Hey guys, it's Jack. I just wanted to talk to you today about
a way that you can help support the podcast if you're not already to support
the channel is to become a Patreon member. So we have Patreon memberships that
start at just five dollars a month, and when you sign up, you
get access to all of our episodes add free. That's the big bonus for
that. I mean, we also do some Patreon bonus episodes for our subscribers,
but this is the biggest and best way that you can support the Teamhouse
channel and podcast if you'd like to, and we really appreciate that, So
go and check us out at patreon dot com. Slash the Teamhouse, Special
Operations, cobt Ops Asbiona, the Team House with Your Hopes, Jack Murphy
and David Park. Hey, everybody, welcome to episode two eighty six of
The Team House. I'm Dave Park. Jack Murphy is on vacation right now
and we'd love to welcome our return guest, Andy Melbourne. Real quick,
before we get into it, I just want to thank our sponsor for tonight.
Tonight's show is sponsored by Better Help. That's Better h e LP,
Better Help and you know mental health is something we talk about quite a bit
on this show, especially for veterans, but really for anybody. And if
anybody's ever shopped for a therapist, you know it could be time consuming,
it could be challenging to find somebody you everppoort with, you know, who
lives in your area, all types of different challenges. But everybody deserves to
talk to somebody at some point. And if you ever talked to anybody,
if you ever talked to a therapist or a professional before, you know that
it can be very helpful when you do find that right that right fit.
So Better Help, Uh, if you're thinking about starting therapy, give Better
Help a try. It's entirely online. It's designed to be convenient, flexible,
and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get
masked with a licensed therapist and switch therapists any time for no additional charge.
And for me, that's that's a big deal because again, like having rapport
with therapists is one of the one of the biggest indicators of success, and
so being able to sort of shop therapists and find one that's right for you,
it's a really big deal. So stop comparing and start start focusing with
Better Help. That's b E T T E r h E l P.
Visit Betterhelp dot Com slash Teamhouse today and get ten percent off your first month.
That's Better Help dot Com slash Teamhouse. Andy, Welcome back to the
show. Love you man, We miss you. How are you doing?
You guys are like gluttons for punishment every every week and then I think it's
the fifth time on this I'm well, I'm very glad to be back,
Dave, and I want to find out. I want to ask how you've
been and how you've been the last year. But then these going to slide
track me and say back to whatever he has on the script today. But
give us a quick quick shot of yourself, Dave. What's going on in
your life? Oh, what's going on in my life? You know I'm
interviewing Dave. Yeah, No, it's fine. And you know, like
you're a professional now your your show eyes on on this channel is you know
you guys are are knocking it out of the park. No, this year
has been a good year for me. You know, I did some tech
advising on Netflix show, which was a lot of fun, a lot more
fun than I ever thought it could be yeah, no kidding, like military
tank, Yeah, military, and you know all the things from showing marine
is how to blouset their boots to showing how you know, guys how to
clear it. Yeah. So a little bit of surveillance here and there,
and you know, no, betting down and tying your shoe isn't the right
way to detect surveillance. But no, it's it's it's it's a very fun
industry to be in when you work with actors and writers who really want to
get right. And fortunately for the show I was working on, the actors
and writers really wanted to get it right and listen to you, you know,
and I think more and more that's yeah, because it's it's punny the
way I mean, you know how veteran's are. It's like just one small
thing in a movie. Well, even though the rest of the movie may
be good. You know, a marine saluting inside with that is cover.
You know a few good men, right, that sent everyone so so having
that having someone who pays attention to that cool. Yeah, and it pays,
I imagine, and you may have your foot in the doll. Yeah,
think that That's what I'm hoping is the foot in the door. You
know, the pay is good for sort of you know, when it's my
first time and you know, and it's it's definitely it's like working on a
team. It's like being an enlisted guy on a small team with an officer,
because you know the director and the writers, they they have their vision.
You say, when you say officer, it sounds like a swell word
I only sometimes No, No, it's you know, there's the way to
do it right, and there's the way. You're like this, I would
never do this, I would never do this way. But if the director
has a vision and their artistic vision and they want it to happen this way,
it's like, Okay, I wouldn't do it this way, but if
I were going to do it this way, this is how I do it.
And you know, it's all about especially when you're a tech advisor,
it's it's all about compromising. You know, it's about really just contributing and
supporting the show the way you can. And at the end of the day,
without getting eric and saying absolutely, I mean absolutely, you know,
and at the end of the day, if you know the director wants something
different, that's their vision. It's their baby, you know. Yeah,
so yeah, it was. It's a lot of fun. So that's that's
been the primary thing, and it's it's another it's another string to your bow.
Well, what's the time quiver to your era? I mean, another
goose in my flock crow and my murder? Yeah, many many And actually
you know, uh, it was it's a front of the show trip who
actually made the connection for me to get this. So m Trip. I'm
not going to call it his last name, but I I you've probably met
him before. Sorry, it definitely wasn't that Trip, but it was.
But it was a front of the show trip who I think you've met before.
He made the connection for me. Yea, there is no Trip mccolla.
He does not exist. And then uh, and then the the primary
the guy who brought me on, the primary tech advisor, Doug Pattison,
Uh, former agency guy, very very cool guy who's done this quite a
bit. So yeah, that's moosically word word of mouth. Good on you,
Dave. Yeah, it feels like I mean, it's been a it's
been a it feels like a year, but it's been around February since I
last a year. It's been a long it's been a long year, but
it's been you know, from my perspective, it's it's been very different than
the year proceeding in Ukraine. But you know, like we were talking about
before I came to the show, it's it's a year that I really needed,
really needed to get my house in order. Yeah. Well, yeah,
you guys have been doing you know, you and Jason been doing the
Eyes on, which is going great, and I know you have various guests
on. I can't really come on to be I guess that because you guys
talk in depth about current events and I'm not really qualified talk about anything other
than constructs. Actually you get there are by name requests, but Dave,
because there are you know, I mean, you know how it is,
whatever side we argue, there's going to be people who oppose. So it
seems as though you are the universal Devil's advocates. So whatever side, Jason
and I seem to be varying tools, specifically on Israel or whatever. You
know. I mean, we try not to take signs, but the comments
a voice why, I mean, we need to bring daveon to give another
opinion, so just like I mean, dying to do that, but well
I can come on and play like contrarian. I'll have no idea if I'm
accurate or not, but I have no problem forming an opinion and sticking by
it regards of any facts. As long as you say that beforehand, like
preface it, You're okay, yeah, do whatever you want. Yeah,
yeah yeah. So the you know, the one of the biggest things that
kind of got me moving again after Mozart group was, you know, sadly,
the incident on seven October, the end of course, the whole the
horde of events that have occurred since then. So I got to a commission
to write a book about it. And initially it was going to be about
seven October, right, But then when I start, you know, I
going back and forth with the publisher, I said, if I'm going to
write about seven October, I've got to really, you know, write about
why it happened and what led to it and and and in fact, you've
got to go back to the late seventies really for that, you know,
both within the IDF and and and weapon Israel. But I mean, certainly,
if you're going to focus on idea failure is on seven October leading up
to seven October, not just idef. But intelligence failure is you have to
go back to the lead seventies, you know, and and and then and
then of course, when when you're talking about uh Israel, Gaza, you've
got to bring in his Bala, bring in his Molla, you know,
Iran, Iran, And then you know what the United States is doing.
And then of course the you know, the drone strike occurred when I was
actually out in Israel, which is ironic because I've you know, I worked
on a on a plan to defend Israel against threats such as that, and
and I guess this was the ultimate test that the guy who worked on the
plan to sit in televied during the attack. But you see what I'm saying,
the as events continued, and then you've got this extraordinary and again,
I mean, I absolutely it's very important to avoid being partisan in any way
in this book. I just you know, I'm trying. I'm digging up
and talking about facts, and that's very important. And such a highly emotional
charged topics. Something either happened or it didn't happen, Right, I'm keeping
opinions out of it. I'm going to let the reader make up their own
opinions. And of course. You know, in the end of course,
people say, well, you've chose to mention those facts are not those I
mean, there's no there's no chance that I'm going to emerge from this with
a reputation of strict objectivity. But I'm doing my best and mixed feelings.
It is a it's a colossal topic. It's hard to escape from, you
know, some days it's I mean, it's such a it's I'm finding it
difficult to describe, perhaps maybe because of the legacy that you and I have
from other conflicts, and perhaps we when we try and cover, or at
least for me, when I try and write about a conflict, right,
it's really difficult not to not to dwell on the reasons and the political failures
that led to that, because we are all victims of that, right.
So just and if you're not writing about that, then what are you writing
about. I'm not interested in the adventure stories. You know. It's this
tension next this between the military and the political leaders. But it's also how
does an organization and again I'm keeping this as as objective as I can,
but how does an organization as storied as heralded as the IDEF go from you
know, having turned having now seventy three was a failure, Yes, undoubtedly
it was a failure, but it's a political failure, right the you know,
the IDEF responded extraordinarily, you know, after the first three days in
the seventy three war, I mean, the IDF really won that war back
in a sense. You know, there was a commission after the war that
sure that that looked at why the Egyptians and the Syrians had both been able
to surprise is Ralph tactical surprise, but the blame never devolved to the IDF.
The IDF, you know, but it just it was an extraordinary story
when you think about it, the mobilization of two hundred I mean back then
it was like one hundred and forty thousand reservists within days, and turning the
tide both in the north in the south against Egypt and Syria. It was
in a sense to the high point of the Israeli army of the IDF.
And there are those who argue for then onwards it started to go, you
know, it started to lose direction and Lebanon, you know, the invasion
of it, the the messing up, the problems with Lebanon, which began
in the late seventies were kind of the we're also the beginning of the the
unraveling of the IDF and the long occupation which became a nathma, and the
occupation of eleven in between eighty you know, twenty years basically from eighty one
eighty two to two thousand and one had had a debilitating effect on the on
the IDF. You know, they became very focused on camera and surgeons,
but they also became surprisingly very very risk averse. You know, there are
a number of things and now I don't mean to bore you, and you
have to have to read the book and it comes out, but the cultural
atrophy of the IDF I'm writing about not it's not just because this happened in
the IDF that you know, that would be an interesting historical, you know,
narrative, But but what happened in the IDF, But easily, if
it's not already happening, it could could also happen in other Western militaries.
And indeed there are there are accusations that it is happening. So in the
British and the US military is focus on the wrong things, a step away
from war fighting, a risk aversion focused on careerism, all of these things
that just you know, losing track mission command. The IDEF was supposed to
embody mission command, and yet on seven October you get this awful situation outside
the kibbutzes where commanders won't go in because they don't have orders, and civilians
are getting slaughtered. And this is this is you know, there Israeli investigation
on covering this outside Kublitz Bery you know which I which I visited the you
know, the Hamas began killing people there at seven a m. And the
first soldiers weren't in there until seven or eight hours later, you know.
And Israel's a small country, so there are there were some serious failures,
and there were found fundamental failures, you know. At the same time,
I think it's only fair to say that these failures weren't weren't failures of human
beings or failures of courage. They were failures of procedure, of process,
and a lot of people showed too many people, most showed just incredible courage.
On seven October, soldiers taking that is into their own hands, and
many, many, most of them were killed because no one had any idea
of what the situation was like it was a black hole. It's it's extraordinary
and the most technically competent, one of the most technically advanced countries in the
world that this total breakdown of communications occurred in such a small area, and
a lot of it had to do with Hamas's planning. Yea, you know,
they israelly sort of underestimated their ability or to take out all the communications
modes. You know, the the hang lighted dudes. They you know,
they weren't kind of like stormtroopers from the sky, wasn't. They were command
and control dudes. They were up there directing the groups on the ground and
the groups, you know, they and it was because of that, because
they had guys up in the air, that they were able to direct one,
you know, one column, I suppose onto the Nova Music Festival,
because although they knew it was taking place, it wasn't on that list of
targets. But when they were locked, they thought, you know, it
was a target of opportunity, and so they do. So my point is
that on this day, most extra anything happened. It seems like roles were
reversed. You've got the idea, who is just paralyzed, you know,
unable to make a decision, and then you've got Hamas making decisions on the
fly directing forces. You know, I'm not And it was a real you
know. I mean, there's there's so many ways why this was such a
a a fundamental blow to Israel. You know, time and again is ready
to said this country will never be the same, you know, And so
what the kind of things that I'm talking about, aside from the savagery of
the attacks that were so close to them, has changed society that beyond.
I mean, I've been going to Israel since I was a teenager, you
know, in the early eighties, and it is the atmosphere there is is
very different than anything before. So all of this is it. It's incredibly
interesting right about. But it weighs on you too, you know, weighs
on you. The the you know, the loss of life period, regardless
of nationality or background or ethnicissity. The loss of life is horrific, you
know, and just like in every war, the vast majority of people killed
or not combatants, you know, and that is that's a tragedy, that's
you know, period. I mean, so yes, as a military guy,
I'm writing about that aspect of it, but I'm also writing about the
cultural part, and without being too clumsy about it, the analogy is there
implicitly that yes, this happened to the Israelis. I'm not talking about,
you know, seven October the events themselves happening elsewhere, although they easily could.
But I'm talking about kind of the slow atrophy of culture within Western militaries.
And no, I'm not you know, some kind of like weird extreme
right being free who's talking about, you know, the collapse of Western civilization.
But I am saying that it is that it is something that is a
little bit concerning. You've been tracking, theyve you guys have been tranking the
discussions within the military of the last decade, right since you got out.
Morale is not high in the US military. It's lower than it was during
the Wars when we were doing multiple deployments. Yeah. So you know,
it's interesting because I feel as though you specifically, and on this show,
we tried to prove present and i'll say fair and balanced, but we try
to deal with the realities of a situation. And that was used against you
by you know, dirtbags like Max Blumenthal and whatnot. When when we talked
about Ukraine, because at no point did you condone what Russia was doing.
At no point did you were you ever simping for Russia or or advocating,
or were you saying that Ukraine was this evil that needed to be eliminated.
You pointed out some specific issues. And and it's interesting how sort of in
this uh binary, sort of black and white world, right, where if
somebody wants to hear something, so you know, people will probably take sound
bites out of what you're saying, or take sound bites out of what's your
book, and and they like and they like to attribute it's it's like nine
to eleven, right, it was nine to eleven was a massive intelligence failure
on the part of the United States. We know who these we knew who
these people were, h you know they we had clocked them, you know,
our our intelligence apparatus, our law enforcement apparatus, and yet we had
failed to to stop what they were doing. And and also one could say
from the same type of oversight, you know that something so audacious, right,
something so audacious couldn't possibly happen. And so people want to take the
idea that a a an intelligence, law enforcement or military system can break down,
And it can break down at one level. It can break down at
a mid level officer who refuses to believe reports given to him because they seem
fantastical and he doesn't want to be the idiot passing up ridiculous reports and people
happened, David. Yeah, And people will take those facts and either then
develop a conspiracy from it that it was you know that we let nine to
eleven happen, you know, Israel let October seventh happen, these types of
things, or they will you know, or they will say that conspiracy rather
than just simply incompetence, right right. It's like, remember up the ninety
eleven that was this conspiracy theory that it was you know, the US had
actually stage managed it and was doing all these other things, et cetera,
et cetera. Oh yeah, and I remember an agency guy coin if if
fucking only we could do all that well, I mean I remember one of
the big conspiracies was that it was like a special Forces team or a CIA,
you know, paramilitary team that had gone in and planned expokess. And
it's sort of like to anybody who thinks something like that, it's like,
in order to pass a conspiracy that big, you know, for the president,
right, or Cheney or whomever to go to an a team and go,
hey, you twelve guys, I want you to be responsible for the
dests of up to like ten thousand Americans and for everybody to go Roger that
right. It's just it's so ludicrous. But you know, you know why
conspiracy theories like that flourished because most Americans have no idea what the American military
is about, right. Most Americans don't even know anyone in the military,
right. I mean, think about the conversations you have on the plane,
Hey, what do you you know? I'm in the Marine corners and oh
hey, yeah, listen, my my nephew was in the Air Force reserves,
you know, and you're like, okay, but that you know,
that trying to find some common ground, right, and it's often very distant,
and I think so it's quite easy for them to imagine that. Yeah.
And it's the same thing we're seeing now with a lot of the you
know, the conspiracy theories that are coming out of you know, October seventh,
that like the Israeli government intentionally allowed you know, this to happen or
allowed it to continue it's like it's military chains of command break down, especially
when they have not been flexed, when they have not been exercised for a
long period of time. It's like it's sort of like when you go out
on patrol, right when you're when you go out on patrol and in a
non permissive environment, after three nights or four nights of that, if you
keep going out on patrol over and over and over again, when something goes
down, you're not ready for it because you cannot stay on earth, you
know. And that is actually part of that, that was part of the
plan, you know, I mean a mass mass did not think that they
could keep this secret, you know, the plans for an attack. What
they thought they could keep secret was the actual date and time when it was
going to happen, so that they could still achieve technical surprise. But they
I don't think they thought believed that they could achieve strategic surprise the way that
they they did because there were so many reports and they must have known as
reports were going in from this what are called the Israeli called the spotters.
The spotters are generally women conscripts eighteen nineteen twenty years old, and their job
throughout Their enlistment is to is to monitor screens, you know, the essentially
the CCTV within Gaza, and each one of them gets to know, you
know, an area, a couple of blocks, two or three blocks,
they know the people on that block and everything. It's an extraordinary system of
technical surveillance. It's like nothing in the world. But it failed. And
the reason why it failed was not because those soldiers failed. They were making
the reports. I mean, this is all the Israeli newspapers had dug this
up and in you know, transcripts from radar reports. Everything they had reported,
the hang gliders, they had reported rehearsals, full scale rehearsals, and
then the morning of and naho Oz if you you know, the record of
the reports began at six thirty. You know, they described that watching her
mask gather on outside the bounce where they're supposed to be, just right right
below the security cameras, looking up at the security cameras as though they knew
where they were, and the soldiers call it's the it's a battalion from the
Golani Brigade, and the battalion commander comes along and he fires tear gas at
these guys you know, on the other side, and he says that that
that'll take care of him, and he goes back and she's like, she
gets on the phone and says, no, it hasn't taken care of them.
That's still they're still coming. And she was ignored, you know,
because the battalion commander was like, yeah, she's just you know, so
hysterical women. Yeah. Yeah, but but but honestly, it probably had
nothing to do with her being a woman. It probably had to do with
her being absolutely junior conscript eighteen years old. Junior right, yeah, hundred
percent. But on the other hand, they've been given a job and they
were they were doing their job, and they were doing well. Sadly,
they were unarmed, and so when they had one rifle between twenty women,
and so when Almas broke in, they pretty much you know, had free
run. They could kill or kidnap as they wish. I mean, these
are you know, these they collectively, these are not individual errors. I
mean, or rather, all these individual mistakes collectively suggest that there was something
culturally wrong within you know, the IDF for this to have to have happened.
I mean, obviously there was something culturally wrong. It happens all the
time, right, intelligence? You know this is intelligence professional, right,
It's you can have the best civiliance equipment in the world and the best collectors.
But if if the guys on the receiving and not, if their minds
aren't open to that possibility, as you point out, then it's all wasted.
And that's really you know, they know one, no one thought everyone
was so so lulled by this narrative that Hamas lacked the sophistication or the intent
to do harm, you know, beyond a few rockets. Right, So
when can we expect your book? Ah? Well, you know it's going
to be two to three months before I finished the manuscript. The problem is
that the news keeps going on, right, So what does you know?
What does an end? To be honest with you, I'm enjoying. I'm
enjoying the writing. You know, writing is very cathartic for me. You
know, I know you you know you probably have I know you do have
activities that that you rely on to kind of get your headspaced back. And
writing is what I do, yes, pt and everything, but you know
it is when you to your mind still wonders, but writing absorbs me,
and and it helps to write about a conflict that I'm not involved in directly.
I started to write about Ukraine and I just found it too difficult.
I couldn't. You know. Maybe a year or two I will be able
to. But it does. I think this is helping writing. It's I
don't know, it's difficult to explain, but it's not. The other thing
is I think it's quite interesting. I don't I don't hear of anyone else
doing this right now. I think it so, so there may not be
a lot of competition if I get a book out, you know, because
everyone's kind of waiting for some kind of resolution. But who knows when that's
going to occur, and who knows what the resolution is going to be,
So you know, my book's going to be point in time, you don't
think. But anyway, I don't think that Mas will just return all the
hostages and that'll be it. I don't know. I don't think that'll be
it. No, they've and I don't, you know, sadly, I
I'm not optimistic that many hostages left alive. Yeah, you know, if
any just like you know, sadly, right now, in the least and
just the same thing in Ukraine. It's it's hard to see a good outcome.
I mean anytime, not just anytime soon, but but a good outcome.
Yeah, better than than before the wall, right right, right,
better than starting what you know, speaking of Ukraine for people who have watched
you know, any of the episodes that you've been on prior. You know,
one of the things we talked about was Mozart Group in the work you
guys were doing over there, and then you know, Mozart Group ran into
some some challenges. Yeah, and and some of those challenges, uh came
personally back to you. Do you do you want to talk about those at
all? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, absolutely, you know, and the
risk of hope not boring the audience just to you know, kind of go
back in times so three, it was it almost three years ago, twenty
early twenty twenty two. What am I talking about two years ago? It
was over two years ago early twenty twenty two. Came on the teamhouse in
January, right a month before the invasion, and we all opined that there's
no way that Russia would invade Ukraine, right And then of course it happened,
and I got a I wangled a job as a as a freelance reporter,
right for task and purpose. Freelance was so that they weren't responsible for
me if I got lacked. It was a term. It was. In
other words, freelance benefited them, but not me. You know, I
wrote for them. But no, don't get me wrong. Task and purpose
was great to me, and and down the line was even better than better
to me when they stood up and helped me to defend this lawsuit. But
anyway, so I ended up going out there, got into got made it
to Kiev a very bad time. This was early March of twenty twenty two,
and the Russians were on three sides of Kiev and within artillery range.
I mean they were pounding the suburbs. You heard it all the time,
and that was a sense of I mean you remember, everyone thought Kiev was
done. No one thought thought the city would hold out. And within Kiev
itself was this extraordinary. The exodus had already taken place, so about two
thirds of the population had left, but for the third that were left,
they were getting ready to fight. And Zelenski had given the word to hand
out AK forty seven's on the street to any male between eighteen and like forty
five and so that's what they were doing, you know. I mean,
guys were just grabbing aks and heading to the suburbs the Russians and uh and
and a senior as a colonel special operations colonel I knew from before the war.
It was one of the few regular Ukrainian officers who was tasked with preparing
these guys to defend Kiev. And he asked, you know, he asked
for my help. And I happened to be able to get out some guys,
some marines from the States, a couple and then there were a couple
in anyway, bottom line is here we are in Kiev in March, is
the Russians closing and we've got a small group of marines. Coincidentally, they
tend to be marines. One of them was a Kiev resident, he Andy
Bain, and he became kind of the guy that we depended on quite a
bit as we set up the Mozart group. The Mozart group, by the
way, just evolved as we started to train these people. And this is
what it was like. I mean, it's insane when I described the people
think I'm exaggerating, you know, we we would get we would have five
days to train a cohort of guys, you know the girls, and they
were it workers, students, lawyers, you know anything that soldiers and none
of them needn't handle the weapon. Five days to get them ready, no
ship to go and find the Russians. And so what do you teach them
in five days? You know, we did basic weapons handling. That was
key. We had to take them to shoot, and that was becoming as
it is because every time we started shooting, the Russians had spotters everywhere,
and so every time we started shooting on the range, very round would start
coming in, very very quickly. So it was literally a two way tay
range. A lot of the unusual training restrictions, but the one thing that
kept us going was just the just the indomitable spirit of these of these people
who were volunteering to fight for their city. Can you imagine, Dave,
if you know what I mean, just overnight, you know New York,
maybe New York's bad example, Chicago, and you had the enemy at the
gates, and just think about it. All these people have never ever dreamed
of joining the military. Now that's what they that's their goal, because they
want to fight for their country, you know, for their homes. I
mean literally, you know, I came across a family mother, father and
you know, nineteen year old son, all armed to the teeth, ready
to defend their house, you know, in northern Kiev. And they only
just for example, with Chicago, probably most American towns of cities, is
you probably don't need to worry about passing out so many aks. Like,
yeah, that's true, the benefit of the benefit of the Second Amendment,
right, But I gotta tell you, I gotta tell you one story about
one of these guys. And he came back. He came back about two
weeks. He was on our first cohort and he'd been a student and he
could not handle a weapon. You know, he kept pointing at that people
was flagging people. Well, he came back to, you know, to
go through the weapons part again, but he'd already been in combat, and
you know we're talking about him. So how do you what did you do
if you, you know, if you don't like carrying a weapon? He
said, well, so the officer gave me a bag of grenades to carry
around and they're pretty easy to use. You just you know, he goes,
he goes, so I yeah, that's that was good. I mean,
the Russians were all close, so it was easy. I didn't have
to shoot him. I just threw grenades. I'm like, I'm thinking his
in saying, yeah, it was so convenient. It was, you know,
they were they were right up close to us. It was was most
people would go, holy shit, you know, it was close combat the
first time. And he said, but you know, I guess the grenades
are expensive, so I got to come back and learn how to use the
weapon, you know, And and we were teaching them how to use we
didn't have any javelins. You know, the news about the javelins, the
coverage was far greater than their use. You know, a lot of anti
handheld anti tank weapons, but a lot of them were Eastern European manufacturer.
But that doesn't matter. The point is that these guys were getting close enough
to destroy Russian tanks, you know, in that healthy and euphoric stage of
the war. But it wasn't euphoric in Kiev. It was pretty fucking scary,
you know, it really was. And we were every day kind of
having a discussion. What we were having a discussion about when to cut bait,
you know, I mean, we didn't want to be trapped in the
city. That would have been bad time. It's like, you guys aren't
there as merci or armed combatants. No you are there. No, we're
not. Yeah, we are just training at this point. And uh,
but it became difficult to leave psychologically, I don't you know, it came
so that it was never a question of us leaving. And I think we
just got too caught up in it. You can't just walk out on something
like that, you know. And and then when the Russians were pushed back,
we actually I was with one of the the first units to clear through
Butcher. Uh. So you know when they found the bodies. I mean
it's not like I found the bodies, but they were they were there,
still just lying out there. When when we got up there, it was
pretty pretty horrific. And it was first kind of glimpse, uh, you
know, for me sadly, you know, I mean we've seen lots of
bodies before the massacre. I mean, it was it was shocking, but
I but the but the effect on the Ukrainian soldiers was it was fundamental.
I mean it was it was really you could tell it that it changed them
and the war was a the war from the start. I mean, it
seems absurd to talk about any war has been vicious, but yes, you
know, this is a particularly vicious one. And you have to look at
some of the history there to understand how and why. And that is why,
you know, I mean, and bear in mind, I mean,
I was risking my life for Ukraine. But I came on the team house
and did say, look, Ukraine has to adhere to the walls of law
of war because I mean, for one, I don't want to be involved
in helping decide you know this, we can't do that, right, that's
committing atrocities. And and you know I said, which I didn't think was
controversial. Well, of course the Ukrainians, I mean, they happen in
every wall, you know. Of course, the committing I mean, and
I quoted, you know, I quoted a couple. I mean, they're
putting prisoners on TV. You may think it's harmless, but it's a violation
of that Geneva convention. And the point is you have to be squeaky clean
when you I mean, you don't have to be squeak clean, but you
got to be better than your rapistry, right, and if you're going to
highlight what your enemy is doing, you've got to make sure that you had
hitted the wolves. That was number one. When you're taking somebody off the
street and training them up in a matter of three to five weeks days,
days, right, you know, days? Sorry, Laura pland wolfare yeah,
like like everybody may know, hey, don't pull the fingernails out of
you know, your your detainees or your POW's, but they may not know
that, hey, you can't put them on TikTok. Yeah, and you
know what I said, I mean, you remember this, what I said
was uncontroversialized And yes I did say, of course, you know there there
are reports of atrocities. That was number one. Number two is I became
very frustrated with the level of corruption and bad leadership, not not across the
board, but in certain units, certain commands, and the guys who were
suffering were the soldiers on the front, you know, I mean, think
about it. Some criminal things were happening as far as you know, I
mean where ammunition was going or cold weather clothes, and this was affecting the
guys that we were working with day in day out. Of course, I
was angry about it, and I spoke about it, and and of course
I spoke about it after drinking whiskey with you guys. Has tended to happen.
So the chorus, you know, the peanut chorus. He mentioned what
was his name, Max bluemuthal right, yeah, you know number one.
So here's the weird thing, So blue myouthall is you know, he's a
left he's left wing, et cetera, et cetera. But the weird thing
is he supports Russia. I mean, you know, it's it's kind of
the the far left and the far right converge here in the support of Putin
and and so you know, and Bluementthal, I I have heard has connections
with right, you know, I mean, he has worked there. I
don't know, it doesn't matter, I don't I don't really care about bluemuthal
In fact, he did me a favor. But because I don't think it
wasn't him who started the attacks. It was a guy named Peter Mass mb
A s now. Peter Mass is the editor of the Intercept Right and uh
has a long history and kind of yellow journalism and very very anti US military
rot skathing. I'm pretty sure the Intercept published at least one article by John
Walker Lynd. He did, yeah, yeah, yeah, who I know
is a personal hero of he wants. I mean, you know, okay,
we're out, so so Peter mass is, you know, I mean,
he's he's one of these guys trendy, trendy left, but doesn't always
write honestly about the military. That's always very you know, looking for an
angle to attack us. Sure and so sure enough when when the first American,
one of the first Americans, gets killed out there, it wasn't with
the Mozart group. He was saying he was a volunteer and he is missing,
and which is usual there, you know, I mean that the number
of missing people, I mean, it's such a maelstrom and the effect the
way that both sides are using arteria, but particularly the Russians, means that
you have a lot of people who are just blown into smithereens and never found.
So that could have happened to him. We didn't know there were rumors
he'd been captured by the Russians. It turns out that he had been,
and we think, well, he's dead, but he was probably killed after
being captured by the Russians. Fell into the hands wounded. But in any
case, he was missing, and his a friend had called me, who
was friends with his parents, to say, hey, can you and he
can you find out anything about what had happened. So we were trying to
find out, you know, we were with the Legion. We did a
lot of you know, I mean, we knew those guys who work with
him for amount, so we you know, we we were talking to the
people who'd been with him, but he you know, they they'd gone out.
They they they had a plan to hit a te seventy two. They
were they were rumbled before they could take a shot, and they got split
up and this guy. The others made it back, but this guy didn't.
Anyway, Peter Mask called me and said, hey, and he can
you just verify that, you know, this guy got an other than honorable
discharge from the Marinkles and can you tell me what that could be? For
drugs or something like this. So he was digging up dirt on this guy
before we could even find his body, before we could you know, even
had a chance to tell his parents. And you know, I basically told
Master funk Off and and then this is where I think what really triggered him.
I sent out a tweet going, hey, masks, you know he
was still looking for this guy. By the way, Peter Mass just you
know, came up with this ship. So if you see him publish this,
fucking just ignore it. You know, it was a tweet basically like
this, ignore this stupid shit. You know everything that we're hearing. This
guy died in you know, brave, brave circumstances. We can forget why
he left the marine corpse surely until we find his body. But mass Mass
was evidently not happy about that because that tweet surprisingly picked up like fifty thousand
views, So a lot of people knew about the intercept and Peter Mass and
we're not happy. But next thing, I know, so a number of
things started happening, and you probably remember one was the the Wagner group the
Pregosion got involved and started threatening personally threatening me, threatening us, And you
know, we were told that they had and they did have teams out there.
They were killing people behind the lines. You know, whether they were
targeting us or not, I don't know, but it doesn't but they were
definitely targeting us with missiles to the extent that no less than four hotels either
we were staying in or had just left, were hit by missiles on the
same day. So so you know, the kind of the the bullseye was
was getting narrower and narrow The Russians were getting more and more loitering munitions aloft,
which which are just terrifying things. But the point is too that loitering
munitions, as you've seen, I mean, these fpvs, when when they
decide to get you, they will get you, right, you know,
and so and and at very little cost. So until that point, you
know, I'd been able to make this calculus that here we can continue doing
what we're doing, driving you know, into bargmert through artillery barrages in soft
skin vehicles to take people out and it's risky, but it's acceptable because we
are not being targeted personally. There's no way you know, the we and
as soon as we see a drone, we're out of there. You know,
any any sense that that that we're allowing the enemy to identify us and
target us, or that we we have we've met their target priority list right
and their engagement criteria. When it started to become evident that that was happening,
I got I was getting increasingly concerned, you know, and it was
because there was no safety there. There was no The o r M was
off the charts, I mean, medical attention, evacuation, all of that
would have been on us. You know, the Ukrainian military was barely able
to hold ground at the time. Operational risk management it's this ridiculous process that
the US military. Well it's not ridiculous, I mean, but but it's
become a ridiculous process. The concept is absolutely valuable, all right, you
got it, an assessment of risk before you do a mission. Right,
But of course we break it down PowerPoint style, you know, into traffic
lights and make it a worthless exercise. But but but the point is,
you know, you couldn't. We We did have an r M process,
but it was you know, it was marginal. It was like, yeah,
we're not going to go in entering an active s RIIK. But then
we but then we broke that rule once when we you know, when we
got a call from a family that a desperate need of being pulled out.
So I realized it was an extraordinary feeling of responsibility, far more so than
anything I'd had in the military, because in the military you've got all that
infrastructure behind you. Yes, you're a commander and you may get people killed
because of your decisions, but everything to that point in your career has prepared
you for that, and the whole system is there to support you, you
know, in your decision making. But here, no, we were,
you know, as we were out hanging and being responsible for this, responsible
for bringing in funds. I was working really hard to bring in funds at
the time that that was one of the hardest things about it. And I
started to think, shit, I am working my ass on to get money
in so that we can risk our lives in a country that is not ours.
You know, these thoughts were starting to swell around in my mind at
the time, you know. And meantime, you know, we get two
vehicles that are destroyed by artillery, I mean mine's artillery. We get one
of our guys fragged lightly but enough, and you know, in the arm
and so all the things. Yeah, if I and then we get attacked
by n s U twenty five and and and get caught in a grad strike
on the same day, and my hands are shaking so much by then,
I can't get I can't open my hotel room in the evenings. You know
what I mean, I'm it's not it's it's like nothing. It's it's worse
than Fallujah, you know, I mean Fallujah was you know, I had
a you had a weapon, you had your buddies behind you, you had
you know, even though it's there's fighting going building up the building and knowing
the bad guys waiting for you, there was a processor system. There was
support. If you got franking, you you were out of there, right.
And most of all, this is the hardest thing, you know,
in Flujah, there was a It was all an institutional system that put people
under me. It was supposed to happen, I guess for me. The
Mozart group was something that evolved. It was tremendous, but it wasn't worth
losing anyone, right, And when do you make that decision to pull the
plot? I don't know. I mean I didn't have to because Blumenthall and
Andy Bean and Peter Mass made it for me. Thank you, thank you.
And by the way, yeah, so Andy Bean was sadly a former
marine is a FORUR marine reservist. He he when I say reserve is sorry
that they got me off my attention. But you know, basically has been
sitting in Kiev since he was a captain working at the embassy, you know,
and made colonel that way, he was doing things. Let me just
say this, he was doing things that we started started to make us feel
suspicious, and we got increasingly suspicious, and we were worried about the money.
He was less than open about that, and it eventually you know,
you know, you probably don't know me day, but I don't. I
don't suffer fools badly. I mean, I don't suffer. I suffer fools
badly, and I don't. I'm not good at hiding things. And so
eventually I blew up at this guy. I mean, not physical, you
know, it's just like just get the fuck, you know, get away
from us. We want blah blah blah. I forget what the discussion is
about. He wanted us to he wanted us to buy him out for five
million dollars. This is like a gurentleman. We couldn't he you know.
They basically he's training. It's an n g O. It's a nonprofit I
know, and he wants so he has this to sy that he's going to
lead it. He'll edge me out and he's going to lead it. He's
pissed because I've insulted him, and he's He's going to show me. And
so he brings this lawsuit against me and were you know, this was kind
of the final straw. So once he brought the lawsuit, then of course
donas are not going to contribute. And and we had a like three guys
who had volunteered to help us, right former marines, and they got so
stooked by the lawsuit. They were our board, they handled all our funds,
they pent, they became paralyzed with fear over this lawsuit. So we
lost any all access to our finds and we came to an end. And
not only that, but well all this was going on a former marine guy
really pains me that these these bad actors of four Marines, you know,
being and but but they're both reservists. Okay, so they're not it's not
like the Ral Marines. I'm going to get criticize, I'm kidding. But
anyways, so after you know, the invasion of Ukraine entered this other marine.
He's he's working for a an NGO or his volunteer, but basically he
just wants to get in on the action. He you know, he's you
know how it is, They've all the fucking questers come into to prove themselves
or pretend they're doing something when they really aren't. And and Kiev became a
Petri dish of these, not so much Kiev as Leviv because Leviv was really
safe, so it became a Petri dish or that he's you know, all
these guys who do everything to look hard, but be hard, you know,
I mean, they're not. They want to appear tough, guys covered
in tattoos and you know, special Forces t shirts and everything. And every
night they get drunk. And you know, I'm not kidding you. I
saw Westerners carry the sniper, you know. I saw one guy carry a
snipermife into a bar. I mean, why the fuck? Why why would
you do that? You know, drop holsters, the whole works. I
mean, but they don't go near combat. They're hanging out lit. So
one of these dudes is partying while we're up in Kiev. You know,
they're all drinking, and he a girl alleges said he rapes her, all
right, and and she does. She goes to the police, both Ukraine
and Poland. She's held by a journalist and he's beaten her. You know,
I mean it's she's young, quite a young girl. She's fragile,
she's had, you know, some mental problems in the past. So it
was just her bad luck, you know, she was a genuine volunteer,
her bad luck to run into this guy. Michael Ryan booke she was an
American or she was she was, Yeah, she's an American. Yeah,
but the FBI has no jurisdiction because it was on Ukrainian soil. So he
allegedly rapes her, beats her. She you know, she is taken across
the border by friends and they go to you know, report at the embassy
and doctors. I get a call in Kiev. I'm a little bit distracted,
but I get a call. No, not a call. It was
a marine. One of our guys says, hey, Andy, there's there's
a you know, he told me a story. There's a girl alledging that
a former marine raped her. Blah blah blah, and the Ukrainian police wanted
us to get the word out. And it was a guy who headed up
Task Force Yankee Dan in LVIV, good guy, former Chicago cop, who
then contacted me and said, yeah, man, we think he may be
running for Kiev. Can you keep your eye out, uh? And I
said, yeah, I can do more than that. I can write about
this. You know, I'm a tree journalist, So I wrote. I
wrote an article about it. Very you know, we researched nothing in there
that that that that was scerless at all, just saying, you know,
he's the Ukrainian police are offer and true, and this guy had made an
allegation of great true. Anyway, he escapes across the border. He pays
a cab driver to die. You know, it's not difficult to dodge to
checkpoints to get across into Poland back then and makes it back to the States
and sues me for thirty million dollars. Sues me and Task and Purpose for
thirty million dollars. So this hits me when I get back from Ukraine,
and I'm by the way, I'm not in a good state by then.
I mean, I'm I mean, Dave, you know, I've I've had
some some personal tragedies I was I was dealing with anyway, and you know,
like all of us, I'm a little scrambled by experiences of deployments we
went through. And then Ukraine was a ballbuster for me. And it because
on the on the evacuation missions when we said, you know, that was
the part that became really dangerous, so evacuating civilians from the bombed out areas.
You know, I did feel as though I should be on those missions
since it was the worst thing that we were doing. But it did take
a toll on me too, you know, I took a toll on my
nerves. I mean, it's not and I didn't realize it because it's like
the frog and the water, right. You know, you're drinking a little
bit more, you're shaking more, you you know, but but you're locked
in. You know, you can't what are you going to do? You
can't just not you can't stop doing it. So bottom line is Hols in
a bad stay. And I come back and I'm facing this lawsuit thirty million
dollars and no, and I've got twenty days they come and serve me the
summons. By the way, this will make your laugh to it. Maybe
not. So I'm getting death threats around then too. I don't know if
you remember that, but I'm getting death threats from Russians, from Ukrainians by
the way, No Ukrainians who are in Ukraine. Ukrainians who have fled elsewhere
in Europe are giving me, threatening me, threatening my life because I criticized
Ukraine. I can figure that one out anywhere there in Ukraine. So what
what was the name of this guy who loved this lawsuit against you? If
you want to say his name, Michael Ryan Booke? Yeah, D you
know, I'll show you. D will show you a picture. I'll show
I'll show a picture and it will kind of tell you everything about him.
But thirty million dollars. So and Michael Ryan Burke lives in the United States,
correct, he does. Yeah, he lives in Missouri. But the
FBI had no authority to an I had no juristic jurisdiction because it wasn't on
a military base. See I didn't realize this. But unless there's some kind
of I suppose, you know, there's an agreement, so like a soap
agreement, or it occurs on a area where the FBI has jurisdiction, like
the US embassy, you know, or a or a US base, or
a ship or an aircraft. But because it was in Leviv, yeah,
they had no jurisdiction. So he knew that. And Michael Ryan Burke sued
you for thirty million dollars you and ten twenty million dollars to write in an
article about an alleged rape, exactly. And and and so this story gets
better, right, I mean, it gets worse and it gets better.
So they they served me the summons in the middle of the night, three
o'clock in the morning. So you can imagine I'm getting all these death threats,
and my door they'll starts ringing off, you know, off the just
beer at three in the morning. And so what do I do? What
do you think I do? G you grab your gun, grab my gun,
and I go down the side of the hall, you know, don't
turn on the lights, and and I look through, you know, the
window, and it's it's clearly it's a woman, you know, fat glasses
and she's got peepers in her hands. I open it. Yeah, it
was a you know, summons, and it gave me twenty days to reply.
But no lawyer would take my case, Dave, because they're like,
oh, man, you screwed, I swear, you know I And so
the clock was ticking and if I can't find a lawyer, it's going to
be a default judgment against me. Right, I mean thirty million dollars.
I was like, the fuck. So I am really sweating, and the
last minute I do get a lawyer, and of course he wants to retainer,
and you know, I do that. I have no money left after
the Mozart group, by the way, because I've been paying the dudes for
the last month when they you know, crush the money. So I take
out you know, I take out a second mortgage basically too for her fees.
And then and then my luck starts changing. Turns out Task and Purpose
has decided to defend the lawsuit too, all right, and I'm partly covered
by insurance. But it's a pathetic amount, you know, It's like it's
based on nineties legal rates. But still it's a moral boost to me that
that Task and Purpose is saying, hey, we believe that that he researched
this story. We're not going to pay this dude off. Now. The
editor of Task and Purpose had taken the article down, and that was I
think a mistake, because that emboldened him. He thought, ah, yeah,
they're not certain about this, so now I'm going to bring the lawsuit.
And but but when they started to research it, somewhere that initial assessment,
someone thankfully said, hey, I think Melbourne, you know, I
think we I think he did his research and I think we should defend this.
No one asked me. It was strange, but anyway, I'm very
grateful that they did, and they fought the lawsuit, and you know what,
thank God, because they had enough money to go back to Poland Ukraine
uncover all these records, photographs of her bruised, you know, doctor's descriptions
of what you know had happened, the embassy, the fact that the she
reported at the embassy, the embassy had tried had contacted him and said,
hey, the FBI liaison here needs to see you. He had ignored that
and headed back to state. So, you know, he had been a
bad actor at every turn. And if he wasn't guilty of rape, he
sure is her acted as though he was guilty of rape. And someone beat
that girl up and put her in the hospital, you know. And so
all this started happy and I started feeling thank God, but it's still you
know, And it took a year, but it was dismissed. It took
a year because the ambulance chasing lawyer had a stroke and collapsed and can now
only Blinker's eyes. So they brought in another ambulance chaser. But you know,
all that caused delay, and delay is expensive for me, and delay
is not good for your nerves when you're facing thirty million, thirty million dollars
that would have finished me. Of course, I had declared bankruptcy, my
kids, you know, a college fund, the house, everything gone,
everything I was. I was facing ruin and then at the same time there
was kind of a backlash of you know that you remember that the team house,
it had the fact that I was I was appear drunk, but I
think I think it's better say I wasn't drunk. I was absolutely jet lagged.
I've been at thirty six hours without sleep. To remember that. I
yes, you guys, and in fact that discussion was, you know,
we if you go back, we weren't downing the whiskeys. At that point,
I was, I was exhausted and I was angry. But unfortunately it
was given the moniker of you know, drunken mercenary. Uh, you know,
it tells the truth about Ukraine, as though it was right fence right,
and it was it was very selective sound by It's like, yes,
you're telling one truth. But but again it's not a binary world that that
Ukraine is doing everybody, all the soldiers in Ukraine are doing all these things,
and Russia and Russians are just being saints. It's like you have two
very contentious forces going against each other. It's very personal. People are fighting
for their homes. And do people sometimes step out of line and need to
be like put in check one percent? Yes, they do, like eve,
even in the even in the US where we have a professionalized military and
we are taught the laws of land warfare and you know, and and whatnot,
we still run into these issues. Yeah, that's right. So you
can imagine guys off the streets fighting with that families behind them, right,
can you imagine it? Literally, your your kids and families behind you.
Your you're calculus, You're calculus for your own survival changes. And it is
true probably you all, you know, you're simple for the enemy. You
lose all of it because those guys, you're the only thing between those guys
in your family. We've never been in that position, right, And and
it was an existential threat, unlike you know, say Hamas to Israel,
I mean Russia was invade in Ukraine. So yeah, all of those things.
But but yeah, I think Michael Michael Ryan Burke turns out he's a
reservist. He's staff sergeant was something. I think he even made sergeant major.
I don't know, but he's he he kind of drifts around from you
know, job to job and makes a big deal like a lot of these
reservestsuf I have. You know, I've done super secret stuff and I had
this clearence in that his his testimony is their position was you know, it's
the usual, just like well, it's interesting even if the FBI didn't handle
even if the FBI didn't have jurisdiction, didn't like an I s or somebody
have jurisdiction. No, no, because he's not he's not even I mean,
he's not an active reservist. He wasn't wearing a uniform he was.
You know, I say, yeah, no, one absolutely, it is
what it is, you know what I mean. In the end, at
the end of the day, I don't waste time with anger, I really
don't. This dude is going to have This dude is in a far worse
state than me. So this guy, this guy, now all of your
audience, hopefully will be a larger one. It knows that Michael Ryan Burke
was was not only accused the rape, but accused the rate whether it appears
to be quite a bit of evidence to support that accusation to the point where
his lawsuit against you was dropped, dismissed, was just on all counts.
And so you know, he's got to live with that, right you imagine,
I mean, he's rapist, alleged rapist, right, and even's gonna
hate that guy. So I don't want to be him for a moment,
and I don't want to, you know, think about him. I'm sorry,
what was his name again, Michael Ryan Book And that's like b u
r k e bu b u r b u r k E. Yeah,
I just want to make sure you know, yeah, he pretends to be
religious. But but if you know anyway enough enough, he's so. But
the point is that a rapist and a can do this, you know,
bring a lawsuit, cost me a fortune and then walk away and it doesn't
cost him at buck because you know, lawyers, these guys are doing it
pro bono. They cost his lawyer, his his health, you know,
And I can't I can't feel sorry for it about that it was my thirty
million boxes, my whole future. I can't feel sorry that his lawyer collapsed
with the stroke. And you know it's the explaining why I should be at
the end of the ground. Maybe it's a little bit of God's punishment,
you know, But yeah, I don't ways, I mean, I don't
like Mass, Mass and Blumenthal. I mean these people are you know that
the flotsam and jets and they're not you know, they're not substantive people.
Right, Mass isn't even a good writer, and that's his job. Yeah,
right, better than him. Well, and and you mentioned that this
uh, this Burke guy had he'd even claim that you had gone so far
as to try to take out a hit on him and he had. Yeah.
Yeah, so that was so so when the defamation suit started going south,
his law you know when it when they when they dug out the police
reports. Uh, his lawyer took a new tactic and said, look,
my my client's called PTSD because Melbourne's this is quote Norman's reputation that you know,
he he used his resources. I'd get what it was, intelligence,
special forces, blah blah blah. It's proven to be ruthless and no problem
with killing people before, uh, only when my country told me to do
so. And you know, right and right. But anyway, so so
he sided down this part of and and unbelievably, uh, his lawyer,
you know, threw that out as a as a serious claim that he was
affected. You know, they dug up his medical reports and oh my god,
blah blah blah blah. So I was able to prove that at the
time, I mean, I was able to show from a letter from the
State Department that we never carried weapons, that we were not a musclimary bloot.
And I had been in fact classified as a whatever five or one C
three, you know, which is a charity. So unlikely that a group
of our charitable volunteers were hunting this guy down to kill him, right,
But that was his claim anyway. But the point is, Dave, that
this put I mean, you know, I I would rather have faced death
again almost they then then, I mean, then go through that fear of
losing my family's livelihood, right, you know, because in the end,
that's kind of what we when when we leave, I mean that we we
we want that to be our legacy, right, that that our family is
better off than we were and they're okay, And if we don't do that,
it kind of makes our lives a failure. Yeah, it's been hard,
but that's that's the way I was feeling, and it was it was
really that was in free fall. And the other thing I've noticed is you
really find out you're when you when you've got two lawsuits against you, because
Bain's was dismissed too, by the way. Bain, by the way,
is very lucky we didn't bring a lawsuit against him. We have people lining
up who want to bring a lawsuit against beIN to include and not just for
financial stuff, but but we had sex stuff too, But that's another you
know, I leave it, leave that all aside. Yeah, I'm not
interested in pursuing anyone. I want to get on with my life. And
but it has changed me, has changed me. I think for the better.
I'm going to make it for the better. Well, I mean everything
else. Yeah, I mean, you know, we we've been I mean,
you were on early on the teamhouse, like you've been here for a
long time and we love seeing your journey. You know, we've talked your
book, When the Tempest Gathers, your biography. I have spoken at great
length of how much I truly loved your book, and if anybody has not
read it, I think it's a It is a phenomenal book about an officer
during wartime and the questions one asked themselves about am I a good leader?
Am I a bad leader? Am I making the right calls? Because I
think those are things that anybody who has been in a leadership position in war
time, you know, it's easy to tell the no shit there. I
was number one man in the door Stories because when it's just you, if
you're alive to talk about it, then you made the right decision that day.
Right when you're an officer or a senior enlisted and you are making those
calls for other people that you are deciding whether or not somebody goes home,
and again you can go from zero to hero or hero to zero in one
decision. And sometimes those decisions seem obvious to people when they Monday morning quarterback.
And sometimes it's a decision you make on the fly, go left,
go right, go straight, but you got to go somewhere, and there's
no way to know what the right decision is. In your book, really,
along with your own biography, in the book, the personal tragedies that
you faced outside of the military. It is a very introspective, very in
depth and very like human look into the military and into leadership that it's very
hard to find in modern war literature. I think that's really I mean,
it's tremendously kind of you to say that, Dave, and I appreciate it
really from the you know, the first time I came home this podcast,
which was five years ago, by the way, and I remember you guys
were very supportive the book. It was, by the way, it just
won the the it's called the Eugene Slash. It's the Marine Corps Marine Corps
Heritage Association Award for best Biography in the last three years because they counted the
paperback version which just came out. Yeah, I mean, you know,
because as a Marine number one, there's this this kind of a mental obstacle
before you even think about writing about your experiences, right, you know what
I mean that there's it's something about our ethos in the Marine Corps. It
is very different and I'm not derogating other services. It's just, you know,
it really does the belief that you subsume yourself to the whole of the
Marine Corps. Right, and so remember when MARSK, when that was first
discussion about MARSC starting, or when DEBT one and no it wasn't. Yeah,
it was that one because Rumsfelt was so do you remember RUMs Felt?
I apparently had a discussion with commandant the Marine Corps back then. I'm trying
to remember who it was Conway. I think no, not going you know,
it wasn't Comway. It was maybe Jones, it doesn't matter. But
but uh but but in that discussion, you know, he was talking about
sorry, I totally totally lost my where will we daved? Well, you
know you were talking about you were talking about the formation of DEBT one or
MARSK. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I'm sorry. Yeah,
right, So rum Stat told the commandant or the commandant said, hey,
we don't we marines, we don't do we don't do selection, right,
you know, we're all marines, so I mean, we're all elite
and and run Stot said, no, you need to do selection. But
my point is that's kind of the feeling that we have is you know,
hey, you're a marine. That's all you need, right, you don't
need to write a book. But but as you you know, as you
commented, I've been through you know, I lost my daughter and I just
come back from to do rough deployment. And and the fact that that deployment
was rough had nothing to do with the Islamic State. I had everything to
do with the US Army conventional chain of command. And I was, yeah,
I was in a state of angst. I'd compumpmentalize this tragedy during my
deployment. Now I confronted with it, and writing was the one escape I
could find. And I sat down and wrote or you know, two to
three hours every morning, and afterwards I always felt better. You know,
even when I was going to work, I would get up early and write
for an hour and then at the end of the day, and just getting
in that routine I really think helped me. You know, you very wisely
talked about counseling at the beginning of this. When I was on active duty,
I never went to counseling, but that was my that was my former
counseling was writing. It was cathartic, but to your point. Yet,
you know, if you having made a decision to write about a book,
you've got to be honest, and that is the hardest part, you know,
the first couple of drafts. You know, I showed it to friends,
and a good friend of mine, Worth Parker, said he, look,
do you want this to be just kind of a hey, really cool
leadership, you know, narrative and story or do you want to do you
want people to know what it's really like, really like to lead in a
shitty place like Karma. You know, when your orders are not always very
clear. Then you know, your brigade headquarters is like eighty miles away and
you're getting hit every day. And by the way, you're being told to
turn over to the Rockies in six months and you're out of that, you
know, I mean, these are not these are not lessons that you can
answer from right from the book right and that is where you own your commission,
you know, in places like that. And one of the things is,
even though you did grow up to join the marine, the American Marine
Corps, you grew up with you know, as as a brit with what
we would think of a classical education. So you know, so yes,
you eventually joined the crayon eating brigade. But but but there, but there,
but there's an eloquence and and and uh and a love of words behind
your writing that really expresses a lot of that. Well, you know,
I think so my parents, God bless them. I mean my my parents
who were products of the second one ward they met from the Second War.
In fact, my father's British and it was met my mother while he was
on liberty in New York, you know, as a as a reversal to
the many Gis who are coming over and married US women. But I mean
British women. But my point is they really really wanted me to have a
head start in British society, and so they sent me to a very very
exclusive school. I was expelled from that school, spent a year in the
Philippines for my but but then was accepted back to another school and was feeling
bad enough by this time, I'm having disappointed my parents that I wanted to
do well, and so I you know, I so my point is I
had a tremendous education. I went through the British schooling system, university,
law school, and then enlisted as a private in the Marine Corps. You
remember boot camp, right, how how just how childish boot camp is?
Right? But it does the Marine Corps. I mean, how old were
you when you went through boot camp. It's nineteen oh, I see,
you're pretty much a kid anyway. Yeah, but it does an a Marine
Corps boot camp compared to any other I can't speak to Air Force boot camp,
but I can speak to it's a well, Army and Navy. But
but Marine Corps boot camp does. They don't call it boot camp in the
athols, it's just it's same and I mean it's basic training. In the
Army it's or yeah. But but Marine Corps boot camp does something that the
other services don't do as well, which is create marines. Like like it
breaks you down to the point of when your drill instructor is walking you across
the parade grounds to your graduation on that final day and he says, you're
going to go in there and some officer that doesn't know you is going to
be the says that he's proud to be the first to call you United States
Marines. You know that's bullshit. He goes, I'm the one, and
this is a guy who's been calling you, you know, maggot, shithead
and dirt bag and all this, you know, the entire Like, the
Marine Corps does that in such I think an effective way to create that you
know, sort of that that camaraderie that has spree of corps. You know,
they have that down to a science. And yeah, you know,
I mean I was young. I wasn't as young as as you know.
I had a year out in the world, which isn't a lot, but
but it's hard to even remove yourself from that when, you know, when
when it's done so effectively, Yeah, it's I mean, it is basically
a boot camp, relies on the same indoctrination techniques as the you know,
Chinese and the Korean War with prisoners. In fact, there was comments by
prisoners of the Chinese that that, you know, that dreatment reminded them a
little bit of boot camp. By that, I mean, you know,
the constant chanting, the repetition. I mean, it's all in doctrination.
But if you are a little bit older as I was twenty four, and
you've had some experiences, then that part of it becomes quite tiresome, right,
Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean even worse than than being
dogged on the quarter deck because I had you know, I had no problem
with physical thinness. I had no problem with being away from home, but
I found you know, I found the constant, just childish games, mentally
wearing. You know. It was such relief, isn't it to get to
the rifle range? And yeah, right and now and now you've got something.
It's you and the rifle, you know. And the way the Marine
Corps does that is is so beautifully designed, you know, they as you
point out, you've broken down in first phase and when you get to the
rifle range, you are in listened mode. And and all the punks who
thought they were great shots, you know, and I went hunting with Daddy.
Turn out turns out that they invariably are not the best at handling weapons.
And so a lot of these kids who you know, maybe grew up
in inner cities or even you know, women who never fight a weapon in
their lives, turn out to be expert shots. And it's the first thing
that they've achieved at boot Camp's yeah, that's one thing you do a boot
camp that you don't get nowhere else is like that. How long was the
snapping in? Was it a week or two weeks? Just just a week?
Yeah, yeah, nothing but snapping in. But then that first shot
down the range, down range, I mean first shot there was a four
but at least I knew I was near that, you know, I was
astounded, and you know, at two hundred meters because even you know later
two hundred meters seems like not a great distance, but when you are first
time shooting, that's a small round ball. And then when you go back
to the and DS what snapping in is and so one of the things you
know, and that was without sites. I mean, we didn't remember that
was now now they all I don't know why why did they qualify with with
sites? There was something about learning to shoot with iron sights back at five
hundred meters where you can barely see that front tip, you know, and
you know just to lay it against the man shaped target and when it does
so, it just covers up that black completely. You know, that that
feeling, that memory, it stays with you for life, and it teaches
you you don't you don't have to be taught about marksmanship again. Right up
to going through them, No, no, and so D asked what snapping
in was. And for people who hadn't been, who hadn't been Marines,
because they don't do this, I don't remember them doing in the army.
I don't think they did. But you spend like a week of basically dry
firing, where you learn the sling, the sling positions for each you know
how to create that tension with the sling in uh what was it, the
standing, the kneeling, the sitting, and the prone and and you spend
a week doing nothing but dry firing on barrels, which, believe it or
not, is a huge advantage when you actually go to to start shooting.
To put that in, to put that in context, right, so you
can imagine San Diego or Paras Island and you are outside six seven hours and
all you're doing with your weapon, and you've got it. You've got a
tight loot sling right on your on your upper arm, and you are just
practicing, by the numbers, dry firing your weapon. It is the most
incredibly boring, painful thing. But yeah, I mean the Marine Corps knows
how to teach how to shoot, and you think about it, Dave twenty
thousand. Twenty thousand recruits go through basic training every year ninety eight percent qualification
rate. Now I don't know how they're doing this, but sixty percent expert.
I mean, they it's really you know, they of course they're shooting
with with scopes. That's why I think is you know, that kind of
skews the statistics a little bit. You want us purists want to go back
to the basic because you can always teach someone to shoot with a scope.
Sure, but you can't go back and teach someone to shoot with iron science.
Yeah, or rather you have to write yeah, yeah, no,
that's true that you know, learning side alinement, side pictures or things like
that are are an important part of that process. But maybe they think that
you know, you have a scope, you'll always have a scope, you
know, an acog or an eotech or whatever it is you do. I
don't know, but doesn't it doesn't it bother you a little bit? It
does, But I also try not to be like the grumpy old man.
It's like, well back to my day, you know what I mean?
You know, yeah, like the like the guy who gets sold upset because
the Sikhs are allowed to wear you know, turbans while in uniform, or
or it's like you know, when I was a diver, it's like you
know, it's like, well, if you didn't do a walk in a
mark five you know, uh, you know, with with the big rig,
then you don't know how to dive. It's like, well, nobody
uses Mark five anymore. You know, It's just it was. It was
a rite of passage. Yeah, but people have to keep dragging it up
with sure. I mean I do though think that again, I think that
learning how to shoot with ironsight's first. It is an important fundamental and foundation.
But again I try not to get so caught up in the well they're
not doing it right. I mean, it's the Marine. They know how
to teach it. Listen, I think bout can. I think the Marine
Corps is basic training much better now than when I went through. I mean,
you know, I get it it. I mean when this was back
in the eighties and so you know, I mean you went through paras Island,
right, I know I went through Sando eighty nine. Oh okay,
okay, I'm sorry, but but you know, back in the even back
in the eighties, which isn't that long ago, Third Battalion paras Island was
off the charts as far as you know, just breaking the sop. It
was. It was standard. And I am not you know, I'm not
exagerating. I was, you know, I was. I was deed and
hard enough that I threw up, you know, by biodron instructor who was
on the Marine Corps boxing team, so he knew how to hit. Sadly,
you know, I had bear him no no ill feeling he was.
I still remember him sadly he called himself just a few years ago. But
but my point is that that was kind of the norm. You know,
I've got a scar here from from having my my head ground into or just
my forehead ground into the side of my rack, for not doing hospital corner
correctly. Do these things make us better? I doubt it. You know,
that's the thing. I think that a lot more attention is spent now
on actually teaching people things right, infantry skills, things they need to know.
You know, we've talked about your time in the Marine Corps and after
a lot. One story that I think we touched upon one time but really
didn't go into detail was Libya and your your ex Phil from Libya. Can
you can you can you lay this out? Give us give us yeah?
Yeah, the before absolutely. Yeah. So So the year is twenty eleven,
right, it's the Arab Spring, and I'm at Socks Special Special Operations.
No I'm not. I'm at Soccure Special Operations Command Europe. As that
sucks later and I am you know, I'm a lieutenant colonel action officer in
the J three. But at socks soccure back then. As you know,
in a lot of te socks special operations commands, you have a team that
is always on standby right in case something happens within the ao R. They
want to be able to say, hey, we've got a team down there
in soft guys with communicators, blah blah blah. And you know, typically
it's a feel great officer, a communications guy, and two or three other
guys, and that's they're kind of the nucleus if the TESC then needs to
send in a you know, a headquarters or a GTF or they're expected just
to represent the DESARC by themselves. So anyway, Libya, Libya is coming
to ship. It's getting bombed. Gaddafi is Gnafi's forces are holed up in
Tripoli and rebel forces are closing in on the capitol. The capital is getting
hit by artillery. Twenty thousand Sudanese workers are trying to get out through TRIPLEI
Airport. It is chaos. Militia are beating them back and the European Union
mounts a NEO basically European unions. No no, no, no, no,
no, let me let me get that straight. Actually there was a
British The British really spearheaded it and they commanded it with they headquarters from pj
HQ. They sent it out to Malta and then it tended and then European
it was kind of European Union nations that formed the nucleus around that. So
it wasn't a new EU operation. It was a British operation with the kind
of a loose affiliation of European nations supporting it. Thank you. Can you
tell us what a NEO is, Andy, Yeah, it's a non non
combatant evacuation operation. So within Tripoli itself there were tens of thousands of foreigners
who needed to get out and the city was, you know, extremely dangerous.
The US embassy had already left. They wasted no time. They got
down to malten and then realized that there were a lot of US citizens left
behind. I mean like thousands, you know, a lot of them living
in Americans And so a task force was set up in d C connecting these
people who are still left in TRIPLEI with the State that palm and who was
saying, hey, sorry, you know but if you head to the airport,
be able to find your way out. Well, Socure, headed by
General Repass at the time, is buying with sock Ath. Right. Remember
Special Operations Command Africa had just started under guy named General Hass, General Repass,
General Hass. They're both Green Berets, but they hate each other and
so they don't coordinate. You know, I mean it's you've seen this,
Dave, right, it's just kind of unprofessional behavior, right, you know
what I mean. Crisis and you've got two headquarters that are competing instead of
collaborating, and you you want the other guy to drop the ball so that
he looks like that's right. Yeah, So you know Libya is in Africa,
right, but Malta, where the operation is is in Europe. So
you can see there's clear there's there's ad buying lane and Repass is, hey,
this is our ball game and you can't support it that and you cal'm
deputy commander, send me down there, and you know with instructions, Hey,
this is you know, this is Yukom's game pretty much. So at
least we have we we obviously have staken it so you know, keep us
informed. Well, I get there and the Brits turn to us right away
because we're Americans, right, we must come with all the resources. But
it's just me and the radio operator because the other dude missed this light.
But what we do have is we've got a long list of people that we
want evacuated because we're in contact now with the State parmitent DC and they're like,
hey, can you get these people out? And so we've got all
these European countries offering their their aircraft or you know, the military aircraft by
into triple and we're trying to get Americans on those aircraft. Right, So
it's kind of reverse all the roles. It's not the US's backbone. We
are, you know, we're kind of party crashes and we're trying I mean,
but but you know, everyone's supportive. Everyone wants to get all the
foreigners out of that. But every country is probably going to give their own
citizens priority. And that becomes an issue because we we I'm on the phone.
We get one other person out to help us, who's from Sarkath.
Right. Female turns out to my memorane and she's very useful too. She's
manning the phone with the State Department, and so they're giving us names and
numbers. We're contacting those people in triple and giving them directions to the airport
in Tripoli, and then we're working with the guys you know around us to
to make sure that the you know, the flight's going in, uh know,
that they're picking up these these Americans. Right It's it gets incredibly complicated
because no foreigners can make it through to the tarmac because of all the you
know, Ganafi's goons. So we need to start sending guys in diplomats to
help escort people out to the planes. Otherwise they're just not going to get
out. And things are really turning to ship now. You know, you're
getting artillery land around the airport that off these guys are getting increasingly belligerent and
aggressive, and desperation level among those you know, people trapped in the building
and the airport building is also rising. And you've got these twenty thousand Sudanese
still surrounding the whole area, just ramping up the tension, and there's and
they're starting to you know, get froggy and flight with the militia into this
into all of this comes an American family, right, and I get a
call. They've got you know, two kids, blah blah blah, and
I'm talking them in to the airport and at the same time trying to get
them a flight. And there's you know, there's a Bulgarian plane that is
supposed to you know, pick them up, but something happens they're forced to
leave. And so this this family stranded. Well, we've got an Italian
flight coming in. But the problem is now that there are no diplomats volunteering
to help her school people out because it is becoming really hazardous. So the
brit said, hey, we'll put some of our guys in. You know,
we'll give the British embassy vests military guys, and but we we could
use an American right because these are Americans. So I said, okay,
you know, I'll go, but I'm not. I can't wear an American
vest. Fucking I'm not coming out, so you know, give me a
British one. So I did. So I went in with the British Embassy
you know, vest and everything, and it looked legit by some This is
where it started to turn weird. So we we landed. Uh, and
it's exactly as expected, you know it is. It's like mad Max.
I mean, there's these dudes tearing around the tarmac in in uh tech technicals,
yeah, with you know, flags, yelling weird shit, you know,
obviously hostile towards us, but but keeping but aware that you know,
we are protected to some extent. But then as we you know, I
start walking towards the tarmac, the I mean towards the airport buildings with these
two other breads and these good offye militia guys intercept us, and they they
start talking to the other two. The other two have they do have legitimate
ID cards, right Obviously I don't. So they get so they let them
go on and they're like, why do you haven't I said, look,
I don't know. I'd left back there, so you're British blah blah blah,
and they started. One of them had lived in London. Of course
it's Louis, you know, living ins in London, and no kidding,
he started asking me where I had lived, blah blah blah. Unfortunately,
I mean I have them in London. They clearly he knew it very well
and he knew really spookling a new kind of the area where I had been.
But but I passed. I seem to pass that test because he was
like, yeah, yeah, okay, good to go. You ask me
what football team I support? Whatever? We you know, we fist bumped
and I walked onto the building and there's a Bulgarian diplomat there and I said,
hey, do you know where the Americans are? There's an American family
I'm looking for because I was. I was really worried. But that was
a big mistake because I said it out loud, obviously and it was overheard,
I think, because I think that's why. As we walked back,
so the American family was there and and we got them out. The Bulgarian
led them out to the plane and I was following and the same the same
Canafi dudes come back and they they stopped right in front of me and they
just said, get in the get they they've changed their athletics has changed to
get in the GEP. I went, why, you know, I'm paid
this and I'm going to go back with these guys and like you you're not
You're an American and I went no, no, no, we already talked
about this and I and now I'm edging towards the plane because my heart's just
hammering, and one of them makes a grab at me, and I just
I run, you know everything, I knew they wouldn't start. I didn't
know. I didn't think they were going to start shooting because the plane was
there, and you know, so I run up the tailgate. There's Italians.
It's an Italian plane. H Bulgarian wine left, there's an Italian plane.
There's Italian soldiers on the tailgate. There's about four or five soft guys
and I just run past them. And they've got weapons, but there's there's
no way they're going to you know, hundreds of and I but I just
say, you know, I say hey quickly, they hey, they're after
me. I'm just gonna hang out here for a bit. Well they you
know, I get on the plane. They don't come on the plane.
And I figured it because it's Italian. And remember Libya has a strange relationship
with the Italians. It's kind of love hate, but it's very close at
this time, and Gadaffi in particular is hoping to have an escape laws with
the Italians. So I think that's why they didn't storm the plane or you
know, drag me off. But we're waiting there, and they surround the
plane, you know, these other they call in, you know, other
vehicles, and they it's getting dark and they put on their lights and they're
just like yelling and come on out, and some of it in English.
We're gonna get you, motherfucker. And I'm just sitting there feeling. First
of all, I'm feeling like a coward a little bit because I'm among women
and children. I run onto a plane, but you know, I no
regrets. I mean, that's self preservation. I had to do that,
otherwise I would have disappeared forever, you know. And I knew that they
might hold up plane, but I knew they weren't going to execute, you
know, or do anything to the people on the plane. But I knew
too it was my only chance Saturday that if I left that plane, I
was done for. You know. It wasn't like I would show up again
somewhere, right, yeah. Yeah. But it was getting you know,
I was thinking, what's going to happen? Are they're going to let it
take off? You know, It's just awful feeling. And the pilot came
back and sat down. I thought, shit, he's going to keep me
off this plane, which I off. Just refuse and you know, I
explain what's going on, he said, to my great relief, he said,
well, don't get off the plane. You know, this is Italian,
this is Italian soil. They're not going to come on. We'll wait
it out. They got to let us go sooner or later. I'm like,
okay, I hope you're right. But the ramping up and the noise
outside it doesn't sound, you know, too good, and it sounds frankly,
so they're going to storm the plane. And why wouldn't they, you
know, I mean, there's no there's no government left, there's no repercussions
that they just come on and grab me. And I think they're starting to
think through this because they're getting nearer. And then the pilot comes back and
he says, hey, I've got authorization too. You know, I reported
this. I had to report out my chain of command because I can't make
it back to Malta now in time. I've got to go back to Rome.
I've been told to pay, you know, to let us let us
take off, and he goes, I got to you know, water cash
here. He had a whole bag. Clearly they anticipated some kind of issue,
and he walked off, you know, he's escorted by the militia dudes
into the office and he's he goes off with one of the soldiers when they
you know, the Italian soldiers, and he's gone for an eternity. And
he comes back eventually, and he says, okay, we're in the clear.
Let's get off. Let's take off. And it goes front and we
we you know, we start to he starts to wind up the engines and
everything. We start to move, and then these bustards come out and block
the plane again, and clearly they've decided whatever the fuck happened back then,
it doesn't apply to them, right, And there was some other other argument
that going on up front, with the pilot yelling out of the window,
and some reason, the jeeps pulled aside and we took off and someone you
know, they one of the crew members next to me, the load master,
you know, because I was just like, oh, thank god,
And the load master said, hey, man, you know Italian. He
didn't say man, he said, hey, there is still there's an eighty
eighth bread. We've got word that that we we are that shots were taken
earlier and I forget what the system was. And at you know, the
Bulgarian plane is taken off. So we we're concerned about this. I'll think,
fund wish you hadn't told me that, But nevertheless, you know,
I mean, when we get the work, we're outside Libyan airspace. I
I just I've never felt relief like that, you know, I mean I
was I thought my career was over, but I didn't care, Yeah,
because you know, I was under orders, all of us around the orders.
No Americans would would go into Libya and I wouldn't have except you know,
I mean, this was one of those situations. What are you going
to do? What's anyone going to do? I mean, leave the family
there. I mean it's you know, that's is that there were a lot
of Americans in Libya, both Libying Americans and like American nationals, you know,
like straight up American national Not that Libyan Americans aren't, but you know
what I mean, but but you know they can't blend in. That's that's
really. But we have we have the one hundred and seventy third of the
China. That is that is really you know, they are supposed to be
a you know, I don't want to say a special operations unit, but
they're but they're they're supposed to be right there at the peak of that to
be able to respond to those threats quickly. You have fifth cores. I
think in Germany you have tenth Special Forces, you have third Special Forces.
Why, if there's a way to do this without being political, why in
a in a non combatant evacuation scenario like that, when the MBSC has already
d D mound, why is our government leaving all these Americans to It's yeah,
it's an absurd It seems like an absurd decision, Dave. You know
when you think about all the things that we've taken risk for in our lives,
and most of those most of those risks involved, I didn't know,
taking an objective doing ex but the tactical tasks not saving American lives right right,
and and so there is no it. I find it extremely frustrating that
then I'm in this situation where we really could have used dudes with weapons doing
what we are trained to do, secure the area, you know, established
the evacuation assembly points and all of this stuff. But we didn't. And
I think we looked, you know, I felt embarrassed at times being an
American there because we were we were begging off of others, you know,
to carry our load. Basically. Yeah, yeah, I'm not embarrassed to
be an American, you know. I know what you mean though, that
it's it's sort of like they're going into these situations. How come we aren't.
Yeah, we wanted say something out of it, we needed we needed
something out of it, but we weren't prepared to Roger about resources for me.
And sorry, and and and we're talking here specifically. We're not talking
about some you know, random US objective. We're talking about saving actual American
lives, of pulling them out of out of these perilous situations. Yeah,
there's really very there can be very few less ambiguous missions than than a neo.
Uh right, but you know, I so, so it didn't end
my career. I ended my career events, but but but it could well
have. And uh and and thanks to Repass and a few other people,
thanks to the ambassador actually, because what what happened? You know? So
I the plane landed in Rome, right, I'm supposed to be back in
Malta. I'm supposed to be reporting the Defense attache every evening giving her an
update. But I'm not I mean now in Rome and it's midnight, and
worse than that, news has already got out that there was an American on
the ground in Tripoli. But something happened in my favor that was almost inconsequential,
and that was earlier in the day when a Bulgarian well I'm sorry earlier,
yeah, earlier in the day, as I was walking when I first
got off the aircraft, before the Bulgarian aircraft got off, there was an
argument going on over there, and I walked over and it was it was
a group of five or six people dressed in traditional African dress trying to get
on the plane, and the Bulgarians were saying, hey, no, you
know you're not blah blah blah blah. But I spoke to the you know,
the kind of the one of these guys, and apparently it was the
ambassador to Sierra Leone and his diplomatic party, and the Bulgarians didn't speak very
good English, so they didn't understand, so I explained it. Anyway,
This happened in I don't know, thirty forty five seconds, and they let
them on the plane and that's when I went on, Well, this guy,
God bless him. You know. He gets back to Malta and the
first thing he does he calls the US ambassador, who he knows, and
he says, thank you so much for sending that guy health there to you
know, he was a life saver. He got us out of there.
We probably wouldn't have got out there. Sent ambassadors like an American, are
you sure? And so the ambassador calls in the defense attash and says,
do we have Tell me we don't have an American on the ground in Tripoli
and uh and and the defense attache, who's still a fering, said,
sir, I know, we don't. Andy Morman is at the at the
Neo Center, we don't have anyone in Marta. Yeah. But then she
walked out and she thought, hm hmm. She thought about it that evening.
The next morning, she drove out in the Neo Center and asked and
asked where I was at that moment. I'm not lying. I walked in
the other door. I just caught an early flight from Rome landed in Malta.
I looked like dog shit, you know. It was a one shave
and talking and I walk in the other side of the door, and she
goes, she's just silent and beckons and she goes, Okay, don't even
tell me a story, just tell me the truth. And she goes,
were you and tripley? And I went yeah, and she goes, are
you out of your mind? You know, you know you're going to be
lucky to get away with Article fifteen. Blah blah blah blah, anyway,
the whole and she goes back to the embassy and goes into the ambassador and
says, I'm so sorry, sir, you know I was wrong. We
did have an American underground. To his credit, he doesn't lose his mind.
He says, is he okay? And Jane goes, yeah, he's
back here, and he goes, well, good, thank him. That's
all they need to know. And that was it. And then much later
I got a I mean about a week later, when I was on the
way to the airport, I got a call from the embassy saying, Hey,
I'm just wondering if you have time available now, because the ambassador would
love to meet you. Like how often does an ambassador do that? Oh,
I've just got empty time. I'm like, oh, you know,
I want to see that dude, something like shit, I said in my
end trouble, and you know it's like he said, no, no,
no, he just wants to he wants to thank you. You can thank
him, and you know, I really appreciate it. So that that guy
who's nameless is a hero to me. And General repasses too, because of
course he had heard about it when I got back. But it went no
further when you know, Yukom, I believe the Yukon deputy command in you
and repassed new but it. Yeah, so so when you were deployed from
soccure, you were sent to Malta, which is where you were supposed to
park your ass. That's right, and that's exactly coordinate, uh and receive
any Americans. But there was nobody on the ground in Tripoli, and that
was the missing piece. Yeah, So what were what we were doing to
begin with, David, is we were using the Irish and Swedes and the
Brits, so they had diplomats in the building and it and but then the
Swedes, you know, the Swede said it was too dangerous for them,
and then we were counting on the Irish to help the you know, the
the Americans on this one flight, but like two hours before they got the
word that they were they weren't allowed to go back into TRIPLEI either. It
was just becoming too too dangerous. Uh And and so you know, it's
two Brits and they had to deal with a ton of other civilians. That
wasn't anyone who would spend the time locating these Americans. You know, as
it happened, I didn't really need to locate them. You know, as
it happened, they probably would have been Okay, I've got to be honest
about this, But I didn't know that. Sure, you know, I
didn't know that. And and I've been talking to I being the one talking
to them, I being the one assuring them, you know. And so
when when that link, when that touch point of hey, this Irish diplomat
is going to meet you here his names, when that guy disappears, you
know, I'm unless it's me, I don't have trust in the process,
right, They're going to come out too many bad things are happening all that
time. And why, I mean, why did the Europeans. I know
you mentioned the relationship between uh Libya and it's particularly Goodafi and Italy, but
why did Bulgaria. Why did these other European countries. Yeah, that's a
good question. I was going to ask if if it was because because you
know, for a while, we led godoffy on right the United States.
We're like, hey, if you get this stuff squared away, you're okay.
And Gadaffi went out of his way to get squared away and felt,
I think he felt like the US that he was in, he was in
okay with the US. He had done, he had complied to everything that
we had asked him to do. And then we basically said, okay,
you know what, good job, screw you were out. Yeah, and
so was there was there like a bit of of contention then with with with
United States military and diplomats. None, that's all nothing but the most professional
and and you know, it's just a great group of guys, David,
those guys like you and me. I mean, that's what made this operation
fun because it was ald military dudes from different countries, right, making shit
happen, without a plan, without formal structure. It was literally, hey
i've got a plane coming in, you know the Irish guy. This actually
happened. Hey we've got the Prime Minister's plane he's given it to us for
this evacuation mission. We're flying it in just outside Tripley and we'll pick up
this French family, you know, who's driven out there in a car and
fly back. And this is like an a sesna, you know. Yeah,
I mean, people are using all kinds of aircraft just to get civilians
out. And and the fact that no one was saying, well, we
can't do that, blah blah blah. It was it doesn't matter, It
doesn't matter what nationality. By what I meant though, or what I was
asking Andy, was you know, obviously Bulgaria, Ireland, these other countries
could send their people in even Yeah. But but was there a reason that
that the US like you as a when when they thought that you were,
you know, a US soldier or diplomat. Was there a reason why the
US was singled out? Is it because Goadaffi felt that like the US had
stabbed him in the back. Were these other euro Pink countries were given a
little bit more leeway? That's a really good question. You know, I
hadn't I hadn't thought about that. But but what you just said is is
is right? Of course, you know, I mean, we I think
are the way we let things happen with Gadaffi was foolish, very foolish and
after pretty much like yeah, lined up to what we had asked them to
do. Yeah, and uh and and I think we lost a lot of
Ustan Yeah, you know, I mean it was kind of the twenty eleven
We lost a lot of sta anyway with the Syria red line stuff. Yeah,
we were slow to react in Libya. We reacted in the wrong way.
We weren't, you know. I mean it's yeah, and so the
the they not it the neo was from the US perspective was you know,
it was a the US did nothing except for US. I mean, uh,
but I don't you know, all that just seems to be been washed
away, No one really, right, I mean, Libya is still a
mess. Yeah, it's it's been causing problems since well since twenty eleven.
Actually, yeah, I'm still curious about sort of the turn and policy and
we made towards Godafi, you know. And the thing is, like Gadafi
was no angel, just like Saddam was no angel. Like but but waiting
for an angel to arise in some of those countries is you know, you
you you look for stability, and you look for the people that. Yeah,
that's you know, we mirror image too much then we we we think
that everyone all they need is jet to Sonia democracy and they'll be happy.
But you know, in the hierarchy of needs is you know, food and
water and security and uh, you know, we saw that in a rock
right off the invasion, right and we thought everyone would be ecstatic that Sadom
was gone that actually they missed the security, well they would rather they were
ecstatic at first, and then when there was no running water and no power
and you know, you know people, you know, you don't blame countries
for having sort of this short term memory when they're when they're back to sort
of living like peasants. You know, it's like, yes, Saddam is
a dictator, but the chance that that is going to affect my life is
minimal compared to you know, everybody shares this common kind of Yeah, yeah,
that's right. The sense the feeling of anarchy is is far more dislocating
than the feeling of living within a tyranny. Sure, and esoty political states.
Conditions mean nothing when you are when you're struggling with those basics. Yeah,
I think that's a really interesting point. Dave. Yeah, hey do
do we do we have any questions on Patreon? Okay, So first off,
Jesse Oda, thank you very much for subscribing to the channel. We
really appreciate. And Corbyn, thank you very much. How do you see
the US adapting to a more multi polar world? Mm hmm, well,
I'd like to see US adapt at all. You know, I think I
think I'm pausing his or not just saying something vacuous. You know, we
we we bemoan the kind of the lack of US leadership in the world,
but the world still looks to the US leadership, you know. I mean
after Gaza, after seven October, you know, no one cared what Putin
or China had to say. Everyone was rooted to you know, what is
the US going to do? And I mentioned that because I think that's a
clear reminder that whatever we may think, you know, and there's talk now
of potentially more isolationist approach, but whatever we may think, the world does
still look to US leadership. And I, for one thing, that's a
good thing, and I for one thing that we should provide that leadership.
You know, we can bemoan that we can say, oh, we're better
off by ourselves and we're not the world's policeman. Or we can say,
hey, we're a superpower and this is kind of our responsibility and we need
to suck it up and do it, you know. And because it's not
as though we can just become a wallflower. You know, we are there.
People have expectations, and if we don't meet those expectations, then we
are worse off than before and we're losing our position. I know that sounds
like a very facile thing to say, but I yes, suddenly, but
that understanding, that understanding that we are the United States is still looked to
as a leader whatever whatever dross. You know, we may be hearing about
the non aligned countries and this and that. Yes, yes, the world
is not as aligned as it was during the Cold Bowl. Yes the US
is not you know, such a clear polar position of leadership as it was
during the Cold bull Those times are gone. We need to adapt, but
we are still expected to leave. It's interesting too, because you know,
we talk about isolationism from sort of a political perspective or a sort of a
policy perspective, right in the sense of if if a new president is elected,
Will they become a more conservative president or whatever? Will they become more
isolationists. But we also look at isolations from a perspective of I think during
this administration we've lost eleven embassies in the last three and a half years,
which leads to its own type of isolationism. Right, yeah, I mean
not not putting, not bolstering the State Department, right, I mean the
State Department is under resource that I think as is. You know, I
don't mean to go down this road, but my point is that diplomacy,
diplomacy is how we exert leadership, is how we demonstrate leadership. So we
should be really, really cognizant of who we put in those positions, both
political appointees and the guys that you know, the kind of ethos within the
State Department, who we put in charge of the State Department. It'll be
interesting interesting to see what So I agree, I agree with you. It's
not a political decision, oh we're going to be isolatedious or not. It's
it's kind of where do you stack your talent, where do you put your
your your focus of the tension, right, And if we are going to
be isolationist way or if we are going to cut ties more with the world,
then why do we have such a massive military, right? You know,
I mean these are uh. I I don't get like you, Dave.
I don't get wound out by these these questions. I don't let politics
get me in a state of you know, the same state of anxiety that
that I see many people in. But I do, Yeah, I've obviously
I have concerns. I'm just the cynic, you know. I mean,
after honestly, after the after after watching Cabul fall the way it did,
right, you know, it's I'm not focused on the mistakes in the last
two years. I'm looking at just directtional list foreign policy of the last two
decades, basically right, right, and and honestly, you know, the
the uh you know, you talk about the the not the weakening of the
IDF per se, or the weakening of the US military per se, but
the weakening of the politicians and the policies. And we see that in the
West or in America, going back since Vietnam, this idea of the troops
on the ground can do everything you ask them to. They they they can.
They can exceed in body count, they can exceed in objectives taken,
but without a political plan, without an idea of what victory looks like,
and without a political will, regardless of the administration and the politic you know,
the the Republican or Democrat or whatever party you want to say, where
where does that? Where does that leave soldiers in the United States military or
the British military. Are the idea in these in these sort of Western leaning
countries, are these these liberal democracies? I would say that it's really,
you know, it this almost I mean, it would be a very boring
book, but it's it almost invites the book to be written about it,
because I do have feelings that the US military, and I probably the only
fair to say that this applies to to other Western militaries is carries a lot
of dead weight. Let me just put it that way. And you know,
I'm not talking about private Smucket Telly. You know you can't do three
bullets. I'm just I'm saying that. I mean, think about it,
twenty eight thousand people in the Pentagon. We should be solving we should be
you know, cold fusion, world hunger. But I think I think those
of us have been in the military, see how so much of that talent
gets wasted in process, right. I mean, this is what I'm saying
is that the US military has become a bureaucracy. It has to be a
bureaucracy. But the problem is that a bureaucracy I think has sapped its war
fighting ability. And I can't show proof for that, but I can tell
you anecdotally that that among officers, even combat arms officers, I encounter,
even in the Marine Corps, a very high concern for risk, you know,
a very a focus on risk. So you know, so they almost
became center stage finding reasons not to do things rather than to do things.
And you know, this became even among other otherwise very competent, talented officers
kind of became the norm. It's it is rare to come across truly innovative
feeling, innovative thinking in the military, Dave, wouldn't you agree, Yes,
outside and it's not I mean, it's not that it doesn't exist.
It's not that there are not n c os and officers that are capable of
innovative thinking. It's that it's that somebody has to approve their plans, and
and whoever is approving their plans has a career that they're worried about and how
they look and look. I don't know what happened in the IDF with with
the with the officers that ignored the intelligence, but we know that in Afghanistan
and Iraq, I don't think one officer over the rank of five suffered from
decisions made or are lies told or I can't think of the single officer who
was fired for tanctical incompetence. Correct, Now, officers were fired when people
got killed for you know, in fire support negligence, right, yes,
right, but not for tactical but general who went out there and basically made
no headway during the war but said the adway was being made, none of
them got fired. Yeah, yeah, that's very It's very true. I
mean, it's it. The investigations looked at processes, right, but they
didn't look at culture, right. And I think I think culture had a
lot to do with our failure in Afghanistan. And I think, you know,
it's lack of It was lack of honesty. You know, we always
pride ourselves on integrity, but we were dishonest with ourselves again and again and
again, commander to commander to commander every time. Oh hey, this place
was ship when we came in. But you know we kind of turned it
around in the air, and you know all these place names that we thought,
uh, noble milestones of our success, you know, you name it
Cargol to our Gomen. Yeah they're meaningless, of course, you know they
were, and they were and that they were always in Teliban Teliban, hence
we were printing it. Yeah. And the thing is we went to this
to this sort of metrics or measurable war where you know, when you have
people like Scott Man and these other people out there who are conducting these village
stability operations that are showing they're they're showing progress, but that type of progress
doesn't brief as well as how many bodies you stacked, That's right, Yeah,
it is. So then their programs get shut down, you know,
the cornerstone of counter grill operations get shut down where these direct action missions are.
It's where it's at. I couldn't agree more. You know, it's
the same thing with the Combine Action Civil I'm sorry, the civil action program
in Vietnam. Right, the brand division tremendously successful, but but it was
it got none of the publicity, you know, none at all. And
those guys didn't get any of the kind of the glory, right, I
mean, do you see do you see camp battle streamers on? Yeah,
we had one of the CAP guys on our show, did you Yeah,
And it was an it was an exceptionally successful program. But it's one of
those things that hey, look, stability, stabilizing an area. It's boring.
It's boring. Yeah, it's mundane, it's hard work, and success
means it's quiet. Yeah. Yeah. And when you about, uh,
the CAP program, you know, they were essentially simil Affairs guys. I
mean, they were infantry guys, they were all they'd all been in hard
combat and and in fact, the guys coming out of Casan while the CAP
has kind of a you know, it's, hey, this is going to
be a little easier. But it wasn't easy because it was during the time
when when the villagers were coming under continuous attack and those CAP and the CAP
guys were taking heavy casualties and they were there's a lot of heroic actions took
place with you know, the Silver, the the CAP platoons and you know,
the popular forces, the rough puff village protection guys. It's but you're
right, a really and and and this, and despite all the failures in
Vietnam, here was the nugget of success. Just the same in Afghanistan.
But we'll ignore those, right, we didn't learn right, We did learn
from camp, but we tried to implement it again. We not just in
Afghanistan, but the Marine Corps did in Iraq with some success, you know,
but focused focus not so much on the on the agriculture, but but
embedding, you know, with the police, but also helping local the local
economy. You know, the Marine Corps doesn't have our own civil affairs guys,
so it was our you know, it's basically our company, commanders and
sarchal. We're doing this. Two more questions real quick. I am corporate,
Thank you very much. We still provide an opportunity to build a better
future, as opposed some places simply impose a future on you. Yeah.
I mean, I'm in the United States for a reason. I'm an immigrant.
I chose to be here, and I choose to be here now,
and and it's yeah, for all the reasons you guys. Yeah, it's
absolutely you can. You can still craft your way to the American dream.
That's really whoever you are right there, unless you join the military. Well,
I mean, I think honestly, honestly, I I you know,
I ate at the buffet of the US military, and I had a great
time everywhere I went. I think it really depends on your attitude there.
There is a certain amount of luck to what leadership you get wherever you're at,
Like, leadership can make a huge difference. But I loved everything that
I did. I embraced everything that I did. There were plenty of learning
opportunities that I pursued. You know, you know, you can go to
the military and just do your time and be bit you about it and get
out and go to college or whatever. But you know, the military opportunity
and then and then miss it the rest of your life. Sure, sure,
and then poor people silly with stories about your voyears marine cool. Yeah,
No, I mean I I would you never hit me. I mean,
I've being critical of the marine coll but you know I feel the same
way as you. I mean, I wouldn't have changed. I wouldn't have
traded it for anything. But the critical isn't isn't from a character assassination point,
like you know, the Bloomin dolls and these people like that. It's
like my family. If you love something, you want it to be what
it can be, and and the critique comes from a place of love,
and it can be better than what it is or what it was. Yeah,
you know, Andrew Dunbar, thank you very much. What are your
thoughts on the rumblings of North Korea troops in the Ukraine? I? Ah,
I've heard is rumblings. Have you heard anything more than than that.
I haven't seen an article. Yeah, you know what, nothing would surprise
me at this stage. Have you seen what is true? What has happenings?
The Russians have been press s ganging other nationalities into fighting in Ukraine,
the Nepalese and then in one incredible case, Indians a bachelor party. And
this is kind of sad, but now most of us would not choose to
go to Moscow for a bachelor party, but evidently in the Russians have been
advertising in India or various trips to include, uh, you know, setting
up bachelor party divide with the you know, Eastern capitals at a cut price
rate. Where there's a reason why it's cut prices. These gentlemen found out
as they ended up in Ukraine. You know, they got they showed at
the Bachelor party, blah blah blah cors of the evening, they all get
arrested for something trumped up and then they they find themselves fighting in Ukraine and
they only get out of it when the Indian Embassy is informed. I mean,
it's you can't make the shut up. He doesn't. It's sort of
like it's just getting your people. It's sort of like getting a modeling contract
out of the UAE, right, It's like approach with caution. Yeah,
yeah, exactly. So yeah, so Andy, that's it for the questions.
I mean, we we really we love you, we love having you
on. We really appreciate it. Well, it feeling is mutual, and
I hope, I hope Board your your audience. He always end up talking
quite well. Don't look at that. That's me, man. I'm like,
without Jack here to keep me on in line, man, I I'll
ramble all night. No, it was a great, great discussion and cutos
to Teamhouse and to your audience and eyes On. Yeah, please makes the
magic happen on both shows. Oh bless you. That's right. He is
the don't forget, don't forget to check out eyes On, don't forget to
check out Andy's book. The linker is in the description. Oh yeah,
please find my book. Yes, I I highly, highly recommend his book.
It doesn't matter even if you were not somebody who normally reads military literature
or or reads I mean going out to all our marine friends out there.
No, but even if you're not somebody who normally reads, this is a
very human story. Think of the life of Pie in fatigues, and I
cannot help that. We need to end this now. That is the light.
Yeah. Uh so Jack will be back next week. Military version of
Pine Yeah yeah. Jack will be back next week. So for those of
you who have been bored because of my narration, uh, he'll be back
to guide us and thank you very much. We really appreciate it. Check
out out eyes On check out uh when the Tempest gathers. Also the page
on the Patreon Patreon dot com slash the Teamhouse. Yes, next week episodes.
I'm checking to see who we have for next week. Hold on one
second, I'm sorry, Um, we have David fil fielding. Jack read
his book very excited. I don't know what he does or anything, but
I'm sure it's military or intelligence related. I hope outstanding introduction. Thank you,
it was you have to write that one down, all right, everyone,
all right, thank you everybody. We really appreciate it. See you
next week.