Special Operations Coberts SB and I the Team House with your hosts Jack Murphy and
David Bark. All right, so, uh for this episode, I'm here
today with retired Sergeant Major Michael Adams. Mike served in fifth Group, First
Group, seventh Group, any other group not seven, first, fifth,
third, tenth. I am a sootback that they Yeah, sorry about that,
so they kept you super busy, Mike, And uh, thank you
for doing this interview today. And you know, uh, you know,
we've known each other for years, and you know, it's uh it's fun
to you know, do this with you and discuss your career in some length
and depth. Yeah, Jack, I really appreciate that. Thank you for
having me on. It means a lot. Thanks. Yeah, absolutely,
so's uh, let's start at the beginning, man, tell us a little
bit about sort of like what your upbringing was like and how that led you
towards the army. Yeah. Sure, So my upbringing was very outdoors,
hunting, fishing. Also, my father went as far as to take me
backpacking a little bit of a limited amount of food and made me live off
the land and back in the day, he taught me how to navigate with
a map, and a compass. He gave me all kinds of skills that
all put into you know, become a Special Forces soldier. As started as
my backstory, what happened was I went to college very young. Literally the
first day I was walking up this hill to register for classes, I had
to cross a bridge and there were two Special Forces guys repelling off the bridge
with a couple of students. Right. Yeah. It turned out to be
Joe Dennison, who was the first s arm major of the regiment, and
Ken Lanceoloco, was also a Macni SAG guy. So I managed to stay
in college for two years, but the whole time, in the back of
my mind, I'm like, I don't want to fucking do this shit.
So one time I got Joe to go down to the recruiter with me,
and the only thing they would offer me was range of regiment. I'm like,
no, I want to be in Special Forces because by then I knew
what Special Forces was, I knew the difference, but they weren't accepting people
off the street. So a year later I went back to the recruiter and
they were accepting people off the street. I think it's similar to they have
a program now call it something. I don't know what it's called, and
it is what it is. Yeah, And what year was this mic that
you went and signed up in? Nineteen seventy seven? Was your I saw
it of late seventy seven, and so I went to you know, basic
Infantry, jump back up the brag. We had what was called pre phase
back then, which was just a lot of you know, beating the shit
out of you and rucksack marcheses and running and stuff like that. It wasn't
like that whole organized thing that they have now. We did stuff kind of
like that, but it was more of you know, rucksack marches and running
than it was these organized team skills that they do now, which I think
are great, They're wonderful. But the way it ended up was in phase
one, I think a lot more people got weeded out than they probably did
now. I don't know what the percentage was, but I could tell you
about, Oh, Mike, we lost your audio. Yeah, I lost
your audio there for a second. Me, Okay, you're back. You're
talking about how a lot of people probably washed out in Phase one during the
class, and so I support the idea of having a structured Brie phase where
they actually you know, weed them out there instead of wasting much time and
money and putting them in Phase one. You know, right away. I
was also very fortunate. In Phase one and all the beginning of my career,
pretty much almost every damn guy had either been in ZOG or he at
least had been on the A team in Vietnam. Everybody but me, and
so of course they hated me for what I represented. They did not like
guys come in and Office three at all. They didn't care for us,
but they came to accept us. You know. For example, the first
time I went down to the first to my first company to start major maybe
go out fucking kles before I could even in process. I mean, it's
it's incredible. And I mean I didn't know that Joe Dennison was actually he
actually like kind of recruited you in the SF. He totally did. We
were friends of mine in his own right. Absolutely, dude. He's a
warrior and a hero altogether. He did so much for the resident regimen it
was unbelievable. Yeah. Yeah, he was a real real good man,
real good man. And I ran across a lot of really good men back
then. I mean, I think everybody from the group commander down to the
teams. Every single guy was a VET from Vietnam, right, So they
had all this experience and once they got over being pissed us, they gave
it to us, you know, they passed it on that to us.
And that was a unique position to be in, you know, because these
guys had done the Gambut emissions. They didn't just do DA or whatever,
or they didn't just do Bence Hoppin, which is cool and really I really
think that's very impressive. But they also had eight camps out there are noise
and you know they were they had singletons, you know, guys out there
for a year out in the mountains of Vietnam and other areas. So they
did the whole full gamut of missions of Special Forces missions. I think while
they were over there that you w everything, you know, and that was
that was a generation of of guys who knew how to patrol and like field
craft. Dude, let me tell you something. I can't tell you how
many hours we spent working on our lbe together perfect. I mean, if
they heard one little tiny noisier bought yeah, but they taught us. They
didn't say you know, unfuck your LB. They taught us out to do
it, you know, they taught us out of patrol. Yes, they
were. They were the guys that could could patrol from help. And I
learned really really ton of stuff about patrolling from those guys. Really told what
was the your first ODA after you graduated first group? Where were you?
So? What happened first was they sent me to the fucking Comma shack.
That great guy's tapping out code. I'm like, fuck this shit. And
then they sent me up to uh To. They sent me to the instructor
scores that had to pass up there. I don't know what was called.
And the guy liked me up there, so he talked to the Coma committee.
They kept me up there and then they man there was another mass charden
up there that was a combat diary from ODA five forty three in fifth group,
and he was just doing his last tour and so he got me hooked
up to go back down to ODA five forty three. And that was my
first team in fifth group, and it was a fantastic team. We had
so many good people, good team, so are and so Martin Milly was
one of my team leaders from eighty one to eighty three. He was a
real good man and I know we'll talk a little shit about him now,
Yeah, you're wrong. He's a good man. He calls me to this
day to check on me because I got the stage four cancer, which I'd
like to talk about later. Oh yeah, And Martin Joy went straight to
the top. I mean he's Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, right, yeah,
yeah, well he just retired a couple of months ago, but yeah,
he went all the way up and he was a real good man and
my team servant at the time. Some guys will know his name was Massive
Charlton Henry Beck. He ended up getting the DSc for charge of the machine
gun that's to Vietnam. Yeah yeah, yeah, hardcore. So these are
the kind of guys I was around, you know, they were just amazing
guys. My senior como guy. I don't know. Somehow he went to
Fort Lewis, I mean Fort Levemarth after Vietnam, but came back. I
don't know the whole story beyond that, but lots of guys who wants the
stories. Yeah, and I mean it was it was also at such a
different time, I mean up on smoke Bomb Hill, and the GB Club
and SF was so small back then, like everyone, My impression is everyone
knew each other. We all knew each other, Jack, and it was
so much smaller. You couldn't put together three A teams in my company on
a good day, you know, because you were there were enough people.
Yeah, and then I want to sit. I can't swear this, but
I want to say. They took the tea one eewn to two companies per
battalion for a while. Wow, that didn't last. I think I can't
swear on it. But then gradually it started coming back. And then they
opened up a battalion out at Lewis and reactivated first week and then things slowly
started going. But yeah, it was tiny. It was tining smoke bomb
Hill. Everybody knew each other when you were in training, and you were
allowed to have two beers at the green Bery Club where the stripper was in
a shitty hamburger, you know, and the ugly stripper. But yeah,
that was the atmosphere. But I'll tell you when it came down to missions
and stuff, hard as ten motherfuckers, hard as fucking nails, everybody got
immediately serious. Immediately, hard as nails did not fucking around nobody around.
Could you tell us a little bit about like your first ODA, like any
any real world missions you may have gotten, or even training missions that stand
out in your mind? Oh what stands? God, there's so many.
I hate to talk about my first team because some of the stuff I could
say I really don't want to say. I mean, let's do a lot
of stuff. We went to Europe, went to after We got to do
a lot of shit. It was fun, someone was training, some was
kind of you can Sometimes it was like you couldn't run. There was like
a gray area between training and real world. If you understand what I'm saying,
You like, you drop a couple of guys or a few guys off
of the middle of nowhere on a runway in Sudan. Happen to me,
and you know, you kind of kind of have a mission you kind of
don't, you know. But there you are, the Chinese are controlling the
airfield. There's things all around you, and you got a little a little
tent and a couple dage hanging around there, and you know, like,
what the fuck are we supposed to be doing there? So we just fucked
around a lot, you know it was fun. It was really fun.
We had the best times back then because they're just as long as you did
your job, you could really get away with a ton of shit. It
didn't have to feel it was fun, you know, And it was all
such a learning experience, it really was. We were very fortunate to have
such a good learning experience, you know. It was just totally awesome.
What came after that first? Oh da? Then what was the next one
you landed at? Well, I think, let's see, I came,
I went onto my first SPEEDCAP project. I think after that, what's speedcap?
I guess a covert project or something. I don't know, very classified,
that's all. I can't explain it. I don't know what it means.
Special category, I think is what. Okay, I don't know what
it means. Well, what was the gist of that? Long hairs in
stain clothes and go receipts? You know, And it was a blast.
We had a great time. But we had a mission. As long as
as we did the mission, as long as we you know, kept our
ship together, we were good to go and we could get away with doing
you know this or that. This was the RST mission. No, I
don't think, so I don't know what that stands. I think it was
regional survey teams and like three seven had one. They were like one of
the early ones. But when you say like long hair doing intelligence workplaces,
it sounds similar to that early like like I don't remember that codin I don't
remember those remember it's been a long time. I don't remember those briefs.
But we had like two oh das combined together. And as a matter of
fact, I'm still in touch with a couple of guys. They're really good
guys, Clyde Dogherty and Gordy hop On. I've been in touch with those
guys recently. Unfortunately, again it comes back to the cancer shit. That's
sorry, but yeah, yeah, you know, one time I went to
Jeordian. We thought somebody we did all this cool shit. We thought somebody
was following us around or something, and I ended up buying a plane ticket
to go back home and back then he use cash, you know, to
buy plane tickets. You went to travel agencies and I get on this fucking
fight man, and just like maybe a couple hours after it started going,
I don't think anybody else was with me. I don't remember anybody else being
with me on that trip. All of a sudden, I hear we're descending
it into Damascus. I'm like what. Back then, we were not friends
with Syria. They were not buddies of bars. And I was just like,
what the fuck? So the travel lady had given me a flight that
stopped in Damascus on the way to New York City. I couldn't believe it.
I was scared. Chillis and made us get off the plane and made
us sit in the in the lounge area, and some dudes in plane clothes
were going around looking at passports, and despite my obvious white boy look,
they did not come over to me. I don't know what they were.
You traveling on a US government passport? Yeah? Yeah, so you're not
going to hide that. No, And we had a really stupid plane cover
story. Did uh? Did you do a lot of a lot of missions
like that around that time, going like by yourself or onesies and twosies.
I did do a ton of onesies jack in my career, especially in the
Pacific. That's why, as I told you, I think before the started,
I looked, I sat down down. I deployed over thirty countries in
my career, several of them multiple times in the Pacific. In particular,
I helped start up the d mining program in Louns, helped start up the
mining program in Cambodia before I turned the loaded first group, and then I
did a shipload at onesies to some really fucking interesting places, some of them
not so cool, like Cambodi was not cool. The communities were still there.
We were out in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of Cambodians,
just me and a Mutch Cambodians, and you know, there was gunfight's going
on somewhere around this but whatever. And then what was the other one was
Sri Lanka. There's a war going on there, bombings. I was there
by myself. I just want to think of other places in the Pacific.
I can't think of a well, I mean, well's let's jump right into
I mean, what were you doing in Cambodia. Hey, guys, it's
Jack. I just wanted to talk to you today about a way that you
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Slash the Teamhouse Caimbody was the Dean mining program, so it was really interesting
and especially with Loolence. I'll probably confuse some of what happened within one country
and the other because they happened simultaneously. But one time I can remember coming
out of the embassy with their helicopter going on survey mission up in the mountains
and we were spitting closed. But we got off the helicopter and some really
old dude came up to us and said in English, he said, I'm
not seen a soldier since Vietnam War. I was like, damn, so
those dudes were up there, our precursor guys were up in the middle of
nowhere and looser Cambodia, you know, and this didn't remember them. And
this is in the nineteen eighties, I take it. Yeah, yeah,
the nineties maybe, and I think it was the nineties really. And then
another time a league walked up to us holding a UXO and handed it to
me. I was like, okay, yeah, so I just walk real
slow to the to the edge of the bill and put it down and marked
it and left a slip. Fuck man. But the problem was, dude,
we left some insane amount of UXO in Laos and Cambody. We carved
bombed those fucking countries. And that's when the CBU first came out, and
they threw these springs out and shit. And if you touch them or removed
them, or if the kids picked them up, they'd go off. They
were they had a huge Doug rate, what thirty or maybe worse a doug
rate of those things, but they would still go off oftentimes when you picked
them up. I could relate to it because I could remember one morning and
desert some them waking up after a movement at night, being in the middle
of a field of uxocbus. Same thing. You know, they were still
dropping them duds all over the place during the Gulf War. And then what
about Sri Lanka, I mean with the Tamil Tigers. There was a pretty
hot war going on there, you know, in the into the nineties,
that's right, So in Sri Lanka. Yeah, so when we got when
I got to those countries, I was supposed to the first thing I was
supposed to do was link up with the defense attest shack and some at most
every country had a defense attests shame some didn't, but most of them were
fairly involved. I can remember the Syrian Lanka at that shape. He introduced
me to the He brought the Syrian Lankan army guy and he introduced me,
and then he wouldn't leave the embassy. I had to fly out into the
field with this guy. Way up north. There's a pencil up there in
an island where the war was going on with the tigers. It was isolated
as ion was cut off and I had to fly all the way up there
with this dude in a Soviet in my seventeen or something, something that feels
like it's going to break down every second, uh, you know, and
there was an active war and gold uh you know, and there was hope
things go well, right? What was your mission like reconnaissance at that point,
Yeah, reconnaissance to trying to understand what value added train could we could
bring to them to help them beat the meals. That was we were figuring
it out. But that's fascinating because the dovetails with what others have told me
that around like I guess ninety four or so, there was a classified MTT
or you know, foreign internal defense mission to Sri Lanka. The first group
did well. I hope that was the result of what I found out.
I don't know about it, but I hope I helped them. What were
your conclusions from your time there? They needed help from the ground up while
their see it was worn out and beat up. They need a lot of
money for weapons and stuff. But they also needed training our country train that
we could give. And so I imagine that's probably what the first guys did,
was trying them training them up because they basically didn't really have any training.
I don't know who originally trained the Syrians. It must have been the
Russians because they had Russian equipment probably yeah, yeah, you know, I
don't know, but they were very happy to see a mean and hoping the
more become. So I'm glad to hear something else came. Yeah. Yeah,
they did send oda's and seals to do that. Yeah. Not too
many people know about that mission to this day. Yeah. Well, I'm
glad they did because the to meals. Not only were they and it was
like World War two trench fight and obviously walking through these trenches, but this
ship man. But in addition to that, they were doing suicide bombings in
the town and that was fucked up. As a matter of fact, they
blew up the hotel I usually stayed in, but fortunately that wasn't there.
But yeah, they had a lot of suicide bombers there. I think,
if memory serves, I think that Tamil Tigers may have been the first to
use female suicide bombers. I think so too. Yeah, I may need
to fact check that, but I think that's that was the case. Yeah,
that was before we were seeing suicide bombers in the Middle East. They
they were, they were the leaders in that suicide bombing bullshit. As far
as I know. Yeah, so I know we're jumping around a little bit.
But so you start off in fifth group, and then where did you
end up after that? Well, so I was on to see the the
classified operation, but then I mean, what was kind of the next landing
spot for you? I went to first? After that, I was going
to tell you something that will get me in trouble, but don't. Yeah,
tell me the thing, tell me the thing that's going to get you
in trouble. Never mind. So after it was over, a few of
us got the opportunities to pick where they wanted to go. And I've been
in fifth group I think like twelve years or something by then, so it's
like, let me go check out first food. So yeah, they sent
me out the first group. When I got to go out there and check
out the Pacific, I did a couple of deployments, you know, it's
regular couple goals and that bullshit over the Highlands and a couple other places.
I can't remember where they were, but it wasn't much. It was just
it was good stuck though, I mean, your regular stuff. It's all
good. This is what a lot of these guys from GA are gonna need
to relearn I think is that you may not like it. You may not
think or think it's cool or sexy. You may not think you UW is
core sexy. But let me tell you something. That's our core mission.
That's a mission of special forces and more the ones that are supposed to be
the expert at that. And if we don't watch out, people are gonna
take that away from us too. I already saw before I even left,
I already saw the TAG started to take it, you know, And you
know, and that's not cool. That's our mission, not the CAGs fucking
mission. Yeah, whenever they get bored, they kind of snatch whatever FID
mission they think is the sexiest and do that. But and now there's also
the s FAB right that does uh And that was Mark Millie's brainchild. Yeah,
I know, but at the time you needed it, you know,
Yeah, the war was yeah, yeah, yeah, you know. Just
because I like, no, it doesn't mean I agree with that. I
got mixed. I understand you're right, but I mean you're you're directionally right.
And just to point that out to listeners that with two wars going on,
there was so much FID to be done that they needed the conventional force
to come in and help out with that. And even before the s FAB
existed, I mean, it was just like a mission that would get thrown
to like a field artillery unit or an MP unit, like, oh go
train these iraqis crazy. They didn't have they weren't receiving the Americans, weren't
receiving any sort of like foreign internal defense training. So I mean it made
sense to formalize it, I guess. I mean, I'm just trying to
speak to both sides of that argument before. I yeah, and I really
think we need as Special Force soldiers to embrace the mission and show the order
the best and not let these guys take it away from this. They're supposed
to be the best at what they do. We're not supposed to be the
best at what they do. We're supposed to be able to do it proficiently,
but we're not supposed to. We are supposed to be the best,
So prove it and they won't be given the mission to somebody else. Right,
And they're fun good missions. They really can be. It's all what
you make of them, right, and can have a huge impact as long
as you find a vable partner. Well, yeah, and what you talked
about about Sri Lanka. Proves it right there, right, we'll passing it
on to people. It has a good effect. That's what we're supposed to
do around the world. So first group, I mean, it sounds like
you were having a pretty good time over there. I mean there are other
any other missions or any other ops or anything else that like really stands out
that you think we should highlight here. Well, yeah, that's why I
went on soockpack, you know, because I knew there was a lot going
on out there. Let me grab my phone. Sorry, I wrote,
I wrote down to these countries and they're job memory. Sorry, did I
get all tilted? No? I got you. Just give me one second,
Jack. So well, here's a good example that was even earlier was
Urgent Fury. So after Urgent Fury was over, we got to fifth group.
Teams got to go down there and spend other I think some guys to
got to go down there and do FID missions afterwards. And oh yeah,
totally. So almost every major island in that chain down there had a Special
Forces team or two teams on the island for the last six months or maybe
longer, I don't know, and we would train in my example uh.
We took two scuba teams from Fifth Group down to an island called Saint Kits
and they only had a police force, they did not have a military,
So we were given the weapons and equipment to re equip them and train them
to become a military force to protect their island. If the same thing happened
on Saint Kits that happened in Grenada. Because Saint Kitts, I think it's
even geographically close to the United States, then then Grenada was and they really
could not put up a defence against anybody if they came in there and tried
to take over and put in a few weapons in there like they did in
Grenada right earlier wherever they but yeah, yeah, and then there were fears
that they would do that in Grenada, I guess exactly. There were fears
they would do in Grenada. And they had a lot of people on the
ground and kind of heavy weaponry unbelieve on the ground there too. So yeah,
that was really cool. That was a fun mission. Like once every
week or two, C one thirty would make like two loops around the island
so we would know he was there and then we would I were the runway
he would hot offload a bunch of shit and we'd take it and it would
be filled with tons of stuff, training gear, weapons, ammunition, beer.
The first day we got there, we went to their arms room and
a spilbdanga completely. You couldn't put any weapons in there because there was too
much weed. I'm pretty positive that the government was involved in a you know,
drug smuggling business. I think that's a fair assumption. Yeah, it
was pretty point. That was very laid back and you know, maybe a
little too laid back sometimes, but it was a good It was a good
example of a mission. It was the opposite, i'd say, of Sri
Lanka as far as being laid back. It was if they're on the opposite
ends of the spectrum. But that's a good examp ample, you know,
of a mission that we did. You know, it came on he let
me look at my country list mm hm, Fiji, Tongda. Those were
all trained, trained the military and Fiji. I remember going there and uh
I met up with the Atja. He actually participated this time, and uh
we got in the helicopter and we flew out in the milanoa in the jungle
and we ended up where people were wearing fucking robes. I mean, you
know, one coss and shit like you know, way back in the day,
and we ended up in their long house, you know, drinking cob
but which they think makes them drunk. It's ridiculous. It doesn't make it
drunk. And we sit there for hours while they're doing their little ceremony,
uh you know, and we laid the ground and work for the guys from
first to come in hopefully. I don't know if they did, but we
sent back you know, what they could use and do, so you're right.
It was kind of like a recond like yeah, yeah, you know,
one man pol team. But anyway, so that was a really good
one. I'm wanted to a couple more sells. That was really interesting.
Yeah, Safells are like off the coast of Africa more than a more than
anywhere else. It's it's a Pacific island, but it's closer to Africa.
Go ahead, right, I was just gonna say, I mean alongside major
international shipping routes through the sea, and occasionally a coup attempt happens there and
we definitely didn't want the Soviets controlling that island chain, that's right. So
that was the really interesting one because when I got there that time, a
group commander met me there. That tells there were taking this and so the
group commander, I can't say his name, but whatever, me and him
were there and we planned out the mission to follow on. When we started
playing the mission to follow on about how they're going to manage the say Sells.
I don't know what the follow up ended up being. Jack. That
was the problem with my job was I never knew what happened downstream for whatever
reason. But they considered the Says a super important place at that time,
and you're right geographically, and the Russians were all over the place, and
Eric Prince was I don't think it was there back then, but Eric Prince
definitely found a place to hang out there later on. Have you heard anything
about anybody going to say Shall as far as like an sf MTT or something.
No, I don't believe I have. I'd have to dig I've heard
in more recent years in the two thousands and the Mall Dives. Yeah,
yeah, there you go. So in the nineties I went to the Mall
Dives and that was a really interesting place too. And again another one man,
uh there was I don't think there was an embassy there. There was
some American who met me. There might be a councilor there or something.
But you got in the Mall Dives. You got to go everywhere by boat.
You get from literally, Yeah, the airport's and an island, and
the capitals in the Hotel I Stadium was an island. It was really funny.
But the thing that sticks out in my mind that was funny about the
Mall Dives and it should be geographically important because that's where climate change is gonna
sink. That's the first country it's gonna sink and climate change. To set
up the target range, we had to put the targets in a boat and
pull them out off shore, and they have to fire at targets and then
bring them go back to see how well they hid in that party. I
mean, martsmanship turning would have taken days or weeks because of that. So
they've gone back there now, h you know, in the two thousands,
and I'm trying to remember the exact story, but we had a team there
when there was like a little coup going on and we had to evacuate the
team off the island. I want to say it was the mal Dives.
I interviewed a first GROOP officer about it, but my memory may be a
little bit faulty. Yeah, they only had a police force too, but
they couldn't have a coup. Who knows, I don't know. You know,
everybody has a coup, don't in those places. Yeah, let's see
once, Oh, Indonesia, that's a big one. So I named Initial
Contact in Indonesia. Now there's a fantastic shake. Was deeply involved in Indonesia
because there was a huge I forget the name of the programs of the military
equipment programs, like the twelve o eight, twelve oh six programs exactly.
They were huge. We were dumping military equipment and money on Indonesia like it
was the end of the world. And let me tell you something, dude.
And I think there's probably some CAG guys and other people that all tested
us too. I think the Indonesian Special Forces that are among the best that
I've come across, I really do. And I know they've been trained by
TAG two in addition to us. So what happened was the Prime Minister or
president whatever he was, his son was the head of the special forces.
Now I know it sounds like nepotism. But he was a badass on his
own and their unit there are copasuits they were called. There were badasses of
their own Cordinale that we gave them lots of additional training. We did not
want things to go south in Indonesia because it's a very you know, between
China and Australia. I believe in the Australian Says does their own training missions
in Indonesia and and actually interestingly they've also taken up a lot of stuff in
the Philippines too. Oh the Australian essays. Yeah, one of the guys
that I had an exchange guy on my team in First Food from and we're
still friends. From the Australian Essays, he became the regimental major of the
essays. Really good guy, Gary Kingston. What was what was your experience
in Indonesia? Like, so I got to go there, I want to
say eight times. Probably what happened was the commander took our liking to me
forever reason and you know that actually goes then he starts asking for me by
name whatever, And so I kept going over there and he treated me like
I can't give him my own little hud food may. I mean it was
great, you know, and it helped, you know, me understand their
mission more and help me understand how we could help them more. Having this
relationship and soock Pack is like, yeah, go back and forth as much
as you want, you know. The one thing good thing about Soockpack and
those socks had basically just started up. I don't even think there were other
socks besides Soockpack. I know sod Pack might have been the first one.
I know, there was, no I don't think there was any other ones.
There might have been, but I don't think so. But the first
commander was General Hand who was became so Calm Commander. I believe he was
an Air Force pilot and he was a one star when I was there,
and he loved SF guys and he was like, you guys, do what
you want to do, do what you need, spend what you gotta spend.
And he would go up to you know, pay Calm and get the
money that we needed and get the permissions. You know. He was a
really really good commander. So it sounds like the you know, so it
would have been the t sock for pay Coon, uh that they were really
into you like, just going over there and building rapport. Yes, totally,
they got it. They totally got it. That's why I ended up
going so many countries, like for the Cambodia thing. I ended up getting
a huge United Nations award for me ANDSUS for PECON for starting those programs.
It was a big deal man. Yeah, of course, of course I
lost the work somewhere in the box. It was a big deal then and
I remember it nowhere. But yeah, yeah, he totally was into supporting
special forces, which which was really really good. So yeah, that was
Indonesia. They continued to build our military. Now. I don't know the
situation. You heard anything about guys going there recently. I haven't heard anything
about Americans going there, And I mean that doesn't mean anything. It certainly
could be happening, and I just it hasn't popped up on my radar.
Yeah, I hope they're going because those guys are good. Thailand, you
know, I went there ten times or whatever in the same moment. I
mean, Thailand, I don't know what to say about it. It's a
good country. It's the same training evolution over and over every years. Exactly.
You need to do it once you do. It's important to do it
once. The first time I did it, it was really interesting. We
went up in the mountains and we went to an old American base that nobody
had been to them like one hundred years, so it was all grown over
and shit, and we started scraping away the vines and we could find in
the concrete guys' names from the sixties and not units they are and it was
so cool. Yeah, yeah, it was fun to go back and see
that, man. But yeah, you gotta go go on cover, go
getting under your belt. Mm hm. Congo was really cool. Again.
We trained up them. I think they had a pseudo military, like a
real one, but halfway between the police force in a military. I couldn't
swear. I remember we set the framework though for a real fundamental kind of
train and I don't know if that was followed up on or not. M
Man, I want to was a lot like Thiji, you know, a
longhouse out Nola, jungle, sitting down building report, drinking cob again,
everybody acts like they're fucked up. I'm like, why are you guys acting
like you're fucked up? It doesn't do anything to you. Come on,
manh my god, oh easyp was fine. So we got to train and
tell us about which is the Egyptum Special Forces Triple seven and we went over
there for a long time. Uh. It was a combat dive team and
we were training them in combat diving. And it was a very long and
extens of course, I think, I would say, and by the end
of the horse they were pretty damn proficient, or as proficient as you could
expect them to be as combat divers. H it was funny. And we
got we took them to the Suedge Canal and did one of those robe The
fucking things are hard man climbing up those rope uh little some metal ladders upside
of the bat And I think it was either right before or right after that
that thing happened more that Achille Laro Uh Yeahrane, yeah, yeah, yeah,
so they have been training now to do that. Couldn't say if they
did or didn't do it. I know they did get in on a plane
takedown and pretty much killed everybody. From what I remember, I remember that
was unfortunate. That could have gone another line. I can't remember exactly when
that takedown was, but I want to say it was like eighty seven or
eighty eight. Again this is off the top of my head. Yeah,
well we would have already trained them by then, if that's the correct year
when we would have trained them by that point already. M hume. Oh,
Bosnia. I took a company from tenthry on their Bosnia rotation. That
was interesting. I think that was a very very good special Forces measure to
have by Now you're by now you're a sergeant major. Yeah, company sergeant
major. Yeah, your singleton days are behind you. Now they have a
lot of responsibilities for you. Yeah. Yeah, And I was kind of
bummed because I got to do our shit and a lot of super classified cool
shit, you know, and then it's back to the company. But that's
okay, it is what it is. What was Bosnil like then? So
Bosni was interesting? Have you Hangbay come on and talk about it. Yeah,
yeah, definitely, people you know who were free in post nine to
eleven. A lot of guys cut their teeth there. Yeah. So yeah.
They had these houses set up kind of around the compass point, you
know, and they had a team per house. It was a beautiful so
you know, you couldn't ask for anything more. And every house on the
inside the house was fortified, like fucking fort knocked. They had heavy weapons
in the windows, they had access to the rocket launchers, they had everything
they needed to have a gunfight, you know, and so they would basically,
you know, they were supposed to patrol around and in face with the
with the civilians a little bit. You know, I don't know how the
other deployments went, you know, I only know how disappointment amazonline. What
have other people I told you, because I'm I'm not really clear on go
ahead. I mean some of them have told me. I mean some of
the Jasak guys were doing like low visibility you know, reconnaissance stuff, driving
around some of the SF guys, I mean, going around drinking Rakia with
the local police and developing rapport with them. I talked to one guy,
who was it, Mark Giaconio, who, uh, his team was working
with Russian SPETSNAS in two thousand and they went and got into a firefight with
the rebels. It was like a joint operation they did together. Yeah,
Bosni, it was like, I don't think that I think it could have
been dumb better. I'm not sure the mission was clear enough for people,
you know, I think like this is after actually I'm looking back. You
can say anything, but I think the mission could have been clear for people.
I think they did could have been better prepared, with more knowledge than
even I didn't get, like or my company command or I think they could
have passed on more knowledge to us about what exactly the mission was, what
exactly we're supposed to do there or not do? What? What was your
impression of the mission once while when you got there, well, like you
said, driving around drinking booze, I had a guy get a DUI,
you know, fuck uh, driving around drinking booze and building a poort.
I mean that's basically what they were doing. You know, I think that
I think their actual missions should have been cleared and just driving around billing wereport.
Yeah, yeah, you know, I don't. I don't blame them
one bit. I don't blame a single guy on the ground. It's the
chain of command above. I do not think, in this particular instance,
provided enough clear guidance that people could understand how serious this was. I think
Bosnia was far more serious than the guys I took anyway realized. And therefore,
because I was not a tenth guy, I just got there and I
got the mission, and so I didn't have any history with teenthoup. I
didn't know shit about bossing. So I knew what they told me. I
knew what people told me, you know, and I knew what the mission
stated. Uh, and that was what I knew, you know. And
you guys gotten a There were a couple of dust stops on the on that
depointment, wasn't there? Yeah? One guy? Yeah, there was a
couple of dustops. Yeah. The only casual I know is one bad guy.
There's sure have been a lot more. What what happened there in the
one with the casually? That was? That was a guy in a restaurant
mm hmm. It was legit, you know, getting threatened, So he
kept the guy like it was. That's the story I was told Jack.
That's not firsthand information. I'm going to say, I don't know what happened
except somebody got captain. Yeah, that's where I know. But you,
as a sergeant major, you had to go in deal with the aftermath.
Well, the worst aftermath was No. They had Pete Mussey, so I
measured. I believe he was a buddy of mine. He fought in Pete.
Did me and Pete were peers? M hm? He said, hold
on, it's our ementery too. We got out the same day. Both
are majors. BO said, hey, that's good. There was I remember
you tell me a story about how you had like a dust up with the
Russians over there. I did have a dust up with the Russians. So
they wanted me to go over to the Russians and tell them this is when
Kosovo happens, and somehow tell them not to go to Kosovo. And it's
like, okay, and so I think that both the conventional people, which
was M and D North first Cap and we us were both trying to convince
the Russians not to go to Kosovo. But of course that's ridiculous. I
went up to the gate and like, no, you're not coming in.
Oh sorry, I didn't mean to touch Now I can't see it. I'm
here, okay, and I know you're not coming in, and then I
want to see It was shortly for or shortly be after that that one of
our houses got hit pretty hard. They hit it with rockets, machine guns,
small arms, fire, etcetera, etcetera. So it got hit pretty
hard, and I wanted I'm thinking it's like right around the same time,
again. I wish I kept track, but I didn't because it is important
to know if it was related or not. I don't know if the incidents
of us trying to convince the Russians not to go to Kosovo and then being
fuck you and what happened to our house or I couldn't tell you. I
mean, I don't believe in coincidences myself, but it could have been the
timing was different, and then they came at the house hard well. When
they did push into Kosovo, that turned into a ship storm with you as
well, didn't it. What do you mean? I'm just trying to remember
some of the previous conversations we had. I remember, remember, didn't they
You were at a bridge trying to oh, yeah, yeah, we're trying
to stop the Russians. Like standard like, you're not gonna go, You're
not gonna go, and they're like we're going, We're going. I'm like
fine. But this is one of the important part I'm trying to think of,
is this is almost the exact same time the house got shot up.
You know, That's why I think they might have been connected. Yeah,
making I'm out here is just fucking making shut up. I don't know,
but I'm sure there's somebody who can many people who can correct me, probably
hundreds. But that's my recolation is that they were very close to each other,
you know, and the amount of firepower they put on the house.
They weren't intending to say hi and just keep going. They wanted to kill
some fucking people, you know. So there's a couple other thing I think
we need to hit up before moving on to So. First, you mentioned
the Gulf War. Mm hmm. How do you get involved in that one?
So? Yeah, so in the Gulf War, and this will go
back to ask me how I got to my next step. I was on
the special project team and my team started. I had one idea about what
going into combat man and I had a different idea. So I took my
idea to my start major and he let me go. I went out to
the field to help a company with Syrians, some Syrian guys. Because I
spoke everybody, so I went out there to help them with some Syrian guys.
And I stayed out there for a while helping them with the Syrians,
and boy, they were fucking assholes. Holy shit, Wow, they were
serious, fucking assholes. Ultimately they ended up surrounding our well. First of
all, the B team and everybody else left. The big team was actually
out there and everybody left, and my team and maybe one another team or
two was still out there, and the fucking Serians surrounded us with these goddamn
armored vehicles and ship and they're like, get the fuck out of here.
We're like, okay, we're gone, So we packed up and left.
So then what happened. We might have got an en route an in route
change over to the missions, but it happened pretty quick, and we ended
up with the Egyptians. Again, tell it's about huh, but we ended
up with Egyptians who I'd worked for obviously with obviously in the past. Wasn't
the same year I lived as the Egyptians, and uh, somewhere in the
period in between the start of major gave me one team. So I ended
up being a team starter, which I was, of course throwed out.
The team wasn't, but I was. You know, it's so funny.
I'll just tell you this is on the side. When I took over that
team, I think there were six seven I's. By the end of the
fucking war, there were fourteen fucking people on my team. You know,
Oh my god, I was so mad, you know, you know,
all of these motherfuckers come out. Where were you when I was doing all
the shoe work? Oh? But you know, really, I mean I
want to get in on the war. Yeah, I was fucking bullshit.
Man. I didn't like it at all. I mean, you got your
team, you train together, you get ready, and here they throw a
bunch of you know, officers that wanted to check a box and other guys
that mostly I think it was like an officer and at least one two warrant
officers and more enless the guys from third Boot. Maybe you're or something.
I don't know, I just them. I just want to take a moment
to point out, like what you guys were doing there at that time,
because as I recalled her, in the Goal War, and I'm sorry,
I can't remember the exact program name, but there was like a military liaison
program where we put SF liaisons with each of the coalition that HW had put
together. That's what we did. That's exactly right. And we were the
only reason they made it to Quad sitting because when we had the first seriously,
we had the first GPS as ever to come out, we would have
never found the motherfucker. So you ended up doing the invasion with the I
rode on top of the commanding General's tank from the trenches to the burning trenches
to the middle Quate city because I wouldn't get inside that motherfucker because I didn't
want to die, and started burning fucking tank. So I sat on top
with my M sixteen. I did and I helped to navigate, and we
get off now and then and do shit, you know, I'll tell you
them in we saw and this will come around to cancer layer. We came
across decontamination sites, We came across store chemical weapons, We came across what
had been spills of chemical weapons. Dude, we had so much chemical weapons
and exposure. And then on top of it, at the end, have
you heard Kasmaya. Krismaya is a place where the conventional guys had gathered up
a fut ton of weapons, having no idea what they were, conventional engineers,
and bloom all of at once, And there was this smongus bloom of
smoke that settled back down over the AAR and virtually almost every and the CIA
went back and did for the government, did an ar and every single from
fifth group that was deploy got hit by that plume of fucking smoke and dig
I don't care if I bought this battle with the VA for ten years because
I have terminal cancer. It's gone on and off for ten years, but
it's you know, I don't have maybe less than a year left now,
and I lost my turn of thought. I'm sorry the plume of us smoke
coming down on all teams, on all the teams and there's a Facebook group
now for soft cancer buys. Funny how many guys were in that fucking plume.
Now. I had to fight the VA for over a year about disability
for my cancer. Ultimately, after getting to the BA Administrative Court in DC
with a Navy Carl jag officer who did for free for me, Barney,
what creates the fucking boxes? Set them down and we're like, we're not
leaning. So they ultimately gave it to me for the chemp for the disability
for bone cancer. But they wouldn't say it was They said it was exposure
to some ship in Africa. I'm like, really, yeah, it's really
because it would open a huge can of worms for them. Yeah, well,
I mean, it's unfortunate our government plays this game. You know,
they did it with age and orange, then they did it with you know,
Gulf War syndrome, which that probably is what you're describing, that guys
were exposed to low level uh UXO that was destroyed and it affects some people
more than others. There's I'm only saying this people than others. Yeah.
Yeah, there was an actual study that came out last year and they showed
that, like there are certain types of people their DNA like and it's in
their genetics, their receptor to sarngas it's higher than some other people. And
that aligns why there may be this disparity why some soldiers got quote unquote Gulf
War syndrome and others didn't. Wow, I never heard. Yeah. Yeah,
there is some like actual, some legit medical research on that now.
And I'm sure I'm not explaining it as a doctor would, but I mean
that's the gist of it. No, I get it. But my opinion
is, at the end of the day, they don't want to say that
it was due to chemical weapons exposure in the Golf War because it's going to
open this huge can of worms for all these guys to make claims. Yeah,
yeah, wow, it fucking sucks. Its bullshit. Honestly, it's
total bullshit. And you know, I went to Fifth Group. Friends of
mine gone to Fifth Group, you know, also our majors, and we've
tried to talk to them, but we don't get the impression Fifth Group support
in this at all, you know, trying to trying to open up an
actual investigation and what happened. There's so many guys out there who probably don't
even know why they had cancer, or it doesn't even occur to them that
it could have been chemical chemical weapons, you know, I mean really,
I was so furious when they when they said Africa. Come on, man,
what chemical weapons were going in Africa? Give me a break. But
the other thing I wanted to swing back on was your time on the green
Light team. Yeah. Yeah, that was so fun. I had the
best time. So all right, I'm going to try to explain this without
offending anybody. But something that offends me is the distinction between pre post nine
to eleven veterans. I'm not blaming anyone for doing this, but I'll tell
you, I know an awful lot of pre nine eleven veterans, like let's
say Magnee Sogg. You know, I don't know why they made that distinction,
do you, because you're missing a lot of benefits. I don't.
It goes by eras. So there's like Vietnam era, there's Gulf War era,
and you may fall into that cohort but not have served in the war.
I honestly don't understand that shit either. Well, all I know is
I'm trying to get scholarships from my kids to go to college and seriously at
least half of though, and you have to be a post nine to eleven
veteran. No clue, why would you make that distinction? What does it
matter when you served? You know what difference does it make? Anyway,
I'll let that's lot. So Greenlight I did Greenlight for I think three years.
Greenlight is infiltrating a Negro weapon that fits in a rucksack into a target
area and then placing it on a strategic target in the event of a very
large well, it's going to be on the event of the World War.
Was what it was brought into service for was for the Cold War, UH
to stop the coat the Soviets from coming across and I'm apparently it's still classified.
Some an officer told me I talked about a couple of weeks ago.
But we were supposed to buy points like uh, dams, uh cuts in
the mountain passes, stuff like that. Stuff that could stop tanks, bridges,
ports, bridges, big bridges, you know, and you could implant
them. You could go in and die and uh you use the combat dive
team to put them on a bridge or a dam. Was definitely a lot
of damn targets. When you get halo it in, you get staggering parachute
and you get walking in the big problem and all talk more about it and
you can ask me questions. The big problem from the team, well is
depending on how long your appointment is the operator meaning the guy, there's one
guy who that need the operator. He's the guy who knows how to work
with the weapon. He has to carry. He carries the weapon most of
the time, although you're supposed to rotate it. I'm here to tell you,
Jack, there's a lot of guys that can't carry it. I mean
just can't carry it. It's just too heavy for him. And you try
to weed him out. But if we ever got a real world mission.
We're weirding him out because if he can't carry it, what good are you?
Because you have to distribute all your shit, your food, and your
clothes and your mess and among all the other guys on the team. And
it was usually a split team, so that's a lot of weight for everybuddy
carry, you know, and so it makes it hard. So anyway,
maybe you can get a picture one to put up with this thing. Yeah,
for sure, I have. I can keep going. I can I
can actually do a share screen thing. Okay, okay, so we the
first thing you had to do was go to this school up at Fort bell
Bar And ironically enough, it says Special Forces Special Atomic Demolition Munition Training Course.
I think I sent you a copy my upon if you haven't, and
it's a conventional error. Do that's like it's in a museum. Yeah,
that's a I believe it's a National Atomic Museum in Nevada. Yeah. So
they make a specialized container. That's not it. It's a hard phone container
that you put the weapon in so when you drop your rucksack, it's cushioned.
Here is I got this one from a seal who's part of the program.
Yeah, that's it. That's not in a rucksack obviously. Maybe they
swim it. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. And uh, let
me see what else I might I might have for you. I have a
couple of pictures of the jump pack. Oh but here, here's a good
This is a this is like an probably an iconic photo. You could say,
let's see, oh yeah, yeah, that's a good picture. Some
dudey on, Yeah, that's a real good picture. It's it's really weird.
He doesn't have any rucksack either. It's a it's on a different it's
a jump pack, you know, hm hmm. They must not have been
planning to move it anywhere. That's weird. Anyway, So you went through
the training, and when you got through the training, if you made it.
If you made it, it was complicated because there was a ton of
math you and to calculate all this crap about where the blast is going to
go and where the wind's going to go. It's a big weapon and the
effect is really far because of the fall. It's crazy, especially just especially
depending on the win. So you get through the train, you go back
to your team, and from then on you're basically you're dedicated green Light team.
You don't do anything else. You do green light practices and green light
training. You basically just practice a bunch of missions, but you incorporate a
dummy, a dummy weapon in your missions, so you can you do da
missions over and over again incorporating the dummy weapon in a rock sack. Uh.
In addition to that, somebody, you know, if I say to
the department, it will be the wrong department. You would think the Department
of Nuclear, Department of Energy I think it was THEE would come down and
do periodic inspections. I think they were annual, and that was for the
whole company down to the team. Everybody had to pass the inspections. I'm
going to tell you everybody did not pass the inspections. You couldn't. You
were non functional until you could pass the inspection. So that goes from all
the paperworkans you the battalion company got to do, which you can imagine whether
of a newgro weapon is a lot down to the team and all the safety
stuff and all the operational stuff you have to learn how to do. And
everybody on the team, just like everybody else, has to know how to
do everything. It's as I've researched this topic. I mean, one of
the mysteries is around these exercises, there's always these like civilians floating around.
So guys, a guy wearing a suit shows up in a briefing, or
you have some guys wearing military fatigues out on a training exercise. They have
long hair, no military bearing, they're clearly not soldiers. In another case,
guys in literal sterilized black jumpsuits who don't identify themselves. So it's a
bit of a mystery sometimes who these you know, literal MIBs in some cases
are And I suspect that they came from the Defense Nuclear Agency. Oh yeah,
nineteen ninety seven merged with another agency and became the Defense Threat Reduction Agency
or DRY, which exists, which exists to this day. And so I
can't I can't say I know for a fact that all of those civilians were
with that organization. Some of them were from Sandia Labs or Lawrence Livermore,
but I think I think the bulk of them were from the Defense Nuclear Agency.
All Right, so I'll tell you mine, and prompt me. I've
told you these my exposures to civilians and weird events that happened to meet when
I was on green light. So, like you said, when you do
the inspection, the MIBs were always there. You never knew who the fuck
they were. They would tell you they were You're like whatever, you know,
they were always at the inspections. So you asked me what weird things
happened to me during green light? So let me think of them in order.
So the first one I can think of is one time at Brag.
Now this is really We're at Fort Bragg and they called us out to do
a green light mission and we mount the poke broad daylight, and they had
a bunch of MPs surround in the back of the plane, and the vehicle
backed up to the back of the plane, and we had a bunch of
guys watching us go through the arming of the weapon, you know, and
it was weird to have all those guys there. And then we went out
to and we just went out and jumped at Sicily. It was really weird,
and there were civilians on the ground at Sicily and drop zone for the
listeners at Fort Bragg, right right right in the middle of Fort Brag.
So we'll just assume it must have been a dummy, because nobody's going to
drop a new field weapon of Fort Bragge. I mean come on, I
mean right, well, so some of us would like to drop then you
were a weapon on Fort Bragg, Like, nobody's going to fall off a
Fulton skyhook and the fucking hows and area at Fort Brog. You know that
story? Bo. Yeah, they picked up a guy and when they were
testing the Fulton skyhook and he fell off right in the middle of the housing
are brag Oh I did. I've heard the story about how he became so
disoriented he fell off the back ramp, but I didn't know that was over
the housing area. Yeah, isn't that funny? So I you know that
was whatever it was. The next one that was weird was in Utah do
Way Proving Grounds where there's so many chemicals and so much all the chemical testing
and ship goes on out there, and radiation testing, I believe a whole
the time it's not out there too. So we had a little mission where
we we jumped in. We were carrying the weapon and we took in for
a company commander was with us, and uh, some other people were with
us that I not I don't know who they were, and uh, we
were supposed to detonate it in a cave at doug wayh So we took the
weapon in there, we infiltrated, and we went to the cave. We
put it in the cave, and we detonated the weapon. That's all I
can tell you, except for the funniest part, which was my commander and
without the without the nuclere pit, it was the conventional explosives, right correct,
God moly. The funniest part was my company commander, who I despised
left a fucking radio in the cave. So I was so happy, And
I hope he hears this because he knows I despised him. Was he relieved
after that? You know? He wasn't. And I don't know why,
probably because you know, you know why they keep chipping themselves. Yeah.
So the third one is kind of more interesting. So we got like a
warning order, I want to say it, right, and so packed uh,
packed up boxes, packed up everything, you know, like you do
on a roll out, and we packed everything up and we flew to Morocco.
And in Morocco we did isolation for a couple of weeks, you know,
for a green light mission, and it was very serious. The whole
thing was very serious and we were given everything that we wanted and needed to
ask for, which you know how wetd that is, to get everything you
want and get everything asked for. So we knew something was going on,
we didn't know what. So then we got on to a sea one after
we passed the outbrief by the group commander. What do they call those debrief
isolation? I can't remember isolation? Okay, So after we got the blessing
to go on the mission, we loaded up and UH got picked up by
an M one thirty and Morocco. We had a new team sergeant who we
didn't really know, and on the trip over to the UK from Morocco,
the MC one thirty ran into a lot of turbulence and it was a very
rough flight, and then it lost an engine, then ast another engine.
I can't remember if it lost a third, but for sure it lost two
one hundred percent and our new team sergeant was laying on the floor having some
issues. So we landed in the UK. The MC one thirty was deadlined,
but we already had another one there. Wait, that's weird, so
we got on the other one. It was a mill of the night backed
up to. All we could see was a million MPs around us, and
they loaded. Do you recall what airfield this was in the UK? I
wouldn't have known. They Yeah, I want to say, it didn't seem
like it was that long between we finished crossing the channel and landed. So
whatever's in southern England there, it was probably and it was probably where they
started weapons there, and I don't know, so yeah, so we picked
up the weapon and somebody watched this armament and I don't know who it was,
well, a few people watch. So then they closed it up and
we flew into our drops. We parachuted into a blind l Z at night,
which is a sketchy as it always can be, right, but everybody
made the landing okay, and then we had a long movement to the target
area. So we made a really long movement and for some reason, the
team leader was navigating and he managed to make us half across the autobune with
a fucking nuke at night. I was just like, you gotta fucking be
kidding me, are you serious? He got lost, So we crossed the
autobonne with the goddamn Sadom device. I was scared to death, that's the
most scared I've ever been to my own career, trying to run across the
audubonn with heavy rocksack man, you know how those things are very I mean
have you seen them? Yeah? Yeah, And Hans is driving down the
autobonn at one hundred and fifty kilometers exactly, like one hundred and fifty miles
an hour. You know they're crazy over there. So yeah, we managed
to get across the Autobonne. We got the weapon to the target and some
guys met us there and they took the weapon. And then well after we
have and place it on the target and overwash it. So with with Sadem's,
you're supposed to arm the device and you're supposed to stay within visual distance
of the device until it detonates. Do that math. It doesn't work out.
It doesn't work No, but on my life you can find it and
writing I'm positive you're supposed to keep visual contact with the satum until it detonates.
So once you tell him that Don Alexander story that he told you,
Oh, he told me that back in the day. Your favorite joke was
that when you unlocked the sadum and opened up the lid, that there'd be
twelve medal of medals of honor in a bottle of Jack Daniels inside. Yeah,
we knew, we knew the deal, but we did it. You
know, what are you going to do? You do? You do your
mission. Besides that, my personal opinion was there was no timer. I
felt like the second eatern that button, it was going to go off.
That was my opinion. I have no proof whatsoever, but why did you
put a twelve minute time or on or whatever. Why would you do take
any additional risk. It's uh, you're going to kill the guys anyway.
They're going to be dead. They know that. It's really interesting. I
think that even with a nuclear weapon and you have all this doctrine and security
and regulation and stuff, that some of it just didn't make sense. And
so these these team sergeants, largely who are Vietnam veterans, you know,
they know how to run a patrol. So like, for instance, the
tactic that only two guys on the team are supposed to have the combination to
the device to open it up. One of them has half of the combination,
the other has the other half. But any guys who I don't remember
that, but go ahead, well either way, you know, any any
you know, crusty team sergeant who's been in a lot of combat operations knows
that you have to have contingencies and everyone on the mission has to know how
to do the mission, because what if that one guy with that information everybody,
everybody on my team. Yes, yeah, it's just it's interesting how
the teams start like coloring outside the lines out of operational necessity because the doctrine
just doesn't it doesn't make sense. Yeah. Yeah, that's why I thought
there was no time. Why what's the point? You know. Yeah,
a lot of guys felt that way and would joke about it. Yeah yeah,
I mean there's no there's no proof that that's true, but I mean
it was a fairly common belief on some of these teams. Well, all
it does is add additional risk to the mission, right, It adds additional
possibility that somebody gets controlled with right, So either way, you're dead.
So whatever, I mean, if I can see the weapon, it's gonna
kill me. Yeah. In the extraction, the extraction plans were pretty gonzo
if they existed. Oh, they were awesome. Man. We were gonna
eat like a thousand clicks and ant these cachet points along the way. No,
seriously, The E and E plans were very detailed. I think they
were left from World War Two, pretty sure, pretty sure, but they
gave them to us. We had them. I never saw one that wasn't
like a ground evasion plan. So jumping around a little bit again. Sure,
after your assignment in UH Company Sergeant major with tenth Group to Bosnia,
what came after that? I was compelled to medically retired because I couldn't jump
anymore. I had eleven surgeries to my right knee. I could barely run,
I couldn't jump. I knew I could bullshit more for some years,
but I wouldn't do it. What's the point if I can't do what everybody
else is doing, I'm not gonna fake it till I make a buck that
I'm going to put somebody else in danger if I say, yeah, I
could ruck run and I can't. Right, And so I took the medical
retirement. Yeah is what it is. How did retirement treat you? I'm
good? Yeah? So I had been finishing uh my bachelor's degree by taken
online classes and ship bye blah over the years, like all of us do.
And then when I uh, when I was waiting for my medical retirement
paper, which literally took a year, and no shit, Uh, they
let me go to college. So I was getting my master's degree and by
the time I got out it said a little Well later I ended up with
my masters and then I went to work for some technology companies. It was
a great second career. I think I spent seventeen years in his second career,
which was which was really successful. I had a really good time.
I got to keep working for the government. I got to have a way
higher security clearance that I'd ever had before, and I got to do a
lot of cool shit. Unfortunately it's all still classified. I can't talk about
it. But it was good. It was good. And then I'm going
to be honest to you and everybody out there, because it's hard to say
this. As my knees got worse, I got addicted to oxy and it
fucking took me down. To you guys out there, I know that a
lot of people are in the same exact position that I was, where you're
injured, and they'll give you oxy or whatever if you ask for it,
and if you ask for more, they'll give you more. You gotta not
do that. Man, You know, eat your life up. Dogs and
alcohol will eat your life up. Don't do it. Get help if you
need it. Talk to your buddies if you need to do what you got
to do to stay healthy, to get better. Tons of guys got to
have PTSD right now, ship tones, ask for help. Don't let it
eat you up. Don't drink till you go unconsciously. You know, you
know it's not it's not gonna work. You're just gonna die from it.
So I want everybody to take that away. And a really good friend of
mine who was a three star. Have you heard General Fridovich, Dave Fridovich.
He was the first guy mostly I met. I knew him from sock
Pack. He became deputy commander of use sock and one day when it was
getting close to his retirement, he gave a speech and he said what I
just said, Oxy first back. It was destroying his life and his family.
Yeah, it's a serious subject and you got to take care of it.
And it's extremely addictive. From what I understand, any any kind of
opiates are very addictive. It's horrible, and so a lot of our as
you point out, Michael, I mean a lot of our soldiers who've been
injured during the war. That's how it starts, right, and it's very
easy for the you know, those guys to get addicted. And it's not
because they're bad or because they're weak or something like that. No, not
at all. Yeah, it takes strength to get the help you need.
You're not being a pussy. You're being a strong man, you know,
to get the help you need. So that's that. The other thing I'd
like to talk a little bit about is there's a Facebook group called Soft Cancer
Warriors or something like that. I'll get you the link later and you can
first it, and it's guys that have cancer to early from Special Forces guys.
I think there's five hundred members or something right now. If you have
cancer, you need to find this Facebook group and get everything. They've got
everything about what's going on currently as far as the military side of the house,
the treatment side of the house, and the historical side of the house.
We're trying to get the regiment to get involved in this because there's a
lot of guys that are dying of cancer and have already died of cancer when
they shouldn't have. Way too young, dude, I was forty seven when
I was diagnosed and told I was going to die five years didn't. Then
I was told I was gonna in three and two years ago. I thought
I was going to die on one. So, and you know, if
it's okay with you, Mike, can you tell us a little bit about,
like what type of cancer you got hit with, what you think that
may have come from, you know what the treatment has been like. Sure?
So I started off with prostate cancer, which I found out so late
that they had to immediatelyank that thing out. I went to first. I
went to Songcuttering, which is known for a huge cancer center, a global
leading cancer center, and they did the initial treatment and then it came back.
And dude, I didn't even know it could come back. I thought
when they took that thing out, I was done. Well. A few
years later that shit came back. And it was just during a routine prostate
annual physical that I found out. And I said to my doc, I'm
like, what do you mean? I had my prostate out? And that's
when he told me why. I went out in parking lot and I called
the American Cancer Society and I'm like, is this for real? And They're
like, yeah, oh my god, damn, so I ended up this.
I have to try care because I'm retired. I ended up at Yale
and lucky enough to ended up who the guy who became ultimately the number one
prostate cancer doctor in the world, and he started treating me and he put
me on every clinical trial that came along. Every treatment. I have a
radiation and I've had injections, I've had chemotherapy. I've had so many different
types of treatment, but each one has given me a few more years of
life. You know, I'm on chemo right now for the third time,
but it's not going great. But they've already got something else in the pipeline.
You know, they're going to give it to me. And for the
last five years I've been at the BA because I like it there. You
know, they give me a team of people that helps me. They're connected
to Yale. They do really good. But the guys in the have all
different types of cancer and know about all the different kinds of treatment. So
it's a huge resource until we can convince the damn regiment to do something,
which we need to do. You know, these one hundred think it's from
chemical or nuclear weapons, ionizing radiation, not like a not like a nuke,
which are in weapons. And because I saw it was exposed to so
many chemical weapons and decom points, you know, in Iraq, I can't
imagine it's not from that. I know it ain't from some goddamn locusts in
Africa. So now it's bone cancer, and that's just horrible. It's so
painful. It's in my fucking spine and my ribs in my back. It
sucks. But prostate cancer, you can go to bone cancer or it cannot.
Yeah, yeah, man, but you know I wanted to live with
it. I just want to tell my story, get guys to get help,
not just with cancer, with the drugs and alcohol. And I want
guys to help me get the act duty, guys to pay attention to us
because they're gonna be in arfcuse. You know they're gonna inherit whatever we do
or don't have. All we got now is one little fucking Facebook move.
Come on, guys, you can do better. You know they can do
better than that. It's it's something that I'm gonna get on. This year
actually is going I've been putting it off and everyone always tells me, you
need to go to VA and put this claim in and that claim in,
and I just been avoiding it. And thankfully I've been helpful so far.
But having conversations with with you, Mike and with others, I mean,
dude, what I was exposed to burn pits? You know what? I
come down with some weird cancer next year that no one's ever seen, right
for you know, all these guys that were in g WAT they need to
pay attention, you know. And all these guys that are colonels in generals
now need to pay attention too, because they're going to get it too.
They had long asked appointments over there, you know. And I'm sure I
still had camel weapons laying around when they went back in there, because I
saw tons of them myself. They must still have them right when they went
back. Have you heard? I don't know. I'm sure there's still UXO
out there. Oh sure there's tons of you look, so any other uh,
any questions I failed to ask or any other like events that you really
wanted to talk about. No, I don't think so, Jack. I
just appreciate your Let me have this platform, and you know, if I
help one guy, I've done my job, right, And if I get
that link, can you somehow embedd it? Yes? I can. I
can put it in the description. Okay, perfect. So my mod is
New Day Beyond for real, not not for the SIF, because I've been
deplying cancer for so fucking long. Yeah that's true, man, Yeah.
Yeah. Oh, and you know I still get notes and of support and
textall mill and he's a good man. Yeah yeah, a lot of good
people in usf Hey, well, I uh, you know, I hope
that you're going to stick around for a little while longer, Mike, and
I hope. I hope. I hope we can meet up up in your
neck of the woods. We both live in the Northeast. I hope I
can see you again, you know, sometime this year. All right,
Jack, thanks for having me on. Yeah, thank you, Mike,