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Hey guys, it's Jack. I
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Operations, cobt Ops Asbiona, the
Team House with Your Hopes, Jack Murphy

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and David Park. Hey, everybody, welcome to episode two eighty six of

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The Team House. I'm Dave Park. Jack Murphy is on vacation right now

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and we'd love to welcome our return
guest, Andy Melbourne. Real quick,

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before we get into it, I
just want to thank our sponsor for tonight.

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Tonight's show is sponsored by Better Help. That's Better h e LP,

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That's Better Help dot Com slash Teamhouse. Andy, Welcome back to the

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show. Love you man, We
miss you. How are you doing?

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You guys are like gluttons for punishment
every every week and then I think it's

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the fifth time on this I'm well, I'm very glad to be back,

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Dave, and I want to find
out. I want to ask how you've

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been and how you've been the last
year. But then these going to slide

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track me and say back to whatever
he has on the script today. But

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give us a quick quick shot of
yourself, Dave. What's going on in

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your life? Oh, what's going
on in my life? You know I'm

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interviewing Dave. Yeah, No,
it's fine. And you know, like

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you're a professional now your your show
eyes on on this channel is you know

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you guys are are knocking it out
of the park. No, this year

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has been a good year for me. You know, I did some tech

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advising on Netflix show, which was
a lot of fun, a lot more

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fun than I ever thought it could
be yeah, no kidding, like military

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tank, Yeah, military, and
you know all the things from showing marine

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is how to blouset their boots to
showing how you know, guys how to

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clear it. Yeah. So a
little bit of surveillance here and there,

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and you know, no, betting
down and tying your shoe isn't the right

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way to detect surveillance. But no, it's it's it's it's a very fun

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industry to be in when you work
with actors and writers who really want to

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get right. And fortunately for the
show I was working on, the actors

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and writers really wanted to get it
right and listen to you, you know,

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and I think more and more that's
yeah, because it's it's punny the

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way I mean, you know how
veteran's are. It's like just one small

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thing in a movie. Well,
even though the rest of the movie may

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be good. You know, a
marine saluting inside with that is cover.

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You know a few good men,
right, that sent everyone so so having

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that having someone who pays attention to
that cool. Yeah, and it pays,

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I imagine, and you may have
your foot in the doll. Yeah,

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think that That's what I'm hoping is
the foot in the door. You

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know, the pay is good for
sort of you know, when it's my

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first time and you know, and
it's it's definitely it's like working on a

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team. It's like being an enlisted
guy on a small team with an officer,

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because you know the director and the
writers, they they have their vision.

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You say, when you say officer, it sounds like a swell word

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I only sometimes No, No,
it's you know, there's the way to

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do it right, and there's the
way. You're like this, I would

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never do this, I would never
do this way. But if the director

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has a vision and their artistic vision
and they want it to happen this way,

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it's like, Okay, I wouldn't
do it this way, but if

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I were going to do it this
way, this is how I do it.

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And you know, it's all about
especially when you're a tech advisor,

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it's it's all about compromising. You
know, it's about really just contributing and

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supporting the show the way you can. And at the end of the day,

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without getting eric and saying absolutely,
I mean absolutely, you know,

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and at the end of the day, if you know the director wants something

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different, that's their vision. It's
their baby, you know. Yeah,

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so yeah, it was. It's
a lot of fun. So that's that's

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been the primary thing, and it's
it's another it's another string to your bow.

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Well, what's the time quiver to
your era? I mean, another

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goose in my flock crow and my
murder? Yeah, many many And actually

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you know, uh, it was
it's a front of the show trip who

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actually made the connection for me to
get this. So m Trip. I'm

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not going to call it his last
name, but I I you've probably met

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him before. Sorry, it definitely
wasn't that Trip, but it was.

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But it was a front of the
show trip who I think you've met before.

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He made the connection for me.
Yea, there is no Trip mccolla.

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He does not exist. And then
uh, and then the the primary

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the guy who brought me on,
the primary tech advisor, Doug Pattison,

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Uh, former agency guy, very
very cool guy who's done this quite a

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bit. So yeah, that's moosically
word word of mouth. Good on you,

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Dave. Yeah, it feels like
I mean, it's been a it's

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been a it feels like a year, but it's been around February since I

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last a year. It's been a
long it's been a long year, but

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it's been you know, from my
perspective, it's it's been very different than

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the year proceeding in Ukraine. But
you know, like we were talking about

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before I came to the show,
it's it's a year that I really needed,

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really needed to get my house in
order. Yeah. Well, yeah,

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you guys have been doing you know, you and Jason been doing the

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Eyes on, which is going great, and I know you have various guests

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on. I can't really come on
to be I guess that because you guys

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talk in depth about current events and
I'm not really qualified talk about anything other

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than constructs. Actually you get there
are by name requests, but Dave,

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because there are you know, I
mean, you know how it is,

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whatever side we argue, there's going
to be people who oppose. So it

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seems as though you are the universal
Devil's advocates. So whatever side, Jason

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and I seem to be varying tools, specifically on Israel or whatever. You

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know. I mean, we try
not to take signs, but the comments

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a voice why, I mean,
we need to bring daveon to give another

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opinion, so just like I mean, dying to do that, but well

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I can come on and play like
contrarian. I'll have no idea if I'm

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accurate or not, but I have
no problem forming an opinion and sticking by

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it regards of any facts. As
long as you say that beforehand, like

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preface it, You're okay, yeah, do whatever you want. Yeah,

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yeah yeah. So the you know, the one of the biggest things that

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kind of got me moving again after
Mozart group was, you know, sadly,

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the incident on seven October, the
end of course, the whole the

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horde of events that have occurred since
then. So I got to a commission

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to write a book about it.
And initially it was going to be about

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seven October, right, But then
when I start, you know, I

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going back and forth with the publisher, I said, if I'm going to

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write about seven October, I've got
to really, you know, write about

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why it happened and what led to
it and and and in fact, you've

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got to go back to the late
seventies really for that, you know,

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both within the IDF and and and
weapon Israel. But I mean, certainly,

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if you're going to focus on idea
failure is on seven October leading up

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to seven October, not just idef. But intelligence failure is you have to

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go back to the lead seventies,
you know, and and and then and

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then of course, when when you're
talking about uh Israel, Gaza, you've

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got to bring in his Bala,
bring in his Molla, you know,

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Iran, Iran, And then you
know what the United States is doing.

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And then of course the you know, the drone strike occurred when I was

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actually out in Israel, which is
ironic because I've you know, I worked

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on a on a plan to defend
Israel against threats such as that, and

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and I guess this was the ultimate
test that the guy who worked on the

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plan to sit in televied during the
attack. But you see what I'm saying,

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the as events continued, and then
you've got this extraordinary and again,

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I mean, I absolutely it's very
important to avoid being partisan in any way

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in this book. I just you
know, I'm trying. I'm digging up

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and talking about facts, and that's
very important. And such a highly emotional

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charged topics. Something either happened or
it didn't happen, Right, I'm keeping

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opinions out of it. I'm going
to let the reader make up their own

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opinions. And of course. You
know, in the end of course,

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people say, well, you've chose
to mention those facts are not those I

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mean, there's no there's no chance
that I'm going to emerge from this with

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a reputation of strict objectivity. But
I'm doing my best and mixed feelings.

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It is a it's a colossal topic. It's hard to escape from, you

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know, some days it's I mean, it's such a it's I'm finding it

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difficult to describe, perhaps maybe because
of the legacy that you and I have

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from other conflicts, and perhaps we
when we try and cover, or at

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least for me, when I try
and write about a conflict, right,

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it's really difficult not to not to
dwell on the reasons and the political failures

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that led to that, because we
are all victims of that, right.

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So just and if you're not writing
about that, then what are you writing

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about. I'm not interested in the
adventure stories. You know. It's this

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tension next this between the military and
the political leaders. But it's also how

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does an organization and again I'm keeping
this as as objective as I can,

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but how does an organization as storied
as heralded as the IDEF go from you

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know, having turned having now seventy
three was a failure, Yes, undoubtedly

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it was a failure, but it's
a political failure, right the you know,

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the IDEF responded extraordinarily, you know, after the first three days in

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the seventy three war, I mean, the IDF really won that war back

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in a sense. You know,
there was a commission after the war that

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sure that that looked at why the
Egyptians and the Syrians had both been able

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to surprise is Ralph tactical surprise,
but the blame never devolved to the IDF.

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The IDF, you know, but
it just it was an extraordinary story

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when you think about it, the
mobilization of two hundred I mean back then

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it was like one hundred and forty
thousand reservists within days, and turning the

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tide both in the north in the
south against Egypt and Syria. It was

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in a sense to the high point
of the Israeli army of the IDF.

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And there are those who argue for
then onwards it started to go, you

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know, it started to lose direction
and Lebanon, you know, the invasion

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of it, the the messing up, the problems with Lebanon, which began

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in the late seventies were kind of
the we're also the beginning of the the

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unraveling of the IDF and the long
occupation which became a nathma, and the

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occupation of eleven in between eighty you
know, twenty years basically from eighty one

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eighty two to two thousand and one
had had a debilitating effect on the on

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the IDF. You know, they
became very focused on camera and surgeons,

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but they also became surprisingly very very
risk averse. You know, there are

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a number of things and now I
don't mean to bore you, and you

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have to have to read the book
and it comes out, but the cultural

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atrophy of the IDF I'm writing about
not it's not just because this happened in

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the IDF that you know, that
would be an interesting historical, you know,

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narrative, But but what happened in
the IDF, But easily, if

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it's not already happening, it could
could also happen in other Western militaries.

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And indeed there are there are accusations
that it is happening. So in the

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British and the US military is focus
on the wrong things, a step away

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from war fighting, a risk aversion
focused on careerism, all of these things

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that just you know, losing track
mission command. The IDEF was supposed to

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embody mission command, and yet on
seven October you get this awful situation outside

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the kibbutzes where commanders won't go in
because they don't have orders, and civilians

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are getting slaughtered. And this is
this is you know, there Israeli investigation

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on covering this outside Kublitz Bery you
know which I which I visited the you

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know, the Hamas began killing people
there at seven a m. And the

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first soldiers weren't in there until seven
or eight hours later, you know.

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And Israel's a small country, so
there are there were some serious failures,

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and there were found fundamental failures,
you know. At the same time,

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I think it's only fair to say
that these failures weren't weren't failures of human

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beings or failures of courage. They
were failures of procedure, of process,

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and a lot of people showed too
many people, most showed just incredible courage.

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On seven October, soldiers taking that
is into their own hands, and

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many, many, most of them
were killed because no one had any idea

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of what the situation was like it
was a black hole. It's it's extraordinary

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and the most technically competent, one
of the most technically advanced countries in the

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world that this total breakdown of communications
occurred in such a small area, and

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a lot of it had to do
with Hamas's planning. Yea, you know,

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they israelly sort of underestimated their ability
or to take out all the communications

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modes. You know, the the
hang lighted dudes. They you know,

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they weren't kind of like stormtroopers from
the sky, wasn't. They were command

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and control dudes. They were up
there directing the groups on the ground and

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the groups, you know, they
and it was because of that, because

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they had guys up in the air, that they were able to direct one,

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you know, one column, I
suppose onto the Nova Music Festival,

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because although they knew it was taking
place, it wasn't on that list of

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targets. But when they were locked, they thought, you know, it

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was a target of opportunity, and
so they do. So my point is

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that on this day, most extra
anything happened. It seems like roles were

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reversed. You've got the idea,
who is just paralyzed, you know,

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unable to make a decision, and
then you've got Hamas making decisions on the

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fly directing forces. You know,
I'm not And it was a real you

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know. I mean, there's there's
so many ways why this was such a

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a a fundamental blow to Israel.
You know, time and again is ready

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to said this country will never be
the same, you know, And so

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what the kind of things that I'm
talking about, aside from the savagery of

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the attacks that were so close to
them, has changed society that beyond.

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I mean, I've been going to
Israel since I was a teenager, you

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know, in the early eighties,
and it is the atmosphere there is is

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very different than anything before. So
all of this is it. It's incredibly

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interesting right about. But it weighs
on you too, you know, weighs

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on you. The the you know, the loss of life period, regardless

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of nationality or background or ethnicissity.
The loss of life is horrific, you

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know, and just like in every
war, the vast majority of people killed

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or not combatants, you know,
and that is that's a tragedy, that's

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you know, period. I mean, so yes, as a military guy,

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I'm writing about that aspect of it, but I'm also writing about the

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cultural part, and without being too
clumsy about it, the analogy is there

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implicitly that yes, this happened to
the Israelis. I'm not talking about,

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you know, seven October the events
themselves happening elsewhere, although they easily could.

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But I'm talking about kind of the
slow atrophy of culture within Western militaries.

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And no, I'm not you know, some kind of like weird extreme

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right being free who's talking about,
you know, the collapse of Western civilization.

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But I am saying that it is
that it is something that is a

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little bit concerning. You've been tracking, theyve you guys have been tranking the

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discussions within the military of the last
decade, right since you got out.

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Morale is not high in the US
military. It's lower than it was during

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the Wars when we were doing multiple
deployments. Yeah. So you know,

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it's interesting because I feel as though
you specifically, and on this show,

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we tried to prove present and i'll
say fair and balanced, but we try

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to deal with the realities of a
situation. And that was used against you

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by you know, dirtbags like Max
Blumenthal and whatnot. When when we talked

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about Ukraine, because at no point
did you condone what Russia was doing.

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At no point did you were you
ever simping for Russia or or advocating,

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or were you saying that Ukraine was
this evil that needed to be eliminated.

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You pointed out some specific issues.
And and it's interesting how sort of in

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this uh binary, sort of black
and white world, right, where if

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somebody wants to hear something, so
you know, people will probably take sound

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bites out of what you're saying,
or take sound bites out of what's your

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book, and and they like and
they like to attribute it's it's like nine

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to eleven, right, it was
nine to eleven was a massive intelligence failure

264
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on the part of the United States. We know who these we knew who

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these people were, h you know
they we had clocked them, you know,

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our our intelligence apparatus, our law
enforcement apparatus, and yet we had

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failed to to stop what they were
doing. And and also one could say

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from the same type of oversight,
you know that something so audacious, right,

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something so audacious couldn't possibly happen.
And so people want to take the

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idea that a a an intelligence,
law enforcement or military system can break down,

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And it can break down at one
level. It can break down at

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a mid level officer who refuses to
believe reports given to him because they seem

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fantastical and he doesn't want to be
the idiot passing up ridiculous reports and people

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happened, David. Yeah, And
people will take those facts and either then

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develop a conspiracy from it that it
was you know that we let nine to

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eleven happen, you know, Israel
let October seventh happen, these types of

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things, or they will you know, or they will say that conspiracy rather

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than just simply incompetence, right right. It's like, remember up the ninety

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eleven that was this conspiracy theory that
it was you know, the US had

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actually stage managed it and was doing
all these other things, et cetera,

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et cetera. Oh yeah, and
I remember an agency guy coin if if

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fucking only we could do all that
well, I mean I remember one of

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the big conspiracies was that it was
like a special Forces team or a CIA,

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you know, paramilitary team that had
gone in and planned expokess. And

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it's sort of like to anybody who
thinks something like that, it's like,

286
00:23:36.079 --> 00:23:38.799
in order to pass a conspiracy that
big, you know, for the president,

287
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right, or Cheney or whomever to
go to an a team and go,

288
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hey, you twelve guys, I
want you to be responsible for the

289
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dests of up to like ten thousand
Americans and for everybody to go Roger that

290
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right. It's just it's so ludicrous. But you know, you know why

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conspiracy theories like that flourished because most
Americans have no idea what the American military

292
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is about, right. Most Americans
don't even know anyone in the military,

293
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right. I mean, think about
the conversations you have on the plane,

294
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Hey, what do you you know? I'm in the Marine corners and oh

295
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hey, yeah, listen, my
my nephew was in the Air Force reserves,

296
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you know, and you're like,
okay, but that you know,

297
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that trying to find some common ground, right, and it's often very distant,

298
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and I think so it's quite easy
for them to imagine that. Yeah.

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And it's the same thing we're seeing
now with a lot of the you

300
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know, the conspiracy theories that are
coming out of you know, October seventh,

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that like the Israeli government intentionally allowed
you know, this to happen or

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00:24:41.480 --> 00:24:51.519
allowed it to continue it's like it's
military chains of command break down, especially

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when they have not been flexed,
when they have not been exercised for a

304
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long period of time. It's like
it's sort of like when you go out

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00:24:57.359 --> 00:25:03.319
on patrol, right when you're when
you go out on patrol and in a

306
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non permissive environment, after three nights
or four nights of that, if you

307
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keep going out on patrol over and
over and over again, when something goes

308
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down, you're not ready for it
because you cannot stay on earth, you

309
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know. And that is actually part
of that, that was part of the

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plan, you know, I mean
a mass mass did not think that they

311
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could keep this secret, you know, the plans for an attack. What

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they thought they could keep secret was
the actual date and time when it was

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going to happen, so that they
could still achieve technical surprise. But they

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I don't think they thought believed that
they could achieve strategic surprise the way that

315
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they they did because there were so
many reports and they must have known as

316
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reports were going in from this what
are called the Israeli called the spotters.

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00:25:56.000 --> 00:26:03.000
The spotters are generally women conscripts eighteen
nineteen twenty years old, and their job

318
00:26:03.119 --> 00:26:10.680
throughout Their enlistment is to is to
monitor screens, you know, the essentially

319
00:26:10.759 --> 00:26:15.759
the CCTV within Gaza, and each
one of them gets to know, you

320
00:26:15.799 --> 00:26:18.759
know, an area, a couple
of blocks, two or three blocks,

321
00:26:18.799 --> 00:26:22.480
they know the people on that block
and everything. It's an extraordinary system of

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technical surveillance. It's like nothing in
the world. But it failed. And

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the reason why it failed was not
because those soldiers failed. They were making

324
00:26:30.839 --> 00:26:37.839
the reports. I mean, this
is all the Israeli newspapers had dug this

325
00:26:37.000 --> 00:26:45.960
up and in you know, transcripts
from radar reports. Everything they had reported,

326
00:26:45.000 --> 00:26:51.079
the hang gliders, they had reported
rehearsals, full scale rehearsals, and

327
00:26:51.119 --> 00:26:56.319
then the morning of and naho Oz
if you you know, the record of

328
00:26:57.319 --> 00:27:03.279
the reports began at six thirty.
You know, they described that watching her

329
00:27:03.279 --> 00:27:11.160
mask gather on outside the bounce where
they're supposed to be, just right right

330
00:27:11.200 --> 00:27:14.839
below the security cameras, looking up
at the security cameras as though they knew

331
00:27:14.839 --> 00:27:23.160
where they were, and the soldiers
call it's the it's a battalion from the

332
00:27:23.200 --> 00:27:30.720
Golani Brigade, and the battalion commander
comes along and he fires tear gas at

333
00:27:30.759 --> 00:27:33.640
these guys you know, on the
other side, and he says that that

334
00:27:33.640 --> 00:27:37.359
that'll take care of him, and
he goes back and she's like, she

335
00:27:37.440 --> 00:27:41.440
gets on the phone and says,
no, it hasn't taken care of them.

336
00:27:41.440 --> 00:27:44.240
That's still they're still coming. And
she was ignored, you know,

337
00:27:44.319 --> 00:27:48.480
because the battalion commander was like,
yeah, she's just you know, so

338
00:27:48.920 --> 00:27:53.400
hysterical women. Yeah. Yeah,
but but but honestly, it probably had

339
00:27:53.440 --> 00:27:56.359
nothing to do with her being a
woman. It probably had to do with

340
00:27:56.400 --> 00:28:02.480
her being absolutely junior conscript eighteen years
old. Junior right, yeah, hundred

341
00:28:02.480 --> 00:28:06.240
percent. But on the other hand, they've been given a job and they

342
00:28:06.240 --> 00:28:08.880
were they were doing their job,
and they were doing well. Sadly,

343
00:28:08.920 --> 00:28:14.599
they were unarmed, and so when
they had one rifle between twenty women,

344
00:28:14.640 --> 00:28:18.640
and so when Almas broke in,
they pretty much you know, had free

345
00:28:18.720 --> 00:28:22.920
run. They could kill or kidnap
as they wish. I mean, these

346
00:28:22.960 --> 00:28:33.000
are you know, these they collectively, these are not individual errors. I

347
00:28:33.000 --> 00:28:37.839
mean, or rather, all these
individual mistakes collectively suggest that there was something

348
00:28:38.240 --> 00:28:44.160
culturally wrong within you know, the
IDF for this to have to have happened.

349
00:28:44.319 --> 00:28:48.000
I mean, obviously there was something
culturally wrong. It happens all the

350
00:28:48.079 --> 00:28:51.759
time, right, intelligence? You
know this is intelligence professional, right,

351
00:28:51.920 --> 00:28:56.119
It's you can have the best civiliance
equipment in the world and the best collectors.

352
00:28:57.000 --> 00:29:00.920
But if if the guys on the
receiving and not, if their minds

353
00:29:00.920 --> 00:29:04.759
aren't open to that possibility, as
you point out, then it's all wasted.

354
00:29:06.039 --> 00:29:08.599
And that's really you know, they
know one, no one thought everyone

355
00:29:08.720 --> 00:29:17.200
was so so lulled by this narrative
that Hamas lacked the sophistication or the intent

356
00:29:18.079 --> 00:29:22.519
to do harm, you know,
beyond a few rockets. Right, So

357
00:29:22.799 --> 00:29:29.079
when can we expect your book?
Ah? Well, you know it's going

358
00:29:29.160 --> 00:29:33.440
to be two to three months before
I finished the manuscript. The problem is

359
00:29:33.480 --> 00:29:37.279
that the news keeps going on,
right, So what does you know?

360
00:29:37.279 --> 00:29:41.440
What does an end? To be
honest with you, I'm enjoying. I'm

361
00:29:41.519 --> 00:29:45.519
enjoying the writing. You know,
writing is very cathartic for me. You

362
00:29:45.519 --> 00:29:48.400
know, I know you you know
you probably have I know you do have

363
00:29:48.519 --> 00:29:55.039
activities that that you rely on to
kind of get your headspaced back. And

364
00:29:55.440 --> 00:29:59.359
writing is what I do, yes, pt and everything, but you know

365
00:29:59.400 --> 00:30:03.400
it is when you to your mind
still wonders, but writing absorbs me,

366
00:30:03.440 --> 00:30:08.000
and and it helps to write about
a conflict that I'm not involved in directly.

367
00:30:08.640 --> 00:30:11.839
I started to write about Ukraine and
I just found it too difficult.

368
00:30:11.920 --> 00:30:18.000
I couldn't. You know. Maybe
a year or two I will be able

369
00:30:18.039 --> 00:30:22.400
to. But it does. I
think this is helping writing. It's I

370
00:30:22.400 --> 00:30:26.319
don't know, it's difficult to explain, but it's not. The other thing

371
00:30:26.400 --> 00:30:30.880
is I think it's quite interesting.
I don't I don't hear of anyone else

372
00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:33.960
doing this right now. I think
it so, so there may not be

373
00:30:34.039 --> 00:30:37.559
a lot of competition if I get
a book out, you know, because

374
00:30:37.599 --> 00:30:41.880
everyone's kind of waiting for some kind
of resolution. But who knows when that's

375
00:30:41.920 --> 00:30:45.079
going to occur, and who knows
what the resolution is going to be,

376
00:30:45.319 --> 00:30:48.119
So you know, my book's going
to be point in time, you don't

377
00:30:48.119 --> 00:30:51.720
think. But anyway, I don't
think that Mas will just return all the

378
00:30:51.720 --> 00:30:56.400
hostages and that'll be it. I
don't know. I don't think that'll be

379
00:30:56.480 --> 00:31:00.359
it. No, they've and I
don't, you know, sadly, I

380
00:31:00.599 --> 00:31:07.920
I'm not optimistic that many hostages left
alive. Yeah, you know, if

381
00:31:07.960 --> 00:31:12.960
any just like you know, sadly, right now, in the least and

382
00:31:14.359 --> 00:31:18.279
just the same thing in Ukraine.
It's it's hard to see a good outcome.

383
00:31:19.400 --> 00:31:22.920
I mean anytime, not just anytime
soon, but but a good outcome.

384
00:31:23.240 --> 00:31:29.039
Yeah, better than than before the
wall, right right, right,

385
00:31:29.079 --> 00:31:33.799
better than starting what you know,
speaking of Ukraine for people who have watched

386
00:31:33.680 --> 00:31:37.880
you know, any of the episodes
that you've been on prior. You know,

387
00:31:38.240 --> 00:31:41.519
one of the things we talked about
was Mozart Group in the work you

388
00:31:41.559 --> 00:31:47.519
guys were doing over there, and
then you know, Mozart Group ran into

389
00:31:47.559 --> 00:31:53.200
some some challenges. Yeah, and
and some of those challenges, uh came

390
00:31:53.279 --> 00:31:57.240
personally back to you. Do you
do you want to talk about those at

391
00:31:57.240 --> 00:32:00.960
all? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, absolutely, you know, and the

392
00:32:01.079 --> 00:32:06.839
risk of hope not boring the audience
just to you know, kind of go

393
00:32:06.920 --> 00:32:12.640
back in times so three, it
was it almost three years ago, twenty

394
00:32:12.920 --> 00:32:15.839
early twenty twenty two. What am
I talking about two years ago? It

395
00:32:15.880 --> 00:32:21.079
was over two years ago early twenty
twenty two. Came on the teamhouse in

396
00:32:21.160 --> 00:32:27.279
January, right a month before the
invasion, and we all opined that there's

397
00:32:27.400 --> 00:32:31.119
no way that Russia would invade Ukraine, right And then of course it happened,

398
00:32:31.160 --> 00:32:37.240
and I got a I wangled a
job as a as a freelance reporter,

399
00:32:37.759 --> 00:32:44.799
right for task and purpose. Freelance
was so that they weren't responsible for

400
00:32:44.920 --> 00:32:47.759
me if I got lacked. It
was a term. It was. In

401
00:32:47.799 --> 00:32:52.079
other words, freelance benefited them,
but not me. You know, I

402
00:32:52.119 --> 00:32:53.640
wrote for them. But no,
don't get me wrong. Task and purpose

403
00:32:53.720 --> 00:32:59.400
was great to me, and and
down the line was even better than better

404
00:32:59.440 --> 00:33:02.559
to me when they stood up and
helped me to defend this lawsuit. But

405
00:33:02.640 --> 00:33:08.480
anyway, so I ended up going
out there, got into got made it

406
00:33:08.480 --> 00:33:13.480
to Kiev a very bad time.
This was early March of twenty twenty two,

407
00:33:13.480 --> 00:33:17.599
and the Russians were on three sides
of Kiev and within artillery range.

408
00:33:17.640 --> 00:33:22.279
I mean they were pounding the suburbs. You heard it all the time,

409
00:33:22.279 --> 00:33:25.640
and that was a sense of I
mean you remember, everyone thought Kiev was

410
00:33:25.680 --> 00:33:31.240
done. No one thought thought the
city would hold out. And within Kiev

411
00:33:31.279 --> 00:33:37.519
itself was this extraordinary. The exodus
had already taken place, so about two

412
00:33:37.559 --> 00:33:42.680
thirds of the population had left,
but for the third that were left,

413
00:33:42.759 --> 00:33:46.000
they were getting ready to fight.
And Zelenski had given the word to hand

414
00:33:46.039 --> 00:33:52.759
out AK forty seven's on the street
to any male between eighteen and like forty

415
00:33:52.799 --> 00:33:55.599
five and so that's what they were
doing, you know. I mean,

416
00:33:55.599 --> 00:34:02.599
guys were just grabbing aks and heading
to the suburbs the Russians and uh and

417
00:34:02.599 --> 00:34:09.320
and a senior as a colonel special
operations colonel I knew from before the war.

418
00:34:09.880 --> 00:34:15.159
It was one of the few regular
Ukrainian officers who was tasked with preparing

419
00:34:15.199 --> 00:34:20.199
these guys to defend Kiev. And
he asked, you know, he asked

420
00:34:20.239 --> 00:34:24.400
for my help. And I happened
to be able to get out some guys,

421
00:34:25.239 --> 00:34:30.239
some marines from the States, a
couple and then there were a couple

422
00:34:30.320 --> 00:34:32.800
in anyway, bottom line is here
we are in Kiev in March, is

423
00:34:32.840 --> 00:34:37.920
the Russians closing and we've got a
small group of marines. Coincidentally, they

424
00:34:37.960 --> 00:34:43.039
tend to be marines. One of
them was a Kiev resident, he Andy

425
00:34:43.079 --> 00:34:47.519
Bain, and he became kind of
the guy that we depended on quite a

426
00:34:47.519 --> 00:34:51.920
bit as we set up the Mozart
group. The Mozart group, by the

427
00:34:51.920 --> 00:34:55.760
way, just evolved as we started
to train these people. And this is

428
00:34:55.760 --> 00:35:00.360
what it was like. I mean, it's insane when I described the people

429
00:35:00.360 --> 00:35:04.800
think I'm exaggerating, you know,
we we would get we would have five

430
00:35:04.920 --> 00:35:10.440
days to train a cohort of guys, you know the girls, and they

431
00:35:10.480 --> 00:35:17.800
were it workers, students, lawyers, you know anything that soldiers and none

432
00:35:17.800 --> 00:35:21.679
of them needn't handle the weapon.
Five days to get them ready, no

433
00:35:21.760 --> 00:35:23.480
ship to go and find the Russians. And so what do you teach them

434
00:35:23.480 --> 00:35:28.320
in five days? You know,
we did basic weapons handling. That was

435
00:35:28.440 --> 00:35:30.719
key. We had to take them
to shoot, and that was becoming as

436
00:35:30.760 --> 00:35:36.280
it is because every time we started
shooting, the Russians had spotters everywhere,

437
00:35:36.519 --> 00:35:39.400
and so every time we started shooting
on the range, very round would start

438
00:35:39.440 --> 00:35:44.079
coming in, very very quickly.
So it was literally a two way tay

439
00:35:44.199 --> 00:35:51.360
range. A lot of the unusual
training restrictions, but the one thing that

440
00:35:51.440 --> 00:35:58.000
kept us going was just the just
the indomitable spirit of these of these people

441
00:35:58.719 --> 00:36:02.280
who were volunteering to fight for their
city. Can you imagine, Dave,

442
00:36:02.360 --> 00:36:06.840
if you know what I mean,
just overnight, you know New York,

443
00:36:06.880 --> 00:36:12.119
maybe New York's bad example, Chicago, and you had the enemy at the

444
00:36:12.119 --> 00:36:16.079
gates, and just think about it. All these people have never ever dreamed

445
00:36:16.079 --> 00:36:21.360
of joining the military. Now that's
what they that's their goal, because they

446
00:36:21.360 --> 00:36:23.639
want to fight for their country,
you know, for their homes. I

447
00:36:23.679 --> 00:36:31.639
mean literally, you know, I
came across a family mother, father and

448
00:36:32.039 --> 00:36:36.719
you know, nineteen year old son, all armed to the teeth, ready

449
00:36:36.760 --> 00:36:42.519
to defend their house, you know, in northern Kiev. And they only

450
00:36:42.599 --> 00:36:46.760
just for example, with Chicago,
probably most American towns of cities, is

451
00:36:47.679 --> 00:36:52.079
you probably don't need to worry about
passing out so many aks. Like,

452
00:36:52.079 --> 00:36:57.360
yeah, that's true, the benefit
of the benefit of the Second Amendment,

453
00:36:57.440 --> 00:37:00.519
right, But I gotta tell you, I gotta tell you one story about

454
00:37:00.760 --> 00:37:07.519
one of these guys. And he
came back. He came back about two

455
00:37:07.519 --> 00:37:09.800
weeks. He was on our first
cohort and he'd been a student and he

456
00:37:09.840 --> 00:37:15.199
could not handle a weapon. You
know, he kept pointing at that people

457
00:37:15.280 --> 00:37:21.840
was flagging people. Well, he
came back to, you know, to

458
00:37:21.920 --> 00:37:24.519
go through the weapons part again,
but he'd already been in combat, and

459
00:37:25.559 --> 00:37:28.760
you know we're talking about him.
So how do you what did you do

460
00:37:28.840 --> 00:37:30.159
if you, you know, if
you don't like carrying a weapon? He

461
00:37:30.159 --> 00:37:35.239
said, well, so the officer
gave me a bag of grenades to carry

462
00:37:35.280 --> 00:37:39.800
around and they're pretty easy to use. You just you know, he goes,

463
00:37:40.320 --> 00:37:43.440
he goes, so I yeah,
that's that was good. I mean,

464
00:37:43.480 --> 00:37:45.159
the Russians were all close, so
it was easy. I didn't have

465
00:37:45.199 --> 00:37:49.960
to shoot him. I just threw
grenades. I'm like, I'm thinking his

466
00:37:50.119 --> 00:37:52.159
in saying, yeah, it was
so convenient. It was, you know,

467
00:37:52.199 --> 00:37:55.679
they were they were right up close
to us. It was was most

468
00:37:55.719 --> 00:37:59.400
people would go, holy shit,
you know, it was close combat the

469
00:37:59.400 --> 00:38:05.039
first time. And he said,
but you know, I guess the grenades

470
00:38:05.039 --> 00:38:07.400
are expensive, so I got to
come back and learn how to use the

471
00:38:07.440 --> 00:38:09.679
weapon, you know, And and
we were teaching them how to use we

472
00:38:09.679 --> 00:38:16.480
didn't have any javelins. You know, the news about the javelins, the

473
00:38:16.559 --> 00:38:21.079
coverage was far greater than their use. You know, a lot of anti

474
00:38:22.559 --> 00:38:25.079
handheld anti tank weapons, but a
lot of them were Eastern European manufacturer.

475
00:38:25.119 --> 00:38:29.480
But that doesn't matter. The point
is that these guys were getting close enough

476
00:38:29.519 --> 00:38:34.920
to destroy Russian tanks, you know, in that healthy and euphoric stage of

477
00:38:35.000 --> 00:38:39.199
the war. But it wasn't euphoric
in Kiev. It was pretty fucking scary,

478
00:38:39.440 --> 00:38:45.199
you know, it really was.
And we were every day kind of

479
00:38:45.360 --> 00:38:51.320
having a discussion. What we were
having a discussion about when to cut bait,

480
00:38:51.639 --> 00:38:53.320
you know, I mean, we
didn't want to be trapped in the

481
00:38:53.360 --> 00:38:59.239
city. That would have been bad
time. It's like, you guys aren't

482
00:38:59.239 --> 00:39:01.519
there as merci or armed combatants.
No you are there. No, we're

483
00:39:01.559 --> 00:39:09.360
not. Yeah, we are just
training at this point. And uh,

484
00:39:09.840 --> 00:39:15.920
but it became difficult to leave psychologically, I don't you know, it came

485
00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:20.519
so that it was never a question
of us leaving. And I think we

486
00:39:20.679 --> 00:39:23.800
just got too caught up in it. You can't just walk out on something

487
00:39:23.880 --> 00:39:29.719
like that, you know. And
and then when the Russians were pushed back,

488
00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:36.719
we actually I was with one of
the the first units to clear through

489
00:39:36.719 --> 00:39:40.320
Butcher. Uh. So you know
when they found the bodies. I mean

490
00:39:40.519 --> 00:39:44.519
it's not like I found the bodies, but they were they were there,

491
00:39:44.719 --> 00:39:47.039
still just lying out there. When
when we got up there, it was

492
00:39:47.079 --> 00:39:52.239
pretty pretty horrific. And it was
first kind of glimpse, uh, you

493
00:39:52.280 --> 00:39:57.519
know, for me sadly, you
know, I mean we've seen lots of

494
00:39:57.519 --> 00:40:04.119
bodies before the massacre. I mean, it was it was shocking, but

495
00:40:04.199 --> 00:40:07.960
I but the but the effect on
the Ukrainian soldiers was it was fundamental.

496
00:40:07.960 --> 00:40:14.920
I mean it was it was really
you could tell it that it changed them

497
00:40:15.239 --> 00:40:21.159
and the war was a the war
from the start. I mean, it

498
00:40:21.199 --> 00:40:23.960
seems absurd to talk about any war
has been vicious, but yes, you

499
00:40:24.000 --> 00:40:27.960
know, this is a particularly vicious
one. And you have to look at

500
00:40:27.960 --> 00:40:34.639
some of the history there to understand
how and why. And that is why,

501
00:40:34.760 --> 00:40:36.440
you know, I mean, and
bear in mind, I mean,

502
00:40:36.440 --> 00:40:39.159
I was risking my life for Ukraine. But I came on the team house

503
00:40:39.599 --> 00:40:45.320
and did say, look, Ukraine
has to adhere to the walls of law

504
00:40:45.480 --> 00:40:49.239
of war because I mean, for
one, I don't want to be involved

505
00:40:49.280 --> 00:40:52.480
in helping decide you know this,
we can't do that, right, that's

506
00:40:52.559 --> 00:41:00.320
committing atrocities. And and you know
I said, which I didn't think was

507
00:41:00.360 --> 00:41:02.960
controversial. Well, of course the
Ukrainians, I mean, they happen in

508
00:41:04.000 --> 00:41:06.920
every wall, you know. Of
course, the committing I mean, and

509
00:41:07.239 --> 00:41:09.079
I quoted, you know, I
quoted a couple. I mean, they're

510
00:41:10.239 --> 00:41:15.480
putting prisoners on TV. You may
think it's harmless, but it's a violation

511
00:41:15.559 --> 00:41:19.559
of that Geneva convention. And the
point is you have to be squeaky clean

512
00:41:20.079 --> 00:41:22.000
when you I mean, you don't
have to be squeak clean, but you

513
00:41:22.039 --> 00:41:24.000
got to be better than your rapistry, right, and if you're going to

514
00:41:24.079 --> 00:41:28.239
highlight what your enemy is doing,
you've got to make sure that you had

515
00:41:28.280 --> 00:41:31.039
hitted the wolves. That was number
one. When you're taking somebody off the

516
00:41:31.119 --> 00:41:37.159
street and training them up in a
matter of three to five weeks days,

517
00:41:38.079 --> 00:41:45.519
days, right, you know,
days? Sorry, Laura pland wolfare yeah,

518
00:41:45.760 --> 00:41:52.480
like like everybody may know, hey, don't pull the fingernails out of

519
00:41:52.840 --> 00:41:55.639
you know, your your detainees or
your POW's, but they may not know

520
00:41:55.800 --> 00:42:01.440
that, hey, you can't put
them on TikTok. Yeah, and you

521
00:42:01.480 --> 00:42:06.519
know what I said, I mean, you remember this, what I said

522
00:42:06.679 --> 00:42:12.800
was uncontroversialized And yes I did say, of course, you know there there

523
00:42:12.800 --> 00:42:21.159
are reports of atrocities. That was
number one. Number two is I became

524
00:42:21.400 --> 00:42:30.159
very frustrated with the level of corruption
and bad leadership, not not across the

525
00:42:30.199 --> 00:42:35.159
board, but in certain units,
certain commands, and the guys who were

526
00:42:35.199 --> 00:42:37.079
suffering were the soldiers on the front, you know, I mean, think

527
00:42:37.079 --> 00:42:40.400
about it. Some criminal things were
happening as far as you know, I

528
00:42:40.400 --> 00:42:45.480
mean where ammunition was going or cold
weather clothes, and this was affecting the

529
00:42:45.519 --> 00:42:49.960
guys that we were working with day
in day out. Of course, I

530
00:42:50.000 --> 00:42:55.599
was angry about it, and I
spoke about it, and and of course

531
00:42:55.639 --> 00:43:00.519
I spoke about it after drinking whiskey
with you guys. Has tended to happen.

532
00:43:01.840 --> 00:43:07.320
So the chorus, you know,
the peanut chorus. He mentioned what

533
00:43:07.480 --> 00:43:15.159
was his name, Max bluemuthal right, yeah, you know number one.

534
00:43:15.280 --> 00:43:19.440
So here's the weird thing, So
blue myouthall is you know, he's a

535
00:43:19.519 --> 00:43:22.840
left he's left wing, et cetera, et cetera. But the weird thing

536
00:43:22.920 --> 00:43:29.239
is he supports Russia. I mean, you know, it's it's kind of

537
00:43:29.239 --> 00:43:32.519
the the far left and the far
right converge here in the support of Putin

538
00:43:35.440 --> 00:43:42.880
and and so you know, and
Bluementthal, I I have heard has connections

539
00:43:42.920 --> 00:43:46.400
with right, you know, I
mean, he has worked there. I

540
00:43:46.400 --> 00:43:50.639
don't know, it doesn't matter,
I don't I don't really care about bluemuthal

541
00:43:51.280 --> 00:43:55.480
In fact, he did me a
favor. But because I don't think it

542
00:43:55.519 --> 00:44:01.400
wasn't him who started the attacks.
It was a guy named Peter Mass mb

543
00:44:01.519 --> 00:44:07.599
A s now. Peter Mass is
the editor of the Intercept Right and uh

544
00:44:08.280 --> 00:44:15.039
has a long history and kind of
yellow journalism and very very anti US military

545
00:44:15.119 --> 00:44:21.559
rot skathing. I'm pretty sure the
Intercept published at least one article by John

546
00:44:21.599 --> 00:44:27.400
Walker Lynd. He did, yeah, yeah, yeah, who I know

547
00:44:27.440 --> 00:44:30.440
is a personal hero of he wants. I mean, you know, okay,

548
00:44:31.800 --> 00:44:37.280
we're out, so so Peter mass
is, you know, I mean,

549
00:44:37.280 --> 00:44:45.280
he's he's one of these guys trendy, trendy left, but doesn't always

550
00:44:45.760 --> 00:44:49.079
write honestly about the military. That's
always very you know, looking for an

551
00:44:49.079 --> 00:44:54.079
angle to attack us. Sure and
so sure enough when when the first American,

552
00:44:54.239 --> 00:44:58.559
one of the first Americans, gets
killed out there, it wasn't with

553
00:44:58.639 --> 00:45:05.440
the Mozart group. He was saying
he was a volunteer and he is missing,

554
00:45:05.679 --> 00:45:08.199
and which is usual there, you
know, I mean that the number

555
00:45:08.199 --> 00:45:14.679
of missing people, I mean,
it's such a maelstrom and the effect the

556
00:45:14.719 --> 00:45:17.639
way that both sides are using arteria, but particularly the Russians, means that

557
00:45:17.719 --> 00:45:22.880
you have a lot of people who
are just blown into smithereens and never found.

558
00:45:22.000 --> 00:45:27.199
So that could have happened to him. We didn't know there were rumors

559
00:45:27.239 --> 00:45:30.599
he'd been captured by the Russians.
It turns out that he had been,

560
00:45:30.639 --> 00:45:36.679
and we think, well, he's
dead, but he was probably killed after

561
00:45:36.719 --> 00:45:40.960
being captured by the Russians. Fell
into the hands wounded. But in any

562
00:45:40.960 --> 00:45:47.400
case, he was missing, and
his a friend had called me, who

563
00:45:47.440 --> 00:45:51.519
was friends with his parents, to
say, hey, can you and he

564
00:45:51.559 --> 00:45:53.320
can you find out anything about what
had happened. So we were trying to

565
00:45:53.360 --> 00:45:58.320
find out, you know, we
were with the Legion. We did a

566
00:45:58.320 --> 00:46:00.440
lot of you know, I mean, we knew those guys who work with

567
00:46:00.519 --> 00:46:05.519
him for amount, so we you
know, we we were talking to the

568
00:46:05.559 --> 00:46:07.719
people who'd been with him, but
he you know, they they'd gone out.

569
00:46:07.840 --> 00:46:15.440
They they they had a plan to
hit a te seventy two. They

570
00:46:15.440 --> 00:46:17.519
were they were rumbled before they could
take a shot, and they got split

571
00:46:17.599 --> 00:46:22.079
up and this guy. The others
made it back, but this guy didn't.

572
00:46:22.159 --> 00:46:28.559
Anyway, Peter Mask called me and
said, hey, and he can

573
00:46:28.599 --> 00:46:32.840
you just verify that, you know, this guy got an other than honorable

574
00:46:32.880 --> 00:46:37.800
discharge from the Marinkles and can you
tell me what that could be? For

575
00:46:37.119 --> 00:46:40.039
drugs or something like this. So
he was digging up dirt on this guy

576
00:46:40.320 --> 00:46:44.880
before we could even find his body, before we could you know, even

577
00:46:44.920 --> 00:46:47.639
had a chance to tell his parents. And you know, I basically told

578
00:46:47.679 --> 00:46:53.599
Master funk Off and and then this
is where I think what really triggered him.

579
00:46:53.679 --> 00:46:58.079
I sent out a tweet going,
hey, masks, you know he

580
00:46:58.239 --> 00:47:00.159
was still looking for this guy.
By the way, Peter Mass just you

581
00:47:00.199 --> 00:47:05.000
know, came up with this ship. So if you see him publish this,

582
00:47:05.719 --> 00:47:07.280
fucking just ignore it. You know, it was a tweet basically like

583
00:47:07.320 --> 00:47:12.480
this, ignore this stupid shit.
You know everything that we're hearing. This

584
00:47:12.559 --> 00:47:16.159
guy died in you know, brave, brave circumstances. We can forget why

585
00:47:16.199 --> 00:47:22.639
he left the marine corpse surely until
we find his body. But mass Mass

586
00:47:22.800 --> 00:47:31.440
was evidently not happy about that because
that tweet surprisingly picked up like fifty thousand

587
00:47:31.760 --> 00:47:37.679
views, So a lot of people
knew about the intercept and Peter Mass and

588
00:47:37.840 --> 00:47:43.119
we're not happy. But next thing, I know, so a number of

589
00:47:43.119 --> 00:47:49.960
things started happening, and you probably
remember one was the the Wagner group the

590
00:47:50.000 --> 00:47:59.079
Pregosion got involved and started threatening personally
threatening me, threatening us, And you

591
00:47:59.119 --> 00:48:02.039
know, we were told that they
had and they did have teams out there.

592
00:48:02.119 --> 00:48:06.880
They were killing people behind the lines. You know, whether they were

593
00:48:06.880 --> 00:48:08.760
targeting us or not, I don't
know, but it doesn't but they were

594
00:48:08.800 --> 00:48:15.440
definitely targeting us with missiles to the
extent that no less than four hotels either

595
00:48:15.440 --> 00:48:17.440
we were staying in or had just
left, were hit by missiles on the

596
00:48:17.440 --> 00:48:24.360
same day. So so you know, the kind of the the bullseye was

597
00:48:24.360 --> 00:48:31.480
was getting narrower and narrow The Russians
were getting more and more loitering munitions aloft,

598
00:48:34.559 --> 00:48:38.800
which which are just terrifying things.
But the point is too that loitering

599
00:48:38.920 --> 00:48:44.280
munitions, as you've seen, I
mean, these fpvs, when when they

600
00:48:44.320 --> 00:48:45.800
decide to get you, they will
get you, right, you know,

601
00:48:46.239 --> 00:48:52.760
and so and and at very little
cost. So until that point, you

602
00:48:52.800 --> 00:48:57.360
know, I'd been able to make
this calculus that here we can continue doing

603
00:48:57.360 --> 00:49:02.519
what we're doing, driving you know, into bargmert through artillery barrages in soft

604
00:49:02.559 --> 00:49:07.920
skin vehicles to take people out and
it's risky, but it's acceptable because we

605
00:49:08.000 --> 00:49:12.519
are not being targeted personally. There's
no way you know, the we and

606
00:49:13.039 --> 00:49:15.519
as soon as we see a drone, we're out of there. You know,

607
00:49:15.639 --> 00:49:22.880
any any sense that that that we're
allowing the enemy to identify us and

608
00:49:22.920 --> 00:49:30.440
target us, or that we we
have we've met their target priority list right

609
00:49:30.559 --> 00:49:36.360
and their engagement criteria. When it
started to become evident that that was happening,

610
00:49:37.559 --> 00:49:42.440
I got I was getting increasingly concerned, you know, and it was

611
00:49:44.239 --> 00:49:49.400
because there was no safety there.
There was no The o r M was

612
00:49:49.440 --> 00:49:54.639
off the charts, I mean,
medical attention, evacuation, all of that

613
00:49:54.679 --> 00:49:59.679
would have been on us. You
know, the Ukrainian military was barely able

614
00:49:59.719 --> 00:50:07.840
to hold ground at the time.
Operational risk management it's this ridiculous process that

615
00:50:07.920 --> 00:50:12.519
the US military. Well it's not
ridiculous, I mean, but but it's

616
00:50:12.559 --> 00:50:16.000
become a ridiculous process. The concept
is absolutely valuable, all right, you

617
00:50:16.119 --> 00:50:19.480
got it, an assessment of risk
before you do a mission. Right,

618
00:50:19.840 --> 00:50:23.119
But of course we break it down
PowerPoint style, you know, into traffic

619
00:50:23.199 --> 00:50:30.559
lights and make it a worthless exercise. But but but the point is,

620
00:50:31.480 --> 00:50:35.880
you know, you couldn't. We
We did have an r M process,

621
00:50:36.000 --> 00:50:39.480
but it was you know, it
was marginal. It was like, yeah,

622
00:50:39.519 --> 00:50:43.679
we're not going to go in entering
an active s RIIK. But then

623
00:50:43.719 --> 00:50:45.880
we but then we broke that rule
once when we you know, when we

624
00:50:45.920 --> 00:50:50.960
got a call from a family that
a desperate need of being pulled out.

625
00:50:52.639 --> 00:50:58.559
So I realized it was an extraordinary
feeling of responsibility, far more so than

626
00:50:58.639 --> 00:51:01.480
anything I'd had in the military,
because in the military you've got all that

627
00:51:01.599 --> 00:51:06.280
infrastructure behind you. Yes, you're
a commander and you may get people killed

628
00:51:06.320 --> 00:51:09.599
because of your decisions, but everything
to that point in your career has prepared

629
00:51:09.639 --> 00:51:14.519
you for that, and the whole
system is there to support you, you

630
00:51:14.559 --> 00:51:17.559
know, in your decision making.
But here, no, we were,

631
00:51:17.800 --> 00:51:24.639
you know, as we were out
hanging and being responsible for this, responsible

632
00:51:24.719 --> 00:51:30.000
for bringing in funds. I was
working really hard to bring in funds at

633
00:51:30.000 --> 00:51:32.440
the time that that was one of
the hardest things about it. And I

634
00:51:32.440 --> 00:51:37.400
started to think, shit, I
am working my ass on to get money

635
00:51:37.400 --> 00:51:42.199
in so that we can risk our
lives in a country that is not ours.

636
00:51:42.280 --> 00:51:45.800
You know, these thoughts were starting
to swell around in my mind at

637
00:51:45.800 --> 00:51:52.280
the time, you know. And
meantime, you know, we get two

638
00:51:52.360 --> 00:51:58.000
vehicles that are destroyed by artillery,
I mean mine's artillery. We get one

639
00:51:58.039 --> 00:52:01.079
of our guys fragged lightly but enough, and you know, in the arm

640
00:52:01.159 --> 00:52:10.280
and so all the things. Yeah, if I and then we get attacked

641
00:52:10.320 --> 00:52:15.079
by n s U twenty five and
and and get caught in a grad strike

642
00:52:17.719 --> 00:52:23.599
on the same day, and my
hands are shaking so much by then,

643
00:52:23.800 --> 00:52:28.480
I can't get I can't open my
hotel room in the evenings. You know

644
00:52:28.480 --> 00:52:31.480
what I mean, I'm it's not
it's it's like nothing. It's it's worse

645
00:52:31.519 --> 00:52:37.599
than Fallujah, you know, I
mean Fallujah was you know, I had

646
00:52:37.639 --> 00:52:43.199
a you had a weapon, you
had your buddies behind you, you had

647
00:52:43.320 --> 00:52:45.880
you know, even though it's there's
fighting going building up the building and knowing

648
00:52:45.880 --> 00:52:50.719
the bad guys waiting for you,
there was a processor system. There was

649
00:52:50.800 --> 00:52:53.239
support. If you got franking,
you you were out of there, right.

650
00:52:53.320 --> 00:52:58.159
And most of all, this is
the hardest thing, you know,

651
00:52:58.199 --> 00:53:05.840
in Flujah, there was a It
was all an institutional system that put people

652
00:53:06.039 --> 00:53:10.440
under me. It was supposed to
happen, I guess for me. The

653
00:53:10.440 --> 00:53:15.599
Mozart group was something that evolved.
It was tremendous, but it wasn't worth

654
00:53:15.639 --> 00:53:20.960
losing anyone, right, And when
do you make that decision to pull the

655
00:53:21.000 --> 00:53:24.800
plot? I don't know. I
mean I didn't have to because Blumenthall and

656
00:53:24.800 --> 00:53:30.519
Andy Bean and Peter Mass made it
for me. Thank you, thank you.

657
00:53:30.760 --> 00:53:36.320
And by the way, yeah,
so Andy Bean was sadly a former

658
00:53:36.360 --> 00:53:46.000
marine is a FORUR marine reservist.
He he when I say reserve is sorry

659
00:53:46.000 --> 00:53:52.880
that they got me off my attention. But you know, basically has been

660
00:53:52.920 --> 00:53:55.840
sitting in Kiev since he was a
captain working at the embassy, you know,

661
00:53:55.880 --> 00:54:02.280
and made colonel that way, he
was doing things. Let me just

662
00:54:02.320 --> 00:54:06.360
say this, he was doing things
that we started started to make us feel

663
00:54:06.360 --> 00:54:09.639
suspicious, and we got increasingly suspicious, and we were worried about the money.

664
00:54:10.639 --> 00:54:15.840
He was less than open about that, and it eventually you know,

665
00:54:15.360 --> 00:54:19.639
you know, you probably don't know
me day, but I don't. I

666
00:54:19.639 --> 00:54:22.920
don't suffer fools badly. I mean, I don't suffer. I suffer fools

667
00:54:22.960 --> 00:54:28.280
badly, and I don't. I'm
not good at hiding things. And so

668
00:54:28.400 --> 00:54:31.599
eventually I blew up at this guy. I mean, not physical, you

669
00:54:31.599 --> 00:54:37.519
know, it's just like just get
the fuck, you know, get away

670
00:54:37.519 --> 00:54:40.239
from us. We want blah blah
blah. I forget what the discussion is

671
00:54:40.280 --> 00:54:45.480
about. He wanted us to he
wanted us to buy him out for five

672
00:54:45.480 --> 00:54:51.920
million dollars. This is like a
gurentleman. We couldn't he you know.

673
00:54:51.960 --> 00:54:57.360
They basically he's training. It's an
n g O. It's a nonprofit I

674
00:54:57.400 --> 00:55:00.159
know, and he wants so he
has this to sy that he's going to

675
00:55:00.280 --> 00:55:04.239
lead it. He'll edge me out
and he's going to lead it. He's

676
00:55:04.280 --> 00:55:07.159
pissed because I've insulted him, and
he's He's going to show me. And

677
00:55:07.199 --> 00:55:14.559
so he brings this lawsuit against me
and were you know, this was kind

678
00:55:14.599 --> 00:55:17.159
of the final straw. So once
he brought the lawsuit, then of course

679
00:55:17.239 --> 00:55:23.599
donas are not going to contribute.
And and we had a like three guys

680
00:55:23.840 --> 00:55:28.239
who had volunteered to help us,
right former marines, and they got so

681
00:55:28.360 --> 00:55:31.280
stooked by the lawsuit. They were
our board, they handled all our funds,

682
00:55:31.840 --> 00:55:36.760
they pent, they became paralyzed with
fear over this lawsuit. So we

683
00:55:36.880 --> 00:55:42.840
lost any all access to our finds
and we came to an end. And

684
00:55:43.159 --> 00:55:51.239
not only that, but well all
this was going on a former marine guy

685
00:55:51.440 --> 00:55:53.960
really pains me that these these bad
actors of four Marines, you know,

686
00:55:54.079 --> 00:55:59.159
being and but but they're both reservists. Okay, so they're not it's not

687
00:55:59.199 --> 00:56:05.559
like the Ral Marines. I'm going
to get criticize, I'm kidding. But

688
00:56:05.679 --> 00:56:10.639
anyways, so after you know,
the invasion of Ukraine entered this other marine.

689
00:56:10.719 --> 00:56:16.519
He's he's working for a an NGO
or his volunteer, but basically he

690
00:56:16.639 --> 00:56:20.199
just wants to get in on the
action. He you know, he's you

691
00:56:20.239 --> 00:56:25.400
know how it is, They've all
the fucking questers come into to prove themselves

692
00:56:25.519 --> 00:56:30.880
or pretend they're doing something when they
really aren't. And and Kiev became a

693
00:56:30.920 --> 00:56:36.320
Petri dish of these, not so
much Kiev as Leviv because Leviv was really

694
00:56:36.360 --> 00:56:39.039
safe, so it became a Petri
dish or that he's you know, all

695
00:56:39.039 --> 00:56:44.400
these guys who do everything to look
hard, but be hard, you know,

696
00:56:44.760 --> 00:56:47.800
I mean, they're not. They
want to appear tough, guys covered

697
00:56:47.840 --> 00:56:52.679
in tattoos and you know, special
Forces t shirts and everything. And every

698
00:56:52.800 --> 00:56:57.280
night they get drunk. And you
know, I'm not kidding you. I

699
00:56:57.280 --> 00:57:00.679
saw Westerners carry the sniper, you
know. I saw one guy carry a

700
00:57:00.679 --> 00:57:05.239
snipermife into a bar. I mean, why the fuck? Why why would

701
00:57:05.239 --> 00:57:07.119
you do that? You know,
drop holsters, the whole works. I

702
00:57:07.159 --> 00:57:10.159
mean, but they don't go near
combat. They're hanging out lit. So

703
00:57:10.559 --> 00:57:15.239
one of these dudes is partying while
we're up in Kiev. You know,

704
00:57:15.280 --> 00:57:21.679
they're all drinking, and he a
girl alleges said he rapes her, all

705
00:57:21.760 --> 00:57:25.960
right, and and she does.
She goes to the police, both Ukraine

706
00:57:27.000 --> 00:57:31.719
and Poland. She's held by a
journalist and he's beaten her. You know,

707
00:57:31.760 --> 00:57:37.760
I mean it's she's young, quite
a young girl. She's fragile,

708
00:57:37.880 --> 00:57:42.480
she's had, you know, some
mental problems in the past. So it

709
00:57:42.599 --> 00:57:45.480
was just her bad luck, you
know, she was a genuine volunteer,

710
00:57:45.920 --> 00:57:51.599
her bad luck to run into this
guy. Michael Ryan booke she was an

711
00:57:51.599 --> 00:57:54.840
American or she was she was,
Yeah, she's an American. Yeah,

712
00:57:54.920 --> 00:58:01.280
but the FBI has no jurisdiction because
it was on Ukrainian soil. So he

713
00:58:01.320 --> 00:58:07.840
allegedly rapes her, beats her.
She you know, she is taken across

714
00:58:07.840 --> 00:58:12.320
the border by friends and they go
to you know, report at the embassy

715
00:58:12.400 --> 00:58:17.280
and doctors. I get a call
in Kiev. I'm a little bit distracted,

716
00:58:17.280 --> 00:58:22.119
but I get a call. No, not a call. It was

717
00:58:22.199 --> 00:58:27.519
a marine. One of our guys
says, hey, Andy, there's there's

718
00:58:27.519 --> 00:58:29.960
a you know, he told me
a story. There's a girl alledging that

719
00:58:30.039 --> 00:58:32.760
a former marine raped her. Blah
blah blah, and the Ukrainian police wanted

720
00:58:34.199 --> 00:58:37.639
us to get the word out.
And it was a guy who headed up

721
00:58:37.760 --> 00:58:44.119
Task Force Yankee Dan in LVIV,
good guy, former Chicago cop, who

722
00:58:44.119 --> 00:58:45.840
then contacted me and said, yeah, man, we think he may be

723
00:58:46.360 --> 00:58:51.199
running for Kiev. Can you keep
your eye out, uh? And I

724
00:58:51.239 --> 00:58:52.119
said, yeah, I can do
more than that. I can write about

725
00:58:52.159 --> 00:58:55.840
this. You know, I'm a
tree journalist, So I wrote. I

726
00:58:55.880 --> 00:59:01.960
wrote an article about it. Very
you know, we researched nothing in there

727
00:59:02.039 --> 00:59:07.880
that that that that was scerless at
all, just saying, you know,

728
00:59:07.920 --> 00:59:12.960
he's the Ukrainian police are offer and
true, and this guy had made an

729
00:59:12.960 --> 00:59:19.239
allegation of great true. Anyway,
he escapes across the border. He pays

730
00:59:19.239 --> 00:59:22.440
a cab driver to die. You
know, it's not difficult to dodge to

731
00:59:22.559 --> 00:59:27.400
checkpoints to get across into Poland back
then and makes it back to the States

732
00:59:27.880 --> 00:59:31.280
and sues me for thirty million dollars. Sues me and Task and Purpose for

733
00:59:31.320 --> 00:59:36.159
thirty million dollars. So this hits
me when I get back from Ukraine,

734
00:59:36.199 --> 00:59:37.800
and I'm by the way, I'm
not in a good state by then.

735
00:59:37.840 --> 00:59:42.320
I mean, I'm I mean,
Dave, you know, I've I've had

736
00:59:42.360 --> 00:59:47.320
some some personal tragedies I was I
was dealing with anyway, and you know,

737
00:59:47.400 --> 00:59:52.559
like all of us, I'm a
little scrambled by experiences of deployments we

738
00:59:52.719 --> 00:59:59.280
went through. And then Ukraine was
a ballbuster for me. And it because

739
00:59:59.280 --> 01:00:01.239
on the on the evacuation missions when
we said, you know, that was

740
01:00:01.280 --> 01:00:07.360
the part that became really dangerous,
so evacuating civilians from the bombed out areas.

741
01:00:07.440 --> 01:00:09.960
You know, I did feel as
though I should be on those missions

742
01:00:10.000 --> 01:00:15.639
since it was the worst thing that
we were doing. But it did take

743
01:00:15.639 --> 01:00:16.639
a toll on me too, you
know, I took a toll on my

744
01:00:16.719 --> 01:00:22.239
nerves. I mean, it's not
and I didn't realize it because it's like

745
01:00:22.280 --> 01:00:24.599
the frog and the water, right. You know, you're drinking a little

746
01:00:24.639 --> 01:00:30.079
bit more, you're shaking more,
you you know, but but you're locked

747
01:00:30.119 --> 01:00:32.320
in. You know, you can't
what are you going to do? You

748
01:00:32.360 --> 01:00:38.159
can't just not you can't stop doing
it. So bottom line is Hols in

749
01:00:38.159 --> 01:00:42.199
a bad stay. And I come
back and I'm facing this lawsuit thirty million

750
01:00:42.239 --> 01:00:46.199
dollars and no, and I've got
twenty days they come and serve me the

751
01:00:46.280 --> 01:00:49.840
summons. By the way, this
will make your laugh to it. Maybe

752
01:00:49.880 --> 01:00:52.079
not. So I'm getting death threats
around then too. I don't know if

753
01:00:52.079 --> 01:00:58.320
you remember that, but I'm getting
death threats from Russians, from Ukrainians by

754
01:00:58.320 --> 01:01:00.760
the way, No Ukrainians who are
in Ukraine. Ukrainians who have fled elsewhere

755
01:01:00.760 --> 01:01:05.800
in Europe are giving me, threatening
me, threatening my life because I criticized

756
01:01:05.920 --> 01:01:09.880
Ukraine. I can figure that one
out anywhere there in Ukraine. So what

757
01:01:09.880 --> 01:01:14.280
what was the name of this guy
who loved this lawsuit against you? If

758
01:01:14.280 --> 01:01:17.760
you want to say his name,
Michael Ryan Booke? Yeah, D you

759
01:01:17.760 --> 01:01:21.159
know, I'll show you. D
will show you a picture. I'll show

760
01:01:21.280 --> 01:01:24.679
I'll show a picture and it will
kind of tell you everything about him.

761
01:01:24.880 --> 01:01:30.480
But thirty million dollars. So and
Michael Ryan Burke lives in the United States,

762
01:01:30.480 --> 01:01:31.920
correct, he does. Yeah,
he lives in Missouri. But the

763
01:01:32.000 --> 01:01:38.519
FBI had no authority to an I
had no juristic jurisdiction because it wasn't on

764
01:01:38.559 --> 01:01:43.360
a military base. See I didn't
realize this. But unless there's some kind

765
01:01:43.400 --> 01:01:45.800
of I suppose, you know,
there's an agreement, so like a soap

766
01:01:45.960 --> 01:01:52.800
agreement, or it occurs on a
area where the FBI has jurisdiction, like

767
01:01:52.840 --> 01:01:57.159
the US embassy, you know,
or a or a US base, or

768
01:01:57.199 --> 01:02:01.599
a ship or an aircraft. But
because it was in Leviv, yeah,

769
01:02:01.639 --> 01:02:08.320
they had no jurisdiction. So he
knew that. And Michael Ryan Burke sued

770
01:02:08.400 --> 01:02:13.199
you for thirty million dollars you and
ten twenty million dollars to write in an

771
01:02:13.320 --> 01:02:17.679
article about an alleged rape, exactly. And and and so this story gets

772
01:02:17.679 --> 01:02:21.320
better, right, I mean,
it gets worse and it gets better.

773
01:02:21.519 --> 01:02:25.679
So they they served me the summons
in the middle of the night, three

774
01:02:25.679 --> 01:02:29.840
o'clock in the morning. So you
can imagine I'm getting all these death threats,

775
01:02:30.519 --> 01:02:36.280
and my door they'll starts ringing off, you know, off the just

776
01:02:36.320 --> 01:02:38.639
beer at three in the morning.
And so what do I do? What

777
01:02:38.679 --> 01:02:43.039
do you think I do? G
you grab your gun, grab my gun,

778
01:02:43.239 --> 01:02:45.880
and I go down the side of
the hall, you know, don't

779
01:02:45.880 --> 01:02:47.920
turn on the lights, and and
I look through, you know, the

780
01:02:47.960 --> 01:02:52.719
window, and it's it's clearly it's
a woman, you know, fat glasses

781
01:02:52.760 --> 01:02:55.760
and she's got peepers in her hands. I open it. Yeah, it

782
01:02:55.840 --> 01:03:01.039
was a you know, summons,
and it gave me twenty days to reply.

783
01:03:01.199 --> 01:03:05.079
But no lawyer would take my case, Dave, because they're like,

784
01:03:05.079 --> 01:03:08.480
oh, man, you screwed,
I swear, you know I And so

785
01:03:08.519 --> 01:03:15.599
the clock was ticking and if I
can't find a lawyer, it's going to

786
01:03:15.599 --> 01:03:19.400
be a default judgment against me.
Right, I mean thirty million dollars.

787
01:03:19.400 --> 01:03:22.840
I was like, the fuck.
So I am really sweating, and the

788
01:03:22.920 --> 01:03:28.000
last minute I do get a lawyer, and of course he wants to retainer,

789
01:03:28.239 --> 01:03:31.079
and you know, I do that. I have no money left after

790
01:03:31.079 --> 01:03:34.880
the Mozart group, by the way, because I've been paying the dudes for

791
01:03:34.920 --> 01:03:38.039
the last month when they you know, crush the money. So I take

792
01:03:38.079 --> 01:03:44.760
out you know, I take out
a second mortgage basically too for her fees.

793
01:03:45.119 --> 01:03:49.280
And then and then my luck starts
changing. Turns out Task and Purpose

794
01:03:49.320 --> 01:03:52.840
has decided to defend the lawsuit too, all right, and I'm partly covered

795
01:03:52.840 --> 01:03:57.280
by insurance. But it's a pathetic
amount, you know, It's like it's

796
01:03:57.320 --> 01:04:02.880
based on nineties legal rates. But
still it's a moral boost to me that

797
01:04:02.400 --> 01:04:06.920
that Task and Purpose is saying,
hey, we believe that that he researched

798
01:04:06.960 --> 01:04:11.559
this story. We're not going to
pay this dude off. Now. The

799
01:04:11.679 --> 01:04:15.119
editor of Task and Purpose had taken
the article down, and that was I

800
01:04:15.159 --> 01:04:18.320
think a mistake, because that emboldened
him. He thought, ah, yeah,

801
01:04:18.559 --> 01:04:21.599
they're not certain about this, so
now I'm going to bring the lawsuit.

802
01:04:21.719 --> 01:04:29.639
And but but when they started to
research it, somewhere that initial assessment,

803
01:04:30.320 --> 01:04:33.679
someone thankfully said, hey, I
think Melbourne, you know, I

804
01:04:33.679 --> 01:04:38.000
think we I think he did his
research and I think we should defend this.

805
01:04:38.639 --> 01:04:41.239
No one asked me. It was
strange, but anyway, I'm very

806
01:04:41.280 --> 01:04:45.320
grateful that they did, and they
fought the lawsuit, and you know what,

807
01:04:45.679 --> 01:04:48.599
thank God, because they had enough
money to go back to Poland Ukraine

808
01:04:48.679 --> 01:04:55.239
uncover all these records, photographs of
her bruised, you know, doctor's descriptions

809
01:04:55.280 --> 01:05:00.400
of what you know had happened,
the embassy, the fact that the she

810
01:05:00.639 --> 01:05:04.079
reported at the embassy, the embassy
had tried had contacted him and said,

811
01:05:04.079 --> 01:05:08.760
hey, the FBI liaison here needs
to see you. He had ignored that

812
01:05:08.880 --> 01:05:11.840
and headed back to state. So, you know, he had been a

813
01:05:11.840 --> 01:05:15.480
bad actor at every turn. And
if he wasn't guilty of rape, he

814
01:05:15.599 --> 01:05:19.079
sure is her acted as though he
was guilty of rape. And someone beat

815
01:05:19.079 --> 01:05:23.880
that girl up and put her in
the hospital, you know. And so

816
01:05:24.000 --> 01:05:28.360
all this started happy and I started
feeling thank God, but it's still you

817
01:05:28.400 --> 01:05:31.360
know, And it took a year, but it was dismissed. It took

818
01:05:31.400 --> 01:05:38.599
a year because the ambulance chasing lawyer
had a stroke and collapsed and can now

819
01:05:38.639 --> 01:05:45.119
only Blinker's eyes. So they brought
in another ambulance chaser. But you know,

820
01:05:45.159 --> 01:05:48.239
all that caused delay, and delay
is expensive for me, and delay

821
01:05:48.679 --> 01:05:53.519
is not good for your nerves when
you're facing thirty million, thirty million dollars

822
01:05:54.000 --> 01:05:57.119
that would have finished me. Of
course, I had declared bankruptcy, my

823
01:05:57.199 --> 01:06:00.599
kids, you know, a college
fund, the house, everything gone,

824
01:06:01.079 --> 01:06:09.119
everything I was. I was facing
ruin and then at the same time there

825
01:06:09.159 --> 01:06:13.280
was kind of a backlash of you
know that you remember that the team house,

826
01:06:13.440 --> 01:06:18.400
it had the fact that I was
I was appear drunk, but I

827
01:06:18.440 --> 01:06:23.480
think I think it's better say I
wasn't drunk. I was absolutely jet lagged.

828
01:06:23.519 --> 01:06:26.840
I've been at thirty six hours without
sleep. To remember that. I

829
01:06:27.079 --> 01:06:31.639
yes, you guys, and in
fact that discussion was, you know,

830
01:06:31.719 --> 01:06:36.079
we if you go back, we
weren't downing the whiskeys. At that point,

831
01:06:38.119 --> 01:06:42.559
I was, I was exhausted and
I was angry. But unfortunately it

832
01:06:42.599 --> 01:06:45.960
was given the moniker of you know, drunken mercenary. Uh, you know,

833
01:06:46.960 --> 01:06:51.519
it tells the truth about Ukraine,
as though it was right fence right,

834
01:06:51.559 --> 01:06:56.039
and it was it was very selective
sound by It's like, yes,

835
01:06:56.159 --> 01:07:01.280
you're telling one truth. But but
again it's not a binary world that that

836
01:07:02.199 --> 01:07:08.000
Ukraine is doing everybody, all the
soldiers in Ukraine are doing all these things,

837
01:07:08.400 --> 01:07:13.559
and Russia and Russians are just being
saints. It's like you have two

838
01:07:13.880 --> 01:07:18.360
very contentious forces going against each other. It's very personal. People are fighting

839
01:07:18.360 --> 01:07:24.079
for their homes. And do people
sometimes step out of line and need to

840
01:07:24.079 --> 01:07:27.719
be like put in check one percent? Yes, they do, like eve,

841
01:07:28.159 --> 01:07:32.559
even in the even in the US
where we have a professionalized military and

842
01:07:32.599 --> 01:07:38.840
we are taught the laws of land
warfare and you know, and and whatnot,

843
01:07:39.039 --> 01:07:42.239
we still run into these issues.
Yeah, that's right. So you

844
01:07:42.239 --> 01:07:45.440
can imagine guys off the streets fighting
with that families behind them, right,

845
01:07:45.480 --> 01:07:51.000
can you imagine it? Literally,
your your kids and families behind you.

846
01:07:50.760 --> 01:07:56.760
Your you're calculus, You're calculus for
your own survival changes. And it is

847
01:07:56.800 --> 01:08:00.360
true probably you all, you know, you're simple for the enemy. You

848
01:08:00.440 --> 01:08:06.679
lose all of it because those guys, you're the only thing between those guys

849
01:08:06.679 --> 01:08:12.599
in your family. We've never been
in that position, right, And and

850
01:08:12.639 --> 01:08:16.439
it was an existential threat, unlike
you know, say Hamas to Israel,

851
01:08:16.479 --> 01:08:20.680
I mean Russia was invade in Ukraine. So yeah, all of those things.

852
01:08:20.479 --> 01:08:28.600
But but yeah, I think Michael
Michael Ryan Burke turns out he's a

853
01:08:28.640 --> 01:08:33.039
reservist. He's staff sergeant was something. I think he even made sergeant major.

854
01:08:33.079 --> 01:08:42.560
I don't know, but he's he
he kind of drifts around from you

855
01:08:42.600 --> 01:08:45.960
know, job to job and makes
a big deal like a lot of these

856
01:08:45.039 --> 01:08:49.359
reservestsuf I have. You know,
I've done super secret stuff and I had

857
01:08:49.359 --> 01:08:56.800
this clearence in that his his testimony
is their position was you know, it's

858
01:08:56.800 --> 01:09:01.000
the usual, just like well,
it's interesting even if the FBI didn't handle

859
01:09:02.159 --> 01:09:09.000
even if the FBI didn't have jurisdiction, didn't like an I s or somebody

860
01:09:09.039 --> 01:09:14.479
have jurisdiction. No, no,
because he's not he's not even I mean,

861
01:09:15.680 --> 01:09:17.399
he's not an active reservist. He
wasn't wearing a uniform he was.

862
01:09:17.640 --> 01:09:21.239
You know, I say, yeah, no, one absolutely, it is

863
01:09:21.279 --> 01:09:24.000
what it is, you know what
I mean. In the end, at

864
01:09:24.039 --> 01:09:30.279
the end of the day, I
don't waste time with anger, I really

865
01:09:30.319 --> 01:09:32.439
don't. This dude is going to
have This dude is in a far worse

866
01:09:32.479 --> 01:09:36.560
state than me. So this guy, this guy, now all of your

867
01:09:36.600 --> 01:09:40.880
audience, hopefully will be a larger
one. It knows that Michael Ryan Burke

868
01:09:41.119 --> 01:09:45.600
was was not only accused the rape, but accused the rate whether it appears

869
01:09:45.640 --> 01:09:48.239
to be quite a bit of evidence
to support that accusation to the point where

870
01:09:48.239 --> 01:09:56.119
his lawsuit against you was dropped,
dismissed, was just on all counts.

871
01:09:56.479 --> 01:09:59.479
And so you know, he's got
to live with that, right you imagine,

872
01:09:59.520 --> 01:10:01.880
I mean, he's rapist, alleged
rapist, right, and even's gonna

873
01:10:01.880 --> 01:10:05.359
hate that guy. So I don't
want to be him for a moment,

874
01:10:05.399 --> 01:10:09.439
and I don't want to, you
know, think about him. I'm sorry,

875
01:10:10.520 --> 01:10:15.840
what was his name again, Michael
Ryan Book And that's like b u

876
01:10:16.079 --> 01:10:20.920
r k e bu b u r
b u r k E. Yeah,

877
01:10:21.239 --> 01:10:25.720
I just want to make sure you
know, yeah, he pretends to be

878
01:10:25.760 --> 01:10:33.359
religious. But but if you know
anyway enough enough, he's so. But

879
01:10:33.399 --> 01:10:40.119
the point is that a rapist and
a can do this, you know,

880
01:10:40.920 --> 01:10:46.520
bring a lawsuit, cost me a
fortune and then walk away and it doesn't

881
01:10:46.560 --> 01:10:50.239
cost him at buck because you know, lawyers, these guys are doing it

882
01:10:50.359 --> 01:10:56.359
pro bono. They cost his lawyer, his his health, you know,

883
01:10:56.399 --> 01:11:00.399
And I can't I can't feel sorry
for it about that it was my thirty

884
01:11:00.439 --> 01:11:04.279
million boxes, my whole future.
I can't feel sorry that his lawyer collapsed

885
01:11:04.279 --> 01:11:10.039
with the stroke. And you know
it's the explaining why I should be at

886
01:11:10.079 --> 01:11:13.479
the end of the ground. Maybe
it's a little bit of God's punishment,

887
01:11:13.640 --> 01:11:15.159
you know, But yeah, I
don't ways, I mean, I don't

888
01:11:15.399 --> 01:11:20.880
like Mass, Mass and Blumenthal.
I mean these people are you know that

889
01:11:23.760 --> 01:11:27.640
the flotsam and jets and they're not
you know, they're not substantive people.

890
01:11:28.000 --> 01:11:32.600
Right, Mass isn't even a good
writer, and that's his job. Yeah,

891
01:11:33.319 --> 01:11:38.520
right, better than him. Well, and and you mentioned that this

892
01:11:39.079 --> 01:11:44.800
uh, this Burke guy had he'd
even claim that you had gone so far

893
01:11:44.880 --> 01:11:46.600
as to try to take out a
hit on him and he had. Yeah.

894
01:11:46.680 --> 01:11:51.079
Yeah, so that was so so
when the defamation suit started going south,

895
01:11:53.399 --> 01:11:58.000
his law you know when it when
they when they dug out the police

896
01:11:58.079 --> 01:12:02.960
reports. Uh, his lawyer took
a new tactic and said, look,

897
01:12:03.039 --> 01:12:15.119
my my client's called PTSD because Melbourne's
this is quote Norman's reputation that you know,

898
01:12:15.199 --> 01:12:18.439
he he used his resources. I'd
get what it was, intelligence,

899
01:12:18.439 --> 01:12:23.960
special forces, blah blah blah.
It's proven to be ruthless and no problem

900
01:12:23.960 --> 01:12:30.840
with killing people before, uh,
only when my country told me to do

901
01:12:30.920 --> 01:12:38.520
so. And you know, right
and right. But anyway, so so

902
01:12:39.079 --> 01:12:44.159
he sided down this part of and
and unbelievably, uh, his lawyer,

903
01:12:45.319 --> 01:12:49.000
you know, threw that out as
a as a serious claim that he was

904
01:12:49.039 --> 01:12:53.720
affected. You know, they dug
up his medical reports and oh my god,

905
01:12:53.760 --> 01:12:57.560
blah blah blah blah. So I
was able to prove that at the

906
01:12:57.640 --> 01:13:00.600
time, I mean, I was
able to show from a letter from the

907
01:13:00.640 --> 01:13:05.720
State Department that we never carried weapons, that we were not a musclimary bloot.

908
01:13:05.920 --> 01:13:11.920
And I had been in fact classified
as a whatever five or one C

909
01:13:12.039 --> 01:13:16.279
three, you know, which is
a charity. So unlikely that a group

910
01:13:16.319 --> 01:13:20.880
of our charitable volunteers were hunting this
guy down to kill him, right,

911
01:13:21.000 --> 01:13:26.159
But that was his claim anyway.
But the point is, Dave, that

912
01:13:27.600 --> 01:13:31.840
this put I mean, you know, I I would rather have faced death

913
01:13:31.960 --> 01:13:39.359
again almost they then then, I
mean, then go through that fear of

914
01:13:39.560 --> 01:13:44.720
losing my family's livelihood, right,
you know, because in the end,

915
01:13:44.760 --> 01:13:48.680
that's kind of what we when when
we leave, I mean that we we

916
01:13:48.680 --> 01:13:51.680
we want that to be our legacy, right, that that our family is

917
01:13:51.800 --> 01:13:56.600
better off than we were and they're
okay, And if we don't do that,

918
01:13:56.680 --> 01:13:59.960
it kind of makes our lives a
failure. Yeah, it's been hard,

919
01:14:00.119 --> 01:14:02.760
but that's that's the way I was
feeling, and it was it was

920
01:14:02.960 --> 01:14:06.720
really that was in free fall.
And the other thing I've noticed is you

921
01:14:06.760 --> 01:14:12.159
really find out you're when you when
you've got two lawsuits against you, because

922
01:14:12.199 --> 01:14:15.479
Bain's was dismissed too, by the
way. Bain, by the way,

923
01:14:15.560 --> 01:14:18.840
is very lucky we didn't bring a
lawsuit against him. We have people lining

924
01:14:18.920 --> 01:14:24.800
up who want to bring a lawsuit
against beIN to include and not just for

925
01:14:24.960 --> 01:14:29.680
financial stuff, but but we had
sex stuff too, But that's another you

926
01:14:29.720 --> 01:14:32.600
know, I leave it, leave
that all aside. Yeah, I'm not

927
01:14:32.680 --> 01:14:36.640
interested in pursuing anyone. I want
to get on with my life. And

928
01:14:38.439 --> 01:14:42.399
but it has changed me, has
changed me. I think for the better.

929
01:14:42.399 --> 01:14:45.960
I'm going to make it for the
better. Well, I mean everything

930
01:14:45.000 --> 01:14:51.119
else. Yeah, I mean,
you know, we we've been I mean,

931
01:14:51.159 --> 01:14:56.359
you were on early on the teamhouse, like you've been here for a

932
01:14:56.399 --> 01:15:01.199
long time and we love seeing your
journey. You know, we've talked your

933
01:15:01.279 --> 01:15:10.319
book, When the Tempest Gathers,
your biography. I have spoken at great

934
01:15:10.399 --> 01:15:13.880
length of how much I truly loved
your book, and if anybody has not

935
01:15:14.399 --> 01:15:20.319
read it, I think it's a
It is a phenomenal book about an officer

936
01:15:20.840 --> 01:15:32.000
during wartime and the questions one asked
themselves about am I a good leader?

937
01:15:32.000 --> 01:15:35.079
Am I a bad leader? Am
I making the right calls? Because I

938
01:15:35.079 --> 01:15:39.439
think those are things that anybody who
has been in a leadership position in war

939
01:15:39.520 --> 01:15:42.640
time, you know, it's easy
to tell the no shit there. I

940
01:15:42.880 --> 01:15:48.920
was number one man in the door
Stories because when it's just you, if

941
01:15:48.960 --> 01:15:53.520
you're alive to talk about it,
then you made the right decision that day.

942
01:15:53.960 --> 01:16:00.640
Right when you're an officer or a
senior enlisted and you are making those

943
01:16:00.680 --> 01:16:08.159
calls for other people that you are
deciding whether or not somebody goes home,

944
01:16:08.239 --> 01:16:15.279
and again you can go from zero
to hero or hero to zero in one

945
01:16:15.319 --> 01:16:24.239
decision. And sometimes those decisions seem
obvious to people when they Monday morning quarterback.

946
01:16:24.279 --> 01:16:29.000
And sometimes it's a decision you make
on the fly, go left,

947
01:16:29.000 --> 01:16:32.640
go right, go straight, but
you got to go somewhere, and there's

948
01:16:32.680 --> 01:16:39.239
no way to know what the right
decision is. In your book, really,

949
01:16:41.560 --> 01:16:45.760
along with your own biography, in
the book, the personal tragedies that

950
01:16:45.800 --> 01:16:51.159
you faced outside of the military.
It is a very introspective, very in

951
01:16:51.239 --> 01:17:03.560
depth and very like human look into
the military and into leadership that it's very

952
01:17:03.600 --> 01:17:10.119
hard to find in modern war literature. I think that's really I mean,

953
01:17:10.640 --> 01:17:14.239
it's tremendously kind of you to say
that, Dave, and I appreciate it

954
01:17:14.520 --> 01:17:17.039
really from the you know, the
first time I came home this podcast,

955
01:17:17.399 --> 01:17:21.199
which was five years ago, by
the way, and I remember you guys

956
01:17:21.239 --> 01:17:28.319
were very supportive the book. It
was, by the way, it just

957
01:17:28.439 --> 01:17:34.560
won the the it's called the Eugene
Slash. It's the Marine Corps Marine Corps

958
01:17:34.560 --> 01:17:42.439
Heritage Association Award for best Biography in
the last three years because they counted the

959
01:17:42.439 --> 01:17:46.680
paperback version which just came out.
Yeah, I mean, you know,

960
01:17:46.760 --> 01:17:53.920
because as a Marine number one,
there's this this kind of a mental obstacle

961
01:17:56.159 --> 01:18:00.600
before you even think about writing about
your experiences, right, you know what

962
01:18:00.600 --> 01:18:04.279
I mean that there's it's something about
our ethos in the Marine Corps. It

963
01:18:04.359 --> 01:18:08.680
is very different and I'm not derogating
other services. It's just, you know,

964
01:18:08.840 --> 01:18:14.279
it really does the belief that you
subsume yourself to the whole of the

965
01:18:14.279 --> 01:18:18.039
Marine Corps. Right, and so
remember when MARSK, when that was first

966
01:18:18.079 --> 01:18:27.560
discussion about MARSC starting, or when
DEBT one and no it wasn't. Yeah,

967
01:18:27.560 --> 01:18:30.359
it was that one because Rumsfelt was
so do you remember RUMs Felt?

968
01:18:30.720 --> 01:18:34.760
I apparently had a discussion with commandant
the Marine Corps back then. I'm trying

969
01:18:34.760 --> 01:18:39.760
to remember who it was Conway.
I think no, not going you know,

970
01:18:39.840 --> 01:18:43.640
it wasn't Comway. It was maybe
Jones, it doesn't matter. But

971
01:18:43.640 --> 01:18:54.880
but uh but but in that discussion, you know, he was talking about

972
01:19:00.039 --> 01:19:03.000
sorry, I totally totally lost my
where will we daved? Well, you

973
01:19:03.039 --> 01:19:08.399
know you were talking about you were
talking about the formation of DEBT one or

974
01:19:08.479 --> 01:19:11.279
MARSK. Oh yeah, yeah,
yeah, no, I'm sorry. Yeah,

975
01:19:11.359 --> 01:19:15.119
right, So rum Stat told the
commandant or the commandant said, hey,

976
01:19:15.159 --> 01:19:18.520
we don't we marines, we don't
do we don't do selection, right,

977
01:19:18.720 --> 01:19:20.960
you know, we're all marines,
so I mean, we're all elite

978
01:19:21.399 --> 01:19:26.119
and and run Stot said, no, you need to do selection. But

979
01:19:26.159 --> 01:19:28.840
my point is that's kind of the
feeling that we have is you know,

980
01:19:28.880 --> 01:19:30.680
hey, you're a marine. That's
all you need, right, you don't

981
01:19:30.720 --> 01:19:33.159
need to write a book. But
but as you you know, as you

982
01:19:33.199 --> 01:19:39.199
commented, I've been through you know, I lost my daughter and I just

983
01:19:39.239 --> 01:19:43.680
come back from to do rough deployment. And and the fact that that deployment

984
01:19:43.760 --> 01:19:45.920
was rough had nothing to do with
the Islamic State. I had everything to

985
01:19:46.000 --> 01:19:54.000
do with the US Army conventional chain
of command. And I was, yeah,

986
01:19:54.000 --> 01:19:58.399
I was in a state of angst. I'd compumpmentalize this tragedy during my

987
01:19:58.479 --> 01:20:02.119
deployment. Now I confronted with it, and writing was the one escape I

988
01:20:02.159 --> 01:20:09.079
could find. And I sat down
and wrote or you know, two to

989
01:20:09.159 --> 01:20:12.560
three hours every morning, and afterwards
I always felt better. You know,

990
01:20:12.640 --> 01:20:15.680
even when I was going to work, I would get up early and write

991
01:20:15.720 --> 01:20:19.560
for an hour and then at the
end of the day, and just getting

992
01:20:19.600 --> 01:20:26.039
in that routine I really think helped
me. You know, you very wisely

993
01:20:26.119 --> 01:20:28.920
talked about counseling at the beginning of
this. When I was on active duty,

994
01:20:28.960 --> 01:20:33.279
I never went to counseling, but
that was my that was my former

995
01:20:33.319 --> 01:20:39.560
counseling was writing. It was cathartic, but to your point. Yet,

996
01:20:40.159 --> 01:20:42.680
you know, if you having made
a decision to write about a book,

997
01:20:43.000 --> 01:20:47.399
you've got to be honest, and
that is the hardest part, you know,

998
01:20:48.000 --> 01:20:50.920
the first couple of drafts. You
know, I showed it to friends,

999
01:20:50.960 --> 01:20:54.680
and a good friend of mine,
Worth Parker, said he, look,

1000
01:20:54.920 --> 01:20:59.159
do you want this to be just
kind of a hey, really cool

1001
01:20:59.279 --> 01:21:02.960
leadership, you know, narrative and
story or do you want to do you

1002
01:21:03.000 --> 01:21:08.159
want people to know what it's really
like, really like to lead in a

1003
01:21:08.199 --> 01:21:13.640
shitty place like Karma. You know, when your orders are not always very

1004
01:21:13.760 --> 01:21:19.239
clear. Then you know, your
brigade headquarters is like eighty miles away and

1005
01:21:19.279 --> 01:21:23.399
you're getting hit every day. And
by the way, you're being told to

1006
01:21:23.439 --> 01:21:26.479
turn over to the Rockies in six
months and you're out of that, you

1007
01:21:26.520 --> 01:21:30.319
know, I mean, these are
not these are not lessons that you can

1008
01:21:30.399 --> 01:21:35.079
answer from right from the book right
and that is where you own your commission,

1009
01:21:35.840 --> 01:21:39.119
you know, in places like that. And one of the things is,

1010
01:21:39.159 --> 01:21:44.119
even though you did grow up to
join the marine, the American Marine

1011
01:21:44.159 --> 01:21:49.239
Corps, you grew up with you
know, as as a brit with what

1012
01:21:49.279 --> 01:21:56.000
we would think of a classical education. So you know, so yes,

1013
01:21:56.119 --> 01:22:02.279
you eventually joined the crayon eating brigade. But but but there, but there,

1014
01:22:02.359 --> 01:22:10.680
but there's an eloquence and and and
uh and a love of words behind

1015
01:22:10.760 --> 01:22:14.520
your writing that really expresses a lot
of that. Well, you know,

1016
01:22:14.600 --> 01:22:19.600
I think so my parents, God
bless them. I mean my my parents

1017
01:22:19.680 --> 01:22:23.000
who were products of the second one
ward they met from the Second War.

1018
01:22:23.039 --> 01:22:28.840
In fact, my father's British and
it was met my mother while he was

1019
01:22:28.880 --> 01:22:30.920
on liberty in New York, you
know, as a as a reversal to

1020
01:22:30.960 --> 01:22:36.319
the many Gis who are coming over
and married US women. But I mean

1021
01:22:36.960 --> 01:22:41.920
British women. But my point is
they really really wanted me to have a

1022
01:22:41.960 --> 01:22:45.840
head start in British society, and
so they sent me to a very very

1023
01:22:45.960 --> 01:22:50.920
exclusive school. I was expelled from
that school, spent a year in the

1024
01:22:50.920 --> 01:22:58.920
Philippines for my but but then was
accepted back to another school and was feeling

1025
01:22:58.960 --> 01:23:01.159
bad enough by this time, I'm
having disappointed my parents that I wanted to

1026
01:23:01.239 --> 01:23:05.359
do well, and so I you
know, I so my point is I

1027
01:23:05.359 --> 01:23:13.560
had a tremendous education. I went
through the British schooling system, university,

1028
01:23:13.680 --> 01:23:17.039
law school, and then enlisted as
a private in the Marine Corps. You

1029
01:23:17.079 --> 01:23:25.119
remember boot camp, right, how
how just how childish boot camp is?

1030
01:23:25.520 --> 01:23:28.159
Right? But it does the Marine
Corps. I mean, how old were

1031
01:23:28.159 --> 01:23:30.359
you when you went through boot camp. It's nineteen oh, I see,

1032
01:23:30.359 --> 01:23:33.920
you're pretty much a kid anyway.
Yeah, but it does an a Marine

1033
01:23:33.920 --> 01:23:38.680
Corps boot camp compared to any other
I can't speak to Air Force boot camp,

1034
01:23:38.760 --> 01:23:41.359
but I can speak to it's a
well, Army and Navy. But

1035
01:23:41.840 --> 01:23:44.840
but Marine Corps boot camp does.
They don't call it boot camp in the

1036
01:23:44.840 --> 01:23:47.560
athols, it's just it's same and
I mean it's basic training. In the

1037
01:23:47.680 --> 01:23:54.079
Army it's or yeah. But but
Marine Corps boot camp does something that the

1038
01:23:54.119 --> 01:24:00.840
other services don't do as well,
which is create marines. Like like it

1039
01:24:00.880 --> 01:24:08.000
breaks you down to the point of
when your drill instructor is walking you across

1040
01:24:08.000 --> 01:24:12.760
the parade grounds to your graduation on
that final day and he says, you're

1041
01:24:12.800 --> 01:24:15.399
going to go in there and some
officer that doesn't know you is going to

1042
01:24:15.439 --> 01:24:18.680
be the says that he's proud to
be the first to call you United States

1043
01:24:18.720 --> 01:24:23.680
Marines. You know that's bullshit.
He goes, I'm the one, and

1044
01:24:23.720 --> 01:24:28.640
this is a guy who's been calling
you, you know, maggot, shithead

1045
01:24:28.720 --> 01:24:30.399
and dirt bag and all this,
you know, the entire Like, the

1046
01:24:30.479 --> 01:24:35.640
Marine Corps does that in such I
think an effective way to create that you

1047
01:24:35.680 --> 01:24:42.279
know, sort of that that camaraderie
that has spree of corps. You know,

1048
01:24:42.680 --> 01:24:45.039
they have that down to a science. And yeah, you know,

1049
01:24:45.159 --> 01:24:48.560
I mean I was young. I
wasn't as young as as you know.

1050
01:24:49.079 --> 01:24:54.479
I had a year out in the
world, which isn't a lot, but

1051
01:24:54.479 --> 01:24:59.520
but it's hard to even remove yourself
from that when, you know, when

1052
01:25:00.079 --> 01:25:05.720
when it's done so effectively, Yeah, it's I mean, it is basically

1053
01:25:08.359 --> 01:25:14.119
a boot camp, relies on the
same indoctrination techniques as the you know,

1054
01:25:14.359 --> 01:25:18.760
Chinese and the Korean War with prisoners. In fact, there was comments by

1055
01:25:19.319 --> 01:25:25.439
prisoners of the Chinese that that,
you know, that dreatment reminded them a

1056
01:25:25.439 --> 01:25:28.000
little bit of boot camp. By
that, I mean, you know,

1057
01:25:28.079 --> 01:25:31.720
the constant chanting, the repetition.
I mean, it's all in doctrination.

1058
01:25:33.119 --> 01:25:36.119
But if you are a little bit
older as I was twenty four, and

1059
01:25:36.159 --> 01:25:42.000
you've had some experiences, then that
part of it becomes quite tiresome, right,

1060
01:25:42.239 --> 01:25:46.640
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
I mean even worse than than being

1061
01:25:46.720 --> 01:25:50.479
dogged on the quarter deck because I
had you know, I had no problem

1062
01:25:50.520 --> 01:25:55.239
with physical thinness. I had no
problem with being away from home, but

1063
01:25:55.319 --> 01:26:00.560
I found you know, I found
the constant, just childish games, mentally

1064
01:26:00.960 --> 01:26:04.640
wearing. You know. It was
such relief, isn't it to get to

1065
01:26:04.640 --> 01:26:09.960
the rifle range? And yeah,
right and now and now you've got something.

1066
01:26:09.960 --> 01:26:13.600
It's you and the rifle, you
know. And the way the Marine

1067
01:26:13.600 --> 01:26:17.199
Corps does that is is so beautifully
designed, you know, they as you

1068
01:26:17.239 --> 01:26:19.800
point out, you've broken down in
first phase and when you get to the

1069
01:26:19.880 --> 01:26:26.119
rifle range, you are in listened
mode. And and all the punks who

1070
01:26:26.159 --> 01:26:29.119
thought they were great shots, you
know, and I went hunting with Daddy.

1071
01:26:30.319 --> 01:26:33.760
Turn out turns out that they invariably
are not the best at handling weapons.

1072
01:26:33.760 --> 01:26:36.760
And so a lot of these kids
who you know, maybe grew up

1073
01:26:36.800 --> 01:26:42.760
in inner cities or even you know, women who never fight a weapon in

1074
01:26:42.840 --> 01:26:46.439
their lives, turn out to be
expert shots. And it's the first thing

1075
01:26:46.680 --> 01:26:50.640
that they've achieved at boot Camp's yeah, that's one thing you do a boot

1076
01:26:50.640 --> 01:26:54.960
camp that you don't get nowhere else
is like that. How long was the

1077
01:26:55.039 --> 01:26:58.680
snapping in? Was it a week
or two weeks? Just just a week?

1078
01:26:58.760 --> 01:27:02.199
Yeah, yeah, nothing but snapping
in. But then that first shot

1079
01:27:02.239 --> 01:27:05.279
down the range, down range,
I mean first shot there was a four

1080
01:27:05.439 --> 01:27:08.880
but at least I knew I was
near that, you know, I was

1081
01:27:08.920 --> 01:27:14.600
astounded, and you know, at
two hundred meters because even you know later

1082
01:27:14.720 --> 01:27:17.479
two hundred meters seems like not a
great distance, but when you are first

1083
01:27:17.479 --> 01:27:20.680
time shooting, that's a small round
ball. And then when you go back

1084
01:27:20.680 --> 01:27:26.600
to the and DS what snapping in
is and so one of the things you

1085
01:27:26.640 --> 01:27:29.640
know, and that was without sites. I mean, we didn't remember that

1086
01:27:30.039 --> 01:27:33.960
was now now they all I don't
know why why did they qualify with with

1087
01:27:34.079 --> 01:27:40.039
sites? There was something about learning
to shoot with iron sights back at five

1088
01:27:40.119 --> 01:27:44.000
hundred meters where you can barely see
that front tip, you know, and

1089
01:27:44.039 --> 01:27:47.159
you know just to lay it against
the man shaped target and when it does

1090
01:27:47.199 --> 01:27:50.159
so, it just covers up that
black completely. You know, that that

1091
01:27:50.199 --> 01:27:55.520
feeling, that memory, it stays
with you for life, and it teaches

1092
01:27:55.560 --> 01:28:00.159
you you don't you don't have to
be taught about marksmanship again. Right up

1093
01:28:00.159 --> 01:28:03.279
to going through them, No,
no, and so D asked what snapping

1094
01:28:03.319 --> 01:28:06.119
in was. And for people who
hadn't been, who hadn't been Marines,

1095
01:28:06.199 --> 01:28:10.439
because they don't do this, I
don't remember them doing in the army.

1096
01:28:10.479 --> 01:28:15.800
I don't think they did. But
you spend like a week of basically dry

1097
01:28:15.800 --> 01:28:19.840
firing, where you learn the sling, the sling positions for each you know

1098
01:28:19.880 --> 01:28:25.600
how to create that tension with the
sling in uh what was it, the

1099
01:28:25.640 --> 01:28:31.479
standing, the kneeling, the sitting, and the prone and and you spend

1100
01:28:31.560 --> 01:28:40.039
a week doing nothing but dry firing
on barrels, which, believe it or

1101
01:28:40.079 --> 01:28:45.680
not, is a huge advantage when
you actually go to to start shooting.

1102
01:28:45.279 --> 01:28:49.159
To put that in, to put
that in context, right, so you

1103
01:28:49.159 --> 01:28:58.640
can imagine San Diego or Paras Island
and you are outside six seven hours and

1104
01:28:58.880 --> 01:29:00.680
all you're doing with your weapon,
and you've got it. You've got a

1105
01:29:00.720 --> 01:29:05.359
tight loot sling right on your on
your upper arm, and you are just

1106
01:29:05.960 --> 01:29:11.680
practicing, by the numbers, dry
firing your weapon. It is the most

1107
01:29:11.760 --> 01:29:16.520
incredibly boring, painful thing. But
yeah, I mean the Marine Corps knows

1108
01:29:16.560 --> 01:29:19.279
how to teach how to shoot,
and you think about it, Dave twenty

1109
01:29:19.359 --> 01:29:28.279
thousand. Twenty thousand recruits go through
basic training every year ninety eight percent qualification

1110
01:29:28.439 --> 01:29:31.800
rate. Now I don't know how
they're doing this, but sixty percent expert.

1111
01:29:32.439 --> 01:29:38.000
I mean, they it's really you
know, they of course they're shooting

1112
01:29:38.000 --> 01:29:41.279
with with scopes. That's why I
think is you know, that kind of

1113
01:29:41.319 --> 01:29:45.560
skews the statistics a little bit.
You want us purists want to go back

1114
01:29:45.600 --> 01:29:48.199
to the basic because you can always
teach someone to shoot with a scope.

1115
01:29:48.319 --> 01:29:53.199
Sure, but you can't go back
and teach someone to shoot with iron science.

1116
01:29:53.479 --> 01:29:56.239
Yeah, or rather you have to
write yeah, yeah, no,

1117
01:29:56.359 --> 01:30:00.479
that's true that you know, learning
side alinement, side pictures or things like

1118
01:30:00.520 --> 01:30:03.279
that are are an important part of
that process. But maybe they think that

1119
01:30:03.600 --> 01:30:05.800
you know, you have a scope, you'll always have a scope, you

1120
01:30:05.840 --> 01:30:09.119
know, an acog or an eotech
or whatever it is you do. I

1121
01:30:09.119 --> 01:30:13.000
don't know, but doesn't it doesn't
it bother you a little bit? It

1122
01:30:13.079 --> 01:30:16.800
does, But I also try not
to be like the grumpy old man.

1123
01:30:16.840 --> 01:30:19.560
It's like, well back to my
day, you know what I mean?

1124
01:30:19.600 --> 01:30:24.359
You know, yeah, like the
like the guy who gets sold upset because

1125
01:30:24.399 --> 01:30:28.520
the Sikhs are allowed to wear you
know, turbans while in uniform, or

1126
01:30:28.800 --> 01:30:30.920
or it's like you know, when
I was a diver, it's like you

1127
01:30:30.960 --> 01:30:34.079
know, it's like, well,
if you didn't do a walk in a

1128
01:30:34.159 --> 01:30:39.479
mark five you know, uh,
you know, with with the big rig,

1129
01:30:39.600 --> 01:30:41.640
then you don't know how to dive. It's like, well, nobody

1130
01:30:41.720 --> 01:30:44.760
uses Mark five anymore. You know, It's just it was. It was

1131
01:30:44.760 --> 01:30:47.920
a rite of passage. Yeah,
but people have to keep dragging it up

1132
01:30:48.079 --> 01:30:53.680
with sure. I mean I do
though think that again, I think that

1133
01:30:54.039 --> 01:30:59.920
learning how to shoot with ironsight's first. It is an important fundamental and foundation.

1134
01:31:00.359 --> 01:31:03.760
But again I try not to get
so caught up in the well they're

1135
01:31:03.800 --> 01:31:06.279
not doing it right. I mean, it's the Marine. They know how

1136
01:31:06.279 --> 01:31:11.319
to teach it. Listen, I
think bout can. I think the Marine

1137
01:31:11.319 --> 01:31:15.520
Corps is basic training much better now
than when I went through. I mean,

1138
01:31:15.279 --> 01:31:21.560
you know, I get it it. I mean when this was back

1139
01:31:21.600 --> 01:31:26.000
in the eighties and so you know, I mean you went through paras Island,

1140
01:31:26.079 --> 01:31:29.520
right, I know I went through
Sando eighty nine. Oh okay,

1141
01:31:29.640 --> 01:31:34.199
okay, I'm sorry, but but
you know, back in the even back

1142
01:31:34.239 --> 01:31:39.960
in the eighties, which isn't that
long ago, Third Battalion paras Island was

1143
01:31:40.520 --> 01:31:45.000
off the charts as far as you
know, just breaking the sop. It

1144
01:31:45.119 --> 01:31:50.279
was. It was standard. And
I am not you know, I'm not

1145
01:31:50.319 --> 01:31:56.399
exagerating. I was, you know, I was. I was deed and

1146
01:31:56.520 --> 01:32:01.319
hard enough that I threw up,
you know, by biodron instructor who was

1147
01:32:01.359 --> 01:32:04.359
on the Marine Corps boxing team,
so he knew how to hit. Sadly,

1148
01:32:04.720 --> 01:32:09.560
you know, I had bear him
no no ill feeling he was.

1149
01:32:10.479 --> 01:32:15.720
I still remember him sadly he called
himself just a few years ago. But

1150
01:32:15.720 --> 01:32:17.680
but my point is that that was
kind of the norm. You know,

1151
01:32:17.720 --> 01:32:26.000
I've got a scar here from from
having my my head ground into or just

1152
01:32:26.039 --> 01:32:30.479
my forehead ground into the side of
my rack, for not doing hospital corner

1153
01:32:30.520 --> 01:32:35.239
correctly. Do these things make us
better? I doubt it. You know,

1154
01:32:35.319 --> 01:32:39.920
that's the thing. I think that
a lot more attention is spent now

1155
01:32:40.079 --> 01:32:45.399
on actually teaching people things right,
infantry skills, things they need to know.

1156
01:32:46.640 --> 01:32:50.880
You know, we've talked about your
time in the Marine Corps and after

1157
01:32:51.039 --> 01:32:55.800
a lot. One story that I
think we touched upon one time but really

1158
01:32:55.840 --> 01:33:03.479
didn't go into detail was Libya and
your your ex Phil from Libya. Can

1159
01:33:03.520 --> 01:33:06.840
you can you can you lay this
out? Give us give us yeah?

1160
01:33:06.920 --> 01:33:14.159
Yeah, the before absolutely. Yeah. So So the year is twenty eleven,

1161
01:33:14.239 --> 01:33:19.319
right, it's the Arab Spring,
and I'm at Socks Special Special Operations.

1162
01:33:19.640 --> 01:33:24.399
No I'm not. I'm at Soccure
Special Operations Command Europe. As that

1163
01:33:24.520 --> 01:33:30.439
sucks later and I am you know, I'm a lieutenant colonel action officer in

1164
01:33:30.520 --> 01:33:34.680
the J three. But at socks
soccure back then. As you know,

1165
01:33:34.680 --> 01:33:41.960
in a lot of te socks special
operations commands, you have a team that

1166
01:33:42.079 --> 01:33:45.760
is always on standby right in case
something happens within the ao R. They

1167
01:33:45.800 --> 01:33:48.000
want to be able to say,
hey, we've got a team down there

1168
01:33:48.000 --> 01:33:51.880
in soft guys with communicators, blah
blah blah. And you know, typically

1169
01:33:51.960 --> 01:33:56.880
it's a feel great officer, a
communications guy, and two or three other

1170
01:33:56.920 --> 01:34:02.520
guys, and that's they're kind of
the nucleus if the TESC then needs to

1171
01:34:02.560 --> 01:34:09.840
send in a you know, a
headquarters or a GTF or they're expected just

1172
01:34:09.880 --> 01:34:15.359
to represent the DESARC by themselves.
So anyway, Libya, Libya is coming

1173
01:34:15.399 --> 01:34:23.439
to ship. It's getting bombed.
Gaddafi is Gnafi's forces are holed up in

1174
01:34:23.479 --> 01:34:28.479
Tripoli and rebel forces are closing in
on the capitol. The capital is getting

1175
01:34:28.560 --> 01:34:34.199
hit by artillery. Twenty thousand Sudanese
workers are trying to get out through TRIPLEI

1176
01:34:34.279 --> 01:34:42.680
Airport. It is chaos. Militia
are beating them back and the European Union

1177
01:34:44.319 --> 01:34:49.119
mounts a NEO basically European unions.
No no, no, no, no,

1178
01:34:49.119 --> 01:34:51.840
no, let me let me get
that straight. Actually there was a

1179
01:34:51.880 --> 01:35:00.840
British The British really spearheaded it and
they commanded it with they headquarters from pj

1180
01:35:01.039 --> 01:35:05.199
HQ. They sent it out to
Malta and then it tended and then European

1181
01:35:06.159 --> 01:35:11.560
it was kind of European Union nations
that formed the nucleus around that. So

1182
01:35:11.600 --> 01:35:15.239
it wasn't a new EU operation.
It was a British operation with the kind

1183
01:35:15.279 --> 01:35:20.239
of a loose affiliation of European nations
supporting it. Thank you. Can you

1184
01:35:20.319 --> 01:35:25.119
tell us what a NEO is,
Andy, Yeah, it's a non non

1185
01:35:25.159 --> 01:35:31.399
combatant evacuation operation. So within Tripoli
itself there were tens of thousands of foreigners

1186
01:35:32.000 --> 01:35:35.800
who needed to get out and the
city was, you know, extremely dangerous.

1187
01:35:38.199 --> 01:35:42.920
The US embassy had already left.
They wasted no time. They got

1188
01:35:42.920 --> 01:35:46.479
down to malten and then realized that
there were a lot of US citizens left

1189
01:35:46.479 --> 01:35:48.920
behind. I mean like thousands,
you know, a lot of them living

1190
01:35:48.920 --> 01:35:57.039
in Americans And so a task force
was set up in d C connecting these

1191
01:35:57.039 --> 01:36:00.720
people who are still left in TRIPLEI
with the State that palm and who was

1192
01:36:00.760 --> 01:36:02.399
saying, hey, sorry, you
know but if you head to the airport,

1193
01:36:02.920 --> 01:36:08.960
be able to find your way out. Well, Socure, headed by

1194
01:36:09.159 --> 01:36:15.640
General Repass at the time, is
buying with sock Ath. Right. Remember

1195
01:36:15.079 --> 01:36:20.359
Special Operations Command Africa had just started
under guy named General Hass, General Repass,

1196
01:36:20.439 --> 01:36:25.600
General Hass. They're both Green Berets, but they hate each other and

1197
01:36:26.039 --> 01:36:29.760
so they don't coordinate. You know, I mean it's you've seen this,

1198
01:36:29.920 --> 01:36:32.000
Dave, right, it's just kind
of unprofessional behavior, right, you know

1199
01:36:32.000 --> 01:36:38.399
what I mean. Crisis and you've
got two headquarters that are competing instead of

1200
01:36:38.800 --> 01:36:42.680
collaborating, and you you want the
other guy to drop the ball so that

1201
01:36:42.720 --> 01:36:45.760
he looks like that's right. Yeah, So you know Libya is in Africa,

1202
01:36:45.880 --> 01:36:49.560
right, but Malta, where the
operation is is in Europe. So

1203
01:36:49.600 --> 01:36:55.079
you can see there's clear there's there's
ad buying lane and Repass is, hey,

1204
01:36:55.079 --> 01:36:58.720
this is our ball game and you
can't support it that and you cal'm

1205
01:36:58.880 --> 01:37:01.439
deputy commander, send me down there, and you know with instructions, Hey,

1206
01:37:01.880 --> 01:37:08.640
this is you know, this is
Yukom's game pretty much. So at

1207
01:37:08.760 --> 01:37:14.680
least we have we we obviously have
staken it so you know, keep us

1208
01:37:14.720 --> 01:37:18.279
informed. Well, I get there
and the Brits turn to us right away

1209
01:37:18.319 --> 01:37:21.119
because we're Americans, right, we
must come with all the resources. But

1210
01:37:21.159 --> 01:37:26.600
it's just me and the radio operator
because the other dude missed this light.

1211
01:37:29.239 --> 01:37:32.359
But what we do have is we've
got a long list of people that we

1212
01:37:32.399 --> 01:37:36.840
want evacuated because we're in contact now
with the State parmitent DC and they're like,

1213
01:37:38.279 --> 01:37:41.239
hey, can you get these people
out? And so we've got all

1214
01:37:41.239 --> 01:37:47.079
these European countries offering their their aircraft
or you know, the military aircraft by

1215
01:37:47.119 --> 01:37:53.279
into triple and we're trying to get
Americans on those aircraft. Right, So

1216
01:37:53.279 --> 01:37:56.800
it's kind of reverse all the roles. It's not the US's backbone. We

1217
01:37:56.880 --> 01:38:00.600
are, you know, we're kind
of party crashes and we're trying I mean,

1218
01:38:00.039 --> 01:38:03.800
but but you know, everyone's supportive. Everyone wants to get all the

1219
01:38:03.800 --> 01:38:09.840
foreigners out of that. But every
country is probably going to give their own

1220
01:38:09.840 --> 01:38:16.039
citizens priority. And that becomes an
issue because we we I'm on the phone.

1221
01:38:16.800 --> 01:38:20.039
We get one other person out to
help us, who's from Sarkath.

1222
01:38:20.399 --> 01:38:25.800
Right. Female turns out to my
memorane and she's very useful too. She's

1223
01:38:25.960 --> 01:38:29.720
manning the phone with the State Department, and so they're giving us names and

1224
01:38:29.800 --> 01:38:33.600
numbers. We're contacting those people in
triple and giving them directions to the airport

1225
01:38:33.680 --> 01:38:40.560
in Tripoli, and then we're working
with the guys you know around us to

1226
01:38:40.560 --> 01:38:45.159
to make sure that the you know, the flight's going in, uh know,

1227
01:38:45.319 --> 01:38:49.600
that they're picking up these these Americans. Right It's it gets incredibly complicated

1228
01:38:49.680 --> 01:38:55.520
because no foreigners can make it through
to the tarmac because of all the you

1229
01:38:55.560 --> 01:39:00.079
know, Ganafi's goons. So we
need to start sending guys in diplomats to

1230
01:39:00.159 --> 01:39:03.479
help escort people out to the planes. Otherwise they're just not going to get

1231
01:39:03.479 --> 01:39:06.640
out. And things are really turning
to ship now. You know, you're

1232
01:39:06.640 --> 01:39:12.920
getting artillery land around the airport that
off these guys are getting increasingly belligerent and

1233
01:39:12.960 --> 01:39:19.359
aggressive, and desperation level among those
you know, people trapped in the building

1234
01:39:19.399 --> 01:39:25.439
and the airport building is also rising. And you've got these twenty thousand Sudanese

1235
01:39:25.479 --> 01:39:30.439
still surrounding the whole area, just
ramping up the tension, and there's and

1236
01:39:30.479 --> 01:39:35.520
they're starting to you know, get
froggy and flight with the militia into this

1237
01:39:36.640 --> 01:39:43.000
into all of this comes an American
family, right, and I get a

1238
01:39:43.000 --> 01:39:46.359
call. They've got you know,
two kids, blah blah blah, and

1239
01:39:46.439 --> 01:39:53.079
I'm talking them in to the airport
and at the same time trying to get

1240
01:39:53.079 --> 01:40:00.159
them a flight. And there's you
know, there's a Bulgarian plane that is

1241
01:40:00.159 --> 01:40:03.199
supposed to you know, pick them
up, but something happens they're forced to

1242
01:40:03.319 --> 01:40:08.640
leave. And so this this family
stranded. Well, we've got an Italian

1243
01:40:08.640 --> 01:40:14.000
flight coming in. But the problem
is now that there are no diplomats volunteering

1244
01:40:14.039 --> 01:40:17.319
to help her school people out because
it is becoming really hazardous. So the

1245
01:40:17.399 --> 01:40:21.119
brit said, hey, we'll put
some of our guys in. You know,

1246
01:40:21.159 --> 01:40:27.439
we'll give the British embassy vests military
guys, and but we we could

1247
01:40:27.520 --> 01:40:31.279
use an American right because these are
Americans. So I said, okay,

1248
01:40:31.560 --> 01:40:34.159
you know, I'll go, but
I'm not. I can't wear an American

1249
01:40:34.279 --> 01:40:39.680
vest. Fucking I'm not coming out, so you know, give me a

1250
01:40:39.680 --> 01:40:42.199
British one. So I did.
So I went in with the British Embassy

1251
01:40:42.479 --> 01:40:47.840
you know, vest and everything,
and it looked legit by some This is

1252
01:40:47.880 --> 01:40:51.760
where it started to turn weird.
So we we landed. Uh, and

1253
01:40:51.800 --> 01:40:57.319
it's exactly as expected, you know
it is. It's like mad Max.

1254
01:40:57.439 --> 01:41:01.680
I mean, there's these dudes tearing
around the tarmac in in uh tech technicals,

1255
01:41:01.960 --> 01:41:08.359
yeah, with you know, flags, yelling weird shit, you know,

1256
01:41:08.399 --> 01:41:13.119
obviously hostile towards us, but but
keeping but aware that you know,

1257
01:41:13.159 --> 01:41:18.039
we are protected to some extent.
But then as we you know, I

1258
01:41:19.039 --> 01:41:23.880
start walking towards the tarmac, the
I mean towards the airport buildings with these

1259
01:41:23.920 --> 01:41:30.560
two other breads and these good offye
militia guys intercept us, and they they

1260
01:41:30.560 --> 01:41:35.399
start talking to the other two.
The other two have they do have legitimate

1261
01:41:35.720 --> 01:41:40.960
ID cards, right Obviously I don't. So they get so they let them

1262
01:41:41.000 --> 01:41:42.760
go on and they're like, why
do you haven't I said, look,

1263
01:41:42.800 --> 01:41:45.840
I don't know. I'd left back
there, so you're British blah blah blah,

1264
01:41:45.920 --> 01:41:48.439
and they started. One of them
had lived in London. Of course

1265
01:41:48.479 --> 01:41:54.760
it's Louis, you know, living
ins in London, and no kidding,

1266
01:41:55.039 --> 01:41:59.159
he started asking me where I had
lived, blah blah blah. Unfortunately,

1267
01:41:59.239 --> 01:42:01.319
I mean I have them in London. They clearly he knew it very well

1268
01:42:01.359 --> 01:42:05.880
and he knew really spookling a new
kind of the area where I had been.

1269
01:42:08.399 --> 01:42:11.319
But but I passed. I seem
to pass that test because he was

1270
01:42:11.359 --> 01:42:13.279
like, yeah, yeah, okay, good to go. You ask me

1271
01:42:13.319 --> 01:42:16.079
what football team I support? Whatever? We you know, we fist bumped

1272
01:42:16.159 --> 01:42:25.199
and I walked onto the building and
there's a Bulgarian diplomat there and I said,

1273
01:42:25.199 --> 01:42:28.680
hey, do you know where the
Americans are? There's an American family

1274
01:42:28.720 --> 01:42:31.399
I'm looking for because I was.
I was really worried. But that was

1275
01:42:31.439 --> 01:42:36.840
a big mistake because I said it
out loud, obviously and it was overheard,

1276
01:42:36.960 --> 01:42:41.800
I think, because I think that's
why. As we walked back,

1277
01:42:41.920 --> 01:42:48.439
so the American family was there and
and we got them out. The Bulgarian

1278
01:42:48.520 --> 01:42:54.199
led them out to the plane and
I was following and the same the same

1279
01:42:54.239 --> 01:42:58.680
Canafi dudes come back and they they
stopped right in front of me and they

1280
01:42:58.760 --> 01:43:02.159
just said, get in the get
they they've changed their athletics has changed to

1281
01:43:02.239 --> 01:43:05.399
get in the GEP. I went, why, you know, I'm paid

1282
01:43:05.399 --> 01:43:09.359
this and I'm going to go back
with these guys and like you you're not

1283
01:43:09.520 --> 01:43:13.359
You're an American and I went no, no, no, we already talked

1284
01:43:13.359 --> 01:43:15.720
about this and I and now I'm
edging towards the plane because my heart's just

1285
01:43:16.439 --> 01:43:20.560
hammering, and one of them makes
a grab at me, and I just

1286
01:43:20.840 --> 01:43:27.199
I run, you know everything,
I knew they wouldn't start. I didn't

1287
01:43:27.199 --> 01:43:30.359
know. I didn't think they were
going to start shooting because the plane was

1288
01:43:30.399 --> 01:43:33.840
there, and you know, so
I run up the tailgate. There's Italians.

1289
01:43:33.960 --> 01:43:40.239
It's an Italian plane. H Bulgarian
wine left, there's an Italian plane.

1290
01:43:40.239 --> 01:43:45.159
There's Italian soldiers on the tailgate.
There's about four or five soft guys

1291
01:43:45.439 --> 01:43:48.319
and I just run past them.
And they've got weapons, but there's there's

1292
01:43:48.319 --> 01:43:55.239
no way they're going to you know, hundreds of and I but I just

1293
01:43:55.239 --> 01:43:57.439
say, you know, I say
hey quickly, they hey, they're after

1294
01:43:57.560 --> 01:44:01.800
me. I'm just gonna hang out
here for a bit. Well they you

1295
01:44:01.840 --> 01:44:04.199
know, I get on the plane. They don't come on the plane.

1296
01:44:04.399 --> 01:44:10.199
And I figured it because it's Italian. And remember Libya has a strange relationship

1297
01:44:10.199 --> 01:44:13.239
with the Italians. It's kind of
love hate, but it's very close at

1298
01:44:13.239 --> 01:44:16.479
this time, and Gadaffi in particular
is hoping to have an escape laws with

1299
01:44:16.520 --> 01:44:19.880
the Italians. So I think that's
why they didn't storm the plane or you

1300
01:44:19.920 --> 01:44:24.479
know, drag me off. But
we're waiting there, and they surround the

1301
01:44:24.479 --> 01:44:28.319
plane, you know, these other
they call in, you know, other

1302
01:44:28.399 --> 01:44:31.760
vehicles, and they it's getting dark
and they put on their lights and they're

1303
01:44:31.880 --> 01:44:35.239
just like yelling and come on out, and some of it in English.

1304
01:44:35.239 --> 01:44:41.960
We're gonna get you, motherfucker.
And I'm just sitting there feeling. First

1305
01:44:42.000 --> 01:44:46.640
of all, I'm feeling like a
coward a little bit because I'm among women

1306
01:44:46.680 --> 01:44:50.840
and children. I run onto a
plane, but you know, I no

1307
01:44:50.920 --> 01:44:55.079
regrets. I mean, that's self
preservation. I had to do that,

1308
01:44:55.159 --> 01:44:59.239
otherwise I would have disappeared forever,
you know. And I knew that they

1309
01:44:59.279 --> 01:45:01.680
might hold up plane, but I
knew they weren't going to execute, you

1310
01:45:01.680 --> 01:45:04.359
know, or do anything to the
people on the plane. But I knew

1311
01:45:04.359 --> 01:45:08.520
too it was my only chance Saturday
that if I left that plane, I

1312
01:45:08.640 --> 01:45:11.520
was done for. You know.
It wasn't like I would show up again

1313
01:45:11.560 --> 01:45:15.079
somewhere, right, yeah. Yeah. But it was getting you know,

1314
01:45:15.119 --> 01:45:17.840
I was thinking, what's going to
happen? Are they're going to let it

1315
01:45:17.880 --> 01:45:25.760
take off? You know, It's
just awful feeling. And the pilot came

1316
01:45:25.800 --> 01:45:29.279
back and sat down. I thought, shit, he's going to keep me

1317
01:45:29.279 --> 01:45:32.600
off this plane, which I off. Just refuse and you know, I

1318
01:45:32.640 --> 01:45:35.760
explain what's going on, he said, to my great relief, he said,

1319
01:45:35.800 --> 01:45:39.560
well, don't get off the plane. You know, this is Italian,

1320
01:45:40.039 --> 01:45:43.760
this is Italian soil. They're not
going to come on. We'll wait

1321
01:45:43.800 --> 01:45:45.760
it out. They got to let
us go sooner or later. I'm like,

1322
01:45:46.239 --> 01:45:49.880
okay, I hope you're right.
But the ramping up and the noise

1323
01:45:49.960 --> 01:45:54.239
outside it doesn't sound, you know, too good, and it sounds frankly,

1324
01:45:54.439 --> 01:45:57.560
so they're going to storm the plane. And why wouldn't they, you

1325
01:45:57.560 --> 01:46:00.319
know, I mean, there's no
there's no government left, there's no repercussions

1326
01:46:00.319 --> 01:46:02.720
that they just come on and grab
me. And I think they're starting to

1327
01:46:02.800 --> 01:46:09.399
think through this because they're getting nearer. And then the pilot comes back and

1328
01:46:09.439 --> 01:46:14.920
he says, hey, I've got
authorization too. You know, I reported

1329
01:46:14.920 --> 01:46:16.479
this. I had to report out
my chain of command because I can't make

1330
01:46:16.520 --> 01:46:18.920
it back to Malta now in time. I've got to go back to Rome.

1331
01:46:19.960 --> 01:46:25.239
I've been told to pay, you
know, to let us let us

1332
01:46:25.279 --> 01:46:28.039
take off, and he goes,
I got to you know, water cash

1333
01:46:28.039 --> 01:46:32.520
here. He had a whole bag. Clearly they anticipated some kind of issue,

1334
01:46:33.279 --> 01:46:39.000
and he walked off, you know, he's escorted by the militia dudes

1335
01:46:39.199 --> 01:46:44.600
into the office and he's he goes
off with one of the soldiers when they

1336
01:46:45.159 --> 01:46:53.159
you know, the Italian soldiers,
and he's gone for an eternity. And

1337
01:46:53.239 --> 01:46:56.880
he comes back eventually, and he
says, okay, we're in the clear.

1338
01:46:57.680 --> 01:47:00.399
Let's get off. Let's take off. And it goes front and we

1339
01:47:00.840 --> 01:47:05.000
we you know, we start to
he starts to wind up the engines and

1340
01:47:05.039 --> 01:47:10.439
everything. We start to move,
and then these bustards come out and block

1341
01:47:10.560 --> 01:47:15.399
the plane again, and clearly they've
decided whatever the fuck happened back then,

1342
01:47:15.680 --> 01:47:20.439
it doesn't apply to them, right, And there was some other other argument

1343
01:47:20.520 --> 01:47:25.000
that going on up front, with
the pilot yelling out of the window,

1344
01:47:25.720 --> 01:47:32.720
and some reason, the jeeps pulled
aside and we took off and someone you

1345
01:47:32.760 --> 01:47:36.199
know, they one of the crew
members next to me, the load master,

1346
01:47:38.359 --> 01:47:39.960
you know, because I was just
like, oh, thank god,

1347
01:47:40.159 --> 01:47:43.359
And the load master said, hey, man, you know Italian. He

1348
01:47:43.359 --> 01:47:45.640
didn't say man, he said,
hey, there is still there's an eighty

1349
01:47:45.680 --> 01:47:53.960
eighth bread. We've got word that
that we we are that shots were taken

1350
01:47:54.039 --> 01:47:59.199
earlier and I forget what the system
was. And at you know, the

1351
01:47:59.239 --> 01:48:01.640
Bulgarian plane is taken off. So
we we're concerned about this. I'll think,

1352
01:48:01.680 --> 01:48:04.560
fund wish you hadn't told me that, But nevertheless, you know,

1353
01:48:04.600 --> 01:48:08.800
I mean, when we get the
work, we're outside Libyan airspace. I

1354
01:48:09.279 --> 01:48:12.159
I just I've never felt relief like
that, you know, I mean I

1355
01:48:12.319 --> 01:48:15.640
was I thought my career was over, but I didn't care, Yeah,

1356
01:48:15.039 --> 01:48:17.920
because you know, I was under
orders, all of us around the orders.

1357
01:48:17.960 --> 01:48:25.000
No Americans would would go into Libya
and I wouldn't have except you know,

1358
01:48:25.039 --> 01:48:27.199
I mean, this was one of
those situations. What are you going

1359
01:48:27.279 --> 01:48:29.479
to do? What's anyone going to
do? I mean, leave the family

1360
01:48:29.520 --> 01:48:33.560
there. I mean it's you know, that's is that there were a lot

1361
01:48:33.600 --> 01:48:41.720
of Americans in Libya, both Libying
Americans and like American nationals, you know,

1362
01:48:42.479 --> 01:48:45.079
like straight up American national Not that
Libyan Americans aren't, but you know

1363
01:48:45.079 --> 01:48:48.560
what I mean, but but you
know they can't blend in. That's that's

1364
01:48:48.560 --> 01:48:51.920
really. But we have we have
the one hundred and seventy third of the

1365
01:48:53.039 --> 01:48:57.600
China. That is that is really
you know, they are supposed to be

1366
01:48:57.840 --> 01:49:01.680
a you know, I don't want
to say a special operations unit, but

1367
01:49:01.720 --> 01:49:05.279
they're but they're they're supposed to be
right there at the peak of that to

1368
01:49:05.319 --> 01:49:11.000
be able to respond to those threats
quickly. You have fifth cores. I

1369
01:49:11.039 --> 01:49:15.119
think in Germany you have tenth Special
Forces, you have third Special Forces.

1370
01:49:15.600 --> 01:49:24.520
Why, if there's a way to
do this without being political, why in

1371
01:49:24.560 --> 01:49:30.800
a in a non combatant evacuation scenario
like that, when the MBSC has already

1372
01:49:30.920 --> 01:49:36.439
d D mound, why is our
government leaving all these Americans to It's yeah,

1373
01:49:36.840 --> 01:49:42.239
it's an absurd It seems like an
absurd decision, Dave. You know

1374
01:49:42.239 --> 01:49:45.680
when you think about all the things
that we've taken risk for in our lives,

1375
01:49:46.479 --> 01:49:51.239
and most of those most of those
risks involved, I didn't know,

1376
01:49:51.319 --> 01:49:58.920
taking an objective doing ex but the
tactical tasks not saving American lives right right,

1377
01:49:59.319 --> 01:50:03.680
and and so there is no it. I find it extremely frustrating that

1378
01:50:03.720 --> 01:50:09.159
then I'm in this situation where we
really could have used dudes with weapons doing

1379
01:50:09.199 --> 01:50:14.239
what we are trained to do,
secure the area, you know, established

1380
01:50:14.279 --> 01:50:21.359
the evacuation assembly points and all of
this stuff. But we didn't. And

1381
01:50:21.399 --> 01:50:28.159
I think we looked, you know, I felt embarrassed at times being an

1382
01:50:28.159 --> 01:50:32.479
American there because we were we were
begging off of others, you know,

1383
01:50:33.640 --> 01:50:38.600
to carry our load. Basically.
Yeah, yeah, I'm not embarrassed to

1384
01:50:38.640 --> 01:50:42.159
be an American, you know.
I know what you mean though, that

1385
01:50:42.600 --> 01:50:45.840
it's it's sort of like they're going
into these situations. How come we aren't.

1386
01:50:46.000 --> 01:50:49.640
Yeah, we wanted say something out
of it, we needed we needed

1387
01:50:49.640 --> 01:50:54.880
something out of it, but we
weren't prepared to Roger about resources for me.

1388
01:50:55.039 --> 01:51:00.159
And sorry, and and and we're
talking here specifically. We're not talking

1389
01:51:00.199 --> 01:51:06.159
about some you know, random US
objective. We're talking about saving actual American

1390
01:51:06.199 --> 01:51:14.319
lives, of pulling them out of
out of these perilous situations. Yeah,

1391
01:51:14.359 --> 01:51:20.560
there's really very there can be very
few less ambiguous missions than than a neo.

1392
01:51:21.319 --> 01:51:26.159
Uh right, but you know,
I so, so it didn't end

1393
01:51:26.199 --> 01:51:31.800
my career. I ended my career
events, but but but it could well

1394
01:51:31.880 --> 01:51:35.680
have. And uh and and thanks
to Repass and a few other people,

1395
01:51:35.680 --> 01:51:43.760
thanks to the ambassador actually, because
what what happened? You know? So

1396
01:51:43.840 --> 01:51:46.079
I the plane landed in Rome,
right, I'm supposed to be back in

1397
01:51:46.159 --> 01:51:51.000
Malta. I'm supposed to be reporting
the Defense attache every evening giving her an

1398
01:51:51.039 --> 01:51:56.239
update. But I'm not I mean
now in Rome and it's midnight, and

1399
01:51:56.279 --> 01:51:59.840
worse than that, news has already
got out that there was an American on

1400
01:51:59.880 --> 01:52:08.239
the ground in Tripoli. But something
happened in my favor that was almost inconsequential,

1401
01:52:08.520 --> 01:52:13.000
and that was earlier in the day
when a Bulgarian well I'm sorry earlier,

1402
01:52:13.239 --> 01:52:17.960
yeah, earlier in the day,
as I was walking when I first

1403
01:52:18.039 --> 01:52:23.199
got off the aircraft, before the
Bulgarian aircraft got off, there was an

1404
01:52:23.279 --> 01:52:27.800
argument going on over there, and
I walked over and it was it was

1405
01:52:28.319 --> 01:52:33.760
a group of five or six people
dressed in traditional African dress trying to get

1406
01:52:33.800 --> 01:52:36.399
on the plane, and the Bulgarians
were saying, hey, no, you

1407
01:52:36.439 --> 01:52:41.760
know you're not blah blah blah blah. But I spoke to the you know,

1408
01:52:41.840 --> 01:52:44.319
the kind of the one of these
guys, and apparently it was the

1409
01:52:44.359 --> 01:52:48.560
ambassador to Sierra Leone and his diplomatic
party, and the Bulgarians didn't speak very

1410
01:52:48.600 --> 01:52:51.720
good English, so they didn't understand, so I explained it. Anyway,

1411
01:52:51.960 --> 01:52:56.720
This happened in I don't know,
thirty forty five seconds, and they let

1412
01:52:56.760 --> 01:53:00.520
them on the plane and that's when
I went on, Well, this guy,

1413
01:53:00.960 --> 01:53:03.399
God bless him. You know.
He gets back to Malta and the

1414
01:53:03.439 --> 01:53:09.640
first thing he does he calls the
US ambassador, who he knows, and

1415
01:53:09.680 --> 01:53:14.319
he says, thank you so much
for sending that guy health there to you

1416
01:53:14.319 --> 01:53:15.680
know, he was a life saver. He got us out of there.

1417
01:53:15.680 --> 01:53:19.680
We probably wouldn't have got out there. Sent ambassadors like an American, are

1418
01:53:19.680 --> 01:53:24.800
you sure? And so the ambassador
calls in the defense attash and says,

1419
01:53:25.199 --> 01:53:29.600
do we have Tell me we don't
have an American on the ground in Tripoli

1420
01:53:30.279 --> 01:53:36.520
and uh and and the defense attache, who's still a fering, said,

1421
01:53:38.399 --> 01:53:43.119
sir, I know, we don't. Andy Morman is at the at the

1422
01:53:43.159 --> 01:53:46.720
Neo Center, we don't have anyone
in Marta. Yeah. But then she

1423
01:53:46.800 --> 01:53:53.199
walked out and she thought, hm
hmm. She thought about it that evening.

1424
01:53:53.520 --> 01:53:57.279
The next morning, she drove out
in the Neo Center and asked and

1425
01:53:57.319 --> 01:54:00.560
asked where I was at that moment. I'm not lying. I walked in

1426
01:54:00.680 --> 01:54:04.000
the other door. I just caught
an early flight from Rome landed in Malta.

1427
01:54:04.479 --> 01:54:06.960
I looked like dog shit, you
know. It was a one shave

1428
01:54:08.039 --> 01:54:10.880
and talking and I walk in the
other side of the door, and she

1429
01:54:10.920 --> 01:54:16.359
goes, she's just silent and beckons
and she goes, Okay, don't even

1430
01:54:16.359 --> 01:54:19.000
tell me a story, just tell
me the truth. And she goes,

1431
01:54:19.039 --> 01:54:23.279
were you and tripley? And I
went yeah, and she goes, are

1432
01:54:23.279 --> 01:54:26.840
you out of your mind? You
know, you know you're going to be

1433
01:54:26.960 --> 01:54:30.119
lucky to get away with Article fifteen. Blah blah blah blah, anyway,

1434
01:54:30.119 --> 01:54:40.079
the whole and she goes back to
the embassy and goes into the ambassador and

1435
01:54:40.199 --> 01:54:43.760
says, I'm so sorry, sir, you know I was wrong. We

1436
01:54:43.800 --> 01:54:47.039
did have an American underground. To
his credit, he doesn't lose his mind.

1437
01:54:47.479 --> 01:54:51.439
He says, is he okay?
And Jane goes, yeah, he's

1438
01:54:51.479 --> 01:54:56.359
back here, and he goes,
well, good, thank him. That's

1439
01:54:56.399 --> 01:55:00.479
all they need to know. And
that was it. And then much later

1440
01:55:00.520 --> 01:55:02.760
I got a I mean about a
week later, when I was on the

1441
01:55:02.800 --> 01:55:06.640
way to the airport, I got
a call from the embassy saying, Hey,

1442
01:55:08.760 --> 01:55:12.199
I'm just wondering if you have time
available now, because the ambassador would

1443
01:55:12.199 --> 01:55:15.520
love to meet you. Like how
often does an ambassador do that? Oh,

1444
01:55:15.560 --> 01:55:17.520
I've just got empty time. I'm
like, oh, you know,

1445
01:55:17.520 --> 01:55:20.600
I want to see that dude,
something like shit, I said in my

1446
01:55:20.720 --> 01:55:25.239
end trouble, and you know it's
like he said, no, no,

1447
01:55:25.239 --> 01:55:29.159
no, he just wants to he
wants to thank you. You can thank

1448
01:55:29.239 --> 01:55:32.800
him, and you know, I
really appreciate it. So that that guy

1449
01:55:32.960 --> 01:55:39.560
who's nameless is a hero to me. And General repasses too, because of

1450
01:55:39.560 --> 01:55:43.319
course he had heard about it when
I got back. But it went no

1451
01:55:43.399 --> 01:55:47.439
further when you know, Yukom,
I believe the Yukon deputy command in you

1452
01:55:47.640 --> 01:55:54.239
and repassed new but it. Yeah, so so when you were deployed from

1453
01:55:54.359 --> 01:55:58.520
soccure, you were sent to Malta, which is where you were supposed to

1454
01:55:58.520 --> 01:56:03.640
park your ass. That's right,
and that's exactly coordinate, uh and receive

1455
01:56:03.720 --> 01:56:11.279
any Americans. But there was nobody
on the ground in Tripoli, and that

1456
01:56:12.079 --> 01:56:15.680
was the missing piece. Yeah,
So what were what we were doing to

1457
01:56:15.760 --> 01:56:19.760
begin with, David, is we
were using the Irish and Swedes and the

1458
01:56:19.800 --> 01:56:26.520
Brits, so they had diplomats in
the building and it and but then the

1459
01:56:26.600 --> 01:56:29.920
Swedes, you know, the Swede
said it was too dangerous for them,

1460
01:56:30.039 --> 01:56:33.239
and then we were counting on the
Irish to help the you know, the

1461
01:56:33.439 --> 01:56:41.000
the Americans on this one flight,
but like two hours before they got the

1462
01:56:41.039 --> 01:56:45.000
word that they were they weren't allowed
to go back into TRIPLEI either. It

1463
01:56:45.039 --> 01:56:49.560
was just becoming too too dangerous.
Uh And and so you know, it's

1464
01:56:49.600 --> 01:56:56.199
two Brits and they had to deal
with a ton of other civilians. That

1465
01:56:56.319 --> 01:57:00.720
wasn't anyone who would spend the time
locating these Americans. You know, as

1466
01:57:00.720 --> 01:57:03.199
it happened, I didn't really need
to locate them. You know, as

1467
01:57:03.199 --> 01:57:05.640
it happened, they probably would have
been Okay, I've got to be honest

1468
01:57:05.640 --> 01:57:09.840
about this, But I didn't know
that. Sure, you know, I

1469
01:57:09.840 --> 01:57:13.000
didn't know that. And and I've
been talking to I being the one talking

1470
01:57:13.000 --> 01:57:15.960
to them, I being the one
assuring them, you know. And so

1471
01:57:16.000 --> 01:57:20.039
when when that link, when that
touch point of hey, this Irish diplomat

1472
01:57:20.079 --> 01:57:25.439
is going to meet you here his
names, when that guy disappears, you

1473
01:57:25.479 --> 01:57:30.479
know, I'm unless it's me,
I don't have trust in the process,

1474
01:57:30.720 --> 01:57:33.399
right, They're going to come out
too many bad things are happening all that

1475
01:57:33.439 --> 01:57:39.600
time. And why, I mean, why did the Europeans. I know

1476
01:57:39.640 --> 01:57:47.520
you mentioned the relationship between uh Libya
and it's particularly Goodafi and Italy, but

1477
01:57:47.800 --> 01:57:54.920
why did Bulgaria. Why did these
other European countries. Yeah, that's a

1478
01:57:54.960 --> 01:57:59.840
good question. I was going to
ask if if it was because because you

1479
01:57:59.880 --> 01:58:01.800
know, for a while, we
led godoffy on right the United States.

1480
01:58:01.920 --> 01:58:08.439
We're like, hey, if you
get this stuff squared away, you're okay.

1481
01:58:08.800 --> 01:58:13.520
And Gadaffi went out of his way
to get squared away and felt,

1482
01:58:13.600 --> 01:58:16.039
I think he felt like the US
that he was in, he was in

1483
01:58:16.159 --> 01:58:19.640
okay with the US. He had
done, he had complied to everything that

1484
01:58:19.640 --> 01:58:23.800
we had asked him to do.
And then we basically said, okay,

1485
01:58:24.399 --> 01:58:28.800
you know what, good job,
screw you were out. Yeah, and

1486
01:58:28.880 --> 01:58:32.840
so was there was there like a
bit of of contention then with with with

1487
01:58:33.039 --> 01:58:42.319
United States military and diplomats. None, that's all nothing but the most professional

1488
01:58:43.479 --> 01:58:47.239
and and you know, it's just
a great group of guys, David,

1489
01:58:47.239 --> 01:58:50.520
those guys like you and me.
I mean, that's what made this operation

1490
01:58:50.800 --> 01:58:57.479
fun because it was ald military dudes
from different countries, right, making shit

1491
01:58:57.640 --> 01:59:01.800
happen, without a plan, without
formal structure. It was literally, hey

1492
01:59:01.960 --> 01:59:05.239
i've got a plane coming in,
you know the Irish guy. This actually

1493
01:59:05.279 --> 01:59:10.760
happened. Hey we've got the Prime
Minister's plane he's given it to us for

1494
01:59:10.800 --> 01:59:15.359
this evacuation mission. We're flying it
in just outside Tripley and we'll pick up

1495
01:59:15.399 --> 01:59:18.560
this French family, you know,
who's driven out there in a car and

1496
01:59:19.079 --> 01:59:23.119
fly back. And this is like
an a sesna, you know. Yeah,

1497
01:59:23.079 --> 01:59:27.439
I mean, people are using all
kinds of aircraft just to get civilians

1498
01:59:27.479 --> 01:59:30.319
out. And and the fact that
no one was saying, well, we

1499
01:59:30.359 --> 01:59:32.239
can't do that, blah blah blah. It was it doesn't matter, It

1500
01:59:32.279 --> 01:59:35.399
doesn't matter what nationality. By what
I meant though, or what I was

1501
01:59:35.439 --> 01:59:41.159
asking Andy, was you know,
obviously Bulgaria, Ireland, these other countries

1502
01:59:41.199 --> 01:59:46.159
could send their people in even Yeah. But but was there a reason that

1503
01:59:46.159 --> 01:59:49.279
that the US like you as a
when when they thought that you were,

1504
01:59:49.800 --> 01:59:54.560
you know, a US soldier or
diplomat. Was there a reason why the

1505
01:59:54.680 --> 01:59:57.960
US was singled out? Is it
because Goadaffi felt that like the US had

1506
01:59:58.000 --> 02:00:01.119
stabbed him in the back. Were
these other euro Pink countries were given a

1507
02:00:01.159 --> 02:00:04.479
little bit more leeway? That's a
really good question. You know, I

1508
02:00:04.479 --> 02:00:10.359
hadn't I hadn't thought about that.
But but what you just said is is

1509
02:00:10.359 --> 02:00:14.840
is right? Of course, you
know, I mean, we I think

1510
02:00:15.039 --> 02:00:23.720
are the way we let things happen
with Gadaffi was foolish, very foolish and

1511
02:00:23.920 --> 02:00:27.600
after pretty much like yeah, lined
up to what we had asked them to

1512
02:00:27.600 --> 02:00:32.479
do. Yeah, and uh and
and I think we lost a lot of

1513
02:00:32.600 --> 02:00:35.760
Ustan Yeah, you know, I
mean it was kind of the twenty eleven

1514
02:00:35.840 --> 02:00:40.640
We lost a lot of sta anyway
with the Syria red line stuff. Yeah,

1515
02:00:41.560 --> 02:00:45.640
we were slow to react in Libya. We reacted in the wrong way.

1516
02:00:45.800 --> 02:00:48.079
We weren't, you know. I
mean it's yeah, and so the

1517
02:00:48.039 --> 02:00:55.760
the they not it the neo was
from the US perspective was you know,

1518
02:00:55.800 --> 02:01:00.000
it was a the US did nothing
except for US. I mean, uh,

1519
02:01:00.560 --> 02:01:03.960
but I don't you know, all
that just seems to be been washed

1520
02:01:04.000 --> 02:01:10.600
away, No one really, right, I mean, Libya is still a

1521
02:01:10.640 --> 02:01:17.680
mess. Yeah, it's it's been
causing problems since well since twenty eleven.

1522
02:01:18.000 --> 02:01:24.600
Actually, yeah, I'm still curious
about sort of the turn and policy and

1523
02:01:24.920 --> 02:01:28.399
we made towards Godafi, you know. And the thing is, like Gadafi

1524
02:01:28.520 --> 02:01:32.680
was no angel, just like Saddam
was no angel. Like but but waiting

1525
02:01:32.720 --> 02:01:39.479
for an angel to arise in some
of those countries is you know, you

1526
02:01:39.479 --> 02:01:43.640
you you look for stability, and
you look for the people that. Yeah,

1527
02:01:43.640 --> 02:01:46.239
that's you know, we mirror image
too much then we we we think

1528
02:01:46.279 --> 02:01:50.000
that everyone all they need is jet
to Sonia democracy and they'll be happy.

1529
02:01:50.039 --> 02:01:54.439
But you know, in the hierarchy
of needs is you know, food and

1530
02:01:55.720 --> 02:01:59.760
water and security and uh, you
know, we saw that in a rock

1531
02:01:59.840 --> 02:02:02.520
right off the invasion, right and
we thought everyone would be ecstatic that Sadom

1532
02:02:02.600 --> 02:02:08.560
was gone that actually they missed the
security, well they would rather they were

1533
02:02:08.640 --> 02:02:12.159
ecstatic at first, and then when
there was no running water and no power

1534
02:02:12.199 --> 02:02:16.760
and you know, you know people, you know, you don't blame countries

1535
02:02:16.760 --> 02:02:21.319
for having sort of this short term
memory when they're when they're back to sort

1536
02:02:21.319 --> 02:02:26.640
of living like peasants. You know, it's like, yes, Saddam is

1537
02:02:26.680 --> 02:02:31.239
a dictator, but the chance that
that is going to affect my life is

1538
02:02:32.399 --> 02:02:40.640
minimal compared to you know, everybody
shares this common kind of Yeah, yeah,

1539
02:02:40.680 --> 02:02:48.640
that's right. The sense the feeling
of anarchy is is far more dislocating

1540
02:02:48.880 --> 02:02:59.239
than the feeling of living within a
tyranny. Sure, and esoty political states.

1541
02:03:00.399 --> 02:03:05.359
Conditions mean nothing when you are when
you're struggling with those basics. Yeah,

1542
02:03:05.359 --> 02:03:09.079
I think that's a really interesting point. Dave. Yeah, hey do

1543
02:03:09.079 --> 02:03:13.920
do we do we have any questions
on Patreon? Okay, So first off,

1544
02:03:14.159 --> 02:03:15.520
Jesse Oda, thank you very much
for subscribing to the channel. We

1545
02:03:15.600 --> 02:03:19.640
really appreciate. And Corbyn, thank
you very much. How do you see

1546
02:03:19.680 --> 02:03:29.479
the US adapting to a more multi
polar world? Mm hmm, well,

1547
02:03:29.520 --> 02:03:33.800
I'd like to see US adapt at
all. You know, I think I

1548
02:03:33.840 --> 02:03:44.319
think I'm pausing his or not just
saying something vacuous. You know, we

1549
02:03:44.319 --> 02:03:50.439
we we bemoan the kind of the
lack of US leadership in the world,

1550
02:03:50.479 --> 02:03:56.119
but the world still looks to the
US leadership, you know. I mean

1551
02:03:56.840 --> 02:04:00.840
after Gaza, after seven October,
you know, no one cared what Putin

1552
02:04:01.039 --> 02:04:05.439
or China had to say. Everyone
was rooted to you know, what is

1553
02:04:05.479 --> 02:04:11.000
the US going to do? And
I mentioned that because I think that's a

1554
02:04:11.000 --> 02:04:15.760
clear reminder that whatever we may think, you know, and there's talk now

1555
02:04:15.960 --> 02:04:20.840
of potentially more isolationist approach, but
whatever we may think, the world does

1556
02:04:20.880 --> 02:04:24.880
still look to US leadership. And
I, for one thing, that's a

1557
02:04:24.920 --> 02:04:28.079
good thing, and I for one
thing that we should provide that leadership.

1558
02:04:28.600 --> 02:04:30.119
You know, we can bemoan that
we can say, oh, we're better

1559
02:04:30.119 --> 02:04:33.520
off by ourselves and we're not the
world's policeman. Or we can say,

1560
02:04:33.560 --> 02:04:39.000
hey, we're a superpower and this
is kind of our responsibility and we need

1561
02:04:39.039 --> 02:04:43.680
to suck it up and do it, you know. And because it's not

1562
02:04:43.720 --> 02:04:47.159
as though we can just become a
wallflower. You know, we are there.

1563
02:04:47.640 --> 02:04:53.000
People have expectations, and if we
don't meet those expectations, then we

1564
02:04:53.039 --> 02:04:57.199
are worse off than before and we're
losing our position. I know that sounds

1565
02:04:57.239 --> 02:05:01.520
like a very facile thing to say, but I yes, suddenly, but

1566
02:05:01.880 --> 02:05:09.439
that understanding, that understanding that we
are the United States is still looked to

1567
02:05:09.680 --> 02:05:14.720
as a leader whatever whatever dross.
You know, we may be hearing about

1568
02:05:15.159 --> 02:05:19.479
the non aligned countries and this and
that. Yes, yes, the world

1569
02:05:19.600 --> 02:05:24.520
is not as aligned as it was
during the Cold Bowl. Yes the US

1570
02:05:24.720 --> 02:05:30.199
is not you know, such a
clear polar position of leadership as it was

1571
02:05:30.279 --> 02:05:32.079
during the Cold bull Those times are
gone. We need to adapt, but

1572
02:05:32.159 --> 02:05:36.720
we are still expected to leave.
It's interesting too, because you know,

1573
02:05:36.760 --> 02:05:44.319
we talk about isolationism from sort of
a political perspective or a sort of a

1574
02:05:44.720 --> 02:05:51.199
policy perspective, right in the sense
of if if a new president is elected,

1575
02:05:51.279 --> 02:05:56.479
Will they become a more conservative president
or whatever? Will they become more

1576
02:05:56.560 --> 02:06:02.680
isolationists. But we also look at
isolations from a perspective of I think during

1577
02:06:02.720 --> 02:06:09.880
this administration we've lost eleven embassies in
the last three and a half years,

1578
02:06:09.920 --> 02:06:14.079
which leads to its own type of
isolationism. Right, yeah, I mean

1579
02:06:14.359 --> 02:06:21.239
not not putting, not bolstering the
State Department, right, I mean the

1580
02:06:21.279 --> 02:06:26.880
State Department is under resource that I
think as is. You know, I

1581
02:06:26.880 --> 02:06:30.319
don't mean to go down this road, but my point is that diplomacy,

1582
02:06:31.800 --> 02:06:35.880
diplomacy is how we exert leadership,
is how we demonstrate leadership. So we

1583
02:06:35.920 --> 02:06:42.359
should be really, really cognizant of
who we put in those positions, both

1584
02:06:42.399 --> 02:06:45.279
political appointees and the guys that you
know, the kind of ethos within the

1585
02:06:45.279 --> 02:06:49.960
State Department, who we put in
charge of the State Department. It'll be

1586
02:06:50.000 --> 02:06:57.640
interesting interesting to see what So I
agree, I agree with you. It's

1587
02:06:57.680 --> 02:07:00.920
not a political decision, oh we're
going to be isolatedious or not. It's

1588
02:07:00.039 --> 02:07:03.359
it's kind of where do you stack
your talent, where do you put your

1589
02:07:04.920 --> 02:07:11.000
your your focus of the tension,
right, And if we are going to

1590
02:07:11.000 --> 02:07:15.880
be isolationist way or if we are
going to cut ties more with the world,

1591
02:07:15.680 --> 02:07:19.920
then why do we have such a
massive military, right? You know,

1592
02:07:19.960 --> 02:07:26.399
I mean these are uh. I
I don't get like you, Dave.

1593
02:07:26.439 --> 02:07:31.079
I don't get wound out by these
these questions. I don't let politics

1594
02:07:31.479 --> 02:07:38.159
get me in a state of you
know, the same state of anxiety that

1595
02:07:38.159 --> 02:07:42.119
that I see many people in.
But I do, Yeah, I've obviously

1596
02:07:42.119 --> 02:07:44.439
I have concerns. I'm just the
cynic, you know. I mean,

1597
02:07:44.520 --> 02:07:48.960
after honestly, after the after after
watching Cabul fall the way it did,

1598
02:07:49.359 --> 02:07:55.840
right, you know, it's I'm
not focused on the mistakes in the last

1599
02:07:55.840 --> 02:08:01.720
two years. I'm looking at just
directtional list foreign policy of the last two

1600
02:08:01.760 --> 02:08:07.720
decades, basically right, right,
and and honestly, you know, the

1601
02:08:07.720 --> 02:08:13.399
the uh you know, you talk
about the the not the weakening of the

1602
02:08:13.439 --> 02:08:18.199
IDF per se, or the weakening
of the US military per se, but

1603
02:08:18.279 --> 02:08:22.359
the weakening of the politicians and the
policies. And we see that in the

1604
02:08:22.399 --> 02:08:28.039
West or in America, going back
since Vietnam, this idea of the troops

1605
02:08:28.039 --> 02:08:31.800
on the ground can do everything you
ask them to. They they they can.

1606
02:08:31.159 --> 02:08:37.279
They can exceed in body count,
they can exceed in objectives taken,

1607
02:08:37.880 --> 02:08:45.520
but without a political plan, without
an idea of what victory looks like,

1608
02:08:45.640 --> 02:08:50.279
and without a political will, regardless
of the administration and the politic you know,

1609
02:08:50.479 --> 02:08:56.960
the the Republican or Democrat or whatever
party you want to say, where

1610
02:08:56.119 --> 02:09:01.079
where does that? Where does that
leave soldiers in the United States military or

1611
02:09:01.079 --> 02:09:05.560
the British military. Are the idea
in these in these sort of Western leaning

1612
02:09:05.680 --> 02:09:13.159
countries, are these these liberal democracies? I would say that it's really,

1613
02:09:16.039 --> 02:09:20.079
you know, it this almost I
mean, it would be a very boring

1614
02:09:20.119 --> 02:09:22.840
book, but it's it almost invites
the book to be written about it,

1615
02:09:22.880 --> 02:09:30.720
because I do have feelings that the
US military, and I probably the only

1616
02:09:30.760 --> 02:09:37.920
fair to say that this applies to
to other Western militaries is carries a lot

1617
02:09:37.960 --> 02:09:39.800
of dead weight. Let me just
put it that way. And you know,

1618
02:09:39.840 --> 02:09:43.359
I'm not talking about private Smucket Telly. You know you can't do three

1619
02:09:43.359 --> 02:09:46.640
bullets. I'm just I'm saying that. I mean, think about it,

1620
02:09:46.640 --> 02:09:52.239
twenty eight thousand people in the Pentagon. We should be solving we should be

1621
02:09:52.640 --> 02:09:58.479
you know, cold fusion, world
hunger. But I think I think those

1622
02:09:58.479 --> 02:10:01.600
of us have been in the military, see how so much of that talent

1623
02:10:03.880 --> 02:10:07.520
gets wasted in process, right.
I mean, this is what I'm saying

1624
02:10:07.640 --> 02:10:13.680
is that the US military has become
a bureaucracy. It has to be a

1625
02:10:13.680 --> 02:10:16.560
bureaucracy. But the problem is that
a bureaucracy I think has sapped its war

1626
02:10:16.600 --> 02:10:22.960
fighting ability. And I can't show
proof for that, but I can tell

1627
02:10:22.000 --> 02:10:33.039
you anecdotally that that among officers,
even combat arms officers, I encounter,

1628
02:10:33.119 --> 02:10:41.920
even in the Marine Corps, a
very high concern for risk, you know,

1629
02:10:41.119 --> 02:10:46.399
a very a focus on risk.
So you know, so they almost

1630
02:10:46.479 --> 02:10:52.680
became center stage finding reasons not to
do things rather than to do things.

1631
02:10:54.399 --> 02:10:58.800
And you know, this became even
among other otherwise very competent, talented officers

1632
02:11:00.159 --> 02:11:07.079
kind of became the norm. It's
it is rare to come across truly innovative

1633
02:11:07.119 --> 02:11:11.000
feeling, innovative thinking in the military, Dave, wouldn't you agree, Yes,

1634
02:11:11.520 --> 02:11:16.319
outside and it's not I mean,
it's not that it doesn't exist.

1635
02:11:16.720 --> 02:11:20.880
It's not that there are not n
c os and officers that are capable of

1636
02:11:20.960 --> 02:11:26.479
innovative thinking. It's that it's that
somebody has to approve their plans, and

1637
02:11:26.479 --> 02:11:33.560
and whoever is approving their plans has
a career that they're worried about and how

1638
02:11:33.600 --> 02:11:37.079
they look and look. I don't
know what happened in the IDF with with

1639
02:11:37.159 --> 02:11:43.520
the with the officers that ignored the
intelligence, but we know that in Afghanistan

1640
02:11:43.520 --> 02:11:50.520
and Iraq, I don't think one
officer over the rank of five suffered from

1641
02:11:50.720 --> 02:12:00.840
decisions made or are lies told or
I can't think of the single officer who

1642
02:12:00.960 --> 02:12:07.399
was fired for tanctical incompetence. Correct, Now, officers were fired when people

1643
02:12:07.439 --> 02:12:13.119
got killed for you know, in
fire support negligence, right, yes,

1644
02:12:13.199 --> 02:12:18.880
right, but not for tactical but
general who went out there and basically made

1645
02:12:18.079 --> 02:12:22.760
no headway during the war but said
the adway was being made, none of

1646
02:12:22.760 --> 02:12:26.520
them got fired. Yeah, yeah, that's very It's very true. I

1647
02:12:26.600 --> 02:12:37.279
mean, it's it. The investigations
looked at processes, right, but they

1648
02:12:37.319 --> 02:12:41.319
didn't look at culture, right.
And I think I think culture had a

1649
02:12:41.399 --> 02:12:45.760
lot to do with our failure in
Afghanistan. And I think, you know,

1650
02:12:45.840 --> 02:12:48.319
it's lack of It was lack of
honesty. You know, we always

1651
02:12:48.359 --> 02:12:52.680
pride ourselves on integrity, but we
were dishonest with ourselves again and again and

1652
02:12:52.760 --> 02:12:58.760
again, commander to commander to commander
every time. Oh hey, this place

1653
02:12:58.840 --> 02:13:00.960
was ship when we came in.
But you know we kind of turned it

1654
02:13:01.000 --> 02:13:07.560
around in the air, and you
know all these place names that we thought,

1655
02:13:07.760 --> 02:13:13.319
uh, noble milestones of our success, you know, you name it

1656
02:13:13.399 --> 02:13:22.800
Cargol to our Gomen. Yeah they're
meaningless, of course, you know they

1657
02:13:22.800 --> 02:13:28.199
were, and they were and that
they were always in Teliban Teliban, hence

1658
02:13:28.279 --> 02:13:31.079
we were printing it. Yeah.
And the thing is we went to this

1659
02:13:31.600 --> 02:13:35.079
to this sort of metrics or measurable
war where you know, when you have

1660
02:13:35.159 --> 02:13:39.760
people like Scott Man and these other
people out there who are conducting these village

1661
02:13:39.800 --> 02:13:46.640
stability operations that are showing they're they're
showing progress, but that type of progress

1662
02:13:46.720 --> 02:13:50.960
doesn't brief as well as how many
bodies you stacked, That's right, Yeah,

1663
02:13:52.000 --> 02:13:54.319
it is. So then their programs
get shut down, you know,

1664
02:13:54.520 --> 02:14:01.520
the cornerstone of counter grill operations get
shut down where these direct action missions are.

1665
02:14:01.840 --> 02:14:05.479
It's where it's at. I couldn't
agree more. You know, it's

1666
02:14:05.880 --> 02:14:11.039
the same thing with the Combine Action
Civil I'm sorry, the civil action program

1667
02:14:11.159 --> 02:14:20.199
in Vietnam. Right, the brand
division tremendously successful, but but it was

1668
02:14:20.720 --> 02:14:26.399
it got none of the publicity,
you know, none at all. And

1669
02:14:26.439 --> 02:14:30.159
those guys didn't get any of the
kind of the glory, right, I

1670
02:14:30.159 --> 02:14:35.720
mean, do you see do you
see camp battle streamers on? Yeah,

1671
02:14:35.680 --> 02:14:41.039
we had one of the CAP guys
on our show, did you Yeah,

1672
02:14:41.079 --> 02:14:46.399
And it was an it was an
exceptionally successful program. But it's one of

1673
02:14:46.439 --> 02:14:52.159
those things that hey, look,
stability, stabilizing an area. It's boring.

1674
02:14:52.319 --> 02:14:56.600
It's boring. Yeah, it's mundane, it's hard work, and success

1675
02:14:56.600 --> 02:15:01.359
means it's quiet. Yeah. Yeah. And when you about, uh,

1676
02:15:01.560 --> 02:15:07.600
the CAP program, you know,
they were essentially simil Affairs guys. I

1677
02:15:07.600 --> 02:15:11.079
mean, they were infantry guys,
they were all they'd all been in hard

1678
02:15:11.119 --> 02:15:16.640
combat and and in fact, the
guys coming out of Casan while the CAP

1679
02:15:16.680 --> 02:15:18.279
has kind of a you know,
it's, hey, this is going to

1680
02:15:18.319 --> 02:15:22.319
be a little easier. But it
wasn't easy because it was during the time

1681
02:15:22.359 --> 02:15:28.840
when when the villagers were coming under
continuous attack and those CAP and the CAP

1682
02:15:28.880 --> 02:15:33.800
guys were taking heavy casualties and they
were there's a lot of heroic actions took

1683
02:15:33.840 --> 02:15:41.079
place with you know, the Silver, the the CAP platoons and you know,

1684
02:15:41.119 --> 02:15:46.479
the popular forces, the rough puff
village protection guys. It's but you're

1685
02:15:46.560 --> 02:15:54.720
right, a really and and and
this, and despite all the failures in

1686
02:15:54.960 --> 02:16:00.920
Vietnam, here was the nugget of
success. Just the same in Afghanistan.

1687
02:16:01.000 --> 02:16:05.359
But we'll ignore those, right,
we didn't learn right, We did learn

1688
02:16:05.399 --> 02:16:09.359
from camp, but we tried to
implement it again. We not just in

1689
02:16:09.399 --> 02:16:13.279
Afghanistan, but the Marine Corps did
in Iraq with some success, you know,

1690
02:16:13.960 --> 02:16:20.640
but focused focus not so much on
the on the agriculture, but but

1691
02:16:22.239 --> 02:16:26.520
embedding, you know, with the
police, but also helping local the local

1692
02:16:26.600 --> 02:16:28.800
economy. You know, the Marine
Corps doesn't have our own civil affairs guys,

1693
02:16:28.800 --> 02:16:33.040
so it was our you know,
it's basically our company, commanders and

1694
02:16:33.079 --> 02:16:37.760
sarchal. We're doing this. Two
more questions real quick. I am corporate,

1695
02:16:37.799 --> 02:16:39.840
Thank you very much. We still
provide an opportunity to build a better

1696
02:16:39.920 --> 02:16:46.719
future, as opposed some places simply
impose a future on you. Yeah.

1697
02:16:48.079 --> 02:16:52.000
I mean, I'm in the United
States for a reason. I'm an immigrant.

1698
02:16:52.719 --> 02:16:56.319
I chose to be here, and
I choose to be here now,

1699
02:16:56.639 --> 02:17:01.079
and and it's yeah, for all
the reasons you guys. Yeah, it's

1700
02:17:01.879 --> 02:17:07.000
absolutely you can. You can still
craft your way to the American dream.

1701
02:17:07.200 --> 02:17:13.879
That's really whoever you are right there, unless you join the military. Well,

1702
02:17:13.920 --> 02:17:20.319
I mean, I think honestly,
honestly, I I you know,

1703
02:17:22.120 --> 02:17:24.639
I ate at the buffet of the
US military, and I had a great

1704
02:17:24.680 --> 02:17:28.120
time everywhere I went. I think
it really depends on your attitude there.

1705
02:17:28.120 --> 02:17:31.440
There is a certain amount of luck
to what leadership you get wherever you're at,

1706
02:17:31.479 --> 02:17:35.479
Like, leadership can make a huge
difference. But I loved everything that

1707
02:17:35.520 --> 02:17:37.840
I did. I embraced everything that
I did. There were plenty of learning

1708
02:17:37.840 --> 02:17:43.360
opportunities that I pursued. You know, you know, you can go to

1709
02:17:43.360 --> 02:17:48.600
the military and just do your time
and be bit you about it and get

1710
02:17:48.639 --> 02:17:52.120
out and go to college or whatever. But you know, the military opportunity

1711
02:17:52.120 --> 02:17:56.200
and then and then miss it the
rest of your life. Sure, sure,

1712
02:17:56.239 --> 02:18:00.440
and then poor people silly with stories
about your voyears marine cool. Yeah,

1713
02:18:01.120 --> 02:18:05.760
No, I mean I I would
you never hit me. I mean,

1714
02:18:05.799 --> 02:18:09.600
I've being critical of the marine coll
but you know I feel the same

1715
02:18:09.639 --> 02:18:11.040
way as you. I mean,
I wouldn't have changed. I wouldn't have

1716
02:18:11.079 --> 02:18:18.159
traded it for anything. But the
critical isn't isn't from a character assassination point,

1717
02:18:18.319 --> 02:18:20.239
like you know, the Bloomin dolls
and these people like that. It's

1718
02:18:20.280 --> 02:18:24.600
like my family. If you love
something, you want it to be what

1719
02:18:24.799 --> 02:18:30.000
it can be, and and the
critique comes from a place of love,

1720
02:18:30.440 --> 02:18:35.920
and it can be better than what
it is or what it was. Yeah,

1721
02:18:35.000 --> 02:18:39.200
you know, Andrew Dunbar, thank
you very much. What are your

1722
02:18:39.239 --> 02:18:46.920
thoughts on the rumblings of North Korea
troops in the Ukraine? I? Ah,

1723
02:18:46.000 --> 02:18:50.760
I've heard is rumblings. Have you
heard anything more than than that.

1724
02:18:50.840 --> 02:18:56.000
I haven't seen an article. Yeah, you know what, nothing would surprise

1725
02:18:56.040 --> 02:19:00.760
me at this stage. Have you
seen what is true? What has happenings?

1726
02:19:00.799 --> 02:19:05.879
The Russians have been press s ganging
other nationalities into fighting in Ukraine,

1727
02:19:07.559 --> 02:19:15.399
the Nepalese and then in one incredible
case, Indians a bachelor party. And

1728
02:19:15.479 --> 02:19:18.840
this is kind of sad, but
now most of us would not choose to

1729
02:19:18.879 --> 02:19:26.040
go to Moscow for a bachelor party, but evidently in the Russians have been

1730
02:19:26.799 --> 02:19:33.159
advertising in India or various trips to
include, uh, you know, setting

1731
02:19:33.200 --> 02:19:39.440
up bachelor party divide with the you
know, Eastern capitals at a cut price

1732
02:19:39.520 --> 02:19:43.600
rate. Where there's a reason why
it's cut prices. These gentlemen found out

1733
02:19:43.639 --> 02:19:46.799
as they ended up in Ukraine.
You know, they got they showed at

1734
02:19:46.799 --> 02:19:50.920
the Bachelor party, blah blah blah
cors of the evening, they all get

1735
02:19:50.000 --> 02:19:56.600
arrested for something trumped up and then
they they find themselves fighting in Ukraine and

1736
02:19:56.639 --> 02:20:00.600
they only get out of it when
the Indian Embassy is informed. I mean,

1737
02:20:00.639 --> 02:20:03.120
it's you can't make the shut up. He doesn't. It's sort of

1738
02:20:03.120 --> 02:20:07.399
like it's just getting your people.
It's sort of like getting a modeling contract

1739
02:20:07.440 --> 02:20:11.520
out of the UAE, right,
It's like approach with caution. Yeah,

1740
02:20:11.879 --> 02:20:18.319
yeah, exactly. So yeah,
so Andy, that's it for the questions.

1741
02:20:18.799 --> 02:20:20.639
I mean, we we really we
love you, we love having you

1742
02:20:20.719 --> 02:20:26.360
on. We really appreciate it.
Well, it feeling is mutual, and

1743
02:20:26.479 --> 02:20:30.399
I hope, I hope Board your
your audience. He always end up talking

1744
02:20:30.479 --> 02:20:33.120
quite well. Don't look at that. That's me, man. I'm like,

1745
02:20:33.200 --> 02:20:35.120
without Jack here to keep me on
in line, man, I I'll

1746
02:20:35.200 --> 02:20:41.159
ramble all night. No, it
was a great, great discussion and cutos

1747
02:20:41.239 --> 02:20:48.239
to Teamhouse and to your audience and
eyes On. Yeah, please makes the

1748
02:20:48.280 --> 02:20:54.000
magic happen on both shows. Oh
bless you. That's right. He is

1749
02:20:54.040 --> 02:20:56.479
the don't forget, don't forget to
check out eyes On, don't forget to

1750
02:20:56.559 --> 02:21:01.239
check out Andy's book. The linker
is in the description. Oh yeah,

1751
02:21:01.280 --> 02:21:05.760
please find my book. Yes,
I I highly, highly recommend his book.

1752
02:21:05.760 --> 02:21:11.719
It doesn't matter even if you were
not somebody who normally reads military literature

1753
02:21:13.360 --> 02:21:16.440
or or reads I mean going out
to all our marine friends out there.

1754
02:21:18.040 --> 02:21:20.079
No, but even if you're not
somebody who normally reads, this is a

1755
02:21:20.200 --> 02:21:28.280
very human story. Think of the
life of Pie in fatigues, and I

1756
02:21:28.319 --> 02:21:31.719
cannot help that. We need to
end this now. That is the light.

1757
02:21:31.879 --> 02:21:39.920
Yeah. Uh so Jack will be
back next week. Military version of

1758
02:21:39.040 --> 02:21:45.159
Pine Yeah yeah. Jack will be
back next week. So for those of

1759
02:21:45.200 --> 02:21:50.520
you who have been bored because of
my narration, uh, he'll be back

1760
02:21:50.559 --> 02:21:54.040
to guide us and thank you very
much. We really appreciate it. Check

1761
02:21:54.079 --> 02:21:58.799
out out eyes On check out uh
when the Tempest gathers. Also the page

1762
02:22:00.079 --> 02:22:07.920
on the Patreon Patreon dot com slash
the Teamhouse. Yes, next week episodes.

1763
02:22:09.000 --> 02:22:11.479
I'm checking to see who we have
for next week. Hold on one

1764
02:22:11.520 --> 02:22:22.159
second, I'm sorry, Um,
we have David fil fielding. Jack read

1765
02:22:22.200 --> 02:22:24.799
his book very excited. I don't
know what he does or anything, but

1766
02:22:24.799 --> 02:22:31.559
I'm sure it's military or intelligence related. I hope outstanding introduction. Thank you,

1767
02:22:33.840 --> 02:22:37.639
it was you have to write that
one down, all right, everyone,

1768
02:22:37.920 --> 02:22:43.280
all right, thank you everybody.
We really appreciate it. See you

1769
02:22:43.319 --> 02:22:43.760
next week.