This is Later with Lee Matthews The Lee Matthews Podcast more what you hear weekday
afternoons on the Drive. Martis Gobland is the editor in chief of Task and
Purpose. He's a veteran US Army and experienced conflict reporter with assignments in Afghanistan,
Iraq, Ukraine, and also embedding in the US military worldwide. Joe
Kent is the husband of Shannon Kent. We're gonna explain the significance of Shannon
Kent in just a minute, but let me start with you. Marty.
The name of the book is Send Me The True Story of a Mother at
War. How did this land in your lap? Yeah? Great question.
I didn't know Shannon personally, and I didn't know Joe before her death.
Shortly after she was killed alongside three other Americans in Syria in twenty nineteen,
Joe reached out because he wanted to Shan and story to be told. And
part of that was because there was a narrative going around that her and her
brothers in arms were you know, out to lunch and and kind of characterized
them as not the warfighters that they were when they were killed hunting Isis.
And so after her death. He reached out and we did an initial article
that I wrote, and then from there we both agreed that, hey,
the Shannon's story deserves more. It's you know, we need a little bit
more real estate than a article can offer. And we got to work on
a book. And that was almost five years ago from now. And Joe,
your wife, Shannon Kent wasn't in Syria because she wanted to go to
the beach. She was. She was not. She was a career special
operator and this was her fifth combat deployment. Like Marty said, the other
individuals that she was killed alongside, you know, former Navy seal in Green
Beret and then Syrian America, and these were not the going out to the
lunch crowd. They were there to hunt terrorists and that's what they were ultimately
killed doing the name of the book is send me the true storylory of a
mother at war. How did this all start, Joe? For your wife,
how did she get into Special Operations? I mean, the short answer
is nine to eleven was the catalyst for her joining. She's a native New
Yorker. Her father and uncle were both Ground zero first responders. Father's a
New York State Police officer and then uncle was a New York City firefighter,
so that inspired her and her brother to both go and do what a lot
of Americans did, find a recruiter and say, hey, send me,
I want to go fight. Shannon knew she had a knack for languages,
so she volunteered for training in Arabic, which is a very challenging language to
learn. She excelled at it. She eventually got really good at speaking the
Iraqi dialect and then volunteered for her first deployment to go over to Iraq,
not knowing exactly what they were going to sign her to do, but she
was pretty proactive and had a knack for connecting of humans, so she became
not just somebody who could translate Arabic, not just someone who could help intercept
enemy signals, but she was also out there, you know, meeting of
local and romans, and especially in a culture like the Middle East, that
gave the Special Operations task or she was working with access to females, which
is very hard for males to get in the Middle East, so it opened
up that whole segment of the population to collect intelligence from. And that's kind
of how she found her way in Special Operations. It is because of her
abilities that she earned a slot on with the most of the elite of the
elite. Was this before you met her or after? This was before I
met her? So I met Shannon after she had already done for combat deployments
with Special Operations. We ended up at the same special operations unit, of
a pretty secret of special operations unit. We talk about a little bit in
the book. We had briefly met in Baghdad years before met for about ten
minutes. She was actually briefing me on a terrorist location of a guy that
she had kind of hunted down and done a lot of the intelligence work on.
But then I didn't see her again for about seven years. Joe Kent,
husband of late Shannon Kent, and Marty Skoleveland Jr. Co authors,
have sent me the True Story of a Mother at War, and Marty he
just touched on it. Joe just touched on it. You wouldn't think that
sending a woman operative into a society like Iraq, where women are so diminished,
would be a good idea, But I imagine through her connections with other
women, she was able to get perspective that maybe another operative couldn't. Yeah,
I really think that it was not just with other women that was certainly
part of it, but even the men. We've got portions of the book
where we talk about her going over and befriending some of the other Iraqi Special
Operators and being able to seamlessly move between Kurdish Iraqi and you know, multiple
different dialects of Arabic in the same conversation, and even getting some of the
you know, the Iraqi Special Operators on board in a more way, in
a more significant way with their American counterparts. I mean, she added to
the mission in so many different ways, and it was because of her ability
to not just collect and analyze intelligence, but really to connect with humans of
all cultures and get the most out of those conversations. And a lot of
times it led to very effective results on the battlefield, Marty. From what
I've read about operatives that serve the United States, the best operatives are the
ones who are as inconspicuous as possible, that looked like somebody but also everybody.
Uh how what was was Shannon able to kind of blend in from a
I mean, in other words, she wasn't large and glamorous in stature.
If I may say that no, she wasn't, and I think she blended
in in a lot of different ways. Of course, you know, in
some of the more traditional parts of the of the Middle East, you know,
women cover up most of themselves, and so it's not immediately available.
But then even when you look at how what she was doing when she was
killed in Syria, it wasn't that she was blending in with locals, but
who was blending in with the regular forces that were already in the area and
then slipping out to go do her own thing. And so there was a
lot of different ways that I think a lot of people would probably be surprised
by, like the ways that she would blend in with her environment to get
the best results. It's the extraordinary story of American special operator and trailblazer Shannon
Kent, who hunted high value targets and classified missions. The story is told
by her husband, Joe Kent, and co author Martyrs Skoveland Junior. Send
me the True Story of a Mother at War and Joe, I can only
imagine what the conversations around the dinner table after a hard day's work with you
two were. Wow, how is your day, honey? Yeah? I
killed a terrorist, how about you? And you know, we really kind
of bonded because we could be frank and honest with each other, which is
a struggle I think for a lot of people in our line of work.
If they if they marry someone who's done that line of work, there's only
so much they can tell them. So we could be pretty fourth right with
each other. But at the end of the day, we were pretty normal,
just like anybody else. You know, We're trying to make sure our
kids were, you know, growing up healthy and happy. So that was
mostly it was mostly routine. But I think the things that we discussed,
you know, like like work usually had a added element of danger secrecy.
But luckily because we both had the same security clearances, we could be you
know, pretty forthright and honest with each other. And Joe, you both
also had the understanding that your your work was very dangerous and that you might
not come home. You know, we did. I mean, the thing
is when you when you do this for long enough, it does be the
danger becomes routine. And so that that's kind of one of the I'd say
that the dangerous parts and the downside of both of us being in this line
of work. We kind of looked at deployments as just another thing, you
know, not and that we look forward to doing with with kids at home.
But at the end of the day, it was what we had both
done our entire professional lives. I mean, Shannon was killed in our fifth
combat deployment. I did eleven deployments myself. So to us, you know,
it sounds really crazy when we talk about with outsiders that you know,
we were leaving for several months of a time, going to foreign countries,
being in danger. But to us, we had done it for so long
that you know, we understood the dangers, but it had become very much
part of our lives and very much just you know, kind of routine for
us and Marty. How old was Shannon when she lost her life serving our
country. She was thirty five years old, which is crazy for me to
think about now that I'm older now today than that she was when she passed,
and still very very young. Both her and Shannon are both her and
Joe and very early in their marriage and their kids only one in three years
old. I mean, it really does when you think about the ages,
it really does drive these points home. Joe Kent, husband of the late
Shannon Kent, a operative in the War on Tara. Marty Scoveland junior co
authors have Send Me The True Story of a Mother at War. Extraordinary story
and an extraordinary summer read. Thank you for both bring in It to us
today. Thank you, Thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews, the
Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to The Drive Live weekday afternoons from
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