Delta Force Operator and CIA Officer | Gary Harrington (throwback episode)

of our guests. I'm going to ask you a little bit about you know, your your upbringing and sort of that path that took you towards military service, if you could kind of on your origins.

it was western North Carolina. As a matter of fact, when I was young, we still borrowed my grandfather's mule to plow our garden. So, you know, it was It's funny because those skills, you know, I still had relatives with an outhouse. Those skills came back to served me well in SF. You know, when you go live somewhere in some other country and you don't have all those facilities. But you know, military wasn't talked about a lot. My dad just did his two years in the Air Force.

I married, my mom worked for a telephone company. We moved every few years for that. And you know, my parents were that generation that struggled real hard to make it improve themselves from you know, barely making its meet. Now. I can remember when they used to have to go to borrow a dollar from my grandfather to make it through the week. And we go up there and work on the garden and so we could have the garden and a hog and a cow helped get us through

the year. But hey, they kept digging and working, worked real hard, living in the American dream and you know, we became middle class family, lived in the suburbs, moved around. I think I was one of those people that was shy. I had a upbringing that probably made I was probably not the most self confident person, which later probably fired some of my drive and determination to do some of

the things that I did. But one thing we were taught is hard work, and we were taught to take punishment, so that that all served me well in the military. And you know, I was pretty shy and didn't think of anything about going into the military till I was in college at a little place called Campbell College back at the time up near Fayetteville, and there was this one day I was running track. There was this big giant marine six foot four V shape officer selection officer

walking around. He came up to me and I was a scrawny, skinny, thick glasses wearing a distance runner and he said, Hey, I hear you think you can run pretty good. I'm going to challenge you to a decathlon and you can pick eight of the events and I'll kick your ass. I was like, what, I'll pick all the events that I can do, and in the end, you know, I got invited to go to the platoon leader's course up in Quantico. And you know, I hadn't really thought about the military, but I was a smart

ass and I love challenges. So you know, that guy started talking about you ain't tough enough to make it. You know, we we exercise real hard, we'd push you real hard, and I just don't think you're man enough. Well that was all I needed to hear. So you know, I said, hey, wait a second, you're telling me I can go up there for six weeks. You're gonna give me clothes, to where a place to sleep, and you're going to feed me, and at the end you're gonna

pay me like seven hundred dollars. Shit, I'm there. So off I went to the platoon leaders course. But you know I got there and it was the discipline and everything that happened sort of just changed me. I'd been an extremely anxious person, and you know, I had an outgoing, overt personality to cover up my shyness and anxiety. I think in some respects I grew up as like a

long ranger kind of guy. But the man I admired was Tanto, the quiet, silent guy, the guy that my grandfather told stories about from his days of hard working men and hoboes. So the discipline in the Marine Corps. I realized that, hey, I can take more shit than most people can take, and I can be better than these other people if I take more, so bring it on, give me all you got. And it sort of just slipped a switch in me and I became a lot

more outgoing and confident person. And from that day forward I wanted to be a marine. And upon graduation of college, I got commissioned as a second lieutenant Marine Corps.

in quite four years. I dropped. I had dropped out for a year, and so December seventy nine and I began the basic school in early nineteen eighty.

the military and in the Marine Corps. You know, Marine Corps Infantry, it's high diddle diddle straight up the middle and there weren't any wars going and you know, I I did take a float a team. My team we went out on float to Beirut, wound up in Beirut. We were supposed to do this nice med cruise where you hit ports and have some liberty doing exercise, but the moment we got over to the med, we charged off to Beyrout and did the squares in the ocean

until it was time to go into bay route. The first time we went was to evacuate the PLO and then we went to take some liberty, and then we came back after the massacres and the refugee camps to start the M and F. And we stayed stayed in Beirut till probably November early November of eighty two. And we're relieved by the people that ultimately were there for the bombing the next year.

at being out front and doing observation. A matter of fact, if we took everybody off shore and put them on ships, we could put marines on rooftops doing ops and accomplished the same mission that we're accomplishing now. And I refused to move the marines into the into that building. The you know, new people came in after that, and you know, things changed and they moved into the building.

with civilians and you weren't sure. You know, it's like low intensity conflict. Who are the bad guys and who are the good guys? Absolutely?

But we were there, weren't that many of on the ship, so I so the captain and I had a very strange relationship because I was a first lieutenant and he and I used to go at battle each other because he'd tell me that he wanted me to order the Marines to do this or that, and I would say, no, certain things, I'm not going to order the Marines to do. And so it was interesting. But I think that sort

of set the tone. I just had this knack always most of my career kind of bucking the command structure somewhat, and it was good practice to do that. So we came back to Camp Lea June, and you know, by time on the team or with the platoon ended, and I got moved up to the training office, in which I hated. I'm twenty six years old, I'm a distance runner, I've been to Scouts, Niper Instructor School, Amphabricon School, SF SCHOOLA school. I want to be, like, you know, an

enlisted guy and fight. And then he said, well, you're going to be a trained officer, so I did that. Then the bombing of the barracks happened and they were getting ready for Granada, and at first they said they wanted me to take to take over and take a platoon back into Beirut because I had boots on the ground. But then I think smartly they decided that wasn't the best thing to do to leave the person commanding that

platoon with his own platoon to do that. So I stayed the training officer and eventually found out that oh, hey, you've been promoted the captain. Now your time in the fleet. Marine Force is over, you're going to go to You have two choices, marine barracks Adak, Alaska or Guam. And they said, what is marine barracks duty? And they said, well, don't worry. You do that for a few years, then you hope you come back as a company commander and get some

command time. Then you go away for staff again, and then you can come back in higher command jobs if you make the cut. But you know that's not what a twenty six year old guy on adventure wants to hear, right, So I ended up I resigned my commission and thought about other things to do. I actually almost followed the route of becoming a mercenary in Nicaragua, and fortunately that

didn't work out. I think I'm glad now that that and ended up being recruited by the FBI and went through their process and took their test until I made

it to the point the final interview where I'm sitting in front of three guys wearing suits and they're saying, okay, you understand. And this is in the eighties, and it was mid eighties, early nineteen eighty four that the job of an FBI special agent is more admin than what you're used to. And it's a lot of sitting in the office and then you have moments where you do

other things and are you ready for that? And again I was happy right that I had been accepted, but I looked at these three guys in suits, and I said, is that what I want to be doing fifteen years from now? And again I didn't think about the future. I thought, I don't know. I thought about the adventure, and I guess I believe that I had a role in life and that was to be in combat. Maybe I wouldn't make it out, but I didn't have a plan on getting older, retiring, all that kind of stuff.

So I yeah. In the moment, I accepted and I was told, you know, I'd be getting an assignment to go to Quantico. But after I went home and thought about it, I was say, I can't do this. So I called them up and asked them if I could get out of going to Quantico, and they said, do you know how few guys we can take that aren't lawyers or meeting certain requirements during this time in the eighties, And I said, I can't help, but that's not where

my heart is. So I bailed on AT Then I went to enlist in Special Forces, went through a map station,

was in the process of swearing in when an officer runs in and says, hey, stop, stop, stop, you can't swear him in. And he pulled out a rag and he said, here's this one line that says former officers of other branches of the military may not enlist in the United States Army no way. And I mean, that's one of the reasons I bailed on the FBI, right, and I thought, holy crap, you know that the rug's been pulled out from under What am I going to do?

But you know, I fell back and I started researching, and I found that the Army Reserve didn't have that one line regulation in there. So I went to reserve recruiter. Then he was like, hey, you're kind of splitting hairs. I said, yeah, but do you want to look at how you can do it because it's not in your rag? Or do you want to look at how you can And I said, you're gonna go out there and hire some eighteen year old off the street that you don't know.

Maybe they're a dropout, maybe they're a delinquent. Whatever, I said, I've I've proved myself. I have a career, I've got a good record, so you know, in the end they accept me. And I enlisted in the Army Reserves for SF. But to do that you had to enlist in a shortage. Mos. So now I'm going to be SF. I'm like, wow. I was in recon and I had these guys. They were E two's and threes and they had a little bit of years experience Special Forces guys. They're East six's

and East sevens. They've been doing this year is they're going to be like ghosts moving through the forest. They're going to be like this big you know, it's the ultimate, it's everything, and so I uh and I was really excited to become a demo guy or a weapons guy. That's what we all want to be. And they said, hey, sorry, buddy, we got all the weapons and demo guys we need.

If you want to come in in SF, your choice is medic or como and uh, And I thought about the one oh fours and the radios we've been humping around, and my time in the Marine Corps, and I said, I sure as hell don't want to be a como guy. So I signed up to be a medic and went through the Medic Corpse Q Course, Medic Course, Airborne School and wound up in seventh group as a medic.

Pair any of our mattresses with ghost Beds award winning adjustable base and get the ultimate sleep experience. Ghost Beared rules the family owned business sixty thousand plus five star reviews. They have sleep experts on staff with twenty plus years of experience. If you have any questions, you can hit them up and ask them, you know, maybe what kind of mattresses work for you. Twenty plus year warranty that's two times the industry standard. Free shipping and returns on mattresses.

Most of the products ship out within twenty four hours.

They have in house customer support and sleep actress sleep experts Chilling in Plantation, Florida. It rules, it's the best. They give you one hundred and one night's risk free to make sure that these beds are right for you. If you don't like it after one hundred and one nights, you could send it back full refund. When you purchase a ghost bed mattress, you're comfort guaranteed. I'm reading it

right now, and it's capital letters guaranteed. Okay, they do the right thing and they're a great company.

That's goosped dot com slash house with the code house ho u se at checkout for an extra ten percent off site wide. I want to think go sped are there continued support. I want to thank all the fans that listen and watch for their continued support. Without you, guys, we are nothing. So thank you for supporting the show, and thank you for supporting the companies that help support the show. Go spad dot com slash house for ten

percent off, made in the US, made in Canada. Shout out to our brothers in Canada.

was good. And then you know the thing that was new to me was deploying and working with foreign militaries and that, you know, that was a whole new awakening at it kind of reminded me of my first days and as an infantry platoon commander, where you know, you had high school dropouts, and I had a couple of guys that had been given the choice of jail or the Marine Corps. So I found that some of those old skills came in hand.

one reason I wanted to go to SF was because during my time in the Marine Corps I did make a little short trip to Honduras and I did meet some guys at one of those Black Agency sites and some of the folks they were training. That's how I almost made a misstep there and wound up working in Nicaragua. But I was so excited because I saw, you know,

this is peacetime. These SF guys, they're out there doing it and if anybody's going to get mixed up in anything, it's the s F guys, and that's where if you want action, that's where you need to be as in SF. So I was very happy to get there. We didn't, you know, it didn't work out quite on my top my own personal time time frame of getting in any action. But that's how I spent my time in seventh Group. I made several diplomas to Honduras and into Panama. As

things were getting difficult in Panama. We went down there a couple of times, got extended there for several months once as people were trying to figure out what was going to happen. And yeah, so it was that during that time are the is the first time I heard people talk about this whole Delta Force thing, and you know,

I'd never really heard of it. Uh now, my story, Major Star, Major Park was on what do you call it, green Light team, the forerunners to Delta Blue Light, and he did not he did not he didn't care for people that worked for him going out for Delta. But I heard this thing, you know, and everybody that I knew kept talking about if I get in shape, you know, it's so hard. And we were on a scuba team. I was on a Scooba team. Scuba teams are fit teams. We run hard, PT hard and you know. But everybody

was like, I have to get ready for it when there's time, and I'm just not. I'm not that way. I like challenges. I like if somebody says it can't be done, I'm the guy that would say, well, you know, try me and let's see. So I heard that they gave a PT test at the old eighteenth Airborne Core by the stadium there. I think once a month or something like that. You could just show up and take a PT test. So I didn't tell anybody, and I went and took the PT test past their PT test.

You know, I not know. We probably all know that guys gained that system, right, they know what events there are and I didn't know. I just showed up. What do you want me to do? And some of those events the crab walk and some of that, the some of the runs and stuff you do. I had no idea how to do them. But they, you know, I made the PT test. Then they send you to take all the psychological tests, review your records, all that stuff. And I wound up getting an invitation to come to selection.

So and my star major did not like it, and I was not successful my first time, you know, and I think it's the way I'm wired. I got really motivated for it, so, I mean I was in good shape, but I started training crazy, and you know, every other day I was rucking thirteen miles for fifty pounds. Then I would go do stairs with a rucksack for an hour. For the days not on that, I would run six or seven miles. And I was so motivated to get ready to go that I didn't realize I was putting

myself in a deficit. I went. I went to that first selection, had one of those days where I've never had a broken compass before, but I had a broken compass and then my backup little wrist compass on my watch band. When I went to that as the backup, it had broken off of climbing over Deadfall and had a really really bad add day up there. They kept me in, but then like the next day, no, yeah, I was, I was cut, but they said, hey, you can,

we like your attitude. You can come back in six you can come back and try again if you want. I was like, sure, what's when's the next time? Six months from now? So I said Okay, you see me in six months. And went back that second time, and no, it's it's odd. I was smarter. I like, I saw pictures of myself after that first time. I looked like

there's a picture of me on the Halloween. I think I came back right before it was the fall course that I was unsuccessful, and I looked like an Auschwitz victim. My neck was all drawn tight, my my skin was tied. I looked like an Auschwitz victim. And the second time, I just I didn't train like I did, and I made sure I ate well and I went up there healthy and with a good weight on me, and I tried to relax some a little bit more drawing the legs. And yeah, it worked out and made it.

the basics with a very high degree of proficiency. And the OTC teaches that there's a lot Yes, you learn CQB and some other special techniques, but there's a lot of time is spent on doing the basics of shoot, move and communicate very very well, and those sort of

things that never leave you all these years later. Like in the Agency, when I go back to weapons squall, they would always give me a hard time because I don't shoot, just when it's time for the recall and they want to put me up against some Delta guy or some Special Ops or Ranger guy and try to egg us on to have a shooting contest. But those those that you do the reps so many times that it's just ingrained in you.

people that probably put too much emphasis on it. It was being that was all I wanted to be, and you know, things about family and everything else just go away. And by this time I was married and had kids,

and but that was what was important. I mean, you think you're going to save the country, You're going to be when I went to when I went to Marine Sniper school, that was the time, you know, the Ayatola Homiani was there, and I used to dream about laying laying behind the a or lying behind a sniper rifle and seeing him through my scope and taking that shot. Well then you go through the the OTC and you dream of doing the assault like like Seal Team six did to get ben Laden right, and it's you know,

it felt just great. And I eventually wound up an a squadron and was serving there. During my time in a squadron, I because I spoke Spanish, got an opportunity to go to in nineteen ninety two to a Central American country where there were some activities going on that Delta was taking part in down there, and during that time I had a disagreement misunderstanding with the guy in charge of that, and one thing led to another, and then I got sent back home and eventually I got

the invitation to leave the Delta unit. You know, the then Colonel Boyken told me, yeah, he thought about keeping me, but you know, my somebody else down the chain it was more involved with that didn't want me around. So I got invited to take a height and find somewhere else to live.

can't say anything. And so I was holding all this stuff inside and I couldn't understand what was happening because I like, well, nobody's even asking me nobody's talking to me, So you know, eventually, eventually I made a choice to talk to somebody I thought was a neutral person that I could speak to with confidence. But then they felt there were things that they needed to tell somebody else.

And basically what I did was I sort of just threw fuel on the fire unknowingly, and a lot of fingers started going back and forth, and in the end, I'm the newer guy. I got asked to go. And it was a devastating blow. This is I had built all my self worth on that, and I thought, this is it. All my career being a marine, being how I viewed my purpose in life. Everything I did was based on that. And then the day that ended, you know,

what what are you going to do? You know, you walk sometimes there's things in life that hit you like that. So everything you believe, you have to question what do I believe about myself? What do I believe about how people perceive me? And you know, my future plans and goals are gone, so I'm going to have to start at the basics and and and refigure my whole plan. And that that's a it's a difficult thing to do for me. It was especially hard because now you've got

to go find another job in the military. And you go and you go, how you're coming from Delta? You are good, good, We're good to have you. Uh and uh wait a second, why why don't you leave? Though? And you know, I never went into detail or tried to make excuses. I said, hey, I had a disagreement.

I got asked to go take a look at my record and as a marine and as a soldier, and and then judge me on what I do, because I mean, if you if you think I'm a you know, a ship bird whatever, and hey, I'm I'm happy to look for somewhere else.

as the Army rep to the Naval Safety Center to oversee the diving safety of all army diving. So that was it was a different thing. I was the only Army guy and I was an SF diver, but here I was with master divers, hard hat divers. There was one Seal Corman there, so everybody else was hard hat divers and we we would we divided into little teams

and we traveled around the world. Anywhere there was a US military command that had dive equipment, we did the inspections on the equipment and on their program and some of their record keeping and did that stuff. So it was an interest in time. A lot of travel involved. I got to go to get qualified in hard hat diving and the seat was a c R fifteen, the mixed gas rig.

the reserves. I did get qualified in a shortage gm OS, and then there was a rag that said, if you're qualified in a shortagem OS, you can come on active duty. So I I handcrried my paperwork after I think that

after I finished oh And high school and literally from driving all around the country. In two weeks, I went from being a reservist to getting an assignment to a seventh group.

my mustache? And he goes, well, you know, I think, well, waste like you if you can just make sure it stays within regulations. As a former marine, you know I would expect that from you. I said, all right, I'll just shave it off. So I didn't. I did say you had to shave it off. I said, I don't want every time I walk around you staring at me trying to find a hair out of place, so I'll shave it off. Yeah. So I lifted that dive program. It kind of got more known, and then then people

started clamoring for it and won that job. So eventually I got reassigned to fifth Special Forces Group in nineteen ninety six, and I showed up at fifth Special Forces Group and in processed went to five four five as my first Fifth Group team and Terry Peters was my was my team sergeant. Was a great team, had a great time, and you know, we deployed to Kuwait and did a bunch of training deployments and just you know, really cut my teeth on the Middle East. Then got

used to working with Middle Easterners. The group commander who happened to uh we both know him, have been my squadron commander at Delta one day asked me to come to his office. So I thought, oh shit, I'm he's he's uh, after all this time, he's uh, he's got something for me. So I went up there thinking, you know,

I'm going to get clobberd. But what he told me was that he wanted to lead the way back to an emphasis on unconventional warfare, and you know, would I you know, he was counting on me to take a lead role in trying to push that effort forward. And so there was some initiatives that was in the earlier days of the ASoP course, advantaced Special Operations Technique course and those things. I started coordinating with the guys and fifth Group that were kind of leading the charge on that.

Steve Potitt was one of them.

you're a student, You're an assaulter. You know you got uh and and that's what you are. But I was assigned to a scuba team because I was a d MT qualified medic. You know, you're you're never son major is never going to let you off scuba team and uh so I you know I was, But I said, well, I'm as signed to a u w A team and I'm throwing all my effort into that. You know, a lot of people wanted me to try to change and come over. You know, I've been to Sniper instructor school

as a marine, but you know, I'm a person. You tell me what my lane is, I'm gonna do my best to do that.

is like I have to prove myself. I've got to drive myself to the ends, no matter what what it takes to show that I'm not uh just defined by getting kicked out of Delta, you know, for a disagreement that happened one time over a long career. And so yeah, I pushed real hard at everything I did, and I got it. Coincided with my first wife and deciding she had greener pastors and that her her role was to

be somewhere else other than done with me. So about that time after she left, you know, I started, I went to a SID and I had a very interesting time at a SID. And I have this thing of when I go through schools. If there's some and I don't like, I challenged the instructors and so I challenged the instructors pretty hard and they in turn were pretty

hard on me. But you know it, it worked out well, and I think I probably built a reputation with some of the things that happened at school as being innovative, maybe having some skills, and so you know, I finished that school. Well then just like a month later, I got called down to SOCKSCND and they were talking to me and you know about some classified programs that they

were wanting to start. So I got selected for that, you know, and I felt again that's one of those things that drove me because I was like, wait a second, of everybody in all Special Forces and all Fifth Group and Delta to choose from, I'm getting chosen. So yeah, I was. I was whatever they wanted. I was like, hey, I'm for it. So off I went to Yemen and operated there by myself for a while, waiting for a team to join me to do a d mining mission. And you know, during that time is was my first

time up close at trying to do like assessments. I was sent ahead of time to work in the embassy, and yeah, I spent like two months going through training and getting all the right clearances so I could read all the human and segent in the various offices and then in an embassy that hold those and I was to make that assessment about the security for follow on special forces teams. During that time that I was there is when the situation in Yemen first started, we'll talk

on nineteen ninety eight first started to go downhill. The Islamic Army of Aiden was posting threats against any Americans. The line that the ambassador had and all the embassy had was Yemen is a very safe place. Yes, al Qaeda passes through here and gets documents here, but they do nothing here. It's the peaceful place. It's like an R and R place. And you know, Yemen is an up and coming Middle Eastern country. A matter of fact, they were planning on Hillary Clinton coming out to visit

as first Lady. And so the party line was, Yeah, there was a group of like three guys with a fax machine that called themselves the Islamic Armory of Aiden, but they are not capable of doing anything or just a bunch of blowhards. Yemen at the time, European tourists used to go there to get kidnapped, because they would kidnap you and take you down the like Hadramont region and treat you well and feed you and house you. Is it kind of like, you know, give you good

stories to tell. And as soon as the government would access and give them some vehicles or wells, they would let people go free. So I think that figured into the ambassador and the intelligence communities assessment that hey, nothing much is you know, it's not dangerous here in Yemen. But during my time there, things started happening. There were where there was a car bomb in Sinnah out near

the German consulate. There were more acts of violence, no big terror attacks or anything, but but it's to me it started. It was that things are escalating. Eventually, the team that was going to participate in d mining showed up and I went with them down to Aiden and

we set up and Aiden started operating and Aiden. During our time in Aiden, there was a police checkpoint that caught a car load of six guys I think in it that had explosives, aks, RPGs and a diagram of the little hotel that we were renting to stay in that, so they arrested them. Those became known as the Aiden six. Later, like a month later, there was the Islamic Armory of Aiden did take hostages in Aiden at the British consulate took some British hostages and there it ended in a

hostage standoff sort of out outside of town. It was a fiasco. The the bad guys were in a depression in a circle. They had the hostages stand with their legs spread around them and they were firing between their legs. And of course the U the Yemen army was not well trained, so they were kind of in a circle shooting, shooting, and everybody there. So I think a couple of hostages were killed and not probably some of them by friendly fire. But that changed my assessment. You know, I'm still reading

the traffic and I'm seeing that. Okay, it's true al Qaeda is not active here, and but they have communications here and they passed through here. Now I have this Islamic Army of Aiden that has shown that they not only have access to arms and ammunition, but they're willing to take violent action, and they're willing to conduct operations against Western interest. And now they may be inept, and

they were truly inept. But in my assessment, all that remained to happen for them to be you know, deadly, would be to either accept operational control, meeting, training, and direction from al Qaeda, or from hosting an al Qaeda cell. So now you know, we're in nineteen ninety nine and the US had just signed the agreement to allow US ships to start coming in to Aiden. But again this from me, My assessment was all enabled by my past history.

But now my time in Delta and learning about terrorism and studying terrorism, and so I think it all helped me form this opinion. The ambassador told me I was crazy. The Defense attached a quietly on the side, advised me not to get on the wrong style of the ambassador, to do like he and the other people including the agency did, which was, you know, shake their heads and say you're right. But it bothered me. I was as time was coming for that mission to end and go home.

I was like, I think, how can I go home and something happens here two Americans? Americans lose their lives and I didn't do anything. It was just it reminded me of beirute, because like, Okay, saying, here we go the same thing. For political reasons, she the ambassador did not want an assessment going out that would stop Hillary Clinton from coming up. Was the big feather in her cap.

And but it bobbed me to the point that I said, Okay, I'm not having success through the embassy, but as an s F guy, I can write an area in assessment and send that out through military channels and then I can get the word out right and I'm not violating any role. Well, I didn't know, because in my training nobody trained you up that I didn't realize that the ambassador has the right to see everything that's written and

to weigh in on it. And so I sent it, you know, use the sackcom and sent my report out and informed the embassy after. And that was a pretty major thing to do. It prompted a flight by the ambassador down to Aiden, called us all in and chewed us all out, and she said that she would rather run the risk, and she wouldn't let us have our rifles there in Aiden, with all this going on, we were pistols only, and our rifles were locked away in

Sna several hours away. And she made this statement that hey, I'd rather run the risk of one of you getting hurt than the risk that one of you would hurt an innocent civilian.

sort of backed up my assessment. But in January of two thousand was when terrorists loaded a boat with explosives and they tried to attack the USS the Sullivans. But as they made their run towards the boat, it sank. Too many explosives, not a good enough boat. It plowed under and it sank and we never nobody knew about that. But they recovered the explosives, and you know, later in October made the successful attack on the coal then and

I was by that time. I left Yemen, went back to the States and then immediately got trained up and sent as I guess I became the first, the first guy to do these sort of classified go somewhere, do your assessment using whatever techniques that you've been trained in and some classified stuff. And so I got sent back to the Middle East and I was in another country. Well then when the attack, when the coal happened, I got flown back to Socom to do a classified deposition

to go to the Coal Commission. But guess what I thought the State Department was political. I did not know that Socom can be political too, because when I you know, I gave you a quote earlier about what the ambassador said about us and their rifles. And there were two points that I made on my deposition, and when I saw the final wording of my deposition, those two things were struck out, and I was like, hey, wait a second, and Delta, we do a hot wash, and a hot

wash is right after a training exercise. So we talked about the good, the bad, and the ugly to make things better. And I thought, that's what we're doing for the Coal Commission. And you know, they did not want to cast any dispersions toward an ambassador or State Department because they said, hey, every j set every SF team, anybody wants to get in any country, you know, the State Department has to approve that. So we're not we're not going to stay.

what I was doing. I finished a year there, and so it was that was two thousand and I came back to Fifth Group at the end of the year and the project I had been doing in the Middle Least was in conjunction with the Joint Personnelity Covery Agency SOCKCINT sponsored it, but I was working doing some stuff for the JPR and a lot of some of the guys that worked at the jp r A had been guys that worked at Orange and retired start majors from Orange, and they knew me and some of the stuff I

did in my classified projects, I had some successes. And so I came back to Fifth Group. Now I've got you know, long hair and civilian clothes. And I showed

up back at group and you might I mean I just landed. Well, group happened to be having a change of command ceremony and it was John Buholland was taking command. So you know, I just showed in to sign in and say, okay, I'm getting the hell out of here because I got to get a haircut and shave and in the uniform. Well then I ran I ran into these sergeant majors that I that had that worked at jp R A, and they were, hey, welcome, you know, and and oh we got to we worked with John Moholland.

You know, he was you know, Delta and uh on, the commander at Orange. So, uh, you got to meet him. I go, I can't meet him. I'm in. I don't worry, He's not that way. And uh, they took me and introduced me to John Moholland, and you know, I guess he put a lot of weight on them uh, and what they said. And yeah, you know I told him right off, Hey, I got asked to leave Delta. But he placed what those guys said about my ethics and

work ethic and abilities. Then you know what the paper, what it might have said or whatever happened those years ago, and you know he wound up giving me an assignment and putting me in Fifth Group Headquarters. Two work in

this classified cell. Fifth Group was the first ones to have it to kind of there was a three man cell that kind of oversaw. One thing was the stand up of the SITH, the other was the RSTS, the other was that other team that does other works with DITTRA and DARPA. And two for all the speak at programs, we are the ones that sort of had the rains on those. And you know, I don't know John mahone and I became pretty close. I don't know why. He He trusted me a lot, He asked my opinion a lot.

We We had a lot of heart to hearts in his office, I think sometimes to the chagrin of some of the battalion commanders and and and officers, because I didn't pull any punches if I thought somebody was trying to get over or use the like the long Haired team, you know, to get away with something. You know, I call him on it. And sometimes with the stand up of this if I go, hey, you ain't Delta, don't

need and but you know it worked out. And that's where I was sitting in two thousand and one when nine to eleven happened.

about the first plane hidden. I had a little bit of time to spare, so I pulled in this little tiny cafe and went in and turned on their little tiny TV in time to watch the second plane hit the other town or the south towne. And you know, the first one, I'm debating, like, you know, could it be an accident, but there's a copilot, there's a flight engineer. I'm not sure that it could be an accident. I think it's probably terrorism, but I'm not sure. And then

I saw the second plane boom. It's terrorism. And of course then they were announced They're going to shut down to airspace. So coming out of that cafe, I should have gone left to continue to the airport, but I knew not to. I turned right and went to group headquarters, and you know, I just rolled in and we started planning because we didn't know what yet, but we knew that we would be involved in some sort of strike or payback four nine to eleven, and it was instead

of the panic, we were all just focused. It's like, this is what I've lived to do all my years as a marine, all my years as in recon in Special Forces in Delta. Now is our chance. This is what I'm here for. And that's what it was like throughout group. It was sure we were upset, maybe a little bit angry, but it was just intense focus on what we had to do and getting ready to go. Two days later, I was on the first when the

first planes flew. I was on a plane to fly to Tampa to help plan the invasion as an E seven as an E seven but but but because I worked in this cell handling the classified stuff, part of that was our you know, all the speak at stuff, which you know includes relationships with the agency and d I A and all that, which we knew would be a lead effort. So that's mine.

was serious. And we were initially told, hey, you need to plan for the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan at the same time, what you're going to be getting me? And uh, you know, shortly after they said, okay we can we're going to scratch off a rack. You don't have to plan for a rack. But you know, I mean, as it started, everybody, you know, you imagine right after nine to eleven, the intensity that everybody had to get started. And I remember being in this big room and everybody's

waiting for a meeting start. Nobody's there to start it, and it's just everybody's just all tense. So I stood up on a chair and I said to you know, hey, can I have everybody's attention, and you know, of course it's all you know, everybody from majors to colonels, you know, a shipload of them, uh turning, everybody staring at me. There, I said, Now, the first thing that we're going to do is I don't know, because I got no business.

You know, I have nothing to do with this, I said. However, I stayed at a holiday inn express last night, so because at the time they were doing that commercial, I tries to be an expert. And at first everybody just stared at me, and then after a while, you know, some people laughed. But yeah, we started kicking off the planning and I returned to Fifth Group and then Colonel mohalland asked me to go with the first guys from fifth Group out to Carcy Kanabad where we were going

to set up the base. So there was an initial group of four of us that that went and yeah, it was good. To because I wasn't on a team, but I got to be in the vanguard to go, and so I'd already established a record. It kind of like seemed like I was always the first person to go somewhere, sort of figure out what was going on and then prepare for other people or give a report back.

And it was it was an interesting time. We we landed in the middle of the night in a in a light rain in Karshi Kanabad and it was old this is Bekistan andrew Zbekistan and the guy the battalion commander had gotten mohaland to let him go and he was taking over as the three. After we landed, some rangers were there, maybe some support people and that it was pretty bare, but they just landed. So the rangers

are out on the perimeter. Nobody knows what's going on, and we land in the middle of the night, and that that guy's walking back and forth. And for whatever reason, I guess I'm the senior n c O. He said Sartin Harrington. He is, I'm the operations officer now that we're on the ground, and I'd like you to walk the lines, and I was, you know, it's the one am we don't know where to line's on. We just landed. It's and I had started, you know, we landed. I

did what a soldier does. I got my rucksack and got out my canteen cup and was making some coffee and cocoa, and when somebody came running up and said, hey, the the colonel wants to see to so you know, I went there. He walked, walked the lines and I was like, walk the lines, I go, you can get shot. We don't have we don't have a challenge password anything as rangers out there on the line. Uh. And he's like, I don't care. Walk the lines are troop to lines.

Troop the lines right, one of those officer training things you get. And I said, yeah, okay, and I walked back to my backpack where my my coffee and cocoa was getting ready, and another guy asked me. He said, what do you want you to do? I said, troop the lines. He said what you going to do? I said, drink my coffee and cocoa, and then so I put on my my gore text and drank my coffee and coco.

Then I took off my gortext so I could get wet and then I went back and uh to where he was and he said, did you troop the lines? I said, everything's fine. So he goes outstanding, outstanding, starting to herring. Went on from there, and you know, then things built up. A couple of days later, I drove from carci Kanabad up to tash Kent to hook up with the Agency and to facilitate the Agency coming down to the base where we would launch the agency teams out of and support the agency teams. And so I

was in that cell that stood up. I stood up that cell to do that, the fusion cell between the Agency and the Army. And of course Justin Sap had been detailed from the Army to be on Team Alpha. So I met all of all of Team Alpha. Yeah Jr's team, and Alex and Mike Span Dave the other guys Justin So you know, I got back and then the CIA started sending its teams in and we we would oversee the infill and resupply, and then as agency teams developed the situation, then we started putting SF teams

in with them to work with the locals. Mostly in the s F mission was mostly at that point one we the medical support was key because there essentially wasn't enough medical support and the call for fire, and you know, I think the other thing that's always short and when you stand up that many teams are Commo guys. So the agency was really sort of raping Fifth Group and and and groups in all taken medics and como guys to fill out their teams. I remember Rumsfeld was, I

give them them any more people. And the things started happening in Afghanistan on the ground so fast that just more and more teams needed to go in. And I was frustrated because I'm like, shit, you know, I'm going to miss my chance. I've done a whole life for this, and I'm good. Like the thing at ASOT, you know, is sort of preparing a pilot team and I had, let's just say I had excelled at some of those actions and activities and I thought, you know, I need

to be one of these teams. And then they started running out of the agency couldn't get enough teams. I'm like, well, i'll take a team. I'll go in, but way that you can't.

set up Fifth Group pretty well to go into Afghanistan as far as like having some understanding of how to do that, I mean, I guess you were kind of the tip of the spear for that.

And so you know, I was pissed. I wanted and I guess I got better and I was like, well, shit, you know, I just want to go back to the States then, because after I've been there and I set all this up and got everything going, I don't want to sit here and just keep watching other teams other people go in. Then John mohalland asked me and some other guys to come with him on his infill because we had just just taken Bagram Airfield. So I went in with him, and we were there and after a

few days, it's around Thanksgiving. We'd spent Thanksgiving there on the ground in Afghanistan. Of two thousand, the planning had started spinning up that Tora Bora was the place where al Qaeda had regrouped and where ben Laden might be. So the Agency was spinning up to go to Tora Bora. In military was trying to figure out what we're going to do. There had been an ODA five seven to two that the paperwork to chop them to the agency had been done to detail them, but that mission never

came to fruition. You know, they were going to chop the whole team uh to operational control of the Agency, but that mission never happened. So they were there and available back at headquarters. Excuse me. So the Agency, when you know, they realized how how big Tora War was going to be and that they weren't really prepared to handle all that themselves, asked for that team. And Mazari

Sharif had just happened, Spanning just been killed. John Mulholland was a bit reluctant to just give the agency another and an o DA for operational control. And yeah, and he had some other reluctant reasons that he was somewhat reluctant about that team. But one of the guys on on the who was detailed from what happened to be Orange to the agency, said, well, you trust this Gary guy a whole lot. What if we took Gary uh with the agency to serve as an advisor, would you

let us have that team then? So whatever, he said yes, and so next thing, you know, without the legal paperwork to be detailed. With a handshake, they said, okay, you're now on Team Juliette with the agency and along with this ODA seventy two, and off we went to Jalalabad to get ready to go up to Tora Bora.

I mean, look at what dosed them did. But as we started moving further south, that was changing. So we hooked up in Jalalabad. We were hooked up with a guy named hazret Ali and they were he just drugged his dragged his feet. He was reluctant to get involved. And let's be honest, it was the the bags of cash that we were ferrying in that did it, you know. But but but some of that, I have to do some cool stuff like trained for the airfield and Jbad

was bombed. WED bombed it out. So to get the first supplies in of uniforms, arms and equipment to outfit the force, you know, I called in uh uh the C one thirties and they came in low and lapsed our parachuted all the equipment in and I remember being there and the Afghans couldn't believe that suddenly in the dark, out of nowhere, these planes come real low and the parachutes are coming out. And I actually found myself dancing in a circle with with some Afghan guys holding rifles

in one hand and their hands on the other. And you know, it was exciting times, but it was real uncertain. You didn't know who was who. Warlords were against warlords. We were in a vehicle coming back from that airfield and my vehicle made it through a checkpoint and they we didn't we couldn't speak language, we didn't. I got through, but then the second vehicle behind me they stopped. Well, you don't know who's good and who's bad. So they're

stopped and it's it's not going well. I remember getting out of the vehicle and then take an aim on the You know, it's just some dude that's at the check with a couple of dudes at the checkpoint, and maybe they're trying to follow orders, but maybe they're going to ambush us. You don't know who's who. And I remember this argument going on, and they had an interpreter and me trying to decide, I may not be able to shoot him fast enough if he opens up. Should

I shoot him now preemptively? But then what if that? You know, I caused that. So it was you know, it was tense. But then he led him through and we went on. It took us, the agency a long time to get him ready to move his people up to Tora Bora, you know, and delays were horrible. It was Ramadan when we went up to Torobora. There were so many things wrong. You had to kick and yell and plead to get them to move up. But is Ramadan.

They hadn't had anything to eat or drink all day, so when it starts getting towards night, they know that food and water are back in the rear. So anything that they made up during the day they give up at night and go back. There's a lot of problems. I was on a opie there. We divided. We had a headquarters element that was in there, and Delta came in later and joined up with them a squadron, and

the rest of us split in two ops. We were five or six of us on a op I think the so Cammon history calls that Cobra twenty five Bravo was the op we were on, so hey, you know, we're just we're calling in bombs were designating on the base of the mountain where ben Laden was supposed to be. It was really interesting calling fire because we were up so high on mountains, like up on the top that when you would call for fire down in the valley one thousand meters below you, you'd see those missile of

the bombs come beside you. You could see them coming in the air to go down in the valley because we were up high on their trajectory because they were dropping at twenty five twenty six, one thousand feet and we had by that time, you know, the friendly fire incident also at Missaari sharif it was, I had a close call as I think it must have been like

two am. I was calling in. There was a aircraft that had a like twenty jade ams on it, so I brought him in first to drop one or two to see if we're on target, and that went fine. So you know, he comes out, they rolled out. You have about a fifteen minute turnaround before they can come back on B two. Yeah, B two, and he as he's rolling back in. I say that was good, dropped,

dropped the remaining ordance, same spot, and he calls back the coordinates right, and but he gives me, you know, because you call for fire. I had, I gave the location of the other op, but he calls out that location as the target location. And uh, man, you know, I remember my throat jumped in my stomach, jumped up in my throat because I did I hear that? Right?

adulta guy. It was a major on the ground there. Yeah, or kill ben Laden and you know he he talks about the night that the Delta guys went forward and all the locals bailed on them and they were left the two guys alone. One of them had Sean was had been on my team and a squadron, so it was actually a squadron that came in my old squadron with a few people still left on it. And that same night, and this is where I think that the

warlords had something worked out with Bin Laden. The Hazrat Ali, the chief of the Afghans, called up to his guys that were with us. We had there were five or six Americans and we probably had ten locals with us. Now, we wouldn't let them with us because you didn't train these guys. You didn't know who they were good or bad. So we used them as tripwires. We put them. We were up on this knife ridge and we put them

between us and al Kaya. We figured, hey, if al Kaeda rolls through us, they'll hit them first and it'd be like a trip wire to give us a little bit of time. But he told them that they had to move us off there, and it was for our own safety. So you know, our interpret tells us you have to go now, you can't stay here. We're not going. He goes no, but the general said you have to leave, and we're all leaving, and we said no, we're not going. So in the end all the Afghans left and left

us up on that ridge. I guess that was a point with me because maybe the guys down in the headquarter element didn't get the whole story. But in his book he says that that we moved, you know, that

we evacuated. We did not, you know, we stayed up there and we had movement that night down in the bottom of a thousand meters below us, where there were some lights and movement, and one of the guys wanted to, you know, light them up, but I was like, hey, at night with your M four, we're not going to be effective fire and you're just going to give a

our position, so you know we're not. But we had that movement, so I tried to call some air in, but there was happened that there was one of the few times in Tora Bora there was no aircraft overhead that had any ordinance on it, and I was like, man, you know they're moving, and we didn't know if they were trying to move maneuver on us, so what can we do. The only thing I found was there was a Back in those days, the drones were not are

not yet armed. We weren't that far into the development of the war ontariot, but they sounded kind of like AC one thirty, when if you brought it down low enough you could hear it. So I was able to get there that that drone to come in and drop low enough that we could hear it. And then those lights that we saw down in the bottom of the valley they disappeared, so so you know, it did his job. So we left. We left tor Bora, got relieved by some Delta guys, a couple of them guys on you.

We went, we hiked down the mountain. We're using donkeys to carry our backpacks when all our gear just kept our lbe and and weapons with us, and then met up with the Delta guys and then they came up to take over the op and they're the ones that wound up pushing further into the mountains to try to get on the trail of Ben ladden, you know, after we left. But I got you know, I got to say, hey, you know, it's about time you Delta guys. Guy here, we've already got posting this stuff done.

really bad. So they actually delayed and somehow within twenty four hours came up with all kinds of winter gear that whole Delta supply line, you know. And but when we were doing the turnover with them, there were all these villagers there, and so we're talking to the villagers. I got the interpreter and they said, one thing you never can talk about is their women and or the religion. But I couldn't help myself. I said, hey, I know why you guys have four white you can have four wives.

And you know he's like, yeah, well, what's your reason? I said, because it's so damned cold up there that you need a warm place to stay as you move around. So you got you can spread four out to different places so you can get warm at night. And then and the Delta sarn major that was there like no, no, no, no, don't don't say that, don't say that. But it went fine. You know, they appreciated the joke.

in a tashed kent. I had to hide on the aircraft untill they went through it and then wound up getting on a I think the next day or maybe that same night, on the agency helicopter going back to Carci Kanabat. It was you know, and okay, let me honest. It was cool because it was kind of like a movie because I go by now when I left, there was nothing. Now there's this plywood headquarters built. I go in there and I walk in, I'm all nasty and dirty,

and I, hey, I'm here to see the commander. And they go back there in office and I walked back in there and you know, eat me. We have a talk there was you know, he asked me a really tough question about a personnel issue that had occurred, and he said, you know, I got to make some decisions. I'm gonna trust you, so give me. Give me the rundown on what happened. You know. So now I'm back into say, uh, it's sort of like what happened to me in Delta. And I'm the guy that's that is

making the call. But so I talked to him and then we finished and he goes, hey, now I'm putting you on another agency team called Kilo and they're going to go to a place called Coast, So get yourself to Kabul, Afghanistan, go to the Areana Hotel and hook up with them. That was my instructions. So I wound. I said, can I shower first? I'd I'd like to take a shower, get cleaned up, repack my rug. So I did that, and then I went down to the flight line. Found a H forty seven that was doing

a check out right. It had some repairs, and the pilots agreed to let me on it, and they flew me into Kabul or into Bogram, and then I guess I got a vehicle and showed up at this you know, run down old hotel and joined Kilo, at which Nate Chapman was on. So I had met Mike Span and helped Alpha get. In a matter of fact, the picture in the CIA Museum of Team Alpha, I took that picture. But now I'm on the team with Chapman and the other guys, and you know, they'd been together a little while.

I joined late we did. I did Christmas in Jalalabad, I did New Year's there in Kabul, and then I guess it was like about two January. The infill to coast. I'm getting ready. I think it was the night before the infill. Some major from group came over to the hotel and said, hey, Colonel Mahallan said, y're not to go in on the first helicopter in the coast. I was like, what do you mean, not going the first helicopter. He goes, no, he wants you to hold and go

on the second helicopter. And you know, I probably had a few words to say about that because I was pissed. But you know, he's a colonel, so he'd already had to write letters for the guys in Kandahar and enough other letters for people that weren't coming home that not. While I wasn't really happy with that decision, you know, it's his calls, he's the boss. So I delayed. Well, then the next morning, I'm getting ready to get on the helicopter to go in, and that's when the guys

on Keilo got hit and Chapman got killed. So you know, the metal fact came out that had embetic on it, and it was a guy, a Third Group guy, and you know I went back, so dealt with that, and then I went back in that evening. Uh, to coast and we were the team was still dealing with what had happened and what we're going to do after. And that's where you know, the agency is great at what is what it does, and the Army Agency, the fifth

Group agency link up was effective. But there are some things and I think this was one of those, and some of the stuff I saw Onatora Bora where you know, I felt that a seasoned special Ops person could have would have made different calls. After Chapman got killed, we wound up changing. We went in backing one warlord, but after he got killed, they decided, well that war lord didn't powerful enough in coast. The other guy is who we actually everybody is pretty sure ordered the ambush that

resulted in Chapman's death. But then the agency, so we're going to back this guy, and for a while we're gonna they want to back both and he from that guy standpoint, it means millions of dollars, right, and so you know he's collecting that. But yeah, we so we did the end fill the coast. But I learned the lesson. I tried to apply the lessons I learned from Tora Bora.

That my job when Mohan told me that you get there and develop the situation and make sure that this g force is ready to accept s F, train you know, s F people to work with it and direct them. Well, now I didn't want a gag on. I learned that. Okay, one of the first things I want to do is build mobile kitchens. Outfit little pickup trucks with you know, gas stoves so we can cook forward so the troops

don't have to come back to get fed. I want to develop some sort of staff structure so that the SF guys have something to fall in on, because you know, these guys were you know, had flowers sticking out of their guns. A lot of them were in opera bow. It was a joke and h and it's really funny because the guy running that agency team it was a former SF guy officer, and you know, they they kept doing stuff, but they it's sort of delaying on letting me get to the job of getting things structured the

way I wanted to. And I'm the the army guy there. And they kept saying till mohalland to send us a mess F and I was like, no, nope, nope, and uh, I said not not until we do this. I remember, uh, one big team meeting that he said, wait a minute,

So you're telling me you're and E seven in the army telling all of us that it's up to you if we get s F people or not. And yeah, I think I crossed my arms say yes about it.

we would send a team in. But by that point the two wards I mentioned it was Zia cheim And and Pasha Khan that we're fighting each other, the two warlords that we were back in, and it turned into a blood feud. It was it was going to derail everything the agency and army was trying to do up there. So I went to that one guy, so to Zia Khan,

and I said, yeah, you come from Orgon area. What if you go back to Orgon and I will take a group of people with you and we'll bring special forces into you and support you, but back in your home area where you're from. So he agreed, and then the agency bought in on that plan. So it was decided to split off and open up a new a new base in Orgon, and I got to lead plan

and lead the infill for that. And it's just a way different than how I'd ever been trained to run an infill in recon Or, SF, and I had al Qaeda was spread throughout the region. You didn't know if you were coming into what you were going to come into, and you know, the warlord had a nephew that didn't speak one word of English. And how am I going to make an infill? Buy a helicopter in a place and ensure the most safety we can? So you're inventing it.

I trained the guy how to use an IR strobe and what we needed for an LZ, picked out the most probable place from maps and overhead imagery, and now I did some dry rehearsals that you know, to know he'd know how to set up the ir strobe and sent him back, and they had Theriahs and we had an interpreter that spoke pashtune that we were communicating. And so we waited a few days. As it got time for the infill. What I told him to do was to go out and mark that l Z at night

and to keep marking it every night. And we waited, so I didn't go in. We didn't infill the first day or second day maybe I remember if his third or fourth day. And then to make the infill, I invited some of his relatives to get on the helicopter with me, so I figured I could throw a few civilians on there, kind of as an insurance policy. I want to make sure you know that I have you know, some of your relatives on this helicopter with me, and so you know, we set the pattern of coming in.

And then the one night we did show up and make that.

But you know, I developed this thing where we'd work with a village elder and an interpreter and we'd go there and we'd have a couple of vehicles with food and blankets and mattresses on it, sitting off backaways, and we just go up and ask nicely, hey, you got some stuff here and some bad stuff somebody could get her. We don't want any misinterpretations. We'd like it if you'd let us dig this up or help us show us

where it is. And they would do that, and then after we would recover the stuff and would roll these trucks with all these goodies. Before you know, it eventually got to the point you'd be finishing in one village and here's people from another village. Hey, hey, come to our village because we got the money and we started collecting you know, it just kept getting more and more and more. And I started paying guys with tractors to haul our chillerry pieces back back to Ragoon, and I

was like making a collection of big artillery pieces. It was uh yeah, it was exciting days they had. I remember when I was in Yemen, the Yemeny's during the d mining mission had two guys vaporized in a truck carrying a whole bunch of mines, and whatever happened to degnate datonated, the whole truck went and they were gone. And the Afghans would always pick the two lowest guys to drive the truck. And it was, you know, stuff

hidden from the Soviet time. It was rockets, it was rounds, it was mortars, it was mines, everything under the sun, in under every kind of condition. In Shlan and in the Americans. At first I did it as it would be two or three Americans go eventually, and then we would ride in a truck and we make sure we stayed a couple hundred meters from that truck. Then one day I was, you know, in there because now music's allowed. They had their little the little uh cassette player playing

the most horrible Afghan music I ever heard. But they were all excited, and these two guys were in there, and I felt I felt bad for him. So I just went up and opened the door and said, hey, I'm I'm climbed in the truck with them, and they looked at me like, you're going to ride in here with us. I was like in char Land, because if you go, I'm going. And off we went. And you know, after that, those guys started treating me different, the Afghans.

I would when we get to where we go, I would help them unload the truck, you know, do the manual labor, and uh, it got to where they took it personal and they didn't want me touching anything. They started, you know, taking care of me and treating me like I was one of their commanders. My experience with the guys in Tora Bora was they were so undisciplined and untrained. I expected the same here. We went out to do, uh what recover one cachet we thought was going to

be maybe a hostile. So you don't have time to train all these guys, you know, so just just let them follow me. So I remember I had them all on the back of a steakebed truck and I was in the front. My plan was we were gonna get off and we were going to cover one ridge. Another guy was going to take other guys on another vehicle and cover the other ridge, and the Cachet was in the valley and I thought, Okay, all you do is follow me. I'm going to jump out of the front

and run under the back. You're all gonna come out of the truck and file behind me, and I'm gonna I'm the American. I'm going to lead the way up the ridge and uh, I've got all my American gear on and jump off the truck and come back. Well, they're they're jumping off faster than I planned, and they're

all coming. There's this little guy with a big beard and uh, wearing a Soviet officer's belt buckle, and you know, we started up the ridge and he just started barking orders and those guys were running up the ridge and you know, I'm carrying twice the three times the way they are, So I'm starting sucking and breathing hard and trying to go up the ridge. And I thought I was going to lead them. They took off and left me and I remember getting getting to the top of

the ridge and I could barely. I was wheezing, and I said, ridge secure and it wasn't. It wasn't because of anything I did. They this, this group were hardened fighters from the Soviet time, you know, and they knew what they were doing. It was pretty cool.

of paperwork to do to prep for that. So yeah, I went home in April of two thousand and two, took some leave, and then started having to travel to get all the clearances and visit the places I need to visit to get detailed to the agency. So that late after the summer, I wound up being a signed to the agency for two years. So that was two thousand and two, and I was brought there to do this sort of cross border thing, to do the tactical

side of that, you know. In the run up to the agency was collecting some information and running some low level people and they had to negotiate the assets, had to negotiate Iraqi security. And then there was this little problem of the UN. The UN no goes on where Americans weren't supposed to be either, and they it had been run by by Kuwaiti's before cops, untrained cops with thirty eight revolvers, and they got hit in an ambush. They were set up by a turncoat and they got

ambushed and a couple of them killed. That's when they decided they needed some experience, some tactical side to come in and take over that part. So I was working with a small group of Waity policemen and there was a case officer in charge.

and we're up in the tower. I remember taking my me and the other guy took our The other American took our boots off to creep down this spiral stair middle spiral stairway, and they were in they were joking and laughing in this other room with I think it was Dutch soldiers from the UN. And we went creeping by the door to get out, and and it was sky. These were cops, so it was it was kind of

like herding goats. They were they didn't know what they were doing, but they had some guns and they thought they were bad. So I had to keep everybody close enough that I could put hands and push somebody, pull somebody, or kick somebody to get them to do what I wanted to do. At least I thought that was a thing. I was the big, badass SEF guy. One time, my humorist got me into a little bit of trouble because at the border between Kuwait and Iraq, there's this fifteen

foot deep, fifteen foot wide trench and a burm. It was a tank barrier. The person that we had recovered that night. You know, my job was to get them in and get them to a place where agency people could debrief from Intestine an accent, yeah and asset and they were like low level of smugglers. So and then my job would be to get him back into Iraq. So, yeah, this guy had been lost for several hours down in this ditch and uh so the the uh The senior policeman said, oh, I know a place. You know, I

live here. I know a place we can get him back across easy, Like okay, So we go and I didn't see that. It looked it was some places it was eroded down but this place was not eroded. But he said, it's the the dirt is is stiff enough he should be able to climb. Well, you know, we held this guy by the arms and dropped him into this hole and I'm watching through. I'm the only one with mvgs, and I'm watching him struggle and struggle and struggle to try to climb out on the other side.

And he's not getting anywhere. And after a while, an Iraqi patrol is going to stop by here anytime. And we're sitting here watching this, and I was like, these these guys are all idiots, but you know, I'm a badass. And I not only that, and not only I'm a bad ass, I am experienced rock climber. I ate, I climbed buildings in Delta. I know what I'm doing. So I said, I'll get I'll get him back out. And I had the guys hold me by the arms and

drop me down in this hole. I go over, put the guy on my shoulders, get him up, go back to get out. I went to a place where there was a ninety degree corner to try to climb out, and guess what, I couldn't get out. And now I'm like, wait a second, I'm not stuck in this hole and everybody's up there and the iraqis are here, and I can't get out, and and I'm I'm supposed to be

the guy that's the mature, experienced guy. And you know, I think I was thinking about, oh my god, this is going to be hard to live, because eventually a patrol is going to come by I'm going to get captured. I didn't think they'd kill me, I said, but I'm going to get captured. And when I'm released at the end of the war, I'm gonna have to explain that I was captured because I got stuck in a hole. Uh, I was. I was worried about that, but we thought

about it. And the other American had these hiking boots on. So I had several guys undo their boot laces and time all together and made the line and I was able to make a loop in the line and uh get enough that I could get one foot enough where I eventually got out of the out of that predicament, as we call it, a gift. And the smuggler, uh, you know, I had gotten him side, so he was good to go and we got But the first thing I did after that was by a collapsible ladder that

I carried to the border with me. Every time after that, I was.

a look, go forward and meet up with a guy named Greg V that was running the show from inside Afghanistan at the time, I mean Iraq at the time. Greg V and I were lieutenants together in second recombat.

second a company, second recomma tell you. In nineteen eighty three, I was like, you agency guys must do your homework and he said, I guess you don't remember me, And no I didn't at the time, again because we all had quite different look than we did as young marines. And then after so after that we renewed our friendship and then we worked together in Iraq and so yeah, I but Charlie Saddell or Charlie didn't have his detail. But they said, hey, this guy Gary, he knows what

he's doing. He can take you into a raq. So they said, hey, will you do it. So yeah, I by myself on a helicopter took him into into Iraq and for his tour and back out. I went in and out of bag Dad. The agency let me do things that you should be an agency certified form certified person to do. But they they decided I could do it. So they gave me a few little tests and I so I was running some assets in Baghdad in the area. I was in Baghdad once with a hooked up with

a seal. We were looking at doing a hit on a terror cell that was located by the Shiah mosque. It was a shrine and this is just right after Bagdad fell. So the Shiah were very happy and exuberant and we wanted to get eyes on. So we had rusted Toyota Corolla cruiser that we were in and I'm driving, so we kept trying to get through and the road was blocked off as we got close, so I'd back off,

go around, try to come in again. The roads backed off, so finally I found a drainage ditch behind the shrine, straddled it with the car ease through there and uh, you know, it's hard going, but I got through there. But as we rounded the corner of the building into the square. Suddenly we happened on tens of thousands of Iraqi Ashia and they were having a giant It's their first asura since the fall. And suddenly you were in it and I couldn't back up. It was too with

a ditch and where I couldn't back up. And then just a way but right before the wave of people came on us, you know, grab the camera off the dash, you know, pull the camera down, take off your shirt. You know, we had outer shirts on, cover up the rifles. And you know, there's nothing you can do when you're

in that sea of people. You can't run over enough or shoot enough, yeah, to get it out, and people would be plastered on us, and hey, you know, my big soldier to act was to look at people and smile and go, you know, I'm just a dumb American and like some and they glare at you. Then they go okay, and the guy would move you a few feet. Then you'd renegotiate with the next and the next and the next. I think it took us thirty forty five

minutes to get out of that crowd. Whoa out, you know, And I just kept picturing, you know, getting ripped apart by people.

I had kind of made my bones with the agency, so they were supportive of me trying to come into the agency. And I finished my two years as a detailer in two thousand and four and had been running back and forth to Iraq. You know, during the day, I'd be at the embassy like everybody else. And guess who else came to the embassy and was a signaire, John Mulholland. Again he was working at the I think it was the OMA office there, So we got to see each other again and work together a little bit,

and so the agency supported me. I came back to the US fifth group had changed significantly. All the people were gone. They gave me a barracks room over the gym for two weeks, and I just hand carried my paperwork and punched out of the Army against advice. And I didn't do all the proper things you're supposed to do when you retire. But I was by that time when I was in my forties, forty six maybe, and the agency had a job for me, and I was like, you know, I can't this is my chance. If I wait,

I'll miss it. So I left Fort Campbell on a Friday and reported for work Monday at Langley. Wow.

that for a while. And so I showed up with the Near East Division and that was my job to sit at a desk and support Iraqi ops write cables and I did that. I did everything I could. I'd been fortunate over from the time I was in Yemen to Kuwait doing you know, an army project, to when I was detailed, and throughout that time in the war, a lot of agency people I met a lot, and a lot of them depended on me to take care

of them in the hostile environments. So I guess I had friends on the inside and they were telling me, you're going to have to do two years before you can even be considered to do the training to get certified as a case officer. I'm like, but I already recruited and doesn't count. And you know, well, I wound up after six months there getting my opportunity to go to the course to get certified. So I did that,

and that's you were talking two thousand and five. And then I said, you know, because I chose to go case officer route instead of ground branch, because you know, I was trying to look ahead. I was in my forties, I was still great shape and very capable. But I was like, I got to do this till I'm sixty five or so, and I don't want to be that guy, white haired guy trying to still tote the rifle and

hang out with the badasses. And if I'm a case officer, I can have I've never had for the last fifteen years, I haven't had a regular life. I can have a regular life and still contribute. So so I went that round and had made him promise me that, hey, I've done a lot of war stuff for you guys. Now I want one of those embassy jobs. I want to like go to Geneva or somewhere where I can like have a good time, live a good life and all that. And so I was set to go somewhere. It was

not Geneva. It was Saudi Arabia, so but it's still it wasn't a case officer job. It was a case officer job. And then after I graduated the course. A day I graduated, the division's personnel officer sent me a note congratulations on graduating the course, said please come by my office at your earliest convenience about your assignment. So I showed up and I said hey, and he goes,

then no, you're not going there. And what am I doing. Well, there's a dire need in Afghanistan and they need you and they asked for you, so you're going to Afghanistan. I can't not me back to Afghanistan and they go, yep, Afghanistan. It turned out it was the Greg V guy was the chief and had some people that backed out of assignments. I still had the soldier in me where I thought, you know, when you're told you have to go somewhere, you can complain and you can say ask him to reconsider,

but you still have to go. I didn't realize, No, that's not how it is.

Oh okay, so between the two of them, now, I'm a case officer, but they knew me with my military skills, so I sort of went by. They gave me sort of a different set of rules than other case officers had, so I guess I had more freedom of movement and more leeway at pursuing some different kind of you know.

It wasn't the usual embassy stuff. You know. I was going after I D people, and I was for a while I was meeting a guy that would bring ied trigger devices from Pakistan in and I would meet him and give him a little bit of money and i'd I'd take the devices instead. Yeah, And then after a while, It's funny, I got called into the headquarters and they said, hey, we have like especially trained explosive people that should be getting these. I go, what are they going to do

that I'm doing? You know, I was a breacher. I've been trained breacher. I know I can take a triggering device and it's not but it's you're not qualified, and you know it works differently in the agency about your qualifications and stuff. So I did that. I did some stuff where I convinced some Taliban that they were on the wrong side of the fence and they should do some other things. I did a couple of the you know, traditional case officer recruitments and hirings and all that.

that I want to take back an interview. And you know, while you're standing there, your situational awareness is really turned on. You're scanning, you're looking, You're you know, if is anybody going to try to come up and try to kill me, I'm watching. And as I'm doing that, while we're waiting, my attention for a brief moment when on this off

to my left a black Toyota Corolla. And but I was like, okay, well I don't really see anything wrong with that, and back, and you know, I was keeping scanning. But then I kept turning back to that black Toyota. Well then I noticed, well, there's two guys in it, and they see me. We're about thirty yards apart, so

they clearly see that I'm an American. And and then I you know, but I was ignoring that little sixth sense that comes on in you because I was trying to get something done right, So I just kept making excuses. There was a cop about ten yards away from that, uh that car, and I told myself, well, if there was something wrong, the cop wouldn't let them be there, because I thought, I'm just bothered because cars don't normally park there. And uh, well, then the guy that I

was waiting for showed up. So we turned around, the interpreter and I went back through the security zone. It's about one hundred and fifty meters to the gate, and we went in and as we were coming in the gate. You know, there was just a deafening explosion and the ground shaking and the alarm went off. You know, you had to get inside the buildings and get on the floor and wait, we're probably there. A couple hours things

started dying down. I went to see the regional security officers there that run security for embassies, and I asked him, I said, hey, was that a vehicle of Ebid? And they said it was. Was it at Kabul's Circle, our Masud circle? Right out here? It was? It hit a military US military convoy, killed two soldiers, injured four, and killed a bunch of Afghans. And I said no, I said, was it a black Toyota Corolla? And the guy stopped me and he said, nobody knows that. We're just finding

pieces of that. Nobody knows that. I said, well, I was there two minutes before it went off. There were two guys in it, so I mean, that's just one of those stories that happens. The lesson I took from that was pay attention to your instincts and if something's bothering you, you know, you need to definitively rule it out threat or not threat, but be definitive about it. Don't let it sit there, because I've many times imagined the conversation those guys had. You know, hey, let's just

do it now. Here's an American right here. All we have to do is touch the wires together. And maybe the other guy, well they told us military convoy, and but who knows if that's gonna come. Here's one right now, and they didn't. The pictures that were went around the world after of that explosion, aftermath where I was standing was just gone. It was obliterated. The tree, so everything

was just it was just gone. So, you know, fate was with me that day, even though I probably made some bad choices about sticking around.

a while. And as a following on to that, there was a one of the guys that was on the top ten list, Mullah Kabir, that was in Pakistan and through some people I'd been trying to reach out to him to make overtures that if he would come in and or cooperate with me, you know, I'd try to get him off the list of that that means death, because you know, if we can get you, we're going to kill you. But maybe there's another option for you.

And eventually, and and I'd had some success doing some those ops, and we thought we were told that there that he would come in, but he was going to do so at the border of n Angohar Province in Nuristan Province. And that was a back in those days, we're talking two thousand and six. I believe it was no man's land. It was.

minutes behind. And our thinking, because we didn't have any air support, was that if we got hit, we would call in those vehicles and with a twenty or thirty minute delay, they could get in and provide some extra fire support to extract us, and we didn't plan on

being there long. You can make an infill at night, but in a village or out in a remote place, unlike the Seals and Loan survivor, you know that you're going to be made and you have to get out of there, so you can get in, but the fuse is burning, so you don't have long to be there. As it started getting light, we backed up into I found some guy and we paid him some cash that he had a walled compound, so a mud walled compound. We were able to get our vehicles there, but you

know that we're still going to get you. You can't be somewhere, and as the village wakes up and people start moving around, you know you're essentially made. Well, this mullaka bear didn't show, didn't show. I had an Afghan general with me wearing plain clothes who was ethnic Poshtune from that area and he after we had no phone coverage, even Thraia at that point. It wasn't where we couldn't

hit the satellites. It wasn't working. So we're getting to the point where I'm going to have to abandon this mission, and we the general decided to go forward because he's a he's a local, he can blend. So he said, I'm going to go forward. And we were at the edge of Afghanistan. So by going forward, he was going into Pakistan. And I gave him forty five minutes. I said, okay, I can give you forty five minutes. Go see what the deal is, get where you can make a phone

call and see if this is own or not. But we got to get out of here. The forty five minutes went by, he wasn't there, and we had to try to. You know, I've got to do something. By now, it's getting ten, ten thirty. Surely everybody knows we're there by now. So I know that by now, Taliban, al Qaeda, whoever knows. And the question is, you know, how soon

can they take action? And you know, I wanted to pull out and take the Americans with me, because that's the sure thing to do, and that's what the agency would want me to do. That was the politically correct thing to do. But then there's that soldier's creed of never leave a guy behind. And I, you know, I even asked myself the question is well, is he my guy? Was my first responsibility to the Americans, right, And then this guy is in Afghan and the ground branch guys

were were asking me, you know, it's my call. What are we going to do? And I talked with them a little bit and and we you know, we decided, okay, it's no longer a secret that we're here. Let's make one effort to get this guy. So we called up the two gun trucks, you know, the two pickup trucks. So we you know, we had twelve Afghans and with each vehicle was one, if not two other ground branch guys.

So we waited on them. They come rolling in. We got in front of them and our thin skinned vehicles and off into Pakistan we go looking for this general. And hey, we got lucky that after we got inside and had gone just a few kilometers, suddenly this uh, you know, little cab car comes flying up behind us and out jumps the general and he's like crying and

running up and hugging me. And he had his vehicle had stalled near Pakistani checkpoint and he'd been they'd fired a couple of times, and then he'd been running for the last forty five minutes, so he so he was glad, but we recovered him and then, you know, thanks to the ground branch guy's skill and the guys that they had trained, we you know, mounted up and got back out and with no incident. You know, it was it

was just a very tense time. It had reminded me that, you know, when I talked earlier about Afghanistan in two thousand and two, I was the tactical leader and that Chris guy that I talked about later was the team leader. And we got set up out in the middle of nowhere for this asset that was going to meet us, and he wasn't showing and as a tactical leader, I noticed that, hey, we're out in the middle of a valley.

We're in a bad spot. The people in this little outpost there's only like five little buildings together are disappearing. If the locals are disappearing, something is getting ready to happen. So I told him we've got to pull out. We can't stay here, and we left. And after we got back that night to our base camp, we found out that Sigett had picked up al Qaeda Khom, saying that they had part of the ambush in on us and we're waiting to put the rest of it in before

they initiated an ambush. But we ended up, you know, walking out, and I just thought it was a weird, just uh, the sense of irony that I've been on one side and now here I was in the team leader job and I like it better being on the tactical side.

zone tour. So you say, well, you know, you've done your share of war zone, but she's not done a war zone, and she's going to be an a war zone. So if you want to be with her, you know, because we've been in separate countries, married in separate countries for a year, it's going to be a war on Iraq or Afghanistan. They you know, I've already got everything wired here in Afghanistan. I'll I'll stay in Afghanistan. So so she came out and I did my third year.

It was maybe not the wisest choice I made, because I didn't realize that after all those years of war zones and classified missions, just back to back to back to back, you don't realize what it does to you. And I'm now in touch with some of the GRS Global Support guys that you know, we're bodyguards, that knew

me and trusted me in those days. They said, hey, man, that that third year, and you know, we all wondered when you were going to buy the ticket because like you're going out on your own and Kabul and driving by yourself right and staying at a compound, and you kind of had this thing of nobody can touch you and eos. Most people don't survive that right now, but I did and it was good. But I you know, I was done with war zones.

near peer countries. You know, I don't want to go too far in what I say, but I think we're all aware that we've had some spectacular failures regarding China and some other countries, and so the you know, a lot of a lot of our thinking about how the Intelligence Service goes about it I think has to be refigured, and the model that we use in Afghanistan would not work. Now.

I don't know what the Special Forces, whether first Group or tenth Group with Russia planning is for, you know, to take their side of the battle to those countries, but I don't think it. It can't be the same like command structure as it was in Afghanistan. And one

of the big failures. I was one of the plank holders as things started deteriorating with Syria, and so I was in the midst of the decisions as that was ramping up, and based on my experience, I knew that whatever we did in Syria, and I'll draw the correlation to to a your peer country that like Afghanistan. While the agency might start it and have the legal authorities under covert actions to do these initial activities, that it's

gonna inevitably turn over to fifth Group. So my thinking was at the beginning, we need to share with SOCOM and sock scent and be tied in so that it's a seamless transition from agency to army. And you know, but that's where you get into those organizational divides and jealousies because they're like no, no, you can't eat, and I was like, let's go tell them, and there was

great reluctance to share much. I went down for my boss and I went down to brief General Madis and that did not go well at all.

I did have one tour somewhere else and I had some you know, successes in the terror arena there. But so I said, hey, if anybody wants to go with me, any flag level person wants to go down to SOCOM, you're welcome to. But nobody came. So I walked into Admiral Craven's office by myself and it was an ambush. He was not happy with Fade and see and one of his key staff members had had it. There was a big rift. You know. I went there. His briefing

table was, everybody was there. They introduced themselves, They sit me down. Then the door to his office opens. He comes in, sits in his chair facing them, says hello. Then he spends it and looks at me, goes and

what do you want? And I was like, well, here I am former E seven now talking to uh the Socom commander, and uh, you know, I said, hey, sir, at heart, I'm an SF guy, you know, and I'm here, but I'm gonna tell you the truth, not only about what we have and what we're doing, but more importantly what we don't have and what we can't do. And uh,

and we got along. It sort of helped that John Mulholland became his deputy and we were friends, and you know, I got some assistance from him, and you know, off we went. But as that relates to a near peer that there has to be a seamless off ramp, and you know, my I guess maybe that's changed, uh since I left in twenty fifteen. I doubt it, just because of legalities and jealousies and everybody's got to protect their turf.

And it's never going to be stable enough where anybody's going to be able to really put the infrastructure that needs to be there to be able to take advantage of it.

And no matter where you go in Jason Cia, whatever the most complicated operation you're doing, even you know, I've you know, I've done operations against top tier, how kind of leaders, it's still going back to the basics, taking care of people, shoot, move, communicate.

on you and change you. But but to be honest, I do not have enough information and I don't I think the medical community is still pretty divided on whether you know how on the you know the reality of that and the impact of it. I would believe if you showed me data, I would believe either way. Certainly. I don't put it past some countries to use a weapon like that against US.

just them, but they're family members. There's one person I know that Hey, they're coming around now to my brother and if you know, it's either joined or get killed. And if they ever find out that I'm in America, he's dead. So it's uh, there's a lot. There are so many people that are left, and probably a lot of agency affiliated people.

program for a long time. So yeah, there's a lot, there's a lot of good guys there, but yeah, there's some that that are inexperienced. In Afghanistan, they were experienced, but in places in some other places that were not hostile. You know. It's people that have more of an admin police type background, so they're maybe not as suited in some respects to deal with no hostile environment. Yeah.

aviation guy who comes from Eco Squadron. I was wondered if you had any thoughts of that as somebody who worked in this community and closely with the community about rather than somebody who came from, you know, the traditional squadron commander position and working their way up about an aviation guy sort of landing in that billet.

and it had grown. And so with that, I believe that you know, the guys that have to develop the operational plan on the ground, there will still be plenty of people that can do that, But to run that behemoth now, I think that anybody that has the proper mentality and training and experience, and joint environment is very capable of doing that. So I don't I don't think that they'll miss a step.

aspect and at more senior levels. And I started seeing under the tent, you know that a lot of some of the politics involved in the decision making process and some stuff with the National Security Council, and you know, this whole thing about hey, let's not tell so coom stuff. I you know, I started becoming like, hey, I'm this is bothering me, and I think I had And then the wife that I married there in the agency decided

to move on and do something different. So, you know, I started really wondering, like what am I doing here? I felt that the agency, a lot of the people in the side of the agency I was in, where fairly liberal, and that you know, I was viewed somewhat different. You know, I don't think I was an old cojure yet, but it just started getting where. I started like, I don't like the politics in this. And then in my personal life, I started I'd been on all these offensive things.

It's how do we track down this guy? How do I get this guy? I had a few times where I did something I felt was really good, like getting a family out of a denied country. Once you know that was that was a good feeling, and I, you know, I started searching for and there was a spiritual search for me. I'd i'd been a believer in God and Christian, but I sure heck wouldn't have been accused of that of anybody you me. In a lot of my military time and and and maybe agency time, and you know this,

I started I started having medical issues. I've been under extreme stress in some things that we haven't talked about, probably shouldn't talk about, and for so many years and so long that I started having heart things, and yeah, I started thinking this isn't for me. And right when my career, after some pretty spectacular successes, should have been taken off, I was like, I got it. I've got to bail on this. And I resigned in twenty fifteen after I think I was eleven as a staff officer

and two as a detail ee. But I've been working on it off with the agency for yeah, fifteen sixteen years.

Not what you like to think you are on your inside. So I did reconnect with my faith. I decided I probably wasn't the most qualified person to look for romantic entanglements. All the buddyes, my buddies in the military say hey, Gary, every ten or fifteen years, don't ever get married again. Just every ten or fifteen years, give all your shit to some woman and all your money.

coffee to talk about church. So I met her for this coffee and she said one of her first questions, well what do you do? And I said, well, you're actually the first person I can tell but I work in the CIA. She goes, oh, you know, she was a very she is a very sweet and innocent person, besides what little bit of corruption I've been able to achieve.

And and she said, oh, what I said, Well, I actually was a Marine officer to start off, but then I resigned and I enlisted in Special Forces and then I did this thing that they call the Delta Force for a while, and then I went to the CIA,

and I'm in the CIA, she said. Oh. And she goes back to school and some friends of her she had a husband, a late husband who had passed away a few years before of an illness, and they'd been trying to set her up with agency guys because this teacher that she worked with, her husband was a senior guy in the agency, and they were trying to set her up. She says, No, there's a guy at my church and I think I'm going to start going out with him. And they, oh, oh, tell me about him,

Tell about him. And it happened to be that this woman's husband had been a ranger and before the agency. She said, oh, well, he's his name is Gary. He was Marine, then he was Special Forces, then he was Delta Force, and now he's CIA. And then the woman looked at her and laughed and shook her head and pat her on the back and said, oh, honey, uh, there's nobody just done all that stuff. That's what that's that's the kind of thing that guys tell girls when

they want to get very friendly with them. But that that's there's no way, she said, but he seems so sincere and I met him at church. She said, Nah, impossible, but give me his name and and I'll have my husband check him out. So she gave him my name and she said, you know, I found out much later that a couple of days later that the lady came back to her and said, oh my god, she said, not only is that true, there's way more than that.

He's you know, he's he's done all that and there's a few things.

a very successful program. It was great. So I thought, Okay, I'm going to apply my skills to business and do that. Well, guess what, there's not all a bunch of people lining up to give me millions of dollars to start business. And at first I think I got pushed with you know, by that time, for whatever other reasons, I knew some people in places and they were hooking me up with security gigs, and so I was trying to set up a security and I would hire seals and sf guys.

But I never made a success of it because by the time you pay the guys to do the work. There never was enough for me, so I couldn't live off the money. One day I did an event for women CEOs when I trained them in anti assault, anti abduction, escape from restraints, situational awareness. During that, one of the women came up and said, if I knew this before, I wouldn't have got stabbed and raped a few years ago. And I just liked that. I like giving to people.

It made me feel that the thirty five years that I spent doing the things that I did in hostile environments, living under cover, that there were things I could teach people that improve every person's life so they can take care of themselves, so they can have peace of mind. And these days, you know, look how our society is devolving and violences right around the corner from any of us, and people are increasingly less able to take care of it.

So I kind of view it as a mission too, you know, equip people to be able to take care of themselves, just follow them the same principles and habits that many of us learn to live with throughout our careers.

self reliant for their security and safety. It's a pretty extensive course and I've spent probably two years putting that together.

these episodes of The Teamhouse ad free. The same goes with our affiliated podcast eyes On with Andy Milburn, Jason Lyons mcmulroy that one, you will also get all of those episodes add free. And you support the channel and the show, and we really appreciate it. The Patreon members are literally what has helped this company, this small business survive, especially during our early years, and you are what continues to help this thing going even as we navigate the

turbulent world of YouTube advertising. So we really appreciate all of you guys. There's going to be a link down in the description to that Patreon page, and there is also going to be a link to our new merch shop, So if you guys want to go and get some Team House merchandise, we got stickers and we also have patches, and I should mention if you sign up for Patreon at ten dollars a month, we will mail you this

patch as well, so we really appreciate that. But they're also for sale on the merch Shop and additionally they got t shirts up there, water bottles, a tote bag, coffee mugs, all that good stuff, so please go and check them out and support the show. We really appreciate it, guys.