Yes, I know, dude, he's a good guy, very good. Yeah. I've hung out with him out at uh uh can't make say say, uh huh yeah Fort MC's I SI man. Yeah, that's the heart of Filipino Special Forces.
Yeah, it's like it's like their equivalent Fort Bragg or quote unquote Fort Liberty. Yeah, he's a nice guy. I owe him a Starbucks frappuccino. He will probably hold me to that the next time I see him. At the time when I knew him, he was a colonel and then he I think he retired as a three star Yeah, in General solcom Commander in twenty nineteen. And so for the audience, Danny Pomonig is basically a legend in the Filipino Special Forces community. He is known as the hero Zamba Wanga so
in Zambawanga. At the time, he was a colonel of their Tier one unit and he basically there was three hundred Abusai F fighters. It was a mix. You know, in the Philippines you have all these different terrorist groups, these offshoots, but this one they assaulted and sieged the city of Zambawanga, these three hundred fighters, and they just spread out and they were killing people, burning shit down, terrorizing everything, trying to kill armed forces of
Philippine soldiers, et cetera. Right, and him and his him and his crew. They fought for several several days, and I remember one of the biggest things he said to I think it was President Aquino at the time, it was the President of the Philippines, and he said that all I He's like, they've been fighting for days at this point, fighting like dogs. And there was Odia's there was you know, oh YFP was there supporting them. And in ways that they you know, they could with IR et cetera.
You know, we're in the Philippines, were very limited and you know, they didn't want us going out and getting in gun fights, even though we could definitely make a difference. But at that time, so he he said to President Keno, he goes, Sir my men just need a couple of hours of sleep and then we'll be good to go. And literally like cause they were they were like at the bargaining table with them almost and it
was like, no, we're going to continue mission. And that's like one of the things I love about Andy Pomonaga is atte he's I mean, like us, understands that the mission is the most important thing. Even when odds are against you, it doesn't matter. And so they pushed through. They end up being victorious. They end up killing a lot of those you know guys. So did you ever meet White Reaction commander named Ted. Probably. Ted's a really cool guy and were some of his Actually Ted was very reserved
when I spoke to him about what he did. But some of his lieutenants told me they were lieutenants at the time, tell me stories about Ted taking them into Zambo and like we're gonna put our talk right there in that abandoned schoolhouse, like right in the middle of the battle, and like they go up there, take it by force. He sets up the field headquarters there
and they fought for like days out of that place. Hardcore guys. So one of his lieutenants I worked extensively with on that deployment was Lieutenant Salazar and I probably you probably know that name. Yeah yeah, and uh great dude, you know, great dude, but really good. Yeah yeah, and and and you know here, you know, it's funny because like OEFP,
you know, we're I don't have Afghanistana, I have Iraq. This is like my first quote unquote combats apployment, right, and and so there's a lot of you know, you're not that confident, right, you just don't you know, you're you're insecure, right, You're like here on the sure And I was the guy. I was on this counter terrorism Liaison Coordination element,
so I was doing the combat ops. Everybody was. It was like for the rest of the company, it was like an extended training, right, you know, extended training working with the hosts, advising, assisting, and so you know, me, we're going after Marwan. We're going you know, the first off I did, we were going after PASSI Usman. They deployed me early from OK two weeks early, so I could we could
do the handover with the ODEA that was there. But also you know, I get my chops around me with you know, working with the host nation and just be like doing a lot. You know, we're going in, We're going after Uzmann. Okay, cool. You know me, I was a you know, e six at the time, and I'm like holy shit and not knowing much. But you know, it's been most surrounded by about six hundred mill fighters like like probably you know, if something goes wrong,
it's gonna be bad. Yeah, right, type of thing. So that that deployment was much lower intensity than you know, what my friends were doing, you know in fifth Group and third Group and seventh Group going at rotations in Afghanistan everything, because I that's still some hardcore stuff that you know, even just doing liaison stuff. I mean, the Marwan thing was a disaster.
It was, and I definitely want to talk about that later. But like, you know, one of the big like the one of the ops where and this is what I really like talking about, like what it means to be a Green Beret, and especially a first group green Beret is you know, you're not doing something you're doing it's by with and through, by with and through you know, with host nation, whether it's a gorilla force. You know, all those things that we learned Robin stage. They all
apply and so I think of like I'm sitting there. So we it was Patty Cool, right, and we were on Holo and there was two German kidnap victims among several other kidnap victims. And it was offshoot of ABUSAF group run by Sawa John and I think like loosely Sahiron all these names might be familiar to you, you know type of thing. And those guys were like the Hollo Boss, Busy Lawn, Tawi Tawi offshoot of offshoot of Abusaf group.
And and so they had these kidnap victims and you know, Danny, Danny and the boys Ford deployed and we were me and my eighteen Delta were waiting on air to get out there. And they ended up they ended up losing fifteen guys to a friendly FI And now, yeah, they were about one kilometer selth offset from the ABUSA F base and the you know, it turns out that they weren't they weren't leveling the bubbles on the one twenties. You know that the smoke that was running the pit wasn't level in the bubbles.
You know, I sent the jay Tack over there, who was There was also an m saw team that was working there too, And so we show up and you want to talk about some loss of rapport at this point. Yeah, And I remember me and him are sitting in this were those American one twenties or Filipino one twenties, Filipino one twenties. Okay, thank you for so for For people who don't know, we talk about the mortar, the one twenty mortars and and you know, level in the bubbles is
just like getting them make sure they're set and centered. Every every single the bubbles aren't level, the rounds are going the round, the rounds aren't going where you think they're going. Yeah, thank you, Yeah, yeah, I mean but basically that's what it is. And and they were a k one kilometer off target. That's pretty significant massively, and and all it was
was one round. One round came right into their little talk that they had that me and the eighteen Delta were going to afford deploy to right to help them run their opera, help them run their raid on the camp. And so and I just think I remember looking at eighteen Delta, I was like, we could have been dead, you know, and luckily, like air, you know, like us, they did at that time. Yeah, you know so, but you know, here I am. We're down half
a company now half a company of dudes. And you know, uh, I think it was ten Moon in action five K I A. And and Danny's like, dude, I'm pulling out. And you know, I had orders from the task force commander. He was like, this shit's happening. Make this happen, right, And and also he was like, I think it was Colonel Warman at the time, or it might I forget who it was, but he was like, whatever, you need to make this happen. We got you right type of thing. And it was great because I,
you know, I had leadership, buying, et cetera. But so sitting with I'm sitting with Danny. We're in this open air concrete building in the jungle drinking I Parador light, which is the drink of not saying meggs, not saying MiGs, but Imperador light is this Filipino brandy is the drink of course, drink of choice by the Light Reaction battalions. Right, So you're drinking it. You know that's a report there. You got to drink
that. And so you know, I'm sitting there and we're sipping on We're sipping on the Imperador light and and I'm like, so, you know, tell me what's going on. He's like, we're pulling out. I'm like, well, why, you know, not simply you know, not gonna just sit there and be like, okay, cool, all right, we'll beat you back, mana type of thing. No, like, you know, make this happen, man, you know, make mission. And he goes to me, and he like leans in and he's like, I can't
stand to tell another mother and father that their son is dead. And here I am Cherry six right, first apployment, and I'm trying to, you know, understand this guy, you know. And and I sit there for a second and I said, do you remember what you said to the President of the Philippines. I just need my men, just need a few hours of sleep. And we're getting right back after it. I was like, whatever you need, you know, we're going to support you, Metavac everything
that was. And he's like he's sitting there, he's thinking about it. Me and him are going back and forth, you know. And all I did was I just reminded of who he was, and you know, I'm like you know what, Danny, we're guys, We're all about the mission. If we pull out on this mission, those guys died in vain for nothing, you know, to a friendly fire incident, and I'm pretty sure most of your men want to live up to that. And remember he kind of like sat there and thinking, he goes, all right, I need
two more companies. I'm like, whatever takes, you know, and then we continued mission, you know, with it until we couldn't anymore, you know, But it was really interesting that, you know, that's appointment for me was a lot of the human side of things. And and I think of like when you're a Green Beret, you're this is a lot of the stuff that you do, you know, not not You're not always going to
be kicking in the door, you know. Hey, granted we all set up to do mac v saug stuff, you know, Jawbreaker, jew yet all these all these really cool, you know, storied things of unconventional warfare. So was this the mass count incident that you're talking about here, and you know, the eighteen Delta's got to go to work on some of these guys, Yes, And so for me that was getting a taste of what it was I signed up to do, yeah, and I would say probably
that afterwards. We're doing you know, we're supporting this up. We're running into we're running ir every night. We're trying to we're trying to get some sort of BdL on you know, where these kidnap victims are at, so we can actually do the raid and it be successful right to a certain extent. And you know, because we were estimating it was about sixty to eighty, I would say, f dudes, you know in the in this camp.
And so like we ended up. We had a supporting element Marine Filipino Marine Corps element that got it was a complex ambush and they got caught in one they got caught in. So I ed plus opening up a whole lot of five five six on them. A lot of I would say, off the carry M sixties. You know, they get their hands on M sixties, a lot of like old Vietnam or US made stuff. So these guys made it back to base. They had one KA and there was five o
their wounded in action and it's like all right, I'm jumping in. I'm jumping in. I'm gonna do my training. I'm gonna you know me and the eighteen delta are gonna start working on these guys. And I remember we had this one guy who was the driver and he was the most fucked up at anybody else, right, And so like I remember gunshot wound tension nemo
thorax. So tension nemo thorax is when one side of the lung cavity collapses and you have to basically plug the hole and then stable and then release the pressure on the opposite side to kind of I don't know the science behind it, I know that's what you gotta do. Yeah, the attention more facts
of what happens is there's a hole in the lung. But but but the danger of attention newmreu thor x is that when people like breathe in or whatever, that air fills uh, air fills the gap between the lung and and the like or x. Yes, so so that pressure keeps building and it starts to collapse the lung. So you have to do some sort of decompression on it. And I remember, well there was a whole lot of things. I did a intra ososis because at the time our sitting operating procedure.
If someone's unconscious, I owe him push light a cane, push I you know, push the bone rror out of the way. And this guy they loaded him up with kenmye as soon as he came in to kind of calm him down a little bit, you know, after getting his vitals, and I remember he can't. He woke right up when I did that, and I was like, oh god, I look at my eighteen deel. He's like, you're fine, Yeah, you're fine, right, And this is
my eighteen del. This is first time doing any of this stuff outside the Q course too, so it's like, you know, me and him, and I remember I helped him. There was like this machine he had. I don't know the science of it, but basically we had to put it in his gunshot wound and his long to stabilize his his long cavity because we were gonna airlift him. We're gonna metavac him out in a pressurized helicopter, right because the Filipinos had Hueys, which you know our old Vietnam era huiz
Yeah, and you know they're open doors. You know, they can't go that high elevation wise, and so we had to do that. I remember that was kind of gnarly but the word, the thing that always stuck with me was we were his tourniquet wasn't tight on his arm because he got shot. He had a five five six round you know, entry wound on the outside, exit wound. Bicep was gone. Right. I remember the the audible sound of his the meat of his arm plopping on the table and my
eighteen double going, oh, that's not good. That's not good day,
right, And we packed him up and everything. But I remember the funniest thing he said that night, and this is the only time I ever smoked a cigarette in my entire life, and he's like, we packed this guy up, and he was like, Jesus will not take this one, right, And it was like it was just so fucking funny to me, right, you know, and like, you know, the proudness of watching him, you know, go from new guy doing his training exactly what he's set
up to and saving some lives, and it was it was really cool. So you're saying five five, but the M sixties were seven six two, right, and then the ak's are seven sixty? Were they firing? They had M sixteen's six sixteen's and they had M sixties. Ok. Yeah, So like so they had a lot of Vietnam era small arms whatever they were, Yes, but it was definitely the size of the entry room. Yea was small, right, so it was like the five five six down,
Yeah, like one the central five. I mean, it's really cool to hear this story in the sense that the cooperation between the American and the Filipino forces and a lot of people here in the States don't understand. Like when I went and visited and I didn't even realize this existed until a friend took me there. Huge. It looks like Arlington and it's the American and Filipino
soldiers buried together from World War Two in the same cemetery. It just it's an incredible relationship that goes back like over one hundred years at this point. I remember going down to a Filipino Marine Corps event down in Tawi, Tawi and the guy stands up and is given the presentation of all like the NPA and abusif guys they killed that year like fourteen July six kia RH It's like the American Marine Corps like, holy shit, like what have we done? Yeah, no, I know, I think we did a fine job.
If you ask me you know, and it's a strong relationship and it's proceeded. The relationship is even stronger than the tumultuous politics of the Philippines in America, be it Donald Trump or de Turte Dite. That relationship between military and military persists, which I think speaks to what you and your teammates did. Yeah, for sure, absolutely, I mean it was it was all about rapport, you know. I mean that's what they beat into your skull or
or poor or port. You know, be technically intactically proficient. First, you know, everybody on ODA is a shooter first, you know, but you know, know your mos, know your job. But it's also all the people skills, having the emotional intelligence, you know, reading the room, reading you know, what the host nations feeling, you know, listening
to their concerns. But it's also the carmaraderie. You cannot beat the fucking carmaraderie, especially with them like and and and I think you know, the stronger the bond you have, you know, the easier it is to do hard shit with the host nation. And that's something that separate screen Berets from
everybody else. Well, and it's interesting too, And I'm glad to hear that that you and others of your generation, and you know, add that sort of attitude because I think like during the g WAT, because the sexy part was was in the kicking and the doors, so many guys in in the Green berets, so many guys in the SF community were like, well, we don't want to do that, you know, that host nation shit,
like we're door kickers. Like you can't be a door kicker with all guys like you in a semi permiss environment, Like you need those host nation forces or those other forces to help you do that. Absolutely, And I think like that's exactly what the experience was, like, yeah, you know, I you know, I signed up for the Adventure plus package. Yeah, don't get me wrong, man, I was ready to go die with eleven other of my best friends on the side of the hand New Kush too,
like you know, and but we sign up for the action. But the reality is is that's where we make all the money is in those relationships. So that was actually the vibe for a lot of us. And and you know, we all signed up, you know, we wanted to do the job, you know, right, wrong or different, whatever, however it came. We were happy to do the job, you know, to wear the green beret and to serve, you know in the capacity that we did. So I think it's being in Oknawa, being in first Battalion for
a special Forces group. You're forced to be creative, right, So you're working with senior guys that that majority of their career they were door kickers, commando mission, commando mission in Iraq, right, and that's all that mattered, right, if you were you know, gas in Iraq, No one cared, nothing else mattered. My sergeant major at the time knew I had a crazy flare in my eye, and he was always like, all right, I gotta pull on this guy. He is itching to get in a
fucking gun. F yeah, yeah, exactly like that whole that whole mission. And Patty Cole He's like, where the fuck are you? He's like, you will send me six hour updates of where you are on the map, right, like, And it was just like because he knew, he fucking knew, right, and as a dude who's been there himself, right and and so, but it allows you, it teaches you this creativity. So I I go to become the team's eighteen Fox, which is the special
forces and intelligence sergeant on the team. And you're doing you know, you research intelligence and you kind of you see what the enemy is doing, and then you help devise mission and operations with the rest of the team. So what I am in lieu of being in a combat environment or going to Iraq in Afghanistan, which I always wanted to do, I was gonna make the most of it where I was, you know, and and so being a good green berets, what's the number one rule? Figure it out, dude,
right, figure it out. So I did two bads. I did two J sets to the Philippines two years after that rotation, right, and I ended up bo I was like, you know what, here's the idea. I'm gonna train them on F three a D. Find fixed, finish,
exploit, assessed to seminate. Right. So F three a D is the process that we use and counter terrorism intelligence operator, and not just intelligence operation, but the whole counter terrorism life cycle, right, is you find the bad guy, you get a fix on their location, you finish airstrike raid however you need to do it, and then you get all the intel off of that, and then that feeds into the next cycle of operations, and so I went there. It was like early twenty sixteen, and this
was the This served as the I'm all about crawl. So being a green, right, you guys remember this crawl walk run methodology. All right, I have an idea for a concept. Let's crawl first. So go down there. I'm working with the PMP, the Philippine National Police Force, and they're targeting all these bad dudes. And so all I really did is I went in there using my eighteen fox knowledge. I realized that they had no
way of visualizing their intelligence at all like they would. You know, they're calling human intelligence sources, they're talking to they're talking to action agents, all these other things, principal agent network, stuff like that, but they're not putting it on a map and they're not drawing a lot, you know, just like just make him a coup, you know, military combined opscle overlay.
And so I just give them a very simple class in that. And ray A Reno, who was one of the guys that did the Marwan raid, right, I was working with his dudes, just real staff, the staff, right, special Action force. And he's like he's like, none of the guys I was training. Thought I was going to bring him in because I knew him from OEFP. And he comes in and they're briefing him target intelligence packages and then he gets on the phone He's like, why haven't
we actioned this? I want this action tonight. And so we just saw this and you know live, you know, building capacity, and they go out and do it. So version two point zero of that was I did it again, but this time we went after an ISIS target. At this point, it's in twenty sixteen. A lot of the ABUSAF groups, a lot of the offshoots that the abusaief Group have pledge allegiance to ISIS. This
is about when Marawi's about to kick off. Yes, it was actually right right before Marawi, because Marawi happened in May of twenty fifteen, I think. And that was Insulin Haplon and the Mate group and you know, over the years we were watching that kind of the Mate group was like the carrier of black flag ideology because we were kicking so much ass in Sentcom and kicking ass in the Philippines that they were they were kind of losing a steam.
But then when IIS popped off, it really like breathed a ton of life into the gi hotties. There's an interesting story there about how through the Madrasas and you know, golf money was flown into the Philippines like after nine to eleven around that time frame, and we did some work to mitigate that. But then as ISIS pops off. I mean to what you're talking about, some of these groups pledged allegiance to ISIS to try to acquire overseas international funding.
The the I forget what FtF is foreign something financial, I forget the acronym, but yeah, the whole count CTF counter our finance, right, and it was huge and all these to raise their profile, right, Yeah, that they're out there basically like they're they're like what are the baseball team the minor leagues or the not even the minor leagues, but you know like the little Triple A. Yeah, yeah, they're out there like Triple A
teams, like trying to like say hey look at us. No, that's that's not far off, man, Because these these guys were like bandits and then all of a sudden they like, oh, actually were ice. Yeah, if we say we're ISIS, maybe we'll get some Maybe it gets on money, and that was the thing you saw that obviously, I have group in the early two thousands when al Qaeda was you know, had all his
tree credit in the world to who they were. But then you know, you fast forward isis is Isis takes over the bank in Mozoul, gets access to what it was like two hundred and fifty million dollars or something like that. I still have a trouble processing this story that there's two hundred and fifty million dollars in a bank in Missool. I have a hard time with that. You're tell you about the Golden Fort Knox, No, I know,
I have a hard time with that. But it was they were doling out two milli to you pledge to be a will Willia will give you two million dollars. Yeah, and so you know who's first in line, hap on On and the boys, you know what I mean, Like they were like, oh yeah, well we got free two million dollars and you know, we get to do this, Oh oh, we got to basically, you know, do a siege. Okay. And you know at that point, I was on battalion staff waiting to get in the position, you know,
to become go the intelligence officer do the intelligence officer thing. But you know, I was doing a lot of support for those guys as an eighteen fox, you know, and they did it. They did a pretty good job, like you know, and we got him and it was a huge celebration because every single First Group Green Beret at one point in their career went after half on one, you know what I mean. Yeah, it's like a
tale as old as time. Same thing with Marwan, you know, and everyone, like, you know, I talked to I talked to GB's like, oh yeah, I know that raid you're talking about, you know, the raid that never happened, like you know, and and it's it's kind of funny, but I mean it's what it is, right, So yeah, targeting isis anything else about the Philippines before we move on? No, it was just funny. I remember that that isis target that we brought down
or help bring down. It was all the Filipinos that did it. But uh I remember, like they were like, hey, thank you so much for that j set that was very critical in us being able to get this target. And at the time it was General Fenton was a sock pack commander right now he's a so confident, and he's like front of the line and the set rep man that goes from the line line of the set rep and it goes up to so calm. And I remember I was on battalion staff
at this point. I get a phone. I remember my S three great dude, but he was not going to take this phone call. And he was like, oh, started fielding, it's for you. It's like I think the Deputy Director of Operations G three so calm. And I was like, and they're like, what the fuck did you do right now? You know? And I told him the story. It was like, we just build partner force capacity so fucking well that they had the confidence to go out
there and hint it themselves. Yeah, And he's like, beautiful, cool, We're good, right, And I'm like, oh shit, yeah, well I thought I was in deep shit, you know what I mean? Well, thank you at an alibi, right, like you guys were on your way out of country when it happened. Totally, we were one one thirty no way, yeah, none the wiser innocent brother. The glove does not fit, yeah exactly exactly, yeah, no way. We got our hand in that way. We were on We're on our way. Yeah,
you know. Yeah, So Okay, somewhere around this time frame, this idea of you know, the army intelligence comes into your mind somehow, some way. So I guess the question first off is were you spooky and did
you feel the love? Definitely felt the love. Definitely felt the love, and so the the I was reading a lot of spine novels at the time, and Taker Tailor Soldier Spy, you know that whole Carlo by La ca Care and Lacare excuse me, and a variety of different other spy novels and stuff, and so the whole idea of human intelligence operations was very cool to me. You see a lot of movies and you've been to a SAT You've been to eighteen five quars, so you had a bit of the annual piece
and you had a bit of the trade the tradecraft a little bit. Yeah, yeah, a little bit, yeah, exactly, just a taste, just just a tease. I'm like, this is tease. I want to go. You want to know what that knee looks like? Yeah, give you the name, let's go. We'll go from there. Yeah. By the time I gets to n I'm sure I'm good, right, Yeah, But like and that that's really what it was. And so we had two
individuals. They came out to the battalion and they briefed, it's on this program and they would basically it was like, hey, this is the path to become a case officer, and you know, you can do this, you can do that. And you know, for me, I was pretty tired, you know. I even though at the time where when I was in ok I was going on average eight months on average eight months at every year. You know, it was always like you know, oh yeah, after OEFP, I got a little bit of downtime, and then it was
like eighteen fox course. Then Tyley and j said Philippines training here, training in Korea, you know, the Paul but you know, all over the map. And so I and I was married at the time, and I'm like, you know, hey, clock sticking. You know, I think it's time that you know, we start thinking about having kids. And and I kind of looked at that career as being this is going to sound insane. So you think being a spy is more stable than being on an ODA,
you know. But they sold that to you too, right, They're like, oh, you know you we'll put you somewhere, that's where you'll work, no worries. Yeah, and that's exactly it. And you're like, you know, the you allerre. Oh you can do your job during the day and then you go home or you have a night job, and then you go your home with your family and everything else, and like no
one's the wiser. And I was kind of cool. But I was also attracted to the fact of like just sheerly being able to get away with shit, like the excitement of like getting away with something yeah was technically illegal. And you know, this is like kind of there is a dichotomy of being an intelligence officer or human intelligence officer, right, and it's I remember in high school. Yeah, I'm an eagle scout. I was a varsity athlete, solid B student, you know what I mean. I had too much
going on. But then by night, me and my friends, you know, yeah, showed up to house parties returntables and microphones, right and and like mceing house parties and uh, you know, running beer for the town,
right, you know, with all the other high school kids. So it was like it was like the right amount of like all right, this is like kind of a balance and it was like something I understood inherently just who I am, and and and I kind of looked at its fun and for me at the time, I was like, I get to work by myself and the challenge of that. There was a couple there was a couple of ops I did just in you know, Southeast Asia that I was doing
singleton stuff. Yeah, you know, or just you know two man teams too. Yeah. And so it was like this idea of being armed with nothing, with nothing more of our wit. But yeah, we need we need more booze, right, Okay, cool, It's it's funny. It's
funny while we're taking that psych refilled break. It's funny how you bring that up, because I I remember when I took my m M P I you know, for so dick, right, because you have to take that psych test so to make sure that you're not the one the about whether or not you like flowers. Yeah, yeah, if and and and and if you know the person who's responsible responsible for all your problems exactly, yeah, yeah, and dad, And so when the doc came out, you know,
definitely what you say on the snipers. When when the shrink came out, you know, I was just joking around. It's like, so am I saying? And he goes as saying as everybody else that you know that is in your line of work and takes this test, I'm like, well, what does that man? And he goes, well, he goes, interestingly enough, he goes, you all have sociopathic tennessees, you're not sociopaths, like the test would show us if you're a sociopath. He goes, but
what what like people in this field? I guess military, you know, psychiatrists, psychologists. What we don't understand is you guys have the same like sociological or the psychological profile as criminals. We just don't know why one of you goes one way and the other group goes the other way. So there's always that appeal of being you know, pirates and hooligans, right, That's exactly it. Yeah. Probably one of my favorite quotes is from Sergeant Major
Chuck Ritter. I was at the senior leader's course back in twenty seventeen or whatever, and he was falling around in leadership. But he came in, you know, because he has like three or four purple hearts and awesome, dude, riot of a human being like absolutely riot. But he says, he's like, you know what, you know what it's like being an ODA. It's like you're just in the pirate ship with all the other pirates. Everyone's got fucking scurvy, right, you know what I mean? Right?
You know, like for me, I was like a first group experience. I'm like deng gay, malaria, fucking you know, all these things, right, And it was a riot. But there is that element and like there's a lot of guys out there who are like, I want to do hood rat ship with my friends, and that that's really what it is.
And you know, in the book, it's like at the extreme level, you know, we're going to go out and you know we have carte blanche to produce intelligence, you know, kill, capture isis and Alcaida, right, and and you know the ice isis leadership and by any means necessary, obviously within the legal left and right limits of whatever. Lawyer is a scientist, the group and stuff. But like it's just just legal much fun.
It's legal. It's legal for you to do it in the purview of the United States, but it's very illegal for you to do it in the country that you're in. Totally. Yeah, totally. I mean, I mean I don't understand all the relationships and everything else. I mean, we're there, We're doing this job in support of counter terrorism operations, right, which is establishing you know, creating more secure environment, you know, better economic
circumstances, all these other things. So it's like, all right, there, you gotta have a crew of dudes willing to go all the way. And that's kind of how I viewed that job, you know. And so these so these two guys named mister Smith show up and give you a briefing. They you know, was this just for Foxes or was this for like any senior SF guys? It was it was open to the battalion. I
don't remember how many. There was a bunch of us that attended. There was like some guys that were you know into you know, kind of looking to do the spooky thing. But I think I was the only dude that applied out of it. But I applied, and I didn't hear for like a year and a half. And at this point I was looking at getting out of the army and and and I was like, all right, well
I'm just going to figure this out. Use my gi Bill benefits, go back to school whatever, figuring out my you know, my at the time wife, right, And but then I get this like email, this memo from this four star general you know, and sipper. It was like congratulations you got picked up and we're gonna work on your orders and blah blah blah blah blah. And I was like, oh, holy shit, this is
happening. Okay. Cool. So and in the the the squadron that I was going to at the time, the squadron commander was a Green Beret and he was hot to bring in Green berets. So I was the first Green Beret this unit ever had. Where where else, if you can talk about it, where else was this unit pulling people from generally everywhere? But what I was a lot of former soft enablers, former soft enablers who are already
like in the intel world type of thing. We had some other I think we had trying to think specifically, I think it was mostly, if not all, people with an intelligence MLS or discipline, you know, and it was like the same thing. They wanted to get out outside the wire, do some cool shit, you know. I know, you'd prefer that we
not name any units or specifics like that. But I would like to point out how it incorrect me if I'm coming off base here at any point that you left Special Forces and now you're in an unconventional career track, totally on conventional career track, and I'm still being rated as an s F NCO, but now you're on DASSER and you are going into a different this alphabet soup
of things I didn't even understand. I mean, I was terrible with admin, you know, I don't think a single s F guy is good at admin shit, right, you know, and so like let alone all this other stuff, you know, but you know someone was managing it, yeah and whatever. But because of the certifications you get in the uniqueness of the career path, I made eight pretty quick, you know, first look at eight, I you know, I got, you know, I got, I was eligible to pick up you know, I you know, got out
still as an E seven special starting first class. But like but really, you know, for the audiences, you know, you this job now, coming into it, I didn't know what to expect jumping into it, you know, didn't know you know, the three letter agencies I was gonna be working for, had no no expectations but I was like, I want to do human intelligence operations, like this is cool, this is it. I'm gonna do surveillance detection rounds. I'm gonna do trade craft. I'm gonna do
bumps. I'm gonna do you know, right, like all this sexy stuff, like and scoot my briefcase under a table to somebody. Yeah, with like a solid couple grand in there, right, bar gold bars, yeah, yeah for us, you know, yeah, yeah, you know, I hoisted them out of there. But you heard it here first, yeah, first. Yeah, but there's a there's a there's a good story about heists in the book. I'll save that for later. But like they but
so it was you know, opening up of this world. But for me, the op tempo was more stable and I just had to get through this. It ended up being like twenty something months of training. So I started off twenty eighteen. I reported to d C, had no idea where I was going. They're like, hey, stay in you know, you can stay in this area and we'll call you in this and the ard thing and you go through this process where you get a badge and all the ship and
so it takes months. So at that point they've lined me up for all the spy training that I was doing, and it was and we'll kind of we'll transition into the book, because this is where the book picks up is, you know, I go to this, I go this this training and this prep course that they had us go to and you have this like forty year thirty five to forty year veteran of the CIA, and and he's talking all SF guys right getting ready to do this training and shit, and I
love this because he says, gentlemen, what you're getting to learn, what you're about to learn to do is a felony or capital crime. And basically every country you're doing this in and in this business, no one gives a fuck about you. And and it always stuck with me and the whole no one gives a fuck about you, bline is really about it's all about the source, right, and it's all about Carr and the source, and like none of your ego none. And if you're doing this job right, it's
extremely fucking inconvenient to you. Yeah, as a case officer, like you're busting your fucking ass all the time. Como. You know, communication plans, right, cables irs, But like you know you're doing your sigilance in section round, you got to make sure you're sort of around it all off
sack everything with it. You know. Not only that you're you're constantly assessing this human being, you know, for flaws, vulnerabilities, changes and accesses, changes and motivations, you know, and anything else that's going on in a life. But you have this person that's in front of you, right when you finally, as we like to say, lift the skirt, and you're like, oh, surprise, the United States Intelligence, you know, like, this is really what this relationship? Right, if you've done they
usually don't. Yeah, if you've done your development right, they usually know what's up by that. You're like, look, I don't really like the Kardashians. I just said that because yeah, and usually I mean I would imagine a person that watches that show. There they're going to attract certain certain attributes, you know, that that would be interesting. But you know, as we like to say, it's it's not about them simply wanting the money. It's what the money's for, right, you know, right, and
so but it was really cool for me. So but at this time, you know, and this is really what the book is about. Is more less about the sexy shit, but more about all the mental health aspects and the internal dialogue, right, you know, because I'm coming off of you know, four plus years of team time, right, you know, going here, there, everywhere in Southeast Asia, never home, and you know,
I'm I'm swapping it for also a high stress career. And you know, but to me, my optic is like, you know, most of the situation, it's not my job to go kicking a door, right, I'm I'm the guy that's going to figure out which door to kick in, right, And and that was like kind of the cool you know, the dynamic of coming from my ODA was at the time was ut you know,
more focused on direct action. We were a boat team, and but we were all direct action, you know, so always breaching, oh you know, going live nods in the house, you know, pushing the limit. But so you know, taking all that experience of like how we set up a raid, doing doing stuff on OEFP that you know, exposed me that stuff is like, all right, now I'm the guy that's doing the intel. Now do you know out of curiosity? One, how did you deal
with that? And two do you think that you dealt with it better or worse than say somebody who had been in a neighbor and had moved been moved up, I don't want to say moved up, but they were in more of an action oriented role, but they still weren't the number one guy in the door. Did some of them want that out of the job where you had already sort of had that and you were fine with like being the that's it guy. I was totally fine being with that's a guy. But you
what I experienced was you had a lot of people chasing prestige. M hm. You do like the sexiness of the job of doing you know, high level intelligence operations for all these three letter eight agencies that like you had have like this sort of dichotomy, right, It's the same thing and corporate environments.
The same thing everywhere else is that you have ops guys, right, and then you have you know, guys that like to do the soft skill stuff in the backside and the leadership and you know talk and good idea fairy briefing, right, And I'm like, you know, and that was like kind of the mindset I brought to this job was the same mindset I had
on the ODA. Was like operationally Ford leaning operationally Ford leaning. And so it's for the people out there, it's at the job is extreme, like we there's all these different units out there, right, you have like I know, like TFO, Right, you have jasock units, tiered units, et cetera. Right, all that stuff. Where I was at the level ontomony was huge, Right, you had to be extremely entrepreneurial on your own,
even when they deployed me last minute to Iraq and Syria. You know, a lot of the ship I was doing on the ground over there, other than you know, helping you know, produce intelligence against ISIS and l CATA targets, I was working on strategic ship strategic ship too, you know. So it was like you had you only so you can go talk to five people. You know, one of those people, one of those persons are gonna work out, you know, and and and so it's it's having
a lot of irons in the fire. But I found, though, is that you had for two people like people that come from an intelligence background getting the certification, becoming a case officer, becoming that right, going to FTC or the other courses or anything like that. They have that that wasson now,
right, and and and and that's really what it was. And for them it was like a self actualization, whereas more like I was like, this is just a cool thing I want to do, you know, where for them this was sort of the pinnacle of the field that they were in a lot of times. Absolutely so without without getting into you know, obviously
say as much or as little as you want to. But you know, when we look at the different agencies who have UH and and even within the military, the different organizations under the d i A or whomever who have case officer qualified people. Here you're in a very small project UH a special access program and also trained to conduct these human intelligence operations and also working with people
who have their own people. Can you talk at all about where you guys fit in in the tactical strategic picture of a this if you can, if absolutely and it's not it's not anything. I don't think it's anything hard to
really talk about. It's if you look at it this way, right, every unit they have a mission, right, and just in the intelligence community and in these intelligent secretive intelligence units that you know, one of which I belong to, is you have information needs, right, and you have something called an operating directive. Every CIA station has an operating directive, right, and they're like, all right, the case officers, these are this is
all the shit we care about. Go out there and collect against that. What makes us special is that our O D Operating directive was so vast right in what we could go after. And a lot of it is working buy with and through all these other three three letter agencies. So if you take take my green Beret background, a buy width and through host nation, you know a lot of it. What it is is I go out there,
I find something right, it might answer this intelligence requirement. There's a customer everywhere, and that's where it's like, you're not even so how it fits into the tactical you know, and strategic you know, our tactical operational strategic level like effects is like, you know, you have customers all over the place, and you know, there was we were talking, we were talking earlier. It was like I had this one op where I didn't you know, I had intel. I was like, I don't know what to do
with this. And I reached out to a particular you know, area of the world and I was like, hey, you know, I think you guys should care about this and they're like, oh, yeah, we really do. And then we work together and we ended up shutting down this adversary operation there, right. So it's like a lot of it is taking something very tactical that no one else thinks who you care about, right in spotting the opportunity. And that's why I say that entrepreneurial. It's so entrepreneurial.
And and this is the thing, it's like you're either growing or you're dying, right and the day and the dangerous thing is that when you are so wrapped up in your identity of doing the job and the mission and everything else, it does require a lot from you. Before we jump too far ahead, I want to talk about you're going through all this you know, spy schools, all this training that you're going through, but at the same time,
your personal life is starting to come unwound. And that's in your book Into the Darkness I mean, I mean, because we want to talk about this piece of it as well, tell us about what was going on with you, you know, not just professionally, but also personally. So a lot of the book is about those internal dialogues, right, I think as
like a case officer, right or an intelligence human intelligence professional. You learn, right, you you learn it's mostly a job about emotional intelligence and in building genuine connection with yourself and most importantly asking yourself why and and so in this book or in you know, my story really is like, you know, I make all these sacrifices for my ex wife, and you know, because I wanted to start a family, we wanted to you know, we're
gonna have more stability. You know, I was sold on all these things. I was like, yeah, you know, you know, the potential will be an operational where I live, and I'll be home, I'll be home for dinner right right, and you won't have to raise the kids by yourself. And so it's like, but you know, I make all these sacrifices. I sign up for six more years and uncle Sam, I take this job. And you know, so we moved to DC, and you know, I look at like this time being you know, potentially the most
stable time. And they're already talking about like when there's the squadron is already talking about when they were slating me to deploy, and I was like, all right, cool, Like it really turns onto the most unstable time in terms of the most undistable time. So you know, I'm sitting down, I'm having all a glass of Balveni with my you know, with my wife, and I was like, you know what I think this is that we
should start trying this year, just start trying to have a kid. And you know, at this point, I had like one iteration of like my intelligence training you know, knocked out, or two iterations of intelligence training that knocked out at this point. And and She's like, I don't think so I want to travel more. And I'm like, we're done traveling, yeah, you know, like this is yeah, we lived in Japan for five
years. Like we're good, you know what I mean, Like I want to be on the East coast, close to my family, close to your family, everything else like that. So I was, uh, you know, I I and instead of being what the fuck are you saying? Right, I was like new, you know, this new intelligence training. I was starting to like, you know, what's going on here? And I'm like, you know what, I should ask why? Right? And and
I was like, well, why do you feel that way? You know, we just lived here and I'm trying to frame it and everything else. And she gets really uneasy and she's just like you know, I don't want to ever have kids, right eventually, And I was like, huh, I'm like all right, well, like when we signed up to do this, you know, when we got married, this was like eventually the long term plan. So at the time I was, I was training for my
first ultra marathon. And you know my grandfather was you know, Jack Fielding. He was like one of the og long distance runner, ran marathons into his sixties and he did a double century, a double century cycling ride.
I don't know how. I think he was in his late fifties early sixties from from from Boston to Portland, Maine, which is like one hundred hour hundred back, right, and all he had in his bag was like tuna fish in water, which I think talk about it like I like, if I am not my grandfather, you know, if I am not of his blood, I'd be really surprised, you know what I mean. I'm the same exact way like you just learn you know, his years of being a
pow you are, your collective years of being green bray. You just learned to like live without shitsterity. Yeah, you're like, oh fuck it, I'll be fine, Right, It's somebody as bad as that one time, yeah, and so like but anyways, like you know, I was training for my first Ultra and I'm doing like fifteen eighteen mile training runs. And
what's an Ultra thirty six or fifty? It's thirty The baby Ultra is thirty miles thirty it's like thirty thirty one miles, right, it's a fifty K. So I was training for a fifty K and and I'm out there, I'm in the woods. I'm just logging miles and I'm like, fuck, man, what the fuck do I do? Dude? Right? And I'm like, I'm like, do I divorce her? Like you know, and I'm running and you know, all these intern all this internal dialogue is you know, on repeat in my mind, like what do I do? And
then I'm like scared shitless to date again? Right? And and not that I know because I was with her my entire twenty So it's like I don't know how to fucking do that again, like you know, But and so I do. My first Ultra did it in like six and a half hours, thirty thirty miles and some change in fifty k, and we end up. You know, it was it was a friend that called me, a
Norch friend who called me. And this is where the shit gets wild, right, And you know in the army you do all a suicide awareness training and all of a sudden what Yeah, and this guy like me and him watch this video click next, yeah, click next. Or if you're a new guy on the team, you're doing the entire teams like all their fifty nasal training, right, that was the right of passage for a lot of
guys. Yeah, I did their cyber awareness training. You're gonna do my cide right, But fucking anyways, like we so this good friend of mine, Jean, I was his upper classman at Norwich. I was when I was a sophomore. I was his corporal cadre and so he was my my fire team and I took care of him. And this kid was going to be a general officer someday. Easy. Like infantry was our you know,
served in one hundred first Rocaissan Paktika Province. I think it was, you know, nine months of slugging an out with the Taliban, good fucking range, qualified off, you know, infantry officer obviously, you know, not going to get a platoon without it, right, type of thing and conventional forces. And but when I was in the Q course, like me, he lived outside of Fort Bragg, and you know, I would go up
to him. We'd play golf. We get fucking wasted, you know, we drive around a golf cart, chasing after deer and you know, at night and you know, just doing funny ass dude shit familiar. Yeah, And so he calls me. He hits me up at like eight o'clock in the morning, and he's like, dude, I need to talk. And the only time I hear from him is like he's you know in the you know, half in the bag, right, I love you, but brother, right, you know, in the middle of the night. Wake it
awesome, kid, right. You know, he's from Boston area too. So but at eight am was a giant, red fucking flag and so I was like, hey, I'll call you as soon as I get on the road, and and so I give him a ring and and he's like, I don't know how to say this, So I'm just gonna say this, and this is completely out all I field. He's like, I'm not really a man, I'm really a woman. And I was like, huh.
But at the same time, though, this is a guy like, you know, I shared a lot of shared suffering with Yeah, and I didn't know how the fuck to take it. But yeah, I'm thinking, I'm like knowing him or her? Right, excuse me, there's a forty five on the table, and I have no idea if I'm the last phone call before right, just to see and you know, I tell him her or tell her, and I'm like, I'm like, you know, I don't care whatever the fuck you are, You'll always be a brother at me,
you know, not knowing anybody, you know what I mean? And then he or she started crying and and going into it. But the thing about Jean, this is Jean in the book, And the thing that really fucking stuck with me was that what what what they said to me was I can't go another day without being happy orout being true to myself. Yeah, not being who you are. And the entire fucking time I'm going out doing hours of training on the trail afraid of you know, the stigma of a divorce,
the you know, a broken marriage, what that is? Who the fuck wants to date a guy in his mid thirties, right, you know, with all this other stuff, right, and I'm like, I don't even know how to date anymore. And this dude, excuse me, a girl, right, this chick, yeah, this guy twin girls on the way with his wife. Right. And it's like, you know, I know exactly who you're talking about, right, probably, but I am not gonna I'm not gonna put it up. No, no, I won't either.
But I know, I know, I I definitely know that, you know, you know, and wild story. It is a wild story. But you know, for me, was like this in their life, they are a powerlifter. I don't think. So I don't know, Okay,
maybe maybe it is a different person. I've lost contact with Jean because around this time, you know, in the subsequent months of me going through more spy training and everything else, like I couldn't you know, I couldn't go, you know, I couldn't go doing everything that was going on my personal life. I couldn't deal with anyone else, right, you know what I mean. And so I remember I said to myself, I was like, what the fuck am I afraid of? You know, a divorce whatever?
Right, you know what I mean? And so I remember it was kind of inspiring, right that, like Gene called you up and was like, hey, I'm this now. Yeah that took some balls, right, it took some real balls or lack of or whatever, like you know, but like but it took and like it took. Yeah, it took. It took. Yeah, it definitely took a lot of courage, right yeah.
And you know, and so with that, I was looking at, you know, my wife at the time, and I was like, I'm really afraid of like you know, I have all these internal dialogues that I'm like, I'm afraid of what's going to happen, you know, what's the secondary or effects of this? So like that falling conversation the falling weekend, and like I decided to have the conversation with my wife and it did not go as well as I thought it was going to go. I'm thinking I have
like I'm hot shit, I'm hot shit. I got like, you know, this little bit of intel training. I'm like, oh, I can frame it. Yeah, and you know I could be friendly, firm, fair, and final, right, which is uh, you know the terminology run a source through determination meeting. And as it turns out, there were a limitations. This training received, very much limitation. I've received not as cool as I thought one should be able to look at the CIA divorce rates
and figure that out. Yeah, exactly right, Like like there's a whole body of evidence there that says some things cannot be solved through trade, trade craft exactly. Clever conversations and all these tools and every and emotional intelligences is ill limit for sure. But she got on a plane the next day and I never saw her again. Wow, man, yeah man. And it was like we were together for I think in total, like twelve years between
marriage and dating. What did What did that feel like? Man? That like you're living your truth, but at the same time, I mean there is very like real personal consequences. Well in the classic day fielding sense is like you know, at the time was I'm just gonna continue on bury myself in work, bury myself in work. And so they were like, hey, we want you to They're like, we want you to finish all your human training this year, and I was like, yeah, fuck yeah,
let me let me finish. I got nothing else for two now, right, And so you know, I take off for spy school. But all this shit is with me. Sure, all this shit is with me. And every time, you know, we turn in all our phones, you
turn in your wallet, and you get swapped out. And you know, one of the gatekeepers that I talk about in the book, he was he was a former SF guy, and it was wicked funny because I think he picked my like fake name, like they kind of do it based on personality, and I was Jackie ray Biggs. So I like completely fucking leaned into
that, right, Jackie ray Biggs. So I'd leave, I'd become Jackie ray Biggs, and I'd come back and I'd have some serious fucking day fielding problems which were like this, you know, more bad law, more bad news for my lawyers. Right, I was getting, you know, wanted alimony, wanted all his shit, and you know I would always I'd be out in the road. I'm doing these long ass surveillance detection routes and I'm
remembering all my turns, all my cover stops, time hacks. I need to be there, you know, So time hacks is like you know, time on target that you need to be there, And meanwhile remembering the commo plan for my source and then showing you know, showing up and being excited to see them. And I'm like in this car and I'm just fucking like all these things are on repeat in my head, you know, this negative
internal dialogue that just is like I'm never gonna win. And that was the biggest mistake that I made with this in the start of this was that I looked at you know, depending on the outcome of the divorce was me as winning or losing. Right. And you know, to add insult to injury was a lot of my you know, you like to say war money you make on deployments and stuff. You know, I paid off a lot of
her chre student loans and stuff like that. So out of curiosity. I don't know if you know this, but did she get married within like two years and have kids? I have no idea, Yeah, I have no I feel as though, I mean, first, the things that we do, uh you know, people say thank you for your service, but things that we do are are are very selfish, Like we we are living the dream, like we we are living the lives that we imagine to small kids,
right, the lives that they make movies about. And when we're married and we're doing that, I think we forget that we're leaving somebody. You know, somebody got married to be in a partnership, yes, and all of a sudden they're at home alone. I mean they've got their own mife obviously in job and whatever they're doing, but they also are single but married. And we're out there like live in the dream, Live in the dream,
baby, and and we leave a lot of people behind. I think when we do that, and you know what, I agree, I'll agree to that, you know. And there there is stress on both ends the spectrum, you know, but you know, there wasn't any lack of pining for each other. Yeah, you know, yeah out there and it wasn't like I was just like I'm on the OA, I'm with the boys, I can't talk to you. Yeah. I was like always making an effort, always making an effort, you know, and no matter what, like
I had any downtime, I'd spend it talking to her. And this is the great thing about living in the age we live in is that we have Skype and all these other things, FaceTime, et cetera. So there was no lack of effort on my behalf. But it was, I mean, for me, it felt as though I just signed six more years in the army because you thought, because I thought we were going to have more stability.
Yeah, I was gonna be home a lot more, and you know, it would be great for us. But what I ended up starting to see was I saw the person that I wasn't around anymore, you know, when I was on deployment and stuff like that. And really it was she had a vision for her life that was different than a vision that I had for us together. You know. You know, she had her version,
I had my version. It just wasn't gonna work out right, and so and these are things that we all deal with, you know, and the high divorce rate within special operations, high divorce rate within you know, intelligence community c I A for you know, for example, and stuff like that. And as as as you're going through this training, uh that, I mean, there comes another woman into the picture. And as we were talking about a little bit earlier, you know, some of your friends read the
book and they're like, really, Dave, like what the fuck? Man? And and I thought the same thing. As I was reading your book, I'm like, dude, really, But then as I think about it a little bit more, I'm like, I did all the same things,
dude. I know. It's a story as oldest time. It's a story is oldest time, Like, you get down with that divorce, right, I show him I'm this hot shit green beret know in this special you know, SAPPED Intel unit, and and you know, they find out I'm going, you know, some of these women find out I'm going for the divorce, and it's like, oh, he's open, he's open season, man. Yeah. Right, And there's just something I have a very good friend
of mine, he's a very senior sergeant major in Special Forces. Love the dude to death. And he was like, he said to me after he read the book, He's like, Dave, I don't fucking get it what it is with you know, run the mill female intel officers and loving s F guys. But this is the quintessential story, right, And I think I know what it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, And it's also like it's not like there aren't any cautionary tales out there for us
to learn from. It's just that this time it'll be different. This time will be different. And and to your point, I had friends going really
Dave. And so for the audience, I'm not gonna spoil too much of the book for you, but you know, I end up in this spicy relationship, very spicy, very spicy re ship, you know, the the individual, you know, I feel like it's a tale as old as time, like I said earlier, but it's especially true to you know, a Boston white kid, kid from Boston, a white kid from Boston, you know, with a latina. Yes, right, Ben Affleck needs to read this fucking book. Yeah right, Like yeah, like that's that's I mean,
if a man knows it's that dude. Yeah right. You know, I've never seen a telenovela. You you have no idea what you're getting and I never did. Yeah, and I had no idea what I was getting myself into. But it was like I had a buddy of mine. He sent a screenshot from the book. He's like, really, Dave, three divorces and you didn't You said you were going to be the one to change it all. Yeah, And it was like, yeah, I'm a fucking you know, I'm intel, fucking you know, master conversationalist, EQ master
Nujitsu. Right. It's like, no, no, I was not ready for that. Yeah, you know what, three divorces before thirty there's something going on there. Yeah, and you know what, it's just I can fix her it's a tail poll. But also too is like you know me at that time is like I look at myself for who I you know, like in that time, I was in a fucking rush. Yeah, you know, my wife didn't want to have kids and you know, in the
madness of this relationship that it was. So it's like we'll just kind of walk you know, everyone through this, but like it was a secret relationship. It had to be, you know, because she was technically your supervisor. Yeah, exactly. And it's not you know, that's kind of not not kosher in a lot of circles, and you know, and you know, it's like it's not like it was like my ODA team later, you know what I mean. It's not like they're gonna you know, it was
more of like an administrative role than anything else. And so it was like and there was a lot of promises made. But here was the thing is that it was kind of like a cat and mouse game. And like I never been in a situation where I had like, you know, an attractive female like interested in me and you know what I mean, like trying to chase me. It was always me, you know, I think of like
how it was the relationship I have with my wife. I chased her, you know what I mean, And and so to be in this like different scenario, I was like, oh, this is really cool, this is unique, and so like there was but the thing about it is that it wasn't good for her. It wasn't good for me. The whole thing was based on lust, you know. And so but it didn't help that I worked in a fucking unit with a bunch of other spies, right, and
so it's like eventually someone's gonna get put put it all together. You talk about this like triple life that you're living at this point that like people are finding out about this relationship and you're running these like dis info ops. You brought you brought in. It was like one of your friends from high school or something like that I brought in. It was she was one of my close friends from Norwich. It was her sister I brought. I brought her
in. So so basically the bottom line, you know, the whole thing with the story is one of the guys at the unit found out I was going through divorce. And I came back from all nice by training in like December of twenty nineteen, and I was like wiped out, exhausted, but haven't been laid in a very long time. And so I was like he had a place in Baltimore and he and he was getting ready to go to
FTC. So I was like, all right, hey, he wanted me to live there, watch the house, you know, after all to Baltimore. Right, It's like right, not, you know, don't leave anything in your car, right, you know what I mean? Like it's you know, street smarts, you know, one hundred percent you know, head on a swivel, getting it out of your car, walking through your door
type of shit. Right, and and and even though I was in a nice neighborhood of Baltimore, the crime affects everybody there, right, So he's like, yeah, you can live here and then and be cool. And I was like all right, sweet and so I but he ends up like being suspect of this relationship. And so he's got like the nanny cams up in his place to see what you're doing. Yeah, exactly so, but like I don't know, I'd always detach the camera. It's also you know,
it's some Karen ship Man. Why do you care? Exactly? Like, why are you gonna yuck up? My yum, why are you gonna yuck? It was a good thing going. You know, I just feel like if that was some ship that happened in group, the sergeant majors would pat me on the back. It's a good job. You're a fucking idiot. You have to work on the B team for a couple of months.
Yeah, you know, that's exactly how it go. And it would have been like over with right, you know what I mean, And they would have like, you know, the slap on the wrist type of thing. But like, you know, the stakes are high, so obviously you know, I know, for me, it was like I could do this. But so I throw this straightforward deception off, right. I fly out one of my friend's sisters to to play as her as a girlfriend, as my
girlfriend Gabriella. And you know, the story that I gave my roommate was that she was a congressional staffer, which are dim a fucking doesn't in d C, right, and so fits a bill you know, easy cover story. But it turns out that this, you know, my my friend's sister actually did work. She worked for Scott Brown when he was a senator from Massachusetts, so she could think speak, the talk everything else. And so
she lands at bw I. You know, I fly her out. You know, now does she know what her she knows her cover for status, cover for action coming in. So my my friend informed her what was going on, and she's like, I'm in, like, we'll do whatever it takes. Help out Dave, right, you know what I mean? That is the coolest. Yeah. And so she and like, you know, true to like real life training and everything else. Treat your source as well.
I fly her business class, I picked her up from I pick her up from b w I, and I'm going fucking full send with this, you know, case officer ship and this is this is the real This is like the adult version of my girlfriend goes to another school. Right, It's like she said, another high school. You wouldn't know her, You wouldn't know, you would know it really is it really is. I pick her up, I take her to take her out for a long launch and I
train her cover, I give her cover. I you know, I have like printouts of what her apartment looks like, you know, and and we go we go full fucking send on this man, because I'm up against Facebook. Facebook in a relationship. No, no, Facebook, not in a relationship, don't even have Facebook. Okay sorry, it was like, okay, no announcements on that, right, No one in that community I think has Facebook at least. Well we'll admit it, but like we I'm training
her and cover, right, I'm giving her. You know, this is where we met. These are the friends that we hung out with, right, And I was like, you know, I was out with some other gb buddies in DC, right, which was accurate. You know, I hung out with some other g you know, Green Beret friends that were you know, stationed in the area and stuff like that. And we met at Dirty Water, which was a Boston base bar. I don't know if it's still there, but it was on like I forget the street, but trainer
on all these things. And so you know Richard, you know, my roommate fresh out of the farm, fresh out of the fucking farm, right, And he's like a grilling her. Yeah, you go to the kitchen and he's like it's like it's like a cover challenge. Yeah, straight up fucking cover challenge. And you know he starts at the light report. Oh would you guys meet, right, you know, like really met, Yeah, and type of thing and he's like, oh, you live. Where
the hell is she said where we say she lived? It was Eastern Market, you know, like bougie apartment complexes of the Eastern Market. And he's like, oh, really, like legit was like, describe her place to me, right, And I was like, I'm sitting there in the fucking kitchen. I'm like, bro, what you don't think I don't know what's
going on right now? And she just is like okay, but she executes beautifully, yeah, And and so like he's frustrated, you know, with like you know, he's frustrated with the whole thing, like it's not working. And so we leave and then you know, and I remember she was like he's a fucking asshole, right, and she's like, you were not fucking kidding, and and so I remember we went out and you know, you got to live the cover, right, So I took her out and
went out to eat and stuff like that. And you know, meanwhile, you know my Gabriella, right, the woman I'm seeing in the book, right, you know, a woman I'm seeing at the time, She's like, fucking you know, you're cheating, I mean, right, you know, the thing she got like super drunk and was like texting me and calling and I was like, listen, I'm sleeping on the fucking floor in here, all right, Like she gets to bed, I'm sleeping on the floor. It's done, it worked, done, story, but it doesn't end
there. Yeah. After that, it was the like the cover is complete and then she what did she text your sergeant major, like a picture of the two of you together something like this. Yeah, it was. It was a squadron first sergeant, I think, right, And I was like, oh Jesus fuck, like at a concert, and it was supposed to be. It was supposed to be like a concert for the victory, like we got through this, you know, I'm gonna be out from under her,
you know, purview. Now I'm in an operational squadron, not the training squadron. And it's like said done complete, playing works perfectly. And I remember in the moment, I was like I freaked out. I was like, fuck, man, this costs me so much goddamn money to make this like off happen. It's all like I'm dipping into off fun to use it. This is all fucking fields paycheck right right right right? No,
you know. Meanwhile, my divorce is in final eyes. So it's like you spent seven hundred dollars on what you know what I mean, like and and so and and I remember real quickly, I you know, I text him back and I was like, oh, hey, man, you know I ran in a so and so. You know at this concert I was with another chick. Is it going to be cool? And he was like,
oh, yeah, man, you're fine. She likes you. Don't worry about it, you know, because you know, I was like trying to play, like play got card, but I was really you know with her. But he eventually figured it out, you know, because of the tubbleware and the fridge. And I'm not going to spoil it too much for the for the audience with the book, but I'm taking it through it.
But more importantly, other than the hilarity of this situation, was like the mental dialogue that was going on. Yeah, you know, because for me, it was like the stress of that the stress, you know, the stress of the divorce still was still was there right the you know, Gabriella, you know, you know my ex girlfriend, you know obviously now, but like very intense human being, you know, a version of relationship thing I've never experienced, was very ill prepared for, let me tell you that.
And no amount of intelligence training is going to prepare you for fucking that, right, you know. And and so I end up I remember, you know, they're like, I'm still dealing with my divorce, right and
it's still not going away. You had to pay a substantial dowry to escape bad marriage you don't want to be in, exactly, and so like I literally, you know, jump through all these hoops, jump through all these hoops to you know, thank you, thank you, jump through all these hoops to just make this relationship work right out of love right right, which was really just a formal lust. Well you know what I mean, life feels exactly the same as love for two years, like you can't tell the
two a part. And I thank you for that because you know, I would have never known, you know, I would have never known. And and like, you know, for me, I'm like, this is the one, right, you know, wants to have my kids all this other stuff, right, So it's like intensely tense, genuine, you know, intensely tense relationship, but this divorce is gone on the background, yeah,
and it's pressuring me and everything else and so she did not know. At this point, I learned, I'm not going to tell her about any issues cover wise with the relationship, right the figuring out with the tubblewear and shit like that. So they it was like after Labor Day weekend, I get a call from the squad, you know, the the unit sergeant major. They pull me in the office and they're like, hey, we need you to go to fucking Iraq. We need you to go to Iraq and Syria
in thirty days. And I was like humhm, Like, you know I had plans with this woman, right, you know, I was slated to go the next year. You know, when you when you're working in these units, you know, you're they take your bog to wells. Dwell time is basically like, you know, amount of time deployed, amount of time of training, you know, and you know they manage it properly. But they were like, they wanted to send me right away because they wanted to
send the green Ray down range. And there was an entire fucking class of people ahead of me that graduated that haven't even been operationally yet, right, And I was kind of like, but I had the pressure of this relationship and I said, you know, in this split seconds, you know, and I had the divorce still on my thing. I still had to deal with the divorce. And I looked at him and I said, I was like, hey, I was like, oh go, but I should be
your last option. I was like, I have a divorce, I have a court date, and if I miss this court date, I am fucked right, And you know, I explained it to it. And Sergeant Major wasn't a very experienced guy, you know, operationally wise, but also too It's like you would think in this unit of spies, you'd have a higher level of EQ emotional emotional intelligence among everybody else. And he was just like,
I've been through a divorce. It's not that bad, right, And I'm kind of like, uh, you don't really know all the you know, details of it, right, doesn't mean and everybody goes through shit differently, but you know, I said, I was like, you know, I'll go, but I'll be the last choice. And then you know, my girlfriend at the time loses her fucking mind, right, because she's in
the leadership circle. She hears all the shit and and they're like, yeah, like she heard basically he said yes, right, and and don't get me wrong, is that Green Berets are never gonna fucking say no to it's to port right, right. I would never dishonor myself, you know what I mean? And and that the mission is too important. The mission is too fucking important, right. But also though some time and distance between me and her to give some space to the snoops also not a bad option.
But I remember she was fighting with me, and you know, I never really was one to fight with a significant other. And I just wasn't fucking equipped to do that. I didn't have the equipment and dynamic to do it. And there was a lot of gaslighting, a lot of shit like that, you know, stuff I never experienced before, and I just didn't know how to deal with it. And I remember I was in the literal fucking depths of my spare on my I moved out of the apartment in Baltimore and
moved to DC. I go there, right, I go to DC to be close to her, and and I just like she hates me. I'm fucking deploying and I still don't have a finalized divorce. I am literally fucked right, And there was those internal dialogues from when I was in spy school of feeling like not being able to win, absolutely fucking hopeless, can't win.
No one's in my corner. Yeah, and not even her, not even the woman I love, right, And it was like soul crushing because at this point, I've made so many sacrifices for others, you know, in my mind, you know, took the job for my ex wife to start a family. Didn't work, she didn't want to have a family. Okay, cool, see you later. Right now, I'm with this woman, right, making all the sacrifices for and again doesn't appreciate them, and
stuff like that. So I remember a conversation with my mother got me up off the floor and I called my lawyer. I was like, I don't fucking care, let's just settle. And it cost me ninety fucking grand ah, my goddamn money. Yeah. And then about two weeks later, I showed up to Iraq ready to fucking go. Yeah, broke broke as a joke. I was still with Gabriella at the time, and it was like, but at this point, how much the back in fourth of the relationship
was. I was very insecure about it, you know what I mean. It wasn't like it wasn't a place of stability. It wasn't a place of stability. But like you know, we talk about like a GB move here, I would imagine, you know, but before I left for that deployment, we lost somebody you know, on that deployment before and there was a chance I could die. But you know, for me, like you know, guys like us were like, you know, risk, We're okay with the high amount of danger. You know, when it's your time, it's
your time. And that's kind of like an old saying, like you don't think about the dangers. You just say, hey, it's gonna happen, it's gonna happen, it's my time, it's my time, right, and you think about this is how I'm gonna act in this moment, like all those operator traits. And but she said to me before I left, she would have my kids if anything happened to me. So he went to a
sperm bank and I made a donation in her name. So this is this is the status of that relationship when I leave Iraq right right for Iraq right, And it was like it's a total mindfulg yeah right, And so you know I'm I'm I'm in Iraq, and you know, I'm working with a task force that our sole job is to kill capture Isis and al Qada leadership. And you know, my job was produced intelligence to make that shit happen, right, And and it was awesome. We had a good fucking time.
Yeah, yeah, tell us about that. You want to talk about what we talked about earlier. A bunch of fucking goddamn criminals, you know, like just hood Rat's doing hood rat ship. Yeah, and like that was that was it. I get off the plane, they hand me four hundred thousand dollars cash. They say, spend this how you need? Just get shipped done? And I was like what right. I was like, holy shit, I'm going to cut her. I'll see you guys in a
while. Yeah, yeah, exactly right, And uh you know, and it was like, you know, for the first time in my career, I was like, I'm in the varsity league now, yeah, you know, going after abousaiaf Like granted, important, working with the Filipinos and their security important. But like you said earlier, is that I grew up in a period of g watt where all the fight that mattered was in Afghanistan or Iraq, right, And if you didn't do that, then you know,
you didn't really earn your chops, right, so to speak. So you know, for me, it was like, fucking finally I get to be unleashed, yeah, right, you know, and I was like, just you know, not only I was dealing with like all these emotions, but I was gonna fucking take it out on the goddamn enemy, right, you
know. Yeah, And so you know, I hit the ground running, hit the fucking ground running, and eighteen hour work days longer than that, sometimes rolling from one OP three hours of sleep, rolling into a second OP. It didn't matter everything that we were doing. You know, when you work in counter terrorism, human intelligence operations or just counter terrorism intelligent operations, you have to move at the speed of counter terrorism. That's fucking relentless.
Man. You don't know how long this guy is gonna hang out at this location for, right, And we either either a GM that motherfucker with the one to fourteen, or we send out a raid force, right, or a combination of bull who knows gun run whatever? Right, And and so
it was you know, for me, it was exhilarating. But you know, when I it was also coming from first Crew, the bougiest deployment I've right, I had my own chew, which is like a little like they basically take us half a shipping container, cut it in half, put an air conditioning unit in a bed, and I was like, this is sick. Yeah right, you know, and didn't have to worry about deng gay and malaria. You know, three hots. It was like three hots and
a cot man. And in a lot of the times, in most situations I was in in Southeast Asia, I was like, you got to figure out food on your own. You're out on a out in the local, you know, figuring it out. And you know, the fact I had like three hots and a cot and you know we were going out, you know, outside doing clandestine operations you know here, there and everywhere. But like the fact I had that like stability allowed me to really focus on just
work. Whereas like being on an Operational Attachment Alpha SF team in Southeast Asia, you got to do all that ship on your own. You know, logistics, every fucking everything is on the team on the ODA and a lot of that they take all that burden off of you, so you just focus on your job. That did you miss that though. Did you miss like being your own sort of internal intelligence, you know, creating the entire intel cycle, the entire f F three, like having all that for you?
Did you miss that at all? I definitely did. And the fact that, like I had so much experience with it showing up there and it was like understanding how intel drives ops and knowing that, and and I was kind
of extra dangerous in that. In that regard, I think of, like I don't want to get too far ahead as some of these stories, but you know, I think about like the you know, the Christmas Day raid we were trying to do, and uh, you know I was tracking this icist guy and helping this SF team track the sisist guy and you know, the guy met trigger right, so, which was like basically we had a BdL, you know, two forms of intelligence disciplines confirming that this guy was
at this location. And you know, I'm in my depths of despair right at this point, and you know, for me, I just wanted to get my gun on right, yeah, and get out the door and and fucking just do a fucking raid, right and just let go of everything right, and the team I was working with, I go I call over there, and I'm like, hey man, and at this point my reputation over there. Every time I showed up, shit would start spinning up. And
it was like I was doing my own ops. And you know one of the characters in the book, Arman, who I love dearly, you know, he was over there too doing ops, and I would support his ops. He'd support my operations sometimes, you know, either the security wingman, you know type type of stuff like that, they'd be running point on,
you know, source operations, staircase. But then like I'm doing the surmails detection und for ye yeah, you know he's in the back of the car, yeah yeah or whatever, right, And so but I get this team all spun up, and I'm like, hey, how about this Christmas Day raid. No one's expecting us on Christmas. George Washington crossed the Delaware to kill the British on Christmas. We're going to cross Iraq to kill isis right.
And you had guys who are like, yeah, fuck yeah, right, like let's fucking go dude, right, and you know we had it was just some ice a shithead, right, And it was like and I got everybody riled up, and we're gonna like you know, roll in with the thirty man raid force on like you know, two or three guys, and it's staying a fucking chance, right, and so you know the concept of operations goes up and they're like, all right, uh, you know this is why you know. The response was, this is why I love
doing this job because I work with fine gentlemen like you. But for Jesus Christ, guys, call your fucking wives. It's Christmas, like, you know what I mean, you're not going out and we're like, oh shit. You know, but the backstory to that, and I'm sure you got a question for that, you know, well, I mean no, I mean, if there's something else you wanted to elaborate on, I want to.
I mean, there's a big the big mish that comes up. But before that, I think you know, you have your your brush with a very dark place that I mean, I think we should talk about because that's really the topic of your book. How do that culminate? I mean, you know, quite frankly, like you came within a cunt here, right basically, yeah, and so it's so let me build up to that and
thank you for bringing me back there. You know, you know when you have a TBI, You're like like all over the fucking place, you know what I mean. And everyone used to have a jack in their pocket for those times. Honestly, Yeah, cattle prod me. You know, I will provide that role. Yeah, So you know, we're rolling into Christmas
at this point. The relationship with Gabriella is like I feel like I'm on ice, right, you know, a lot of the love that I'm trying to give, the same things that I did with my ex wife, right,
all these things just simply wasn't being reciprocated. Yeah, And so for me, I'm like, you know, not only I was a kicked puppy going into this deployment, right, but it was like all those internal, like raw internal dialogues of like, fuck, she's gonna fucking I know she's gonna break up with me, right, I know, right, And like I made all these sacrifices, you know, and and it's like I keep saying to myself, like I can't fucking win, you know, I just
want to fucking have a family. I want to do this. I'm gonna fucking rush man, right because it didn't work out with my ex wife, right, So I all these these issues, these internal dialogues, like especially the thing I can't win, and that a lot of self hate. What did I do wrong? What could I have done better? How could I have been a more? What am I doing wrong? What am I doing wrong? Yeah? I never looked at the other way. I looked in.
I constantly was looking internally to be like how did I fuck up? Right? And and so it's like about a week and a half, two weeks before Christmas, I think she gives me. She calls me and she's out shopping somewhere and not reciprocating text messages, not reciprocating you know, things like that, like you know, my my shoe or my you know, my little apartment, tiny apartment, you're dumpster housing contained, dumpster housing container. The rich Carlton, I would say, of of deployments, right,
the ritch call of deployments for me. You know I had pictures of her. You know it's just her us, right, guns, grenades, you know, radios, Yeah, fucking nag stacked high shit like that, my kit, everything else, right, And and then that was that was my purpose, That was my purpose on that deployment. And I remember she calls me, she says, I don't see where this is where we're gonna be. I don't see where this is, which is so which is so insane
because you're on a deployment. You were relationship has definitely has made zero movement forwards or backwards while you're on deployment. But she's in her head like she's creating this whole thing thing I do not even know. I don't I don't even really fully understand it. But the thing that fucking killed me was that
I could hear Christmas music in the background. It was like, you know, you could call me, you know, from your apartment, yeah whatever, but it was like done out in public, talk to you later. And so I go. You know, green Berets are never arms sisters away from their weapon, fucking fact. And you know I had my you know, my pistol was right there in my nightstand. And here I am, all these internal dialogues overwhelming me, overwhelming me at once. Yeah, I
can't win. No one will love me. How the fuck am I? No one's gonna take me. I just wanted a family. All I wanted to do is be happy. I did everything right in my life. I did right by this, I did right by that. And then there was a whisper just fucking ended, just fucking ended. Dude, You're never gonna win. You're never gonna win, right. And I sat there, and I don't know how long I sat there, but I stared at my pistol,
and I thought how I was gonna do it. I didn't think about anything else, right, And you know this isn't in the book, right, But I don't know what happened. There was a fucking presence in that room though, whether it was my grandfather, you know, higher power, Jesus, God, whatever, but I could feel it. I could feel that, and it was like and I remember I said to myself in that moment, I felt that presence and I was crying, and I said, all I have is the mission. All I have is the fucking mission,
dude. That's all I have now. And I remember I pushed my pistol away and I said, I have to go to the fucking gym. I have to go to the fucking gym. I have to go to the fucking gym. And I went to the little gym that they had for Sarah, and I think it was like probably three four o'clock in the morning, and I proceeded to fucking slay myself till chow opened up at seven point thirty for breakfast, which I never made because I was always sleeping till noon, you
know, because I was up all night. Isn't it interesting too that you're operating at such a high level, you know, professionally, you know, the pinnacle of your military career, really, while your personal life is just a disaster, complete and utter fucking disaster. And the thing about being in the military is that you're always in a location. You're away from things that make you strong. You're away from your family, You're away from familiar locations,
you're away from You're always forced to learn make new friends. You're always forced to, you know, make these new relationships every couple of years that you PCs et cetera. Right, I was away from the strength of the ODA, right because I know if I was going through the ship on my ODA back in Oki, fucking Ikey Mo Love your brother and my buddy Johnny would have made me sleep in their fucking basement and bang paychecks away to crawl
myself out of financial ruin. Yeah, and I also would have had a sergeant major that would be like, hey, man, Listen, I've been through this ship. You're gonna be fine. But here's what we're gonna do for you. You know what I mean, Because every starge major has been through that literally literally you know. Yeah, I mean I think I honestly, honestly, I think it's one of the requirements to becoming a sergeant major. If not, it should be. Yeah, definitely, definitely. It
makes you. It makes you way more personable. Yeah, you know what I mean. And it's a humbling experience, that's the thing is. And because because even though you were around solid dudes who were bros, they weren't. They weren't your bros, you know you. They were guys who you got along with and guys who had the same mentality, but they weren't guys
that you were comfortable feeling vulnerable with. Guys who would be like, you know, maybe they tease you about it to give you some shit about it, but also in a very loving way and a very like you know, but yeah, but at that time, it's like you the mission is priority right right. So and this is where we get into the the sweet sweet mish, the big mish, the big mish. And so I'm in the
death of my despair. Right, I go to breakfast, I am not going back to my room, and I just throw myself into fucking work, right quint essentially running for myself again, right right there is really you're on a deployment. There's nothing you can do. The mission is all I have. Go fucking all in, dude, And and that you know that, and that can become very pure in its own way, that if you just focus on the mission, everything else can disappear. Like it doesn't get better.
It does not, but but it can. It can you can like put it off for a lot. And that's exactly what it is. And we'll kind of get in that later. But like, you know, the the mission, I walk in, you know, people wake up around like ten or twelve, right, and people floating into our little tiny office. It's just you know, this little dentist spies doing doing doing the work that we were doing. And they're like, hey, Dave, you know, come on in. Right. I'm talking to one of the senior leaders and
he's like, I need you to drop everything what you're fucking doing. I was like what, I'm like, you know, I'm working on strategic shit. I'm working on you know, the ship for you know, count terrorism stuff. Yeah, I'm like fucking all over the map. Man. I was like falling that icis target for that fucking you know those guys and you know, doing doing you know, million irons in the fire, like I talked about earlier, earlier in the show, right, and and I was
like, well, what the fuck do you want me to do? What am I doing? He's like, trust me, dude, you want to work on this? And I was like, oh, okay, cool. Now at this point we didn't even talk about this, but I had a tiny piece of bag daddy, very very very small piece. All the credit goes to the fucking guys that did the raid and the people that found him. All I really was like a second set of eyes, you know, ope, operational preparation environment, you know, type of type of shit.
That was it. But people were like, oh wow, you know the people I was working with, like he worked on Bad Gatty, And I was like I didn't really you know what I mean, Like, yeah, all right, you know, I wasn't a dude that was like did the fucking raid, you know what I mean? Like, I wasn't the dog that tried to bite his ass. Yeah, you know, he deserves all
credit, you know. Yeah, And but you know, so I was like, you know, I had you know, I was doing some really impactful work intelligence wise, not just on the CT side, but strategic side too, and so I ended up I was kind of a trusted agent, you know, and all having a long tab goes along fucking way, dude, right, you know what I mean. So it's we all think the
same GBS. You think alike, right, green braves think alike. And he's like, trust me, you want to work on this, you know, And you know I did my piece with it, and you know, it was team of three of us, and so every day for like two fucking weeks or a week and a half, whatever it was, it was getting worse. Like I would, you know, we would get some intel in right, send it out and like forty five you know, never we get like a reply back like that, like half hour, forty five minutes
later, they're like, hey, we want more of this. I'm like, what the Fuck'm like, and I look at I look at my dude. I can't even say his name, but I was like, bro, what the fuck is this? You know what I mean? What are we doing here? Right? Because you haven't really been told what the op is. Haven't been told what the op is? Are you starting to get a clue from what, like the p I rs are that are coming in?
No, not at all. Really, it was very limited. The fucking j two brilliant mastermind genius whoever the fuck that guy is, right, you know what I mean? But and and don't get me wrong, there was
probably multiple elements that work this thing. Yeah, I have no idea, right, and so so anyways, like I'm in the death of my despair and I'm just fucking all right, fuck it, I'm going all in on this and you know, responding to everything, responding to every task and comes back, you know, working with my buddy, you know, working with the two other dudes. All right, hey, you know we should consider
this. You consider that, you know, human intelligence wise, right, all these things and intel comes in, goes out, get you know, comes right back. Fuck all right, We've got a retask, right. You know. It's very rapid pace. And it was expensive too. It was expensive, a little expensive up. So I think it was the night of January two, twenty twenty. I'm fucking exhausted. Not only I'm dealing with having just fucking almost killed myself a little while ago, but you know,
an uncomfortable relationship with my now pistol, all these fucking things. I don't even care. I just want to sleep. You know, I'm about three and a half four months into this deployment. At this point. Typically guys are rotating back on four, but I'm on a full six, right, I'm on a full six, which at that fucking pace of operations, it builds up, you know, the alistatic there's something in science called alistatic load. Like you're fucking you're capped out right, you know. These mad
scientists have figured out that like four months is the magic number. But I'm still on I'm on a six month pump. Yeah, And so it was hard because you'd have like a change of leadership and they have like this new fire right, and I'm like, all right, whatever, Yeah, I'm gonna go collect and tell and we're gonna kill this prick, right, like you know, you know what I mean, like you know, and and and but so anyways, I'm I'm bit and we're in this little or a
little dentist spies and I'm like, I'm going to bed. Fuck you. I don't care what's going on tonight. But all the ISR birds are at are at bat you know, Bagdad International Airport, And so like, I've been devin this target for a fucking a week and a half, two weeks, you know, two other dudes, right, and who knows slew of others that I don't know about that worked on this, and and so I'm like, oh, well, something's gonna happen. But I'm like, nothing's
fucking happening. No way, nothing's happened, nothing's happened this far. I'm going to bed and and my buddy's like, no, you're fucking staying awake for this. You're staying awake. And he pulls out one of those like shitty metal chairs. He sets it down right in the middle of our little talk, our little talk, and you know, we have ISR on the
big screens, and shit, He's like, sit the fuck down. And so we're sitting there and I'm watching it, and so it's like a pread feed, it's pread feed, right, and I'm watching it and plane pulls up and just like we thought on buy app on buy app right, plane pulls up and just like we thought planned and all this other stuff. Dude,
gets off. Black SUVs come up, gets in the suv, right, guy takes off, starts going down Route Irish, which is you know, very familiar with a lot of people, and then the fucking bird blocks on and fires an ageism and then you know, target wrecked, and my buddy goes, slaps me on the back and goes, congratulations, you just bagged cost some Sola money. And we were like, I'm like, we were like, holy fuck right, like fucking thrown shit right, like screaming,
hooting, hollering, like total fucking animals. Just a bunch off guys, like, holy shit, we just bagged the super fucking bowl of targets. Yeah, right, yeah, And that's probably a more significant target than bin Laden in Begdaddy put together. Absolutely. I mean, you think of fucking anybody that's in this country right now that's an Iraq vat that's missing a
limb, it is because of him. You think about the sheer amount of fucking suffering that like has been put through by ri Iraq vets early in the war, right, you know, quadruple ampeity stuff like that. That was him and Kud's force and all those ass bringing all the e fps into country. You know, defeating defeating our armor. Yeah, absolutely, Yeah. They were the madness of the science behind all that, and they were the
the impetus. He was behind all that, yep. And the you know, in the build up of that strike, we were you know, the embassy was under imminent attack. We thought the embassy was going to get big gazied right again, and we were producing information, you know, for retaliatory strikes. We were producing information to like the force pro side of it, all the force pro shit like that. We were talking people down there, you know. It was like, you know, jokingly, I was talking
about buddy of mine, he was working in security down there. You know. There was like a loose warno that went out was like if you're a Ranger or eighteen series, you gotta be on standby and yeah, holy fuck right. Yeah, Like we were like, oh shit, man, like
the stack is not deep and with a very special set of qualification. And it was fucking funny because I was talking to my buddy that was down there, and uh, you know, we have a whole gunlocker, a shit three twenties, two four nines, and I'm like and I'm like hey, man, like, so what do you want me to bring. I'm like, I got a two four nine. He's like, yep, bring that right, and I'm like put in the l A five on this, you
know, the optics and everything else. But obviously it never happened. But the the all the intelligence was indicating that they were gonna do some ship right and and and instead you got the ballistic missile attack. But killing him, killing Solimani was the thing I believe that stopped all that ship from the opening because what here's what I thought was gonna happen. I don't fucking know shit, right, I don't know what General McKenzie came out with. He was
a cent Com commander at the time. He came out with the a a article in The Atlantic about you know, the decision making process. It was really funny because we're fucking it's like chaos every day, and for General McKenzie,
it was like a fucking Friday afternoon, right you know. He like he like went and did like a tip off at some like NC double a football game, right right, yeah, and then like he did the open or whatever, yeah yeah, and like you know, meanwhile we're all like we're over there like holy shit, like this is fucking madness, what's going
on? And but you know, the stakes were fucking high. But that was the response to killing the contractor on K one, Yeah, which was you know, not only the appropriate response, but also all the ship that was going on behind the fucking scenes that didn't make that didn't make the you know level. I think you're right too when you point out that, you know, Sola money was irreplaceable. Oh, he was like the Bill Donovan
of you know, Iranian special ops. Yeah. He was one of those rare cases where talent and ability found its place quite do what yeah does. And I think that's true to this day absolutely. I mean I think, like as a case study, if I was teaching the eighteen Alpha course, which is the Special Forces Officer course, I would teach him as probably one of the greatest special Forces officers of the time, just objectively sure of what he could do. Yeah, is he a fucking tyrant? Did he fuck
with us? Sure? Yeah? Did he need to die? Of course? Right? Yeah? And and and so what right decision one? You know? And yeah, he was a talented professional, I mean, and able to be in order to be able to wage a war by proxy the way he did in Iraq. With you know, with their militias and also with the FPS and and everything else. It is a masterclass and it really
fucking is. It just goes to shows that like when you have political support, which he had, he had a line to he had to line like a direct line community, right, and like he could do no wrong, you know, cuts forces. I think it stands for Holy force, right, you know, in in Persian, and so it's you have. But it's also a very dangerous. It's very dangerous too. You have ideology rooted
in religion. They justify all their actions in their religion, yes, right, and you know we justify all our actions in law right, and everything we do is legally, you know, through and through you know, vetted by some you know lawyer right right, who has done the homework and everything
else. So it's there is a difference, and it's very scary when you have an entire country not you can't say an entire country because you have to say the regime, yeah, because it isn't the average Iranian person, The average Iranian person in that in that country is suffering, right, you know, and yeah, sanctions everything else for their for their for their wrong ways, and not just from US, but from their own government, like the
treatment that they receive from their own government. Like Iranians, Runians are not bad people, They're they're held down by a tyrannical reason. There is a epilogue to this story that I would like to hear you tell that's that's in your book about Edith. Absolutely, and this is where it gets even spicier. Gang, This is where it gets even spicier. So you know, when you bring down a big target like that, you got big problems,
big problems in the subsequent weeks. I can't obviously articulate a lot on it because there was a lot of heroics by a lot of dudes that I work closely with going after the PM. You totally making shit happen to keep people safe. Right, And so Edith, unbeknownst to all of us, who is Edith? Before? She was an interpreter. Okay, she's an interpreter and she was working for us. I brought her on offs talked, you know, I brought her with me. Everybody brought her with me. She
had massive rapport with all the operators. She was like a Cat three interpreter. Yeah, is that the highest level? Yeah? She had to be read on the TS stuff, right, yeah, and so I think she was that right. And so it turns out like January eighth is when they
did the ballistic missile attack on us. And you know, me being a good n c O. I was going around cheering people up right, and my buddy Arman, who is you know former Oh he is a Green Beret, but he was on his fourth pomp and OI R doing this job case officer shit, right, good fucking dude, but he like he ended up like busting his collarbone doing trying to train guys on dirt bikes to do to do a close target and it was like a whole fucking thing with him,
right, But he didn't want to leave, right, so they sent him to Germany and then he came back right, and he was like he knew it was his last deployment, right, and he was like I'm fucking sick on this one out guys, right, and and uh just walking around with
this lollipop in a slang. Yeah that's right. But like you know, he was sitting outside the bunker fully kitted up, like snoozing, and he was like, it's just gonna be a bunch of one O seven rockets right one of the catushas they fucking they look all cool and intimidating, and they go all this, they go in all these different directions. But actually it was a fucking short. It was a medium range bully submission at our base and or Beal and then at Alice Saide, right, and we were lucky
that it wasn't a direct hit where we were at. But I remember the booms hitting and then his ass popping up out of his cart, out of his chair, diving right into the bunker, and we were kind of quiet for a little bit, and I remember how I was going. I was like, wow, we're going to war boys. And I looked at one of the new analysts. It was his first apployment. I said, you're the first to die, right, and you like said right, And I mean it was terrible, but it was terrible, but that was the reality
that set in. Yeah, And so you know, in the subsequent weeks, we were working our fucking asses off, Yeah, working our fucking asses off, requirements just pouring in, you know, and then I think at one there was at one point, I don't know when the fuck this happened, but they pull us in and they go, hey, so you know, it's like five or six of us, and they were like, this is the pilot team for Iran, right, And I'm like, oh shit, well, you know, at first I make a joke because dark humor
is our number one, right, but I say, you know, at least they'll be a book about us, right, Yeah. And then and then I said, and this is this is the serious thing I say. I was like, you know, they can't take us alive. And they were like, what the fuck do you mean. I was like, guys, we all have heads full fucking secrets. Dude. Yeah. I was like, if we'd go all in on this, right and we get captured, you think we're gonna put the government in a bad position. And they're
like, oh fuck, you're not right. And I was like, you don't think it's gonna be You think they're gonna follow Geneva conventions, dude? Yeah? No, yeah, like no, this is a all or nothing type of thing. And I remember everybody in that room was like, he's right, he's not wrong, you know what I mean. And it was like one of those things, and you know, it never happened, obviously
never happened, but what we weren't prepared for. Was Edith the Catherine interpreter betraying us, who has been with you through source meetings, been with you through and you know, uh document exploitation, been with you through everything because she Shiaba's she was the cultural conduit. Yeah know, speaks the language, and it was we just didn't know how to fucking take it, but we just reacted accordingly. So what did you how did you find what did you
find out? And how did you find that out? That was not my job. I found out. Somebody else figured that out. And I'm very I can't really talk about it, you know, but they did all their homework. I think the way the way they did it was I can't even remember because at that time I was just dealing with the depths of my despair and you know what I mean, like, so, how did how did you? How did you find out? I mean, I mean, long
story short, Edith was transmitting classified information to the Iranians. Yes, yes, it turns out that she was has belaw sympathizer like from particular area of Lebanon that they missed in her s F eighty six. So the s F eighty six is what you all fill out to get a clearance, you go through all year, which as of like twenty fourteen, China has them all now yeah probably, yeah, you know, I'm definitely on their yeah, you know, definitely on their targeting list too. Yeah, you know.
Yeah. But like so you look at you, but you know, for her was you know, completely compromising us, completely compromising the people we were working with. And so the fallout of that is, well, we have a lot of work to do and then kind of before you know, the funny thing about being a Green Beret is we always think about Fallujah Ramadi, the guys that didn't field in Afghanists. We think about Nurse Stan Silver fucking Star Valley, Right, you think about all these guys that have done but
in hairy ticks Vietnam should even mac v Sacks. So tick stands for time. Was it a time of cons and contact troops and contact? Right, So you know you think of all these dudes, and Harry asked tics and you know, I was, I knew Earl Plumley, you know, I know or Pumley, Earl Plumley Medal of Honor recipient. Awesome fucking dude. He was in Okey on the tail end of my tour there right, talk about a hell of a fucking Green Beret being right place, right time,
right his story and Metal Honor recipient. So it's like we always think of, you know, these things like that's the ultimate danger, that's the ultimate danger. But you know, for me, I'm like, you know, talking to my buddies locally, I'm like, what are the two requirements that
you would have if they assassinated one of our people? Like if they went after Gina Haspell for instance, love Gina right, great human being, like you know, leadership wise, everything else right, But like if they took her out, for instance, which would would have been the equivalent of of Solomony, I think, right, what are the first two questions we would ask? Who the fuck did it? And where the fuck are they?
Right? And so when I kind of put that in perspective, the Iranians know exactly who did it and where they're yeah, exactly, especially with Edith Edith right next to you guys. Yeah, And so I'm kind of like, it's a nightmare. We're fucked, right. So I was like, you know, two weeks, two weeks shy of my sixth finishing my six months there packed in the sea one or packed in the C seventeenth sent fucking home. And it goes back to what we were talking about regarding Solomoni.
I mean, she wasn't recruited after the assassination, right the attack. She you know, she was recruited well beforehand. And I don't know when, but had to be had to be had. I don't know the details of it, but it's like they're good at what they do. They're good at what they fucking do. They're they're equally good at what we do too. I mean, like and we think that I would say this, the Arab world is generally very good at human intelligence because it's the cheapest form of intelligence
they can afford. You know what they think about it. You know what the Filipinos told me once, They said, you know how you guys Americans have analysts notebook and you have these computer programs that connect all of these different things, Like we do that genetically. We just understand it in our mind.
Yeah. Yeah, And that was like one of the hardest things of me when I was working there, was like, hey, you need to put it on a map, you know, and you should do this, do it this way, And well, I think I think one of the things I mean is a lot of the Arab culture is so conspiracy oriented to
begin with that that that they'll make connections. They'll make a lot of connections that aren't correct, but they'll make connections that are correct just because like they're they're their minds go there a broken clos Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know. The other thing that the Solomon and Rate did was was
it really I personally felt when it happened. I felt like it was kind of a master stroke of sort of like diplomacy in the sense of just three weeks or two weeks before the Ayatola had publicly told Trump you can't do anything about it, you know, about the attack, and then you know, three weeks later we take out a major figure of THEIRS, A major and not just not just a political figure, not just uh, you know, a kind of an empty sort of figurehead, but somebody who's very operational.
Operation Laden was not really operation right, Solomani was operating. Yeah, it was, you know what, And this is what I think about, And I don't really know all the details, but if I was him, I put myself in his shoes. As an eighteen fox, you always put yourself in the enemy's shoes based on what was happening on the ground with catab Has blah, you know, planning, plotting and planning and scheming to do an
attack on the embassy for some sort of win. I would imagine that he was going to let that happen and then come in and then pull his dogs off, right and be like, hey, the Americans, I pulled my dogs off. What you're gonna do for me? Type of thing? And I think it was like one of those is like quintessential, we don't negotiate with terrorists, but but that's it's all like he understood that cat and mouse game. He understood the diplomacy, He understood all aspects of it. He
you know, studied the shit out of us. Yeah, the dude was a true master and in a very formidable foe that a we we don't only you know it's he did horrible things against us, sure, but in terms of his effectiveness, he should be studied very hard, right and and and in depth and not to be because objectively have we you know since whild Bill Donovan, who do we got since then? You know, that was like that influential. He was a professional and if we were in that same position
geographically, we'd be doing exactly the same thing. Mm hm. Well and and you know, and he'd had years to study, you know, he had years you know, our actions at Tora Bora where they said, hey, back you know, where the enemy says, hey, back off, and we back off with with Solder and Solder City, with Jayshalmadi, we'd go in kick his ass until he go, okay, hey, hey, look, I'm a religious figure like peace, you know, peace and blessings,
and we'd back off while he'd build his forces back up, you know, like he had plenty of time to see our response to those situations and how we do give people the space to fuck with us because we want we want to, like you try to take the peaceful route. Well, here's the thing is like it's like centers of gravity. You look at something, you know, understanding our center of gravity analysis, looking at the population right
and that being the key the key holder of our success. And not only do encounter insurgency, but like unconventional warfare, we talk about it, you know. And and and that's he understood that we would say we would pull back, not send our guys out at night you know, not do as many raids, right, right, and ship like you know back then, right to appease certain people, to win the population too, in hopes that they would reject this extremism, you know, view and fighting us and trying
to make a more peaceful environment. Right. So they send you guys home because I mean, essentially this entire program has been compromised because of Edith. Uh So they they send you guys back home. What's the next step for you? I mean, I'm interested to hear about, like kind of the rest of your life, what happens after all of that. Thank you so much for asking that, because this is where the real battle of my mental
health starts. I go back. So I'm living in Capitol Hill. I'm about two blocks from the Capitol building, and I live in an English basement apartment. My landlord's a congressman. My neighbor's Lindsay Graham, center of Graham, right. And I didn't really live there before the deployment because I was at my ex girlfriend's house, you know, most of the time, and so here I was now no mission, right, no personal life, in the middle of fucking COVID. I returned. I was RTB March eighteenth,
twenty twenty. Wow. If you look at the news, they shut down all the airports on March eighteenth. Yeah, last burn in right, And I'm in my DC apartment alone with these fucking thoughts, no mission now, and I'm like, holy fuck, dude, And COVID is hitting too. COVID is hitting. I can't go home and see my family right because they don't know what's happening. Every restriction of movement everywhere, and I'm just basically told to sit in place. And they told me, they were like,
hey, you're earning some time off. Just just chill. I'm like, just chill. Yeah, I want my fucking life back, right, Like chilling isn't staying in an apartment yeah, and isolated? Yeah. And and so in this moment, all the thoughts of suicide come rushing back, and I'm battling with it every fucking day. But the thing they said to myself the first thing I said to myself, and this, this is the whole
reason why I wrote the book. I wrote this book for my GB friends out there, Green Beret friends out there struggling, right, And for the first time in my life, I had fucking compassion for myself. I said, we're not running. We're not gonna do an ultramarathon. We're not gonna fucking you know what I mean. We're not gonna like try to replace this void with some sort of succet material success or climbing ever there extrinsic success,
right. I said, We're gonna fucking sit with this and we're gonna figure it the fuck out, whatever this is. And I told myself, I've been through a lot, and I didn't drink right, but every day I, you know, was committed to fitness, committed to fitness. And there's many case studies out there that that talk about people with mental health disorders, people that are struggling, you know, and the dopamines hit, dopamine hits you get from fitness, and how to improves their symptoms. Unbeknownst to me
at the time, that was my fucking default. Just like I went to the gym that morning and slay myself on equipment before I blew my fucking brains out. I was doing the same thing every day, and I would run to I was about roughly three miles to the Lincoln Memorial from my house, so it was a six mile round trip and I would run out to honest say it, and there was no one on the mall, no one on
the DC mall. And I would sit there on his fucking steps, and I like, I would like look at him, be like, what the fuck, dude, what do I do? You know what I mean? And and I would sit there and I just I'd sit with my shit, you know. And it wasn't until I was clearing out an old storage unit that I had with my ex wife, getting rid of all the fucking shit from our marriage, right, it hit me in a very concrete way and I literally got hit with the fucking concret by a concrete truck on three ninety
five. Yeah. Yeah, And I've been to an evasive driving course, you know, for the job, and so like in the moment that like training kicked in and I got safely to the side of the road, and I remember the driver was like coming out and he was like are you okay? And I was like, I was devastated, you know, because the internal dialogue at the time was like I missed my fucking chance to die,
to die. Yeah, I missed my chance to die, to end my fucking pain to not because well I just want to point out that around this time, like, there were also a couple of suicides like around you absolutely, and one was an old friend and one was a colleague. I don't know if you're comfortable with me saying his name on here, but you know
Jake in your book, Well, I appreciate that. We'll stick with Jake, you know, but Jake's suicide at this around this time, right, I there was an all call about Jake's suicide, right, And Jake's suicide was basically like they brought us all in, we're all on his zoom call or whatever, and they talk about the details that happened, and they basically equated it to his He had multiple TBIs and Jake has done Jaysok deployments.
Jacob as an infantry guy. Yeah, before he was an intelligence operative like very you know, getting after a type of career, right, Like, but he was going through a ton of shit on the sideline, right, similar to you, very similar to me, and and you know, and he had a divorce, you know, in the works and shit like that too. Okay, Well I'm not I'm not tracking that, but like, yeah, I know I'm tracking a lot of that stuff. And I don't
you know. He It's one of those situations where it's like, you know, from the outside looking in, people are like, oh my god, how could that happen? But when you really like look at the person's life and you start to pick it apart and you see all the little details, it's like it flips to how could that not happen? Like this poor guy
had so much stuff on him. And that's that's exactly it. And and I think for me not understanding all the details of what was going on in his life, right, but just a dude going through some ship with some empathy, right and having some understanding of like, I know what that feels like. I saw a dude who was just trying to chase happiness, you know, That's what I saw, right, and and so and and that's how it hit me, just to find some peace, peace exactly right,
Peace, tranquility. But I mean, there isn't a whole lot of this. And he was chasing the dragon, just like you were exactly chasing the
high. And don't get me wrong, his girlfriend, she was she was an amazing human being, right, not gonna lie right, like, and there is there is a high with that, right when you meet someone that's like very like minded and everything else, and so and so it's like we're on the all call for Jake and we're listening in and the fucking the same sergeant major that callously just fucking was like, Yeah, you're gonna go to right and everything's gonna be fine, you know, without a tinge of operational
experience compared to me or other or a guy like Jake for instance, had putting hold a candle to this guy, Yeah, he goes and he's like, oh, yeah, it was TBIs And I'm like, really, dude, we're not gonna talk about everything else going on because at that moment and I saw they were, like someone on the all call said what are we doing in memoriam for Jake? And that sergeant major replied, this is it. And that's when I took myself off of mute and I said, this
is fucking bullshit. I read that sergeant major's reports on the fifteen six, and I mean he had like three sentences to say about that gentleman's death. I think it personally, how can you be running this unit and doing the training that we do and the genuineness and establishing connection with sources and having the emotional intelligence that we're trained to have that you're not going to extend it to
your fellow dudes, guys and gals. Well, but I was just gonna say, but he showed that clearly when you said I have these issues, and he said your issues aren't real issues exactly. And so when I look at Jake's thing, well, they treated my shit like that, right,
what is to say they didn't treat his shit like that? Right? And so that is why everyone's like, well, you talk about in the community and you're working in these high level positions, right, why guys are afraid of why guys and gals are going afraid to go to mental health, because that's exactly the fucking reason, right. It's like, you can't you can't own your ship, right, That's what I say in the book is own your fucking ship. But like, you go to these these things, you're
gonna lose the last thing that you fucking have. And that's a goddamn mission. And and and you know, a lot of us to work in these positions, we train our whole goddamn lives at this fucking point. You know, That's that's what that guy was holding on to you know, just like we're talking to Bill Moulder's widow the other day. And that's why yeah started sound off, which is which is an app that connects you with a therapist
anonymously. Exactly. Sound could have saved Jack it exactly for these reasons, because nobody is going to risk their clearance, their job. They're they're not gonna risk it for to talk to somebody. And then and the problem is is I think, like you know this, like once you get to the point where you're where you're thinking about it, mm hmm, you're you're you're like deep in It's it's rare that you're going to go, oh, I
should make maybe I should talk to somebody about it. Like you're like you're there with it, and and it's based on you know, your own personal resources the moment, you know, those types of things as to whether or
not, whether or not it happens. And it's like any intervention, like like I think of like just checking in on somebody, you know what I mean that little fight I know in the book I talk about I was I'm a very avid CrossFit athlete, and I remember the day after or that the day well was still the same day, but it was much later that day that I had my brush with wanting to blow my fucking brains out. I
had a CrossFit coat. My CrossFit coach in Baltimore reached out to me and she was like, hey, how you doing, because he was like close to Christian, Yeah, and I just fucking like emotionally vomited everything that was going on. And she was like, don't worry to I have a find you a nice girl and you get home, right, you know what I
mean, just being a supportive person. But it's like, and this is really why, this is what's difficult working in these units, and we kind of talked about this earlier on, is that it doesn't have the same carmaraderie that being on an odea, being in ranger regiment, being on a CEL team, all these other things, right, And it's like, because you're largely by yourself and you're working with people like that Sergeant Major that guess what,
are just looking out for themselves. And so to your point, not that I've read any of that stuff, but the three lines that he wrote is largely out of survival, right, That's what that sounds like to me, you know, And you're talking about it suicide note No. Fifteen six. Yeah, Yeah, And that's and that's the thing, is that one officers need to stop being punished for ship that they really can't control, you know, because in this in this case, Jake, I mean, he
was having like he was failing to recognize his colleagues in the office. There's people who had to walk him to his car because you couldn't recognize his vehicle. He articulated an entire suicide plan to a colleague a couple of days before he took his own life. That's a fucking wild Yeah. And it's like it's it's just you know what, I almost think like probably whoever that colleague was at a self preservation for their job didn't report it and they knew it
was going to be a career. I'm sure that guy blames himself because I read his report in the fifteen six to the poor guy. But it's not to blame everything on that one person. It's just to say that there were all of these different warning indicators that the unit should have taken action on.
But but what you know, what I was saying is that officers need to stop being punished for things they can't control and start being rewarded for an uncovering or revealing sexual assault, for like uncovering and revealing and helping soldiers who are in crisis, as opposed because the the and soldiers should not be punished for
receiving help when they're in crisis. They shouldn't lose their jobs and their clearances, especially when sometimes that the whole suicidal ideation thing can be such a brief period of time, whether it's just one time or you know, over the course of a number of mens months, but it doesn't define who a person is. And I love that you said that. I want to segue you
know, a couple things that you guys both said. But this is the thing, This is why I wrote the book, right, The whole reason why I wrote the book is, like you said, no one recognized the warning signs. Yeah, you know, I wasn't that close to Jake. I just knew of him, right, you know. But the the thing is is that because someone goes through with it and completes and dies by suicide,
it's not that you failed. But there's all these recognition signals. Like if that's why I start with, you know, just simply taking care of me. Hey, you know, realizing that I have a lot of shit going on, we should probably not deploy him right or that you know, maybe we give him the time that he needs and then he handles his shit.
And then because I know in special Forces, like hey, you know, they'll fucking Sargeant Major's help out dudes all the time with shit like that, you know, and and and so the thing is is that how do we how do we encapsulate like what you said is how do we turn those things into wins for them? You know, as opposed to, Hey, look, I took care of so many people, especially in this case within a special access program where you know, as one person told me once,
how far does an IG complaint go within a SAP? Not very far at all. Yeah, I mean, I have no idea. I never made an IG complain about anything, you know what I mean? But like, but I would imagine that's how it is. It's just like it runs.
And yeah, it's that we were talking about a little bit before the show that like it's fundamentally different than being on an oudier or a ranger platoon or a seal platoon, that being in a SAP, it doesn't have that quite the same type of leadership and camaraderie that you would find in those units.
Absolutely, I mean that is just so true. It's so true. And and you know, for me, I never felt like I had an advocate or someone that I could could write, because all I saw with Jake was he raised his hand and said, hey, I'm struggling, and they were like, fuck you. And then they were like, all right, we're gonna take your you know what. They benched him and then he was dead within two months. Yep, right, And that's what I saw. And then I saw like on the backside on that, all call was they were
like, oh yeah, this is all we're doing for him. A man that definitely earned a stretch of highway named after him, you know what I mean, in terms of his sacrifices and things that he made in his country. And this and this is the thing and this is the thing that bothers me. And I'm gonna try not to get emotional about it, but like my buddy lou and I'll just say it, Bobby Barrios, Right, That's who lou Is is, Bobby Barrios. And because I've had a lot of
guys in group reach out to me and who knew. They're like, dude, it's Bobby, isn't it. And I'm like, yeah, And so Bobby, I was with a former friend of mine, I'll say fucking former
in the strongest words. Right, I'm in the depths of my despair and I meet up with this guy in DC during COVID and he's a he's a Green Beret, you know, operating you know, part of you know the alphabet super shit, you know that's in d C, right, and and you know we're going, you know, we're sharing war stories and stuff like that. And you know, Bobby or aka Lou, right, he fucking he failed SLC the first time he went. And it was a PT test.
A fucking Green beret failing a PT test is a goddamn red flag as high as a red flag as you can possibly imagine, you know. And and this is a high performance dude, safartic, a saut fucking halo right, way more schools than I have, right, you know what I mean? Like high performing dude. And I remember this guy, well, not name, I forget the fucking name. I give him the book, but we'll call him shithead for lack of a better word. He went to SLC
the same time I did with Bobby. So this is Bobby's second round of going to fucking SLC. And when I was working on Battalion staff, I'd like, you know, he was S three air and he's working his fucking ass off moving oda's all over Asia, right, and I'm like, hey, man, we gotta go running. I know you failed two mile, dude, I fucking got you. I was training for an ultra, right, So I'm like dragging his ass out during lunchtime. You know, heated
a day type shit to get ready for. I mean, we're in Okie. The heat's way worse than it is at Fort Bragg, right, And so I'm like trying to I'm trying to bring him, you know, bring him into the fucking fold, right, being just a good dude. Right, And so we go out to SLC. He fails a PT test again. I'm like, bro, what are you doing? Man, come on, you can do this, right, you know, trying to give him PEP talk. I was on a different team, and then he ends up
failing the PT test again. So like Army standard or whatever the Army protocol is, like, you fail a P Professional Military Education course needed for promotion twice you're out, And I think that's what happened to him. I say, I think that's what happened to him because I lost, you know, going to the clandestine life. Yeah, I didn't really talk to many guys, you know, back in Oki and shit like that, and you know, all around first group and stuff. So I'm meeting with this this friend
of mine who I'd known for a long time. We went to new work together, and this fucking dude has a goddamn motherfucking audacity to say, hey, you know that piece of shit he killed himself? What in me? Struggling? I was in the fucking depths of mind to stare despair summer twenty twenty, still struggling every day to figure out why, you know, ask
myself, why doing the you know, all these things? And I hate myself because the only encourage I had was to say he was a good dude, when deep down, the man who I am would have beat the fucking shit out of that kid, you know, And that's what motivated you to write this book. That's one the reason why I wrote this fucking book. One hundred percent the reason why I wrote this book. I wrote it for all my buddies, you know, GB Green Beret friends, you know saw
friends, whoever's out there, you know. And this is what I say, come back to. Not just Bobby right, not just Jake right. I found out, like not that long ago, a bunch of guys like Matt Hayes, guy starved with, died by suicide. So many examples of this happening all the time, all over everywhere. Right. But the power in the fucking book isn't just telling it. I mean, the power is
telling the story. But the thing is is that when I got hit by that concrete truck that I mentioned in them a little while ago, I went back to my little fucking English basement apartment and I looked in the mirror the same way I looked in the mirror when I said when I was in New York City, and I said, what the fuck am I doing here? And I said to myself, I was like, I finally verbalized for the first time. I was struggling for months. I verbalized. I said,
I looked at myself in the eye. I said, I want to kill myself. And I said twice, I want to kill myself. And then I said why, what the fuck went wrong, and I did. I took all this intel training that I had, and I turned it against myself. I was afraid because of what happened to Jake to go to any sort of mental health right, anything, Right? So I sat there and I said to myself, I was like, I wide myself to death. It's the most important question you have as a case officer is asking yourself why,
or asking excuse me, asking your source why. So I turned it against myself and I wied my fucking self to death. I wied my like, why did this relationship fail? Why did I not have boundaries? Why? You know, I didn't even understand what boundaries were then at that point, right, But like, you know, why did I let this happen to me? Who the fuck am I? Where is this fucking kid that is the grandson of jack Field dang the Great Escape Pow, you know what I
mean? It was like, who the fuck is this dude? Right? I didn't even know myself at this point. And I sat there and I fucking said, I owned my ship, and that's why I tell people to own your shit. I own my shit. And the conclusion that I came to at that time was that my entire identity was tied to the value other people had in me. I had no control, right, and the uniform does that being an intelligence operative does that? You know, you're only a
Green Bereat does that? It's You're only as good as like your ops. You're only as good as the intelligence produce. You're only as good as this, right. And it was like this fucking reckoning that I had to have with myself. And I'm telling anybody that's out there right now, if you're struggling, you go into the darkness. When you come out, you will never go back, and you will unlock a fucking superpower because I am the
most genuine form of my fucking self that I've ever been. And you know what I mean, It's like I look at that and what I had to go through and talking to you know, in the book. Since it's been out, I've had Green Beret friends reach out to me. They're like, bro, I went to the same fucking thing. Yeah, right, And it's like, what was that first step for you that you you have this epiphany like I have a problem, Like what was it for you as far
as like your path to recovery getting treatment? I think it was very not unconventional, just like green berets are a lot of it was realizing the negative self talk, realizing the negative internal dialogues. You know, when I started looking wine, I was unpacking deeply. I was like, where's that coming from? And then I started realizing I would wake up every day and start
with this whole negative internal dialogue myself. Right, I would say, oh, you know, we're not gonna get what you want, We're not gonna win. You suck, you suck, You're a piece of shit, right, Like it was so rooted in self hate, right, and it came from a collective of a of a. It came from a collective of experiences that led me there. That's what trauma does, you know. Trauma Trauma fucks you up, you know, and and and and that's the thing.
It's like, doing what we do in this job. It was to such extremes, right, saw trucking extremes, right, And wh're working with extreme personalities. I feel like, I mean, I can be an extreme personality at times. You know, trying to convince a bunch of dudes to go fucking murder isis on Christmas Day? You know what I mean? Like, sometimes it's a necessity other times, you know, but other times it's just
for shits and grins. Yeah, you can try to tell yourself that you're some sort of like rogue outside or outlier, but really we're all just part of the colorful cast of characters, absolut fucking dude. And the biggest thing is that it doesn't matter how fucking cool you are. We all put our
pants on the same every morning. Yeah. And the thing is is that I had to like really look at myself internally and and just wrangle those internal those negative internal dialogues that I was having, Yeah, And it didn't come with you know, I had a subsequent you know, I was the operations sergeant major or squadron sergeant major, right, even though I didn't hold the title of sergeant major, but I was fill in the position, right. So it's like, you know, during those times, like you know,
I actually had fucking space to kind of like really think about myself. But the thing I never gave up. And this is why I think exercise is so important. And it's the same thing like my grandfather always exercised, always running, always boxing, Right, I never gave up on it. I was always going across your class every day. I was always running, I was always doing these things. I was getting those little dopamine hits. I was getting those little confidence boosters to say, all right, hey, we're
good. You know what I mean, Like we're we're okay, things are fine. And it would, it would, it would calm the internal storm, yeah, you know. And it's just I would say that I'm even now. And here's the thing. The healing journey never ends. It never does. And I'm learning stuff about myself every fucking week now, peeling that goddamn onion. Yeah right, And it's not like and here's the thing. It's like so many people want to undo and forget that identity of being a
GB, being a greenberry, being a ranger, being everything else. I'll never stop being fucking dangerous. I'm sorry, Like you know, that's that's like kind of the more you have, the more you try to run away from it, the more problematic it becomes. Right, doesn't really work. After fucking lily, I see fucking LinkedIn posts dudes being like, oh I
finally let go. There's some like shot that fuck up? Yeah right, You're a dangerous human beings just accepted for what it is right, you know what I mean, But like it's a temperament and I think really is like as a warrior, right, adopting this warrior mindset, like you have to have a mentor. I have mentors, right, I have coaches, I
have people I trust, you know, and they're all green berets. And you know, when you think of this sort of warrior ethos, to this warrior ideology is like you're hanging up the rucksack, right, but you're still true to who you are, you know, And that was I was a warrior when I was eight years old, fucking climbing up La Fayette, you know what I mean, with dad like trying to keep me from blowing off
the side of the fucking mountain. But like warriors are forged, they're not born, right, And the thing is is I feel as though, and this is something I'm still figuring out now, is you know, living with this and it's not. I'm still who I am and I'm proud, you know, have pride in who you are and pride for the things that you've been through, and the things that you've been through make you more resilient.
Yeah, And don't forget how fucking strong you are, you know, because this is the thing I love that green Beret will say say more about you than you ever will say about yourself, and that is fucking facts. We have questions for Dave Sweet and if you guys want to pick up his book Into the Darkness, there's gonna be a link down in the description. I read it on my kindle. You can also pick up a hard copy. Hope you guys will go and check it out. We also just passed like
two weeks. It's an audiobook is available too, awesome. Did you read it or did you have somebody else to do it? I now read it. Yeah, of course, plenty of you know quotes from my father, you know, said with a thick Bosston accent. So there, wait,
where's my show? Chat? Okay? Uh so somebody somebody I haven't been able to pay attention to chat and pay attention to you, but I think there's somebody who knows you in chat, who's been uh, who's been cheering cheering you on JWS nineteen eighty three, not not I think that's anyway. But let's see here, what are are I think that's who it was, I'm not sure. Uh. Okay, So questions. M Corbyn, thank you very much. What happened with the eese knife and assault lift during seer?
I love you? Chris So Sere school, I was, uh, we're in CRC and we're going to survival survival mode. So there's like three phase. There's a couple phases, right, you know, you do you do your evasion right, and we were in the survival phase. So we ended up we evaded like it's like eighteen fucking miles on, like no food
or sleep, and we're at our survival site. And here was the thing like having done like you know, being an eagle scout, done winter survival, building shelters and everything else, you know, to save we need food at that time. So I was like, hey, all right, I'll build us the fucking Hilton in the woods. You guys go forge food and like you know in all these military lanes right like their pick try, and we were right it was it was I think it was January February was our
serier school. So there was fucking nothing right, right, there was nothing And and I remember here's my thing. I packed the packing list. Every time, you know, I've seen guys get like scuffed up for having too much shit. But you know, one of my buddies on that team, you know, he had this like boozy, bougie ass knife, right, and I was like, hey man, you know, can I borrow this? You know? And I hack this fucking thing up. I'm like chopping
branches. I'm trying to build this like beautiful shelter, right, cover concealment. Right, I'm not gonna lie. Everyone was warm and dry, not gonna lie, but it was warm and dry at night. But like I ended up like chip putting a bunch of chips in it, you know, a chip in the dent. I mean, this is a survival situation, right this right, don't bring a bougie knife, Like, don't bring a
knife you don't want to use in the field. Did you? Did you not just hear that crests side, because that's what I just heard, right. But but anyway, so to this day, he always gives me shit about it, like, you know, and I'll never fucking live it down. So you know, hopefully we pick up some copies of the book and I'll buy him a new fucking knife and can get off my ass about it. But like it was, it was really fucking funny. And did you
guys have as salt like to attract game or something. I don't I don't really remember. Probably I think so, yeah, like because we were in like a hunting area, I think, and they were recawning just to see if like any deer whatsoever. And I mean we're only armed with like what you build, right, so fucking you know I had were they eighteen bravos yet? I don't know if they were eighteen Bravos. I don't know if they did back then we did ms after seer it's different now, I don't
know. But like they're constructing like bone and arrows, you know, like trying to make like all right, how do we bag a deer? Yeah, like bare minimum? Right, I think like it was just it was really funny, but we just ended up starving. That's the trend. Yeah,
I mean survival is it is his own thing. I think it's one of the reasons why they took it out, like took the main part of part of it out of like the old ranger schools, because it's like like, if you're trying to survive behind enemy lines, you're not hitting your ENNI lanes, like you're not You're not actually doing your job. Yeah, you know, I mean obviously you should know how to you know, get food
if you need it. But it's really interesting, Like it definitely is a it's it's just a grit test, yeah, you know, and it's like how bad do you want to be here? And the thing I love about to your school is like, you see, like that dude that I was with, like you know, we're in the phase where you know, we're all fucking POW's and ship and I remember me and him like stages fight and he's he's a hardcore New Yorker and I'm from Boston, so he's like the
fucking Red Sox suck and I'm like, fuck you fucking nik suck. Right, you just start beating the ship out of each other, right, And you know that was what we were told by s ro Oh senior ranking officer and senior ranking elisted right, So it was just like it was really cool. But you also saw guys who like shie away and you're like, hmmm, are you really all about this ship? But you know what I mean, like yeah, yeah, m Corman, thank you, thanks again.
Is there any true to notion I mean of the brain being able to orient uh, orientate process and decide on any four things in the smallest perceivable time frame. What in the fuck that is some big brain ship And I wish I was on a gramo psilocybin and really fully answered that the next question, but yeah, any four things. I don't know, bro, this isn't a Tibetan temple, Okay. I mean we try our best here, but I mean from personal experience, i'd say no, Like when when when you
like orient Like like that's where what target fixation is? Right? Like you you have one thing in your your view and that thing overcomes all other things. And I think probably doing this sheer amount of CQB training I've done, and the biggest thing that you learn is taking your eyes out of the out of the scope, right, or taking your out of the reflex site. Right. It's being down here, yeah and looking yeah, and then just you know what I mean, O d A right, yeah, right.
And And that's that's kind of how I take that question. It's it's it comes with, it's discipline, it's training, it's you know, it's a lot of different things. It's like you know your your reaction and in building when you learn new skills you build new connections and neurons and brains, so it's like very important to I would say, how I reply that, how do I do that? Now? On the Similian side, you know, I just learned to ski this past winter. I fucking love it, right,
you know what I mean? And I'm going to continue to like, you know, learn new skills and stuff like that that I never did. It's vicial forces. So I think probably how do you develop a better, you know, a more lethal mind is always be learning new things, growth mindset, you know so? Uh? Jennery Colly, thank you very much. Did you ever meet former Norwich Commandant Chacala and if so, did he tell you about his time with the cords program? Uh? No, I
never met him. My time at Norwich was from three to seven and Rear Dmal Schneider was our commandant at the time. Great dude, and uh but no, I don't know that individual. Sorry. Sean McDonald, thank you very much for subscribing. Eric, thank you very much. I didn't see a question. If there is one, throat and chat and I'll look for it at the very bottom. Adam White, hey, buddy, great to see you. Great entertaining a great entertaining and informed of show tonight. Guys
keep on rocking. Long lived Boston Humans. I feel like every because Adam is also you know, Adam's Boston and he was a human turn. I have this image in my mind of every guy who does human being from Washington is like from Boston, Like, yeah, this source is wicked connected. That's yeah, they're wicked sick dude, they got everything, you know what I mean. Like it's like the we're running the Whitey Bulger of fucking you know what I mean, Like you know you think you had Winter Hill Gang.
I don't know, right, but it's it's just like we have such a way with people up there. Yeah, it really is like just a very different way with people, and you know, growing up growing up in that environment, like we're all like no one's no one's shy to be like what the fuck's up with you? Dude? Yeah, what's the matter? Right? You know what I mean? Like it just they'll pry, you know, they'll reach into you, and it's just otherwise like don't make eye
contact on the fucking street, right, you know why. It's just it's such a weird Boston is such a very aggressive but incredibly like emotional, you know it tie in like so like I like to joke, I like, you know, I grew up my my mother's My mother was Italian. She passed away a few years ago, but she's Italian. My father's Irish and English. Right, fucking fiery relationship, man, I bet fiery relationship. But like and like Boston thing thrown on top of the Boston thing, right,
it's like a force multiplayer. Yeah, totally. I mean my father, like, I love him to death, but he's like a fucking cartoon character in terms of like, you know, Boston fucking tradesman. You know, you know, it's just it's just really funny. We're a special kind up there, you know. Own regard Luisascaz, thank you very much, thank you for the amazing interview. And what was your favorite driving experience? My favorite driving experience, I feel like it's a loaded question. Was the
driving course I went to? And I would, oh, wait, I know, I know this fucking question. I know what's trying to be said here, all right? So is this a setup? This is a setup, And I'm gonna fucking tell it because it's too good, all right. So I'm doing a source I'm doing a source meeting, right, and I got two dudes with me. I got one doing long eye, you know long you know, long gun, and I got guy doing one guy doing
near side security. And the guy that's doing nearside security he's a former ranger, right, fucking enormous human being, just never miss a day at the gym. And the guy that's doing you know, my long eye is he was uh former eighteen delta, right, And so I'm about to you know, go do this fucking dick dance with the source and everything else. And and so we're in the car and you know, you know, super ranger there he you know, we got the party bag of grenades, uh,
empty fucking five. Right, I'm ready to go. He's ready to go, rady, you know, ready for anything. Right, and he pulls, uh, you know, one of the many brands of water you get on deployment, So the little shitty water ball. He goes, oh, got a pee, And I'm like, dude, we're on the X man, I'm about to meet the fucking sort like we need to know. And he's like, oh right, and he's taking a piss and I have colms,
and you know, we're just like several weeks. I'm several weeks on this deployment, high stress right and the long eye he's like, he's like, is he taking a piss? And I just start fucking dying laughing. Here he is pissing in the car and it was just outrageous. But it's like this quintessential like soft dudes a in a high stress situation just being ridiculous. Yeah, you know what I mean, not taking anything serious, Yeah, no shots are fired whatever. He was like, yeah, I'm just
gonna take a piss right here. And I'm laughing because he's this massive duty He's got his long rifle between his legs and how the fuck you you know, with plates on, Like how the fuck are you doing this? You know, Ye're all like rolling like low viz plates. But it's fucking funny. It's it's sort of the quintessential. Uh what what do the kids say? Now? I d g a f like I don't give a fuck culture Like it's just like yeah, and it's like, uh, we're probably not
gonna get shot at. Things are fine, and you know, like danger is a very relative thing to a Green Beret, a ranger, and you know, we kind of think of those extreme circumstances, like honestly, it's like I'm meeting a dude in an alley way, you know, it's it's whatever, right, Like it can't what is gonna really happen? Right, you know what I mean? Like and just looking for what it is,
Delta Zulu, thank you very much. So he's he's asking, uh so, first off, I'll say what he said, great interviewer, a great interview, by the way, and thank you for your service. And then he's asking specifics about units you guys worked with and deconflictions. And I'm just going to answer that form and say that he worked with a variety of task forces and units, and we won't go into specifics like which units specifically. Yeah, I can't really go Unfortunately, I can't go like you know,
I can only go what's been approved in the book. But you know, it's it's just this massive enterprise, you know, between it's this cohesion between you know, top units and three letter agencies and everybody gets to say and it's at times it's very competitive, but you know, we figure we figure the fuck out and we work together and make great things happen, you know.
Yeah, So I just want to remind people please check out our patreons down the description and you subscribe to us and get all these episodes ad free. D Who do we have next week? Is it Alan? Okay? Well one second? So yeah, is there anything else you want to tell people about the book Into the Darkness? Check it out. I mean they can find it on Amazon. Absolutely, you can find it on Amazon. There, it's on audible, Spotify, A lot of the audiobook is on
myriad of apps. Hard copy, hard copy covers available paperback but Amazon. To find it the easiest way just look up Into the Darkness by Dave Fielding and yeah, man, be ready for a good ride. Can we have anything on patron negative? No, But next week we have David Nielsen from a Army special missing a great to talk to him. We missed no. No, thank you guys very much for having me on this. Yeah, we covered it has been about three and a half hours. Yeah we covered
a lot, Yeah for sure, but also just scratched the surface. So I hope people will go and check out the book Into the Darkness and we'll be back next Friday. Thanks everybody, Thank you, Thanks Dave